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)

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 Crimea and Western 'values' By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Crimea and Western 'values' By Pepe Escobar Every sane sentient being knows that Ukraine's "unity" is not worth a new hot or warm war. Or even the current Western-peddled Cold War-style hysteria. Especially when Russia, once again, fights fascism - as embodied by some of the key players now in power in Kiev, and the US and EU's response is to relentlessly demonize Russia. Crimea - historically, culturally, sentimentally - is Russian, conquered by Catherine the Great from the Ottomans in 1783. Sevastopol was founded by Catherine. If a swing band would play a version of I Left My Heart in Sevastopol, all hearts involved would be Russian. Yet those eminent Western practitioners of state idolatry have ruled that the population of Crimea has no right to conduct a referendum to decide its future - be it rejoining Russia or remaining in Ukraine with a huge degree of autonomy, according to the 1992 constitution. The eminences could not possibly admit that does not suit their geopolitical power play. Thus the current Mass; a ritualistic, hysterical invoking in unison of "international law" (Obama), (distorted) history and even morality (in the US's case, considering the historical record, a positively dreadful joke). No question the original inhabitants of Crimea are the Tatars - whose rights will be fully protected in a new Crimea. They had not achieved their self-determination for the same reason Native Americans also did not. Yet much more alarming in the whole case is how the West once again conveniently, selectively manipulates the arbitrary carving of colonized lands - the key reason of ongoing, intractable geopolitical disasters. South Sudan's independence was obsessively fought for by Washington - helped by Hollywood clones of the Clooney variety. The pretext was to correct an arbitrary colonial carving. So that applies to Sudan, but it does not apply to Crimea. Thomas Jefferson's "insurgents" had the right to rebel against the British, but Crimeans cannot rebel against what most view as an illegal, fascist-laden, putschist regime in Kiev. [1] And that is superimposed on an arbitrary colonial carving; Ukrainian-born former premier Nikita Khrushchev, then at the head of the USSR, gave Crimea away to Ukraine, in the name of Soviet solidarity, without a Crimean referendum. Washington - via a NATO war - dismantled the former Yugoslavia in the name of the "right of nations". While Crimea is not allowed a peaceful referendum, Kosovo - essentially a drug mafia scam - had the right to be "liberated". It would be so complicated to explain to public opinion that was essential for the maintenance of Camp Bondsteel - the largest military base outside of the US. The Empire of Bases trumps any "right of nations". The arbitrary carving of the Pakistani tribal areas via the Durand Line - yet another imperial British masterpiece - is the key reason for Pakistan and Afghanistan being eternally at odds. But that suits the Empire - even at the risk of miserably losing a war (NATO in Afghanistan), because that keeps it "involved" in the crucial intersection of Central and South Asia, close to both China and Russia. These few examples - Iraq in itself would be worth zillions of bytes - show there are no "international law" or universal values. Only when the Empire says so. Flying blindly into the night Obama's foreign policy could now be interpreted as the geopolitical equivalent of the doomed Malaysia Airlines Boeing, flying blindly into the deep Asian night before a fatal plunge (into the Indian Ocean?) - taking with it a load of unsuspected costumers. The New Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia proceeds with its infernal logic. Russia should be sanctioned because it's not behaving like a true democracy - those that are allowed to bomb Iraq and Libya and support weaponized jihadis in Syria, always for a good, uplifting reason. Would the Khaganate of Nulands gang in Washington have the balls to force Obama to sanction "communist China" because they illegally occupy Tibet and Xinjiang, without the consent of their original Tibetan and Uighur inhabitants, which will never be offered even the dream of a referendum? Obama said, "We completely reject a referendum patched together in a few weeks with Russian military personnel basically taking over Crimea." What he could not say is that the new supplicant puppet - interim prime minister "Yats" - has already kneeled before the Emperor; his "foundation" has been supported by the usual suspects (including the NED, the State Department and NATO ) [2]; and that "teams from the Treasury and Justice departments and the FBI" have been to Kiev to "to unravel the kleptocracy of Yanukovych's deposed government", as the proverbial "officials" put it to US corporate media - leading to furious, unconfirmed rumors that all Ukrainian gold deposits may have already been shipped to the US, in what would be a regal repayment for the US$5 billion or so (copyright Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland) Washington has spent to advance regime change. Once again; this is always about NATO encroaching on Ukraine and the regime changers trying some ruse to deprive Russia from its naval base in Sevastopol. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, is already on a charm offensiveplugging "treaty obligations with our NATO allies", under the (false) premise that Moscow is about to invade Ukraine (which is not even part of NATO - yet). And this is also about Pipelineistan [3]; not accidentally, Crimean Supreme Council speaker Vladimir Konstantinov already stated that Crimea wants Gazprom to develop the peninsula's oil and natural gas deposits, and not US Big Oil. In the threat game, Russia's Deputy Economy Minister Alexei Likhachev already announced "symmetrical" sanctions if the EU proceeds with their own. That aspiring Metternich, John Kerry, issued a deadline to Moscow. It takes China to behave sensibly. Shi Mingde, the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, said that, "sanctions could lead to retaliatory action, and that would trigger a spiral with unforeseeable consequences … We don't see any point in sanctions." As much as non-brainwashed world public opinion don't see any point in the West's moral lessons. Notes: 1. Kiev Snipers Shooting From Bldg Controlled By Maidan Forces – Ex-Ukraine Security Chief, RT, March 13, 2014. 2. See here. 3. Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry, The Guardian, March 6, 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 The new US-Russia Cold War By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE 
The new US-Russia Cold War
By Pepe Escobar 

Meet the new (cold) war, same as the old (cold) war. Same same, but different. One day, it's the myriad implications of Washington's "pivoting" to Asia - as in the containment of China. The next day, it's the perennial attempt to box Russia in. Never a dull moment in the New Great Game in Eurasia. 

On Russia, the denigration of all things Sochi - attributable to the inherent stupidity of Western corporate media "standards" - was just a subplot of the main show, which always gets personal; the relentless demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin. [1] 

Yet Nulandgate - as in US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria "neo-con" Nuland uttering her famous "F**k the EU" - was way more serious. Not because of the "profanity" (praise the Lord!), but for providing what US Think Tankland hailed as "an indicator of American strategic thinking". 

Here's the game in a nutshell. Germany remote controls one of the leaders of the Ukrainian protests, heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko. [2] 

"F**k the EU" is essentially directed towards Berlin and Klitschko, its key protege. Washington sees this going nowhere, as Germany, after all, has been slowly building a complex energy-investment partnership with Russia. 

The Obama administration wants results - fast. Nuland herself stressed (check it out, starting at 7:26) that Washington, over the past two decades, has "invested" over US$5 billion for the "democratization" of Ukraine. So yes: this is "our" game and the EU is at best a nuisance while Russia remains the major spoiler. Welcome to Washington's Ukrainian "strategy". 

The Ukrainian chessboard
US Think Tankland now also peddles the notion that the Obama administration is expertly adept at a balance of power strategy. To include Libya as part of this "strategy" is a sick joke; Libya post-Gaddafi is a failed state, courtesy of humanitarian bombing by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Meanwhile, in Syria, the US "strategy" boils down to let Arabs kill Arabs in droves. 

Iran is way more complex. Arguably, the Obama administration calculates that through talks between Iran and the P5+1 - the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany - it will be able to outmaneuver the Russians, who are close to Tehran. This assuming the Obama administration really wants a nuclear deal with Iran that would later release the floodgates of Western business. 

On Syria, it's the Russian positions that have kept the upper hand; not to mention that Putin saved Obama from yet another Middle East war. As Syria was a Russian win, no wonder Washington dreams of a win in Ukraine. 

We can interpret what's goin' on now as a remix of the 2004 Orange Revolution. But The Big Picture goes way back - from NATO's expansion in the 1990s to American NGOs trying to destabilize Russia, NATO's flirt with Georgia, and those missile defense schemes so close to Russian borders. 

In already trademark Obama administration style, the State Department's support for anti-Russia, pro-EU protests in Ukraine qualifies as "leading from behind" (remember Libya?) 

It comes complete with "humanitarian" appeal, calls for "reconciliation" and good against evil dichotomy masking a drive towards regime change. Abandon all hope to find voices of sanity on US corporate media such as NYU and Princeton's Stephen Cohen, who cut to the chase in this piece, stressing that the essential revelation of Nulandgate "was that high-level US officials were plotting to 'midwife' a new, anti-Russian Ukrainian government by ousting or neutralizing its democratically elected president - that is, a coup". 

Here the "strategy" clearly reveals itself as a US puppet now - coup or no coup - instead of an EU puppet later. No one in the Beltway gives a damn that Viktor Yanukovich was legally elected president of Ukraine, and that he had full authority to reject a dodgy deal with the EU. 

And no one in the Beltway cares that the protests are now being led by Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) - a nasty collection of fascists, football hooligans, ultra-nationalists and all sorts of unsavory neo-Nazi elements; the Ukrainian equivalents of Bandar Bush's jihadis in Syria. 

Yet the US "strategy" rules that street protests should lead to regime change. It applies to the Ukraine, but it does not apply to Thailand. 

Washington wants regime change in the Ukraine for one reason only; in the wider New Great Game in Eurasia context, that would be the rough equivalent of Texas defecting from the US and becoming a Russian ally. 

Still, this gambit is bound to fail. Moscow has myriad ways to deploy economic leverage in Ukraine; it has access to much better intel than the Americans; and the protesters/gangs/neo-Nazis are just a noisy minority. 

Washington, tough, won't give up, as it sees both the political crisis in Ukraine as the emerging financial crisis in Kazakhstan as "opportunities" (Obama lingo) to threaten Moscow's economic/strategic interests. It's as if the Beltway was praying for a widespread financial crisis in the Russia-led Customs Union (Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus). 

Pray in fact is all they've got, while the EU, for all the grandiose, rhetorical wishful thinking, remains a divided mess. After Sochi, Vlad the Hammer will be back in business with a vengeance. Nuland and co, watch your back. 

Notes:
1. Journalistic malpractice & the dangers of Russia-bashing, RT, February 9, 2014.
2. EU Grooming Klitschko to Lead Ukraine, Der Spiegel Online, December 10, 2013. 

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 Cold War-style global "spy games" a return to the past

Recent events indicate that there has been a return to global "spy wars" not seen since the heyday of the Cold War.

According to WMR's MI-6 sources, there is a fear that Government Communications Headquarters officer Gareth Williams, whose body was found stuffed in a sports bag in an MI-6 safehouse near the spy agency's Vauxhall headquarters in London and left unattended for some two weeks, may have been involved in an "off-the-books" operation or a non-sanctioned rogue operation.

The latest reports from London are that Williams's body was padlocked inside the sports bag when it was discovered. That, in addition to Williams's cell phones and SIM cards being laid out nearly in his safehouse flat in Pimlico, suggest that his murder was a professional hit. Although two autopsies have been performed on Williams's body, which was in an advanced state of decomposition, no cause of death has yet been determined by medical examiners in London.

MI-6 is now worried that the hit was accomplished by a foreign intelligence agency, however, the reason for his murder remain murky at best. There also have been rumors advanced by some outlets of the British media, but rejected as scurrilous by Williams's family and colleagues, that Williams was involved in gay and bizarre sexual trysts. Gay magazines and photographs were reportedly strewn around Williams's flat, however, such operations have been conducted in the past in order to embarrass the next-of-kin of British agents and politicians from asking too many questions about the circumstances of deaths.

Williams, who worked for GCHQ in Cheltenham and who had, in the past, visited the U.S. National Security Agency station at Menwith Hill, from which signals intelligence operations have been launched against British government officials, including members of the royal family, was on loan to MI-6 and had traveled frequently to the United States, including NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, on unspecified missions. It is those missions that have MI-6 concerned that one or more operations involving Williams, sanctioned or unsanctioned, may have provided him with knowledge that also placed him on a target list for murder.

WMR has previously reported on BP's video and audio bugging of a Washington, DC condominium owned by Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and allegedly used separately by then-Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and then-Senator Barack Obama for gay trysts. There are close links between former MI-6 agents, as well as British Special Air Service (SAS) personnel, and BP. The private military contractor, Defense Systems, Ltd. (DSL), which had offices near Buckingham Palace and eventually morphed into ArmorGroup in 1997, conducted special services for BP. DSL counted a number of former MI-6 and SAS personnel among its ranks. WMR previously reported that Williams was also an SAS commando before going to work for GCHQ.

GCHQ has also worked with BP to ensure its communications are secure from the prying ears and eyes of foreign intelligence services, including those of France. It is also known that MI-6 has routinely shared intelligence with nearly every major British firm, including BP. The May 11, 1996, "Weekend Australian" provided a germane quote on such cooperation from an MI-6 agent, "We are a trading nation so our service will do anything we can to help Great Britain Pty Ltd." Intelligence between British intelligence and companies like BP are usually conducted through the Joint Intelligence Committee, however, in overseas locations such cooperation is often done directly. The deal does not come without a price for British companies. As the "Weekend Australian" reported, "British businessmen abroad are expected to pass on to British intelligence anything they come across that they think might be useful."

Sitting on the board of Russia's Alfa Group's Altimo telecommunication subsidiary is Sir Francis Richards, a former director of GCHQ. Also on the board is Lord Douglas Hurd, a former British Foreign Secretary who was in charge of GCHQ and MI-6 operations while serving as Britain's chief diplomatic official. Also on the Altimo board is Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress and the Council for World Jewry. Alfa Group is a 25 percent owner of the joint Russian-Anglo and British Virgin Islands-registered TNK-BP oil firm. Former BP CEO Tony Hayward, fired from the top post after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, is now in charge of BP's operations with TNK-BP in Russia.

Although the NSA and CIA, which have both been involved in the investigation of Wlliams's murder, have separate missions, they combine their operations in a super-secret Special Collection Service (SCS) or F-6, headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland. The SCS conducts "black bag" operations against foreign embassies and missions, as well as private homes and offices. In order to avoid running afoul of domestic laws against such operations without a court order, the UK-USA signals intelligence allies often use the agents from their partners to conduct operations against their own citizens. Canadian and British agents have been used for such purposes in the United States and Americans and Canadians for similar operations in Britain.

Just days after the death of Williams, the Attorney General of the United Kingdom, Dominic Grieve, has ordered the production of the sealed Hutton Inquiry files pertaining to the suspicious "suicide" in July 2003 of Dr. David Kelly, the British Ministry of Defense's leading expert on weapons of mass destruction. Hutton had ordered the files sealed for 70 years but the review of them by Grieve has fueled speculation that a full inquest on Kelly's death may soon be conducted by British government officials. Kelly was the source for a BBC report that the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's so-called weapons of mass destruction, weapons that turned out not to exist but were used as a pretext for Britain's participation in the invasion of Iraq.

There is a belief by many in the British intelligence community that Kelly was murdered by professional intelligence agents to ensure his silence from revealing any more about the bogus intelligence used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. WMR previously reported that the murder of Kelly involved members of U.S. special forces covert forces. On November 3, 2007, WMR reported: "On July 17, 2003, Kelly was found dead in a wooded area in his home village of Southmoor. The death was ruled a suicide but this editor was informed by intelligence sources in Paris, where I was the night Kelly was found dead, that he was murdered by 'wet affairs' operatives working for the Blair and Bush interests. Liberal Democratic Member of Parliament Norman Baker, after a one year investigation, also recently concluded that Kelly was murdered." On February 28, 2008, WMR followed up on the report with the following: "WMR has learned from a former British Defense Ministry source that the assassination team that dispatched Diana and Dr. Kelly were not MI-6 but a US Navy SEAL team that operates abroad to target individuals who have been sanctioned for assassination. It should also be noted that Blackwater USA was largely formed by ex-US Navy SEAL personnel."

The Williams affair and the re-opening of the investigation of Dr. Kelly's death come after a spate of espionage scandals, including the arrest and expulsion of alleged Russian agents in the United States and the murder by Israel's Mossad of a Hamas official in Dubai. The Israelis were using forged and altered passports from a number of nations, including Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, and Australia.

The use of "wet affairs" by intelligence agencies is on a steep increase. The deaths of Williams and Kelly in Britain and, possibly, unknown others around the world, points to a renewed "Cold War" in the intelligence game.

Update 1x: WMR has also been informed by British intelligence sources that Douglas Hurd's son, Thomas Hurd, a member of the British diplomatic service, actually works for MI-6.

The intelligence dark games continue with the August 6 suspicious death of the deputy head of the Russian GRU military intelligence service, Major General Yuri Ivanov while reportedly swimming off the Syrian coast. His body later washed ashore on the Turkish coast. The Israeli paper Yediot Ahronoth reported that Ivanov was killed while on an official visit to Syria to meet with his Syrian counterparts. The meeting took place in Tartus, the site of a Russian naval installation. Ivanov, according to the Israeli paper, was assassinated in Tartus and his body dumped in the Mediterranean Sea. The killers were apparently trying to warn the Russians from establishing closer military links with Syria.

Long live the Cold War by William Blum

President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was overthrown in a military coup June 28 because he was about to conduct a non-binding survey of the population, asking the question: "Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?" One of the issues that Zelaya hoped a new constitution would deal with is the limiting of the presidency to one four-year term. He also expressed the need for other constitutional changes to make it possible for him to carry out policies to improve the life of the poor; in countries like Honduras, the law is not generally crafted for that end.

At this writing it's not clear how matters will turn out in Honduras, but the following should be noted: the United States, by its own admission, was fully aware for weeks of the Honduran military's plan to overthrow Zelaya. Washington says it tried its best to change the mind of the plotters. It's difficult to believe that this proved impossible. During the Cold War it was said, with much justification, that the United States could discourage a coup in Latin America with "a frown". The Honduran and American military establishments have long been on very fraternal terms. And it must be asked: In what way and to what extent did the United States warn Zelaya of the impending coup? And what protection did it offer him? The response to the coup from the Obama administration can be described with adjectives such as lukewarm, proper but belated, and mixed. It is not unthinkable that the United States gave the military plotters the go-ahead, telling them to keep the traditional "golpe" bloodiness to a minimum. Zelaya was elected to office as the candidate of a conservative party; he then, surprisingly, moved to the left and became a strong critic of a number of Washington policies, and an ally of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, both of whom the Bush administration tried to overthrow and assassinate.

Following the coup, National Public Radio (NPR) showed once again why progressives refer to it as National Pentagon Radio. The station's leading news anchor, Robert Siegel, interviewed Johanna Mendelson Forman, of the conservative think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies:

Siegel: "There hasn't been a coup in Latin America for quite a while."

Forman: "I think the last one was in 1983"

Siegel did not correct her.¹⁴

This is ignorance of considerable degree. There was a coup in Venezuela in 2002 that briefly overthrew Hugo Chavez, a coup in Haiti in 2004 that permanently overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and a coup in Panama in 1989 that permanently overthrew Manuel Noriega. Is it because the US was closely involved in all three coups that they have been thrown down the Orwellian Memory Hole?

1. NPR, All Things Considered, June 29, 2009 ^↩