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Trump’s claims against Iran ‘lead to nowhere’: Russia

Press TV – May 31, 2017

US President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran supports terrorism will not lead anywhere, says Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, citing Moscow’s own anti-terror work with Tehran.

Trump made the allegation during his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, where he accused Iran of destabilizing the Middle East and supporting what he called terrorist groups such as the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah, which has been fighting Saudi-backed Takfiri terrorists in Syria.

“This [claim against Iran] does not help stabilize the situation,” Zakharova told reporters on Wednesday. “The United States accuses Iran of supporting terrorism, while Moscow has been closely cooperating with Tehran in the fight against terrorism in the Middle East.”

The Russian diplomat said, unlike the US, Iran had been actively engaged in the Astana peace talks to help find a solution to the ongoing conflict in Syria.

Launched by Iran, Russia and Turkey in the capital of Kazakhstan, the initiative has produced an agreement on de-escalation zones in Syria, sharply reducing fighting across the country.

“We have been holding active consultations with Iran within the Astana process,” Zakharova said, before criticizing Washington’s refusal to give serious consideration to the format.

“We have more than once invited the United Stated to get fully involved in these activities as practical work can help accommodate the concerns that the US has,” the Russian diplomat argued. “Focusing on accusations instead of doing practical work will not lead anywhere.”

The US has been reluctant to take part in the process, initially sending low-key delegations to Astana led by US Ambassador to Kazakhstan George Krol.

For the latest round, however, the White House agreed to send Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Stuart Jones. The decision came after a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart.

Jones’ presence at the talks showed Washington’s commitment to a political solution only on paper, because the US military’s behavior on the ground has signaled a different approach.

Targeting Syrian forces on their way to achieve significant gains over terror groups, airdropping weapons to militants fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and expanding ties with Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments openly funding and equipping militant groups are some of the erratic actions the White House has undertaken with regards to Syria.

Iran has dismissed Trump’s claims as “unbelievable” and “unacceptable,” noting that they were made in a country which is known for being “a haven and a promoter of violence and terrorism.”

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Manufactured Hysteria Over Russia Requires 24/7 Upkeep

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford | May 31, 2017

Even at the height of the Cold War and the depths of McCarthyism, the U.S. corporate media was never even remotely as consumed with Russia as they are, today. The obsession with the Kremlin is a manufactured hysteria, a result of the panic that engulfed the U.S. ruling class — and its media — during last year’s election. What scared them witless, was the reaction of so-called “middle Americans” — white conservatives that call themselves Christian and “patriotic” – to Donald Trump’s statements on lessening tensions with Moscow and getting the U.S. out of the regime change business. Trump’s supporters didn’t bat an eye. It soon became clear that Trump’s base was nowhere near as gung-ho for endless war and confrontation as the rulers, and most of the rest of us, had assumed. And, that was very bad news for the War Party, which had gathered together in Hillary Clinton’s big tent. Because, if Donald Trump’s “middle Americans” – or “deplorables,” as Hillary called them — could not be counted on to applaud every war that their rulers chose to launch, then where was the reliable constituency for war? If not Trump’s people — who?

The rulers — from the spy chiefs in Washington to the Lords of Capital on Wall Street — were terror-struck at the sudden realization that the national constituency for war was way short of a majority, and that the middle Americans they depended on to hate whoever they were instructed to hate might have other concerns than Russians and overthrowing Arab governments. The lack of war fever in middle America signaled an existential crisis for the ruling class, whose dreams of world conquest require never-ending war.

The rulers now had to relearn a lesson: that war fever must be fed, throughout the 24-7 news cycle. The demonization must be constant, lies without let-up, so that the sheer weight of the propaganda masquerading as news convinces the public that the targeted nations and leaders are worthy of their hate. This is a retail, volume business, based on accumulation of impressions. After Trump eked out an Electoral College victory, the cascade of lies about Syria and Russia became a Niagara, so loud and incessant that some Democratic operatives lost their minds amid all the crazy noise. Black Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who in the mid-Nineties dared to accuse the CIA of being behind the crack cocaine epidemic, now accepts as the gospel truth every word the so-called “intelligence community” utters sliming Trump and the Russians. The Democrats are now the War Party, based on the polls, harboring about twice as much hatred for Russia as Republicans do. So-called liberal Democrats and phony “progressives” have allowed themselves to be convinced that the jihadist Islamic head cutters that the CIA and the U.S. military trains in Syria are not the same as the jihadist Islamic head cutters that the U.S. claims to have been at war with since at least 9/11.

But, the rulers still have a fundamental problem, because the Democratic base is not reliable as a long term war constituency. That had always been the assumed role of white middle America. But, as it turns out, there is no natural war constituency majority in the U.S. Therefore, the War Party will just have to keep screaming and lying, louder and louder, to keep the fever going.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Vladimir Putin BLASTS the US deep state

By Adam Garrie | The Duran | May 31, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given an interview with France’s Le Figaro in which he said that Russia had “no special expectations” about the election of US President Donald Trump.

Putin then described how a US President can often have his ideals totally crushed by what is known as the deep state upon entering the White House. Putin likened Trump’s inability to implement his desire to change US policy towards Russia with Barack Obama’s failure to shut down the still operational Guantanamo Bay prison camp in spite of campaigning on the pledge to shut it down.

Putin stated,

“When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well dressed, wearing dark suits… These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes”.

Putin told the French media outlet that the situation of a President being constrained by the existing deep state power structure is uniquely American stating,

“Can you imagine France or Russia acting this way? This would have been a disaster. But it is possible in the United States and continues to this day”.

Of course, France doesn’t need a domestic deep state to constrain its elected leaders, that’s what NATO and the EU is for, something Putin implied during his press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.

President Putin did however express continued signs of optimism when it comes to Trump the man, as opposed to Trump the leader compromised by the US deep state. Putin said that he appreciated Trump’s “pragmatic and understandable approach” to NATO and also stated that, “… I am cautiously optimistic, and I think that we can and should be able to reach agreements on key issues”.

Putin then turned to the continued Russiagate fiasco saying

“As President Trump once said, and I think that he was totally right when he said it could have been someone sitting on their bed or somebody intentionally inserted a flash drive with the name of a Russian national, or something like that”.

Putin then turned to Trump’s opponents, echoing Trump’s words that the entire ‘Russian hacking’ allegations stem from the Democrats’ inability to admit that they ran a disastrous campaign,

“They are absolutely reluctant to admit this, and prefer deluding themselves and others into thinking it was not their fault, that their policy was correct, they did all the right things, but someone from the outside thwarted them. But it was not so. They just lost and they have to admit it”.

Putin said the simple fact is that Trump was “closer to the people and better understood what ordinary voters want”, something Putin ought to understand as he has won many more elections than Hillary Clinton ever has done.

Putin lamented the fact that the Russiagate domestic scandal in the US has created a harmful international relations environment but ended on a more circumspect note, saying,

“But it will pass, everything passes and this will pass as well”.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia Destroys Nearly 99% of Chemical Weapon Stockpile Under CWC – Official

Sputnik – 30.05.2017

MOSCOW – Russia has destroyed nearly 99 percent of its chemical weapon stockpile over the past 20 years, the head of the Russian Ministry of Industry’s Department of Conventional Obligations Realization and Trade said on Tuesday.

“As of May 29, there are 588 tonnes of poisonous substances left at a facility in the Udmurtian Republic, which is 1.4 percent of the previous stockpiles,” the official told the Russian Federation Council’s Defense Committee, adding that 20 years ago the chemical weapons arsenal amounted to 40,000 tonnes.

According to Victor Ozerov, the chairman of the Federation Council’s Committee on Defense and Security, Russia complies in full with its international obligations in this sphere.

In 1997, Russia joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), in accordance with which the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpiles should be completed by December 31, 2018.

May 30, 2017 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism | | Leave a comment

South Korea’s new leader orders probe into ‘unauthorized’ US deployment

Press TV – May 30, 2017

South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in has ordered an investigation into the “unauthorized” deployment of four additional THAAD missile launchers by the United States to the country’s soil.

Presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said Moon was “shocked” to hear that the four additional launchers of the so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system were installed without being reported to the new government or to the public.

“President Moon was briefed on such facts by National Security Office (NSO) chief Chung Eui-yong and said it was very shocking,” the spokesman told a news briefing on Tuesday.

The system was initially deployed to South Korea in March with just two of its maximum load of six launchers with the declared aim of countering North Korean threats.

The South Korean official further said the president had “ordered his senior secretary for civil affairs and the NSO chief to find the truth behind the unauthorized entry of the four rocket launchers.”

The deployment of THAAD, which came amid tensions with North Korea, was met with strong opposition from people in South Korea, including the residents of Seongju County, where the missile system is installed.

The installation was agreed by the government of Moon’s predecessor Park ­Geun-hye, who was impeached and ousted over a corruption scandal.

During his election campaign prior to the May 9 election, Moon had urged a parliamentary review of the controversial deployment, which has angered Pyongyang.

Russia and China have also expressed deep concern over the controversial deployment of the American missile system on the Korean Peninsula.

Chinese officials argue that the US system would interfere with their radars and could pose a threat to Chinese security.

Moscow has also warned that the deployment would only fuel tensions in the region.

May 30, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Alleged Russia-Taliban Arms Link Disputed

By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | May 29, 2017

A tiny article from Reuters in late May quoted the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency as telling a Senate hearing, “I have not seen real physical evidence of weapons or money being transferred.” Marine Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart was addressing widespread claims by top Pentagon officials of Russian arms flowing to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

By conceding the reports have no real substance, Stewart quietly called the bluff of military hardliners who are invoking the Russian menace to justify prolonging and escalating the longest and second-most-costly war in U.S. history. Stories of Russian military shipments to Afghanistan began last December, with a typical headline from the Washington Post: “Russia begins supplying weapons to Afghanistan, sides with Taliban.”

Down in the body of the story, however, it emerged that Moscow had agreed to ship 10,000 assault rifles not to the Taliban but to the Afghan government’s police force in Kabul. A Russian Foreign Ministry official said, “Russia has been consistently pursuing the policy of providing comprehensive assistance to Afghanistan in the establishment of a peaceful, independent, stable and self-sufficient state, free from terrorism and drugs.” Russia previously supplied helicopters and pilot training to Afghan forces, under a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, which continued thanks to a special U.S. waiver on economic sanctions.

As to the Taliban, the Russian official said only that his government stood ready, in the interests of Afghanistan’s national reconciliation, to support “the possible weakening of the sanctions regime . . . against the Taliban, if it is not contrary to the national interests of Afghanistan.” He added that Russia shared the Taliban’s interest in defeating ISIS in Afghanistan.

Scapegoating the Russians

Starting in March, coincident with urgent requests by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan for thousands more troops to stem the Taliban’s military advances, senior Pentagon officers began blaming Russia for setbacks on the battlefield.

“I think it is fair to assume they may be providing some sort of support to [the Taliban] in terms of weapons or other things that may be there,” General Joseph Votel, chief of U.S. Central Command, told members of Congress.

Defense Secretary James Mattis chimed in with claims, paraphrased by NPR correspondent Tom Bowman, that “the Russians are providing some support, including maybe weapons to the Taliban.” Noting that the details were “murky,” Bowman added, “the commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, thinks this is a way for the Russians just to undermine the U.S. and NATO.”

Staying on message, a spokesman for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan told the Los Angeles Times days later, “We know that actions by Russia in Afghanistan are meant to undermine the work of the United States and NATO to support the Afghan government.” The reporters then stated as fact, “It . . . represents another effort by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to exert power globally while weakening the U.S.”

In late April, a “senior U.S. military official,” speaking on background, asserted that the Russians had “increased their supply of equipment and small arms to the Taliban over the past 18 months.” He said “the Russians have been sending weapons, including medium and heavy machine guns, to the Taliban under the guise that the materiel would be used to fight the Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan.”

Secretary Mattis, quoted in the same article, said menacingly, “we’re going to have to confront Russia where what they’re doing is contrary to international law or denying the sovereignty of other countries.”

Russian Denials

Russia, increasingly considered a “hostile power” by many Americans, won few converts by denying what it called “irresponsible accusations” based on “rumors and conjectures.” Its special envoy to Afghanistan branded the allegations of its arms transfers to the Taliban insurgents “absolute lies . . . aimed at justifying the failure of the U.S. military and politicians.”

But Russia’s credibility – even after months of strident and varied accusations from Western officials – could hardly have been lower than the Afghan sources quoted in U.S. news accounts to bolster the Pentagon’s claims. One notable example was the police chief of Uruzgan province, who spoke of Russian agents, “dressed in doctor’s uniforms,” infiltrating his region and “enticing people against the government, providing training and teaching how to assemble land mines.”

The rotten corruption of the Uruzgan provincial police has been attested to by no less than the commander of the Afghan army in that province. Police there abandoned the provincial capital last year, allowing Taliban forces to walk in unopposed — not because of Russian weapons but because senior officials had pocketed police pay for months at a time.

Similar claims against Russia came from the governor of Kunduz province, whose capital was overrun by Taliban forces last fall in what reporters described as a “seemingly easy re-entry” into the city after a similar Taliban incursion in 2015 was repelled by U.S. Special Forces. Other Afghan officials, and independent reporters, ascribed the Taliban’s easy victories to the local population’s grievances against the “mafia-like” elite who run the province.

Experts also blamed aid from Pakistan — not Russia — to the Taliban. Echoing their complaint, former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said last year, “The issue of the U.S. inability to deal effectively with Pakistan, and the [Taliban] sanctuary problem in Pakistan, has been the mother of all problems for U.S.-Afghan relations and of Afghanistan to some degree since 9/11.”

Another big supplier of the Taliban is Saudi Arabia. An exposé by Carlotta Gall in the New York Times revealed that as a longtime ally of Pakistan, “Saudi Arabia has backed Islamabad’s promotion of the Taliban. Over the years, wealthy Saudi sheikhs and rich philanthropists have also stoked the war by privately financing the insurgents.”

How US Arms Taliban

Perhaps the biggest arms supplier of all to the Taliban is the U.S. taxpayer. The Taliban rake off hundreds of millions of dollars from extortion of U.S.-funded projects in the country. They also fill their armories with U.S.-made weapons. A Taliban commander told Bloomberg News that when he needs more weapons and fuel, he simply buys or steals them from his foe. “It’s simple and cheaper,” he said.

As journalist and book author Douglas Wissing observed recently, “U.S-enabled corruption lost the Afghan War. . . Corruption funds the enemy, with hundreds of millions of dollars skimmed from U.S. logistics and aid money. . . . Empowered and financed by this corruption, Taliban strength has grown at double-digit rates annually since 2005. Insurgents now control about 40 percent of the countryside, and are pressuring government centers across country, including increasingly besieged Kabul.”

In the past, Donald Trump was correct when he tweeted that the war in Afghanistan was a “total disaster” – although as President, he is reportedly considering a Pentagon plan to escalate the U.S. role, again.

Blaming the Russians for the war’s latest reversals may let our Afghan allies and our own military off the hook for losing this long war in slow motion, but it won’t change the outcome.

May 29, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Macron accuses RT and Sputnik of ‘behaving like deceitful propaganda’

RT | May 29, 2017

Newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron explained his team’s decision to deny RT and Sputnik, both Moscow-based news outlets, accreditation during his campaign, by labeling the media outlets as “propaganda.”

“They didn’t act like the media, like journalists. They behaved like deceitful propaganda,” Macron told RT France head Xenia Fedorova during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Versailles.

“I have always had an exemplary relationship with foreign journalists, but they have to be real journalists,” explained Macron, who defeated Marine Le Pen in the second round of the election, earlier this month. “All foreign journalists, including Russian journalists, had access to my campaign.”

Macron described RT and Sputnik as “organs of influence and propaganda,” adding that both “produced infamous counter-truths about him.”

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow “does not agree” with Macron’s statements about the two news organizations.

RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said that Macron’s attack on a news outlet he disagrees with is a threat to freedom of speech.

“Despite the numerous accusations made throughout the duration of the French presidential campaign, to this day not a single example, not a single piece of evidence, has been presented to support the claims that RT spread any slander or ‘fake news’ about Mr. Macron,” Simonyan said in a statement. “By labeling any news reporting he disagrees with ‘fake news,’ President Macron sets a dangerous precedent that threatens both freedom of speech and journalism at large.”

Last month’s accreditation delay for RT and Sputnik, which ended up becoming an outright refusal, provoked a heated reaction from Moscow.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called it “deliberate and bare-faced discrimination against Russian media by the presidential candidate of a state that has historically been vigilant when it comes to free speech.”

Simonyan accused Macron’s team back then of “building electoral campaign on lies about RT and Sputnik.”

Macron’s campaign repeatedly accused Russia of interference in the election, claiming that Russian hackers attempted to gain access to its data, and impede the work of its website. A trove of communication purportedly from Macron’s staff was leaked on the internet a day before the run-off election. Moscow has staunchly denied any interference.

Despite an anticipated coolness in relations, the Russian president is one of the first world leaders to travel to Paris since Macron’s convincing election win.

On Monday, the pair spent three hours in what the French leader called a “frank exchange of views,” which Putin said would lead to a “qualitative” improvement in relations between the two countries.

May 29, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Russia Encircled by Hostile NATO States: Arms Control Expert

By Rick Sterling | teleSUR | May 27, 2017

On a recent two-week trip to Russia with a delegation of 30 Americans organized by the Center for Citizen Initiatives, we had the opportunity to have informative meetings with numerous people, including the following military leader.

Vladimir Kozin is an arms control specialist and a member of the Russian Academy of Military Science who has worked on arms control issues since the 1970s. Kozin said that Russians see themselves being encircled by NATO. Of the 16 countries bordering Russia, eight have anti-Russia sentiments. He noted that the U.S. military budget is 12 times greater than that of Russia and increasing.

Kozin said that it is a “fairy tale” that Russia interfered in the U.S. election. What is NOT a fairy tale is that the U.S. spent a huge amount of money to influence Russian elections in the past and funded 400 Non-Governmental Organizations which were part of the destabilization campaign in Ukraine leading to the 2014 coup

Regarding key conflict points, Kozin said that Crimea was part of Russia since 1783. He noted that despite the presence of 16,000 Russian troops and 18,000 Ukrainian troops, the Crimea plebiscite to reunify with Russia was handled without violence, with a huge turnout and overwhelming vote in favor.

Regarding hostilities in eastern Ukraine, Kozin questioned why this has happened. If Scotland can consider secession from the U.K. and Catalonia from Spain, what’s wrong with Donbass (eastern Ukraine) wanting more autonomy within Ukraine? Why has Ukrainian President Poroshenko turned to military conflict instead of negotiating with the forces in eastern Ukraine? he asked.

Kozin believes it is vital to have an arms control summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. He thinks we should work toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons by 2045. In the meantime, the easiest way to reduce tension and the risk of war would be an agreement on “No First Use of Nuclear Weapons,” he concluded.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

May 28, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

NATO kicks off new round of Baltic drills on Russia’s doorstep

RT | May 28, 2017

As the Baltic states, in concert with NATO, wraps up its previous cycle of military exercises close to Russia’s borders, the alliance has kicked off its so-called Saber Strike 17 drills in multiple locations throughout Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

Leaders of the NATO military bloc agreed to deploy four multinational battalions to Poland as well as to Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia last July, with the declared goal of deterring potential “Russian aggression.”

Now, all four newly created battle groups will take part in the 4-week-long drills (May 28-June 24), to strengthen cooperation amongst the United States military and 19 other nations taking part in the exercise.

“The key exercise objective will be training and exercising the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) Battle Groups with a focus on promoting interoperability with allies and regional partners and improving joint operational capability in a variety of missions,” the US army said in a statement.

The large-scale exercise will include amphibious assault drills in Latvia, live fire exercises in Poland and Lithuania, and an air assault coupled with a river crossing by the British Royal Marines at the Poland-Lithuania border.

The Saber Strike drills began the same week as some Baltic states wrapped up their previous military training with NATO allies.

In Poland on Friday, the international NATO combat group finished the ‘Puma 17’ drills near the northeastern town of Orzysz. About 2,500 troops, including a NATO battalion, took part in the military exercises which practiced engaging in a so-called “hybrid war” scenario to deter the omnipresent ‘Russian threat.’

The squads of NATO soldiers performed drills using Polish PT-91 tanks, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, US models of the Stryker armored personnel carriers and Russian-made Mi-24 military helicopters.

This was the first joint exercise with the multinational NATO battalion which arrived at Orzysz in spring.

Meanwhile, Estonia wrapped up the Spring Storm 2017, where almost 9,000 NATO troops participated. Soldiers from 15 states, including the host country took part in the drills that ended Friday. As was the case in Poland, the recently deployed multinational NATO battalion was deployed to the fighting range.

US AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and UH-60 Black Hawk multi-role helicopters, as well as Estonian L-39 training jets and Robinson R-44 helicopters took part in the drills. Polish Soviet-era Su-22 fighters and Spanish F-18 Hornet jet fighters also had an opportunity to take to the skies.

In another development, the NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1), comprising the Norwegian frigate HNoMS Roald Amundsen and the Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen, arrived in Klaipeda, Lithuania on Friday for a scheduled port visit.

“SNMG1 continues joint training with regional partners in the Baltic Sea. SNMG1 has already trained together with the Estonian, Latvian and Swedish naval ships and also plans to conduct maneuvers with Lithuania’s Navy’s ships,” said Commodore Ole Morten Sandquist, the group commander of SNMG1.

Russia has repeatedly criticized NATO’s military buildup along its borders as a threat to national security. In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed NATO for provoking a conflict with Moscow and using its “newly-declared official mission to deter Russia” as a pretext.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that “NATO’s expansion has led to an unprecedented level of tension over the last 30 years in Europe.”

May 28, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

New Cold War clouds are dispersing

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

Imagine if former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were to have suddenly arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 27, 2014 to deliver a speech at Harvard and had received a welcome like a rock star – and all this to steal the thunder from his successor Prime Minister Modi on the eve of the latter’s famous Madison Square Garden event. Well, that was more or less what Barack Obama did in Berlin on May 25 just as President Donald Trump arrived in Brussels for the NATO summit. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was alongside Obama. (Deutsche Welle )

Trump’s first trip to Europe as president has witnessed an incredible surge of the fault lines in the western camp since the Obama presidency ended and the alchemy of the US’ trans-Atlantic leadership began changing. But the really stunning thing came when Trump blasted the US’ 23 NATO allies who have not paid up their outstanding dues to the alliance’s budget – Germany included. Germany point blank refuses to pay up. With a Mona Lisa smile, Merkel watched Trump launch the tirade (here).

Where is the western alliance heading? To be sure, Trump is not mellowing on the demand that the US tax payer will not underwrite NATO budget anymore. He made an inter alia reference to the “threat from Russia” but didn’t care to elaborate, leave alone call it “Russian aggression”, which used to be a common refrain in Obamaspeak. Trump made no direct references to Ukraine or Crimea. Nor did he show any interest in the NATO’s forward deployments on Russia’s borders, which has been the alliance’s main agenda since the 2014 summit in Wales, which was a landmark event heralding New Cold War. A hefty portion of the Wales Summit Declaration, stretching over a dozen paragraphs or so, was devoted to condemning Russia. It began as follows:

  • We condemn in the strongest terms Russia’s escalating and illegal military intervention in Ukraine and demand that Russia stop and withdraw its forces from inside Ukraine and along the Ukrainian border. This violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is a serious breach of international law and a major challenge to Euro-Atlantic security. We do not and will not recognise Russia’s illegal and illegitimate ‘annexation’ of Crimea. We demand that Russia comply with international law and its international obligations and responsibilities; end its illegitimate occupation of Crimea; refrain from aggressive actions against Ukraine; withdraw its troops; halt the flow of weapons, equipment, people and money across the border to the separatists; and stop fomenting tension along and across the Ukrainian border.

Trump has not expressed any commitment to Article V of the NATO Charter, which affirms the core principle of collective security. He is insisting that NATO should re-orient its activities and the priority ought to be the fight against terrorism. The NATO has said that it will join the US-led coalition to fight terrorism but will not undertake combat missions.

There is still more to come as Trump proceeded from Brussels to the medieval Sicilian coastal town of Taormina in Italy for the G7 summit stretching a day and a half. Consensus-making at the G7 will be a tough job on issues such as migration, security and climate change where Trump has voiced strong opinions diverging from the mainstream western position. A Guardian commentary notes: “no one knows if Donald Trump, reaching the end of an exhausting week-long tour, will take to world summitry. Multilateral fora would not seem his natural habitat: he is hardly likely to be interested in the dense final communiques these meetings tend to produce… The risk is that – on a range of agenda items – Trump finds himself in the G1. His six colleagues, with varying degrees of emphasis, are likely to want to change his instincts… According to diplomats, the leaders have been exchanging views on how best to engage Trump…”

Moscow and Beijing will be quietly pleased at these happenings. Without doubt, the New Cold War clouds are dispersing. Of course, NATO is not about to disintegrate. But then, it has lost its raison d’etre and will be hard-pressed to regain its old elan as in the Obama era. A senior White House official in Trump’s entourage has said that the US is yet to determine its stance on the sanctions against Russia – “I think the president is looking at it. Right now we don’t have a position.”

The G7 will discuss relations with Russia. Japan and Italy have reservations over the efficacy of the policy of sanctions against Russia. What emerges is that unlike Obama, Trump won’t lift his little finger to arm twist the US’ European allies to keep the sanctions in place and “isolate” Russia. The big question is whether without US pressure, there could be any EU consensus to renew the sanctions against Russia. Moscow seems to sense the shift in the alignments. (Read my blog A Franco-Russian ‘thaw’ is in the offing.)

May 26, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow Considers US Justification of Airstrike Against Syrian Army Unacceptable

Sputnik – 25.05.2017

Moscow considers Washington’s attempts to justify the latter’s coalition airstrike against Syrian troops near the town of al-Tanf over an alleged threat to US and Syrian opposition forces as unacceptable, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

The US-led coalition conducted the airstrike last week under the claim that pro-government forces were moving inside a de-escalation zone in southern Syria, and posing a threat to forces of the United States and its allies. A spokesperson for the coalition told Sputnik that its forces fired warning shots prior to carrying out the airstrike.

“Once again I would like to focus on the airstrike carried out by the US-led coalition on May 18 against the Syrian pro-government troops near the settlement of al-Tanf in southeastern Syria. We regard the US command’s attempts to justify this airstrike with the alleged threat posed by the Syrian units to the opposition forces collaborating with the coalition, as well as to the US servicemen deployed in this area, as unacceptable,” Zakharova said at a press briefing.

She pointed out that the airstrike was carried out in violation of international law.

“There is an impression that the western partners still do not want to realize the necessity to consolidate the efforts of all actors that fight against terrorists in Syria on the ground and in the sky,” the spokeswoman added.

Last week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadiy Gatilov said the US coalition’s strike was carried out in violation of Syria’s sovereignty, noting that is was not an operation against either Daesh or Jabhat Fatah al Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front) terror groups.

May 25, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Dr Stephen Cohen: What Is Up With Russian Hysteria

Professor Stephen Cohen is an American scholar and professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University . His academic work concentrates on modern Russian history since the Bolshevik Revolution and the country’s relationship with the United States.

May 25, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

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