"Poisoned" Kremlin Critic Flown to Germany as German-Russian Nord Stream 2 Nears Completion

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The perfectly timed poisoning of unpopular, ineffective Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny and the involvement of Germany comes as Washington sought to place maximum pressure on Berlin to cancel the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline. 

August 25, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci – LD) – Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny – according to German doctors – was allegedly poisoned but is expected to survive. If Navalny was poisoned and the goal was to assassinate him, it was a poorly conceived, poorly executed, and most of all – poorly timed plan. 

Navalny’s sudden reappearance across the Western media comes just at the height of US attempts to place maximum pressure on Germany to cancel a pipeline – Nord Stream 2 – it is jointly constructing with Russia. The pipeline would move Russian hydrocarbons into Western Europe directly, bypassing Ukraine now fully destabilized by US and NATO intervention. 

Just last week German state media DW in an article titled, “US senators threaten Germany’s port town of Sassnitz over Nord Stream 2 gas project,” would highlight the nature of US pressure, reporting that: 

Three US senators are threatening the ferry port on the island of Rügen with “crushing” sanctions to prevent the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Fearing financial ruin, the people of Sassnitz are defiant.

This latest threat from the US against their own German “allies” comes after a long, concerted campaign to pressure Germany into cancelling the joint pipeline with Russia. 

Earlier this year, the New York Times in an article titled, “A Russian Gas Pipeline Increases Tension Between the U.S. and Europe,” would report: 

…the State Department moved to potentially impose economic penalties on investors and other business participants in the project, an expansion of existing sanctions.The new measures were “a clear warning to companies” that “aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects will not be tolerated,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters. “Get out now, or risk the consequences.”

The New York Times would note that growing US pressure faced condemnation from European leaders who accused Washington of interference in their sovereign affairs and specifically in regards to European energy policy. 

The pipeline is already well over 90% completed. 

Perfectly Timed Political Stunt 

The New York Times in a more recent article titled, “Aleksei Navalny, Putin Critic in a Coma, Was Poisoned, German Doctors Say,” deliberately trumps up the incident. 

Indeed Navalny is in a coma, but according to the German hospital currently treating him in an official statement, it was a medically induced coma. The statement read: 

Since his admission at the weekend, Alexei Navalny has been receiving treatment at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The patient is being treated in intensive care and remains in medically induced coma. While his condition is serious, it is not currently life-threatening.

The New York Times in its article notes how unpopular and ineffective Navalny has been as an opposition figure in Russia over the years, admitting that: 

Mr. Navalny’s needling criticism of Mr. Putin has never posed a serious electoral threat to the Russian leader, and Mr. Putin remains popular with many Russians.

It should be noted that Navalny himself and the anemic opposition he leads is a product of the US State Department with virtually ever organization and individual in it the recipient of US government money channeled through Washington’s notorious regime change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).  

Navalny’s US Backing 

Alexey Navalny was a Yale World Fellow – with the Fellowship recently releasing a statement in solidarity with Navalny after this latest incident – and in his profile it states (emphasis added):

Navalny spearheads legal challenges on behalf of minority shareholders in large Russian companies, including Gazprom, Bank VTB, Sberbank, Rosneft, Transneft, and Surgutneftegaz, through the Union of Minority Shareholders. He has successfully forced companies to disclose more information to their shareholders and has sued individual managers at several major corporations for allegedly corrupt practices. Navalny is also co-founder of the Democratic Alternative movement and was vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the political party YABLOKO. In 2010, he launched RosPil, a public project funded by unprecedented fundraising in Russia. In 2011, Navalny started RosYama, which combats fraud in the road construction sector.

The Democratic Alternative, also written DA!, is a US NED-fund recipient, implicating Navalny as an agent of US-funded sedition. The US State Department itself reveals this as they list DA! among many of the “youth movements” they support operating in Russia:

DA!: Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.

That this funding is nowhere on NED’s official website and is admittedly withheld from public knowledge by the funding’s recipients indicates that full disclosures are intentionally not being made and that clandestine US funding is most likely much more widespread across Russia’s “opposition” as well as for individuals like Navalny himself.  
Navalny was involved directly in founding a movement funded by the US government and to this day has the very people who funded DA! defending him throughout the Western media. 
The mention of co-founder Mariya Gaydar is also revealing, as she has long collaborated, and occasionally has been arrested with, Ilya Yashin, yet another leader of a NED-funded Russian “activist” opposition group.
Ilya Yashin leads the Moscow branch of the People’s Freedom Party and is a leading member of the “Strategy 31” campaign whose ranks are filled with activists trained and coordinated by US NED-funded NGOs. Deleted from the official NED.org website was Strategy 31’s US funding which read:

Moscow Group of Assistance in the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords $50,000 

To draw greater attention to the issue of freedom of assembly in Russia and to the “Strategy 31” movement, which seeks to protect this fundamental right. The organization will train a network of regional activists and coordinate their activities through mini-seminars and field visits, and conduct an information cam­paign through press conferences, posters, and educational handouts pertaining to freedom of assembly, to be distributed to the general public by regional partners.

Also deleted was a NED “Democracy Digest” article titled “Strategy 31: A sign of civil society’s resilience.” In it, the “Moscow Helsinki Group” is explicitly stated as leading Strategy 31 marches and that the group is a “long-time grantee of the National Endowment of Democracy.”
Martyrdom to Boost a Fading Brand
It is documented fact that Navalny was funded by and specifically to serve US interests through the NED and a variety of other US-based programs and fellowships and clearly promoted throughout the entirety of the Western corporate media. 

His inability to catalyze the sort of disruptive opposition the West seeks to create within Russia to undermine and eventually overthrow the nation’s current political order represents a poor return on investment. 
Navalny’s fading brand is admitted openly even by his most eager supporters in the Western media – most recently in the above mentioned New York Times article describing his alleged poisoning.

German-Russian relations are particularly important for both nations at the moment – and perhaps more so for Moscow which seeks ways to circumvent full spectrum economic warfare waged against it by the United States. 
The completion and use of Nord Stream 2 with its German partners would do much to cement Russian-European ties, perhaps even irreversibly short-circuiting US efforts to sabotage them. 
The notion that the Kremlin would order Navalny’s assassination at this time defies common sense and logic. 
The fact that a Western NGO with opaque funding called “Cinema for Peace” organized Navalny’s transportation out of Russia and to Germany specifically at this critical time for German-Russian relations – according to an article published by the US State Department’s Voice of America – the one European nation whose ties with Russia are under greatest scrutiny at the moment by the Western media – appears more than coincidental.  
An investigation and forthcoming facts may help better shape the full truth around this most recent incident – but at the moment – especially for “activists” backed by a palpably desperate US – they must consider who would benefit most from their harm or demise – the nations they are ineffectively opposing, or the nations who have invested millions into their cause and have not gotten the results they desire.

Then these “activists” must determine whether they are worth more to their disappointed foreign sponsors as living, ineffective, and unpopular opposition figures, or worth more by being potentially impactful – if even for a moment – as martyrs. 

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Criminal Big-Pharma Put in Charge of Covid-19 “Vaccine”

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Big-Pharma – guilty of lying, cheating, stealing, bribery, and a history of exposing the public to dangerous and even deadly drugs – is being given billions to develop a Covid-19 “vaccine.” Would you trust your health to these criminals? 

May 1, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci – NEO) – Coronavirus Disease 2019 or “Covid-19” hysteria is sweeping the globe – with mass media-induced public panic paralyzing entire nations, gutting economies of billions as workplaces are shutdown and the public shuttered indoors all while exposed to 24 hour news cycles deliberately fanning the flames of fear. 

The West’s healthcare industry is already profiting both monetarily and in terms of artificial credibility as a panicked public turn to it for answers and safety.

Waiting to cash in on offering “cures” and “vaccines” for a virus that is essentially a bad cold – is the immensely corrupt Western pharmaceutical industry in particular – notorious corporations like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Novartis, Bayer, Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, Lilly, and Gilead.

All corporations – without exception – pursuing government-funded vaccines and therapies for Covid-19 are corporations guilty and repeatedly convicted in courts of law around the globe of crimes including falsifying research, safety, and efficacy studies, bribing researchers, doctors, regulators, and even law enforcement officials, and marketing drugs that were either entirely ineffective or even dangerous. 

Government funding from taxpayers across the Western World are being funneled into supposedly non-profit organizations like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) which are in actuality fronts created and chaired by big-pharma to avoid investing their own money into costly research and development and simply profit from whatever emerges from state-funded research.

CEPI – for example – is receiving billions in government funds from various nations that will be used for R&D that results in products sold by and profited from big-pharma. 

Novartis – Plumbing the Depths of the Despicable 

A particularly shocking and appalling example comes from Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis – who is currently attempting to ram through approval of its drug Jakafi as a therapy for severe Covid-19 patients.

A University of Pennsylvania team headed by Dr. Carl June and funded entirely by charity had developed a gene therapy that fully and permanently cured leukemia patients who had otherwise failed to respond to more traditional treatments like bone marrow transplants. During early trials in 2010-2012, one patient – a 6 year old named Emily Whitehead – was literally on her death bed before receiving the revolutionary gene therapy.

Today she is alive and well, in permanent remission. 

What is more astounding about the therapy is that it is administered only one time. That is because after administration the patient’s cells are rewired permanently to fight off cancer. Old cells pass the cancer-fighting information off to new cells as they divide and multiply.
The therapy developed by Dr. June’s team is not only a one-time therapy, it is also incredibly cost effective. Under experimental conditions the procedure cost under 20,000 USD. Dr. June at a 2013 talk at The Society for Translational Oncology would state: 

So the cost of goods, it’s interesting. The major cost here is gamma globulin. So the t-cells themselves, with us, for our in-house costs of an apheresis and so on is 15,000 dollars to manufacture the t-cells. 

The charity that funded Dr. June’s team – Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) – would see its work sold off to Novartis, approved by the FDA in 2017 and marketed as Kymriah. What was noted by Dr. June himself as costing 15,000 USD to produce under experimental conditions was marked up by Novartis to an astronomical half-million dollars. The New York Times article that reported the drug’s cost never mentions the actual cost of the drug and instead defers to Novartis’ own explanation as to why the drug was so expensive.
The NYT had previously reported on the therapy’s progress before its acquisition by Novartis, yet NYT writers failed to hold Novartis accountable or inform readers of the actual cost of the therapy and expose price gouging by Novartis. This helps illustrate the mass media’s role in enabling and covering up for big-pharma’s corruption.  

Upon closer examination – and no thanks to publications like NYT – it turns out LLS was and still is in partnership with Novartis and while it denied Novartis had anything to do with the gene therapy funded by LLS and ultimately sold to Novartis – the glaring conflict of interest remains and fits in perfectly with the wider pharmaceutical industry’s track record of corruption, abuse, and placing profits before human life.

The Novartis example is a microcosm of how the entire industry operates and indeed – precisely how it already is exploiting and profiting from Covid-19 hysteria where hard-working researchers have their work funded by shady “charities” only to be bought up by big-pharma and dangled over the heads of the desperate for movie-villain ransoms – all in cooperation with a complicit government and mass media.        

GSK: A Bribery Racket that Rings the Globe

Another pharmaceutical corporation seeking to profit from Covid-19 is GlaxoSmithKline. What those who may be exposed to whatever products GSK markets in response to the virus should know is that GSK has been convicted on every inhabited continent of the planet for operating a global bribery racket aimed at doctors, researchers, regulators, politicians, and even law enforcement officials. 

GSK has been convicted in Asia. The New York Times in its article, “Drug Giant Faced a Reckoning as China Took Aim at Bribery,” would claim:

The Glaxo case, which resulted in record penalties of nearly $500 million and a string of guilty pleas by executives, upended the power dynamic in China, unveiling an increasingly assertive government determined to tighten its grip over multinationals. In the three years since the arrests, the Chinese government, under President Xi Jinping, has unleashed the full force of the country’s authoritarian system, as part of a broader agenda of economic nationalism.

GSK has also been convicted in North America. The London Guardian would report in its article GlaxoSmithKline fined $3bn after bribing doctors to increase drugs sales that:

The pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline has been fined $3bn (£1.9bn) after admitting bribing doctors and encouraging the prescription of unsuitable antidepressants to children. Glaxo is also expected to admit failing to report safety problems with the diabetes drug Avandia in a district court in Boston on Thursday. The company encouraged sales reps in the US to mis-sell three drugs to doctors and lavished hospitality and kickbacks on those who agreed to write extra prescriptions, including trips to resorts in Bermuda, Jamaica and California.

GSK corruption also takes place in Europe. In early 2014, the London Telegraph would report in its article, “GlaxoSmithKline ‘bribed’ doctors to promote drugs in Europe, former worker claims,” that:

GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s largest drug company, has been accused of bribing doctors to prescribe their medicines in Europe. Doctors in Poland were allegedly paid to promote its asthma drug, Seretide, under the guise of funding for education programme, a former sales rep has claimed. Medics were also said to have been paid for lectures in the country which did not take place.

And this is only scratching the surface of GSK’s bribery racket and associated impropriety – saying nothing of the wider industry’s abuse and corruption. 

GSK is currently poised to develop and deploy a Covid-19 vaccine with Innovax. Will GSK’s history of bribery and corruption influence the development of a Covid-19 vaccine and its approval for public use?

There is already a convincing answer to that question. 

Big-Pharma Already Caught Faking Pandemics to Fill Their Coffers 

The last wave of hysteria regarding a pandemic came in the form of the 2009 H1N1 outbreak or the “swine flu.” 

If one vaguely remembers H1N1 and needs to look it up to refresh their memory – it’s probably because it was not the pandemic it was promoted as at the time by corrupt public health officials and a complicit mass media.

Among these corrupt public health officials were World Health Organization (WHO) “experts” who were in the pay of big-pharma and used their positions to declare the appearance of H1N1 as a “pandemic” justifying likewise paid-off governments to stockpile big-pharma medication for patients that never ended up needing them.  

The BBC in their article, “WHO swine flu experts ‘linked’ with drug companies,” would admit: 

Key scientists behind World Health Organization advice on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with companies which stood to profit, an investigation has found.

The British Medical Journal says the scientists had openly declared these interests in other publications yet WHO made no mention of the links.

The BBC mentions GSK by name, noting (emphasis added):

…three scientists involved in putting together the 2004 guidance had previously been paid by Roche or GSK for lecturing and consultancy work as well as being involved in research for the companies. 

Roche – also mentioned – currently produces Covid-19 test kits and is obviously making massive profits by selling them amid sustained hysteria over the “pandemic.” It also profited when WHO officials it was paying off declared H1N1 a “pandemic” in 2009. It sold testing kits and anti-viral medication that made their way into entirely unnecessary government stockpiles.
Reuters in a 2014 article titled, “Stockpiles of Roche Tamiflu drug are waste of money, review finds,” would note: 

Researchers who have fought for years to get full data on Roche’s flu medicine Tamiflu said on Thursday that governments who stockpile it are wasting billions of dollars on a drug whose effectiveness is in doubt. 

The article also noted:

Tamiflu sales hit almost $3 billion in 2009 – mostly due to its use in the H1N1 flu pandemic – but they have since declined. 

Are we really going to allow these same corporations and the corrupt officials they are in league with among national and international bodies take the reins again amid Covid-19?

Serial Offenders Drive Covid-19 Hysteria 
The same WHO – in partnership with the same serial offenders among the pharmaceutical industry – are now leading the response to Covid-19 – and the same complicit mass media that enabled the corruption and abuse of both in the past is helping fuel Covid-19 hysteria today to hand over unprecedented profits and power to these same interests that have repeatedly proven themselves in the past to not only be untrustworthy but also obstacles to – rather than the underwriters of – human health. 

Soon, syringes will be filled with “vaccines” produced by this conglomerate of corruption and abuse, and the public told to roll up their sleeves and have themselves injected by substances created by literal criminals or else.
Under the illusion of legitimacy, science, and medicine, people will be pressured to submit to big-pharma and their co-conspirators within regulatory bodies, advisory organizations, the government, and the media, and whatever it is they actually fill these syringes with – whether it protects the public from Covid-19 or not – and whether such a vaccine is truly necessary or not. 

While Covid-19 might be an actual pathogen, evidence suggests it does not warrant the overreaction we have seen worldwide. “Covid-19 hysteria” is – by far – having a much more devastating impact on humanity than the actual virus itself.  Amid this hysteria, the biggest genuine threat to human health – a corrupt pharmaceutical industry and their partners in the government – are poised to expand both their profits at the expense of the public, and their power over the public. 

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

The Russia-Germany Pipeline Nord Stream 2: Washington to “Free” Europe from Freedom to Decide for Itself

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, December 23, 2019

Nord Stream 2 is a pipeline project extending from Russia to Germany that – when completed – will provide a secure means of exporting Russian natural gas to Western Europe – circumventing a  now volatile Ukraine all while tying Russia and Europe together further through mutually beneficial economic activity.

Of course, for special interests residing across the Atlantic in Washington and on Wall Street, Russia and Europe building closer ties through constructive economic activity undermines a long-standing strategy of coercing Europe via the constant threat of a supposedly hostile Kremlin Washington claims undermines a free and united Europe.

Ironically, in order to preserve Europe’s “freedom” the US has now resorted to punishing interests in Europe – and in Germany specifically – for freely choosing to do business with Russia. It not only fully illustrates the supreme hypocrisy that lies at the very root of Washington’s current foreign policy, but also threatens to undermine legitimate US business interests seeking – just as Russia does – to build constructive economic ties with companies and nations around the globe.

Sanctions Approved

The BBC in its article, “Nord Stream 2: Trump approves sanctions on Russia gas pipeline,” would report:

President Donald Trump has signed a law that will impose sanctions on any firm that helps Russia’s state-owned gas company, Gazprom, finish a pipeline into the European Union. 

The sanctions target firms building Nord Stream 2, an undersea pipeline that will allow Russia to increase gas exports to Germany. 

The US considers the project a security risk to Europe. 

Both Russia and the EU have strongly condemned the US sanctions.

It may or may not confound objective observers to see the US unilaterally leveling sanctions against foreign companies because of what Washington claims are security threats to the nations these companies reside in.

It is clearly the business of Germany and Germany alone to determine what may or may not be a security risk. The US deciding not only unilaterally that the Nord Stream 2 project is a security risk – but in contradiction to Berlin’s own assessments of these supposed risks – exposes what is a US foreign policy rooted in singular self-interests poorly hidden behind notions of global peace, stability, and progress.

Were Russia the “threat” that Washington claims it is, clearly Germany would not have invested the immense amount of time, energy, and resources required merely to approve of the Nord Stream 2 project – let alone all the time, energy, and resources required to build and operate it.

Stated Motives. Admitted “Hidden” Motives. Larger, Unspoken Motives 

The BBC article gives a glimpse of what is truly motivating Washington’s current posture regarding Nord Stream 2. In its article, it notes that:

Russian Gas to Germany: Will the U.S. Slap Sanctions on Nord Stream 2?

The Trump administration fears the pipeline will tighten Russia’s grip over Europe’s energy supply and reduce its own share of the lucrative European market for American liquefied natural gas.

And indeed, US energy interests do stand to lose against Russian natural gas – but only because US energy interests are unable to fairly compete against Russia’s ability to deliver cheaper energy through much more practical means.

There is also another motivation driving Washington’s current foreign policy – unmentioned by the BBC – but one that eclipses the interests of American big-energy – no matter how large these interests may be.

The alleged spectre of a malign Russia preying on Europe serves as – and has served for decades as the foundation of the US-led NATO alliance, the US military presence in Europe and the billions upon billions of dollars of weapon sales, contracts, and all the political influence that constitutes both.

Europe and Russia building a significant pipeline and cooperating over something as key to Europe’s economic security and survival as energy demand obviously and completely undermines NATO’s pretense to exist – and thus threatens the immense racket that constitutes NATO’s continued existence. This not only threatens Washington’s grip on Europe, but all the other wars NATO is used as a vehicle to carry both the American nation and its Western allies into across the globe.

The Western intervention in Serbia in the 1990s, the Afghan war stretching from 2001 to present day, and more recently the Western intervention in Libya beginning in 2011 are all examples of US belligerence made possible by NATO – and belligerence that would be exponentially more difficult to continue onward with if NATO was weakened or rendered entirely unnecessary and disbanded.

Not Serving European Interests, or even US Interests 

One must be careful when saying “the US is imposing sanctions on Germany.” The US is not. A small handful of special interests in Washington, directed by an even smaller handful of interests on Wall Street are imposing sanctions on Europe over the Nord Stream 2 project.

They are doing so clearly to the detriment of Russia. But also obviously to the detriment of Germany and the European companies involved in completing, operating, and receiving benefits from the pipeline when it opens.

They are also imposing sanctions on Europe to the detriment of the American people, American businesses at large, and the American nation itself both as it stands internationally today and to the detriment of how it will stand internationally in the future.

While the US arms and energy industries certainly stand to gain from a status quo in Europe which includes the perpetuation of the artificial wedge driven between Europe and Russia, it benefits nearly no one else.

And while these two industries do certainly employ a lot of Americans, they are unsustainable businesses demonstrably unable to compete fairly – and now – not even effectively able to cheat. The future is bleak for those employed or otherwise dependent on these two industries as they currently exist. Washington’s policies pushed forward on behalf of big-energy and arms manufacturers are pushed forward at the cost of nearly everyone else.

For a world eager to do business with the United States – a nation still populated by talented people capable of contributing to the global economy – policies like sanctions aimed at Germany and other nation’s involved with Nord Stream 2 give pause for thought and force potential business partners of the US to reevaluate future joint-ventures.

Thus, despite the short-term self-serving nature of US sanctions regarding Nord Stream 2, the sanctions only serve to accelerate America’s overall decline. A Washington fixated on such methods to “compete” with Russia and to maintain influence over Europe is not able to focus on or invest in truly needed strategies to improve genuine American competitiveness – competitiveness that serves as the only true and sustainable means of creating and maintaining influence globally.

For the American people and American business owners, divesting away from Washington’s current policies and finding ways to circumvent them just as the rest of the world is finding ways to circumvent US sanctions will hopefully help build bridges, or at least prepare the ground to do so – so when the current circle of special interests misleading the US into further decline fade away, something better can be put in their place.

Nord Stream 2 is just one sign of the shape of things to come. The US will only face more “Nord Stream 2’s” in the future not only in the form of Russian-European cooperation, but also in Asia centered around China and its own rise upon the international stage. Washington doubling down on a losing strategy will only accelerate America’s current woes – not fix them. Until Washington understands this, or until the American people find a way to work around Washington’s agenda – these woes will only multiply and to everyone’s detriment.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Stefan Sauer/dpa

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Tony Cartalucci, Global Research, 2019

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

US Is the Source of, Not “Solution” to Syrian War

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, November 12, 2019

After the supposed US “withdrawal” from Syria – Western media outlets have causally reported on US troops now preparing to occupy Syria’s oilfields east of the Euphrates River.

Articles include carefully selected “experts” who avoid any mention of how illegal or indefensible the presence of US forces in Syria is to begin with, let alone any mention of “why” US troops are preparing to “claim” Syria’s natural resources.

The Guardian in its piece, “US plans to send tanks to Syria oil fields, reversing Trump troop withdrawal – reports,” illustrates a voluntary dereliction of due diligence in investigating or questioning Western actions in Syria.

One is left to assume what the US would claim as its excuse for remaining in Syria – likely based on a narrative of denying terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda or the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) and their affiliates access to resources to “fund” their return to the region.

The most obvious and sustainable solution would be to transfer control of Syria’s oilfields to Syria itself. Syria has overcome terrorist organizations in all areas Damascus has now restored order to, and with the restoration of its oilfields and related industries, would be in an even better position to both rebuild the nation and defend against the very elements who destroyed it in the first place.

But this assumes that the US is interested in preventing the resurgence of terrorist organizations in the region – ignoring the fact that the US deliberately created them in the first place and deliberately used them to both trigger, then fuel the Syrian war from its very beginning in 2011.

The US is the Source of Syria’s War 

As early as 2007, real journalists warned of US plans to bolster opposition groups linked to terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda in a bid to undermine Iran and its ally Syria.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?,” would provide an ominous, but crystal-clear warning of what awaited both Syria and the wider region.

Hersh would warn:

The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The article would mention the Muslim Brotherhood by name and described specific US support under what was then the Bush administration already being funnelled to the group in Syria.

US “Easing Into” War with Syria Using ISIS Boogeyman

The Brotherhood is an extremist front with direct ties to Al Qaeda and who were at the epicenter of the supposed “Arab Spring” in 2011. From 2011 onward – then under the Obama administration – US support continued in the form of both financial and military aid.

Articles like the New York Time’s, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.,” would admit to billions of dollars worth of arms from the US flowing into Syria to fuel the destructive war.

Despite Western media claims that the Syrian conflict was being fought between the government and “moderate rebels,” the US State Department itself admitted that within the first year of fighting, Al Qaeda had already established a dominate position on the battlefield.

In an official statement on the State Department’s own website designating Al Qaeda affiliate – al-Nusra – a foreign terrorist organization, it was admitted:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.

If the US and its allies were providing billions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment to “moderate rebels,” who provided al-Nusra with even more weapons and equipment enabling it to dominate the battlefield?

The US – as it has done in virtually all other wars of aggression abroad – simply lied about the nature of those it was arming – having from the beginning and just as journalists like Seymour Hersh warned – deliberately armed and aided extremists to wage a proxy war of regime change against Syria.

Arsonists, Not Firefighters 

Nothing the US has done in regards to Syria has amounted to genuine efforts to end the conflict. Throughout the conflict the US continued to adjust its war propaganda to justify first its invasion and occupation of eastern Syria to “fight ISIS” – then to incrementally move toward justifying a direct US military intervention against the Syrian government itself with troops “serendipitously” already staged inside Syrian territory.

From 2015 onward in the wake of Russia’s intervention – direct US military intervention was taken off the table and the US occupation confined to eastern Syria where its unsustainable narrative regarding a Syrian “Kurdistan” withered.

Today – we find a US still attempting to justify its illegal and indefensible occupation of Syrian territory. Syria and its allies have attempted to provide Washington with a host of face-saving opportunities to withdraw and allow the conflict to finally end – returning peace and stability to the nation of Syria and its people.

The US continues to pose as part of a “solution” to the very Syrian crisis journalists like Seymour Hersh as early as 2007 revealed the US had deliberately engineered.

Just as an unrepentant arsonist would not be involved in efforts to extinguish the fire they started – the US cannot be involved in efforts to resolve a conflict it itself started – nor is the US at this point demonstrating any genuine desire to end the conflict.

Squatting on Syrian oilfields is yet another intentional tactic being used to draw the Syrian war out even longer – impeding the Syrian state’s access to its own resources needed to fuel the country and fund reconstruction.

Far from firefighters, the US is an unrepentant arsonist blocking firefighters from doing their job. US foreign policy has become so overtly malign that the Western media is unable to even address basic questions such as “why” the US is remaining in Syria – and doing so amid Syria’s oilfields.

Just as has been the case throughout the Syrian war, US machinations will be defeated by Syria and its allies patiently creating conditions on the ground in which current US policies are no longer tenable forcing Washington to fall back further still.

In the meantime, continued efforts to expose the truth of this war’s genesis and to prevent those who were responsible for it from attempting to prolong it further by posing as “peacemakers” and “protectors” is essential. If the US wants to pose as “peacemakers” and “protectors,” Syria and its allies may allow them to do so only to save face amid their total and otherwise unconditional departure from Syria.

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Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoRos

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Tony Cartalucci, Global Research, 2019

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

US Now Admits it is Funding “Occupy Central” in Hong Kong

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, August 22, 2019

Land Destroyer Report and Global Research 1 October 2014

This article first published almost five years ago on October 1, 2014 is of particular relevance to an understanding of recent developments in Hong Kong.

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Just as the US admitted shortly after the so-called “Arab Spring” began spreading chaos across the Middle East that it had fully funded, trained, and equipped both mob leaders and heavily armed terrorists years in advance, it is now admitted that the US State Department through a myriad of organizations and NGOs is behind the so-called “Occupy Central” protests in Hong Kong. 

The Washington Post would report in an article titled, “Hong Kong erupts even as China tightens screws on civil society,” that:

Chinese leaders unnerved by protests elsewhere this year have been steadily tightening controls over civic organizations on the mainland suspected of carrying out the work of foreign powers.

The campaign aims to insulate China from subversive Western ideas such as democracy and freedom of expression, and from the influence, specifically, of U.S. groups that may be trying to promote those values here, experts say. That campaign is long-standing, but it has been prosecuted with renewed vigor under President Xi Jinping, especially after the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych following months of street demonstrations in Kiev that were viewed here as explicitly backed by the West.

The Washington Post would also report (emphasis added):

One foreign policy expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject, said Putin had called Xi to share his concern about the West’s role in Ukraine. Those concerns appear to have filtered down into conversations held over cups of tea in China, according to civil society group members.

“They are very concerned about Color Revolutions, they are very concerned about what is going on in Ukraine,” said the international NGO manager, whose organization is partly financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), blamed here for supporting the protests in Kiev’s central Maidan square. “They say, ‘Your money is coming from the same people. Clearly you want to overthrow China.’ ”

Congressionally funded with the explicit goal of promoting democracy abroad, NED has long been viewed with suspicion or hostility by the authorities here. But the net of suspicion has widened to encompass such U.S. groups as the Ford Foundation, the International Republican Institute, the Carter Center and the Asia Foundation. 

Of course, NED and its many subsidiaries including the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute do no such thing as “promoting democracy,” and instead are in the business of constructing a global network of neo-imperial administration termed “civil society” that interlocks with the West’s many so-called “international institutions” which in turn  are completely controlled by interests in Washington, upon Wall Street, and in the cities of London and Brussels.

US Sponsored “Color Revolution” Struggles in Hong Kong

Image: While the Washington Post would have readers believe NED is in the business of promoting “freedom of expression” and “democracy” the corporate-financier interests represented on NED’s board of directors are anything but champions of such principles, and are instead notorious for principles precisely the opposite.

The very concept of the United States “promoting democracy” is scandalous when considering it is embroiled in an invasive global surveillance scandal, guilty of persecuting one unpopular war after another around the planet against the will of its own people and based on verified lies, and brutalizing and abusing its own citizens at home with militarized police cracking down on civilians in towns like Ferguson, Missouri – making China’s police actions against “Occupy Central” protesters pale in comparison. “Promoting democracy” is clearly cover for simply expanding its hegemonic agenda far beyond its borders and at the expense of national sovereignty for all subjected to it, including Americans themselves.

In 2011, similar revelations were made public of the US’ meddling in the so-called “Arab Spring” when the New York Times would report in an article titled, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” that:

A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.

The article would also add, regarding NED specifically, that:

The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.

Image: US Senator John McCain on stage in Kiev, Ukraine cheerleading US funded sedition in Eastern Europe. In 2011, McCain would famously taunt both Russia and China that US-funded subversion was coming their way. “Occupy Central” is one of many waves that have hit China’s shores since.

Pro-war and interventionist US Senator John McCain had famously taunted both Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping’s predecessor in 2011 that the US subversion sweeping the Middle East was soon headed toward Moscow and Beijing. The Atlantic in a 2011 article titled, “The Arab Spring: ‘A Virus That Will Attack Moscow and Beijing’,” would report that:

He [McCain] said, “A year ago, Ben-Ali and Gaddafi were not in power. Assad won’t be in power this time next year. This Arab Spring is a virus that will attack Moscow and Beijing.” McCain then walked off the stage.

Considering the overt foreign-funded nature of not only the “Arab Spring,” but now “Occupy Central,” and considering the chaos, death, destabilization, and collapse suffered by victims of previous US subversion, “Occupy Central” can be painted in a new light – a mob of dupes being used to destroy their own home – all while abusing the principles of “democracy” behind which is couched an insidious, diametrically opposed foreign imposed tyranny driven by immense, global spanning corporate-financier interests that fear and actively destroy competition. In particular, this global hegemon seeks to suppress the reemergence of Russia as a global power, and prevent the rise of China itself upon the world’s stage.

The regressive agenda of “Occupy Central’s” US-backed leadership, and their shameless exploitation of the good intentions of the many young people ensnared by their gimmicks, poses a threat in reality every bit as dangerous as the “threat” they claim Beijing poses to the island of Hong Kong and its people. Hopefully the people of China, and the many people around the world looking on as “Occupy Central” unfolds, will realize this foreign-driven gambit and stop it before it exacts the heavy toll it has on nations that have fallen victim to it before – Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Egypt, and many others.

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The original source of this article is Land Destroyer Report and Global Research

Copyright © Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report and Global Research, 2019

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Destabilizing Pakistan: Bookending Washington’s China Policy

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, July 26, 2019

Much is being said of US activities aimed at China. Recent protests in Hong Kong together with a US-led propaganda campaign aimed at Beijing’s attempts to quell a growing terrorist threat in Xinjiang are aimed at pressuring the nation to fall back into line within Washington’s enduring unipolar international order.

The latter of these two campaigns in particular – claims of Chinese authoritarianism as Beijing attempts to neutralize US-backed separatists and terrorists in Xinjiang – has also been spun as China “targeting Muslims.”

This ignores the fact that one of China’s closest and oldest allies in Eurasia is Pakistan – a Muslim-majority nation. It also ignores the fact that in Pakistan, the US is playing the same game aimed at cultivating violent extremism, separatism, violence, division, and even the dissolution of Pakistan’s current borders.

Balochistan – the other Xinjiang 

While all the focus has been directed by the Western media on Xinjiang and a supposed “anti-Muslim crackdown” in the region, Pakistan faces the same problem in its southwestern province of Balochistan. In Pakistan – attempts by the government to root out violent separatists surely is not “anti-Muslim.” 

In Balochistan, the US agencies involved in fanning the flames of separatism and violence instead portray Islamabad and the Pakistani military’s efforts to restore order as simply trampling “human rights.” 

US interference in Balochistan is just as extensive as it is in China’s Xinjiang.

Despite the recent move by Washington to list the armed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as a terrorist organization – Islamabad has long accused Washington of funding and arming it along with segments of the Indian government aligned with US interests.

The fact that otherwise ignored activities by Balochistan separatists are covered by certain Indian newspapers even as recently as this year seems to give credence to these accusations. NDTV’s article, “Pro-Balochistan Slogans Raised During Imran Khan’s Address In US,” and India Today’s article, “16 EU Members of Parliament write letter to Trump to intervene in Balochistan,” are just two such examples.

US support is much easier to track down.

US-based Stanford University’s Mapping Militant Organizations project admits that the BLA receives much of its financial aid from the Balochi diaspora. The project’s profile on the Balochistan Liberation Army notes:

Due to high community support for autonomy and independence from people of the Balochistan, many analysts suspect that a large amount of the BLA’s income and weapons supply come from donations from the Balochi people. Balochi leaders have also claimed that financial contributions from the Balochi diaspora make it possible to procure arms and ammunition through the black market.

Thus, even if the US is not directly arming and funding the BLA, it is openly supporting pro-separatists among the Balochi diaspora who even Stanford University experts admit are – in turn – funding the BLA’s terrorism.

The US move to designate the BLA as a foreign terrorist organization holds little meaning. The BLA will find itself beside organizations like Jabhat Al Nusra in Syria which is all but openly funded and armed by the United States and a large cross-section of Washington’s closest European and Arab allies.

Arming militants is only half of the overall strategy seeking to destabilize Pakistan. Subverting national institutions and replacing them with those interlocking with US special interests is the other half.

US NED Working Hard in – and Against – Pakistan  

The US State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its various subsidiaries are busy at work in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province as well as China’s Xinjiang.

Destroying a Nation State: US-Saudi Funded Terrorists Sowing Chaos in Pakistan

NED has been directly funding and supporting the work of the “Balochistan Institute for Development” (BIFD) which claims to be:

“…the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan.”

In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID “Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights” BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a “media-center” for the Baluchistan Assembly to “provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly.” It can be assumed that BFID meant reporters are “trained” at NED-BFID workshops and at its USAID-funded center.

There is also Voice of Balochistan whose every top-story is US-funded propaganda, including op-eds by US representatives promoting Balochi separatism, foundation-funded Reporters Without Borders, Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, and a direct message from the US State Department.

Like other US State Department funded propaganda outfits around the world – such as Thailand’s Prachatai – funding is generally obfuscated in order to main “credibility” even when the front’s constant torrent of obvious propaganda more than exposes the game.

The “Free Baluchistan” movement is a US and London-based organizations. The “Baloch Society of North America” serves as a useful aggregate and bellwether regarding US meddling in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The group’s founder, Dr. Wahid Baloch, openly admits he has met with US politicians in regards to Balochistan independence. This includes Neo-Conservative corporate-lobbyist and National Endowment for Democracy board member, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Dr. Wahid Baloch considers Balochistan province “occupied” by both the Iranian and Pakistani governments – he and his movement’s humanitarian hand-wringing gives Washington the perfect pretext to create an armed conflagration against either Iran or Pakistan, or both, as planned in detail by various US policy think-tanks.

There is also the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, or BSO. While it maintains a presence in Pakistan, it has coordinators based in London. London-based BSO members include “information secretaries” that propagate their message via social media, just as US and British-funded youth organizations did during the West’s operations against other targeted nations during the US-engineered “Arab Spring” in 2011.

And just as US-funded agitators in China’s Xinjiang region coordinate their activities with other US-backed groups across the rest of China – such as in Hong Kong and Tibet – other US NED-funded fronts in Pakistan also contribute to a wider campaign of dividing and undermining Pakistan.The US State Department funds Voice of America Deewa focused on Pakistan’s Pashtuns who inhabit Pakistan’s northwest region along its border with Afghanistan.

Despite VOA Deewa’s supposed area of focus, it is actually based in Washington DC. While many of the organizations it provides support for do not admit their US funding, organizations like “AdvoPak” are regularly promoted by VOA Deewa. US NED’s online publication, “Democracy Digest,” also promotes, interviews, and defends groups who appear to be funded by Washington and undoubtedly serve US interests in Pakistan.

This includes the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) which was featured by the Digest earlier this year in an article titled, “Pakistan’s military targets protest movement, stifles dissent.” While PTM doesn’t disclose its funding, it is regularly accused of receiving support from and working for both India and the US.The Democracy Digest article featured a video interview with a PTM member – Gulalai Ismail – who is in fact an NED Fellow. There is also NED’s “Tribute to Gulalai Ismail at the 2013 Democracy Award.”And all of this is just scratching the surface of US meddling in Pakistan’s internal politics and of organizations committed to creating synergies with US-backed separatists in Balochistan.

What Does Pakistan’s Balochistan and China’s Xinjiang Have in Common? 

Balochistan and Xinjiang both appear to be suffering from separatist movements, terrorism, and political destabilization. The common factor is clearly US backing behind both separatist movements – but what is the common denominator that has attracted US attention in the first place?Both Xinjiang and Balochistan are settings for massive Chinese-led infrastructure and trade initiatives. Western publications like the Business Insider note the importance Xinjiang holds in terms of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative.

Many of the routes that lead out of China, across Central Asia, and eventually into the Middle East and Western Europe pass through Xinjiang. US attempts to destabilize the region in turn directly impact the viability of Beijing’s OBOR initiative and the economic wealth and influence it stands to grant Beijing.

Likewise, a significant leg of the OBOR initiative extends from China and across Pakistan from north to south, through Balochistan until reaching Gwadar Port. Thus, by destabilizing Balochistan, this essential corridor’s full potential is inhibited.

This is a truth US special interests and the media interests they own will never admit to. This is why – instead – diverse tales of China’s “anti-Muslim” crackdown and Pakistan’s “distain for human rights” in Balochistan are used to sell two different US-backed conflicts fuelled for a singular agenda – impeding China’s rise and that of its allies – including Pakistan.

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Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Tony Cartalucci, Global Research, 2019

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!