All Western Politicians Shout: Punish Russia!

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I’m bored, kids… Putin said. How so? After that, what does the average person sees on TV? The USA dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan. Then, they threatened to strike the DPRK. At the beginning of last week, they sent a new ultimatum to Russia on Syria. Why, then, did Putin say it’s all boring? Isn’t this entire sequence of threatening events alarming? However, let’s try to understand the reasons for such tranquillity on our president’s part.

Firstly, the USA played a trump card… a terrible chemical attack, which it pumped up, along with its European allies, apparently, without even a simple onsite check. It wasn’t just us, as Swedish doctors from Physicians for Human Rights stated that the “White Helmets” video publicised by Trump and the Europeans was a fake used in the interests of the Syrian opposition and even ISIS. Of course, you’ve already seen these horrible images in which people from “White Helmets” actually kill a child on camera for the sake of drama… they don’t merely make an injection, they plunged a syringe directly into the heart of a child. Generally, Assad rejects making any such attack. Our Foreign Minister Lavrov also said that the information about the attack is false.

As you recall, this didn’t prevent Trump last week from ordering an attack with 59 cruise missiles on a Syrian airfield. Of the 59 missiles, only 23 hit the target. The airfield received little damage. However, the West didn’t admit this in public. Trump said that all the missiles hit the target and the operation was very successful. He “punished” Assad. Yet, he said that we must deal with the Russians, who, they say, are also guilty of the chemical attack, because they concealed that Assad didn’t destroy all his chemical weapons. Although in fact, we didn’t destroy the weapons, Western enterprises under the supervision of the UN International Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons did so. The USA also took part in this and confirmed the removal of all chemical weapons by Assad.

All Western politicians shout… punish Russia! Foreign Minister Boris Johnson cancelled his visit to Moscow. Together with his colleagues on the G7, he’s going to Brussels to discuss new sanctions against Russia because of its support of Assad. Meanwhile, a US Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson sails towards the DPRK. The USN also sent an Ohio-class submarine with 150 TLAM cruise missiles aboard. The Chinese are moving 160,000 troops to the DPRK border in the event of an outbreak of war between the DPRK and the ROK. It’s all true, but it’s unclear why. It seems that Beijing is taking care of the DPRK… but Chinese leader Xi Jinping just returned from Washington. The world is rapidly changing before our eyes, and no one can say exactly how the Empire will behave at this or that moment. On Tuesday, the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that they’re ready for battle. The hand on the clock shows five minutes to World War.

Is it creepy? Sure, it’s creepy! Is it fearful? It sure is. However, that’s only if we look at this without asking questions. Firstly, we should ask:

• Why did we react so calmly?
• Why didn’t our air defences bring down all of the 59 Tomahawks in Syria?
• Why didn’t we do the usual retaliation against the American-backed Syrian opposition?
• Why didn’t we make a statement on the situation off the coast of the DPRK?

The answer is simple… Trump created all this tension to solve his domestic problems, not to bring on a war. In vain, people searched on the internet about the Third World War. What’s the real secret core of it all? His foes accused Trump of having links with Russia. Now, the Democrats scream with horror, “What is he doing?! He’s putting the world on the brink of disaster!” Nevertheless, will there be a confrontation with Russia? Are there the threats of sanctions? How about ultimatums? All became clear during the G7Foreign Ministers’ summit. Remember, Boris Johnson went there to push for sanctions? The summit rejected any new sanctions. How? Who rebelled? I’m sure it was the Americans themselves. You see, the G7 consists of the USA, the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, and Japan. If the USA wanted to introduce anti-Russian sanctions, no G7 member could say “no”. That’s the way it is. All this means is that when Tillerson threatened an ultimatum against Russia… either you’re with Assad against us or with us against Assad… he knew that new sanctions were off the table. Why did none of the media do a simple analysis? Why did all of them doggedly write and speak about an ultimatum? It’s because they don’t understand what’s happening.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went to Moscow, the dollar and the rouble fell on this news. Everyone prepared for bad news, but news that came out contained no particularly harsh statements. Moreover, Lavrov said that they created a mechanism for the advancement of relations between Russia and the USA. Then, the whole world let out its breath… it was so scary! That’s when Trump showed both a show of strength and diplomatic flexibility, which saved the world from the war that he’d almost unleashed. That is why Putin was so calm in reacting to this situation. He just let Trump solve his problems, knowing that the American leader will still sit down at the negotiating table in the end. Moreover, we’ll discuss peace, precisely because he particularly aggravated the situation, creating in the West feel a feeling that to go further into conflict is too dangerous. It wasn’t our game, but we got dividends. We showed everyone that we don’t hand our allies even under military pressure. For example, for us, the Middle East is critical… that’s not the only place.

This is also important for our fellow partners from the former Soviet republics. Restoration of Russia’s superpower status launched a centripetal force. That’s what the West is most fearful of… the restoration in one form or another of the USSR, even as a union of independent states. Economically, it’s happening in the EAEC. In terms of overall security, it’s happening in the ODKB. The threat from ISIS is an important incentive for the Central Asian republics to seek partnerships with the strongest country in the region, Russia, not with the far-off USA. At the ODKB summit in Kyrgyzstan, Putin, as is obvious from his interview with “Mir” on the eve of the summit, made it clear that Russia understands the seriousness of this threat and perceives it as a threat to their security. It is logical that the West, which since the late 80’s attacked the Union through a series of “colour revolutions”, found it easier in this situation to strike at the centre, Russia, through the creation of internal conflict.

However, Rex Tillerson, during his visit to Russia, was the first US Secretary of State in a long time who didn’t meet with the so-called opposition. What does it mean? Does it mean that the Americans now reject the idea of making a revolution in Russia? That they no longer, as before, support a Russian Euromaidan? Of course not. This week, the US Congress introduced a bill on the establishment of a fund with a budget of 100 million USD (5.6 billion Roubles. 688.93 million Renminbi. 6.456 billion INR. 133.23 million CAD. 132.27 million AUD. 93.91 million Euros. 79.59 million UK Pounds) to support the non-systemic opposition in Russia. It’s more correct to say… it calls for a coup d’état in Russia with the help of pro-US internal forces. What actions will this money support?

• Opposition to Russian media
• Support for the opposition media
• Support for pseudo-scientific and educational programs, to discredit Russian sources

And so on. That is, support all those who want a change of course. Good course or bad… it is, in fact, for us to decide, not for US Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV), who proposed the bill. It isn’t up to this tubby Latino from West Virginia.

17 April 2017

Andrei Dobrov

REN TV

http://ren.tv/blog/184845

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China Criticises Trump’s Foreign Policy… Slams Trump on North Korea

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China says that Donald Trump’s threats against the DPRK are more likely to encourage its nuclear programme than to deter it. President Trump’s hopes that by ramping up talk of war with the DPRK he might force China to ramp up pressure on that country suffered a blow today in the form of a strongly critical editorial of his whole foreign policy stance in the Chinese English-language daily Global Times. As I’ve pointed up on numerous occasions, although the Global Times is nominally an independent newspaper, in reality, the People’s Daily (the official newspaper of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China) launched it. Therefore, Global Times closely reflects the actual thinking of China’s government. However, because it’s one step away from the Chinese leadership, Global Times is able to express the views of the Chinese leadership in a more forthright way than more “official” media outlets such as People’s Daily and Xinhua can. There’s no doubt therefore that the latest editorial about Donald Trump’s foreign policy in Global Times reflects the opinions of China’s leadership… both its tone and its contents are scathing. Firstly, the editorial strongly criticises the unpredictability and drift towards increasingly belligerent militarism of President Trump’s foreign policy:

In less than three months since Trump’s inauguration, the US military launched at least two strikes that grabbed the world’s attention, the first being the airstrike on a Syrian airfield, and the second being the use of the “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) in Afghanistan. Trump uses military force more aggressively than Barack Obama did. He’s demonstrated a certain level of obsession and pride toward US military prowess. Even for George W Bush, who fought two wars during his presidency, every attack had to go through lengthy procedures, and starts of war were widely expected. However, the two recent attacks came rather abruptly. With this frequency and speed in use of force, Trump may go down in history as the “war president”.

The editorial then criticises the use of the MOAB in Afghanistan, calling it a “vicious weapon”. It contrasts the Trump administration’s decision to drop this bomb with Russia’s decision not to drop an even more powerful bomb… the FOAB (Father of All Bombs)… on ISIS in Syria:

The MOAB consumes a large amount of oxygen during its explosion. Because of its devastating capability, the actual probability of hurting civilians is very high. In the past, the USA killed and injured civilians in its attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. The use of the MOAB showed that Washington is turning a blind eye on civilian casualties. Clearly, this use of the MOAB has the aim of testing the weapon in real combat and provides a new gimmick in US military deterrence. Reports say that Russia has a similar device called the FOAB. Imagine how the USA and the West would react if Russia dropped that bomb on ISIS during its Syrian airstrikes. The USA seems to enjoy a privilege to do whatever it likes. To the world, this could bring more danger than security.

However, by far the most telling comments are those the editorial makes about US sabre-rattling against the DPRK. It makes crystal clear its view that this sabre-rattling… which in its opinion includes the dropping of MOAB on ISIS in Afghanistan… is completely misconceived and counterproductive:

The DPRK must have felt the shock wave travelling all the way from Afghanistan. It’d be nice if the bomb could frighten Pyongyang, but its actual impact may just be the opposite. Pyongyang’s logic in the recent years has been that, without nuclear weapons, what happened to Saddam and Gaddafi would befall its own administration. The MOAB may once again misguide Pyongyang, leading it to believe that it is crucial to upgrade its explosives. It’s been widely speculated that the DPRK is preparing for its sixth nuclear test and its leader Kim Jong-un is weighing his options is weighing his options. The message sent by the US military isn’t conducive to help Pyongyang make a reasonable decision.

In other words, far from scaring the DPRK into giving up its nuclear weapons programme, all President Trump’s threats are doing is to persuade it to pursue its nuclear weapons programme even more vigorously. This is because President Trump’s military actions show to the North Koreans the danger the USA poses to them. Although the editorial makes it clear that China strongly disapproves of the DPRK’s nuclear weapons programme… something China repeatedly and publicly said… it also shows that the Chinese think President Trump’s entire strategy towards the DPRK is completely misconceived. The tone of the editorial reveals that whatever hopes President Trump might have of scaring China into taking a firmer line with the DPRK are false. On the contrary, the Chinese… as the editorial makes clear… are barely able to conceal their anger at the reckless and dangerous actions of someone they’ve clearly come to consider an erratic and unpredictable President.

All of this was completely predictable; I wrote about it just a few days ago. We should earnestly hope that President Trump and his advisers now read the signals correctly and back off. Possibly, reports circulating in the USA that appear to contradict an earlier NBC report about the USA preparing a pre-emptive strike to forestall the next DPRK missile or nuclear test are a sign of this. I’d say that despite the denials I have little doubt that the Trump administration deliberately planted the NBC report to frighten China and the DPRK. Conceivably, having seen how it failed, Trump and his people are now backing away from it. Although events hang by a thread, I sincerely hope that’s so, and I sincerely hope also that this amateur and inexperienced President learns his lesson and comes to understand that contrary to what the Global Times editorial says, the USA does NOT “enjoy a privilege to do whatever it likes”.

16 April 2017

Alexander Mercouris

The Duran

http://theduran.com/china-slams-trump-north-korea/

Cheering for Régime Change in Syria? You Support the Murder of Christians

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Another Easter is upon us… Western governments still support the extermination of Christians in Syria. Easter is the holiest day in the Christian calendar. For Christians, Easter is the ultimate victory of God over Satan, a permanent victory, a kind of cosmic checkmate. However, for Christians in Syria, this Easter has a special meaning… victory over those who have sought, with Western backing, to destroy them. “Responsible” media outlets never speak of it, but anyone rooting for régime change in Syria also supports the murder of Christians. Syria is a secular state; it’s fought terrorists and jihadists for the last six years. If Assad goes, Syria’s Christians will cease to exist. On Friday, Haaretz carried an op-ed about what “régime change” would mean for Christians in Syria (but because it’s Haaretz, it also insisted that rooting for Iran, which fights ISIS, is just as bad as cheering for Christian genocide. Don’t be confused… it’s Haaretz). Some excerpts:

Jews in Israel support the murder of Coptic Christians and Christians in the Middle East in general… not just the killings that occurred in Egypt last Sunday. Anyone attacking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad encourages the murder of Christians in the Middle East and the entire world. It should be clear to all that the atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidis and any other non-Sunni Muslim minority it can get its murderous hands on will only be a prologue compared to what we should expect if Assad falls… which I hope never happens.

The support for Saudi Arabia and the war against Assad can have only one interpretation… support for terror. All the minorities that were massacred or fled Syria had lived in peace and security under the Assad régime. In Assad’s Syria, there’s no religious coercion and minorities weren’t required to pay a jizya tax because they weren’t Sunni Muslims. The ethnic and religious minorities enjoyed total freedom of worship, and churches and non-Muslim houses of prayer flourished.

Yet, Israel supports this terrorism. It is a satellite of the evil empire, the USA. Whoever supports Saudi Arabia supports the murder of Coptic Christians. Whoever defends Qatar has their hands covered in the blood of Coptic worshippers. Whoever fights Assad wants to exterminate the Christians from the Middle East.

Speaking about it is verboten, but the sad reality is that the USA and its western and Sunni poodles funded the extermination of Christians in the Middle East for a very long time. In December 2015, Dr William Wedin wrote about the extermination of Syrian Christians at the hands of Western-backed “moderate” rebels and ISIS. With Easter upon us, we’d like to share this article again with our readers. Just replace “Obama” with “Trump”, and you’ll begin to realise the size and scale of the atrocities being committed against Syrian Christians.

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The massacre of Syrian Christians in Kessab by “moderate” terrorists backed by the Turkish military in 2014 is only one example. Despite the truly heroic efforts of a re-Christianised Russia to protect them, “moderate” and “extremist” Muslim terrorists alike continue to kill and even crucify these Syrian Christians. Yet, no one in the West is talking about it. NO ONE! Not Obama, not the Republicans, not the “liberal” media, not Fox News and no one in public life… not even Donald Trump. It’s downright criminal! Everyone in Washington would like the American people to think that Syria is a Muslim nation and that everyone there is a Muslim. There are no Christians in Syria to save. Therefore, the USA and NATO can do what they please to the Muslims who remain. They’re untermenschen, after all. It’s a lie! A damned lie! The neocons might call it a “noble lie”. Nevertheless, it’s a lie nonetheless.

Christians Safe Under Assad

Before the Arab Spring opened the door to Muslim terrorists… fuelled by Saudi money and American weapons… millions of Syrian Christians lived in peace and safety with their Muslim neighbours since Biblical times.  Indeed, large Syrian cities, such as Antioch, were amongst the first Christian communities named in the New Testament. Perhaps, it took a ruthless tyrant to keep the peace at times. Certainly, Assad is a ruthless one  (witness his torturing al-Qaeda “suspects” for George Bush). However, at least in Syria, there was a stable peace between Christians and Muslims under Assad’s secular government, as shown by the fact that Syria boasted no less than 1.8 million Christians before the Arab Spring began in 2011. Yes, Christians lived in peace and safety.

This is a matter of historical fact. It’s rooted in a once-powerful movement, called Arab nationalism, which once included the likes of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. As the name applies, the unifying concept behind this nationalist movement that emerged in many Middle East countries after World War II was that all religious groups should be protected and respected (as taught by the Koran) so that people of all faiths would come to see themselves as proud and equal members of their shared motherland… be they Syrians or Egyptians. For only then… as one united nation… could they throw off colonial rule. In short, the answer Arab nationalism offered to the colonial powers’ dictum of “divide and conquer” was… unite and fight back!

The Western Powers were dead opposed. Forget the will of the people! Even the will of the American people. Our rulers “knew better” than we did what we really wanted. That was cheap oil… whatever the cost in “lesser” people’s lives. Only Arab nationalism stood in the way. Therefore, the Western powers had to crush it. Crush it they did… starting with Iran. Talk about what goes around comes around! When Mohammad Mosaddegh became Iran’s first freely elected Prime Minister in 1951 (in a wave of Persian nationalism), he became Time’s “Man of the Year” that year. However, this triumph of democracy didn’t last very long. When Mosaddegh moved to nationalise British Petroleum’s assets in Iran to use Iran’s own oil to lift her people out of poverty, the USA instantly ordered the CIA to stage a coup, called Operation Ajax, that ended the secular Republic of Iran… restoring the hated Shah, with his dreaded secret police, once more to power. So what if the US-backed Shah tortured, jailed, and murdered tens of thousands of freedom-loving Iranians to maintain his nearly 50-year rule? BP got its oil fields back… the Iranian people got oppression. That’s been the pattern of American foreign policy ever since. NEVER have we replaced a “bad” régime with a functioning democracy… although they always tell the American people that’s our goal going in. We’re selflessly “spreading democracy” to nations with… well… mineral wealth (like Afghanistan with its vast rare earth deposits).

Assad in the Crosshairs

Now, Assad is in the crosshairs. Not because he’s a brutal dictator… he is… but what of that? Our Presidents kiss Saudi monarchs, after all… although the Saudis behead and crucify adults and even children every year by the score. Moreover, our servile media doesn’t condemn those atrocities. No, “Assad must go” because he’s the last Arab Nationalist still standing. He wants the benefits of Syrian oil given to the Syrian people. So, off with his head! Yes, it’s true that when the Arab Spring reached Syria, a few hundred secular Syrians took to the streets calling for free elections, just as the Russians call for free elections in Syria now. The Western media doesn’t report it, but it’s a fact. The Russians don’t say that Assad must remain President forever. They say, “Let the Syrian people decide who’ll be their next President in a free fair election that includes Assad”. However, honest polls show that Assad would win such an election. So the White House and Wall Street say, “No!” That’s giving the Syrian people too much freedom! Assad must NOT be on the ballot. Otherwise, all that Syrian oil might wind up in the hands of… Syrians!

Meanwhile, since terrorists swept the secularists aside, Christian Syrians… long protected by Assad… now “disappear” by the millions… by the millions! Of the 1.8 million Christians that lived peacefully under Assad before the Arab Spring, only 200-400,000 Christians still live in intact communities in Syria today. The rest either died or fled… we know not where. Yet, the servile Western media is silent about these Christians. Until the deeply Christian Putin began attacking the terrorists in earnest, the West was content to play at attacking those terrorists NOT attacking Assad, as shown by the fact that of the 59,015 sorties flown against “extreme” terrorists, only 8,573 actually dropped any bombs or missiles. On the other hand, terrorists who do attack Assad get advanced weapons and training from the USA… even if those terrorists are al-Qaeda or allied with al-Qaeda… the very terrorists who brought us 9/11.

However, what does the One Percent care if Obama teams up with disguised forms of al-Qaeda so long as they oust Assad? Big Oil gets to build its “dream” pipeline from the stolen oilfields of Syria and Iraq through Turkey to Europe… cutting out “evil” Russia. Once Syria is “done”, the CIA can use these same Islamists to start biting off chunks of Southern (Muslim) Russia even if it means World War III followed by nuclear winter and the end of the American people. Of course, the White House maintains that only ISIS (which the Saudis and the USA jointly created) wants to chop off Christian heads, whereas those who pal around with al-Qaeda are “moderates” now. Although they also chop off heads, they do so “moderately”. So, what do Syrian Christians have to fear from them? A lot… if the Syrian Christians of Kessab are any example, but who’s heard of them? The Western mainstream media don’t report such war crimes.

A Call to Action to Protect Syrian Christians  

Therefore, it’s time we put Obama’s own Christianity to the test. Make him stop the genocide of Syrian Christians now! Although as many as 1.6 million Syrian Christians may already be dead, that would still leave 200,000 Syrian Christians left alive that he could save today. What’s stopping him? If Obama wants to use his “moderate” terrorists to remove Assad, let him first demand that these terrorists take a religiously binding vow that they shall always protect the lives and rights of all Syrian Christians. For Syrian Christians do exist, I assure you. However, “moderate” and “extremist” terrorists alike wage genocide against them even now. If they finally oust Assad… except in a free and fair election where Assad is on the ballot… there’d be a total bloodbath of those Christians who still survive. Syria would be worse than Rwanda. The next President… unless he knows of this hidden genocide… will let this crime against humanity go on just as Bill Clinton knowingly let the Rwandan genocide go on… while the servile Western media stood silent. The One Percent didn’t care about 800,000 Tutsis being hacked to death by machetes back then. The One Percent doesn’t care about the 1.6 million Syrian Christians who’ve “disappeared” at the hands of “moderate” and “extremist” terrorists already… like those Syrian Christian villagers of Kessab.

How long will this lethal silence last? As with every genocide, so here, “Silence = Death” for all those Syrian Christians who remain. Yet, you the reader can still play a vital role in forcing Obama to save these Syrian Christians by talking to your family and friends… by speaking to your pastor, priest, or rabbi… by calling your Senators and Congressmen… by writing the Pope (whether you’re Catholic or not)… and by contacting Syrian Churches… like the Syrian Church of Antioch… right here in America. While the servile mainstream media will deny that a Christian genocide is even taking place, we can count on alternative media like Russia Insider to keep us informed about who’s doing what to stop it, but only if we give these sites the political and financial support they need to keep functioning. We must wage the fight to save Syrian Christians on many fronts at once… beginning now and here.

15 April 2017

Russia Insider

http://russia-insider.com/en/cheering-regime-change-syria-you-support-murder-christians/ri19614