Putin is on the brink of ‘HOT WAR’ with the West, ex-British Ambassador to Moscow warns

Sir Anthony Brenton gave a chilling outlook at escalating world tensions while condemning the Kremlin leader for mercilessly bombing Aleppo.

He said: “Having dealt with Russia for more than 20 years in the Foreign Office and served as British Ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2008, we are in the most dangerous situation in our relations I have ever seen.

Did the White House Declare War on Russia?

(ANTIMEDIA) This past week, America’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine, the Nation, asked the question: has the White House declared war on Russia?

As the two nuclear powers sabre-rattle over conflicts within Syria, and to some extent, over the Ukrainian crisis, asking these questions to determine who will pull the trigger first has become more paramount than it was at the peak of the Cold War.

The Nation’s contributing editor, Stephen F. Cohen, reported Vice President Joe Biden’s statement that the White House was preparing to send Vladimir Putin a “message” — most likely in the form of a cyber attack — amounted to a virtual “American declaration of war on Russia” in Russia’s eyes. Biden’s threat is reportedly in response to allegations that Russia hacked Democratic Party offices in order to disrupt the presidential election.

Do We Really Want War With Russia?

Since the article captures the point of how serious this situation is and is quite well written, it shall remain in full here for archiving purposes.

 

I wish I could say things were improving between the US and Russia but they aren’t. They’re rapidly worsening.

There’s so much happening right now, I can only provide a summary of a few of the more interesting and worrying developments.

This report builds on those I’ve released over the past two years and begins with a chilling editorial put out by the NY Times on September 29^th, 2016, which further demonized Putin specifically, Russia generally, and openly advocates for military confrontation.

Hey, we’ve been down this path before.  The deeply conflicted NY Times has never met a war in the Middle East it didn’t support, and has never had any trouble repeating war plan talking points (that always neatly align with those put out by neocon think tanks) or even printing obviously fake “intelligence” from unnamed sources such as that used to justify the illegal US attack and invasion of Iraq.

Missiles for the Jihad

DAMASCUS/BERLIN (Own report) – Berlins demands for a renewed ceasefire are being accompanied by reports of the possible initiation of a program to supply insurgents in Aleppo with man portable anti-aircraft missiles. The Syrian government and Moscow must immediately return to a ceasefire, admonished German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The combat in Aleppo is intolerable. Even though the combat is becoming increasingly gruesome, the ceasefire had been doomed to fail from the beginning, because important insurgent militias – partisans of the West – rejected it and continued their combat. They even refused to accept a key element of the ceasefire, rejecting the demand that they halt their collusion with al Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate, the Jabhat al Nusra / Jabhat Fatah al Sham. That demand was considered particularly important because, as experts have been warning for months, al Qaeda is establishing a jihadi emirate in northern Syria. Confronted with the eventuality that the Syrian army may recapture Aleppo, Washington is now considering supplying man portable air defense systems, or “MANPADS,” to insurgents allied with al Nusra – similar to the ones the US had previously provided the mujahidin fighting the Soviet military in Afghanistan. The German government remains silent because its own preferences will benefit – even though the missiles could wind up in the hands of al Qaeda.

America first –- or World War III

Pat Buchanan: GOP hawks shouldn’t assume President Putin is a coward

“If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate.”

So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.

“Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it,” blurted Christie: “I would talk to Vladimir Putin … I’d say to him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there’s a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.’

With Russia’s Dep. Army Chief due in Israel, Moscow posts 64 S-300 ship-to-air missiles off Syria, N. Israel

Russia’s deputy chief of staff, Gen. Nikolay Bogdanovsky, accompanied by a large military delegation, arrives in Israel for a two-day visit on Tuesday, Oct. 6, to discuss increased coordination between the two militaries. However, Moscow seems to be sending Jerusalem an altogether different message: Friday, Oct. 2, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the surprise deployment of Navy cruiser, the Moskva, armed with 64 advanced anti-aircraft missiles S-300 ship-to-air missiles opposite the Syrian coastal town of Latakia.

debkafile’s military sources point out that Russia, without saying so publicly, has thus created an effective no-fly zone over most of Syria, most of northern Israel, including the Golan, as well as southern Turkey, for US aircraft based there for air strikes in Syria; Cyprus, the site of British air force bases; and Jordan.

Six Russian MiG-31 interceptor aircraft land in Damascus to rescue Assad regime

Six Russian MiG-31 Foxhound interceptor aircraft from Moscow landed Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the Mezze Airbase situated in Damascus international airport, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources disclose. They were followed shortly after by giant An-124 Condor transports, which delivered 1,000 Kornet-9M133 third-generation anti-tank guided missiles.

The Russian airlift of advanced weapons for Bashar Assad’s army will last for several days. It betokens Moscow’s intention to keep up its support for the Syrian ruler and counter – by military means if necessary – any secret Iranian diplomatic machinations for terminating the Syria war and with it the Assad regime – such as have been reported in the past week in Western and Arab capitals, especially in the Gulf.

U.S. is Destroying Europe

In Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and other countries at the periphery or edges of Europe, U.S. President Barack Obama has been pursuing a policy of destabilization, and even of bombings and other military assistance, that drives millions of refugees out of those peripheral areas and into Europe, thereby adding fuel to the far-rightwing fires of anti-immigrant rejectionism, and of resultant political destabilization, throughout Europe, not only on its peripheries, but even as far away as in northern Europe.

Shamus Cooke at Off-Guardian headlines on 3 August 2015, “Obama’s ‘Safe Zone’ in Syria Intended to Turn It into New Libya,” and he reports that Obama has approved U.S. air support for Turkey’s previously unenfoceable no-fly zone over Syria. The U.S. will now shoot down all of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s planes that are targeting the extremist-Muslim groups, including ISIS, that have taken over huge swaths of Syrian territory.

Turkey and Jordan said preparing buffer zones inside Syria. Israeli air support mooted. Putin issues warning

Please see the source link for the video.

 

 

The Turkish and Jordanian armies were reported on June 30 to be getting ready to cross into Syria for the first time since war engulfed that country in 2011, and set up security buffer zones. Both are impelled to fight ISIS, oppose the Assad regime and anxious to stem the flow of refugees, but there are also differences in their objectives and it is not clear if they are coordinated.

Turkey has prepared 18,000 troops to carve out a buffer zone in northern Syria and use its air force to impose a no-fly zone against Syrian flights. Middle East sources report that the Jordanian army is also on the ready to cross into southern Syria. Jordan and Israel are reported to be planning joint air cover and the creation of a parallel no-fly zone in the south.

New Centcom underground war room in Amman for US intervention in Syria

Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Amman this week to inaugurate the Centcom’s Forward Command in Jordan manned by 273 US officers. US media correspondents were permitted to visit the new war room for the first time on condition of non-disclosure of its location and secret facilities.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the installation is bomb- and missile-proof against a possible Syrian attack. The US Air Force command section is in direct communication with the US, Israeli, Jordanian and Saudi Air Force headquarters ready for an order by President Barack Obama to impose a partial no-fly zone over Syrian air space.

Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria

Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region.

For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.

Morsi cuts Egypt’s Syria ties, backs no-fly zone

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said he had cut all diplomatic ties with Damascus on Saturday and called for a no-fly zone over Syria, pitching the most populous Arab state firmly against President Bashar al-Assad.

Addressing a rally called by Sunni Muslim clerics in Cairo, the Sunni Islamist head of state said: “We decided today to entirely break off relations with Syria and with the current Syrian regime.”

Israel says will act to prevent S-300 missile systems from becoming operational

As history has shown, Israel is good on its word. In this case, it would get Russia further invovled in the Middle East powder keg — especially if Russian personnel are the operators who man the advanced equipment, which sometimes they are.

Netanyahu tells European foreign ministers that if the Russian missile systems get into Syria, Israel’s ‘entire airspace will become a no-fly zone’ and therefore it ‘cannot stand idly by.’

Israel’s National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror sketched out what Jerusalem’s “red line” is vis-à-vis the S-300 missile systems Russia intends to send to Syria before the 27 European Union ambassadors in Israel.

Iran warns Turkey not to deploy Patriot missiles

“The installation of such systems in the region has negative effects and will intensify problems in the region,” Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani said on returning from a trip to Syria, Lebanon and Turkey on Saturday evening, according to Iranian state news agency IRNA.

Ramin Mehmanparast, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) on Sunday that deploying the Patriot system “will not only not help solve the situation in Syria, it will actually make the situation more difficult and complicated as well”.

Air Defense for the Exile Leadership

DAMASCUS/ANKARA/BERLIN (Own report) – The German Bundeswehr is possibly on the verge of a deployment directly at the Syrian border. According to reports in the media, today, Turkey will officially request that NATO station “Patriot” surface-to-air missiles on its southwestern territory, supposedly as protection from Syrian combat jets and missiles. The German government has agreed to participate with up to 170 military personnel. As a matter of fact, the stationing is planned not only for the territory, where, for quite some time, conflicts with Kurdish separatists have been escalating. According to concrete plans drawn up by top-ranking Turkish and US officers and presented to the White House, they also lay the groundwork for establishing a no-fly zone over Syrian territory. The objective is to create conditions, over the next few weeks, allowing the recently – in Qatar – founded Syrian exile leadership to leave exile and become established in northern Syria, which requires security from aerial attacks.