Welcome to the Real World, America

[UPDATE :: April 1, 2014]  The West’s Looting of Ukraine Has Begun

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
It is now apparent that the “Maiden protests” in Kiev were in actuality a Washington organized coup against the elected democratic government. The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on Ukraine’s border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country.  The sincere idealistic protesters who took to the streets without being paid were the gullible dupes of the plot to destroy their country.
Read the rest of the article.

This article is mirrored completely from CounterPunch. It shows the real war and it's possible consequences.

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WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 28-30, 2014

Economic Sanctions Could Trigger a Global Depression

Ukraine’s Crisis

by GILBERT MERCIER

The referendum in Crimea on March 16, 2014 will probably attach the peninsula to the Russian federation. While it is unlikely that NATO will intervene and seek a direct military confrontation with Russia, the United States and the European Union are already cooking some broad and unwise economic sanctions with which to punish Russia. Russia, for its part, has at its disposal some mighty economic weapons with which to retaliate, as needed. The economic pain from this tit for tat of sanctions will be, in particular, inflicted on the EU. Because of the interconnections between all economies and financial markets, mutual economic sanctions could drive a still fragile world economy to a financial crash. The West, acting as if it solely and arrogantly represents the international community, has formulated a hazardous policy to isolate Russia. This ill-advised strategy is extremely shortsighted on all levels. Unlike Iran, Russia is fully integrated into the global economy.

A Test for BRICS

The Ukraine crisis is a major test of BRICS‘ geopolitical validity as an economic group, political  force and potential military alliance. China, Russia’s biggest partner in BRICS, has been strangely muted about Ukraine and the Crimea referendum, urging for “restraint on all sides” and pushing for a political solution. During the emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on March 15, 2014, on a resolution to declare Crimea’s referendum illegal, China did not side with Russia by using its veto power but instead abstained from voting. China’s abstention does not fare well for the future of BRICS, as it plays into the strategy of the US and its EU partner to isolate Russia. China, by its abstention from the UN vote, and India, Brazil and South Africa, by their subdued responses, have already played into the hands of the US and its European allies. Will China and other BRICS members step in forcefully to stop the madness of multilateral economic sanctions?

Dumping US Treasury Bonds

Russia, to prevent the announced freeze of its assets in the US, has already acted on the looming sanctions by liquidating more than $100 billion of its holdings in US Treasury Bonds. The bonds, which represent about 80 percent of Russia’s holding in US T-Bonds, were transferred out of the US Central Bank. The withdrawal was revealed by the US central bank when it announced that its holdings in T-Bonds dropped by $105 billion for the week ending March 12, 2014, from $2.96 trillion to $2.85 trillion. This abrupt sale is three times higher than any weekly sale was at the peak of the 2008 financial crisis.

Of all countries, China has the means to diffuse the potential economic crisis by also threatening to dump US T-Bonds. China owns an estimated $1.3 trillion in US Treasury Bonds and is the number one investor amongst foreign governments. Other BRICS members such Brazil and India own respectively $250 billion and $64 billion in T-Bonds. Consequently, the threat by BRICS members of a coordinated fire sale would represent more than $1.6 trillion in T-Bonds. This would be a powerful enough “financial weapon of mass destruction,” to quote Warren Buffet,  to crash Wall Street, the US dollar, and by a ripple effect, the European financial markets.

Economic Sanctions’ Global Boomerang Effect

China has rightly warned that drastic economic sanctions against Russia, and Russia’s subsequent retaliation could make the global economy “spiral into chaos.” Sanctions on Russian exports would greatly expose the EU. Europe imports 30 percents of its gas from the Russian state-owned company Gazprom. Russia is also Europe’s biggest customer. The EU is, by far, Russia’s leading trade partner and accounts for about 50 percent of all Russian exports and imports. In 2014, EU-Russia overall trade stands at around 360 billion Euros per year. Russia’s total export to the EU, which is principally raw materials such as gas and oil, stands at around 230 billion Euros, while Russia’s imports from the EU amount to around 130 billion Euros of mainly manufactured products as well as foodstuff. The EU is also the largest investor in the Russian economy and accounts for 75 percent of all foreign investments in Russia.

In case of Western economic sanctions, Russian lawmakers have announced that they would pass a bill to freeze the assets of European and American companies that operate in Russia. On the other side, more than 100 Russian businessmen and politicians are allegedly targeted by the EU for a freeze of their European assets. Besides Alexey Miller, head of the state-owned Gazprom, the CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, is also apparently on the sanction hit list. Rosneft is the largest listed oil company in the world and, as such, has partners worldwide, including in the West. For example, the US-based company Exxon-Mobil has a $500 million oil-exploration project with Rosneft in Siberia, and Exxon-Mobil is already in partnership with the Russian giant oil company to exploit Black Sea oil reserves.

Global zero sum game or is it  fracking stupid? The US’ booming fracking business and its lobbyists in Washington view Ukraine’s crisis as an opportunity to expand into new markets. They argue that the US can provide Europe with all its gas needs and, by doing so, make obsolete Russia’s main economic weapon of shutting off EU’s main gas supply. Needless to say, this would harm the Russian economy by cutting off one of  its key sources of revenue, which amounts to $230 billion a year of export to the EU.

On paper and in theory, the plan to supply the EU with natural gas from fracking sounds manageable. Fortunately, for the sake of the environment, this idea to provide Europe with gas proudly made in the USA is a pie in the sky. Fracking has been singled out as perhaps the most damaging way to extract energy, due to its pollution of water, release of the extremely strong greenhouse gas methane, and potential to cause earthquakes. Realistically, it would take at least three years to sort out the issues of transport, storage and distribution of the US-derived natural gas for Europe. Europeans have a choice: either stick to Gazprom’s cheap and reliable gas or rely on Uncle Sam’s pipe dream for their energy needs. Military escalation is unlikely once Crimea decides to join the Russian federation: NATO doesn’t have the stomach for it. On the other hand, economic sanctions and the Russian retaliations are a recipe for disaster. This game of sanctions is a global zero sum game that could make the 2008 crash look for all of us like a walk in the park.

Gilbert Mercier is the Editor in Chief of News Junkie Post, where this essay originally appeared.

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Obama talks tough [Source]. BBC News - Update :: March 29, 2014

Two more articles from a different perspective worth reading:
1)  Boycott the USA!
2)  Obama plunging world into Armageddon

--Joe

Military Police in Eureka

[Update I: April 1, 2014]
The video says it all about scared shitless paranoid police: The "Bounty" Police Force? Albuquerque Officers Face Protests, Probe over Spate of Fatal Shootings
[Update: March 24, 2014]
This could easily by Eureka, again. - Homeless man shot to death by police after being caught illegally camping.

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Yeah! That's right and no thanks to Murl Harpham and his "Tough Cop" Eureka police department. We are not terrorists neither are all of us criminals. We don't need the violence they bring with their pack-dog mentality and abject paranoia. The question I ask is, Why Eureka?

You got to know when the police, Sheriff's Department and all other policing agencies support a particular candidate for District Attorney, there is only ONE reason, and that is NOT because that person would work to enforce the law for the county with due diligence and impartiality. That person is their to enforce continued police impunity.

Communities grow weary of militarized police

As numerous law enforcement agencies across the United States begin enrolling large armored vehicles into the force, pockets of resistance are forming among some communities concerned with the trend.
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Speaking with the Journal, Eastern Kentucky University professor Peter Kraska said residents are even more worried about potential police militarization following the recent disclosures of the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance program. When citizens continue to hear about the government’s expanding presence, Kraska said armored vehicles represent “a pretty visual example of overreach.”

Read the complete article.

--Joe

Do as I Say Not as I Do

Ralph Nadar wrote this on Counterpunch. Read for some perspective on Barack Obama, the Ultimate Hypocrite.

Hollow Advice
Obama to Putin: Do as I Say Not as I Do
by RALPH NADER
Dear President Obama:

As you ponder your potential moves regarding President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea (a large majority of its 2 million people are ethnic Russians), it is important to remember that whatever moral leverage you may have had in the court of world opinion has been sacrificed by the precedents set by previous American presidents who did not do what you say Mr. Putin should do – obey international law.

“Sanctions as War by Other Means”

This article is reproduced in it's entirety from the Black Agenda Report.

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U.S. Prepares to Gas Russia Into Submission

The U.S., now number one in oil and gas, is preparing to destroy Russia’s economy. “Washington will move to crush, or at least seriously disrupt, Russia under its ‘sanctions as war by other means’ machine, by targeting its energy exports, while simultaneously boosting the foreign markets for U.S. natural gas.”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

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“Washington’s strategy is to permanently ratchet up tensions to ‘new cold war’ levels to justify sanctions against Russian energy exports.”

The massive – and desperate – American offensive against world order is entering a new phase, as the U.S. prepares to resume its historical status as global energy superpower. The Obama administration’s brazen implantation of a rabidly anti-Russian, fascist-led regime in Ukraine places U.S. proxies astride pipelines that carry much of Siberia’s gas to Europe and beyond. Seventy-six percent of Russia’s natural gas exports are bound for Europe, the bulk of it to Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. Russia’s weight in the world is largely derived, not from its economically burdensome nuclear arsenal, but as an energy giant. The U.S.-engineered coup in Kiev sets the stage for a protracted assault on Russia’s energy trade, which accounts for more than half of Moscow’s federal expenditures. Without its huge oil and gas exports, Russia deflates like a leaky dirigible.

Even the Americans were not so stupid as to believe that their neo-Nazi friends in Kiev could somehow pry Russia from its naval base in Crimea. Such was never the plan. Rather, Moscow’s response to the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government was predictable, as was that of the Russian-speaking Crimean majority. Washington’s strategy is to permanently ratchet up tensions to “new cold war” levels to justify sanctions against Russian energy exports while exploiting America’s own natural gas “surplus” as an enhanced weapon of global hegemony.

“The U.S.-engineered coup in Kiev sets the stage for a protracted assault on Russia’s energy trade.”

Thanks to shale fracking, the United States recently surpassed Russia as the world’s number one exporter of natural gas, and will next year become the top oil producer [14]. As the New York Times [15] reported on March 5, “The administration’s strategy is to move aggressively to deploy the advantages of its new resources to undercut Russian natural gas sales to Ukraine and Europe.” That’s not the half of it. When Moscow stood up to U.S.-backed jihadists in Syria, the Obama administration understood that the U.S.-Russia button could not be “reset” to Washington’s satisfaction under current conditions. An assertive Russia, increasingly coordinated with China, must be taken out of international contention. Washington will move to crush, or at least seriously disrupt, Russia under its “sanctions as war by other means” machine, by targeting its energy exports, while simultaneously boosting the foreign markets for U.S. natural gas.

The U.S. government tells its people that it spends more on weaponry than the rest of the world’s nations, combined, in order to, among other things, maintain the free flow of energy throughout the planet. But, that didn’t stop Washington from attempting to cripple Venezuela’s [16] oil production in 2003, or from preventing Iran, once the world’s fourth largest exporter, from marketing more than a fraction [17] of her production under the current U.S. sanctions regime. U.S. rulers have never been guardians of free oil flow. Rather, American policy is designed to ensure that U.S.-based corporations and financiers dominate the global energy trade, and that the dollar remains central to energy transactions, regardless of where the oil and gas comes from.

Russia also plays a key role as the energy giant among the BRIC bloc, which is the most likely venue for hatching alternatives to dollar hegemony. Venezuela, which barters oil with some of its Latin American partners and uses the proceeds of its dollar-denominated exports to build structures of resistance to U.S. imperialism, must also be forced back into line, or taken out of the game.

“U.S. rulers have never been guardians of free oil flow.”

Ever since the Arab oil embargo of 1973, U.S. presidents have trumpeted the quest for “energy self-sufficiency” as a national security imperative, requiring subsidies for domestic energy production. Richard Nixon proclaimed: “In the last third of this century, our independence will depend on maintaining and achieving self-sufficiency in energy.” In truth, oil producers enjoyed bounteous subsidies when the U.S. was indisputably the oil production king of the world, from 1925, when U.S. oil fields accounted form more than 70 percent [18] of total global production, to the early 70s. Citizens assumed self-sufficiency meant drilling for domestic development. “Self-sufficiency” – and jobs – is what makes fracking “worth it” in the eyes of many Americans. Now that the aquifers of much of the country have been fouled by shale-frackers intent on cornering gas markets around the globe, the script must be flipped, so that the surplus can be exported. As George Washington University law professor Richard Pierce told Al Jazeera [19], last year, "The US is now 100 percent independent in natural gas and within the next half a dozen years [North America] will be independent in oil. It will become a global supplier, rather than a demander, in a hurry."

Room must be made for this global supplier in an energy-glutted world. Russia’s gas sales to Europe need to be “undercut,” as the Times puts it. Sanctions can reshape the global markets to the advantage of the new energy superpower – war by other means. Corporate media mask the historical moment with juvenile jibes at Putin, as Washington prepares to subdue the planet with gushing oil and burning water.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

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Mirrored from the Black Agenda Report.

--Joe

Why Thermonuclear War

This is a must read. It is also an update to the article posted below: International Law Versus American-Style Anarchy. 

The Triumph of Lawlessness:

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WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 7-9, 2014

Grand Puppetmaster Brzezinski

Directing War Strategies from the Shadows

by MIKE WHITNEY

"Don’t kid yourself, it’s all about oil. Oil and power. The United States imperial ambitions are thoroughly marinated in oil, access to oil, and control of oil. Without oil, there’s no empire, no dollar hegemony, no overbloated, bullyboy military throwing weaker countries against the wall and extorting tribute. Oil is the coin of the realm, the path to global domination. "

"Putin has audacity to think that the oil beneath Russian soil belongs to Russia. Washington wants to change his mind about that. And that’s why the situation in Ukraine is so dangerous, because the voracious thirst for oil is pushing us all towards another world war."

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE ON COUNTERPUNCH. 

--Joe

International Law Versus American-Style Anarchy

UPDATE :: Did President Obama Forget Ukraine’s Government Was Overthrown?

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ON COUNTERPUNCH

MARCH 06, 2014 

Coming Soon to Ukraine

American Hypocrisy on International Law

by CURTIS FJ DOEBBLER

The threat of Russian intervention in Ukraine has caused American lawyers and diplomats to raise their voices about the legality of Russian military action in Ukraine. These complaints, however, are based more on political rhetoric and posturing than on an understanding of international law.

Americans who supported ostensibly illegal action against the people of Afghanistan and the people of Iraq that left an estimated 3 million Afghanis and Iraqis dead and whose perpetrators have gone with almost complete immunity are now claiming that Russia is following their example. Well, not exactly. Actually they are claiming that America was right and that Russia is wrong. Another more objective way of putting it is that these American lawyers and diplomats are claiming exceptionalism to international law while trying to argue that their version of international law applies to Russia. In other words, what the United States did to Afghanistan and Iraq, other can’t do to friends of the United States, even if the others are acting within the ambit of international law, when the United States was not.

Such hypocrisy is dangerous to the development and application of international law and to the international community as a whole. It is dangerous because it misinterprets international law and intentionally misleads the international community about what international is, how it comes about, and how it works.

Unlike the weapon in the hands of a few States that think they are special, international law is in reality  the lowest common denominator among all States. It is the most fundamental rules of the international community that govern relations among all people. International law functions as basic rules that have been agreed between States for the conduct of their affairs in a way that allows people of diverse social, political, and economic understandings of the world to live together.
The rest of the article on CounterPunch.