- As the attention of the America public is focused on
the American election, with the Democratic Convention having just ended,
and the announcement today of McCain's female running mate, and the Republican
Convention next week, the public has missed something. Something not missed
by Europeans, even mainstream European news media have given broad coverage
to the story.
-
- Just a minor story, really, no need to turn your attention
away from the political puff that is American electoral politics. Just
something about Russia (you know the big country with tens of thousands
of nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems) and a clear WAR WARNING
TO NATO.
-
- In what is the most serious international crisis since
the Cuban Missile Crisis almost caused World War III forty-five years ago,
Russia has issued a War Warning to NATO and America. "If NATO suddenly
takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely
in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia,"
said the Russian Ambassador to NATO, Mr. Dmitry Rogozin. Further, Russia
is making it clear that military assistance to Georgia will be considered
an act of war. Ambassador Rogozin likened the current crisis to the fevered
diplomatic atmosphere in Europe just before the start of the First World
War. World War I was said to start when "the lights went out in the
chancelleries of Europe" and diplomatic measures failed.
-
- A top Russian military figure, the President of the Academy
of Geopolitical Studies (in Moscow) Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said
"We are close to a serious conflict". With regard to the Georgia-South
Ossetian conflict, General Ivashov said that one of the principal goals
of NATO's "geopolitical operation" was to neutralize Russia as
a global player in the run-up to a war with Iran.
-
- The British publication, 'This is London', calls the
Russian position, as articulated by Ambassador Rogozin, an "extraordinary
warning to the West".
-
- Another leading London newspaper, 'The Mail', said "Tensions
between Russia and the West were ratcheted even higher today after Moscow
warned that the American naval build-up in the Black Sea could be seen
as a 'declaration of war'."
-
- While I am not heading for the nuclear bomb shelter,
I do think that this is serious. One of the main fears has been what the
crazy neo-con Administration of George Bush and Dick Cheney would do in
its final months in power. Would they begin yet a third war, this time
with an Iran armed with advanced biological weapons of mass destruction
capable of killing maybe a third of the human race? The answer to that
is still up in the air, but it appears that the overall answer is much
worse than anyone thought.
-
- The Bush Administration funded a buildup of the Georgian
Army and recently sent about a thousand US Marines to train the Georgian
troops. Israel and the United States sold a large amount of military technology
and hardware to Georgia. Israeli companies, headed by reserve Israeli generals,
brought in excess of a thousand Israeli mercenaries into Georgia and two
senior, recently retired Israeli generals provided senior command "consulting"
to the Georgian General Staff. All of this turned very ugly, when on 8/8/08
the Georgian forces attacked lightly armed Russian peace keepers along
with many innocent Russian civilians using volley fire from massed tubeless
artillery. Over 1,400 men, women, and children were killed in their own
homes without warning, in the opening minutes (with over 2,000 killed in
the five day war). In response to this, Russia sent in her troops and most
Georgian troops retreated (some "retreated" so fast that they
threw away their uniforms, guns, and equipment as they ran home).
-
- The Russians, by most accounts, behaved well and stopped
short of the Georgian capital. However, to hear the neo-con political leaders
in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom tell it, the Russians
attacked a defenseless nation that had done nothing to provoke the attack.
Increasingly the neo-con owned mainstream news media is spinning the story
into one of Russian aggression, making the Russians out to be the bad guys
and ignoring the murder of thousands of civilians by the Georgian/Israeli
forces.
-
- Russian's deputy military chief, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn,
has warned that NATO has already exhausted the number of naval forces it
can have in the Black Sea under the Montreux Convention (an international
treaty dating to 1936 that governs the number, type, and tonnage of warships
allowed to pass the Turkish Straits ~ the Bosporus and the Dardanells ~
into the Black Sea) and warned Western nations against sending more ships.
The Montreux Convention allows the NATO ships to stay no longer than 21
days and limits the total number to nine warships (the current number).
-
- If the Convention treaty is violated by NATO it will
be a technical state of war. Russia has warned Turkey that she will be
held responsible if additional warships are allowed into the Black Sea;
already Turkey has prevented some US naval ships from entering. The total
tonnage limit on naval ships is 45,000 tons. The US sought to send the
USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy, hospital ships whose tonnages both exceeded
69,000 tons each, through the Turkish Straits but Turkey would not allow
it. As the hospital ships are not really needed, this was simply an attempt
by the Bush Administration to violate the Montreux Convention and to get
by with it by insisting that no rational nation could object to hospital
ships. General Nogovitsyn has pointed out that US Navy ships in the Black
Sea have nuclear armed cruise missiles capable of striking at most of European
Russia including St. Petersburg and that these ships are considered "a
serious threat to our security".
-
- The Russians suspect that the US Navy is delivering arms
to Georgia under the cover of civilian aid. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov has said, "Normally battleships do not deliver aid and this
is battleship diplomacy, this does not make the situation more stable".
-
- Russian Admiral Eduard Balin (former commander of the
Russian Black Sea Fleet) was quoted by Russian news media as saying, "Despite
the apparent strength of the NATO naval group in the Black Sea....a single
salvo from the Moskva missile cruiser and two or thee missile boats would
be enough to annihilate the entire group. Within twenty minutes the waters
would be clear." The Moskva is the world's only currently serving
'heavy battle cruiser' and the most powerful non-carrier surface ship in
the world.
-
- British neo-con leader, Prime Minister Gordon Brown will
attend an unprecedented emergency summit of leaders of the EU's 27 member
states this coming Monday, in Brussels, to discuss the EU's response to
Russia's actions. Sanctions are expected to be on the agenda to punish
Russia for its "aggression". Fears are being expressed in Europe
that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over the next
few days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and NATO actions in
the Black Sea. This would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgian crisis
and would play hell with global oil markets.
-
- In a related story, Lebanese television and other sources
are reporting that the Israeli government has reached a "strategic
decision on Iran". That Israel will strike Iran, eventually (alone
if necessary). The Jerusalem Post says that the Israeli government is moving
forward with plans for the purchase of special aircraft and working on
receiving US government approval to use US controlled Iraqi airspace for
an attack on Iran.
-
- It is interesting that more and more publications, from
the right, center and left (including pro-neo-con and anti-neo-con), are
speaking of World War III. An interesting article by Stratfor (generally
pro-Israel and pro-neo-con) and reprinted by finchannel.com (a strongly
pro-neo-con publication) speaks of Turkey's Options in the coming Third
World War.
-
- What the crazy evil Bush/Cheney Administration has done
is to move the world close to World War III by bringing the Russians into
the neo-con ever growing nightmare of war; 8/8/08 was the Russian 9/11
brought to you by the same people who gave America its 9/11, Britain its
7/7, etc.
-
- There are various theories as to why the United States
(or more specifically why the neo-cons who control the US government) would
want to push Russia into a global war; just as there are various theories
why tiny Israel would want to involve itself in a battle against a massive
nuclear power like Russia, who could turn Iran and Syria into nuclear armed
states overnight if it chose to.
-
- Many say that the neo-cons are simply crazy and that
their maneuvers have failed. Others would say that the neo-cons are simply
pawns in a larger Grand Strategy game that the global banking families
have been playing for a couple of centuries and that a Third World War
is required to establish the New World Order/global government that they
intend to establish and establish soon. If the latter is the case, a little
thing like advanced 21st Century warfare will get in the way. There is
simply NO WAY that mankind can survive a Third World War, except for Divine
intervention. The levels of destructive firepower and technology are simply
too great.
-
- Stirling
|