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Armenia vs Azerbaijan, East vs West: Nagorno-Karabakh crisis and the NATO-Israeli connection

Corey Schink & Mike Tutundjian
Sott.net
Wed, 06 Apr 2016 12:22 UTC
Nuland in Azerbaijan

What was Nuland up to in Azerbaijan?
Victoria 'F**K the EU' Nuland's visit to Azerbaijan last year had analysts wondering whether something was afoot. While Nuland surely wouldn't visit a country in order to oversee destabilization along Russia's border (she's never done than that before, right?), a heated conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan would do just that. The sudden and violent eruption of this 'frozen conflict' at a time of vastly improving Iranian-Azeri-Russian economic and military cooperation provides both the means and motive for NATO/Israeli forces - an opportunity to destabilize Russia and Iran in one blow.

Historical background

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at war two times over the Nagorno-Karabakh region - once in 1918 and the second time in 1988, in the last years of the Soviet Union. Azeris began massacring Armenians in Azerbaijan, causing a large number of people to flee. Then they attacked the ethnically Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan with a modernized military, attacking people trying to defend themselves with hunting rifles or whatever they could get hold of. The Azeris blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh and all transport and shipments into Armenia proper. Turkey joined the blockade, while Georgia was having its own civil war with Abkhazia, making border crossing there very difficult. So the only border Armenia had that wasn't blockaded (or impaired) was its Iranian one. That blockade is still in place today, although the Georgian border has generally calmed down.

Azerbaijan Armenia Nagorno Karabakh
© Twitter / RFE/RL
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Bell

Armenian-Azeri tensions: Why they're happening, and who benefits

Andrew Korybko
Oriental Review
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:18 UTC
nagorno karabakh
The unprecedented upsurge in violence along the Line of Contact between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh has raised universal concern that a larger conflict might be brewing, with some analysts seeing it as an outgrowth of Turkey's destabilizing anti-Russian policies over the past couple of months.

As attractive as it may be to believe such that Azerbaijan is behaving as a total puppet of the West, such an explanation is only a superficial description of what is happening and importantly neglects to factor in Baku's recent foreign policy pivot over the past year. It's not to necessarily suggest that Russia's CSTO ally Armenia is to blame for the latest ceasefire violations, but rather to raise the point that this unfolding series of militantly destabilizing events is actually a lot more complex than initially meets the eye, although the general conclusion that the US is reaping an intrinsic strategic benefit from all of this is clearly indisputable.

Comment: South Front International Military Review - Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict



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Megaphone

US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher: US politicians still view Russia through lens of Cold War paradigm


RT
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:09 UTC
politicians meeting
© sf_press / Flickr
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has expressed his gratitude for Russia's positive role in world affairs - and the Syrian crisis in particular - at an inter-parliamentary meeting in Moscow, where he noted the ignorance of some of his colleagues' opinions and statements.

"Thank you for what you are doing in Syria. From me!" Rohrabacher said in front of Russian and US parliamentary delegations. "I've been talking to ordinary Americans and I say: It's great they have Russia down there killing the terrorists that want to kill us. And they thank you too."

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Upper House Committee for International Relations, in his stead thanked the Congressman for his effort in trying to revive the inter-parliamentary discussions between the countries, highlighting that over the last few years, these contacts have been "practically frozen."

"This with all certainty was not a result of the Russian initiative. We have always committed to the most open wide and open dialogue," Kosachev said. "We consider it a very important source for solving common problems and search for joint solutions."
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Magnify

Panama Papers leads The Guardian to collapse into self-parody

Kit
Off Guardian
Sun, 03 Apr 2016 19:53 UTC
Guardian headline
© The Guardian
Capture of the Guardian’s totally accidentally misleading headline.
You'd be forgiven for thinking, given the above picture, that the Panama Papers had something to do with Vladimir Putin. Maybe he was a kingpin of the whole thing. Maybe he was, at least, among the 12 world leaders implicated in various shady financial practices - along with Petro Poroshenko, the saviour of Ukrainian democracy, and the King of Saudi Arabia (dad of the recent Légion d'Honneur winner).

Luke Harding, a bastion of ethical journalism (and not at all a paranoid lunatic), has churned out 2 articles totaling over 5000 words, each using the word "Putin", almost as often as they use the phrases "allegedly", "speculation suggests", "has been described as" and "may have been".

Neither of his articles mentions by name any of the 12 world leaders, past and present, actually identified in the documents, nor do they mention David Cameron's dad, who is also in there. No, they focus on a cellist friend of Putin's, talk about his daughter's marriage, and include an awful lot of diagrams with big arrows that point at pictures of...Vladimir Putin. This is, apparently, all evidence of...something.
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Attention

Syrian ceasefire falling apart as rebels receive new weapons, shoot down Syrian jet


Moon of Alabama
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 18:51 UTC
syrian army
The ceasefire in Syria held for some five weeks but is now about to end. During the ceasefire Russia reduced its forces in Syria and the Syrian Arab Army made significant progress against the Islamic State. But the opposition and their sponsors abused the ceasefire to rearm. They prepared and executed new attacks against the Syrian government and Syrian civilians.

The sponsors of the opposition, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. delivered new arms and munitions to the "moderate" opposition. It is known that up to half of all supplies the "moderates" receive is inevitably delivered to al-Qaeda in Syria. The sponsors also broke a long-standing taboo and introduced anti-air missile MANPADs onto the battle field. Several fighters of the U.S. and Turkey supported Al Hamza brigade posted pictures showing off their new toys. The U.S. claims that these fighters are supposed to only fight the Islamic State. But the Islamic State has no aircraft and these weapons are clearly to be used against the Syrian government and its supporters.
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USA

US effectively the biggest tax haven in the world


RT
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:47 UTC
reno sign
© Max Whittaker / Reuters
After condemning other countries for helping wealthy Americans to hide their money offshore, the US is now becoming the main tax haven for wealthy foreigners, Bloomberg reports. Some are calling Reno, Nevada the new Switzerland.

While the US authorities persist on global standards of banking information disclosure, the country is resisting those same disclosure standards. The result has been the creation of a hot new market, specializing in hiding cash for wealthy foreign clients.

The trust companies, helping the world's wealthy move their fortunes; have been opened in Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

"How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour," wrote Peter A. Cotorceanu, a lawyer at Anaford, a Zurich law firm, in a recent legal journal. "That 'giant sucking sound' you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA."
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Gold Seal

Pepe Escobar: Panama leaks a 'limited hangout' psy-op set up by US intelligence

Pepe Escobar
Telesur
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 18:29 UTC
Putin
© Reuters
Calling out around the world; time to put on your made in Ecuador Panama hat and frantically start dancing to the ultimate limited hangout leak. And if you believe in the purity of intentions of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) at the center of the leak, I've got a made in Shenzhen Panama hat to sell you (disclosure: I never was, and never will be, a member of the ICIJ).

The Washington-based ICIJ gets its cash and its "organizational procedure" via the Exceptionalistan-based, Orwellian-named Center for Public Integrity. The funds flow mostly from the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Kellogg Foundation and the George Soros-owned Open Society. Then there is Eastern Europe-based partner organization OCCRP, an even more Orwellian outfit self-styled as playing some sort of progressive, alternative media role. OCCRP is funded by Soros and USAID.

And finally there's this fictional land named Panama — a certified U.S. vassal. Absolutely nothing of real substance happens in Panama without a green light by the United States government. Or, as an international tax lawyer told me, "you have to be an idiot to stash money in Panama. You cannot flush a toilet there without the Americans knowing about it." This sets the scene for the Panama Papers leak — a massive hoard of 11.5 million documents allegedly leaked from someone inside offshore heavies Mossack Fonseca to the center-left, NATO-friendly Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Munich and then shared by the ICIJ with selected mainstream media partners.
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Dollars

The Panama papers in one sentence: Not surprising, but helpful - to whom?

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 18:25 UTC
panama
© Carlos Jasso / Reuters
A general view of the skyline of Panama City.
Pop quiz. Who said the following sentence about the new Panama Papers leak of information from Mossack Fonseca that was made public to such great media fanfare this week:
"Even though it's not surprising, it helps us."
Well, it certainly wasn't the Chinese government. They just published an article through their Global Times mouthpiece called "Powerful force is behind Panama Papers" that asks the obvious question: who is behind this leak and who benefits from it?
"The Western media has taken control of the interpretation each time there has been such a document dump, and Washington has demonstrated particular influence in it. Information that is negative to the US can always be minimized, while exposure of non-Western leaders, such as Putin, can get extra spin.

"In the Internet era, disinformation poses no major risks to Western influential elites or the West. In the long-run, it will become a new means for the ideology-allied Western nations to strike a blow to non-Western political elites and key organizations."
And it certainly wasn't Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. The embattled Icelandic Prime Minister is facing nationwide protests and calls for his resignation as top political figures hold emergency talks to discuss the future of Gunnlagsson's government and the opposition lodges a vote of no confidence in the PM.


Comment: Breaking news: Local Icelandic media are reporting that Gunnlaugsson has resigned. It still needs the approval of his party and the president, but there you have it.


Comment: In related news, Russian prosecutors plan to open an investigation to confirm or deny the data relating to Russian individuals and entities named in the papers, to establish whether or not they are in compliance with Russian and international anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws.

The ICIJ told TASS that the story isn't "about Russia" - it's "about the offshore world". That's true. After all, the places most implicated are Hong Kong and the UK. But as Corbett points out, the Western information war machine is turning this information to its own advantage, and so far no prominent Americans have been named. ICIJ even added: "We haven't disclosed the whole database and we're not going to. [The] Panama documents do not contain data on American politicians. Unfortunately, we do not have such data." How convenient.

On a lighter note, Edward Snowden laconically responded to David Cameron's description of Cameron's father's involvement as "a private affair" with the following tweet: "Oh, now he's interested in privacy."

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Snakes in Suits

Oh the irony: Chile's head of Transparency International resigns after 'Panama Papers'

Gram Slattery
Reuters
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 17:50 UTC
Gonzalo Delaveau
The president of the Chilean branch of Transparency International resigned on Monday after documents from a Panamanian law firm showed he was linked to at least five offshore companies.

"Gonzalo Delaveau presented his resignation as the president of Transparency Chile, which has been accepted by the board of directors," the national body wrote on Twitter.

Delaveau was among tens of thousands of people named in a leak of four decades' worth of documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that specialized in setting up offshore businesses.
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Tornado1

Dozens detained in Turkey's latest sweep against Erdogan foe supporters


Yahoo News
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 00:00 UTC
erdogan, guler
© news.yahoo.com
Turkish protester holds up banner depicting Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen.
Turkish police on Tuesday detained almost 70 businessmen, local officials and teachers in a new nationwide sweep against supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's arch foe, reports said.

Sixty-eight people were detained on suspicion of links to the US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen who Erdogan accuses of running a "parallel state" aimed at usurping him, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. The coordinated raids on suspects, which came after seven months of investigations, took place in 22 regions across Turkey including Istanbul, Ankara, the resort of Antalya and Gaziantep close to the Syrian border.

A total of 120 arrest warrants were issued and several of the wanted suspects are believed to be abroad. Those detained include business people, charity executives, lecturers, teachers and municipal officials, it said. Turkish authorities have since the summer of 2014 rounded up allies of Gulen in numerous police operations but this was one of the biggest to date.

Comment: In spite of obvious problems, the EU has Turkey/Erdogan right where it wants it...the state that will do anything, including criminal activity, to become a member. If controlled, this can be 'useful'. However, Erdogan is a tyrannical and deranged extremist, meaning his rapidly increasing detriments will short-circuit his 'value'; he is a candidate for an international human rights violations tribunal; and, perceived as a global pariah, he shall kiss the grail of EU membership g'bye.

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