History Is About To Repeat Itself. – Stockmarket Crash’s Into World War.

Press TV – Protests against a Republican governor’s plan to bust Wisconsin workers’ unions have spilled into nearly all 50 states, including Washington, New York, California, and Nevada.

Tens of thousands of people staged rallies in cities across the US on Saturday to express their solidarity with people in Wisconsin, who are becoming increasingly outraged by the move to keep tight rein on public sector unions, Reuters reported on Sunday.

On February 25, Wisconsin’s State Assembly passed a controversial bill, proposed by Republican Governor Scott Walker, to curtail the state’s labor unions as the ongoing political wrangling between organized workers and cash-strapped state governments spreads across the US.

The plan now needs state Senate approval, but Senate Democrats have fled Wisconsin to prevent a vote.

About 100,000 people converged on Saturday in the Wisconsin State Capitol to air their grievances over the decision by the Republican governor to strip public sector unions of most collective bargaining rights in areas of healthcare coverage, pensions and other benefits.

The aftershocks from the passage of the bill continue to reverberate across the US with demonstrators in New York hitting the streets and waving signs reading “Cut bonuses, not teachers,” “Unions make us strong,” and “Wall St is destroying America.” Some demonstrators wore stickers that read “We are all Wisconsin.”

About 1,000 people also poured into the streets in Chicago, Denver, Nevada and Columbus, Ohio. Several hundred rallied in Austin, Texas, and about 100 people joined a demo in Miami to express their solidarity with people in Wisconsin.

In California, the Los Angeles City Hall turned into the focal point of anti-bill demonstrations, as more than 3,000 people attended the rallies, chanting slogans against what has been widely viewed as an “assault” on public sector unions.

Denver saw another demonstration in support of the Wisconsin workers with police estimating that crowd at more than 1,200 people. In Washington, protesters cheer on Saturday during a rally in support of Wisconsin workers, calling for the defeat of the plan.

Hundreds of Kansas labor union members and supporters rallied outside the Statehouse against what they see as political attacks on workers.

Some experts believe the confrontation between state government and labor union would serve as a wake-up call to Americans about a systematic attack on public workers’ unions.

The American middle class is being attacked by an oligarchy, who intends to have a total control on the US economy, Jennifer Loewenstein, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Press TV.

By Angelo Bosworth and Hector Cordon

25 January 2011 – WSWS

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) reported in December that 21,826 of Washington state’s 1.04 million school children were homeless in 2009-2010. This represents a 5 percent increase from 2009 and a 56.5 percent increase from 2005-2006. Child homelessness overall totaled 24,038, placing Washington 25th in the nation.

These figures suffer from underreporting due to the difficulty in locating the homeless, as well as the reluctance of many individuals and families to admit their circumstances.

A persistently high level of unemployment—hovering around 9 percent for the last year and a half and currently at 9.3 percent—has contributed to these grim statistics. But it is only one of many factors, which include low wages, high housing costs, poverty, and rising foreclosures.

For school children, year over year, the number living in motels was up by 12 percent, whereas those that doubled up with friends and relatives increased by 9 percent. The higher rates of change in these two figures—as compared to the 5 percent increase in child homelessness overall—reveal a pattern of homelessness creeping up on previously stable families as well as the overcrowding of homeless shelters.

Melinda Dyer, program supervisor for the education of homeless children and youth at OSPI, cautions that the actual homeless numbers are probably higher due to internal reporting issues as well as families not revealing their homeless status due to the stigma attached. The paltry sum of $850,000 provided by the federal government under the McKinney-Vento Act of 1986 cannot begin to address a problem as acute and complex as child homelessness.

According to a December 2010 US Conference of Mayors study, the three most common causes of homelessness in families are unemployment, lack of affordable housing, and poverty.

According to a study by budgetandpolicy.org published in March 2009, a full-time worker earning the then minimum hourly wage of $8.07 in Washington needed to work close to 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, to afford a two-bedroom apartment built under HUD Section 8 regulation—a program that purports to provide more affordable housing to poor people. This is in fact the 40th percentile of market rents and many needy people are compelled to rent at higher rates.

The typical homeless family consists of a single mother and her two children, and affordable housing is even more out of reach for these families. The average income for a single mother in Washington receiving public support is less than $550 per month, which would allow her to pay $157 in monthly rent. The cost of a two-bedroom apartment at the HUD Section 8 rate would be $672 higher than that.

Bank owned foreclosure inventories in Washington rose by 59.68 percent from December 2009 to December 2010. Month-to-month foreclosure filings have dropped 8.5 percent over that time period, which nevertheless saw 2,228 new filings for December 2010.

A report from the Institution of Taxation and Economic Policy shows that between 1979 and 2003, the bottom 20 percent of Washington residents experienced no perceptible income growth when adjusted for inflation. During this period, however, the income of the wealthiest 1 percent (some 67,000 individuals) increased a full 111 percent above inflation.

According to a report from the National Center on Family Homelessness, “America’s Youngest Outcasts,” 84 percent of homeless families with children are headed by a single mother in her late 20s with two young children. These young parents often have no more than a high school diploma or GED. Nearly all of them have histories of violent victimization, and more than one third suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—three times the rate of the general female population.

More than 50 percent of mothers experience a major depressive episode while homeless and 85 percent report having had a major depressive episode in the past. Forty-one percent have become dependent on alcohol and drugs, a rate twice as high as in the general female population. Over one third have a chronic medical problem such as asthma, chronic bronchitis or hypertension.

Within a single year, 97 percent of homeless children have moved, 25 percent have witnessed violence and 22 percent have been separated from their families. About half of all school-age children experiencing homelessness have problems with anxiety and depression. Twenty percent of homeless preschoolers have emotional problems that require professional care. Their education is often disrupted and challenges in school are common.

The situation is even worse for youth living on their own, where a documented 42 percent have been abused and those with sexual orientations outside the conventional norm are seven times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime.

More than one in seven homeless children have moderate to severe health conditions—asthma being a common complaint—compared to less than one in sixteen middle-class children who report these conditions. Proficiency rates for homeless children in reading and math are on average 16 percent lower than scores for all students. Less than one in four homeless children graduates high school.

The substantial cuts in the proposed 2011-2013 Washington state budget are guaranteed to further increase child homelessness and general social misery in the coming two years. Governor Christine Gregoire’s submitted budget for 2011-2013 will exacerbate many of the leading causes of child homelessness as well as remove support for programs that deal with the inevitable fallout from homelessness.

The Democratic governor proposes the elimination of pre-school help for 1,324 poor children, eliminating health benefits for 27,000 children, cutting the Basic Health Plan that provides coverage for 66,000 low-income residents, doing away with Disability Lifeline Medical for 21,000 low-income disabled adults, and eliminating the State Food Assistance Program that provides food benefits for low-income legal immigrants.

Meanwhile, the various cuts to the wages and benefits of state employees will push this sector of workers a step closer to poverty and possible homelessness. The budget demands a 3 percent reduction in compensation on top of no wage increases since 2008, while unpaid temporary layoffs have cost an average employee $178 per month in 2010. Health care premiums for the average state employee would rise to $147 (from $86 in 2010) and workers will pay more in pension contributions, some up to 4.5 percent from 3.9 percent in 2009-2011.

In the light of these progressively more deplorable conditions, Governor Gregoire’s claim in her State of the State address that her budget will set “our state on a trajectory that ensures a strong financial foundation for our kids and grandkids” is a blatant lie. What is actually being proposed is the evisceration of those social programs that provide for the welfare of the most vulnerable sections of society.

Source.

Global Research, January 10, 2011

The “Great Game” never ended. It is the “long war” that Mackinder talked about to establish a “World-Empire.” It has changed names from the “Cold War” and the “Great War” to the “Global War on Terror.” It may end with World War III.

In PART I of this article, the formation of a counter-alliance in Eurasia was discussed. PART II provided an overview of the multiple fronts of the “Great Game” in different regions of the World. In Part III the dangers of a global nuclear war are analysed.

Mistrust between the Major Eurasian Powers

Mistrust between the triple entente of Eurasia — Russia, China, and Iran — and their other allies still exists. Ahead of a state visit to India in 2007, the Belarusian President, Aleksandr Lukashenko, expressed the tensions in the geo-political climate of Eurasia during an interview. He was asked about Minsk’s ambitions in regards to entering the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). President Lukashenko stated: “We see great prospects for [the] SCO provided it can harmonise interests and overcome a certain mistrust among its members, for example between Russia and China, or India and China.” [54]

The nation-states of Eurasia are carefully working to eliminate this mutual mistrust. All the Eurasian powers are potential rivals and adversaries, but under the current realities of the global environment they realize that they must work together to challenge the strategic U.S.-NATO threat.

The alternative to Eurasian cooperation would be that the Eurasian nations themselves face collapse, dismantlement, and regime change, which could potentially transform them into foreign-controlled economic territories modelled on the successor republics of the former Yugoslavia.

The Eurasians also want to de-link the U.S. from its E.U. and NATO allies, specifically France and Germany. The Eurasianist strategy in the Kremlin still has plans for cooperation with the E.U. and for incorporating several European states into the Russian alliance with China and Iran. This also includes the objective of merging the E.U. within a broader geo-political Eurasian entity.

Once the distrust between the Eurasians is fully overcome, America and its partners will have no choice, but to give up their dreams of control over Eurasia or resort to other means, including acts of war. This is when the threat of full spectrum warfare involving nuclear weapons could become a real possibility.

The Writing on the Wall: The Rise of Eurasia

Since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, led against Iraq by the U.S., the groundwork for the campaign to control Eurasia was put in place. The objective was  to prevent Eurasian cohesion and the rise of China as a superpower.

This campaign to control Eurasia was conveyed by George H.W. Bush Sr. in his Gulf War victory speech on March 6, 1991. In this speech he explained the meaning of this initative in the context of creating a “New World Order.”

As part of this campaign, continuous reports about the growing threats of Iran, Russia, and China emerged. The demonization process had begun. In 1996, U.S. Secretary of Defence, William Perry, started raising the alarms and saying that Iran was a “growing threat to stability in the [Persian] Gulf.” [55]

Before 2001, Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran were aware that the U.S. and its allies were preparing some form of land invasion into the Eurasian Heartland. On March 12, 2001 (six months before 9/11), the Russian Federation formally agreed to resume sales of Russian weaponry to Iran. Russia was helping Iran to develop its military capabilities in response to veiled U.S.-NATO threats. Moscow and Tehran also agreed to cooperate in the energy sector and on nuclear technology. [56] According to The New York Times :

[The] announcements, neither unexpected, came during the first meeting in four decades between Iranian and Russian heads of state. The warm session was billed in advance as a diplomatic turning point. Just as clearly, it was a pointed signal to the Bush Administration by both the Iranians and the Russians that they intend to limit American influence in the Middle East by both diplomatic and military means. Economically, Russia is interested in cooperation. And politically, Iran should be a self-sufficient, independent state that is ready to protect its national interests [e.g., in a military face-off against the U.S., Israel, and Britain], Mr. Putin said. [57]

As a sign of what was in store, on the same date as the signing of the Russian-Iranian agreement, The New York Times reported that Beijing could be the target of U.S. plans for a missile shield project that would threaten China. [58] During October 2000, the Kremlin also initiated the push for the formation of a Eurasian Union, which would mirror the European Union. [59] The seeds of this Eurasian Union under a customs union between Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus (and possibly Ukraine) will see entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a single entity. [60]

While Tehran and Moscow signed an important cooperation agreement on March 12, 2001, a few months later Moscow and Beijing signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation (July 24, 2001, less than two months before September 11, 2001).

The Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians all saw the writing on the wall. Geo-political conflict was on the horizon and the U.S. and NATO war machine was getting ready to march into Eurasia.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 were the first drum beats, or the opening salvos, of a much wider conflict.

Did U.S. foreign policy facilitate the creation of a Eurasian bloc? No doubt, Washington was aware that it was encouraging Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran to join hands.

Was the coming together of the main players of the Eurasian Heartland an inevitability or the result of U.S. actions?

America may have acted as a catalyst, but the 2000 proposal for a Eurasian Union and the Sino-Russian rapprochement show that Eurasian cohesion is an inevitability. It is this merger in Eurasia that the U.S. and the E.U. want to crush.

Seeds of the Next World War? Orwellian Perpetual War: Oceania versus Eurasia?

In regards to power projection, Friedrich Ratzel and Alfred Mahan both stipulated that sea power was superior to land power. Mackinder, who originally put a stronger emphasis on land power, would also come to emphasize sea power in the same way as Ratzel and Mahan.

Sea power is the basis of the strength of the U.S., Britain, much of Western Europe, and Japan. Land power on the other hand has traditionally been the basis of the strength of Russia, China, India, and Iran. It must be noted that these traditional land powers have in recent years significantly increased their naval capabilities.

Are the Eurasians acting to insure that they can extend their power beyond Eurasia in the event of a war? The land powers of Eurasia are developing their naval powers with a view to extending their influence worldwide.

The threats of war are getting louder. Such threats include those against Iran. Iran is a geo-strategic and security pillar for both Moscow and Beijing.

In 2007, Secretary-General Bordyuzha of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) alliance warned the U.S. government against any aggressive moves against Iran, saying there would be major consequences. The CSTO is a post-Soviet defense organization based in Europe, albeit its eastern fringes, and Asia. Any CSTO retaliations will have a direct effect on all of Europe, apart from the Middle East and Central Asia. Any American-led aggression against Iran will be limited as Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. agent, has suggested. [61]

It is in this context that Russian troops began to mobilize in the Caucasus region, near Iran’s borders. Similarly, Russia has reached a military agreement with Armenia, which allows for the use of Armenia’s military bases by Russian forces. [62] China has also started to upgrade its naval forces to protect China’s energy lifeline through the Indian Ocean in case of a major war.

In the event of a conflict, the U.S. and NATO have envisaged cutting off China’s sources of energy. This has been characterized by American pressure on Myanmar (Burma) as well as the creation of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Admiral Mullen’s objectives of uniting NATO’s navy into a “thousand ship navy” is largely directed against China. [63]

Moreover, the informal NATO-like military alliance between Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordon, Egypt, Bahrain, and the U.A.E. is also a challenge to the Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition.

in response to these developments, Russian and Chinese planes and vessels have, since 2006, been venturing into the operating spaces of America and NATO extending from North America to the Pacific and the British Isles.

In turn, the Pentagon strategy calls for enhanced militarization as well as the creation of “a military belt” around Eurasia by NATO and its Asian allies including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Australia. The objective of this military encirclement is to neutralize both Russia and China.

Globally, there is a state of perpetual war. Several regional war theatres exist. Yet, all these regional theatres are part of a much larger global project, characterized by the clash between Eurasia on the one hand and the ocean-based powers of the Periphery, which lie on the fringe of Eurasia (Western Europe, North America, and the Pacific). Thus, these two geo-political entities are marching towards war.

The March to War: Nuclear Escalation

In 2007, Britain began to rearm itself with an updated Trident nuclear missile system, which was violently opposed in the British House of Commons. [64] British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a revolt in his own party over the issue as well as protests in the streets of London. The move was a gross breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which stipulates that all nations with nuclear weapons must disarm. Britain is not alone; the U.S. has also continued to build its deadly nuclear arsenal in violation of the NPT.

In April 2010, there were two separate and very different nuclear disarmament summits held by the U.S. and Tehran. At the summit in Tehran, the main outcome was an Iranian-led demand for total global nuclear disarmament, while at the American summit, President Obama attempted to redefine the NPT by saying that Iran and North Korea would not be covered by the American pledge under international law not to use nuclear weapons against states complying with the NPT. [65] Tehran subsequently lodged a formal complaint to the U.N. about the threat of an American nuclear attack. [66]

General Leonid G. Ivashov (retired), a noted Russian military analyst has persistently warned of a planned Israeli-U.S. nuclear attack against Iran. Ivashov has also warned that the U.S. and NATO are threats to Russia and all Eurasia. Ivanshov was a major actor in the 2001 “turning point” military and diplomatic exchanges between Tehran and Moscow. He also made the headlines in Russia and the former U.S.S.R. by announcing under the auspices of the Geopolitical Science Academy of Russia that Moscow should use stronger wording to clarify its nuclear doctrine, with a view to protecting its CSTO allies. [67] The suggestions of Ivashov have been met: a Russian nuclear umbrella now exists over all CSTO members.

The CSTO was unveiled in 2002, after the 2001 invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and whilst preparations were underway for the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. This in itself says something. The post-Soviet defence organization was initially founded on the framework of the Treaty on Collective Security (also known as the Collective Security Treaty or CST), which was signed on May 15, 1992.

The CSTO, however, is different from the post-Soviet CST, signed under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.). The CSTO focuses on collective security within an institutionalized organization, like NATO, with the aim of an expanded membership in Eurasia. The creation of the CSTO, like the SCO, was a Russian answer to U.S. and NATO expansionism in Eurasia.  Moscow has also been pushing for the formal recognition of CSTO by NATO and a CSTO-NATO agreement on post-2001 Afghanistan, something NATO has been reluctant to do. [68]

Aside from a nuclear umbrella over the CSTO, Moscow has also adopted a new nuclear doctrine of pre-emptive attack that came into effect in 2010. [69] This new Russian pre-emptive nuclear attack doctrine is in response to the U.S.-NATO pre-emptive nuclear war doctrine. In other words, Moscow has made a defensive move that symmetrically mirrors that of the U.S. and NATO. This new nuclear attack doctrine would also allow Moscow to use nuclear weapons in regional theatres, as in the case of a war with Georgia, Japan, or the Baltic States. [70]

The military budget of Russia has grown annually by 20% since 2006 reaching about a trillion rubbles in 2008. [71] This is a significant increase. Beijing too, has been upgrading its military power and bolstering its nuclear weapons arsenal as a result of U.S. threats.

Coupled with the adoption of Russia’s pre-emptive nuclear attack doctrine, Moscow has also threatened to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. In 2007, the head of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff intimated that Russia could withdraw from the Treaty in response to US NATO threats. [72]

Under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1987, the Russian military is limited in its possession of short-range and medium-range or intermediate-range missiles, which are missiles that have striking distance ranges of 500 kilometres (300 miles) to 5,500 kilometres (3,400 miles).

From a strategic military standpoint, in the event of a U.S.-NATO war against Russia and the CSTO, the Russian military would be forced to use its long-range or inter-continental ballistic missiles (IBMs) in Europe or regional war theatres near its borders instead of targeting the U.S. and the North American continent, which could remain unscathed. Russian threats to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Treaty in effect mean that the Kremlin wants the ability to be able to target and threaten the U.S. with a nuclear strike capability.

The CSTO-SCO Alliance versus NATO

Russia has also called for a full effort by the SCO to become involved in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan. It has also challenged NATO’s so-called stabilization monopoly in Afghanistan. [73] Moreover, the CSTO and the U.N. signed a cooperation agreement in March 2010 similar to that secretly signed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and NATO on October 9, 2008. [74]

Both the SCO and CSTO are set to expand in Eurasia as counter-weights to NATO. Under the proper geo-political environment, Ukraine, Iran, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Serbia are possible candidates to join CSTO. After the 2010 election victory of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, Moscow said that the Ukraine would be welcomed as a full member of the CSTO. [75]

The case of an Iranian bid to join CSTO or the SCO is complicated. The Secretary-General of the SCO, Bolat Kabdylkhamitovich Nurgaliyev, welcomed the Iranian bid to join the SCO as a full member in March 2008. [76] Iran, with the help of Tajikistan, has also accelerated and put greater muscle behind its drive to become a full member of the SCO. [77] Starting in 2007 Russia had openly, but quietly, lobbied for the full inclusion of Iran into the SCO. [78] Kyrgyzstan also started supporting Tehran’s bid at that time. [79] The Iranian bid, however, was rejected by the SCO in 2010. [80] This was a strategic move by Russia and China to push Tehran to entrench itself deeper into their triple entente.

After the death of Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov (“Turkmenbashi” or the “Leader of the Turkmen”), his successor, President Berdymukhammedov, removed Turkmenistan from its state of self-imposed neutrality and has brought Ashgabat (Ashkhabad) closer to Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing. Turkmenistan has also started to participate in SCO meetings and events.  Belarus and Sri Lanka became dialogue partners in 2009 and began to participate within the SCO. The SCO has also started discussions about the framework for a bloc currency for its members.

Both the CSTO and the SCO cover much of the same space in Eurasia and the two Eurasian organizations may indeed merge when the time is right. The agreements being signed between the member states of these two organizations parallel those between NATO and the European Union. Both CSTO and the SCO are pushing towards the formation of a Eurasian Union. They have also signed a military cooperation agreement, which effectively makes China a member of CSTO and creates a unified defensive bloc from the Yellow Sea to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. [81]

In July 2007, the CSTO proposed that the SCO and CSTO collaborate together in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan. [82] In February 2008, the secretary-generals of the CSTO and the SCO, Nikolai Bordyuzha and Bolat Nurgaliyev, met at CSTO Headquarters in Moscow for a second round of consultations. The meeting between both men, one a former Russian colonel-general and the other a former Kazakhstani diplomat, was arranged to develop and implement the CSTO-SCO October 2007 agreement signed in Tajikistan.

Resumption of Cold War-style Flights

Cold War flight routes have been resumed. These flights are called strategic flights. What they are in essence is a military threat to strike rivals in the event of a war.

Interception of Russian combat aircraft by NATO fighters have become a common occurrence since Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the international waters of the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean by order of Vladimir Putin in August, 2007. Since that time until the end of August, 2008 there were almost eighty such strategic Russian flights.

During flights over internationally neutral airspace, Russian jets and ships have been accompanied or monitored by NATO warplanes and vessels. On April 9, 2008 four Russian Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers and four Il-78 aerial tankers flying near Alaska were intercepted and followed by NATO planes. [83] This was the second such incident in less than a month; on March 19, 2008 two Russian Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers were intercepted and followed by F-16 Tornado fighter jets. [84]

The globe is not being de-militarized. Russia has since sent its warplanes and strategic nuclear bombers flying through the Caribbean and Latin America where the Bolivarian Bloc has greeted them as allies. These flights are synonymous with increasing global tensions.

War and Global Governance

The geo-political issues pertaining to Kosovo, Iraq, Korea, the Iranian nuclear energy program, NATO expansionism, and the U.S. missile shield project  in Eastern Europe and Asia are interrelated. The inter-linked nature of all these geo-strategic conflicts is potentially unstable.

At its roots the state serves elitist interests. In this context it is worth quoting George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. An excerpt from a fictitious book, Emmanuel Goldstein’s The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, being read by Orwell’s protagonist Winston sums this point:

The war, therefore, if we judge it by standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. [...] But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognise their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word [and conceptualization of] ‘war’, therefore has been misleading. [85]

Today the globe is in the middle of an economic war, while a system of global governance is also being put in place to avert a global war over resources via political and economic takeovers. This is also what organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) are for.

Mackinder also stipulated about a future system of global governance: “[I]f the Freedom of Nations is to be secure, it must rest on a reasonable approach to equality of resources as between a certain number of the larger Nations.” [86] What Mackinder was implying was a compact between the so-called major powers that would turn the planet into a condominium to manage global resources.

In this regard, the trilateral November 2010 meeting between the foreign ministers of India, China, and Russia in Wuhan, China outlined the establishment of a shared system of global governance. [87] Their joint communiqué outlined this in various ways, such as outlining reforms at the U.N. Security Council. Of particular interest was Article 13:

The Ministers reiterated their support for the G20 as the premier forum for international economic cooperation, and welcomed the decisions of the G20 summit in Seoul including on IMF quota reform. They reiterated that the goal of the reform of international financial institutions was to achieve, step by step, equitable distribution of voting power between developed and developing countries. [88]

Global tensions are also in part a result of friction over the configuration of a system of global governance and an incomplete consensus amongst global elites.

Each and every group is trying to maximize their share of global control and resources in an evolving system of global governance. The negotiations between Iran and the great powers through the “Permanent Five plus One” (P5+1) format, which includes the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany, as well as the E.U., also have ties to this process. The talks between Tehran and the P5+1 are much broader negotiations tied to the role that Iran would play in a system of global governance and are not merely focused on the Iranian nuclear energy program.

Inter-Play between Oceania and Eurasia for Control in a System of Global Governance?

The threat of war exists, but not merely against Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq are merely in the positions that Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were in the Balkans on the eve of the First World War when the Habsburg Empire or Austro-Hungary was searching for an excuse to invade and control Serbia within the broader framework of economic rivalry between major European and global powers. The tensions against Iran and Syria have the undertones of a far broader and historical conflict involving the Eurasian Heartland and the oceanic-states on the fringes of the Eurasian landmass and in North America — “Eurasia versus Oceania.”

Through a public relations (P.R.) toolbox, all types of excuses and pretexts are being wielded and fashioned to justify a future war against Iran and its allies including claims by Hillary Clinton that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship.

Hillary Clinton told a Qatari audience the following: “We see the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament, is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship [under the Iranian Revolutionary Guard].” [89] Daniel Meridor, the deputy prime minister and intelligence and atomic energy minister of Israel, has gone on the record to say that the standing of the U.S. on the globe will be determined by the course of Iran and that the question of Iran is not essentially about nuclear weapons, but about the balance of global power. [90]

Commenting on this change in the global balance of power, the Syrian President told the Italian newspaper La Republica that a new geo-political alternative is arising through an alliance between Syria, Iran, Russia, and Turkey through their common interests and integration in the “centre of the world.” [91] In the context of this new geo-political reality in Eurasia, Tehran also provided support to military drills held in September 2010 between Chinese and Turkish air units by allowing Chinese military jets to use Iranian military bases. [92] The Turko-Chinese military drills are not as significant as Iran allowing the use of its airspace and facilities to the Chinese warplanes, because China and Turkey, like Israel and China, started military cooperation in the 1990s.

Mackinder said something very crucial to understanding the direction that these wars are headed towards:

The great wars of history — we have had a world-war about every hundred years for the last four centuries — are the outcome, direct or indirect, of the unequal growth of nations, and that unequal growth is not wholly due to the greater genius and energy of some nations as compared with others; in large measure it is the result of the uneven distribution of fertility and strategical opportunity upon the face of our Globe. In other words, there is in nature no such thing as equality of opportunity for the nations. Unless I wholly misread the facts of geography, I would go further, and say that the grouping of lands and seas, and of fertility and natural pathways, is such as to lead itself to the growth of empires, and in the end of a single World Empire. If we are to realise our ideal of a League of Nations which shall prevent war in the future, we must recognize these geographical realities and take steps to counter their influence. [93]

The nature of modern wars is based on usurping natural resources and the wealth of nations. Thus, these wars are materialist wars, either fought on strategic grounds to acquire wealth and power or to directly usurp it. Any ideological framework is used to deceive the masses. These wars are therefore criminal acts.

Thinking the Unthinkable: A Nuclear War in the Middle East against Iran?

“Iran is a complex nation and it does not appear that Israel has the power to challenge it.” -Javier Solana (Der Tagesspiegel, January 13, 2007)

The Iranian nuclear energy program is a pretext for aggression against Iran. The U.S. and its allies are seriously contemplating a nuclear attack against Iran. The political groundwork, the military procedures, the dissemination of disinformation, and the media work have all been underway for years.

Despite its psychological warfare and all its propaganda for creating the mirage of being a military powerhouse, Tel Aviv is incapable of waging and winning a conventional war against the Iranians. Despite the large Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), Iran is a far stronger military power than Israel. In 2009, Iranian military power started being reviewed under the same annual assessments that the U.S. reserves for Chinese military expansion. [94] Even the former commander of the entire Israeli military, Daniel Halutz, has warned that Israel cannot tackle Iran by itself. [95] This is why Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government have asked the U.S. to militarily engage Iran. [96]

Any attack on Iran will be a joint operation between Israel, the U.S., and NATO. Such an attack will escalate into a major war. The U.S. could attack Iran, but can not win a conventional war. General Yuri Baluyevsky, the former chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff and Russian deputy defence minister, even publicly came forward in 2007 to warn that an attack on Iran would be a global disaster and unwinnable for the Pentagon. [97]

Such a war against Iran and its allies in the Middle East would lead to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran as the only means to defeat it. Even Saddam Hussein, who during his day once commanded the most powerful Arab state and military force, was aware of this. In July 25, 1990, in a meeting with April C. Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein stated: “But you know you [meaning the U.S.] are not the ones who protected your friends during the war with Iran. I assure you, had the Iranians overrun the region, the American troops would not have stopped them, except by the use of nuclear weapons.” [98]

The diabolically unthinkable is no longer a taboo: the use of nuclear weapons once again against another country by the U.S. military. This will be a violation of the NPT and international law. Any nuclear attack on Iran will have major, long-term environmental impacts. A nuclear attack on Iran will also contaminate far-reaching areas that will go far beyond Iran to places such as Europe, Turkey, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, Pakistan, and India.

Within the NATO alliance and amongst U.S. allies a consensus has been underway to legitimize and normalize the idea of using nuclear weapons. This consenus aims at paving the way for a nuclear strike against Iran and/or other countries in the future. This groundwork also includes the normalization of Israeli nukes.

Towards the end of 2006, Robert Gates stated that Israel has nuclear weapons, which was soon followed by a conveniently-timed slip of the tongue by Ehud Olmert stating that Tel Aviv possessed nuclear weapons. [99] Within this framework, Fumio Kyuma, a former Japanese defence minister, during a speech at Reitaku University in 2007 that followed the statements of Gates and Olmert, tried to publicly legitimize the dropping of atom bombs by the U.S. on Japanese civilians. [100] Because of the massive public outrage in Japanese society, Kyuma was forced to resign his post as defence minister. [101]

The Uncertain Road Ahead: Armageddon at Our Doorstep? The March into the Unknown Horizon…

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Beijing is a barometre on whether Iran will be attacked and it seems unlikely by the acceleration in trade between China and Iran. [102] Still a major war in the Middle East and an even more dangerous global war with the use of nuclear weapons should not be ruled out. The globe is facing a state of worldwide military escalation. What is looming in front of humanity is the possibility of an all-out nuclear war and the extinction of most life on this planet as we know it.

Nor do the events leading to a new global war necessarily need to be based on a large destructive event that arises at all at once. The events could be numerous and the process slow and calculated. The first Cold War never really ended, or at least the mentality behind the first Cold War never really went away.

The United States, Britain, NATO, and their allies have been positioning themselves globally for conflict. They have literally been preparing the global chessboard for warfare. In this context, the U.S. is entrenching itself in pivotal areas that can be used as control points, strategic launch pads, and chokepoints in future military conflicts.

In Yemen the U.S. is setting up bases to control one of the most vital global maritime routes, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. In Eastern Europe, from the Balkans to the Baltic, the U.S. and NATO are deploying troops and setting up extensive military infrastructure to castrate and dominate Belarus, Ukraine, and the European core of Russia. In the Caucasus, the U.S. and NATO are using Georgia to challenge Russia. In the Persian Gulf the military forces of the U.S., Britain, France, Israel, and NATO are working to tackle Iran and to ultimately control substantial amounts of global energy. In Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula the U.S. military is actively involved in war preparations against North Korea and mainland China and is deliberately arming Taipei against Beijing as part of a broader military circle being raised around the People’s Republic of China. Finally, Columbia is being used by the U.S. as a bridgehead against Venezuela and Ecuador and Haiti is being used as a U.S. base in the Caribbean.

What is certain is that the so-called “Great Game” never ended — it has always been part of the “long war” that Mackinder talked about in the historical process of establishing a “World-Empire” — it only changed its name. Yesterday it was the “Cold War,” the day before it was the “Great War” and today it is the “Global War on Terror.” Who knows what it will be called tomorrow — maybe World War III — and where it will take humanity. It is no game and there is nothing great about it, but this so-called “Great Game” may lead humanity to the footsteps of Megiddo and Yathrib.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

NOTES

[54] Vladimir Radyuhin, “India is top priority for Belarus”, The Hindu, April 16, 2007.
[55] “Iran builds up military strength at mouth of Gulf”, Cables News Network (CNN), August 6, 1991.
[56] Michael Wines, “Iran and Russia Sign Oil and Weapons Pact”, The New York Times, March 12, 2001.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Trevor Corson, “Backing Beijing Into a Corner”, The New York Times, March 12, 2001.
[59] Sebastian Alison, “Putin Pushes for ‘Eurasian Union’”, Reuters, October 10, 2007.
[60] “Russia, EU may soon reach agreement on WTO – Putin”, The Information Telegraph Agency of Russia/Informatsionnoye telegrafnoye agentstvo Rossii(ITAR-TASS), “Ukraine eyes customs union with Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), November 26, 2010; “Ukraine may join Customs Union, constitutional amendments needed – Yanukovich”, The Information Telegraph agency of Russia/Informatsionnoye telegrafnoye agentstvo Rossii (ITAR-TASS), November 26, 2010.
[61] Geoff Elliott, “US ‘poised to strike Iran’”, The Australian, August 25, 2007.
[62] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, “The March to War: Détente in the Middle East or ‘Calm before the Storm?’” Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), July 10, 2007; Harutunian, “Russia extends military”, Op. cit.
[63] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, “The Globalization of Military Power: NATO Expansion”, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), May 17, 2007.
[64] “New Trident system approved”, The Hindu, March 16, 2007.
[65] Parisa Hafezi, “Iran, at nuclear conference, hits out at ‘bullies’”, Reuters, April 17, 2010; Peter Baker and David E. Sanger, “Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms”, The New York Times, April 5, 2010.
[66] “Iran to launch protest with U.N.”, The Hindu, April 13, 2010.
[67] “Russia must use nuclear deterrent to protect allies – analyst”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), March 12, 2008; “Russia to Be Sanctioned to Use Nuclear Weapons to Defend CSTO Members”, Kommersant, March 12, 2008.
[68] “Moscow urges NATO-CSTO treaty on Afghanistan”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), March 11, 2008.
[69] Ilya Kramnik, “Who should fear Russia’s new military doctrine”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), October 23, 2009.
[70] Ibid.
[71] “Russian defense spending to grow 20% in 2008, to $40 bln”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), February 26, 2008.
[72] Vladimir Isachenkov, “Reports: Russia may exit Arms Treaty”, The St. Petersburg Times, February 15, 2007.
[73] “Russia is for SCO observing countries cooperation activization”, Kazakhstan Today, July 9, 2007.
[74] “UN, CSTO sign cooperation agreement”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), March 18, 2010; Rodger McDermott, “Moscow Pushes For Formal Cooperation Between UN, CSTO”, Radio Free Europe (RFE), October 16, 2009; “Russia stunned by UN-NATO cooperation deal”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), October 9, 2008.
[75] “Russia would welcome Ukraine into CSTO post-Soviet security bloc”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), May 18, 2010.
[76] “SCO Chief welcomes Iran’ SCO membership”, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), March 28, 2008.
[77] “Mottaki: Iran ready to join Shanghai Cooperation Organization”, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), March 24, 2008; “Iran seeks quick SCO membership”, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), April 11, 2008.
[78] “Iran’s SCO Membership on the Cards – Lavrov”, Kommersant, July 11, 2007.
[79] “Mottaki: Iran spares no efforts to broaden ties with Kyrgyzstan”, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), February 21, 2008; “Mottaki: Tehran calls for expansion of all-out ties with Bishkek”, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), February 21, 2008.
[80] “Shanghai group set to deny membership to Iran”, Agence France-Presse (AFP), June 11, 2010.
[81] Vladimir Radyuhin, “Defence pact to balance NATO”, The Hindu, October 7, 2007.
[82] “CSTO proposes to SCO joint effort on post-conflict Afghanistan”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), July 31, 2007.
[83] “NATO fighters again accompany Russian bombers near Alaska”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), April 9, 2008.
[84] “NATO fighters scramble again to intercept Russian Bear bombers”, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), March 19, 2008.
[85] George Orwell, Nineteen Eight-Four (Toronto: Penguin Books, 2000), p.207.
[86] Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (London, U.K.: Constables and Company Ltd., 1919), p.236.
[87] Joint Communiqué of the Tenth Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation and the Republic of India, signed November 15, 2010, People’s Republic of China – Republic of India – Russian Federation, Ministry of External Affairs of India: <http://meaindia.nic.in/mystart.php?id=100016682&pid=1869>.
[88] Ibid.
[89] Borzou Daragahi, “Iran moving toward military dictatorship, Clinton says”, The Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2010.
[90] Herb Keion, “Assad: US has lost influence in the ME”, The Jerusalem Post, May 25, 2010.
[91] Ibid.
[92] “Chinese warplanes refueled in Iran en route to Turkey”, Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review, October 11, 2010.
[93] Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, Op. cit., pp.2-3.
[94] Viola Gienger, “Iran’s Military Power Subject to New U.S. Study Used for China”, Bloomberg, November 3, 3009.
[95] Dan Williams, “Israel general doubts power to hit Iran atom sites”, ed. Mark Trevelyan, Reuters, February 13, 2010.
[96] Jeffrey Heller, “Netanyahu to press U.S. for military threat on Iran”, ed. Christopher Wilson, Reuters, November 7, 2010.
[97] “U.S. could strike Iran but not win: Russian general”, Reuters, April 3, 2007.
[98] “Excerpts From Iraqi Document on Meeting with US Envoy”, The New York Times, Septmber 22, 1990, p.19; it should be noted that more than one transcript exists from the 1990 meeting of President Hussein and Ambassador Glaspie and the one cited from The New York Times was done so out of convenience.
[99] “Incoming U.S. Defense Secretary tells Senate panel Israel has nuclear weapons”, Associated Press (AP), December 9, 2006; Allyn Fisher-Ilan, “Olmert, in Europe, hints Israel has nuclear arms”, Reuters, December 11, 2006; Philippe Naughton, “Olmert’s nuclear slip-up sparks outrage in Israel”, The Times(U.K.) December 12, 2006.
[100] Christopher Hogg, “Japan gets woman defence minister”, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News, July 4, 2007.
[101] Ibid.
[102] Clayton Jones, “China is a barometer on whether Israel will attack nuclear plants in Iran warplanes refueled in Iran” Christian Science Monitor, August 6, 2010.

Published 15 January, 2010, 12:17

The tax on banks proposed by Washington guarantees Wall Street $US 4 trillion which means top banks will keep playing the same game in the future, economic trend forecaster Gerald Celente warned.

“Goldman Sachs is nothing more than a big hedge fund, period and paragraph. If they went under – people don’t have go to the ATM machine to get their money out of the Goldman Sachs bank, they do not have Goldman Sachs cheques, they are just fronting for Wall Street and all Wall Street is doing is gambling and their risks are covered by the American taxpayer,” said Celente.

“America was at its greatest when it was not about Wall Street but Main Street; when it was not about the Walmart but moms and pops and community; when it was not about factory farms but family farms. Everything in America has gone corporate,” grieved the forecaster.

Celente concluded by saying, “the merger of state and corporate powers, according to Mussolini, who knew a thing or two about it, is called fascism and fascism is coming to America.”

Read the full article.

The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, last week issued what has become one of his customary trademark warnings by announcing that Russia will start to build offensive weapons to counter American global aggression.

Moscow and Washington are currently in discussions regarding a successor to the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which was signed between the United States and the now defunct Soviet Union in 1991, and which expired last December.

Demonstrating once again that it is he, and not President Dmitri Medvedev, who is the real boss in the Kremlin, Mr Putin warned the US government that its development of a sea and land based missile defence system was detrimental to the signing of an arms deal between Russia and America to replace Start 1. He said: “The problem is that our American partners are developing missiles, and we are not.”

The Russian Prime Minister argued that the construction by Washington of an “umbrella” against “offensive strike systems” – a reference to Russia’s strategic deterrent – would break the nuclear balance the two superpowers with the result that the Americans “will do whatever they want and grow more aggressive”.

As a result, Mr Putin issued a belligerent caveat to the US: “In order to preserve a balance, while we aren’t planning to build a missile defence of our own, as it’s very expensive and its efficiency is not quite clear, we have to develop offensive strike systems.”

Last year, President Barack Obama announced that he was scrapping plans inherited from the Bush administration of installing elements of a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic to safeguard Europe from a ballistic missile attack by Iran. The Russians, however, consider the plan to be aimed at neutralising their nuclear arsenal.

That fear resulted in the Kremlin threatening to target ballistic missiles at any country in Eastern Europe which played host to an American defence shield.

Although Moscow welcomed Mr Obama’s decision to dispense with the Bush-era scheme, it has remained concerned about how Washington is forging ahead with developing, according to the White House, “increasingly capable sea and land based missile interceptors” to guard “against the growing ballistic missile threat from Iran”.

The Americans are currently modifying several of their navy Aegis cruisers and destroyers for ballistic missile defence operations which will see them armed with SM-3 interceptor missiles. The Pentagon has also installed the sea-based X-band radar on a modified floating oil platform.

 Source.

By Rick Rozoff

Global Research, November 28, 2009
Stop NATO

Bosnia and Montenegro being incorporated as full NATO members and Macedonia following suit would expand the world’s only military bloc to 31 nations, almost twice that of ten years ago when it first began its drive into Eastern Europe. And with Serbia and Kosovo, which even before becoming a member is the world’s first NATO political entity, included the Alliance’s numbers will have more than doubled since 1999, a decade after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. All seventeen new acquisitions would be in Eastern Europe, and the majority of NATO member states would be former Warsaw Pact members or Yugoslav republics and a province.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited the capital of Montenegro on November 26 and that of Bosnia the following day.

A Balkans news source wrote of the visits that Rasmussen would “discuss the possibility of approving Montenegro’s action plan for NATO membership” and “discuss strengthening NATO and BiH [Bosnia and Herzegovina] cooperation.” [1]

Ahead of the Balkans tour Rasmussen was in Germany to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and recruit more troops for the war in Afghanistan.

The NATO chief has been even busier than usual of late, simultaneously recruiting troops from nations throughout Europe for Afghanistan on Washington’s behalf, working on the bloc’s new Strategic Concept, drumming up support for a continent-wide, U.S.-led interceptor missile system and preparing for a NATO foreign ministers meeting on December 3-4.

The Balkans fit into all the above aspects of what has in recent years routinely been referred to as 21st Century, global and expeditionary NATO, one feverishly seeking new “third millennium challenges” and invoking “a myriad deadly threats” [2] as pretexts for increasing its already widening role in five continents and the Middle East.

Several days before Rasmussen arrived in the world’s newest (recognized) nation, Montenegro, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Alexander Vershbow was in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to preside over the fifth meeting of defense chiefs of the US-Adriatic Charter, set up by Washington in 2003 to fast-track Balkans nations into NATO.

The first three members enlisted by the U.S. were Albania, Croatia and Macedonia. The first two were formally inducted into full NATO membership at the bloc’s sixtieth anniversary summit this April and Macedonia also would have been dragged into the Alliance except for the lingering dispute with Greece over its name. Bosnia and Montenegro were added to the Charter last year and Serbia – and breakaway Kosovo – are to be next. With Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia becoming full member states at the Istanbul summit in 2004 and Greece and Turkey members for decades, all of Southeast Europe has been transformed into NATO territory, from the Adriatic to the Black and from the Aegean to the Ionian Seas.

The November 17 meeting in Bosnia was attended by, in addition to the Pentagon’s Vershbow (who was U.S. ambassador to NATO during the 1999 war against Yugoslavia), the deputy defense minister of Albania and the defense chiefs of Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro. Also present were the defense ministers of Serbia and Slovenia, Dragan Sutanovac and Ljubica Jelisic, the last two nations in a category labeled “guest and observer countries.”

“Vershbow reiterated US support for the early approval of BiH and Montenegro’s applications for the Membership Action Plan (MAP). He also said full NATO membership for Macedonia will be backed, as soon as the issue of its name is resolved.” Additionally, the defense chiefs “agreed to sign a joint statement on enhancing co-operation through regional centres in the Western Balkans.”  [3]

An Associated Press dispatch at the time of the Adriatic Charter meeting mentioned of the December 3-4 assembly in Brussels (which will also be a forum for enlisting thousands of more NATO troops for the Afghan war) that “An upcoming meeting of NATO foreign ministers will provide a boost for Bosnia and Montenegro to become the 29th and 30th members of the trans-Atlantic alliance.” [4]

Bosnia and Montenegro being incorporated as full NATO members and Macedonia following suit would expand the world’s only military bloc to 31 nations, almost twice that of ten years ago when it first began its drive into Eastern Europe. And with Serbia and Kosovo, which even before becoming a member is the world’s first NATO political entity, included the Alliance’s numbers will have more than doubled since 1999, a decade after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. All seventeen new acquisitions would be in Eastern Europe, and the majority of NATO member states would be former Warsaw Pact members or Yugoslav republics and a province.

The Pentagon has already secured seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania [5] which border the Black Sea in the Northern Balkans, including the Graf Ignatievo and Bezmer airbases in the first country and the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in the second. The airfields have been used for “downrange” military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Romanian installation now hosts the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force – East.

The U.S.’s colossal Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo is now ten years old and the use and upgrading of Croatian and Montenegrin Adriatic harbors for U.S. Navy deployments is an imminent possibility.

The further the fragmentation of former Yugoslavia proceeds, the more thoroughly the region will be transformed into a string of so-called forward operating bases and “lily pads” (Donald Rumsfeld’s term) for military action to the east and south.

The 2006 Western-supported dissolution of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, itself a transitional mechanism devised by Javier Solana, NATO Secretary General during the 1999 war and since then the European Union’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, completed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia into its six federal republics. The unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia by Kosovo in 2008, not only backed but engineered by NATO and its civilian complements, the government of the United States and the European Union, began the second phase of the dismemberment of the nation: The breaking apart of former republics into mini-states. [6]

Behind Kosovo lie Vojvodina, the Presevo Valley and Sandzak in Serbia, where ethnic separatism, cross-border armed attacks and outright terrorism have raised their heads, respectively.

Macedonia faces the same alarming prospect. Attacks by adjuncts of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army – the National Liberation Army (NLA) of Ali Ahmeti – from inside Kosovo in 2001 placed the new nation on the precipice of all-out war and violent fragmentation.

Last week Menduh Thaci, head of the Democratic Party of Albanians, called on his sponsors in the West to reduce Macedonia to an international protectorate. Speaking of a current political crisis largely of his making, Thaci said “I am convinced that the only way out is an urgent international protection, which will be a preventive measure for possible events.” The next step is for the name of the nation to be changed or adjusted and for whatever it will then be called to be brought into NATO. Both the Greek government and pan-Albanian forces in Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, South Serbia and Montenegro will be satisfied with the result and NATO will acquire its 29th (or 31st) member state. [7]

Montenegro, barely three years old, will soon deploy the first contingent of its armed forces to serve under NATO in Afghanistan. When it arrives it will join troops from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia. The last seven nations also provided soldiers for the military occupation of Iraq after 2003. Montenegro didn’t exist as an independent state at that time, so its initiation as a NATO candidate country will be in Afghanistan.

With Serbia as an observer nation of the Adriatic Charter and with it having joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace transitional program in 2006, Washington and Brussels will also soon call on it to prove its right to Alliance candidacy by dispatching troops to the Afghan war front. As the U.S. and NATO are on the verge of a qualitative escalation of the war in South Asia, the Serbian foreign and defense ministries have announced the opening of a mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “[T]he point of the mission will be to improve cooperation and everyday communication with NATO, participate in the work of 100 expert committees, and improve…cooperation with ’50 member-states’ of the ‘political’ alliance.” [8] Fifty states are almost exactly the number that have provided NATO troops for the war in Afghanistan. Serbia could be the 51st.

Even for the representative of a battered, splintered, demoralized nation, recent statements by current Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac are offensive in their shameless fawning and obsequiousness.

He will soon be the first Serbian defense chief to visit the Pentagon in a quarter of a century, a fact he is proud of, and recently said that his trip will be “without a doubt, politically and militarily very important,” as much of the money – $500 million – Washington has bribed Belgrade authorities with since the overthrow of President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 “[was] used by the Serbian military.”

Sutanovac, who graduated from the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, jointly run by the U.S. Department of Defense and the German Defense Ministry, and who is described as “speaking perfect English,” added these revealing details:

“The Serbian MoD [Ministry of Defense] has stable relations with the U.S. military and we can say that cooperation in defense is the backbone of relations between the United States and Serbia at the moment.”

“Considering the fact that the U.S. defense budget is as large as the defense budget of the rest of the world, it is crystal clear what the most important thing is to U.S. foreign policy and international relations.” [9]

The former Kosovo Liberation Army, then Kosovo Protection Corps (and now Kosovo Security Force) offered troops to the U.S. for the war in Iraq shortly after the invasion of 2003 and the NATO-equipped and trained Kosovo Security Force, a nascent national army in all but name, will offer troops to NATO for the Afghan war as it drags on indefinitely. [10]

During recent municipal elections in Kosovo, the first since its nominal independence, one not recognized by 140 of 192 nations and by few outside the NATO world (the exceptions including Afghanistan, Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Marshall Islands, San Marino, Belize, Malta, Samoa, the Maldives, the Comoros, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Palau), supporters of former KLA chieftains Hashim Thaci – the Western-recognized prime minister – and war criminal Ramush Haradinaj were at daggers drawn and “people used rocks to attack a line of cars that transported Hashim Thaci….Thaci’s party accused Haradinaj of directly inciting and organizing [the] attack….” [11]

A Russian report on the Western-endorsed and -celebrated elections placed the West’s Kosovo strategy in a broader context:

“EU officials are the ones forcing the Serbian government to accept several very unpleasant decisions – recognition of the municipal elections in Kosovo, dissociation from Russia and the pullout of joint energy projects with Russia.

“As for democratic values in the EU policy with regard to Serbia, they are hard to believe in, given the EU officials’ open sympathies with the Albanian militants of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Incidentally, the supporters of two KLA leaders, former ‘prime minister’ Ramush Haradinaj and his successor Hashim Thaci, caused a violent clash in one of the Albanian enclaves.

“It is worth reminding here that Haradinaj was allowed to leave the Hague occasionally ‘to rule’ Kosovo during his trial, while Thaci was eventually cleared by the Hague Tribunal of all charges of genocide against Serbs.” [12]

Nevertheless the United States and its NATO allies, the self-proclaimed “international community” and champions of democracy, human rights and so forth wherever and whenever it suits their political purposes, continue to embrace the Kosovo entity as a brother-in-arms in the new global order.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton was in the Kosovo capital of Pristina on November 1 for the unveiling of a particularly vulgar and meretricious gold-sprayed statue of himself [13], the ceremony presided over by the former head of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim “The Snake” Thaci, the creation of whose pseudo-nation is a cause of great pride in Western capitals.

The Associated Press reported on the event in Europe’s drug-smuggling criminal black hole:

“The statue portrays Clinton with his left arm raised and holding a portfolio bearing his name and the date when NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, on March 24, 1999.

“Many waved American, Albanian and Kosovo flags and chanted ‘USA!’ as the former president climbed on top of a podium with his poster in the background reading ‘Kosovo honors a hero.’” [14]

That Albanian flags were flaunted reveals what NATO mercilessly bombed the length and breadth of Yugoslavia for 78 days to achieve.

Three weeks afterward the mayor of a town in Albania – the distinction between that nation and Kosovo is now a strictly academic one – announced plans to follow suit and dedicate a statue to George W. Bush. Bush and Clinton have jointly sired the Kosovo/Greater Kosovo aberration. “The small Albanian town of Fushe-Kruje plans to erect a statue of former U.S. President George W. Bush to commemorate his June 2007 visit, when he was feted as a hero in an outpouring of love for America.”

The town’s mayor, Ismet Mavriqi, was quoted as saying, “If I had the final say, I would very much like a three-meter statue, probably in bronze, that captures his trademark way of walking with energy.” [15]

The legacy that Washington and Brussels have left the people of Kosovo – those remaining that is, as hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Roma and others have  fled for their lives since June of 1999 – was detailed in a recent Reuters report.

It said that although “Over the past decade it has received 3 billion euros in aid, according to the World Bank, and is expecting another billion by 2011,” nevertheless “unemployment is 40 percent and average per capita income is 1,760 euros. That compares with average joblessness of just under 10 percent in the European Union and an average salary of about 24,000 euros ($35,930).” [16]

Ten years of NATO-KLA collaboration have produced this human catastrophe.

This is the stability and prosperity that the West has brought to the Balkans.

That afflicted part of Europe has been the testing ground for NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and since into Asia, Africa and the Middle East, starting with Bosnia in 1995 when NATO dropped its first bombs and deployed its first troops outside the territory of its member states.

As early as January of 1996 the now deceased American scholar Sean Gervasi warned that “There are deeper reasons for the dispatch of NATO forces to the Balkans, and especially for the extension of NATO to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in the relatively near future. These have to do with an emerging strategy for securing the resources of the Caspian Sea region and for ‘stabilizing’ the countries of Eastern Europe – ultimately for ‘stabilizing’ Russia and the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.” [17]

NATO now has solidified military partnerships, conducts regular war games and has established permanent bases in several countries on and near the Caspian Sea – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, not to mention Afghanistan.

It has absorbed three former Soviet republics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – and continues to insist that former Commonwealth of Independent States member Georgia and current one Ukraine will become full members of the Alliance.

Thirteen years ago Gervasi also warned that “The United States is now seeking to consolidate a new European-Middle Eastern bloc of nations….This grouping includes Turkey, which is of pivotal importance in the emerging new bloc. Turkey is not just a part of the southern Balkans and an Aegean power. It also borders on Iraq, Iran and Syria. It thus connects southern Europe to the Middle East, where the US considers that it has vital interests….With the war against Iraq [1991], the US established itself in the Middle East more securely than ever. The almost simultaneous disintegration of the Soviet Union opened the possibility of Western exploitation of the oil resources of the Caspian Sea region.” [18]

Events in the interim have proceeded exactly as Gervasi indicated they would and for the motives he attributed to them.

Having undermined the United Nations, violated international law, humiliated Russia and moved NATO forces into the Balkans, the West was embarked in earnest on its drive for global domination in the post-Cold War world. As NATO’s first war, the Operation Allied Force bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, was dragging on and assuming ever more ominous dimensions, even before the destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO bombs, then Russian President Boris Yeltsin appeared on his nation’s television and said: “I told Nato, the Americans, the Germans, don’t push us towards military action.

“Otherwise there will be a European war for sure – and possibly world war.” [19]

That Yeltsin was the dependable friend of Washington that he was made the statement even more foreboding. Less than a month afterward the Chinese embassy was in ruins as the war raged on.

Europe and the world avoided a broader war ten years ago. But NATO, using the Balkans as its global springboard, may yet succeed in triggering a conflict that will not be contained and will not remain within the realm of conventional warfare.

Notes

1) Macedonian Radio and Television, November 26, 2009
2) Thousand Deadly Threats: Third Millennium NATO, Western Businesses Collude
   On New Global Doctrine
   Stop NATO, October 2, 2009
   http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/thousand-deadly-threats-third-millennium-nato-western-businesses-collude-on-new-global-doctrine
3) Southeast European Times, November 20, 2009
4) Associated Press, November 18, 2009
5) Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East
   Stop NATO, October 24, 2009
   http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/bulgaria-romania-u-s-nato-bases-for-war-in-the-east
6) Adriatic Charter And The Balkans: Smaller Nations, Larger NATO 
   Stop NATO, May 13, 2009
   http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/adriatic-charter-and-the-balkans-smaller-nations-larger-nato
7) Threat Of New Conflict In Europe: Western-Sponsored Greater Albania
   Stop NATO, October 8, 2009
   http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/new-threat-of-conflict-in-europe-western-sponsored-greater-albania
8) Vecernje Novosti, November 4, 2009
9) Politika, November 27, 2009
10) Balkans: Staging Ground For NATO’s Post-Cold War Order
    Stop NATO, February 9, 2009
    http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/balkans-staging-ground-for-natos-post-cold-war-order
11) Tanjug News Agency, November 12, 2009
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 17, 2009
13) Kosovo: Marking Ten Years Of Worldwide Wars
    Stop NATO, October 31, 2009
    http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/kosovo-marking-ten-years-of-worldwide-wars
14) Associated Press, November 1, 2009
15) Reuters, November 21, 2009
16) Reuters, November 20, 2009
17) Sean Gervasi, Why Is NATO In Yugoslavia?
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/GER108A.html
18) Ibid
19) BBC News, April 9, 1999

Russian economist and academic Igor Panarin says that there is a strong possibility that the United States will break into six pieces by June 2010, which he says will be the result of a second economic crisis in late November. After Texas Governor Rick Perry mentioned the possibility of his state seceding from the union, Americans started to take Panarin’s predictions much more seriously and now the video game ‘Shattered Union’ is being developed into a major Hollywood motion picture.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said last week in Washington that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel.

Mullen said he would prefer that the U.S. work diplomatically to keep the country from acquiring nuclear weapons, but hinted that should such efforts fail, the U.S. air force and navy could be put into action as well.

Ahead of Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s visit to the Pentagon this week, Israeli military sources said they were satisfied with the progress in talks with their American counterparts over acquiring F-35 fighter jets. Israel will pay $135 million per jet if it buys 25, and $100 million if it buys 75.

Meanwhile, Washington has retracted its opposition to installing Israeli-made systems on the jets. However, a disagreement over Israel’s request for complete access to the planes’ computer systems is yet to be resolved.

At a conference at the National Press Club, Mullen said he has spent a significant amount of time with his Israeli counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and that “it’s very clear to me that a nuclear weapon in Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” according to a transcript released by his office.

“There is no doubt in my mind that’s how the Israelis feel,” he said, adding, “Given that view, [and] their sense of both focus and urgency … it is up front. It is at the top of their list.”

Mullen has held frequent talks with Ashkenazi over the past two years. The most recent was last month in Normandy, France.

Ashkenazi, his deputy Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, and Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz (head of the Military Intelligence research division), met last week with Adm. James Stavridis, the commander of U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and NATO supreme allied commander of Europe, while Stavridis visited Israel with several of his top officers.

Israel is within EUCOM’s area of responsibility, but lately ties have grown tighter between Israel and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for Iran.

Hinting at differences in perceptions between the administrations in Washington and Jerusalem, Mullen said Iran’s nuclear program appears “to be the No. 1 priority for Israel, and certainly it’s a very high priority for us.”

Mullen added that a nuclear Iran would undermine the stability of a region that is already highly unstable, and that he supports U.S. President Barack Obama’s view that “the goal is to make sure that they don’t get a nuclear weapon. At the same time, a strike on Iran, getting into a conflict with Iran, I think would also be incredibly destabilizing.”

Via Haaretz.

By Lawrence of Cyberia