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West Secretly Elated Over Downed Russian Airliner

By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 05.11.2015

A Russian airliner bound for St. Petersburg crashed while flying over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all on board. With the peninsula seeing fierce fighting recently as the presence of foreign-backed terrorist organizations has grown, immediate suspicion was raised regarding a potential terror attack involving either a bomb brought on board or a missile fired from below.

As Russia carries out its investigation of the disaster, the rest of the objective world waits for answers. For others, they have already begun drawing up narratives to use the disaster to serve their purposes. One such individual is John Bradley, a frequent contributor for The Economist, The Forward, Newsweek, The New Republic, The Daily Telegraph, Prospect, and The Independent.

 He has also lectured at the Washington-based policy think-tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and for over 2 years, was given almost unlimited access across Saudi Arabia while writing his establishment-lauded book, “Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis.”

 His most recent work is an unsavory op-ed for the UK Spectator titled, “The Russian plane crash could undermine Putin’s Syria strategy.” In it, Bradley conveniently answers the most important question that will be asked if investigators determine the plane’s destruction was an act of terrorism, “cui bono?”

Bradley describes not only how the disaster helps further undermine Egypt, (a nation struggling to balance between placating Western interests and averting a “Libya-style” collapse within its own borders) but also how the incident would undermine Russia’s efforts in Syria.

Bradley states:

It now seems fairly likely that an explosion brought down the Russian passenger airline over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula over the weekend. One Metrojet official has already suggested that the ‘only explainable cause is physical impact on the aircraft’ and they have ruled out technical failure or human error. If the ongoing investigation proves that to be the case, it will obviously have an immediate and catastrophic impact on Egypt’s already decimated tourism industry.

 Regarding Russia in particular, he states:

But it would also be the most unwelcome news possible for Vladimir Putin, who sold military intervention in Syria to the Russian people as a way of making them safer. In turn, opponents of Russian intervention – the US, Turkey and the Gulf Arab despots – would be privately elated. For does this not prove their argument that Russian intervention only complicates the situation on the ground while increasing the threat of terror attacks?

But should the downed airliner turn out to be the victim of terrorism, not only would “the US, Turkey and the Gulf Arab despots” be “privately elated,” it also appears that ISIS would have provided them a much needed card to play during future negotiations regarding the conflict in Syria. After noting that ISIS took credit for the downed airliner as it was closing in on a motorway used to resupply Syrian forces operating in Aleppo, Bradley explains:

All [at the negotiations], of course, realise that it is only worth negotiating from a position of strength. The anti-Assad allies will be hoping that Putin now fears a new Afghanistan, and will therefore be more flexible on the question of Assad’s departure. They will also be determined to ramp up support for the so-called ‘moderate rebels’, especially given that Washington has recently sent in Special Forces to ‘advise’ them (or, in other words, act as human shields against Russian bombs).

Bradley sums up his op-ed by almost celebrating the fact that those who assumed Russia’s entry into the Syrian conflict would spell its quick conclusion were “sadly mistaken.”

Should it turn out that terrorists brought down the Russian airliner, it certainly would fulfill Bradley’s summary regarding “cui bono?” Bradley himself admits that US special forces are simply serving as “human shields” for Western backed militants against Russian strikes. These same militants have in recent days, been coordinating with ISIS openly in the advances mentioned by Bradley along the Syrian motorway. It is clear that ISIS is not a third team competing in this regional conflict, but rather a member of the very team that has been reaping the most benefits from its existence, “the US, Turkey and the Gulf Arab despots.”

November 5, 2015 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Putin signs law allowing retaliatory sequestration of foreign property in Russia

RT | November 4, 2015

Russia’s president has signed legislation enabling countermeasures in the case of the wrongful arrest of Russian state property abroad. The law, based on reciprocity, curtails the jurisdictional immunity of the country in question if not agreed otherwise.

The document was published on Russia’s official legal information website and therefore has come into effect.

According to the new law, the jurisdictional immunities of a foreign state and its property could be limited on the territory of Russia on the principle of mutuality, in the case that the jurisdictional immunity of Russia has been found to be suffering limitations on the sovereign territory of that country.

The provisions of the law would not be applied if Russia and the other country have reached an agreement to act differently.

The judicial immunity of a foreign entity that has filed a legal action, entered legal argument or has taken any other substantive action in a Russian court will be considered revoked.

The revoking of a foreign country’s judicial immunity in any given legal argument is irrevocable and will be applied to all stages of judicial examinations.

Read more:

Russia will ‘protect its interests’ in European assets freeze – Putin

November 4, 2015 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Syria peace talks a small step, but leans forward

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | November 2, 2015

When diplomats from seventeen countries sit down together for the first time in a particular format and after “a frank and constructive discussion” for over seven hours and manage to find common ground to issue a joint statement spelling out in nine points their “mutual understanding”, although “substantial differences remain”, regarding an acute regional conflict, that is commendable effort – especially, when it is about “the grave situation in Syria and how to bring about an end to the violence as soon as possible”.

Indeed, the joint statement issued in Vienna in the evening of Friday, October 30 is notable for both bringing together a common ground between the participants as well as for giving a sense of direction and a pledge that the ministers who attended the talks will reconvene within two weeks “to continue these discussions” and in the meanwhile “working to narrow remaining areas of disagreement, and build on areas of agreement”.

The salience of the joint statement lies in its neatly sidestepping the contentious issue of the future of President Bashar Al-Assad and instead focus on the peace process in search of a settlement and the fight against terrorism. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon couldn’t have put it better when he said afterward, “The future of Syria or the future of all these peace talks and Syrian-led negotiations should not be held up by an issue of a future of one man. Basically, I believe it is up to Syrian people, who have to decide the future of President Assad.”

The highlights of the joint statement are: a) the unity, independence, territorial integrity and secular character of Syria are “fundamental”; b) the rights of all Syrians must be protected; c) the peace process will be under the UN auspices; d) the political process will comprise the representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition; e) it will be Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, and the “Syrian people will decide the future of Syria”; f) the political process will lead to “credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance”, followed by a new constitution and elections under UN supervision in which “all Syrians, including the diaspora” will be eligible to participate”. In the meanwhile, modalities of a ceasefire will be explored, which will, however, exclude the Islamic State and other extremist groups. A follow-up meeting is expected next week.

It does not need much ingenuity to figure out that the stance of Russia and Iran has been vindicated to a very great extent. How could this have happened? The short answer is that the United States has begun distancing itself from the position of its so-called ‘allies’ in Syria – Saudi Arabia, in particular. The body language at the Vienna talks suggests an overarching US-Russia amity. The US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sat side by side and frequently consulted each other.  The friendly atmosphere was evident also during their joint press conference after the talks in Vienna.

The unspoken question is how in an “inclusive” political process where the people of the country are to be the final decision-makers regarding the future of their country — and where even the Syrian diaspora can participate — how on earth one single individual by name Assad can be made the solitary exception because Saudi Arabia doesn’t like his face (for whatever reason)? The Saudi insistence that Assad should be removed through a political settlement or by force has become untenable. What Saudi Arabia seeks is a political order in Syria that is imposed top-down, whereas, the joint statement takes the contrarian position that it is the Syrian people who will choose their next leadership – not any foreign power.

During the Kerry-Lavrov press conference, it transpired that Moscow has proposed more cooperation with Washington for a coordinated fight against the Islamic State. Kerry said he would seek President Barack Obama’s approval for the Russian proposal. Meanwhile, it is to be noted that Russia has only perfunctorily disagreed with President Barack Obama’s decision to deploy around four dozen military advisers to Syria. (Iran’s reaction, too, is notably low-key.) Of course, Obama’s detractors in the US have gone to town to vilify him by claiming he has gone back on his word that he will not put ‘boots on the ground’ in Syria. But it stands to reason that this is not a ‘mission creep’, as made out to be by Obama’s critics.

Of course, there is a dichotomy in the Obama administration’s overall approach on Syria following the Russian military intervention. Clearly, Obama is figuring out his way forward and is unsure of the downstream repercussions of the Russian military operations. The tantalizing question is whether the US isn’t, after all, edging closer to the original Russian proposal for a concerted effort to fight the IS? Indeed, if a nation-wide ceasefire takes hold in Syria between the government and the ‘moderate’ opposition concurrent with the political process (which is what has been envisaged in the joint statement), it opens the door to a Russian-American coordinated military effort against the IS. Obama cannot be oblivious of that. The text of the joint statement is here.

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Five of 6 Syrian Hospitals Allegedly Hit by Russian Airstrikes Don’t Exist

Sputnik – 02.11.2015

The Russian Defense Ministry has denied an existence of five out of six Syrian hospitals allegedly hit by Russian airstrikes, said that the claims of Western media unfounded.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the existence of five out of six Syrian hospitals allegedly hit by Russian airstrikes.

“I would like to remind you that a week ago several leading Western media outlets citing the US-based Syrian American Medical Society accused us of allegedly bombing hospitals in al-Ees, al-Hader, Khan Tuman, Sarmin, Latamna and al-Zirba,” ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told reporters.

The spokesman added, that “all these reports were made without any proof.”

“We investigated this information. It turned out, in fact, that there is a hospital only in the settlement of Sarmin. There are no hospitals in al-Ees, al-Hader, Khan Tuman, Latamna and al-Zirba, and, consequently, there are no healthcare workers,” he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday provided aerial photos of the hospital in Sarmin, which was allegedly destroyed by the Russian airstrikes, as some Western media claims. But the aerial photo shows, that the building is not destroyed.

Russia has been conducting precision airstrikes against ISIL positions in Syria at the request of President Bashar Assad since September 30.

RT Update – November 3

November 2, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media | , , | Leave a comment

Hypersonic deterrence: how to maintain strategic balance

By Vladimir KOZIN | Oriental Review | October 27, 2015

It is unlikely that nuclear weapons, which the US created in the mid-twentieth century and used only once – to bomb Japanese cities – will ever be activated in a global conflict. We can assume that the leaders of the official Western nuclear powers (the UK, US, and France) as well as the other states that actually possess such weapons (India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan) will continue to base the conceptual foundation of their military strategy on this incontestable truism: “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Russia’s current military and political leaders agree with this self-evident observation. In his Oct. 22 speech in Sochi before the Valdai Club, an international discussion group, President Vladimir Putin echoed these sentiments: “The development of nuclear weapons has made it clear that there can be no winners in a global conflict.”

Unlike nuclear weapons, which are “tools of extreme impact,” Long-Range Hypersonic High-Precision Weapons (or Advanced Hypersonic Weapons – AHW in US terminology) are ready for use in any scenario, including as part of counter-terror operations. AHW do not cause unnecessary civilian casualties and do not inflict significant material damage to civil transportation systems, power plants, or other infrastructure beyond the small affected area.

Russia has been developing its own promising prototypes of AHW in the numbers deemed necessary to bolster its own security, in response to both America’s functional rollout of Prompt Global Strike, an ambitious program to deploy a global, layered missile-defense system, as well as the Pentagon’s modernization of its strategic and tactical nuclear weapons.

There have already been calls for an international moratorium on R&D and testing of AHW. Despite the fact that this idea appears somewhat utopian, it is quite feasible that at some future date quantitative limits could be introduced on types of AHW and the regions where they could be positioned, but only if the following six key preconditions are met:

1) Any future AHW agreement must be grounded in the principle of equality and equivalent security for all signatory states and must ensure the creation of a system of multilateral, strategic-deterrence treaties.

2) Signatories to such an agreement must agree to respect the mutual commitment not to use AHW against each other under any circumstances.

3) Before such a treaty goes into effect, all nuclear powers must agree to respect the reciprocal obligation to either refrain from inflicting a nuclear first strike against each other or not to use such weapons at all, and also to renounce the use of weapons of any kind against manned or unmanned spacecraft, and these promises would be formalized through legally binding, international covenants.

4) All states possessing nuclear weapons, whether officially or factually, must commit themselves to move toward the use of defensive strategies and unconditional nuclear deterrence that threatens no one.

5) States deploying missile-defense systems and tactical nuclear weapons within the borders of other states, must dismantle the installations of this type currently being designed or constructed, before reaching an agreement on limiting AHW, and America must also pull all of its tactical nuclear weapons out of Europe and the Asia Pacific region, deploying them only within the borders of the continental US.

6) This agreement must be formalized through a legally binding international treaty that is both versatile and inclusive – in the sense that it includes provisions allowing any other state to join it – and its validity should be of indefinite duration.

Unfortunately, any type of Agreement on Quantitative and Territorial Constraints on the Deployment of AHW would hardly be reached shortly, given the context of America’s updated National Security Strategy (February 2015), which six times refers to Russia an “aggressor,” as well as the identification of Russia and China (here, here, and here) as her first and second, respectively, biggest potential adversaries in the American playbook for the use of strategic nuclear weapons. The Pentagon still adheres to a doctrine that calls for inflicting initial “preemptive and preventative” nuclear strikes against an enemy, and it keeps a longer list of potential targets for an initial nuclear strike than any other state. Another important point to consider is the multifold increase in NATO’s military activity near Russia’s borders during last two years.

In other words, without a radical change by Washington and its NATO allies in their negative and even hostile stance toward Russia and China, the idea that any sort of mutually acceptable agreement could be reached to limit or control AHWs is simply unrealistic and should be put off until a “better time.”

Vladimir Kozin is Head of Advisers’ Group at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and Professor of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation.

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

Geophysical Research Letters Shock Finding: In 2014 More Multiyear Ice Than Previous Nine Years… Arctic Winter 0.5 – 1.5°C Colder!

By P Gosselin | NoTricksZone | October 27, 2015

Has anyone been wondering why we’ve been hearing so little about the Arctic lately?

New study says Arctic to remain frozen for many more years. MODIS image of the Arctic, Jeff Schmaltz – NASA Earth Observatory

Reader Dennis A. sent me the following abstract of a new paper by Haas et al: Ice thickness in the Northwest Passage – Haas – 2015 – Geophysical Research Letters – Wiley Online Library. It turns out that the Arctic is far less ice free than many thought or expected just some years ago. So wrong can the models be!

More Arctic ice and up to 1.5°C colder!
Navigable NWP postponed 40 years!

The study finds that in 2014 “more ice survived the summer as MYI than in the nine most recent years” and it was only “slightly less than during 1968–2015 on average (Figure S5).”

Also “between November 2014 and April 2015, winter air temperatures were between −0.5°C and −1.5°C colder than during 1980–2010.”

Moreover the study also has climate experts profoundly postponing yet another prediction: The Northwest passage will not be navigable for another 40 years… let alone the Arctic becoming ice free!

The entire GRL abstract (emphasis added):

We present results of the first ever airborne electromagnetic ice thickness surveys over the NWP carried out in April and May 2011 and 2015 over first-year and multiyear ice. These show modal thicknesses between 1.8 and 2.0 m in all regions. Mean thicknesses over 3 m and thick, deformed ice were observed over some multiyear ice regimes shown to originate from the Arctic Ocean. Thick ice features more than 100 m wide and thicker than 4 m occurred frequently.

Results indicate that even in today’s climate, ice conditions must still be considered severe. These results have important implications for the prediction of ice breakup and summer ice conditions, and the assessment of sea ice hazards during the summer shipping season.

For further evaluation, it is also important to consider that in Parry Channel, including VMS, i.e., in the waters of the northern NWP, in 2014 more ice survived the summer as MYI than in the nine most recent years but slightly less than during 1968–2015 on average (Figure S5).

Between November 2014 and April 2015, winter air temperatures were between −0.5°C and −1.5°C colder than during 1980–2010 which could have led to slightly thicker level ice than average, notwithstanding snow effects

However, by all means the observed thicknesses and amount of deformed ice still indicate serious ice conditions which can persist throughout the summers and provide ample potential for encounters with hazardous ice. Even in recent years, the CAA remains a source for locally grown MYI and a sink for Arctic Ocean MYI [Howell et al., 2015]; and therefore, shipping through the NWP should not be taken lightly.

These conclusions also support results of Smith and Stephenson [2013] who suggested that the NWP will not become easily navigable for another 40 years or so.

In addition, we have observed two ice islands in and south of Byam-Martin Channel in 2011 which were not included in the present analysis. These ice islands originated from the ice shelves along the Arctic Ocean coast of Ellesmere Island, and were between 30 and 40 m thick, adding to the variability of hazardous ice features in the NWP.”

October 28, 2015 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Moscow demands US-led coalition in Syria ‘prove or deny’ allegations Russia is ‘bombing civilians’

RT | October 27, 2015

The Russian Ministry of Defense has summoned military attaches of NATO countries and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, asking the officials to clarify their countries’ allegations that Russian airstrikes in Syria have hit civilian targets.

“Today we invited military attaches from the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the NATO bloc to ask them to give official validation to their statements, or make a rebuttal,” Defense Ministry deputy head Anatoly Antonov said on Tuesday.

It particularly touches upon Western media’s “outrageous accusations” that the Russian Air Force has allegedly bombed hospitals in Syria, the military official said.

Information attacks on Moscow’s anti-terror efforts in the region have intensified recently, Antonov said, adding that the Russian military is “blamed not only for conducting airstrikes on the ‘moderate opposition,’ but also on civilian buildings, such as hospitals, mosques and schools.”

The MoD official stressed that such blame is put upon Russia not only by the media, but also officials and politicians from a number of Western states, including US Secretary of State John Kerry, US Department of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and the UK’s Defense Secretary Michael Fallon.

Allegations will be considered “stove-piping” should Russia not receive proof in the next following days, Antonov said, adding that the Defense Ministry “closely monitors and analyzes such statements.”

The MoD deputy head once again called on foreign military officials to join efforts in fighting Islamic State, saying that a wider international coalition should be immediately formed to defeat terrorists in the region.

“We are still waiting… for cooperation in defining concrete targets to be bombed in order to annihilate ISIS bases, or [providing] coordinates of facilities that should not be targeted by the Russian Air Force,” Antonov said.

Reports of a field hospital in northwestern Syria destroyed by Russian airstrikes, killing civilians, emerged last week, based on information provided by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Russian Foreign Ministry has disputed the media reports, having questioned the credentials of the source, which is based in Britain, has no direct access to the ground in Syria, and is run by one man.

READ MORE:

Kremlin dismisses HRW accusations that Russian strikes killed civilians in Syria

Drones in Turkey, missiles in Iran & ground op in Syria: More MSM bombs for Russia amid ISIS fight

October 27, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NYT Hypes Russian Threat to the Internet

By Ben Schreiner | Working Left | October 25, 2015

As if Americans didn’t already have enough to worry about in regards to the recently resurrected Red Menace, we can now add the fear that those devious Russians are threatening to–horror of horrors–bring down the Internet.

As the New York Times‘ David Sanger and Eric Schmitt report, “Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of conflict.”

As Navy spokesman Cmdr. William Marks adds, “It would be a concern to hear any country was tampering with communication cables.”

Indeed. Well, unless those tampering with international communication cables happen to be working on behalf of the “good guys” in the National Security Agency, or their equally good partners in Britain’s GCHQ. In that case, don’t consider it “tampering,” but rather something more akin to protecting the homeland from 21st century threats.

Of course whenever official Washington warns of a looming foreign cyber threat (China and Iran being the other favorite punching bags of the Times in this regard), it’s worth remembering that it was in fact the U.S., in partnership with Israel, that was the first state to actually launch a major offensive cyber attack on a sovereign nation. The attack being the Stuxnet virus set loose back in 2009 on Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. Such aggression was codified earlier this year when the Pentagon formally unveiled a cyber warfare doctrine sanctioning the use of preemptive strikes. But down the memory hole, it appears, with all that.

And so with all that out of mind, it’s back to Russia’s rising “aggression.” At least as the paper of record would have it.

As Sanger and Schmitt continue, “American concern over cable-cutting is just one aspect of Russia’s modernizing Navy that has drawn new scrutiny.”

Adm. Mark Ferguson, commander of American naval forces in Europe, speaking in Washington this month, said the proficiency and operational tempo of the Russian submarine force was increasing.

Citing public remarks by the Russian Navy chief, Adm. Viktor Chirkov, Admiral Ferguson said the intensity of Russian submarine patrols had risen by almost 50 percent over the last year. Russia has increased its operating tempo to levels not seen in over a decade. Russian Arctic bases and their $2.4 billion investment in the Black Sea Fleet expansion by 2020 demonstrate their commitment to develop their military infrastructure on the flanks, he said.

Left unmentioned by either Adm. Ferguson or the Times is the fact that the U.S. Navy’s fiscal year 2016 budget comes in at an astounding $161 billion.  (For comparison, the entire Russian military’s FY 2016 budget is projected to come in just over $90 billion.) If scrutiny then is to be applied, one would think that the U.S. Navy’s budgetary windfall would offer plenty of fodder. For starters, it’s worth considering just how many food-insecure American children could be fed with $161 billion.

Capturing the essence of the official propaganda campaign seeking to depict Russia as some sort of dangerously revisionist power, Sanger and Schmitt go on in their piece to quote Adm. James Stavridis, NATO’s former top military commander and current dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. As Stavridis puts it, Russia’s supposed stepped up surveillance of undersea cables offers “yet another example of a highly assertive and aggressive regime seemingly reaching backwards for the tools of the Cold War, albeit with a high degree of technical improvement.”

Russia has indeed deployed its military forces in the last year to both Ukraine and Syria. (A fact Times readers are certainly well aware of.) But if that is a sign of a “highly assertive and aggressive regime,” what are we to make of a regime that in the past decade alone invaded and toppled governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya? What shall we call a regime that has bombed Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan? What about a regime that unleashed a preemptive cyber attack on Iran? How about a regime with over 800 foreign military bases? Or one that exported nearly $50 billion in arms in the last year alone?

Global public opinion has of course already settled on what we are to call such a regime. According to a 2013 WIN/Gallop poll surveying the opinions of individuals from 65 nations around the world, it is the U.S. that constitutes “the greatest threat to peace in the world.” Russia didn’t register in the poll.

The recent historical record, then, reveals the latest Russian hit piece offered by the Times to be little more than Washington projection. The Russian Navy, all propaganda aside, hardly poses much of a noteworthy threat to the U.S. Navy, let alone global Internet communications. To find the greatest threat to global Internet communications we must once again heed global public opinion and come face to face with the menace within.

October 26, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Navy’s Sitting Ducks

By Tobin Harshaw | BloombergView | October 22, 2015

With Iran testing ballistic missiles, the Russian military bombing in Syria, war grinding on in Yemen and Islamic State as deadly as ever, it may seem like a very dangerous time for the U.S. to find itself without an aircraft carrier near the Persian Gulf. Actually, it’s very unlikely to be a problem, and it’s a good occasion to reconsider the Navy’s plans to build a new fleet of superexpensive “supercarriers.” […]

A Navy war game in 2002 that simulated a swarm attack by speedboats of the type Iran has in the Gulf had devastating results: 16 major warships would be destroyed, including one aircraft carrier. Anti-ship weaponry has only grown more potent since then.

These massive ships were never intended to take on jihadists and other asymmetric threats. But it’s no longer clear that they would be useful in a war against a major power such as Russia or a middling one such as Iran. The Pentagon has spent billions outfitting aircraft carriers with air defenses that are unproven, and the relatively short range of their planes –- an F/A-18 Hornet has to turn around at roughly 500 miles — leaves them vulnerable to land-based missiles that can travel twice that far. … Full article

October 23, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Rebuffing Peace Chances in Syria

By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | October 23, 2015

Seeking to disrupt the lethal cycle of foreign intervention and military escalation in Syria, a group of 55 House Democrats recently sent a letter to President Barack Obama, calling for a change in U.S. policy.

“[I]t is time to devote ourselves to a negotiated peace, and work with allies, including surrounding Arab states that have a vested interest in the security and stability of the region,” they wrote. “Convening international negotiations to end the Syria conflict would be in the best interests of U.S. and global security, and is also, more importantly, a moral imperative.”

No one — except neoconservative die-hards who view diplomacy as the last refuge of wimps — can argue with their sentiment. But previous failed attempts to promote peace negotiations suggest that Syrian rebels want to talk only about the terms of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s surrender — or they won’t talk at all. Unless their foreign backers start turning the screws on these clients, the key players may simply refuse to sit down at the peace table.

The first Geneva conference on Syria was initiated by the United Nations peace envoy Kofi Annan in April 2012. Although the great-power participants agreed on the usual niceties — a transitional government, participation of all groups in a meaningful national dialogue, free elections, etc. — the process foundered quickly when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted that Assad could not participate in the transition government. In August 2011, President Obama had rashly demanded that Assad step down as a precondition for political change in Syria.

Who’s to Blame?

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari later blamed the United States, Britain and France for derailing a huge opportunity for peace. Norwegian General Robert Mood, who led a military observer mission into Syria that spring to monitor an abortive cease-fire, said after the breakdown of Geneva I, “it would have been possible to lead Syria through a transition supported by a united Security Council with Assad as part of the transition. . . . The insistence on the removal of President Assad as a start of the process led them into a corner where the strategic picture gave them no way out whatsoever.”

Contrary to the caricature presented in many Western media, the Russians did not then or later insist that Assad remain in power.

Rather, as President Vladimir Putin emphasized in late 2012, Russia’s “position is not for the retention of Assad and his regime in power at any cost but that the people in the beginning would come to an agreement on how they would live in the future, how their safety and participation in ruling the state would be provided for, and then start changing the current state of affairs in accordance with these agreements, and not vice versa.”

Or as two former members of the State Department’s policy planning staff put it, “For Russia, the Geneva process is about achieving a political settlement in Syria, not about great powers negotiating the end of the Assad regime. . . . Russia’s primary objective in Syria is not to provide support for Assad but rather to avoid another Western-backed effort at coercive regime change, and all of Russia’s actions are consistent with that objective. . . .

“Better US-Russian cooperation on Syria depends on demonstrating to Moscow that Assad and his cronies — rather than the opposition, US policy, or other states in the region — are the main obstacle to a settlement and to stability in Syria, as the US has long argued. That requires pushing ahead with a good-faith effort at a political settlement.”

Another Setback

Chances for peace were set back in spring 2013, however, when the political leader of the non-Islamist opposition, Moaz al-Khatib, resigned after failing to get support for a mediated end to the conflict. His interim successor, a Syrian-American named Ghassan Hitto, reportedly enjoyed strong backing from the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and “distanced himself from Al-Khatib’s willingness to negotiate with elements of the Assad regime in a bid to bring an end to the civil war.” Secretary of State John Kerry, who had replaced Secretary Clinton, was reported to be “sanguine at the news of the resignation.”

In May 2013, Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to give peace another chance and try to bring the government and opposition to the negotiating table. This time, significantly, Kerry did not demand that Assad step down as a precondition for talks. Then came the huge diversionary controversy over Syrian chemical weapons, with the White House claiming that the Assad regime had crossed the “red line.” Instead of peace, a vast escalation of the war loomed, until Russia helped broker Syria’s agreement to destroy all of its chemical weapons stocks.

Peace efforts suffered another setback that fall when Syrian opposition forces and their backers in Saudi Arabia and Gulf States balked after the UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Bahimi, said that Iran should be part of any settlement talks.

The Beirut Daily Star reported that “Many of Syria’s main rebel brigades … rejected any negotiations not based on Assad’s removal and said they would charge anyone who attended them with treason.” A coalition of 19 Syrian Islamist groups called attempts to restart the Geneva talks “just another part of the conspiracy to throw our revolution off track and to abort it.”

In November 2013, under pressure from Washington and London, the main Syrian exile opposition group voted to attend a new round of peace talks — but only if Assad and others with “blood on their hands” were guaranteed to have “no role” in a transition government or Syria’s future — a non-starter.

The pro-Western National Coalition finally yielded and reluctantly agreed in January 2014 to join a new round of talks, but the more powerful Islamist rebel alliance continued to reject them. The negotiations quickly foundered, with Western powers blaming Damascus for refusing to get serious about a transition government, and Syria’s government insisting that it was committed to “stopping the bloodshed.”

The Ukraine Putsch

Soon, the Western-supported putsch against the Russian-backed government of the Ukraine caused a dramatic setback in U.S.-Russian relations, putting all progress in Syria on hold. Seeking to appease neoconservative critics who demanded even tougher interventions in both theaters, President Obama requested huge new sums of money to arm and train Syria’s rebels — and to beef up the U.S. military presence in Central and Eastern Europe.

In January 2015, Kerry finally began warming again to multilateral negotiations, with Russia’s participation. CIA Director John Brennan made the startling announcement that “None of us, Russia, the United States, coalition, and regional states, wants to see a collapse of the government and political institutions in Damascus.”

The French, longtime hardliners against Assad, also came around. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a radio station, “The political solution will of course include some elements of the regime because we don’t want to see the pillars of the state fall apart. We would end up with a situation like Iraq.”

These were huge changes in the stance of Western interventionist powers, aligning them closely to Russia’s longstanding position based on the original Geneva principles. But of course these changes came too late. Aside from some modest-sized regions held by Kurdish forces (and thus opposed by Turkey), the Syrian opposition today is dominated by Islamic State and by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front.

Forcing Russia’s Hand

Continuing military gains by those extreme Islamist forces prompted Putin’s decision to send additional military aid to Damascus and begin for the first time bombing targets in Syria. As usual, domestic U.S. politics forced a reframing of the Syrian issue back into Cold War-era stereotypes as a contest between the United States and Russia. And the French have once again reverted to their intransigent position that “there can be no transition without [Assad’s] departure,” in the words of President Francois Hollande.

Most important, some 75 military factions operating under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army this month reached an unprecedented political consensus: They rejected plans for a peaceful transition of power put forth by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. Their political stance confirms that the FSA has become an ally, if not a wholly owned tool, of the Nusra Front.

Pursuing peace remains a worthy — indeed, the only sensible — goal of U.S. foreign policy in Syria. No one should be surprised, however, if Washington’s embrace of that goal comes too late. By pursuing regime change so long and so adamantly, the United States, Western Europe and various Arab powers fostered the rise of the radical Islamist opposition, which has absolutely no interest in peace. Foreign leaders can meet all they want in Geneva, Moscow, or wherever, but facts on the ground will determine the political future of Syria.

If there is to be any hope of an outcome short of a bloodthirsty Islamist victory, it will require a total commitment by foreign powers to halt their supply of money and arms to opposition forces that, for now at least, reject participation in the peace process.

October 23, 2015 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

War of Words: Russian Foreign Ministry calls out MSM reports on hospital strike in Syria

RT | October 23, 2015

The Russian Foreign Ministry has disputed Western media reports accusing Russia of hitting a field hospital in northwestern Syria and killing 13 people. The reports cited “sources” provided by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, stressed that such reports show tremendous bias towards Russia’s military efforts in Syria.

“There are so-called mass media reports which allege that Russian aircraft bombed a field hospital in the Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria and reportedly killed 13 people. I cannot say that these reports are written by journalists but their ingenuity delights,” Zakharova, told reporters.

She questioned the credentials of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, pointing out that it is based in Britain and has no direct access to the ground in Syria.

“This information appears with reference to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in London. As we all understand, it is very ‘convenient’ to cover and observe what is happening in Syria without leaving London and without the ability to collect information in the field,” Zakharova added.

She said that Russia’s role in the Syrian conflict is aimed “primarily” at “protecting civilians,” while “terrorist groups” continue to receive “reinforcements of people” and “equipment from abroad,” which is a “very dangerous tendency.”

“These facts raise a question as to whether parties involved in the Syrian conflict are really interested in a peaceful settlement and how this goal is reconciled with financial and technical support for anti-government armed groups, including those who directly cooperate with terrorists,” she said during a briefing.

MSM attacks on Russia

Since joining the fight against Islamic State, Russia’s efforts in Syria have been repeatedly attacked by the Western mainstream media, which have published many unconfirmed reports employing scaremongering tactics.

AFP, a French media outlet, was responsible for publishing a piece titled 13 Dead as Russia strike hits Syria field hospital: monitor. The source in the story was identified as the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is run by one man – Rami Abdulrahman. Just recently, Abdulrahman told RT that the last time he had been in Syria was 15 years ago and that all the information for his reports is taken from “some of the Observatory activists” who he knows “through common friends.”

In the past, Rahman has said he relies on sources on the ground, who are among the US funded Syrian rebels.

Shortly after the report appeared, a video emerged showcasing the exact moment of the alleged Russian hospital strike. The video was uploaded by activists known as White Helmets – a rebel group which has already been caught faking evidence of civilian deaths supposedly caused by Russian strikes.

Meanwhile, Russia said it struck a meeting place of terrorist leaders in northwestern Syria. The Russian Defense Ministry specified that it had used a KAB-500 bomb.

“A Sukhoi Su-34 bomber attacked the installation with a guided KAB-500 air bomb, which wiped the target out with everything that was inside,” MoD’s spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.

Despite the power of the explosion, a cameraman in the posted video runs through only a small cloud of dust.

Experts have questioned the authenticity of the video posted by the rebels, stating that it is physically impossible to film such a powerful explosion from a few meters away and survive.

“It didn’t look like an aerial bomb dropped from an airplane. It appeared to come from an angle and the angle of the explosion appeared to be more like artillery,” a former policy analyst for the US Defense Department, Michael Maloof, told RT.

This kind of unreliable reporting is just one of the latest examples. Earlier, the Turkish military released a statement saying that it had downed an unidentified drone in Turkish airspace after issuing the aircraft 3 warnings.

It was not long before reports suggested it was Russian and being used to collect information. However, a Russian drone manufacturer denied the reports, calling the photos of the allegedly downed drone part of a poorly-staged “informational provocation.”

Other baseless accusations quickly followed, including British newspapers speculating that Royal Air Force Tornado jets operating in Iraq were to be equipped with air-to-air missiles and that their pilots had been cleared to fire on “Vladimir Putin’s jets” in the case of an imminent threat.

Moscow issued a formal request to the British Foreign Office, demanding an explanation. The answer came in a news blog, when the UK’s MoD’s spokesperson wrote that “There is no truth in this story.”

Another CNN story suggested that several Russian cruise missiles targeting Islamic State positions in Syria had landed in Iran. Citing two unnamed “top US officials,” the American broadcaster reported that four Russian missiles had crashed somewhere in Iran after being launched from vessels in the Caspian Sea.

The Russian Defense Ministry refuted the report, stating that missiles had hit their intended targets. “Unlike CNN, we don’t distribute information citing anonymous sources, but show the very missile launches and the way they hit their targets almost in real time,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

READ MORE:

Drones in Turkey, missiles in Iran & ground op in Syria: More MSM bombs for Russia amid ISIS fight 

EXCLUSIVE: Man who runs SOHR admits to RT he last visited Syria 15 years ago

October 23, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Faking the Terrorist Threat

And demonizing Russia at the same time

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 20, 2015

A short-lived story appeared in the mainstream media two weeks ago describing how the United States government is working hard to keep everyone safe. The Associated Press (AP) original coverage was headlined “Smugglers busted trying to sell nuclear material to ISIS.” The Boston Herald’s version of the AP story reported it as “Nuclear Material Sellers Target U.S.: Nuclear Material Shopped to ISIS.” The article was also picked up worldwide including by the CNN and the BBC and was replayed in Israel as “ISIS Looking to Build Nuclear Weapons, Turning to Moldovan Gangs for Materials.”

The story is focused on Moldova, a relatively impoverished former Soviet republic, where the mainstream western media is unlikely to have a regular correspondent. The original AP version includes interviews with some of the participants in the police operation while also reviewing the documents and photos relating to the case. Nevertheless, one has to suspect that AP did not just happen to come across the story. The news agency might have been tipped off to pursue it through a leak arranged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or White House, intended to inform the public that there is a major threat coming from terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction but U.S. law enforcement is aware of the danger and is working effectively against it.

The media account of what took place goes something like this: Eastern European smugglers have somehow obtained access to nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union weapons arsenals and labs and have been trying to sell them to terrorists, most particularly to ISIS, for use against the United States. There have been multiple attempts in the past five years, all of which were thwarted though the key players were not arrested and the presumed stolen material was not recovered by the authorities. The FBI worked closely with the Moldovan authorities throughout, providing technical services and other support for an undercover sting operation that was instrumental in producing a relatively successful outcome.

As I read the story it occurred to me that something was not quite right. The various security and police organs of the United States government have long faced a public relations dilemma. On one hand, they have sought to exaggerate the threat coming from international terrorism because it is good for the morale of their employees to be seen fighting a formidable enemy while it also induces Congress and the public to support substantial increases in budgets and other funding. But, at the same time, too much cheerleading emphasizing the ability of the bad guys to innovate rather suggests that national security is being undermined or, worse still, that the police and intelligence agencies are not doing their jobs very well to “keep us safe.” This has meant in practice that a fine balance has to be obtained in reporting the threat while at the same time making clear that everyone in government is working hard and very effectively to counter it.

This article about Moldova might indeed be one such story floated to reassure the public but, as it was not current news, its appearance at the present time would seem to be somewhat contrived and possibly even agenda driven. According to the article, there have been four attempts to sell smuggled radioactive material in the past five years, none of them recent, the latest one dating to February. One clue to a possible secondary agenda was the linkage of the criminals in the story to Russia, a country very much seen in adversarial terms by Washington at the present time. The article states that some of the criminal gangs in Moldova have “ties to the Russian KGB’s successor agency,” that Russia has a “vast store of radioactive material – an unknown quantity of which has leached into the black market,” and that the goods were offered by a “shadowy Russian named Alexandr Agheenco, ‘the colonel’ to his cohorts, whom Moldovan authorities believe to be an officer with the Russian FSB, previously known as the KGB.”

So the story is possibly about casting Russia in a negative light as it is about bombs or terrorists. And the bombs themselves are somewhat elusive. The article states that there is a “thriving black market in nuclear materials” in Moldova but it does not indicate where the contraband wound up and who bought it. One version of the AP story claims that a small amount of weapons grade enriched uranium was produced as bona fides prior to an attempt transaction in 2010 but that is contradicted by a Moldovan police assertion that only “one vial [of radioactive cesium was] ultimately recovered” from the smugglers. The article concedes that the cesium was not suitable for building a nuclear weapon and was not even radioactive enough to construct a so-called “dirty bomb.” Cesium, it should be noted, is used in its radioactive form in medical and laboratory applications. A dirty bomb uses nuclear waste or biological and chemical agents combined with conventional explosives to produce widespread contamination. It can be deadly and nasty, but it is not Hiroshima and it is not technically related to an atom bomb.

So the sting operation arrested some low level criminals who claimed to have access to weapons grade nuclear materials but the alleged materials were not actually found. Could it be that it was all a scam, seeking to sell something that the scammers assumed to be in demand but which they did not actually possess? And as for the final point that produced the alarming headlines, what was the role of ISIS in all of this? The article provides no evidence to indicate that ISIS was actually seeking nuclear materials, nor that it desires to do so linked to intentions to attack the United States. Constructing an actual nuclear weapon would be well beyond its engineering and technical capabilities in any event and if it wanted to build a dirty bomb it already has the nuclear waste from hospitals in the area that it controls to do so as well as chemical weapons stocks captured in Iraq.

The article states that “ISIS has made clear its ambition to use weapons of mass destruction” even though no evidence is presented confirming that to be the case. Nor is there any suggestion that the Moldovan smugglers actually contacted ISIS or that ISIS in any way sought to contact the Moldovans.

One smuggler, who allegedly repeatedly “ranted his hatred for America,” said in a wiretapped conversation that he “really want[ed] an Islamic buyer because they will bomb the Americans.” But since the middleman smuggler was trying to sell his product to what he thought to be an ISIS buyer it would be a no brainer for him to express his anti-American animus. And that evidence, such as it is, is far from a solid case that ISIS was seeking a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb to use against Washington, presumably to be detonated within the United States which is what the article implies. In fact, it does not necessarily mean anything at all.

So the alarming story of ISIS’s seeking a nuclear weapons to attack America turns out to be something considerably less, a bit of propaganda to justify continuation and even expansion of the U.S. war on terror. And there is a bit of evil Russia thrown in to explain how it is all happening. In reality, the United States and Russia were cooperating quite well on securing the former Soviet nuclear arsenal until the U.S. Congress in a January 2015 fit of pique cut off funding for the program. As is often the case, if there is a problem developing anywhere in the world, in this case over possible nuclear proliferation to terrorist groups, it is because the woefully ignorant elected officials representing us Americans have consistently failed to act responsibly.

October 20, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

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