Turkey plays proxy role on behalf of NATO

Turkey is being prostituted to play NATO's war game...

Turkey is a Pawn on the Chessboard for US-NATO War against Russia

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

Global Research, November 27, 2015

Silent Crow 26 November 2015

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way”, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Turkey’s provocation towards Russia is not surprising at all. Washington’s Fingerprints are at the Scene of the Crime. Let’s consider the facts. Syrian government forces along with Russia have turned the tide against ISIS. It is a known fact that the U.S., France, the U.K., Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar had been arming, funding, training or provided safe havens for ISIS at some point in time. Turkey was implicated in a 2012 Reuters report stating that “Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria’s rebels from a city near the border.” The report also said:
News of the clandestine Middle East-run “nerve centre” working to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad underlines the extent to which Western powers – who played a key role in unseating Muammar Gaddafi in Libya – have avoided military involvement so far in Syria.  “It’s the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main co-ordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom,” said a Doha-based source
“It’s the Turk’s” who are controlling the situation in Syria under Washington’s direction in an attempt to remove Assad.  Now Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 fighter jet because it claims that it violated its airspace. One important fact to consider is that Turkey created a “buffer zone” five miles inside Syria since 2012, a McClatchydc.com report said:

Turkey has maintained a buffer zone five miles inside Syria since June 2012, when a Syrian air defense missile shot down a Turkish fighter plane that had strayed into Syrian airspace. Under revised rules of engagement put in effect then, the Turkish air force would evaluate any target coming within five miles of the Turkish border as an enemy and act accordingly

Creating a buffer zone five miles inside Syria will of course will lead to confrontations between Russian and Turkish fighter jets along the border.  Ankara can know claim its airspace (five miles from the actual Turkish border) has been violated.  An article titled ‘Russia “Violated” Turkish Airspace Because Turkey “Moved” Its Border’ details Turkey’s border policies produced by the Free Syrian Press and published by Global Research.
Turkey Warned Russia about Violating it’s newly “Created Airspace”
Threats made by Turkey against Russia became the norm on the main-stream media circuits preparing for the eventuality.  On October 6th, a report by Reuters confirmed Turkish President Erdogan’s warning to Russia if it violated it airspace:

“Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan warned Russia on Tuesday that it would lose a lot if it destroyed its friendship with Ankara and said Turkey would not remain patient in the face of violations of its air space by Russian warplanes. “An attack on Turkey means an attack on NATO,” Erdogan told a joint news conference in Brussels with the Belgian prime minister.  “Our positive relationship with Russia is known. But if Russia loses a friend like Turkey, with whom it has been cooperating on many issues, it will lose a lot, and it should know that,” he said

A report by Foreign Policy titled ‘Turkey Slams Russia for Syria Attacks, Warns Could Sever Energy Ties’ on October 8th regarding Erdogan’s warnings that concern energy cooperation since Russia intervened on the side of the Syrian government against anti-Assad forces:

“We can’t accept the current situation,” Erdogan told Turkish reporters on his way to Japan. Russia is using military force to back the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and is targeting anti-Assad rebels whom Turkey has backed. And Russian jets have violated the airspace of Turkey, a NATO member. Such antics, Erdogan said, could drive Turkey to find other energy suppliers. “If necessary, Turkey can get its natural gas from many different places,” he said

Russia has been targeting ISIS militants with Syrian government forces on the ground. Washington’s failure to remove Assad by backing ISIS (moderate rebels) would be quick and decisive but it was not. ISIS has grown. Washington is now pushing Ankara into a conflict with Russia to disrupt Russia’s success. Since the SU-24 was shot down, Ankara can now say conveniently “I told you so.”
Turkey and its Past Genocidal History
Turkey is a U.S. vassal state and a former empire (Ottoman and the Byzantine Empires) and the 3rd largest buyer of U.S. weapons behind Saudi Arabia and India (a U.S. made F-16 was used to shoot down a Russian ‘Sukhoi SU-24) in 2014 according Bloomberg news. The shooting down of Russian aircraft because it allegedly crossed into Turkish borders for 17 seconds while Turkey has entered Greek airspace more than 8,693 times since 2008 although Turkey is a member state of NATO. A 2014 chart produced by the University of Thessaly from data obtained from the Greek military proves the number of violations below:
Turkey is no stranger to aggression.  Under the Ottoman Empire the ‘Armenian genocide of 1915’ took place killing more than 1.5 million Armenians and other minority groups including Assyrians and the Ottoman-Greeks. Turkey has committed numerous human rights abuses of various minorities.  There has been conflicts for more than two centuries between the Turkish government and various Kurdish groups (a minority group) who want an independent Kurdistan or an autonomous state within Turkey that will allow political and civil rights for the Kurdish people. One of the main groups is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party known as the PKK has been at odds with Turkey due to cultural discrimination and large scale massacres since the establishment of Turkey in 1923.
Greece and Turkey have fought multiple wars and had disputes over Cyprus territory since the 1950’s which escalated in 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus after the Cypriot coup d’état led by the US-backed Greek Junta and the Cypriot National Guard that resulted in acquiring 40% of the land and expelled more than 180,000 Greek Cypriots despite objections from the UN security council. A ceasefire line was established in August 1974 which became the United Nations Buffer Zone referred to today as the Green Line. What was the reason behind Turkey’s invasion? To restore the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus that was dismantled by the coup plotters and for the protection of Turkish-Cypriot minority on the island, which was less than 18% of the population. But in reality, as illegal the coup was, it was used as a pretext to justify their invasion. In other words, the Turkish government has its own dirty hands in international affairs for a very long time.
What Happens Next?
Turkey has supported ISIS on behalf of Washington’s strategic goal to oust Assad and has been profiting from Syria’s stolen oil. Turkey follows the dictates of Washington. Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 to provoke Russia into a war with NATO who is under Washington’s control. It is certain that Turkey got its green light from the Obama administration. Putin said “Turkey stabbed Russia in the back.” Of course, what did Putin expect from a US vassal state? Good relations in terms of trade and tourism do not matter. Besides the European Union followed Washington’s lead to sanction Russian businesses which has angered Europeans who actually do business with Russia. The consequences of Washington’s policies have backfired for the European Union, now businesses have been in decline since then.
It seems like the Turkish political elites can trace their DNA to the old days of the Ottoman Empire. Maybe they want to reestablish a mini-empire right next to Israel’s mini-empire supported by Washington. It will become a grave mistake for Turkey if a conflict against Russia with NATO’s backing were to take place, which I doubt at this point in time. Russia is a world power that has one very important factor on its side and that is fighting numerous terrorist organizations that was created by the West and its criminal allies. Ankara is clearly on the wrong side of history and should reconsider its foreign policy that could drag its nation into World War III orchestrated by Washington.

The Whole Truth Behind Turkey's downing of Russian bomber

Succinctly put...

Turkey ‘Ambushed’ Russian Su-24 to Protect Terrorists – NYU Professor

By Sputnik

Global Research, November 27, 2015

Sputnik News 26 November 2015

The shooting down of the Russian Su-24 bomber was a planned attack and a trap set by the Turkish Air Force, Dr. Mark Galeotti, the Professor of Global Affairs at the New York University, told Radio Sputnik.
“What it in fact seems to be, as many are saying, it was more of an ambush than anything else,” Galeotti told Sputnik.
By downing the Russian plane, Turkey had two things in mind. First of all, Ankara wants to assert itself as a powerful regional actor, especially considering Russia’s active participation in Syria. The Turkish government thought that by shooting down its plane Turkey would make Russia take Ankara more seriously in the future.
Secondly, the Turkish government wanted to protect its allies, whom Russia’s currently bombing in Syria, Galeotti, an expert in Russo-Turkish relations, explained.

Turkey intends to protect ISIL, as it has direct financial interests involved in the delivery of oil extracted from ISIL-controlled territories. Various estimates place oil revenues generated by ISIL somewhere between $40 and $50 million a month. A day prior to the downing of the Su-24, Russian airstrikes destroyed over 1,000 semi-truck tankers carrying crude oil to ISIL refineries, a large oil storage facility and an oil refinery in Syria.
Interestingly, back in 2012, when the Syrian Air Force shot down a Turkish plane for repeatedly violating Syrian airspace, Erdogan was furious and said that a brief violation of a country’s airspace shouldn’t be a pretext to shoot down a plane.
And now, we can see double-standards at their best. Even if the Russian plane hypothetically violated Turkish airspace for a short period of time it wasn’t a reason to shoot it down. There definitely were other options to solve the problem, the US expert told Radio Sputnik.

The Russian Su-24 Fencer bomber was shot down by two Turkish F-16s Tuesday morning while conducting operations over Syria.One of the pilots from the downed Su-24 was rescued by the Syrian Army Tuesday morning. The other pilot was killed by fire from the ground after ejecting from the plane. A Russian naval infantry soldier also lost his life after an Mi-8 chopper was downed during a rescue operation.
The Turkish president said that Ankara acted in line with its sovereign right to respond to threats, claiming that the Russian jet had violated Turkish airspace.
However, flight data released by the Russian Ministry of Defense shows that the Su-24s never entered Turkey, and were attacked while performing legitimate maneuvers over Syria.

Erdogan’s Desperate Move To Save His Terrorist Pals

The Wahhabi sultan gets exposed more and more as days pass ...

Erdogan’s Desperate Move To Save His Terrorist Pals

Jim Jatras, November 25, 2015

What happened. Turkey claims the Russian plane crossed into Turkish airspace and failed to respond to repeated warnings. Russia claims it can prove its plane was over Syria the whole time. We will see if one version or the other will be generally accepted or whether a contentious muddle will continue indefinitely (cf. MH-17). However, even if the Turkish version prevails, the Russian plane at most would have been over Turkey for a well under a minute and presented no threat to anything or anyone inside Turkey. As stated by Valeriy Burkov, a Russian military pilot and recipient of the Hero of Russia medal: “It’s clear that this was a premeditated action, they were prepared and just waited for a Russian plane to show up. It wasn’t downed because of pilot error, or because he was trigger-happy or whatever. This is preplanned, premeditated action.” That assessment is likely true even if the aircraft passed momentarily into Turkey.
Motives: While the facts of the incident are murky, the motives on the part of Turkey – and specifically, of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – are not. They include:

Derailing any possibility of Russia-West accord on Syria and common action against ISIS: This is Erdogan’s top goal. Since the Paris attacks, there has been a huge growth in Western opinion favoring cooperation with Russia on crushing a common enemy: ISIS. While the fate of Assad remains a sticking point, public opinion, media, and even officials of western governments, especially in Europe, increasingly see the need to worry about ISIS first, Assad later – if at all.

Saving ISIS and comparable jihad terror groups: There can now be no doubt that in the confrontation between ISIS, al-Nusra (al-Qaeda), Ahrar ash-Sham, the “Army of Conquest” and the rest of the jihad menagerie against the civilized world, Erdogan and Turkey are on the side of the former. The canard that Russia is not hurting ISIS, already punctured by the downing of the St. Petersburg airliner in the Sanai, can now be laid to rest. ISIS and Turkey’s other proxies are in danger, and cooperation between Russia and the West could seal their fate. In particular, Turkey needs to keep control of part of its border with Syria to maintain ISIS’s lifeline for oil exports and for the traffic of terrorists in and out of Syria.

Cash cow. ISIS’s oil exports depend on access to Turkey, reaping millions for Turkish middlemen. Whether or how Erdogan’s AK Party and cronies may profit from this trade is not clear, but it would be naïve to rule it out. At the recent G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Russian President Vladimir Putin embarrassed Western leaders – and in particular his host, Erdogan – by presenting undeniable proof of how ISIS funds itself through oil exports via Turkey. It was only after this that the U.S. joined in strikes against ISIS oil tanker trucks, something that presumably American intelligence had been aware of already. (Reportedly the US, unlike Russia, has given ISIS truck convoys 45 minutes’ notice prior to striking them – certainly more consideration than the Su-24 was afforded.)

Turkish ground presence in Syria. The Su-24’s two-man crew parachuted down into an area controlled by Turkmen militia, which fired on them with small arms as they descended. Their fate is not reliably known. [Russian and Syrian commandos later recovered surviving Capt. Konstantin Murakhtin. He said there were no warnings from Turkey.] The Turkmen militia, who cooperate with al-Nusra and other jihad groups against the Syrian government and Kurdish militias – both enemies of ISIS – are an essential asset of Ankara’s in keeping control of the portion of the border abutting Turkey’s Hatay Province. They are controlled by embedded Turkish intelligence officers. The firing on the parachuting Russian crew, irrefutably recorded on video, is a war crime, for which the Turkish government bears command responsibility and criminal accountability. (One online comment on a video of a “militia” commander claiming “credit” for shooting at the Russians asserts that from his accent he is identifiable as a Turk, presumably an intelligence officer, not a local Syrian Turkman. I am unable to confirm this claim.) [In a further aggravating development, a Russian marine was reported killed when “moderate” Free Syrian Army terrorists shot down a Russian rescue helicopter with a U.S.-supplied TOW missile.]

Western reactions: Mixed. Some media have taken evident glee in the downing of the Russian plane, as stated in one headline: “The Russians had it coming.” In his Washington meeting today with French President François Hollande, US President Barack Obama seemingly accepted the Turkish version of events and justified the shootdown, stating that “Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.” (One wonders if “any country” includes Syria, whose airspace is violated daily by US, French, and other countries’ aircraft striking targets without permission from Damascus in support of jihadists seeking to overthrow that country’s government.) At an emergency NATO meeting, some skepticism was expressed about Turkey’s action: “Diplomats present at the meeting told Reuters that while none of the 28 NATO envoys defended Russia’s actions, many expressed concern that Turkey did not escort the Russian warplane out of its airspace.” The NATO governments are no doubt aware of Turkey’s past provocations against Syria, well before the advent of the Russian air campaign, staging border incidents seeking to trigger a Syrian response that could be depicted as an “attack on Turkey” justifying an Article 5 response. [One American military expert concludes the Turkish claim does not hold up and is a clear attempt to “NATO-ize” the conflict. Democrat-GOP establishment “Hillary Christie” may finally get the NATO-Russia clash they crave.]
Russian response: Putin made a harsh statement at Sochi prior to a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan: “Today’s loss is linked to a stab in the back delivered to us by accomplices of terrorists. Today’s tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations.” Some form of retaliation is widely expected. Among the options are energy supply and tourism. Turkey is heavily dependent on Russian gas, but withholding it would hurt Russia financially as well and damage Russia’s reputation as a reliable supplier. Already, there has been some indication that Russians will curtail vacations in Turkey (a popular beach destination, both for price and because Russians don’t need a visa) and of tour companies dropping Turkish vacations packages. Ironically, tourism retaliation primarily will hurt people in Turkish coastal areas, which are generally more secular and Europeanized than central Anatolia – in short, those disadvantaged would be disproportionately Erdogan opponents, not supporters. Possible military responses include directing intensive airstrikes on Turkmen militia positions [which appear s already to have begun], with the aim of killing Turkish intelligence personnel; and stepping up supply to and cooperation with Kurdish forces. The latter would be a deft move, given the popularity of the Kurds in the US.

Jim Jatras, a former US diplomat and foreign policy adviser to the Senate GOP leadership, currently is the only announced prospect for the Republican vice presidential nomination.

Comments (8)

wootendw 22p · 1 day ago

Most people in the West will accept Turkey's version over Russia's regardless of who was in the right. Putin is well versed in international diplomacy and not overreact to a provocation as was likely intended. There is no need yet to worry about (nuclear) war.

However, what is indisputable here is the fact that 'Free' Syrian Army elements shot parachuting pilots and took out a rescue helicopter. This barbarity is inexcusable and has given Russia the right to attack FSA targets as they have been doing to known ISIS targets. This action has already commenced. Any protestations by Western leaders will be ignored by Russians and even by average Americans.

comrade hermit · 1 day ago

I have said it before and I will say it again, a Russian-Kurdish collaboration is the key to shutting down the American-Jihadist conspiracy against Assad's Syria. The US has been stringing the Kurds along for decades while aiding Turkey's slow burning genocide against them. I think the Kurds would welcome a more reliable allie, especially the PKK. The Kurdistan Workers Party and there comrades in the YPG are not even seeking full independence anymore. Just the same kind of federalized autonomy Russia has afforded republics like Chechnya for generations.

If Russia throws it's full support behind the Kurds via airstrikes, heavy artillery and the kind of heavy metal denied them by there double dealing Yankee callers, they can seal the border with Turkey, surrounding the jihadists and bringing a long manipulated US allie into Moscow's orbit.

An empowered Kurdistan will also prove to be the ultimate revenge on Ankara, creating a Kurdish wall separating Turkey from Asia and sabotaging any hope for a second Ottoman Empire. This has long been Turkeys worst fear. I say we make it happen.

anytime · 5 hours ago

America use these same words when their Zionist entity murder Palestinians/Syrians with their up to date military equiptment

george archers · 3 hours ago

Sad not one cautious word about evil France's sinister motive, in siding with Russia. Paris killings were all a set-up, for a Trogan Horse trap . Putin has just lost in his chess game King and Queen.
How many of you caught on that most of Canada's planes in Syria and Iraq are being flown by British Airman?? French are another untrustworthy. scoundrels

Imperial drive for Power & Control is at the root of terror

Although experts would present other reasons, imperial drive definitely makes the top of the list...

The Roots of Terror. Imperial Overdrive for Power and Control

By Jim Miles

Global Research, November 17, 2015

The Palestine Chronicle 16 November 2015

 

I was sickened to hear and watch the events occurring in France.  Part of that was for the immediate families, friends and neighbours of those so needlessly killed.  Another part was the fear factor, not fear of terror or for myself but fear for how the powers that be would ratchet up the security control within their own societies by using their own biased racist fear factors in order to rationalize it to control their own populations.  A wider perspective is the sick feeling of realizing that humanity in general is capable of producing such atrocities.
The latter is where a large problem arises within our supposedly ‘civilized’ western world.  It is not just the terrorists who are capable of atrocities against humanity; it is not just Muslim fanatics who are capable of terrorising the west; it is not the ‘other’ who is capable of demonizing and killing their opponents. It is you and I and the societies that we support that are also capable of producing terror across large swathes of the world.

It is our history of moral superiority and technological advantage for which we, the ‘western’ world, the ‘civilized’ world, perceive ourselves as being superior – well, look  at us, living lifestyles of comparative wealth and luxury to much of the world, of course we are superior.  What is not contained within that narrative is that our wealth has much more to do with the imperial conquests by the European ‘west’ of various regions in order to extract their wealth of whatever sort.  Our moral superiority is nothing more than a gloss of rhetoric over the motivation to use a superior military technology to subdue, conquer, and extract wealth from other regions and other peoples.
In short the roots of terror lie within our own hands.  Certainly other civilizations of past eras have done the same thing with their own versions of morality and technological advantages.  That only underlines the idea that this is a human condition, with our current version apparently much more deadly than previous iterations of our collective and unrecognized heart of darkness.
Imperial overdrive for power and control.
Wherein, then, do the roots of terror lie, historically apart from within ourselves generally?  One could trace the roots of terror back to the beginning of historical times, and then beyond into pre-history.  But as we are supposedly a morally/technologically superior society today, the roots of today’s terror can arguably be traced back to World War I, its imperial atrocities on all sides, followed by the demise of the Ottoman Empire.
Before then of course is the whole colonial history concerning the conquest of the Americas and the subjugation of its indigenous population.  Societies then, almost wholly European, used the same old/same old tactics of arguing moral superiority while utilizing brutal technologies to subjugate and destroy native people.  Africa was dealt the same deal, and while the indigenous populations were not destroyed, the slavery, resource extraction, and control of the physical land covered the entire continent.  Most parts of Asia, whether the British in Southern Asia or the French in Southeast Asia, with the Portuguese and Dutch scattered throughout the region, underwent a similar colonial pattern.
World War I was effectively a clash of these empires trying to supercede the control of the other empires for the wealth and power of the rest of the world.  From that war rose the divisions of the Middle East by the British and French into either outright control or spheres of influence ranging from the Sykes-Picot secret agreement through to the League of Nations mandates.  The Versailles peace, while it ‘worked’ for some, failed miserably for others, not meeting the ideals of the Wilsonian rhetoric about all nationalities deciding their own futures democratically.
Because of that failure, World War II became the last and largest battle of World War I, witnessing again a change in the imperial overlords.  Politically, financially, and economically, the U.S. became the dominant power gaining control of Europe through NATO, and using a combination of military and financial tactics to try and gain control of the rest who were not willing to submit to U.S. dominance.  The readings of history are widely available, with various interpretations, with the general trend being one of an artificial moral superiority, combined with powerful economic forces (Bretton Woods, World Bank, IMF, WTO, OECD, et al), all sustained through covert and overt military actions.
The unipolar empire
The collapse of the Soviet Union is probably the most current historical turning point.  It left the U.S. and its partners as the heirs apparent to being the global hegemon.  A global peace would surely ensue, it was the ‘end of history’.  Unfortunately the same imperial imperative from centuries past survived and thrived with what was supposed to become the New World Order.  It played out militarily through the designs of the Grand Chessboard, rather than through the logic of orderly trade and cultural interaction searching for a better understanding of each other’s cultures.
Arguably, the 9/11 attacks on the WTC could be labelled as a more important inflection point of history, but it is more readily seen as a culmination of blowback from actions taken by the global imperial hegemon after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  That incident released powerful forces already prepared, ready to be set in motion.  It was the ‘New Pearl Harbour’ desired by the authors of the Project for a New American Century (Kristol, Feith, Kagan, Wolfowiz, Woolsey,Rumsfield, Bolton, Perle) who had been around since Reagan’s tenure.  It allowed the rapid passing of the Homeland Security Act, one so large it had to be by necessity ready to go for such a framework.  It ramped up the rogue nature of U.S. military and corporate actions globally, as their infamous ‘with us or against us’ paradigm turned everything black and white, losing all perspectives of grey or colour.
The ultimate goal was global hegemony, the containment and or destruction of both Russia and China, the unparalleled support of Israel, and the demonization of all things Islamic.  It was applied ruthlessly through all means of military operations, through the manipulation of international standards (e.g. the so called ‘right to protect’ doctrine), through the manipulation of financial markets and last but not least, the outright control of the mainstream media and its acquiescence, indeed promotion of,  imperial rhetoric.
Multipolarity renewed
Fortunately we are at another inflection point in history – not fortunate for the depth of its current and potential violence – fortunate in that the ‘rest of the world’ has acted against the imperial overdrive of the U.S. and its imperial cohorts and satraps.
Yes, the attacks in Paris were brutal, vicious and intended to terrorize.  But what of the terror that has been instigated in the name of empire, the empire in which you and I live?  Is it less of a terror tactic to bomb cities, villages, and countrysides indiscriminately as in the Vietnam War?  Are we more ‘civilized’ now that we pretend to use smart weapons?  Is shock and awe a feature of technological morality making us superior to the thousands killed immediately, with millions more affected in subsequent years?  Is the use of hyperbaric bombs, cluster munitions, white phosphorous, depleted uranium munitions, Hellfire missiles, dense inert metal explosives – all used by ‘civilized’ western powers in the wars of the Middle East and beyond – is that being more civilized?
Similarly is the control and manipulation of the financial world a morally justifiable act?  Are ‘free trade’ agreements anything but free when they subjugate the junior partner to both financial and legislative/legal terms that essentially destroy sovereignty?  Is our lifestyle -  predicated on consumption, living within a rentier extractive economy (living in debt), buying cheap resources and goods from countries subject to financial and military imperial overdrive – is that how we rationalize our moral superiority?
This is understood by some of the world.  It is seldom if ever recognized within the mainstream media, except for the odd occasion when a ‘balanced’ report is made on a situation in which there is no balance.  What is being recognized, slowly and without huge rhetorical counter-attack, is that there is, fortunately, no longer a single global hegemon, even as they remain desirous to attempt it.
Putin asked at the UN, “Do you know what you have done?” They have created an empire of chaos that serves certain sectors well but for the most part to a level of violence not witnessed for several generations, that could – if the right wing rhetoric and bluster of U.S. presidential candidates holds any meaning – could lead to the end of the world as we know it.  The mujahideen “freedom fighters” of Reagan have morphed through the Taliban to al-Qaeda into the current ISIS iteration.
These groups have all been supported by the U.S.:  certainly the mujahideen from which the Taliban; less so al-Qaeda other than as a useful ‘other’ as an excuse to combat on a global scale yet supported by long time ally, the medieval tribal monarchy of Saudi Arabia; and as can be extrapolated from current actions against ISIS who have proven to be a convenient destabilizer against Assad, receiving U.S. military aid indirectly through Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other partners.
As for France, it has been a willing partner in most if not all of these imperial endeavours.  Asymmetric warfare has brought those endeavours to the ‘homeland’.  France could have imposed martial law and locked the country down as more than likely would happen in the U.S. if a similar incident had occurred.  In Canada the response has been measured and compassionate, a decided change from what would have happened if Harper was still in power and able to ramp up the terrorist fear factor.  Fortunately, humanity also carries within itself an altruistic caring capacity towards others.
Just as the roots of terror lie within our own hands, so do the roots of an altruistic humanitarian outlook.  That includes all humanity, indeed all of the global environment, and if nourished properly can result in the eventual reset to a more compassionate and caring social structure.  I expect no miracles as the hatreds and animosities that have been developed by the control of the commons politically, financially, and militarily, presented with a subservient media, will not be easy to overcome.
What needs to be recognized is that we are all complicit partly through the acceptance of our lifestyles and what it is truly based on.  As individuals sometimes not much can be achieved, but it becomes an individual responsibility to question authority, to question the raison d’etre of our moral judgements, and to be prepared to do our own search for the truth, however painful that truth may be to predetermined ideologies.
Civilians in Paris have been killed because of these imperial drives for power, just as tens,  hundreds of millions before them have been killed in the past.  The human condition, its extremes of pathos and joy, requires a recognition of a global responsibility towards each and every ‘other’ that exists.  Take personal responsibility, think globally, act locally towards an era when perhaps the world will be at peace with one another.

The original source of this article is The Palestine Chronicle

Copyright © Jim Miles, The Palestine Chronicle, 2015

 

Here’s how the US fueled the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq

The sectarian terror group won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place.

Now the truth emerges: Here’s how the US fueled the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq

Seumas Milne, The Guardian
15 Nov 2015

The war on terror, that campaign without end launched 14 years ago by George Bush, is tying itself up in ever more grotesque contortions. On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after it became clear British intelligence had been arming the same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting.
The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead with the trial would have been an “affront to justice” when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself providing “extensive support” to the armed Syrian opposition.

That didn’t only include the “non-lethal assistance” boasted of by the government (including body armour and military vehicles), but training, logistical support and the secret supply of “arms on a massive scale”. Reports were cited that MI6 had cooperated with the CIA on a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to the Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime.
Clearly, the absurdity of sending someone to prison for doing what ministers and their security officials were up to themselves became too much. But it’s only the latest of a string of such cases. Less fortunate was a London cab driver Anis Sardar, who was given a life sentence a fortnight earlier for taking part in 2007 in resistance to the occupation of Iraq by US and British forces. Armed opposition to illegal invasion and occupation clearly doesn’t constitute terrorism or murder on most definitions, including the Geneva convention.
But terrorism is now squarely in the eye of the beholder. And nowhere is that more so than in the Middle East, where today’s terrorists are tomorrow’s fighters against tyranny – and allies are enemies – often at the bewildering whim of a western policymaker’s conference call.
For the past year, US, British and other western forces have been back in Iraq, supposedly in the cause of destroying the hyper-sectarian terror group Islamic State (formerly known as al-Qaida in Iraq). This was after Isis overran huge chunks of Iraqi and Syrian territory and proclaimed a self-styled Islamic caliphate.
The campaign isn’t going well. Last month, Isis rolled into the Iraqi city of Ramadi, while on the other side of the now nonexistent border its forces conquered the Syrian town of Palmyra. Al-Qaida’s official franchise, the Nusra Front, has also been making gains in Syria.
Some Iraqis complain that the US sat on its hands while all this was going on. The Americans insist they are trying to avoid civilian casualties, and claim significant successes. Privately, officials say they don’t want to be seen hammering Sunni strongholds in a sectarian war and risk upsetting their Sunni allies in the Gulf.
A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012 , which uncannily predicts – and effectively welcomes – the prospect of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” – and states that “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria.
Raising the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality”, the Pentagon report goes on, “this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)”.

American forces bomb one set of rebels while backing another in Syria

Which is pretty well exactly what happened two years later . The report isn’t a policy document. It’s heavily redacted and there are ambiguities in the language. But the implications are clear enough. A year into the Syrian rebellion, the US and its allies weren’t only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of “Islamic state” – despite the “grave danger” to Iraq’s unity – as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria .
That doesn’t mean the US created Isis, of course, though some of its Gulf allies certainly played a role in it – as the US vice-president, Joe Biden, acknowledged last year. But there was no al-Qaida in Iraq until the US and Britain invaded. And the US has certainly exploited the existence of Isis against other forces in the region as part of a wider drive to maintain western control.
The calculus changed when Isis started beheading westerners and posting atrocities online, and the Gulf states are now backing other groups in the Syrian war, such as the Nusra Front. But this US and western habit of playing with jihadi groups, which then come back to bite them, goes back at least to the 1980s war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which fostered the original al-Qaida under CIA tutelage.
It was recalibrated during the occupation of Iraq, when US forces led by General Petraeus sponsored an El Salvador-style dirty war of sectarian death squads to weaken the Iraqi resistance. And it was reprised in 2011 in the Nato-orchestrated war in Libya, where Isis last week took control of Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte.
In reality, US and western policy in the conflagration that is now the Middle East is in the classic mould of imperial divide-and-rule. American forces bomb one set of rebels while backing another in Syria, and mount what are effectively joint military operations with Iran against Isis in Iraq while supporting Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. However confused US policy may often be, a weak, partitioned Iraq and Syria fit such an approach perfectly.
What’s clear is that Isis and its monstrosities won’t be defeated by the same powers that brought it to Iraq and Syria in the first place, or whose open and covert war-making has fostered it in the years since. Endless western military interventions in the Middle East have brought only destruction and division. It’s the people of the region who can cure this disease – not those who incubated the virus.

guardian.co.uk
© Guardian News and Media 2015

Grandmaster Putin Beats Uncle Sam at His Own Game!

When push comes to shove...

Targeting ISIS Terrorists in Syria: Grandmaster Putin Beats Uncle Sam at His Own Game

By Mike Whitney

Global Research, November 15, 2015

CounterPunch 13 November 2015

Imagine that you despised your brother-in-law and wanted to kill him. But you didn’t have the guts to do it yourself so you hired a hit-man to do the job for you.
Would you still be guilty of murder?
You’re darn right, you would be. So let’s apply this same rule to US foreign policy: Would it be just as wrong to invade a country, kill its people and topple its government with militants that you funded, armed and trained as it would be with your own US troops?
Yep, it sure would be. So while some people might think that it was smarter for Obama to use a proxy-army in Syria instead of US soldiers, morally or legally speaking, there’s really no difference between what he did and what Bush did in Iraq. A US invasion is a US invasion. Period. It doesn’t matter if you use for-hire killers or your own guys. It’s all the same. Obama is just as guilty as Bush.
Why does it matter?
It matters because Obama’s Syrian policy has resulted in the deaths of 250,000 people and created 11 million refugees. That’s more refugees than Iraq. And the funny thing is, the media doesn’t even talk about it, in fact, there’s not one major media outlet in the entire country that has stated what everyone knows to be the obvious truth; that the United States is 100 percent responsible for the refugee crisis. 100 percent! Assad had nothing to do with it. US policy and our buck-passing president are entirely to blame.
The point is, the Democrats pursue the same policies as the GOP with some minor-tweaking at the edges. So if the hard-charging, but dimwitted Republicans decide to drag the country to war on a pack of lies, then the shifty Dems will try to be smarter about it; they’ll try to micromanage the public relations, preempt antiwar marches in US cities and avoid US casualties at all cost. Obama has succeeded in all of these things. There’s nobody in the streets protesting, the media has convinced most people that Syria is in the throes of a civil war, and there have been no flag-draped coffins returning to Andover Airbase because their are no US boots on the ground.  For all practical purposes, the Democrats have created our first completely invisible war. That’s quite an accomplishment, don’t you think?
The only glitch is that, after 4 years, Obama’s plan for toppling Bashar al Assad has failed. True, he’s destroyed the world’s oldest civilization and condemned its people to a hardscrabble existence for the next 20 years or so, but he’s failed in his primary objectives; to remove Assad, partition the country, and secure the territory he needs for vital pipeline corridors. So, you see, all the sneaky, underhanded methods the Democrats have used to secretly prosecute their war on Syria have backfired because the US is going to lose the war anyway.
Why is the US going to lose the war?
Because the Russian-led coalition has stopped Washington dead-in-its-tracks and sent the terrorist vermin fleeing for cover, that’s why.
On Tuesday, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and fighters from the feared Lebanese national militia, Hezbollah,  recaptured  the strategic Kuweires military airbase in North Syria killing hundreds of ISIS terrorists and liberating 250 Syrian soldiers who had been holding out at the base for more than two and a half years. The battle was downplayed in the western media mainly because it represents a critical turning point in the conflict. The Russian-led coalition is now the drivers seat while the “US-backed” jihadis are on the run.   The war’s momentum has totally shifted in Putin’s favor which means that Putin’s going to win and Obama’s going to lose.
Kuweires is Syria’s Stalingrad, the famous WW 2 siege which lasted from August 1942 to February 1943 when the German Wehrmacht was repelled by the ferocious Red Army in the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. While the scale of Kuweires is smaller by many orders of magnitude, it’s importance can’t be overstated. It wasn’t ISIS that was defeated at Kuweires; it was US foreign policy, a policy which has reduced a large swathe of the planet, extending from North Africa, across the Middle East and into Central Asia, into smoldering rubble. Kuweires was a key node in Washington’s plan to topple Assad and plunge Syria in failed-state anarchy. That strategy has now been rolled back, not by people waving signs in the streets or politicians appealing for peace and sanity, or diplomats at the UN “talking shop” who have become the de facto rubber stamp for US aggression. No. US policy was rolled back by Russian warplanes, heavy artillery, armored vehicles and highly-motivated, stiff-neck fighting grunts who put their country before their own personal safety. Get the picture?
For the last 15 years, the US has ruled the world through force of arms. Well, guess what; other people have weapons too, and they’re ready to use them. That’s the meaning of Kuweires. Other nations are refusing to accept a model of global world disorder where one country unilaterally arms, trains and deploys homicidal jihadi psychopaths to achieve its own narrow geopolitical goals. That’s a model that is seriously broken and needs to be replaced ASAP.  This is the task to which Putin and his fellow terror-liquidators have applied themselves, and they’re doing a pretty fair job of it too.
In the last week, the Russian-led coalition has made great strides in ending this madness and turning the tide on the imperial project.   As a result, Washington has been forced to rethink its approach and adapt to the rapidly-changing conditions on the ground. The evidence of this is everywhere, like this goofy article which ran at Huffington Post on Thursday. Check it out:

Supported by U.S.-led airstrikes, Kurdish Iraqi troops on Thursday seized part of a highway that is used as a vital supply line by the Islamic State group, a key initial step in a major offensive to retake the strategic town of Sinjar from the militants….
Hours into Thursday’s operation, the Kurdish Regional Security Council said its forces controlled a section of Highway 47, which passes by Sinjar and indirectly links the militants’ two biggest strongholds — Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq — as a route for goods, weapons and fighters….
“By controlling Highway 47, which is used by Daesh to transport weapons, fighters, illicit oil and other commodities that fund their operations, the coalition intends to increase pressure … and isolate their components from each other,” a coalition statement said.
(“U.S.-Backed Kurds Launch Offensive To Retake ISIS-Held Iraqi Town Sinjar”, Huffington Post)

So they launched a major ground offensive and cut off ISIS vital supply lines?
What a novel idea? Too bad no one in Washington thought about that before wasting the last 18 months blowing up camels in the dessert or whatever the hell they were doing.   And why has the Pentagon been playing circlejerk for the last year and a half while these freaks raped women, lopped off heads and wreaked havoc across the countryside when they could have pulled the plug on them long ago?
“Why”? Let me explain “why”?
It’s because ISIS is Washington’s favorite windup toy. They just let these hooligans “Do their thing” as long as they advance US geopolitical goals and, when they’ve served their purpose,  they stomp them out like a stag beetle. That’s the basic program. That’s how it works. Only now that Putin has been mowing down these gobshite takfiris like a combine-harvester slashing thorough the corn patch, the Obama crew has had to move on to Plan B: Liquidate ISIS and hold-on to those areas that were under ISIS control. That will give Uncle Sam the territory he’s going to need to set up his “safe zones” that’ll be protected by US aircover and serve as sanctuaries for  more troublemaking sociopaths who can be deployed back into Syria to perpetuate the conflict deep into the future. That’s the US strategy in a nutshell.
Washington knows now that the war is lost, so it’s looking for a way to keep a foothold in Syria for future mischief. The same is true on the Turkish-Syrian border where Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan is conspiring with Obama to set up a buffer zone on Syrian territory. Check this out in Today’s Zaman:

In the run-up to the Nov. 1 election, signals were given that if the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won, Turkey might well start up a land military operation in Syria….
Looking at statements from top Ankara officials in the days prior to the upcoming G-20 summit in Antalya, it does appear that we’ll have action in Syria sometime soon. No matter how often government officials signal Ankara’s desire to cooperate in air operations over Syria, the real fact of the matter is, Ankara would like to see Turkish troops enter Syria by land in warfare situation….
Signals are now coming in fast and furious that Turkey will enter into this war. What’s more, the signals are not limited to AKP statements; the assumption is spreading in the West, too, that this will be Ankara’s course. (“Is war on the horizon?“, Today’s Zaman)

Erdogan is a megalomaniac and a menace which is why Putin  had better keep an eye on him. And the same goes for Obama too. Obama may be down, but he’s not out just yet. He still has a few more tricks up his sleeve and he’s sure to use them before this thing is over.  Even so,  the advantage definitely goes to Putin at this point. He took on the entire Washington braintrust and beat them at their own game.
Like him or not, you got to tip your hat to a guy like that.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

The original source of this article is CounterPunch

Copyright © Mike Whitney, CounterPunch, 2015