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NATO May Back Invasion Of Abkhazia As “Revenge” Against Russia
May 14, 2014 richardrozoff Leave a comment Go to comments
Civil Georgia
May 7, 2014
Sokhumi on Georgia’s NATO Integration
Tbilisi: Breakaway Abkhazia’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Georgia’s NATO integration would have extremely negative consequences on regional security.
The breakaway region’s foreign ministry released the statement in response to remarks by Georgian Foreign Minister, Maia Panjikidze, who said that a visit of British Foreign Secretary William Hague to Tbilisi is important for number of reasons, including in the context of the NATO summit in Wales in September. Hague arrived in Tbilisi from Ukraine on Wednesday evening and will hold talks with the Georgian leadership on May 8.
Abkhaz foreign ministry said in its statement that the topics of discussions of Georgian officials with the British Foreign Secretary cause “our concern” because they are directly related to “Abkhazia’s national interests, first and foremost its security.”
“There is every reason to believe that the West is seriously intending to take revenge against Russia and its allies for their unwillingness to accept its [Western] dictate in Ukraine,” the breakaway region’s foreign ministry said.
“It is not ruled out that Abkhazia too may soon become a target of pressure from the Western states. Such a scenario would suit quite well revanchist forces in Georgia, who cannot reconcile themselves to existence of independent Republic of Abkhazia and who are not giving up the hope to ‘return Sukhumi’,” it said.
It also said that Georgia’s “NATO perspectives should be considered in the context” of recent remarks by NATO’s top military commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, who said on May 6 that NATO has to consider permanently stationing troops in its eastern European allies.
“It is not ruled out that some ‘hot heads’ in Tbilisi will be happy to make use of this situation in order to achieve the deployment of NATO bases in Georgia. It will have extremely negative consequences for regional security,” the breakaway region’s foreign ministry said, adding that in that case Sokhumi would seek to further boost military cooperation with Russia, which already has at least 3,500 army soldiers plus border guard troops in Abkhazia.
Russia announced on May 6 its intention to send over 80 new, upgraded armored personnel carriers to its military base in Abkhazia this summer.
World War III: gas as a weapon of mass destruction
ChristianConcepsDaily ^ | May 14th, 2014 | Yuri Felshtynsky
Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:02:23 AM
There is something unusual (and cynical) that the occupation of Ukraine by Russia is combined with simultaneous demand to pay out billions of dollars to Russia for past and future supplies of Russian gas in not yet occupied part of Ukraine. Actually in the occupied as well, as the Russian gas was supplied in the Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianideasdaily.com ...
World War III: Gas as a weapon of mass destruction
Posted on May 14, 2014
http://www.christianideasdaily.com/w...Berlusconi.jpgRussian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the opening of the Blue Stream Gas Pipeline/Wikimedia/kremlin.ru
Until 1918 Europe exists and saw itself in borders of empires. We knew two continental empires: Russian and Austro-Hungarian. The First World War was an outcome of desire of European nations (Germany, France and Great Britain) to keep and expand their foreign colonies. Victory and defeat was measured in acquired or lost territories.
There could be no victory without an annexation.
Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the end of the WWI led to collapse of European continental empires – Russian and Austro-Hungarian, but it did not change the concept of seizures. In 1939 Europe has again plunged into a phase of expansions. Nazi Germany in front of the eyes of the world was rapidly becoming a continental empire with unpredictable and ever-increasing appetite. Stalin’s SSSR sought to as minimum restore the territory of the Russian Empire and as maximum – capture the whole of Europe.
Hitler was open about his plans. Stalin was hiding his. Nonetheless by the beginning of the WWII it was obvious that Europe has already been divided by two tyrants, who measured strength by number of divisions, tanks and planes. Germany and USSA were joint by a third state, an Asian one – Japan. It has also measured it strength by number of divisions, tanks, planes and ships .
Unlike these states, which can rightly be called aggressor countries, the rest of the world lived blithely. Leading democracies of Europe – France and England, were not in a position to arm so quickly as it would harm the welfare of their countries. European states were too unorganised and egoistic to think about the coming danger. National contradictions prevented cohesive activities to counter potential aggression. Everyone thought that after the sad experience of the WWI, mankind will be able to avoid a new conflict.
Nonetheless, the WWII began. However, by the middle of 1941, the initiators of this war, aggressor countries, Germany and the USSR have become enemies, which along with involvement of the USA has saved the Western Europe from destruction; and defeated Germany and Japan were forced to abandon their aggressive policy. Measurement of strength by number of divisions, tanks, planes and ships turned out to be a fundamental error in actions of these truly great states.
After suffering a crushing defeat in World War II and being almost completely destroyed by the bombing of the ally forces, Germany and Japan in a surprisingly short time regained their economic power and a few decades later took a leading position in the global economy without help of armoured divisions and Luftwaffe, without aircraft carriers and bombers. However to understand the obvious, these countries had to go through lessons of brutal military defeat.
The Soviet government did not have a brutal defeat in the Great War.
Occupation of Eastern Europe, support of regimes of distant socialist countries like Cuba or Vietnam, a war in Afghanistan failed to prevent the loss of Soviet influence in the world and the collapse of the economic system of the USSR, because like in case of Germany and Japan, the military force was not the guarantor of political and economic domination and created only apparent omnipotence of superpower.
In 1991 the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has abandoned the power with the same ease as it took it in 1917. Soviet political influence in Europe, which was based on military presence and strength ended with a crushing defeat of the USSR, similar to the defeat of Germany and japan in the WWII.
It seemed that like Germany and Japan, Russia learned its lessons from this defeat. After a decade of instability in 1991-2000, Russia was presented to the world as a leading economic state, whose strength is measured not by the panzer divisions and number of warheads aimed at Western Europe and the U.S. but by oil, gas and other resources, which were supplied all over the world. It turned out that to have influence by economic means is much more effective and cheap than a military conquest.
By 2014 Russians became rich tourists who were associated with money, and not with AK: not as an aggressor and occupying forces but as profitable clients, customers, investors wasting their money earned by supply of resources.
Nevertheless, the situation was not cloudless. The main problem in Russia was absence of democracy as such. Years of Yeltsin brought Russia a market economy and freedom, but they did not create truly democratic institutions, which ensure civil liberties of society, independence and integrity of the courts and protecting its citizens security agencies. Not without help from Yeltsin, who compromised himself with two Chechen wars, and corruption scandals, a former KGB officer came to power in Russia . Aged Yeltsin handed him over the control of the country, just as aged Hindenburg handed chancellorship of Germany to Hitler.
Once in power, Putin has ceased to consider the opinion of the population, deprived it of its right to vote in all matters relating to governance, both foreign and internal government policy. Level of isolation of the voters from the Kremlin leadership, the majority of which began to consist of ex-KGB agents, was now absolute. Putin ceased to care about opinion of citizens as elections were rigged and the media was under total control of the government. The Parliament, the Russian courts and law enforcement agencies, both central and local, subordinate only to the Kremlin.
With the absolute unaccountability to the people, Russian leaders who were brought up behind the walls of the KGB, returned to the old Soviet principles of military pressure. In 1999 the Russian army invaded Chechnya for the second time. In August of 2008, the Russian army crossed the Georgian state border and invaded Georgia. The excuse used for the invasion was very similar to the one used by Hitler: protection of the interests of citizens living outside the empire. Hitler was protecting Germans in Austria, Sudetenland and Danzig in exactly the same way. The Russian government was defending the rights of Russian citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The first use of the Russian Army for external expansion since 1991 passed with impunity.
Thus a dangerous precedent was created, and with the improvement of the economic condition of Russia temptation of the Russian government to use the army against a weak opponent increased and not disappeared. The risk of military intervention for all countries bordering Russia, became an absolute reality.
In contrast to the classical military intervention, which we saw in Georgia in 2008, in Ukraine the Russian government combines military operations with economic pressure. There is something unusual (and cynical) that the occupation of Ukraine by Russia is combined with simultaneous demand to pay out billions of dollars to Russia for past and future supplies of Russian gas in not yet occupied part of Ukraine. Actually in the occupied as well, as the Russian gas was supplied in the Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
It is clear that acceptance of these rules of game is largely to be blamed on, not properly formed, Ukrainian government. It still refuses to realise (and explain to people) that Russia declared a war to Ukraine, that indignant lamentations of Kiev regarding “treacherous” attacks of “terrorists” on the Ukrainian military bases is naivety and the negotiations about new conditions of supply of gas is a feint of the Russian leadership. Soon the supply of Russian gas to Ukraine will be terminated under one pretext or another. Under such circumstances the question should be put in a different dimension: Ukraine should submit to the Russian leadership a bill for military action against Ukraine, in particular for the annexation of the Crimea. Until Kremlin will settle this debt and return the Crimea back to Ukraine all questions regarding past debts and future Ukrainian payments to the Russian side should be considered premature.
It is time for Ukraine to present its case to Russia and not keep justifying itself regarding missed payment for gas. From 2014 the whole civilized world, and not only Ukraine, is dealing with a racketeering state in the face of Russia, which is not different from a nuclear blackmail, because there is no difference between a phrase “surrender or I will turn the gas off” and a phrase “surrender or I will push the nuclear button”. Gas in the hands of the Russian government is just another type of weapon of mass destruction. Russian gas blackmail is a kind of barrage before the military invasion of Europe. One must fight the enemy with its own weapon, including presenting billion dollars bills.
PressTV: Britain offers to send more fighter jets to Baltic
Posted on May 14, 2014 by Jean
Tue May 13, 2014 11:58PM GMT
The UK plans to send more fighter jets to the Baltic states to reassure its NATO allies as tensions between Russia and the West are rising over Ukraine.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Tuesday that the UK will offer to deploy two more Typhoon jets to the Baltic region to carry out air patrols over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
“I think it’s very important to give reassurance to our Eastern members at this time and to step up to the plate and make sure Britain plays its part,” Cameron told a parliamentary committee.Britain has already sent four fighter jets to the region.
Cameron also said that Britain would participate in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s upcoming exercises and that he was considering other ways that Britain could provide logistical support to the Baltic states.
NATO plans to expand its air defense in the region and also has military exercises scheduled for the coming months.
The Western military buildup in Russia’s neighboring countries has raised concerns of direct confrontation between the Brussels-based military alliance and Moscow over Ukraine.
Russia’s relations with the West are at an all time low since the Cold War over Ukraine.
Tensions between the Western powers and Moscow heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and formally applied to become part of the Russian Federation following a referendum in March.
Putin Marches Towards World War III? http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/images/listentoit.jpg
RUSH: UK Daily Mail Online, a guy named Edward Lucas, writes, "I hope I'm wrong, but historians may look back and say that this was the start of World War III." He's talking about Putin striking at Ukraine and Crimea and the tanks. (Drudge's headline is "World War III.") His point is that Putin is striking at the heart of the West, just because they're going at Ukraine.
Remember, the West promised to defend Ukraine. It would be well worth your while to remember that Ukraine disarmed and demilitarized on that promise. There was a treaty that originated in the Clinton years, and it was reaffirmed in 2009, signed again by Obama. So Ukraine disarmed. They're sitting ducks. They got rid of their military; they got rid of weapons.
http://www.rushimg.com/cimages//medi...PutinUSSR2.jpgThey did it in exchange for a promise from us and the UK and the Western democracies to protect them should something like this happen, except we're not. We're threatening sanctions. We're huffing and puffing. But basically what we're doing is taking over the Census to jury-rig the uninsured numbers. We're making speeches out to college campi. We're getting all hopped up on who the next late night comedian is gonna be.
Meanwhile, Putin is marching.
As Mr. Lucas writes, "We can chose to surrender any responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states ... Or we can mount a last-ditch attempt to deter Russia from furthering its imperial ambitions." And those imperial ambitions are to reassemble, to reconstitute the Soviet Union. That is what Putin wants to do. He is former KGB. That has always been his long-term desire.
He says, "If we do choose to resist Putin, we will risk a terrifying military escalation, which I do not think it an exaggeration to say could bring us to the brink of nuclear war." Now, that, I think, is something written to grab attention readers of the newspaper, but that is the logical progression if things get out of hand. His point is: What do we do here?
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Do we just let Putin have it and get away with a strike at the heart of the West, or do we try to stop him? And if we try to stop him with words and doctors and nurses and clean water, negotiation, global warming threats -- and try to appeal to his good conscience and not destroy the planet and all -- and if that doesn't work, then what do we do? Well, we've pledged to defend Ukraine.
If we don't... If we do that militarily, oh, people are worried about that. If we don't, people are worried about that. That's something real that's going on and is significant, that is totally unnoticed by vast majority of people. I mean, there are tanks with Russian flags on them in east Ukraine, and the Drive-Bys are calling it a civil war.
It's not. It's an invasion. The reason they call it a civil war is because we have no business getting involved in civil wars. "Remember Vietnam? How did that go? How did that work out for us? If it's a civil war, it's none of our business! We stay away."
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: To J.R. in Raleigh, North Carolina. Great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you, buddy?
RUSH: Just fine, buddy. I'm glad to hear from you.
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CALLER: Say, I'm a longtime listener, and we love you out here, man. I just wanted to see if you heard what I heard on the news this morning. I got the biggest laugh out of what Obama did over the weekend.
RUSH: What did he do?
CALLER: Him and Putin were playing, "Don't sink my battleship," over the telephone.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: When them Russian planes were buzzing one of our ships out there in the Black Sea, Obama called Putin, and they were discussing it on the telephone.
RUSH: What do you think Obama said to him?
CALLER: (laughing) He called kissed his ass, I'm sure, but I don't know. I just thought it was funny.
RUSH: Well, what do you think Putin's doing buzzing our ship?
CALLER: Well, I think he's just daring Obama to make a move, to do something.
RUSH: Nah, that's not what he's doing, I don't think.
CALLER: He's laughing at him, I know that.
RUSH: Well, that may be. There may be that, but I'll tell you what. Putin has been doing this for a while. Russia has these giant bombers, these giant propeller airplanes he calls the Bear, the Bear Bomber. They've got other big airplanes. When the Soviet Union went kaput, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union went out of business, those airplanes and those military flights and got grounded.
Putin came back into power and for years those planes have been flying what appear to be reconnaissance missions against us and getting very close to US territory, even the continental United States, CONUS territory. So it's not new that Putin would be doing that. I think Putin's flexing his muscles. I think Putin is daring Obama. I don't know if he's daring Obama to respond, but buzzing our ship, it was day before...
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I think it was last weekend or last week they did a number of different flybys. It is a bit of a challenge. It's Putin telling everybody who he is. I don't know if he's trying to goad Obama into any kind of a response, but he certainly is, in the old-fashioned way, just demonstrating manhood here. At the same time he's trying to demonstrate that his opponents are afraid of him.
He's trying to demonstrate that he's intimidating his opponents. Let me put it this way. Remember Mikhail Sergeyevich, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, had that birthmark on his head? You ever notice that thing (as I pointed out constantly) was growing when he ran the Soviet Union? It coincided with Soviet expansionism. So did that birthmark. You could see the East Coast. You could see Florida on that birthmark. If Putin had one, it would be growing right now.
That's what all this military activity really means.
General News 5/11/2014 at 15:09:36
U.S. Overthrow in the Ukraine Risks Nuclear War With Russia
By Sherwood Ross
opednews.com
By subverting the elected government of The Ukraine, President Obama has restarted a dangerous and costly Cold War with Russia that literally threatens life on the planet.
This reckless president, who has already bombed six countries, (Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq) is risking a possible escalation of the Ukraine crisis he helped foster, into World War III against Russia.
Victoria Nuland, Mr. Obama's Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, stated at a Washington conference last Dec. 13 that since 1991 the U.S. has invested $5 billion in Ukraine to install "a good form of democracy."
But in an article published by Global Research, Bill Van Auken identified the "good democrats" the U.S. has been aiding in The Ukraine as those responsible for last February's "fascist-led coup that installed an unelected ultra-nationalist government in which neo-Nazis from the Right Sector and the Svoboda party hold prominent positions."
Paul Craig Roberts, of the Institute For Political Economy and former high treasury official under President Reagan, has written the U.S. objective in the current crisis "is to restart the Cold War by forcing the Russian government to occupy the Russian-speaking areas of present day Ukraine where protesters are objecting to the stooge anti-Russian government installed in Kiev by the American coup."
The heightened tensions, says The Nation in its May 19th editorial, "will almost certainly result in a new nuclear arms race, a prospect made worse by Obama's provocative public assertion that 'our conventional forces are significantly superior to the Russians.'"
Russian authority Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois, Champaign, says the U.S./NATO/European Union "are promoting the destabilization and the breakup of Ukraine in order to achieve the NATO goal of moving into Ukrainian territory closer to Russia." The U.S., for a long time, has been attempting to get The Ukraine into NATO, he noted.
Obama now has broken the promise President George H.W. Bush gave to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that if he agreed to the reunification of Germany, NATO would move no farther east, toward Russia's boundaries, Boyle said. He adds, "The Obama administration and NATO are maneuvering humanity into a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis right on the borders of Russia. Can World War III be far behind?"
Author Roberts said NATO official Alexander Vershbow, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told reporters NATO has given up on "drawing Moscow closer" and soon will deploy a large number of combat forces in Eastern Europe. And so the dreaded Cold War, with all its staggering cost, with all its immeasurable weight of fear, begins again.
One wonders what the U.S. reaction might be to a Russian warning that it was going to station armies in Mexico or Canada? It should not be forgotten that Russian foreign policy in recent years has been one of peaceful contraction while President Obama's has been one of violent expansion. This is reflected in the official figures for military spending last year compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The U.S., it reports, spent $640 billion of a world total of $1747 billion, or 37% of all. After the U.S. came China, $188 billion; Russia $88 billion; Saudi Arabia, $67 billion and France $61 billion. U.S. arms spending is now greater than the next nine nations combined.
And while Russia has fewer than a dozen military bases world-wide, most of them built in former Soviet territory, the U.S. has more than 1,000 bases, in addition to 1,000 located on its own soil.
Given the fact that the U.S. is pounding on Moscow's door; that it is actively engaged in half a dozen shooting wars; that it has 1,000 military bases abroad; that it leads the world in military spending by a wide margin; and that it has spent $5 billion to aid the neo-Nazis in an overthrow by force and violence in The Ukraine; it is hard to disagree with Roberts when he asserts "Washington has no intention of allowing the crisis in Ukraine to be resolved."
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10 Signs We Are Headed Into World War III
Andrew Handley
When confusion and misinformation get together in the dark, paranoia is born. Fears of war, violence, and oppression fester and grow in the minds of the populace pushing everything but a misguided assurance of certain doom into the shadows. Out of this cramped and huddled mindset we get the bastardized half-brother of critical thinking: conspiracy theories.
Claiming that World War III is just over the horizon is as crazy as it gets, but the state of the world is showing some eerie similarities to the pre–World War II global picture. And history is a creature of habit.
10 An Unexpected Invasion
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Photo credit: Voice of America
On February 27, 2014, Russian soldiers strapped on their marching boots and took over several airports in Crimea. As this is being written, roughly 6,000 Russian troops are moving across the Crimean peninsula and forcibly taking operational control of military bases, communications centers, and government buildings.
This is an invasion that has been a long time in the making, and it’s certainly not the first time Russia has made power plays in the Ukraine. Ever since 1783, Ukraine and Russia (for a time the Soviet Union) have played hot potato with Crimea, leaving a bubbling brew of split nationalism struggling to coexist on the little peninsula.
But the arrival of Russian troops is just the most recent step in a tumultuous few weeks for Ukraine. The country has seen its Russia-sympathizing president, Viktor Yanukovych, become a fugitive, a Russian citizen become the Crimean city of Sevastopol’s mayor, and an emergency meeting of Crimea’s parliament elect Sergey Aksyonov as the new Prime Minister of Crimea—at gunpoint. Aksyonov has declared that he will follow orders from the ousted Yanukovych, who is currently seeking refuge in Russia. The country’s politics are in tatters.
9 The Ukrainian Conflict Is Reaching A Boiling Point
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Photo credit: John Jazwiec
Ukrainian nationalists are calling Putin’s invasion an act of war; Russians in Ukraine are calling it an act of salvation. Riots are flaring up all across the country as the two dominant political forces come to a head. This video shows two men being beaten by a pro-Russian mob in Kharkiv, the USSR’s Bolshevik-run capital leading up to World War II—and that’s where Putin’s army looks headed next.
You can get a pretty clear view of the political alliances of Ukraine with the above map, which shows the results of the 2010 election. Blue represents areas that supported Viktor Yanukovych, so you can consider those regions comparatively pro-Russian. The purple areas voted for an opposing candidate, Yulia Tymoshenko. The darker the color, the stronger the support. Kharkiv and Donetsk are firmly in the blue, and represent two major Ukrainian cities with a strong industrial infrastructure—and both are historically Russian.
This is a group of very assertive, very nationalistic people at arms over the one issue that holds paramount importance: heritage. And historically, gray areas are reserved for the losers; it’s the inflexible, dyed-in-the-wool believers in a cause who triumph in a conflict. Russia sees this as good news, picturing much support from the country they’re invading. As one Ukrainian bitterly put it, “No one asked us. We are like puppets for them. We have one Tsar and one god—Putin.”
8 Russia’s License For Aggression
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Photo credit: The Presidential Press and Information Office
Though the UN, NATO, and the US have all gone on high alert, the Crimean invasion isn’t an act of aggression against the whole world. It’s a move to make parts of Ukraine decisively Russian, both culturally and politically. Obama initially warned that there would be “costs” to this invasion, but he won’t back it up—he can’t, not without a game of nuclear Russian roulette, which nobody wants.
The problem isn’t that America and the UN will start tossing bombs into Russia; the problem is that Putin knows they won’t. This is a man who once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” a viewpoint which harkens to the days of Stalin’s Great Purge and Khrushchev’s missile diplomacy with Cuba.
And Putin’s already on round two. In 2008, when Putin was still Prime Minister, Russia and Georgia entered a five-day conflict that culminated in Russian bombs falling on the Georgian capital. Humanitarian groups around the world cried out, governments issued strict warnings for Russia to fall back, and nobody lifted an actual finger to stop it. At the end of it all, Russia calmly strolled back home and declared that Georgia had been “sufficiently punished.” Each time this happens, Russia becomes more assured that the warnings of the rest of the world are just that—words, empty and hollow.
The situation in Ukraine may not be a match that’s going to ignite the fires of World War III, but it’s a nod to a superpower that they have a free license to do what they want. And if you give a mouse a cookie . . .
7 The Senkaku Island Dispute
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Photo credit: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism
Russia’s not the only country setting the stage for World War III. As is the case with most important things, World War II didn’t suddenly flash into existence; it edged its way into the world consciousness one little bit at a time, like a slowly rusting bicycle, until war was officially declared. While it’s easy to put the conflict into the simplest terms, a lot of factors combined to make up what we now view as one war.
The years leading up to the war held a lot of indicators that, in hindsight, revealed aggressive countries testing the waters of what they could get away with. Japan, Italy, and Germany were all involved in minor conflicts that the League of Nations couldn’t stop, such as Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and Japan’s chemical-infused invasion of China in 1937.
These days, China is reversing the balance by threatening an invasion of its own. The territory in question is a group of rocks known as the Senkaku islands, which are located in the East China Sea. The problem, of course, is that both China and Japan feel that the islands belong to them, and whoever controls the islands also controls shipping lanes, fishing waters, and a potential oil field.
6 A Third Sino-Japanese War In The Making
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China hasn’t been the nicest neighbor recently. In November 2013, China startled the world by announcing a newly configured air defense zone in the East China Sea—a zone that they and they alone would control, to the point of shooting down aircraft that wandered into it. But, in addition to Japan, other regions originally had claim to that airspace, including Taiwan and South Korea.
Whether or not China was planning an invasion at that point, the Senkaku islands fall inside their “newly acquired” airspace, and now they’re threatening to forcefully move Japan out of the area. Tensions have been building in the Pacific Rim for a while now, and if military action puts too much pressure on the skeleton of their current political disputes, bones could break.
And unlike the first two Sino-Japanese wars, this conflict could involve other countries in the region. South Korea quietly expanded their own airspace in December 2013, pushing back into territory that China had already claimed. Combined with both China and Japan aggressively rearming themselves in recent years, this territorial dispute has the potential to explode.
5 America Is Legally Bound To Protect South Pacific Countries
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Photo credit: Gary Prill
A war only becomes a World War when the US gets involved. Unlike their official policy of stern warnings and disapproving looks in response to Russia, the White House has publicly and unwaveringly declared that it will back Japan against any acts of aggression by China.
With about 50 percent of its Naval force stationed in the Pacific, the US will also be in a position to help the Philippines if China continues pressing to the south. They’re yet another country that has been affected by the airspace changes, and the US is legally bound to protect the Philippines based on the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
This treaty doesn’t even require anything as outright as a full-scale land invasion. The Philippines owns disputed islands within China’s new airspace in the South China Sea (much like Japan claims to own the Senkaku islands). If China makes a move on any of those, the US Navy has to retaliate on their behalf, or they’ll break the conditions of the treaty.
4 Unlikely Alliances
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Photo credit: China News
But beneath it all, what do China’s problems and Russia’s problems have to do with each other?
Although they initially ended up on opposite sides of the conflict, Germany and the USSR went into World War II with a non-aggression pact, which lasted two years until Hitler ripped it up and sent Nazis onto Soviet ice.
With perhaps some similarities to that historic pact, China and Ukraine signed a nuclear security pact in December 2013. The conditions: China won’t use any nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and if Ukraine is ever attacked by a nuclear force—or “threatened by such aggression“—China will provide Ukraine with security guarantees.
Why would China want to create such a pact with a country 5,800 kilometers (3,600 mi) away? And more importantly, with which government is China going to honor the pact? The past two months have seen a see-saw of political parties in control of Ukraine, but it’s likely that China’s involvement will be dependent on Yanukovych’s politics, which are decidedly pro-Russian. He’s the one who signed the pact. China says its relationship with Russia is warmer than ever, with China’s People Daily describing it as “one of the most active power relationships [in the world].”
It’s been speculated that Russia is hoping to draw a Western attack onto Ukraine, so that China’s entry to back Ukraine will cement the alliance between China and Russia. That idea reeks of conspiracy theory. But with Russia’s recent agreement to supply $270 billion in oil supplies to China, and with the majority of Russia’s pipelines running through Ukraine, China would want to protect its own interests. Either way, the enemy of an enemy is always a friend, and US-Russian relations are on very shaky ground.
3 Iran Is Itching For War
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Photo credit: Nisseth
While tension rises on the Eastern European front and Southeast Asia is mired in an explosive territorial dispute, rumors of war are also being whispered in the Middle East—specifically, Iran. But is Iran any real threat? Depending on the spin, it’s easy to think so.
In January 2014, Iran dispatched a fleet of ships toward US national waters. The Senate has decided that unless military action is taken, Iran’s nuclear development will continue unchecked. And on February 12, 2014, Iran’s military chief answered that claim by declaring the country’s willingness to go toe-to-toe with American forces, on land or at sea.
It sounds like a crisis in the making, but it’s not as bad as it seems. Those “warships” were a rusty frigate and a supply boat, the White House in no way backs the Senate’s bill, and while Iranian general Hassan Firouzabadi did threaten the US and the “Zionist regime” (Israel), it’s worth remembering that they’ve done so plenty of times in the past.
Another point of contention is Iran’s military force. Including paramilitaries, Iran states that they have 13.6 million people who can pick up a weapon at a moment’s notice. While that number is probably exaggerated, it doesn’t matter much anyway—World War III, if it happens, will be mostly an aerial war dependent more on long-range technologies than close-quarters combat. And that, surprisingly, is an example of why not to count Iran out of the picture. They have an air force of 30,000 men with several hundred aircraft, along with cruise missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 mi). That’s plenty of range to hit US bases in the Gulf.
But most importantly, continued attention on Iran, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries is spreading the West’s foreign resources a little too thin, especially now that Russia won’t be any help in that region.
2 North Korea Is A Wild Card
http://i0.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-co...size=632%2C415
North Korea tends to get relegated to the back row in discussions on world powers. They’re potentially dangerous, sure, but it’s a short-range type of danger, similar to the way you can still skip away from a mugger with a knife. But turn your back for too long, and that mugger can sneak up and give you some scars.
North Korea is still firing missiles in South Korea’s direction for no good reason. The most recent launch was March 2, 2014; they fired more the week before that. With a range of about 500 kilometers (300 mi), the missiles won’t reach far—just to, say, Japan. Or China. Or South Korea, or Russia. And since they’re nestled right in the center of three of the biggest threats to peace at this time, they could—purposely or not—stir up something bigger than themselves, like dropping a starved weasel into a den of sleeping bears.
Most frightening of all, North Korea is building a nuclear arsenal. It’s unlikely that they’ll ever lead with a nuclear attack, but if there’s enough chaos going on around them, it’s not impossible that they’ll try to slip one into the mix.
1 A Global Recession
http://i2.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-co...size=632%2C415
Photo credit: Watchdog Wire
World War I and World War II were very different from each other, but they had one striking similarity. Prior to each war, economic recessions hit several of the countries involved. World War II famously brought most of the world’s economies back from the Great Depression, and World War I helped the US recover from a two-year recession that had already slowed trade by 20 percent. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it’s worth noting which economies recovered earlier than others, which may have had a huge impact on the way things turned out.
By 1933, Japan had taken moves to devalue its currency, which led to increased exports and a resulting growth in their economy. They pumped the extra money into weapons and munitions, which gave them a decided military advantage in the years leading up to the war. Germany, on the other hand, entirely crashed, which made the Nazi and Communist parties take similar steps and earn overwhelming support among the populace.
We’re seeing some similarities today. While analysts are predicting yet another economic meltdown for Western countries, countries like Iran and Russia are looking to band together to boost their economies. Among other effects, that could lead to a second unit on Iran’s nuclear plant; Germany’s massive internal spending in the 1930s pulled it out of the Depression faster than America or the rest of Europe. And the global recession hit Russia less than much of the rest of the world, due in part to its exports of a quarter of the natural gas used by the entire European continent
And then there’s China. The US government is close to $17 trillion in debt, and China owns seven percent of that, or about $1.19 trillion. China recently flew past Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, and if it keeps growing at this rate, its GDP is going to match America’s in about eight years. The risk is if China decides to dump the US debt. China would take a financial loss, but it could be a crippling blow to the US economy—and much of the world, since the US dollar is held in reserve by most foreign governments.
If China and the US do come to blows over the South China Sea, the US could eradicate the debt and pump the extra revenue into military spending—the exact same monetary flow that happened in World War II, only this time the guns are bigger.
But don’t worry, it won’t happen. Probably.
Russian Foreign Minister Demands Obama Reply to Claim U.S. Mercenaries in Ukraine http://tomfernandez28.files.wordpres...3-pm.png?w=670
Image | Posted on by tomfernandez28
Academi denies its mercs are helping junta in Kyiv eliminate opposition
Kurt Nimmo
********.com
May 14, 2014
Earlier this week, Academi, the mercenary successor to Blackwater, told the German newspaper Zeit Online it does not have personnel on the ground in Ukraine assisting the junta in its effort to roll back opposition.
Bild am Sonntag, the largest-selling Sunday newspaper in Germany, reported last Sunday the presence of 400 mercenaries from the company were operating in Ukraine. The report followed an announcement in early May that the CIA and FBI are in the country assisting the regime.
Former CNN Intelligence Correspondent and current Vice President at Academi, Suzanne Kelly, told the German news website her company does not have personnel in Ukraine and does not plan to send any. She characterized media reports linking Academi to Blackwater as “incredibly irresponsible.”
Academi is in fact linked to Backwater and its successor, XE Services. In December, 2001 The Washington Post ran a story with the headline “Ex-Blackwater firm gets a name change, again.”
Kelly’s less than forthright remark about the company also casts doubt on the assertion the mercenary firm is not assisting the coup government in Kyiv.
On Wednesday the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Russia has “very strong” suspicions about Academi inside Ukraine. Lavrov and the Russian government are demanding a response from the Obama administration on the issue.
“I sent a message from ambassador to Washington asking him to respond to these assertions from the German media,” he during an interview with Bloomberg News, according to The Hill. “Rumors to this effect were spread even before and [Secretary of State] John Kerry rejected them. Now they popped up again, and we’d like to see whether this is true or not.”
This article was posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 at 10:45 am
China building airstrip on reef in Philippine waters
By Marlon Ramos, Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/..._JhfX6baYE.jpg
Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Charles Jose delivers a statement about the Philippine protest against China’s reclamation of land in a disputed reef in the South China Sea as he faces the media at the Philippine Foreign Affairs headquarters in suburban Pasay City on Wednesday, May 14, 2014. The Philippines has protested China’s reclamation of land in a disputed reef in the South China Sea that can be used to build an airstrip or an offshore military base in the increasingly volatile region, the country’s top diplomat and other officials said. AP Photo/Aaron Favila
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines has protested China’s reclamation of land on a reef in the West Philippine Sea that can be used to build an airstrip or an offshore military base, in yet another provocative move by Beijing in the disputed waters, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Wednesday.
President Aquino raised the Chinese activity in Philippine waters at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Burma (Myanmar) on Sunday, the DFA said in a statement.
“The Philippines protested the Chinese reclamation on Mabini Reef (international name: Johnson South Reef). The Chinese side rejected the protest,” the DFA said.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the Philippines filed the protest on April 4, but Beijing rejected it on grounds that the reef was part of Chinese territory.
Asked if China was building an airstrip on the reef, Del Rosario said, “That’s one possibility.”
The Department of National Defense (DND) also reported the Chinese activity on Mabini Reef on Wednesday and demanded that Beijing put a stop to it.
“This activity contravenes the spirit of the [Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea] and is a security concern of all in the region,” DND spokesman Paul Galvez said, referring to the nonaggression and keeping of the status quo agreement that Asean and China signed in 2002.
“These provocative acts, which they should immediately stop, further disturb the fabric of regional peace and stability,” Galvez said.
Discovered 6 months ago
Galvez said Philippine surveillance planes first detected China’s reclamation activity six months ago.
Philippine aircraft searching for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner in March also spotted the continuing reclamation on the reef by at least one Chinese ship backed by smaller vessels.
“We can confirm that there is an ongoing reclamation or earth-moving activities [there],” Galvez said.
“Is that a possible airfield? We cannot speculate at this point,” he said.
“It has been getting bigger and bigger,” he added.
30-ha landmass
The government estimates that the reclamation has turned the submerged reef and a sandbar into a 30-hectare landmass that transformed the submerged coral outcrop into an islet, The Associated Press reported, quoting an unnamed government official.
The discovery of the reclamation, and the possibility of China building an airstrip on the reef, would likely raise alarm among rival claimant countries because it would bolster Beijing’s naval and air force mobility in a South China Sea region far from the Chinese mainland.
Mabini Reef, which the Chinese call Chigua Reef, is 300 kilometers away from Palawan province, well within the Philippines’ 370-km exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Also claimed by Vietnam
Vietnam is also claiming Mabini Reef, but Beijing seized the reef and other coral outcrops in the area from Hanoi after a deadly naval skirmish in 1988.
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese Embassy in Manila on Wednesday.
‘Renovation’
Last week, the Chinese press played down the reef reclamation and construction.
Quoting an unnamed source described as close to the construction, the Global Times reported China was merely “renovating the living facilities for troops stationed on the reef.”
In the statement issued Wednesday, the DFA said the Philippines asked the United Nations to “clarify Mabini Reef’s physical character” in its “memorial,” or brief, submitted to the United Nations Tribunal for the Convention on the Law of the Sea on March 30, which details the merits of its case against China in their territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea.
The West Philippine Sea is part of the South China Sea within the Philippines’ EEZ, but China claims 90 percent of the 3.5-million square-kilometer South China Sea, including waters close to its neighbors’ shores.
Beijing has refused to take part in the arbitration, the case for which Manila filed in January last year in a bid to stop Chinese incursions into the West Philippine Sea.
Rivals for territory
The Philippines has also asked the arbitral court to nullify China’s claim over almost the whole South China Sea.
That extensive claim has set China against not only Vietnam and the Philippines, but also against Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, which claim parts of the sea that are crisscrossed by sea-lanes where a third of annual cargo passes and where islands, islets, reefs and shoal are believed to be sitting on vast energy and mineral reserves.
China continues to assert “indisputable sovereignty” over the waters and has accused other claimant nations, including the Philippines and Vietnam, of undertaking provocative actions pending resolution of the dispute.
Tensions in the South China Sea have flared up recently following the Philippines’ arrest of Chinese fishermen caught poaching sea turtles at Hasa-Hasa Shoal (Half Moon Shoal), 93 km off Palawan, and China moving a deepwater drilling rig near the Paracel Islands in the East Sea, within Vietnam’s EEZ, sparking confrontations between dozens of Chinese and Vietnamese ships.
‘Provocative’ actions
Disturbed by confrontations in the East Sea, US Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday and told him China’s installation of an oil rig and the deployment of vessels in the disputed waters were “provocative.”
The Chinese side responded by saying that words and actions by the United States had “emboldened” other claimants to take provocative actions in the sea.
“It is true that provocative actions have been seen in the South China Sea recently. But they are not taken by China. It is nothing but the wrong words and actions made by the US side on maritime issues that have emboldened some countries to take provocative actions,” Hua said in a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
Security analysts believe moving the drilling rig into the East Sea is China’s response to US President Barack Obama’s four-nation tour of Asia in April and his assurance to allies Japan and the Philippines that the United States would defend them if they were attacked.—With reports from AFP and AP
RELATED STORIES
PH, Vietnam urge strong Asean action vs China
Philippines to raise China dispute at Asean summit
Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/104...#ixzz31ifX2oJJ
France’s Sale of 2 Ships to Russians Is Ill-Advised, U.S. Warns
Posted by aurelius77 on
WASHINGTON — In a closed-door meeting in February 2010, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urged his French counterpart not to proceed with the sale of two amphibious assault ships to Russia because it “would send the wrong message to Russia and to our allies in Central and East Europe.”Full article: France’s Sale of 2 Ships to Russians Is Ill-Advised, U.S. Warns (NY Times)
The French official, Hervé Morin, acknowledged that each of the ships — so-called Mistral-class vessels built for the French Navy to carry troops, landing craft, and helicopters — was “indeed a warship for power projection,” according to a confidential diplomatic cable on the meeting, which was made public by WikiLeaks. But Mr. Morin “asked rhetorically how we can tell Russia we desire partnership but then not trust them,” the cable added.
With Russia’s annexation of Crimea and some 40,000 Russian troops deployed near Ukraine, Western officials are no longer putting their trust in Russia’s intentions. But despite American objections, the sale is still on track, and the first ship is scheduled for delivery late this year.
…
If they are delivered, the ships would augment the Russian military’s capabilities against the very nations that now appear to be most vulnerable to the Kremlin’s pressure — namely the Black Sea states of Ukraine and Georgia and the Baltic states that belong to NATO.
“The technology and capability represented by the Mistral should not be passed to a Russian Federation that continues to threaten its neighbors,” said James G. Stavridis, the retired admiral who served as NATO’s top commander from 2009 to 2013.
“Russia has nothing like it, and without French help could not build it anytime soon,” said Stephen J. Blank, an expert on the Russian military at the American Foreign Policy Council.
“Since helicopters can also be armed with missiles, it can be a platform for a heliborne missile attack as well as what we in the States call an air assault or heliborne landings or amphibious landings,” Mr. Blank added.
…
Georgia, whose breakaway regions were occupied by Russian troops in 2008, was worried by the potential sale, especially after a Russian naval commander was quoted as saying Russia’s Black Sea Fleet could have carried out its mission during that conflict “in 40 minutes” if it had possessed a ship like the Mistral.
Posted today
` Five Days of War Games Commence in Black Sea ‘
#AceWorldNews – - ROMANIA – May 15 – Some 1,600 Romanian sailors have started five days of war games in the Black Sea amid heightened tensions in neighbouring Ukraine.
Romania’s Defence Ministry said in a statement on Monday that the war games code-named “Vector 2014”, will run through Friday in the Black Sea.
It said the drills are part of long-planned and regular naval exercises.
#ANS2014
French Ship Could Spy On Communications In Black Sea
May 15, 2014 · by Fortuna's Corner · in CIA, DIA, espionage, spying, foreign policy, Intelligence Community, military history, national security, NATO, NSA, Russia, Special Operations, U.S. Cyber Command, Ukraine, US Military · 1 Comment
French Ship Could Spy on Communications in Black Sea
FS Dupuy de Lome
© wikipedia.org
15:30 15/05/2014
VARNA, May 15 (RIA Novosti) – The French intelligence ship FS Dupuy de Lome has entered the waters off Bulgaria’s port city Varna a day after its return to the Black Sea, a military source told RIA Novosti Thursday.
“The French intelligence ship is now stationed in the western Black Sea, 30 miles away from the port of Varna,” the source said.
The intelligence vessel is designed for radar monitoring, as well as the collection of signals and communications behind enemy lines. It can also intercept phone calls and e-mails.
Under the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits, ships belonging to countries that do not border the Black Sea are not allowed to stay in the area for more than 21 days.
The agreement was earlier breached by the frigate USS Taylor, which stayed at a Turkish port 11 days over its limit. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Turkey, a NATO member, had failed to inform Moscow about the violation.
The Dupuy de Lome was earlier deployed to the Black Sea from April 11 to April 30, after the standoff between Moscow and Kiev led to the Crimean peninsula’s secession from Ukraine and reunification with Russia.
Russia may have won a battle as propaganda war comes to Germany’s capital
Posted on by News • Tagged German intelligence, russia • Leave a comment
By Matthew Schofield
BERLIN — In eastern Ukraine, among pro-Russian separatists, the notion that elite American fighters are prowling the backroads and slag heaps of their region is oft repeated. After first surfacing in March, the rumors sounded like the sort of paranoid fantasies created in a war zone where anti-Americanism is rampant.But now the rumors are being repeated in Germany’s capital _ and resonating. That alone may count as a victory for Russian propagandists, even if there are no American mercenaries. The White House says there are not.Bild am Sonntag, a tabloid-like newspaper that occasionally breaks major stories on the German government, is reporting that German intelligence has told Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office that it had unconfirmed reports that 400 Americans appear to be aiding the interim Ukrainian government in its fight against pro-Russian separatists. According to Bild, the German intelligence agency cited U.S. intelligence officials as its source.The report, which appeared Sunday, has since been repeated by nearly every German news outlet. The allegation that the information was presented to the chancellor’s office in a weekly briefing in April lends it gravitas. That such reports in Bild on more than one occasion have proved true enhances its credibility. The chancellor’s office and the German intelligence service have declined to either confirm or deny, a development that leaves an atmosphere of doubt in a country where tensions are rife about just how angry Germany should be at Russia’s actions in Ukraine _ fueled in no small part by German reliance on Russian natural gas and oil and the extensive business ties between the two nations.
“We’ve told Bild and other outlets that these stories are nonsense,” Caitlin Hayden, the national security spokeswoman for the White House, said Wednesday. “The company in question has been on record denying it for almost two months.”The Russians couldn’t hope for more.
Ukrainian experts and officials note that Russia has been waging a decade-long propaganda war to sour Ukrainians on the government in Kiev, and this report fits right in to Russia’s hopes to reduce international pressure on it. Russia has been widely accused of funding, supporting and supplying officers to the pro-Russia separatists in the Donetsk Oblast, or region, of eastern Ukraine. To be able to show that the United States, even in the form of mercenaries and not official military personnel, are active on behalf of Kiev would to many further justify Russian actions.According to Bild, the German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, said the mercenaries were hired from Academi, an international security firm that rose from the scandal-ridden ashes of Blackwater, the now defunct company that made headlines worldwide for its allegedly wild ways in Iraq, where its contractors were accused, among other things, of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting spree in Baghdad’s Nisouri Square.Bild reported that the BND said that the 400 Academi “elite” soldiers are thought to have been part of operations against pro-Russia separatists around Slovyansk, the eastern Ukrainian city that has been the scene of fierce fighting between separatists and Ukrainian security forces.Academi officials could not be reached for comment, but in March when the rumors first began circulating they posted an official denial on their website. At that time, the international and Ukrainian media focus was on Crimea, which had been occupied by Russian military forces in late February and had just voted in a questionable referendum to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.“Some irresponsible bloggers and an online reporter have recently posted rumors that ACADEMI employees (operating under the name of Blackwater) are present in Ukraine,” the statement said. “They are not and ACADEMI has no relationship with any entity named Blackwater or with the former owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince. Such unfounded statements combined with the lack of factual reporting to support them and the lack of context about the company, are nothing more than sensationalistic efforts to create hysteria and headlines in times of genuine crisis.”An American mercenary force of 400 would be a significant factor in fighting in the region. Ukrainian estimates place as many as 800 pro-Russia separatist fighters in Slovyansk, and no more than several thousands in the region. The pro-Russia fighters are described as a collection of regional and Russian mercenaries, allegedly led by Russian spetsnaz, or special forces.
There are an estimated 15,000 Ukrainian military in the east of the country, though military experts note that they are primarily focused on guarding the border with Russia.
Serhiy Zhurets, the director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, a research center in Kiev, noted that the Ukrainian constitution prohibits the military from engaging in the internal conflict. Instead, the fighting has fallen to police and special forces of Ukraine’s intelligence service. The German report comes against steady claims by separatist fighters that they’ve heard American voices on Ukrainian military radios. The rumors are repeated as evidence that the government in Kiev is nothing more than a Western puppet regime. Their reasoning is that American warriors are trying to suppress the pro-Russia movement, just as they toppled the pro-Russian government of President Viktor Yanukovych by running the protests at Maidan, or Independence Square, in Kiev.The Russian government news agency Ria Novosti reported on April 7 that elite Academi warriors were wearing Ukrainian Sokol (special forces) and police uniforms and engaged in fighting.Suddeutsche Zeitung columnist Hubert Wetzel on Wednesday described the rumors as potentially devastating for the Western cause in Ukraine. His column made a point of noting that even the report of the report to the chancellor’s office was still a rumor. But he noted that if confirmed, it would damage the Western claim to the moral high ground in this conflict.
“Nothing would rock the credibility of Europeans and Americans more than a confirmation of the news that American mercenaries are working for the Ukrainian government. For Moscow this would be a priceless propaganda victory where the West would appear morally naked. As naked as Moscow is now.”
SOURCE
Maybe we ought to be rethinking our thoughts on Ukraine???
Vice President’s Youngest Son, Hunter, Given Lucrative Position With Ukrainian Oil Company
1, May 15, 2014 by jonathanturley
http://jonathanturley.files.wordpres...pg?w=119&h=150http://jonathanturley.files.wordpres...pg?w=150&h=112There is a obvious concern this week over the selection of the newest member of the board of directors for Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer: Vice President Joe Biden’s youngest son, Hunter Biden. Despite a strong resume, it seems rather coincidental that Ukraine is receiving aid from the United States and recently had a visit from Vice President Joe Biden only to decide that his youngest son was the very best person to sit on its board.
Hunter Biden will in charge of the Burisma’s legal unit and will “provide support” among international organizations. The White House spokesman would only say that “Hunter Biden and other members of the family are obviously private citizens and where they work is not an endorsement by the president or vice president.”
Reporters were referred to Biden’s law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, which declined to coment.
Alan Apter, the chairman of the company’s board of directors, said: it is views the selection as part of its effort to “introduce[e] of best corporate practices, and we’re delighted that Mr. Biden is joining us to help us achieve these goals.” Those “best corporate practices” are hardly the best ethical practices if the company is hiring the children of high ranking officials to curry favor. This is particularly a concern in Ukraine which, as we discussed earlier, leads Europe as one of its most corrupt nations where the family members of powerful politicians are routinely showered with gifts and positions.
Like many spouses and children of our politicians, Hunter Biden made a fortune as a lobbyist in Washington. That common path for children continues to raise troubling questions of influence peddling and corruption for our leaders as discussed in this earlier column. The company recently added Devon Archer, a wealthy investor and Democratic campaign bundler. Archer previously declared how his business deals at Rosemont Seneca rely on a “relationship network creates opportunities for our portfolio companies which then compound to greater outcomes for all parties.” That “relationship network” is precisely what many have objected to in the hiring of family members tied to our leaders — allowing companies to give millions legally to families of Democratic and Republican leaders.
In addition to his position as counsel with the firm, Biden is a co-founder and a managing partner of investment advisory company Rosemont Seneca Partners and serves as director of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a network of 400 businesses. He is also the chairman of the advisory board for the National Democratic Institute, a non-profit that works to support democratic institutions and elections around the world. Even with this experience, I am rather skeptical. First, his selection as counsel to Boies, Schiller, Flexner, LLP, seems designed to create a tie to his father and the Administration. He was was chief executive officer, and later chairman, of hedge fund PARADIGM Global Advisors – an association that he co-founded with convicted financier Allen Stanford. He was later appointed by Bill Clinton to serve in the United States Department of Commerce under Secretaries Norman Mineta and William M. Daley. He was then nominated by President George W. Bush to the board of directors of Amtrak. It is a resume that many would envy but also one that reflects the type of opportunities that are often afforded children of our ruling elite.
Of course, the selection of a Bush for such a position in the prior administration would have had Democrats and liberals in an uproar but they are again largely silent in the face of another deal benefitting one of our ruling elite. Obviously, Hunter Biden is an adult and does not need the approval of his father to accept a position, though his father has had an obvious impact on his past opportunities. It is simply worth noting that while we rightfully criticize the Chinese for the “Red Nobility,” we have a long list of children and spouses receiving millions in cushy deals and positions in this country. However, in the blue state/red state politics fosters by both parties, such issues are quickly brushed aside by those arguing again that the other side is worse or that such ethical questions are merely an effort to smear their side.
Russia, China Each Commit Six Ships To East China Sea Exercises
Posted on by News • Tagged China’s Defense Ministry, east china sea • Leave a comment
1 Vote
http://saccsivdotcom.files.wordpress...ges5.jpg?w=640Russian military officials say the Russian and Chinese navies will each commit six ships to joint exercises scheduled in the East China Sea before the end of May.
The Russian Pacific Fleet’s press service said in a statement on May 13 that its contribution will include the Varyag missile cruiser as well as an antisubmarine ship and a large amphibious ship.
The Russian detachment, led by the Varyag, is expected to sail out of the naval port of Vladivostok on May 14.
China’s Defense Ministry says they exercises are called “Jointly At Sea 2014” and follow similar maneuvers in 2013 off Russia’s Far East coast.
China and Japan are currently locked in a dispute over a small uninhabited string of islets in the East China Sea that are administered by Japan.
They are known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, but are called the Diaoyu Islands by China.
The row peaked in 2012 when Tokyo bought some more islands in the archipelago.
China also angered many countries when it said in December 2013 that it was establishing an air-defense zone above the disputed islands.
SOURCE
*Breaking* Proton-M rocket carrying Russia's most advanced satellite crashes
Published on May 15, 2014
Check out the magnified image at the end of the video @5:59. I have slowed the speed 3x. An unidentified object approaches the right side of the rocket and appears to fly into it.
US and Europe Strike Russian Military Satellite. Star Wars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO5Od...
Proton-M rocket carrying Russia's most advanced satellite crashes
A Russian Proton-M rocket with an advanced satellite on board crashed outside of Kazakhstan's territory on Friday, about nine minutes after lift-off. The Express-AM4R would have been Russia's most advanced and powerful satellite.
There are so far no reports of damage or casualties resulting from the Proton-M's failure to deliver the satellite into orbit.
The rocket could have crashed over the Altai Mountains or the Pacific Ocean, a source told RIA Novosti.
All other launches of Proton-type rockets will be halted at Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan until the reason for the crash is determined, a source told RIA Novosti.
There was an emergency engines shutdown on the 540th second following the launch, the Russian Federal Space Agency said, as quoted by Itar-Tass.
The third stage had another 40 seconds to go before the planned separation from the satellite when the engines failed, RIA Novosti quoted a source as saying.
All of the fuel left over from the launch was likely burnt up in the atmosphere, including the toxic heptyl components used to power the Proton rocket, Interfax reported, citing a source.
Both the rocket and the satellite on board also burnt up in thick layers of the atmosphere during the fall, but debris from the objects could have fallen on the ground, Itar-Tass reported, citing Roscosmos."Individual small fragments of the rocket could have fallen...the impacted area is being specified," a source from Roscosmos said.
A special commission from the Russian Federal Space Agency will be in charge of investigating the reasons behind the crash.
Space expert Stephen Clark told RT that it is extremely unlikely that there are casualties.
"None have been reported up until this point. It is a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean or the Russian Far East where this debris has likely fallen. And that area is very sparsely populated, so it is highly unlikely that someone was hurt or killed by this," he said.
The Proton-M rocket, carrying an advanced Express-AM4R satellite, was launched on schedule from Baikonur on Friday. The Express-AM4R would have been Russia's most advanced and powerful satellite.
The spacecraft weighed 5.8 metric tons and had 63 transponders providing X-band, C-band, S-band, L-band, Ku-band, and Ka-band capacity along with 10 antennas installed.
The satellite was to provide internet access in Russia's remote regions at affordable prices. This was Russia's third launch of Express series satellites this year. In March, Express-AT1 and Express-AT satellites were put into orbit.
In 2013, Russia carried out 32 of the 82 space launches completed worldwide, only one of which failed, Interfax reported.
U.S. Space Restrictions on Russia May Strike Back
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/ar...
US and Europe Strike Russian Military Satellite. Star Wars
Published on May 15, 2014
ON THE VERGE OF WW3. Russia to ban US from using Space Station over Ukraine sanctions.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...
Russia is to deny the US future use of the International Space Station beyond 2020 and will also bar its rocket engines from launching US military satellites as it hits back at American sanctions imposed over Ukraine crisis.
Russia's deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced a series of punitive measures on Tuesday against the US in response to sanctions imposed after Russia annexed Crimea.
The two countries have long cooperated closely on space exploration despite their clashes in foreign policy.
The Space Station is manned by both American and Russian crew, but the only way to reach it is by using Russia's Soyuz spacecraft.
The US is keen to keep the $100 billion (£600) ISS flying until at least 2024, four years beyond its original target.
What other World Powers Could or have the Technology to do this?
LOL, we didn't "strike" anything. The Russians screwed up, they know it, we know it, they are screwed. We pay for rides, they are denying rides. They aren't gonna get cash to make more.
Tough shit.
We'll rebuild our space program. Mark my words on that.
EEK!
US-China military chiefs openly clash; U.S. blamed for troubles in South & East China Seas
Posted on May 16, 2014 by StMA | 1 Comment
http://cofda.files.wordpress.com/201...pg?w=500&h=333
PLA Gen. Fang Fenghui (l); U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey (r)
Richard Sisk reports for Military.com, May 15, 2014:
A top Chinese general Thursday strongly defended Beijing’s territorial claims over disputed islands in the South and East China Seas and charged that the U.S. rebalance of forces to the Pacific was encouraging unrest in the region.
Gen. Fang Fenghui, chief of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, said “the rebalancing strategy of the U.S. has stirred up some of the problems which make the South China Sea and the East China Sea not so calm as before.”
Fang warned that China would respond to any attempts by Vietnam, Japan or other neighbors to assert their own claims over the disputed islands and reefs.
“We do not create trouble but we are not afraid of trouble,” Fang said at a Pentagon news conference after meetings with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Dempsey appeared to be slightly irritated as he waited to comment while listening to a long-winded response by Fang on the current dispute with Vietnam over offshore oil drilling rights.
“Thank you for giving me the time to formulate my answer,” Dempsey told Fang.
When his turn finally came, Dempsey dismissed Fang’s objections to the so-called “Pacific pivot” and said the U.S. was committed to the policy.
“We’ll go because we can and should, and we’ll go because we have to,” Dempsey said of the rebalance. Dempsey also told Fang “We will respond to threats.”
However, Dempsey mostly stuck to his long-held position that the U.S. must build better military-to-military relations with China to avoid miscalculations that could lead to conflict in the region.
Fang came to the Pentagon after meeting at Naval Base San Diego with Adm. Samuel Locklear, head of the Pacific Command. Dempsey met with Fang, China’s No. 3 military leader, last year in China and was returning the favor by inviting him to Washington.
At the opening of the news conference, Dempsey noted that China’s claims in the South China Sea could be seen as “provocative,” the same term used in recent days by the State Department.
Fang responded at length, blaming Vietnam for the current dispute over China’s movement of a $1 billion oil rig into territorial waters claimed by Hanoi. The action by China triggered widespread protests in Vietnam in which foreign factories were set ablaze and a Chinese national allegedly was killed.
Fang charged that other nations he did not name had drilled for oil in the same region but complaints only surfaced when China sought to do the same.
“We believe the ones provoking those issues in the South China Sea are not China,” Fang said in an apparent rebuff to Dempsey. “When China does drill, we instantly become a threat.”
Vietnam officials have charged that Chinese ships have rammed Vietnamese Coast Guard vessels attempting to patrol near the oil rig, but Fang said the Vietnamese ships were attempting to interrupt the drilling.
“That is something that we cannot accept,” Fang said. “We will make sure that this well will be successfully drilled,” he said.
Fang also made China’s case in a separate dispute over disputed reefs and shoals with the Philippines, and accused Japan of reverting to World War II militarism in asserting its claims to disputed uninhabited islands called the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China.
Fang said the Japanese claims were also encouraged by the U.S. rebalance of forces. “This is something that we can never agree (upon),” Fang said.
Despite their disagreements, both Dempsey and Fang noted that China next month for the first time will send ships to participate in the annual Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises off Hawaii.
See also:
- “Tension between China and Vietnam-Philippines ratchets up in South China Sea,” May, 2014.
- “Fighting words: China disses U.S. soldiers as worthless,” April 20, 2014.
- “Dir. of US Navy Intelligence: Chinese Navy in drills to take Senkaku and invade Okinawa,” April 18, 2014.
- “China threatens war in South and East China Seas,” Jan. 13, 2014.
~StMA
You know, I almost had the same thought, at first at least.
You have to be a pretty low-down piece of shit to try to make (more) of a fortune cashing in on nepotism and the misery of a poor bankrupted Nation like Ukraine.
Thing is, real Ukrainian patriots know that the present interim government is as corrupt and stupid and venal as the last one-except that Yanukovich turned out to be an actual traitor. So the real patriots have created facts on the ground. They filled the Ukrainian National Guard with supporters, and formed Paramilitaries to fight the Putinist infiltrators and Separatists. Don't let RT fool you folks, many ethnic Russians are in 'Nazi' groups like Right Sector, and Russian Nationalists IN Russia hope for the freedom of Ukraine as well as the freedom of Russia. Russia to be saved as a Nation has to let go of the Neo-Liberal/Neo-Soviet Multicultural 'Eurasian Project', which will mean the doom of Cultural/Spiritual/Ethnic Russia. Russians are already nicknaming their cities to reflect the flood of Moslems and primitive Turkic and Siberian Asiatics; "Moscowbad" and "Peterstan". Putin's 'United Russia' even plays up the number of Negro supporters of his policies, including a Seperatist Leader in E. Ukraine.
No, we should support any nation's right to be free, free to follow it's own course, even if vile parasites make money off of the Crisis in the meantime.
Some Hip-Hop Putin supporters;
Attachment 1362
Couple more examples from the 'Nashi' Putin Youth/Neo-Soviet website;
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And this guy;
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And some 'Urban Youths' just 'kickin it' in 'M-Town';
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Mongols;
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Japan to establish strategic military outposts near disputed islands
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http://cdn.rt.com/files/news/27/10/c...tx11hbt.si.jpg
Chinese marine surveillance ship Haijian No. 51 (C) sails near Japan Coast Guard vessels (R and L) and a Japanese fishing boat (front 2nd L) as Uotsuri island, one of the disputed islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China (Reuters / Kyodo)
Tokyo has reportedly made plans to create new military outposts on remote islands close to disputed territories in an apparent move to bolster Japan’s defense capabilities amid its ongoing territorial rows with China.
Some 350 Ground Self-Defense Forces could be stationed on the three islands near the disputed islands, known as Diaoyu in China and as Senkaku in Japan, Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun cited unnamed senior Japanese Ministry of Defense officials as saying.
The three uninhabited, disputed islets lie some 2,000 km southwest of Tokyo, and around 200 km north of Taiwan.
According to the report, Tokyo will be establishing three bases close to the strategic location – a base on Amami Oshima Island, Miyako Island (210 km southwest of the disputed islands), and Ishigaki Island (about 170 km south), each staffed by up to 150 soldiers.
Last month, Japan announced it was building a high-tech radar outpost on Yonaguni Island, due to become operational in 2016.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said earlier that Japan had already made decisions to develop its military presence in the southwest and that research had been conducted. However, he added that: “At the moment, however, we have not decided on specific, concrete locations, such as those reported.”
The current absence of military troops close to the strategic islands has caused some concern to Japan, which believes it is making itself vulnerable in the face of an increasingly domineering Chinese approach.
While there has not yet been much grist of military confrontation, being largely confined to coastguard squabbles, close watchers have stated that some naval ships have been lurking beyond the horizon and suggest that further confrontation may be on the cards. Additionally, China has increased spending on its military in recent years, allegedly to develop a two-tier blue water navy – one capable of operating across the deep waters of open oceans, implicitly the Pacific.
In its territorial dispute with China, Japan was supported by US President Barack Obama last month.
“The policy of the United States is clear – the Senkaku islands are administered by Japan and therefore fall within the scope of…the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security,” Obama said during his visit to Japan in April.