10 August 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The War on Corruption or the Building of a Pax Americana? (II)
10.08.2013 | 13:21 | Valentin KATASONOV
The scandal surrounding the revelations of Edward Snowden have made the question of why American intelligence was so active in Europe, more pointed. Without claiming to have a full answer, one can still assert that it is, in addition to everything else, in order to detect violations of American laws which are extraterritorial in nature. Information on such violations is needed by the ruling elite of the U.S. in order to establish effective economic and political control over Europe and the world…
The European Union and Greece: the Murder of a Nation
10.08.2013 | 07:23 | Anna FILIMONOVA
Once the level of Greece’s external debt and the impoverishment of a significantproportion of the population had gone off the scale, the global corporatocracy began buying up Greek territory and Greek shares.Greece was destined to become the testing ground for how to lead a country to complete catastrophe. Structural reforms implemented by the Greek government under pressure from the “Troika” (the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank) acquired an openly coercive nature, while measures to reduce the budget virtually destroyed any prospects for economic growth in the country…
The War on Corruption or the Building of a Pax Americana? (I)
10.08.2013 | 07:10 | Valentin KATASONOV
In the article”The Dollar Racket” I wrote about the passage of a large number of laws in the U.S. in recent years which are extraterritorial in nature. These laws provide for the punishment of individuals and legal entities for engaging in various illegal activities. Under these laws, not only U.S. residents could be subject to such penalties, but nonresidents – companies, banks, and foreign citizens – as well…Extraterritorial laws essentially allow the United States to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and gradually bring them under its control… The laws passed by the U.S. in various years establishing sanctions against Cuba, North Korea and Iran are markedly extraterritorial in nature. As of today the U.S. has declared sanctions against a total of 14 countries…
Glenn Greenwald Promises New Disclosures
09.08.2013 | 17:34 | Irina LEBEDEVA
The scandal begun by the revelations of Edward Snowden is apparently still far from over. On August 6, The Guardian correspondent Glenn Greenwald reported that he has possession of another 15,000-20,000 documents which he received from Snowden in Hong Kong and which could tell a lot about “the espionage activities of the US government and allied governments” .
People’s Bank of China Launches Trial Balloon: Back to Bretton Woods
09.08.2013 | 00:00 | Valentin KATASONOV
China has concluded deals with many countries, including Japan, Russia, Brazil and others, which envision the use of national currencies in interstate trade. It has also reached currency swap accords (the exchange of currencies) to avoid resorting to euro or dollar. The People’s Bank of China has signed such an agreement with the Bank of England…The currency swap accords are discussed by the Bank of China with the central banks of Switzerland and France. Iran supplies oil getting payments in Chinese currency to buy commodities in China. The use of yuan instead of dollar (as well as other national currencies) allows the so called “rogue” states to successfully get around the sanctions imposed by Washington…
Obama Tantrum and US Global Terror Alert Belie Washington’s Inner Panic over Russia and Snowden
09.08.2013 | 00:00 | Finian CUNNINGHAM
It is perhaps no coincidence that Washington’s temper tantrum towards Russia following its granting of asylum to Edward Snowden also comes with the US issuing a global terror alert. The closure of some 20 embassies and consular sites by Washington is, we are led to believe, due to “increased chatter” of “imminent terror attacks”. That dramatic move is based on vague, unspecified information that only Washington allegedly knows the secret details of. But it smacks of a propaganda stunt with two-fold hidden purposes: to give a semblance of legitimacy to the US criminal spying programs; and, secondly, to undermine the credibility of Edward Snowden and, by extension, Russia…
US Drones and Destabilized Pakistan
08.08.2013 | 06:57 | Dmitriy SEDOV
John Kerry arrived in Pakistan the day after Mamnoon Hussain was elected the new President of the country. Just a few hours before that, the jail building in Dera Ismail Khan (located in the tribes area, in the North-West of Pakistan) was captured by Pakistani Taliban. The State Secretary came to meet Prime Minister Navaz Sharif, acting President Asif Zardari (Mamnoon Hussein was to take office on August 9) and top military leaders. There was a wide range of issues on the agenda, including the thorniest one which has deteriorated the relationship with Washington – the incessant operations of drones in Pakistan (that is exactly what makes Pakistan the leader among nations with strong anti-US sentiments)…
Britain Is Losing Its Greatness
08.08.2013 | 00:00 | Nikolai MALISHEVSKI
After the abdications of the Pope and the Queen of the Netherlands, more and more people are saying that the Queen of Great Britain might follow their example. In May 2013 it was reported that Elizabeth II has already begun to transfer her powers to her son, Prince Charles. Not long before that, British Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell stated that in the next few years Britain could encounter enormous problems, for example, whether or not the kingdom will remain united. The opinion that the United Kingdom could fall apart over the next few years and cease to exist as a single state has been circulating very widely…
U.S. Embassy a Center for Sabotage against Venezuela
07.08.2013 | 08:34 | Nil NIKANDROV
Venezuelan Minister of Internal Affairs Miguel Rodriguez Torres spoke on national television on a conspiracy of the ultra-right in Miami (U.S.A.), Panama and Colombia whose goal is the physical liquidation of President Nicolas Maduro…The conspiracy against Venezuela is ripening under the “umbrella” of the NSA…A key figure in organizing activities at the U.S. embassy for destabilizing Venezuela is CIA staff member Kelly Keiderling-Franz.
U.S. Intervention for the Sake of Interventionism
07.08.2013 | 00:00 | Wayne MADSEN
The Obama Doctrine will eventually go down in the history books as a period during which the Obama administration honed the brute force military interventionism of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, into one that combined overt and covert U.S. military and intelligence intervention with election interference, trade sanctions, financial manipulation, and propaganda operations. This multi-faceted interventionism is known by the Pentagon as strategic influence operations…
White House Courts Al-Qaeda from Kabul to Damascus. 9/11 Becomes Thing of the Past
06.08.2013 | 00:00 | Dmitry MININ
One can get involved in endless talks about the democratic opposition and the phantom Free Army in Syria, which mainly exists on the payroll than on the battlefield, nothing can hide away the fact that Al Qaeda is the main US accords ally…Can the White House realize that its cozying up to Al Qaeda has gone too far? Hundreds of Al Qaeda militants, who have escaped from prisons (they did it at the same time like if acting upon someone’s command), may appear in Syria now. But it will not distract them from other fronts of holy war. These West-supported jihad warriors can become strong enough in Syria to strike Western capitals.
Nordic States Security: Trends and Prospects (II)
06.08.2013 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
Leading Sweden and Finland into the embrace of NATO will make the nations targets of potential retaliatory strike while compelling them to participate in unwanted wars. As one can see the policy is implemented against the will of common people who find good neighborly relations with everyone and sticking to traditional neutrality as the course that serves them best. They also realize Russia will not stand idle looking at further NATO expansion…
End of Great American Myth
05.08.2013 | 06:43 | Dmitriy SEDOV
Today, jittery US politicians and top officials rush to demand punishment for Edward Snowden.. .After he was granted temporary asylum in Russia, open, and sometimes inarticulate, threats started to come from Washington…The US double standards concerning human rights is not a new thing. It shouldn’t be even talked about but it gives rise to a suspicion: what if the US political elite sees itself as the only one in this world while others nobody else but trained Liliputians acting upon orders? This way of thinking may lead into a mistake seeing the Moscow’s calm and reasonable response as weakness.
Nordic States Security (I)
05.08.2013 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
Sweden has come out with a proposal to build a joint Nordic Battalion Force (NBF) to make it part of the agenda for Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark… The force advocated by Sweden would operate as a separate force to the European Union’s Swedish-led Nordic Battle Group (NBG), made up of troops and equipment from Finland, Norway, Ireland, Estonia and Latvia. Unlike the NBF, which would be Nordic-specific, the larger NBG is assigned to the EU’s standby international mission forces. But taking into consideration the fact that the major EU parties are also NATO members, it easy to guess the both formations will inevitably add to NATO’s capabilities too…
Syria and the Spread of Sectarianism in the Muslim World (II)
04.08.2013 | 13:58 | Najmuddin A. SHAIKH
The latest news from Iraq about the storming of two prisons by the insurgents and the consequent escape of some 500 prisoners, many of the them members of the Al-Qaeda or the Al-Qaeda associated Islamic State of Iraq, have added a new edge to the apprehensions about the assistance that the extremist forces in the Syrian opposition will be getting from sympathisers in Iraq…The initial inquiry by the Iraqi government suggests that the attackers were assisted by some of the guards and one can presume that many of the alleged accomplices were Sunnis…
Pakistan Post Election
04.08.2013 | 00:00 | Sergey KAMENEV, Svetlana MINASENKO
The general elections that took place in May 2013 in Pakistan’s Lower House of Parliament – the National Assembly – and in the provincial assemblies of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly the North-West Frontier Province) has introduced certain changes into the life of this large Asian nation with a population of nearly 200 million, a nation with nuclear weapons that occupies a crucially important geopolitical position in South Eurasia…
Syria and the Spread of Sectarianism in the Muslim World (I)
04.08.2013 | 00:00 | Najmuddin A. SHAIKH
The figures emerging from Syria are grim. Two months ago, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced that by their conservative count some 93,000 people had been killed in since the insurgency began in March 2011… Since the beginning of this year Syrians have been fleeing their country at the rate of 6000 a day. In Jordan alone there are now 550,000 Syrian refugees… Within Syria the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that some 4.5 million have been displaced…
Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal www.strategic-culture.org.
The New Dark Age 