Moscow warns of ‘dangerous consequences’ as US moves to place missile defense system in South Korea
RT | July 8, 2016
The boosting of US missile defense potential in Asia and the Pacific undermines the existing global security balance, the Russian Foreign Ministry said after it was announced that Washington intends to place missile defense systems in South Korea.
“From the very beginning of the discussion of this issue we have consistently and invariably pointed at the most dangerous consequences of such a decision and called for our partners not to make this wrong choice. Unfortunately, our calls have remained unheard,” reads a Foreign Ministry statement released Friday.
Russian diplomats noted that the increase in the Asia-Pacific segment of the global missile defense system by the United States and its allies would undermine the existing strategic balance both in the region and beyond.
“Such actions, regardless of the arguments they are backed with, have the most negative effect on global strategic stability, the adherence to which is such a favored topic of discussions in Washington,” the statement reads.
The ministry also warned that the US steps threaten to increase regional tensions and create additional barriers to the peaceful settlement of the conflict between North and South Korea and nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula.
The Russian diplomats concluded by expressing hope that the United States and South Korea would once again consider all factors behind the decision and abstain from potentially dangerous actions.
Earlier on Friday, the South Korean Ministry of Defense announced that Seoul and Washington had reached an agreement to put a high-tech THAAD missile defense system in South Korea amid growing nuclear and missile threats from the North. According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, the system is expected to be in operation by the end of 2017.
THAAD – Terminal High Altitude Area Defense – is an advanced system designed to intercept short, medium, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their terminal phase of flight. Equipped with a long-range radar, THAAD is believed to be capable of intercepting Pyongyang’s intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
The announcement has also drawn criticism from Beijing. China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday the system would destabilize the security balance in the region without doing anything to end the North’s nuclear program. “China strongly urges the United States and South Korea to stop the deployment process of the THAAD anti-missile system, not take any steps to complicate the regional situation and do nothing to harm China’s strategic security interests,” it said in a statement on its website.
Cheating Moscow: NATO’s Dangerous Expansion
By Jonathan Power | Dissident Voice | July 7, 2016
NATO has just announced a plan to send troops to the alliance’s eastern flank, close to the Russian border. NATO says it is attempting to deter potential Russian aggression.
The UK, the US, Canada and Germany will lead four battle groups to be based in Poland and the Baltic states. Diplomats say the troops will be a deterrent to Russian aggression by acting as a “tripwire” that would trigger a full response from the alliance if necessary
On Sunday the foreign minister of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, condemned Western “sabre-rattling and war cries”. He said, “Anyone who believes the symbolic tank parades on the Alliance’s eastern border will increase security is wrong”.
Apart from the appalling fact that the West is contemplating all out war against Russia there is the plain fact that it has expanded NATO in contravention of the solemn understandings given the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.
The deal was straightforward: The Soviet Union would agree to the reunification of East and West Germany and accept that East Germany would become part of NATO in return for a non-expansion promise.
It is the breaking of this promise that, more than any other one thing, has fuelled the resurgence of hostile Russian opinion against the West and prompted President Vladimir Putin to become increasingly determined to put the West in its place.
Now with this move the Russians, understandably, are livid.
There are a number of scholars and politicians from that era, including President H.W. Bush’s secretary of state, James Baker, who did most of the negotiating at that time with the Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, who have since tried to re-write history and say there were no promises made.
But neither Baker nor the scholars can deny – and they do not try to – that in Moscow, on February 9th 1990, Baker told Gorbachev that “there will be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction or NATO’s forces one inch to the East”, if Gorbachev agreed to German reunification.
To reinforce this message the next day the West German chancellor, Helmut Kohl and the foreign minister, Hans Deitrich Genscher offered the Soviet leaders similar terms. Later Baker confirmed publically at a State Department press conference that he agreed with Genscher. The US ambassador to Moscow at the time, Jack Matlock, who was in the room with Gorbachev and Baker, confirmed these words were said by Baker to Gorbachev.
But revisionist scholars have tried to obfuscate this understanding. It has been argued that US leaders saw these terms as being raised “speculatively” as part of an ongoing negotiation and far from a final deal. Thus the US was free to revise the offer and Gorbachev was made no final promise.
This is as Machiavellian an interpretation as one could dream up.
Common sense suggests that Gorbachev was not going to radically revise 45 years of East German and Soviet history without a very big quid pro quo. Since no other subject was on the table it is obvious that there was a quid pro quo and this was it. Say no more.
One scholar, Mary Sarotte, writes that the Soviet leaders failed to obtain “written assurances” against NATO expansion. That is right. But why should Gorbachev demand them when the Cold War was coming to an end so amicably and the widespread feeling was that there would never be enmity again and that the Soviet Union would become close to NATO, and maybe even seek future membership of it?
There is another political “scandal” from that period.
Behind Gorbachev’s back, as the US negotiators “were stressing limits on NATO’s future presence in the east, the US was privately planning for an American-dominated post-Cold War system and taking steps to achieve this objective”, according to Joshua Shifrinson, writing in the new issue of Harvard University’s quarterly, International Security:
In July 1990 Baker stated that a revamped CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) which had Soviet membership would provide a ‘half-way house’ for those countries who want out of the Warsaw Pact but can’t join NATO and the European Union.
Somewhat paradoxically, Baker did not want to see a CSCE that overshadowed NATO. By October 1990 detailed discussions about the future expansion of NATO were underway in the State Department, albeit with the belief this would only happen if the Soviet Union behaved “badly”.
Contradictorily, the State Department in an internal study on NATO wrote that “we are not in a position to guarantee the future of these Eastern countries and do not wish in any case to organize an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border. Such a coalition would be perceived very negatively by the Soviets and could lead to a reversal of current positive trends in Eastern Europe”.
Over the last 25 years an anti-Soviet/Russian coalition is what evolved and that is why Russia has ended up confronting the West.
Jonathan Power is a TFF Associate and international affairs columnist, formerly with the International Herald Tribune, now syndicating to leading newspapers on all continents.
US Missile Defense Test Failed Miserably, and the Pentagon Lied About It
Sputnik – July 7, 2016
After spending billions of dollars, the US government is having trouble getting its state-of-the-art homeland missile defense system to function according to plan, and it’s driven the Pentagon to lie about the program’s success rate.
On January 28, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency conducted the first test flight of new so-called divert thrusters, to be used on anti-missile interceptors. A military statement deemed this a “successful test flight,” claiming the thrusters allowed the interceptors to stop a mock warhead.
“On this flight, we validated key design improvements in the divert and attitude control system, demonstrating improved performance, reliability and productibility,” said Michael Bright of Aerojet Rocketdyne, maker of the thrusters, in a statement.
“The overall goal of the Missile Defense Agency is to make a more capable and reliable system, and this successful test demonstrated significant progress toward reaching that goal.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, however, these claims were falsified. During the test, one of the thrusters failed. This caused the interceptor to lose control and the mock missile to slip through the defense shield.
“The mission wasn’t successful,” a project scientist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the LA Times. “Did the thruster perform as expected? No, it did not provide the control necessary for a lethal impact of an incoming threat.”
A second scientist said that claims of success were “hyperbole, unsupported by any test data.”
Other engineers indicated that the faulty thrusters caused the interceptor to miss its target by “a distance 20 times greater than what was expected,” the LA Times reported.
The program, known as Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), has cost US taxpayers over $40 billion since 2004. It was designed as a means to prevent a potential nuclear attack, and involves 30 interceptors that can be launched from various terrestrial locations across the United States.
The thrusters have come under scrutiny before. Two unsuccessful tests in 2010 were attributed to the component, and ultimately led to the creation of the latest model. An earlier test of the new thrusters occurred in 2013 and resulted in failure.
According to a report from the US Government Accountability Office, these failures were the result of rushed engineering work and “omitting steps in the design process.”
When asked for comment by the LA Times, the Missile Defense Agency acknowledged that problems had occurred during the “successful” test.
“There was an observation unrelated to the new thruster hardware that has been investigated and successfully root-caused,” the agency said. “Any necessary corrective actions will be taken for the next flight test.”
The agency maintained that “the new thrusters performed as designed” and within “critical performance parameters.”
Imagining a Different Europe: Brexit and the Future of NATO
By Gary Leupp | CounterPunch | July 7, 2016
Everyone’s talking about the future of the European Union after the Brexit. Should we not also be wondering about the future of NATO?
The two organizations substantially overlap. Twenty-two countries are members of both; that is, the twenty-two nations are both military allies of the U.S. (which pays two-thirds of the alliance’s cost and controls its politics) and members of an economic union, which—while it of course does not include the U.S., which is 5000 miles away—is of much interest to the world’s only surviving superpower.
Of course the EU and NATO have very different purposes. As we all know, the EU represents an effort to create a common market throughout the continent, allow for free travel and employment between member-states, the formation of common standards, policies etc. We know there have been major downsides for some member countries, involving reduced sovereignty, uncontrolled immigration, indebtedness and austerity programs, etc. But the stated goal, to spread general affluence, and therefore prevent war, has been stated since the EU’s forerunner, the European Coal and Steel Community, was formed in 1951.
Thus, while it’s arguably none of the U.S.’s business, U.S. leaders express opinions on EU composition. (You might think that, as leaders of a competing trading bloc, with the same relationship to the EU that Boeing has to Airbus, they would maintain a politic silence. But both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have urged the EU to admit NATO ally Turkey’s admission. And Obama recently raised a ruckus in the United Kingdom when he urged its electorate to reject Brexit.)
The purpose of NATO is less clear than that of the EU. Formed in 1949 in line with the “Truman Doctrine” pledging that the U.S. would fight communism wherever it threatened the “Free World,” it was supposed to be a defensive alliance between the U.S. and its European client states versus some future (imagined) Soviet aggression against those states.
That aggression needless to say never happened. In retrospect the Cold War appears a long period of stability, with the exception of the horrific wars the U.S. inflicted on Korea and Vietnam while the Soviets stood aside, and the war the Soviets waged in Afghanistan to suppress the rebels opposed to the secular Soviet-backed government (who were then backed by the CIA, because they were so anti-communist, that being the main thing), who went on to became the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Europe itself was actually remarkably stable during that Cold War, from 1945 to 1989. Since then there’s been horrific violence, especially in southeastern Europe, much of it exacerbated by the U.S. and NATO.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (formed in 1955 in belated response to NATO, after NATO decided to include West Germany) in 1991, you might have thought that NATO would dissolve too. But no; it redefined its mission as maintaining “security” in a newly insecure situation. Its purpose is in fact stated in the vaguest terms. Its real function is to preserve U.S. hegemony over post-Soviet Europe, expand to surround Russia and ultimately create the conditions for a Yugoslavia-type fracturing of the Russian state—which for some reason U.S. military leaders keep referring to as the “number one threat” or even “existential threat” to the U.S.!
How the U.S. Uses the EU
The U.S. attempts to use the EU for its own geopolitical ends, particularly for this confrontation with Russia.
For example: from late 2013 to February 2014 the U.S. State Department spent $5 billion in Ukraine in order to (in the words of Under Secretary of State for Eurasia Victoria Nuland, a former Dick Cheney aide, neocon married to neocon Robert Kagan and key Hillary crony) “support the Ukrainian people’s European aspirations”—meaning the hopes of many Ukrainians for their country to join the EU.
But what Nuland, the Pentagon and NATO leaders in Europe really wanted to do was to pull Ukraine into NATO, completing the creeping encirclement of Russia that had begun with NATO’s expansion to include Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in 1999.
NATO now already includes 11 countries formerly part of the Soviet bloc (Warsaw Pact) or Yugoslavia, most added during Bush’s administration but two (Albania and Croatia) admitted since. In all cases, by the way, these states first received admission into NATO, then into the EU.
Bulgaria: joined NATO 2004, EU 2007
Croatia: NATO 2009, EU 2013
Czechoslovakia: NATO 1999, EU 2004
Estonia: NATO April 2, 2004, EU May 1, 2004
Hungary: NATO 1999, EU 2004
Latvia: NATO April 2, 2004, EU May 1, 2004
Lithuania: NATO April 2, 2004, EU May 1, 2004
Poland: NATO 1999, EU 2004
Romania: NATO 2004, EU 2007
Slovakia: NATO, March 29, 2004, EU May 1, 2004
Slovenia: NATO, March 29, 2004, EU May 1, 2004
Notice a pattern? First a country commits itself to an anti-Russian alliance with the U.S., committing 2% of its GDP to military expenses and pledging to go to war against Russia when called upon to do so. Then it gets access to the benefits of EU membership.
Back to Ukraine. Ukraine in early 2014 included the Crimean Peninsula, home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the 1780s, a vital naval port for the Russian state that has only a few warm-water ports. (Crimea had been turned over from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by half-Ukrainian Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. After the break-up of the USSR in 1991, Russia retained its traditional military presence on the peninsula by a treaty with the Ukrainian leaders.)
But the U.S. would like to expel the Russians and make Sevastopol a NATO port. (This is not only Vladimir Putin’s nightmare; it would be a nightmare for any Russian leader. Look at a map.)
In 2013 the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, democratically elected in an internationally monitored election in 2010, negotiated with the EU for his country’s eventual entry into the union. A substantial portion of the population, especially in the western part of the country, favored this. But when Yanukovych realized that steps towards admission would involve accepting an austerity regime comparable to that inflicted on Greece, he opted out, instead accepting a generous Russian aid offer.
Nuland & Co. depicted this as a pro-Russian leader’s capitulation to Russian pressure; again, their talking point was “Ukrainian people’s European aspirations.” (In fact, Ukrainians were divided on the issue, with fewer than 50% in favor of EU membership.)
Ukraine is ethnically divided between ethnic Ukrainians (who speak a language related to Russian, although the two languages are not mutually intelligible) and ethnic Russians who have always spoken Russian. (Russian has always been a recognized official language in the country.) There has been much intermarriage between the two, but among the ethnic Ukrainians there are many Russophobes including neo-fascists who glorify Stepan Bandera, an anti-Russian Ukrainian leader who worked with the Nazis to round up Jews and fight the Soviets in 1941. (He was declared a “national hero” by Yanukovych’s predecessor Viktor Yushchenko, a pro-U.S. advocate of NATO admission. Yanukovych withdrew this award, but it has been reinstated by the current regime.)
Taking advantage of this Russophobia, the U.S. depicted Yanukovych’s change of mind as a betrayal of “European” dreams. Working with the neo-fascist Svoboda Party, among others, it assisted in the brutal putsch of February 22, 2014, that caused the president to flee for fear of his life. A new, pro-NATO government was immediately installed, with Arseniy Yatsenyev as prime minister.
“Fuck the EU!” …and then Use It!
This is where the story gets interesting, because it reveals what the EU means to the U.S., and what it doesn’t. In an intercepted phone conversation between Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine a month before the coup, they discuss who will succeed Yanukovych once he’s toppled. She favors NATO proponent “Yats.” The ambassador mentions the the EU favors a different candidate, whom she thinks is inappropriate. They discuss how Yatsenyev will be legitimated by a UN official sent by Ban Ki-moon.
“So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it,” she concludes, “and, you know, Fuck the EU.” (In other words, this is not about any European’s aspirations. It’s about ours.)
So the coup comes off as planned. The obviously prominent role of neo-fascists in the new regime, and the immediate revocation of the existing law protecting language rights frightened and angered the primarily Russian inhabitants of the Donbass region (where Yanukovych had his base of support). They refused to accept its legitimacy. (Their resistance is invariably represented by the U.S. press in the service of the State Department as a Moscow-inspired rebellion or even Russian “invasion.”)
Russia refused to recognize the new government and quickly moved to re-annex its historical territory of Crimea. The Russian-majority population of Crimea overwhelmingly voted in a credible referendum to reunite with Russia. The U.S. media often refers to this as another “invasion” although it was nothing of the sort; there were tens of thousands of Russian troops in place by longstanding agreement, who simply secured government buildings and the borders.
Hillary Clinton, among others, likened this move to Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. That is to say: something that must not meet with appeasement. And so (people are taught to believe), the practical Russian response to U.S. efforts to complete the expansion of NATO is the problem, not NATO’s relentless advance against Russia itself. Russia under Putin is the worrisome aggressor, not the U.S. leaders who invade a new country like clockwork every few years, boasting that they need to do it because theirs is the “exceptional” nation.
Some in the Obama administration favored a military response to the separatists in the east; they wanted to further arm the new regime and encourage it to assert control over the Donbass if not Crimea. It is clear this was the view of U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove, the “Supreme Allied Commander” of “NATO Allied Command Operations” in Europe. We know from intercepted emails exchanged between him and Nuland (whom he refers to affectionately as “Toria”) that he was frustrated by the failure of Obama to order the Ukrainian puppets to more forcefully invade the east. (Initial efforts to do this had resulted in mass desertions, or soldiers retreated in the face of unarmed citizens including old women shaming them into abandoning their mission. It was a tremendous embarrassment to the Kiev regime.)
Obama decided not to heed Breedlove. In place of hot warfare he chose economic warfare. Here is where the EU comes in. In July 2014 the union (that Nuland wanted to fuck) dutifully voted to impose economic sanctions on Russia. (Again, 22 of the 28 EU members are also NATO members; the only ones that aren’t are Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.)
The U.S. is of course not an EU member but it had a reliable surrogate within the union: the United Kingdom, which has strongly argued for sanctions, their expansion and extension to the present. (Frank Holmes, managing editor of US Global Investors, calls Britain “the bloc’s strongest supporter of restrictions.” The conservative Washington D.C. website The Daily Caller calls it the U.S.’s “strongest E.U. ally against Russia”).
The UK, which had far less to lose from the sanctions than many other EU nations, was urging its partners to shoot themselves in the foot. It was asking them to punish Russia (and damage themselves). The continental Europeans went along, some grudgingly.
Regrets (and Maybe Rebellion?)
Many have come to regret it. The Czech and Hungarian leaders have long been questioning the sanctions and expressing displeasure. Of course they want, as new members of the EU and NATO, to be team players. But their people are suffering from lost trade and pressuring them to protest. Thus Czech President Milos Zeman has called the sanctions “not merely inefficient; on the contrary, they are counterproductive.” (Only 35% of Czechs according to a 2015 Gallop poll support the sanctions.)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban calls the sanctions a “risk in the EU… very deep, of a strategic nature.” (European Council president Donald Tusk, a Pole, calls Orban a “Trojan Horse” for Russia while Orban says Tusk is “on the other side” for opposing an easing of sanctions.)
In May, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that his government “definitely cannot accept that a decision [by the EU, on extending sanctions] was made behind the scenes, that is, we are against using an automatic procedure.” (In Hungary, only 29% of those polled favor the sanctions.)
The Polish regime has been among the most supportive of the U.S. position; anti-Russian sentiment is deep in that country for various historical reasons, and 70% of those polled support sanctions. But the Polish farmers are suffering from them. One-third of the apples harvested in Poland two years ago went to Russia; now the trade is forbidden.
Meanwhile in Spain farmers burn EU flags over piles of rotting peaches to protest the collapse of their relations with the Russian marketplace. The European Commission keeps having to pay out millions of euros to partly compensate farmers and merchants for their losses due to sanctions.
French MPs in April this year voted for a resolution to lift EU sanctions on Russia. Minister of Economy Emmanuel Macros has vowed to work towards lifting them. Italian cabinet ministers and the lawmakers in Italy’s Upper House of Parliament also want to rethink them. Maybe they’re all Trojan Horses, but if so, that’s good.
The role of Germany in the EU, as the most populous and wealthiest country in Europe, is more important than ever following the Brexit. While it has been, along with France, a strong supporter of the sanctions and their continuation, public support is waning. In May a German pollster found that 36% of Germans want the sanctions scaled down, while 35% want them scrapped entirely.
The sanctions have had disastrous impact on the German economy. Since they were imposed exports have declined by about 20 billion euros. Alstom has lost a huge contract for the construction of the Beijing-Moscow railway line. The business community generally wants the sanctions dropped.
There appears to be a general feeling that the U.S. (which is feeling few effects from the sanctions it itself imposed on Russia) pressed the EU (especially through Britain) to take measures that are not in Europe’s interest. And some surely realize that what this is all really about is the U.S.’s desire to punish Russia for thwarting its effort to bring Ukraine into NATO—through that cynical device of Victoria (“Fuck the EU”) Nuland of supporting Ukraine’s “European aspirations.
As it happens, 67% of Germans oppose bringing Ukraine into NATO, and 45% oppose bringing it into the EU. Most importantly, German support for NATO has been plummeting; it was 73% in 2009 but was 55% last year. And when asked whether Germany, in the event of a Russian attack on an east European border state that is a NATO member, should fight on the side of that state, only 38% say yes according to a Spring 2015 Pew poll.
According to the same poll, that figure is 40% in Italy, 47% in France, and 48% in both Poland and Spain. In other words, over half the people of these countries oppose the very nature of NATO as “mutual defense” alliance.
This raises the real possibility of countries leaving NATO, as well as the EU. Czech president Milos Zeman has called for referendums on his country’s membership in both. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has criticized the recent joint maneuvers in Poland, in which 14,000 U.S. troops, 12,000 Polish troops, and 800 from Britain participated as “saber-rattling.”
“Whoever believes,” he warns, “that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken. We are well-advised to not create pretexts to renew an old confrontation.” In other words, the U.S. is steering NATO towards war with Russia, which the Germans know is not a good idea.
Who would have imagined a few years ago that the UK would ever leave the EU? Imagine the Czech Republic leaving this confrontational NATO alliance, joining its prosperous neighbor Austria by opting for neutrality. Imagine the Germans (who have many reasons to be angry towards the U.S., including the fact that the NSA spies on all of them) becoming fed up enough to hold their own referendum and quitting the bloc.
There is something of a precedent. France shocked the U.S. when it pulled out of the NATO Integrated Military Command Structures in 1966, in order to, as President Charles DeGaulle put it “preserve French independence in world affairs.” (It remained committed in theory to the defense of alliance members but only rejoined with conditions in 2009.)
France, which has military bases all over the world and deploys troops routinely in Africa and elsewhere (it cooperated with the U.S. in overthrowing Aristide in Haiti in 2004, as if to apologize for having opposed the U.S. war in Iraq), is very different from Germany with its stiff constitutional limits on the use of its military and generally pacifistic population. Within the EU, it is likely to replace the UK as its most important hawkish member, while Germany is likely to urge reconciliation with Russia.
There are contradictions within both the EU and NATO. They are interwoven, and some look irresolvable. That again is a good thing.
New Report Exposes EU’s Security Links to Refugee-Creating Arms Dealers
Sputnik | July 6, 2016
Like peace itself, the military-industrial complex sees internal stability as bad for business. A new report has exposed the activities of military and security companies that are profiting from the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, which have also successfully lobbied the EU to react by buying their security equipment.
The joint report by the European NGO Stop Wapenhandel and the Transnational Institute (TNI), called “Border Wars: The Arms Dealers Profiting from Europe’s Refugee Tragedy,” reveals the most prominent winners of security contracts which were issued in Europe as a result of the migrant crisis, and Europe’s acquiescent response to their lobbying.
“Some of the beneficiaries of border security contracts are some of the biggest arms sellers to the Middle-East and North-African region, fuelling the conflicts that are the cause of many of the refugees. In other words, the companies creating the crisis are then profiting from it.”
The big players in Europe’s border security complex include arms companies Airbus, Finmeccanica and Thales, which are also three of the top four European arms traders and have been particularly prominent winners of EU contracts aimed at strengthening borders.
Other companies to benefit from the EU’s policy response to Middle Eastern conflict are French defense and aerospace company Safran, the Spanish IT and defense systems firm Indra Sistemas, and some Israeli companies like BTec Electronic Security Systems, which promote their expertise based on equipment installed at the Israeli-Palestinian border.
French companies Airbus and Thales, and Italian Finmeccanica, are part of the European Organisation for Security (EOS), which has been most active in lobbying the EU for increased border security. The report notes that many of its proposals, such as its push to set up a cross European border security agency, have eventually ended up as policy.
According to the report, the booming border security market was worth an estimated 15 billion euros ($16.5 billion) in 2015, and is predicted to rise to over 29 billion euros ($32 billion) annually in 2022.
New EU member states have been required to strengthen borders as a condition of membership, creating additional markets for profit.
“The arms business, in particular sales to the Middle-East and North-Africa, where most of the refugees are fleeing from, is also booming. Global arms exports to the Middle-East actually increased by 61 per cent between 2006–10 and 2011–15. Between 2005 and 2014, EU member states granted arms exports licenses to the Middle East and North Africa worth over 82 billion euros ($91 billion).”
On Tuesday, the German newspaper Tagesspiegel newspaper revealed that the arms industry could benefit even further from a new direction in the EU’s African policy.
According to the report, the EU Commission intends to direct some funds from its Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace towards equipping African militaries.
The fund was established in March 2014 and has a 2.3 billion euro ($2.5 billion) budget, to be disbursed between 2014 and 2020.
“Development without security and stability is not possible,” a source in the Commission told the newspaper.
“The Commission is therefore considering increasing its support for security actors,” and “in some very special cases,” this will include security forces.
The proposal to spend African development funds on security forces was criticized by the German Green Party MEP Reinhard Butikofer, who described it as “breaking a taboo.”
Die Linke MEP Sabine Losing called the idea “scandalous,” and criticized the “misuse of aid.”
She said the proposal is one of a series of “steps in the militarization of EU foreign policy.”
President al-Assad: Western nations attack Syrian government openly and deal with it secretly
SANA | July 1, 2016
Damascus – President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to the Australian SBS TV channel in which he criticized the double standards of the West – openly attacking the Syrian government politically, but continuing to deal with it through back channels-calling for a more humanitarian and less costly solution to the refugee crisis through stopping support to the terrorists.
The following is the full text of the interview:
Journalist: Mr. President, thank you for speaking with SBS Australia.
President Assad: You’re most welcome in Syria.
Question 1: It’s now more than five years since the Syrian crisis began. It’s estimated somewhere around a quarter of a million people have been killed, many of them civilians. There’s an undeniable humanitarian disaster. How far into the crisis do you think you are, and is there an end in sight?
President Assad: Of course, there is an end in sight, and the solution is very clear. It’s simple yet impossible. It’s simple because the solution is very clear, how to make dialogue between the Syrians about the political process, but at the same time fighting the terrorism and the terrorists in Syria. Without fighting terrorists, you cannot have any real solution. It’s impossible because the countries that supported those terrorists, whether Western or regional like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, don’t want to stop sending all kinds of support to those terrorists. So, if we start with stopping this logistical support, and as Syrians go to dialogue, talk about the constitution, about the future of Syria, about the future of the political system, the solution is very near, not far from reach.
Question 2: Much of the reporting in the West at the moment suggests that the demise of the Islamic State is imminent. Do you believe that’s true, and how far away from seizing Raqqa, this very important city of Raqqa, do you believe you are?
President Assad: It’s not a race. Raqqa is as important as Aleppo, as Damascus, as any other city. The danger of those terrorist groups is not about what land do they occupy, because it’s not a traditional war. It’s about how much of their ideology can they instill in the mind of the people in the area that they sit or live in. Indoctrination, this is the most dangerous thing. So, reaching Raqqa is not that difficult militarily, let’s say. It’s a matter of time. We are going in that direction. But the question when you talk about war is about what the other side, let’s say the enemy, could do, and that’s directly related to the effort of Turkey, especially Erdogan, in supporting those groups, because that’s what’s happening since the beginning. If you talk about Syria as an isolated military field, you can reach that area within a few months or a few weeks, let’s say, but without taking into consideration the Turkish effort in supporting the terrorists, any answer would be a far cry from the reality, an un-factual answer.
Question 3: Mr. President, how concerned are you about recent fatal clashes which have been reported between your longtime ally Hezbollah and your own forces?
There is good Syrian-Russian-Iranian coordination on fighting terrorism
President Assad: Fighting between us and Hezbollah? They are not fighting. They support the Syrian Army. They don’t fight against the Syrian Army, they fight with the Syrian Army. The Syrian Army and Hezbollah, with the support of the Russian Air Forces, we are fighting all kinds of terrorist groups, whether ISIS or al-Nusra or other affiliated groups with Al Qaeda that’s affiliated automatically to al-Nusra and ISIS.
Question 4: So, there have been some recent reports of clashes between… are those reports incorrect.
President Assad: No, they are talking not about clashes; about, let’s say, differences and different opinions. That’s not true, and if you look at the meeting that happened recently between the Ministers of Defense in Iran, in Tehran; Syrian, Russian, and Iranian, this means there’s good coordination regarding fighting terrorism.
Question 5: To be clear, do you categorize all opposition groups as terrorists?
President Assad: Definitely not, no. When you talk about an opposition group that adopts the political means, they’re not terrorists. Whenever you hold machineguns or any other armaments and you terrorize people and you attack civilians and you attack public and private properties, you are a terrorist. But if you talk about opposition, when you talk about opposition it must be Syrian opposition. It cannot be a surrogate opposition that works as a proxy to other countries like Saudi Arabia or any other country. It must be a Syrian opposition that’s related to its Syrian grassroots, like in your country. It’s the same, I think.
Question 6: You said recently that the ceasefire offered Syrian people at least a glimmer of hope. How, five months on, do you think that hope is going?
President Assad: Yeah, it is. It’s still working, the ceasefire, but we don’t have to forget that terrorist groups violate this agreement, on a daily basis. But at the same time, we have the right, according to that agreement, to retaliate whenever the terrorists attack our government forces. So, actually you can say it’s still working in most of the areas, but in some areas it’s not.
Question 7: There are various accounts of how the Syrian crisis began. Some say it was children graffiting anti-government slogans and they were dealt with brutally by the government. I understand you don’t accept that narrative. How, in your view, did the crisis begin?
President Assad: It’s a mixture of many things. Some people demonstrated because they needed reform. We cannot deny this, we cannot say “no everybody was a terrorist” or “everyone was a mercenary.” But the majority of those demonstrators – I’m not talking about the genuine demonstrators – were paid by Qatar in order to demonstrate, then later they were paid by Qatar in order to revolt with armaments, and that’s how it started, actually. The story of children being attacked, this is an illusive story. It didn’t happen. Of course, you always have, let’s say, mistakes happening in the practice on the ground, like what happened in the United States recently, during the last year, but this is not a reason for people to hold machineguns and kill policemen and soldiers and so on.
Question 8: You do say that some of these people legitimately needed reform. Was that as a result of any heavy-handedness from your government at all?
President Assad: No, we had reform in Syria. It started mainly after 2000, in the year 2000. Some people think it was slow, some people think it was too fast, this is subjective, not objective, but we were moving in that regard. But the proof that it wasn’t about the reform, because we made all the requested reforms after the crisis started five years ago, and nothing has changed. So, it wasn’t about reform. We changed the constitution, we changed the laws that the opposition asked for, we changed many things, but nothing happened. So, it wasn’t about the reform; it was about money coming from Qatar, and most of the people that genuinely asked for reform at the beginning of the crisis, they don’t demonstrate now, they don’t go against the government, they cooperate with the government. They don’t believe, let’s say, in the political line of this government, and this is their right and that’s natural, but they don’t work against the government or against the state institutions. So, they distinguish themselves from the people who supported the terrorists.
Question 9: How do you respond to the fact that some of your ministers defected and cited brutality as reason?
President Assad: Actually, they defected because they’ve been asked to do so by, some of them, Saudi Arabia, some of them by France, it depends on the country they belong to. And now, they are belonging to that so-called opposition that belongs to those countries, not to the Syrians. They have no values in Syria, so we wouldn’t worry about that. It didn’t change anything. I mean it didn’t affect the fact or the reality in Syria.
Question 10: One of your main backers, Russia, has called for a return to the peace talks. Do you think that’s a good idea?
President Assad: You mean in Geneva?
Journalist: Yes.
Geneva negotiations need to have the basic principles in order to be fruitful
President Assad: Yeah, of course, we support every talk with every Syrian party, but in reality those talks haven’t been started yet, and there’s no Syrian-Syrian talks till this moment, because we only made negotiations with the facilitator, which is Mr. de Mistura. Actually, it hasn’t started. So, we support the principle, but in practice you need to have a certain methodology that didn’t exist so far. So, we need to start, but we need to have the basic principles for those negotiations to be fruitful.
Question 11: One thing that intrigues a lot of people about the Syrian crisis is why your close allies Iran and Russia stay so loyal?
By defending Syria, allies are defending their stability and interests
President Assad: Because it wasn’t about the President, it’s not about the person. This is the misinterpretation, or let’s say the misconception in the West, and maybe part of the propaganda, that Russia and Iran supported Assad, or supported the President. It’s not like this. It’s about the whole situation. The chaos in Syria is going to provoke a domino effect in our region, that’s going to affect the neighboring countries, it’s going to affect Iran, it’s going to affect Russia, it’s going to affect Europe, actually. So, when they defend Syria, they defend the stability and they defend their stability, they defend their interest. And at the same time, it’s about the principle. They defend the Syrian people and their right to protect themselves. Because if they defend the President and the Syrian people are not with him and don’t support him, I cannot withstand five years just because Russia and Iran support me. So, it’s not about the President, it’s about the whole situation, the bigger picture, let’s say.
Question 12: Do you have any dialogue either direct or indirectly with the United States?
Western countries are dealing with Syria through back channels
President Assad: At all, nothing at all. Indirect, yes, indirect, through different channels. But if you ask them they will deny it, and we’re going to deny it. But in reality, it exists; the back channels.
Question 13: What are some of those channels?
President Assad: I mean, let’s say, businessmen going and traveling around the world and meeting with the officials in the United States and in Europe, they meet in Europe, and they try to convey certain messages, but there’s nothing serious, because we don’t think the administration, the American administration, is serious about solving the problem in Syria.
Question 14: Well, quite recently, there were reports more than 50 diplomats have called for what they described as “real and effective military strikes” against you, against Syria. Does this in any way concern you, and do you think it signals a more aggressive policy from the United States towards Syria moving forward?
American administrations are famous of creating problems, but they never solve any
President Assad: No, warmongers in every American administration always exist. It’s not something new. But we wouldn’t give a fig, let’s say, about this communique, but it’s not about this communique; it’s about the policy, it’s about the actions. The difference between this administration and the previous one, Bush’s one, is that Bush sent his troops. This one is sending mercenaries, and turned a blind eye to what Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Qatar did, since the beginning of the crisis. So, it’s the same policy. It’s a militaristic policy, but in different ways. So, this communique is not different from the reality on the ground. This is asking for war, and the reality is a war.
Question 15: You referred to the previous government, the Bush government. There are some who say one of the reasons you’ve survived as long as a government has been America’s reluctance to get on the ground in another war in the Middle East. Do you not accept that, based on what you’re saying?
President Assad: Yeah, the American administrations since the 50s are very famous of creating problems but they never solve any problems, and that’s what happened in Iraq. Bush invaded Iraq, in a few weeks he could occupy Iraq, but then what’s next? It’s not about occupying. This is a great power. We’re not a great power. So, it’s not about America occupying Syria. What’s next? What do they want to achieve? They haven’t achieved anything. They failed in Libya, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Syria, everywhere. They only created chaos. So, if the United States wants to create more chaos it can, it can create chaos, but can they solve the problem? No.
Question 16: Do you have a preference who wins the upcoming US election?
President Assad: Actually no, we never bet on any American president, because usually what they say in the campaign is different from their practice after they become president, and Obama is an example, so we don’t have to wait. We have to wait and see what policy they’re going to adopt, whoever wins the elections.
Question 17: So, you can see a circumstance where Syria would work collaboratively with the United States and the West?
We are not against cooperation with the US based on mutual interest
President Assad: We don’t have a problem with the United States, they’re not our enemy, they don’t occupy our land. We have differences, and those differences go back to the 70s and maybe before that, but in many different times, let’s say, and events and circumstances, we had cooperation with the United States. So, we’re not against this cooperation. But, this cooperation means talking about and discussing and working for the mutual interest, not for their interest at the expense of our interest. So, we don’t have a problem.
Question 18: Mr. President, you’ve spent a lot of time yourself, as you’ve just said, in the United Kingdom. Can you see there being any repercussions for Britain’s decision to exit the European Union for Syria and for the Syrian crisis?
British people are revolting against their “second-tier” and “disconnected” politicians
President Assad: I don’t think I can elaborate about that, as it’s a British issue, and I’m not British neither European. But at the same time I can say that this surprising result, maybe, has many different components, whether internal as economic and external as the worry from the terrorism, security issues, refugees, and so on. But this is an indication for us, as those officials who used to give me the advice about how to deal with the crisis in Syria, and say “Assad must go” and “he’s disconnected” proven to be disconnected from reality, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked for this referendum, but I think this is a revolt of the people there against, I would call them sometimes second-tier politicians. They needed special, let’s say, statecraft officials, to deal their country. If another administration came and understands that the issue of refugees and security is related to the problem in our region, this is where you’re going to have a different policy that will affect us positively. But I don’t have now a lot of hope about this. Let’s say we have a slim hope, because we don’t know who’s going to come after Cameron in the UK.
Question 19: Can I ask; Australia is part of the international coalition to defeat the Islamic State. Obviously, that’s one of your goals, so in that instance there’s a shared goal. Do you welcome international intervention when there’s a shared goal like that.
President Assad: Actually, we welcome any effort to fight terrorism in Syria, any effort, but this effort first of all should be genuine, not window-dressing like what’s happening now in northern Syria where 60 countries couldn’t prevent ISIS from expanding. Actually, when the Russian air support started, only at that time when ISIS stopped expanding. So, it needs to be genuine. Second, it needs to be through the Syrian legitimate government, not just because they want to fight terrorism and they can go anywhere in the world. We are a legitimate government and we are a sovereign country. So, only on these two circumstances we welcome any foreign support to fight terrorism.
Question 20: A number of Australians have died fighting for either the Kurdish militia or the Islamic State. Do you have a message for these young people who feel so enraged by what’s taking place in Syria that they travel over here to fight?
President Assad: Again, the same, let’s say, answer. If there are foreigners coming without the permission of the government, they are illegal, whether they want to fight terrorists or want to fight any other one. It is the same. It’s illegal, we can call it.
Question 21: Mr. President, Australian politicians have used very strong language about your role in the crisis, as have other leaders, internationally. Australia’s Prime Minister has referred to you as a “murderous tyrant,” saying that you’re responsible for killing thousands of innocent civilians. Australia’s opposition leader has called you a “butcher.” Yet Australia’s official position is still to work with you toward a peace agreement. How do you reconcile those two very different positions?
Western nations attack Syrian government and yet deal with it under the table
President Assad: Actually, this is the double standard of the West in general. They attack us politically and they send us their officials to deal with us under the table, especially the security, including your government. They all do the same. They don’t want to upset the United States. Actually, most of the Western officials only repeat what the United States wants them to say. This is the reality. So, I think these statements, I just can say they are disconnected from our reality, because I’m fighting terrorists, our army is fighting terrorists, our government is against terrorists, the whole institutions are against terrorists. If you call fighting terrorism butchery, that’s another issue.
Question 22: Australia has agreed to take an additional twelve thousand Syrian refugees; some have already arrived. Do you have a message for these Syrians, many of whom still say they love Syria and they want to return. Do you have a message for those people, as I said, who are in Australia, and other countries around the world?
A more humanitarian and less costly European solution to refugee crisis is stopping support to terrorists
President Assad: Actually, you mentioned a very important point. Most of the refugees that left Syria, they want to come back to Syria. So, any country that helped them enter their new country, let’s say, their new homeland, is welcome as a humanitarian action, but again there is something more humanitarian and less costly: is to help them staying in their country, help them going back by helping the stability in Syria, not to give any umbrella or support to the terrorists. That’s what they want. They want the Western governments to take decisive decisions against what Saudi Arabia and other Western countries, like France and UK, are doing in order to support the terrorists in Syria just to topple the government. Otherwise, those Syrians wouldn’t have left Syria. Most of them, they didn’t leave because they are against the government or with the government; they left because it’s very difficult to live in Syria these days.
Question 23: Do you hope that these people will return and would you facilitate for them to return?
President Assad: Definitely, I mean losing people as refugees is like losing human resources. How can you build a country without human resources? Most of those people are educated, well trained, they have their own businesses in Syria in different domains. You lose all this, of course, we need.
Question 24: The Commission for International Justice and Accountability says there are thousands of government documents which say has proved your government sanctioned mass torture and killings. In the face of that evidence, how do you say that no crimes have taken place, and I point also to other independent organizations, which are critical of deliberate targeting hospitals. Do you concede that some mistakes have been made as you’ve targeted some rebel-held areas?
President Assad: You are talking about two different things. One of them, the first one is the reports. The most important report that’s been financed by Qatar, just to defame the Syrian government, and they have no proof, who took the pictures, who are the victims in those pictures, and so on. Like you can forge anything if you want now on the computer. So, it is not credible at all. Second, talking about attacking hospitals or attacking civilians, the question, the very simple question is: why do we attack hospitals and civilians? I mean the whole issue, the whole problem in Syria started when those terrorists wanted to win the hearts of the Syrians. So, attacking hospitals or attacking civilians is playing into the hands of the terrorists. So, if we put the values aside now for a while, let’s talk about the interests. No government in this situation has any interest in killing civilians or attacking hospitals. Anyway, if you attack hospitals, you can use any building to be a hospital. No, these are an anecdotal claims, mendacious statements I can say; they are not credible at all. We’re still sending vaccines to those areas under the control of the terrorists. So, how can I send vaccines and attack the hospitals? This is a contradiction.
Question 25: Mr. President, as a father and as a man, has there been one anecdote, one story, one image from the crisis, which has affected you personally more than others?
President Assad: Definitely, we are humans, and I am Syrian like the other Syrians. I will be more sympathetic with any Syrian tragedy affecting any person or family, and in this region, we are very emotional people, generally. But as an official, I am not only a person, I am an official. As an official, the first question you ask when you have that feeling is what are you going to do, what are you going to do to protect other Syrians from the same suffering? That’s the most important thing. So, I mean, this feeling, this sad feeling, this painful feeling, is an incentive for me to do more. It’s not only a feeling.
Question 26: What’s your vision for Syria? How do you see things in two to three years?
President Assad: After the crisis or…? Because, the first thing we would like to see is to have Syria stable as it used to be before, because it was one of the most stable countries and secure countries around the world, not only in our region. So, this the first thing. If you have this, you can have other ambitions. Without it you cannot. I mean, if you have this, the other question: how to deal with the new generation that lived the life of killing, that saw the extremism or learned the extremism or indoctrinated by Al Qaeda-affiliated groups, and so on. This is another challenge. The third one is bringing back those human resources that left as refugees in order to rebuild Syria. Rebuilding the country as buildings or infrastructure is very easy; we are capable of doing this as Syrians. The challenge is about the new generation.
Question 27: How do you think history will reflect on your presidency?
President Assad: What I wish is to say that this is the one who saved his country from the terrorists and from the external intervention. That is what I wish about it. Anything else would be left to the judgment of the Syrian people, but this is my only wish.
Journalist: Mr. President, Thank you very much for speaking with SBS Australia.
President Assad: Thank you very much.
Activists storm US military base in Yorkshire
Press TV – July 4, 2016
British activists have stormed an American military base in Yorkshire, continuing decades-long calls for its closure.
Just like the past three decades, peace activists from all over Britain gathered outside the Menwith Hill intelligence-gathering center on the outskirts of Harrogate over the weekend, the British daily Morning Star reported Monday.
“US military bases in Britain are jeopardizing the safety and security of the British public as they are threatening Russia and helping to cause carnage in the Middle East,” said Marcus Papadopoulos, an activist with the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB), which organized the event.
With its many satellite dishes, the more than 1,000-staff base collects intelligence and transmits it to the US.
Every year, protesters stage a demonstration at the base on the Saturday closest to July 4 – the day Americans celebrate their independence from England in 1776.
Ironically, this year’s rally was called “Independence from America Day,” and was attended by former Labour member of the European Parliament Michael McGowan.
McGowan gave a speech in defense of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn whose leadership is under attack following the UK’s recent decision to leave the European Union (EU).
About 52 percent of British voters partaking in the June 23 referendum opted to leave the EU.
Labour MPs have criticized Corbyn for his “inadequate” contribution to the ‘Remain’ campaign and say they doubt he could lead the party to victory in 2020 general elections.
The party further plunged into crisis after eleven MPs rounded on Corbyn’s leadership, joining the 12 shadow cabinet ministers who resigned earlier this month.
The wave of resignation came after shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn was sacked after he told the Labour leader that he had lost confidence in his leadership.
McGowan, however, told rally goers that Corbyn’s election last year provided “a historic opportunity for world peace, which should be a matter of universal celebration and an opportunity not be wasted but to be taken forward in the interest of all who share our planet.”
Featured Video
Pediatrician shares 30 yrs of insight on vaccinating vs. not vaccinating children
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Excerpt
Biden’s Closed Circle on Russia
An excerpt from ‘The Great Betrayal’
By James W. Carden | The Realist Review | June 14, 2026
Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Terms of Iran-US MoU revealed: Bloomberg
- A California Pediatrician Shares 30 Years of Insight on Vaccinating vs. Not Vaccinating Children
- What Is Defensive Medicine?
- CDC Awards Pfizer $1.24 Billion for COVID Vaccines for Kids and Adults
- Historic blow to South Korea’s military intelligence agency
- Russian frigate fires warning shots in English Channel
- Radio Free Europe, the Cold War ‘Weapon’ Congress Still Funds
- UN: Israel continues to violate Lebanon airspace in defiance of Iran-US MoU
- Araghchi: Israeli occupation of Lebanese land a violation of MoU
- Hezbollah fighters confront intruding Israeli forces in southern Lebanon
- If Americans Knew
- Pro-Israel Donors Power Last-Minute Surge of Espaillat Spending
- “They Stole Our Home and Our Life”: Israel Permanently Displaces Syrians in Quneitra
- Massie Recognizes USS Liberty Attack. Here’s Why That Matters
- The blatant racism and cruelty that define Israel’s settler movement
- Israeli army ‘murdered child’ in Gaza and then dumped body on a roadside
- The Forward’s Hit Piece on Thomas Massie and USS Liberty Veterans
- Israel’s former defense minister compares settler ideology to Nazism
- The Pro-Israel Lobby’s Quiet Cash Shuffle
- Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Propagandizes for Israel’s Wars
- A grim milestone: Gaza’s death toll surpasses 73,000 – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
Aletho News 