At this juncture it’s clear that the attempt of the Trump Administration and related circles in the US military industrial complex have failed in their prime objective, that of driving a permanent wedge between Russia and China, the two great Eurasian powers capable of peacefully ending the Sole Superpower hegemony of the United States. Some recent examples of seemingly small steps with enormous future economic and geopolitical potential between Russia and China underscore this fact. The Project of the Century, as we can now call the China One Belt One Road infrastructure development–the economic integration on a consensual basis by the nations of Eurasia, outside the domination of NATO countries of the USA and EU–is proceeding at an interesting pace in unexpected areas.

1971: America’s Twilight Begins

It’s very essential in my view to appreciate where the post-1944 development of America’s role in the world went seriously wrong. The grandiose project dubbed by Henry Luce in 1941 as the American Century, if I were to pick a date, began its twilight on August 15, 1971.

That was the point in time a 44-year-old Under-Secretary of the Treasury for International Monetary Affairs named Paul Volcker convinced a clueless President Richard Milhous Nixon that the treaty obligations of the 1944 Bretton Woods Treaty on a postwar Gold Exchange Standard should be simply ignored. Volcker rejected the express mandate of the Bretton Woods Treaty which would have seen a devaluation of the dollar in order to rebalance world major currencies. By 1971 the economies of war-ravaged countries such as Japan, Germany and France had rebuilt at a significantly higher level of efficiency than the US.

A devaluation of the dollar would have given a major boost to US industrial exports and eased the export of dollar inflation in the world arising from Lyndon Johnson’s huge Vietnam War budget deficits. The de-industrialization of the USA could have thereby been avoided. Wall Street would hear none of that. Their mantra in effect was, “Nothin’ personal, just bizness…” The banks began the destruction of the American industrial base in favor of cheap labor and ultra-high-profit manufacture abroad.

Instead of correcting that at a point it could have had an enormously positive economic effect, Volcker advised Nixon to in effect spit on America’s international treaty obligations and to brazenly dare the world to do something about it. On Volcker’s advice, Nixon simply ripped the treaty in shreds and ended Federal Reserve redemption of dollars held by foreign central banks for US gold reserves. The US dollar overnight was no longer “as good as gold.”

A serious dollar devaluation against currencies of America’s major trading partners, while it could have given a new lease on life to America’s industries, would have greatly reduced the power of the Wall Street banks. It was from David Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank that Volcker came to Washington.

Paul Volcker’s unilateral suspension of gold-dollar redemption began a series of moves, as I document in The Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century. The floating dollar allowed the increasingly more powerful and more unregulated banks of Wall Street to destroy the industrial base of the United States, the world’s once-great economy, and to create a debt burden that today is so out-of-control that it perhaps can only be managed through a possible war or countless wars everywhere, failing some variation of a US national Chapter 9 bankruptcy reorganization.

That a new war so readily can be considered a solution by the American oligarchs behind Wall Street and the huge military-industrial complex should not surprise us. We need only realize that since the nation’s founding in 1776, the United States has been at war with someone for 214 of her 235 years of existence as a nation. That’s impressive, at least in the negative.

The American Century is crumbling before our eyes, and has been doing so for the near-five decades since August, 1971. That willful ignoring of the health of the economy of the United States over decades has created a vast moral, political and economic vacuum in the world today.

Into that vacuum other nations outside Washington’s NATO control are building what I have termed a Eurasian Century, a very lawful and positive response to an increasingly totalitarian Washington role in the world.

The contrast between what China, together with Russia, and the other nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Eurasia are doing to build up their common economic space, and what the United States, Britain and other NATO nations are doing to destroy, could not be more stark.

A Eurasian Century Advances

I’ve often written about the 2013 initiative of China’s far-sighted President Xi Jinping, the project called One belt, One Road (OBOR), or the New Economic Silk Road. I’m now preparing a book dealing with the various levels of its strategic global impact. The three strategic partners in the economic projects around OBOR that are transforming the economic potentials of the world economy in a positive direction are China, Russia–including Russia’s partners in the Eurasian Economic Union–and Iran. Here I want to take a selection of game-changing projects going forward, with almost no appreciation by mainstream Western media, involving Russia and China.

The huge and ambitious infrastructure development of high-speed Trans-Eurasian railway connections together with a network of deep water ports from Asia to the Middle East and on to Greece and other parts of Europe, is a huge project creating over the next several years millions of new skilled jobs and economic spending in the trillions of dollars. This will take place over the next two or more decades.

OBOR is transforming the industrial geography of the world in a tectonic shift away from more than five centuries of European and later Trans-Atlantic domination. The shift is to a new world ordering in which the nations with the largest populations are emerging and expressing their rightful national sovereignty, and rightly demanding their sovereign right to decide how to develop their own vast resources for their own development. In effect it contrasts with a de facto imperial US-controlled globalization to the alternative defense of national sovereignty. This is a very serious difference between West (NATO) and East (OBOR).

Russian Grain as Strategic Asset

A little-noted area of strategic development between China and her neighbor, Russia, involves grain, lots of it. I want to put the focus briefly there.

In 2016, ironically as a direct consequence of the foolish and self-defeating US Treasury and EU economic sanctions against the Russian Federation, Russia counter-sanctioned EU agriculture imports and began to intensively revive her dormant agriculture production, including signing into law a total ban on GMO commercial crops in Russia, the land blessed by nature and geography with the richest nutrient-endowed black earth soils.

One of the lingering consequences of the catastrophic rape of Russia’s economy during the Yeltsin era by Washington and the Harvard Shock Therapy boys in the 1990s was the opening of Russia to EU food imports, most of it industrialized from giant Western agribusiness conglomerates like Kraft Foods, Tyson, Unilever, Nestle and others, food products of dubious nutritional value. Russians forgot how delicious and nutritious Russian domestic food was. After 1990 Russian supermarket shelves were filled indeed, but with Western “fake foods.”

With the recent USA and EU economic sanctions, Russian agriculture has boomed since 2014. In 2016 Russia surpassed the United States and the combined 28-nation EU as the world’s largest producer and exporter of grain.

The Western grain industry is astonished at the dramatic turnaround in Russian grain and agriculture output. What they likely did not realize was that in the years from 2008-2012–when according to the Russian Constitution Vladimir Putin was prohibited from serving a third consecutive term as President–Putin served as Prime MInister with responsibility over Russia’s economy among other areas. There he quietly initiated select market reforms that prepared the way for the dramatic renaissance of Russian agriculture after 2014 as a world factor.

During the 1980’s Russia had become far the world’s largest grain and agriculture importer after catastrophic harvest failures. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger acted as broker for Cargill and the US Grain Cartel companies, at the same time that Kissinger’s Middle East “shuttle diplomacy” was manipulating a Yom Kippur War that triggered an OPEC oil embargo against the USA and Europe. Kissinger negotiated the huge sale of US grain to the Soviet Union at outrageously high prices. It was known in grain trading circles as the “Great Grain Robbery.” It was at that same time, with a Washington-orchestrated 400% oil price shock and a similar 300% rise in essential world grain prices, that Kissinger reportedly boasted, “If you control oil, you control entire nations; if you control food, you control the people…”

That Russian import dependency on western grain lasted until very recently. Now, for the harvest year 2016-2017 according to the US Department of Agriculture and the International Grains Council, Russia will export some 30 million tons of GMO-free grain, exceeding the EU’s 27 million tons and USA with 25.5 million tons.

The geopolitical as well as economic implications of this profound shift in Russian food production are strategic.

Russia-China Grain Trade

On April 8, 2017, the first freight train loaded with high-quality Russian wheat arrived in Manzhouli, a land port in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, across the border from Russia.

Why is this significant one might ask?

In 2015 China grain imports rose 20 per cent from 2014 to 120 million tons. More than 80 million tons were almost entirely GMO soybeans that came from the USA and Brazil. The rest were mostly cereals such as wheat. Now China for the first time has the possibility of importing directly from neighboring Russia by rail of Russian GMO-free grains. By contrast, more than 94% of all USA soybeans in 2016 according to the US Department of Agriculture was GMO and 89% of all USA corn. This is a huge advantage for GMO-free Russian grains in China.

In December, 2015 the relevant authorities in China and Russia came to a formal agreement on standards of import of wheat, corn, rice and soybeans from GMO-free Russia. The first delivery in April 2017 of Russian wheat was completed. Now the machinery is approved and in place to increase Russian grain imports to China.

China’s state-owned food conglomerate COFCO is responsible for quality control, import and distribution of the Russian grain to the Chinese market. Overland train transport from Russia significantly cuts transport time and cost compared with sea transport. As well, it is far less vulnerable to potential US or NATO economic sanctions.

Currently China grain imports must navigate the perilous conflict zones in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, both areas where the US Navy is escalating tensions under the false argument of maintaining “freedom of navigation.” With present US naval bases in Japan, South Korea and Singapore, Washington could impose an economic blockade on China seaborn grain imports as well as oil and other products.

China COFCO president Yu Xubo said they plan to import 1 million to 2 million tons of wheat from Russia a year, and it may increase to 4 million or 5 million tons a year.

If tensions between Washington and Beijing significantly escalate, the Russian overland railway share of grain exports to China could become geopolitically essential to China’s agriculture security. This “simple” first Russian trainload of wheat to China is not at all being greeted with joy in Washington.

HR 1644

The warhawk faction in the present US House of Representatives has recently introduced a bill deceptively titled HR 1644: The Korea Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act.

The bill is not at all about putative missile threats from North Korea. It’s a sneaky way to try to impose grossly illegal sanctions, de facto acts of war, against China and Russia.

The bill, passed by the House of Representatives on April 29, now is in the Senate for debate. It provides a “legal basis” for US military control over Russian ports in the Far East, military and civilian, as well as over Chinese ports. If passed by the Republican-dominated US Senate, the Bill will allow the US military to “inspect, search and seize any vessel or aircraft suspected in violation of the anti-North Korea sanctions,” according to terms that would be defined unilaterally by Washington. The HR 1644 bill also gives the US military the authority to inspect the sea ports in Russia and China, implying that if they resist the brazen incursion into their sovereignty, they will face far more severe US sanctions.

The HR 1644 Korea Interdiction and Modernization Act bill, if signed into law by the US President, will also sanction Russia’s global food trade because North Korean workers are being employed in Russia’s agricultural sector. The HR 1644 Bill would completely ban the trade of Russia-produced food worldwide in order to replace it with US produced GMO crap that the USA sells as nutritious food.

Beijing moves OBOR forward

On May 14-15 leaders and heads of government of twenty nine nations met in Beijing to discuss the implications of the One Belt, One Road infrastructure development. In his opening greeting, China’s Xi Jinping, the author of the OBOR idea, told attendees that the OBOR should become “a road of peace, prosperity, opening up, innovation and connecting different civilizations. The ancient silk routes thrived in times of peace, but lost vigor in times of war. The pursuit of the Belt and Road Initiative requires a peaceful and stable environment.”

Xi added, “In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we should focus on the fundamental issue of development, release the growth potential of various countries and achieve economic integration and interconnected development and deliver benefits to all.” Xi called for promoting land, maritime, air and cyberspace connectivity, focusing on key passageways, cities and projects, and connecting networks of highways, railways and sea ports. That I must say sounds far better to my ears than wars to defend the hegemony of a bankrupt US military-industrial complex and the Wall Street banks and oil companies.

Russian President Putin was present in Beijing for the OBOR forum. Turkey’s Erdogan also. Notably however, aside from the Prime Minister of Italy, not one leader from a G-7 Western industrial country choose to attend. Trump decided to send a middle-level National Security Council spook, Matthew Pottinger, former intelligence officer in Afghanistan under Lt. General Michael Flynn, who is now in the US National Security Council under McMaster. Trump decided not to send even his Secretary of State Tillerson. Could that be because Washington is fearing the success of the Eurasian Century and the One Belt, One Road? You can bet your booties it is!

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network

Donald Trump’s speech to the leaders of the Muslim world marks a radical change in US military policy. As from now, the enemy is no longer the Syrian Arab Republic, but jihadism, in other words the strategic tool of the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

During his electoral campaign, Donald Trump had declared that he had no interest in overthrowing régimes, although he intends to put an end to Islamic terrorism. Since his election, his adversaries have been attempting to force him to follow their policy – using the power of the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic.

They have used anything they could to destroy the team chosen by candidate Trump, notably by provoking the resignation of his National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn. In 2012, Flynn had opposed Barack Obama’s project to create Daesh, and he continued to finger the Muslim Brotherhood as the source of Islamic terrorism.

Everything has been used to present the new US President as an Islamophobe. He was criticized for having promulgated a decree forbidding entry into his country to citizens of six Muslim States. Democrat magistrates abused their functions in order to uphold this accusation. In reality, Donald Trump has suspended entry for people whose consulates are unable to verify their identity, because they are subject to civil troubles or open war.

The problem that Donald Trump has to face is not posed by the survival of the Syrian Arab Republic, but by the loss of what would represent, for certain allies of Washington, the end of the terrorist strategy. It is clearly recognized in all international conferences that all states are publicly opposed to Islamic terrorism, although in private, some of these states have been organizing it for the last 66 years.

This is primarily the case of the United Kingdom, which, in 1951, built the Muslim Brotherhood on the ruins of the organization of the same name, which had been dissolved two years earlier, and almost all of whose leaders were in prison. It is also the case of Saudi Arabia, who, at the demand of London and Washington, created the Muslim World League in order to support both the Brotherhood and the Naqshbandi Order. It is this League, whose budget is superior to that of the Saudi Ministry of Defense, which supplies money and weapons to the jihadist system throughout the world. And finally, it is also the case of Turkey, which now supervises the command of the military operations of this system.

By concentrating his speech in Riyadh on the clarification of the misconceptions concerning his relations with Islam and the affirmation of his intention to put an end to the jihadist tool of the Anglo-Saxon secret services, Donald Trump imposed his will on the fifty states gathered to listen to him. In order to avoid misunderstanding, his Secretary for Defense, James Mattis, clearly explained his military strategy – to encircle the jihadist groups, and then to exterminate them without allowing a single one to escape.

We do not yet know what London’s reaction will be. As for Riyadh, Donald Trump was very careful to whitewash the Sauds for their past crimes. Saudi Arabia has not been accused of anything, but Iran has been handed the role of scapegoat. This is obviously absurd, since the Muslim Brotherhood and the Naqshbandis are Sunnis, while Teheran is Shiite.

The accusations against Iran have no importance, since Teheran knows which way the wind is blowing. For the last 16 years, Washington – which never misses an opportunity to spit in their faces – has been destroying, one by one, all their enemies – the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and soon Daesh.

What is now in play, as we announced eight months ago, is the end of the “Arab Springs” and the return to regional peace.

by  Thierry Meyssan

Contrary to appearance, the US administration, far from behaving erratically, is attempting to define the framework for its foreign policy. President Donald Trump is negotiating with a spokesperson for the deep State which has been governing his country since 11 September 2001 – and it would seem that they have found the conditions for an agreement, whose details are still to be specified. Members of the administration will have to clarify the White House’s new foreign policy at the end of May, before a Congressional Committee.

[…]

By accusing Syria, in his turn, of having used poison gas, this time in Khan Cheikhoun, and by bombing them immediately, Donald Trump demonstrated the « credibility » that his predecessor lacked.

Aware that Syria was not guilty, either in the Ghouta or in Khan Cheikhoun, he managed to warn the Syrian Arab Army in advance so that they had time to evacuate the base before the strike.

Based on this action, he began negotiations with the deep US State, or at least with one of its spokespersons, Senator John McCain. A representative of Israël, Senator Lindsey Graham, was also present during the discussions.

The Europeans were of course surprised to learn that Donald Trump had acted as a « warlord », thus confirming his status as the President of a member state of the UNO. We have to keep in mind the particular context of the United States, where the deep State is composed primarily of military figures, and only incidentally of civilians.

According to our information, it would seem that President Trump has agreede to give up – for the time being – the dismantling of NATO and its civilian chapter, the European Union. This decision implies that Washington still considers – or pretends to consider – that Russia is its main enemy. Also the deep US State seems to have agreed to give up supporting the jihadists and pursuing the British plan of the « Arab Springs ».

To seal this agreement, two neo-conservative personalities should soon enter the Trump administration, where they will handle European policy : 

 Kurt Volker, Director of the McCain Institute (Arizona State University) will apparently be nominated as Director of the Eurasian bureau for the Secretary of State. Volker, an ex-military judge, was President Bush Jr’s ambassador to NATO during the war in Georgia (August 2008). 

 Tom Goffus, one of McCain’s assistants at the Senate Committee for Armed Services, will be nominated as deputy assistant for the Secretary of Defense, and tasked with Europe and NATO. Goffus is an Air Force officer who has already occupied this type of function on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the National Security Council.

As for Syria, this agreement, if ratified by both parties, should mark the end of the US war against the Syrian Arab Republic – a war that was pursued thanks to the initiative of the United Kingdom and Israël, with their allies (Germany, Saudi Arabia, France, Turkey, etc.). Little by little, the phony « Friends of Syria », which united 130 States and international organisations in 2012, began shrinking. There are only 10 left today.

By  Preston James

President Trump’s Korean Peninsula Gambit

 Highlights:

What exactly is the strategy that President Trump has now deployed to neutralize BRICS and Shanghai Silk Road which is the main recognized threat to the Federal Reserve System controlled American economic situation?

President Trump’s advisers now realize that unless the BRICS nations system and the new budding Shanghai Silk Road trading pact is neutralized, eventually the Federal Reserve System will be reduced in power and reach, and the US Petro Dollar will cease to be the World’s Reserve Currency. 

1- Trump’s strategy appears to be to counter Kim Jong Un’s saber-rattling and weapons display by sending subs and a carrier group near Korea, deploying massive amounts of well-armed drones that can strike North Korea with below-radar stealth attacks, and moving B1 and B2 bombers within easy striking distance of North Korea. But it is unlikely that this is what President Trump’s real agenda is.

2- A good bet is that President Trump has made a secret deal with China. This deal involves China being allowed to take back Taiwan as long as they deal with it like they did when they took back Hong Kong from the UK when their lease ran out. China left Hong Kong intact to operate as it was because it was so profitable and economics is a big concern of the new China. China agrees to cut off coal and food from North Korea and allow Trump to stage strategic strikes to remove Kim Jong Un from power. China allows Korea to be re-united as long as there will be no US military in Korea anymore and no nuclear weapons anywhere in the Korean peninsula, north or south.

3- President Trump will allow BRICS and Shanghai Silk Road AIIB to continue as long as they participate in a new IMF special Drawing Rights form of World Reserve Currency, making room for America to stay in the game, while allowing room for BRICS and the new Shanghai Silk-Road AIIB trade pact, which are both growing. Has President Trump set up the negotiated end of the FRS while appearing to be fighting for it; and just how dangerous a game is this for America?

4- Some of President Trump’s advisers may have different plans and may try to set off a full nuclear exchange-based WW3 with Russia and China by provoking them to act first, or staging a nuclear false-flag to be falsely blamed on Russia.

Privatized prisons were supposed to be fading into the past like a bad dream, but the new U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, says they are here to stay. No matter that the previous Administration determined that privatization does not make prisons more efficient. No matter that they are likely to increase the rate of the revolving door, as prisoners receive less counseling to help them integrate into life on the outside. No matter that conditions there are more likely to worsen any mental health issues they may have.

Is it really only the shareholders who matter?

Sue Binder’s new book Bodies in Beds: Why Businesses Should Stay Out of Prisons shows us how it matters to those inside, the workers and the offenders:

James was a mental health priority for me. He had a history of prior suicide attempts, self-mutilation, depression, and anxiety. I had been worried about James ever since he arrived, but was extremely concerned when he was placed in segregation. Inmates who already have serious mental health issues have been known to deteriorate when placed in segregation.
I spent a little more time with him than I did with some of the other mental health clients because of the necessity. I cringed because I did not have the staff or the time that these mental health inmates needed. I tried to make time when it was an emergency, when I saw a need. James was crying out for help. His help was not to be found in tossing him into segregation.
The Colorado Department of Corrections has actively integrated reform with new practices. The goal was to phase out long-term isolation of inmates. A report, Open the Door—Segregation Reforms in Colorado, states that administration segregation had shrunk from 1,500 to 160. [Earlier], some offenders had been housed in administrative segregation for more than twenty-four years.  
Research shows that seriously mentally ill prisoners were less able to successfully negotiate the complexity of the prison environment, committing infractions at three times the rate of non-seriously mentally ill counterparts.7
I thought about the medications he had arrived with. Had he been taking them regularly? I wondered. I knew he hadn’t had time to see the psychiatrist yet.
Because I understood the ramifications of a mentally-fragile inmate being in segregation, I made a special trip to see him. As I entered the segregation unit, I looked at the large white board on the wall. James’ name remained there.
“I thought James was to leave this morning,” I ventured. “No, not yet,” the officer on duty informed me. Puzzled, I traversed the room, heading straight toward James’ cell. Perhaps he could tell me what had happened. Another charge? Had some emergency interfered with his release?
I stopped dead still. “James!” I yelled. “James! Officer! NOW! Hanging! Hanging!”
Immigrants are  the newest category of bodies to be delivered in wholesale quantities to the prison industrial complex—just in time to make up for the reduced number of convicts in detention. Business is business. No wonder prison corporation stocks are rebounding.

Immigrants, who often consist of minorities, are, in some cases, being swooped up and detained in a brand new form of punishment for simply crossing a border without paperwork. Illegal entry has become more than just deportation. In fact, it has become another enormous profit-maker for the private prison systems. Interestingly, this all comes when fewer offenders are entering the system due to a reduction in crime. Some of this reduction may be due to the legalization of marijuana in several states. Most people would think that if fewer offenders are entering the system—there would be fewer offenders entering the gates of CCA facilities.

From the very beginning of the private prison concept, CCA has made provisions for such a phenomenon. … Namely, they noted that if laws changed and the courts began assigning lawbreakers to programs instead of directly to prison, they might be in trouble. This was never a secret.

Immigrant detention presented them with an opportunity from the outset; it could prevent significant loss of profits and stabilize CCA’s future. Whether they planned it or not, the very first facility they opened paved the way for their future profits. By incorporating the U.S. Government into their packaging, they have been able to avoid serious financial problems, in spite of the declining crime rate. Thus, immigrant detention coupled with the restructuring under the aforementioned Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) enabled CCA to further acquire enormous profits. All of this was taking place right under the noses of taxpayers.

Donald Trump promised to focus on America’s domestic affairs, but his first months in office have been marked by aggressive posturing abroad, something few have expected. This strategy is a cover-up tactic that Trump uses to tackle those opposed to his policies at home, journalist and political analyst Anatoly Wasserman wrote for Sputnik.

"Trump has largely been forced to carry out policies of the previous US administration against the backdrop of unyielding propaganda pressure. As far as I understand, he has adhered to these policies as a smokescreen in the sense that he has carried out extremely aggressive missions to achieve purely propaganda results," the analyst explained.

© AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster

Trump Doesn’t Care About Your Hurt Knee: Worry About North Korea Instead!

Wasserman cited the Pentagon’s massive airstrike against a base operated by the Syrian Arab Army as a case in point. The operation which saw 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles hit an airstrip in the Idlib province resulted in minimal damage.

"In addition, the Russian air defense system [deployed to Syria] appears to have received a wonderful opportunity to test its components. Of course, there has been no official confirmation, but indirect signs abound," he said.

The White House has used the same approach with North Korea. Although tensions between both countries have increased, neither has made any real offensive steps. Wasserman described DPRK leader Kim Jong-un as "clearheaded," saying that the North "does not pose a threat to anyone."

However, if Pyongyang "comes under attack, it could give a strong response. Some experts assume that due to an unorthodox use of nuclear technologies North Korea could mount a nuclear warhead on all of its missiles, some of which could be deployed to US shores on diesel-electric submarines," the analyst said. "In these circumstances, Trump has naturally settled on tough talk and saber-rattling."

Wasserman further suggested that Trump’s assertiveness is not aimed at foreign nations, but is rather directed at his domestic opponents.
Trump’s tough stance on Russia "is aimed at weakening domestic opposition, not Moscow," the analyst said. "As far as I understand, he has mentioned sanctions primarily because our country has clearly demonstrated its capacity to withstand them."

By Musa Khan Jalalzai

Author of The Afghan Intel Crisis : Satellite State, War of Interests and the Blame-Game

Just an idea what the British will be facing this time around in Afghanistan.

Due to the politicization of Afghanistan’s civilian and military intelligence agencies, Afghan security forces [are] undergoing a serious security crisis. The ANA [lacks] intelligence collection capabilities. NATO and the US lost thousands of troops, and spent half a trillion dollars to build a strong army, but now they seem unwilling to address the exponentially growing corruption culture within the Afghan armed forces. Civilian casualties rose to a record level as the Taliban retrieved sophisticated weapons from Russia. Desertion and retention became a persistent challenge for ANA commanders as thousands of soldiers and officers joined either Taliban or the ISIS terrorist groups. Afghan Defense Ministry was losing as many as 5,000 soldiers and officers every month in cases of desertion and casualties in 2015 and 2016.

In February, the ANA arrested and disarmed 30 cops with alleged Taliban ties, including the police chief of Helmand’s Sangin district. Drug trafficking was another serious challenge where, according to the Russian Narcotics Agency report, almost a third of the ANA officers turned to drug trafficking. Army generals and officers were deeply involved in drug trafficking and kidnapping for ransom. The question of merited appointment also remained unsolved as the Military Headquarters and the Intelligence agencies done nothing to oversight selection process to ensure merited promotions.

Those who fought against insurgents during the last 15 years were removed from their posts, and those who enjoyed a comfortable life in Kabul were promoted to the rank of general. The ambassador of the European Union to Afghanistan expressed his dismay that the number of Afghan army generals exceeded several times than those in Britain, Italy, Germany and France. On 11 October 2016, President Ashraf Ghani sternly criticized appointments of unprofessional officers and soldiers within the ranks of the Afghan armed forces. On 15 October 2016, a number of MPs in the lower house of parliament criticized intelligence agencies and warned that the lack of war strategy resulted in the exchange of districts between ANA commanders and Taliban insurgents.

…All military commanders are answerable to their political masters and war criminals with conflicting priorities rather than to the state and government. On 29 December, Afghan police commanders loyal to a specific political group refused to fight against Taliban in Helmand. In the end of 2014, more than 100 Afghan police joined Taliban.

Here we have it. First, The Donald’s tough talk – “I’m crazy. I can start WW 3. I fear nothing!”

The tough talk is immediately followed by weak facts as we have a fake gas attack, all staged, like on a movie set.

Then we have a fake Tomahawk attack where 60% of the missiles disappeared and “nobody knows where.” The Russians are saying that they were not within their reach; the Syrians are mum; and the US declares it was a complete success, a wipe-out strike, without accounting for anything on their side. No signs of damage on the Syrian side, either, although the US claims to have inflicted a devastating blow to “the Syrian regime” (20% of Assad’s air force, which would be something like 100 planes, and the air base “disabled forever,” and so on).

Now comes the second act in this Kabuki theater: the Tough Donald takes on North Korea.

First we have 600,000 people evacuated from Pyongyang and preparations for a “major event,” then all the foreign journalists are summoned, just to announce a street opening.

Then we have the gathering of the entire military leadership and dozens and dozens of Korean submarine-launched missiles, ICBM missiles, medium-range missiles, all within a one-mile radius brought together in the center of Pyongyang creating an open invitation for an all-out American bulls-eye strike. One would expect a Mother Of All Bombs to wipe out the entire military leadership and at least 20% of their toys, as in Syria.

But the devastating blow came later, not with a Boom but the Hiss of a deflating balloon — in this case, a failed launch of a Korean missile. Was it the launch of a state-of-the-art ICBM? No, just a routine medium range, maybe even short-range missile. Maybe no range at all.

So now McMaster, and all the other masters of the US full-spectrum dominance, supposedly took out a toy missile. The mountain gave birth to a mouse.

Maybe it was the overwhelming concentration of forces by the “full spectrum dominant” force, their satellites, aircraft carriers, submarines, THAAD, cyber/electronic warfare, all brought together to stop this missile in its flight. But maybe, also, the Korean Boy who runs the fearless Korean war machine set up a prank, maybe together with the Chinese (maybe agreed at the famous chocolate-cake war room conference at Mar-a-Lago), so that they had a launch and self-destroyed it instantly.

Now everybody can go home and have their Easter eggs. Oof, we avoided World War III! Or, maybe we that was it, we just had it. Who knows?

But we all survived, and now the Donald has had himself awarded the title of a war president, and he can now negotiate with the Chinese and the Russians – from a position of strength . . . the demise of the United States.

Happy Spring to a new world.

Trump Withholds Syria-Sarin Evidence

April 12, 2017

Exclusive: Despite President Trump’s well-known trouble with the truth, his White House now says “trust us” on its Syrian-sarin charges while withholding the proof that it claims to have, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

After making the provocative and dangerous charge that Russia is covering up Syria’s use of chemical weapons, the Trump administration withheld key evidence to support its core charge that a Syrian warplane dropped sarin on a northern Syrian town on April 4.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis welcomes Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman to the Pentagon, March 16, 2017. (DoD photo by Sgt. Amber I. Smith)

A four-page white paper, prepared by President Trump’s National Security Council staff and released by the White House on Tuesday, claimed that U.S. intelligence has proof that the plane carrying the sarin gas left from the Syrian military airfield that Trump ordered hit by Tomahawk missiles on April 6.

The paper asserted that “we have signals intelligence and geospatial intelligence,” but then added that “we cannot publicly release all available intelligence on this attack due to the need to protect sources and methods.”

I’m told that the key evidence was satellite surveillance of the area, a body of material that U.S. intelligence analysts were reviewing late last week even after the Trump-ordered bombardment of 59 Tomahawk missiles that, according to Syrian media reports, killed seven or eight Syrian soldiers and nine civilians, including four children.

Yet, it is unclear why releasing these overhead videos would be so detrimental to “sources and methods” since everyone knows the U.S. has this capability and the issue at hand – if it gets further out of hand – could lead to a nuclear confrontation with Russia.

In similarly tense situations in the past, U.S. Presidents have released sensitive intelligence to buttress U.S. government assertions, including John F. Kennedy’s disclosure of U-2 spy flights in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Ronald Reagan revealing electronic intercepts after the Soviet shoot-down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983.

Yet, in this current case, as U.S.-Russian relations spiral downward into what is potentially an extermination event for the human species, Trump’s White House insists that the world must trust it despite its record of consistently misstating facts.

In the case of the April 4 chemical-weapons incident in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, which reportedly killed scores of people including young children, I was told that initially the U.S. analysts couldn’t see any warplanes over the area in Idlib province at the suspected time of the poison gas attack but later they detected a drone that they thought might have delivered the bomb.

A Drone Mystery

According to a source, the analysts struggled to identify whose drone it was and where it originated. Despite some technical difficulties in tracing its flight path, analysts eventually came to believe that the flight was launched in Jordan from a Saudi-Israeli special operations base for supporting Syrian rebels, the source said, adding that the suspected reason for the poison gas was to create an incident that would reverse the Trump administration’s announcement in late March that it was no longer seeking the removal of President Bashar al-Assad.

President Trump at a news conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on April 5, 2017, at which the President commented on the crisis in Syria. (Screen shot from whitehouse.gov)

If indeed that was the motive — and if the source’s information is correct — the operation would have been successful, since the Trump administration has now reversed itself and is pressing Russia to join in ousting Assad who is getting blamed for the latest chemical-weapons incident.

Presumably, however, the “geospatial intelligence” cited in the four-page dossier could disprove this and other contentions if the Trump administration would only make its evidence publicly available.

The dossier stated, “Our information indicates that the chemical agent was delivered by regime Su-22 fixed-wing aircraft that took off from the regime-controlled Shayrat Airfield. These aircraft were in the vicinity of Khan Shaykhun approximately 20 minutes before reports of the chemical attack began and vacated the area shortly after the attack.”

So, that would mean – assuming that the dossier is correct – that U.S. intelligence analysts were able to trace the delivery of the poison gas to Assad’s aircraft and to the airfield that Trump ordered attacked on April 6.

Still, it remains a mystery why this intelligence assessment is not coming directly from President Trump’s intelligence chiefs as is normally the case, either with an official Intelligence Estimate or a report issued by the Director of National Intelligence.

The photograph released by the White House of President Trump meeting with his advisers at his estate in Mar-a-Lago on April 6, 2017, regarding his decision to launch missile strikes against Syria.

The White House photo released late last week showing the President and a dozen senior advisers monitoring the April 6 missile strike from a room at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida was noteworthy in that neither CIA Director Mike Pompeo nor Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was in the frame.

Now, it is the White House that has released the four-page dossier supposedly summing up the assessment of the “intelligence community.”

An Argumentative Dossier

The dossier also seems argumentative in that it assumes that Russian officials – and presumably others – who have suggested different possible explanations for the incident at Khan Sheikdoun did so in a willful cover-up, when any normal investigation seeks to evaluate different scenarios before settling on one.

It is common amid the “fog of war” for people outside the line of command – and even sometimes inside the line of command – to not understand what happened and to struggle for an explanation.

On April 6, before Trump’s missile strike, I and others received word from U.S. military intelligence officials in the Middle East that they, too, shared the belief that the poison gas may have resulted from a conventional bombing raid that ruptured containers stored by the rebels, who – in Idlib province – are dominated by Al Qaeda’s affiliate and its allies.

Those reports were cited by former U.S. intelligence officials, including more than two dozen who produced a memo to President Trump urging him to undertake a careful investigation of the incident before letting this crisis exacerbate U.S.-Russia relations.

The memo said “our U.S. Army contacts in the area” were disputing the official story of a chemical weapons attack. “Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died,” the memo said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing the audience at a concert for Palmyra, Syria, via a satellite link on May 5, 2016, after the ancient city was liberated from the Islamic State. (Image from RT’s live-streaming of the event)

In other words, to suggest possible alternative scenarios is not evidence of a “cover-up,” even if the theories are later shown to be erroneous. It is the normal process of sorting through often conflicting initial reports.

Even in the four-page dossier, Trump’s NSC officials contradicted what other U.S. government sources have told The New York Times and other mainstream news outlets about the Syrian government’s supposed motive for launching the chemical-weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun.

According to the earlier accounts, the Syrian government either was trying to terrorize the population in a remote rebel-controlled area or was celebrating its impunity after the Trump administration had announced that it was no longer seeking Assad’s removal.

But the dossier said, “We assess that Damascus launched this chemical attack in response to an opposition offensive in northern Hamah Province that threatened key infrastructure.” Although Khan Sheikhoun was not near the fighting, the dossier presented the town as an area of support for the offensive.

Assuming this assessment is correct, does that mean that the earlier explanations were part of a cover-up or a propaganda operation? The reality is that in such complex situations, the analyses should continue to be refined as more information becomes available. It should not be assumed that every false lead or discarded theory is proof of a “cover-up,” yet that is what we see here.

“The Syrian regime and its primary backer, Russia, have sought to confuse the world community about who is responsible for using chemical weapons against the Syrian people in this and earlier attacks,” the dossier declared.

But the larger point is that – given President Trump’s spotty record for getting facts straight – he and his administration should go the extra mile in presenting irrefutable evidence to support its assessments, not simply insisting that the world must “trust us.”

[In a separate analysis of the four-page dossier, Theodore Postol, a national security specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, concluded that the White House claims were clearly bogus, writing:

“I have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7 a.m. on April 4, 2017.

“In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document points to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of April 4. This conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that source. My own assessment, is that the source was very likely tampered with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the photographs cited by the White House.”]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Award winning journalist Robert Parry says incident was likely a false flag

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
April 12, 2017

Award-winning Iran-Contra journalist Robert Parry says the chemical weapons attack in Syria was launched from a joint Saudi-Israeli special operations base in Jordan, according to his intelligence sources.

U.S. intelligence analysts determined that a drone was responsible for the attack and “eventually came to believe that the flight was launched in Jordan from a Saudi-Israeli special operations base for supporting Syrian rebels,” according to the source.

“The suspected reason for the poison gas was to create an incident that would reverse the Trump administration’s announcement in late March that it was no longer seeking the removal of President Bashar al-Assad,” writes Parry.

As we highlighted back in 2013 after another chemical weapons attack in Ghouta that was blamed on Assad, rebels freely admitted to Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak that they had been given the weapons by Saudi Arabia but had “handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions.”

Parry’s background lends the information credibility. He covered the Iran-Contra scandal for the Associated Press and Newsweek and was later given a George Polk award for his work on intelligence matters.

The contention that the incident was a “false flag” to create a justification for air strikes has also been voiced by former Congressman Ron Paul as well as numerous other prominent voices, including Vladimir Putinhimself, who went on to warn that rebels could now stage a similar incident in Damascus to goad the U.S. into toppling Assad.

Whoever was responsible for the attack does not take away from the horror of the event and the fact that innocent people and children died.

Parry dismissed the four page report released by President Trump’s National Security Council that blames the Syrian government for the chemical attack as being heavy on assertions but lacking actual evidence.

The white paper states, “we cannot publicly release all available intelligence on this attack due to the need to protect sources and methods,” although as Parry points out, “In similarly tense situations in the past, U.S. Presidents have released sensitive intelligence to buttress U.S. government assertions, including John F. Kennedy’s disclosure of U-2 spy flights in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Ronald Reagan revealing electronic intercepts after the Soviet shoot-down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983.”

Parry challenged the Trump administration to make its evidence publicly available, while also questioning why both CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats were not show in a photo released by the White House which shows the President and a dozen of his senior advisers monitoring the April 6 missile strike from a room at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“Given President Trump’s spotty record for getting facts straight – he and his administration should go the extra mile in presenting irrefutable evidence to support its assessments, not simply insisting that the world must “trust us,” concludes Parry.

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