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Washington Freezes Open Sky Treaty With Moscow in New Defense Bill

Sputnik – 13.08.2018

US President Donald Trump signed the $716 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2019 at Fort Drum, New York on Monday.

The bill funds the Department of Defense as well as funding to accelerate US efforts to field a conventional prompt strike capability before 2022, $6.3 billion for the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), and will obligate Defense Secretary James Mattis to submit a plan to Congress that would stop Turkey from getting F-35 aircraft if it purchases the Russian S-400 air defense system.

“An assessment of the potential purchase by the Government of the Republic of Turkey of the S-400 air and missile defense system from the Russian Federation and the potential effects of such purchase on the United States-Turkey bilateral relationship, including an assessment of impacts on other United States weapon systems and platforms operated jointly with the Republic of Turkey,” the legislation said.

The measure also includes $250 million in lethal defensive items for Ukraine.

Moreover, according to the NDAA, Trump must submit a report to the US Congress by January 2019 regarding whether Russia is in breach of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

“Not later than January 15, 2019, the President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a determination whether — (1) the Russian federation is in material breach of its obligations under the INF Treaty; and (2) the prohibitions set forth in Article VI of the INF Treaty remain binding on the United States as a matter of United States law,” the NDAA said.

In addition, the United States will discuss with Russia if the latter’s new strategic weapon systems are in compliance with the New Strategic Arms Reduction (START) Treaty.

“Not later than December 31, 2018, the President shall… submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report as to whether… the President has raised the issue of covered Russian systems in the appropriate fora with the Russian Federation under Article V of the New START Treaty or otherwise,” the legislation said.

The NDAA also notes that the Russian systems of concern include the heavy intercontinental missile system Sarmat, the air-launched nuclear-powered cruise missile X-101, the unmanned underwater vehicle the US government calls “Status 6,” and the long-distance guided flight hypersonic glide vehicle Avangard.

Trump must report if Russia will agree to declare the covered systems as strategic offensive arms or otherwise pursuant to the New START Treaty, the legislation said.

The White House will notify the appropriate congressional committees as to whether the position of Russia threatens the viability of the New START Treaty or requires appropriate US political, economic or military responses, the legislation also said.

Moreover, the 2019 US National Defense Authorization Act revealed that Trump must present to Congress within 90 days a report on persons involved in transactions with Russia’s intelligence or military sectors.

“Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report that describes those persons that the President has determined under section 231 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act [CAATSA]… have knowingly engaged, on or after August 2, 2017, in a significant transaction with a person that is part of, or operates for or on behalf of, the defense or intelligence sectors of the Government of the Russian Federation, the NDAA showed on Monday.

The NDAA also requires the US President to update such a report every 90 days following the first submission for the next five years.

Meanwhile, the bill also reinforces US partnership with Israel and authorizes co-production of missile defense systems as well as enhances US support for European partners against Russia by funding the European Deterrence Initiative.

Particularly, the Department of Defense must submit a report to Congress by next March on the feasibility of permanent deployment of US troops in Poland.

“Not later than March 1, 2019, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the feasibility and advisability of permanently stationing United States forces in the Republic of Poland,” the document said.

“The report required by subsection (a) shall include the following: An assessment of the types of permanently stationed United States forces in Poland required to deter aggression by the Russian Federation and execute Department of Defense contingency plans, including combat enabler units in capability areas such as (A) combat engineering; (B) logistics and sustainment; (C) warfighting headquarters elements; (D) long-range fires; (E) air and missile defense; (F) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and (G) electronic warfare,” the NDAA said.

The NDAA also explained that an assessment of the permanent deployment feasibility should include an evaluation whether a US permanent deployment would increase deterrence against Russian as well as an assessment of Russia’s possible response.

In addition, the report should consist of an “assessment of the international political considerations of permanently stationing such a brigade combat team in Poland, including within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” the NDAA said.

Notably, the United States will also accelerate its hypersonic missile defense program and provide a report within 90 days to congressional defense committees.

“Subject to the availability of appropriations, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) shall accelerate the hypersonic missile defense program of the Missile Defense Agency,” the document said.

The NDAA requires head of the Missile Defense Agency to “deploy such program in conjunction with a persistent space-based missile defense sensor program.”

NDAA provides 90 days for Missile Defense Agency to submit a report on the hypersonic missile defense program to the US Senate and House of Representatives defense committees.

The report, which may include classified annex along with unclassified content, should provide an estimate of the cost, technical requirements and acquisition plan, the NDAA said.

August 13, 2018 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Judgment of Jeremy Corbyn

By Martin SIEFF | Strategic Culture Foundation | 13.08.2018

For a man who is assailed and accused of lacking judgment even more than US President Donald Trump, it’s amazing how often British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has already been proven courageously and presciently right.

In 1990, Corbyn opposed the most powerful and successful peace time prime minster of the 20th century, Margaret Thatcher when she tried to impose a so-called poll tax on the population of the UK. His judgment was vindicated: Thatcher’s own party rose up and threw her out of office.

At the beginning of the 21st century Corbyn was pilloried throughout the UK media for his outspoken opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s support for the US invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Blair was prime minister for a full decade and won three landslide general elections, yet today he is discredited and politically virtually a recluse. Corbyn‘s opposition to both wars looks wise, as well as principled and courageous.

Corbyn’s support for the revolutionary Irish Republican movement was so strong that the UK security service MI5 monitored him for two decades listing him as a potential “subversive” who might undermine parliamentary democracy. On the contrary, in the late 1990s, Prime Minister Blair engaged the Irish Republican Army and its political wing Sinn Fein in a peace process that has led to a lasting peace in Ireland. Corbyn, who supported strongly the 1998 Good Friday Agreement proved once again to be ahead of his time.

Corbyn has never been afraid of taking ferociously unpopular positions. In 2015, after shocking Islamic State terror attacks in Paris he advocated the urgent need for a political settlement to end the Syrian Civil War. His advice was ignored by every major Western government. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions more turned into destitute refugees flooding into the European Union since then.

Corbyn was also ahead of his time in seeking to engage Iran constructively. He hosted a call-in show on an Iranian TV channel for three years from 2009 to 2012 even though he knew that at the time such activities would seem to rule him out from ever being a serious contender to lead the Labour Party. But in 2015, the Conservative government of the UK, along with those of the United States, France and Germany joined in signing a far reaching nuclear agreement with Tehran.

Corbyn’s economic positions have long been despised by the Western liberal intellectual elites who have been spared the price of having their livelihoods destroyed by such policies. He strongly advocates using the power of government to encourage the rebuilding of major national industries and manufacturing power. These views are hardly radical, Robert Skidelsky, one of the most influential UK economists of the past generation has given significant support to Corbyn’s proposal of a National Investment Bank. These policies are neither Marxist nor revolutionary. But they can certainly be described as Social Democratic and humane.

Corbyn is no unprincipled careerist either. In voting his convictions and his conscience, he puts 99 percent of the UK parliamentarians of his generation to shame. Between 1997 and 2010, during the Labour governments of Blair and Gordon Brown, Corbyn voted most often against the official party line than any other member of parliament (MP) – a total of 428 times and an astonishing figure. In 2005 he was labeled the second most rebellious Labour MP of all time when his party ran the country.

One of the few areas Corbyn was clearly ambiguous on was the question of whether the UK should remain in the 28-nation European Union or leave it, and even here his ambivalence appeared honestly come by and reflected the genuine divisions in his country. Corbyn recognized the enormous differences between both extremes that have been tearing the British public apart on the EU issue.

Ironically, only Donald Trump in the United States – a figure for whom Corbyn certainly has no personal or policy sympathy whatsoever – is comparable to the degree to which he has defied the Conventional Wisdoms of the political media establishment yet done impressively well in fighting elections that were supposed to be impossible.

In fact, the record and pattern of Corbyn’s career has been very clear: His real “crime”- which he has repeated consistently – is to be years, often decades, ahead of Conventional Wisdom.

In routine, tranquil times, people like Corbyn are usually seen as troublemakers or even as dangerous lunatics. But at times of crisis when the wisdom of mediocrities is exposed as worthless, such figures prove vital to national survival.

When told that General James Wolfe, the UK’s one brilliant general of the mid-18th century, was believed to be insane, King George II replied “Mad is he? Then I wish he’d bite some of my other generals!”

The UK political establishment has sneered at Jeremy Corbyn’s bark. Perhaps it is time they need to experience his bite.

August 13, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Caspian Sea Convention Bans Military Presence of Non-Littoral States in Region

RT | August 12, 2018

Vladimir Putin attended the Caspian Sea summit in Kazakhstan which he said has “milestone” significance. There five littoral powers finally made a breakthrough on trade, security and environment following 20 years of talks.

This year’s meeting has been “an extraordinary, milestone event,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told his counterparts in Kazakhstan’s port city of Aktau, where the summit took place. Leaders of the Caspian Five came there to seal a convention on the legal status of the sea washing shores of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.

“It is crucial that the convention governs … maritime shipping and fishing, sets out military cooperation among [Caspian] nations and enshrines our states’ exclusive rights and responsibilities over the sea’s future,” Putin said. He added the landmark accord also limits military presence in the Caspian Sea to the five littoral countries.

From now on, no country from outside the region will be allowed to deploy troops or establish military bases on the Caspian shores. The five states themselves will also decide on how to deal with issues currently affecting the Caspian Sea region, such drugs and terrorism.

“Hotspots, including Middle East and Afghanistan, aren’t far away from the Caspian Sea,” the President stated. “Therefore, the very interests of our peoples require our close cooperation.”

The summit may give boost to digitalization of commerce, mutual trade and logistics, Putin suggested. “Transportation is one of key factors of sustainable growth and cooperation of our countries,” he argued. Additionally, the five states will establish the Caspian Economic Forum “to develop ties between our countries’ businesses,” Putin told.

The Caspian Sea is home to some 48 billion barrels of oil and 292 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in proven offshore reserves. A range of important pipelines are going through the Caspian Sea, connecting Central Asia and Caucasus with the Mediterranean.

August 12, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia, China nearing alliance conditions

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | August 10, 2018

The Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Yang Jiechi is visiting Moscow on August 14-17 at the invitation of the secretary of the Russian national security council, Nikolai Patrushev to participate in the 14th round of Russian-Chinese consultations on strategic stability. The forthcoming event in Moscow will be closely watched since the two countries are fast nearing a situation of confronting a common ‘enemy’. This is a new experience for both since the halcyon days of the Sino-Soviet alliance in the 1950s.

The mainstream opinion has been that the Sino-Russian comprehensive partnership and cooperation is more the stuff of geopolitical signaling than a strategic alliance. The Western opinion has also been notably skeptical whether such partnership between Russia and China will be sustainable over time due to the growing asymmetry in the two countries’ comprehensive national power. Both premises may be getting outdated by the sheer force of developments.

Curiously, another body of opinion is steadily forming lately whether Russia and China could be actually on the verge of reaching alliance conditions in the rapidly changing global situation characterized by growing tensions in their respective relations with the United States. An essay in the Financial Times this week titled ‘China and Russia’s dangerous liaison’ authored by the daily’s Asia editor (who used to be the Beijing bureau chief previously), Jamil Anderlini, forcefully makes this point.

The writer argues that it is an intelligence blunder of historic proportions that the West is making by “dismissing the anti-western, anti-US alliance that is now forming between Moscow and Beijing.” Anderlini writes:

  • This idea that Russia and China can never really be friends is just as wrong and dangerous as the cold war dogma that portrayed global communism as an unshakeable monolith… Their tightening embrace is as much about antipathy towards the US and the US-dominated global order as their rapidly growing common interests… Thanks to its continued rise and obvious ambition to supplant the US, China is a far bigger long-term challenge for America than Russia. No less a figure than Henry Kissinger – the architect of that reconciliation with China in 1972 – has reportedly counselled Donald Trump to pursue a “reverse Nixon-China strategy” by seeking to befriend Moscow and isolate Beijing.

However, the chances of a “reverse Nixon-China strategy” by the US are virtually zero. Even if President Trump is inclined in that direction, the ‘Deep State’ simply won’t allow him a free hand. It is after much effort that NATO has cast Russia in an ‘enemy’ image and anchored a whole new purposive agenda on that platform. Unshackling it can lead to the unraveling of the western alliance system itself. The New York Times today reported that the Washington establishment connived with the US’ NATO allies to present a fait accompli at the recent summit meeting of the alliance in Brussels.

In fact, the Trump administration has just announced plans to create a new Space Force as the sixth branch of its military to prepare for “the next battlefield” to counter Russia and China, which are “aggressively” working to develop anti-satellite capabilities. Announcing this at the Pentagon on August 9, US Vice-President Mike Pence said,

  • China and Russia have been conducting highly sophisticated on-orbit activities that could enable them to maneuver their satellites into close proximity of ours, posing unprecedented new dangers to our space systems… We must have American dominance in space, and so we will.

President Trump promptly tweeted, “Space Force all the way!” And this comes soon after the announcement by Washington that it would impose extensive new sanctions against Moscow by August 22, including bans on a wide range of exports, by the end of the month as punishment for the alleged nerve agent attack on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Britain in March. The State Department has further threatened another wave of sanctions in 3 months’ time, including a lowering of the diplomatic relations with Russia. Without doubt, within a month of the Helsinki summit, US-Russia relations are in free fall once again.

Moscow has strongly reacted. PM Dmitry Medvedev warned on Friday that tightening up of economic sanctions against Russia may be treated as a declaration of economic war, to which Russia will respond with all economic, political and other means possible.

Similarly, China and the US are embroiled in an escalating trade war. On Wednesday, Beijing unveiled a list of US$16 billion worth of American goods it plans to hit with tariffs. This is response to Washington’s announcement the previous day that it would impose 25 per cent tariffs on an equivalent value of Chinese exports. An editorial in the government-owned China Daily on Thursday flagged that “the possibility that the two countries are heading for a prolonged trade conflict has to be faced.”

Clearly, a closer coordination between Russia and China in a concerted strategy to push back at the US will be a key topic at the consultations in Moscow next week. The point is, the quasi-alliance between Russia and China cannot be belittled as ‘geopolitical signaling’ anymore. Just short of a formal military alliance, the two countries are intensifying their cooperation and coordination. In an unusual gesture, Moscow announced well in advance that President Vladimir Putin will be receiving Yang, signaling the high importance that the Kremlin attaches to the strategic consultations with China.

The bottom line is, despite the attempts by American analysts to create dissension in the Sino-Russian relations – by propagating that China poses demographic threat to the Russian Far East; that China is conspiring to militarily seize the Siberian Lebensraum; that China is overshadowing Russia in the Central Asian region, etc. –the attraction of China is only increasing in Moscow’s strategic calculus, thanks to China’s formidable economic firepower (with its nominal GDP set to overtake the Eurozone’s by the end of this year) and China’s rapidly developing technological sophistication.

Of course, Moscow realizes that no significant improvement in the Russian-American relations can be expected either so long as Trump remains in power. To be sure, new directions of Russia-China cooperation will be identified at the talks in Moscow. Read a commentary, here, by a leading Chinese pundit who envisions the Northern Sea Route (which is a key template of Moscow’s Arctic strategies) as an “important component” of China’s Belt and Road initiative, and could be considered as “part of an ambitious strategy to change China’s land and sea connections to Europe and the world.”

August 11, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

India’s ‘Tibet card’ is a bitter legacy

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | August 9, 2018

A sensational report on Tuesday by the Japanese publication Nikkei that Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed a Faustian deal on Tibet with Chinese President Xi Jinping stretches credulity. The report citing Indian sources claimed that Modi government is dumping the Tibetan issue in anticipation of the death of the Dalai Lama as quid pro quo by Beijing on a partial border settlement.

It is a curious report, to say the least. First, one would like to think that Modi being a staunch Hindu, will not negotiate over the death of someone who is still alive. Period. Second, Xi has a stated position, repeated ad nauseum, that China will never make concessions on its territories, and there is no reason to doubt the Chinese leader’s resolve. Third, even if such a diabolical exchange had taken place at Wuhan on an explosive topic (which had contributed to the 1962 conflict), it cannot possibly become bazaar gossip. India is not a banana republic.

So, why has such an attempt been made to scandalize Modi as someone raring to dump the ‘Tibetan cause’? One reason could be that the Japanese publication, which has a record of Sinophobia, simply vandalized the Wuhan summit in a continuing attempt to stall any improvement in India-China relations. Quite possibly, motivated Indians put the publication onto it.

For, it is no secret that Modi’s initiative to improve relations with China lacks acceptability within sections of our so-called ‘strategic community’ –  think tankers, media persons, ‘China experts’ and so on – who for reasons of their own appear to have convinced themselves that Sino-Indian geopolitical rivalry must inexorably run its course until such time as Delhi can negotiate with Beijing from a position of strength.

Having said that, the fact remains that there has been a flurry of media reports lately on Tibet. They have focused attention on the tumultuous life and times of the Karmapa Lama. In particular, following his recent remarks about returning to India after a yearlong sojourn in the United States, there is an animated discussion going on over this topic.

It appears that the Indian security establishment, which viewed him as a ‘Chinese spy’ and had kept him under close surveillance for almost two decades in a remote monastery in Dharamsala, has had a profound rethink in the most recent weeks and is now beseeching him to come back to India. It seems that the Indian agencies have made a seductive offer of prime land (5-acre sprawling estate) in Delhi to set up the Karmapa’s Hqs on a grand scale.

Many of these reports are so obviously based on ‘spin’ by intelligence operatives themselves. Now, spooks are creators perfectly capable of constructing a world that works on the same emotional basis as successful soap operas. So, what is the soap opera here about?

Put differently: How come the government has had a change of heart with regard to 32-year old Karmapa in the downstream of the Wuhan summit in end-April?

More to the point, Karmapa has been living in America for over a year and it is inconceivable that the CIA never got to know about his presence on a lavish 150-acre estate in the Wharton State Forest Area in New Jersey that has been ‘gifted’ to him — purportedly by a Taiwanese couple. In fact, his remarks about his intention to return to India were transmitted via Radio Free Asia, which is known to be a US intelligence outfit.

To be sure, the whole sordid soap opera stinks to the heavens. As the Nikkei report on Tuesday hints, there are all sorts of interest groups (within and outside India), who want the Trans-Himalayan gravy train to Lhasa to keep running. But isn’t it in India’s long-term interests that Tibet-related issues do not remain a point of discord in the Sino-Indian relationship?

It is Modi’s call, finally. After all, this is a bitter legacy which is not his creation and, therefore, he is best placed than any of his predecessors to put a full stop to the delusional belief that we are holding a ‘Tibet card’ with a unique potential to leverage Chinese policies toward India. Read the essay by Ambassador Stobdan, one of our best experts on the politics of Tibetan Buddhism – The Flight of the Karmapa is Further Proof That India Has No Tibet Card, here.

August 9, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

The knife in Iran’s back: Trump opens door to chaos

By Vijay Prashad | Asia Times | August 9, 2018

On Tuesday night, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani went on television to talk about the reinstatement of sanctions by the United States against his country. He prepared the country for more privations as a result of the sanctions. Responding to US President Donald Trump’s offer of a meeting, Rouhani said pointedly, “If you stab someone with a knife and then say you want to talk, the first thing you have to do is to remove the knife.”

It is clear to everyone outside the US government that Iran has honored its side of the 2015 nuclear deal that it made with the governments of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the US, the UK, France, China and Russia) as well as the European Union. In fact, quite starkly, EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said, “We are encouraging small and medium enterprises in particular to increase business with and in Iran as part of something that for us is a security priority.”

In other words, Mogherini is asking companies to resist Trump’s policy direction. What she is saying, and what Rouhani said, is that it is the United States that has violated the nuclear deal, and so no one needs to honor the US sanctions that have been reinstated.

Mogherini pointed to “small and medium enterprises” because these would not be the kind of multinational corporations with interests in the United States. But it is more than small and medium-sized enterprises that are going to challenge the US sanctions. China, Russia and Turkey have already indicated that they will not buckle under US pressure.

China

“China’s lawful rights should be protected,” said the Chinese government. China has no incentive to follow the new US position.

First, China imports about US$15 billion worth of oil from Iran each year and expects to increase its purchases next year. State energy companies such as China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinopec have invested billions of dollars in Iran.

CNPC and Sinopec also have shares in Iran’s major oil and gas fields – CNPC has a 30% stake in the South Pars gas field and has investments in the North Azadegan oilfield, while Sinopec has invested $2 billion in the Yadavan oilfield.

China’s Export-Import Bank, meanwhile, has financed many large projects in Iran, including the electrification of the Tehran-Mashhad railway. Other Chinese investment projects include the Tehran metro and the Tehran-Isfahan train. These projects are worth tens of billions of dollars.

Second, China is in the midst of a nasty trade war with the United States. In late August, Trump’s government slapped 25% tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese imports into the United States. China responded with its own tariffs, with its Commerce Ministry saying that the US was “once again putting domestic law over international law,” which is a “very unreasonable practice.”

The “once again” is important. China is seized by the unfairness of the reinstatement of sanctions on Iran, not only for its own economic reasons but also because it sees this as a violation of international agreements and a threat to Iranian sovereignty – two principles that China takes very seriously.

Sinopec, knee-deep in Iran’s oil sector, has now said that it would delay buying US oil for September. Iran has now been drawn into the US “trade war” (on which, read more here).

The Chinese have been quite strong in their position. The Global Times, a Chinese government paper, wrote in an editorial, “China is prepared for protracted war. In the future, the US economy will depend more on the Chinese market than the other way around.” This fortitude is going to spill over into China’s defense of Iran’s economy.

Russia

Russia and Iran do not share the kind of economic linkages that Iran has with China. After the 2015 sanctions deal, Iran did not turn to Russian oil and gas companies for investment. It went to France’s Total – which signed a $5 billion deal. Russia and Iran did sign various massive energy deals ($20 billion in 2014), but these did not seem to go anywhere.

Russia’s Gazprom and Lukoil have toyed with entry to Iran. In May, Lukoil directly said that it would be hesitant to enter Iran because of the proposed US reinstatement of sanctions. Lukoil’s hesitancy came alongside that of European companies such as Peugeot, Siemens and even Total, which decided to hold off on expansion or cut ties with Iran. Daimler has now officially halted any work in Iran.

It was a surprise this year when the Iranian Dana Energy company signed a deal with the Russian Zarubezhneft company to develop the Aban and West Paydar oilfields. The contract is for $740 million, which in the oil and gas business is significant but not eye-opening.

In July, senior Iranian politician Ali Akbar Velayati met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. He left the meeting saying, “Russia is ready to invest $50 billion Iran’s oil and gas sectors.” Velayati specifically mentioned Rosneft and Gazprom as potential investors – “up to $10 billion,” he said.

When Putin was in Tehran last November, Russian companies signed preliminary deals worth $30 billion. Whether these deals will go forward is not clear. But after Trump’s reinstatement of sanctions, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it would “take appropriate measures on a national level to protect trade and economic cooperation with Iran.” In other words, it would see that trade ties were not broken.

Turkey

Both Iran and Turkey face great economic challenges. Neither can afford to break ties. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that his government will only honor international agreements, and that the US reinstatement of sanctions is not part of an international framework. Turkey, therefore, will continue to trade with Iran.

Iranian oil and gas are crucial for Turkey, whose refineries are calibrated to Iran’s oil and would not be able to adjust easily and cheaply to imports from Saudi Arabia. Almost half of Turkey’s oil comes from Iran.

Turkish-US relations are at a low. Conflict over the detention of an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, has led to the US sanctioning two Turkish cabinet ministers, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu. Gul is a leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), while Soylu came to the party at the personal invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. These are not men to be intimidated by US pressure.

A US mission led by Marshall Billingslea, assistant secretary of the US Treasury, went to Turkey to persuade the government to join the US sanctions. Meanwhile, the US has begun to put pressure on Turkey’s Halkbank, one of whose senior officials was found guilty of violation of the US sanctions on Iran by a court in the United States this year. This kind of pressure is not sitting well with the Turkish government.

Inside Iran

Pressure is mounting inside Iran. Protests have begun across the country, a reflection of the distress felt by the population as the country’s currency, the rial, slides and as fears of inflation mount.

Last week, the Iranian government fired the head of the central bank, Valiollah Seif, and replaced him with Abdolnasser Hemati. It reversed the foreign-exchange rules, including the failed attempt to fix the value of the rial that was put in place in April.

Hemati had been the head of Iran’s state insurance firm and before that of Sina Bank and Bank Melli. He is highly trusted by the government, which had already appointed him as ambassador to China before hastily rescinding that offer and moving him to the central bank. Whether Hemati will be able to balance the stress inside the Iranian economy is yet to be seen. Faith in the currency will need to be strengthened.

As part of that, Iran’s government has cracked down harshly against financial fraud, particularly scandals over foreign exchange. The man who signed the 2015 nuclear deal, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, had to watch as his nephew Ahmad Araghchi, the central bank’s vice-governor in charge of foreign exchange, was arrested along with five other people as part of an inquiry over fraud. The message: No one, not even the Araghchi family, is immune from the long arm of the law.

Trump’s belligerence, the refusal of key countries to abide by Trump’s sanctions (including the European Union, but mainly Russia and China), as well as the internal pressure in Iran could very likely create the conditions for a military clash in the waters around Iran. This is a very dangerous situation. Sober minds need to push against the reinstatement of these sanctions – which the Iranians see as economic warfare – as well as escalation into military war.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

August 9, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Peter Van Buren: Twitter Suspends Me Forever

By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | August 7, 2018

Some readers are aware I have been permanently suspended from Twitter as @wemeantwell.

This followed exchanges with several mainstream journalists over their support for America’s wars and unwillingness to challenge the lies of government. After two days of silence, Twitter sent me an auto-response saying what I wrote “harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence someone else’s voice.”

I don’t think I did any of that, and I wish you didn’t have to accept my word on it. I wish instead you could read what I wrote and decide for yourself. But Twitter won’t allow that. Twitter says you cannot read and make up your own mind. They have in fact eliminated all the things I have ever written there over seven years, disappeared me down the Memory Hole. That’s what censorship does; it takes the power to decide what is right and wrong away from you and gives it to someone else.

Hate what I write, hate me, block me, don’t buy my books, but please don’t celebrate handing over those choices to some company.

I lost my career at the State Department because I spoke out as a whistleblower against the Iraq War. I’ve now been silenced, again, for speaking, this time by a corporation. I am living in the America I always feared.

UPDATE: I’ve made a mistake. I was wrong to criticize the government, wrong to criticize journalists, wrong to oppose war. In fact, after much reflection, I have come to understand that I Love Big Brother.

August 8, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

NATO fighter jet ‘accidentally’ fires live missile near Russian border

RT | August 7, 2018

Spanish fighter jets taking part in a NATO Air policing mission over Estonia have been temporarily suspended from completing their duties, after one of the pilots erroneously fired an armed missile during a training flight.

A group of two Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon 2000 jets and two French Mirage 2000 jets were taking part in a training exercise over southwestern Estonia on Tuesday when one of the Spanish planes accidentally launched an air-to-air missile, the Spanish Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that the projectile “did not hit any aircraft.”

All the jets then safely returned to their Saiuliai air base in Lithuania, the ministry said, adding that it has opened an investigation into the incident. Meanwhile, the Estonian authorities decided to ban the Spanish aircraft from taking part in the air policing missions over its territory for a while.

“I have ordered a suspension of all military sorties [by the Spanish jets] until the situation is resolved,” the Estonian Defense Minister Juri Luik said, as cited by the national ERR broadcaster. He added that “the NATO air mission will continue, though.” ERR reports that the Portuguese Air Force will take Spain’s place as part of the mission for the time being.

“The most important thing is to ensure safety and find out what happened, together with our allies,” Luik said, commenting on his decision. The missile fired by the jet should have self-destructed but apparently failed to do so.

The projectile in question is an AMRAAM-type air-to-air missile with a firing range of 100 kilometers that carries a warhead fitted with explosives of up to 10 kilograms. It was last located some 40 kilometers north of Estonia’s city of Tartu, where it might have landed on the ground, according to Estonian media.

The Estonian Air Force launched a search operation on Tuesday evening. The authorities also asked the locals to be wary and notify the military or the emergency services in case they find the missile or its parts.

The Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas called the incident “horrible” and “regrettable.” However, he nevertheless praised the NATO mission as a “very important and necessary part of ensuring Estonia’s security.”

August 7, 2018 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Are Globalists Plotting a Counter-Revolution?

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • August 7, 2018

On meeting with the EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker last month, Donald Trump tweeted: “Both the U.S. and the E.U. drop all Tariffs, Barriers and Subsidies! That would finally be Free Market and Fair Trade.”

Did Larry Kudlow somehow get access to Trump’s phone?

We know not. But, on hearing this, Steve Forbes, Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer broke into the “Hallelujah” chorus of Handel’s “Messiah.”

“Amen,” they thundered in The New York Times.

Trump should declare “total trade disarmament” to be national policy and make free trade his “legacy” to America. Such a proclamation, they wrote, would assure Trump the “moral high ground” in the global debate and transform him from “evil disrupter of international commerce to potential savior.”

For free trade is always and ever a “win-win for trading partners.”

To read the Times op-ed is to appreciate that what we are dealing with here is an ideology, a political religion, a creed, a cult.

For consider the fruits of free trade policy during the last 25 years: the frozen wages of U.S. workers, $12 trillion in U.S. trade deficits, 55,000 factories lost, 6 million manufacturing jobs gone, China surpassing the U.S in manufacturing, all causing a backlash that pushed a political novice to the Republican nomination and into the presidency.

To maintain a belief in the superiority of free trade to economic patriotism, in the face of such results, is to recognize that this belief system is impervious to contradictory proof.

Still, the enduring enthusiasm of free trade zealots is not the only sign that GOP globalists, having learned nothing and forgotten nothing, are looking to a post-Trump era to resurrect their repudiated dogmas.

In USA Today, Jeffrey Miron, director of economic studies at the libertarian flagship think tank Cato Institute, wrote last week:

“The solution to America’s immigrant problems is open borders. … Open borders means no walls, fences, screenings at airports, ICE … deportations, detention centers or immigration courts.”

And what would happen after we declare open borders?

“Immigrants will not flood into America. … Crime will not skyrocket. … Even if values and culture change, so what? … Who says America’s current values — some of them deeply evil — are the right ones?”

Bottom line for Cato’s Miron: If we throw open America’s borders and invite the world to come in and to remake who we are as a nation, “Think about the money we could save and make.”

This is truly economics uber alles, economy before country.

Other open borders and free trade true believers have begun speaking out. Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, a megadonor to the GOP, has just lashed out at Trump as “divisive” and denounced the “rise in protectionism.”

Nations, organizations and individuals, said Koch, “are doing whatever they can to close themselves off from the new, hold onto the past and prevent change.”

He added, “This is a natural tendency, but it is a destructive one.”

In a pair of tweets, Trump fired back:

“The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas. I made them richer.

“Their network is highly overrated, I have beaten them at every turn. They want to protect their companies outside the U.S. from being taxed, I’m for America First & the American Worker — a puppet for no one. Two nice guys with bad ideas. Make America Great Again!”

The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, are threatening to have their network, Americans for Prosperity, withhold funding from GOP candidates who echo Trump on immigration and trade.

The open borders, free trade ideology of the Kochs, the Cato Institute, and such supply-siders as Moore, Forbes and Laffer, have deep roots in the Republican Party establishment.

Milton Friedman was of this school, as was the longtime editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, Bob Bartley, who for years pushed for a constitutional amendment declaring, “There shall be open borders.”

Bartley, somewhat prematurely, predicted that the nation-state was “finished” in the New World Order. Yet, today, as tribalism and nationalism are making a comeback, it looks more like the transnational “New World Order” that may be headed for the dumpster.

As long as Trump is in the White House and the party base is so viscerally behind him and his America First agenda, a renunciation of tariffs or a return to globalism is dead.

But what happens after Trump? Who and what comes next?

Republican recidivism — a return to the rejected open borders, free trade agenda of the Bush Republicans — would ignite a firestorm of protest that would tear the party of Trump apart.

Yet, while these ideas have lost Middle America, they are alive and well among the establishment elites of both parties, who have also not given up on a foreign policy of using America’s economic and military power to attempt to convert mankind to democracy.

Copyright 2018 Creators.com.

August 7, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Presidential Treason on Russia

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 6, 2018

The U.S. national-security establishment and the U.S. mainstream press are now flinging the much-dreaded label “traitor” at President Trump. Commenting on one of Trump’s press conferences, former CIA Director John Brennan declared: “It was nothing short of treasonous.” The New York Times published an op-ed by its columnist Charles Blow entitled “Trump, Treasonous Traitor.” The Boston Globe weighed in with the following title of an op-ed by Globe columnist Michael A. Cohen: “Trump the Traitor.” Others are settling for “Manchurian candidate”, “shameful,” “indefensible,” “useful idiot,” “reckless,” and more. I haven’t yet heard the term “Fifth Columnist” hurled at Trump but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen.

What has Trump done to incur these infamous appellations? He has committed the cardinal sin of the U.S. national-security state: He has demonstrated a firm determination to establish normal and friendly relations with Russia. That’s not only a crime under the principles of the national-security establishment. It’s also heresy.

After all, “everyone” knows that Russia is an enemy of the United States. How do we “know” this? Well, because we are supposed to know it. No, there isn’t an official written decree. Nonetheless, everyone is supposed to know that Russia is “our” enemy, just as the citizens of Oceana were supposed to know when Eurasia was deemed an official enemy of Oceana in George Orwell’s novel 1984. Thus, it stands to reason: Any president who befriends Russia or any other official enemy of the U.S. national-security establishment is considered a traitor at worst and suspect at best.

As I indicated in three recent articles “The Deep State Went After JFK on Russia Too,” “Was Reagan a Traitor Too?” and “Three Other Presidents Targeted for Befriending Russia,” Trump isn’t the first president to incur the wrath of the U.S. national-security establishment for befriending Russia. They also targeted two U.S. presidents, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and at least three foreign presidents, Jacobo Arbenz, Fidel Castro, and Salvador Allende, for committing the “crime” of befriending Russia (or the Soviet Union).

Let me share with you a fascinating story about John F. Kennedy’s “treason” that came up after his assassination.

For those of you who have read my book The Kennedy Autopsy and are currently viewing my new video-podcast series “The National Security State’s Assassination of John F. Kennedy,” you are familiar with what happened at Dallas’s Parkland Hospital immediately after the president was declared dead. Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas County Medical Examiner, was going to conduct an autopsy on President Kennedy’s body. Rose was one of the most renowned forensics pathologists in the country.

Suddenly, a team of armed Secret Service agents informed Rose in no uncertain terms that they were not going to permit him to conduct the autopsy. When Rose stood his ground and reminded the agents that Texas law required the autopsy, they pulled back their coat pockets to brandish their guns, implicitly informing Rose and anyone else that they were prepared to kill anyone who got in their way. Saying that they were operating under orders and screaming, yelling, and issuing a stream of profanities, they forced their way out of Parkland with the body, which they then transported to Dallas Love Field where new President Lyndon Johnson was patiently waiting for it.

Within an hour or so of the president’s death, two of the treating physicians, Dr. Clark Kemp and Dr. Malcomb Perry, held a press conference, where they announced that President Kennedy had a small bullet-sized entry wound in the front of his neck and a large exit-sized wound in the lower back of his head. (This was obviously inconsistent with what would become the lone-nut theory of the assassination, which posited a shooter in the rear of the president.)

Meanwhile, Johnson was transporting the body in Air Force One to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where he delivered it into the hands of the U.S. military, which conducted the autopsy at the morgue at Bethesda National Naval Medical Center on the evening of the assassination.

Thirty years after the assassination. Nurse Audrey Bell, who was in the Parkland Hospital trauma room where Kennedy was being treated, was interviewed by the Assassination Records Review Board. Bell told the ARRB that on the morning of November 23, she saw Dr. Perry and told him that he looked exhausted. Perry told her that he had received calls all night from Bethesda pressuring him to change his mind about the throat wound.

In 1977, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which was reinvestigating the Kennedy assassination, conducted an interview of a man named James Gochenaur. The complete interview can be found here. Gochenaur related a conversation in 1970 that he had had with a Secret Service agent named Elmer Moore. Here is the pertinent part of the interview:

Gochenaur: Ok, what he told me was this, he said he had badgered Doctor Perry into changing his testimony, he did not feel good about that.

Gilbert: He, being Moore?

Gochenaur: Yes, Moore talked to Perry and, I guess, really laid it on the poor guy.

Gilbert: In what respect, what areas did he badger Perry with respect to.

Gochenaur: Ah, what Perry had seen, as he was doing his emergency operation, apparently.

Gilbert: Well, in what ways did he indicate to you that he had Perry distort the truth?

Gochenaur: In – I think that what he was trying to say was him to making a flat statement that there was no entry wound in the neck….

****

Gilbert: Well, did he, did he indicate to you in any way, or can you recollect as best you can, the exact words or substance that he used with respect to what he did to Perry?

Gochenaur:  Apparently, well, he said that he had come back from San Francisco the day after the assassination. He went to Washington first. From Washington, he got some marching orders to go down and talk with the doctors at Parkland Hospital….

***

Gilbert: Ok. Now what did your conversation with him pertain to?

Gochenaur: Ah, basically, him venting his anger at Kennedy, and ah….

Gilbert: What was his anger based on? Did he say?

Gochenaur: Well, he said he was a traitor.

Gilbert: He said Kennedy was a traitor?

Gochenaur: Yeah.

Gilbert: This is what Elmer Moore said?

Gochenaur: Right.

Gilbert: Now, why he say [sic] — how did he explain that?  What did he mean?

Gochenaur: Well, he prefaced it by saying that ah, well, he said, you know, no matter how strange things get here, we’ve got it better than they do. But he was giving everything away to the. That’s what he was saying.

Gilbert:  He was saying Kennedy was giving things away?

Gochenaur: Yeah, to the Russians. Ok?

Gilbert: All right.

Gochenaur: And, ah, then he went on to say that ah, well, ah, one of the things that was pretty impressive to me was the fact that when I was talking with him, he said that ah, we had to do what we were told, in regards to, you know, the way the way they were investigating the assassination, or we get our heads cut off.

What every American should keep in mind is that from the day in the late 1940s that the federal government was converted from a limited-government republic to a national-security state, Russia has been considered an official enemy of the United States. Most U.S. presidents have accepted that and embraced it, just as Hillary Clinton would have. By doing his best to normalize relations with Russia, President Trump, like Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, Arbenz, Castro, and Allende, has now violated the core principle of the U.S. national-security state. Heaven help him if he doesn’t conform.

For more information, see:

The Kennedy Autopsy by Jacob Hornberger
JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne
Regime Change: The Kennedy Assassination by Jacob Hornberger
The CIA, Terrorism, and the Cold War: The Evil of the National Security State by Jacob Hornberger
CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files by Jefferson Morley
Altered History: Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination Medical Evidence by Douglas Horne (video)
Inside the Assassination Records Review Board by Douglas Horne

August 7, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Debunking A Century of War Lies

corbettreport | Aug 6, 2018

In the modern age of democracy and volunteer armies, a pretense for war is required to rally the nation around the flag and motivate the public to fight. That is why every major conflict is now accompanied by its own particular bodyguard of lies. From false flag attacks to dehumanization of the “enemy,” here are all the examples you’ll need to help debunk a century of war lies.

WATCH ON BITCHUTE / DTUBE / ODYSEE / DOWNLOAD THE MP4 VIDEO

TRANSCRIPT AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/warlies/

August 6, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Winning an Arms Race in Space Remains a Futile Fight

By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | August 5, 2018

When Donald Trump declared it was time to Make America Great Again,he didn’t just mean here on Earth. As he directed the Pentagon in June to create a new branch of the armed services devoted just to space warfare, Trump declared, “It is not enough to have an American presence in space.We must have American dominance in space.”

Not waiting for an ambivalent Congress to act, the Defense Department reportedly plans in coming months to create a new U.S. Space Command, Space Operations Force, and Space Development Agency to manage everything from war-fighting in outer space to developing and launching military satellites.

A draft of a Pentagon planning document states that the capabilities unleashed by this new structure will help “deter, and if necessary degrade, deny, disrupt, destroy and manipulate adversary capabilities to protect U.S. interests, assets and way of life.”

Previous official critics of a new space service, including Trump’s own Air Force secretary, Heather Wilson, and Defense Secretary James Mattis, almost invariably raised only bureaucratic objections rather than deeper questions about the merits of turning space into a battlefield.

“The Pentagon is complicated enough,” Wilson complained in 2017. Creation of a new space service, she said, “will make it more complex,add more boxes to the organization chart, and cost more money.”

Even traditional Pentagon skeptics have adopted the same narrow focus,mainly questioning whether a new Space Force will best serve U.S. war-fighting needs or simply create more inter-service rivalries.

Supporters of a Space Force insist it will help attract resources to a vitally important theater of operations. The United States military operates 159 satellites in orbit, and other government agencies maintain dozens more for communications, surveillance,and location services that have become essential to U.S. war fighting plans. These satellites help guide drone missiles, special operations units fighting in remote battlefields, and naval task forces operating across the globe.

If Russia and China succeed in developing more effective anti-satellite weapons, critics warn, they could threaten U.S. dominance in space. “We could be deaf, dumb and blind within seconds,”said Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “Seldom has a great nation been so vulnerable.”

Missed Arms Control Opportunities

But escalating the militarization of space is the wrong way to protect these important assets. The narrow debate in the United States over the proposed Space Force almost entirely ignores the long history of squandered opportunities to stop such threats through arms control rather than an ever-more-expensive and unwinnable arms race.

U.S. defense planners, civilian as well as military, have long argued for investing whatever it takes to maintain America’s technological lead in space, just as for many years they argued for maintaining America’s lead in nuclear weapons.

In the 1960s, when it became apparent that no one could win a nuclear arms race, the United States signed two important treaties—the Partial Test Ban Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty—banning the placement of nuclear weapons in space. But every administration since then has opposed or sidelined further arms control in space, despite overwhelming global support for such agreements.

The 1978 United Nations General Assembly’s Special Session on Disarmament called for international negotiations “in accordance with the spirit”of the Outer Space Treaty to “prevent an arms race in outer space”(PAROS).

Momentum built in the mid-1980s for a PAROS treaty, but the Reagan,Bush and Clinton administrations rejected any such multilateral deal.

“With its large missile defense program and technical advantages in potential space weaponry, the United States has consistently refused to negotiate PAROS,” observes the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative.

The George W. Bush administration militantly opposed such a treaty,and even canceled one of the landmarks of arms control, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The U.S. Air Force issued a strategic master plan in 2006 stating that “the ability to gain space superiority (the ability to exploit space while selectively disallowing it to adversaries) is critically important … an essential prerequisite in modern warfare.”

Meanwhile, China and Russia continued pressing for a weapons-free environment in space. In 2005, when Russia introduced a resolution calling for confidence-building measures in space, with overwhelming support in the U.N. General Assembly (see here and here), only the United States objected.

In February 2008, against U.S. objections, China and Russia introduced a Draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects.

Shooting Down a Satellite

A week later, the United States demonstrated its anti-satellite weapons capability by shooting down a failed spy satellite using a Navy missile, fired from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. The stated goal of Operation Burnt Frost, the code name of the mission, was to prevent the satellite from crashing and releasing toxic gas. “This is all about trying to reduce the danger to human beings,” James Jeffrey, then-deputy national security adviser, said at the time. But China, which had conducted a similar demonstration in 2007 by destroying an old weather satellite, thought the U.S. action might have been done to show military might.

Although the Obama administration was far less hostile to arms control, it joined only Israel in abstaining from a U.N. General Assembly resolution in 2011 calling for the prevention of an arms race in space. In 2014, only Georgia and Ukraine joined the United States and Israel in opposing a Russian-drafted U.N. resolution on banning an arms race in space. The same dismal record has continued since then, year after year.

In the meantime, of course, both China and Russia have made technological strides in their ability to hit and destroy targets in space. Their continued support for arms control, however, suggests that they recognize the ultimate futility of fighting in that frontier.

As a recent article in Wired points out:

A Russo-Sino-American space war could very well end with a crippled global economy, inoperable infrastructure, and a planet shrouded by the orbiting fragments of pulverized satellites—which, by the way,could hinder us all on Earth until we figured out a way of cleaning them up. In the aftermath of such a conflict, it might be years before we could restore new constellations of satellites to orbit. Preparing
for orbital war has fast become a priority of the US military, but the more urgent priority is figuring out how to prevent it.

Given these stakes, the ability of a future U.S. Space Force to pulverize more satellites than China or Russia could be considered a bug, not a feature. More to the point, the entire U.S. approach to space warfare is now suspect, if not bankrupt.

As retired Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wisely observed in 2016, “The days of ‘space dominance’ are over, and we need to move from thinking of space as a military domain of offense and defense to a more complex environment that needs to be managed by a wide range of international players.”

He added, “This is the right time to reconsider our actions in space, as a new presidential administration takes over in January 2017.”

Who says irony is dead?

Jonathan Marshall is author or co-author of five books on international relations, national security and history. He currently is completing a new book on U.S. organized crime, big business and national politics in the early Cold War era.

August 6, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

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