Saudi Stops Funding Terror in Syria as The Arab League Prepares to Resume Ties With Damascus: The Time Is Not Yet Ripe for Retaking Idlib

By Elijah J. Magnier
Source

The October 15 deadline agreed to by Turkey, Russia and Iran for Turkey to evacuate all heavy weapons and jihadist groups along a 15-20 km demilitarised demarcation line around Idlib and its rural area, including rural Latakia, has come and gone. Nevertheless, despite serious Turkish pressure on jihadists to leave Syria or move out of the demilitarised zone to spare Idlib an imminent attack by the Syrian Army and Russia, jihadists remain in their barracks. All the same, Damascus and Moscow consider the time unpropitious for a large attack on the city. Thus, a further delay has been accorded to Turkey to continue its efforts. Any attack on Idlib, the first US line of defence in Syria, has been postponed.

But why is this the USA’s first line of defence in Syria? Simply because Syria has been freed and only the regions of the northern cities of Idlib and al-Hasaka (and a small part of Deir-ezzour east of the Euphrates) are still occupied.

In September, Russia, Iran and Syria decided to liberate the entire Syrian territory, starting from Idlib and ending in al-Hasaka where the US occupation forces are based and unwilling to leave anytime soon. This is why Washington sees Idlib as its first line of defence and this is why the US wanted to hit Syria under a false pretext of the “use of chemical weapons” to prevent the liberation of Idlib by Damascus forces. Moscow and Damascus understood US intentions and decided to call off all military preparations in order to prevent a US attack on Syria. The date set for a wide scale attack on Idlib was abrogated; Syria and its allies decided to stand down and give Turkey the opportunity to try and stand in between the belligerents. This decision helped avoid a possible confrontation between the two superpowers, Russia and the US, with their militaries facing each other down in the Levant.

Meanwhile, Syria’s allies prepared three lines of defence: the first facing Tal el-Eiss, the second at “the apartment 3000” and the third at the entrance of the city of Aleppo. They had received solid intelligence that al-Qaeda and other jihadists had gathered around 10,000 men and were preparing to launch an attack against Aleppo. The Russian-Turkish deal stopped the imminent attack. Turkey was given an extension and an unspecified span of time to control Idlib. Syria and its allies will wait for the most opportune moment to attack the city if the US backs down from war in Syria and circumstances become more congenial.

Sources close to decision makers in Syria said: “There is no doubt the entire Syrian territory will return to the control of the Syrian government, including Idlib and al-Hasaka. The Qunietra and Nasib crossing between Syria and Jordan has reopened. Soon the borders between Syria and Iraq will re-open now that there is a new prime minister in Iraq”.

“The Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari visited Syria not only to reopen the border crossing between the two countries but also to bring Syria back to the Arab League. Iraq believes that Saudi Arabia and its allies are no longer willing to continue the war in Syria and they have stopped financing jihadists and rebels. Syria will deal with the two occupiers (Turkey and the US) and end this war”, said the source.

The first step is expected to be made official by Amman, willing to resume its pre-2011 relationship with Damascus by sending its diplomats to Syria in the coming days. According to the source, “the Jordanian step has been approved by the Gulf and western countries in the hope of detaching Syria from Iran”.

“Those who open their borders and airports to jihadists from all over the world to come and fight in Syria, and those who emptied their prisons to send all inmates to establish a terrorist platform in the Levant to create a fail state have decided to change their policy and re-establish diplomatic ties with Damascus. We don’t oppose this move but we won’t forget because we have paid a very heavy price due to these “old friends” who destroyed our country”, said the source.

“There is no doubt,” – continues the source – “that the number of allied troops has been dramatically reduced in Syria. Iran has reduced its costs and reduced to a minimum the presence of its allies on the ground (Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani and other). However, no one can force Iran to leave the Levant in exchange for financial support to rebuild the country. Only idiots believe we can exchange the relationship between Syria and Iran for tens or hundreds of billions or sell the Golan Heights for any price. The Syrian-Iranian strategic bond is much stronger than what people can imagine”.

Middle Eastern leaders and the Arab League are prepared to receive back among them the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as they acknowledge that the regime change operation has failed. Turkey has been given more time and the liberation of Idlib has been postponed. The jihadists and rebels are not yet convinced that the war is over and haven’t yet realized that no country will supply them with weapons any longer. They are only buying time and their fate is sealed. In al-Hasaka Kurdish militants will come to understand that the US forces can’t stay for long. The US base at al-Tanaf will be abandoned mainly because the al-Rukban refugee camp – 80,000 to 90,000 refugees supplied by the US and surrounded by the Syrian and Iraqi armies – has become a burden and because the al-Bu Kamal crossing will reopen soon. It is time for the Kurds to understand that they can only survive by coming to terms with Damascus.

How the tentacles of the US military are strangling the planet

Source

By Vijay Prashad

The overreach of the U.S. military provides incentive for it to treat every conflict as a potential war.

Earlier this year, in Itoman (Okinawa, Japan), a young girl—Rinko Sagara (age 14)— read out of a poem based on her great-grandmother’s experience of World War II. Sagara’s great-grandmother reminded her of the cruelty of war. She had seen her friends shot in front of her. It was ugly. Okinawa, a small island on the edge of southern Japan, saw its share of war from April to June 1945. “The blue skies were obscured by the iron rain,” wrote Rinko Sagara, channeling the memories of her great-grandmother. The roar of the bombs overpowered the haunting melody from the sanshin, Okinawa’s snakeskin-covered three-string guitar. “Cherish each day,” the poem goes, “For our future is just an extension of this moment. Now is our future.”

This week, the people of Okinawa elected Denny Tamaki of the Liberal Party as the governor of Okinawa. Tamaki’s mother is an Okinawan, while his father—whom he does not know—was a U.S. soldier. Tamaki, like Okinawa’s former governor Takeshi Onaga, opposes the U.S. military bases on Okinawa. Onaga wanted the presence of the U.S. military removed from the island, a position that Tamaki seems to endorse. The United States has over 50,000 troops in Japan as well as a very large contingent of ships and aircraft. Seventy percent of the U.S. bases are on Okinawa island. Almost everyone in Okinawa wants the U.S. military to go. Rape by U.S. soldiers—including of young children—has long angered the Okinawans. Terrible environmental pollution—including the harsh noise from U.S. military aircraft—rankles people. It was not difficult for Tamaki to run on an anti-U.S. base platform. It is the most basic demand of his constituents.

But, the Japanese government does not accept the democratic views of the Okinawan people. Discrimination against the Okinawans plays a role here, but more fundamentally there is a lack of regard for the wishes of ordinary people when it comes to a U.S. base. In 2009, Yukio Hatoyama led the Democratic Party to victory in the national elections on a wide-ranging platform that included shifting Japanese foreign policy from its U.S. orientation to a more balanced approach with the rest of Asia. Prime Minister Hatoyama called for the United States and Japan to have a “close and equal” relationship, which meant that Japan would no longer be ordered about by Washington. The test case for Hatoyama was the relocation of the U.S. Futenma Marine Corps Air Base to a less populated section of Okinawa. His party wanted all the U.S. bases to be removed from the island. Pressure on the Japanese state from Washington was intense. Hatoyama could not deliver on his promise. He resigned his post. It was impossible to go against U.S. military policy and to rebalance Japan’s relationship with the rest of Asia. Japan, but more properly Okinawa, is effectively a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Japan’s Prostituted Daughter

Hatoyama could not move an agenda at the national level—likewise, local politicians and activists have struggled to move an agenda in Okinawa. Tamaki’s predecessor Takeshi Onaga— who died this August—could not get rid of the U.S. bases in Okinawa. Yamashiro Hiroji, head of the Okinawa Peace Action Center, and his comrades regularly protest the bases and in particular the transfer of the Futenma base. In October 2016, Hiroji was arrested when he cut a barbed wire fence at the base. He was held in prison for five months and not allowed to see his family. In June 2017, Hiroji went before the UN Human Rights Council to say, “The government of Japan dispatched a large police force in Okinawa to oppress and violently remove civilians.” Protest is illegal. The Japanese forces are acting here on behalf of the U.S. government.

Suzuyo Takazato, head of the Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, has called Okinawa “Japan’s prostituted daughter.” This is a stark characterization. Takazato’s group was formed in 1995 as part of the protest against the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen based in Okinawa. For decades now, Okinawans have complained about the creation of enclaves of their island that operate as places for the recreation of U.S. soldiers. The photographer Mao Ishikawa has portrayed these places, the segregated bars where only U.S. soldiers are allowed to go and meet Okinawan women (her book, Red Flower: The Women of Okinawa, collects many of these pictures from the 1970s). There have been at least 120 reported rapes since 1972, the “tip of the iceberg,” says Takazato. Every year there is at least one incident that captures the imagination of the people—a terrible act of violence, a rape or a murder. What the people want is for the bases to close, since they see the bases as the reason for these acts of violence. It is not enough to call for justice after the incidents; it is necessary, they say, to remove the cause of the incidents.

The Futenma base is to be relocated to Henoko in Nago City, Okinawa. A referendum in 1997 allowed the residents of Nago City to vote against a base. A massive demonstration in 2004 reiterated their view, and it was this demonstration that halted construction of the new base in 2005. Susumu Inamine, former mayor of Nago City, is opposed to the construction of any base in his city; he lost a re-election bid this year to Taketoyo Toguchi, who did not raise the base issue, by a slim margin. Everyone knows that if there were a new referendum in Nago City over a base, it would be roundly defeated. But, democracy is meaningless when it comes to the U.S. military base.

Fort Trump

The United States military has a staggering 883 military bases in 183 countries. In contrast, Russia has 10 such bases—8 of them in the former USSR. China has one overseas military base. There is no country with a military footprint that replicates that of the United States. The U.S. bases in Japan are only a small part of the massive infrastructure that allows the U.S. military to be hours away from armed action against any part of the planet.

There is no proposal to downsize the U.S. military footprint. In fact, there are only plans to increase it. The United States has long sought to build a base in Poland, whose government now courts the White House with the proposal that it be named Fort Trump. Currently, there are U.S.-NATO military bases in Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria with U.S.-NATO troops deployments in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The United States has increased its military presence in the Black Sea and in the Baltic Sea. Attempts to deny Russia access to its only two warm water ports in Sevastopol, Crimea, and Latakia, Syria, pushed Moscow to defend them with military interventions. A U.S. base in Poland, at the doorstep of Belarus, will rattle the Russians as much as they were rattled by Ukraine’s pledge to join NATO and by the war in Syria.

These U.S.-NATO bases provide instability and insecurity rather than peace. Tensions abound around them. Threats emanate from their presence.

A World Without Bases

In mid-November, in Dublin, Ireland, a coalition of organizations from around the world will hold the First International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases. This conference is part of the newly formed Global Campaign Against US/NATO Military Bases.

The view of the organizers is that “none of us can stop this madness alone.” By madness, they refer to the belligerence of the bases and the wars that come as a result of them. A decade ago, a CIA operative offered me the old chestnut, “if you have a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” What this means is that the expansion of the U.S. military—and its covert infrastructure—provides the incentive for the U.S. political leadership to treat every conflict as a potential war. Diplomacy goes out of the window. Regional structures to manage conflict—such as the African Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation—are disregarded. The U.S. hammer comes down hard on nails from one end of Asia to the other end of the Americas.

The poem by Rinko Sagara ends with an evocative line—now is our future. But it is, sadly, not so. The future will need to be produced—a future that disentangles the massive global infrastructure of war erected by the United States and NATO. The future, hopefully, will be made in Dublin and not in Warsaw; in Okinawa and not in Washington.

Vijay Prashad is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is also the author of Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017) andThe Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016), among other books. 

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

IRGC Retaliates for Ahvaz Attack, Strikes Terrorists East of Euphrates: Video

October 1, 2018

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired several surface-to-surface ballistic missiles at Takfiri militants in an area east of the Euphrates in Syria in retaliation for a recent terror attack in the Iran’s southwestern city of Ahvaz.

The strike took place in early Monday by the IRGC’s Aerospace Division, leaving large groups of terrorists and ringleaders linked to the Ahvaz terrorist attack dead and injured, according to a statement by the IRGC following the attack.

“The headquarters of those responsible for the terrorist crime in Ahvaz was attacked a few minutes ago east of the Euphrates by several ballistic missiles fired by the aerospace branch of the Guardians of the Revolution,” the Guards said on their official website.

“Based on preliminary reports, many takfiri terrorists and the leaders responsible for the terrorist crime in Ahvaz have been killed or wounded in this missile attack,” the Guards added.

During a military parade in Ahvaz, which was staged concurrently with nationwide military parades on September 22 to mark the Sacred Defense Week, Takfiri militants wearing disguise opened fire at the people participating in the ceremony.

The attack was simultaneously claimed by the Saudi Arabia-linked al-Ahwaziya terrorist group, and the ISIL Takfiri terror outfit, which is suspected of receiving Saudi patronage.

Three of the four assailants involved in the attack were killed by Iranian security forces, and a fourth one was arrested but later died of the wounds he had sustained during a security chase.

Source: Iranian media

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On the topic of the Russia-Israel-Syria affair

September 29, 2018

On the topic of the Russia-Israel-Syria affair, which has culminated in the downing of a Russian Il-20 on September 17th just off the coast of Latakia…

by Ollie Richardson for The Saker Blog

I will first start this article by saying that I have read, both intentionally and unintentionally (stumbled upon), lots and lots of opinions about this specific topic. The main bulk of these opinions recycle the usual blaming of Russia and offer suggestions for how things “should” have been done and “should” now be done. The consensus seems to be that it is Israel that is solely to blame, and it should thus be severely punished. However, even though Russia was lambasted by social media “experts” for the fact that the state of Israel still existed on September 18th (the day after the downing of the Il-20), the criticism of Moscow’s policy vis-a-vis Israel’s general airstrikes in Syria has been unwavering.

Examples of the criticism are:

• “Russia doesn’t defend Syrian troops against Israeli airstrikes”;
• “Putin doesn’t verbally threaten Bibi with retaliation should he strike again”;
• “Russia doesn’t give Syria the S1/2/3/4/500”;
• and so on and so forth (you get the idea).

So, let’s outline, once again, what Russia’s policy vis-a-vis Israel is in Syria:

1. Q) Does Israel violate Syrian airspace?
   A) No.
2. Q) Has Israel directly killed Russian troops?
   A) No.
3. Q) Does Israel put Hmeymim in any direct danger?
   A) No.

These answers are important. Why?

1. 1. Israel violates LEBANESE airspace, and we all know that the government in Beirut – or more precisely, Mr Hariri – is very friendly with Riyadh. Where is Lebanon’s deterrent to make Israel think twice about flying over Lebanon? There isn’t one. Also, the core of fourth generation warfare is using simulacra to position a digital hologram over actual ground warfare in order to carve out space to manoeuvre diplomatically. So even though Israel violates its airspace on paper, in reality it can do so with impunity. I.e., Lebanon is not going to down an Israeli jet. Hence Tel Aviv’s impudence in Lebanese skies.

      With what? Lebanon is not allowed to have anti-air missiles or any weapon that represents a danger to Israeli violation of its water and Air.https://t.co/fBoRAOn8bn

      — Elijah J. Magnier (@ejmalrai) September 4, 2018

      I seem to recall that in February, 2018 the IDF decided to test the SAA’s air defences and came as close as they would like to violating Syrian airspace. The result? Two F-16’s were downed after dozens of S-200 missiles were fired at them. This incident was the result of Moscow giving the green light to the SAA to hit Tel Aviv on the teeth using the S-200 system. But social media “experts” were adamant that Israel had to be punished long before this. Any Israeli missile being launched towards Syria is a failure, they said.
      And it is here that we recall that Russia and Israel had an agreement in place whereby Russia would not impede Israel’s bombing of “Hezbollah compounds” in Western Syria. Why did Russia agree to this? Because these strikes achieved and still achieve NOTHING. With this non-announced agreement in place, Israel was given some limited space to play out its war against Iran, but the most important thing is that this space was a CONTROLLED environment. I.e., Russia always reserved the right to exercise its options to change the parameters of the playground.
      Now some will say that Israel should be completely shut out of Syria, and Russia is weak since it can’t implement this. Such a statement comes from the deep depths of idealism. The fact is that Russia cannot stop Israel meddling in Syria in one way or another, and doesn’t have an unlimited amount of resources to try to anyway. Not to mention the fundamental fact that Jews live all over the post-Soviet space and in Russia itself, which complicates the situation. How would those who are pro-Israel and pro-Russia react if Russia openly shot down and killed Israeli pilots? This is just one factor out of many.
      Another factor is that the zionist rats that are currently in power in Israel are only a transient phenomenon. Governments and their policies come and go. It’s perfectly possible that a leader will come to power in Israel one day who is in favour of peace with Palestinians/Arabs, in the same way that a Putin can arrive after a Yeltsin. So with this in mind, why on Earth would Russia, for example, bomb Israeli territory and kill/wound Israeli civilians/troops? Why mass punish the Israeli people just because of the actions of a bunch of Zionist crooks in the Knesset? It is idiotic at best and further perpetuates this cycle of aggression that Uncle Sam feeds off.

      Also, why jeopardise the possible emergence of a situation whereby a state of Israel can exist side by side with a Palestinian state in peace? Let’s be honest: in our lifetimes, the two-state solution is the only REALISTIC solution. I will be told that such a statement is unfair or disconnected from reality, but my response to that is: please explain to me how both the Israeli and Palestinian people can be integrated into Eurasia without bloodshed. Again, as I said, Russia isn’t interested in violence, it won’t solve anything and Trump said he’s in favor of two state solution. That’s why I use the word “realistic”. Furthermore, a two state solution can be the result of negotiations between all the major powers of the world, but mainly between US and Russia. Palestinians can be given much more territory than they currently have, but giving everything back, as romantic as it is, is simply not feasible. After all, what will happen to the Israeli people in the process of claiming all the stolen land back? Will they be massacred? If not, where will they go, and who will facilitate it? And who will enforce any return process and how long will it take to implement? Will a resolution in the UNSC be passed? And what happens when Israelis refuse to leave? They will be massacred?
   2. Israel has not, to date, directly killed any Russian troops. What happened on 17.09.18 was indirect, and there is a very big difference. And I am sure that Tel Aviv knows that this line must not be crossed whatsoever, since it will seriously threaten their own statehood, not to mention Gaza or the West Bank.
   3. Israel hasn’t yet, to date, caused any damage to Hmeymim or put the lives of the soldiers stationed there (on the ground) at risk. The incident on 17.09.2018 came very close to this, but it, all the same, did not cross this line. The consequence of this would be the same as the one mentioned in point No. 2.

So now the synthesis:

I won’t discuss the details of what happened on 17.09.18. Why? Because I consider it to be irrelevant (like how people discuss the exact temperature that the steel columns melted on 9/11). What is important is how the parties reacted to the incident. And it is here that things become interesting. In December 2017, I wrote the tweet below (part of a thread):

15. won’t shoot down any IDF jets that launch token strikes on Hezbollah compounds. At the end of the day, Russia needed as fewer names as possible on the “targets that the S-400 should – in the eyes of the media – shoot down” list.

— Ollie Richardson (@O_Rich_) December 23, 2017

Take note of the expression “Russia needed as fewer names as possible on the ‘targets that the S-400 should – in the eyes of the media – shoot down’ list”. It is important. Let me explain what this means when inserted into the modern context. The S-400 in Hmeymim represents the Russian state. It represents Russia’s foreign policy. When the SAA fires SAM missiles into the sky, it represents not only the Syrian state (in the borders recognised by the UN), but also Syrian foreign policy. So, when have we really ever seen Russia fire any of its SAM systems in Syria? Yes, at militant drones. Jabhat al Nusra (or whatever it is called nowadays) is recognised by the UN as a terrorist organisation. And Russia affirms that these drones are sent from Nusrats in Idlib. I.e., the use of the SAM system in this context is completely in line with international law. And note how Russia thrusted this very fact into the face of the media in order to prevent any attempts to delegitimise the Idlib operation. This was a key factor that helped to prevent the West from treating us all to another Tomahawk show of weakness.

When the SAA fired its S-200 missiles at the Israeli jets in February of this year, was this in line with international law? Absolutely, since only Russia, Iran (IRGC), and Hezbollah were invited by Assad into Syria to combat terrorism. Hence why Russia okayed the launches. Now as I mentioned at the very beginning of this article, many social media “experts” reprimand the Kremlin because Israeli jets are not blown into pieces when they fire missiles at Syrian territory. It doesn’t enter their mind that there is a substantiated reason for this. But in order to delve into this topic, there is a need to explain what it is exactly that Russia (plus Eurasian friends) is trying to build here on this planet. For too long the West has used its airforce to firstly demolish and then vassalize sovereign states.

Using Yugoslavia as an example, the West stoked a sectarian civil war and then used the NATO airforce to steer the situation in the needed direction. Milosevic was given 2 bad options to choose from (intervene militarily or don’t). As a result, he was trapped. In Afghanistan and Iraq the US enjoyed the fruits of R2P and a crippled Russia (thanks to the CIA + Yeltsin combination!) to bulldoze statehood and install the needed political circle and economic direction. The aircraft carrier plus aircraft was a winning recipe, for now. But during all this time Russia wasn’t just sat twiddling its thumbs and waiting for some miracle to happen so that “superpower” status would arrive again. Serious work was being done to target the projected curve of development of the West’s war machine.

It was understood that the US can only exert its influence on MENA via aircraft carriers, and, where possible, by building military bases on the territory of vassalized failed states. Africa is actually one very large failed “state” that serves as a MIC “testing” terrain. It should be understood that the conception and implementation of the “Kinzhal”missile, for example, was not done on the basis of some whim or to sell weapons to make money. It was done in accordance with a very strict plan, targeting the vital “organs” of the Anglo beast.

The West (puppets of USA) was able to literally bulldoze Middle Eastern nations without facing any real resistance (the Libyan army didn’t even bring the SAM systems out of the warehouses). It is here that we see that “international law” is actually an equilibrium of the energy between “superpowers”. Yes, there is the UN charter and different treaties, but we all saw what happened in 2001/2002. We saw that definitions and concepts were very flexible, and that the US’ scheme of creating proxies, turning on them, and then removing them was almost flawless.

So how to stop this bulldozer from claiming more victims? We know that when it comes to MENA Israel calls the shots, and Uncle Sam and its EU puppets come to heel, and if they don’t, well… look at JFK. Furthermore, we’ve all heard Wesley Clark’s confession – 7 states in 5 years.

Iraq was no problem for the US to bulldoze in 2002 onwards – no other powerful nation had influence there. Somalia and Sudan is in Africa, which was brought to its knees after the USSR’s influence disappeared forever. Libya was easy to squash. But Iran, Yemen, and Syria seemingly didn’t go according to plan. Yemen has strategic ports and access to waters. It’s no secret that Iran enjoyed and still enjoys influence in Yemen, in the same way the Anglos did via their puppet Hadi. Iran developed a nuclear program, albeit a peaceful one. But it is a deterrent all the same. The Houthis are being supported by the members of “Eurasia”, and this is a) not a secret, and b) completely legitimate, since the West staged a coup first (and is feeding Al Qaeda’s presence in the East of the country) and we are now in the era of proxy warfare, since the emergence of nuclear weapons put an end to the traditional colonisation blitzkrieg. And Syria was always going to be problematic for Washington & Co because Russia already has a naval base there – in Tartus. But make no mistake, the West knew this very well, but now was the time to confront Russia in a “neutral”venue, in a “controlled” environment.

Why do I say “controlled” and “neutral”? The actual warfare is taking place thousands of miles away from US territory, and US citizens on that territory are thus not at risk (US troops are a different case). Thus, any blowback that may be incurred will have a delayed action. However, there was a need to activate a process that would gradually attack Russia’s rear. And et voila – the coup in Kiev in 2014 served as exactly this. Even knowing that Russia can potentially enter Syria, they took comfort knowing that they had the Ukraine card in play. If they didn’t do the coup in Ukraine, then Russia could enter Syria and risk very little in the process of reclaiming that “superpower” status by cementing itself in the middle of the globe, with access to important waters. Nusra and ISIS would’ve been crushed in the same way (maybe even quicker since it would be deprived of time to grow and expand).

So, in order to buy time and slow down Russia’s approach to Syria, the war in Donbass was launched. It was designed by the West in such a way that Putin would surely suffer the same fate as Milosevic, entering his troops into Donbass and starting an irreversible bloodbath. A man named Girkin, on the CIA’s payroll, tried his best to drag Russia into Donbass and to start the extermination of the Russian nation. But Putin, of course, isn’t dumb and didn’t bite on it. Instead, he engineered the Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo cauldrons, which were failsafe ways of ensuring that the West’s Ukrainian front was halted in its tracks. This resulted in the signing of the Minsk Agreements. What are they? They are the same as what the US did to Milosevic – they presented the West with 2 bad options: implement the agreements, Russia wins (collapse of statehood); don’t implement them, Russia wins (collapse of statehood).

The West had to sign the Agreements since their proxies had been encircled in Donbass and project Bandera risked being aborted early. And that, in short form, is how Putin negated the parallel process that aimed to prevent Russia from entering Syria with a lower risk level. So coming back to the key problem of the US’ bulldozing machine, the West took a gamble in Syria simply because they knew that a financial crisis is catching up with them with each passing day. Furthermore, Netanyahu doesn’t care about the consequences for the West; he wants to expand Israel in accordance with the Oded Yinon plan.

But for Russia, isn’t not just about saving Syrian statehood (note that I use this word and not Assad) and safeguarding strategic assets, it is also about shaping the next 100 years. De-dollarisation is already ongoing. But this is only one element of the greater picture. In order to counter this Anglo war machine there is a need to think laterally. By this I mean not attacking it head on, but instead flanking it. After all, the West provokes Russia so much because it WANTS a reaction. It wants to control Russia’s actions and reactions, for them to become predictable and for the room for manoeuvre to be like a sardine tin.

And it is here that we can return back to the topic of Israel’s airstrikes in Syria. Since Tel Aviv’s token airstrikes in Syria achieve absolutely nothing and de-rail nothing in the grand Eurasian scheme, this is why Russia didn’t want to completely shut Israel out. Earlier in this article I explained (see the embedded S-400 tweet) that there was a complex game ongoing whereby the West wanted to push Putin into publicly committing to firing the S-400. In the past I explained that the S-400 constitutes a philosophy and not a weapon. The philosophy is based on the notion of DEFENCE, and not pseudo R2P defence, but actual defence, against violators of international law and generally unstable/erratic actors. This actually follows in the footsteps of the very essence of what the Red Army did nearly 80 years ago, when it had the opportunity to exterminate the German nation – having the full moral right to do so, but it refrained from doing so.

The philosophy is also based on RISK. And by this I mean the now well-known expression “skin in the game”. I.e., the very foundation of international law should be based the fact that there will be consequences for one’s actions. And the UN here must be actually impartial. The problem is that the UN has been monopolised by the US (and its bullying) and its vassalized puppets for so long. The process of changing this is long, but people in general are impatient and want to eat their cake now, before they die. In other words, the S-400 embodies the notion that cooperation and diplomacy is a more effective guarantor of mass prosperity than colonisation and violent coercion. Militarily, the S-400 can act as a no-fly zone, but it is its position in the wider picture that really matters here.

This “Eurasian” project unfolding before our eyes embodies this notion of cooperation that in reality Americans have never known, since their country was founded on the back of bloodshed and spitting on the human soul. I hope I don’t offend Americans by stating this, but it’s the truth. Russia and friends want to incorporate as many nations into this project as possible, and not to make big bucks in profit, but to pull us away from this abyss that the Anglo-Saxons so badly want to throw us into.

So back to the main topic here: Israel. It’s true that Israel’s airstrikes were acting like a pest in Syria. They didn’t change anything in even the short-term, but they are a nuisance all the same, least of all because it generates this whining on the internet about “Putin/ Russia being weak”. The situation was such that if Russia downed an Israeli jet (using the tools at Hmeymim to do it), Russia would flush down the toilet all progress it has made since Putin came to power. It would be the most idiotic move imaginable and would warrant harsh criticism. Russia would become just as ugly as the Anglo Saxons are, also elbow-deep in human blood.

So, Russia instead manufactured a neat little trap for Tel Aviv. Remember what happened in December 2015? Yes, Turkey was used as a lab rat by the CIA in order to test Russia’s reactions at that moment in time, not only in Syria but in Ukraine too. We all know what Russia did – it severed the link between Turkey and its proxies in Syria and started the process of implosion. Takfiri groups were merging, disbanding, or just straight up massacring each other. The “FSA” multi-layered pyramid started to crumble. Turkey had been removed from the game. It was invited (forced via leverage of economic sanctions and the threat of ending Turkish Stream project, thus leaving Erdogan to the fate of the Gulenists) by Russia to mop up its mess in the North of Syria and end Tel Aviv’s little “Rojava“ project. Turkey was forced to start the process of rebranding Nusra into “moderate” FSA troops and to transfer them to the “Euphrates Shield” forces. This is still ongoing today, although it’s not simple and Erdogan has problems inside Turkey to deal with at the same time.

In other words, Turkey’s room to manoeuvre was reduced in size, and not voluntarily, but because Turkey (whether it was forced to by NATO or not) tried to raise the stakes but failed to secure the needed chips beforehand. It backfired on the West, big time. Hello S-400. So now Israel has tried the same thing, essentially because it had no choice. I wrote the following on 10.05.18:

Russia has a wide range of options to bring Israel to heel, but none of them involve aggression. Netanyahu was at the Immortal Regiment march today in Moscow, and this is also a sign of weakness. AIPAC might control the US, but that lobbying sh*t won’t fly in Russia.

— Ollie Richardson (@O_Rich_) May 10, 2018

Thus, if follows from this that Russia knew that sooner or later Israel would make a mistake. And in order for the mistake to arrive, Russia needed to show patience. Does this mean that Russia waited for 15 troops to die? Certainly not. But to put things into context – 27 million Soviet people died during WW2, and it was the cost for liberation. War is war. People die in war. And troops know the danger they put themselves in when they sign up and are deployed.

Again, I stress, being outside observers who want to stop children being bombed and Anglo Saxon aggression, it is frustrating to see Israel walk all over international law and to sh*t on Syrian soil with impudence, but aggression was never the right response. The two occasions when the SAA did give Israel a little slap (February and May, 2018 – authorised by Moscow) was part of a deliberate plan to keep Israel honest; to show Tel Aviv that it risks losing much more than it gains by remaining in the Syrian “game”. And so Israel gave Russia the perfect pretext to give Syria the S-300. Israeli can’t complain to Russia about this, because of behind the curtain affairs that I will not discuss here. Tel Aviv accepts its punishment, and now pressure has indeed been taken off the S-400. By the way, many social media“experts” were flapping around like headless chickens, demanding Putin to nuke Tel Aviv, then 5 hours later demanding to send every SAM system under the sun. Here is what I said immediately after the IL-20 incident:

Remember what I said about Syria being the “high stakes” arena? Well #Israel just tried to raise the stakes without having the necessary chips. This is why working within the framework of international law trumps chaotisation. Turkey was brought to heel, and now Israel is next.

— Ollie Richardson (@O_Rich_) September 18, 2018

So I guess the question that is on people’s minds is: “Why didn’t Russia give the S-300 to Syria earlier, say, in 2011?”. The answer: without the Minsk Agreements, Russia’s actions in Syria simply couldn’t be possible. I.e., the S-300 constitutes a threat to Israel. And in geopolitics the ability to use the threat that something poses as a deterrent, rather than actually using the deterrent itself, is a very powerful mechanism. Knowing that the Syrian war would last approximately 10 years, Russia milked every piece of leverage it had to influence the behaviour of the belligerent parties. One should never ever use an Ace just like that, failing to fully utilise its potential. The S-300’s time came on September, 2018.

By the way, I will say that the story with the IL-20 is extremely bizarre. The only plausible explanation, in my opinion, is that what we are told is just a narrative for public consumption. Russian troops died, and Israel stabbed Russia in the back by using the plane as a human shield, but the exact circumstances we will never know. Now Israel is faced with a choice: if it tries to bomb Syria in the same way that it has been doing, then the SAA will respond in a much stronger way than it did before (and Israel will suffer more embarrassment as a result). This takes pressure off Russia to deliver some big hit to please social media entertainment seekers.

The IDF cannot risk using the F35 and flying it into an ambush, and Lockheed most certainly won’t want the PR disaster. But now Israel will be kept honest, and the token airstrikes on “Hezbollah warehouses” will cost Tel Aviv much more than they did before. Remember  – the “multipolar order” that is so highly spoken about is, in reality, a transition away from “buying” the ability to wage war and prop up one’s economy, to cooperation and the mutual investment in economies, based on a joint vision of the future.

I guess this article can be summarised as: everything the Kremlin does is done for a reason. In the meantime, enjoy Putin’s masterclass. In order to have peace, someone has to stop shooting. Russia is strong enough to take that burden upon itself and to set the example for everyone else.

End of the war 1945 – Advance of the Red Army in the streets of Berlin, April 1945.

US has to come to terms with its place in the world, just as Britain did when its empire collapsed

Trump’s threats of war, sanctions and promises to make America great again could be dismissed as the ranting of an eccentric politician. But this isn’t all about Trump. What he advocates is representative of much of the US elite.
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The president and his generation of Americans grew up in a world where the USA was the greatest superpower in human history. It was not just their vast arsenal of nuclear weapons and their war machine but, in 1945, around 50 percent of the entire world’s economy was in the United States of America, with Britain and the USSR hobbling along with around 10 percent each. America dwarfed the power that the British empire had in the 19th century.

In the years that followed, America would intervene all over the world, not to spread democracy, but to overthrow governments that were not working in America’s commercial interests. Whether it was the coup that removed the government of Iran in 1953 and brought back the dictatorship of the Shah; or the military coup in Brazil in 1964 that overthrew a socialist, democratically elected government; or the dozens of other coups around the world, America crushed any opposition to its economic interests.

Some 45 years after the end of the Second World War came the collapse of the Soviet Union, by which time America’s share of the global economy was down to 25 percent. The collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed a wave of assumptions about the future. The most significant of these was Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book ‘The End of History and The Last Man.’ This was met with acclaim around the world as he argued that the ideological evolution of humanity was over with the triumph of Western liberal democracy. Fukuyama had previously worked in the US State Department under Ronald Reagan and later worked for the first George Bush. Now he is a senior fellow at Stanford University and has just published a book called ‘Identity’ looking at the current political situation. But it was his 1992 book that dominated the political debate as he predicted that the collapse of communism meant there was only one system left for our planet: pragmatic liberal democracy, and the world would never change again.

In an interview in The Guardian, Fukuyama talks about the “ruthless cunning of Vladimir Putin” and points out that Trump and Brexit are a backlash against multiculturalism and international cooperation. He warns that “globalization has clearly left a lot of people behind. There is greater automation, greater inequality.” He says he believed the financial crash would see a surge of left-wing populism and was therefore surprised by the rise of Trump.

Across much of the capitalist West, tens of millions have seen their lives get worse and this has fueled the growth of far-right groups and racial hatred. But different things are happening elsewhere in the world, of which the most significant is the rise of China. Around 40 years ago, China was a basket economy with 90 percent of its people living in poverty, but the economic strategy of China has lifted over 500 million Chinese out of poverty and their economy has grown to a point where it is about to overtake the USA. Not surprisingly, this has caused a backlash in the American establishment.

Paul Wolfowitz, a key player in America’s invasion of Iraq, had warned back in 1992 in a secret memo to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney that “our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.” But with the growth of China’s economy and America’s economic decline, Wolfowitz’s strategy has now become the consensus in the American government, including Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. During Obama’s administration, they were pushing aggressive policies by expanding NATO to encircle Russia and devising a strategy for the economic containment of China. Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) tried to create an economic bloc around the Pacific that would exclude China. Fortunately, this was rejected by most Asian governments and never happened.

America’s paranoia about China ignores why Beijing’s economy has soared. Unlike the West, which allows the financial sector to dominate and set the economic agenda, China focused on scientific and technological development, investment in infrastructure (like high-speed rail) and kept its financial center under firm regulation, thus avoiding its banks collapsing as they did in the West in 2008.

Sergei Glazyev, a key adviser to President Putin, has warned against the continuing US and EU sanctions against Russia, and the capricious policy of the Trump administration that has seen the start of a trade war. He warns that “if the US keeps contradicting international law… the first measure we would have to take together with China and other countries who are suffering from US aggression would be to get rid of the dollar as the key international currency.” China, he said, “has created the most progressive system in the world for directing economic development, combining planning with market self-regulation, and subordinating private initiative to the needs of raising the general welfare through an increased volume and efficiency of production.”

Another consequence of China’s growth is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). These countries are increasingly cooperating and as their economies continue to rise, we will never again see a world in which one country’s economy can dominate the whole planet, as was the case with America after 1945.

This global economic shift has caused a backlash with former British prime minister Tony Blair claiming: “America needs Europe united and standing with it, not isolated as individual nations, able to be picked off one by one by the emergent new powers.”

China’s President Xi, speaking at the G20 conference two years ago, warned that “we can no longer rely on fiscal and monetary policy alone,” and called for spreading visionary and inclusive economic growth driven by innovation in science and technology… “to spearhead the fourth industrial revolution.” He went on to promise direct support to help the countries of Africa see their economies grow.

Xi also said“the Silk Road Economic Belt is progressing rapidly and the Maritime Silk Road is well underway. But this is not China creating a sphere of influence but rather a means of supporting the development of all countries. We are not building China’s backyard garden but we’re building a garden to be shared by all countries.”

Also, in September 2016, Russia’s President Putin advocated“big, ambitious, complex and long-term tasks” to transform Russia’s Far East into a hub of Eurasian development. At the same time, President Obama was still pushing for the TPP and demanding that “America should write the rules, not China.” A significant response to Obama came from Germany’s Minister of Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel, who said: “In my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed because we Europeans did not want to subject ourselves to America’s demands.”

These views were not shared by Britain’s Prime Minister May, as she launched what seemed to be the beginning of a new Cold War against Russia. Her views were echoed by the Sunday Telegraph’s editor, Allister Heath, who called for Britain to take the lead in creating a new global military and economic alliance to enforce democracy but also capitalism across the globe. Heath’s column was titled ‘Forget NATO. We need a new world alliance to take on totalitarian capitalists in Russia and China.’ Heath continued: “NATO is no longer enough: it is too European, too many of its members are outright pacifists and Turkey’s membership is problematic.” Heath claimed that the new alliance he was advocating “would be the biggest shift in geopolitics since the creation of the UN. It would dramatically shift the global balance of power, and allow the liberal democracies finally to fight back. It would endow the world with the sorts of robust institutions that are required to contain Russia and China…”

No one power is ever going to dominate the world again. The choice we face is to cooperate with the emerging new economies like China and those that will follow around the rest of the Third World or get caught up in an economic Cold War led by the American establishment and its UK ally. America has got to come to terms with the world as it is now, just as Britain had to the same when its empire collapsed. We should work with China and Russia and the other emerging economies and, in doing so, ordinary people around the world will benefit – including in the USA, if only America stops looking back to the past.

By Ken Livingstone
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Syria or Southeast Asia – The West lied, lies, and always will

I’m sitting at the splendid building of the Singapore National Library, in a semi-dark room, microfilm inserted into a high-tech machine. I’m watching and then filming and photographing several old Malaysian newspapers dating back from October 1965.

These reports were published right after the horrible 1965 military coup in Indonesia, which basically overthrew the progressive President Sukarno and liquidated then the third largest Communist party on Earth, PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia). Between one and three million Indonesian people lost their lives in some of the most horrifying massacres of the 20th century. From a socialist (and soon to be Communist) country, Indonesia descended into the present pits of turbo-capitalist, as well as religious and extreme right-wing gaga.

The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Holland and several other Western nations, directly sponsored the coup, while directing both the pro-Western treasonous factions in the military, as well as the religious leaders who stood, from the start, at the forefront of the genocide.

All this information is, of course, widely available in the de-classified archives of both the CIA and U.S. State Department. It can be accessed, analyzed and reproduced. I personally made a film about the events, and so have several other directors.

But it isn’t part of the memory of humanity. In Southeast Asia, it is known only to a handful of intellectuals.

In Malaysia, Singapore or Thailand, the Indonesian post-1965 fascism is a taboo topic. It is simply not discussed. “Progressive” intellectuals here are, like in all other ‘client’ states of the West, paid to be preoccupied with their sex orientation, with gender issues and personal ‘freedoms’, but definitely not with the essential matters (Western imperialism, neo-colonialism, the savage and grotesque forms of capitalism, the plunder of local natural resources and environment, as well as disinformation, plus the forcefully injected ignorance that is accompanied by mass amnesia) that have been shaping so extremely and so negatively this part of the world.

In Indonesia itself, the Communist Party is banned and the general public sees it as a culprit, not as a victim.

The West is laughing behind the back of its brainwashed victims. It is laughing all the way to the bank.

Lies are obviously paying off.

No other part of the world has suffered from Western imperialism as much after WWII, as Southeast Asia did, perhaps with two exceptions, those of Africa and the Middle East.

In so-called Indochina, the West murdered close to ten million people, during the indiscriminate bombing campaigns and other forms of terror – in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The above mentioned Indonesian coup took at least 1 million human lives. 30% of the population of East Timor was exterminated by the Indonesian occupation, which was fully supported by the West. The Thai regime, fully subservient to the West, killed indiscriminately its leftists in the north and in the capital. The entire region has been suffering from extreme religious implants, sponsored by the West itself, and by its allies from the Gulf.

But the West is admired here, with an almost religious zeal.

The U.S., British and French press agencies and ‘cultural centers’ are spreading disinformation through local media outlets owned by subservient ‘elites’. Local ‘education’ has been devotedly shaped by Western didactic concepts. In places like Malaysia, Indonesia, but also Thailand, the greatest achievement is to graduate from university in one of the countries that used to colonize this part of the world.

Victim countries, instead of seeking compensation in courts, are actually admiring and plagiarizing the West, while pursuing, even begging for funding from their past and present tormentors.

Southeast Asia, now obedient, submissive, phlegmatic and stripped off the former revolutionary left-wing ideologies, is where the Western indoctrination and propaganda scored unquestionable victory.

The same day, I turned on the television set in my hotel room, and watched the Western coverage of the situation in Idlib, the last stronghold of the Western-sponsored terrorists on Syrian territory.

Russia has called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting warning that the terrorists might stage a chemical attack, and then blame it, together with the West, on the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

NATO battleships have been deployed to the region. There can be no doubt – it has been a ‘good old’ European/North American scenario at work, once again: ‘We hit you, kill your people, and then bomb you as a punishment’.

Imperialist gangsters then point accusative fingers at the victims (in this case Syria) and at those who are trying to protect them (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, China). Just like in a kindergarten, or a primary school; remember? A boy hits someone from behind and then screams, pointing at someone else: “It was him, it was him!” Miraculously, until now, the West has always gotten away with this ‘strategy’, of course, at the cost of billions of victims, on all continents.

That is how it used to be for centuries, and that is how it still works. That is how it will continue to be, until such terror and gangsterism is stopped.

For years and decades, we were told that the world is now increasingly inter-connected, that nothing of great importance could happen, without it being immediately spotted and reported by vigilant media lenses, and ‘civil society’.

Yet, thousands of things are happening and no one is noticing.

Just in the last two decades, entire countries have been singled-out by North America and Europe, then half-starved to death through embargos and sanctions, before being finally attacked and broken to pieces: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to mention just a few. Governments of several left-wing nations have been overthrown either from outside, or through their own, local, servile elites and media; among them Brazil, Honduras and Paraguay. Countless Western companies and their local cohorts are committing the unbridled plunder of natural resources in such places as Borneo/Kalimantan or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), totally ruining tropical forests while murdering hundreds of species.

Are we, as a planet, really inter-connected? How much do people know about each other, or about what is done to their brothers and sisters on different continents?

I have worked in some 160 countries, and I can testify without the slightest hesitation: ‘Almost nothing’. And: ‘Less and much less!’

The Western empire and its lies, has managed to fragment the world to previously unknown extremes. It is all done ‘in the open’, in full view of the world, which is somehow unable to see and identify the most urgent threats to its survival. Mass media propaganda outlets are serving as vehicles of indoctrination, so do cultural and ‘educational’ institutions of the West or those local ones shaped by the Western concepts. That includes such diverse ‘tools’ as universities, Internet traffic manipulators, censors and self-censored individuals, social media, advertisement agencies and pop culture ‘artists’.

There is a clear pattern to Western colonialist and neo-colonialist barbarity and lies:

Indonesian President Sukarno and his closest ally the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) were trying to build a progressive and self-sufficient country. Therefore, they had to be stopped, government overthrown, party members massacred, PKI itself banned and the entire country privatized; sold to foreign interests. The overwhelming majority of Indonesians are so brainwashed by the local and Western propaganda that they still blame the Communists for the 1965 coup, no matter what the CIA archives say.’

Mossadegh of Iran was on the same, progressive course. And he ended up the same way as Sukarno. And the whole world was then charmed by the butcher, who was put to power by the West – the Shah and his lavish wife.

Chile in 1973, and thereafter, the same deadly pattern occurred, more evidence of how freedom-loving and democratic the West is.

Patrice Lumumba of Congo nationalized natural resources and tried to feed and educate his great nation. Result? Overthrown, killed. The price: some 8 million people massacred in the last two decades, or maybe many more than that (see my film: Rwanda Gambit). Nobody knows, or everyone pretends that they don’t know.

Syria! The biggest ‘crime’ of this country, at least in the eyes of the West, consisted of trying to provide its citizens with high quality of life, while promoting Pan-Arabism. The results we all know (or do we, really?): hundreds of thousands killed by West-sponsored murderous extremists, millions exiled and millions internally displaced. And the West, naturally, is blaming Syrian President, and is ready to ‘punish him’ if he wins the war.

Irrational? But can global-scale fascism ever be rational?

The lies that are being spread by the West are piling up. They overlap, often contradict one another. But the world public is not trained to search for the truth, anymore. Subconsciously it senses that it is being lied to, but the truth is so horrifying, that the great majority of people prefer to simply take selfies, analyze and parade its sexual orientation, stick earphones into its ears and listen to empty pop music, instead of fighting for the survival of humanity.

I wrote entire books on this topic, including the near 1,000-page : “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”.

This essay is just a series of thoughts that came to my mind, while I was sitting at a projector in a dark room of the Singapore National Library.

A rhetorical question kept materializing:

Can all this be happening?” “Can the West get away with all these crimes it has been committing for centuries, all over the world?”

The answer was clear: ‘But of course, as long as it is not stopped!’

And so, A luta continua!

By Andre Vltchek
First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook