The US had a great deal going from 1953 to 1979 with the Shah of Iran. For 25 years Iran was a cornerstone of the US usurping the British Empire in the Middle East, following World War Two. Iran was a base for projecting US power in the region, and strategically it bordered the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
I wrote in some detail in Off-Guardian on 29 July about the 15 July arrest by the FBI in Washington DC of a 29 year old Russian national, a postgraduate student in Washington DC and gun enthusiast, Maria Butina.
I was not expecting Maria Butina to be still languishing in solitary confinement in a high-security prison in Virginia awaiting trial as an agent of foreign influence, over four months later. Yet this is what has happened to this unfortunate young aspiring lobbyist for better US-Russian relations.
CJ Hopkins So it appears the privatization of France isn’t going quite as smoothly as planned. As I assume you are aware, for over a month now, the gilets jaunes (or “yellow vests”), a multiplicitous, leaderless, extremely pissed off, confederation of working class persons, have been conducting a series of lively protests in cities and towns throughout the country to express their displeasure with Emmanuel Macron and his efforts to transform their society into an American-style neo-feudal dystopia. Highways have been blocked, toll booths commandeered, luxury automobiles set on fire, and shopping on the Champs-Élysées disrupted. What began as a suburban tax revolt has morphed into a bona fide working class uprising. It took a while for “the Golden Boy of Europe” to fully appreciate what was happening. In the tradition of his predecessor, Louis XVI, Macron initially responded to the gilets jaunes by inviting a delegation of Le Monde reporters to laud his renovation of the Elysée Palace, making the occasional condescending comment, and otherwise completely ignoring them. That was back in late November. …
Or How Big Brother Grips Americans’ Minds to Support Invasions Eric Zuesse On November 29th, Gallup headlined “Democrats Lead Surge in Belief US Should Be World Leader” and reported that “Three-fourths (75%) of Americans today think the United States has ‘a special responsibility to be the leading nation in world affairs,’ up from 66% in 2010. The surge is driven by Democrats, whose belief in this idea has increased from 61% eight years ago to 81% now.” This finding comes even after the lie-based and catastrophic US invasions of Iraq in 2003, and of Libya in 2011 (and of so many others, such as Afghanistan, where the US and Sauds created the Taliban in 1979). Americans — now even increasingly — want ‘their’ (which is actually America’s billionaires’) Government to be virtually the world’s government, policing the world. They want this nation’s Government to be determining what international laws will be enforced around the world, and to be enforcing them. Most Americans don’t want the United Nations to have power over the US (its billionaires’) …
Things are spiralling out of control in Europe, faster than many predicted. Outside of Brexit, there is strong anti-EU feeling in Hungary, Spain, Italy, Greece and France. The EU is in danger of crumbling, and people afraid of losing power are prone to extreme acts of dictatorial control.
How long before the EU truly becomes the authoritarian force that people from both ends of the political spectrum have always feared?
David Lindsay At least once every week, the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley, Jess Phillips, says something that would end the career of a Conservative, or of a Corbyn supporter, or of a man, or of anyone who was not Jess Phillips. Phillips supports the present Israeli Government. She has accused British Pakistanis of importing wives for their disabled sons. Her position on abortion, whatever one may think of that issue, is effectively a call for the full legal integration of Northern Ireland into Great Britain. She is rude and abusive towards Britain’s most prominent black politician, Diane Abbott. Or at least she claims to be; it is possible that she has built her reputation on lying about having used gutter language towards a woman who was old enough to be her mother. Phillips laughs at male suicides, at male cancers, at other men’s health issues, at violence against men, at problems in boys’ educational attainment, and at fathers denied access to their children. She has expressed the desire to stab Jeremy Corbyn. And …
Firas Samuri Another meeting on the Libyan settlement was held in Palermo, southern Italy, November 12-13. The leaders of the warring factions, EU and UN representatives, as well as the parties concerned, took part in the summit. After two days of intense talks, the participants agreed to arrange a new conference in Libya by the beginning of the next year. It’s expected the date of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections would be announced there. On the one hand, the result of the current meeting on Libya is conditional as the talks in Palermo haven’t brought something specific for the Libyans. Since the politicians meet and seek for the ways of resolving the crisis, the nation continues to suffer from the consequence of foreign intervention and Gaddafi overthrow in 2011. On the other hand, Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftar who was in Italy as a private person and met the conference participants on the sidelines. Haftar and Sarraj held an extensive private discussion during the informal talks of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, …
On December 10, the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony will be held in Oslo, the capital of Norway. This analysis will try to look at how the prize fits in the bigger picture, but first, some general background is appropriate:
Norway is a member of NATO and has close ties to the United States and Great Britain. The political, economic and bureaucratic elites are firmly integrated in transatlantic networks, a nexus of economic connections, think tanks, international institutions, media and a thousand other ties that bind. They tend to identify with the liberal wing of the empire, (i.e. the Democrats, not the Republicans), but will work with any US administration. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are selected by the Norwegian parliament, and the Committee is nominally independent.
Alessandro Bianchi’s interview with Andre Vltchek, originally published in L’Antidiplomatico. You can read both parts 1 and 2 in the original Italian here and here. Alessandro Bianchi Let’s start from today’s crisis in the Sea of Azov. The European Union and NATO have given full support to Ukraine after the violation of Russian sovereignty by two Ukrainian vessels. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave his full support to Poroshenko, who declared martial law. What does a country like Italy risk in continuing its accession to NATO? Andre Vltchek: Russia intercepted three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait. The ships had, even according to Ukrainian authorities, several intelligence officers on board, as well as a number of light arms and machine guns. It was clear provocation, as the ships refused to inform Russian authorities about their intentions, and behaved in an aggressive manner. They were passing through Russian territorial waters. Ukrainian intelligence officers were obviously in charge of the entire operation. So, what is really so ‘alarming’ for the West? The ships were stopped, some crew …
Vladimir Golstein We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”Karl Rove Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”Karl Marx History repeats itself twice. First as Marx, then as Marx Brothers; first as Karl Marx, then as Karl Rove.”Vladimir Golstein Karl Marx might have been dreaming of communism, but he analyzed capitalism judiciously and thoroughly. His insights into its mechanisms and principles, such as exploitation, alienation, or complex dialectical relationship between economics, politics, and ideology; his scrutiny of the inherent and dynamic …
by Saker, November 30, 2018, via the Unz Review Petro Poroshenko is in deep trouble. His ratings have been in the single-digit range in spite of a vast propaganda effort, and his latest attempt to create a salvific crisis involving the usual “Russian aggression” has not only failed but appears to be backfiring. It is now becoming abundantly clear that the Ukronazi provocation was not only breathtakingly stupid and irresponsible, but also breathtakingly poorly planned and executed. The documents seized by the FSB on the Ukrainian ships show that the Ukrainian captains were given the order to “covertly” sneak under the Kerch bridge. I have no idea what the Ukronazi junta leaders were thinking, maybe they were drunk or terrified to tell Poroshenko that this was a suicidal mission (most likely he was too drunk to care anyway), but the fact that they could even imagine that three old boats could somehow sneak around the Crimean Peninsula and then covertly pass under the Kerch bridge is just amazing (as is the fact that the crews …
by SouthFront, November 29, 2018 A US contractor accidentally revealed a US military specialist deployment in the combat zones in Ukraine via an Job Advertisement on LinkedIn. Similarly to the Atlantic Council’s report on independence of Eastern European countries, as well as the meeting between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, the posting comes days before the escalation in the Sea of Azov. Mission Essential is a government contractor, which primarily serves intelligence and military clients. It began as the US government’s leading provider of translation and interpretation services. Screenshot provided in case the advert times out or is “accidentally” taken down: The preemptive job advert was posted on November 16th and seeks “linguist candidates who speak Ukrainian to provide foreign language interpretation and translation services to support classified Contingency Operations in support of the U.S. Military in Ukraine.” The formal place of work is Mykolayiv, Ukraine. The port city is also significant, because that is where the US “logistical” naval facility is currently under construction. The advert also …
David Macilwain This is a sequel to “The Poison Paradox – who knew?”, and a logical extrapolation of facts already established “beyond reasonable doubt” on the Salisbury poisonings. In the absence of a properly established scientific inquiry, and tribunal involving all the parties to this dispute, such “unprejudiced speculation” must suffice. It is one of the great contradictions of our society, whose essential operations are now so inextricably linked to technology, that understanding of and respect for “science” is worse than ever before. This ignorance amongst the presumably well-educated Western public extends to almost all the areas of knowledge one can imagine – it is “in-omniscient”. So instead of critical understanding of – say – the Carbon cycle or astronomy, we have the denial of catastrophic climate change and the mythology of hyper-temporal space travel. A recent report that a new planet had been discovered, whose “proximity to Australia” made it of special interest illustrates this cognitive disjunction. At only six light years from Earth it is close in astronomical terms – yet almost 400,000 …
Renee Parsons It is widely rumored that, with sealed indictments pending in the US, Wikileaks founder and publisher Julian Assange may be imminently forced to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy which has provided him safe refuge since 2012. However, after a recent visit to Ecuador, US vice president Mike Pence (representing the Cabal) reached an agreement with the Moreno government acknowledging that forcibly expelling Assange was politically untenable. One can only imagine that if such an expulsion comes to pass, it would likely result in a riot in the streets of London or that drugging Assange and smuggling him out in the middle of the night, under cover of a dark moon would equally result in forceful public demonstrations as well as worldwide condemnation. The Ecuadorians informed Pence they would rather make life inside the Embassy difficult and unsustainable, thereby encouraging Assange to voluntarily vacate the premises. Lots of Luck with that! There is no way to know if an indictment will be personally served on Assange. For Assange to simply walk out the door and …
Unless you move in certain leftist circles, you may not have heard about one of the Russians’ most insidiously evil active measures, an active measure so insidiously evil that it could only have been dreamed up in Moscow, the current wellspring of insidious evil. Its official Russo-Nazi-sounding code name is still being decided on by leftist cryptographers, but most people know it as the “Trumpenleft.”
James George Jatras, October 13, 2018, via Strategic Culture The “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom is often assumed to be one where the once-great, sophisticated Brits are subordinate to the upstart, uncouth Yanks. Iconic of this assumption is the mocking of former prime minister Tony Blair as George W. Bush’s “poodle” for his riding shotgun on the ill-advised American stagecoach blundering into Iraq in 2003. Blair was in good practice, having served as Bill Clinton’s dogsbody in the no less criminal NATO aggression against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999. On the surface, the UK may seem just one more vassal state on par with Germany, Japan, South Korea, and so many other useless so-called allies. We control their intelligence services, their military commands, their think tanks, and much of their media. We can sink their financial systems and economies at will. Emblematic is German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s impotent ire at discovering the Obama administration had listened in on her cell phone, about which she – did precisely nothing. Global hegemony means …
Garry Leech via GreanvillePost, Nov 23rd 2018 For those who have been following Venezuela closely in recent years there is a distinct sense of déjà vu regarding US foreign policy towards that South American nation. This is because Washington’s strategy of regime change in Venezuela is almost identical to the approach it has taken in Latin America on numerous occasions since World War Two. This strategy involves applying economic sanctions, extensive support for the opposition, and destabilization measures that create a sufficient degree of human suffering and chaos to justify a military coup or direct US military intervention. Because this strategy has worked so well for the United States for more than half a century, our elected leaders see no reason not to use it regarding Venezuela. In other words, from Washington’s perspective, its regime change policies towards Venezuela constitute business as usual in Latin America. Despite US rhetoric, this regime change strategy does not take into account whether or not a government is democratically elected or the human rights consequences of such interventions. In …
Today, Sunday November 25, an incident happened in the Black Sea that threatens to seriously escalate the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Details are still unclear but it seems vessels of the Ukrainian navy were fired upon by Russian ships near the Kerch Strait and some Ukrainian service men were injured. Russia says the Ukrainian vessels were behaving in a “dangerous” manner and ignoring “legal demands to stop” . Ukraine claims they were simply attacked without any provocation while attempting to legally navigate the Kerch Strait en route to Mariupol. It appears the Ukraine government may use the incident to impose martial law. How helpful of the Russians to go ballistic for no reason (according to Alec and the MSM) and give #Poroshenko an excuse to declare martial law just when he needs one… https://t.co/5zGuM6VAfH — OffGuardian (@OffGuardian0) November 25, 2018 NATO is responding predictably so far #NATO is closely monitoring developments in the #AzovSea & #KerchStrait, & we are in contact with the #Ukrainian authorities. We call for restraint & de-escalation. Read my …
Eric Zuesse The Post-World-War-II world order was dominated by the one WWII major combatant that had only 0.32% of its population (the lowest percentage) killed by the war: the United States. The Soviet Union’s comparable number killed by the war was the highest — it was 13.7% — 42.8 times higher than America’s. The US was the main force that defeated Japan and so won WWII in Asia. The USSR, however, was the main force that defeated Germany and so won WWII in Europe. The USSR suffered vastly more than did the US to achieve its victory. In addition to suffering 42.8 times the number of war-deaths than did US, the USSR’s financial expenditures invested in the conflict, as calculated by Jan Ludvik, were 4.8 times higher than were America’s financial expenditures on the war. Thus, at the war’s end, the Soviet Union was exhausted and in a much weaker condition than it had been before the war. By contrast, the US, having had none of the war’s battles occurring on its territory, was (by …
Philip Farruggio Yes, we need to finally absolve ourselves, as Amerikans, from the con-job concerning Thanksgiving Day. All the ‘pomp and circumstance’ revolving around this holiday is just that, to quote Ebenezer Scrooge (one month early): Humbug! Of course, even the southern Colonial slaves and Northern ‘indentured servants’ of that era would be thankful to just have a roof over their heads and enough to eat each day. Yet, it was only the slave masters and owners of property and capital who could kneel in their churches or bow in reflected prayer at their lavish dinner tables in true thanksgiving. Amerika 2018 consists of well over 100 million of our citizens who are lucky just to stay head above water financially…perhaps a few paychecks from being out on the street…literally! How many families who live next door to me and to YOU (or maybe YOU yourself the reader) who have to have two (or more?) wage earners full time to just be able to function? How many single parents of even just one child need …
