Land Destroyer: Russian Crimea: One Year Later

NATO calls Crimea "invaded" and "occupied." NATO has taught the world well what invasion and occupation really looks like, and Crimea isn't it.

March 22, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - In 2001, NATO invaded and began the occupation of the South-Central Asian country of Afghanistan. The invasion and occupation has left tens of thousands dead, many more displaced, and has resulted in continued chaos and violence up until and including present day. Throughout the conflict, revelations of abuses, mass murder, and other atrocities including systematic torture have been exposed, perpetrated by invading NATO forces and their Afghan collaborators.

The war has also resulted in the use of armed drone aircraft which regularly kill men, women, and children indiscriminately along the Afghan-Pakistani border - a campaign of mass murder ongoing for nearly as long as the conflict has raged.

In 2003, NATO-members joined the United States in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. An estimated 1 million people would lose their lives, including thousands of Western troops. For nearly a decade the United State occupied Iraq, and during its attempts to prop up a suitable client regime, laid waste to the nation. American forces in their bid to exercise control over the Iraqi population would conduct sweeping assaults on entire cities. The city of Fallujah would be leveled nearly to the ground, twice.


Complete story at - Land Destroyer: Russian Crimea: One Year Later

The Greanville Post • Vol. IX | The New Chinese Dream

What’s in a name, rather an ideogram? Everything. A single Chinese character – jie (for “between”) – graphically illustrates the key foreign policy initiative of the new Chinese dream.

In the upper part of the four-stroke character – which, symbolically, should be read as the roof of a house – the stroke on the left means the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the stroke on the right means the 21st century Maritime Silk Road. In the lower part, the stroke on the left means the China-Pakistan corridor, via Xinjiang province, and the stroke on the right, the China-Myanmar-Bangladesh-India corridor via Yunnan province.

Chinese culture feasts on myriad formulas, mottoes – and symbols. If many a Chinese scholar worries about how the Middle Kingdom’s new intimation of soft power may be lost in translation, the character jie – pregnant with connectivity – is already the starting point to make 1.3 billion Chinese, plus the overseas Chinese diaspora, visualize the top twin axis – continental and naval – of the New Silk Road vision unveiled by President Xi Jinping, a concept also known as “One Road, One Belt”.
In practical terms, it also helps that the New Silk Road will be boosted by a special, multi-billion-dollar Silk Road Fund and the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which, not by accident, has attracted the attention of European investors.

The New Silk Road, actually roads, symbolizes China’s pivot to an old heartland: Eurasia. That implies a powerful China even more enriched by its environs, without losing its essence as a civilization-state. Call it a post-modern remix of the Tang, Sung and early Ming dynasties – as Beijing deftly and recently stressed via a superb exhibition in the National Museum of China consisting of rare early Silk Road pieces assembled from a range of regional museums.

In the past, China had a unifying infrastructure enterprise like the Great Wall. In the future it will have a major project of unifying Eurasia via high-speed rail. When one considers the breadth of this vision, depictions of Xi striving to be an equal of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping sound so pedestrian.

Complete story at - The Greanville Post • Vol. IX | The New Chinese Dream

U.S. Ships 50 Bradley Tanks to Ukraine: Europeans Are Furious Washington's Blog

Eric Zuesse

Apparently, Obama, though he says he hasn’t made up his mind about whether to send weapons to Ukraine, actually has and is. He now seems to be quietly trashing the spirit though no provision in the Minsk II truce that was arranged by Merkel, Hollande, Putin, and Poroshenko, and signed by the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, and both of the rebelling former parts of Ukraine, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic. Obama now appears to be sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, and thus assisting Ukraine to resume attacking the DPR & LPR.

Even conservative Europeans are expressing outrage. Followers of Italy’s Sylvio Berlusconi, and even the leader of Austria’s anti-immigrant “Freedom Party,” are shocked and appalled by this Obama action.

Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, posted online a photo alleged to be of Bradley tanks now on rail-cars in Linz Austria en-route to Ukraine; he estimated 50 of them.

Complete story at - U.S. Ships 50 Bradley Tanks to Ukraine: Europeans Are Furious Washington's Blog

Colonel Cassad (in English) - Destabilizing the old world order

Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond gave a speech in London in which he again spoke about the destabilizing role of Russia in the Ukrainian crisis.

"President Putin's actions — illegally annexing Crimea and now using Russian troops to destabilize eastern Ukraine – fundamentally undermine the security of sovereign nations of Eastern Europe," — said Hammond, speaking in the Royal United Services Institute in London.

According to Hammond, Putin is not going to follow the rules accepted in the international community, the goal of which is to keep peace between nations. Quite the opposite he is bent on "subverting it", due to which Russia is potentially the "single greatest threat to Britain's security."
Earlier in his BBC interview the head of the British Foreign Office said that there are no signs of changing the Moscow's policy towards the Ukrainian conflict.

He added that additional sanctions against Russia may be passed in the case of the worsening situation in Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities and the western countries accuse Russia of giving military aid to the separatists in the east of Ukraine and of sending military force to participate in the conflict.

Moscow consistently denies direct participation in the armed conflict in Donbass and accuses the west of not having the desire to settle the crisis peacefully.

Merkel convinced Obama.

On Monday evening it became known that the US president Barack Obama decided not to ship lethal weapons to Ukraine for now.

As the Associated Press agency was told by the ambassador of Germany in Washington Peter Wittig, Obama made this decision in February after the talks in the White House with Chancellor Angela Merkel. According to Wittig, the American president agreed with Merkel that more room needs to be given to diplomacy in the situation of the cease-fire that started.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/uk/2015/03/150310_hammond_speech_russia_threat_europe (in Russian) — link

The only thing in which it is possible to agree with Hammond is that the current Russian line is destroying the existing world order, willingly or unwillingly, which its current masters naturally don't like. Few can be deceived by hypocritical lamentations that the existing world order served the goal of keeping peace, because it is precisely the masters of the existing world order who lead in the number of aggressive wars and foreign-inspired coups, which violate the sovereignty of independent and formally independent countries. It is hard to say that Russia consciously sought actions that destroy this world order. For many years Russia tried to integrate into this system, but no matter how our westernizers tried, they were regularly shown the door. In the end, Russia was forced to throw monkey wrenches into the works of the wheels of the existing world order, first in Georgia, then in Syria, and now in Ukraine. Not in any single one of these crucial events Russia wasn't the initiator of the process. Rather, it stood in defense, in some cases successfully, in other cases not so much. But this is unacceptable for those who benefit the most from the fact that our world works in this specific way and not in some other way.

Russia is currently unable to offer some kind of global project or a paradigm of development to the world. The rejection of superpower status is fixed at the level of the basic ideological postulates. Russia cannot replace the USA, even if she strongly wanted it. So there is no speaking about Russia trying to bring the USA down from their high horse and take the place of the world hegemony. Only China may entertain such ideas, and only in the long term. Russia simply wants to lock certain spheres of influence behind her and to review the rules of the game where the USA act as not the first among equals bur rather like a sovereign among vassals (perhaps, disloyal vassals). That is why the conflict based on the foundation of such postulates destroys and will continue to destroy the existing world order, both due to the natural development of the cold war between the USA and the RF and also due to the long-term consequences of wars and political and economic crises generated by this conflict.

Complete story at - Colonel Cassad (in English) - Destabilizing the old world order

Russia Rebounds, Despite Sanctions - Bloomberg View

By Matthew A. Winkler

Sanctions meant to punish Russia for snatching Crimea from Ukraine one year ago were supposed to hurt Russian business. And they did. Russian stocks, bonds and commodities had the worst performance in 2014 of those in any emerging market.

That was then. Now the picture is changing, with investors starting to favor Russia in 2015. The ruble, which became the world's most volatile currency last year after President Vladimir Putin's land grab, is stabilizing. The swings in its value narrowed this year more than any of the other 30 most-traded currencies.

Investors in Russian government securities denominated in rubles have earned the equivalent of 7 cents on the dollar so far this year, as measured by the Bloomberg Russia Local Sovereign Bond Index. In contrast, anyone holding similar government debt in emerging markets across-the-board has lost 1.1 percent in 2015.

The picture is even rosier for Russia's corporate bondholders; they've had a 7.3 percent total return in 2015, leading the gains in the index for emerging market corporate bonds compiled by Bloomberg. And while shareholders in the global emerging market stocks measured by the MSCI Emerging Market Index gained 1.7 percent this year, the 50 Russian stocks in the Micex index are up 11.9 percent -- better than the Standard & Poor's 500 or any other North American market.

The ruble's relative value helps explain why there are some signs of confidence in Russia. Although the ruble remains the most volatile of the 31 most-traded currencies this year, its swings are narrowing. This is visible in implied volatility, a measure of traders' bets on how much the currency's value will change day-to-day. After surging in late 2014 amid the widening Ukraine crisis, the ruble now is fluctuating the way it did in 2009.

Complete story at - Russia Rebounds, Despite Sanctions - Bloomberg View

Crimea's Growth Fastest in 20 Years Thanks to Russia, Sanctions - Minister / Sputnik International

In an interviw with Sputnik, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Crimea Dmitry Polonsky explained how the republic won after rejoining Russia, how Western sanctions contributed to its economic development and what the West should focus on.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Crimea has been experiencing an upsurge in development following its reunification with Russia thanks to the country’s investment in the republic, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Crimea Dmitry Polonsky told Sputnik on Wednesday.

“Crimea has not developed at such a pace as it has in the past year over the past twenty years,” Polonsky said, adding that the Russian government plans to invest almost 700 billion rubles ($12.1 billion) in the republic’s economy under the current social-economic development program, which will run until 2020.

Polonsky, who is Crimea's Internal Policy, Information and Mass Communications Minister, stressed that during the 23 years prior to the March 2014 independence referendum, Crimea experienced “regression” due to the Ukrainian authorities lack of investment.

“Unfortunately, the 23-year-long tenure in Ukraine has been the time of regression for Crimea. The Ukrainian government did not invest a single penny into Crimea, at the same time it sucked out all possible resources from here," Polonsky told Sputnik, stressing that Russia “is taking an entirely different route” which is making a “drastic” difference on the peninsula. But even if Crimea residents were told not to expect any investment from the Russian government a year ago, they would have "still made the choice of becoming part of Russia," the minister stressed.

Complete story at - Crimea's Growth Fastest in 20 Years Thanks to Russia, Sanctions - Minister / Sputnik International

"You Grow Up Wanting to be Luke Skywalker, Then Realize You've Become a Stormtrooper for the Empire"

POWERFUL STORY: Read this shocking account of how U.S. Iraq War veterans had their 9/11 patriotism crushed & replaced with something far more alarming...

Someone asked:

How do you Americans as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months your country is committing a 9/11 size atrocity to other people. Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in america every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. Your brothers and sisters. For no reason.

Daniel Crimmins from U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division answered:

"Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media's definition of the attack as a act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college. Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the "us vs. them" good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.

Some of us, therefore, left our dorm rooms, and walked down Main Street to the recruiter's office. Some of us were genuinely surprised the office wasn't full to bursting of young men eager to avenge their fallen countrymen. Some of us were genuinely surprised when we had to push the recruiter to stop trying to sell desk jobs and just let us join the damn Infantry.

Some of us got enlisted, then, and went down to Georgia, head high to mask the anxiety and fear they might have helped. Perhaps some number of Americans in this situation discovered that maybe it hadn't been the best idea, but would be goddamned if they were going to admit it, and let everyone back home smuggly remark on how right they were.

So they persevere. They learn to work as a unit, to look past personality issues, to see each other as Soldiers rather than as a race, or economic status, or any of the other things people hate about each other.

Complete story at - "You Grow Up Wanting to be Luke Skywalker, Then Realize You've Become a Stormtrooper for the Empire"

The Economist has a funny sense of European values — RT Op-Edge

In the same week that The Economist lauded Ukraine's "commitment to European values," Kiev's current regime kicked out Euronews. Who do they think they are kidding?

Ah, The Economist. Without question, it’s is the best informed news magazine in the world… except on subjects I know something about. Take Ukraine for instance, throughout the country's current crisis, The Economist has been weaving a web of fantasy to its readers. The narrative has continuously blamed Russia for all Ukraine's misfortunes while painting its post-Maidan oligarchic rulers as being somewhere near God's right hand.

After wholeheartedly backing last year’s coup, the windy weekly has been unwilling to admit the severity of Kiev’s economic malaise. Instead, it has maintained the pretence that throwing money at its pro-NATO regime will solve all its problems. Anybody who knows the first thing about Ukraine acknowledges that the lion's share of the dough would be pilfered.

The problem is that a great number of the Western world’s most powerful people take The Economist seriously. The magazine appears both authoritative and credible, and never misses a chance to emphasize its own importance. However, this is “lipstick on a pig” territory. On subjects I’m reasonably informed about (Ireland, Europe, Britain, the ex-USSR for example), The Economist is more often wrong than right. Viewed through that prism, I’m extremely skeptical of the rag’s accuracy on topics I know little of.

In 2005, The Economist announced that Ireland had the highest quality of life in the world. I clearly remember reading the edition in downtown Dublin and that my first thought concerned the quality of the drugs the magazine’s editors were taking. Oddly, I'd penned a column a week earlier for the Ireland On Sunday newspaper predicting a deep recession for my homeland, which was rapidly losing its industrial base as credit-fuelled property madness raged.

Two years later, Ireland’s economy collapsed and a half decade of misery began. Incidentally, the periodical currently lists Melbourne as the best place to reside on earth. If you are in Melbourne right now, given The Economist’s track record, it’s probably best to emigrate before the inevitable happens.

Complete story at - The Economist has a funny sense of European values — RT Op-Edge

Clinton Foundation Received $10 Million from Ukrainian Oligarch - Russia Insider

Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, according to that foundation, which is based in Kiev, Ukraine. It was created by Mr. Pinchuk, whose fortune stems from a pipe-making company. He served two terms as an elected member of the Ukrainian Parliament and is a proponent of closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union.

In 2008, Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a wing of the foundation that coordinates charitable projects and funding for them but doesn’t handle the money. The pledge was to fund a program to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals “to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation. Several alumni are current members of the Ukrainian Parliament. Actual donations so far amount to only $1.8 million, a Pinchuk foundation spokesman said, citing the impact of the 2008 financial crisis.

The Pinchuk foundation said its donations were intended to help to make Ukraine “a successful, free, modern country based on European values.” It said that if Mr. Pinchuk was lobbying the State Department about Ukraine, “this cannot be seen as anything but a good thing.”

Complete story at - Clinton Foundation Received $10 Million from Ukrainian Oligarch - Russia Insider

U.S.-v.-Russia: Even Stephen Cohen Is Starting to Speak the Truth - Washington's Blog

Eric Zuesse

An alarming development is that Stephen F. Cohen, the internationally prominent scholar of Russia, is acknowledging that (1:35 on the video) “for the first time in my long life (I began in this field in the 1960s), I think the possibility of war with Russia is real,” and he clearly and unequivocally places all of the blame for it on the U.S. leadership. He calls this “possibly a fateful turning-point in history.” He also says “it could be the beginning of the end of the so-called trans-Atlantic alliance.”

He goes on to say (2:20): “This problem began in the 1990s, when the Clinton Administration adopted a winner-take-all policy toward post-Soviet Russia … Russia gives, we take. … This policy was adopted by the Clinton Administration but is pursued by every [meaning both] political party, every President, every American Congress, since President Clinton, to President Obama. This meant that the United States was entitled to a sphere or zone of influence as large as it wished, right up to Russia’s borders, and Russia was entitled to no sphere of influence, at all, not even in Georgia, … or in Ukraine (with which Russia had been intermarried for centuries).”

He also speaks clearly about the misrepresentations of Putin by the American Government, and he clearly states (5:25): “He’s more European than 99% of other Russians.”

Regarding Ukraine (5:45): “Since November of 2013, Putin has been not aggressive, but reactive, at every stage.”

Regarding, in America, the effective unanimity of allowed scholarly and media opinions to the contrary of the actual facts, (and this is the most startling thing of all, so you might want to go straight to it, at 7:05): “This is an unprecedented situation in American politics. … This is exceedingly dangerous, and this is a failure of American democracy. Why it happened, I am not sure.”

He condemns (7:30) “this extraordinarily irrational [non] factual demonization of Putin … and this too is hard to explain.”

Complete story at - U.S.-v.-Russia: Even Stephen Cohen Is Starting to Speak the Truth Washington's Blog