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Losing Ground: 2015 Proved a ‘Lost Year’ for Turkey

Sputnik – 01.01.2016

In an interview with CNBC, Unicredit Bank AG’s Chief Economist for Central and Eastern Europe Lubomir Mitov said that Ankara could derive enormous benefit from the situation in Europe and capitalize on low oil prices, but instead it had lost all its economic advantages, quarreled with all its neighbors, and spoiled ties with Russia.

According to Mitov, 2015 was a “lost year” for Turkey, which missed many opportunities because of the deterioration of the geopolitical situation.

He said that in particular, Turkey could have “benefited tremendously” from the current situation in Europe, where the Central Bank has  increased asset purchases to try to keep the economy afloat. Still, those gains were never achieved due to internal political strife and geopolitics, Mitov recalled.

“Turkey is underperforming [and] has been underperforming for the full year…it’s even underperforming after the elections,” he said.

He also pointed out that “Turkey is probably 3 to 4 percent weaker than it should have been after the elections, but for these geopolitical problems.”

Even though the previous government tried to develop friendly relations with its neighboring states, Turkey now has “almost no neighbors left, according to Mitov, who recalled that Ankara earlier sparked rows with Iraq, Egypt and Syria.

The situation is further exacerbated by Turkey’s increased tensions in relations with Russia after Ankara’s downing of the Russian Su-24 bomber. In response, “Moscow clamped down on agricultural imports, set stringent visa limits, and restricted tourism to Turkey,” according to Mitov.

He was echoed by Peter Toogood, an investment director at City Financial Investment Company Limited, who was quoted by CNBS as saying that a lack of structural reforms has stopped Turkey from capitalizing on “the full benefits of economic boons like low oil prices.”

“The lira continues to decline, it has had no meaningful impact … the oil price has come down, [and] it should be the absolute example of a beneficiary, and it hasn’t been,” Toogood said.

January 1, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Radioactive materials spreading from St. Louis landfill – report

RT | December 31, 2015

Dangerous radioactive materials from a nuclear waste dump near St. Louis, Missouri have spread to neighboring areas, a new study shows. Storm water runoff from the site has also raised concerns and is being tested for radioactive pollution.

According to a peer-reviewed study just published in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, there is “strong evidence” that radon gas and water emanating from the West Lake Landfill are responsible for the anomalous levels of a lead isotope (210Pb), created by radioactive decay, in the surrounding area.

Just northwest of the St. Louis International Airport, the West Lake Landfill is a repository of nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project, the WW2 effort to create the atomic bomb. The area was declared an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site in 1990, but the federal government is still deciding how to clean up the waste.

After analyzing nearly 300 soil samples from a 200-square-kilometer zone surrounding West Lake, the report’s authors concluded that “offsite migration of radiological contaminants from Manhattan Project-era uranium processing wastes has occurred in this populated area.”

“The stuff we’re talking about at West Lake is hotter than what you would find in a typical uranium mill tailings operation,” said Bob Alvarez, one of the authors, in an interview on Tuesday.

The study compared the levels of Lead-210 from 287 sample sites in the area to the baseline established by the US Department of Energy at the Fernald, Ohio uranium plant, which handled and stored the same concentrated nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project.

In 48 percent of the samples, concentrations of the isotope were “above the risk-based soil cleanup limits for residential farming,” according to the study.

Moreover, the levels of Lead-210 were not in equilibrium with other isotopes in the radioactive decay series, suggesting that its origin was in the “short-lived, fugitive radon gas that escaped the landfill,” the study says.

A 2013 report found that West Lake had the largest estimated amount of Thorium-230, “a long-lived, highly radiotoxic element,” more than any other nuclear weapons storage or disposal site in the US.

Pollution from the landfill has already been blamed for a sharp increase in the number of cancer cases in the surrounding areas. There are concerns that storm runoff from the toxic waste dump may be carrying radioactive materials into the Missouri river, upstream from the municipal intake for the area’s drinking water supply.

Another cause for alarm is the underground fire burning for several years at the nearby Bridgeton Landfill, just 1000 feet apart. Depending on the extent of the runoff from West Lake, radioactive materials may have already been released by the fire, though EPA and the landfill management have denied the possibility.

In October, local authorities made public an emergency plan drafted in 2014 in case the “sub-surface smoldering event” at Bridgeton reached the West Lake landfill.  County Executive Steve Stenger assured the public that the plan was “not an indication of any imminent danger” and that the procedures in the document were merely a precaution.

December 31, 2015 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

British MPs tout NATO’s ‘Kosovo success story’ as reason to bomb Syria

By Dan Glazebrook | RT | December 31, 2015

Kosovo is often cited by liberal interventionists as NATO’s success story and now a reason for attacking Syria. However, the ongoing lawlessness in the country shows nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1999, NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days, culminating in the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the Serbian province of Kosovo. Tens of thousands were killed or maimed by the airstrikes, and Kosovo was carved out as a NATO statelet under the control of UNMIK (the United Nations Mission in Kosovo) in alliance with its local quislings the Kosovo Liberation Army (the KLA).

Last month’s parliamentary debate on British airstrikes in Syria witnessed several MPs citing the operation as a great success. Labour MP Ivan Lewis was “proud of the difficult choices that we made” in Kosovo and elsewhere, which he claimed “saved hundreds of thousands of lives”.

Kosovo was particularly held up by those supporting British military action in Syria as an example of how airstrikes alone, without support from ground forces, can be victorious. Mocking those who argued that “coalition action which rests almost wholly on bombing… will have little effect”, Margaret Beckett responded “well, tell that to the Kosovans, and do not forget that if there had not been any bombing in Kosovo perhaps 1 million Albanian Muslim refugees would be seeking refuge in Europe.”

Conservative MP Richard Benyon concurred, adding: “I asked one my constituents––someone who knows a bit about this, General Sir Mike Jackson––whether he could remember any conflict where air power alone made a difference. He thought and said one word: Kosovo.”

The argument is entirely fallacious. One obvious difference between the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999 and the British bombing of Syria today is the contrast in their stated aims. NATO was ostensibly bombing Yugoslavia to achieve a limited goal – the secession of Kosovo. In Syria today, however, the ostensible aim of airstrikes against ISIS is the destruction of ISIS. In other words, while the first aimed to force a concession from the force it was targeting; the other apparently aims at the total elimination of its target. While enough punishment might persuade someone to concede a demand, it will not persuade anyone to agree to their own eradication. There is, thus, no parallel in the logic behind the two campaigns, and anyone trying to draw one is being entirely disingenuous.

Secondly, when the actual historical record is examined it becomes clear that, even on its own terms, NATO did not actually achieve its demands. The Rambouillet ‘agreement’ was NATO’s eleventh hour diktat to Yugoslavia on the eve of bombing, designed to be rejected in order to justify the bombing raids. The key bone of contention for Yugoslavia in this document was that it demanded NATO troops be granted full access to air fields, roads, ports and railroads across the country – that is to say, an effective NATO occupation of the entire federal republic.

Obviously, as Sara Flounders and John Catalinotto of the International Action Centre have written, “no self-respecting government could accept such an ultimatum”. Instead, the Yugoslav government offered to withdraw their troops from Kosovo. This was rejected by NATO, who began bombing within days. After nearly three months of heroic resistance from the Yugoslav people, the bombing ended with Yugoslav troops withdrawing from Kosovo – without any NATO occupation of the rest of the country. That is to say, the war was brought to a close on the terms originally offered by the Yugoslavs, and not on the terms demanded by NATO at the outset: hardly the overwhelming victory claimed by the likes of British General Mike Jackson.

What really gives the lie to the ‘Kosovo success’ narrative, however, is simply the condition of NATO’s statelet today. An in-depth piece by Vedat Xhymshiti in Foreign Policy Journal last month notes that “Kosovo is the poorest and most isolated country in Europe, with millionaire politicians steeped in crime. A third of the workforce is unemployed, and corruption is widespread. Youth unemployment (those aged 25 and under) stands at 2 in 3, and nearly half of the 1.8 million citizens of Kosovo are considered to be in poverty. From December 2014 until February 2015, about 5% of the population was forced to leave the country in an effort to find a better life, studies and more dignified jobs, on their uncertain path towards wealthier countries in the EU.”

The British MPs’ argument that NATO’s takeover of Kosovo was achieved by airstrikes alone, without ground forces, is a lie. NATO’s allies in 1999 were the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), a violent sectarian group who openly sought the establishment of an ethnically supremacist state – much like the forces supported by NATO in Libya, Syria and Ukraine. Once NATO had destroyed the Yugoslav administration in Kosovo, effective power on the ground passed to the KLA, who set about implementing their vision of an ethnically pure Kosovo via a series of pogroms, massacres and persecutions of the province’s Serb, Jewish and Roma populations. They gained effective control of Kosovan politics, and used this power to guarantee themselves impunity both for their historic and ongoing war crimes, and for their massive expansion of organized criminality.

In December 2010, a Council of Europe report named Kosovan Prime Minister and former KLA leader Hashim Thaci “the head of a “mafia-like” Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe”, according the Guardian newspaper’s summary. Following NATO’s intervention, Thaci’s Drenica group within the KLA, according to the report, seized control of “most of the illicit criminal enterprises” in which Kosovans were involved in Albania. The report noted that “agencies dedicated to combating drug smuggling in at least five countries have named Hashim Thaçi and other members of his Drenica group as having exerted violent control over the trade in heroin and other narcotics.” The human rights investigator who authored the report, Dick Marty, commented that: “Thaçi and these other Drenica group members are consistently named as ‘key players’ in intelligence reports on Kosovo’s mafia-like structures of organised crime.”

In addition to their leading role in Europe’s heroin smuggling trade, Thaci and his group were also named as having been responsible for a professional organ smuggling operation involving the kidnapping and murder of Serb civilians in order to harvest and sell their kidneys. Currently serving as both Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Thaci’s NATO protection guarantees he has never been brought to justice for any of these crimes.

Indeed, NATO-sponsored impunity has been a consistent theme amongst the new Kosovan elite. A report by Amnesty International published in August 2013 noted that “the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) singularly failed to investigate the abduction and murders of Kosovo Serbs in the aftermath of the 1998-1999 conflict” adding that “UNMIK’s failure to investigate what constituted a widespread, as well as a systematic, attack on a civilian population and, potentially, crimes against humanity, has contributed to the climate of impunity prevailing in Kosovo.” Marty’s report, too, noted the “faltering political will on the part of the international community to effectively prosecute the former leaders of the KLA”, and Carla del Ponte, former chief war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, stated that she was barred from prosecuting KLA leaders.

UNMIK’s responsibilities for police and justice came to an end in December 2008, following Kosovo’s controversial declaration of independence. It was replaced by the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), which, according to Amnesty International, inherited 1,187 war crimes cases that UNMIK had failed to investigate. All the signs are that the overt impunity that has prevailed up until now will be replaced by lip service to the rule of law, accompanied by the prosecution of a few low level operatives, whilst maintaining the protection for those at the top. Following the Council of Europe’s damning report, EULEX spent three years investigating the claims, eventually publishing a verdict that was a textbook case of damage-limitation whitewash. EULEX concluded that the crimes were indeed real, and were linked to leading KLA members, but refused to corroborate the names of any specific individuals involved, despite copious evidence. Thaci’s protection, it seems, is absolute.

Nevertheless, in August of this year, the Kosovan parliament finally and grudgingly approved (after initially rejecting) the establishment of a special war crimes court to prosecute KLA leaders for crimes committed between 1998 and 2000. In moves highly reminiscent of scenes outside both the Libyan and Ukrainian parliaments when tentative and tokenistic legal moves were made to end the impunity of the sectarian death squads, the parliament has come under repeated attack ever since. Riots and six separate teargas attacks by the opposition have brought the normal functioning of the Kosovan parliament to a standstill. Failed state status surely beckons.

Meanwhile, the credibility of EULEX, whose officials will be overseeing the establishment of the new court, was further thrown into doubt in November 2014 when Andrea Capussela, former head of UNMIK’s economic unit, released the results of an in-depth analysis of the most significant cases in which EULEX had been involved. Seven of these she claimed had only been brought after intense international pressure, whilst in a further eight, no investigation was carried out at all, despite “credible and well-documented evidence strongly suggesting that serious crimes had been committed.”

She noted that “Eulex’s conduct in these 15 cases – the eight ignored ones and the seven opened under pressure – suggests that the mission tended not to prosecute high-level crime, and, when it had to, it sought not to indict or convict prominent figures”. During its six years of operating, she noted, only four convictions had been secured – three of them against only secondary figures, whilst “higher-ranking figures linked to the same crimes were either not investigated or indicted”. A senior Kosovan investigator noted that “There are people killing people and getting away with it because of Unmik and Eulex,” adding that “The political elite and Eulex have fused. They are indivisible. The laws are just for poor people,” Indeed, Eulex seems to be operating increasingly like a mafia themselves, last year, putting “pressure”, according to Amnesty International, on “journalist, Vehbi Kajtazi, who had reported alleged corruption in EULEX”.

In a final twist to NATO’s ‘success story’, Kosovo has now become the largest per-capita provider of fighters for regime change in Syria. The official figure is 300 but more reliable estimates suggests the true figure is more than 1000 (from a population of 2 million), including one of the top ten ISIS commanders, Lavdrim Muhaxheri. As state education, along with most other social provision, has collapsed since 1999, Saudi-sponsored Madrasas have filled the gap, providing an extreme Wahhabi sectarian education now feeding its first generation of impoverished graduates into NATO’s new Syrian battlefields. No surprise, then, that Kosovan government’s efforts to prevent this have been “superficial and ineffective”, according to David Philips in the Huffington Post.

The ‘lesson’ of Kosovo, then, is not that “airpower works” or any other such nonsense. The real lesson is what it reveals about NATO’s formula for the destruction of independent regional powers – relying on a combination of aerial bombardment alongside the empowerment of local sectarian death squads, who come to dominate the political scene in the aftermath, obliterating the rule of law and guaranteeing a dysfunctional state incapable of providing either dignity or security to its citizens. This was the same formula that was used on Libya in 2011 and currently being attempted in Syria today. Of course, for NATO, all of this is indeed a success: Yugoslavia dismembered; its resources plundered at the expense of its desperate and impoverished people; and Kosovo turned into a provider of shock troops for regime change in Syria, and transit hub for heroin and organ trafficking. If this is what NATO calls a success, we must all pray for failure.

Dan Glazebrook is a freelance political writer who has written for RT, Counterpunch, Z magazine, the Morning Star, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Independent and Middle East Eye, amongst others. His first book “Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis” was published by Liberation Media in October 2013. It featured a collection of articles written from 2009 onwards examining the links between economic collapse, the rise of the BRICS, war on Libya and Syria and ‘austerity’. He is currently researching a book on US-British use of sectarian death squads against independent states and movements from Northern Ireland and Central America in the 1970s and 80s to the Middle East and Africa today.

December 31, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey rejects Iraq’s warning against Ankara troop deployment

Press TV – December 31, 2015

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has dismissed Baghdad’s warning of military action to defend Iraqi sovereignty if Ankara does not pull its troops out of northern Iraq.

“If Baghdad wants to use force, they should use it against Daesh, get rid of Daesh from Mousul. If they do so… why we would risk our army, we would withdraw to our country,” Davutoglu said in an interview with Turkish broadcaster NTV.

He made the remarks in response to Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who called on Turkey Wednesday to withdraw its troops or risk the use of military action.

Baghdad and Ankara are locked in a war of words over the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq.

On December 4, Turkey deployed some 150 soldiers, equipped with heavy weapons and backed by 20 to 25 tanks, to the outskirts of Mosul, the capital of Iraq’s Nineveh Province.

Ankara claimed the deployment was part of a mission to train and equip Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the fight against Daesh.

Baghdad has strongly condemned the presence of the Turkish battalion on the Iraqi territory, branding the uncoordinated act as a violation of Iraq’s national sovereignty.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Davutoglu claimed that Turkish troops were in northern Iraq in a bid to prevent terrorist infiltration into Turkey.

“I wish Iraq can control this area (northern parts) so that we don’t need to launch air operations there to prevent the leak of terrorists into Turkey.”

On Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi held a phone conversation with Davutoglu, calling on Ankara to respect the territorial integrity of Iraq and withdraw its troops from the Arab country.

December 31, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Only one military service inductee in Reni district of Odessa in autumn 2015

Timer-Odessa – December 29, 2015

During the autumn of 2015, the army recruitment office for the Reni district of Odessa region found only one inductee, the department head for military enlistment, Sergey Lazarev, has announced.

“According to the conscription plan for the Ukrainian military, the Reni district should have contributed ten conscripts suitable for passage into military service. However, there was only one inductee. That is, the plan was met by ten per cent only,” he reported.

“When contacting candidates or their relatives, recruiters find that people are not home or they do not open their door,” said said Lazarev. “Due to the difficult financial situation, many citizens of military age have gone to work outside the region and even the country.”

He added that his military enlistment office has asked police to assist in the search for 414 citizens called up for military service. But none have been found and delivered to the military commissariat.

The problem is being discussed at the board of the district administration in Reni. “People on military service are unable to work or study”, notes the head of the district, Sergei Belyuk.

The spring 2016 military call-up is projecting 195 young residents from Reni district.

Translation by New Cold War.org

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Top US Commander Seeks to Keep 9,800 Troops in Afghanistan

teleSUR | December 29, 2015

The top commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan said Tuesday he wants to keep as many military forces in the country to allegedly boost counter-terror operations.

In an interview with USA Today, Army Gen. John Campbell said he wants to keep the current 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to train the country’s security forces and conduct ‘counterterrorism’ operations.

“My intent would be to keep as much as I could for as long as I could,” Campbell told the paper “At some point it becomes physics. I’m going to have to get them out.”

Campbell’s declaration goes against a scheduled reduction to 5,500 U.S. troops by Jan. 1, 2017.

He is set to brief senior leaders in Washington about the security situation and offer proposals for a stronger military presence in Afghanistan.

“Some of them will not go over well with people,” Campbell said. “Some of them will get approved.”

The military commander has been pushing for a longer and more extensive military presence in Afghanistan in recent months to counter what he says is a growing strength of the Taliban, the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda in the country.

In recent months, the Taliban have regained control of much of Afghanistan, with vast swathes of rural areas slipping beyond the control of the central government.

The security crisis has led to the worst annual rate of civilian causalities in 2014 since at least 2009, according to a United Nations report released earlier this year.

Painting a bleak picture in the divided country, the report said civilian deaths increased by 22 percent between 2013 and 2014. The report attributed the steady rise in civilian killings to “increased ground engagements” and the mushrooming use of heavy explosives such as mortars in civilian populated areas.

Among the victims, children accounted for 714 killed and 1,760 wounded in 2014 – a 40 percent increase over the previous year.

Afghanistan’s security forces are also facing mounting casualties, with at least 5,000 troops and police killed last year.

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Who is the Arch Racist: The Donald or Hillary?

By John V. Walsh | Dissident Voice | December 29, 2015

Who is the arch racist, Hillary or Trump?  To answer that, let us ask another question, a simple one.  Which is worse: to denigrate some members of a group or religion or race – or to kill them by the millions?  And maim more millions and displace even more millions?  Which is more “racist”?  With that in mind, who is the arch racist, Hillary or The Donald?

Do the liberals who criticize Trump, but not Hillary, as racist forget the slogan of the anti-Vietnam War movement, “Stop the Racist Bombing.”

And which causes more blowback, more revenge attacks by the victims – the denigration with words or the killing with bombs and sanctions?

Then consider the careers and statements of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  Is there any doubt who is the greater offender in terms of hostility to Muslims?  And yet in all of the accusations of “racism” hurled at Trump from the editorial pages of the NYT to the most “progressive” web sites and outlets, there appears no corresponding charge against Hillary as racist.  That is symptomatic of a deep imperial sickness, an inability to see what is all too clear.  It is also an indication of the deep reach of the elite into all outlets of communication from the mainstream to most of the alternative ones and even into the minds of supposed progressives.

Let us consider some of the things that Donald Trump has had to say, most notably the following from the last debate of 2015 among the GOP candidates:

TRUMP: In my opinion, we’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could’ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems; our airports and all of the other problems we’ve had, we would’ve been a lot better off. I can tell you that right now.

We have done a tremendous disservice, not only to Middle East, we’ve done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have (been) wiped away, and for what? It’s not like we had victory.

It’s a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized. A total and complete mess. I wish we had the $4 trillion or $5 trillion. I wish it were spent right here in the United States, on our schools, hospitals, roads, airports, and everything else that are all falling apart.  (Emphasis, jw)

Doug Fuda, a Catholic antiwar activist, describes this statement as “almost a call for a desperately needed American repentance.”

Just campaign rhetoric, you might say – although hardly the kind you hear from the rest of the candidates, especially on the value of the lives of those the US bombed into oblivion. Then consider the following from Trump’s March, 2004 Esquire interview:

Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the county? C’mon. Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over.

What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!  (Emphasis, jw)

That statement was made 11 years ago when Trump was a TV sensation, not a political candidate.  A simple rule is that the greater the temporal gap between a candidate’s statements and voting day, the more heartfelt will be the statement. With that statement of 2004 you could not get further from the sentiment expressed by Hillary’s support for the war on Iraq or the proclamation by her close colleague Madeleine Albright that the Clinton sanctions on Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands, five hundred thousand children among them, were “worth it” to overthrow Saddam Hussein!  And Hillary herself peddling every neocon war in sight from Iraq to Libya and now Syria.  How can the liberals and progressives excoriate Trump but not Clinton as “racist”?  And how can they ignore Trump’s words of compassion for those on “the other side”?  Those words are unique among the current contenders for the presidency and they ought to earn Trump a sobriquet quite different from “new Hitler” or “racist.”  Have the so-called progressives lost touch with reality?

And now Hillary claims that Trump’s words fuel the fire of ISIS.  The fires of ISIS were raging long before Trump made his appearance on the national political scene.  And they burn bright because the wars waged by the demented Hillary and the rest of the Washington political elite provided the fuel that fed the Jihadist flame.  Trump’s words, advocating a temporary halt to the entrance of Muslims into the U.S., if they have had any effect at all, were but a handful of woodchips next to the forests of fuel that Hillary’s wars provided the conflagration that is ISIS. But Hillary is no stranger to the most outrageous of lies, including the charge that ISIS has made a video featuring Trump.

Now on late night TV Hillary, despite all the blood of non-whites on her hands, has the gall to say that Trump is “dangerous.”  He certainly has become a danger to her shot at the presidency.  But for her to act as though she cares one wit about the lives of people of color, especially Arabs and Muslims, is a very sick joke.

In the context of the presidential campaign, my liberal and progressive friends, go ahead and excoriate The Donald to the max for any genuine racism or bigotry.  Have at it.  This writer for one welcomes it. But do not do so without mention of Hillary’s record with the blood of millions of Muslims all over it, as the New York Times does.  At best that is a half-truth, which, of course, is a full lie.

Postscript.   Well worth reading is this fact-based piece “The Media Needs to Stop Telling This Lie About Trump,” by a self-described liberal Alberto Martinez native of Puerto Rico and now a Professor at the University of TX at Austin.

John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey: A Criminal State, a NATO State

By Eric Draitser | New Eastern Outlook | December 28, 2015

It is now openly discussed even in mainstream media the fact that Turkey has been intimately involved in fomenting and supporting the war on Syria, with its ultimate goal being the overthrow of the Syrian government and its replacement by a compliant proxy aligned with Turkish President Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood. That this is no longer a ‘conspiracy theory’ but a conspiracy fact not only vindicates my analysis over the last four years, but it also brings to the fore the nefarious role of a NATO member in stoking a brutal and bloody war for its own ends.

Beyond just the war itself, Turkey has been implicated in a wide variety of crimes (some constituting war crimes) which cast Ankara in a very bad light: a supporter of terrorism, a criminal government engaging in acts of aggression against its neighbors and other world powers, the repression of journalists and others who have brought the truth to the light of day, among many others. Taken in total, it becomes clear that under President Erdogan Turkey has become a belligerent actor with delusions of hegemony and a complete disregard for human rights and sovereignty.

But how exactly has this transformation happened? What has been proven regarding Turkish government actions that make it so clear that the regime in Ankara is criminal in nature?

Cataloging Turkish Crimes

The criminality of the Erdogan government can be roughly broken down into the following categories: aggression against sovereign states, material support for international terrorism, and systematic violation of human rights. Naturally, there are many other crimes that would also be included in a full and completing accounting of Ankara’s illegal actions including, but not limited to, corruption, promoting and tacitly supporting fascist gangs, and many others. But it is the support for international terrorism that rises above all others to thrust Turkey into the spotlight as one of the single most important supporters of the global scourge of terrorism.

Turkey’s central role in each and every aspect of terrorism in Syria must be the starting point of any analysis of Turkey’s grave crimes. President Erdogan has not been shy about calling for regime change in Syria, but his position has been far more than merely rhetorical; Erdogan’s government has played a very direct role in the sponsorship, arming, facilitation and military backing of everyone from the Free Syrian Army to Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria) and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh).

In 2012, the New York Times confirmed that the CIA was sending weapons and other military materiel into the hands of anti-Assad forces from the Turkish side of the border, using their connections with the Muslim Brotherhood to do so. However, it has also come to light that Turkish intelligence has been front and center in the ongoing campaign to arm and resupply the terror groups such as the al-Nusra Front and others. This fact was exposed by Can Dündar, the editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet, who now faces a potential life sentence at the behest of President Erdogan, who himself called for Dündar to receive multiple life sentences.

What is the reason for the attack on Dündar and other opposition journalists? The Cumhuriyet, one of the most widely read Turkish dailies, published video footage confirming the widespread allegations that Turkish trucks, ostensibly loaded with humanitarian supplies, were actually filled with arms bound for terror groups fighting against Assad, and that those trucks were operated by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).  But it goes much further than that.

Turkey has been directly involved on the ground in Syria both in active military and support roles. In fact, transcripts of wiretaps obtained by Cumhuriyet, and presented in Turkish courts, along with shocking video footage, have confirmed what numerous eyewitnesses have stated: Turkish security forces have been directly involved in shelling and support operations for Nusra front and other jihadi groups in and around Kassab, Syria, among other sites. This is a crucial piece of information because it explains just why those terror groups were able to successfully capture that region in 2014, and recapture it this year. Eyewitnesses in Kassab have confirmed what Syrian soldiers speaking on condition of anonymity had reported, namely that Turkish helicopters and heavy artillery were used in support of Nusra and the other terror groups during both the 2014 and the current campaign.

Of course this policy of alliance with anti-Assad terrorists has been part of Turkey’s modus operandi since the beginning of the conflict. In 2012, Reuters revealed that Turkey, “set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria’s rebels from a city near the border… ‘It’s the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main coordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom,’ said a Doha-based source.”

This information was confirmed by Vice President Joe Biden in his spectacular foot-in-mouth speech at Harvard University where he stated:

Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends… [and] the Saudis, the Emirates, etcetera. What were they doing?… They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied, [they] were al-Nusra, and al-Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis who were coming from other parts of the world.

But one must guard against the false notion that somehow Turkey’s role has been merely as auxiliary in Syria, as a supporter, but not leader, of the terrorist factions wreaking havoc on the Syrian battlefield. Instead, it is now an inescapable fact, even acknowledged by some high-ranking military and intelligence officials, that Turkey has been the principal financier and supporter of the Islamic State and the other jihadist groups.

According to the UK Independent, President Erdogan’s son Bilal Erdogan, along with a number of other close associates, have been directly benefiting from the illicit oil trade with the Islamic State. The paper noted that, “Bilal Erdogan… is one of three equal partners in the BMZ group, a major Turkish oil and marine shipping company, which both the Russian and Syrian governments have accused of purchasing oil from ISIS… Bilal Erdogan has been directly involved in the oil trade with ISIS… Turkey downed a Russian jet on 24 November specifically to protect his oil smuggling business.”

In fact, Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi explained that “All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts [sic] as well.”

So it seems that Erdogan and his clique are involved not simply in fomenting war and terrorism in Syria, but also in its plunder, with complex smuggling networks being directly tied to the Turkish President himself. Indeed, just such smuggling networks have been uncovered throughout Asia, tying Turkey into the broader international architecture of terrorism trafficking.

In late 2014 and early 2015, a human trafficking ring was exposed by Chinese authorities. It was revealed that at least ten Turks were responsible for organizing and facilitating the border crossings of a number of Uighurs (Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang), at least one of whom was a wanted Uighur terrorist with others being “radicalized potential terrorists.” These individuals were likely part of a previously documented trend of Uighur extremists traveling to the Middle East to train and fight with the Islamic State and/or other terror groups.

In fact, precisely this trend was exposed two months earlier in September 2014 when Reuters reported that Beijing formally accused militant Uighurs from Xinjiang of having traveled to Islamic State-controlled territory to receive training. Further corroborating these accusations, the Jakarta Post of Indonesia reported that four Chinese Uighur jihadists had been arrested in Indonesia after having traveled from Xinjiang through Malaysia. Other, similar reports have also surfaced in recent months, painting a picture of a concerted campaign to help Uighur extremists travel throughout Asia, communicating and collaborating with transnational terror groups such as IS.

Now, with these latest revelations regarding Turkish nationals being involved in the trafficking of extremists, it seems an invaluable piece of the terrorist transit infrastructure has been exposed. Indeed my assertions above (initially made here in early February 2015) have been substantiated by Syria’s ambassador to China, quoted at length by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his piece Military to Military which notes the following:

[Syria’s ambassador to China Imad Moustapha explained that] ‘China regards the Syrian crisis from three perspectives,’ he said: international law and legitimacy; global strategic positioning; and the activities of jihadist Uighurs, from Xinjiang province in China’s far west. Xinjiang borders eight nations… and, in China’s view, serves as a funnel for terrorism around the world and within China. Many Uighur fighters now in Syria are known to be members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement – an often violent separatist organisation that seeks to establish an Islamist Uighur state in Xinjiang. ‘The fact that they have been aided by Turkish intelligence to move from China into Syria through Turkey has caused a tremendous amount of tension between the Chinese and Turkish intelligence,’ Moustapha said. ‘China is concerned that the Turkish role of supporting the Uighur fighters in Syria may be extended in the future to support Turkey’s agenda in Xinjiang. We are already providing the Chinese intelligence service with information regarding these terrorists and the routes they crossed from on travelling into Syria’ [emphasis added].

Moustapha’s concerns were echoed by a Washington foreign affairs analyst who has closely followed the passage of jihadists through Turkey and into Syria. The analyst, whose views are routinely sought by senior government officials, told me that ‘Erdoğan has been bringing Uighurs into Syria by special transport while his government has been agitating in favour of their struggle in China. Uighur and Burmese Muslim terrorists who escape into Thailand somehow get Turkish passports and are then flown to Turkey for transit into Syria.’ He added that there was also what amounted to another ‘rat line’ that was funnelling Uighurs – estimates range from a few hundred to many thousands over the years – from China into Kazakhstan for eventual relay to Turkey, and then to IS territory in Syria [emphasis added]. ‘US intelligence,’ he said, ‘is not getting good information about these activities because those insiders who are unhappy with the policy are not talking to them.’ He also said it was ‘not clear’ that the officials responsible for Syrian policy in the State Department and White House ‘get it’. IHS-Jane’s Defence Weekly estimated in October that as many as five thousand Uighur would-be fighters have arrived in Turkey since 2013, with perhaps two thousand moving on to Syria. Moustapha said he has information that ‘up to 860 Uighur fighters are currently in Syria.’

It has become clear that Turkey is now unmistakably a major supporter of international terrorism, with Syria being merely the proving ground for a stable of terror groups directly or indirectly working with Erdogan’s government. This is further evidenced by the now documented and verified fact that the Erdogan government was directly involved in the transfer of chemical weapons into the hands of ISIS.

As Turkish MP Eren Erdem explained before the Turkish parliament and to international media, “There is data in this indictment. Chemical weapon materials are being brought to Turkey and being put together in Syria in camps of ISIS which was known as Iraqi Al Qaeda during that time.” Erdem noted that according to an investigation launched (and abruptly closed) by the General Prosecutor’s Office in Adana, Turkish citizens with ties to the intelligence community took part in negotiations with ISIS-linked and Al-Qaeda-linked militants to sell sarin gas for use in Syria. The evidence of these allegations came in the form of wiretapped phone conversations similar to those published earlier this year by Cumhuriyet.

Taken in total, the case against Erdogan’s government is damning. At the same time, one must also note Erdogan’s grave crimes against his own people.

As noted already, Can Dündar and his colleagues at Cumhuriyet have been targeted by Erdogan’s state for their disclosure of Ankara’s dealings with the terrorists of Syria. Just a few weeks ago Dündar, along with Cumhuriyet’s Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul, were charged in a Turkish court with “spying” and “divulging state secrets.” This should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Turkey’s track record when it comes to opposition journalism.

In fact, in December 2014, the Turkish police raided the offices of the Zaman newspaper, one of the most popular in the country, alleging that Zaman was responsible for “launching an armed terror organization.” The authorities detained the Zaman Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı , as well as the head of the Samanyolu Media Group, Hidayet Karaca, along with a producer, scriptwriter and director.

The Turkish Journalists Association (TGC) and the Turkey Journalists’ Labor Union (TGS) released a joint statement in condemnation of the raids and the ongoing repression of journalists by the Erdogan government, noting that “Almost 200 journalists were previously held in prison on charges of being a member of a terror organization, violating their right to a fair trial. Journalists are now being detained once again. These developments mean that freedom of the press and opinion is punished in Turkey, which takes its place in the class of countries where the press is not free.”

International organizations too expressed their outrage at this blatant violation of freedom of the press. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and its regional group the European Federation of Journalists (EFL), stated that, “We are appalled by this brazen assault on press freedom and Turkish democracy… One year after the exposure of corruption at the heart of government, the authorities appear to be exacting their revenge by targeting those who express opposing views… This latest act demonstrates that the authorities’ contempt for journalism has not diminished.”

Of course, Ankara’s war on freedom of speech, and the media generally, is not relegated to established media outlets such as Zaman and Cumhuriyet, but also to citizen media and social media as well. In response to the leaking of recordings on Twitter documenting corruption among Erdogan cronies and political elites within his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan attacked the social media platform, and his government immediately moved to restrict access to Twitter.

Erdogan even went so far as to suggest a total ban on all social media sites, including Facebook and YouTube, saying that “The international community can say this, can say that. I don’t care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is.” This sort of megalomaniacal rhetoric has become the norm for Erdogan, who sees himself as less a president and more a sultan or absolute monarch.

The famous words of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg succinctly and matter-of-factly state that the waging of aggressive war is “essentially an evil thing… to initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” This is undeniably true. But what happens when one is engaged in an international campaign to destroy a neighboring country through war? What happens when one country enables and participates in the destruction of another? What happens when one country will stop at nothing to come out victorious in a war it is not officially involved in, but covertly manages, and from which it directly benefits? Are these not simply different forms of the same crime, the supreme crime, as it were?

Let’s face it, Turkey is now a mafia state ruled by a criminal regime. It is also a NATO member state. Perhaps now the pernicious illusion of NATO as military alliance defending justice, human rights, and the rule of law can finally be put to rest. While the propagandists will continue the charade, Turkey has permanently exposed the US-NATO-GCC-Israel for the warmongers they are in Syria and around the world. Let’s just hope the world notices.

December 29, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s Behind Turkey’s Repeated Calls for No-Fly Zone in Syria?

Sputnik – 29.12.2015

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s calls for a safe zone in Syria are aimed at destabilizing the situation in the region, including the collapse of Syria, analysts said.

On December 27, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to create a safe zone in Syria. In an interview with Al Arabiya he said that the safe zone could shelter refugees who live in Turkey and want to return to Syria.

The zone is initially planned to stretch 98 km along the border and span 45 km in the territory of Syria, with the possibility of further expansion, Erdogan explained. According to the president, the area will be “terrorism-free”.

He also suggested that the Turkish government could begin raising funds for the project, including building houses for refuges.

Thus, Erdogan continues to hold unofficial discussions with Washington. In early December, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that projects such as a safe zone in Syria would require significant resources.

Ground forces would be necessary to protect a safe zone. But this contradicts the strategy proposed by President Barack Obama, Earnest underscored.

Meanwhile, in August, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that Washington had given the green light to establish a safe zone in Syria which would be protected jointly by US and Turkish troops.

In turn, Washington denounced the statement saying that the sides had agreed only on using the Turkish Incirlik airbase by US forces. It seems that the US and Turkey discussed a safe zone but in the end Washington evaded any final agreements.

Now, Erdogan has again brought up the initiative. And this time it is very likely that Turkey will act. The situation is changing in Syria where government forces have significantly advanced against terrorists. The country may be divided into “occupation zones”, so it is very important for Ankara to play one of the key roles in the process.

“Now, Erdogan needs major achievements in his foreign policy,” Alexei Fenenko, a security expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Svobodnaya Pressa. “The last two months were difficult for the Turkish president. The row between Ankara and Moscow caused a crisis in tourism and in the Turkish garment industry. His attempt to invade Iraq failed. Finally, Turkey now has tensions with Greece.”

All of the above has prompted Erdogan to take decisive steps to establish a safe zone in Syria, the analyst noted.

“I’m afraid this may be the scenario. There is no one more fearless than a politician who has nothing to lose. After a series of failures a politician like Erdogan can hit badly,” Fenenko said.

Turkey is very likely to attempt to occupy part of Syria to establish a safe zone, he pointed out. At the same, the US’ actions would depend on what Ankara achieves.

At the same time, Russia will oppose such a scenario since it is committed to protecting Syria’s territorial integrity, Fesenko said.

“I believe we should once again reaffirm our readiness to protect its territorial integrity. Russia may rely on its S-400 air defense systems deployed to the Hmeymim airbase. This means there is still the possibility of a military confrontation between Russia and Turkey,” he concluded.

Erdogan has made numerous statements about his readiness to establish a safe zone in Syria, analyst Stanislav Tarasov said.

Ankara’s policy in the region is still based on the scenario which presumes the collapse of Syria and Iraq, he pointed out. But the balance has changed, and other players will not let Turkey establish a safe zone in Syria.

“Turkey will not invade Syria. There are Syrian forces backed by Russian jets. What is more, if Turkey invaded the Kurds may support Damascus,” Tarasov said. “The problem is that Ankara still relies on Syria’s collapse and is not ready for any other outcome. This is why Ankara’s calls for a safe zone in Syria are wrong.”

December 29, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Kuwait to send ground troops to protect Saudi Arabia from Houthi incursions – report

RT | December 29, 2015

Kuwait, which is formally part of the Saudi-led coalition conducting a military crackdown in Yemen, is to send an artillery battalion to protect southern regions of its Gulf neighbor from cross-border attacks, according to a report.

“Kuwait decided on the participation of its ground forces, represented by an artillery battalion, in operations to strike at positions of Houthi aggression against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas reported Tuesday, citing an informed source.

Saudi Arabia has provided the bulk of the fighting forces for the Yemen campaign, with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also playing significant parts. Other members of the coalition were hesitant in providing ground troops.

Riyadh went to war in Yemen to put back into power ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who fled from the Shiite Houthi rebels after his two-year term expired in January. His predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who used to be an opponent of the rebels, is now their ally, assisting them with his loyal tribal troops.

Saudi Arabia sees the Houthis as a proxy force of its regional nemesis Iran, something both the rebels and Tehran deny.

The Yemeni campaign has proved to be more difficult than Saudi Arabia expected. Since it started in March, the conflict has claimed the lives of almost 6,000 people, many of them civilians killed by coalition bombings. Human rights groups have accused Riyadh of committing war crimes during the attacks.

The Houthis have staged several attacks on the Saudi regions of Najran and Jazan from their stronghold in northern Yemen. These include a number of ground incursions and several ballistic missile launches in recent months.

December 29, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

German Leftists to Protest Sending AWACs to Turkey Without Parliamentary Approval

By Alexander Mosesov | Sputnik | 28.12.2015

Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke) will officially protest the government’s decision to send Boeing E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS) aircraft to Turkey without a parliamentary approval, member of the German parliament’s defense committee told Sputnik on Monday.

On Sunday, media reported that NATO would place the Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft as part of its air defense package to Turkey amid the Syrian crisis. The deployment will be carried out by the country’s armed forces. The German government says the deployment only has to do with surveillance operations and the parliament will not be consulted on the issue.

“The Left party will officially protest against this decision of sending troops without consulting the parliament,” Alexander Neu said.

Neu also added that the country’s political elite “is eager to make Germany a big player [in the Middle East] by military means.”

Earlier in the day, German lawmakers criticized the government for the decision, saying that Bundestag should be immediately informed of the details.

On December 18, NATO agreed to provide Ankara with an air defense package that will include AWACS surveillance planes, enhanced air policing, and increased naval presence amid the ongoing conflict in Syria.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with opposition factions and Islamist terrorist groups fighting the Syrian Army.

December 28, 2015 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

America Was Prepared to Annihilate Prague, Warsaw, Other Capitals

By Wayne MADSEN – Strategic Culture Foundation – 27.12.2015

Recently-declassified nuclear targeting documents from 1959 describe how Washington planned to obliterate the capital cities of what are now America’s NATO allies in Eastern and Central Europe. The revelation casts doubt on Washington’s Cold War commitment to the protection of what it referred to as «captive nations» in Europe. The documents are contained in a report titled, «SAC (Strategic Air Command) Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959».

The US Air Force study called for the «systematic destruction» of such major population centers as Warsaw, East Berlin, Prague, Bucharest, Tallinn, and others, as well as Peiping (Beijing), Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and Moscow.

Atomic bombs eight times to destructive force of that dropped by the United States on Hiroshima were trained on a number of targets in Moscow and St. Petersburg. There were 179 «designated ground zeros» for atomic bombs in Moscow and 145 in St. Petersburg.

US atomic weapons would have laid waste to Wittstock, just upwind of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s hometown of Templin in Brandenburg in the former East Germany. It is most certain that had the US launched an atomic attack on Europe, Merkel, her parents Horst and Herlind Kasner, and brother Marcus would have been vaporized in the massive pre-targeted strike on East Berlin and the regions surrounding it.

George Soros’s hometown of Budapest would have been completely destroyed after the US hit the Tokol military airfield on the banks of the Danube River with one of its «city-busting» nuclear weapons. The blast would have rendered the Danube a radioactive drainage ditch and anyone exposed to the poisonous Danube waters downriver would have succumbed to an agonizing death from radiation sickness. Adding to the misery of anyone living alongside the Danube was the fact that Bratislava, also on the banks of the Danube, was also targeted for nuclear annihilation. The first major urban center casualties outside of Hungary and then-Czechoslovakia from the radioactive Danube would have been in Belgrade, the capital of neutral Yugoslavia.

The nuclear targeting of Vyborg on the Finnish border would have brought death and destruction to the border region of neutral Finland. Four atomic bombs were targeted on the former Finnish city: Koyvisto, Uras, Rempeti airfield, and Vyborg East.

Nuclear weapons, as the United States knew in 1959 and very well knows today, are not «precision-guided munitions».

For all of its propaganda beamed to Eastern Europe on Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, the United States was willing to sacrifice the very peoples it proclaimed to want to «free» from the Soviet bloc. America’s «mutually assured destruction» policy was based on increasing the «mega-death» count around the world by having the ability to hit the enemy with more nuclear «throw weight».

Increasing the mega-death count was why the United States targeted such large population centers as Peiping (Beijing), Shanghai, Mukden (Shenyang), and Tientsin in China. The pummeling of metro Moscow with atomic bombs was also designed to increase body count. The formerly Top Secret nuclear targeting document lists the following areas of Moscow for nuclear bombardment: Bykovo airport, central Moscow, Chertanovo, Fili, Izmaylovo, Khimki, Kuchino, Lyubertsy, Myachkovo airport, Orlovo, Salarevo, Shchelkovo, and Vnukovo airport.

Eighteen nuclear targets were programmed for Leningrad: Central Leningrad (including the historic Hermitage), Alexandrovskaya, Beloostrov, Gorelovo, Gorskaya, Kamenka North, Kasimovo, Kolomyagi, Kolpino, Krasnaya Polyana, Kudrovo, Lesnoy, Levashovo, Mishutkino, Myachkovo, Petrodvorets, Pushkin, Sablino, Sestroretsk, Tomilino, Uglovo, and Yanino.

Bucharest, Romania, was the target for three city busters aimed at Baneasa, Otopeni airport, and Pipera. Ulan Bator, the capital of the present America-idolizing Mongolia, would not have been spared. The Pentagon nuclear target list does not even list Mongolia as a separate country. The entry for the nuclear strike reads: «Ulaan Baatar, China».

Two uncomforting facts stand out from the disclosure of the targeting list. First, the United States remains as the only country in history that used nuclear weapons in warfare – hitting the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Second, some Pentagon officials, notably Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer, called for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. In fact, while the USSR, China, and France rejected the first use of nuclear weapons, NATO and the United States, on the other hand, chiseled in stone the first use of tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. But, as seen with the wishes of LeMay, Lemnitzer, and others, a massive pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union and its allies, including China, was on the wish list of the Pentagon’s top brass.

Because the Soviet Union had virtually no intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in 1959 and hinged its nuclear warfare capabilities on strategic bombers, the Pentagon brass wanted to hit the Soviet Union in a pre-emptive strike before they reached missile parity with the United States. At the heart of the crazed Pentagon reasoning was what the nuclear warfare champions called the «missile gap».

There is not much of a leap from the «black comedy» nuclear Armageddon film «Dr Strangelove» to actual Cold War era meetings on pre-emptive nuclear strikes held in the White House and Pentagon. Attorney General Robert Kennedy walked out of one such meeting in disgust while Secretary of State Dean Rusk later wrote: «Under no circumstances would I have participated in an order to launch a first strike». In 1961, President John F Kennedy questioned the motives of his generals and admirals after one such nuclear war pep talk from the Pentagon brass by stating, «And we call ourselves the human race».

Kennedy and his brother Robert had every reason to be fearful that the Pentagon would circumvent civilian authority and launch a nuclear strike either against Cuba, the Soviet Union, or both during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. According to Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs, Robert Kennedy told Soviet ambassador to Washington Anatoly Dobrynin during the height of the crisis that «the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American military could get out of control».

Today, the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe continue having their love affair with NATO and the Americans. Yet, it was the same NATO and the forefathers of the present gung ho military interventionists in Washington who once wanted to rain nuclear fire upon the cities of Warsaw (six ground zeroes: Ozarow, Piastow, Pruszkow, Boernerowo, Modlin, and Okecie), Prague (14 designated ground zeroes at Beroun, Kladno, Kralupy nad Vltavou, Kraluv Dvor, Neratovice, Psary, Radotin, Roztoky, Slaky, Stechovice, Velvary, Kbely, Ryzyne, and Vodochody), Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia (three ground zeroes: Bozhurishte, Kumaritsa, and Vrazhdebna), Bratislava, Kiev (three nuclear targets: Bortnichi, Post-Volynskiy airport, and Svyatoshino airport), Leipzig (where seven atomic bombs were targeted on Altenhain, Boehlen, Delitzsche, Grimma, Pegau, Wurzen, and Brandis), Weimar, and Wittenberg.

Also not to be spared nuclear annihilation were Potsdam, Vilnius (five nuclear ground zeroes: Novo Vilnya, Novaya Vileyka, Vilnyus (Center), Vilnyus East, and Vilnyus Southwest), Lepaya (Latvia), Leninakan (Gyumri) in Armenia, Alma Ata (Kazakhstan), Poznan, Lvov (three ground zeroes: Gorodok, Lvov Northwest, and Sknilov), Brno, Plovdiv in Bulgaria, Riga (four ground zeroes: Salaspils, Skirotava, Spilve, and Riga West), Ventspils in Latvia (two targets: Ventspils South and Targale), Tallinn (two ground zeroes: Lasnamae and Ulemiste), Tartu, Tirana, Vlone (Albania), Berat/Kucove (Albania), Kherson (Ukraine), Baku/Zabrat, Birobidzhan in the Jewish Autonomous Republic, Syktyvkar in the Komi Autonomous Republic, Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic on the Iranian border, Osh in Kyrgyzstan, Stalinabad (Dushanbe) in Tajikistan, Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and Tbilisi (seven ground zeroes at: Tbilisi central, Agtaglya, Orkhevi, Sandar, Sartichala, Soganlug, and Vaziani).

NATO and neo-conservative propagandists continue to paint Russia as an enemy of the peoples of central and eastern Europe. However, it was not Russia that had nuclear weapons once trained on the cities of the Eurasian land mass but the United States. Had the Pentagon generals and admirals had their way, today the eastern front of a rapidly expanding NATO would have been nothing more than a smoldering and radioactive nuclear wasteland, all courtesy of Uncle Sam’s nuclear arsenal.

December 28, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

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