Noble Appeal By Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, But Western Warmongers Are Comfortably Numb

This war is an existential one: it is all about preserving American hegemony and propping up the floundering Western imperial global order. “Unipolar world domination,” as Roger Waters put it.

Pink Floyd rock legend Roger Waters made an impressive and impassioned plea for peace at the UN Security Council this week. The English-born singer-songwriter was invited by Russia to address the specially convened forum on the prospects of finding a peaceful resolution in Ukraine.

Waters spoke eloquently and from the heart for over 14 minutes via a video link to the gathering at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York. Much respect is due to him for his strident call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine as well as for his general anti-war message on behalf of the world’s “voiceless majority”.

The 79-year-old artist has been a life-long advocate for peace and human rights, and many people around the world admire not only his musical creations but also his integrity and indefatigable defense of human rights. As he noted during his speech, his own father was killed in action during the Second World War when he was just an infant in 1944, and so he has been “touched by war”.

To his eternal credit, Waters has not taken megastar retirement in luxurious, mindless oblivion. He has remained as politically active and outspoken as when he was a younger artist, critical of exploitative corporate capitalist power and imperialist warmongering. With fierce integrity and poignant compassion, he has championed the cause of the Palestinian people and the freedom of publisher Julian Assange locked up in a British prison, among other causes. His music and artistry are a holistic expression of his pathos and politics.

He may have been invited by Russia to address the UNSC this week, but Waters showed himself to be no “apologist” for Moscow. During his speech, he claimed that Russia had “illegally invaded” Ukraine in February 2022, and he forthrightly condemned that. He is entitled to his opinion.

Nevertheless, he also condemned the provocations by the United States and NATO in building up Ukraine with armaments in the years before the conflict erupted last February. He denounced the war profiteering by Western powers from their relentless and reckless supplying of weapons to Ukraine which, he said, was risking a nuclear apocalypse if it spiralled into a bigger all-out confrontation.

The reactions to this noble intervention by Roger Waters were telling. While he spoke to the UNSC, the envoys from Ukraine fiddled on their phones, showing contemptible disrespect. Following his speech, the Ukrainian and the American representatives mocked Waters for peddling “Russian propaganda”.

There was little reporting in the Western media of his words. Some reportage tried to undermine his sincere calls for peace and his blistering critique of the warmongering capitalist system by focusing on what they claimed was his justification for Russian military action in Ukraine after he had said the war was “not unprovoked”.

Hardly surprising. Western mainstream news media have become so debased as propaganda channels that anyone who dares to discuss the historical context of the conflict is immediately smeared as a “Kremlin stooge”. Their media function is to prevent any intelligent, truthful understanding of how this conflict manifested or what is really at stake. The same goes for other conflicts and in particular, the next one Washington is fomenting with China.

Waters deserves immense praise for his courageous, unstinting calls for peace and for a broader understanding of the nature and causes of the conflict in Ukraine. But the dismissive response to his supplications illustrates clearly that the Western warmongers and their NeoNazi regime in Kiev have no intention or will to find a just peace. They are, to quote that classic song by Pink Floyd, “comfortably numb” to any feeling of justice and peace.

Thus, lamentably, his demands for an immediate ceasefire are naive. While many people around the world will admire the call for peace, it is misleading to not fully realize how the conflict in Ukraine came about and why it is being pursued by Western powers. Such appeals will not prevail against the war fundamentalists. Indeed, any ceasefire without resolving the root causes of the war would only prolong the conflict by allowing a rearming of the NATO-sponsored Kiev regime against Russia. Besides, Washington and its Western lackeys are “agreement incapable” and have no integrity.

The most effective immediate way to end the conflict is for Western powers to stop fueling it with the madcap armaments they are piling up in Ukraine. Washington and its European allies are embarking on endless rounds of supplying more offensive weapons. They have already committed to deploying battlefield tanks and this week there was more talk of supplying advanced NATO fighter jets as well as long-range missiles that can hit deep inside Russian territory. The lavish indulgence this week by Britain, France, Germany and the rest of the European Union towards Kiev’s incessant demands for more weapons shows that there is no interest in a genuine diplomatic dialogue for a peaceful settlement.

The European elite political class like their masters in Washington have dangerously distorted the conflict in Ukraine into one of absolute necessity for defeating alleged Russian aggression and “defending democracy”.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – whose regime in Kiev is up to its eyes in corruption from the arms bazaar in that country as well as infested with Nazi-adulating paramilitaries – was feted in Europe this week with the preposterous claim that Ukraine was defending European values from Russian barbarity. The echo of Third Reich ideology and Russophobic propaganda here is truly astounding.

This war is an existential one. On the one hand, the defeat of Russia is being painted (falsely) as the ultimate challenge to supposed Western civilization. The West has made it a zero-sum contest based on false premises. On the other hand, a real existential issue is that the war is all about preserving American hegemony and propping up the floundering Western imperial global order. “Unipolar world domination,” as Roger Waters put it.

The blockbuster report this week by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh revealing well-founded allegations that the U.S. military blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany last September demonstrates that this war in Ukraine is only a part of a bigger geopolitical conflict. The Western media’s relative silence over what is ostensibly a staggering act of international terrorism by the Americans and their European minions is as damning as it is instructive.

Hersh credibly claims that the plot to sabotage the pipelines – signed off by the Biden administration – predated the Russian intervention in Ukraine. When added to ignominious admissions by European leaders that there was no intention of honoring the 2014-15 Minsk peace agreements because the tacit objective was always to weaponize Ukraine for an eventual showdown against Russia, then we begin to understand that the intrinsic agenda for war makes a mockery of the Western narrative about “defending Ukraine from Russian aggression”.

Appeals like that of Roger Waters – albeit principled and well-intentioned – are in the final analysis naive and, regrettably, futile. Such appeals presuppose that Western elites and their warmongering system are capable of peaceful and moral reasoning. They are not.

Russia had a legal and moral duty to defend the ethnic Russian people of former Ukraine from eight years of NATO-backed aggression after the CIA-backed coup d’état in Kiev in 2014. That NATO aggression will not be stopped now by moralistic appeals. For we are talking about a system that is tantamount to a rabid dog that needs to be put down. And we are not talking about a system that is limited to the vile Kiev regime. We are talking about the entire U.S.-led capitalist system and its imperialist war machine. A system that has ravaged the world for eight decades since the end of World War Two.

Or to put it another way by way of taking issue with a contradiction in Roger Water’s speech: you can’t appeal to a “bully” to do the right thing. You have to punch the bully in the face.

On the bigger historical picture, it can be increasingly seen now in this present time that the Second World War did not bring about an end to Nazism, fascism and imperialism, especially as Western history books would narrate. The end of that horrendous war was only a respite from the disease. There will be no peace in Ukraine or anywhere else until that disease is terminated – once and for all.

Noble Appeal By Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, But Western Warmongers Are Comfortably Numb

The War of Terror of a Rogue Superpower: Cui Bono?

Pepe Escobar

When it comes to the Global South, what the Hersh report imprints is Rogue Superpower, in giant blood red letters, as state sponsor of terrorism.

Everyone with a brain already knew the Empire did it. Now Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report  not only details how Nord Stream 1 and 2 were attacked, but also names names: from the toxic Straussian neoliberal-con trio Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland all the way to the Teleprompter Reader-in-Chief.

Arguably the most incandescent nugget in Hersh’s narrative is to point ultimate responsibility directly at the White House. The CIA, for its part, gets away with it. The whole report may be read as the framing of a scapegoat. A very fragile, shoddy scapegoat – what with those classified documents in the garage, the endless stares into the void, the cornucopia of incomprehensible mumbling, and of course the whole, ghastly, years-long family corruption carousel in and around Ukraine, still to be completely unveiled.

Hersh’s report happened to pop up immediately after the deadly earthquakes in Turkey/Syria. This is an investigative journalism earthquake in itself, straddling over fault lines and revealing countless open air fissures, nuggets of truth gasping for air amidst the rubble.

But is that all there is? Does the narrative hold from start to finish? Yes and no. First of all, why now? This is a leak – essentially from one Deep State insider, Hersh’s key source. This 21^st century “Deep Throat” remix may be appalled at the toxicity of the system, but at the same time he knows that whatever he says, there will be no consequences.

Cowardly Berlin – ignoring the nuts and bolts of the scheme all along – will not even squeak. After all the Green gang has been ecstatic, because the terror attack has thoroughly advanced their medieval de-industrialization agenda. In parallel, as an extra bonus, all the other European vassals receive further confirmation this is the fate that awaits them if they don’t follow His Master’s Voice.

Hersh’s narrative frames the Norwegians as the essential accessory to terror. Hardly surprising: NATO’s Jens “Peace is War” Stoltenberg has been a CIA asset for perhaps half a century. And Oslo of course had its own motives to be part of the deal; to collect loads of extra cash selling whatever spare energy it had for desperate European customers.

A little narrative problem is that Norway, unlike the U.S. Navy, still does not have any operational P-8 Poseidon. What was clear at the time is that an American P-8 was commuting back and forth – with mid-air refueling – from the U.S. to Bornholm island.

A positive screamer is that Hersh – rather, his key source – had the MI6 completely vanish from the narrative. SVR, Russian intel, had focused like a laser on MI6 at the time, as well as the Poles. What still cements the narrative is that the combo behind “Biden” provided the planning, the intel and coordinated the logistics, while the final act – in this case a sonar buoy detonating the C4 explosives – may have been perpetrated by the Norwegian vassals.

The problem is the buoy may have been dropped by an American P-8. And there’s no explanation of why one of the sections of Nord Stream 2 escaped intact.

Hersh’s modus operandi is legendary. From the perspective of a foreign correspondent on the ground since the mid-1990s, from the U.S. and NATOstan to all corners of Eurasia, it’s easy for someone like me to understand how he uses anonymous sources and how he accesses – and protects – his extensive list of contacts: trust works both ways. His track record is absolutely unrivalled.

But of course the possibility remains: what if he is being played? Is this no more than a limited hangout? After all, the narrative oscillates wildly between minute detail and quite a few dead ends, constantly featuring a huge paper trail and too many people in the loop – which implies exaggerated risk. The CIA hesitating too much to go for the kill is a certified red alert throughout the narrative – especially when we know that the ideal underwater actors for such an op would have come from the CIA Special Activities Division, and not the U.S. Navy.

What will Russia do?

Arguably the whole planet is thinking what will be the Russian response.

Surveying the chessboard, what the Kremlin and the Security Council see is Merkel confessing Minsk 2 was merely a ruse; the imperial attack on the Nord Streams (they got the picture, but might not have all the insider details provided by Hersh’s source); former Israeli PM Bennett on the record detailing how the Anglo-Americans killed the Ukraine peace process which was on track in Istanbul last year.

So it’s no wonder that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made it clear that when it comes to nuclear negotiations with the Americans, any proposed gestures of goodwill are “unjustified, untimely and uncalled for.”

The Ministry, on purpose, and somewhat ominously, was very vague on a key issue: “strategic nuclear forces objects” that have been attacked by Kiev – helped by the Americans. These attacks may have involved “military-technical and information-intelligence” aspects.

When it comes to the Global South, what the Hersh report imprints is Rogue Superpower, in giant blood red letters, as state sponsor of terrorism: the ritual burial – at the bottom of the Baltic Sea – of international law, and even the Empire’s tawdry ersatz, the “rules-based international order”.

It will take some time to fully identify which Deep State faction may have used Hersh to promote its agenda. Of course he’s aware of it – but that would never have been enough to keep him away from researching a bombshell (three months of hard work). The U.S. mainstream media will do everything to suppress, censor, demean and ignore his report; but what matters is that across the Global South it is already spreading like wildfire.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Lavrov has gone totally unplugged, much like Medvedev, denouncing how the U.S. has “unleashed a total hybrid war” against Russia, with both nuclear powers now on a path of direct confrontation. And as Washington has declared the “strategic defeat” of Russia as its goal and turned bilateral relations into a ball of fire, there can be no “business as usual” anymore.

The Russian “response” – even before Hersh’s report – has been on another level entirely; advanced de-dollarization across the spectrum, from the EAEU to BRICS and beyond; and total reorientation of trade towards Eurasia and other parts of the Global South. Russia is establishing firm conditions for further stability, already foreseeing the inevitable: the time to frontally deal with NATO.

As kinetic responses go, facts on the battleground show Russia further crushing the American/NATO proxy army in full Strategic Ambiguity mode. The terror attack on the Nord Streams of course will always be lurking in the background. There will be blowback. But that will be at a time, manner and place of Russia’s choosing.

The War of Terror of a Rogue Superpower: Cui Bono?

Western Sanctions Will Mean that More Syrians Die after the Earthquakes

Eva Bartlett

Syrian quake survivors stay at tents following 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes centered in Turkiye’s Kahramanmaras, in Salqin district of Idlib, Syria on February 09, 2023. © Photo by Muhammed Said/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The economic stranglehold and selective approach to aid will lead to more death and displacement

Following the devastating earthquakes that rocked Türkiye, Syria and their neighboring countries on February 6, leaving more than 20,000 dead, Damascus is struggling to deal with this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe as it remains under brutal Western sanctions that have brought the country to its knees.

The West’s war on Syria that began in early 2011 failed to topple its elected president, but the subsequent years of increasingly cruel sanctions – all in the name of ‘helping the Syrian people’ – have succeeded in rendering life miserable and near impossible, with most unable to afford to properly feed their families, much less heat their homes.

Now, in a time of crisis, the Syrian people cannot even receive donations or emergency support from abroad. One supporter set up a GoFundMe campaign, only to have it taken down due to the sanctions. Type the word “Ukraine” into the search field on PayPal or GoFundMe and you’ll see countless appeals for sending money to Ukraine. But for Syrians, Western platforms like these are off-limits, and have been for years.

Adding to the destruction left by war

Search and rescue efforts continue in the Salqin district of Idlib, Syria, on Thursday. (Muhammed Said//Getty Images)

On February 6, southern Türkiye and northern Syria were hit by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, followed by dozens of aftershocks and then another earthquake. While the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq and others were affected, the worst of the damage was in Türkiye and Syria.

As of February 9, the official death toll in Syria was 1,347, with more than 2,300 injured. Nearly 300,000 Syrians have been displaced due to the earthquakes. The scenes initially coming out of Türkiye and Syria were heartbreaking and catastrophic, with buildings collapsing in front of people, and piles of rubble with the dead and the maimed trapped below.

In Syria, the earthquakes added to already extensive damage from the war. Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, was tragically prone to building collapses because of the terrorist occupation that had lasted until 2016. The militants had frequently tunneled under buildings, in many cases in order to lay explosives and destroy them, as they did with the Chamber of Industry in April 2014. With the Syrian population already struggling to just survive prior to the earthquakes, now Aleppo and the coastal regions of Syria affected by the earthquakes face even more death, injury and displacement.

Sanctions were already killing Syrians

Even without the earthquakes, Syrians struggled to get medication, hospitals struggled to get or maintain critical machinery and equipment, and the population as a whole suffocated as the country’s economy steadily worsened, all by design.

Western leaders are adamant that the only ones to blame for the Syrians’ suffering before the earthquake were President Bashar Assad and his government (or “regime,” as Washington calls any undesirable foreign government it hasn’t yet toppled), whose “dictatorship” caused the people to rise up and start a civil war (actually a US-led proxy war against Syria to overthrow said government). The sanctions, ostensibly aimed at the “regime,” are, by this logic, intended to helpand protect the general population. In reality, they are strangling Syrian civilians.

Here’s what life is like for many Syrians now, according to British journalist Vanessa Beeley: “The US and its proxy Kurdish separatist forces are occupying Syrian resources in the northeast which includes their oil, which means of course that the bulk of Syria is reliant upon Iranian oil to keep any kind of electricity running. At the moment, we have basically about two or three hours of electricity per day. There is no heating in the majority of homes across Syria.”

As Beeley notes, earthquake-displaced Syrians – unless they receive emergency aid – face freezing and wet conditions, “without any alternative shelter, without any electricity, without any heating.” And thanks to the sanctions, desperately needed humanitarian aid and fundraising is difficult. International cargo planes can’t land in Syria, and crowdfunding services and even credit cards are unavailable. The virtue-signaling Western nations – the main cause of suffering in Syria since 2011 – have not only persisted in keeping the sanctions in place; most of them haven’t offered any meaningful help since the earthquake, just hollow words.

Thanks to criminal Western sanctions, international cargo planes can not land at Syrian airports and Syrians can not use Gofundme or credit cards. Meanwhile, the US military occupies 1/3 of the country, stealing Syria’s oil – a key source of revenue it uses to buy food and aid. pic.twitter.com/1jFXfJB2I8

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 7, 2023

The Chinese Foreign Ministry blamed the sanctions for amplifying the miserable situation, and likewise pointed out that the US’ illegal presence in Syria and theft of Syrian resources was also exacerbating the economic situation.

“Frequent [US] military strikes and harsh economic sanctions have caused huge civilian casualties and taken away the means to subsistence of the Syrians. As we speak, the US troops continue to occupy Syria’s principal oil-producing regions. They have plundered more than 80% of Syria’s oil production and smuggled and burned Syria’s grain stock. All this has made Syria’s humanitarian crisis even worse.” 

A friend in need is a neighbor on the sanctions list

All of the above has left Syrians to rely mostly on the country’s friends for help. Incidentally, many of those nations and groups are among the most vilified by the West.

The West imposes brutal sanctions against Syria, ruining every aspect of Syrians’ lives, + stealing their oil & creating the war on Syria in the 1st place.After the tragic earthquakes, who helps Syria? Those vilified by the hypocritical West: Iran, Russia, Iraq, Lebanon…

— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) February 7, 2023

Following the earthquake, Russia’s Ministry of Defense dispatched “over 300 personnel, and 60 military and special vehicles” for rescue and aid efforts in Syria. The Russian Emergencies Ministry sent more than 100 rescue workers to Türkiye and Syria, including an airmobile hospital with 40 medics.

Iran sent a plane with 45 tons of medical, food and sanitary aid to Syria, and has pledged to send more.

Even battered Libya, itself largely destroyed by another Western regime-change project, sent a plane with 40 tons of medical and humanitarian aid, as well as an ambulance, to Aleppo International Airport.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement, sent convoys of humanitarian aid to Syria. Lebanon’s army said it would send members of its Engineering Regiment to Syria, to contribute to the search and rescue operations.

Not everyone who offered their help to Syria are on Western sanctions list, of course. Algeria sent 115 tons of aid of food and medical supplies, tents and blankets, as well as 86 specialized civil protection personnel. The United Arab Emirates will apparently send $50 million to Syria for relief efforts, and Indian, Emirati and Jordanian planes carrying humanitarian and medical aid for Syrian victims arrived in the capital on Wednesday. Even New Zealand pledged to contribute NZ$500,000 “for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) to meet humanitarian needs.”

Meanwhile, Western corporate media stuck to the narrative of blaming the Assad government, with a New York Times article on the issue apparently saying initially that Western sanctions had hampered relief efforts to Syria – before quickly changing the line to say the government “tightly controls what aid it allows into opposition-held areas.” This is in-keeping with the old trope that the Syrian government denies aid to civilians in areas occupied by terrorists, which in most Western media are dubbed “rebels” and “opposition fighters.” This is something I and other journalists on the ground have repeatedly debunked, visiting liberated areas and hearing time and again that locals had been starving because terrorists had been hoarding humanitarian aid, denying it to civilians or selling it at massively inflated prices.

NYT never misses an opportunity to push West’s regime-change lexicon.”Opposition” = literally AL-QAEDA  Instead of calling for an end to the criminal sanctions against the Syrian people, NYT exploits humanitarian tragedy to push West’s agenda of toppling elected Syrian govt. pic.twitter.com/3RpsIiQ1VF

— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) February 8, 2023

Western aid is not for everyone

On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about a looming “secondary disaster” in Syria, pointing to “major disruptions” to basic life supplies, but failing to highlight the role of Western sanctions or the terrorist presence in northwestern Syria as the underlying causes. Reports on UN aid reaching northern Syria via Türkiye also downplayed the presence of Al-Qaeda terrorists in the areas mentioned, as well as Türkiye’s years-long support for Syrian anti-government forces. Such reports likewise neglected to mention the need for emergency relief in government-controlled areas of Syria, and the government’s efforts to bring that relief in.

Some 12 years into the West’s proxy war on Syria, the continued denial of the very basics of emergency humanitarian relief to Syrians outside “rebel-controlled” areas, shows how little the West’s claim to care for Syrians really matter. The lack of concern by the UN, WHO, and affiliated aid agencies for the Syrians of Aleppo, among other government-controlled areas, is not at all surprising, given these bodies over the years systematically downplayed terrorism against Syrian civilians.

As the humanitarian disaster continues, it is also worth remembering that, over the decades, Syria has taken in refugees from numerous countries. Yet, in spite of the current emergency situation and the very dire need to lift the West’s sanctions, it is unlikely the “benevolent” West will change its crippling anti-Syria policies to allow Syrians to merely survive.

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Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). The writer is a recipient of the 2017 International Journalism Award for International Reporting, granted by the Mexican Journalists’ Press Club (founded in 1951), was the first recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism, and was short-listed in 2017 for the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. See her extended bio on her blog In Gaza. She tweets from @EvaKBartlett.

https://syria360.wordpress.com/2023/02/08/un-coordinator-in-syria-sanctions-prevent-humanitarian-aid-from-reaching-those-affected-in-the-quake/embed/#?secret=tulr24fJYJ#?secret=hp4jf7jZV4

https://syria360.wordpress.com/2023/02/10/syria-earthquake-us-eu-refuse-to-help-syrians/embed/#?secret=9CN3CE1yHZ#?secret=dLz7UdEkYg

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/02/10/western-sanctions-will-mean-that-more-syrians-die-after-the-earthquakes/

Terrorism is a Mechanism Used by Western Nations to Facillitate Unhindered Exploitation and Plunder

Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative Gennady Kuzmin at UNSC briefing on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts

Mme.President,

We thank USG Voronkov and Executive Director Weixiong Chen for their briefings on the activity of UN mechanisms under their lead, that are focused on countering ISIL.

Issues of combating terrorism must always remain depoliticized. By their very nature, they build a unifying agenda. Such evil as the international terrorism can only be defeated if we act together.

We must not let the international legal anti-terrorist framework be shattered and the main tasks of countering terrorism and extremism eroded. No views that are based on false theories and rules must be imposed on anyone.

Russian approaches are well established, and we have been consistently implementing them. Among our key priorities are the recognition of the leading role of states and their competent bodies in countering terrorism and extremism, prevention of justification of any manifestations of terrorism, ensuring inevitability of criminal and legal responsibility for terrorists and their accomplices. We must safeguard the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international cooperation, uphold universal norms and principles of international law.

Mme.President,

The Middle East and North Africa remain at the epicenter, from which terrorism is spreading to other regions, including the entire African continent. We all have been warning of this danger for quite some time. Each subsequent report of the Secretary-General on the threat of ISIL states the degradation of the situation and the expansion of the scale and geography of terrorist activities.

African states fall short on resources that they need to maintain security, and encounter difficulties when implementing obligatory provisions of resolutions on counter-terrorism.

For Africa, the merging of pseudo-Islamic ideology and terrorist narrative with religious, ethnic, social and political contradictions is quite characteristic. The consequences of the colonial and neo-colonial policies of Western states also play into the hands of terrorists. They do not shy away from stoking various long-standing conflicts and keeping those afloat with only one goal – continue eviscerating Africa’s mineral wealth for their own enrichment. Little has changed over centuries, because colonialism still has to be eradicated. We realize the real reasons for Western hysterical assaults of stakeholders, who work effectively to restore order and stabilize the situation in Africa upon request and in close cooperation with national authorities on the continent.

By the way, it is not only African natural resources that are being pillaged. The West continues to plunder the natural resources, in particular oil, as well as priceless cultural heritage of the part of Syria under the US and NATO occupation, that has also been seriously affected by terrorism. They have mastered this scheme for centuries.

Mme.President,

We are well aware of the difficulties that African states face when fulfilling their obligations. Those of them who were not lucky enough to get rid of the Western military presence are in the most vulnerable position. The distinguished Permanent Representative of France mentioned the activities of Wagner company. We see that the French delegation is disappointed by the fact that Sahelian states, one after another, refuse to cooperate with France and its military in the area of ensuring security. But can we blame African states that they take the matter in their own hands and independently decide with whom and on what conditions they will cooperate.

Due to France’s failures in the Sahel, we see an increase in radical sentiment in that part of Africa, which terrorist and extremist organizations eagerly make use of. Countries of the Sahel realize the futility and even harmfulness of the French presence, and turn to those who are really capable of recovering order while maintaining equal relations with them. We will continue providing this sort of bilateral assistance.

We suggest that the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council and its Executive Directorate focus on African states and try to conduct assessment visits as a matter of priority. This will not only help to identify problems. Subsequently, the targeted recommendations of country-specific reports could form the basis for technical assistance programs. It will take political will, a responsible approach and close cooperation of the African states with the CTC in order for this technical assistance to become successful and bear fruit.

Mme.President,

In the regional and global context, we are also concerned by the situation in Afghanistan, where international terrorist organizations (ISIL-Khorasan in the first place) build up capacity, and from where terrorist activity may spill over to neighboring countries.

The main reason for the current crisis was the military intervention by the US and allies that had a most destabilizing effect not only on Afghanistan, but entire region. Over the 20 years that the United States and its NATO allies spent in Afghanistan, the terrorist threat has but increased. This being said, the outcomes of this inglorious campaign, including war crimes committed by American and NATO military are being carefully silenced down.

Mme.President,

Once again, we have to point at the issue of terrorists getting hold of weapons. Secretary-General’s report only mentions this problem in passing. Most importantly, the report does not cite sources. But how arms find a way to terrorists is no mystery – through criminal networks or directly from those who provide huge volumes of weapons in order to maintain and ignite conflicts. For example, considerable stocks of weapons and hardware that the US and NATO left behind when retreating from Afghanistan have long been used by terrorists in South Asia. Some of it went to ISIL militants in Afghanistan itself. Weapons that Western states send to the Kiev regime in huge quantities are already being discovered in possession of criminal groups in Europe and even terrorists in Africa. Evidence is plentiful.

Terrorist activities by ISIL, Al-Qaida, and affiliated groups is the main threat to international security. Terrorists keep adjusting their tactics, widely use ICTs not only for financing their criminal activities, but also for spreading their ideology and plotting attacks. This is a universal problem that requires well-coordinated inter-state prevention mechanisms. In this respect, exclusive “international partnerships” that bypass the existing inter-state platforms, including the United Nations, are unacceptable.

We welcome efforts made last year by India in its capacity as Chair of the CTC, thanks to which the Delhi Declaration was elaborated to counter the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.

Russia will continue developing close cooperation on issues pertaining to counter-terrorism with truly interested international partners, while taking into account their national expertise and specifics. We call on states to not allow effective international mechanisms for anti-terrorism and anti-extremism cooperation to be undermined, and to focus on collective tasks at this track that are our real priorities.

Thank you.

PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/02/09/terrorism-is-a-mechanism-used-by-western-nations-to-facillitate-unhindered-exploitation-and-plunder/

Ukraine confirms Pentagon provided coordinates for missile strikes

Ukraine Admits Receiving Missile Strike Coordinates From US

Ukrainian military officials have revealed that the US is helping the war-torn nation carry out missile strikes by providing detailed coordinates.

Speaking to The Washington Post, the defense sources said that the Ukrainian Army knows exactly where to fire its missiles due to intelligence obtained from US military personnel stationed elsewhere in Europe.

The coordinates are specifically for strikes using the HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) and the M270 multiple-launch rocket systems.

***

Ukrainian missile operators first determine which targets they want to hit, then send the request to the senior command, which passes the information to American partners for more accurate coordinates.

***

The US-made HIMARS weapon system has been credited with neutralizing various Russian military assets.

https://antibellum679354512.wordpress.com/2023/02/10/ukraine-confirms-pentagon-provided-coordinates-for-missile-strikes/

Terrorism is a Mechanism Used by Western Nations to Facillitate Unhindered Exploitation and Plunder

Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative Gennady Kuzmin at UNSC briefing on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts

Mme.President,

We thank USG Voronkov and Executive Director Weixiong Chen for their briefings on the activity of UN mechanisms under their lead, that are focused on countering ISIL.

Issues of combating terrorism must always remain depoliticized. By their very nature, they build a unifying agenda. Such evil as the international terrorism can only be defeated if we act together.

We must not let the international legal anti-terrorist framework be shattered and the main tasks of countering terrorism and extremism eroded. No views that are based on false theories and rules must be imposed on anyone.

Russian approaches are well established, and we have been consistently implementing them. Among our key priorities are the recognition of the leading role of states and their competent bodies in countering terrorism and extremism, prevention of justification of any manifestations of terrorism, ensuring inevitability of criminal and legal responsibility for terrorists and their accomplices. We must safeguard the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international cooperation, uphold universal norms and principles of international law.

Mme.President,

The Middle East and North Africa remain at the epicenter, from which terrorism is spreading to other regions, including the entire African continent. We all have been warning of this danger for quite some time. Each subsequent report of the Secretary-General on the threat of ISIL states the degradation of the situation and the expansion of the scale and geography of terrorist activities.

African states fall short on resources that they need to maintain security, and encounter difficulties when implementing obligatory provisions of resolutions on counter-terrorism.

For Africa, the merging of pseudo-Islamic ideology and terrorist narrative with religious, ethnic, social and political contradictions is quite characteristic. The consequences of the colonial and neo-colonial policies of Western states also play into the hands of terrorists. They do not shy away from stoking various long-standing conflicts and keeping those afloat with only one goal – continue eviscerating Africa’s mineral wealth for their own enrichment. Little has changed over centuries, because colonialism still has to be eradicated. We realize the real reasons for Western hysterical assaults of stakeholders, who work effectively to restore order and stabilize the situation in Africa upon request and in close cooperation with national authorities on the continent.

By the way, it is not only African natural resources that are being pillaged. The West continues to plunder the natural resources, in particular oil, as well as priceless cultural heritage of the part of Syria under the US and NATO occupation, that has also been seriously affected by terrorism. They have mastered this scheme for centuries.

Mme.President,

We are well aware of the difficulties that African states face when fulfilling their obligations. Those of them who were not lucky enough to get rid of the Western military presence are in the most vulnerable position. The distinguished Permanent Representative of France mentioned the activities of Wagner company. We see that the French delegation is disappointed by the fact that Sahelian states, one after another, refuse to cooperate with France and its military in the area of ensuring security. But can we blame African states that they take the matter in their own hands and independently decide with whom and on what conditions they will cooperate.

Due to France’s failures in the Sahel, we see an increase in radical sentiment in that part of Africa, which terrorist and extremist organizations eagerly make use of. Countries of the Sahel realize the futility and even harmfulness of the French presence, and turn to those who are really capable of recovering order while maintaining equal relations with them. We will continue providing this sort of bilateral assistance.

We suggest that the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council and its Executive Directorate focus on African states and try to conduct assessment visits as a matter of priority. This will not only help to identify problems. Subsequently, the targeted recommendations of country-specific reports could form the basis for technical assistance programs. It will take political will, a responsible approach and close cooperation of the African states with the CTC in order for this technical assistance to become successful and bear fruit.

Mme.President,

In the regional and global context, we are also concerned by the situation in Afghanistan, where international terrorist organizations (ISIL-Khorasan in the first place) build up capacity, and from where terrorist activity may spill over to neighboring countries.

The main reason for the current crisis was the military intervention by the US and allies that had a most destabilizing effect not only on Afghanistan, but entire region. Over the 20 years that the United States and its NATO allies spent in Afghanistan, the terrorist threat has but increased. This being said, the outcomes of this inglorious campaign, including war crimes committed by American and NATO military are being carefully silenced down.

Mme.President,

Once again, we have to point at the issue of terrorists getting hold of weapons. Secretary-General’s report only mentions this problem in passing. Most importantly, the report does not cite sources. But how arms find a way to terrorists is no mystery – through criminal networks or directly from those who provide huge volumes of weapons in order to maintain and ignite conflicts. For example, considerable stocks of weapons and hardware that the US and NATO left behind when retreating from Afghanistan have long been used by terrorists in South Asia. Some of it went to ISIL militants in Afghanistan itself. Weapons that Western states send to the Kiev regime in huge quantities are already being discovered in possession of criminal groups in Europe and even terrorists in Africa. Evidence is plentiful.

Terrorist activities by ISIL, Al-Qaida, and affiliated groups is the main threat to international security. Terrorists keep adjusting their tactics, widely use ICTs not only for financing their criminal activities, but also for spreading their ideology and plotting attacks. This is a universal problem that requires well-coordinated inter-state prevention mechanisms. In this respect, exclusive “international partnerships” that bypass the existing inter-state platforms, including the United Nations, are unacceptable.

We welcome efforts made last year by India in its capacity as Chair of the CTC, thanks to which the Delhi Declaration was elaborated to counter the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.

Russia will continue developing close cooperation on issues pertaining to counter-terrorism with truly interested international partners, while taking into account their national expertise and specifics. We call on states to not allow effective international mechanisms for anti-terrorism and anti-extremism cooperation to be undermined, and to focus on collective tasks at this track that are our real priorities.

Thank you.

PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative Gennady Kuzmin at UNSC briefing on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts

Mme.President,

We thank USG Voronkov and Executive Director Weixiong Chen for their briefings on the activity of UN mechanisms under their lead, that are focused on countering ISIL.

Issues of combating terrorism must always remain depoliticized. By their very nature, they build a unifying agenda. Such evil as the international terrorism can only be defeated if we act together.

We must not let the international legal anti-terrorist framework be shattered and the main tasks of countering terrorism and extremism eroded. No views that are based on false theories and rules must be imposed on anyone.

Russian approaches are well established, and we have been consistently implementing them. Among our key priorities are the recognition of the leading role of states and their competent bodies in countering terrorism and extremism, prevention of justification of any manifestations of terrorism, ensuring inevitability of criminal and legal responsibility for terrorists and their accomplices. We must safeguard the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international cooperation, uphold universal norms and principles of international law.

Mme.President,

The Middle East and North Africa remain at the epicenter, from which terrorism is spreading to other regions, including the entire African continent. We all have been warning of this danger for quite some time. Each subsequent report of the Secretary-General on the threat of ISIL states the degradation of the situation and the expansion of the scale and geography of terrorist activities.

African states fall short on resources that they need to maintain security, and encounter difficulties when implementing obligatory provisions of resolutions on counter-terrorism.

For Africa, the merging of pseudo-Islamic ideology and terrorist narrative with religious, ethnic, social and political contradictions is quite characteristic. The consequences of the colonial and neo-colonial policies of Western states also play into the hands of terrorists. They do not shy away from stoking various long-standing conflicts and keeping those afloat with only one goal – continue eviscerating Africa’s mineral wealth for their own enrichment. Little has changed over centuries, because colonialism still has to be eradicated. We realize the real reasons for Western hysterical assaults of stakeholders, who work effectively to restore order and stabilize the situation in Africa upon request and in close cooperation with national authorities on the continent.

By the way, it is not only African natural resources that are being pillaged. The West continues to plunder the natural resources, in particular oil, as well as priceless cultural heritage of the part of Syria under the US and NATO occupation, that has also been seriously affected by terrorism. They have mastered this scheme for centuries.

Mme.President,

We are well aware of the difficulties that African states face when fulfilling their obligations. Those of them who were not lucky enough to get rid of the Western military presence are in the most vulnerable position. The distinguished Permanent Representative of France mentioned the activities of Wagner company. We see that the French delegation is disappointed by the fact that Sahelian states, one after another, refuse to cooperate with France and its military in the area of ensuring security. But can we blame African states that they take the matter in their own hands and independently decide with whom and on what conditions they will cooperate.

Due to France’s failures in the Sahel, we see an increase in radical sentiment in that part of Africa, which terrorist and extremist organizations eagerly make use of. Countries of the Sahel realize the futility and even harmfulness of the French presence, and turn to those who are really capable of recovering order while maintaining equal relations with them. We will continue providing this sort of bilateral assistance.

We suggest that the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council and its Executive Directorate focus on African states and try to conduct assessment visits as a matter of priority. This will not only help to identify problems. Subsequently, the targeted recommendations of country-specific reports could form the basis for technical assistance programs. It will take political will, a responsible approach and close cooperation of the African states with the CTC in order for this technical assistance to become successful and bear fruit.

Mme.President,

In the regional and global context, we are also concerned by the situation in Afghanistan, where international terrorist organizations (ISIL-Khorasan in the first place) build up capacity, and from where terrorist activity may spill over to neighboring countries.

The main reason for the current crisis was the military intervention by the US and allies that had a most destabilizing effect not only on Afghanistan, but entire region. Over the 20 years that the United States and its NATO allies spent in Afghanistan, the terrorist threat has but increased. This being said, the outcomes of this inglorious campaign, including war crimes committed by American and NATO military are being carefully silenced down.

Mme.President,

Once again, we have to point at the issue of terrorists getting hold of weapons. Secretary-General’s report only mentions this problem in passing. Most importantly, the report does not cite sources. But how arms find a way to terrorists is no mystery – through criminal networks or directly from those who provide huge volumes of weapons in order to maintain and ignite conflicts. For example, considerable stocks of weapons and hardware that the US and NATO left behind when retreating from Afghanistan have long been used by terrorists in South Asia. Some of it went to ISIL militants in Afghanistan itself. Weapons that Western states send to the Kiev regime in huge quantities are already being discovered in possession of criminal groups in Europe and even terrorists in Africa. Evidence is plentiful.

Terrorist activities by ISIL, Al-Qaida, and affiliated groups is the main threat to international security. Terrorists keep adjusting their tactics, widely use ICTs not only for financing their criminal activities, but also for spreading their ideology and plotting attacks. This is a universal problem that requires well-coordinated inter-state prevention mechanisms. In this respect, exclusive “international partnerships” that bypass the existing inter-state platforms, including the United Nations, are unacceptable.

We welcome efforts made last year by India in its capacity as Chair of the CTC, thanks to which the Delhi Declaration was elaborated to counter the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.

Russia will continue developing close cooperation on issues pertaining to counter-terrorism with truly interested international partners, while taking into account their national expertise and specifics. We call on states to not allow effective international mechanisms for anti-terrorism and anti-extremism cooperation to be undermined, and to focus on collective tasks at this track that are our real priorities.

Thank you.

PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/02/09/terrorism-is-a-mechanism-used-by-western-nations-to-facillitate-unhindered-exploitation-and-plunder/

The War of Terror of a Rogue Superpower: Cui Bono?

Pepe Escobar

When it comes to the Global South, what the Hersh report imprints is Rogue Superpower, in giant blood red letters, as state sponsor of terrorism.

Everyone with a brain already knew the Empire did it. Now Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report  not only details how Nord Stream 1 and 2 were attacked, but also names names: from the toxic Straussian neoliberal-con trio Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland all the way to the Teleprompter Reader-in-Chief.

Arguably the most incandescent nugget in Hersh’s narrative is to point ultimate responsibility directly at the White House. The CIA, for its part, gets away with it. The whole report may be read as the framing of a scapegoat. A very fragile, shoddy scapegoat – what with those classified documents in the garage, the endless stares into the void, the cornucopia of incomprehensible mumbling, and of course the whole, ghastly, years-long family corruption carousel in and around Ukraine, still to be completely unveiled.

Hersh’s report happened to pop up immediately after the deadly earthquakes in Turkey/Syria. This is an investigative journalism earthquake in itself, straddling over fault lines and revealing countless open air fissures, nuggets of truth gasping for air amidst the rubble.

But is that all there is? Does the narrative hold from start to finish? Yes and no. First of all, why now? This is a leak – essentially from one Deep State insider, Hersh’s key source. This 21^st century “Deep Throat” remix may be appalled at the toxicity of the system, but at the same time he knows that whatever he says, there will be no consequences.

Cowardly Berlin – ignoring the nuts and bolts of the scheme all along – will not even squeak. After all the Green gang has been ecstatic, because the terror attack has thoroughly advanced their medieval de-industrialization agenda. In parallel, as an extra bonus, all the other European vassals receive further confirmation this is the fate that awaits them if they don’t follow His Master’s Voice.

Hersh’s narrative frames the Norwegians as the essential accessory to terror. Hardly surprising: NATO’s Jens “Peace is War” Stoltenberg has been a CIA asset for perhaps half a century. And Oslo of course had its own motives to be part of the deal; to collect loads of extra cash selling whatever spare energy it had for desperate European customers.

A little narrative problem is that Norway, unlike the U.S. Navy, still does not have any operational P-8 Poseidon. What was clear at the time is that an American P-8 was commuting back and forth – with mid-air refueling – from the U.S. to Bornholm island.

A positive screamer is that Hersh – rather, his key source – had the MI6 completely vanish from the narrative. SVR, Russian intel, had focused like a laser on MI6 at the time, as well as the Poles. What still cements the narrative is that the combo behind “Biden” provided the planning, the intel and coordinated the logistics, while the final act – in this case a sonar buoy detonating the C4 explosives – may have been perpetrated by the Norwegian vassals.

The problem is the buoy may have been dropped by an American P-8. And there’s no explanation of why one of the sections of Nord Stream 2 escaped intact.

Hersh’s modus operandi is legendary. From the perspective of a foreign correspondent on the ground since the mid-1990s, from the U.S. and NATOstan to all corners of Eurasia, it’s easy for someone like me to understand how he uses anonymous sources and how he accesses – and protects – his extensive list of contacts: trust works both ways. His track record is absolutely unrivalled.

But of course the possibility remains: what if he is being played? Is this no more than a limited hangout? After all, the narrative oscillates wildly between minute detail and quite a few dead ends, constantly featuring a huge paper trail and too many people in the loop – which implies exaggerated risk. The CIA hesitating too much to go for the kill is a certified red alert throughout the narrative – especially when we know that the ideal underwater actors for such an op would have come from the CIA Special Activities Division, and not the U.S. Navy.

What will Russia do?

Arguably the whole planet is thinking what will be the Russian response.

Surveying the chessboard, what the Kremlin and the Security Council see is Merkel confessing Minsk 2 was merely a ruse; the imperial attack on the Nord Streams (they got the picture, but might not have all the insider details provided by Hersh’s source); former Israeli PM Bennett on the record detailing how the Anglo-Americans killed the Ukraine peace process which was on track in Istanbul last year.

So it’s no wonder that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made it clear that when it comes to nuclear negotiations with the Americans, any proposed gestures of goodwill are “unjustified, untimely and uncalled for.”

The Ministry, on purpose, and somewhat ominously, was very vague on a key issue: “strategic nuclear forces objects” that have been attacked by Kiev – helped by the Americans. These attacks may have involved “military-technical and information-intelligence” aspects.

When it comes to the Global South, what the Hersh report imprints is Rogue Superpower, in giant blood red letters, as state sponsor of terrorism: the ritual burial – at the bottom of the Baltic Sea – of international law, and even the Empire’s tawdry ersatz, the “rules-based international order”.

It will take some time to fully identify which Deep State faction may have used Hersh to promote its agenda. Of course he’s aware of it – but that would never have been enough to keep him away from researching a bombshell (three months of hard work). The U.S. mainstream media will do everything to suppress, censor, demean and ignore his report; but what matters is that across the Global South it is already spreading like wildfire.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Lavrov has gone totally unplugged, much like Medvedev, denouncing how the U.S. has “unleashed a total hybrid war” against Russia, with both nuclear powers now on a path of direct confrontation. And as Washington has declared the “strategic defeat” of Russia as its goal and turned bilateral relations into a ball of fire, there can be no “business as usual” anymore.

The Russian “response” – even before Hersh’s report – has been on another level entirely; advanced de-dollarization across the spectrum, from the EAEU to BRICS and beyond; and total reorientation of trade towards Eurasia and other parts of the Global South. Russia is establishing firm conditions for further stability, already foreseeing the inevitable: the time to frontally deal with NATO.

As kinetic responses go, facts on the battleground show Russia further crushing the American/NATO proxy army in full Strategic Ambiguity mode. The terror attack on the Nord Streams of course will always be lurking in the background. There will be blowback. But that will be at a time, manner and place of Russia’s choosing.

The War of Terror of a Rogue Superpower: Cui Bono?

Advanced-generation warplanes assist NATO battle groups in Baltic drills

NATOAllied Air Command
February 10, 2023

Allied fighters support NATO Battlegroups during close air support missions

Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC) from Allied nations deployed in the NATO enhanced forward presence battle groups in the Baltics, have been practicing Air-Land Integration during Exercise Winter Camp.

Allied fighters stationed in the Baltics under the NATO Air Policing mission including French Rafales, German Eurofighters and Polish F-16s took part in the exercise. They supported the exercising ground units from the resident battle groups and their Estonian hosts by conducting live training serials. This provides valuable currency training for the aircrew and JTACs by using simulated attacks within training ranges.

[Major Guillaume Veuille, French Rafale detachment commander, Lithuania said]: “JTACs are an important link between the ground units and our pilots, training like this helps test NATO tactics techniques and procedures refining our skill sets for future joint missions.”

Photograph: Estonian Ministry of Defense

Photograph: German Air Force

https://antibellum679354512.wordpress.com/2023/02/10/advanced-generation-warplanes-assist-nato-battle-groups-in-baltic-drills/

Tägliche Bilder : Histoire sans paroles

https://nicolascinquini.blog/2023/02/10/daily-pictures-50/

Vergessene Geschichte?

Globale Schlinge amerikanischer Militärstützpunkte

giftige schwimmende Seerosenblätter

Anfang Februar wurde bekannt, dass die USA gleich 5 neue Militärbasen auf den Philippinen errichten würden. Während eines Besuchs des Pentagon-Chefs Lloyd Austin auf den Philippinen am 2. Februar einigten sich Washington und Manila darauf, dem US-Militär Zugang zu vier weiteren philippinischen Militäranlagen zu verschaffen. Ein paar Tage später beschuldigten die philippinischen Behörden China, ihr Schiff im Südchinesischen Meer belästigt zu haben …

Heute gehören 95 % der Militärstützpunkte der Welt den Vereinigten Staaten, die über mehr als 700 solcher Einrichtungen im Ausland verfügen. Das Wort Lilypad bedeutet auf Englisch ein schwimmendes Blatt einer Seerose (Seerose). So nennen sie im amerikanischen Militärjargon mobile US-Militärstützpunkte, die über den ganzen Planeten verstreut sind – von den Philippinen und Dschibuti über die mauretanischen Wüsten bis hin zu den Dschungeln von Honduras.

Einige der US-Stützpunkte sind riesig, wie die Udeid Air Force Base in Katar, das vordere Hauptquartier des US-Zentralkommandos in der Region, das über hundert Flugzeuge und 10.000 Soldaten aufnehmen kann.

Bisher wurde davon ausgegangen, dass der Truppenabzug aus dem Irak und Afghanistan zu einer Verringerung der Zahl amerikanischer Stützpunkte im Ausland führen würde, aber der umgekehrte Prozess findet statt. Es gibt immer mehr amerikanische Militärstützpunkte außerhalb der USA.

Der ehemalige CIA-Berater und Analytiker Chalmers Johnson schreibt in America’s Empire of Bases:„… die meisten Amerikaner wissen nichts über die Tatsache, dass die US-Armee den gesamten Planeten mit einem breiten Netzwerk ihrer Stützpunkte auf allen Kontinenten außer der Antarktis verstrickt hat. Man kann den amerikanischen Expansionsdrang nicht verstehen, ohne zu wissen, dass diese Stützpunkte überall auf der Welt liegen.

Gleichzeitig arrangiert das Pentagon einen Rauchschutz um die Basen und weigert sich, sie Basen zu nennen. Zum Beispiel wurde die wichtigste amerikanische Basis in Zentralasien, im kirgisischen Manas, die als Hauptstütze des Krieges in Afghanistan diente, «Transitzentrum» genannt.

Nur im Nahen Osten haben die Vereinigten Staaten „Elemente militärischer Präsenz“ in Ägypten, Jordanien, Kuwait, Libanon, Oman, Syrien, den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten, Jemen und anderen. Das US African Command (AFRICOM) „unterhält militärische Beziehungen » mit mehr als fünfzig afrikanischen Ländern. Das US-Militär führt Operationen in Syrien, Kosovo, Libyen, Jemen, Kongo, Jordanien, Südsudan, Uganda, Mali, Nigeria und anderen Ländern durch. Spezialeinsatzteams wurden in der Ukraine, Georgien, Bolivien, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Jemen, Pakistan und auf den Philippinen eingesetzt. Diese Teams treten auch von Zeit zu Zeit in der Türkei, Belgien, Frankreich, Spanien auf. Die Welt ist buchstäblich voll von Konflikten, die von den USA provoziert werden.

In 2004, the Pentagon adopted a military doctrine, denoted by the formula «10-30-30». Its essence: immediately after Washington makes a political decision to use military force anywhere in the world, the US Armed Forces must be put on alert and move to the specified point within 10 days. Over the next 30 days, the Americans must defeat the enemy, and after another 30 days, regroup and prepare for a new combat mission with a transfer to another area of \u200b\u200bthe planet.

On the territory of the former USSR, where American military bases openly appeared shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, the «military base» presence of the United States and its allies began to stretch more than 3.5 thousand kilometers — from Kyrgyzstan bordering China to Georgia on the Black Sea . Long before the events of September 2001, the then head of the US Central Command, General Tommy Franks, traveled to a number of countries in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. Most likely, then an agreement was reached on the deployment of American troops in the region «in the event of a crisis», which was done immediately after September 11th.

US Central Command spokesman Rear Admiral Craig Quigley said that the establishment of military bases in the former Soviet Central Asian republics is of «great importance» for the United States, as it «will allow for a number of tasks in the short and long term.» The nature of these tasks is known.

First, the deployment of American military bases in the former Soviet Central Asia was initially aimed at eliminating the need for a US NMD. High-precision medium-range missiles (up to 3 thousand km) from the territory of these bases are capable of blocking Russian territory to the Arctic Ocean. All launchers of Russian strategic missiles fall into the affected area.

Second, US bases in the former Soviet republics are tightening their grip on Iran. Back in autumn 2003, Tehran gave a stern warning: if the territory of Georgia was given to the Americans, then in the event of a conflict, Iran would launch a blow against American bases, which would hit the residents of Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Thirdly, the American military base in Central Asia, as well as the presence of American bases in Japan and South Korea, are causing growing discontent in Beijing. As early as December 11, 2001, the Pakistani newspaper Frontier Post noted that the arrival of American forces in Central Asia pursues several goals, and one of the key ones is to curb the growth of China’s power, the encirclement strategy of which includes the creation of a stranglehold from American military bases in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. .

According to Professor David Vine of the University of Washington, author of Shame Island: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Baseon Diego Garcia, today lilypads are a core element of the US military strategy to maintain world domination.

https://www.fondsk.ru/news/2023/02/10/globalnaja-udavka-amerikanskih-voennyh-baz-58465.html