Are US-backed Iraqi militias committing ethnic cleansing under the cover of fighting Daesh?

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From Sputnik

25.05.2016) Get short URL

Iraqi forces and affiliated Shiite militias are accused of ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities in Iraq, under the cover of fighting to liberate territory from Daesh.

On Monday, the Iraqi Army announced plans to begin an offensive to retake the city of Fallujah from Daesh forces. The heavily-populated Iraqi city was the first to fall to the extremist group in 2014, but in recent months Iraqi forces have been able to sharply reduce the militants’ stronghold over the city.

The city also played site for one of the bloodiest battles following the US-led invasion of Iraq, leading to mass casualties of US service members and leaving a once-prominent city in ruins.

Following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, Fallujah, like many other multicultural cities in the country, descended into sectarian strife leading then-Senator Joe Biden to call for the partitioning of Iraq in 2006.

The Sunni-dominated city faced the worst of the systematic effort to expunge loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’ath Party, in a process now known as de-baathification, from positions within the Iraqi government, including ordinary social sector positions in education, medicine, and engineering.

The once prominent Sunni middle class found themselves the subject of persecution at the hands of the Shia-led government, and violent Shiite militias, notably Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

The widespread alienation of Sunnis and the repeated violent tides of ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias forced many secular Sunnis into league with the violent Daesh extremist group, whose Iraqi branch is now dominated by a cadre of former Saddam Hussein loyalists.

With the government unravelling in Iraq, and the violent Mahdi army once again threatening to seize control of the country, the situation has been described as waves of ethnic cleansing by competing and increasingly extremist sectarian militias – the Mahdi Army, supported by Iraqi forces on the Shia side, and Daesh, along with al-Qaeda, on the Sunni side.

In this descent into social cataclysm, the Iraqi army, along with loosely-affiliated Shia militias, looks to ‘liberate’ Fallujah, using American weapons and support, but with many residents of the Daesh-occupied city fearing another violent round of ethnic cleansing. On Tuesday, Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down with Iraqi-American and foreign policy analyst Raed Jarrar to discuss the latest offensive.

https://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?episode_id=8590888&autoplay=false

Has the offensive on Daesh-controlled Fallujah begun?

“The news coming from Iraq indicates that there are no signs that the offensive has begun yet, but the Iraqi government has announced its intentions to start an offensive,” explained Jarrar. “US sources have been denying that any operations have started taking place so there is some confusion about that.”

The foreign policy analyst observed that people remaining in Fallujah are frightened by the Iraqi forces and affiliated militias, who they believe will use the presence of Daesh as a cover for ethnic cleansing.

“Militias affiliated with the Iraqi forces have made shocking announcements of late, calling Fallujah a cancer that has to be cut out, and these proclamations are concerning because the militias have committed war crimes when they attacked towns controlled by ISIS in the past,” said Jarrar. “There is a real concern that the anticipated attacks on Fallujah will follow the pattern of abuses committed by Iraqi forces and affiliated militias in the past.”

What do they mean by ‘liberating’ Fallujah? Ramadi was ‘liberated’ but there was nothing left.

“There was a report by Human Rights Watch that came out last year that was titled ‘After Liberation Came Destruction.’ The word liberation is a very problematic word in this context,” said Jarrar. “Human Rights Watch reported the premeditated and systematic way that Iraqi forces and militias took towns back from ISIS and destroyed towns, committing ethnic cleansing. They targeted some ethnicities against other ethnicities, demolished homes of some sects and kept homes of other sects.”

“I expect that this is just another campaign of ethnic cleansing and they are using ISIS as a pretext to enter these towns and bombard them,” said Jarrar. “This is a premeditated policy of destruction and ethnic cleansing that the Iraqi government has been following since 2003.”

Where should forces attack to get a handle on the unravelling situation in Iraq?

“From my point of view, that is not the discussion that we should be having. It is not about which city to bombard first or what city to allow the US and its allies to bomb first,” said Jarrar. “That is why I wanted to comment on the word ‘liberate,’ because it implies that there is a legitimate force that will come in to kick out an illegitimate group. That is not the situation in Iraq. Iraq has many extremist and violent groups, including the government forces.”

“If the United States wants to give good advice to Iraq, then we need to start by stopping support to groups and the Iraqi government, that have been committing mass violations of human rights, funding these groups is illegal under US and international law,” said Jarrar. “We continue to give funds and weapons to groups committing atrocities in Iraq.”

Jaraa claimed that a more meaningful solution to the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq and throughout the region, would be to focus on policies of division and persecution that pit groups against each other, likening the violence committed by Shia militias to that committed by Daesh, which he referred to as a similar force on the Sunni side.

“The idea of getting rid of all these things will not include dropping more bombs on Iraq, it will not make the country more peaceful and it will not make these groups more moderate. It will actually make more death and destruction and that is what the US has been doing in Iraq since 1991,” stated Jarrar.

Daesh is blocking Fallujah residents from leaving while the Iraqis demand that they leave – what will happen to the civilians?

“They are the ones that pay the hefty price and many of them have been paying a heavy price, not as a consequence of violence, but because that is the actual goal of violence – displacement,” explained Jarrar. “The Iraqi militias, especially those affiliated with the Iraqi government, have been implementing a plan of systematic displacement to gain more territory for their own group.”

“This is a different analysis than you receive in the mainstream media that the violence is part of the medicine, part of the solution, and the US has to support attacks on Fallujah and Mosul because this is the way to get rid of the bad guys and liberate these towns,” explained Farrar.

“That is not what is going on in the real world. In the real world this is more violence that has illegitimate agendas to displace more Iraqi and create more sectarian enclaves,” he said.

http://sputniknews.com/news/20160525/1040198115/iraq-shia-sunni-daesh-fallujah.html

Kerry threatens war-without-end on Syria

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From Sputnik

21.05.2016

Finian Cunningham

Alleged peace-maker John Kerry threatened to wage war-without-end on Syria – if the Middle East country does accept the US demand for regime change.

That’s hardly the language of a supposed bona fide diplomat who presents an image to the world as a politician concerned to bring about an end to the five-year Syrian conflict.

The US Secretary of State repeatedly sounds anxious to alleviate the appalling suffering of the Syrian nation, where over the past five years some 400,000 people have been killed and millions displaced as refugees.

Anyone who has not been brainwashed by Western media propaganda knows full well that the suffering of Syria has been caused by Washington and its allies sponsoring a covert war for regime change in that country.

Kerry was speaking during another round of failed negotiations — this time in Vienna — along with other leaders from the 17-nation International Syria Support Group that includes Russia, as well as the United Nations.

The “support group” is a disgustingly erroneous name, given that certain members of this entity — primarily the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — have done everything in their power to sponsor a proxy terrorist war on Syria. If the truth were not so abject, it would be laughable.

In a Voice of America report headlined “US still has leverage in Syria,” Kerry is quoted thus: “He said the greatest leverage [on Syria] was the fact that [President] Assad and his backers would never be able to end the war in Syria if they declined to negotiate a political settlement.”

Consider the pernicious import of that for a moment. In other words, America’s top “diplomat” is laying down a criminal ultimatum to the sovereign state of Syria and its elected government of President Bashar al-Assad. Kerry is saying in no uncertain terms that unless the Syrian authorities do not accept Washington’s demand for regime change, then the country is facing never-ending war.

Of course, being a weasel-worded diplomat, Kerry does not use the illegal term “regime change”. He instead talks about “political transition”. And he has set a date in August for this “transition” to take place. But what Kerry’s euphemistic jargon boils down to is this: the Syrian president and his administration must vacate government — or else face more violence and destruction.

This is the political objective that Washington and its allies in NATO, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have wanted all along. They want what is an independent, anti-imperialist Syrian government to give way to some composite regime that would be a puppet for Washington’s geopolitical interests in the oil-rich, strategically vital Middle East region.

Any replacement regime would spurn its erstwhile allies of Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement to become an American vassal.

In reality, the supposed pro-democracy change that Washington allegedly wants to install in Syria would be dominated by a repressive, fundamentalist regime that would betray the interests of the Syrian people. We can count on this outcome because the proxies who are waging Washington’s covert war are dominated by extremists fully aligned with their despotic sponsors in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Kerry’s apparent confidence in predicting that Syria faces a war of attrition if it does capitulate is a tacit admission by Washington that it controls the illegally armed factions in Syria.

The United States may officially proscribe terror groups like al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al Nusra and the so-called Islamic State (also known as Daesh). The US pays lip service to “defeating terrorism”.

But anyone with an informed understanding of what is really happening in Syria and other countries subjected to US-led regime change knows that Washington has orchestrated these same terror groups for its criminal political objectives.

This is corroborated by the fact that Washington refuses to coordinate its (ineffectual) bombing campaign with Russia to eliminate the terror groups. It is corroborated by the fact that Washington and its allies point-blank refuse Russia’s proposals at the UN Security Council to designate other known terror outfits — Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Shams — as terrorist.

Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Shams are every bit as vile and barbaric as the other al Qaeda-affiliated franchises. They all espouse the same twisted death-cult ideology; fight alongside each others (when they are not feuding, that is, over war spoils); and ultimately they all share the same sponsors and American-supplied weaponry.

Syrian government forces in Palmyra, central Syria.

‘Fair Game’? What Kerry’s ‘Absolute Lines’ in Syria Really Mean

It is openly admitted that America’s allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as Qatar, bankroll Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Shams and that this nexus serves as a conduit for American weapons from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Why else would John Kerry begin his week of “diplomacy” in Vienna by first making an urgent visit to Saudi King Salman last weekend. Kerry was reportedly appealing to the 9/11-sponsoring Saudi regime to support his diplomatic push in Vienna. The Western media “reported” Kerry’s Saudi visit as if it were a benign mission, as they usually do. Whenever it should be obvious that what he was really doing was trying to get the Saudis to ease off on the terror war in Syria.

Washington is currently trying to wrangle regime change in Syria through a political track. That is a world of difference from gullible Western media projections of Kerry’s pretensions of “negotiating peace”.

Yet all the while the US and the Saudis are reserving the right to use “Plan B” if the political track should not materialize in regime change.

That is what Kerry really means when he said in Vienna that “Assad and his backers would never be able to end the war in Syria if they declined to negotiate a political settlement.”

Washington’s “leverage” in Syria is due to the simple, diabolical fact that it and its despotic allies ultimately can turn on and off the violence when it is expedient for their interests. And that violence relies on the deployment of known terrorist organizations, including the ones that Washington’s double-think refuses to recognize as “terrorist”.

So let’s put this into stark perspective. Despite his Orwellian title of diplomat and peace-maker, US Secretary of State John Kerry is the public face of a terrorist enterprise.

What other world power gives itself the right to threaten nations with “regime change or war”? And yet this same nation considers itself a paragon of democracy, human rights and law-abiding probity.

The United States of America is a rogue regime on a criminal scale that exceeds the very worst in history.

As a parting footnote, John Kerry is a decorated American “war hero”. He served four months as a navy officer during the US genocidal war on Vietnam during the late 1960s. Kerry received a bunch of medals for his “actions”, which according to reliable accounts from veterans on his river-boat patrols, involved shooting fleeing Vietnamese peasants in the back.

This is the same Kerry who is now purporting to bring peace to Syria.

Like everything that Washington says, it is full of lies and deception. The abiding lesson: don’t turn your back on Washington and its terrorist-sponsoring, war-mongering “diplomats”.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20160521/1040021784/kerry-threatens-war-syria.html

Western ‘culture of hatred’ fuels East-West strife

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Very true. I think most Americans are fed hatred and mistrust of Russia with their mother’s milk. It’s very sad to see this, even among so-called peace activists. So few ask, Cui bono? Who benefits from the hatred?

It’s racism, but few people identify it as such.

From Pravda

Western ‘culture of hatred’ fuels East-West strife. 58053.jpeg

AP photo

By Dave Harrison

May 24, 2016

For citizens of the West, a ‘culture of hatred’ toward East Europeans and Russians has been ongoing for almost a century. Since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the West immediately aligned themselves with the oppressive czar and the aristocracy of Russia. It did not matter that the people of Russia were starving and that their uprising, and resultant revolution, was just.

During Russia’s Civil War (1918-20), the ‘Whites’ were supported with money, arms, and political encouragement from the West sincerely hoping that the revolution would fail. In fact, most of the aristocracy fled to London in hopes of returning once the revolution was put down, but that didn’t happen.

Since then the Western ‘Culture of Hatred’ has continued toward Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, other Soviet and Russian leaders, and particularly against the Russian people even today. Although people of many nations have been made to feel welcome in the West, immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and other East European countries have always been treated as third-class citizens.

During WWI, Ukrainians were rounded up, labelled as ‘enemy aliens’, sent to work camps and used as slave labourers in many parts of Canada including the internationally famous town of Banff, Alberta where tourists today use sidewalks and bridges made by Ukrainian, slave labour.

This ‘Culture of Hatred’ did not begin there. When East Europeans arrived in Canada in the 1890s, they were given the poorest farming lands one can imagine. They were given no tools, no livestock, no seeds, no housing, no expert help, and not even stoves to keep themselves warm in the brutal, Canadian winters. Yet, they survived not‘because of the Canadian government’ but ‘in spite of the Canadian government’ which would easily have watched them perish without any federal help.

Even today, Western newspapers, magazines and television spew a steady stream of venom toward Putin, Russia, and its allies, to whoever will listen to their propaganda. All television ‘news’ reports on Russia are always laced with prejudice and bias and drip with hatred. Nothing positive is ever reported and every positive event involving Russia is twisted into a ‘negative’. This tactic has been used since the end of WWII and shows no signs of abatement.

During WWII, when Stalin begged for the opening of a ‘second front’ in Europe, the West was content to watch Russians be slaughtered by the millions while they dragged their feet for another three years. Meanwhile they reluctantly provided small amounts of materiel through Murmansk to establish basic rapport and good will, but the delayed second front to alleviate the devastating calamity against Russia was nothing less than Western punishment for a people they unnecessarily feared and hated.

As a result, Russian soldiers did most of the dying – more than 20 million – while Americans arrived at the end and claimed victory and glory as ‘their’ own. No sooner WWII ended, Russia became the West’s new enemy in aCold War which lasted the next half-century.

This hatred has manifested itself in other newsworthy events. When Malaysia Flight 17 was downed over Ukraine (July, 2014) by a missile from unknown sources, Western media spewed their hatred against Russia for weeks on end. Even today, the event is repeatedly brought up, but when the USS Vincennes shot down Iranian Air Flight 655 with 290 passengers and crew on board (July 3rd, 1988), it was simply brushed aside as a ‘tragic accident’ which was hardly worthy of mention.

With the recent ISIL attacks in Paris and Brussels, the outpouring of grief and outrage filled front pages in Western newspapers for a full week, but when 224 passengers (men, women and children) and crew of Metrojet Flight 9268 were murdered by a terrorist bomb in Northern Sinai they were hardly given a mention in Western newspaper and television.

No messages of sympathy or condolences from the West were sent to the Russian people and there was no outpouring of grief or outrage. Instead, Charlie Hebdo Magazine made jokes and mocked the air crash as well as the 224 deaths which included seventeen children.

The Western ‘Culture of Hatred’ for people of the Mid-East, East Europe and Russia runs deep and is continually nourished by Western media.

Dave Harrison

http://www.pravdareport.com/society/stories/24-05-2016/134513-culture_hatred-0/

Operation “Sea Breeze”: How US Marines ‘studied’ Russian in Crimea in 2006

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From Fort Russ

May 24, 2016

Blogger Mikhail Sinelnikov-Orishak (@sine-or in Live Journal)

Translated by Kristina Kharlova

In my personal archive I found a photo from the era when Crimea was still Ukrainian:

“From May 27 to June 22 2006 here was held a protest by citizens of Ukraine and Feodosia against the exercises and deployment of NATO forces in Crimea. With gratitude to Feodosians for their civil courage from deputies of 5th City Council”

For those who didn’t know or tried to forget – I will remind: on May 27, 2006 the American ship “Advantage” came into the port of Feodosia where it unloaded several dozen containers with firearms, equipment and construction materials for military exercises “Sea Breeze-2006.”

Immediately began protests of Crimean residents against the presence of NATO troops: rallies, tent cities, peace marches. The tension has boiled to a point when more than 200 US Marines had to be hastily evacuated from the sanatorium of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine near Alushta, where they, as it turns out, have been “studying Russian language”. At least, so said the representatives of the administration of then-President Yushchenko. In the end, the US State Department and the Pentagon have issued a joint statement on suspension of Sea Breeze-2006 due to a crisis … in the Middle East.

It should be noted that such NATO exercises were held in the Black sea 5 (!) times since 1997, and 4 of them in the territorial waters of Ukraine. Why did “Sea Breeze-2006” become a “stumbling block”?

Any military exercise initially has a script according to which further events must unfold. At the time, it went as follows:

Some “Runo peninsula”, formerly part of the country of Sapphire, with a thriving “regime”, hostile to NATO, comes under the jurisdiction of a “democratic state” of Emerald. Thus, the peninsula with all the familiar city names of Evpatoria, Sevastopol, Simferopol gains “political independence”, which Sapphire cannot accept and creates an IRM – “Independent Runo Movement”.
International community for a while ignores sabotage, murders of foreign citizens, committed by IRM. But ‘separatists’ commit a raid on a local university and take hostage a large group of students – citizens of countries-NATO members, and in Simferopol at the same time break out rallies and demonstrations demanding restoration of the previous status of the peninsula as a province of Sapphire. The government of Emerald appeals for help to the United Nations, and the UN gives NATO the permission to conduct the operation to free the hostages, for the establishment of peace and stability “in the Northern part of the Black sea”.

This legend was published in the media which finally infuriated the residents of “Runo Peninsula”. On June 24 2006 all American experts and military equipment finally left the “inhospitable” Crimea aboard a Ukrainian merchant vessel “Anatoly Kolesnichenko”.

P. S. As an expert comment from an interview with ex-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the Ukrainian TV channel “Inter” on August 7, 2014: “What a ridiculous accusation, NATO never intended to establish military bases in Ukraine…”

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/05/operation-sea-breeze-how-us-marines.html

Montenegro farmer offers his lands to Russia to build base against NATO

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From Fort Russ

May 24, 2016 –

Life –

Translated by J. Arnoldski

In the village of Kralje, several people have taken the initiative to donate their extensive land holdings to Vladimir Putin and the brotherly Russian people.

“I would offer this territory to the Russians for a military base or hotels and vacation. This is my idea, as they’ll know better what exactly to build here. This field is ideal for helicopter landing pads, and stretches another kilometer to the south. As for the forest, where I have fifteen hectares, there is about 150 thousand square meters, enough territory for a Russian missile system to defend against the aggressor,” Dzhagisha Dzhurishich told “Life” in an interview.

The Orthodox Serbs living in the village of Kralje at the foot of the Komovi mountains are not satisfied with the course of joining NATO which the government of Montenegro has taken.

“The state of Montenegro is striving to join NATO, but we are against this, and we want to show that the alliance is an aggressive organization that only pursues its own goals in everything. So here is everything – my land, this forest on the mountain, and the field there further south. It’s all mine. Thirty hectares is enough. And, of course, if something happens, then my neighbors will join me and also offer their land. My brothers are for this, and we have one forest and around a hundred hectares total.”

Besides land, they propose that the Russian state restore and use the barracks there, an historical monument left over from the times of the Ottoman Empire. Built in 1899, the building used to house the Russian Tsarist Army and the weapons of the ancient Serbian Vasojevici tribe, whose history stretches back to the Karageorgevich dynasty.

“Here were kept the weapons of the Vasojevici tribe, guns that our officers fired at the Turks in the city of Pec. Grain was stored here which the Russians sent, but it was sold instead of given out. But here I had the idea that the barracks could be returned to the Russians so that they could clean it up and use it for their own purposes. It’s crumbling, the roof has collapsed, but the building is all of three hundred blocks,” the chairman of the local government of the village of Kralje, Milutin Dzhurkovich, said.

https://embed.life.ru/embed/a5ef12ac912ffb38cb6b677a07c9d504

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/05/montenegro-farmer-offers-his-lands-to.html

Putin to Poroshenko, Merkel, and Hollande, “Stop shelling Donbass, now!”

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From Fort Russ

Putin called on APU to stop shelling of Donbass immediately

RusVesna, May 24, 2016
Translated from Russian by Tom Winter

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has called for an immediate end to the attacks on settlements in Donbas from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, according to the Kremlin press service.

A telephone conversation between the leaders of the Norman Quartet was held on Tuesday night.

“Putin has called for an immediate end to attacks by the armed Ukrainian formations on the settlements Donbass. It was emphasized that a key element of the settlement should be direct dialogue with Kiev-Donetsk-Luhansk for the full and comprehensive implementation of the Minsk agreement of 12 February 2015,” concluded the press release.

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/05/putin-to-poroshenko-and-merkel-and.html

Amnesty International, Swiss section, takes off its mask in a fund-raiser

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From Fort Russ

“Why does this man let his people suffer so much? YES I support Amnesty International and I am making a 70 Franc donation. Amnesty International, Swiss section”

Original headline: Syria: NO, I will not support this revolting Amnesty International campaign!

Silvia Cattori, in Arret sur Info, May 23, 2016
Translated from French by Tom Winter

Sent in May 2016 to every household: We have just received from a Arret sur info reader this flyer calling for donations, distributed in letter boxes by Amnesty International. The flyer leaves no doubt about the outrageous political bias adopted by the NGO from the beginning of the war in Syria.

We denounce this misleading campaign that comes at the detriment of the Syrian people. The Syrian state is the only secular state in the region, and Amnesty is combatting it, seeking the overthrow of the Assad government. This means imposing on Syrians the destruction of their state, and bringing armed groups, who want to establish an Islamic state, to power, the groups supported by obscurantist regimes like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait.

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/05/amnesty-internationalswiss-section.html

Is NATO really preparing for war with Russia?

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From Fort Russ

May 21, 2016
Zavtra
Expert commentary by Leonid Ivashov
Translated by Kristina Kharlova

British retired general, who in 2014 held the post of deputy supreme commander of the allied NATO forces in Europe, sir Richard Shirreff said that a nuclear war could begin between NATO and Russia within a year if the alliance does not strengthen its defenses in the Baltic states.

According to Shirreff, it is likely that the target of the attack will be Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia, where Russia can justify a possible invasion with “protection of Russian-speaking population”. British general believes that “Russia is confident in NATO’s weakness” and, on this basis, the West needs “to prevent a possible catastrophe.” He is convinced that the confrontation will certainly be nuclear, since this is allegedly woven into the Russian military doctrine.

Earlier this week, the general published a book “2017: The War With Russia”, about fictional events, which are, as the author claims, “very likely to happen” in reality.

On February 3 the British broadcasting company BBC introduced the film “World War Three: Inside the War Room”, which presents a fictional scenario of potential conflict between Russia and NATO: after the capture of Latvian Daugavpils by pro-Russian rebels and intervention of the US-British coalition the world is on the brink of a major nuclear war from which humanity is rescued by the members of British Cabinet.

In early May, the Pentagon said that NATO could deploy four battalions in the Baltic States and Poland. On Wednesday, May 18, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that alliance command wants to deploy multi-ethnic battalions in several countries in Eastern Europe, first of all in the Baltic States.

***

Comment by Leonid Ivashov (General-Colonel, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues, International Journalism professor at MGIMO) :

Leonid Ivashov

One of the most important questions of our time is whether NATO is really preparing for an open war with Russia, and the alliance has already found the place where it starts, or is it a game of nerves, verbal and declarative, but, in fact, not dangerous fuss?

This isn’t horseplay, but serious preparations for war. And not only in the region of our North-Western borders, but along the entire perimeter of Russia. And the start of active preparation for the military phase was triggered by the “National Security Strategy of the USA”, which was adopted in February last year. It stated that there is no multi-polar world, because there is no alternative to American leadership. This whole “Strategy” is riddled with phrases like:

We will defend our interests from a position of strength
We will conduct combat operations anywhere in the world
We will act outside of international law and so on…

And the main target of these military preparations is Russia. And all because Russia is slowly but consistently changing the world. Turned Eurasia towards itself, began to develop relationships in Eurasian, and other regions. The Shanghai cooperation organization, CSTO, Eurasian economic union, the group of BRICS countries – all this is created on the initiative of Russia. That is, the Americans are loosing the lead. Their global domination today in fact is melting. And the goal of the United States – to pin down, and even to crush Russia, as they do with those smaller countries that try to resist. That’s all: the goal of global West is to stop the independent foreign policy of Russia.

With regard to Russian threat. I would advise NATO generals to calculate the ratio of personnel of the armed forces of NATO countries, equipment and qualitative characteristics. They clearly show that it is NATO that is creating shock troops, which threaten Russia, conducting exercises: military-air, naval, ground. Regularly in the Baltic sea area BALTOPS exercises are conducted, during which they practice strategic airlift of US troops from American territory. And that the Baltic States scream that Russia is going to conquer them – first, we don’t need them. And even if they beg to join Russia or for the rapprochement with Russia, there is no need to hurry, they should not be accepted. Such countries are always better to have as an enemy than an ally or part of Russia. However, we must defend the Kaliningrad region, and not only by military means, but also with soft power. There, unfortunately, Germans and Poles are more active than our officials from Russia.

Lets look were around our borders NATO is now most active? Eastern European countries, which joined
NATO and the EU, became the weakest European link. Americans are now using them against Europe and against Russia. The same Poles: whatever the Americans tell them – they salute, and say: “Yes, sir!”. This also applies to missile defense system, and strengthening of the naval component of Poland in the Baltic sea region. Now supposedly the Poles are asking the Americans to open a military base.

Look at Romania: Americans patched the holes on the old Romanian ships, and now actively use them in the Black sea region, deployed some F-22s, modern combat aircraft.

The Balts have nowhere to go: they say yes to everything, as long as America supports the current political elite in power, and fills its pockets.

These are completely dependent countries – the countries of Eastern Europe. Sometimes Hungary, the Czech Republic try to resist, particularly in relation to anti-Russian sanctions, but they are immediately threatened with a coup, anti-government rallies, accused of corruption… The Americans got a strong hold over Europe, including Western, through the instrument of weak Eastern Europe. South-East Europe is also pitted against Russia. The Balkans have always been the military fuse of Europe, and today Americans are trying to turn it into a powder keg. In fact, the accession of Montenegro to NATO has already been decided, however, God help if the whole of Montenegro collects two battalions. So there is no military gain here, but Montenegrians are the destroyers of the Orthodox Slavic world. Milo Djukanovic is, in fact, the Western, Pro-American agent, and the task of the West is to destabilize not just the Balkan region but the entire Orthodox Slavic space. The people of Montenegro, of course, are against NATO, against quarrel with Russia, with Serbia, but no one asks the people, and demands for a referendum are just rejected. The same difficult situation, on the brink of civil war, is in Macedonia.Republika Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina is subjected to coup attempts for elimination from political arena of the popular president Milorad Dodik.

And Serbia itself is stretched, either you join NATO and then the EU, or you will live in a blockade, as today. For Serbia to apply for EU membership, it is necessary to recognize Kosovo’s independence, and in the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia Kosovo is its integral part, but it is forced to do so.

In a prosperous at first glance Croatia we see growing social tension: rallies and protests are commonplace. So the Balkans are again on the brink of internal turmoil with a threat of external military intervention.

Will the Balkans become the stage for a local conflict, which will eventually grow into global? It is unlikely to turn into a global conflict, because today’s Russia will not militarily interfere. The West will just break the Serbs, so that the Serbs, as Bulgarians now, will unquestioningly obey their masters from Washington and Brussels.

Today we are observing an attempt to transform the Orthodox-Slavic world into some semblance of present-day Ukraine.

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/05/is-nato-really-preparing-for-war-with.html

Senior US commander secretly (and illegally) visits Syria to ‘prepare push to Raqqa’…or finalize Tartus and Jableh bombing?

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How long can the US keep up this pretense of fighting ISIS?

From RT
May 22, 2016

General Joseph Votel, head of US Centcom, talked over cooperation with Kurdish and Arab militant groups while on a secretive trip to Syria on Friday. The talks were said to involve coordinating the US-led coalition and rebels plans on recapturing Raqqa from Islamic State.

The news on the highly secretive visit to Syria broke only after Votel had returned to the US. During his 11-hour stay in the country he met with American advisers at a camp, located some 50 miles from the battleground, as well as with representatives of the Syrian groups who are being trained by the American military experts. Votel also talked to commanders of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

In the aftermath of the visit, Brett McGurk, the US special envoy to the coalition against Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL), tweeted that one of the purposes of the clandestine trip was to prepare an offensive on Raqqa, IS terrorists’ stronghold in Syria since 2013.

Commenting on the current positions of the US-backed forces in Syria, Vogel stated that he “left with increased confidence in their capabilities and our ability to support them,” in an interview, cited by AP.

The existing model of cooperation between US and armed rebels fighting terrorists “is working and working well,” claimed the general.

Speaking about his primary motives behind the sudden visit, Vogel, however, did not specify any details that might explain its timing, while saying that it felt like an “imperative” to him to“see what they’re dealing with – to share the risk they are dealing with.”

AP cited Qarhaman Hasan, deputy commander of the SDF, as saying that the talks focused on the issues of US military support to rebel groups in the form of weaponry and equipment supplies.

“You can’t run an army on smuggling,” he said, adding that the they are “creating an army” and the necessity to smuggle the munitions severely hampers its operational capabilities.

General Vogel became the first military official of such a rank to appear in Syria since the onset of the US military operation against IS in 2014.
Vogel reportedly flew to Syria from Iraq on Friday in daylight. Although the circumstances surrounding the flight are not disclosed due to security concerns, it is believed to be the first time US forces’ representatives flew to Syria not under the cover of night.

Earlier, it is was reported the SDF is preparing to launch a decisive attack on Raqqa in the coming days. The operation is supposedly going to be backed by US-led coalition forces from air.

SDF representative Tackir Kobani said in an interview on Friday that Brett McGurk had visited Syria last week to discuss the “strategy to battle Daesh, in particular, for the liberation of Raqqa, Manbij and Jarabulus.” That makes Votel a second senior American official visiting Syria in the last two weeks.

US ‘leverage in Syria’ thanks to collusion with terrorists

Army Gen. Joseph Votel was appointed the head of the US Central Command (Centcom) in March. The area of Centcom’s responsibility covers Northeast Africa as well as the Middle East and Central and South Asia.

Reports of an imminent siege of Raqqa come as Moscow has suggested that the US-led coalition joined forces with the Russian Air Force to strike militant groups that did not adhere to ceasefire plan. In particular, Al-Nusra Front terrorists and convoys of arms and militants crossing the Syrian-Turkish border were mentioned.

While the White House has already denied it would even consider a joint Russian-US air campaign, such move would at least partly legitimize the US presence in the country, as the proposal is said to have been agreed with Damascus in advance. The Syrian government has never given permission for any US-led military campaign in the country, making its airstrikes illegal by international law.

https://www.rt.com/news/343983-syria-raqqa-us-general-kurds/

Over 100 dead in multiple bombings near Russian Syrian bases; al-Qaeda affiliate Ahrar al Sham claims responsibility, leader visited Washington in December – bombings ordered by the CIA and State Department?

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See previous article: “Al Qaeda goes to Washington”

From RT

Over 100 feared killed as blasts hit near Russian military bases in Syria’s Latakia province

Published time: 23 May, 2016

A Syrian army soldier and civilians inspect the damage after explosions hit the Syrian city of Tartous, in this handout picture provided by SANA on May 23, 2016. © SANA

A Syrian army soldier and civilians inspect the damage after explosions hit the Syrian city of Tartous, in this handout picture provided by SANA on May 23, 2016. © SANA / Reuters

Over 100 people are feared dead after seven blasts targeted several locations in the coastal towns of Jableh and Tartus, Syria’s Latakia province, according to media reports. The locations are close to two Russian military facilities: the Khmeimim airbase and the Tartus naval base.

Jihadist group Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya took responsibility for the blasts in both Jableh and Tartus.

Later, Islamic State militants also claimed the attacks saying via its news outlet, Amaq, that “gatherings of Alawites in Tartous and Jableh” had been targeted. The Alawites is the minority sect to which President Bashar Assad belongs.

According to Ikhbariya TV, there were up to three explosions in the coastal town of Jableh near the local railway terminal. RIA Novosti and state TV also report a fourth explosion, at the emergency unit of a local hospital.

The blasts left over 45 people dead, police sources initially told RIA. Then the joint death toll was raised to over 100.

The town appears to have been shelled with mortar fire, according to SANA news agency.

Pictures circulating on social media appear to show plumes of smoke rising in Jableh, and several wrecked vehicles.

Three more blasts were reported in a residential area of another coastal town, Tartus, eyewitnesses told RIA Novosti.

At least 20 were killed there, SANA and RIA Novosti said citing police sources.

According to Syrian state TV, one of the Tartus explosions was a car bomb, while another was caused by a suicide bomber.

Both towns targeted by Monday attacks are close to facilities used by the Russian task force in Syria.

The port of Tartus has been used for years by the Russian Navy as a feeder base. The port has been extensively used for delivering military supplies to the Russian contingent in the country.

The Martyr Basil al-Assad International Airport, next to Jableh, has hosted Russia’s Khmeimim airbase and reconciliation center since September 2015.

Additional videos and photos on RT

https://www.rt.com/news/344052-syria-latakia-jableh-explosions/

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Over 100 dead in multiple bombings near Russian Syrian bases; al-Qaeda affiliate Ahrar al Sham claims responsibility, leader visited Washington in December – bombings ordered by the CIA and State Department?