Shame These Other Countries Are Sitting On Top Of OUR Resources...,

washingtontimes |  The world’s attention may be focused on the fighting in Ukraine and the posturing over Taiwan, but there’s plenty to worry about closer to home, the commander of U.S. military forces in Latin America said Thursday.

The U.S. is also willing to replace Russian military firepower now used by armies in Latin America so it can be shipped to Ukraine to help Kyiv fight off Russian invaders, Army Gen. Laura Richardson, the head of U.S. Southern Command, told a Washington think tank.

“We have a lot at stake. This region matters,” Gen. Richardson said. “It has a lot to do with national security. We need to step up our game.”

While leftist regimes Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are considered firmly in Moscow’s camp, Gen. Richardson said Washington is working with other countries in South America that still use military hardware that originated in Russia, which she called her “No. 2 adversary in the region.”

“A total of nine [countries] have Russian equipment in them and we are working to replace that Russian equipment with United States equipment,” Gen. Richardson said in the online conversation hosted by the Atlantic Council.

Gen. Richardson considers Russia and China, both of whom have reached out to Central and South American states in recent years, to be “malign state actors” in the region. 

“This is very concerning to me — to see the tentacles of the [People’s Republic of China] in the countries of the Western Hemisphere,” she said. “We are very much in a strategic competition in the Western Hemisphere.”

China’s ever-expanding footprint in South America has long worried U.S. strategists. Beijing’s trade footprint in the region has grown from $18 billion in 2002 to $450 billion now. The trade is predicted to be about $750 billion in the near future, she said.

Beijing has at least 30 port facilities scattered throughout the region, including five located on the Pacific and Atlantic sides of the Panama Canal. It operates a satellite tracking station in Argentina that reports to the People’s Liberation Army and has no oversight from local officials in Buenos Aires.

“I worry about these dual-use, state-owned enterprises that pop up” from China, Gen. Richardson said. “I worry about the dual-use capability, being able to flip them around and use them for the military.”

At least seven Chinese-owned banks are also operating in Latin America, making heavy infrastructure investments that outpace the U.S. presence. Much of the region is struggling economically and Beijing is willing to write checks now. Even with strings attached, it is a tempting deal that many are unable to pass up.

“The people are getting impatient. They need help now,” Gen. Richardson said. “We are just not investing in the region as we could or should be.”

Even as it struggles in Ukraine, Moscow continues to cultivate relationships with countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. High-level Russian delegations visited all three countries just before the invasion of Ukraine 11 months ago, Gen. Richardson said.

“They will keep up those relationships for as long as they can to keep their foothold in the region,” she said. “The more they can sow that insecurity [and] that instability, they can keep countries looking away from the United States and away from democracy.”

She said her third major concern in Latin America is the drug cartels and other transnational criminal organizations. The groups are responsible for about $310 billion worth of criminal activity in the region every year, including funds derived from narcotics trafficking and human smuggling.

“They sow insecurity and instability in the region, which allows the malign state actors such as [China] and Russia to move in and to flourish,” Gen. Richardson said.

The Colonial Audacity Of General Laura Richardson Is PRICELESS....,

The U.S. wants to take Russian military equipment from Russia’s Latin American allies and "donate it to Ukraine". pic.twitter.com/ghmjfGav1X

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) January 21, 2023

A year ago plans were put in motion to draw Russia into a fight in the Ukraine accompanied by economic ’shock and awe’ on the Russian economy that would cause Putin’s government to collapse . This would help initiate a process that would lead to the break up of the Russian Federation. These plans would have taken years to be drawn up. Doubtless western officials and NATO officers were  checking out real estate prices in Moscow in preparation for for their next assignments. So the Russians saw this as nothing less than an existential fight for their very existence. You can imagine how people in Washington would feel if there was a plan to break up the United States into a couple dozen smaller countries.

Well it didn’t work out that way and the Russian economy is doing just fine. So here is the problem. The Ukraine is about to get crunched and no matter what hodgepodge of old military gear we send to them, it won’t make a difference. This being the case, the collective west has now realized that the shoe is on the other foot. They now think that it is an existential fight for organizations like NATO. This being a NATO-Russia war, NATO finds that no matter what they do they are on the verge of defeat. They keep on escalating but it is the Russians that have escalatory dominance. Even if NATO decides to openly send troops to the Ukraine, it won’t do much good as they have run their arms and ammunition stockpiles down. Germany has two days worth of ammo for example while France has only four.

Sure there are threats to use nukes but where? Russia won’t be the first and so that leaves the US. They start bombing the Russian Federation and the same day the US is just glass. And this includes the Crimea and the Donbass along with the other new Oblasts. And are they really going to drop one in the Ukraine after all their speeches about trying to protect that country? Would they really just nuke the Ukraine? Maybe they could drop one in the Mediterranean as a warning – but have the entire planet get on their case. The trouble is nukes are the one weapon that you can’t use, no matter how many you have.

We are now arriving at the moment when the West discovers that the fraud is over, the shake-down has failed, and everyone can see it.

What then?

Our entire economy needs a make-over. That’s the best-case scenario; a strategy that will restore the West as a constructive, useful entity in world affairs. That’s a viable future.

The likelier scenario is that the predation currently aimed at Russia and China will get re-directed toward the global south (they’re more vulnerable) and, more intensively, on North and Central America.

The economy won’t get fixed, extraction and despoliation will continue at roughly the current pace, and we’ll continue at-speed into the environmental and economic collapse

WATCH: 🇺🇸 SOUTHCOM Commander Laura Richardson describes how Washington is actively negotiating the sale of lithium in the Lithium Triangle through its U.S. embassies. pic.twitter.com/uQTvpSRHAH

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) January 21, 2023

Call Leftist Collusion With Western Imperialism What It T.I.IS....,

BAR  |  One of the most positive things to emerge from the Collective West's war in Ukraine is that it helped to expose elements of the U.S. left that have always had a soft, sentimental spot for the West. The arrogance of these Westerners who signed on to this call for more war (see below) is reflected in the fact that they don't even feel compelled to explain how their morally superior commitment to Ukrainian self-determination against "Putin's" war is reconciled with the various statements from former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former French President Francois Hollande and before them, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko revealing that the Minsk agreement was just a delaying tactic to prepare for war. 

We ask the Network as we have been asking Zelensky and Biden, the co-coordinators of the White Lives Matter More Movement, how this phase of the conflict that started in 2014 became Putin’s war? Do we just dismiss as Kremlin propaganda that the Russian Federation felt threatened by what appeared to be the de-facto incorporation of Ukraine into NATO as the Ukrainian army was built into the most formidable fighting force in Europe outside of Russia?

Did the Russians not have any legitimate security concerns with NATO missiles facing them from Romania and Poland, a mere six minutes away from Moscow, and that Ukraine was also making a pitch for “defensive” missiles in Ukraine? And how does the Network characterize the conflict in Eastern Ukraine that started in 2014 and produced over 14,000 deaths when the Ukrainian coup government attacked its own citizens, if the current conflict started in February 2022? What happened to the fascist issue in Ukraine that was written about for years but with even more urgency after the coup in 2014? Did the Kremlin plant those stories in the Western press? 

We understand that these are questions that the organizers of the Ukrainian Network will never answer because they do not have to.  As Westerners they can just postulate an assertion and it is accepted. The Network and the Western bourgeoisie declare that the war in Ukraine is Putin’s war and it becomes objective truth - because that is what the West can do and can get away with. It’s called power – white power perhaps? 

The Ukrainian Solidarity Network is the ultimate expression of social imperialism that has become so normalized in the U.S. and Western Europe that it is no longer even recognized. An example from the statement makes the argument that Ukraine has the “right to determine the means and objectives of its own struggle.” That is a recognized left position. But the social imperialists of the West do not extend that principle and right to nations in the global South. In fact, we ask the signers of this call to explain when the coup government of Ukraine became the representatives of the Ukrainian nation and recognized the sovereign will of the people? 

Therefore, it is not a mere coincidence that the main signatories of this Network statement pledging undying support to Ukraine and its project, are also some of the same “left” forces in the forefront of giving left legitimacy to the charge leveled by Western imperialism that the struggling socialist oriented national liberationist states like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia are nothing more than “authoritarian” states more interested in power than socialist construction. Some of those forces also cheered on the NATO attack against Libya, passionately defended Western intervention in Syria and have been silent on Western plans to violently invade Haiti. 

For the contemporary neocons in the leadership of the Ukrainian network, their commitment to abstract principles, and certainty that they know more than everyone else, objectively place them in the same ideological camp with Obama, Biden, NATO strategists, the Zelensky clown, and Boris Johnson. But they will argue that their positions are different, since they represent something they call the left. 

For a number of individuals who signed on to this pro-Western, pro-war letter, they are in a familiar place. However, I suspect a few of the individuals on that list were probably confused or not paying attention, not thinking about who they would be affiliated with when they signed on.

That of course, is not the case for some of the key supporters of this initiative. Individuals like the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins, Eric Draitser of Counterpunch, and Bill Fletcher who normally I would not name specifically but because these individuals and the tendency they represent embody the worst of the arrogant, Western left that in so many cases (not all) objectively provides ideological cover ( rightism with left phraseology) for the imperialist program of Western capital -  they should not be allowed continued left respectability without challenge.

These individuals certainly have not hesitated in offering criticisms of those of us who never wavered from our strategic priority to defeat our primary enemy - the Western white supremacist colonial/capitalist patriarchy. For us everything else represents secondary contradictions at this specific historical moment. And is why we reject the arguments these forces advance about fighting dual imperialisms as anti-dialectical nonsense and a political cover. 

The Late Great Glen Ford Foresaw War With Russia's Endgame Eight Years Ago

BAR  |  I think that President Obama’s attempt to destabilize Russia will be seen by history as disastrous as George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like the Iraq war, the de facto declaration of “war by other means” against Russia will accelerate the very dynamic that it intends to halt: the steady weakening of U.S. imperialism’s grip on the world. It will increase the resolve of a host of nations to disengage themselves from American madness and to strengthen collaboration and cooperation among many countries, and not just Russia and China.

The result will be the exact opposite of Washington’s intention. The attempt to isolate and destabilize Russia, the other nuclear superpower, may appear to some to be an act of brashness, a flexing of American muscle, an act of imperial overconfidence and recklessness. People thought the same thing when Bush went into Iraq. They were shocked and more than a little bit awed. [1]  In fact, sometimes I think that Americans are more shocked and awed by the American military than anybody else. But the Iraq invasion, and the brazen offensive against Russia, as well as the so-called “Pivot Against China” and the octopus-like U.S. military entrenchment in Africa — these are really symptoms of weakness and desperation.

U.S. Imperialism is losing its grip on the world and responds to its weakening condition with massive campaigns of destabilization. Destabilization characterizes U.S. foreign policy today more than any other word. The purpose is to reverse the general dynamic of global affairs today in which U.S. influence and power shrinks in relative terms as the rest of the world develops. U.S. and European hegemony — and that is the ability to dictate the terms of economic and political life on the planet — has daily diminished in myriad objective ways, ways that we can measure by the numbers. China’s soon-to-be status as the world’s biggest economy is just one aspect of that decline.

The process is inexorable and it’s gaining momentum. The trajectory of imperial decline has been firmly set ever since the Western capitalists decided to move the production of things — that, is the industrial base — to the South and the rest of the planet. Inevitably power and influence follow and imperial hegemony diminishes. This is of course unacceptable to the rulers of the United States who now find themselves in objective opposition to all manifestations of collaboration and mutual development under terms that are not dictated by Washington. They are in objective opposition to all manifestations of independence by countries in the world. This applies not just to China, not just to China and Russia, but to the rest of the BRICS and to other developing nations. And it even applies to America’s closest allies.

That is because hegemons don’t really have allies. All they have are subordinates, and so the U.S. is quite prepared to do serious harm to European economic interests by pressuring them to break long established economic ties to Russia. They will ultimately do the same thing in the pacific region with China and cause great destabilization there. They do so not because of strength but because of growing relative weakness. Their desperation compels them to risk war because their only clear superiority is in weapons.

However, the net end result, if we survive these flirtations with all-out war, can only be further isolation of the United States and the further weakening of imperialism. I think there is on what passes for the left in the United States a tendency to describe U.S. aggressions like the Iraq war, like the current offensive against Russia, as mistakes and miscalculations: “They didn’t mean to do that.”

In reality the U.S. goes to the brink and beyond the brink of war because it perceives itself as having no other choice. Its soft power is fading. It has few other means beyond the military to strategically influence events. It recruits or buys allies where it can get them, be it jihadists or Nazis. As imperialism’s sway in the world shrinks, so do its options.

The West Is Weak Where It Matters And In Ways That It Cannot Fix

aurelian |   These problems are coming together, to some extent, with the widespread diffusion of automatic weapons, and the spread of ethnic organised crime groups in the suburbs of major European cities. Together with the increasing hold of organised Islamic fundamentalism on the local communities, this has created a series of areas where governments no longer wish to send the security forces, because of the fear of violent confrontation, and where these groups exert an effective monopoly of violence themselves. Again, it’s not clear what current military or paramilitary capabilities would be of any real use in dealing with such situations, and there is the risk of other, non-state, actors intervening instead.  (It’s worth adding that we are not talking about “civil war” here, which is a quite different issue)

So the existing force-structures of western states are going to have problems coping with the likely domestic security threats of the near future. Most western militaries are simply too small, too highly specialised and too technological to deal with situations where the basic tool of military force is required: large numbers of trained and disciplined personnel, able to provide and maintain a secure environment, and enforce the monopoly of legitimate violence. Paramilitary forces can only help to a certain extent. The potential political consequences of that failure could be enormous. The most basic political question, after all, is not Carl Schmitt’s infamous “who is my enemy?” but rather “who will protect me?” If modern states, themselves lacking capability, but also with security forces that are too small and poorly adapted, cannot protect the population, what then? Experience elsewhere suggests that, if the only people who can protect you are Islamic extremists and drug traffickers, you are pretty much obliged to give your loyalty to them, or if not, to some equally strong non-state force that opposes them.

In a perverse kind of way, the same issues of respect and capability also arise at the international level. I’ve already written several times about the parlous state of conventional western forces today, and the impossibility of restoring them to something like Cold War levels. Here, I just want to finish by talking about some of the less obvious political consequences of that weakness.

At its simplest, relative military effectiveness influences how you view your neighbours and how they view you. This can involve threats and fear, but it doesn’t have to. It means, for example, that the perception of what regional security problems are, and how to deal with them, is going to be disproportionately influenced by the concerns of more capable states. (Thus the influential position enjoyed by Nigeria in West Africa, for example). This isn’t necessarily from a crude measure of size of forces either: in the old NATO, the Netherlands probably had more influence than Turkey, though its forces were much smaller. Within international groupings—formal alliances or not—some states tend to lead and others to follow, depending on perceptions of experience and capability.

Internationally—in the UN for example—countries like Britain and France, together with Sweden, Canada, Australia, India, and a few others, were influential because they had capable militaries, effective government systems and, most importantly, experience of conducting operations away from home. So if you were the Secretary-General of the UN, and you were putting together a small group to look at the possibilities for a peace mission in Myanmar, who would you invite? The Argentinians? The Congolese? The Algerians? The Mexicans? You would invite some nations from the region, certainly, but you would mainly focus on capable nations with a proven track record. But in quite complex and subtle ways, patterns of influence, both at the practical and conceptual level, are changing. The current vision even of what security is, and how it should be pursued, is currently western-dominated. That will be much less the case in the future.

This decline in influence will also apply to the United States. Its most powerful and expensive weapons—nuclear missiles, nuclear submarines, carrier battle groups, high performance air-superiority fighters — are either not usable, or simply not relevant, to most of the security problems of today. We do not know the precise numbers and effectiveness of Chinese land-based anti-shipping missiles for example, but it’s clear that sending US surface ships anywhere within their range is going to be too great a risk for any US government to take. And since the Chinese know this, the subtle nuances of power relations between the two countries are altered. Again, the US has found itself unable to actually influence the outcome of a major war in Europe, because it does not have the forces to intervene directly, and the weapons it has been able to send are too few and in many cases of the wrong kind. The Russians are obviously aware of this, but it is the kind of thing that other states notice as well, and then has consequences.

Finally, there is the question of the future relationship between weak European states in a continent where the US has ceased to be an important player. As I’ve pointed out before, NATO has continued as long as it has because it has all sorts of unacknowledged practical advantages for different nations, even if some of these advantages are actually mutually exclusive. But it’s not obvious that such a state of affairs will continue. No European nation, nor any reasonable coalition of them, is going to have the military power to match that of Russia, and the US has long been incapable of making up the difference. On the other hand, this is not the Cold War, where Soviet troops were stationed a few hundred kilometres from major western capitals. There will actually be nothing really to fight about, and no obvious place to do the fighting. What there will be is a relationship of dominance and inferiority such as Europe has never really known before, and the end of such shaky consensus as remains on what the military, and security forces in general, are actually for. I suspect, but it’s no more than that, that we are going to see a turning inward, as states try to deal with problems within their borders and on them. Ironically, the greatest protection against major conflicts may be the inability of most European states, these days, to conduct them. Weakness can also have its virtues.

Why Was Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani Assassinated?

thecradle  |  Soleimani was the “keyholder” in the Axis of Resistance, according to an Arab politician with strong ties to decision-making circles in both Washington and Riyadh.

“Hajj Qassem,” says the politician, was uniquely capable of making decisions and then implementing them, which is considered a “rare advantage” among leaders. He was able to achieve significant strategic results – rapidly – by moving freely and negotiating directly with various statesmen, militias, and political movements.

Examples of this are rife: The Quds Force commander persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2015 to intervene militarily in Syria, and organized the complex ‘frenemy’ relationship between Turkiye and Tehran through Turkish intelligence director Hakan Fidan.

Soleimani played a pivotal role in preventing the fall of Damascus, maintained and developed important links with Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah in Beirut, led a region wide campaign to defeat ISIS, and successfully managed the delicate balances between various political components in Iraq. In Yemen, he was able to supply the Ansarallah movement with training and arms that arguably changed the course of the Saudi-led aggression.

Together or separately, the aforementioned points made him a desired target of assassination for both the US government and the security establishment in Israel.

A visit to Venezuela

There may, however, be additional factors that contributed to the US decision to assassinate Soleimani on 3 January, 2022. While some analysts cite, for instance, the storming of the 2019 US embassy in Baghdad by demonstrators three days before the extrajudicial killing, US decision makers were unlikely to have mobilized its assassins in reaction to this relatively benign incident.

More significant for them would have been Soleimani’s unannounced trip to Venezuela in 2019, which crossed Washington’s red lines within its own geographic sphere of influence.

His visit to the South American country was publicly revealed more than two years later by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, during an interview with Al-Mayadeen in December 2021.

Maduro stated that Soleimani visited Caracas between March and April 2019, during which time the US launched a cyber and sabotage attack on Venezuela, resulting in widespread power outages. He glorified the Iranian general as a military hero who “combated terrorism and the brutal terrorist criminals who attacked the peoples of the Axis of resistance. He was a brave man.”

Although Maduro did not reveal the exact date of the visit, it can be assumed that it took place on 8 April, 2019, and that Soleimani came on board the first direct flight of the Iranian airline Mahan Air between Tehran and Caracas.

At that time, the US attack on Caracas was at its peak: Washington’s recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela, comprehensive economic sanctions, and then, at the end of April, the organization of a coup attempt that succeeded only in securing the escape of US-backed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez to the Spanish embassy.

Forcing Mexican Compliance In An Era Of Changing GeoPolitics

mexiconewsdaily  |  Energy, immigration and trade will be the key issues under discussion at the North American Leaders Summit (NALS) held in Mexico City in January, according to an agenda presented by Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.

Mexico will host the tenth edition of the summit between the leaders of Mexico, Canada and the United States — colloquially known as the “Tres Amigos” summit — at the National Palace from Jan. 9 to 11. U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will join President López Obrador to advance shared priorities among their three countries.

“The three nations will seek to continue the process of regional integration on the principles of respect, sovereignty and cooperation in good faith for mutual benefit, that is the objective,” Ebrard said, while presenting the agenda at AMLO’s morning press conference on Tuesday.

The summit will open with a bilateral meeting between AMLO and Biden on Jan. 9. This will focus on strengthening bilateral trade relations, accelerating border infrastructure projects, and enhancing cooperation on issues such as labor mobility, security, education and climate change.

The migration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border will likely be a key shaper of the discussions, as U.S. courts battle over the future of Title 42, the pandemic-era legislation that allows undocumented migrants to be immediately expelled to Mexico.

Ebrard explained that another key topic would be the Sonora Plan — Mexico’s proposal for the U.S. to help finance renewable energy infrastructure in the lithium hub of Sonora. Energy policy has been a recent point of tension between the three countries, with the U.S. and Canada accusing Mexico of unfairly favoring state-owned companies over foreign clean energy suppliers.

AMLO’s meeting with Biden will be followed by a trilateral summit on Jan. 10, and a bilateral discussion between AMLO and Trudeau on Jan. 11 focused on government strategy towards Indigenous and historically marginalized communities.

The trilateral meeting will seek to tackle six issue areas: diversity and equality; environment; trade competitiveness; migration; health; and common security. Mexico also intends to use the summit to propose a plan for tackling worsening poverty and inequality in the Americas, called the Alliance for the Prosperity of American Peoples.

“The central objective [of the alliance] will be to achieve a more egalitarian distribution of resources in the Americas based on the strengthening of trade relations … to maintain North America as the main economic power at the global level, which would allow establishing new ties with the rest of the continent,” Ebrard said.

The tenth NALS comes one year after the three nations relaunched the summit in November 2021, after a hiatus of five years. The ninth NALS, held in Washington D.C., focused on addressing the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and improving supply chain resilience. The latter issue is likely to be still more relevant this year, in light of the supply shocks created by the war in Ukraine.

 

Nice Peso You've Got There - Be A Shame If Something Happened To It....,

Reuters  |   Concerns about a U.S. recession and a trade spat Mexico is embroiled in with the United States and Canada over Lopez Obrador's energy policy, which critics call nationalist, muddy the outlook for the peso.

"The perception of risk could rise due to the consultations in the framework of the USMCA (trade deal), which could lead to the imposition of measures against Mexico," said Banco Base.

Traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, considered a bellwether of market sentiment, have started to bet the peso will begin depreciating.

Mexico's peso, which is ending 2022 with one of its strongest performances in a decade, could have its gains wiped out in 2023 after an expected end to the Bank of Mexico's rate hikes cycle and a possible recession in top trade partner the United States.

The peso last month clawed its way back to pre-pandemic levels and has appreciated over 5% versus the U.S. dollar in 2022, making it one of the best-performing global currencies alongside Brazil's real .

Houstonchronicle  |  Just weeks before President Joe Biden’s planned visit to Mexico, talks on the neighbors’ biggest trade dispute have stalled due to the departures of negotiators from the Latin American nation’s side and its reluctance to make concessions, according to people familiar with the matter.

The two sides have struggled to make headway on the energy-policy spat after Tatiana Clouthier, the economy minister at the start of the dispute in July, resigned in October, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The dismissal of her trade deputy and more than a dozen senior staff also hindered progress, they said. 

Divisions have affected the Mexican team, with Energy Minister Rocio Nahle and Manuel Bartlett, the head of the electric utility, refusing for months to provide the nation’s trade negotiators with key information needed to address U.S. concerns, the people said. 

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also has been unwilling to push for major changes in the nationalist energy policy at the heart of the U.S. complaint, the people said.  

A spokesperson for the Mexican economy ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council acknowledged the request but didn’t immediately respond. The U.S. Trade Representative’s press office declined to immediately respond.

The two sides and Canada — which has some of the same concerns as the U.S. — are working to address the conflict before Biden visits Mexico next month, but American negotiators have little expectation for advances in that period, the people said.

Lopez Obrador’s policy privileges Mexican state-owned oil producer Petroleos Mexicanos and the electricity provider known as CFE. The U.S. says this violates the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, which went into force in 2020 to replace the two-decade-old NAFTA pact. Canada filed a similar request for talks over Mexico’s electricity policy.

Lopez Obrador denies that his policies violate the pact, saying that the U.S. must respect Mexico’s sovereignty.

NATO Lacks The Gravitas, Reliability, And Muscle To Hold It's Vassal Minions Together....,

thesaker |   Something quite amazing has just happened.  Following the terrorist attack in Ankara which killed 34 people and injured another 125, Turkish authorities first declared that they will not accept US condolences.  Then the Turks launched a military operation against “Kurdish terrorists in northern Syria“.  Turke then claimed to have neutralized 184 terrorists.

What is not mentioned in those articles is that the target of the Turkish strike was the US-run center for the training and education of PKK militants in Rojava.  There are rumors that the Turks gave the US enough warning time to evacuate most of its personnel.

Does that sound familiar?

If it does, it is because it is very similar to what the Iranians did when they hit US bases in Iraq following the murder of General Solemani in a US drone strike.

If the above is true, and rumors are very much “if” and cannot be considered as proven fact, then that means that a NATO member state (Turkey) just attacked a US base and, like Iran, got away with it: the “The Finest Fighting Force in the History of the World” just got whacked hard and humiliated for a second time and could do absolutely nothing to defend itself or even save face.

How big a slap in the face did Uncle Shmuel get this time?  According to the Turkish defense minister, Hulusi Akar,

Terrorists’ shelters, bunkers, caves, tunnels, and warehouses were successfully destroyed,” Akar said, adding that “the so-called headquarters of the terrorist organization were also hit and destroyed.” Overall, the Defense Ministry claimed that the strikes hit nearly 90 targets, which it said were connected to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG).

Even allowing for some “patriotic exaggeration”, it is pretty clear that Ergodan’s revenge strike was both quite substantial and, apparently, rather effective.

So, what do we have here?  A NATO member state all but accused the US of a major terrorist attack against its capital city, and then that NATO member state openly attacked a US-run facility (let’s not call it a base, that would be inaccurate).

Is Erdogan’s claim even credible?  Absolutely!  Not only has the US already attempted to overthrow and kill Erdogan, who was saved in extremis by Russian special forces (same with Ianukovich), but we also know that the US overthrew General de Gaulle in 1968-1969 and that NATO covert forces were used to stage false flag attacks against NATO allies (especially Italy) in the so-called GLADIO operation.

NATO is not a defensive alliance – it never was –  but it is a tool of US colonial domination. Fist tap Dale.

 

Russia Has Voice Intercepts Of UK And Ukraine Plotting Dirty Bomb False Flag

TASS  |  Moscow is ready to provide all interested parties with detailed clarifications on preparations by Kiev for a provocation with the use of a `dirty bomb,’ Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Channel One television on Monday.

Earlier on Monday, "the question was answered fully by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, who commented on the situation. He pointed to a certain interest among overseas experts and said we are ready to establish appropriate contact. We want to make it clear to everybody that we are ready to [answer] any questions and that we will give the necessary answers, the Russian diplomat emphasized, adding that Russia had repeatedly reiterated this position.

"What the United States, what Britain and France should do now is postpone all their business to sit down and review the materials mentioned by Russia in phone calls and analyze the information in public," Zakharova said. According to her, the Anglo-Saxon duet had created another monster who was currently pushing the world to the most dangerous brink.

Zakharova also said Kiev’s continued shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant was a direct proof of its nuclear blackmail.

Lavrov told reporters on Monday that the risk of Kiev using a "dirty bomb" would be on the agenda of a UN Security Council meeting soon. According to him, some of Moscow’s partners had suggested discussing the developments at a professional military level, while he dismissed as "not serious" the West’s rejecting these as false allegations.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces, said at a briefing on Monday that Russia’s top brass had all forces and means ready for executing missions amid radioactive contamination. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu earlier warned his British, US, Turkish and French counterparts of the Ukrainian threat. Washington, London and Paris, however, dismissed Russia’s warnings as false allegations.

Apropos That A False-Flag War Crime Presages The Open Phase Of Biden's War

indianpunchline |  To be sure, the Biden team cannot but be worried that London is drifting into chaos and the Conservative Party’s faction leaders scurry around like headless chicken looking for a substitute to Truss who stepped down on Thursday. 

The British economy is disintegrating and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt anticipates that a cut on the defence budget is inevitable. That is to say, the Deep State’s fun and frolic in Kiev is no longer affordable. The UK is heading for hard times, the rubric of Global Britain looks delusional. 

Enter President Biden. The reports from Moscow suggest that Russians have hard intelligence to the effect that Washington has demanded from President Zelensky some spectacular performance on the battlefield as the midterms in the US on November 8 is round the corner. 

That adds to the enigmatic comment by a second defence minister in London James Heappey that the conversations that Wallace would be having in Washington were “beyond belief,” hinting that particularly sensitive and serious issues were on the agenda.  

Indeed, after arrival in Washington, Wallace headed straight for the White House to meet up with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Biden’s point person for the Ukraine war. A White House readout said the two officials “exchanged views on shared national security interests, including Ukraine.  They underscored their commitment to continue providing Ukraine with security assistance as it defends itself against Russian aggression.” 

As British politics descends to skulduggery that will extend into months, the US will be a stakeholder. Historically, since the World War 2, Britain led the US from the rear in critical  situations involving Russia. 

Indeed, Biden issued a rare statement on Truss’ exit, which stated that the US and the UK “are strong Allies and enduring friends — and that fact will never change.” He thanked her “for her partnership on a range of issues including holding Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine.” Biden underscored that “We will continue our close cooperation with the U.K. government as we work together to meet the global challenges our nations face.” 

Biden has sent a powerful message to Britain’s political class signalling that he expects them to come up with a new prime minister who will faithfully adhere to the compass set by Boris Johnson on Ukraine. In immediate terms, what does it signal for the Anglo-American project in Kherson? Will it go ahead? That is the big question. 

The situation in Kherson is assuming the nature of a large-scale military confrontation, as Zelensky is throwing everything into it in an attempt to wrest control of the strategic Kherson city, which has been under Russian control since March, before the midterms in the US.

Turkish Banks Allow Russian Citizens Access To Turkiye's National Payment System

russia-briefing |  In light of the United States threatening Turkish banks with sanctions and SWIFT disconnection if they continued to operate Russian MIR payment cards for Russians visiting Turkiye, Ankara has been discussing a solution. 

MIR cards could previously be used to make payments and withdraw money from the ATMs of five Turkish banks prior to September 2022, when Russian tourists vacationing in Turkey began to have difficulties using the cards following Turkish banks withdrawing under US pressure. Private banks IsBank and DenizBank were later the first to announce that they would no longer be working with the Russian payment system, and three public banks, Ziraat Bankasi, VakifBank, and Halkbank, joined them on September 27, meaning that there are no longer any banks in Turkey that will accept Russian MIR cards, meaning that Russian tourists cannot make payments while in Turkiye.

Ankara has proposed using its Troy national payment system in place of MIR cards, and it is understood that the Central banks of Russia and Turkiye are discussing the issue.

Representatives of the Turkish tourism industry have also proposed launching a system of prepaid cards for Russian tourists that would work during their time in the country. Russians could pay for such cards in rubles in Russia along with their tour packages and then use them to pay for goods and services. Turkiye is a major holiday destination for Russians with the winter season a huge boost to Turkiye’s tourism sector.

Troy is Turkey’s national payment system, which has been operating since 2016. More than 12 million Troy cards were in circulation as of March 2022.

Should the United States threaten Turkiye with sanctions for using its own sovereign payment card system, this would create a new era of the reach of sanctions and possibly destroy the use of SWIFT as a global payment gateway.

Erdogan Is Sultan of Turkiye - A Muslim - And Has No Fear Of Being Called 'Anti-Semitic'...,

Putin and Erdogan just agreed to hugely expand Turk Stream pipes and make Turkey the de-facto pipe gas gateway to Europe. There are no other pipe available. Pipe is superior to LNG transport and infrastructure. It's a pipe dream to make Erdogan abandon that economic bonanza and leverage over EU they will get (joke intended).

Elizabeth Rosenberg flies to Turkey to bludgeon Erdogan into cutting ties with Russia.

Elizabeth Rosenberg came from the Center For A New American Security CNAS - funded by military contractors -  and formerly headed by Victoria Nudelmann nee Nuland.

duvarenglish |  Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the U.S. Treasury Department Elizabeth Rosenberg traveled to Turkey to discuss sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia. US Treasury previously warned Turkish businesses of possible sanctions risks if companies establish relations with sanctioned Russian entities and individuals.

A senior U.S. Treasury Department official traveled to Turkey this week to discuss sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, the Treasury Department said, as Washington closely monitors growing economic ties between Ankara and Moscow.

Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Elizabeth Rosenberg traveled to Ankara and Istanbul from Oct. 17 through Octç 19, where she met with counterparts including officials from the ministries of finance and foreign affairs as well as representatives in the private financial and commercial sectors, according to a statement.

The Treasury said the meetings "affirmed the importance of close partnership" between the United States and Turkey in addressing the risks caused by sanctions evasion.

"During her meetings, Assistant Secretary Rosenberg covered a range of topics, including the sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia by a broad coalition of over 30 countries, energy security, anti-money laundering policy, and countering the financing of terrorism," the Treasury said.

Treasury and State Department officials engaged in talks with Turkish compliance officials, financial professionals, and government counterparts, it added.

Washington and its allies have imposed several rafts of sanctions targeting Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine, including targeting the country's largest lenders and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo also traveled to Turkey in June to discuss the invasion and the enforcement of sanctions imposed on Moscow.

NATO member Ankara opposes Western sanctions on Russia and has close ties with both Moscow and Kyiv, its Black Sea neighbors. It also condemned Russia's invasion and sent armed drones to Ukraine.

At the same time, it has ramped up trade and tourism with Russia. Some Turkish firms have purchased or sought to buy Russian assets from Western partners pulling back due to the sanctions, while others maintain large assets in the country.

But Ankara also pledged that the sanctions will not be circumvented in Turkey.

The U.S. Treasury warned both the country's largest business group TÜSİAD and the Turkish Treasury Ministry in August that Russian entities were attempting to use Turkey to bypass Western sanctions.

Turkey has said joining sanctions against Russia would have hurt its already strained economy and argued that it is focused on mediation efforts.

 

Nothing Good EVAH Came From The "Garden" To The "Jungle"...,

SCMP  |  When US President Joe Biden released his national security strategy on Wednesday, the report did not mention Africa much – one brief discussion near the end on building “US-Africa partnerships” and a handful of other mentions scattered across the document’s 48 pages.

However, military analysts say the continent is not only on the US radar but is a major arena of competition with China and Russia.

The main thrust of the strategy continues a theme Biden has sounded since taking office last year: the US will focus on competing with China and containing Russia.

In Africa, Beijing has become the single largest trading partner and built mega infrastructure projects through its Belt and Road Initiative, while Moscow is the largest military arms supplier and its companies have invested heavily in the continent’s extractive industries.

“China and Russia understand very well Africa’s strategic significance,” Major General Todd Wasmund, commander of the US Southern European Task Force, Africa, told a discussion at the Association of the US Army’s annual conference on Monday.

“As the Army refocuses on China – our pacing challenge – as well as the acute threat posed by Russia, it’s important to recognise that both countries are actively competing in Africa.”

The US says it will outcompete China and Russia by investing at home, building a coalition of like-minded states, and modernising its military. According to the strategy, the US will “counter democratic backsliding by imposing costs for coups and pressing for progress on civilian transitions” and “push back on the destabilising impact of the Russia-backed Wagner Group”, the Moscow-based mercenary network.

“These are sensible priorities, but they’re also not surprising given Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which delayed the strategy for months, and America’s rising tensions with China, which date from well before Joe Biden became president,” Christopher S. Chivvis, the director of the American Statecraft programme at the Carnegie Endowment, said.

Wasmund discussed how the army used its training of African militaries through its 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade to ward off the growing Chinese and Russian influence on the continent.

“They are seeking to influence events on the continent in their favour using political influence, disinformation, economic leverage and malign military activity. We also know that violent extremist organisations are a persistent threat,” Wasmund said.

Cold In The Garden This Winter: EU Ambassador Josep Borrell Says The Quiet Part Out Loud...,

eeas.europa |  Here, Bruges is a good example of the European garden. Yes, Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build - the three things together. And here, Bruges is maybe a good representation of beautiful things, intellectual life, wellbeing. 

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova@JosepBorrellF compared Europe to a garden, the rest of the world to a jungle.

☝️Europe built that “garden” through plundering. World’s most prosperous system, created in Europe, was nurtured by “roots” in colonies.

🔗 https://t.co/RaxnAPhO45 pic.twitter.com/HOhRr0FLxx

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) October 14, 2022

The rest of the world – and you know this very well, Federica – is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it, but they will not protect the garden by building walls. A nice small garden surrounded by high walls in order to prevent the jungle from coming in is not going to be a solution. Because the jungle has a strong growth capacity, and the wall will never be high enough in order to protect the garden.  

The gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.  

Yes, this is my most important message: we have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. 

We are privileged people. We built a combination of these three things – political freedom, economic prosperity, social cohesion – and we cannot pretend to survive as an exception. It has to be a way of supporting the others facing the big challenges of our time.  

So, thank you, Federica, for hosting this experience, this pilot programme of the [European] Diplomatic Academy. 

As the diplomats say, one told me: “In diplomacy, you have to say the truth. You cannot lie – well, formally, you cannot lie. You have to say the truth. You have to say only the truth but not all the truth.” But if we want to engage frankly and honestly, to discuss about the real problems and looking for solutions, then you have to tell all the truth – but we will do it later. 

Today, just let me tell you that I am happy to participate in what can be said - and you said that - a “moment of creation”, to be “present at the creation”. To be “present at the creation” are some words that were said many years ago by one of the most famous diplomats, George Kennan - in George Kennan’s memoirs. And these memoirs are still considered the best insider account of the framing of the United States policy in the post-war – with post war, I mean post-World War II.  

Now, we are definitely out of the Cold War and the post-Cold War. The post-Cold War has ended with the Ukrainian war, with the Russian aggression against Ukraine. And we are certainly living also a “moment of creation” of a new world. Because this war is changing a lot of things, and certainly it is changing the European Union. This war will create a different European Union, from different perspectives. 

Adm. Mullen: "Time To Stop Talking Shit And Sit Down At The Table Like Sane Adults"

(Trigger warning for neocons) Fmr. Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen says he's "a little concerned about the language" from Biden on nuclear war & says the US should "do everything we possibly can to try to get to the table" to negotiate with Russia. pic.twitter.com/3FFrXAufO2

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 10, 2022

abcnewsgo  |   President Joe Biden’s warning last week that Vladimir Putin was "not joking" about possibly using nuclear weapons was "concerning" and counterproductive to bringing an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, retired Adm. Mike Mullen said Sunday.

Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was asked in an interview on ABC's "This Week" to assess the nuclear risk from Russia after Putin said he would use "all available means" to protect what he called his country's territorial integrity.

“President Biden's language -- we're about at the top of the language scale, if you will. And I think we need to back off that a little bit and do everything we possibly can to try to get to the table to resolve this thing,” Mullen told "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz.

Mullen was referring to what Biden said on Thursday when he warned that for the "first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path that they are going."

“I don't think there's any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon," Biden said then.

The White House has since clarified that the president was not acting on new intelligence of looming danger but was trying to underline the stakes given the current conflict in Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces have recaptured ground in the country's contested eastern and southern regions and have pushed back Russian troops.

On "This Week," Raddatz pressed Mullen on his proposed resolution: “How do you see him [Putin] saving face if he doesn't come to the table? If Ukraine can't figure anything out?”

Diplomacy and international pressure on both Ukraine and Russia would ultimately be key, Mullen argued.

“It's got to end and usually there are negotiations associated with that,” he said. “The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned.”

 

Don't The Saudi's Know What's Happening In Ukraine?!?!

businessinsider |  Saudi Arabia is raising oil prices for the US market again, while lowering them for Europe and leaving them largely unchanged for Asia.

November shipments of Arab Light crude to Asia from state-run producer Saudi Aramco will remain steady at $5.85 per barrel above benchmark prices. A Bloomberg survey estimated prices in Asia, the kingdom's top market, would rise by $0.40 per barrel.

Elsewhere, Saudi Aramco hiked prices by $0.20 a barrel for all US grades, while northwest Europe and the Mediterranean saw declines. While Asian prices for the company's light oil was flat, its medium and heavy-grade crude prices ticked up in Asia by $0.25. 

Last month, Saudi Aramco also lowered prices in Europe and raised them in the US.

The latest shakeup in prices comes a day after OPEC+ slashed its production quota by 2 million barrels per day, or roughly 2% of global oil supply.

The cut was seen as a defeat for President Joe Biden, who has been pressing OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia for an output boost that would ease fuel prices. 

On Wednesday, the White House accused OPEC+ of "aligning with Russia" by lowering its quota, which comes at a time when "maintaining a global supply of energy is of paramount importance."

Analysts are noting the heightened political environment of OPEC's moves, as fresh European sanctions on Russian oil loom later this year as well as a price cap on Moscow's crude.

"This is hugely political and a very clear signal of OPEC's discontent regarding the price cap," Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects, told the Financial Times. "Regardless of whether the price cap is actually effective, they see this as a dangerous precedent."

The Impotent Stupid - It Burns.....,

whitehouse.gov |  The President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. At a time when maintaining a global supply of energy is of paramount importance, this decision will have the most negative impact on lower- and middle-income countries that are already reeling from elevated energy prices.

The President’s work here at home, and with allies around the world, has helped to bring down U.S. gas prices: since the beginning of the summer, gas prices are down $1.20 – and the most common price at gas stations today is $3.29/gallon. At the President’s direction, the Department of Energy will deliver another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the market next month, continuing the historic releases the President ordered in March. The President will continue to direct SPR releases as appropriate to protect American consumers and promote energy security, and he is directing the Secretary of Energy to explore any additional responsible actions to continue increasing domestic production in the immediate term.

The President is also calling on U.S. energy companies to keep bringing pump prices down by closing the historically large gap between wholesale and retail gas prices — so that American consumers are paying less at the pump.

In light of today’s action, the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices.

Finally, today’s announcement is a reminder of why it is so critical that the United States reduce its reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. is now poised to make the most significant investment ever in accelerating the clean energy transition while increasing energy security, by increasing our reliance on American-made and American-produced clean energy and energy technologies.