Scandal mounts over failure by Belgian police to halt Brussels attacks


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Friday saw a series of stunning new revelations of inexplicable lapses of Belgian and allied security forces that helped terrorists evade detection prior to the March 22 Brussels attacks. After the constitution of an all-party parliamentary commission of inquiry Thursday night, a government crisis is emerging in Belgium, which hosts the headquarters of both the European Union and the NATO military alliance. The new revelations involved both the individuals who carried out the Brussels bombings, which cost 31 lives and wounded 270, and Salah Abdeslam, who participated in the November 13 attacks in Paris and was captured by police only on March 18, four months after fleeing to Brussels.

Abdeslam: Underinterrogated. Why? Most other prisoners are beaten to a pulp or tortured relentlessly by the deep state security forces.

Abdeslam: Underinterrogated. Why? Most other prisoners are beaten to a pulp or tortured relentlessly by the deep state security forces.

According to a report by Gilbert Dupont in Dernière Heure-Les Sports, widely taken up in other francophone newspapers, Belgian police were aware of Abdeslam’s location throughout. During four months when he was on the run, described by officials and the media internationally as Europe’s “most wanted man” due to his role in the November 13 attacks, elements in the police forces knew precisely where he was hiding in the Brussels area.

Dupont writes, “Our sources indicate a policeman in Malines had already given, in a December 7 report for the anti-terror section of the federal judicial police in Brussels, the address of 79, rue des Quatre Vents in Molenbeek where Salah Abdeslam was found last Friday. The confidential report (called a RIR, Rapport Informatief Rapport, in official jargon) was not transmitted. It was blocked and stayed stuck for three months at the Malines police.”

Belgium’s police oversight committee (Comité P) is launching an investigation into the matter. It is unclear where exactly the report was blocked and how far up the chain of command it went, however, since Malines police are denying that they blocked, or even saw, the report.

In another remarkable lapse, Le Monde revealed that Belgian police only interrogated Abdeslam for a total of two hours between his capture on March 18 and the March 22 attacks. Having reviewed the investigative transcripts, it wrote that he was interrogated twice, for one hour each time, on March 19, once by police and then once by an investigating magistrate.

The paper observed, “This seems quite short, given the value of the detainee. The interrogations, rather perfunctory and filled with inconsistencies, show that investigators may have missed an opportunity to obtain information which could have prevented the March 22 attacks.”

Abdeslam’s short interrogation was not the only missed opportunity to prevent the March 22 attacks. The El Bakraoui brothers, the suicide bombers on that day, were known to US intelligence and were on US no-fly lists. Turkish officials had identified Ibrahim El Bakraoui as an Islamist fighter to their Belgian counterparts, and Russian and Israeli intelligence told the Belgian government that attacks on Zaventem airport and the Brussels subway were imminent.

Abdeslam is a French citizen. The Francophone world is among the most heavily infiltrated by ISIS and by double agents.

Abdeslam is a French citizen. The Francophone world is among the most heavily infiltrated by ISIS and by double agents.

Initial accounts are emerging on the string of extraordinary lapses through which the Turkish warnings were allegedly overlooked in Brussels. Belgian liaison officers in Turkey did not check their email in a timely way to discover that Turkey had deported Ibrahim El Bakraoui to Europe on suspicion of terrorism in July 2015. Astonishingly, once they notified their superiors at the federal judicial police in Brussels, the superiors did not respond or attempt to track El Bakraoui.

Moreover, when a Belgian court cancelled Bakraoui’s parole in August—the two brothers had been convicted of armed robbery—there was no attempt to find him, even though he had been missing meetings with parole officers ever since May and had been deported by Turkey as a terrorist in July.

Such accounts underscore that official explanations for the Brussels bombings circulating in the European press are rubbish. The extent of official foreknowledge of the attacks and the key role of police and judicial misconduct in shielding the attackers makes clear that the failure to prevent the attacks cannot be attributed to a lack of intelligence sharing between different agencies and states.

The key element is that the El Bakraoui brothers, Abdeslam, and their accomplices were all part of a broad network working to recruit and send Islamist fighters from Europe to the Middle East, to fight in the imperialist proxy war for regime change in Syria. These networks were tolerated by police and security officials of the NATO countries, which saw them as an important policy tool.

Significantly, Turkish officials who spoke to the Guardian charged that European governments also used these networks to export European Islamists to the battlefields of Syria.

The emerging…accounts underscore that official explanations for the Brussels bombings circulating in the European press are rubbish. The extent of official foreknowledge of the attacks and the key role of police and judicial misconduct in shielding the attackers makes clear that the failure to prevent the attacks cannot be attributed to a lack of intelligence sharing between different agencies and states.

“We were suspicious that the reason they want these people to come is because they don’t want them in their own countries. I think they were so lazy and so unprepared and they kept postponing looking into this until it became chronic,” said a source described by the Guardian as a senior Turkish security official.

The close integration of these Islamist networks with security agencies of the NATO powers, including Belgium, underlies a whole spate of Islamist terror bombings. This ranges from last year’s terror shootings in Paris to the September 11, 2001 attacks, that flowed from the long collaboration between the CIA and the precursors of Al Qaeda to topple the Soviet-backed Afghan government in the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s.

While the public was kept in the dark about the ties between security agencies and the Islamist forces, governments exploited such attacks to press for unpopular, antidemocratic policies, from the bloody Middle East wars of the US “war on terror” to the current state of emergency in France. Precisely because such operations play a central role in US and European politics, the emerging political crisis in Belgium over police responsibility for the attacks is provoking deep concern in imperialist circles internationally.

Yesterday, US Secretary of State John Kerry made a hastily scheduled stop in Brussels, on his return trip from talks on Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, to cynically dismiss the investigations and criticisms of the Belgian state as “carping.”

“People are jumping to conclusions,” Kerry stated at the residence of the US ambassador in Belgium. “I don’t know what all the circumstances were, I don’t know if some events or evidence or opportunities were missed specifically. That will come over a period of time. But I think all this carping four days later is a little bit frantic and inappropriate.”


 

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President Trump? US War Machine Rolls On


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There’s little doubt that, as president, Hillary Clinton will enact the same sorts of disastrous and criminal policies that her predecessors of both parties have pursued. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is being lauded by many as a much needed change in terms of US foreign policy, someone whose ideas and actions will be guided by a very different understanding of the world. With one breath Trump talks about wanting to “get along with Russia,” and with another proclaims the need to “punish China” for what he describes as currency manipulation and aggression in the South China Sea.

The difficulty in ascertaining just what sort of foreign policy Trump would pursue has led many international observers to wonder aloud whether a Trump presidency might not be the best thing for world peace.


Indeed, when it comes to the Middle East and issues as complex as international terrorism, Syria, and Israel-Palestine, there has been speculation that Trump might in fact be something of a non-interventionist, someone who would focus on US domestic problems and rein in US aggression around the world.

But there is no reason to wonder anymore as Trump recently revealed to the Washington Post some of his core advisers on foreign policy. And, to put it bluntly, a Trump presidency means little more than a continuation of US aggression, criminality, and imperialism.

Who’s Who in Trump’s Foreign Policy Inner Circle?

If, as the old adage goes, you are known by the company you keep, then we already know what to expect from a Trump presidency. While The Donald did not provide a complete list of his advisers, just the small sampling should give pause to anyone who has become enamored of the idea that Trump would tone down US foreign policy.

Walid Phares: part of the neocon vermin that infests the current US foreign policy establishment—a totally bipartisan phenomenon.

Walid Phares: A Lebanese-descent neocon “adviser”, part of the neocon/zionazi vermin that infests the US foreign policy establishment—a totally bipartisan phenomenon.

First up for scrutiny is Walid Phares, perhaps the most well known of Trump’s foreign policy team. Phares is a regular commentator on FOX News where he generally espouses more or less the same policies as any typical Washington neoconservative. Indeed, his pedigree and history place him squarely in the aggressive neocon camp, including as one of the main advisers (along with notable neocons Robert Kagan, Eliot Cohen, Eric Edelman, et al) to Mitt Romney in his failed 2012 presidential campaign.

Phares spent a decade as a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a well known neoconservative (oxymoronically named) think tank long since understood as pro-Israel, and widely regarded as part of the influential Israel Lobby. In fact, FDD president and founder Clifford May described the group’s mission as being “to enhance Israel’s image in North America and the public’s understanding of issues affecting Israeli-Arab relations.”

To that end, Phares has long-standing ties, both professionally and ideologically, with Israel and the hardliner policies of Tel Aviv. As Professor As`ad AbuKhalil of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley wrote in 2011:

Phares’ first career began early in the Lebanese civil war of the 1975-1990 when he allied himself with the right-wing militias, armed and financed by Israel… After Genral [sic] Michel Auon assumed the presidency of Lebanon in 1988, Phares joined the right-wing coalition known as the Lebanese Front, which consisted of various sectarian groupings and militia [sic]. The Front backed Gen. Auon in his struggles against the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad and the Muslims of Lebanon. Phares’s role was not small, according to Beirut newspaper accounts.. He served as vice chair of another front’s political leadership committee, headed by a man named Etienne Saqr, whose Guardians of Cedar militia voiced the slogan “Kill a Palestinian and you shall enter Heaven.”… The Front was also backed by Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a bitter foe of the Syrians.

Indeed, as respected foreign policy analyst Jim Lobe noted, Phares is “controversial for his past ties to the militant Phalange movement in Lebanon.” For the uninitiated, the Phalange movement is responsible for brutal repression of Palestinians and has been deeply connected to the Israeli state going back to the founding of Israel in 1948. As the New York Times wrote in July 1983 in the aftermath of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, “The Maronite Christians of Lebanon and their Phalangist Party became Israel’s key allies during the war in Lebanon that began when Israeli troops invaded Lebanon in June 1982… the Phalangist militias [showed] ruthlessness in massacring hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut last September.”

And this is the world from which the FOX News “expert” and key foreign policy advisor to Trump emerges. So while Mr. Trump touts his “fairness” and not wanting to “take sides” in the Israel-Palestine conflict, he’ll have a key belligerent and party to war crimes against Palestinians whispering in his ear. Not exactly the sort of revelation that engenders much hope. Also interesting to note is the decades old hatred of the Assad family in Syria that Phares has evinced. Perhaps this explains, at least in part, why Trump has publicly called for a ground invasion of Syria and Iraq with up to 30,000 US troops; so much for non-interventionism.

While Trump touts his “fairness” and not wanting to “take sides” in the Israel-Palestine conflict, he’ll have a key belligerent and party to war crimes against Palestinians whispering in his ear…plus other certifiable warmongers and reactionaries…Typical duplicity for the criminal scumbags that rule America, although in Trump’s case, as an intellectual and information retard,  we doubt he even understands who his key advisors are or really represent… 

Chairing Trump’s foreign policy team is Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, a far right conservative whose actual positions on the key issues of war and peace demonstrate unmitigated imperialistic views. He voted YES to enlarging NATO to include Eastern Europe (along with his colleague Hillary Clinton), which certainly calls into question the very notion that Trump has any real intention to move the US away from NATO. Additionally, in perhaps the most important political vote in the last few decades, Sessions was unabashedly in favor of the Iraq War. He proclaimed on the floor of the US Senate at the time:

Our motive is good, our goals positive and realistic, and our leaders honest, careful, principled and have the courage to act on those beliefs… I know the vision that President Bush has to protect his people and improve the world…  The American people did not sacrifice to create the greatest military in history to allow China, Russia or even France to have a veto over its use. It is no wonder that these nations would like, through the mechanism of the United Nations, to seize control over our military and to use it as they will.

Aside from being disastrously wrong on Iraq (along with Hillary Clinton), Sessions also voted YES on designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization as part of the National Defense Authorization Act in 2007. He steadfastly supported continued occupation of Iraq long into 2008, when many others had already conceded the war as a disaster and were ready to leave. And, lest anyone think Sessions merely voted this way out of party loyalty during the Bush administration, it should be noted that he voted YES on the bombing of Kosovo under Bill Clinton, yet another instance where he and Hillary were in agreement. Other examples abound of Trump’s foreign policy Chair’s serial warmongering.

Trump also named Keith Kellogg, a former Army lieutenant general, as one of his key advisers. Mr. Kellogg, after having left the Army, has served in executive positions in a number of military contracting firms, including CACI International at the time its employees took part in torture programs at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Having overseen a company directly involved in torturing prisoners of the US military, it should come as no surprise then that Kellogg is a principal foreign policy adviser to Trump who on numerous occasions has promised that under his watch, the US would bring back “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”

Kellogg has deep ties to various sections of the military-industrial complex, both from his time as principal adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the disastrous Bush administration (along with other high ranking posts in the Pentagon), and from his myriad positions with private contractors and mercenary organizations; not exactly an anti-establishment outsider.

Then there’s Joe Schmitz – or as Trump referred to him, “the honorable Joe Schmitz” – who was the inspector general at the Defense Department during the Bush administration. Under his watch the US committed countless war crimes for which no one was ever prosecuted. In fact, it was his refusal to prosecute military criminality, including lying to Congress and protecting criminals highly placed in the military bureaucracy, that led to his being investigated by the US Congress.

Rather than face any scrutiny, Schmitz simply resigned his position and immediately took an executive position with the infamous Blackwater USA (mercenary company that has committed war crimes all over the globe) where he served as chief operation officer and general counsel. Again, one has to wonder about a Trump presidency in which wanton criminality is not only stated publicly by the candidate, but is in fact precisely the track record of his foreign policy team.

Finally there are Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, both connected to the “energy-industrial complex,” that is, Big Oil and all the myriad institutions devoted to it.

Page is the founder and managing partner of Global Energy Capital, a private equity firm that invests in big energy projects and sits at the intersection of Wall Street and Big Oil. Page is a veteran of Wall Street big shots Merrill Lynch where he served as Chief Operating Officer of the Energy and Power Group. Merrill Lynch is of course the corporate and investment banking division of Bank of America, one of the largest financial institutions in the world. In effect then, Carter Page was the top ranking energy executive within the Bank of America investment arm.

Page’s foreign policy experience comes into play when considering that he was the executive in charge of dealing with Russian energy investments, and those in the Caspian region, on behalf of Wall Street interests. He was also a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the primary centers of policy analysis in the US, and one which is firmly within the orbit of the political and financial establishment. Again, one has to question the very notion that Trump’s candidacy represents any sort of threat to the establishment. If anything, it seems to be merely a reflection of it, just like every other candidate.

Finally, George Papadopolous is the director of the Center for International Energy and Natural Resources Law & Security at the London Center of International Law Practice. A former adviser to the Ben Carson campaign, Papadopolous is a mostly unknown quantity in energy policy and analysis circles whose minimal published work and analysis has been entirely focused on Israeli gas discoveries in the Leviathan Gas Field,with Papadopolous arguing a pro-Israel position that boils down to Israeli-EU cooperation in the form of Israeli gas sales to Cyprus. He is also an advocate of further NATO expansion to include Cyprus, as well as the permanent stationing of US naval assets on the Greek island of Crete.

As the Washington Post noted, Papadopolous wrote in 2014 that, “Regional economic cooperation between Israel and Cyprus should be the guiding principle that anchors Israel economically to Europe,” and in 2015 argued that “Israel’s energy exports can serve as the basis for enhancing strategic relations between Israel and Egypt. They could also serve as the foundation for political and security cooperation with Greece and Cyprus.”

These clearly pro-Israel analyses, coupled with the fact that his resume boasts publications in staunchly right wing, pro-Israeli outlets such as the Jamestown Foundation and Hudson Institute, among others, point to an obvious slant to his outlook. Indeed, there’s been some question as to whether he’s not simply a mouthpiece for Israel, as suggested by even pro-Israel think tanks such as the Center for a New American Security.

What to Expect from a Trump Foreign Policy

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ust the early look at Trump’s foreign policy advisers does not bode well for the notion of non-interventionism being hyped by many. While Trump has publicly voiced such sentiments at times, it remains an open question whether he really believes them, or if he’s just playing to the far right wing, isolationist tendency of many of his supporters. Is it genuine belief or pure demagoguery?

Sitting in the Oval Office, Trump will listen carefully to the advice of Walid Phares who no doubt will advocate for regime change and aggressive policies in the Middle East, as he has throughout the last three decades. Trump will be told of the need to dispense massively lucrative contracts to the private military firms with whom his close advisers Keith Kellogg and Joe Schmitz have long relationships. He’ll be cajoled to follow through with aggressive actions that will benefit Big Oil and Wall Street, all the buddies and pals of people like Carter Page. Trump will “make deals” based on the advice of Israeli mouthpieces like George Papadopolous, not based on reason, let alone strategy in the interests of the US.

In practical terms, Trump will likely escalate America’s mostly fictional and superficial “War on ISIS,” embroiling the US in yet another regional war as he puts boots on the ground in Syria and/or Iraq. Trump will do nothing to rein in NATO, he might simply advocate for a shifting of the burden onto European NATO partners, something that will likely not happen.

Trump will aggressively deal with Russia and Putin, puffing out his chest and acting like some kind of strongman with Putin for public relations effect only. In fact, Trump is likely to damage further the US-Russia relationship with reckless rhetoric and policies, rather than moving toward genuine understanding and reconciliation. One can only cringe to imagine the blustering Trump alongside the always calm and collected Putin whose every move and word is calculated to maximum effect.

In short, Trump represents only the most superficial change in US foreign policy. His manner of plain speaking may be a breath of fresh air to Americans, and many around the world, who have tired of the usual political doublespeak and hollow babble, but his policies and actions will do little to stop the Empire. Trump is, simply put, Hope and ChangeTM of a different sort. And, as with the current Hope and ChangeTM the effect will be disastrous.


Eric-DraitserEric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City; he is the founder of StopImperialism.org and OP-ed columnist for RT, he reports for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” as well as other leading publications like The Greanville Post.


This is a crosspost with http://journal-neo.org/2016/03/26/president-trump-us-war-machine-rolls-on/


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Russia and America, One Hundred Years Face to Face

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=By= Gaither Stewart (rome)

US eagle, Russian Bear

Source: namu wiki

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s Stephen Lendman reported recently on these pages, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister and a unique political figure of today’s world, wrote in a March 3 essay in Global Affairs magazine that his country stands “at the crossroads of key trends” in the field of international relations and underlined that Russia, has “a special role in European and global history.”

Unfortunately, average citizens of the West, especially of the USA, know little and understand less of Russia’s history. To the great majority of Westerners, Russia is a mysterious and forbidding land somewhere in the East which poses a threat to the world which it aims at dominating. Therefore, I have summarized here some aspects of that long history in order to amplify and elucidate Russia’s possible role in the “difficult period of international relations”, of which Lavrov speaks so clearly and rationally.

The history of Russia has been marked, on the one hand, by constantly recurring patterns of fascination for and attraction to the West, and on the other hand abhorrence of and isolation from the same West to which Russia throughout its long history has often wanted to belong. To a certain degree Russia is different. Most Russians themselves are convinced of certain “particular Russian qualities” differentiating them from Western man—qualities not understood, and on the contrary, oftentimes misunderstood by the West. These characteristics can be described as components of a great messianic spirit: the Russian people have often believed themselves destined to be the salvation of the world.

While the few periods of wide contacts with the West have renewed the country, given it new vigor and skills and broken a chain of reaction tyranny, those purely Russian characteristics—tenacity, endurance, spiritualism, ethnic unity, love for mankind and popular traditions have given the country superhuman strength in periods of crisis. Russians never give up. Resistance is in the national DNA. Russians consider themselves invincible as a nation of which there are many examples: the battles of Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad.

Since early Muscovy, even after Ivan the Great in the 15th century who had defeated the Mongol occupiers of Russia, tripled Russia’s territory and making it a major European nation, and exchanged ambassadors and traders with the outside world, contact between Russians and foreigners was discouraged if not forbidden because they were considered contaminating even for the Tsar himself. And consequently secluded in special residential areas of Moscow.

While this great nation was being born, persecuted Europeans, adventurers and criminals were making their way to today’s USA, where they built log cabins and began the exterminations of the native peoples they encountered.

In comparison, sixteenth century Russia under Tsar Ivan the Terrible had become a formidable European power. It expanded its borders to the South but was defeated in its effort to conquer the Baltic States to the West. Those defeats in the West served to emphasize the necessity to modernize the Russian state. Ivan’s severe reforms and the methods employed to achieve them divided the country and sent many Russians in flight to the borderlands and beyond, joining the free-living Cossacks in the steppes.

Keep in mind that centuries were passing. And Russia was advancing, having liberated itself from the yoke of Tartar occupiers. Europeans and more and more Russians themselves understood that they were a great power to be reckoned with. The expanses, the realization of the great wealth their lands contain, the nation’s potential power, and importantly a unifying worldview (mirovozreniye) began welding the Russians together as a nation state.

It fell to Peter the Great (17th and early 18th centuries) to effect a “window on Europe”. Numerous Russians of all classes were sent abroad to learn necessary skills for Russia’s affirmation as a modern European nation, permitting Peter to build his new capital of Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea facing the West. Russians became cognizant of a new way of life and perceived new approaches to social living, shaking Russia out of its self-imposed isolation while the huge country also shook off any remaining inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West. By the end of Peter’s reign in 1725, the upper classes had indeed moved toward Europe, adopting European manners and dress and snobbishly preferring to speak French in the salons and the Court. The masses, the Russian people, a spiritual people, however, remained fixed and committed to old Russian traditions and the Orthodox religion.

As the 18th century progressed and while what became the USA was still a British colony, Catherine the Great imported ideas of French enlightenment—ideas however not yet compatible with traditional Russian views. She came to realize that the thinking of Voltaire and Rousseau were dangerous, a danger to herself … and a threat to Tsardom as well. This was long the great historical dilemma for the rulers of Russia: the nation’s need of Western knowhow in order to maintain its position as a world power and the concomitant threats these new influences posed to the system. In any case, by the end of the century the upper classes had learned a new way of life while they also came to recognize their own backwardness.

But the masses continued to toil and repeat generation after generation the old way of life. Such was the setting for the blossoming of Russian intellectual and social thought in the 19th century.

The French invasion of 1812 and Russia’s subsequent victory over Napoleon’s armies and the occupation of Paris changed Russian life.

For the first time in its history great numbers of ordinary Russians—as opposed to the privileged classes of the previous century—had close contact with one of the major centers of Western civilization. Young, educated military officers brought back from France new customs; but more important were the new ideas which fascinated and enraptured Russian intellectuals. In the face of the veritable explosion of these Western ideas, Alexander I was forced to renege on the promises of the liberalism of his youth. A new period of repression began. Nevertheless, the mild movement for a Constitution by some of the guards officers, the so-called, “Decembrists” of 1825, were crushed by the Tsar. Yet it was too late. Things had changed in Russia. The gentry and other educated classes were infected and began to resist the closed society.

The clash between autocracy in need of modernization but aware that those same ideas endangered its existence and the more enlightened educated classes no longer capable of living in darkness gave birth to the first Russian political emigration: intellectuals who left their homeland to fight for their ideals. The conservatives at home, horrified at how far they had moved away from old Russian traditions by becoming nearly Europeans began resisting European influences, thus articulating a struggle between themselves—the so-called Slavophiles—and the Westernizers. All the while the masses were silent.

In the 1830s and 40s, many liberal-minded men in Russia, suffocated by oppression because of their new ideas, by censorship and political backwardness, emigrated to Europe to study and struggle for fundamental freedoms for their people. The earliest émigrés went to France, England and Switzerland where they supported a program for a Constitution and reforms.

With the birth of Socialism in Europe, Russian socialists were soon born among these intellectuals. The departure of Alexander Herzen from Moscow to Europe in 1847 marked the beginning of a new era of Russian social-political thought which was to result in the overthrow of Tsardom and the Bolshevik victory over its more moderate opponents contesting for power in Russia.

The crushing of the Decembrists of 1825, the execution and exile of their leaders, and simultaneously the new ideas advanced by young liberals had made a great impression on Herzen who dedicated his life work to the cause of Russia democracy. Herzen symbolized the move of Russian émigrés from thought to action. Herzen and friends and later the anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin, initiated a movement centered around their political journal, The Bell, a movement democratic in nature, promoting a union between the governed and the governing in Russia and encouraging Russians in the homeland to overthrow autocracy. The Bell, published in London, circulated among intellectuals in the homeland, and allegedly read by the Tsar himself, was born on the wave of revolution raging across Europe and survived to introduce the revolutionary current of Lenin, Russian socialists and the later Bolsheviks.

During this period occurred the Mexican-American War (1846-47), in which Mexico lost half of its national territory to the Yankees, a war which became the model of American imperialistic wars, ultimately becoming world-wide, in Latin American, Asia, Europe and Africa. The war against Mexico was soon followed by the American Civil War, 1861-65, at the price of 600,000 dead in the name of US capitalism. Two new world powers, Russia in the East and the Unites States in the West were emerging, powers which that within a century would submerge the old European nation states.

Herzen, however, did not have the stuff that revolutionaries are made of. He had attacked Tsardom with the written word while in that period of crisis only extremes counted. Thus, Herzen inevitably fell from favor among younger, revolutionary émigrés. The struggles between the right and the left among Russian intellectuals left Herzen behind as an anachronism. Intellectuals meanwhile split over the concept of revolution—the moderates for whom some form of constitutional democracy was the goal moved toward the conservatives while the more liberal passed to the side of the revolutionaries. The next wave of Russian émigrés was to be dominated by the revolutionaries headed by Lenin.

Russia’s revolutionaries were a fiery bunch, as divided and factious as the Western left today. Russian revolutionaries disagreed, fought and split, and regrouped. But the movement was carried implacably forward by the organized hard core of the movement led by Vladimir Lenin. In essence, the various currents among Russian revolutionaries continued to reflect the old dispute between Westernizers and more traditional Slavophiles, a modern Western socio-political philosophy or the old Russian traditions, which are still the two deep souls of Russia. In this case, Russian Marxists, European in outlook, looked toward the new proletariat as their base. The Socialist Revolutionary wing counted instead on the peasants and, in a broad sense, the Russian people. The necessary support of both these currents was harnessed by Lenin and his successors after they won the revolution and the Civil War.

The Russian Civil War which erupted after the Bolsheviks took power in 1917 was marked by Western intervention (British, American, French and Japanese) on the side of the anti-revolutionary “Whites”. Since then Russian-American relations, despite alliances during European wars and various commercial agreements, have been based on American Capitalism’s unrelenting opposition to Socialism/Communism. Moreover, I believe there is also an underlying anti-Russian spirit present, perhaps because of American jealousy of Russia’s expanses and wealth, or ,even something more spiritual. The Cold War is most exemplary of America’s fundamental attitude, not only toward Russian Communism but also toward Russia itself.
It is paradoxical that the eyes of the two new nations among world powers, Russia and the USA, still antagonistic toward each other after a century of seeing each other’s reflection in Europe, today are both looking eastwards. Despite the US encirclement of Russia and its goal of regime change and dismemberment of its old enemy, despite the proxy wars in Syria, despite America’s return to Latin America and the expansion of its presence in Africa, nothing can be more threatening to the USA than the terrifying image of the Russian-Chinese alliance. Lavrov’s words of Russia and a crossroads should scare the Jesus out of Washington.


Gaither StewartSenior Editor Gaither Stewart, based in Rome, serves—inter alia—as our European correspondent. A veteran journalist and essayist on a broad palette of topics from culture to history and politics, he is also the author of the Europe Trilogy, celebrated spy thrillers whose latest volume, Time of Exile, was recently published by Punto Press.

 


 

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Clinton Email Revelation: Destroying Syria “Best Way to Help Israel” / The Ellen Brown Exposé

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DISPATCHES FROM STEPHEN LENDMAN

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Plain and simply, Gaddafi was murdered like a victim of a mafia hit, all masterminded with the collaboration of Hillary Clinton and the top echelons of the US government.

Plain and simply, Gaddafi was murdered like a victim of a mafia hit, all masterminded with the collaboration of Hillary Clinton and the top echelons of the US government.

Ellen Brown’s important article on Clinton’s emails (see special sidebar at bottom of this article) as secretary of state revealed raping Libya and killing Gaddafi had nothing to do with ousting a dictator. The official story is always cover for a diabolical hidden agenda. Her emails provide a window into her soul, revealing a ruthless she-devil, too wicked to entrust with the power of the nation’s highest office, or any other public position.

Her orchestrated naked aggression on Libya had everything to do with “money, banking and preventing African economic sovereignty,” Brown explained. More was involved, discussed in my own articles in October 2011 and February 2016 (drawing on the earlier one), including replacing the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (a “state of masses,” sharing the nation’s oil wealth with the people by providing extraordinary social benefits) with Western controlled tyranny.


Brown’s article is important reading, providing more insight into arguably the most unacceptably dangerous presidential aspirant in US history – likely to succeed Obama, given bipartisan efforts to undermine Trump by any means necessary. As secretary of state, Clinton also orchestrated war on Syria, nothing civil about it, one of the many Big Lies about the conflict – naked US aggression by any standard, using ISIS and other terrorist fighters (imported mercenaries from scores of countries) as imperial foot soldiers.


WikiLeaks disclosed emails revealed she said “(t)he best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad.” She called the “strategic relationship” between both countries a threat to Israeli security. Ousting Assad would end “this dangerous alliance.”

It would provide “a massive boon to Israel’s security (and) ease (its) understandable fear of losing its (regional) nuclear monopoly.” She referred to Iran’s “atom bomb,” knowing its nuclear program was and remains entirely peaceful, with no military component.

“With Assad gone,” she said, “and Iran no longer able to threaten Israel through its proxies, it is possible that the United States and Israel can agree on red lines for when Iran’s program has crossed an unacceptable threshold.” Naked aggression was her strategy of choice. She called raping Syria, massacring its people and ousting Assad “the right thing” to do. “Washington should start by expressing its willingness to work with regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to organize, train and arm Syrian rebel forces.”


“The fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies…(S)enior Israeli intelligence analysts believe that this turn of events may even prove to be a factor in the eventual fall of the current government of Iran.”


She believed threatening Assad and his family with violent overthrow and death was effective strategy, repeating the scenario leading to Gaddafi’s ouster and sodomized murder. “We came. We saw. He died” in response to his death remains a testimony to her ruthless imperial arrogance, a threat to world peace and security. Her plotting and influence as secretary of state reveals pure evil. Imagine the threat with her as president, her finger on the nuclear trigger. She miscalculated believing Russia wouldn’t intervene in Syria. Her entire scheme proved misguided.


It won’t discourage her likely agenda as president, ruthlessly seeking world dominance, perhaps global war with nuclear weapons her strategy of choice.


ABOUT STEPHEN LENDMAN
Screen Shot 2016-02-19 at 10.13.00 AMSTEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."  ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Ellen Hodgson Brown is an American author, political candidate, attorney, public speaker, and advocate of alternative medicine and financial reform, most prominently public banking. Brown is the founder and president of the Public Banking Institute, a nonpartisan think tank devoted to the creation of publicly run banks. She is also the president of Third Millennium Press, and is the author of twelve books, including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution, as well as over 200 published articles.EllenBrown She has appeared on cable and network television, radio, and internet podcasts, including a discussion on the Fox Business Network concerning student loan debt with the Cato Institute's Neil McCluskey, a feature story on derivatives and debt on the Russian network RT, and the Thom Hartmann Show's "Conversations with Great Minds." Ellen Brown ran for California Treasurer in the California June 2014 Statewide Primary election. Her 300+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com. Listen to “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” on PRN.FM.



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SIDEBAR/ Blog in Blog Special
The Ellen Brown paper. Exposing the Libyan Agenda through Hillary Clinton’s Private Communications. Just click on the bar below. 

  SIDEBAR ENDS HERE.

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Events in Brussels Viewed From A Spaceship

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=By= Andre Vltchek

Brussels, Antwerp from space

Brussels and Antwerp from the International Space Station. NASAA

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f some intelligent extraterrestrial beings were circling over our planet in their spaceship, monitoring for decades and centuries all that has been and is taking place on its surface, they would, most likely, be horrified by our brutality, and shocked by the countless contradictions, double standards and inconsistencies.

For instance, after registering the recent loss of lives in Brussels, visitors from outer space would immediately detect the enormous amount of activity all over the Belgian metropolis: police cars, the military, ambulances, and media vans. More than 30 people were killed at the airport and at the metro station, while over 200 were injured. Needless to say, the blood of innocent people was spilled.

Our visitors – the extraterrestrials – (let’s really imagine that they were here) are most likely totally ‘color blind’; they cannot make any distinction between different skin colors, different races or genders. To them, one victim in a sub-Saharan African village or in the Middle East has exactly the same ‘value’ as a casualty in Paris or Houston. To them, a wound is a wound, a body is a body, a corpse is a corpse; and a victim belonging to any ethnic or social group or geographic location is only and exclusively that – a victim.

Therefore, they were wondering: why is it that when few hundreds or few thousands of innocent people die in such places like war-torn Syria or Iraq, there are just a few ambulances detectable from above, and no cameras to record people’s suffering? Nobody seems to be shocked – why? And why are these countries ‘war-torn’ to begin with?

By then, our friends from the different galaxy would have a considerable amount of data at their disposal. Several mighty computers on board their spaceship would be analyzing and processing all the samples and information collected from our Planet.

Tens of thousands of books would be fed into the system.

What is it that one of the greatest writers of Latin America – Eduardo Galeano – wrote in his ‘Open Veins of Latin America’ several decades ago?  He penned with passion and disgust about Western rule in South America:

“You could build a silver bridge from Potosí to Madrid from what was mined here – and one back with the bones of those that died taking it out…”

In the past, 8 million people vanished in the mines of Potosi alone, so that Europe could have its high life and ‘culture’.

And Jean-Paul Sartre writes in his book ‘Colonialism and Neocolonialism’:

“You know very well that we are exploiters. You know very well that we took the gold and the metals and then the oil of the ‘new continents’ and brought them back to the old mother countries. Not without excellent results: palaces, cathedrals, industrial capitals; and then whenever crisis threatened, the colonial markets were there to cushion or deflect it. Europe, stuffed with riches, granted de jure humanity to all its inhabitants: for us, a human being means ‘accomplice’, since we have all benefited from colonial exploitation… What empty chatter: liberty, equality, fraternity, love, honour, country and who knows what else?”

Our extraterrestrial friends would be thinking and thinking, scratching their heads, fondling their thick whiskers: obviously, throughout its history, the West slaughtered nearly one billion human beings in Africa, Central and South “America”, Asia, the Middle East and Oceania. And it is still murdering millions worldwide.

Those who are not butchered by the West directly are treated worse than animals by an inserted turbo-capitalist system and by countless right-wing dictatorships cynically called ‘democracies’. Billions of people on our Planet eat shit, literally. And they don’t really live; they just exist. Their only purpose is to work hard for nothing, supporting the ‘high life’ of the Empire.

Finally, over some fluorescent power drink, at a big round conference table in the spaceship, the captain decides to address his crew: “This does not seem to me like a particularly good and honest arrangement for this or any other planet!”

All crew members raise their feelers in agreement. They have had exactly the same thoughts for several centuries (“our – human centuries” – translated to their perception of time – for several weeks).

“I would say that most of the people on their so-called Earth have absolutely legitimate reasons to feel endlessly pissed-off!” declared their chief analyst for Outer Space Political Affairs.

Others suggested that those countries that have been plundered, destroyed and terrorized by the West have the full right to defend themself, or at least to retaliate. But for some reason, they don’t.

But could blowing up a subway station or an international airport, could the killing of innocent civilians, be considered ‘legitimate retaliation’?

Everybody agrees that it cannot be, although the Empire itself has already slaughtered hundreds of millions of innocent men, women and children all over the world. But the Empire, and again, there is this absolute consensus on board the spaceship, could not be judged by any normal international or interplanetary standards, as it has been, already for centuries, behaving as a debauched genocidal maniac.

It could not be held to any standards, as it had exterminated entire nations, destroyed cultures, polluted entire Planet and imposed on almost everyone the most appalling and inhuman economic and social system imaginable. It ruined all enthusiasm, injected nihilism, indoctrinated people, and shackled everyone by fear and ignorance.

But killing the people, even those submissive, narcissist and ignorant citizens of the Empire, would still be totally wrong. There was no disagreement about that on board the spaceship.

*

But who actually killed those people in Brussels? Who killed Parisians just a few months earlier?

Was it some external enemies of the Empire that have been perpetrating these violent acts?

There was no exact data regarding this on board the flying saucer.

But the crew had collected enough information from almost all previous ‘events’ and so it began to believe that the Empire itself could have also easily done the killing.

In Europe concretely, who could overlook the terror campaign unleashed by the NATO countries during the so-called ‘Operation Gladio”? Who can forget how governments were kidnapping and murdering people, how they were blowing up entire train stations and trains, in order to point fingers at the Communists, discrediting them, blaming them for the attacks?

US military global presence

Global Militarism,” map of US military presence from “The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases …” by Prof. Jules Dufour, 2007).

 

The Empire always felt spite, total and unconcealed, for non-white, non-Christian human beings. It never hesitated to gas, to bomb, and to burn millions, sometimes tens of millions of them, in just one go. But periodically, it also ‘sacrificed’ a few dozens or even hundreds of its own people. It was done for some ‘excellent and sacred cause’, naturally: in order for the white Christian race to maintain its control over the planet, for savage capitalism to flourish, and for dogmas about the ‘exceptionality’ of the European and North American civilization/culture to persevere.

Most of the ET’s who were now circling over our Planet were able to see clearly through the Western propaganda. They were enduring with twisted noses that entire unsavory stench coming from the Empire’s intellectual belches and farts, and they were laughing at the numerous moral pirouettes and somersaults it was displaying.

But laughter would always freeze on their lips, whenever they realized that this was not a game, that human beings are being torn to pieces, that entire villages, neighborhoods and countries have been sacrificed and destroyed.

The spaceship crew counted among them some avid readers of Umberto Eco’s Numero Zero. Disgusted with the mainstream Western propaganda media, everyone from the captain to several janitors turned to alternative media sources that, recently have begun to flourish on the Planet Earth. RT was blasted in the reading room, day and night. Others were watching TeleSUR and Press TV in their cabins.

Hardened by watching and reading opposition media, the question everyone on board was asking was: were Belgian people really sacrificed by one of those terrorist groups like Al-Qaida, al-Nusra, or maybe by ISIS?

Then the Western media reported that ISIS/Daesh had claimed responsibility for the attacks.

But in his essay published by Global Research, Michel Chossudovsky asked, “Is the ISIS Behind the Brussels Attacks? Who is Behind the ISIS?”

‘Very good question’, admitted the crew. To them, as to Professor Chossudovsky, it was clear that behind ISIS stood both Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and therefore, the West.

Then Peter Koenig, Swiss economist and thinker, published his essay, “The Brussels Attacks – Another False Flag”, where he argued, after describing the carnage in Belgium:

“…In the meantime, the Belgian government has ordered a clampdown on police and journalists reporting on the case. The public must be kept in the dark, ‘to facilitate the investigation;’ lest contradictory reports, as there usually are in false flag operations, may plant doubt in people’s minds. That must by all means be prevented. …Fear is the name of the game. People blinded and in the midst of fear – under the shock, accept any doctrine – more police protection, ‘we give you our civil rights and remaining ‘freedom’, but please take care of us.’ Military regimes will be installed at the demand of the people.”

Most likely the future US President, Donald Trump, is already enjoying swelling support from the North American public, after promising new and taller walls, more advanced spying/surveillance, more savage torture as well as advanced racial/religious profiling.

Christopher Black, a prominent international lawyer based in Toronto, added:

“A common factor in all these false flags is that no political demand is ever made by the alleged actors. A terrorist act is a political act, designed to instill fear in the public to pressure a state to do something the actors want. But in none of these recent attacks are any demands ever made nor any compelling reasons ever given for the attack. And what demands could there be since the EU has been supporting Daesh along with the US. And why would the ISIS make an attack on the EU to draw more attacks on them (supposedly)? It does not make sense from a political or military point of view. The media report that ISIS claims the attack was on Belgium for taking part in the coalition bombing but Belgium halted that months ago and as we know there were no real attacks on ISIS by the coalition.

So if not ISIS then who? Who benefits is always the question to ask. The answer may lie in the immediate response of everyone from Trump to Hollande to Cameron and the rest, that the war on ISIS must be intensified, which means a bigger war against Syria, and Iraq. So, one can see this attack as a reaction to the Syrian-Russian success in Syria against ISIS and an attempt to sabotage the Geneva Peace process. But, once again, the people are kept in the dark, huddled around their computers and TV screens waiting for the next set of lies.”

And this is what was written by Koenig’s and Black’s comrade, Andre Vltchek:

“I mentioned this recently in one of my essays about North Korea, but I have to repeat it once again, “after Brussels”: We are living in a twisted, truly perverse world, where mass murderers act as judges, and actually get away with it. The objectivity lost its meaning. Terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are now determined by only one criterion: ‘good’ is all that serves the interests of the Western Empire, ‘bad’ is what challenges its global dictatorship.”

No matter how the information about what took place in Brussels was twisted or turned, one thing was hard to dispute: directly or indirectly, the West was right behind the attacks. And not to see it would take truly incredible discipline.

Of course it was not just the events that occurred in Brussels. Looking at the whole modern human history, with just a few exceptions, the West was always behind the most horrid atrocities and aggressions.

*

The crew of the spaceship held a meeting to assess the situation on Earth.

The conclusions of this gathering were pronounced and recorded, then sent to their capital city thousands of light-years away from the Planet Earth:

“There are many objective reasons to believe why it is that the Planet Earth entered an irreversible spiral of terminal decline. It is now ruled by only a handful of perverse nations obsessed with power and consumption. For decades and centuries, these countries terrorized, murdered, even exterminated people living in all the other corners of Earth. However, they were never stopped, reprimanded and restrained. As we see from above, there is very little chance that the situation will change in foreseeable future. Just a few countries, including China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Iran and the DPRK are still insisting on their own course. They are, however, constantly intimidated, antagonized and provoked.

Furthermore, the environment of the Planet Earth is irreversibly damaged, and if there is no immediate reversal of the trend, the entire globe may become uninhabitable in the foreseeable future.

Our recommendation to the citizens of the Planet Earth: immediately occupy and disarm both Europe and North America. Then disarm their ‘client’ states and the terrorist groups they have injected into the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Impose real (direct) democracy and implement strong detox educational programs in order to reverse the long decades and centuries of consistent indoctrination and supremacist theories. For at least three generations, reduce Europe and North America to strictly agricultural societies, with no military and no heavy industry. The flow of foreign students to all Western universities should be stopped immediately, as these are not really centers of knowledge, but extremely dangerous hubs of indoctrination. Propaganda messages engraved into the mass media disinformation campaigns should be detected, exposed, publicly analyzed and ridiculed systematically.”

According to the ET’s, these were only some of the emergency steps that would have to be taken immediately, in order for the Planet Earth to survive.

But all this was said and then put on the record just for the sake of the people who inhabited other galaxies. Earth appeared to be already lost. There was very little hope that human beings would rebel against their torturers.

“No hope”, was the general consensus on board the spaceship. “The rot is too deep, too widespread. Russia, China, Latin America and few other countries could create an alliance and forge a united front against the West. But with nukes, a propaganda apparatus and technology, the West cannot be defeated. It can only collapse from within. But the people of Europe and North America are the most obedient, indoctrinated and uninformed. And they enjoy many exclusive privileges. They will never defend the Planet, only their own interests.”

The captain downed yet another fluorescent drink, grimaced and pointed finger towards the transparent floor of his flying saucer: “They fucked up no end. It all appears to be hopeless. Time to go home!”

They voted, and decided to depart. Then the captain stepped on it, and the saucer accelerated to a neck breaking speed of several light-years per second, shooting straight towards home.

Would the crew try to stop the madness they had witnessed on Earth, would they approach the rulers in London, Brussels or Washington, chances were they would end up like their counterparts in that old great Soviet SCI-FI film “The Silence of Doctor Evans”. In that film, a spaceship sent by an advanced civilization made contact with several inhabitants on Earth. But the crew was hunted down by evil imperialists who were terrified by the possibility that an advanced (naturally Communist) society would be spreading extremely dangerous and subversive ideas, reminding people of some basic principles; morality, kindness, decency and humanism.

*

And so the madness will go on. For us who have no opportunity to escape to another galaxy, the prospects are bleak; especially for those of us who by some miracle have managed to escape indoctrination.

Those who are still capable of seeing what is happening around, those who understand the insanity and brutality of the Western ruling power, are condemned to living in constant agitation, stress and outrage.

The people who are ruling over this planet may still physically fit to human form, but in reality they are beasts, mass murderers, and brigands. In fact, there are no words derogatory enough to describe them.

So what should we expect now, when even ET’s have given up on our Planet? A little entrée in a form of a right-wing coup in Ecuador, perhaps? And then a main course, like nuking of North Korea? The assassination of President al Assad? Or something really fatal, like a provoked naval confrontation with China? Or maybe something local and ‘modest’, like the bombing of few city buses in Rome or trams in Amsterdam, so even tighter surveillance will be ‘demanded’ by and ‘given’ to the people of the West? Will Europe soon be sinking boats that are carrying thousands of refugees from the very countries destroyed by the Empire? What else, really? What can we expect later this year, in April, May, and June?


andreVltchekAndre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and Fighting Against Western Imperialism. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western TerrorismPoint of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

 


 

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