1
Georgia Gets New U.S.-Approved Defense Chief
by "Rick Rozoff"
rwrozoff
2
Imperial Hubris: Clinton Demands Russia And China "Pay The Price"
by "Rick Rozoff"
rwrozoff
3
U.S. Drone Strike Kills 20 In Pakistan
by "Rick Rozoff"
rwrozoff
|
Fri Jul 6, 2012 5:20 am (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://rickrozoff.
Stop NATO
July 6, 2012
Georgia Gets New U.S.-Approved Defense Chief
Rick Rozoff
America's and NATO's favorite autocrat, Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili, "reshuffled" his cabinet on U.S. Independence Day and appointed Dimitri Shashkin his new defense minister.
Presenting Shashkin to his fiefdom's top military officers, Saakashvili, magniloquent and melodramatic as is his inevitable wont, waxed rhapsodic over his new underling being “one of the best patriots” and a “generator of ideas,” as though the strongman-for-
Saakashvili emphasized, along with the above-cited credentials, that Shashkin had been in charge of Georgian operations for the U.S.'s International Republican Institute before entering the government in 2009.
The Georgian Ministry of Defense posted his resume on its website, which includes an over decade-long stint in service to his masters overseas:
2007-2009 International Republican Institute, Resident Country Director
2001-2007 International Republican Institute, Resident Program Officer
1998-2001 International Republican Institute, Assistant Program Officer
1997-1998 American Bar Association, Program Assistant
The International Republican Institute is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. It is precisely the sort of "non-governmental organization" employed to bring the likes of Mikheil Saakashvili to power - it has operated in 100 nations, for example in Egypt last year - and keep them there once installed.
Appointing a loyal vassal of Washington like Shashkin defense minister - Saakaahsvili attended Columbia University on a State Department scholarship and understands full well who needs to be pleased if a new "rose revolution" is not to cut short his now over eight-year reign - is to be expected from a leader who may not be learned or cultured, sapient or even shrewd, but is instinctually alert to which side his bread is buttered on and what his American sponsors demand of him. Which may simply be a question of acquiescence, as his choice might have been "suggested" to him by the U.S. ambassador in Tbilisi after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Georgia a month ago.
In introducing the new defense minister, the Georgian satrap also praised his predecessor, Bacho Akhalaia, who is now the country's interior minister, for managing "to fully clean" Georgia's armed forces of "hesitant elements with an old-style of mindset, who were ready to ally themselves with the enemy” in reference to a mutiny staged by members of a tank battalion stationed in Mukhrovani, thirty kilometers from the capital, on May 5, 2009, a day before annual NATO Cooperative Longbow/Cooperative Lancer exercises were to begin in the country. The enemy, there's no need to mention, was and remains Russia.
Saakashvili'
Lastly, Washington's man in Tbilisi, Saakashvili, who is always a privileged guest in the White House, at NATO summits and in the op-ed pages of America's major dailies, touted the fact that his new defense minister's tenure with the International Republican Institute would yet further solidify U.S.-Georgia defense ties. The U.S., he assured, is planning to launch an “important, historic” military assistance program which will be of “decisive importance” to Georgia. The reference is to a pledge made a month ago in Georgia by Hillary Clinton to assist in upgrading the nation's air and coastal surveillance capabilities and air defenses as well as providing new military training and modernizing its helicopter fleet.
On July 1 Saakashvili spoke at a graduation ceremony at the new Cadets Military Lyceum and reiterated as he routinely does that the deployment of Georgian troops to Afghanistan under NATO command is primarily for the armed forces to gain combat experience for future military conflicts with South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Russia.
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded with a statement that in part said:
“It turns out that Georgia participates and increases the number of its soldiers in Afghanistan not at all for combating terrorism and for the purpose of supporting international security, as envisaged by the mandate of the International Security Assistance Force.
"Moreover, Saakashvili’s words imply that the longer ‘active combat’ lasts in Afghanistan, the better for Georgia, which will have a suitable training range for its army to undergo combat training.”
By way of summary, if Moscow's assessment appears too harsh, and to indicate the quid pro quo that Saakashvili receives from the U.S. and NATO for deploying two battalions to Afghanistan as other troop contributing nations are planning to withdraw their forces, here is a representative sampling of reports in recent years regarding the true purpose of the U.S. training Georgian troops for combat experience in South Asia:
Trend News Agency
February 28, 2012
Saakashvili noted that participation of the military in the operation of NATO in Afghanistan is strengthening Georgia and its armed forces.
Civil Georgia
February 3, 2012
President Saakashvili said that Georgia’s contribution to NATO-led forces in Afghanistan “has not been in vain” and resulted in moving U.S.-Georgia military cooperation to “a new level” that would help Georgia to increase its self-defense capabilities.
Speaking after visiting a Georgian soldier wounded in Afghanistan and now undergoing treatment in a military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, Saakashvili said: “We should understand the fact that a decision has been made to move military cooperation [with the U.S.] onto an absolutely new level in order to focus actually on our self-defense is” a result of Georgia’s contribution to ISAF.
“Of course it is Georgia which we should defend and which we should care for and [Georgian troops] are in Afghanistan first and foremost because of Georgia,” Saakashvili said.
Civil Georgia
September 16, 2011
Georgia’s military contribution to the Afghan operation gives the Georgian army “invaluable combat experience” and to the country the “solidarity and support” of its allies, President Saakashvili said on September 16.
In a televised speech before Georgian soldiers at a ceremony opening a new complex of the MoD’s National Defense Academy in the town of Gori, Saakashvili said: “If we want to have a country, we should have an army; if we want to have an army, we should be in Afghanistan.”
“Georgian soldiers are in Afghanistan because it makes the Georgian armed forces stronger, because this is invaluable combat experience,” Saakashvili said...
"[D]oes Georgia face threats and a huge challenge? Yes it does. Does Georgia need the army? Of course it needs it; the country can’t live otherwise. Should this army have experience? Of course it does. Do we need the support of our much stronger allies? Of course we need it. Where does this experience and solidarity from our allies come from? First and foremost on the Afghan front,” he said.
Civil Georgia
September 13, 2010
The NATO-led operation in Afghanistan, he said, “is our struggle” too.
“Of course someone may say: ‘we have so many problems, our territories are occupied and there is no time now for going somewhere else to fight’. But because of these very same problems that we have we need huge combat experience, my friends, and the [Afghan mission] is a unique combat and war school...Take a look at our situation, our challenges and threats – can we say no to our armed forces and can we say no to a war school? This is an opportunity to become integrated with the world’s best armies, to see the most advanced [military] equipment and achievements.”
Azeri Press Agency
July 28, 2010
"Georgia has a direct interest in the success of the Afghan operation and in putting a halt to terrorism once and for all," Saakashvili said, adding that Georgia's military could learn a lot from the "school" of Afghan warfare.
He said this experience could prove valuable in any future conflicts, citing the 2008 war with Russia as an example of "aggression" against the South Caucasus state.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 10, 2009
Saakashvili added that tough tours of duty in Afghanistan will give Georgian troops "a real combat baptism" that would come in handy in potential future conflicts.
Experts say combat duty in mountainous Afghanistan would indeed provide valuable experience for Georgian troops that could prove useful in the event of another war with Russia.
The Daily Telegraph
December 8, 2009
Amid continued tensions with Moscow after last year's war with Russia, the former Soviet republic is keen to strengthen ties with Nato and is making one of the largest contributions to the US-led surge in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Tbilisi is hoping the move will not only boost its links with the Western military alliance, but also give its troops much-needed combat experience that could be used in another conflict with Russia or with Georgia's Russian-backed separatist regions.
President Mikheil Saakashvili said that Georgia's contribution in Afghanistan is directly linked with the country's security in the face of threats from Russia.
"This is a unique chance for our soldiers to receive a real combat baptism. We do not need the army only for showing off at military parades," he said.
============
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http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
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============
Stop NATO
July 6, 2012
Georgia Gets New U.S.-Approved Defense Chief
Rick Rozoff
America's and NATO's favorite autocrat, Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili, "reshuffled" his cabinet on U.S. Independence Day and appointed Dimitri Shashkin his new defense minister.
Presenting Shashkin to his fiefdom's top military officers, Saakashvili, magniloquent and melodramatic as is his inevitable wont, waxed rhapsodic over his new underling being “one of the best patriots” and a “generator of ideas,” as though the strongman-for-
Saakashvili emphasized, along with the above-cited credentials, that Shashkin had been in charge of Georgian operations for the U.S.'s International Republican Institute before entering the government in 2009.
The Georgian Ministry of Defense posted his resume on its website, which includes an over decade-long stint in service to his masters overseas:
2007-2009 International Republican Institute, Resident Country Director
2001-2007 International Republican Institute, Resident Program Officer
1998-2001 International Republican Institute, Assistant Program Officer
1997-1998 American Bar Association, Program Assistant
The International Republican Institute is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. It is precisely the sort of "non-governmental organization" employed to bring the likes of Mikheil Saakashvili to power - it has operated in 100 nations, for example in Egypt last year - and keep them there once installed.
Appointing a loyal vassal of Washington like Shashkin defense minister - Saakaahsvili attended Columbia University on a State Department scholarship and understands full well who needs to be pleased if a new "rose revolution" is not to cut short his now over eight-year reign - is to be expected from a leader who may not be learned or cultured, sapient or even shrewd, but is instinctually alert to which side his bread is buttered on and what his American sponsors demand of him. Which may simply be a question of acquiescence, as his choice might have been "suggested" to him by the U.S. ambassador in Tbilisi after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Georgia a month ago.
In introducing the new defense minister, the Georgian satrap also praised his predecessor, Bacho Akhalaia, who is now the country's interior minister, for managing "to fully clean" Georgia's armed forces of "hesitant elements with an old-style of mindset, who were ready to ally themselves with the enemy” in reference to a mutiny staged by members of a tank battalion stationed in Mukhrovani, thirty kilometers from the capital, on May 5, 2009, a day before annual NATO Cooperative Longbow/Cooperative Lancer exercises were to begin in the country. The enemy, there's no need to mention, was and remains Russia.
Saakashvili'
Lastly, Washington's man in Tbilisi, Saakashvili, who is always a privileged guest in the White House, at NATO summits and in the op-ed pages of America's major dailies, touted the fact that his new defense minister's tenure with the International Republican Institute would yet further solidify U.S.-Georgia defense ties. The U.S., he assured, is planning to launch an “important, historic” military assistance program which will be of “decisive importance” to Georgia. The reference is to a pledge made a month ago in Georgia by Hillary Clinton to assist in upgrading the nation's air and coastal surveillance capabilities and air defenses as well as providing new military training and modernizing its helicopter fleet.
On July 1 Saakashvili spoke at a graduation ceremony at the new Cadets Military Lyceum and reiterated as he routinely does that the deployment of Georgian troops to Afghanistan under NATO command is primarily for the armed forces to gain combat experience for future military conflicts with South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Russia.
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded with a statement that in part said:
“It turns out that Georgia participates and increases the number of its soldiers in Afghanistan not at all for combating terrorism and for the purpose of supporting international security, as envisaged by the mandate of the International Security Assistance Force.
"Moreover, Saakashvili’s words imply that the longer ‘active combat’ lasts in Afghanistan, the better for Georgia, which will have a suitable training range for its army to undergo combat training.”
By way of summary, if Moscow's assessment appears too harsh, and to indicate the quid pro quo that Saakashvili receives from the U.S. and NATO for deploying two battalions to Afghanistan as other troop contributing nations are planning to withdraw their forces, here is a representative sampling of reports in recent years regarding the true purpose of the U.S. training Georgian troops for combat experience in South Asia:
Trend News Agency
February 28, 2012
Saakashvili noted that participation of the military in the operation of NATO in Afghanistan is strengthening Georgia and its armed forces.
Civil Georgia
February 3, 2012
President Saakashvili said that Georgia’s contribution to NATO-led forces in Afghanistan “has not been in vain” and resulted in moving U.S.-Georgia military cooperation to “a new level” that would help Georgia to increase its self-defense capabilities.
Speaking after visiting a Georgian soldier wounded in Afghanistan and now undergoing treatment in a military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, Saakashvili said: “We should understand the fact that a decision has been made to move military cooperation [with the U.S.] onto an absolutely new level in order to focus actually on our self-defense is” a result of Georgia’s contribution to ISAF.
“Of course it is Georgia which we should defend and which we should care for and [Georgian troops] are in Afghanistan first and foremost because of Georgia,” Saakashvili said.
Civil Georgia
September 16, 2011
Georgia’s military contribution to the Afghan operation gives the Georgian army “invaluable combat experience” and to the country the “solidarity and support” of its allies, President Saakashvili said on September 16.
In a televised speech before Georgian soldiers at a ceremony opening a new complex of the MoD’s National Defense Academy in the town of Gori, Saakashvili said: “If we want to have a country, we should have an army; if we want to have an army, we should be in Afghanistan.”
“Georgian soldiers are in Afghanistan because it makes the Georgian armed forces stronger, because this is invaluable combat experience,” Saakashvili said...
"[D]oes Georgia face threats and a huge challenge? Yes it does. Does Georgia need the army? Of course it needs it; the country can’t live otherwise. Should this army have experience? Of course it does. Do we need the support of our much stronger allies? Of course we need it. Where does this experience and solidarity from our allies come from? First and foremost on the Afghan front,” he said.
Civil Georgia
September 13, 2010
The NATO-led operation in Afghanistan, he said, “is our struggle” too.
“Of course someone may say: ‘we have so many problems, our territories are occupied and there is no time now for going somewhere else to fight’. But because of these very same problems that we have we need huge combat experience, my friends, and the [Afghan mission] is a unique combat and war school...Take a look at our situation, our challenges and threats – can we say no to our armed forces and can we say no to a war school? This is an opportunity to become integrated with the world’s best armies, to see the most advanced [military] equipment and achievements.”
Azeri Press Agency
July 28, 2010
"Georgia has a direct interest in the success of the Afghan operation and in putting a halt to terrorism once and for all," Saakashvili said, adding that Georgia's military could learn a lot from the "school" of Afghan warfare.
He said this experience could prove valuable in any future conflicts, citing the 2008 war with Russia as an example of "aggression" against the South Caucasus state.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 10, 2009
Saakashvili added that tough tours of duty in Afghanistan will give Georgian troops "a real combat baptism" that would come in handy in potential future conflicts.
Experts say combat duty in mountainous Afghanistan would indeed provide valuable experience for Georgian troops that could prove useful in the event of another war with Russia.
The Daily Telegraph
December 8, 2009
Amid continued tensions with Moscow after last year's war with Russia, the former Soviet republic is keen to strengthen ties with Nato and is making one of the largest contributions to the US-led surge in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Tbilisi is hoping the move will not only boost its links with the Western military alliance, but also give its troops much-needed combat experience that could be used in another conflict with Russia or with Georgia's Russian-backed separatist regions.
President Mikheil Saakashvili said that Georgia's contribution in Afghanistan is directly linked with the country's security in the face of threats from Russia.
"This is a unique chance for our soldiers to receive a real combat baptism. We do not need the army only for showing off at military parades," he said.
============
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@
============
Fri Jul 6, 2012 11:16 am (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://rickrozoff.
Stop NATO
July 6, 2012
Imperial Hubris: Clinton Demands Russia And China "Pay The Price"
Rick Rozoff
At the third meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria in Paris on July 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proved once again that diplomacy is to the United States what refined dining etiquette is to a jackal.
The third such meeting, earlier versions were held in "post-revolution" Tunisia and in Turkey, a NATO member with military forces massed on Syria's border, was opened by French President Francois Hollande (who already is making his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy appear less anomalously egregious), who declaimed, "Bashir al Assad must go...a transitional government must be set up.”
The head of state of Syria's former colonial master also engaged in comic opera theatrics by observing a moment of silence for - some - of the victims in Syria and insisted that the Syrian government's “fall is inevitable.” Just as Sarkozy had done last year with the governments of Ivory Coast and Libya. Just as Clinton had done with both as well and now with Syria.
But Hollande was only the compère who warmed up the audience for the true personification of 21st century imperial hubris - Clinton.
She, who in February referred to Russia and China as being despicable for blocking a resolution in the United Nations Security Council aimed at the regime change in Syria mentioned above, abandoned any remaining element of restraint - a quality she has never been noted for, any more than for subtlety, judgment, humility, fairness and other seemingly outdated virtues - and exploited the Syrian crisis to crudely excoriate Russia and China once again.
Her shrill diatribe included an attempt to incite attendees from over 100 countries and organizations against the two alleged villains: "I ask you to reach out to Russia and China and to not only urge, but demand that they get off the sidelines and begin to support the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people."
The operative word is demand. As in démarche. As in diktat.
However, if the above suggests that she accused Russia and China of what is the international equivalent of criminal negligence, the following demonstrates that she intended something far more severe:
"I don't think Russia and China believe they are paying any price at all, nothing at all, for standing up on behalf of the Assad regime. The only way that will change is if every nation represented here directly and urgently makes it clear that Russia and China will pay a price, because they are holding up progress."
Clinton was born in a hospital on the North Side of Chicago and clearly knows cardinal rule number one of Machine politics there: Reward your friends and punish your enemies. Especially the second. Smite them ruthlessly and remorselessly. Crush them if possible. Teach them a lesson they - and others tempted to pursue a less than completely obedient path - will never forget. Make them "pay a price."
Her commander-in-
For the past 81 years Chicago's chief executive, the mayor, has belonged to the same political party, Clinton's, and currently all fifty members of the legislative body, the City Council, do as well.
Bills and city budgets are regularly passed unanimously, often with little discussion, less debate and no public input.
To be recalled the next time Clinton launches into a tirade against the government of or elections in other nations, as she did in relation to parliamentary elections in Russia last December, which she denounced as "neither free nor fair."
Following the all too brief reprieve provided by the mayoralty of Harold Washington (1983-1987), the city reverted to top-down, autocratic rule, with near-absolute power wielded from the mayor's office on the 5th Floor of City Hall.
Although Chicagoans vote for members of the City Council, aldermen, the real power in the city has traditionally resided in the hands of Democratic Party ward committeemen and their precinct captains, known as ward heelers.
Politics in Chicago allow a citizen of the city only two options: He can capitulate in prostrate servility to the monolithic power structure or, in a trademark understatement by the late Chicago journalist Mike Royko, he will feel bad in the morning. If he wakes up at all.
It is the above style of strong-armed, zero-sum, take-no-prisoners, absolutist "statecraft" that has been applied first to the nation and now the world. The sort that Hillary Clinton is practicing on the international stage.
On the same day that she threatened the two permanent members of the UN Security Council in the manner described, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen issued a threat of his own - to Syria - stating:
"It goes without saying that Turkey can count on NATO. NATO is of course prepared to defend Turkey if it is so necessary."
Alliance solidarity.
Clinton's latest provocation follows closely on the heels of another, her accusing Russia last month of supplying attack helicopters to the Syrian government to "escalate the conflict quite dramatically.
Her style of abrasive, brazen, dogmatic, Manichean "diplomacy" is best indicated by a statement she made in 2001, after leaving the White House where as First Lady she was fond of employing the imperial we (as in "we are the president") and reviving the once-discredited practice of carpetbagging in becoming a U.S. senator from New York.
Two days after the attacks of September 11, she told Dan Rather of CBS News:
"Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price."
She has not veered from the practice of separating the world's nations and people into those with or against her - there are no degrees in between - although her position regarding terrorists has evidently shifted with Libya last year and Syria currently.
The State Department has granted Clinton a forum from which to castigate, disparage, accuse and threaten others to her heart's content. It has in particular emboldened her to issue orders for heads of state outside the Western world to vacate their offices and cede power to successors approved by Clinton and her nation's allies.
Last February, within mere days of the beginning of anti-government actions in Libya, she pronounced before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva: "It is time for Gaddafi to go - now, without further violence or delay."
In April she ordered President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, who retained his office after an election whose outcome was disputed by the nation's Election Commission and the Constitutional Court - not unlike what occurred in the 2000 presidential election in the U.S. - to leave, stating:
"The United States calls on former President Laurent Gbagbo to step down immediately. Gbagbo is pushing Cote d'Ivoire into lawlessness.
"The path forward is clear. He must leave now so the conflict may end."
In the same month she ordered Yemen's head of state, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to leave office:
"President Saleh was given a very good offer that we strongly backed. And, you know, we cannot expect this conflict to end unless President Saleh and his government move out of the way to permit the opposition and civil society to begin a transition to political and economic reform."
The "very good offer" was one initiated by the U.S.'s main allies in the Arab world, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which whom the U.S. and its NATO allies have also conspired to overthrow the governments of Libya and Syria.
In January of this year, while visiting Ivory Coast - where Gbagbo was deposed last April by French and compliant United Nations military forces and replaced by former Washington, D.C.-based International Monetary Fund official Alassane Ouattara - she renewed her demand that the Yemeni president must abdicate:
"There have been agreements with respect to the way forward that have not been fulfilled. We regret that the president has thus far failed to comply with his own commitments to leave the country, to permit elections to go forward that give the people a chance to be heard and be represented.
In October Clinton was shown an image of the battered corpse of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly after he was murdered in his hometown of Sirte and after uttering an adolescent (or preteen) "wow," stated while laughing and puffing herself up, almost squealing with self-satisfied abandon: ""We came, we saw, he died."
The paraphrase of the statement attributed to Julius Caesar is not fortuitous. What Clinton at the moment embodies to the highest degree is imperial arrogance in its foulest manifestation.
1) U.S. Exploits Syrian Situation For Showdown With Russia
Stop NATO
June 14, 2012
http://rickrozoff.
============
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@
============
Stop NATO
July 6, 2012
Imperial Hubris: Clinton Demands Russia And China "Pay The Price"
Rick Rozoff
At the third meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria in Paris on July 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proved once again that diplomacy is to the United States what refined dining etiquette is to a jackal.
The third such meeting, earlier versions were held in "post-revolution" Tunisia and in Turkey, a NATO member with military forces massed on Syria's border, was opened by French President Francois Hollande (who already is making his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy appear less anomalously egregious), who declaimed, "Bashir al Assad must go...a transitional government must be set up.”
The head of state of Syria's former colonial master also engaged in comic opera theatrics by observing a moment of silence for - some - of the victims in Syria and insisted that the Syrian government's “fall is inevitable.” Just as Sarkozy had done last year with the governments of Ivory Coast and Libya. Just as Clinton had done with both as well and now with Syria.
But Hollande was only the compère who warmed up the audience for the true personification of 21st century imperial hubris - Clinton.
She, who in February referred to Russia and China as being despicable for blocking a resolution in the United Nations Security Council aimed at the regime change in Syria mentioned above, abandoned any remaining element of restraint - a quality she has never been noted for, any more than for subtlety, judgment, humility, fairness and other seemingly outdated virtues - and exploited the Syrian crisis to crudely excoriate Russia and China once again.
Her shrill diatribe included an attempt to incite attendees from over 100 countries and organizations against the two alleged villains: "I ask you to reach out to Russia and China and to not only urge, but demand that they get off the sidelines and begin to support the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people."
The operative word is demand. As in démarche. As in diktat.
However, if the above suggests that she accused Russia and China of what is the international equivalent of criminal negligence, the following demonstrates that she intended something far more severe:
"I don't think Russia and China believe they are paying any price at all, nothing at all, for standing up on behalf of the Assad regime. The only way that will change is if every nation represented here directly and urgently makes it clear that Russia and China will pay a price, because they are holding up progress."
Clinton was born in a hospital on the North Side of Chicago and clearly knows cardinal rule number one of Machine politics there: Reward your friends and punish your enemies. Especially the second. Smite them ruthlessly and remorselessly. Crush them if possible. Teach them a lesson they - and others tempted to pursue a less than completely obedient path - will never forget. Make them "pay a price."
Her commander-in-
For the past 81 years Chicago's chief executive, the mayor, has belonged to the same political party, Clinton's, and currently all fifty members of the legislative body, the City Council, do as well.
Bills and city budgets are regularly passed unanimously, often with little discussion, less debate and no public input.
To be recalled the next time Clinton launches into a tirade against the government of or elections in other nations, as she did in relation to parliamentary elections in Russia last December, which she denounced as "neither free nor fair."
Following the all too brief reprieve provided by the mayoralty of Harold Washington (1983-1987), the city reverted to top-down, autocratic rule, with near-absolute power wielded from the mayor's office on the 5th Floor of City Hall.
Although Chicagoans vote for members of the City Council, aldermen, the real power in the city has traditionally resided in the hands of Democratic Party ward committeemen and their precinct captains, known as ward heelers.
Politics in Chicago allow a citizen of the city only two options: He can capitulate in prostrate servility to the monolithic power structure or, in a trademark understatement by the late Chicago journalist Mike Royko, he will feel bad in the morning. If he wakes up at all.
It is the above style of strong-armed, zero-sum, take-no-prisoners, absolutist "statecraft" that has been applied first to the nation and now the world. The sort that Hillary Clinton is practicing on the international stage.
On the same day that she threatened the two permanent members of the UN Security Council in the manner described, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen issued a threat of his own - to Syria - stating:
"It goes without saying that Turkey can count on NATO. NATO is of course prepared to defend Turkey if it is so necessary."
Alliance solidarity.
Clinton's latest provocation follows closely on the heels of another, her accusing Russia last month of supplying attack helicopters to the Syrian government to "escalate the conflict quite dramatically.
Her style of abrasive, brazen, dogmatic, Manichean "diplomacy" is best indicated by a statement she made in 2001, after leaving the White House where as First Lady she was fond of employing the imperial we (as in "we are the president") and reviving the once-discredited practice of carpetbagging in becoming a U.S. senator from New York.
Two days after the attacks of September 11, she told Dan Rather of CBS News:
"Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price."
She has not veered from the practice of separating the world's nations and people into those with or against her - there are no degrees in between - although her position regarding terrorists has evidently shifted with Libya last year and Syria currently.
The State Department has granted Clinton a forum from which to castigate, disparage, accuse and threaten others to her heart's content. It has in particular emboldened her to issue orders for heads of state outside the Western world to vacate their offices and cede power to successors approved by Clinton and her nation's allies.
Last February, within mere days of the beginning of anti-government actions in Libya, she pronounced before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva: "It is time for Gaddafi to go - now, without further violence or delay."
In April she ordered President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, who retained his office after an election whose outcome was disputed by the nation's Election Commission and the Constitutional Court - not unlike what occurred in the 2000 presidential election in the U.S. - to leave, stating:
"The United States calls on former President Laurent Gbagbo to step down immediately. Gbagbo is pushing Cote d'Ivoire into lawlessness.
"The path forward is clear. He must leave now so the conflict may end."
In the same month she ordered Yemen's head of state, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to leave office:
"President Saleh was given a very good offer that we strongly backed. And, you know, we cannot expect this conflict to end unless President Saleh and his government move out of the way to permit the opposition and civil society to begin a transition to political and economic reform."
The "very good offer" was one initiated by the U.S.'s main allies in the Arab world, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which whom the U.S. and its NATO allies have also conspired to overthrow the governments of Libya and Syria.
In January of this year, while visiting Ivory Coast - where Gbagbo was deposed last April by French and compliant United Nations military forces and replaced by former Washington, D.C.-based International Monetary Fund official Alassane Ouattara - she renewed her demand that the Yemeni president must abdicate:
"There have been agreements with respect to the way forward that have not been fulfilled. We regret that the president has thus far failed to comply with his own commitments to leave the country, to permit elections to go forward that give the people a chance to be heard and be represented.
In October Clinton was shown an image of the battered corpse of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly after he was murdered in his hometown of Sirte and after uttering an adolescent (or preteen) "wow," stated while laughing and puffing herself up, almost squealing with self-satisfied abandon: ""We came, we saw, he died."
The paraphrase of the statement attributed to Julius Caesar is not fortuitous. What Clinton at the moment embodies to the highest degree is imperial arrogance in its foulest manifestation.
1) U.S. Exploits Syrian Situation For Showdown With Russia
Stop NATO
June 14, 2012
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Fri Jul 6, 2012 6:31 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://en.rian.
Russian Information Agency Novosti
July 6, 2012
U.S. Drone Strike in Pakistan 'Kills 20'
Some 20 people have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in north-western Pakistan, local television channels have reported.
A U.S. drone fired six rockets on Friday at a house in the town of Miran Shah, in the North Waziristan tribal region, where Taliban militants were believed to be hiding, reports said.
The strikes came just days after Pakistan agreed to reopen supply routes that the United States and its allies have used to supply their troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan closed the routes last November after a U.S. airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in at a remote outpost near the Afghan border.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States was “sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military.” The statement came after months of protracted negotiations between U.S. officials and the Pakistani government, which has been seeking a formal U.S. apology for the airstrike as a condition of reopening the supply routes.
Islamabad has repeatedly criticized U.S. drone strikes on its territory as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.
Russian Information Agency Novosti
July 6, 2012
U.S. Drone Strike in Pakistan 'Kills 20'
Some 20 people have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in north-western Pakistan, local television channels have reported.
A U.S. drone fired six rockets on Friday at a house in the town of Miran Shah, in the North Waziristan tribal region, where Taliban militants were believed to be hiding, reports said.
The strikes came just days after Pakistan agreed to reopen supply routes that the United States and its allies have used to supply their troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan closed the routes last November after a U.S. airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in at a remote outpost near the Afghan border.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States was “sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military.” The statement came after months of protracted negotiations between U.S. officials and the Pakistani government, which has been seeking a formal U.S. apology for the airstrike as a condition of reopening the supply routes.
Islamabad has repeatedly criticized U.S. drone strikes on its territory as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.