From
the desk of
Bill Ramey
1/1/15
COMMENTARY & OPINION
SPECIAL REPORT
Paul Craig Roberts
Prison Planet.com
December 30, 2014
Dear Readers: The conflict that Washington has initiated between the West
and Russia/China is reckless and irresponsible. Nuclear war could be the
outcome. Indeed, Washington
has been preparing for nuclear war since the George W. Bush regime.
Washington has revised US war doctrine in order to
initiate conflict with a first strike nuclear attack.
Washington has discarded the ABM treaty in order to
build and deploy anti-ballistic missiles that are intended to prevent a
retaliatory strike against the US .
Washington is engaged in a buildup of military forces on Russia’s borders, and
Washington is demonizing Russia ’s
government with false charges.
As the Bush/Obama regimes dismantled the safeguards
put in place in order to minimize the risk of nuclear war, no protests came
from the American public or the media. Washington ’s
European vassal states have also been silent.
Washington’s drive for hegemony has brought nuclear
insanity to the world.
Moscow and Beijing
understand that they are Washington ’s
targets. As Larchmonter explains, Russia
and China are conjoining
their economic and military capabilities in order to protect against Washington ’s attack.
Read what Larchmonter reports. Open the URL in my column below and run your
cursor over the bottom of the page and click “page fit.” Choose 50% and
readable text will fill your screen.
Washington’s demonization of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi,
and Assad were preludes to military attacks on Iraq, Libya, and Syria .
In view of these precedents, it is reasonable to regard Washington ’s demonization of Vladimir Putin
as a prelude to military action.
Russia is not Iraq, Libya, or Syria . Russian war doctrine states
that Russia can use nuclear
weapons in response to a nuclear or conventional attack on Russia . For the world to sit silent
while Washington ’s
arrogance provokes armageddon telegraphs total political failure. Where are the
voices in behalf of humanity?
Washington has shaped 2015 to be a year of conflict.
The conflict could be intense.
Washington is the cause of the conflict, which has
been brewing for some time. Russia
was too weak to do anything about it when the Clinton
regime pushed NATO to Russia ’s
borders and illegally attacked Yugoslavia ,
breaking the country into small easily controlled pieces. Russia was also too weak to do anything about it
when the George W. Bush regime withdrew from the ABM treaty and undertook to
locate anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia ’s borders. Washington
lied to Moscow that the purpose of the ABM bases
is to protect Europe from non-existent Iranian
nuclear ICBMs. However, Moscow understood that
the purpose of the ABM bases is to degrade Russia ’s
nuclear deterrent, thereby enhancing Washington ’s
ability to coerce Russia
into agreements that compromise Russian sovereignty.
By summer 2008 Russian power had returned. On Washington ’s orders, the US
and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army attacked the breakaway republic of South Ossetia during the early hours of
August 8, killing Russian peacekeepers and civilian population. Units of the
Russian military instantly responded and within a few hours the American trained
and equipped Georgian army was routed and defeated. Georgia
was in Russia ’s
hands again, where the province had resided during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Putin should have hung Mikheil Saakashvili, the
American puppet installed as president of Georgia
by the Washington-instigated “Rose Revolution”, and reincorporated Georgia into the Russian Federation . Instead, in a
strategic error, Russia
withdrew its forces, leaving Washington ’s
puppet regime in place to cause future trouble for Russia . Washington
is pushing hard to incorporate Georgia
into NATO, thus adding more US
military bases on Russia ’s
border. However, at the time, Moscow thought
Europe to be more independent of Washington
than it is and relied on good relations with Europe to keep American bases out
of Georgia .
Today the Russian government no longer has any
illusion that Europe is capable of an
independent foreign policy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated
publicly that Russia has
learned that diplomacy with Europe is pointless, because European politicians
represent Washington ’s interest, not Europe ’s. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently
acknowledged that Europe’s Captive Nation status has made it clear to Russia
that Russian goodwill gestures are unable to produce diplomatic results.
With Moscow ’s delusion
shattered that diplomacy with the West can produce peaceful solutions, reality
has set in, reinforced by the demonization of Vladimir Putin by Washington and its
vassal states. Hillary Clinton called Putin the new Hitler. While Washington incorporates former constituent parts of the
Russian and Soviet empires into its own empire and bombs seven countries, Washington claims that
Putin is militarily aggressive and intends to reconstitute the Soviet empire. Washington arms the neo-nazi regime Obama established in Ukraine ,
while erroneously claiming that Putin has invaded and annexed Ukrainian
provinces. All of these blatant lies are echoed repeatedly by the Western
presstitutes. Not even Hitler had such a compliant media as Washington has.
Every diplomatic effort by Russia
has been blocked by Washington
and has come to naught. So now Russia
has been forced by reality to update its military doctrine. The new doctrine
approved on December 26 states that the US and NATO comprise a major military
threat to the existence of Russia
as a sovereign independent country.
The Russian document cites Washington’s war doctrine
of preemptive nuclear attack, deployment of anti-ballistic missiles, buildup of
NATO forces, and intent to deploy weapons in space as clear indications that
Washington is preparing to attack Russia.
Washington is also conducting economic and political
warfare against Russia ,
attempting to destabilize the economy with economic sanctions and attacks on
the ruble. The Russian document acknowledges that Russia
faces Western threats of regime change achieved through “actions aimed at
violent change of the Russian constitutional order, destabilization of the
political and social environment, and disorganization of the functioning of
governmental bodies, crucial civilian and military facilities and informational
infrastructure of Russia .”
Foreign financed NGOs and foreign owned Russian media are tools in Washington ’s hands for destabilizing Russia .
Washington’s reckless aggressive policy against Russia
has resurrected the nuclear arms race. Russia
is developing two new ICBM systems and in 2016 will deploy a weapons system
designed to negate the US
anti-ballistic missile system. In short, the evil warmongers that rule in Washington have set the
world on the path to nuclear armageddon.
The Russian and Chinese governments both understand
that their existence is threatened by Washington ’s
hegemonic ambitions. Larchmonter reports that in order to defeat Washington ’s plans to
marginalize both countries, the Russian and Chinese governments have decided to
unify their economies into one and to conjoin their military commands.
Henceforth, Russia and China move together on the economic and military fronts.
The
unity of the Bear and the Dragon reduces the crazed neoconservatives’ dream of
“an American century” to dangerous nonsense. As Larchmonter puts it, “The US and NATO would need Michael the Archangel to
defeat China-Russia, and from all signs Michael the Archangel
is aligned with the Bear and its Orthodox culture. There is no weapon, no strategy, no tactic conceivable
in the near future to damage either of these rising economies now that they are
‘base pairs.’”
Larchmonter sees hope in the new geopolitics created
by the conjoining of Russia
and China .
I don’t dispute this, but if the arrogant neoconservatives realize that their
hegemonic policy has created a foe over which Washington cannot prevail, they
will push for a preemptive nuclear strike before the Russian-Chinese unified
command is fully operational. To forestall a sneak attack, Russia and China should operate on full
nuclear alert.
The US
economy–indeed the entire Western orientated economy from Japan to Europe –is
a house of cards. Since the economic downturn began seven years ago, the
entirety of Western economic policy has been diverted to the support of a few
over-sized banks, sovereign debt, and the US dollar. Consequently, the
economies themselves and the ability of populations to cope have deteriorated.
The financial markets are based on manipulation, not
on fundamentals. The manipulation is untenable. With debt exploding, negative
real interest rates make no sense. With real consumer incomes, real consumer
credit, and real retail sales stagnant or falling, the stock market is a
bubble. With Russia, China, and other countries moving away from the use of the
dollar to settle international accounts, with Russia developing an alternative
to the SWIFT financial network, the BRICS developing alternatives to the IMF
and World Bank, and with other parts of the world developing their own credit
card and Internet systems, the US dollar, along with the Japanese and European
currencies that are being printed in order to support the dollar’s exchange
value, could experience a dramatic drop in exchange value, which would make the
import-dependent Western world dysfunctional.
In my opinion, it took the Russians and Chinese too
long to comprehend the evil that has control in Washington . Therefore, both countries risk
nuclear attack prior to the full operational capability of their conjoined
defense. As the Western economy is a house of cards, Russia
and China
could collapse the Western economy before the neoconservatives can drive the
world to war. As Washington ’s aggression
against both countries is crystal clear, Russia
and China
have every right to the following defensive measures.
As the US
and EU are conducting economic warfare against Russia ,
Russia could claim that by
wrecking the Russian economy the West has deprived Russia of the ability to repay
loans to the European banks. If this does not bring down the thinly capitalized
EU banks, Russia can announce that as NATO countries are now officially
recognized by Russian war doctrine as an enemy of the Russian state, Russia can
no longer support NATO’s aggression against Russia by selling natural gas to
NATO members. If the shutdown of much of European industry, rapidly rising
rates of unemployment, and bank failures do not result in the dissolution of
NATO and thus the end of the threat, the Chinese can act.
The Chinese hold a very large amount of
dollar-denominated financial assets. Just as the Federal Reserve’s agents, the
bullion banks, dump massive shorts onto the bullion futures markets during
periods of little activity in order to drive down the bullion price, China
can dump the equivalent in US Treasuries of years of Quantitative Easing in a
few minutes. If the Federal Reserve quickly creates dollars with which to
purchase the enormous quantity of Treasuries so that the financial house of
cards does not implode, the Chinese can then dump the dollars that they are
paid for the bonds in the currency market. Whereas the Federal Reserve can
print dollars with which to purchase the Treasuries, the Fed cannot print
foreign currencies with which to buy the dollars.
The dollar would collapse, and with it the power of
the Hegemon. The war would be over without a shot or missile fired.
In my view, Russia
and China owe it to the
world to prevent the nuclear war intended by the neoconservatives simply by
replying in kind to Washington ’s
economic warfare. Russia and
China
hold all the cards. Not Washington .
Russia and China should give no warning. They
should just act. Indeed, instead of step by step, Russia
and China
could simultaneously use the counter-measures. With four US banks
holding derivatives totaling many times world GDP, the financial explosion
would be the equivalent to a nuclear one. The US
and Europe would be finished, and the world
would be saved.
Larchmonter possibly is correct. 2015 could be a very
good year, but preemptive economic moves by Moscow
and Beijing
could be required. Putin’s current plan seems to be to turn away from the West,
ignore the provocations, and mesh Russia ’s
strategic and economic interests with those of Asia .
This is a humane and reasonable course of action, but it leaves the West untroubled
and undistracted by its economic vulnerabilities. An untroubled West remains a grave danger not only to Russia and China but also to Americans and the
entire world.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.
He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators
Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have
attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic
Dissolution of the West is now available.
December
29, 2014
By
Live Free or Die
Russia has launched a deathblow against
‘the West’ and the NWO globalists by launching their own ‘SWIFT’ payment system
to go against the ‘global banking system’ with a mid-to-late-2015 full
implementation that aligns perfectly with a warning recently given by ‘elite
insider’ Lindsey Williams according to the brand new video below from Realist
News. While the 2nd video below from MrCati
gives us an update on the assassination attempt against Vladimir Putin just
months ago, Realist News proves to us why any sanctions against Russia by the
West were merely assuring the US and dollar would take the return shot straight
to the face, a shot that will likely bring the entire system crashing down
within the next 9 months as the world rejects the US dollar, abandons the West
and joins up with the ‘still very much alive’ Vladimir Putin as they prepare to
bring the NWO global banking system to its’ knees.
16.12.2014
Author: William
Engdahl
Oil War on Russia : Ridiculous People and
Unintended Consequences
Column:
Politics
Region:
USA in the World
The once rather ordered world we knew even a decade ago is becoming more
and more dis-ordered. That’s not to say it’s chaotic because chaos is merely
the emergence of new patterns we do not yet understand. This is dis-order. And
it is being fostered by ridiculous power-addicted people in the West who are
flailing around to try to hold on to their eroding power over our world and
over us. I say ridiculous because we need only look at the initiatives they
have launched in recent months to advance their power agenda.
First
these power-addicted very rich oligarchs through their neo-conservative
networks in the US
State Department and in the CIA initiated what was foolishly dubbed the Arab
Spring. That was in Tunisia
in December 2010. By all accounts an utter and complete flop, their Arab Spring
caper, even by oligarch calculations.
They
have largely lost Egypt by
their stupid attempt to shove the Muslim Brotherhood death cult down the
throats of Egypt ’s
citizens.
Then
their war in Libya, where their fig leaf of “democracy” Color Revolution
couldn’t work, they bombed Qaddafi and Africa’s most stable and most prosperous
tribal monarchy back to the stone age and unleashed dis-order there that still
is a disaster by all measures.
Then
the same stupid oligarchs, advised by their ridiculous neo-con think-tankers
and Obama Administration neo-cons such as the loveless National Security
Adviser Susan Rice, Obama’s putative psychological “Rasputin,” rolled out of Libya directly into Syria in January 2012.
They
did so to apparently run a repeat of the Qaddafi fiasco. Only in Syria the stakes were global and far different
from Libya .
It involved national security issues for Russia ,
for Iran and indirectly, for
China .
Today, nearly three years on, despite the CIA and Mossad efforts to use their
creation, ISIS, or the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) to terrify the
American war-weary public to agree to yet another war in the Middle East, after
the fiasco of Iraq and Afghanistan the trillions of US tax dollars and
destroyed lives of US servicemen and women, Bashar al Assad remains in power.
Granted he presides over a land devastated by death and destruction, thanks to
those loveless, ridiculous western Oligarchs. But the oligarchs and their
partner-in-crime, Netanjahu, Brooklyn’s least-honorable son, have not got what
they wanted in Syria .
More
recently, they have tried to panic us into agreeing to mass vaccination with
untested, likely toxic medications to try to justify Obama’s War on Ebola. Only
no one seems to believe them. The increasingly ridiculous Dr Margaret Chan, the
Director General of WHO, who was guilty of criminal mis-conduct five years ago
when she bowed to Big Pharma wishes and declared a non-existent Swine Flu as
global “Pandemic Level 6,” tries to utter terrifying statements about Ebola,
but nobody much is paying attention.
The
Oligarchs of destruction unleashed neo-con artist Victoria Nuland at the State
Department along with documented liar, CIA Director John Brennan, to turn
Ukraine over to a gaggle of criminals and self-styled neo-nazis, complete with
Swastika tattoos and black ski masks. The hope was it would make Putin and the
Russians go berserk and invade Ukraine
as civil war against ethnic Russian-speakers in east Ukraine raged, targeting women,
elderly, children, anyone who walked.
That
Ukraine State Department coup too has blown up in their faces as Russia turns
to her East and the South, making a dazzling array of strategic agreements with
China for energy and military cooperation, with India, with Brazil and the list
continues.
Then
the same ridiculous Oligarchs unleashed the drones of their National Endowment
for Democracy in Hong Kong in a vain effort to spread their dis-order to China,
which was becoming far too independent of the Oligarchs’ New World Order
agenda. That too has flopped.
Old Saudi Arabia vs New Saudi Arabia
Now
the same ridiculous American Oligarchs hovering around such loveless characters
as David Rockefeller, have come to the brilliant strategy of unleashing their
“super-weapon” against Putin’s Russia—full-scale oil price war. Backed by The
US Treasury’s neo-con David S. Cohen, whose title is aptly named as Under
Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, the John Kerry State
Department in September came up with the bright idea to rerun the 1986 State
Department-Saudi operation to collapse Russia by getting the Saudis to
collapse oil prices.
The
execution of the oil collapse has so far been technically flawless. Oil prices
on average have plummeted almost 30% since September. The only problem is that
the power-addicted Oligarchs and their ridiculous neo-con hired thinkers
overlooked the fact that, in the process, they would bankrupt their very
vulnerable shale oil bonanza.
For
the past several years, the United
States Government has bought on to the shale
oil bonanza myth. It has shaped US foreign policy decisions, given people in Washington the false illusion they can risk blowing up
much of the world’s Middle East without threatening global oil supplies, or Ukraine , because The United
States of America is becoming the New Saudi Arabia .
But
now the knife cuts the other way. John Kerry’s brilliant Saudi plan is being
used by those same Saudis, not only to bring Russia to her knees, which it
hasn’t managed to do. It is being used by the Old Saudi
Arabia to cripple the shale oil basis of the New Saudi Arabia .
The Saudis clearly, as was seen in the recent OPEC meeting, want to burst the US shale oil bubble in order to reassert control
of the Old Saudi Arabia
over world oil markets.
On
November 27 following an indecisive OPEC meeting where the Saudis refused
various pleas to reverse and stop the price fall, the traded price for the
marker crude that US shale oil is priced at, West Texas Intermediate, fell
below $66 a barrel, a five year low with no bottom in sight. The sharp rise in
US shale oil output in the past three years has enabled the US to take over the
decisive leverage role once held by the Saudis, that of Swing Producer. That
means if the powers that be in Washington
decide world oil prices are too high, it can cut supply one way or another. If
too low, restrict supply.
That
did not make the Saudi royals happy. Perhaps when Kerry proposed to the Saudi
King, with Prince Bandar in the room last September, that Saudi Arabia help Washington break Russia
by collapsing Russian oil revenues, King Abdullah and Bandar happily agreed.
But now it seems the Saudi focus is less to hurt Russia
and more to shoot down the US
shale oil competition. Shale oil is unconventional and expensive to drill
compared with conventional oil.
Only
extraordinary, sustained prices above $100 a barrel the past five years made
shale profitable. In 2014 and by present estimates 2015 shale oil will account
for an extra 2 million barrels of US domestic oil output, the largest output since 1970. Now Wall Street banks with billions lent
to US
shale producers are re-examining their portfolio and considering calling in
those loans or at the very least not lending further to a losing game. However,
shale oil, unlike conventional, requires an escalating investment to drill ever
new wells as the old deplete far faster than conventional. That is the Ponzi
core of the shale oil mirage.
Unconventional
shale oil costs from $50 to $100 a barrel just to produce. Conventional US oil
by contrast costs from $10 upwards. By calculations of leading US shale oil
bankers, “If prices go to $80 or lower, which I think is possible, then we are
going to see a reduction in drilling activity.”ii That was said in October when prices
hovered around $90. Come this spring, we can expect numerous US shale oil companies to hit the
hard wall of bankruptcy or insolvency.
The
Russians are apparently not as alarmed as they were in 1986, the previous time
Washington and the Saudis ran such a price collapse operation. Lukoil
part-owner Leonid Fedun told the press recently, “The shale boom is on a par
with the dot-com boom. The strong players will remain, the weak ones will
vanish.” According to a report on RT, Russian Economic Development Minister
Aleksey Ulyukaev told a meeting of cabinet ministers after the OPEC decision
that the government had cut its oil price estimate for its 2015 Budget from
$100 to $80 a barrel. รถ Low oil prices will not ruin the economy the Russian Economic
Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev has said, adding that the oil price
estimate for the 2015 budget has been slashed to $80 a barrel from $100 a
barrel. “We aren’t going to collapse,” he said.
So
much for the Oligarchs’ ridiculous plans to make USA
into the New Saudi Arabia
and bankrupt Russia
in the process.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and
lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University
and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online
magazine “New Eastern
Outlook”
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