16 January 2016 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Storm Warning for Merkel
16.01.2016 | 08:00 | Dmitriy SEDOV
It is difficult to avoid the impression that the «sexual terror» that took place on New Year in Cologne and a number of other German cities was organised by somebody very clever. Regardless of how much the «terror» was actually «sexual», the whole of Germany reacted to the incident extremely excitedly and the focus of the protests seemed to be directed against Merkel…
A Balanced View of Obama Presidency (I)
16.01.2016 | 00:00 | Eric ZUESSE
Barack Obama’s Presidency turns out to have been what neither his supporters nor his opponents expected. A balanced historical view of his performance in office will take a long time to develop, but enough is already known so that intelligent preliminary estimates can now be made: the following is just one historian’s attempt to do this, a year before his Presidency ends…
Energy Wars and European Interests (I)
16.01.2016 | 00:00 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
Behind the heated discussions about ways to solve the issue of refugees flooding into Europe, the redistribution of oil markets and the prospects for resolving conflicts in the Middle East, it is not always evident that these issues are very closely linked. Yet in 2015, Europeans found themselves at the epicentre of geopolitical and geo-economic games being played according to other people’s rules and serving interests alien to Europe…
2016: Time for Changes and Revisions (Russia-US Dialogue Intensified and Reshaped)
15.01.2016 | 22:00 | Andrei AKULOV
On January 13, the presidents of Russia and the United States had a phone conversation upon US initiative – the first one in the last six months. The discussion included the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the situation in the Korean Peninsula. The both countries are trying to save the Geneva international meeting on Syria (slated for January 25) which is in jeopardy now as Syrian insurgents threaten to ignore the event while Saudi Arabia faces a stand-off with Iran, which is also threatening to withdraw from the negotiation process…
America’s Iron Lady: Hillary Clinton’s Long March to White House
15.01.2016 | 18:00 | Matthew JAMISON
Upon relinquishing the Presidency of the United States in August 1974 (thus becoming the first holder of the US Presidency to resign the office) Richard Nixon remarked in his emotionally powerful farewell speech to White House staff: «Only when you have been in the darkest valley, can you know how magnificent it is to stand on the tallest mountain». Nixon’s atonement infuses the growing electoral momentum and fundamental political essence of Mrs Hillary Clinton’s second campaign to become the first woman President of America. In many ways Mrs Clinton’s political story and career invokes the title of Conrad Black’s biography of President Nixon: «The Invincible Quest»…
Fear of «Islamization»
15.01.2016 | 08:00 | Alex LEBEDINSKY
In 1895 French scholar Gustave Le Bon published his book «La Psychologie des Foules» – «The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind» – and only a few decades later it became a key inspiration for the infamous work by Adolf Hitler «Mein Kampf» (prohibited in a number of counties, but republished this year in Germany for the first time since 1945)…
China May Join Russia in Anti-Terror Effort as Jakarta Tragedy Shocks World
15.01.2016 | 00:00 | Peter KORZUN
On January 13, the Washington Times published an article written by Bill Gertz, a national security columnist for the Washington Times and senior editor at the Washington Free Beacon, saying China may join the war against the Islamic State…
Xenophiles Are More Dangerous than Xenophobes
15.01.2016 | 00:00 | Wayne MADSEN
German chancellor Angela Merkel, Cologne mayor Henriette Reker, and other Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Free Democrats, Greens, and Left Party members in Germany find themselves about ready to be lynched by a majority of the German people. German political leaders threw open the borders of Germany to swarms of mostly Muslim migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Over a million migrants, some possessing unauthorized Syrian passports stolen from Syrian government offices and Turkish work permits issued by the Islamist government of jihadist-enabler Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, entered Germany in the last year…
False Flag Bomb to Erase Erdogan’s Terror Links
14.01.2016 | 00:00 | Finian CUNNINGHAM
It’s the deft way that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted to the deadly bombing in Istanbul this week that raises suspicions. Suspicions that there is much more to the incident than simply an Islamist terror attack carried out against innocent civilians. To put it bluntly: Erdogan “needed” this atrocity in order to erase mounting evidence of his own regime’s collusion in terrorism with the very same Islamist terror network alleged to have carried out the Istanbul bombing…
Saudi-Iran Crisis: Russia to Push World from Brink of War
14.01.2016 | 00:00 | Peter KORZUN
On Jan. 10, Arab League foreign ministers condemned recent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic missions in Iran. A statement at the end of a Cairo emergency meeting accused the Iranian authorities of failing to protect the Saudi embassy set on fire by an angry crowd. All members of the Arab League voted in favor of the statement, with the exception of Lebanon…
Why Brookings Institution and Establishment Love Wars
14.01.2016 | 00:00 | Eric ZUESSE
Washington’s public relations operations for the military contracting firms that surround the US Capitol aren’t by for-profit PR firms, so much as they’re by ‘non-profit’ foundations and think tanks, which present that ‘non-profit’ cover for their sales-promotion campaigns on behalf of the real beneficiaries: owners and top executives of these gigantic ‘defense’ contracting corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, and Booz Allen Hamilton…
Istanbul Tragedy: Terrorists Strike Again
13.01.2016 | 08:00 | Alex GORKA
International terrorism has once again shown its cruel and inhuman face. A terrorist attack, the latest in a string of deadly terror incidents to strike Turkey, killed at least ten people including foreigners in the heart of Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet tourist district on January 12. A Syrian suicide bomber is believed to be the perpetrator. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but in all probability Islamic State militants were behind the blast…
India and Pakistan Tensions
13.01.2016 | 00:00 | Brian CLOUGHLEY
There are many military confrontations around the world, most fostered by the United States which seeks domination as its prerogative, because, as President Obama declares, it is «the one indispensable nation in world affairs». In addition to Washington’s pursuit of military supremacy, however, there are other international predicaments, not the least dangerous of which is the long-standing confrontation between India and Pakistan…
Sunni-Shia Conflict: Qui prodest?
13.01.2016 | 00:00 | Dmitry MININ
Islam is not a monolith. Sunni and Shia Islam are the two main denominations of the religion divided by major differences. Within the two, there are many branches and various types of schools with, sometimes, even bigger differences to separate them. The debates between Sunnis and Shiites has always existed but there was a particular kind of balance between the two…
EU Relations with Russia Should Not Be Dictated by USA (II) (Foreign policy and security aspects)
12.01.2016 | 08:00 | Alex GORKA
With all the anniversaries related to security issues that were celebrated in 2015 – the 200th anniversary of the Congress of Vienna, 70 years since the creation of the UN and the IMF; and the 40th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act – European security remains to be a very iffy structure…
How Corrupt US Is: Extraordinary Example
12.01.2016 | 00:00 | Eric ZUESSE
Incarceration rates don’t necessarily correlate with corruption, but they do reflect the extent to which a given nation’s government is (by means of its laws and its enforcement of those laws) at war against its own population; and, so, technically speaking, it’s supposed to reflect the prevalence of law-breaking within that nation. After all, by definition, people are presumed to be in prison for law-breaking, irrespective of whether the given nation’s laws are just – and, if they’re not just, then this fact reflects even more strongly that the nation itself is corrupt. So, a high incarceration-rate does strongly tend to go along with a nation’s being highly corrupt, in more than merely a technical sense…
Chaos in Middle East to Spur US-Turkey Friendship
12.01.2016 | 00:00 | Andrey ARESHEV
The events of late 2015 – early 2016 show the US-Turkey ties are getting stronger. The Turkey’s role of a NATO’s southern flank bastion is growing. The Islamic State, which is financed by illegal exports of oil through the Turkish territory, is used by Washington and Ankara to justify intense coordinated military activities. Turkey has permitted the use of ?ncirlik, Diyarbak?r and Batman air bases by its Western allies…
EU Relations with Russia Should Not Be Dictated by USA (I) (Economic aspects)
11.01.2016 | 00:00 | Alex GORKA
The EU moved on Dec.15 to extend economic sanctions against Russia for six more months. The decision is not as unanimous, as it may seem at first glance…
ISIL Janissary Army of Sultan Erdogan
11.01.2016 | 00:00 | Wayne MADSEN
In the days of the Ottoman sultans, Janissaries, mercenaries recruited to personally serve as the sultan’s private army, wielded tremendous power throughout the Ottoman empire, which also happened to be the last Islamic caliphate. The Janissaries were mostly recruited from conquered Christian peoples in Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Christian families saw their young sons pressganged into military service as soldier slaves for the Ottoman emperor. Normally, the families never again saw their sons…
US: Show of Military Muscle against North Korea
10.01.2016 | 19:21 | Andrei AKULOV
Just days after the North Korea’s nuclear (allegedly hydrogen) bomb test, the US and South Korea conducted a show of force by flying a US B-52 bomber over Osan Air Base, South Korea, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of the inter-Korean border. The test angered all of the world powers, including Russia and China. The UN Security Council was unanimous as it agreed to roll out new measures to punish the country that challenged the United Nations…
Something’s Not Right in Saudi Kingdom
10.01.2016 | 00:00 | Dmitriy SEDOV
The actions of the Saudi royal family have been raising eyebrows around the world recently. The use of the death penalty against a group of dissidents, including the execution of the well-known Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, was a gauntlet thrown in the face of Iran as well as other countries. Even official Washington, which tolerates worse offenses than that from its loyal allies, has had to speak up…
New Year Begins with Abysmal Performances
10.01.2016 | 00:00 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
From the very outset, the new year of 2016 has set negative financial and economic dynamics. For the Chinese stock market, 4 January was the worst first trading day of the year in the entire history of the national stock market, which saw the market plunge by 7 per cent. As a result of the sharp fall, meanwhile, trading was halted twice. After the Shanghai Composite fell by 5 per cent, trading was stopped on the Shanghai stock exchange for 15 minutes…
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