HONG KONG — A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass — at the expense of the United States. And no wonder Washington is anxious. That alliance is already a done deal in a variety of ways: through the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa); at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian counterweight to NATO; inside the G20; and via the 120-member-nationNon-Aligned Movement (NAM). Trade and commerce are just part of the future bargain. Synergies in the development of new military technologies beckon as well. After Russia’s Star Wars-style, ultra-sophisticated S-500 air defense anti-missile system comes online in 2018, Beijing is sure to want a version of it. Meanwhile, Russia is about to sell dozens of state-of-the-art Sukhoi Su-35 jet fighters to the Chinese as Beijing and Moscow move to seal an aviation-industrial partnership.
Category: UN
FireDogLake reported on Monday: Breaking during the weekend was a story by Der Spiegel and Bild that American mercenaries were on the ground in Kiev. According to the report 400 mercenaries from Academi (formerly Blackwater) were on the ground “involved in a punitive operation mounted by Ukraine’s new government.” Der Spiegel claims “the information originates from U.S. intelligence services and was presented during a meeting chaired by the Chancellor’s Office chief Peter Altmaier (CDU). At the meeting were present the president of the intelligence agencies and the Federal Criminal Office, as well as the intelligence coordinator of the Chancellor’s Office and senior Ministry officials.” Indeed, the German newspaper apparently claim that the American mercenaries are directing andcoordinating the attacks by the fascist Right Sector militia. Blackwater is more or less an extension of the CIA.
[The 4th Media editor’s note: The 4th Media decided to publish the following article as it is. However, we deleted a couple of inappropriate sentences which are filled with inappropriate descriptions and irrelevant expressions in its…
Democracy had another near-fatal stroke, and the military industrial complex further tightened UK defense spending with the appointment of ex-army officer and Tory hothead Rory Stewart MP as the new chairman of Westminster’s Defence Select…
The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between Washington and Manila, signed on April 28, starkly exposes the reactionary character of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia.” As…
After the victory of Hugo Chavez’ successor Nicolas Maduro in the 2013 presidential election, the CIA tried to use a modernized version of the Chilean scenario to overthrow him. Forty years ago that scenario worked: in September 1973 the government of Salvador Allende was literally destroyed. A repressive fascist dictatorship took hold in Chile for many years, and Allende’s supporters became their victims. Tens of thousands of Chileans passed through torture centers and concentration camps. Many were forced to emigrate, but even abroad they did not feel safe. Pinochet’s secret police hunted down significant figures in the resistance and used poison and explosives to eliminate them. In Venezuela the Chilean scenario did not work. The conspirators, following the instructions of their overseers from the CIA, planned to provoke mass discontent. They tried everything: an artificial shortage of staple commodities, sabotage on public transportation, attacks on government agencies, and barricading of major highways and roads to residential areas.
Can anyone doubt that the United States is governed for the corporate good? The lofty concept of ‘for the people’ evaporated into mythical fairy dust generations ago. In the new millennium, any pretense…
In Defense of the Donetsk People’s Republic This week the war in East Ukraine continued, despite the referenda held in Donetsk and Lugansk on Sunday. In the circumstances, the referenda were well organised….
Finance in today’s world has become war by non-military means. Its object is the same as that of military conquest: appropriation of land and basic infrastructure, and the rents that can be extracted as tribute. In today’s world this is taken mainly in the form of debt service and privatization. That is how neoliberalism works, subduing economies by indebting their governments and using unpayably high debts as a lever to pry away the public domain at distress prices. It is what today’s New Cold War is all about. Backed by the IMF and European Central Bank (ECB) as knee-breakers in what has become in effect a financial extension of NATO, the aim is for U.S. and allied investors to appropriate the plums that kleptocrats have taken from the public domain of Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet economies in these countries, as well as whatever assets remain.
So, what do we have here? In Libya, in Syria, and elsewhere the United States has been on the same side as the al-Qaeda types. But not in Ukraine. That’s the good news. The bad…