Aleppo and Western Hypocrisy

The US and Its Allies are Losing the Last Cards of Terrorism in Syria By President Assad' President Assad's Interview with Swiss TV SRF1 Aleppo has been under siege for the last four years by the terrorists, and we haven't heard a single statement by Western officials regarding the children of Aleppo. Now, they are talking about Aleppo recently just because the terrorists are in a bad shape. October 21, 2016 Assad Says The "Boy In The Ambulance" Is Fake - This Proves It By Moon Of Alabama From an interview with the Syrian President Bashar Assad by the Swiss SRF 1 TV Channel published October 19 2016: Journalist: This young boy has become the symbol of the war. I think that you know this picture. President Assad: Of course I saw it. Journalist: His name is Omran. Five years old. President Assad: Yeah. Journalist: Covered with blood, scared, traumatized. Is there anything you would like to say to Omran and his family? President Assad: There’s something I would like to say to you first of all, because I want you to go back after my interview, and go to the internet to see the same picture of the same child, with his sister, both were rescued by what they call them in the West “White Helmets” which is a facelift of al-Nusra in Aleppo. They were rescued twice, each one in a different incident, and just as part of the publicity of those White Helmets. None of these incidents were true. You can have it manipulated, and it is manipulated. I’m going to send you those two pictures, and they are on the internet, just to see that this is a forged picture, not a real one. We have real pictures of children being harmed, but this one in specific is a forged one. Assad is half wrong. The picture, printed on page 1 of newspapers all over the "western" world, was not forged. It is a real picture from a White Helmet "rescue" video distributed by the Aleppo Media Center (AMC) (which is funded by the French French Ministry of Foreign Affairs). But the scene was carefully staged and we immediately recognized it as staged when it appeared. It was staged like many other "rescue" scenes with "kids saved" by the U.S./UK/D/J/NL financed White Helmets and their associated media. Look for yourself, trust your eyes. The "boy in an ambulance" scene features two identifiable kids. Omran and his sister. Below are pictures of what we believe are the same kids in different scenes. Here is the girl at another occasion. We will call this scene 1: bigger The Houston Chronicle reported about this scene and the picture carries this caption: An 8-year-old girl named Aya calls out for her father after an airstrike in Syrian on Monday, Oct. 10, 2016. Another picture from the same Chronicle spread: bigger This combined one is captioned: Left: 8-year-old Aya in her everyday life in Syria. Right: 8-year-old Aya after an airstrike in Syria. Notice the age as well as the girl's favorite colors - light turquoise and pink. Compared to the left picture the hair on the right looks powdered and artificially teased. The Chronicle story is sourced to CNN which includes a short video and adds: The video and images were posted online by a pro-opposition activist group, Talbiseh Media Center. It shows an 8-year-old girl in a medical facility, her hair and body covered with dust. There's blood tricking down her forehead, her nose. She looks confused and scared and keeps calling out for her father. ... Aya was pulled from under rubble along with her family members when an airstrike hit their home in Talbiseh on Monday. Talbiseh, a large town in northwestern Syria, is about 10 kilometers north of Homs. A screenshot detail from the video: The "blood" looks remarkably glossy, unlike natural blood which dries and looks dull pretty fast. The uni-color shirt the girl wears has no arms. Now the same girl in a different "rescue" scene. We will call this scene 2. bigger The truck in the background has a "White Helmets" logo on the door. A detail of the above picture. It is the same girl as in scene 1. The hair again seems powdered and teased: Notice: Same habitus, same appearance, same wild hair as in scene 1; no visible wounds; turquoise shirt but with short arms; jeans with glitter Here is the girl at scene 2 in an ambulance: bigger Same shirt and pants as above, no wounds, no pain. Compare this with the video capture of scene 1 the Chronicle and CNN reported on. We strongly believe it is the same girl. Now what seems to be a different take of scene 2. A "White Helmet" carries the girl and a boy. Notice the same clothing as in the other scene 2 pics above. The pic as well as some of the above from scene 2 was running in the Daily Mail on August 27. The incident is claimed to be the aftermath of a "barrel bombing" in the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood in east-Aleppo. bigger Why would two different men carry and "rescue" the girl. She, like the boy, looks fine - same cloth as above, no wounds, no damage to the extremities, no crying - just curiosity. A detail of the faces in that picture: A detail of the boy's face: Now to the "boy in an ambulance" scene. The boy and the reportedly 8-year old girl on August 17 in the Qaterji neighborhood in east Aleppo introduced as "Omran Daqneesh and his sister." (pic source): bigger Details of the kids - here the boy has the powdered and teased "wild hair" look. Are these the same kids as in scene 2 above? President Assad believes they are. We agree. We also believe that all three scenes above are staged. The girl is the same in all three scenes. Her younger brother appears in scene 2 and 3. The White Helmets apparently "rescued" the girl in three different incidents on or about August 17, August 27 and October 10 in three different locations. Isn't that a remarkably elysian miracle? Or is it all part of the serial production of elaborately staged anti-Syrian propaganda? Delivered by a marketing organization (vid) funded by "western" governments and various similar financed opposition "media organizations". Trust your eyes. See The Interview Here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45718.htm

Syria and the Left

OCTOBER 20, 2016

Syria and the Left: Time to Break the Silence

by ERIC DRAITSER

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Photo by Kurdishstruggle | CC BY 2.0

The cold, hard reality of the war in Syria is that the violence, bloodshed, and chaos continues unabated while the Left, such as it is, continues on in a state of schizophrenic madness. Different points of view, conflicting ideological tendencies, and a misunderstanding of the reality of the conflict are all relevant issues to be interrogated, with civility and reasoned debate in short supply. But those issues are not the urgent task of this article; the Left does need to seriously self-reflect though about just how it responds to crises of imperialism and issues of war and peace.

However, what is urgently needed at this moment is a clear and unequivocal position on the future of this war, and the lives of all Syrians – political allegiances notwithstanding – as the escalation of the war approaches. There is little doubt that Hillary Clinton will win the crown of ringmaster of the political circus that is the US election. And, as she eases her freshly osculated behind into the leather captain’s chair in the Oval Office, it is only a matter of time before she ratchets up US military involvement in Syria, with a full US war, and attempted regime change, becoming all but a certainty.

And where will the Left be then? This question is not merely rhetorical as the Left has found itself in the usual circular firing squad predicament over the war in Syria. And though the issue continues to be debated, what should be beyond dispute is what the position on intervention into the war should be.

And as I brace for the predictable barrage of hate mail and name-calling from both sides of this debate – I’m mostly inured to that sort of thing after years of it – I want to make one point that should be obvious, and yet has become somehow controversial: opposing the war is the duty of all true anti-war activists.

But what does it mean to oppose the war? Does it mean that we should be opposing just Russian and Syrian bombs being dropped? Does it mean that only US-Saudi-Turkey-Israeli supplied weapons are doing the killing? Sadly, these too are not rhetorical questions as so many on the Left, including many self-described anti-imperialists, have positioned themselves as hawks in a war that has utterly devastated the country. It seems that many, myself included up to a point, have gotten so enveloped in the embrace of partisanship in this war that we have forgotten that our responsibility is to the people of Syria and to peace and justice.

Some on the pro-Assad side of the argument will correctly note that the role of the anti-war activist in the West is, above all, to oppose the imperialism of the West itself. And indeed, that is a primary responsibility. Others on the Left will argue that the responsibility of activists is to support liberation struggles of fellow revolutionaries. And while the revolutionary content of the rebel side in Syria has been sidelined by a hodgepodge of Saudi and Qatari-financed jihadists – the uprising began as a response to the Syrian government’s neoliberal policies and brutality, among other things – this cannot be taken to mean that countless innocent men, women, and children have not been maimed and killed by Syrian and Russian weapons, jets, and fighters.

Be that as it may, the question now before us is this: where do you stand on direct US intervention?

In the long and convoluted history of this war there have been precious few moments of clear and unmistakable moral judgment. If anything, the portrait of the war in Syria is colored in shades of gray, with little black and white to be found.

If you’re supportive of the anti-Assad forces, then it’s quite likely you’ve chosen to ignore the mountains of evidence that there is no “revolution” in Syria but rather a vicious contra-style war being fomented by US-NATO and its toadies in the Gulf, Turkey, and Israel. If you’re supportive of Assad then it’s a certainty that you’ve chosen to ignore or downplay the horrific violence of the bombings, the brutality of the torture chambers, and other unspeakable atrocities (I admit that I have often strayed too far into the latter) out of a desire to uphold the nominally anti-imperialist position.

And where has this left Syria? Where has it brought the Left? We’re no closer to an end to this horrific war, nor are we any closer to a resolution to the cancerous spread of terrorism in the region. Maybe just a few more US-supplied weapons and US-funded fighters will do the trick? Maybe a few more Russian and Syrian bombs will solve the crisis? Well, if you’ve been paying attention, neither one of those has brought Syria any closer to peace. And isn’t that what we’re allegedly supposed to be upholding?

And how about the refugees? I’ve seen the fascist talking points spouted by many fake “anti-imperialists” who with one breath proclaim their commitment to peace and justice, and with another demonize and scapegoat Syrian refugees whose politics don’t align with the pro-Assad position. Words like “traitors,” “cowards,” and “terrorists,” are shamefully applied to ordinary Syrians fleeing to Europe and elsewhere in hopes of saving their families. Indeed, it is precisely this narrative that is at the core of the white supremacist, fascist ideology that underlies a significant amount of the support base for Assad and his allies (see David Duke, David Icke, Alexander Dugin, Brother Nathanel, Alex Jones, Mimi al-Laham, Ken O’Keefe, and on and on and on). I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true, and too many of the pro-Assad camp have willfully ignored this fundamental point.

On the other side though, the unwillingness of the “Syrian revolution” camp to face up to the fact that they have unwittingly made themselves into the left flank of US interventionism and imperialism is cause for public shaming as well. Were this the 1980s one wonders whether they’d be saying the same things about the “revolutionary” contras in Central America who, like the so-called rebels in Syria, were also backed with US weapons, money, and training. How about the mujahideen in Afghanistan? Has the collective memory of the Left gotten so short? And what about those foreign fighters fleeing Syria? Are they revolutionaries when they go back to Libya and engage in human trafficking for profit? Or to Chechnya to smuggle Afghan heroin? Or to Saudi Arabia or anywhere else?

Undoubtedly there are people on both sides of this debate who, if they’re still reading (doubtful), are frothing at the mouth with rage as they prepare to send their hate mail or attack this article and me on social media. All of that is perfectly fine by me as my feelings are of little consequence in this war that has killed hundreds of thousands, and displaced millions.

But the conversation I’m hoping to spur here is not about the past, but about the future.

And so I put out the call, here and now, to all people of the Left and all those who wrap themselves in the shroud of revolution and anti-imperialism: where do you stand on intervention?

To the anti-Assad camp, I ask: What will you be doing when Hillary’s fire burns and cauldron bubbles? Will you continue to ignore the material reality of this war in favor of the chimera of a revolution betrayed? Put simply: will you be supporting US imperialism in the name of the “revolution”?

To the pro-Assad Syria fetishists, I ask: Will you continue to pretend that the only crimes and atrocities being committed are those veiled behind Old Glory? Are you comfortable in the knowledge that this war will continue on indefinitely so long as all outside actors continue to use Syria as merely a square on their respective geopolitical chessboards? Will you continue to delude yourselves by refusing to accept the plainly obvious truth that no state or group has the best interests of Syrians at heart? Will you allow yourselves to be the useful idiots of carefully calculated political maneuvering?

I ask these questions as someone who took a firmly pro-Assad position from the very beginning, someone who felt (as I, and many others, still do) that Syria, like Libya, was a victim of US-NATO-GCC-Israel imperialism and that, as such, it should be defended. And while I still uphold that resistance, I also have enough humility to know that, in doing so, I abandoned other core beliefs such as defense of ALL oppressed people, including the ones with politics I reject.

I ask these questions as someone who takes the very notion of anti-imperialism seriously, and who is dismayed by the disgusting cooptation of that word by fascists, chauvinists, white supremacists, and neocolonial degenerates who use it for political expediency. This cannot be allowed to stand.

The direct US war in Syria is coming. Russia’s war in Syria is already active. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel have been fomenting war in Syria from the beginning, all in support of the Empire’s strategic goals. And hundreds of thousands of bodies have been buried in the sand and soil.

How many more bodies are we comfortable burying? How much longer before peace is once again on the table? How many more years before we realize that this war will never end on a battlefield?

Either way, I’ll see anyone who wants to join me on the front lines of protest when the Queen of Chaos launches her war. That’s where I’ve been many times before, and will be for years to come.

And that’s where the Left ought to be.

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Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.org and host of CounterPunch Radio. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/20/syria-and-the-left-time-to-break-the-silence/

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FOLI (there is no movement without rhythm) original version by Thomas Roebers and Floris Leeuwenberg

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Total Militarization of the Western World

Is Washington “False Flagging” The New Axis of Evil, Into Nuclear War?

By Peter Koenig

October 21, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - False flagging has hundreds of years of history; successful history that is. Otherwise the method of lying and bullying people into false believes would not have survived the times.

But false flags took on a new dimension since 9/11. The subsequent terror acts, including the Arab Spring and ‘Color Revolutions’; downing of a Russian plane over Egypt; shooting down of a Malaysian plane over the Ukraine; Paris murderous shootings at ‘Charlie Hebdo’ and ‘Bataclan’; Brussels; Nice; Munich; Orlando, Florida; San Bernardino, California – to name just a few over the last years – were perpetrated by the very actors claiming to fight terror, namely predominantly the secret services of the US, UK and Israel, the European vassals and NATO. The purpose of such acts of terror is to create fear, to justify a police crackdown on the populations and doing away with every time more of the democratic civil rights still left in western society.

The penultimate goal is total militarization of the western world, to prevent and suppress protests and revolts if and when the population eventually wakes up to the flagrant lies that it has been force-fed by the presstitute media for years on end.

And that in itself is a crucial step towards the ultimate goal of Full Spectrum Dominance of the world, or world hegemony, by a small corporate and financial elite.

Alas, militarization of the west and ongoing wars and chaos throughout the world, causing millions of death – estimated between 12 and 15 million in the last 15 years – will not suffice to dominate the eastern powers led by Russia and China.

Do the elites who pull the strings in Washington want a nuclear war? It may fulfill their pathological objective of total annihilation of the world as we know it, possibly with hundreds of millions of casualties.  Just look at Aleppo and multiply this image by a million. See also Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide.

https://www.schillerinstitute.org/food_for_peace/kiss_nssm_jb_1995.html .

Is reduction of world population by any means a major objective: Kissinger’s 1974 ‘study’ on famine as genocide, was commissioned in full connivance with Monsanto and the GMO technology – a food war, the preparation of which is ongoing as the world is facing a nuclear threat.

Intensified through four decades of Cold War, the US has grown increasingly dependent on the military – security industry for its economic advances. Creating weapons to exploit and destroy in foreign lands what later needs reconstruction is an easy way to making huge profits, sustaining an otherwise outsourced production economy and an ever poorer local population that lives off imported junk.

This is true for the misinformed US and European public.  The West is sinking by its own inaction into a deep hole.

However, the need for more sophisticated weaponry and more destruction is spiraling exponentially, as greed, avarice and power know no limits. A WWIII scenario is becoming an imminent danger. Do the neocon architects of US foreign policy hope to survive a nuclear inferno in their lush bunkers?

The western presstitute media portrays the US as fighting in the Middle East and elsewhere ‘humanitarian wars’ to stamp out terrorism and other atrocities committed by the new Killary anointed Axis of Evil, Russia-Iran-Syria, and by association, China.

The basic premise is, they are the “good guys” and the Russians under Putin’s orders are constantly interfering with America’s humanitarian deeds. This sick understanding, continuously touted by the western media controlled by the six Zionist-Anglo media giants, and repeated hourly, will make massive, credible false-flagging like a walk in the park – a walk in which about a billion ‘westerners’ are cheering for war against the eastern evil.

Currently the US is secretly on DEFCON level 3 warning against a Russian nuclear attack (DEFCON = Defense Readiness Condition). The American public doesn’t know it. – Level 3 means an attack could be days away; level one would imply an imminent attack within less than an hour. This in itself is a false flag, a make-believe that a first strike may come from Russia, when the Pentagon hawks openly boast that a first preventive strike is not off the table. Some high level generals even push for it.

There is a massive orchestrated build-up of potential false flags around the globe that would allow a first strike nuclear attack on several fronts against Russia, Syria, Iran and China, by the US armed forces, NATO and the European vassals’ own armies. Israel is poised to launch an attack against Iran.

Syria – the 20-nation Peace Talks of Saturday 15 October 2016 in Lausanne, Switzerland, focusing on an Aleppo cease fire, predictably failed to produce any tangible results. Nevertheless, in a real humanitarian effort, Russia has declared an 8-hour truce to begin on Thursday, 20 October, “We have taken a decision not to waste time and to introduce ‘humanitarian pauses’, mainly for the free passage of civilians, evacuation of the sick and wounded and withdrawal of fighters.

The ceasefire would run from 0800 to 1600 local time (0500 GMT to 1300 GMT) “in the area of Aleppo. During this period the Russian air force and Syrian government troops will halt air strikes and firing from any other types of weapons,” as ‘vanguardngr.com’ quoted senior Russian military officer Sergei Rudskoi as saying at a press briefing. – Later the truce has been extended to 11 hours and at yesterday’s (19 October) ‘peace discussion’ in Berlin, hosted by Madame Merkel, Mr. Putin said he would be prepared to extend it to 3 days, if all the parties were committed to observe it.

What if – in defiance of this mini-ceasefire – US, US-proxies, or NATO fighters keep bombing Syrian army ground troops in the Aleppo region, as well as hospitals and civilian populations, to encourage Al-Nusra, cum IS terrorists to stay their course and keep sowing misery and killing civilians? – Russia has warned Washington that any attack on Assad’s troops would be the object of retaliation. Might such a scenario be a provocation to start a hot WWIII? – Precedents of defying cease fire agreements and blaming Russia for it exist in the not so distant past: 17 September, when the US air force ‘by mistake’ attacked Assad’s ground forces killing 62 soldiers – and who knows how many civilians – then, through the complicit MSM blamed Russia for it.

It is not inconceivable that US war planes painted to look like Russians, could attack their own Air Force in Syria or Iraq, blaming Russia, thereby triggering a US first strike. With the brainwashed western population, the false flag would be an easy sell as a Russian aggression, justifying Washington’s ‘first strike’.

america’s indefectible British ally has recently given its fighter jet pilots ‘permission’ to fire on Russian aircraft in Syria. – What if they actually do so, as a US proxy? – And Russia retaliates against a NATO country – which is according to NATO rules an aggression against all NATO. This could mean an all-out war. US and NATO bases in Europe would not be spared. By now there are 24 bases, an increase from 14 since 1991, when the West promised not to expand NATO. This would plunge Europe for the third time in 100 years into – this time an all-annihilating – war scenario.  How can Europe not see and understand this?

Yemen – Since March 2015 a Saudi led coalition, for which until recently Washington provided weapons, logistical and intelligence support, is bombing the Houthi rebels. The Houtis, fighting for freedom from the western domination, have seized the Presidential Palace in Sana’a, sending the despotic US puppet President Hadi to Saudi Arabia into exile. The Houthis enjoy the backing of the majority of the Yemeni population and are considered the legitimate government. They also receive logistics support from Iran. They control about a quarter of the Yemeni landmass but more than three quarters of the population. The Saudis have been cowardly targeting mostly civilian populations, family celebrations, like weddings and funerals, humanitarian food and medical supplies and hospitals, slaughtering tens of thousands of mainly women and children. A couple of weeks ago the US and UK Air Forces have joined the Saudis in this atrocious war.

While the Houthis have called on President Putin for help, the US has now called, through the UN, for a 72-hour ceasefire to enter into effect on 19 October mid-night. The official purpose is ‘humanitarian aid’, but the real reason is for the alliance of aggressors to regroup and strategize. It is unconceivable that the Master of Chaos would let go of such an optimal strategically placed country, overlooking the Gulf of Oman and the Iran controlled Strait of Hormuz, through which currently about 25 % of the world’s hydrocarbons sail. A western planted false flag, depicting a Russian intervention, could easily activate a full-scale war.

Israel, entering friendly relations with the Saudis, has asked the House of Saud for access to Saudi airfields which they may use to launch a ‘preemptive’ attack against Iran.

Internet spying and cyber war accusations against President Putin – most ridiculous, but with sledgehammer propaganda the American and most of European population will gulp this lie as the truth – and encourage US, UK and Israeli secret services (the infamous trio) to do likewise. The argument is that Mr. Putin wants to derail US elections in favor of Donald Trump and hacking into DNC computers to divulge Democratic party corruption scandals – laying bare Madame Clinton’s corruption and lies. Apparently the CIA has already declared a cyber war against President Putin.

Russia could potentially retaliate, jamming key US strategic war systems with DRFM (Digital Radio Frequency Memory) technology, already successfully applied in 2015 in Syria, near Latakia, disrupting all US-NATO Radar and Satellites Communication systems. – Might such a possible retaliation and escalation in cyber warfare be translated into a lethal aggression by Russia, justifying a full-out war, with nuclear consequences?

On 19 October, Presidents Putin, Hollande and Poroshenko traveled to Berlin at the invitation of Madame Merkel to discuss Syria and implementation of a peace plan for eastern Ukraine. First, how come, a sovereign country like Syria is discussed by foreign powers, without – and I mean without any representation of Mr. Assad’s government? It is a human and diplomatic aberration. But what else would we expect from the west. Still, people need to be reminded that what appears normal is NOT normal at all.

The little that emerged from the meeting is that Mr. Hollande went home frustrated since Mr. Putin did not stand up to ‘his responsibilities in Ukraine’- what a flagrant lie! And Hollande knows it! – Also was disclosed that no real agreement was reached on how to go about achieving peace in Syria.

Obviously for the western stooges of Washington, present in Berlin, there is only one way a ‘solution’ could be found: ‘Regime Change’. They will not let go. Even though Hollande and Merkel know absolutely well, why the US instigated the war in Syria, by recruiting and preparing, arming and funding terror groups already in 2007 (look for ‘Syria’ in this article

http://www.globalresearch.ca/its-not-just-the-oil-the-middle-east-war-and-the-conquest-of-natural-gas-reserves/5307589

On Ukraine – Poroshenko has promised a new road map for peace, nothing more exciting. The practical deadlock on Syria and ‘no news’ on Ukraine was to be expected. It is of course being blamed by both Hollande and Merkel on Vladimir Putin, who has never played a role in either conflict, both of them are the result of the evil fist of Washington.

Mr. Putin entered Syria only at the demand of Mr. Assad, to defend and rid the country of western implanted terrorists. He is also doing everything possible to pacify Ukraine, to no avail. The west doesn’t want peace, but they want to blame Russia for the conflicts. Failure of the Merkel meeting might possibly be followed by a false flag against Kiev or Aleppo, to be put on Putin’s account, what else. Remember, the US Air Force has jets painted as Russian jets.

China

Would a US provocation on the Chinese controlled Spratly Islands, or an infringement on China’s air and land space, as there have been many in the past, become a trigger for engaging China in a nuclear aggression?

Hot spots around the world devastated to chaos by the empire abound. Anyone of them is a potential launch path for an atomic mushroom. Should this happen before the upcoming US elections, Obama might just stay on for another term. He has all the experience it needs to create more chaos and more division to conquer than any of his predecessors. He is also an obedient servant to those that pull the strings and watch through the eye on top of the pyramid, so clearly depicted in the US dollar bill, the symbol for Zionist-Freemason total hegemony. But importantly, he, like Hillary, would most likely not hesitate to push the Red Bottom, when asked to do so by their masters.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45722.htm

Russia Will Hit Back If NATO Attacks

‘If NATO encroaches on nuclear Russia, it will be punished’

Published time: 14 Jul, 2016 08:36Edited time: 14 Jul, 2016 11:54

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© Kacper Pempel / Reuters 

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Russia has zero trust in NATO and believes that the alliance is preparing to go to war against it, a leading Russian foreign policy expert told 'Spiegel', while warning that, if it comes to a new big conflict, Moscow won’t fight it on its own soil.

In an interview with the German magazine, Sergey Karaganov, a veteran political scientist and member of the influential Foreign Policy and Defense Council of the Russia Foreign Ministry, said in bold terms that the risk of a new shooting war in Europe has been on the rise for a decade and is now as high as it was at the height of the Cold War.

The abundance of propaganda coming from both sides attests to the dangerous state of the crisis, Karaganov said.

“The Russian media is more reserved than Western media. Though you have to understand that Russia is very sensitive about defense. We have to be prepared for everything. That is the source of this occasionally massive amount of propaganda,” he said. “But what is the West doing? It is doing nothing but vilifying Russia; it believes that we are threatening to attack. The situation is comparable to the crisis at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s.”

The expert was referring to a massive build-up of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe that could have easily led to an unintended nuclear war. The missiles had a very short approach time that left almost no time for an attacked side to react, making automatic retaliation the only possible reaction to a decapitating nuclear barrage. The situation was defused by a ban on intermediate-range missiles signed in 1987.

Read more

NATO ‘speaks of defense, prepares offensive’, says Gorbachev

The current buildup of NATO forces on Russia’s border is not unlike the installation of Pershing and SS-20 missiles three decades ago, at least in terms of the misguided justification for deploying them, Karaganov said.

“Fears in countries like Poland, Lithuania and Latvia are to be allayed by NATO stationing weapons there. But that doesn’t help them; we interpret that as a provocation. In a crisis, we will destroy exactly these weapons. Russia will never again fight on its own territory,” he said.

“The help offered by NATO is not symbolic help for the Baltic states. It is a provocation. If NATO initiates an encroachment – against a nuclear power like ourselves – it will be punished,” he stressed.

Part of the problem is the breakdown in communications, as evidenced by the work – or lack thereof – of the NATO-Russia Council, which was created to resolve differences between the alliance and Russia, but is “no longer a legitimate body,” according to Karaganov.

“NATO has become a qualitatively different alliance. When we began the dialogue with NATO, it was a defensive alliance of democratic powers. But then, the NATO-Russia Council served as cover for and the legalization of NATO expansion. When we really needed it – in 2008 and 2014 – it wasn’t there,” he said referring to Russia’s most recent major security crises – Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia and the violent coup in Ukraine.

READ MORE: Bulgaria sails against tide as NATO mulls stronger presence in Black Sea

The enmity between Russia and Europe hurts both parties in other ways as well, the expert said. After decades of careless life, Europe has forgotten how to engage in realpolitik, unlike Russia, Karaganov says, meaning that Europe loses out on Russia’s help on issues such as the refugee crisis, which Moscow is unlikely to offer in the face of the confrontation.

“In Europe, you have a different political system, one that is unable to adapt to the challenges of the new world. The German chancellor said that our president lives in a different world. I believe he lives in a very real world,” Karaganov said.

Russia, for its part, is hurt because Russia’s elites find an excuse not to undertake painful but necessary domestic reforms as long as the threat from NATO exists.

Karaganov says Russia won’t offer any concessions to the West in the face of the stand-off anytime soon, but, rather, it will refocus its attention eastward while drifting further from Europe, though he admitted that such an outcome is not the best for Russia.

“We believe that Russia is morally in the right. There won’t be any fundamental concessions coming from our side,” he said. “Psychologically, Russia has now become a Eurasian power – I was one of the intellectual fathers of the eastward pivot. But now I am of the opinion that we shouldn’t turn away from Europe. We have to find ways to revitalize our relations.”

https://www.rt.com/news/350986-russia-nato-encroachment-punishment/

Belgians Being Used for NATO-provocations?

Moscow summons Belgian ambassador, presents data on F-16s bombing of Syrian civilians 

Published time: 21 Oct, 2016 12:34Edited time: 21 Oct, 2016 13:55
https://www.rt.com/news/363640-russia-evidence-belgium-airstrikes/

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A Belgian F-16 fighter jet © Eric Vidal / Reuters 

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Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it has presented Alex Van Meeuwen, Belgium’s ambassador in Moscow, with evidence proving the involvement of Belgian Air Force jets in a recent airstrike on a Syrian village that killed four civilians.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Van Meeuwen on Friday.

“During the conversation with Van Meeuwen, First Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov said that Moscow was puzzled by Belgium’s ongoing denial of the fact that the Belgian Air Force carried out an airstrike that killed civilians on the outskirts of Aleppo on October 18 of this year,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The Belgian diplomat [Van Meeuwen] was presented with evidence showing involvement of the Belgian Air Force in the airstrike on the village of Hassadjek. It was also mentioned that detailed info on the technical aspects of the flight of the two F-16 jets had been given to Belgium’s military attaché in Moscow by the Russian Ministry of Defense.”

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Radar data proves Belgian F-16s attacked village near Aleppo, killing 6 - Russia

"This [Friday] afternoon, the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense handed over to the Defense Attaché of the Belgian Embassy in Moscow the alleged evidence designed to show that F-16 jets of the Belgian Air Force are responsible for the airstrike near Aleppo in the early hours of October 18, which resulted in several deaths among civilians. This alleged evidence is a map with the route of the flight allegedly made by Belgian aircraft," a communique posted on the Belgian Ministry of Defense website said.

"The numbers of the identification friend-or-foe system, which are marked on the map and which, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, are assigned to the Belgian aircraft, are incorrect and in no way are the numbers of the Belgian Air Force aircraft," the document says.

Brussels is using “worthless excuses” in an attempt to divert public attention from the airstrike on the Syrian village, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Friday.

"Attempts by the Belgian Defense Minister [Steven Vandeput] to divert public attention from the tragedy, using obviously worthless excuses, causes profound confusion. It speaks of either Mr Vandeput’s misunderstanding of the document provided by Russia, or the desire of the US Armed Forces Central Command, responsible for providing targeting data to aircraft of the international coalition in Syria, to evade responsibility for the death of six Syrian civilians, killed in the airstrike,” Konashenkov told journalists.

Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Didier Vanderhasselt told Interfax on Friday the ministry is not yet aware of the content of its ambassador’s conversation with Russia’s deputy foreign minister, and is waiting for the results of the meeting. “We maintain dialogue with the Russian side, we need to know exactly what was said at this meeting,” he added.

"We are also surprised by the fact that we have not been provided with the data before," Vanderhasselt is cited as saying by Interfax. "Our military gave all the explanations to the military attaché of the Russian Embassy in Belgium yesterday [Thursday] morning," he added.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman General Igor Konashenkov said on Thursday that Brussels’ obstinate denial of involvement shows that Belgian Defense Minister Steven Vandeput is either “deliberately deceiving people in Belgium and around the world, or his subordinates and the Americans are lying to the leadership of Belgium.”

The airstrike on the village of Hassadjek in Syria’s Aleppo province reportedly killed six civilians on Tuesday.

According to Konashenkov, the two Belgian F-16s were immediately identified by Russian and Syrian air defense radar and all of their movements were tracked.

“Every aircraft type has a unique identifiable signature,” he noted.

The warplanes, which had flown in from the Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan, delivered their night strike on the village at 00:35 GMT, about two hours after takeoff, leaving six civilians dead and four injured, the general said. Russia tracked the flight of the two planes from Jordan to Iraq and Syria, as well as their meeting with a US KC-135 tanker, which refueled them over the Deir ez-Zor area, Konashenkov said, adding that the US-led coalition hadn’t informed Russia about the Belgian flights.

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