Syria: It's Not a Civil War and it Never Was

The weapons are foreign, the fighters are foreign, the agenda is foreign.

December 28, 2015 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - As Syrian forces fight to wrest control of their country back and restore order within their borders, the myth of the "Syrian civil war" continues on. Undoubtedly there are Syrians who oppose the Syrian government and even Syrians who have taken up arms against the government and in turn, against the Syrian people, but from the beginning (in fact before the beginning) this war has been driven from abroad. Calling it a "civil war" is a misnomer as much as calling those taking up arms "opposition." It is not a "civil war," and those fighting the Syrian government are not "opposition."

Image: The Syrian conflict was driven by foreign interests since the conflict began and in many ways, long before it even started.

Those calling this a civil war and the terrorists fighting the Syrian state "opposition" hope that their audience never wanders too far from their lies to understand the full context of this conflict, the moves made before it even started and where those moves were made from.

When did this all start? 

It is a valid question to ask just when it all really started. The Cold War saw a see-sawing struggle between East and West between the United States and Europe (NATO) and not only the Soviet Union but also a growing China. But the Cold War itself was simply a continuation of geopolitical struggle that has carried on for centuries between various centers of power upon the planet. The primary centers include Europe's Paris, London and Berlin, of course Moscow, and in the last two centuries, Washington.

In this context, however, we can see that what may be portrayed as a local conflict, may fit into a much larger geopolitical struggle between these prominent centers of special interests. Syria's conflict is no different.

Syria had maintained close ties to the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. That meant that even with the fall of the Soviet Union, Syria still had ties to Russia. It uses Russian weapons and tactics. It has economic, strategic and political ties to Russia and it shares mutual interests including the prevailing of a multipolar world order that emphasizes the primacy of national sovereignty. 

Because of this, Western centers of power have sought for decades to draw Syria out of this orbit (along with many other nations). With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the fractured Middle East was first dominated by colonial Europe before being swept by nationalist uprising seeking independence. Those seeking to keep the colonial ties cut that they had severed sought Soviet backing, while those seeking simply to rise to power at any cost often sought Western backing. 

The 2011 conflict was not Syria's first. The Muslim Brotherhood, a creation and cultivar of the British Empire since the fall of the Ottomans was backed in the late 70s andearly 80s in an abortive attempt to overthrow then Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, father of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The armed militants that took part in that conflict would be scattered in security crackdowns following in its wake, with many members of the Muslim Brotherhood forming a new US-Saudi initiative called Al Qaeda. Both the Brotherhood and now Al Qaeda would stalk and attempt to stunt the destiny of an independent Middle East from then on, up to and including present day. 

There is nothing "civil" about Syria's war. 

In this context, we see clearly Syria's most recent conflict is part of this wider struggle and is in no way a "civil war" unfolding in a vacuum, with outside interests being drawn in only after it began.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its Al Qaeda spin-off were present and accounted for since the word go in 2011. By the end of 2011, Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise (Al Nusra) would be carrying out nationwide operations on a scale dwarfing other so-called rebel groups. And they weren't this successful because of the resources and support they found within Syria's borders, but instead because of the immense resources and support flowing to them from beyond them. 

Saudi Arabia openly arms, funds and provides political support for many of the militant groups operating in Syria since the beginning. In fact, recently, many of these groups, including allies of Al Qaeda itself, were present in Riyadh discussing with their Saudi sponsors the future of their joint endeavor.

Image: Until militants disrupted it, the US was running an operation sending Libyans and weapons from Benghazi, through Turkey and onward to Syria in what was clearly a foreign invasion, not a "civil war." 

Together with Al Nusra, there is the self-anointed Islamic State (IS). IS, like the Syrian conflict itself, was portrayed by the Western media for as long as possible as a creation within a vacuum. The source of its military and political strength was left a mystery by the otherwise omniscient Western intelligence community. Hints began to show as Russian increased its involvement in the conflict. When Russian warplanes began pounding convoys moving to and from Turkish territory, bound for IS, the mystery was finally solved. IS, like all other militant groups operating in Syria, were the recipients of generous, unending stockpiles of weapons, equipment, cash and fighters piped in from around the globe. 

The Syrian conflict was borne of organizations created by centers of foreign interests decades ago who have since fought on and off not for the future of the Syrian people, but for a Syria that meshed more conveniently into the foreign global order that created them. The conflict has been fueled by a torrent of weapons, cash, support and even fighters drawn not from among the Syrian people, but from the very centers of these foreign special interests; in Riyadh, Ankara, London, Paris, Brussels and Washington.

How to settle a civil war that doesn't exist? 

If the Syrian conflict was created by foreign interests fueling militant groups it has used for decades as an instrument of executing foreign policy (in and out of Syria), amounting to what is essentially a proxy invasion, not a civil war, how exactly can a "settlement" be reached?

Who should the Syrian government be talking to in order to reach this settlement? Should it be talking to the heads of Al Nusra and IS who clearly dominate the militants fighting Damascus? Or should it be talking to those who have been the paramount factor in perpetuating the conflict, Riyadh, Ankara, London, Paris, Brussels and Washington, all of whom appear involved in supporting even the most extreme among these militant groups? 

If Damascus finds itself talking with political leaders in these foreign capitals, is it settling a "civil war" or a war it is fighting with these foreign powers? Upon the world stage, it is clear that these foreign capitals speak entirely for the militants, and to no one's surprise, these militants seem to want exactly what these foreign capitals want.

Being honest about what sort of conflict Syria is really fighting is the first step in finding a real solution to end it. The West continues to insist this is a "civil war." This allows them to continue trying to influence the outcome of the conflict and the political state Syria will exist in upon its conclusion. By claiming that the Syrian government has lost all legitimacy, the West further strengthens its hand in this context.

Attempts to strip the government of legitimacy predicated on the fact that it stood and fought groups of armed militants arrayed against it by an axis of foreign interests would set a very dangerous and unacceptable precedent. It is no surprise that Syria finds itself with an increasing number of allies in this fight as other nations realize they will be next if the "Syria model" is a success. 

Acknowledging that Syria's ongoing conflict is the result of foreign aggression against Damascus would make the solution very simple. The solution would be to allow Damascus to restore order within its borders while taking action either at the UN or on the battlefield against those nations fueling violence aimed at Syria. Perhaps the clarity of this solution is why those behind this conflict have tried so hard to portray it as a civil war.

For those who have been trying to make sense of the Syrian "civil war" since 2011 with little luck, the explanation is simple, it isn't a civil war and it never was. Understanding it as a proxy conflict from the very beginning (or even before it began) will give one a clarity in perception that will aid one immeasurably in understanding what the obvious solutions are, but only when they come to this understanding.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Ref: http://landdestroyer.blogspot.my/2015/12/syria-its-not-civil-war-and-it-never-was.html

Fall of the Arab Spring: From Revolution to Destruction

From 2011 to around early 2014, the so-called “Arab Spring” encompassing the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region came to the forefront of international political affairs. In the words of Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, it was “frequently referred to as the most remarkable episode in the international life of the new 21st century.” The authoritarian regimes of the Arab world have been fragile systems. This is especially true more recently in their relationship with burgeoning youthful populations. Arab historian Said K. Aburish argues that these various regimes all lack modern political legitimacy—from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to Egypt, from military cliques to monarchies. [1]

This lack of modern political legitimacy—coupled with decades of political repression, world economic crises, and unresolved grievances such as the unmitigated oppression of the Palestinian people—creates potential for massive political awakening. This dynamic was particularly pronounced because of the region’s marked demographic ‘youth bulge.’ Historically, youth cohorts are receptive to new ideas, eager to challenge the status quo, and active in times of political crisis. Indeed, it was the age 25 and under demographic that spearheaded the MENA mass protests. Using what is referred to as ‘civilian-based power,’ Western powers exploited and guided this massive potential for political awakening to advance Western and Israeli geopolitical imperatives. These eruptions were followed closely by covert and overt military intervention.

Fall of the Arab Spring: From Revolution to Destruction examines modern imperialism vis-à-vis the so-called ‘Arab Spring.’ This widespread Arab upheaval takes place in the context of a period when the restructuring of the world order—from unipolarity (uncontested world hegemony) toward multipolarity (multiple centers of power)—converges with aggravated economic breakdown. This provides the lens from which this study is viewed. The focus of this analysis is the underlying themes, methods, and most prevalent aspects of the MENA uprisings. Particular focus is given to Egypt and Libya as highly instructive case studies. Egypt demonstrates an effective utilization of ‘civilian-based power,’ while Libya provides one of the most palpable displays of the empire’s ruthless stewardship of the “Arab Spring” to smash a recalcitrant Arab state.

In his study The Sorrows of Empire, author Chalmers Johnson, professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, categorizes modern imperialists into two groups: “those who advocate unconstrained, unilateral American domination of the world (couched sometimes in terms of following in the footsteps of the British Empire) and those who call for imperialism devoted to ‘humanitarian’ objectives…. The complex issue at the heart of liberal imperialism is ‘humanitarian intervention’ … ‘the responsibility to protect’”[2] as a pretext for military intervention.

‘Liberal imperialism’ has continued to evolve. A more novel method for modern imperialism includes the use of the ‘color revolution.’ Adherents of this method, such as Peter Ackerman of the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) and Carl Gershman of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (See Chapter II), argue unfriendly regimes can be toppled by mobilizing swarms of discontented adolescents, via mass communication media such as SMS, Facebook and Twitter. Illustrating its appeal to the Obama team, this later tactic of ‘civilian-based power’ was utilized as the initial driving force of the so-called ‘Arab Spring,’ and was later superseded by direct military intervention and America’s newest unconventional model of warfare.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the mainstream narrative is that the wave of uprisings against the status quo autocratic Arab regimes were entirely organic. Additionally, a narrative sometimes found in alternative media is that these uprisings were initially organic, but were subsequently hijacked or diverted by the West and Gulf state monarchies. The latter narrative is given credence through the West’s direct military intervention to topple Muammar Qaddafi’s government in Libya. Both of these notions are specious. The idea that romantic Arab youth activists alone initiated the attempt to topple their autocratic regimes is a myth. The objective of Fall of the Arab Spring is to shatter this prevailing mythology.

In truth, the so-called “Arab Spring”which swept through the MENA region was a wave of destabilizations sponsored by Washington and launched through ‘civilian-based power’ techniques. It was American imperialism of the most modern form. With the onset of multipolarity—with many of Washington’s vassals looking to resurgent power centers such as Moscow and Beijing—the US moved pre-emptively for ‘regime change’ against the independence of ‘enemy’ states and erstwhile clients. Additionally, the ‘Arab Spring’ offensive was given impetus by the imperative to accelerate the regional process of what Bernard Lewis, perhaps the most influential British Arabist, termed “Lebanonization” as a self- fulfilling prophecy. [3] This refers to the far-reaching balkanization, societal breakdown, and explosion of sectarian conflicts following the attenuation or collapse of the state—the model of Somalia.

For the casual outside observer, especially those imbibing the corporate controlled media’s narrative, the complex and covert nature of the destabilization meant its intrinsic imperialism was not immediately discernable. The initial lack of overt military offensives gave the empire’s use of ‘civilian-based power’ the verisimilitude of meritorious organic grassroots movements for change.

While it is important to acknowledge and support the aspirations of peoples toward accountable and democratic forms of governance, it is unacceptable to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states during this process. This principle is enshrined in the charter of the United Nations and that of natural law. In a non-Hobbesian world it would be recognized that is not for any state to dictate another’s government for their own selfish aggrandizement or hegemonic interests. It would be recognized that every nation has the right to determine its future independently, without outside interference. Alas, rather than this notion as a guiding principle, the Post-Cold War era unleashed a state of uncontested world hegemony by a single power: the United States. In this single world power framework its own interests and ideology are regarded as paramount.

Although it is commonly thought to have gradually faded following World War II, imperialism continues via neo-colonialism.The actions of the West, with its leading state the US at the forefront, have followed an imperialist tendency throughout the Arab uprisings. As we shall see, the West’s ongoing involvement in the “Arab Spring” is part of a larger offensive to maintain the status quo of Western and Israeli hegemony. This was done—not through the crude and direct means of the Bush II regime—but more indirectly and via a sustained synergy of hard and soft power: so-called ‘smart power.’ This was supplemented and spearheaded through the techniques of the ‘color revolution.’ Thus, although a new cadre emerged with the onset of the Obama regime, the status quo imperative to secure Israel remained, and Obama administration introduced new techniques of projecting power. Whereas the second Bush administration was blunt and bellicose, the Obama regime acted more indirectly and surreptitiously, often relying on local proxies and ambitious regional powers such as Qatar and Turkey. This approach can be aptly labeled ‘imperialism on the cheap.’ It has been the defining foreign policy strategy of the Obama presidency.

The excessive reliance on ‘hard power,’ overt military and economic means to project power, during the George W. Bush presidency, generated widespread discourse on its imperial nature.[4] In contrast, the presidency of Obama was rarely, if ever, characterized in similar terms in its early stage. On the contrary, it was often branded as a radical departure from the aggressive tendencies of the Bush II regime. ‘Soft power’ is defined as “the ability to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than using the carrots and sticks of payment or coercion.”[5] After President Bush put US standing in a compromised position—with allies antagonized and a military and populace demoralized—the American establishment opted to shift to a more emphatically ‘soft power’ approach, as advanced by theoreticians such as Joseph Nye, Jr. and Zbigniew Brzezinski of the elite Trilateral Commission. The new strategy rejected an outright bellicose use of ‘hard power,’ the proclivity of the Bush II regime. Instead, ‘hard power’ was used more selectively and from the standpoint of ‘leading from behind.’ This means encouraging allies (or vassals) to engage in geopolitical initiatives for the US, which provides necessary military aid covertly.

During the MENA uprisings, as the Trilateral Commission’s Joseph Nye had suggested even before Obama was elected, the US used “a smart strategy that combines hard- and soft-power resources—and that emphasizes alliances and networks that are responsive to the new context of a global information age.” Or, as articulated by Obama State Department apparatchik Susanne Nossel, a strategy of “enlisting others on behalf of U.S. goals, through alliances, international institutions, careful diplomacy, and the power of ideals.”This encapsulates US strategy to topple and destabilize non-compliant states during the ‘Arab Spring.’

Reacting to a waning American empire and a need to ensure the security of Israel, this synergy of ‘soft power,’ alliances, and ‘hard power’ came to characterize US strategy. In Libya—where direct military intervention took place—humanitarian imperialism was carried out with these as guiding principles. Fall of the Arab Spring outlines the synergy between this array of methods including the use of information and irregular warfare. In the final outcome, for the Arab world, the romantic illusions of ‘democracy’ and ‘dignity’—platitudes sold by the West—were shattered, and much of the region degenerated into the breakdown of the state and society.

Christopher L. Brennan is an independent political analyst and author of Fall of the Arab Spring: From Revolution to Destruction. He has previously written articles under his pseudonym “Chris Macavel.” 

Notes

[1] Said K. Aburish. A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 13.

[2] Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, (New York: Metropolitan Books), 67.

[3] “Another possibility, which could even be precipitated by fundamentalism, is what has of late become fashionable to call ‘Lebanonization.’ Most of the states of the Middle East—Egypt is an obvious exception—are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the [nation-state]. The state then disintegrates—as happened in Lebanon—into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties.” Bernard Lewis, “Rethinking the Middle East,” Foreign Affairs, Fall 1992, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/48213/bernard-lewis/rethinking- the-middle-east

[4] See, for example, Michael Cox. “Empire, Imperialism and the Bush Doctrine.” Review of International Studies 30, no. 4 (2004): 585-608. http://search. proquest.com/docview/204970875?accountid=12387; Lewis H. Lapham, Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration (New York: New York Press), 2007; Madeline Bunting “Beginning of the end: The US is ignoring an important lesson from history – that an empire cannot survive on brute force alone.” The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/03/usa. comment ;Johnson, Empire, 322-323.

[5] Harvard’s Joseph Nye, Huffington Post, “Barack Obama and Soft Power,” June 2008, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nye/barack-obama-and-soft-pow_b_106717.html
The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Christopher L. Brennan, Global Research, 2015

Ref: http://www.globalresearch.ca/fall-of-the-arab-spring-from-revolution-to-destruction/5497764

Konspirasi Nyamuk Aedes .... Niaga Nyamuk GM Lebih Untung dari Niaga Google Search Engine!

Suatu Masa Dahulu....  Dec 2010

Laporan NGO

The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) and Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) are very anxious of the eventual release of the GM Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Bentong, Pahang and Alor Gajah, Melaka despite objections and concerns raised by NGOs, public and scientists.  More info read at

http://www.consumer.org.my/index.php/focus/gm-mosquito/400-obtain-prior-informed-consent-from-inhabitants-in-gm-mosquito-release-sites  Dec 2010

Laporan Media Antarabangsa

Malaysia has released 6,000 genetically modified mosquitoes into a forest in the first experiment of its kind in Asia aimed at curbing dengue fever. The field test is meant to pave the way for the official use of genetically engineered Aedes aegypti male mosquitoes to mate with females and produce offspring with shorter lives, thus curtailing the population.  Only female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes spread dengue fever, which killed 134 people in Malaysia last year.  Ref: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350708/Genetically-modified-mosquitoes-released-Malaysia-sparks-fears-uncontrollable-new-species.html Jan 2011

Disahkan oleh pihak kerajaan... (IMR)

Nov 25, 2013 - In light of this, the Malaysian government has identified dengue control as a ... Only male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes will be released and male ... Ref: http://www.imr.gov.my/en/highlights-featured-articles/1119-gm-aedes-aegypti-research-v2.html

Kini 2015.... Selepas 5 tahun pelepasan nyamuk GM di Alor Gajah dan Bentong....

Sejak enam minggu yang lalu, iaitu bermula dari minggu ke- 19 tahun 2015, pemantauan KKM menunjukkan bahawa kes denggi yang dilaporkan di seluruh negara terus menunjukkan peningkatan kes iaitu daripada 1,400 kes seminggu pada bulan April 2015 kepada purata 2,200 kes seminggu pada bulan Jun 2015. Pada minggu ke-24 tahun 2015, iaitu dari 14 Jun hingga 20 Jun 2015, sejumlah 2,348 kes demam denggi telah dilaporkan di seluruh negara dan ini menunjukkan peningkatan kes sebanyak 8.6 % berbanding 2,162 kes yang dilaporkan pada minggu sebelumnya. Sebanyak tujuh (7) negeri menunjukkan peningkatan kes berbanding minggu sebelumnya iaitu Johor 138 kes (56%), WP Putrajaya 60 kes (43%), Kelantan 3 kes (200%), Sabah 11 kes (61%), Perak 21 kes (13%), Pahang 5 kes (12%) dan Perlis 1 kes (17%).
Rujukan: http://kpkesihatan.com/2015/06/24/situasi-semasa-demam-denggi-di-malaysia-sehingga-minggu-ke-24-sehingga-20-jun-2015/

Yang Terbaru-- Aug 2015 .........  Google pun nak buat nyamuk GM.....!!!!!

Tech giant Google, soon to be Alphabet, is considering entering the burgeoning research area of genetic modification, beginning with the mosquito genome. Online portal The Information reports a top executive has met with leading experts in the field.

Linus Upson, who led the team that developed the Chrome browser, has discussed teaming up with Harvard geneticist George Church to create mosquitoes to wipe out diseases such as malaria, which according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) killed more than half a million people last year, and dengue fever, which annually infects over 300 million individuals.

Church told tech site re/code that he discussed a powerful gene-editing technique called CRISPR with Upson and Google CEO Larry Page.

Rujukan: http://www.rt.com/usa/312410-google-mosquito-gm-dengue

Bagus betul business buat nyamuk GM ni.... lebih bagus dari business search engine dan Internet.... sampai Google pun terliur gak!!!  

The Worth of Gold Growing by the Day

August 12, 2015 (F. William Engdahl - NEO) - The worth of gold in the world is growing by the day. That might seem like a paradox but it isn’t. The worth of gold is not fixed on the Comex futures exchange, or the trade in London or Zurich. True, most of the gold-trading public takes its cue today from the CME’s COMEX gold futures price where it does not at all look like the worth of a bar of gold is growing. Why can we then speak of gold’s worth rising?

On Comex the price of gold futures has gone from a high of $1896 in August 2011 to current lows of $1099, lows last seen six years ago, tendency downward. Here we come to the fallacy of composition where we extrapolate from one particular to the universal, when we assume that something is true of the whole just because it is true of some part of the whole.

The COMEX gold futures market in New York and the Over-the-Counter (OTC) trades cleared through the London Bullion Market Association do set prices which are followed most widely in the world. They are also markets dominated by a handful of huge players, the six London Bullion Market Association gold clearing banks–the corrupt JP MorganChase bank; the scandal-ridden UBS bank of Zurich; The Bank of Nova Scotia – ScotiaMocatta, the world’s oldest bullion bank which began as banker to the British East India Company, the group that ran the China Opium Wars; the scandal-ridden Deutsche Bank; the scandal-ridden Barclays Bank of London; HSBC of London, the house bank of the Mexican drug cartels; and the scandal and fraud-ridden Societe Generale of Paris.

Key central banks, notably the Federal Reserve and Bank of England, have been accused of colluding with the major clearing banks to artifically smash gold prices when, as they did in August 2011, gold threatened to get out of control and endanger the dollar’s role as world reserve currency primus. Organizations representing gold investors such as GATA have documented in detail for years how the manipulations of the gold price was carried out.

In short, the buying and selling of gold in London and New York is in questionable hands. There are even rumors that some of the top names in gold trading are involved in major criminal fraud using gold plating on tungsten bars to circulate fake gold bars. Confirmation is naturally extremely difficult but a sensible caveat emptor might be to drill a tiny hole through that next gold bar you buy before paying.

Western banks of late have also created gold ETFs or exchange-traded funds, gold derivative funds backed by gold but not paying out in gold. The trading of so-called paper gold–futures and other forms of speculative contracts where no physical gold is delivered–while it at one time had a rough connection to the buying and selling of real gold in the world, today is disconnected from it. It is a casino on to itself blissfully free to decide what gold prices we pay. We are left with a gold market where the price is manipulated, as with crude oil, by large banks and Western central banks who decide the ultimate price.

Building a new gold market

This disconnect clearly does not please major gold buyers such as China or Russia or others. Rather than scream and cry “fraud” at the owners of the COMEX/CME or the London Bullion Market Association Big Six clearing banks, these countries are involved in the genial move to create an entirely different gold market, one that not JP MorganChase or HSBC or Deutsche Bank control, but one that China, Russia and others of a like mind control. It fits nicely with the recent creation of the BRICS countries’ BRICS New Development Bank and the Shanghai-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

This past May, China announced it had set up a state-run Gold Investment Fund. The aim is to create a pool, initially of $16 billion, the world’s largest physical gold fund, to support gold mining projects along the new high-speed railway llines of President Xi’s New Economic Silk Road or One Road, One Belt as it is called. As China has expressed it, the aim is to enable the Eurasian countries along the Silk Road to increase the gold backing of their currencies. That sounds very much like some clear-thinking and far-sighted governments are thinking of creating a stable group of gold backed currencies that would facililtate orderly trade free from Washington currency wars. The countries along the Silk Road and within the BRICS happen to contain most of the world’s people and natural and human resources utterly independent of any the West has to offer.

At the end of May China’s Shanghai Gold Exchange formally established the “Silk Road Gold Fund.” To date the two main investors in the new fund are China’s two largest gold mining companies–Shandong Gold Group who bought 35% of the shares and Shaanxi Gold Group with 25%. The fund will invest in gold mining projects along the route of the Eurasian Silk Road railways, including in the vast under-explored parts of the Russian Federation.

The China gold mining cooperation extends to Russia, the closest partner of China since the foolish US and EU economic sanctions forced a definitive Russian strategic shift from seeking admission as a respected, full partner of the West–something incorporated in the Medvedev presidency–to a comprehensive strategic cooperation with China and Russia’s eastern Eurasian partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS–Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

On May 11, just before creation of China’s new gold fund, China National Gold Group Corporation signed an agreement with the Russian gold mining group, Polyus Gold, Russia’s largest gold mining group, and one of the top ten in the world. The two companies will explore the gold resources of what is to date Russia’as largest gold deposit at Natalka in the far eastern part of Magadan’s Kolyma District.

Russia is vigorously adding to its central bank gold reserves over the past several years. During the Yeltsin era in the early 1990’s, the Yeltsin mafia reportedly robbed the state of virtually all gold reserves. During the Soviet years gold backing for the Rouble was considered unnecessary in the command economy of central state planning.

As of official statistics, Russia’s official gold reserves stood at 1250.9 tons in June. In the first five months of 2015 Russia has increased its domestic gold mine production by a factor of more than six-fold. Gold is becoming of huge interest to President Putin and the Russian leadership. Some believe a gold-backed rouble is not far off and clearly China, in its push to make the renmenbi acceptable as a world reserve currency, will back its currency with gold, a lot of gold, to make it a credible alternative to the floundering dollar and Euro.

Russia’s vast eastern Siberia is known to hold huge untapped gold reserves. Russia is today the world’s third largest gold producer with some 245 metric tons produced in 2014. China, with over 450 tons a year, is today the world’s largest gold producer. South Africa, also a member of the BRICS along with China and Russia stands to add to the new energy surrounding a renaissance in gold as a support of solid, well-based currencies to replace the diluted and devalued dollar system. South Africa, which until 2006 was the world’s largest gold producer, today is number 7 with 150 tons and Uzbekistan, a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization along with Russia and China, is the world’s 8th largest gold producer in 29014 with 102 tons. On May 4 the Chinese ambassador to Uzbekistan announced that the country would be included in China’s “Silk Road Economic Belt” project.

Slowly and very systematically the outlines of a new gold-backed alternative to the inflated dollar system or the debt-strapped defective euro is emerging. The New Economic Silk Road, integrated with Russia’s new Eurasian Economic Union member countries and others, is far more than a simple railroad. It is becoming the central nervous system of what in three to five years at present pace will become the fastest-growing largest economic space on this Earth.

In combination with the China Silk Road rail infrastructure initiative and the new $16 billion China gold fund to support gold mining projects along the Silk Road path, Eurasia, led by China and Russia, are about to transform the Anglo-American grip on gold which has kept true market prices artificially manipulated and depressed for decades and has effectively blocked the natural flow of gold through the world economy. While most eyes are fixed on COMEX or the London Bullion Market Association listed daily gold price fix, the real worth of gold as a currency reserve and a standard of monetary soundness is growing in worth by the day. That no doubt gives people at the US Treasury and Federal Reserve and Wall Street some serious gas pains.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

Reference: http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-worth-of-gold-growing-by-day.html

MH17 Disappears from Headlines as Anti-Russian Agenda Falters

January 8, 2015 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 served as a cornerstone of Western propaganda targeting Moscow and its allies in eastern Ukraine. In the initial whirlwind of baseless rhetoric launched before any sort of investigation began, Russia was squarely accused of gunning the civilian airliner from the skies of Ukraine in a cold, callus display of inexplicable evil. Despite the otherwise illogical nature of this narrative, it was hoped that it would serve as the first of many strikes against Russia's credibility and standing globally.

MH17 would continue to serve as a point of contention for weeks and months to follow. A stacked investigative committee was formed comprising of NATO members, NATO allies, and potential culprits in MH17's downing, the regime in Kiev itself. Excluded, bizarrely, was Malaysia, to whom the aircraft was registered to, and the nation which lost the second largest number of nationals in the disaster. After much protest, Malaysia was finally admitted to the investigation, and with its inclusion, MH17 has predictably dropped from the headlines, and piecemeal, biased "conclusions" based on tenuous or non-existent evidence have all but ceased.

This is in part because of the finite nature of Western propaganda and its impact upon an increasingly well-informed global public. It is also in part because Malaysia is not a willing accomplice in skewing MH17's investigation, obstructing NATO's agenda to spin any investigation's conclusion into implicating Russia as part of its greater agenda against Moscow. 

Also worth considering is the gradual faltering of NATO's anti-Russian agenda. Part of erecting a united front against Russia included sanctions and above all, the indefinite suspension or permanent cancellation of projects and contracts inked with Moscow.  For Washington, London and the bureaucracy in Brussels, such tactics are but mere moves on a geopolitical chessboard. For those strong-armed into taking them on this trifecta's behalf, such moves are critically damaging to national interests, both political and economic. 

First, was the tussle over the proposed South Stream Pipeline, voluntarily cancelled by Moscow after EU pressured individual Union members to obstruct progress and delay the pipeline's schedule. For capitulating to EU pressure, the deal has all but slipped entirely from the hands of benefactors of the project, and with it the profits and socioeconomic benefits the pipeline was to secure. 

France has also felt the sting from capitulating to Washington, London and Brussels' pressure amid attempts to isolate and "punish" Moscow. A deal involving the delivery of two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships has been indefinitely delayed over the conflict in Ukraine and the West's attempts to frame the crisis as Russia's doing. The deal, worth well over a billion Euros, if broken, will force the French government to pay back in full Russia's already completed, full payment, as well as millions of Euros in penalty fees for violating its contract. 

The pain for France doesn't end there. Backpedaling on a contract with Moscow will not simply cost France the penalty of violating its contract with Russia, but will cost the entire nation in terms of credibility internationally. Prospective business and trade partners around the globe will look at France's lack of policy independence within the shadow of Washington, London and Brussels as a new risk to consider before entering any deal with Paris. The long-term and lasting ramifications of France's capitulation amid the West's row with Russia will likely last long after the Ukrainian conflict is resolved. 

The flames the West attempted to fan with the MH17 disaster were so deliberate, many suspect NATO itself may have been responsible for the tragedy, in line with the military conglomerate's dubious past of staging terrorism against civilians across Europe in order to advance its agenda ... the most notorious episode being that of NATO's stay-behind networks now notoriously known as "Operation Gladio." With its stacked investigative team broken apart by the more objective inclusion of Malaysia, and with individual members of NATO increasingly uncomfortable and impaired by this front erected against Russia, MH17 and many other canards of anti-Russian propaganda, have been increasingly dissolving from Western headlines. 

The question now becomes, what happens next? Will NATO seek a new provocation to reignite anti-Moscow hysteria? Or will it begin slowly divesting from its failed campaign to isolate and punish Moscow, which while "successful," has also clearly strained and "punished" many members within its own multinational ranks?

Additionally, has an increasingly informed public and the growing strength of the developing world, including BRICS and many developing nations along its periphery, produced a sufficient counterweight in terms of refuting the previously uncontested monopoly the West held over information and public perception? The loss of three Malaysian civilian airliners in a single year amid the growing global suspicion and awareness of NATO's true nature means that even if future incidents occur coincidentally, the West is likely to be suspected of orchestrating them regardless. Such is the nature imperialism, particularly of the type that is growing in unpopularity. 

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

Paris Shooters Just Returned from NATO's Proxy War in Syria

Shooters were radicalized in Europe, sent to Syria, returned, have been previously arrested by Western security agencies for terrorism and long on the watch-list of French and other Western intelligence agencies. Yet "somehow" they still managed to execute a highly organized attack in the heart of Europe.  

January 8, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - In an all too familiar pattern and as predicted, the shooters involved in the attack in Paris Wednesday, January 7, 2015, were French citizens, radicalized in Europe and exported to Syria to fight in NATO's proxy war against the government in Damascus, then brought back where they have now carried out a domestic attack. Additionally, as have been many other domestic attacks, the suspects were long under the watch of Western intelligence services, with at least one suspect having already been arrested on terrorism charges.

USA Today would report in an article titled, "Manhunt continues for two French terror suspects," that:

The suspects are two brothers — Said, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32, both French nationals — and Hamyd Mourad, 18, whose nationality wasn't known, a Paris police official told the Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

USA Today would also report (emphasis added):

The brothers were born in Paris of Algerian descent. Cherif was sentenced to three years in prison on terrorism charges in May 2008. Both brothers returned from Syria this summer.

The implications of yet another case of Western-radicalized terrorists, first exported to fight NATO's proxy war in Syria, then imported and well-known to Western intelligence agencies, being able to carry out a highly organized, well-executed attack, is that the attack itself was sanctioned and engineered by Western intelligence agencies themselves,. This mirrors almost verbatim the type of operations NATO intelligence carried out during the Cold War with similar networks of radicalized militants used both as foreign mercenaries and domestic provocateurs. Toward the end of the Cold War, one of these militant groups was literally Al Qaeda - a proxy mercenary front armed, funded, and employed by the West to this very day.

Additionally, in all likelihood, the brothers who took part in the attack in Paris may have been fighting in Syria with weapons provided to them by the French government itself.  France 24 would report last year in an article titled, "France delivered arms to Syrian rebels, Hollande confirms," that:

President Francois Hollande said on Thursday that France had delivered weapons to rebels battling the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad “a few months ago.”

Deflecting blame for the current attack on "radical Islam" is but a canard obscuring the truth that these terrorists were created intentionally by the West, to fight the West's enemies abroad, and to intimidate and terrorize their populations at home.

Read more at http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2015/01/paris-shooters-just-returned-from-natos.html

Facebook: Colonialism 2.0

Putting the entire planet online... then controlling everything they see or read.

December 24, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The Western media has attempted to portray Mark Zuckerberg's ambitious plan to get every human being online as altruistic at first, but later revealed as simply what could be called "profitable empathy." In reality however, the truth is much more sinister, with Facebook already revealed to be much more than a mere corporation run by Zuckerberg and his "ideas"

Facebook is the pinnacle of social engineering, an online operant conditioning chamber - also known as a Skinner box - that is being used to track, trace, document, and manipulate half of the entire online population. Despite users attempting to utilize Facebook to connect and communicate with individuals and organizations of interest, Facebook has turned its features against users, insidiously manipulating their timelines to show selected posts and updates while "soft censoring" others to manage public perception.

"Studies" have even been published proving the effectiveness of Facebook's unethical social engineering. In one study, the emotions of users were successfully manipulated by selectively posting only negative or only positive posts from individuals or organizations on users' contact lists.

A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) titled, "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks," stated in its abstract that (emphasis added):

We show, via a massive (N = 689,003) experiment on Facebook, that emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. We provide experimental evidence that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people (exposure to a friend expressing an emotion is sufficient), and in the complete absence of nonverbal cues. Not only are the findings troubling - illustrating that Facebook possesses the ability to influence the emotions of its users unwittingly through careful manipulation of their news feeds - but the invasive, unethical methods by which Facebook conducted the experiment are troubling as well.

In another experiment Facebook manipulated the news feed of some 2 million Americans in 2012 in order to increase public participation during that year's US presidential election.

Image: US State Department's "Movement.org" helped
train hundreds of operatives years ahead of US-backed
subversion across the Arab World in 2011. Among the
many sponsors of this program is Facebook and Google. 

Facebook was also an official sponsor of the US State Department's training program preparing political subversion across North Africa and the Middle East years before the so-called "Arab Spring" unfolded. The very activists audiences around the world were told "spontaneously" sprung up across North Africa and the Middle East were in fact trained, funded, and equipped by the US State Department and various corporations including tech giants Google and Facebook years beforehand.

Turning a Network of Information into a One-Way Propaganda Pipeline

The implications of an Internet commandeered by a conglomerate of Wall Street and Washington special interests is the mitigation of user-driven content and the retrenchment of information consumerism.

Television "programming" could be perceived as both the process of programming what will appear on TV, but also could be perceived as programming the minds of those consuming television. TV, being a one-way process, effectively eliminates competing ideas and limits the scope of information down to only what those who control television networks want audiences to see and hear. It is clear that Facebook is part of a process to turn the Internet into a similar one-way experience.

As a result of Facebook's successful experiments in social engineering, including the very successful political subversion carried out across the Arab World - subversion still ravaging the region to this day - Facebook and the corporate-financier interests behind it seek to put the entire planet within this increasingly insidious, pervasive, and one-way network.

The Bait and Switch

Time Magazine's article, "The Man Who Wired the World," claims Facebook's "crusade" to get the entire human population online is merely business. What is described however is a global campaign to produce content offline users will care enough about to get online, where Facebook believes it will be only inevitable that they end up on Facebook as well to share that content. Time's article would state specifically (emphasis added):

Here’s the idea. First, you look at a particular geographical region that’s underserved, Internet-wise, and figure out what content might be compelling enough to lure its inhabitants online. Then you gather that content up, make sure it’s in the right language and wrap it up in a slick app. Then you go to the local cell-phone providers and convince as many of them as possible that they should offer the content in your app for free, with no data charges. There you go: anybody who has a data-capable phone has Internet access—or at least access to a curated, walled sliver of the Internet—for free. 

This isn’t hypothetical: Internet.org released this app in Zambia in July. It launched in Tanzania in October. In Zambia, the app’s content offerings include AccuWeather, Wikipedia, Google Search, the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action—there’s a special emphasis on women’s rights and women’s health—and a few job-listing sites. And Facebook. A company called Airtel (the local subsidiary of an Indian telco) agreed to offer access for nothing. “I think about it like 911 in the U.S.,” Zuckerberg says. “You don’t have to have a phone plan, but if there’s an emergency, if there’s a fire or you’re getting robbed, you can always call and get access to those kinds of basic services. And I kind of think there should be that for the Internet too.”

Already, these free applications include Western-driven agendas and of course access to Facebook which is now confirmed to be insidiously manipulating user perception.

Indeed, while "free Internet access" through such apps seems "liberating" and "empowering," Facebook does not let users freely share content. Under the guise of managing cluttered timelines for users, Facebook has already begun involuntarily filtering what posts users will see from accounts they are following, indicating that their manipulative experiments have now become a permanent matter of policy. Facebook's own explanation of this policy is as follows:

Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.

Facebook's "world plan" then, seeks to plug the entire human population into a highly manipulative Skinner box through a bait and switch campaign to lure people online to seek what interests them before Facebook takes over and displays information Facebook itself determines "interests them."

Far from a college kid with an overgrown corporation, what Facebook is doing is the manifestation of every tyranny's dream scenario since the beginning of human history - a means by which to completely and insidiously manipulate and control the minds of its subjects.

Don't Protest Facebook, Displace It

To counteract what is clearly the next step in Facebook's unethical and unchecked plague-like spread across the Internet, nations individually should produce their own alternatives to Facebook and work to get their populations online on their own terms before Facebook and the interests driving it do. Likewise, locally, communities must begin devising their own information networks including mesh networks and local Internets with local and open source alternatives to Facebook, Google, and other corporations exercising the same unwarranted power and influence online that bankers and industrialist exercise over traditional society.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”. 

Reference:http://localorg.blogspot.com/2014/12/facebook-colonialism-20.html

How Many of These Secret Surveillance Programs Do you Know About?

US Social Surveillance Abuse Puts Civil Liberties in Jeopardy.

January 4, 2015 (Vladimir Platov -NEO) - According to various publications in the American and foreign media, the United States has created a global system of cyber espionage that allows the interception and processing of personal data around the globe in violation of fundamental human rights. Tapped phones, intercepted short messages, supervised discussions in social networks and stolen emails – this is the ugly reality we are living in. The NSA and other units of the United States Intelligence Community are more than capable of breaching any mobile operating system, be it iOS, Android or BlackBerry OS.

In 2011 US intelligence agencies successfully finished the development of geo-location tracking software that allows the NSA to collect and save more than five billion location records of mobile users around the world on a daily basis, and then through a special program labeled CO-TRAVELER analyze and monitor the movement of certain individuals that could be of interest for Washington. In addition, since 2010 information on social contacts of US citizens, their personal data, including telephone calls, Internet logs, bank codes, insurance data is being processed by intelligence agencies on a regular basis.

The NSA’s secret project codenamed Boundless Informant seeks to establish control over “information space.” According to The Guardian it has been able to collect the data on 97 billion phone calls worldwide since March 2013.

The global electronic intelligence net Echelon (AUSCANNZUKUS or Five Eyes), that was established by the US in cooperation with the UK back in 1947, allowed the intelligence agencies of the the Untied States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Turkey and other countries to exchange secret information, including the records on their respective citizens.

Yet another secret project codenamed Prism established by the NSA and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), allowed intelligence agencies to establish close partnerships with major IT companies back in 2007, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. Such cooperation allows the secret services to read private e-mails and monitor the transfer of files throughout global information space. This allows the NSA to control sovereign leaders, business representatives and foreign diplomats as has been repeatedly reported on by various international media outlets.

However, Washington doesn’t seem to be satisfied with its “progress” since it continues funding and developing new secret projects that would not simply allow the United States to retain an effective control over global information space, but to influence web users worldwide to its own advantage as well.

Thus, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Agency (IARPA) in recent years has started a number of research programs to manipulate social networks.

Programs for analysis of the socio-cultural content of language (Socio-Cultural Content in Language – SCIL Program) is implemented in order to develop algorithms, methods and technologies that could enable the intelligence community to supervise the activities of various non-governmental organizations that do not agree with the social policies of certain governments. The development of this program is dictated by the need to recognize the content of messages transmitted over the Internet, taking into account linguistic differences and dialects.

IARPA in close collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology is also developing a program codenamed Reynard, which aims at studying the phenomena of social dynamics in so-called virtual worlds such as MMOs. This particular study is carried out in the interest of the security agencies in order to assess the political mood of the population and taking proactive measures once it changes.

The intelligence community is also sponsoring the development of the Aladdin program designed for automated analysis and description of video content (Automated Low-Level Analysis and Description of Diverse Intelligence Video – VACE). The main goal of this program is to provide intelligence analysts with automated search capabilities to track videos that could be of interest for them. Videos for analytical processing can come from different sources – television, surveillance cameras, regular pictures, interviews or even footage shot by drones. The footage is systematized by time and place to identify certain individuals and determine the sequence of their actions which may be in certain semantic relations to present-day events.

Currently, IARPA implemented a program called Babel, which aims at developing effective speech recognition software in different languages and dialects.

Washington and its agencies are literally spending billions of taxpayer dollars annually under the convenient guise of the “war on terror”, which in fact turns out to be a hidden war against its own citizens, now deprived of basic human rights. But what makes it even worse is that it’s pushing its satellite countries to launch an all-out offensive against the civil liberties of Europe and beyond.

Vladimir Platov, Middle East expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”