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Thread: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

  1. Link to Post #41
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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    A little snippet regarding US foreign policy in the Middle East and its support for Israel. (This is not to deny the US support for Saudi Arabia and the remaining gulf states).

    Again, from Sic Semper Tyrannis:

    Quote Anna said in reply to james...
    "anything for israel..."

    http://politicalhotwire.com/world-po...ng-israel.html
    “Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. ... According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The ‘unstated threat’ was the ‘threat against Israel’, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. ‘The American government,’ he added, ‘doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.’

    That was then… Today with have this situation:

    http://silentcrownews.com/wordpress/?p=5814
    “Washington and Israel have signed an agreement which would see the US come to assist Israel with missile defense in times of war… according to Haimovitch [Israeli IDF Brig. Gen.] “I am sure once the order comes we will find here US troops on the ground to be part of our deployment and team to defend the state of Israel”
    General Clark, the US Army: “We are ready to commit to the defense of Israel and anytime we get involved in a kinetic fight there is always the risk that there will be casualties…”

    https://whiskeytangotexas.com/2018/0...-jewish-state/

    More: “Jerusalem - IDF, US Army Celebrate Inauguration Of First American Base In Israel” https://www.vosizneias.com/280626/20...ase-in-israel/
    From here: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_s...b8d2e2793d970c

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Meandering back to meta historical themes and the more esoteric side of things.... here is a presentation given in 2009 at the Alternative View conference in the UK by Terry Boardman. He covers quite a bit of deeper history including some discussion of occult brotherhoods driving things for their own agendas. He specifically explores how Anglo American power players use maps to project their intent ahead of executions.... very interesting though it is long.



    Here’s the description of the video:
    Quote Author Terry M Boardman presents to the (second) Alternative View conference (200?). Entitled: "The 21st Century: Humanity comes of age". This talk is very muchdrawn from Boardman's book : " Mapping The Millenium: Behind The Plans Of The New World Order". Much of this work is inspired by the insights of the great Rudolf Steiner, particularly in the form of the two volumes that make up "The Karma of Untruthfullness".
    Compared to the vast amounts of conspiracy research currently out there, the ideas brought to us here, in this video, are relatively unknown.
    If you are unsatisfied with the conventional reasoning that explains the origins of this Great War, here is something completely different.
    Towards the end of the talk, Boardman suggests we look into what took place in the world in the 7th and 14th centuries.... here is the high level summary from Wikipedia:

    Quote 7th century
    The 7th century is the period from 601 to 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Common Era. The Muslim conquests began with the unification of Arabia by Muhammad starting in 622. After Muhammad's death in 632, Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula under the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) and the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750). The Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century led to the downfall of the Sassanid Empire. Also conquered during the 7th century were Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Egypt, and North Africa.

    The Byzantine Empire continued suffering setbacks during the rapid expansion of the Muslim Empire.

    In the Iberian Peninsula, the 7th century was the Siglo de Concilios, that is, century of councils, referring to the Councils of Toledo.

    Harsha united Northern India, which had reverted to small republics and states after the fall of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century.

    In China, the Sui dynasty was replaced by the Tang dynasty, which set up its military bases from Korea to Central Asia, and was next to the Arabian later. China began to reach its height. Silla allied itself with the Tang Dynasty, subjugating Baekje and defeating Goguryeo to unite the Korean Peninsula under one ruler. The Asuka period persisted in Japan throughout the 7th century.
    More here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_century

    Quote 14th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century lasting from January 1, 1301, to December 31, 1400. Political and natural disasters ravaged both Europe and the four khanates of the Mongol Empire. Consequently, the Mongol court was driven out of China and retreated to Mongolia, the Ilkhanate collapsed in Persia, the Chaghatayid dissolved and broke into two parts and the Golden Horde lost its position as great power in Eastern Europe.

    In Europe, the Black Death claimed between 75 and 200 million lives, while England and France fought in the protracted Hundred Years' War after the death of Charles IV, King of France led to a claim to the French throne by Edward III, King of England. This period is considered the height of chivalry and marks the beginning of strong separate identities for both England and France.
    More here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_century


    So I wonder what we will see “reflected” in this century, 700 years later...

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Here is a long, detailed review by Nafeez Ahmed, geopolitical journalist in which he analyses a recent document released by the US Army that outlines, fairly candidly, the US views on Eurasia and the consequent foreign actions.

    Quote Army document: US strategy to ‘dethrone’ Putin for oil pipelines might provoke WW3
    Senior DIA, Air Force and Army officials admit that NATO expansionism and US covert interference in Russian internal politics may trigger “next global conflict”

    A US Army document concedes the real interests driving US military strategy toward Russia: dominating oil pipeline routes, accessing the vast natural resources of Central Asia, and enforcing the expansion of American capitalism worldwide.

    ...

    While the bulk of the Western pundit class are busy bravely obsessing over the innumerable evils of Putin, it turns out that the upper echelons of the US military are asking some uncomfortable questions about how we got to where we are.

    A study (https://usacac.army.mil/node/1540) by the US Army’s Command and General Staff College Press of the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth reveals that US strategy toward Russia has been heavily motivated by the goal of dominating Central Asian oil and gas resources, and associated pipeline routes.

    The remarkable document (http://www.armyupress.army.mil/Books...ics-and-energy), prepared by the US Army’s Culture, Regional Expertise and Language Management Office (CRELMO), concedes that expansionist NATO policies played a key role in provoking Russian militarism. It also contemplates how current US and Russian antagonisms could spark a global nuclear conflict between the two superpowers.
    ....
    I have pasted only the lead into the article here.

    Here is a link to the full article which has some preamble up front and is a longish review of the army document: https://medium.com/insurge-intellige...3-9b1d9dbe6be9
    Last edited by Cara; 19th March 2018 at 09:24.

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    So to a “brotherhood” / secret society area today - the Sabbatean / Frankist sect. This was a sect of heretical Jews who seem to have “gone underground” and have lived on in all sorts of ways to participate in many of the most significant events of history.

    ===========
    To start, here is a recent interview by Tim Kelly on his Our Interesting Times podcast with Russ Winter:
    Quote Russ Winter joins Our Interesting Times to discuss his research regarding the Sabbatean/Frankist cult and its influence in creating the modern world. We talk about how through stealth, infiltration and cunning this criminal network has come to rule the world. We discuss the cult’s role in the creation of the Illuminati in 1776 and the establishment of Freemasonry.


    ============
    The podcast cites the work of Rabbi Antellman in his work “To Eliminate the Opiate”:

    To Eliminate the Opiate
    Volume 1: An in-depth study of Communist and conspiratorial group efforts to destroy Jews and Judaism
    1974



    Zip file of volume 1 here: http://www.balderexlibris.com/public...e_Volume_1.zip

    ==========

    There are some indications that Sabbateans wind their way into modern times through a “whispered about” group operating in the deep state factions of Turkey and the broader Middle East..... here is a speculative two part article by Wayne Masden exploring some of the links and conjecture:

    Part 1:
    Quote The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part I)

    There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe. …

    Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. ...

    The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the Messiah but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan.

    The Dönmeh rise to power in Turkey

    Many Dönmeh, along with traditional Jews, became powerful political and business leaders in Salonica. It was this core group of Dönmeh, which organized the secret Young Turks, also known as the Committee of Union and Progress, the secularists who deposed Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II in the 1908 revolution, proclaimed the post-Ottoman Republic of Turkey after World War I, and who instituted a campaign that stripped Turkey of much of its Islamic identity after the fall of the Ottomans. Abdulhamid II was vilified by the Young Turks as a tyrant, but his only real crime appears to have been to refuse to meet Zionist leader Theodore Herzl during a visit to Constantinople in 1901 and reject Zionist and Dönmeh offers of money in return for the Zionists to be granted control of Jerusalem.

    ... After his ouster by Ataturk’s Young Turk Dönmeh in 1908, Abdulhamid II was jailed in the Donmeh citadel of Salonica. He died in Constantinople in 1918, three years after Ibn Saud agreed to a Jewish homeland in Palestine and one year after Lord Balfour deeded Palestine away to the Zionists in his letter to Baron Rothschild.

    One of the Young Turk leaders in Salonica was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. When Greece achieved sovereignty over Salonica in 1913, many Dönmeh, unsuccessful at being re-classified Jewish, moved to Constantinople, later re-named Istanbul. Others moved to Izmir, Bursa, and Ataturk’s newly-proclaimed capital and future seat of Ergenekon power, Ankara.

    Some texts suggest that the Dönmeh numbered no more than 150,000 and were mainly found in the army, government, and business. However, other experts suggest that the Dönmeh may have represented 1.5 million Turks and were even more powerful than believed by many and extended to every facet of Turkish life. One influential Donmeh, Tevfik Rustu Arak, was a close friend and adviser to Ataturk and served as Turkey’s Foreign Minister from 1925 to 1938.

    ...

    Modern Turkey: a secret Zionist state controlled by the Dönmeh

    Ataturk’s suspected strong Jewish roots, information about which was suppressed for decades by a Turkish government that forbade anything critical of the founder of modern Turkey, began bubbling to the surface, first, mostly outside of Turkey and in publications written by Jewish authors. The 1973 book, The Secret Jews, by Rabbi Joachim Prinz, maintains that Ataturk and his finance minister, Djavid Bey, were both committed Dönmeh and that they were in good company because “too many of the Young Turks in the newly formed revolutionary Cabinet prayed to Allah, but had their real prophet [Sabbatai Zevi, the Messiah of Smyrna].” In The Forward of January 28, 1994, Hillel Halkin wrote in The New York Sun that Ataturk recited the Jewish Shema Yisrael (“Hear O Israel”), saying that it was “my prayer too.” The information is recounted from an autobiography by journalist Itamar Ben-Avi, who claims Ataturk, then a young Turkish army captain, revealed he was Jewish in a Jerusalem hotel bar one rainy night during the winter of 1911. In addition, Ataturk attended the Semsi Effendi grade school in Salonica, run by a Dönmeh named Simon Zevi. Halkin wrote in the New York Sun article about an email he received from a Turkish colleague: “I now know – know (and I haven’t a shred of doubt) – that Ataturk’s father’s family was indeed of Jewish stock.”

    It was Ataturk’s and the Young Turks’ support for Zionism, the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, after World War I and during Nazi rule in Europe that endeared Turkey to Israel and vice versa. An article in The Forward of May 8, 2007, revealed that Dönmeh dominated Turkish leadership “from the president down, as well as key diplomats . . . and a great part of Turkey’s military, cultural, academic, economic, and professional elites” kept Turkey out of a World War II alliance with Germany, and deprived Hitler of a Turkish route to the Baku oilfields.” In his book, The Donme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries and Secular Turks, Professor Marc David Baer wrote that many advanced to exalted positions in the Sufi religious orders.

    Israel has always been reluctant to describe the Turkish massacre of the Armenians by the Turks in 1915 as “genocide.” It has always been believed that the reason for Israel’s reticence was not to upset Israel’s close military and diplomatic ties with Turkey. However, more evidence is being uncovered that the Armenian genocide was largely the work of the Dönmeh leadership of the Young Turks. Historians like Ahmed Refik, who served as an intelligence officer in the Ottoman army, averred that it was the aim of the Young Turks to destroy the Armenians, who were mostly Christian. The Young Turks, under Ataturk’s direction, also expelled Greek Christians from Turkish cities and attempted to commit a smaller-scale genocide of the Assyrians, who were also mainly Christian.

    One Young Turk from Salonica, Mehmet Talat, was the official who carried out the genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians. A Venezuelan mercenary who served in the Ottoman army, Rafael de Nogales Mendez, noted in his annals of the Armenian genocide that Talat was known as the “renegade Hebrew of Salonica.” Talat was assassinated in Germany in 1921 by an Armenian whose entire family was lost in the genocide ordered by the “renegade Hebrew.” It is believed by some historians of the Armenian genocide that the Armenians, known as good businessmen, were targeted by the business-savvy Dönmeh because they were considered to be commercial competitors.

    ...
    From here: https://www.strategic-culture.org/ne...et-part-i.html

    Salonica is now known by its Greek name Thessaloniki. Here a little about the settlement of Jews in Salonica:
    Quote The city of Salonica was once the center of Sephardi religious and cultural life, and Jewish intellectual life in general, and once boasted such cultural institutions as a Judeo-Spanish theater, press, secular literature and music. ...
    From here: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...ws-in-salonica


    And here continues the Wayne Masden article from above...
    Part 2:
    Quote The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part II)
    What will surprise those who may already be surprised about the Dönmeh connection to Turkey, is the Dönmeh connection to the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.

    An Iraqi Mukhabarat (General Military Intelligence Directorate) Top Secret report, “The Emergence of Wahhabism and its Historical Roots,” dated September 2002 and released on March 13, 2008, by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in translated English form, points to the Dönmeh roots of the founder of the Saudi Wahhabi sect of Islam, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. Much of the information is gleaned from the memoirs of a “Mr. Humfer,” (as spelled in the DIA report, “Mr. Hempher” as spelled the historical record) a British spy who used the name “Mohammad,” claimed to be an Azeri who spoke Turkish, Persian, and Arabic and who made contact with Wahhab in the mid-18th century with a view of creating a sect of Islam that would eventually bring about an Arab revolt against the Ottomans and pave the way for the introduction of a Jewish state in Palestine. Humfer’s memoirs are recounted by the Ottoman writer and admiral Ayyub Sabri Pasha in his 1888 work, “The Beginning and Spreading of Wahhabism.”

    In his book, The Dönmeh Jews, D. Mustafa Turan writes that Wahhab’s grandfather, Tjen Sulayman, was actually Tjen Shulman, a member of the Jewish community of Basra, Iraq. The Iraqi intelligence report also states that in his book, The Dönmeh Jews and the Origin of the Saudi Wahhabis, Rifat Salim Kabar reveals that Shulman eventually settled in the Hejaz, in the village of al-Ayniyah what is now Saudi Arabia, where his grandson founded the Wahhabi sect of Islam. The Iraqi intelligence report states that Shulman had been banished from Damascus, Cairo, and Mecca for his “quackery.” In the village, Shulman sired Abdul Wahhab. Abdel Wahhab’s son, Muhammad, founded modern Wahhabism.

    The Iraqi report also makes some astounding claims about the Saud family. It cites Abdul Wahhab Ibrahim al-Shammari’s book, The Wahhabi Movement: The Truth and Roots, which states that King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, the first Kingdom of Saudi Arabia monarch, was descended from Mordechai bin Ibrahim bin Moishe, a Jewish merchant also from Basra. In Nejd, Moishe joined the Aniza tribe and changed his name to Markhan bin Ibrahim bin Musa. Eventually, Mordechai married off his son, Jack Dan, who became Al-Qarn, to a woman from the Anzah tribe of the Nejd. From this union, the future Saud family was born.

    ...

    At the outset of World War I, a Jewish British officer from India, David Shakespeare, met with Ibn Saud in Riyadh and later led a Saudi army that defeated a tribe opposed to Ibn Saud. In 1915, Ibn Saud met with the British envoy to the Gulf region, Bracey Cocas. Cocas made the following offer to Ibn Saud: “I think this is a guarantee for your endurance as it is in the interest of Britain that the Jews have a homeland and existence, and Britain’s interests are, by all means, in your interest.” Ibn Saud, the descendant of Dönmeh from Basra, responded: “Yes, if my acknowledgement means so much to you, I acknowledge thousand times granting a homeland to the Jews in Palestine or other than Palestine.” Two years later, British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, in a letter to Baron Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Zionists, stated: “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . .” The deal had the tacit backing of two of the major players in the region, both descendant from Dönmeh Jews who supported the Zionist cause, Kemal Ataturk and Ibn Saud. The present situation in the Middle East should be seen in this light but the history of the region has been purged by certain religious and political interests for obvious reasons.

    After World War I, the British facilitated the coming to power of the Saud regime in the former Hejaz and Nejd provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Sauds established Wahhabism as the state religion of the new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and, like the Kemalist Dönmeh in Turkey, began to move against other Islamic beliefs and sects, including the Sunnis and Shi’as. The Wahhabi Sauds accomplished what the Kemalist Dönmeh were able to achieve in Turkey: a fractured Middle East that was ripe for Western imperialistic designs and laid the groundwork for the creation of the Zionist state of Israel.

    ...
    From here: https://www.strategic-culture.org/ne...t-part-ii.html

    This context certainly prompts some interesting perspectives on current events in the Middle East....
    • The Ottoman Empire, collapsed at a similar time to the Russian Empire, the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, leading up to and through the time of world war 1.
    • A group of revolutionaries, called the Young Turks, take over the Ottoman Empire and create Turkey.
    • A group of revolutionaries, called the Bolsheviks, take over the Russian Empire and create the communist USSR
    ....

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Here is a good, shortish interview with Edward Cutin, professor of sociology, on the Geopolitics and Empire podcast. It covers a wide range of topics and is a good review of the current perilous state of pre-War we seem to be living in.

    The political angle is slightly left but by no means an uncritical left.

    Quote Edward Curtin: False Flag Operations Will Start New War #075
    Posted on Mar 24, 2018 by Guadalajara Geopolitics Institute in Podcast |

    Professor of Sociology Edward Curtin discusses the attempts by the US, Britain, NATO and Israel to create false pretexts for an invasion of Syria and war with Russia. He discusses how the Deep State has concocted RussiaGate and how media and propaganda make it difficult to tell fact from fiction.

    https://soundcloud.com/geopoliticsan...rt-new-war-075

    Show Notes
    Triggering War. A Manufactured “Catalytic Event” Which Will Initiate An All Out War? Are We Going to Let this Happen Again? https://www.globalresearch.ca/trigge...-again/5632549

    Further Signs of More War: A Most Dangerous Game http://edwardcurtin.com/further-sign...dangerous-game

    The Coming Wars to End All Wars http://edwardcurtin.com/the-coming-wars-to-end-all-wars

    Denying the Obvious: Leftists and Crimestop http://edwardcurtin.com/denying-the-...-and-crimestop

    Website
    http://edwardcurtin.com

    About Edward Curtin
    Educated in the classics, philosophy, literature, theology, and sociology, I teach sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. My writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. I write as a public intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. I believe a non-committal sociology is an impossibility and therefore see all my work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding.
    Episode web page here: http://guadalajarageopolitics.com/20...t-new-war-075/

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    The Saker gives an excellent summary of major geopolitical moves involving Russia during the course of March. Excellent summary:

    Quote A truly historical month for the future of our planet

    March 2018 will go down in history as a truly historical month

    March 1st, Vladimir Putin makes his historical address (http://thesaker.is/the-president-of-...eral-assembly/) to the Russian Federal Assembly.

    March 4th, Sergei Skripal, a former UK spy, is allegedly poisoned in the UK. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison..._Yulia_Skripal)

    March 8th, British officials accuse Russia (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43326734) of using nerve gas to attempt to murder Sergei Skripal.

    March 12th, Theresa May officially blames Russia (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/w...poisoning.html) for the poisoning and gives Russia a 24-hour ultimatum (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...tes-salisbury/) to justify herself; the Russians ignore that ultimatum. The same day, the US representative at the UNSC threatens to attack Syria (http://thesaker.is/russian-mfa-summo...se-must-watch/) even without a UNSC authorization.

    March 13th, Chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov warned (http://tass.com/world/993678) that “in case there is a threat to the lives of our military, the Russian Armed Force will take retaliatory measures both over the missiles and carriers that will use them”. The same day Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, Deputy Defense Minister, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov had a phone conversation (http://tass.com/defense/995551) with Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the United States’ Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    March 15th, the UK blocked Russia’s draft UN Security Council statement (https://www.rt.com/news/421340-uk-block-un-skripal/) on Skripal poisoning case asking for an “urgent and civilized investigation” into the Skripal case. The US, UK, France, and Germany issue a statement backing the UK and blaming Russia (http://thesaker.is/trump-may-merkel-...pal-poisoning/). The UK Defence Minister tells Russia (https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-br...-idUKKCN1GR23F) to “shut up and go away”.

    March 16th, Major General Igor Konashenkov calls the British Defense Minister (http://thesaker.is/official-russian-...p-and-go-away/) an “uncouth shrew” and “intellectual impotent”.

    March 17th, Russian Generals warned that the US is preparing a chemical false flag attack in Syria (http://thesaker.is/russian-mod-warn-...ify-us-attack/).

    March 18th, Putin overwhelmingly wins the Presidential election (http://thesaker.is/the-outcome-of-th...plain-english/). The same day, General Votel, Commander of CENTCOM declares in a testimony to the Armed Services Committee (http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/Transcripts/) that differences with Russia should be settled “through political and diplomatic channels”. When asked whether it would be correct to say that “with Russia and Iran’s help, Assad has won the Civil War in Syria?” General Votel replied “I do not think that is too — that is too strong of a statement. I think they have provided him the wherewithal to — to be ascendant at this point”.

    March 19th, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council issues a statement (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/pr...isbury-attack/) fully backing the UK.

    March 21st The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summons all ambassadors to a briefing (http://thesaker.is/russian-mfa-summo...se-must-watch/) on the Skripal case. The language used by the Russian representative at this briefing (http://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/...ent/id/3134581) possibly is the bluntest used by any Russian (or even Soviet) official towards the West since WWII. The French, Swedish and US representative at the meeting all stood up to declare their “solidarity” with the UK.

    March 22nd, The Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, Deputy Defense Minister, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov had another phone conversation (http://tass.com/defense/995551) with Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the United States’ Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    So what is really going on here? Surely nobody seriously believes that the Brits really think that the Russians had any motive to try to kill Skripal or, for that matter, if they had a motive, that they would do it in such a stupid manner? And what’s the deal with Syria anyway? Is the US going to execute their false flag and bomb?

    I think that at this point we should not get bogged down in the details of all this. There is a forest behind these trees. What matters most now, is that the most powerful factions of the AngloZionist Empire’s ruling elites are making a concerted effort to create a unified anti-Russian coalition. In this regard it is quite telling that the US, France, and Germany issued a statement on March 15th without even bothering to consult with their so-called “allies” in NATO or the EU. You can immediately tell “who is boss” in those crisis situations when the rest of the Euro-riffraff simply doesn’t matter (poor East Europeans with their delusions about being appreciated or even respected by the West!). Furthermore, it is quite clear that in this case, the “Anglo” component of the AngloZionist Empire is far more involved than the Zionist one, at least insofar as the front of the stage is concerned (behind the scenes (https://www.commentarymagazine.com/f...s-line-russia/) the Neocons are seething at Trump for calling Putin to congratulate him and offer negotiations). I think that a number of crucial developments forced the US and the UK into trying to strong-arm the rest of the western nations to “circle the wagons” around the Empire:
    1. The US humiliatingly failed in its attempts to frighten and force the DPRK into submission
    2. The AngloZionists have lost the civil war in Syria
    3. The UK and the rest of the NATO are becoming militarily irrelevant
    4. The Ukraine has crashed and is burning and a Ukronazi attack on the Donbass is most likely
    5. The political forces in Europe who opposed anti-Russian policies are on the ascent
    6. The Russians are winning many EU countries over by economic means including North Stream whereas sanctions are hurting the EU much more than Russia
    7. The anti-Putin campaign has miserably failed and Russia is fully united in her stance against the Empire

    What this all means is very simple: the Empire needs to either fold or double down and folding is just not something the imperial elites are willing to consider yet. They are therefore using the tools which they perceive as most effective:
    1. False flags: this is really a time-honored western tradition used by pretty much all the western powers. Since the general public is brainwashed and mostly can’t even begin to imagine that “freedom loving liberal democracies” could use methods usually ascribed to evil, bloodthirsty dictatorial regimes, false flags are an ideal way to get the public opinion in the correct state of mind to approve of aggressive, hostile and even violent policies against a perceived threat or obstacle to hegemony.
    2. Soft power: have you noticed how the Oscars or the Cannes festival always pick exactly the kind of “artists” which the Empire happens to politically promote? Well, this is true not only for the Oscars or the Cannes festival but for almost all of the cultural, social and political life in the West. This is especially true of so-called “human rights” and “peace” organizations which are simply political pit-bulls which can be sicked on any country in need of subversion and/or intervention. Russia has never developed that kind of political toolkit.
    3. Verbal escalation: this tactic is extremely crude yet very effective. You begin by vociferously proclaiming some falsehood. The fact that you proclaimed it in such vociferous and hyperbolic matter achieves two immediate results: it sends all your friends and allies a clear message “you are either with us or against us”, that leaves no room for nuance or analysis, and it gives otherwise rather spineless politicians no way to back down, thus strengthening their “resolve”.
    4. Herding: there is safety in numbers. So when dealing with a potentially dangerous foe, like Russia, all the little guys flock together so as to appear bigger or, at least, harder to single out. Also, when everybody is responsible, nobody is. Thus herding is also politically expedient. Finally, it changed the inter-relational dynamic from one of friends or allies to one typically found among accomplices in a crime.
    5. Direct threats: the Empire got away with making threats left and right for many decades, and this is a habit which is hard to break. The likes of Nikki Haley or Hillary Clinton probably sincerely believe that the US is quasi-omnipotent or, conversely, they might be terrified by the creeping suspicion that it might not. Threats are also an easy, if ineffective, substitute for diplomacy and negotiations, especially when your position is objectively wrong and the other side is simply a lot smarter than you.
    ....
    Continues here with some discussion about Russian societal response: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/a-truly-hi...of-our-planet/

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Here is a useful high level macro view of the history of western civilization. Perhaps not all the analogies and conclusions are accurate but the overarching picture is helpful.

    Quote Western Civilization: The Final Crossroads
    Overview

    What is “Western civilization”? Why might it end soon? What can be done to prevent that?

    ...

    Speaking globally, the West is that part of the world settled by people of European descent. Racially, the original peoples of the West stem from those classified as Indo-European, though people of that race and language family also long ago penetrated into Asia, including Northern India and Persia.

    Over the centuries, Western civilization has incorporated people of other races whose lands the Europeans conquered, such as the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the peoples of Siberia and parts of central Asia taken over by the Russians.

    Some nations of the West transported people as slaves from Africa. All Western nations today also include people who have freely migrated from other parts of the world, such as India, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia. Many of these immigrants have come from countries the Western nations colonized. There have also been vast migrations from Europe to the Americas, including a large Jewish influx from Eastern Europe and Russia.

    Regarding the question of whether the Indo-European conquest of lands occupied by other races was just and fair, we would have to say that it was not. But it is a fait accompli. All parties must now make the best of it.

    ...

    But in spite of the endless variations in local and regional demographics, it yet remains possible to speak of Western civilization as a cultural and geopolitical entity, just as we can speak of an Islamic civilization stretching from Morocco to Indonesia, and a civilization of the East that includes India, Japan, China, and other Asian nations. The predominant religions of the East are Hinduism and its offspring Buddhism. In China, Buddhism melded with a compatible substrate of Confucianism and Taoism.

    Western Culture

    What defines a civilization is not only race but also its shared culture. The principal factor that identifies Western civilization as a unit is the historic prevalence of the Christian religion. Without Christianity, the concept of Western civilization would be meaningless.

    But the West is divided among numerous nation-states that speak diverse languages. Its population includes many who see themselves as atheists, agnostics, or “spiritual but not religious.” Nevertheless, the West is culturally defined by the historic presence stated in the creeds of both Catholic and Protestant sects of “one holy catholic and apostolic church” (all words lower-case).

    In this sense, the actual founders of Western culture are four men who personified the Judeo-Christian faith as expressed in the Old and New Testaments; namely, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and St. Paul. Yes, they were Hebrews/Jews.

    In Biblical parlance, the peoples of the West who adopted Christian teachings were the “Gentiles,” starting with the Greeks and Romans.Western civilization is largely what the Gentiles forged after their conversion to a common faith.

    Of course there are many who reside in Western nations who would dispute these generalizations. But what is described here is true enough and gives us something concrete to work with. History cannot be understood otherwise, including what is happening in the world today.

    No matter what observers believe or disbelieve, the West still lives under laws based on the Ten Commandments and, at its best, ideals rooted in the Sermon on the Mount. From this perspective, the destiny of Western civilization can be analyzed in terms of the tension between the influence of its spiritual mentors and the characteristics of its much older tribal make-up.

    Struggles for Dominance

    The peoples of the West have been fighting each other since they can first be sighted in prehistory.The earliest Indo-European cultures tended to be local or regional, structured tribally, including those of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavs, and the Greeks and Romans. Tribal warfare within, between, and among these groupings was a constant. They all appealed to their tribal gods for victory.

    But around 2,000 years ago, attempts began to be made to consolidate the West under centralized systems of governance, the first being the Roman Empire. Once Christianity took root, the culture of the West became that of the Roman Catholic Church, which by the High Middle Ages exercised its presence throughout much of Europe.

    By the 15th and 16th centuries, today’s nation states had taken shape and had begun to compete for dominance both on the European continent and in the acquisition of colonies, filling a vacuum left by the decline in the power and prestige of the Papacy that resulted in the splitting of the West through the Protestant Reformation. The Wars of Religion that ensued were ghastly in their carnage.

    Russia and parts of Eastern Europe had already split from Catholicism through religious schism, creating the culture of Orthodoxy. Also, for a millennium, Europe fought on its borders against Islam for survival. But with the Reformation thrown in the mix, the glue that held the West together dissipated, leading the most powerful nations—Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Russia, the German principalities, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden—to fight each other in wars of great savagery.

    The areas of Italy and Germany remained disorganized until their unification in the 19th century. Those nations then took part in the prevailing struggles for supremacy and were joined by the U.S., the growing colossus across the Atlantic Ocean that had achieved unification through the American Civil War.

    The political relations among the nations of the West since around 1500 can be fairly described as an almost continuous state of intra-civilizational civil war—with ostensibly Christian nations slaughtering each other’s populations in the millions.World Wars I and II were a phase of an old pattern.

    But due to the rise of science and technology, these wars were unprecedented in their carnage and cruelty. During the modern history of the West, there were never any “good wars.” Rather it was “tribalism on steroids.”

    Today’s Insanity

    Today it seems incredible that given the exponential growth in the power of science to create weapons of mass destruction sufficient to destroy all life on earth many times over, we stand on the brink of yet another phase in the unending saga of war among Western powers, lining up with the U.S. and Western Europe on one side and Russia on the other. We might even see in this division the residue of the Great Schism of a thousand years ago.

    Both sides, of course, are marshaling allies from other parts of the world, with China and Central Asia tending to align with Russia, and the U.S. exerting tenuous control at present over Western Europe, Latin America, and nations on the Asian fringe, such as Japan and South Korea, along with Australian and New Zealand.

    ...
    Continues here with a discussion of the situation today: https://www.globalresearch.ca/wester...sroads/5631494
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    A careful, calm presentation by Kishore Mahbubani, Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He discusses the history of China’s rise, and how the United States’ current behavior will influence the future actions of China.

    Philosophically, he seems to be a “small letter g” globalist but he sees a multipolar world with China ascending. What I think drives his global view is that we are all living on one planet and are interdependent and so need to find ways to get on... this is based on my own interpretation from watching the video.

    This is an interesting presentation; his delivery is MASTERFUL.


    Here is his book, which he mentions in the presentation:

    Quote The twenty-first century has seen a rise in the global middle class that brings an unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values. Kishore Mahbubani is optimistic. We are creating a new global civilization. Eighty-eight percent of the world's population outside the West is rising to Western living standards, and sharing Western aspirations. Yet Mahbubani, one of the most perceptive global commentators, also warns that a new global order needs new policies and attitudes.

    Policymakers all over the world must change their preconceptions and accept that we live in one world. National interests must be balanced with global interests. Power must be shared. The U.S. and Europe must cede some power. China and India, Africa and the Islamic world must be integrated. Mahbubani urges that only through these actions can we create a world that converges benignly. This timely book explains how to move forward and confront many pressing global challenges.
    From here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...at-convergence
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Thierry Meyssan of Voltaire.net has an interesting view and some not so well known details of France’s foreign policy under Macron.

    The summary, given in paragraph three below is:
    1. that France remain in the Atlantist camp, gambling on the US Democrats who, in his opinion, should soon be back in the White House, perhaps even before the elections of 2020.
    2. When the British were leaving the European Union, France confirmed its close alliance with London while maintaining its relationship with Berlin.
    3. The Union had to be recentred on the governance of the Euro.
    4. It would put an end to free exchange with partners who did not respect it, and
    5. would create huge enterprises on the Internet capable of rivalising with those of the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon).
    6. It should also develop a common defence against terrorism.
    7. With its allies, it would engage in the struggle against the Russian influence.
    8. Finally, France would pursue its military action in Sahel and the Levant.

    Quote President Macron’s foreign policy
    by Thierry Meyssan



    When Emmanuel Macron began his campaign for the Presidency of the French Republic, he knew nothing about international relations. His mentor, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the head of the General Inspectorate of Finances (a corps of 300 senior civil servants), made sure he was given an accelerated course of training.

    France’s prestige had been considerably depleted by its two former Presidents, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande. The position of France was now perceived as « inconsistent » due to its absence of priority and its innumerable changes of direction. This was the reason Macron began his mandate by meeting as many heads of state and government as possible, demonstrating that France was repositioning itself as a mediating power, capable of talking to anyone.

    After having shaken hands and distributed dinner invitations, however, he had to give a content to his policy. Jean-Pierre Jouyet [1] proposed that France remain in the Atlantist camp, gambling on the US Democrats who, in his opinion, should soon be back in the White House, perhaps even before the elections of 2020. When the British were leaving the European Union, France confirmed its close alliance with London while maintaining its relationship with Berlin. The Union had to be recentred on the governance of the Euro. It would put an end to free exchange with partners who did not respect it, and would create huge enterprises on the Internet capable of rivalising with those of the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon). It should also develop a common defence against terrorism. With its allies, it would engage in the struggle against the Russian influence. Finally, France would pursue its military action in Sahel and the Levant.

    In September 2017, Jean-Pierre Jouyet was nominated as French ambassador to London. In January 2018, France and the United Kingdom relaunched their diplomatic and military cooperation [2]. Still in January, the two states formed a secret authority, the « Little Group », to reprise the Franco-British colonisation of the Levant [3].

    This policy, which has never been discussed in public, not only ignores the History of France, but also the German demand to play a more important international political role. Indeed, seventy years after its defeat, the fourth economy in the world is still limited to a secondary role [4].

    Concerning the Arab world, President Macron – an ENA alumnus (Ecole Nationale d’Administration) and ex-collaborator with Rothschild & Co - adopted the point of view of his two consultants on the subject. They were the Franco-Tunisian Hakim El Karoui (another ex-Rothschild & Co) for the Maghreb, and ex-ambassador to Damascus Michel Duclos – another ENA alumnus – for the Levant. El Karoui is not a product of Republican integration, but of the transnational haute bourgeoisie. He alternates a Republican attitude on the international plane, with another, communitarian, on the interior. Duclos is an authentic neo-conservative, trained in the USA under George W. Bush by Jean-David Levitte [5].

    El Karoui has still not understood that the Muslim Brotherhood is an instrument of the British MI6, just as Duclos has still not understood that London has not yet digested the Sykes-Picot-Sazonov agreements which caused the loss of half of its empire in the Middle East [6]. Consequently, the two men see no problem with the new « entente cordiale » with Theresa May.

    ...

    Finally, the policy of Emmanuel Macron is almost the same as that of Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, even though, because of the presence of Donald Trump in the White House, it relies more on the United Kingdom than the United States. The Elysée pursues the idea of an economic recovery for its multinationals – not in France but in its erstwhile colonial Empire. These are the same choices as those made by the Socialist Guy Mollet, one of the founders of the Bilderberg Group [11]. In 1956, the President of the French Council allied himself with London and Tel-Aviv in order to conserve France’s shares in the Suez Canal, which had been nationalised by President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Mollet proposed to his British counterpart, Anthony Eden, that France join the Commonwealth and pay allegiance to the Crown, and that the French people adopt the same civil status as the population of Northern Ireland [12]. This project for the abandon of the Republic and the integration of France into the United Kingdom under the authority of Queen Elizabeth II was never discuissed publicly.

    Never mind the ideal of equal rights exposed in 1789 and the rejection of colonialism expressed by the French People when they were faced with the aborted coup d’etat of 1961 [13] – in the eyes of Power, foreign policy has nothing to do with democracy.

    Footnotes:
    [1] “From the Saint-Simon Foundation to Emmanuel Macron” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article197427.html), by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 16 April 2017.

    [2] “The Franco-British « Entente cordiale »” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article199528.html), by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Al-Watan (Syria) , Voltaire Network, 30 January 2018.

    [3] « Syrieleaks : un câble diplomatique britannique dévoile la "stratégie occidentale" » (http://prochetmoyen-orient.ch/), par Richard Labévière, Observatoire géostratégique, Proche&Moyen-Orient.ch, 17 février 2018.

    [4] This is also the case for Japan.

    [5] Jean-David Levitte, alias « Diplomator », was the permanent French representative to the United Nations in New York (2000-02), then ambassador to Washington (2002-07).

    [6] From the British point of view, the Sykes-Picot-Sazonov agreements of 1916 are not a fair sharing of the world between the three empires, but a concession made by the United Kingdom to ensure the support of France and Russia (Triple Alliance) against the German Reich, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy (Triplice).

    [7] “France: seeking old mandate in Syria” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article188957.html), by Sarkis Tsaturyan, Oriental Review (Russia) , Voltaire Network, 6 October 2015. In 1932, France imposed a new flag on mandated Syria. It is composed of three horizontal bands representing the dynasties of the Fatimides (green), the Omeyyades (white) and the Abbasides (black), symbolic of the Chiite Muslims for the first and the Sunnis for the two others. The three red stars represent the three minorities - Christian, Druze and Alaouite. This flag was still in force at the beginning of the Syrian Arab Republic, and returned in 2011 with the Free Syrian Army.

    [8] “Russia and Syria charged by France” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article200028.html), by François Delattre, Voltaire Network, 9 February 2018.

    [9] “The new Russian nuclear arsenal restores world bipolarity” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article199979.html), by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 6 March 2018.

    [10] “Syria’s response to France” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article200029.html), Voltaire Network, 28 February 2018.

    [11] “What you don’t know about the Bilderberg-Group” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article169651.html), by Thierry Meyssan, Komsomolskaïa Pravda (Russia) , Voltaire Network, 9 May 2011.

    [12] “When Britain and France nearly married” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6261885.stm), Mike Thomson, BBC, January 15, 2007. « Frangland? UK documents say France proposed a union with Britain in 1950s : LONDON: Would France have been better off under Queen Elizabeth II? », Associated Press, January 15, 2007. Guy Mollet was not accepting the proposition for a Franco-British Union as it was formulated by Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden in 1940, after the French defeat, to create a provisional fusion of the two nations in order to fight the Nazi Reich. He was in fact inspired, in the context of the Suez crisis and the hope of saving the French Empire, by the proposition of Ernest Bevin, eleven years earlier, to create a third block against the USA and the URSS, by joining the British, French and Dutch empires within the framework of a Western Union. This project was abandoned by London for the benefit of the CECA (ancestor of the European Union) on the economic level, and NATO on the military level.

    [13] In 1961, a military coup d’etat, organised in secret by NATO, attempted to overthrow General-President Charles De Gaulle in order to preserve France’s colonial policy. The French People refused massively to join this movement. « Quand le stay-behind voulait remplacer De Gaulle » (http://www.voltairenet.org/article8701.html), by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 10 September 2001
    From here: http://www.voltairenet.org/article200050.html

    This little piece of info is simply mind bending:
    “Mollet proposed to his British counterpart, Anthony Eden, that France join the Commonwealth and pay allegiance to the Crown, and that the French people adopt the same civil status as the population of Northern Ireland”
    Imagine France being part of the British Commonwealth? Most interesting is that a French person proposed it.

    Even more interesting is that the UK abandoned it in favor of NATO and a precursor organisation of the EU:
    “This project was abandoned by London for the benefit of the CECA (ancestor of the European Union) on the economic level, and NATO on the military level“
    This little snippet of info speaks to the power of symbols, for those who pay attention:
    “In 1932, France imposed a new flag on mandated Syria. It is composed of three horizontal bands representing the dynasties of the Fatimides (green), the Omeyyades (white) and the Abbasides (black), symbolic of the Chiite Muslims for the first and the Sunnis for the two others. The three red stars represent the three minorities - Christian, Druze and Alaouite. This flag was still in force at the beginning of the Syrian Arab Republic, and returned in 2011 with the Free Syrian Army.”
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    So following on from Thierry Meyssan’s article on French foreign policy, here is his view on British foreign policy under Theresa May.

    The summary is in the first paragraph:
    • ”The United Kingdom intends to re-establish its Empire (Global Britain) by
    • ”promoting international free exchange with the help of China [2] and
    • ejecting Russia from international instances with the help of its military allies – the United States, France, Germany, Jordan and Saudi Arabia”

    And again, further down the article, there is the current focus:
    • “the promotion of international free exchange, but exclusively in the thalassocratic context, in other words with the United States against the Chinese communication routes;
    • ”and the attempt to exclude Russia from the Security Council and cut the world in two, which implies the on-going manipulation with chemical weapons in Syria, and the Skripal affair.”

    Quote Theresa May’s Foreign Policy
    by Thierry Meyssan

    Global Britain

    On 13 November last, Theresa May seized the opportunity offered by the Prime Minister’s annual speech at Lord Mayor’s Banquet to give an overview of the new British strategy after the Brexit [1]. The United Kingdom intends to re-establish its Empire (Global Britain) by promoting international free exchange with the help of China [2] and ejecting Russia from international instances with the help of its military allies – the United States, France, Germany, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

    Retrospectively, all the elements we can see today were mentioned in this speech, even if we didn’t immediately understand it at the time.

    Let’s take a step back. In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the Munich Security Conference. He noted that the unipolar world proposed by NATO was by essence anti-democratic, and he called upon the European states to dissociate themselves from this US fantasy [3]. Without responding to this essential comment about the absence of democracy in international relations, NATO denounced Russia’s desire to weaken the cohesion of the Alliance in order to threaten it more easily.

    However, a British expert, Chris Donnelly, has since refined this rhetoric. In order to weaken the West, Russia is allegedly attempting to delegitimise its economic and social system, the foundation for its military power. That would be the hidden motive behind Russian criticism, particularly in the media. Let’s note that Donnelly does not respond any more than did NATO to the essential remark by Vladimir Putin, although why bother debating democracy with an individual who is suspected, a priori, of authoritarianism?

    I believe that Donnelly is correct in his analysis, and that Russia is correct in its objective. Indeed, the United Kingdom and Russia are two diametrically opposite cultures.

    The former [UK] is a class-based society with three levels of nationality fixed by law and mentioned on all identity papers, while the latter – like France – is a Nation created by law, where all citizens are « equal in rights » and where the British distinction between civil rights and political rights is unthinkable [4].

    The aim of social organisation in the United Kingdom is the accumulation of wealth, while in Russia it is the construction of one’s own individual personality. Therefore in the United Kingdom, the ownership of land is massively concentrated in very few hands, unlike Russia, and especially France. It is almost impossible to buy an apartment in London. The best that one can do – as in Dubaï – is to sign a 99-year lease. For many centuries, almost all of the city has belonged to no more than four people. When a British citizen dies, he or she decides freely to whom they will bequeath their heritage, and not necessarily to their children. On the contrary, when a Russian citizen dies, History begins again at zero – his or her property is divided equally between all the children, whatever the wishes of the deceased may have been.

    Yes, Russia is indeed attempting to delegitimise the Anglo-Saxon model, which is all the more easy to do since it is an exception which horrifies the rest of the world as soon as they understand it.

    Let’s return to Theresa May. Two months after her speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, on 22 January 2018, Her Majesty’s Chief of Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, gave a very important speech which was entirely dedicated to the coming war with Russia, based on Donnelly’s theory [5]. Drawing the lessons from the Syrian experience, he described an enemy who possesses new, extremely powerful weaponry. (This was two months before President Putin revealed his new nuclear arsenal [6]). Sir Nick Carter confirmed the necessity of having many more ground troops, of developing the British arsenal, and of preparing for a war in which the images broadcast by the medias would be more important than victory on the ground.

    The day after this shock conference at the Royal United Services Institute (the Defence think tank), the National Security Council announced the creation of a military unit to combat « Russian propaganda » [7].

    How is the British project developing?

    Although the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons has cast doubts on the reality of the Global Britain project [8], several of its points have moved ahead, despite a huge setback.

    It is important to understand that Mrs. May is not attempting to change, but rather to reorganise her country’s policies. Over the last half century, the United Kingdom has been trying to integrate the European structure, progressively losing the advantages inherited from its former Empire. The question now is not to abandon everything that was achieved during this period, but to re-establish the former world hierarchy, in which Her Majesty’s officials and the gentry lived in clubs all over the world, waited on by the local populations.
    • In her journey to China the week following Sir Nick Carter’s speech, Theresa May negotiated several commercial contracts, but entered into political conflict with her hosts. Beijing refused to distance itself from Moscow, and London refused to support the Silk Road project. Free exchange, yes, but not via communication routes controlled by China. Since 1941 and the Atlantic Charter, the United Kingdom shares the charge of the « common spaces » (both maritime and aerial) with the United States. Their two navies are designed to be complementary, even though the US Navy is much more powerful than that of the Admiralty. Thereafter, the Crown activated the government of its Australian dominion in order to reconstitute the Quads, the anti-Chinese group which used to meet during Bush Jr’s mandate [9]. Apart from Australia, this group is composed of Japan, India and the United States.
      Presently the Pentagon is working on ways to create trouble on both the maritime Pacific Silk Road and the land-based Silk Road.
    • The announced military Alliance was constituted in the form of the very secret « Little Group » [10]. Germany was weathering a government crisis at the time and did not participate at first, but it seems that this late start was rectified at the beginning of March. All the members of this conspiracy coordinated their actions in Syria. Despite their efforts, they failed three times to organise a false-flag chemical attack in Western Ghouta, since the Syrian and Russian armies had seized their laboratories in Aftris and Chifonya [11]. However, they did manage to publish a common anti-Russian statement concerning the Skripal affair [12] and to mobilise both NATO [13] and the European Union against Russia [14].

    How might this situation evolve?

    It is obviously strange to see both France and Germany support a project which was specifically designed against them: Global Britain, insofar as the Brexit is not a retreat from the federal bureaucracy of the European Union, but an act of rivalry.

    In any case, Global Britain today may be defined as follows :
    • the promotion of international free exchange, but exclusively in the thalassocratic context, in other words with the United States against the Chinese communication routes;
    • and the attempt to exclude Russia from the Security Council and cut the world in two, which implies the on-going manipulation with chemical weapons in Syria, and the Skripal affair.

    We may anticipate several incidental consequences of this programme:
    • The current crisis is a reshuffle of the elements from the end of Obama’s mandate, except that London is now at the centre of the game rather than Washington. The United Kingdom, which can now no longer count on the support of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, will turn to the new US National Security Advisor, John Bolton [15]. Contrary to the allegations of the US Press, Bolton is absolutely not a neo-conservative, but a close friend of Steve Bannon. He refuses the idea that his country could be submitted to international law, and howls at Communists and Muslims, but in reality he has no intention of launching any new wars, and desires only to live at peace in his own home. He will not fail to sign all the declarations proposed to him against Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea. London will be unable to manipulate him to exclude Moscow from the Security Council, because his personal objective is not to reform the UNO, but to get rid of it altogether. He will however be a faithful ally concerning the the conservation of the « common spaces » and the opposition to the Chinese « Silk Road », particularly since he was the initiator of the Proliferation Security Initiative – PSI in 2003. We should therefore begin to notice the outbreak, here and there, along the traces of the Chinese routes, of new pseudo civil wars nourished by the Anglo-Saxons.
    • Saudi Arabia is preparing the creation of the « Neom », a new fiscal paradise in the Sinaï and the Red Sea. It should replace Beyrouth and Dubaï, but not Tel-Aviv. London will connect it with the Crown’s different fiscal paradises – including the City of London, which is not English, but depends directly from Queen Elisabeth – in order to guarantee the opacity of international commerce.
    • The multitude of jihadist organisations which flows out of the Levant is still controlled by MI6, via the Muslim Brotherhood and the Order of the Naqshbandis. These troops may well be redeployed for use, mainly against Russia – and not against China or in the Caribbean, which is the option currently being studied.

    After the Second World War, we were witness to the decolonisation of the European empires, and then, after the Vietnam war, we saw the financialisation of the world economy by the Anglo-Saxons, and finally, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we saw the solitary attempt at world domination by the United States. Today, with the powerful rise of modern Russia and China, the fantasy of a culturally globalised world governed in unipolar fashion is fading away, while the Western powers – and particularly the United Kingdom – are falling back on their own imperial dreams. Of course, the high level of current education in the old colonies is forcing them to rethink their models of domination.

    Footnotes:
    [1] “Theresa May speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet 2017” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article198816.html), by Theresa May, Voltaire Network, 13 November 2017.

    [2] By doing so, Mrs. May confirms the prognosis I published just after the Brexit, sixteen months earlier : “The new British Foreign Policy” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article192722.html), by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 4 July 2016. However, as I shall explain in the follow-up to this article, this vision was quickly confronted by the Russo-Chinese alliance.

    [3] “The unipolar governance is illegal and immoral” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article145357.html), by Vladimir Putin, Voltaire Network, 11 February 2007.

    [4] This is a fundamental question which was debated in depth by Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. It is is this irreconcilable difference that opposes the Anglo-Saxon concept of Human Rights (defined by the Declaration of Mary II of England in 1689) and the resulting system of parliamentary monarchy, on the one hand, and on the other, the French concept of Human Rights (defined by the Declaration of the National Constituent Assembly of 1789) which put an end to the three orders of the Ancien Régime.

    [5] “Dynamic Security Threats and the British Army” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article199481.html), by General Sir Nick Carter, Voltaire Network, 22 January 2018.

    [6] “Vladimir Putin Address to the Russian Federal Assembly” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article199947.html), by Vladimir Putin, Voltaire Network, 1 March 2018.

    [7] “British army to create a unit against Russian propaganda” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article199602.html), Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 6 February 2018.

    [8] “Global Britain inquiry” (https://www.parliament.uk/business/c...britain-17-19/), Foreign Affairs Committee, UK House of Commons.

    [9] “Stealing China’s thunder: the Quads’ counter project to the Silk route” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article199825.html), Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 23 February 2018.

    [10] « Syrieleaks : un câble diplomatique britannique dévoile la "stratégie occidentale" » (http://prochetmoyen-orient.ch/syriel...e-occidentale/), par Richard Labévière, Observatoire géostratégique, Proche&Moyen-Orient.ch, 17 février 2018.

    [11] “Discovered: two laboratories of chemical weapons of “moderate” Syrian rebels” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article200141.html), Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 16 March 2018.

    [12] “Salisbury attack: Joint statement from the leaders of France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article200132.html), Voltaire Network, 15 March 2018.

    [13] “Statement by the North Atlantic Council on the use of a nerve agent in Salisbury” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article200284.html), Voltaire Network, 14 March 2018.

    [14] “European Council conclusions on the Salisbury attack” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article200330.html), Voltaire Network, 22 March 2018.

    [15] “John Bolton and Disarmament through War” (http://www.voltairenet.org/article30092.html), Voltaire Network, 30 November 2004
    From here: http://www.voltairenet.org/article200375.html

    What is thalassocratic? From Wikipedia:
    Quote A thalassocracy (from Classical Greek θάλασσα (thalassa), meaning "sea", and κρατεῖν (kratein), meaning "power", giving Koine Greek θαλασσοκρατία (thalassokratia), "sea power") is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea (such as the Phoenician network of merchant cities) or a seaborne empire.[1] Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories: Phoenician Tyre, Sidon and Carthage or Srivijaya and Majapahit in Southeast Asia. One can distinguish this traditional sense of thalassocracy from an "empire", where the state's territories, though possibly linked principally or solely by the sea lanes, generally extend into mainland interiors: the Bruneian Empire (1368–1888) in Asia.[2][3] Compare to tellurocracy "land-based hegemony".[4]

    The term thalassocracy can also simply refer to naval supremacy, in either military or commercial senses of the word supremacy. The Ancient Greeks first used the word thalassocracy to describe the government of the Minoan civilization, whose power depended on its navy.[5] Herodotus distinguishes sea-power from land-power and spoke of the need to counter the Phoenician thalassocracy by developing a Greek "empire of the sea". [6]
    From here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy

    To me, this statement about the role of propaganda is very significant:
    Quote preparing for a war in which the images broadcast by the medias would be more important than victory on the ground
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    What a wealth of information you give us!!! Thank You!

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    This is an interesting development.... the Saudi crown prince has “outed” the US and its allies as being the instigators behind the drive to spread Wahhabism.... and gives the reason as being a strategy to counter the spread of soviet influence during the Cold War.

    Of course, this has not received much attention in the western media but it is interesting.

    I read this as:
    • A limited hangout - giving a little of the truth but leaving out much
    • A “test” to see how various parties, particularly in the West might respond
    • An attempt to begin changing the narrative on Saudi Arabia from “medieval fanatical promoter of Islam” to something more mild
    • Possibly a nod to / favour to Russia in some way
    • In the article and analysis below, Adam Garrie (Middle East commentator and journalist) ties this to a gradual shift towards China

    I also wonder if this release was agreed with Trump during the recent visit.... interesting all round!

    Here is the coverage of this from RT:

    Quote Spread of Wahhabism was done at request of West during Cold War – Saudi crown prince
    Published time: 28 Mar, 2018 11:58 Edited time: 30 Mar, 2018 11:50

    Spread of Wahhabism was done at request of West during Cold War – Saudi crown prince

    The Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism began as a result of Western countries asking Riyadh to help counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Washington Post.

    Speaking to the paper, bin Salman said that Saudi Arabia's Western allies urged the country to invest in mosques and madrassas overseas during the Cold War, in an effort to prevent encroachment in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.

    He added that successive Saudi governments had lost track of that effort, saying "we have to get it all back." Bin Salman also said that funding now comes mostly from Saudi-based "foundations," rather than from the government.

    ...
    From here: https://www.rt.com/news/422563-saudi...ern-countries/

    And here, reporting and analysis from Adam Garrie on Eurasia Future:
    Quote Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman Blames America for Spread of Wahhabism as Petroyuan Beckons
    Written by Adam Garrie on 2018-03-28

    In a sensational interview with the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.e9f4861e06b5), Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de-facto leader Muhammad bin Salman has blamed the US and its allies for putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to export the extremist Wahhabi ideology during the Cold War as a means to counter the influence of the Soviet Union in the wider Muslim world.

    Slaman’s statement is unequivocally true as the US constantly worked to prop up monarchical regimes in the Arab world at the expense of secular Arab Nationalist governments whose style of government and geo-political struggle for post-colonial liberation automatically drew them closer to the USSR. In Asia, during the Soviet intervention on behalf of the legitimate Afghan government in the 1980s, the United States collaborated with Riyadh to fund and arm the Mujahideen which ultimately mutated into Al-Qaeda.

    Saudi Arabia continues to be accused of funding terrorist groups throughout the Middle East who practice Takfiri extremism that is related to Wahhabism. Now though, Muhammad bin Salman has shifted the blame back to the United States, implying that it was a mistake for Riyadh to aid the US in the spreading of a Wahhabism. This statement is somewhat ironic given the fact that Wahhabism remains the official ideology of Saudi Arabia, but it does show that at minimum, Muhammad bin Salman is deeply concerned with changing the soft power perception of Saudi Arabia in the wider world, while on the other end of the spectrum, the statements indicate that he seeks to weaken the power of Wahhabi clerics who continue to be the biggest obstacle in the way of his consolidation of power.

    According to the Washington Post, Muhammad bin Salman stated that today, Saudi Arabia does not fund the spread of Wahhabism abroad but instead such efforts are being done by “Saudi based foundations” with no ties to the state.

    In reality, Muhammad bin Salman does not seem to be a committed ideologue in any sense, although his youth and cosmopolitan demeanour would indicate that he is certainly not a reactionary in terms of his habits. In reality, Muhammad bin Salman is keen to weaken the power of Saudi clerics for his own political benefit as his ambitious Vision 2030 reforms designed to diversify the Saudi economy stand in the way of clerics whose hold on power largely relies on Saudi Arabia being a one-dimensional petro-economy whose wealth far excesses its output in other fields, including the sciences and entrepreneurialism.

    What’s even more interesting about the Crown Prince’s statements is that he is openly condemning the US for fomenting the spread of Wahhabism during an interview with one of America’s largest media outlets. On the one hand, one could rationalise this as part of Muhammad bin Salman’s drive to win over a wider American public whose perception of Saudi Arabia remains far more negative than that among ruling US political and corporate elites. Indeed, when running for President, Donald Trump himself blamed previous US leaders for helping Saudi Arabia to export extremism and terrorism and thus, one could see the interview as a kind of “Muhammad bin Trump” moment that contrasts with previous Saudi officials and their close relationship with Trump’s bitter domestic rivals including the Clinton and Bush clans. But in the longer term, Muhammad bin Salman is sending a message that under his rule, Saudi Arabia will not have the kind of admittedly slavish relationship it had with the US during the Cold War.

    It is no coincidence that these statements from the Crown Prince come days after the official launch of China’s Petroyuan. As every historical trend indicates, the world’s most powerful economy dictates which currency will be used in most international transactions. This continues to be the case with the US in respect of Dollar, but as China gets set to fully overtake the US as the world’s leading economy, the Dollar will inevitably be replaced by the Yuan.

    China’s issuing of oil futures contracts in Petroyuan is the clearest indication yet that China is keen to make its presence as the world’s largest energy consumer known and that it would clearly prefer to purchase oil from countries like Saudi Arabia in its own currency in the future, quite possibly in the near future.

    Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince appears to understand this trajectory in the global energy markets and furthermore, he realises that in order to be able to leverage the tremendous amount of US pressure that will come down on Riaydh in order to force Saudi Arabia to avoid the Petroyuan, Riyadh will need to embrace other potential partners, including China.

    More than anything else, the Petroyuan will have an ability to transform Saudi Arabia by limiting its negative international characteristics that Muhammad bin Salman himself described. As a pseudo-satellite state of the US during the Cold War, Muhammad bin Salman admitted that his country’s relationship to the US was that of subservience. China does not make geopolitical demands of its partners, but China is nevertheless keen to foster de-escalations in tensions among all its partners based on the win-win principles of peace through prosperity as articulated on a regular basis by President Xi Jinping.

    Thus one could see China’s policies of political non-interference rub off on a potential future Saudi partner, in the inverse way that the US policies of ultra-interventionism are often forced upon its partners. Thus, whatever ideological views Muhammad bin Salman does or does not have, he clearly knows where the wind is blowing: in the direction of China.
    From here: http://www.eurasiafuture.com/2018/03...oyuan-beckons/
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Recently, there have been a few thoughtful articles and analyses on the decline / demise of liberalism and, associated with this, the Western World.

    Here are two such articles; I’ll add others as I come across them.

    First, from the Oriental Review, more of a geopolitical analysis:
    Quote The Death Of The Liberal World Order
    Written by Leonid SAVIN on 29/03/2018

    A few days ago the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, published an article, titled “Liberal World Order, R.I.P.” (https://www.cfr.org/article/liberal-...nbWFpbC5jb20S1). In it, he states that the current threat to the liberal world order is coming not from rogue states, totalitarian regimes, religious fanatics, or obscurantist governments (special terms used by liberals when referring to other nations and countries that have not pursued the Western capitalist path of development), but from its primary architect — the United States of America.

    Haass writes: “Liberalism is in retreat. Democracies are feeling the effects of growing populism. Parties of the political extremes have gained ground in Europe. The vote in the United Kingdom in favor of leaving the EU attested to the loss of elite influence. Even the US is experiencing unprecedented attacks from its own president on the country’s media, courts, and law-enforcement institutions. Authoritarian systems, including China, Russia, and Turkey, have become even more top-heavy. Countries such as Hungary and Poland seem uninterested in the fate of their young democracies…

    “We are seeing the emergence of regional orders. Attempts to build global frameworks are failing.”

    ...

    But Haas is crestfallen over the fact that it is Washington itself that is changing the rules of the game and seems completely uninterested in what its allies, partners, and clients in various corners of the world will do.

    America’s decision to abandon the role it has played for more than seven decades thus marks a turning point. The liberal world order cannot survive on its own, because others lack either the interest or the means to sustain it. The result will be a world that is less free, less prosperous, and less peaceful, for Americans and others alike.”

    Richard Haas’s colleague at the CFR, Stewart Patrick, quite agrees with the claim that it is the US itself that is burying the liberal world order (http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018...seone_today_nl). However, it’s not doing it on its own, but alongside China. If the US had previously been hoping that the process of globalization would gradually transform China (and possibly destroy it, as happened to the Soviet Union earlier), then the Americans must have been quite surprised by how it has actually played out. That country modernized without being Westernized, an idea that had once been endorsed by the leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.

    Now China is expanding its influence in Eurasia in its own way, and this is for the most part welcomed by its partner countries.

    But this has been a painful process for the US, as it is steadily and irrevocably undermining its hegemony.

    ...

    The United States, for its part, is a weary titan, no longer willing to bear the burdens of global leadership, either economically or geopolitically. Trump treats alliances as a protection racket, and the world economy as an arena of zero-sum competition. The result is a fraying liberal international order without a champion willing to invest in the system itself.”

    One can agree with both authors’ assessments of the changed behavior of one sector of the US establishment, but this is about more than just Donald Trump ... and North American populism. One needs to look much deeper.

    In his book, Nation of Devils: Democratic Leadership and the Problem of Obedience (https://www.amazon.com/Nation-Devils.../dp/030019319X), Stein Ringen, a Norwegian statesman with a history of service in international institutions, notes: “Today, American democratic exceptionalism is defined by a system that is dysfunctional in all the conditions that are needed for settlement and loyalty … Capitalism has collapsed into crisis in an orgy of deregulation. Money is transgressing into politics and undermining democracy itself.” And, quoting his colleague Archon Fung from the Harvard Kennedy School, “American politics is no longer characterized by the rule of the median voter, if it ever was. Instead, in contemporary America the median capitalist rules as both the Democratic and Republican parties adjust their policies to attract monied interests.” And finally Mr. Ringen adds, “American politicians are aware of having sunk into a murky bog of moral corruption but are trapped.”

    ...
    From and continues here: https://orientalreview.org/2018/03/2...l-world-order/

    And here, from John Gray in the Times Literary Supplement, a more philosophical analysis, which he ties to cultural and societal trends:
    Quote The problem of hyper-liberalism

    For liberals the recent transformation of universities into institutions devoted to the eradication of thought crime must seem paradoxical. In the past higher education was avowedly shaped by an ideal of unfettered inquiry. Varieties of social democrats and conservatives, liberals and Marxists taught and researched alongside scholars with no strong political views. Academic disciplines cherished their orthodoxies, and dissenters could face difficulties in being heard. But visiting lecturers were rarely dis­invited because their views were deemed unspeakable, course readings were not routinely screened in case they contained material that students might find discomforting, and faculty members who departed from the prevailing consensus did not face attempts to silence them or terminate their careers. An inquisitorial culture had not yet taken over.

    It would be easy to say that liberalism has now been abandoned. Practices of toleration that used to be seen as essential to freedom are being deconstructed and dismissed as structures of repression, and any ideas or beliefs that stand in the way of this process banned from public discourse. Judged by old-fashioned standards, this is the opposite of what liberals have stood for. But what has happened in higher education is not that liberalism has been supplanted by some other ruling philos­ophy. Instead, a hyper-liberal ideology has developed that aims to purge society of any trace of other views of the world. If a regime of censorship prevails in universities, it is because they have become vehicles for this project. When students from China study in Western countries one of the lessons they learn is that the enforcement of intellectual orthodoxy does not require an authoritarian gov­ernment. In institutions that proclaim their commitment to critical inquiry, censorship is most effective when it is self-imposed. A defining feature of tyranny, the policing of opinion is now established practice in societies that believe themselves to be freer than they have ever been.

    A shift to hyper-liberalism has also occurred in politics. In Britain some have described the ascendancy of Jeremy Corbyn as the capture of the Labour Party by a Trotskyite brand of Marxism. No doubt some factions in the party hark back to the hard-left groups that fought for control of Labour in the 1970s and 80s in their rhetoric, methods and policies. But there is not much in the ideology animating Corbynite Labour that is recognizably Marxist. In Marx, the historical agent of progress in capitalist societies is the industrial working class. But for many who have joined the mass party that Corbyn has constructed, the surviving remnants of this class can only be obstacles to progress. With their attachment to national identity and anxieties about immigration, these residues of the past stand in the way of a world without communal boundaries and inherited group identities – a vision that, more than socialism or concern for the worst-off, animates this new party. It is a prospect that attracts sections of the middle classes – not least graduate millennials, who through Corbyn’s promise to abolish student fees could be major beneficiaries of his policies – that regard themselves as the most progressive elements in society. But there are some telling differ­ences between these hyper-liberals and the progressives of the past.

    ...

    Many who believe liberalism is in crisis have identified the underlying causes as being primarily economic in nature. With some caveats, this is the view of Edward Luce in one of the better recent books on the subject, The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017). If the West cannot keep up with the economic and technological advance of China, and distribute the fruits of economic growth more widely, Luce asks, how can it maintain its claim to superiority? In this view, the populist upheavals that have shaken Western countries are clearly a backlash from those who have been excluded from the benefits of an expanding global market.

    ...

    Liberals who rail at populist movements are adamant that voters who support them are deluded or deceived. The possibility that these movements are exploiting needs that highly individualist societies cannot satisfy is not seriously considered. In the liberalism that has prevailed over the past generation such needs have been dismissed as atavistic prejudices, which must be swept away wherever they stand in the way of schemes for transnational government or an expanding global market. This stance is one reason why anti-liberal movements continue to advance. Liberalism and empiricism have parted company, and nothing has been learnt. Some of the strongest evidence against the liberal belief that we learn from our errors and follies comes from the behaviour of liberals themselves.

    ...

    While liberals have been ready to acknowledge that totalitarian movements have functioned as corrupt religions, they resist any claim that the same has been true in their own case. Yet an evangelical faith was manifestly part of the wars launched by the West in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. No doubt these wars served geopolitical strategies, however poorly thought out and badly executed, but underpinning them was an article of faith: that slowly, fitfully and with many relapses, humankind was evolving towards a worldwide society based on liberal values. Existing humans might vary greatly in their devotion to these values; some might be bitterly hostile to them. But this was only a result of having been repressed for so long. Sweep away the tyrants and their regimes, and a new humanity would emerge from the ruins. And when it failed to materialize, it was only because there had been insufficient preparation for its arrival.

    The true lesson of these wars was quite different. While intervention may be justified in order to prevent the worst crimes against humanity – a genocidal assault on the Yezidis, for example – the freedoms of thought and expression that have existed in some societies in the past few centuries cannot be transplanted at will throughout the world. Late growths of Judaism and Christianity, these liberties are products of a particular pattern of historical development. At present, they are being discarded in the societies where they originated. The idea that the world is gradually moving towards a universal civilization based on old-fashioned liberal values is as fanciful as Comte’s notion that altruism emanates from a bump on the head.

    ...

    Hyper-liberals will reject any idea that what they are promoting is an exorbitant version of the liberalism they incessantly attack. Yet the belief persists that a new society will appear once we have been stripped of our historic identities, and switched to a system in which all are deemed different and yet somehow the same. In this view, all identities are equal in being cultural constructions. In practice some identities are more equal than others. Those of practitioners of historic nationalities and religions, for example, are marked out for deconstruction, while those of ethnic and sexual minorities that have been or are being oppressed are valorized. How this distinction can be maintained is unclear. If human values are no more than social constructions, how can a society that is oppressive be distinguished from one that is not? Or do all societies repress an untrammelled human subject that has yet to see the light of day?

    The politics of identity is a postmodern twist on the liberal religion of humanity. The Supreme Being has become an unknown God – a species of human being nowhere encountered in history, which does not need to define itself through family or community, nationality or any religion. Parallels with the new humanity envisioned by the Bolsheviks are obvious. ...

    ...

    Liberals who are dismayed at the rise of the new intolerance have not noticed how much they have in common with those who are imposing it. Hyper-liberal “snowflakes”, who demand safe spaces where they cannot be troubled by disturbing facts and ideas, are what their elders have made them. Possessed by faith in an imaginary humanity, both seek to weaken or destroy the national and religious traditions that have supported freedom and toleration in the past. Insignificant in itself and often comically absurd, the current spate of campus frenzies may come to be remembered for the part it played in the undoing of what is still described as the liberal West.
    From here: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/p...alism-liberty/

    I recommend reading this article in its full form not just the bits pasted here; it’s arguments are nuanced and lose something in the hatchet job I’ve done to include just parts here.

    ==========

    So we have two views of declining liberalism. One sees this mostly as a matter of geopolitical shifts, which I would say is descriptive but only symptomatic. The other, plunged into the deeper, more complex world of society, culture and its philosophical roots... this I think starts to address what is really happening.
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Quote Posted by Searcher (here)
    This is an interesting development.... the Saudi crown prince has “outed” the US and its allies as being the instigators behind the drive to spread Wahhabism.... and gives the reason as being a strategy to counter the spread of soviet influence during the Cold War.

    Of course, this has not received much attention in the western media but it is interesting.

    I read this as:
    • A limited hangout - giving a little of the truth but leaving out much
    • A “test” to see how various parties, particularly in the West might respond
    • An attempt to begin changing the narrative on Saudi Arabia from “medieval fanatical promoter of Islam” to something more mild
    • Possibly a nod to / favour to Russia in some way
    • In the article and analysis below, Adam Garrie (Middle East commentator and journalist) ties this to a gradual shift towards China

    I also wonder if this release was agreed with Trump during the recent visit.... interesting all round!
    Most interesting - thanks!

    I read this as:
    • Another part of throwing the Bush-Clinton-Rockefeller-Wahabi crime syndicate and terrorist network under the bus.
    As soon as it was reported, some months ago now, that this same young Prince Muhammad bin Salman had locked other major powerful Saud's in a hotel prison for a while, I began to suspect that this was part of this global clean up operation.

    Similar work is being done with North Korea now, which had become a Bush drug profit center and an ever handy opportunity to raise nuclear war tensions, with nuclear and communication technology provided by the Bush-Clinton-Wahabi crime syndicate and terrorist network, including critical "secure" comm tech provided by Google (one of the participants in this crime syndicate.) That is now being cleaned up, with the negotiations between Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, which may lead to denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, reuniting North and South Korea, and the removal of most of the US military forces in South Korea.

    The recent arrest of Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy on corruption charges is another aspect of this.

    Many related cleanup efforts are occurring in the US as well.

    There seems to be a world-wide consensus that the time has come to end the Bush-Clinton-Rockefeller-Wahabi terrorist, Satanist, organ harvesting, drug dealing, massively fraudulent, death dealing, ... crime syndicate. It's the retirement of the "exceptional, imperial, American Empire." (P.S. -- Or, in the words of Haas in one of your quotes, we're observing the Death of the "Liberal World Order", which is being driven by its leader the US and by the up and coming China.

    This is closely tied with the death of the Petro-Dollar as the world's "Reserve Currency", and with the technocracy wet dream of a world wide, intelligent digital web, connecting, tracking, and intimately entangled with all human activity.

    This, in its entirety, is Huuuge (as Trump would say in his New York accent)!
    Last edited by ThePythonicCow; 31st March 2018 at 07:59.
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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Thanks @Paul.

    Yes, I agree an international “changing of the guard” is definitely the over-arching frame for this move.

    Clearly the old players in Saudi have been / are being replaced, coerced to support, or otherwise eliminated by the crown prince MBS and the faction he represents. And this is most definitely supported by some or all of the powers behind Trump - it would simply not succeed without this kind of support given all the machinations of the spy and secret service types who do their “dastardly deeds” here in the Middle East.

    And this alliance of interests is most definitely anti Clinton-Bush-et al....

    As you say, the financial/money shift is also part of this changing of the guard.

    What I wonder is, who are the new “guard”? President Xi? Or are there others “waiting in the wings”?
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    So some interesting news related to the geopolitical plays in Syria:
    • Trump says something along the lines of “we will be out of Syria soon; we’ll leave it for others to sort out”

      Widely reported, some examples:

      Quote Trump tells advisers he wants U.S. out of Syria: senior officials
      Steve Holland

      WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has told advisers he wants an early exit of U.S. troops from Syria, two senior administration officials said on Friday, a stance that may put him at odds with U.S. military officials who see the fight against Islamic State as nowhere near complete.
      ...
      From here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1H61J0

      Quote Trump says the US is leaving Syria 'very soon': 'Let the other people take care of it'
      by Steven Nelson and Jamie McIntyre | March 29, 2018 03:05 PM

      President Trump said Thursday the U.S. would leave Syria "very soon" and "let the other people take care of it."

      Trump made the announcement in an Ohio speech pushing spending on domestic infrastructure, and after heralding the Islamic State group's near-defeat.

      ...
      From here:https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...ake-care-of-it

    • Macron is reported to say he is sending military forces to Syria... to support the Kurds

      Quote French Special Forces to be deployed in Manbij very quickly: Macron to Syrian Kurdistan delegation

      ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday vowed to send troops to Syria in support of the US-led coalition to block any further advance by Turkey who has promised to continue its military offensive east of Afrin.

      In a meeting with Kurdish and Arab representatives in Syria, Macron expressed his country's readiness to send French troops to support the US-led Coalition in Syria, which includes the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), Paris-based news magazine Marianne said.
      ...
      From here: http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/0...9-e8509777de46

      Quote France Deploys Military Forces to Assist Kurdish Militants in Manbij - Reports

      According to Le Parisien, the upcoming deployment is being coordinated with Washington. Reuters reported earlier that the Kurdish official based in Paris has confirmed Macron's promise to support the fight against Daesh and against Turkey's offensive.

      Meanwhile, operation 'Inherent Resolve' spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told Sputnik last week that the US-led Coalition in Iraq and Syria was unaware of any understanding either agreement reached between the United States and Turkey on the Syrian town of Manbij.
      ...
      From here: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2...ces-assitance/

    • Turkey lashes out and condemns this move from France, making a veiled threat

      Quote Turkey's Erdogan says France 'completely wrong' on Syria

      ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday France had taken the wrong approach towards Syria, after French President Emmanuel Macron promised a Kurdish-dominated force that Paris would help stabilise the northeast of the country.

      “We are deeply saddened by the completely wrong approach shown by France, which we hope is a result of misperceptions,” Erdogan said.
      From here: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mi...-idUKKBN1H60TQ

      Quote Turkey says France could become 'target' for backing Syria Kurds

      ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey said on Friday that a French pledge to help stabilize a region of northern Syria controlled by Kurdish-dominated forces amounted to support for terrorism and could make France a "target of Turkey".

      French backing for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, has angered Ankara at a time when it is fighting the YPG in northern Syria and considers it a terrorist organization.

      ...
      From here: https://www.yahoo.com/news/erdogan-s...073548754.html

      * It’s relevant to note here that France and Turkey are supposedly allies, as both are in the NATO alliance.... this might be an indication of how functional the alliance really is - i.e. under strain and perhaps not so functional.

    • A ”French official” now says that France is not sending troops

      Quote France will not send troops to Manbij
      VOP EditorMarch 31, 2018

      File Al Jazeera
      SYRIA (VOP TODAY NEWS) – On the basis of sharp criticism from the Ankara authorities, Paris has backed down; a French state official has just announced that Paris no longer plans to send soldiers to Manbij.

      According to the Iranian news agency Fars News, a French official told the Anadolu news agency that his country did not intend to carry out a military operation in Syria and that he would not send soldiers there.

      The French magazine Marianne reported on Thursday, March 29, that President Emmanuel Macron was determined to face the Turkish operation “Olive Branch” underway in northern Syria and had promised to send troops to Manbij to “support the Syrian Kurds”.

      But it seems that the virulent and threatening statements of the Turkish authorities have forced Paris to reverse its decision and backtrack.

      “France does not intend to act militarily in northern Syria outside the framework of the international coalition,” said the Elysée on 30 March, quoted by AFP.
      ...
      From here: https://voiceofpeopletoday.com/franc...troops-manbij/


    Did “the other guy blink” or was this always some kind of PR propaganda play for the masses?


    A couple of interesting points as context:
    • Syria used to be a part of the Ottoman Empire and after its fall in the First World War, it was (along with Lebanon) under a French Mandate, effectively a quasi French colony

      Quote The Middle East, as we know it from today's headlines, emerged from decisions made by the Allies during and after the First World War. Great Britain and France transformed what had been relatively quiet provinces of the Ottoman Empire into some of the least stable and internationally explosive states in the world. As a consequence, the First World War agreements are at the very heart of the current conflicts and politics in the Middle East. The partition lines in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire originally laid down the terms of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement in April-May 1916. The agreement gave Mesopotamia (Iraq), the Gulf and the regions bordering Palestine to Great Britain, and Syria and most of the eastern part of the region to France. Britain's interest in the provinces focused on safeguarding the route to India, securing cheap and accessible oil for the Empire's needs, maintaining the balance of power in the Mediterranean to its advantage, and protecting its financial concerns. France hoped to preserve her centuries-old ties with the Syrian Catholics, gain a strategic and economic base in the eastern Mediterranean, ensure a cheap supply of cotton and silk and prevent Arab nationalism from infecting her North African empire.

      ....
      From an article in the Middle East Policy Council journal, here: http://www.mepc.org/troubles-syria-s...ivide-and-rule

    • One of the bases where the US forces were/are is a former French LaFarge factory. And it seems as though there are some dirty dealings here, including “fingering” LaFarge as a sponsor of Daesh. I sense some secret service misdirection here:

      Quote Behind The Lafarge Case Of Sponsoring Daesh In Syria
      Written by ORIENTAL REVIEW on 02/03/2018

      The investigation into the high-profile case of whether the French company Lafarge has been sponsoring terrorist organizations in Syria may soon take a new, unexpected turn. You have probably heard about the investigation (https://www.asso-sherpa.org/french-c...anity-in-syria) launched by the French courts in 2017 into charges filed by the local employees of a cement factory owned by the French company Lafarge who were targeted by militants (the plant was located in the Tell Abyad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Abyad_District) district of the Syrian province of Raqqa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raqqa_Governorate), 14 miles from the Syrian-Turkish border, its geographical coordinates: 36°32’42.0″N 38°35’06.0″E, see map).

      ...

      And the fact that throughout the duration of the entire Syrian conflict, with the exception of a short interval between September 2014 and April 2015, the plant was under the control of the Kurdish militia, renders the official story (https://www.sott.net/article/371155-...rights-lawyers) — that from 2011-2014 Lafarge paid Daesh $15.2 million to ensure the safety of its facility — meaningless.

      ...

      Satellite images of the site of the Lafarge factory, which were posted (https://www.terraserver.com/view?utf...&bbox=&center=) on terraserver.com in mid-2016, shed some light on the truth of what really happened, as they clearly show US Air Force combat and transport helicopters there:



      At that time many alternative media outlets were publishing (http://www.presstv.com/DetailFr/2016...se-US-en-Syrie) claims that a special-ops base had been constructed there by the coalition fighting against Daesh. There is no reliable information about exactly when this base was established, but it is known (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014.../syri-o21.html) that the US began providing logistical and military support to the Kurdish forces near the town of Kobani (the Kurdish administrative center closest to the factory, near the Turkish border) no earlier than mid-2014.

      ...
      From here: https://orientalreview.org/2018/03/0...g-daesh-syria/

      So when Tump says “leave it to others” does he mean the US should hand this cement factory base over to France.... among other similar “installations”?


    What is most interesting here is the intertwining of security services and multinational firms. I think it is beyond time to see that security services are not really instruments of the state, but are rather instruments of alliances of corporate and family wealth.

    Whose corporate and family wealth is threatened by a whole, functioning Syria?
    Answer: Murdoch and Rothschild with their investments in Genie
    Quote Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild 71
    21 Feb, 2013 in Uncategorized by craig
    Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy. Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild...
    From here: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...nd-rothschild/

    Probably there are others....
    Last edited by Cara; 1st April 2018 at 10:01.
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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Quote Posted by Searcher (here)
    As you say, the financial/money shift is also part of this changing of the guard.

    What I wonder is, who are the new “guard”? President Xi? Or are there others “waiting in the wings”?
    • Is the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative funded by sovereign issued money, or by bank issued debt ?
    • How does debt based money resemble golden handcuffs?
    • Who said: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!"
    • How do our overlords use the central and large international banks to issue (lend) and control money and debt?
    • How does that debt based money control our world's economic, monetary, financial, social, legal and political based systems?
    • How does this resemble a feudal tyranny?
    • Does it matter who "guards" the castle, or even who sits on the throne, if the system remains a feudal tyranny?
    • Can bloody feuds and wars between the knights and kings of various realms be used to dramatize and obfuscate changes to the underlying propaganda, wealth extraction, control, and surveillance systems?
    • Are the films "Renaissance 2.0" and "Princes of the Yen" still relevant today?
    • Is a monetary system relying on gold and silver coins in the common person's pocket the same as using Central Bank vaulted gold and silver to revaluate debt-based money and securities higher?
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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Back in 2010, Damon Vrabel (who created one of the two films I mention in my previous post, above) posted what may be the clearest statement I've seen yet as to "who is really in charge".

    In this article on Global Empire and the International Banking Cartel, Vrabel wrote:
    Quote The [big dealer banks that trade with the Federal Reserve] operate within a larger framework. They do not strategically rule over the framework itself. The ultimate rulers are the most senior private capital pools in the world who use the dealers as capital laundering machines and who create their desired framework through the central banks, IMF, BIS, and political institutions like the European Union and G20.
    Last edited by ThePythonicCow; 2nd April 2018 at 01:05.
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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Quote Posted by Paul (here)
    Quote Posted by Searcher (here)
    As you say, the financial/money shift is also part of this changing of the guard.

    What I wonder is, who are the new “guard”? President Xi? Or are there others “waiting in the wings”?
    1. Is the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative funded by sovereign issued money, or by bank issued debt ?
    2. How does debt based money resemble golden handcuffs?
    3. Who said: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!"
    4. How do our overlords use the central and large international banks to issue (lend) and control money and debt?
    5. How does that debt based money control our world's economic, monetary, financial, social, legal and political based systems?
    6. How does this resemble a feudal tyranny?
    7. Does it matter who "guards" the castle, or even who sits on the throne, if the system remains a feudal tyranny?
    8. Can bloody feuds and wars between the knights and kings of various realms be used to dramatize and obfuscate changes to the underlying propaganda, wealth extraction, control, and surveillance systems?
    9. Are the films "Renaissance 2.0" and "Princes of the Yen" still relevant today?
    10. Is a monetary system relying on gold and silver coins in the common person's pocket the same as using Central Bank vaulted gold and silver to revaluate debt-based money and securities higher?
    My answers (very briefly):

    1. Sovereign issued money.

    2. Those with the gold have bound us to the debt/death bond of unpayable interest and then their ultimate wealth confiscation.

    3. Amschel Rothchild. Supposedly.

    4. Through a variety of debt instruments in which the blood, sweat, tears and labor of the masses are pledged in the form of exhorbitant taxation, in all forms, and wealth confiscation. The masses own nothing. They, the central bankers and their handlers, own it all. We just have certificates and illusions of ownership. The privilege of use and enjoyment, but only as long as we are dutiful boys and girls.

    5. In every way, shape and form. Interest i.e. Usury is the key.

    6. See my answer at 4 and passim

    7. No. Not in a usurious, debt-based central banking system with its twins confiscatory taxation and wealth confiscation.

    8. Indeed. That is one main purpose of war.

    9. I have not seen these films.

    10. No. Gold and silver in the common persons' pocket, in any significant amounts, is anathema to central banks. If gold and silver is in our pockets to a sufficient degree natural market forces, free will, competition, etc... will cause necessary revaluations and lead to monetary deflation and other monetary, economic, social, and cultural changes of a positive nature. But, that ain't happening anytime soon and not without first suffering a crash landing of petro-backed dollars, a monetary and economic reset and then a rebuild.

    I hope I'm wrong, but things are going to get worse before they get worse.

    Will we be graded?
    Last edited by ThePythonicCow; 2nd April 2018 at 01:30.

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    Default Re: Geopolitics, Culture, History,.... Things to explore about the world

    Quote Posted by Satori (here)
    I hope I'm wrong, but things are going to get worse before they get worse.
    .

    Quote Posted by Satori (here)
    Will we be graded?
    Some of us will take as "our grade" how well we and our loved ones do, through times good and bad.

    Some of us will take as "our grade" whether we go to heaven, purgatory or hell, after this life.

    Some of us will take as "our grade" how well we contributed to the well being and awareness of the world around us.

    Some of us will take as "our grade" the progress we've made, towards a life of higher calling, in our next life.

    Some of us will not consider taking a grade.
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