Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday, 20 April 2015


Posted: 19 Apr 2015 03:09 PM PDT


US army commander in Europe says Russia is a “real threat” urging NATO to stay united. The alliance is not interested in a “fair fight with anyone” and wants to have “overmatch in all systems,” Lieutenant-General Frederick “Ben” Hodges believes.
“There is a Russian threat,” Hodges told the Telegraph, maintaining that Russia is involved in ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.
A key objective for NATO is not to let Russia outreach it in terms of capabilities, the general said.
“We’re not interested in a fair fight with anyone,” General Hodges stated. “We want to have overmatch in all systems. I don’t think that we’ve fallen behind but Russia has closed the gap in certain capabilities. We don’t want them to close that gap,” he revealed.
“The best insurance we have against a showdown is that NATO stands together,” he said, pointing to recent moves by traditionally neutral Sweden and Finland to cooperate more closely on defense with NATO.
Moscow has expressed “special concern” over Finnish and Swedish moves towards the alliance viewing it as a threat aimed against Russia.
“Contrary to past years, Northern European military cooperation is now positioning itself against Russia. This can undermine positive constructive cooperation,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Hodges also said US expects its allies to contribute financially to the security umbrella provided by the NATO alliance, as its member states have been failing to allocate 2 percent of every member nation’s GDP to NATO budget.
“I think the question for each country to ask is: are they security consumers or security providers?” the general demanded. “Do they bring capabilities the alliance needs?”
However, the general does not believe that the world is on the brink of another Cold War, saying that “the only thing that is similar now is that Russia and NATO have different views about what the security environment in Europe should be.”
“I don’t think it’s the same as the Cold War,” he said, recalling “gigantic forces” and “large numbers of nuclear weapons” implemented in Europe a quarter of a century ago. “That [Cold War] was a different situation.”
“We did very specific things then that are no longer relevant. We don’t need 300,000 soldiers in Europe. Nobody can afford that anymore,” General Hodges acknowledged.
However, there was a sharp increase in the intensity of the training of NATO troops near the borders of Russia last year, Russian General Staff reported.
“In 2014, the intensity of NATO’s operational and combat training activities has grown by 80 percent,” said Lieutenant General Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Main Operation Directorate of General Staff.
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Posted: 19 Apr 2015 02:50 PM PDT
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop
In early March, Iran’s deputy health minister, accompanied by 5 members of the country’s parliament, visited Australia to boost ties in medical and health research areas, and extended an invitation for Speaker of the House Bronwyn Bishop to visit Iran. Over a month later, it is not Bronwyn but Julie Bishop, the Australian foreign minister, planning to visit the country.
In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Iranian Ambassador to Australia Abdolhossein Vahaji has shed some light on Bishop’s planned visit to Iran and said, “This is a good opportunity for both sides, which could usher in a new chapter in the relations between the two countries.”
While this trip is not unprecedented, it is certainly rare; the last bilateral meeting between foreign ministers from Iran and Australia dates back to more than 12 years ago, during the term of the then president, Mohammad Khatami.
“The most important issue is to enhance the bilateral ties.” Abdolhossein Vahaji
Regarding the forced return of asylum seekers, the Iranian ambassador said, “The issue of forced return of asylum seeker to Iran has not been portrayed correctly and it has only served a domestic purpose,” adding that the issue will not be high on the agenda of discussions over the expansion of relations in various areas such as economy, politics or culture.
Bishop’s trip to the Middle Eastern country is much broader and complex than the issue of asylum seekers and engulfs a variety of topics and discussions from politics to economy, culture, tourism and mutual cooperation in various fields.
The meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his Australian counterpart, Julie Bishop, comes at a time when Iran and P5+1 agreed on a framework for a nuclear deal, although the travel was planned before the P5+1 reached an agreements, it is a sign of mutual cooperation between Iran and the west and a path way to lifting the sanctions. Australia has also had unilateral sanctions on Iran since 2011 regarding its disputed nuclear program however after the P5+1 agreement Iran’s ambassador to Australia has emphasized that he is optimistic that these sanctions would be lifted in time
“This is a good time for bilateral and even international cooperation,” said the Iranian envoy.
After the 2013 presidential elections in Iran which has witnessed a growth in western tourism and businesses, there has been a surge of Australians visiting the country “Since last year the number of Australians visiting the country has increased by more than 28% this is while in 2014 there was only 17.5 % rise in Australians traveling to Iran from in comparison to 2013,” Ambassador Vahaji asserted. This is while samrttraver.gov.au has indicated for Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Iran.
The Iranian envoy to Canberra also said: “Australia is a vast country and has a lot of potential, on the other hand Iran is ranked top 7 in the world in nano-technology, and we can cooperate with Australia in this field. Also in nuclear technology Iran is very advanced and we can transfer our knowledge to Australia. On the other hand Australia has great uranium mines, which could help us in our peaceful energy program. Also in agriculture and combating drought Australia is very advanced and we could use their expertise in this field.”
The Australian foreign minister is currently in India, she is due in Tehran on Friday night.
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Posted: 19 Apr 2015 02:47 PM PDT
A group of Nevada sex workers, Hookers For Hillary, have come out in favor of the Democratic contender for president.
A group of Nevada sex workers have come out in favor of Democratic contender Hillary Clinton for president.
The group, calling themselves Hookers For Hillary, all work at Dennis Hof’s infamous Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Carson City.
The legal brothel, which was the subject of HBO’s Cathouse series, has drafted a four-point platform explaining their endorsement.
According to their website, they’re supporting the former secretary of state because of her work on health care reform, foreign relation experience, tax reform and responsible government oversight on public health issues.
‘Hillary Clinton, as part of her husband’s administration, envisioned health care reform in the 1990’s, long before President Obama was able to sign it into law,’ they write.
The hookers all work at Dennis Hof’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Carson City.
‘The Bunny Ranch entertains customers from all around the globe, and the girls have great respect for any woman who can take powerful men from oppressive cultures and make them bend to her will.’
‘Bill Clinton presided over the most prosperous time in Bunny Ranch history, which coincided with a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans such as brothel owner Dennis Hof,’ the Bunny Ranch writes.
‘The Bunnies recognize that thriving economies are built from the bottom up, where the vast majority of their clients originate.
‘A return to relying on the disproven theory of trickle-down economics would only serve to exclude the vast majority of hard-working Bunny Ranch clients from having the discretionary income to enjoy with their favorite Bunny.’
Citing Nevada’s mandatory testing of legal prostitutes for sexually transmitted diseases, the Bunny Ranch also applauded Mrs. Clinton for recognizing ‘the fact that responsible government oversight is a key to protecting the public’s health from widespread disease.’
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Posted: 19 Apr 2015 02:31 PM PDT
US nuclear ICBMs Peacekeeper, Minuteman I and Minuteman III on display near F. E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, the US.

Did you know that Washington keeps 450 nuclear ICBMs on “hair-trigger alert”? Washington thinks that this makes us “safe.” The reasoning, if it can be called reason, is that by being able to launch in a few minutes, no one will try to attack the US with nuclear weapons. US missiles are able to get on their way before the enemy’s missiles can reach the US to destroy ours.
If this makes you feel safe, you need to read Eric Schlosser’s book, Command and Control.
The trouble with hair-triggers is that they make mistaken, accidental, and unauthorized launch more likely. Schlosser provides a history of almost launches that would have brought armageddon to the world.
In Catalyst, a publication of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Elliott Negin tells the story of Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov. Just after midnight in 1983 the Soviet Union’s early warning satellite system set off the alarm that 5 US ICBMs were headed for the Soviet Union.
Col. Petrov was supposed to inform the Soviet leader, who would have 8 to 10 minutes to decide whether to launch in retaliation. Who knows what he would have decided. Instead Col. Petrov used his judgment. There was no reason for the US to be attacking the Soviet Union. Moreover, Petrov reasoned that an American attack would involve hundreds of ICBMs, possibly thousands. He checked whether Soviet ground-based radar had detected incoming ICBMs, and it had not. Petrov decided it was a false alarm, and sat on it.
It turned out that the early warning system had mistaken a pattern of sunlight reflection on clouds as missiles. This was a close call, but Negin reports that “a failed computer chip, and an improperly installed circuit card are some of the culprits” that could initiate nuclear war. In other words, the sources of false alarms are numerous.
Fast forward to today. Imagine an American officer monitoring the US early warning system. This officer has been listening to 15 years of war propaganda accompanied by US invasions and bombings of 8 countries. Terrorist warnings and security alerts abound, as do calls from American and Israeli politicians for nuking Iran. The media has convinced him that Russia has invaded Ukraine and is on the verge of invading the Baltics and Poland. American troops and tanks have been rushed to the Russian border. There is talk of arming Ukraine. Putin is dangerous and is threatening nuclear war, running his strategic bombers close to our borders and holding nuclear drills. The American officer has just heard a Fox News general again call for “killing Russians.” The Republicans have convinced him that Obama is selling out America to Iran, with Senator Tom Cotton warning of nuclear war as a consequence. We will all be killed because there is a ‘Muslim’ in the White House.
Why isn’t anyone standing up for America, the patriotic American officer wonders, just as the alarm goes off: Incoming ICBMs. Are they Russian or Iranian? Was Israel right after all? A hidden Iranian nuclear weapons program? Or has Putin decided that the US is in the way of his reconstruction of the Soviet Empire, which the American media affirms is Putin’s goal? There is no room for judgment in the American officer’s mind. It has been set on hair-trigger by the incessant propaganda that Americans call news. He passes on the warning.
Obama’s Russophobic neocon National Security Advisor is screaming: “You can’t let Putin get away with this!” “It might be a false alarm,” replies the nervous and agitated president. “You liberal…! Don’t you know that Putin is dangerous!? Push the button!”
And there goes the world.
Considering the extreme Russophobia being created among Americans by the Ministry of Propaganda, the demonization of Vladimir Putin–the “new Hitler,” Vlad the Impaler– the propagandistic creation of “the Russian threat,” the crazed neocon desire for US world hegemony, the hatred of Russia and China as rising rivals capable of exercising independent power, the loss of American Uni-power status and unconstrained unilateral action. In the midst of these emotions and minds swayed not by facts but by propaganda, hubris, and ideology, there is a great chance that Washington’s response to a false alarm will bring the end of life on earth.
How much confidence do you have in Washington? How many times has Washington–especially the crazed neocons–been wrong?
Remember the 3-week “cakewalk” Iraq war that would cost $70 billion and be paid out of Iraqi oil revenues? Now the cost is $3,000 billion and rising, and after 12 years the radical Islamic State controls half of the country. To pay for the wars the Republicans want to “privatize,” that is, take away, Social Security and Medicare.
Remember “Mission Accomplished” in Afghanistan? Twelve years later the Taliban again control the country and Washington, after murdering women, children, funerals, weddings, village elders, and kids’ soccer games, has been driven out by a few thousand lightly armed Taliban.
The frustrations of these defeats have mounted in Washington and in the military. The myth is that we lost because we didn’t use our full force. We were intimidated by world opinion or by those damn student protesters, or blocked from victory by some gutless president, a liberal… who wouldn’t use all of our power. For the right-wing, rage is a way of life.
The neocons believe fervently that History has chosen America to rule the world, and here we are defeated by Vietnamese guerrillas, by Afghan tribesmen, by Islamist fundamentalists, and now Putin has sent his missiles to finish the job.
Whoever the White House fool is, he will push the button.
The situation is deteriorating, not improving. The Russians, hoping for some sign of intelligence in Europe, contradict Washington’s anti-Russian lies. Washington calls truthful contradiction of its own propaganda to be Russian propaganda. Washington has ordered the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a US government agency, headed by Andrew Lack, a former chairman of NBC news, to counteract an alleged, but non-existent, “Kremlin Troll Army” that is outshouting the Western presstitutes and “perpetuating a pro-Russian dialogue” on the Internet. In case you don’t remember, Lack is the idiot who declared RT to be a “terrorist organization.” In other words, in Lack’s opinion, one that he can enforce, a truth-teller is a terrorist.
Lack epitomizes well Washington’s view of truthful reporting: If it doesn’t serve Washington’s propaganda, it is not true. It is terrorism.
Lack hopes to control RT with intimidation: In effect, he has told RT to shut up and say what we want or we will close you down as a terrorist organization. We might even arrest your American employees as aiders and abettors of terrorism.
To counteract a Revanchist Russia and its Internet Troll Army, the Obama regime is handing $15,400,000 to the insane Lack to use to discredit every truthful statement that emerges from the English language versions of Russian media. This amount, of course, will rise dramatically. Soon it will be in the billions of dollars, while Americans are evicted from their homes and sent to prison for their debts.
In his budget request, Lack, who seems to lack every aspect of humanity, including intelligence, integrity, and morality, justified his request, which will be granted, for the hard-earned money of Americans, whose standard of living is falling, with the wild assertion that Russia “threatens Russia’s neighbors and, by extension, the United States and its Western allies.”
Lack promises to do even more: “The US international media is now set forth to refute Russian propaganda and influence the minds of Russians and Russian-speakers in the former Soviet Union, Europe and around the world.” Lack is going to propagandize against Russia inside Russia.
Of course, the CIA organizations–the National Endowment for Democracy and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty–will be enriched by this anti-Russian propaganda campaign and will support it wholeheartedly.
Therefore, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ call for cooperation with Russia to take ICBMs off hair-trigger status is unlikely to occur. How can nuclear tensions be reduced when Washington is building tensions as fast as it possibly can? Washington’s Ministry of Propaganda has reconstructed Putin as Osama bin Laden, as Saddam Hussein, demonized figures, bogymen who evoke fear from the brainwashed American sheeple. Russia is transformed into al-Qaeda lusting for another attack on the World Trade Center and for the Red Army (many Americans think Russia is still communist) to roll across Europe.
Gorbachev was a trick. He deceived the old movie actor. The deceived Americans are sitting ducks, and here come the ICBMs. The crazed views of the American politicians, military, and people are unable to comprehend truth or to recognize reality.
The propagandistic American “media” and the crazed neoconservatives have set humanity on the path to destruction.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, of which I am a member, need to come to their senses. It is impossible to work out a reduction in nuclear threat as long as one side is going all out to demonize the other. The demonization of Russia and its leader by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and the rest of the American Propaganda Ministry, by almost the entirety of the House and Senate, and by the White House makes reducing the threat of nuclear war impossible.
The American people and the entire world need to understand that the threat to life on earth resides in Washington and that until Washington is fundamentally and totally changed, this threat will remain as the worse threat to life on earth. Global Warming can disappear instantly in Nuclear Winter.
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Posted: 19 Apr 2015 01:50 PM PDT


A new video released by the Islamic State’s affiliates in Libya purports to show the killing of two groups of Ethiopian Christians.
The 29-minute video shows two groups of captives held by the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL), described by onscreen text as “followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church.” It says one group is being held by an ISIS affiliate in eastern Libya and the other in the south of the country. Each group has about 15 captives.
A spokesman for the Ethiopian government said he cannot confirm his country’s citizens were the ones killed in the video.”We have seen the video but our embassy in Cairo has not been able to confirm that the victims are Ethiopian nationals,” Redwan Hussein told Reuters. “Nonetheless, the Ethiopian government condemns the atrocious act.”
In the video, a masked fighter brandishes a pistol, threatening Christians must convert to Islam or pay with their lives. He describes Christians as crusaders whose goal is to kill Muslims. The footage then shows both groups of captives being killed by the terrorists, one group is beheaded and the other shot dead.
The new video bears similarities with another one, released in February, where militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians. Both videos were stamped with the logo of Islamic State’s media wing, Al-Furqan.
IS managed to gain a foothold in Libya amid the chaos and infighting following the end of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. They have been using the internet to spread their message, often in the form of videos showing the killings of those they deem “enemies.” The militants are also active in social media, and have hackers operating on their behalf.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 09:28