How the CIA Launched the «Financial Pearl Harbor» Attacks on Russia and Venezuela

Wayne MADSEN | 20.12.2014 | 00:00

Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan's long familiarity with Saudi Arabia, owing to the time he spent there as the CIA station chief in Riyadh in the 1990s and his knowledge of Saudi oil operations, has paid off. Petroleum industry insiders claim that Brennan's agents inside Saudi Aramco convinced the firm's management and the Saudi Oil Ministry to begin fracking operations in order to stimulate production in Saudi Arabia's oldest oil fields. The Saudis, who are not known for their hands-on knowledge of their nation's own oil industry, agreed to what became an oil pricing catastrophe which would not only affect Saudi Arabia but oil producing nations around the world from Russia and Venezuela to Nigeria and Indonesia. By pumping high-pressure salt water into older wells, some at a depth of three to six thousand feet, an inordinate amount of pressure was built up. The CIA's oil industry implants knew what would occur when the fracking operations began. Due to the dangerously high water pressure, the Saudis were forced continuously pump oil until the pressure became equalized. That process is continuing. If the Saudis ceased pumping oil, they would permanently lose the wells to salt water contamination. In the current "pump it or lose it" situation, the Saudis are forced to pump at a rate that may take up to five years before they can slow down production rates to pre-glut levels. The corporate media, including the Bloomberg and Dow Jones virtual business news monopolies, issued news reports claiming that the Saudis agreed to keep production high at the November meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in order to retain their market share amid increased U.S. oil production from fracking.  The net result of the CIA-inspired fracking operations, which the Saudis were warned not to pursue by petroleum engineers working for some foreign-based firms like Schlumberger, is that there will be an oil supply glut for the next 5 years. The glut will be followed by a reduction in Saudi oil production unless new oil fields are brought on line. There is now a major push by U.S. and Canadian oil companies to bring online the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the United States to offset the expected sharp rise in oil prices in four to five years. But with Canada suffering financially from the drop in oil revenues, the Keystone XL project is also on financially shaky ground. The CIA operation to frack Middle Eastern oil fields was not only limited to Saudi Arabia. Oil industry sources have revealed that similar fracking caused over production problems in Kuwait and Iraq. The CIA's sabotage of Saudi and other oil fields is not a first for the agency. In 1982, a massive and devastating explosion of the Trans-Siberian Pipeline was said to have been the work of Trojan horse software implanted by a Canadian company on behalf of the CIA. Former U.S. Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed, who served in the Ronald Reagan White House, confirmed the CIA's role in the industrial sabotage. The CIA cooperated with the Israeli Mossad in creating the Flame computer virus that crippled Iran's nuclear enrichment equipment. Another CIA-Mossad virus, Stuxnet, had wreaked havoc on nuclear power plants around the world. The CIA is believed to have played a part in the crash of the Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 in May 2012 in Indonesia. A Russian military intelligence spokesman said that U.S. industrial sabotage in downing the flight, which killed 45 Indonesian and Russian nationals, was considered a likely cause. The crash came after the head of the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, said he believed that it was possible that the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission to the moons of Mars may have been caused by American sabotage. The CIA's use of industrial sabotage against the Cuban sugar industry, the Chilean and Zambian copper industries, and the Haitian rice industry is legendary. Explosions at oil refineries in Iran, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, and Venezuela, pipeline explosions in Syria and Libya, and a Brazilian Petrobras marine oil rig collapse, have been attributed to CIA proxy terrorist groups. The result of the sudden decline in oil prices has resulted in heavy damage to the economies of the CIA-targeted countries of Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Brennan and his economic warfare operatives absolutely banked on the Saudi over-production to harm the economies of all three countries and the CIA has not been disappointed. The CIA figures that «regime change» would bring to power pro-U.S. governments in Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. Already, from his base in Switzerland, exiled Russian tax evader billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky has called for President Vladimir Putin's violent overthrow and even his assassination. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress took its cues from the CIA and voted to impose devastating economic sanctions on both Russia and Venezuela. President Barack Obama approved the congressional sanctions. Similar congressional legislation to increase sanctions on Iran is pending. Russia has been harmed the most by the CIA's Saudi oil production scheme. The Russian ruble fell 56 percent in value against the U.S. dollar while Russian interest rates climbed to 17 percent. The price of shares of Russia's largest lending bank, Sberbank, fell 18 percent. Although the Russian economic collapse has resulted in financial ripples around the world, with Austrian and French banks losing their stock values and the value of the Polish zloty and Hungarian forint falling against the dollar, the Obama administration says that there will be no easing on economic sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine. Obama has also put the individual and institutional investments of American holders of Russian bonds in dire jeopardy. The Pacific Investment Management Company's (PEBIX) Emerging Markets Bond Fund, which holds over $800 million in Russian bonds, has lost almost 8 percent in value in the past few weeks.  Meanwhile, basic staples in Venezuela, including cooking oil, rice, and corn flour, are becoming hard to obtain. On the Venezuelan black market, the U.S. dollar has jumped 1700 percent in value against the Venezuelan bolivar. The CIA is using the financial collapse to push for an undemocratic overthrow of the Venezuelan government and CIA operatives are providing cash payments to Venezuelan opposition politicians and provocateurs. Iran, which has been under punitive Western economic sanctions for a number of years over its nuclear power program, is probably best able to weather the storm. Iran has built up a rather impressive domestic food production, telecommunications, and oil industry infrastructure to survive the sanctions. However, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appears very aware of the Saudi role in the conspiracy to drive down oil prices. Recently, Rouhani said of the drop in oil prices, "The main reason for [it] is political conspiracy by certain countries against the interest of the region and the Islamic world and it is only in the interest of some other countries . . . Iran and people of the region will not forget such conspiracies.» The economic hardships imposed on oil-producing Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has resulted in an opportunity for the Islamic State to gain adherents in the country, especially among the young and unemployed population. The economy of China, which is hoping to begin pumping oil from lucrative marine reserves in the South China Sea, is feeling the strain of lower oil prices. Mexico, wracked with social instability, has also suffered from the CIA's machinations. However, instability in Mexico has always been advantageous for the CIA, which continues to benefit from the illegal drug trade that keeps the agency's slush fund accounts flush with cash. Brennan's and the CIA's industrial sabotage of the Saudi industry will continue to have far-reaching effects on the world economy. Oil industry insiders fear that the CIA has unleashed something that may deal a devastating blow to the global economy from which it will be difficult to recover.

 

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/12/20/how-cia-launched-the-financial-pearl-harbor-attacks-russia-venezuela.html

Krugman Joins the Anti-Putin Pack

December 19, 2014

Exclusive: Official Washington's "group think" on the Ukraine crisis now has a totalitarian feel to it as "everyone who matters" joins in the ritualistic stoning of Russian President Putin and takes joy in Russia's economic pain, with liberal economist Paul Krugman the latest to hoist a rock, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

When America's opinion-making herd gets running, it's hard for anyone to get in the way regardless of how erroneous or unfair the reason for the stampede. It's much easier – and career-wise safer – to join the pack, which is what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has done regarding Russia, Ukraine and Vladimir Putin.

In the latest example of the New York Times' endless Putin-bashing, Krugman begins his Friday column with what you might call a "negative endorsement" of the Russian president by claiming that ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has "an embarrassing crush on the swaggering statesman."

Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. (Photo credit: David Shankbone)

But Krugman misleads his readers. Giuliani wasn't really praising Putin when he said "that is what you call a leader" in commenting on Putin's decisiveness. Some liberal defenders of President Barack Obama simply cherry-picked the quote to counter Giuliani's attempt to disparage Obama by comparing Obama's chronic indecisiveness to Putin's forcefulness.

In the fuller context, Giuliani was not expressing a fondness for Putin at all. Indeed, he disparaged the Russian leader as "a bully" and urged a tough-guy response to Putin over Ukraine. "Instead of him pushing us around, we push him around," Giuliani said in the Fox News interview. "That's the only thing a bully understands."

So, why did Krugman begin his Putin-bashing column by misrepresenting what Giuliani was saying? It may have been a form of "negative endorsement." Since many American liberals hate Giuliani, Giuliani's praise is supposed to translate into liberal hatred for Putin.

But "negative endorsements" are inherently unfair. Just because Josef Stalin might have liked Franklin Roosevelt and because we may hate Stalin, that doesn't mean we should hate Roosevelt, too. The use of "negative endorsement" is akin to guilt by association. And, in this case, Krugman was playing fast and loose with the facts as well

Krugman also opts for some of the most hyperbolic language that has been used in the U.S. mainstream media to distort events in Ukraine. For instance, Krugman claims that "Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine without debate or deliberation." But that really isn't true either.

The Ukraine crisis is far more complicated and nuanced than that, as Krugman must know. If he doesn't, he should consult with fellow Princeton professor Stephen F. Cohen, who has bravely challenged the prevailing "group think" on both Ukraine and Russia.

Cohen, one of America's premier Russia experts, has even warned that "American media coverage of Vladimir Putin … has so demonized him that the result may be to endanger U.S. national security. …

"[M]ainstream press reporting, editorials and op-ed articles have increasingly portrayed Putin as a czar-like 'autocrat,' or alternatively a 'KGB thug,' who imposed a 'rollback of democratic reforms' under way in Russia when he succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president in 2000. He installed instead a 'venal regime' that has permitted 'corruptionism,' encouraged the assassination of a 'growing number' of journalists and carried out the 'killing of political opponents.' Not infrequently, Putin is compared to Saddam Hussein and even Stalin."

Yet, Cohen said, "there is no evidence that any of these allegations against him are true, or at least entirely true. Most seem to have originated with Putin's personal enemies, particularly Yeltsin-era oligarchs who found themselves in foreign exile as a result of his policies – or, in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in prison. Nonetheless, U.S. media, with little investigation of their own, have woven the allegations into a near-consensus narrative of 'Putin's Russia.'" [For details from Cohen's article, click here.]

'Shock Therapy'

Indeed, much of what Krugman finds so offensive about Putin's Russia actually stemmed from the Yeltsin era following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 when the so-called Harvard Boys flew to Moscow to apply free-market "shock therapy" which translated into a small number of well-connected thieves plundering Russia's industry and resources, making themselves billionaires while leaving average Russians near starvation.

When Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin in 2000, Putin challenged some of the oligarchs and pushed others out of the political arena, while also moderating some of the extreme policies and thus making life somewhat better for the average Russian, thus explaining Putin's broad popularity. Putin could be fairly criticized for not going further, but economist Krugman must surely know this history regarding how the Russian "kleptocracy" got started.

Yet, Krugman slides into the now common demonization of Putin. "Mr. Putin never had the resources to back his swagger," Krugman smugly writes.

"It's quite a comedown for Mr. Putin. And his swaggering strongman act helped set the stage for the disaster. A more open, accountable regime — one that wouldn't have impressed Mr. Giuliani so much — would have been less corrupt, would probably have run up less debt, and would have been better placed to ride out falling oil prices. Macho posturing, it turns out, makes for bad economies."

In other words, Krugman buys into the "group think" that blames Putin's "macho posturing" over Ukraine for the current financial crisis in Russia, which has resulted from falling oil prices as well as the U.S.-led sanctions punishing Russia for its alleged "aggression" in Ukraine.

That puts Krugman in the same camp as the neocons who have pushed the bogus narrative that the megalomaniacal Putin is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire. The actual facts, however, disprove that narrative. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Crazy US 'Group Think' on Russia."]

Putin himself has a much better understanding of recent Russian history – and what Official Washington's goals are regarding him and Russia – as he explained in an end-of-year news conference on Thursday.

Asked if the economic pain was the price for accepting Crimea back into Russia, Putin responded: "No. This is not the price we have to pay for Crimea. … This is actually the price we have to pay for our natural aspiration to preserve ourselves as a nation, as a civilization, as a state. …

"I gave an example of our most recognizable symbol. It is a bear protecting his taiga. … [M]aybe it would be best if our bear just sat still. Maybe he should stop chasing pigs and boars around the taiga but start picking berries and eating honey. Maybe then he will be left alone.

"But no, he won't be! Because someone will always try to chain him up. As soon as he's chained they will tear out his teeth and claws. In this analogy, I am referring to the power of nuclear deterrence. As soon as – God forbid – it happens and they no longer need the bear, the taiga will be taken over. … And then, when all the teeth and claws are torn out, the bear will be of no use at all. Perhaps they'll stuff it and that's all.

"So, it is not about Crimea but about us protecting our independence, our sovereignty and our right to exist. That is what we should all realize."

The Neo-Nazi Reality

There is another unpleasant reality about Ukraine that Krugman ignores — its neo-Nazi element — apparently not wanting to be out of step with his New York Times colleagues who have studiously looked the other way. Again, Krugman could learn something from his fellow Princeton professor Cohen, who has recounted the grim facts about neo-Nazism in Ukraine, facts that would put Putin's supposed "invasion" in defense of Ukraine's ethnic Russians in a different light.

In an article for The Nation magazine, Cohen wrote: "Independent Western scholars have documented the fascist origins, contemporary ideology and declarative symbols of Svoboda and its fellow-traveling Right Sector. Both movements glorify Ukraine's murderous Nazi collaborators in World War II as inspirational ancestors. Both, to quote Svoboda's leader Oleh Tyahnybok, call for an ethnically pure nation purged of the 'Moscow-Jewish mafia' and 'other scum,' including homosexuals, feminists and political leftists.

"And both hailed the Odessa massacre [on May 2 when ethnic Russian protesters were trapped in the Trade Union building and burned alive]. According to the website of Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh, it was 'another bright day in our national history.' A Svoboda parliamentary deputy added, 'Bravo, Odessa…. Let the Devils burn in hell.'

"If more evidence is needed, in December 2012, the European Parliament decried Svoboda's 'racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views [that] go against the EU's fundamental values and principles.' In 2013, the World Jewish Congress denounced Svoboda as 'neo-Nazi.' Still worse, observers agree that Right Sector is even more extremist. …

"In December 2012, a Svoboda parliamentary leader anathematized the Ukrainian-born American actress Mila Kunis as 'a dirty kike.' Since 2013, pro-Kiev mobs and militias have routinely denigrated ethnic Russians as insects ('Colorado beetles,' whose colors resemble a sacred Russia ornament). More recently, the US-picked prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, referred to resisters in the Southeast as 'subhumans.' His defense minister proposed putting them in 'filtration camps,' pending deportation, and raising fears of ethnic cleansing.

"Yulia Tymoshenko — a former prime minister, titular head of Yatsenyuk's party and runner-up in the May presidential election — was overheard wishing she could 'exterminate them all [Ukrainian Russians] with atomic weapons.' 'Sterilization' is among the less apocalyptic official musings on the pursuit of a purified Ukraine."

By leaving out this troubling context, it's much easier to mislead Americans about what is actually happening in Ukraine. Instead of understanding Russia's interest in protecting ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine from these brutal neo-Nazis, the crisis can simply be presented as Putin's "aggression" or – as Krugman says – how "Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine." [For an earlier case of Krugman's distortions on Ukraine, click here.]

More fitting Krugman's expertise about the dangers of free-market extremism, he might do better looking at the consequences of those strategies on both Russia and Ukraine, where corrupt oligarchs also took power and have now moved to the center of Ukraine's U.S.-backed regime.

And, if Krugman wants some current example of cronyism, he might look at the curious case of Natalie Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat who parlayed $150 million in U.S. AID funds designed to help Ukraine develop an investment-based economy into a personal fortune and now into the post of Ukraine's new Finance Minister.

According to corporate records, the U.S. government-funded investment project for Ukraine involved substantial insider dealings by Jaresko, including $1 million-plus fees to a management company that she also controlled. Meanwhile, the $150 million stake provided by the U.S. taxpayers appears to have dwindled to less than $100 million. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Ukraine's Made-in-the-USA Finance Minister."]

But critical reporting about the U.S.-backed Ukrainian regime would violate Official Washington's narrative that prefers the Kiev authorities to be dressed in white hats while Vladimir Putin wears the black hat.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/12/19/krugman-joins-the-anti-putin-pack/

Oil War on Russia: Ridiculous People and Unintended Consequences

Column: Politics

Region: USA in the World

The once rather ordered world we knew even a decade ago is becoming more and more dis-ordered. That's not to say it's chaotic because chaos is merely the emergence of new patterns we do not yet understand. This is dis-order. And it is being fostered by ridiculous power-addicted people in the West who are flailing around to try to hold on to their eroding power over our world and over us. I say ridiculous because we need only look at the initiatives they have launched in recent months to advance their power agenda.

First these power-addicted very rich oligarchs through their neo-conservative networks in the US State Department and in the CIA initiated what was foolishly dubbed the Arab Spring. That was in Tunisia in December 2010. By all accounts an utter and complete flop, their Arab Spring caper, even by oligarch calculations.

They have largely lost Egypt by their stupid attempt to shove the Muslim Brotherhood death cult down the throats of Egypt's citizens.

Then their war in Libya, where their fig leaf of "democracy" Color Revolution couldn't work, they bombed Qaddafi and Africa's most stable and most prosperous tribal monarchy back to the stone age and unleashed dis-order there that still is a disaster by all measures.

Then the same stupid oligarchs, advised by their ridiculous neo-con think-tankers and Obama Administration neo-cons such as the loveless National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Obama's putative psychological "Rasputin," rolled out of Libya directly into Syria in January 2012.

They did so to apparently run a repeat of the Qaddafi fiasco. Only in Syria the stakes were global and far different from Libya. It involved national security issues for Russia, for Iran and indirectly, for China. Today, nearly three years on, despite the CIA and Mossad efforts to use their creation, ISIS, or the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) to terrify the American war-weary public to agree to yet another war in the Middle East, after the fiasco of Iraq and Afghanistan the trillions of US tax dollars and destroyed lives of US servicemen and women, Bashar al Assad remains in power. Granted he presides over a land devastated by death and destruction, thanks to those loveless, ridiculous western Oligarchs. But the oligarchs and their partner-in-crime, Netanjahu, Brooklyn's least-honorable son, have not got what they wanted in Syria.

More recently, they have tried to panic us into agreeing to mass vaccination with untested, likely toxic medications to try to justify Obama's War on Ebola. Only no one seems to believe them. The increasingly ridiculous Dr Margaret Chan, the Director General of WHO, who was guilty of criminal mis-conduct five years ago when she bowed to Big Pharma wishes and declared a non-existent Swine Flu as global "Pandemic Level 6," tries to utter terrifying statements about Ebola, but nobody much is paying attention.

They Oligarchs of destruction unleashed neo-con artist Victoria Nuland at the State Department along with documented liar, CIA Director John Brennan, to turn Ukraine over to a gaggle of criminals and self-styled neo-nazis, complete with Swastika tattoos and black ski masks. The hope was it would make Putin and the Russians go berserk and invade Ukraine as civil war against ethnic Russian-speakers in east Ukraine raged, targeting women, elderly, children, anyone who walked.

That Ukraine State Department coup too has blown up in their faces as Russia turns to her East and the South, making a dazzling array of strategic agreements with China for energy and military cooperation, with India, with Brazil and the list continues.

Then the same ridiculous Oligarchs unleashed the drones of their National Endowment for Democracy in Hong Kong in a vain effort to spread their dis-order to China, which was becoming far too independent of the Oligarchs' New World Order agenda. That too has flopped.

Old Saudi Arabia vs New Saudi Arabia

Now the same ridiculous American Oligarchs hovering around such loveless characters as David Rockefeller, have come to the brilliant strategy of unleashing their "super-weapon" against Putin's Russia—full-scale oil price war. Backed by The US Treasury's neo-con David S. Cohen, whose title is aptly named as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, the John Kerry State Department in September came up with the bright idea to rerun the 1986 State Department-Saudi operation to collapse Russia by getting the Saudis to collapse oil prices.

The execution of the oil collapse has so far been technically flawless. Oil prices on average have plummeted almost 30% since September. The only problem is that the power-addicted Oligarchs and their ridiculous neo-con hired thinkers overlooked the fact that, in the process, they would bankrupt their very vulnerable shale oil bonanza.

For the past several years, the United States Government has bought on to the shale oil bonanza myth. It has shaped US foreign policy decisions, given people in Washington the false illusion they can risk blowing up much of the world's Middle East without threatening global oil supplies, or Ukraine, because The United States of America is becoming the New Saudi Arabia.

But now the knife cuts the other way. John Kerry's brilliant Saudi plan is being used by those same Saudis, not only to bring Russia to her knees, which it hasn't managed to do. It is being used by the Old Saudi Arabia to cripple the shale oil basis of the New Saudi Arabia. The Saudis clearly, as was seen in the recent OPEC meeting, want to burst the US shale oil bubble in order to reassert control of the Old Saudi Arabia over world oil markets.

On November 27 following an indecisive OPEC meeting where the Saudis refused various pleas to reverse and stop the price fall, the traded price for the marker crude that US shale oil is priced at, West Texas Intermediate, fell below $66 a barrel, a five year low with no bottom in yet sight. The sharp rise in US shale oil output in the past three years has enabled the US to take over the decisive leverage role once held by the Saudis, that of Swing Producer. That means if the powers that be in Washington decide world oil prices are too high, it can cut supply one way or another. If too low, restrict supply.

That did not make the Saudi royals happy. Perhaps when Kerry proposed to the Saudi King, with Prince Bandar in the room last September, that Saudi Arabia help Washington break Russia by collapsing Russian oil revenues, King Abdullah and Bandar happily agreed. But now it seems the Saudi focus is less to hurt Russia and more to shoot down the US shale oil competition. Shale oil is unconventional and expensive to drill compared with conventional oil.

Only extraordinary, sustained prices above $100 a barrel the past five years made shale profitable. In 2014 and by present estimates 2015 shale oil will account for an extra 2 million barrels of US domestic oil output, the largest output since 1970. Now Wall Street banks with billions lent to US shale producers are re-examining their portfolio and considering calling in those loans or at the very least not lending further to a losing game. However, shale oil, unlike conventional, requires an escalating investment to drill ever new wells as the old deplete far faster than conventional. That is the Ponzi core of the shale oil mirage.

Unconventional shale oil costs from $50 to $100 a barrel just to produce. Conventional US oil by contrast costs from $10 upwards. By calculations of leading US shale oil bankers, "If prices go to $80 or lower, which I think is possible, then we are going to see a reduction in drilling activity."ii That was said in October when prices hovered around $90. Come this spring, we can expect numerous US shale oil companies to hit the hard wall of bankruptcy or insolvency.

The Russians are apparently not as alarmed as they were in 1986, the previous time Washington and the Saudis ran such a price collapse operation. Lukoil part-owner Leonid Fedun told the press recently, "The shale boom is on a par with the dot-com boom. The strong players will remain, the weak ones will vanish." According to a report on RT, Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev told a meeting of cabinet ministers after the OPEC decision that the government had cut its oil price estimate for its 2015 Budget from $100 to $80 a barrel. ö Low oil prices will not ruin the economy the Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev has said, adding that the oil price estimate for the 2015 budget has been slashed to $80 a barrel from $100 a barrel. "We aren't going to collapse," he said.

So much for the Oligarchs' ridiculous plans to make USA into the New Saudi Arabia and bankrupt Russia in the process.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook"
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/12/16/ridiculous-people-and-unintended-consequences/

 

The End of Turkey in Europe

< back to Freedom At Issue Blog

December 16, 2014

By

Nate Schenkkan

Program Officer, Eurasia

On December 17, 2013, Turkey woke up to mass police raids across the country. The chief executive of state-owned HalkBank was detained, and television stations showed shoeboxes stuffed with millions of American dollars pulled out from under his bed. The sons of three cabinet ministers were also taken for questioning. Investigators would soon come knocking for the son of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then the prime minister, now the president, and the most powerful man in the country.

One year later almost to the day, after 12 months in which the government successfully fought to suppress the corruption scandal by reassigning the prosecutors and police who investigated it, Erdoğan and his allies have taken revenge. On Sunday, December 14, the authorities announced a case against 31 people suspected of "establishing and managing an armed terror organization" with the intent of seizing state power. The targets are leading members of the Islamist Gülen movement, also commonly called the Cemaat, including the editor in chief of Zaman, one of the country's highest circulation newspapers, and the president of Samanyolu, a major television broadcaster. Zaman, Samanyolu, and other Gülenist media outlets pushed last year's corruption investigation onto their front pages and nightly broadcasts, and kept it in the headlines as recordings of high-ranking officials leaked onto the internet all last winter and spring. The corruption investigation and its wall-to-wall coverage in the movement's press were widely interpreted as a declaration of war by the Cemaat against the ruling party, with which it had long been allied.

The official charges announced this week apparently allege a sweeping and byzantine plot connected to Gülenist media support for the investigation of a rival Islamist group called Tahşiye that may have been close to the government. The case includes claims that two soapy television dramas carried by Samanyolu were part of the operation against Tahşiye; several members of the shows' staff have been arrested. Within Turkey, however, there is no question that the true motivation for the probe is revenge for the corruption scandal. Erdoğan himself has left no doubt about his intentions, vowing throughout the year to hunt down his opponents in the so-called "parallel structure."

It is no small irony that the government is deploying such a convoluted case against the Gülen movement and its supporters in the media. Despite their carefully cultivated image abroad as liberal democrats, at home the Gülenists have a record of fighting dirty. The Gülenist press avidly backed the prosecution of thousands of Kurdish activists in the KCK case, and hundreds of members of Turkey's military and secularist elite on absurd charges in the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases. For many years, the movement cheered Erdoğan's rise to power as its best chance to break the Kemalist old guard. A popular image circulating on Turkish social media on Sunday showed the now-arrested editor in chief of Zaman together with Erdoğan in 2012, smiling and holding a framed copy of the newspaper with the headline "The Triumph of Democracy."

Through their supporters in the police and judiciary, the Gülenists did not hesitate to go after journalists and others who crossed them. For this reason, the most promising development from Sunday's events is the stirring of solidarity within Turkey's press. Journalist Ahmet Şık wrote a hard-hitting book on the Gülenist movement and in return was sent to jail on cooked-up charges that Zaman loudly supported. But on Sunday he tweeted, "The Cemaat was among the forceful supporters of fascism a few years ago. What they are going through today is also fascism. To oppose fascism is a virtue." Zaman's Washington correspondent thanked Şık for his support and acknowledged, "We could never have supported your freedom in such a way." Leftist and secularist press organizations like the Turkish Journalists' Association and Turkish Journalists' Union also condemned the arrests. The new press freedom organization P24—which counts among its founders Andrew Finkel, a foreign journalist living in Turkey for decades who was fired by Today's Zaman when he criticized its support for Şık's imprisonment—issued a statement titled "No to the Police State!"

It will be up to Turkey's media and civil society to stop this crackdown. The simple truth is that external actors have lost all influence in Turkey. In response to Sunday's arrests, the European Union quickly issued an unusually harsh statement reminding Turkey that respect for rule of law and fundamental rights are required for accession to the bloc. Turkey's membership bid has been officially open but practically frozen for years due to unrelated objections from France and Cyprus. On Monday Erdoğan responded to the statement by saying he was not worried about whether Turkey would be accepted into Europe, and telling the EU to "keep your advice to yourself." At least one pro-accession member of the European Parliament has already proposed officially freezing Turkey's candidacy. It is time to take this drastic step.

Proponents of the accession process—myself included—have argued that it remains by far the best mechanism for Europe and the United States to promote the sustainable development of democratic institutions in Turkey. But Turkey's leaders have explicitly rejected the EU, in action and in words. Sunday's crackdown adds to the agonizing list of the last year and a half: the prosecutions of the Taksim Platform and of the soccer fan club Çarşı for an "attempted coup" during the Gezi Park protests, the unapologetic censorship of protected speech online and offline, the empowerment of the National Intelligence Agency to act as an unaccountable tool of executive power, and Erdoğan's formation of a "shadow cabinet" to rule the country from the presidency in violation of the constitution.

A European vision for Turkey will never move forward with this government. It is time to freeze the accession process, and to prepare for a Turkey that remains outside of Europe indefinitely. Those who dream of a democratic future for the country need to start thinking differently about how to support the cause.

Analyses and recommendations offered by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of Freedom House.

https://freedomhouse.org/blog/end-turkey-europe

US House Votes Overwhelmingly for 'New Cold War' With Russia

US House Votes Overwhelmingly for 'New Cold War' With Russia
Ron Paul
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/december/07/house-chooses-new-cold-war-with-russia/

Last week the US House voted overwhelmingly in favor of an anti-Russia resolution so full of war propaganda that it rivals the rhetoric from the chilliest era of the Cold War. Ironically, much of the bill condemns Russia for doing exactly what the US government has been doing for years in Syria and Ukraine! For example, one of the reasons to condemn Russia in the resolution is the claim that Russia is imposing economic sanctions on Ukraine. But how many rounds of sanctions has the US government imposed on Russia for much of the past year? I guess sanctions are only bad when used by countries Washington doesn't like.

A Russophobic Rant From Congress

A Russophobic Rant From Congress
Patrick J. Buchanan
http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/a-russophobic-rant-from-congress.html

Hopefully, Russians realize that our House of Representatives often passes thunderous resolutions to pander to special interests, which have no bearing on the thinking or actions of the U.S. government. Last week, the House passed such a resolution 411-10. As ex-Rep. Ron Paul writes, House Resolution 758 is so "full of war propaganda that it rivals the rhetoric from the chilliest era of the Cold War." H. R. 758 is a Russophobic rant full of falsehoods and steeped in superpower hypocrisy ... Russia is charged with using "trade barriers to apply economic and political pressure" and interfering in Ukraine's "internal affairs." This is almost comical. The U.S. has imposed trade barriers and sanctions on Russia, Belarus, Iran, Cuba, Burma, Congo, Sudan, and a host of other nations.

New York Times propagandists exposed: Finally, the truth about Ukraine and Putin emerges

NATO was the aggressor and got Ukraine wrong. Many months later, the media has eventually figured out the truth

Patrick L. Smith

Vladimir Putin (Credit: AP/Mark Lennihan/Photo montage by Salon)

Well, well, well. Gloating is unseemly, especially in public, but give me this one, will you?

It has been a long and lonely winter defending the true version of events in Ukraine, but here comes the sun. We now have open acknowledgment in high places that Washington is indeed responsible for this mess, the prime mover, the "aggressor," and finally this term is applied where it belongs. NATO, once again, is revealed as causing vastly more trouble than it has ever prevented.

Washington, it is now openly stated, has been wrong, wrong, wrong all along. The commentaries to be noted do not take on the media, but I will, and in language I use advisedly. With a few exceptions they are proven liars, liars, liars — not only conveying the official version of events but willfully elaborating on it off their own bats.

Memo to the New York Times' Moscow bureau: Vicky Nuland, infamous now for desiring sex with the European Union, has just FedExed little gold stars you can affix to your foreheads, one for each of you. Wear them with pride for you will surely fight another day, having learned nothing, and ignore all ridicule. If it gets too embarrassing, tell people they have something to do with the holidays.

O.K., gloat concluded. To the business at hand.

We have had, in the last little while, significant analyses of the Ukraine crisis, each employing that method the State Department finds deadly: historical perspective. In a lengthy interview with Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, none other than Henry Kissinger takes Washington carefully but mercilessly to task. "Does one achieve a world order through chaos or through insight?" Dr. K. asks.

Here is one pertinent bit:

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KISSINGER. … But if the West is honest with itself, it has to admit that there were mistakes on its side. The annexation of Crimea was not a move toward global conquest. It was not Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia.

SPIEGEL. What was it then?

KISSINGER. One has to ask oneself this question: Putin spent tens of billions of dollars on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The theme of the Olympics was that Russia is a progressive state tied to the West through its culture and, therefore, it presumably wants to be part of it. So it doesn't make any sense that a week after the close of the Olympics, Putin would take Crimea and start a war over Ukraine. So one has to ask oneself, Why did it happen?

SPIEGEL. What you're saying is that the West has at least a kind of responsibility for the escalation?

KISSINGER. Yes, I am saying that. Europe and America did not understand the impact of these events, starting with the negotiations about Ukraine's economic relations with the European Union and culminating in the demonstrations in Kiev. All these, and their impact, should have been the subject of a dialogue with Russia. This does not mean the Russian response was appropriate.

Interesting. Looking for either insight or honesty in Obama's White House or in his State Department is a forlorn business, and Kissinger surely knows this. So he is, as always, a cagey critic. But there are numerous things here to consider, and I will come back to them.

First, let us note that Kissinger's remarks follow an essay titled "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault." The subhead is just as pithy: "The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin."

Wow. As display language I would speak for that myself. And wow again for where the piece appears: In the September-October edition of Foreign Affairs, that radical rag published at East 68th Street and Park Avenue, the Manhattan home of the ever-subverting Council on Foreign Relations.

Finally and most recently, we have Katrina vanden Heuvel weighing in on the Washington Post's opinion page the other day with "Rethinking the Cost of Western Intervention in Ukraine," in which the Nation's noted editor asserts, "One year after the United States and Europe celebrated the February coup that ousted the corrupt but constitutionally elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, liberal and neoconservative interventionists have much to answer for."

Emphatically so. Here is one of vanden Heuvel's more salient observations:

The U.S. government and the mainstream media present this calamity as a morality tale. Ukrainians demonstrated against Yanukovych because they wanted to align with the West and democracy. Putin, as portrayed by Hillary Rodham Clinton among others, is an expansionist Hitler who has trampled international law and must be made to "pay a big price" for his aggression. Isolation and escalating economic sanctions have been imposed. Next, if Senate hawks such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham have their way, Ukraine will be provided with arms to "deter" Putin's "aggression." But this perspective distorts reality.

I can anticipate with ease a thoughtful reader or two writing in the comment thread, "But we knew all this already. What's the point?" We have known all this since the beginning, indeed, thanks to perspicacious writers such as Robert Parry and Steve Weissman. Parry, like your columnist, is a refugee from the mainstream who could take no more; Weissman, whose credentials go back to the Free Speech Movement, seems fed up with the whole nine and exiled himself to France.

Something I have wanted to say for months is now right: Thank you, colleagues. Keep on keeping on.

Also to be noted in this vein is Stephen Cohen, the distinguished Princeton Russianist, whose essay in the Nation last February gave superb and still useful perspective, a must-read if you propose to take Ukraine seriously and get beyond the propaganda. (Vanden Heuvel rightly noted him, too, wrongly omitting that she and Cohen are spouses. A report to the Ethics Police has been filed anonymously.)

These people's reporting and analyses require no imprimatur from the mainstream press. Who could care? This is not the point. The points as I read them are two.

One, there is no shred of doubt in my mind that the work of the above-mentioned and a few others like them has been instrumental in forcing the truth of the Ukraine crisis to the surface. Miss this not. In a polity wherein the policy cliques have zero accountability to any constituency — unbelievable simply to type that phrase — getting accurate accounts and responsibly explanatory copy out — and then reading it, equally — is essential. Future historians will join me in expressing gratitude.

Two, we have indirect admissions of failure. It is highly significant that Foreign Affairs and the Washington Post, both bastions of the orthodoxy, are now willing to publish what amount to capitulations. It would be naive to think this does not reflect a turning of opinion among prominent members of the policy cliques.

I had thought for months as the crisis dragged on, this degree of disinformation cannot possibly hold. From the Nuland tape onward, too much of the underwear was visible as the trousers fell down, so to say. And now we have State and the media clerks with their pants bunched up at their ankles.

The Foreign Affairs piece is by a scholar at the University of Chicago named John Mearsheimer, whose publishing credits include "Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics" and "The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy," the latter an especially gutsy undertaking. He is a soothsayer, and you find these people among the scholars every once in a while, believe it or not.

Mearsheimer was writing opinion in the Times with heads such as "Getting Ukraine Wrong" as far back as March, when the news pages were already busy doing so. In the Foreign Affairs piece, he vigorously attacks NATO expansion, citing George Kennan in his later years, when Dr. Containment was objecting strenuously to the post-Soviet push eastward and the overall perversion of his thinking by neoliberal know-nothings-read-nothings. Here is a little Mearsheimer:

… The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia's orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU's expansion eastward and the West's backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine—beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004—were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected and pro-Russian president—which he rightly labeled a "coup"—coup—was was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.

Drinks for Mearsheimer, for his plain-English use of "coup" alone, any time the professor may happen into my tiny Connecticut village. It is an extensive, thorough piece and worth the read even if Foreign Affairs is not your usual habit. His conclusion now that Ukraine is in pieces, its economy wrecked and its social fabric in shreds:

The United States and its European allies now face a choice on Ukraine. They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process — a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser. Or they can switch gears and work to create a prosperous but neutral Ukraine, one that does not threaten Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With that approach, all sides would win.

Mearsheimer has as much chance of seeing this shift in policy as Kissinger has finding honesty and insight anywhere in Washington. One hope he is busy in other matters.

As to Dr. K., he reminds me at 90 of the old survivors of the Maoist revolution in China, the last few Long Marchers. They enjoy a certain immunity in their sunset years, no matter what they may say, and for this reason I have always appreciated meeting the few I have. So it is with Henry.

Did Washington in any way authorize Kissinger's interview, as it may have the Foreign Affairs piece, given the revolving door at East 68th Street? I doubt it. Did it know this was coming. Almost certainly. A nonagenarian, Henry still travels in high policy circles. His critique on Ukraine has been evident here and there for many months.

Interesting, first, that Kissinger gave the interview to a German magazine. Nobody in the American press would have dared touch such remarks as these — they cannot, having lied so long. And Kissinger understands, surely, that the Germans are ambivalent, to put it mildly, when it comes to Washington's aggressions against Russia.

I have been mad at Kissinger since throwing rocks at the CRS, the French riot police, outside the American embassy in Paris in the spring of 1970, when the U.S started bombing Cambodia. And I am not with him now when he asserts "the Russian response was not appropriate."

Why not? What was Putin supposed to do when faced with the prospect of NATO and the American Navy assuming privileges on the Black Sea? Was it appropriate when Kennedy threatened Khrushchev with nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis? Arming the contras? Deposing Arbenz? Allende? Let us not get started.

Here is the thing about Henry. European by background, he understands balance-of-power politics cannot be ignored. He understands that spheres of influence must be observed. (My view, explained in an earlier column, is that they are to be acknowledged but not honored — regrettable realities that our century, best outcome, will do away with.)

We reach a new moment in the Ukraine crisis with these new analyses from people inside the tent urinating out, as they say. I have hinted previously at the lesson to be drawn. Maybe now it will be clearer to those who object.

Whatever one may think of Russia under Vladimir Putin, it is secondary at this moment — and more the business of Russians than anyone else — to something larger. This is a non-Western nation drawing a line of resistance against the advance of Anglo-American neoliberalism across the planet. This counts big, in my view. It is an important thing to do.

Some readers argue that Putin oversees a neoliberal regime himself. It is an unappealing kind of capitalism, certainly, although the centralization of the economy almost certainly reflects Putin's strategy when faced with the need to rebuild urgently from the ungodly mess left by the U.S-beloved Yeltsin. See the above-noted piece by Stephen Cohen on this point.

For the sake of argument, let us accept the assertion: Russia is a neoliberal variant. O.K., but again, this is a Russian problem and Russians, not Americans, will solve it one way or the other — as they like and eventually. Important for us is that Putin is not pushing the model around the world, chest-out insisting that all others conform to it. This distinction counts, too.

Joseph Brodsky wrote an open letter to Václav Havel back in 1994, by which time the neoliberal orthodoxy and its evangelists were well-ensconced in Washington. The piece was titled "The Post-Communist Nightmare." In it Brodsky was highly critical of "the cowboys of the Western industrial democracies" who, he asserted, "derive enormous moral comfort from being regarded as cowboys—first of all, by the Indians."

"Are all the Indians now to commence imitation of the cowboys," the Russian émigré poet asked the new president of the (also new) Czech Republic.

I view the Ukraine crisis through this lens. A huge mistake has now been acknowledged. Now it is time: Instead of complaining about Putin and what he is doing to Russians every prompt given, like trained animals, now we must complain about what America proposes doing to the rest of the world, limitlessly.

Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/04/new_york_times_propagandists_exposed_finally_the_truth_about_ukraine_and_putin_emerges/

Whistleblower urges external probe into EU mission in Kosovo

31.10.14 @ 19:13

Related

1. EU mission in Kosovo rocked by corruption allegations
2. Kosovo politics holding back EU trials on organ trafficking

1. By Andrew Rettman
2. 

BRUSSELS - Only an external investigation can restore faith in Eulex, the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo, Maria Bamieh, the British prosecutor at the heart of corruption revelations has told EUobserver.

The revelations, first published in Kosovo daily Koha Ditore earlier this week, say: that a senior official colluded with suspects in criminal cases; that another official took bribes to shut down prosecutions; and that a third one quashed internal Eulex probes.

The story cited transcripts of wire-tapped conversations as well as internal letters written by Bamieh to her superiors to alert them of wrongdoing.

In a second story, published on Friday (31 October), Koha Ditore cited other documents showing that Eulex gave confidential information to Serbian intelligence services.

Bamieh told EUobserver on Thursday the EU mission also: turned a blind eye to a miscarriage of justice in a triple-murder case; failed to protect witnesses; and lied to press.

She said two Kosovo men - who are in jail for a bombing in 2007 and for killing three other people the same year - were convicted of the triple murder on evidence "that would never stand up in a British court".

The men agreed to give Eulex information on the Kosovo mafia in return for promises that Eulex would re-examine the triple-murder case and would guarantee their future safety.

But Bamieh said neither promise was kept.

"They've been spilling their guts out, telling Eulex police everything that's happening [in Kosovo] … Now they're saying: 'When Eulex goes [its mandate expires in 2016] everybody knows we've been talking and we're going to be killed' and Eulex is doing nothing for them. There is no lasting protetcion offered to these individuals".

Referring to the Koha Ditore revelations, she noted: "I don't know whether I touched on the tip of an iceberg or not, whether it [Eulex corruption] runs a lot deeper … I can only speak about what I found".

But she added that some EU states' seconded judges and policemen are more prone to temptation than others'.

"This country is corrupt. Everywhere you look in Kosovo there is corruption. If you bring in senior people [to Eulex] from poor countries, or countries which also have endemic corruption, they are more likely to end up colluding with the locals".

"I'm not saying that all Italians, all Greeks, or all Romanians [for instance] are bad, but people [Eulex staff] who come from other parts of Europe … are maybe not so susceptible", she said.

When the Koha Ditore story broke, the EU foreign service, which is in charge of Eulex, said: "Since 2013, Eulex and Kosovo judicial authorities have been pursuing a joint investigation into these allegations. Due diligence has therefore been applied thoroughly".

Bamieh confirmed that one of the allegedly corrupt Eulex officials named in her letters to superiors - Italy's Francesco Florit - is under internal investigation.

But she said a second one - the Czech Republic's Jaroslava Novotna - is not.

She also accused Eulex of deleting emails pertaining to her complaints against Novotna in 2012 in an attempt to "bury" any probe.

Passing the buck

"It's a lie - there's an investigation into Florit but not into Novotna", Bamieh said of the EU statement on "due diligence".

"It's a complete joke. I do think there should be an independent investigation and I've been saying this from day one".

"How can the people of Kosovo trust them [Eulex] when they keep lying? … What hope is there for SITF to be able to guarantee safety for witnesses if Eulex doesn't change?", she added, referring to the Special Investigative Task Force (SITF), an Eulex unit looking into war crimes allegations against Kosovo politicians, including PM Hashim Thaci.

The British prosecutor said that Fernando Gentilini, an Italian who is the EU foreign service's top official on the Western Balkans, should be held accountable for the mess.

"I name him because, at the end of the day, Eulex is run by the EEAS [the EU foreign service]. But they always try to pass the buck … they say: 'It's not us. It's the [EU] Council'. The Council says: 'It's not us. It's the EEAS'. Nobody takes responsibility. The EEAS should have some kind of transparency and accountability mechanism for its missions".

Bamieh is not alone in calling for external oversight.

Ulrike Lunacek, an Austrian Green MEP, said, on Friday, that Eulex "must be duly investigated by an external and independent body", leading to a potential "reconfiguration and redefinition of the mandate of the whole mission".

Elmar Brok, a German centre-right MEP who chairs the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, has put the Eulex scandal on the agenda of its next session, on 3 November.

"We have to listen to the people responsible and decide how to proceed", he told this website.

Doris Pack, a German centre-right politician and former MEP who has worked on Kosovo since the break-up of former Yugoslavia, also called for an Eulex audit.

"There should be a total check of Eulex, otherwise there will no longer be any trust in it and we will totally lose the right to teach others [on how to apply rule of law]", she told EUobserver.

Thanks, but no thanks

EU countries are reluctant to let outsiders look behind the scenes, however.

The EU foreign service gave a confidential briefing on Eulex to member states' ambassadors on the Political and Security Committee (PSC) on Tuesday.

An EU diplomat familiar with the briefing voiced support for whistleblowers in general, saying: "It's important to needle [EU] bureaucracy … if there has been improper conduct, then society should know and should care about such things".

But the diplomat added: "The general conviction [in the PSC] was that it [the Eulex affair] should be handled by an internal process, not by external people. We've created internal structures to deal with problems like this, so we should use them".

The UK - which seconded Bamieh to Eulex after a distinguished carreer in its own Crown Prosecution Service - is toeing the line.

A British foreign office spokesman told this website on Friday: "We are aware of the allegations in the press about the Eulex mission. This is a matter for the mission to respond to".

EUobserver understands the British embassy in Pristina also on Friday ordered Bamieh to stop talking to media.

A German foreign ministry spokesman said Berlin advocates "a resolute and comprehensive clarification of facts concerning the allegations".

But he added: "We place full confidence in the work of the new as well as in the work of the previous head of mission [Eulex]. Both have contributed and are contributing actively to the investigation".

For his part, Joao Sousa, an SITF spokesman, shrugged off Bamieh's concern that Eulex malpractice might harm the SITF's work by making war crimes witnesses fearful to co-operate.

He told this website the special task force "is a fully autonomous investigative entity based in Brussels, conducting its operational work independently from Eulex".

"The SITF has its own team of investigators and prosecutors, and has adopted special safeguards to ensure the confidentiality of its documents and the safety of its witnesses".

But an EU source noted the SITF is based in Brussels and is to hold future trials in The Hague precisely due to lack of confidence in Eulex and Kosovo courts' ability to protect informants and to follow due process.

Presumption of guilt

Meanwhile, Bamieh is being forced to stay in Pristina to answer questions in an Eulex investigation, launched on Friday, into whether she is the source of the Koha Ditore leaks.

She is forced to stay, protected by Eulex bodyguards, despite getting death threats from the Kosovo underworld.

Both she and the editor-in-chief of Koha Ditore, Agron Bajrami, say she is not the source of the leaks.

But Eulex suspended her from her post and told press that she handed over the internal documents before it began the leak investigation on Friday, violating the principle of presumption of innocence.

"I am going to Eulex to receive my charges [on the leak investigation] tomorrow", she told EUobserver on Thursday.

Bamieh noted that she never intended to go public until she was "frog-marched" out of her office by two Eulex guards in front of her colleagues like a criminal.

"They [Eulex] keep telling the press I'm a crazy woman, a disgruntled employee who wants revenge", she said.

"I don't have much, but I have my reputation to protect … I don't have any grudge against Eulex. I have many good colleagues there and many people there work damn hard".

She added: "I'm not mad. How dare they attack my mental health?".

"It's really awful to suffer all this stress. At times, you begin to doubt yourself. Then you say: 'But those are the facts. These are the intercepts. These are the texts'," Bamieh noted, referring to intercepts of illicit conversations between Novotna, who has not been suspended, and suspected gangsters.

http://euobserver.com/foreign/126341

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Putin lashes out at US, West for destabilizing world

Published time: October 24, 2014 12:25
Edited time: October 24, 2014 14:18

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (RIA Novosti / Vitaly Belousov)

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Politics, Russia

Vladimir Putin has lashed out at the United States for destabilizing the world order of checks and balances for its own gains. He also accused the West of inflaming the situation in Ukraine and said Russia was not interested in building an empire.

The Russian President delivered a fierce broadside aimed at the United States at a speech for the Valdai Club in Sochi, which is an informal group of scholars. He hit out at Washington for behaving without regard to the rest of the world's interests

"The system of international relations needed some changes, but the USA, who believe they were the winners of the Cold War, have not seen the need for this." He added that the US has been trying to create the world "for their own gains." The Russian President added that because of this, regional and global security had been weakened.

Putin also touched on the issue of the growth of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, while also accused the West of, "turning a blind eye," to the encroachment of international terrorism into Russia and Central Asia. Putin believes the US has played a considerable role in sponsoring the growth of Islamic extremism, using the example of Washington's funding of the Mujaheddin in the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980's, which eventually gave birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

"It never ceases to amaze me how our partners have been guilty of making the same mistakes time and again. They have in the past sponsored Islamic extremists who were battling against the Soviet Union, which took place in Afghanistan. It was because of this the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was created," the president added.

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) is the latest terrorist organization, which is destabilizing the world and Putin was scathing of countries that have been helping to fund the Islamist militants by buying cut price oil they are selling.

"Terrorists have been selling oil at really low prices and those countries who have been buying it and then selling it on, are financing terrorism, which will eventually come back to bite them," the Russian President said.

Relations between Russia and the US have been plummeting for months, however Vladimir Putin accused the US of using the EU to further their own gains against Russia. He hit out at the numerous sanctions that had been imposed on Moscow, saying, "This was a mistake, which has a knock-on effect on everyone."

"The USA, which has implemented sanctions against Russia, is cutting down the branches, upon which they are sitting," President Putin added.

The reduction of nuclear arsenals was another issue, which was high on the agenda for the Russian President and once again, he was not afraid of having a dig at Washington for their reluctance to cut the number of nuclear missiles. He mentioned that unfortunately many countries see the only way to preserve their sovereignty is, "To make a nuclear bomb."

The reduction in nuclear arsenals was initially proposed by the Obama administration and Putin admitted it had potential, before talks about decreasing weapons stockpiles collapsed.

"Russia has been all for the continuation of talks about the reduction of nuclear arsenals," and according to President Putin, "Moscow is ready for serious talks, but without "double standards."

Perhaps Putin's harshest criticism was reserved for the West's creation of color revolutions and "controlled chaos," which he a likened to "letting the genie out of the bottle," with particular reference to Ukraine.

"We have been trying to discuss with the Ukraine issue with the EU for a long time, but we were told this was none of other business. They then put two countries against each other, which has led to countless destruction of infrastructure. When I asked why did they do this, they just shrug their shoulders and don't have an answer," Putin added.

The Russian President said that there is no truth whatsoever in claims from the West that Russia is interested in Empire building and that Moscow is looking to destabilize the world order. With relations between Russia and the West at a very low ebb, Putin also hinted Russia will look to develop allies further afield.

"Russia has made it's choice – we want to develop our economy and develop democratic values. We work with our counterparts in the Shanghai Cooperation, the BRICS union for example. We want our opinions to be respected likewise. We all need to be cautious to not make hasty and dangerous steps. Some of the players on the global front have forgotten about the need for this," he said in another barb directed at Washington.

http://rt.com/news/198924-putin-valdai-speech-president/

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The European Union Isn't Going To Bail Out Ukraine

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The European Union has had a pretty rough run over the past seven years. Economically, things are simply catastrophic. The Eurozone is not only experiencing an output slump that is even worse than the great depression, it is also teetering dangerously close to outright deflation. Unemployment remains persistently high everywhere except Germany: it is still above 25% in both Greece and Spain, and above 10% in Portugal, Italy, and France. The forecasts are hardly encouraging, with expectations of little or no growth in 2014 and an exceedingly modest rebound predicted for 2015. The situation is so desperate and hopeless that respected economists like Tyler Cowen have started to compare the performance of the more sclerotic European economies with the de-industrialization of 19th century India.

Politically, things aren't a whole lot better. The most recent elections to the European Parliament in late May saw Euroskeptics and radicals of various stripes storm to unprecedented victories. Even The Economist, which has been relentless in its promotion of the EU, sounded the alarm, admitting that the previous "bastion of European federalism" was set to become a "beachhead for all sorts of anti-Europeans." There's also the small matter that Viktor Orban, Hungary's president, has all but declared war on "liberal democracy." This is just a little bit awkward because Hungary is a member of an organization explicitly founded on liberal democratic concepts. The EU is now in the unprecedented position of needing to confront an avowedly "illiberal" regime within its own ranks.

As I hope the above makes clear, the EU is barely holding itself together. Even in a relatively optimistic scenario, it will have experienced a "lost decade" of economic growth, and tens of millions of Europeans will have had their professional lives deeply and negatively impacted by the European elite's inability to effectively respond to the crisis. Political radicalism has already been strengthened to a frightening degree, and its anyone's guess where the process will lead. In such a situation the EU is pretty obviously not in a position to bail anyone else out. Economically the EU doesn't have the money and, politically, there is no will for further "expansion."

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who is well known for his extensive use of social media and for his support of Ukraine's integration into European institutions, hasn't gotten the message though. The other day he tweeted the following:

Important that Germany Chancellor Merkel now raises the issue of EU help in rebuilding of Donbass region. Will be needed. And expensive.

To the extent that Bildt convinces anyone in Ukraine that the EU will ride to the rescue he is being cruel. There is no other word for it. The EU is not going t help rebuild the Donbass. Full stop. Even if the EU (read: Germany) had sufficient funds at its disposal for this sort of effort, which is increasingly doubtful, the recent election made clear that popular enthusiasm for the EU project is evaporating almost in real time. There is precious little enthusiasm among the German public for bailout of other Eurozone members. The idea that Germany will consent to spending tens of billions of dollars rebuilding Eastern Ukraine is completely and totally divorced from political reality. Can anyone seriously imagine Angela Merkel, whose country recently had its 2014 growth estimate downgraded to a mere 1.5%, going in front of the German public to demand a substantial outlay for Ukrainian infrastructure? It would be political suicide, and Merkel is clearly a clever enough politician to understand this.

Ukraine and its political leadership needs to understand that, regardless of Bildt's musings, the country's "European choice" is not going to be underwritten by anyone else. Basic political reality in Germany and the EU, particularly the rapid growth of Euroskepticism, means that no help will be forthcoming. Kiev will have to chart its own course, and will need to find a way to pay for the (enormous!) expenditures of repairing its Eastern industrial heartland.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/08/25/the-european-union-isnt-going-to-bail-out-ukraine/

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Hong Kong’s Umbrellas are ‘Made in USA’

Hong Kong's Umbrellas are 'Made in USA'

Boiling Frogs Post
Published time: 8 October, 2014

The Washington neo-cons and their allies in the US State Department and Obama Administration are clearly furious with China, as they are with Russia's Vladimir Putin. As both Russia and China in recent years have become more assertive about defining their national interests, and as both Eurasian powers draw into a closer cooperation on all strategic levels, Washington has decided to unleash havoc against Beijing, as it has unleashed the Ukraine dis-order against Russia and Russian links to the EU. The flurry of recent deals binding Beijing and Moscow more closely—the $400 billion gas pipeline, the BRICS infrastructure bank, trade in rubles and renminbi by-passing the US dollar—has triggered Washington's response. It's called the Hong Kong 'Umbrella Revolution' in the popular media... To read further, click here

 

Henry Kissinger's Thoughts On The Islamic State, Ukraine And 'World Order'

Henry Kissinger's Thoughts On The Islamic State, Ukraine And 'World Order'
NPR

http://www.npr.org/2014/09/06/346114326/henry-kissingers-thoughts-on-the-islamic-state-ukraine-and-world-order

... The attitude of the West and of Russia towards a crisis like Ukraine is diametrically different. The West is trying to establish the legality of an established border. For Russia, Ukraine is part of the Russian patrimony. A Russian state was created around Kiev about 1,200 years ago. Ukraine itself has been part of Russia for 500 years, and I would say most Russians consider it of Russian patrimony. The ideal solution would be to have a Ukraine like Finland or Austria that can be a bridge between these two rather than an outpost.

How US sanctions against Russia promoting bilateral trade and finance

How US sanctions against Russia promoting bilateral trade and finance

 

Sanctions are forcing large volumes of trade and finance out of the ambit of traditional networks, weakening western control over such flows.

Tue Sep 23, 2014 2:19PM GMT

 

Western sanctions are having an unintended effect. They are accelerating the birth of a parallel ecosystem where countries not allied to the West are able to operate without the constant threat of sanctions. Free of western control, this alternative platform is gaining traction at a surprisingly fast pace.

It is worth mentioning at the start that western companies have a huge exposure in the Russian market. In contrast, Russia is primarily an exporter of commodities such as oil, gas, metals and minerals which are in great demand – especially in Asia's ravenous markets. Bottom line: while western consumer and capital goods can be replaced by Asian manufacturers, Russian commodities are the lifeblood of economies in both Asia and Europe.

SWIFT move

The move towards a non-western world is happening most rapidly in the area of finance. This is hardly surprising because financial flows are easier to reroute – and replace – than say, a shipment of coal or an oil tanker.

Among the dozens of sanctions directed against Russia, the most extreme one was proposed by the UK, which pressed European Union leaders to block Russian access to the SWIFT banking transaction system. The Belgium-based SWIFT, which stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is the financial world's very arteries.

Restricting Russian usage of SWIFT would no doubt disrupt financial and commercial activities in the country, but according to Richard Reid of the University of Dundee in Scotland it may carry a longer-term downside. "Large chunks of Russian international payments flows would move to much less well monitored and measured financial channels and thus be beyond sanctions at any future point," he told Bloomberg News.

Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel swiftly rejected the British proposal as too extreme, the damage has been done. It is now abundantly clear to Moscow that the US-UK evil twins are not content with symbolic sanctions but are really out to destroy its economy. Anticipating this blow to its financial jugular, Russia had in July drawn up a law that would create a local equivalent of SWIFT.

The sanctions have also highlighted the synergy between Russia and China. Vesti Finance says sanctions aimed at restricting Russian access to finance will have almost no sense, since Russian companies will find the necessary money in China. And the Chinese are keen to increase the impact of the renminbi and turn it into the world's reserve currency.

De-dollarization

The move to a parallel payment system is happening in tandem with the ditching of the US dollar on which the entire US economy – and hegemony – pivots. The dollar's status as the reserve currency is due to it being the only currency accepted de-dollarization in the petroleum market, which is why it's also known as the petrodollar.

That's about to change as Russia and other emerging powers are planning to drop the petrodollar and end the dollar's reserve status. But because the dollar's dominance is so overwhelming in the petroleum trade, it would require someone really big to take it down.

That heavy hitter is Gazprom. Kommersant reports the Russian oil company has started shipping oil from the Arctic and the tankers will arrive in European ports this month, with payment to be received in rubles. Gazprom will also deliver oil via the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO), accepting payment in Chinese renminbi.

Finance portal Zero Hedge says, "Russia is actively pushing on with plans to put the US dollar in the rearview mirror and replace it with a dollar-free system – or a de-dollarized world."

Citing the Voice of Russia, Zero Hedge says the country's Ministry of Finance is ready to greenlight a plan to radically increase the role of the ruble in export operations while reducing the share of dollar-denominated transactions.

As Zero Hedge says, "The further the west antagonises Russia, and the more economic sanctions it lobs at it, the more Russia will be forced away from a US dollar-denominated trading system and into one which faces China and India."

Worth mentioning is that the Siberia-sized $400 billion gas contract with China – which Moscow and Beijing had haggled over for a decade – finally got inked in May 2014, after westerns sanctions kicked in.

Military: That sinking feeling

It is a pointer to the paucity of strategic thinking in France and Germany that they are so easily swayed by the US-UK combine to welch on military contracts already inked with Russia. The built-in penalties aside, the breach of contract is guaranteed to alarm other buyers.

If Germany and France are planning to drive away their weapons customers, then they are doing a pretty good job of it. But look at it this way: perhaps that's precisely what the US and UK have been planning all along – to attract disillusioned buyers.

As part of its military modernization, Russia had hired Germany's Rheinmetall to build a modern military training facility. But under pressure from the US, Germany cancelled the $134 million contract. Strategy Page says Russia may turn to China to get the training centre built as China has obtained – or rather purloined – the technology and built its own.

    "The growing list of sanctions against Russia has hit the Russian arms industry particularly hard because new Russian weapons depend on Western suppliers for some of the high tech components needed," says Strategy Page. "China is taking advantage of this by pointing out it has become a major producer of high-end electronic and mechanical components, and can probably replace Western suppliers now unavailable because of the sanctions. While Russia does not buy a lot of foreign weapons it does buy a lot of high-tech components (especially electronic ones) from the West. A lot of these items are dual use items that China and other East Asian countries also manufacture. China backs Russian (moves in Ukraine) and is hostile to sanctions (which it has been under for several decades). Beijing believes it can replace enough western suppliers to Russia to create about $1 billion a year in additional business for Chinese firms."

Similarly, India is watching – with a mix of amusement and dismay – France kowtow to the US and letting its $1.6 billion Mistral deal with Russia sink. France has been a reliable supplier of quality combat systems and has never welched on a deal with India. However, that was in the past when France had opted out of NATO. With Paris now syncing its foreign policy with the warlords in Washington, India's military should be cagey about 'Made in France' technology.

Loss-loss for the West

As the US and EU fumble around in the dark, there is considerable activity in countries allied to Russia. As well as market-led movements (food exporters from Asia rushing in to fill Russian supermarket shelves) there are strategic moves afoot. For instance, the US and EU have a monopoly on wide body aircraft and also dominate the middle categories. The sanctions are just the push required to expedite aviation joint ventures, particularly between Russia and China in wide body aircraft and Russia and India in mid-size airliners.

The concept of a "World Without the West" was first articulated by American academics Steven Weber, Naazneen Barma and Ely Ratner. "By preferentially deepening their own ties among themselves, and in so doing loosening relatively the ties that bind them to the international system centered in the West, rising powers are building an alternative system of international politics whose endpoint is neither conflict nor assimilation with the West," they say.

So in effect, by not playing by the rules and systems set by the West they are creating an alternative arrangement in which they neither enter into conflict situations with the West nor enter into subservient alliances (like those offered to South Korea and Japan).

Years from now, westerners will ruefully look back at the sanctions as the tipping point that ushered in a world without the West.

AN/AGB

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/09/23/379745/us-sanctions-on-russia-dedollarization/