Western policies toward Russia championed by Washington have led to the current crisis, and if the confrontation continues, Europe will be weakened and become irrelevant, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warns.
Speaking to a forum in Berlin amid the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he called on western leaders to de-escalate tensions and meet Russia halfway to mend the current rift.
Watch full video
After the Cold War ended, the leaders of the western world were intoxicated with euphoria of triumph, and they adopted anti-Russian policies that eventually led to the current crisis, Gorbachev said.
“Taking advantage of Russia’s weakening and a lack of a counterweight, they claimed monopoly leadership and domination in the world. And they refused to heed the word of caution from many of those present here,” he said. “The events of the past months are consequences of short-sighted policies of seeking to impose one’s will and fait accompli while ignoring the interests of one’s partners.”
Gorbachev gave a list of examples of those policies, including the expansion of NATO and the development of an anti-ballistic missile system, military interventions in Yugoslavia and Iraq, the west-backed secession of Kosovo, the crisis in Syria and others. The Ukrainian crisis is a “blister turning into a bleeding, festering wound,” he said.
Europe is the one suffering most from the situation, Gorbachev said.
“Instead of becoming a leader of change in a global world Europe has turned into an arena of political upheaval, of competition for the spheres of influence, and finally of military conflict. The consequence inevitably is Europe’s weakening at a time when other centers of power and influence are gaining momentum. If this continues, Europe will lose a strong voice in world affairs and gradually become irrelevant,” he said.
What needs to be done is for the west to tone down its anti-Russian rhetoric and seek points of convergence, Gorbachev said. He added that his own experience in the 1980s showed that much worse and seemingly hopeless conflicts can be resolved, granted there is the political will and a right setting of priorities. He assured the forum that the Russian leadership was willing to do its part, as evidenced by President Vladimir Putin’s keynote speech at the Valdai Forum.
“Despite the harshness of his criticism of the West and the United States in particular, I see in his speech a desire to find a way to lower tensions, and ultimately to build a new basis for partnership,” Gorbachev said.
Ukraine may have set the scene for the current confrontation, but it can also become a focus for reconciliation between Russia and the West, according to Gorbachev. He called for the parties to join forces and help Ukraine overcome the consequences of the civil war it is currently going through.
Over the longer term, the system of European security must be reformed, because the enlargement of NATO and the current EU common defense policy have failed to produce positive results, Gorbachev said. This would likely require an overhaul of the OSCE, which in its current format is not up to the task, he said, while proposals to that effect have been voiced by policymakers both in the EU and in Russia, but they had been “filed away in the archives.”
“Had such a mechanism been created, the worst scenarios of the Ukrainian events could have been averted.”
US President Obama was joined by European leaders last weekend in trying to turn the G20 summit in Australia into a forum for baiting Russia, rather than dealing with the more onerous problem of a failing world economy.
The annual meetings of the world’s top economies are by definition supposed to be aimed at addressing problems in the global economy. And those problems are increasingly onerous, with poverty in North America and Europe reaching record levels. Recent data from the EU, put the level of poverty in the bloc at an all-time high of some 122 million people – affecting around one-in-four citizens.
Similar plummeting social conditions are haunting the United States, where economic recovery is anaemic at best despite official government statistics claiming that unemployment there is declining. As American commentator Paul Craig Roberts points out the official jobless figures in the US are meaningless when millions of long-term unemployed workers are excluded from the records.
Worldwide, the economic outlook is grim, according to even the pro-Western International Monetary Fund’s latest assessment.
So, you would think that top of the agenda for the G20 summit last weekend should be how governments are coordinating recovery efforts to get people back into work, relaunch economies with massive public investment, boost social welfare to mitigate rising poverty, and rebalance the explosion of inequality between capital and labour.
No. Obama and European leaders sought instead to shift the focus from economics to «security» and in particular to add more international pressure on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
The American president told delegates in Brisbane that the US was leading the world in the fight against the Islamic State terror network, the Ebola disease (affecting a minuscule number of the world’s population), and «in opposing Russian aggression in Ukraine». Obama claimed that Russia presented a «threat to the world» and tendentiously reiterated the baseless claim that Russia was guilty in the downing of the Malaysia civilian airliner over Ukraine in July, with the loss of 298 lives.
Obama’s «blame Russia» trope was supported by Hermann Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, who was also at the G20 summit. Van Rompuy – an unelected bureaucrat and the highest paid politician in the world on a salary of over $500,000 – said that EU foreign ministers were to meet in the coming days to slap more economic sanctions on Russia.
«Russia must stop the inflow of weapons and troops from its territory into Ukraine and Russia must withdraw those already present,» said the former Belgian prime minister, without providing the slightest evidence to support this inflammatory assertion.
Indeed three previous rounds of EU sanctions against Russia have been based on wholly unfounded accusations against Moscow, including the alleged downing of the Malaysian airliner, always on the basis of politicised innuendo bereft of any facts.
Russia has consistently refuted that it is involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. It says it is not supplying weapons or troops and has continually demanded for evidence to be presented – a demand that has not been met by its accusers who simply pile on more baseless innuendo. Russian delegates at the G20 conference rebutted latest Western claims that it has deployed military convoys into eastern Ukraine as groundless «horror stories» that are not supported with verifiable proof. Moscow rightly points out that the conflict in eastern Ukraine has stemmed from Washington and its European allies illegally helping to overthrow the elected government last February and installing a deeply hostile regime in Kiev, which has proceeded to wage a murderous offensive on the Russian-speaking population in the east of the country simply because these people have refused to recognise the Western-backed coup.
Russia has also provided information from satellite, radar and air traffic control communications that strongly implicate the Western-backed regime forces in the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner. Russia’s Channel One last week broadcast a satellite image showing the airliner being accompanied suspiciously by a fighter jet. That finding backs up previous claims that the passenger plane was shot down by a Kiev-commanded fighter jet, not hit with an anti-aircraft missile under the control of pro-Russian self-defence militia in Donetsk as the Western governments and media have continually alleged – and continue to allege as per Obama at the G20 last weekend.
It should be evident from the complete dearth of evidence that the US-led hostility toward Russia has other ulterior motives. The expansion of NATO as an instrument of American global hegemony in a post Cold War world, the encirclement and attempted enfeebling of Russia as a global economic rival, the thwarting of a multipolar world that threatens to undermine American power and its declining dollar supremacy are all part of this agenda.
Ironically, this desperate clinging to waning American hegemony, supported by European vassals, is serving to drive the world economy into deeper malaise and poverty.
The truth is Washington and its European allies have no real alternative to resurrect their economies or that of the world. Their neoliberal capitalist dead-end policies of enriching a financial oligarchy while clobbering the mass of citizens with relentless austerity is a major reason why the world economy is irreversibly in demise.
Meanwhile Russia with its ambitious new trade and financial partnerships with Eurasian partners, China in particular and other BRICS nations, is providing a bright potential way out of the global stagnation. This new geo-strategic direction also provides a more secure and law-based international order between nations.
This explains why Obama and the European establishment were doing everything to keep the focus of the G20 summit away from «economics» and to scapegoat Russia for the mess that they have created. Western governments are bankrupt of new ideas to salvage the economic problems of the world. How could they be otherwise when it is their economic ideology that has produced the crisis facing humanity in the 21st Century?
The real threat to the world is economic collapse and poverty. Without any solutions and in fact only exacerbating these problems, the US and European leaders are hiding behind a false agenda of non-issues, such as security, and in particular alleged «Russian aggression».
A war is being fought for control over Western Kurdistan and the northern areas of Syria, including three de facto Kurdish enclaves there. The fighting in Western Kurdistan is a means to an end and not a goal in itself. The objectives of gaining control over Syrian Kurdistan and northern Syria are critical to gaining control over the rest of the Syrian Arab Republic and entail US-supported regime change in Damascus.
Western Kurdistan is alternatively called Rojava in Kurmanji, the dialect of the Kurdish language that is used locally there and spoken by the majority of the Kurds living in Turkey. The word Rojava comes from the Kurdish root word roj, which means both sun and day, and literally means «sunset» («the sun’s end») or the «end of the day» («the day’s end») in Kurmanji and not the word «west». The confusion over its meaning arises for two main reasons. The first is that in the Sorani or Central dialect of the Kurdish language the word roj is only used to refer to the day. The second is that Rojava connotes or suggests the direction of the west, where the sun is seen to set when the day ends.
The Siege on Ayn Al-Arab or Kobani
Despite the fact that neither the Syrian military nor the Syrian government controls most of Syrian Kurdistan and that a significant amount of the locals there have declared themselves neutral, the forces of the Free Syrian Army, Al-Nusra, and the ISIL (DAISH) have launched a multiparty war on Rojava’s mosaic of inhabitants. It has only been in late-2014 that this war on Western Kurdistan has gained international attention as the Syrian Kurds in the in Aleppo Governate’s northeastern district (mintaqah) of Ayn Al-Arab (Ain Al-Arab) became surrounded by the ISIL in late-September and early-October. As this happened, the behaviour of the US and its allies, specifically the neo-Ottomanist Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, exposed their true objectives in Rojava and Syria. By the time that the Syrian Kurds in northeastern Aleppo Governate were being encircled by the ISIL, it was clear that Washington and its counterfeit anti-ISIL coalition were actually using the ISIL outbreak to redraw the strategic and ethno-confessional maps of Syria and Iraq. Many of the Syrian Kurds think that the goal is to force them eastward into Iraqi Kurdistan and to surrender to Turkish domination.
Fears of another exodus in Syria—similar to the one that was felt when Turkey assisted Jubhat Al-Nusra’s violent takeover of the mostly ethnic Armenian town of Kasab (Kessab) in Latakia Governate in March 2014—began to materialize. Nearly 200,000 Syrians—Kurds, Turkoman, Assyrians, Armenians, and Arabs—fled across the Syrian-Turkish border. By October 9, one-third of Ayn Al-Arab had fallen to the pseudo-caliphate.
The Stances of the US over Kobani Exposes Washington’s Objectives
Washington’s stance on Ayn Al-Arab or Kobani was very revealing of where it really stood in regards to the battle over control of the Syrian border city. Instead of preventing the fall of Kobani and supporting the local defenders which were doing the heavy fighting on the ground against the ISIL and containing its pseudo-caliphate, Washington did not move. The US position on Kobani is an important indicator that the US war initiated against the ISIL has been mere bravado and a fictitious public relations stunt aimed at hiding the real objective of getting a strategic foothold inside Syrian territory.
When the ISIL attacked the forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraqi Kurdistan in August 2014, the US acted quickly to help the KRG’s forces. In July, a month after the June capture of the Iraqi city of Mosul by the ISIL, which coincided with the military takeover of the oil-rich city of Kirk by the KRG, the ISIL began its siege of Kobani in Rojava. Up until October, the US just watched.
Even more revealing, the Pentagon announced on October 8 that the US-led bombing campaign in Syria, which it formally named Operation Inherent Resolve on October 15, could not stop the ISIL offensive and advances against Kobani and its local defenders. Instead the US began arguing and insisting for more illegal steps to be taken by NATO member Turkey. Washington began to call for Turkish soldiers and tanks to enter Kobani and northern Syria. In turn, President Erdogan and the Turkish government said that Ankara would only send in the Turkish military if a no-fly zone was established over Syria by the US and the other members of Washington’s bogus coalition.
Repackaging Plans for Northern Buffer Zone in Syria
Using Kobani to make a case, the US and Turkish governments took the opportunity to repackage their plans for an invasion of Syria from 2011, which called for the establishment of a Turkish-controlled northern buffer zone and a no-fly zone over Syrian airspace. This time the plans were presented under the humanitarian pretext of peacekeeping. This is why the parliamentarians in the Turkish Grand National Assembly had passed legislation authorizing an invasion of the Syrian Arab Republic and Syrian Kurdistan on October 2, 2014.
Although Turkey passed legislature to invade Syria on October 2, Ankara remained cautious. In reality, Turkey was doing everything in its power to ensure that Kobani would fall into the control of the ISIL and that Kobani’s local defenders would be defeated.
Due to a lack of coordination between the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and Turkish law enforcement officials, a domestic scandal even emerged in Turkey when undercover MIT trucks were detained in Adana by the Turkish gendarmerie after they were caught secretly transporting arms and ammunition into Syria for Al-Nusra and other anti-government insurgents.
In the context of Kobani, numerous reports were made revealing that large weapon shipments were delivered to the heavily armed battalions of the ISIL by Turkey for the offensive on Kobani. One journalist, Serena Shim, would pay for her life for trying to document this. Shim, a Lebanese-American working for Iran’s English-language Press TV news network, would reveal that weapons were secretly being delivered to the insurgents in Syria through Turkey in trucks carrying the logo of the UN World Food Organization. Shim would be killed shortly after in a mysterious car accident on October 19 after being threatened by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) for spying for the «Turkish opposition».
To hide its direct hands as a facilitator, the Turkish government began claiming that it could not control its borders or prevent foreign fighters from entering Iraq and Syria. This, however, changed with the battle for Kobani. Ankara began to exercise what appeared to be faultless control of its border with Syria and it even reinforced border security. Turkey, which is widely recognized for allowing Jabhat Al-Nusra and the other foreign-backed insurgent forces to freely cross its borders to fight the Syrian military, began prevented any Kurdish volunteers from crossing the Syrian-Turkish border over to Kobani to help the besieged Syrian city and its outnumbered defenders. Only under intense domestic and international pressure did the Turkish government finally let one hundred and fifty token KRG peshmerga troops from Iraqi Kurdistan enter Kobani on November 1, 2014.
Turkey Takes Note of Syria’s Friends
The Syrian government rejected the suggestions coming from Ankara and Washington for foreign ground troops on its territory and for the establishment of a northern buffer zone. Damascus said these were intentions for blatant aggression against Syria. It released a statement on October 15 saying that it would consult its «friends».
In context of the US-Turkish invasion plans, the Turkish government was monitoring the reactions and attitudes of Russia, Iran, China, and the independent segments of the international community not beholden to Washington’s foreign policy objective. Both the Kremlin and Tehran reacted by warning the Turkish government to forget any thoughts about sending ground troops into Syrian Kurdistan and on Syrian soil.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Lukashevych, the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, announced that Moscow opposed the calls for a northern buffer zone on October 9. Lukashevych said that neither Turkey nor the US had the authority or legitimacy to establish a buffer zone against the will of another sovereign state. He also pointed out how the US bombardment of Syria had complicated the problem and influenced the ISIL to concentrate itself among civilian populations. His words echoed the warnings of Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the permanent representative of Russia to the UN, that the US-led bombings of Syria will further degenerate the crisis in Syria.
On the part of Tehran, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian publicly announced that Iran had warned the Turkish government against any adventurism in Syria.
Why has Operation Inherent Resolve made the ISIL Stronger in Syria?
Is it a coincidence that the ISIL or DAISH gained ground in Syria as soon as the US declared war on it? Or is it a coincidence that Rojava contains most the oil wells inside Syria?
The inhabitants and resistance in Kobani fighting the ISIL offensive have repeatedly asked for outside help, but have defined the US-led airstrikes in Syria in no uncertain terms as utterly useless. This has been the general observation from the actual ground about the illegal US-led campaign of Syria by local paramilitary and civilian leaders. Locally-selected officials in Syrian Kurdistan have repeatedly said, in one form or another, that the US-led airstrikes are a failure.
The People’s Protection Units (Yekineyen Parastina Gel, YPG [the all-female units are called YPJ]) of Kobani made multiple statements pointed out that the US bombing campaign did nothing to stop the ISIL advanced on Kobani or throughout Syria. While calling for Kurdish unity and a united front between Syria, Iraq, and Iran against the pseudo-caliphate of the ISIL, Jawan Ibrahim, an YPG officer, has said that the US and its anti-ISIL coalition are a failure as far as the YPG and Syrian Kurds are concerned, according to Fars News Agency (FNA).
Before the US officially inaugurated its campaign in Syria by lunching airstrikes on Al-Raqqa, the ISIL’s fighters had left the positions that the US and its petro-sheikhdom Arab allies bombed. Instead of bombing the ISIL, the US has been bombing Syrian industrial and civilian infrastructure. While saying that some of these bombings, which include civilian homes and a wheat silo, were mistakes, it is clear that the Pentagon strategy of eroding an enemy state’s strength by destroying its infrastructure is being applied against Syria.
After heavy criticism and international pressure, the US began to drop token medical supplies and arms shipments for the locals and Kobani’s local defenders. Some of these US arms got into the hands of the ISIL. The Pentagon says this was the result of miscalculations and that the ISIL were not the intended recipients. Skeptics, however, believe that the Pentagon deliberately parachuted the US weapons near places that the ISIL’s battalions could easily see and obtain them. The arms caches included hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and ammunition, which were all displayed in at least one video produced by the ISIL during the battle for Kobani.
In parallel to the reluctant help of the US, the Turkish government was pressured into allowing a token number of KRG peshmerga fighters from Iraq cross its border into Kobani on November 1. These pershmerga, however, are part of the security forces of the corrupt, Turkish-aligned KRG. In other words, «Turkey’s Kurds» (as in their allies; not to be mistaken for Turkish Kurds) were allowed to enter Kobani (instead of the YPG, YPJ, or volunteers). Since Turkey’s detrimental role in Kobani became widely known, Ankara was also fearful that the fall of Kobani would effectively end the peace talks between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish government and result in a massive revolt in Turkish Kurdistan.
Useless US Bombing War Against the ISIL or Stealth US War Against Syria?
The US-led bombing campaign is not intended to defeat the ISIL, which is also doing everything it can to destroy the fabrics of Syrian society. The US-led bombing campaign in Syria is intended to weaken and destroy Syria as a functioning state. This is why the US has been bombing Syrian energy facilities and infrastructure, including transport pipes, under the excuse of preventing the ISIL from using it to sell oil and gather revenues.
The US rationale for justifying this is bogus too, because the ISIL has been transporting stolen Syrian oil shipments through transport vehicles into Turkey and, unlike the case of Iraq, not using the transport pipes. Moreover, most the oil stolen by the ISIL has been coming from Iraq and not from Syria, but the US has not taken the same steps to destroy the energy infrastructure in Iraq. Additionally, the purchases of stolen oil from both Syria and Iraq have taken place at the level of state actors. Even the European Union’s own representative to Iraq, Jana Hybaskova, has admitted that European Union members are buying stolen Iraqi oil from the ISIL.
The Pentagon’s two different approaches, one for Iraq and one for Syria, say a lot about what Washington is doing in the Syrian Arab Republic. Washington is still going after Syria and in the process it and Turkey wants to either co-opt the Syrian Kurds or to neutralize them. This is why the battle for Kobani was launched with Turkish involvement and why there was inaction by the US government. Also, when it comes down to it, the ISIL or DAISH is a US weapon.
The Syrian government knows that the Washington’s anti-ISIL coalition is a façade and that the masquerade could end with a US-led offensive against Damascus if the US government and Pentagon believe that the conditions are right. On November 6, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem told the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar that Syria had asked the Russian Federation to accelerate the delivery of the S-300 anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile system to prepare for a possible Pentagon offensive.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has called the US president a 'lame duck.' Commenting on the recent G20 summit in Australia, Gorbachev said he was disappointed in Obama and that he 'thought better' of the American leader.
"Obama is a lame duck. One must not finish the job in such a mediocre way. He just decided to throw accusations around. He will be of no avail any more, unfortunately. I've thought better of him," the former leader of the USSR told Rusnovosti radio.
Gorbachev, who is praised around the world as a great advocate of democracy, used the American term - meaning an elected official, approaching the end of his time in office - when talking about Obama's comments at the G20 summit.
Speaking in Brisbane last week, where world leaders gathered for the summit, Obama once again put Russia on the list of the greatest threats to the world - along with the Islamic State militants (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and the Ebola outbreak. It wasn't the first time the US president lumped Russia in with the Islamic terrorists and the deadly virus.
Gorbachev had previously expressed hope that shared challenges, such as the Ebola epidemic and the fight against the IS militants, as well as environmental and economic threats, would bring Russia and the West closer together. "In the face of shared challenges, we can again find a common language. It won't be easy but there is no other way," Gorbachev told Rossiyskaya Gazeta ahead of the fall of the Berlin Wall anniversary.
He later became less optimistic, saying Western policies towards Russia championed by Washington have led to the current crisis.
At the latest Group of 20 summit, the usual focus on the world economy drifted to politics, with the crisis in Ukraine becoming one of the most discussed issues.
Concluding the meetings at a press conference, Obama did not announce any significant changes in approach to Russia and described his exchanges with Putin on the summit's sidelines as "businesslike and blunt." Putin, who was not present at the Sunday gatherings, citing a long flight home and having to be back in Moscow for work on Monday morning, said he was pleased with both the results and atmosphere of G20.
Gorbachev's "lame duck" label was not the only duck jibe to be received by Obama after his speeches at the summit. US liberal senator Ian Macdonald called him a "lame duck of a president" over his stance on climate change.
Former US president Bill Clinton recently encouraged Obama to ignore the "lame duck" comments and get on with the job.
"Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU) wählte nach dem G-20-Gipfel in Australien deutliche Worte in Richtung Putin, den sie zuvor zu einem Vieraugengespräch getroffen hatte: In Europa gebe es immer noch Kräfte, „die auf das angebliche Recht eines Stärkeren setzen und die Stärke des Rechts missachten“. Altes Denken in Einflusssphären, das internationales Recht mit Füßen trete, dürfe sich nicht durchsetzen. Sie sei überzeugt, dass es sich auch nicht durchsetzen werde, „mag der Weg auch noch so lang, noch so beschwerlich sein und noch so viele Rückschläge enthalten“.
Beschwerlich ist der Weg in der Tat, auch für die deutsche Wirtschaft. Bis August gingen die deutschen Exporte nach Russland um 16,6 Prozent zurück, bis Jahresende rechnen der Ost-Ausschuss und der DIHK mit minus 20 Prozent. „Das sind 7,2 Milliarden Euro, ein ganz schöner Schuss vor den Bug“, sagte Treier. Betroffen sei vor allem der Maschinenbau.
Für ihn sei Russland der viertwichtigste Markt, und er sei auf den grenzüberschreitenden Export angewiesen. Bei vielen Firmen, die direkt in Russland produzierten, gingen die Geschäfte dagegen weiter. Für andere wiederum beginne sich der Konflikt erst jetzt auszuwirken – zum Beispiel weil sie lange auf Exportgenehmigungen warten müssten. „Das wird dann zu einer Frage der Bonität.“ Der schwache Handel sei nur ein Aspekt der Krise, gab Cordes zu bedenken. Wenn es nicht bald eine Lösung gebe, werde das Vertrauensverhältnis erodieren und die Verzahnung der Volkswirtschaften leiden." http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/wirtschaftspolitik/russlands-wirtschaft-leidet-unter-den-sanktionen-13271190.html
A war is being fought for control over Western Kurdistan and the northern areas of Syria, The objective is to gain control over the rest of the Syrian Arab Republic and implement regime change in Damascus.
SOURCE: http://www.globalresearch.ca
German pilot Peter Haisenko in a path-breaking analysis pointed to bullet like holes which could not have been caused by a buk missile. The BBC in an early report (subsequently suppressed) provided testimonies that MH17 was shot down by a military aircraft.
Neocon agenda pushing to increase US involvement in Mideast: Journalist
Sun Nov 16, 2014 6:38PM GMT
“The neocon agenda is pushing very hard for an escalation of US involvement in the Middle East, says Susane Lindauer.
The newly elected US Congress that begins in January has a “neoconservative agenda” that will pressure President Barack Obama’s administration to escalate the war in Syria to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad, an American journalist and antiwar activist says.“The new neocon Senate which is coming into power in January is demanding that Obama increase funding and increase bombardments in Syria that will target Assad’s government,” Susane Lindauer told Press TV on Sunday.
“The neocon agenda is pushing very hard for an escalation of US involvement in the region, this is very dangerous,” Lindauer said.
The US government is refusing to acknowledge the major role that it played in financing and helping to create the ISIL terrorist group, Lindauer added.
“The United States is in denial over its role in financing, training and providing weapons for Syrian radicals who have become ISIL,” she noted. “In fact, we made ISIL, the United States created ISIL with our own money and our own weapons and military training.”
“It is a disgrace that is lost in America’s corporate media but smart activists recognize that we’re to blame for this crisis, we did this ourselves.”
On Sunday, Obama rejected any alliance with the Syrian government as the US military intensifies its operations against ISIL. He claimed that President Bashar al-Assad has lost legitimacy to lead Syria and any cooperation with him in battling the Takfiri terrorists would backfire.
The United States and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - have been supporting the militants fighting to oust President Assad since the beginning of the crisis.
52 Minuten, Spanisch mit dt. Untertiteln Idee, Regie und Produktion: Tobias Kriele Kamera: Martin Broschwitz Homepage: Die Kraft der Schwachen
Filmpremiere und Rundreise vom 23.11. bis 7.17.2014 Berlin + Hamburg + Bremen + Düsseldorf + Bochum + Dresden + Augsburg + München + Göttingen + Mainz Veranstaltungsorte und Termine: http://www.fgbrdkuba.de/termine/flyer/2014-die-kraft-der-schwachen.php Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyZOxStbvgI Jorgito aus Camagüey kommt mit einer schweren Körperbehinderung zur Welt und erfährt von Geburt an die Unterstützung des kubanischen Bildungs- und Gesundheitssystems.
Der unermüdliche Einsatz der Menschen in seiner Umgebung eröffnet Jorgito eine nicht für möglich gehaltene Entwicklung. Schon als kleiner Junge reift in ihm das Bedürfnis, der Gesellschaft die ihm gewährte Unterstützung zurückzugeben. Als Schüler, Student und mittlerweile als angehender Journalist animiert er seine Zeitgenossen, sich für die gesellschaftspolitischen Anliegen seines Landes, insbesondere die Freilassung der in den USA inhaftierten „Cuban Five“ einzusetzen. Der einstmals zerbrechliche Junge spendet heute seinen schwankenden Mitmenschen Kraft.
"Die Kraft der Schwachen" bietet nachdenkliche Perspektiven auf das heutige Kuba, auf die dort existierenden Vorstellungen von Bildung und Inklusion und dokumentiert den verblüffenden Vorgang der Aufhebung einer lebenseinschränkenden Behinderung.
Tobias Kriele legte zum Ende seines zehnjähriges Aufenthaltes in Kuba sein Dokumentardebüt "Zucker und Salz" (2010, 32 Minuten) vor. Die No-Budget-Produktion wurde in elf Ländern gezeigt, allein in Deutschland über 100 Mal.
