General midterm elections in the United States are to be held on Tuesday, November 4, 2014. All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate are to be contested along with in thirty-six states and three territories governorships along with numerous state and local races.
The pre-election campaign is taking place in the atmosphere of unparalleled militarization of foreign and internal policy. According to US traditional perception, international instability and war always serve the dollar and spur the demand for US treasury bonds.
Some time after the US fiscal year started (October 1) the Pentagon said in updated figures on October 27 that the average daily cost of the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants has risen to $8.3 million, or a total of $580 million between Aug. 8 (when the first strike was delivered) and Oct. 16. The price went up as the pace of air campaign has intensified recently.
The Defense Department is using the overseas contingency operations (OCO) funding to soften the blow from defense spending caps in 2015 and beyond. The Department of Defense’s contingency budget for this fiscal year is $85 billion.
The would-be wars are to take place in the Middle East and Ukraine. New NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the Islamic State and Russia are the main threats for the Alliance. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the same thing. According to him, the Pentagon needs more money to oppose Russia and the Islamic State.
Endnote: Speech by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the German Marshall Fund, Brussels
On September 10, just a few hours before the commemoration of 9/11, President Obama ordered the United States into a broad military campaign to «degrade and ultimately destroy» militants in two volatile Middle East nations authorizing airstrikes inside Syria for the first time, as well as an expansion of strikes in Iraq. Pope Francis spoke during a mass at the Italian First World War memorial at Fogliano di Redipuglia, in northern Italy, where more than 100,000 fallen Italian soldiers are believed to be buried in the military graveyard. To underscore the seriousness of the situation he compared the current situation internationally to a third World War «fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres and destruction».Calling wars irrational, the Pontiff lamented conflicts are often justified by an ideology. «War is irrational; its only plan is to bring destruction: it seeks to grow by destroying», Francis noted. «Greed, intolerance, the lust for power. These motives underlie the decision to go to war and they are too often...» «War is madness» which «ruins everything, even the bonds between brothers» the Pope said as he recalled the Genesis story of how Cain killed his brother Abel.
As it has been happening since the first half of the XX century, the US military-industrial complex is the main benefactor. The United States is different from other countries. Normally a state tries to reduce budget deficit. The US does otherwise. With huge public debt and constantly growing budget deficit it keeps on increasing military expenditure to dwarf other countries of the world. The United States spends more than the next 10 highest defense budgets together. The expenditure exceeds the combined military spending of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy and Brazil. As one conflict ends the US try to spark another. According to South China Morning Post, «US military companies appear to be benefiting from the new war against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria».
Endnote: South China Morning Post. US air campaign in Middle East proving windfall for arms industry.
The newspaper says «Shares of major military contractors - Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics - have already been trading near all-time highs, outpacing the Standard & Poor's 500 index of large companies' stocks». It adds that «Three days after US warships fired 47 cruise missiles at Sunni militant targets in northern Syria last week, the Pentagon signed a US$251 million deal to buy more Tomahawks from Raytheon, a windfall for the military giant and its many subcontractors». To keep up the trend the Islamic State is demonized, Russia is equated with the IS as Barack Obama declared it to be one of top contemporary threats to humanity.
Off and on the US editions like the Washington Post, for example, adduce the results of surveys that prove that Americans view Russia as number one threat.
Some media outlets resort to outright provocations. For instance, UK weekly newspaper the Sunday Times reported that the Islamic State aims to get hold of nuclear weapons with the help of Russia!
In his book Salvation of US Dollar – War Nikolay Starikov, a Russian writer, opinion journalist and social activist, writes that the United States needs war to take place everywhere, especially a limited nuclear war. It would be better if it were waged by others. The US will make it spark everywhere it can.
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| Tags: Pentagon Middle East Russia US SOURCE:http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/11/03/us-needs-wars-to-be-waged-across-the-globe.html |
Sunday, November 2, 2014
| US Needs Wars to Be Waged Across the Globe Nikolai MALISHEVSKI
Israel riegelt Gaza-Streifen bis auf weiteres ab OFFENER BRIEF AN DEN DEUTSCHLANDFUNK
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren vom Deutschlandfunk
Wieder einmal wird die radiohörende deutsche Öffentlichkeit aufgeschreckt durch eine Nachricht heute morgen,
DLF Nachrichten 2.11.14 8:00
· Israel riegelt Gaza-Streifen bis auf weiteres ab
Als Reaktion auf einen Raketenbeschuss riegelt Israel den Gaza-Streifen bis auf weiteres ab. Die Behörden in Gaza-Stadt erklärten, man sei von der israelischen Seite über die Schließung der Grenzübergänge informiert worden. Eine Ausreise sei nur noch in humanitären Notfällen möglich. In der Nacht zum Samstag war aus dem Palästinenser-Gebiet eine Rakete auf israelisches Territorium abgefeuert worden.
Die Erfahrungen der letzten Jahre zeigen uns, dass es sich bei dem gemeldeten Raketenbeschuss um einen relativ harmlosen Zwischenfall gehandelt haben muss, ist doch Israel bei Sach- oder gar Personenschäden nicht so zurückhaltend mit den Meldungen. Und wieder fragen wir uns, wer schießt denn hier so ungenau, mit welchem Ziel, wem nützen solche Aktionen? In Kairo wird, so hört man, über die Bedingungen eines dauerhaften Friedens zwischen Israel und dem Gaza-Streifen verhandelt. Israels Verhalten in den letzten Tagen, wie z.B. die Genehmigung des Baues einer großen Zahl neuer Wohnungen im besetzten Ost-Jerusalem oder die provozierende Absperrung des sog. Tempelberges für männliche Muslime unter 50 Jahre, lässt unseres Erachtens nur den Schluss zu: Israel will gar keinen Frieden, Israel will die blutige Konfrontation mit den Palästinensern in Gaza und auch in der Westbank fortsetzen, da es sich davon Vorteile verspricht: die Landnahme geht weiter, den Palästinensern wird weiter deutlich gemacht, dass sie keine Zukunft in ihrem Land haben. Und da macht sich dann so ein öffentlichkeitswirksamer Beschuss gut. Müssen Sie vom DLF wirklich die Propaganda der Israelis im öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunk verstärken?
Wir haben jedenfalls versucht, zu recherchieren, was über den Zwischenfall in Israel veröffentlicht wurde. Da finden wir in Ha’aretz von gestern die folgende, im Vergleich zur DLF-Nachricht wesentlich differenziertere Meldung:
Ha’aretz 1.11.14
Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket system identified a rocket - or possibly a mortar shell - fired from the Gaza Strip into an open field in the Eshkol Regional Council near the border. No rocket alarm was sounded, and no damage was reported.
Military forces are looking for the projectile, which at this point could have been a rocket or a mortar shell. The IDF is also looking into who fired the projectile. This is the second time a projectile was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel since the end of Operation Protective Edge, this summer.
"The quiet achieved in the south of the country is the product of continuous and strenuous work, and it could be interrupted at any time, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said at a military ceremony last Thursday.
The IDF would have to continue "keeping its eyes open in the different fronts, from Lebanon to the Golan Heights, to the West Bank, to Gaza," Gantz continued. "We remain alert and ready for action at any intensity needed."
Die von Ihnen gemeldete Abriegelung des Gaza-Streifens ist wahrlich eine Meldung wert: die Menschen dort sind dringender als je auf Hilfe von außen angewiesen. Und ein Wiederaufbau der dortigen Infrastruktur verzögert sich so weiter.
Wir würden es sehr begrüßen, wenn im DLF bald eine ausführlichere Berichterstattung über die Lage der Menschen in Gaza erfolgen könnte, auch angesichts der neuerlichen Bedrängnisse durch die Israelis.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Ihre erstaunlicherweise immer noch treuen Hörer
The Kerry-Abdullah Secret Deal Oil-Gas Pipeline War On Iran, Syria And Russia
By F. William Engdahl
October 29, 2014 "ICH" - The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia.
One of the weirdest anomalies of the recent NATO bombing campaign, allegedly against the ISIS or IS or ISIL or Daash, depending on your preference, is the fact that with major war raging in the world’s richest oil region, the price of crude oil has been dropping, dramatically so. Since June when ISIS suddenly captured the oil-rich region of Iraq around Mosul and Kirkuk, the benchmark Brent price of crude oil dropped some 20% from $112 to about $88. World daily demand for oil has not dropped by 20% however. China oil demand has not fallen 20% nor has US domestic shale oil stock risen by 21%.
What has happened is that the long-time US ally inside OPEC, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been flooding the market with deep discounted oil, triggering a price war within OPEC, with Iran following suit and panic selling short in oil futures markets. The Saudis are targeting sales to Asia for the discounts and in particular, its major Asian customer, China where it is reportedly offering its crude for a mere $50 to $60 a barrel rather than the earlier price of around $100. [1] That Saudi financial discounting operation in turn is by all appearance being coordinated with a US Treasury financial warfare operation, via its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in cooperation with a handful of inside players on Wall Street who control oil derivatives trading. The result is a market panic that is gaining momentum daily. China is quite happy to buy the cheap oil, but her close allies, Russia and Iran, are being hit severely.
The deal
According to Rashid Abanmy, President of the Riyadh-based Saudi Arabia Oil Policies and Strategic Expectations Center, the dramatic price collapse is being deliberately caused by the Saudis, OPEC’s largest producer. The public reason claimed is to gain new markets in a global market of weakening oil demand. The real reason, according to Abanmy, is to put pressure on Iran on her nuclear program, and on Russia to end her support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria.[2]
When combined with the financial losses of Russian state natural gas sales to Ukraine and prospects of a US-instigated cutoff of the transit of Russian gas to the huge EU market this winter as EU stockpiles become low, the pressure on oil prices hits Moscow doubly. More than 50% of Russian state revenue comes from its export sales of oil and gas.
The US-Saudi oil price manipulation is aimed at destabilizing several strong opponents of US globalist policies. Targets include Iran and Syria, both allies of Russia in opposing a US sole Superpower. The principal target, however, is Putin’s Russia, the single greatest threat today to that Superpower hegemony. The strategy is similar to what the US did with Saudi Arabia in 1986 when they flooded the world with Saudi oil, collapsing the price to below $10 a barrel and destroying the economy of then-Soviet ally, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and, ultimately, of the Soviet economy, paving the way for the fall of the Soviet Union. Today, the hope is that a collapse of Russian oil revenues, combined with select pin-prick sanctions designed by the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence will dramatically weaken Putin’s enormous domestic support and create conditions for his ultimate overthrow. It is doomed to fail for many reasons, not the least, because Putin’s Russia has taken major strategic steps together with China and other nations to lessen its dependence on the West. In fact the oil weapon is accelerating recent Russian moves to focus its economic power on national interests and lessen dependence on the Dollar system. If the dollar ceases being the currency of world trade, especially oil trade, the US Treasury faces financial catastrophe. For this reason, I call the Kerry-Abdullah oil war a very stupid tactic.
The Kerry-Abdullah secret deal
On September 11, US Secretary of State Kerry met Saudi King Abdullah at his palace on the Red Sea. The King invited former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar to attend. There a deal was hammered out which saw Saudi support for the Syrian airstrikes against ISIS on condition Washington backed the Saudis in toppling Assad, a firm ally of Russia and de facto of Iran and an obstacle to Saudi and UAE plans to control the emerging EU natural gas market and destroy Russia’s lucrative EU trade. A report in the Wall Street Journal noted there had been “months of behind-the-scenes work by the US and Arab leaders, who agreed on the need to cooperate against Islamic State, but not how or when. The process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh US commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority.” [3]
For the Saudis the war is between two competing age-old vectors of Islam. Saudi Arabia, home to the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, claims de facto supremacy in the Islamic world of Sunni Islam. The Saudi Sunni form is ultra-conservative Wahhabism, named for an 18th Century Bedouin Islamic fundamentalist or Salafist named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahha. The Taliban derive from Wahhabism with the aid of Saudi-financed religious instruction. The Gulf Emirates and Kuwait also adhere to the Sunni Wahhabism of the Saudis, as does the Emir of Qatar. Iran on the other hand historically is the heart of the smaller branch of Islam, the Shi’ite. Iraq’s population is some 61% majority Shi’ite. Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad is a member of a satellite of the Shi’ite branch known as Alawite. Some 23% of Turkey is also Alawite Muslim. To complicate the picture more, across a bridge from Saudi Arabia sits the tiny island country, Bahrain where as many as 75% of the population is Shi’ite but the ruling Al-Khalifa family is Sunni and firmly tied to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the richest Saudi oil region is dominated by Shi’ite Muslims who work the oil installations of Ras Tanura.
An oil and gas pipeline war
These historic fault lines inside Islam which lay dormant, were brought into a state of open warfare with the launching of the US State Department and CIA’s Islamic Holy War, otherwise known as the Arab Spring. Washington neo-conservatives embedded inside the Obama Administration in a form of “Deep State” secret network, and their allied media such as the Washington Post, advocated US covert backing of a pet CIA project known as the Muslim Brotherhood. As I detail in my most recent book, Amerikas’ Heiliger Krieg, the CIA had cultivated ties to the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood death cult since the early 1950’s.
Now if we map the resources of known natural gas reserves in the entire Persian Gulf region, the motives of the Saudi-led Qatar and UAE in financing with billions of dollars the opposition to Assad, including the Sunni ISIS, becomes clearer. Natural gas has become the favored “clean energy” source for the 21st Century and the EU is the world’s largest growth market for gas, a major reason Washington wants to break the Gazprom-EU supply dependency to weaken Russia and keep control over the EU via loyal proxies like Qatar.
The world’s largest known natural gas reservoir sits in the middle of the Persian Gulf straddling part in the territorial waters of Qatar and part in Iran. The Iranian part is called North Pars. In 2006 China’s state-owned CNOOC signed an agreement with Iran to develop North Pars and build LNG infrastructure to bring the gas to China.[4]
The Qatar side of the Persian Gulf, called North Field, contains the world’s third largest known natural gas reserves behind Russia and Iran.
In July 2011, the governments of Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an historic gas pipeline energy agreement which went largely unnoticed in the midst of the NATO-Saudi-Qatari war to remove Assad. The pipeline, envisioned to cost $10 billion and take three years to complete, would run from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh near the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, to Damascus in Syria via Iraq territory. The agreement would make Syria the center of assembly and production in conjunction with the reserves of Lebanon. This is a geopolitically strategic space that geographically opens for the first time, extending from Iran to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[5] As Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar put it, “The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline – if it’s ever built – would solidify a predominantly Shi’ite axis through an economic, steel umbilical cord.”[6]
Shortly after signing with Iran and Iraq, on August 16, 2011, Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Ministry of Oil announced the discovery of a gas well in the Area of Qarah in the Central Region of Syria near Homs. Gazprom, with Assad in power, would be a major investor or operator of the new gas fields in Syria. [7] Iran ultimately plans to extend the pipeline from Damascus to Lebanon’s Mediterranean port where it would be delivered to the huge EU market. Syria would buy Iranian gas along with a current Iraqi agreement to buy Iranian gas from Iran’s part of South Pars field.[8]
Qatar, today the world’s largest exporter of LNG, largely to Asia, wants the same EU market that Iran and Syria eye. For that, they would build pipelines to the Mediterranean. Here is where getting rid of the pro-Iran Assad is essential. In 2009 Qatar approached Bashar al-Assad to propose construction of a gas pipeline from Qatar’s north Field through Syria on to Turkey and to the EU. Assad refused, citing Syria’s long friendly relations with Russia and Gazprom. That refusal combined with the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline agreement in 2011 ignited the full-scale Saudi and Qatari assault on Assad’s power, financing al Qaeda terrorists, recruits of Jihadist fanatics willing to kill Alawite and Shi’ite “infidels” for $100 a month and a Kalishnikov. The Washington neo-conservative warhawks in and around the Obama White House, along with their allies in the right-wing Netanyahu government, were cheering from the bleachers as Syria went up in flames after spring 2011.
Today the US-backed wars in Ukraine and in Syria are but two fronts in the same strategic war to cripple Russia and China and to rupture any Eurasian counter-pole to a US-controlled New World Order. In each, control of energy pipelines, this time primarily of natural gas pipelines—from Russia to the EU via Ukraine and from Iran and Syria to the EU via Syria—is the strategic goal. The true aim of the US and Israel backed ISIS is to give the pretext for bombing Assad’s vital grain silos and oil refineries to cripple the economy in preparation for a “Ghaddafi-”style elimination of Russia and China and Iran-ally Bashar al-Assad.
In a narrow sense, as Washington neo-conservatives see it, who controls Syria could control the Middle East. And from Syria, gateway to Asia, he will hold the key to Russia House, as well as that of China via the Silk Road.
Religious wars have historically been the most savage of all wars and this one is no exception, especially when trillions of dollars in oil and gas revenues are at stake. Why is the secret Kerry-Abdullah deal on Syria reached on September 11 stupid? Because the brilliant tacticians in Washington and Riyadh and Doha and to an extent in Ankara are unable to look at the interconnectedness of all the dis-order and destruction they foment, to look beyond their visions of control of the oil and gas flows as the basis of their illegitimate power. They are planting the seeds of their own destruction in the end.
William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics in the New World Order. www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net
Notes:
[1] M. Rochan, Crude Oil Drops Amid Global Demand Concerns, IB Times, October 11, 2014 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/crude-oil-drops-amid-global-demand-concerns-1469524
[2] Nihan Cabbaroglu, Saudi Arabia to pressure Russia Iran with price of oil, 10 October 2014, Turkish Anadolu Agency, http://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/402343–saudi-arabia-to-pressure-russia-iran-with-price-of-oil
[3] Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, Deal With Saudis Paved Way for Syrian Airstrikes: Talks With Saudi Arabia Were Linchpin in U.S. Efforts to Get Arab States Into Fight Against Islamic State, Wall Street Journal, September. 24, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/articles/deal-with-saudis-paved-way-for-syrian-airstrikes-1411605329?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
[4] POGC, North Pars Gas Field, Pars Oil and Gas Company website, http://www.pogc.ir/NorthParsGasField/tabid/155/Default.aspx
[5] Imad Fawzi Shueibi , War Over Gas–Struggle over the Middle East: Gas Ranks First, 17 April, 2012. http://www.voltairenet.org/article173718.html
[6] Pepe Escobar, Why Qatar Wants to Invade Syria, Asia Times, September 27, 2012, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32576.htm
[7] Ibid.
[8] F. William Engdahl, Syria Turkey Israel and the Greater Middle East Energy War, Global Research, October 11, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-turkey-israel-and-the-greater-middle-east-energy-war/5307902
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Source : http://www.
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