SYRIA: OBAMA’S BAY OF PIGS

         
                                                                                  

No one is going to get rich reading tea leaves to predict the outcome of the US-backed terrorist invasion of Syria. There are so many confusing events that it’s difficult to keep track of trends that might indicate which way the war on Assad (and the majority of Syrians) is going. That’s why few people have noticed certain positive developments that may indicate that Obama is seeking a way out with what is left of America’s honor. Whether this will lead to a stand down of US efforts at regime change will depend on whether Obama is willing to risk yet another confrontation with influential neocons who are still intent on crippling Iranian influence in the region through destabilizing the Syrian government.

The most recent round of peace talks are not likely to be the sham that previous ones were. Despite Kerry’s tough talk of a Plan B, the US has dropped demands that Assad step down as a precondition to a deal. The alternative to a negotiated resolution, recently leaked to the Wall Street Journal, would involve escalating the conflict by providing more dangerous weapons to the jihadist “rebels.” However, the plan is most likely being presented as the only credible alternative to capitulation to Russian demands in Geneva.  Knowing how man-portable air defense systems (Manpads) could be used by the terrorists in the wake of a collapse of the Syrian government, supplying them to the al Qaeda-affiliated anti-Assad forces would be lunacy. It would make little sense for Obama to give in to Saudi demands to do so at this point, when he has resisted the temptation for five years.

Erdogan may be starting to see the futility of further attempts to take down Assad. The most recent evidence of this is a series of high level Turkish visits to Saudi Arabia and Iran. While Turkey and Iran have common economic interests and a mutual desire to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state, it is hard to imagine that they could make much progress on working together as long as Turkey is pursuing a foreign policy course that is an existential threat to Iran’s status as a regional power. There are other compelling reasons for Erdogan to try to make nice with the Sauds, but it is unlikely that he will be able to thaw relations at the same time he is negotiating with their nemesis. Unless, that is, they are also discussing letting go of the goal of toppling Assad.

There are also clues that the Obama administration US efforts are being stepped up to curb further Saudi aid to terrorist “rebels.” The barrage of criticism that the Saudis are taking in the US media is unprecedented and most likely orchestrated. It is also somewhat risky, in that it highlights the cynicism of US “humanitarian interventions” against targeted dictators while it is allied with the most brutal, repressive regime in the region. From Biden pointing out that it is the chief financial sponsor of terrorists in the region to recent critical reports on the generally politically correct Frontline and 60 Minutes to Obama’s announcement that the government is about to make a decision after two years on declassifying the 28 pages of a report said to implicate high level government officials in financing the 9/11 attack, the heat is clearly being turned on these feckless “allies.”

Cynics who charged that this was only a ruse to buy time to regroup for a renewed attack on Syrian forces seem to be ignoring evidence that the situation has changed since the earlier attempts to “negotiate” a US-dictated solution in Geneva. Realists in the Obama administration seem to be serious this time. Kerry was forced into agreeing to talks by the timely intervention of Russia.  He had no real choice.  Had the offensive continued unchecked, Assad’s forces would have routed ISIS and Putin would have been able to dictate terms.  This is what forced Kerry to agree to peace talks despite having to bargain from a weak position.

In addition, Erdogan’s panicked response to the prospect of new peace talks suggests that he believes that the Americans are looking for resolution. Having responded to advances by the Russian and Syrian militaries and Kurdish defense forces by stepping up threats, he doubled down once talks were announced, at one point declaring that an invasion was not off the table although when directly confronted with Russian accusations, he denied any such intent. The Turkish military was reported to be against such an ill-advised action, but troop buildups along the border had convinced many that he was serious.

The Turkish call for invasion was echoed by Saudi Arabia, which offered to take part in a joint campaign if it was led by the US.  This was obviously just bluster. After all, the threat of invasion was the result of Erdogan’s frustration at US unwillingness to prioritize defeating Assad or to abandon its alliance with Syrian Kurds in the fight against ISIS. There was no way that the US was going to support an invasion that would risk WWIII by targeting both the Kurdish YPG and Assad, backed by Russia and Iran.

Nonetheless, at this point many analysts still assumed that Turkey and Saudi Arabia were merely following orders from Washington. Others saw Erdogan’s increasingly rash actions as desperate attempts to salvage the standing of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) amidst an economy in decline at least partly because of Russian sanctions. Rumor had it that he even had reason to worry about an impending military coup. Although the Turkish military denied it and analysts generally dismissed the idea, had he tried to order his generals to carry out a full-scale invasion in defiance of US wishes, a coup would have been much more likely.

When the US proceeded to resume peace talks on Syria while Turkey and Saudi Arabia talked war, it became clear that the actions of the three nations were not coordinated. Saudi Arabia and Turkey had become isolated on the global stage.  Obama had established that he was not going to allow the tail to wag the dog, and that he was going to act in what he considered US interests. There is a reason that Obama is no longer making Assad’s departure a precondition for negotiations. It would not have changed anything unless the US had been allowed to pick his successor. The only way that was going to happen was through direct military force, which Obama has clearly been trying to avoid. He was willing to use al Qaeda associated “rebels” as proxy fighters as he did in Libya, but the goal was not so much regime change as destabilizing and ultimately balkanizing the country, a goal which has largely been achieved. The strategy of dividing a nation into smaller political entities to weaken it is the essence of the Oded Yinon plan for establishing a Greater Israel. The idea was to use this tactic against any neighboring nation that resisted Israeli hegemony.

It is important to understand this point. Given the incestuous relationship between Israel and US neocons, it is not surprising to see the Yinon strategy being used in areas in which the US has chosen to intervene. In Iraq Biden is renewing calls for the weak federal system he first proposed in 2014. It is an idea that has been partially realized with the increasingly autonomous status of the KRG, the Iraqi Kurdistan government.  The divisions left in the wake of the Libya “debacle” are another example of the same idea, only much messier. Libya was not considered a failure by fans of this strategy. They did not care so much about the chaos they left as about the fact that there was no longer a strong central government to resist NATO plans for Libya and the region. In fact, in a chilling prelude to the assault on Syria, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen enthusiastically referred to the Libyan experience as “a teaching moment.”

Despite mixed signals from the Obama administration since the cessation of hostilities for the latest round of peace talks, there is reason to believe that the President is serious about cutting his losses in Syria. As detailed in the recent Atlantic article by Jeffrey Goldberg, he was never enthusiastic about attacking Syrian forces directly in the aftermath of the false flag sarin attack on Ghouta in 2013. He dragged his feet on acting despite his harsh rhetoric, allowing saner voices to be heard. In the Atlantic article, Obama criticized all the major players in the continuing humanitarian crisis in Syria; the Saudis, Erdogan, Netanyahu and the neocons who wrote the “playbook” he says he is pressured to follow. Their game plan essentially calls for the use of US military force against any nation that stands in the way of a global corporate empire nominally led by America and its allies.  The fact that Obama is so open about these politically incorrect opinions at this point suggests that he may be trying to prepare us for a shift in official US policy.

The always-doubtful argument that intervention in Syria is motivated by humanitarian concerns is wearing increasingly thin. Obama regards giving in to Clinton’s pressure to attack Libya as the “greatest mistake of (his) presidency.”  If Obama wants out, Erdogan has few options but to go along. The Saudis, increasingly on the defensive in the US propaganda wars, are no doubt aware that they cannot challenge US will on their own, even if their neocon allies remain on their side. If Obama tries to push a diplomatic solution that leaves Assad in power and the “freedom fighting” al Qaeda types stranded, the still-powerful neocons are sure to push back. If he fails to act according to his realist principles, a Clinton presidency could be disastrous because she is still pushing for a no-fly zone, which would require a direct US assault on Syria’s air defenses.

That’s why this is Obama’s Bay of Pigs moment. He can do the right thing and try to limit the damage that American imperialists can do on his watch, or he can submit to the pressure of an out-of-control military industrial complex for a senseless and entirely avoidable war.

TURKEY'S TURN TO RUSSIA COULD SPELL THE END OF NATO

                                                   



The US may understand the consequences of imperial overreach sooner than anyone thought possible. Russia’s decision to drop the South Stream natural gas pipeline in favor of a deal with key NATO member Turkey may be the first of a series of events that could challenge and ultimately destroy the Anglo-American empire.  Turkey’s bold decision risks its standing with its western allies by undercutting the EU’s efforts to bully Russia, but promises enormous benefit to Turkey’s economic influence in Europe.

While President Erdogan hasn’t shown his full hand, it may play out such that the West’s quixotic quest to control the Mideast could end sooner than seemed possible. EU and US insults to Turkey have driven it into Russian arms. The anti-Putin coalition seems to have burned both bridges between Eastern fossil fuel sources and Western markets. Energy costs to citizens of EU nations will skyrocket. If they protest vigorously enough, their puppet governments may finally decide that their cozy relationships with the Anglo-American alliance are not worth the cost.

Turkey has been rebuffed repeatedly in its efforts to join the EU. That is an insult to a proud nation, a member of NATO with a stronger economy than many of the former Soviet satellites. These weaker nations joined this coalition of Western belligerents after the fall of the USSR, violating 1994 agreements by NATO not to expand toward Russian borders.  Unlike Turkey, many of them were also enticed to join the EU. None of these newer states have benefited much from inclusion in Europe’s economy. They are suffering from the same austerity measures as the rest of the EU. Like Ukraine, corruption has remained as endemic in many countries under its governance as it was under the old Soviet system.

A number of these Eastern European nations would have benefited from South Stream, getting access to cheap gas and profiting from transit fees.  Politicians in Bulgaria, which in 2013 witnessed some of the largest demonstrations in Europe since the crash, initially lobbied for the pipeline but ultimately sided with the EU against their own national interests. Now Bulgarians will pay the price along with the rest of the EU for its outrageous demand that Russia surrender ownership of the pipeline. This was a condition of the Third Energy Package, which Russia never ratified.  It was designed to punish Russia for refusing to privatize its fossil fuel industry during the looting of Russia that followed the Yeltsin coup. Some speculate that Bulgaria or Greece might make separate deals with Russia for gas via subsidiary pipelines, the price for which may be other economic and even military alliances.

According to some analysts, the last straw for Turkey was US arming of the Kurdish fighters in Syria, which Turkey considers allied with the PKK, Kurdish separatists who are listed by both Turkey and the US as a terrorist group. The US states that the change in policy was for the humanitarian purpose of protecting the residents of the Syrian border town of Kobani from ISIS siege. However, US bombing did little to effectively degrade ISIS forces before the mercenary army invaded Kobani and melted into the city. Now, air strikes that might hit the terrorist infiltrators would be as likely to kill remaining civilians.

Arming of the PYD (the Syrian Kurdish defense forces) led to the natural suspicion that Turkey was being pressured to invade Syria in self-defense. The US had been demanding that Turkey supply the ground troops to fight ISIS, which sprang from the NATO/GCC/Israeli attempt to use terrorists to topple Assad. Erdogan’s government has been deeply involved in providing routes for terrorists and weapons to enter Syria since the outbreak of the “civil war,” along with limited military assistance. He has insisted on a plan prioritizing the defeat of the Assad government rather than ISIS, over which Western intelligence agencies seem to still exercise some control. All of these conflicts have followed US finger pointing at Turkey’s complicity in the creation of ISIS, while ignoring its own role.

US foreign policy is driven by the ambitions of the psychopaths on Wall Street who virtually run the government. They are guided by the knowledge of the inevitable failure of the dollar. This is the reason that the US has been waging all-out war for global corporate domination. The manic military policies of the last two administrations are a last ditch effort to control fossil fuel supplies and transit routes not just for profit, but to continue to prop up the Petrodollar. It may be too late. Russia and China are taking the lead in weaning themselves from dependence on the dollar not only to sell or buy fossil fuels but for other goods. The two nations signed an agreement in October to settle international debts in their own currencies. That trade is projected to more than double by 2020 to $200 billion.  Meanwhile, the BRICS bank may ultimately free other nations from dollar domination by providing an alternative to the IMF, whose loan conditions include removing currency controls designed to prevent Western speculators from destabilize their national currencies.

The key event to watch out for is the response of Angela Merkel. With the largest economy in Europe, Germany has the biggest voice in the EU and weaker states are sure to follow its lead. Merkel has been largely cooperating with the sanctions on Russia, while at the same time speaking out against more draconian measures for the most part. As with Obama, her bombastic claims about “Russian imperialism” in the Ukraine are for domestic consumption. The German industrialists whose interests she represents understand this, but have been concerned about the effects of the sanctions on the national and EU economies, which have been teetering toward yet another recession. The loss of cheap gas from Russia may be the one consequence of slavish adherence to US foreign policy objectives they will not tolerate.

If ordinary Germans join influential business leaders in Germany in calling for an end to allowing the US to dictate its foreign policies, the question of the wisdom of EU support for NATO might arise with the general public. If so, the revolt could spread elsewhere. Eventually, the contagion of rebellion could even reach US shores. A lot depends on how willing normally staid German society is willing to demand an end to its government’s complicity in yet another attempt at establishing what amounts to global fascism. They are already angry at revelations of US spying on their government officials and of CIA manipulation of their corporate media. Having already experienced the consequences of allowing their government to engage in imperialist wars, they may rise to stop it this time around. We can only hope that generations of post-war prosperity have not made them as docile as their American counterparts.

The question has become one of how much Europeans are willing to bear to sustain a global system that is nearing its end. The cost of the collapse of the financialized, debt-based world economy is leaving them and the entire developed world with declining living standards and mounting debt. Meanwhile, the rich get richer. It is only a matter of time before Europe wakes up to what the developing nations have always known: Capitalism is based on exploitation and its aim is to monopolize resources for the benefit of the few. All that remains to be seen is whether the People unite to take down this system before the only way to fight the police state Europe and the US are becoming is violence.

As this global game of Monopoly winds down to its conclusion, at some point the people of the world must rise up and change the rules of the game. The alternative is economic chaos and suffering on a scale never before witnessed, followed by the consignment of our children and all future generations to debt slavery.

IS OBAMA A STEALTH PEACENIK?

Today's blog is by Karl Eysenbach, who posts as Old New Lefty in Open Salon. The opinions expressed are those of the author. This blog may be reproduced, unedited and with attribution, without prior permission.


Conservatives rightly sneered when Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, it was pretty much equivalent to a freshman college football player winning the Heisman Trophy for suiting up for his first game. And as we all know, there've been plenty of reasons during the Obama administration where it was pretty obvious that he might not have been as worthy a recipient as Mother Theresa.

Failure to close Guantanamo, drones, the surge in Afghanistan and Iraq...

No need to list them all.

But now it's time to play the game of "Let's Pretend."

First, let's think of Barack Obama who's actually just a regular human being. If you were in the position that he's in (winning the Nobel Prize) -- wouldn't you feel just a teeny bit guilty about the crap that you've had to ladle because of the demands that the American Empire has put on you? We can get into psychoanalyzing the man in the Oval Office, but believe me. 99.9% of the time when you're Prez -- you better jump when the Defense Department tells you what to do.

 We can get all liberal and whiny about Obama's lack of leadership and everything, but let me tell you. A stronger, better person than Barack Obama as POTUS would have only a 5% chance to do anything different than what Obama has done. And sure, I wish that he'd never appointed Timmy Geithner or Eric Holder, but a lot of crap is baked into the cake in DC. And there's nothing that anybody can do about it.

 Needless to say, President Obama was and is no doubt trying to figure out how to justify winning the Nobel Peace Prize for himself, but he is in many respects just a creature of circumstance. But once, in a great while (a real blue moon), opportunity reveals itself. And in this case, opportunity came from Syria.

I have no secret knowledge of the inner workings of the Obama White House. However, I do know that power does have its privilege. And princes do talk only to princes. So let's just pretend that we have 100% access to all of Barack Obama's phone calls.

First, let's go back in time to the middle of 2012 or thereabouts. The Syrian conflict had been boiling over for a couple of years, and the Defense Intelligence Agency has a better handle on the day to day situation on the ground in Syria than the CIA. Monitoring military developments is the exclusive job of the DIA. The CIA, unfortunately, is sometimes capable of allowing ideological zealots to color its analyses.

Most people pay more attention to what the CIA says. During the fall campaign, I had a brief conversation with Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and I expressed serious concerns about the way DC appeared to be handling Syria. I told Wyden that the Russians should definitely be the lead sled dogs with regards to Syria, and Wyden's first impulse was to spout off some 'Merkan BS about how we'll show those Russkies because 'Merka is exceptional. Yadda yadda yadda, or something like that.

Checkmate to ONL? No, my last words to him were, "Please get a briefing from the DIA."

Wyden (self-satisfied) said, "They're under my committee!" End of conversation, but I put odds that the Senator actually did what I told him to do.

 I make this point not for self-aggrandizement about my psychic powers in foreign policy. But I want to make a point that anyone with even a modicum of understanding about the situation on the ground knew that a real path to peace in Syria might actually start with Russian intervention. Unfortunately, this common sense proposal couldn't possibly fly in Washington, DC!

Imagine Barack Obama going on television and saying, "My friends -- the only way to solve the problem of peace in Syria is to allow the Russians to be the lead sled dog. We will follow." Can you IMAGINE the shit storm that would set loose, not only from the Republicans, but from the lame stream media? Politically, as they say, this approach by Obama would be a non-starter, and I think that is a severe understatement.

So what's a Prez to do? The first rule for any elected is to do nothing when you're bollixed. Obama mouthed words about freedom fighters, evil Assad, etc. etc. for a year. And oh yeah, there was that "red line" remark somewhere. So fast forward to what I still think was a false flag operation on the part of rogue elements of the Syrian Army that had gone over to the other side from the chemical weapons corps.

And here, the president was put into a major dilemna. The way policy works in any White House is that the President's words are sacred, and that any development that goes counter to the President's words must be retaliated against. In the case of Syria, there was the ever present lobbying power of the Saudis, Big Oil, and the Israelis. And any president's administration is larded with clowns who pretend to advocate for the national interest. But in fact, they're captured national security advisors whose hearts are with Bandar Bush or AIPAC. That's just the cost of doing business to get into the Oval Office.

What's an Obama to do????

As I explained too briefly in an extended remark in my previous blog, it was necessary to appear to be an idiot to get the job done. And it was necessary to pick up the telephone and talk with other world leaders. For our purposes, Barack Obama only had to talk to two. #1 was of course, Vladimir Putin. I'm thinking Obama and Putin had many a heart to heart chats about the Syrian situation. And no doubt, Obama mentioned more than once in different ways how important it was for Russia to be the lead sled dog, but there were political problems at home getting in the way of implementing this very sensible strategy.

Here's where phone call #2 comes in. That was the call to London. Someone, somewhere (I don't know who) said that George Osborne, Prime Minister of Great Britain could do the trick. So Barack picks up and dials. And the fix is in.

 Washington has been going around all over the world looking for the usual suspects to be a coalition of the willing to bomb the shit out of Syria, but no action is to be found. George Osborne is more than willing to be thrown into the tank for Barack. There is a remarkable vote in the House of Parliament where the majority of back benchers express a vote of no confidence in the proposed policies of the British government and there's no cabinet shake-up, dissolution of Parliament, or call for an election? And you think Worldwide Wrestling is a put up job?????

This little action gives Obama all the excuse he needs to go to Congress to ask for an authorization of the War Powers Act. Mind you, this was never a problem for Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq, not to mention those hundreds of little military incursions to places like Grenada, Panama, etc. etc. But surprise, surprise! It turns out to be a problem for Barack Obama! Now how could that just happen?

Of course, the chattering classes go all nuclear. That Barack Obama is so inept and foolish! What's wrong with that boy? Yadda yadda yadda. And we can see the results. John Kerry's supposed off the cuff remarks lead to a remarkable chain reaction where peace appears to be breaking out all over the Middle East.

Not only does Basher Assad have no problems in giving up his stockpile of chemical weapons, but elements of the Free Syrian Army are now attempting to negotiate with the Assad government to guarantee the safety of Syrian government employees in contested territory if the more liberal elements of the FSA can work with Assad's forces to fight the Islamists who've been bought and paid for by our freedom-loving allies, the Saudis.

We haven't heard the end of the Syrian peace process by a long shot. But you will note that a surgical American air strike against Syria is now totally unthinkable.

Meanwhile, we have the developments in Iran. The election of Hassan Rouhani to be the President of Iran in August is a "BFD," to paraphrase Joe Biden. I will not spend too much time on the horrible, twisted relations between the USA and that country. However, it's worth noting that Rouhani is closely related not only to the Ayatollah Rasfanjani (and more importantly) President Khatami, both very much good guys in comparson to Nutjob Ahmadinejad.

Khatami, in case you didn't know was a true liberal, serving from 1997 up to 2005. President Khatami went so far as to offer the United States assistance in hunting down the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11. And of course, what did George Bush do? "Iran is part of the axis of evil...."

Say no more.... No need to talk about the non-existant Iranian atomic bomb. But that alligator in the sewer has been the Great White Whale of Captain Netanyahu & Co. for a long time, and it's been driving our foreign policy machinery. I mix my metaphors, but you get the drift.

And so, Rouhani and Obama can't shake hands in public because both are afraid of their domestic reprecussions. But John Kerry can meet privately with Hassan Rouhani for a half hour and come out with both guys grinning and basically saying, "We can do business!" And Barack Obama can call Rouhani on the telephone and wish him well in Persian, while Rouhani thanks him in English.

It's a long way from now to Point Z in the case of both Syria and Iran. But I think that President Obama is close to actually deserving that Nobel Peace Prize.



Regular readers of this blog will recall that I also argued that there is good evidence that the President has shown a pattern of deliberately undermining his own arguments for war in Syria that is consistent with his resistance to hawks who have been pushing for war with Iraq since before his election.

Former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern recently wrote a column which gave evidence to back up the belief that Obama, a Presidential history buff, is fully aware of why and how Kennedy was killed and wants to avoid the same fate.

To those who would call him a coward for not more directly challenging the power of the military-industrial complex: consider whether you would be willing to give your life and leave your daughters fatherless in a futile symbol of resistance. That is all it would mean if he were to die for a country whose people are so focused on their hatred for one another that they cannot come together to save the nation and the world. To quote President Obama himself, we "have to be the change that will make (him) do the right thing."

WE ARE ALL SYRIANS NOW

                                                                         

Note to reader: This article contains a lot of information put together from multiple sources. If you are unfamiliar with the sources of any of the claims highlighted here, it is highly recommended that you check out the links provided.

With conflicts raging from Libya to Mali in the aftermath of the widely misunderstood “Arab Spring,” it is not surprising that few commentators seem to realize the special significance of the battle for Syria. The outcome may determine the success or failure of the effort to create a global corporate Empire nominally directed by the government of the United States and backed by the power of the US military. It is critical that westerners understand this because once such a New World Order is fully established, resistance in the US and elsewhere can only be violent. That could only serve to provide the perfect excuse to use the powers of the police state that is being constructed all around us.

Those who only follow the news in the mainstream media have enough clues to piece the story together, though the truth is to be found in plain sight through the alternative media. To appreciate the real danger humanity faces, we must look at the available information with open eyes, a justified skepticism of government claims and an understanding of the realities of how the global game of Risk is played today. We won’t get this perspective from the political pundits whose analyses are premised on an uncritical acceptance of the need for a “war on terror.” Anyone who understands the goals of Strategy for Rebuilding America’s Defenses (SAD), the white paper put out by Project for a New American Century in 2000, knows that the America’s war of terror is a smokescreen for the creation of what amounts to a permanent fascist New World Order.

PNAC laid out its plans for world domination in this seminal document, published one year before the attack on the World Trade Center provided the opportunity to put the strategy into action. PNAC was founded on the assumption that the US had the right and duty to assure a Pax Americana would endure for at least a century, established and maintained through American military superiority in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. SAD described a plan to destabilize any nation whose leaders dared challenge “American interests.” In context, the term can only be assumed to mean the interests of international corporations whose executives have dictated foreign policy to the US government at least since the 1954s, when the CIA staged the Guatemalan coup on behalf of the United Fruit Company.

Among nations specifically identified as potential threats in SAD were Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. It may seem surprising that Afghanistan was not on the list, given that negotiations for an American pipeline had broken down in 1998, but perhaps by 2000 the invasion was already a foregone conclusion. After all, General Wesley Clark has reported being informed of a classified memo on or about September 20, 2001 that laid out plans to take down these governments along with Sudan, Lebanon and Somalia. For those who haven’t been paying attention, oil-rich southern Sudan seceded in July of 2011, Hezbollah has recently been accused of masterminding a terror attack against Israelis in Macedon, leading to the EU considering putting them on its terrorist list, and the CIA is still busy trying to gain control in Somalia through drones, private contractors and covert means.  The claim that Hezbollah was behind the Macedon attack is at best suspicious, pointing to a deliberate effort to implicate a key ally of Syria and Iran.

The timing of the CIA and MI-6 based coup in Libya may have been related to Gaddafi’s renewed threat to create a gold-backed dinar to challenge the supremacy of the petrodollar. There had been threats to take out Gaddafi at least since Reagan was in office. In 1996, two MI-5 whistleblowers  revealed that one was approached by an agent of MI-6 about illegally funneling money to foreign mercenaries to finance a coup. Gaddafi’s socialist government and his efforts to promote Pan-African unity and independence were threats to NATO’s vision of an American-led New World Order. When the time came to take him out, NATO used the same means proposed in 1996. Mercenaries backed by the US and its Gulf partners infiltrated the Benghazi region and gained the support of a few malcontents to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy. NATO then sought UN cover in the form of a no-fly zone authorization, which was used as a pretext to eliminate loyalist civilians and the Libyan military through massive air strikes, allowing the terrorist army to murder Gaddafi and take control of the country.

Many wondered why Russia and China did not veto the UN decision on the no-fly zone. After all, they stand to be the biggest losers in the winner-take-all game of global Monopoly in which average citizens of the planet are merely token players. What they did was abstain. By tradition though not law, this is taken to mean that a measure passes in the Security Council. However, when NATO exceeded the mandate of the resolution and murdered an estimated 10,000 loyal Libyan civilians under the doctrine of “responsibility to Protect,” both nations decided it was in their interests to not allow the same thing to happen in Syria. This is probably the main reason the Assad government remains in power.

Syria is the key line of defense against US/NATO/Gulf Cooperation Council/Israeli domination of the world’s oil supplies exclusive of Latin America and Russia. Its citizens increasingly realize that the survival of sovereignty in Syria may be the last hope of stopping a small band of bankers and their minions from controlling the world. From a larger perspective, the quest to achieve dominance over the rest of the planet in the interest of perpetuating a carbon fuels-based world economy threatens the survival of human civilization as we know it. As long as geopolitics is centered on the conflict over oil and natural gas, the threat of global climate change grows and becomes ever more immediate.

Here is how the dominoes line up: If Syria falls and Hezbollah is named a terrorist organization by the EU, Iran and Russia will stand virtually alone against the powerful alliance of western “democracies,”  Israel, the Gulf monarchies, the Qatar-backed governments dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist groups backed by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. US policy has since 2007 has been to back cooperative “moderate” Sunni monarchies over “radical” Shia governments and groups and their secular allies in Syria and pre-invasion Iraq. This is essential to understanding the US plan to carry out its program of regime destabilization. The Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, seems committed to securing its place in what they seem to assume will be a permanent fascist New World Order.  If Iran is destabilized through economic sanctions or eventually attacked by NATO forces with the implicit or explicit blessing of citizens of EU nations, Russia will be essentially isolated and economically devastated by the loss of access for its oil and natural gas to European, Chinese and Indian markets. China in turn will find itself virtually alone in the fight against a worldwide western corporate Empire.

China is heavily dependent on oil from Iran, Myanmar and other regions that have been targeted by NATO, which is seeking to absorb SEATO (the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization). Australia and Japan are going along with the plan to establish NATO economic and military dominance over Asia. Meanwhile, drone bases are being set up in Africa, throughout Asia and in the Americas. Everything is in place to allow the international corporate terrorists who control the US government, military and intelligence agencies to take over the world militarily in areas where it cannot yet dominate economically. In the face of a dollar that is increasingly seen as endangered, the impetus to move rapidly toward a final solution to the problem of democracy is compelling.

With all this happening in front of their eyes, a clueless American public dithers over the economic consequences of having unwittingly allowed corporations to take control of their government, without recognizing that is the problem. Most of those who have not given up on politics altogether engage in endless debate over whether Democrats or Republicans have allowed this to happen when clearly both are responsible. As an example of the lunacy of the state of American politics, supporters of right wing politicians are so fearful of a “socialist” takeover that they have made gun rights a central issue in the political dialogue, joined in support by left wingers who have also concluded that violent revolution is unavoidable.

What would be left in this corporate-controlled New World Order is a China under increasing pressure by the Anglo-American Empire, an economically crippled Russia, a Mideast dominated by overseers of the slave owners of the corporatocracy, a recolonized Africa and Asia and a defenseless and demoralized world citizenry, unable to fight back effectively because any effort to resist would simply increase support for a police state by those remaining in the middle class who are fearful of a mob rule formerly known as “democracy.”

Is there any hope to change the tide of history? In a word, yes. That will be the topic of the next essay in Soldiers For Peace International.

For a more detailed discussion of the outline of the plan for global domination, listen to this podcast from SFPI Radio, the voice of Soldiers For Peace International on the worldwide web.