Sweden Joins NATO’s Emerging War Against Russia
by Eric Zuesse
Sweden, which historically has been a ‘neutral’ country between the U.S. and Russia, is joining the NATO buildup against Russia, allowing NATO to place nuclear weapons in Sweden for an attack against Russia, and, like NATO (of which Sweden isn’t a member) lying about it to their people, and to the world.
The alleged reason for joining the operation is that “Russian aggression against Ukraine breaches international law and challenges the European security order”, according to Sweden’s ‘defence’ minister Peter Hultqvist. He denied nuclear weapons would be part of it.
He also said, “I have sometimes wondered if there has been deliberate disinformation” by opponents of the proposal. (Let him call this report such ‘disinformation’, because I’m going to link here to solid sources that expose his and ‘The West’s’ other vicious lies leading straight to World War III.)
This is being done by Sweden in the leadup to the NATO Summit on July 8-9 against Russia, and in the context of America’s installation on Russia’s borders of weaponry to disable Russia’s capacity to retaliate against a Western blitz-invasion from NATO.
The first successful test of that BMD or “Ballistic Missile Defense” system occurred on 19 May 2016 and constituted a breakthrough in the ability of the United States and its allies to conquer Russia; the test had occurred in Hawaii. Just seven days earlier than that test, the first installation of the system had occurred, which took place in Romania on May 12th. So, U.S. rulers have started to install the ultimate mass-killing system, for the ultimate conquest; it’s the system to block an enemy from defending itself from an invasion. Russia is increasingly surrounded by an expanding NATO, and that expansion up to Russia’s borders is supposed to be accepted by Russia as if it’s not a very aggressive move against Russia. And Sweden’s rulers have decided to be on the winning side of World War III.
The news report on Sweden’s joining this mega-disgusting operation against Russia was published on May 26th, in EU Observer, and added this:
Sweden is also likely to join Nato’s strategic communications centre, Stratcom, in an effort to strengthen the country’s counter propaganda efforts.”
NATO has already been prominently promoting the lie that Russia invaded Ukraine and stole Crimea from Ukraine — which is the basic lie upon which NATO is preparing to invade Russia. Swedish officials are already using that baldfaced lie in order to fool the Swedish public to accept their country’s becoming a staging area for NATO’s buildup to invade Russia (even though Sweden isn’t in NATO) as a measure supposedly to ‘defend’ Sweden and NATO countries from being invaded by Russia. Get that! Since they can’t find any realistic excuse for preparing to invade Russia, the lie that Russia ‘seized’ Crimea suffices.
Here are the facts about this, the West’s Big Lie:
The most important of all parts of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign-policy plan to take over Russia was the one that enabled him to slap economic sanctions against Russia and that enables NATO to treat Russia as an ‘aggressive’ enemy: this is the matter regarding Ukraine and its former peninsula, Crimea, which Russia accepted back into the Russian Federation after Obama’s coup seizing Ukraine had terrified the Crimean people.
Certainly, Obama’s extremely bloody coup in Ukraine isn’t known to most Americans nor to others in The West: the official line, promoted both by the U.S. aristocracy’s government, and by the U.S. aristocracy’s media, and by the media of its associated aristocracies, is that a ‘democratic revolution’ overthrew the democratically elected President of that country, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014. The official line is that this ‘revolution’ arose spontaneously after Yanukovych, on 20 November 2013, had rejected the EU’s offer for Ukraine to join the EU. Not part of the official line is that the U.S. Embassy was already starting by no later than 1 March 2013 to organize the overthrow that occurred in February 2014. Also not part of the official line is that the EU’s membership offer to Ukraine came with a $160 billion price tag, and so was entirely unaffordable. Yanukovych had no real choice but to turn it down.
After all, The West needed an excuse to explain the ‘Maidan democracy demonstrations’ that provided a pretext for the overthrow. If one is starting on 1 March 2013 to organize a fascist coup that’s to occur a year later, then one won’t want to provide the victim (Yanukovych and the Ukrainian people) an offer that will be accepted by him. One will need the offer to be rejected, in order to have a ‘justification’ to overthrow the victim. Such a ‘justification’ was that he was corrupt, but they didn’t mention that all post-Soviet Ukrainian leaders have been corrupt. Another was that Yanukovych had turned down the proposal from ‘the democratic West.’ All of it was lies.
Ukraine is the key in Obama’s plan for four reasons: it’s the main transit-route pipelining Russia’s gas into Europe; it’s also a large country bordering Russia, and thus ideal for placement of American nuclear missiles against Russia; it has (at that time it was on a lease expiring in 2042) Russia’s premier naval base in Sebastopol Crimea, which, for the U.S. to take, would directly weaken Russia’s defenses; and, most importantly of all, the entire case for sanctions against Russia, and for NATO to be massing troops and weapons on and near Russia’s borders to ‘defend’ NATO (now to include Sweden) against Russia, consists of Russia’s ‘aggression’ exhibited in its ‘seizing’ Crimea, and in its helping the residents in the breakaway Donbass far eastern region of Ukraine, Donbass (where the residents had voted 90% for Yanukovych) to defend themselves against the repeated invasions and bombings coming from the Ukrainian government. Crimea is especially important here, because, though Russia refused to accept Donbass into the Russian Federation (and so America’s accusations that the massive bloodshed in Donbass was another ‘aggression’ by Russia was ridiculously false) Russia did accept Crimea.
However, the people in Crimea had voted 75% for Yanukovych and had also wanted to become again a part of Russia, ever since the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 arbitrarily transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. And therefore Russia — not finding acceptable Obama’s soon-to-be seizure of their naval base — supplied protection for Crimeans to be able to hold a peaceful plebiscite on 16 March 2014 in order to exercise their right of self-determination on whether to accept rule by the bloody new Ukrainian coup-regime, or instead to accept Russia’s offer to regain membership (and protection) in the Russian Federation.
97% chose the latter, and Western-sponsored polls in Crimea both before and after the plebiscite showed similarly astronomically high support for rejoining with Russia. But that made no difference in Western countries, because their media never reported these realities but only the official line — as Obama put it:
The days in which conquest of land somehow was a formula for great nation status is [sic] over.”
Although he was there describing actually himself (in his ultimate plan to conquer Russia), he was pretending that it described instead Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, who was merely protecting Crimeans, and, in the process, protecting all Russians (by retaining its key naval base), from an enemy (Obama) whose gift for deceiving the public might have no equal in all of human history.
And that ‘seizure of Crimea’ is actually the pretext upon the basis of which Obama’s NATO alliance is now mobilizing to invade Russia.
Here is how Sweden’s ‘defense’ minister, in his 25 May 2016 Stockholm speech, described his reasons for Sweden to join the Western forces surrounding Russia:
First of all, the security order that was established in Europe after the Cold War is challenged by Russia. The illegal annexation of Crimea is the first example in more than 70 years where one European state has occupied territory belonging to another state using military force. If we allow the annexation to become a status quo we make ourselves guilty of destroying one of the very pillars of the European security order as we know it. We see no signs that Russia has changed its position or have softened that.
Moreover, there are no indications that Russia is planning to leave the Donbass region. Instead, Russia is building up its proxy army there, with 25,000 soldiers and more tanks than any EU Member State has. The intensity of the conflict in eastern Ukraine can be Increased or decreased depending on what best serves the interests of the Kremlin at any given moment.
He alleged that all violations of the Minsk agreement (the agreement regarding the war in Donbass) were from the Donbass side, and none at all from the Ukrainian side — the side that has actually been attacking Donbass — but the evidence clearly contradicts that lie. The residents of Donbass fire back when fired upon. What are they supposed to do? Then he listed Sweden’s military increases, and he said: “We do this from a platform of non-alignment.” He’s as much a liar as Obama is.
The U.S. doesn’t actually need additional military bases in countries such as Sweden. The U.S. already has around 800 military bases in foreign countries, according to researcher David Vine in his 2015 book, Base Nation. But when tightening the noose, every little bit of extra pull helps. And after the coup in Ukraine, America’s aristocracy has been giving an extra yank at every opportunity. And they (actually U.S. taxpayers) pay well for it. Hultqvist will get his. It’s a nice business.
Back in 1990 the precondition (and Western promise) on the basis of which the Soviet and then Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved in 1991 both the Soviet Union and its NATO-mirror the Warsaw Pact, was the promise by the representatives of U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, that if that happened, then NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” — which also turned out to have been a lie.
And the same news-suppression that causes Western publics (such as in Sweden, where this article was even offered as an exclusive to Dagens Nyheter, and was turned down by them) not to know these facts, will now probably cause this news-report to be likewise rejected by virtually all Western ‘news’ media, to all of whom it has been submitted (after its having been declined there). The ones that don’t publish it are sharing in the blame for causing WW III. The few that do publish it will not be to blame for WW III. They all make their choices. (And, if any of them have any allegation to make against this news-report, then any who have honor will publish that allegation, so that the crucially needed public debate can begin, before WW III itself does. The utter lack of that public debate is what’s especially damning against The West.)
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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Can’t see the point of even debating what is blatant propaganda from the mainstream media. Even if you point that out to the unthinking it makes no difference. They (all of us) are going to blunder into a conflict and pay a massive price.
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
Reblogged this on Eurasia News Online.
In response to Frank:-
War Plan UK
A reprint-edition of War Plan UK is now available, click http://www.duncancampbell.org/content/war-plan-uk for more information
By Duncan Campbell
Year: 1983 Pub: Paladin (revised ed.)
Synopsis
Secret civil defence plans stress sealing off roads against refugees, interning protestors and pacifists, and impounding food and fuel supplies.
There will be no rescue and no medical aid for the trapped and dying in the aftermath of a nuclear attack.
Millions will die in nuclear target areas as a direct result of government civil defence policies.
Protection for the ‘privileged few’ – full details of hundreds of bunkers.
‘If all the great trees and much of the brushwood are felled, a forest may not regenerate for centuries. If a sufficient number of the great trees is left, however, if felling is to some extent selective and controlled, recovery is swift. In its way, a nation is like a forest and the aim of war planning is to secure the survival of the great trees’ – THE NORTH EAST THAMES REGIONAL HEALTH AUTHORITY WAR PLAN
War Plan UK is the result of more than five years research into the real face of British civil defence. Duncan Campbell reveals the incredible history of how one government after another has planned to protect itself and survive.
“An unprecedented break in the secrecy surrounding civil defence planning… quotes confidential government documents” – Andrew Wilson THE OBSERVER
“Astonishingly thorough… chilling documentation from official sources.” – Martin Walker, Literary Review
The civil liberties’ implications of nuclear catastrophe are catastrophic, indeed.
Those under a certain age and those over a certain age would not be kept alive.
Most of the contributors to this weblog would probably be left to die or worked to death in special camps.
Those who cannot work to the satisfaction of the authorities, neither shall they eat……
We all have a very real stake in this debate and in this issue…….
This is just for the UK. It cannot be much different in the USA or elsewhere.
Just as an afterthought I wonder what the war-party in Washington and its vassals in Europe have thought through the possible environmental effects of a full scale nuclear exchange. As if we don’t have enough problems with environmental issues now. Here comes the coup de grace.
Federation of American Scientists
Public Interest ReportsSummer/Fall 2015- Volume 68…Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter,…
Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter, and Human Extinction
While it is impossible to precisely predict all the human impacts that would result from a nuclear winter, it is relatively simple to predict those which would be most profound. That is, a nuclear winter would cause most humans and large animals to die from nuclear famine in a mass extinction event similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Following the detonation (in conflict) of US and/or Russian launch-ready strategic nuclear weapons, nuclear firestorms would burn simultaneously over a total land surface area of many thousands or tens of thousands of square miles. These mass fires, many of which would rage over large cities and industrial areas, would release many tens of millions of tons of black carbon soot and smoke (up to 180 million tons, according to peer-reviewed studies), which would rise rapidly above cloud level and into the stratosphere. [For an explanation of the calculation of smoke emissions, see Atmospheric effects & societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts.]
The scientists who completed the most recent peer-reviewed studies on nuclear winter discovered that the sunlight would heat the smoke, producing a self-lofting effect that would not only aid the rise of the smoke into the stratosphere (above cloud level, where it could not be rained out), but act to keep the smoke in the stratosphere for 10 years or more. The longevity of the smoke layer would act to greatly increase the severity of its effects upon the biosphere.
Once in the stratosphere, the smoke (predicted to be produced by a range of strategic nuclear wars) would rapidly engulf the Earth and form a dense stratospheric smoke layer. The smoke from a war fought with strategic nuclear weapons would quickly prevent up to 70% of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Northern Hemisphere and 35% of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Southern Hemisphere. Such an enormous loss of warming sunlight would produce Ice Age weather conditions on Earth in a matter of weeks. For a period of 1-3 years following the war, temperatures would fall below freezing every day in the central agricultural zones of North America and Eurasia. [For an explanation of nuclear winter, see Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences.]
Nuclear winter would cause average global surface temperatures to become colder than they were at the height of the last Ice Age. Such extreme cold would eliminate growing seasons for many years, probably for a decade or longer. Can you imagine a winter that lasts for ten years?
The results of such a scenario are obvious. Temperatures would be much too cold to grow food, and they would remain this way long enough to cause most humans and animals to starve to death.
Global nuclear famine would ensue in a setting in which the infrastructure of the combatant nations has been totally destroyed, resulting in massive amounts of chemical and radioactive toxins being released into the biosphere. We don’t need a sophisticated study to tell us that no food and Ice Age temperatures for a decade would kill most people and animals on the planet. Would the few remaining survivors be able to survive in a radioactive, toxic environment?
It is, of course, debatable whether or not nuclear winter could cause human extinction. There is essentially no way to truly “know” without fighting a strategic nuclear war. Yet while it is crucial that we all understand the mortal peril that we face, it is not necessary to engage in an unwinnable academic debate as to whether any humans will survive.
What is of the utmost importance is that this entire subject –the catastrophic environmental consequences of nuclear war – has been effectively dropped from the global discussion of nuclear weaponry. The focus is instead upon “nuclear terrorism”, a subject that fits official narratives and centers upon the danger of one nuclear weapon being detonated – yet the scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war are never publically acknowledged or discussed.
Why has the existential threat of nuclear war been effectively omitted from public debate? Perhaps the leaders of the nuclear weapon states do not want the public to understand that their nuclear arsenals represent a self-destruct mechanism for the human race? Such an understanding could lead to a demand that nuclear weapons be banned and abolished.
Consequently, the nuclear weapon states continue to maintain and modernize their nuclear arsenals, as their leaders remain silent about the ultimate threat that nuclear war poses to the human species.
Steven Starr is the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Steven Starr
Steven Starr is the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility. He has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Strategic Arms Reduction (STAR) website of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
No doubt the nuclear winter sceptics will come out of their rat-holes along with the climate change deniers. Unless the madness is stopped this is where we are headed.
“No doubt the nuclear winter sceptics will come out of their rat-holes along with the climate change deniers.”
🙂 Well… I’m a bit on the fence on this one, so I’m more like a pigeon (a rat with wings.) I have a friend who’s Head of Science at a local college, and he’s more of a G.W. sceptic than me (not that he’d pass that information on to his students.) He is neither stupid, nor corrupt. Scepticism within science shouldn’t be a crime, but scepticism about vaccination and man made global warming are rather emotive. If the sceptics are wrong, they are potentially facilitating epidemics and environmental destruction. The word ‘denier’ nicely associates sceptics with another taboo; ‘holocaust denial.’
I think there’s a common belief, that global warming sceptics are often taking back handers from the oil industry. Lord Lawson, for example, has investments in fracking. On the other hand, Al Gore has a lot of investments in green technology with former Goldman Sachs Group MD., David Blood (that’s right ,’Blood and Gore!’) The BBC decided to shut down debate, for good of humanity, on the basis of a secret committee. Freedom of information requests were unsuccessful, being countered by some expensive, license-payer funded lawyers. When the committee of 28 finally had it’s list of members leaked, it became apparent that only a handful of the participants were scientists. The Climategate email leaks (dismissed by many as irrelevant) revealed intimidation against sceptical journal editors and academics. Whether man made G.W. is real or not, the fact that many scientists are now self-censoring on this subject, does not lead to scientific objectivity.
Scientific papers are usually hidden behind pay-walls, so general members of the public are usually reliant on the media for guidance, or on pro/anti G.W. websites that have their own biases. Apparently the vast majority of climate scientists support the theory, but there are sceptics about that idea, too. Personally, I don’t trust the MSM at the best of times, never mind when they’re acting in this shifty manner. Then we get the U.N. patronisingly wheeling out Leo de Caprio to bolster the cause (fresh from his first Oscar award) or Obama taking time out to kiss David Attenborough’s arse… Using celebrities to promote agendas is often used in their psy-ops, so that’s reason enough for me start asking questions, alone (and Al Gore gets a Noble Prize like those other heroes; Obama and Kissinger.)
And yet, I think renewable energy is a great idea. It makes sense G.W or no G.W. I believe in equal pay and conditions for women, but I’m not going to swallow the gender politics psy-op whole, because there are quite obviously shadowy forces poisoning the well. Also, bear in mind, if these dickheads are planning Armageddon (and it’s not just more trauma-based mind control) they’re highly unlikely to give a toss, either way.
”The illegal annexation of Crimea is the first example in more than 70 years where one European state has occupied territory belonging to another state using military force.”
In 1974 one part- European state, Turkey, annexed and occupied part of the sovereign state of Cyprus. Occupying Turkish forces are still there forming a garrison of some 35,000 soldiers. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, as it is called, is not, and never has been, recognised as a sovereign state.
And another European state – Yugoslavia – was not just annexed, apart from Kosovo which simply declared independence from Yugoslavia, without so much as a referendum and at the same time in the presence of NATO troops, Yugoslavia was subjected to a 78-day indiscriminate NATO bombing campaign and then finally dismembered. Which state was Yugoslavia threatening. I can’t seem to recall.
Of course none of this counts or even sees the light of day any more.
Hoping many western citizens have viewed this wonderful compilation of modern events. The time is nighe . The New York stock exchange is heavily leveraged to the tune 540 trillion dollars in 2007 it was only leveraged to the tune of 120 trillion dollars. The petrol-dollar is dying most countries are de dollarizing their economies. Beijing,Moscow and Tehran r the only capitols that have a gold backed currency. These events r similar in nature to the build up of the second world war. The anglo-zionist have only three options left . Restructure debt, rite off the debt or of to war we go. Fascism is on the rise through out western so called democracies , regime change seems to be their only solutions to the present problems. The Washington consensus is the fourth Reich and the Nato alliance is the modern day version of the SS storm troopers. Note any country that si weak and does not follow the neoliberal economic model of corporate democracy gets attacked. Venezuela, Brazil, argentina, Syria ,Libya, Ukraine . Russian aggression . Chinese aggression. They must think that we in the west/sheeple r really that ignorant. Beware rise up fight this madness before it will be to late. for humanity is at stake here. Israel has put the rest of the world on hold. Yesterdays news gets wrapped in todays fish. Modern day western societies r a reflection of what Benotto Mussolini wrote about “Lo Stato Corporato” There Corporate State. It is known as the modern manual to western fascism. Have a read it will open ur eyes.
Mr. Zuesse needs to take a writing class or two. Lots of run-on sentences, poor grammar, redundancies, and other things that would get you a big F in any high school English class are ongoing in this article. One sentence has the word Russia in it twelve times.
It also seems to be fear mongering, not mentioning anything about Russia’s excellent military and superior air defenses. If there is actually a vote on whether to start a war with Russia, I am willing to bet most NATO members would vote no, or even quit the alliance, before approving making themselves a staging ground for WW3.
Here is hoping but MSM/propaganda begs to differ. When u hear the rubbish that comes out of our western politicos as well as the think tanks that lobby our politicos it appears that they r set for a world war they want it and need it cause the western economies r bankrupt financially , morally and intellectually. Check the power play with India they way the west is trying to manoeuvre in on the asian area. Philippines comes to mind.
Reblogged this on Susanna Panevin.
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
There are two factors not mentioned which I feel are important.
Firstly, while circling Russia with bases is clearly a US strategy, this is largely redundant in an era when missiles can be fired across continents and from undetected submarines. There is also the possibility of missiles being rained down from Earth orbit too. Surely, the US and its NATO allies realise that if they trigger nuclear conflict – tactical or strategic – with Russia they run a massive risk of having their countries and continents destroyed by a massive retaliatory counter-attack? This is why the term Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is deployed. This fact has not changed.
Secondly, Sweden is not the only country to join NATO in this way. Israel is similarly an indirect NATO member. In the past, Sweden was very much a player in European power politics. Is this an indication of a desire on the part of their politicians to regain their former power status? If it is, it should not be surprising, as countries like Turkey are also hankering after the restoration of their former Ottoman Empire. Israel clearly has designs on expanding its borders at the expense of its neighbours. All this looks like a lot of land-grabbing by a lot of neo-imperialists and neo-colonialists.
I don’t perceive it as explicitly anti-Russian; just pro-imperialist and pro-colonialist in the 21st Century.
There is not much point in grabbing the land of others if it ends up becoming just a nuclear waste land, is there?
One final point: it may also be a bit presumptuous to credit the US with rational foreign policy on anything.
They haven’t stopped making mistakes in this area since World War Two – if not well before that.
All their foreign policy and military adventures have invariably turned to dust in their mouths.
In the process, they have racked up US $ 19 Trillions in debts, which they are incapable of paying back globally.
In essence, they are not just morally and ethically bankrupt but also financially too.
They are the burly village idiots on the global scene – unable to comprehend just how stupid they truly are.
“… There is not much point in grabbing the land of others if it ends up becoming just a nuclear waste land, is there? …”
It’s easier to grab the land of others to steal the resources beneath the soil, if you get rid of the owners first by making their land uninhabitable.
But that would require people working within a nuclear wasteland to extract, process and transport the resources.
The costs involved in monetary and health terms would be astronomical and therefore financially infeasible.
I think there is too much emphasis being placed on the ambitions of an Obama presidency.
He’ll be gone by this time next year.
A Trump presidency may have a completely different outlook.
Dagens Nyheter is the equivalent of The Guardian in Sweden. Originally left of centre, now a neocon shill sheet. The US wants a naval base opposite Kalingrad – step forward Karlskrona. Swedish politicians are cowards, but as the US assassinated Olof Palme and Anna Lindh, they probably have the same mindset as Obama when he likening himself to Martin Luther King if he were to step out of line. Now Swedish politicians are paid servants of the US, like Blair, Carl Bildt is coining it in as an American lackey and ever eager to pipsqueak about Russian aggression.
Such a sad demise from a once proud and neutral country.
Sweden has been quite a player…perhaps as you say, since Olaf Palme. Consider the non-charges against Julian Assange amongst others.
The Assange charges are a joke, Sweden is totally under the US thumb.
Also not part of the official line is that the EU’s membership offer to Ukraine came with a $160 billion price tag, and so was entirely unaffordable. Yanukovych had no real choice but to turn it down.
I have also heard that, as a condition of being considered for EU membership, Yanukovich was going to be required to revive Ukraine’s application for NATO membership–a clear non-starter from his point of view. Again, not a peep about this from the western media.