Washington has no intention of allowing the crisis in Ukraine to be resolved. Having failed to seize the country and evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, Washington sees new opportunities in the crisis.
One 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. These areas of Ukraine are former constituent parts of Russia herself. They were attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders in the 20th century when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country, the USSR.
Essentially, the protesters have established independent governments in the cities. The police and military units sent to suppress the protesters, called “terrorists” in the American fashion, for the most part have until now defected to the protesters.
With Obama’s incompetent White House and State Department having botched Washington’s takeover of Ukraine, Washington has been at work shifting the blame to Russia. According to Washington and its presstitute media, the protests are orchestrated by the Russian government and have no sincere basis. If Russia sends in military units to protect the Russian citizens in the former Russian territories, the act will be used by Washington to confirm Washington’s propaganda of a Russian invasion (as in the case of Georgia), and Russia will be further demonized.
The Russian government is in a predicament. Moscow does not want financial responsibility for these territories but cannot stand aside and permit Russians to be put down by force. The Russian government has attempted to keep Ukraine intact, relying on the forthcoming elections in Ukraine to bring to office more realistic leaders than the stooges installed by Washington.
However, Washington does not want an election that might replace its stooges and return to cooperating with Russia to resolve the situation. There is a good chance that Washington will tell its stooges in Kiev to declare that the crisis brought to Ukraine by Russia prevents an election. Washington’s NATO puppet states would back up this claim.
It is almost certain that despite the Russian government’s hopes, the Russian government is faced with the continuation of both the crisis and the Washington puppet government in Ukraine.
On May 1 Washington’s former ambassador to Russia, now NATO’s “second-in-command” but the person who, being American, calls the shots, has declared Russia to no longer be a partner but an enemy. The American, Alexander Vershbow, told journalists that NATO has given up on “drawing Moscow closer” and soon will deploy a large number of combat forces in Eastern Europe. Vershbow called this aggressive policy deployment of “defensive assets to the region.”
In other words, here we have again the lie that the Russian government is going to forget all about its difficulties in Ukraine and launch attacks on Poland, the Baltic States, Romania., Moldova, and on the central Asian states of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The dissembler Vershbow wants to modernize the militaries of these American puppet states and “seize the opportunity to create the reality on the ground by accepting membership of aspirant countries into NATO.”
What Vershbow has told the Russian government is that you just keep on relying on Western good will and reasonableness while we set up sufficient military forces to prevent Russia from coming to the aid of its oppressed citizens in Ukraine. Our demonization of Russia is working. It has made you hesitant to act during the short period when you could preempt us and seize your former territories. By waiting you give us time to mass forces on your borders from the Baltic Sea to Central Asia. That will distract you and keep you from the Ukraine. The oppression we will inflict on your Russians in Ukraine will discredit you, and the NGOs we finance in the Russian Federation will appeal to nationalist sentiments and overthrow your government for failing to come to the aid of Russians and failing to protect Russia’s strategic interests.
Washington is licking its chops, seeing an opportunity to gain Russia as a puppet state.
Will Putin sit there with his hopes awaiting the West’s good will to work out a solution while Washington attempts to engineer his fall?
The time is approaching when Russia will either have to act to terminate the crisis or accept an ongoing crisis and distraction in its backyard. Kiev has launched military airstrikes on protesters in Slavyansk. On May 2 Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kiev’s resort to violence had destroyed the hope for the Geneva agreement on de-escalating the crisis. Yet, the Russian government spokesman again expressed the hope of the Russian government that European governments and Washington will put a stop to the military strikes and pressure the Kiev government to accommodate the protesters in a way that keeps Ukraine together and restores friendly relations with Russia.
This is a false hope. It assumes that the Wolfowitz doctrine is just words, but it is not. The Wolfowitz doctrine is the basis of US policy toward Russia (and China). The doctrine regards any power sufficiently strong to remain independent of Washington’s influence to be “hostile.” The doctrine states:
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
The Wolfowitz doctrine justifies Washington’s dominance of all regions. It is consistent with the neoconservative ideology of the US as the “indispensable” and “exceptional” country entitled to world hegemony.
Russia and China are in the way of US world hegemony. Unless the Wolfowitz doctrine is abandoned, nuclear war is the likely outcome.
PCR/SL
Dr Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available. More articles by Dr. Roberts.
All this is predicated upon the assumption that Putin is a Russian Nationalist and that Obama, Merkel, and others all aren't on the same side as Putin is. No country, here or in Ukraine, can allow it's neighbors to incite rebellion against it's government, and expect to continue to be a government for long.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Germany, France, Britain, Italy and United States prepare for war between NATO and Russia
Source: Kurt Nimmo
Andriy Parubiy, the National Security and Defense Council boss of the junta in Kyiv, announced on Sunday the Ukrainian military will expand the “active stage of the operation in towns where extremists and terrorists are carrying out illegal activities.”
Central banker and junta PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk declares war on Russia.
The renewed effort to assert control and defeat anti-junta activists and paramilitaries in Donetsk, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Kostyantynivk and other towns in eastern Ukraine coincides with news theCIA and FBI will work with the regime to put down popular uprisings against the government in Kyiv.
On Monday, coup Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the failure of police in Odessa, where violence claimed the lives of dozens of people over the last few days, has resulted in the formation of “Kiev-1,” a paramilitary comprised of “civil activists” who previously worked with the fascist Right Sector and Svoboda to overthrow Ukraine’s elected president in February.
National Security and Defense Council boss Parubiy was the founder of the Social National Party of Ukraine, a fascist political party fashioned after the Nazis. It became Svoboda, a nationalist party led by Oleh Tyahnybok, a prominent member of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament.
The latest move by the junta in Kyiv and the participation of the CIA and the FBI in military activity adds a new urgency to the crisis. Since the failure of Geneva agreement last month, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and the United States are preparing for the possibility of war between NATO and Russia.
“After 20 years in which it was almost unimaginable, it seems like a major war in Europe, with shots potentially being fired between Russia and NATO, is once again a possibility,” Der Spiegel opined prior to the latest developments and the move against activists in eastern Ukraine.
“Imagine a possible energy war, where Russia basically cuts off gas for Europe (that could spill over more broadly if things go badly). Or even more worrisome, a shooting war between the East and the West,” writes Chris Martenson for PeakProsperity.
“For those living in Europe who are exposed to the possible fallout that would result from the loss of supplies of Russian energy, the time to begin preparing is right now. As we say often on this site, you’d much rather be a year early than a day late in your preparations.”
On Monday, Russia warned that the situation in Ukraine may lead to an escalation of conflicts throughout Europe.
“We are convinced that, in case of the continuation of lawlessness in Ukraine, the situation there may escalate into a serious threat to regional peace and security, and lead to further growth of cross-national and interethnic contradictions and conflicts in Ukraine and throughout Europe,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, according to RIA Novosti.
The Russian Presidential Human Rights Council also called on the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Europe (OSCE) to pressure Ukraine into providing foreign humanitarian missions access to the regions affected by violence in order to provide medical and psychological assistance to victims.
Characterized as a “last ditch effort to head off a wider confrontation,” Didier Burkhalter, the chairman of the OSCE, is expected in Moscow on Wednesday as calls rise for the group to mediate the growing crisis between the junta in Kyiv and its opposition in eastern Ukraine. Burkhalter’s mission is undermined by the military operation by the junta and the participation of the CIA and the FBI.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
This is just a test: Philippines, US kick off major war games in Pacific
Standard
More than 5,000 US and Filipino soldiers have begun war games in the region at a time of increased tension – especially from the regional power, China – over America’s growing military footprint in the Pacific.The two-week naval exercises, dubbed “Balikatan” (shoulder-to-shoulder), are ostensibly designed to help the two allies respond to emergencies, including piracy and natural disasters.Nearly 5,500 American and Filipino service personnel will participate in the naval games, which will involve the participation of US F-18 fighter jets and soldiers involved in live ammo exercises, on the main island of Luzon.The maneuvers, held on the edge of the South China Sea, come just one week after Manila and Washington hammered out the details of a new security agreement, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which gives the US Navy broader access to local ports and military bases.
Vietnam demands China withdraw oil rig from its water
.
A Chinese drilling rig (in circle) is located well inside Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. Photo courtesy of PetroVietnam
The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has protested the illegal foray of China’s deep-water drilling rig into Vietnamese waters.
Any foreign drilling operation conducted in Vietnamese waters without express permission is illegal; Vietnam strongly protests it, the ministry’s spokesperson Le Hai Binh said in a statement posted on a government website Sunday.
.
On May 3, the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration announced that the rig HD-981 would drill in a location of 15 degrees and 29’58’’ North latitude and 111 degrees and 12’06’’ East longitude from May 2 to August 15.
.
.
Binh said that the location lies well within the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of Vietnam, some 120 nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast.
.
“Vietnam has historical evidence and legal ground to prove its sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos as well as the sovereign right and jurisdiction over its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,” he said.
.
On Sunday, the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petro Vietnam) sent a letter to the director of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) asking that the company withdraw the oil rig from Vietnamese waters.
.
Extracting mineral resources from Vietnamese waters violates the cooperative spirit between the two national oil and gas groups as well as international protocol on oil and gas extraction and bilateral friendship and cooperation guidelines, it said.
.
Petro Vietnam also asked that CNOOC never take similar action in the future.
.
.
China’s HD-981 oil drilling rig
.
China may soon build a military facility on the Gac Ma (Johnson South) Reef in a move that would further increase tensions in the East Sea, also known as the South China Sea.
.
Military experts said that the People’s Liberation Army Navy may soon construct a new airfield on Johnson South Reef to increase its force projection ability over the South China Sea region, Want China Times reported Sunday.
. Strong Vietnamese action urged
.
Carl Thayer, a maritime expert with the University of New South Wales in Australia said that it is “business as usual in China’s use of illegal force to advance its sovereignty claims.”
.
“China’s latest move will increase tensions. It was unexpected because it attempts to alter the status quo. It is another Chinese violation” of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), he told Thanh Nien News.
.
“Don’t listen to what China says, watch what it does.”
.
Thayer said that aside from diplomatic protests, Vietnam could deploy patrols to its continental shelf as an assertion of its sovereignty and jurisdiction over the area; the move would inform Southeast Asian countries of this development and the steps its is taking.
.
China and four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all claim territory in the South China Sea. China’s claim is the largest, covering most of the sea’s 648,000 square miles (1.7 million square km), a move that has been emphatically rejected by international scholars.
.
Historian Nguyen Nha, who has dedicated his life to historical research proving Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos, said a country disregarding international laws affects the entire world order .
.
“Unlike in the 20th century, if there is a war in the 21st century, there will be thousands of nuclear bombs and chemical weapons involved. Thus, I think humanity should maintain the world order to protect its very existence,” he said.
.
Any violent incident will benefit no one and the aggressor will suffer the greatest damage because the international [community] will not accept its actions, he said.
.
“Thus, Vietnam must be determined to protect its rights and sovereignty according to international law and the world will support us. Vietnam is not alone.
* AN DIEN contributed to this report. Thanh Nien News
*********************************
May 5 (Bloomberg) — Vietnam denounced China for setting up an exploration rig in waters off its central coast disputed by the two nations, raising the prospect of an escalation of tensions between the neighboring countries.
Vietnam is “strongly opposed” to any actions within waters it has sovereignty over, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement. State-owned Vietnam Oil & Gas, known as PetroVietnam, said it sent a letter to China National Offshore Oil Corp. asking the company to stop activities and remove the rig.
China National Offshore on May 2 placed the rig about 120 nautical miles off the Vietnamese coast, PetroVietnam said in a statement on its website. Calls to a Beijing-based spokesman for the Chinese company weren’t answered. A Chinese government maritime agency said the rig will be in place until Aug. 15, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry said on its website.
Vietnam said the rig’s placement is within its exclusive economic zone, citing its proximity to the Vietnamese coast. The government also reiterated its claims to the Paracel and Spratly islands, also claimed by China. The Philippines, which is also a claimant in the Spratlys dispute, in March called China a “threat to our security” as it protested Chinese attempts to prevent resupply of a Philippine vessel in the area.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing today that the the oil rig was erected in Chinese territory.
‘Bilateral Issue’
“Previously these kinds of disputes tended to take place over survey ships, but this is a drilling rig, which would suggest an escalation,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “Given the heightened tensions in the area over the past few years, this has the potential to become a serious bilateral dispute. It will be interesting to see what further action Hanoi takes beyond issuing a protest.”
PetroVietnam’s statement included a map showing the Chinese rig as in an area east of exploration blocks Vietnam has designated as blocks 118 and 119. Further Reading: CNOOC Chairman Calls New Rig “Mobile Sovereign Territory“
ExxonMobil Corp. drilled in block 118 in 2011 and 2012, and in block 119 in 2011, according to a 2013 IHS oil and gas exploration and production map. ExxonMobil has made a ‘huge’’ discovery in its drilling in Vietnam, PetroVietnam Chief Executive Do Van Hau said in November, estimating reserves at 6 trillion to 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and describing the find as one of the country’s biggest.
“After anyone makes a big discovery, people will look north, south, east and west of it,” said Kenneth Charsinsky, managing director of Australia’s Neon Energy Ltd., part of a group that has drilled in block 120, to the southwest of the disputed area. “From a geological perspective, anywhere near that area where you have a similar play type, when you have one that works it certainly makes other areas nearby more attractive.”
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Germany, France, Britain, Italy and United States prepare for war between NATO and Russia
Source: Kurt Nimmo
Andriy Parubiy, the National Security and Defense Council boss of the junta in Kyiv, announced on Sunday the Ukrainian military will expand the “active stage of the operation in towns where extremists and terrorists are carrying out illegal activities.”
Central banker and junta PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk declares war on Russia.
The renewed effort to assert control and defeat anti-junta activists and paramilitaries in Donetsk, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Kostyantynivk and other towns in eastern Ukraine coincides with news theCIA and FBI will work with the regime to put down popular uprisings against the government in Kyiv.
On Monday, coup Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the failure of police in Odessa, where violence claimed the lives of dozens of people over the last few days, has resulted in the formation of “Kiev-1,” a paramilitary comprised of “civil activists” who previously worked with the fascist Right Sector and Svoboda to overthrow Ukraine’s elected president in February.
National Security and Defense Council boss Parubiy was the founder of the Social National Party of Ukraine, a fascist political party fashioned after the Nazis. It became Svoboda, a nationalist party led by Oleh Tyahnybok, a prominent member of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament.
The latest move by the junta in Kyiv and the participation of the CIA and the FBI in military activity adds a new urgency to the crisis. Since the failure of Geneva agreement last month, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and the United States are preparing for the possibility of war between NATO and Russia.
“After 20 years in which it was almost unimaginable, it seems like a major war in Europe, with shots potentially being fired between Russia and NATO, is once again a possibility,” Der Spiegel opined prior to the latest developments and the move against activists in eastern Ukraine.
“Imagine a possible energy war, where Russia basically cuts off gas for Europe (that could spill over more broadly if things go badly). Or even more worrisome, a shooting war between the East and the West,” writes Chris Martenson for PeakProsperity.
“For those living in Europe who are exposed to the possible fallout that would result from the loss of supplies of Russian energy, the time to begin preparing is right now. As we say often on this site, you’d much rather be a year early than a day late in your preparations.”
On Monday, Russia warned that the situation in Ukraine may lead to an escalation of conflicts throughout Europe.
“We are convinced that, in case of the continuation of lawlessness in Ukraine, the situation there may escalate into a serious threat to regional peace and security, and lead to further growth of cross-national and interethnic contradictions and conflicts in Ukraine and throughout Europe,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, according to RIA Novosti.
The Russian Presidential Human Rights Council also called on the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Europe (OSCE) to pressure Ukraine into providing foreign humanitarian missions access to the regions affected by violence in order to provide medical and psychological assistance to victims.
Characterized as a “last ditch effort to head off a wider confrontation,” Didier Burkhalter, the chairman of the OSCE, is expected in Moscow on Wednesday as calls rise for the group to mediate the growing crisis between the junta in Kyiv and its opposition in eastern Ukraine. Burkhalter’s mission is undermined by the military operation by the junta and the participation of the CIA and the FBI.
So groups that are both paramilitary and nationalist are ideologically 'fascist' and 'patterned after the Nazi Party'.
Right, ok. It's more to it than that ideologically. Let's face it, most people in this Forum would be considered 'Fascist' then. Hey, i'll admit it, i'm a Fascist, there. I'm an anti-nazi, anti-communist one and I believe it doesn't disqualify me from being a freedom-loving American, but yeah.
Kurt Nimmo is an asshole.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of U.S. air forces in the Pacific said on Monday that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine had been accompanied by a significant increase in Russian air activity in the Asia-Pacific region in a show of strength and to gather intelligence.
General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle said the activity had included Russian flights to the coast of California, and around the U.S. Pacific island of Guam.
Carlisle said the number of long-range Russian patrols around the Japanese islands and Korea had increased “drastically.” He said there had also been “a lot more ship activity as well.”
Speaking at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, Carlisle showed a slide of a U.S. F-15 fighter jet intercepting a Russian “Bear” aircraft over Guam. He used the Cold War NATO name for Russia’s Tupolov Tu-95 strategic bomber.
“Certainly what’s going on in Ukraine and Crimea is a challenge for us and it’s a challenge for us in Asia Pacific as well as Europe,” Carlisle said.
He said there had been “a significant” increase in Russian activity in the Asia Pacific “and we relate a lot of that to what’s going on in the Ukraine.”
“They’ve come with their long-range aviation out to the coast of California, they’ve circumnavigated Guam,” he said.
“That’s to demonstrate their capability to do it, it’s to gather intel,” Carlisle said, adding that the surveillance had included observation of military exercises involving U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan.
“There are things that are concerning with respect to how they operate and how transparent they are with other nations in the vicinity,” he said.
Carlisle did not give details of the incidents and the Defense Department and the U.S. Air Force and Navy in the Pacific did not immediately respond to a request for more information.
Mike Green, senior vice president for Asia at CSIS, said the frequency of incidents was up and described them as being “evocative of the Cold War”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in 2007 that Russia was resuming Soviet-era sorties by its strategic bomber aircraft near NATO airspace that were suspended in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Putin, who made the announcement during a joint military exercise with China, said the move was necessary to guarantee Russia’s safety and that other nations had not followed Moscow’s example in suspending such flights.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
The head of U.S. air forces in the Pacific said on Monday that Russia's intervention in Ukraine had been accompanied by a significant increase in Russian air activity in the Asia-Pacific region in a show of strength and to gather intelligence.
General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle said the activity had included Russian flights to the coast of California, and around the U.S. Pacific island of Guam.
Carlisle said the number of long-range Russian patrols around the Japanese islands and Korea had increased "drastically." He said there had also been "a lot more ship activity as well."
Speaking at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, Carlisle showed a slide of a U.S. F-15 fighter jet intercepting a Russian "Bear" aircraft over Guam. He used the Cold War NATO name for Russia's Tupolov Tu-95 strategic bomber.
"Certainly what's going on in Ukraine and Crimea is a challenge for us and it's a challenge for us in Asia Pacific as well as Europe," Carlisle said.
He said there had been "a significant" increase in Russian activity in the Asia Pacific "and we relate a lot of that to what's going on in the Ukraine."
"They've come with their long-range aviation out to the coast of California, they've circumnavigated Guam," he said.
"That's to demonstrate their capability to do it, it's to gather intel," Carlisle said, adding that the surveillance had included observation of military exercises involving U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan.
"There are things that are concerning with respect to how they operate and how transparent they are with other nations in the vicinity," he said.
Carlisle did not give details of the incidents and the Defense Department and the U.S. Air Force and Navy in the Pacific did not immediately respond to a request for more information.
Mike Green, senior vice president for Asia at CSIS, said the frequency of incidents was up and described them as being "evocative of the Cold War".
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in 2007 that Russia was resuming Soviet-era sorties by its strategic bomber aircraft near NATO airspace that were suspended in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Putin, who made the announcement during a joint military exercise with China, said the move was necessary to guarantee Russia's safety and that other nations had not followed Moscow's example in suspending such flights.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
by Chriss W. Street 5 May 2014 1601post a comment The Associated Press reported Monday that Gen. Herbert Carlisle, Commander of United States Air Forces in the Pacific, acknowledged a significant increase in the activities by Russian long-range strategic aircraft flying along the California coast.
There was no comment about whether the aircraft were nuclear capable, but it has not been since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s that Russian patrols have skirted the West Coast and California.
Gen. Herbert J. "Hawk" Carlisle is the Commander of Pacific Air Forces; Air Component Commander for U.S. Pacific Command; and Executive Director, Pacific Air Combat Operations Staff, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. As the PACAF, he is responsible for Air Force activities spread over half the globe in a command that supports 45,000 Airmen serving principally in Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Alaska and Guam.
Speaking Monday, May 5th at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan Washington DC think tank, General Carlisle said there had been long-range Russian air patrols to the coast of California and a circumnavigation of the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. He noted that a U.S. F-15 fighter jet intercepted a Russian strategic bomber that had flown to Guam.
General Carlisle linked the increased activity and incursions to the situation in the Ukraine. He said Russia was demonstrating its capabilities and gathering intelligence on U.S. military exercises.
He further admitted that there has been a sharp increase in Russian air patrols around Japanese islands and Korea. General Carlisle added that there was more Russian ship activity in the area, too.
Last week Breitbart News reported that reported that the Dutch Air Force had scrambled two F-16s to intercept a pair of Russian Bear strategic bombers approaching Dutch airspace from the North Sea. The Russian nuclear-capable bomber provocations seemed to be an effort to strain the NATO air forces, which have organized under a joint security arrangement for over 125 extra planes to patrol airspace over the Baltic States and near the Ukraine border.
The California incursions may also have involved Tupolev Tu-95 Bear Bombers, which were the Soviet Union's first intercontinental strategic bomber. Because of its distinctively swept-back wings and four turbo-fan engines that each drives two contra-rotating propellers, the plane is one of the noisiest military aircraft on the planet.
By sending patrols to the European and California coasts, the Russians must have wanted their intrusions to be visible on every radar site in the region to generate the greatest possible amount of media awareness.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
If they are in our airspace unannounced, we should force them to land and make a big stink about it.
If they are 300 miles out....shrug.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Please, oh please, Ruskies. Whatever you do, don't nuke California.
To quote The Gunny from Full Metal Jacket, "That would break my fucking heart."
A wind-up to a general war might not get rid of the fruits and flakes automatically-in fact it might straighten some out with a dose of reality instead of bronies and furries-but what you want to bet that many of that State's 'Patriotic Immigrants just wanting their fair share of the American dream' would reverse-immigrate very quickly out of the United States altogether, within weeks?
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
The U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of waging nuclear war, will hold large-scale bomber exercises this week—days after Russia held what Moscow called “massive” war games simulating a U.S. and NATO nuclear attack.
Ten U.S. B-52 bombers and up to six B-2 strategic bombers will take part in the war games called “Global Lightning 14” from Monday through May 16, the command said in a statement late Sunday.
The purpose is to “demonstrate flexibility and responsiveness in training scenarios throughout the continental U.S.,” the command said in a statement from its Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska headquarters.
“This exercise provides unique training opportunities to incorporate the most current technology and techniques in support of our mission,” said Adm. Cecil Haney, Strategic Command commander. “Continued focus and investment in our strategic capabilities allow US Stratcom to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies.”
Global Lightning, planned for more than a year, will began days after Russian President Vladimir Putin last week oversaw what Russian defense officials called a “massive” nuclear war drill that simulated U.S. and NATO nuclear attacks.
Stratcom said in its statement, in an apparent reference to the Russian war games, that “the timing of the exercise is unrelated to real-world events.”
Tensions remain high between the United States and Russia over Moscow’s military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and ongoing pro-Russian unrest in eastern Ukraine.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Sunday declined to categorize Russia as an enemy, despite its aggression in Ukraine.
“We’re not at war with Russia, so do define an enemy as being at war or not at war?” Hagel said on ABC’s This Week.
Russia is “an adversary in Ukraine, sure,” he said.
“But I think that’s a little simplistic to get into either enemy, friend, partner, so on,” Hagel said. “Russia continues to isolate itself for a short-term gain. The Russians may feel that somehow they’re winning, but the war was not about just short term.”
U.S. officials have said some 40,000 to 80,000 Russian troops are deployed within a short distance of Ukraine’s eastern border.
Russia is seeking to create a federated state in Ukraine as part of Putin’s announced plan to restore elements of the Soviet Union. The Russian leader regards many of the former Soviet republics surrounding Russia, including Ukraine, as the “near abroad” that Moscow wants to control.
The Russian war games included the test launch of a SS-25 Topol intercontinental missile and two SS-N-23 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Additional missile firings included six Russian air-launched nuclear-capable cruise missiles.
It could not be learned if Global Lightning will include U.S. missile launches.
A Stratcom spokeswoman declined to provide further details of the exercise.
“Global Lightning 14 is designed to provide training opportunities and to test and validate command and control procedures for U.S. Strategic Command and its subordinate units,” said Army Lt. Col. Stephanie Bounds, the spokeswoman.
“Just as technology changes, so do the threats. This exercise provides the opportunity to incorporate the most current technology and techniques in support of our mission.”
The command “is constantly honing its capabilities to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies,” she said.
Bounds declined to provide details of the exercise but said: “All activities are designed to test and validate command and control procedures for U.S. Strategic Command and its subordinate units.”
A U.S. official said the U.S. Cyber Command, part of Strategic Command, will take part in the exercises that are said to include simulated cyber attacks against Strategic Command communications and command systems.
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon nuclear strategy official, said the Russian exercises appeared intended as a political message to the West.
Schneider said Russia usually holds its nuclear drills in the fall and the timing of last week’s war games “suggests to me that the intent was nuclear intimidation against NATO over the Ukraine.”
Moscow on April 14 also conducted a test launch of a new ICBM called the SS-27 by NATO that carried multiple simulated warheads that analysts say potentially violated the 2010 New START arms treaty.
Moscow and Washington also have been battling over Russia’s plan to upgrade aircraft used in conducting permitted spy flights over the United States that intelligence officials say could undermine U.S. security. The flights are carried out under the Open Skies Treaty.
Russia temporarily blocked a U.S. overflight of Russia and a spokesman mentioned the dispute over the new Russian aircraft in criticizing U.S. officials.
The Obama administration also recently turned down a proposal from Russia aimed at resolving differences over U.S. and NATO missile defenses in Europe. Moscow is opposing the deployment of interceptors and radar in the region and has charged the United States with seeking to counter Russian strategic offensive missiles.
The administration insists the missile defenses are aimed at countering Iranian long-range missile threats.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
The surface-to-surface Zelzal missile is equipped with thirty 17-kg bombs which can destroy a wide range of targets and is a proper option for targeting airport runways and equipments, installations and facilities on the ground.
The solid-fuel missile with a 300-km range is among the most important missiles which can attack enemy targets and bases in short distances.
Zelzal was unveiled on Sunday in the presence of Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in a two-hour tour of the IRGC’s Aerospace Exhibition, where state-of-the-art equipment and hardware were showcased.
The missile was earlier test-fired in 2011 during the drills, codenamed Payambar-e Azam (The Great Messenger) 6, but it was then armed with regular payloads.
In the drills, 9 Zelzal missiles were fired concurrently by triple launchers. The launchers granted the country the ability to fire larger numbers of Zelzal missiles with a much shorter time needed for doing preparations.
Then this March, the Iranian Defense Ministry announced that it had equipped its Qadr H and Qiam ballistic missiles with its newly developed MRV payloads.
The two missiles are capable of carrying different types of ‘Blast’ and ‘MRV’ payloads, and can destroy a wide range of targets. The new version of Qadr H and Qiam can be launched from mobile platforms or silos in different positions and can escape missile defense shields due to their radar-evading capability.
Qadr is a 2000km-range, liquid-fuel and ballistic missile which can reach territories as far as Israel. Qiam is also a new type of surface to surface and cruise missile of Iran.
A Multiple Reentry Vehicle payload for a ballistic missile deploys multiple warheads in a pattern against a single target. (As opposed to Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, which deploys multiple warheads against multiple targets.) The advantage of an MRV over a single warhead is that the damage produced in the center of the pattern is far greater than the damage possible from any single warhead in the MRV cluster, this makes for an efficient area attack weapon. Also, the sheer number of Warheads make interception by Anti-ballistic missiles unlikely.
Improved warhead designs allow smaller warheads for a given yield, while better electronics and guidance systems allowed greater accuracy. As a result MIRV technology has proven more attractive than MRV for advanced nations. Because of the larger amount of nuclear material consumed by MRVs and MIRVs, single warhead missiles are more attractive for nations with less advanced technology. The United States deployed an MRV payload on the Polaris A-3. The Soviet Union deployed MRVs on the SS-9 Mod 4 ICBM. Refer to atmospheric reentry for more details.
In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in developing and manufacturing its essential needs to military tools, weapons, equipment and systems.
Tehran launched an arms development program during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war on Iran to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and fighter planes.
Yet, Iranian officials have always stressed that the country’s military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
The title of this article is not hyperbole. Indeed, war has broken out in Ukraine. Both the United States and the Russians are employing asymmetrical warfare, at least for the time being, in an attempt to control the country.
Since 1980 on the recommendation of Colonel Charlie Beckwith, in the aftermath of the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was established as a component command of the United States which answers to the Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). The express mission is to conduct classified military operations in an among the various clandestine forces in the United States (e.g. Seals, Rangers and civilian mercenaries such as Blackwater now known as Academi).
List of JSOC Commanders
Most Americans have never heard of JSOC. However, the long list of JSOC commanders is impressive and notable. One name of their former commanders that jumps off the page is LTG Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of forces in Afghanistan, who was fired for comments which were critical of President Obama and his handling of the war.
Rank and Name Start and End of Term
MG Richard Scholtes December 1980 to August 1984
MG Carl Stiner August 1984 to January 1987
MG Gary E. Luck January 1987 to December 1989
MG Wayne A. Downing December 1989 to August 1991
MG William F. Garrison August 1992 to July 1994
MG Peter J. Schoomaker July 1994 to August 1996
MG Michael Canavan August 1996 to August 1998
LTG Bryan D. Brown September 1998 to December 2000
LTG Dell L. Dailey January 2001 to March 2003
LTG Stanley McChrystal September 2003June 2008
VADM William H. McRaven June 2008 to June 2011
LTG Joseph Votel June 2011 to Present
The JSCO Mission Has Morphed
Originally, the JSCOC was created to ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, plan and conduct special operations exercises and training, develop joint special operations tactics and execute special operations missions worldwide. Essentially, JSOC was a commando operation.
The mission of JSOC has changed dramatically. The mission of JSOC is still asymmetrical, but the net effect is that JSCOC is capable of carrying combat operations on a national scale and this is what we are subsequently witnessing in Ukraine.
One day when the smoke clears from the ashes of World War III, historians will credit JSOC as the entity being responsible for the commencement of World War III in Ukraine as civilian mercenaries, acting under the authority of LTG Votel is instigating a civil war in Ukraine for the purposes of purging the country of pro-Russian forces.
Putin Plays the Victim Card
Putin has criticized the United States for using mercenaries to drive out pro-Russian forces from Ukraine.
The Russian Blackwater takeover of Crimea Airports
Putin’s allegations of war mongering by U.S. forces has merit and are backed up the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag who recently reported that 400 U.S. mercenaries are working with the (illegal) junta government in Ukraine to crush opposition to the Western coup in the eastern part of the country designed to turn Ukraine away from Russia by eliminating anti-coup activists in Slavyansk and the Donetsk region.
Putin’s allegations swirl around the presence of mercenaries affiliated with Academi. The readers may remember Academi when it was known as Blackwater and then it changed its name to Xe following its involvement in the murder of 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square, Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. This mercenary group keeps changing its name to stay one step ahead of the burning bridge and escape oversight from Congress.
Academi’s board of directors is very impressive as it includes former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former NSA director, Bobby Ray Inman. The company’s CEO is a retired Brigadier General, Craig Nixon.
Make no mistake about it, Academi’s presence in Ukraine is a JSOC operation. JSOC is being confronted by its Russian counterpart in Ukraine. The net effect is that we are seeing the beginning of World War III through the use of asymmetrical forces. At the moment, this may only be a proxy war, but it is escalating exponentially.
Putin Is a Hypocrite
Putin is accusing the United States of using mercenary soldiers in Ukraine as he is employing the exact same strategy. Three months ago, Russian troops without insignia appeared in Crimea during the takeover. This is the Russian equivalent to JSOC as they belonged to the infamous Vnevedomstvenaya Okhrana. This organization is indeed the “Blackwater” contracted by the Russian interior ministry to protect Russian military facilities and related assets. This Russian version of Blackwater seized airports in the Russian invasion of Crimea. Just like JSCOC Vnevedomstvenaya Okhrana do not wear Russian military uniforms and their use gives Russia government plausible deniability.
However, make no mistake about, this organization is carrying out operations in Ukraine as proxy members of the Russian military.
Russian Blackwater vs. American Blackwater
Which side can provoke the greatest war crimes by the other side? Which side can assassinate the central Ukrainian leaders on the other side? Which side can galvanize its Ukrainian sympathizers to pick up arms and begin killing the opposition?
The world witnessed these tactics in Kosovo and we are seeing it again. In the coming weeks we can expect to hear about the discovery of mass graves and a number of murders of key opposition leaders on both sides.
The strategy of the two sides is clear. Provoke sympathetic civilians to takeover Ukraine. The losing side will no doubt escalate its involvement in order to prevent the total loss of the country through the use of conventional military forces.
Time Is Not On Putin’s Side
With NATO war games set to commence in Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria and Poland in late June/early July, Putin must move quickly to achieve victory. If Putin allows NATO to consolidate its forces in Ukraine, Russia would likely lose its foothold in the country.
At risk is Putin’s ability to blackmail Europe with gas, 66% of the total, which flows through Ukraine. Unless Putin is happy being the head of a regional power, and not a global power, he has a very short time left to act.
Putin has already announced that he will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against conventional forces which would come against Russia. During the next four to six weeks, event are going to become very heated.
At the end of the day, there can be doubt. World War III has broken out in Ukraine and the dominoes of escalating events are falling one by one.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
` Votes are in as People Turned out in their Droves with 97.5% for Independence ‘
#AceWorldNews – SLOVIANSK – In the town of Sloviansk as many as 97.5% of those who participated in last Sunday’s referendum voted for the state independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the head of the territorial election commission, Vilia Bakhtashevich told ITAR-TASS.
The official said the turnout for the referendum was as high as 72.1% (72,575 residents of the town besieged by the Ukrainian forces, and 70,743 of them supported the state independence act of the DPR).
On Sunday the polling stations in Sloviansk had to stay open longer than expected, till 22:00 despite the night-time curfew effective from 20:00. #ANS2104
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Now you know where some of 'Yanukovich's' money went;
"Putin is accusing the United States of using mercenary soldiers in Ukraine as he is employing the exact same strategy. Three months ago, Russian troops without insignia appeared in Crimea during the takeover. This is the Russian equivalent to JSOC as they belonged to the infamous Vnevedomstvenaya Okhrana. This organization is indeed the “Blackwater” contracted by the Russian interior ministry to protect Russian military facilities and related assets. This Russian version of Blackwater seized airports in the Russian invasion of Crimea. Just like JSCOC Vnevedomstvenaya Okhrana do not wear Russian military uniforms and their use gives Russia government plausible deniability.
However, make no mistake about, this organization is carrying out operations in Ukraine as proxy members of the Russian military."
And Putin's isn't running out of time exactly, he's created facts on the ground with the ethnic russian separatist movements that he hopes will act as a 'firebreak' to the Ukrainian Revolution in progress.
Last edited by Avvakum; May 12th, 2014 at 17:08.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber (Reuters/Tim Chong)
The US Strategic Command, the agency responsible for country’s nuclear arsenal, will hold large-scale war games this week that will include 10 B-52 Stratofortresses and up to six B-2 Spirit bombers, along with other military and government agencies.
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber built to carry nuclear weapons.
The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American strategic bomber, designed for penetrating dense anti-aircraft defenses that can drop up to sixteen 1,100 kg B83 nuclear bombs.
The exercise will be conducted from May 12-16 and is set “to deter and detect strategic attacks against the US and its allies,” the Strategic Command said in a statement.
“This exercise provides unique training opportunities to incorporate the most current technology and techniques in support of our mission. Continued focus and investment in our strategic capabilities allow US Stratcom to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies.” said Admiral Cecil Haney, head of Strategic Command.
StratCom is the US’s nuclear command and is responsible for space operations, global strike, global missile defense; and global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and combating weapons of mass destruction.
Though the timing of the exercise was declared as “unrelated to real-world events,” it does come on the heels of the recent war games in Russia. Announced in November 2013, military drills on countering nuclear strikes were overseen by President Vladimir Putin ahead of the May 9 celebrations dedicated to victory in World War II
Contrary to the openness of the Russian war games, the US Strategic Command released very few details about the upcoming exercise.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have worsened significantly over the situation in Ukraine. The US continues to endorse and support a military operation by Kiev’s coup-installed government against federalization supporters in the southeast of the country.
Last week, NATO said it may permanently station additional troops in Eastern Europe as a defensive measure against Moscow. Russia views this recent buildup of NATO forces as a provocation and counterproductive in the struggle to deescalate tensions in Ukraine.
Originally Posted by American Patriot
U.S. to Conduct Strategic Bomber Exercise
Nuclear drills follow ‘massive’ Russian war games last week
The U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of waging nuclear war, will hold large-scale bomber exercises this week—days after Russia held what Moscow called “massive” war games simulating a U.S. and NATO nuclear attack.
Ten U.S. B-52 bombers and up to six B-2 strategic bombers will take part in the war games called “Global Lightning 14” from Monday through May 16, the command said in a statement late Sunday.
The purpose is to “demonstrate flexibility and responsiveness in training scenarios throughout the continental U.S.,” the command said in a statement from its Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska headquarters.
“This exercise provides unique training opportunities to incorporate the most current technology and techniques in support of our mission,” said Adm. Cecil Haney, Strategic Command commander. “Continued focus and investment in our strategic capabilities allow US Stratcom to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies.”
Global Lightning, planned for more than a year, will began days after Russian President Vladimir Putin last week oversaw what Russian defense officials called a “massive” nuclear war drill that simulated U.S. and NATO nuclear attacks.
Stratcom said in its statement, in an apparent reference to the Russian war games, that “the timing of the exercise is unrelated to real-world events.”
Tensions remain high between the United States and Russia over Moscow’s military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and ongoing pro-Russian unrest in eastern Ukraine.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Sunday declined to categorize Russia as an enemy, despite its aggression in Ukraine.
“We’re not at war with Russia, so do define an enemy as being at war or not at war?” Hagel said on ABC’s This Week.
Russia is “an adversary in Ukraine, sure,” he said.
“But I think that’s a little simplistic to get into either enemy, friend, partner, so on,” Hagel said. “Russia continues to isolate itself for a short-term gain. The Russians may feel that somehow they’re winning, but the war was not about just short term.”
U.S. officials have said some 40,000 to 80,000 Russian troops are deployed within a short distance of Ukraine’s eastern border.
Russia is seeking to create a federated state in Ukraine as part of Putin’s announced plan to restore elements of the Soviet Union. The Russian leader regards many of the former Soviet republics surrounding Russia, including Ukraine, as the “near abroad” that Moscow wants to control.
The Russian war games included the test launch of a SS-25 Topol intercontinental missile and two SS-N-23 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Additional missile firings included six Russian air-launched nuclear-capable cruise missiles.
It could not be learned if Global Lightning will include U.S. missile launches.
A Stratcom spokeswoman declined to provide further details of the exercise.
“Global Lightning 14 is designed to provide training opportunities and to test and validate command and control procedures for U.S. Strategic Command and its subordinate units,” said Army Lt. Col. Stephanie Bounds, the spokeswoman.
“Just as technology changes, so do the threats. This exercise provides the opportunity to incorporate the most current technology and techniques in support of our mission.”
The command “is constantly honing its capabilities to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies,” she said.
Bounds declined to provide details of the exercise but said: “All activities are designed to test and validate command and control procedures for U.S. Strategic Command and its subordinate units.”
A U.S. official said the U.S. Cyber Command, part of Strategic Command, will take part in the exercises that are said to include simulated cyber attacks against Strategic Command communications and command systems.
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon nuclear strategy official, said the Russian exercises appeared intended as a political message to the West.
Schneider said Russia usually holds its nuclear drills in the fall and the timing of last week’s war games “suggests to me that the intent was nuclear intimidation against NATO over the Ukraine.”
Moscow on April 14 also conducted a test launch of a new ICBM called the SS-27 by NATO that carried multiple simulated warheads that analysts say potentially violated the 2010 New START arms treaty.
Moscow and Washington also have been battling over Russia’s plan to upgrade aircraft used in conducting permitted spy flights over the United States that intelligence officials say could undermine U.S. security. The flights are carried out under the Open Skies Treaty.
Russia temporarily blocked a U.S. overflight of Russia and a spokesman mentioned the dispute over the new Russian aircraft in criticizing U.S. officials.
The Obama administration also recently turned down a proposal from Russia aimed at resolving differences over U.S. and NATO missile defenses in Europe. Moscow is opposing the deployment of interceptors and radar in the region and has charged the United States with seeking to counter Russian strategic offensive missiles.
The administration insists the missile defenses are aimed at countering Iranian long-range missile threats.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ukrainian troops outside the town of Andreyevskoe near Slaviyansk, Donetsk Region, where local residents blocked a column of Ukrainian Army armored personnel carriers. (RIA Novosti / Mikhail Voskresenskiy)
About 400 elite mercenaries from the notorious US private security firm Academi (formerly Blackwater) are taking part in the Ukrainian military operation against anti-government protesters in southeastern regions of the country, German media reports.
The Bild am Sonntag newspaper, citing a source in intelligence circles, wrote Sunday that Academi employees are involved in the Kiev military crackdown on pro-autonomy activists in near the town of Slavyansk, in the Donetsk region.
On April 29, German Intelligence Service (BND) informed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government about the mercenaries’ participation in the operation, the paper said, RIA Novosti reported. It is not clear who commands the private military contractors and pays for their services, however.
In March, media reports appeared suggesting that the coup-imposed government in Kiev could have employed up to 300 mercenaries.That was before the new government launched a military operation against anti-Maidan activists, or “terrorists” as Kiev put it, in southeast Ukraine.
At the time, the Russian Foreign Ministry said then that reports claiming Kiev was planning to involve “involve staff from foreign military companies to ‘ensure the rule of law,’” could suggest that it wanted “to suppress civil protests and dissatisfaction.”
In particular, Greystone Limited, which is currently registered in Barbados and is a part of Academi Corporation, is a candidate for such a gendarme role. It is a similar and probably an affiliated structure of the Blackwater private army, whose staff have been accused of cruel and systematic violations of human rights in various trouble spots on many occasions.
“Among the candidates for the role of gendarme is the Barbados-registered company Greystone Limited, which is integrated with the Academi corporation,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It is an analogue, and, probably and affiliated body of the Blackwater private army, whose employees have repeatedly been accused of committing grievous and systematic human rights abuses in different troubled regions.”
Allegations increased further after unverified videos appeared on YouTube of unidentified armed men in the streets of Donetsk, the capital of the country’s industrial and coalmining region. In those videos, onlookers can be heard shouting “Mercenaries!”“Blackwater!,” and “Who are you going to shoot at?”
(FILES) A picture taken on July 5, 2005 shows contractors of the US private security firm Blackwater securing the site of a roadside bomb attack near the Iranian embassy in central Baghdad. (AFP Photo / Ahmad Al-Rubaye)
Academi denied its involvement in Ukraine, claiming on its website that “rumors” were posted by “some irresponsible bloggers and online reporters.”
“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,” the US firm stated.
The American security company Blackwater gained worldwide notoriety for the substantial role it played in the Iraq war as a contractor for the US government. In recent years it has changed its name twice – in 2009 it was renamed Xe Services and in 2011 it got its current name, Academi.
The firm became infamous for the alleged September 16, 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. The attack, which saw 20 others wounded, was allegedly without justification and in violation of deadly-force rules that pertained to American security contractors in Iraq at the time. Between 2005 and September 2007, Blackwater security guards were involved in at least 195 shooting incidents in Iraq and fired first in 163 of those cases, a Congressional report said at the time.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Police officers, fire fighters and other law enforcement employees in Murmansk or Arkhangelsk can forget about visiting friends or take a tourist trip to other Barents countries.
Fire fighters are part of Russia’s Ministry of Emergencies. (Photo: Thomas Nilsen)
Russia’s Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters has issued travel restrictions to all employees like the country’s firefighters, ambulance drivers and rescue troopers, reports LifeNews.
A similar travel ban is imposed for parts of employees under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) including tens of thousands of police officers, prison guards, and other law enforcement agencies like the Federal Drug Control and the Federal Migration Service. Others listed are people with access to state secrets, like certain employees of the Foreign Ministry. According to estimates, they are around 250,000 people.
The two reasons given to explain the travel ban are to take measure to prevent leaks of secrets and secondly, to prevent the possibility of being arrested by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
MVD has prepared a blacklist of 150 countries their employees no longer can visit. Norway, Sweden and Finland are on the list, as well as all other EU member countries and nations around the world that have an agreement with the U.S. on mutual extradition, reports Izvestia. Countries like North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam are not on the list.
Blogger51 in Murmansk reports that there is a lively discussion among police officers in an online blog-forum. Many express their frustration after already made bookings to foreign travel destinations.
Re: World War Three Thread....
Originally Posted by American Patriot
PressTV: Washington intends Russia’s demise, by Paul Craig Roberts
Reply With Quote
Russian Air Force jets fly above Red Square during Victory Day Parade in Moscow on Sunday, May 9, 2010. Photo by Reuters 
3 
A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber (Reuters/Tim Chong)
Ukrainian troops outside the town of Andreyevskoe near Slaviyansk, Donetsk Region, where local residents blocked a column of Ukrainian Army armored personnel carriers. (RIA Novosti / Mikhail Voskresenskiy)
(FILES) A picture taken on July 5, 2005 shows contractors of the US private security firm Blackwater securing the site of a roadside bomb attack near the Iranian embassy in central Baghdad. (AFP Photo / Ahmad Al-Rubaye)
Bookmarks