From the Bundeswehr’s Areas of Operation (I)

BERLIN/PRISTINA (Own report) – The EU is discussing redrawing borders in Southeast Europe. The Kosovo leadership could thus cede control over its Serbian-speaking North to Belgrade, in exchange for the Albanian-speaking Preševo valley of Southern Serbia. Obviously backed by France, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, is promoting this exchange, against Germany’s rejection. The plan, in fact, is redrawing borders in accordance with the ethnic criteria pursued by the German government in Southeast Europe, in particular during in the 1990s and early 2000s. After having been stationed in Kosovo for nearly 20 years, the Bundeswehr is preparing a major withdrawal. Its focus will now be on training and arming Kosovo’s armed forces, which have begun cooperating with NATO, while Kosovo’s population continues to languish in poverty, after nearly two decades of western occupation. It is the second poorest region in Europe. Only military cooperation with NATO is flourishing.

Why Does the Catholic Church Organize Europe’s Largest Nazi Rally?

Participants with Croatian flags attend a commemoration rally at the Loibacher Feld in Bleiburg, Austria, on May 12. (GERT EGGENBERGER/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Last weekend, around 10,000 people gathered in a field near the town of Bleiburg in southern Austria for what the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance calls the “largest regular neo-Nazi rally” in Europe. Hitler salutes, racist flags and slogans were common. Kids ran around with fascist slogans on their T-shirts. Featured guests gave speeches defending fascism.

Efraim Zuroff, the Eastern Europe director for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called the event “an affront to the memory of Holocaust victims.”

But the most surprising part of this event may be the identity of its organizer: the Croatian Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church.

What is the Catholic Church doing organizing a neo-Nazi rally? A look at history points to the answer.

The Economy of Secession (II)

BERLIN/BARCELONA/MILAN/ANTWERP (Own report) – As can be seen in an analysis of the separatist movements in Catalonia, Lombardy and Flanders, the deliberate promotion of exclusive cooperation between German companies and prosperous areas in countries with impoverished regions has systematically facilitated the autonomist-secessionist movements in Western Europe. According to this study, Flanders, as well as Lombardy – two already economically prosperous regions – have been able to widen the gap between themselves and the impoverished regions of Belgium and Italy, also because they have played an important role in the expansion of the German economy, the strongest in the EU. Through an exclusive cooperation with the state Baden Württemberg, Catalonia and Lombardy have been able to expand their economic lead over more impoverished regions of Spain and Italy, which has spurred their respective regional elites to seek to halt their financial contributions for federal reallocations through greater autonomy or even secession. The consequences of deliberate cooperation – not with foreign nations – but only with prosperous regions, can be seen with Yugoslavia.

What Would A U.S. Civil War Look Like?

 

Yes, there is a civil war looming in the United States.

But it will look little like the orderly pattern of descent which spiraled into the conflict of 1861-65. It will appear more like the Yugoslavia break-up, or the Russian and Chinese civil wars of the 20th Century.

It will appear as an evolving chaos.

And the next US civil war, though it yet may be arrested to a degree by the formal hand of centralized gov-ernment, will destabilize many other nation-states, including the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Citizen Participation (II)

BERLIN (Own report) – The current discussion in Germany about the German population’s “resilience” to attacks by enemy combatants can be traced back to reflections expressed in World War I and during the Nazi period. In 1935, Gen. Erich Ludendorff, who had been appointed in 1916 to the Supreme Command of the German Empire’s army, declared that the “German people’s spiritual unity” was a prerequisite to victory in the coming “total war.” According to Ludendorff, the population, the military and the political leadership must be “welded” into a “powerful unity,” seeing itself as a “community of destiny” and devoting all its energy to the service of warfare. To this end, the general demanded the introduction of “general compulsory service” for men and women, as well as the launching of the appropriate propaganda campaigns – “already in peacetime.” Parallels can be found today in current German government initiatives. For example, in its “Civil Defense Concept” the German Ministry of the Interior speaks of changing the constitution to permit women to be obligated to work in “defense-relevant domains.” Through “social discourse” the population should be prepared to “assume risks” and “endure” damaging events.

Germany’s War Record (I)

BERLIN/PRIŠTINA (Own report) – Around 17 years after NATO’s war against Yugoslavia and the beginning of the occupation of Kosovo with German participation, observers note that the de-facto protectorate is in a desolate political, economic and social condition. The first war in which the Federal Republic of Germany played an important role has had catastrophic consequences. De facto under EU control, Priština’s ruling elite is accused of having close ties to organized crime and having committed the most serious war crimes. Its rampant corruption is spreading frustrated resignation within the population. Thirty-four percent of the population is living in absolute – and twelve percent in extreme – poverty, healthcare is deplorable, life expectancy is five years less than that of its neighboring countries and ten years below the EU’s average. A report commissioned by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), describes the horrifying human rights situation, which includes vendettas “constantly carried out” with firearms. (This is part 1 of a german-foreign-policy.com series, reporting on consequences of German military interventions over the past two decades, in light of the German government’s announcement of plans to increase its “global” – including military – interventions.)

Countries using Eastern Europe to flood Syria with weapons, study finds

Unprecedented quantities of weapons and ammunition worth in nearly $1.5 billion have been procured from Eastern Europe and sent to Syria to arm nearly every side in the ongoing civil war, a study has found. The weapons are transported through the Balkans and sold legally to countries bordering Syria, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Once there, they are secretly transported to Syria for use in the bloody five-year civil war, which has so far killed or displaced millions. The revelation resulted from a year-long investigative project by the Serbia-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) in the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in Bosnia.

Russian Messages To The U.S. For The Fourth Of July

Statue of Liberty collapses into the sea, while planes resembling Russian Su-34 and Su-35 fly above it. A carrier called Democracy” is also about to sink. | Twitter.com/sharzhipero, July 4, 2016

 

Russia As An “Equal Partner” To The U.S.; Not A Regional Power

On July 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to U.S. President Barack Obama with Independence Day greetings. In it, Putin noted that the U.S. should consider Russia an “equal partner”; this appeared to underscore to the U.S. that Russia is not a “regional power,” as Obama called it in 2014.[1] The message stated: “The history of Russian-American relations shows that when we act as equal partners and respect each other’s lawful interests, we are able to successfully resolve the most complex international issues for the benefit of both countries’ peoples and all of humanity.”[2]

Russia fuming as Nato expands military alliance with invitation to ex-Soviet ally

RUSSIA and Nato are set on a collision course after the tiny former Yugoslav state of Montenegro was invited to join the military alliance.

The 28-nation US-led group agreed to start the entry process at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels this morning, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

The move will be seen as a warning to the Kremlin that its influence in the region is waning, despite a show of strength during last year’s annexation of Crimea and the subsequernt bombing campaign in Syria.

In retaliation, Russia has warned that Montenegro will be punished for the action.

Consistencies in Western Hegemonic Policy

DAMASCUS/MOSCOW/WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Own report) – Berlin has sharply criticized Russian bombing raids in Syria. In a joint declaration with governments of several allied countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the German government claims the Russian Air Force did not target the “Islamic State” (IS) but the “Syrian opposition and civilians,” and calls on Moscow to “immediately cease” these attacks. Russian bombers, however, have not only hit bases of the IS and other jihadi militias, but also the facilities of western-armed combatants, participating in the al-Nusra Front’s offensive. Al-Nusra is the Syrian branch of al Qaeda, the primary target in the West’s post 9/11 “War on Terror.” The Russian air raids highlight a significant increase of Moscow’s influence in the Middle East and the growing influence of non-Western powers in world affairs. They are another blow to western global hegemony.

Forced to Flee (IV)

BERLIN/PRIŠTINA (Own report) – Germany is significantly responsible for helping create the conditions causing tens of thousands to flee from Kosovo. This has been confirmed by an analysis of the development that seceded territory has taken since NATO’s 1999 aggression, in which Germany had played a leading role. Prominent German politicians have also played leading roles in establishing Kosovo’s subsequent occupation, helping to put the commanders and combatants of the mafia-type Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) militia into power in Priština. They created social conditions that have drawn sharp internationally criticism. In 2012, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) reported that organized crime continues at “high levels” in Kosovo. The Council of Europe even discerns some of the highest-ranking politicians, including a long-standing prime minister, as being members of the Mafia. Poverty is rampant. After 16 years of NATO and EU occupation, around one-sixth of the children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition. Germany has played an important role in organizing the occupation. If it were not for cash transfers refugees send home, many Kosovo families would not be able to survive. In the first semester of 2015 alone, more than 28,600 found themselves forced to apply for refugee status in Germany – with little chance of success. Berlin is now seeking more rapid ways for their deportation.

Dangerous Propaganda

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Own report) – The German news magazine “Der Spiegel” reported in its latest edition that the German chancellery is accusing NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Philip Breedlove, of making “dangerous propaganda.” According to the German government, Breedlove is completely exaggerating Russia’s military activities in Eastern Ukraine. He claims having detected Russian military equipment, including tanks and air defense systems in Ukraine. Germany’s foreign intelligence agency BND, however, could neither detect these in their own satellite imagery nor acquire adequate information from its allied US intelligence services. Breedlove has also completely exaggerated the number of Russian troops at the Ukrainian border. However, the German government has also repeatedly used this type of propaganda, for example during the aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999. The German government’s criticism of Breedlove, reported by “Der Spiegel,” reflects the strategic differences between Washington and Berlin. Germany’s “dual strategy” approach toward Russia, taken from the West’s cold war strategy, is incompatible with the policy of unbridled aggression, championed by the war hawk wing of the US establishment. Breedlove, who is now being criticized by Germany, is a representative of this group.

From Račak to Maidan

KIEV/BELGRADE/BERLIN (Own report) – A year after Berlin helped instigate the putsch in Ukraine, new information is coming to light about the February 20, 2014 Kiev Massacre. That bloodbath, of more than 50 people killed, accelerated the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and was also used – even in Germany – to justify the putsch. As has now been confirmed by witnesses, armed demonstrators were the first to open fire on police, and only then, did repressive forces return fire, when they were caught in a hail of bullets while retreating. If this proves to be true, it could not have been a government-planned massacre. Furthermore, evidence indicates that also the snipers, who had shot to kill, were on the side of the government’s opponents. Today, the responsibility for that bloodbath is as unsolved as that for the deaths of more than 40 Kosovo Albanians in Račak in mid-January 1999, which the West labeled a mass execution – in spite of all contradicting evidence. Račak served as a decisive justification for the military aggression on Yugoslavia. The political and media establishments’ other forgeries and lies preceding and during the war on Yugoslavia demonstrate that manipulations, such as the ones we are currently seeing in the Ukraine conflict, are nothing new. They are rather consistent props in the German establishment’s standard repertoire for escalating conflicts.

Out of Control

KIEV/BERLIN (Own report) – Accompanied by protest demonstrations, Kiev’s Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, will have talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel today, Thursday, on expanding German support to Ukraine. Yatsenyuk is pursuing an arms buildup by all possible means. Observers assume that Kiev is preparing a new offensive in Ukraine’s civil war. It was reported that several NATO countries are involved in arming the country’s military. The German government confirmed back in September that it had satisfactorily complied with Ukraine’s requests including “defensive equipment”. Even trans-Atlantic supporters of Kiev’s February 2014 putsch, are now warning that a considerable rise in the influence of fascist militias and certain oligarchs is threatening to establish an uncontrollable warlord system. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s party has particularly taken the lead in supporting right-wing extremist battalions. Yesterday, Yatsenyuk was ceremoniously received by German President Joachim Gauck.

Why Did Pope Francis Push for a U.S.-Cuba Thaw?

The surprise restoration of relations between the United States and Cuba represents a major victory for the pope. Is it cause for celebration?

“How many divisions does the pope of Rome have?” That was Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s reply after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill advised him, in the aftermath of World War ii, to consider the Vatican’s perspective while laying out a plan for the future of Eastern Europe.

Stalin respected only brute force. The Vatican had none, so he dismissed it as irrelevant.

But today Stalin and the Soviet behemoth he led are long gone, while the papal system remains. And it was actually a pope—blending politics with religion—who sparked the revolution that eventually toppled the Berlin Wall, and brought down that Soviet system.