Monday, January 16, 2012

Reflexões sobre o que ocorre na Síria - Reflections on What is Really Happening in Syria



Por Lejeune Mirhan*

Não se passa um dia, pelo menos nos últimos meses, que a imprensa brasileira – que bebe na fonte das grandes agências internacionais de notícias – deixa de publicar até uma ou duas páginas sobre a República Árabe Síria. Chamando insistentemente o seu presidente, Dr. Bashar Al Assad de “ditador” e mostrando imagens completamente distorcidas da realidade. As fotos não condizem com as reportagens. O texto briga com a informação. Por isso. Publicamos aqui um conjunto de reflexões, a partir de diversas fontes de estudos e pesquisas disponíveis na Internet e artigos de jornais que reputamos mais confiáveis.


A verdade sobre a Síria


1. Historicamente, é o 2º mais importante país do OM, ainda que não seja rico em petróleo e gás. Chegou a estabelecer uma República Árabe Unida com o Egito sob o comando de Nasser. Possui amplas relações políticas e econômicas com o vizinho Líbano, a quem hoje se aproximaram ainda mais desde janeiro com o governo de Nagib Mikat.

2. É governado pelo Dr. Bashar El Assad, médico oftalmologista com formação em Londres, que sucedeu na presidência ao seu pai, Hafez El Assad. Esta desde 2000 no poder. Pertence ao Partido Socialista Árabe Sírio – Baath. Governa em coalizão de frente ampla, incluindo o PC Sírio e o PC Sírio Unificado, além de organizações socialistas e de caráter antiimperialista.

3. Em Damasco, sua capital, estão as sedes de todos os partidos políticos de caráter antiimperialistas, árabes, em especial as organizações palestinas da resistência. Isso vem irritando há anos os EUA e Israel, que acusam a Síria de dar guarida a “grupos terroristas”. Ai estão incluídos o Hamas, a FPLP, a FDLP e a Jihad Islâmica.

4. Dos países árabes na atualidade, depois da tomada de controle do Iraque pelos EUA é o país que mais apoia a luta do povo palestino na busca da edificação de seu estado nacional. Acaba por estabelecer, em função disso, boas relações com a FPLP, a FDLP, o PC Palestino (hoje Partido do Povo palestino), com o Hamas e a Jihad Islâmica, além, claro, do Fatah, o maior agrupamento palestino na resistência.

5. É praticamente, ao lado do Egito, do Iraque e da Líbia (estes últimos ocupados), o país mais laico do OM. Ainda que a sua população seja majoritariamente muçulmana, o estado é separado da religião, as mulheres não usam veu e possuem amplas liberdades políticas.

6. Insufladas do exterior, em especial pela Arábia Saudita e Turquia e por baixo dos panos até por Israel, protestos começaram a ocorrer na esteira da revolução árabe. Apoiados pela mídia ocidental antiislâmica e pró-estadunidense e sionista, a impressão que se passa é que o povo quer a “imediata derrubada do regime do ditador Assad” (sic). Imagens nunca veiculadas pelos canais internacionais e brasileiros que os retransmitem mostram e disponíveis amplamente na Internet, no entanto, milhões de sírios em total apoio ao governo da Síria.

7. O que se vê hoje na Síria são dois grupos da chamada oposição. Uma delas, a “oposição externa” e outra que chamamos de “oposição interna”. A externa, tem sede em Londres e Istambul, formada por pessoas que vivem fora do país há décadas e totalmente comprometidas com a derrubada do governo e prontas para servirem aos interesses estrangeiros. Recebem suporte político e financeiro dos EUA. Hilary recentemente encontrou-se com vários deles, que tem amplo espaço na mídia internacional, inclusive a brasileira que já entrevistou vários desses “líderes”. Pregam abertamente uma decisão da ONU que faça com a Síria o que foi feito com a Líbia: “bombardeio humanitário”. Recebem armas contrabandeadas na fronteira, apoiados pela Arábia Saudita e Turquia, algumas inclusive desviadas do arsenal líbio, sem qualquer controle.

8. A oposição interna dialogo e participa do chamado Diálogo Nacional Síria. Convocado pelo governo, já deu grandes passos no sentido da democratização do país, convocação de eleições livres em maio, suspensão do controle da imprensa e legalização de todos os partidos políticos. Tanto a oposição quanto o governo, não aceitam ingerência alguma nos interesses e nos destinos da nação Síria.

9. Assad segue tendo amplo apoio das classes médias urbanas, dos setores empresariais, das minorias religiosas que temem ser esmagadas pelos integrantes da Irmandade Muçulmana mais conservadora e sectária. Há um bloco informal, não declarado, de três países hoje no OM que jogam pelo avanço das transformações no mundo árabe e no avanço da luta e da resistência antiimperialista: a Síria, o Líbano e o Irã (que é persa). Soma-se a isso mais recentemente o Iraque, que com um governo xiita, vai se afastando da órbita estadunidense e aproximando-se desse bloco informal.

10. A Liga Árabe, ou o que restou dela, foi tomada de assalto pelo países membros do CCG, Conselho de Cooperação do Golfo, que é integrado por oito petromonarquias feudais, lideradas hoje pela Arábia Saudita e pelo Qatar (a rede Al Jazeera, que cumpriu num primeiro momento importante papel em apoio à luta dos tunisianos e egípcios, hoje trama abertamente pela derrubada de Assad e apoia os militares no Egito, buscando frear o avanço da Revolução Árabe). Por isso, com votos contrários apenas da própria Síria, Iraque e Líbano, a República Árabe Síria foi suspensa da organização.

11. Rússia e China vem bloqueando no CS da ONU todas as tentativas dos EUA, França e Inglaterra de votarem tanto sanções quanto autorizarem “ataques humanitários para proteger civis” (sic).

12. A única fonte que a mídia ocidental tem dos números de mortos, da “contagem de corpos” na Síria é uma ONG “humanitária” que tem sede em Londres e de propriedade de um dos membros do Conselho Nacional Sírio, a chamada oposição externa. Sabe-se, por fontes do próprio governo, que mais da metade dos mortos foram de policiais e membros das forças armadas que são atacados por mercenários e terroristas, que, inclusive, disparam aleatoriamente na multidão. Mais recentemente soube-se que muitos dos nomes desta “ONGs” estão vivos e foram obtidos em lista telefônica londrina!

13. A Rússia deslocou uma das suas frotas navais para a costa síria e vem testando seus sistemas antimísseis exatamente no porto de Tartus, importante cidade costeira mediterrânea, comercial e industrial do país (alguns desses armamentos incluem mísseis S-300, diversos destacamentos de tanques de guerra, 15 caças SU-33, mísseis P-700 com foguetes hipersônicos, sistemas de mísseis antiaéreos com 192 foguetes e muitos helicópteros). A Rússia e a China integram a APEC, organização de cooperação econômica na Ásia, inclusive que vem tomando feições militares, para um equilíbrio com as forças da OTAN, já que o antigo Pacto de Varsóvia foi desfeito há vinte anos.

14. Os BRICS, apesar de certo vacilo que vem sendo cometido pela diplomacia brasileira sob comando do ministro Patriota, vem obstaculizando toda e qualquer sanção contra a Síria. É como se dissessem “tirem as mãos da Síria” ou “esqueçam qualquer tipo de intervenção externa na Síria”. Pelo menos, até o presente momento, essa vem sendo a essência das decisões conjunto desse bloco dos cinco maiores países em desenvolvimento.

15. A Síria é a “bola da vez” do imperialismo. Este sabe que a queda do governo do Partido Baath e seus aliados progressistas altera profundamente a correlação de forças no OM. Isso, já vem desde o Bush filho em 2005. Agora viram oportunidades mais concretas, apoiados por traidores que pedem ajuda estrangeira para atacar seu próprio país. Se existe o que se vem chamando de “Eixo da Guerra”, composto pelos EUA, França, Inglaterra, Itália, Canadá e Alemanha, no Oriente Médio temos o “Eixo da Resistência” ao imperialismo, composto pelo Irã, Síria, Líbano e agora o Iraque, com apoio dos palestinos.

16. A queda de Assad, altera completamente a correlação de forças na região, em especial no governo do Líbano. Os partidos que integram a coligação pró-EUA e simpática à Israel, chamada “14 de Março”, comandada pelo ex-primeiro Ministro Saad Hariri estão organizando em Beirute diversas manifestações contra o governo sírio para desestabilizar o governo de Mikat, integrado pelo Hezbolláh, pelos cristão patrióticos do MPL do general Michel Aoun, do AMAL de Nabi Berry e pelos comunistas do PC Libanês, que tem mais de 80 anos e é dos mais respeitados em todo o mundo árabe. Cair o atual governo libanês é frear ainda mais a revolução árabe.

17. O que vemos hoje na Síria é um processo de luta política onde os dois lados estão armados. A oposição que se autointitula Exército Livre da Síria (sic) integrado por mercenários, baderneiros e terroristas contratados e pagos pela Arábia Saudita, que montaram um acampamento na fronteira com a Turquia, recebe grandes carregamentos de armamentos contrabandeados. A orientação para esses terroristas é inclusive atirar indiscriminadamente na multidão, matando cidadãos sírios para jogar a culpa no governo.

18. Não poderíamos deixar de lamentar que um brasileiro honrado, o Dr. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, nosso colega sociólogo, que inclusive nos prestigiou na passeata em apoio ao Estado da Palestina no dia 20 de setembro de 2011 em SP fazendo inclusive o uso da palavra, tenha se prestado a emitir um relatório em nome da ONU divulgado amplamente e reverberado por toda a mídia internacional. Sem ter pisado em solo sírio, sem ter ouvido nenhuma fonte do lado do governo, ouvindo as tais ONGs “humanitárias” financiadas por Washington, desancou a atacar indiscriminadamente o governo sírio. Sabe-se inclusive que foi auxiliado por uma colaboradora da CIA, a Srª Karen Koning Abuzaid, membro do Conselho Diretor do Midle East Policy Council cujo presidente, Frank Anderson que trabalhou por 26 anos na Agência e foi diretor para o OM da CIA (Hora do Povo de 2 a 6 de dezembro de 2011, página 6, por Nathaniel Braia);

19. Já não há mais dúvidas. Há uma imensa falsificação nos números de mortos divulgados como se fossem todos eles assassinados pelo governo. Os dados mais confiáveis indicam que de cada dois mortos no conflito no momento, pelo menos um vem do lado das forças do exército e da polícia síria;

20. Bandidos armados que agem abertamente em diversas cidades sírias vêm sendo apresentadas pela mídia ocidental como sendo “desertores do exército sírio”, que passou a adotar o nome de “Exército Livre da Síria” (sic), que atua na fronteira da Turquia com o beneplácito desse país e que é coordenado por um coronel estadunidense;

21. Nenhuma das gigantescas manifestações realizadas por diversas vezes em todas as grandes cidades sírias – fartamente documentado na Internet nos sites de vídeos – são mostradas pelas redes internacionais de TVs ocidentais. Até mesmo a TV outrora apoiadora dos primeiros levantes árabes – controlado pelo Emir do Qatar – a Al Jazeera as mostra. As redes preferem imagens de péssima qualidade feitas por celulares de opositores que mostram pouquíssimas pessoas nas manifestações contra o governo.

Algumas conclusões


É preciso deixar claro que a defesa de qualquer tipo de intervenção estrangeira na Síria hoje – proposta inclusive por alguns ditos “esquerdistas” de várias matizes – implica em aceitar tacitamente um ataque, bombardeio de potências estrangeiras nesse país árabe.

Que não tenhamos dúvidas. Atacar hoje a Síria esta relacionado diretamente com o enfraquecimento da luta do povo palestino. Hoje esse país árabe é o que mais firmemente defende essa causa. Não só a defende na teoria. Abriga os escritórios políticos dos principais grupos políticos que tem mais dificuldades em atuar tanto na Cisjordânia como no restante da Palestina ocupada, em especial o Hamas, a FPLP, a FDLP e a Jihad Islâmica. Não bastasse isso, a Síria apoia com firmeza a resistência libanesa, materializada no Partido de Deus (Hezbolláh em árabe), que forma hoje o governo libanês.

Não se pode perder de vista e momento algum que, tecnicamente falando, a Síria esta em guerra com Israel, desde a tomada de suas terras localizadas nas Colinas do Golã em 1967.

Saúdo a firmeza do presidente Bashar no sentido de compreender este especial momento delicado que a Síria e o mundo árabe vivem. Do diálogo que tem empreendido com as forças sírias interessadas na construção e no avanço da democracia, das reformas do Estado sírio, nas amplas liberdades de comunicação, partidária e de imprensa. Mas que rechaçam toda e qualquer intervenção externa que ameace a soberania síria.

É praticamente impossível fazermos qualquer previsão sobre o futuro mais imediato. Os argumentos que aqui apresentamos, fruto de muitas pesquisas e análises, são os que entendemos como os mais ajustados para a realidade. Esperemos que o povo e o governo da Síria, de forma altiva e soberana encontrem os seus caminhos que voltem a valorizar a Nação Árabe e seu legado para a humanidade.

Fontes Pesquisadas e Citadas
Alain Gresh, do Le Monde Diplomatique, edição Brasileira de dezembro de 2011, “Terremoto Geopolítico no Oriente Médio”, páginas 28 e 29;
Federação Geral dos Sindicatos da Síria – GFTU – Documento de 30/11/2011;
“Intervenção estrangeira na Síria: que ninguém se engane”, de Ibrahim Al Amin, do jornal Al Akhbar, Beirute;
“A guerra contra a síria”, de David Orra, de 1º de janeiro de 2012 (sem indicação de site);
“A realidade sempre mal contada na mídia sobre a Síria”, de Aisling Byrne, do Asian Times On Line, de 4 de janeiro de 2012;
Anotações e reflexões do coletivo de tradutores da vila Vudu.

* Lejeune Mirhan é sociólogo, professor e escritor

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Happy New Year. Here's what to look forward to.





JANUARY 22: Congress passes a law requiring that all persons arrested in anti-war demonstrations be sterilized. House Speaker John Boehner declares it is "God's will". House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says she supports the law but that she has some reservation because there's no provision for a right of appeal.

FEBRUARY 15: Ron Paul assassinated by man named Oswald Harvey.

FEBRUARY 18: Oswald Harvey, while in solitary confinement and guarded round the clock by 1200 policemen and the entire 3rd Army Brigade, is killed by man named Ruby Jackson.

FEBRUARY 26: Ruby Jackson suddenly dies in prison of a rare Asian disease heretofore unknown in the Western Hemisphere.

MARCH 6: US President Hopey Changey announces new draconian sanctions against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba, declaring that they all possess weapons of mass destruction, are an imminent threat to the United States, have close ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban, are aiding Islamic terrorists in Somalia, were involved in 9-11, played a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the attack on Pearl Harbor, do not believe in God or American Exceptionalism, and are all "really bad guys".

APRIL 1: Military forces overthrow Evo Morales in Bolivia. US State Department decries the loss of democracy.

APRIL 2: US recognizes the new Bolivian military junta, sells it 100 jet fighters and 200 tanks.

APRIL 3: Revolution breaks out in Bolivia endangering the military junta; 40,000 American marines are sent to La Paz to quell the uprising.

APRIL 8: Dick Cheney announces from his hospital bed that the United States has finally discovered caches of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — "So all those doubters can now just go 'F' themselves." The former vice-president, however, refuses to provide any details of the find because, he says, to do so might reveal intelligence sources or methods.

APRIL 10: ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, General Electric, General Motors, AT&T, Ford, and IBM merge to form "Free Enterprise, Inc."

APRIL 16: Free Enterprise, Inc. seeks to purchase Guatemala and Haiti. Citigroup refuses to sell.

APRIL 18: Free Enterprise, Inc. purchases Citigroup.

MAY 5: The Democratic Party changes its name to the Republican Lite Party, and announces the opening of a joint bank account with the Republicans so that corporate lobbyists need make out only one check. In celebration of the change the new party calls for eliminating the sales tax on yachts.

MAY 11: China claims to have shot down an American spy plane over the center of China. State Department categorically denies the story.

MAY 12: State Department admits that an American plane may have "inadvertently" strayed 2,000 miles into China, but denies that it was a spy plane.

MAY 13: State Department admits that the plane may have been a spy plane but denies that it was piloted by a US government employee.

MAY 14: State Department admits that the pilot was a civilian employee of a Defense Department contractor but denies that China exists.

JUNE 11: Homeland Security announces plan to collect the DNA at birth of every child born in the United States.

JULY 1: The air in Los Angeles reaches so bad a pollution level that the rich begin to hire undocumented workers to breathe for them.

AUGUST 6: The Justice Department announces that six people have been arrested in New York in connection with a plan to bomb the United Nations, the Empire State Building, the Times Square subway station, Madison Square Garden, and Lincoln Center.

AUGUST 7: Charges are dropped against four of "The New York Six" when it is determined that they are FBI agents.

AUGUST 16: At a major demonstration in Washington, the Tea Party demands an end to all government expenditures. They also warn Congress not to touch Social Security or Medicare.

AUGUST 26: Texas executes a 16-year-old girl for having an abortion and a 12-year-old boy for possession of marijuana.

SEPTEMBER 3: The Labor Department announces that Labor Day will become a celebration of America's gratitude to its corporations, a day dedicated to the memory of J.P. Morgan and Pinkerton strike breakers killed in the line of duty.

SEPTEMBER 12: The draft is reinstated for males and females, ages 16 to 45. Those who are missing a limb or are blind can apply for non-combat roles.

SEPTEMBER 14: Riots breaks out in 24 American cities in protest of the new draft. 200,000 American troops are brought home from Afghanistan, Iraq, and 25 other countries to put down the riots.

SEPTEMBER 28: The Tea Party calls for giving embryos the vote.

OCTOBER 19: Cops the world over form a new association, Policemen's International Governing Society. PIGS announces that its first goal will be to mount a campaign against the notion that a person is innocent until proven guilty, in those countries where the quaint notion still dwells.

NOVEMBER 8: The turnout for the US presidential election is 9.6%. The voting ballots are all imprinted: "From one person, one vote, to one dollar, one vote." The winner is "None of the above".

NOVEMBER 11: US prison population reaches 2.5 million. It is determined that at least 70 percent of the prisoners would not have been incarcerated a century ago, for the acts they committed were then not criminal violations.

DECEMBER 3: Supreme Court rules that police may search anyone if they have reasonable grounds for believing that the person has pockets.

DECEMBER 16: The Occupy Movement sets up a tent on the White House lawn. An hour later a missile fired from a drone leaves but a thin wisp of smoke.

William Blum is the author of:
  • Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
  • Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
  • West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
  • Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
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Items of interest from a journal William Blum has kept for 40 years, part VI


  • If the US really believed in 2002-3 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction why did they send in more than 100,000 troops, who were certain to be annihilated?

  • In a letter released August 17, 2006, 21 former generals and high ranking national security officials called on President George W. Bush to reverse course and embrace a new area of negotiation with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. The group told reporters Bush's "hard line" policies had undermined national security and made America less safe.

  • Throughout most of the 20th century, the Catholic Church in Latin America taught its flocks of the poor that there was no need to do battle with the ruling elite because the poor would get their just rewards in the afterlife.

  • The US overthrew the Sandinistas in Nicaragua because the Sandinistas "intended to create a country where there was only a colony before." — Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer

  • "[George W.] Bush said last week that part of the purpose of the Indonesia trip 'is to make sure that the people who are suspicious of our country understand our motives are pure'." (Washington Post, October 22, 2003)

  • "Wars may be aberrant experiences in the lives of most human individuals, but some nations are serial aggressors. American society is unique in having been formed almost wholly by processes of aggression against external and internal Others." — The Black Commentator, June 8, 2006

  • President Obama should accompany the military people when they inform parents that their child has died in the latest of America's never-ending wars. And maybe ask George W. to come along as well.

  • During the Vietnam War some University of Michigan students created a brouhaha when they threatened to napalm a puppy dog on the steps of a campus building. The uproar of indignation at their cruelty was heard nationwide. Of course, when the time came they didn't do it, having successfully made the point that people cared more about napalming a dog than they did about napalming people.

  • "It's a lie and an illusion that we have an inefficient government. This government is only inefficient if you think its job is, as stated in the Constitution, 'to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' These objectives are beyond our government's talents only because they are beyond its intentions." — Michael Ventura

  • "Get some new lawyers" - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook when he told her he was informed that the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 (which Albright championed) was illegal under international law.

  • The two countries of the world, along with the United States, which have the greatest national obsession with baseball are two of the main targets of US foreign policy: Venezuela and Cuba.

  • The Cuban Five case: This is the first case in American history of alleged spying and espionage without a single page from a secret document. The government never presented any evidence of a stolen official document or any attempt to steal an official document. This is the first spy case without secrets from the government. (Read more)

  • "If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a 'suspected terrorist' is inside, the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is 'inevitable'. So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a deliberate attack on civilians." — Howard Zinn

  • "The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to impose limited sanctions on North Korea for its recent missile tests, and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program." (Associated Press, July 15, 2006) ... Internet commentator: "Test some missiles that land harmlessly in the ocean? Unanimous condemnation. Fire some missiles at targets on land, kill hundreds of people, and destroy hundreds of civilian targets including power plants, airports, roads, bridges, TV stations, etc., all in violation of the Geneva Convention? Hey, no problem."

  • For some nine years, American B-52 bombers relentlessly dropped tons of ordnance on a southeast Asian country (Vietnam) that still cultivated rice fields using draft animals.

  • "The messianism of American foreign policy is a remarkable thing. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks it seems like Khrushchev reporting to the party congress: 'The whole world is marching triumphantly toward democracy but some rogue states prefer to stay aside from that road, etc. etc'." — Natalia Narochnitskaya, vice chairman of the international affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament. (Washington Post, April 3, 2006)

  • Washington ... Propagandistan

  • The bulldozer, driven by an Israeli army soldier on assignment to demolish a home, rolled over Rachel Corrie, who was 23 years old. She had taken a nonviolent position for human rights; she lost her life as a result. But she was rarely praised in the same US media outlets that had gone into raptures over the image of a solitary unarmed man standing in front of Chinese tanks at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. — Norman Solomon

  • American sovereignty hasn't faced a legitimate foreign threat to its existence since the British in 1812.

  • There are two major patterns in foreign policy: the rule of force or the rule of law. On February 8, 1819 the US decided, after a very long debate in the House, to reject the rule of law in foreign policy. The vote was 100 to 70 against requiring the Congress to approve illegal invasions of other countries or peoples. This pertained to the "Seminole War", actually the invasion of Florida. Since then every president has had the right to "defend America", code words for the use of force against whomever he chooses. — Kelly Gelgering

Iraq. Began with big lies. Ending with big lies. Never forget.

"Most people don't understand what they have been part of here," said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. "We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them."
"It is pretty exciting," said another young American soldier in Iraq. "We are going down in the history books, you might say." (Washington Post, December 18, 2011)

Ah yes, the history books, the multi-volume leather-bound set of "The Greatest Destructions of One Country by Another." The newest volume can relate, with numerous graphic photos, how the modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed state; how the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly, ... how the people of that unhappy land lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood, and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lying anywhere in wait for children to pick them up ... a river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again.

"It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003," reported the Washington Post on May 5, 2007.

No matter ... drum roll, please ... Stand tall American GI hero! And don't even think of ever apologizing or paying any reparations. Iraq is forced by Washington to continue paying reparations to Kuwait for Iraq's invasion in 1990 (an invasion instigated in no small measure by the United States). And — deep breath here! — Vietnam has been compensating the United States. Since 1997 Hanoi has been paying off about $145 million in debts left by the defeated South Vietnamese government for American food and infrastructure aid. Thus, Hanoi is reimbursing the United States for part of the cost of the war waged against it. (William Blum, Rogue State, p.304) How much will the United States pay the people of Iraq?

On December 14, at the Fort Bragg, North Carolina military base, Barack Obama stood before an audience of soldiers to speak about the Iraq war. It was a moment in which the president of the United States found it within his heart and soul — as well as within his oft-praised (supposed) intellect — to proclaim:
This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making. And today, we remember everything that you did to make it possible. ... Years from now, your legacy will endure. In the names of your fallen comrades etched on headstones at Arlington, and the quiet memorials across our country. In the whispered words of admiration as you march in parades, and in the freedom of our children and grandchildren. ... So God bless you all, God bless your families, and God bless the United States of America. ... You have earned your place in history because you sacrificed so much for people you have never met.
Does Mr. Obama, the Peace Laureate, believe the words that come out of his mouth?
Barack H. Obama believes only in being the President of the United States. It is the only strong belief the man holds.

Bio-assassination weaponry used on Kim Jong Il



 Bio-assassination weaponry used on Kim Jong Il

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was thinking aloud when he speculated that diagnoses of cancer affecting Latin America's most notable progressive leaders may have been the result of a U.S. plot through technological means. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, the wife of neocon and Zionist foreign policy adviser Robert Kagan, immediately called Chavez's remarks "horrific and reprehensible."

However, the State Department may or may not be aware of what has been gleaned by WMR from Japanese intelligence sources in Pyongyang: that North Korea's late leader Kim Jong Il, who we previously reported was assassinated by rebellious military officers, met his demise from the use of a sophisticated bio-weapon. Kim Jong Il, whose only medical problems were periodic blackouts and the early onset of dementia, did not die from a heart attack, according to Japanese military intelligence sources. North Korean official news reports claimed that the late Dear Leader died from a heart attack aboard a train outside of Pyongyang. Neither of these reports was correct.

Kim Jong Il, while not in perfect health, was on a strict diet, exercised regularly, and was frequently examined by doctors.

However, the military coup plotters arranged for Kim Jong Il to be administered a series of doses of toxins. The toxins ultimately built up in Kim Jong Il's vital organs, causing renal failure and heart stoppage. The plot by North Korean military officers resulted from a major split over a secret deal made by some North Korean officials with Israel. The secret compact was for North Korea to stop missile shipments to Syria, Iran, and Egypt in return for Israel supplying low-grade enriched weapons-grade uranium to the North Koreans.

It is not certain what Chavez based his fears on, however, Cuba enjoys close relations with North Korea. Chavez cited a warning he once received from former Cuban President Fidel Castro, who, himself contracted a mysterious and almost fatal stomach disorder after visiting Argentina, that he should "take care. These people have developed technology . . . Take care of what you eat, what they give you to eat . . . a little needle and they inject you with I don't know what." Chavez went on to say, "It would not be strange if they developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now."

Progressive Latin American leaders, including Chavez, have recently been diagnosed with cancer. The latest to fall victim to cancer is Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who recently won re-election in a landslide. Others contracting cancer include Paraguay's President Fernando de Lugo, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, and former Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva. Chavez said other Latin American leaders should exercise caution, including Bolivia's Evo Morales. Former Argentinian President Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez de Kirchner's husband, died from a sudden heart attack before running again for the presidency. Fidel Castro contracted an almost fatal stomach disease after meeting with Nestor Kirchner and Chavez in Argentina.

Castro's warning to Chavez about being stuck with a fatal needle comes from someone who was on the receiving end of such assassination plots. Tulane Medical School researcher Dr. Alton Ochsner, a friend of such notorious Latin American right-wing leaders as Juan Peron, Panama's Tomas Gabriel Duque, and Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza, was known to be conducting CIA-sponsored research to develop weaponized cancers from monkey viruses. The prime target for such a weapon was Castro.

When it comes to U.S. bio-assassination weaponry, Chavez had the best source of information in Castro. Nuland and her neocon associates in the Obama administration and corporate media would rather ridicule the messenger, in this case Chavez, than in recognizing the fact that the United States is one of the few countries in history to conduct medical research for the purpose of assassinating perceived foreign and domestic threats including Castro; Congo's Patrice Lumumba; Iraq's Abdul Karim Qassem, Yugoslavia's former President Slobodan Milosevic; Jack Ruby, the slayer of Lee Harvey Oswald; and, quite possibly, U.S. ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson who died of a sudden heart attack in 1965 on a street in London located near the U.S. embassy.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

NATO dreams of civil war in Syria



THE ROVING EYE 
NATO dreams of civil war in Syria 
By Pepe Escobar 

Every grain of sand in the Syrian desert now knows there won't be a "responsibility to protect"-enabled North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “humanitarian” intervention to provoke regime change in Damascus. A protracted war like in Libya is not feasible - even though those faultless democratic practitioners, the House of Saud, have offered to pay for it, lavishly. 

Yet the fog of near war remains impenetrable. What is NATO really up to in Syria? 

It was already established (see The shadow war in Syria Asia Times Online, December 2, 2011) that NATO had set up a command and control center in Turkey's southern Hatay province - where British commandos and French intelligence are training the dodgy Free Syria Army (FSA). The target: to foment a civil war engulfing northern Syria. 

Now comes the confirmation, via the website of former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, that a pincer movement may be in effect, involving Jordan. [1] 

Edmonds quotes local sources according to whom "hundreds of soldiers who speak languages other than Arabic" have been "moving back and forth ... between the King Hussein air base in al-Mafraq" and "Jordanian villages adjacent to the Syrian border". 

Edmonds sustains none of this is being reported by US media because of a gag order from above that in theory expired this Tuesday. And don't try asking King Abdullah of Jordan about it. 

The base at al-Mafraq is virtually across the border from Dar'a. A lot of action has been going on in Dar'a recently - an epicenter of the anti-President Bashar al-Assad movement. As far as the Syrian news agency Sana is concerned, security forces have been routinely killed by "terrorist gangs". As far as the "rebels" are concerned, these are patriotic army defectors attacking military supply lines. 

Let's hit plan B 

By adopting this pincer movement, NATO in Syria is now actively diversifying into an Iraq-in-the-1990s strategy; to submit Syria to a prolonged state of siege before eventually going for the kill. 

Yet as much as NATO would pray to Allah for the contrary, Syria is not Libya. It's much smaller and compact, but more populated and with a real, battle-tested army. On top of being immensely estranged from each other by the current eurodrama, the Brits and former colonial power France have calculated they have everything to lose economically if they engage in the folly of a conventional war. 

As for the Syrian opposition stalwarts - the Syrian National Council (SNC) - they are a joke. Most are Muslim Brotherhood, with a sprinkling of Kurds. The leader, Burhan Ghalioun, is an opportunist Paris exile with zero credibility (for the average Syrian) although in a recent Wall Street Journal interview he made all the right noises to appease the Israel lobby (no more ties with Iran, no more support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza). 

The FSA claims 15,000 army defectors. But it's infected with mercenaries and what scores of Syrian civilians describe as armed gangs. The SNC, in thesis, is anti-guerrilla. But that's exactly what the FSA is actively practicing, attacking Syrian soldiers and Ba'ath party offices. 

The SNC key tactic for now is to sell Western public opinion the Libya-style "potential" nightmare of an imminent massacre in Homs. Not many are buying it - apart from the usual, strident, corporate media suspects. Although both are based in Istanbul, the SNC and the FSA can't seem to get their act together; they look like a lethal version of The Three Stooges. 

Then there is the Arab League, which is now controlled by The Eight Stooges; the six GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council, aka Gulf Counter-revolution Club) monarchies plus "invited" GCC members Morocco and Jordan. The stooges are subcontractors of NATO's Greater Middle East on (humanitarian) steroids. Nobody, though, is asking where were the stooges were when Beirut and southern Lebanon were destroyed in 2006, and when Gaza was destroyed in 2008 - in both instances by Israel. The stooges don't dare question the divine rights of the US/Israel axis. 

NATO's tactics in Syria have been crystal clear for a while now. France, under neo-Napoleonic liberator of Libya President Nicolas Sarkozy, concentrates on turbo-charging escalation. A the same time, Paris is trying to position the rise and rise of the Muslim Brotherhood all across the Arab world as a strategic Western interest - as in curbing Iranian influence. 

Then there's the ongoing economic blockade - impossible without cooperation from Iraq (it won't happen), Lebanon (it won't happen) and Jordan (it could, but to Jordan's detriment). 

But NATO's wet dream is really to push Turkey to do the dirty work. Irretrievably broke as they are, NATO countries - including the US - simply cannot launch yet another Middle East war that would send oil prices through the roof. 

What NATO cannot fathom is the possibility of a sectarian Sunni-Shi'ite war re-exploding in Iraq. In this case, the only safe haven would be Iraqi Kurdistan. And that would strengthen Kurdish unity - from Iraq to Syria, from Turkey to Iran. Turkey in this case would have more pertinent fish to fry than to get embroiled in a war in Syria. 

Turkey's double game 

Still, the great imponderable in this complex chessboard is Turkey - as in what precisely happened to their much-lauded foreign policy of "zero problems with our neighbors", devised by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. 

Faced with Riyadh's impotence, and Cairo in turmoil, Ankara seems to have monopolized the mantle of Sunni leadership - or guardian of Sunni orthodoxy facing those Shi'ite heretics, mostly from Iran (but also Iraq, Alawis in Syria and Hezbollah). 

At the same time, to please NATO and the US, Ankara allows the deployment of missile defense in its territory - which is directed not only against Iran but most of all against Russia. Not to mention Ankara harbors the secret - forbidden - desire to "solve" the Kurdish question for good by establishing an autonomous zone in Syrian territory. 

And Ankara also wants to make money; winners in Libya were British and French oil interests, while losers were the Italians and the Turks. But so far Turkey is also losing, especially in Hatay province near the Syrian border, as a free-trade agreement between both countries has been canceled. 
To the West's despair, the Assad regime is far from being strangled. To counteract the hefty package of Arab League/Turkish sanctions, the regime has accelerated trade with China - by bartering and bypassing the international financial system. 

No wonder Washington is taking the long-haul approach. It has deployed back to Damascus its ambassador Robert Ford - a former assistant to the sinister former destabilizer of Nicaragua John Negroponte when he was ambassador in Baghdad, and a current enthusiast of the House of Saud counter-revolution. 

Ford will have plenty of time to exchange e-mails with a Syrian opposition totally in bed with former colonial power France. Talk about a stooge festival; this one is bound to carve its own niche in the annals of Middle East infamy. 

Note 
1. The report is here. An interview with Syrian journalist Nizar Nayouf is here
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com

Monday, November 28, 2011

That rocky road to Damascus By Pepe Escobar


THE ROVING EYE 
That rocky road to Damascus
By Pepe Escobar 

The trillion-dollar question in the "Arab Winter" is who will blink first in the West's screenplay of slouching towards Tehran via Damascus. 

As they examine the regional chessboard and the formidable array of forces aligned against them, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the military dictatorship of the mullahtariat in Tehran must face, simultaneously, superpower Washington, bomb-happy North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members, nuclear power Israel, all Sunni Arab absolute monarchies, and even Sunni-majority, secular Turkey. 

Meanwhile, on their side, the Islamic Republic can only count on Moscow. Not as bad a hand as it may seem. 


Syria is Iran's undisputed key ally in the Arab world - while Russia, alongside China, are the key geopolitical allies. China, for the moment, is making it clear that any solution for Syria must be negotiated. 
Russia's one and only naval base in the Mediterranean is at the Syrian port of Tartus. Not by accident, Russia has installed its S-300 air defense system - one of the best all-altitude surface-to-air missile systems in the world, comparable to the American Patriot - in Tartus. The update to the even more sophisticated S-400 system is imminent. 


From Moscow's - as well as Tehran's - perspective, regime change in Damascus is a no-no. It will mean virtual expulsion of the Russian and Iranian navies from the Mediterranean. 


Yet key lateral moves by the West are already on. Diplomats in Brussels confirmed to Asia Times Online that the former Libyan "rebels" - now trying to come up with a credible government - have already given the go-ahead for NATO to build a sprawling military base in Cyrenaica. 


NATO has no final say in such matters. This is decided by the boss - the Pentagon - interested in emboldening Africom in coordination with NATO. As many as 20,000 boots are expected to be deployed on the ground in Libya - at least 12,000 of them Europeans. They will be responsible for Libya's "internal security", but also be on alert for possible, further military campaigns targeted at - who else - Syria and Iran. 


Bring those Shi'ites down 


As much as the latest "coalition of the willing" - which by the way repeats the Libya model - is against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, it also represents a Christian/Sunni war against Shi'ites, be they the Alawite minority in Syria or the Shi'ite majorities in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. 


This is part and parcel of the "strategic opportunity" identified by the powerful Israel lobby in Washington; if we strike against the Damascus-Tehran link, we deal a mortal blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon. That, ideologues believe, can now be sold to world public opinion under the cover of the former Arab Spring - now "Arab Winter" after a metamorphosis, before "Arab Summer", into the Arab counter-revolution). 
As Tehran sees it, what's really going on regarding Syria is a "humanitarian" cover for a complex anti-Shi'ite and anti-Iran operation. 


The road map is already clear. A fractious, unrepresentative Syrian National Council - Libya-style - is already in place. Same for a heavily armed Sunni "insurgency" crisscrossing the borders in Lebanon and Turkey. Sanctions are already essentially hurting the Syrian middle class. A relentless, international campaign of vilification of the Assad regime has been deployed. And psy ops abound, with the aim of seducing sections of the Syrian army to defect (it's not working). 


A report [1] by a Qatar-based researcher for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) even comes close to admitting that the self-described "Free Syria Army" is basically a bunch of hardcore Islamists, plus a few genuine army defectors, but mostly radicalized Muslim Brotherhood bought, paid for and weaponized by the US, Israel, the Gulf monarchies and Turkey. There's nothing "pro-democracy" about this lot - as incessantly sold by Western corporate and Saudi-owned media. 


As for the National Council, based in Washington and London and sprinkled with the usual dodgy exiles, its program calls for governing Syria alongside the same military that has been - a la the Egyptian military junta - shooting civilian protesters. Makes one think that the only sensible solution would be for the people in Syria to topple the police state Assad regime, while being vehemently against the dodgy Syrian National Council. 


This year's model (dictator) 


Then there's the usually misguided and misinformed West, which believes that the Arab League - now no more than a puppet of US foreign policy - is siding with the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people. Angry Arab blogger As'ad Abu Khalil is correct when he says that after the fall of president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, "the League is now an extension of the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC]". 


The GCC is in fact the Gulf Counter-revolution Club. Their favorite sport is to privilege "model" dictators - starting with themselves, but also including Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen and the little kings of Jordan and Morocco, who will be annexed to the GCC because they wish they were in the Persian Gulf (geography dictates they aren't). On the other hand, the GCC abhors "bad" dictators - the snuffed-out Muammar Gaddafi and Assad, who not by accident are from secular republics. 


The House of Saud, Jordan and rising Qatar are more than comfortable doing the US's and Israel's bidding. The House of Saud - the GCC's top dog - invaded Bahrain with 1,500 troops to smash pro-democracy protests very much like the ones in Egypt and Syria. The House of Saud helped the ruling, Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty in 70% Shi'ite Bahrain to conduct widespread torture; Bahrainis confirm that everyone tortured was forced to confess direct links with "evil" Tehran. 


In Egypt, the House of Saud supported Mubarak even after he was deposed. Now it supports - with over US$4 billion so far - a military junta that basically wants to keep power, unchecked, over a "democratic" facade. 


The House of Saud couldn't possibly coexist with a successful, democratic Egypt. Anyone believing the House of Saud's claim to defend human rights and democracy in the Middle East should check into an asylum. 


The Arab League - also a House of Saud extension - gave a green card to NATO to bomb a member state. It suspended Syria on November 12 - as it had done with Libya on February 22 - because, unlike in Libya, US and European designs in the United Nations Security Council were duly vetoed by Russia and China. 


Welcome to a "new" Arab League where if you don't prostrate in front of the GCC altar, you're condemned to regime change. 


Worshipping the GCC can't compare to worshipping the Pentagon and NATO. Jordan and Morocco are members of NATO's Mediterranean dialogue, and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are members of NATO's Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. In addition, Jordan and the UAE are the only Arabic Troop Contributing Nations for NATO in Afghanistan. 


Ivo Daalder, the Obama administration's ambassador to NATO, has already ordered Libya to enter the Mediterranean Dialogue, alongside Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania and Israel. And early this month he told the Atlantic Council what's needed for an attack on Syria; an "urgent necessity" (such as giving the impression Assad is going to raze Homs to the ground); "regional support" (that will come in a flash from the GCC/Arab League); and a UN mandate (it won't happen, as Russia and China had made it clear). 


So one may expect exactly that from the "coalition of the willing"; some black ops blamed on the Assad regime; immediate support from GCC/Arab League; and probably unilateral action, because via the UN is a no-no. 


The Greater Middle East dream 


No wonder some sound minds in Damascus, watching the tea leaves, decided to take some action. Damascus did send secret couriers to sound out Washington's mood. The price to be left alone; to cut all ties with Tehran, for good. The Assad regime was left wondering what would they get in return. 
The Alawites, roughly 12% of the population and members of the ruling elite, won't desert the Assad regime. Christians and Druze expect only the worst from a possible, hardcore, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated new order. Same for a crucial neighbor, the Nuri al-Maliki government in Baghdad. 


Russia knows that if the current Libyan model is reproduced in Syria - and with Lebanon already under a de facto NATO blockade - the Mediterranean will indeed become that dream, a NATO lake, which is code for total US control. 


Moscow also sees that in the US-conceived Greater Middle East - and talk about "great", spanning from Mauritania to Kazakhstan - the only countries that are not linked with NATO through myriad "partnerships" are, apart from Syria: Lebanon, Eritrea, Sudan and Iran. 


As for the Pentagon, the name of the game is "repositioning". As in if you leave Iraq you go somewhere else in the "arc of instability", preferably the Gulf. There are 40,000 US troops already in the Gulf - 23,000 of them in Kuwait. A secret army for the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency is being trained by former Blackwater, "repositioned" as Xe, in the UAE. A NATO of the Gulf is being born. NATOGCC, anyone? 


When the US neo-conservatives ruled the universe - that was only a few years ago - the motto was "Real men go to Tehran". An update is in order. Call it "Real men go to Tehran via Damascus only if they have the balls to stare down Moscow". 

Note 
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Full-Spectrum Dominance and the Regime-Change Project by Richard K. Moore



"Give me control over a nation's currency, and I care not who makes the laws." 

– Baron Mayor Amschel Rothschild

Pax Americana & Bretton Woods: a regime-change precedent

For more nearly five centuries, ever since European expansionism began c. 1492, the world order could be described as competitive imperialism: European powers competing over colonial and economic territories. The various wars between European powers were one expression of this competition. Wars would arise periodically, when one power felt it could expand its imperial realms at the expense of another. 

A radically different world order was established after Word War 2, based on the Bretton Woods institutions  (UN, IMF, World Bank, ...), the dissolution of separate European empires, and Pax Americana. This new world system can be described as collective imperialism, with the Pentagon acting as imperial enforcer in the 'Free World' on behalf of Western capital generally. This new global regime opened the way for the greatest growth period in history, while at the same time removing the motivation for wars among European powers.

This paradigm shift in systems did not just happen: it was the outcome of a project. The new postwar paradigm was designed and planned in a series of meetings, by a handful of people selected from the Council on Foreign Relations, at the invitation of President Roosevelt. The CFR is a policy research & development organization, in service to the central banking cabal: the postwar world order was designed specifically to serve the interests of those central bankers.

The new regime came with a PR mythology: imperialism was dying; the nations of the world were being liberated; democracy was spreading; economic development would raise everyone's standard of living. 
The reality was different: imperialism was being pursued more efficiently and systematically; nations were freed of colonial rule, but were still subject to destabilization and intervention if they didn't cooperate with Western corporate interests; democracy was the exception rather than the rule in the newly independent nations; widespread economic exploitation and poverty continued, much as under colonialism. 

This postwar growth era became a victim of its own success in pursuing economic development. It was so effective, and so global in its reach, that it finally began to run into hard environmental constraints. By the 1970s it became clear that the postwar growth machine was running out of steam. Not that growth couldn't continue for some time, but the overall return on investments was beginning to decline. 

Cycles of boom and bust have always occurred in the history of capitalism. The banking cabal makes money from investments and loans during a growth phase, they engage in looting and short-selling as the growth declines, and they extend their hard-asset ownership portfolios at bargain prices during the bust phase. The postwar growth cycle peaked in the 1970s, neoliberal looting began in the 1980s, and we're now well into the bust phase, with hard assets being grabbed at bargain prices via IMF-mandated privatization.

Always before the bust was temporary. There were always 'new worlds to conquer', some way to launch a new and grander growth cycle. This time, with hard environmental limits being encountered, a new and grander growth cycle just isn't possible. 

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order." – David Rockefeller

The post-capitalist regime-change project

No one has been more aware of this final end to the growth-cycle paradigm than the banking cabal. David Rockefeller himself was the principal founder of the Club of Rome, which published its Limits to Growth already in 1972. Ever since then, and even before, plans and preparations have been in the works for a successor global regime, not based on growth, but still under the thumb of the bankster cabal. 

As described in the first article of this series, 'The Elite Plan for a New World Social Order', the new global system is to be based on a centralized world government, managed by already-established bureaucracies, including the UN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). 

These bureaucracies will be accountable to the cabal, with no real kind of democratic input. The new order can be characterized as the whole world becoming the private fiefdom of the banking cabal clique, who become the equivalent of an extended global royal family. It's essentially a return to a pre-Enlightenment ancien régime

As with the postwar regime, the new regime will have a PR mythology, quite different from the reality. We already have many clues about the nature of the new mythology, and the first article outlines what that mythology will probably be like. 

As described in the second article of this series, 'The Great Carbon Credit Deception', the new economic paradigm will be based on centrally-micromanaged resource allocations, and this is beginning already with carbon credits. On our finite planet, a resource-based economy makes a great deal of sense, but not one that is centrally managed for the purpose of controlling the people of the world.  

The general destruction wreaked by World War 2 'cleared the building site' so that the new postwar world order could be constructed. The cabal is now systematically clearing the building site once again, to enable the construction of the post-capitalist world order. 

"Of course there is a class war, but it's my class, the rich class, that is waging the war, and we're winning." – Warren Buffett

Full-Spectrum Dominance

As Warren Buffett quips, we are in a class war – and the regime-change project is the cabal's war plan to win a total and lasting victory over the rest of humanity. It is important that those of us in the 99% under-class realize we're under systematic attack. And it's important that we realize that the core principle of modern warfare is full-spectrum dominance: pro-active control over every domain of engagement. We need to be aware of the many ways in which we're being attacked. 

We've seen the principle of full-spectrum dominance in Iraq for example, where first the air-defenses are taken out, then the communications infrastructure, then transport, and so on, each domain of engagement being dominated in its turn. In such military engagements, domestic public opinion is also a domain of engagement, and dominance there has been pursued via embedded journalism, media propaganda, and lies by officials. 

In the regime-change project – the class war – there are many domains of engagement over which dominance must be achieved and maintained. 

Russia and China

Russia and China are a very special case. They are cooperating closely in pursuing their national interests in opposition to the cabal's plans, while at the same time gaining as much advantage as possible from the existing global marketplace. They are seeking a stable multi-polar world order, and have formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS alliance. Because of their size, wealth, and military clout,  Russia and China  pose the only serious geopolitical obstacle to the establishment of the cabal's centralized global regime.  Full-spectrum dominance is being pursued  against Russia and China in several different domains. 

One of these is the domain of destabilization, particularly in the case of Russia. Russia took a major hit , for example,  with the breakup of the Soviet Union – which was facilitated, according to Brzezinski, by the CIA-sponsored war between the Soviets and Afghanistan, which fatally over-stretched the Soviet economy and brought Yeltsin to power, an agent of the West, who did all he could to destroy what was left of the Russian economy. Subsequently we've had the CIA-sponsored 'Colored Revolutions', aimed at aligning Russia's neighbors with the West.

In the military domain the US has been encircling Asia with military bases and anti-missile systems, while meanwhile developing and deploying  space-based and other hi-tech  weapons systems. All of this adds up to a first-strike capacity, enabling the US to initiate a hi-tech assault while inhibiting an effective response. 
China, in order to support its growing economy, needs access to oil and other resources. To ensure that access, China has been making investments and long-term trade deals, particularly in Africa. In response the US has set up AFRICOM, with the mission of nullifying those investments and trade deals via regime-change projects, as we've seen recently in Libya. Such actions represent direct attacks on Chinese strategic interests.

The AFRICOM initiatives and the encirclement programs are preliminary acts of war, and  Russia and China are well aware of this.  Russia and China will either need to yield sovereignty over their national destiny, or else military force will be used to neutralize them as competing powers.
This is how the building site is being cleared for regime change, one way or the other, in the case of Russia and China.

The Third World

As John Perkins explains in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, the Third World has long been under attack by an aggressive campaign of debt entrapment. As a condition of receiving IMF refinancing packages, nations must submit to restructuring agreements, which open up the nation's assets to privatization, and essentially bring the nations under direct cabal management, via the IMF.

In those cases where this approach does not succeed, regime-change projects are being pursued, as we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, and most recently Libya. Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea are on the list for future regime-change initiatives, whenever the Pentagon judges the timing to be right. 

Various pretexts are being used in order to achieve acceptance of these regime-change projects in the domain of Western public opinion. With Iraq, we had phony claims about weapons of mass destruction; with Libya, we had phony reports that Gaddafi was bombing civilians; with Iran, we have phony reports that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability. And always with such regime-change projects, the claim of 'humanitarian intervention' is used. 

This is how the building site is being cleared  for regime change, in the case of the Third World.

Western nations

Western governments were long ago corrupted and seduced into joining the neoliberal globalization bandwagon, which has systematically undermined the vitality of Western economies, and whose 'free-trade' laws have taken away regulatory sovereignty. In this way the West's  manufacturing capacity has been decimated, and Western nations have  become dependent on the global economy for their very survival.

Meanwhile, the cabal has used the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group to indoctrinate Western leaders into the cabal agenda. We've gotten to the point, as with Sarkosy and Merkel, where candidates are selected at Bilderberger meetings, and then promoted into power by well-funded political campaigns.
All of this set the stage for the  orchestrated economic collapse of September 2008. Instead of doing the sensible thing, which would have been to put the failed banks into receivership ala Iceland, the indoctrinated leaders accepted the absurd doctrine of 'too big to fail', and committed themselves to bailing out the banks. While the public was told the collapse was only a liquidity crisis, insiders knew that in fact the whole banking system was insolvent. There was no way the nations could afford those bailouts. 

Thus the insolvency of the banks was transformed into the insolvency of Western treasuries. Once this was achieved, the cabal began incrementally bringing Western nations under the direct management of cabal agents, first Ireland, and more recently Greece, Italy and Spain. By means of the bailout scam the economic-hitman strategy crossed the Rubicon from the Third World to the West, bringing with it draconian austerity and wholesale privatization.

Germany has been the most resistant to these destabilization programs, retaining a strong economy and a robust manufacturing sector, and enjoying a highly profitable export trade. At the same time, German banks are heavily invested in the failed banks and in the bonds of the bankrupt European nations, and as the global economy continues to collapse, Germany will be gradually but inevitably pulled down with the rest of Europe. 

The US seems to be standing outside this scenario, with the dollar continuing as a de facto global reserve currency. But in fact the US is totally bankrupt, with astronomical budget and trade deficits. In order to keep operating, the Federal Reserve is simply printing money, and it is getting by with it because of the dollar's reserve currency status.  The rug can be pulled out from under the US economy any time the cabal so chooses. 

In this regard, it is important to understand exactly how the the collapse of 2008 was brought about. The vulnerabilities, in terms of over-extended banks and toxic-derivative holdings, had been present for some time. But the vulnerabilities were hidden because the banks were permitted to pretend on their books that the toxic assets were sound assets. Rockefeller's Bank of International Settlements in Basel Switzerland then pulled the plug: it announced  the 'mark-to-market' rule –  the toxic assets must be put on the books at their actual market value. Thus the whole house of cards came down all at once.

Similarly, there is now another house of cards that can be brought down at any time. There are $600 trillion of paper wealth tied up in derivatives and credit-default swaps. Whenever the cabal chooses, the plug can be pulled. It is only necessary to tighten the rules, and force banks and investors to start settling their derivative accounts. When this happens, there is nowhere that those  $600 trillion  can be found, as the world's total annual GDP is only $65 trillion. The final and total collapse of the global economy will come all at once, bringing the US down with it.

This is how the building site is being cleared   for regime change, in the case of the Western nations.

Western public opinion

Although the cabal is quite willing to use whatever force is necessary to achieve its objectives, up to and including orchestrating major wars, it never relies exclusively on force. A way is always sought to bring Western public opinion into alignment with those objectives. Thus military interventions are portrayed as 'humanitarian', bailouts are portrayed as 'unfortunately necessary', and austerity is portrayed as a 'path to growth recovery'. Such false portrayals are sold to the public by propaganda from the cabal-controlled mass media, and by the lies of government officials. 

Such measures have succeeded, for the most part, in getting Western populations to grudgingly accept the orchestrated collapse process. However, as the impact of the collapse is beginning to affect more and more people directly, public opinion is becoming increasingly angry and frustrated with the state of affairs. Media propaganda and official lies are failing to neutralize this growing anger. One is tempted to conclude that the cabal is losing its touch, that it is failing in this case to successfully manage public opinion. 

Such a conclusion, however, would be mistaken. We need to keep in mind that the agenda of the cabal is quite different this time around. In the past, the cabal, by means of media propaganda and government lies, was always seeking to maintain support for the system they control: capitalism and Western governments. This time around, the agenda of the cabal is to discard capitalism and national governments, and replace them with the new centralized, non-growth system. Public anger and frustration feeds directly into this agenda – provided it is channeled appropriately.

The formula is an old one, known as 'problem, reaction, solution'. That's how the Federal Reserve was brought into existence back in 1913. First cabal-agent JP Morgan manufactured the problem (a run on the banks), then the cabal waited for the expected reaction (a public outcry that 'something be done'), and finally they offered their 'solution' (the cabal-owned Federal Reserve). By the time people started realizing that the solution was worse than the problem, it was too late.

With the regime-change project, the manufactured 'problem' includes not just the economic crisis itself, but also the fact that banks are responsible for the crisis, and governments are failing to do anything to alleviate the crisis. The desired 'reaction' is not just that people cry out for 'something be done' about the collapse, but that they also cry out for something be done about corrupt and incompetent governments, and that something be done about the power of banks and corporations. That is to say, the desired reaction is that people cry out for regime change. 

In order to achieve this desired reaction, the cabal is employing sophisticated mind-control techniques – called psy-ops in the trade – involving the Internet and grassroots movements. The first clear example I saw of this was 'Zeitgeist', a viral YouTube video that was soon followed by the 'Zeitgeist Addendum', and a Zeitgeist Movement. At first I too was taken in by Zeitgeist, because the initial video gives one of the smoothest and most comprehensive descriptions of the evils of our age that I had ever seen. It is very professionally presented, and it pulls no punches about false-flag operations, the power of the banks, and the corruption of governments. I thought to myself, “Wow, this is a wake-up call that can really make a difference".

However my illusions were soon shattered, when the Addendum came out. While Zeitgeist is an example of 'stating the problem', the Addendum is an example of 'appropriately channeling' the resulting reaction. The Addendum is based on Jasque Fresco's Venus Project, which envisions a sci-fi technocratic future, with shiny meg-lev trains, futuristic cities that operate like beehives, and where the entire globe is organized into a monoculture with society's decisions to be made by a centralized group of elitist engineering technocrats. Indeed, Fresco suggests that global decisions should eventually be made by computers.

The Addendum doesn't mention the Soviet-style attitude-adjustment centers that would be needed to deal with those who couldn't stomach such a regimented society. Nor does it say anything about how the technocrats would be selected, or how their priorities would be determined. It's an unrealistic and frightening vision, but many of those who were captured by the initial Zeitgeist video have been successfully channeled into embracing that vision. 

Subsequently the Zeitgeist Movement has distanced itself from the Venus Project, however the Zeitgeist Mission Statement continues along the same lines:

This "Resource-Based Economic Model" is about taking a direct technical approach to social management as opposed to a Monetary or even Political one. It is about updating the workings of society to the most advanced and proven methods Science has to offer, leaving behind the damaging consequences and limiting inhibitions which are generated by our current system of monetary exchange, profits, corporations and other structural and motivational components.

The Zeitgeist Movement is alive and well, with chapters in all 50 US states, and in 48 nations around the world. We see here a perfect example of the 'problem, reaction, solution' paradigm in action. Those who have bought into the Movement are eager to abandon the current system, and they can be expected to readily accept the cabal's new world order – as long as it is sold to them with appropriate propaganda spin. 
A more recent Internet psy-op is the 'Anonymous Movement'. This is designed to appeal to those with more anarchistic tendencies, who would be unlikely resonate with visions of a regimented beehive future. As with the Zeitgeist Movement, Anonymous is based on a total rejection of the existing system:

"ANONYMOUS declares war on the system! JOIN THE RESISTANCE!"
Anonymous describes itself as a leaderless, spontaneous, unorganized, grassroots movement. How anyone can believe this is beyond me, given the professional quality of the videos, the consistency of the style and content of the videos, and the sophisticated branding techniques, such as the 'V for Vendetta' masks. The words in the videos are spoken by computer software, giving the impression that the authors are successfully hiding their identities from the authorities. One needs to be incredibly naive to think the authors couldn't be tracked down, and the videos taken down, if the authorities actually felt threatened by Anonymous.

The credibility of Anonymous is somewhat enhanced by various successful hacker attacks that have been attributed to it. But again, only the naive could believe the authorities couldn't put a stop to this, if the perpetrators really were grassroots activists trying to take down the system. In fact, the hacker attacks, as well as Anonymous itself, are undoubtedly false-flag operations of the Pentagon's new Cyber Warfare division, carrying out its part in the class war against we the people. 

Apart from propagating an anti-system message, and channeling the attention of some number of naive people, it is not clear what the real purpose of Anonymous is. My best guess at this point is that a really outrageous and unpopular hacker attack will come along, Anonymous will claim credit, and that will be used as an excuse to seriously crack down on the use of the Internet by genuine activists. The Internet would then be politically sterilized, giving Internet psy-ops a clear field.

Let us now turn our attention to the rapidly growing Occupy Movement, which has captured the imagination and energy of activists, and a great many ordinary citizens, around the world. The home page of the Zeitgeist Movement, as of this writing, prominently displays support for the Occupy Movement. As with Zeitgeist and Anonymous, Occupy is based on a radical critique of the existing system, as we can read on the Occupy Together website:

Global civil society is being threatened by a system based on power and not on human values. Day after day it represses basic freedoms and consistently favors the greed of the few over the needs of the many. This power finances wars, food and pharmaceutical monopolies, it sponsors dictatorial regimes across the globe, destroying environments, manipulating and censoring information flow and transparency.

The movement was inspired by the Arab Spring movements, particularly Egypt's Tahir Square Movement. Occupy burst on the scene all at once in mid September, following a call to action from Adbusters magazine, which has ties to George Soros. It rapidly became the dominant global protest movement. According to the Occupy Together website, the movement now has a visible presence in over 2,000 towns and cities worldwide.

The movement manifests as encampments, as in Tahir Square, where people stand around holding signs demanding an end to this and that abuse by the system. The movement has a specific decision-making process, based on General Assemblies, using an awkward consensus process. This pattern was established at the original Wall Street encampment, by a leadership clique that knew exactly how they wanted things to operate, and the pattern has been faithfully adopted by subsequent encampments as the movement grew.  
The main agenda of the movement seems to be managing its own encampments. It has no specific manifesto of demands, no vision of any particular system to replace the current one, and no strategy for actually bringing about change. In essence, it amounts to a global Tahir Square gathering – a mass of people waiting around for someone to announce a regime change. As in Egypt, the people will get a regime change, and as in Egypt, it won't be a regime they will be happy with.

This is how the building site is being cleared for regime change, in the case of the Western public opinion.

Managing the Transition

Just as the old world system is being systematically dismantled, so is the transition process to the new regime being systematically managed. Indeed, with the globalist bureaucracies established and operating, the carbon-credit system launched, the IMF managing many of the world's national economies, and top Western leaders indoctrinated by the cabal's forums (Bilderberger Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations), the transition process is already well underway. 

The UN will of course need to be 'reformed' as part of the transition. The General Assembly is far too democratic to suit the purposes of the cabal, and the Security Council is plagued by that pesky veto process. Already the US is pushing for reform, seeking for power to be centralized in the UN's Secretary General. With Russia and China out of the picture, it will be easy for the cabal to push through whatever reforms they deem appropriate, so as to enable the cabal to dictate policy, free of constraint. 

The US has long been under the control of the cabal, with the cabal-owned Federal Reserve managing monetary policy, and the political system totally corrupted. JFK made a valiant attempt to restore genuine sovereignty, and after eliminating him the cabal tightened its grip still further. The US, and particularly the Pentagon and the CIA, have served as essential tools of the cabal as they have been pursuing their plans for global domination.

The EU was a cabal project from the very beginning, and its founding charter, the Maastricht Treaty, was drawn up by cabal-controlled finance ministers, not heads of state. The purpose of the EU has been to help manage the transition of Europe into the new world system, by incrementally undermining national sovereignty and bringing Europe under the bureaucratic control of the cabal-dominated Brussels regime. 

As the economic collapse dramatically worsens, civil unrest will dramatically increase. Harsh suppression of Western populations will be necessary in order to get through the transition process. The various false-flag 'terrorist' events, such as 9/11 and the London tube bombings, have provided the excuse to implement the police-state infrastructures that will enable the necessary suppression. The same false-flag events have also provided excuses for the various military interventions that have been necessary in order to 'clear the building site' in the third world. 

Is another future possible?

Time is running very short, if we the people hope to do anything to change this course of events. Our collective activist energy has certainly been aroused, as evidenced by the Arab Spring uprisings, the Occupy Movement, and the various protests we've seen in Europe. But we will need to find new ways of organizing our energies if we want to be effective. It is the responsibility of us in the West to create a different future, if there is to be one. For as long as the West, with its dominant military power, is under the control of the cabal, there is little hope the rest of the world can make a difference. 

The purpose of this series of articles has been to help us understand the magnitude of the task that faces us, if we do want a different future. In particular, we need to understand that protesting, regardless of the scale, is not going to help. Those in power don't care and aren't listening. And whatever we do, it must be based on non-violence, as the authorities are very well prepared to suppress any kind of violent uprising. 

It is beyond the scope of this article to go much further with suggestions for overcoming cabal power. If these articles have enhanced your understanding of the problems, I hope they also encourage you to think afresh of how we might pursue overcoming them. 

My own thinking has led me to the conclusion that our organizing, and our vision for the future, both need to be based on localism and inclusiveness. Globalism and mass media are the natural province of elites. Community and face-to-face communication are the natural province of we the people. Let me leave you with the thought that we are all in this together: left and right are illusions foisted on us to keep us divided. 

Richard K Moore, an expatriate from Silicon Valley, retired and moved to Ireland in 1994 to begin his ‘real work’ – trying to understand how the world works, and how we can make it better. Many years of researching and writing culminated in his widely acclaimed bookEscaping the Matrix: How We the People Can Change the World (The Cyberjournal Project, 2005). His cyberjournal email list has been going since 1994 (cyberjournal.org). The book’s website is http://escapingthematrix.org, and his website is http://cyberjournal.org. Richard can be contacted via email atrkm@quaylargo.com.

Richard K. Moore is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Richard K. Moore