SPECIAL REPORT. McCain chief culprit in Trump "dirty dossier" - By Wayne Madsen Report

SPECIAL REPORT. McCain chief culprit in Trump "dirty dossier" 

- By Wayne Madsen Report
Well-placed sources in the United Kingdom have told WMR that it was Arizona Republican Senator John McCain who was at the center of proffering and manipulating a 35-page opposition research intelligence report on Donald Trump and Russia. The dossier, which has been ascribed to former British Secret Intelligence Service officer Christopher Steele and his private intelligence firm Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd., alleged that Trump observed Russian prostitutes engaged in a golden shower (urination) performance at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow in 2013.

Trump was in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant. The dossier alleges that the Ritz Carlton incident and other Trump dalliances with Russian prostitutes were captured on audio and video by hidden microphones and concealed cameras placed by the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) in an effort by Russian President Vladimir Putin to blackmail Trump.

Several Western intelligence professionals have called the dossier a fake. Tony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Moscow, said of the dossier, "There are some things in it that look pretty shaky."

It is known that McCain features prominently in the trafficking of the dossier before it was made public last week.

On November 18, 2016, McCain discussed the dossier with Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow, while they both attended the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia. At about the same time the details of the dossier were being presented by the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to President Obama in a joint intelligence report that had also been chopped by CIA director John Brennan and National Security Agency director Admiral Mike Rogers.

After discussing the contents of the dossier with Wood in Halifax, McCain dispatched his assistant, David J. Kramer, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under George W. Bush, to a European airport in order to collect the dossier. Out of a scene from a 1960s spy flick, Kramer was told to look for a man holding The Financial Times newspaper. Upon making contact with the "newspaper man," Kramer was driven by the retired British MI-6 agent to his home where they discussed the contents of the dossier before the former agent gave Kramer a copy to take back to Washington. The trip lasted 24 hours.

Kramer is a known Russophobe and an arch neocon. He is also a former senior fellow with the neocon Project for a New American Century. Kramer was also executive director of Freedom House, another bastion for neocons. Kramer is also associated with the Kiev regime and has argued that sanctions on Russia be continued indefinitely.

On December 9, 2016, McCain met with FBI director James Comey without aides being present to hand Comey a copy of the dossier McCain's envoy Kramer picked up from an unknown former MI-6 agent, presumably in England. However, Comey, unbeknownst to McCain, was already in possession of the dossier. It had been handed by Steele to an FBI official in Rome in August 2016.

The involvement of the British government in the dirty dossier is not insignificant. Also present with McCain and Wood in Halifax were the former head of the British Security Service (MI-5) Baroness Pauline Neville Jones, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, and British military chief Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach. The government of Prime Minister Theresa May also attempted to slap a DA Notice (Defense Advisory Notice) to prevent the publication of Christopher Steele's name in media reports on the dirty dossier. The government opted not to impose the notice after Steele's name was published by foreign media outlets.

Shortly before the disclosure of the dirty dossier by BuzzFeed.com, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who is also responsible for MI-6, flew to New York on January 8 to meet with Trump. Trump snubbed Johnson but had his son-in-law Jared Kushner and adviser Steve Bannon meet with Johnson. The talks were described as "positive but frank." The term "frank" is a diplomatic term for something other than friendly. WMR has been told that Johnson wanted to assuage Trump that the British government, in no way, was connected to the preparation of the dirty dossier. On January 6, a day before Johnson arrived in New York, Clapper, Comey, Brennan, and Rogers briefed Trump on the gist of the dirty dossier at Trump Tower.

Did NSA director Rogers discover a CIA and MI-6 "dirty dossier" conspiracy against president-elect Trump and fly to New York without authorization to warn him?

WMR has been informed that Steele was not the principal author of the dossier and that he has been designated the official "patsy" by MI-6 and its chief, Alex Younger, as well as the May government, because of the political fallout from the dossier that threatens to drive a wedge between London and the Trump administration. Steele, along with his wife and two children, have fled from his £1.5 million home in Wokingham, which is 39 miles west of London, to the south of France. The Steele family is reportedly being accommodated in an MI-6 safe house.

WMR has been told that Steele's name was associated with the dirty dossier after several other British and American elements had provided input, deletions, and additions to the report. Our British sources have revealed that Steele in the "fall guy" to protect others from incurring the wrath of the incoming Trump administration. The other dossier "authors" include political operatives working for the Washington, DC political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which originally was contracted by the Jeb Bush campaign to dig up dirt on Trump in September 2015. Fusion GPS, in turn, contracted with Steele and Orbis to dig up dirt on Trump. After Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, the Hillary Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS and, by default, Steele and Orbis.



Steele also met with Mother Jones reporter and MSNBC contributor David Corn, a longtime apologist for the CIA, before the dirty dossier was published by BuzzFeed, a media outlet in which NBC Universal holds a significant investment. It is not known whether Corn received all or part of the Trump dossier but, at the very least, Steele did brief Corn on its contents, which were featured in a Corn article for Mother Jones on October 31, 2016.

There are a number of "chefs" involved in cooking up the dirty dossier. At a minimum, they include McCain; Fusion GPS, which was founded by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson; Comey and the FBI; Clapper and DNI; John Brennan and the CIA; Younger and MI-6; Ambassador Wood; Kramer and the McCain Institute; Steele's Orbis associates and informants; and members of the May government. In addition, the dossier was shared with the government-run British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in October 2016, obviously by official British sources. With such fingerprints on the dirty dossier, Steele, in fact, may be the least of all the contributors to the dubious report.

There is one important postscript to the story of the dirty dossier. On November 18, 2016, NSA director Rogers sneaked off from his headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland to personally meet with Trump at his New York office. Significantly, Rogers had not cleared his meeting with Trump with the Obama White House, which had just been briefed by Clapper, Brennan, and Rogers on the contents of the dossier. It is known that of all the major U.S. intelligence agencies, the NSA held the dossier to a level of low confidence as far as its veracity was concerned. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Clapper felt inclined to leak to the press, after the Trump-Rogers meeting, that the two had recommended to Obama that Rogers be relieved of his post a few weeks earlier.

The dossier was known to the U.S. Intelligence Community in August 2016. NSA's global intercept capabilities, which are now known as massive, thanks to the revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, means that the identities of those coordinating the black ops against Trump were known to NSA and its allied partners, including its British counterpart, in almost real-time. Rogers would have had possession of the conspiracy against Trump before either Clapper or Brennan, or, for that matter, Obama. Something coaxed Rogers to break ranks with his intelligence community counterparts and independently meet with Trump in November. In this case, the NSA may have stepped in to preserve and protect the U.S. Constitution and the orderly transfer of executive power.

THE ROVING EYE - China's silky road to glory By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE China's silky road to glory By Pepe Escobar If there were any remaining doubts about the unlimited stupidity Western corporate media is capable of dishing out, the highlight of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing has been defined as Russian President Vladimir Putin supposedly "hitting" on Chinese President Xi Jinping's wife - and the subsequent Chinese censoring of the moment when Putin draped a shawl over her shoulders in the cold air where the leaders were assembled. What next? Putin and Xi denounced as a gay couple? Let's dump the clowns and get down to the serious business. Right at the start, President Xi urged APEC to "add firewood to the fire of the Asia-Pacific and world economy". Two days later, China got what it wanted on all fronts. 1) Beijing had all 21 APEC member-nations endorsing the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) - the Chinese vision of an "all inclusive, all-win" trade deal capable of advancing Asia-Pacific cooperation - see South China Morning Post (paywall). The loser was the US-driven, corporate-redacted, fiercely opposed (especially by Japan and Malaysia) 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). [See also here. 2) Beijing advanced its blueprint for "all-round connectivity" (in Xi's words) across Asia-Pacific - which implies a multi-pronged strategy. One of its key features is the implementation of the Beijing-based US$50 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That's China's response to Washington refusing to give it a more representative voice at the International Monetary Fund than the current, paltry 3.8% of votes (a smaller percentage than the 4.5% held by stagnated France). 3) Beijing and Moscow committed to a second gas mega-deal - this one through the Altai pipeline in Western Siberia - after the initial "Power of Siberia" mega-deal clinched last May. 4) Beijing announced the funneling of no less than US$40 billion to start building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Predictably, once again, this vertiginous flurry of deals and investment had to converge towards the most spectacular, ambitious, wide-ranging plurinational infrastructure offensive ever attempted: the multiple New Silk Roads - that complex network of high-speed rail, pipelines, ports, fiber optic cables and state of the art telecom that China is already building across the Central Asian stans, linked to Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Indian Ocean, and branching out to Europe all the way to Venice, Rotterdam, Duisburg and Berlin. Now imagine the paralyzed terror of the Washington/Wall Street elites as they stare at Beijing interlinking Xi's "Asia-Pacific Dream"way beyond East Asia towards all-out, pan-Eurasia trade - with the center being, what else, the Middle Kingdom; a near future Eurasia as a massive Chinese Silk Belt with, in selected latitudes, a sort of development condominium with Russia. Vlad doesn't do stupid stuff As for "Don Juan" Putin, everything one needs to know about Asia-Pacific as a Russian strategic/economic priority was distilled in his intervention at the APEC CEO summit. This was in fact an economic update of his by now notorious speech at the Valdai Club meeting in Sochi in October, followed by a wide-ranging Q&A, which was also duly ignored by Western corporate media (or spun as yet more "aggression"). The Kremlin has conclusively established that Washington/Wall Street elites have absolutely no intention of allowing a minimum of multipolarity in international relations. What's left is chaos. There's no question that Moscow pivoting away from the West and towards East Asia is a process directly influenced by President Barack Obama's self-described "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" foreign policy doctrine, a formula he came up with aboard Air Force One when coming back last April from a trip to - where else - Asia. But the Russia-China symbiosis/strategic partnership is developing in multiple levels. On energy, Russia is turning east because that's where top demand is. On finance, Moscow ended the pegging of the rouble to the US dollar and euro; not surprisingly the US dollar instantly - if only briefly - dropped against the rouble. Russian bank VTB announced it may leave the London Stock Exchange for Shanghai's - which is about to become directly linked to Hong Kong. And Hong Kong, for its part, is already attracting Russian energy giants. Now mix all these key developments with the massive yuan-rouble energy double deal, and the picture is clear; Russia is actively protecting itself from speculative/politically motivated Western attacks against its currency. The Russia-China symbiosis/strategic partnership visibly expands on energy, finance and, also inevitably, on the military technology front. That includes, crucially, Moscow selling Beijing the S-400 air defense system and, in the future, the S-500 - against which the Americans are sitting ducks; and this while Beijing develops surface-to-ship missiles that can take out everything the US Navy can muster. Anyway, at APEC, Xi and Obama at least agreed to establish a mutual reporting mechanism on major military operations. That might - and the operative word is "might" - prevent an East Asia replica of relentless NATO-style whining of the "Russia has invaded Ukraine!" kind. Freak out, neo-cons When Little Dubya Bush came to power in early 2001, the neo-cons were faced with a stark fact: it was just a matter of time before the US would irreversibly lose its global geopolitical and economic hegemony. So there were only two choices; either manage the decline, or bet the whole farm to consolidate global hegemony using - what else - war. We all know about the wishful thinking enveloping the "low-cost" war on Iraq - from Paul Wolfowitz's "We are the new OPEC" to the fantasy of Washington being able to decisively intimidate all potential challengers, the EU, Russia and China. And we all know how it went spectacularly wrong. Even as that trillionaire adventure, as Minqi Li analyzed in The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy, "has squandered US imperialism's remaining space for strategic maneuver", the humanitarian imperialists of the Obama administration still have not given up, refusing to admit the US has lost any ability to provide any meaningful solution to the current, as Immanuel Wallerstein would define it, world-system. There are sporadic signs of intelligent geopolitical life in US academia, such as this at the Wilson Center website (although Russia and China are not a "challenge" to a supposed world "order": their partnership is actually geared to create some order among the chaos.) And yet this opinion piece at USNews is the kind of stuff passing for academic "analysis" in US media. On top of it, Washington/Wall Street elites - through their myopic Think Tankland - still cling to mythical platitudes such as the "historical" US role as arbiter of modern Asia and key balancer of power. So no wonder public opinion in the US - and Western Europe - cannot even imagine the earth-shattering impact the New Silk Roads will have in the geopolitics of the young 21st century. Washington/Wall Street elites - talk about Cold War hubris - always took for granted that Beijing and Moscow would be totally apart. Now puzzlement prevails. Note how the Obama administration's "pivoting to Asia" has been completely erased from the narrative - after Beijing identified it for what it is: a warlike provocation. The new meme is "rebalance". German businesses, for their part, are absolutely going bonkers with Xi's New Silk Roads uniting Beijing to Berlin - crucially via Moscow. German politicians sooner rather than later will have to get the message. All this will be discussed behind closed doors this weekend at key meetings on the sidelines of the Group of 20 in Australia. The Russia-China-Germany alliance-in-the-making will be there. The BRICS, crisis or no crisis, will be there. All the players in the G-20 actively working for a multipolar world will be there. APEC once again has shown that the more geopolitics change, the more it won't stay the same; as the exceptional dogs of war, inequality and divide and rule keep barking, the China-Russia pan-Eurasian caravan will keep going, going, going - further on down the (multipolar) road. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

RUSSIAN STRATEGY IN THE FACE OF ANGLO-AMERICAN IMPERIALISM The Beginning of World Shift by Thierry Meyssan

RUSSIAN STRATEGY IN THE FACE OF ANGLO-AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

The Beginning of World Shift

by Thierry Meyssan

Anglo-Saxon agression against Russia is taking the form of financial and economic warfare. However, Moscow is preparing for armed hostilities by developing its agricultural self-sufficency and multiplying its alliances. For Thierry Meyssan, after the creation of the caliphate in the Levant, Washington would lay down a new card in September in St. Petersburg. The ability of Russia to maintain its internal stability will determine the course of events.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 13 AUGUST 2014 

ESPAÑOL  عربي  PORTUGUÊS  فارسى  ITALIANO  TÜRKÇE  DEUTSCH  РУССКИЙ  FRANÇAIS  ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΆ  POLSKI 

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization will represent, from its probable extension in September 2014, 40% of world population.

The offensive led by Anglos-Saxons (USA, UK and Israel) for world domination continues on two lines simultaneously: both the creation of the "Greater Middle East" (Greater Middle East) by attacking simultaneously Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, and separating Russia from the European Union through the crisis they organised in Ukraine.

In this sprint, it seems that Washington wants to impose the dollar as the single currency in the gas market, the energy source of the twenty-first century, the way it imposed it on the oil [1] market. The Western media hardly cover the war in Donbass and their population is ignorant of the scale of the fighting, the US military presence, the number of civilian casualties, the wave of refugees. On the other hand, Western media have a delayed reaction to events in North Africa and the Levant, presenting them either as the result of a so-called "Arab Spring" (that is to say, in practice, a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood), or as the destructive effect of a civilization which is inherently violent. More than ever, it is necessary to help the Arabs who are incapable of living peacefully in the absence of Western settlers.

Russia is now the leading power capable of leading the resistance to Anglo-Saxon imperialism. It has three tools: BRICS, an alliance of economic rivals who know they can not grow up without one another, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a strategic alliance with China to stabilize Central Asia and finally, the Organization for Collective Security Treaty, a military alliance of former Soviet states.

At the Fortaleza Summit (Brazil), which was held from July 14 to 16, BRICS took the plunge and announced the creation of a monetary reserve fund (mainly Chinese) and a BRICS Bank as alternatives to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the dollar system [2].

Even before this announcement, the Anglo-Saxons had established their answer: the transformation of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in order to prepare unrest among all Muslim peoples of Russia and China. [3] They continued their offensive in Syria and spilled over the borders both in Iraq and in Lebanon. They failed however to expel part of the Palestinians to Egypt and to destabilize the region even more deeply. Finally, they keep away from Iran to give President Hassan Rohani a chance to weaken the power of the anti-imperialist Khomeinists.

Two days after the announcement of the BRICS, the United States accused Russia of destroying Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the Donbass, killing 298 people. On this basis, purely arbitrary, they forced the Europeans to enter into economic war against Russia. Situating itself as a court, the Council of the European Union tried and convicted Russia without any evidence and without giving it an opportunity to defend itself. The CEU issued "sanctions" against its financial system.

Recognizing that European leaders are not working for the interests of their people, but for those of the Anglo-Saxons, Russia has gnawed at the bit and refrained from going to war in Ukraine. It supports the insurgents with arms and intelligence, and hosts more than 500,000 refugees, but declines to send troops into the fray. It probably will not happen until the vast majority of Ukrainians revolt against President Poroshenko, even if it does not enter the country until after the fall of the People’s Republic of Donetsk.

Faced with economic warfare, Moscow has chosen to respond with similar measures, but in agriculture, not finance. Two considerations guided this choice: first, short-term, other BRICS can mitigate the consequences of so-called "sanctions"; on the other hand, medium and long term, Russia is preparing for war and intends to completely rebuild its agriculture to go it alone.

Moreover, the Anglo-Saxons have planned to paralyze Russia from within. First by activating, via the Islamic Emirate (EIS), terrorist groups within its Muslim population, and organizing a media challenge in the municipal elections of September 14. Large sums of money have been distributed to all opposition candidates in the thirty largest cities involved, while at least 50,000 Ukrainian agitators, mixed with refugees, are regrouping in St. Petersburg. Most of them have dual Russian citizenship. This is clearly to reproduce at the provincial level protests that followed the elections in Moscow in December 2011 – with the addtition of violence; and engage the country in a color revolution process to which certain officials in the ruling class are favorable.

To do so, Washington has appointed a new ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, who had prepared the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia and the coup in Ukraine.

It will be important for President Vladimir Putin to be able to trust his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, whom Washington hoped to recruit to overthrow him.

Narendra Modi

Considering the imminent danger, Moscow would have been able to convince Beijing to accept the accession of India in exchange for that of Iran (but also those of Pakistan and Mongolia) to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO ). The decision should be published at the summit in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) on September 12 and 13. It should put an end to the conflict which has opposed India and China for centuries and engage them in military cooperation. This reversal, if confirmed, also would end the honeymoon between New Delhi and Washington who was hoping to distance India from Russia in particular by giving access to nuclear technologies. The membership of New Delhi is also a bet on the sincerity of the new Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, despite the suspicion that he encouraged anti-Muslim violence in 2002 in Gujarat when he was the leading Minister.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

In addition, the accession of Iran, which is a provocation in the face of Washington, should give the SCO precise knowledge of jihadist movements and ways to counter them. Again, if confirmed, it would reduce Iran’s willingness to negotiate a lull with the "Great Satan" that led it to elect Sheik Hassan Rohani to the presidency. It would be a gamble on the authority of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Indeed, these memberships would mark the beginning of the shift in the world from the West to the East. [4] Still, this trend must be protected militarily. This is the role of the Organization for Collective Security Treaty (CSTO), formed around Russia, but to which China does not belong. Unlike NATO, this organization is a classic alliance, consistent with the Charter of the United Nations since each member retains the option to leave if it wants. So it is based on this freedom that Washington has tried in recent months to buy some members, including Armenia. However, the chaotic situation in Ukraine appears to have cooled those who dreamed of US "protection".

Tension is likely to increase in the coming weeks.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Roger Lagassé

       

[1] “What do wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and Libya have in common ?”, by Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, La Jornada (Mexico), Voltaire Network, 8 August 2014.

[2] “6th BRICS Summit: the seeds of a new financial architecture”, by Ariel Noyola Rodríguez, Voltaire Network, 3 July 2014. “Sixth BRICS Summit : Fortaleza Declaration and Action Plan”, Voltaire Network, 16 July 2014.

[3] « Un djihad mondial contre les BRICS ? », par Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, Traduction Arnaud Bréart, La Jornada (México), Réseau Voltaire, 18 juillet 2014.

[4] “Russia and China in the Balance of the Middle East : Syria and other countries”, by Imad Fawzi Shueibi, Voltaire Network, 27 January 2012.

Obama's 'strategy' against 'pariah' Russia By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Obama's 'strategy' against 'pariah' Russia By Pepe Escobar The Barack Obama administration seems to love the sound of unilateral sanctions in the morning. It must feel like "victory". Real, hardcore sanctions, if ever applied, would be devastating mostly for North Atlantic Treaty Organization poodles, not Moscow. Meanwhile, (energy) adults continue to do business as usual. There's no way to understand Cold War 2.0 without a flashback to November 2010, when Vladimir Putin directly addressed German business/industry, proposing an economic community fromLisbon to Vladivostok. German interest in this key strategic relationship has been reciprocal. Amplified to other nations, that implies in the long run a full European Union-Russia economic/trade integration, and, in the bigger picture, a step closer to Europe-Asia integration. Which translates as absolute anathema for the embattled, Monopoly-addicted hyperpower/hegemon. For all of US Think Tankland talking and theorizing, breathlessly, about "containment" of a "rogue state" - which in itself is laughable, as if Russia was Somalia - the Obama administration's overarching "strategy" is really in a class by itself. This masterpiece of juvenile delinquent diplomacy boils down to "ignore Putin". Call it the "I don't like you; I don't wanna talk to you; I just wish you'd die" school of diplomacy. How come Talleyrand never thought if it? Well, with advisers such as the astonishing mediocrity Ivo Daalder, a former ambassador to NATO, no wonder Obama does not need enemies. All we need is Lavrov  The sanctions hysteria is designed to force President Putin to bow to the hegemon's whims, as part of the overall "strategy"; forging an "international consensus" to "isolate" Russia and turn it into a "pariah state". "Pariah states" that do energy mega-deals, as in here and here. Still, the predominant wishful thinking revolves around the economic strangulation of Russia - as it was relentlessly attempted against Iran (and bravely resisted by Iranians). Inside their bubble, the wishful thinkers even believe Beijing will be on board, oblivious to the fact that Beijing clearly sees the sanction hysteria/ignore Putin "doctrine" as a branch of the "pivoting to Asia" - which is essentially military containment of China. In the end, the Kremlin has also reached a similar conclusion: it's useless to talk to Washington. After all, the hegemon's laundry list remains the same - the Kremlin is not allowed to support popular protests in eastern and southern Ukraine; everyone must submit to the neo-nazi/neo-fascist-allied regime changers in Kiev; and Crimea must be "returned" - to NATO - so NATO can kick Moscow out of the Black Sea. Washington's ultimate wet dream would be to interrupt gas shipments by Gazprom from Russia to the EU - in fact trade sabotage, which Moscow would undoubtedly interpret as an act of war. Meanwhile, Washington/NATO's "Plan A" remains to lure the Kremlin into an "invasion" - so Putin can be (in fact already is) denounced as "the new Hitler" and the ultimate threat to the EU. So much for the "containment/isolation" martini cocktail of arrogance, ignorance, impotence and irresponsibility. Diplomatic finesse? Forget it. In terms of a real diplomat at work, feel free to admit "All We Need Is Lavrov". Go back to Game of Thrones Moscow has so many ways to retaliate real hard against the hegemon: in Syria; on the Iran nuclear dossier; on NATO's ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan via the Northern Distribution Network, which goes through Russia; on the future of Afghanistan. If the White House and the US State Department really wanted to listen to how Putin frames the relationship between the West and Russia, that has been voiced repeatedly by the Kremlin. Russia expects respect from "our Western partners", who since 1991 have treated it not as "an independent, active participant in international affairs", with "its own national interests that need to be taken into account and respected", but as a backward or dangerous nation to dismiss and "contain". The historical record clearly shows Washington does not respect the national interests of anybody; the only thing that matters is that they should always be subordinated to Washington's interests. The Kremlin, in a nutshell, has invited Washington to play realpolitik. Not Monopoly. The Obama administration, at best - and we are being very lenient here - plays checkers. Moscow plays chess. A mad drive to instill chaos in Russia's western borderlands while "ignoring" Putin won't change the Kremlin's defense of what it perceives as Russia's national interests. Let's say the "project" was to seize Ukraine, kick Moscow out of the Sevastopol base, and thus from the Eastern Mediterranean; and then take over Syria, so Qatar - and not Iran-Iraq-Syria - may get "its" share of Pipelineistan via Jordan and a Sunni-ruled Syria towards EU markets. The "project" is miserably failing. Yet the sanctions game will persist (like it did with Cuba, Iraq, Iran). The White House is already concocting more of the same. No adults in Europe will follow. Even poodles are able to sniff that the Obama administration does not even qualify to play Game of Thrones on PlayStation 3. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Hoodwinked by the Strangelove effect by John Pilger

JOHN PILGER Hoodwinked by the Strangelove effect I watched Dr Strangelove the other day. I have seen it perhaps a dozen times; it makes sense of senseless news. When Major TJ "King" Kong goes "toe to toe with the Rooskies" and flies his rogue B52 nuclear bomber to a target in Russia, it's left to General "Buck" Turgidson to reassure the president. Strike first, says the general, and "you got no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops". President Merkin Muffley: "I will not go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler." General Turgidson: "Perhaps it might be better, Mr President, if you were more concerned with the American people than with your image in the history books." The genius of Stanley Kubrick's film is that it accurately represents the Cold War's lunacy and dangers. Most of the characters are based on real people and real maniacs. There is no equivalent to Strangelove today, because popular culture is directed almost entirely at our interior lives, as if identity is the moral zeitgeist and true satire is redundant; yet the dangers are the same. The nuclear clock has remained at five minutes to midnight; the same false flags are hoisted above the same targets by the same "invisible government", as Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations, described modern propaganda. In 1964, the year Strangelove was made, "the missile gap" was the false flag. In order to build more and bigger nuclear weapons and pursue an undeclared policy of domination, president John F Kennedy approved the CIA's propaganda that the Soviet Union was well ahead of the US in the production of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. This filled front pages as the "Russian threat". In fact, the Americans were so far ahead in the production of ICBMs, the Russians never approached them. The Cold War was based largely on this lie. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its "NATO Enlargement Project". Reneging a US promise to Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand "one inch to the east", the organization has all but taken over eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucuses, NATO's military build-up is the most extensive since the second world war. In February, the United States mounted one of its proxy "color" coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No Western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the invasion of their country by Hitler's Nazis, who were supported by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the UPA, responsible for numerous Jewish and Polish massacres. The UPA was the military wing, inspiring today's Svoboda party. Since Washington's putsch in Kiev - and Moscow's inevitable response in Russian Crimea, to protect its Black Sea Fleet - the provocation and isolation of Russia have been inverted in the news to the "Russian threat". This is fossilized propaganda. The US Air Force general who runs NATO forces in Europe - General Breedlove, no less - claimed more than two weeks ago to have pictures showing 40,000 Russian troops "massing" on the border with Ukraine. So did Colin Powell claim to have pictures of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What is certain is that Obama's rapacious, reckless coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap. Following a 13-year rampage that began in stricken Afghanistan well after Osama bin Laden had fled, then destroyed Iraq beneath a false flag, then invented a "nuclear rogue" in Iran, dispatched Libya to a Hobbesian anarchy and backed jihadists in Syria, the US finally has a new cold war to supplement its worldwide campaign of murder and terror by drone. A NATO Membership Action Plan or MAP - straight from the war room of Strangelove - is General Breedlove's gift to the new dictatorship in Ukraine. "Rapid Trident" will put US troops on Ukraine's Russian border and "Sea Breeze" will put US warships within sight of Russian ports. At the same time, NATO war games throughout Eastern Europe are designed to intimidate Russia. Imagine the response if this madness was reversed and happened on America's borders. Cue General "Buck" Turgidson. And there is China. On April 24, President Obama will begin a tour of Asia to promote his "Pivot to China". The aim is to convince his "allies" in the region, principally Japan, to re-arm and prepare for the eventual possibility of war with China. By 2020, almost two-thirds of all US naval forces in the world will be transferred to the Asia-Pacific area. This is the greatest military concentration in that vast region since the Second World War. In an arc extending from Australia to Japan, China will face US missiles and nuclear-armed bombers. A strategic naval base is being built on the Korean island of Jeju less than 640 kilometers from the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai and the industrial heartland of the only country whose economic power is likely to surpass that of the US. Obama's "pivot" is designed to undermine China's influence in its region. It is as if world war has begun by other means. This is not a Strangelove fantasy. Obama's defense secretary, Charles "Chuck" Hagel, was in Beijing this month to deliver a menacing warning that China, like Russia, could face isolation and war if it did not bow to US demands. He compared the annexation of Crimea with China's complex territorial dispute with Japan over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. "You cannot go around the world," said Hagel with a straight face, "and violate the sovereignty of nations by force, coercion or intimidation". As for America's massive movement of naval forces and nuclear weapons to Asia, that is "a sign of the humanitarian assistance the US military can provide". Obama is currently seeking a greater budget for nuclear weapons than the historical peak during the cold war, the era ofStrangelove. The United States is pursuing its longstanding ambition to dominate the Eurasian landmass, stretching from China to Europe: a "manifest destiny" made right by might. (Published with permission www.johnpilger.com. Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger ) (Copyright 2014 John Pilger)

Ukraine and the grand chessboard By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Ukraine and the grand chessboard By Pepe Escobar The US State Department, via spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, said that reports of CIA Director John Brennan telling regime changers in Kiev to "conduct tactical operations" - or an "anti-terrorist" offensive - in eastern Ukraine are "completely false". This means Brennan did issue his marching orders. And by now the "anti-terrorist" campaign - with its nice little Dubya rhetorical touch - has degenerated into farce. Now couple that with NATO secretary general, Danish retriever Anders Fogh Rasmussen, yapping about the strengthening of military footprint along NATO's eastern border: "We will have more planes in the air, mores ships on the water and more readiness on the land." Welcome to the Two Stooges doctrine of post-modern warfare. Pay up or freeze to death Ukraine is for all practical purposes broke. The Kremlin's consistent position for the past three months has been to encourage the European Union to find a solution to Ukraine's dire economic mess. Brussels did nothing. It was betting on regime change to the benefit of Germany's heavyweight puppet Vladimir Klitschko, aka Klitsch The Boxer. Regime change did happen, but orchestrated by the Khaganate of Nulands - a neo-con cell of the State Department and its assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nulands. And now the presidential option is between - what else - two US puppets, choco-billionaire Petro Poroshenko and "Saint Yulia" Timoshenko, Ukraine's former prime minister, ex-convict and prospective president. The EU is left to pick up the (unpayable) bill. Enter the International Monetary Fund - via a nasty, upcoming "structural adjustment" that will send Ukrainians to a hellhole even grimmer than the one they are already familiar with. Once again, for all the hysteria propagated by the US Ministry of Truth and its franchises across the Western corporate media, the Kremlin does not need to "invade" anything. If Gazprom does not get paid all it needs to do is to shut down the Ukrainian stretch of Pipelineistan. Kiev will then have no option but to use part of the gas supply destined for some EU countries so Ukrainians won't run out of fuel to keep themselves and the country's industries alive. And the EU - whose "energy policy" overall is already a joke - will find itself with yet another self-inflicted problem. The EU will be mired in a perennial lose-lose situation if Brussels does not talk seriously with Moscow. There's only one explanation for the refusal: hardcore Washington pressure, mounted via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Again, to counterpunch the current hysteria - the EU remains Gazprom's top client, with 61% of its overall exports. It's a complex relationship based on interdependence. The capitalization of Nord Stream, Blue Stream and the to-be-completed South Stream includes German, Dutch, French and Italian companies. So yes, Gazprom does need the EU market. But up to a point, considering the mega-deal of Siberian gas delivery to China which most probably will be signed next month in Beijing when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits President Xi Jinping. The crucial spanner in the works Last month, while the tortuous Ukraine sideshow was in progress, President Xi was in Europe clinching deals and promoting yet another branch of the New Silk Road all the way to Germany. In a sane, non-Hobbesian environment, a neutral Ukraine would only have to gain by positioning itself as a privileged crossroads between the EU and the proposed Eurasian Union - as well as becoming a key node of the Chinese New Silk Road offensive. Instead, the Kiev regime changers are betting on acceptance into the EU (it simply won't happen) and becoming a NATO forward base (the key Pentagon aim). As for the possibility of a common market from Lisbon to Vladivostok - which both Moscow and Beijing are aiming at, and would be also a boon for the EU - the Ukraine disaster is a real spanner in the works. And a spanner in the works that, crucially, suits only one player: the US government. The Obama administration may - and "may" is the operative word here - have realized the US government has lost the battle to control Pipelineistan from Asia to Europe, despite all the efforts of the Dick Cheney regime. What energy experts call the Asian Energy Security Grid is progressively evolving - as well as its myriad links to Europe. So what's left for the Obama administration is this spanner in the works - still trying to scotch the full economic integration of Eurasia. The Obama administration is predictably obsessed with the EU's increasing dependency on Russian gas. Thus its grandiose plan to position US shale gas for the EU as an alternative to Gazprom. Even assuming this might happen, it would take at least a decade - with no guarantee of success. In fact, the real alternative would be Iranian gas - after a comprehensive nuclear deal and the end of Western sanctions (the whole package, not surprisingly, being sabotaged en masse by various Beltway factions.) Just to start with, the US cannot export shale gas to countries with which it has not signed a free trade agreement. That's a "problem" which might be solved to a great extent by the secretly negotiated Trans-Atlantic Partnership between Washington and Brussels (see Breaking bad in southern NATOstan, Asia Times Online, April 15, 2014.) In parallel, the Obama administration keeps applying instances of "divide and rule" to scare minor players, as in spinning to the max the specter of an evil, militaristic China to reinforce the still crawling "pivoting to Asia". The whole game harks back to what Dr Zbig Brzezinski conceptualized way back in his 1997 opus The Grand Chessboard - and fine-tuned for his disciple Obama: the US ruling over Eurasia. Still the Kremlin won't be dragged into a military quagmire. It's fair to argue Putin has identified the Big Picture in the whole chessboard, which spells out an increasing Russia-China strategic partnership as crucial as an energy-manufacturing synergy with Europe; and most of all the titanic fear of US financial elites of the inevitable, ongoing process centered on the BRICS-conducted (and spreading to key Group of 20 members) drive to bypass the petrodollar. Ultimately, this all spells out the progressive demise of the petrodollar in parallel to the ascent of a basket to currencies as the reserve currency in the international system. The BRICS are already at work on their alternative to the IMF and the World Bank, investing in a currency reserve pool and the BRICS development bank. While a tentative new world order slouches towards all points Global South to be born, Robocop NATO dreams of war. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE - Asia will not 'isolate' Russia By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
Asia will not 'isolate' Russia
Envy the fly on the wall in The Hague when cool Xi Jinping met Barack Obama, pivoting around himself because China and the rest of Asia will not "isolate" Russia. China is Russia's strategic partner and along with Japan and South Korea (essentially US protectorates) identifies more with a steady supply of oil and gas, and business deals struck in Moscow, than helping stir an anachronistic Western-provoked New Cold War.

Any (bureaucratic) doubts the New Cold War is on have been dispelled by the Group of Seven issuing a pompous, self-described Hague Declaration. Abandon all hope those who expected The Hague to become the seat of a tribunal judging the war crimes of the Cheney regime. 

The G-7 also cancelled its upcoming summer summit in Sochi as a means of "punishing" Moscow over Crimea. As if this carried any practical value. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded with class; if you don't want us, we have better things to do. [1] Everyone knows the G-7 is an innocuous, self-important talk shop. It's in the G-20 - much more representative of the real world - where crucial geopolitical and geoeconomic issues gain traction. 

The Hague Declaration comes complete with the kiss of death, as in, "The International Monetary Fund has a central role leading the international effort to support Ukrainian reform, lessening Ukraine's economic vulnerabilities, and better integrating the country as a market economy in the multilateral system." That's code for "wait till structural adjustment starts biting". 

And then there will be "measures to enhance trade and strengthen energy security" - code for "we will destroy your industry" but "are not very keen on paying your humongous Gazprom bill". 

All this in the sidelines of a supposed summit on nuclear security in the Netherlands, where US President Barack Obama, at the Rijksmuseum, in front of Rembrandt's The Night Watch, extolled Washington's "support of the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian people". Rembrandt's watchers have never seen anything like it in their glorious lifespan. It pays to be a Nazi after all; you just need to be in the right government, against the right enemy, and fully approved by the hyper-power. 

King Willem-Alexander hosted a lavish dinner for the members of the nuclear security summit at the Royal Palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague - after Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a (failed) bid to "isolate" Russia. The White House would later add that, as long as Russia continues "flagrantly" to violate international law, "there is no need for it to engage with the G7". Unless, of course, it starts conducting a drone war in Ukrainian badlands - with kill-list attached. 

All about NATO
The US Senate - always enjoying superb popularity ratings - laboriously laid the groundwork for debating a bill backing a US$1 billion loan guarantee for the regime changers in Kiev, plus $150 million in aid also including "neighboring countries". These figures are enough to pay Ukraine's bills for maybe two weeks. 

Meanwhile, in the facts on the ground department, Crimea will be booming soon - tourism included - and may even become a "special economic zone". [2] Subjects of the upcoming IMF/agrobusiness-plundered Khaganate of Nulands will see the results for themselves. 

Hysteria within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that Russia is about to invade everyone and his neighbor literally tomorrow - remember The Russians Are Coming! - persists unabated. Independent observers, The Roving Eye included, always insisted this is all about NATO, and not the European Union. [3] 

Since the go-go days of the Bill Clinton era, NATO has been expanding to the doorstep of Russia. The process graphically represents US hegemony over Europe; NATO "annexed" Eastern Europe even before the EU. And even those certified US Cold Warriors such as Paul Nitze always thought this was a needless, dangerous provocation of Russia. 

Very few remember how "Bubba" Clinton, to make sure terminal alcoholic Boris Yeltsin was re-elected in 1996, postponed NATO's expansion for a year. Afterwards, the expansion turbocharged into NATO as global Robocop - from the Balkans to the intersection of Central and South Asia, and to Northern Africa. 

NATO's humanitarian bombing of Yugoslavia - 36,000 combat missions, 23,000 bombs and missiles - whose 15th anniversary is "celebrated" this week, codified the new realities. NATO had nothing to do with defense; it was a multi-lethal (transformer) attack dog. It was the epitome of clean war; aerial blitzkrieg, and no casualties. And it was totally legitimized by "human rights" over national sovereignty; that was humanitarian imperialism in the making, opening the way to "responsibility to protect" and the destruction of Libya. 

Moscow knows very well the lineaments of the neo-barbarian behemoth at its gates, in the form of NATO bases in Ukraine, assuming the regime changers in Kiev remain in power. And their response has absolutely nothing to do with "Putin's aggression". Or the so-called "Medvedev Doctrine" of Russia theoretically extending military protection to Russians everywhere. As if Russia was about to "threaten" its business interests in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan or Mongolia. 

What the White House calls "the international community" - roughly the "Hague Declaration" G-7 plus a few European minions - could not possibly admit that. Asia, on the other hand, clearly identifies it. China, Japan and South Korea, for starters, identify Russia with a steady supply of oil and gas and further business deals. Even considering that Japan and South Korea are essentially US protectorates, nothing could be more anachronistic in their calculations than a Western-provoked New Cold War. 

Asia will not "isolate" Russia - and Asians and Russians know it, as much as The White House is in denial. Beijing's abstention in "condemning" Moscow - talk about the American angry-schoolmaster brand of politics - is classic Deng Xiaoping-style "keep a low profile", as China is Russia's strategic partner and both are busy working for the emergence of a multipolar world. Not to mention Beijing's utmost rejection of US-style color-coded "revolutions" and regime change ops - as well as that "pivoting to Asia" encirclement ops. 

Oh, to have been an EU-regulated fly on the wall in that Hague room where Obama and Xi were talking; cool Xi meets Obama pivoting around himself. 

Notes:
1. Russia not clinging to G8 if West does not want it - Russian FM, Russia Today, March 24, 2014.
2. Crimea to become Russian special economic zone-Medvedev, Russia Today, March 24, 2014.
3. Why the EU won't annex Ukraine, Russia Today, March 24, 2014.


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

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

THE ROVING EYE - Russian sanctions as war and farce - By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Russian sanctions as war and farce By Pepe Escobar If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as if it was not there - Marshal Georgy Zhukov Let's start with the serious stuff. As Russia's Federation Council ratifies a treaty with Crimea, concluding the formal annexation, Ukraine signs the political chapters of an association agreement with the European Union (EU). The signing of the full EU agreement will only happen later in 2014. These are the facts on the ground. Now let's turn to comedy hour - also known as the sanctions war. The oh-so democratic EU has punished the democratic Crimea referendum by sanctioning 33 Russians and Crimeans with asset freezes and travel bans, according to that Magritte-style walking fiction, European Council President Van Rompuy. The EU also canceled the EU-Russia summit in Sochi on June 3. And the vast, Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the European Commission (EC) has taken time out from subsidizing European cows to prepare for "possible economic sanctions", according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The EU is irretrievably split on what to do. Whatever it does, Moscow's capacity to make the EU badly hurt is stronger. There may be another meek set of sanctions next week, as Merkel advertised. But that's it. European poodle action mirrors His Master's Voice - as in US President Barack Obama solemnly imposing, by executive order, further sanctions on "senior officials of the Russian government." Other US targets are private businessmen close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Only exceptionalist logic legally allows sanctions on private individuals deemed responsible for political steps taken by the country they live in. International lawyers should have thought about sanctioning the entire US population for the Bush-Cheney junta's disaster. Well over 60% of Americans and Europeans are against a New Cold War against Russia. Putin's approval rating in Russia is around 75% - and arguably similar all across the developing world. Still, no one will lose money betting on the juvenile amateurism of the Obama administration. As if they and selected European minions could intimidate Moscow with some cosmetic "message". The American sanction religion, imposed with a conquistador/slave owner fury, did destroy Iraq for years - and was supposed to destroy Iran as well. But Russia is not Iraq or Iran. I love a man in sanction uniform Sanctioned Russians are not exactly quaking in their made-in-London brogues. After all, the practical impact of these sanctions is exactly zero. And most people targeted have minimal direct links with the US. The original American list included Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin and presidential aide Vladislav Surkov. They laughed it off, loudly - adding it felt like a badge of honor. The expanded list includes key Putin advisers and even some of his friends. Obama, Iran-style, sanctioned the Bank of Russia - a minor player (less than US$10 billion in assets; compare it with giant Sberbank at $528 billion). But Bank of Russia is used by some Gazprom subsidiaries for some low-key deals - even as Gazprom owns its own bank, GazpromBank. The "message" here is that Washington is watching Gazprom. Chief of Presidential Administration Sergei Ivanov is a key adviser on Ukraine and a top negotiator with the US, the EU and NATO. The - counterproductive - "message" implied here is that Moscow and Washington are not talking anything substantial in the immediate future. So much for the West's "diplomatic efforts". Then there's Yuri Kovalchuk, a board member of the Bank of Russia, a key business adviser and - allegedly, no conclusive evidence - Putin's personal banker. The message here is of the "I'm gonna git you sucka" kind. Finally, among the notables, there's Gennady Timchenko, who has absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine. He's an energy deal operator, controlling oil and natural gas trading firm Gunvor. In this case, the "message" is that the US will target Russia's energy deals. Message void, because the EU - which needs Gazprom badly - is not inclined to sanction Timchenko. Other sanctioned include the head of the Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov, Chief of Military Intelligence Igor Sergun and Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin. They are all part of the Russia-US team involved in the Northern Distribution Network - the long, across-Central Asia highway that will allow NATO to flee Afghanistan. A swift Moscow counter-attack would be to leave the Americans and Europeans hanging dry - or to close the NDN altogether. I want to be sanction-free Moscow, predictably, struck back. The Russian Foreign Ministry has "repeatedly" stressed that using sanctions is a "double-edged thing" and it will have a "boomerang" effect against the US. Already barred from entering Russia is a nasty bunch including the senile John McCain, plus Robert Menendez, Daniel Coats, Mary Landrieu, Harry Reid, John Boehner and Obama advisers such as the cosmic mediocrity Ben Rhodes. Vicky "F**k the EU" Nuland has not made the list - yet. Moscow is playing it cool because it may choose among a staggering array of counterpunches. It enjoys the support of the BRICS group of emerging powers, the non-aligned movement (NAM) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Composing with the US, Moscow agreed to impose sanctions on Iran, and is a key player in the P5+1 nuclear negotiations. If the sanction comedy goes on, Moscow has already announced it will play hardball with the P5+1, will cease to sanction Iran, and may even, finally, weaponize Tehran with jewels of the S-400 variety. Moscow - the number one oil and gas exporter on the planet - can also play further hardball with Europe's dependency on Gazprom; clinically target US companies working in Russia; speed up the BRICS-coordinated escape from the US dollar, as in a new international payment system in a basket of currencies for the BRICS as well as other emerging markets; and even activate the ultimate economic nuclear bomb - which is to accept payment for Russian oil and gas in ruble, yuan, euros or gold, thus delivering a terminal blow to the petrodollar. And that, ladies and gentlemen, will be the end of the comedy hour. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.