Kiev Chief of Staff: Intelligence reports have 90% margin of error
New Violence in Kiev - But Nobody Seems to Care Much
Odessa governor says state machinery in Ukraine demoralized, power may change
As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US Rebuked for Failing Refugees
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: Secret Back Story Reveals Why The West Cannot Topple His Government
Blowback on a NATO beach
The March of Shame
There Goes Europe
US State Dept fails to explain Washington's decision to extend sanctions on Russia
Something Major Is On The Horizon For This Fall.
Too Many Big Chess Pieces Have Been Positioning Themselves Around The Table
The Empire Files — The Rise of History's Biggest Empire
Kiev Chief of Staff: Intelligence reports have 90% margin of error - Fort Russ
Translated from German by Tom Winter
Original headline: Ukraine's Chief of Staff rates intelligence reports from eastern Ukraine 90% wrong
Viktor Muzhenko, head of the Ukrainian General Staff, has assessed the clearance rate of military and intelligence in the "anti-terrorist operation" in the Donbass. According to his remarks, 90 percent of the information collected on the situation in eastern Ukraine would have to be counted as false.
This perhaps explains assertions of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko about the alledged "200,000 Russian soldiers" in the Donbass.
One might think that Viktor Muzhenko's declaration resembled a late admission. It took more than a year took for the head of the General Staff to designate Kiev's accusations against Russia as wrong. "There are intelligence reports and briefings data. Intelligence reports are what we get, and the data are, what the reports confirm" explained Muzhenko, in the best soldierly bureaucratic form, in an interview with the Ukrainian newspaper ZN.UA, and went on:
"Last summer 90 percent of the information through official briefings re the Anti-Terrorist Operation -- was wrong." The head of the General Staff said only five to ten percent of the information received was credible. At the same time Muzhenko accused the self-defense militias in Donbass of "active disinformation tactics."
Complete story at - Kiev Chief of Staff: Intelligence reports have 90% margin of error - Fort Russ
New Violence in Kiev - But Nobody Seems to Care Much - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog
Forgive me for mentioning it, but serious violence has returned to Kiev, scene (in February 2014) of the lawless overthrow of the legitimate President of Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych, by a violent, armed mob. For a list of the 18 police officers incontestably killed in the 2014 events, whose deaths are proof that this was not a wholly one-sided clash between ruthless state and peaceful, unarmed people, see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_during_Euromaidan#cite_note-MSV-03.02.14-1
This supposedly spontaneous events of 2014 (in my experience as a revolutionary, spontaneity takes a lot of organising) , in which serving foreign politicians and diplomats openly showed their partiality towards the demonstrators, and the legitimate President was unconstitutionally removed from office, has now passed into myth as a laudable exercise in idealistic and disinterested people power, supposedly aimed at ending the corruption and general squalor of Ukraine’s oligarch-dominated state.
To which one can only respond with helpless if bitter laughter, as the resulting government is actually headed by an oligarch and entirely dominated by them, and if Ukraine has since ceased in any important way to be Olympically corrupt, then I have to say I have seen no reports of this.
Now, I have from time to time, in many debate s on this subject, pointed out that grave danger in which the Kiev government finds itself. Having come to power through mob violence, it has no real moral protection from falling in the same way.
Complete story at - New Violence in Kiev - But Nobody Seems to Care Much - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog
TASS: World - Odessa governor says state machinery in Ukraine demoralized, power may change
KIEV, September 8. /TASS/. State machinery in Ukraine is demoralized and the fact may open the road to a change of state power, believes former Georgian President turned Odessa region governor Mikhail Saakashvili.
"A big vacuum is emerging due to the weakness of state machinery and the forces of law and order maintenance," he said live on the air of ICTV television channel. "A dangerous situation is taking shape, as all the groups surfacing now and having nothing in common with true volunteers may get a temptation one day to say it’s they who are real power."
"A general loss of legitimacy of the political class is taking place," Saakashvili said. "It’s just enough to look at the returns from the most recent opinion polls, which show that practically the entire political class is sliding downhill."
Simultaneously, Saakashvili believes the events in the sub-Carpathian city of Mukachevo where the militants affiliated with the Right Sector ultra-far-right grouping staged an exchange of fire and the protests in front of the Verkhovna Rada building, in the course of which a fighter affiliated with one of the so-called ‘volunteer battalions’ hurled a hand grenade at the at the police cordoning the building off showed that the forces of law and order also fell short of coping with their functions.
Complete story at - TASS: World - Odessa governor says state machinery in Ukraine demoralized, power may change
As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US Rebuked for Failing Refugees | Common Dreams
As refugees are stranded at train stations, attacked by riot police, and killed during the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, Europe's failure to address the rising humanitarian crisis is being met with global outrage and sorrow.
Now, many are also looking across the Atlantic to the United States, where observers say key responsibility for the crisis lies—not only because the country is lagging in its humanitarian response, but also because its war policies lie at the root of the ongoing displacement.
"Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians, and Libyans are not running away from their homes because of a natural disaster," Raed Jarrar, expert on Middle East politics and government relations manager for the American Friends Service Committee, told Common Dreams. "The U.S. should see this crisis as partially caused by its own actions in the region."
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at a press briefing on Thursday that the United States sees no "impending policy changes" in light of the worsening crisis. He indicated the U.S. plan will remain focused on lending assistance from afar while letting EU nations take the lead on confronting the crisis. "There is certainly capacity in Europe to deal with this problem," Earnst said, "and the United States certainly stands with our European partners."
Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011, the U.S. estimates it has contributed over $4 billion in aid to those impacted by the conflict. That figure, Earnest declared, is "certainly more than any other country has done."
Complete story at - As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US Rebuked for Failing Refugees | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: Secret Back Story Reveals Why The West Cannot Topple His Government | SOTN: Alternative News & Commentary
Why is the Syrian President relentlessly demonized by the Anglo-American Axis?
Just like President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Syria’s President Bashar Hafez al-Assad has been the victim of unrelenting character assassination and false reporting by the Western Mainstream Media (MSM). Many of the MSM outlets throughout the Anglo-American Axis (AAA) have published one false story after another in a concerted effort to turn the entire world against him. And for what?
Why are they so determined to overthrow one of the very few righteous leaders in the Middle East?
The true answers to this question are as profound as they are far-reaching. On a quite superficial level, Assad represents the proverbial skunk at the garden party. The Anglo-American Axis has a set agenda and predetermined schedule; and, they will not let any nation or political leader get in its way.
A trained physician like Assad was thought to be the least of their (AAA) troubles during the choreographed Arab Spring events. After all, doctors everywhere take the sacred vow known as the Hippocratic Oath — “First, do no harm.”
The Israeli-Franco-Anglo-American power-brokers, who have controlled the destiny of most of the Middle Eastern nations for decades, have entered a new and desperate phase of conquest.
Unfortunately for the entire Mideast, that desperation manifested as the fomenting of a number of revolutionary Arab Spring events. The resulting widespread death and destruction reflects just how determined the AAA is to advance their misguided agenda.
Complete story at - Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: Secret Back Story Reveals Why The West Cannot Topple His Government | SOTN: Alternative News & Commentary
Blowback on a NATO beach — RT Op-Edge
We’ve had it coming. And when it came, virtually the whole planet reacted with stunned silence. Sometimes it takes just a photograph to put a noxiously complex version of hell in perspective.
Little did Nilufer Demir, 29, the female photojournalist of the Turkish Dogan News agency know that the moment she saw little Aylan Kurdi, 3, washed ashore at the Ali Hoca Burnu beach near Bodrum, she would be making history.
Aylan is alone, as if suspended by the immense solitude of death, just as his family’s dream of offering him a new life in a new continent away from death and destruction was about to be fulfilled. It’s as if his lone lifeless body at the shores of a NATO beach was also about to prefigure the death of Europe – or the death of a once pan-European dream of solidarity and compassion.
Hannah Arendt once wrote movingly about the banality of evil, referring to the mechanism of fascism and Nazism. Aylan’s lifeless body now illustrates the banality of an evil he was trying to flee: the “arc of instability”, a Pentagon self-fulfilling prophecy.
So to put hell in perspective we must retrace some steps of the arc.
Complete story at - Blowback on a NATO beach — RT Op-Edge
The March of Shame | The Irate Greek
They are people, like us.
They are young, they are old, they are men, women and children, they are lawyers or masons or doctors or barbers or plumbers or computer engineers. They are people, and they are coming.
Their countries fell apart, their houses were destroyed, their neighbours died. They lost friends and relatives, they lost their loved ones, they lost a limb. They fled. They took trucks or buses or cars or bicycles. They walked. They were smuggled, assaulted, abused, kidnapped on the way. They crossed a border, or two, or three. They were detained, arrested, beaten. They were parked in camps. They were told to live a life without a future, they were told to wait until their country is fixed, they were told to wait with no end in sight.
And then they came.
Of course they came.
They got on those rickety boats to cross the sea. Some of them were pushed back. Some of them sank and had to return to the coast. Some of them drowned. But they kept coming, and instead of greeting them with open arms, our governments screamed, “we’re being overrun!”
Yes, we’re being overrun. It was about time it happened.
Because as much as you expect people to stay put and die out of sight, out of mind, they have other plans for their life. As a matter of fact, they want a life worth living. And they are coming to get it.
Complete story at - The March of Shame | The Irate Greek
There Goes Europe | KUNSTLER
The desperate wish in what is loosely called the West to at least appear morally correct is unfortunately over-matched by the desperation of people fleeing unstable, overpopulated places outside the West, and it is a fiasco beyond even the events of the moment.
The refugee / immigrant crisis around the Mediterranean is a preview of a horror show to which there is no end in sight, and is certain to escalate. So anyone who indulges in fantasies about organizing an orderly, rational distribution of displaced persons for the current wave, is badly missing the point. Wave beyond wave awaits after the this one. And then what will the well-intentioned sentimentalists say? We wanted to do the right thing… we meant well… we cried when we saw the little boy dead on the beach….
Yes, the tragic intrusions of the US military in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and elsewhere have been reckless and stupid. But that is not the whole story. The desert nations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have populations abnormally swollen by a century of oil-and-gas-based agriculture, really by the benefits of Modernity in general. Now that the oil age is chugging to an unruly crack-up, and Modernity with it, and the earth’s climate is doing wonky things, and the rich nations to the north have faked their finances to the point of bankruptcy, well, circumstances have changed.
In the years ahead, populations will be fleeing and shifting from many more unfavorable corners of the world. The pressures are mounting all over. Alas, the richer nations in which the fleeing poor aspire to gain a foothold, will also be contending with the disabling effects of a universal economic contraction — the winding down of the techno-industrial system and the global economy with it. That process has the potential to shatter political unions, overthrow established social orders, and provoke wars between the demoralized countries who still possess dangerous military hardware. At the least, it will produce economic conditions in Europe and North America probably worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Complete story at - There Goes Europe | KUNSTLER
US State Dept fails to explain Washington's decision to extend sanctions on Russia — RT News
Washington has extended its sanctions against Russia, but the US State Department failed to offer specifics of what exactly Moscow did wrong this time. It referred to a “larger picture,” which supposedly proves Russia’s guilt in destabilizing Ukraine. On Wednesday, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) explained that it took action to sanction 29 Russian entities to ensure the “efficacy of existing sanctions... for violating international law and fueling the conflict in eastern Ukraine.”
Considering that the situation in eastern Ukraine has been unusually calm recently, RT’s Gayane Chichakyan asked State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner what Russian violations now warrant such tightening and strengthening of the sanctions list.
“We’ve seen ongoing violations of the ceasefire and I know we’ve been back and forth on that, or who is to blame for that. We believe the preponderance of the ceasefire violations are on the part of separatist forces, again supplied and also helped by Russian military,” Toner said.
Asked to provide any specifics on the ceasefire violations, the State Department deputy spokesperson referred RT correspondent to the OSCE and offered to look at “larger picture,” rather than focusing on specifics.
Complete story at - US State Dept fails to explain Washington's decision to extend sanctions on Russia — RT News
Something Major Is On The Horizon For This Fall. Too Many Big Chess Pieces Have Been Positioning Themselves Around The Table
Russians supporting legal government in Syria, US supporting rebels. Russia supporting rebels in Ukraine and USA supporting ukrainian goverment! This just political game, but simple people suffering!
COLD, COLD WAR: USA builds Arctic spy network as RussiaChina increase presence…
As China and Russia boost their military presence in the resource-rich far north, U.S. intelligence agencies are scrambling to study potential threats in the Arctic for the first time since the Cold War, a sign of the region’s growing strategic importance.
Over the last 14 months, most of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies have assigned analysts to work full time on the Arctic. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently convened a “strategy board” to bring the analysts together to share their findings.
In addition to relying on U.S. spy satellites orbiting overhead and Navy sensors deep in the frigid waters, the analysts process raw intelligence from a recently overhauled Canadian listening post near the North Pole and a Norwegian surveillance ship called the Marjata, which is now being upgraded at a U.S. Navy shipyard in southern Virginia.
The administration’s growing concern was dramatized Wednesday when the Pentagon confirmed it was tracking five Chinese warships in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Russia, for the first time. Officials said the Chinese ships were steaming in international waters toward the Aleutian Islands but posed no threat.
The growing focus shows how the United States and other polar powers are adjusting as global warming opens new sea lanes and sets off a scramble for largely untapped reserves of oil, natural gas and minerals. The United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway are pursuing jurisdiction over the Arctic seabed.
Complete story at - Something Major Is On The Horizon For This Fall. Too Many Big Chess Pieces Have Been Positioning Themselves Around The Table
The Empire Files — The Rise of History's Biggest Empire - YouTube
Abby Martin returns to TV in a big way!
New Violence in Kiev - But Nobody Seems to Care Much
Odessa governor says state machinery in Ukraine demoralized, power may change
As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US Rebuked for Failing Refugees
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: Secret Back Story Reveals Why The West Cannot Topple His Government
Blowback on a NATO beach
The March of Shame
There Goes Europe
US State Dept fails to explain Washington's decision to extend sanctions on Russia
Something Major Is On The Horizon For This Fall.
Too Many Big Chess Pieces Have Been Positioning Themselves Around The Table
The Empire Files — The Rise of History's Biggest Empire
• Russia/Ukraine •
Kiev Chief of Staff: Intelligence reports have 90% margin of error - Fort Russ
Translated from German by Tom Winter
Original headline: Ukraine's Chief of Staff rates intelligence reports from eastern Ukraine 90% wrong
Viktor Muzhenko, head of the Ukrainian General Staff, has assessed the clearance rate of military and intelligence in the "anti-terrorist operation" in the Donbass. According to his remarks, 90 percent of the information collected on the situation in eastern Ukraine would have to be counted as false.
This perhaps explains assertions of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko about the alledged "200,000 Russian soldiers" in the Donbass.
One might think that Viktor Muzhenko's declaration resembled a late admission. It took more than a year took for the head of the General Staff to designate Kiev's accusations against Russia as wrong. "There are intelligence reports and briefings data. Intelligence reports are what we get, and the data are, what the reports confirm" explained Muzhenko, in the best soldierly bureaucratic form, in an interview with the Ukrainian newspaper ZN.UA, and went on:
"Last summer 90 percent of the information through official briefings re the Anti-Terrorist Operation -- was wrong." The head of the General Staff said only five to ten percent of the information received was credible. At the same time Muzhenko accused the self-defense militias in Donbass of "active disinformation tactics."
Complete story at - Kiev Chief of Staff: Intelligence reports have 90% margin of error - Fort Russ
New Violence in Kiev - But Nobody Seems to Care Much - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog
Forgive me for mentioning it, but serious violence has returned to Kiev, scene (in February 2014) of the lawless overthrow of the legitimate President of Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych, by a violent, armed mob. For a list of the 18 police officers incontestably killed in the 2014 events, whose deaths are proof that this was not a wholly one-sided clash between ruthless state and peaceful, unarmed people, see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_during_Euromaidan#cite_note-MSV-03.02.14-1
This supposedly spontaneous events of 2014 (in my experience as a revolutionary, spontaneity takes a lot of organising) , in which serving foreign politicians and diplomats openly showed their partiality towards the demonstrators, and the legitimate President was unconstitutionally removed from office, has now passed into myth as a laudable exercise in idealistic and disinterested people power, supposedly aimed at ending the corruption and general squalor of Ukraine’s oligarch-dominated state.
To which one can only respond with helpless if bitter laughter, as the resulting government is actually headed by an oligarch and entirely dominated by them, and if Ukraine has since ceased in any important way to be Olympically corrupt, then I have to say I have seen no reports of this.
Now, I have from time to time, in many debate s on this subject, pointed out that grave danger in which the Kiev government finds itself. Having come to power through mob violence, it has no real moral protection from falling in the same way.
Complete story at - New Violence in Kiev - But Nobody Seems to Care Much - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog
TASS: World - Odessa governor says state machinery in Ukraine demoralized, power may change
KIEV, September 8. /TASS/. State machinery in Ukraine is demoralized and the fact may open the road to a change of state power, believes former Georgian President turned Odessa region governor Mikhail Saakashvili.
"A big vacuum is emerging due to the weakness of state machinery and the forces of law and order maintenance," he said live on the air of ICTV television channel. "A dangerous situation is taking shape, as all the groups surfacing now and having nothing in common with true volunteers may get a temptation one day to say it’s they who are real power."
"A general loss of legitimacy of the political class is taking place," Saakashvili said. "It’s just enough to look at the returns from the most recent opinion polls, which show that practically the entire political class is sliding downhill."
Simultaneously, Saakashvili believes the events in the sub-Carpathian city of Mukachevo where the militants affiliated with the Right Sector ultra-far-right grouping staged an exchange of fire and the protests in front of the Verkhovna Rada building, in the course of which a fighter affiliated with one of the so-called ‘volunteer battalions’ hurled a hand grenade at the at the police cordoning the building off showed that the forces of law and order also fell short of coping with their functions.
Complete story at - TASS: World - Odessa governor says state machinery in Ukraine demoralized, power may change
• Middle East •
As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US Rebuked for Failing Refugees | Common Dreams
As refugees are stranded at train stations, attacked by riot police, and killed during the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, Europe's failure to address the rising humanitarian crisis is being met with global outrage and sorrow.
Now, many are also looking across the Atlantic to the United States, where observers say key responsibility for the crisis lies—not only because the country is lagging in its humanitarian response, but also because its war policies lie at the root of the ongoing displacement.
"Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians, and Libyans are not running away from their homes because of a natural disaster," Raed Jarrar, expert on Middle East politics and government relations manager for the American Friends Service Committee, told Common Dreams. "The U.S. should see this crisis as partially caused by its own actions in the region."
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at a press briefing on Thursday that the United States sees no "impending policy changes" in light of the worsening crisis. He indicated the U.S. plan will remain focused on lending assistance from afar while letting EU nations take the lead on confronting the crisis. "There is certainly capacity in Europe to deal with this problem," Earnst said, "and the United States certainly stands with our European partners."
Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011, the U.S. estimates it has contributed over $4 billion in aid to those impacted by the conflict. That figure, Earnest declared, is "certainly more than any other country has done."
Complete story at - As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US Rebuked for Failing Refugees | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: Secret Back Story Reveals Why The West Cannot Topple His Government | SOTN: Alternative News & Commentary
Why is the Syrian President relentlessly demonized by the Anglo-American Axis?
Just like President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Syria’s President Bashar Hafez al-Assad has been the victim of unrelenting character assassination and false reporting by the Western Mainstream Media (MSM). Many of the MSM outlets throughout the Anglo-American Axis (AAA) have published one false story after another in a concerted effort to turn the entire world against him. And for what?
Why are they so determined to overthrow one of the very few righteous leaders in the Middle East?
The true answers to this question are as profound as they are far-reaching. On a quite superficial level, Assad represents the proverbial skunk at the garden party. The Anglo-American Axis has a set agenda and predetermined schedule; and, they will not let any nation or political leader get in its way.
A trained physician like Assad was thought to be the least of their (AAA) troubles during the choreographed Arab Spring events. After all, doctors everywhere take the sacred vow known as the Hippocratic Oath — “First, do no harm.”
The Israeli-Franco-Anglo-American power-brokers, who have controlled the destiny of most of the Middle Eastern nations for decades, have entered a new and desperate phase of conquest.
Unfortunately for the entire Mideast, that desperation manifested as the fomenting of a number of revolutionary Arab Spring events. The resulting widespread death and destruction reflects just how determined the AAA is to advance their misguided agenda.
Complete story at - Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: Secret Back Story Reveals Why The West Cannot Topple His Government | SOTN: Alternative News & Commentary
Blowback on a NATO beach — RT Op-Edge
We’ve had it coming. And when it came, virtually the whole planet reacted with stunned silence. Sometimes it takes just a photograph to put a noxiously complex version of hell in perspective.
Little did Nilufer Demir, 29, the female photojournalist of the Turkish Dogan News agency know that the moment she saw little Aylan Kurdi, 3, washed ashore at the Ali Hoca Burnu beach near Bodrum, she would be making history.
Aylan is alone, as if suspended by the immense solitude of death, just as his family’s dream of offering him a new life in a new continent away from death and destruction was about to be fulfilled. It’s as if his lone lifeless body at the shores of a NATO beach was also about to prefigure the death of Europe – or the death of a once pan-European dream of solidarity and compassion.
Hannah Arendt once wrote movingly about the banality of evil, referring to the mechanism of fascism and Nazism. Aylan’s lifeless body now illustrates the banality of an evil he was trying to flee: the “arc of instability”, a Pentagon self-fulfilling prophecy.
So to put hell in perspective we must retrace some steps of the arc.
Complete story at - Blowback on a NATO beach — RT Op-Edge
• EU Death Watch •
The March of Shame | The Irate Greek
They are people, like us.
They are young, they are old, they are men, women and children, they are lawyers or masons or doctors or barbers or plumbers or computer engineers. They are people, and they are coming.
Their countries fell apart, their houses were destroyed, their neighbours died. They lost friends and relatives, they lost their loved ones, they lost a limb. They fled. They took trucks or buses or cars or bicycles. They walked. They were smuggled, assaulted, abused, kidnapped on the way. They crossed a border, or two, or three. They were detained, arrested, beaten. They were parked in camps. They were told to live a life without a future, they were told to wait until their country is fixed, they were told to wait with no end in sight.
And then they came.
Of course they came.
They got on those rickety boats to cross the sea. Some of them were pushed back. Some of them sank and had to return to the coast. Some of them drowned. But they kept coming, and instead of greeting them with open arms, our governments screamed, “we’re being overrun!”
Yes, we’re being overrun. It was about time it happened.
Because as much as you expect people to stay put and die out of sight, out of mind, they have other plans for their life. As a matter of fact, they want a life worth living. And they are coming to get it.
Complete story at - The March of Shame | The Irate Greek
There Goes Europe | KUNSTLER
The desperate wish in what is loosely called the West to at least appear morally correct is unfortunately over-matched by the desperation of people fleeing unstable, overpopulated places outside the West, and it is a fiasco beyond even the events of the moment.
The refugee / immigrant crisis around the Mediterranean is a preview of a horror show to which there is no end in sight, and is certain to escalate. So anyone who indulges in fantasies about organizing an orderly, rational distribution of displaced persons for the current wave, is badly missing the point. Wave beyond wave awaits after the this one. And then what will the well-intentioned sentimentalists say? We wanted to do the right thing… we meant well… we cried when we saw the little boy dead on the beach….
Yes, the tragic intrusions of the US military in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and elsewhere have been reckless and stupid. But that is not the whole story. The desert nations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have populations abnormally swollen by a century of oil-and-gas-based agriculture, really by the benefits of Modernity in general. Now that the oil age is chugging to an unruly crack-up, and Modernity with it, and the earth’s climate is doing wonky things, and the rich nations to the north have faked their finances to the point of bankruptcy, well, circumstances have changed.
In the years ahead, populations will be fleeing and shifting from many more unfavorable corners of the world. The pressures are mounting all over. Alas, the richer nations in which the fleeing poor aspire to gain a foothold, will also be contending with the disabling effects of a universal economic contraction — the winding down of the techno-industrial system and the global economy with it. That process has the potential to shatter political unions, overthrow established social orders, and provoke wars between the demoralized countries who still possess dangerous military hardware. At the least, it will produce economic conditions in Europe and North America probably worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Complete story at - There Goes Europe | KUNSTLER
• Empire Watch •
US State Dept fails to explain Washington's decision to extend sanctions on Russia — RT News
Washington has extended its sanctions against Russia, but the US State Department failed to offer specifics of what exactly Moscow did wrong this time. It referred to a “larger picture,” which supposedly proves Russia’s guilt in destabilizing Ukraine. On Wednesday, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) explained that it took action to sanction 29 Russian entities to ensure the “efficacy of existing sanctions... for violating international law and fueling the conflict in eastern Ukraine.”
Considering that the situation in eastern Ukraine has been unusually calm recently, RT’s Gayane Chichakyan asked State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner what Russian violations now warrant such tightening and strengthening of the sanctions list.
“We’ve seen ongoing violations of the ceasefire and I know we’ve been back and forth on that, or who is to blame for that. We believe the preponderance of the ceasefire violations are on the part of separatist forces, again supplied and also helped by Russian military,” Toner said.
Asked to provide any specifics on the ceasefire violations, the State Department deputy spokesperson referred RT correspondent to the OSCE and offered to look at “larger picture,” rather than focusing on specifics.
Complete story at - US State Dept fails to explain Washington's decision to extend sanctions on Russia — RT News
Something Major Is On The Horizon For This Fall. Too Many Big Chess Pieces Have Been Positioning Themselves Around The Table
Russians supporting legal government in Syria, US supporting rebels. Russia supporting rebels in Ukraine and USA supporting ukrainian goverment! This just political game, but simple people suffering!
COLD, COLD WAR: USA builds Arctic spy network as RussiaChina increase presence…
As China and Russia boost their military presence in the resource-rich far north, U.S. intelligence agencies are scrambling to study potential threats in the Arctic for the first time since the Cold War, a sign of the region’s growing strategic importance.
Over the last 14 months, most of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies have assigned analysts to work full time on the Arctic. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently convened a “strategy board” to bring the analysts together to share their findings.
In addition to relying on U.S. spy satellites orbiting overhead and Navy sensors deep in the frigid waters, the analysts process raw intelligence from a recently overhauled Canadian listening post near the North Pole and a Norwegian surveillance ship called the Marjata, which is now being upgraded at a U.S. Navy shipyard in southern Virginia.
The administration’s growing concern was dramatized Wednesday when the Pentagon confirmed it was tracking five Chinese warships in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Russia, for the first time. Officials said the Chinese ships were steaming in international waters toward the Aleutian Islands but posed no threat.
The growing focus shows how the United States and other polar powers are adjusting as global warming opens new sea lanes and sets off a scramble for largely untapped reserves of oil, natural gas and minerals. The United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway are pursuing jurisdiction over the Arctic seabed.
Complete story at - Something Major Is On The Horizon For This Fall. Too Many Big Chess Pieces Have Been Positioning Themselves Around The Table
• Miscellaneous •
The Empire Files — The Rise of History's Biggest Empire - YouTube
Abby Martin returns to TV in a big way!
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