Georgian fuel train 'blown up by mine'

Sunday Times [UK], by Staff

8/24/2008 8:48:02 AM

A fuel train exploded today on Georgia’s main east-west rail line and police said it appeared to have hit a landmine. Officials said that the train was on the main track of the line linking eastern and western Georgia, a vital trade route for oil exports from Azerbaijan to European markets. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear but a Reuters correspondent saw huge plumes of black smoke pouring from the wreckage .....


Putin is still on the march! What's his angle? Does he want to be the King of Power and is trying to rebuild another Power Kingdom? Why not join the other civilized western nations for a fairly normal life and get ready to fight the radical muzzies?

the "radical muzzies" have no army

have a war on idiocy

bush has done REAL damage to our future with the debt

Ms. Rice quit shopping long enough to go to Poland and talk them into the anti-misslile system that doesn't work and said "it would protect Poland against missiles from Iran and N. Korea.


IRAN AND N. KOREA?????????????????????? Iran can't seem to get a missile to fly, much less get it as far as Poland. And why the hell would they attack Poland?????????????? Is it full of Jews I don't know about???????????????? And N. Korea. Why the hell would N. Korea attack Poland?????????????????


Does any of this make sense to ANYBODY???????????????

probably fux news watchers.

West tells Russia to keep out of Ukraine

By Stefan Wagsty and
James Blitz in London
and Roman Olearchyk in Kiev

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54acc1fc-743d-11...00779fd18c.html

Published: August 27 2008 14:53 | Last updated: August 27 2008 22:54

Britain led a chorus of support for Ukraine on Wednesday as western fears rose of possible Russian attempts to build on its victory in Georgia by threatening neighbouring states.

Speaking during a visit to Kiev, David Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, called on the European Union and Nato to prepare for “hard-headed engagement” with Moscow following its military action in Georgia.

“Russia must not learn the wrong lessons from the Georgia crisis. There can be no going back on fundamental principles of territorial integrity, democratic governance and international law,” he said.

Mr Miliband’s remarks coincided with warnings from Bernard Kouchner, French foreign minister, and Carl Bildt, Swedish foreign minister.

In an unprecedented step, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialised countries also issued a joint statement on Wednesday to condemn “Russia’s excessive use of military force in Georgia and its continued occupation of parts” of the country.

The warnings came after Moscow recognised the independence of the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Tuesday in the first effort to redraw international borders in the former Soviet Union since its 1991 collapse.

Mr Kouchner warned that the situation was “very dangerous” because Russia might now be considering other targets such as the divided state of Moldova and Ukraine, with its strategically important Crimean peninsula.



The US welcomed Mr Miliband’s remarks but there was no immediate response from Moscow, which adopted a conciliatory tone urging the west not to damage broad mutual ties. Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, was in Tajikistan, at a summit of central Asian states including China, seeking support for his actions in Georgia.

Mr Bildt, in a Financial Times interview, criticised Russia as “a 19th century power”.

Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s pro-west president, highlighted the potential for conflict by questioning the agreement under which Russia uses the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, in Crimea, for its Black Sea fleet. He said Russia’s actions were “a threat to everyone, not just for one country”.

His remarks were echoed by Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian president. In Thursday’s Financial Times, Mr ­Saakashvili writes: “This story is no longer about my small country, but the west’s ability to stand its ground to defend a principled approach to international security.”

Meanwhile, the US avoided a potential clash with Russia by diverting a navy ship carrying aid to the Georgian-controlled Batumi instead of the Moscow-controlled Georgian port of Poti.

I keep hearing it's none of our business, but I think I've seen that story play out before. Once with Russia being the ultimate victim.

Owner of Russian opposition website killed

Reuters, by Staff

8/31/2008 3:53:51 PM

Nazran, Russia - An opposition Internet news site owner in Russia's troubled Ingushetia region was fatally shot on Sunday soon after being detained by police, and his colleagues called for a rally to protest his death. Magomed Yevloyev is one of the most high-profile journalists to be killed in Russia since investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow apartment in 2006 (Snip) was a vocal critic of the region's Kremlin-backed administration...

Not even a show trial.

not even a fake suicide

Truly

All their rationales remain even without us in Iraq

Stalin's mass murders were 'entirely rational' says new Russian textbook praising tyrant

Daily Mail [UK], by Will Stewart


9/3/2008 4:23:00 AM

Stalin acted ‘entirely rationally’ in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags, a controversial new Russian teaching manual claims. Fifty-five years after the Soviet dictator died, the latest guide for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young said he did what he did to ensure the country’s modernisation. The manual, titled A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will form the basis of a new state-approved text book for use in schools next year.

A Major War: Not Just Rumors
By Srdja Trifkovic

Global Research, September 3, 2008


The crisis in relations between the United States and Russia over Georgia heralds a particularly dangerous period in world affairs: the era of asymmetrical multipolarity. A major war between two or more major powers is more likely in this configuration than in any other model of global balance known to history. The most stable system is bipolarity based on the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which was prevalent from the 1950s until the end of the Cold War. The awareness of both superpowers that they would inflict severe and unavoidable reciprocal damage on each other or their allies in a nuclear war was coupled with the acceptance that each had a sphere of dominance or vital interest that should not be infringed upon.

With Brest-Litovsk and the Barbarossa in mind, Stalin "intended to turn the countries conquered by Soviet armies into buffer zones to protect Russia" (Kissinger). The Western equivalent, also essentially defensive, was defined by the Truman Doctrine (1947) Proxy wars were fought in the grey zone all over the Third World, most notably in the Middle East, but they were kept localized even when a superpower was directly involved (Vietnam, Afghanistan). This model was the product of unique circumstances without an adequate historical precedent, however, which are unlikely to be repeated in the foreseeable future.

The most stable model of international relations that is both historically recurrent and structurally repeatable in the future is the balance of power system in which no single great power is either physically able or politically willing to seek hegemony. This model was prevalent from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) until Napoleon, from Waterloo until around 1900, and from Versailles until 1933. It demands a relative equilibrium between the key powers (usually five to seven) that hold each other in check and function within a recognized set of rules that has come to be known as "international law." Wars between great powers do occur, but they are limited in scope and intensity because the warring parties tacitly accept the fundamental legitimacy and continued existence of their opponent(s).

If one of the powers becomes markedly stronger than others and if its decision-making elite internalizes an ideology that demands or at least justifies hegemony, the inherently unstable system of asymmetrical multipolarity will develop. In all three known instances—Napoleonic France after 1799, the Kaiserreich from around 1900, and the Third Reich after 1933—the challenge could not be resolved without a major war.

The government of the United States is now acting in a manner structurally reminiscent of those three powers. Having proclaimed itself the leader of an imaginary "international community," it goes further than any previous would-be hegemon in treating the entire world as the American sphere of interest. As I pointed out two weeks ago, the formal codification came in the National Security Strategy of September 2002, which presented the specter of open-ended political, military, and economic domination of the world by the United States acting unilaterally against "rogue states" and "potentially hostile powers" and in pursuit of an end to "destructive national rivalries." To that end, the administration pledged "to keep military strength beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

Any attempt by a single power to keep its military strength beyond challenge is inherently destabilizing, and results—sooner or later—in the emergence of an effective counter-coalition. Napoleon finally faced one at the Völkerschlacht at Leipzig in 1813. "There is no balance of power in Europe but me and my twenty-four army corps," the Kaiser famously boasted in 1901. Within years he was also building a high seas fleet. By 1907, Wilhelmine Germany engendered a counter-coalition that prompted even traditional rivals like Britain and Russia to join forces (the latter to be replaced by the United States in 1917). And as for the most recent Griff nach der Weltmacht, by the second week of December 1941 Germany was irrevocably doomed to another defeat.

An early yet certain symptom of destabilizing asymmetry in action is the would-be hegemon's tendency to claim an ever-widening sphere of influence or interference at the expense of his rivals. In the run-up to 1914 this was heralded by the Kruger Telegram (1896) and exemplified by the German bid to build the railway from Berlin to Baghdad (1903) and by the First Moroccan Crisis (1905). Neither Napoleon nor Hitler knew any «natural» limits, but their ambition was essentially confined to Europe. With the United States today the novelty is that this ambition is extended—literally—to the whole world. Not only the Western Hemisphere, not just the «Old Europe,» Japan, or Israel, but also Taiwan, Korea, and such unlikely places as Georgia, Estonia, Kosovo, or Bosnia, are considered vitally important. The globe itself is now effectively claimed as America's sphere of influence, Russia's Caucasian, European and Central Asian back yards most emphatically included.

Four weeks ago the game itself became alarmingly asymmetrical. For America it is still ideological, but for Russia it has become existential. Russia is now acting as a conservative, pre-1914 European power in seeking to protect its "near abroad." America is acting like a global revolutionary power, whose "near abroad" is literally everywhere.

It is therefore futile for Russia to try to "manage" the crisis in a pre-1914 manner and hope for some elusive softening on the other side, because the calculus in Washington is not rational. The counter-strategy of unpredictability, exemplified by Medvedev's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, is an eminently rational response, however. It may yet force the remnant of sanity inside the Beltway to try and exercise some adult supervision over the bipartisan "foreign policy community" of smokers in the arsenal.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...a&aid=10053

EU moves to loosen Russia's 'energy stranglehold'

Telegraph [U.K.], by Bruno Waterfield
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...ranglehold.html

9/6/2008 5:32:45 AM


British consumers could end up paying higher prices as a result of European Union measures to reduce Russia's "energy stranglehold", as Europe steps up efforts to prevent Moscow using critical gas supplies to blackmail the West. EU, European Union, Gazprom. Energy Security, Oil, Gas European Commission officials are currently carrying out a feasibility study to examine the creation of gas stockpiles to prevent Russia using the threat of switching the lights out or...........

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...ranglehold.html

Putin may yet regret he started acting like a "commie" before this is over!

November 20, 2008

Europe Anti-Missile Defense System: Standing Up to Russia's Threats
http://www.heritage.org/Research/RussiaandEurasia/wm2139.cfm

by Ariel Cohen, Ph.D.

Reject Russian Threats

The Obama Administration should not derail or postpone the missile shield in Europe, but it should continue efforts to convince the Kremlin that the system is not aimed against Russia. Giving in to the Kremlin's demands would be the second strategic victory Moscow would achieve after recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are parts of Georgia.

The United States and Europe need to prevent Moscow from dictating Europe's security policy or interfering with U.S.-Polish strategic cooperation.

The Obama Administration should reject Medvedev's missile threats, exposing them as a throw-back to the Cold War. The great irony and blunder of Russia's actions is that had Moscow acted more responsibly, the Obama Administration might have delayed the European missile defense system altogether. Now the Obama Administration must resist Russian pressure, if only to avoid the appearance of weakness and to discourage Russia's strategic revisionism.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/RussiaandEurasia/wm2139.cfm

Good luck with that happening. While word on the "defense street" is that MDA (Missile Defense Agency) has enough friends in Congress on both sides of the aisle to forestall any wholesale closure/shut down, a scale back is not to be ruled out. President-elect Obama is on record as opposing the system in general and the European Capability specifically. With both the Poles and the Czechs having signed the deployment agreements - but not having yet ratified same - this aspect is still very much in play. The issue may revolve less around looking good opposing Moscow as to keeping bridges intact with domestic MDA foes. Too many unknowns in play - one example - during the campaign Sen. Obama verbally said he would all but eliminate the MDA program, his campaign website said he supported missile defense.

Will the real security policy of the next administration please stand up and be recognized?

They sure as hell better not ring Washington with a missile shield and leave the rest of us on our own.

WHatever is the less of those killing monsters in our nation would be fine with me...

We get the first three times you posted it! farking spammer!!

America eyes up Georgia as a base to launch attack on Iran
by Marcus Papadopoulos

'America eyes up Georgia as a base to launch attack on Iran'

GEORGIA'S President Mikheil Saakashvili is involved in high level negotiations with members of the United States government on the construction of American military bases in the South Caucasian country, according to a representative of a Georgian opposition party.

Nestan Kirtadze, of the Georgian Labour Party, said last week that President Saakashvili is offering Washington thousands of hectares of land rent free on which to build military bases.

Mrs Kirtadze appealed to American planners and policy-makers not to turn Georgia into a theatre for confrontation between the two superpowers – a reference to US-Russia rivalry in the former Soviet republic.

The accusation made by Mrs Kirtadze will fuel suspicions in the Kremlin that the US is intent on encircling Russia. It will also provide an opportunity for Russian hawks to argue to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the Russian army should have toppled the government of President Saakashivili during the war in South Ossetia last year, and that something still needs to be done about the staunchly pro-Western Georgian leader.

Discussions concerning American bases in Georgia will also bring to the surface again the possibility of Washington launching pre-emptive air strikes against Iran.

Last year Russia's envoy to Nato, Dmitri Rogozin, argued that the US wants to use the strategically-placed Caucasus country as a base for military operations against the Islamic republic.

Focus will soon shift to incoming US President Barack Obama regarding Washington's stance on Georgia and Iran. He has repeatedly called for accession to Nato for Ukraine and Georgia, referring to Russia as a "21st century superpower" behaving like a "20th century dictatorship". When Russian tanks were on the outskirts of Tbilisi last year, vice president-elect Joseph Biden was the first US politician to visit Georgia and express support for the country's leadership.

On the subject of Iran, Mr Obama has given mixed messages about what approach the US should adopt. In 2004 he appeared to imply that he would support military action against Iran as a last resort but during last year's American presidential campaign he said that while no option was "off the table" an Obama administration would employ "tough, direct presidential diplomacy" with Tehran as the best means "to make progress".


http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/01/1...attack-on-iran/

The rumor was that Israel had plans to use Georgia for the same purpose. They would need it more than the US, as they don't have our long range stealth bombers, or assets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Israel has sold a lot of arms to Georgia, and supplied advisers/trainers to their army.

Since we don't have a Central Asia thread, I'll post these articles in the Russia thread.

Kyrgyzstan's Revenge
Why the Kyrgyz are kicking us out of their country
by Justin Raimondo

Remember Kyrgyzstan? Longtime readers of this space will recall our extensive coverage of that country's "Tulip Revolution," also dubbed the "Pink Revolution," way back in those heady days when George W. Bush's "global democratic revolution" was said to be the wave of the future. The so-called color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and the landlocked and desperately poor Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan were supposedly sparked by Bush's "fire in the mind" – a phrase lifted out of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed and used in one of the former president's more unhinged perorations. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, however, it looks like that fire has blown back in our faces.

After pouring all sorts of resources, including cash, into the coffers of the Tulip Revolutionaries, via overt aid and covert payments to "nongovernmental organizations," basically underwriting their campaign to overthrow the regime of then-President Askar Akayev, what has the U.S. got to show for it? The Kyrgyz government recently announced that it was unilaterally canceling the contract that grants us the right to maintain the Ganci air base at Bishkek's Manas airport, a key link in the increasingly fragile supply lines that service U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Western news reports invariably couple this announcement with the recent conclusion of an aid pact with the Russians guaranteeing $2 billion. U.S. government and NATO officials openly accuse the Russians of interference, yet the real reasons for the base closure are only mentioned in passing, if at all: the 2006 killing of a Kyrgyz citizen by a U.S. soldier, one of 1,500 stationed in and around the air base.

The soldier, Zachary Hatfield, shot and killed Alexander Ivanov, a 42-year-old truck driver and father of two sons, at a checkpoint where Ivanov was in the process of delivering fuel to Manas. Ivanov had supposedly threatened Hatfield with a knife. A USA Todayreport includes this testimony from Ivanov's son and other truck drivers:

"'He told me often that American soldiers behaved insolently and unceremoniously,' he said. 'I want only one thing: that the guilty man be punished,' he said. Ivanov's colleagues accused the U.S. servicemen of behaving disrespectfully towards local workers. Yevgenyi Trai said he and his co-workers have decided to deliver fuel to the airport bypassing the U.S. military checkpoint, 'because there is a threat to our lives there.'

'''Americans are boorish with us, pushing us into the [security tent] with gun butts,' Trai said."

Other news reports indicate that as Hatfield approached the security tent, Ivanov brandished a weapon. Whether or not this was immediately after being whacked with the butt of a gun is an open question, and there is a real dispute over whether Ivanov posed a threat. There is some indication that the knife found may have been taken from his vehicle after the shooting. The Jamestown Foundation reports: "At the time of the shooting Ivanov was about 5-6 meters away from Hatfield. Since Ivanov's knife was found 20 meters away from the site of the incident, his widow questions whether he was, in fact, threatening Hatfield with it."

Kyrgyz prosecutors doubted Hatfield's story and pressed murder charges against him, ignoring the status of forces agreement that immunizes U.S. soldiers from legal action by local authorities. Surely this knowledge of his immunity led to a certain carelessness, shall we say, on Hatfield's part. One Kyrgyz civil rights activist told the Jamestown Foundation that "Hatfield, knowing he was protected by diplomatic status, intentionally hunted down Ivanov out of anger and low personal character."

Ivanov's widow was eventually given compensation of some $50,000, which is not the same as an admission of wrongdoing but pretty close to it. What's really bad PR for the U.S. in Kyrgyzstan is that she was initially offered $1,000, which shows just how much value we put on life out there on the far frontiers of our Empire.

No wonder they threw us out.

Partisans of the Obama administration are hoping the new diplomatic dispensation from Washington will mean this sort of thing will become the exception rather than the rule, yet there is little reason to believe this hope is realistic. The U.S. footprint in countries where we have bases has never been inconspicuous, and relations with the "natives" are inevitably rocky: it's inherent in the situation. From Okinawa to Bishkek, U.S. military bases are generators of violence, prostitution, and environmental degradation. They are, in short, a lot of trouble for the host countries, quite aside from the number of fatherless children they produce.

That there is no real "change" in Washington on the foreign policy front was confirmed by the news that we are now frantically negotiating with Uzbekistan for permission to reopen our old base on their territory. The Uzbek government, you remember, threw us out when we criticized their Maximum Leader, Islam Karimov, after he mowed down hundreds of his subjects in what became known as the Andijan massacre. Even the Bush administration had to distance itself from Karimov, a nutball with delusions of grandeur, when his neo-communist policies turned murderous. Oh, but not the "liberal" Obama administration. Change? Heck, why not go back to Uzbekistan, anyway, since we've apparently already made a down payment on the rent?

With President Obama getting ready to launch his Afghan "surge," the U.S. is targeting the 'stans in the vicinity: the idea is to build a ring of bases around the battlefield – Pakistan and Afghanistan – to support extensive military operations. This will add to the instability in the region, provoke a fight with Russia, and expand the list of possible terrorist targets, as well as provoke a backlash in host countries, as it did in Kyrgyzstan.

There is one possible way for the U.S. to "solve" its Kyrgyzstan problem and that is by doing what they did last time the locals got uppity. The former President Akayev roused U.S. ire by similarly threatening to revoke the contract allowing our base to operate, and he was shortly and unceremoniously overthrown by a U.S.-backed-and-funded revolution. The base stayed.

Could history repeat itself? I don't know if maybe they've run out of colors to brand their made-in-America "revolutions," but, when push comes to shove, I've no doubt that they'll think of something. Maybe they'll go plaid.

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=14217

"... relations with the "natives" are inevitably rocky: it's inherent in the situation. From Okinawa to Bishkek, U.S. military bases are generators of violence, prostitution, and environmental degradation...."

BB that's the author's BS. Having been stationed overseas in three different places and on extended temporary duty to many others overseas for over 7.5 years total, in a timespan of 13 years, both Pacific and European theaters, I can tell you that statement is just what I claimed it is. Do some of our servicemembers have issues with the local population? Yes. Both stateside and overseas. Not a lot of difference there. As for the rest - I and my family felt and were safer overseas living amongst the local populations than we were by actual experience in Northern Virginia near DC. Given the bent of that particular website, however, I am little surprised by the author's choice of words. I would have been surprised had they been anything else but derisive.

YMMV. And I'm sure it does.

While I was in living in Italy I never had problems with US military personnel. We used to go to Vicenza every 4th of July. If you speak to the locals, there have been incidents in the local bars. The Carabinieri have be known to smack the poop of people from Camp Ederle when they cause trouble. OTOH, my ex-girlfriend, having grown up in Seoul, can tell you stories which would make your stomach turn.

As do I from Korea, except these were Korean on Korean so I guess they don't count. Of course I also have the times I spent with the locals at their homes, their hospitality and kindness are not forgotten, and were much appreciated at the time. We could go anecdote for anecdote all day and night and it still does not change the fact that the author of this piece is still simply venting his/her spleen at his/her favorite target and nothing more. " 'Tis a tale told..."

as do you

Pentagon Preparing For War With The Enemy: Russia

"Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008....[A] possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus.

"The new President of the United States did not bring about any crucial changes in relation to Georgia, but having a dominant role in NATO he still insists on Georgia's soonest joining of
the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War.

"Under the new realities, Georgia's war against South Ossetia may easily turn into NATO's war against Russia. This would be a third world war." (Irina Kadzhaev, South Ossetia political scientist, South Ossetia Information Agency, April 2009


On May 12 James Mattis, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation [ACT] and commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, spoke at a three-day symposium called Joint Warfighting 09 in Norfolk, Virginia, where NATO's Allied Command Transformation is based, and stated: "I come with a sense of urgency. The enemy is meeting like this as well." [1]

A local newspaper summarized his speech:

"Mattis outlined a future in which wars will not have clearly defined beginnings and ends. What is needed, he said, is a grand strategy, a political framework that can guide military planning." [2]

He failed, for what passes for diplomatic reasons no doubt, to identify who "the enemy" is, but a series of recent developments, or rather an intensification of ongoing ones, indicate which nation it is.

Last week the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. Kevin Chilton, told reporters during a Defense Writers Group breakfast on May 7 "that the White House retains the option to respond with physical force - potentially even using nuclear weapons - if a foreign entity conducts a disabling cyber attack against U.S. computer networks...."

An account of his talk added "the general insisted that all strike options, including nuclear, would remain available to the commander in chief in defending the nation from cyber strikes."

Chilton "said he could not rule out the possibility of a military salvo against a nation like China, even though Beijing has nuclear arms," [3] though the likely first target of alleged retaliation against equally alleged cyber attacks would be another nation already identified by US military officials as such: Russia.

In late April and early May of 2007 the government of Estonia, which was inducted into NATO in 2004 and whose president was and remains Toomas Hendrik Ilves, born in Sweden and raised in the United States (where he worked for Radio Free Europe), reported attacks on websites in the country which were blamed on Russia.

Over two years later no evidence has been presented to substantiate the claim that Russian hackers, much less the government itself, were behind the attacks, though it remains an article of faith among US and other Western officials and media that they were.

The response from American authorities in the first place was so sudden and severe, even before investigations were conducted, as to strongly suggest that if the attacks hadn't been staged they would need to be invented.

Right afterward Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne stated, "Russia, our Cold War nemesis, seems to have been the first to engage in cyber warfare."

The US Air Force news source from which the above is quoted added that the events in Estonia days earlier "did start a series of debates within NATO and the EU about the definition of clear military action and it may be the first test of the applicability of Article V of the NATO charter regarding collective self-defense in the non-kinetic realm." [4]

NATO's Article 5 is a collective military defense provision, in fact a war clause, one which first and to date for the only time has been used to support the protracted and escalating war in Afghanistan.

References to it, then, are not to be taken lightly.

On a visit to Estonia last November Pentagon chief Robert Gates met with the country's prime minister, Andrus Ansip, and "discussed Russian behavior and new cooperation on cyber security...."

It was reported that "Ansip said NATO will operate under the principle of Article 5 of the alliance’s treaty, which states that an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all," and "We are convinced that Estonia, as a member of NATO, will be very well defended.”[5]

That the repeated mention of NATO's Article 5 continued a year and a half after the alleged cyber attacks when none had occurred in the interim is revealing.

At the beginning of this month the Pentagon announced that it was launching what it called a "digital warfare force for the future," at Fort Meade in Maryland under the control of the U.S. Strategic Command, whose chief, Gen. Kevin Chilton, was quoted earlier as threatening the use of force up to and including nuclear weapons.

The initiative was characterized in a news report as follows:

"Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, also the Pentagon's leading cyber warfare commander, said the U.S. is determined to lead the global effort to use computer technology to deter or defeat enemies...." [6]

The Pentagon is a synecdoche for the Department of Defense and everything related to its activities is cloaked in the same euphemism, so when pressed the US will insist its new cyber warfare project is intended for defensive purposes only. Any nation which and people who have been on the receiving end of US Defense Department actions know better. The new US cyber warfare command, its rationale based on a supposed Russian threat emanating from a non-military incident in the Baltics over two years ago, will be used to cripple the computer systems of any nation targeted for direct military assault, thus rendering them defenseless, and will be particularly effective for space-based and Star Wars (missile shield, interceptor missiles) first strike plans.

On the same day the report of General Alexander's pledge to "defeat enemies" appeared another news item reported that "A quasi-classified satellite that will serve as an engineering trailblazer for ballistic missile tracking technologies flew into space Tuesday [May 12]." [7]

It was a Space Tracking and Surveillance System Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (STSS-ATRR) satellite, which "is part of a space-based system for the Missile Defense Agency.

"Sensors aboard the STSS-ATRR satellite and on the ground will communicate with other systems to defend against incoming ballistic missiles." [8]

A few days earlier the California-based manufacturer Ducommun in a news report titled Ducommun Incorporated Announces Delivery of Nanosatellites to U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command announced that "its Miltec Corporation subsidiary delivered flight-ready nanosatellites to the U.S. Army pace and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) in Huntsville, Alabama on April 28, 2009."

The delivery was "the completion of the first U.S. Army satellite development program since the Courier 1B communications satellite in 1960."[9]

Military satellites used for neutralizing the potential of a rival nation not so much to launch a first strike but to respond to one blur the distinction between so-called Son of Star Wars missile shield projects and full-fledged militarization of space.

A recent Russian commentary saw it in just that manner:

"Withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty signified a switch to the testing and deployment of a global missile defense system, with a view to fully removing the deterrent potential of China, and partially that of Russia.

"Washington [is] still trying to eliminate international legal restrictions on the formation of a system, which would theoretically make it invulnerable towards an act of retaliation, and even a launch-under-attack strike." [10]

Added to which is another "quasi-classified" subterfuge related to a prospective resumption of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks between the US And Russia.

American Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller stated this week "that the US is not prepared to cut warheads removed from delivery means and kept in storage." [11]

So in addition to US plans to deploy ground-, sea-, air- and space-based anti-missile systems primarily around and against Russia (Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Britain, Japan and Alaska to date), the Pentagon will hold in reserve nuclear warheads for activation without a monitoring mechanism provided to Russian inspectors and arms reduction negotiators.

On May 6 Euronews conducted an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who warned, "The way it [the US anti-ballistic missile shield] is designed has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear program. It is aimed at Russian strategic forces, deployed in the European part of the Russian Federation." [12]

To add to the concerns of Russia and other nations, On April 30 the US established a Navy Air and Missile Defense Command (NAMDC) at the Naval Support Facility at Dahlgren, Virginia.

"NAMDC is the lead organization for Navy, joint and combined Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD). NAMDC serves as the single warfare center of excellence to synchronize and integrate Navy efforts across the full spectrum of air and missile defense to include air defense, cruise missile defense and ballistic missile defense." [13]

The past two weeks has been a fertile period for stories in this vein and, to bring attention nearer the Earth, the US-based Strategy Page reported from a Russian source that "The United States has bought two Su-27 fighter jets from Ukraine" to "be used to train American military pilots, who may face opponents in them" and that the "US military will use them to test its radar and electronic warfare equipment." [14]

This was at the very moment that the US client in Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko, his national poll ratings plummeting to near 1%, signed a directive to prepare for full NATO membership and a few days after a US military delegation visited the country to inspect a tank unit and to plan "reforming the system of combat training...." [15]

In terms of US training for warfare against the Russian Air Force, the Ukrainian development is only the latest in a number of such activities.

Immediately following the nation becoming a full member of NATO, the US 81st Fighter Squadron flew to Constanta, Romania (in which nation the Pentagon has acquired four new bases since) to engage in combat training against Russian MiG-21s.

According to one US pilot present, “It was pretty neat - you’re sitting in a MiG-21 that will be airborne with a MiG-21 pilot within days. This was an arm of the Soviet Union. These pilots were flying before the Soviet Union fell. They have quite a bit of perspective.” [16]

In July of the next year the US 492nd Fighter Squadron was deployed to the Graf Ignatievo Air Base in neighoring Bulgaria to insure the opportunity for "Air Forces from multiple nations to learn about each other’s aircraft tactics and capabilities.

"The pilots of the F-15E Strike Eagles and the MIG-29s and MIG-21s are sharing knowledge of aircraft and tactics as the exercise wraps up its first week of training."

A US Air Force colonel was quoted as saying, “Only two of the 38 aircrew members have had a chance to fly against MIGs. By the time the exercise is over, everyone will have had a chance to either fly in a MIG or fly against one.” [17]

A month afterward the US Air Force 22nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron arrived in Romania for the Viper Lance exercises which "marked the first time U.S. F-16 pilots have trained in Romania" and "where "MiG-21 and F-16 pilots [flew] integrated formations to conduct basic fighter maneuvers, dissimilar air combat training and air-to-ground strike missions...." [18]

This time the quote is from an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot:

"My flight in the backseat of a Lancer [MiG-21] is a good opportunity to look at different aircraft and it's a real privilege and an honor. I want to see what they see from their cockpit, and view a new angle of understanding against our adversaries." [19]

Two weeks ago a US Air Force fighter squadron flew to the Bezmer Air Base in Bulgaria where an American airman said, "This is the first time a USAFE [United States Air Forces in Europe] fighter squadron has deployed to this location....The most rewarding part of this experience is knowing that I am helping the pilots train for war." [20]

To prepare the US for air combat against the full range of Russian military aircraft, India was invited to the annual Red Flag air combat exercises in Alaska in 2007, war games "meant to train pilots from the US, NATO and other allied countries for real combat situations.

"This includes the use of 'enemy' hardware and live ammunition for bombing exercises." [21]

India provided six Sukhoi SU-30MKI fighters which were "particularly interesting to the exercise as [they are] Russian-made, thus
traditionally considered 'hostile.'" [22]

May 1st, on the occasion of the Czech Republic taking over the six-month NATO air patrol rotation in the Baltic skies over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - five minutes flight from Russia's second largest city of St. Petersburg - a Czech official boasted "The area we are protecting is about three times larger than that of the Czech Republic. This is a NATO outpost."

Lithuanian Air Force Commander Arturas Leita announced that "the Baltic countries would probably ask for the prolongation of the air force mission within NATO until 2018." [23]

From June 8-16 Sweden will host a NATO drill, Loyal Arrow, described as "biggest air force drill ever in the Finnish-Swedish Bothnian Bay," [24], also not far from St. Petersburg, with a British aircraft carrier and more than 50 fighter jets participating.

That exercise will begin exactly a week after the US-led NATO Cooperative Lancer 09 war games end in Georgia on Russia's southern flank.

In speaking of the dangers of the last-named but with equal application to all that has preceded it, the South Ossetian Ministry for Press and Mass Media website recently quoted political scientist Irina Kadzhaev as warning:

"Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008. The then threat endangered only South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but after Russia's recognition of these states' independence and the conclusion of agreements envisaging the presence of Russian armed forces on their territories, a possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus.

"The new President of the United States did not bring about any crucial changes in relation to Georgia, but having a dominant role in NATO he still insists on Georgia's soonest joining of the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War.

"Under the new realities, Georgia's war against South Ossetia may easily turn into NATO's war against Russia. This would be a third world war."[25]

Notes

1) Virginian-Pilot, May 13, 2009
2) Ibid
3) Global Security, May 12, 2009
4) Air Force Link, June 1, 2007
5) U.S. Department of Defense, November 12, 2008
6) Associated Press, May 5, 2009
7) Space Flight Now, May 5, 2009
8) Pratt & Whitney, May 5, 2009
9) Ducommun Incorporated, April 29, 2009
10) Russian Information Agency Novosti, May 7, 2009
11) Russia Today, May 5, 2009
12) Euronews, May 6, 2009
13) Navy News, April 30, 2009
14) Moscow News, May 11, 2009
15) National Radio Company of Ukraine, April 29, 2009
16) Air Force Link, August 2, 2005
17) U.S. Air Forces in Europe, July 24, 2006
18) Stars and Stripes, August 26, 2006
19) Air Force Link, August 17, 2006
20) Air Force Link, April 28, 2009
21) Indo-Asian News Service, November 26, 2007
22) Avionews (Italy), November 28, 2007
23) Czech News Agency, May 1, 2009
24) Barents Observer, May 7, 2009
25) Ministry for Press and Mass Media of the Republic of South Ossetia, April 27, 2009

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...articleId=13614

I just knew the end of the cold war was a cruel joke.

When Russia starts to park dozens of Topol-Ms and SS-21s on her western borders, it'll be called a provocation.

This is the Bizzaro World we live in.

Russia's enslavement of half a continent ought to give pause to some of her neighbors as to her intentions.

Using the same logic, Native Americans should still fear the wrath of the white man.

Seriously, I'm fully aware of what the Soviet Union and Imperial Russia have done in the past. However, Russia has repeatedly stated the don't want a war - they just want NATO to respect the guarantees she was given after the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

No, using the same logic our neighbors and everyone else should fear the United States and doubt its proclamations of good intentions, etc.

They should. Ever see what the white folks that run their casinos do with the profits?

Sadly we never get to show y'all what real imperialism looks like. How long do you think it would take for the US to take over Canada and Mexico if we wanted?

All told, the U.S. is a relatively benign imperialist. True.

On the other hand, not for a moment should anyone (including us Americans ourselves) believe our 'copy' too much or take it too seriously.

To be an imperialist you need an empire. Let's get to work......

The Project for the New, New American Century

what do you expect if professional warriors make policy

Oh, come ON. This from a history buff? Seriously, dude, give me a break.

BB

Is this article supposed to make me worry? It doesn't. In fact it sounds very familiar. Squadrons with which I deployed in the 70s, when I flew the F-4, used every chance we could get to fly against the aircraft we would most likely encounter in combat - and these aircraft were not made in the USA, UK, Italy, or Sweden - but in Russia and the PRC (with a few oddball instances, France - and because the Belgians and a few other then- Western NATO nations flew the Mirages, we had good opportunity to fly in mock combat against those). Deployments to CENTCOM exercises offered the best change to fly against MiG-types: some from India and Pakhistan mostly. Flying against your own stuff is limited in value (they don't look, fly, or fight like the aircrafts and aircrews trained by others) for advance training. We finally got smart and modified certain of our own aircraft of similar size and performance - to look and fly more like those potential adversaries (and more importantly the pilots that flew them, flew them in the same manner as the adversary) and thus was born the Aggressor Squadrons program of dissimilar aircraft training or DACT. Great program. Just like Red Flag, an even better program. After the fall of the WP, we got our hands on the real thing up close and personal and continue to do so today because our most likely foes still don't mostly fly what we build but what Russia and the PRC build. This ain't new. Been going on since the 70s and a little before if you believe some stories. Now having these exercises with the newer members of NATO that are former WP - that's new since I left service. And it makes good sense. First time you have to engage in a joint operation - anywhere - is not the time to find out what does and does not work between your two force structures. My favorite quote from your posted article was the one about "the most valuable thing" and training for war. I know the article's author wanted that to sound ominous. But you always train as you will fight to the greatest extent you can, because learning to fight for the first time in combat, while you are engaged in actual combat, does not make you the victor - it makes you the target, and the loser. We don't train for peacetime - we train for war.

That sums it all up nicely.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the point of the military is to train for war. This is a foreign policy disagreement I have with TPTB. If the Cold War is over, why does NATO continuously need to expand eastward? If the Cold War is over, why does NATO even exist? I don't want to hear about a resurgent Russia, because Russia's defense expenditures are a joke next to ours, and Russia's not trying to gain military hegemony outside of her borders. Let's face it, NATO is an organization that needs to expand, so it can justify its existence.

US and Russian warships line up in dispute over Georgia

• Merkel expresses disapproval of Russian actions to Medvedev

• Russians unhappy with US for using military craft to deliver relief supplies


US and Russian warships took up positions in the Black Sea today in a risky war of nerves on opposing sides of the Georgia conflict.

With the Russians effectively controlling Georgia's main naval base of Poti, Moscow also dispatched the Moskva missile cruiser and two smaller craft on "peacekeeping" duties at the port of Sukhumi on the coast of Abkhazia, the breakaway region that the Kremlin recognised as independent yesterday.

The Americans, wary of escalating an already fraught situation, cancelled the scheduled docking in Poti of the US Coast Guard vessel, the Dallas, and instead sent it to the southern Georgian-controlled port of Batumi, 200km (124 miles) from the Russian ships, where it delivered humanitarian aid.

"Let's hope we don't see any direct confrontation," said Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, as the Russians challenged the US policy of using military aircraft and ships to deliver relief supplies.

"The decision to deliver aid using Nato battleships is something that hardly can be explained," said Peskov. "It's not a common practice."

He said Russian naval forces were taking "some measures of precaution" around the Black Sea as the worsening dispute caused by Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia independence brought strong criticism from the key European countries most reluctant to sever relations with Russia.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, spoke to President Dmitri Medvedev today, the first western leader to talk to the Kremlin since Medvedev announced the recognition of the two secessionist regions of Georgia. She made it plain she had voiced her strong disapproval to the Russian leader.

"I made clear above all that I would have expected that we would talk about these questions in [international] organisations before unilateral recognition happened," she said. "There are several UN Security Council resolutions in which the territorial integrity of Georgia was stressed, which Russia also worked on."

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said Russia had broken international law and, along with other senior European officials, worried that Russia's decision to redraw Georgia's borders would encourage Moscow to act similarly with other former parts of the Soviet Union such as Ukraine.

"We cannot accept these violations of international law ... of a territory by the army of a neighboring country," he said.

Germany and France, who opposed the US and Britain in April in blocking Georgian negotiations to join Nato, have been the most reluctant to punish Russia for the Georgian conflict of the past three weeks and are desperate to try to revive the Russia-Georgia peace plan mediated by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, a fortnight ago.

Paris and Berlin agree the unilateral recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia left the peace plan ineffectual. A summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Monday is to ponder Europe's options.

With mounting warnings of western economic or trade sanctions against Russia, an EU official admitted that threats to block Russian membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) were meaningless. The push for Russian admission being driven not by Moscow but by western business interests keen to tap the large Russian market, he said.

Peskov warned that trade sanctions against Moscow would hurt the west as much as Russia.

He admitted that South Ossetia, a mountainous region of 70,000 people, would struggle to establish itself as an independent state, but stressed that Russia's constitution made it possible for Russia to expand.

"My country will extend the arm of cooperation and friendship to ease the transition period [for South Ossetia]," he said.

EU officials complained that Moscow was seeking to control the distribution of international relief. EU aid officials were demanding entry to the Russian controlled regions, but were being barred unless they handed over the aid to the Russian authorities for distribution.




http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/27/georgia.russia1

I doubt they did that when we saved their ass in WWII. It seems to me the US military has been first on the scene with aid more than once.

911

NATO/EU Enlargement and the Confrontation with Russia
Daniel Saarinen
Infowars

May 29, 2009 Russia has traditionally been a conservative power throughout its history. It has no natural geographical defenses on its frontiers, and the country stretches across eleven time zones. Russia has historically adapted to this vulnerability by acquiring buffer territories to provide even greater strategic depth for their defense. This vulnerability has led to numerous invasions by great powers in the past. The Tatars, Napoleon, Charles XII and Hitler all did their worst to the Russians. This history shapes the Russian soul to be defensive and paranoid about potential danger on its borders. Russia never experienced the Renaissance, Reformation and the Enlightenment. This has caused Russia to become more culturally distant from the West since the 17th century.

In the West, there was a growing dislike of the naked tyranny of the Czars since the Enlightenment, and even before. The totalitarianism of the East was viewed as a grave threat to the commercial empires of the West. When Russia is strong, it is a terrible enemy to face. This is why in the post-WWII era an entire defensive military alliance was created to face down the singular power of Moscow.

Another part of the conflict is the different sources of power that the antagonists draw upon. Russia controls the Central Asian Heartland, and is the predominant land power on the Earth. America and its European satellites are the predominant commercial sea powers of the Earth. This asymmetry leads both factions to take extreme measures to counter the predominant strength of the enemy. The amalgamated financial power of the banking elite in the West controls the commanding heights of the world economy. All nations on the periphery of this control system are beholden to it, and do not participate in the global economy on an equal basis. Russia knows this, and views the advance of the European economic bloc with fear. They are determined not to be brought into the New World Order of NATO and the EU as a subservient client state of the financial powers. After the South Ossetia war, the orders were given by the money masters to attack Russian markets as punishment for its victory in the Caucasus. The Moscow stock market was imploded on command. To counter this form of strength, Russia is investing in its traditional mode of foreign policy: pure force.

Globalism vs. Realism

The problem of perception is almost insurmountable. Russia interacts with the world on the basis of a sort of realism mixed with opportunism. They only seek objectives that they can guarantee with force. NATO and the EU are pursuing policies that only post-modern nihilistic powers would consider. The expansion of the blocs to countries that are not suitable members causes alarm and confusion in Russia, because it does not make any kind of strategic sense unless the goal is to surround and isolate Russia. The inclusion of the Visegrad Four (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) was reasonable, and made sense to the Russians and was not viewed as being too threatening. These states were traditionally western, and had not been part of the Russian sphere of influence except for during the Cold War.

The problem in the eyes of Russia is the expansion into old Bessarabia (Balkans and South-East Europe), and former Ottoman territories that have Slavic and orthodox peoples living there. Russia views itself as the guardian of Christendom and feels a paternal responsibility towards the Slavic Christians in this area and has traditionally held great influence there. Seeing these groups pulled into the Economic and Military blocs of the West has piqued the paranoid nerves of the Russian elite. This is not normal Realistic behavior on the part of NATO and the EU.

The problem for NATO and the EU is that for every action they take, threatening or not in their eyes, Russia responds with force and blackmail. They don't realize that this is just the product of the asymmetry that exists between the West and Russia. Russia cannot fight the West in terms of propaganda or economics, so all they can rely on is force and the resources they directly control in order to enforce their will. The inability to accept that Russia is motivated by nationalism is crippling the policy and planning of the NATO and EU bloc. It is not reasonable to expect to be able to build military bases right up to Russia's borders and have no response from them. All overtures that the western bloc makes to Russia are interpreted as attempts to ensnare them into the bottomless monetary pit of the Anglo-American Banking Empire.

The issue of deterrence has become the key to this confrontation. Russia has recognized the weakness being introduced into NATO by bringing in these tiny Eastern European states, and even more absurdly Georgia all the way in the Caucasus. The United States is not actually willing to fight Russia directly over these meager "allies", and Russia has been convinced of that for decades. The demonstration of punishing Georgia was to destroy the enthusiasm of the tiny Eastern NATO members to thumb their noses at Russia, and to get revenge for the theft of Kosovo from Serbia.

Mitigating Factors and Confidence Building Measures

NATO has included Russia as an observer in order to address some of the Russian fears about NATO expansion and out of area actions. The NATO-Russia Council was founded in 2002 and allows Russia to hear the discussions and to have their opinions immediately heard by the NATO members. The creation of this mechanism has decreased tension somewhat because there is less of a question about whether either side understands what the other is doing or what the other wants. This is a mitigating factor in the perception problem between the West and Russia. The importance of this should not be over played though. As time goes on Russia sees that even though they have a voice in the NATO structure and their opinions are known, they have no value.

Since the EU is an economic and political entity, communication with Russia is easier. There are Russian Ambassadors in all of the EU states. The EU and Russia entered into a Partnership and Co-operation Agreement in 1994 shortly after the creation of the EU. This agreement normalized economic policy between the EU and Russia and allowed for expanded trade and cooperation. In late 2008 the EU and Russia began new negotiations at a summit about a new agreement that is yet to take shape. Russia will act to exploit the cracks between EU economic needs, and the military demands of the trans-Atlantic alliance. This gap is closing, and to the Russians this is more evidence of hostile unified purpose.

Conclusions

NATO and the EU are on a collision course with Russia. This conflict is not about whether Russia is "good", or if there is "democracy" in Russia. This is about the grand schemes of the global banking elite that are using the United States and NATO as a weapon to enforce their program around the world. The actions of NATO and the EU are not within the bounds of realism, and invoke all sorts of fears in Russia. Some of these are justified and some are not. If the western blocs are not acting rationally in the context of history, the logical thing for the Russians to believe is that they are in danger. The real way for the West and Russia to de-escalate the burgeoning conflict is for the West to leave Central Asia and the Caucasus. Our presence there is unnatural, and very expensive to maintain. Returning to a rational spheres of influence system of international relations would give confidence and security to all the parties involved. The human energy of the great powers could then be devoted to progress and development rather than destruction and oligarchy.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/natoeu-enlargement...on-with-russia/