Big Brother is now watching 24/7, IPhone5 NSA will do the trick...

Iraq To Build $18 Billion Oil Pipeline To Aqaba, Jordan...

Iraq shortlists global contractors to build $18 billion pipeline to export crude...ZOG-USA on the way out of MENA, back to the shore-lines of the YankeeLandistan... & Wahhabistan will be soundly defeated for good!!!

Iraq has shortlisted 12 international companies and consortiums to build the country’s first oil export pipeline in decades, and will ask them to submit their bids by the end of this year for an $18 billion project that will make the country less dependent on Persian Gulf export terminals... 

By HASSAN HAFIDH


Iraq has shortlisted 12 international companies and consortiums to build the country’s first oil export pipeline in decades, and will ask them to submit their bids by the end of this year for an $18 billion project that will make the country less dependent on Persian Gulf export terminals, two oil industry sources said.
Iraq’s oil ministry has chosen these companies out of more than 80 international companies which submitted their credentials to build a section of the 1,680 km pipeline stretching from the oil hub of Basra in southern Iraq to Jordanian port of Aqaba in the Red Sea, the first person said.
The short listed companies and consortiums are: Lukoil, China National Petroleum Corp., Marubeni Corp., Mitsui & Co., Toyota Tsusho, Punj Lloyd (India) and Mass Global International (Iraq), Saipem, Daewoo International Corp., Consolidated Contractors Co. (Greece), Go Gas, L&T and Fuis Capital, Petrofac and Stroygazconsulting, or SGC, and Orascom and Petrojet (Egypt).
SCOP will invite the short listed companies to receive the tender package, the second person said. SCOP will also propose that companies need to submit their offers by November or December, he added.
Iraq and Jordan signed a preliminary agreement in April to build the section of the pipeline that would stretch from an Iraqi oil pumping station in Haditha, west of Iraq, to Aqaba. The rest of the pipeline, which is 680 km long, linking a Basra pumping station with the one in Haditha would be built and financed by the Iraqi oil ministry.
Iraq hopes the pipeline will make it less dependent on Persian Gulf export terminals, providing the country with an alternative route if Iran closes the Strait of Hormus. Tehran has threatened on several occasions to close the strategic waterway through which 35% of the world’s shipborne oil is exported, most recently in response to international sanctions over its suspect nuclear program.
Last year Iraq started design and feasibility studies on the pipeline that’s expected to carry 2.25 MMbpd. The country is now preparing to start work on the section from Haditha to Aqaba, with a capacity of 1 MMbpd.
A third section of the pipeline, running to Syria’s Banias port in the Mediterranean, has been postponed because of the conflict in the neighboring country. It would have a capacity of 1.25 MMbpd.
Under the agreement signed in April, Iraq would supply energy poor Jordan with 150,000 bpd to feed its Zarqa refinery near Amman. Iraq will also supply Jordan with 100 MMcfd of gas via another pipeline that will be built parallel to the oil line.
On Tuesday, Iraq decided to extend an oil export agreement to supply Jordan with crude for one year, without giving more details. Iraq exports some 10,000 to 15,000 bpd to Jordan at a heavily discounted price of dated Brent minus $18 a barrel.
Iraq sits on some of the world’s largest oil reserves and was once a major exporter of crude. It’s now trying to rebuild an industry that was devastated by years of war and sanctions...

Presidential Meeting Signals Catastrophic Event, “There Is a Crisis Unfolding Somewhere in the Background”

 Réunion de crise à huis clos à Ouachinton: la fraude au déficit, ça a eu payé!

Entre l'accumulation vertigineuse des déficits et la
remontée des taux d'intérêt, rien ne va plus chez les
croupiers du casino fédéral étasunien, incapable de
poursuivre indéfiniment le financement de ses déficits...
Oui mais voilà: Obama, le giton des banksters, s'obstine
bêtement et a préféré risquer de planter le dollar US en
beauté plutôt que de remettre en cause le système khazare
à bout de souffle...
Voilà donc aussi à quoi servait l'abaissement artificiel
des taux pratiqués par la FED - du moins tant qu'elle le
pouvait encore - la remontée des taux d'intérêt étant la
conséquence directe de la raréfaction progressive des
bailleurs idiots...
Et ce n'est pas le niveau réel des stocks d'or physique
de la FED qui va leur permettre d'éviter le bouillon....


http://www.infowars.com/presidential-meeting-signals-catastrophic-event-there-is-a-crisis-unfolding-somewhere-in-the-background/


(et les nombreux liens cités dans l'article)...

Afghanistan’s Rare Earth Element Bonanza...

 

Afghanistan’s Rare Earth Element Bonanza...

By Alan W. Dowd

Afghanistan’s recently mapped deposits of rare earth elements provide hope that the war-torn nation can achieve peace and prosperity.   After more than a decade of war and nation building, members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are heading for the exits. Although what the ISAF will leave behind is better than what was there in 2001, Afghanistan remains a battered land. However, the resources Afghanistan’s land holds — copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and 1.4 million metric tons of rare earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver lining. U.S. agencies estimate Afghanistan’s mineral deposits to be worth upwards of $1 trillion. In fact, a classified Pentagon memo called Afghanistan the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” (Although lithium is technically not a rare earth element, it serves some of the same purposes.) Of course, the fact that Afghanistan is rich in minerals is not necessarily new information. The Soviets identified mineral deposits in Afghanistan during their decade-long occupation. What is new is the volume and precision of mineral-related information. Afghanistan has been mapped using what is known as “broad-scale hyper-spectral data” — highly precise technologies deployed by aircraft that, in effect, allow U.S. military and geological experts to peer beneath Afghanistan’s skin and paint a picture of its vast mineral wealth. According to Jim Bullion, who heads a Pentagon task force on postwar development, these maps reveal that Afghanistan could “become a world leader in the minerals sector.” There’s another set of factors at work today that were not present during the Soviet period: REEs are in high demand, the dependability of the REE supply chain is in question, and Afghanistan’s mineral wealth may be able to help knit the country back together after decades of war. But simply having a rich mineral endowment doesn’t mean that Afghanistan is poised to tap it quickly. Challenges abound. Supply Chain Worries The importance of REEs to the global economy cannot be overstated. They are essential to the manufacture of a host of modern technologies, including cell phones, televisions, hybrid engines, computer components, lasers, batteries, fiber optics, and superconductors. Congressional findings have called rare earth elements “critical to national security,” and understandably so. REEs are key to the production of tank navigation systems, missile guidance systems, fighter jet engines, missile defense components, satellites, and military grade communications gear. The supply of REEs and similar minerals is critical to today’s technology-dependent economy, which is highly dependent on a reliable supply chain. Regrettably, the main supplier of REEs, China, has proven itself undependable. Building a rare earth mining system from scratch in one of the world’s most broken countries will not happen overnight. The Chinese produce 97 percent of the world’s REEs, but have begun to manipulate the global REE market by dramatically slowing, and in some cases halting, export of these materials. After a maritime dispute with Japan, China stopped supplying REEs to Japanese customers, reduced overall global exports by 72 percent in the second half of 2010, cut export quotas for the first half of 2011 by 35 percent, and slashed REE mining permits by 41 percent in 2012, claiming its actions were a function of efforts to fight pollution. Although Beijing has resumed delivery of REEs, China’s actions have prompted the United States, Japan, and Europe to explore alternative sources. The good news is that market forces are already at work diversifying the REE supply chain. Australia has new REE mines coming online, and mines in Brazil, Canada, Vietnam, and the United States could start producing REEs by 2015. Thanks to REE finds, Mongolia’s GDP is also primed to triple in the next 10 years. Leverage Afghanistan can be part of the long term solution to the REE supply problem. However, building a rare earth mining system from scratch in one of the world’s most broken countries will not happen overnight. Corruption remains a challenge, stability and security exist only in pockets, and the ingredients that encourage foreign investment — the rule of law, human capital, and infrastructure — are in short supply. For instance, political dysfunction is plaguing efforts to build rail lines considered crucial to transporting Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. Yet what Afghanistan lacks in infrastructure, it makes up for in rare earth riches, which explains why some governments are willing to look past the many impediments to development. Of course, those impediments are significant, and removing them will require a commitment within Afghanistan to embrace economic freedom, the foundations of which — personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to enter and compete in markets, and property rights — have yet to fully take root. What Afghanistan lacks in infrastructure, it makes up for in rare earth riches. Aiming to build up what the Department of Energy calls “sizable stockpiles” of REEs, Beijing is eager to develop Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. China has won exploration rights for copper, coal, oil, and lithium deposits across Afghanistan, and there are reports that Beijing won the rights to develop a copper mine by bribing Afghan mining officials. Make no mistake: China can play an important and constructive role in Afghanistan. Development in Afghanistan can be aided by foreign investment, and Beijing has the resources to make crucial investments in Afghanistan’s future. But given China’s stranglehold on the REE market — and the West’s commitment in blood and treasure to Afghanistan’s future — allowing China to stroll in and harvest Afghanistan’s rare earth riches seems both unwise and unfair. Before they withdraw, ISAF nations should use their considerable leverage not to secure sweetheart deals for Western investors and developers, but to ensure a level playing field for any firm willing to take a risk on developing Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. Curse or Blessing? Some observers warn that if Afghanistan’s mining sector does take off, the country could succumb to the so-called “resource curse” — the notion that natural-resource wealth can actually hinder economic growth by diverting investment away from other sectors and encouraging high levels of government spending. There are two ways to answer the resource-curse naysayers: first, on a very practical level, the world should be so lucky if the resource curse becomes the main concern for Afghanistan — a country that has endured and caused so much heartache. Second, the resource curse may be a bit overblown. A Fraser Institute report found that early studies on the resource curse “overlooked the role of economic institutions and the possible interaction between natural resources and the quality of institutions. Nations with economic institutions of higher quality are more capable of managing their resource revenue.” To be sure, those institutions remain nascent in Afghanistan. This underscores the importance of policy prescriptions geared toward economic freedom. Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo, political scientists specializing in the research of mineral booms, note that “roughly twice as many countries have been blessed by resource booms as cursed by them.” Citing poor infrastructure, a largely illiterate population, and a weak central government hampered by warlordism, they report that “until its late 19th century oil and mineral boom, Mexico was not a whole lot different from Afghanistan.” Oil and mineral discoveries did not cure all of Mexico’s ills, of course. To this day, Mexico struggles with corruption, ranking 105th out of 176 countries surveyed on a global corruption index. However, natural-resource wealth did help stabilize Mexico’s political system and legitimize the state. Similarly, there are too many challenges in Afghanistan to think of REEs as a panacea. Political corruption runs high in Kabul, Afghanistan’s geographic remoteness will always be an issue, and Afghanistan’s neighbors to the east and west are mischievous, to put it politely. But if something akin to the Mexican model can take root in Afghanistan, then the world can help solve Afghanistan’s instability problem — and Afghanistan can help solve the world’s rare earth supply problem. Alan W. Dowd is a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.

Russia breaks into top 5 world economies, displacing Germany...

RT reports:

Russia has overtaken Germany as the fifth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, according to the latest World Bank ranking that measures 214 economies based on their 2012 GDP performance.

Russia's oil and export driven economy, ranked fifth amongst the top ten economies in the world with $3.4 trillion in GDP. In 2011, Germany surpassed Russia in GDP with $3.227 trillion compared to Russia’s $3.203 trillion. In 2005, Russia was in eighth place.



The report was published last week in an annual ranking of GDP. The World Bank also updated their ranking of countries in terms of gross national product (GNP) per capita, grouping Russia in the ‘high income’ nation block, with individuals yearly income of $12,616 or more.

The United States was ranked by the World Bank as the world's largest economy by purchasing power parity last year with $15.7 trillion, followed by China with $12.5 trillion, India with $4.8 trillion, and Japan with $4.5 trillion.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev publicly lauded the advance on Monday, as did President Vladimir Putin, but warning his country still needs to be financially vigilant.

"The World Bank has concluded that Russia has the purchasing power of the fifth economy in the world. According to this indicator, we are ahead of the Federal Republic of Germany. But we have a lot of areas that still need special attention", Putin said at a socio-economic meeting in the Sakhalin region, an energy rich Far East island north of Japan where Rosneft just put the final touches on a new drilling platform ‘Orlan’ in the Sea of Okhotsk. Sakhalin-1, a joint venture with Japan, India, and the US, has reserves of 2.3 billion barrels of oil and 485 billion cubic meters of gas.

In June, the World Bank cut its growth forecast for Russia to less than 2.2 percent in 2013 and 3 percent in 2014, after revising January forecast the economy would grow by 3.6 percent in and 3.9 percent in 2014. This is the 'new normal' for lethargic global demand and momentum, according to the report's author Andrew Burns.

The World Bank rating differs from the International Monetary Fund, where Russia is listed as the eighth largest economy with a GDP of $2 trillion. The same matrix calculates the US GDP as the first with $15.7 trillion, China second with $8.2 trillion, Japan third with $6 trillion, Germany fourth with $3.4 trillion, France fifth with $2.6 trillion, the United Kingdom sixth with $2.4 trillion, and Brazil seventh with $2.4 trillion.

The purchasing power parity rate is determined on how many goods and services $1.00 can buy in different countries.

Rankings were only assigned to economies with confirmed PPP GDP estimates.
-------
Commentary: though this report does point to something relevant, it is easy to misunderstand what it really says about the Russian economy or, for that matter, the US economy.  First, purchasing power parity (PPP) is a rather weird economic indicator. The excellent "Simple English Wikipedia" explains it with a well chosen example:

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is measured by finding the values (in USD) of a basket of consumer goods that are present in each country (such as orange juice, pencils, etc.). If that basket costs $100 in the US and $200 in England, than purchasing power parity exchange rate is 1:2.

Clearly PPP is centered on the costs of living and not really on how much is produced by an economy.  In simple terms, it measure how "relatively rich" the population is.  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is also a weird indicator (check here for more details).

What I am getting at here is that when the media says that "Russia displaces Germany" by the size of its economy this elicits images of Russian manufacturers outperforming BMW, Siemens or Deutsche Telekom.  This is not so.  Simply put, the huge natural reserves of Russia, in particular in energy products, generate a lot of wealth in Russia and this output of raw materials has a direct impact on both the PPP and the GDP.  So yes, there is a lot of money in Russia but no, this is not the result of the Russian economy outperforming Germany's in manufacturing or services.  BTW - if the Russian PPP and GDP as skewed by the export of Russian raw materials, the US PPP and GDP are skewed by the huge size of the US banking/financial sector which also does not really "produce" anything.  Bottom line: PPP and GDP are tricky indicators which should not be used as a way of measuring the "real world" capabilities of an economy...

 

 

 

Nabucco: How the pipeline became a pipedream...

Nabucco: How the pipeline became a pipedream...

http://indrus.in/blogs/2013/07/02/nabucco_how_the_pipeline_became_a_pipedream_26663.html

Nabucco was the lynchpin of America’s grand strategy to isolate Russia, but in the end the hunter became the hunted.
The covert energy war for domination of Caspian energy has ended in a humiliating defeat for the West, with the American midwifed Nabucco pipeline being stillborn.
Nabucco failed because it was a political pipeline. The $31 billion gas bridge was conceived to detach Central Asia from Russian influence. This gigantic pump was designed to divert 30 billion cubic metres of gas (nearly 10 percent of Europe’s annual consumption) away from Russian pipelines.
Egged on by the United States, the Europeans began to have fantasies about dirt cheap energy from a region floating on a sea of oil and gas. Like small minded shopkeepers they forgot that barring the 2006 spat with Ukraine, the Russians had been reliable suppliers of Siberian gas for over 30 years.
However, the Russians had the foresight – and the diplomatic muscle – to see the project fail. In June 2009 when the Europeans were about to ink an agreement on Nabucco, a leading Moscow-based commentator ridiculed their “chaotic chanting”.
Alexander Knyazev, director of the regional branch of the Institute of the CIS, said the support for the project reminded him of the haunting chorus of Hebrew slaves from Verdi's opera – “beautiful, yet altogether gloomy and hopeless”.
It was an eerily prescient remark.

Nabucco: Dubious intent

Washington's geopolitical bible is "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives". In this misguided tome, former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says by creating instability in every country in Russia’s neighbourhood, especially in the Central Asian stans and Ukraine, and disrupting the flow of oil and gas, the US can isolate Russia, so that Moscow ceases to be a great power.
Brzezinski openly espouses provoking instability by exploiting the ethnic and religious diversity of the region. The term "Arc of Instability" came into use in the1970s to refer to a 'Muslim Crescent' extending from Afghanistan to the stans in the southern part of the former Soviet Union.
Nabucco was one of the ways the United States tried to turn this baleful fantasy into reality.

Russia steps on the gas

Nabucco was actually the West’s Plan B. The original pipeline envisaged bringing gas from Turkmenistan and even arch enemy Iran. However, the problem was Turkmenistan never seemed to make up its mind.
It doesn’t take a petroleum scientist to guess that Russians may have applied pressure. But what finally made Turkmenistan cry off was the sharp increase in instability in neighbouring Uzbekistan after the country opened up to Westerners. Wisely, the Turkmens decided all the petro dollars in the world weren’t worth it if it meant Western meddling in their internal affairs.
Iran now became Europe’s new poster boy. However, with the United States going after Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme, Iranian gas became more hot air than reality. The dominoes were falling.
Europe and the United States now decided to skip Turkmenistan altogether and instead decided to start in Azerbaijan. The new section was named Nabucco.
The problem now was that the pipeline had lost its main objective – to cut the Central Asian republics loose from Russia. So a new raison d’être was found. Nabucco was, said its backers, the key to weakening Russian influence on Europe by reducing dependency on Siberian gas. In reality, the West was spending a fortune on advertising a rank bad product.

Streams of gas

Because Nabucco’s sole purpose was to eat Russia’s lunch, the Russians went after it with a vengeance. Firstly, like a giant sponge, the Russian gas conglomerates soaked up all available natural gas in Central Asia and the Caspian to deny supplies to Nabucco. Secondly, in 2007, Vladimir Putin unveiled – or rather unleashed – South Stream.
South Stream is a $39 billion competing pipeline crisscrossing Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy that would carry gas to Europe. Importantly, the pipeline would bypass troublesome Ukraine, which seemed to be doing exactly what the United States wants – block Russian gas.
Then with the speed of a mechanised column – and against very obstacle put in its way by Eastern European nations – the Russians, with German backing, built Nord Stream. This 1222 km natural gas pipeline transports gas from Vyborg in northern Russia to Greifswald in Germany. Again, it bypassed the Baltic countries, thereby removing any possibility of disruption.
Nord Stream was crucial to Russia’s energy strategy because it demonstrated to Western Europe – its main gas consumer – that Moscow was serious about ensuring uninterrupted flow of energy to Europe. It deflated allegations that Russia wanted to strangle Europe.
Putin’s Stream strategy paid off. As Nabucco kept getting shorter, newer and more nimble players saw an opportunity and jumped in. Finally, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) got the nod. Because TAP can only transport a third of what Nabucco planned to, it doesn’t pose a threat to Russia’s interests.

Day after Nabucco

The very nature of a gas war makes it an extremely high stakes affair. Because gas pipelines are so expensive to build and cannot be rerouted (like ships), it is normal for buyers and sellers to ink long-term – often 20-30 year – agreements. This brings together producers and consumers as well as transit countries in a sort of pipeline alliance. Because all transit nations get a fee from the pipeline owners, there is every reason for them to have stables relations with one another.
For the Americans, that is bad news. Russia’s linkages with German, for instance, deepened after Moscow built the Siberian natural gas pipeline into the heart of Europe in the 1980s. That pipeline was built despite immense American pressure to scuttle the project...

Biggest losers

No.1 United States; No.2 Turkey. Having outsized geopolitical ambitions, Turkey was hoping to draw the Central Asian Stans away from Russia into a Turkic embrace.
Plus, by becoming the main transit hub of Central Asian gas to Europe, it hoped to cozy up to Europe, which has rebuffed all attempts by Ankara to enter the European Union. Germany and France have made it abundantly clear that Europe ends at Turkey’s border. With Nabucco, Turkey was hoping to redraw that line.
The Turks were among the biggest cheerleaders for Nabucco as they were expecting a $680 million transit fee. That annual bonus is not coming back.

Endgame

While the crystal would surely be clinking in the Kremlin, what remains to be seen is if South Stream would proceed as planned. In the near future, the bulk of Russian gas is destined to go east, not west. It is Asia’s ravenous economies, especially China’s, that will sustain tomorrow’s energy industry, while Europe is still on its knees...
No new European deals are in sight currently but Russia has entered into a 25-year gas contract with China, for which Beijing will pay an unprecedented $60 billion advance. In this backdrop it remains to be seen if Europe gets the leftovers or whether it regains its place in Russia’s export strategy...
As for the United States, the Nabucco wipeout, coming shortly after the global spying expose, is a taste of things to come in an increasingly multi-polar world...

Europeans all play "raped virgins" yet not a single one is offering to receive the man who let them know about them being raped...

 

The Zioconned Europeans all play "raped virgins" yet not a single one is offering to receive the man who let them know about them being raped...they are the worst hypocrites on the Planet...

European politicians are one sorry bunch of spineless liars. Man, each time I see their faces I feel like smashing it with a brick. They are ALL the same - the "New Europe" or the "Old Europe" spineless, sold out, lying hypocrites, people of no honor, no decency, no vision, no opinion, nothing. Just little grey bureaucrats who take themselves oh so seriously, but who sell their own mothers in a blink of an eye.

As a person who knows Europe well, I will say this: Europe *deserves* to be America's bitch, a pompous vapid collection of banana republics whom the Anglos are literally pillaging (thanks to the printing press of the Fed) but who just have no courage to object, however meekly.

De Gaulle was probably the last real European. After May 68 a generation of terminal morons took over and corrupted everything they touched.

From De Gaulle to Hollandouille sans couilles, via Cohen-Bendit. Nuff said.

RIP Europe...

 

I have read a report about all the outrage the so-called "Snowden revelation" have triggered in Europe.  I was particularly amused by German politicians asking why New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the UK were *allegedly* excluded from the NSA spying program while Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, has ordered a massive security sweep of the EC offices.

What massive load of bovine excreta!!

First, let me assure you that all the European politicians have known for *years* that the US spies on them.  The French, in particular, have lost many juicy contracts to the USA because of successful US spying.  

Second, all European governments participate to various degrees in one form or another of electronic spying.  Even independent Switzerland has its own mini-ECHELON called Onyx.

Third, all European politicians and government officials know that continental Europe is a US colony and that while NATO countries can play at the silly "partnership game", some are more equal then others, in this case: it is an Anglo Empire, for and by Anglos, and all others can go and screw themselves.

Fourth, European intelligences services share massive amount of data with each other and, of course, with the Anglo "Big Brothers". That is also something which every single European politician or government official knows.

So why the big hysteria?  Why all the dramatic posturing?

For one simple reason: European politicians and government officials do not want the general population of Europe to realize that the entire continent is just a pathetic, submissive and fully controlled US colony, run by local satraps who all, repeat, ALL work for Uncle Sam!

That is what is going on.  Uncle Sam does not want the US public to know that there is no such thing as private communications in the USA, while European politicians do not want the European public to know that they are all prostitutes working for the Anglos.

As for Snowden, and I will repeat it here: he did not "reveal" anything....   Don't take my word on it, but you can trust Putin who openly said so as have quite a few Russian experts including and at least one former FAPSI official, Duma members, and others.  Snowden was a junior sysadmin for CIA, NSA and Booz Allen Hamilton who knew far less than any medium ranked Russian intelligence official would know.  His "revelations" are only "revelations" for the general public, not for professionals.

The sweep of EC offices ordered by Barroso is just part of some kind of ridiculous Kabuki theater aimed at convincing the European public that EU officials are both upset and determined.  Let me tell you this: Barroso knows full well that the NSA does not need to put bugs in his office to snoop on his telephone calls or emails.

What we are fed by the politicians and their corporate media is absolute, total and unadulterated baloney.  Crap. Bull.  Nonsense.  Garbage.  Call it whatever you want, but for Heaven's sake do not take that seriously.

I find it revolting that not a single European politician, NOT ONE, has had the guts to say what I wrote above.  They all know it, every single one of them, and yet they are playing "raped virgins"...

Disgusting beyond words.

PS: thanks to Wikileaks, I discovered that besides having its own mini-ECHELON "Onyx", Switzerland also has a real-time Internet interception program of its own which has been working since August 1, 2009. Makes me wonder if Andorra, Lichtenstein and Monaco also engage in that kind of spying...

 

HK4EVER

 

 

 

Obnoxious and brazen example of double-standards and hypocrisy by the Western capitals at G8...

 

 

Following the 08.08.08 war between Georgia and Russia and the crushing military defeat of the US-backed Saakashvili regime...i said,

The ugly attack by Washington's Georgian puppet on the Russian peacekeepers combined with the absolutely amazing hypocrisy of the Western media and politicians who all fully sided with the aggressor turned into something of a “last straw” for Russia. This seemingly marginal development, at least when assessed quantitatively (“what else is new?”) ended up making a huge qualitative difference: it brought up a new Russian resolve to deal with, to use a favorite Neocon expression, an existential threat represented by the Western Empire. It will take a long while for the West to realize what has really happened and the most obtuse of pundits and politicians will probably hang on to their usual self-righteous rhetoric forever, but historians will probably look back at the month of August 2008 as the moment when Russia decided to strike back at the Empire for the first time.

Something very similar has, I strongly believe, happened again, but this time in Libya and, even more so, in Syria.  Again what we saw was "an ugly attack by Washington's puppets" and, again, the Western media and politicians fully sided with the aggressor.  The images of NATO unleashing a full-scale bombing campaign against Libya under the pretext of "protecting civilians" and the images of Gaddafi lynched by a mob of thugs who jammed a knife in his anus while screaming that "God is great" also infuriated the Russian political leadership and public opinion.  This anger combined with the shameful realization that Russia did carry a large portion of the guilt for what happened in Libya (through its monumentally stupid abstention at the UNSC), explains why there was a total consensus in Russia not to have the same thing happen in Syria.

The big difference with Russia's response in 2008 is primarily geographical: Syria is not on the Russian border and Russian peacekeepers were not attacked.  Besides, it is one thing take on the US-backed but fundamentally inept Georgian military and quite another to take military action against the combined might of CENTOM/NATO and the US.  So the Russian reaction had to be of a non-military nature.  It now appears that Russia did two thing:

1. Russia gave full and uncompromising diplomatic backing to Syria at the UN and on the international political scene.
2. It carefully coordinated with Iran and Hezbollah a covert military support plan.

 I do want to return to the first, political, part of the Russian response.  Primarily, I want to do this because I am amazed to see that, at least as far as I know, no commentator or analyst has truly understood its importance.  So let's look a little deeper into this.

First, Russia was not alone.  China took exactly the same stance.  In fact, both Russian and Chinese diplomats confirmed that the level of political coordination and cooperation between Russia and China were "unprecedented".  What does that mean?

Nobody denies that in the Syrian conflict Russia is the primary player.  China is hardly mentioned and, when it is, it is only in passing.  And in this case, this focus on Russia is the result of the undeniable fact that Russia is in charge of the "Syrian dossier" while China is backing Russia.  You want proof?  Look at where all the Western politicians go to try to get Moscow and Beijing to desist from their current stance: Russia.  Nobody travels to Beijing to try to argue with the Chinese. To say that is in no way a criticism of China.  If the issue was something of primarily Chinese interest, say the Spratly Islands, China would be at the front of the struggle and Russia in the back seat.  What this means for Russia is that it is taking far more "heat" for its stance than China and yet, very little credit is given to it for this.  Most pro-Syrian commentators want Russia to do even more, primarily because they don't understand how much Russia has already done.

Let me ask you this: when is the last time that you remember a Russian or even Soviet leader openly standing up and defying the combined power of the entire Western world?  The answer depends on your criteria I guess, but I would submit that in my opinion the last Russian/Soviet leader who dared to truly stand up to the West was Stalin during WWII.  Krushchev waved his shoe, but eventually backed down, Brezhnev really did not take any strong positions on anything, Andropov soon died, Chernenko got into power half-dead already, while Gorbachev, Eltsin and Medvedev really were "yes men" towards the West.

Putin in contrast not only dared to openly defy the other G8 leaders who were united against him and dead set into making him comply, he actually forced them to comply to his terms.  I cannot recall the last time when the combined power of the Western diplomacy was so completely routed.  The G8 leaders, who used to look down on Russia and who all thought of themselves as G7+1 (not only that idiot Harper) suddenly found themselves in a situation I called "Putin and the Seven Dwarfs":

How did that happen?  Why is it that in an organization which presumably represents the eight largest economies on the planet (it does not: Brazil, India and China are missing) a country like Russia, with a comparatively tiny economy, small military and very few other assets, could turn giants into dwarfs?  Surely not because of Russian nukes (which the US, UK and France also have) or the Russian veto power at the UN (which the US, UK, France and China also have).

Something much more complex happened here.  For the first time in many decades a country made a comprehensive moral and legal argument.  Russia openly told the West that what it was doing was wrong on moral and on legal grounds and that what was at stake at this point was much more than Syria, it was the kind of international system the entire planet has to live in.  To put it more directly and in simple and non-diplomatic turn, Russia called the West a hypocritical thug and it rejected the right of the hypocritical thugs to lead anything, much less so a military intervention against a sovereign nation.

While this moral and legal stance absolutely enraged the Western political elites and corporate Zio-media, it deeply "resonated" in the world public opinion.  And here, we see something very typically Russian which a lot of Russian leaders have done in history and which Putin has already done twice: he bypassed the elites and appealed directly to the of people.  Putin is doing that right now in Russia (all his recent political moves as based on mass popular support and his All-Russia People's Front is fully centered on this method) and Putin is also doing that in his foreign policy.  And just as the pro-Western political elites in Russia are shamed and rendered flaccid by the political climate in Russia, so are the Western political leaders who simply do not have the political courage to openly start yet another illegal war in support of organ-eating religious crazies.

I personally believe that if historians look back at August 2008 as "the moment when Russia decided to strike back at the Empire for the first time" they will also come to realize that June 2013 is the moment when Russia decided to strike back at the Empire for the second time.  The first strike was a local military strike while the second strike was a planetary, global, moral and political strike and I am aghast at the fact that nobody seems to realize that this is truly a huge development.

The current Anglo Empire stands on two key pillars: its willingness to bully and terrorize the planet with violence (military or covert) and its amazing ability to carefully frame the international public discourse in such a manner as to make the most obnoxious and brazen example of double-standards and hypocrisy appear fully logical and consistent with values of democracy, international law and humanitarian concerns.  And, of course, this has been denounced by many people worldwide, but it has never been so openly and directly challenged by a top world leader.  Make no mistake - Putin did not only challenge the Empire's right to overthrow Assad, he really challenged the very nature of the Anglo-dominated international system since semi-covertly 1945 and openly since 1995 (Anglo aggression on the Serb nation in Bosnia).

The Russian military victory in 08.08.08 did not mark the end of what is really a struggle for national liberation of Russia from the Anglo Empire. Far from it.  Nor will the Russian diplomatic victory at the recent G8 summit in Ireland mark the end of this long process.  But with each such Russian counter-strike against the Empire the Anglo domination over the planet is getting weaker and weaker while it becomes easier for other nations to find a voice and maybe even dare to have an opinion?  In the Western cultural "heartland" (US and EU) there is gradually more and more hell to pay for politicians who dare to ignore their own public opinion.  Look what happened recently to a Russian TV crew in Paris which was making a report on the daily protests against the laws adopted by the French parliament which now makes it legal for homosexuals to adopt children:

They were literally mobbed by a crowd chanting "La Russie avec nous!  La Russie avec nous!" (Russia with us!  Russia with us!).  You might wonder what the link is between 08.08.08 and Syria on one hand, and homopolitics in France on the other, but I would suggest that the link is obvious:  in the process of its struggle for national liberation from the Anglo Empire Russia is also positioning itself as an alternative civilizational model.  So its not only about respect for international law or the rejection of the Western "turbocapitalist" model, it is also about the determined defense of the traditional family structure, about the categorical rejection of sexual psychopathologies or the respect of national traditions (try having a "gay pride parade" in downtown Grozny!).

Of course, countries like Iran have been doing that for years, but being Muslim and very different historically and culturally, the Iranian model has very little "traction" in Europe.  Not that the "Russian model" (which really is only under development to begin with!) has a much bigger potential: in reality Russia is as different a civilization from the West as Iran, but being being geographically closer and politically and historically more connected, Russia has just barely enough "traction" to be noted by those who Europeans who are already alienated from their own political elites.  Let's face it - Ahmadinejad and Putin can say the exact same thins about sexual psychopathologies, but it is much harder to ignore Putin, in particular when he speaks in Germany, Holland or the UK (as he did recently). Still, savvy political dissidents in France, like Alain Soral, always mention Russia and Iran.

In economic terms, the alternative civilizational model being developed is, of course, the BRICS model (and, maybe, its junior Latin-American counterpart, the ALBA).

In military terms, the alternative model being worked on is the SCO with the  CSTO as its current military "core" (this could dramatically change if China decided to enter into a formal defense treaty, but that is unlikely).

The G8 summit at Lough Erne showed that the Anglo Empire is not nearly as powerful as most people thought.  This, however, does not at all mean that it is weak, not by a long shot.  The Empire will adapt, it will come to terms with new, more difficult, circumstances, and it will still remain the foremost planetary power for the foreseeable future.  But the overall trend, I believe, clear.  And this is why the corporate Zio-media made as little as possible from the comprehensive defeat of the Western diplomacy in Lough Erne.  There will be throwbacks, disappointments and even defeats in the future, but at the very least we have good reasons to continue hoping for an eventual victory.....

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=smT3wQ7Uisk#action=share