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Turkey-NATO Crisis Sets The Scene For New European ‘EU Army’

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By Patrick Henningsen

Source: 21st Century Wire

They say there are no coincidences in politics and foreign affairs.

Less than 72 hours after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter inside of Syrian airspace, moves are already afoot to increase the role of Europe in Syria.

Germany has now joined the party this week by revealing its intention to deploy ground troops in the fight against ISIS. Angela Merkel’s government announced its plan to send 100 Bundeswehr Special Forces into Northern Iraq to support of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

Britain is not far behind either, as David Cameron intensifies his lobbying efforts to get his country into the war in Syria.

Is this part of a defacto NATO action now, or NATO by fiat? If only it were that simple…

There is much more going on here than meets the eye. With Germany now entering the fray, this brings a total of at least FIVE major NATO member states who are either actively involved in the fight, or about to enter the combat theater. The most important point here is that each and every one of these countries is in the conflict in clear violation of international law. Neither has the backing of the UN Security Council, or has an invitation from the legal and internationally recognized (including by the UN) government in Damascus. In addition, none of these actors is acting under NATO Article 5, in other words, none has been attacked by another internationally recognized nation-state of entity (although it’s curious why the western governments have insisted on referring to a brutal terrorist group as a “State”, unless of course, they recognize it as such, which somehow gives them the color of law in Article 5).

For all intents and purposes, NATO is already in. Here are the FIVE major NATO members, all of whom appear to be operating under highly dubious mandates in and around Syria:

France

Following the Paris Attacks on Friday the 13th, and still without any real evidence presented to the public that ISIS itself was responsible for the Paris Attacks – almost immediately, France deployed the full-force of its military supposedly to hit ISIS targets in the alleged Islamic State “stronghold” of Raqqa, Syria. Coincidentally, even mainstream reports questioned what the objective of France’s airstrikes were (all target data was supplied by the US), with some claiming that the French move was purely for show and that they could not confirm any actual ISIS militants were killed. Note that France had already been caught announcing its move of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to Syria on Nov 5th – a full week before the Paris attacks. Of course, no mention of this in the media.

Aside from giving the state license to unleash a new level of domestic Police State at home, more importantly, the Paris Attacks gave France an immediate “official” entry into the Syria War. Undoubtedly, this was a huge game-changer.

United States

When the ‘Islamic State Caliphate’ crisis public relations campaign was officially launched by the US-UK Government-Media Complex in June 2014 (before that, there was scant if little mention of this branded terror organization by western politicians and media outlets), it took some time before the US announced its grand ‘Anti-ISIS Coalition’. Perhaps ISIS needed more time to get organized, and to release a series of shocking internet videos of which the western media fed off – – and which were mostly proven as fakes and digital forgeries. Something was not right about the ISIS Crisis by US media outlets who were so enthralled with the sensational propaganda videos that no one dared question the lack of authenticity of what was eventually exposed as fake ISIS beheading video productions (the CIA has previously admitted staging such videos) or the ISIS narrative itself. Oddly, the western media treated anything coming out of ISIS HQ as sacred and unimpeachable in media terms. It wasn’t until Iranian and Hezbollah ground forces entered the fight against ISIS that US President Barack Obama finally decided it was time to move in August 2014 by waging airstrikes in Northern Iraq. Over the next few months, the US began assembling its ‘Anti-ISIS (ISIL) Coalition’, although it was hard to spot anyone else in the ‘Coalition’ other than the US.

It should be noted that on the first day of US airstrikes inside Syria (Sept 23, 2014), it was pretty clear that the US had actually bombed a series of empty buildings in Raqqa, Syria (somehow ISIS was tipped off before hand, weeks in advance, in fact). Not a good start to the “big push”. At that point, our suspicions were confirmed – that the US had no intention of actually rooting out ISIS, and that secretly Washington was actually hoping that ISIS and other terrorist brigades on the ground could do what their previous proxy ground force, the Free Syria Army, could not do – which was to overthrow the government in Damascus, which Washington and its allies refer to (just in like Iraq in 2003) the ‘Assad regime’.

Great Britain

It’s no surprise that the British Tory government has been chomping at the bit to get into the Syrian War. In August 2013, they nearly got their mandate, but lost in a Parliamentary vote. Some Tory ministers had public temper tantrums. As it turns out, the pretext for their entire push for war, ‘WMDs’, aka chemical weapons (Sarin) allegedly deployed by Syrian government forces – was exposed as a false flag attack and the US-UK’s attempt to blame Syrian President Bashar al Assad was a media fiction (just in like Iraq in 2003), a chemical attack launched by the US-led Coalition’s ‘Moderate Rebels” in order to blame the government of Syria and trigger a western intervention. The plan was a complete failure, so bad in fact, it caused the US to back off their own war vote a month later in September 2013.

It seems that the Paris Attacks have also given David Cameron some wind in his war sails too, and yesterday we discovered that the French government is now lobbying for Britain’s Royal Air Force to join in the scrum, with London stating that it, “will soon be working side by side with their French counterparts” in taking military action in Syria. In order to help sell this new leg of the war, the French were provided the use of famed ‘liberal’ British newspaper  The Guardian to openly lobby for British involvement by claiming it would “put additional and extreme pressure on the ISIS terror network”. The article goes on to describe the work Britain is already doing as part of the ‘Coalition’:

“The RAF has significant capabilities for precision airstrikes, aerial reconnaissance and air-to-air refuelling support,” he says. “On a daily basis, its Tornado aircrafts and unmanned drones are causing very severe damage to Isis in Iraq. The use of these capabilities over Syria would put additional and extreme pressure on the Isis terror network.”

So what’s Cameron’s rush to get deeper into the Syrian side of the conflict? It appears as if the Paris Attacks have given Cameron a new life-line on the Syria War vote, one he’s long been pursuing. The shock and horror of Paris will certainly help his case pass muster with public opinion in accepting his long-term agenda to deploy British military assets in Syria. One reason is to showcase British hardware to the world’s lucrative arms sales market, something Cameron is no stranger to after performing the role as sales closer for BAE Systems and other firms landing billion dollar contracts in the Gulf in recent years. Currently, Cameron is desperate to rescue those contracts which threaten to be scrapped over an ‘inconvenient’ human rights row between Westminster’s political left and the Kingdom over Saudi’s plan to behead and crucify a 17 old boy – the son of a Shia activist. Covering Saudi Arabia’s ghastly human rights record in favor of turning a few quid (tens of billions for 100 Typhoon jets and a prison contract) has always been an obsession of Westminster. Coupled with the Syria issue, this last row has prompted some of most amazing double speak and spin ever seen coming out of the Foreign Office, as evidenced by this humdinger about “The World’s Most Misunderstood Feudal Kingdom: Saudi Arabia”, seemingly straight out of the Office of Information Dispersal:

“One well-placed Whitehall source said: “It appears that the Saudis believe that they are being treated like a political football and had enough. It was only after the personal intervention of the Prime Minister that the situation has temporarily cooled but the Saudis want assurances.”

It gets worse, as Westminster is trying to sell the idea that somehow Saudi Arabia has ‘absolutely nothing to do’ with ISIS. Seriously…

“In the week that Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, warned that Britain is facing mass casualty attacks from Isil terrorists, Number 10 is desperate to ensure that it maintains good relations with Saudi Arabia, its most important ally in the Middle East. There were fears that the increased tensions between the two countries might result in the Saudis scaling down their vital intelligence-sharing arrangement with British intelligence, as well as jeopardising future lucrative arms deals with British firms such as BAE Systems.”

And we wonder why the public is mostly clueless as to what’s happening in Syria. They hardly stand a chance against such a relentless propaganda oracle.

Germany

This week, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière and Justice Minister Heiko Maas, drafted a plan for military intervention and held a secret meeting on Thursday – to discuss exactly how this would be managed in terms of public relations, Bild newspaper reported. There are some historic considerations regarding Germany in this story, too. RT adds here:

“The cabinet is set to discuss the bill that may raise the question of a constitutional change on December 17. German Basic Law has strict limits on military involvement since the end of World War II, originally destined to prevent a revival of Nazi crimes.”

Considering how Turkey’s recent dangerous provocation ‘stunt’ was no accident, and how NATO members are beginning to back away from Turkey slightly (albeit temporarily, at least), the international focus is finally shifting towards Turkey’s obvious and direct role in facilitating and even supporting the rise of ISIS and al Nusra (al Qaeda in Syria), and many other Islamic militant fighting groups active in Syria.

Turkey

Turkey is guilty on potentially two international war crimes according to the Geneva Conventions – shooting down an aircraft in Syrian airspace (it’s becoming clearer from multiple reports that the Turkish F16 air-to-air missile may have fired in Turkish airspace, but the missile hit the Russian fighter in Syrian airspace, a clear war crime), and also the fact that Turkey is providing direct support to the same jihadi Turkmen insurgents who then shot and killed a Russian pilot while he was parachuting in the air, another war crime. In fact, one of the NATO-backed ‘moderate’ terrorists who boasted of killing the downed pilot is actually a Turkish citizen with links to both elected officials and a ultra-nationalist group, the Grey Wolves, based in Turkey.

This is only the beginning of Turkey’s problems. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been accused of harboring a Sultan Complex – hoping to lead Turkey’s restoration to its former seat at the head of the Islamic world, in an Ottoman Caliphate redux. Add to this fresh allegations of his son Bilal’s business links to ISIS, and we can see how this mafia state may have too many crimes to answer for when it’s all said and done. If Turkey becomes an international pariah for its increasingly obvious collusion with ISIS and the wider terrorist conclave gallivanting freely through Syria and Turkey – then there could be calls for NATO to dump the rogue state and bad actor in the Syrian conflict.

Consider the Hegelian Dialectic as in, problem, reaction, solution. Problem: Turkey has ‘gone rogue’. Reaction: Turkey must leave NATO. Solution: the formation of a new, well-funded European-based multilateral military organization.What would that look like? Perhaps something like this…

‘New Model Army’ For Europe

If a major NATO player like Turkey is dumped from NATO, then this means that western central planners no longer have a multilateral ‘beach head’ positioned at the historic crossroads of Europe, Middle East and Asia.

Back in March 2015, 21WIRE reported something which many may have missed at the time, but what we thought was significant. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced that the European Union (EU) now needs a new standing army, or an “EU Army” – supposedly to “defend its values” from the sudden existential threats. He was not referring to ISIS, but to Russia. Two months later, Junker called for it again while saying, “Such an army would also help us to form common foreign and security policies and allow Europe to take on responsibility in the world.” Clearly this is no fluke, and it’s been brewing under our noses for a few years now. Back in Dec 2013, during a “heated” summit debate, Speaker of the European Parliament Martin Schulz called for the creation of a EU Army. The Telegraph reported:

“If we wish to defend our values and interests, if we wish to maintain the security of our citizens, then a majority of MEPs consider that we need a headquarters for civil and military missions in Brussels and deployable troops.” Geoffrey Van Orden MEP, the Conservative spokesman on European defence, said that the prime minister had “turned the tide on an EU army”. “It’s been a long haul to get to this position,” he said.

On the surface, one might read that NATO would be unhappy with a call from Brussels for a new EU Army, but Jucker’s call was only an opening salvo in a larger transatlantic political shift taking place right now. To prove our point, we can show our readers that right on cue this week, we see mainstream media propaganda being ramped-up to make the public used to the idea of an EU Army. Holding the baton on this story is ‘liberal’ newspaper The Independent:

“The British public is broadly supportive of the creation of a standing army for the European Union, a new poll suggests. The YouGov survey found that 36 per cent actively supported a permanent multi-national  force drawn from all the bloc’s nations, compared to only 29 per cent who opposed such a move.”

Anyone who has actually been paying attention to the declining state of the British military will know that it’s almost down to a level where it cannot possibly function autonomously. Soon, all that will remain are a few shiny set-pieces like the Trident nuclear submarine fleet, but more importantly – the key remaining component: a rapid reaction, special forces capability which will slot into the new EU Army matrix. Anything which is not fulfilling a role within the larger infrastructure will be scrapped.

Not convinced? Consider this little known fact, revealed in early 2011 in an investigation by the UK Column into David Cameron’s 50 year ‘Defence Pact’ with France – plan that was hatched behind closed doors through the front organization called the Franco British Council, a charity supposedly set up to foster good relations between Britain and France. This was one of many quiet moves engineered to nudge Britain’s military into an eventual EU Army.

For any remaining doubters that an EU Army is not only in the cards, but is in its final stages of planning between Germany, France and Britain and others, note how just two months ago, Angela Merkel was seen openly ‘horse trading’ with David Cameron – asking him to drop his (public) opposition to an EU Army… in exchange for Germany supporting Britain’s “renegotiation” of EU membership, presumably on issues of welfare spending and immigration. The Telegraph states:

“The German chancellor will ask Britain to stand aside as she promotes an ambitious blueprint to integrate continental Europe’s armed forces.”

“While there is no expectation or obligation for Britain to take part in steeper integration, the creation of an EU army could marginalise Britain within Nato and result in the United States downgrading the special relationship with Britain in favour of Paris and Berlin, experts warn.”

“The Telegraph has seen an unpublished position paper drawn up by Europe and Defence policy committees of Mrs Merkel’s party, the CDU, that sets out a detailed 10-point plan for military co-operation in Europe. It is understood to closely reflect her thinking, and calls for a permanent EU military HQ, combined weapons procurement and a shared military doctrine.”

“The paper says it is “urgent” to integrate armed forces “in the face of multifaceted crises”.

In other words, it’s more or less a done deal.

So regarding Syria, Turkey, Russia and NATO, as the elite adage goes, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. There are 5 main points to consider right now:

1. Eurozone Crisis. The Greek economic meltdown, followed by Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Ireland’s economic struggles means that the European Union’s Eurozone economic integrity is under threat – and by extension, so is their physical shape should any member state eventually want to leave the European Super State. US-led economic sanctions against Russia over the downing of MH17 in 2014 (a likely false flag event of  which the US accused Russia of being ‘responsible’.)

2. EU Crisis. Add to this the recent ‘Migrant Crisis’, and you have a public perception that European borders are under threat, too. In addition, Great Britain has seen a loud clamor to “leave the EU”, led recently by the ruling Tory Party, even though David Cameron has remained a committed Europhile his entire career. Many people viewed the Tory ‘Exit’ Campaign as mere play acting to win-over some available UKIP nationalist votes in the last general election. Ditto with Spain, who was recently blackmailed by Brussels over the prospect of a newly independent Catalonia. No surprise that Spain is set to play a key role in a new EU Army.

3. Migrant Crisis. The current ‘Migrant Crisis’ provides a perfect pretext to call for a new centralized, ‘federal’ EU Border Control Agency. This is a perfect fit with the EU Army. Funny how the entire Migrant Crisis has been unmasked as one of the most engineered and stage-managed crisis events in recent history. A perfect example of how a crisis is used to strengthen an EU Federal State framework. Then comes the killer: in October, Brussels offers Turkey its first step towards ‘normalization with Europe’, or soft membership into the EU. Brussels offered cash and visas to Turkey if it would ‘promise’ to help stop the flow of migrants into the EU. The terms of this latest deal were almost unbelievable. With most of the new ISIS recruits now coming from Turkey,  this new plan will give legal access into Europe for many Syria and Turkey-based ISIS and al Nusra Front terrorists. So Turkey could be out of NATO, but into the EU? Wow.

4. Terrorism Crisis. The Paris Attacks were important in order to join together the Syrian Conflict, the Migrant Crisis and the War on Terror (rebranded now to the ‘War on Radicalization’). From this one event grew a raft of emergency policies, decrees and military actions. For the security state – it was a grand slam. The Paris Attacks also triggered calls for a new EU ‘FBI’ agency to “help combat terror”. Add to this, other calls for an EU ‘CIA’ too. That’s right, all the trappings of a Federal Super State. Still, no one bothered to question the premise of the grand slam, in this case, a planted, fake Syrian passport which magically appeared at the scene of the alleged ISIS suicide bomb attack in Paris on Nov 13th. Forensically speaking, there is no actual proof that ISIS carried out the Paris Attacks. Still, everyone it seems, is assuming it’s ISIS and that it’s connected to Syria. Again, more power flowing to an EU Federal State framework.

4. NATO Crisis. The reality is that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a Cold War relic that’s way outside the bounds of its original mandate, and has no real practical application in the 21st century. NATO used to have some air of moral mandate around the world but that’s fading quickly. By encircling Russia with missile batteries, signing-up Russia’s neighbors, NATO has become more of an offensive entity, rather than a defensive one. The real dirt on NATO’s hands comes with its dark partnership with NeoNazi factions to help achieve its military objectives in the Ukraine. We also learned this week how NATO has opened up a new proxy war front in Crimea, as western-backed NeoNazis carried out terrorist attacks against Crimean infrastructure, and perhaps the most disturbing report we’ve seen here – what looks like CIA support of Islamic Chechen militants brought into east Ukraine.

There’s another fundamental problem with NATO: funding. The US supplies NATO with approximately 75% of its funding which guarantees that NATO is always under Washington’s control, but the US needs to have real stakeholders in order to have a real ‘alliance’. Few have paid attention to NATO’s ongoing weakening of its military assets, mostly due to a lack of spending by the majority of its member states. Every NATO member state is expected to spend at least 2% of its annual GDP on defense spending. That’s not happening anymore, and there is absolutely nothing the Brussels HQ can do about it outside of the US giving money away to those in financial need. Weapons Welfare? That’s not happening either.

NATO’s days are numbered. All the tea leaves point to its schedule for decommissioning. All NATO needs is a good crisis to hasten that inevitability. Maybe Turkey has delivered the pretext Brussels needs. This does not necessarily mean that NATO would be winded-down, but that it would give way to another military structure – like an EU Army.

You’d expect Washington to be averse to a NATO downgrade, down to a second tier international organization. After all, the US has used NATO as a multilateral trojan horse of sorts – an alternative flag it could fly in order to bypass any due process or Constitutional restrictions in waging war around the globe. In other words, Washington has used NATO to cheat its own laws, and expand its geopolitical hegemony, and to drag along its European partners where possible to help make it look like a ‘team effort’, and a unilateral action. The truth is, regarding international affairs, the US has long-since replaced its NATO widget with the “Coalition” widget, and will wage war as and when. At home, it has replaced the near redundant Constitutional Declaration of War with the more fluid and flexible ‘Authorization of Military Force‘ (AUMF), and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – which essentially means that, on paper at least (through color of law, and not actual law), that the US is always under emergency war footing.

There is visible US-EU split, one which became evident during the planning of Washington’s coup d’etat in the Ukraine in 2013-2014, when the US Sate Department’s assistant secretary for European affairs, Victoria Nuland was caught on tape telling her colleague Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt to, “F*ck the EU!”, as they argued over which US-backed puppet leader would be installed in Kiev.

What Washington really wants (and needs) now is a big Coalition partner, preferable one which is not directly governed by a local representative democracy, but governed by a remote, mostly unelected bureaucratic system. In this context, a new European multinational force would be the perfect ‘Coalition’ partner for Washington.

This is where this complex confluence of events is taking us – from Brussels, Paris, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia, all roads lead to an EU Army.

The Matrix Extends Its Reach

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By Paul Craig Roberts

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

NOTE: The remnant of the American left has again fallen in with the official terror story of the Paris attacks, because the official story serves the left-wing’s denunciatory needs. I see that the Russians as well are on board with the official story as it serves their posture that we must all unite against terrorism. Amazing. Washington can rely on the world’s total blindness.

Within one hour of the Paris attacks and without any evidence, the story was set in stone that the perpetrator was ISIL. This is the way propaganda works.

When the West does it, it always succeeds, because the world is accustomed to following the lead of the West. I was amazed to see, for example, Russian news services helping to spread the official story of the Paris attacks despite Russia herself having suffered so often from planted false stories.

Has the Russian media forgotten MH-17? The minute the story was reported that the Malaysian airliner was hit by a Russian missile over eastern Ukraine in the hands of separatists, the blame was ascribed to Russia. And that is where the blame remains despite the absence of evidence.

Has the Russian media also forgotten the “Russian invasion of Ukraine”? This preposterous story is accepted everywhere in the West as gospel.

Has the Russian media forgot about the book by the German newspaper editor who wrote that every European journalist of consequence was an asset of the CIA?

One would have thought that experience would have taught Russian media sources to be
careful about explanations that originate in the West.

So now we have what is likely to be another false story set in stone. Just as a few Saudis with box cutters outwitted the entire US national security state, ISIL managed to acquire unacquirable weapons and outwit French intelligence while organizing a series of attacks in Paris.

Why did ISIL do this? Blowback for France’s small role in Washington’s Middle East violence?
Why not the US instead?

Or was ISIL’s purpose to have the flow of refugees into Europe blocked by closed borders? Does ISIL really want to keep all of its opponents in Syria and Iraq when instead it can drive them out to Europe? Why have to kill or control millions of people by preventing their flight?

Don’t expect any explanations or questions from the media about the story that is set in stone.

The threat to the European political establishment is not ISIL. The threats are the rising anti-EU, anti-immigrant political parties: Pegida in Germany, the UK Independence Party, and the National Front in France. The latest poll shows the National Front’s Marine Le Pen leading as the likely French president.

Something had to be done about the hordes of refugees from Washington’s wars, or the establishment political parties faced defeat at the hands of political parties that are also unfriendly to Europe’s subservience to Washington.

EU rules about refugees and immigrants and Germany’s acceptance of one million of the refugees, together with heavy criticism of those governments in Eastern Europe that wanted to put up fences to keep out the refugees, made closing borders impossible.

With the Paris terror attacks, what was impossible became possible, and the President of France immediately announced the closing of France’s borders. The border closings will spread. The main issue of the rising dissident political parties will be defused. The EU will be safe, and so will Washington’s sovereignty over Europe.

Whether or not the Paris attacks were a false flag operation for the purpose of obtaining these results, these results are the consequences of the attacks. These results serve the interests of the European political establishment and Washington.

Is ISIL so unsophisticated not to have realized that? If ISIL is that unsophisticated, how did ISIL
so easily deceive French intelligence? Indeed, can French intelligence be intelligent?

Can Western peoples be intelligent to fall for a story set in stone prior to any evidence? In the West, facts are created by self-serving statements from governments. Investigation is not part of the process. When 90 percent of the US media is owned by six mega-corporations, it cannot be any different.

As The Matrix grows in the absurdity of its claims, it nevertheless manages to become even more invulnerable.

 

11/15/15 Updates:

French Security Left Blind During Paris Attacks

Paul Craig Roberts

I have received a report from European security that there was a massive cyber attack on French systems 48 hours prior to and during the Paris attacks. Among other things, the attack took down the French mobile data network and blinded police surveillance The attack was not a straightforward DDOS attack but a sophisticated attack that targeted a weakness in infrastructure hardware.

Such an attack is beyond the capability of most organizations and requires capability that is unlikely to be in ISIL’s arsenal. An attack on this scale is difficult to pull off without authorities getting wind of it. The coordination required suggests state involvement.

It is common for people with no experience in government to believe that false flag attacks are not possible, because they think the entire government would have to be involved and not everyone would go along with it. Someone would talk. However, if the report I have received is correct, hardly anyone has to be involved, and security forces are simply disabled.

Remember the reports that during 9/11, a simulation of the actual events that were occurring was being conducted, thus confusing responsible parties about the reality.

I am unable to reveal any further information. If security experts find the information credible, they should direct their inquiries to the French authorities.

Food For Thought: The Found Passport

The “found passport” worked for them for 9/11. It worked again for Charlie Hebdo. So now they have used it a third time. They know that Americans are total dumbshits and can be told anything. No matter how preposterous, the dumbshits will believe it. But Americans are not capable of believing truth. They have been brainwashed that truth is “conspiracy theory.” A population this stupid has no future.

Remember, on 9/11 an exercise simulating the day’s real events was being conducted. Again, we hear the same thing about the Paris attacks. What an unusual coincidence! But the dumbshit Western populations are not capable of noticing. Apparently neither are the Russians.

The articles below show that there is a lot of room for a lot of suspicion. But blinded eyes cannot see.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-were-prepared-large-military-exercise-took-place-on-same-day-as-paris-terrorist-attacks/5489164

http://www.globalresearch.ca/before-paris-terrorist-attacks-cia-director-brennan-met-with-french-intelligence-ggse-chief-bernard-bajolet-report/5489143

http://www.globalresearch.ca/magic-passports-redux-syrian-passport-allegedly-discovered-on-paris-suicide-bomber/5489003

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/11/15/french-security-left-blind-during-paris-attacks-2/

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/11/14/the-matrix-extends-its-reach-paul-craig-roberts/

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-15/false-flag-link-passport-found-next-suicide-bomber-was-fake-claim-us-french-sources

The US and Global Wars: Empire or Vampire?

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By James Petras

Source: Axis of Logic

Introduction

To the growing army of critics of US military intervention, who also reject the mendacious claims by American officials and their apologists of ‘world leadership’, Washington is engaged in ‘empire-building”.

But the notion that the US is building an empire, by engaging in wars to exploit and plunder countries’ markets, resources and labor, defies the realities of the past two decades. US wars, including invasions, bombings, occupations, sanctions, coups and clandestine operations have not resulted in the expansion of markets, greater control and exploitation of resources or the ability to exploit cheap labor. Instead US wars have destroyed enterprises, reduced access to raw materials, killed, wounded or displaced productive workers around the world, and limited access to lucrative investment sites and markets via sanctions.

In other words, US global military interventions and wars have done the exact opposite of what all previous empires have pursued: Washington has exploited (and depleted) the domestic economy to expand militarily abroad instead of enriching it.

Why and how the US global wars differ from those of previous empires requires us to examine (1) the forces driving overseas expansion; (2) the political conceptions accompanying the conquest, the displacement of incumbent rulers and the seizure of power and; (3) the reorganization of the conquered states and the accompanying economic and social structures to sustain long-term neo-colonial relations.

Empire Building: The Past

Europe built durable, profitable and extensive empires, which enriched the ‘mother country’, stimulated local industry, reduced unemployment and ‘trickled down’ wealth in the form of better wages to privileged sectors of the working class. Imperial military expeditions were preceded by the entry of major trade enterprises (British East India Company) and followed by large-scale manufacturing, banking and commercial firms. Military invasions and political takeovers were driven by competition with economic rivals in Europe, and later, by the US and Japan.

The goal of military interventions was to monopolize control over the most lucrative economic resources and markets in the colonized regions. Imperial repression was directed at creating a docile low wage labor force and buttressing subordinate local collaborators or client-rulers who facilitated the flow of profits, debt payments, taxes and export revenues back to the empire.

Imperial wars were the beginning, not the end, of ‘empire building’. What followed these wars of conquest was the incorporation of pre-existing elites into subordinate positions in the administration of the empire. The ‘sharing of revenues’, between the imperial economic enterprises and pre-existing elites, was a crucial part of ‘empire building’. The imperial powers sought to ‘instrumentalize’ existing religious, political, and economic elites’ and harness them to the new imperial-centered division of labor. Pre-existing economic activity, including local manufacturers and agricultural producers, which competed with imperial industrial exporters, were destroyed and replaced by malleable local traders and importers (compradors). In summary, the military dimensions of empire building were informed by economic interests in the mother country. The occupation was pre-eminently concerned with preserving local collaborative powers and, above all, restoring and expanding the intensive and extensive exploitation of local resources and labor, as well as the capture and saturation of local markets with goods from the imperial center.

“Empire-building” Today

The results of contemporary US military interventions and invasions stand in stark contrast with those of past imperial powers. The targets of military aggression are selected on the basis of ideological and political criteria. Military action does not follow the lead of ‘pioneer’ economic entrepreneurs – like the British East India Company. Military action is not accompanied by large-scale, long-term capitalist enterprises. Multi-national construction companies of the empire, which build great military bases are a drain on the imperial treasury.

Contemporary US intervention does not seek to secure and take over the existing military and civilian state apparatus; instead the invaders fragment the conquered state, decimate its cadres, professionals and experts at all levels, thus providing an entry for the most retrograde ethno-religious, regional, tribal and clan leaders to engage in intra-ethnic, sectarian wars against each other, in other words – chaos. Even the Nazis, in their expansion phase, chose to rule through local collaborator elites and maintained established administrative structures at all levels.

With US invasions, entire existing socio-economic structures are undermined, not ‘taken over’: all productive activity is subject to the military priorities of leaders bent on permanently crippling the conquered state and its advanced economic, administrative, educational, cultural and social sectors. While this is militarily successful in the short-run, the medium and long-term results are non-functioning states, not a sustained inflow of plunder and expanding market for an empire. Instead what we have is a chain of US military bases surrounded by a sea of hostile, largely unemployed populations and warring ethno-religious groups in decimated economies.

The US claims to ‘world leadership’ is based exclusively on failed-state empire building. Nevertheless, the dynamic for continuing to expand into new regions, to militarily and politically intervene and establish new client entities continues. And, most importantly, this expansionist dynamic further undermines domestic economic interests, which, theoretically and historically, form the basis for empire. We, therefore, have imperialism without empire, a vampire state preying on the vulnerable and devouring its own in the process.

Empire or Vampire: The Results of US Global Warfare

Empires, throughout history, have violently seized political power and exploited the riches and resources (both material and human) of the targeted regions. Over time, they would consolidate a ‘working relation’, insuring the ever-increasing flow of wealth into the mother country and the expanding presence of imperial enterprises in the colony. Contemporary US military interventions have had the opposite effect after every recent major military conquest and occupation.

Iraq: Vampires Pillage

Under Saddam Hussein, the Republic of Iraq was a major oil producer and profitable partner for major US oil companies, as well as a lucrative market for US exports. It was a stable, unified secular state. The first Gulf War in the 1990s led to the first phase of its fragmentation with the de facto establishment of a Kurdish mini-state in the north under US protection. The US withdrew its military forces but imposed brutal economic sanctions limiting economic reconstruction from the devastation of the first Gulf War. The second US-led invasion and full-scale occupation in 2003 devastated the economy and dismantled the state dismissing tens of thousands of experienced civil servants, teachers and police. This led to utter social collapse and fomented ethno-religious warfare leading to the killing, wounding or displacement of millions of Iraqis. The result of GW Bush’s conquest of Baghdad was a ‘failed state’. US oil and energy companies lost billions of dollars in trade and investment and the US economy was pushed into recession.

Afghanistan: Endless Wars, Endless Losses

The US war against Afghanistan began with the arming, financing and political support of Islamist jihadi-fundamentalists in 1979. They succeeded in destroying and dismantling a secular, national government. With the decision to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 the US became an occupier in Southwest Asia. For the next thirteen years, the US-puppet regime of Hamad Karzai and the ‘NATO coalition’ occupation forces proved incapable of defeating the Taliban guerrilla army. Billions of dollars were spent devastating the economy and impoverishing the vast majority of Afghans. Only the opium trade flourished. The effort to create an army loyal to the puppet regime failed. The forced retreat of US armed forces beginning in 2014 signals the bitter demise of US ‘empire building’ in Southwest Asia.

Libya: From Lucrative Trading Partner to Failed State

Libya, under President Gadhafi, was evolving into a major US and European trading partner and influential power in Africa. The regime signed large-scale, long-term contracts with major international oil companies that were backed by a stable secular government. The relationship with the US and EU was profitable. The US opted to impose a ‘regime change’ through massive US-EU missile and bombing strikes and the arming of a motley collection of Islamist terrorists, ex-pat neo-liberals and tribal militias. While these attacks succeeded in killing President Gadhafi and most of his family (including many of his grandchildren) and dismantling the secular Libyan government and administrative infrastructure, the country was ripped apart by tribal war-lord conflicts, political disintegration and the utter destruction of the economy. Oil investors fled. Over one million Libyans and immigrant workers were displaced. The US and EU ‘partners-in-regime-change’ have even fled their own embassies in Tripoli – while the Libyan ‘parliament’ operates off-shore from a casino boat. None of this devastation would have been possible under President Gadhafi. The US vampire bled its new prize, Libya, but certainly could not incorporate it into a profitable ‘empire’. Not only were its oil resources denied to the empire, but even oil exports disappeared. Not even an imperial military base has been secured in North Africa!

Syria: Wars on Behalf of Terrorists not Empire

Washington and its EU allies backed an armed uprising in Syria hoping to install a puppet regime and bring Damascus into their “empire”. The mercenary assaults have caused the deaths of nearly 200,000 Syrians, the displacement of over 30% of the population and the seizure of the Syrian oil fields by the Sunni extremist army, ISIS. ISIS has decimated the pro-US mercenary army, recruiting and arming thousands of terrorists from around the world It invaded neighboring Iraq conquering the northern third of that country. This was the ultimate result of the deliberate US dismantling of the Iraqi state in 2003.

The US strategy, once again, is to arm Islamist extremists to overthrow the secular Bashar Assad regime in Damascus and then to discard them for a more pliable client. The strategy ‘boomeranged’ on Washington. ISIS devastated the ineffective Iraqi armed forces of the Maliki regime in Baghdad and America’s much over-rated Peshmerga proxy ‘fighters’ in Iraqi ‘Kurdistan’. Washington’s mercenary war in Syria didn’t expand the ‘empire’; indeed it undermined existing imperial outposts.

The Ukrainian Power Grab, Russian Sanctions and Empire Building

In the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, the US and EU incorporated the Baltic, Eastern European and Balkan ex-communist countries into their orbit. This clearly violated major agreements with Russia, by incorporating most of the neo-liberal regimes into NATO and bringing NATO forces to the very border of Russia. During the corrupt regime of Boris Yeltsin, the ‘West’ absolutely looted the Russian economy in co-operation with local gangster – oligarchs, who took up EU or Israeli citizenship to recycle their pillaged wealth. The demise of the vassal Yeltsin regime and the ascent and recovery of Russia under Vladimir Putin led the US and EU to formulate a strategy to deepen and extend its ‘empire’ by seizing power in the Caucuses and the Ukraine. A power and land grab by the puppet regime in Georgia attacking Russian forces in Ossetia in 2012 was decisively beaten back. This was a mere dress rehearsal for the coup in Kiev. In late 2013-early 2014, the US financed a violent rightwing putsch ousting the elected government and imposing a hand-picked pro-NATO client to assume power in Kiev.

The new pro-US regime moved quickly to purge all independent, democratic, federalist, bilingual and anti-NATO voices especially among the bi-lingual citizens concentrated in the South-Eastern Ukraine. The coup and the subsequent purge provoked a major armed uprising in the southeast, which successfully resisted the invading NATO-backed neo-fascist armed forces and private armies of the oligarchs. The failure of the Kiev regime to subdue the resistance fighters of the Donbass region resulted in a multi-pronged US-EU intervention designed to isolate, weaken and undermine the resistance. First and foremost they attempted to pressure Russia to close its borders on the eastern front where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians eventually fled the bombardment. Secondly, the US and EU applied economic sanctions on Russia to abandon its political support for the southeast region’s democratic and federalist demands. Thirdly, it sought to use the Ukraine conflict as a pretext for a major military build-up on Russia’s borders, expanding NATO missile sites and organizing an elite rapid interventionist military force capable of bolstering a faltering puppet regime or backing a future NATO sponsored putsch against any adversary.

The Kiev regime is economically bankrupt. Its war against its own civilians in the southeast has devastated Ukraine’s economy. Hundreds of thousands of skilled professionals, workers and their families have fled to Russia. Kiev’s embrace of the EU has resulted in the breakdown of vital gas and oil agreements with Russia, undermining the Ukraine’s principle source of energy and heating with winter only months away. Kiev cannot pay its debts and faces default. The rivalries between neo-fascists and neo-liberals in Kiev will further erode the regime. In sum, the US-EU power grab in the Ukraine has not led to the effective ‘expansion of empire’; rather it has ushered in the total destruction of an emerging economy and precipitated a sharp reversal of financial, trade and investment relations with Russia and Ukraine. The economic sanctions against Russia exacerbate the EU current economic crisis. The belligerent posture of military confrontation toward Russia will result in an increase in military spending among the EU states and further divert scarce economic resources form job creation and social programs. The loss by significant sectors of the EU of agricultural export markets, as well as the loss of several billion-dollar military-industrial contracts with Russia, certainly weakens, rather than expands, the ‘empire’ as an economic force

Iran: 100 Billion Dollar Punitive Sanctions Don’t Build Empires

The US-EU sanctions on Iran carry a very high political, economic and political price tag. They do not strengthen empire, if we understand ‘empire’ to mean the expansion of multi-national corporations, and increasing access to oil and gas resources to ensure stable, cheap energy for strategic economic sectors within the imperial center.

The economic war on Iran has been at the behest of US allies, including the Gulf Monarchies and especially Israel. These are dubious ‘allies’ for US ‘empire’ . . . widely reviled potentates and a racist regime which manage to exact tribute from the imperial center!

In Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, Iran has demonstrated its willingness to co-operate in power sharing agreements with US global interest. However, Iran is a regional power, which will not submit to becoming a vassal state of the US. The sanctions policy has not provoked an uprising among the Iranian masses nor has it led to regime change. Sanctions have not weakened Iran to the extent of making it an easy military target. While sanctions have weakened Iran’s economy, they has also worked against any kind of long-range empire building strategy, because Iran has strengthened its economic and diplomatic ties with the US’ rivals, Russia and China.

Conclusion

As this brief survey indicates, US-EU wars have not been instruments of empire-building in the conventional or historical sense. At most they have destroyed some adversaries of empire. But these have been pyrrhic victories. Along with the overthrow of a target regime, the systematic break-up of the state has unleashed powerful chaotic forces, which have doomed any possibility of creating stable neo-colonial regimes capable of controlling their societies and securing opportunities for imperialist enrichment via economic exploitation.

At most the US overseas wars have secured military outposts, foreign islands in seas of desperate and hostile populations. Imperial wars have provoked continuous underground resistance movements, ethnic civil wars and violent terrorist organizations that threaten ‘blowback’ on the imperial center.

The US and EU’s easy annexations of the ex-communist countries, usually via the stage-managed ballot-box or ‘color revolutions’, led to the take-over of great national wealth and skilled labor. However, Euro-American empires bloody campaigns to invade and conquer the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa and the Caucuses have created nightmarish ‘failed states’ – continuously draining imperial coffers and leading to a state of permanent occupation and warfare.

The bloodless takeover of the Eastern European satellites with their accommodating, corrupt elites has ended. The 21st century reliance on militarist strategies contrasts sharply with the successful multi-pronged colonial expansions of the 19th–20th century, where economic penetration and large scale economic development accompanied military intervention and political change. Today’s imperial wars cause economic decay and misery within the domestic economy, as well as perpetual wars abroad, an unsustainable drain.

The current US/EU military expansion into Ukraine, the encirclement of Russia, NATO missiles aimed at the very heart of a major nuclear power and the economic sanctions may lead to a global nuclear war, which may indeed put an end to militarist empire-building… and the rest of humanity.