Category: World Affairs

A Non-Empire Approach to National Partnerships – Russia Does It Well

SouthFront's 07MAR2020 Syrian War Graphic
https://southfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/7march_Syria_war_map.jpg

If anyone bothered to observe the news other than Covid-19 this week, there was a tense situation in and around the Idlib province of Syria that had the potential for bringing in NATO on the side of Turkey and Russian ships and troops on the side of Syria. The obvious question for me was, WHY would NATO consider joining Turkish forces IN Syria? But then I remembered, the US Empires troops are STILL on Syrian soil .. so the big empire models how to act ABOVE THE LAW to the little empire.

Scott Ritter’s article in Ron Paul’s Institute for Peace and Prosperity places what Russia accomplished this week in proper perspective:

This week’s meeting between Presidents Putin and Erdogan in Moscow was cast as preventing a war between Russia and Turkey in Syria. War, however, was never on the horizon. Putin called Erdogan’s bluff, and the Turk folded.

One has to admit that since Russia’s invite by Syria in 2015 to directly assist in repelling the ISIS and other radical militia incursion, financed and backed by US/UK/SaudiArabia/Israel coalition, Putin has played it all very cool and extremely patient. Many times there was open second guessing going on within Russia and Syria as to the strategic approach to this intervention that the US had openly hoped would result in “regime change” so that the US (actually Israel, the US Empire’s other little brother) could benefit with Assad out of the way.

Here we are five YEARS later as Russia negotiates a slow and methodical way to return Syria to Syrians while keeping the US Empire and NATO only marginally involved. One has to wonder how many weapons that the Syrian and Russian armies have found US serial numbers on. I am pretty sure there is a database somewhere with all that information for a special time in the future.

Scott Ritter goes on to explain:

Over the course of a week, from February 27 through March 5, Syria’s Idlib province transitioned from being ground zero for a war between the Syrian army and allied forces, and heavily armed groups opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad, into a geopolitical powder keg that threatened to pull the Turkish and Russian militaries into direct conflict with one another. On March 1, Turkey, following up on threats previously made by President Erdogan to drive the Syrian Army and its allies back to the line of demarcation set forth in the original Sochi Agreement, unleashed a major offensive, dubbed “Operation Spring Shield” and involving thousands of Turkish troops fighting alongside anti-Assad formations.

Erdogan also inserted himself into the Syrian civil war (thanks Hillary, Obama and McCain for your “service”, I am sure the people of Libya love y’all and love ‘Merica as a result you dirt-bags) and has been attempting to play off the US Empire / NATO against Russia. Finally, Russia, as a “partner” enlightened Erdogen as to the errors of his ways in a way that allowed Turkey to save face as they retreated. (The US Empire has yet to understand their 2nd, let alone the 3rd and 4th effects of their approach to squashing a powder-keg, as brute force seems to be their motto.)

While the Putin orchestrated agreement is only a placeholder for lasting peace, it is a step in the right direction:

While couched as a ceasefire agreement, the additional protocol produced by the Moscow summit between Putin and Erdogan on Thursday is a thinly disguised instrument of surrender. The Syrian government got everything it was looking for by launching its offensive, and the Turks and their anti-Assad allies were left licking their wounds in a much-reduced Idlib pocket. Beyond preventing direct conflict between Turkey and Russia, the additional protocol achieves little that changes the situation on the ground. Turkey is still faced with the task of disarming the HTS fighters it currently embraces as allies, and the humanitarian crisis triggered by hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the earlier fighting remains. In many ways, the additional protocol, like its antecedent, the Sochi Agreement, is an arrangement designed to fail, because by succeeding it only perpetuates an unsustainable reality that will only be resolved when the totality of Syrian territory is restored to the control of the Syrian government.

So with the Russian “non-empire” strategy in mind, let’s take a look at how the US Empire’s fight (remember the “brute force” MO?) against militias that had nothing to do with 9/11 has panned out after 18.5 years, where instead of surgically targeting the 200 or so AlQ groups that “might” have been linked to 9/11, the US military decided to invade the whole country.(graphic below)

There is no end in sight for this in spite of the bogus Trump peace proposal that depends on the WORD of the US Empire to be believed. Sorry Trump .. from the American Indians to all the broken treaties the US government has bullied its way forward in time to 2020, there is no one on earth that ever believes what the US government says .. EXCEPT the domestic sheep that worship America as their lord and savior.

Peace out.

-SF1

SouthFront's 07MAR2020 Afghanistan War Graphic
https://southfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/7march_Afghanistan.jpg

Nuclear Proliferation Only Paused in the ’90s Post Cold War – Trump Hits the Gas on Nukes

For all the talk about the nuclear non-proliferation agreements that nuclear nations agreed to (except Israel, w/ their 200+ nuke stockpile), Trump exited the Iranian deal made by Obama (probably to strike a better deal, since that is his M.O.) and has hit the gas on getting back into the nuclear proliferation stage once more.

What is sad is that we have the nuclear warheads available collectively to destroy the world over many many times, but the real injustice is the expense laid at the taxpayers (tax slaves) feet as well as enslaving their children to a mountain of debt. The US had not been involved in the production of nukes since the 1990s as the Non-Proliferation Treaties were doing their job after the end of the Cold War:

Non

Each homeowner “counts the cost” (Jesus’ words from the Bible in Luke 14:28) when they decide between bread and guns, toilet paper and ammo .. but the US Empire prints their own money and is paranoid as h**l that some other nation might pull a fast one on them, so they splurge on a weapons inventory that only an insane person might do on a personal level.

Back at the beginning of 2019, Trump rolled out the production of low-yield nukes (similar or smaller than the Hiroshima nuke that eliminated an estimated 60,000-80,000 people) for placement on the US’s nuclear submarine fleet. This is based on the strategic theory that if you launch a little nuke, it will not escalate to a nuclear war. I guess I don’t see it that way since I am sure that any “little nuke” lobbed into any US state WOULD result in a firestorm of nuke warheads aimed at the source (or not, just like the Iraq invasion, where they had nothing to do w/ 9/11, got the brunt of the US Empire’s mistake with millions killed and their country’s infrastructure ruined as well as the release of ISIS in their territory).

So here we are in 2020, fresh off Trump’s assassination of Iran’s 2nd in command on Iraqi territory, pissing off all honest people in those nations, and it is becoming clear what the cost is going to be for all this. ZeroHedge has done the US taxpayers/tax-slaves a favor by brining some graphics to help communicate our future debt:

OK, this ain’t low “cost” = low “yield nukes, this actually has a major impact on the already stretched budget, that will never be achieved again.

Other info that is provided is both the location and the composition of these weapons:

ZeroHedge’s Tyler Durden summarizes by saying:

With this new weapons development, the U.S. is aiming to create “tailored response options” to any potential conflict. By eliminating the perceived advantages that adversaries may have, the U.S. is hoping to lower the likelihood of a nuclear conflict.

Arms control advocates warn that new lower-yield warheads entering production will lower the threshold for a nuclear conflict.

While advocates and critics of nuclear weapons debate the merits of new weapons, we appear to be entering a new era of weapons proliferation.

While I do not believe in gun-free or nuke-free zones, when a government, “servants of the people” (at least in America that was the initial thought) goes crazy in spending for weapons that do little to actually “protect” the US, you have to wonder what will it take to reverse this course toward Thomas Jefferson’s dream:

Peace out.

-SF1

With China Reeling from Corona-virus, Is Russia in the US Empire’s Cross-hairs?

 

Sanctions, embargoes and tariffs might not enough for the DC Elite to be convinced that Russia is not a threat to the US Empire’s future. It seems that China, which owns a substantial chunk of US debt, has been marginalized, either by design or by coincidence.

What is the source of this paranoia? Is it that the Russians embarrassed the US by really defeating ISIS? Maybe it was what the Russians found in Syria after ISIS retreated that had the US Empire’s fingerprints all over it. Maybe it is because Russia has done fairly well in spite of the embargoes by trading with other nations, getting off the USD petro-dollar and securing Crimea? Is it because Putin pulled levers to get Trump elected? (Don’t make me laugh)

The MIC / Deep State does need a war soon to keep the defense industry humming and keep those DC lobbyists busy with a majority of Congress in lining their pocketbooks. The Israel-First policy has been a great program for two intense decades (preceded by a couple of decades of US-centric support) ..

.. but that program might be plateauing a bit now that Iraq is pushing for independence from the US orbit, thanks to Trump’s assassination of Iran’s 2nd in command on Iraqi soil. Israel will keep crying that it needs the Golan Heights, more Palestinian soil to settle on and protection from Iraqi missiles.

So to move on and ratchet up some war or preparation for war somewhere on this globe, the US has to focus on Russia. I mean, look at the way Russia has encroached on NATO since 1990:

Oops, I guess NATO has been in expansion mode. Oh well, the narrative pays little attention to facts.

Paul Craig Robert’s article caught my eye this week as he sensed that Russia should be alert to what the US Empire is up to. It seems from this article, that the Russian people don’t see the US as an enemy:

… a contemporaneous poll published by the Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster, reports that 80% of Russians see Washington and its NATO vassals as “friends.” https://tsarizm.com/news/eastern-europe/2020/02/18/poll-4-out-of-5-russians-view-west-as-a-friend/

“Only 3% of Russian respondents said they see the West as Russia’s enemy, Levada said. Another 16% said they view the West as a rival.

“Two-thirds of Levada’s respondents (67%) said Russia should treat the West as a “partner,” while 11% said Russia should treat the West as a “friend,” according to the Kommersant business daily’s breakdown of the data.”

Roberts is concerned that the reality of the US Empire’s hate on Russia is a struggle that should be more apparent and real.

Consider the expense (and debt) that the US has expended only to be shown up by Russia’s new hyper-sonic missiles and other emerging technologies.

Examples of the technological lag were made public almost two years ago:

– Mach 20 allows supersonic missile delivery system that can quote “deliver missiles to the needed point in just a matter of the seconds

– A cruise missile with a nuclear engine

– The 200 ton SARMAT ballistic missile that circles around the Earth and again come to the other continents from a surprisingly weird angles

There are a couple more, but I think you get the picture.

With a 1/10th of the US Empire budget (not including the black budgets and other military agencies that do not figure into the DoD official budget), Russia has been 10x more innovative in an attempt to defend itself. I contend that only these new systems that have come of age in the last 5 years helps to deter the US from attempting regime change on Russia itself .. again.

While Roberts thinks that Russia’s military understands the latest war-game that NATO is amassing near Russia’s borders, he contends that the government is failing their people in getting them to understand this reality. Maybe Russia understands that a distracted population is not an innovative or productive one, I guess that would be my own take. In either case, Roberts then says:

How can the Russian people, humiliated by American sanctions and endless denunciations of their elected president, who led them out of American captivity, and threatened by Washington’s nuclear missiles on their border, possiblly(sic) believe in friendship and partnership with Washington?

If the polls are correct, and the Russian people do not understand Washington’s hegemonic impulse, Russian sovereignty is not a sure thing.

I contend that psychologically, having the people surprised by an overt act of aggression on the part of the US Empire would kindle a defensive posture more than warning them day after day that the evil empire (US) is poised to strike at any minute. That is something only the US government would do to justify expensive military interventions around the globe as well as a massive debt.

I stand impressed to date of Russia’s attitude on the world stage, patient with countries like Turkey that vacillate between Russian and US circles while providing true relieve to the people of Syria that is still reeling from Obama’s and Hillary’s induced “civil war’ there using ISIS as their weapon of choice.

Things sure have changed in 40 years, from crazy Ivan to reasonable Putin while the US’s collateral damage was JFK on their way to having crazy Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama and now Trump manning the wheel.

Peace out

-SF1

Point of No Return – Ruling Class’s Power Over the US Empire

Sometimes it takes a very small quote to wake up to the new reality. I contend that this reality could have come much earlier, like in 1814, or 1860, 1867, 1870s, 1913, 1941, 1950, 1964, 1971, 1990, 2002, or 2008. I think it comes from our nature to assume the best in some tough situations.

But, consider this quote from Angelo Codevilla in his article “Facing Up to the Revolution” :

Our country is in a state of revolution, irreversibly, because society’s most influential people have retreated into moral autarchy, have seceded from America’s constitutional order, and because they browbeat their socio-political adversaries instead of trying to persuade them. Theirs is not a choice that can be reversed. It is a change in the character of millions of people.

The sooner conservatives realize that the Republic established between 1776 and 1789—the America we knew and loved—cannot return, the more fruitfully we will be able to manage the revolution’s clear and present challenges to ourselves. How are we to deal with a ruling class that insists on ruling—elections and generally applicable rules notwithstanding—because it regards us as lesser beings?

It does have to be considered how the US Constitution actually helped the oligarchy, the ruling class, to gain access to the US government. If the colonies had remained sovereign states, like under the Articles of Confederation, it would have been more difficult and easier to resist from a grassroots level. The spread of “general” government to that of a federal government forever changed the structure of this nation as well as the fabric of society. Today, 99% of people can not imagine life without their safety net, their protector, their ‘mom’, their ‘dad’, .. their government.

Last month in a Lew Rockwell article, Gary D. Barnett proclaimed:

No nation-state is valid, as all states tend to seek a hierarchal structure of power, specifically in the name of protecting the common man collectively with profoundly restrictive laws. No free individual has need for such false protection. The beginning of this American experiment to create a powerful state was said to be about freedom of the individual, while all along, the hierarchy of power became more and more evident. What started out as a few separate colonies quickly became separate states with a new ruling class, and then one nation-state was formed and centralized, with allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. This progression was intended all along, and so the sought after tyrannical state came to fruition. Today we live as slaves in a society with a ruling structure akin to a fascist oligarchy. This is now a nation that is in constant war, and has become the largest and most murderous empire in the history of the world.

Unfortunately, secession will never be tolerated (if Lincoln didn’t tolerate it, you can bet no 21st century president would), and those who speak of this will be marginalized one way or another.

The US Empire will have to die before anything like the 1783-1789 federated group of states could ever be attempted again. As Mr. Barnett predicts:

Collectivism breeds empire and allows it to flourish, and because of the loss of individual thought, it becomes the internal disease that leads to the extermination of that empire. This is the real America, not the land of the free and home of the brave, but a collective mob of ignorant sheep awaiting the slaughter due to their own weakness and stupidity.

With collectivist thought at an all time-high we seem to be a long way from breaking up this evil empire that continues to wage war all around the globe. War is the only thing it knows, and the only thing that brings in the $USD and props up the petro-dollar.

Sad times indeed, however, by planting the seeds of individual thought in our kids and our friends, we can all be best prepared for the next season of the US Empire.

-SF1

Gaining a Middle East Perspective, Apart from the Official US Empire/Media Narrative

Lebanese ‘Vision for Peace’ for a brighter future for the people in North America

Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

The Who – “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

By now, one has to understand that it really makes no difference who is president, except for maybe if one has the gift of eloquent speech, another a gift of making it to 3rd base with an intern, another a gift of “duh” while targeting countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, another the gift of racial equality and finally a politician that can create tweets on Twitter and trigger millions. We sure have made “progress”.

However, in the real world, the US Empire has been marching on from CIA assassinating other nation’s democratically elected presidents (1953, Iran) to open US military assassination of other nation’s #2 national leader and hero from his strategy to defeat ISIS (2020, Iran), nothing has halted the evil empire’s advance. Yes, I agree with Oliver Stone that the evil of the USSR in the 1980s has been replaced by the US Empire of the 2000s and beyond.

Things have changed a lot since then, at least for Stone. “Empires fall. Let’s pray that this empire, these evil things… because we are the evil empire,” he said in an interview to RT. “What Reagan said about Russia is true about us.” – Sputnik / Alexei Druzhinin

To get a real picture of what has evolved in the Middle East and how we (US Empire) are not helping, I believe that Eric Margolis’ experience is something that can be drawn on as a starting point where one can research for themselves from there. In his latest piece picked up by the Ron Paul Institute from Lew Rockwell, called “Grand Theft Property”, Eric outlines how this latest Trump “Peace Plan” is nothing more than continued theft of Palestinian land that will only serve to ensure continued violence in the region that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) will love so that their profits are assured. Eric explains:

As they ask in my native New York City, “Is it good for the Jews?”, the answer is a resounding no! The Trump-Bibi theft of ancestral Arab lands condemns Arabs and Jews to another five decades of violence and hatred. The Promised Land was not supposed to be like this.

Ain’t that the truth. The fact is, visions do not create rights. They have no legal grounds. They do not convey legality to anything.

Don’t go away, for the backstory is even better. One needs to know the context and history that brought us to this point where it seems to be accepted that Israel and the US can decide how to partition up the Middle East:

In 1916, as World War I raged on, a British diplomat, Mark Sykes, met with his French counterpart from the Quai d’Orsay, Monsieur Picot, and signed an agreement to partition the Ottoman Empire once victory was achieved.

The heart of the Mideast – Palestine, Syria, and Iraq – was divided between Britain and France. Italy and Russia were offered other Ottoman lands: southern Turkey was promised to Italy and Constantinople to Russia. All this was top secret but was later revealed by the Bolsheviks after their 1917 revolution.

Do you see this? World powers, the empires, can just decide where to draw the lines, the benefits of wars go to the state while the cost of war is the burden that those who fought and sometimes died along with their families and the innocent civilians caught up in these great conflicts where life is never the same.

I have heard the term that bigger is better, however, when it comes to states, the bigger the state they more tyrannical they can be. This tyranny extends from the politicians who enable the state and give the state legitimacy, because politicians were “voted” in, all the way to all the people who follow orders blindly, from CIA assets, to the military all the way to the police, from the capital, to the states all the way to the local governments that are dependent on federal funding.

I agree with G.K. Chesterton who said:

“The men whom the people ought to choose to represent them are too busy to take the jobs. But the politician is waiting for it. He’s the pestilence of modern times. What we should try to do is make politics as local as possible. Keep the politicians near enough to kick them. The villagers who met under the village tree could also hang their politicians to the tree. It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”

That kind of local government could easily have prevented the following:

  • 70 million killed in China
  • 60 million killed in USSR
  • 4 million killed in Cambodia
  • 5 million killed in North Korea
  • 1 million killed in Yugoslavia
  • 1 million killed in Ethiopia
  • 1 million killed in Indonesia
  • 800,000 killed in Rwanda
  • 800,000 killed in US Civil War

Anyway, it appears that the US Empire train, similar to the USSR and Roman ones before it, will continue on down this track until it self destructs, no matter who is the president.

-SF1