A fascinating nuclear/energy ballet involving Iran, Russia, the US and the EU is bound to determine much of what happens next in the new great game in Eurasia. Let’s start with what’s going on with the Iranian nuclear dossier. Iranian Foreign Ministry legal adviser Jamshid Momtaz has been forced to clarify that the interim nuclear deal signed by Iran and the P-5+1 nations on November 2013 is not an international treaty – yet. As we stand, the gap between the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on one side, and Iran on the other side, remains very wide. Essentially, the gap that really matters is between Washington and Tehran. And that, unfortunately, translates as a few more months for the vast sabotage brigade – from US neo-cons and assorted warmongers to Israel and the House of Saud – to force the deal to collapse. One of Washington’s sabotage mantras is “breakout capability”; a dodgy concept which boils down to total centrifuge capacity/capability to produce enough enriched uranium for a single nuclear bomb. This implies an arbitrary limit on Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium.
Category: Head Stories
The deafening silence of the US media and government about the investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 one month ago reeks of a cover-up. In the hours and days immediately after the crash, without a single shred of evidence, US officials alleged that the passenger jet was shot down by an SA-11 ground-to-air missile fired from pro-Russian separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine. They launched a political campaign to obtain harsh economic sanctions against Russia and strengthen NATO’s military posture in Eastern Europe. Picking up on the scent, the CIA attack dogs in the US and European media blamed the crash squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The cover of the July 28 print edition of German news magazine Der Spiegel showed the images of MH17 victims surrounding bold red text reading “Stoppt Putin Jetzt!” (Stop Putin Now!). A July 26 editorial in the Economist declared Putin to be the author of MH17’s destruction, while the magazine ghoulishly superimposed Putin’s face over a spider web on its front cover, denouncing Putin’s “web of lies.”
Wars in an imperialist democracy cannot simply be dictated by executive fiat, they require the consent of highly motivated masses who will make the human and material sacrifices. Imperialist leaders have to create a visible and highly charged emotional sense of injustice and righteousness to secure national cohesion and overcome the natural opposition to early death, destruction and disruption of civilian life and to the brutal regimentation that goes with submission to absolutist rule by the military. The need to invent a cause is especially the case with imperialist countries because their national territory is not under threat. There is no visible occupation army oppressing the mass of the people in their everyday life. The ‘enemy’ does not disrupt everyday normal life – as forced conscription would and does. Under normal peaceful time, who would be willing to sacrifice their constitutional rights and their participation in civil society to subject themselves to martial rule that precludes the exercise of all their civil freedoms?
The truth about Malaysian Airlines is starting to leak out: No sign of a missile anywhere. No blast damage to the plane, no missile fragments on the ground, no answers to Russia’s 10 questions. What if Europe discovers it’s too integrated with Russia to disengage, and simply drops the sanctions — as three EU countries have already requested. Russia has only scratched the sanction surface. The airline sanctions will either shut European airlines out of Asia, their only profitable, growing market, or cost them billions they can ill afford. Next, the energy sanctions. Exxon has just started production from a field ‘as big as the Gulf of Mexico’. Russia can justly require its EU customers to pay in gold or non-dollar currencies adding a “Ukrainian refugee surcharge” of 1% to every therm they deliver. Meanwhile… The EU and US economies are on life support. Even Germany’s contracted in Q2. Ukraine has run out of money
Censorship in Hollywood: Celebrities Being Blacklisted by Pro-Israeli Media? “I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe ‘the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,’ down from nearly 50% in 1964. The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.” Spain’s most notable actors, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz may be soon unemployed, well at least in Hollywood. The Guardian reported that the “The couple were among 100 film professionals to sign the open Spanish letter calling on the European Union to end Israel’s military operation in Gaza, along with director Pedro Almodovar in July.”
The European Union is not (anymore) guided by politicians with a grasp of history, a sober assessment of global reality, or simple common sense connected with the long term interests of what they are guiding. If any more evidence was needed, it has certainly been supplied by the sanctions they have agreed on last week aimed at punishing Russia. One way to fathom their foolishness is to start with the media, since whatever understanding or concern these politicians may have personally they must be seen to be doing the right thing, which is taken care of by TV and newspapers. In much of the European Union the general understanding of global reality since the horrible fate of the people on board the Malaysian Airliner comes from mainstream newspapers and TV which have copied the approach of Anglo-American mainstream media, and have presented ‘news’ in which insinuation and vilification substitute for proper reporting. Respected publications, like the Financial Times or the once respected NRC Handelsblad of the Netherlands for which I worked sixteen years as East Asia Correspondent, not only joined in with this corrupted journalism but helped guide it to mad conclusions. The punditry and editorials that have grown out of this have gone further than anything among earlier examples of sustained media hysteria stoked for political purposes that I can remember. The most flagrant example I have come across, an anti-Putin leader in the (July 26) Economist Magazine, had the tone of Shakespeare’s Henry V exhorting his troops before the battle of Agincourt as he invaded France.
State Comptroller Shapira announced on August 13, that he will investigate war crimes in Gaza, joining an earlier decision of the UN to conduct a similar enquiry. The head of the UN Committee is on the editorial board of the Israel Law Review. The Life Censorship in Israel$ is easily bypassed. “As quoted from foreign news sources” are the magic words that render the Military Censor powerless. Israeli sources willing to bypass censorship leak the news to an Arabic newspaper and then quote it. The trademark of this trickery is that the Hebrew source will in such a case forget to mention the Arabic source. The scam masters are Yediot Ahronot and Haaretz, the leading Hebrew newspapers. Hardworking journalists in these outlets do not need to spend white-nights searching for a cooperating Arabic newspaper. Al-Hayat (The Life) in London is happy to comply.
The Latest in the New Cold War: My Money’s on Putin Here’s an excerpt: “To stop the war, you need to terminate its driving forces. At this stage, the war unfolds mainly in the planes of economic, public relations and politics. All the power of US economic superiority is based on the financial pyramid of debt, and this has gone long beyond sustainability. Its major lenders are collapsing enough to deprive the US market of accumulated US dollars and Treasury bonds. Of course, the collapse of the US financial system will cause serious losses to all holders of US currency and securities. But first, these losses for Russia, Europe and China will be less than the losses caused by American geopolitics unleashing another world war. Secondly, the sooner the exit from the financial obligations of this American pyramid, the less will be the losses. Third, the collapse of the dollar Ponzi scheme gives an opportunity, finally, to reform the global financial system on the basis of equity and mutual benefit.” Washington thinks “modern warfare” involves covert support for proxy armies comprised of Neo Nazis and Islamic extremists. Moscow thinks modern warfare means undermining the enemy’s ability to wage war through sustained attacks on it’s currency, its institutions, its bond market, and its ability to convince its allies that it is a responsible steward of the global economic system. I’ll put my money on Russia.
Outside of Israel and its organized supporters in the major Zionist organizations, world public opinion and most experts in international law see the Jewish State’s invasion of Gaza and its systematic attack on civilians and basic infrastructure as a crime against humanity. The purpose of this essay is 4-fold: 1. To identify the nature of the crime – the genocidal character of the armed assault and the sequence leading up to it; 2. To identify the direct perpetrators of the war crimes and their domestic and international accomplices; 3. To explain the ties binding leaders, policymakers, propagandists, accomplices and followers, including their ideologies, material interests and organizational structure which make these crimes not only possible, but met so far with impunity and 4. To identify the larger imperial interests with which Israel allies with the US, and in pursuit of which, the Gaza assault is a horrifying dress rehearsal.
All The Queen’s Men Can’t Save The Biowar Ebola Serum Minions of the British Crown pressured the World Health Organization (WHO) to schedule a two-day expert panel on the pros and cons of authorizing the use of untested experimental drugs inside the ebola outbreak zone. Celebrity microbiologists are hailing evangelical missionary Dr. Kent Brantly’s rebound from an ebola infection contracted in Sierra Leone, thanks to a novel wonder drug called ZMapp. With rapt attention, world audiences watched a thrilling televised drama of a chivalrous medical volunteer helping his felled female colleague, followed by a desperate flight out of Africa and then a stake-out of reporters in front of an American hospital. Tales emerged from an isolation chamber of how a chilled vial of “secret” serum dripping into the hero’s veins saved his life within an hour. If the astounding comeback from certain death sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In the media-driven panic over the spreading ebola contagion, any doubts about the antibody-based therapy and inconsistencies in the Brantly story are being trampled under a stampede of foreign medical personnel fleeing West Africa.