Messages In This Digest (4 Messages)
- 1.
- U.S. Revives, Expands Cold War Military Alliances Against China From: Rick Rozoff
- 2.
- Half Of Humanity: SCO Opposes Global Military Interventions From: Rick Rozoff
- 3.
- Interview: Rebel Groups In Syria Backed By NATO? From: Rick Rozoff
- 4.
- Syria: Russia Denounces Foreign Intervention, Western Hypocrisy From: Rick Rozoff
Messages
- 1.
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U.S. Revives, Expands Cold War Military Alliances Against China
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Fri Jun 8, 2012 6:55 pm (PDT)
http://rickrozoff.wordpress. com/2012/ 06/09/southeast- asia-u-s- revives-and- expands-cold- war-military- alliances- against-china/
Stop NATO
June 8, 2012
Southeast Asia: U.S. Revives And Expands Cold War Military Alliances Against China
Rick Rozoff
On May 30 the two officials most in charge of the U.S.'s formidible global military machine, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, visited Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii to launch multi-nation tours of the Asia-Pacific region and formally commence the announced shift of American military concentration and assets to the area.
The two, General Dempsey by way of the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, arrived in Singapore for the eleventh annual Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum, where they met with their counterparts from 26 Asia-Pacific nations. Afterwards each went his own way: Panetta to Vietnam and India, the most significant new U.S. Asian military partners in the entire post-Cold War period, and Dempsey to the Philippines and Thailand, two long-standing military allies.
While in Singapore, Panetta announced that Washington would increase the percentage of U.S. naval forces in the Asia-Pacific - aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and submarines - from 50 to 60 percent and strengthen and expand military alliances with nations throughout the region, especially those in Southeast Asia which are embroiled in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. As General Dempsey put it following the Shangri-La Dialogue, "This means that as the rebalance evolves, we'll make available our most advanced ships, our fifth-generation aircraft and the very best of our missile defense technology as we work with our partners.”
Defense Secretary Panetta stressed an intensification of military collaboration with the six Asia-Pacific countries with which the U.S. has defense treaties (signed during the height of the Cold War and at the time aimed against China) - Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand - as well as broadening and deepening existing partnerships with nations like Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and India. Panetta additionally spoke of forging military ties with Myanmar, which like Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (along with Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam).
Dempsey pursued the same design with fellow military chiefs at the Shangri-La conference.
After leaving Singapore, Panetta arrived at a U.S. ship docked in Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, a year after the U.S. and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding to promote military cooperation in five areas and two years after the USS John S. McCain guided missile destroyer visited Da Nang to engage in a joint exercise in the South China Sea. He was the first major American official to visit the former U.S. military base after the end of the Vietnam War.
Following Panetta's eight-day Asia-Pacific trip to, in the words of the Defense Department's press service, "promote President Barack Obama's new 'pivot to Asia' in foreign policy," the Pentagon's website reported his two main themes to be that "Washington is putting a greater policy emphasis on Asia and the Pacific, as opposed to Europe and the Middle East" and "the United States intends to increase its military activities in that region, with more joint exercises involving more countries, including Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, and with more equipment, including at least 40 new ships."
While the American defense chief was consolidating a strategically important partnership with China's rival on the western shore of the South China Sea, General Dempsey was on the eastern end, in the Philippines, doing the same with the nation that is most directly at loggerheads with China in the sea at the moment.
Two weeks after the USS Caroline nuclear attack submarine spent a week at the former U.S. naval base in Subic Bay, Dempsey visited the headquarters of the Special Operations Task Force Philippines in Mindanao where as many as 600 American service members are deployed for counterinsurgency operations. Later he met with his Philippine counterpart General Jessie Dellosa in Manila.
During the American military chief's visit the nation's foreign secretary, Albert del Rosario, announced that "We can anticipate a greater number of port calls [by U.S. warships]” and asserted "the increased presence of the US is consistent with its strategic guidance for the Asia-Pacific."
On June 5 the Philippine Star disclosed that "American troops, warships and aircraft can once again use their former naval and air facilities in Subic, Zambales and in Clark Field in Pampanga," citing Undersecretary for Defense Affairs Honorio Azcueta after he had met with Dempsey. (The U.S. has supplied the Philippines with two warships since last year. In November Philippine Navy Chief Vice Admiral Alexander Pama referred to the acquisitions as symbolizing "the revival of the Philippine Navy.")
When asked by a reporter "if American troops as well as their warships and their fighter planes will be allowed access to their former US Naval Base in Subic," Azcueta confirmed that they would, stating “That’s what we want...increases in exercises and interoperability."
Like Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, the Subic naval base and its airfield were used for major operations during the Vietnam War.
As was the U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield 90 miles southeast of Bangkok. After leaving the Philippines, General Dempsey visited Thailand where he met with the country's defense minister, chief of defense forces and heads of the army, air force and navy.
Among other matters dealt with, Dempsey secured the use of the U-Tapao base for American operations, ostensibly solely humanitarian in nature but, as Xinhua News Agency pointed out, "some skeptics are saying that the naval airfield would eventually be used for military operations."
The base was used by the U.S. for its war in Vietnam and is currently employed for joint U.S.-Thai Cobra Gold military exercises, the largest U.S.-led multinational military drills in the Asia-Pacific region. This year's Cobra Gold also included the participation of Indonesian, Japanese, Malaysian, Singaporean and South Korean military forces.
The Pentagon's news agency paraphrased Dempsey as stating, "Geostrategic location and global commitment, paired with a maturing military and a growing economy, make longtime U.S. ally Thailand an attractive prospect for even greater bilateral cooperation," and quoted him directly as saying "They’re in an extraordinarily key location."
The news source described that strategic position as vital in that Thailand borders Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Myanmar, "with Vietnam, India and China not much further away" and has "an eastern coastline on the Gulf of Thailand - opening into the South China Sea - and a west coast on the Andaman Sea, also known as the Burma Sea."
Dempsey announced that the U.S. and Thai militaries "are examining concepts for a center of excellence in Thailand devoted to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief" which "may begin as a bilateral U.S.-Thai effort, or it could involve additional nations from the beginning," according to the Pentagon's website.
Panetta's overture to Myanmar has been mentioned. Discussing the increasingly wider range of new military partnerships in Southeast Asia, particularly the role of the U.S. in upgrading the militaries of its partners, the Pentagon chief stated in Singapore on June 2, "We will encourage that kind of relationship with every nation that we deal with in this region, including Myanmar."
Until the U.S. successfully courted it last year, Myanmar was one of China's few dependable allies in Asia.
On June 2 Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen assured Defense Secretary Panetta of his government's willingness to host four American littoral combat ships as an obligation entailed by the Strategic Framework Agreement signed by Washington and Singapore in 2005. The two defense chiefs also pledged to further implement the agreement and increase the scope of joint military exercises; for example, adding a naval to the existing air force component of annual Commando Sling exercises.
Panetta and his counterpart also discussed using the Murai Urban Training Facility for bilateral exercises involving U.S. Marines and the Singaporean armed forces beginning next year.
Regarding the rotation of U.S. warships to Singapore, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff head Dempsey said that "The littoral combat ships that will soon begin rotational deployment to Singapore are an example of the increased military engagement called for under the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy."
The Asian nation rests on the southeastern end of the Strait of Malacca that connects the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea and through which oil flows from the Persian Gulf to the oil-hungry East Asian economies of China, South Korea and Japan.
By forming military partnerships with the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations the U.S. is building the foundation for an Asian analogue of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. As the first has been expanded to enclose, contain and ultimately confront Russia, so the new alliance is intended to achieve the same objective in regard to China.
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- 2.
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Half Of Humanity: SCO Opposes Global Military Interventions
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Fri Jun 8, 2012 7:33 pm (PDT)
http://news.xinhuanet. com/english/ china/2012- 06/07/c_13163836 2.htm
Xinhua News Agency
June 8, 2012
Commentary: SCO says "no" to interventionism
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The SCO summit marks the first time for the leaders of all SCO member states to stand together and speak with one voice on major international issues. With its growing economic power and unambiguous position, the multinational bloc will definitely become a key force for peace in the world.
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BEIJING: When the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states concluded their latest summit on Thursday, they unanimously rejected military intervention as a way to resolve international hotspot issues.
According to a statement that came after the summit, all SCO member countries oppose military intervention in Syria and reject the idea of a regime change in the country.
The leaders also rejected the idea of using military means to solve the Iranian nuclear dispute, instead choosing to support dialogue and other diplomatic methods.
These heads of state have ample ground to make an appeal for peace and stability and to support their request for the peaceful settlement of these problems.
Across the world, from the Middle East to north Africa, deadly conflicts and terrorist attacks are still resulting in innocent deaths, as many countries in these regions sunk into chaos last year.
Being fully aware that their own countries' security and stability are closely associated with that of these troubled regions, the SCO leaders decided that peace can only be created through peaceful means.
It is a common experience in human history, both recent or remote, that meeting violence with violence can only beget more loss of life and spark hard-to-heal hatred.
More than a year has passed since NATO air forces began to drop bombs on Libya in order to drive its previous government out of power, but the country is still in chaos.
Additionally, over ten years have passed since the United States and its coalition partners ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a country that shares borders with a number of SCO countries.
Yet as Washington drafts its plan for withdrawal, it seems that few people are optimistic about Afghanistan's ability to stand on its own after taking its weak security forces and frequent suicide bombings into account.
Therefore, the time has come to say "no" to military intervention, as the painful experiences of the past should not be allowed to repeat themselves.
The SCO summit marks the first time for the leaders of all SCO member states to stand together and speak with one voice on major international issues. With its growing economic power and unambiguous position, the multinational bloc will definitely become a key force for peace in the world.
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- 3.
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Interview: Rebel Groups In Syria Backed By NATO?
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Sat Jun 9, 2012 6:47 am (PDT)
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_ 06_09/77630671/
Voice of Russia
June 9, 2012
Rebel groups in Syria backed by NATO?
John Robles
Interview with Rick Rozoff, the manager and the owner of the STOP NATO website and mailing list, and a regular contributor to the Voice of Russia.
Recorded on June 1, 2012
Audio at URL above
Correction: For Operation Phoenix read Operation Cyclone
What correlations do you see between the situation going on in Syria and Kosovo? What do you know about rebel groups in Syria being funded and backed by NATO?
I mean, we all have heard, and it’s a matter of substantiating it, but I think we have enough proof already to establish the fact that...The parallel you Kosovo you draw is remarkable given what occurred early yesterday, where NATO troops and armored personnel carriers - vehicles - faced off against ethnic protesters in the north of Kosovo, firing live ammunition at them as well as deploying helicopters, gunships and so forth and what is currently going on in Syria.
As a matter of fact, the parallels are so striking at times as to suggest that the Western governments, those backing the so-called Free Syrian Army armed rebel forces inside Syria are playing from the same script as they did in Yugoslavia 13 years ago in support of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army there.
And there are direct connections between the two of them. For example, last month, a self-proclaimed rebel leader or opposition leader, Syrian-born, one Ammar Abdulhamid, who has been living in Washington and was a former visiting fellow, visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution until recently, came to the United States as head of a delegation of opposition figures from Syria to visit with U.S. officials, government officials. And immediately afterwards he flew into Pristine, the capital of Kosovo, to meet with leaders of the government, who are former KLA fighters, such as Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and others, and quite bluntly told Associated Press in May that he was studying the Kosovo example to be replicated in Syria, even stating that he was particularly impressed with how the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army was able to integrate various armed groups - for which we can understand in many instances nothing more than criminal underworld
militias - into a fighting force, which was then coordinated with the United States and NATO during the bombing war against Yugoslavia in 1999.
So we have a direct connection there. And we can also base what’s going on in Syria with reports that fighters in Libya have joined rebel groups inside Syria, so that we have an international network of extremist fighters that first earned their stripes, if you will, in Afghanistan during the CIA Operation Cyclone against the government of Afghanistan and their Soviet backers in the 1980s.
And I am thinking particularly of the commander of the Libyan rebel forces last year, Abdelhakim Belhadj, who had fought in Afghanistan with the Afghan mujahideen, who was rumored to have met with and collaborated with Mullah Omar of al-Qaeda, was subsequently interned as part of the extraordinary rendition program by the United States and returned to Libya, where he was a head of something called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and then became the leader, became the top commander, of the Libyan rebels last year. And that forces loyal to him that had fought under his command are now in Syria is I think is a distinct possibility. So, we see the connections emerging, really of 30 years of the United States...
So, you are saying he was recruited and now his people are in Syria doing the U.S. government’s bidding?
There have been reports for several months that Libyan fighters, those who fought on behalf of the Transitional National Council and in coordination with both the NATO bombing campaign against Libya for six months last year but also with reports of British, French, Italian and other special operations troops as well as those from Arab Gulf states like Qatar and United Arab Emirates fighting in Libya, this would seem to be a model that can be exported to other countries and there have certainly been reports that Libyan and other foreign fighters have crossed the borders from Iraq and Lebanon into Syria to fight with the so-called Free Syrian Army.
Now with this massacre in Houla, the UN’s own observer said it was not the fault of Syrian forces. Despite that Hillary Clinton has been making comments and it seems like the U.S. in continuing with their own narrative.
I mean you're correct that the West, the U.S. in the first instance, and its Western European allies as well as Australia and Japan, which for all intents and purposes are a part of the West, have withdrawn their ambassadors or have expelled, rather, the Syrian ambassadors from their capitals.
And this is a concentrated effort to present the tragedy in Houla - and it is a tragedy that over 100 human lives were lost - as not only the work of the Syrian government, exclusively the work of the Syrian government, whereas Russia, China, Cuba and other countries have urged a methodical, dispassionate investigation into the events, as terrible as they are, to determine the actual cause and the actual perpetrators. So, nobody has a definitive answer to what occurred in Houla and until there is one...This is again evocative of what the U.S. did with Yugoslavia in January of 1999 around the so-called Racak massacre in Kosovo where the bodies of several dozen young ethnic Albanian men were identified as having been massacred by Serbian and Yugoslav security forces even though there are contradictory reports and the Serbian government’s position was these were KLA fighters who had been killed in action.
And the Russian Foreign Ministry a few weeks ago, perhaps less than that, maybe two and a half weeks ago, when the report surfaced of the Syrian delegation going to Kosovo that we spoke about a moment ago, denounced that, saying that in fact what the delegation was going there for was to study the example or receive actual military training for their fighters inside Kosovo with even the observation that some of the topographical similarities between the two countries would make Kosovo an ideal place to study the sort of guerrilla warfare that the KLA conducted in conjunction with NATO during the bombing of Yugoslavia 13 years ago.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said that the Houla massacre would not have been possible if the perpetrators had not received arms and funding from abroad, meaning from the West.
That's self-evident. We know the Free Syrian Army, so-called, is harbored, is not only given refuge but presumably training and arms inside Turkey. A report of several months ago in the Daily Telegraph of Britain cited a member of the Syrian opposition boasting of having 15,000 fighters inside Turkey, which is a breach of interstate relations.
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- 4.
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Syria: Russia Denounces Foreign Intervention, Western Hypocrisy
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Sat Jun 9, 2012 7:02 am (PDT)
http://www.rt.com/news/ lavrov-syria- opposition- military- 476/
RT
June 9, 2012
Annan plan stalled because of those who support intervention, but plan ‘only chance for peace’ - Russian FM
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Lavrov has voiced concern about “the reaction on the part of some foreign players”, who, he said, “support armed groups of the opposition and at the same time demand that the international community take decisive steps to change the regime in Syria.”
The minister said that “in order to justify a foreign intervention they keep talking about the refugees from Syria. However, nobody talks about refugees inside Syria itself.”
“This is similar to the former Yugoslavia. Does anybody think about the refugees from Serbia and Slovenia?” he enquired.
“According to some estimates, there are about a million refugees from Iraq and half a million Palestinians in Syria, and I don’t think people talk much about that,” Lavrov said.
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External players provoke the opposition in Syria to continue military action; this may lead to a Libyan scenario, the Russian Foreign Minister warned.
The main reason the Annan peace plan is stalling is because those who support external intervention in Syria impede its implementation, said Sergey Lavrov.
Lavrov said the main reason why the Kofi Annan plan is not making progress is that certain parties “don’t like” the idea of the stabilization it would bring “during the initial period. They want the international community to be filled with indignation and start a full-blown intervention in Syria,” he said.
Lavrov has voiced concern about “the reaction on the part of some foreign players”, who, he said, “support armed groups of the opposition and at the same time demand that the international community take decisive steps to change the regime in Syria.”
He reiterated Russia’s position that it will “never agree to sanction the use of force in the UN Security Council”. He said that this would lead “to severe consequences for the entire Middle East region”.
Referring to the UN commissioner, Lavrov then gave some statistics, saying that the number of refugees from Syria currently stands at around 80,000. He stressed that these people all need support.
The minister said that “in order to justify a foreign intervention they keep talking about the refugees from Syria. However, nobody talks about refugees inside Syria itself.”
“This is similar to the former Yugoslavia. Does anybody think about the refugees from Serbia and Slovenia?” he enquired.
The community, he stressed, should think more helping refugees. “According to some estimates, there are about a million refugees from Iraq and half a million Palestinians in Syria, and I don’t think people talk much about that,” Lavrov said.
Lavrov said the Syrian government is responsible for people’s security and human rights, as well as for everything that is going on in the country.
Nevertheless, tragedies like Houla and the other numerous violent acts are a result of confrontation, which is increasingly actively supported by external forces. He also expressed concern over Russian experts coming under fire in Damascus on Saturday.
The Foreign Minister also touched on media coverage of the events in Syria, saying that “blocking Syrian government and private channels from broadcasting” does not “square well with freedom of speech.” He recalled the airstrikes on TV centers in Serbia’s Belgrade and Libya’s Tripoli. “We should all be on the same page regarding freedom of speech and how it should be respected by the international community to ensure access to information – no matter what kind of information it is,” Lavrov said.
Conference in Moscow to help implement Annan's plan
Moscow has proposed an international conference on the Syrian crisis with all key international players taking part.
Russia has expressed hope that all the parties that can influence the issue will take part, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said following a UN session where the Secretary General announced that Syrian president Bashar al Assad had lost his legitimacy.
“The conference should come under the UN umbrella,” said Lavrov, adding that the global discussion would not be a one-off event.
With some western countries calling to ban Iran from the international conference on Syria, Lavrov said to dismiss Tehran “would be thoughtless at the very least”.
Russia is seriously concerned about the increasing activity of international terrorists and extremist elements, Lavrov said.
The FM listed Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, the League of Arab States, the EU and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation among the “integral parts” to the process.
Also on Thursday Lavrov told journalists he guarantees that “there’ll be no mandate by the UN Security Council for a foreign intervention.”
The Russian Foreign Minister is currently speaking on Syria. More details are to follow.
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