Obama

Why is Obama hysterical?

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Posted on Fort Russ

October 8th, 2015 –
By: Aleksander Zhilin, news-front.info
Translated for Fort Russ by Paul Siebert –

The US President Barack Obama for the first time has publicly commented the beginning of the Russian military operation in Syria. He criticized Moscow for its support of Assad and called its actions in the region “a recipe for disaster”.

What is the reason for this hysteria?

It is simple. ISIS, which is a nonstructural division of the US intelligence, during the whole period of its existence, did not face a real strong opposition. While the militants themselves received a carte blanche from Washington.

All this time the United States, France and other countries simulated a fight against terrorists. They carried out air strikes on the third-rate targets or even dropped bombs in the desert. TV channels showed staged pictures of air “attacks” in order to convince their taxpayers and the world community that they are fighting terrorists tooth and nail.

All this is fiction.

Why did Americans create ISIS?

Considering the existence of a nuclear deterrence, the United States needed different methods of waging the world war. The US invested billions of dollars in the organization of a terrorist army designed to fight a war bypassing the nuclear deterrent. Pay attention to the equipment of terrorists: they cannot be distinguished from NATO soldiers.

The same field uniform, the same weapons and ammunition. It is all American! Communications satellites used by terrorist units are exclusively American. They only use Kalashnikovs bought in Poland and the plebian Baltic countries like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia … Well, this machine-gun is far better than any small-arms crap from NATO.

ISIS leaders have access to the American aerospace, aviation, military-technical and secret-service intelligence. The provision of such information is of paramount importance for terrorists on the battlefield. After all, the regular Syrian army does not have anything similar.

And then the Russians come. A well-organized system has been paralyzed. Within 3 days our falcons caused significant damage to the ISIS infrastructure, communications and battle management systems, with caches of weapons destroyed, military vehicles burned, personnel losses …

During the meeting with Obama Putin demanded to demarcate the Syrian airspace between the Russian and the US air forces. That is it, the Americans are no longer the unchallenged masters in the sky of this country.

The Pentagon has tried to build our Air Force into their system: they say, you let us know in advance the targets you are going to bomb. Why? To warn terrorists about the threat and immediately supply them with MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems) to fight our aircraft. Naturally, Sergei Shoigu, with a smile on his lips, diplomatically sent them to go to …

Washington (Anglo-Saxons) will do everything to protect its non-structural ISIS unit from defeat by the Syrian army and the Russian Air Force.

Obama’s behavior, who was cornered by Putin on “the Syrian issue”, has fully disclosed all the hypocrisy, meanness and cunning behavior of the Anglo-Saxons. No wonder there is a saying that friendship with the Anglo-Saxons is even worse than a war with them.

Our Russian Orthodox guys sit in the cockpits with the crucifixion of Christ on their chests and fly to the sky to save not just Assad or even Syria. They are saving the great religion of Islam from those dogs of war!

They are fighting for the faith of every Muslim! This is the ultimate mission of Russia: to defend the good against the evil. And the victory will definitely be ours.

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/10/why-is-obama-hysterical.html

An analysis of Obama’s speech at the UN, September 28

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By Barry Grey
Global Research, September 29, 2015
World Socialist Web Site
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, President Barack Obama portrayed himself and the US government as the preeminent defenders of international law and diplomacy. He did so even as the catastrophic consequences of the illegal wars of aggression he has overseen continued to send waves of refugees fleeing the ruins of entire countries—including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen—and as Washington took new steps to turn Eastern Europe into a militarized zone for eventual war against Russia. 

With his trademark hypocrisy and contempt for the intelligence of his audience, Obama hailed “an international system that imposes a cost on those who choose conflict over cooperation.” He proclaimed his support for the “international principles that helped constrain bigger countries from imposing our will on smaller ones,” and denounced those who maintain “that might makes right; that strong states must impose their will on weaker ones; that the rights of individuals don’t matter; and that in a time of rapid change, order must be imposed by force.”

This from a man who asserts the right of his government to launch “preemptive” wars against any country or group deemed hostile to Washington’s drive for hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East and the rest of the world; who has killed untold thousands in drone missile assassinations; waged an unprovoked war against Libya and murdered its leader, Gaddafi; and armed and financed a sectarian civil war using Al Qaeda-linked killers as its proxy force, turning Syria into a chamber of horrors.

The main focus of Obama’s remarks was Syria, where the debacle of US policy had become so pronounced that Obama was obliged to pull back from his previous demand for the immediate removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He has proposed talks with the Baathist regime’s main allies, Russia and Iran, on a “managed transition” that would likely retain elements of the current government while eventually easing Assad out of power.

Later on Monday, Obama met with Russian President Putin to discuss the possibility of engineering such a settlement of the four-and-a-half-year war. It was the first formal face to face meeting between the two since 2013, when the White House cancelled discussions with Putin in retaliation for Moscow’s decision to grant NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden temporary asylum. That was followed by a freeze on all high-level talks after the US-sponsored and fascist-led coup last year that overthrew Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Since it installed the ultra-nationalist and fascistic regime in Kiev, Washington has backed a brutal assault on pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine that has killed thousands and devastated entire cities.

The US finds its position in Syria and the broader region severely weakened, despite the mass killing in the country—estimated at 200,000 deaths in a country with a population of 23 million—caused by the sectarian civil war instigated by Washington and its regional allies, Turkey and the semi-feudal sheikdoms of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Iraq’s announcement Sunday that it had signed an agreement with Syria, Iran and Russia to share intelligence and coordinate security in the battle against Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq appeared to take Washington by surprise.

It was preceded by a series of developments exposing Washington’s failure to create a non-jihadist “moderate” force to fight both ISIS and Assad. These included the resignation of the top US commander in the anti-ISIS war; congressional testimony by a leading general admitting that after more than a year and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars, the US had trained “four or five” fighters; reports that the ranks of ISIS fighters were rising despite months of US and coalition bombing; and other reports that forces trained by the US in Turkey had defected or turned over their weapons to Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the al-Nusra Front.

Moreover, recent weeks have seen an increase in Russian military support to the Assad regime, which Washington has been unable to block.

The net result of Washington’s reckless and murderous war for regime-change in Syria has been to turn the country into yet another geopolitical flashpoint where US and allied military forces face off against those of Russia, raising the very real danger of an armed clash and the eruption of a wider war between nuclear armed powers. On the eve of the UN assembly, France began its own bombing campaign in Syria, making clear that it was prepared to attack forces allied with Assad, potentially including Russian forces, as well as ISIS. Britain is lining up to begin bombing the country later this year.

It would be a dangerous mistake to believe that Washington’s decision to seek talks with Russia and Iran means the US is backing off from the use of military violence. On the contrary, with its economic and diplomatic position weakening, the response of American imperialism will be to ratchet up its bullying and military aggression.

This was clear from Obama’s speech. He denounced the main targets of US aggression, calling Assad a “tyrant,” accusing Russia of violating “the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine, implied that China was attacking “the basic principles of freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce” in the South China Sea and singled out Iran for continuing to “deploy violent proxies to advance its interests.” The chief backer of tyrants in the Middle East, violator of national sovereignty and territorial integrity in Ukraine, threat to freedom of navigation in East Asia and deployer of violent proxies is, of course, the United States.

In the midst of his cynical paean to the international law and diplomacy, Obama issued an unambiguous threat to any nation that dared to get in America’s way, declaring: “I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country and our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”

The preparations for a US military escalation against both Syria and Russia are well underway. Last week, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported that discussions are being held between US military officials and leaders of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria for Washington to step up its military support, including close air support for YPG fighters on the ground.

Powerful factions within the US ruling elite and state are opposed to any talks with Russia or Iran and are demanding the creation of so-called “safe havens” policed by US and allied forces in Syria and an all-out drive for regime-change.

At the same time, the Pentagon and CIA are stepping up their war preparations against Russia. The upcoming US-NATO Trident Juncture 2015 war games, the largest held since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, are designed to prepare Western forces to engage in hybrid warfare operations in the Baltic region and beyond.

Last week, an article appeared in Foreign Policy magazine with the title: “The Pentagon is Preparing New War Plans for a Baltic Battle Against Russia.” The article stated, “For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US Department of Defense is reviewing and updating its contingency plans for armed conflict with Russia.”

Finally, the US is planning to upgrade its nuclear arsenal in Europe with highly sophisticated B61-12 guided nuclear bombs, each one of which is more than three times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed over 130,000 people in Hiroshima.

For decades, US imperialism has sought to overcome the decline in its global economic position by relying on its military supremacy. In response to its latest setbacks in the Middle East, this tendency will only be expressed with greater brutality and recklessness.

Will Europe follow the US all the way to Hades?

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From Fort Russ

The Marine salutes. Should Europe?
“And all these US wars create chaos that spills over ‘good friend’ Europe”
 
Michel Collon
RT en Français
September 15, 2015

Translated from French by Tom Winter

Obama fears a conflict with Russia or China. Surprised? Of course not! But with Europe? This friendship, “value-based” as we are told, is forever, right? The writer Michel Collon answers.

Obama warns the neocons who oppose the nuclear deal with Iran: “Our closest allies in Europe aren’t accepting more sanctions. A war would strengthen Iran and isolate the United States.” A senior diplomat in Washington confirmed “If the US Congress rejects the agreement, it would be a nightmare and disaster.” 

Of course! And immediately after the agreement German firms were rushing to Tehran to sign the contracts that had been blocked by Washington for years! In fact, the principle “The great powers have no principles, only interests” applies equally to alliances: an eternal “friendship” can quickly transform itself into an acute conflict.

To control Eurasia, Brzezinzki proposed controlling Europe, back in 1997: “The central problem for America is to build a Europe based on Franco-German relations, viable, linked to the United States, and that expands the system of international democratic cooperation that America’s exercise of global hegemony depends on. “

“Democratic” meaning “subject to the USA” — Brzezinski employs the EU to prevent a Berlin-Moscow alliance. Russia being geographically the “natural” partner for German companies, the US policy is thus to sow discord. Ukraine is getting used for that. When the EU in Kiev won an agreement between all parties for early elections, Washington organized a coup the day after by relying on neo-Nazi groups! The US special envoy Nuland summarizing it all with class: “Fuck the EU.” 

New? No. Already in 1997, Brzezinski announced: “Europe must be a springboard for the further breakthrough of democracy in Eurasia. Between 2005 and 2010, Ukraine should be ready for serious discussions with NATO.” Brzezinski wanted to center Europe an a Paris. – Berlin – Warsaw – Kiev axis. Against Moscow. He feared that European unification would collapse (Is the collapse coming?) and that Berlin would turn  to the East. “The three major geostrategic imperatives can be summed up as follows:

  1. “avoid collusion between the vassals (sic!) and 
  2. keep them in the state of dependence (…),  
  3. cultivate docility (sic) of the protected subjects; 
  4. prevent the barbarians (sic) forming offensive coalitions.

Is this strategy passé? No. Recently, the influential US analyst George Friedman, when asked “Is Daesh a threat to the United States,” responded with these surprising words: “This is not an existential threat. We must take care of it suitably, but we have other interests in international politics. The main interest (…) is the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united, they could threaten us. Our main goal is to ensure that this will never happen.” To prevent European multinationals turning to the New Silk Road proposed by Beijing, the key is to prevent any agreement between Berlin and Moscow. And divert the EU from Russian energy. In short, behind the official smiles on TV, the “friends” in the west don’t love anyone at all. NSA Spying has confirmed it: there are no friends in the business.

The US relationship with the EU has two aspects: unity and rivalry. The European multinationals need US police to intimidate the third world and keep China at bay. But the US multinationals are taking advantage of every war to steal market share from their European rivals. And Washington is very strong about getting paid by its “friends” for the wars that serve its interests at the expense of  the “friends.”

All of these US wars create chaos that spill over “friend” Europe.

In fact, behind the direct and declared foe, every war has a second level of conflict:

  1. In ’91, Bush attacked Iraq in order also to undermine French and Russian contracts. 
  2. In Yugoslavia, Clinton wanted to neutralize France and especially prevent the formation of a Euro-army. 
  3. In Libya, Obama (with Sarkozy) undermined the German and Italian contracts with Gaddafi. 
  4. In Syria, Obama (with Holland) is still working against Germany. 
  5. In Ukraine, ditto. 

And all these US wars create chaos that spills over “good friend” Europe (migration crisis, terrorist attacks, loss of business partners…).

Ultimately, NATO is for Europe a suicide. Will Europe follow the US all the way to the Inferno? The world’s future is in the balance.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/09/will-europe-follow-us-all-way-to-hades.html

The US and EU owe Iran over $100 billion in seized assets – the real reason behind stalled negotiations?

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By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, July 02, 2015

Another deadline in the nuclear negotiation between Iran and the Permanent 5 +1 (or EU3 + 3) over the restrictions on the Iranian nuclear energy program was not reached on June 30, 2015. To some it may look like the United States and its allies have had a change of heart while others may think that Washington and its allies are trying to secure more concessions from the Iranians. The US and its European Union allies, however, are clearly trying to maintain the sanctions and trying to avoid returning Iranian financial assets and funds that they have withheld due to the sanctions regime against Iran. Could this be because Iran’s frozen financial assets and funds have been illegally channeled elsewhere by the US and the EU?

The Stonewalling of a Nuclear Agreement

Since the Lausanne Agreement was reached in Switzerland, the US team negotiating with Iran has, so to speak, changed the goal posts for the nuclear negotiations. In other words, Washington has ignored the framework of the Lausanne Agreement that it made with Iran on April 2, 2015. Instead US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama Administration have asked for new concessions from the Iranians on things that an understanding was already reached about. These demands appear to be excuses or pretexts.

During the negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran a good and bad cop strategy has clearly been used by the US and France where either Washington has or Paris has stonewalled the negotiations. Even the split between the US Congress and the Obama Administration could be part of this two-track approach. Is the Republican Party faction in the US genuinely acting as a spoiler or does some level of establishment cooperation exist between it and the Obama Administration?

Are parallel foreign policies at work or not in the US? While the Obama Administration is engaged in a dialogue with Iran to get as much concessions from it as possible on its nuclear energy program, pressure is being exerted by the US Congress and the Republican Party, which are threatening to disrupt the nuclear negotiations and keep the sanctions regime against Iran. Regardless of what their strategy is or strategies are, the saber rattling definitely helps give an edge to the US negotiating team.

Obama Threatens to Walk Out While Sending Secret Messages

On the eve of the June 30 deadline, when the US Department of State confirmed that the negotiations with Tehran were being extended for another week, US President Barack Obama made the threat of “walking away” from the negotiating table with Iran on June 29. “I will walk away from the negotiations if in fact it’s a bad deal,” Obama told reporters during a press conference with his visiting Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff.

As a response to the fog of war that has deliberate been created around the nuclear negotiations, on the same day that Obama threatened to “walk away” from the negotiations, the Iranian parliamentarian Mehrdad Bazrpash told Fars News Agency that the US leader had sent Iran another secret letter. The letter is believed to have been delivered to the Iranian side by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi sometime during his visit to Tehran either on June 17 or 18, 2015. MP Bazrpash took the opportunity to point out that the contents of Obama’s letter where very different from the public position of Washington. The point is that Washington’s private messages to Iran are very different from what the Obama Administration is saying in public and that Washington’s public threats are meant to create the impression that it is negotiating from a position of strength.

In reality, it is the US that needs a nuclear deal with Iran. In the first place, the US only began negotiations with Iran when it saw that it had no means left to pressure Tehran. A war with Iran is too dangerous and unpredictable for the US. Moreover, it was becoming increasingly clear that the sanctions were going to crumble as the Chinese, Russians, and others began to show signs that they would normalize trade with Iran even if a nuclear agreement was not reached.

Washington needs a deal with Iran to deactivate tensions with Tehran. Deactivating or freezing tensions with Iran are important for Washington, because it will be able to focus more on Russia and China. An accommodation with Iran will allow the US and the EU to tighten sanctions on Russia. It will additionally help the European Union eventually substitute energy imports from Russia with energy imports from Iran. In this regard, one of Washington’s major objectives is to co-opt the Iranians against the Russians.

In Vienna the US Team Acted As If the US Never Signed the Lausanne Agreement

Although the nuclear negotiations for a final deal or what is called the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” were extended until July 7, 2015 under what the negotiating teams have dubbed the “Joint Plan of Action” (JPA), a major stumbling block has been the release of the immense holdings of Iranian financial assets and funds that have been frozen or seized under the justification of sanctions. Months before the June 30 deadline, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the US Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs that the Iranians had well over one hundred billion US dollars that were seized and frozen. In addition, he testified that since 2012 that the US has denied the Iranians access to two hundred billion US dollars in lost exports and funds held in restricted accounts.

The Lausanne Agreement was reached by Iran and the P5+1 on the basis of an understanding between Iran, the US, and the EU that there would be simultaneous gives-and-takes of equal substance. That means that sanctions would be dropped at the same time that Iran made nuclear concessions. Tehran has been very adamant about this point, refusing to make any concessions without having sanctions reciprocally dropped and having access to its appropriate financial assets.

During the negotiations at the Palais Coburg or Palais Saxe-Coburg Hotel in the Austrian capital of Vienna, the US government took backward steps and reversed its track. In Vienna, the US no longer recognized the terms of the Lausanne Agreement and the understanding that the US side had reached with the Iranians and committed itself to respecting. There was a return by the US team to arguing over the number of Iranian centrifuges that could be in operation, demands for restrictions on nuclear research and scientific development, demands for inspections of Iran’s military bases, and a refusal not to prolong the economic sanctions against the Iranians.

Siphoning Iran’s Money: Have Frozen Funds Been Funneled Elsewhere?

The US and the EU are no strangers to looting from others. When financial sanctions were imposed on Libya by the US and the EU, Libyan funds and the interest they accumulated were appropriated and even illegally used by these actors. In this regard there are important questions about why the US is trying to keep the sanctions on Iran or to end them in gradual phases.

Are Iranian financial assets and funds really frozen or are they also being utilized as loans or collateral? In other words, have Iran’s frozen funds been channeled elsewhere by the US and the EU to make up for their own economic problems and the economic war against Russia? Do the financial liabilities of those holding Iranian funds exceed their financial assets? More simply asked: can the countries that froze Iran’s money pay Tehran its money back or are they stalling, because they cannot return all the money that was frozen under sanctions?

The position of the US and France are excuses to avoid lifting the sanctions on Iran and to avoid returning Iranian funds. Their goal is to neutralize the Iranian nuclear energy program while keeping the sanctions and appropriating Iranian funds. This is why the frame of time for Washington’s promises to remove the sanctions have no guarantees. What the US is doing is trying to impose legal obligations on Iran without giving any guarantees on the removal of sanctions. Washington’s promises to remove the sanctions also gradually became longer, changing from six months to a year to over a year, and have had additionally conditions placed on them.

Aside from the strategic considerations and dimensions of the nuclear negotiations, it should come as no surprise if Washington is stonewalling a final agreement to help the US and the EU continue siphoning Iran’s earnings. After all the US is in the midst of an economic war and fighting to keep the US dollar’s position as the top currency of the world while the EU is experiencing economic decline. The EU, however, is in a predicament; even if it wanted to keep Iranian funds and continue the sanctions, it still needs to start large-scale trade with Iran to mitigate its economic decline and negative effects from the EU sanctions against Russia.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-a-nuclear-deal-with-iran-being-stalled-because-the-west-cant-pay-tehrans-money-back/5459994

President Obama sides with Victoria Nuland on Ukraine. Will John Kerry resign?

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By Eric Zuesse
Global Research, June 7, 2015

kerry_0

On May 21st, I headlined “Secretary of State John Kerry v. His Subordinate Victoria Nuland, Regarding Ukraine,” and quoted John Kerry’s May 12th warning to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to cease his repeated threats to invade Crimea and re-invade Donbass, two former regions of Ukraine, which had refused to accept the legitimacy of the new regime that was imposed on Ukraine in violent clashes during February 2014. (These were regions that had voted overwhelmingly for the Ukrainian President who had just been overthrown.)

They didn’t like him being violently tossed out and replaced by his enemies.) Kerry said then that, regarding Poroshenko,

“we would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be.”

Also quoted there was Kerry’s subordinate, Victoria Nuland, three days later, saying the exact opposite, that we “reiterate our deep commitment to a single Ukrainian nation, including Crimea, and all the other regions of Ukraine.” I noted, then that, “The only person with the power to fire Nuland is actually U.S. President Barack Obama.” However, Obama instead has sided with Nuland on this.

Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, bannered, on June 5th, “Poroshenko: Ukraine Will ‘Do Everything’ To Retake Crimea’,” and reported that

President Petro Poroshenko has vowed to seek Crimea’s return to Ukrainian rule. … Speaking at a news conference on June 5, … Poroshenko said that ‘every day and every moment, we will do everything to return Crimea to Ukraine.’”

Poroshenko was also quoted there as saying, ”It is important not to give Russia a chance to break the world’s pro-Ukrainian coalition,” which indirectly insulted Kerry for his having criticized Poroshenko’s warnings that he intended to invade Crimea and Donbass.

Right now, the Minsk II ceasefire has broken down and there are accusations on both sides that the other is to blame. What cannot be denied is that at least three times, on April 30th, then on May 11th, and then on June 5th, Poroshenko has repeatedly promised to invade Crimea, which wasn’t even mentioned in the Minsk II agreement; and that he was also promising to re-invade Donbass, something that is explicitly prohibited in this agreement. Furthermore, America’s President, Barack Obama, did not fire Kerry’s subordinate, Nuland, for her contradicting her boss on this important matter.

How will that be taken in European capitals? Kerry was reaffirming the position of Merkel and Hollande, the key shapers of the Minsk II agreement; and Nuland was nullifying them. Obama now has sided with Nuland on this; it’s a slap in the face to the EU: Poroshenko can continue ignoring Kerry and can blatantly ignore the Minsk II agreement; and Obama tacitly sides with Poroshenko and Nuland, against Kerry.

The personalities here are important: On 4 February 2014, in the very same phone-conversation with Geoffrey Pyatt, America’s Ambassador in Ukraine, in which Nuland had instructed Pyatt to get “Yats” Yatsenyuk appointed to lead Ukraine after the coup (which then occurred 18 days later), she also famously said “F—k  the EU!” Obama is now seconding that statement of hers.

In effect, Obama is telling the EU that they can get anything they want signed, but that he would still move forward with his own policy, regardless of whether or not they like it.

Kerry, for his part, now faces the decision as to whether to quit — which would force the EU’s hand regarding whether to continue with U.S. policy there — or else for Kerry to stay in office and be disrespected in all capitals for his staying on after having been so blatantly contradicted by his subordinate on a key issue of U.S. foreign policy. If he stays on while Nuland also does, then, in effect, Kerry is being cut out of policymaking on Europe and Asia (Nuland’s territory), altogether, and the EU needs to communicate directly with Obama on everything, or else to communicate with Nuland as if she and not Kerry were the actual U.S. Secretary of State. But if Kerry instead quits, then the pressure would be placed on EU officials: whether to continue with the U.S., or to reject U.S. anti-Russia policy, and to move forward by leaving NATO, and all that that entails?

If they then decide to stay with the U.S., after that “F—k the EU!” and then this; then, the European countries are clearly just U.S. colonies. This would be far more embarrassing to those leaders than John Kerry would be embarrassed by his simply resigning from the U.S. State Department. It might even turn the tide and force the Ukrainian Government to follow through with all of its commitments under the Minsk II accords.

It would be the most effective thing for Kerry to do at this stage. But, it would lose him his position as a (now merely nominal) member of Obama’s Cabinet.

The way this turns out will show a lot, about John Kerry. The nations of Europe already know everything they need to know about Barack Obama. If Kerry quits, he’ll have respect around the world. If he stays, he’ll be just another Colin Powell.

The ball is in Kerry’s court, and everyone will see how he plays it — and what type of man he is (and isn’t).

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of  Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics

http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-sidelines-kerry-on-ukraine-policy/5454038

Volunteer ‘Texas’ asks Americans, “What kind of people spend billions to murder children, families? This is your responsibility” [video]

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Please pass this on.

From Fort Russ
May 31st, 2015 -Essence of Time (EoT) * “DPR TV” –
– Joaquin Flores

Gorlovka – “Texas” is an American volunteer fighting for the DPR.  In the wake of shelling in the last few days of Gorlovka, we see further, almost real time, evidence of the Kiev Junta’s continual violation of the Minsk II ceasefire agreement, and the willful shelling of civilian areas.
In his forceful, eloquent, but plainly spoken plea, he puts some hard and serious questions directly to American audiences.  These are ones that Americans must think about.
“All the people that have died, all the homes that have been destroyed like this, are only because this war was started by the United States government, your government.”
“What kind of people spend billions of dollars to destroy innocent people’s homes, to murder children? To murder families, in the morning, while they’re sitting down to breakfast.  What kind of people do this?”
“What kind of person are you? You see this video, you know what’s the truth. You’re in America, you vote for Obama, you vote for Bush, you vote for Hillary Clinton. What kind of person are you to do that?  This is your responsibility.” 
https://youtu.be/YgB2bhFfEtM
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/06/all-murdered-people-this-is-what-us-is.html

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.

Continue reading →

Obama: “We have to twist arms when countries don’t do what we need them to do”

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From RT

President Barack Obama has said the reality of “American leadership” at times entails “twisting the arms” of states which “don’t do what we need them to do,” and that the US relied on its military strength and other leverage to achieve its goals.

In a broad-ranging interview with Vox, which Obama himself described as a venue “for the brainiac-nerd types,” the US president both denied the efficacy of a purely “realist” foreign policy but also arguing that at times the US, which has a defense budget that exceeds the next 10 countries combined, needed to rely on its military muscle and other levers of power.

Lauding the rule-based system to emerge in the post-World War II era, Obama admitted it wasn’t perfect, but argued “the UN, the IMF, and a whole host of treaties and rules and norms that were established really helped to stabilize the world in ways that it wouldn’t otherwise be.”

He argued, however, that the efficacy of this idealistic, Wilsonian, rule-based system was severely tested by the fact that “there are bad people out there who are trying to do us harm.”

In the president’s view, the reality of those threats has compelled the US to have “the strongest military in the world.” Obama further says that “we occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn’t do what we need them to do if it weren’t for the various economic or diplomatic or, in some cases, military leverage that we had — if we didn’t have that dose of realism, we wouldn’t get anything done, either.”

‘We occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn’t do what we need them to do’

Obama argues that the US doesn’t have “military solutions” to all the challenges in the modern world, though he goes on to add that “we don’t have a peer” in terms of states that could attack or provoke the United States.

“The closest we have, obviously, is Russia, with its nuclear arsenal, but generally speaking they can’t project the way we can around the world. China can’t, either. We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined,” he said.

Within this context, Obama said that “disorder” stemming from “failed states” and “asymmetric threats from terrorist organizations” were the biggest challenges facing the international community today.

Obama also argued that tackling these and other problems entailed “leveraging other countries” and “other resources” whenever possible, while also recognizing that Washington is “the lead partner because we have capabilities that other folks don’t have.”

‘We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined’

This approach, he said, also led to “some burden-sharing and there’s some ownership for outcomes.” Continue reading →

Ukraine: “We target civilians.” Separatists: “Their targeting maps prove it.”

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Eric Zuesse. 1 Feb. 2015
Posted on Fort Russ

The pro-regime Ukrainian TV station Hromandske TV — which is funded by the U.S. Government, the Dutch Government, and George Soros (via his International Renaissance Foundation or ‘Fund’) —  has reported that the Ukrainian Government is specifically targeting civilians to die in the Donbass region in the former Ukraine’s southeast. It’s being done in order “to clean the cities.”
This is open acknowledgement that the operation, which the U.S. is financing (and Ukraine is bankrupt so it can never reimburse its donors), is actually an ethnic-cleansing campaign.
Previously, on Hromadske TV, a proponent of doing just that (ethnic cleansing) was interviewed. He said: “If we take, for example, just the Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of which are superfluous. … Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. … The most important thing that must be done — no matter how cruel it may sound — is that there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated.”
Here is how it’s done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l17KfjtaqpA
[9 September 2014, from Slavyangrad, pro-separatists’ clips are shown, taken from pro-Ukrainian-Government telecasts]
Video of Commander of the Ukrainian Government’s volunteer battalion ’Shaktarsk,’ Ruslan Onishchenko:
“Our mission, being employees of the Ministry of the Interior, is to clean the cities, after the army has ‘worked’ this territory with aircraft, artillery and heavy military equipment. This is a normal tactical approach to warfare.”
Retired Col. General Vladimir Ruban, interviewed on the pro-Ukrainian-Government Hromadske TV, then says:
“I want to offer the Ukrainian artillerists medals, to those who shell the city [Donetsk], the houses and the civilian population,
… for they [artillerists] have deserved it [medals], both because of the accuracy and inaccuracy.
… It’s one thing if attack groups or any mobile mortar troops drive through the city and shoot,
… but if the artillery units fired from the airport [i.e., from the distance], then no one can claim that the separatists shoot themselves [i.e., that the people who are being killed in the city are victims of separatist troops mistakenly hitting passers-by when aiming at Government troops. He is saying that artillerists will clearly get the blame, whereas street-fighters can always blame the ‘terrorists.’].
… The shelling there is done as intimidation, … not just object destruction, but intimidation [to get the population to flee to nearby Russia]. The civilian population is intimidated by a chaotic bombardment of different objects. There are many shells that plug directly into the streets or vegetable gardens [and so make the very ground on which these people live terrifying to them].
TERVIEWER: This refers to those that didn’t explode?
ANSWER:  Yes, … there are many of those, … shells that fail to detonate. But Gorlowka has been fortunate to have not yet been totally eradicated from the face of the earth, along with the civilian population.
INTERVIEWER: You mean that the city is bombarded violently? ANSWER: Gorlowka was shelled by our troops, [even] as I went there for the prisoner exchange. Although  it was known that I was there, they [our troops] kept up the bombardment of Gorlowka. 
General Ruban might not have known it at the time of his interview, but on February 1st, Life News in Russia bannered “Militia DNR: Ukrainian Army Uses US Missiles,” and reported that in Gorlovka were found “shells that do not belong to Ukrainian artillery, and even more so do not use Soviet or post-Soviet military equipment. According to their hypothesis, the weapons are from NATO. Deputy brigade commander Army DNR [Donetsk People’s Republic] callsign ‘Biker’ showed shells and said that …  this is a special projectile 155 caliber self-propelled artillery of the M109 A1 American production, which is used by NATO countries.” Furthermore,
“The presence of foreigners in their army and radio intercepts confirms our intelligence when we hear in interceptions, phrases in English and Polish.”
Germany’s Bild, and Britain’s Mail, are also among the international news organizations that have previously reported on American mercenaries, including the former notorious Blackwater organization, ‘advising’ the Ukrainian army in this war.  The finding of U.S. military provisions on the battlefields in Donbass is, furthermore, routine; but U.S. soldiers, like Russian ones, are probably not fighting there. Ukraine is only a proxy war between the two major nuclear powers, not yet a direct war between them.
Within just the past few days, further video evidence was uploaded which indicates that the targeting of civilians is a central purpose of the U.S.-funded Ukrainian war campaign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=MCcl60gND7g#t=25
[29 January 2015] The journalists of Ren TV [a major Russian network, privately owned by Russian aristocrats] today received the first documentary evidence that residential areas of Donbass [the rebelling region of the former Ukraine; the farthest-east part of Ukraine, shown here in the darkest purple] are being targeted. Although Kiev may claim that ‘stray shells’ hit a hospital or a kindergarten, we have found on the front line that is being left behind by departing Ukrainian soldiers, artillery maps, where the targets were restaurants, cafeterias and shops. Here is an exclusive report by our correspondent Valentin Trushin from the former UAF’s [Ukrainian Armed Forces} trenches:
This is a field near the village of Ozeryanovka, from which recently was a Ukrainian battery firing at Gorlovka:
… [The rebel soldier says that many of these abandoned tanks and other weapons are undamaged, and ‘They will say tomorrow that Russia supplied them to us, but it’s actually their equipment that will be repaired if necessary but will be used at war against them.’ Views of Government-destroyed Gorlovka are shown.]
… In the [rebel-]destroyed dugouts were found … notebooks of cannon commanders, maps. The documents show that shelling of the city [by the Government] was not random, but deliberate. The coordinates of the targets are shown. For examples, one is a restaurant, another a cafeteria or a market where no militiamen were stationed.
… Here are their target-maps,
… irrefutable evidence of war crimes.  
Little over a month ago, a rebel commander explained why the Ukrainian armed forces are losing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=F2cTrvHnBxs
[13 Dec. 2014, from Cassad TV in Crimea, run by a man whom the U.S. aristocracy describe as being a far-right Marxist] 
“How the Elite UA [Ukrainian Army] Troops Were Defeated by the Militia. Interview with Commander Kedr” (head of the anti-Ukrainian-Government Semyonovka battalion in the outskirts of Slovyansk):
How did you manage to defeat them?
ANSWER: The most surprising thing is that they were eliminated by the [rebel] militias, who haven’t graduated from any military academies. Many of them haven’t even served in the army before. The majority of them had only for the very first time recently taken weapons in their hands [they hadn’t previously owned or used even a gun]. I think that victory … [resulted from] … the high motivation of our troops, and it was guaranteed by the high morale, the example that was being given by the commanders who were taking part in the fight themselves. It provided such a result. Good trophies [weapons] were captured then, … [and it even] happened before the Ilovaisk cauldron [when the enemy was encircled], and at a time when the situation was very difficult for the militias themselves, … [so] there was only one injured soldier from our side in that battle, but from the enemy’s side were killed 15-12 men, practically all of them [that were fighting]. … Six [of them] were taken captive. [The battlefield is shown with enemy corpses].
… Our unit arrived to collect the corpses of two of their shot-down pilots. But the enemy managed to save one of their pilots. I repeat: Our troops weren’t professional military but people like miners and trolley-bus drivers.
[3:17] I’d say to Ukrainian mothers that our soldiers have nowhere to retreat from their own land, while the enemy have a chance to turn around and go home. 
[4:14: video is shown of the enemy’s combat ration.] It’s an American combat ration.
The actual reason why this southeast-Ukrainian ethnic-cleansing campaign is necessary for Obama, who installed the current regime in Ukraine, is that, if it is not done, and, if the people who lived and voted in the Donbass region (Ukraine’s far-east) were still to remain there and allowed to vote there as being citizens of Ukraine, then they would vote at least 90% against the regime’s candidates, and for moderates, because, even before the regime had started to exterminate these people, they had voted 90% for Viktor Yanukovych in the last democratic Ukraine-wide Presidential election (which was back in 2010), and he was the very same man whom Obama overthrew. Now, after this extermination-campaign, the vote there against the Obama stooges would be virtually 100% — not just 90%.
In other words: Obama needs to get rid of those people. They can die, or else they can flee to Russia, but Obama needs them gone from Ukraine.
As regards why Obama had wanted their land to begin with, it was because unless the gas and other assets in the ground there can be privatized or sold off by the Ukrainian Government to pay its debts, the Ukrainian Government will go bankrupt and become an enormous drag on everyone who had previously lent to it, including the U.S., IMF, EU, World Bank, and others (ironically including even Russia).
Now that the situation is becoming increasingly clear that this land will not be able to be controlled by the Ukrainian Government, Obama’s best bet (in terms of his objectives) is to allow the war simply to end with Ukraine’s defeat, so that no more good money will go to Ukraine after the previous bad money is thus lost, but just cut the losses and bring this truncated and rabidly anti-Russian western half of Ukraine into NATO for the goal that is, apparently, Obama’s top foreign-policy objective: surrounding Russia with U.S. nuclear missiles and with regimes that hate Russia, in order to get Russia’s capitulation to America’s aristocracy.
Vladimir Putin wants Donbass to instead remain a part of Ukraine, as a counter-weight there against the rabidly anti-Russian voters in Ukraine’s western region, so as to produce yet another Yanukovych-like leadership in Ukraine and thus reduce the likelihood of a global nuclear war (which would be Russia’s only alternative if Obama were to succeed in his surround-Russia-with-missiles plan).
After all: John Fitzgerald Kennedy didn’t like it when the Soviet Union in 1962 tried to place nuclear missiles in just one location near the U.S.: Cuba. For Putin, Ukraine is like a nuclear Cuba was to America, but more like around ten nuclear Cubas, in Russia’s case. For Ukraine to join NATO would, perhaps, alone be sufficient threat to Russia so as to produce an immediate Russian nuclear attack against the U.S. and other NATO nations (a pre-emptive Russian attack, against us). The insane ones there would be the U.S. and any nation that supports it — the nations that then are clearly aiming to ‘conquer’ Russia. The U.S., under Kennedy, refused to stand for it in reverse; and Russia, under Putin or any other leader, shouldn’t stand for it, either. NATO needs to end, immediately. It had started as an anti-communist club, and was then valid; but what it was and is after the end of the Soviet Union, is the greatest threat to the entire world. It is now nothing but an anti-Russian club: not just insane, but also evil.
The only beneficiaries of today’s NATO are the West’s arms-merchants and other military suppliers. For everybody else, it’s catastrophe waiting to happen.
So: that’s the reason why the United States has been supporting (and, until now, even demanding) an ethnic-cleansing campaign in the former Ukraine. It’s part of the evil and supremely dangerous insanity that is NATO.
 
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records1910-2010,  and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Source: http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/ukraine-we-target-civilians-separatists.html

$355 Billion expansion of nuclear weapons proposed by Obama administration and Congress

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From the Guardian, September 29, 2014
By Cady Enders

…Congress and the Department of Defense, together with New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), are gearing up to dramatically increase production of nuclear weapons cores to numbers not seen since the cold war. In a report to Congress last month, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) outlined specific recommendations for a nuclear production plan under which as many as 80 explosive plutonium cores – 3.5in spheres that trigger an atomic bomb – would be created per year by 2030.

The Los Alamos proposal, which aims to increase plutonium core production at the nuclear facility thirtyfold from 2013 levels, leaves various environmental, fiscal, and political questions unanswered. Los Alamos, which the CRS report cites as the only plausible place for the slated nuclear expansion, happens to have a staggeringly poor history of safeguarding war-grade nuclear materials. A federal study last month found the nuclear facility unprepared to respond to emergencies; environmental violations abound; and a former employee was recently sentenced to a year in federal prison for trying to sell nuclear secrets to the Venezuelan government.

The plan, which has already been quietly adopted in broad terms by the House and Senate armed services committees as part of the 2015 Defense Authorization Act, is expected to contribute an estimated $355bn for nuclear weapons development over the next decade. The spending would seem to stand in stark contrast to President Obama’s stated position on nuclear weapons.

Obama has previously indicated a strong commitment to cutting the nuclear stockpile from 5,113 warheads in 2009 to 1,500 by the year 2016. In a 2009 speech in Prague, cited by the Nobel committee as the primary reason for awarding him the peace prize…

… James Doyle, a former scientist in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Division at LANL, said that the scale of the proposed project lacks supporting research, particularly in the quantity of cores required. “I’ve never seen the justification articulated for the 50-80 pits per year by 2030,” Doyle said.

Doyle, a 17-year veteran of Los Alamos, was dismissed on July 8 for publishing an article in support of nuclear disarmament that had been approved prior to publication by the laboratory’s classification department. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the State Department have since classified the article, despite the fact that the media review process at the lab prior to publication identified no classification breaches. (The article remains available to the public even after the classification.)

Doyle believes that the timing of his ouster was connected to the congressional push for nuclear weapons maintenance. “I think the laboratory would like to review for message, too,” he said.“I would speculate that the message of my article was in opposition to the labs’ message when searching for funding for the plutonium pit project.”

Doyle believes that the government should turn its focus from weapons component production to a strategic plan for eliminating nuclear weapons by the year 2045. “I think there are plenty of people at the lab who share my view that are now even less likely to write an article like that now this has happened to me,” Doyle said.

… Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog group, said that the reason the pit proposal has progressed, despite monumental cost to the taxpayer, comes down to the priorities of the for-profit corporations that now run all the country’s nuclear laboratories since they were privatized in 2006. That includes Los Alamos National Security, a private limited liability corporation that manages and operates Los Alamos National Laboratories.

“The business model of the nuclear weapons labs is to blackmail the government into continuing excessive appropriations,” said Mello. “The nuclear weapons labs are sized for the Cold War, and they need a Cold War to keep that size.”

For the complete article:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/congress-nuclear-weapons-new-mexico-radioactivity

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44968
Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2014 to 2023

Posted under Fair Use Rules.