Al_Jazeera (Arabic: الجزيرة, translated: “The Island”) from Doha, Qatar,is one of the best news outlets to cover the middle east.
Qatar is not a friend of Saudi Arabia and other Arabic countries – so you can assume they are “mostly” objective while at the same time producing high quality content such as this video.
Headlines that try to manipulate the public are called “Yellow Journalism“.
“present little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales” or manipulation of the masses.
(In the most paradox examples of Yellow Journalism the headline might says the exact opposite than the article itself… but the headline sticks to the head “message sent”)
war based on “intelligence” – in the past – has often proofen blatant lies to scare the public and decision makers/politicians into supporting an illegal and wrong war.
Most famous example in Powell’s UN-Iraq-has-weapons-of-mass-destruction-speech – resulting into the death of 103,160–113,728 civilian deaths (recorded Iraq Body Count (2003 – 14 December 2011)).
The only purpose to start a war.
The NSA and CIA both claim credit for this “lie that worked so well”
Colin Powell: U.N. Speech “Was a Great Intelligence Failure”
Funny story – the German chancellor Gerhard Schröder had better (Russian?) intel and decided to stay out of the conflict – in retrospect – absolutely the right decision.
Now they try to pull the same trick on Iran – will the public fall for it?
Much of American news reporting on US-Iran relations glosses over President Donald Trump’s role and the history of American aggression against Iran.
While Islamic Republic – ruled by authoritarians and involved in wars in Syria and Yemen – is far from an innocent player, inflammatory headlines, unnamed sources, and decades of misinformation in the US media over Iran don’t help.”
Even in Britain, which is not said to be no dictatorship.
It is not a unlikely British phenomenon – it is global.
Long term serving Chancellor Kohl (yes the fat guy with strange accent) revealed that the “pushed through the Euro like a dictator”
2013: “I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany,” he said. “We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the euro. That’s quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three.”
said former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (src: telegraph.co.uk)
“Political life is like this – elections go back and forth. Representative democracy can only be successful if one sits down and says – ‘that’s it. I will connect myself’ – as I did – ‘connect my existence to a political project.’ Then you automatically have in your party a lot of people who say: ‘if that fails, so do I’.”
cui bono: who profits? in who’s interest? so that Mercedes and BMW can export more cars to Greece?
”I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home.
”I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies.”
“I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever.”
George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as “The Wise Men“. .(src)
To put this into perspective, how would USA feel, if Russia would do military exercises – with 18.000 soldiers in Venezuela? It would be an outrage, US would be infuriated and feel threatened, huh? How come? Double standards?
also interesting: Pozner says, the coup of Yeltsin against Gorbachev was done – because Yeltsin was power greedy and first and foremost wanted to remove Gorbachev – to remove Gorbachev he had to remove the Soviet Union – no Soviet Union – no president of the Soviet Union (Gorbachev) (Yeltsin colluded with the President of Belarus and Ukraine to achieve this).
So you could say – the US did not defeat the Soviet Union – the Soviet Union was destroyed from the inside by someone willing to sacrifice it – to gain power.
In retrospect Gorbachev – which i regard as a very clever man – he was “the modern, friendly, open minded” face of the Soviet Union, he knew he would be going to be ripped off by the Americans for being almost too friendly and did it anyway (in an almost naive way, hence his still pretty poor ratings in Russia) – was challenged and almost forced by Yeltsin’s treason – to commit atrocities – to save the Soviet Union – which he did not decide to do – but could have done.
He could have ordered the military to simply shoot Yeltsin – as a traitor to the Soviet Union – on sight.
Tragically – Mr Putin is “the strong man” the Russians want – and hence it is “approved” that he kills whoever challenges him e.g. Boris Nemtsov.
This is somewhat understandable knowing that the unity of Russia is at stake – so Putin tries to do all sorts of “rally behind the flag” events.
But the most important thing is: stay honest, stay transparent, stay fair.
Do not forget about the poor people living on the outskirts of Russia or fighting at the front of Ukraine.
At the same time Putin needs to be (financial) economically very clever to keep the Russian economy up and running and gradually move it off fossil fuels – that will run out some day.
fossil fuel trade war:
“As of 2013, the Russian Federation is the world’s second-largest producer of natural gas, producing an estimated more than 669 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year, and the world’s largest exporter, shipping an estimated 196 bcm a year.[1]
The Russian Federation provides approximately about 25% of natural gas consumed in the European Union; approximately 80% of those exports travel through pipelines across Ukrainian soil prior to arriving in the EU.[2] According to The World Factbook estimate, the country also has the largest proven reserves (48 trillion cubic meters [tcm]).[1] OPEC figures also place Russia first, with an estimated 49 tcm, 24% of the world’s proved reserves; however, BP estimates put Russia second behind Iran with 33 tcm.[3][4]” (src: Wikipedia)
Now we understand the “importance” of energy independence for all nations and the importance of Iran as “the” major source of natural gas to the Trumpian-Rockefeller Washington complex that also want to turn as much foreign and domestic (fracking) oil and gas into Dollars and Euros as they can get their hands on.
Also: Iran is technologically pretty advanced country so Israel (already having nuclear weapons) feels threatened by it.
Israel’s plan seems to be to weaken all Arabic states surrounding it.
This “campaign” was halted by Russia in Syria by backing Assad from the air.
This – of course – not only pissed off Washington but also Israel.
Strange: Pakistan the probably most conservative Islamic country you can imagine (a “somewhat-friend” of the US) has the technological skilled people to build it’s nuclear industry from scratch, never the less Israel and Washington ignore this threat and instead focus on the 7 countries mentioned by Wesley Clark? Why? Because it’s missiles can reach Israel, but not the US?
Or because it has no fossil fuels? (it would not “pay off” to make it an US-colony?)
sanctions, sanctions, sanctions: pissing of your friends
Germany and Russia had a very vivid trade relationships, which scared the US the most.
Germany now – at least partly – pretty pissed at its own obvious lack of sovereignty (it has no secret service that could protect Snowden, the only place Snowden is save, on this planet, is Moscow, because Russia’s KGB/FSB can compete with CIA and Mossad) – now again “the Western alliance” is tested – because Germany shall not trade with Russia but also shall not trade with Iran so Washington demands and commands.
I appeal to all US-thinkers: look how Obama has dealt with Russia. In a clever and intelligent way – not with arrogance and aggression.
China: the new challenger does not want to be UK or US colony.
China is “officially” a communist dictatorship – but has taken a very capitalist open free market turn – starting to gradually allow more freedom and capitalism in Hong Kong (former UK-colony) – then in the rest of the country.
North Korea wants to follow China’s example.
China’s economy has surpassed the US – which in return worries the US and Washington/Mr Trump tries to “pull the plug” on the Chinese economy, because (as Mr Pozner correctly stated) the US wants to stay the only unchallenged super power and the successor to the British empire and be the only leading-currency, the only currency in which oil is traded, and further exploit various US-Dollar-indebted colonies.
Back to topic:
Basically the Soviet Union was destroyed from the inside by too much greed for power – not from the outside – so you can not say – the US defeated the Soviet Union – it was self-destruction from the inside and Gorbachev’s unwillingness to “restore order” with an iron fist.
About the Russian-American French Journalist:
Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович По́знер; born 1 April 1934) is a French-born Russian-American[1] journalist and broadcaster best known in the West for appearing on television to represent and explain the views of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.[2]
He was memorable as a spokesman for the Soviets in part because he grew up in the United States and speaks English, Russian and French fluently.
PS: Please do not think that i glorify the Stalinist Soviet Union, because according to one documentary it was largely build on slave labor (gulag).
The US does not enslave individual people directly in prison camps.
It enslaves whole nations by sending economic hitman to freshly elected presidents – offering a huge loan in US-Dollar this nation never can pay back – or threaten to kill the president in an “accident” (mostly airplane crash).
So a lot of presidents say “yes” – so US-companies come into the country and build US-infrastructure projects and when it is payback time, they hold the whole nation (Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay) in debt ransom.
“Support us militarily, allow us to put up a military base in your land, sell us your resources cheap, support us on the next UN election or hand us out this whistle-blower (Assange -> Assange) so we will let go of some of your debt” and so on.
This is mafia style.
Falling of the Berlin wall, not great for everybody:
For the record: Of course East Germans enjoy now more freedom – but they say: during the Soviet Union we were not allowed to travel and now we are allowed – but we do not have the money.
Even worse: Despite of the economic inefficiencies and lack of creativity – a lot of people lost their state guaranteed jobs/homes/meaning in life.
Money was NEVER the problem in the Soviet Union.
I witnessed a DDR/East-German family which did not cheer during the fall of the Berlin wall.
Exactly the opposite.
With the end of the Soviet Union this family also broke apart.
The father lost his job and was unable to adapt to capitalism and has gone insane also badly affecting the children.
He lives in a mental ill home.
The family is shattered forever.
Thanks for reading.
PSS: Germany wants to be friends with the US and Russia and China and Iran.
everything depends on balance.
Links:
an pretty interesting read – does the US see the EU and the Euro as an challenger?
After all EU is not able to protect “Snowden” – so how should this work at this point of development?
Also: Washington tries to destabilize the EU/Euro be it with the help of Goldman Sachs (fake Greece’s balance sheet to have it accepted into the EU) or allowing an influx of African refugees by bombing away Gaddafi’s Libya. (France was happy to help)
