Good News and Bad from Syria

DISPATCHES FROM
STEPHEN LENDMAN

Liberating Palmyra was a major achievement – likely facilitating others ahead, opening the way to purging ISIS from Raqqa, its main Syrian stronghold. At the same time, two weeks of so-called peace talks accomplished nothing, intractable differences preventing resolving conflict diplomatically at this time.

Assad remains hopeful, calling Syrian military successes vital for eventual peace. Western and regional nations against its sovereign independence want him and his government ousted. They’re “counting on our defeat on the battlefield in order to impose their conditions at the negotiations,” he said. So successful military operations “will lead to the acceleration of the political settlement and not prevent it.” Assad and his top officials always urged resolving years of conflict diplomatically, he said – not wanting “a single chance for settlement (missed) without trying it.”

President Assad.

“We went to Geneva and continue to show flexibility.” At the same time, “(w)e have not changed our position” throughout years of conflict on wanting Syrians alone to decide their future, free from foreign interference, along with preserving the nation’s sovereign independence and territorial integrity. Terrorism in the form of imported death squads supported by Western and regional states is Syria’s greatest problem, Assad stressed.

“We must fight it on the international level, because terrorism affects not only Syria. Terrorism exists in Iraq. It is directly supported by Turkey. It is directly supported by the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia, as well as a number of Western states…” Damascus will rely mainly on Russia, China and Iran in rebuilding war-torn areas, he explained. Transition to a national unity government must proceed according to constitutional law, he stressed.

“We in Syria assume that the term political transition means the transition from one constitution to another, and a constitution is what defines the form of the needed political composition in the next stage…Thus, the transition period must be under the current constitution, and we will move on to the new constitution after the Syrian people vote for it…(T)transitional structure or transitional format is a government formed by various Syrian political forces – opposition, independent, the current government and others.”

They alone will determine Syria’s future, free from outside interference, notably from the West, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other rogue Arab states. Constitutional law in Syria and elsewhere includes no authorization for transitional power, Assad explained. Syria has a democratically elected president, parliament and constitution overwhelmingly approved by open, free and fair national referendum. Syrians alone will choose officials to lead them and decide what constitutional changes they wish, if any. The goal is for national unity governance to end conflict.

Achieving it won’t be easy. Obama and US rogue allies want war, not peace. Blocking a Security Council resolution on Palmyra’s liberation shows what Syrians are up against. Instead of hailing victory over ISIS terrorists, Assad is blamed for Obama’s war – planned, orchestrated and implemented from Washington. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova minced no words, saying blocking Moscow’s resolution “shows (Western countries) are not interested in the process of liberating Syria from terrorists or promoting the peace process…”

Prospects for conflict resolution remain distant at best. Assad is right. Military successes are Syria’s best hope for eventual peace.

ABOUT STEPHEN LENDMAN

STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Reaping Fruits of Victory: First Results of Russia’s Air Campaign in Syria

SPUTNIK NEWS
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
MILITARY & INTELLIGENCE

The Russian Caspian Sea flotilla proved its strategic value firing precision cruise missiles on ISIS targets more than 2500 km away.

Russia Versus ISIL in Syria (566)
WITH SPECIAL ADDENDUM:
After Pullout: What Could Force Russian Aircraft to Come Back to Syria

The war on terrorism in Syria is not over yet. However, after the bulk of Russian forces were withdrawn from Syria one can take a closer look at some aspects of how the operation unfolded and the weapons involved.

Key Ingredient to Success in Combat

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n order to be successful, any military operation needs full-fledged combat support. In Syria, Russia demonstrated capabilities that wowed the world. As one of the world’s most powerful militaries, Moscow managed to deploy a task force to a remote battle zone covertly and rapidly. This was possible mostly thanks to the well-functioning logistics system, including by air and sea.

RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY

In a recent interview, Col. Gen. Alexander Dvornikov told Rossiyskaya Gazeta that over 640 sorties and more than 80 maritime voyages had been carried out since September 2015 to support the Russian operation in Syria.

Everyday life of the Russian air group at the Hmeymim airfield in Syria © PHOTO: RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY

In strategic terms, this can be considered one of the most important aspects of the operation. It demonstrated the changes the Russian Armed Forces went through since the late-2000s, after a military reform was launched.

One of its goals was to create a mechanism for the fast deployment of forces to remote areas. The mechanism was repeatedly tested and improved during numerous “snap combat readiness checks” which started in 2013. The Syrian campaign became the pinnacle of this long training process.

Striking With the Highest Accuracy

The wide-spread belief that modern military uses nothing but advanced high-precision weapons for surgical strikes against the enemy is far from being true.

For conducting airstrikes against terrorists in Syria, the Russian aviation mainly relied on conventional bombs, including the OFAB-250-270 fragmentation air bomb. Guided munitions like the Kh-25ML and the Kh-29L and guided bombs played a less significant role.

Russia also used the KAB-500S GLONASS-guided bomb in Syria. It is a very high-precision weapon. It is dropped from an altitude of several kilometers and hits the target with an accuracy of three meters. The bomb was used to destroy terrorists’ ammo depots, command points and fortified areas.

KAB-500S fitted to plane

However, this fact does not mean that Russia lags in developing and using high-precision munitions. The reason is the approach Russia has adopted in upgrading the capabilities of its air force.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Russian approach differs from the one the US has adhered to. The Pentagon developed the JDAM, including an integrated inertial guidance system and a tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces. The JDAM kit converts so-called “dumb” bombs into smart munitions. As a result, the number of guided bombs used in US aerial operations has increased in the last 25 years.

Russia’s approach was to modernize the target-acquiring and navigating systems of tactical bombers. The SVP-24 Gefest target-acquiring system was developed as a result. It makes conventional air bombs more precise because it automatically calculates the flight parameters of the aircraft as well as external conditions. As a result, Russian “dumb” bombs can now hit the target with much higher accuracy.

Game-Changers

The operation marked the first combat use of some of Russian weapons, including the Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles and the Kalibr ship-based cruise missile.

The Russian forces in Syria have also been backed from the sea, by a naval tactical unit led by the Moskva missile-carrying cruiser and the Caspian Flotilla. On October 7 and then on November 20, warships of the flotilla fired Kalibr missiles from the Caspian Sea and successfully hit the targets from a distance of 2,500 km.

On December 8, Russia conducted its first submerged combat launch of a Kalibr long-range cruise missile. Missiles were launched by the Rostov-on-Don Diesel-electric submarine, successfully hitting all designated targets.

The combat use of those weapons did not change the course of the military campaign. However, they can be considered game-changers in terms of military practice and reputational benefits.

Recognition of the Fullback

The Russian campaign in Syria also marked the first full-fledged combat use of the Su-34 (NATO reporting name Fullback) jet fighters.

The Su-34 is Russia’s most advanced interdiction aircraft. It was designed as a replacement for Russia’s fleet of ageing Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft.

The Fullback is provisioned with a formidable air-to-air self-defense capability. It is armed with R-73 dogfighting missiles and R-77 long-range radar-guided air-to-air missiles. The Su-34 has a combat radius of nearly 700 miles on internal fuel but is also designed for aerial refueling.

Among those awarded for their participation in the operation there are several officers flying on Su-34 jets. According to the Sukhoi Design Bureau, two of its engineers working with the aircraft were also awarded.

This proves the fact that Russian political and military officials were impressed with the capabilities of the jet.

Early Results

Of course, now it is preliminary to make decisive conclusions from the Russian campaign in Syria which ended on March 14. The Russian Defense Ministry will gather and analyze information on the tactics and weapons involved in the campaign.

Nevertheless, the operation gave some implications for the Russian Armed Forces that cannot be ignored.

First, Russia has proved its capability to carry out a military operation of small scope, in a remote battle zone, using advanced aircraft and maintaining logistic support.

Second, the operation became an outstanding promotional campaign of Russian-made military hardware for potential buyers. For example, Algeria ordered a shipment of Su-32 jets (the export version of the Su-34) in the wake of the successes of the Russian aviation in Syria.

Third, and maybe the most important, the Russian involvement in Syria has gained significant political advantages. In the long-term, it could become a turning point in contemporary international relations.

ADDENDUM

After Pullout: What Could Force Russian Aircraft to Come Back to Syria

Russian forces have largely been withdrawn from Syria, but they could be redeployed to the Arab nation if radical groups become increasingly active in the war-torn country, the speaker of Russia’s Federation Council told RIA Novosti.

The scale of Moscow’s military engagement will be proportionate to the level of the threat, Valentina Matvienko added.

President Vladimir Putin announced the partial withdrawal of the Russian forces last week. On the one hand, Moscow has achieved the main goals of its anti-Desh campaign. On the other, Russia wanted to highlight that it is genuinely willing to help bring peace to Syria and provide an impetus to the Geneva process, Matvienko explained.

“Our servicemen have proven themselves to be capable mediators and diplomats,” she noted. “They have actively engaged with leaders of various opposition movements by involving them in the peace process. We see results of this work on a daily basis. We see that more Syrians support these efforts.”

There has been no lack of good news from Syria recently. On Sunday, Damascus-led forces dealt a major blow to Daesh by pushing the militants out of Palmyra, an iconic ancient city in central Syria. The victory could pave the way for the Syrian Arab Army to liberate Raqqa, the de facto capital of the caliphate.

Nevertheless, Daesh, al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups have not been destroyed yet, and recent bombings in Brussels show that they are still quite capable of wreaking havoc in the Middle East and beyond.

“I think that the EU or the US will not be opposed” should Moscow redeploy its forces to Syria, analyst Nadana Fridrikhson told Svobodnaya Pressa. “The terrorist acts in Brussels have once again convinced everyone how evil Daesh is. Russia is ready to uphold the ceasefire regime, but if terrorist organizations become more active, the US and the EU will not block Russia’s counterterrorism efforts.”

Stanislav Tarasov, head of the Middle East-Caucasus research center under the International Institute of Newest States, hailed Russia for conducting a limited operation far from its borders, but said that withdrawing all forces will only be possible when Daesh and other terrorists are no longer an issue.

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Cuba: Détente or Monroe Doctrine Imperial Plot?

NEWS JUNKIE POST
By Dady Chery

Although the Cuban Revolution is 57 years old and is usually blamed for Cuba’s isolation, it has been 88 years since the last visit to the island by a US head of state. United States President Barack Obama, together with members of his cabinet, including Secretary of State John Kerry, and a large delegation of legislators, visited Cuba on March 20-22, 2016. The previous US state visit to Cuba was by Calvin Coolidge in January 1928, as part of the 6th Pan-American Conference. Back then Cuba and much of Central America, including Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua were occupied by the US. Coolidge had come to gloat about the supposed sovereignty of Cuba and express support for his bloody client dictator Gerardo Machado. The Monroe Doctrine was naked then and not cloaked in fake humanitarianism. Like Coolidge, Obama delivered his speech in Havana’s Grand Theater.

The US politicians went to Havana to remedy the embarrassing situation that their country had wound up isolating itself during its attempts to isolate Cuba. In 2011, when the US was still trying to exclude Cuba from the Organization of American States (OAS), the member countries, under the impetus of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, formed an alternative group: the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which included Cuba but excluded the US and Canada. Gradually, Cuba gained membership, formal and informal but always respectful, into more and more Latin American and Caribbean groupings in which the US was not welcome. This was not supposed to happen. After the culmination of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, a severe trade embargo was imposed on Cuba, not only from the US, which was its biggest trade partner, but also from allies of the US. This left the island nation without even basic necessities like toothpaste and toilet paper. The embargo on medication was especially brutal because it was compounded by the flight of thousands of Cuban doctors from the country in 1959 alone and the fact that the country had no foreign exchange due to looting of the public treasury by US client president Fulgencio Batista.

Many Cubans died, but they did not grovel, undo their own revolution and surrender to the US under the worst possible terms, as was expected. Cuba’s ascendance as a major powerhouse in healthcare and biotechnology began with the dispatch of a medical mission to Chile in 1960 to assist the victims of the magnitude-9.5 Valdivia Earthquake. Cuba also changed the course of geopolitics, starting with a shipment of weapons to the Algerians in 1961 during their war against French colonial rule. As Cuba rebuilt its middle class, so too grew its internationalism and its assistance to the victims of natural disasters like hurricanes, and man-made horrors like apartheid South Africa and Haiti’s cholera. For nearly 60 years, Cuba accumulated such a stock of goodwill that the label of being a state that sponsors terrorism became universally dismissed as a Cold War relic. The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted more than 20 times to end the trade embargo. The vote in 2015 was essentially unanimous; 193 countries voted to repeal the embargo, the only exceptions being the US and Israel. Instead of failing because of the embargo, the Cuban revolution succeeded because of it.

Compared to Cuba, a quite different trajectory brought the US to the March 2016 meetings in Havana. In the US, the decision to reestablish relations with Cuba dated from around 2007, when the Atlanta law firm and major Washington lobbyist Alston & Bird donated $33,000 to a relatively unknown presidential candidate during the first few months of his campaign. Alston & Bird is a giant firm that grossed about 645 million in 2014 and that represents a group of financial service, healthcare, energy, and telecommunication companies. Their interest in the Cuban market is sufficiently strong that in 2006 their lawyers worked pro bono for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on a challenge to the Florida ban on travel to Cuba. As ever in the US, it is big business that directs policy. The new détente with Cuba now merely means that Mr. Obama waited until the last months of his tenure to deliver the goods on a controversial campaign promise.

It took two years of intensive talks to lay the groundwork for the March 2016 state visit. Although Cuba has complained for decades about the harm from the embargo, it is no longer a country without its own toilet paper or medications, but one that has painfully built its own economy. Its tough negotiating stance with US business is apparent from the statements of its officials and actions of the US. On December 17, 2014, the decision to reestablish diplomatic relations was announced simultaneous with the US release of the last three of the Cuban 5 prisoners. Another less obvious concession was the resignation of former USAID Director, Rajiv Shah, who had apparently attempted to infiltrate the Cuban hip-hop movement and distributed a social media program called ZunZuneo to produce anti-government propaganda. On April 10, 2015, with a now-famous handshake, Mr. Obama personally welcomed Cuban President Raul Castro to an OAS summit. By December 2015, the US had removed Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, John Kerry and other members of Obama’s cabinet had visited Havana, and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla had visited Washington.

The rollback of the US sanctions has been quite limited in terms of the restrictions on trade and investment, although a series of measures with public-relations value have been promulgated. These include an increase in the permitted remittances to Cuba per quarter from $500 to $2,000, the restoration of direct flights and mail service, and a relaxation of travel for family visits, journalistic work, government business, scientific exchange, education, religion, cultural exchange, and sports. Cuba on the other hand has, since December 2014, released the USAID contractor Alan Gross, and 53 political prisoners including the CIA mole Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, who had infiltrated Cuba’s Interior Ministry.

The negotiations continue. Cuba remains dissatisfied and wary of the US. On his return to the US, Obama made the grand gesture of asking the Congress to end the trade embargo; however Raul Castro and others believe that, except in the area of telecommunications, the US president has held back from using his executive powers to go further with the repeal of the blockade. At the CELAC meeting of January 28, 2015, Mr. Castro said:

“Prohibitions on credit and the use of the dollar in international financial transactions remain in place; individual travel by U.S. citizens is hampered under the system of licenses for so-called people-to-people exchanges; these are conditioned by subversive goals; and maritime travel is not allowed.

“Prohibitions remain on the acquisition in other markets of equipment and technology with more than 10% U.S. components, and on imports by the United States of goods containing Cuban raw materials, among many, many others.”

Cuba has also demanded the return of Guantanamo, for which it has not accepted the rent payments since 1959. “I emphasized that the total lifting of the blockade, the return of the illegally occupied territory of Guantánamo, as well as the full respect for Cuban sovereignty, and the compensation to our people for human and economic damages, are crucial to be able to move towards the normalization of relations,” Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said. Nevertheless, the US continues to proceed as if it wants the land in perpetuity. A booby-trap article in the Guantanamo lease says that it can only be terminated with the consent of the US or both contracting parties. In other words, all it takes for the US to clear out of Guantanamo is the will to do so. Removal of the US naval base and its odious prison camp would go a long way towards establishing friendly relations with Cuba.

Furthermore, in return for opening its market to the US, Cuba wants equal access to the US market. Currently, Cuba holds more than 30 patents in the area of biotechnology, which is its main export. It manufactures more than 800 products for the health needs of Cubans, for whom it provides universal medical coverage. Cuba would like to sell its biotech products in the US and conduct the requisite clinical trials of Cuban products with US patients. Computer software is also a big Cuban product. A state-owned company called Albet produces much of this software, which is quite extensive and is sold in Latin America, Spain, and Angola. Cuba has produced numerous computer games, including a popular program that teaches how to play chess; it has produced cell-phone platforms as well as a popular operating system; and of course, it has produced software for the health sector, including programs to capture and visualize digitized images for diagnoses. Finally, Cuba wants to expand its tourism industry. Out of about 3.5 million tourists in 2015, only about 145,000 Americans visited Cuba, and this represented a doubling compared to 2014. It is reasonable to expect that this sector will grow as the ease of travel to Cuba becomes comparable to any other travel in the Caribbean.

Cuba has had enough experience with the Monroe Doctrine to know that the US goal will always be to turn it into a colony. In 1959, this process was much farther along in Cuba than in Haiti. Although more than 30 percent of the Cuban population were blacks and mulattoes, Jim Crow policies were in effect. Cuba was Havana, cash crops, and misery, and Havana was a casino-bordello run by US mobsters where Americans went to sin, and one of the top occupations for women was prostitution, as it is now in the Dominican Republic. From this horror, in the span of 57 years, Cuba has managed to achieve universal healthcare and equal pay for equal work, as Raul Castro politely pointed out whenever Obama brought up the issue of human rights. Cuba has also achieved a quite diversified economy that includes many trade partners, include ones like Russia and Venezuela, that were, or still are, shunned by the US. It stands to reason that, without its revolution, Cuba would now be a basket case: much worse than Puerto Rico, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, and much worse than Haiti, where the State coffers are empty, and there is no longer any agricultural economy or government to speak of. American finance and telecommunication companies will want to control the flow of money and information as much as possible, and they will try to exploit this control to pressure Cuba to make policy decisions that will destabilize it and make it dependent on the US. The new wave of colonists want to be in place now because they think that their work to undermine the Cuban Revolution will become easier after Cuba’s great hero Fidel Castro dies. This is partly the result of a US belief in its own propaganda that Mr. Castro micromanages everything in a country of 11 million people. Three generations of capable Cubans have grown since the revolution, and there should be new people to steer this project through more iterations.

Even as the US courts Cuba, the US intention is clearly a Bay of Pigs invasion with a smile. The Cuban Revolution has enormous symbolic importance for people throughout the world who are fighting US domination, and the undoing of this revolution would be major psychological blow. The US is already hinting that it wants popular elections that it can manipulate. In a March 22 speech, the US president stressed that “Cuba has a one-party system, [but] the United States is a multi-party democracy.” This is quite laughable, given the subservience of both US parties to the same business concerns, and the charade that currently passes for an election in the US. In response to a question from Cuban-American CNN reporter Jim Acosta about human rights in Cuba, Mr. Obama said, “I’ve met with people who have been subject to arbitrary detention and that’s something that I generally have to speak on because I hear from them directly and I know what it means for them,” to generate the right headlines, although he knew that in preparation for the détente, Cuba had released all 53 political prisoners on a list drafted by the US. In a follow up question to Raul Castro, he responded: “Give me a name, or names… and if we have those political prisoners they will be released before tonight ends.” The next day, in a brilliant show of Cuban openness, an embarrassed Mr. Obama was allowed to meet with a group of Cuban political dissidents so he could collect as many prisoner names from them as he wished. Few countries, including the US would pass the same test. As ever, the Cuban revolution thrives while under attack; one can only hope that it will never imagine it is not.

Ed Yourdon; four and nine by Bud Ellison; five from the Witness Against Torture archive; six and twelve by Tom Graham; composite image eight by Donkey Hotey; photograph ten by Mike Keran and photograph eleven by Dani.

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2016/03/25/cuba-detente-or-monroe-doctrine-imperial-plot/#sthash.2Xusj4Bv.dpuf

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History as Propaganda: Why the USSR Did Not ‘Win’ World War II (Part I)

Michael Jabara Carley
Crosspost with Strategic Culture Foundation
Simulpost with Russia Insider

The USSR was warning about Hitler from 1933 on….but Europe wouldn’t listen

Soviet sniper, Leningrad front, 1942. The people in arms. The USSR produced many women heroes, and many served as snipers, recon specialists, and even fighter pilots. The Soviet Union was by far the main contributor to Nazi Germany’s destruction.

Originally appeared at Strategic Culture Foundation

The title of this article is intended to be ironic because of course the Red Army did play the predominant role in destroying Nazi Germany during World War II. You would not know it, however, reading the western Mainstream Media (MSM), or watching television, or going to the cinema in the west where the Soviet role in the war has almost entirely disappeared.

If in the West the Red Army is largely absent from World War II, the Soviet Union’s responsibility for igniting the war is omnipresent. The MSM and western politicians tend to regard the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941 as the Soviet Union’s just reward for the 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill put it, the USSR «brought their own fate upon themselves when by their Pact with [Joachim von] Ribbentrop they let Hitler loose on Poland and so started the war…» Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the USSR, was Stalin’s fault and therefore an expatiation of sins, so that Soviet resistance should not be viewed as anything more than penitence.

Whereas France and Britain «appeased» Nazi Germany, one MSM commentator recently noted, the USSR «collaborated» with Hitler. You see how western propaganda works, and it’s none too subtle. Just watch for the key words and read between the lines. France and Britain were innocents in the woods, who unwisely «appeased» Hitler in hopes of preserving European peace. On the other hand, the totalitarian Stalin «collaborated» with the totalitarian Hitler to encourage war, not preserve the peace. Stalin not only collaborated with Hitler, the USSR and Nazi Germany were «allies» who carved up Europe. The USSR was «the wolf»; the West was «the lamb». These are not only metaphors of the English-speaking world; France 2 has promoted the same narrative in the much publicised television series, «Apocalypse» (2010) and «Apocalypse Staline» (2015). World War II erupted because of the non-aggression pact, that dirty deal, which marked the beginning of the short-lived «alliance» of the two «totalitarian» states. Hitler and Stalin each had a foot in the same boot.

MSM «journalists» like to underscore Stalin’s duplicity by pointing to the abortive Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations in the summer of 1939 to create an anti-Nazi alliance. No wonder they failed, how could the naïve French and British, the lambs, think they could strike a deal with Stalin, the wolf? Even professional historians sometimes take this line: the 1939 negotiations failed because of Soviet «intransigence» and «duplicity».

If ever Pot called Kettle black, this has to be it. And of course the trope of the Pot and the Kettle is a frequent device of western or MSM propaganda to blacken the USSR and, by implication, to blacken Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. There is just one problem with the western approach: the MSM «journalist» or western politician or historian who wants to incriminate Stalin for igniting World War II has one large obstacle in the way, the facts. Not that facts ever bother skilled propagandists, but still, perhaps, the average citizen in the West may yet have an interest in them.

Consider just a few of the facts that the West likes to forget. It was the USSR which first rang the alarm bells in 1933 about the Nazi threat to European peace. Maksim M. Litvinov, the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, became the chief Soviet proponent of «collective security» in Europe.

M. Litvivov

He warned over and over again of the danger: Nazi Germany is a «mad dog», he said in 1934, «that can’t be trusted with whom no agreements can be made, and whose ambition can only be checked by a ring of determined neighbours». That sounds about right, doesn’t it? Litvinov was the first European statesman to conceive of a grand alliance against Nazi Germany, based on the World War I coalition against Wilhelmine Germany. Soviet would-be allies, France, Britain, the United States, Romania, Yugoslavia, even fascist Italy, all fell away, one after the other, during the mid-1930s. Even Poland, Litvinov hoped, could be attracted to collective security. Unlike the other reluctant powers, Poland never showed the slightest interest in Litvinov’s proposals and sought to undermine collective security right up until the beginning of the war.

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]itvinov reminds me of Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in his thankless dealings with the Russophobic West. During the interwar years, the Russophobia was mixed with Sovietophobia: it was a clash of two worlds between the West and the USSR, the Silent Conflict, Litvinov called it. When things were going badly, Litvinov appears occasionally to have sought consolation in Greek mythology and the story of Sisyphus, the Greek king, doomed by Zeus to push forever a large rock to the top of a mountain, only to see it fall back down each time. Like Sisyphus, Litvinov was condemned to pointless efforts and endless frustration. So too, it seems, is Lavrov. The French philosopher, Albert Camus, imagined that Sisyphus was happy in his struggles, but that’s an existentialist philosopher for you, and Camus never had to deal with that damned rock. Litvinov did, and never could stick it on the mountaintop.

My point is that it was the West, notably the United States, Britain, and France – yes, that’s right, the same old gang – which dismissed Litvinov’s repeated warnings and spurned his efforts to organise a grand alliance against Nazi Germany.

Dominated by conservative elites, often sympathetic to fascism, the French and British governments looked for ways to get on with Nazi Germany, rather than to go all out to prepare their defences against it. Of course, there were «white crows», as one Soviet diplomat called them, who recognised the Nazi threat to European security and wanted to cooperate with the USSR, but they were only a powerless minority. The MSM won’t tell you much about the widespread sympathy for fascism amongst conservative European elites. It’s like the dirty secrets of the family in the big house at the top of the hill.

Poland also played a despicable role in the 1930s, though the MSM won’t tell you about that either. The Polish government signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1934, and in subsequent years sabotaged Litvinov’s efforts to build an anti-Nazi alliance. In 1938 it sided with Nazi Germany against Czechoslovakia and participated in the carve-up of that country sanctioned by the Munich accords on 30 September 1938. It’s a day the West likes to forget. Poland was thus a Nazi collaborator and an aggressor state in 1938 before it became a victim of aggression in 1939.

By early 1939, Litvinov had been rolling his rock (let’s call it collective security) up that wretched mountain for more than five years. Stalin, who was no Albert Camus, and not happy about being repeatedly spurned by the West, gave Litvinov one last chance to obtain an alliance with France and Britain. This was in April 1939. The craven French, rotted by fascist sympathies, had forgotten how to identify and protect their national interests, while the British stalled Litvinov, sneering at him behind his back.

So Sisyphus-Litvinov’s rock fell to the bottom of the mountain one last time. Enough, thought Stalin, and he sacked Litvinov and brought in the tougher Vyacheslav M. Molotov.

Still, for a few more months, Molotov tried to stick the rock on the mountaintop, and still it fell back again. In May 1939 Molotov even offered support to Poland, quickly rejected by Warsaw. Had the Poles lost their senses; did they ever have any? When British and French delegations arrived in Moscow in August to discuss an anti-Nazi alliance, you might think they would have been serious about getting down to business. War was expected to break out at any time. But no, not even then: British instructions were to «go very slowly». The delegations did too. It took them five days to get to Russia in an old, chartered merchantman, making a top speed of 13 knots. The British head of delegation did not have written powers giving him authority to conclude an agreement with his Soviet «partners». For Stalin, that must have been the camel breaking straw. The Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact was signed on 23 August 1939. The failure of the negotiations with the British and French led to the non-aggression pact, rather than the other way around.

Sauve qui peut motivated Soviet policy, never a good idea in the face of danger, but far from the MSM’s narrative explaining the origins of World War II. Good old Perfidious Albion acted duplicitously to the very end. During the summer of 1939 British government officials still negotiated for a deal with German counterparts, as if no one in Moscow would notice. And that was not all, the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, boasted privately to one of his sisters about how he would fool Moscow and get around the Soviet insistence on a genuine war-fighting alliance against Nazi Germany. So who betrayed who?

Historians may debate whether Stalin made the right decision or not in concluding the non-aggression pact. But with potential «partners» like France and Britain, one can understand why sauve qui peut looked like the only decent option in August 1939. And this brings us back to Pot calling Kettle black. The West foisted off its own responsibilities in setting off World War II onto Stalin and the Soviet Union.

(to be continued)

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Rolling Stone Owner Endorses Hillary Clinton // US Leaders Are Hucksters

—DISPATCHES FROM ERIC ZUESSE—

TAKE 1

The Owner of Rolling Stone Endorses Hillary Clinton for President

“Alternative media tycoon Wenner. Showing the limits of even “hip liberals.”

His name is Jann Wenner, and he says he endorses her because, “Hillary Clinton is one of the most qualified candidates for the presidency in modern times.” He doesn’t explain what he means by that.

Here are her qualifications — it’s her actual record, as the U.S. Secretary of State, and links are also provided there to her record as U.S. Senator before that. She was Senator for 8 years, and was Secretary of State for one 4-year term. (Prior to that, she was First Lady for 8 years, no government-decisionmaker.) Her opponent Bernie Sanders was U.S. Congressman for 18 years, and U.S. Senator for 10 years. (Prior to that, he was a political demonstrator and activist for many years, and was sent to jail in the early 1960s for leading a Chicago demonstration against racial segregation, and he was also the Mayor of Burlington Vermont, prior to being elected to Congress.)

Those are her “qualifications.” That’s what she actually achieved as U.S. Secretary of State, and before. (Despite her double-speak on Obama’s ‘trade’ deals, she supports them, just as she supported NAFTA.) The near-billionaire owner of Rolling Stone prefers her “qualifications” over those of Sanders, whom he calls “a candidate of anger,” and Wenner says, “Anger is not a plan; it is not a reason to wield power; it is not a reason for hope.” He says, “Idealism and honesty are crucial qualities for me, but I also want someone with experience who knows how to fight hard” — and, by “fight hard,” he doesn’t explain what he means, but he seems to mean: someone who has the financial backing of super-rich people such as he is, who can afford to spend the money that’s required to win the Presidency.

He says: “Clinton is far more likely to win the general election than Sanders.”

He provides no evidence on that, either; but here is the actual evidence on that matter. It has been consistently showing, for months, that Sanders is a much stronger candidate against any of the potential Republican candidates than is Clinton. In other words: it shows that Sanders is actually far more likely to win the general election than Clinton is — if Sanders wins the Democratic nomination (which Wenner doesn’t want to happen).

In the latest nationwide polled matchups shown there, Sanders beats Trump by 17.5%; Clinton beats Trump by only 11.2%.

Sanders beats Cruz by 8.4%; Clinton beats Cruz by only 2.9% (and the latest poll even shows Cruz beating her by 3.0%).

Sanders beats Kasich by 1.0%; Clinton loses by 6.5% to Kasich.

How can the nearly-billionaire Jann Wenner say that “Clinton is far more likely to win the general election than Sanders”? He can lie, or else he can be a fool.

Why might he lie? Could it be because his taxes will go way up if Sanders becomes President?

Oh — and what has Sanders’s actual record of achievement been in public office? Here it is. And, if you think that Senator Sanders should be more appreciated for that than he is, he already has (by far) the highest approval-rating of any of the 100 U.S. Senators — 83% — and that’s approval by the people who’ve actually seen the results of his performance serving them. There’s nothing speculative at all about that: the people in his home-state of Vermont have always been delighted with his performance for them.

Furthermore: with a record like that (and currently a 17.5% edge against Trump in the general-election matchup), Sanders as the Democratic nominee would quite possibly bring in a congressional landslide for the Democratic Party, the type of landslide which would enable him quickly to pass in Congress the types of reforms that he’s been talking about.

So: perhaps these things make pretty clear why Jann Wenner — like most other centi-millionaires and billionaires — prefers Hillary Clinton: She’s got the type of record they want in public office. She has represented them, very well.

(NOTE: In order not to lose his readers who aren’t suckers, Wenner allowed his employee, Matt Taibbi, who is very popular with his readers, to state in Wenner’s publication, why Taibbi dissents. Taibbi opened by praising his “boss,” by saying: “In many ways, the endorsement by my boss and editor, Jann Wenner, read like the result of painful soul-searching, after this very magazine had a profound influence on a similar race, back in 1972. Jann explains this eloquently in ‘Hillary Clinton for President’.” There’s nothing actually ‘eloquent’ about Wenner’s propaganda for Hillary Clinton. And the circumstances aren’t well analogous to those of the McGovern campaign’s failure. But, in any case: Bernie Sanders is no George McGovern. But he could turn out to be another FDR. And America’s billionaires didn’t like his policies, either.)

Take 2

U.S. Leaders Are Hucksters

Crosspost with strategic-culture.org

Here is Bill Clinton, the U.S. President who served Wall Street by removing all regulations on derivatives-trading and by ending FDR’s Glass-Steagall Act separation of investment-banking from consumer-banking, now telling an audience, that his successor George W. Bush had done this, and that Bush’s successor Barack Obama has unfortunately continued it. He said this on March 21st when explaining why everyone should vote for his wife to undo the ”awful” and “trickle-down” legacy of George W. Bush and Barack Obama:

“If you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her because she’s the only person who basically had good ideas, will tell you how she’s going to pay for them, can be commander in chief, and is a proven change maker with Republicans and Democrats and independents alike.”

(Clarification: Where he said “seven years” he meant eight years, and where he said “eight years” he meant seven years, because Bush had 8 years and Obama has thus far had 7.)

The truth is that just before Bill Clinton ended his Presidency he gave Wall Street exactly what it wanted: the ability to gamble with FDIC-insured money, so that Wall Street would be bailed out by taxpayers if their gamblers stopped gambling (‘investing’) and the financial system consequently froze up — which happened in 2008. George W. Bush didn’t make that change, Clinton did. Rotten as Bush was, Clinton was arguably even worse, but he’s now alleging that his wife will undo his own “trickle-down” legacy.

Here is Donald Trump, pandering to the far-right, ethnocentric-Jewish, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), who hate Palestinians and Iran, telling these racist ethnocentric Jews why they should support Trump for President — and opening by telling his suckers that he’s not going to “pander to” them:

“I didn’t come here tonight to pander to you about Israel. That’s what politicians do: all talk, no action. … My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. … We have rewarded the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with $150 billion and we received absolutely nothing in return. … Iran is a problem in Iraq, a problem in Syria, a problem in Lebanon, a problem in Yemen, and will be a very major problem for Saudi Arabia. Literally every day, Iran provides more and better weapons to their puppet states. … We will totally dismantle Iran’s global terror network. Iran has seeded terror groups all over the world. During the last five years, Iran has perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries on five continents. They’ve got terror cells everywhere, including in the western hemisphere very close to home. Iran is the biggest sponsor of terrorism around the world and we will work to dismantle that reach.

Third, at the very least, we must hold Iran accountable by restructuring the terms of the previous deal. … The United Nations is not a friend of democracy. It’s not a friend to freedom. It’s not a friend even to the United States of America, where as all know, it has its home. And it surely isn’t a friend to Israel. … When I become President, the days of treating Israel like a second-class citizen will end on Day One. I will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately. I have known him for many years and we will be able to work closely together to help bring stability and peace to Israel and to the entire region.”

On February 17th, Trump told the truth: “Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi.” Not Iran, but Israel’s ally the Saud family, who are the chief financial backers of the overthrow-Assad operation (which Israel’s government likewise supports) and of the entire war against Iran and all Shia everywhere — including even Shia in Saudi Arabia itself — and who were the chief funders of Al Qaeda at least until 9/11, and (according to Bill Clinton’s wife Hillary Clinton, in private) even as late as 2009, were still “the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” As regards Shiite ‘terrorist’ groups, there’s only one, Hezbollah, and its exclusive focus is against Israel, not against the West. In fact, the title of that State Department cable from her was about ”Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance,” not about “Sunni Terrorist Finance,” because, she knows, all  Islamic terrorism, except what’s directed against Israel, is Sunni, none of it is Shiite. So: that cable of hers was sent only to U.S. Embassies in Sunni-run countries, not to the U.S. Embassy in the only Shiite-run country where the U.S. has an Embassy, which is Syria. The U.S. government is quite aware that terrorism (except against Israel) is strictly  Sunni-fundamentalist-Islamic, and that Syria’s ideologically secular, non-sectarian, government, has (like Russia’s secular non-sectarian government) always tried to crush it, never  supported it. The U.S. is allied with the terrorist-financing countries, against Shiite-run countries, because Shiite-run countries (specifically Syria and Iran) are allied with Russia, which the U.S. government aims to isolate and ultimately conquer.

So: even when the hucksters who make it to the top of American politics tell the truth, it’s by accident. Truthfulness isn’t ever their goal; winning and keeping power is.

Americans are taught that things are like that in African countries, and in former Soviet-bloc countries, but not that this is the way America itself is; to say a thing like this here is verboten  in the ‘respectable’ ‘news’ media. It’s not publishable. It’s American samizdat. Any major news-medium that would publish it would be subject to severe sanctions; people would be fired. They might even be treated worse — like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange — isolated, smeared, and possibly imprisoned. It destroys careers of the few authentic journalists. They’re supposed to be propagandists, instead. Even to call oneself a ‘journalist’ here is supposed to be  a lie. There’s virtually no remaining market for real journalism in the United States. The major advertisers won’t patronize it, and the government-funded ‘news’ media also don’t allow it. So: certain types of truth are simply not publishable here.

Huckster-politicians and their friends just thrive in such an environment. Like U.S. President Obama himself says, “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.” All other  nations are ‘dispensable.’ That’s something which Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton, might equally say. But, of course, none of them would be “pandering.” They don’t do that — just ask them, and they’ll tell you they don’t (like Trump just did).

ABOUT ERIC ZUESSE

They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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