Donald Trump is sending more troops to Afghanistan, continuing the USA's longest war. CEO Michael Silver, of the American Elements corporation, wrote a short op-ed in the
Wall Street Journal, urging for the extraction of the country's mineral resources. Afghanistan remains unstable. Many questions must be asked. The one on many minds is "Why is the USA in Afghanistan?"
Terrorism? Minerals? Or Something Else?The USA has been occupying Afghanistan since 2001. Why? Both supporters and opponents of US Afghan policy give murky answers. Supporters of US efforts say they are in the country to fight terrorism and help the country rebuild and move toward democracy. Opponents of the occupation say the USA is seeking to control its rare minerals such as neodymium, indium, gallium, and lanthanum which are essential in making computer chips.
Comment: This is the first analysis - to our knowledge - that matches our own: the US is in Afghanistan to thwart Eurasian integration. It is there for negative, destructive reasons, which is why it has taken so long for people to realize its strategy.
Introduction by the Saker: During my recent hurricane-induced evacuation from Florida, I had the pleasure to see some good friends of mine (White Russian emigrés and American Jews who now consider themselves American and who fully buy into the official propaganda about the USA) who sincerely think of themselves as liberals, progressives and anti-imperialists. These are kind, decent and sincere people, but during our meeting they made a number of statements which completely contradicted their professed views. After writing this letter to them I realized that there might be many more people out there who, like myself, are desperately trying to open the eye of good but completely mislead people about the reality of Empire. I am sharing this letter in the hope that it might maybe offer a few useful talking points to others in their efforts to open the eyes of their friends and relatives.---
Dear friends:
During our conversation you stated the following:
- The USA needs a military
- One of the reasons why the USA needs a military are regimes like the North Korean one
- The USA has a right to intervene outside its borders on a) pragmatic and b) moral grounds
- During WWII the USA "saved Europe" and acquired a moral right to "protect" other friends and allies
- The Allies (USSR-US-UK) were morally superior to the Nazis
- The Americans brought peace, prosperity and freedom to Europe.
- Yes, mistakes were made, but this is hardly a reason to forsake the right to intervene
I believe that all seven of these theses are demonstratively false, fallacies based on profoundly mistaken assumptions and that they all can be debunked by common sense and indisputable facts.
The New York Times'
descent into yellow journalism over Russia recalls the sensationalism of Hearst and Pulitzer leading to the Spanish-American War, but the risks to humanity are much greater now.Reading
The New York Times these days is like getting a daily dose of the "Two Minutes Hate" as envisioned in George Orwell's
1984, except applied to America's new/old enemy Russia. Even routine international behavior, such as Russia using fictitious names for potential adversaries during a military drill, is transformed into something weird and evil.
In the snide and alarmist style that the
Times now always applies to Russia, reporter Andrew Higgins
wrote - referring to a fictitious war-game "enemy" - "The country does not exist, so it has neither an army nor any real citizens, though it has acquired a feisty following of would-be patriots online. Starting on Thursday, however, the fictional state, Veishnoriya, a distillation of the Kremlin's darkest fears about the West, becomes the target of the combined military might of Russia and its ally Belarus."
This snarky front-page story in Thursday's print editions also played into the
Times' larger narrative about Russia as a disseminator of "fake news." You see the Russkies are even inventing "fictional" enemies to bully. Hah-hah-hah! The article was entitled, "Russia's War Games With Fake Enemies Cause Real Alarm."
In the last few months, several competing political, economic and military sectors - linked to distinct ideological and ethnic groups - have clearly emerged at the centers of power.We can identify some of the key competing and interlocking directorates of the power elite:
1. Free marketers, with the ubiquitous presence of the 'Israel First' crowd.
2. National capitalists, linked to rightwing ideologues.
3. Generals, linked to the national security and the Pentagon apparatus, as well as defense industry.
4. Business elites, linked to global capital.
This essay attempts to define the power wielders and evaluate their range of power and its impact.
© lickr/ Day Donaldson
A source has told Sputnik that US Air Force aircraft had evacuated a group of nearly two dozen Daesh (ISIS) field commanders and militants from Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria last month. Retired US Air Force Lieut Col. Karen Kwiatkowski says this is
standard operating procedure for CIA black ops looking to cover their trail after an operation.
On Thursday, a military and diplomatic source
told Sputnik that USAF helicopters had evacuated 22 Daesh field commanders and militants from areas outside the city of Deir ez-Zor in late August, amid a successful operation by Syrian government forces to free the area from terrorist control. The militants were reportedly taken to northern Syria. The US-led coalition's press office told Sputnik that the allegations were "false."
Asked to comment, Karen Kwiatkowski, a
retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel turned anti-neoconservative activist, told Sputnik that these evacuees were likely people that the US military and intelligence establishment wanted to protect, "particularly people with evidence that could be used against the US [during] negotiations."
Comment: This is another one of the ways in which Trump is bound by the Deep State; to go public, acknowledge and respond to these allegations would mean that he'd be proclaiming war on a group of individuals capable of "heart-attacking" him in retaliation. And to do and say nothing is to give tacit permission for the CIA to continue its criminal dirty work - and ultimately betray the promise he made to the millions of US citizens who put their faith in him.
Imagine being a well intentioned leader faced with such a dilemma.
Finian Cunningham
RTThu, 07 Sep 2017 17:46 UTC
© Ammar Safarjalani / Global Look Press
The breaking of the siege of Deir ez-Zor by the Syrian army and its Russian ally marks the defeat of not just foreign-backed anti-government militants. It signals victory over the regime-change plot orchestrated by the US and its partners.
For three years, the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor had been besieged by militants affiliated with the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terror network. This week the Syrian army broke the stranglehold and liberated the city with crucial help from Russian air power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
reportedly sent a letter of congratulations to Syria's Bashar Assad, a measure of the strategic significance of the event.
Deir ez-Zor on the Euphrates River had been the main terror hub in the country, serving as a supply corridor for IS between neighboring Iraq and Syria,
according to Russia's Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi. Now with the vanquishing of that hub, the terrorist remnants in Syria "face a crushing defeat."
Comment: Over three years under siege, Deir-ez-Zor joins Aleppo and Homs as some of the longest besieged cities in all history.
And now it's (almost) liberated, thanks to Russian and Syrian allied forces. With it, the last remaining substantial pocket of ISIS forces is removed from Syria.
Hurrah!
Sibel Edmonds
NewsbudWed, 06 Sep 2017 00:12 UTC
Editor's note: Read this article and extrapolate to many other alleged 'Muslim terror masterminds'. Most likely, all of them were, in one way or another, assets of US intelligence agencies, tasked with creating the 'reality' of a terror threat to the USA in order that the US government could respond by invading and occupying nations around the world as part of the long war against Russia and China and securing the Middle East in particular for the 'new American century'.
A Notorious Terrorist, a Major in Egypt's Army Intelligence, a CIA Operative, a Member of the Elite Green Berets & an FBI Informant Let's say a script writer approaches a Hollywood production company with a proposal for a
realistic spy-action thriller that features a dark action hero who is a Major in the Egyptian Army's Military Intelligence Unit, who is selected by an Elite Special Forces Unit in the United States Army, simultaneously gets recruited by the CIA as an operative, teaches courses at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, and is on the FBI Payroll. Then he triple crosses the Elite U.S. military Forces, the CIA and the FBI, uses his U.S. military information to train al-Qaeda and other radical Muslim militants, becomes Bin Laden's bodyguard (all this while he is still on the payroll of the U.S. military, the CIA and the FBI), blows up U.S. embassies around the world (while still on the triple payroll) - is
the most dangerous man in the world according to the U.S. Justice Department. Then he gets caught, is tried and indicted in a secret U.S. court behind closed doors, yet manages to evade sentencing, skips jail, and continues his terror operations around the globe.
What do you think the production company's response would be? An unrealistic, far-fetched delirium, probably imagined and written while under some sort of psychedelic drug?
What if I were to tell you that everything in the script above, and some more, is a well-documented, government-confirmed, real life case?
© Atef Safadi/EPAIsraeli tourists watch smoke rising near the Syrian-Israeli border as the fighting Syrian army fights to regain control of the Quneitra border crossing from rebel groups.
Because Israel has staked first its survival and ultimately its growth into a dominant regional power on the disunity of its neighboring nations, it comes as no surprise that, faced with a winding-down of the Syrian conflict, it is now moving sharply against that development.
After years of fomenting the Syrian conflict from the shadows, the U.S. has recently seemed to
back away from its push to militarily intervene in the embattled nation, instead choosing to focus its saber-rattling and destabilization efforts on other theaters. The consequence of this has seemingly been the winding down of the long-running conflict, now entering its seventh year.
Buoyed by Russia, Iran and Lebanon, the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad has managed to retake vast swaths of territory, all while surviving and growing stronger over the course of a largely foreign-funded onslaught. As a result, many of the governments that were instrumental in funding and arming the so-called "moderate" opposition have begun to extricate themselves, unwilling to further test the resilience of Assad or the Syrian people.
With some anticipating the
long-awaited conclusion of the Syrian conflict, recent threats from Israel's government to assassinate Assad by bombing his residence seemed to appear out of the blue. According to
the Jerusalem Post, a senior Israeli official accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a recent visit to Russia warned the Kremlin that if Iran continues to "extend its reach" in Syria, Israel would bomb the presidential palace in Damascus.
Here's what the media isn't telling you about North Korea's recent missile tests.
Last Monday, the DPRK fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan's Hokkaido Island. The missile landed in the waters beyond the island harming neither people nor property.
The media immediately condemned the test as a "bold and provocative act" that showed the North's defiance of UN resolutions and "contempt for its neighbors." President Trump sharply criticized the missile test saying:
"Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table."
What the media failed to mention was that, for the last three weeks, Japan, South Korea and the US have been engaged in large-scale joint-military drills on Hokkaido Island and in South Korea.
These needlessly provocative war games are designed to simulate an invasion of North Korea and a "decapitation" operation to remove (Re: Kill) the regime. North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un has asked the US repeatedly to end these military exercises, but the US has stubbornly refused. The US reserves the right to threaten anyone, anytime and anywhere even right on their doorstep. It's part of what makes the US exceptional. Check out this excerpt from an article at Fox News:
Five nights a week, at least $100 million in crisp new $100 bills is flown from JFK nonstop to Moscow, where it is used to finance the Russian mob's vast and growing international crime syndicate. State and Federal officials believe it is part of a multi-billion-dollar money-laundering operation. The Republic National Bank and the Federal Reserve prefer not to think so.It's a darkening afternoon. The usual assortment of passengers mills about Gate 14 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, waiting to board Delta Flight 30 nonstop to Moscow: American businessmen prospecting the new Russian capitalism, Russian entrepreneurs returning from investor hunting, expatriates going home to visit family, tourists. One passenger, though, is there only for the nine-hour flight and knows something none of the other passengers knows: that the plane will be carrying 1 million fresh hundred-dollar bills in its belly.
The red, white, and blue Boeing 767 is on the tarmac when, at about 5pm, a cream-colored armored truck drives up. While Delta workers casually go about tossing luggage into the hold, two armed guards begin placing large white canvas bags on a conveyor belt. In the bags are stacks of uncirculated new $100 bills, all still in their Federal Reserve wrappers, dozens to a bag. And there are dozens of bags.
A few minutes later, another armored truck rolls up and unloads another series of even larger bags. In total, this flight will carry about 2,300 pounds of $100 bills, or $100 million.
Comment: Edmond Safra, majority owner of Republic National Bank, the primary conduit for this gargantuan scheme to bilk Russia, was arguably
the money-laundering man for the Middle East and South America.
In the 1980s, he was implicated in money laundering $800 million in Colombian and Turkish drug money, and as a conduit in the Iran-Contra scandal. His power and influence was such that, as Alex Krainer writes in
The Killing of William Browder, "
wherever the American deep state ran covert operations, Edmond Safra was among their choice providers of financial logistics."
Among other things, Safra co-founded, with fellow-traveller William Browder, Hermitage Capital, the world's most successful hedge fund from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, pilfering the Russian state and that country's resources with free abandon until Browder was banned from the country in 2006.
Tried
in absentia, Browder was found guilty of defrauding the Russian state, a crime he has since frantically denied by lobbying Western governments to accept his version of events (that the Russian state, he claims, defrauded itself - and that everything wrong in that country is Putin's fault). Browder's successful efforts - and near total, global media coverage in his favor - led to the Magnitsky Act, the first round of unilateral, US-led anti-Russian sanctions in 2012.
Safra, meanwhile, also operated unmolested, successfully fending off every litigation brought against him. His bank was itself eventually 'laundered'. In 1999, Republic was absorbed into the British HSBC banking empire for $10 billion... on the same day as Safra's funeral after he had died in a mysterious fire at his home in Monaco.
In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the above article by Friedman, the US deep state kicked into high gear to limit its fallout, with none other than Senator (then Representative) Chuck Schumer (D, NY) taking to the Congress floor to record testimonies of support for Safra
into the Congressional record:
HON. CHARLES E. SCHUMER of New York in the House of Representatives
Tuesday, February 13, 1996
"Mr. Speaker, a weekly magazine recently published a lengthy article raising serious questions about the business activities conducted by Republic National Bank of New York with Russian banks. Republic is a large, well-respected institution serving the New York community and employing thousands of its residents. In the interest of fairness, so that the other side of the story can be heard, I would like to submit for the Record the attached materials. Included among them are several letters from law enforcement agencies and bank regulatory bodies. These letters testify to the bank's record of compliance with the law and cooperation with law enforcement officials and bank regulators."
In the madness of exploiting the 'Wild East' after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, US geopolitical designs to take control of Russian resources, and ultimately dismember that country, led to the raising of ferocious new 'democratic' elites there.
These elites have steadily been checked within Russia since Putin came to power, but to this day 'the Russian mob' is considered 'the most dangerous organized crime group in the world'.
Comment: This is the first analysis - to our knowledge - that matches our own: the US is in Afghanistan to thwart Eurasian integration. It is there for negative, destructive reasons, which is why it has taken so long for people to realize its strategy.