Finian Cunningham -- Russia Saving World From Total War

Russia Saving World From Total War

By Finian Cunningham

May 16, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Sputnik" - The deployment this week of a US missile system in Eastern Europe is another step towards all-out global war. Despite Western propaganda demonizing Russia, the truth is that it is Russian military might that is actually holding the line to prevent such a cataclysm.

The United States and its NATO allies are already at war with Russia. This is not hyperbole. It is fact. The US and its allies are amassing weapons and troops on Russia’s borders, and engaging in simulated attacks from various directions.

Orwellian language of “war games” in Western media serves to diminish the disturbing fact that NATO forces are preparing offensive strikes on Russia.

War machinery on both sides are locked on. The encounter last month of the US warship with Russian fighter jets in the Baltic Sea is but one of many such close encounters occurring almost every week. Granted, weapons have not actually been fired yet. Nevertheless, the weapon machinery is engaged.

Again, Western media serve to normalize what is a balefully abnormal situation. At the behest of Washington, the Western countries are trying to blockade Russia with economic sanctions. This is just another provocative act of war.

Moreover, diplomatic channels between Washington and Moscow seem attenuated to levels as low as at any time during the former Cold War. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has apparently maintained a cordial working relationship with his American counterpart John Kerry, but apart from that individual rapport the bilateral position between the two powers has sunken to an all-time low.

Another manifestation of war is the US proxy conflict with Russia in Syria and Ukraine. On the surface there may be talk about ceasefires and political solutions, but make no mistake the jihadist mercenaries and the neo-Nazi Kiev regime are nonetheless American military assets ever-poised to attack Russia’s geo-strategic interests.

The move this week by Washington to activate its long-anticipated missile system in Eastern Europe is another act of aggression in a whole panoply of offensive actions. US and NATO officials deny that the Aegis system is targeting Russia, and make the ludicrous claim that it is to defend Europe against Iranian ballistic rockets or some other “rogue state”. Such transparent, deceitful nonsense.

Russia rightly dismisses Washington and NATO’s cynical assurances. The Kremlin this week said that the installation of the US missile system is a direct threat to Russia’s security. Moscow said it would take counter-measures to restore the strategic balance of nuclear deterrence. It was no coincidence that official Russian reports disclosed details of a new hypersonic Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile that could penetrate any American missile shield to deliver a warhead capable of destroying an area the size of Texas or France.

This is not irresponsible Russian bravado. It is vital that Russia lets aggressive Washington know that any future war moves will be met with equal or greater force. Of course, the outcome would be an all-out nuclear war which could destroy the planet as we know it. But the only way of saving the peace and the planet is for Russia to show that it has the military might to face down any American belligerence.

The upgrade of Russian military power under President Vladimir Putin is perhaps the only thing that is holding back the push for all-out war by the US.

And let’s face it. It is the US that is the source of belligerence. As American political analyst Randy Martin points out, the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine is the touchstone of Washington’s foreign policy. The neocon doctrine of former Department of Defense official Paul Wolfowitz, who served in the George W Bush administrations, is embedded in US military strategic thinking.

Says Martin: “Wolfowitz’s worldview of seeing the US as the world’s only superpower and not tolerating any other rival to the point of going to war, is taught in all American military academies. It is mainstream US military thinking.”

This is what motivates Washington’s bellicose policies towards Russia and China, adds Martin. “The US is programed to go to war with any perceived rival global power in order to maintain its unwarranted ambitions of hegemony.”

The analyst says that if it were not for Russian, and Chinese, military power the US state planners would have gone further by now in prosecuting their war actions, with catastrophic consequences for the world. It is a sobering thought that, despite all the Western media disparagement of Russia, it is actually Russia that is saving the world from such a catastrophic conflict – a conflict that the US alone is pushing.

Indeed, it is averred that Russia’s intervention in Syria may have been partly based on this bigger, far more serious calculation. Not only was Russia salvaging the Middle East country from Western-backed war for regime change. Moscow’s deployment of latest weaponry, including its sea-launched cruise missiles and the S-400 anti-ballistic defense, could have been aimed at demonstrating to Washington that it better think twice about pursuing a wider war agenda.

Little do we know it because of so much Western mind-numbing misinformation, but our world is facing the abyss of nuclear war. Russia’s military power is holding the line from this abyss.

How can we transcend this abysmal situation before stumbling over the edge?

Russia must remain vigilant and strong, with a determination to not capitulate. 

The anniversary last week of the defeat of Nazi Germany is a timely reminder of Russia’s epic importance in thwarting international aggression. The same fascist aggression is virulent again in the form of American hegemonic ambitions, and just as with the Third Reich it is Russian fortitude that is preserving the world from Total War.

Political analyst Randy Martin does not see the American public has having a decisive role in practice. In theory, yes, US citizens need to call their warmongering leaders to account and to elect a democratic government – for a change. However, says Martin, the American public are so disenfranchised, brainwashed, beaten down, and oppressed with poverty and consumerist psychosis, he does not see how a mass movement in the US can be mobilized at this point in history in order to abolish the warmongering ruling elite in Washington.

Perhaps, it is up to the people of Europe to take decisive action. Growing popular discontent with European leaders who toe the American line of aggression and sanctions on Russia may have the potential of decisively breaking the US-EU-NATO war front.

What people need to urgently wake up to is that Washington and its European vassals in government are already at war on Russia. There is absolutely no objective justification for this destructive dynamic, other than the US trying to unilaterally assert its hegemony. That is not the policy of a law-abiding democracy; it is a fascist power in the same vein as Nazi Germany.

The war on Russia is being waged on entirely spurious grounds of alleged Russian annexations, invasions and expansionism. This is utter propaganda – again a la Nazi Germany.

The crucial question is this: can Russia hold the line long enough against US-led aggression until the people of the world mobilize the political action to overthrow the criminal regime that operates out of Washington and through European capitals?

Ron Paul -- Living By The Sword... Defense Bill Coming This Week: A Boost for War and Tyranny

Living By The Sword...

Defense Bill Coming This Week: A Boost for War and Tyranny

By Ron Paul

You own your own body. No state has the right to force you to kill or be killed against your will. No state has a claim on your life.

May 16, 2016 "Information Clearing House" -  For many of us concerned with liberty, the letters “NDAA” have come to symbolize Washington’s ongoing effort to undermine the US Constitution in the pursuit of constant war overseas. It was the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012 that introduced into law the idea that American citizens could be indefinitely detained without warrant or charge if a government bureaucrat decides they had assisted al-Qaeda or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.” No charges, no trial, just disappeared Americans.

The National Defense Authorization bill should be a Congressional mechanism to bind the president to spend national defense money in the way Congress wishes. It is the nuts and bolts of the defense budget and as such is an important oversight tool preventing the imperial executive from treating the military as his own private army. Unfortunately that is no longer the case these days.

Why am I revisiting the NDAA today? Unfortunately since 2012 these bills have passed the House with less and less scrutiny, and this week the House is going to vote on final passage of yet another Defense Authorization, this time for fiscal year 2017. Once again it is a terrible piece of legislation that does great harm to the United States under the guise of protecting the United States.

Unless some last minute changes take place, this latest NDAA will force young women for the first time to register to be drafted into the US military. For the past 36 years, young men have been forced to register with Selective Service when they turn 18 or face felony charges and years in prison. Under a perverted notion of “equality” some people are cheering the idea that this represents an achievement for women. Why cheer when slavery is extended to all? We should be fighting for an end to forced servitude for young men and to prevent it being extended to women.

The Creeping Militarization of American Culture

The Creeping Militarization of American Culture

By Ted Galen Carpenter

The notion that the president is a national commander who can direct the country and it is our obligation as subordinates to salute and follow his lead is an alien and profoundly un-American concept.

May 16, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "National Interest" -  In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the growing influence of the “military-industrial complex” on American politics and policy. Interestingly, Eisenhower’s original formulation of the menace was the even more accurate “military-industrial-congressional complex.” (Emphasis added). Seeing how that network of special interests has worked its tentacles into so many aspects of American political and economic life in the intervening decades indicates just how prescient was Eisenhower’s warning.

But there has been an even more subtle and pervasive militarization of American culture. It has been evident since World War II, but it has been accelerating markedly in recent years. Perhaps the most corrosive domestic effect of the global interventionist foreign policy that Washington adopted after World War II has been on national attitudes. Americans have come to accept intrusions in the name of “national security” that they would have strongly resisted in previous decades. The various provisions of the Patriot Act and the surveillance regime and its abuses epitomized by the NSA are a case in point.

Obama Granted Henry Kissinger a Distinguished Public Service Award

Obama Granted Henry Kissinger a Distinguished Public Service Award

An outsized personality who has committed outsized mayhem, Kissinger eclipses his own context. By Greg Grandin May 12, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "The Nation" -  Yesterday Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter honored Henry A. Kissinger at the Pentagon by presenting the former secretary of state with the Distinguished Public Service Award, apparently the highest award the Department of Defense has for private citizens. Carter himself deserves an award for understatement, calling the man who is responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of millions of people in Southeast Asia, East Timor, Bangladesh, and southern Africa, among other places—”unique in the annals of American diplomacy.” Kissinger, Carter said, “demonstrated how serious thinking and perspective can deliver solutions to seemingly intractable problems.” As to allegations of war crimes, “the fact is,” said Kissinger, he and Richard Nixon “were engaged in good causes.” Where to start? It’s exhausting trying to keep track of what is now a quarterly celebration of the 92-year-old Kissinger. It was just six or so months ago when The New York Times Book Review assigned Kissinger’s preferred authorized biographer to review a Kissinger biography written by Kissinger’s second-choice biographer. A “masterpiece”! the first said of the second. And then, three months ago, Hillary Clinton, in a debate with Bernie Sanders, cited Kissinger’s recommendation as a referral for the White House. At the time, Clinton’s remarks seemed a misstep, allowing Sanders an opening to criticize her catastrophic interventionism in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Now, though, it is clear that Clinton’s invocation of Kissinger wasn’t a fluke but rather a preview of a general election strategy to run to Trump’s right on foreign policy and win over the hawkish wing of the Republican Party. “The candidate in the race most like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a foreign-policy perspective,” Republican strategist Steve Schmidt recently said, “is in fact Hillary Clinton.”

Noam Chomsky -- Who Rules the World? American Power Under Challenge

Who Rules the World?
American Power Under Challenge

Masters of Mankind (Part 1)

By Noam Chomsky

[This piece, the first of two parts, is excerpted from Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books).  Part 2 will be posted on Tuesday morning.]

May 09, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Tom Dispatch" - When we ask “Who rules the world?” we commonly adopt the standard convention that the actors in world affairs are states, primarily the great powers, and we consider their decisions and the relations among them. That is not wrong. But we would do well to keep in mind that this level of abstraction can also be highly misleading.

States of course have complex internal structures, and the choices and decisions of the political leadership are heavily influenced by internal concentrations of power, while the general population is often marginalized. That is true even for the more democratic societies, and obviously for others. We cannot gain a realistic understanding of who rules the world while ignoring the “masters of mankind,” as Adam Smith called them: in his day, the merchants and manufacturers of England; in ours, multinational conglomerates, huge financial institutions, retail empires, and the like. Still following Smith, it is also wise to attend to the “vile maxim” to which the “masters of mankind” are dedicated: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people” -- a doctrine known otherwise as bitter and incessant class war, often one-sided, much to the detriment of the people of the home country and the world.

Panama Papers Reveals: Saudi King Salman 80$ Million Support for Netanyahu

Panama Papers Reveals: Saudi King Salman 80$ Million Support for Netanyahu

By Alalam

May 09, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Alalam" -  Isaac Herzog, member of the Knesset and Chairman of the Israeli Labor party, revealed that Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz financed the election campaign of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Arabic Almasdar news quoted from Panama Papers.

“In March 2015, King Salman has deposited eighty million dollars to support Netanyahu’s campaign via a Syrian-Spanish person named Mohamed Eyad Kayali.

The money was deposited to a company’s account in British Virgin Islands owned by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire and businessman, who has allocated the money to fund the campaign Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”, Herzog cited a leaked Panama Paper.

Voting for Empire is the Sole Option for Democrats and Republicans

Votingfor Empire is the Sole Option for Democrats and Republicans

By Peter Phillips

May 07, 2016 "Information Clearing House" -  The presidential primaries offer a single choice for both Democrats and Republicans to vote for empire and permanent war. This year’s entertainment spectacle, what we call democratic elections, is a particularly gross circus of meaninglessness, misinformation, sound bites, and lies. Both parties are in support in the continuation of the US/NATO global empire of permanent war and the protection of the capital of the global 1%. Even Bernie Sanders calls for drone strikes and continued war on Isis and other evil terrorists.

Neo-fascists, racists, and misogynistic people are finding new voice with Donald Trump’s presidential bid. Neo-conservatives and fundamentalists found hope with Ted Cruz. Moderates, liberals and women see Hillary Clinton as a chance for Supreme Court balance and gender equality, and left-leaning liberals are cheering for democratic socialist Sanders to save our economy by breaking up big banks and restoring trust in government.

The mobilization of millions of young people in support of Sanders offers them a hope of real change, similar to the false hope millions expressed eight years ago. None of the candidates above offer any solutions for the permanent war on terror, US/NATO presence in 130 countries, massive wasteful spending on arms, neo-liberal economic policies, governmental austerity, global refugees, and human rights for the three billion people living on less than $3 a day. None of the above suggests reinstatement of Habeas Corpus, an expanded Bill of Rights, complete electronic privacy, full governmental transparency, or the bail out of the $1 trillion student loan debt.

fishychick: Veteran's Day: A Time To Honor Duped Murderers?

Veteran's Day: A Time To Honor Duped Murderers?

By fishychick 

November 11, 2011 "Information Clearing House" When one is called to defend one's home and family, it is not really courage that is required, it is a sense of duty. If my home is under attack, if my family is in danger, it is proper and fitting that I defend them and not expect someone else to put their life at risk for my home and family. 

When one is called to defend one's nation, the same sense of duty is conjured. Unfortunately, the calls to defend this nation have been issued on false information in EVERY WAR THE US EVER FOUGHT. The delusion that the US military is defending our home and our nation can be put to the lie with one simple fact: You do not defend your home by going next door and killing your neighbor. That is what our military does. There has never been a war, defending from foreign aggressors, the land that we call "ours" since we "won" independence from England (and stole from the Native Americans and Mexicans, but that is another topic.) 

I am sick of pretending that a person who joins today's army is a hero. They are a mercenary at best, and a murderer looking for legitimate employment at worst. The history of US aggression against peaceful nations is long and disgusting. The attack on the passenger ship the "Lusitania" was used to drag us into WW1, and it turns out the ship WAS full of military equipment after all. The passengers were murdered to rile the citizens and get them hungry for war. The citizens obliged. It worked so well the government used that trick over and over, and they are still at it today. The news is full of posturing to go to war with Iran. Iran, who has not attacked another nation in over 100 years, is supposed to be this grave danger to our freedom. Well, the joke is on us, we have no meaningful freedom left.

Here is a nice link to a brief history of the lies used to wage war around the world at YOUR expense:

I do not want to kill anyone. I do not want anyone to kill anyone pretending they are "protecting" me unless the attacker is IN MY HOUSE. (That is where the US soldiers are, IN THE HOMES of Iraqi and Afghan people.) I have tried to honor their heart, the thing that made them willing to risk their life for others. But they are WRONG and I will no longer defend them in any way. Defending is acceptable, but the US Military is NOT defending the US by going to OTHER nations and invading and occupying them. They are empire building and war mongering. I do not support that, and I only pay taxes out of fear of imprisonment (extortion) because I believe it is my MORAL duty to NOT fund these wars. It is a sad statement on US "freedom" when I cannot behave morally out of fear for my liberty. 

The Honduran Coup’s Ugly Aftermath

August 19, 2015

Exclusive: As Secretary of State in 2009, Hillary Clinton helped a right-wing coup in Honduras remove an elected left-of-center president, setting back the cause of democracy and enabling corrupt and drug-tainted forces to tighten their grip on the poverty-stricken country, as Jonathan Marshall explains.

By Jonathan Marshall

Imelda Marcos will forever be remembered for her hoard of 3,000 pairs of shoes, an ostentatious symbol of the billions of dollars in spoils she amassed as First Lady of the Philippines. Now shoes are again emerging as a symbol of corruption, this time in Honduras, where prosecutors are investigating allegations that a former first lady improperly purchased, or never distributed, 42,100 pairs of shoes for the poor, at a cost to the state of $348,000.

The allegations are just the latest to surface in a wide-ranging corruption investigation that has reenergized grass-roots politics and triggered a nationwide protest movement in Central America’s original “banana republic.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Every Friday evening for the past three months, thousands of protesters have marched through the streets of Tegucigalpa and smaller cities, carrying torches and signs reading “The corrupt have ripped apart my country” and “Enough is enough.”

Sonali Kolhatkar -- Why Are We Ignoring the War on Yemen?

Sonali Kolhatkar

Why Are We Ignoring the War on Yemen?

Posted on Aug 19, 2015

By Sonali Kolhatkar

  People gather at houses destroyed by Saudi airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, in July. (Hani Mohammed / AP)

Yemen has been the target of a brutal U.S.-backed war led by Saudi Arabia. While ordinary civilians are suffering horrific violence and starvation, there is deafening silence from the U.S. and others who claim to be defenders of human rights.

The situation is so bad now that nearly every major global human rights organization has issued dire warnings of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the Persian Gulf’s poorest nation.

Since the Saudi regime began a bombing campaign in March, the situation has deteriorated rapidly as access to food and other aid has been stymied. In response, the United Nations in early July declared a Level 3 humanitarian emergency—the highest level possible. U.N. Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed described Yemen as “one step away from famine.

Kit O'Connell -- 4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?

4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?: 

By Kit O'Connell

August 22, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Mint Press" - It may never be possible to know the true death toll of the modern Western wars on the Middle East, but that figure could be 4 million or higher. Since the vast majority of those killed were of Arab descent, and mostly Muslim, when would it be fair to accuse the United States and its allies of genocide?

A March report by Physicians for Social Responsibility calculates the body count of the Iraq War at around 1.3 million, and possibly as many as 2 million. However, the numbers of those killed in Middle Eastern wars could be much higher. In April, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed argued that the actual death toll could reach as high as 4 million if one includes not just those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the victims of the sanctions against Iraq, which left about 1.7 million more dead, half of them children, according to figures from the United Nations. 

Stephen Lendman -- Everything Western Media Report About Russia Is a Big Fat Lie.

Everything Western Media Report About Russia Is a Big Fat Lie.

By Stephen Lendman





Instead of condemning the madness of possible mass annihilation, media scoundrels march in lockstep with recklessness threatening everyone.

Em vez de condenarem  a loucura da possível aniquilação em massa, os canalhas da comunicação mediática marcham em sintonia e com imprudência,  ameaçando toda a Humanidade.

Stephen Lendman

(RINF) – Vital truths are systematically suppressed. Willful disinformation, distortions and bald-faced lies substitute – why Western media are called presstitutes, making street whores look good by comparison. More on this below.

Longstanding regime change plans lie at the root of US anti-Russian policy – not how the country is governed, its geopolitical agenda or who leads it. Previous articles explained.

Washington wants pro-Western stooge governance replacing Russia’s sovereign independence, its vast land mass balkanized for easier control, its resources looted, its people exploited like serfs – a pure evil Hitlerian agenda wrapped in the American flag.

Outlandish anti-Russian propaganda rages – way exceeding hostile Cold War rhetoric. Virtually all major Western publications and electronic media are in lockstep – reporting vicious Big Lies instead of hard truths.

Prof. James Petras -- The Age of Imperial Wars

The Age of Imperial Wars

From Regional War, "Regime Change" to Global Warfare

2015 has become a year of living dangerously.

Wars are spreading across the globe. 

Wars are escalating as new countries are bombed and the old are ravaged with ever greater intensity.

Countries, where relatively peaceful changes had taken place through recent elections, are now on the verge of civil wars.

These are wars without victors, but plenty of losers; wars that don’t end; wars where imperial occupations are faced with prolonged resistance.

            There are never-ending torrents of war refugees flooding across borders.  Desperate people are detained, degraded and criminalized for being the survivors and victims of imperial invasions.

            Now major nuclear powers face off in Europe and Asia:  NATO versus Russia, US-Japan versus China.  Will these streams of blood and wars converge into one radiated wilderness drained of its precious life blood?

Living Dangerously: The Rising Tide of Violent Conflicts

            There is no question that wars and military threats have replaced diplomacy, negotiations and democratic elections as the principal means of resolving political conflicts.  Throughout the present year (2015) wars have spread across borders and escalated in intensity.

            The NATO allies, US, Turkey and the EU have openly attacked Syria with air strikes and ground troops.  There are plans to occupy the northern sector of that ravaged country, creating what the Erdogan regime dubs a ‘buffer zone’ cleansed of its people and villages.

Ramzy Baroud -- War Begets War Refugees: The Moral Bankruptcy of Italy and NATO

War Begets War Refugees: The Moral Bankruptcy of Italy and NATO By Ramzy Baroud August 20, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - On April 26, 2011, a meeting that can only be described as sinister took place between the then Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. The most pressing issue discussed at the meeting in Rome was how to deal with African immigrants. Sarkozy, who was under pressure from his right-wing and far-right constituencies to halt immigration originating from North Africa (resulting from the Tunisian uprising), desired to strike a deal with the opportunistic Italian leader. In exchange for an Italian agreement to join a French initiative aimed at tightening border control (Italy being accused of allowing immigrants to cross through its borders to the rest of Europe), France, in turn, would resolve major disputes involving a series of takeovers, involving French and Italian companies. Moreover, Italy would then secure French support for a bid by Italian Economist and Banker, Mario Draghi, to become the Head of the European Central Bank. Another point on the French agenda was active Italian participation in the war on Libya, initially spearheaded by France, Britain and the United States, and later championed by NATO.