Tag Archives: NATO

Chomsky: Israel Acquiring Nuclear-Armed Submarines for Possible Attack on Iran

By Claire Bernish. Published 4-6-2016 by The Anti-Media

Israeli soldiers standing on a Dolphin-class submarine. Photo: Israel Defense Forces (The Chief of Staff Tours Israel’s Naval Bases) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Professor Noam Chomsky offered several alarming insights about Israel’s possible true intentions surrounding Iran — and why we all should be concerned. In an interview with AcTVism Munich’s Zain Raza, Chomsky explained what happens to submarines Germany sends to Israel:

“These dolphin class submarines that Germany is providing to Israel are instantly refitted in Israel to have nuclear weapons capacity, and that’s not aimed at defense of Israel. They are meant for attack, that’s what they are. And we know what attack they’re aimed for in the short run: an attack on Iran in the Gulf. That’s a terrible threat, not only to Iranians, but to the world.” Continue reading →

Former Bush Official Just Confirmed That Our Wars Are for Corporate Interests

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By Claire Bernish. Published 3-29-2016 by The Anti-Media

A Blackwater Security Company MD-530F helicopter in Baghdad, Iraq, 2004. Photo by Master Sgt. Michael E. Best (Public Domain)

“I think Smedley Butler was onto something,” Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former George W. Bush administration heavyweight, told Salon in an exclusive interview.

Major General Smedley Butler earned the highest rank in the U.S. Marine Corps, accumulating numerous accolades as he helped lead the United States through decades of war. He later became an ardent critic of such militarism and imperialism.

“War is a racket,” Butler famously said, and Wilkerson — who has also turned critical of U.S. imperialist policy — agrees with and admires the esteemed Marine. Continue reading →

Failed US Policy in the Middle East

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By Ellen Rosser. Published 2-29-2016 by Common Dreams

(Photo: Mark Holloway/flickr/cc.)

The United States has been involved in the Middle East for almost one hundred years because of the vast oil reserves there, and the US has been militarily involved since 1967, when the US began supplying Israel with weapons with which to defend itself. However, the US has only been involved in the “quagmire” of Middle East wars since 2001. Continue reading →

Ratcheting Tensions, Obama Orders Huge Weapons Increase Along EU-Russia Border

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Just last week, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov referred to NATO’s build-up near Russia’s borders as “counterproductive and dangerous.”

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-2-2016

During a 2015 NATO exercise. (Photo: Gonzalo Alonso/flickr/cc)

Less than a week after Russia’s foreign minister warned that NATO’s military build-up near Russia’s borders is “counterproductive and dangerous,” the United States is ramping up the deployment of heavy weapons and armored vehicles to NATO member countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Administration officials told the Times “the additional NATO forces were calculated to send a signal to President Vladimir V. Putin that the West remained deeply suspicious of his motives in the region,” referring to Russia’s ongoing presence in eastern Ukraine. Continue reading →

Turkey’s “Thousand Year-Old Friendship” with the Kurds belies truth

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Written by Carol Benedict. Published with Author’s permission.

Supporters of Turkey’s position take aim at the Kurdish Vigil across the street in Washington, DC. Image via Twitter.

As news unfolds of the growing human rights crisis in Turkey, the response has been to project the views of the regime and dictatorship of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to nations even within their NATO alliances.

Most recently, the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC has taken aim at an organization holding a Vigil for King’s Dream in Kurdistan across the street from the embassy. On January 15, the Vigil began after realizing that during the previous evening, the embassy had hoisted a ostentatious flag and several banners repeating mistruths about Kurdish issues.

A native of Kurdistan, Kani Xulam is a commentator on the history and politics of Kurdistan, and advocates for the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination. He is the director of the American-Kurdish Information Network, and is involved in the Vigil in Washington.

Xulam stated the reasons for A Vigil for King’s Dream in Kurdistan clearly in a statement published prior to the beginning of the event. His subsequent announcement was featured in an article, Is America’s Best Muslim Friend In the Middle East Being Crushed? The group is using the hashtags #KurdsHonorDrKing and #TwitterKurds.

Within Turkey, access to news has been controlled by the government. Any website or other social platform presenting views other than that of Erdogan’s is being blocked. Journalists attempting to cover the stories of the atrocities, human rights violations, indiscriminate killings and sieges and curfews on entire neighborhoods are being arrested, detained, tortured, and, in some cases killed.

What Turkey wants is for the international community to begin identifying all Kurds within their borders as associated with any organization labeled by the Turkish government as a terrorist group. If this goal can be accomplished, Turkey will achieve the dream of Erdogan to secure his life-long dictatorship over his country by perpetrating a mass genocide on the millions of Kurds residing within Turkey’s borders and will expect the world to look away as he claims they were protecting their nation.

There has never been a question of Turkey’s undeclared support and backing of the terrorists groups such as Daesh (IS). During the siege of Kobani a little more than a year ago, the military sat on the Turkish border and refused to allow Kurdish persons to cross to help defend the Syrian town. Meanwhile, evidence surfaced proving ISIS militants were allowed to cross at free will, bringing supplies, weaponry and additional fighters with them.

For years, those wishing to join the fight Daesh is waging across the Middle East have routed their access through Turkey. It has been documented in multiple credible news sources that ISIL fighters traveled through Turkey on their way to join the terrorist group. It was not until Daesh began attacking within the country of Turkey that access became more difficult, and yet it remains possible to this day.

Most Americans remain uninformed about news out of Turkey. It is seldom covered in US news media outlets, and usually only occurs when sensational headlines are associated. But more Americans need to pay attention, because their tax dollar is being used to commit these violations and atrocities within Turkey against an innocent civilian population.

President Barak Obama recently appealed to Americans to support his executive orders to remove loopholes in background checks for gun purchases in the US. During this speech, he remarked that we can no longer allow our children to be innocent victims of the senseless violence taking place in communities across America.

We must ask what difference there is in American children here and Kurdish children in Turkey, that the man who would say this can continue to approve and sign that which is needed for the US military industrial complex to continue to sell and ship weaponry and ammunition to a country that is using that weaponry against the children in their own country.

It is said that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Humanity has seen this kind of treatment toward an ethnic group in the past, and each time we recoil in horror and swear we must never allow this to happen again. And now it IS happening again.

Anyone with a heart and soul that values humanity must take action and support all efforts to make the world aware before it is too late once again.

If you are reading this and can not physically join the Vigil that is currently taking place in Washington, DC across from the Turkish Embassy, you at least can share this and other news with any and all people that still have a beating heart within their chest.

About the Author:
Carol Benedict is an independent researcher studying Kurdish history, culture and politics. She is also a human rights activist and advocate.

Tensions Flare as Putin Calls Turkey’s Downing of Russian Jet ‘Stab in the Back’

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Volatile situation as Moscow and Ankara express mutual disgust and worries reverberate over regional and global implications of latest incident along Syrian border

Written by Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-24-2015.

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has warned Turkey of ‘serious consequences’ after a Russia fighter jet was shot down close to Turkey’s border with Syria. Putin described the incident as a “stab in the back” and accused Turkey of siding with Islamic State militants in Syria. (Photo: Screenshot/Anadolu Agency)

Turkey has taken responsibility for shooting down a Russian fighter jet near the border with neighboring Syria on Tuesday, as both Moscow and Ankara put forth conflicting narratives about what led to the incident which has sparked an emergency meeting of NATO allies and strong rebuke from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Though some factual details remain contested, Reuters reports how this marks “the first time a NATO member’s armed forces have downed a Russian or Soviet military aircraft since the 1950s and Russian and Turkish assets fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies.”

Early reports indicated that both Russian pilots had been able to eject from the plane before it crashed, but subsequent information has diverged about whether both, only one, or neither survived.

Officials in Turkey have said the plane was shot down by a Turkish F-16 after the Russian pilots ignored repeated warnings to leave Turkish airspace. One Turkish official was quoted as saying:”This isn’t an action against any specific country: Our F-16s took necessary steps to defend Turkey’s sovereign territory.”

Russian officials, however, have disputed the plane was in violation and slammed Turkey’s behavior. Putin, speaking from the city of Sochi ahead of a scheduled meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, called the incident a “stab in the back” and said the Russian plane was flying over Syrian territory when it was brought down.

“The loss today is a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists. I can’t describe it in any other way,” Putin said. “Our aircraft was downed over the territory of Syria, using air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16. It fell on the Syrian territory 4km from Turkey. Neither our pilots nor our jet threatened the territory of Turkey. This is obvious.”

Turkey has made no secret that it dislikes how Russia has come to the aid of embattled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and has repeatedly made warnings about Russian fighters jets crossing into its airspace and condemned the targeting of Syrian Turkmen and other rebel forces fighting against Assad who it views as allies. Following the incident and a request by Turkey, an emergency NATO meeting in Brussles has now been scheduled for all member states .

Footage of what is said to be the Russian SU-24 fighter going down and then bursting into flames just before impact was released on Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency:

Putin voiced disgust with the situation even as he said his government would assess all information before taking action. “We will analyse everything,” Putin said, “and today’s tragic event will have significant consequences, including for Russia-Turkish relations. We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don’t know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours.”

According to the Guardian:

The latest incident highlights the grave risks of clashes of arms between the various international forces that have intervened in Syria. A coalition led by the US is conducting an campaign against Isis in the country, and American and Russian officials have worked on ensuring there are no clashes between their forces as they pursue their separate campaigns.

But the shooting down of the Russian plane is an escalation that leaves open the possibility of a clash between a Nato member and Russia, whose intervention shows an increasing assertiveness in international affairs.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

US and Russia vying for Kurdish attention in Syria

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The Syrian Kurds are seen as IS’ most formidable enemy. Now that Russia has joined the Syrian war, its competing with the US for the Kurds’ attention.

By Joris Leverink. Published 10-23-2015 by ROAR Magazine

Photo showing female Kurdish YPJ fighter, by Kurdishstruggle via Flickr.

Last week, the US announced it had dropped 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups in northern Syria. Despite its public announcements proclaiming the contrary, most, if not all, of the ammunition ended up in the hands of the Syrian Kurds fighting under the banner of the Peoples’ Protection Forces, or YPG.

Sensitive about the negative disposition of the Free Syrian Army and their Turkish allies towards the Syrian Kurds, the US declared loud and clear that the support was intended for a number of Arab rebel groups in the Raqqa province who had organized themselves under the umbrella of the newly established Syrian Democratic Forces.

Regardless of the public discourse, there is little doubt that the US intended for the ammunition to end up in Kurdish hands from the start. Continue reading →

NATO and Russia ‘War Games’ Not Games At All

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The nature and scale of ongoing exercises suggest ‘Russia is preparing for a conflict with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a possible confrontation with Russia.’

Written by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-12-15.

At the opening ceremony of a NATO exercise in Latvia this June. (Photo:Latvijas armija/flickr/cc)

War games conducted by Russian and NATO forces go far beyond the hypothetical, raising the specter of a very real conflict on the European continent, a new study warns.

According to the European Leadership Network (ELN), a think tank based in London, “[o]ver the last 18 months, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the relationship between Russia and the West has deteriorated considerably”—at least in part due to war games that feed a “climate of mistrust.”

ELN’s report, Preparing for the Worst: Are Russian and NATO Military Exercises Making War in Europe more Likely? (pdf), analyzes a Russian ‘snap exercise’ in March involving 80,000 military personal from bases all across the country, and NATO’s Allied Shield set of war games conducted on air, land, and sea in June, which involved 15,000 personnel from 22 countries.

Though both sides “may maintain that these operations are targeted against hypothetical opponents, the nature and scale of them indicate otherwise: Russia is preparing for a conflict with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a possible confrontation with Russia,” the authors write.

NATO’s activities, for example, are “clearly intended to simulate the kinds of operations NATO forces would need to engage in, in the context of a military crisis or confrontation with Russia somewhere in the Baltic region,” the report reads, while the scale and geographical distribution of Russia’s drill “means it could only have been a simulated war with U.S.-led NATO.”

“We do not suggest that the leadership of either side has made a decision to go to war or that a military conflict between the two is inevitable,” the report continues, “but that the changed profile of exercises is a fact and it does play a role in sustaining the current climate of tensions in Europe.”

The exercises also indicate “what each side sees as its most exposed areas,” ELN states, with NATO concentrating its activities in the Baltic States and Poland and Russia focusing primarily on the Arctic and High North, the seaport city of Kaliningrad, occupied Crimea, and its border areas with NATO members Estonia and Latvia.

While Russia and NATO both insist that their moves are defensive in nature, the authors argue that war games can be easily perceived “as provocative and deliberate aggravation of the crisis.”

To “defuse or at least minimize the tensions” between the world powers, the report recommends increased transparency and communication around scheduling of exercises; “restraint in terms of size or scenarios used in exercises;” and—most grandly—the immediate commencement of “conceptual work” on a new treaty limiting deployment of specific categories of weapons.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

As Ukraine Spirals Again into Violence, US Contemplates Pouring Fuel on Fire

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Published on Monday, February 02, 2015 by Common Dreams

by Jon Queally, staff writer

Donetsk airport, once the pride of the city, has been completely demolished. Image via Twitter.

With reporting from the New York Times revealing new consideration by the Obama administration to send $3 billion worth of weaponry and military equipment to Ukraine, concerns over a deepening civil war between the Ukraine Army and the eastern rebel factions who reject the authority of the government in Kiev are rising rapidly.

On Monday, Alexander Zakharchenko, president of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic in the east, has reportedly announced plans to recruit 100,000 men to fuel the eastern region’s ongoing battle with the Ukraine Army, which receives backing from both the U.S. and the NATO alliance.

As fighting intensifed in Donetsk, Vuhlehirsk, Debaltseve and other eastern cities on Sunday and into Monday, the Times reported that NATO’s high commander as well as top members of Obama’s national security team are again discussing plans to send more weapons to the war-torn and divided nation.

Continue reading →

Occupy World Writes

The Movement Continues – Globally

Tag Archives: NATO

Chomsky: Israel Acquiring Nuclear-Armed Submarines for Possible Attack on Iran

Former Bush Official Just Confirmed That Our Wars Are for Corporate Interests

Ratcheting Tensions, Obama Orders Huge Weapons Increase Along EU-Russia Border

Just last week, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov referred to NATO’s build-up near Russia’s borders as “counterproductive and dangerous.”

Tensions Flare as Putin Calls Turkey’s Downing of Russian Jet ‘Stab in the Back’

Volatile situation as Moscow and Ankara express mutual disgust and worries reverberate over regional and global implications of latest incident along Syrian border

US and Russia vying for Kurdish attention in Syria

The Syrian Kurds are seen as IS’ most formidable enemy. Now that Russia has joined the Syrian war, its competing with the US for the Kurds’ attention.

NATO and Russia ‘War Games’ Not Games At All

The nature and scale of ongoing exercises suggest ‘Russia is preparing for a conflict with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a possible confrontation with Russia.’

As Ukraine Spirals Again into Violence, US Contemplates Pouring Fuel on Fire