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Russia ‘Hack’ of US Elections an ‘Act of War’ — Dick Cheney

Sputnik – March 28, 2017

Russia’s “hack” of the 2016 US elections could be “considered an act of war,” says former Vice President and noted warhawk Dick Cheney, speaking at an event in New Delhi, India. He joins the chorus of US notables resorting to the groundless accusation.

“In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war. I think it’s a kind of conduct and activity we will see going forward,” said Cheney, the neocon’s neocon. “There’s no question” that the Russian government tried to “interfere” with the US elections, Cheney added.

Despite his seemingly sadistic love of watching the US go to war, Cheney himself deferred being drafted by the US military five times during the Vietnam era.

Democrats have been equally quick to launch the “Russian hacking” attack for their own political gain. Rep. Jackie Speier of California said so-called Russian meddling “was an act of war, an act of hybrid warfare,” according to a report by the Independent Journal Review.

A letter written by dozens of former intelligence, diplomatic, and military officials addressed to President Barack Obama concluded that “DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked.”

For one, the FBI never accessed the compromised servers at the DNC, Sputnik reported.

Bill Binney, a 35-year NSA veteran and former technical director at the spy agency, said the publication of Hillary Clinton and John Podesta’s emails were the result of an insider leak rather than an external attack.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 5 Comments

Hamas: Lieberman’s statements prove Israel’s terrorist nature

Spokesman for Hamas Movement Sami Abu Zuhri
Palestine Information Center – March 27, 2017

GAZA – Spokesman for Hamas Movement Sami Abu Zuhri said Monday that Israel’s Army Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s recent threats to assassinate senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyyah prove his government’s “terrorist nature”.

Abu Zuhri called in his Twitter account on all the free people around the world to unite their efforts in the face of “Israeli terrorism” and in support of the Palestinian people.

Earlier on Sunday, Lieberman renewed his earlier threats to assassinate Haniyyah before he leaves office.

In a live chat, Lieberman was asked about his promise before he was appointed Army Minister to eliminate senior Hamas leader Ismail Haneyyah. “It is wise to progress responsibly,” he answered.

“Speak with me about Haneyyah at the end of my term as Defense Minister,” he proclaimed.

Lieberman’s statements came only few days after the assassination of al-Qassam commander Mazen Fuqaha outside his house in Gaza city by six bullets to the head.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Peace Returns to the Streets of Aleppo

By Sophie Mangal | Inside Syria Media Center | March 27, 2017

Anyone who has ever been to Syria has shared memories of ubiquitous olive groves and orange gardens, diligently cultivated by local farmers. Plowed fields and sun-lit greenhouses were an inseparable part of a typical Syrian rural landscape. However, the picture has changed, and not for the better. Spirit of distress came instead of prosperity, and fruitful gardens were devastated by the flames of war.

The city of Aleppo, industrial and financial center of Syria, suffered the most. After having bled the city and its people dry, the militants resorted to destruction. As they ran, the main power plant was set on fire together with hundreds of thousand liters of fuel that spilled out and burned everything in its pass.

Now, only the patches of scorched earth and rusted carcasses of fuel tanks remain there. Everything else was looted by the militants: copper cables, electric parts, gears, even furniture.

The plant is still out of service. Its core hardware, that had been supplying not only the largest urban and industrial area of Syria but also the adjacent countries power grids, has taken substantial damage. Repair crews are working to bring back to life a single power block by scratching the other four for spare parts to give the city a minimum electricity supply.

The damage is enormous, but peculiarly selective: while the Japan-made turbines were left untouched, the generators made in the U.S. were destroyed to the core. It is now impossible to rebuild them due to sanctions imposed on Syria by the West, explains the plant’s Deputy General Director Ghiyas al-Ahmar. This is why the citizens of Aleppo still suffer from lack of electricity and cannot warm their houses during cold weather. Power cuts also impede the recovery of the industry. Is this what the West wanted?

This concern is shared by Omar Azzad, head of eastern Aleppo administration, who leads the reconstruction of the most damaged part of the city. The militants have been destroying buildings to create barricades from the rubble of concrete, reinforcement bars and stones. Now that the heavy equipment is scarce because of the war and buying new machines or spare parts is unavailable due to the Western sanctions, the rubble can only be cleared by hand. The work begins early in the morning and lasts till night. Every day thousands of people come to clear the streets, repair the roads and buildings, more and more displaced citizens are coming back to rebuild their homes. Traders return to the streets and the industrial companies are getting ready to relaunch production. Every day more jobs are created.

However, traces of war still loom over the city. When people return to their homes they often find them transformed into fire positions hiding unexploded munitions or booby-trapped by the militants. In the most difficult cases the citizens of Aleppo turn for help to the mine clearance specialists from the Russian military police.

The most common are pressure mines casually disguised to look like a fire extinguisher or a gas cylinder. In a more elaborated design, recently discovered by the specialists, several interconnected improvised explosive devices were hidden in multiple adjacent buildings. The wires that were plugged into them lead to a tunnel and eventually to a militant’s hideout.

To help people cope with everyday struggles humanitarian help is regularly distributed in eastern Aleppo. The population of the areas previously held by the opposition is in desperate need of help, as has been strikingly demonstrated by the story of Mutia al-Fares, a mother of eight and a nurse, whose husband perished during the war. Mutia’s family lives on 19 thousand liras (around $35) per month. She confesses that without the humanitarian help they would inevitably starve to death.

Showing a shameful negligence, the UN has not sent humanitarian aid to eastern Aleppo. The UN Special Advisor for Syria Jan Egeland has taken zero real measures to help the citizens. Moreover, the UN completely halted its humanitarian missions in Aleppo after the city was liberated by the Syrian army.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , | 2 Comments

Fighting AIPAC: We don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan

By Devon Nola | March 26, 2017

This weekend, the annual AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) Convention takes place where 15,000 of this diabolical Jewish lobby’s best and brightest meet to mix and mingle, celebrate the successes of the past year and more importantly, strategize for the coming year how best to maintain Israel’s strength. The claim is that it’s in America’s best interest, as well, but the truth is American citizens get zero from this one-sided relationship.  Sure, a few American companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin make boatloads of cash through the sales of Apache helicopters and weapons to Israel, but for American tax payers, the return on investment is nothing more than our share of the guilt of mass slaughter of Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, and whomever challenges Israel’s dominance in the region.

This lobby is powerful.  Some consider it to be a lobby like any other, but the truth is it differs in a few crucial ways. To start with, no other lobby forks over millions of dollars in campaign donations, on  local and federal levels to push the agenda of and back a foreign government. Whether one supports or opposes the existence of the Jewish state, it cannot be denied it is, in fact, a foreign government. And no other lobby makes EVERY member of Congress sign an agreement that they will fully and unconditionally support the state of Israel economically, politically, militarily and diplomatically. On the rare occasion someone has refused to sign it, the AIPAC campaign to get them removed from Congress goes into full-force. Ask Cynthia McKinney how refusing to sign this agreement worked out for her.

Counter to this annual event is a protest of AIPAC. I’ve attended this protest four times. Different groups organize to meet at the Convention Center to denounce AIPAC’s hideous agenda and the impact it has on our government, the Palestinians and beyond. The protests are always peaceful with a diverse group of people and one can always count on seeing familiar faces including Orthodox Torah Jews, Neturei Karta. They adamantly oppose Zionism and the existence of the Jewish state. I attend independently, not as a member of any group.

This year I made the choice to forego the protest and attend the fourth annual conference, ‘The Israel Lobby And American Foreign Policy’ hosted by The American Educational Trust who publishes Washington Report On Middle East Affairs and The Institute For Research: Middle Eastern Policy. I only learned of the conference just last year and missed an impressive lineup. This year I got lucky as a friend had an extra ticket and was generous enough to let me have it. The presenters and keynote speakers were, again, impressive. The standouts for me were Palestinian legislator and scholar Hanan Ashrawi, Ilan Pappé, documentary filmmaker (Two Blue Lines, Native Sons), Tom Hayes, and American Journalist and author, Clayton Swisher, who managed the six-month undercover investigation that produced Al-Jazeera’s 4-part series, “The Lobby”, about AIPAC’s activities in the U.K. It’s stellar and you can watch it on YouTube.

Hanan Ashrawi is a powerhouse, just as I expected. She is monumentally clever, charismatic and a force to be reckoned with. Her main focus was the Israel Lobby and the duplicity of the “peace process”. Ilan Pappé geared his presentation towards seeing Palestine through the prism of settler-colonialism (a term I’ve grown disgusted with due to its inaccuracy of what’s really taken place, therefore it’s been adopted  by controlled opposition groups. It invokes a romantic, pastoral image rather than the reality of the more accurate terms of genocide, ethnic cleansing, land theft, etc.), the lobby’s participation in forming/maintaining Zionist myths, and accurately identifying and exposing the myths so that efforts to end the conflict are based in reality.

While most of the speakers had interesting perspectives and personal experiences with the Israel lobby, I had a nagging, frustrating feeling that something was missing. Speaker after speaker, I continued to be underwhelmed. No one went far enough. No one drew the parallels between Gaza, Detroit, Athens, and Berlin. In the world in which we currently live, we are all Palestinians.  There was quite a lot of focus on the impact in Palestine and to Palestinians and non-Palestinian supporters of this struggle, we are always elated to hear anyone acknowledge the injustice and continuing horrors inflicted upon them since 1948, but is the acknowledgement of what we already know all we can expect? Have we been so well trained by the oppressor to not expect more?

About an hour or so after the conference ended, I had an epiphany. AIPAC is convening to determine our future while pro Palestinians convened to reflect on the past. Over the course of 8.5 hours, it was evident what is AIPAC’s agenda, how duplicitous and ruthless are its methods, how it manipulates Congress and further exacerbates the suffering of the Palestinians and how it strong-arm’s our government out of billions of tax-payer dollars to support the foreign government of the Jewish state of Israel. The conference was a culmination of the past and the present. But, what about the future? Where is the strategic plan for the future? When AIPAC has their convention on Sunday, March 26, 2017, they will spend some time celebrating the successes of this past year, but the vast majority of their 8 hour day will be spent strategizing about the future, both immediate and long term. They will present the road map, step by step no doubt, with crystal clarity of what are their goals and exactly what steps need to be taken to bring them to fruition, so that next year’s celebration will be bigger than this year, followed by a whole new strategy for the coming year.

If there is anything we can learn from AIPAC, indeed this is it.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | 3 Comments

Single-Payer Bernie Morphs Into Public Option Dean

By Russell Mokhiber | CounterPunch | March 27, 2017

Right before our eyes, we are seeing the transformation of single payer Bernie Sanders into public option Howard Dean.

During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Sanders took off like a rocket, fueled by the promise of a single payer, Medicare for All single payer system.

His single payer plan paralleled HR 676, the single payer bill in the House of Representatives that now has 72 co-sponsors.

HR 676 is the gold standard of single payer bills.

It would deliver one public payer, no deductibles, no co-pays, lower costs, everyone in, nobody out, no more medical bankruptcies, no more deaths from lack of health insurance and free choice of doctors and hospitals.

That was the promise of Bernie Sanders during the 2016 campaign.

But since then, Bernie Sanders has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.

Then become part of Senator Chuck Schumer’s Senate Democratic leadership.

And this weekend, Sanders has been telling people he will introduce health care reform legislation in the Senate within a couple of weeks.

But it’s not going to be a companion bill to HR 676.

Instead, Sanders is telling reporters he wants to “move toward Medicare for all.”

“Right now we need to improve the Affordable Care Act and that means a public option,” Sanders tweeted yesterday.

The public option?

That would be the plan put forth by the Democratic corporatist Howard Dean, currently a member of the public policy and regulation practice of Denton’s, the multinational corporate law firm.

Dean got into nasty confrontations with single payer activists who confronted him during the Obamacare debates with questions about his corporatist connections and his support of the public option over single payer.

Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Program, the premiere single payer health care group in the country, has argued persuasively that the public option — allowing Americans to opt into a public plan — would not solve our healthcare crisis.

“The tragedy is not so much that on this path we will end up with a public plan that will be only one more feeble player in the dysfunctional market of private plans, but rather that we will, once again, have walked away from single payer, perhaps for decades, because of this meme about lack of political feasibility,” McCanne wrote last year. “Instead of making private plans compete with a public option, we should get rid of them and establish our own single public plan.”

And PNHP, in a paper titled The Public Plan Option: Myths and Facts, says that

“the current Medicare experience combined with experience in many different states that have tried this type of reform shows that public plans are left with the sickest patients and fail due to rising costs while the private insurers continue to collect premiums from the healthiest patients and maintain their high profits.”

Sanders also told reporters this weekend that he would consider legislation that would drop the Medicare age from 65 to 55.

David Himmelstein, a PNHP founder, said that while the public option would be a “modest improvement” and dropping the Medicare age to 55 would be a “good step,”  “neither could realize most of the vast savings on administration available under single payer, nor would they achieve universal coverage or address the problems of the tens of millions who are currently underinsured.”

“Introducing a public option will divide and confuse supporters of Medicare for all,” said Margaret Flowers, MD a pediatrician who co-directs Health Over Profit for Everyone, www.HealthOverProfit.org. Flowers is also a member of PNHP. “Senators who should co-sponsor Medicare for all will be divided. Sanders seems to be urging a public option to please the Democratic Party, but Sanders cannot serve two masters – Wall Street’s Chuck Schumer and the people. Sanders must decide whom he is working for.”

“While it might seem politically pragmatic to support a public option, it is not realistically pragmatic because a public option will not work,” Dr. Flowers said. “Senator Sanders knows that and he knows that the smallest step toward solving the healthcare crisis is National Improved Medicare for All. This would fundamentally change our health system that currently treats health as a commodity so that people only have access to what they can afford to a system that treats health as a public necessity so that people have access to what they need. Medicare for all achieves the savings needed to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone.”

“If Senator Sanders believes that it is acceptable to promote a policy that leaves some people out, then we want to know who should be left out. The US is already spending enough to cover everyone and that’s what we need to do.”

“The Affordable Care Act, built on a heavily subsidized private insurance industry, is not possible to fix. The ACA must be replaced by a national health policy that serves the needs of the people by replacing private insurance with publicly-financed Medicare.”

“Sanders wants to lower drug prices,” Dr. Flowers said. “Only a single payer system can negotiate lower drug prices. Sanders says healthcare is a human right, but human rights should not be commodities or profit centers. People do not pay for their human rights.”

“We look to Senator Sanders to act on what he promised during his presidential campaign, a National Improved Medicare for All now, not tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. It is not up to him to decide if single payer can pass in Congress. That task is for the people to decide.”

Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics | , | Leave a comment

Russia-Iran strategic ties keep US guessing

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | March 26, 2017

For a variety of reasons, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Moscow on March 26-27 will attract attention in world capitals. The scheduling of the visit when there is less than eight weeks left for Iran’s presidential election on May 19 where he is hoping to secure a second term, makes a very important point. To be sure, there is much visible mix-up in the conservative camp in Iran, while the reformist-moderate forces have rallied behind Rouhani. Iranian elections are notoriously unpredictable, but Russia seems to expect continuity in Iranian policies for another 4-year period.

Most European and Middle Eastern capitals will share this perception, and, arguably, even the Donald Trump administration cannot be unaware of it. Nonetheless, a ‘bipartisan’ group in the US senate announced a new bill on Thursday that would impose tighter sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program. But then, the announcement comes just before Sunday’s start of the annual conference in Washington of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, and thereby hangs a tale.

The Trump administration’s tough talk on Iran notwithstanding, Tehran remains committed to the 2015 nuclear deal. The litmus test will be whether Washington holds up its end of the bargain as regards the lifting of nuclear–related sanctions. So far, the Trump administration has done nothing to unilaterally tear up the nuclear deal – and, Iran too has been careful not to give cause to complaint regarding failure on its part in implementing the deal.

On the other hand, the European Union has maintained support for the Iran nuclear deal. At a recent Track II held in Beirut, former Iranian diplomat and a close associate of Rouhani, Seyed Hossein Mousavian gave his prognosis on the US’ options: “They would let the deal go on, but they would try to undo practically the Iranian nuclear deal through many other sanctions under … the umbrella of terrorism, missiles, human rights and regional issues.”

The net result of such new sanctions would be to deprive Iran from the economic benefits of the nuclear deal. However, the US can only create conditions where Iran is unable to optimally reap economic benefits out of the nuclear deal, but not to ‘isolate’ Iran from the world community. This is where Rouhani’s trip to Moscow serves a big purpose for Tehran. Russia is an irreplaceable partner for Tehran today. The reports from Tehran suggest that Rouhani is carrying a substantial economic agenda for discussions in Moscow.

Having said that, for both Russia and Iran, their cooperation is of strategic importance and is hugely consequential on the ground in regional and international politics, especially on the Syrian frontlines. That is why sustained attempts by the West, GCC states and Israel to exploit any daylight in the Russian-Iranian relationship failed to make headway. Writing for the influential Fox News, Frederick Kagan at the American Enterprises Institute – neither a friend of Iran nor of Russia – in an opinion piece titled Pitting Russia against Iran in Syria? Get over it urged the Trump administration to recognise Russia-Iran cooperation as a geopolitical reality for a foreseeable future:

  • American policy-makers must get past facile statements about the supposed limits of Russian and Iranian cooperation and back to the serious business of furthering our own interests in a tumultuous region. The Russo-Iranian coalition will no doubt eventually fracture, as most interest-based coalitions ultimately do. Conditions in the Middle East and the world, however, offer no prospect of such a development any time soon.

To my mind, Trump’s policies toward Iran are evolving cautiously and there could be surprises in store. The Iranians seem to understand that although Big Oil wields big clout with the Trump administration and a US-Saudi Arabian reset is in the making, the two sides have divergent concerns in many vital areas and an anti-Iran alliance as such — comprising the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia — seems far-fetched. In a fascinating op-ed last week in the establishment paper Tehran Times, Mousavian wrote:

  • The fight against ISIS also cannot be won by America alone. Trump’s… challenge will be to form a new coalition to defeat and destroy ISIS. To be successful, it will need to be far more cohesive and effective than the one built by Obama. Engaging more with the actors most effectively fighting ISIS on the ground, namely Russia and Iran and their allies, will be critical in this regard.

To a great extent, Russia and Iran are sailing in the same boat. Entrenched groups in the US oppose tooth and nail any improvement in the US’s relations with Russia and Iran. However, Russia and Iran will not take no for an answer from Trump administration in the fight against the ISIS in Syria. Both are grandmasters in reconciling contradictions. Both would hope that cooperation over Syria would help them leverage their respective relationship with the US. Mousavian’s opinion piece titled Trump’s ISIS challenge is here.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 1 Comment

The World Faces a Historic Opportunity to Ban Nuclear Weapons

By Beatrice Fihn, Martin Butcher, and Rasha Abdul Rahim | Inter Press Service | March 24, 2017

Nuclear weapons are once again high on the international agenda, and experts note that the risk of a nuclear detonation is the highest since the Cold War.

As global tensions, uncertainty and risks of conflict rise amongst nuclear-armed states, nuclear weapons are treated as sabres to rattle, further heightening the risks of intentional or inadvertent use.

Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Both in terms of the scale of the immediate devastation they cause and the threat of a uniquely persistent, pervasive and genetically damaging radioactive fallout, they would cause unacceptable harm to civilians.

But while the nuclear-armed states are implementing policies based on unpredictability, nationalism and weakening of international institutions, the majority of the world’s states are preparing to finally outlaw nuclear weapons.

Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of Hiroshima, described the nuclear bombing as blinding the whole city with its flash, being flattened by a hurricane-like blast, and burned in the 4,000-degree Celsius heat. She said a bright summer morning turned to a dark twilight in seconds with smoke and dust rising from the mushroom cloud, and the dead and injured covering the ground, begging desperately for water, and receiving no medical care at all. The spreading firestorm and the foul stench of burnt flesh filled the air.

A single nuclear bomb detonated over a large city could kill millions of people and cause catastrophic and long-term damage to the environment. The use of tens or hundreds of nuclear bombs would be cataclysmic, severely disrupting the global climate and causing widespread famine.

Strikes of this kind would invariably violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law, yet, these weapons are still not explicitly and universally prohibited under international law. Nine states are known to possess them and many more continue to rely on them through military alliances.

The alarming evidence presented by physicians, physicists, climate scientists, human rights organisations, humanitarian agencies, and survivors of nuclear weapons attacks have been successful in changing the discourse, and opened space for greater engagement from civil society, international organisations, and states.

Because the humanitarian and environmental consequences of using nuclear weapons would be global and catastrophic, eliminating such dangers is the responsibility of all governments in accordance with their obligation to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.

The world is now facing a historic opportunity to prohibit nuclear weapons.

In October last year, a majority of the world’s states at the United Nations General Assembly agreed to start negotiations of a new legally binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, in line with other treaties that prohibit chemical and biological weapons, landmines and cluster munitions.

As we’ve seen with these weapons, an international prohibition has created a strong norm against their use and speed up their elimination.

The negotiations will start at the United Nations in New York on 27-31 March, and continue on 15 June-7 July, with the aim of concluding a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons.

Amnesty International, Oxfam and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) believe that it is time to negotiate a treaty that would prohibit the use, possession, production and transfer of nuclear weapons, given their indiscriminate nature. No state, including permanent members of the UN Security Council, should possess nuclear weapons.

This is the moment to stand up for international law, multilateralism and international institutions. All governments should seize this opportunity and participate actively in the negotiations of a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons in 2017.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Arms Race Fears Roused in Sweden by Saab’s Indiscriminate Campaigning

Sputnik – 27.03.2017

As the Swedish manufacturer Saab experiences growing problems trying to market its Gripen fighter jet, the company is forced to try and woo previously unbeknown markets. This, however, has attracted criticism from peace researchers, who claim the move contradicts Sweden’s long-lasting foreign policy goals.

A group of peace researchers from Uppsala University condemned Saab’s campaigning in Botswana, saying the move was in direct conflict with Sweden’s foreign policy goals. These are peace, human rights and poverty reduction, according to an opinion piece published by the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.

In 2016, a high-ranking Swedish delegation, led by Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, toured Botswana. The subsequent scandal involving ballooning costs diverted Swedes’ attention from more pressing issues, such as Sweden’s plans to market JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets to the African nation. According to peace researchers Johan Brosché, Kristine Höglund and Sebastian van Baalen, the deal is highly controversial, especially given the bribery scandals that followed a similar deal with South Africa.

Firstly, in Botswana, which has long been touted as an African success story in terms of equality, human rights and economic development, democracy has gradually eroded. The country’s government is hardly an eligible partner for Sweden, which is trying to emerge as a champion of human rights on the international arena. Botswana, according to Uppsala University researchers, is clearly heading in an authoritarian direction, with growing surveillance, reduced opportunities for freedom of expression and reprisals against anti-government views.

Secondly, a Saab deal would contradict Sweden’s goal of combating poverty, as Botswana is facing major economic problems. Over a fifth of its population of two million live in absolute poverty and subsist on less than two dollars a day, despite the country’s large diamond resources. The billions to be invested in fighter jets would undermine efforts to curb unemployment, and fight drought and corruption.

Third, the idea of Botswana acquiring a fleet of advanced fighter aircraft may trigger a regional arms race, with Namibia and other neighboring countries to follow suit, with detrimental consequences for everyone but the arms dealers. At present, Botswana is not faced with any direct external threat and it is unclear why huge sums must be invested in the acquisition of advanced fighter jets. Whereas the need to protect the country’s tourism industry, combat poaching and monitor the flow of refugees previously were indicated as reasons, none of these problems can be solved with advanced fighter jets.

The Swedish researchers concluded that the arms deal with Botswana would worsen the economic and democratic development in the country, undermine regional security and mar Sweden’s reputation in Southern Africa.

The Saab JAS 39 Gripen is a light single-engine multi-role fighter aircraft in the same class as Airbus’ Eurofighter Typhoon, the Rafale by Dassault and Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter.

Despite Saab’s ambitious hopes for the Gripen to “dominate the market,” the company’s bids were consequently rejected by Norway, Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands. The Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon are also regarded as favorites in Malaysia, where the government will decide on an aircraft fleet upgrade.

So far, Sweden remains the largest consumer of the Gripen, with an order of 60 new-generation Gripens placed by the Defense Ministry. Saab’s agreement with Brazil on 36 planes worth 40 billion SEK ($4.5bln) remains the company’s largest overseas success. Other Gripen consumers include South Africa and Thailand, while the Czech Republic continues to rent Gripens from Sweden.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Navy Prepares Decapitating Attack Against Russia

By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 27.03.2017

The US preemptive nuclear strike capability has significantly grown. The strategic nuclear forces modernization program has implemented new revolutionary technologies to vastly increase the targeting capability of the US submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) arsenal.

The Bulletin of American Scientists reports that as a result of improvements in the killing power of US SLBMs, they carry more than three times the number of warheads needed to destroy the entire fleet of Russian land-based missiles. Since only part of the W76 force would be needed to eliminate Russia’s silo-based ICBMs, the United States will be left with a substantial number of higher-yield warheads that could be used for other missions.

The increase in the lethality comes from the Mk4A «super-fuze» device that since 2009 has been incorporated into the Navy’s W76-1/Mk4A warhead as part of a decade-long life-extension program.

The super-fuze capability is now operational on all nuclear warheads deployed on the Navy’s Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. The new fuze has also been installed on British SLBMs.

It provides for an adjustable height-of-burst as it arrives. The fuze is designed to destroy fixed hard targets by detonating above and around a target in a much more effective way. Warheads that would otherwise overfly a target and land too far away will now, because of the new fuzing system, detonate above the target. Explosions that occur near and above the ground over a target can be lethal to it. This above-target area is known as a «lethal volume»; the detonation of a warhead of appropriate yield in this volume will result in the destruction of the target. The result of this fuzing scheme is a significant increase in the probability that a warhead will explode close enough to destroy the target even though the accuracy of the missile-warhead system has itself not improved. Thus, an enhanced fuze would allow the United States to reduce the number of warheads on its ballistic missile submarines, but increase the targeting effectiveness of the fleet.

It’s worth mentioning that in addition to hundreds of W76-1/Mk4A warheads with a 100kiloton warhead that have a very high probability of destroying fixed silos, Navy submarines also carry the 455kiloton W88 Mk-5 that can destroy extremely hard and deeply buried targets such as military command centers.

According to Hans Kristiansen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, «As a consequence, the US submarine force today is much more capable than it was previously against hardened targets such as Russian ICBM silos. A decade ago, only about 20 percent of US submarine warheads had hard-target kill capability; today they all do».

It should be noted that the US has always enjoyed significant advantage in sea-based nuclear forces. Together, the Ohio-class submarines carry approximately 60% of US strategic nuclear warheads. The Navy has been constantly upgrading its Trident missiles. Additionally, a new submarine, the SSBN(X), which will replace the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, is undergoing development and is expected to cost about $140 billion to develop, according to the Defense Department.

Under the circumstances, Russia has the right to invoke Article VIII of the New START treaty, which provides that in those cases in which one of the Parties determines that its actions may lead to an ambiguous situation, that Party is to take measures to ensure the viability and effectiveness of this Treaty and to enhance confidence, openness, and predictability concerning the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms. Such measures may include, among other things, providing information in advance on activities of that Party associated with deployment or increased readiness of strategic offensive arms to preclude the possibility of misinterpretation of its actions by the other Party. This information is to be provided through diplomatic or other channels.

The enhanced capability could be used only against land-based targets, leaving SSBNs immune, at least those who are on patrol. Train-based systems have a good chance to survive and strike back. The super fuze does not eliminate the capability to deliver a retaliatory strike. What really matters is the fact that the US does not view the strategic potential as a deterrent but rather as a means to deliver the first strike reducing the opponent’s capability to respond.

The background also matters. While blaming Russia for starting an arms race, the US beefs up its nuclear potential. The US Air Force is modernizing the Minuteman-III missiles, replacing and upgrading their rocket motors, guidance systems, and other components, so that they can remain in the force through 2030. The service released a new ICBM solicitation last July. It plans to build a new weapons system to replace the long-serving Minuteman under a program called the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). The US Defense Department plans to buy 642 GBSD missiles for roughly $66.4 million each to support a deployed force of 400 weapons and to budget at least $1.25 billion annually from 2036 to 2040. The goal is to deliver the first batch of new missiles by 2029.

In 2023, the USAF will receive the B61 Mod 12 guided, standoff nuclear gravity bomb to replace all existing gravity bombs in the arsenal. The weapon with earth-penetrating capability and selectable yield from 50 kilotons to 0.3 kilotons, is will be carried by both strategic and tactical stealth aircraft. The planned deployment foresees that others NATO members would use their aircraft as delivery means in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 that forbids non-nuclear states from receiving nuclear weapons.

In the late 2020s and through the 2030s the Air Force will begin receiving the first of 100 new B-21 strategic stealth bombers.

The Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) cruise missile program is to develop a weapon that can penetrate and survive integrated air defense systems and prosecute strategic targets. Both conventional and nuclear versions of the weapon are required to reach initial operational capability (IOC) before the retirement of their respective ALCM versions, around 2030. According to the plans, the LRSO will replace the Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) program with 1,000 to 1,100 cruise missiles, representing the US Air Force’s standoff nuclear delivery capability.

The US implements an ambitious program of putting weapons in space. It includes the concept of «Rods of God» – secret space weapons deployed on orbital kinetic weapon platform that could achieve a velocity of about 11 km/s (around 36,000 feet per second). The ground-based BMD systems, the X-37B spacecraft and Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) platforms could be repurposed into instruments of war in space.

The US goals have been strictly defined. According to White House spokesman Sean Spicer, that the president «was very clear on is that the United States will not yield its supremacy in this area to anybody. That’s what he made very clear in there. And that if other countries have nuclear capabilities, it will always be the United States that has the supremacy and commitment to this».

President Donald Trump is critical toward the New START Treaty, calling it «a one-sided deal. «Just another bad deal that the country made, whether it’s START, whether it’s the Iran deal … We’re going to start making good deals», he stated.

Expanding the US arsenal with new or additional nuclear weapons would cost billions at the time the national debt is nearing $20 trillion, while the New START allows the United States to keep enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet several times over. Without the New START and other arms control agreements, like the INF Treaty, the US America will be compelled to waste enormous military and financial resources on nuclear arms race.

The US is doing its best to gain supremacy in nuclear weapons. This policy may lead to total disintegration of the existing framework of treaties and regimes followed by resumption of arms race with dire consequences for the US itself.

With all the efforts on the way, there is little doubt about the Russia’s ability to survive the first nuclear strike and respond on kind.

Without violating the New START, the upgrade of the W76 warheads undermines future efforts to negotiate a New START treaty.

As history teaches, an arms race will never make anybody victorious. Nobody gains, everybody loses. It took a series of risky crises, like the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and several cycles of an extremely costly arms race to realize how dangerous the nuclear threat is. The history of arms control reveals the wisdom of Soviet (Russian) and US leaders finding ways to cap their arsenals even in the heat of the Cold War. Now all the efforts applied in the past may go down the drain as the US is going back to the once tried policy of seeking nuclear dominance. Now it starts again at the time the whole system of arms control is on the brink of collapse. The tide must be turned. Nuclear arms control treaties should have become a top priority of the bilateral relationship.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

US Democrats portraying Russia’s alleged interference as act of war

Press TV – March 27, 2017

Democratic lawmakers are stepping up the United States’ anti-Russia rhetoric over Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, which yielded President Donald Trump.

In a declassified report released in January, the US intelligence community concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin helped the New York billionaire win the White House, an allegation dismissed both by Moscow and Trump.

The lawmakers, whose candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost the battle in the November 8, 2016 vote, are boosting the narrative in the wake of a statement by FBI Director James Comey in regard to an ongoing investigation into Trump-Russia ties.

Comey’s appearance before the House Intelligence Committee for a hearing on Monday yielded the first public confirmation that a probe was underway to detect possible collusion between Trump and Russia.

“I think this attack that we’ve experienced is a form of war, a form of war on our fundamental democratic principles,” Democratic House Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman (pictured above) said during a hearing this week at the House Homeland Security Committee.

She further censured Trump for his “borderline dismissive attitude” in the wake of Russia’s alleged cyberattacks.

During Comey’s hearing, two other Democrats also contributed to the hawkish narrative.

California Democrat, Representative Jackie Speier, called Russia’s alleged interference an act of war, calling for action.

“I actually think that their engagement was an act of war, an act of hybrid warfare, and I think that’s why the American people should be concerned about it,” Speier said.

Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell (pictured above) also called for bipartisan opposition against what he described as “a foreign adversary.”

“This past election, our country was attacked. We were attacked by Russia,” Swalwell said. “I see this as an opportunity for everyone on this committee, Republicans and Democrats, to not look in the rear view window but to look forward and do everything we can to make sure that our country never again allows a foreign adversary to attack us.”

Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, has also described Russia’s alleged electoral interference as the United States’ “political Pearl Harbor.”

According to a Sunday report by The Hill, the Democratic Party is attempting to portray President Trump as “weak on Russia” while exaggerating the “damage done by Moscow.”

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

French presidential candidate Le Pen predicts death of EU

Press TV – March 26, 2017

France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen says the European Union will “die” and she vows to save France from globalization.

During a Sunday campaign rally in Lille, Le Pen said that the upcoming elections will be the next stage in a global popular rebellion.

“The European Union will die because the people do not want it anymore … arrogant and hegemonic empires are destined to perish,” she added.

She stressed that the time has arrived to overcome globalists, and added that her main rivals in the French presidential elections, conservative Francois Fillon and centrist Emmanuel Macron, were both guilty of treason because of their pro-EU and pro-market stances.

Le Pen added that she would replace the EU with a different Europe which she said would be called “the Europe of the people.”

“It must be done in a rational, well-prepared way,” she said in interview with Le Parisien daily. “I don’t want chaos. Within the negotiation calendar I want to carry out … the euro would be the last step because I want to wait for the outcome of elections in Germany in the autumn before renegotiating it,” she added.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

McCain: ‘New World Order Under Enormous Strain’ Without US, EU Leadership

Sputnik – 27.03.2017

US Senator John McCain said on Friday that the world desperately needs the US and Europe to unite once more to preserve globalism.

The current chairman of the armed services committee in the US Senate said that Washington should restore cooperation with the EU — long one of America’s “most important alliances.”

The remarks came at the Brussels Forum, a conference organized by the transatlantic think tank German Marshall Fund. The globalist ideologue, who once was a presidential candidate for the Republican Party, has once again put himself in direct opposition to President Trump by saying that it is essential for the allies to develop more connectivity and cooperation.

“I trust the EU,” he said, elaborating that EU and NATO were “the best two sums in history” and have maintained global peace for the last 70 years.

“We need to rely on NATO and have a NATO that adjusts to new challenges.”

Earlier in January the new US President Donald Trump complimented the UK on its “smart” decision to withdraw from the EU and dubbed NATO an “obsolete” coalition.

McCain said he supported Trump’s calls on Europe to increase defense spending for NATO, but added that Americans should “also appreciate the fact that over 1,000 young [European] people have given their lives in Afghanistan or Iraq.”

“I don’t know what price tag you put on that,” he said. “That’s quite a contribution I would say, if you ask their mothers.”

McCain hesitated to prejudge Trump’s presidency based on his first months in office but said that he should fill intelligence gaps and address what the Senator believes was Russia’s attempts to influence the outcome of the US election in November.

McCain also accused Russia of trying to influence approaching elections in France and Germany, and the president of Russia Vladimir Putin in particular in trying to restore the Russian empire, despite providing no evidence for those allegations.

March 27, 2017 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment