U.S. Rulers think they can win a Nuclear War - John Spritzler
NOTE: Pat
Buchanan's article Establishment Panic: Ruling class fears the
people won't
accept its political legitimacy is at
http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/an-establishment-in-panic-2/
Newsletter published on 30 October 2016
(1)
Hillary's War policy includes US attack on Russian airbase in Syria
- Anshel
Pfeffer (Haaretz)
(2) Russian aerial defenses in Syria restrict the Israeli
Air Force
(Haaretz)
(3) U.S. Rulers think they can win a Nuclear War -
John Spritzler
(4) Funny how all the architects of the Iraq War endorsed
Hillary
(5) Royal Air Force Pilots given the OK to shoot down Russian jets
over
Syria, in defense
(6) NATO military build-up on Russia's
borders
(7) Neocons enacted 9/11 to bring chaos to MidEast, destroying
enemies
of Israel - Paul Craig Roberts
(8) Erdogan complicates US plans
for Syia, after US-backed Coup attempt
- Israel Shamir
(9) Soros' Avaaz
mobilizes Americans abroard to vote for Hillary
(1) Hillary's War policy
includes US attack on Russian airbase in Syria
- Anshel Pfeffer
(Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-1.747305
Hillary’s
War: Can a No-fly Zone Over Syria Work?
If coordinated effectively, the
move might save the lives of tens of
thousands of civilians and create a new
environment for a diplomatic
solution.
Anshel Pfeffer Oct 19, 2016
9:11 AM
At the second presidential debate on Sunday, Democratic candidate
Hillary Clinton said: "I, when I was Secretary of State, advocated, and
I advocate today, a no-fly zone and safe zone." And if it wasn’t clear
she actually meant it, she added: "We need some leverage with the
Russians, because they are not going to come to the negotiating table
for a diplomatic resolution unless there is some leverage over
them."
What Clinton was advocating was a U.S.-led military intervention
to stop
Russian and Syrian warplanes bombing civilians in rebel-held areas
like
Aleppo, even if it meant clashing with Russia. That’s what a no-fly
zone
means.
As secretary of state when the Syrian war began, Clinton
knows all this
perfectly well. She’s aware of all the implications. Perhaps
she was
taking such a position to create distance between herself and her
Republic opponent Donald Trump, who’s in favor of the Assad regime
remaining and takes the Kremlin’s line that in Syria "Russia is killing
ISIS" rather than pulverizing civilians who just happen to live in
rebel-held areas. [...]
The first consideration is timing. The next
president will be sworn in
on January 20. Assuming it’s Clinton, she will
already have an
experienced national security team ready to take over and a
clear idea
of her foreign policy. Theoretically, she could choose to move
very
quickly. At the current rate of Russian bombing, little may remain by
then of eastern Aleppo, and the quarter of a million people still there
will have been killed or will have fled. [...]
In Syria, there is no
prospect of a Security Council resolution, as
Russia, which has already
vetoed five resolutions condemning the Assad
regime, would undoubtedly veto
a no-fly zone. There would also be legal
issues, as the Assad regime is
still the internationally recognized
government and Russia’s forces are
there at Assad’s invitation.
To justify acting without UN backing, the
administration would say that
the Assad regime has lost any claim to be
Syria’s legitimate government
due to its war crimes and because it has lost
control of most of Syria’s
territory and the support of most of its people.
To bolster those
claims, it would seek the support of key allies to take
part in a
coalition enforcing the no-fly zone. The obvious candidates are
the over
30 nations currently supporting Operation Inherent Resolve led by
the
United States already fighting the Islamic State in Syria and
Iraq.
Of these nations, the key Western allies are Britain and France.
[...]
The third key ally would be Turkey [...] Sill, it’s unclear whether
Turkey still holds to its pro-no-fly-zone positions. Following the
failed coup in July, U.S.-Turkish relations have suffered a downturn as
Ankara demands that Washington extradite Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen,
who it accuses of orchestrating the coup. Meanwhile, Turkey has drawn
closer to Russia, with two recent meetings between presidents Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin. [...]
The Assad regime’s air force
is in no condition to defy the USAF and
other Western air forces with its
handful of inferior MiG-21s and
MiG-29s. Russia’s contingent is
better-equipped of course but consists
of only around 40 fixed-wing combat
aircraft (and about 20 helicopters)
all based at Khmeimim Air Base near
Latakia. Most of these are
ground-attack planes like the Sukhoi Su-25,
poorly equipped to survive
air-to-air encounters.
According to most
assessments, Russia has only about 10 dedicated
air-superiority fighters in
Syria – a mixture of Sukhoi Su-30 and
Su-35s. These are Russia’s best
fighters, comparable to Western F-15s,
Typhoons and Rafales. But they would
be outnumbered and without the
massive array of support aircraft the
American-led coalition would have.
They thus would have little chance of
resisting for more than a few
hours. They would also be limited by the fact
that their one base in the
region – Khmeimin (the other Syrian air bases are
too dilapidated to
sustain advanced operations) – has a sole runway that can
be disabled by
an American airstrike. [...]
A no-fly zone over Syria
would "require war with Syria and Russia," Gen.
Joseph Dunford, the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned last
month. In 2013, Clinton herself
said in one of the emails hacked by the
Russians and published by WikiLeaks
that "to have a no-fly zone you have
to take out all of the air defenses,
many of which are located in
populated areas. So our missiles, even if they
are standoff missiles so
we’re not putting our pilots at risk – you’re going
to kill a lot of
Syrians."
While these eventualities must be taken
into account, they don’t
necessarily have to happen if rules of engagement
are established and
followed. The Russians and the Assad regime could simply
decide not to
send aircraft into the no-fly zone and avoid being shot down.
And their
anti-aircraft batteries could refrain from locking on to the
coalition’s
aircraft and avoid being attacked.
Either way, if Russia
responds in Syria or backs down, it will be
humiliated. This may be the
"leverage" Clinton spoke of that will force
Moscow to agree to a cease-fire
including an enforceable commitment to
cease bombing civilian
areas.
But Russia could respond in an operation against Ukraine or in an
ever
bigger provocation against the West, against NATO members in the
Baltic,
or intensify its cyberattacks on the United State beyond its current
hacking of the presidential election. Is diplomacy still possible to let
Russia climb down before it obliterates Aleppo? If so, Kerry’s unceasing
efforts have failed to find a way.
Acting with impunity
One of
the main arguments against imposing a no-fly zone is that it
could
dangerously escalate into a confrontation between nuclear powers.
The
counterargument is that the West can’t let Russia leverage its
nuclear
capability and act with impunity anywhere, and that if diplomacy
and
sanctions have failed, the West must be prepared at some point to
use its
much stronger military.
But where is that point? If the West failed to
prevent Russia from
attacking Georgia in 2008, from attacking Ukraine and
occupying Crimea
in 2014, and now won’t attack when Russia is killing
thousands in Syria,
where is that point? Russia, with its rapidly shrinking
economy, is
hardly in a position to open an all-out war with the United
States
simply to keep Assad in power. And if Putin actually is capable of
doing
so, all the more reason for blocking him sooner rather than
later.
But if successful in the air, what effect would a no-fly zone have
on
the ground? The casualty figures in Syria are hotly contested. According
to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 3,915 civilians were killed
in the first 12 months of Russia’s involvement in Syria. This is "only"
1 percent of around 400,000 killed, including fighters and civilians in
five and a half years of war in Syria.
But it doesn’t include those
killed in the last few weeks in the bombing
of Aleppo, and it includes only
confirmed victims. So the actual number
is likely to be much higher,
especially when including people wounded
and later dying due to a lack of
medical care caused by Russia’s
targeted bombing of medical centers. And
there are the casualties caused
throughout the war by Assad’s airstrikes, a
number almost certainly in
the tens of thousands.
A no-fly zone would
save the lives of tens of thousands more civilians
who would be killed if
the bombardments continued, but it wouldn’t end
the fighting and bloodshed.
To do so, the no-fly zone must indeed be
used to create the leverage that
would allow a more enforceable and
stable cease-fire than the previous
failed ones.
Critics of a no-fly zone claim that it would create a vacuum
on the
ground that would let the Islamic State and other jihadi groups take
control of Syria. This is an empty claim as ISIS is now on the back
foot; many of its forces have been killed or retreated to strongholds
around Raqqa and Mosul. A no-fly zone doesn’t have to mean diverting
forces attacking the Islamic State as part of Operation Inherent
Resolve. Neither is it a cover for "regime change" in Damascus.
It’s
true that before Russian warplanes arrived in Syria in September
2015, the
Assad regime was on the brink of collapse. But while Russia’s
operation
hasn’t succeeded by any means in ending resistance to the
regime, it has
significantly weakened the rebel groups that have largely
been on the
defensive ever since. In the near future, and end to
airstrikes on
rebel-held areas won’t be enough to let the rebels
threaten the regime,
which in the last year has been reinforced by tens
of thousands of
Iranian-led Shi’ite-militia fighters.
If Clinton is indeed serious about
what she says and the United States
and its allies imposed a no-fly zone
effectively, the move might save
the lives of tens of thousands of Syrian
civilians and create a new
environment for reaching a diplomatic solution.
It could also be the
move that finally checked Putin’s aggression in the
region and elsewhere.
Israel on the sidelines
As in the past,
Washington won’t be asking its closest ally in the
Middle East to join a
military coalition there. For all the changes in
the region, Israel as an
official member of a group of nations operating
in an Arab country is still
unthinkable.
Israel would undoubtedly provide intelligence and other
quiet
technological cooperation, but overt collaboration would be too much
for
any "moderate" Arab countries in the coalition, even if they cooperate
with Israel on other matters. Israel would also be wary of any open
alliance with the coalition due to its successful coordination over the
last year with Russia.
Despite initial fears that the Russian
presence would limit Israel’s own
operations against Hezbollah, a series of
meetings between Benjamin
Netanyahu and Putin laid the foundations for an
orderly "deconfliction"
process between the countries’ militaries. While the
United States will
remain Israel’s most important strategic ally, this is
one conflict that
Israel will resolutely keep out of. For once, this is
something all
sides will be happy to agree on.
(2) Russian aerial
defenses in Syria restrict the Israeli Air Force
(Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.748549
Without
Effort, Russia Restricted the Strongest Air Force in the Middle East
New
Russian systems in Syria track every Israeli fighter right on
takeoff, thus
limiting operational freedom against Hezbollah ?
Amos Harel Oct 23, 2016
9:02 AM
Over the past few weeks, Russia has finished beefing up its
aerial
defenses in northern Syria. The Washington Post, after interviewing
American experts, published a map last week showing the estimated radius
of coverage of Russia’s S-300 and S-400 systems, which are bolstered by
anti-aircraft missiles on ships in the port of Tartus. The 380-kilometer
radius covers Lebanon, much of Turkey and Jordan, the eastern
Mediterranean until out beyond Cyprus, a bit of Iraq, and Israel all the
way to the northern Negev.
The paper said the Pentagon isn’t sure
whether, if necessary, it could
penetrate these aerial defense systems,
since the question hasn’t yet
arisen. Presumably, America has electronic
warfare systems capable of
disrupting even dense anti-aircraft coverage. But
the Post said Russia’s
coverage limits Washington’s ability not only to
launch air strikes on
Syrian military targets, but also to create no-fly
zones to protect
civilians, an idea both U.S. presidential candidates say
they support.
Russia’s beefed-up deployment also affects Israel, which,
according to
foreign media reports, has launched numerous air strikes on
arms convoys
from Syria to Hezbollah in recent years. Based on the
Washington Post’s
map, an Israeli plane couldn’t take off from Tel Nof
airbase without
being tagged by Russian radar.
Ever since it
destroyed Syria’s anti-aircraft systems in 1982, Israel’s
air force has
enjoyed absolute aerial superiority (and therefore, almost
complete freedom
of action) on the northern front. But that effectively
ended the moment
Russia decided to beef up its aerial defenses around
Tartus. Almost without
effort, the Russians managed to restrict the
strongest air force in the
Middle East.
The limitations aren’t just military, but also diplomatic.
Israel and
Russia have set up a mechanism to prevent clashes in Syrian
airspace,
and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with Russian
President
Vladimir Putin four times over the last year to further that
purpose.
Having no other choice, Netanyahu has nurtured his Russian
romance. But
in reality, this romance is about as romantic as Donald Trump’s
groping
of women. It’s a romance to which Israel was forced to consent once
the
Russian bear decided to move into its backyard. [...]
(3) U.S.
Rulers think they can win a Nuclear War - John Spritzler
http://newdemocracyworld.org/war/nuclear.html
Why
U.S. Rulers don't fear Nuclear WWIII with Russia
by John
Spritzler
October 23, 2016
The United States government has
escalated the Cold War against Russia:
demonizing Putin as the new Hitler,
imposing sanctions on Russian
leaders, implementing aggressive NATO military
expansion to Russia's
border including installing an anti-ballistic missile
"defense" that is
actually a key component of an offensive nuclear strike,
and threatening
to impose a no-fly zone in Syria that would entail shooting
down Russian
aircraft. Many people have been warning that this American
escalation of
hostility against Russia alarmingly increases the likelihood
of a U.S.
war with Russia that would become a thermonuclear
WWIII.
Others say that the risk of thermonuclear war is not really
anything to
worry about because both U.S. and Russian leaders know that a
nuclear
war would result in Mutual Assured Destruction (M.A.D.)--the
annihilation of both nations (not to mention possibly the end of the
human race)--and therefore they won't let nuclear war break out (i.e.,
"Move along, nothing to see here.")
Some Russia experts living in the
United States, in contrast, have
warned [ http://thesaker.is/a-russian-warning/
] that Russia has the
nuclear capability of killing virtually the entire
American population
and that:
"If there is going to be a war with
Russia, then the United States will
most certainly be destroyed, and most of
us will end up dead."
Russia's nuclear retaliatory ability is described
in "How Russia is
preparing for WWIII" [
http://thesaker.is/how-russia-is-preparing-for-wwiii/
], in which the
author writes of one Russian missile:
"Take the
Kalibr cruise-missile recently seen in the war in Syria. Did
you know that
it can be shot from a typical commerical container, like
the ones you will
find on trucks, trains or ships? Check out this
excellent video [ at https://youtu.be/mbUU_9bOcnM ] which
explains this.
"Just remember that the Kalibr has a range of anywhere
between 50km to
4000km and that it can carry a nuclear warhead. How hard
would it be for
Russia to deploy these cruise missiles right off the US
coast in regular
container ships? Or just keep a few containers in Cuba or
Venezuela?
This is a system which is so undetectable that the Russians could
deploy
it off the coast of Australia to hit the NSA station in Alice Springs
if
they wanted, and nobody would even see it coming.
"The reality is
that the notion that the US could trigger a war against
Russia (or China for
that matter) and not suffer the consequences on the
US mainland is
absolutely ridiculous."
How, then, can one explain presumably rational
(even if evil) people
such as President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton
engaging in
warmongering against Russia that has no actual justification in
International Law, when this warmongering might very well lead to
thermonuclear war with Russia?
WHY THEY DON'T FEAR NUCLEAR
WWIII
I think I know the explanation. It is provided by the following two
articles, each of which is by the same two co-authors.
In 2006
Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations
(whose
honorary chairman is David Rockefeller) had an article titled
"The Rise of
U.S. Nuclear Primacy" by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press
[
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2006-03-01/rise-us-nuclear-primacy
]. The authors subsequently defended and elaborated on their 2006
article in a 2013 article in Strategic Studies Quarterly [
http://www18.georgetown.edu/data/people/kal25/publication-69263.pdf
]
titled, "The New Era of Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and Conflict."
Because it is more recent, I'll quote only from the 2013 article. The
authors write:
"First, technological innovation has dramatically
improved the ability
of states to launch "counterforce" attacks—that is,
military strikes
aimed at disarming an adversary by destroying its nuclear
weapons.
"Perhaps most surprising, pairing highly accurate delivery
systems with
nuclear weapons permits target strategies that would create
virtually no
radioactive fallout, hence, vastly reduced fatalities. For
nuclear
analysts weaned on two seeming truths of the Cold War era—that
nuclear
arsenals reliably deter attacks via the threat of retaliation, and
that
nuclear weapons use is tantamount to mass slaughter—the implications of
the counterforce revolution should be jarring.
"Most Cold War
strategists—many of whom are still active in the nuclear
analytical
community today—came to instinctively associate nuclear
weapons with
stalemate and nuclear use with Armageddon. But nuclear
weapons—like
virtually all other weapons—have changed dramatically over
the past four
decades. Modern guidance systems permit nuclear planners
to achieve
"probabilities of damage" against hardened nuclear targets
that were unheard
of during the Cold War. And heightened accuracy also
permits nontraditional
targeting strategies that would further increase
the effectiveness of
counterforce strikes and greatly reduce casualties."
Clearly the Russia
experts cited above strongly disagree with the
authors of the Foreign
Affairs and Strategic Studies Quarterly articles.
I do not claim to know who
is right.
But what I believe is not nearly as important as what the
American
ruling class and its agents, President Obama and Secretary of State
[and
likely soon-to-be President] Clinton believe. They apparently believe
that the Foreign Affairs and Strategic Studies Quarterly articles are
essentially correct--that a U.S. nuclear first strike against Russia
will not lead to the mass slaughter of Americans (or even of Russians)
since "technological innovation" now allows the U.S. to "accurately"
destroy (remember Donald Rumsfeld's "surgical strikes" in Iraq?)
Russia's nuclear weapons with "virtually no radioactive fallout" and
"vastly reduced fatalities."
This is why it is not unreasonable or
far-fetched to worry that the
American ruling class is deliberately aiming
to get into a WWIII with
Russia (and possibly its ally, China.)
But
what is the U.S. ruling class trying to achieve?
WHY THE WARMONGERING
AGAINST RUSSIA?
One of the main U.S. foreign policy strategists is
Zbigniew Brzezinski.
David Rockefeller made Brzezinski the Executive
Director of the
Trilateral Commission, which is the sister to the Council on
Foreign
Relations for the U.S., Europe and Japan, when the two of them
co-founded it in 1973. In his 2016 article, "Toward a Global
Realignment," [
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/04/17/toward-a-global-realignment/
] Brzezinski says:
"Russia’s own future depends on its ability to
become a major and
influential nation-state that is part of a unifying
Europe."
About Europe, Brzezinski says in the same article:
"The
fourth verity is that Europe is not now and is not likely to become
a global
power. But it can play a constructive role in taking the lead
in regard to
transnational threats to global wellbeing and even human
survival.
Additionally, Europe is politically and culturally aligned
with and
supportive of core U.S. interests in the Middle East, and
European
steadfastness within NATO is essential to an eventually
constructive
resolution of the Russia-Ukraine crisis."
In other words, in the new
world order Europe shall remain under the
economic and political hegemony of
the United States ruling class, and
Russia shall be a part of Europe. And
since the Russian leaders today
are not cooperating with this "Global
Realignment" then some military
force is called for; hence the warmongering.
[...]
John Spritzler http://newdemocracyworld.org http://www.pdrboston.org
(4) Funny
how all the architects of the Iraq War endorsed Hillary
From: bronek
<bronekc@me.com> Subject: Fwd: Funny
how all the architects
of the Iraq War endorsed Hillary Date: Thu, 20 Oct
2016 16:45:05 -0400
Architects of the illegal war against Iraq: Paul
Wolfowitz, Robert
Kagan, Douglas Feith, Michael Chertoff, Eliot A. Cohen,
Max Boot,
Michael Ledeen, John Podhoretz, Richard Perle, William Kristol,
David
Frum, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Dov Zakhein, Marc Grossman, Alan
Dershowitz.
(5) Royal Air Force Pilots given the OK to shoot down
Russian jets over
Syria, in defense
From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> Date: Fri,
14 Oct 2016
07:12:34 +0900 Subject: Royal Air Force Pilots Ordered To Shoot
Down
"Hostile" Russian Jets Over Syria | Zero Hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/royal-air-force-pilots-ordered-shoot-down-hostile-russian-jets-over-syria
As
the US officially enters the Yemen military campaign, the UK appears
ready
and willing to precipiate a catalytic event from which there is no
going
back. With relations between Russia and the West at post-Cold War
lows and
deteriorating fast, Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots have been
given the
go-ahead to shoot down Russian military jets when flying
missions over Syria
and Iraq, if they are endangered by them. The
development comes with
warnings that the UK and Russia are now "one step
closer" to being at war,
according to the Sunday Times.
While the RAF's Tornado pilots have been
instructed to avoid contact
with Russian aircraft while engaged in missions
for Operation Shader,
the codename for the RAF's anti-Isis work in Iraq and
Syria, their
aircraft have been armed with air-to-air missiles and the
pilots have
been given the green light to defend themselves if they are
threatened
by Russian pilots.
"The first thing a British pilot will
do is to try to avoid a situation
where an air-to-air attack is likely to
occur — you avoid an area if
there is Russian activity," an unidentified
source from the UK's
Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) told the Sunday
Times. "But if a
pilot is fired on or believes he is about to be fired on,
he can defend
himself. We now have a situation where a single pilot,
irrespective of
nationality, can have a strategic impact on future
events."
Where things get tricky is the qualifier "if he believes he is
about to
be fired on" - since this makes open engagement a function of
threat
evaluation in real time during stressed conditions, the likelihood of
an
escalation that could result in two warplanes shooting at each other,
just jumped significantly.
The RAF Tornados aircraft will be armed
with heat-seeking Advanced Short
Range Air-to-Air Missiles (Asraams, also
called AIM-132 missiles), the
IBT adds. These weapons, which cost £200,000
each, have a longer range
than other air-to-air missiles, allowing RAF
pilots to shoot down enemy
aircraft without being targeted
themselves.
Providing cover to the largely underreported, if substantial
escalation,
according to the Sunday Times report an appraisal carried out by
UK
defence officials said: "It took six days for Russia to strike any Isis
targets at all. Their air strikes have included moderate opposition
groups who have been fighting to defend their areas from Isis. Among the
targets hit were three field hospitals." In the past 24 hours Russia's
Defence Ministry said that it has continued its air strikes on IS
positions in Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Raqqa. It reported that the
attacks resulted in the "complete destruction" of "53 fortified areas
and strong points with armament and military hardware", seven ammunition
depots, four field camps of "terrorists", one command centre, and
artillery and mortar batteries.
Russia has countered that US
airstrikes have failed to make much of an
impact on ISIS targets, and as
reported last month, a "mistaken" strike
by the US coalition forces killed
over 60 Syrian soldiers in a move
Russia accused of being a provocation to
war.
The Sunday Times' report quoted a defence source as saying: "Up till
now
RAF Tornados have been equipped with 500lb satellite-guided bombs —
there has been no or little air-to-air threat. But in the last week the
situation has changed. We need to respond accordingly."
But another
source of the original story summarized the severity of the
situation best
when he said that "we need to protect our pilots but at
the same time we're
taking a step closer to war. It will only take one
plane to be shot down in
an air-to-air battle and the whole landscape
will change."
(6) NATO
military build-up on Russia's borders
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-idUSKCN12P31W
Wed
Oct 26, 2016 | 12:43pm EDT
Britain, U.S. sending planes, troops to deter
Russia in the east
Belgium, October 26, 2016. REUTERS/Francois
Lenoir
By Robin Emmott and Phil Stewart | BRUSSELS
Britain said on
Wednesday it will send fighter jets to Romania next year
and the United
States promised troops, tanks and artillery to Poland in
NATO's biggest
military build-up on Russia's borders since the Cold War.
Germany, Canada
and other NATO allies also pledged forces at a defense
ministers meeting in
Brussels on the same day two Russian warships armed
with cruise missiles
entered the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Denmark,
underscoring East-West
tensions.
In Madrid, the foreign ministry said Russia had withdrawn a
request to
refuel three warships in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta
after
NATO allies said they could be used to target civilians in
Syria.
The ships were part of an eight-ship carrier battle group -
including
Russia's sole aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov - that is
expected to
join around 10 other Russian vessels already off the Syrian
coast,
diplomats said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said
the troop contributions to
a new 4,000-strong force in the Baltics and
eastern Europe were a
measured response to what the alliance believes are
some 330,000 Russian
troops stationed on Russia's western flank near
Moscow.
"This month alone, Russia has deployed nuclear-capable Iskander
missiles
to Kaliningrad and suspended a weapons-grade plutonium agreement
with
the United States," Stoltenberg said, also accusing Russia of continued
support for rebels in Ukraine.
Those ballistic missiles can hit
targets across Poland and the Baltics,
although NATO officials declined to
say if Russia had moved nuclear
warheads to Kaliningrad.
NATO's aim
is to make good on a July promise by NATO leaders to deter
Russia in
Europe's ex-Soviet states, after Moscow orchestrated the
annexation of the
Crimea peninsula in 2014.
NATO's plan is to set up four battle groups
with a total of some 4,000
troops from early next year, backed by a
40,000-strong rapid-reaction
force, and if need be, follow-on
forces.
As part of that, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced a
"battle-ready battalion task force" of about 900 soldiers would be sent
to eastern Poland, as well as another, separate force equipped with
tanks and other heavy equipment to move across eastern Europe.
"It's
a major sign of the U.S. commitment to strengthening deterrence
here,"
Carter said.
Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said Britain
would send an
800-strong battalion to Estonia, supported by French and
Danish troops,
starting from May. The United States wants its troops in
position by June.
London is also sending Typhoon fighter aircraft to
Romania to patrol
around the Black Sea, partly in support of
Turkey.
"Although we are leaving the European Union, we will be doing
more to
help secure the eastern and southern flanks of NATO," Fallon
said.
SYRIAN SHADOW
Others NATO allies joined the four battle
groups led by the United
States, Germany, Britain and Canada to go to
Poland, Lithuania, Estonia
and Latvia. Canada said it was sending 450 troops
to Latvia, joined by
140 military personnel from Italy.
Germany said
it was sending between 400 and 600 troops to Lithuania,
with additional
forces from the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Croatia
and
Luxembourg.
Stoltenberg said allies' commitments would be "a clear
demonstration of
our transatlantic bond." Diplomats said it would also send
a message to
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has
complained that
European allies do not pay their way in the
alliance.
For the Kremlin, the U.S.-led alliance's plans are already too
much
given Russia's grievances at NATO's expansion eastwards, although
Stoltenberg denied going too far.
But NATO's troop announcements in
the Baltic states and Poland were
partly overshadowed by the dispute about
whether Spain should refuel the
Russian warships, which was later resolved
by Moscow's decision to
withdraw its request.
NATO's tensions with
Russia have been building since Crimea and the
West's decision to impose
retaliatory sanctions.
But the breakdown of a U.S-Russia brokered
ceasefire in Syria on Oct. 3,
followed by U.S. accusations that Russia has
used cyber attacks to
disrupt the presidential election, have signaled a
worsening of ties.
Even before the break down of the Syrian ceasefire,
Russian President
Vladimir Putin suspended a treaty with Washington on
cleaning up
weapons-grade plutonium, signaling he was willing to use nuclear
disarmament as a new bargaining chip in disputes with the United States
over Ukraine and Syria.
(Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold;
Editing by Tom Heneghan)
(7) Neocons enacted 9/11 to bring chaos to
MidEast, destroying enemies
of Israel - Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-humanitarian-crisis-is-not-aleppo-the-crisis-is-washington-loosing-its-isis-mercenaries/5551530
The
Real Humanitarian Crisis Is Not Aleppo. The Crisis is Washington
Loosing its
ISIS Mercenaries
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research,
October 18, 2016
Why do we hear only of the "humanitarian crisis in
Aleppo" and not of
the humanitarian crisis everywhere else in Syria where
the evil that
rules in Washington has unleashed its ISIL mercenaries to
slaughter the
Syrian people? Why do we not hear about the humanitarian
crisis in
Yemen where the US and its Saudi Arabian vassal are slaughtering
Yemeni
women and children? Why don’t we hear about the humanitarian crisis
in
Libya where Washington destroyed a country leaving chaos in its place?
Why don’t we hear about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, ongoing now for
13 years, or the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan now 15 years
old?
The answer is that the crisis in Aleppo is the crisis of Washington
losing its ISIL mercenaries to the Syrian army and Russian air force.
The jihadists sent by Obama and the killer Hillary ("We came, we saw, he
died") to destroy Syria are being themselves destroyed. The Obama
regime and the Western presstitutes are trying to save the jihadists by
covering them in the blanket of "humanitarian crisis."
Such hypocrisy
is standard fare for Washington. If the Obama regime
gave a hoot about
"humanitarian crisis," the Obama regime would not have
orchestrated
humanitarian crisis in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and
Yemen.
We
are in the middle of a presidential campaign in the US and no one has
asked
why the US is determined to overthrow a democratically elected
Syrian
government that is supported by the Syrian people.
No one has asked why
the White House Fool is empowered to remove the
president of Syria by
siccing US-supplied jihadists, which the
presstitutes misrepresent as
"moderate rebels," on the Syrian people.
Washington, of course, has no
acceptable answer to the question, and
that is why the question is not
asked.
The answer to the question is that Washington’s strategy for
destabilizing Iran and then the Muslim provinces of the Russian
Federation, former Soviet central Asia, and the Muslim province of China
is to replace stable governments with the chaos of jihadism.
Iraq,
Libya, and Syria had stable secular societies in which the
government’s
strong hand was used to prevent sectarian strife between
Muslim sects. By
overthrowing these secular governments and the current
effort to overthrow
Assad, Washington released the chaos of terrorism.
There was no terrorism
in the Middle East until Washington brought it
there with invasions,
bombings, and torture.
Jihadists such as those that Washington used to
overthrow Gaddafi
appeared in Syria when the British Parliament and the
Russian government
blocked Obama’s planned invasion of Syria. As Washington
was prevented
from directly attacking Syria, Washington used mercenaries.
The
prostitutes that pretend to be an American media obliged Washington with
the propaganda that the jihadist terrorists are Syrian democrats
rebelling against "the Assad dictatorship." This transparant and
blatant lie has been repeated so many times that it now is confused with
truth.
Syria has no connection whatsoever to Washington’s original
justification for introducing violence into the Middle East. The
original justification was 9/11 which was used to invade Afghanistan on
the fabrication that the Taliban was shielding Osama bin Laden, the
"mastermind," who at the time was dying of renal failure in a Pakistani
hospital. Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset who was used against the
Soviets in Afghanistan. He was not the perpetrator of 9/11. And most
certainly, neither were the Taliban.
But the Western presstitutes
covered up for the Bush regime’s lie, and
the public was deceived with the
phrase that we must "defeat them abroad
before they attack us at
home."
Of course, Muslims were not going to attack us at home. If Muslims
are a
threat, why does the US government keep bringing so many of them here
as
refugees from Washington’s wars against Muslims?
9/11 was the
neoconservatives "new Pearl Harbor" that they wrote they
needed in order to
launch their wars in the Middle East. George W.
Bush’s first Secretary of
the Treasury said that the topic of Bush’s
first cabinet meeting was the
invasion of Iraq. This was prior to 9/11.
In other words, Washington’s
wars in the Middle East were planned
prior to 9/11.
The
neoconservatives are zionists. By reducing the Middle East to chaos
they
achieve both of their goals. They remove organized opposition to
Israeli
expansion, and they create jihadism that can be used to
destabilize
countries such as Russia, Iran, and China that are in the
way of their
exercise of unilateral power, which, they believe, the
Soviet collapse
bequeathed to the "indispensable nation," the USA.
Osama bin Laden, the
alleged 9/11 mastermind, was dying, not directing a
terror war against the
US from a cave in Afghanistan. The Taliban were
focused on establishing
their rule in Afghanistan, not on attacking the
West. After blowing up
weddings, funerals, and childrens’ soccer games,
Washington moved on to
Iraq. There was no sign of Iraqi beligerance
toward the US. UN weapons
inspectors said that there were no weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq, but
Washington did not hear. The whores who
comprise the American media helped
the Bush regime create the image of a
nuclear mushroom cloud going up over
America if the US did not invade Iraq.
Iraq had no nuclear weapons and
everyone knew it, but facts were
irrelevant. There was an agenda at work,
an undeclared agenda. To
advance its agenda that the government did not
dare reveal, the
government used fear. "We have to kill them over there
before they kill
us over here."
So Iraq, a stable, progressive
country was reduced to ruins.
Libya was next. Gaddafi would not join
Washington’s Africa Command.
Moreover, China was developing the oil fields
in eastern Libya.
Washington was already troubled by Russia’s presence in
the
Mediterranean and did not want China there also. So Gaddafi had to
go.
Next Assad was set up with faked evidence that he had used chemical
weapons against the rebellion that Washington had started. No one
believed the transparant Washington lie, not even the British
Parliament. Unable to find support to cover an invasion, Killary the
Psychopath sent the jihadists Washington used to destroy Libya to
overthrow Assad.
The Russians, who until this point had been so naive
and gullible as to
trust Washington, finally figured out that the
instability that
Washington was brewing was directed at them. The Russian
government
decided that Syria was their red line and, at the request of the
Syrian
government, intervened against the Washington-supported
jihadists.
Washington is outraged and is now threatening to commit yet
another
criminal violation of the Nuremberg Standard with blatant aggression
against Syria. Such an ill-advised step would bring Washington into
military conflict with Russia and by implication with China. Before
Europeans enable Washington to initiate such a dangerous conflict, they
had best consider the warning from Sergey Karaganov, a member of the
Russian Foreign Ministry’s Foreign Policy and Defense council: "Russia
will never again fight on its own territory. If NATO initiates an
encroachment against a nuclear power like ourselves, NATO will be
punished."
That the government of the United States is criminally insane
should
frighten every person on earth. Killary-Hillary is commited to
conflict
with Russia. Regardless, Obama, the presstitutes, and the
Democratic
and Republican establishments are doing everything in their power
to put
into the Oval Office the person who will maximize conflict with
Russia.
The life of the planet is in the hands of the criminally insane.
This is
the real humanitarian crisis.
Notes:
Lt. General
Michael Flynn, director of the Pentagon’s Defense
Intelligence Agency stated
in an interview that the creation of ISIS was
"a willful Washington
decision." See, for example:
https://www.rt.com/usa/312050-dia-flynn-islamic-state/
Also:
http://russia-insider.com/en/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad/ri7364
The
DIA warned that ISIS would result in a Salafist principality over
parts of
Iraq and Syria.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf
The warning went unheeded as the neoconservative Obama regime saw
ISIS as a strategic asset to be used against Syria.
(8) Erdogan
complicates US plans for Syia, after US-backed Coup attempt
- Israel
Shamir
From: "Israel Shamir adam@israelshamir.net [shamireaders]"
Date: Sat, 29
Oct 2016 10:00:32 +0300 Subject: [shamireaders] Erdogan
consolidates his
power, by Israel Shamir
http://www.globalresearch.ca/erdogan-consolidates-his-power/5553746
Erdogan
Consolidates His Power
ISRAEL SHAMIR
OCTOBER 29,
2016
Turkey is restless. President Erdogan is consolidating his power,
trying
to get rid of Parliament’s bothersome interference. He intends to
reformat Turkey into a presidential republic, assuming the powers of an
American president. He wants to be a Caliph, the people in Istanbul
jest, and call him "Sultan Erdogan". And the failed July coup has been
used as the pretext for a huge purge in the power structure. However,
the result may be better than many observers expect.
That much I
learned during my visit to Turkey, where I was given an
opportunity to meet
Turkish members of parliament, ministers and chief
editors of the major mass
media. I expected the failed coup belongs to
history, but I was
mistaken.
Its shadow lays heavily on everyday events in the country. I
was shown
the debris in the parliament, where a bomb dropped by the
putschists
fell; there is a photo exhibition showing previous successful
military
coups with a horrible picture of President Menderes on the gallows.
The
Turkish coups weren’t vegetarian. The army intented to keep power for
itself and for its NATO allies.
The July coup caused death of 240
people, half of them killed at the
Bosporus bridge in a confrontation with
the army. It is not much
compared with the successful coup in Egypt, where
the victims were
counted in the thousands; and where the army defeated the
legitimately
elected moderate-Islamist President Morsi.
After the
coup, Erdogan began the purge of Gulenists, or Fethullists, as
they call the
followers of Fethullah Gülen, the father of moderate
Turkish political Islam
and the creator of the vast school network
reaching 160 countries. They were
supposed to be the initiators of the
coup. It is not really clear whether
Gülen and his followers were behind
the coup, but they are definitely
enemies of Erdogan.
The purge is not bloody but painful: the purged
Gulenists aren’t shot,
but they lose their jobs and often land in jail. Some
seventy or eighty
thousand men have been purged, 35,000 are imprisoned. They
are judges,
army officers, officials and many teachers. 500 persons have
been purged
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, some of them refusing to
return
home when called back. The state of emergency had been declared right
after the coup and it was extended a few days ago for an additional
three months.
Such emergency justice is notoriously blind: one judge
died three months
before the coup, but he still was purged for his
participation in the
coup. Some companies belonging to Gulenists had their
assets
confiscated, while their obligations and debts remained with their
dispossessed owners. It is difficult to defend oneself against such moot
accusations as Gulenism.
The Turks answer with a salubrious joke
referring to ‘blind justice’: "A
blind man screws whomever he can
catch".
The government claims that the Gulenists formed a conspiratorial
organisation called FETO, and described it as "a terrorist
organisation." They compare it to Daesh (ISIS), to the Medellin Cartel
and (surprise!) to the Jesuits.
However, it is hard to comprehend in
what way the Gulenists were
terrorists. The worst thing they are accused of
is fraudulently
obtaining examination tickets for the civil service and thus
securing
good positions for their followers. This is surely not cricket, but
hardly an act of terror.
How can one unmask a Gulenist? This is not
an easy task, but there are a
few cues to revealing a
crypto-Gulenist.
Users of the ByLock messenger system are suspicious.
This amateur
messenger had been popular with Gülen followers and with some
people
implicated in the coup. One hundred fifty thousand users of ByLock
are
being screened. This messenger system had been hacked by the state
security services some time ago, for it was very light on security.
Afterwards, the plotters switched to the professional WhatsApp
messenger. That one offered good security, but it was enough to seize a
smartphone of one plotter to gain access to the rest.
Another way to
unmask a crypto-Gulenist is to locate the one dollar bill
a follower of
Gülen received from his guru. I was told by a member of
parliament that a
true Gulenist often sews his one dollar bill into his
underwear, close to
his skin.
This idea has been pioneered by Lubawitscher Rebbe of the
Chabad
Hassids. The late Menachem Mendel Schneersohn also gave away dollar
bills and even blessed vodka for his Hassids’ consumption. He conversed
with God, and so did Gülen – according to his followers and adversaries.
Hassids also tried to obtain influence, with considerable success – but
they were never called "terrorists."
Gülen had been, and remains a
very powerful figure in the
Turkic-speaking world, especially in the ex-USSR
and China, from
Tatarstan and Yakutia to Sinkiang (Xinjiang). Youths from
Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan studied in his schools as well. The Gülen movement
had been
considered the leading moderate pro-Western branch of political
Islam.
Practically all modern Islamists of Turkey passed through his
schools.
He was the most important ally of Erdogan in his uphill fight
against
the violently secular Kemalists who ruled Turkey until
2002.
It is being said that the Kemalists were quite pro-American, but
they
refused to privatise public assets. Erdogan and Gülen were equally
pro-American, and they accepted the idea of massive privatisation and
sale of assets to American and other Western companies. Much of Turkish
wealth is now in the foreign hands, and this is what inhibits Erdogan’s
U-turn towards Russia.
While Erdogan and Gülen were friends and
partners, Gülen helped Erdogan
cut the secular and all-powerful army
generals down to size. His
followers, well established in the legal branch
of government, organised
the Ergenikon affair. They had claimed to have
discovered a vast
ultra-nationalist terrorist conspiracy called Ergenikon
and sent 43
generals and many politicians to jail. Erdogan was amazed by
this feat
of Gülen, amazed and frightened, as this old man from Pennsylvania
apparently controlled the legal system of the Republic from police to
attorneys to courts.
Indeed Erdogan had good reason to be afraid. In
2013, Gülen demanded
that Erdogan let him fill one hundred seats in the
Parliament, and when
he was refused, he unleashed his legal machine upon his
old buddy. In
December 2013 Gülen followers in the police and the attorney
general
office accused the Erdogan government ministers of corruption. Among
the
accused there was Bilal, Erdogan’s son, and personal friends of
Erdogan.
Instead of trying to refute the accusations and argue the cases
in
courts, Erdogan described the accusations as "an attempted coup." He
went to people, traveled the country, appealed to the masses, and the
masses supported him. He forced the police and the courts to close the
cases, and began his de-Gulenisation of Turkey.
For people brought up
with the concept of Supremacy of Law, this feels
like a travesty of the
normal order of things. However, the Law is not
better than the Legislative
or the Executive, it is less democratic, it
is less connected to an ordinary
citizen, it is more connected to the
real power of money. In the US, there
is no Gülen or Gulenists, but the
judges beginning in the Supreme Court can
disregard the people’s will as
we observed when they pushed for same-sex
marriages or for the right of
corporations to buy candidates. They are the
Deep State, so their
uprooting is not bad an idea.
Yes, we want
justice, but we want democracy, too. Once, the US judges
were all elected,
all connected to the people, but not anymore. In
Turkey, Gülen had been too
successful in promoting his people to legal
positions; he had lost the
people’s support. And the Turks were ready to
forgive Erdogan even some very
real corruption: they felt he cared for
the people, while Gülen and his
followersdid not. For the legal system,
corruption is a crime, and a corrupt
politician must go to jail. If a
politician is not corrupt, he can be
sentenced for an indecent proposal
to a woman. Thus the legal system has the
power to block any politician,
to override the political democratic process.
Erdogan succeeded in
overriding the legal system.
After his victory
in December 2013, Erdogan accused Gülen and his
followers of having created
Ergenekon affair and arresting many innocent
people. Generals and
politicians regained freedom.
In Ankara, I’ve met a leader of the
Republican Kemalist parliamentary
faction, Mustafa Ali Balbai. This
handsome, wiry, muscular
European-looking (as many Turks do) man did five
years in jail for his
alleged involvement in Ergenekon conspiracy. He was
elected to
parliament while still a prisoner, and lately had been freed.
"Now the
judges who sentenced me are in jail themselves", he said
cheerfully.
Did the Ergenekon plot exist at all? I asked the chief editor
of CNN
Turk, a powerful network, that played the key role in neutralisation
of
the July coup. "There was a core of a plot, a tiny core, and it was
blown into a monster that it never was", he said. In other words, there
was a conspiracy, but a conspiracy of judges and of security services,
the most frequent sort of conspiracy.
As for present purges of
alleged Gulenists, one number tells a lot about
its extent. The Ankara
police had received forty thousand tips
denouncing various Gulenists, I was
told on my arrival to the capital of
Turkey. Wives denounce unfaithful
husbands, landlords denounce tenants
who are in arrears. It became a
universal accusation; naturally the
police are not arresting everybody, but
a lot of people have been called
in for investigation. This campaign reminds
of McCarthy’s campaign in
the US, or the campaign against Trotskyites in the
USSR of 1930s.
For some people, the purge is not consistent enough. An
editor of a
small newspaper, let’s call him Mehmet, told me: "If they were
to purge
all followers of Gülen, they would have no party and no Parliament
faction. All the party bosses and all ministers passed through Gülen’s
network. They purge only small people, the big ones escape the
purge."
However, there is no doubt, Erdogan takes the purge very
seriously, as
he did the Ergenekon conspiracy purge five years ago. He does
not want
to have Gülen standing behind his back ready to plunge a dagger in,
and
he prefers to completely remove completely that network, extensive as it
was. Erdogan says that the July coup was the second, while the previous
one was the attempt to use police and court in December 2013 against him
and his family.
Turkey’s relations with Russia and with the US are
directly connected
with the story of the two coups. I visited Turkey right
after Putin’s
October 2016 visit, when the two leaders agreed to proceed
with the very
important gas pipeline, and completed the last, or the most
recent
stretch of their zigzagging relations.
The Erdogan-Putin
friendship suffered an unexpectedly strong setback in
November 2015, when a
Russian SU-24 jet was downed by an air-to-air
missile fired by a Turkish jet
over Syria. Relations were severed,
Russian tourists ceased to arrive,
Turkish vegetables lost their Russian
market, oil and gas projects were
shelved.
In June 2016, there was another zigzag. Erdogan sent his
apologies, and
the relations turned better before the July coup. Possibly
this step of
Erdogan actually triggered the attempted coup. After the coup,
it was
roses all the way. In August, Erdogan visited Russia and met with
Putin.
This was his first trip abroad after the coup. And now, in October,
Putin came to Istanbul and signaled that their relations were as cordial
as ever. Even the gas pipeline project was signed, putting paid to the
only leverage Kiev had on Moscow.
The Gulenists were useful here, as
well: the downing of the SU-24 has
been attributed to them, though
previously Ahmet Davutoglu, the Prime
Minister, claimed he ordered it. On
the other hand, Davutoglu was close
to Gülen and even visited him in 2013,
but then, Gülen was still a
persona grata in Turkey. It was alleged
Davutoglu was being groomed to
assume power in case of the coup’s
success.
So why did Turkey turn to Russia and away from the US, its old
senior
partner? Mehmet, the editor, ascribes this move to Erdogan’s
well-developed self-preservation instinct.
It appears that the
American administration decided to ditch the unruly
Erdogan some time ago,
and install Gülen’s man Ahmet Davutoglu in his
stead. A leading American
neocon expert on Turkey, Michael Rubin, had
demanded Erdogan’s head for
quite a while. In March 2016 he called for a
coup, in August 2016 he said
Erdogan should blame himself for the coup,
and now in October he predicted,
or rather called for another coup.
The new putsch is expected on November
10 or thereabout, and it will
begin with Erdogan’s assassination, it being
said. Erdogan considers his
partnership with Russia and friendship with
Putin give him his only
chance to survive politically.
The Americans
are upset by Erdogan’s attitude to the Syrian Kurds. The
Turkish president
cares about preserving Turkey, the rump state of the
vast Ottoman empire
intact, while the Americans prefer to dismantle
Turkey altogether, and
create a Great Kurdistan from the mainly
Kurd-populated areas of Turkey,
Iraq and Syria.
The Americans would like the Syrian Kurds to unite their
enclaves, but
Erdogan does not agree and actually stopped their
offensive.
Now the battle for Mosul is a new point of disagreement.
Turkey, says
Erdogan, has certain rights on Mosul. The city and its area had
been
illegally seized by the British, the Turks say. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
tentatively agreed with Mosul being given to Iraq only in 1926, well
after the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). And now Erdogan objects to Mosul
being taken from the Daesh and transferred to the Kurds. The people of
Mosul are also far from happy about the perspective of passing to Kurds
or to the predominantly Shia government in Baghdad.
In the struggle
for Mosul and for Aleppo, in the battles between Kurdish
enclaves in Syria,
Erdogan goes against the will of the US. The problem
is that there aren’t
many important Turkish leaders who are ready to
stand up to Washington. The
Kemalist opposition and the Gulenist forces
prefer to accept the American
line, more or less.
If Erdogan loses in a power struggle, Turkey may
collapse into a civil
war: between Turks and Kurds, between various Muslim
movements and
Kemalists. This was the purpose of the July coup, I was told
by Ali
Mustafa Balbai, the Republican MP.
It is not an easy time, for
sure. The Turkish lira went south. The
agenda has been changed: once, Taksim
square demonstrated against
Erdogan, now they demonstrate against the
overwhelming presence of
Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Not only the European
Right: Turkey also
feels there are too many refugees. They are afraid the
battle for Mosul
will force the two millions inhabitants of that city into
Turkey.
And the demonstrators are different. It is ordinary people who
demonstrate against the influx of Syrians, while the educated and
Westernised Turks demonstrated against Erdogan. The latter are quite
unhappy and discuss whether they have a future in Turkey. The political
class is unhappy, too. They do not cherish the authoritarian rule of
Sultan Erdogan. Gulenists are extremely displeased. The generals are
still reassessing their positions after so many purges. And the
long-standing dispute between the secular and religious populations goes
on unabated.
While the US has a definite idea which way should Turkey
should go, its
competitor, Russia, just does not care about Turkish internal
politics.
Or about anybody’s else internal politics. The Americans under
Obama,
and presumably even more under Clinton are likely to interfere; to
impose their rules from swimming suits to same-sex marriages. The
Russians do not interfere.
This is their tradition since the times
immemorial. They did not
interfere into private life of Uzbeks and Tajiks,
and Chechens, and
Finns, and Poles. That’s why inside Russia one can find
areas ruled by
Muslim law, by Buddhist tradition and even by sheer
polytheist custom.
For the Russians, Erdogan is a valuable partner, and
they let him – and
other Turks – decide whether they should have a
parliamentary or a
presidential republic and whether girls should go in a
scarf or without.
You may be sure the Russians will not teach them what to
do in their
private life. This is a big advantage of having the Russians for
allies.
We shall see whether having such good allies is enough in order
to
survive. Much is hanging upon the US elections: Erdogan was furious when
Ms. Clinton referred to Kurd ambitions. But then, the whole world waits
for the decision of the American people.
Israel Shamir can be reached
at adam@israelshamir.net
This
article was first published at The Unz Review.
(9) Soros' Avaaz mobilizes
Americans abroard to vote for Hillary
https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/global_text_aus_blast_1/?bCyVgdb&signup=1&cl=10892690532&v=82907/>
Texting
Trump goodbye
Emma Ruby-Sachs - Avaaz <avaaz@avaaz.org>
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016
15:57:56 -0400
Young Americans believe in climate change and are strongly
against
Trump, but they don't vote. Now there's a killer plan for us to
reach
them and make sure they turn up, by simply texting!
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friends,
Trump wants to tear up the Paris climate deal, and that's just
the start
of his horrifying plans! But now there's a way we can all help
stop him,
just by texting.
Polls show that young Americans believe in
climate change and are
strongly against Trump. But experts warn that this
group is the least
likely to vote. Now there’s a killer plan to reach them
through a medium
they love: text messages! If thousands of us around the
world text these
young voters urging them to get to the polls, we could help
ensure Trump
loses in a landslide.
Texting American voters from
overseas is easy, free and it's already
working! Click below to learn more
about joining the team and trying
this amazing tool provided by progressive
group NextGen Climate:
<https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/global_text_aus_blast_1/?bCyVgdb&signup=1&cl=10892690532&v=82907/>
Sign up to learn more!
Trump and the racist, sexist, anti-climate,
isolationist message he
peddles is a threat to the entire world, to
everything we fight for as a
community. And connecting with young Americans
who also care about
saving our planet, and ensuring they have all the
information they need
to vote, can be enough to secure a vote against
Trump.
Tests show that one of us can make a voting plan with 30 people
who
share our values in just an hour -- there's no get out the vote program
anywhere that has that kind of success rate!
You’ll get everything
you need to jump right in through progressive
group NextGen Climate -- a
thorough training, a community, a support
team in a chat room, and a contact
list when you’re ready to get
started. And because the tool doesn't use any
text messages on your plan
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recruit tons and tons of
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We’ve worked
together for weeks to help every American abroad vote in
this election, and
it’s brought in thousands of new voters to swing
state races -- helping to
keep Trump far away from the White House. Now
we can use this new tool to
multiple our impact on election day.
Excited to get started
together!
Emma, Rewan, Adam, Andrew, Joseph and the Avaaz US elections
team
Soros' Avaaz signature campaign
Subject: Avaaz is out of
control From: Ricken Patel - Avaaz
<avaaz@avaaz.org> Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016
21:18:47 -0400
Dear Avaazers,
Amidst all the darknesses of our
world, Avaaz's light is shining
brightly -- we've had 4 huge wins in the
past few weeks!
- We WON governments agreeing to protect 30% of our
oceans!! - We ENDED
the career of Brazil's corruption king!! - We helped
CREATE the world's
largest marine reserve in the Pacific!! - We finally
STOPPED Monsanto's
mega-plant in Argentina for good!!
In just a few
weeks, while we've also been flat out on stopping Trump!
This movement is
getting out of control -- in a good way. Let's keep it
up! Here's more on
each win:
A global goal to protect 30% of our oceans! Everyone thought
our
demand of 30% was crazy, except the scientists. But armed with the
voices of a million Avaazers, our community stepped into the
negotiations and out-maneuvered major blockers like Japan. By standing
with Palau, meeting directly with key swing countries, and winning press
to our side WE WON big … with 89% of the vote!
The Head of the Palau
delegation said - "We were heartened to have 1
million Avaaz members from
around the world stand with us."
Taking down Brazil’s corruption king
Insiders and even journalists
warned us that Congress President Eduardo
Cunha was too powerful to
oust. But we refused to be cowed -- over 1.3
million of us demanded a
national Ethics Committee vote to fire Cunha. And
when his allies
rallied to block the vote we hit back -- delivering our
petition
directly to Congress, flooding key swing voters with phone calls,
direct
messages and on social media, including focusing on officials
shielding
Cunha. He was forced to resign and then barred from running for
office
for eight years! And just today, he was
arrested!!
Anti-corruption champion MP Chico Alencar told us: "If it
hadn't been
for public pressure, we wouldn’t have won. I want to thank and
congratulate you."
Creating the largest protected area on earth,
ever Our oceans are in
serious trouble, so when we heard that President
Obama was weighing
whether to create a *giant* marine reserve in Hawaii, a
million of us
signed a petition and thousands wrote messages. To further tip
Obama’s
decision we delivered our messages to key meetings, organised
colourful
protests with kids that helped win over the press, and worked to
remove
other blockers from Obama’s path. In days the President signed the
reserve into law.
The Director of the Global Ocean Legacy project,
Matt Rand, said the
"1.3 million people who signed and the tens of thousands
that sent
messages had their voices heard at the White House, and were a big
part
of getting this done."
Adios, Monsanto! Chemical Giant
Monsanto had locked in a high-level
deal to build a mega factory in
Argentina - but local communities
decided to fight it, so we joined forces.
Together we went door-to-door,
ran polls showing massive local opposition,
helped elect a city council
opposed to the deal, met Monsanto in court, and
amplified the local
movement with a million voices worldwide. Monsanto was
forced to abandon
the project.
Local Malvinas organizer Celina Molina
said: "Today we celebrate the
victory of our long battle we shared with the
global movement Avaaz....
Monsanto has only one option: to go back home."
[...]
Avaaz is a 44-million-person global campaign network that works to
ensure that the views and values of the world's people shape global
decision-making. ("Avaaz" means "voice" or "song" in many languages.)
Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread
across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn
about some of Avaaz's biggest campaigns
https://www.avaaz.org/en/
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