Marines

U.S. seeks to deploy Marines to Norway, escalating tension with Russia

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Recall that U.S. officials want to keep this as an “away” game and not a “home” game. An “away” game is where the “game” is “played” on someone else’s home territory. The U.S. government uses other countries as pawns in its “game” for world domination.
It will use terrorism to encourage countries to do what it wishes. If the Norwegian Parliament acts in wisdom and to preserve its sovereignty and denies this “request”, it will be the recipient of terrorist acts or false flag attacks to get it to submit to American will and to convince Norwegians that Russia, not America, is the aggressor. Norway can appease America, or it can stand with other countries for truth. As the world found out during World War II, appeasement never works because the lust of power and acquisition is never satisfied.
By Whitney Webb
Global Research, October 24, 2016
True Activist 21 October 2016
nato encirclement

Norway is debating a “long-standing US wish” to allow American marines to deploy troops in the Scandinavian nation, furthering NATO’s encirclement of Russia.

Norway may allow the United States to deploy up to 300 marines “on a rotational basis” on its soil, advancing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) long-standing goal of encircling Russia’s border with US-allied military assets.

The marines would be stationed in Vaernes, an air station just outside the Norwegian city of Trondheim – only 100 kilometers from Russia. NATO has claimed that this move is part of a long-standing effort to deter “Russian aggression” despite the fact that Russia has in no way threatened Norway or other countries on its borders. NATO ended cooperation with Russia following the Ukrainian coup of 2014, which led Russia to annex Crimea. According to Norwegian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Ann Kristin Salbuvik, “there is no question of permanent deployment” as the presence of the Marines would be temporary, though no timeline has been specified.

cold-weather-training-marines_usmclife

Credit – USMC Life

Not everyone in the Norwegian government was aware of the plan until it was publicly announced last week. Several members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee were kept unaware of the plan, which has allegedly been in the planning stages for quite some time, according to local media. The plan, before being enacted, must first be approved by the Norwegian Parliament, where it faces opposition from several political parties. US officials, however, maintain that 300 US marines in Norway would be “beneficial.” Norway s already stockpiling NATO weapons and, according to some reports, has enough military equipment to support around 15,000 US Marines.

The move will undoubtedly further escalate tensions between Russia and Norway as any presence of US troops in the country would break Norway’s promise not to deploy foreign troops in its territory – a promise it made in 1949. However, the promise was conditional on Norway not feeling threatened. Norway has not publicly announced feeling threatened by Russia or any other country. Meanwhile, NATO has also announced plans to deploy 4,000 more troops to the Baltic region, also on Russia’s border, by next May. According to the commanding officer of NATO’s European forces, Czech Army General Petr Pavel, the troops will “serve as a deterrent and if necessary a fighting force.”

Since the Ukrainian coup of 2014, NATO has overseen a military buildup unprecedented since 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Russia has been on edge regarding the buildup and has threatened to respond numerous time, but neglected to militarize its Western border until relatively recently. The buildup has also coincided with increasingly dangerous developments in US-Russian relations over the Syrian conflict, with each side accusing the other of helping ISIS and needlessly killing civilians. With US-dominated NATO rubbing salt in the wound, it is no small wonder that Russians are preparing for the worst case scenario – a full-scale, global war between NATO and those who oppose its interests.

The original source of this article is True Activist
Copyright © Whitney Webb, True Activist, 2016
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-seeks-to-deploy-marines-to-norway-amid-escalating-russian-tensions/5552669

Japan PM suspends work on U.S. base in Okinawa

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By Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press

TOKYO – Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday he has decided to temporarily suspend preliminary work on moving a U.S. Marine Corps base on Okinawa and will resume talks on the contentious relocation plan.

The central government and Okinawa’s prefectural government have been locked in a legal battle over relocating the base, with both sides suing the other.

Abe said that his government is accepting a court proposal not to force the reclamation work over Okinawa’s objections. The court in February made the proposal as an interim step allowing talks. Details of the proposal were not made public.

The sudden reversal of his policy to continue with the reclamation work is seen as a vote-buying attempt ahead of this summer’s parliamentary elections.

Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga last year issued an order to suspend permission for the reclamation work. Then the central government sued to reverse the order, to which Okinawa counter-sued, seeking a court injunction.

The work involves filling in part of a bay to create off-coast runways for Futenma air station, which is now in a more densely populated area on the island.

Onaga later flew in to Tokyo and held talks with Abe at his office, both confirming to follow the court proposal and abide by any subsequent court decisions related to their legal dispute. Onaga welcomed Friday’s decision by both sides as “very significant.”

Abe said the plan to eventually move the base to the town of Henoko is unchanged. The relocation is based on a 20-year-old bilateral agreement to reduce the burden of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa.

Opponents want the base moved off Okinawa entirely, and a prospect for a compromise is still unclear, though Okinawa is expected to drop the lawsuit.

Abe said he wants to avoid leaving the situation deadlocked “for years to come, a development that nobody wants to see.”

America’s top military official in the Pacific said last month that the relocation plan has been pushed back by two years until 2025 from the current target, because of delays from the disputes.

The U.S. has agreed to shift 8,000 to 10,000 Marines off Okinawa in the 2020s, mainly to Guam and Hawaii, but Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said that would happen after Futenma’s relocation.

The southern island prefecture is home to about half of about 50,000 American troops stationed in Japan under the bilateral security treaty. Many Okinawans complain about crime and noise linked to the U.S. military bases.

http://worldbeyondwar.org/japan-pm-suspends-work-on-u-s-base-on-Okinawa/

Washington’s “Two Track policy” to Latin America: Marines to Central America and diplomats to Cuba

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By Prof. James Petras
Global Research, May 20, 2015

Everyone, from political pundits in Washington to the Pope in Rome, including most journalists in the mass media and in the alternative press, have focused on the US moves toward ending the economic blockade of Cuba and gradually opening diplomatic relations.  Talk is rife of a ‘major shift’ in US policy toward Latin America with the emphasis on diplomacy and reconciliation.  Even most progressive writers and journals have ceased writing about US imperialism.

However, there is mounting evidence that Washington’s negotiations with Cuba are merely one part of a two-track policy.  There is clearly a major US build-up in Latin America, with increasing reliance on ‘military platforms’, designed to launch direct military interventions in strategic countries.  

Moreover, US policymakers are actively involved in promoting ‘client’ opposition parties, movements and personalities to destabilize independent governments and are intent on re-imposing US domination.

In this essay we will start our discussion with the origins and unfolding of this ‘two track’ policy, its current manifestations, and projections into the future.  We will conclude by evaluating the possibilities of re-establishing US imperial domination in the region.

Origins of the Two Track Policy

Washington’s pursuit of a ‘two-track policy’, based on combining ‘reformist policies’ toward some political formations, while working to overthrow other regimes and movements by force and military intervention, was practiced by the early Kennedy Administration following the Cuban revolution.  Kennedy announced a vast new economic program of aid, loans and investments – dubbed the ‘Alliance for Progress’ – to promote development and social reform in Latin American countries willing to align with the US.  At the same time the Kennedy regime escalated US military aid and joint exercises in the region. Kennedy sponsored a large contingent of Special Forces – ‘Green Berets’ – to engage in counter-insurgency warfare.  The ‘Alliance for Progress’ was designed to counter the mass appeal of the social-revolutionary changes underway in Cuba with its own program of ‘social reform’.  While Kennedy promoted watered-down reforms in Latin America, he launched the ‘secret’ CIA (‘Bay of Pigs’) invasion of Cuba in 1961and naval blockade in 1962 (the so-called ‘missile crises’).  The two-track policy ended up sacrificing social reforms and strengthening military repression.  By the mid-1970’s the ‘two-tracks’ became one – force.  The US invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965. It backed a series of military coups throughout the region, effectively isolating Cuba.  As a result, Latin America’s labor force experienced nearly a quarter century of declining living standards.

By the 1980’s US client-dictators had lost their usefulness and Washington once again took up a dual strategy: On one track, the White House wholeheartedly backed their military-client rulers’ neo-liberal agenda and sponsored them as junior partners in Washington’s regional hegemony.  On the other track, they promoted a shift to highly controlled electoral politics, which they described as a ‘democratic transition’, in order to ‘decompress’ mass social pressures against its military clients.  Washington secured the introduction of elections and promoted client politicians willing to continue the neo-liberal socio-economic framework established by the military regimes.

By the turn of the new century, the cumulative grievances of thirty years of repressive rule, regressive neo-liberal socio-economic policies and the denationalization and privatization of the national patrimony had caused an explosion of mass social discontent.  This led to the overthrow and electoral defeat of Washington’s neo-liberal client regimes.

Throughout most of Latin America, mass movements were demanding a break with US-centered ‘integration’ programs.  Overt anti-imperialism grew and intensified.  The period saw the emergence of numerous center-left governments in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Honduras and Nicaragua.  Beyond the regime changes , world economic forces had altered: growing Asian markets, their demand for Latin American raw materials and the global rise of commodity prices helped to stimulate the development of Latin American-centered regional organizations – outside of Washington’s control.

Washington was still embedded in  its 25 year ‘single-track’ policy of backing civil-military authoritarian and imposing neo-liberal policies and was unable to respond and present a reform alternative to the anti-imperialist, center-left challenge to its dominance.  Instead, Washington worked to reverse the new party- power configuration.  Its overseas agencies, the Agency for International Development (AID), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and embassies worked to destabilize the new governments in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay and Honduras.  The US ‘single-track’ of intervention and destabilization failed throughout the first decade of the new century (with the exception of Honduras and Paraguay.

In the end Washington remained politically isolated.  Its integration schemes were rejected.  Its market shares in Latin America declined. Washington not only lost its automatic majority in the Organization of American States (OAS), but it became a distinct minority.

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Killing Palestinians in Yarmouk — more evidence that ISIS is US and Israeli-backed

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From Prayers for Syria
ISIS shows its true colours in Yarmouk! They are the enemy of the Palestinian people.
April 8, 2015

ISIS has shown its true colours! They are the enemies of the Palestinian people!

Commentators around the world are appalled at the ISIS take-over of Yarmouk refugee camp, still home to around 18,000 Palestinians, and supposedly only a ’10-minute bus ride’ from central Damascus.

The stories of brutal beheadings and other atrocities being committed by ISIS troops in Yarmouk are already emerging, along with concerns that this strategic battlefield success may empower the ISIS recruitment drive as they seem to be on the Syrian President’s doorstep. My reckoning though is that the attack on Yarmouk may have the opposite effect, and could  spell the beginning of the end for ISIS!

From a military perspective, the takeover of Yarmouk is no great threat to Damascus. When I was in Damascus in 2013 there were rebel forces on the edge of the city at multiple points.  They didn’t break through then and there’s no reason to assume that ISIS are going to succeed now where comparable forces have failed. Yarmouk itself has indeed been disputed territory for a number of years now which is why the Syrian Army sealed it off. This resulted in terrible suffering for the civilians remaining in Yarmouk but it simultaneously proved effective in stopping the advance of rebels into the capital.

Where the assault on Yarmouk could rebound negatively for ISIS is in the PR department.

The success of ISIS depends on their success in recruiting angry young Muslim men to their cause. There are no shortage of angry young Muslims around the world, of course, and this for very good reason. The US and its allies, including my country (Australia), have been on a murderous rampage across the Muslim world for more than twenty years, killing as many as 3.3 million Iraqis by some people’s reckoning, along with countless Afghans, Libyans, Syrians, etc. Mr Obama has indeed bombed no less than seven majority-Muslim countries since he took office! No wonder countless Muslim men and women feel angry, and no wonder so many young men are ready to fight for the one man who is standing up to the bloodthirsty West in the name of Allah!

Al Baghdadi has indeed succeeded in uniting many Muslim people under his banner. Even so, there is one other cause that resonates even more deeply with Muslim people everywhere. For the last generation there has been one thing that every Muslim in the world – from Iran to Yemen to Somalia to Indonesia – has in common. Every Muslim on the planet is opposed to the Palestinian Occupation! Support for the suffering Palestinian people is a fundamental part of what it means to be a Muslim in the 21st century, and now ISIS has started butchering Palestinians!

I don’t think we should underestimate the impact this may have worldwide on the ISIS recruitment drive. ISIS has shown itself to be the enemy of the Palestinian people!

I appreciate, of course, that relations between Palestinians and the Syrian government have also been strained in recent years, but it has always been a minority of Palestinians in Syria that are opposed to the Syrian government. Palestinian refugees receive full citizenship rights in Syria (unlike in Lebanon and Jordan) and many are open in their support of the Assad government. When  Khaled Meshaal and the Hamas leadership moved their headquarters from Damascus to Doha in 2012, this was not a reflection of broad Palestinian dissatisfaction with the Syrian government, but rather a reflection of the non-Palestinian forces controlling Hamas – namely, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Despite 2013 reports that Hamas was training rebel forces opposing the Syrian government, there has been no ongoing enmity between Palestinians and Bashar Al Assad. On the contrary, what we have seen in the last few days has been open cooperation between the Syrian Arab Army and Palestinian militias seeking to defend Yarmouk from ISIS, who are the real enemy!

ISIS has shown its true colours in the assault on Yarmouk. These people are not warriors of Allah, fighting to establish a holy state. They are brutal mercenaries, ready to sacrifice the lives of countless beleaguered Palestinians – men, women and children alike – for the sake of gaining a more strategic military position against the Syrian government.

The current humanitarian crisis in Yarmouk gives the Syrian government a significant opportunity to show itself to be a true friend and protector of the Palestinian people.  To an extent this is already happening (even though it is barely being reported).  Refugees fleeing in the direction of the Syrian Arab Army are being relocated to shelters, away from the fighting. We can only pray that this continues and that all civilians can extract themselves from the firing line.

ISIS, of course, are not going to want to let go of their human shields. Even so, the longer they use Palestinians as human shields, the more they betray their identity as Muslims!

Father Dave

http://prayersforsyria.com/isis-shows-its-true-colours-in-yarmouk-they-are-the-enemy-of-the-palestinian-people/

What’s really going on in Yarmouk?
April 29, 2015
…

Yarmouk is only a few kilometres south of Damascus. It was once a thriving centre of colour and life with a vibrant market that made it much more than just a Palestinian enclave. Over the last four years though it has been the centre of so much violence and death that it is April 29, 2015now the most festering wound on the ailing Syrian body. And perhaps

the most tragic dimension of Yarmouk at the moment is the way the suffering of these people is being manipulated to provide a new rationale for Western military intervention.

The dominant narrative at the moment is that ISIS, by lodging themselves in Yarmouk, are on the doorstep of the Presidential palace, threatening to take over Damascus! The Assad government, in response, is throwing everything it has at Yarmouk (including its notorious ‘barrel bombs’), killing rebels and civilians alike, in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. The only hope for the poor people of Yarmouk (so the narrative goes) is to send in the Marines!

Of course the Marines don’t have a great track record when it comes to solving other peoples’ problems, especially in the Middle-East (think Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, …). Even so, if the people of Yarmouk are suffering at the hands of a reckless government in its death throes, can we really expect our benign super-powers to sit on their hands?

My thought was that I needed to get to Yarmouk to see for myself what was going on, and we got there.

We got to within about 300 meters of the border anyway, where the Syrian military made sure we stopped. We could see the front line from where we were but, as our guides pointed out, this meant that ISIS snipers could see us too, and so we soon moved off from the main entrance road and entered a school on the government controlled side of the border where a number of Yarmouk residents were being housed as well as schooled.

We spent our first few hours there teaching the children to box. I appreciate that most people would see that as a crazy thing to do but the kids certainly enjoyed themselves. There was lots of laughter and cheering as young and old put on the gloves and learnt how to throw punches against the pads without hurting their hands (which is not as easy as some think).

After we’d exhausted ourselves playing we sat down with the Principal of the school and some of the elders of the camp and talked, while enjoying the obligatory coffee that always accompanies such meetings.

From our day at Yarmouk, and through subsequent discussions with local Palestinians and with others in Damascus who knew what they were talking about, I came to some pretty firm conclusions about the situation in Yarmouk and, as I expected, the truth is pretty much the reverse of what we’re being told.

The Syrian Arab Army are not the chief villains in this drama. On the contrary, the Yarmouk residents that we met were being housed and fed by that army, and the children that we saw treated the army men like benign uncles. Indeed, when one of the officers who was with us put on the gloves and started throwing punches, all the children started cheering for him!

This is what I’d expected to find, as I’d spent time in a similar encampment for displaced persons from Yarmouk almost exactly 12 months earlier. There again we’d met hundreds of children, all of whom had been relocated to safe places by the army, and we’d taught them to box.

So let’s be clear on a few points:

  • Firstly, Syrian Army never enters Yarmouk. This isn’t contested by anyone on the ground. The army may work inside Yarmouk through their proxies in the Palestinian militia but army personnel never enter the camp themselves.
  • Likewise, the army does not shell Yarmouk. Clearly the Assad government does not want to be remembered for murdering Palestinians.
  • Finally (and predictably) those who are fleeing Yarmouk are running in the direction of the Syrian army in order to escape ISIS. They aren’t running to ISIS in order to escape the Syrian army. And the army is finding shelter and protection for the fleeing residents.

This is not to say that every Palestinian loves the Syrian army or the Assad government. Indeed, one Palestinian man I spoke to swore that the army had deliberately shelled ISIS in such a way as to force them into Yarmouk! “Why would they do that?” I asked? “In order to bring ISIS into contact with their other great enemy, Hamas, so that they would destroy each other”.

Whether or not that guy was right, his analysis highlights the absurdity of the other side of the media narrative. ISIS are not threatening the Presidential palace from Yarmouk. On the contrary, whether by design or by good fortune, the Syrian army is probably quite pleased to have ISIS in Yarmouk.

There are apparently only around 2000 ISIS militants in Yarmouk in total, and even with superior weapons (being channeled in from Qatar) it seems that they can still be contained by the Palestinian factions opposing them, let alone the Syrian army who have been containing rebels within Yarmouk for a number of years now. The residents have paid a terrible price for that, but the strategy has certainly been effective in protecting the capital.

And so the big lie needs to be turned on its head. The people of Yarmouk are not suffering at the hands of the Syrian army. They are suffering, but the Syrian Arab Army is probably the best friend they have at the moment.

And the army is not about to be overrun by ISIS troops streaming out of Yarmouk. That’s not to say that the army isn’t in trouble. Indeed, they have real problems to deal with in Aleppo and Idlib, but Yarmouk is a relatively minor headache.

In truth, I’m not sure what more can be done for the people of Yarmouk or for the Syrian army. One thing I am sure about though is that we don’t need the Marines, or any more foreign military intervention in Syria. Indeed, the further away our military stays the better are the chances for the people of Yarmouk and for the country as a whole.

Father Dave

http://prayersforsyria.com/whats-really-going-on-in-yarmouk/

In Spain, U.S. Marines train for African interventions

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From https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/spain-u-s-marines-train-for-african-interventions/

U.S. Marine Corps
February 2, 2015

Moment’s notice; Crisis Response Marines complete readiness rehearsal from Spain
By Sgt. Paul Peterson, Marine Forces Europe and Africa

MORON AIR BASE, Spain:- A platoon of Marines with Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response – Africa completed an unscripted alert drill to test the unit’s ability to rapidly respond to regional crises, Jan. 29.

“At any given time we have an alert force ready to [respond] to crises in Africa,” said Capt. Daniel Lakhani, the platoon’s company commander.

…

SPMAGTF-CR-AF received an alert for a simulated medical evacuation mission at nearby Rota Air Base, Spain, early in the afternoon and gathered its on-call alert force to respond. The Marines assembled at a prearranged staging area, completed planning for their mission, and boarded two MV-22 Ospreys on Morón Air Base. The total time for conducting the rehearsal had to meet the requirement for the Marines to depart Spain within six hours of the order to begin their mission.

…

The two Ospreys, laden with Marines, departed the air field less than four hours after receiving the initial warning. Less than 30 minutes after landing at Rota Air Base, the Marines had successfully secured the area, pushed several hundred yards to their objective, and extracted the simulated casualty. The process was designed to test the command and alert force’s ability to come together, adapt, and react to the wide range of missions SPMAGTF-CR-AF was created to handle.

On any given day, the unit could participate in multinational training operations…or evacuate an embassy by direction of U.S. Africa Command.

“This mission is different from other missions or deployments the Marines have been on, whether it’s Iraq or Afghanistan, where they were conducting combat operations for a sustained period of time,” noted Lakhani…