Carl von Clausewitz leeft voort, door zijn boek Vom Kriege, dat in 1832, een jaar na zijn dood, werd gepubliceerd, en in het bijzonder door één zin: ‘Oorlog is de voortzetting van de politiek met andere middelen.’ Is die wijsheid nog van toepassing?
Henk Hofland. De nieuwe chaos. 29 januari 2010
'Carl von Clausewitz leeft voort,' maar ook soldaat Harry Patch's ervaring 'leeft voort.' Diens 'wijsheid' wijkt fundamenteel af van die van de Pruisische militaire theoreticus, en wordt dan ook niet vermeld door de mainstream-opiniemakers. De 'wijsheid' van Von Clausewitz is die van de Mafia, als we afgaan op de woorden van Smedley Butler 'a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history,' dus niet de eerste de beste. In 1933 verklaarde hij:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Jihadi's uit de hele wereld die dankzij Israel en het Westen tegen het Assad-regime vechten om van Syrië een sharia-staat te maken. ‘Oorlog is de voortzetting van de politiek met andere middelen.’
Wat zegt de Mafiose 'wijsheid' van Hofland nog meer? Onder andere datgene wat hij op 22 januari 2014 in De Groene Amsterdammer schreef onder de kop Drie jaar Syrië:
Intussen heeft president Assad in een interview met Agence France Presse laten weten dat hij er niet over denkt om af te treden. Deed hij dat wel, dan zou dat de toestand nog veel ernstiger maken.
Is dat nog mogelijk, na 130.000 doden, het gebruik van gifgas, miljoenen vluchtelingen en een beginnende hongersnood in verwoeste steden? Assad denkt het wel. In zijn land begint het erop te lijken dat iedereen tegen iedereen vecht, zijn leger tegen de Vrije Syriërs, soennieten tegen sjiieten, al-Qaeda tegen de resten van de gevestigde orde. Maar Assad gelooft dat het nog erger zou worden als hij aftrad. Wie weet. Binnen drie jaar is Syrië op het gebied van de oorlog het land van de onbegrensde mogelijkheden geworden.
'Wie weet'? Wel, degenen die zich in het onderwerp hebben verdiept en die ook nog eens in staat zijn lessen uit de geschiedenis te leren. Dat het 'nog erger zal worden' als de door het Westen gesteunde terroristen in Syrië aan de macht komen, wordt duidelijk uit een voorpaginabericht van de International New York Times van woensdag 26 maart 2014:
U.S. Says Al Qaeda setting up in Syria. Fears grow that militants will use the country as a base to strike at the West.
Dozens of Al Qaeda's most seasoned attack planners, explosive experts and fighters have traveled to Syria from Pakistan in recent months in what American intelligence and counterterrorism officials believe is an effort to lay the foundation for future strikes against Europe and the United States.
Syria is an appealing base for the Qaeda operatives because it offers them the relative sanctuary of extremist-held havens, as well as ready access to about 1200 American and European Muslims who have gone there to fight.
Dit hebben we mede te danken aan de politiek van Israel.
Last September (2013. svh), Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria…
Oren, who was Israel’s point man in dealing with Official Washington’s neocons, is considered very close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reflects his views…
Het spreekt voor zich dat H.J.A. Hofland deze informatie over de doortrapte rol van het Westen en Israel verzwijgt wanneer hij schrijft dat ‘een groeiend deel van de burgerij' in het Midden-Oosten 'een werkelijke democratie’ wil. Terwijl in Europa en de VS het vertrouwen in politici naar een nulpunt zakt, moet dezelfde neoliberale ‘democratie’ elders met geweld worden afgedwongen, ook al is een aanzienlijke meerderheid van de bevolking in het Westen daar tegen. Waarom wordt dan toch de politieke wil van de democratische meerderheid genegeerd? Wel, omdat de journalist Hofland meent dat ‘het Westen [vredestichtend]’ is en in het Midden-Oosten 'Onder de vrouwen een verlangen [heerst] naar een moderne emancipatie,' en de neoliberale democratie met haar groeiende kloof tussen arm en rijk voor hem het best denkbare systeem is. Hij negeert daarbij het feit dat het Westen sinds de negentiende en twintigste eeuw de 'democratie' in de islamitische wereld onmogelijk heeft gemaakt en nog steeds saboteert, zoals blijkt uit de westerse steun aan Bahrein, Saoedie-Arabië, Israel en Egypte, waar Washington de militaire staatsgreep met miljarden-subsidies mogelijk maakt. Maar omdat ook dit niet door de mainstream-opiniemakers in een bredere context kan worden geplaatst, zonder kritisch te zijn over de eigen westerse politiek, krijgt men de volgende absurdistische voorstelling van zaken:
Wat zal onder deze omstandigheden de politiek van het Westen zijn? Dat hangt ervan af hoe de toestand in het Westen zich ontwikkelt. En dit is weer mede afhankelijk van wat er de komende jaren in het Midden-Oosten zal gebeuren. Het is een vrijwel onvoorspelbare wisselwerking. Bij al die onzekerheden staat één punt vast. Het Westen zal zich niet meer in een militaire interventie begeven. Daarvoor staan de catastrofes in Afghanistan en Irak garant. Als we van de oorlogen in deze eeuw iets hebben geleerd, dan is het dat onze traditionele strijdwijzen in die streken ten slotte tot niets anders dan verlies hebben geleid. Bij het begin van de Arabische lente heeft president Obama een nieuwe strategie bedacht, leading from behind, toegepast in Libië. Een bondgenootschap in zijn allerbescheidenste vorm,
aldus Henk Hofland in zijn column Het machteloze Westen van 13 juli 2013.
Hoe kon het volgens Hofland 'machteloze Westen' sinds 1945 zoveel chaos scheppen in de Arabisch sprekende wereld?
Laten we de door Hofland serieus genomen 'nieuwe strategie' van 'leading from behind,' eens nader bekijken. Dit draaiboek werd 'toegepast in Libië,' en heeft volgens hem tot een 'bondgenootschap' geleid 'in zijn allerbescheidenste vorm.' Zondag 16 maart 2014 berichtte The Independent:
Three years after Gaddafi, Libya is imploding into chaos and violence.
World View: Its government has no real power; militias are ever more entrenched, and now the state itself is under threat.
The Libyan former prime minister Ali Zeidan fled last week after parliament voted him out of office. A North Korean-flagged oil tanker, the Morning Glory, illegally picked up a cargo of crude from rebels in the east of the country and sailed safely away, despite a government minister's threat that the vessel would be 'turned into a pile of metal' if it left port: the Libyan navy blamed rough weather for its failure to stop the ship. Militias based in Misrata, western Libya, notorious for their violence and independence, have launched an offensive against the eastern rebels in what could be the opening shots in a civil war between western and eastern Libya.
Without a central government with any real power, Libya is falling apart. And this is happening almost three years after 19 March 2011 when the French air force stopped Mu'ammer Gaddafi's counter-offensive to crush the uprising in Benghazi. Months later, his burnt-out tanks still lay by the road to the city. With the United States keeping its involvement as low-profile as possible, NATO launched a war in which rebel militiamen played a secondary, supportive role and ended with the overthrow and killing of Gaddafi.
De zogeheten 'nieuwe strategie' van 'leading from behind,' heeft er ondermeer toe geleid dat Nederlandse troepen nu in Mali de orde moeten herstellen, en dat het Syrische leger tegen Libische, Afghaanse, Saoedische, Europese, Iraakse, en zelfs Amerikaanse jihadi's moet vechten om te voorkomen dat Syrische christenen, sjiieten, alevieten, niet fundamentalistische soennieten en verschillende etnische minderheden worden uitgemoord.
More women die in pregnancy and childbirth than almost anywhere else in the world. 1 in 50 women will die during pregnancy or childbirth—one every 2 hours.
- 9 out 10 women are illiterate.
- Women have more than 5 children on average, yet 1 out 10 children die before their fifth birthday.
- Life expectancy is 44, one of the lowest in the world…
What causes such difficulties for Afghan women?
Child marriage: More than 50% of Afghan girls are married or engaged by 10. Almost 60% of girls are married by 16. Women activists say up to 80 percent of marriages in poor rural areas are either forced or arranged. Most girls marry far older men — some in their 60s — whom they meet for the first time at their wedding.
Hofland mag dan wel stellen dat in het Midden-Oosten 'Onder de vrouwen een verlangen [heerst] naar een moderne emancipatie,' en dat 'het Westen [vredestichtend]' is, maar daar merken de burgers in die regio niets van. Integendeel zelfs. Zowel Afghanistan, Irak, Libië, en Syrië zijn door de westerse interventies sinds het begin van de 21ste eeuw in totale chaos veranderd. Desondanks betreurt Hofland het dat nu er een 'Mondiale krachtmeting' plaatsvindt 'Zowel in West-Europa als in Amerika bij een zeer groot deel van het publiek de vaderlandslievende eerzucht en de strijdlust verloren [zijn] gegaan,' zoals hij op 12 maart 2014 in De Groene Amsterdammer schreef. Maar hoe verhoudt deze opmerkelijke formulering zich met zijn eigen constatering dat door 'de catastrofes in Afghanistan en Irak… we van de oorlogen in deze eeuw… hebben geleerd' dat 'onze traditionele strijdwijzen in die streken ten slotte tot niets anders dan verlies hebben geleid'? Ik bedoel dit: wat heeft 'vaderlandslievende eerzucht' te maken met de les die 'we van de oorlogen' en 'catastrofes in Afghanistan en Irak' hebben 'geleerd'? En nu we toch bezig zijn: hoe verhoudt zich het angst zaaiende 'populistisch alarmisme,' dat Hofland in West-Europa meent te bespeuren met het feit dat 'de catastrofes in Afghanistan en Irak' tot 'niets anders dan verlies hebben geleid'? Ik kan geen andere verklaring voor deze absurde voorstelling van zaken verzinnen dan dat de éminence grise van de polderjournalistiek meent dat als zijn 'politiek-literaire elite' iets achteraf ontdekt, zij dan van 'de oorlogen in deze eeuw iets' heeft 'geleerd,' terwijl wanneer de gewone belastingbetalende burgers hetzelfde vooraf constateren en daar de consequenties uit trekken er sprake is van een betreurenswaardig verlies aan 'vaderlandslievende eerzucht en strijdlust' en vervolgens een door internet veroorzaakte 'laaiende volkswoede.' Niet alleen probeert Hofland zijn publiek een chaotisch mens- en wereldbeeld te verkopen, maar het wordt tevens duidelijk hoe erg zijn ideologie afwijkt van de realiteit. Ook hier weer zien we een kenmerkend voorbeeld van cognitieve dissonantie. De Amerikaanse klinisch psycholoog, Robert Hopper, zei in 2011 het volgende over dit verschijnsel:
When two beliefs are inconsistent cognitive dissonance is created. When your beliefs are challenged fear and anxiety are created. In response to that our psychological defenses kick in, they protect us from these emotions. Denial, which is probably the most primitive psychological defense, is the one most likely to kick in when our beliefs are challenged. Denial protects people from anxiety.
De angstige 'ontkenning' van de werkelijkheid, de 'tegenspraak' in zijn betoog neemt in kracht toe nu de feiten niet meer te ontkennen zijn, en de mainstream-opiniemakers met de neus op de feiten worden gedrukt, mede doordat ze het monopolie op de 'waarheid' met de komst van internet hebben verloren. Vroeger kon de lezer een ingezonden brief sturen naar een krantenredactie, die de meeste reacties in de prullenbak gooide, of haar sterk inkortte waardoor de reactie gecensureerd, ergens achteraan, in de krant terechtkwam. Nu kan men gedocumenteerd en uitgebreid reageren op de dwaasheden en pretenties van de officiële opiniemakers, en kan de burger kennis nemen van andere ongecensureerde kritische reacties. Die democratisering is toe te juichen, zolang de kritiek met feiten wordt gestaafd. Deze ontwikkeling leidt er tevens toe dat steeds meer opvalt hoe weinig democratisch de opiniemakers zelf zijn. Met nauwelijks ingehouden razernij schreef Henk Hofland, door een groep van zijn collega's tot grootste journalist van de twintigste eeuw uitgeroepen, het volgende:
De ‘nieuwe media’ met de mening van de bloggers zijn voor een groot deel van de publieke opinie toonaangevend geworden. Dit is de gedigitaliseerde stem des volks,
die 'het machtsgevoel van de ontevredenen vergroot. Nu kunnen ze de wereld in hun wrok laten delen. Deze bloggers zijn de permanent wrokkenden in digitale gedaante.'
In tegenstelling tot de tijd toen de mainstream-opiniemakers het monopolie op de berichtgeving bezaten, voelen vandaag de dag
Bestuurders zich in het nauw gedreven, aan de ene kant doordat het onvermijdelijke internet ook een middel tot voorbarige openbaarheid kan zijn, aan de andere kant doordat ze daarmee worden uitgeleverd aan het onmiddellijke oordeel van de dan plotseling goedgelovige massa.
Zonder een greintje ironie door Hofland opgeschreven. Hij meent het allemaal echt. Toen zijn publiek nog was 'uitgeleverd aan het onmiddellijke oordeel' van alleen maar de officiële spreekbuizen van de economische en politieke elite was de 'massa' natuurlijk geenszins 'goedgelovig;' dat is zo vanzelfsprekend dat Hofland het niet nodig vindt dit te vermelden. Het absurdisme nadert zijn hoogtepunt.
Omstreeks deze tijd vieren we de 25ste verjaardag van internet. Ik herinner me de vreugde waarmee de geboorte en de eerste levensjaren gepaard gingen. Eindelijk de totale vrijheid van meningsuiting voor iedereen, democratie voor de hele mensheid, binnen afzienbare tijd alle kennis voor iedereen toegankelijk, enzovoort. Een kwart eeuw later zijn de ware democraten in verontwaardiging en paniek.
Henk Hofland. Klokkenluider. 4 december 2013
U, die dit leest, bent geen democraat. Het is maar dat u het weet. De 'ware democraten' zijn Hofland en zijn zelfbenoemde 'politiek literaire elite.' De elite leeft nu in 'verontwaardiging' over het feit dat zij haar monopolie op de waarheidsbepaling is kwijt geraakt, en verkeert nu in 'paniek,' omdat het volk niet langer meer onmiddellijk gehoorzaamt. Dat is begrijpelijk, want de macht kan alleen bestaan als ze gelegitimeerd wordt door de massa. Zo niet, dan verliest de macht haar macht. Dat weet de bourgeoisie maar al te goed. Juist op die manier is de gezeten burgerij ten tijde van de Franse Revolutie namelijk aan de macht gekomen. En als ze wil voorkomen dat er opnieuw koppen gaan rollen, zal ze zich moeten aanpassen aan de veranderende omstandigheden. Doet de elite dit niet, dan is er de guillotine die altijd nog humaner is dan het ouderwetse slagerswerk van de door Israel en de NAVO gesteunde Al Qaeda-doodseskaders. En eenmaal onder het mes kan de elite zich nog altijd troosten met de gedachte dat 'oorlog' nu eenmaal 'de voortzetting [is] van de politiek met andere middelen.’ Wat wil een beschaafd mens nog meer?
Zogeheten vrijheidsstrijders in Syrië, die net een aantal burgers, geen militairen, heeft onthoofd. 'Last September (2013. svh), Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria…'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDZ4z367aFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2zxlFQxkQ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDZ4z367aFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2zxlFQxkQ4
NATO Wages Desperate Last Battle in Northern Syria
by Tony Cartalucci
(NEO) - The small northwestern Syrian town of Kassab, located directly on the Syrian-Turkish border, has turned into a pivotal battleground between Syrian security forces and armed militants backed by the Turkish military. The clashes grabbed headlines last Sunday when Turkey shot down a Syrian warplane conducting airstrikes along the border as the militants crossed over into Syrian territory.
While the Turkish government maintains the Syrian plane entered Turkish airspace, it came down in Syrian territory with its pilot having safely ejected from the downed aircraft and also recovered on Syrian soil. Reuters reported in its article, “Turkey shoots down Syrian plane it says violated air space,” that:
A Turkish F-16 fired a rocket at the Syrian jet and it crashed around 1,200 meters (1,300 yards) inside Syrian territory.
Clearly the Turkish government knew Syrian forces were engaging militants Ankara itself was harboring in its territory and any cross-border pursuits carried out by Syria posed no threat to the security of Turkey any more than the cross-boarder pursuits the Turkish government regularly conducts in northern Iraq against Kurdish militants. Instead, it appears that Turkish warplanes were in fact providing air cover for the militants crossing over into Syria. More alarming is the fact that the militants have been identified across the Western media as hailing from the US State Department designated terrorist organization Jabhat Al Nusra - Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise. The Wall Street Journal’s Middle East RealTime reported in a post titled, “Latakia Offensive Stirs Dark Memories for Armenian-Syrians,”that:
When hardline Islamist rebels took over swaths of Latakia province this week, it provided them with their first outpost on the Mediterranean Sea.
The military offensive was symbolic for several reasons: rebels from al Nusra Front taking over northern parts of Bashar al Assad’s hometown province while the Turkish air force shot down a regime war plane trying to bombard the rebel advancement, as it flew near their shared border. Nusra is al Qaeda’s sanctioned offshoot in Syria.
A NATO member providing air support for Al Qaeda incursions into a neighboring country could not be a more egregious violation of national sovereignty or international law. Yet Turkey has apparently not stopped there in seeking to escalate tensions with Syria. A recently leaked conversation between the head of Turkish intelligence, Hakan Fidan, and Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, reveals Turkey’s plans to stage a false flag attack on Turkey itself to provoke war with Syria. The International Business Times reported in its article, “Turkey YouTube Ban: Full Transcript of Leaked Syria ‘War’ Conversation Between Erdogan Officials,” that:
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ban of YouTube occurred after a leaked conversation between Head of Turkish Intelligence Hakan Fidan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu that he wanted removed from the video-sharing website. The leaked call details Erdogan’s thoughts that an attack on Syria “must be seen as an opportunity for us [Turkey]“.
In the conversation, intelligence chief Fidan says that he will send four men from Syria to attack Turkey to “make up a cause of war”.
Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Yaşar Güler replies that Fidan’s projected actions are “a direct cause of war…what you’re going to do is a direct cause of war”.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said the leaked recording of top officials discussing the Syria operation was “partially manipulated” and is a “wretched attack” on national security.
In the leaked video, Fidan is discussing with Davutoğlu, Güler and other officials a possible operation within Syria to secure the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman empire.
The astounding revelation has been all but buried by the Western media who has instead intentionally focused solely on Turkey’s banning of Facebook and Twitter to cover up what it only refers to as “corruption.” Turkey’s use of a self-inflicted attack to justify direct military involvement in Syria risks triggering a greater regional conflict involving Turkey and by extension, NATO’s primarily Western membership – a scenario the West has been seeking almost as soon as the conflict in Syria first started in 2011. Western intervention, even if limited in the north of Syria via Turkey, would allow for the creation of Western occupied “buffer zones” within Syrian territory, long desired by the West since at least as early as 2012 by US policy makers, particularly those among the corporate-funded Brookings Institution from which many of America’s military adventures have been designed. The idea of establishing a “buffer zone” is meant to look like a knee-jerk reaction to violence along the Syrian-Turkish border and was described in detail by the Brookings Institution in their March 2012 “Middle East Memo #21″ “Assessing Options for Regime Change” where it stated specifically (emphasis added):
“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.”
The Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21, makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change. Aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, providing armed terrorists with air support, and planning to intentionally provoke a war with Syria through a premeditated, self-inflicted and now fully revealed attack designed to frame Damascus – all carried out in plain view as the world looks on illustrates the dangerous desperation the West now finds itself in as its designs for global hegemony take a turn for the worse. While Turkey stands to take the fall for the recent and blatant serial acts of war against neighboring Syria, its membership in NATO and NATO’s subsequent failure to condemn Turkey for its actions implicates the entire military alliance as complicit. Ironic indeed is the fact that while NATO coddles, arms, and provides air cover for Al Qaeda along the Syrian-Turkish border, it uses the presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to justify its continued occupation there as well as cross-border raids into neighboring Pakistan. At each pivotal juncture during the ongoing Syrian conflict, the West has expended heavily its credibility and reputation while straining the “international norms” it has worked for decades to establish. As the West fails at each of these junctures, the momentum it had relied upon so heavily starting in 2011 is further diminished. The battle in Kassab, and the lesser mentioned “Southern Front” along the southern Syrian-Jordanian border that appears to have already collapsed under Syrian counterattacks, appears to be the last battle by NATO and its proxies for Syria. Syria’s military appears fully capable of stopping the militants flowing over its borders and has exhibited infinite patience against NATO’s provocations. With Turkey revealed to be planning attacks on its own territory to provoke war with Syria, any attempt to actually carry out a false flag attack now would only further weaken both Turkey and NATO’s hand. Even if the West was able to establish “buffer zones” in northern Syria, the price they pay in credibility, reputation, and legitimacy would make any such “victory” Pyrrhic. As with all empires throughout human history, there is a defining moment when decline becomes irreversible and the demise of an empire imminent. For “Pax Americana” and the elite sitting on Wall Street and in the City of London, that moment might be the Battle for Kassab and the ignominious end of the West’s attempted regime change in Syria. Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
The Crimean Crisis and US Hypocrisy. “War of Words” to Justify Outright Aggression
Global Research, March 31, 2014
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-crimean-crisis-and-us-hypocrisy-war-of-words-to-justify-outright-aggressions/5375928
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-crimean-crisis-and-us-hypocrisy-war-of-words-to-justify-outright-aggressions/5375928
The war of words between Russia and the United States is soaring these days over the sovereignty of the Crimean peninsula, and the White House officials are constantly directing accusations and excruciating verbal attacks against Kremlin in what seems to be the most serious dispute between Moscow and the West in the recent years.
The United States has pulled out all the stops to defeat and isolate Russia diplomatically, and has even gone so far as to impose economic sanctions against the Russian individuals and companies, and excluding Russia from the G8 group of the industrialized nations. The 40th G8 summit was slated to be held in Sochi, Russia on June 4-5, but following the suspension of Russia’s membership in the G8, the summit relocated to Brussels, Belgium, and it would be the first time that a G8 leaders’ convention is going to take place in a non-member state country. Some of the Western media outlets have even started to refer to G8 as G7, implying that Russia does not have any position in this influential group of the affluent, developed nations.
But as always, when it comes to flexing the muscles and showing political prowess, the United States and its partners are behaving in an intolerant, duplicitous and hypocritical manner. In a statement, the newly-termed G7 leaders reaffirmed that Russia’s “occupation of the Crimea” was against the principles of the G7 and contravened the United Nations Charter.
It’s interesting that the innumerable violations of the international law, the UN Charter and Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War by the United States in the recent years have never caught the attention of the G8 leaders and never compelled them to at least consider warning the United States to behave more responsibly and respect the internationally recognized conventions and regulations or refraining from destroying and annihilating other nations through its “humanitarian” missions!
If Russia should be punished for sending troops to Crimea, while it’s legally entitled to do so, and if its military intervention in Crimea represents a violation of the UN Charter in the eyes of the Western leaders, then it will be taken for granted that all violations of the international law and the United Nations Charter should be reprimanded and responded appropriately and the wrongdoers should be penalized in a fair manner. If Russia has occupied a sovereign entity – which is of course not the case, and should bear the burden of sanctions and diplomatic isolation, it’s ok, but why shouldn’t the United States be castigated and prosecuted for the same reason? What makes the military intervention of Russia different from the wars the U.S. offhandedly wages across the world?
For those of us who willfully ignore the historical facts, it’s noteworthy that the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet signed between Russia and Ukraine on May 28, 1997, permits Russia to lawfully maintain up to 25,000 troops, 24 artillery systems, 132 armored vehicles and 22 military planes on the Crimean peninsula. This agreement will be effective until 2017, and so it can be the most convincing logical justification for Russia’s military action in Crimea.
So, what has happened is not an “occupation” as the U.S. leaders claim, but that Russia has exercised its legal right for sending troops to a geographical area where the majority of inhabitants are ethnic Russians and don’t want to remain under the Ukraine autonomy and are overwhelmingly inclined to join Russia.
What every neutral and unbiased observer of the international political developments can easily note is that it’s the United States which is renowned for its hegemonic policies and its imperialistic modus operandi, not Russia. Russia’s intervention in Crimea took place after it felt that its national interests are being seriously endangered on its borders, where 58% of the population is consisted of indigenous Russians who prefer to be reunited with Russia, rather than being seen as an asset and prize for the United States under the leadership of a new government in Ukraine which has neo-fascist backgrounds.
The prominent American syndicated columnist and journalist Ted Rall has recently written on his website that there are traces of neo-fascism and neo-Nazism in the government of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk who has just come to power: “There’s no doubt that a Ukrainian nationalist strain runs deep in the new regime. It has been estimated that roughly 1/3 or more of the supporters of the new government come out of xenophobic, anti-Semitic, neo-fascist movements that draw much of their ideological heritage from the Nazi puppet regime that governed Ukraine under German occupation during World War II.”
So, on March 16, the Crimean parliament and the local government of Sevastopol held a public referendum in Crimea to give the citizens two choices for the future of their territory; either to remain associated with Ukraine or reunite with Russia. With a high turnout of 83.1% of the eligible voters, 96.77% of the participants in the plebiscite voted in favor of joining the Russian Federation. The United States and its allies didn’t hesitate to call the referendum as rigged and invalid, as they usually does with the elections in countries with which they are at odds. Washington even drafted a resolution in the United Nations Security Council to call the referendum null and void, but Russia used its veto power, while China abstained, and the United States simply pushed the General Assembly member states to pass a non-binding resolution, declaring the referendum invalid, which doesn’t seem to have any certain impact on the future of Crimea.
The policy of de-Russanization was long underway in the Crimean peninsula, and many other former Soviet Union republics, as Ted Rall elaborately details. Perhaps the fact that the Ukrainian Parliament Verkhovna Rada voted on February 23 to repeal the 2012 language law that had declared Russian an official language in Ukraine and allowed it to be used in the schools, media and official correspondence, was a driving force for the Crimean people to rise up and call for independence from Ukraine that they believed didn’t respect their cultural and lingual background.
The future of Crimea and the prospects of the marred relations between Russia and the West remain blurred and unknown, but the United States’ accusations that Russia is “occupying” Crimea and exerting military aggression and so should be punished with economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation sound gravely outrageous and entirely hypocritical. The United States has the biggest war machinery in the world, has been directly or indirectly involved in more than 50 wars and military strikes on other countries without the approval of the UN Security Council, and has incontestably perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As the prominent American lawyer and legal expert Marjorie Cohn has noted in a recent article, the United States is the largest user of unconventional and forbidden chemical weapons in the illegal wars it has waged across the globe. “The U.S. militarily occupied over 75% of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for 60 years, during which time the Navy routinely practiced with, and used, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, napalm and other toxic chemicals and metals such as TNT and mercury. This occurred within a couple of miles of a civilian population that included thousands of U.S. citizens,” wrote Prof. Cohn.
“The use of any type of chemical weapon by any party would constitute a war crime. Chemical weapons that kill and maim people are illegal and their use violates the laws of war,” she added.
She also goes on to explain the use of chemical weapons by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria and also underlines that the majority of wars in which the United States has taken part were not ever approved by the Security Council. Aren’t these crimes a contravention of the UN Charter? Why don’t the G7 leaders and European Council and European Commission officials ever react to these violations? Does the United States have the prerogative to attack other countries and maim their people without any legal or moral justification and then get away with its crimes?
The United States is imparting a clear message by adopting this insincere and hypocritical approach toward Russia, which is also a message to other countries: We can invade your countries, we can kill your citizens, we can rule you tyrannically, we can behave in any way we desire, but if you do something which doesn’t please us, we will impose sanctions on you, we will banish you from international organizations, and we will come down on you like a ton of bricks. This is how the American hypocrisy works...
Copyright © 2014 Global Research
AND IN THE MEANTIME:
The Vanishing Arctic Ice Cap
Monday, 31 March 2014 10:07By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report
Sea ice atop the Arctic Ocean photographed on July 12, 2011. (Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
An Arctic largely devoid of ice, giant methane outbursts causing tsunamis in the North Atlantic, and global sea levels rising by several meters by mid-century sound like the stuff of science fiction.
But to a growing number of scientists studying Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD/climate change), these dramatic predictions are very real possibilities in our not-so-distant future, thanks to the vanishing Arctic ice cap, which is continuing its rapid decrease in both volume and area.
"The polar bear is us." - Patricia Romero Lankao, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Arctic sea ice researchers are predicting that sea ice will no longer last through summers in the next couple of years, and even US Navy researchers have predictedan ice-free Arctic by 2016. Whichever year the phenomenon begins, it will be the first time humans have existed on Earth without year-round sea ice in the Arctic, and scientists warn that this is when "abrupt climate change" passes the point of no return.
To read more about anthropomorphic climate disruption and how environments and communities suffer from corporate profit-seeking, click here.
"In the first year that this happens, the open Arctic Ocean state will only last for a few weeks to a month or so," Paul Beckwith, a climatology and meteorology professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada, told Truthout. "Within a year or two, the open water duration [no sea ice] will last for several months, and within a decade or so the positive feedbacks will likely clear out the Arctic Ocean basin for most of the year."
"As the planet transitions through this abrupt climate change, there will be wrenching turmoil and conflict for human civilizations."
Beckwith, an engineer and physicist who is also researching abrupt climate change in both present day and in the paleo records of the deep past, warns that losing the Arctic sea ice will create a state that "will represent a very different planet, with a much higher global average temperature, as much as 5 to 6 degrees C warmer within a few decades, in which snow and ice in the northern hemisphere becomes very rare or even vanishes year round."
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's most authoritative voice on climate science, whose reports influence policy and planning decisions of national governments across the world, has just released its latest report. The IPCC has been accused by much of the scientific community of having a starkly conservative bias.
Scientific American has said of the IPCC: "Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world's most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent."
However, the recently released IPCC report is raising eyebrows: Even this conservative body is predicting dire threats for people and other species in the near future, and these risks may very well mean "abrupt or drastic changes" that could lead to unstoppable and irreversible climate shifts like the melting of both the Arctic ice cap and Greenland's glacial ice.
According to the IPCC report, the polar bear is not alone in being under threat.
"The polar bear is us," says Patricia Romero Lankao of the federally financed National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, referring to the first species to be listed as threatened by global warming due to melting sea ice.
Beckwith, who believes the planet is already in the early stages of abrupt ACD, offered grave predictions of what we might expect from losing the Arctic ice.
"As the planet transitions through this abrupt climate change, there will be wrenching turmoil and conflict for human civilizations," he explained. "As the extreme weather events ramp up this will result in a frenzy of human activity to attempt to adapt and mitigate. Essentially, this tipping point in the Arctic will inevitably result in a tipping point in human response to the problem."
"Critical to the Earth System"
John Nissen is chairman of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, a collection of scientists and experts whose mission is to warn the global community of the crisis we face if the Arctic ice melts. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge University and now studies ACD full time, with a focus on the role of Arctic sea ice within the Earth climactic system.
"Arctic sea ice is critical to the Earth System because of its role in controlling the planet's temperature, climate and currents," Nissen told Truthout. "Warm currents from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans flow into the Arctic, and are cooled. Extra warming of these currents has resulted in a retreat of the sea ice with loss of albedo [solar reflection] as the sea ice is replaced by open water. The open water absorbs the heat, which accumulates and helps to melt the sea ice the following year in a vicious cycle of warming and melting."
Nissen explained that when the sea ice no longer forms in the summer, there will already have been a great reduction in albedo. Arctic warming, which is already occurring at 1 degree C per decade, will accelerate at a rate of several degrees C per decade from then on.
There is historical precedent for this, as Arctic warming of 7 degrees in one decade occurred at the end of the Younger Dryas, an abrupt climate change event accompanied by many meters of sea-level rise. The Younger Dryas is one of the more commonly used examples of abrupt climate change of cold climatic conditions and drought that occurred between approximately 12,800 and 11,500 years ago. While there are many theories, the event is thought to have been caused by the collapse of the North American ice sheets.
"Arctic ice serves as a planetary air conditioner. We've never had humans on a planet without Arctic ice, which suggests that the planet is too warm for large-bodied mammals in the absence of the planetary air conditioner."
Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources, and ecology at the University of Arizona and a climate change expert of 25 years, explained to Truthout why the Arctic is so critically important to the planetary weather system.
"Arctic ice serves as a planetary air conditioner," McPherson said. "We've never had humans on a planet without Arctic ice, which suggests that the planet is too warm for large-bodied mammals in the absence of the planetary air conditioner."
With an Arctic that is ice-free in the summers, McPherson predicts rapid, dramatic changes.
"Earth will heat up quickly," he said. "Consider, for example, a relatively simple example from the realm of physics. Slightly more than 79 calories are required to convert one gram of ice at 0 C to 1 milliliter of water at 0 C. But once the ice is converted to water, adding the same amount of energy increases the temperature of the water to slightly more than 79 C."
He then goes on to imagine that on the scale of the Arctic Ocean.
"Without any ice in the Arctic to absorb energy, the energy will be absorbed by the dark ocean water," he said. "Even a tiny bit of ice provides a tremendous buffer to runaway heating by the ocean (hence, the planet)."
Heat moves from the warm equator to the cold poles of the Earth via the atmosphere circulation patterns and ocean currents. But due to human emissions of greenhouse gases, the planet system is warming.
In the Arctic, this means the warming is causing the sea ice volume and spring terrestrial snow cover to decline extremely quickly, thus exposing the darker underlying surfaces of ocean water and permafrost on land.
"These darker surfaces absorb more solar energy, and thus there is an amplification of warming of the Arctic at rates five to eight times faster than the overall warming average," Beckwith said. "This decreases the temperature difference between the Arctic and the equator and thus decreases the heat moving from the equator northward, resulting in a slowing of the westward movement of the high-speed winds making up the jet stream. The jet stream becomes wavier and leads to an increase in the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial extent location and variation."
Nissen is seeing the same phenomenon, with the loss of Arctic sea ice already changing the jet stream, which is the weather driver for North America and northern Europe.
"This has led to a decline in the temperature gradient between tropics and Arctic, thus destabilizing the jet stream and mid-latitude weather systems, leading to an increase in extreme weather events, tantamount to abrupt climate change," he said.
The sea ice also plays a role in driving the global conveyor current: As sea ice is formed in the Arctic Ocean, salt is expelled and the old dense saline water falls to the seabed to form a deep-level current that flows to the edge of Antarctica. These thermohaline currents are critically important, as the state of their circulation has a large impact on the Earth's.
Disturbingly, a new study shows that similar currents in the Antarctic may already be slowing down.
The study by the University of Pennsylvania's Irina Marinov and Raffaele Bernardello and colleagues from McGill University found that ACD may be causing the slowdown of one of these conveyer belts, with potentially serious consequences for the future of the planet's climate.
"Our observations are showing us that there is less formation of these deep waters near Antarctica," Marinov said. "This is worrisome because, if this is the case, we're likely going to see less uptake of human produced, or anthropogenic, heat and carbon dioxide by the ocean, making this a positive feedback loop for climate change."
A Rapidly Declining Situation
Professor Peter Wadhams, a leading Arctic expert at Cambridge University, has been measuring Arctic ice for 40 years.
"The fall-off in ice volume is so fast it is going to bring us to zero very quickly," Wadhams told a reporter. According to current data, he estimates "with 95 percent confidence" that the Arctic will have completely ice-free summers by 2018.
Wadhams works with Nissen, and the two presented a paper on their studies at the European Geosciences Union in 2010, warning the conference of the dire consequences of massive methane releases if the Arctic ice continues to melt as it is.
Over hundreds of millennia, Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850.
In the atmosphere, methane is a greenhouse gas that, on a relatively short-term time scale, is far more destructive than carbon dioxide (CO2). It is 23 times as powerful as CO2 per molecule on a 100-year time scale and 105 times more potent when it comes to heating the planet on a 20-year time scale - and the Arctic permafrost, onshore and off, is packed with the stuff.
"The seabed," says Wadhams, "is offshore permafrost, but is now warming and melting. We are now seeing great plumes of methane bubbling up in the Siberian Sea … millions of square miles where methane cover is being released."
As Truthout previously reported, and according to a study published in Nature Geoscience last fall, twice as much methane as previously thought is being released from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, a two million square kilometer area off the coast of Northern Siberia. Its researchers found that at least 17 teragrams (one million tons) of methane are being released into the atmosphere each year, whereas a 2010 study hadfound only seven teragrams heading into the atmosphere.
According to a NASA research report, "Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?":
"Over hundreds of millennia, Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850. Most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable topsoils within 10 feet (3 meters) of the surface."
"Outbursts of methane from the seabed and/or ice from GIS [Greenland Ice Sheet] are liable to cause tsunamis in the North Atlantic."
The NASA study highlights the discovery of active and growing methane vents up to 150 kilometers across. A scientist on a research ship in the area described this as a bubbling as far as the eye can see, in which the seawater looks like a vast pool of seltzer. Between the summers of 2010 and 2011, in fact, scientists found that in the course of a year methane vents only 30 centimeters across had grown a kilometer wide, a 333,333 percent increase and an example of the non-linear rapidity with which parts of the planet are responding to climate disruption.
This information is part of why Nessin made this dire prediction:
"Outbursts of methane from the seabed and/or ice from GIS [Greenland Ice Sheet] are liable to cause tsunamis in the North Atlantic."
He also believes there is a "small probability but high risk of an outburst of many gigatons of methane, sufficient to escalate global warming towards many degrees of temperature rise with intolerable climate change and societal collapse."
Nessin sees the most immediate effect of continuing, unchecked decline in sea ice and acceleration of Arctic warming being an escalation in climate change, as the jet stream and weather systems are further disrupted from their old norms.
"This climate change would inevitably lead to crop failures, a worldwide increase in the price of food, widespread starvation, and conflict through much of Africa and Asia," he warned. "We are seeing the start already, but without intervention the situation could decline rapidly over the next decade."
Beckwith gave similarly ominous warnings of what could be coming.
"There will be attempts to cool the Arctic to keep the methane and carbon dioxide from explosively escaping from the terrestrial permafrost and marine sediments," he said. "In the transitions, many governments will fall and martial law will be implemented in many countries as there is a resource scramble for ever scarcer fresh water and food."
Sealing the Fate of the Planet
Nessin believes the Greenland Ice Sheet ice discharge is liable to continue growing exponentially, with a doubling every five years, causing many meters of sea-level rise by mid century.
"The icebergs and fresh water generated to the west of Greenland are liable to divert the warm currents flowing across the Atlantic, thus partially turning the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, with a devastating effect on Northern Hemisphere climate," he warned.
Meanwhile, evidence of runaway ACD continues to mount.
"Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change," Michel Jarraud, the secretary-general of the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said recently.
The group's recently released annual assessment of global weather found that 2013 was the sixth warmest year on record (tied with 2007), and that there has been no let-up in global warming. Thirteen of the 14 warmest years have occurred since 2000 and each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one, with the decade 2001-2010 being the warmest on record, according to the WMO.
"There is no standstill in global warming. The warming of our oceans has accelerated, and at lower depths. More than 90 percent of the excess energy trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the oceans," Dr Jarraud said of ACD's impact on the oceans. "Levels of these greenhouse gases are at record levels, meaning that our atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. The laws of physics are non-negotiable."
The WMO report revealed that Arctic sea ice in 2013 had fallen to a level that is the sixth lowest on record. The WMO noted all seven of the lowest Arctic sea-ice extents took place in the past seven years, starting with 2007, which "stunned" scientists at the time.
"Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change." - Michel Jarraud, the secretary-general of the UN's World Meteorological Organization
The depth of the crisis, and ramifications thereof, has led Nissen and his group to controversially advocate the use of geo-engineering techniques to cool the Arctic. Geo-engineering, the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming, is extremely controversial due to its obvious potential of unintended consequences.
"I see no other way to prevent an inexorable meltdown of the Arctic ice cap with dreadful consequences for all mankind including catastrophic global warming from the methane which would be released," Nissen said. "The simple approach to prevent such catastrophes is to cool the Arctic using geo-engineering techniques such as cloud brightening and stratospheric aerosols."
Nissen believes the greatest risk to human society and the rest of the planet is that if attention is diverted away from the important role of Arctic sea ice, "intervention to cool the Arctic will be too late to prevent complete Arctic meltdown, which would surely lead to a collapse of civilization and a greatly reduced human population. Complete extinction would be in the cards."
McPherson also believes that near-term human extinction could eventually result from losing the Arctic sea ice, and added, "A world without Arctic ice will be completely new to humans."
The laws of physics are non-negotiable.
As to what should be done, however, he disagrees with Nissen and others promoting geo-engineering as a solution.
"Although geo-engineering has been proposed by some people, the literature suggests such attempts are misguided. At the level of society, I doubt there is anything to be done," said McPherson. "Whereas human ingenuity painted us into this corner, I do not believe human ingenuity is capable of providing an escape. Tim Garrett pointed out in Climatic Change nearly five years ago that only complete collapse of industrial civilization prevents runaway greenhouse. Since Garrett's paper was published, scientific literature has illustrated about 30 self-reinforcing feedback loops with respect to climate change."
Sixty-three percent of all human-generated carbon emissions have been produced in just the last 25 years, but science reveals a 40-year time lag between global emissions (our actions) and climate impacts (the consequences). Hence, we haven't even begun to experience the worst of our emissions, and won't, until 2054.
This information, along with the aforementioned, is what has led McPherson to this grim prognosis:
"The 40-year lag between emissions of greenhouse gases and consequent rise in global-average temperature suggests our planetary fate was sealed decades ago."
DAHR JAMAIL
Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last ten years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards.
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