6 New Messages
Digest #4448
Messages
Tue Jul 31, 2012 6:29 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://rickrozoff.
Stop NATO
July 31, 2012
Hillary Clinton Embarks on Neo-Colonial Tour of Africa
Rick Rozoff
America's top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, arrived in Senegal on July 31 to begin an eleven-day, six-nation tour of the world's second most populous continent, the target of the Pentagon's first post-Cold War overseas multi-service military command, Africa Command.
After Senegal she will travel to South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa. With the exception of Malawi, a stopover point on the way to South Africa, and South Sudan, the world's newest nation, the countries on her itinerary are major regional powers on the continent. Kenya, Senegal and Uganda are key U.S. military allies and South Africa is an intended one.
Senegal is the main hub of the U.S.'s interagency Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative and the Pentagon's chief military cohort in the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative is an enlarged successor to the State Department's Pan-Sahel Initiative, established by the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism in 2002 in a ballyhooed effort to confront non-existent or wildly exaggerated al-Qaeda threats in the area stretching from the western border of Sudan to the Atlantic Ocean, taking in nations in the Maghreb and the Sahel: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia.
Since 2005 the U.S., initially under U.S. European Command and since 2008 under AFRICOM, has been conducting multinational special forces exercises codenamed Operation Flintlock, the largest special operations drills in Africa's history, as part of the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative.
This year's, scheduled to occur in Mali, was cancelled because of the fighting between government forces and Tuareg rebels and a military coup d'etat in March.
However, Flintlock 2011, held in Senegal, included over 800 personnel from twelve nations, half NATO member states - the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain - and the other half African nations: Senegal and its neighbors Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Nigeria. Four of the five European NATO participants, all except for the Netherlands, are former colonial powers in the region.
The exercise was run by Special Operations Command Africa under the auspices of the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative which subsumes the Pentagon's Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans Sahara, now under AFRICOM.
Last year's Flintlock in Senegal saw the inclusion of the Trans-Sahara Security Symposium civil-military operations program coordinated by Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans Sahara and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The two-week AFRICOM, Marine Forces Africa-led Exercise Western Accord 2012 conducted in Senegal ended twelve days before Clinton's arrival in the country.
The exercise included, in the words of the U.S. Marine Corps website, "live-fire and combat marksmanship training, peace keeping operations, disaster response [and] intelligence capacity building [components]
Senegal is the most unabashedly pro-Western and belligerently aggressive member of ECOWAS which early last year pushed for an ECOWAS military force to be deployed to Ivory Coast. It is also the main member of the organization the U.S. can count on it developing a collective military intervention force to serve as the nucleus of and prototype for a West African component of the U.S.- and NATO-backed African Standby Force, modeled after the NATO Response Force.
After Ghana in the first place and Nigeria in the second blocked Senegal's plans to invade Ivory Coast to depose President Laurent Gbagbo, in April French troops and military helicopters attacked Gbagbo's residence where he was abducted, with Hillary Clinton celebrating the action as "send[ing] a strong signal to dictators and tyrants." The former Ivorian president now faces the inevitable "crimes against humanity" and no doubt "war crimes" charges at the International Criminal Court. The above led to the installation of U.S. and French front man Alassane Ouattara as head of state. In recent days Ouattara, former International Monetary Fund official in Washington, D.C., has been clamoring for ECOWAS military intervention in Mali. A subject sure to have been on Clinton's agenda in Senegal.
Clinton's second stop is in South Sudan, where her commander-in-
Last August the commander of AFRICOM, General Carter Ham, visited the new nation the month after it became independent. As with the world's newest nation before it, Montenegro, the Pentagon pounced on South Sudan before its official stationery arrived from the printer.
From there Clinton will visit Uganda to discuss the joint U.S.-Ugandan counterinsurgency campaigns against the Lord's Resistance Army in Central Africa and against Al-Shabaab militias in Somalia.
Uganda, a major American military client on the continent, invaded Congo in conjunction with fellow U.S. ally Rwanda in 1996 and 1998, triggering a catastrophe that has cost the lives of over five million Congolese in the interim.
Uganda provides the largest contingent for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) military force in Somalia, 5,700 troops.
Two years ago NATO transported Ugandan and Burundian troops to Somalia for fighting in the capital. European Union nations are training Ugandan troops at home for the war.
After Uganda, Clinton will go to Kenya which, like Uganda, is a key pillar in plans for the East African (or Eastern Africa) Standby Force, currently in formation as the Eastern African Standby Brigade Coordinating Mechanism (EASBRICOM). The Eastern African Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) is being prepared to intervene in a region that includes thirteen nations - Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda - at least two of whom, Eritrea and Sudan, are marked by the West for "regime change," with the island nations of Comoros and Madagascar subject to the same at any time.
Last October thousands of Kenyan troops invaded Somalia and this June 5,000 Kenyan troops were integrated into AMISOM.
Kenya has lost at least 13 troops in fighting in Somalia. Uganda has lost 50. Burundi 150.
Last autumn reports surfaced that the Pentagon was launching drone flights from Kenya in addition to Djibouti, Ethiopia and Seychelles.
While in Nairobi, Clinton is to meet with Somalia's nominal president, Sheikh Sharif.
Her trip to Malawi will be short will be short and uneventful.
The final leg of her African journey will be in South Africa to participate in the third annual U.S.-South Africa Strategic Dialogue forum and to meet with former president Nelson Mandela. A reporter willing to lose his press credentials for life to accomplish it could ask Clinton why the Statement Department and White House branded Mandela and fellow African National Congress ruling party members terrorists until four years ago.
South Africa was one of only two members of the United Nations Security Council (Pakistan being the other) to abstain in the July 19 vote on a resolution supported by NATO states aimed against Syrian that was jointly vetoed by China and Russia. The third time the latter has occurred since last October. Clinton, who demanded China and Russia "pay a price" over Syria thirteen days before, will surely have a hectoring, chastising, patronizing comment or two to deliver to South African President Jacob Zuma on the score.
South Africa possesses Africa's most advanced military infrastructure, one inherited from the preceding apartheid regime which developed it with Western assistance. AFRICOM would like the nation to serve as the main participant in a Southern African Standby Force.
*****
Clinton may have arrived in Dakar, Senegal without a pith helmet, swagger stick and palanquin, but she nonetheless came as a modern-day avatar of Cecil Rhodes bent on reestablishing Western dominance in Africa. This time with a decided military dimension.
============
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Stop NATO website and articles:
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============
Stop NATO
July 31, 2012
Hillary Clinton Embarks on Neo-Colonial Tour of Africa
Rick Rozoff
America's top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, arrived in Senegal on July 31 to begin an eleven-day, six-nation tour of the world's second most populous continent, the target of the Pentagon's first post-Cold War overseas multi-service military command, Africa Command.
After Senegal she will travel to South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa. With the exception of Malawi, a stopover point on the way to South Africa, and South Sudan, the world's newest nation, the countries on her itinerary are major regional powers on the continent. Kenya, Senegal and Uganda are key U.S. military allies and South Africa is an intended one.
Senegal is the main hub of the U.S.'s interagency Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative and the Pentagon's chief military cohort in the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative is an enlarged successor to the State Department's Pan-Sahel Initiative, established by the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism in 2002 in a ballyhooed effort to confront non-existent or wildly exaggerated al-Qaeda threats in the area stretching from the western border of Sudan to the Atlantic Ocean, taking in nations in the Maghreb and the Sahel: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia.
Since 2005 the U.S., initially under U.S. European Command and since 2008 under AFRICOM, has been conducting multinational special forces exercises codenamed Operation Flintlock, the largest special operations drills in Africa's history, as part of the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative.
This year's, scheduled to occur in Mali, was cancelled because of the fighting between government forces and Tuareg rebels and a military coup d'etat in March.
However, Flintlock 2011, held in Senegal, included over 800 personnel from twelve nations, half NATO member states - the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain - and the other half African nations: Senegal and its neighbors Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Nigeria. Four of the five European NATO participants, all except for the Netherlands, are former colonial powers in the region.
The exercise was run by Special Operations Command Africa under the auspices of the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative which subsumes the Pentagon's Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans Sahara, now under AFRICOM.
Last year's Flintlock in Senegal saw the inclusion of the Trans-Sahara Security Symposium civil-military operations program coordinated by Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans Sahara and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The two-week AFRICOM, Marine Forces Africa-led Exercise Western Accord 2012 conducted in Senegal ended twelve days before Clinton's arrival in the country.
The exercise included, in the words of the U.S. Marine Corps website, "live-fire and combat marksmanship training, peace keeping operations, disaster response [and] intelligence capacity building [components]
Senegal is the most unabashedly pro-Western and belligerently aggressive member of ECOWAS which early last year pushed for an ECOWAS military force to be deployed to Ivory Coast. It is also the main member of the organization the U.S. can count on it developing a collective military intervention force to serve as the nucleus of and prototype for a West African component of the U.S.- and NATO-backed African Standby Force, modeled after the NATO Response Force.
After Ghana in the first place and Nigeria in the second blocked Senegal's plans to invade Ivory Coast to depose President Laurent Gbagbo, in April French troops and military helicopters attacked Gbagbo's residence where he was abducted, with Hillary Clinton celebrating the action as "send[ing] a strong signal to dictators and tyrants." The former Ivorian president now faces the inevitable "crimes against humanity" and no doubt "war crimes" charges at the International Criminal Court. The above led to the installation of U.S. and French front man Alassane Ouattara as head of state. In recent days Ouattara, former International Monetary Fund official in Washington, D.C., has been clamoring for ECOWAS military intervention in Mali. A subject sure to have been on Clinton's agenda in Senegal.
Clinton's second stop is in South Sudan, where her commander-in-
Last August the commander of AFRICOM, General Carter Ham, visited the new nation the month after it became independent. As with the world's newest nation before it, Montenegro, the Pentagon pounced on South Sudan before its official stationery arrived from the printer.
From there Clinton will visit Uganda to discuss the joint U.S.-Ugandan counterinsurgency campaigns against the Lord's Resistance Army in Central Africa and against Al-Shabaab militias in Somalia.
Uganda, a major American military client on the continent, invaded Congo in conjunction with fellow U.S. ally Rwanda in 1996 and 1998, triggering a catastrophe that has cost the lives of over five million Congolese in the interim.
Uganda provides the largest contingent for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) military force in Somalia, 5,700 troops.
Two years ago NATO transported Ugandan and Burundian troops to Somalia for fighting in the capital. European Union nations are training Ugandan troops at home for the war.
After Uganda, Clinton will go to Kenya which, like Uganda, is a key pillar in plans for the East African (or Eastern Africa) Standby Force, currently in formation as the Eastern African Standby Brigade Coordinating Mechanism (EASBRICOM). The Eastern African Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) is being prepared to intervene in a region that includes thirteen nations - Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda - at least two of whom, Eritrea and Sudan, are marked by the West for "regime change," with the island nations of Comoros and Madagascar subject to the same at any time.
Last October thousands of Kenyan troops invaded Somalia and this June 5,000 Kenyan troops were integrated into AMISOM.
Kenya has lost at least 13 troops in fighting in Somalia. Uganda has lost 50. Burundi 150.
Last autumn reports surfaced that the Pentagon was launching drone flights from Kenya in addition to Djibouti, Ethiopia and Seychelles.
While in Nairobi, Clinton is to meet with Somalia's nominal president, Sheikh Sharif.
Her trip to Malawi will be short will be short and uneventful.
The final leg of her African journey will be in South Africa to participate in the third annual U.S.-South Africa Strategic Dialogue forum and to meet with former president Nelson Mandela. A reporter willing to lose his press credentials for life to accomplish it could ask Clinton why the Statement Department and White House branded Mandela and fellow African National Congress ruling party members terrorists until four years ago.
South Africa was one of only two members of the United Nations Security Council (Pakistan being the other) to abstain in the July 19 vote on a resolution supported by NATO states aimed against Syrian that was jointly vetoed by China and Russia. The third time the latter has occurred since last October. Clinton, who demanded China and Russia "pay a price" over Syria thirteen days before, will surely have a hectoring, chastising, patronizing comment or two to deliver to South African President Jacob Zuma on the score.
South Africa possesses Africa's most advanced military infrastructure, one inherited from the preceding apartheid regime which developed it with Western assistance. AFRICOM would like the nation to serve as the main participant in a Southern African Standby Force.
*****
Clinton may have arrived in Dakar, Senegal without a pith helmet, swagger stick and palanquin, but she nonetheless came as a modern-day avatar of Cecil Rhodes bent on reestablishing Western dominance in Africa. This time with a decided military dimension.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:35 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://www.upi.
United Press International
July 30, 2012
Raytheon continues missile development
TUCSON: Raytheon reports the receipt of a $925 million contract from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency for work on a new defensive missile.
The missile being developed is the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA, a co-development program by the United States and Japan.
....
The new variant will feature a 21-inch, second- and third-stage rocket motor bigger and better kinetic warhead.
Raytheon said the Block IIA is scheduled for deployment in 2018.
"The SM-3 IIA's larger rocket motors will allow for a greater defended area, which is an important factor when it comes to protecting both the U.S. and our NATO allies," said Wes Kremer, vice president of the Air and Missile Defense Systems product line for Raytheon Missile Systems.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
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============
United Press International
July 30, 2012
Raytheon continues missile development
TUCSON: Raytheon reports the receipt of a $925 million contract from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency for work on a new defensive missile.
The missile being developed is the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA, a co-development program by the United States and Japan.
....
The new variant will feature a 21-inch, second- and third-stage rocket motor bigger and better kinetic warhead.
Raytheon said the Block IIA is scheduled for deployment in 2018.
"The SM-3 IIA's larger rocket motors will allow for a greater defended area, which is an important factor when it comes to protecting both the U.S. and our NATO allies," said Wes Kremer, vice president of the Air and Missile Defense Systems product line for Raytheon Missile Systems.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:41 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://news.
Xinhua News Agency
July 31, 2012
NATO troops' death toll up in Afghanistan in July
By Farid Behbud, Abdul Haleem
KABUL: The death toll of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Afghan war has slightly increased in July compared with the previous month.
A total of 46 ISAF service members have lost their lives, including four service members who died in non-battle incidents in July, according to the iCasualties, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led troops in the war on terror in Afghanistan.
Out of 46 deaths in July, according to the website, 41 are U.S. soldiers; while fatalities of the foreign forces totaled 39 in June including 29 Americans.
The latest casualties of the foreign troops in Afghanistan were the killing of two U.S. Marines in an insurgent attack in western Afghan province of Badghis on Sunday July 29, the ISAF forces confirmed.
A Georgian soldier who was injured in southern Helmand province in hostile fire in January this year died of his wounds in a Georgian hospital on Sunday, according to reports.
Some 130,000-strong NATO-led ISAF with nearly 90,000 of them Americans are currently stationed in Afghanistan to fight Taliban militants...
The Taliban militants which have been waging over a decade-long insurgency since a U.S.-led invasion ousted their regime in late 2001, launched an annual spring offensive from May 3 this year against Afghan security forces and the NATO-led coalition troops across the militancy-plagued country.
The Taliban-led attacks have increased by 10 percent within the past three month compared with the first three months of the current year, a NATO spokesman confirmed earlier this month.
...
On Saturday, two U.S. soldiers with the NATO-led ISAF were killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Wardak province.
A single deadliest attack against coalition forces was a roadside bombing or Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast that left six American soldiers dead in Wardak province on July 8.
The IED attack occurred in the Mullah Khil area of Wardak's provincial capital Maidan Shar 35 km west of Afghan capital of Kabul, according to Wardak provincial administration spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.
Separately, two NATO service members were injured when a military helicopter went down in western Afghanistan on July 18; no more details have been released by the coalition.
Days earlier, on July 16, two U.S. soldiers with the NATO-led coalition lost their lives in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in the Shah Wali Kot district of the Taliban birthplace, the southern Kandahar province.
In the latest so-called "green-on-blue" attack, a man in Afghan National Police uniform opened fire against coalition forces in Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand province killing three British troopers on July 1.
In 2010 and 2011, the NATO-led ISAF had respectively lost 711 service members including 499 Americans, and 566 service members including 418 Americans.
According to iCasualties, a total of 3,113 service members with the NATO-led ISAF force have lost their lives so far in Afghanistan. Among them 2,069 Americans, 422 Britons and 622 from other troops-contributing
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Xinhua News Agency
July 31, 2012
NATO troops' death toll up in Afghanistan in July
By Farid Behbud, Abdul Haleem
KABUL: The death toll of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Afghan war has slightly increased in July compared with the previous month.
A total of 46 ISAF service members have lost their lives, including four service members who died in non-battle incidents in July, according to the iCasualties, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led troops in the war on terror in Afghanistan.
Out of 46 deaths in July, according to the website, 41 are U.S. soldiers; while fatalities of the foreign forces totaled 39 in June including 29 Americans.
The latest casualties of the foreign troops in Afghanistan were the killing of two U.S. Marines in an insurgent attack in western Afghan province of Badghis on Sunday July 29, the ISAF forces confirmed.
A Georgian soldier who was injured in southern Helmand province in hostile fire in January this year died of his wounds in a Georgian hospital on Sunday, according to reports.
Some 130,000-strong NATO-led ISAF with nearly 90,000 of them Americans are currently stationed in Afghanistan to fight Taliban militants...
The Taliban militants which have been waging over a decade-long insurgency since a U.S.-led invasion ousted their regime in late 2001, launched an annual spring offensive from May 3 this year against Afghan security forces and the NATO-led coalition troops across the militancy-plagued country.
The Taliban-led attacks have increased by 10 percent within the past three month compared with the first three months of the current year, a NATO spokesman confirmed earlier this month.
...
On Saturday, two U.S. soldiers with the NATO-led ISAF were killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Wardak province.
A single deadliest attack against coalition forces was a roadside bombing or Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast that left six American soldiers dead in Wardak province on July 8.
The IED attack occurred in the Mullah Khil area of Wardak's provincial capital Maidan Shar 35 km west of Afghan capital of Kabul, according to Wardak provincial administration spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.
Separately, two NATO service members were injured when a military helicopter went down in western Afghanistan on July 18; no more details have been released by the coalition.
Days earlier, on July 16, two U.S. soldiers with the NATO-led coalition lost their lives in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in the Shah Wali Kot district of the Taliban birthplace, the southern Kandahar province.
In the latest so-called "green-on-blue" attack, a man in Afghan National Police uniform opened fire against coalition forces in Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand province killing three British troopers on July 1.
In 2010 and 2011, the NATO-led ISAF had respectively lost 711 service members including 499 Americans, and 566 service members including 418 Americans.
According to iCasualties, a total of 3,113 service members with the NATO-led ISAF force have lost their lives so far in Afghanistan. Among them 2,069 Americans, 422 Britons and 622 from other troops-contributing
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:50 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://english.
Voice of Russia
July 31, 2012
US Air Force moving East
Polina Chernitsa
The US has set the date for the stationing of its air force in Poland, which is going to happen this fall. Experts note that officially this move does not violate any agreements between Russia and NATO. However, in practice NATO is building up its military infrastructure along the Russian border.
NATO assures that the deployment of the US Air Force has nothing to do with the alliance and its strategic plans. However, both countries are part of the bloc and it’s not quite right to interpret that as just bilateral agreements, Pavel Zolotarev, deputy director of the Institute for US and Canada Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences thinks.
"NATO countries have the right to station whatever they deem useful wherever they think it is needed. It’s a different issue that actions connected with additional build-up of the NATO power component and the positioning of the alliance’s infrastructure in general always trigger concerns. The situation once again proves that the Russian position is correct. We have always been against NATO expansion thinking that it does not contribute to the strengthening of Europe’s security."
Warsaw has been strengthening its military partnership with Washington for a few years now, especially in the areas bordering with Russia. The deployment of the US Air Force can be viewed as yet another US move in favor of Poland, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Ruslan Pukhov thinks.
"Warsaw really wants to appear as a reliable US ally, not only in words, but in action. Against the background of economic instability in Europe Poland is the only country whose military budget is growing. When Americans refused to build a missile defense system in Poland, the latter regarded it almost like treason."
Moscow has asked Washington several times to provide guarantees that the missile defense shield in Europe will not be targeted against Russia. However, the US still refuses to do that. Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev has said that on the international level there is still “a lack of understanding as to who the shield is targeted against”. Russian PM noted that there is still time to come to an agreement; however, if it is not done before 2018, a new arms race could begin.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Voice of Russia
July 31, 2012
US Air Force moving East
Polina Chernitsa
The US has set the date for the stationing of its air force in Poland, which is going to happen this fall. Experts note that officially this move does not violate any agreements between Russia and NATO. However, in practice NATO is building up its military infrastructure along the Russian border.
NATO assures that the deployment of the US Air Force has nothing to do with the alliance and its strategic plans. However, both countries are part of the bloc and it’s not quite right to interpret that as just bilateral agreements, Pavel Zolotarev, deputy director of the Institute for US and Canada Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences thinks.
"NATO countries have the right to station whatever they deem useful wherever they think it is needed. It’s a different issue that actions connected with additional build-up of the NATO power component and the positioning of the alliance’s infrastructure in general always trigger concerns. The situation once again proves that the Russian position is correct. We have always been against NATO expansion thinking that it does not contribute to the strengthening of Europe’s security."
Warsaw has been strengthening its military partnership with Washington for a few years now, especially in the areas bordering with Russia. The deployment of the US Air Force can be viewed as yet another US move in favor of Poland, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Ruslan Pukhov thinks.
"Warsaw really wants to appear as a reliable US ally, not only in words, but in action. Against the background of economic instability in Europe Poland is the only country whose military budget is growing. When Americans refused to build a missile defense system in Poland, the latter regarded it almost like treason."
Moscow has asked Washington several times to provide guarantees that the missile defense shield in Europe will not be targeted against Russia. However, the US still refuses to do that. Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev has said that on the international level there is still “a lack of understanding as to who the shield is targeted against”. Russian PM noted that there is still time to come to an agreement; however, if it is not done before 2018, a new arms race could begin.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:50 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://news.
Xinhua News Agency
July 30, 2012
Turkey continues military buildup on border with Syria
ANKARA: Turkey sent more troops, tanks and other military equipment on Monday to its border with Syria...the Turkish semi-official Anatolia News Agency reported.
Armored infantry vehicles as well as missile launchers are among the recently-transporte
Turkey, once a close ally to Syria, has imposed a series of sanctions, including an arms embargo, on the unrest-torn country due to its alleged crackdown on anti-government protesters. Turkish-Syrian relations strained further after Syria shot down a Turkish military jet, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in June.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
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============
Xinhua News Agency
July 30, 2012
Turkey continues military buildup on border with Syria
ANKARA: Turkey sent more troops, tanks and other military equipment on Monday to its border with Syria...the Turkish semi-official Anatolia News Agency reported.
Armored infantry vehicles as well as missile launchers are among the recently-transporte
Turkey, once a close ally to Syria, has imposed a series of sanctions, including an arms embargo, on the unrest-torn country due to its alleged crackdown on anti-government protesters. Turkish-Syrian relations strained further after Syria shot down a Turkish military jet, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in June.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:00 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://www.rt.
RT
August 1, 2012
NATO's business strategy: No need to attack, just buy them up (Op-Ed)
Veronika Krasheninnikova
Director General of the Institute for Foreign Policy Research and Initiatives in Moscow
====
In plain language, the NDN and MSR are pursuing a number of important goals at once: providing access and building infrastructure for exporting Central Asia’s and Afghanistan’s tremendous natural recourses; privatizing natural resources for the benefit of US corporations and local comprador business; consolidating the pro-NATO lobby in the governments and business communities of transit countries; conducting “democratization” at will and establishing pro-NATO, anti-Russian regimes in the region; and creating a pretext to set up military bases “to protect the infrastructure.” On the strategic level, NDN and MSR redirect natural resources away from China to Pakistan and India, help create a regional entity alternative to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and effectively invalidate the Eurasian Union project initiated by Russia and Kazakhstan.
====
On August 1, the first NATO military facility in Russia is launching its operations. The site, designed to assist NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan, is the latest component in the alliance's strategy of tightening its grip on Central Asia.
While the first military supplies to Afghanistan began traversing Russia in 2009, opening the “Transatlantic” alliance’s first military facility in the middle of the Eurasian continent, on the Volga river, is a tremendous achievement for NATO – and an even bigger defeat for Russia.
The Ulyanovsk facility represents a new stage for the US in building a military, political, social, and economic fabric of support inside Russia.
It brings into Russia itself the military network that the US and NATO have set up in Central Asian states. In this region, Washington's approach differs from the one used in Libya and Syria: instead of conquering with tanks and fighter jets, the US and NATO are now buying their way into target countries, and it proves to be a much more efficient method of conquest.
NATO has offered economic arguments: it’s business for your companies, revenues for your budget, jobs for your people.
There are two major projects that affect US and NATO penetration into the Eurasian heartland: the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) and the Modern Silk Road (MSR).
The Northern Distribution Network – NATO’s Ulyanovsk “transit center” being a part of it – is a military supply route connecting venomously anti-Russian NATO member Latvia and aspirant Georgia with Afghanistan via Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus region. Designed by the US Transportation Command, US Central Command, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, NDN, according to the authors, serves the military’s immediate needs, but also offers “a unique opportunity for Washington to further longer-term strategic goals.”
This “series of commercially-
The Modern Silk Road, as conceived by the same strategists, is a giant network of diverse communication lines, from transportation to electricity to telecommunications to pipelines that would run “from Hamburg to Hanoi, Mumbai to Morocco.”
This network will intentionally bypass Russia, to “prevent any other country from establishing a monopoly on energy resources or energy transport infrastructure in the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus,” as stated by the Silk Road Strategy Act of 2006. In fact, both NDN and MSR are part of the counterinsurgency agenda, says a December 2009 CSIS planning document entitled “The Northern Distribution Network and the Modern Silk Road: Planning for Afghanistan’s Future.”
Local transportation companies are actively involved as contractors.
According to Director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program Andrew Kuchins, Russian companies became “deeply dependent” on this business – which brings them more than $1 billion in revenue a year. Additionally, the planners envisage increasing the local procurement of supplies for Afghanistan, “to generate goodwill among NDN participants” and give them “a greater stake in the NDN’s continued operation.” While for Russia these revenues are minor, for Central Asian states NATO bribes are a noticeable addition to government and private budgets, and are as addictive as narcotics.
In plain language, the NDN and MSR are pursuing a number of important goals at once: providing access and building infrastructure for exporting Central Asia’s and Afghanistan’s tremendous natural recourses; privatizing natural resources for the benefit of US corporations and local comprador business; consolidating the pro-NATO lobby in the governments and business communities of transit countries; conducting “democratization” at will and establishing pro-NATO, anti-Russian regimes in the region; and creating a pretext to set up military bases “to protect the infrastructure.” On the strategic level, NDN and MSR redirect natural resources away from China to Pakistan and India, help create a regional entity alternative to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and effectively invalidate the Eurasian Union project initiated by Russia and Kazakhstan.
By providing Ulyanovsk facilities to NATO and running NATO supply routes, Russia and Central Asian countries are collaborating with the enemy to help it achieve all of the above against their own interests. As the Mackinder Heartland theory goes, he who controls the Heartland – the central part of the Eurasian continent – controls the world. Today, Central Asia, together with Afghanistan, is the key platform to project the threat against the three major competitors: in order of urgency – Iran, Russia, China.
Russia must end its suicidal cooperation with NATO’s buildup on its southern military front. Instead, Russia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, together with Iran, China and other countries in the region must launch alternative infrastructure development programs, building up on the Soviet legacy, updated with new projects.
RT
August 1, 2012
NATO's business strategy: No need to attack, just buy them up (Op-Ed)
Veronika Krasheninnikova
Director General of the Institute for Foreign Policy Research and Initiatives in Moscow
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In plain language, the NDN and MSR are pursuing a number of important goals at once: providing access and building infrastructure for exporting Central Asia’s and Afghanistan’s tremendous natural recourses; privatizing natural resources for the benefit of US corporations and local comprador business; consolidating the pro-NATO lobby in the governments and business communities of transit countries; conducting “democratization” at will and establishing pro-NATO, anti-Russian regimes in the region; and creating a pretext to set up military bases “to protect the infrastructure.” On the strategic level, NDN and MSR redirect natural resources away from China to Pakistan and India, help create a regional entity alternative to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and effectively invalidate the Eurasian Union project initiated by Russia and Kazakhstan.
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On August 1, the first NATO military facility in Russia is launching its operations. The site, designed to assist NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan, is the latest component in the alliance's strategy of tightening its grip on Central Asia.
While the first military supplies to Afghanistan began traversing Russia in 2009, opening the “Transatlantic” alliance’s first military facility in the middle of the Eurasian continent, on the Volga river, is a tremendous achievement for NATO – and an even bigger defeat for Russia.
The Ulyanovsk facility represents a new stage for the US in building a military, political, social, and economic fabric of support inside Russia.
It brings into Russia itself the military network that the US and NATO have set up in Central Asian states. In this region, Washington's approach differs from the one used in Libya and Syria: instead of conquering with tanks and fighter jets, the US and NATO are now buying their way into target countries, and it proves to be a much more efficient method of conquest.
NATO has offered economic arguments: it’s business for your companies, revenues for your budget, jobs for your people.
There are two major projects that affect US and NATO penetration into the Eurasian heartland: the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) and the Modern Silk Road (MSR).
The Northern Distribution Network – NATO’s Ulyanovsk “transit center” being a part of it – is a military supply route connecting venomously anti-Russian NATO member Latvia and aspirant Georgia with Afghanistan via Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus region. Designed by the US Transportation Command, US Central Command, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, NDN, according to the authors, serves the military’s immediate needs, but also offers “a unique opportunity for Washington to further longer-term strategic goals.”
This “series of commercially-
The Modern Silk Road, as conceived by the same strategists, is a giant network of diverse communication lines, from transportation to electricity to telecommunications to pipelines that would run “from Hamburg to Hanoi, Mumbai to Morocco.”
This network will intentionally bypass Russia, to “prevent any other country from establishing a monopoly on energy resources or energy transport infrastructure in the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus,” as stated by the Silk Road Strategy Act of 2006. In fact, both NDN and MSR are part of the counterinsurgency agenda, says a December 2009 CSIS planning document entitled “The Northern Distribution Network and the Modern Silk Road: Planning for Afghanistan’s Future.”
Local transportation companies are actively involved as contractors.
According to Director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program Andrew Kuchins, Russian companies became “deeply dependent” on this business – which brings them more than $1 billion in revenue a year. Additionally, the planners envisage increasing the local procurement of supplies for Afghanistan, “to generate goodwill among NDN participants” and give them “a greater stake in the NDN’s continued operation.” While for Russia these revenues are minor, for Central Asian states NATO bribes are a noticeable addition to government and private budgets, and are as addictive as narcotics.
In plain language, the NDN and MSR are pursuing a number of important goals at once: providing access and building infrastructure for exporting Central Asia’s and Afghanistan’s tremendous natural recourses; privatizing natural resources for the benefit of US corporations and local comprador business; consolidating the pro-NATO lobby in the governments and business communities of transit countries; conducting “democratization” at will and establishing pro-NATO, anti-Russian regimes in the region; and creating a pretext to set up military bases “to protect the infrastructure.” On the strategic level, NDN and MSR redirect natural resources away from China to Pakistan and India, help create a regional entity alternative to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and effectively invalidate the Eurasian Union project initiated by Russia and Kazakhstan.
By providing Ulyanovsk facilities to NATO and running NATO supply routes, Russia and Central Asian countries are collaborating with the enemy to help it achieve all of the above against their own interests. As the Mackinder Heartland theory goes, he who controls the Heartland – the central part of the Eurasian continent – controls the world. Today, Central Asia, together with Afghanistan, is the key platform to project the threat against the three major competitors: in order of urgency – Iran, Russia, China.
Russia must end its suicidal cooperation with NATO’s buildup on its southern military front. Instead, Russia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, together with Iran, China and other countries in the region must launch alternative infrastructure development programs, building up on the Soviet legacy, updated with new projects.
