By George Ades – I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked: “Why doesn’t Putin give Assad S-300?”

First of all, I would like to say that if I were Putin, I wouldn’t be supplying the Syrian military with S-300s, at this moment in time.

Russia is in Syria, by invitation of the legitimate government of that Sovereign State, for one purpose: to rid Syria of the terrorist proxy army of the west. NOT to start WWIII.

Let me explain. What happens if the Syrian military gets S-300s and uses them to shoot down a US/NATO or Israeli plane? Will these superior forces back down and leave Syria alone? Unlikely.

The S-300 may be one of the best anti-aircraft weapons around, but it’s not a nuclear weapon. By itself, it will not be enough to deter a determined adversary. A lot more will be needed to counter the retaliation that will surely come once such a weapon is used by the Syrians. Is the Syrian military and people, fatigued by years of fighting these proxy forces, in a position to handle an all out war with Israel and/or the US/NATO? And what would Russia’s response to such an eventuality be? Would they stand idly by and see an ally destroyed by the US and its minions? What happens if they DO get involved, if the Russians themselves start shooting down Israel and/or NATO planes? THINK….

Both S-300 and S-400s are present in Syria. They are in the hands of the Russian military and since the terrorists have no official airforce of their own, their purpose is to act as a deterrent. So far, this has worked pretty well.

Let Syria liberate its soil first. Let the Syrians retake control of their own borders. Let them draw a breath from all these years of fighting and there will be plenty of time to supply that country with all it needs to safeguard its integrity. Now is not the time.

The Russian government’s and its military’s primary concern is to safeguard the Russian people’s welfare and security.

They are not there to satisfy some people’s lust for blood.

Russia has not invaded or bombed, threatened to invade or bomb any country. All the actions of the Russian leadership indicate that they are always pressing to resolve issues not by force, but through dialogue.

The Russian military is strong no doubt, but its function is the defence of Russian soil and that of the Russian nation.

Please avoid making shallow comments like: “Russia is afraid of taking on Israel.” If Israel had attacked Russia or Russians, I have no doubt they would more than adequately defend themselves. Remember, we are not talking about schoolyard fights here. Once the missiles start flying, it will get ugly very quickly and it will be nothing like watching a Hollywood movie from the comfort of your living rooms, while going through a six pack.

MIKE WHITNEY via UNZ

The Democratic Party has made a strategic decision to bypass candidates from its progressive wing and recruit former members of the military and intelligence agencies to compete with Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. The shift away from liberal politicians to center-right government agents and military personnel is part of a broader plan to rebuild the party so it better serves the interests of its core constituents, Wall Street, big business, and the foreign policy establishment. Democrat leaders want to eliminate left-leaning candidates who think the party should promote issues that are important to working people and replace them with career bureaucrats who will be more responsive to the needs of business. The ultimate objective of this organization-remake is to create a center-right superparty comprised almost entirely of trusted allies from the national security state who can be depended on to implement the regressive policies required by their wealthy contributors. Here’s more background from Patrick Martin at the World Socialist Web Site:

“An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history.

If the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress. They will hold the balance of power in the lower chamber of Congress….

… it should be noted that there would be no comparable influx of Bernie Sanders supporters or other “left”-talking candidates in the event of a Democratic landslide. Only five of the 221 candidates reviewed in this study had links to Sanders or billed themselves as “progressive.” None is likely to win the primary, let alone the general election.” (“The CIA Democrats, Patrick Martin, The World Socialist Web Site)

Progressive candidates are being ignored to make room for center-right functionaries who will focus on reducing government spending, rolling back Trump’s trade policy, and supporting the foreign wars. This new wave of fiscally-conservative Democrats will execute their tasks in a party that serves as the political wing of the federal bureaucracy. Democrat leaders have long-abandoned the idea that a party should be a vehicle for political change. Their aim is to create a top-down pro-business collective that marginalizes activists and liberals in order to avoid disruptive political convulsions that impact corporate profitability. Here’s more on the Dems’ attack on its liberal base from an article by Patrick Martin:

“The New Jersey Democratic Party establishment successfully imposed its choice in contested congressional nominations, brushing aside several candidates backed by Bernie Sanders and his Our Revolution group. Nearly every Sanders-backed candidate in other states—for governor of Iowa and congressional seats in Iowa, Montana New Mexico and California—suffered a similar fate.” (“US primary elections in eight states confirm rightward shift by Democratic Party”, Patrick Martin, The World Socialist Web Site)

As a result “Only a handful of candidates running under the Bernie Sanders banner survived primaries held in six states on Tuesday. As of Wednesday afternoon, only seven of 31 candidates endorsed by Our Revolution —- had been declared winners.” (USA Today)

Simply put, Democrat leaders have successfully derailed the progressive bandwagon. Even so, Sanders role vis a vis the Democratic Party has always been a bit of a ruse. Here’s how author Tom Hall sums it up:

“The major political function of Sanders’ campaign is to divert the growing social discontent and hostility toward the existing system behind the Democratic Party, in order to contain and dissipate it. His supposedly ‘socialist’ campaign is an attempt to preempt and block the emergence of an independent movement of the working class.” (“Is Bernie Sanders a socialist?”, July 16, 2015), Tom Hall, World Socialist Web Site)

Sanders’ task will become increasingly difficult as progressives realize that the Dems are building a party apparatus that sees activism as a fundamental threat to their strategic objective, which is to create a secure environment where business can flourish. Sanders has helped the party by seducing leftists with his fake liberalism, but he has undermined the aims of working people who need an independent organization to advance their own political agenda. As long as Sanders continues to sell his populist snake oil from a Democratic soapbox, liberals are going to continue to hope that the party can be transformed into an instrument for progressive change.

The evidence, however, suggests the party is moving in the opposite direction. Here’s more from Patrick Martin’s:

“The Democratic Party’s promotion of a large number of military-intelligence candidates for competitive districts represents an insurance policy for the US ruling elite. In the event of a major swing to the Democrats, the House of Representatives will receive an influx of new members drawn primarily from the national security apparatus, trusted servants of American imperialism……The preponderance of national security operatives in the Democratic primaries sheds additional light on the nature of the Obama administration (which) marked the further ascendancy of the military-intelligence apparatus within the Democratic Party….

The Democratic Party is running in the congressional elections not only as the party that takes a tougher line on Russia, but as the party that enlists as its candidates and representatives those who have been directly responsible for waging war, both overt and covert, on behalf of American imperialism. ….

The upper-middle-class layer that provides the “mass” base of the Democratic Party has moved drastically to the right over the past four decades, enriched by the stock market boom, consciously hostile to the working class, and enthusiastically supportive of the military-intelligence apparatus which, in the final analysis, guarantees its own social position against potential threats, both foreign and domestic. It is this social evolution that now finds expression on the surface of capitalist politics, in the rise of the military-intelligence “faction” to the leadership of the Democratic Party.” (“The CIA Democrats,” Patrick Martin, The World Socialist Web Site)

The dramatic metamorphosis of the Democratic party hasn’t taken place in a vacuum but in a fractious and politically-charged environment where elements within the intelligence community and law enforcement (FBI) are attempting to roll back the results of the 2016 presidential elections because their preferred candidate (Hillary Clinton) did not win. And while these agencies have not yet produced any hard evidence that their claims (of collusion with Russia) are true, there is mounting circumstantial evidence that senior-level officials at these agencies were actively trying to entrap members of the Trump campaign to justify more intrusive surveillance in the hopes of uncovering incriminating evidence that could be used in impeachment proceedings.

As more information surfaces, and we learn more about the “unmasking,” wiretapping, National Security Letters, FISA warrants, paid informants and other surveillance abuses that were directed at the Trump campaign, we should think back to 2005 when the New York Times first reported that the National Security Agency had been eavesdropping on Americans inside the United States “without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.” (“Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” New York Times) That incident was reported just 13 years ago and already we can see that the infrastructure for a permanent Orwellian police-state – that uses its extraordinary powers of surveillance to sabotage the democratic process and maintain its stranglehold on power – has already arisen in our midst. And while Russiagate is proof-positive that these malign spying techniques are already being used against us, the Democratic party is now creating a home for deep-state alums and their military allies so they continue to prosecute their war against personal liberty and the American people.

Libya’s destruction by FUKUS (France, UK, US) was never about weapons of mass destruction or R2P protection of populations. From the jump, FUKUS goals in Africa were threefold:
1. Destroy Gaddafi’s Jamahariya so as to prevent the formation of a sovereign African currency bloc. The planned creation of an African monetary fund was signaling the death knell of the franc CFA currency from which France and other parts of the EU bloc derive much of their power. The Libyan operation was also a continuation of what happened prior in Ivory Coast. The ousted Ivorian president who wanted to leave the franc CFA currency is now rotting for close to a decade at the imperial court like Milosevic before him.
2. Steal Libyan sovereign wealth funds (almost 500 billions euros) to prop up the failing Western banking system.
3. Most importantly, to secure the Taoudeni basin in the Sahel. Taoudeni is a sort of consolation prize and collateral in a time of crisis for the FUKUS bloc who would love to get their hands on Siberia… The Taoudeni basin is rich in hydrocarbons, rare earths, gold, gas, you name it. And it’s smack dab in the middle of a most important trans-Saharan trade route through which lucrative fungible assets transit.
In the meantime, “Fremen” in the Sahel will continue to wreak havoc upon foreign invaders. Lots of potential targets for those “Fremen.” Besides FUKUS, Germans, Dutch and other EU forces are now setting up bases in the Sahel to secure the resource war booty.
Seen from Mali, when the war against Ghaddafi erupted, the whole downtown administration sector of Bamako was a gift from Libya so tons of Malians went to war to support him. Meanwhile, Gbagbo was ousted thanks to French special ops and a year later Mali went through a coup d’etat by a US-trained officer. Nowadays, there are regular attacks in the north of Mali by various jihadi groups on UN camps while Touareg secession is blocked, preventing control of the resources by anyone not aligned with AFRICOM/France.

Written by Robert Bridge; Originally appeared at strategic-culture.org

In the past, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) justified its militarization of large swaths of Eastern Europe by pointing to the omnipresent threat of terrorism, or some ‘rogue’ foreign state, inherently understood to be Iran. Today the mask has slipped and it is no longer denied that NATO’s primary target is Russia.

But first, a trip down nightmare lane. The road to ruin – at least as far as US-Russia relations were concerned – began immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks. Three months after that fateful day, in December 2001, George W. Bush informed Vladimir Putin that the US was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a strange move considering that the treaty had kept the peace between the nuclear superpowers since 1972. This geopolitical “mistake,” as Putin rightly defined it, allowed the US to begin the process of deploying a missile defense system, smack on the border with Russia, allegedly to shield the continent against an attack by Iran. Never mind the fact that Tehran had absolutely no reason, not to mention the wherewithal, to carry out such a suicidal mission. But Washington has never been one to let facts get in the way of a forced move on the global chess board.

Thus, the Bush administration advocated on behalf of a land-based missile defense system with interceptors based in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. However, due to serious objections from Russia, not to mention the apprehensive citizens of the host countries, the plan had reached an impasse in 2008 – just as Obama was replacing Bush in the White House. Some would call that impeccable timing. What happened next can only be described as a devious sleight of hand on the part of Washington.

In September 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, announced to great fanfare that the US would “shelve” the Bush plan. This announcement was received in Moscow and beyond as a sign that America’s first black president was truly the real deal when it came to working on behalf of global peace. Suddenly, it appeared that the Bush reign of error had been an ugly anomaly, a bad eight-year dream. That grand illusion lasted for about as long as it took to read that sentence.

Barack Obama, the man who had seduced the global masses with his velvety albeit telepromoted delivery, shifted gears the very next day, announcing that the US would be deploying, in four phases, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe instead. An opinion piece in the New York Times, penned by then Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, provided all the information to understand that the world had been hoodwinked.

“Steady technological advances in our missile defense program — from kill vehicles to the abilities to network radars and sensors — give us confidence in this plan,” Gates wrote. “The SM-3 has had eight successful tests since 2007, and we will continue to develop it to give it the capacity to intercept long-range missiles like ICBMs. It is now more than able to deal with the threat from multiple short- and medium-range missiles — a very real threat to our allies and some 80,000 American troops based in Europe that was not addressed by the previous plan.”

“We are strengthening — not scrapping — missile defense in Europe,” he concluded.

With the benefit of hindsight and common sense, it seems that Washington’s plan from the start was to move forward with the sophisticated SM-3 system; the bulky Bush initiative just provided the necessary distraction to usher in the advanced Obama plan, which presents a major threat to the global strategic balance.

But all that is ancient history compared to what is happening today. Under the guise of ‘Russia aggression,’ a concept that was peddled to the unsuspecting masses based on the fake news of a Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine and Crimea, compounded by claims that Russia somehow swayed the 2016 US presidential elections, US-led NATO has dropped all pretensions and declared open season on Russia. Combined with Donald Trump’s empty threat that the US would exit NATO if member states did not start spending more on defense (2 percent of annula GDP), Eastern Europe has become a veritable hothouse of paranoia-driven militarization.

In what the Kremlin has described as the greatest amassing of military assets on its border since World War II, NATO troops and hardware have set up camp from as far north as Estonia, down through Latvia and Lithuania, into Romania and Poland, where the rotation of US troops is now standard operating procedure.

Meanwhile, massive military games aimed at deterring the Russian bogeyman continue unabated on Russia’s border. In April, British journalist Neil Clark described just one of these exercises, dubbed Summer Shield. The NATO military exercises “got underway at the Adazi military base. Soldiers from Latvia, the US, Bulgaria, Estonia, Canada, Lithuania, the UK, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Germany and also non-NATO member Sweden are taking part in the drills,” Clark wrote.

He then went on to make a rather unsettling yet accurate observation: “Today’s mantra regarding ‘Russian aggression’ is the 2003 equivalent of ‘Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ to be repeated ad nauseum by anyone supporting NATO’s Drang nach Osten. And like the WMD claim, it’s based on zero evidence.”

Such reckless behavior would have been difficult to fathom less than a decade ago.

But these are brave new times, and American madness has settled upon the realm of foreign relations like a noxious cloud, forcing client states to crack open their tattered wallets or be left out in the cold when the big, bad Russian bear comes a knocking.

Consider the case of Romania, one of Europe’s poorest countries. Prompted by Donald Trump’s warning that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members must fork over 2 percent of their GDP on military spending, Bucharest just made a down payment on a $1 billion American-made M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), as well as four new multi-function corvettes.

Romanian Defence Minister Mihai Fifor told Jane’s that these exorbitant purchases would “improve Romania’s national and allied defense capability” and emphasized that Romania’s commitment to the 2% of GDP spending cap “for the next 10 years is strong”.

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said, “We want those procurement programs to also strengthen our defence industry based on offset arrangements where possible”.

This was not the first American military incursion into Romania under the guise of guarding against Iran and other alleged rogue players.

In May 2016, the US activated its $800 million missile shield in Romania, which Russia obviously views as a direct threat.

“At the moment the interceptor missiles installed have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won’t know,” Vladimir Putin told reporters during a visit to Greece in May 2016.

“We have been saying since the early 2000s that we will have to react somehow to your moves to undermine international security. No one is listening to us,” Putin warned.

It remains to be seen how long NATO tone deafness will continue before the militarization of Eastern Europe gets completely out of control and the situation becomes untenable. Or perhaps the point of no return has already come to pass and, fait accompli, we are merely enjoying an illusory calm before the storm.

Comments:

Q: Since ABM systems cannot be used until the ICBMs have been launched, isn’t it an appropriate defense to attack these ABM systems, maybe 30 seconds before an ICBM launch?

A: It is well known that the MDS is not capable to defend against full scale nuclear attack from Russia. What US hopes for is that within 10-15 years it might become capable to defend against retaliatory counterattack after the first strike – meaning that, after a full scale nuclear attack against Russia, Russia will be left with less than 20% of it’s capability and then, they hope, they will be able to defend themselves with the MDS. That’s what I hear from military experts.

As of now, neither side is able to attack the other with ICBM’s because retaliatory counterattack is guaranteed to destroy the attacker – that’s what nuclear parity is all about. With the MDS program US is trying hard to tip the scale in their favor.

Via GEFIRA,

The efforts of individual countries to access the gas fields in the south-eastern part of the Mediterranean make the area very vulnerable to new conflicts and war and can also lead to a dispute within NATO and affect Europe’s energy security, putting the EASTMED pipeline in question. The war for natural resources is looming large.

The first problem is the relationship between Cyprus and Turkey. Ankara, the only capital which recognizes North Cyprus, says that all activities related to the extraction of gas in the Cypriot area are an encroachment on the interests of North Cyprus. While Turkey does not recognize agreements between Cyprus and other countries on the issue of economic exclusive zone (EEZ) or licenses for gas exploration in Cypriot territorial waters, Nicosia holds the opposite opinion. Ankara, through the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) puts forward claims that it is entitled to look for gas and oil in Cypriot waters and has the right to defend its interests there. Cyprus issued a number of concessions to various mining companies on more than half of the blocks (i.e. parts of the economic exclusive zone on which companies could explore gas or oil) located within the Cypriot EZZ. President Erdoğan warned Cyprus and international gas exploration companies that the violation of Turkish interests would have bad consequences.1)In the middle of February 2018 the warning was made good and so the Saipem 1200 mining vessel operating for Italian company – Eni was blocked by Turkish ships. Italy responded by sending a military ship to the area.2)This shows how explosive the situation is now that two NATO member states want to pursue economic goals without backing them with diplomacy.

It is worth mentioning that also in February a Turkish coast guard boat rammed a Greek patrol ship in the Aegean Sea,3)which shows that the Turkish government is willing to use military force.

The deepening cooperation between Cyprus, Greece, Israel and Italy regarding the EastMed gas pipeline project4)is another flashpoint. The new pipeline, whose aim will be to supply gas from the Caspian Sea to Southern Europe, would weaken the transit role of the Turkish TANAP.

Another potential conflict is the one between Turkey and Egypt over the rich Zohr gas field discovered only in 2015. Ankara does not recognize the 2003 Cypriot-Egyptian EEZ accords and the 2013 sea border agreements between Cairo and Nicosia, which assign the Zohr gas field to Egypt.5)6)At the beginning of February 2018, the Egyptian government warned Turkey that further interference in this area would be met with a decisive reaction.7)

The relations between Turkey and Egypt are already strained. Though Turkey was a supporter of the Egyptian Brotherhood and Mohamed Mursi, who took power in Egypt in 2011, nowadays there is no love lost between Ankara and Cairo, because in 2013 the Trukey-friendly government was toppled. In a 2016 interview, President Erdoğan gave vent to his anger, calling the current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a “putschist” who killed thousands of his own people.8)

The sea area between Israel and Lebanon is the most explosive area, which extends along the edges of three Lebanese gas exploration Blocks: 8, 9, 10 of which Block 9 is said to be the most profitable and is claimed by Israel. In the first half of February 2018, Lebanon signed a contract for exploratory and production works with Italian Eni, French Total and Russian Novatek.9)Since the works are to be carried out in Block 9,10)Israel described Lebanon’s action as “very provocative”,11)paving the way for a military showdown. In response to it, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasr Allah threatened to target Israeli offshore gas platforms.12)

The Israeli media are already speculating about the third Lebanese war and suggest that the Hezbollah attack on Israel is inevitable.13)In mid-February, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that Washington could help resolve the dispute between Israel and Lebanon, but Hasan Nasr Allah refused to have talks with the United States, a dishonest broker. Hezbollah is supported by Iran as is Lebanon by Turkey. Tel Aviv accuses Ankara of supporting Hamas, while Turkey says it merely defends Islam and Palestinians.14)The presence of Israeli troops in Cyprus is perceived by President Erdoğan as interference in the Turkish sphere of influence. It was in June 2017 that Israeli commandos carried out the largest military exercises so far, aimed at counteracting a possible annexation of Cyprus by Turkey.15)

Gas deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean attract the attention of European, Russian, Iranian, Turkish and American armed forces. Cyprus occupies here a strategically important place. The number of players is a sum of the countries directly involved and their allies. Gas, like crude oil, has the potential of igniting a new wave of violent encounters between enemies and friends.

References

1.	↑	Erdogan warns Greece, Cyprus over gas search, Aegean islets, ABC News 2018-02-13.
2.	↑	Italy sends frigate to Cyprus’s EEZ, Ekathimerini 2018-02-13.
3.	↑	Greece says won’t tolerate border challenges after Turkish collision, Reuters 2018-02-15.
4.	↑	Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Israel sign MoU for East Med gas pipeline, New Europe 2017-12,05.
5.	↑	Egypt defends Cyprus gas deal after Turkey criticism, Daily Mail 2018-02-08.
6.	↑	Egypt rejects Turkey’s stance on Cyprus demarcation agreement, Energy Egypt 2018-02-09.
7.	↑	Egypt warns Turkey over eastern Mediterranean economic interests, Reuters 2018-02-07.
8.	↑	Erdoğan blasts Egypt’s ‘putschist president’ Sisi in al-Jazeera interview, Al Araby 2016-07-22.
9.	↑	Risking Israeli dispute, Lebanon signs deal with 3 oil firms, The Washington Post 2018-02-09.
10.	↑	Lebanon to begin offshore energy search in block disputed by Israel, Reuters 2018-02-09.
11.	↑	Israel, Lebanon argue over offshore energy block, Cyprus Mail, 2018-01-31.
12.	↑	Hezbollah threatens Israeli offshore gas rigs with missiles, Ynetnews 2018-06-02.
13.	↑	Rockets, missiles and more: predicting the third Lebanon war, Jeruselem Post 2018-02-09.
14.	↑	Turkey rejects Israel’s claim Ankara helps Hamas, The Jerusalem Post 2018-02-15.
15.	↑	Israeli Commandos Heading to Cyprus for Largest-ever Drill, Haaretz 2018-02-15.

What I really think is that this is a charade. In fact, the US is making room and facilitating the full entry of Russia into the Middle East, its takeover of the critical gates to the Mediterranean Sea from the Turks, while at the same time facilitating the undermining of Israel through the setting up of a One-State Solution.

If the two-state solution is no longer in the cards, the only alternative is the one-state solution. Right? But isn’t that what the Iranians said all along? Isn’t that the position of Israel’s sworn enemy? Yes, the one-state solution, democratic and multi-cultural!

Trump is just a cover – and a soother of the Israelis’ worst fears, but in fact he is setting up their demise under the guise of US support. Every time there is a further retreat by the US from its strongholds in Syria, this time East Ghouta, all we hear about is North Korea and how hard the US might come down on them.

The North Koreans and the South Koreans, for those who follow at a minimum the latest developments, are doing just fine, hob-nobbing like two brothers at the Olympics, talking about concrete steps towards reunification, while all the MSM are on another planet describing an upcoming unprovoked war as a matter of convenience.

The US is actually assisting, in this way, in cleaning up thousands, tens of thousands of an overpopulation of disposable young Arab males, while at the same time assisting in giving control over Syria back to its legitimate government, under Russian ownership. Furthermore, it closes its eyes to the incredible advance of the Iranian and Hezbollah forces to the very border of Israel, while talking about “high minded” issues like the nonsensical Embassy move to Jerusalem.

By using the false issue of Kurdistan as a direct hit on Turkey, the US is basically pushing its ally into the arms of its centuries-old enemy, which is Russia. If Russia were to take control over the Bosporus and Dardanelles militarily, it would never, ever be able to subdue the Turk guerrillas who would oppose such a perceived humiliation. But if the Turkish government declares itself a vassal of Russia – their savior from the Kurdish threat, that would bring full legitimacy to its capitulation… even if the Turks fought against such an existential threat for about 500 years. All of that goes up like the vapors of a narghile pipe.

The end of the Cold War actually took place in-between 1979-83 with the final Madrid Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which means that the world is now being carved up in a different way, finally rolling up the loose ends, specifically the difficult-to-sell American retreat from Europe and the Middle East.

ISRAEL SHAMIR

Do you remember the terrible onslaught of the mainstream media on presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016? Dozens of revelations about his fake hair, pussy grabbing, tax avoidance and what not; dozens of public polls proving that the nation wanted Hillary and hated Trump, opinion pieces convincing you that only racist white trash could think of voting for him. They even printed that Time weekly (or was it Newsweek?) cover with a Madam President! greeting. And then came the day of counting.

This development comes to my mind as I follow the incessant attacks in the Russian media and social networks on presidential candidate Paul N. Grudinin (usually nicknamed Gru). Russian state-owned TV is supposed, by its charter, to play a neutral role in the election campaign. They did it for a week after his name was entered into the race. In that week’s time, Gru’s rating skyrocketed and almost reached that of President Putin. This was an unexpected turn of events for the Kremlin, whose political witch-doctors expected Gru to make a modest showing and to improve the doubtful legitimacy of the forthcoming elections.

When they recognised the magnitude of their mistake, they gave a command to their obedient TV channels, and Gru became the target of their daily attacks. Out of eight candidates, Gru is the only one who gets negative coverage. About him, they speak bad or nothing, just like about Trump in the US in his time.

A veteran candidate, the old Nationalist Zhirinovsky gets plenty of time on the TV, for he has only one message, Down with Gru. His wild attacks on Gru are broadcasted in every election campaign program every evening on the TV.

There is a spoiler, a tiny ‘Russian Communists’ Trotskyite party, whose only purpose in life is to steal votes from the mainstream Communist Party (KPRF). It is a virtual party that disappears after elections to come back to life before new elections. Some innocent souls in the Russian hinterland vote for them being convinced that this is theCommunist Party. They are violently anti-Gru, and post like mad in Facebook their denunciations of the not-quite-communist Gru.

However, Gru is not a run-of-the-mill communist candidate. A successful manager of an agricultural holding called Lenin Sovkhoz, he is a good example of Russian industrialists otherwise called ‘Red directors’, that is managers of Soviet factories and enterprises who adjusted to the new system. They are producers of goods for local consumption, and their interests do not coincide with those of the Putin (or Yeltsin) oligarchs. Those oligarchs made their fortunes by importing consumer goods and exporting raw materials; they are the base of Putin’s power.

The producers, both industrialists and agriculturalists, want more protectionist measures and cheaper credits, they want to boost the buying power of ordinary Russians, that is increase salaries and pensions. Their fortunes lie with the fortunes of the ordinary Russian workers. They are dissatisfied with President Putin, and even more with his government led by Mr Medvedev.

Gru became the candidate for a plethora of political organisations from the Left and from the Right; he is supported by Russian Nationalists, though his main alliance is with the KPRF (the mainstream Russian Communist Party). He is a combination of Sanders and Trump, for workers, against immigration, for protective trade barriers and low-cost credits for small producers. A self-made-man of the upper-middle class, not a billionaire, but definitely a wealthy man, he does not scare middle-class Russians who would be afraid to support a real red-in-tooth-and-claw Communist.

Though the official prediction grouop, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, VTSIOM (ВЦИОМ) claims 70% of electorate will vote for Putin and only 7% for Grudinin, the feeling on the ground is very different. There are a few sites allowing people to express their preference by “voting”; a biggish site of this sort is http://president-rf.ru/ where out of 180,000 voters 60% preferred Gru, and only 30% voted for President Putin. On other sites, Gru gets anything from 30 to 80 per cent of the vote.

It is difficult to predict the result, and it is still over a month until election day, but VTSIOM’s assessment appears too low to justify the ferocious campaign against Gru. If he were about to get 6-7%, the top wheeler-dealer, the presidential administration, would not bother and would not activate its troll factories and fake social network accounts to stop Grudinin. It seems that man has a chance to win the battle, that is if the elections are reasonably fair.

Putin has been a good president, and a popular one, but he has his limitations. He still feels obliged to keep the Deal he made with the late President Yeltsin; he still keeps fighting the Soviet memory, he is surrounded by his buddies who roll in cash; he does not support local production except for the weapons industry. While he was good for a long while, there is a feeling that the country is ripe for a changing of the guard.

A teacher in the preparatory school may be wonderful, but sooner or later, the child should move on, to new teachers. Gru is the first man who has excited the Russians since 1996, and he is likely to make a strong bid.

The Russian Left is Different.

Grudinin has the support of the left and of the right; of workers and of managers; of communists and of nationalists. How could this happen? The main reason is that the Russian Left is quite different from the European Left. The Russians are Bolsheviks. The Western Left is predominantly Menshevik.

Historically, the Russian Social Democrats were divided into Bolsheviks, the Majorites, and Mensheviks, the Minorites. The actual argument that divided the Social Democrats into these majority and minority groups is of little importance now and of even less relevance. Nowadays, the Majorites are the Left for the Majority, while Minorites are the Left for Minorities.

The Russian Left is the force for the majority, for the workers, for the natives. The Western Left is for gender, ethnic, religious minorities. If you’d ask a Western worker about the Left, he will probably tell you: the Left is not for us, they care only for gays and migrants who take our jobs.

Mensheviks are (and were) better for Jews, as Jews are the ultimate minority. Bolsheviks accepted Jews as individuals and equals, not as a separate and preferred minority group. Bolsheviks fought against the Bund, the Jewish Social Democrats, while the Mensheviks joined with the Bund.

Stalin observed (and Trotsky quoted that in his book on Stalin):

“the majority of the Menshevik group were Jews. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the Bolshevik group were ethnic Russians. In this connection a Bolshevik observed in jest that the Mensheviks constituted a Jewish group while the Bolsheviks constituted a true-Russian group and, therefore, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us Bolsheviks to organise a pogrom in the Party”.

While being comradely to Jewish comrades, Stalin effectively de-Jewified the Russian Communist Party by bringing in many ethnic Russian workers and peasants. He treated the Jews as just one of the tribes populating Eurasia, not as the Chosen Ones. This is the sin of Stalin in Jewish eyes, and that is why they condemn him now.

The Jewish influence in the Western Left has survived all these years and even outlived the massive Jewish involvement with the Left. After 1968, the Jews en masse departed to new pastures, but their influence lingered, entrenching the Jewish-friendly Menshevik tendency. They adapted the Western Left to fit their preferences and made it suitable for cohabitation with the elites. Along the way, they had lost their working class support, but they were more interested in keeping with the rulers.

The Jewish-run Mensheviks fit perfectly into the oligarchy. They believe that Anna and Susan Wojicki, the former wife of Sergei (“Google”) Brin and her sister, are unhappy discriminated women, unlike welders and auto mechanics, who are white men, the patriarchal lords of the world.

The Bolsheviks struggle for women’s equality is exemplified in free kindergartens, and the Mensheviks, in reserved places for women in the directorships of large companies.

Mensheviks are concerned about the rights of transgender people to a urinal of their preference. The Bolsheviks are concerned about the right of workers to work, to a decent wage, to their share of natural resources. You can easily understand what sort of Left is preferred in the eyes of mainstream media and their billionaire owners.

Migrants provide another cause of distinction. The Western working class achieved much during the years of the Cold War, when the Western ruling class had to compete with the Communists for workers’ loyalty. Now the rulers are eager to void these achievements – and the easiest way is through population replacement by the massive importation of migrants and refugees. For this purpose, Capital is waging wars in the Middle East and fanning strife in Africa, and they facilitate the refugees’ flight to Europe and America.

The Mensheviks, that is the Western Left, support migrants against the indigenous population, in the name of their anti-racism and internationalism. However, for all practical reasons they do the work for their masters, because migrants are easier to manipulate, they help to lower salaries, to undermine the workers’ organisations, and to destroy natural solidarity.

The Bolsheviks are against the causes of mass migration, against the use of migrants and refugees to the detriment of the indigenous population. This is the position of the Russian Communists, whose anti-migration rhetoric is so outspoken that even Trumpists would find it too brusque.

Mr Grudinin has a history of anti-immigration demands behind him. He calls for enforcing a visa regime with the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan, as now their working migrants do not need a Russian visa. He insists that every working migrant should be given the same salary as a native Russian worker, the idea being that in such conditions there will be less demand for migrants’ labour. Perhaps it makes sense to hire inexperienced dirt-cheap Tajik migrants, but if for the same price you can hire a qualified Russian worker, you will probably employ the latter.

Grudinin’s suggestions are anathema to the neo-liberal Kremlin. Putin keeps the doors of Russia wide open for immigration, to the detriment of native workers. If the immigration flow has decreased it is mostly the result of Rouble’s depreciation.

In the West, these ideas of limiting migration belong fully to the realm of the Right, or even the Alt-Right. They are described as “populist”, meaning they are popular but disapproved by the ruling elites. The Western Left has been manipulated into an unpopular position, while the popular (‘populist’) ideas have been transferred to the Right.

In Russia, the Russian Communists did not follow the path of the Mensheviks. They made all sorts of compromises, but they always stayed for the workers. They do not fight for gays, migrants and upper-class feminists. They make allies with the producers and against the rentiers and bankers.

Perhaps the Russian Communists will show the way to their Western comrades as they did a hundred years ago. These two branches of the world Left movement have had a checkered history. In the 19th century, the new-born Russian revolutionary movement was keen to learn from the West; the Russian Narodniks went on a pilgrimage to visit Marx in London seeking his advice. The Western revolutionaries of that time (including Marx) were as distrustful of Russians as Robert Mueller or John McCain. They thought Russia was so backward and so reactionary that a Russian progressive Left was an impossibility.

And then something unexpected had happened. When the guns of the First World War struck, only the Russian Left, led by Vladimir Lenin, did not lose their heads, but led their country to the victory of socialist revolution. After 1917, for many years the Russian Left was the guiding star for the world Left.

The Russians paid heavily for their cutting edge achievement, while the European peoples became the main beneficiaries of the October Revolution. They’ve got all the Russians fought for, for free. Their leaders were afraid their workers would go over to the Communists; and thus the welfare state came into being.

Eventually, both branches of the Left forgot their history. The Western Left forgot their victories were due to the Red Army’s might, and they proudly preached the new-fangled theories of Euro-Communism. The Russians, always eager to learn a new trick, fell for it, and dismantled the socialist state, sincerely expecting they would live as good as Swedes. The end was gruesome: the Russians were plunged into long years of depopulation and de-industrialisation, while the flagship of the Western left, the huge Euro-Communist parties of France and Italy disappeared. Swedish socialism has almost perished.

Over the years, the Western Left virtually disappeared, and its place was taken by the pseudo-left, who appropriated the name of the historical Left parties. Capital raised in its secret labs this poisonous pseudo-Left, with one supreme goal in mind – to make the very name of communism obnoxious and repelling.

For the Bolsheviks, the Good Ones were workers, they were the salt of the earth. Everyone could join this class by identifying with workers. The Menshevik pseudo-left has offered a shortcut to join the Good Ones: Identity Politics. You are Good if you are discriminated against. If you are black, you suffer discrimination, even if you are an Obama. If you are a woman, you suffer discrimination. If you like BDSM, you are discriminated against. If you are a migrant, you are discriminated against. If you are a Jew, a Soros or a Rothschild, you are still suffer discrimination, for just half a century ago your grandfather was not allowed to join a country club.

For Bolsheviks, discrimination is not the most urgent problem. They are surely against discrimination; but it takes a backseat after the really important question: labour/capital relationship. When the working people win, discrimination will vanish, they say. By keeping the eye on this most important bottom line, the Bolsheviks are the greatest natural enemies of the 1%.

The cause of socialism was defeated in 1991, no doubt, but it is not the first defeat. In November 1941, when the German troops reached the outskirts of Moscow, it also appeared socialism had been defeated. However, in 1945 socialism rebounded. Since 1991, the winner, Capital, claims its victory is irrevocable and irreversible. It is, they say, the end of history.

But victories and defeats can be reversed. The Soviets did not know that. They believed that “the victory of socialism is inevitable because it is progressive.” Perhaps in the long run it is inevitable, but it can happen in a thousand years, and meanwhile a nuclear war or biological experiments can exterminate the human race.

The most basic ideals of French Republic – democracy, liberty, equality – were defeated by Napoleon, by the Bourbons, by Orleans, but they rebounded.

Nothing is inevitable. The Soviet Bolsheviks believed in inevitability – and lost; while their adversaries just fought hard, not giving an inch – and won. Their attitude should be emulated. The people of the West are ready for the real-Left turn. Recent successes of Jeremy Corbyn in England, of Bernie Sanders in the US, of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France prove it. They are soft, but hard ones will come, too.

This is not the beginning of the end of the cruel man-eating neo-liberalism and its Menshevik allies, but this is the end of the beginning in the universal battle for socialism, as Churchill said of the British victory over the Germans at El Alamein. The light at the end of the tunnel is already visible. And then the Russian Communists will again become the beacon for the workers of the world.

Gru’s success can change a lot of things. His worldview has many points in common with Donald Trump. In a month’ time, we shall know how far this Russian Trump has succeeded in advancing.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam

This article was first published at The Unz Review.

AaronB says:

Of course, Israeli Arabs, Jew or not, become hideous under Americanized culture. Happens in America too. It’s a thin veneer. Take away the artificial Europeans crust, it’ll fall away naturally.

European cities are quite a bit older than Tel Aviv, as is Bangkok. The Jewish quarter in Jerusalem, populated mainly by American Ashkenazi Jews, is clean and nice – and hideously dull.

It really is about a different sensibility. If the Dutch lived in Tel Aviv, it would look completely different.

The average Israeli is much poorer than the average person in the UK, and the country feels a million times more run down and less modern. GDP reflects massive inequality, worse than in America. Which is what you would expect in a country heavily influenced by American Jews .

The future of Israel may be Ashdod – tiny super wealthy enclaves, hideously dull and sanitized, in a sea of Middle Eastern chaos.

As life becomes dull and materialistic under the neoliberal regime that is creating Ashdods and driving inequality, morale declines, and there is an increasing reliance on technology to fight wars.

I cannot tell you how many unhappy and disaffected Israelis I meet abroad.

With America in terminal decline, the fragile, artificial entity, brittle at its core, will be absorbed into the region.

Dissident X says:

Hadith is to the Koran what the Talmud is to the Torah, except that in Islam, there is a major schism between those that refute and reject the Hadith, Moslems, and those that accept it, takfiri heretics. In ‘judaism’ (a made-up word meaning nothing intrinsically), this schism has NOT occurred, and the extremist leadership runs the ideological collective.

Islam respects all men as equal under a supreme being, whether they are in the house (i.e. Moslem) or not in the house. Torah-Talmudism is based on absolute rejection of the universality of people under the supreme being, self-recognizing only their common adherents as ‘chosen’ and worthy of and in receipt of the blessing and favour of the higher being.

How truly pathetic is that? (very truly pathetic, it seems to me).

All ‘jews’ should actually read the talmud, and then make up their minds whether they want to include themselves with with an affiliation for which systemic hatred is the basis for their identity.
Many decent people would leave the value-proposition (favourable rights, i.e. more, and responsibilities i.e. less) and publicly disassociate themselves from these global gangsters.

Read “The Controversy of Zion” by Douglas Reed http://www.controversyofzion.info/Controversybook/reeedcontrov.pdf

Please, if you love this planet, encourage everyone you know, nicely, and politely, to read this book!

Here is what is true about those issues. The one Kingdom of Israel split into two nations. Essentially, 9 tribes (and half of the tribe of Benjamin) made up the larger part of the split and kept the name Israel. The other two tribes and half of Benjamin took the name Judah, from the largest of the tribes, and the tribe of David, as well as the tribe from which the prophesied Messias/Christos would come. In addition to David’s tribe and messianic prophecy, Judah had Jerusalem and thus the Temple.

Because Judah had the Temple, the northern kingdom, which God specifically allowed to come to fruition essentially peacefully, began as religiously schismatic. As Mosaic religion requires the Temple, even devout Abraham/Moses religious Hebrews in Israel were cut off from the religion partly at first and then, after the construction of a non-religiously sanctioned new temple in Israel, totally.

The people of Judah began calling the people of Israel Samaritans, after the capital, and damned the new temple and everything to do with it as not authorized by God and therefore heretical.

When the Assyrians conquered Israel, the Judeans said it proved God’s fury at the false temple. The Assyrians – true Semites – used a policy of ethnic destruction of those they conquered by castrating most males and forcing the conquered women to marry or be concubines for Assyrians or for men whose people had been pacified under Assyrian rule. Probably all Israelite men who were allowed to keep their testicles would have been forced to marry non-Israelite women.

So, almost immediately upon being conquered, the people living in Israel/Samaria were made half-breeds. And that is what the Judeans began focusing on: the Samaritans were not racially pure.

The Chaldean/Neo-Babylonians who conquered Judea much later transported almost all important Judeans eastward, but they did not force everyone to inter-breed with non-Judeans. So when Judeans were allowed to return to Judea by the Persians (who had conquered Babylon), they saw themselves as having been saved genetically, racially, by God, which proved that Samaritans, being all half-breeds at best, were evil and perhaps evil because of being half-breed.

The Judeans purged mixed marriages among themselves and set a course of equating Jewish pure blood with any chance of being good before God.

And God Incarnate made that utter perversion of the Law of Moses central to condemning the Pharisees.

If not earlier, soon after the failure of the false messiah Simon bar Kokhba rebellion against Rome (ended 136 AD), the vast majority of Samaritans would have been Christian.

ISRAEL SHAMIR • JANUARY 26, 2018 • 2,100 WORDS

While you have probably already forgotten the feast, Russia is only now slowly coming back to life after its overlong Christmas break completed on January 14 by the quaintly named Old New Year, or even perhaps by the Epiphany on January 19. Everybody went somewhere, even candidates for the presidential race coming in on March 18: the Communist one went to ski in Austria, while the right-winger went to Bali. On the eve of Epiphany, they dipped in the ice-cold waters: the ultimate trial of Russian fitness. Not only he-man Putin, but even she-woman Sobchak did it!

And now, at last, as the feasts are over, the real trial begins. The US is preparing a new round of sanctions, including seizure of Russian oligarch assets. They are ripe for collection. The confiscation of Russian holdings in Cyprus banks in 2013 passed without a hitch and served as a trial balloon. Putin didn’t object overmuch, for he is a sworn enemy of offshore accounts. None of the fleeced Russian businessmen succeeded in recovering their losses in court. Now is the time for the real thing, and much of the anti-Russian hysteria is aimed at preparing the ground for the seizure. In this way, they plan to get a cool trillion dollars into the US Treasury. Who will lose his assets and who will survive, this is the talk of the day in Moscow.

The Russian assets in the west could be divided into New Money, assets of Putin’s people, and the Old Money, assets of Yeltsin’s people. The sanctions are supposed to deal with Putin’s people, but Russian experts think the Old Money is more vulnerable, for a good reason. The New Money is under Putin’s protection. If the US or any other western authority grabs it, the Russian government may seize Western shares in Russian companies and properties.

But what about the Old Money? Its owners, elder oligarchs, are extremely worried about Putin’s nonchalance. Putin takes it easy, they say. Ma’alish, the Arab in Putin says. Que sera sera, says his inner Frenchman. And this nonchalant attitude drives the oligarchs crazy. They want him to fight and save their money. They insisted on his meeting with President Trump in Vietnam; some say the meeting took place in the depth of the night, far from prying eyes, and didn’t bring results. Now Putin says to the Old Money: if you want to save your money, repatriate it to Russia. We aren’t that mad, they reply. You have to defend us anyway! That was the Deal!

Now we are coming to a difficult part. The Deal. Connected people, in-the-know, claim that a top-secret agreement was reached between the late Mr Yeltsin and his cronies, on one side, and The West, on the other side, in 1991. Yeltsin et al had sold Russia’s interests down the river, and in return, The West allowed the bastards to hoard their ill-gotten gains in the Western financial system. Yeltsin et al had promised to let the Soviet republics go; to disarm; to follow the Washington Consensus, i.e. to stick to the liberal economic model; to allow the free import of consumer goods; to allow Western access to the Russian military complex; to let the West write Russian laws; to permit the free outflow of capital from Russia. The West promised to bring investment, to let Russia live in peace, to keep NATO away from Russian borders.

Mr Putin inherited The Deal. Slowly, the Deal has been eroded from both sides. NATO troops moved eastward, no sizeable investment came in, the West supported Chechen rebels. Russia limited Western access to its military-industrial complex; took Crimea; regained some of its international independence.

Putin was elected, or you may say, he was appointed to stick to the Deal and to serve as the Supreme Arbiter among the oligarchs, with very little of a power base of his own. Slowly, he created his own oligarchs (they are described as “siloviki”, though not all of them have some security forces background), and he had built up a limited power base; though many important positions, in particular in the economic sphere, remained in the hands of the Old Guard, Yeltsin’s men. This, too, was a part of the Deal.

The powerful personalities of Yeltsin’s era remained embedded in the upper echelons of Putin’s state. Chubais and Kudrin were and are untouchable. They are connected with the FRS and the IMF, they go to Bilderberg and Davos, they are often described as ‘the colonial administration’. They steal with both hands, and do it with impunity. Just last week it was revealed and published that Mr Chubais and Mr Kudrin appropriated a cool billion dollars of Russian state money while repaying the Soviet debt to the Czech Republic. The worst Putin can do about them is to give them a fat chunk of the Russian economy to chew on, while limiting their access to the rest. So he gave Mr Chubais the Rusnano company that made no profit but embezzled billions. This was the Deal.

Yeltsin’s oligarchs remained as rich as they were; Yeltsin’s family still possesses immense riches. And Putin does not dare to touch them. He goes hat in hand to open a Yeltsin’s Memorial Centre; he is courteous with Yeltsin’s widow and daughter. Putin’s establishment cautiously avoided celebration, or even mention of the Revolution centenary, in keeping with Yeltsin’s anticommunism. This is the Deal.

The topmost schools of Russia, the most endowed, the most privileged schools for the children of the new nobility are the HSE, (the Higher School of Economics, a clone of the LSE and the economic think-tank of the government), and MGIMO, (Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the school for perspective diplomats). Their graduates were been trained to despise Russia and admire the neo-liberal West (just like the Indian students trained by the Brits, had admired England and despised their country in the days of the British Raj). Professor Medvedev of the HSE called upon Russian government to transfer the Russian Far North to the international community, though this is the place of the greatest gas reserves (he kept his position). Professor Zubov of the MGIMO had compared Putin to Hitler, and denounced Russian diplomats as liars (his contract hasn’t been prolonged). All that is a part of the Deal.

Putin has been unhappy with the Deal for a long time, vocally so since his Munich talk in 2007, but he stuck to the script. Even now, Russia’s economy follows the liberal model; billions of dollars are being siphoned out of Russia monthly; billions of dollars’ worth of Western manufactured consumer goods are imported and sold in Russia, though it would make perfect sense to organise local manufacture. Russia’s Central Bank is directly connected to the Western finance system, and its emission is limited by the amount of hard currency in its coffers. The Rouble carry trade prospers, like the Yen carry trade did years ago.

Meanwhile, the Deal has been undone from the West, as a result of the epic struggle between Bankers and Producers, otherwise described as Liberals vs. Conservatives, or Globalists vs. Regionalists, personalised as Clinton vs. Trump. Yeltsin’s people are historically aligned with the Clinton camp. Now, their assets in the West, previously protected by the Deal, have lost their protection and come up for grabs.

The Old Money people are putting their effort into persuading the West, namely the US, to let them live in peace and instead confiscate the pro-Putin New Money.

This presented the golden opportunity for the anti-Putin activists, the time they can collect the fruit of their hard work. A somewhat typical anti-Putin activist is an émigré, Mr Andrey Illarionov, a Yeltsin man, an ex-adviser to President Putin (until 2005), a US resident, a member of the loony Cato Institute and an adept of Ayn Rand. He is an anti-Russian fanatic; next to him Rachel Maddow is a Putin groupie and Tokyo Rose a symbol of patriotism. Speaking to the Congress Committee of Foreign Affairs in 2009, he famously claimed about the US administration policy towards Russia that “it is not even an appeasement policy so well known to us by another Munich decision in 1938, it is a surrender. A full, absolute, unconditional surrender to the regime of secret police officers, chekists and Mafiosi”. Despite these fighting words, he is a frequent visitor to Moscow, and he never misses a demo where he can call out “Putin must leave” apparently unafraid of the “secret police officers, chekists and Mafiosi”. This is all you should know about the totalitarian Russian regime!

(Émigrés are frequently like that, and the US, a country of immigrants, had been vulnerable to the attack by Illarionov Syndrome, by listening to Masha Gessen, or to Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi émigré who claimed Iraq has had WMD, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn with his horror stories about GULAG, etc. I made it a rule to moderate my critique of Israel while abroad, in fear of failing the Illarionov Sanity Test.)

Now Mr Illarionov is lobbying the US Congress to remove its threats from the heads of those deserving oligarchs, who (in his words) amassed their fortune before advent of Mr Putin and “in order to survive, they had been forced to pay a large tribute to the Kremlin”. His lobbying effort on behalf of the Old Money people has been shared and supported by two notorious Putin haters, a fellow émigré Piontkovsky and a Swedish Neo-Con Anders Aslund.

Direct and generous beneficiaries of their lobbying are the Three Alpha Jews, Peter Aven, Michael Friedman and Herman Khan. They are owners of the Alpha Bank, a very big Russian bank , and they are Old Money oligarchs from Yeltsin’s days when their kin ruled the land.

Michael Friedman, the fat guy with a jolly piglet face, rose to his eminence from being a ticket tout selling illegally obtained opera tickets to Western tourists near Bolshoi Theatre; afterwards he became The Mind behind all ticket mafias in Moscow, and then proceeded to banking and so many other things.

Like many Old Money guys, Friedman earns money in Russia, but siphons it off for Jewish causes. He is a co-founder of a “Jewish Nobel Prize”, also called Genesis Prize, a cool million dollars being given annually to a deserving Jew, the most recent one being the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg who called Donald Trump, “the faker”. This is not a coincidence; the Russian Old Money is solidly in bed with the Clinton camp. If Friedman succeeds in escaping the sanctions, it will be an additional proof that the Bankers still have the upper hand in the US Administration.

Alternatively, it could mean they are just smart and able to play the both houses. The Three Alpha Jews had been mentioned in the Steele Dossier as the conduit of Putin influence for Trump and against Clinton in the recent US Presidential elections. (They are suing Fusion GPS and BuzzFeed for spreading the accusation).

According to an even better conspiracy theory spread on the social networks, both Mr Illarionov and the smart Alpha Jews are a sleeper cell organised by cunning Mr Putin to ensure his survival in the most adverse conditions. All of them were very friendly with Putin; perhaps they just pretended to become his enemies, the conspiratorially minded journalist from the anti-Putin Echo Moskwy has implied.

Leaving the conspiracy theories aside for a while, we can reach a conclusion. The forthcoming attack of the US establishment on Russian assets is likely to undermine the Old Money of the Yeltsin Oligarchs, and not only them. This confiscation will spell the death knell to the notorious Deal, and then we shall see Putin Unbound.

But perhaps it is too late for him. An unverifiable odd rumour has risen in Moscow. They say that the Communist candidate Pavel Grudinin has strong backing among the “siloviki”, that is Putin’s appointees, often but not exclusively of security services background, for they are unhappy with Putin’s adherence to the Deal. But that will be the subject of my next piece.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam

This article was first published at The Unz Review.

EDITOR’S CHOICE | 28.01.2018

Eric S. MARGOLIS

While we agonize over such life and death questions as clumsy men groping women and the crucial need for gender and racial ‘inclusion,’ let me spare a few seconds thought to something really important and scary: Russia’s doomsday nuclear torpedo.

Code-named by NATO ‘Kanyon,’ it’s reportedly something new and terrifying, a ‘third strike’ weapon designed to obliterate the US east and west coasts in a nuclear war. US intelligence seems to think this doomsday weapon is very real indeed.

I just re-watched for the umpteenth time the wonderful, 1964 Kubrick film, ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and marveled anew at how prescient this razor-sharp satire was. In the film, the Soviets admit they ran out of money to keep up the nuclear arms race with the United States. Their answer was to create a secret, automated doomsday nuclear device that would destroy the entire planet in the event of a major war.

Now, the Russians appear to have responded to a new, trillion dollar US program to develop and deploy an anti-missile system that would negate their ballistic missile system: the ‘Kanyon.’ Fact imitates fiction.

This revelation comes just after the Trump administration has also embarked on new programs to deploy an entire new generation of lower yield nuclear weapons that can be used for tactical war-fighting purposes. North Korea and Iran are the evident targets, as well as Afghanistan. But there is now talk aplenty in Pentagon circles about waging a limited tactical nuclear war against Russia. New US bomber and drone programs are being speeded up. War talk is in the air. Military stocks are booming.

‘Kanyon,’ according to the right-wing Heritage Foundation, a cheerleader for military spending, is a mammoth 100-megaton nuclear device carried by an unmanned submarine. This monster weapon is designed to detonate on the US west coast, destroying the ports of San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The device is reportedly covered with cobalt, for maximum radioactive effect.

A similar device launched from the Atlantic Ocean would devastate the US East coast, leaving it under a lethal shroud of radiation for generations.

If these reports are true, any hopes that some US generals have of fighting and winning a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange with Russia or China (never mind India) are absurd. But in fact any serious nuclear exchange between the great powers would be a death sentence for the entire planet, wrapping us in a lethal shroud of nuclear winter.

One US intelligence study done of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan estimated two million immediate dead and 100 million deaths within weeks. That was from a rather limited nuclear war using first generation weapons. Today’s weapons have ten times the explosive power.

Russia has a large and effective nuclear arsenal. The sharp decline of Russia’s once-mighty conventional military forces after 1991 drove Moscow to place ever greater reliance on nuclear weapons to defend its interests. Russia has also begun introducing modernized nuclear weapons in strategic and tactical versions. China is also slowly developing its nuclear forces to be able to fight a thermonuclear war against the United States and India at the same time.

President Trump, who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War on spurious medical grounds, appears infatuated by military affairs and the panoply of weapons that he commands. In an act of historic irresponsibility, he has brought the US to the edge of nuclear war against North Korea heedless of the dire consequences of even a ‘small’ nuclear war in Asia.

Anyone who thinks a nuclear war can be waged without permanently polluting our planet should be put under psychiatric care. As crazy as this notion sounds, there are some senior US generals who share this view and, most likely, President Trump, the man with the big red button. Russia’s marshals are more cautious. They still see the scars of World War II, in which some 27 million Soviet civilians died, and know what war means.

Perhaps leaks about this Russian monster weapon are clever disinformation spread by Moscow to give the Americans a big scare. Let’s hope so because, if real, they should scare the pants off all of us.

ericmargolis.com