WHEN THE VOICE OF RUSSIA WAS LIQUIDATED WE DID AN EMERGENCY DUMP OF ALL MY WORK TO TRY TO KEEP IT ON-LINE THESE VOLUME PAGES ARE THE RESULT. IT HAS TAKEN 3 YEARS TO FINALLY START TO GET THINGS IN ORDER - MAY 5 2017
Articles and Interviews by John Robles from December 10, 2013 to January 16, 2014
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December 10 2013 January 16 2014 , 20:04
JFK and 9-11: Bookends of American Fascism – Wayne Madsen
Photo: ru.wikipedia.org
This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Mr. Wayne Madsen, he is the editor of the Wayne Madsen Report in Washington DC. This is part 3 of an interview in progress. You can find the previous and following parts of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_16/JFK-and-9-11-bookends-of-American-fascism-Wayne-Madsen-6483/
16 January, 19:34
Syria and terrorism: the separation of security and politics-
John RObles
It has been revealed that European security personnel and intelligence agents have been in active contact and in fact holding meetings with Syrian intelligence and other unspecified officials since at least the middle of the summer of 2013. A period directly before the US push to invade the country.
With regard to cooperation between the security services, official Damascus has recently stated that there is an apparent schism between politicians and security people in the West. According to RT, citing the BBC, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad confirmed the existence of such cooperation, a fact which is in sharp contrast to the western push for military intervention in Syria and the forceful removal of President Assad, as well as the now confirmed support of the tens of thousands of imported mercenaries and jihadists that the West was supporting.
It is important to note that the countries in question are European and that when the US/NATO decided it was time to invade Syria this past fall they were unable to garner the support for an invasion. It is also telling that US intelligence has not been involved in working with Syrian security, the reason why is obvious, as they have been involved in arming, supporting, training and importing the very jihadists that are now a threat to European and even US security.
Reportedly intelligence agents from France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom have been exchanging intelligence with the Syrians, in particular with regard to over 1,200 terrorists that are on western watch lists. Official Damascus reports that more countries are interested in an intelligence sharing relationship with Syria, this is despite the fact that the West has severed diplomatic relations with Damascus and all western embassies have been closed.
Regarding other European countries that have not yet worked with Syrian intelligence Mr. Mekdad stated: “Some are saying we are exploring the possibilities, some are saying we want to co-operate on security measures because those terrorists they are sending from Western Europe into Turkey, into Syria, have become a real threat to them.”
Recently James Comey, the director of the FBI, spoke out about the threat of jihadists trained in Syria coming to America, something sounding disingenuous coming from the US, but also pointing to an apparent schism between Washington politicians pushing for war, the CIA and the FBI itself. The “cry wolf” manner that the US has used terrorism since 9-11 to strip away rights and get away with everything under the sun has robbed it of any credibility and left the country vulnerable to a real terrorist attack.
While Washington has used terrorism as the pretext for allowing invasions and “intervention” to further the geopolitical goals of the elites and politicians since 9-11, other countries are faced with the now growing threat posed by the very terrorists Washington has backed and in the case of Syria, has imported in order to (in this case) remove president Assad and the government.
Security officers and intelligence agents worldwide have a mission to protect the interests of their respective countries but they also have a more important function and one that should always take precedent, namely guaranteeing the security of their respective populations and territories. In this regard fighting terrorism (real terrorism not the US promoted and hyped bogeyman) is a mission and an issue that may serve to unite security and intelligence agencies worldwide, and one that we can all agree must be fought and won to guarantee we are all protected.
One might argue that the statements by the director of the FBI fly in the face of the known support by CIA for Al-Qaeda elements in Syria and point to an increasing schism within the US intelligence community if they are to be taken at face value and not as yet another means straw man argument to increase the out of control US security state.
With regards to the CIA and the entire “War on Terror” post 9-11 paradigm that the US has unleashed on the world, it can be called a corruption and the abomination of the Obama nation, and this will be the case until those responsible for all of the massive post 9-11 US illegality are safely removed from power and prosecuted (sadly, a fact most agree will never happen).
The mission to fight terrorism was one which (as is the case today) intelligence agencies worldwide could all agree was a noble and necessary one, but unfortunately one that has been exploited and mutated by the US and used to bring about a repressive and illegal security state which has stripped millions of their basic human rights.
The abominations in the Obama nation brought to the world by Bush and his neoconservatives geopolitical planners who were willing to do anything to attain their goals and were continued by Obama include: Guantanamo, torture, aggressive wars disguised as “humanitarian interventions”, massive blanket surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, illegal indefinite detention, the end of Habeas Corpus, extra-judicial executions, foreign based black sites, illegal search and seizure, complete control of and the effective destruction of the free press and the complete and total forfeiture of the US Government and the US Constitution to the intelligence/military industrial complex which has profited from all of it.
All of the above issues are ones that upstanding members of the armed forces, the FBI, the CIA, the US Government and the population oppose but issues they apparently have no power to influence or stop. This has led to a situation, which akin to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, is an abomination.
If there is a schism between security services and politicians in the West I would argue this is a good thing and it is about time. Intelligence and security agencies, in order to avoid their being used as simply instruments to advance the policies of politicians (as we saw post 9-11 with the Iraq lies and manipulations being a perfect example) must be separated from political forces and allowed to perform their basic functions without political pressure or manipulation. This is something almost any person will agree with, including any conscientious intelligence officer, soldier, agent or official.
Of course intelligence agencies must be subject to vetting, oversight and civilian control but they must be able to exist independent of the flavor of the day politicians in power when it comes to performing the most important and basic mission of guaranteeing security, in this case protecting against terrorism.
With regard to the threat caused by the tens of thousands of jihadists and Al-Qaeda linked fanatics recruited, trained and imported into Syria, this is a threat for all civilized societies and despite the US wish to be rid of President Assad, the threat must be dealt with with extreme prejudice. These fanatics and homicidal lunatics can not be dealt with or controlled, a fact Saudi Prince Bandar may soon learn and one we are seeing today all across the Middle East. They are a disease and the Doctor has only one cure: liquidation.
For politicians who attempt to fund and back these elements, it may seem like a clever way to attain their goals but in the end terrorists can not and must not be negotiated with. The result of such collusion was seen in Benghazi Libya and the price Christopher Stephens had to pay. Yet CIA influenced by politicians such as George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Dick Cheney and the like continues to deal with terrorists and attempt to use them as their own secret non-state army.
The shortsighted policies of politicians and their often unattainable goals have in fact compromised the security services of the US and any country that attempts to have any dealings whatsoever with terrorists. Russian security understands this basic fact, as do countries like Syria and those in Europe working together to protect peaceful populations from the scourge of terrorism.
Hopefully the cooperation that is being carried out in Syria is a signal of a shift in the way that the “War on Terror” is to be fought worldwide. We have seen the US fail and it is time for the kids to leave the room and let the professionals take over.
This shift will hopefully see a more covert secret and precision war being fought against terrorist elements such as that carried out by the FSB and the SVR as opposed to the blanket stripping of rights and terrorist-on-every-corner-tactics that the US has been promoting since 9-11. In other words a Doctor with a scalpel vs a blind Butcher with a sledgehammer smashing everything in sight.
Getting back to the “schism” if you will. Again I would argue that if intelligence agencies are to fulfill their missions and be effective they must not be connected to political winds and politicians with their own agendas. Again CIA is a case in point as is Saudi.
We have seen time and time again since its creation that the CIA is just a tool for political expediency and for bringing about whatever “change” those in power wish to bring about. It is also one that is willing to do anything to fulfill its missions. This is wrong and the result is what we have today. Al-Qaeda has grown thousand fold in strength and size since 9-11 and this is due to failed policies and collusion with the terrorists to bring about geopolitical goals.
So while CIA and Saudi are once again in bed with Al-Qaeda, this time in Syria, the European intelligence agencies and even the FBI are now beginning to realize that they are the ones that are going to have to finally deal with the tens of thousands of jihadists that CIA/Saudi have unleashed in their insane drive to effect regime change in Syria. Had it not been for a threat by Saudi Prince Bandar to President Putin this past summer, regarding terrorist acts during the Sochi Olympics and an admission to controlling terrorists in Syria, including Chechen groupings, the world would not be the wiser to the level of collusion between certain politicians and terrorists.
If we want to make the world a better place, leave the politics to the politicians and security up to the professionals.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_16/Syria-and-terrorism-the-separation-of-security-and-politics-9505/
14 January, 12:25
Terrorist Joe Smith: trained in Syria, returning to America says FBI - John Robles
The director of the FBI recently cited Americans recruited by Al-Qaeda in Syria as the next terrorist threat to America. However with the almost 13 years of meddling in the Middle East, the dozens of revelations of US and CIA involvement with Al-Qaeda in places such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt and the fact that there has not been a single clear terrorist attack in the US since 9-11, there appears to be a credibility gap that is growing by the day. Is the threat real? Or is it just another attempt to keep people in fear and allow for more funds to be diverted to those who are profiting from the endless war on terror?
The entire US-government-military-industrial-complex-surveillance-security/police-state is dependent on one thing for continuity. One single thing that has allowed it to grow and completely take over the country, dispose of the constitution and drag the world into war after war, that one thing is terrorism. So now whenever you hear a US Government official talking about the threat of terrorism, you can be sure that they need more of your tax dollars to further inflate their budgets, are planning more wars and/or are stripping away more of your rights and want you to continue to live in fear.
From funding, backing, training and arming Al-Qaeda in multiple theaters since the creation of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (when Osama Bin Laden was recruited by the CIA to fight the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics after the USSR was asked to play a peace-keeping role in the country by the then Socialist Afghan Government) to the same support of Al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Syria, the US has almost lost all credibility and believability when it comes to fighting their “War on Terror” and the uncovering of the “threat of the week”.
In Syria Al-Qaeda was rebranded in the same way Osama Bin Laden was renamed “Tom Ossman” and given various names including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Now without the previously scheduled Libyan style open US/NATO support that they were expecting to help them finish off what they started in Syria the groups of fanatical homicidal mercenaries waving the black flag of bloody Islamic fanaticism have begun slaughtering each other in the thousands. Well and good but where does that leave the US?
Robbed of their aggressive war on Syria and without a single clear terrorist attack on the United States since the questionable events of 9-11-01, the “War on Terror” dependent US Government is growing more and more desperate to continue to justify the entire “age of terrorism” paradigm and continues to build straw man terrorists out of anything they can.
The latest “terrorist threat to America” is not some Sunni-Wahabist-Salafist-Sharia-homicidal-fanatic but, according to FBI Director James Comey, the danger is now from Americans who are recruited by Al-Qaeda, particularly in Syria. This may mean that all of the Americans in Syria who are engaged in “covert operations” against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, are now no longer needed and the FBI is in damage control mode, but that is another story.
Press TV quotes the FBI director as having said: “People, including Americans, can go to Syria and learn about dangerous techniques, and it's easy to get in and get out. My concern is that people can go to Syria, develop new relationships, learn new techniques and become far more dangerous, and then flow back to the US.”
Statements relating to Americans recruited by and trained in Syria by the same insurgents that a few months ago the US was backing and arming seem odd to say the least. Coming from the Director of the FBI of course they must be believed by the masses but in reality such statements are a clear condemnation of everything the US has supposedly been doing to stop terrorism. It is a clear condemnation of any action against the Government of President Assad as well since it is Al-Qaeda which is fighting the Assad Government for US/NATO. What is more vague statements and the identification of Americans overseas as a terrorist only goes to shopw the complete failure of the entire “War on Terror” and the hyper security state.
Such a statement from the head of the FBI is also almost an open admission of failure. However as I said earlier, the redeeming factor for the FBI is that it will allow for more funds and more “security”.
Sure there might have been about 70 Americans who have gone to Syria or tried to go there to fight the Syrian government and at least 1,200 Europeans but does this mean they are a threat to the US? Possibly, Washington is worried that al-Qaeda-linked groups might have recruited and trained Americans who have gone to Syria in order to get them to carry out attacks when they return to the US. Sounds plausible but what is more probable is that due to cancellation of the invasion on Syria, the US is left with hundreds (if not thousands) of Al-Qaeda “fighters” who are ready and primed for war but who are quite frankly now robbed of the spoils they had been promised.
Does it really matter who the threat is? Yes it does. In this case the US saying the threat is from Americans recruited by Al-Qaeda will allow internal US security bodies to further escalate the terror hysteria and raise their budgets.
Press TV reports that a US intelligence official said:“We know al-Qaeda is using Syria to identify individuals they can recruit, provide them additional indoctrination so they’re further radicalized, and leverage them into future soldiers, possibly in the US.”
After 12 years of the non-stop war and meddling in the Muslim world, it is not surprising that there may be fanatical terrorists who are now ready to attack the United States, however I would argue that the threat is not from Americans trained by Al-Qaeda, but from Al-Qaeda itself, if such a “database” really exists.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_14/Terrorist-Joe-Smith-trained-in-Syria-returning-to-America-says-FBI-2194/
Obama and Guantanamo: “disgusting” – Medea Benjamin
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Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_14/Obama-and-Guantanamo-disgusting-Medea-Benjamin-5665/
US continues to attempt to “get” Edward Snowden – Jesselyn Radack
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13 January, 17:24
Russian/Chinese prevention of Syrian invasion: historic event – Rick Rozoff
On the surface it appears that US/NATO lost in Afghanistan. But did they? According to US/NATO’s own assessments and statements Afghanistan has proven to be the testing ground for developing interoperability between NATO members and over 50 nations which provided military forces for the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the consolidation of an international military strike force. Heroin production has also increased 40 fold and has devastated the peoples of many countries while providing black monies for secret operations. There are reports that there is a possible drug route from Afghanistan, through the air base in Manas in Kirgizstan and into the Balkans, probably Kosovo, which is used to get Afghan opium and heroin to market with Hashim Thaçi directly implicated. According to Voice of Russia regular contributor Rick Rozoff, the lack of oversight of US military installations, such as Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, makes it possible, if the US wants, to place even tactical nuclear weapons closer to the Russian or Iranian border. In part 2 of a 2013 year end summary Mr. Rozoff discusses those issues and more and cites Russian and Chinese moves to prevent an invasion of Syria as a major historical turning point.
This is John Robles, you are listening to an interview with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the stop NATO website and international mailing list. This is part 2 of an interview in progress. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com
Robles: Two points I’d like to make and then you can continue any way you’d like. You said you wanted to speak about the human toll, the heroin wreaks on the world. The US taxpayers have spent, as far as I know, the figures I saw were about $7 billion in fighting narcotics production; opium production, heroin production – in Afghanistan. I believe that figure is correct, if I’m wrong, please, tell me. So, they weren’t there to stop heroin production. They weren’t there to get rid of the Taliban, while making secret deals with them and they are going to come back in power even more powerful than they were before. So, what was the real point of 12 years in Afghanistan then?
Rozoff: Well, I mean, I know what the answer to that is, but it is not what generally is offered as an explanation for the invasion, the occupation of Afghanistan. To read between the lines slightly all one needs to do, is read Anders Fogh Rasmussen or any other NATO official on their website. I invite people to visit the NATO website, it is where you are going to find out the truth but you may have to decipher it a bit.
And what you hear again and again is that Afghanistan has proven the testing ground or the training ground for a developing interoperability between NATO members and partners. Again, over 50 nations provided military forces for NATO in the ongoing war in Afghanistan. And what NATO walks away from… the Afghans of course have suffered a disastrous period, the region likewise and the world security has certainly not gained in any manner from the spot, NATO has walked away by having fused or integrated military units from 50 different countries.
People without any sense of history may not appreciate the significance of that fact, but for a moment, you know, the act of belligerence, even in WW II, for example, I’d be surprised if formally there were more than 20 on the side of the allies and now you’ve got 50 serving in one country, under one military command – NATO. That’s what NATO used Afghanistan for. It was simply a training ground for consolidating an international military strike force, what is referred to as the NATO Response Force, the nucleus of which will be this 50-nation alliance that NATO was able to put together inside Afghanistan.
On the question of the human toll of heroin, I’ll be brief on that but I’ll be personal. I worked in the past as a substance abuse counselor. I worked at methadone maintenance clinic. I know what heroin addiction does to people. I’ve seen young women out prostituting themselves. I’ve seen young babies left in their own feces and so forth as their parents are hunting down a fix. I know what heroin does to people. And if you multiply that on the level of hundreds of thousands or millions and this is what is happening, this is the untold cost of the Afghan war.
And you don’t have to look too far. The Russian Government will tell you what the figures are in their own country in heroin deaths and heroin addiction. The Iranian Government will tell you the same. I’m sure the five nations of Central Asia can say something similar. I’m sure that Pakistan and India are suffering this as well. And this is going to take generations to rectify.
Robles: It is an insidious cycle, and I’d really like you to comment on this as well, the whole heroin cycle includes the cultivators, the farmers – right? It begins with them, it ends up with somebody dying in a stairwell in Chicago with a dirty needle in their vein or something. But in between you’ve got government officials, you’ve got even US diplomats, maybe, you’ve got the CIA, you’ve got NATO officials and everyone is making money of it. How much do you think the US and NATO have profited from the entire heroin scheme in Afghanistan?
Rozoff: That’s rich ground for speculation. I would reference I think, as you were talking about the golden triangle earlier, Alfred McCoy he is a Professor, or was at least, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He wrote a book on just that topic, about the Southeast Asia during the war in Indo-China.
Robles: I’ve actually read that.
Rozoff: Good, talk about it! Inevitably, all the other plagues follow in the track of war; famine, disease, drug addiction, prostitution, dislocation. It is as sure as the night follows day you are going to find that. However, there is a more insidious side that you are alluding to, which is that one way of in the post WW II period of financing counterinsurgency groups that are artificially governmental in nature is through the drug trade.
This occurred in central America, it has occurred in south America, it has occurred in Indo-China, it has occurred in the Balkans, it is occurring currently in south and central Asia where cutthroat mercenary outfits do the dirty work, particularly for the CIA, and in return are allowed to run narcotics trafficking, perhaps, in conjunction with US military forces, as a way of paying themselves outside of the congressionally scrutinized budget. You know, it is a slush fund or a secret budget of some sort. We just have to assume that’s going on.
There has been discussion, I think there’s even been some degree of proof that there is a drug route that goes now from Afghanistan possibly through the air base in Manas in Kirgizstan fairly directly into the Balkans, probably Kosovo. And we know that criminal gangs or syndicates affiliated with the putative government of Kosovo, of Hashim Thaçi, have been directly implicated in running the preponderance of the drug trade throughout Europe. So, it would seem logical that opium, cultivated, farmed, semi-processed in Afghanistan or even processed into heroin and other by-products would then make their way into the drugs circuit in the Balkans, and from there to the West. It is more than a likely possibility.
Robles: So, this is going through… out of US military installations in Afghanistan to the US base possibly in Kosovo you think or… ?
Rozoff: There has been a discussion about that. And it seems plausible, at the very least. We are talking about the transit center of Manas in Kirgizstan, which is supposed to be closed down finally next year, unless the US raises the bid, as they’ve done in the past to maintain it yet further. But assuming that’s closed down, the US has modernized and expanded several air bases within Afghanistan itself – the Bagram Air Base north of the capital, Shindand near the Iranian border and other places and the US has no intention of vacating those bases ever, I think it is safe in assuming.
So, amongst other things that provide them probably long enough and big enough runways to accommodate strategic aircraft, should the US want to position such in the center of the south Asian region, but also cargo planes – they can bring anything in or out of the country as they choose, much as Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. It is not under any international supervision. The Kosovo force, the NATO military force in Afghanistan is, at least nominally, under the UN mandate but the US military base in Kosovo – Camp Bondsteel, as far as I know, is not inspected by anybody.
There’s been speculation by the Russian officials that if the US chooses to place nuclear weapons, say tactical nuclear weapons closer to the Russian border or the Iranian border, they could do so in Kosovo without anyone being wised up. So, why not narcotics?
Robles: This collusion in narcotics trafficking has been very well documented and proven. And it doesn’t matter how many times Oliver North said “I have no recollection” I mean, this is a fact of their operations.
Rozoff: Yes, war is a filthy business. It is one that by definition really is without ethics. And if Congress puts up even a titular or nominal opposition in any way or demands any sort of supervision of activities, then the Oliver Norths of the world find some way of getting it done otherwise. And that if means arms to terrorist gangs in central America going south and those same cargo planes coming back with marihuana and cocaine coming north, then what is the objection from the point of view of somebody who is willing to kill innocent people. I mean, if murder is justifiable, then what crime is not?
Robles: And you are alluding to?
Rozoff: I mean, you were mentioning the example during the 1980s of the dirty-tricks-operations… oh, not dirty tricks actually, but covert operations run out of the basement of the White House.
Robles: You hit the nail on the head there. I’m sorry, go ahead Rick.
Rozoff: That's actually an allusion to the Nixon committee to reelect the president tactics in 1972. But, you know, be it whatever it is or however we want to call it. I don’t mean to go off on too much of a tangent on that, that is something that, hopefully, enterprising journalists are going to be able to dig up without spending the rest of their life in a dungeon somewhere for revealing the truth.
But in the interim, what we do know about this past year is that it has signaled the beginning of the slowing down of the post Cold War momentum of the US and its military allies around the world.
They still expanded in certain areas, we can’t deny or minimize that. The Asia-Pacific pivot of the Obama administration starting last year, where the new enemy transparently right at this point is China, which is to be encircled militarily by an increased number of new US military bases, including interceptor missile facilities throughout Asia, aimed clearly at China reproducing something analogous to what’s happened with Russia through NATO expansion on the western-southern borders of Russia.
That is something that has occurred, but we’ve seen I think psychologically, as well as maybe a little bit more tangibly, an important pivot with the situation in Syria, as we talked about. And coming out of that a clear resolve by many nations in the world, and we have to remember that Chinese navy is now assisting Russia, the Chinese Navy right now in the removal of chemical weapons from Syria, which a Russian official was quoted as of yesterday as saying: “… this is the first time Russian and Chinese military have cooperated together in a real life crisis.” I think that’s almost a quote.
So, what we are seeing now is the evolution again, and this is so important to emphasize, to underline, of a model of international multipolarity with the basis on international law. And what that means is if countries like Russia and China, who are simultaneously the mainstays of two very-very important organizations – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and what is loosely known as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa now)…
Robles: If I can make a little kind of maybe sarcastic comment, but, are you implying that Russia and China are somehow part of the “international community?”
Rozoff: I know they were written off some time, roughly 22 years ago and you didn’t have to consult their interests in any way or form. That has now changed and it changed pretty demonstrably. And what is evident this past year in particular is that because of consistency and determination we had from both those countries, particularly Russia but China also, we have to recall that in an unprecedented series of actions those three countries three times in succession vetoed the proposed resolutions in the UN Security Council that would have laid the groundwork for a replication of the Libyan model in Syria.
And the fact that Russia and China did not back down even in the face of what is very formidable American ability to mould public opinion internationally and even to have that reflected within the affected countries Russia and China, where media, either from the West or parroting the line of the West oftentimes, is able to influence public opinion domestically in those two countries – that despite all that Russia and China stood their ground, refused to back down.
And we can flash back to some of our earlier programs or interviews with the horribly insulting and condescending, and contemptuous statements made by major US political officials, for example, the former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Dr. Susan Rice – the current National Security Advisor – and others who spoke about Russia and China in terms that really do not belong in international diplomacy in any way or form.
But not withstanding all that the fact is a couple of very significant nations – Russia and China – they’ve proven thus far and no farther, I want to say.
They allowed a resolution against Libya in early 2011 to pass the UN Security Council and saw what occurred, which is six months of US and NATO bombardment of the country, as you indicated, and never again this is going to occur. And this is a very important stand that was taken on the issue of Syria. You know, had it not been Syria, it may have been some other nation. But the fact is – historically it was Syria and this is going to be recorded unquestionably as a major historical turning point.
Robles: Thank you Rick!
That was the end of part 2 of an interview with Rick Rozoff – the owner and manager of the stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com
PART1, PART 3
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_13/Russian-Chinese-prevention-of-Syrian-invasion-historic-event-Rick-Rozoff-0232/
13 January, 15:00
NATO’s Ukrainian target: The Black Sea Fleet - Rick Rozoff
In the coming year the activities of US/NATO in the Arctic, Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia will be of particular interest as the US/NATO continues to attempt to expand globally into a historically unprecedented military power unto itself. Voice of Russia regular Rick Rozoff spoke about these issues and more in an end of the year interview in which he recapped the previous years’ events and forecast what is to come. According to Mr. Rozoff the key reason for pulling Ukraine into the EU is to eventually ensnare it in NATO and evict Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
This is John Robles. You are listening to an interview with Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. This is part 3 of an interview in progress. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at Voiceofrussia.com.
PART 1, PART 2
Robles: Coming up in the next year what countries, what areas should we be watching out for with regard to NATO expansion? We talked a little bit before about the Arctic, it’s heating up, about Scandinavia I think. What other areas do you think NATO is going to try to expand into? And I'd like you, if you could, comment on what does the loss of Ukraine mean for NATO?
Rozoff: Those are the good questions. On the first I would say it is the international analogue of what we in Chicago would call a crime alert. There are street gangs or burglary rings or something other operating in the area and you want to alert people to where they are likely to strike, and we are doing the world a service I think by anticipating that, but let's be real clear, the Ukraine indeed is one of them. Let me reserve that, discussion of that for a moment.
Let’s look at what is happening in Central Africa. We have seen French military intervention in Mali, direct military intervention with the assistance of the United States, the US Africa Command and US air forces Africa, US air forces in Europe and Africa, directly involved in ferrying and/or transporting French troops and armored vehicles and so forth, for what is a direct military action in Mali. We are seeing that replicated right now in the Central African Republic.
And these action … and now we see US Osprey helicopters attacked in South Sudan, where the US is going to become directly involved militarily, there are already calls for US direct military action in retaliation for that attack. We do have to recollect, that maybe a year and a half ago, the Obama Administration signaled, they announced formally, they were deploying special operations troops to foreign nations in Central Africa. Those are exactly the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Congo and what is the fourth - Uganda.
So that the US is already massively involved in Uganda; Ugandan troops are the US's proxies in Somali for the most part, as well as there are some Burundi and Kenyan. So Central Africa is clearly marked up. There is a massive propaganda campaign, many of your listeners may be aware of, by some shadowy mysterious individual to hunt down Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army, in a video that … promoted by the likes of Oprah Winfrey went viral and to build up a humanitarian justification for direct US involvement in Central Africa, now we are seeing what that really means.
What that really means is a direct US military role in the newest nation in the world South Sudan. It means the US once again supporting their French NATO ally in military conflicts in Africa, following that of Ivory Coast in 2011 where they overthrew the government of Laurent Gbagbo. And recently, last year in Mali, this year in Central African Republic, it is likely to shift into nations like Chad in not too distant future.
So we are seeing what African command was set up to do, which is to oversee, coordinate or to wage war in Africa in conjunction with the US's military allies and NATO friends it appears currently in the first place. So that is one area I would look at.
Robles: What are the US NATO Western interests in Africa for those of our listeners who aren't really aware of what they have to offer down there?
Rozoff: The American political leader Malcolm X said in entertaining but illustrative speech in the early 1960s called 'I don't mean bananas'. And he was talking about what, at that time, the Patrice Lumumba government in Belgian Congo had been overthrown. It is now clear, for all the conspiracy theorists, that the US all but admits that the Central Intelligence Agency was instrumental in the overthrow of his regime, and in his murder.
But what 40 years ago Malcolm X was talking about was the fact that Africa is one of the resource richest continents in the world and increasingly now with material needed for computer technology and energy, of oil in the first place, natural gas secondarily, that Africa is invaluable to the world. And what it represents is an opportunity for the United States and its allies to reclaim control of the African continent effectively.
We do have to remember that every major colonial power in Africa, former colonial power, is a member of NATO: France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, Italy - every single one. So NATO in many ways is a collective of the Western colonial powers internationally, in Asia and in the Western hemisphere as well, South and the Central America, including the Caribbean.
But these are the Africa that we are talking about is a consortium of Western military powers that want to control, the dealing in raw materials, precious and semiprecious metals, or stones and metals and so forth. The diamond trade in South Africa alone is worth looking at.
But we are looking at what are reported to be fairly large reserves of petroleum in Central Africa exactly, with at least tentative plans to have those reserves piped out through countries like Uganda to the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean. And I think it is important that these economic factors be taken into consideration when we look at where our militaries are being deployed and what overall military strategy may be.
The fact that the US set up its first unified combatant command, its first overseas integrated military command since the Cold War, in Africa, is a significant fact and it is not a fortuitous one. It suggests that the battle for Africa is in many ways a strategically important battle for the world resources and control and domination. Africa now is, with the population of over a billion people as of maybe three years ago, the second most populous nation … continent rather in the world, next to Asia.
So it is significant from a number of points of view and the US military is not going to sit aside and watch through diplomatic and economic measures countries like Russia and China are going to become more actively involved in China without putting up a battle to beat them on that board.
Robles: You mean more active in Africa?
Rozoff: Oh, I'm sorry, Africa indeed, pardon me.
Robles: Africa we should be watching at for, what about Scandinavia and the Arctic? Where do you see things - you are usually ahead of the curve Rick - so where do you see things going in the Arctic with NATO expansion and in Scandinavia? And with the continuing ABM placement, the missile shield, do you think they are going to keep doing it?
Rozoff: Yes, there seems to be a renewed interest in, or at least reporting on what five years ago would have been referred to, I certainly referred to it as such at that time as the scramble for the Arctic and what occurred in - it will be shortly five years as a matter of fact the very beginning of 2009 - is that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization held a conference in Iceland, I believe it was called the conference on the High North. High North is the NATO term or euphemism if you will, for the Arctic.
And what they were talking about at that time, this came immediately on the heels incidentally of the - a kind of a parting shot by the George W. Bush Administration in January of 2009 - immediately before his leaving the Oval Office George W Bush, a National Security Agency directive was issued on the Arctic. And it was evident at that time that there were five official claimants to parts of the Arctic Ocean and four of those five were members of NATO: they are the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark.
But other countries like Britain, other NATO members like Britain and Scandinavian countries like Finland, Sweden are getting involved in the oil rush, if I could put it that, amongst other things in the High North, with countries outside the region including China interested in what’s occurring there. But the fact that four of the five official claimants are members of NATO, and that the US is a major one amongst them, signals another potential bone of contention between NATO and Russia.
Russia has the most sizable and I would argue the most legitimate claim to areas, particularly the Lomonosov Ridge comes to mind in the Arctic Circle. And in fact I think it was about 3 or 4 years ago that Norway became the first country in the world to base its military headquarters within the Arctic Circle, it moved it north within the Arctic region.
Robles: I see.
Rozoff: So that we have that going on at the same time as I think you alertly allude to that Scandinavia is being targeted for, all but effective formal incorporation into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With Denmark and Norway being founding members of NATO, then that leaves of course Finland and Sweden which historically have been neutral, Finland at least since World War 2, Sweden for 200 years. But both of whom have been supplying troops, have been killing and dying in northern Afghanistan under NATO command, International Security Assistance Force. Sweden provided Gripen war planes for NATO's war against Libya in 2011.
So you have Sweden which had been not involved in military conflicts, had been neutral for 200 years, engage in NATO wars in Asia and Africa. I don't know how much of Swedish people really pay attention to this, but Sweden now is formally joining the NATO response force, the international strike force, as well as Finland, Georgia and up until recently the plan was for Ukraine to join them.
So what do we have is, that is not coincidental, that suggests that NATO feels it not only needs to encroach yet further on the Russian border, Finland has a sizable border with Russia of course, but also in the push to the North, to the High North, to the Arctic. And that those two, as you indicate in your question, are related issues, they really cannot be separated and that the US wants dominance at the top of the world as it does in most every other part of the world.
Robles: Can we segue into Ukraine then? And I'd like to get your year end summary on our President Vladimir Putin.
Rozoff:Ukraine became after what appears to be the resolution of the crisis of the crisis, of the catastrophe in fact, in Syria to have been the next point on the chessboard where the US and its western allies decided to face down Russia or challenge Russia by intervening, really interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, pressuring the government of Victor Yanukovich and his allies in Kiev which was elected expressly to foster cooperative relations with Russia after the government of his predecessor Victor Yushchenko, whose wife of course was born here in Chicago and worked in various capacities for the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations, people should recall. And after he had turned on Russia, including on pipeline arrangements where Russia was disadvantaged vis a vis Western Europe.
But the Yanukovich government was elected in large part to foster friendly relations with its neighbor of some 1400 km and to have them then be strong armed or pressured by the US and its western allies to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union at the very moment that Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus are in the course of consolidating a Customs Union. Well it is quite evident that the intent is to pull Ukraine away from Russia, shift it in the direction of the European Union and NATO.
And that the European Union, again as we had occasion to discuss, is really the cloak under which Ukraine is to be integrated into NATO. And the ships provided by the government of Ukraine already active, and two ongoing and presumably permanent North Atlantic Treaty Organization naval operations, one in the Mediterranean Sea, the other in the Arabian Sea, first is operation Active Endeavor, the second is Operation Ocean Shield, and the US continues to hold, again as we've discussed before, the annual Sea Breeze military exercises in the Crimea in Ukraine, which is also where the Russian Black Sea fleet is based.
Keep in mind, if you want to talk about geopolitics, that people can envision in their mind a map of that part of the world. Were the government of Syria to have been overthrown and Russia to lose its naval docking facility at least in Tartus, and if the government of Yanukovich is to be overthrown in one manner or another through violence, street uprising, we saw it that the press has proven to be quite adept at pulling off in countries from Yugoslavia to Ukraine 9 years ago, or through a rigged or extra constitutional election that brings about a change of regime in the country, and the Russian Black Sea fleet were to be ordered out of the Crimea which is I'm sure what the US is ordering its allies and the Ukraine to do, or to consider. Then you would have seen the eviction of Russia, not only from the Mediterranean, but except for a narrow strip of Russian territory out of the Black Sea. And this is pretty heavy duty geopolitics, and I think in that sense too the two are not unrelated.
That was the end of part 3 of an interview with Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the remaining parts of this interview on our website at Voiceofrussia.com. Thanks for listening and I wish you the best.
PART 1, PART 2
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_13/NATO-s-Ukrainian-target-The-Black-Sea-Fleet-4856/
US/NATO preparing to battle Russia for the Arctic – Bruce Gagnon
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11 January, 00:15
Only US/NATO success in Afghanistan: 40 fold opium increase – Rick Rozoff
In a review of NATO and US military activity for the year 2013, Voice of Russia regular Rick Rozoff stated that 2013 saw a slowing of, if not the beginning of a reversal of a 22 year US/NATO/Western drive to assert global dominance economically, politically, culturally and militarily. Among the most important events of the last year, if not the last 20, was the stopping of the invasion of Syria by Russia. According to Mr. Rozoff as US/NATO “slinks away with its tail between its legs” from Afghanistan, the only accomplishment they can claim after 13 years of occupation is that opium cultivation has increased by 40 fold. The military monolith of NATO is having a bad time of late and no matter what they say, the fact of the matter is, they have failed. This is part one of a much longer year end interview with Mr. Rozoff.
Rick Rozoff
Hello, this is John Robles, I am speaking with Mr. Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list.
Robles: Hello, Rick.
Rozoff: Hello, John.
Robles: End of another year, things seem to have gone kind of in the opposite direction as they seemed to have been going at the end of last year and the previous year. We of course would like to do a year end summary and get your views on where things are going. So, take it away.
Rozoff: You are correct. I mean, there has been, if you will, countercyclical or countervailing tendency dynamic over the past year and even though those who are superstitious about numbers might have thought 2013 would be an inauspicious one. I think that history will record even, you know, in the short term, that it has been momentous year in a number of ways.
And in particular what we have seen is (for the first time) a slowing up of, if not the beginning of a reversal of, what has been just an inexorable, unstoppable momentum by the West, the US primarily of course, in the entire post-Cold-War period (and we are now talking about 22 years) to assert global dominance economically, politically, culturally, but militarily in the first place.
More than in any other manner of course through the expansion of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, throughout the European continent but ultimately to transform it into a global military force. This is what we talked about a year ago if your listeners will recollect. And of course last year was the year of the NATO summit in Chicago here in May of 2012 and the US and its NATO allies set some fairly ambitious objectives, amongst which were the formal launching of the so called launching of the interceptor missiles system in Europe, the expansion of NATO….
Robles: I’m sorry, if I could interrupt you, just to remind our listeners: this was the first ever (in history) debate, an open debate with NATO, it was supposed to be with officials and you were one of the spokespeople there, speaking for the other side, right?
Rozoff: That is correct, John, thanks for reminding me as well as your listeners of that. That was in May of 2012, so roughly a year and a half ago. And there was a nationally and through Youtube, of course, internationally televised debate, the first of its kind.
Robles: And you did quite well. Anyway, please, go ahead.
Rozoff: Well, the fact was that we were looking at this a year ago, we saw, you know, signs that the uncontested role of the US as the “world’s sole military superpower” and pardon me again for quoting the president of the US Barack Obama whose term that is. He used it, well it will be now 4 years ago, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize and boasted of being the Commander in Chief of the world’s sole military superpower.
But what we’ve seen is that the military monolith has been having a bad time of it lately. And these past years signified, I think, on three or four different scores at least an indication there is a shift in the winds. And the most important by a long shot, the most strategically important is the fact that through Russian intervention, through many instances also, the heroic activities of a small group of individuals, I know you’ve interviewed the British Member of Parliament George Galloway recently, and in one of the segments of the interview you conducted with him which has been posted on voiceofrussia recently. The two of you discussed his role in NATO and maybe as few as three colleagues in the British House of Commons, in putting a spoke in the wheel of the Cameron Administration’s plans, to enter into war against Syria with the US and other NATO allies.
So, we saw that occur in the British Parliament, but we saw the intervention of Russia in the first instance around the question of dismantling the chemical weapons arsenal of the Syrian government as a way of really calling the US’ bluff (that of Secretary of State John Kerry in the first instance) and diffusing a situation were just few days earlier US president Obama had a press conference where he was openly laying the ground work for a Libyan style military intervention in Syria.
So, we saw that stopped. I know, amongst other people myself, drew the parallel between Syria this year and Spain in the 1930s in that, in both cases, in the case of Spain you had the emerging Axis Powers: Nazi’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy (Fascist Italy), supporting the armed insurrection of the Generalissimo Franco and his Moroccan mercenaries and others against the legally elected Republic the Government of Spain. And that battle in Spain in so many ways portended what was to happen in the entire European continent shortly thereafter, in other words, had the legitimate government of Spain unable to defend itself effectively and fend off an armed insurrection backed by foreign powers, WWII may not have occurred, and 50 million human lives that were lost may not have been lost.
And I think that Syria represented something comparable/analogues to that. But you had in these case Russia, Iran and China stepping in and saying that foreign military powers are not going to intervene and touch off either cataclysm strictly within Syria, but more likely a conflagration that would quickly pull into its vortex almost every country in the Middle East and perhaps even provoke an international crisis. So, we saw that occur.
Robles: I’d like to underline that point you just said about the possible (and people were saying) escalation of a Syrian war into a regional conflict and then into an actual world war. This all begun and caused by NATO, so what does that tell us about their role in the world as far as being an instrument for security and safety?
Rozoff: Your tone seems straightforward but I’m sure it is meant to imply irony and not only irony I think that almost demonical diabolical inversion of the truth, of course. But NATO itself is directly involved in sending batteries of interceptor missiles Patriot Advanced Capability 3 interceptor missiles to Turkey within the last year and a half which is something NATO has done twice in the past, which is to send the same sort (actually they were not quite as advanced a model of the Patriot the current one is even more long ranged and more sophisticated), but in 1991 and again in 2003 that is on the eves immediately of the wars against Iraq in those years 1991-2003 NATO also sent Patriot batteries as well as AWACS aircraft to Turkey for much the same purpose.
So, when US, German and Dutch Patriot batteries were sent to Turkey under NATO command a sensible person would have seen the analogy and reckoned that a war was imminent against Syria and it would include, because Turkey borders Syria and Turkey is a member of NATO, that NATO would have been involved its article 5, mutual military assistance clause, and the full force of a military alliance comprised of 28 countries accounting for some 70% of world military spending ($1 trillion a year collectively in military spending) arraigned against a very weak and isolated Syrian government.
This is what was in the offing just a few months ago we do have to remember. And that but for heroic efforts in the British Parliament as I mentioned but much more; the direct role of the Russian Government in a fairly sophisticated manner intervening diplomatically… This is what diplomacy is about: it is to prevent wars, not to give cover for wars, not to create the pretense for wars but to stop them.
And I believe history will record the Russian diplomatic intervention around Syria, defusing that crisis is both something likely (as Mr. Galloway, Parliamentarian Galloway, said on your show) something that really ought to get somebody in the Russian government for Nobel Peace Prize. As opposed to the person who got it 4 years ago and then immediately went to work waging military aggression around the globe.
So that we had that occur. We had the Edward Snowden affair which is also something that cannot be...
Robles: I’m sorry, as a force for stability, peace and security, you as one of the eminent (I would say) NATO experts in the world, did NATO do anything in the past year that lent to any sort of peace or stability or security for any of the people in the world?
Rozoff: No, of course it didn’t, nor has it ever been designed to do that. So it shouldn’t be surprising.
Another factor though which is not quite as salient or clear-cut, but I think just as important, is the fact that NATO is licking its wounds in Afghanistan, is getting ready to continue the metaphor I suppose, to slink away with its tail between its legs. And this into the 13th year, of not only the longest war in the history of the US, but the first ground war ever waged by NATO, the first military campaign launched and conducted by NATO in Asia, that is outside of Europe. It was followed of course by a war in Africa, the war against Libya two years ago.
Robles: To call that a war, I don’t know if you could call an onslaught of airstrikes and missile shot from hundreds of miles away a war, but basically just shooting fish in barrel, if I could use that expression.
Rozoff: You are correct about that, I should retract the use of the term “war” and just call it unilateral military aggression, overwhelming unilateral military aggression, the difference is (to use a historical analogy I suppose) between the Battle of Okinawa and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
So we do see the debacle, I think at this point it is irrefutable no matter how much Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen or any of his underlings, or his deputy –Alexander Vershbow former US ambassador to Russia (who is Deputy Secretary General of NATO), no matter how much these people try to put the best face on it, try to save face in fact, by claiming they have achieved anything in Afghanistan, as we know from the head of the Anti-Drug Agency in Russia, the only unarguable accomplishment if you want to call it that of NATO’s military assault in Afghanistan, is the fact that opium production has increased by a factor of 40.
Robles: I just want to underline, he is not just the head of the Anti-Drug establishment here in Russia – YuriyFedotov he is also the head of the United Nations Agency on Drugs and Crime that issued the 2013 opium report. And he himself was quite shocked at the level of heroine production. And Global Research published an expose of photographs of US soldiers guarding and protecting opium fields in Afghanistan. I mean, if you could comment on that, I’d really love to hear what you have to say about what NATO and the US were “really” doing in Afghanistan for 13 years.
Rozoff: On the question of the explosion of opium cultivation and the expansion of heroine abuse and the human tragedy thereof about which I hope I can speak in a second, being the only provable accomplishment or achievement of NATO in Afghanistan, that is simple beyond questioning, that is it, Nothing else has been accomplished.
Taliban is still active, other groups, which by the way, like the Haqqani network or Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin which are led by people the US supported. Supported primarily in the Mujahedeen war in the 1980s, these forces are still active both in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan.
There has been no consolidation of a viable representative or even reputable government in Kabul. So this has been an unequivocal debacle first of all for the Afghan people who have suffered immeasurably by 12 more years of dislocation, of night raids, of bombing raids, of other catastrophes, destruction effectively of their infrastructure and their agricultural economy.
And in its place we get again as we talked about a second ago, a 40 fold increase in the opium cultivation. This means, and we have to look at this in human terms, this means hundreds of thousands if not millions of Afghans themselves have become addicted to heroin.
This means that millions in Russia, in Iran, in Central Asia and elsewhere in the general region have become dependent on heroine.
This means tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of deaths through overdose, through HIV, through criminal activity, as a result of this epidemic of heroine.
And this is done under the watch of, at peak strength, 150,000 troops serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.
Certainly the least that the world community could have asked for a military occupation force, which legally incidentally the US and NATO are in Afghanistan, is they would have provided some modicum of a civilian infrastructure, of extermination of the opium cultivation in the country and such like, but clearly evidences the fact that the West had no intention whatsoever in doing anything of the sort.
I don’t have the exact figures at my fingertips, John, but something in the neighborhood of 80% to 90% of total funds that have gone into Afghanistan since the US/British invasion of October 2001 have gone for military and security purposes, that money has not gone into civilian infrastructure, has not gone into building a viable economy and so forth, notwithstanding comments by certain western foreign ministers that they’ve gone in there for alleged humanitarian reasons.
That was the end of part 1 of an interview with Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at Voiceofrussia.com. Thank you very much for listening and as always I wish you the best wherever you may be.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_11/Only-US-NATO-success-in-Afghanistan-40-fold-opium-increase-Rick-Rozoff-8241/
10 January, 22:49
Fracking: Champagne for the elites, death for the people
There are so many serious issues concerning the spread of induced hydraulic fracturing or hydrofracturing (fracking) and so many reasons why it should be stopped completely or strictly regulated as more and more becomes known regarding the long-term impact on the planet and so much false propaganda being spread about the practice that it is difficult to choose where to begin attempting to formulate an intelligent presentation of the issue. However the long term dangers are so great to the international community and out very planet that the issue must be looked at at the highest levels and a moratorium if not an all out ban on the process must be implemented.
Corporate Destruction of the Planet
Let us start by being frank the bottom line in the fracking debate was best summed by a corporate executive whose company is making billions from fracking, he said there is gas there and we need it. In other words nothing else matters as long as there is a profit to be made.
The huge US multi-national corporations involved in oil, energy and resource extraction have a long and black record when it comes to protecting the people of the world and the planet. From the Gulf Oil Spill to the Bhopal disaster, the release of a mind-boggling plethora of toxic and deadly chemicals into the global environment (a list too long to detail here), the destruction of seas and forests and the egregious practice of moving dirty industries to unregulated countries (among top issues) all have proven that the corporations are interested in one thing and one thing only: maintaining their bottom line.
Halliburton, Cheney and convenient exemptions
It is not a secret that these corporations will do anything to make profits and when we look at the records of the players and who they are the truth becomes even clearer. A case in point is Halliburton, the company run by ex-US Vice President Dick Cheney, the snarling neo-conservative architect of the Bush wars and a man who (it was revealed by the release of the infamous torture memos) personally developed and signed off on torture techniques such as “puncturing an eye” and “slicing a testicle”.
Fracking profiteers Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Shlumberger were revealed to be the subjects of a U.S. Justice Department federal antitrust probe initiated against the $36 billion a year fracturing industry this past summer. It was reported that documents were being sought however the current state of the action is unclear.
Halliburton, with the coming to power of its “former” chairman Richard “Dick” Cheney was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the War on Terror, the invasion of Iraq and the entire indefinite-detention-torture-paradigm. The company is one of the top war profiteers on the planet and also heavily involved in oil field support operations and resource exploitation, including fracking.
So it is no coincidence that during the Bush/Cheney occupation of the White House fracking was exempted from major EPA regulation. The US Government’s Energy Policy Act of 2005 was written with a provision that benefits fracking profiteers and is now known as the "Halliburton Loophole". The provision allows Halliburton and others to be exempt from many of the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
Responsible Government?
It is no secret that the US Government has been (quite literally) taken over by corporations and special interests willing to spend billions on lobbying and “greasing the wheels” and corporations involved in fracking spent a mind-boggling $726 million dollars on lobbying from 2001-2011.
With the inherent dangers of fracking one has to question whose interests the government is supposed to be protecting and it is clear in this case that the interests of the people and the environment fall far behind to the interests of the entrenched US corporations.
What Exactly is Fracking?
Fracking is controversial but what exactly is it? Hydraulic fracturing is the process of extracting gases by fracturing rock using a pressurized liquid mixture which cracks or “fractures” the rock. Some hydraulic fractures form naturally, for example certain veins or dikes.
With induced hydraulic fracturing a bore is drilled vertically to the desired depth, then turns ninety degrees to the horizontally and continues for several thousand feet (going thousands of feet deeper than traditional natural gas wells) into the shale containing the trapped natural gas.
When the bore or “well” is complete a mixture; usually water, sand and various chemicals, is injected at high pressure into the bore to create small fissures which are typically less than 1mm in size through which the gas can escape.
Fracking requires between two and eight million (Yes, million!) gallons of local freshwater per well which is over a 100 times more than what is required using traditional extraction methods. This water is permanently contaminated when it is mixed into the "fracking fluid". This mix is a virtual cocktail of toxic chemicals and while corporations such as Halliburton refuse to disclose the exact chemicals used, saying the information is “proprietary”, studies have shown the fluid contains: acetic acids, boric acids, citric acids, ethylene glycol, formaldehyde, hydrochloric acid, lead, mercury, methanol, radium, uranium and other deadly chemical contaminants, many of which would kill a human being in the minutest amount.
After the rock is fractured hydraulic pressure is removed from the well, then small grains of proppant (sand or aluminium oxide) hold the fractures open. The technique is very common in wells for shale gas, tight gas, tight oil, and coal seam gas and hard rock wells. The natural gas then escapes through the fissures and is drawn back up the well to the surface, where it is processed, refined, and shipped to market.
It is claimed that the wastewater returns to the surface after the fracking process is completed. Reportedly it is contained in steel tanks until it can be stored long-term by deep injection in oil and gas waste wells.
Benefits of Fracking
Proponents of hydraulic fracturing say there is about a 100 year supply of formerly inaccessible hydrocarbons in the US which can be extracted by fracking. However this amount has not been proven.
Dangers of Fracking
Opponents to fracking cite the environmental effects, including the permanent contamination of vast amounts of ground water, the depletion of fresh water reserves, air and noise pollution, the return and leakage of gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals to the surface which then enter the atmosphere are carried by winds and poison water supplies, land and everything they come in contact with and can be passed to humans through livestock and the like. Again for one single fracking operation between two and eight million gallons of freshwater are required. Water which then has to be completely contained and isolated from humans. Although self-interested corporations might claim the deadly mixture is contained, there is no way to guarantee that seepage into the earth will not occur.
Disingenuous Arguments
US proponents of fracking love to jump on the “energy independence” and “economic benefits” band-wagon but all of these arguments are ludicrous when one considers the wasteland that is created by the process, the dangers to health and the massive amount of freshwater that is contaminated forever. All arguments about “energy independence” and are also completely ridiculous and absolutely annulled when you consider these corporations will never even consider promoting energy independence through renewable and alternative energy resources. They have one goal: making money the only obtuse way they know how.
The 100 year “golden age of gas” is a fallacy, this meaning one where the US is energy independent and produces enough gas to export. Any attempt at such will surely lead to 100 years of completely raping and destroying the environment for future generations.
Alternative Fuels
The idiocy of American corporations and those claiming fossil fuels are the only source of energy available cannot be overstated or exaggerated, especially given the fact that we know that workable electric cars and alternative sources of safe renewable energy have existed for decades. But of course economies and corporations making billions and based on fossil fuel trade do not want these facts to be known. Alternative fuels include everything from solar energy to vegetable oil.
Protests
Protests against fracking are growing larger and more frequent as the public becomes aware of the dangers. However those in power who are obviously catering to the interests of large corporations, such as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, choose to ignore the concerns of the public and their constituents.
Recently over a thousand protestors took part in an anti-fracking demonstration in Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York the capital of New York state, during the State of the State address. Governor Andrew Cuomo however chose not to mention fracking during his speech nor to address the concerns of the thousands gathered outside.
According to RT one of the protestors said his reason for being against fracking was the “Air contamination, high levels of radiation, earthquakes,” and that it is an incredibly dirty form of extreme energy extraction that cannot have any place in New York state. Another protestor citing the fact that “Water is non-renewable.”
Brainwashing the Children
How would Walt Disney feel if he knew that his life’s work and everything he worked for to bring hope and joy and wonderment to children was turned into a propaganda tool for corporations like Halliburton. Well that is exactly what happened.
Al-Jazeera America reported on January 8th that: “An educational program funded by Ohio’s oil and gas industry and sponsored by Radio Disney has environmental activists — and some parents — up in arms over what they say is a hijacking of public education by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) interests, in a state sitting on billions of dollars’ worth of gas-rich shale.”
They also updated their article on the 9th to include:”Disney emailed a statement to Al Jazeera, saying the company has pulled out of the remaining installments of the Rocking Ohio tour. ‘The sole intent of the collaboration between Radio Disney and the nonprofit Rocking in Ohio educational initiative was to foster kids' interest in science and technology. Having been inadvertently drawn into a debate that has no connection with this goal, Radio Disney has decided to withdraw from the few remaining installments of the program,’ the statement read.”
All is well that ends well perhaps but the fact that energy companies are now targeting children to spread their pro-fracking and dangerous agendas is extremely disturbing to say the least and the fact that the US Government would allow such corporate propaganda is also disturbing. Clearly the attempt to brain-wash the next generation so as to reduce to a minimum protests to corporate long-term strategy.
This brain-washing of children in America is not isolated to energy corporations. We have seen how children, almost any of whom would normally say “yuck” if you told them about to men having “relations” are anesthetized to believe that things like “single-sex-marriages” are normal. Something Russia has protected children from and for which the West has no end of qualms about.
Truly these matters are a damning and very sad statement on a society that has decimated its educational system in order to appease corporations and begun to privatize education, even at the elementary school level, to allow for profits to be made.
Publicity stunts
The fracking companies themselves shave been engaged in publicity stunts themselves and such events would be better ignored except for their ridiculousness. For example at the annual Quebec Oil and Gas Association meeting in Montreal at the end of October of last year. Top Halliburton executives including Halliburton Canada vice-president John Gorman and others claimed that they were drinking “frack fluid” from champagne bottles. Although no independent analysis was carried out as to what in fact they were drinking.
The Halliburton exec claimed they only had to replace a few chemicals with some food additives, however it is seriously doubtful that they were really drinking water laced with mercury, uranium, radium, lead, ethylene glycol, formaldehyde, hydrochloric acid or any of the other chemicals that could instantly kill a horse.
Halliburton loves such stunts according to the Financial Post. “In 2011 Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar asked one of his executives to take a sip of the fluid during a presentation in front of industry executives. Critics wondered why the CEO did not drink it himself.”
Non-disclosure Bribes and Corporate Secrecy
The way that Halliburton and these corporations subvert and manipulate the law in order to get away with murder is something that is almost unbelievable in modern times. But these corporations have been successful in silencing everyone from medical personnel to activists by bribing, terrorizing and tricking into signing “non-disclosure” agreements.
According to Bloomberg: “… in Pennsylvania Range Resources Corp and two other companies agreed to a $750,000 settlement in a fracking suit requiring the plaintiff’s not to tell anyone, according to court filings. In cases from Wyoming to Arkansas, Pennsylvania to Texas, (Bloomberg continues) drillers have agreed to cash settlements or property buyouts with people who say hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, ruined their water, according to a review by Bloomberg News of hundreds of regulatory and legal filings. In most cases homeowners must agree to keep quiet.The strategy keeps data from regulators, policymakers, the news media and health researchers, and makes it difficult to challenge the industry’s claim that fracking has never tainted anyone’s water.”
According to Truth Out one Pennsylvania family began suffering from headaches, nosebleeds, burning eyes and sore throats as drilling operations expanded on their land and in their neighborhood. The family ended up filing a lawsuit in 2010 and abandoning their home and eventually won their case in a hearing which was closed to the press and during which the gas companies persuaded a judge to permanently seal the case from public view.
What can be done?
As long as the government is being controlled by corporations and lobbyists continue to offer mountains of lucre to politicians and regulators to “look the other way” not much. However I would like to finish with one of my favorite quotes stated in 1964 by an activist named Mario Savio in Berkeley: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious — makes you so sick at heart — that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
Coming soon the 100 year total destruction of the environment. Brought to you from the people who brought you the Iraq war and $4.00 a gallon gas prices.
The opinions and views expressed here are my own, I can be reached at robles@ruvr.ru.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_01_10/Fracking-Champagne-for-the-elites-death-for-the-people-3362/
9 January, 21:54
Technologically the NSA is always ahead of the game – Wayne Madsen
8 January, 18:21
Fallujah falls to Al Qaeda, veterans question illegal Iraq war
With the fall of Fallujah to Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, many veterans of the Iraq war and the massive fighting that took place in Fallujah during the US occupation are beginning to realize that their sacrifice and the ultimate sacrifice paid by many of their comrades was completely and totally for nothing, and for many veterans that is a truly hard pill to swallow.
The fall of Fallujah and the fact that Al-Qaeda linked terrorists and murderous Sunni radicals now control the Anbar province where Fallujah is located and where approximately 1,500 US troops lost their lives during the Iraq war further underlines the complete and total failure of an illegal aggressive war based on complete and total lies and might also cause those who served their country and killed what are reported to be as many as one million Iraqis to finally wake up and realize that they were simply callously used. The fact that CIA-created-Al-Qaeda was never allowed to operate and had no presence in Iraq under Saddam Hussein only further brings to question what the US was really doing in Iraq and why the US-installed-puppet-government has done almost nothing to stop Al-Qaeda from taking over massive parts of the country. It is also of interest to note that US forces are being prevented from fighting Al-Qaeda elements.
Illegal Oil Petro-Dollar War
The hard and cold fact that US veterans and Americans must come to terms with is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about but one whose emanations are now visible every time every American goes to the gas pump and forks over a fortune they could rather spend on food or clothing or on their children’s education to put a little fuel in their cars as they prepare to sit in endless traffic jams burning up millions of gallons of fuel attempting to get to their poorly paid insecure jobs to continue to vicious cycle.
It was determined by those holding the real power in the US, the criminal, oil and banking elites that Saddam Hussein had to go because less than 24 hours before the invasion Hussein had made the sovereign decision to change the oil trade to the Euro, something that was also done by Muammar Gaddafi right before his country was wiped out.
As with the illegal US/NATO war on Libya, which for all intents and purposes was simply the providing of air-support for Al-Qaeda and all of their sub-groupings, the US was also in bed with Al-Qaeda and Sunni/Wahabist/Falafist radical elements in Iraq for the purpose of toppling the government in order to maintain the flow of oil but more importantly to continue the oil trade in the dollar. As with Libya, a country that the tribal groups say is now almost completely “owned” by Al-Qaeda groups, it is very convenient and profitable to extract oil and resources from warlords and fiefdoms than it is from legitimate governments who might seek to protect their own interests.
The war in Iraq was a war for oil and greed and to prevent the collapse of the US petro-dollar. Without the oil trade the US dollar is a completely worthless paper based currency with nothing to back it. This should be alarming to veterans and all Americans alike but what should be more alarming is that the oil companies and the banksters that Iraq veterans went and killed and died for are also raping Americans at the pump every time they go to put some fuel in their vehicles.
US soldiers take an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States of America so it should be particularly disturbing for all members of the US armed forces that they risked their lives and engaged in an illegal aggressive war to protect not the Constitution and not even the American people (who were never threatened by Iraq) but to protect the profit margins of big oil and big money and those who have quite literally cancelled the US Constitution and relegated it to a paper shredder.
US Iraq War Lies
The illegal aggressive war (a crime against humanity) on Iraq was one based on lie after lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no tie to 9-11, Hussein was not supporting or in collusion with Al-Qaeda (unlike the US) and Iraq never once threatened the United States. Even the reason for executing the leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein as it turned out was also a lie, there was no hard evidence presented to the world community that he gassed Kurds, but will the US ever pay a price for executing the leader of a sovereign nation? For that is what happened, the US installed a government and under their control the president was executed in a show trial that had taken place in a their own kangaroo court.
In 2004 a committee in the US House of Representatives identified “237 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq that were made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice. These statements were made in 125 separate appearances, consisting of 40 speeches, 26 press conferences and briefings, 53 interviews, 4 written statements, and 2 congressional testimonies.” According to the committee, at least 61 separate statements “misrepresented Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda.” These finding were backed up by another committee in 2006.
It was based on these lies that American forces were ordered to fight and die in an illegal act of aggressive war and the people who promoted the lies will never be prosecuted or forced to account for the bloodshed and loss of over 4,500 American lives in Iraq, not to mention the approximately 1 million Iraqis.
The Rise of Sectarian Violence
To fully understand the situation in Iraq and throughout the Middle East one must first understand the true nature of the “sectarian violence”, something which did not exist in Iraq under Hussein. A fact that might also be said of Afghanistan and US collusion with the Taliban, of Bahrain, of Yemen, of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, of Syria until tens of thousands of homicidal mostly Sunni Islamist mercenaries and terrorists were imported into the country and other countries in the region. One must also understand the true nature of Al-Qaeda (the CIA terrorist data-base) and the alliances that exist between Israel, Saudi, the US and finally Al-Qaeda.
In Iraq the US supported and armed the Sunni Sahwa (Awakening) movement to overthrow Hussein and in Syria the US and its “allies” supported the same Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that has now brought their amassed weapons and homicidal madness in force to Iraq to take over Anbar province and Fallujah.
The forces that the US has used to advance their geopolitical agenda in the region (largely Sunni), to overthrow legitimate governments and take over resource rich and strategic areas have their own agenda. One which is the fanatical blood thirsty elimination and genocide of all brands of Islam which they deem to be unworthy and the other is their own rise to power. These fanatical Islamic barbarians have no interest in advancing US positions and have no qualms about killing Americans, but they do need Saudi and US backing to supply them with weapons, funding, training and in the case of Libya and almost in Syria, air and military support.
Hidden Agenda in Iraq and the Rise of Al-Qaeda
With regard to Iraq, the US-installed-puppet-government has shown that they have their own mostly hidden radical Sunni agenda, something unheard of during Hussein’s rule when Sunnis and Shias intermarried and shared an absolutely normal and peaceful coexistence. Their calls for the civilian population to expel Al-Qaeda from Fallujah also underlines their complete ineptness or their collusion with Al-Qaeda.
Here it is important to note that Al-Qaeda (the umbrella Sunni proponent), which according to Saudi Prince Bandar himself is under the control of Saudi, as are Chechen terrorists and almost all of the groups operating in Syria, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Al-Nusra Front, has been allowed to take root in Iraq and in Fallujah, which became the Al-Qaeda base (the base of the base if you will), after the US surge. Again under Hussein there was no Al-Qaeda presence whatsoever in Iraq.
As with Afghanistan the US has failed. Their complete lack of vision, advanced planning and an obtuse overall policy of the ends-justifying-the-means, has led to what we see today. Homicidal US founded Al-Qaeda extremist Sharia toting elements taking over Libya, soon Afghanistan, Iraq and scores of other countries and areas in the Middle East.
With CIA agent Tom Ossman (Osama Bin Laden) gone, the Frankenstein monster of Al-Qaeda, that the US created in Afghanistan to fight the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (that had been asked to intervene and save the Socialist Government and maintain peace), Al-Qaeda may no longer be even remotely under US control, they are becoming a power unto themselves and if the world ever wants to see peace in the Middle East. Real peace, not some US compliant subservient “peace”, these radical Al-Qaeda elements must be stopped and the US must not be allowed to meddle any longer in a region they have broken but refuse to admit: they have bought.
Media Note
The Pentagon has been silent about the fall of Fallujah and the subservient US media is now more than ever clearly in complicity. One has to do nothing more than look at the headlines on news outlets such as Fox News, where they are now calling “the evil Al-Qaeda terrorists who staged 9-11” simply “militants”, “rebels”.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_08/Fallujah-falls-to-Al-Qaeda-veterans-question-illegal-Iraq-war-8336/
The US Government would support the devil himself – Dr. Michael Parenti
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This is John Robles. I'm speaking with Dr. Michael Parenti, he is a Yale graduate, a noted scholar and the author of several books including The Face of Imperialism. This is part 2 of an interview in progress. You can find the previous part of this interview on our website Voiceofrussia.com.
PART 1
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_07/The-US-Government-would-support-the-devil-himself-Dr-Michael-Parenti-8278/
6 January, 22:33
UK nuclear weapons components and arms sales under question
Recent news that the United Kingdom may in fact be arming or assisting in weapons deliveries to Somali pirates should be of great concern not only to the companies and individuals who have paid millions upon millions of dollars to the pirates to secure the release of ships, cargoes and crews, but also to all of the governments, including that of the Russian Federation, that have also spent millions and risked lives while engaged in anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden and other pirate-infested waters off the coast of Africa and Somalia.
The UK's Independent, a publication which has regularly published articles and information shedding a less than positive light on the dealings of the UK Government, recently reported that in a 15 month period, between April 2012 and June 2013, over 44,000 guns of various types were sent to "tackle piracy in East Africa".
Although officially the weapons were supposed to be used by security firms the sheer number of fresh weapons exported by the UK during the period in question raised the alarm among members of the House of Commons Arms Export Controls Committee especially in light of the fact that the firms in question already have thousands of weapons in their armories. Surely it is suspicious and call for concern why these firms which have been operating at full force would all of a sudden need to escalate the level of their already adequate arsenals with the addition of 30,000 assault rifles, 11,000 rifles and 2,536 pistols.
Members of the committee are right to voice concern especially given the light that the scourge of piracy has all but been eliminated and that the weapons could be destined to the pirates themselves or to other regimes in Africa and perhaps even the Middle East where ongoing violence is taking place.
According to the Independent Ann McKechin, a committee member said: "The evidence provided to us by Mr. Bell seems to suggest that the department did not have a process of looking at the cumulative number of weapons and whether those exports fitted the scenario on the ground needed for protection."
Unfortunately for those profiting from weapons deals the latest enquiry is only part of a wider inquiry into arms exports from the UK which the Independent continues has already attempted to force the UK's recalcitrant Business Secretary Vince Cable into publicly revealing the names of British companies who were given licenses to export items to Syria that could be used to make chemical weapons, something he continues to refuse to do.
Given the record of US/UK/NATO in the Middle East and Africa and the propensity for continuing and escalating conflicts in order to further expand militarily and maintain the profit margins of their military industrial complexes and self-serving desire to stay relevant while justifying their over-bloated military budgets, it is very reasonable to question whether so many weapons are needed, not in fact to maintain "security", but to continue to have a well armed "enemy" thus justifying their own expansion and existence, something particularly true of NATO which has arrogated unto itself authority to operate almost worldwide.
NATO may be meddling in the region, as the African coast is nowhere near the North Atlantic, but anti-piracy concerns and missions have in fact been supported by a wide range of countries that may in other areas be at odds against each other.
The Russian Federation's mission which began in 2008 has been one of the most successful in the Gulf of Aden and off the Horn of Africa with deployments by such sleek and deadly craft as the Udaloy I class anti-submarine destroyer Severomorsk and other flagships of the Russian Navy successfully freeing hostages, capturing and liquidating pirates and escorting over 800 commercial vessels and convoys through the dangerous waters off the Somali coast without a single loss of life.
Thanks to Russia's patrols and increased security 2013 saw piracy in the region almost completely eliminated. Currently over 60% of all vessels have armed guards onboard and travel through the pirate infested waters at higher cruising speeds making them much harder to catch and board, as does razor wire, high-pressure hoses and secure areas on ships from which crews can wait out an attack and call for assistance.
In 2012 the economic loss to piracy off of Somalia was calculated at being about $18 billion annually but that figure has dropped to a negligible amount as have the number of attacks, boardings and hostages taking situations. All of which begs the question: why the 44,000 guns?
When we look at the UK's record regarding arms sales and in particular those to regimes and states with questionable records in the sphere of human rights, then the 44,000 guns does not seem that bad. In July of 2013 the Independent also published a damning article titled "Blood Money: UK's £12.3bn arms sales to repressive states" in which details were given regarding questionable arms and technology deals.
The US and the UK have a long and bloody track record of profiting from war and from weapons sales, with UK lawmakers sounding the alarm multiple times in recent years regarding the supply of weapons, include components for nuclear bombs that have been delivered to questionable regimes and countries with poor human rights records.
Multiple sources support the Independent which claims the UK had over 3,000 export licenses for military and intelligence equipment worth a total of £12.3bn for 2013. The UK's Mirror reported in October that: "Nuclear weapon chemicals, CS gas, bomb parts, grenades and guns are included in 5,000 controlled product licenses granted since 2010. Other orders of note include one from Egypt for 1,900 assault rifles and combat shotguns, Deuterium compounds which are used in nuclear weapons for Saudi Arabia.
So while the US/UK are dictating to the world about democracy and human rights and "rogue nations" the hypocrisy or the UK is stunning when one takes into account that of the 27 countries on the UK Foreign Office's (FCO) own list of countries where they deem there are human rights concerns, only 2 of them are not beneficiaries of UK weapons export licenses.
Countries that have been demonized and against which the drums of war have been often beaten but who the UK is arming include: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Columbia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and other countries where there is open armed conflict.
Of course it is naïve to believe that weapons are actually only sold to countries that deserve them or are worthy. With the record of US/UK creation and support of groups like Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood this should be clear. However it is particularly dirty when these same forces are used to begin and foment conditions or pretexts for invasions which do nothing but slaughter innocent civilian populations. OF course for the weapons manufacturers and the war profiteers this means nothing, the only concern is maintaining their profit growth and their own bottom lines.
Sky News reports that the UK actually sold materials to Syria that could have been used to make chemical weapons, with the Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) citing that as one example of questionable deals being carried out by UK contractors and countries on the (FCO) list.
The world community should rightfully be concerned about 44,000 guns which may have "fallen" into the hands of Somali pirates, but it should be more concerned about nuclear bomb components that may have been delivered to Saudi Arabia and ingredients for chemical weapons that may have fallen into the hands of the Syrian "rebels" who the West is so found of arming and supporting and who have been guilty of some of the most horrendous acts of blood thirsty violence in recent world history.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_06/UK-nuclear-weapons-components-and-arms-sales-under-question-0367/
6 January, 01:16
US statesmen were involved in 9-11 – Len Bracken
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org
There are different categories of state sponsored terrorist attacks, but almost all of them are carried out with one goal in mind, namely as a pretext by a state for the beginning of a war. The events of 9-11 are no different and if one looks at all of the evidence that exists related to the events of 9-11, it is clear that statesmen were involved. Author, researcher and expert on state-sponsored terrorism, Len Bracken, who lost a relative who was also seeking the truth as to the events of 9-11, spoke to the Voice of Russia about the events of 9-11 and the different types of state sponsored terrorism.
http://www.jar2.com/Interviews/Len_Bracken.htmlPart 1 , Part 2 , Part 3
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_01_06/United-States-were-involved-in-9-11-events-Len-Bracken-3818/
29 December 2013, 18:02
The US is a knuckle-dragging, low grade moronic culture – George Galloway
More than 40 countries have a SIGINT relationship with the NSA – Wayne Madsen
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This is Part 1 of a longer interview.
MOVED HERE http://www.jar2.com/Interviews/Wayne_Madsen.html
US/NATO missile defense key to first strike – Bruce Gagnon
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Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_27/US-NATO-missile-defense-key-to-first-strike-Bruce-Gagnon-3713/
26 December 2013, 23:37
US/NATO protecting opium in Afghanistan
Almost the entirety of the facts regarding the US invasion and “involvement” in Afghanistan raise serious questions as to the real intentions that the US had in invading the country in the first place and what they have done there since. The questions are many, some that are impossible to answer, some that have been answered and brushed under the carpet and still others that are not be answered or even asked, with anyone attempting to do so facing a violent reaction or concerted backlash. Among these questions is why has opium production increased after 12 years of US/NATO occupation?
The fact that the US does not want the world to know what they have really been doing in Afghanistan, the embedded reporters who only report what they are supposed to report and their attempts to silence anyone who has exposed crimes (Bradley Manning for example), along with the level of duplicity that exists within the Karzai “puppet” government, the Taliban and their intertwined relationship with the US has made it extremely difficult if not impossible to ascertain the real situation in the country. However if one is to look at the results of their invasion and occupation and what has transpired there in the now over 12 years of occupation things become clearer.
Like any crime, the crimes that have occurred in Afghanistan and against the Afghan people by the US/NATO coalition in collusion with the Taliban, other non-state actors and foreign powers, have been carried out to benefit particular actors or a particular geopolitical or other plan. From the concerted destruction of almost all Soviet built infrastructure to the decimation of all institutions that supported civil society the end result of over 12 years of US/NATO occupation has been the complete destruction and splintering of the country and the predicted return of the Taliban to power. This benefits US/NATO strategy of destroying countries to keep them weak and prevent the formation of anti US blocs, such as one that may have formed between Russia, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan and it has also followed US strategy with regard to exploitation and resource extraction, that it is better and more profitabler to deal with warlords and illegal fiefdoms when obtaining resources than with legitimate state actors who demand contracts, quotas, controls and taxes.
Following the line of thought that with any crime someone benefits, we then have to ask what has benefitted the most from the US occupation. The answer to that is the opium production and trade and the Taliban. This is not a theory or an accusation but the facts as laid out by the United Nations. So while the US has been taking money from US taxpayers to “fight” the illicit narcotics business in Afghanistan, to the tune of $70 billion, Afghan opium cultivation is up 36% and production is up 49%.
According to a report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): “Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose 36 per cent in 2013, a record high, according to the 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey released today in Kabul by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and UNODC. Meanwhile, opium production amounted to 5,500 tons, up by almost a half since 2012.”
Mr. Yury Fedotov, the Executive Director of UNODC, called the news "sobering" and stressed that this situation poses a threat to health, stability and development in Afghanistan and beyond: "What is needed is an integrated, comprehensive response to the drug problem. Counter-narcotics efforts must be an integral part of the security, development and institution-building agenda".
The problem with this and the elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring is the fact the United States and their CIA are colluding with the producers of heroin and in fact protecting the opium fields in Afghanistan while running duplicitous policies with the Taliban and the Karzai government.
The reality is that US/NATO and their “coalition of the willing” are involved in actively protecting the opium fields in Afghanistan according to a recent exposé consisting of almost exclusively photographs by the Global Research group(LINK2). Global Research apparently made the editorial decision that a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case the pictures, are a visual and unarguable condemnation of the US “mission” in Afghanistan.
Global research quotes Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the outgoing leader of the Afghanistan office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which produced the above report as saying: “This has never been witnessed before in the history of Afghanistan,”.
Global Research wrote: “The U.S. military has allowed poppy cultivation to continue in order to appease farmers and government officials involved with the drug trade who might otherwise turn against the Afghan Karzai government in Kabul. Fueling both sides, in fact, the opium and heroin industry is both a product of the war and an essential source for continued conflict.”
They also say: “It is well-documented that the U.S. government has – at least at some times in some parts of the world – protected drug operations. (Big American banks also launder money for drug cartels. Indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. And the U.S. drug money laundering is continuing to this day.)
Scores of other reports say the CIA, which has funded operations from drug money received in Columbia and in other locations, has a long history of such collusion and Afghanistan, which now produces approximately 75% of the world’s opium, is a literal gold mine for illicit narcotics revenues and shifts the balance of the illegal heroin trade from the Golden Triangle and other organizations.
In a book by Alfred W. McCoy, called the The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade : Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, Colombia, he writes: “American diplomats and secret agents have been involved in the narcotics traffic at three levels: (1) coincidental complicity by allying with groups actively engaged in the drug traffic; (2) abetting the traffic by covering up for known heroin traffickers and condoning their involvement; (3) and active engagement in the transport of opium and heroin. It is ironic, to say the least, that America's heroin plague is of its own making.”
UNODC chief Yury Fedotov believes the UN report is a warning: "As we approach 2014 and the withdrawal of international forces from the country, the results of the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2013 should be taken for what they are - a warning, and an urgent call to action. If the drug problem is not taken more seriously by aid, development and security actors, the virus of opium will further reduce the resistance of its host, already suffering from dangerously low immune levels due to fragmentation, conflict, patronage, corruption and impunity".
After 12 years and perhaps a million dead the only mission that has been accomplished in Afghanistan is the increase of heroin production, could it be that this was the goal all along? Food for thought and serious investigation.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_26/US-NATO-protecting-opium-in-Afghanistan-6358/
26 December 2013, 03:21
President Putin man of the year/Obama an empty raincoat – George Galloway
With regard to Syria, President Vladimir Putin, in the words of George Galloway, "played a blinder" and prevented a cataclysm for the entire world an accomplishment more than worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was also instrumental in preventing the evisceration of the Syrian people and Syria and also had a "great year". Outspoken defender of rule of law, sovereignty and the rights of the people, British MP George Galloway, spoke with the Voice of Russia about these issues and more. Calling US President Obama an "empty raincoat", he blasted Obama’s hypocrisy and callousness with regard to his attitude to the mothers of children who are "eviscerated by Hellfire Missiles" under Obama’s illegal and extra-judicially murder by drone of people around the world.
http://www.jar2.com/Interviews/George_Galloway.html
9-11 WTC fires and collapses were a lie, steel melts at 1500°C – David Conner
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Moved HERE http://www.jar2.com/Interviews/David_Conner.html
Islam an inclusive religion – Dr. Kevin Barrett
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Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_24/Islam-an-inclusive-religion-Dr-Kevin-Barrett-7072/
23 December 2013, 13:20
UK’s GCHQ doing the NSA's heavy lifting – George Galloway
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US Empire successful in stopping the betterment of the world's people – Dr. Michael Parenti
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This is Part 1 of a longer interview.
You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com.
PART 2
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_21/US-Empire-successful-in-stopping-the-betterment-of-the-worlds-people-Dr-Michael-Parenti-5030/
21 December 2013, 00:12
Part 1: The US has classified people's memories of torture - Michael Ratner
The illegal interrogation facility and indefinite detention prison camp at Guantanamo Bay continues to function as it has since the events of 9-11 and plans to build new facilities are still in place. Due to the illegality of the entire "operation" lawyers for the detainees have considered not taking part in the proceedings as doing so grants the prison credibility but they have decided that they cannot abandon the innocent people being held for more than a decade without charge and without due process. Michael Ratner, the lawyer for Julian Assange, whose Center for Constitutional Rights, and who personally represents many of the "inmates" at Guantanamo, spoke to the Voice of Russia and said that Guantanamo is "completely flatly illegal, it’s a rump court, it is a kangaroo court, and it is a charade", similar to what the Nazis did. He also called the illegal limbo of Guantanamo an outrage and said with regard to due process and human rights that the US, judicially speaking, is done.
23 December 2013, 07:37
Part 2: Russia's granting of asylum to Snowden was a noble act – Michael Ratner
The United States continues to try to fool the world into believing that the Edward Snowden persecution is related to terrorism, when it is in fact related to US hegemony and power. This was the crux of a letter from Edward Snowden to the Brazilian people in which he asked for asylum in that country. The fact that the Russian Federation has given Edward Snowden asylum was an extraordinary noble act and one that has protected Mr. Snowden, according to Michael Ratner in an interview with the Voice of Russia. In part 2 Mr. Ratner also comments on a recent attempt by the US Government to further demonize Julian Assange which was published in the Washington Post.
2 January, 10:01
Part 3: The US/UK should prosecute criminals not truth-tellers – Michael Ratner
The prosecution of the Guardian and other news outlets for publishing the truth about US Government illegality has a chilling effect on the press and journalists. The US has declared a war on journalists and truth seekers and in light of the extreme way that the UK has followed the US’ lead, the American lawyer for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Michael Ratner, is recommending that people involved in exposing UD Government illegality not go to the UK because at minimum they risk being detained for up to nine hours (if they cooperate), questioned without a right to a lawyer and possibly facing terrorism charges. In an interview with the Voice of Russia, Mr. Ratner said it was interesting that they haven’t touched the lawyers yet and stated that there is a real struggle going on between governments and private corporations who want to both surveil people and keep information secret and the people who want to expose their illegality and believe in democracy needs truth. According to Mr. Ratner the US Government is losing and “the forces of light certainly seem to be pushing back heavily against government’s forces of darkness”.
19 December 2013, 22:51
Amid US spying we are living with information totalitarianism – Rick Rozoff
© Flickr.com/Nils Geylen/cc-by-sa 3.0
With the restructuring of the Russian media there are many people worldwide who are hopeful that the changes will produce a balance and a counterweight to the 5 worldwide newswires that are controlled by the West and possess a true and barely transparent bias. The way in which private news agencies make news and information only accessible to governments and bodies and effectively lock out the common people is more like the selling and buying of intelligence. This control of information by the NSA, CIA and other private companies run by the intelligence services are all part of a new paradigm that Voice of Russia regular Rick Rozoff call “Information Totalitarianism”. Information should be free, and as WikiLeaks says: “Information wants to be free.”
Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list.
Rozoff: We have to be honest about this, it’s the new totalitarianism and it is information totalitarianism. And amongst other things the Internet not only permits me to communicate with you but it permits any powerful entity, governments in the first instance, to monitor the activity of its citizens and citizens in the world.
What else have we learned by the exposé about international security agency, but just that? That the US is monitoring down to the most minute particular, every telephone call, every key stroke, every visit of everyone on the planet.
You would need a million George Orwells today to anticipate something this far reaching this comprehensive and this frightening. And the fact is the person in charge of the National Security Agency 4-star general Keith Alexander, is the same person who was put in charge of US Cyber Command, which is a cyber “warfare” command, pure and simple.
It should certainly alert people to the fact that what you are dealing with right now is the new mode of conducting warfare. What the Pentagon is referred to in terms of cyber warfare - the 5th battle space after land, air, sea and space.
Robles: And it is not against armies or governments or state actors, the target appears to be you, and me, and Joe Blow, and Marry Smith.
Rozoff: In the initial stages. And what I would suspect is that this is almost war time, blackouts and other activities so as not to alert the enemy to the presence of potential bombing targets or something, but in this case it is almost seeing who in a period of crisis might put out heterodox or unapproved information and so let’s compile a dossier on them so that if it ever comes to a serious crisis, military in the first instance, so we know who they are and we know how to round them up.
Robles: Preventative surveillance. Do you remember the film with Tom Cruise? “The Minority Report” I believe it was called. Where they had police that arrested people before they did a crime. You’ve got preventative detention in the US, now we get preventative surveillance.
Rozoff: For our own good of course!
Robles: Of course! It is against every Al-Qaeda terrorist, it is hiding behind every lamppost in Springfield, Illinois.
Rozoff: Actually they may be receiving military training by the Illinois National Guard, I wouldn’t put it past them. That is how they terrify us but in fact they are taking training courses at air training facilities in Florida and so forth. That is true. That is simply the truth, God knows where else they are getting training or arms.
The façade of combating terrorism, I was thinking about that earlier today: if there is one thing the US Government has no right to ever contend, is that it is combating terrorism.
It is certainly recently, currently in Syria, they may be less high profile about it, but they are supporting, as you described accurately with a lengthy series of hyphenated adjectives, the worst kind of terrorists probably known in history are being actively supported by the US.
Let’s end this nonsense about fighting terrorism.
Robles: I think William Blum who I had the honor of speaking to several times put it best, and he was quoted by Osama Bin Laden himself, when he said that it is all the meddling by the US in these Middle Eastern Islamic countries that has caused the terrorists to terrorize.
Rozoff: Even that is too kind of a perspective. I don’t subscribe to it. I don’t believe that Osama Bin Laden had any legitimate complaint against the US government. Quite the opposite. He would have been the playboy non-entity that he was prior to emerging as whatever he became but for the fact that the US ran a proxy war against the Soviet Union and the Afghan Government out of north-west Pakistan in the 1980s – that is where Mr. Osama Bin Laden became a so-called political figure and that is where he became a terrorist in good earnest. And it is not that he had any complaints whatsoever against the US Government, which helped his Jihad to win in Afghanistan.
Robles: Remember that Tim Osman, he was Mr. Tim Osman and he was known to the FBI Station Chief at the time in Los Angeles when he was staying at the Hilton, there have been documents released then, so no big secret there.
Rozoff: Yes, but I know there is an argument that but for US meddling around the world, that the Osama Bin Ladens of the world would not be able to pick up support because people wouldn’t be disgruntled or upset, and even that I contest.
The fact is I don’t doubt that there are elements in the US Government as well as in so-called Al-Qaeda that exploit dissatisfaction or dissention around the world. There is no question about that they do. But that as often as not and far more often than not they’ve been at the beck of the US government working hand and glove with them.
Robles: Anything else you want to finish up about media? It’s been a pleasure speaking with you all these years. I hope we will be able to continue speaking to each other somehow and getting your voice out there and getting the voice of everybody else we’ve talked to and all the wonderful people I’ve interviewed over the years.
Rozoff: We just mentioned William Blum. And he is someone who has written several books and the fact that somebody like him who around the world is viewed as an authority, with good reason, he’d been published in Russia as a matter of fact, celebrating the anniversary of one of his key books.
And the fact that this man cannot even appear on a local college TV station because of the news blackout and censorship in the US but has been interviewed by yourself several times, where he is exposed to a world audience, I think makes our point as concretely and as effectively as it can be made. This is exactly why you need to continue running your show.
Honestly, this is what is needed. We need a 5th one (newswire) in the world, because all you’ve really got is the German Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the France’s Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press.
Here is another thing. DPA and AFP are really the best. They are maybe better than the Associated Press, they have correspondents in every damn country in the world. And they have news stories. But here is the thing. This isn’t public, you’ve got to subscribe to their press wire service. They don’t have a website except to sell their service.
So, if you are a government agency or you are a big corporation or a think tank, you’ve got access to all the DPA and AFP, I have none.
About 7-8 years ago or maybe 10 years ago I contacted the North-American Bureaus and I said: “How much does it cost to subscribe to get your material?”
The lowest rate I could get if I called myself an independent journalist was $600 a month, $7,200 a year, 10 years ago.
I contacted Interfax North America, they were going to give me $2,400 a year, but I could not reproduce anything.
So, this isn’t news John, this is intelligence for sale. This isn’t meant to get news out and information out to people. It is meant to be an intelligence service like Jane’s Defense Weekly in England, or Stratfor here, where these CIA ex-CIA and MI-5 guys get together and they set up a news service to be sold to businesses and governments.
So, in that point if a real press agency would develop, that is a Russian Press Agency in English, that would be wonderful!
By the way, I have said for years too, the big mistake is that Mercosur and particularly Alban, Latin America have not put out a press agency in English.
Robles: What about ITAR-TASS? You haven’t been on their site?
Rozoff: ITAR-TASS is not very good. It is bad English, bad editing, it’s circumscribed news.
Now and again you find a good story, they have just reformatted and you can’t even read it now.
In the last week they’ve reformatted it, you can’t find anything. Whoever did that should be fired. They’ve made it worse and worse.
Robles: They are good for Russian news because you are not going to find it in very many other places.
Rozoff: Okay, okay, Interfax, if you go to their site, each page has 20 stories, 2 of their stories are accessible, you have to pay for the others.
They tease you, they give you a couple of hyperlinks, they draw your attention or that is maybe the way it is on the west. Why not sell theirs? Because you don’t get anything for free here. That is for sure. The only thing you get for free is the government sources, Radio free Europe, Voice of America etc.
They are more and more themselves relying on the services like AP, Reuters.
Robles: You are telling me that all the news, you have to pay for it. You have to go through a corporation to get it.
Rozoff: You have to go online, take out your credit card and pay maybe $10,000 dollars a year to read what is happening in downtown Bangkok.
Robles: It is going to get so bad pretty soon, they are going to bring back the short waves.
Rozoff: Exactly, like during the resistance in Nazi occupied Europe.
Robles: Maybe that is a good idea with all the surveillance because the shortwave is a way to reach people where they know they are not being surveilled.
Rozoff: Good point. With satellite surveillance now they are going to catch everything.
Robles: Can they actually pick up a shortwave radio when you turn it on?
Rozoff: I don’t know.
Robles: I suppose they can put a small transmitter chip in there or something.
Rozoff: If they want total surveillance, they are going to have it. The only way of combating that is fighting an information war, a clean information war, an above board one.
Let it be known, you are defending a position, but make it a decent position.
Parting
You were listening to part 3 of an interview with Rick Rozoff the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list. You can find the previous parts of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com. Thanks for listening and as always I wish you the best.
End of Part 3
PART 1, PART 2
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_19/Amid-US-spying-we-are-living-with-information-totalitarianism-Rick-Rozoff-2299/
House of Saud, Zionists, Al Qaeda and CIA destroyed Middle East – Dr. Kevin Barrett
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Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_19/House-of-Saud-Zionists-Al-Qaeda-and-CIA-destroyed-Middle-East-Kevin-Barrett-9959/
18 December 2013, 00:35
Presidents Putin and Yanukovich Cement Russian-Ukrainian Ties
Prior to a very productive and wide-ranging session of the Russian-Ukrainian Interstate Commission, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin met with the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych in the Kremlin, in a regularly scheduled meeting which takes place between the President of Russian and Ukraine prior to interstate consultations. The meeting between the Presidents and the bodies of government have underlined the inviolability and historic strength of Russian-Ukrainian relations and have mapped out steps for further cooperation and assistance, in particular to Ukraine, currently besieged by a US/NATO/EU attempt to force it into its own sphere of geopolitical influence.
Against the backdrop of the ongoing US/NATO/EU hysteria regarding the signing of an agreement between Ukraine and the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, the matter of the Customs Union was not even on the agenda of the meetings between the Presidents or the Russian-Ukrainian Interstate Commission. President Putin noted after the Commission had met that Russia’s plan to invest $15 billion in Ukrainian securities to allow Ukraine to strengthen its economy was done without any preconditions in particular any ties to Ukraine accession to the Customs Union.
When asked about the Russian Government's decision to invest part of its National Welfare Fund in Ukrainian securities President Putin said: "This is not tied to any preconditions, nor the increasing, or reducing, or freezing of any social standards, pensions, allowances, or costs. And I'd like to calm everyone down that we didn't even discuss Ukraine's accession to the Customs Union today."
President Putin, as is the standard protocol, opened the meeting with his Ukrainian colleague President Yanukovych by welcoming him to Moscow and outlined the key areas that were on the agenda. According to the Kremlin the President began by underlining the strategic partnership which has existed historically between Russia and Ukraine and said that Ukraine was an ally to Russia in every sense of the word.
President Putin opened by saying: "There can be no doubt that Ukraine is our strategic partner and ally in the fullest sense of the word. Unfortunately, as we noted during our recent meeting in Sochi, we have seen a decrease in trade over the past two years: 11 percent in 2012 and a further 14.5 percent this year. Therefore, it is time to take vigorous action so that we not only return to the level of previous years, but also create the conditions for moving forward."
Some experts attribute the falling trade levels in recent years to western meddling in Ukrainian markets and the EU attempting to implement trade barriers between Russia and Ukraine, including in the energy sector, but today’s meetings underline the fact, that while the West may be aggressively and even desperately trying to pull Ukraine away from Russia’s sphere of geopolitical influence, they actually have nothing to offer for the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian economy.
It is also important to note when considering the fact that the Customs Union was not discussed, that the accession of Ukraine to the trade union will bring it approximately $100 billion over a seven year period, while joining the EU block will bring it only $1 billion, cause a significant loss in sovereignty and of course be tied to eventual integration with NATO which will cost the Ukrainian people untold billions as funds for the social sector will be required to be moved into expensive military integration programs required by US/NATO.
Russia’s agreements with Ukraine on the other hand, and quite importantly, do not require Ukraine as a sovereign nation nor the Ukrainian people to forfeit or give up any of their sovereign rights and in fact all agreements will bring real benefits for Ukraine across all spheres.
Key areas and agreements that were addressed during today’s meetings addressed many spheres but of particular note was a bilateral "action plan" which has been signed and which will resolve issues concerning restrictions in bilateral trade for 2013-2014. Russia will also convert $15 billion worth of its National Welfare Fund into Ukrainian securities to assist Ukraine in staving off a financial crisis and in the energy sphere Russia's Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukraine have signed an amendment to sell gas to Ukraine at a price of $268.50 for 1,000 cubic meters, President Vladimir Putin has stated.
During the meeting of the Russian and Ukrainian heads of state, President Putin underlined other areas where recent bilateral cooperation has been fruitful for both sides and praised the work that has been done by Russian and Ukrainian colleagues in government including the prime ministers and other members of cabinets. Of the numerous areas where cooperation has been increased President Putin cited energy, machine engineering, space, aviation and shipbuilding as being vitally important sectors. President Putin also underlined the strengthening of the legal base in these areas and the necessity to create conditions necessary for expanding trade and economic relations between Russia and Ukraine.
President Yanykovich for his part underlined the seriousness of Ukraine’s economic situation by stating that the drop in trade volume over the past two years "requires urgent intervention" and that not only is Russian-Ukrainian cooperation vital but coordination with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIA) is also important. Especially in light of the fact that Ukraine will be holding the CIS presidency in 2014. President Yanukovych stated that the conditions for many companies across the CIS are precarious due to the drop in trade.
The Ukrainian leader was quite frank and honest during his meeting with President Putin and began by mentioning many areas where Russian-Ukrainian cooperation could be improved including in the technological spheres, in the production of new quality mutually beneficial products, and even the humanitarian sphere.
Of strategic importance President Yanukovych spoke of the need to expand cooperation in the fields of power engineering, transport engineering, shipbuilding, aviation and space.
With regard to cross border trade and inter-regional cooperation, President Yanukovych, discussed the need to develop these areas and create better conditions to ease the flow of people and goods across borders.
On a shared cultural note President Putin agreed with President Yanukovych on the importance of the humanitarian component of 200th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko. He said concrete proposals were in the works in the humanitarian sphere and added that much work has yet to be done to improve conditions for the millions of citizens (up to five million) who work for the most part in Russia and support families in Ukraine.
In closing it might be interesting to note that the word Ukraine, roughly translates to, and has its etymological roots as, the "borderland of Rus" just another link in the deep and shared spiritual, cultural, ethnic, political and other ties thank link the two nations. This closeness between Russia and Ukraine goes back approximately one thousand years and is part of the heart and soul of all of Russians and Ukrainians.
It is naïve of US/NATO/EU if they believe they can just come in, arrange another "Color Revolution", fund and back criminal elements in society to support them, pay off some guy who has had head beat too many times to try to lead a revolt and then take over Ukraine. Such moves may have worked in Serbia with Kosovo, because it is a much smaller country and the West’s modus operandi was not so well-known, but such moves have already failed in Ukraine. Today’s meetings between the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine and members of the Russian-Ukrainian Interstate Commission prove that beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_18/Presidents-Putin-and-Yanukovych-cement-Russian-Ukrainian-ties-5249
Photo: Flickr.com/savethedave/cc-by-nc-sa 3.0
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17 December 2013, 05:45
Iskander-Ms deployed by Russia along western border (years ago)
The Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation has confirmed reports regarding the deployment of a significant quantity of short-range Iskander-M (NATO classification "SS-26 Stone") tactical ballistic missile systems near Russian borders with Baltic states and countries that are members of NATO, including along borders shared with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and at least 10 more complete Iskander-M systems into the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the westernmost territory of the Russian Federation.
Various sources including one quoted by Izvestia in the Defense Ministry have stated that the missiles have been in position for at least 18 months. Izvestia quotes the official as questioning the timing of the publication of the reports and why Germany has chosen now to raise an alarm. Judging from the current situation in Ukraine, US/NATO need to raise any outcry they can against Russia in order to continue their infringement on Ukraine. This is a particularly insidious tactic and must be called out for what it is.
Russian intelligence has long known of the first strike capabilities of US/NATO "defense" elements and this has forced Russia to defend itself. Although it is typical for the West to demonize and spread propaganda which is against any country, state or power which can defend itself and/or attempts to do so, as we have seen in country after country that the West has demanded disarm, these claims do not change the fact that every state has the right to defend itself against any threat. This includes any threat to sovereignty, territorial integrity or any other from US/NATO. Yes dear reader, despite what US/NATO want the world to believe, countries do in fact have a right to defend themselves against US/NATO.
The Iskander tactical missiles systems which were cited by the German "Bild" newspaper are capable of delivering nuclear payloads and have been deployed for time in response to long term and long-running threats by US/NATO in their continuing placement of, and surrounding of Russian territory with, so-called European missile "shield" elements. Missile infrastructure which US/NATO have attempted to claim from the outset were in response to a self-conceived and endlessly self-promoted yet entirely non-existent threat to Europe from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed that the deployment of the Iskander missile battalions in the Western Military District does not violate any international treaties. An official spokesman for the Defense Ministry Major General Igor Konashenkov stated to Russian media that: "The deployment of Iskander missile battalions on the territory of the Western Military District does not violate any respective international agreements."
Despite being nuclear capable but due to their effective range of only 400 kilometers the Iskander systems cannot be classified as intermediate-range nuclear missiles which were banned by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between Russia and the United States. The Iskander-M is an advanced mobile theater missile system and a battalion includes the launch vehicle equipped with two solid-propellant single-stage 9M723K1 guided missiles with "quasi-ballistic" capability and the necessary support vehicles including transporter and loading vehicles carrying extra missiles, data processing and command vehicles and the like.
Russia’s response to US/NATO missile, fighter aircraft, radar installations, military personnel and all of the infrastructure to support them has been extremely low keyed and symmetrical. Politically the announcement by German media and confirming statements coincide with recent reports and public statements by high-level Russian officials regarding the offensive nature of the US/NATO "shield". Again and I have been saying this for years; despite the fact that US/NATO claim their technology is defensive and was against some phantom threat from Iran this has clearly proven without a doubt to be false and the new claim by US/NATO that they need to keep surrounding Russia with missiles because of a new phantom threat by a whopping 30 more countries, is ridiculous propaganda and rhetoric based on fantasy.
In 2008, during his first State of the Nation Address, then President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev stated that Russia would place the Iskander-M systems in Kaliningrad and in fact did so. These latest reports are based on satellite imagery which was released by US/NATO and leaked to the German press and claim 10 installations. Again the timing must be questioned.
Given the length of time that has passed since 2008 Russia could have installed hundreds of Iskander-M missile batteries and deployed them all along Russia’s Western borders and in fact along Northern and Southern and Eastern borders as well, but has not done so. So the big uproar over 10 installations seems ridiculous and self-serving in promoting Russophobia and demonizing Russia yet is understandable with another US/NATO loss on the horizon in Ukraine.
In reality no matter the amount missiles it has on its own territory, this is legal and normal and Russia has the right to defend itself, its territory and its citizens from any threat, including the direct and in your face threat that is posed by US/NATO who have proven almost hell-bent on provoking Russia, at times it seems, to the brink of World War III with constant bellicose rhetoric and provocative military escalation in Russia’s own backyard and around the world.
Russia’s reaction to US/NATO has been refrained, measured and intelligently thought out and even though official Moscow states that all moves will be symmetrical one might argue, and I would put forth, that a true "symmetrical" response would be Russia placing missiles and military infrastructure throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and throughout Canada. While this is impossible given the current geo-political climate, that would be the true "symmetrical response". Of course this has not been said by official Moscow nor by Russian officials, but such a response would in fact be symmetrical.
In the upcoming days officials from countries which are now technically in the range of Russian Iskander-M missiles, may be making a show of seeking "advice" from NATO, as has Lithuania but I would also put forward that it is in fact the populations of these countries who should be questioning the true intentions of NATO and whether their interests are best served in continuing to provoke Russia by allowing US/NATO free reign on their territories to install military infrastructure which for the large part they themselves are paying for.
The governments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and all of the other countries that have been pulled into NATO have willingly given up a large portion of their sovereignty in joining EU/NATO and it is this lost sovereignty that has allowed US/NATO geopolitical planners to continue their outdated Cold War strategy of surrounding Russia, provoking a response and guaranteeing an escalation.
It is in this escalation that US/NATO and the US military industrial complex that is driving them, will continue to make billions upon billions of dollars at the cost of the societies of the countries that are foolish enough or too weak to stand up to the US/NATO war machine and simply say no.
The irrationality of joining US/NATO and their desperation to expand at any cost can be made no clearer than in the current situation in Ukraine. US/NATO, and this has been proven time and again, will attempt to destroy any country and any government that does not give up its sovereignty and allow them to exploit and violate its territorial integrity to further US/NATO’s own geopolitical goals. Calls by western backed oppositionist for a new government and the resignation of the president of Ukraine for refusing to sign what was reportedly a simple "economic agreement" should be sounding off warning bells but apparently this is not the case.
Again the hysteria in the West over some Iskander-Ms is ridiculous, given that they were placed in direct response to US/NATO actions. US/NATO maintains American tactical nuclear weapons all over Europe and has recently conducted various war games envisaging different scenarios of war with Russia. The true hysteria should be directed toward US/NATO who continue provoking Russia, seeking new wars all over the world in which to pull in NATO member countries and expanding militarily.
In reality there is no need for NATO anymore. That is a fact. It is an outdated dinosaur which continues to attempt to make itself relevant. The creation of "threats" and continued lies and propaganda being spread by NATO only serve their own interests which is guaranteeing their own continued existence and profiteering. Russia would have never installed such weapons in Kaliningrad had it not been for NATO’s own buildup. This is also true of the Arctic and other regions.
President Putin recently said that the West will never be able to prevail over Russia militarily and this is true. One reason is that US/NATO are technically, financially bankrupt, another is that US/NATO are over-extended in every meaning of that word, from financially to politically, and another is the simple fact that their "shield" does not work. There are also the technological considerations and Russia has the technology to counter US/NATO and even dominate in a war scenario, and the final reason is that it is known that US/NATO defense installations are in fact offensive and hence will be responded to symmetrically. The US/NATO Trojan Horse of a missile "defense" shield therefore has no chance of succeeding. The cat is out of the bag and has been for some time. All they can do is scream bogeyman and demonize and shake and rattle their sabers endlessly now. The dream of installing all of the missiles in their "shield" and then one day flicking a switch and making it first strike capable, is over. They have been exposed.
To underline the ridiculousness of the West’s current hysteria we can recall that in November 2011, when US/NATO refused to make the missile "defense" shield a joint project with Russia, then President Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to deal with a threat to Russia’s national security. Again almost saying the same thing he said in 2008 regarding the deployment of defensive and other elements in the west and south of the country, as well as the current Iskander missiles installed in the Kaliningrad region.
Almost since day one Moscow has been calling for US/NATO to sign legally-binding guarantees that its missile "defense" system will not be aimed against Russia, but US/NATO have refused to sign any legal guarantees, meaning they have no interest in peace but only in escalation.
In his State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly President Vladimir Putin recently stated: "We realize clearly that the anti-missile defense system is only called defensive, while in fact it is a significant part of the strategic offensive potential."
Rather than attempting to continue to surround Russia and China with their missiles, something that will never be allowed to work given the fact that now the world knows that the "defensive" nature of the "shield" is a lie, US/NATO might begin to work for peace and security, something which of course they are incapable of given that they are outdated, irrelevant, controlled by the military industrial complex and willing to do anything to continue along the path they seek of endless war and military buildup.
The only way that people in the West and around the world are ever going to be safe and secure and free of war is if war machines such as US/NATO are disbanded and no longer allowed to control policy and self-perpetuate. However this is unlikely to happen. The West has been taken over by the military industrial complex and they are bent on taking over the world.
There can be no question that they only way we, citizens of the world can have peace is to disband them and that can only be done when their money is cut off. Something which we may not have to worry about much longer for they are already over-extended and as I said earlier, with a real debt of over $200 trillion the US is already completely bankrupt, if they can be prevented from starting World War III a little longer, then perhaps they will implode into oblivion and the world will finally have the peace and security it deserves.
As for the Iskander-Ms, if those of you in the West who are concerned by such developments really want to improve security and stop a military escalation, please fight for peace and tell US/NATO to stop provoking sovereign nations into defending themselves. You cannot keep pointing your gun at your neighbor and not expect him to arm himself and then blame him for attempting to defend himself, and in exactly this manner US/NATO must stop their military escalation because their own well being is at risk. Economically, unless they can pull more countries in NATO, US/NATO do not have the resources to buy a bigger gun, and when their neighbor buys a bazooka, while they are still holding their pistol, they will have lost forever.
US/NATO are the largest threat to security and safety in Europe and in the world, and even in space, the only way we can all be safe and secure and enjoy peace is when they are stopped and the US military industrial complex is dismantled. Will that happen? Unfortunately the answer to that questions is almost a definite no. Does US/NATO want peace? The answer to that is also in the negative.
About the Iskanders? Nothing to see here. Really. Move along.
The views and opinions expressed here are my own, I can be reached at robles@ruvr.ru.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_17/Iskander-Ms-deployed-by-Russia-along-western-border-years-ago-6695/
16 December 2013, 04:20
Western media provides narrow, constricted, biased, unrepresentative view, unlike Russian outlets – Rick Rozoff
Since the days of the Cold War the West has launched illegal wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and attempted to do the same thing in Syria. They have been successful in avoiding blowback and responsibility due to their monopoly on the corporate controlled media and the fact that most of the media in the world passively accepts their interpretation of world events. This is one of the reasons that alternative media and foreign controlled media are important. For many people in the West, the only truth they can actually get comes increasingly from non-corporate and even “foreign” media sources. The Voice of Russia spoke to Rick Rozoff on media and the current paradigm where journalism has lost the honor and ideals it once had.
You are listening to Part 2 of an interview with Rick Rozoff the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list. You can find Part I on our website at voiceofrussia.com.
Rozoff: And we are seeing now what could be a major military altercation in the East China Sea where China's announced an air zone over what China knows as the Diaoyu and the Japanese as Senkaku Islands. And it is the typical US press wire services where we refer to them 100% as Senkaku by the Japanese definition.
Robles: Right, the same thing with the Maldives.
Rozoff: But also occasionally you will see US media, not infrequently by the way, and sometimes government media refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf, which is a direct provocation to the government of Iran, of course; refer to the Russian South Kuril Islands as Japan's northern territory. So what you are seeing is, you know, the sort of political remapping of the world that would be a “casus belli”, I mean it would be a cause for a war under other circumstances, and surely if the situation were reversed so that the war of ideas, the battle of ideas is at least as critical as that of politics, economics and so forth.
And ultimately who presents the most accurate and the most persuasive view of the truth is the person who is probably going to emerge victor, the victor in any contest around the world. And we’ve seen just such atrocious, egregious, unpardonable lies being spewed out by the West, for every war they've conducted over the last 20 years, but particularly in the post-Cold War period - with Yugoslavia, with Afghanistan, with Iraq, with Libya, with Syria. And I for one don't believe the West would have been as successful, or however dubiously successful they have been, as they’ve been, if it wasn't for the fact they could count on basically if not a monopoly then at least a preponderance of news around the world and knowing that most of the world would at least passively accept their interpretation of world events.
Robles: Very good what you've just said and I'm sure everybody will take it to heart and we all agree with you 100%. What you've just brought up raised in my mind recently a new phrase that has come out in alternative media I guess and some other sources that there is a war going on on journalists and on journalism by the US government in particular on whistleblowers, on truth seekers, on anyone who is against the official line. Would you like to comment on that?
Rozoff: That is true, and this is again something that evokes both the Cold War, but I would say probably more World War 2 and the period leading up to it. When in Central Europe, when Nazi Germany became the dominant force in Central Europe, journalists were imprisoned, journalists were tortured, journalists were shot. And we are in a situation right now where truthfully we've already seen the prostituting of journalism, I can't think of any other term for it, where it's become more a profitable and prestigious career than it's become a mission or a vocationin life, where people promote or peddle themselves as the story itself – that is the journalist often times particularly the Tele journalists – often times is the story. And whatever subject matter is being discussed is almost of secondary significance, it's grist to his mill.
And we have to remember that there once was a time when journalists were very dedicated, usually self-effacing, often times anonymous and people who were willing to risk their well-being, their economic well-being, and their lives. And that ideal image of a journalist is something that desperately needs to be revived right now. It, a journalist … journalism rather, can be a dignified and honorable profession instead of what it in many ways has become.
And this again is a distinctly western phenomenon in that the prevalence of corporate media, and mass entertainment media conglomerates that run supposed news sites, so that newspapers, television news programs, radio news programs are put out or issued by the same corporations that are putting out commercials and music videos and cartoons.
Robles: So that basically the days of the intrepid reporter trying to get this scoop, those days are long gone or do you think they are...?
Rozoff: Well certainly on the city beat, I'm living in Chicago where we have two, only 2 newspapers, one is a tabloid. Most of the material in both of them is gathered as we were talking about earlier from the wire services, the press agencies, so that fewer and fewer countries have their own correspondents overseas, or even outside the city there where they’re published. There is a tendency to streamline and consolidate the press.
At one time in Chicago a hundred years ago I'm sure there were dozens of newspapers, literally dozens of newspapers. You had five-star editions; the paper would be publishing five different editions in a day – one newspaper. You had competition between papers -you don't have that anymore. So you don't have that sort of journalist who is really going to go out and fight for his story because that is not what he is paid to do, currently.
But that is more on the local level. I think that what we are talking about is, is the perception of world events, and I would say this: the framework within which we view events and this means basically - there is no other word for it - what is a person's world view? Is that a world view based on equity? Is it a world view based on equity, is it a world view based on peace and development, is it a world view based on fairness and justice - or isn't?
And if you have a world view cultivated throughout the globe based on what are essentially US, British, French and German press accounts of it, then it’s going to be, by definition, a narrow, constricted, biased, unrepresentative view of the news. And you, you hit on it keenly I think when you look at even the most basic terminology that appears in an Associated Press report, let's be honest about it, Associated Press is for all intents and purposes the American government’s press agency.
Robles: Well we can’t, we can’t quote the Associated Press. I don't even know if we can say their name, but go ahead - you said it, so it’s ok.
Rozoff: We are not slandering them; I'm just reporting what it is. You go to a major American press government sources – armed forces online publications like Stars and Stripes, and the US Government, the State Department White House website and there’s photographs in there by Associated Press. The government itself not … doesn’t apparently even pay a photographer to accompany the President.
Here’s where it becomes a little bit more insidious, and this is another vital point I think people have ignored, that the fact that the US government has an obedient presscorps at its beck and call, including Associated Press and Reuters, but pretends that they are independent means one of the ways we can shut down independent journalists, particularly web journalists like ourselves, is through copyright infringement. So, for example, and I'm going to give this point for years, if the Mayor of my city, Rahm Emanuel, goes to a neighboring city like Milwaukee 80 miles away, and makes a statement there and there is a photograph of him there – I cannot put that out on the Internet because it's copyrighted by Associated Press.
Robles: Even though he is a - I don't want to say he is your public official - but I mean your tax Dollars are paying his salary, so...?
Rozoff: That’s correct. So even your content or photographs and other basic elementary material, you would think it was, is permissible to be passed on from one citizen to another - it is not. And you will be reined in quickly; you will be pulled up short, if you without seeking the written permission of Associated Press quote your own public official talking. You certainly can’t be there yourself, and be where these people go, and if you were you wouldn't be a credentialed press person who is allowed to go into the briefing.
Well where else are you are getting this information, except by the government approved private media, which then hides behind copyright infringement. This is a new form of political censorship that is not recognized as such.
Robles: I see. So, the new control mechanism is copyright infringement on the Net?
Rozoff: Yeah, the copyright violation. It's almost to the point where, if you clip out a newspaper article from your local press and mail it to somebody, I guess you could be accused of violating their copyright.
Robles: Maybe you can help me because I have a website, you have a website. Maybe you can tell me what the current standard is, but I remember it was AP that came out with something like: you could not publish more than the first three sentences or something of one of their stories and then include one or two links to it. What is the current standard?
Rozoff: I'd … to be honest with you, I'm familiar with what you are speaking about, I would have to go to each press agency, and each newspaper to see what their particular policy is. But the long and short of it appears to be something quite like that: that you can tease the public with a short introductory ...
Robles: The first paragraph or some … I don't remember what it was, but they had it worked down to something like, even down to a word count or something, but it was pretty specific but ...
Rozoff: But keep in mind, where else if there is no official government site, are you going to find out what your own Congress person, what your own City Counsel person, what your own President has said. Where else you are going to go unless you go to Associated Press, and then if you go there they are going to hold copyright penalties over your head. So you are effectively prevented from even saying what your own elected official said.
Robles: So by default, even just knowing the information, if you even report about it on the Internet you think you could be accused of plagiarizing or copyright or something?
Rozoff: This has happened to me with the Stop NATO mailing list. Roughly three years ago there was a series of websites all more or less subsumed under Military Times, run by the Gannett chain, the chain of newspapers, and they include Defense News, Marine Times, Air Force Times, and so forth. They are all over the country, and they've been taking over small town, medium town newspapers and so forth. And then the printing is done in some other part of the country, and all that, so they are also eliminating jobs.
But anyway, the long and short of what had happened was, an article I had taken from I believe Defense News (part of the Military Times group), and I had sent it out on my private e-mail list - private e-mail list - it had been picked up by somebody (this a Yahoo list) it had been picked up by somebody else in Pakistan, and it was in the archives of a private e-mail list in Pakistan, and I was contacted by an attorney from Defense News and Military Times, saying if I didn't remove it from a site that I don’t … didn't even know exists - I have no idea who runs it - that they would consider legal action against me.
They turned me over to the Yahoo administration, which took their side and told me they would not only close down my e-mail news list, but all my private e-mail accounts, which I've used in the case of Yahoo for 14 years. So, I'm told that any mode of communication I have is being cut off because somebody passed on something - God knows how many times - ended up in another country in the archives of a private e-mail list and I can face a legal penalty.
Robles: When was this, because that sounds exactly like what the SOPA bill was supposed to do and what this new TPP is supposed to be doing. When did that happen?
Rozoff: August of 2011.
Robles: 2011. Was there a legal foundation for that in the United States, or were they just huffing and puffing, or they were testing the water as to how much they could intimidate people, or what's the deal?
Rozoff: When I heard from Yahoo News, they copied and pasted a legal argument against the use of it. Keep an eye on this, it wasn't done for commercial purposes, it wasn't published broadly, it was sent out privately.
Robles:I know, I'm a member of your mailing list by the way.
Rozoff: The only equivalent I could think of in the hard copy age, in the pre-computer age - is that somebody who is interested in fishing or something and they had magazines Field & Stream and they cut out an article about trout fishing, and they mailed it to their friend John, and he liked it so he mailed it to his friend Phil. And somebody caught Phil with the article and threatened the original person with cutting off his mail service.
Robles: It's ridiculous when you take this stuff and put it in real world terms, all this stuff they are trying to do with the Internet. I mean, when Jeremy Hammond - had he in physical terms, as Susan Crabtree told me, when I talked to her right before he was sentenced to 10 years - if you had taken a car and driven right through the front doors of Stratfor and physically stolen all their files, he would have got something like three years and community service or something. And for doing this electronically he gets 10 years.
Rozoff: I know, that’s atrocious.
Robles:I've always wondered, it’s always seemed odd to me that cyberspace and the Internet and in reality it doesn't exist, it's not a tangible place. But why it has such real world effects when small things like this are done is beyond me.
Rozoff: It’s … well it means we have to be honest about this, this is the new totalitarianism, and it’s information totalitarianism. And it’s, amongst other things, the Internet not only permits me to communicate with you, but it permits any powerful entity, governments in the first instance, to monitor the activity of its citizens and the citizens of the world. What else have we learnt by the expose about the National Security Agency, but just that?
But the US is monitoring down to the finest most minute particular: every telephone call, every key stroke, every visit - of everyone on the planet? You would need a million George Orwell’s to be able to anticipate something this far-reaching, this comprehensive, and it’s frightening. And the fact is, we’ve had occasion to talk about it on your show before, that the person in charge of the National Security Agency – a four-star General Keith Alexander - is the same person who was put in charge of US cyber command, which is a cyber-warfare command, pure and simple.
You should certainly alert people to the fact that what we are dealing with right now is a new mode of conducting warfare. What the Pentagon has referred to in terms of cyber-warfare is the fifth battle space – and after land, air, sea and space.
Robles: And it is currently it’s not against armies or governments, or state actors; the target appears to be you and me and Joe Blow and Mary Smith.
That was Part 2 of a 3 part interview with Rick Rozoff the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list. You can find Parts 1 and 3 on our website at Voiceofrussia.com. Thanks for listening and I wish you the best wherever you may be.
End of Part 2
PART 1, PART 3
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_16/Western-media-provides-narrow-constricted-biased-unrepresentative-view-unlike-Russian-outlets-Rick-Rozoff-9342/
NATO’s claims to surround Russia are propaganda – Bruce Gagnon
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MOVED HERE http://www.jar2.com/Interviews/Bruce_Gagnon.html
14 December 2013, 03:53
US/NATO/EU and the Desperate Subversion of Ukraine
Today what we are seeing in Ukraine are the now overt manifestations of a long-running covert subversion of Ukraine by all of the instruments used by the United States, including those controlled by CIA, the State Department, the military industrial complex, banks, NGOs, corporations and US surrogates in the EU and NATO, which for simplicity we will call "US/NATO". Since the collapse of the USSR (and some might argue since NATO’s very creation) US/NATO have been intensely consolidating their hegemony and control over Eastern Europe using each and every instrument at their disposal and pouring billions of dollars into the effort.
These efforts include cultural, economic, educational, judicial, media, military, political, religious, security, social and trade manipulations and subversions all designed to subvert the sovereignty of Ukraine and bring it under permanent and total US/NATO control. The efforts by US/NATO in manipulating Ukraine have been so wide-ranging and at times subtle that it may now be difficult to extract the influences entirely from Ukrainian society and even more so from the minds of the Ukrainian people.
Many Ukrainians believe, as do the peoples of many countries that have been the subject of the massive subversion efforts of the US machine, that the parroted words "democracy" and "freedom" actually mean something to the US/NATO, for these are the standard reasons that the common people are given when they are pushed into accepting things that will in fact subvert the sovereignty of their countries and subjugate themselves to the US/NATO machine.
The words "freedom" and "democracy" are constantly parroted by officials and the subservient western media when reporting or discussing Ukraine thus giving the common people the impression that this is in fact what the protests in the abstract-far-way-land are all about. This is also true for western subverted internal Ukrainian media outlets, who claim to be exercising freedom of the press, when in fact they are engaged in the very subversions of their own countries. The promotion and portrayal of efforts at subversion as being in the best interests of the citizens are all important parts of CIA and US/NATO psychological and media operations and are key in bringing about the desired results, including such as what we are seeing now in Ukraine.
Without going into specifics as they are available anywhere on the net subversive efforts in Ukraine have targeted every sector of the population and have benefited from keeping the economic conditions of Ukrainians weak so that Ukrainians are dissatisfied and looking to the "West" for betterment. This is a false hope and a false savior but as Russia found out an idea that took hold and continues to be promoted in Ukraine unlike Russia which finally saw the beast of the West for what it really was and said no to NGOs USAID and US/NATO’s takeover of Russia.
The efforts have included first and foremost information and media manipulation, through organizations like USAID and NGOs civil society manipulation including in educational institutions (through subtle rewrites of history and carefully constructed curricula), health clinics and as we have seen in the past sterilization programs and the like (not necessarily in Ukraine but nonetheless used for population control and getting rid of undesirable populations). Other efforts include everything from fast food outlets (degrading the national diet and more importantly national mealtimes) and addicting the population (through subtle chemical additives and the like), entertainment (glorifying America and their depraved culture of sex and violence), internet (the favored tool for monitoring surveillance and control through social media) and everything and anything else that can be used to subvert the Ukrainian identity and glorify the West. The above tactics are not part of some conspiracy theory but tired and proven instruments of the NSA, the CIA and US/NATO.
When all of these fail (or in addition to the above) US/NATO might foment inter-ethnic, sectarian or religious strife and manipulate divisions and when all of those mechanisms fail to bring about the changes they seek to bring the country under control they will then resort to arming the opposition and as in Yugoslavia, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and then they attempt in Syria, providing military and air-support to forcibly remove the leadership of the country and install their puppet regimes.
In Russia such attempts were in fact stopped thanks to a strong president and attentive security services however in Ukraine, as in almost all of the former Soviet Republics the demonization of Russia coupled with poor economic conditions, glorification of US/NATO/EU, and all or some of the above efforts, the security services failed. In Ukraine this failure has led to a pliable and divided population ready to believe anything the West says and ready to submit to whatever the West wants almost without argument. And in the final ready to engage in treasonous activities against their own country, people and government.
Current situation
I would hope that this will be read by at least some of the Ukrainian people so that they might take time to consider what in fact they are tearing their country apart over. I would also plea with the Ukrainian people to in fact study what the realities are of what they EU is offering before they criticize their government or take part in western-backed demonstrations.
What the EU offers
On the surface what the West is offering Ukraine with its EU integration package is somehow a better economic situation for the country and its citizens, something that of course is attractive to those facing economic hardships and unemployment, but the reality is that in dollar value the plus for Ukraine is a mere $1 billion over seven years. This will be in exchange for a large part of Ukrainian sovereignty including control of trade, manufacturing and the like which will take the form of legally binding instruments supposedly designed to bring Ukraine into EU "compliance". It will also include the eventual loss of military sovereignty when Ukraine is forced to accept integration into NATO, which will not come cheap, will have to be paid for by Ukraine and take away money from social programs.
This NATO integration is the key goal for the West in Ukraine. Nothing else matters.
Such integration will also call for the Black Sea Fleet to be evicted and for the Ukrainian people to turn their backs (effectively) on their Slavic brothers to the North (Note: I rarely mention ethnic aspects but promoting unity among peoples who share historical roots is not a bad thing I believe) and open their arms and more importantly pockets, to the morally and otherwise bankrupt nations of US/NATO.
In brief what US/NATO offers Ukraine is the giving up of sovereignty, the opening up of markets and workforces to exploitation, and in the end the territory on which to establish their military infrastructure and on which to stations missiles to aim at Russia.
All talk of "assistance packages" must also be looked at with suspicion. While sounding as if the West is interested in assisting Ukraine, such economic mechanism are always come with conditions attached, including "reforms", legislation, regulation and of course there is the question of payback at a percentage. Nothing good is free and the Trojan Horse that the EU is offering is a dangerous one indeed.
What Russia offers
I am not an expert and there are certainly professors, legal scholars and economists who have studied all of the agreements in detail but, overall from the research I have done, the facts are as I have set them out here.
Russia is offering Ukraine further integration in an economic block which will see its trade increased with the Russian Federation and which will bring Ukraine and the Ukrainian people over $100 billion dollars in the same seven year period that US/NATO/EU are offering a mere $1 billion.
What is more Russia is not demanding that Ukraine "reform" its government, or change legislation or in any other way give up an ounce of its sovereignty. Nor is Russia demanding the stationing of its troops in Ukraine or the installation of missiles to point at some bogeyman.
For Ukraine it is a win-win with Russia and it is a logical choice for the Ukrainian Government and the Ukrainian people. Russia and Ukraine share a long and deep shared history, shared languages, shared faith, a shared national character and a shared faith. Any division, even only in the Orthodox Faith, where deeper rapport was recently achieved must not be allowed to stand.
The US/NATO/EU strategy of divide and conquer must not be allowed to stand and anyone guilty of promoting it, I would argue is guilty of treason not only to their own country but to their own people.
Will Ukraine look out for its own best interests?
The President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych must be applauded for having the courage, the intelligence and the vision to pursue a path that is best for his country and for his people. Will he follow the lead of Russian President Vladimir Putin and demand respect for the sovereignty of his nation? The answer to that appears to be yes.
On Friday President Yanukovych promised to sack all of the officials who were in charge of preparing the Association and Free Trade Area Agreement with the European Union which they tried to push through under pressure from US/NATO/EU.
"Those who prepared the agreement will be relieved of their duties or sacked altogether," he said during a round-table discussion to seek a way out of the crisis.
US/NATO/EU try to pressure Ukraine during internal crisis
What the US/NATO/EU are doing, both covertly and now overtly, to attempt to influence the internal political processes in the country and even bring about the removal of yet another leader are clearly acts of subversion and in real terms anyone inside the country who is knowingly assisting in such is guilty of treason. It is an internal sovereign Ukrainian decision which must be supported and must be protected from outside interference.
The level of open US interference has been called many things, even "crazy" by Russian officials, and goes further to underline the real intentions of US/NATO/EU for Ukraine. It is hard to imagine that there would be such a violent reaction from any country for the refusal to sign a mere trade and integration agreement and it shows the insane anti-Russia hysteria that still exists in the West.
US/NATO/EU attempts at influencing Ukraine
The attempts by the West at influencing Ukraine into rushing into an agreement with the EU have been unprecedented in scope quantity and degree and have included everything but threats of military strikes or arming the opposition to start bloodshed in the country.
The infrastructure that CIA installed to bring about the Orange Revolution appears to be intact and has been reactivated but apparently this time around the support is just not there, so CIA/State have brought out every other thing they can think of including:
- Calls by the US backed opposition for early elections and for the government to resign
- German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle arriving at a protest camp with two opposition leaders and saying "Ukraine should be on board with Europe."
- US State Department said on Wednesday it is considering all options, including sanction
EC actions are flagrant interference in internal affairs - Medvedev
"Flagrant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state is the only way I can describe the trips (to Ukraine) by some officials from the European Union and from other countries with visits to sites of civil protest activity, and sites of unauthorized events," he said.
Prime Minister Medvedev also has branded recent visits of members of the European Commission to a site of mass pro-European Union demonstrations in Kyiv as "crazy."
"It looks pretty crazy when incumbent ministers or European Commissioners come out onto a square. I don't think this is the way to behave in the 21st century," he told a news conference in Moscow.
In a television interview with Russian media Prime Minister Medvedev said the actions by the West were a threat to Ukraine as a country and an attack on their sovereignty.
US/NATO/EU obtuse
I may assure you that we have sent all the necessary signals via Ms. Nuland (US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland) to the effect that interference in domestic processes in Ukraine may have very serious consequences," he said.
"But it appears that we haven't been heard in Washington again," he added.
Revenge for Syria worse than just revenge for Syria
"This hysterical reaction of the West to the fact that Ukraine refused to sign the association agreement with the EU, these political troops, which were landed there, the arrival of the Americans (although the European association is not their business), all these immediately shows, who was behind this idea: the wires are in the hands of the United States," the MP said.
"The nerves of the State Department have snapped, it was staying away, but it can resist any longer: '… we can't endure it any more – we are going to you with pies, ' this is not a demonstration of the strength of the EU and USA, but of their weakness," he said.
Pushkov is convinced that after the defeat of the USA in Syria, after all these failures in the foreign policy, Washington has a great desire to "take revenge in Ukraine", to show that the West has the initiative, that the West is still the force that determines the course of events in global affairs. "Ukraine has become the arena, which determines whether the West is losing the initiative or not," he said.
US continues pulling out all the stops in Ukrainian interference
US Senator John McCain, who is a key figure in almost every country that the US has attempted to or succeeded in bringing about a regime change or a military invasion is to arrive in Ukraine over the weekend, the highest-ranking US official to meet with the opposition and protestors.
"Senator McCain is traveling to Ukraine to meet with government officials, opposition leaders and civil society at this critical time as Ukrainians struggle for their future," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers told The Daily Beast.
McCain is supposed to be in Kyiv on Saturday and Sunday, according to the report. He will be joined there Sunday by Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, according to The Daily Beast.
It is not clear upon whose invitation he is arriving in Ukraine but it is clear as with Moscow that organizers of color revolutions and middlemen for the CIA are always called in when US/NATO are desperate to effect regime change. Whether his presence will be welcomed by President Yanukovych remains to be seen.
Hopefully the appearance of McCain in Ukraine is not a sign that the West is ready to push Ukraine into a civil war but judging from McCain’s past record and his involvement in Benghazi, Libya, Iraq and other US war zones, this may be a distinct possibility.
Continuing Russophobic hysteria
The irrational and "crazy" reaction by US/NATO/EU to a simple trade decision might be easier to understand given the light of the continuing and even escalated Russophobia in the West, something promoted by NATO which is desperately trying to stay relevant, by the US which needs a bogeyman to maintain the profit margins for the Military Industrial Complex and by the EU which seeks to appease its US/NATO masters.
Again, and I have said this many times, European Russia makes up 40% of Europe and Ukraine is the largest country in Europe aside from Russia, so the ongoing attempts by the EU to somehow exclude Russia from Europe are also not entirely sane or logical to put it mildly.
"… despite the end of Soviet Communism there was no end of Russophobia, that not only continued but I would argue in many ways it has been escalated."
Continuing desperate attempts at achieving hegemony
The attempts by US/NATO/EU to pull Ukraine into its sphere of influence and away from Russia only show the desperation that they have in proving to the world that they are still the masters of all of us and follows the policy of the West that any country that shows any modicum of independence or sovereignty must either have its leader gotten rid of or must be destroyed entirely.
The views and opinions expressed here are my own. I can be reached at robles@ruvr.ru.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_14/US-NATO-EU-and-the-desperate-subversion-of-Ukraine-8010/
13 December 2013, 13:06
Russian media has provided an outlet for the censored – Rick Rozoff
On December 9 Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree covering major changes in Russian state run media including the Voice of Russia. Regular VoR contributor Rick Rozoff discussed his reaction to the changes with the VoR's John Robles and stated that the VoR and Russian media have been very important, especially in the last five years, in bringing the world real news and alternative to western media which is either under US White House control or act as mere echo chambers parroting US Government lines and does not allow important political figures, academicians and others to have their voices heard.
Hello, this is John Robles, I am speaking with Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list.
Robles: Hello Rick, how are you this evening?
Rozoff: Very good John. It's good to be with you again
Robles: You had some interesting things you wanted to say about the Voice of Russia, a station that has been dear, of course to myself, and I think to yourself as well.
Rozoff: Yes, I woke up yesterday morning, as did I think some of the more news conscious people throughout the world and saw the article originally on the Novosti site announcing the fact that Russian information agency Novosti and Voice of Russia would be effectively closed and either folded into a broader media outlet, medium outlet, to be called Russia Today, and I was … we were all shocked of course to see that, me particularly because…
Robles: Well it's a little bit unclear about the name because in Russian it is supposed to be Russia Segodnya, and it is going to be a new organization that is going to include the Voice of Russia, I believe, and elements of RIA Novosti and some other media organizations. So, whether it is related to RT, or Russia Today, that's just in the direct translation for it, as far as I know. But anyway, go ahead.
Rozoff: No, thanks for the clarification. But I was particularly concerned, because it is no secret, but I think it is far past time that the world recognizes it, is that for the past decade, I would say definitely the last 5 years, let's date it from that point, is that the Russian news media has presented the world with an opportunity to hear an alternative to the control of news emanating from, say, the US White House and State Department, and basically nothing other than echo chamber responses from the rest of the western world, and the mass media from the west that is.
So, almost slavishly, dutifully, obedient to the demands of the western governments, so that, we look at the last 5 years, it's been sites like Voice of Russia, RT and others that have presented not only alternative news to the world - and this is not simply in international affairs; it's on incidents like the Occupy Movement here in the United States. You've interviewed several leading members of the Occupy Movement. You know, Julian Assange and Wikileaks, again Voice of Russia, RT and other Russian sites have given an unbelievable outlet to dozens, scores, maybe hundreds of American academicians, political officials. You've interviewed leading members, including the presidential candidate of the US Green Party for example, that could never have dreamt of getting that kind of media exposure in their own country, surely.
One is reminded of the Biblical line about "no prophet is without honor except in his own land", but in any other national media could pinpoint many cases we are talking … you interviewed people like retired professor of economics Edward Herman, people like Steven Cohen or Noam Chomsky, and others have been on Russian media or television and radio regularly over the past 5 years and would never appear, not only on the corporate media in this country, but even on so-called public television or radio, that simply wouldn't be an opportunity available to them.
So, what happens with the Russian news media is an issue, not only of concern to Russian people, and we are talking about foreign language media here. English in the first place because surely in the age on the Internet English is the universal language, and unless there is an outlet countering what's been put out there by Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, major commercial media like Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal and so forth, and people aren't going to hear anything, and they're going to believe that that very limited perspective is the only one that exists. That is why the role of the Russian news media, foreign language, English language in the first place, is just vital. There is no way I can overestimate how important it is to the world right now.
Robles: In what international situations or what international events would you say in the last 5 years or so that the Russian media has played a key role in informing and maybe influencing events?
Rozoff: I would almost turn that around, and I am not trying to be paradoxical here in saying in what area or event have they not played that role. But surely, if we are just talking about last 5 years, and we are talking about the Syrian crisis, which in large part has been resolved through Russian intervention, diplomatic in the first instance.
But let's talk about something going on right now. The spokesman for the US State Department, Victoria Nuland, who under current President Obama's predecessor George W. Bush was US permanent envoy, that is Ambassador to NATO, met with her for 2 hours today reportedly with Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich, and the western media is full of - and this kind of resonates here in Chicago - stating "the whole world is watching" according to Nuland - many of your listeners are maybe old enough to remember that slogan in 1968, it was used by the protesters outside the democratic nominating convention here in Chicago.
But the fact is the world is watching, and what we see in, particularly in the internet age, in the worldwide web – the age of the worldwide web - is that the battle of ideas, the battle of news, who has accurate information, who has alternative perspectives is more important I would argue than it's ever been prior to this in history. It was certainly important during the Cold War, it was important during World War II, but in this era right now what has happened with the weakening and ultimately the demise of the Soviet Union starting in the late 1980s was that a vision emerged, an American vision of the world, and not that of the American people but that of the American elite, and the American government, Wall Street and the Pentagon and the White House and it has been allowed, it has been permitted to hold sway pretty much uncontested for 25 years.
And it is only with the emergence of serious rivals within the world news community that we can begin to have anything like a balanced perspective on events internationally or for that matter within the United States where there is media, and there is news control that narrowly constricts the range of topics and perspectives that's permitted to emerge so that again the world … the people can talk about Al Jazeera, they can talk about other outlets but there is nothing comparable to the role that's been assumed by the Russian news media in the last 5 years. It has simply revolutionized the perspective.
People wake up in the morning around the world and they don't go to the New York Times because they know what they are going to get, and they may not go to Le Monde, they may not go to the London Times but I think they are increasingly turning to sites like Voice of Russia, Interfax, ITAR-TASS, and other Russian sites. That is why it is so indispensable to maintain and independent and principled position for the world, reading and listening and viewing public.
Robles: Now this is a particular concern to Russian officials, and to Russians as well, when discussing international media outlets and Russian media outlets. How do you think, or what is your opinion on how Russian media outlets have promoted Russian policies, Russian ideas and Russia as a country? Do you think it has been fair? Do you think it has been effective at all?
Rozoff: Effective, I would say, yes, keeping in mind that we have decades … there's decades of catching up to do, and there is a fact that I think – I don't want to say subconsciously - but intuitively or implicitly most of the world tends to take the New York Times view of the world, or the London Times view of the world, without even realizing perhaps that they do. They just are so inured or accustomed to reading that sort of news that they assume it is true without asking themselves if there is a different perspective to take.
But, so that the Russian news media internationally, even in terms of portraying its own country, and its own government's behavior at home and abroad is fighting an uphill battle. There is just no question about it.
We also have to keep in mind, and this is a very serious issue, is that with the emergence of – it wasn't called détente of course, but I had almost want to say détente too - during the Gorbachev-Reagan administrations and the former Soviet Union in Russia, where there was a thawing of the Cold War as it would have been described and ultimately the dissolution, and the fragmentation of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was a period in which people thought "well, we are entering into an age of tolerance and cooperation in the world, - and anything but that has occurred.
But I think what is extremely significant is that with the end of Soviet communism there was no end of Russophobia, that not only continued but I would argue in many ways it has been escalated. So that the Cold War era Russophobic hysteria that was … kept the respective populations of western countries terrified - the Russian bear ready to bounce on and devour them - far from having disappeared with the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has been carefully cultivated. That fire has been stoked consistently by western, both government and media personnel, and it is necessary for the Russian media and another world media to counteract that, in particular.
There is a sort of assumed or unspoken Russophobic world view that unless it is taken pretty firmly, could lead to some very catastrophic international incidents. We don't have to enumerate them but the so-called US missile shield in Europe comes to mind most immediately, US and allied NATO penetration of the Arctic circle with their militaries.
There are so many incidents where stirring up the … blowing on the embers of 60 or 80 years of Russophobic cultivation of unconscious thinking amongst the populace in the west could have dangerous consequences that has to be counteracted. I don't know who other than the Russian media can do that.
Robles: I see, but do you think that our Russian media has been effective in countering for example NATO?
Rozoff: I think it's been principled. Now one thing I'll have to say compared to somebody, here we are talking about myself, who has been reading the American media for maybe 45 years pretty attentively, is that the Russian media is far more balanced. I simply have to say there is, even in government media, or government funded government-controlled media, there are negative statements made about the government I would not expect to see, in the corporate media in the United States, again the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or the Chicago Tribune, or the Los Angeles Times. And I think there is an effort to portray both sides of the story in a way that is conspicuously absent from the major western dailies and the western press agencies.
The fact that Interfax in particular is starting to be picked up by other sources is something I think is significant. I think that Russia needs their press agencies to be more effective than they've done. Up until now, let's be honest about it, two American, one German and one French, maybe if you want to throw in BBC, one British wires, press services are just ruling the world – the Americans of course, are Reuters and Associated Press, the German is Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the French's Agence France-Presse and then the BBC. Almost every online newspaper in the world is either running stories from those 5 agencies or is rewriting them under their own byline, but essentially that is where they get the news. You see it with the sort of bias in any situation from the current one in Ukraine to the recent one in Syria, you have the same world view projected, and it is a world view of a tiny percentage of the human race.
Robles: Right, I've taken … I'm sorry, if we could get into that in just a minute because that's a very, very, very serious and a very important point and one that some people might not even notice exists there. A lot of people say, "Oh well it doesn't matter, I am not political", but when for example covering Syria and all the above news agencies you just mentioned, when the Syrian conflict was looking like it was going to turn into a hot war, of course they were all parroting words like "dictator", and "oppression", and "freedom fighters", and things like that, and "regime".
Rozoff: Yes, that stretches euphemism to the breaking point surely, and you are correct about that. These are intentionally loaded terms, they are not only biased but they are meant to evoke emotional responses rather than even a thinking one. And that they negatively portray targets of US foreign policy, positively promote as you are indicating what are little better than operatives, the criminal nature frequently, the terrorist nature frequently who are then routinely in the western press agencies and the newspapers that cover their material, you know referred to as the State Department wants them to referred to.
And we are seeing now what could be a major military altercation in the East China Sea where China's announced an air zone over what China knows as the Diaoyu and the Japanese as Senkaku Islands. And it is the typical US press wire services where we refer to them 100% as Senkaku.
That was Part 1 of a 3 part interview with Rick Rozoff the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list. You can find Parts 2 and 3 on our website at Voiceofrussia.com. Thanks for listening and I wish you the best wherever you may be.
End of Part 1
PART 2, PART 3
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_13/Russian-media-has-provided-an-outlet-for-the-censored-Rick-Rozoff-0751/
11 December 2013, 23:13
NATO engaged in wars of aggression against small countries - Rick Rozoff
Having established itself on the European continent in the devastating aftermath of World War II, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has emerged as a tool for the execution of aggressive wars against small countries that maintain some modicum of independence and for which they are targeted for destruction by the West and NATO. US/NATO are following a policy summed up by the words of former US President George Bush, one of “either you are with them or they will destroy you”, and we have seen proof of that since the invasion of Yugoslavia. As for the encirclement of Russia with interceptor missiles, now that the supposed pretext for that missile shield is gone, the threat from Iran, the intent of the encirclement of Russia is clear, the target has always been Russia. Rick Rozoff spoke to the VOR’s John Robles about this and more.
The West and the United States through its military wing NATO, which has expanded into a global military force, continues to attempt to expand its influence into the former Soviet space. Although NATO, which is struggling to stay relevant, should have been disbanded at the same time that the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, continues to expand worldwide. Recently the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Serbia gave a speech in which he called Serbia's membership in NATO a red line for the Russian Federation.
With events in Ukraine and continued war games, which envision military operations against regular army forces in the Caucasus, and the continued building and expansion of the US missile shield, even though the supposed purpose of that shield – the Iranian nuclear program – is no longer a threat, NATO continues to show itself as a threat to regional and international security and continues to operate, apparently, with the goal of existing only to expand itself so as to be, as the US Pentagon recently stated, an "effective tool for the projection of the US force worldwide".
The Voice of Russia spoke to Rick Rozoff – the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list about these issues and more.
You are listening to part 2 of an interview with Rick Rozoff. You can find part one on our website at voiceofrussia.com.
Robles: Back to NATO for a minute and the comments by the Russian Ambassador to Serbia. I believe he said that NATO was, and you quoted him saying that NATO was organized and founded to fight the Soviet Union, and it wasn’t clear what its objectives are now, right? What do you think are its objectives? If you can, again. We’ve talked about this many times in the past.
Rozoff: I think the Russian Ambassador’s comments were meant to be rhetorical rather than strictly accurate. He knows what the current objective of NATO is, as do we and, I’m sure, most of your listeners. And what it is is no longer even maintaining the pretence of being a defensive organization, but rather having been transformed into what I would consider to have been an aggressor in the Cold War, to begin with… maybe, perhaps not in terms of a “hot” war, but, nevertheless, setting up a military bloc in a continent that had just been devastated by a world war.
But, nevertheless, what we know is; in the post Cold War period NATO has emerged not as an alleged defender of the territory of its member states, but as an expeditionary military force that is used outside the territory of NATO member states in wars of aggression against essentially defenseless and, for the most part, small countries, that is evidenced, of course, by the 1999 seventy-eight-day air war against Yugoslavia, the six-month air war and naval blockade against Libya, the war against Afghanistan in its 13th year – that’s what NATO is about now.
Robles: Smaller countries that what?
Rozoff: Smaller countries that maintained some modicum of independence and non-alignment and for which they have been destroyed. Let me as blunt as I can be about that. Countries, like Yugoslavia, that were founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement who had to be taught a lesson and in the words of Voltaire from the novel Candide “for the encouragement of others”.
That is; if anyone dreams about maintaining a semblance of neutrality, of military non-alignment, of not permitting their sons and daughters to be dragooned into foreign wars…as perhaps the Russian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, I mean to Serbia, warned his audience. If you really want your sons and daughters to kill and die in countries like Iraq and Libya and Syria, then joining NATO is your ticket to that.
But if you don’t, then in the viewpoint of the US and its major NATO allies you are marked for extinction. You are either with us or against us, to use the infamous terminology of the last American Commander-in-Chief. And I think it is irrefutable at this point that the world’s sole military superpower (and again, that designation is by Barack Obama, that’s how he identifies his own country, for which he is Commander-in-Chief); “… you are either with us or we’ll destroy you.”
Robles: Back to Ukraine a little bit, and this is a little bit away from NATO. The incentive was economic for Ukraine. There would be billions of dollars coming into the country from the European Union. That figure was in the single digit billions in over like a 7-year period, I think. Yet, if they join the Customs Union of Russia, the Republic of Belarus, Kazakhstan and integrate further into other economic blocs, namely Russian-led blocs, the incentives are in the hundreds of billions of dollars in the same period. Can you comment on that?
Rozoff: Yes, thanks for that arithmetic I wasn’t familiar with that but it doesn’t surprise me. The intent of course is to buy off the political leadership of Ukraine, so that somebody retires to Monaco or something with a few billions stashed away as opposed to doing anything for the benefit of the Ukrainian people.
There’s been an energy war being waged for over 20 years. Ukraine is not only targeted by the eastern partnership, but it is one of the countries that contributes to the acronym GUAM; Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova, which the US setup in the early 1990s to act as an energy transit corridor to squeeze Russia out of the European natural gas and oil market.
For a while GUAM was with two Us (GUUAM), because Uzbekistan was in there, but then dropped out. But now it is Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova.
And by the way, John Kerry (the US Secretary of State) has been in Moldova recently, where with the change of government with one of these so-called “color revolutions” recently there is a much more pro-NATO regime.
The thing is, I think we have to remember about Ukraine’s Orange Revolution the occasion to allude to where Viktor Yushchenko through extra-constitutional means was installed as president, essentially, in 2004, when he ran for re-election, he got 5% of the vote, which is a good indication of how popular he truly was with the Ukrainian public.
The US seems to be wanting to punish the Yanukovych Government for making decisions not to align themselves with the West against Russia, not independent of, but explicitly against Russia.
Robles: What do you think about these sanctions? Obama and the US Government is saying they are thinking of sanctions against Yanukovych.
Rozoff: It follows on heels of several years. You talked about the former now Secretary of State Hilary Clinton or the Obama administration as a whole threatening Ukraine because of the court case and the incarceration of Yulia Timoshenko, who was, if you will, Joan of Arc of the Orange Revolution and has been sitting in a jail cell for years now because of crooked natural gas deals. And these are the standard bearers of US democracy or the so-called “democracy” in the former Soviet space.
You know, it is not one thing, it is another. The US has to continuingly exercise pressure and threats and the menace of economic or worse actions against countries to kind of keep them in line.
By the way, before we end this thing, there was a comment a couple of days ago, I think two days ago, by the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stating that now with the historic, apparent, deal between the US and Iran on Iran’s nuclear program: What conceivable justification can there possibly be for the US and NATO continuing their encirclement of Russia with interceptor missiles.
Robles: Exactly! I was just going to ask you about that. I’m glad you brought that up. And North Korea if you could and Iran.Yes, exactly! What is the point now? What are they going to say now?
Rozoff: I guess, I would ask the question: why didn’t NATO not immediately state (if you are to believe anything they say) that they now see the error of their ways and they are abandoning the phase-adaptive approach interceptor missile system. Of course, they won’t say that, because the target has never been Iran, the target has been Russia. Lavrov has called their bluff.
Robles: Has that had any resonance over there?
Rozoff: Far too little. I mean, I wish people had really seized on that. I’ve seen a couple of comments, but not enough. This is something the whole disarmament and antiwar movement needs to pick up and pick up with a vengeance.
Robles: I think the taxpayers too, I mean American taxpayers are indebted for how many generations?
Rozoff: You are correct!
Robles: I mean, the next, I don’t know, two hundred generations are going to have to pay for the current war debt and they just want to keep building and building it up even more.
Rozoff: Two years ago, when the US military spending was in the neighborhood of $718 billion a year, which is in constant dollars the highest level since WW II, the official military spending came down to something like $2,400 per year for every man, woman and child in the US.
Robles: Against whom? Against some US-backed Al Qaeda terrorists in the desert somewhere in the Middle East?
Rozoff: I have my own opinion about whose assets they truly are, but, I mean that of course is ludicrous.
Robles: Can you comment on where do you think Iran is going? I think that’s very important. That’s going to change the whole game in the Middle East, I think.
Rozoff: Again, assuming even for the sake of argument that Iran is a rogue state, they represented the threat to somebody and now that threat has been diminished, I just don’t buy that argument. It has not been a threat to his neighbours or anybody else, not for centuries surely.
And the fact that a more Western-leaning Government has come to power since the last election, first of all suggests that elections in Iran actually mean something, as opposed to here, where the foreign policy is not going to change in any substantive way because individual on individual/one party wins the election.
But I don’t yet know whether the new Government in Tehran is willing to make peace with the US principally or otherwise and how many concessions they are willing to grant the US in order not to be bombed, I can’t say.
Robles: Can you comment on Netanyahu’s comment? He was huffing and puffing, he was all upset and he said that making an agreement with Iran is granting them some sort of legitimacy, making them a legitimate state. Since when wasn’t the Islamic Republic of Iran a legitimate country?
Rozoff: From the point of view the US and Israel of course it never has been. I mean, they much preferred the hereditary monarch – the Shah of Iran – their close military, as well as political and energy ally incidentally.
And I’m sure in both instances, just like the US, which staged a coup d'état in Iran in 1953 overthrowing Mosaddegh and installing the Shah, until the US and its allies – Israel and Saudi Arabia – which have a joint interest in criticizing Iran, until those three countries install some puppet regime in Tehran, they are not going to be satisfied and they are going to continue to bluster. But I think we have to keep in mind that the sort of government they would envision for Iran would be the one that’s in the least representative or democratic.
Robles: Anything else?
No, but thank you for the opportunity. It’s been a very far ranging, but I hope a coherent discussion and I’m appreciative of the opportunity.
Okay, have a good one Rick.
That was part 2 of an interview in progress. You can find part 1 on our website at voiceofrussia.com. Thanks for listening/reading and I wish you the best wherever you may be.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_11/NATO-engaged-in-wars-aggression-against-small-countries-Rick-Rozoff-0170/
11 December 2013, 16:50
Russia Modernizing and Building its Defenses in Response to Modern Threats
The Russian Federation is responding to developing and current threats to its security and attempts by the West to shift the global strategic military balance in its favor, with US/NATO's missile "defense" shield being cited as one of the key threats faced by Russia in maintaining a strategic balance and one for which against which measures are being taken. Attempts by the US/NATO to militarize the Arctic are also being addressed as well as attempts by US/NATO to tip the balance of the nuclear deterrence and project its "force" globally, in particular with regard to the Middle East.
President Vladimir Putin, speaking to an expanded meeting of the Russian Ministry of Defense on Tuesday stated that plans by US/NATO to expand its missile defense plans in Europe have not stopped and continue unabated, hence Russia is forced to respond. Speaking of the continuation of US/NATO missile "defense" plans is clearly in response to statements by US/NATO that despite the supposed threat of Iran (the pretext for the ABM shield) being eliminated they will not change their plans for installing missiles in Europe.
President Putin has publically stated and now confirmed what many have been saying for years regarding the ABM shield being installed in order to neutralize any response from Russia. The fact that with minor modifications the missiles making up the shield could be converted into first strike weapons were not touched upon by the president but given the context this is clear and is something he is no doubt aware of.
President Putin said that the West is attempting bring about a shift in the strategic balance.
" There are ongoing attempts to violate, "blur " the strategic balance . First of all, they are related, of course, with plans to build a US missile defense," President Putin said.
With regard to the massive modernization taking place in the Russian military and across the entire spectrum of the Russian armed forces President Putin underlined the fact that leading countries are actively modernizing their arsenals, investing heavily in the development of weapons including in are where new generation technologies are being used. He stated that Russia is no exception .
Regarding exercises that have been held in 2013, President Putin said confirmed the reliability of Russia's nuclear shield and he spoke highly of the increased combat capabilities of the aerospace defense forces, especially with regard to Russia's own missile defense warning and interception systems.
Regarding continued upgrades the President stated that in 2014, the Armed Forces will receive more than 40 most advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles, more than 210 aircraft and helicopters and more than 250 armored vehicles . In response to threats the nuclear missile carriers Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh and part of a constellation of six new satellites, will be deployed and on active watch.
Recently the Head of the Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs Alexei Pushkov also spoke about the US/NATO "shield" and said that NATO will now have nothing to justify the need for the creation of a European missile defense shield if the Iranian "problem" is solved.
Mr. Pushkov stated the: "The NATO missile defense system in Europe needs the so-called " Iranian threat to explain its existence. If the Iranian problem is solved, there will be nothing to explain (missile) defense."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also recently made a similar statement at a media forum in Rome, stating that "… if an agreement on Iran will be realized, the reason for the creation of a missile defense system in Europe will disappear."
US/NATO are recalcitrant however with a source in NATO recently stating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization sees no reason to revise plans for a European missile defense arrangements in relation to Iran's nuclear program. Despite claiming for years that the ABM shield was being built against an Iranian threat US/NATO has regrouped and updated their clearly false claims taking them one step further.
A NATO spokesperson in Brussels recently told Interfax that: "We know that more than 30 countries have or are acquiring ballistic missile technology that could eventually be used as carriers of not only conventional warheads, but also weapons of mass destruction".
One might ask US/NATO if it is possible for countries with more primitive technologies to change their configurations to deliver, even nuclear payloads, why are we supposed to believe that US/NATO cannot do the same with their Advanced Capability 3 interceptor missiles and their own missile defense elements. The answer is that they can be quickly changed into first strike weapons and Russia knows this. Who these now "30" countries are that US/NATO needs to defend itself against are in not clear nor was it stated, but clearly it is a disingenuous argument needed to justify their continued plans to surround Russia with missiles.
President Putin made the connection between diplomatic efforts and military strength underling Russia's staunch position in always seeking a diplomatic solution to conflicts. He noted in his speech that Russia has consistently advocated settlement of international and regional issues exclusively by diplomatic means, adding that the "factor of military deterrence" often plays a significant role.
It is important to recall that President Putin also recently disbanded the Kremlin working group which was seeking to find ways of cooperation with US/NATO on missile defense. Clearly surrounding Russian and oneself with US/NATO rockets is not something that the Kremlin is too keen on being a party to.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_11/Russia-modernizing-and-building-its-defenses-in-response-to-modern-threats-8984/
562 writers appeal for end to surveillance
On the occasion of International Human Rights Day 562 authors from around the world, including 5 Nobel Prize laureates, have signed an open letter calling for the defense of civil liberties against surveillance by corporations and governments. The 5 Nobel Prize Winners who signed the appeal are: Orhan Pamuk, J.M. Coetzee, Elfriede Jelinek, Günter Grass and Tomas Tranströmer.
The appeal is another in a long series of calls by journalists, writers, whistleblowers, truth seekers, activists, hacktivists, human rights defenders, those calling for a return to the rule of law and hundreds of millions of other citizens of the world calling for the rule of law and for governments to respect the rights of the individual.
Such a noble effort only further makes it clear we are no longer living in a world where true democracy and the rights of the individual matter in the least. We are living in a world controlled by elites, corporations, big money, the military industrial complex and intelligence agencies. For these entities the rights of the individual are abstractions and nonsensical concepts that have no bearing on mass control and the bottom line.
The lie of the “War on Terror” and the claim by intelligence agencies in bed with corporations that the massive surveillance is for guaranteeing our safety can no longer justify the extent of the massive spying nor the stripping of our rights as individuals to be free from surveillance.
What is perhaps stunning and further underlines just how far we have come down the road towards global fascism is the fact that the letter is addressed not only to governments and states but to corporations. Such a letter also underlines the growing desperation that citizens of the world have toward governments, corporations and intelligence agencies who operate with impunity, without oversight and completely ignore the wises and the needs of their citizenry.
The text of the letter is as follows:
In recent months, the extent of mass surveillance has become common knowledge. With a few clicks of the mouse the state can access your mobile device, your e-mail, your social networking and Internet searches.
It can follow your political leanings and activities and, in partnership with Internet corporations, it collects and stores your data, and thus can predict your consumption and behaviour.
The basic pillar of democracy is the inviolable integrity of the individual. Human integrity extends beyond the physical body. In their thoughts and in their personal environments and communications, all humans have the right to remain unobserved and unmolested.
This fundamental human right has been rendered null and void through abuse of technological developments by states and corporations for mass surveillance purposes.
A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.
To maintain any validity, our democratic rights must apply in virtual as in real space.
* Surveillance violates the private sphere and compromises freedom of thought and opinion.
* Mass surveillance treats every citizen as a potential suspect. It overturns one of our historical triumphs, the presumption of innocence.
* Surveillance makes the individual transparent, while the state and the corporation operate in secret. As we have seen, this power is being systemically abused.
* Surveillance is theft. This data is not public property: it belongs to us. When it is used to predict our behaviour, we are robbed of something else: the principle of free will crucial to democratic liberty.
WE DEMAND THE RIGHT for all people to determine, as democratic citizens, to what extent their personal data may be legally collected, stored and processed, and by whom; to obtain information on where their data is stored and how it is being used; to obtain the deletion of their data if it has been illegally collected and stored.
WE CALL ON ALL STATES AND CORPORATIONS to respect these rights.
WE CALL ON ALL CITIZENS to stand up and defend these rights.
WE CALL ON THE UNITED NATIONS to acknowledge the central importance of protecting civil rights in the digital age, and to create an International Bill of Digital Rights.
WE CALL ON GOVERNMENTS to sign and adhere to such a convention.
End
One of the key phrases of the letter is the following: “The basic pillar of democracy is the inviolable integrity of the individual.” This phrase is one that must be repeated over and over and one which must be taken to heart by those in power, by government bodies and by intelligence agencies who purport to be part of “democratic” governments, for it is the violation of this simple and inalienable human right that lies at the core of everything that has gone wrong with the world.
We saw the principle violator of human rights and this basic human right, the United States, trample on civil liberties, freedoms and even the right to be free from extra-judicial execution after 9-11 and they have continued to this day having successfully built a worldwide electronic spy network unparalleled to anything that has existed in all of human history. They have enlisted governments all over the world to join their efforts under the guise of a “War on Terror”, and many of the world’s states have willingly followed down that road.
As journalists and whistleblowers and truth seekers we have attempted to expose and stop this onslaught but largely to no avail. Someone speaks out, they are shut up. An organization publishes, they are shut down. Someone connects the dots or exposes evidence of illegality, they are marginalized and gotten rid of. There is currently a war being waged on all of us, it is not a war on terror, it is a war on you and me and you and I have no rights.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_10/562-writers-appeal-for-end-to-surveillance-5730/