With the full support of the country's ruling business elite, Canada has joined the new "coalition of the willing" that US imperialism has organized to wage war in Iraq, Syria and beyond.

Launched in the name of degrading and defeating ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), this war is the continuation and expansion of the wars the US has waged over the past quarter-century in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. Its predatory aim is to secure unfettered US strategic hegemony over the Middle East, far and away the world's most important oil-exporting region.

Specifically, it is aimed at propping up the US client regime that was installed in Baghdad as a result of the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq and at intensifying the US campaign for "regime change" in Syria.

US President Barack Obama announced Wednesday evening that the US will now intervene directly in the war in Syria - initially with air strikes - and step up its efforts to arm, train, and logistically support the insurgency the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, have fomented in Syria.

At a parliamentary hearing Tuesday, Canada's Conservative government admitted that Canadian Armed Forces' special forces are already on the ground in northern Iraq.

These are the first of what the government has said will be a deployment of up to one hundred members of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment tasked with providing training to the Peshmerga - Kurdish militia forces that are currently allied with the government in Baghdad.

US journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, said New Zealand officials are spying on their citizens, a charge that has provoked a harsh response from NZ Prime Minister John Key.

Greenwald, who is in New Zealand to attend Kim Dotcom's much anticipated "Moment of Truth" event Monday, said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) had been snooping on New Zealanders as part of the so-called Five Eyes pact between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In June 2013, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras were given thousands of classified NSA documents from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. Greenwald said he has spent several months pouring over the files in an effort to determine whether GCSB broke the law and spied on citizens.

Greenwald told the Nation television program: "The government does engage in extraordinary amounts of analysis of metadata - meaning who's talking to who, for how long, where they are when they speak - on a massive indiscriminate scale, not just internationally but of New Zealanders as well."

According to Greenwald, New Zealand spends a disproportional part of its budget on electronic surveillance.

"Every single thing that the NSA does... involves NZ directly," he said.

Three veterans from one of Israel's most secretive intelligence units speak out about questionable surveillance tactics used against Palestinians. The men, along with 40 other reservists, past and present, have signed a public letter refusing to serve in operations involving the occupied Palestinian territories. They allege the widespread use of monitoring and oppressive tactics against innocent Palestinians

This article is a joint publication of TheNation.com and Foreign Policy In Focus.

As the Ukrainian crisis has unfolded over the past few weeks, it's hard for Americans not to see Vladimir Putin as the big villain. But the history of the region is a history of competing villains vying against one another; and one school of villains - the Nazis - have a long history of engagement with the United States, mostly below the radar, but occasionally exposed, as they were by Russ Bellant in his book Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party (South End Press, 1991).

Bellant's exposure of émigré Nazi leaders from Germany's World War II allies in the 1988 Bush presidential campaign was the driving force in the announced resignation of nine individuals, two of them from Ukraine, which is why he was the logical choice to illuminate the scattered mentions of Nazi and fascist elements among the Ukrainian nationalists, which somehow never seems to warrant further comment or explanation. Of course most Ukrainians aren't Nazis or fascists - all the more reason to illuminate those who would hide their true natures in the shadows...or even behind the momentary glare of the spotlight.

Q: Your book, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, exposed the deep involvement in the Republican Party of Nazi elements from Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukrainians, dating back to World War II and even before. As the Ukrainian crisis unfolded in the last few weeks, there have been scattered mentions of a fascist or neo-fascist element, but somehow that never seems to warrant further comment or explanation. I can't think of anyone better to shed light on what's not being said about that element. The danger of Russian belligerence is increasingly obvious, but this unexamined fascist element poses dangers of its own. What can you tell us about this element and those dangers?

The element has a long history, of a long record that speaks for itself, when that record is actually known and elaborated on. The key organization in the coup that took place here recently was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN], or a specific branch of it known as the Banderas [OUN-B]. They're the group behind the Svoboda party, which got a number of key positions in the new interim regime. The OUN goes back to the 1920s, when they split off from other groups, and, especially in the 1930s, began a campaign of assassinating and otherwise terrorizing people who didn't agree with them.

Translated by es.Sott.net


A letter in which the Russian President settles scores with the "pathological western criminals"

Russian president Vladimir Putin believes the west should apologize to him so he's created a web page with a letter which any western citizen can sign.


Translated into various languages, it's a letter addressed to Putin as well as the Russian people, and the opening lines get straight to the point: "Please accept our apologies for the behavior of our Governments and Media." So far, according to the website, 23,649 people have signed it.

How the War Party did an end run around the American people - and got its way in Syria

In the run-up to World War II, Franklin Roosevelt played the role of the reluctant warmonger. Rather than initiating the action, he took care to be always responding to the war cries of his hopped up left-wing supporters - who were demanding US intervention on behalf of the beleaguered Soviet Union. The American people wanted to stay out of the European war, and the President had to ever-so-cautiously lead them down the primrose path, deceiving them every step of the way while he and Winston Churchill plotted behind their backs to get us into the war.

As the 1940 campaign came down to the wire, Roosevelt intoned: "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

A year later, in alliance with "Uncle" Joe Stalin, we were at war on two fronts.

Back then, it took the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the death of 2,400 service members and civilians to get us into a world war. Today it takes a video of the horrific deaths of two American journalists traveling in a war zone, played over and over in an infinite loop of orchestrated hysteria. If they'd only had YouTube in Roosevelt's day he would've succeeded in lying us into war much sooner.

In an age where imagery takes the place of text - and of rational thought - the ISIS public relations department certainly knows its business. If the whole point of using social media to transmit horrific images of their deeds is to lure us into re-invading Iraq, then they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. While it seems like only yesterday that the President disdained ISIS as "junior varsity," today he is mobilizing a mighty worldwide "coalition" to wipe out a group he claims is capable of attacking the United States.

Since the beginning of the Western-engineered crisis in Ukraine, the world has been bombarded with propaganda about how Evil Russia is. Yet, despite what we're all being asked to believe, there was no "Russian invasion", MH17 was not shot down by Russia, and Ukraine has de facto split in two. While these manipulated events on Russia's borders grab the headlines, let's take a look at what is going on behind the scenes in "America's backyard", as John Kerry shamelessly described Latin America in April this year.

The century-long pretense upheld by American leaders that their country is a Republic is betrayed by Kerry's imperious language, and he obviously needs diplomacy (not to mention geography) lessons. Besides, he was clearly referring to Latin America, even though, technically, the US is also part of the "Western Hemisphere".

Anyway, you've also probably heard about President Putin's visit to Latin America and the BRICS's Summit in Brazil. The existential danger that BRICS presents for the Western 'elite' is obvious; the alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa represents a serious political and economic alternative to the current US system of global hegemony. And it's growing, with countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Iran, Mongolia, Malaysia and others interested in joining. Currently, BRICS represents almost half of the world population and close to a third of the global GDP.

Prime Minister uses speech to encourage people not to stand idle as Scots debate independence before their referendum

English, Welsh and Northern Irish nationals should all urge Scottish voters to reject independence, David Cameron will say on Friday, exhorting people throughout the UK to join together to "save the most extraordinary country in history".

The Prime Minister will use a speech to encourage people not to stand idle as the Scots debate independence before their referendum, beseeching them to "do whatever it takes" to maintain the Union.

Before the vote later this year, the rest of the UK should send the message: "We want you to stay".

Unless the Scots can be persuaded to remain part of the UK, everyone will "wake up in a different country" after the referendum, the Prime Minister will warn.

The Scots will vote in September, and while polls show a majority oppose breaking away, campaigners on all sides say opinion could still tilt in favour of independence.

The next volunteers who want to fight with the 'Global oligarchy' came to Donbas. This time they are French. People from Serbia, Spain, Germany, France, Polish, Israel, the United Kingdom and Greece already fought with Kiev junta. Recently, volunteers look younger: people over forty went earlier to the militia, now the average age wanting to join the army DRL ranges from 18 to 30. More and more people do not trust the corporate media and they see what's going on in the world. If I did not speak English, unfortunately I would never learn from the media in my country (Poland) what is really the situation in Gaza, Ukraine and the Middle East. 'One of the French volunteers who fought in Donbas quite bluntly puts it:

"We are French volunteers and the first wave of the whole group, which either prepares to leave or is on the way. We support the geopolitical idea of ​​European unity. We are both revolutionaries and traditionalists. We arrived to Donbas, where civilians are murdered by the people from Kiev. Those who carry out this terrorist operation in the Donbas are minions of the international mafia oligarchs. You must understand that we are dealing with the third world war. It began in Libya, then moved to Syria and now to Donbas. We can see that Russia is one of the few countries that have challenged and personally fight globalism. It's kind of the Reconquista. We're here to help Russia in this fight. We're not here to earn money, we do not take any money from anyone . In fact, we spent a lot to get here. "

The world, despite the American propaganda and huge expenditures on promotion of 'democracy' by the United States as in the case of $ 5 trillion to NGOs in Ukraine, begins to stand on the side with Russia. How this is happening, despite the fact that the media do not publish reliable information on Russia and Ukraine, people around the world are beginning to turn their sympathy towards Russia. Paradoxically, after collapse of communism and reversal Russia from its Stalinist history around the world and in Russia, 'cult of strong leader' is emerging. Although some people would see 'democracy' more in Dmitry Medvedev.

What 'democracy' a la Brzezinski looks like we know fairly well (Syria, Libya, Iraq etc.), but more on that soon. I must add at this point that I have never been a sympathizer of the United States or Russia. When I thought about trips abroad last thing I would choose would be Russia. That has always reminded me of the KGB, poverty, corruption, banditry, dirt, cold and hopelessness. Books written by the Polish reporters that I read just stressed it more. Russia was presented in my country as a large country which is so backward that you need to see it a bit like some rare animal in the zoo. This image of Russia functions in Poland today. Especially in the Kaliningrad region in which I grew up. Americans also never attracted me. Maybe that's why I got it now only to 'end of America' - this crypto pro-fascist country with the NSA, The National Endowment for Democracy and sponsorship of coups in other countries, wars and extremists. Maybe if I lived in the era of the deep communism in Poland, it would be probably harder to convince me now to the 'Russians' and I would sing paeans about the United States and NATO support for Europe being 'at risk' a la Radoslaw Sikorski - Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The leader of the Donbass volunteer battalion, who actively fought in eastern Ukraine, has arrived in Washington with ambitious plans to talk with American politicians, ask for material support and even secure training at West Point for his commanders.

Semyon Semyonchenko outlined his plans in a Facebook post, informing that had just landed in the US capitol.

Semyonchenko wrote that he arrived to the US as a member of a 'Ukrainian delegation' - presumably an unofficial group of activists - seeking material and technical support for the military operation in southeastern Ukraine.

He intends to talk with members of the US Congress on the situation in Ukraine andmeet with representatives of the military to reach an agreement to send Ukrainian volunteer commanders for training at the United States Military Academy at West Point.