Tag: Turkey

The US (Working on Behalf of Israel) Made War on Afghanistan and Iraq – Next Up: Armenia?

When I talk of a people group/religion being impacted by US foreign policy, I do so only to confront the myth that the US is a Christian nation. Now we may have a lot of Christians in this country, but the nation, the federal government and its policies are not currently setup to protect Christians from persecution. Of course the Bush II push into Iraq was designed to “protect our freedoms” as an American people, but even this is questionable in the long run.

So a little review is in order. Over the past 30 years since the US gave Saddam (who protected Iraqi Christians) the green light to invade Kuwait and then wagged war (Gulf War I) on him, putting him on lock-down and having the Clinton-era dear Madeleine Albright say to Leslie Stahl about the 500,000 Iraqi children deaths cause by the US’s actions against Iraq:

This was followed during the Bush II administration by blaming Iraq on 9/11, accusing them of having WMDs and while instead of having the CIA root out any possible 9/11 conspirators (they should have looked within their ranks first) in Afghanistan, the USA invaded both countries to the benefit on ONLY Israel and possibly Saudi Arabia.

The result is that Afghanistan no longer has ANY Christian churches and Iraq lost a million plus (1.4M in 1987 to under 200,000 recently) at least bringing those number now almost to the point of extinction. So much for “democracy” that allows freedom of religion. Oh, that is wrong, democracy is mob rule, so I guess that is what we have in Iraq and Afghanistan today with the expulsion of Christians from there homes. This is very similar to Israel’s policy, knowing that 65% of Israel is Atheist where as almost all the Christians in the lands that Israel ruthlessly controls are Palestinians.

But I digress ..

So what does that have to do with two countries that most Americans could not pick out on a world map? Well, the US allied with Israel, in partnership with Turkey is at it again. Azerbaijan, the most secular country on the planet is invading Armenia, the most Christian country on the planet (98% Christian).

In summary, the US favors both Turkey and Israel, and Azerbaijan has oil – and is also favored by Turkey and Israel. Of course, we know Israel’s view of Iran. Iran is not allowed to be seen as a positive force in any manner whatsoever. So this makes Armenia expendable as far as the US is concerned.

There is a major disconnect between the US’s proud Christian heritage and supporting never-ending wars in the Middle East that seem to always work towards persecution of the Christians. We have evangelical Christians in the US totally rooting for Israel and their ally Azerbaijan with the US helping (and infusing the region with its old friend ISIS, which a majority are secular as well).

Moon of Alabama connects the dots well in his article:

Turkey is supporting Azerbaijan by supplying it with Turkish drones and with ‘moderate Syrian rebel’ mercenaries from Syrian and Libya. All are flown in through Georgian air space. Other mercenaries seem to come from Afghanistan. Additional hardware comes by road also through Georgia. Another supporter of the attacker is Israel. During the last week Azerbaijani military transport aircraft have flown at least six times to Israel to then return with additional Israeli suicide drones on board. These Harop drones have been widely used in attacks on Armenian positions. An Israeli made LORA short range ballistic missile was used by Azerbaijan to attack a bridge that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Allegedly there are also Turkish flown F-16 fighter planes in Azerbaijan.

The silver lining is that Russia holds the trump card and ends up ONE MORE TIME protecting innocent nations including their Christian populations (while the US has partnered with ISIS in both Iraq and Syria only to have Russia and Iran kick them to the curb in both countries while the US “claimed” to be fighting ISIS since the Obama administration. Pure BS. Pure lies.

The war seems already to be at a stalemate. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan can afford to use air power and ballistic missiles purchased from Russia without Russian consent.

This is some good news in a region where the US, Israel and Turkey would have all loved another war distraction. Iran and Russia PLUS Armenian Christians all stand to lose.

Here is proof of what they were really up to:

U.S. plans to ‘overextend Russia’ by creating trouble in the Caucasus just as it is now happening. Fort Russ notes:

The current director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, was doing field assignments in Turkey in the early stages of her career, she reportedly speaks Turkish, and she has history of serving as a station chief in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the late 1990s. It is, therefore, presumable that she still has connections with the local government and business elites.

The current Chief of the MI6, Richard Moore, also has history of working in Turkey — he was performing tasks for the British intelligence there in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Moore is fluent in Turkish and he also served as the British Ambassador to Turkey from 2014 to 2017.

The intelligence chiefs of the two most powerful countries in the Anglosphere are turkologists with connections in Turkey and Azerbaijan. It would be reasonable to assume that a regional conflict of such magnitude happening now, on their watch, is far from being a mere coincidence.

Before President Trump stopped the program the CIA had used the Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines in more than 350 flights to bring weapons from Bulgaria to Turkey to then hand them to ‘Syrian rebels’. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is not only a CIA station but also a Mossad center for waging its silent war against Iran.

So you see, our intervention abroad to spread democracy only causes despots at home and abroad. The US is a virus on the world stage:

Peace out.

-SF1

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

US Sends Warship into Russia’s Gulf of Mexico – Amid Tensions with Turkey

There are no coincidences really. I wonder if the US Empire’s navy commanders read Paul Craig Roberts blog and then react accordingly:

It appears that Washington intends to withdraw from the Open Skies agreement with Russia .. The Open Skies Treaty allowed the US and Russia to overfly each other’s territory in order that there could be mutual assurance that one country or the other wasn’t building up forces for attack ..

.. then Roberts writes:

.. Washington is currently raising tensions in the Black Sea, arming Ukraine, Georgia, and Romania, countries that border the Black Sea along with Russia, Turkey, and Bulgaria.The US and its NATO puppets are conducting military exercises in this internal sea that hosts Russia’s Crimean naval base ..

.. then Roberts suggests a strategic move that would stop the US/NATO in their tracks:

.. Russia can declare the Black Sea on Russia’s own coast to be a Russian national security interest.

It would be a highly responsible decision for the Russian government to prevent the dangers that Washington is creating by taking a lesson from Ancient Rome.

Rome declared a much larger sea, the Mediterranean Sea,to be “mare nostrum,” — our sea.The Russians could declare the Black Sea to be “our sea.”

Russia should be able to treat the Black Sea like the US treats the Gulf of Mexico, right? If Iranian or Russian naval vessels were performing military exercises in the Gulf of Mexico, the US media (neo-con mouth pieces) would be crying and shouting foul!

Here is the US Navy’s response as shared by Sputnik:

The US warship, armed with cruise missiles and interceptors, marks the seventh entry of an American missile destroyer into the Black Sea since the beginning of the year, as well as the second of the USS Porter.

Commander of the US 6th Fleet Vice Admiral Lisa Franchetti has commented on the USS Porter’s arrival in the Black Sea.

According to a statement published in the newspaper Stars and Stripes, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer was deployed to an area near Russia’s borders in order to carry out routine operations, showing NATO allies and US partners in the region the country’s “dedication to freedom of navigation”.

How about that. Great timing!

Then, on queue, the US talks about some sanctions (1st level of warfare when negotiations breaks down) against Turkey for invading Syria (but the US did that and was not sanctioned, “above the law” anyone?). Turkey has already agreed to purchase Russian S-400 missile defense platforms, and these sanctions seem to push Turkey towards Russia. Geographically, it might help to note what role Turkey plays in Black Sea access:

 

Turkey’s ability to restrict access to the Black Sea comes from a pre-WWII agreement:

Montreux Convention

.. the 1936 Montreux Convention [2], which makes Turkey the gatekeeper to the Black Sea and lays down the rules to be applied by Turkey in allowing the entry of ships from the Mediterranean.

These rules state that “in time of peace, merchant vessels shall enjoy complete freedom of transit and navigation in the Straits, by day and by night, under any flag and with any kind of cargo” (Article 2).

However, they impose very severe restrictions on the entry of warships belonging to non-Black Sea states and on how long they can remain in the Black Sea… And Article 18(2) stipulates:

“Vessels of war belonging to non-Black Sea Powers shall not remain in the Black Sea more than twenty-one days, whatever be the object of their presence there.”

In addition, under Article 13, Turkey must be notified in advance of a proposed passage through the Straits by a warship, 15 days in advance in the case of warships belonging to non-Black Sea powers, and the notification must “specify the destination, name, type and number of the vessels, as also the date of entry for the outward passage and, if necessary, for the return journey”.

Now you can see why NATO advances into Ukraine also needed a Turkey NATO membership as well to ensure US Empire warship access ANYTIME.

I believe that the US Empire/NATO has over played its hand since the USSR dissolved into various republics. Even though the US Empire promised that NATO would not advance in the wake of the Soviet collapse, it did so anyway.

So whether Russia becomes bold at this point and follows Paul Craig Robert’s suggestion about the Black Sea (based on how Rome essentially did the same centuries ago) or if Turkey flips back out of NATO over the US Empire’s bully tactics, things seem to be a changing in the Geo-political world at an increasing rate.

Stay tuned!

-SF1

 

American Empire’s Military Industrial Complex: Corporate Welfare-Centric

After decades of propping up US military manufacturers (not dissimilar to how the US government propped up canal builder, railroads and steel industries in the 1800s), it is becoming obvious that any industry subsidized this way gets very ineffective and very inefficient while never being innovative. One only has to look at recent super-large military projects like the latest carriers, F-35 and littoral class ships to see that for all the money spent, what the US taxpayer (now and in the future as the debt interest for these expenditures hits) got is of little value.

In his blog post, Andrei Martyanov writes about the F-35:

.. to shoot down F-35 one has to have two different bands radar, good sensor-fusion algorithms and decent signal processing protocols and voila’. S-300 PMU2 Favorit can do this, certainly [the] S-400 [can] ..

This explains why Israel is nervous flying near Syria these days. With customers like India and Turkey now opting for Russian build defense systems, the basic “free-market” economics are finally overriding threats from the US Empire. At the end of the day, these countries want good defense of their nation. This is something that the US has failed to accomplish for itself as it is distracted with the military-industrial complex racket that is in effect a jobs program first and the actual defense of the US is a distant priority.

Andrei goes on to explain what gives Russian military industrial manufacturers the edge:

Unlike American military-industrial complex Russian military-industrial complex is not jobs program or corporate welfare system, it never was.  Allow me to quote myself:
For a nation with such a military history as Russia’s the issue of military technology is an issue of survival. As such, weapons in Russia are sacralized because behind them are generations of Russians who shed blood to make those weapons what they are. They have become a part of the culture to such a degree that commercial considerations take a very distant second place to a main purpose of these weapons—to actually defend the nation. This is absolutely not the case in the United States, with some exception for its Navy, with Americans having no knowledge or recollection of what real war is and what instruments for fighting and winning it are needed. Those things cannot be paid for in money, they are paid for in blood.
I guess this should help explain why Russia is so successful on the international market with her weapons.
At the end of the day, the US now realizes its failed MIC projects at the same time it has alienated both Russia and Chine. Not cool. Too bad Washington DC, Pentagon and Deep State could not grasp Ron Paul’s philosophy that what works around individuals works with nations as well .. good trade (sanction free) promotes peace and prosperity .. and that the “Golden Rule” ( Do unto others as you would have them do unto you ) ain’t just for Christians, or for individual relationships, but nations as well.
Moon of Alabama’s post goes on to extend this demise to the littoral class of ships that the US Navy went all in on:

.. the incompetence of U.S. military design are the Littoral Combat Ships, which are essentially unarmed fast boats. The “stealth” DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyers were supposed to support ground troops with their long range guns. Built at $4 billion a piece the ships are now losing their guns because the ammunition turned out to be too expensive to buy. Before that they lost much of their stealth capabilities because some necessary communication equipment was left out of the original design. The ships new task will be that of a missile launch platform, a job that any commercial ship, carrying containerized Russian missiles (vid), can likewise fulfill.

Epic fails. I could write more about the latest carrier fiasco, but I digress. This is only a symptom of a bigger issues as Ian Walsh in the same post points out:

There is a lot of ruin in a nation, but for almost 40 years now America’s elites have treated the US as something to loot, and assumed that the good times would keep rolling. They were uninterested in actually governing. They were happy to move much of America’s core manufacturing overseas, to the most likely nation to replace America as a hegemon, because the Chinese were smart enough to make American elites rich.

So all these short term gains are typical in a democracy. A monarchy is actually one notch better in keeping the long-term in mind.

Alastair Crook extends this demise to the West itself when he was quoted in Moon of Alabama’s post as concluding:

as the post-war élites in America and Europe become more and more desperate to maintain the illusion of being the vanguard of global civilisation, how will they cope with the re-appearance of a ‘civilization-state’ in its own right: i.e. China?

I guess it is time to read Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s “Democracy – The God That Failed“.  This book is pricey ($40), so an alternative is another Hoppe book I have read called “From Aristocracy to Monarchy to Democracy – A Tale of Moral and Economic Folly and Decay” is a good read available for $4 (Kindle at Amazon) or a PDF from the Mises Library for FREE!

Placing hope in nations, in militaries and in government leaders is foolish. Time to reflect on family, faith and focusing on the local as the empire slowly dies. Maybe Ron Paul was right on a few things (quote from his book ‘Swords into Plowshares’):

“The people, who far outnumber the would-be dictators, can succeed in a worldwide revolution that fully deprives the dictators of their power. But, any revolt must not lead to just changing the name of the authoritarian system or the political parties in the system. Instead, the revolt must be based on rejecting the trust in government doing the things that only the people can and should do for themselves. This revolt will probably come in stages—in bits and pieces—and be different in the various countries of the world.”
― Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity

-SF1

Calm and Peace in Syria: No Thanks to the US Empire

Syrian/Russian controlled territory in Syria (pink) ISIS/Extremists/Turkish territory in Syria (green) Kurdish territory in Syria (yellow)

This is not a Russian spin zone, this is just the truth. There is calm and peace holding its own around Idlib where ISIS and other radical elements remain but are in the processes of moving out with the protection of the Turkey military presence. This arrangement was accomplished with Russian and Syrian efforts in building a buffer zone to diffuse conflicts between forces that have been at war with each other for over 7 years.

The Moon of Alabama article makes it clear that finally the Arab nations in the region that had supported these extremists have now given up on their plan to overthrow Assad.

The Gulf Arabs, except Qatar which is allied with Turkey, have given up on removing President Assad and are making nice:

“In one of the more surprising developments amid a flurry of diplomatic meetings surrounding the U.N. General Assembly, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa was seen greeting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem with hugs and kisses at a pan-Arab meeting last week. Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, has been a vocal critic of Assad and other regional allies of Iran, but the top diplomat said: “the Syrian government is the ruler in Syria and we work with countries even if we disagree with them.” Days later, Assad conducted his first interview with an Arabian Peninsula newspaper since 2011, telling Kuwait’s Al-Shahed that he had reached a “major understanding” with a number of Arab states and that “Western and Arab delegations have already begun to come to Syria to arrange their return, whether diplomatic, economic or industrial.”..”

Assad in Syria has been patient with the process and personally I think that the resignation of the US Empire’s UN Representative Haley is linked to to the closing of this front in the empire’s war on sovereign countries that desire to remain independent from the US. Eyes are now turning toward the Ukraine (which has been the plan B to bug the Russians) and the South China Sea.

Assad has certainly done his part to start the healing process in Syria:

The Syrian president Bashar al Assad just issued a decree that grants amnesty to those who deserted the army or ran away from serving their conscription time. If the deserters and draft dodgers turn themselves in within the next six month to fulfill their service they will escape all punishment.

I do hope that US/Israel/SaudiArabia/UK take the hint and know that they need to take their war making plans elsewhere. This region of the world has born the brunt of this criminal activity and need decades to recover.

The blowback to the US foreign policy I see is that now Russia has a trusted ally in the region and now has a Mediterranean Naval port to boot. The US can no longer do what it wants in Syria and get away with it.

It looks like Africa is now seeing an uptick in US armed forces and CIA/FBI activity as another place to “play” with people’s lives. It is sad that a majority of Americans who pay for all this global gallivanting are clueless to what its government is all about.

Dysfunctional empires will have sick agendas, this ain’t no exceptional nation no sir, no ma’am ..

-SF1