fahrenheit451:371

It's deja Vu all over again! as one footie commentator famously once said. It wasn't so long ago that Russia,Turkey and Iran had arrived at a realpolitik accommodation over the Syria imbroglio.

A workable modus vivendi that isolated the US and its militarily rapacious NATO satrapies from inflicting further chaos and carnage on an already near-cataclysmically volatile area.

It remains a matter of fact in international law that the Assad government ensconsed in Damascus is the internationally recognised legitimate government of Syria.The forces of Russia and Iran and its clients are assisting Assad to restore its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

All other countries and their armed forces (covert and otherwise ) on Syrian territory are in gross violation of all precepts norms and rules of International Law.They are de facto committing war crimes. That's the US and all its NATO allies even including Erdogan's Turkey who are on their own idiosyncratic mission from Allah.

Turkish armed forces blasting Syrian Arab Republic aircraft out of the skies over Idlib province in Syria is a war crime and wanton violation of one UN member state's territorial integrity by another UN member state,leaving said aggressor liable to punitive action by the UN Security Council and General Assembly.

Not that any of that's going to happen,with the Big NATO 3 on the security council.

Propped up by a plethora of World Bank ,IMF and EU ECB loans ,hobbled by impending national bankruptcy,massive structural unemployment ,the Turkish state is diving kamikaze headlong into an unimaginable maelstrom;

taking the rest of us with it. 

fahrenheit451:357

Yes indeed, things can go from bad to worse and from fraught situations to terribly fraught situations in the twinkling of an eye.

With just over a week to go of the General Election 2019 aka GE2019, NATO held their Leaders'summit in London,the occasion also marked the organisation's 70th. anniversary of coming into existence.

Supposedly predicated on the axiom of one for all and all for one,the truth is it hasn't been doing a terribly good job at even maintaining some sort of superficial yet agreeable pretence that the rule of law or some such ludicrous notion actually operates within NATO.

The US and Turkey's machiavellian machinations in the Syria imbroglio is the prime case in point.France's President Macron reiterated with the typical verbal elan oft ascribed to his countrymen,that NATO must be brain dead and that what Turkey was doing in Syria vis a vis the Kurds was not acceptable.
US President Trump on the contrary demurred in his customary,erm,style.
A tisket,a tasket NATO's heads all in a basket.Member betraying member by failing to appraise them of some strategic ledgerdemain?

Well how about NATO member Turkey invading and conquering the northern part of Cyprus in 1974?The UN member island state remains partitioned to this day.The British forces garrison at the time was made to look on in stunned disbelief and diplomatic abasement before the Turkish military's coup-de-main.

Moving forward in 1982 and when NATO member state Great Britain was attacked by Argentina of all countries,the organisation's Three Musketeers-esque cri-de-coeur was hastily ignored as everyone looked elsewhere hoping to avoid making diplomatic eye contact with the British.

The French,in revenge no doubt for the British sinking the French fleet at Mers el KIber in 1940, addressed the Argentinian aggression in the Falklands,by promptly supplying the Argies' airforce with the exocet missiles they needed to sink British ships.

And then in 1983,there were the Yanks storming into the tiny Caribbean island nation state of Grenada - a member of the British Commonwealth ,without informing beforehand the bemused Thatcher government in London at the time.

And so on and so forth.

Then there's NATO's ignominy in Yugoslavia and its various component republics,Iraq (twice),Afghanistan,Libya and Syria.But they call them successes and in any case the burgeoning 29 nation state member alliance has more more pressing matters to worry over at this moment,when Trump called Trudeau two-faced on the record.

Terrorism,Russia and the emerging threat of China are vying for top spot in NATO's contrived moral panic list.

In conclusion,with the wannabe great Ottoman Sultan Erdogan getting effective carte-blanche to do whatever in Syria,one can only conclude that by NATO's own historic criteria,rules and policies -NATO itself is a terrorist organisation.

fahrenheit451:230

A couple of days ago at RUSI aka the Royal United Services Institute, in a much trailed speech approved by Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson , Chief of the General Staff,General Sir Nick Carter stirred the proverbial international diplomatic merde.

General Sir Nick Carter controversially claimed that Russian hostility could come sooner than expected and the UK must prepare to "fight the war we might have to fight".

The bemedalled Carter further alleged that Russia was building an increasingly aggressive expeditionary force and the potential military threats to the UK "are now on Europe's doorstep".

Carter claimed that the Kremlin already boasted an "eye-watering quantity of capability" - a level the UK would struggle to match with regard to  what he said was Russia's new cyber warfare capabilities as well as Russian long-range missile strike capability, which he said was demonstrated in Syria when 26 missiles were deployed from a 1,500km (930 mile) range.

Carter stressed that Britain "must take notice of what is going on around us" or that the ability by the UK to take action will be "massively constrained".

According to the UK's senior military figure these alleged threats " will creep up on us, and our ability to act will be markedly constrained - and we'll be the losers of this competition," he surmised on the basis of no verifiable,tangible,empirical evidence whatsoever.

And as a complete non -sequitur the beribboned buffoon added that he did "not in any way" want to suggest that Russia would go to war in the traditional sense, but that Moscow "could initiate hostilities sooner than we expect".

"I don't think it will start with little green men, it will start with something we don't expect." he concluded. Leaving his audience none the wiser.

Except for the leading harridan of the metropolitan Labour led antidemocratic ,anti-brexit  Remoaner conspiracy. Mary Creagh MP for Wakefield who in the immediate aftermath of General Blatherchops' rhetorical discharge,posted a characteristically assertive piece prefaced with the following utterly fatuous,otiose cant ( with a link to The Times article on the speech itself ) on social media:- (Gleaned from MC's facebook page )

22 January at 14:35 ·

It only took the Russians 15 minutes to wipe out two Ukrainian battalions. Today the head of the army warned the Conservatives to reverse cuts and boost spending or British troops would suffer the same fate.

Call for the Nurse:she's forgotten to take her meds again!

fahrenheit451:213

On Friday 13,November 2015 this happened in Paris (  gleaned from Reuter's online ).

#WORLD NEWS

NOVEMBER 14, 2015 / 12:06 AM / 2 YEARS AGO

France in shock after Islamist attacks kill 129

Ingrid Melander, Marine Pennetier

 PARIS (Reuters) - French prosecutors said on Saturday that three coordinated teams of gunmen and suicide bombers carried out a wave of attacks across Paris that killed 129 people in what President Francois Hollande called an “act of war” by Islamic State.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two years on and ISIS/DAESH  inspired/instigated Islamic Terrorism still runs rampant across western europe.

 

Two years on and a BBC News investigation uncovers the previously secret deal between ISIS/DAESH and the US /NATO led  Syrian Democratic Forces.

An agreement allowing some 250 battle hardened islamic fanatics,their families and a 6 kilometers long truck convoy of weapons & sundry logistics to depart the city of Raqqa unmolested .

 

The day after the BBC News' journalistic coup is the news across MSM and social media platforms,what does tottering UK Prime Minister May choose to do?

That's right, launch an unbridled bellicose tirade against Russia and Putin's foreign policy.

 

Not the wisest, let alone most strategically savvy diplomatic thing any leader can do given the prevailing circumstances.

MI5 estimate, at least in public , that there are some 23,000 islamic extremists active within the UK of whom they consider 3,000 to pose an immediate threat.

 

And so Machiavelli May and her indolent,tawdry regime expend their energies to conspire with the other subservient satrapies of the Teutonic European Union in imposing,at the behest of their US masters, unlawful sanctions against named individual Russian citizens and organisations.

Supposedly in connection with Russia's actions regarding the existential crisis in the Crimea or some such peripheral matter of interest to the western kleptocracies.

 

In May's partially paralysed mind all the aforementioned is  of a far greater and more urgent priority than the on going imbroglio ( or should that be farrago ) that is Syria.

 

Where the US and its european NATO satrapies embeded their armed forces on Syrian sovereign territory to bolster and maintain the anti-government Syrian Democratic Forces in contravention to accepted International Law.

As in fact did NATO member Turkey; but their in-theatre confederates are in active competition with the SDF.

 

And both those US/NATO backed lumpen aggregations of armed rabble are vying with ISIS/DAESH as well as the legitimate sovereign government of Syria and its international allies.

 

The city of Raqqa utterly flattened by US/NATO air force bombing, was subsequently faux-liberated by the SDF and the western MSM cheered it to the rafters!

 

And now we know why the SDF managed to stroll relatively unmolested into what had served as the ISIS/DAESH capital.

 

It's also worth noting, as if any of this actually mattered,that the US insists that it is inside Syria in accordance with International Law.

 

Good luck with that!

 

fahrenheit451:198

The trouble with hornets' nests is that the more you kick them the angrier the hornets get and if you decide that the best option once you've agitated the hornets is to keep on kicking their nest even harder,well ..

The Barzani led Kurdish provincial regime in Iraq has held what they've  asserted to be a non-binding advisory referendum on the question of Kurdish secession.

This mendacious sectarian political manoeuvre has caused a great deal of apprehension in Iraq itself but also amongst neighbouring countries including,Turkey and Iran. Turkey in particular has endured a decades long  Kurdish PKK led campaign of terrorism against the Turkish state.

Were all that not enough, the Kurdistan Question/dynamic is enveloped inside and now inextricably bound up with a quasi-regional/global conflict surrounding  ISIS/DAESH and all of its implications and possible consequences.

It is worth reiterating that Russia ,Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah are assisting the legitimate,constitutional government of Syria at that government's request.

 The United States and its various NATO satrapies are in  gross violation of International Law by in effect invading Syria.

The anti-government ( largely Syrian-Kurd led ) SDF - heavily supplied and supported by the US - are in the throes of making a grab for Deir Ezzor city and province and are clashing with the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian allies amongst others.

 The recent targeted assassination in the field of Russian Lt.General Asapov and two of his Colonels has added yet another twist to an already volatile situation.

South Front  reported online:-

" Russia will not allow the United States as well as any other foreign power to limit an area of operations of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province, Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov announced on  29 September

Syromolotov added that the Russian military has informed the United States about the area of the SAA operation against ISIS and will not tolerate US attempts to slow down the liquidation of terrorists in Syria.

The diplomat emphasized that the situation when some power that operates in Syria without any legitimate right attempts to limit government forces efforts to liberate their country from the terrorism is nonsense.

He also described the US-led coalition’s air campaign as questionable saying that it has led to a full-scale humanitarian crisis in Raqqah city. "

Raqqah , the former ISIS/Daesh capital  is currently in the throes being  " liberated " by the SDF.

Clearly the best resolution lies with Russia ,Turkey and Iran relinquishing their petty antagonisms and isolating the US western imperialist block from all substantive future  undertakings to bring the conflict to a close.

POSTSCRIPT ( Added 30 September )

Lo,and behold the hornets' nest just got another kicking..

South Front reports -

The Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will declare an independence of Iraqi Kurdistan unilaterally, if the Iraqi Federal Government does not enter negotiations on the terms and condictions of this move, Vahal Ali, director of communications in the office of Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani said on September 29 https://southfront.org/iraqi-kurdistan-to-declare-independ…/

fahrenheit451:153

The difficulty the rest of us have with a proverbial " elephant in the room " - that is the thing that never gets mentioned for fear of causing embarrassment - is that the elephant,or rather elephants, need to be dealt with.  The neocon / liberal interventionist double headed hydra of US foreign policy is a deranged stampeding herd of elephants. Arising from the US/NATO engineered imbroglio of a series of interlocking overseas military,quasi-imperialist adventures involving Yugoslavia,Afghanistan,Iraq and Libya; Syria is just the latest quagmire that is threatening to suck everyone and everything else into its fathomless depths.  The once generally acknowledged norms of global realpolitik diplomacy have long since become obsolescent, which leaves very little scope for efforts short of all out war to manage areas of irreconcilable differences. In spite of everything,the Assad government remains the sole  sovereign legitimate representative of the Syrian peoples and state at the U.N. The various and diverse forces from Russia,Iran ,Hezbollah and Iraqi militias on its territory have been invited there as allies in the conflict against the enemies of Syria. All other foreign states and covert military advisers and operations units of foreign armed forces such as Turkey,the US,UK France and lesser NATO satrapies and Israel are breaking International Law and are acting illegally.It is they who jointly or separately are arming,financing,training,advising as well as giving tactical and strategic military battlefield logistical  and combat support to at different times in different geographic locations on the territory of Syria - ISIS,Al Qaeda and other non state terrorist insurgent combatant groups.

The United States' military issued this statement a few hours ago 

@CJTFOIR: pro-Syria government forces near At Tanf hit for "advancing well inside an established de-confliction zone"; Russia tried helping

fahrenheit451:141

Having manufactured and assiduously promoted the straw man of Russian electoral skulduggery, the Democrats and faux-progressives have been hoist by their own petard. We are now seeing an enhanced version of US foreign diplomacy which invariably begins and ends with toys being thrown out of their prams. The only noticeable difference this time is that there's a whole lot more crashing and banging accompanying the latest outburst of Washington neocons' customary hubris and immaturity. Having long ago sidelined the Constitution and ceded its war making powers to the Presidency, Congress is de facto complicit in everything every holder of the Office of President does and has ordered done since WW2. For decades now even the most genuine opponents of military intervention abroad have proven wholly impotent in the face of a determined President. This time around it happens to be Trump;a man whom the Democrats to a large degree and Republicans to a surprising degree smeared and denounced as somehow being in the thrall of Russia. A country whom Democrat and Republican politicians and commentators and mainstream media swear engaged in heretofore unimaginable and widespread electoral skulduggery in the US electoral process in order to ensure his-Trump's election! These very same forces now applaud and welcome Trump's actions in Yemen, Syria,Afghanistan and when it does all go tits up, in North Korea too. The supine, servile nature of NATO's response to all this merely underscores the organisation's peripheral auxilliary role as Washington's global lackey.

fahrenheit451:140

Did someone say something and would they mind repeating it so that we can all hear?

There's been some kind of a conclave of decrepit,corrupt and frankly historically obsolescent countries held in Tuscany a few days ago.They wagged their fingers and muttered their customary oaths, amazingly enough aimed at other countries that hadn't been invited to this Care in the Community Patients' Jamboree & Seance. 
The conclave had the rather catchy hashtag #G7 that appeals to the swathes of historically illiterate and vacuously trendy journalists-manque who swarm around great big important meetings like rabid hyenas around a carcass that's been out in the sun too long.
 Fortunately, or maybe just because the meds were administered in time to enough of the attendees, the #G7 Foreign Ministers decided not to risk further antagonising the hell out of Russia and all those who aren't implacably opposed to its existence and well being.
 This on the whole, despite fervently expressed opinions to the contrary by genuine neocon warmongers, was a pretty good outcome for all concerned. Such is the manner of the self-referencing cabal of western, industrialised democracies with the biggest GDPs,that a full Summit is scheduled for May 26/27 in Sicily.
 That's when the collective Heads of State get to wag their fingers and mutter oaths of one kind or another. No doubt Al Qaeda and DAESH and their Saudi/UAE/Turkey paymasters will be awaiting the outcome with their customary baited breath and meticulously observed reticence and commendable martial restraint. 
Just kidding,you know they won't and neither do the necromancers of Washington,London,Paris and Berlin.

fahrenheit451:096

A lot of people, especially the rabble of benchwarmers of all parties in the House of Commons chamber,have been getting rather upset these last few days about yet another issue they can do nothing about other than have a collective pseudo-moral hissy fit over.  To put the aforementioned's hissy fit in context; The US and its NATO satrapies have, one recalls this past quarter century, pretty much screwed things up royally in a whole host of formerly stable, sovereign nation states. Iraq,Yugoslavia, Afghanistan,Iraq a second time,Libya and Syria. I exclude the Ukraine from this inglorious litany for the simple reason that NATO hasn't actually bombed anyone or anything as yet in that particular theatre of operations. Back to Syria. Said H.o.C. benchwarmers in August 29.2013 REJECTED a government motion that Parliament authorise UK military intervention in Syria in response to the alleged use by the Syrian government of chemical weapons against civilians. Fast forward to December 2 2015 and this time said H.o.C. AUTHORISED UK military airstrikes in Syria directed exclusively against ISIS/DAESH. As the former Head of MI6 observed whilst appearing of BBC Radio4's " Today " program, you can't really fight against both sides at once in a conflict. He ought to have added especially in a three plus sided conflict at that. The much vaunted and lauded sanctioned airstrikes in 2015, with the involvement of 2 planes and no actual effective strikes have been just a waste of effort. All the planning and conspiratorial shenanigans of the EU and NATO in their various forums trying to cajole the myriad hornets' nests of " moderate " i.e. non-ISIS opposition forces in Syria including Al Qaeda to evolve into something that can be financed and supplied with weapons-that too hasn't really worked for the US and its grandiose designs on a post-Assad Syria. And so we come to the five years long siege of Aleppo. Only this time, the faux wrath and ire of the H.o.C. benchwarmers is directed at Russia because it has been lending military assistance to the constitutional government of Syria.  How odd it appears that in International Law, let alone accepted norms of global diplomacy and peacetime relationships between Sovereign states,that the parliamentary body of one state whose armed forces are operating in and across Syria openly and covertly WITHOUT the permission of Damascus, denounces the actions of another state who ARE operating  in Syria WITH the permission of Damascus. Odder still, that the legally legitimate actions of Russia in conjunction with Syria are deemed to constitute a war crime comparable with Nazi Germany's use of the Luftwaffe in Civil War Spain of the 1930's.  Such is the destitution of learning and paucity of historic fact checking within the House of Commons that they are ignorant of when the term War Crimes actually entered the lexicon. Germany's intervention in 1930's Spain was never characterised by contemporary sources as a " war crime ". Whilst at the time Britain and France observed a strict neutrality that included a refusal to render any assistance whatsoever to the besieged, legitimate Republican Spanish government. Foreign Secretary Johnson's wantonly provocative call for demonstrations in front of the Russian Embassy in London are the classic tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; as for Johnson himself, he is a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more..

Footnote:-

see also this blog #081 on 25 August 2016

fahrenheit451:081

NATO is when all's said and done, merely a convenient instrument by which the United States carries out its foreign policy objectives. These imperial policy goals are enacted through a flexible combination of of political sophistry, economic intimidation and military acts of aggression. Yugoslavia, Afghanistan,Iraq,Libya,Syria,Iran,Ukraine are amongst the most recent targets. Each " intervention " with or without any additional  legitimising UN authorisation, has brought about far wider and longer lasting  geopolitical ructions than perhaps even the most hawkish Washington neocon warmonger could possibly have contemplated. A direct Turkish military invasion of Syria was, most likely, not on the neocons list of what could possibly go wrong list when they set about engineering the destruction of what is now disparagingly in the West called , " The Assad Regime ". Likewise Russia being granted operational capabilities on Iranian airfields was another scenario Washington couldn't see coming. The emergence of ISIS/Daesh, the rise of ethnic Kurdish militias inside Syria. Flashpoint upon flashpoint until what the underlying neocon policy objectives were to begin with are now enmeshed in an ungovernable vortex. Despite all its proselytising Commentators and Experts intellectual /quasi-philosophical pretensions about " order " and predictability, the capitalist system is itself predicated on continuing chaos and greater or lesser degrees of innate instability. The Ruling Elites and their fervent, obedient acolytes of the political class believe as an article of faith, in the efficacy of " market forces ". Profit and loss. Thaumaturgy for the 21st,century.The neocon global military strategists and thinkers are there to formulate policies that are intended to reinforce the economic doctrines and practices of neoliberalism. Which in essence equate precisely with the defined policy objectives of the western industrialised liberal democracies under the hegemony of the  United States.  It's a good thing therefore that this depraved and dysfunctional nostalgia for a western dominated unipolar world is being successfully,albeit incrementally challenged by the likes of China; of whom it was widely reported the other week:-

China’s official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary that recent visit by Guan Youfei, the Chinese military official charged with overseeing international cooperation, signaled Beijing’s willingness to boost military cooperation with the Damascus government.

And I bet that wasn't on the US State Department's Top 10 list of what could possibly go wrong in Syria either.

fahrenheit451:075

As the ISIS/DAESH contagion has spread, so too has the deployment of NATO forces. And in the last few days, the number of official announcements as to the " success " of aircraft and " special forces " of various NATO member states has also increased. Libya and Iraq seem to be front and centre of Washington and its satrapies' current round of bellicose media pronouncements as to the much vaunted efficacy and impact of  US imperialism's aggression. Not Syria though, where the hydra-headed multiplicity of identities which are in effect Al-Qaeda in disguise, are maintaining their brand of psychotically deranged carnage against an encircled and besieged civilian population long since dissuaded of any romantic notions of  domestic political reform, let alone liberation from any such arrangements driven by moronic jihadi nihilists. Even the, newly awaiting-Brexit, lost sovereignty in remission, UK has managed to wade in with its two Tornado strike aircraft. Those self same two Tornadoes lionised by that idiotic, now former shadow foreign secretary Son of Benn, during his stupefyingly crass and verbose parliamentary petomainage that legitimised the UK's volte-face in assisting  the US to bomb Syria.  Ho-hum, such are the quotidian concerns of everyday Imperialism, the footpads to Global Corporate Capitalism's Ruling Elite Moriarty - the Napoleon of Crime.

fahenheit451:074

There is something sinister afoot across the eastern half of the continent. Countries such as Estonia, Croatia,Latvia and the Ukraine have held official ceremonies and public celebrations in connection with the rehabilitation of individuals and groups who had until recently been condemned by post WW2 History as Nazi collaborators or outright Nazis in their own right. The most recent such incident being quoted by B.92,Belgrade :-

Croatian cabinet minister praises Ustasha terrorist

The unveiling of a monument honoring Croatian Ustasha terrorist Miro Baresic has been attended by two Croatian ministers, the N1 broadcaster has reported.

SOURCE: BETA MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2016 | 13:16

Croatia’s ’40’s nostalgia mania seems to be in overdrive, as their Highest Court also recently annulled a 1946 war crimes verdict handed down by Tito’s Yugoslavia against the Croatian Cardinal Stepanic. Estonia and Latvia have both held high profile reunions and demonstrations  honouring the members of their respective nations’ Waffen S.S. Divisions and the contribution they claim to have made in Europe’s war against Bolshevism. As for the Ukraine, the deluded fantasist imbeciles catapulted into power in the EU/NATO instigated coup have also binged on revisionist nostalgia that have recast the fascist mass murderer and terrorist chieftain Bandera as some kind of national liberation hero. All of this hive of activity is deadly serious, perhaps more serious than the western liberal warmongers would care to imagine. If the  definitive regional / global tipping point for all out war hasn’t been reached yet, then clearly it will be reached very soon because this US neocon bellicose strategic nonsense has no other end point other than conflict with Russia and not soon thereafter with China over in the Pacific. The intertwined EU and NATO, with Berlin on its own revisionist helter skelter toward an abyss it wishes that we all eventually jump into, is a mightily daunting prospect. Brexit and a growing, exponential series of ructions against the EU hegemonic project are perhaps the only brakes we have that might slow down this apocalyptic adventurism at present.

fahrenheit451:071

A week or so ago, members of the Turkish armed forces attempted to stage a coup d’etat against their country’s democratically elected government.Their attempt ended in failure and ignominy.The Coup’s plotters, instigators and participants will be severely punished. President Erdogan wasted very little time in declaring a State of Emergency and commencing a rigorous purge, not only of the military but also the civil service and higher education establishment. Quite why the western corporate media might find any of this distasteful or inopportune or somehow morally repulsive, is more to do with Western governments’ fatuous posturing rather than the necessary demands of power and realpolitik. It was the Russian intelligence services that tipped Erdogan off about the imminent actions of the plotters. That in itself has a certain irony about it, given that Turkey is NATO’s regional bulwark and supposedly a partner of for instance the US,UK etc in matters of security and intelligence. All to the good for Russia and its position and standing. A European Union heading inexorably toward existential oblivion has just had its progress toward that most hoped for of goals considerably speeded up by Britain voting for Brexit. A weakened EU = a weakened NATO. In the USA, civil society has, again gone through a series of convulsions surrounding the legitimacy of Police violence perceived to be disproportionately directed at its Afro-American populace.A weakened US= a weakened NATO. A weakened NATO = a weakened US. The failed coup in Turkey is , to borrow from Orwell’s ” 1984 “, Doubleplusgood! as it affects the continuing shennanigans over Daesh in Syria and Iraq, themselves the engineered creations of the neocon warmongers of the US State Department,the NATO military and its regional satrapies; they as a whole are also immeasurably weakened.

fahrenheit451:069

The Petainists of #LabourInForBritain  who played such  a pivotal and decisive role in the  #VoteRemain Goebbelsian campaign to keep the UK in perpetual feudal servitude to the European Union, are at present engaged in a series of co-ordinated ploys that constitute a brazen attempt to annul the result of the EU referendum. Central to their attempts is a petition supposedly signed by over 4 million actual citizens and registered voters within the UK that calls on parliament to in effect ignore the result of the EU referendum. They shall of course fail, again. Brexit is real and it is going ahead. The European Union is on the high road to the abyss. Take for instance,the EU's utterly insane drive to become an empire with requisite diplomatic reach and geopolitical ambitions. This gleaned Thursday 14 July,  from the Serbian B.92 news platform:-

McAllister, the German MEP from the CDU party, who is currently visiting Belgrade where he late on Wednesday met with PM-designate Aleksandar Vucic, further stressed that the task of Serbia was to align its security and foreign policy with that of the EU "also when it comes to Russia."
Ahead of a conference in Belgrade, dubbed, "The European Union’s Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy and the Western Balkans," McAllister told the website,

"Serbia has traditionally strong economic, social and cultural ties with Russia. However, Russia unilaterally changes European borders in order to try to expand its influence and expand its control over parts of territories of neighboring countries. This is one of the reasons, why Serbia needs to make strong efforts in aligning its foreign and security policy to that of the EU, including the policy on Russia,"

It seems as though Germany is still unhappy with the outcome of WW1 and is campaiging for a re-run. Quite how they're going to finagle the other 26 member states of the increasingly bankrupt and dysfunctional hybrid imperium to foot the bill for all this putative adventurism and Russia-baiting, is of course something that they would collectively need to consider before cozening poor battered Serbia into becoming the EU's and NATO's tethered goat.

fahrenheit451:067

Well, at least it breaks the monotony. News of the UK's  troop deployment ( as part of a wider NATO strategy to foment a military conflict with Russia ) to the turnip fields of two of the EU's aggressive beggar satrapies of Poland and Estonia really does define what genuine incredulity feels like. The BBC trumpets, a la classic Vaudeville  Petomaine the following, in easy to grasp bullet points in case you're too thick to comprehend a longer narrative form.

Hundreds of UK troops are to be sent to Poland and Estonia as part of the Nato response to concerns over Russia.

A 500-strong battalion will be deployed to Estonia and 150 troops will be based in Poland to "reassure" these countries, the defence secretary said.

Michael Fallon said it aims to "deter Russia from any further aggression".

Eastern Nato countries "feel enormous pressure from Russia doing large exercises on the border, flying over their airspace and so on," he said.

"This [the deployment] is something Nato's been planning for a while, that countries like Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have made clear that they want.

The units - led by the UK, the US, Germany and Canada - are due to be in place in early 2017.

UK armed forces are already deployed in more than 80 countries across the world in a range of roles, including 450 soldiers in Afghanistan and more than 275 military training personnel in Iraq.

*Mr Cameron, who is due to announce the deployment at a Nato summit in Warsaw later, said: "This summit is a chance for us to reiterate our strong support for Ukraine and our other eastern allies to deter Russian aggression.

"Actions speak louder than words and the UK is proud to be taking the lead role, deploying troops across Eastern Europe.

"It is yet another example of the UK leading in Nato."...here endeth the pious sermon.

*Cameron you might recall is the same Cameron whom my blog,historically caricatured as The Chief Toilet Attendant of The Greater European Union's Northwest maritime province of Yu-Kay. And we all know how that ended. So, la Grand Petomaine's  record is already 0-1 and falling.

BBC Radio 4's flagship  Today programme on July 8 even featured a rather long and laborious p.r. exercise by epicly challenged bipolar Foreign Secretary Hammond,who as is customary spouted an immense load of idiosyncratic verbiage that contained repeated phrases about  Bwitain's leading role in NATO.No-one  whilst he was on air at the Beeb had the perspicacity to administer him his meds,which may have mitigated the listener's suffering and to a lesser extent any fleeting compassion for Hammond's endemic stupidity.

Deliberately under-resourced,shabbily treated,badly commanded, idiotically led by ex-public schoolboy buffoons a la 14-18, the British Military are currently 0-2 with their performance record in actually doing anything worthwhile whatsoever. Mowing down unarmed Irish civilians is no longer in their training manuals.Alas, since they were getting quite proficient at it at one stage.

My views on NATO match precisely my vindicated by History view on the european union; I utterly hate, loathe and despise everything it does and everything it stands for. Not only is the eu dead and buried, NATO isn't far behind.The grave beckons. As an arm of US Global Imperialism it is, NATO once again finds itself in the somewhat ironic position of being wholly impotent and redundant as a hydra-headed armed insurgency is again raging across  urban population centres of The Beast itself.

schaden...freude!!!!

fahrenheit451:050

" We were able to instantly respond to this act of Russian aggression - demonstration of our commitment to NATO’s collective defence. "

The UK Government,it seems is severely handicapped by the preponderance of Ministries run and staffed by mentally retarded imbeciles. It really must feel terribly frustrating at times to be called out as the merest,kow-towing,subservient lackey of US Imperialism. British Defence Secretary Fallon is a true ideological catamite of Washington's bloodthirsty,bellicose NeoCon establishment; the archetypal step 'n' fetchit for the USA's gang of hired hoodlums that is NATO. If the world is somehow fated to repeat History ,first as a tragedy then as a farce; then it is at this juncture somewhat of a moot point if the world is doubling up on the tragedy aspect,albeit farcically.

Royal Air Force Typhoons intercept Russian aircraft near Baltics

 

From:

Ministry of Defence and The Rt Hon Michael Fallon MP

First published:

12 May 2016

Part of:

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets have carried out their first intercept of Russian aircraft in this round of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission (BAP).

RAF Typhoon and Russian Cub. Crown Copyright.

The jets, which deployed to the region less than three weeks ago, were scrambled from Amari air base in Estonia, to intercept three Russian aircraft approaching the Baltic states. The military transport aircraft identified as AN-26 ‘Curl, AN-12 ‘Cub’ and IL-76 ‘Candid’ were intercepted as they were not transmitting a recognised identification code and were unresponsive.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:

This is another example of just how important the UK’s contribution to the Baltic Air Policing Mission is. We were able to instantly respond to this act of Russian aggression - demonstration of our commitment to NATO’s collective defence.

................................................................................................................

Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria,Georgia, The Ukraine, Somalia. Got the picture, yet ? Washington's Potentates have been winding themselves up over Russia for a mighty long time now and with each subsequent failure of theirs to land some kind of telling,knock-out blow whether via unlawful international  " Sanctions " or series of Black Ops.via third country financed campaigns of civil  destabilisation coupled with armed insurgency/terrorism -the US and its compliant NATO-EU Satrapies become inexorably ever more deranged and psychotic in their collective behaviours in the International arena of World Affairs and manifestly endanger otherwise normal relations between Sovereign Nation States. The outcome of which is inevitably War.

fahrenheit451:048

Another 45 days to go to Referendum Day on June 23,and by the looks of things they'll have all run out of hyperbole long before we get anywhere near that singularly significant date. We don't normally, as a supposedly supine and compliant sovereign electorate, get this much Sturm und Drang during General Elections. The recent Scottish Independence Referendum however did and for the most part it was a welcome heating up of the usual permafrost of indolence and indifference that have been the dominant characteristics of political discourse in the UK as a whole for generations now. Quite a lot of of otherwise utterly superfluous parliamentary expenses-swindling party appartchiks are genuinely getting worked up about something,but quite what that something is remains a source itself of intense speculation and forensic scrutiny. For example, for Mary Creagh MP for T'Wakefield , ( yes the Blessed Mary of the Now once again Resurgent Majority ) it's all down to cheaper calls on the mobile.For others it's the bonds of eternal friendship with the crypto-fascist gangster regimes of Croatia,Romania and Bulgaria or the legions of unemployed alcoholics from the bankrupt former Soviet Baltic states that are so necessary to the UK recruitment industry in order to drive down wages. And now,according to Yu-Kay ,Lavatory-Attendant-in-Chief Dave Cameron it's all about preventing worldwide war and catastrophe. War, especially in the vicinity of even this supine,euro-compliant,Strasbourg's Rent Boy nation is according to Dave and his chums in the Intelligence & Security Services potentially not a good thing.

And should it ever come it,when the plucky grandsons of the Hurricane and Spitfire heroes have to go and target yet more strategic hospitals and TV studios across the Oder, then concomitantly there would be a vast amount of potential fifth-columnists that would need accommodating in detention camps.At least that's what used to happen when things went fizz,bang,pop on the other side of the Channel. But perhaps not this time because Dave clearly implied that it is the stabilising influence of the EU that is in fact preventing such a lively scenario from ever being played out again. I think he's pointing the finger at Russia don't you ? And on May 9th. Victory Day. The last time My Nation and My People finally sorted out the mess others had encouraged,started and had aimed it all at Russia. Still, June 23 Liberation Day looms a little closer.

fahrenheit451:042

So, anyway we're now into a fully fledged-motoring toward an existential abyss -Plebiscite on the question of our once Sovereign Nation's continuing subservience and deeper incorporation into the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation under the aegis of Empress Angela.

Or at least it would seem so from the requisite prominence being accorded this most vital of concerns throughout the mainstream and not so mainstream Media. But,hang on a mo' what's this being sneaked past our ever vigilant parliamentary watchmen,those heroes of Labour ?

The Daily ProperToryGraph  reports :-

18 APRIL 2016 • 10:00PM

 " Britain is prepared to send troops to Libya to bolster the country against Islamic State without asking for Parliament’s permission, the Foreign Secretary has said.

Philip Hammond said MPs need not be given a vote, as they were for air strikes in Iraq and Syria, because British troops would be deployed on a training rather than combat mission.

The Foreign Secretary spoke as the Government rejected Labour calls for a legal guarantee that MPs could veto sending troops to war in future.

Enshrining in law the current agreement that MPs vote on sending troops to fight would tie the hands of a future Government and limit options in a crisis, the Defence Secretary said.

Defence chiefs are considering offering as many as 1,000 troops as part of an international effort to train the police and army of the fledgling Tripoli government.  "

So,where's Shadow Foreign Secretary Benn's impassioned,hyperbolic,quasi-moralistic outrage when you need some ? After all ,during the "Can We Bomb parts of Syria,please "debate , he managed to invoke the entire,largely bogus mythology surrounding the events in Spain 1936-39 with such aplomb that many a grown politician,ekeing out a pitiful existence on parliamentary expenses,were reduced to weeping aloud and gnashing their privately maintained teeth and some,those on the proper Left may even had cause to rend their garments.

But not this time,a diplomatic " piss off " is all that our sojourners on the benches of Westminster are getting by way of reasoned argument sans actual debate in the hallowed Chamber. The Chamber of the Commons which has seen many an eloquent rhetorical defence of,the continuation of slavery,arrest and imprisonment and execution of various opposition leaders and people who the majority wanted rid of, ( circa 1630-49 ).

And so it goes,bomb a country,destroy a country,lament the ensuing chaos,look aghast at all the people who flee the chaos and then cobble together something anything with a lot of heavily armed gangsters who are only in it for the money and the power. And of course there are also the diverse Libyan factions to deal with as well.

Postscript :-

Oh and don't forget to comply and endorse in a personal and meaningful way your own desire that the place you were born and brought up in remains a peripheral maritime province of the Imperial Tyranny.Who ,quite honestly couldn't care less one way or t'other.Unless,of course you happen to be someone who shares the intellectual rigour and comprehensive worldview of someone like, Mary Creagh MP.

fahrenheit451:022

Politics, or rather what passes for supposedly serious, philosophical political discourse these days is simply meretricious rubbish.And nothing exemplifies this seemingly endemic condition more than Labour’s position on the question of leaving the European Union. Labour List, whose various dim-witted spokesbots are churning out the most contentious,vacuous twaddle dressed up as serious class politics since Keir Hardie found his way to the lectern,are the prime movers in trying to persuade the Electorate into remaining stranded in the swamp of Europsychosis and ignorance. In coalition with mainstream Tories,Liberal Democrats,the SNP and other duplicitous Petainist charlatans , the likes of Mary Creagh MP for Wakefield count out for the rest of us ,one by tedious one, all the apparent blessings bestowed upon the British Electorate by EU Kommissars over the decades. And it comes down to these,as to why the generally supine,conformist,unimaginative voter ought to consider assenting to our continued national enslavement and eternal captivity within the EU Gulag.  ” These ”  being the blessings bestowed upon us by EU membership alone and otherwise impossible :- The outlawing of incandescent lightbulbs; environmentally cleaner beaches and a whole raft of pro-employee/worker legislation on hours and holiday pay. Oh,and the UK gets a say as to when and how the EU Satrapies’ collective within NATO get to provoke a nuclear armageddon with Russia. Mary Creagh’s best arguments for staying in our cells. Quick ,call the Nurse !!

fahrenheit451:017

When US Imperialism through its NATO Satrapies set about destroying the sovereign democratic state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ,few would have ventured the thought that this belligerent enterprise would become the template of broadly similar projects to be initiated against other sovereign states to whom the US and its coterie of compliant satrapies had voiced their hostility.  Afghanistan ,Iraq, Libya,Ukraine and Syria followed in short order as the Spirit of an mendacious, militant, militarist triumphalism swept through the Western Ruling elites and their governments.They and they alone became the architects ,engineers,financiers  and " builders " of terrorist states and their prodigy. The xenophobic Greater Albanian nationalist terrorist organisation UCKA /KLA attained its  apogee when a peripheral  region of the brutally dismembered FRY was parlayed into a zombie-like quasi-legitimate existence as the State of Kosovo.  The West's ,and in particular the neocons of Washington, psychotic preoccupation with dismantling and reordering the world according to Adam Smith and the precepts and imperatives of global Usurer-Capitalism truly acknowledge no bounds.

Of course,as with all Imperialist warmongers their seemingly unstoppable success contains within it the very seeds of their own and their megalomanic projects' ultimate failure and destruction. it just doesn't appear so to the rest of us here on Planet earth. Syria bleeds,millions are displaced,carnage and chaos motivate entire populations to head for perceived collective safety. Whilst Russia,China,India and vast swathes of Latin American,African and Asian political actors seek to maintain and develop rational and mutually beneficial norms of trade,diplomacy and co-operation ,the US ,UK ,France ,Germany,Turkey and their deluded underlings across the arabian gulf are turning every peaceful scenario into  apocalyptic charnel houses indistinguishable from the wars of conquest from the Middle Ages.

I've gleaned and appended an extract from US/EUNATO 's Chatham House think tank ,one of the most highly regarded intellectual-propaganda bastions of global Usurer-Capitalist Enslavement.

This is what venal amorality smell like.It makes the Nazis 1942 Wannsee conference look pretty small beer.

Category of paper: Discussion Group Summary
Kosovo: International
Law and Recognition
A Summary of the Chatham House International Law Discussion Group
meeting held on 22 April 2008.

Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to government
or to any political body. It does not hold opinions of its own; the views
expressed in this text are the responsibility of the speakers. This
document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the
speakers and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the
date of the event.

The meeting was chaired by Elizabeth Wilmshurst. Participants included legal
practitioners, academics, NGOs, and government representatives.
Speakers:
• Alice Lacourt, legal adviser, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Ralph Wilde, Reader and Vice Dean for Research, UCL

The discussion following the presentations was held under the Chatham
House Rule. The event was sponsored by Clifford Chance.
Background
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. As David
Miliband noted in his Written Ministerial Statement of 19 February 2008, the declaration proclaims Kosovo as a democratic, secular and multi-ethnic republic and states that its leaders will promote the rights and participation of all communities in Kosovo. The Declaration also contains a unilateral undertaking to implement in full the obligations contained in the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement (the Ahtisaari Plan) made by Martti Ahtisaari, UN Special Envoy for Kosovo, in February 2007, including its extensive minority safeguards. In the declaration Kosovo invited and welcomed an international civilian presence to supervise implementation of the Comprehensive Proposal, an EU rule of law and police mission and a continuation of NATO’s Kosovo Force. The declaration was adopted unanimously by the members of the Kosovo Assembly that were present.
Thirty-nine States have now recognised Kosovo as a State. The United
Kingdom, United States, Turkey and France recognised Kosovo on 18
February 2008, the day after its declaration of independence. Since then
many States have followed suit. As at the date of the meeting two-thirds of the members of the European Union had recognised Kosovo i.e. eighteen member States. In addition, Kosovo has been recognised by all the G7 states, seven Security Council members and more than half of the Council of Europe and OSCE States. Some significant States have, however, not recognised Kosovo. From amongst the members of the European Union Cyprus, Spain, Romania, Slovakia and Greece have not recognised Kosovo .."