Category: Uncategorized

The Mythology of Emotion

Over the millenia  humans have celebrated the power and pleasures of emotions; the  bliss of love, the power of anger and revenge, the  truth  of duty  and many others. And along with that  celebration, has gone the malediction of less favoured emotions;  jealousy, uncontrolled anger, fear and cowardice to name just  a few.

And over the millenia,  emotions of all  kinds have been  seen to be spontaneous uprising s of something deep  within  the psyche of that  person. But what  if all  those feelings were simply productions; simply artefacts of a  sentient  being’s process of thought?.

Many  philosophical  religions like Hindusim, Taosim and Buddhism  have long argued that meditation  aims to reduce the ego  so  that  one can obtain  at  least  a glimpse of the eternal. Rarely is it  stated that  the ego  is in  fact  simply the productions of thoughts. Without thought; simply being,  there is no  ego; but a state of no-thought  that  very  very  few human beings have attained.

Most  consistent meditators know that  as their practice deepens, they become calmer, less ruffled by  the buffets of day  to  day  events, and less prone to  consequent  unfortunate actions. Too  often  this state of calmness is portrayed as some mystical  state of entry  into  spiritual bliss and   enlightenment, rather than   simply a gentle reduction in thought processes, and an  opening for the mind to see how it always directly connects to  the world without  grasping or judging..

What  if, for those of us who  have endured adverse childhood events in  our lives, some negative thought-patterns become entrenched and circular, leading the person  to  view all  future events through  the thought processes of the past? A ‘lens of discontent’ if you like. One can  hypothesise that  if we had mental  health  clinicians who  were skilled in teaching their patients how to  break out of those circular thought processes, to focus instead on the everyday  joys of life in the here and now, many mental  health patients would be able to live fulfilled and even contented lives without psychotropic medication. Those who  were suicidally depressed and hopeless could also  learn those skills, leading to  a huge reduction in  the trauma and further suicides in   countless families and communities around the world.

Of course, being content with  what  one has, being happy simply to be here and now and not need to  buy the next  thing, visit the next  place of the bucket list  or compete with others, would mean   our  acquisitional   global  culture  would start  to  disintegrate. Product  advertising would be laughed at  for the myth  that it is. You  must be sold something you dont recognise you need- capitalism  would largely disappear, and we might begin  to learn to  co-exist  with our fellow species.

The power otoadstillinthegrassf government fear campaigns, ideologies, corporatism  and  divisive religions , will begin to  fade away.

A revolutionary process indeed!

Will  we see the end of love?  While the romanticism of love  would be seen for what  it is;  simply powerful  thoughts, often   drawn automatically  from  deep  within  the childhood thought patterns of the person, our species capacity to love both our own, and  all  other living things, will  be greatly enhanced.

Love therefore will be seen for what it is- a state of mind, rather than  something mysterious and sublime.  The 4000  year old Chinese I Ching, or the Book  of Divinations puts it beautifully:

No matter how close to them he may be, if his center of gravity depends on them, he is inevitably tossed to and fro between joy and sorrow. Rejoicing to high heaven, then sad unto death-this is the fate of those who depend upon an inner accord with other persons whom they love.

Here we have only the statement of the law that this is so. Whether this condition is felt to be an affliction of the supreme happiness of love, is left to the subjective verdict of the person concerned. I Ching; Hexagram Chung Fu ( Inner Truth), six in the third.

The mysteriousness of ‘falling in love’ can be ascribed to  the mysteriousness of our thoughts; their source, the pool of thoughts that  populate our unconscious and dreams, but arising directly from our formative experiences and those who  wielded power over us when we were young impressionable and vulnerable, and the consequent thought patterns that   were  cemented in  place at  that time.

To  be continued…..

The Russian Move: Syria

The recent decision by  Russia to  intensity its military  support to  the Syrian government in Damascus, highlights some interesting issues for Eastern  governments.

It comes at a time when the Syrian refugee influx via Turkey is reaching a peak  in Eastern European states and Germany/Austria with strident calls from  mainstream  Western  media  arguing the case for more arming of the anti-Assad  terrorist groups in Syria and naturally , a no-fly that can only benefit…. guess who?.

Interestingly, Turkish  President Erdogan, has now done an abrupt about-face in  declaring that President  Assad of Syria should now be part of the transition process in Syria; something that  Erdgan had opposed for  more than 4 years previously.  Is this, as Moon of Alabama proposes, because of the  potential threat of Russian  forces taking out his  Turkish  supplied terrorists in Syria and re-caslibrating the ?  I  have my doubts.  Erdogan is a wily political  player,and used to  navigating the whirlpool of political players in  the Middle East.  Is the Russian move , as Mike Whitney suggests, an attempt to  pre-empt the installation of  a Turkey  based  no-fly zone by  the United States, in Syria , which  would once and for all  eliminate any Syrian government threats to the jihadist  groups  fighting Assad?

However it  would appear  that  some Western  governments and intelligence agencies are perceiving a real  threat  to  the  destabilisation agenda they  have pursued since at  least  2011 in Syria, as a result of a shift in western public  opinion.

How to  rationalize  support for anti-Assad  military  groups who  are clearly  Wahhabist terrorists whilst maintaining a philosophical  stance that  Assad must  go  and is the root of the refugee problem and pretending that  you are fighting terrorism  globally? The information on the the vast  majority of groups opposing  the Ba’ath secular government and military   in Damascus is clear; their need and wish  is, like all  good salafists, to  exterminate those  sects of Islam which  doe  not fit with their  mediaeval  view of  what  Islam  should be- ie Sunni and Sharia.

Let me be clear,  Western  governments are actively supporting this genocidal   and mythical  view of the Middle East. In reality the Ba’ath  military  is largely Sunni  in composition, with elements of Christian and other Muslim sects, as well  as of course many secular Syrians. And useful  to note  perhaps, that the Iraqi equivalent Ba’ath  party of Saddam Hussein  was supposedly Sunni  in character. That is not to  say  that  Assad’s Ba’athist government is not a brutal one;  but in  comparison with the Saudis, with the salafists and other extremists in the Middle East, it is benign; and supported by  the vast  majority of Syrians  as the only alternative to  the vicious  brutal  alternative of chaos  that  Western governments are hoping for in Syria. But, one would never imagine that in your wildest  dreams, that  is the true state of affairs  by  reading Western mainstream media.

The weight of alternative press reports  which  articulate  the threat  from  Western  governments of  further direct  intervention in Syria to  complete their mission of balkanising the  region and  installing   tribal and  extremist  religious groups in Syria  and elsewhere in the middle east is becoming  hard for western public opinion to  ignore.

The apparently unexpected move by  the Russians to  bolster their  military  support and risk   boots on  the ground and potentially another  debacle like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This move  is in many respects,  a  mirror of that Soviet-Afghan war, with the Gulf States and the Americans, as before , supporting Al  Qaeda and its affiliates, and Russia supporting a secular dictatorship in the form of President Assad and the Ba-ath Party.  Has the Russian  military  learnt its lessons from  the Afghan  war and the wars of Chechnya?- time will  tell.

We have yet  to  see how Israel  will  respond to  this new front opening up  across the occupied Golan  Heights. Its dreams of a slow annexation of Syrian  territory beyond the Golan  Heights, and the  splitting of that  rump state into  splintered largely powerless  enclaves, with the active assistance of the United States , have now been  significantly compromised.

The difference this time around, may be the guerrilla fighting  skills of Hizbollah  and  Iran’s Revolutionary  Brigades.

Postscript

The flurry  of  both   mainstream western  media and  Obama’s superlatively  hypocritical    and;  speaking bluntly,  speech  of  unadulterated  lies; at  the U.N. , expressing concern that  Russia was adding “fuel  to  the fire”  by its Syrian  air-strikes, and that  (bizzarely) chaos might ensue in Syria as a result of Russia actually wanting to   get  rid of the terrorists in Syria. Their messages  are   stretching the  cloth  of credulity to  breaking point, even  for those of  the Western public who  accept everything their politicians tell them.  We are, I believe, seeing the end-game in Western public’s placid acceptance of the   reality  and rationality of the “War  on Terror”.

Mainstream  media are now contorting themselves into  indecent positions to  “prove” that  Russia is not targeting ISIS, but is instead only targeting those “moderate”  anti-Assad groups. Despite the acknowledgement by  Western intelligence agencies that   secular moderate groups fighting the Assad government  are practically non-existent in Syria, we are led to  believe that  Russia is  deliberately leaving the ‘evil ones’,  ISIS, alone and targeting the “good guys”, Al Nusra and  other similar   Al Qaeda affiliate groups, funded and trained by  the US and the Gulf States. Given that all  those groups are fighting to bring down the Assad government  and the Assad military is by  far the greatest opponent of all of those groups; including ISIS ;  one might almost be forgiven  for thinking that the  US wants ISIS to  succeed and roll into  Damascus to bring its rein  of terror to  all  suitably non Sunni  members of that  population.

One is also  intrigued with  Brown  Moses ( or should that  be ‘Brown Nose’?) under his new pseudonym, Bellingcat ,  “proving”  that   the video  and pics of Russian  attacks  were deliberately being  edited by  the Russians to  ensure their “true” target  areas were not identified-again  the meme  that  the real  terrorists were in  fact not being targeted,  but instead targeting   some of the mythical   moderates on the ground.

And again   further  hype from  ” unidentified State Dept officials that   four of the 26 Russian cruise missiles fired from  the Caspian  Sea at Syrian  rebels had in  fact crashed in  Iran with loss of life. The Pentagon  appears considerably concerned  about these new previously unknown  Russian cruise missiles, because they  have much  longer trajectory  than  supposed and can be fired from  far smaller  ships  than the American  ones can, and are hence more mobile.

The decision by  the Obama administration to  supposedly pull  out of direct  involvement with  the  jihadist  groups in Syria  is more likely to  reflect  a concern that  Russian,Syrian, Iranian and Hizbollah groups may very  shortly, if not already, be killing Western intelligence operatives on  the ground in Syria, rather than  any  back-down of intent to overthrow Assad.

Also  expect  an  intensification of ‘independent’ human right s organizations  demanding  that  Assad  (and now the Russians) be tried for war crimes . This war is a tragedy and an  avoidable one, and  the civilian death  toll has been   immense and calamitous.However expecting the Assad government to  have precision guided ammunitions (only available to  the U.S. and its western  allies and Russia and China) rather than  ‘dumb’ bombs and barrel  bombs, does not a war crime make.

More incredibly, the Pentagon is clearly wishing desperately for Russian losses  in fighting  the rebels in Syria and that  they  will “begin to lose in Syria”. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Konashenkov also “lashed out” at a fresh statement from Pentagon head Ashton Carter, who predicted Russian losses in its Syrian operation.

Moscow’s air operation in Syria “will have consequences primarily for Russia itself,” Carter said at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Such  provocative, foolish  and dangerous  statements  amount to  a  direct threat  to  use the United State’s proxy terrorists in Chechnya and other  Russian   muslim populated districts, in retaliation for the Russian  attacks on the United State’s ‘friendly terrorists’ in Syria. Carter added, “I expect that in the next few days the Russians will begin to lose in Syria.”. Should such  attacks come in the next few weeks on  Russian soil, Russia will be in  doubt of their source; with the added bonus of more certainly enlisting the help  of China in this war  against   the West’s terrorists; also  vulnerable to  American  involvement in  Uighur  attacks inside China.

We are seeing a desperate attempt  on multiple fronts to  discredit the Russian  war efforts  in Syria by  Western  powers .  One has to wonder why  do they  wish  ISIS and their favourite ‘moderate’ jihadist  to be  marching into  Damascus? – how important is it to  curry  favour with  Wahhabists in  power in the Arabian peninsula?. As  Gareth Porter notes, or  just maybe its simply a matter of propping up  the US and UK “defence”  Industries for a little longer…?

Links

http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/24/us-blockade-of-syria-a-war-crime/

http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/24/on-russia-israel-clash-over-syria/

https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/russian-elite-units-on-the-land-of-zabadani-homs-hama-and-aleppo/

http://www.todayszaman.com/latest-news_turkeys-erdogan-says-assad-may-be-part-of-syria-transition-process_399907.html

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/09/30/obamas-ludicrous-barrel-bomb-theme/

http://fff.org/2015/10/02/the-chaos-of-the-war-on-terrorism-spreads-to-syria/

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/cia-interventions-in-syria-a-partial-timeline/

http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/23/the-secret-isis-safe-havens-nobody-wants-you-to-know-about/

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/ahrar-al-sham-s-apocalyptic-vision-syria-and-beyond-455405201

http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2015/10/16/obama-wont-admit-the-real-targets-of-russian-airstrikes/

The Exodus: the Refugee Crisis

The swirl  of humanity across the globe has been  a constant since ancient times.

In my little corner of the world, the traversings and re-travsersings of the Polynesians across the wide Pacific,  travelling thousands of miles in their double hulled canoes  , was a constant  over hundreds of years , settling both inhabited and uninhabited islands .

In Eurasia and across Africa, the flow of humanity has ocurred for millennia. Our species has been wanderers from  our first  arrival  on this planet  as a specific  primate species, as the International Organisation for Migration website attests.

Having said that, we know that  wars  and natural  disasters create the necessity for families to  flee  to  safer ground, and safer countries. In addition the gross discrepancies in  living standards between  various populations across the globe creates a drive for those who  consider themselves disadvantaged to   travel  to more prosperous environments.

None of this would be unremarkable -indeed it is an obvious response for any human to    move to  a better place- we are indeed nomads on this planet. What  makes it remarkable at  this moment are the obvious drivers behind the disasters  and impoverished societies of those immigrants;  and the fact  that most of those drivers are created by  the very  countries the immigrants want to migrate to!

The devastation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria – to name just  a few of the countries bombarded by  Western countries; predominantly the U.S.,  U.K., France , Italy, and to  some degree Germany,  with  a few tag-alongs from  other Western  European and  non-European western governments elsewhere, is the most significant cause for the huge influx of  refugees and migrants from  the Middle East  into  Europe. The  decision by  the West to  support  the anti-government groups   in Syria prolonged  what would likely have been  a short but brutal war by  the Syrian dictatorship against  a few western oriented  groups   and many more  salafist sunni  extremist groups. The decision by  the U.S., the U.K. France and its proxies in Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar  and Turkey (not to  mention Israel)  to  actively fund arm and train  these  terrorist  groups, has created a life of hell  for much of the Syrian  population. unfortunately for the population of Yemen, the sea and land blockades by Saudi  forces  and their “allies” means those desperate Yemen peoples have no chance of escape from  the  war hell imposed by  the Gulf dictatorships.

It is likely that,  just  as in Iraq and Libya  the creation of totally destabilized  middle east territories with  no  central  governing structure  and ripe for total  exploitation, was exactly the intent of these Western  governments. Now the chickens have come home to roost. While we know Western  “intelligence” agencies are in  fact  far from being “intelligent”, we can  anticipate that, even they,   after first  seeing the catastrophe that Iraq has become as a result of Western  sanctions and military  intervention,  would understand the implications of repeating that exact same  process  in Libya and Syria.  It is a supremely beautiful but vicious  irony that  those impoverished and desperate people from those brutalized countries  are  now “invading” the West . Well, that is what  mainstream  media would have us believe.  Recent reports query  for instance why suddenly, previously safe  refugees in Turkey  are now fleeing that country  to  Europe.

What  would seem  a just   response therefore, would be for those countries involved in  the defilement  of Middle Eastern countries  through  war and economic rapacity, to   take a commensurate  number of refugees into  their countries based on  their military  input into the ravagement  of those destroyed  environments. The United States will  of course have to  take many millions of refugees, as will  the U.K; followed next by  France, the Gulf dictatorships and Israel  and some of the other  western counties like Canada , Australia and New Zealand.

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-world-refugees/

The BBC link here, gives a more detailed graphical  analysis of the  source, the routes and European destinations of refugees.

In addition,  those  western  corporations and their complicit governments  that  have despoiled the vulnerable economies and environments of Africa ad other developing countries around the globe , will  make corresponding redress to  those countries in the tangible  form of infrastructure development,  re-development of  sustainable agriculture  and  the return  of environments to their former natural states as directed by  the populations of those  developing countries.

Too much to  ask?-

 

Links

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/28/migrants-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-whats-the-difference

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/selective-demonization/

http://syrianrefugees.eu/

http://levantreport.com/2015/09/09/guest-analysis-by-steven-chovanec-the-refugee-crisis-isnt-the-real-problem/

The Saudi Created Hell in Yemen

Moon of Alabama in one of his most recent posts notes that  United Arab Emirate and Saudi  troops are  now heavily engaged on  the ground in  Yemen. This, as Moon of Alabama notes, and to  which  I concur, is the start  of the beginning of a military  disaster for Saudi   forces- and in  my belief preludes the  downfall (none too  son) of the Saudi  “monarchy”.

As happened to Egyptian forces when they involved themselves in  the horribly complicated  shifting  factions of the North Yemen Civil War in the 1960s; the commitment of ground troops signals a whole new ball game. One in  which  local Yemen forces have a considerable advantage -knowledge of local ( and in  many cases, very  difficult  mountainous)  terrain.

Wikipedia summarises it well when it says: Yemen is a continuously elevated country, with only the coastal plains being the lowest-lying areas. The range of elevation is from sea level to 3,666 metres (12,028 ft). Jagged peaks and plateaus cover most of Yemen, and the average elevation in the country is about 2,000 metres (6,600 ft). Among the countries in the Arab world, it is the one with the second highest high point, being the 3,666 metres (12,028 ft) high Jabal an Nabi Shu’ayb, after Morocco‘s 4,167 metres (13,671 ft) high Jbel Toubkal. The Yemenis used the elevation of their homeland to stay isolated for thousands of years with foreign trade conducted only when the Yemenis wished to go to the coastal areas.

That mountainous terrain  provides cover  for  ambush  and retreat, and just  as the Houthis are already  demonstrating in  their Saudi  attacks; quick  hit and runs can be very  effective in  demoralising and destabilizing   formal  troop placements.

While Moon of Alabama  notes that  Western media are not  reporting on  these military  incursions by  Saudi  and UAE forces, they  are also  minimally  reporting on the, at this stage minor military  successes by  Houthi forces in Saudi Arabia itself.

The ongoing western media reportage of the Houthis as “Iranian backed” carries no  substance,  but is nevertheless a convenient  line in the Saudi  propogated narrative of Shi-ite expansion across the middle east. The reality is the  exact opposite:  extremist Sunni  regimes like the Saudis , Qatar  and UAE are determined to forestall  the ongoing  rise of an  independent and powerful  Iran , by  training arming and funding  uncontrollable groups like Al Qaeda, Al  Nusra and ISIS, and in  the case of Yemen, sending in their own militaries.  As noted in an earlier blog, the Saudi  invasion of Yemen was specifically  designed to ensure the  survival  of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a useful ally to the Saudi dictatorship against  the shi-ites -despite their mutual animosities.

Map of Yemen - Courtesy of Moon of Alabama website www.moonofalabama.org-(unknowm origination)
Courtesy of Moon of Alabama website http://www.moonofalabama.org-(unknowm origination)

 

The way  forward lies in the destruction from  within  of these Sunni  dictatorships via the extremists they have cultivated,  along with  the resultant backlash from resident shi-ite and other  “deviant” sects within   Arabia as a result of Saudi  repression and brutality.  Their  fragile inept, corrupt  and isolated leadership  groups are  creating the very forces which  will  inevitably  turn on them.  As the United States found with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and its terrorists agents in Syria ;  it is one thing to  fund and help establish  a terrorist group  to  hit your enemies; it is another thing to  control  such terrorist groups  in the long term. In addition, the Saudi  role in  lowering international oil prices may,  in  the longer term, have significant impact on  the stability of that country.

However in  all  of this we must not forget  those who   suffer now because of the political machinations  ( greed and power) . This huge humanitarian  crisis has been directly created by  the Sunni  Gulf states in Yemen. Health  services and food aid are being deliberately withheld from  areas controlled by  the Houthi,  while civilians are being deliberately targeted in  bombing runs, using U.S.  intelligence.  IN all  this seems like a re-run of the kind of brutality used for almost 80  years by the Saudi’s new-found ally,  the  Israelis, in  exterminating and terrorising  Palestinians.

Postscript

The recent  bombing of the one remaining port access for humanitarian aid into Yemen by the Saudi “coalition” is just   one of the  evil and inhumane acts of this brutal  dictatorship that supposedly prides itself on its  adherence to  Muslin doctrines of humanity and respect.

The United States is fully implicated in  these horrendous war crimes by  the Saudi  regime, and will  in  time be held to  account   and indicted for these international  crimes against  humanity.

Nuremburg  Two-here we come!

And, interesting to  note the recent (October 2015) development of an internal  anti-Saudi  movement in   southern Arabia. The rise of Ahrar al-Najran,  a southern Arabian secessionist  movement, is one of a number of new groups that  will  inevitably begin to  eat  away at  the House of Saud   and its Wahhabi   reactionary  muslim sect; and steadily undermine its bigoted and destructive control  of the Arabian peninsula . As we might expect, the house of Saud itself begins to understand its nemesis is near, and the destructive undermining has already begun from within…

The U.K., Israel  and the United States, are left in  a very  difficult position, as their  king-pin for Middle East  control ( aside from  the supposedly “Western” oriented Israeli government)  begins its inevitable slide to  oblivion.  The only option left for them is the devil-incarnate, Iran….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Delphi Declaration and Grexit

Michael Hudson, economist and historian, records the decision of those who  gathered at Delphi in Greece on 22nd June 2015. The Declaration makes it very clear which  way Greeks need to  vote in their referendum in a  weeks time: to  remain  with austerity and the Euro, or to  depart; to decide whether  to  continue down the dead-end street of community’s lives being ruled by  bankers and economists, or to  choose community collaboration, democracy  and consensus politics…

As Steve Keen  makes it very  clear, the Troika’s ambition is nothing less than the overthrow of an elected (Greek ) government by imposing impossible conditions  that have resulted ,  and will  continue to result, in  the total  impoverishment of all Greeks (barring the very  wealthy) . Leaked IMF documents show clearly that  even  the IMF acknowledges that  its proposed austerity measures will leave  Greece with unsustainable debt  by  2030.

And David Stockman argues, Prime Minister Tsipras’ stand against  the Troika may signal  a long overdue  restructuring of the financial markets globally.

Finally;  it may be useful  to  read William Polk’s very  short outline  of the modern  Greek  nation, to  put things into  some perspective along with  Michael Hudson and William Black’s extremely damning  analysis  from the University of Missouri of the financial situation in Greece leading up to   the Greek referendum on  Sunday July 5th  2015.

Postscript

With more than 60% of the Greek  voting populatoin rejecting further EU imposed austerity, more economists and  political  advisors appear to be coming out of the woodwork  to  reject  the insanity  of further sausterity on  a country already  on its knees.

Read  this proclamation from  Professor Thomas Piketty  and others  here

And, subsequent to  the Greek Government’s further  round of capitulation to  the EU, we have Peter Tenebrarum’s likely accurate assessment of where the sudden EU push for Greek Debt Relief is coming from…

And, subsequent to  the draconian and childishly vindictive response by  the German austerity kings and queens on 14th July , we have Larry Elliott’s analysis of why this new round of debt relief is doomed to  fail.  And here is  a precis of the Greek ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis’  take on proceedings in Brussels.

In addition, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph notes 15/7/15 , the IMF  ( and almost every  significant ecomomist) is again noting the complete implausability and craziness of the  ongoing austerity process imposed on Greece. The complete incompetence of the Eurozone leadership is revealed to  all.  What may  benefit Germany in the short-term, will  inevitably lead to  its downfall in the long-term. The German government is now  70  years later, once more a pariah state.  Total  childish  foolish arrogance and spitefulness once again  dominates the German political  landscape.

As Chris Hedges at Truthdig makes it clear in  the following powerful  paragraph;  the Greeks are not the only ones whose needs are subsumed to the madness of neoliberalism and the ultimate destruction of this planet as it becomes a commodity.

The Greeks and the U.S. working poor endure the same deprivations because they are being assaulted by the same system—corporate capitalism. There are no internal constraints on corporate capitalism. And the few external constraints that existed have been removed. Corporate capitalism, manipulating the world’s most powerful financial institutions, including the Eurogroup, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve, does what it is designed to do: It turns everything, including human beings and the natural world, into commodities to be exploited until exhaustion or collapse. In the extraction process, labor unions are broken, regulatory agencies are gutted, laws are written by corporate lobbyists to legalize fraud and empower global monopolies, and public utilities are privatized. Secret trade agreements—which even elected officials who view the documents are not allowed to speak about—empower corporate oligarchs to amass even greater power and accrue even greater profits at the expense of workers. To swell its profits, corporate capitalism plunders, represses and drives into bankruptcy individuals, cities, states and governments. It ultimately demolishes the structures and markets that make capitalism possible. But this is of little consolation for those who endure its evil. By the time it slays itself it will have left untold human misery in its wake.

Links

Michael Hudson-The Delphi Declaration
http://www.unz.com/mhudson/the-delphi-declaration/

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/06/23/delphi-declaration/

http://people.terry.uga.edu/akefalas/delfoi/about.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/29/no-austerity-tens-thousands-back-syriza-rally-athens

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/29/referendum-greeks-europe-capitalism-greece-eurozone-economic-system

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/29/anger-aimed-troikas-ruthless-neoliberalism-greece-exit-looms

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/29/europes-attack-greek-democracy

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2015/06/25/bureaucrazies-versus-democracy/2/

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/good-on-you-alexis-tsipras-part-1/

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/30/greek-debt-troika-analysis-says-significant-concessions-still-needed

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/01/syriza-cave-in-elites-regime-change  –  Seamus Milne

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1507/S00010/currencies-the-rules-of-the-game-applied-to-germany-and-gre.htm   – Keith Rankin

Greece: Only the ‘No’ Can Save the Euro– J. K Galbraith

http://www.unz.com/mhudson/greece-on-behalf-of-europe/  – Michael  Hudson & William K Black

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/07/angela-merkel-must-act-now-for-greece-germany-and-the-world

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/13/europe-greece-pushed-into-further-peril

Oily Euphemisms and Weasel Words

The courageous ex U.N Special  Rapporteur for Palestine, Richard Falk once again notes  the slick cynicism of those in positions of power in the West  and East who  clothe   the evils of Israeli occupation of Palestine  in  what Richard Falk  beautifully describes as “oily eupehemisms”, but which  in  my homeland we would simply call  “weasel  words”: i.e. cloaking evil  in nice words to  ensure  our privileged place is not compromised.

The  murder, theft, torture   and terror that  Palestinians have had to  ensure at  the hands of an occupation  government that has been  wholeheartedly supported  in their  70 years of genocide by  every  Western government, has been  completely unfettered . However just  as with apartheid South Africa, and  the wholehearted Western  support for   a “good”  white government “battling the darkies”; the reality of the despotism  of  this  undisputed pure and simple   rascism, is finally hitting home to  many in  the West.

Now that the tide is slowing turning, and Western populations are progressively becoming to  realise the enormity of these  human  rights violations  by  “poor little Israel”, we have increasing numbers of those governments now cynically attempting  to  divert the tide of public opinion by recognising   Palestine as an independent state. In its current  geographical  boundaries , which  have  been progressively sliced  and walled away by  the Israeli  occupation every  year, Palestine  is a completely nonviable state entity.

Because of the actions of  the Israeli military  and their government  over  this 70  years of depredation,  a single state solution is now the only answer. A single state where all  its occupants have equal  rights, where lands stolen over the past 70  years are restored, where  Palestinians forcibly  exiled have full  right of return and full  compensation from  those who  have destroyed their livelihoods, homes, orchards  and family members.

Maybe then the oily euphemisms can  be replaced with truth  and honesty.

Postscript

Here, we  have  a most wonderful  example ( were it not so  appalling and disgusting) commentary from  an Israeli apologist supreme, a David P Goldman  who argues , with such  authencity, that  all  those Gazan  women and children murdered by Israeli  soldiers in  their last onslaught  against the ghetto of Gaza, did so because Hamas  forced them to  stand up  and be bombed shot and strafed . Oh those Palestinians brought it on themselves didn’t they  Mr Goldman?

Read the account of “Jerusalem Day ” this year from  Electronic Intifada or see the resulting “Death to  Arabs” march  by  Israeli  children

And for those who  may  doubt the  barbarism of the Israeli  ongoing assault on Palestine and its tiny Gaza enclave-it may be useful  to  read the  testimonials of Israeli  soldiers in their recent  “Protective Edge” or “Stalwart Cliff” assault on Gaza here  at  Breaking the Silence

And, let us never forget, there are many  Jewish  voices internationally  resisting the Zionist  agenda of subjugation of occupied peoples- particularly the Jewish Voices for Peace movement

And a further piece of evidence of the  now desperate  responses from  those attempting to shore up  the  sordid reputation of the Israeli  occupation forces, from  the Israeli  newspaper Haaretz, noting among other points that:  A new website is publicizing the identities of pro-Palestinian student activists to prevent them from getting jobs after they graduate from college. But the website is keeping its own backers’ identity a secret. “It is your duty to ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees,” a female narrator intones in a slick video posted to the website’s YouTube account. Called Canary Mission, the site has posted profiles of dozens of students and recent graduates, alongside those of well-known activists like Omar Barghouti, founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement…..

Lest any of us forget…

When I was at  high-school in my quiet  little New Zealand hometown, the Army came round each  classroom every once in  a while to  show  what a great  job they were doing to defend us from the commies.

Claymore Mine operation
Claymore Mine operation

I  have always remembered one swaggering staff sergeant and his corporal explaining in great detail to  our class how the  anti-personnel mines they used in Vietnam to  fight the  vietcong; or “charlie” as they liked to call them -(short for “victor charlie” or “vc”)  – how  our honourable  soldiers would  park these little  green claymore mines on their scissor legs on the jungle trails with  tripwires for the unwary-be they  “charlie” or local  peasants and their children.

Once detonated  by  the tripwire , the blast shot six hundred  little ball bearings  at deadly velocity in  a 60 degree  arc, shredding anything  and everything in  their path.  Our staff-sergeant explained with  a weary  smile that that those cunning  little charlie used to instead turn the   mines around so  that they sometimes shredded “our ” men instead.

Our staff-sergeant made it oh, so  very clear to us , that this  virtuous war  in Vietnam was not just  a war  against  the evil  commies, but a war against  the ‘yellow peril’ who  would otherwise kill us good white folks in  our beds some day.

A Harvard University study estimates that  up  to  3.8 million Vietnamese people died as a result of that  war. A recent Guardian article  says that:

The US dropped more high explosives on Vietnam than the allies used on Germany and Japan together in the second world war. It also dropped napalm jelly, which stuck to its victims while it roasted their skin; white phosphorous, which burned down to the bone; fragmentation bombs, which hurled ball bearings and steel shards in all directions; and 73m litres of toxic chemicals, including 43m litres of Agent Orange, which killed vegetation and inflicted illness on those who were exposed to it.

Infamously, the US also bombed Hanoi – a city full of civilians with no air force to defend it.

And please, make no  mistake, our New Zealand  government was fully aware of our complicity in  these horrendous war-crimes against  a people who  made the mistake of wanting to kick out their colonial  oppressors; the French.

And  were  our NZ military  commanders also  oblivious to the massive firebombing of every   city and town in North Korea (and some South Korean cities too) during the Korean War that killed,  using wild under-estimations, over one and a half million people? I think  not. Were they  aware of, or complicit in the extensive war crimes committed by  British  troops in  the Malay Insurgency?

And please, let us not forget  our active   involvement  in the capture and torture  and murder of anyone who  might just  look  like the Taleban in Afghanistan.

whitepoppy
The White Poppy of Peace

But of course,  this has all  been in the name of freedom  and democracy, and of course our ANZAC nation-building exercise….

For there to be true honour for our country, we must  both  acknowledge  and compensate for the incredible human  suffering our involvement in those wars have inflicted on other peoples. Are we   a brave enough  nation for that?

 

 

 Links

What’s to Commemorate?
http://werewolf.co.nz/2015/04/whats-to-commemorate/

 

 

The Death of Boris Nemtsov: A Quick Analysis

The recent murder of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian  opposition politician  and ex-physicist, on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge very  near to  the Kremlin in Moscow, raises many questions.

Predictably,  Western  politicians  and  mainstream  media are pointing  the finger at  Vladmir Putin, the President of Russia, as the man  who  signed off on Nemtsov’s execution. In  remarkably similar  ways to  the their response to  the  downing of MH 17 over Ukraine last  year,  they have leapt at  the opportunity to  once more demonise Putin. Proof of course, is immaterial in  this game.

Let us be under no  illusions, Putin  as an  ex-KGB officer is perfectly capable of signing Nemtsov’s death  warrant and may have done so, but , as I will  attempt  to  demonstrate, that   is the more unlikely  scenario in this instance.  Western media point to   other deaths of Russian  opposition politicians and oligarchs where  some of the evidence points to Russian  state apparatus involvement as proof that  this time, once again, another key  opposition to  Putin  has been  removed.  This despite the fact  that  Putin’s approval  rating in Russia  remains  at  around 86% while Nemtsov’s appears to  have been  less than  5% at  the time of his death.

Nemtsov’s political  colleagues argue that  he was killed to  pre-empt his imminent disclosure of  proof of Russian  military  direct  involvement in Ukraine.  Why his death  would prevent that  disclosure happening is unknown, or even  why  Nemtsov would have access to information that  was not  immediately available  to  Western politicians via  high-resolution  spy satellite imagery,  is a mystery.

His death  certainly resulted in  a Moscow march  of  many  thousands  of supporters and also  presumably included some  who  want an end to violence murder and political  intimidation in  the city . The Guardian  newspaper disparagingly reported that Moscow  Police estimated 7,000 on the march,  whereas in  fact  the police estimates from  RT.com  talk  of   around 50,000.

Boris Nemtsov was undoubtedly an  interesting  person.  With  a Phd in physics and a significant number of academic papers under his belt for quantum physics, he turned , instead to  politics, and quickly became a rising star  in Boris Yeltsin’s alcoholic haze of a government after the fall  of Soviet Russia becoming Deputy Prime Minister  for four months under Yeltsin in  1998 . Credited as being a “reformist”,  he later co-founded  the the “Union of Right Forces ”  party  in 1999 , and then opposed its inevitable merge to  survive as part of the ‘Right Cause’ party in 2008.  In 2012,  Nemtsov was appointed co-chair of the Republican Party of Russia – People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS) which  is a  member of the  Alliance of Liberals and Democrats  for Europe Party . 

Nemtsov and many of the parties he has been  affiliated to have been  accused, with  some truth, of being funded supported and guided by  European  and American  political interests such  as the  (European) Endowment for Democracy – an agency  with  distinctly  U.S. business  and right wing agendas, but portraying itself as a supporter of  local democracy.   Such  philosophies  are clearly on  a collision course with rising  nationalist  fervour in  many parts of Eastern Europe.   Implicated in  many of the “colour revolutions” in  places like Ukraine and Georgia, and in support of the “moderate” rebels in Syria, the agency  plays a lead non government role in  supporting  U.S.  government  power and control agendas. Very  much because of this American  bias and Russian  nationalism,  rather than  their neo-liberal agenda,  the political  parties Nemtsov was active in, played  to  an increasingly  smaller Russian audience over the years.

Russian  opposition activists see Nemtsov’s death  as an  opportunity; “We need to seriously think what to do from now on,” Leonid Volkov, an opposition leader and organizer of the March 1 memorial, said by phone. “We were at a low point but now some things have crystallized that allow us to make plans. I think it’s the start of a new wave of protests. It’s a real shame it took such an event for that to happen.”

The  answer to  the question  therefore, of “cui  bono” ( who  benefits) by  this death  remains complex.  It is still  certainly possible that  Nemtsov’s death  was ordered or orchestrated by  President Putin or  members of his coterie, but given  Putin’s professed wish  to  re-establish  positive relations with  the West  after the annexation of Crimea and supposed military  involvement in Eastern Ukraine, this seems unlikely.  Russia Today (rt.com)  stated that  “At the moment, investigators are looking into five possible motives behind Nemtsov’s assassination.   ” According to Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Investigative Committee, the murder could have been a provocation to destabilize the political situation in Russia. It could also be linked to threats Nemtsov received over his stance on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris or the current war in Ukraine. The politician’s business activities and a possible assault related to his personal life are also being looked into.”  Notably,  and understandably for their personal  safety perhaps! the Moscow Police  excluded a  state political  motivation for the  murder.  Could Putin have removed Nemtsov because he  might be seen to be a  leading contender for Presidency if the economic situation deteriorated even  further in  Russia?- a possible but rather obscure motivation in  my view.

Nemtsov certainly had links to  what has been  termed as  the Russian Mafia and oligarchs -to-be ,  in his role in selling off state assets at  bargain  prices to criminals after the fall  of the Soviet Union- did he still  have enemies from  those days?-that  also  seems unlikely; although his recent links to  Russian  business interests are deemed to  be extensive, but  unknown to this blogger.

The role of the  young girl who  accompanied him  onto  the bridge where he was shot and who escaped entirely unharmed after 4 shots were fired into  Nemtsov’s back, warrants investigation. Indeed one may wonder why  Western mainstream media is so  indignant that  she is being held for questioning  (as is standard Police practice internationally),  and not allowed to return  home to the Ukraine. Nemtsov’s was  very  much  opposed to  Russia’s annexation of Crimea and  the Russian  connection to  the Eastern Ukraine rebellion. Such  a political  view is extremely unpopular and deemed to  be unpatriotic in  Russia today; was he murdered by Novorussians perhaps because he was considered a traitor?

Or alternatively, was he murdered by  his  Western intelligence handlers because he was now  worth more to  them dead than  alive? Certainly the track  record of Western “intelligence”,  would indicate they  have absolutely no  qualms about torturing, murdering or destroying the lives of anyone who  gets in their way to  create that ‘better world’  ruled by  their funders.  Clearly the immediate  benefit of his death is to  further undermine  Putin’s credibility in  the eyes of those who  read and believe  Western mainstream media. The impact  on a Russian audience is likely to be negligible given  Putin’s high standing with  the Russian public.

The Russian  opposition is ever hopeful  however: “We need to seriously think what to do from now on,” Leonid Volkov, an opposition leader and organizer of the March 1 memorial, said by phone. “We were at a low point but now some things have crystallized that allow us to make plans. I think it’s the start of a new wave of protests. It’s a real shame it took such an event for that to happen.” 

So, we are left with an implausible reason for Putin  and/or Russian intelligence to  kill Nemtsov, i.e. “proof” of Russian military involvement in Eastern Ukraine;  a possible  business deal gone wrong,   a murder to meet  the needs of  anti-Russian sentiment in  the West, an  opportunity for Russian opposition parties to  garner local  support, or possibly, but unlikely  given the murder ‘s locality on  a very public bridge,  a murder  to  avenge  a romantic relationship  gone sour. The death  certainly has the look of a targeted killing rather than  an act of revenge, and the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge is an ideal  public location to  stage opposition solidarity demonstrations after the death with  a Kremlin backdrop. And four single bullets to the back? hmmmm

 

Links

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/russian-opposition-politician-boris-nemtsov-shot-dead-moscow-reports

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/garry-kasparov-speaks-out-on-assassination-of-boris-nemtsov-2015-2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Cause_%28political_party%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Right_Forces

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/breaking-news-false-flag-in-moscow.html

Rumblings on the Eastern Front

The Post title parodies  that  remarkable and brave account of the German war  in  Western Europe during World War One, “All  Quiet of the Western Front”  by    Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I.

220px-Remarque_Im_Westen_nichts_Neues_1929As Robert Parry wrote in Consortium News  “If you wonder how the world could stumble into world war three – much as it did into world war one a century ago – all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire US political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats versus black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason.”

But this impervious narrative is an essential  component of the drive to  crush  the Russian  economy with  sanctions and lowered oil  prices, along with  the attempts to  encircle   China via the  East  Asian  Pivot.

Much  like the sanctions imposed on Iran for decades because of their fictional  nuclear weapons development, every  political  player West  and East  knows that  the fictional  Russian  troops in Eastern Ukraine (aside from  the Crimea)   are a wonderful  excuse to  attempt to economically destroy  the country. It is virtually impossible for the sanctioned country  to  prove the absence of something that  did not exist  in  the first place. But as Cuba has so ably proved in  the past 50  years, alternative strategies are possible and even beneficial.

The impact  of  crashing oil prices -however temporary-  on   all  the major oil  producers- including  Saudi Arabia, Dubai,  Abu Dhabi  and Qatar as well as Iran,  Venezuela, Russia and the shale oil industries of the U.S. and Canada , are unknown  and unpredictable. Did the  powers-that-be in  Washington and London consider what the impacts  of plunging oil prices would have on their jihadists  in Syria and Iraq and their consequent capacity to  buy more men and equipment? or even consider that weakening oil prices will  strengthen  China’s economic position in  the world?- we may never know…

In response to  these threats , Russia  and China have launched a whole swathe of economic  agreements between themselves and with other  neighbouring countries . As Pepe Escobar describes it, the   development of  the new silk road  via  high  speed rail  links between   China  and the rest  of Asia and Europe has begun  at  a startling rapid pace and will  result in  a completely changed  political/economic dynamic in  the world within  a very  short space of time that will also  be out of the reach  of U.S. and U.K . interests.

There is therefore urgent  need for the UK and US war economies  to  move fast  to eliminate these new threats as Western economies start to  crumble and their capacity to   control  markets and other state and non-entities is progressively  reduced.

Perhaps that  haste is the reason for the  level of incompetency  shown  by  the State Department in  putting “their man” Natalie Jaresko as Ukraine’s new Finance Minister.  The contempt shown to  Eastern Europeans  by  the US government in the appointment of this  corrupt US citizen and State Department official  as Ukraine’s Finance Minister is staggering, but yet remarkable for the   lack  of a response from  the (for now) subjugated Western Ukrainians. Or the even more absurd  Obama reaction to  some hacker group  infiltrating Sony and threatening  the company  for its film which  encourages the  assassination of a living head of state – something for which  the company could in fact  be indicted for in an international  court of law; (were there such a neutral  international  player)

The recent  reports from  the U.S on the types and extent of torture US officials are prepared to  disclose, is a tiny drop  in the ocean of the countless examples of the extent to  which  US and UK governments have long been  prepared to enslave, murder, torture and destroy  indiscriminately  if it serves their interests. While the British Empire’s  brutality  against  those of other skin colour  should need no further  explanation, it is often useful  to  point out  that the United States’ history  of state terrorism  and genocide is also  a very long one;  beginning with  the terror and genocide against  the Plains Indians in the  late 18th  century,  to  the US’s    brutal  colonizations  of  the Philippines and Caribbean in the 19th  century and the genocide committed in  the name of “democracy  and freedom”  in Korea, Vietnam,  Cambodia and Iraq ( to name just  a few). The 21st  century  is no  exception to  this long litany of terror, torture and murder by  these two  so-called “civilised” countries.  The scale of devastation and horror inflicted by  these two  countries against other  (‘foreign’)  populations, has no  equal.

That is not to  say  that   those state entities the United States and the UK  wish  to destroy  are themselves  necessarily humanitarian  and democratic; but it can be argued  that  -as in  the case of  post 1917 Russia, Weimar Germany, North Korea and Cambodia; where  civic institutions are crushed by  an overwhelmingly  powerful  outside force, then despotism  can freely reign.

The United States , the United Kingdom  and a few other ex-colonial  powers, have no  such  excuse. It is interesting to  note, that  up  until  the development of the “Terrorist” threat post 9/11, the  actions  of those two  states against  their own citizens had been  relatively benign; their emphasis has traditionally been on  harming external  states for  commercial  benefit; that  locus appears to  be changing into  a more wide-ranging capacity to  harm or  destroy  any individuals or entity  within  or without their  state borders that   impinge on the  powerful “elite”s capacity to  extract  more money for itself. In  all  probability,  this shift in  focus  is directly attributable to the dawning understanding that  the days of Western hegemony over  the world’s resources are numbered.

What  is blindingly obvious in this analysis is the totally banale and infantile drivers for these  constant wars, let alone  their leaders’  complete lack  of understanding and compassion for the suffering of others.   And we should not forget   the  massive contribution to  environmental  destruction this  300  year  old process  has delivered. This is certainly not an intelligent  process, although  the processes of domination and extraction of plunder are often complex.

We can only watch in  amazement  at the  psychopathic behaviours of key  US officials delighting in  the violent deaths of others  -eg  Dick Cheney, or Hilary  Clinton (below)

or Obama joking about killer drones, knowing full well  the impacts in  families and communities of  the thousands of innocent lives killed by  these random killing machines.

In fact  recent evidence on Hillary Clinton’s motivation’s for the war in Libya, reveal  little else than  the fact  that she didn’t like Muammar Ghaddafi.  Certainly there was absolutely no  evidence of the  genocide of Libyan civilians  by  Ghaddafi’s forces as was alleged and provided as rationale to U.S. supporting the jihadist  forces  there. Clinton’s  maniacal  delight in  Ghaddafi’s brutal  death  is a warning to us all.

and the UK’s Blair  and Jack  Straw who  simply refuse to  acknowledge that  their orders  resulted in  the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans based simply on their whim ( ‘I kill because I can’). It may  be salutory  to  read Ahmad Baqawi’s damning analysis of the NATO intervention in Libya  and the resultant total  and deliberate destruction of Libya as a nation-state, or perhaps Peter Lee’s account of the  brutal  murder and destruction carried out by  the West  proxy’s in Syria in the name of “democracy  and freedom”

In another more equitable world , those  politicians would have long ago  been convicted and sent to high security forensic mental  health wards; or perhaps, as  the highly respected American  columnist   William Pfaff notes -simply tried Nuremburg style and, if convicted on  the evidence,  hanged.

Links

John Pilger – The Coming War documentary’ campaign

MH17 – A preliminary analysis (before the facts arrive)

Notwithstanding the jingoistic hysteria in  the mainstream Western press…. Putin's Missile-The Sun (and also see The Guardian’s “Vladimir Putin given One last Chance”  about who they “know” ( before the facts are in) was responsible for the destruction of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17  over Eastern Ukraine on March  8th 2014. It is important to  remember that  both  sides in  this conflict, ( the Kiev Poroshenko government, as well  as the Right Sektor (neo-nazis)  in Kiev and their Western  supporters on  one side, and the pro-separatists in  Eastern Ukraine  and their Russian   supporters on  the other)  have a lot to  gain   from  pinning the blame on the opposing forces. The first  casualty of war is truth,  as they say.  As Goebbel’s “Principles of Propaganda theory”  acknowledges, implanting information early in  people’s minds on a new situation  often results in  that  information “sticking”- regardless of its veracity. And as  Vera Graziade so  eruditely says:  When you have one big bad figure, and everything is Putin’s fault, the world is simple and you don’t need to think anymore.

Its important also  to  recognise that plane crash  investigations take time. eg the Lockerbie investigators  took  three years to  come to  their somewhat  controversial  decision as to   how the  crash  occurred and who  was responsible. What  we do  know:

      1. On entering Ukrainian  air space, MH17 was requested to lower altitude from  35,000  to 33,000  feet  because of thunderstorms.
      2. Pilots were later requested by  Ukrainian flight authorizes to fly further north -towards the Russian border and deeper into  Eastern Ukraine  ‘because of other traffic”
      3. Malaysian Airlines continued to fly over this conflict  zone where several other international  carriers  has already charted alternative routes to avoid the conflict  airspace. However there were a number of other  international passenger flights flying over the area during that  day.
      4. Single operator (MANPAD) surface to air missiles are not capable of reaching 33,000 feet  – the Russian BUK surface to air system produced and operated by  Russian and Ukrainian  armies (earlier version), are capable of reaching 33,000 feet   but require extensive  radar truck  backup  for tracking.
      5.  Separatists rebels in  Eastern Ukraine were not known to have acquired a BUK system, however possibly  could have  done so  and mistaken MH17 for a Ukraine government  transport  plane. (although unlikely as the plane’s altitude would  logically have been   considered too  high  for such  an operation within Ukrainian  airspace). If the rebels had acquired a BUK system,  where is it now?-not any easy  thing to  hide and it would have been observed by  sattelite re-crossing the border into  Russia.
      6. Several  BUK systems had been deployed to the Eastern Ukraine in the last  3 to  4 days by the Kiev government  (presumably to  shoot down Russian  military aircraft)
      7. Kiev government states that  pro-separatists initially claim  shooting down  a Ukrainian  transport plane in  the area at  the time   and then  remove that  claim.  Other bloggers claim  that experts have determined that the tweets were made the day  before the plane was shot down.
      8. The coincidence of two   passenger aircraft being destroyed  in  the air, by unknown causes, with all  passengers and crew killed,  from  the same airline within  five months of each other,  is problematic
      9. It is unlikely that pro-Russian separatist would and could operate such a system without Russian technical support,  as it requires a sophisticated accompanying radar system. -the alternative is, as the U.S. speculates, is that the Russians were providing supporting expertise to the rebels.  Note that  defensetech.org states that:A standard Buk battalion consists of a command vehicle, target acquisition radar (TAR) vehicle, six transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) vehicles and three transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles. A Buk missile battery consists of two TELAR and one TEL vehicle. So  is this not some  simple, easy  to  manoeuvre and disguise  missile system!!

Buk Missile System

    1. However it would then   be extremely unlikely that the Russians would support shooting down a high flying plane which, because of its altitude , trajectory and speed was clearly a passenger plane: -there appears to be  no strategic advantage  to the Russians to shoot down the plane, and very unlikely that its trained operators would have identified the plane as a fighter/bomber or transport plane. Additionally if there were Russian operatives there, they would have been informed of all planes coming through Eastern Ukraine from Russian airspace
    2. While the U.S.  and its Western  allies have repeatedly claimed that  Russia is providing troops and  equipment to  the pro-separatist,  they  have not been  able to  produce any evidence that  will  actually confirm  this- which  is surprising  given  the  undoubtedly huge amount of Western satellite surveillance occurring on the Russian/Ukrainian  borders.
    3. The Ukrainians  10 years previously  shot down a Russian plane in error during a military exercise
    4. An  unlikely, but still  possible scenario  of right-wing Kiev  agents (within  the department of Internal  Affairs in  the  Kiev government ) mistaking  flight MH17 for President Putin’s flight home from  the BRICS summit in  Brazil 
    5. Even  less plausible,  but still  possible, are reports from  the ground at  the time of two  fighter aircraft  trailing and then  shooting down  MH17
    6. The U.S.  government has actively  and immediately used the MH17 shoot-down  as a rationale to  further pressure EU members to increase their sanctions against   Russia before any evidence has been analysed and responsibilities for the shoot-down  factually established.
    7. The image here of the hole near the cockpit  might seem to indicate a smaller missile than the BUK- so if that was the case, likely an air to air missile or ,as has been  suggested by  the Russians  with  additional  30mm  anti-tank  bullets fired from  a Ukrainian SU25 fighter aircraft  ( The Russian  RT new network reports that  Russia had tracked two  SU25s trailing the airliner) hole in cockpit fuselage

Western media and the US government appear far too quick to attribute blame to the Russians and accuse the rebels of hiding evidence: a claim totally unsupported by OSCE observers –before any evidence is available either way. There are multiple other possible causes of the crash, including a bomb on board (Malaysian  Airlines disgruntled ex-employee?),  equipment malfunction,  Western intelligence operatives hostile to Malaysia’s  independent stance on  Western war  crimes, Kiev Government false-flag operation, Right Sektor neo-nazi activists acting independently  from Kiev’s Preseident Poroshenko?-the list goes on  and on Whether a dreadful  accident or vicious attack, why  then is the Western media  and UK and US governments so  quick  to  attribute the blame  to  the “demonic”  Vladimir Putin -an unlikely culprit at  best. I wonder…..

Postscript

If the  map  below is correct, the location of the 50 km wide crash  site provides an ideal  buffer zone between the two  separatist   Eastern Ukraine  areas;  especially if they  are policed by  armed Western  police/army units   as has been  proposed…  qui  bono?

Eastern Ukraine Crash-site
Eastern Ukraine Crash-site

It would appear that  the Kiev government military are doing their best  (as of30th  July) to ensure that  OSCE observers and crash  analysts do  not get  immediate access to  the crash-site by increasing shelling and military  assaults in  the area

An interesting take on  the shoot-down  from  Anderwelt Online (Google translation from German) ,  whose analysis of the plane’s fragments  posted online to date,  suggest   a shoot-down  by  30mm  bullets and possibly air-to  air missile.  See this also  noted at  Investment Watchblog

A screenshot  (below) from  a video of the crash-site by  a Canadian/Ukrainian OSCE observer

MH17See the video  here at  CBC Malaysia Airlines MH17: Michael Bociurkiw talks about being first at the crash site. This clearly is  machine gun  fire .Possibly by  those who came on  the scene first but unlikely-very high calbre bullets (30mm?)

Ex-“senior US Intelligence officials” are querying the U.S.  State Department’s rush to judgement on MH17

 As Wayne Masden points out at  Strategic Culture, the United States military  had Aegis equipped and operational   naval  vessels in  the Black  Sea  at  the time of the shoot-down of MH17, which  was monitoring all  civilian and military  air-traffic over a wide area of  Ukraine and Southern Russia as part of a defence drill  with Ukraine, and would have activated alarms in the Aegis system with  the radar lock-on of  a Buk21  or a fighter jet onto MH17. Strangely, those radar monitoring  records have never been divulged by  the United States…

Links
FINAL – Part II: Evidence Continues to Emerge #MH17 Is a False Flag Operation http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/breaking-part-ii-evidence-continues-to-emerge-mh17-is-a-false-flag-operation/

It was Putin’s Missile!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-190714.html

Flight MH17 Down Over Ukraine http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/flight-mh17-down-over-ukraine.html

What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner?
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/07/what-happened-to-malaysian-airliner.html#!biP639

Kerry’s Latest  Reckless Rush  to Judgement-Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/21-5

What  Did U.S.  Satellites see in Ukraine?
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/20/what-did-us-spy-satellites-see-in-ukraine/

Special Briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777 in the Ukrainian air space, July 21, 2014

http://www.mid.ru/bdomp//brp_4.nsf/english/ECD62987D4816CA344257D1D00251C76
Malaysian Airlines MH370 and MH17.

A Criminologist Questions: What are the Probabilities? Is it a Mere Coincidence?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/malaysian-airlines-mh370-and-mh17-a-criminologist-questions-what-are-the-probabilities-is-it-a-mere-coincidence/5392265

Ukraine: No “Western” Interest In Investigating MH17
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/07/ukraine-no-interest-in-investigating-mh17.html

Media Bias Frames Western Reporting On Ukraine
http://cips.uottawa.ca/media-bias-frames-western-reporting-on-ukraine/