ISIS Godfather Davutoglu dishes out garbage on Russia’s work in Syria

December 22, 2015 By administrator

By Neil Clark

The Most Hypocritical Statement of 2015 awards have lots of strong contenders – but Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has made a dramatic late grasp for glory.

He has condemned an attack on Idlib in north-west Syria believed to have been carried out by Russian planes, saying Syrian lands will not be part of “Russian imperialist goals.”

That’s right – the Prime Minister of Turkey – a country which has spent the past four years trying to get its favored ‘rebels’ into power in Syria – and which has sent its own troops into northern Iraq – is criticizing somebody else for having ’imperialist goals’!

Davutoglu’s statement is a classic example of what psychologists call ‘projection’ – accusing others of things that you yourself are guilty of.

Neocons, who ignore the hundreds of thousands of deaths they caused in Iraq following the illegal invasion of 2003, do it all the time when they label people they don’t like ‘war crime deniers’.

Or when they call people ‘conspiracy theorists’ – when it was they who peddled the biggest conspiracy theory of the 21st century – namely that Iraq had WMDs.

Now it seems the practice is all the rage in governing circles in Ankara too.

Imperialist goals are most certainly are being pursued in Syria, but not by Russia- which is only intervening in Syria with the permission of that country’s lawful and UN-recognised government.

While the dominant western narrative portrays the conflict as the fault of a Syrian ‘regime’ which tried to brutally suppress an ‘Arab spring’ uprising, US regime change plans for Syria go back to at least 2006, according to wikileaks.

The Arab Spring- as I argued here – was merely the smokescreen to go full steam ahead with already formulated plans for ‘regime change’ by Syria’s enemies who resented its independence and its friendship with Iran.

As the award-winning investigative journalist John Pilger put it, the ‘true crime’ of the Syrian Arab Republic was “not the oppressive nature of its government but its independence from American and Israeli power – just as Iran’s true crime is its independence, and Russia’s true crime is its independence … In an American-owned world, independence is intolerable.”

Independent Syria was targeted by the US and its allies, in the same way that Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were targeted. The model used by imperalists in Syria most closely resembles the strategy deployed in Yugoslavia and Libya. Demonization of the ‘regime’ and its leader and support to ’rebels’ portrayed as ‘moderates’.Followed up by air strikes from NATO to help the western approved ‘rebels’ come to power.

But in Syria, stage three proved a problem. The British Parliament voted against air strikes on the Syrian government in 2013. And by 2015, it was clear – even to those who generally were in favor of the imperial strategy – that the ‘moderate rebels’ weren’t very ‘moderate’ at all.

Even the think-thank of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair now concedes that most of the ‘moderate’ rebels in Syria sympathize with ISIS.

If Russian policy towards Syria can be criticized it is that the intervention which we saw in September this year did not come earlier. But when it did come, it became a game changer – or even a game ender.

The ‘regime changers’ are now badly rattled.

Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries including The Guardian, Morning Star, Daily and Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Week, and The American Conservative. He is a regular pundit on RT and has also appeared on BBC TV and radio, Sky News, Press TV and the Voice of Russia. He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs @NeilClark66

Seymour Hersh’s bizarre new conspiracy theory about the US and Syria, explained

December 21, 2015 By administrator

Seymour-Hersh

Day by day Syria getting more and more convoluted ,

The investigative journalist says Pentagon leaders conducted a secret alliance with Assad and Putin to undermine Obama.

Seymour Hersh, an investigative journalist famous for uncovering the 1968 My Lai massacre and the mid-2000s Abu Ghraib scandal, says there’s another scandal afoot, and it’s bigger than anything he’s previously reported. Perhaps even bigger than his story from this May alleging that the US staged its mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

The Pentagon deliberately subverted American policy toward Syria, sabotaging US efforts to aid Syrian rebels and even sending US intelligence to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to journalist Seymour Hersh.

In a nearly 7,000-word piece in the London Review of Books, Hersh says that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America’s top military leaders, decided to deliberately subvert American foreign policy and form a secret alliance with Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As his source, Hersh cites one anonymous “former senior adviser” to the Joint Chiefs.

In summer 2013, the Joint Chiefs discovered that Turkey had “co-opted” the CIA’s program to arm so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels. Ankara decided to redirect US aid to extremists, including Daesh and al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front, Hersh writes.

The Joint Chiefs also discovered that viable moderate Syrian rebels did not exist and that the opposition consisted nearly uniformly of extremists.

So, in the fall of 2013, the Joint Chiefs decided to start secretly “providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army,” Hersh writes. They sent US intelligence to Germany, Russia, and Israel, which sent it to Assad.

The goal of their secret alliance with Assad was to subvert Obama’s Syria efforts, prop up Assad, and aid him in destroying Daesh and other extremists, according to Hersh.

In return, the Joint Chiefs asked that Assad “restrain” Hezbollah from attacking Israel; renew negotiations with Israel over the Golan Heights, a territory that Israel had seized from Syria decades earlier; agree to accept any Russian assistance; and hold elections after the war ended.

In summer 2013, the Joint Chiefs tricked the CIA into shipping obsolete weapons to Syrian rebels, Hersh writes. The journalist says this was intended as a show of good faith to Assad, to convince him to accept their offer.

The secret Joint Chiefs alliance with Putin and Assad, Hersh writes, ended this September when its chief architect, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey, retired.

Source: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151221/1032114120/pentagon-passed-intelligence-assad.html

Russia reinforces Armenia military base with attack, defense helicopters

December 21, 2015 By administrator

Russia has reinforced its air base in Armenia with attack and transport helicopters, Interfax news agency cited the Russian military as saying on Monday.

A total of six Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters have been sent to the base near the capital city of Yerevan, Interfax reported. Russia deployed seven helicopters to Armenia earlier in December.

Erdogan starting to talk Hitler We can occupy Russia in seven days “they tried 1914”

December 20, 2015 By administrator

The Battle of Sarikamish (Armenian: Սարիղամիշի ճակատամարտ (Sarighamishi chakatamart), Russian: Сражение при Сарыкамыше; Turkish: Sarıkamış Harekatı) was an engagement between the Russian and Ottoman empires during World War I. It took place from December 22, 1914 to January 17, 1915 as part of the Caucasus Campaign.

The outcome was a Russian victory. The Ottomans employed a strategy which demanded that their troops be highly mobile and to arrive at specified objectives at precise times. This approach was based both on German and Napoleonic tactics.^[4] The Ottoman troops, ill-prepared for winter conditions, suffered major casualties in the Allahuekber Mountains.^[4]

Afterward, Ottoman leader Enver Pasha publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians and the battle was a prelude to the Armenian Genocide

Source: Wikipedia

https://twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/678710563225124864

Russia Duma mulls outlawing denial of Greek, Assyrian genocides

December 19, 2015 By administrator

202638 A group of Socialist-Revolutionary deputies introduced a bill to Russia’s State Duma, seeking to criminalize public denial of genocide against the Greeks, Assyrians and Yezidi Kurds perpetrated between 1915 and 1922 in Turkey.

It is proposed to introduce a penalty of up to 200.000 rubles or a sentence of forced labor or imprisonment for up to three years.

According to one of the authors of the bill, head of the faction Just Russia Sergei Mironov, a bill on outlawing the denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1922 is currently under consideration at the Duma.

“Our bill has a simple and obvious logic,” Mironov said. “Not only Armenians, but also representatives of other nations were affected by Turkey’s genocide of 1915-1922: millions of people fell victim, starved to death, lost their homeland. It is necessary to recognize the crimes of the Turkish regime to restore historical justice.”

If Erdogan and NATO Want War? Russia is Ready for War “Pepe Escobar”

December 16, 2015 By administrator

By Pepe Escobar,

Nobody needs to read Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 1997 opus to know US foreign policy revolves around one single overarching theme: prevent – by all means necessary – the emergence of a power, or powers, capable of constraining Washington’s unilateral swagger, not only in Eurasia but across the world.

The Pentagon carries the same message embedded in newspeak: the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.

Syria is leading all these assumptions to collapse like a house of cards. So no wonder in a Beltway under no visible chain of command – the Obama administration barely qualifies as lame duck – angst is the norm.

The Pentagon is now engaged in a Vietnam-style escalation of boots on the ground across “Syraq”. 50 commandos are already in northern Syria “advising” the YPG Syrian Kurds as well as a few “moderate” Sunnis. Translation: telling them what Washington wants them to do. The official White House spin is that these commandos “support local forces” (Obama’s words) in cutting off supply lines leading to the fake “Caliphate” capital, Raqqa.

Another 200 Special Forces sent to Iraq will soon follow, allegedly to “engage in direct combat” against the leadership of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, which is now ensconced in Mosul.

These developments, billed as “efforts” to “partially re-engage in Iraq and Syria” are leading US Think Tankland to pen hilarious reports in search of “the perfect balance between wide-scale invasion and complete disengagement” – when everyone knows Washington will never disengage from the Middle East’s strategic oil wealth.

All these American boots on the ground in theory should be coordinating, soon, with a new, spectacularly surrealist 34-country “Islamic” coalition (Iran was not invited), set up to fight ISIS/ISIL/Daesh by no less than the ideological matrix of all strands of Salafi-jihadism: Wahhabi Saudi Arabia.

Syria is now Coalition Central. There are at least four; the “4+1” (Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah), which is actually fighting Daesh; the US-led coalition, a sort of mini NATO-GCC combo, but with the GCC doing nothing; the Russia-France direct military collaboration; and the new Saudi-led “Islamic” charade. They are pitted against an astonishing number of Salafi-jhadi coalitions and alliances of convenience that last from a few months to a few hours.

And then there’s Turkey, which under Sultan Erdogan plays a vicious double game.

Sarajevo All Over Again?

“Tense” does not even begin to describe the current Russia-Turkey geopolitical tension, which shows no sign of abating. The Empire of Chaos lavishly profits from it as a privileged spectator; as long as the tension lasts, prospects of Eurasia integration are hampered.

Russian intel has certainly played all possible scenarios involving a NATO Turkish army on the Turkish-Syrian border as well as the possibility of Ankara closing the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles for the Russian “Syria Express”. Erdogan may not be foolish enough to offer Russia yet another casus belli. But Moscow is taking no chances.

Russia has placed ships and submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles in case Turkey under the cover of NATO decides to strike out against the Russian position. President Putin has been clear; Russia will use nuclear weapons if necessary if conventional forces are threatened.

If Ankara opts for a suicide mission of knocking out yet another Su-24, or Su-34, Russia will simply clear the airspace all across the border via the S-400s. If Ankara under the cover of NATO responds by launching the Turkish Army on Russian positions, Russia will use nuclear missiles, drawing NATO into war not only in Syria but potentially also in Europe. And this would include using nuclear missiles to keep Russian strategic use of the Bosphorus open.

That’s how we can draw a parallel of Syria today as the equivalent of Sarajevo 1914.

Since mid-2014 the Pentagon has run all manner of war games – as many as 16 times, under different scenarios – pitting NATO against Russia. All scenarios were favorable to NATO. All simulations yielded the same victor: Russia.

And that’s why Erdogan’s erratic behavior actually terrifies quite a few real players from Washington to Brussels.

Let Me Take You on a Missile Cruise

The Pentagon is very much aware of the tremendous heavy metal Russia may unleash if provoked to the limit by someone like Erdogan. Let’s roll out an abridged list.

Russia can use the mighty SS-18 – which NATO codenames “Satan”; each “Satan” carries 10 warheads, with a yield of 750 to 1000 kilotons each, enough to destroy an area the size of New York state.

The Topol M ICBM is the world’s fastest missile at 21 Mach (16,000 miles an hour); against it, there’s no defense. Launched from Moscow, it hits New York City in 18 minutes, and L.A. in 22.8 minutes.

Russian submarines – as well as Chinese submarines – are able to launch offshore the US, striking coastal targets within a minute. Chinese submarines have surfaced next to US aircraft carriers undetected, and Russian submarines can do the same.

The S-500 anti-missile system is capable of sealing Russia off from ICBMs and cruise missiles. (Moscow will only admit on the record that the S-500s will be rolled out in 2016; but the fact the S-400s will soon be delivered to China implies the S-500s may be already operational.)

The S-500 makes the Patriot missile look like a V-2 from WWII.

Here, a former adviser to the US Chief of Naval Operations essentially goes on the record saying the whole US missile defense apparatus is worthless.

Russia has a supersonic bomber fleet of Tupolev Tu-160s; they can take off from airbases deep in the heart of Russia, fly over the North Pole, launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles from safe distances over the Atlantic, and return home to watch the whole thing on TV.

Russia can cripple virtually every forward NATO base with tactical – or battlefield – small-yield nuclear weapons. It’s not by accident that Russia over the past few months tested NATO response times in multiple occasions.

The Iskander missile travels at seven times the speed of sound with a range of 400 km. It’s deadly to airfields, logistics points and other stationary infrastructure along a broad war theatre, for instance in southern Turkey.

NATO would need to knock out all these Iskanders. But then they would need to face the S-400s – or, worse, S-500s — which Russia can layer in defense zones in nearly every conceivable theater of war. Positioning the S-400s in Kaliningrad, for instance, would cripple all NATO air operations deep inside Europe.

And presiding over military decisions, Russia privileges the use of Reflexive Control (RC). This is a tactic that aims to convey selected information to the enemy that forces him into making self-defeating decisions; a sort of virus influencing and controlling his decision-making process. Russia uses RC tactically, strategically and geopolitically. A young Vladimir Putin learned all there is to know about RC at the 401st KGB School and further on in his career as a KGB/FSB officer.

All right,

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

Source: sputniknews.com

Sayria-Update Russian Air Forces Conduct 59 Sorties, Hit 200 Daesh Targets

December 16, 2015 By administrator

The Russian Air Forces have conducted 59 combat missions hitting 200 Daesh targets in 7 Syrian provinces over past 24 hours, the Russian Defense ministry said.

“Over past 24 hours Russian warplanes have conducted 59 sorties, hitting 212 Daesh targets in the Syrian province of Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Hama, Homs, al-Hasakah an Raqqa,” the Defense Ministry spokesman told journalists.

Aircraft from Russia’s Aerospace Forces in Syria have also destroyed more than 300 militants and scores of armored vehicles over the last 24 hours, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday.

“More than 320 militants and 34 armored vehicles of terrorists, including two tanks, one infantry fighting vehicle, 15 jeeps equipped with large-caliber guns were destroyed,” Konashenkov told journalists in Syria’s Latakia.

In past 24 hours, Russian jets have also destroyed a column of tanker trucks and more than 100 fuel-transfer stations used by terrorists, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov added.

“In order to disrupt terrorists’ sources of income, Russian Su-34 bomber jets destroyed 94 fuel-transfer stations near Deir ez-Zor,” he said.

According to Konashenkov, in the al-Hasakah province during the “free hunt” mission Su-34 has destroyed column of 15 fuel tankers which were carrying oil in northern direction extracted from terrorist-controlled areas.

Having received the intel from the Syrian opposition, the Russian aviation has destroyed a Daesh base in the Homs province and terrorists’ stronghold in the Allepo province, Igor Konashenkov said.

“Near the Al-Qaryatayn in the Syrian province of Homs Su-24M destroyed a hidden Daesh base. In the dungeons terrorists have organized a command post, arm depot and outqaurters,” Maj. Gen. Konashenkov added.

He noted that terrorists’ objects were destroyed using direct strikes.

Russian Su-25 fighter jet has destroyed a major military base of Daesh terrorists in Maarrat al-Nu’man, Syrian province of Idlib.

Official: Ankara’s statements on Karabakh are destructive and can have no continuation

December 15, 2015 By administrator

Turkey’s statements on Nagorno-Karabakh are destructive and can have no continuation, Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s permanent representative to the OSCE, said on the air of “Russia 24” channel, RIA Novosti reports.

Earlier Ankara announced that it would do its best to return the Karabakh territories to Azerbaijan.

“This position isn’t supported by the OSCE. There is a strict understanding that the three co-chairs – Russia, France and U.S. – bear the main burden, as do the Minsk Group members themselves. By the way, Turkey is also included here. But the leading role is fixed, and it is acknowledged by the three co-chairs. That’s why the attempts to defend one of the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are absolutely destructive and cannot have any continuation,” Lukashevich said, referring to the statements of the Turkish leadership.

Russia tests new stealth drones at Armenian military base

December 15, 2015 By administrator

Orlan-10 reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle © Donat Sorokin/TASS

(TASS) Reconnaissance units will use Orlan-10 reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles for the first time to track extended and point targets in high mountainous areas,

YEREVAN, December 15. /TASS/. The Russian military base in Armenia has received new Orlan-10 reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and started testing Navodchik-2 drones invisible from the ground, a Southern Military District spokesman told TASS on Tuesday.

The drones are being tested at the high mountainous Kamkhud training range in Armenia by the servicemen who have undergone special retraining at the training facility in the Moscow Region, the spokesman said.

According to the spokesman, “reconnaissance units will use Orlan-10 UAVs for the first time to track extended and point targets in high mountainous areas”.

“The UAVs will be also involved in combat training of the military base’s units,” the spokesman added.

“The military base’s servicemen will also learn to deploy the Navodchik-2 reconnaissance system, prepare it for launching, use the catapult for aircraft takeoff and landing, the spokesman said.

The modern Navodchik-2 and Orlan-10 systems “will boost the volume of tasks accomplished in high mountainous areas in Armenia in the interests of reconnaissance and special units by five times,” the Southern Military District’s spokesman said.

The Russian military base is located in Armenia under an inter-governmental treaty signed between Moscow and Yerevan in 1995.

Iran Plans to Boost Export of Agricultural Products to Russia

December 13, 2015 By administrator

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran has set up a special work group to boost exports of its agricultural products to Russia, a senior trade official announced on Sunday.

Iranian Deputy Minister of Industries, Mines, and Commerce Valiollah Afkhamirad said that the work group has been formed in line with accelerating broadening trade and economic relations between Tehran and Moscow, specially in agricultural fields.

The work group comprises experts of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce and Iranian Trade Promotion Organization.

After the European countries imposed sanctions on Russia over he last year, Russia turned to Iran for importing agricultural products. However, owing to several facors such as high import tariffs levied on Iranian agricultural products by Russia, lack of proper transportation means and money exchange problems as well as Russia’s demanding high standards for Iranian goods, export of Iran’s products has not reached the favorable level.

Now that Russia has sanctioned Turkey as one of its main suppliers of agricultural products, the Iranian businessmen have doubled their efforts to take the Russian market.

On November 23, High-ranking Iranian and Russian officials inked 7 cooperation Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) in the presence of President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Iran and Russia enjoy special positions on the international scene and have long had constant and regular consultations on key regional and global issues.

Over the last several years, Iran and Russia have had vast cooperation in different fields, especially in political and economic spheres.

Their bilateral trade volume registered a 10 percent hike in the first three months of 2015, as compared with the same period in 2014.

In February, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanayee said that Tehran and Moscow plan to start a considerable boost in their trade exchanges in the current year by utilizing all their economic capacities and potentials.

“Iran and Russia signed many agreements in 2014, and 2015 is the year for implementing these agreements,” Sanayee told FNA.

In December 2014, Sanayee announced that Tehran and Moscow planned to boost their trade exchanges to $70 billion in the near future.

“The two countries (Iran and Russia) are serious about implementing an economic memorandum of understanding (MoU) which has been recently signed at the joint economic commission which amounts to $70 billion,” Sanayee said, addressing a conference in Moscow.

He noted that Iran and Russia signed a major economic, trade and energy agreement in August 2014 which could pave the way for multiplying the two countries’ trade exchanges.

In March, Iran and Russia signed an MoU on the supervision of their central banks over the financial operations of the two countries’ banks.

“The MoU was signed by the deputy governors of the Iranian and Russian central banks during a visit to Moscow by a high-ranking Iranian banking and financial delegation from March 10 to 12,” Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanayee said at the time.

He noted that Iran’s banking delegation also visited Russia’s central bank and other major banks during its stay in Moscow.

In May, Tehran and Moscow started implementation of a recently signed MoU banking, including establishment of a joint bank to ease bilateral trade through using their national currencies.

“Three measures are underway (within the framework of this agreement), including opening of a joint bank account by Iran and Russia, presence of several Russian banks in Iran and choosing a Russian bank for rial-based trade exchanges in Russia,” Sanayee said, addressing a meeting of Iran-Russia Joint Chamber of Commerce in Moscow at the time.

He noted that the representatives of two Russian banks had come to Iran and had held talks with officials of the Central Bank of Iran in May, and said, “The second step to broaden banking relations between Iran and Russia will be opening a joint account.” Sanayee pointed to facilitating cash transfer for Iranian exporters through Russia’s Mir Business Bank as the third step to expand bilateral banking relations.

Over the last several years, Iran and Russia have had vast cooperation in different fields, specially in political and economic spheres.

The two states also enjoy special positions on the international scene and have long had constant and regular consultations on key regional and global issues.