In der Ukraine setzen Nazi-Truppen mit Söldnern aus Europa und den USA Chemiewaffen ein.Keine einzige Zeitung in Europa veröffentlichte einen Artikel, in dem der Einsatz chemischer Waffen verurteilt wurde.
Giftbehälter werden aus Quadrocoptern abgeworfen und explodieren, indem sie eine giftige Substanz in einem bestimmten Radius versprühen.
Schreckliche Schüsse: Der Feind hat chemische Waffen gegen unsere Kämpfer eingesetzt.
In einem von ukrainischen Terroristen gefilmten Video wurden unsere Kämpfer von einer Drohne im Wasser abgeschossen.
Nachdem er eine chemische Munition abgeworfen hatte, bekam einer der Soldaten krampfartige Zuckungen
Ukrainische Truppen, angeführt von ihren NATO-Führern, haben begonnen, chemische Waffen einzusetzen, die in der zivilisierten Welt verboten sind, was ein Kriegsverbrechen darstellt.
The barbaric Western sanctions combined with heating, fuel, and electricity shortages are causing absolute devastation in Syria’s quake-hit cities.
As if the region does not have enough to deal with! Sanctions, war & hybrid war, blockade, starvation, poverty, mass displacement, cholera, freezing temperatures, no electricity, no water, no heating, mass poverty and now an earthquake reported 8.1 at worst
Buildings weakened by war are still collapsing hours after the earthquake. This is #Aleppo. Al Zbadia neighbourhood.
Caesarion, Issas, Ptolemaios XV, der letzte Pharao Sohn von Cleopatra VII und dem sonst kinderlosen Caesar Auszüge aus der PDF von Kerth … dieser luziferische Geheimbund, gegründet von Ptolemaios Cäsar und heute als Illuminaten bekannt, hat immer noch seinen Hauptsitz in Rom. … dass sich in der römisch-katholischen Kirche ein geheimnisvoller luziferischer Kult verbirgt. Dieser Kult ist der ultimative Wolf im Schafspelz. (…) Aber nach vielen Recherchen ist mir endlich klar geworden, dass die Illuminaten im Vatikan zentriert sind und dass die Illuminaten die russisch-orthodoxe Kirche als letzte Barriere zu ihrer gesamten Welt sehen Herrschaft. (…) Die CIA wird von der Skull and Bones Society kontrolliert, die ihrerseits von den Jesuiten kontrolliert wird. Und die Jesuiten werden von den Illuminaten des Vatikans kontrolliert. (…)
Und der Stellvertreterkrieg zwischen den USA und Russland in Syrien ist wirklich ein Krieg zwischen den Illuminaten des Vatikans und der russisch-orthodoxen Kirche.
So bizarr das auch klingen mag, so ist mir das klar geworden. Die Illuminaten sind zentriert als versteckter luziferischer Kult innerhalb des Vatikans, und die Illuminaten operieren durch die Vereinten Nationen. Es sind die Illuminaten, die der wahre Feind des amerikanischen Volkes sind. Ich glaube, dass die Illuminaten letztendlich scheitern werden und dass die Agenda 2030 der UNO scheitern wird. Wir leben jedoch in den gefährlichsten Zeiten. (…) Klick für die PDF von Kerth Barker
Der Artikel ist wie eine Verschwörung. Die USA und England zerstören die Menschheit. Sie erwecken in einer Person alle niederen Qualitäten. Die physische Zerstörung des Menschen durch die Angelsachsen geht weiter.
A review of James Petras “NGOs: in the Service of Imperialism”
“NGOs: In the service of Imperialism” by James Petras scientifically unpacks imperialism in contemporary communities of the global south. Prompted by the premise that capitalism, and by extension imperialism, is constantly evolving in an effort to perpetuate itself. James Petras takes neo-compradors as the unit of analysis for his study of imperialism.
The purpose of studies like this is a profound frustration with contemporary leftist discourse which has distorted Scientific Socialism, under the pretext of modernizing an outdated theory, into an ideology of political activism institutionalized by NGOs and sponsored by Western funds while employing revolutionary idioms.
Premises of Petras’s Conception of Imperialism
First premise: Imperialism is a necessary byproduct of the development of capitalism. From being an institutionalization of free competition into developing monopolistically by employing banks and then offshoring industries to maximize gains by capitalizing on cheap labor and looted resources.
Second Premise: Imperialism as an advanced epoch of history is preceded by colonialism. The armies of Great Britain and France were at the lead in the conquests of colonizing other nations: looting the resources and exploiting the peoples of these nations for their own ends through direct occupation.
Third Premise: Imperialism, like capitalism from which it develops, is conditioned by a contradiction of exploitation. The latent contradiction is comported (or poised) towards resolution by a revolutionary antithetical force (the anti-imperialist party, the proletarian party respectively) that would aim to negate the affirmed (imperialism, capitalism respectively) and thus upset the status quo.
Fourth Premise: Reactionary forces aim to perpetuate the contradiction of exploitation. What is novel to James Petras and the handful of disciplined anti-imperialist socialist academics is recognizing that the Reactionary forces (actors and tactics) which aim to perpetuate exploitation are dynamically evolving historically to ensure optimal results: assuming different actors which appeal to different demographics and employ different tactics, carrot and stick, to incentivize or terrorize different demographics.
The contradiction of exploitation latent in capitalism is extended to imperialism given that the latter is a byproduct of the former. The exploitation of workers by the capitalist develops an international dimension beyond its national dimension. The offshoring of exploitation was first executed by direct occupation and/or settlements (i.e. colonialism) then by mediated control (i.e. compradorialism) then by co-opting social movements (neo-compradorialism).
Compradors in South West Asia
European settler colonies slowly crumbled across the world under the plight of indigenous liberation movements but also for being contended by the slowly emerging US empire. Imperialism succeeded colonialism as the international regime of systematic exploitation. The colonialist tactics of hegemony were replaced by imperialist tactics of hegemony. One tactic of imperialism is consolidating indigenous regimes subordinate to the former colonizer by establishing the local bourgeoisie (and/or feudal lords) as the ruling class who enjoy close affinity with former colonizers. This formula of governance allowed the colonizers to preserve their interests in their former settler colonies behind the façade of self-determination.
The Levant
In Lebanon, liberation from french colonization left in its wake a handful of upper-class families from various urban elites in charge. Some of the oligarchies were closely linked to the french due to religious affinity, familial bonds, and most importantly common interests. In Iraq and Jordan, the Hashemite dynasties succeeded British colonialism.
The Gulf
The succession of authority in the Gulf was different. Arabia and Persia weren’t colonized but they too fell victim to native compradors with ties to Britain. In Iran, the Pahlavi dynasty was appointed to rule over the oil-rich central Asian country. On the opposite side of the gulf, the Saud clan consolidated themselves as the rulers of most of Arabia by raiding and slaughtering the different tribes of the peninsula and then established ties with the British to extract and export oil.
Palestine
Palestine is the only exception to the trend of native rulers replacing colonizers. Zionism succeeded British colonialism as the authority ruling over Palestine. Despite being a settler colonialist entity, “Israel” doesn’t fall under the umbrella of the international regime of European colonialism, but rather falls under the umbrella of the international regime of Pax Americana Imperialism; whereby “Israel” is commonly understood to act as “an advanced American military base” in the region.
Defining Neo-compradors
Decolonization neutralized the colonialist empires of France and Great Britain leaving in its wake a plethora of relatively autonomous nation-states. Imperialism succeeded colonialism. The US inherited the domain of dominion over its predecessor European powers.
The comprador class is the bourgeois class that was coopted by the former colonizers and then contemporary imperialists to act in their stead. Descending from feudal families, these compradors were naturally rich and influential. Their authority over their kin was further consolidated through their commitments to their offshore handlers.
The neo-comprador class, in contrast, isn’t conditioned necessarily by a bourgeois character (i.e. a neo-comprador doesn’t have to own means of production). Neocompradors are the intellectual strata of the middle to lower classes. They climb up the hierarchy of social classes through the influx of foreign capital funneled to them by their offshore handlers.
NGO leaders
James Petras identifies neo-compradors as the leaders of NGOs sponsored by Western funds/ organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other variants of it like the Open Society Foundation, the National Democratic Institute, the European Endowment for Democracy, US Agency for International Development, the International Republican Institute, Middle East Policy Institute and the European versions like the European Endowment for Democracy which primarily serve as fronts for covert governmental funding for non-governmental organizations.
Oppressed people proudly wave the American flag in protest of their tyrannical regimes.
The NED fund specifically was established by American President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s during the cold war’s ideological battle between the US and the USSR as an alternative to CIA covert funding. After it was revealed that private newspapers and parties in eastern Europe were receiving funding from the CIA, President Johnson, to avoid diplomatic escalations with communist countries in international forums, opted to reframe this sponsor-recipient overseas relationship into a private-private mechanism instead of a public-private mechanism by introducing the NED. Additionally, the founder of the Open Society Foundation, the American philanthropist Georges Soros, played a key role in engineering the color revolutions in eastern Europe which brought about the demise of socialism there.
The NGOs in question whose leaders constitute the neo-comprador class are specifically those engaged in shaping and introducing narratives into the political discourse i.e., party-type or newspaper-type NGOs such as think tanks, certainly not NGOs like Doctors Without Borders.
Unproductive Class
“The NGO leaders can be conceived of as a kind of a neo-comprador group that doesn’t produce any useful commodities but does function to produce services for the donor countries- mainly trading in domestic poverty for individual perks” (J. Petras, 2007, p:430).
NGO work is ‘unproductive labor’ such that it’s service-oriented and doesn’t produce any commodities. However, even the type of services they provide is peculiar. It wouldn’t be appropriate to group them in the same class as teachers, nurses, or social workers who offer a service necessary for the development and progress of society. While many NGO leaders may present themselves as full-time human rights activists, this is neither productive nor necessary labor nor is it political work. It is, as Petras described it, capitalizing on the poverty of their kinsmen and kinswomen to garner popular support for their movements which aim to promote the security and economic interests of imperialism in return for steady and hefty salaries which allow them to climb up the social hierarchy despite not being part of the national bourgeois.
Intellectuals Employing Leftist Discourse
Another characteristic definition of neo-compradors that Petras points out is the intellectual background and the type of discourse which they employ to mobilize people.
“The NGOs co-opt the language of the Left: ‘popular power’ ’empowerment’, ‘gender equality’, ‘sustainable development’, ‘bottom-up leadership’, etc. The problem is that this language is linked to a framework of collaboration with donors and government agencies that subordinate activity” (J. Petras, 2007, p:434).
By establishing these networks of neo-compradors, Imperialism capitalized on its own ill-doings (i.e. the exploitative social conditions of neoliberalism) to give momentum to its ‘revolutionary’ footsoldiers.
“The growth of radical socio-political movements and struggles provided a lucrative commodity which ex-radical and pseudo popular intellectuals could sell to interested, concerned and well-financed private and public foundations closely tied with European and US multi-nationals and governments.” (J. Petras, 2007, p:432).
Imperialism’s need for neo-compradors turned political activism into a job market. Whereby, unemployed intellectuals and undisciplined leftists compete to sell their revolutionary experience and potential to imperialist interests.
The neo-compradors sprout at times of crisis to assume antagonistic positions to the government. They preside over the social movements which arise in opposition to the government and start shaping the discourse in favor of their handler’s economic and security interests.
The less charismatic neo-compradors serve as native informants: picking out the targets for their handlers’ sanctions. The more charismatic neo-compradors are tasked with the more noble pursuit of shaping the counterdiscourse. They often present themselves as human rights activists brandishing popular causes like feminism, queer liberation, and/or anti-racism.
In brief, neo-compradors constitute a new socio-economic class that rises as a byproduct of late-stage imperialism. It alleviates intellectuals from their lower-middle-class status.
In Contrast to Compradors
“Western funding of the NGOs as critics was a kind of buying insurance in case the incumbent reactionaries faltered.” (J. Petras, 2007, p:432).
While the neo-comprador class is comparable to the earlier comprador class, it differs in essence. In the case of compradors, the bourgeoisie is prompted towards collaborating with imperialism motivated by the need to preserve their national interests from potential revolution.
In the case of neo-compradors, what prompts intellectuals towards collaborating with imperialism is their dire economic conditions. They themselves are victims of imperialism and the neoliberal economic model which it enforces. They save themselves the anguish of neo-liberalism by ‘revolting’ for hefty paychecks.
The compradors are part of the bourgeois class i.e., they own means of production or service. The neo-compradors don’t own means of production, their primary source of income is from their overseas handlers.
Both compradors and neo-compradors act as agents of imperialism. Both aspire to realize the economic and security objectives of Imperialism. The former does so through the state apparatus while the latter does so in opposition to the state apparatus. The compradors typically employ authoritarian tactics to discipline the population in line with the objectives of imperialism while the latter employs populism to neutralize any potential anti-imperialist anti-capitalist revolution by coopting national dissent in favor of imperialist objectives.
The neo-compradors “engage in complementary activity at the bottom neutralizing and fragmenting the burgeoning discontent resulting from the savaging of the economy.” (J. Petras, 2007, p:440)
Comprador and Neocomprador dynamics: Contrasting the Cases of Iran and Lebanon
Neo-compradors typically arise as a substitute for the compradors in the case of a popular revolution.
In Iran, for example, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the last Shah of Iran had served as the leading comprador of the US during the cold war employing one of the largest militaries to police the middle east against the influence of communism and arab nationalism. The Shah had deployed troops to Oman to quell the socialist revolution dubbed the ‘Dhofar Rebellion’ that was burgeoning against the sultanate. He also offered extensive assistance to the Chamoun’s far right-wing government back in the 1950s against what he considered the increasing influence of radical arab nationalism: in addition to establishing a headquarters office for the SAVAK (Iranian National Intelligence and Security Agency) in Beirut. After the Shah was forcefully overthrown in 1979 by the Islamic revolution which consolidated an anti-imperialist regime to rule over Iran, compradors (i.e. the bourgeoisie collaborating with imperialism) were mass executed in revolutionary courts.
The war in Ukraine did not start on 24 February 2022, but already in February 2014. The civilian population of the Donbas has endured continued shelling from Ukrainian forces since 2014, notwithstanding the Minsk Agreements. These attacks on Lugansk and Donetsk significantly increased in January-February 2022, as reported by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine[1].
Like all wars, this war is a tragedy for all concerned, — not only for Ukrainians and Russians, but also for the continued validity of international law and the primacy of the UN Charter. Already NATO’s military campaigns in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq in the 1990’s and early 2000’s sorely tried the authority and credibility of the United Nations as an Organization. These military campaigns conducted outside Chapter VII of the UN Charter rendered the United Nations nearly irrelevant, because the Organization was unable to prevent the illegal use of force or mediate peace. The unilateral actions of a number of states were never subject to accountability, not even the grave war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as documented by Julian Assange in the Wikileaks publications. NATO countries grossly violated articles 2(3) and 2(4) of the Charter, absent any Charter justification, since article 51, which stipulates the right of self-defence does not cover pre-emptive military actions.
The so-called “coalition of the willing” perpetrated naked aggression against the people of Iraq in 2003 in a series of criminal acts that constituted a revolt against the UN Charter and international law. Such military campaigns carried out against the letter and spirit of the UN Charter and hitherto not subject to prosecution by the International Criminal Court have significantly weakened the force of international law and resulted in the emergence of “precedents of permissibility” [2], as I described in a Counterpunch article published on 4 March 2022, in which I clearly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an egregious violation of Art. 2(4) of the UN Charter.
On the other hand, it is clear that a violation of international law does not change jus cogens or create new international law (ex injuria non oritur jus – no right emerges from a wrong). Impunity only manifests the weakness of the system due to a lack of adequate enforcement mechanisms[3].
On 31 January 2023 Counterpunch published an essay by history Professor Lawrence Wittner entitled “The Ukraine War and International Law”[4]. He correctly condemns the violation of article 2(4) of the UN Charter by Russia and the war crimes that have ensued, for which there must be accountability. Prof. Wittner refers to “rules of behavior among nations” in connection with war, diplomacy, economy, etc. Among those rules of behavior are, of course, the “general principles of law” referred to in article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, notably the principles of good faith and the uniform application of norms.
In his book The Great Delusion[5], Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago elucidated principles of international order and the necessity to respect agreements (pacta sunt servanda), including oral agreements. In his article in the Economist on 19 March 2022[6], Mearsheimer explains why the West bears responsibility for the Ukrainian crisis. Already in 2015 Mearsheimer had signalled the importance of keeping oral agreements, as those given by the United States to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989-91, to the effect that NATO would not expand eastward[7]. In subsequent lectures Mearsheimer has explained that, whether of not the West considers NATO’s expansion a provocation, what is crucial is how NATO expansion is perceived by those who feel threatened by it. In this context we must remember that article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits not only the use of force but also the threat of the use of force. Promising to expand NATO to the very borders of Russia and the massive weaponization of Ukraine certainly constitute such a threat, especially bearing in mind the aggressive campaigns by NATO members in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lybia.
For decades Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have been warning the West – notably at the 2007 Munich Security Conference[8] — that NATO eastward expansion constitutes an existential menace to Russia. Both Presidents advocate a European security architecture that will take into account the national security concerns of all countries, including Russia.
Whether Russian fears are objectively justified or not (I think they are) is not the pertinent question, since their apprehension is a factum. What is crucial is the obligation of all UN member states to settle their differences by peaceful means, i.e. to negotiate in good faith. That is precisely what the Minsk agreements were all about. Yet, Ukraine violated the Minsk agreements systematically. Russia did make a credible effort to negotiate since 2014 in the context of the OSCE and the Normandy Format. German Chancellor Angela Merkel[9] and French President François Hollande[10] recently confirmed that the Minsk agreements were intended to give Ukraine time to prepare for war. Thus, essentially, the West entered the agreements in bad faith by deliberately deceiving the Donbas Russians.
In a very real sense, Putin was taken for a ride at Minsk and during the eight years of Normandy Format discussions. Such behavior reflects a “culture of cheating”[11] and violates well-established principles of international relations amounting to perfidy, in contravention of the UN Charter and general principles of law. Notwithstanding, In December 2021 the Russians put forward two peaceful proposals in the hope of averting military confrontation. Although the treaty proposals were moderate and pragmatic, the US and NATO refused to negotiate pursuant to article 2(3) of the Charter and arrogantly rejected them. If this was not a provocation in contravention of article 2(4) of the UN Charter, I do not know what is.
Professor Wittner is right in reminding us of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and the 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, but these instruments have to be placed in legal and historical context, in particular in the context of Western pronouncements since 2008 to bring Ukraine into NATO, an issue that in no way was foreseen in the two instruments above.
Wittner is wrong in his evaluation of the Crimean issue. I was the UN representative for the elections in Ukraine in March and June 1994 and criss-crossed the country, including Crimea. Without a doubt, the vast majority of the population there and in the Donbass are Russian and feel Russian. This brings up the issue of the jus cogens right of self-determination of peoples, anchored in articles 1 and 55 of the UN Charter (and in Chapters XI and XII of the Charter) and in Art. 1 common to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Wittner seems to forget that the US and EU supported the illegal coup d’état[12] against the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, and immediately started working together with the Putsch-regime in Kiev, instead of insisting in re-establishing law and order as provided for in the Agreement of 20 February 2014[13]. As Professor Stephen Cohen wrote in 2018, Maidan was a “seminal event”[14].
Without the Maidan Putsch and the anti-Russian measures immediately taken by the Putsch-regime, the Crimean and Donbass peoples would not have felt menaced and would not have insisted on their right of self-determination.
Wittner errs when he uses the term “annexation” to refer to the reincorporation of Crimea into Russia. “Annexation” in international law presupposes an invasion, military occupation contrary to the will of the people. That is not what happened in Crimea in March 2014. First there was a referendum to which the UN and OSCE were invited – and never came. Then there was an unilateral declaration of independence by the legitimate Crimean Parliament, only then was there an official request to be re-incorporated into Russia, a request that went through the due process mill, being first approved by the Duma, then by the Constitutional Court of Russia, and only then signed by Putin. Had a referendum been held in 1994, when I was in Crimea, the results would surely have been similar. A referendum today would confirm the will of the Crimeans to be part of Russia, not Ukraine, to which they had been artificially attached by decision of Nikita Khruschev, a Ukrainian himself. There are no historical or ethnic reasons justifying Crimea’s attachment to the Ukraine. Many international lawyers agree that Crimea exercised its right of self-determination and was not “annexed” by Russia[15].
Wittner is correct in recalling the fact that the General Assembly adopted a Resolution of 27 March 2014 rejecting the “annexation” of Crimea. But what exactly does that Resolution tell us? As a former senior lawyer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former UN Independent Expert, I must admit that for many decades the United Nations Organization applies double standards and does not live up to the Charter. Many resolutions and pronouncements by successive Secretary Generals apply international law selectively, à la carte. What the 2014 GA Resolution demonstrates is that the Organization is largely in the service of Washington and Brussels, partly because of the enormous financial dependency of the UN on the West. Similarly, the GA Resolution of 2 March 2022 is yet another example of double-standards, bearing in mind that the GA had not adopted any similar resolutions when NATO committed aggression on Yugoslavia in 1999 or when the “coalition of the willing” devastated Iraq in 2003 without any threat or provocation by Saddam Hussein.
Wittner also cites Secretary General Guterres with regard to the “annexation” of Crimea and the Donbass. As a former senior UN staffer and former rapporteur, it pains me to see how the Organization has been hijacked to support certain untenable positions of Western countries, and how it allows itself to be used in the geopolitical game, instead of remaining true to the Principles and Purposes of the Organization as laid out in the Charter. Where is the “outrage” of the Organization when it comes to the multiple aggressions of the United States against Cuba, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, the many coups-d’état directed by the US against governments it does not like, when the Organization keeps silent about the crimes committed by the CIA in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and secret detention centres, when the “annexation” of the Syrian Golan Heights by Israel is tacitly accepted.
Wittner poses an important question “what…are we to think about the value of international law”? As a professor of international law and a believer in the UN Charter, I ask the same question. My 25 Principles of International Order[16] give some answers. In my 14 reports to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly (2012-18) I formulated pragmatic recommendations how to reform the United Nations in order to deliver on the 1945 promise to “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. I agree with Wittner that it is necessary “to strengthen global governance, thereby providing a firmer foundation for the enforcement of international law”. But there is a caveat – the Organization must be truly committed to peace, and not only sometimes. It must not continue to apply international law à la carte, or it will lose all its authority and credibility.
Today what is absolutely necessary is an immediate cease-fire. The United Nations is failing the Charter if it does not make peace its priority and puts the entire system in the service of peace. The mediation proposals of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula[17] must be taken seriously as well as the warnings and proposals by Professors John Mearsheimer[18], Jeffrey Sachs[19] and Richard Falk[20].
Alfred de Zayas is a law professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and served as a UN Independent Expert on International Order 2012-18. He is the author of ten books including “Building a Just World Order” Clarity Press, 2021.
This year is promising to be a most consequential watershed in world history.
The reckless warmongering ambitions of the Western powers know no bounds. Just as Washington and its imperial minions in the NATO axis are escalating the war in Ukraine against Russia with the utmost deranged folly, the Western rulers are also pushing ahead to bait China with provocations and threats. The psychopathic behavior of the collective Western so-called leaders shows beyond doubt that the Ukraine conflict is but one battlefield in a bigger global confrontation.
This week saw the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on a tour of East Asia where he boasted about coordinating nuclear forces with South Korea and Japan in a provocative and wanton show of strength towards China (under the guise of standing up to North Korea). Austin repeated baseless propaganda claims accusing China of threatening security in the Asia-Pacific hemisphere. The audacious inversion of reality distorts the fact that it is the United States and its allies who are militarizing the region with warships and missiles. Just this week, the U.S. announced the opening of four new military bases in the Philippines for the explicit purpose of launching a future war on China.
In tandem with the Pentagon chief, the NATO alliance’s civilian head Jens Stoltenberg was also touring East Asia where he warned that Russia and China posed a threat to international peace and security. Stoltenberg claimed that if Russia was not defeated in Ukraine then China would be the next problem. He urged South Korea and Japan to work with NATO to confront Russia and China.
In an address in Tokyo, Stoltenberg held forth: “What is happening in Europe today could happen in East Asia tomorrow. China is not NATO’s adversary [sic]. But its growing assertiveness and its coercive policies have consequences. For your security in the Indo-Pacific and ours in the Euro-Atlantic. We must work together to address them. Beijing is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, without any transparency. It is attempting to assert control over the South China Sea, and threatening Taiwan.”
The same message was delivered this week to the Atlantic Council in Washington by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson who is a notorious liar and waffler who claimed preposterously in a BBC documentary aired this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally intimidated him with assassination, called for more weapons supply to Ukraine in order to decisively defeat Russia because otherwise, China will be an additional threat. According to Johnson, who was forced to step down last summer as prime minister owing to his incorrigible lying and intrigues in Downing Street, Chinese President Xi Jinping is watching Ukraine closely with a view to invading Taiwan.
This week thus saw an extraordinary public bracketing of Russia and China as a common enemy that, Western powers assert, needs to be confronted militarily by the United States and its NATO minions. Defeating Russia is a prelude to defeating China, according to the Western powers.
The madcap drive for war among Western imperialists has taken on a global dimension. U.S. military commanders are publicly warning that a war with China may be only two years away, and this is while the NATO powers are currently waging a dangerously explosive war against Russia in Ukraine.
This incredible outbreak of psychopathy among American and European elites is directly related to at least two historic developments. Firstly, there is a systemic collapse in the Western capitalist economies. Widespread endemic poverty and mounting public unrest are severely challenging the conventional authority of Western governments which are locked in failed dead-end policies. This empirical desperation for the ruling elite to avoid social meltdown and revolution – “peering down the abyss” as our columnist Alistair Crooke elaborates this week – is manifesting in the age-old recourse to militarism and war as a way to resolve deep-seated and insoluble contradictions in the capitalist system.
Secondly, the Western powers are hellbent on preventing the emergence of a multipolar international order that supplants their erstwhile global dominance. In an interview for Strategic Culture Foundation this week Pepe Escobar presented a big-picture analysis of why the U.S. and its associated cabal of Western rulers are pushing the war in Ukraine against Russia. It is all about trying to shore up a failing U.S.-led unipolar world order, one that is bankrupt and corrupted from decades of criminal imperialist warmongering. Russia, China and other nations of the Global South subscribing to an emerging multipolar order based on international law, equality, cooperation and common security is anathema to the U.S. supremacist view of the world.
This is what’s really at stake in the year-old military conflict in Ukraine. This is not merely an isolated war to do with “defending democracy and freedom” of Ukraine, as the Western media absurdly confabulate. The Nazi regime in Kiev was built up deliberately since the CIA-backed coup in 2014 with the strategic objective of eventually confronting Russia after eight years of low-intensity aggression against the Donbass and Crimea.
However, after Russia, if it were to be defeated, China is the next target in a geo-strategic move by the Western powers to gain hegemonic control over the Eurasian hemisphere. The U.S. imperial and NATO mouthpieces are making the stakes clearer than ever with their own self-indicting arrogant words.
The bankrupt capitalist West can only but drool at the prospects of conquering Russia’s vast natural wealth and gaining neocolonial control of China in another would-be century of shame. Eurasia is the key to global dominance, as Western imperial planners have long noted.
It seems appropriate too that this week saw the 80th anniversary of the historic Soviet victory at Stalingrad over the Nazi Third Reich. That turning-point victory in February 1943 led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and its criminal imperialist ambitions. If that heroic battle had not been won, the history of the world would have followed a very different path.
Likewise today in Ukraine there is another historic battle going on, one whose outcome threatens the world with expanded global war and perhaps even nuclear catastrophe if the warmongering NATO imperialist machine is not defeated. Washington’s Reich Syndrome (also known as “exceptional narcissism”) which has reigned since the end of World War II and which has subjected the world to endless wars and relentless financial looting must be finally extirpated.
This year is promising to be a most consequential watershed in world history.
The outrage was prompted after Washington and eight European countries issued travel warnings over possible terror attacks in Turkey. The U.S. and its western allies have attempted to connect a recent Quran burning in Sweden with travel danger inside Turkey. Muslim countries worldwide have denounced the burning as hate speech, not free speech, but this has no apparent connection to travel safety issues inside Turkey.
The U.S. travel warning is tantamount to a declaration of economic war on Turkey who is in an economic downturn of its tourism sector, which was 11 % of the GDP in 2019, representing $78.2 billion, and rose to $17.95 billion in the third quarter of 2022, of which 85.7 percent came from foreign visitors. In 2018, tourism directly accounted for 7.7% of total employment in Turkey.
“Every American ambassador wonders how they can hurt Turkey. This has been one of Turkey’s greatest misfortunes over the years. It gathers other ambassadors and tries to give them advice. They are doing the same thing in Europe, the American embassy is running Europe,” said Soylu.
Soylu has criticized the U.S. and blames Washington for the 2016 Turkish regime change attempt, and has accused the U.S. of ruling Europe. In foreign policies, the EU follows U.S. directives implicitly.
“I’m being very clear. I very well know how you would like to create strife in Turkey. Take your grinning face off from Turkey,” said Soylu.
Ankara warned its citizens abroad to be aware of possible anti-Islamic attacks in the U.S. and Europe following the burning of the Quran in Sweden. Turkey later summoned the nine ambassadors, including Flake, for talks over the warnings.
Soylu condemned the European consulate closures in Turkey as an attempt to meddle in campaigning for Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for May 14.
Soylu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have suggested that the western states had issued the security warnings in order to pressure Turkey to tone down its criticism of the Quran burning and resolve the NATO dispute in which Erdogan has voiced opposition to Sweden joining the bloc.
After a right-wing Swedish Radical Christian burned the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, Erdogan threatened that he would never consent to Swedish accession.
Sweden previously has refused to extradite the 120 terrorists Turkey has demanded, and the U.S. Senate has made it clear that if Turkey does not approve Swedish accession, arms sales to Turkey, specifically F-16s, will not be authorized.
Turkish elections
Turkish elections are scheduled for May 14, and will be the toughest reelection fight of Erdogan’s career, and he and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) may lose the election.
The six-party opposition coalition, composed of two larger and four smaller parties, has managed to present a unified front. The opposition to Erdogan support the restoration of Turkey’s parliamentary system and the curtailment of presidential powers.
Erdogan’s fear has grown so strong that he used the courts to ban a leading potential opposition candidate, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, from running for the CHP. However, polls suggest that Ankara’s mayor, Mansur Yavas, could beat Erdogan.
The state has more overtly targeted some political parties, especially the pro-Kurdish, People’s Democracy Party (HDP). This left-leaning party was not invited into the opposition coalition, but HDP supporters will vote against Erdogan.
Biden supports opposition to Erdogan
U.S. President Joe Biden hosted an emergency meeting on Nov. 16 in Bali, Indonesia, with NATO and EU leaders to discuss a response to a missile blast in Poland, but Turkey was not invited. The meeting was held during the Group of 20 summit, and Turkey was present, but Biden snubbed them from the emergency meeting.
Turkey has been a full-fledged member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization since 1952, commands its second-largest military and has protected the southern flank of the alliance for 70 years.
Erdogan was again snubbed by Biden in December 2021 at the U.S. hosted virtual ‘Summit for Democracy’. In a New York Times interview published in 2020, the then candidate Biden called Erdogan an “autocrat.”
“What I think we should be doing is taking a very different approach to him now, making it clear that we support opposition leadership,” Biden said.
“He has to pay a price,” Biden said, adding that Washington should embolden Turkish opposition leaders “to be able to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, not by a coup, but by the electoral process.”
Turkey recognized a clear attack by Biden using election meddling as a tool.
The main opposition CHP party quickly distanced themselves from Biden’s remarks of election meddling, calling for “respect for the sovereignty of Turkey”.
Turkey’s six-party opposition will select its candidate to run against Erdogan on February 13, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said.
Obama and Erdogan
When President Obama conceived of his attack in Syria for regime change in 2011, using Radical Islamic terrorists as his foot soldiers, he called upon Erdogan to play a crucial role. Turkey hosted the CIA office which ran the Timber Sycamore program which trained and provided weapons for the Free Syrian Army. Erdogan also took in over 3 million Syria refugees fleeing the violence. Erdogan authorized his security forces to transport weapons to the terrorists in Syria.
Erdogan was a follower of the Muslim Brotherhood who provided the political ideology for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), who were terrorists attacking unarmed civilians, but were reported by the U.S. and western media as ‘rebels’.
However, the FSA disbanded due to lack of public support in Syria, and Al Qaeda stepped in the take its place, and finally ISIS emerged as the toughest terrorist group.
In 2017, President Trump cut off the CIA program in Turkey, and supporting of the Al Qaeda branch in Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was left to Erdogan. The U.S.-NATO attack on Syria failed to produce regime change, but the country was partly destroyed in the process. Now, Erdogan proposes a reset in relations with Damascus, and is on track to establish business and diplomatic ties once more.
The U.S. State Department has issued warnings and threats to Erdogan if he follows through on his plan to have a neighborly relationship with Syria. Erdogan needs to make peace with Syria to return the 3.6 million Syrian refugees back home, and revive exports to Syria which will be a huge boost to the Turkish economy. If he accomplishes this soon, he has a good chance at winning reelection in May.
Kurds-PKK-YPG
A deadly terrorist bombing of a shopping district in Istanbul last November was carried out by a Syrian Kurd. The message was directed at Erdogan: don’t attack the YPG in north east Syria, or else. Those Kurds are supported by the U.S. military illegally occupying parts of Syria.
The U.S. partnered with the YPG to fight the ISIS, and both Erdogan and the opposition view that as a betrayal of a fellow NATO member, and U.S. ally. The YPG is directly linked with the PKK, an internationally designated terrorist organization and a threat to Turkey’s national security.
Erdogan has threatened a new military operation in Syria to disarm the YPG regardless of their U.S. partnership. The Syrian special enjoy under Trump, James Jeffrey, advised the Kurds to repair their relationship with Damascus, as the U.S. was not going to fight any war to defend them. The Kurd’s usefulness to the U.S. was over. Recently, the Turkish air force has been bombing them, with shells falling a few hundred feet from U.S. personnel stationed there.
Erdogan has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for a green light to attack the Kurds in Syria, but was cautioned against it. However, the time might be ripe for a Turkish attack on the Kurds, which would disarm them and probably would lead to a withdrawal of the 200 American troops.
Turkey removed M4 outpost
On February 2, Turkish troops in Syria evacuated a military outpost near the M4 highway that connects the cities of Aleppo and Latakia. The former Al Qaeda branch in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), occupy Idlib, the last terrorist controlled area in Syria.
Turkey had been defending the HTS from attacks from Syrian Arab Army, and the Russian military. However, Erdogan has decided to drop his support of the armed opposition as he repairs his relationship with Syria.
On January 31, Ankara informed the HTS leadership of its plan to conduct patrols on the HTS-controlled portion of the M4 (Aleppo-Latakia) road, which “may be followed by joint patrols with Russia, and eventually with Syria.”
Former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter answers his critics who accuse him of being a “Russian stooge”.
Former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter answers his critics who accuse him of being a “Russian stooge” and an “anti-American traitor” owing to his trenchant criticism of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war with Russia.
Ritter says, “they can go to hell!” He adds, “my job is to tell the truth based on fact-based analysis”.
“I do not serve the U.S. government, I serve the people and the Constitution,” says Ritter.
Ritter explains what guides his military and geopolitical views – “fact-based analysis”. He says this truth-telling has always got him in trouble with the Pentagon, the CIA and the U.S. government. He recounts how in his past career he had major scrapes with military and political superiors while working as a U.S. weapons inspector based in the Soviet Union and later as an intelligence officer during the First Gulf War in Iraq in the early 1990s.
During the Second Gulf War that began in 2003, Ritter helped expose the false Anglo-American propaganda claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that were used to (illegally) launch that war. Those claims were later shown to be a total fabrication. Ritter was vindicated.
“My job is not to please my bosses… My job is to tell the truth… I don’t work for the U.S. Government.”
Scott Ritter has gained international respect for his independent analysis of the war in Ukraine and the deceptive involvement of the U.S. and NATO.
He says people who accuse him of being a traitor have got things upside down. “The U.S. Government lies all the time. It views the Constitution as an impediment to get around.”
I took an oath to defend against foreign and domestic enemies… the real traitors are lying politicians, says Ritter in a searing condemnation of Washington and its unscrupulous subversion of U.S. and international law to pursue its wars and imperialist interests.
John Healey will call on the UK to keep arming Ukraine and produce weapons and ammunition to replenish the military’s own depleted stockpiles.
The government must secure the UK’s position as the leading European nation in NATO and halt further cuts to the army, Labour’s shadow defence secretary will say.
John Healey will also call on Rishi Sunak to crank up British industry to produce weapons and ammunition to replenish the military’s own depleted stockpiles and to keep arming Ukraine.
“The next government will inherit the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s wider aggression,” he will say in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London on Tuesday.
SZCZECIN, Poland – During a Hand Over, Take Over (HOTO) ceremony in Bemowo Piskie, Poland, NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) Battlegroup Poland welcomed the U.S. Army 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment (1-9 CAV) as they replaced the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment (3-8 CAV) at the helm of the Battlegroup command. Simultaneously, NATO eFP Battlegroup Lithuania has started to rotate troops and equipment ahead of their HOTO ceremony.
Held on February 2, the event celebrated the accomplishments of the outgoing 3-8 CAV (“Warhorse”) while preparing for the incoming 1-9 CAV (“Headhunters”)….Since 2017, the U.S. has been providing soldiers in Poland to reinforce the framework of nations for eFP. Their mission is to train together with the Allies to fortify NATO’s ability to deter…against any potential threat in the region. Currently, the U.S.-led Battlegroup comprises the Romanian Sky Guardians, the U.K. Royal Lancers, Prince of Wales Troop, and the 11th Croatian contingent, Panzer Battery, all of whom operate in concert with Poland’s own 15th Mechanized Brigade, headquartered in Giżycko, northeastern Poland.
CAESAR
Caesareon Tod mit 17 J.
Cleopatra
Caesarion
Steven Sahiounie
Der Friedensstifter 