US Sanctions Symptomatic of a Failing Empire

Posted on August 25, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By James ONeill
Source: New Eastern Outlook

On 26 July 2017 the US Congress overwhelmingly approved a Bill providing for fresh sanctions against North Korea, Russia and Iran. The passage of this Bill , and its level of support in the US Congress, is instructive on a number of levels.

The first point is that the US, or more accurately factions within the US establishment, are prepared to pursue policies irrespective of the lack of an evidential foundation; run counter to the interests of its supposed friends and allies, and completely lacks any knowledge of or reference to historical realities. The net result of the latest sanctions is to create a singularly dangerous situation that could very easily lead to a nuclear war. Contrary to the bizarre beliefs of some US policy makers, there would be no winners in such an outcome.

These points may be illustrated by reference to the sanctions applied to Iran. For years, the rhetoric from the US and its close ally Israel was that Iran was on “the verge of developing a nuclear bomb”. For more than a decade, the Israel government was saying that Iran was “only months away” from such a development. That the deadlines came and went without incident did not deter the repetition of what were manifest falsehoods.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared before the UN General Assembly brandishing a cartoon depiction of the alleged “imminent threat”. The western media largely omitted to mention the fact that it was Israel that was the Middle East’s sole nuclear power; that Israel was not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and that it was Israel that consistently refused to allow inspections by the IAEA of its nuclear facilities.

Not only was there no evidence that Iran had or wished to develop a nuclear weapons capability, it was the unanimous view of all 17 US intelligence agencies on two separate occasions that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapons program.

To head off the prospect of the constant anti-Iran propaganda escalating to an attack by the US and its allies upon Iran, the Russian government was instrumental in achieving an agreement in 2015 that prevented an alleged non-existent nuclear weapons program becoming a justification for war. The recent historical example of Iraq was illustrative of how constant demonization, undermining by sanctions, and overblown false allegations of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction could quickly lead to the utter devastation of a previously prosperous nation.

The lessons that should have been learned from Iraq, Libya and Syria are determinedly ignored by the western media that is currently beating the drums of war over North Korea, again ignoring history, logic and military realities.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated in 2015 and agreed by the participating parties, including the United States, provided an instrument through which it became virtually impossible for Iran to become a nuclear-armed power. The mechanisms for ensuring compliance included regular IAEA inspections, and six-monthly reports certifying Iran’s compliance. Those reports went to the US Congress.

For the Americans and their allies however, it was not enough. Although the JCPOA deprived them of an immediate casus belli for war, the anti-Iran rhetoric continued non-stop. One example of the false propaganda was the constant claim that Iran was a supporter of Shia groups, intent on fostering terrorism and destabilization across the Middle East and elsewhere.

This allegation bore no resemblance to the facts. The US Carnegie Foundation, for example, in a report entitled “Iran’s Small Hand in Yemen” criticized the depiction of Iran as supporting “Shia rebels” against the forces supporting the deposed President Hadi. The reality is that Hadi was a dictator, elected in an election where he was the only candidate, and whom popular opposition forced him to flee to Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis, who are the main opposition to Hadi, are Zaidi Muslims, much closer theologically to the Sunni branch of Islam than they are to predominantly Shia Iran. The brutal war currently being waged on Yemen is led by Sunni Saudi
Arabia, supported by the UK, US and a heavy involvement of mercenaries, including Australians, about which the Australian government is silent. The reality has more to do with Yemen’s strategic location overlooking the narrow outlet from the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea and its massive oil reserves coveted by the Saudis than it does with any alleged Iranian support. Djibouti, across the strait from Yemen, has similarly attracted US and Chinese strategic involvement, without as yet being ravaged by war.

Iran also offers political and moral support for Hamas in Palestine, Muslims in Kashmir and the Rohingya in Myanmar, all of whom are overwhelmingly Sunni. The feature they all have in common is that they are repressed and subject to genocidal policies by other political and religious groupings.

The Trump administration is demonstrating the truth of President Putin’s observation about the previous Obama administration, that they “are not agreement capable.”

Trump told the Wall Street Journal “if it was up to me I would have found (the Iranians) non-compliant 180 days ago” (when he was sworn in). According to an article in the US Journal Foreign Policy Trump threw a tantrum in the Oval Office and berated his three senior foreign policy advisers (Tillerson, Mattis and McMaster) for not having found a way to claim that Iran was in breach of the provisions of the JCPOA. The New York Times ran a similar story.

In fact it is the United States that is in violation of the JCPOA, both the letter and the spirit of the agreement, and also of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) that approved the agreement. Article 29 of the JCPOA commits the US to refrain from any policy intended to affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.

The latest round of sanctions, and the bellicose rhetoric accompanying them are manifestly not in compliance with Article 29.

Among the many falsehoods asserted against Iran is the claim that Iran’s missile tests are a violation of the JCPOA. There is nothing in the agreement that inhibits Iran from developing a self-defence capability, including the use of anti-aircraft and anti-missile technology. That is also a right enshrined in the UN Charter.

Iran took delivery of the Russian made S300 anti-missile system in 2016, also in pursuance of its right to self-defence. Given the bellicose threats made against Iran on an almost constant basis; the two recent incidents of “warning shots” being fired at Iranian vessels by US Navy ships operating close to Iran’s territorial waters; and the recent history of American actions in Iran’s neighborhood, self defence measures are at the very least a prudent course of action.

Iran’s compliance with the terms of the JCPOA has enabled action in another area arguably more important than military self-defence measures. Rapid progress has been made by Iran in strengthening its economic ties to China, India and Russia. Memoranda of Understanding worth $40 billion have been signed with Russia or Russian companies. The Russian company Gazprom has signed a multi-billion dollar deal to develop Iran’s Farzad B gas field. Gazprom is also helping to develop the Azar and Ghanguleh oil fields in Lurestan province where there is an estimated 3.5 billion barrels of oil reserves.

Iran similarly has $7 trillion in natural gas reserves. The $200 billion needed to develop those reserves will come from Russia, China and other non-western sources. Iran has announced that it will give preference in infrastructure and other development deals to those nations who were supportive through the years of sanctions and other forms of warfare.

China, that is currently building a high-speed rail link between Mashad and Tehran (to link with other Central Asian lines) sees Iran as a key player in its massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that is transforming the Eurasian economic and geopolitical landscape.

Iran is similarly a key player in the North South Transportation Corridor that links India via Iran and Azerbaijan with Russia, transporting goods at a fraction of the cost and time of existing conventional routes that are vulnerable to US Navy interference.

Also of major significance is Iran’s associate membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, with full membership highly likely in 2018. The SCO is a central component of the BRI with ever growing trade and security links with the Russian initiated Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Russia is the common denominator of BRICS, the SCO, the EEU, the SCO and the NSTC. The countries in these four groups, as well as other nations (now more than 60) who have joined the BRI, are increasingly trading in other than dollar denominated arrangements. The days of the US dollar’s dominance are clearly numbered.

It is this combination of major economic and geopolitical shifts in the balance of power away from US dominance that has prevailed for the past seven decades that is the key to understanding why the Americans are reacting in the desperate, dangerous and irrational manner that they are. It is the classic end of empire syndrome. One hopes that the adults in the room will constrain the US from traveling further down a path that could spell the end of humanity.

Non-Alignment and Dissent to Challenge US-Russia-China’s New World Order

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Gilbert Mercier

(News Junkie Post)

In groups of people there are always bullies who feel entitled, for no particular reason, to want more than the rest and to dominate the others in complete disregard of the common good. Fortunately for convivial people, bullies tend to have the psychological subtlety of dominant male gorillas who beat loudly on their chests and fight over food and females. Therefore bullies often annihilate each other. The more serious social problems occur when they collaborate to gang up on others. A primal impulse to dominate is the motivation for the insatiable quest for wealth and power, and it is a curse of the human condition. Altruism and the common global good are not why big world powers like the United States, Russia and China try to impose their rule on smaller countries; raw geopolitical dominance is the reason, and this is similar to the British, French and Spanish imperial-colonial era when countries were arbitrarily determined on maps drawn in London, Paris or Madrid. Our challenge is to break away, as countries and individuals, from the cynical and degrading notion, “to the victor belongs the spoils,” which seems to govern most behaviors. Our esteemed colleague Dady Chery initiated this important discussion in her essay, “Other People’s Countries.” To extract ourselves from the despair of corporate neocolonialism, courtesy of what looks like a new grand-bargaining era between the US, Russia and China, where other nations’ resources are assigned to spheres of influences, a two-fold solution should be considered: first, revamp the nonaligned movement (NAM); second, mount a concerted and systematic dissent, and ultimately a worldwide rebellion, against the global ruling elite apparatus.

Nonaligned movement redux

The nonaligned movement has to be understood in the context of the cold war. Even though most leaders of its founding nations were Marxists or neo-Marxists, the movement was clearly an effort to curtail the influence of the Soviet Union. The NAM officially started in Belgrade in 1961. It was founded by Tito, Nasser, Nehru, Sukarno, and Nkrumah, then the respective leaders of Yugoslavia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Ghana. The intention was for those countries, in joining forces with each other, to distance themselves from the spheres of influence of both the US and USSR. The nonaligned doctrine was probably best defined by a champion of the movement, Fidel Castro, who said that the organization’s goal was to guarantee “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great powers.”

The NAM still exists and includes 120 members, but it has largely lost its impact and forgotten its core ideology of presenting a united front against the dominant economic powers or permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). One can easily argue that the creation of BRICS, which includes the superpowers Russia and China, in addition to Brazil, India and South Africa, has helped to undermine the NAM. The reality that all NAM nations should consider from the recent events in Syria and North Korea, is that a triumvirate deal was apparently reached despite some unconvincing rhetoric of outrage, and that Russia and China, respectively, can throw their allies unceremoniously under the proverbial bus. One can easily speculate that Iran and Venezuela, both targets for regime-change by Washington, have learned their lesson and seriously doubt that Moscow and Beijing would valiantly rescue them from US attack.

US-Russia-China: corporate imperialism’s new world order

The Alternative Right in the West fancies itself as being nationalist and therefore anti-globalist. Its discourse is so sketchy and inarticulate, however, that it fails to acknowledge that one cannot be anti-globalist without also being anti-capitalist. Capitalism, and especially supra-national capitalism, is a problem that the AltRight movement seems unable to identify. In the ideological fog of the nationalist right, globalism is wrongly identified as being a leftist notion. After a succession of meaningless palace intrigues, the incidental tenant of the White House has become an empty suit tailored from the flag of corporate imperialism. Gone are the vague populist promises of less US interventionism. A father-figure to represent the common man, a mad-dog general, and an oil-man diplomat have been given carte blanche by the military-industrial complex.

What deals were made with Russia to greenlight the April 7, 2017 US missile strike in Syria? Could it have been: if you promise to lift the economic sanctions, we’ll let you bomb Bashar al-Assad to boost Trump in the polls and, to sweeten the deal, Exxon will get favored treatment in Russian oil-extraction ventures. The US no longer philosophically clashes with China and Russia. Despite their communist heritage, the latter have more or less scrapped any remotely Marxist principle from their governing ideology. Just like in the West, Russia and China have their class of oligarchs. As long as all the world’s elite agree on how to carve the global pie, there’s no reason to fight. In recent weeks, the number of inquiries about World War III have skyrocketed on search engines worldwide. Is the fear justified or is this a psychological operation to force people into despair and submission? Would China retaliate against the US, Japan and South Korea if the US would break the taboo of using a nuclear bomb against China’s ally North Korea, or would Russia risk World War III in case of a joint attack against Iran by the US and Israel? Probably not.

The virtue of dissent and rebellion

Superpowers tend to call independent nations “rogue.” This is the spirit of nonalignment. Once in a while, a small nation like Cuba or Vietnam dares to give an imperialist geopolitical bully like Spain, the US, Japan, or France a bloody nose. Bullies fear even the slightest resistance. The little guy does have a chance, against all odds. Oppression can be overcome. The fear of war, and continuously fabricated threat of terrorism in everybody’s daily life, is a good way for government to get a society to accept policing and militarization, and continue to feed the voracious beast that is the global military-industrial complex. The state and corporate controlled media’s various flavors of propaganda serve only to induce passivity and the acceptance of a brutal world order. These can only be overcome with dissent, global rebellion and the refusal to become shadows of what we once were; the refusal to become humans without basic decency, self respect and love for our neighbors; the refusal to become humans without quality; the refusal to settle for survival in a cannibalistic world order.

Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire. Photograph one by Thomas Ricker; photograph two from the archive of Zeinab Mohamed; composites three and five by Mark Rain; photograph four by David Shankbone; composite six by New 1lluminati; and photograph seven by Joe Brusky.

An Open Letter to the People of Brazil

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Robert J. Burrowes

As I read of the latest coup in Brazil, once again removing a democratically elected leader from power, my anger surged. Not again! However, as I see and read about the ongoing massive protests, as well as calls by prominent community leaders to mobilize in defense of your country’s democracy, I feel great hope for Brazil. Having been a nonviolent activist for many years, I would like to support Brazilian activists to develop a nonviolent strategy that will increase your chances of success.

On 31 August 2016, the Brazilian elite executed a political coup to remove your democratically elected president Dilma Rousseff from office in a desperate attempt to halt corruption investigations in which they are clearly implicated. See ‘Democracy Is Dead in Brazil‘ and ‘The Real Reason Brazil’s Democratically Elected Dilma Rousseff Was Impeached‘.

Behind the scenes, of course, the United States elite was heavily involved. With vast quantities of highly profitable fossil fuels, mineral and forest resources, as well as fresh water at stake, the US elite (and its allied elites) is not going to stand aside while Brazil
and BRICS endeavour to create a more just world for at least some of its human inhabitants. See ‘Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff: Brazil’s Parliamentary Coup and the “Progressive Media”‘.

Despite what has happened and as your ongoing street protests demonstrate, you know that you do not have to accept this outcome. You also know that you do not have to wait until the 2018 election to register your disapproval of this coup.

In fact, you can reverse this coup and restore the president you first elected in 2010 to finish her current term so that her party can face your judgment in 2018. And this is what Joao Pedro Stedile, a founder and leader of the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil has called on you to do. See ‘MST: Social Movements Must Rise up Against Coup Govt in Brazil‘.

If you do this, you will also have widespread support among your solidarity allies around the world as indicated in this letter: ‘Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone Sign Letter Against Brazil’s Coup‘.

Given my own support for your right to elect any president of your choice (and to remove them if necessary at a subsequent election), I invite you to consider planning and implementing a nonviolent strategy to remove the coupmakers in your country and restore the president that you elected.

If you are interested in doing so, I have outlined a strategy for removing coupmakers on the website Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy which is a straightforward presentation of the more detailed explanation offered in the book ‘The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach‘.

If you want an idea of the twelve components of strategy that you will need to plan, you can see them on the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel. If you want a taste of how this strategy works (at the tactical level), you will get it by reading ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions‘.

Vitally, the strategic goals need to include mobilizing people in strategically focused ways and causing the police and military to withdraw their support for the coupmakers. It will usefully include causing key local and foreign corporations to withdraw their support too. This would usually include corporations involved in the weapons industry, the mainstream media, banks and the resource extraction of fossil fuels, strategic minerals, forest products and fresh water. To make it clear, I have listed a provisional set of strategic goals that you might consider modifying as appropriate below.

Of course, as suggested above, you will need a comprehensive strategy and it might take some time to plan and then fully implement.

However, if you do plan and implement a comprehensive strategy, you have every chance of reversing this coup with minimal loss of life. For example, the article ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression‘ identifies 20 things that you can do to minimize the risk that your mobilizations will be violently repressed. This article was written after a careful study, throughout history, of nonviolent mobilizations that were met with extreme violence.

Suggested Strategic Goals in a Nonviolent Strategy to Liberate Brazil

Strategic goals that would usually be appropriate for resisting a political or military coup include those listed below although, it should be noted, the list would be considerably longer as individual organizations should be specified separately.

Of course, individual groups resisting the coup would usually accept responsibility for focusing their work on achieving just one or two of the strategic goals. It is the responsibility of the struggle’s strategic leadership to ensure that each of the strategic goals, which should be identified and prioritized according to your precise understanding of the circumstances in Brazil, is being addressed.

(1) To cause the women in [women’s organizations WO1, WO2, WO…] in
Brazil to join the liberation strategy by participating in [your
nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program
activities]. For example, simple nonviolent actions would be to wear a
national symbol (such as a badge of your national flag or ribbons in the
national colors), to boycott all corporate media outlets supporting the
coup and/or to withdraw all funds from banks supporting the coup. For
this item and many items hereafter, see the list of possible actions you
can take here: ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.
https://nonviolentliberationstrategy.wordpress.com/strategywheel/tactics-and-peacekeeping/198-tactics-of-nonviolent-action/

(2) To cause the workers in [trade unions or labor organizations T1, T2,
T…] in Brazil to join the liberation strategy by participating in [your
nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program
activities]. For example, this might include withdrawing their labor
from an elite-controlled or foreign-owned bank/corporation operating in
Brazil.

(3) To cause the small farmers and farmworkers in [organizations F1, F2,
F…] in Brazil to join the liberation strategy by participating in
[your nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive
program activities].

(4) To cause the members of [religious denominations R1, R2, R…] in
Brazil to join the liberation strategy by participating in [your
nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program
activities].

(5) To cause the members of [ethnic communities EC1, EC2, EC…] in Brazil
to join the liberation strategy by participating in [your nominated
nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program
activities].

(6) To cause the activists, artists, musicians, intellectuals and other
key social groups in [organizations O1, O2, O…] in Brazil to join the
liberation strategy by participating in [your nominated nonviolent
action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities].

(7) To cause the students in [student organizations S1, S2, S…] in
Brazil to join the liberation strategy by participating in [your
nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program
activities].

(8) To cause the soldiers in [military units M1, M2, M…] to refuse to
obey orders from the coupmakers to arrest, assault, torture and shoot
nonviolent activists and the other citizens of Brazil.

(9) To cause the police in [police units P1, P2, P…] to refuse to obey
orders from the coupmakers to arrest, assault, torture and shoot
nonviolent activists and the other citizens of Brazil.

(10) To cause businesspeople who conduct small businesses in
[organizations SB1, SB2, SB…] in Brazil to refuse to cooperate with the
coupmakers by participating in [your nominated nonviolent
action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities].

(11) To cause businesspeople who operate multinational franchises in
[organizations MF1, MF2, MF…] in Brazil to refuse to cooperate with the
coupmakers by participating in [your nominated nonviolent
action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities].

(12) To cause businesspeople who manage local branches of large
multinational corporations in [organizations MNC1, MNC2, MNC…] in Brazil
to refuse to cooperate with the coupmakers by participating in [your
nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program
activities].

(13) To cause large farmers and ranchers in [organizations FO1, FO2,
FO…] in Brazil to refuse to cooperate with the coupmakers by
participating in [your nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or
constructive program activities].

(14) To cause the foreign managers and technical workers [working for
resource extraction corporations X1, X2, X…] who are from [the United
States and other relevant countries where the elite supports the
coupmakers in Brazil] to withdraw from Brazil.

(15) To cause the workers [in trade union or labor organizations T4, T5,
T…] in [the United States and other relevant countries where the elite
supports the coupmakers in Brazil] to interrupt the supply of military
weapons to Brazil.

(16) To cause the workers in [trade unions or labor organizations T7,
T8, T…] in [the United States and other relevant countries where the
elite supports the coupmakers in Brazil] to interrupt the transport of
[military personnel/military weapons] to Brazil.

(17) To cause the workers in [trade unions or labor organizations T10,
T11, T…] in [the United States and other relevant countries where the
elite supports the coupmakers in Brazil] to support your liberation
struggle by refusing to handle [a particular resource] extracted and
exported from Brazil.

(18) To cause the workers [in trade unions or labor organizations T13,
T14, T…] working in [the United States and other relevant countries
where the elite supports the coupmakers in Brazil] to support your
liberation struggle by participating in [your nominated nonviolent
action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities].

(19) To cause the women in [women’s organizations WO4, WO5, WO…] in [the
United States and other relevant countries where the elite supports the
coupmakers in Brazil] to support your liberation struggle by
participating in [your nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or
constructive program activities].

(20) To cause the members of [religious denominations R4,R5, R…] in [the
United States and other relevant countries where the elite supports the
coupmakers in Brazil] to support your liberation struggle by
participating in [your nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or
constructive program activities].

(21) To cause the solidarity activists in [activist organizations A1,
A2, A…] in [the United States and other relevant countries where the
elite supports the coupmakers in Brazil] to support your liberation
struggle by participating in [your nominated nonviolent
action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities].

(22) To cause the members of [your exile communities E1, E2, E…] in [the
United States and other relevant countries where the elite supports the
coupmakers in Brazil] to support your liberation struggle by
participating in [your nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or
constructive program activities].

(23) To cause the students in [students organizations S4, S5, S…] in
[the United States and other relevant countries where the elite supports
the coupmakers in Brazil] to support your liberation struggle by
participating in [your nominated nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or
constructive program activities].

In the struggle to make this world the place of peace, justice and environmental sustainability that it could be, the people of Brazil have been playing an inspirational role. You do not need to let this coup be more than a temporary setback. You also have solidarity allies around the world and many of us are willing to assist you, if you decide to let us play a role too.

For the liberation of Brazil,

Robert

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding
and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in
an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a
nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.
—
Websites:
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com (Nonviolence Charter)
http://tinyurl.com/flametree (Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth)
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence (‘Why Violence?’)
https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/ (Nonviolent Campaign Strategy)
https://nonviolentliberationstrategy.wordpress.com/ (Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy)
http://anitamckone.wordpress.com (Anita: Songs of Nonviolence)
http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com (Robert)
https://globalnonviolencenetwork.wordpress.com/ (Global Nonviolence Network)

‘Corruption’ as a Propaganda Weapon

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Robert Parry

Source: Consortium News

Sadly, some important duties of journalism, such as applying evenhanded standards on human rights abuses and financial corruption, have been so corrupted by the demands of government propaganda – and the careerism of too many writers – that I now become suspicious whenever the mainstream media trumpets some sensational story aimed at some “designated villain.”

Far too often, this sort of “journalism” is just a forerunner to the next “regime change” scheme, dirtying up or delegitimizing a foreign leader before the inevitable advent of a “color revolution” organized by “democracy-promoting” NGOs often with money from the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy or some neoliberal financier like George Soros.

We are now seeing what looks like a new preparatory phase for the next round of “regime changes” with corruption allegations aimed at former Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The new anti-Putin allegations – ballyhooed by the UK Guardian and other outlets – are particularly noteworthy because the so-called “Panama Papers” that supposedly implicate him in offshore financial dealings never mention his name.

Or as the Guardian writes: “Though the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage. The documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.”

Note, if you will, the lack of specificity and the reliance on speculation: “a pattern”; “seemingly”; “suggest”; “appear.” Indeed, if Putin were not already a demonized figure in the Western media, such phrasing would never pass an editor’s computer screen. Indeed, the only point made in declarative phrasing is that “the president’s name does not appear in any of the records.”

A British media-watch publication, the Off-Guardian, which criticizes much of the work done at The Guardian, headlined its article on the Putin piece as “the Panama Papers cause Guardian to collapse into self-parody.”

But whatever the truth about Putin’s “corruption” or Lula’s, the journalistic point is that the notion of objectivity has long since been cast aside in favor of what’s useful as propaganda for Western interests.

Some of those Western interests now are worried about the growth of the BRICS economic system – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – as a competitor to the West’s G-7 and the International Monetary Fund. After all, control of the global financial system has been central to American power in the post-World War II world – and rivals to the West’s monopoly are not welcome.

What the built-in bias against these and other “unfriendly” governments means, in practical terms, is that one standard applies to a Russia or a Brazil, while a more forgiving measure is applied to the corruption of a U.S. or European leader.

Take, for instance, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s millions of dollars in payments in speaking fees from wealthy special interests that knew she was a good bet to become the next U.S. president. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Clinton Stalls on Goldman-Sachs Speeches.”]

Or, similarly, the millions upon millions of dollars invested in super-PACS for Clinton, Sen. Ted Cruz and other presidential hopefuls. That might look like corruption from an objective standard but is treated as just a distasteful aspect of the U.S. political process.

But imagine for a minute if Putin had been paid millions of dollars for brief speeches before powerful corporations, banks and interest groups doing business with the Kremlin. That would be held up as de facto proof of his illicit greed and corruption.

Losing Perspective

Also, when it’s a demonized foreign leader, any “corruption” will do, however minor. For example, in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s denounced Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for his choice of eyewear: “The dictator in designer glasses,” declared Reagan, even as Nancy Reagan was accepting free designer gowns and free renovations of the White House funded by oil and gas interests.

Or, the “corruption” for a demonized leader can be a modest luxury, such as Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s “sauna” in his personal residence, a topic that got front-page treatment in The New York Times and other Western publications seeking to justify the violent coup that drove Yanukovych from office in February 2014.

Incidentally, both Ortega and Yanukovych had been popularly elected but were still targeted by the U.S. government and its operatives with violent destabilization campaigns. In the 1980s, the CIA-organized Nicaraguan Contra war killed some 30,000 people, while the U.S.-orchestrated “regime change” in Ukraine sparked a civil war that has left some 10,000 people dead. Of course, in both cases, Official Washington blamed Moscow for all the trouble.

In both cases, too, the politicians and operatives who gained power as a result of the conflicts were arguably more corrupt than the Nicaraguan Sandinistas or Yanukovych’s government. The Nicaraguan Contras, whose violence helped pave the way for the 1990 election of U.S.-backed candidate Violeta Chamorro, were deeply implicated in cocaine trafficking. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Sordid Contra-Cocaine Saga.”]

Today, the U.S.-supported Ukrainian government is wallowing in corruption so deep that it has provoked a new political crisis.[See Consortiumnews’com’s “Reality Peeks Through in Ukraine.”]

Ironically, one of the politicians actually named in the Panama Papers for having established a shadowy offshore account is the U.S.-backed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, although he got decidedly second-billing to the unnamed Putin. (Poroshenko denied there was anything improper in his offshore financial arrangements.)

Double Standards

Mainstream Western journalism no longer even tries to apply common standards to questions about corruption. If you’re a favored government, there might be lamentations about the need for more “reform” – which often means slashing pensions for the elderly and cutting social programs for the poor – but if you’re a demonized leader, then the only permissible answer is criminal indictment and/or “regime change.”

One stark example of these double standards is the see-no-evil attitude toward the corruption of Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who is touted endlessly in the Western media as the paragon of Ukrainian good governance and reform. The documented reality, however, is that Jaresko enriched herself through her control of a U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund that was supposed to help the people of Ukraine build their economy.

According to the terms of the $150 million investment fund created by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Jaresko’s compensation was supposed to be capped at $150,000 a year, a pay package that many Americans would envy. But it was not enough for Jaresko, who first simply exceeded the limit by hundreds of thousands of dollars and then moved her compensation off-books as she amassed total annual pay of $2 million or more.

The documentation of this scheming is clear. I have published multiple stories citing the evidence of both her excessive compensation and her legal strategies for covering up evidence of alleged wrongdoing. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How Ukraine’s Finance Minister Got Rich” and “Carpetbagging Crony Capitalism in Ukraine.”]

Despite the evidence, not a single mainstream Western news outlet has followed up on this information even as Jaresko is hailed as a “reform” candidate for Ukrainian prime minister.

This disinterest is similar to the blinders that The New York Times and other major Western newspapers put on when they were assessing whether Ukrainian President Yanukovych was ousted in a coup in February 2014 or just wandered off and forgot to return.

In a major “investigative” piece, the Times concluded there was no coup in Ukraine while ignoring the evidence of a coup, such as the intercepted phone call between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt discussing who they would put into power. “Yats is the guy,” said Nuland – and surprise, surprise, Arseniy Yatsenyuk ended up as prime minister.

The Times also ignored the observation of George Friedman, president of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, who noted that the Ukraine coup was “the most blatant coup in history.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine.”]

The Propaganda Weapon

The other advantage of “corruption” as a propaganda weapon to discredit certain leaders is that we all assume that there is plenty of corruption in governments as well as in the private sector all around the world. Alleging corruption is like shooting large fish crowded into a small barrel. Granted, some barrels might be more crowded than others but the real decision is whose barrel you choose.

That’s part of the reason why the U.S. government has spread around hundreds of millions of dollars to finance “journalism” organizations, train political activists and support “non-governmental organizations” that promote U.S. policy goals inside targeted countries. For instance, before the Feb. 22, 2014 coup in Ukraine, there were scores of such operations in the country financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), whose budget from Congress exceeds $100 million a year.

But NED, which has been run by neocon Carl Gershman since its founding in 1983, is only part of the picture. You have other propaganda fronts operating under the umbrella of the State Department and USAID. Last year, USAID issued a fact sheet summarizing its work financing friendly journalists around the globe, including “journalism education, media business development, capacity building for supportive institutions, and strengthening legal-regulatory environments for free media.”

USAID estimated its budget for “media strengthening programs in over 30 countries” at $40 million annually, including aiding “independent media organizations and bloggers in over a dozen countries,” In Ukraine before the coup, USAID offered training in “mobile phone and website security,” which sounds a bit like an operation to thwart the local government’s intelligence gathering, an ironic position for the U.S. with its surveillance obsession, including prosecuting whistleblowers based on evidence that they talked to journalists.

USAID, working with billionaire George Soros’s Open Society, also funds the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which engages in “investigative journalism” that usually goes after governments that have fallen into disfavor with the United States and then are singled out for accusations of corruption. The USAID-funded OCCRP also collaborates with Bellingcat, an online investigative website founded by blogger Eliot Higgins.

Higgins has spread misinformation on the Internet, including discredited claims implicating the Syrian government in the sarin attack in 2013 and directing an Australian TV news crew to what looked to be the wrong location for a video of a BUK anti-aircraft battery as it supposedly made its getaway to Russia after the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014.

Despite his dubious record of accuracy, Higgins has gained mainstream acclaim, in part, because his “findings” always match up with the propaganda theme that the U.S. government and its Western allies are peddling. Though most genuinely independent bloggers are ignored by the mainstream media, Higgins has found his work touted by both The New York Times and The Washington Post.

In other words, the U.S. government has a robust strategy for deploying direct and indirect agents of influence. Indeed, during the first Cold War, the CIA and the old U.S. Information Agency refined the art of “information warfare,” including pioneering some of its current features like having ostensibly “independent” entities and cut-outs present U.S. propaganda to a cynical public that would reject much of what it hears from government but may trust “citizen journalists” and “bloggers.”

But the larger danger from this perversion of journalism is that it sets the stage for “regime changes” that destabilize whole countries, thwart real democracy (i.e., the will of the people), and engender civil warfare. Today’s neoconservative dream of mounting a “regime change” in Moscow is particularly dangerous to the future of both Russia and the world.

Regardless of what you think about President Putin, he is a rational political leader whose legendary sangfroid makes him someone who is not prone to emotional decisions. His leadership style also appeals to the Russian people who overwhelmingly favor him, according to public opinion polls.

While the American neocons may fantasize that they can generate enough economic pain and political dissension inside Russia to achieve Putin’s removal, their expectation that he will be followed by a pliable leader like the late President Boris Yeltsin, who will let U.S. operatives back in to resume plundering Russia’s riches, is almost certainly a fantasy.

The far more likely possibility is that – if a “regime change” could somehow be arranged – Putin would be replaced by a hard-line nationalist who might think seriously about unleashing Russia’s nuclear arsenal if the West again tries to defile Mother Russia. For me, it’s not Putin who’s the worry; it’s the guy after Putin.

So, while legitimate questions about Putin’s “corruption” – or that of any other political leader – should be pursued, the standards of evidence should not be lowered just because he or anyone else is a demonized figure in the West. There should be single not double standards.

Western media outrage about “corruption” should be expressed as loudly against political and business leaders in the U.S. or other G-7 countries as it is toward those in the BRICS.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

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Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Reid Mukai

aa-American-Empire-statue-of-liberty-and-military

By Rostisla Ischenko

Source: Dissident Voice

The paradox of the current global crisis is that for the last five years, all relatively responsible and independent nations have made tremendous efforts to save the United States from the financial, economic, military, and political disaster that looms ahead. And this is all despite Washington’s equally systematic moves to destabilize the world order, rightly known as the Pax Americana (“American peace”).

Since policy is not a zero-sum game; i.e., one participant’s loss does not necessarily entail a gain for another, this paradox has a logical explanation. A crisis erupts within any system when there is a discrepancy between its internal structure and the sum total of available resources (that is, those resources will eventually prove inadequate for the system to function normally and in the usual way).

There are at least three basic options for addressing this situation:

Through reform, in which the system’s internal structure evolves in such a way as to better correspond to the available resources.
Through the system’s collapse, in which the same result is achieved via revolution.
Through preservation, in which the inputs threatening the system are eliminated by force, and the relationships within the system are carefully preserved on an inequitable relationship basis (whether between classes, social strata, castes, or nations).

The preservation method was attempted by the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, as well as the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan. It was utilized successfully (in the 19th century) prior to the era of capitalist globalization. But neither of those Eastern civilizations (although fairly robust internally) survived their collision with the technologically more advanced (and hence more militarily and politically powerful) European civilization. Japan found its answer on the path of modernization (reform) back in the second half of the 19th century, China spent a century immersed in the quagmire of semi-colonial dependence and bloody civil wars, until the new leadership of Deng Xiaoping was able to articulate its own vision of modernizing reforms.

This point leads us to the conclusion that a system can be preserved only if it is safeguarded from any unwanted external influences; i.e., if it controls the globalized world.

The contradiction between the concept of escaping the crisis, which has been adopted by the US elite, and the alternative concept – proposed by Russia and backed by China, then by the BRICS nations and now a large part of the world – lay in the fact that the politicians in Washington were working from the premise that they are able to fully control the globalized world and guide its development in the direction they wish. Therefore, faced with dwindling resources to sustain the mechanisms that perpetuate their global hegemony, they tried to resolve the problem by forcefully suppressing potential opponents in order to reallocate global resources in their favor.

If successful, the United States would be able to re-enact the events of the late 1980s – early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and the global socialist system under its control allowed the West to escape its crisis. At this new stage, it has become a question of no longer simply reallocating resources in favor of the West as a collective whole, but solely in favor of the United States. This move offered the system a respite that could be used to create a regime for preserving inequitable relationships, during which the American elite’s definitive control over the resources of power, raw materials, finance, and industrial resources safeguarded them from the danger of the system’s internal implosion, while the elimination of alternative power centers shielded the system from external breaches, rendering it eternal (at least for a historically foreseeable period of time).

The alternative approach postulated that the system’s total resources might be depleted before the United States can manage to generate the mechanisms to perpetuate its global hegemony. In turn, this will lead to strain (and overstrain) on the forces that ensure the imperial suppression of those nations existing on the global periphery, all in the interests of the Washington-based center, which will later bring about the inevitable collapse of the system.

Two hundred, or even one hundred years ago, politicians would have acted on the principle of “what is falling, that one should also push” and prepared to divvy up the legacy of yet another crumbling empire. However, the globalization of not only the world’s industry and trade (that was achieved by the end of the 19th century), but also global finance, caused the collapse of the American empire through a policy that was extremely dangerous and costly for the whole world. To put it bluntly, the United States could bury civilization under its own wreckage.

Consequently, the Russian-Chinese approach has made a point of offering Washington a compromise option that endorses the gradual, evolutionary erosion of American hegemony, plus the incremental reform of international financial, economic, military, and political relations on the basis of the existing system of international law.

America’s elite have been offered a “soft landing” that would preserve much of their influence and assets, while gradually adapting the system to better correspond to the present facts of life (bringing it into line with the available reserve of resources), taking into account the interests of humanity, and not only of its “top echelon” as exemplified by the “300 families” who are actually dwindling to no more than thirty.

In the end, it is always better to negotiate than to build a new world upon the ashes of the old. Especially since there has been a global precedent for similar agreements.

Up until 2015, America’s elite (or at least the ones who determine US policy) had been assured that they possessed sufficient financial, economic, military, and political strength to cripple the rest of the world, while still preserving Washington’s hegemony by depriving everyone, including (at the final stage) even the American people of any real political sovereignty or economic rights. European bureaucrats were important allies for that elite; i.e., the cosmopolitan, comprador-bourgeoisie sector of the EU elite, whose welfare hinged on the further integration of transatlantic (i.e., under US control) EU entities (in which the premise of Atlantic solidarity has become geopolitical dogma) and NATO, although this is in conflict with the interests of the EU member states.

However, the crisis in Ukraine, which has dragged on much longer than originally planned, Russia’s impressive surge of military and political energy as it moved to resolve the Syrian crisis (something for which the US did not have an appropriate response) and, most important, the progressive creation of alternative financial and economic entities that call into question the dollar’s position as the de facto world currency, have forced a sector of America’s elite that is amenable to compromise to rouse itself (over the last 15 years that elite has been effectively excluded from participation in any strategic decisions).

The latest statements by Kerry and Obama which seesaw from a willingness to consider a mutually acceptable compromise on all contentious issues (even Kiev was given instructions “to implement Minsk“) to a determination to continue the policy of confrontation – are evidence of the escalating battle being fought within the Washington establishment.

It is impossible to predict the outcome of this struggle – too many high-status politicians and influential families have tied their futures to an agenda that preserves imperial domination for that to be renounced painlessly. In reality, multibillion-dollar positions and entire political dynasties are at stake.

However, we can say with absolute certainty that there is a certain window of opportunity during which any decision can be made. And a window of opportunity is closing that would allow the US to make a soft landing with a few trade-offs. The Washington elite cannot escape the fact that they are up against far more serious problems than those of 10-15 years ago. Right now the big question is about how they are going to land, and although that landing will already be harder than it would have been and will come with costs, the situation is not yet a disaster.

But the US needs to think fast. Their resources are shrinking much faster than the authors of the plan for imperial preservation had expected. To their loss of control over the BRICS countries can be added the incipient, but still fairly rapid loss of control over EU policy as well as the onset of geopolitical maneuvering among the monarchies of the Middle East. The financial and economic entities created and set in motion by the BRICS nations are developing in accordance with their own logic, and Moscow and Beijing are not able to delay their development overlong while waiting for the US to suddenly discover a capacity to negotiate.

The point of no return will pass once and for all sometime in 2016, and America’s elite will no longer be able to choose between the provisions of compromise and collapse. The only thing that they will then be able to do is to slam the door loudly, trying to drag the rest of the world after them into the abyss.

Rostislav Ischenko is the President of Centre for System Analysis and Forecasting (Kiev) currently living in Moscow. Read other articles by Rostisla.

NATO and the West Just Became Irrelevant

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By F. William Engdahl

Source: New Eastern Outlook

The dual summits that took place in Russia’s Ufa beginning 9 July were anything but routine. In fact it may be seen by future historians as a signal event that marked the definitive decline of the global hegemony of European civilization including North America. This is no small event in human history. It’s the most significant shift in relative global economic relations since the Fourth Crusade in 1204 when the Republic of Venice emerged as a world power following their brutal, disgraceful capture and sacking of Constantinople, marking the demise of the Byzantine Empire.

First a look at what transpired. Russia was host to two overlapping summits of emerging alternative organizations, the annual meeting of the BRICS nations as well as the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The larger significance has been all but entirely blacked out by western mainstream media such as the New York Times.

First we look at the results from the BRICS meeting where Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the five member states. The BRICS formally put their New Development Bank (NDB) into operation. It has world headquarters in Shanghai, China’s banking and financial center with a branch in South Africa to serve the African region.

It is explicitly operating as an alternative to the post-1945 domination of the IMF and World Bank, the heart of Washington’s Dollar System. It has member contributions of $50 billion for infrastructure projects mainly, but not exclusively, in the BRICS states. As well it has created a $100 billion financial defense fund, a so-called Contingent Reserves Arrangement, in event of speculative attacks such as were launched by Washington with the Soros Quantum Fund in 1997 to destroy the independent Asian Tiger economies.

The NDB bank is in business one year after the last BRICS summit agreed to its creation, and the meeting announced that first approved infrastructure projects will begin at the beginning of 2016. That’s an impressive testament to the mutual will to create an alternative to the IMF and World Bank, both of the latter controlled by Washington where they are headquartered. Notably BRICS agreed for the first time to institute formal cooperation with the leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

As well they agreed to meet the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)–Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

SCO adds major security dimension

For its part, the nations of the SCO–Shanghai Cooperation Organization–in addition to formally admitting both India and Pakistan, agreed to increase its role combating terrorism in the region. The SCO was established in 2001 originally to settle border conflicts between China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in the years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is now undergoing an organic metamorphosis into something quite different and, in combination with China’s One Belt, One Road New Economic Silk Road high-speed rail network crisscrossing Russia and all Eurasia, potentially the kernel of an economic region whose growth over the next century and more can pale anything the debt-bloated OECD economies of the west are capable of.

This year the SCO members admitted Pakistan and India as full members, a move that undercuts some seventy years of Anglo-American geopolitics on the Indian Subcontinent by bringing the two bitter enemies into a forum dedicated to resolving border conflicts diplomatically. The Ufa BRICS declaration also stressed the importance of reaffirming the UN Charter and condemned unilateral military intervention, a clear reference to guess who?

That enlargement to include India and Pakistan into the Eurasian SCO has huge implications for China’s New Economic Silk Road high-speed rail infrastructure network across all Eurasia as well as potential gas and oil pipeline routes in the region. Significantly, for an Obama Administration that wants to pit Iran against Russia and China with the signing of the latest nuclear Geneva 6-power deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attended the BRICS/SCO summits and held private talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tehran will likely join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization after the embargo is withdrawn, perhaps as early as 2016, something that will give the SCO a major presence in the Middle East geographically.

With the planned lifting now of US economic sanctions on Iran, this could mean a huge economic deepening of the Eurasian economic space from Shanghai to St. Petersburg to Teheran and beyond, the nightmare scenario of US geopolitical actors like Zbigniew Brzezinski or Henry Kissinger.

Notably, the BRICS final declaration also pledged greater cooperation on combating terrorism and dealing with security problems of member states. This overlaps the Russia-initiated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), created in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union to provide some semblance of security from rampant CIA monkey business using veterans of the CIA’s Afghani Mujahideen to “stir up” (to use Brzezinski’s term for it) the peoples of former Soviet states with large Muslim populations across Central Asia, especially Azerbaijan and the Caucasus.

Today, the CSTO is emerging as a far more serious organization and a means by which Russia can legitimately provide direct security expertise to weaker states inside the Eurasian Economic Union such as Kyrgyzstan or Armenia, both of whom have been targets of new US-sponsored Color Revolutions to spread chaos across the emerging Eurasian economic space.

What is notable about the joint BRICS-SCO-Eurasian Economic Union summit hosted by Russia’s Putin in Ufa, a city of some one million at the foot of the Ural mountain range near to Kazakhstan, is not only the degree of harmonizing that is taking place among the three vast organizations. It is also the fact that Russia uniquely is a member of all three, facilitating the harmonization of the three in terms of strategic goals. Moreover the member states have everything and everyone necessary to be fully independent of the dollar world and the dying EU with its misbegotten Euro sham.

As The Saker pointed out in a recent perceptive piece, “the full list of BRICS/SCO members will now look like this: Brazil , China , India , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Pakistan , Russia , South Africa , Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The BRICS/SCO will thus include 2 Permanent UN Security Council, 4 countries with nuclear weapons (only 3 NATO countries have nukes!), it’s members account for a full third of the world’s land area: they produce 16 trillion dollars in GDP and have a population of 3 billion people or half of the global world population.”

A new architecture of Eurasia is being formed, something which, were they of a mind to, the nations of the EU, above all Germany, France, Italy, could hugely benefit from cooperating with. Yet, what is the response of Washington and her “vassals” in European NATO, to use the term of Brzezinski?

The NATO Washington response

The response of Washington and NATO to all this is a bleak, pathetic contrast to put it mildly.

The new Obama nominee to become US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, declared Russia to be America’s greatest threat in his Congressional testimony some days ago. Conveniently forgetting all about the “existential threat” from ISIS, an organization US and Israeli intelligence brought into being to spread their chaos, Dunford declared, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia.” The alarming thing is there was scarcely a peep of protest aside from blog remarks by retired Congressman Ron Paul and a few others. The tom-toms of bellicosity are pounding louder along the Potomac these days.

The war rage in Washington goes deeper than just one general. The Pentagon just released its Military Strategy of the United States, 2015. There the focus has clearly shifted away from “non-state actors” such as ISIS as being the greatest threat to the US and refocuses on “state actors” that are “challenging international norms.” The Pentagon strategy document goes on to name Russia, China, Iran, North Korea as the greatest threats. What they do not admit is the “threat” is to the continued sole Superpower hegemony of a United States that insists its will is the only valid one as self-appointed guardian of “democracy” and “human rights,” their New World Order as George Bush senior termed it in 1991.

On the economic front, what is emerging across the vast expanse of Eurasia is the greatest infrastructure investment in real physical infrastructure, which in turn will create new markets where today the remote regions of Siberia or Mongolia remain virtually untouched. By contrast, Obama’s Washington, a once-hegemon that has lost its soul, can only offer the US-dominated secret free trade pact, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), for Asian states absent China, as a way to contain china economically, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that offers the same geopolitical dead end for the economies of the EU. Both trade proposals are a desperate attempt by Washington strategists and their corporate backers in agribusiness such as Monsanto or the pharmaceutical industry to dominate world trade and finance.

Just as an individual can lose themselves through a trauma, so it’s possible for entire nations, even nations as large and apparently mighty as the United States of America, to lose its soul. Once a nation loses its soul, it loses its ability to do good, to be good. That tragically describes America today. The process has been a slow-motion rot from within, much as the Roman Empire in the Third and Fourth centuries AD. The rot has proceeded over decades.

There were many seminal events we as a people let pass without acting. One such over the past century or more was the US Congress’ surrender of the Constitutional responsibility to control the issue of money, handing it over to a private cabal of Wall Street bankers who named it the Federal Reserve. Another was the perfidy of our turning on our wartime allies in Russia and making them the “new Hitler,” so that Nelson Rockefeller’s national security state, complete with a CIA, could be built to justify the devaluation of the essence of the US Constitution. Another was the decision, well, perhaps you can fill in the blanks there are so many, each seemingly minor, but as a cumulative totality toxic to genuine respect for human life and individual freedom. Then, following the events of September 11,2001 we as a nation, crippled by our fear, stood by silently as the Bill of Rights went into the paper shredder of George W. Bush with the misnamed Patriots Act and other police state laws.

Once a people as once-wonderful as the American people lose all that that made them good, it takes a conscious decision and determination to regain that goodness. The first essential step is to become conscious of what is bad in us as a people today. David Rockefeller or George H.W. Bush or Bill Gates or Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush did not do this. We did, and they merely took the use out of our action. There we must begin if we wish to take ourselves seriously again as a nation and as a people. Seeing ourselves as “victims” regardless of what or whoever is a dead end, literally.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

25 Signs That The Global Elite’s Ship Is About To Sink

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Lance Schuttler

Source: The Mind Unleashed

Make no mistake about it. The tide has turned on the global elite and there will be no going back. A new day is rising for humanity as those who have planned for complete control are now being exposed, cornered and investigated from many different angles. There is no need to buy into the fear-based propaganda the major media and even several alternative media outlets dispense. Very good things are happening and even better things are coming. Let’s take a look at some of the major stories that have occurred in the last 8 weeks alone. Piecing the puzzle together, we see that the jig is up and the events surrounding it are growing in size and speed.

1. 57 Nations approved as founding members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Notable countries who signed on June 29th, 2015 include Russia, India, Iran, Switzerland, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indonesia, the UK, Italy and Austria. Notables who did not join are the U.S. and Japan.

2. May 12th, 2015: Russia asks Greece to join the BRICS Alliance. Notice the BRICS trend in the stories to follow.

3. May 24th, 2015: The Pentagon released documents to Judicial Watch, a government watchdog law firm,
proving that the US Government played a central role in creating ISIL. Interestingly, the mainstream media failed to cover this story. A few weeks later, ex US Intelligence officials confirm the report.

4. May 31st, 2015: Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras writes an open letter, warns European leaders they are “making a grave mistake,” and suggests they re-read Hemingways’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls.”

5. June 2nd, 2015: The U.S. Federal Government was hacked as the personal data of 4 million current, former and prospective employees believed to have been breached. 3 weeks later FBI Director James Comey told US Senators the actual number could be 18 million. Some believe the hack was coordinated to gather further evidence
of crimes by certain government officials. More on that further down.

6. June 2nd, 2015: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul calls for the U.S. Government to declassify 28 pages in the 9/11 attack report that the Bush Administration blacked out.

7. June 3rd, 2015: Famous musician Akon announces his Solar Academy will bring solar power to over 600 million people in Africa. A major victory for clean energy and humanity.

8. June 4th, 2015: Whistle-blower Edward Snowden says a “profound difference” had occurred since releasing the NSA documents and that the balance of power has shifted in our world. Is he referring to the BRICS Alliance?

9. June 5th, 2015: “There Will Be A Reset of The Financial Industry.” The International Monetary Fund says the Chinese yuan is no longer undervalued. This sets the stage for the yuan to be recognized as a global reserve currency, something the U.S. Dollar (which is backed by war and oil) does not like.

10. June 7, 2015: Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s largest banks, co-CEO’s Jain and Fitschen resign. Two days later, German prosecutors raided the Bank’s headquarters in a criminal tax-fraud probe.

11. June 15, 2015: China says the G-7 Summit in Germany was a “gathering of debtors.” They mean this literally as the Bretton Woods western financial system is based on debt. And in fact, the entire western financial system has been running illegally and is technically bankrupt. For more on the real history of Bretton Woods and its connection to JFK, The Global Collateral Accounts and the gold standard, read here.

12. June 17th, 2015 is quite the day with the next four stories all being reported at that time. First, JP Morgan’s number 2, the Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee, suddenly and unexpectedly passes over. Since late 2013, the list of high-level banking officials to have passed over has grown to 70. Clearly, something is happening.

13. June 17, 2015: Russia and China announced that all natural gas and crude oil sales between
the two countries will now be done in Chinese yuan( formerly the U.S. Dollar) and will be convertible into Russian Rubles. The U.S. Dollar hegemony is waning.

14. June 17, 2015: The State of Texas has signed a bill that calls for the repatriation of their gold from the Federal Government. When asked what would happen if the government tried to steal back the gold, State Representative Giovanni Capriglione said this: There is a motto in the office of almost every state legislator in Texas, and it’s a flag that we have [from the Texas Revolution], it’s below a cannon and what the motto says is, “Come and Take it.”

15. June 17, 2015: Greece’s Hellenic Parliament’s Debt Truth Committee released a report stating that the debt Greece “owes” is illegal, illegitimate and odious, according to international law. Further, they stated the IMF and ECB ( European Central Bank) having illegally and knowingly imposed these illegitimate debts upon Greece and other nations. A direct call out to the global banking cartel.

16. June 18th, 2015: Baron David de Rothschild has been indicted by a French court over financial fraud. French police have been ordered by the court to track down Baron. The Rothschild family has long been viewed as the family sitting atop the global financial ponzi scheme. Lawyer Antonio Flores told reporters, ” it’s a real breakthrough moment for everyone involved.”

17. June 18, 2015: In a 2-1 ruling, the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals says Bush era officials can be held liable for detaining innocent people after the 9/11 attack. Will this lead to some major arrests?

18. June 19, 2015: While European leaders try to save face on the debt crisis, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras was in Russia and gave a speech at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, stating that “the economic center of the planet has already shifted” and that new powers are playing an “important role on an economic and geopolitical level.” * Reread story header number 8…BRICS, anyone? Oh, and Greece and Russia signed a €2 billion gas pipeline deal that day too…a strategic economic and geopolitical game-changer.

19. July 5th, 2015: Greece votes “NO” to the creditors’ bailout offer. This is a massive stance for humanity that Greece just took against the banking elite. As of this writing, a “deal” has been reached but is expected to fall apart in the coming days. Kicking the can down the road does not solve the issue, but rather speeds up the revolution mindset of many frustrated Greek citizens. September/October is when many financial experts are saying that some fireworks are to be expected.

20. July 7th, 2015: The BRICS Bank officially opens for business.

21. July 8th, 2015: On this day, several strange events occurred. The NYSE was taken down for multiple hours, the Wall Street Journal was taken offline just after the stock exchange went down, United Airlines was forced to ground all of its flights nationwide due to computer “issues,” and 2,500 people losing power in Washington D.C. This whistle-blower journalist just wrote that his Pentagon sources said the Pentagon/BRICS Alliance took it down as a “dry run.”

22. July 7th, 2015: Backing up one day we see that the hacking group Anonymous tweeted this on the evening prior to the stock exchange hack: Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for Wall Street….we can only hope.
David Wilcock has previously written a detailed document stating that Anonymous is working with certain patriotic US Military forces to legally take down the banking elite.. This aligns nicely with what the whistle-blower journalist, Benjamin Fulford, just wrote this week about the Pentagon and BRICS Alliance in the previous story.

23. July 14th, 2015: Iran, China, Russia, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. reach a historic deal on Iran’s nuclear program. Entire books could be written on the geopolitical, financial and technological implications of this move. There are also reports that the reality of this situation is that Iran has free energy technology and will be using this to help bring down the banking/political/oil industry elite. This would make sense as the strongest opponents to this deal have been Israel and its Prime Minister and several American politicians like the Bushes, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

24. July 15th, 2015: Santa Cruz County votes to stop doing business with 5 major banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Barclays, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS. Watch this set off a chain reaction in those who will follow suit.

25. Now: You are here on the planet at this time to make a wonderful contribution. Please continue playing your role for the benefit of us all.

It is clear that something big is happening. Use this information to move forward with optimism and hope. Share with your friends. Discuss with your friends. Continue to search and dig for the truth. Two people I strongly suggest the reader looking into are Benjamin Fulford, the whistleblower who was the Asia Pacific Bureau Chief for Forbes Magazine and is listed in stories number 21 and 22, and Neil Keenan, who is working with many well connected sources to open up the global collateral accounts. These accounts are what President Kennedy was assassinated over and are what the banking elite does not want the public to know exists. This revolution WILL NOT be televised.

The Eurasian Big Bang

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Reid Mukai

How China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington

By Pepe Escobar

Source: TomDispatch.com

The several hundred Republicans who have thrown their hats into the ring for the 2016 presidential race and the war hawks in Congress (mainly but hardly only Republicans) have already been in full howl about the Vienna nuclear deal with Iran. Jeb Bush took about two seconds to label it “appeasement,” instantly summoning up the image of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain giving in to Hitler before World War II; former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee spared no metaphor in labeling the agreement “a deal that empowers an evil Iranian regime to carry out its threat to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ and bring ‘death to America’”; Senator Lindsey Graham called it a “possible death sentence for Israel”; this year’s leading billionaire candidate, Donald Trump, summed up his opinion of the deal in one you’re-fired-style word, “ridiculous”; Senator John McCain described Secretary of State John Kerry, who negotiated the deal, as “delusional”; and Senator… I mean, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mockingly turned Chamberlain’s infamous “peace in our time” into “peace at any price,” dismissed the deal as a catastrophe filled with “absurdities,” and then appeared on every American media venue imaginable to denounce it. And that’s just to start down the usual list of suspects. Even Senator Rand Paul swore he would vote against the agreement (though his father called it “to the benefit of world peace”), while Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was typical of Republican presidential candidates in swearing that he would personally scuttle the deal on his first day in the Oval Office.

This, in short, is the mad version of international policy that makes Washington a claustrophobic echo chamber. After all, the choice isn’t actually between Iran having no nuclear “breakout” capacity or regaining that capacity 15 years from now (as the present deal seems to offer); the choice is between an agreement for 15 verifiably non-weaponized years and a guarantee of nothing whatsoever. And if you’ve just checked off that nothing-whatsoever column, the alternative is to somehow crush the Iranians, to force them into submission. It is, in other words, some version of war. Two questions on that: How successful has war in the Greater Middle East been as an American policy weapon these last 13 years? And what makes anyone think that, when even Dick Cheney and crew couldn’t bring themselves to pull the trigger on Iran, Jeb B. or any of the other candidates will be likely to do so in an ISIS-enriched world in 2017?

When you’ve satisfied yourself on those two questions, consider the seldom-discussed larger context within which twenty-first-century nuclear politics has taken place. In these last years, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Russians, and the Americans, to name just four nuclear powers, have either been expanding or “modernizing” their nuclear stockpiles in significant ways. And god knows what the Israelis were doing with their super-secret, never officially acknowledged, but potentially civilization-busting atomic arsenal of 80 or more weapons, while the North Koreans were turning themselves into a nuclear mini-power. Nonetheless, the focus of nuclear attention and the question of “disarmament” has remained almost exclusively on a country that had no such weapons, has officially disavowed them, and at this point, at least, doesn’t even have a weapons program. And note that no one who is anyone in Washington considers any of this the least bit strange.

In this context, that irrepressible TomDispatch regular Pepe Escobar offers another kind of lens-widening exercise when it comes to the Iranian deal. He focuses on a subject that Washington has yet to fully absorb: changing relations in Eurasia. Few here have noticed, but while the Vienna deal was being negotiated, Russia and China, countries the Pentagon has just officially labeled as “threats,” have been moving mountains (quite literally in some cases) to integrate ever larger parts of that crucial land mass, that “world island,” into a vast economic zone that, if all goes as they wish, will be beyond Washington’s power and control. This is a remarkable development that, despite the coming two months of sound and fury about Iran, won’t be at the top of any news report, which is why you need a website like TomDispatch to keep up with the times. Tom

The Eurasian Big Bang
How China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington
By Pepe Escobar

Let’s start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: from now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of an interlocking set of organizations — the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), the AIIB (the new Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), and the NDB (the BRICS’ New Development Bank) — whose acronyms you’re unlikely to recognize either. Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.

Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, and New Delhi have been actively establishing interlocking security guarantees. They have been simultaneously calling the Atlanticist bluff when it comes to the endless drumbeat of attention given to the flimsy meme of Iran’s “nuclear weapons program.” And a few days before the Vienna nuclear negotiations finally culminated in an agreement, all of this came together at a twin BRICS/SCO summit in Ufa, Russia — a place you’ve undoubtedly never heard of and a meeting that got next to no attention in the U.S. And yet sooner or later, these developments will ensure that the War Party in Washington and assorted neocons (as well as neoliberalcons) already breathing hard over the Iran deal will sweat bullets as their narratives about how the world works crumble.

The Eurasian Silk Road

With the Vienna deal, whose interminable build-up I had the dubious pleasure of following closely, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his diplomatic team have pulled the near-impossible out of an extremely crumpled magician’s hat: an agreement that might actually end sanctions against their country from an asymmetric, largely manufactured conflict.

Think of that meeting in Ufa, the capital of Russia’s Bashkortostan, as a preamble to the long-delayed agreement in Vienna. It caught the new dynamics of the Eurasian continent and signaled the future geopolitical Big Bangness of it all. At Ufa, from July 8th to 10th, the 7th BRICS summit and the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit overlapped just as a possible Vienna deal was devouring one deadline after another.

Consider it a diplomatic masterstroke of Vladmir Putin’s Russia to have merged those two summits with an informal meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Call it a soft power declaration of war against Washington’s imperial logic, one that would highlight the breadth and depth of an evolving Sino-Russian strategic partnership. Putting all those heads of state attending each of the meetings under one roof, Moscow offered a vision of an emerging, coordinated geopolitical structure anchored in Eurasian integration. Thus, the importance of Iran: no matter what happens post-Vienna, Iran will be a vital hub/node/crossroads in Eurasia for this new structure.

If you read the declaration that came out of the BRICS summit, one detail should strike you: the austerity-ridden European Union (EU) is barely mentioned. And that’s not an oversight. From the point of view of the leaders of key BRICS nations, they are offering a new approach to Eurasia, the very opposite of the language of sanctions.

Here are just a few examples of the dizzying activity that took place at Ufa, all of it ignored by the American mainstream media. In their meetings, President Putin, China’s President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi worked in a practical way to advance what is essentially a Chinese vision of a future Eurasia knit together by a series of interlocking “new Silk Roads.” Modi approved more Chinese investment in his country, while Xi and Modi together pledged to work to solve the joint border issues that have dogged their countries and, in at least one case, led to war.

The NDB, the BRICS’ response to the World Bank, was officially launched with $50 billion in start-up capital. Focused on funding major infrastructure projects in the BRICS nations, it is capable of accumulating as much as $400 billion in capital, according to its president, Kundapur Vaman Kamath. Later, it plans to focus on funding such ventures in other developing nations across the Global South — all in their own currencies, which means bypassing the U.S. dollar. Given its membership, the NDB’s money will clearly be closely linked to the new Silk Roads. As Brazilian Development Bank President Luciano Coutinhostressed, in the near future it may also assist European non-EU member states like Serbia and Macedonia. Think of this as the NDB’s attempt to break a Brussels monopoly on Greater Europe. Kamath even advanced the possibility of someday aidingin the reconstruction of Syria.

You won’t be surprised to learn that both the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the NDB are headquartered in China and will work to complement each other’s efforts. At the same time, Russia’s foreign investment arm, the Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), signed a memorandum of understanding with funds from other BRICS countries and so launched an informal investment consortium in which China’s Silk Road Fund and India’s Infrastructure Development Finance Company will be key partners.

Full Spectrum Transportation Dominance

On the ground level, this should be thought of as part of the New Great Game in Eurasia. Its flip side is the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Pacific and the Atlantic version of the same, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, both of which Washington is trying to advance to maintain U.S. global economic dominance. The question these conflicting plans raise is how to integrate trade and commerce across that vast region. From the Chinese and Russian perspectives, Eurasia is to be integrated via a complex network of superhighways, high-speed rail lines, ports, airports, pipelines, and fiber optic cables. By land, sea, and air, the resulting New Silk Roads are meant to create an economic version of the Pentagon’s doctrine of “Full Spectrum Dominance” — a vision that already has Chinese corporate executives crisscrossing Eurasia sealing infrastructure deals.

For Beijing — back to a 7% growth rate in the second quarter of 2015 despite a recent near-panic on the country’s stock markets — it makes perfect economic sense: as labor costs rise, production will be relocated from the country’s Eastern seaboard to its cheaper Western reaches, while the natural outlets for the production of just about everything will be those parallel and interlocking “belts” of the new Silk Roads.

Meanwhile, Russia is pushing to modernize and diversify its energy-exploitation-dependent economy. Among other things, its leaders hope that the mix of those developing Silk Roads and the tying together of the Eurasian Economic Union — Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan — will translate into myriad transportation and construction projects for which the country’s industrial and engineering know-how will prove crucial.

As the EEU has begun establishing free trade zones with India, Iran, Vietnam, Egypt, and Latin America’s Mercosur bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela), the initial stages of this integration process already reach beyond Eurasia. Meanwhile, the SCO, which began as little more than a security forum, is expanding and moving into the field of economic cooperation. Its countries, especially four Central Asian “stans” (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) will rely ever more on the Chinese-driven Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the NDB. At Ufa, India and Pakistan finalized an upgrading process in which they have moved from observers to members of the SCO. This makes it an alternative G8.

In the meantime, when it comes to embattled Afghanistan, the BRICS nations and the SCO have now called upon “the armed opposition to disarm, accept the Constitution of Afghanistan, and cut ties with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations.” Translation: within the framework of Afghan national unity, the organization would accept the Taliban as part of a future government. Their hopes, with the integration of the region in mind, would be for a future stable Afghanistan able to absorb more Chinese, Russian, Indian, and Iranian investment, and the construction — finally! — of a long-planned, $10 billion, 1,420-kilometer-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline that would benefit those energy-hungry new SCO members, Pakistan and India. (They would each receive 42% of the gas, the remaining 16% going to Afghanistan.)

Central Asia is, at the moment, geographic ground zero for the convergence of the economic urges of China, Russia, and India. It was no happenstance that, on his way to Ufa, Prime Minister Modi stopped off in Central Asia. Like the Chinese leadership in Beijing, Moscow looks forward (as a recent document puts it) to the “interpenetration and integration of the EEU and the Silk Road Economic Belt” into a “Greater Eurasia” and a “steady, developing, safe common neighborhood” for both Russia and China.

And don’t forget Iran. In early 2016, once economic sanctions are fully lifted, it is expected to join the SCO, turning it into a G9. As its foreign minister, Javad Zarif, made clear recently to Russia’s Channel 1 television, Tehran considers the two countries strategic partners. “Russia,” he said, “has been the most important participant in Iran’s nuclear program and it will continue under the current agreement to be Iran’s major nuclear partner.” The same will, he added, be true when it comes to “oil and gas cooperation,” given the shared interest of those two energy-rich nations in “maintaining stability in global market prices.”

Got Corridor, Will Travel

Across Eurasia, BRICS nations are moving on integration projects. A developing Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor is a typical example. It is now being reconfigured as a multilane highway between India and China. Meanwhile, Iran and Russia are developing a transportation corridor from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the Caspian Sea and the Volga River. Azerbaijan will be connected to the Caspian part of this corridor, while India is planning to use Iran’s southern ports to improve its access to Russia and Central Asia. Now, add in a maritime corridor that will stretch from the Indian city of Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and then on to the southern Russian city of Astrakhan. And this just scratches the surface of the planning underway.

Years ago, Vladimir Putin suggested that there could be a “Greater Europe” stretching from Lisbon, Portugal, on the Atlantic to the Russian city of Vladivostok on the Pacific. The EU, under Washington’s thumb, ignored him. Then the Chinese started dreaming about and planning new Silk Roads that would, in reverse Marco Polo fashion, extend from Shanghai to Venice (and then on to Berlin).

Thanks to a set of cross-pollinating political institutions, investment funds, development banks, financial systems, and infrastructure projects that, to date, remain largely under Washington’s radar, a free-trade Eurasian heartland is being born. It will someday link China and Russia to Europe, Southwest Asia, and even Africa. It promises to be an astounding development. Keep your eyes, if you can, on the accumulating facts on the ground, even if they are rarely covered in the American media. They represent the New Great — emphasis on that word — Game in Eurasia.

Location, Location, Location

Tehran is now deeply invested in strengthening its connections to this new Eurasia and the man to watch on this score is Ali Akbar Velayati. He is the head of Iran’s Center for Strategic Research and senior foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Velayati stresses that security in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Caucasus hinges on the further enhancement of a Beijing-Moscow-Tehran triple entente.

As he knows, geo-strategically Iran is all about location, location, location. That country offers the best access to open seas in the region apart from Russia and is the only obvious east-west/north-south crossroads for trade from the Central Asian “stans.” Little wonder then that Iran will soon be an SCO member, even as its “partnership” with Russia is certain to evolve. Its energy resources are already crucial to and considered a matter of national security for China and, in the thinking of that country’s leadership, Iran also fulfills a key role as a hub in those Silk Roads they are planning.

That growing web of literal roads, rail lines, and energy pipelines, asTomDispatch has previously reported, represents Beijing’s response to the Obama administration’s announced “pivot to Asia” and the U.S. Navy’s urge to meddle in the South China Sea. Beijing is choosing to project power via a vast set of infrastructure projects, especially high-speed rail lines that will reach from its eastern seaboard deep into Eurasia. In this fashion, the Chinese-built railway from Urumqi in Xinjiang Province to Almaty in Kazakhstan will undoubtedly someday be extended to Iran and traverse that country on its way to the Persian Gulf.

A New World for Pentagon Planners

At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month, Vladimir Putin told PBS’s Charlie Rose that Moscow and Beijing had always wanted a genuine partnership with the United States, but were spurned by Washington. Hats off, then, to the “leadership” of the Obama administration. Somehow, it has managed to bring together two former geopolitical rivals, while solidifying their pan-Eurasian grand strategy.

Even the recent deal with Iran in Vienna is unlikely — especially given the war hawks in Congress — to truly end Washington’s 36-year-long Great Wall of Mistrust with Iran. Instead, the odds are that Iran, freed from sanctions, will indeed be absorbed into the Sino-Russian project to integrate Eurasia, which leads us to the spectacle of Washington’s warriors, unable to act effectively, yet screaming like banshees.

NATO’s supreme commander Dr. Strangelove, sorry, American General Philip Breedlove, insists that the West must create a rapid-reaction force — online — to counteract Russia’s “false narratives.” Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter claims to be seriously considering unilaterally redeploying nuclear-capable missiles in Europe. The nominee to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Commandant Joseph Dunford, recently directly labeled Russia America’s true “existential threat”; Air Force General Paul Selva, nominated to be the new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, seconded that assessment, using the same phrase and putting Russia, China and Iran, in that order, as more threatening than the Islamic State (ISIS). In the meantime, Republican presidential candidates and a bevy of congressional war hawks simply shout and fume when it comes to both the Iranian deal and the Russians.

In response to the Ukrainian situation and the “threat” of a resurgent Russia (behind which stands a resurgent China), a Washington-centric militarization of Europe is proceeding apace. NATO is now reportedly obsessed with what’s being called “strategy rethink” — as in drawing up detailed futuristic war scenarios on European soil. As economist Michael Hudson has pointed out, even financial politics are becoming militarized and linked to NATO’s new Cold War 2.0.

In its latest National Military Strategy, the Pentagon suggests that the risk of an American war with another nation (as opposed to terror outfits), while low, is “growing” and identifies four nations as “threats”: North Korea, a case apart, and predictably the three nations that form the new Eurasian core: Russia, China, and Iran. They are depicted in the document as “revisionist states,” openly defying what the Pentagon identifies as “international security and stability”; that is, the distinctly un-level playing field created by globalized, exclusionary, turbo-charged casino capitalism and Washington’s brand of militarism.

The Pentagon, of course, does not do diplomacy. Seemingly unaware of the Vienna negotiations, it continued to accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons. And that “military option” against Iran is never off the table.

So consider it the Mother of All Blockbusters to watch how the Pentagon and the war hawks in Congress will react to the post-Vienna and — though it was barely noticed in Washington — the post-Ufa environment, especially under a new White House tenant in 2017.

It will be a spectacle. Count on it. Will the next version of Washington try to make it up to “lost” Russia or send in the troops? Will it contain China or the “caliphate” of ISIS? Will it work with Iran to fight ISIS or spurn it? Will it truly pivot to Asia for good and ditch the Middle East or vice-versa? Or might it try to contain Russia, China, and Iran simultaneously or find some way to play them against each other?

In the end, whatever Washington may do, it will certainly reflect a fear of the increasing strategic depth Russia and China are developing economically, a reality now becoming visible across Eurasia. At Ufa, Putin told Xi on the record: “Combining efforts, no doubt we [Russia and China] will overcome all the problems before us.”

Read “efforts” as new Silk Roads, that Eurasian Economic Union, the growing BRICS block, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those China-based banks, and all the rest of what adds up to the beginning of a new integration of significant parts of the Eurasian land mass. As for Washington, fly like an eagle? Try instead: scream like a banshee.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times, an analyst for RTand Sputnik, and a TomDispatch regular. His latest book is Empire of Chaos. Follow him on Facebook by clicking here.

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