>USA File: H&R Block CEO: Mortgage market conditions "most severe since 1930s"; Nyquist: Financial slump will resurrect Marxism; Zyuganov plots

>In his latest column at Financial Sense Online, American geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist considers Russia’s war-ready status, Moscow and Beijing’s meddling in the Middle East and Latin America, as well as the “hollowed out” US economy, and writes: “The smartest political observers know that a financial slump resurrects Marxism and its critique of economic freedom.” He concludes: “The Russians and their allies are making trouble where they can. The hour is ripe. The U.S. president is weak. The American economy is troubled. One great push, one more straw upon the camel’s back, and capitalism might be overthrown – once and for all.”

Western journalists like Ambrose Evans-Pritchard have taken note of Russia’s vulnerable banking system, which is facing a crisis in the wake of the US mortgage industry meltdown. “Richard Hainsworth, from Moscow’s watchdog RusRating,” Evans-Pritchard writes, “said the investor exodus in August was caused by hedge funds liquidating Russian assets to meet US sub-prime losses. ‘They pulled out of stock markets all over the world, so this hit Russia too,’ he said.”

Shortly after the August 15 global stock crash the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union pounced, declaring that Russia was a “financial hostage” of the USA. CPRF leader and political vulture Gennady Zyuganov, pictured above on the 2007-2008 campaign trail, knows the hour is ripe for a commie comeback in Moscow. At the CPRF website he presents the party’s strategy to oust the “Washington-backed fascist-capitalist” regime of President Vladimir Putin: “From the world’s perspective the technological backwardness of the Russian economy grows each day precisely due to the supremacy of private property.” The predictable answer: “However, we see the solution only on the way of the socialist development of our fatherland.”

The “troubled” nature of the US economy is evident in the dire predictions uttered by major players in the financial world. On August 30 H&R Block announced that it is renegotiating the sale of its subprime lending unit Option One Mortgage Corp. to Cerberus Capital Management LP. H&R Block Inc. CEO Mark Ernst admitted: “The mortgage origination market is in the midst of the most severe dislocation that it has seen in years, maybe the most severe since the 1930s.” On several occasions now, to drive the theme home, we have republished a quote from KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn’s 1984 book New Lies for Old: “The communist bloc will not repeat its error in failing to exploit a slump as it did in 1929-32.” The 1930s are here again.

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russia’s Pacific and Baltic Fleets hold exercises; Kremlin will not give up Azerbaijan radar facility

>State-run Novosti contends that Russia’s latest naval exercises in the Sea of Japan “are defense-oriented and pose no threat to any neighboring Asian state.” This posture, however, begs the question. Who is going to attack nuke-tipped Russia? Only one other country really has the ability to take on the neo-Soviet state. As we reported yesterday a Kremlin-run polling agency identifies as Russia’s “key potential enemy” none other than the USA.

Russian Far East naval exercises no threat to neighbors – Pacific Fleet
09:5130/ 08/ 2007

VLADIVOSTOK, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – Naval exercises being held off Russia’s Far East coast are defense-oriented and pose no threat to any neighboring Asian state, a Navy official said Thursday.

The weeklong exercises, which began Wednesday, are being conducted by the Primorye flotilla of the Pacific Fleet in the Russian sector of the Sea of Japan. The maneuvers involve over 20 surface ships, submarines and supply vessels, as well as about a dozen aircraft.

Captain 1st rank Roman Martov, the head of the Pacific Fleet press center, said these are scheduled combat exercises of diversified forces.

“These exercises will become the longest and most comprehensive maneuvers ever held in south Primorye waters,” said Martov.

Besides missile and gunnery firing, and torpedo attacks, the exercises will feature missile interceptions by two large Anti-Submarine Warfare ships, the Admiral Panteleyev and Admiral Tributs [NATO codename Udaloy I].

Source: Novosti

Notwithstanding Russia’s obvious war preparations against the West, the Kremlin continues to “play nice” with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by again participating in the Partnership for Peace’s annual “Open Spirit” naval exercises in the Baltic Sea. The PfP website describes the program’s mission:

Each Partner country makes a number of far-reaching political commitments to preserve democratic societies; to maintain the principles of international law; to fulfil obligations under the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Helsinki Final Act and international disarmament and arms control agreements; to refrain from the threat or use of force against other states; to respect existing borders; and to settle disputes peacefully.

Taking into account only a few examples of the neo-Soviet resurgence–including Nashi’s strong-arm tactics against anti-Putin critics and Moscow’s belligerent (and strategically deceptive) actions against Tblisi (over the presence of its peacekeepers in Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions), Tallinn (over the removal of a Soviet memorial), Kiev (over natural gas supplies from Gazprom), and Warsaw and Prague (over US missile defense)–Russia does not appear to meet the PfP’s membership criteria. But who’s looking?

Open Spirit international naval exercises begin in Baltic Sea
31.08.2007, 09.34

MOSCOW, August 31 (Itar-Tass) — International naval exercises of minesweepers Open Spirit 2007 begin near the port of Klaipeda, Lithuania, in the Baltic Sea this Friday.

Two minesweepers of the Russia Baltic Fleet put out to sea from Baltiisk on Thursday to participate in the manoeuvres. The commander of the Russian ships is Alexei Pasechnik, the fleet information service told Itar-Tass.

Participants in the exercises are also German, British, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Belgian, French, Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish ships.

The Open Spirit exercises are held annually beginning 1996 in waters of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in accordance with the NATO Partnership for Peace programme.

The aim of the exercises is to provide military and technical help to the Baltic countries to clear coastal waters of explosives left after the war.

Nineteen ships from ten countries and over 1,000 servicemen, including about 100 Russian navy sailors, will participate in the operation. The ships will examine the Baltic seabed in search of ammunition and master cooperation of crews and coordination in rescue operations.

Russian Baltic Fleet ships participate in the manoeuvres for the fourth time, but will operate in Lithuania’s waters for the first time. During the exercises, Russian sailors found and destroyed more than 60 explosive objects in the Baltic Sea, the information service said.

According to experts, about 100,000 mines were laid in the Baltic during the first and second world wars. Besides, there are dozens of tonnes of ammunition in sunken ships on the seabed.

The Open Spirit 2007 exercises will end on September 10.

Source: ITAR-TASS

The PfP is yet another example of communist-scripted East-West convergence–about which KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn warned more than 20 years ago–on the edge of the Fourth World War.

Meanwhile, Moscow insists upon holding onto its radar facility in Azerbaijan, which neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin proposed as an alternative to US national missile defense plans. Washington considers the facility at Gabala “obsolete.”

Russia will use Gabala radar – Space Forces representative
20:5128/ 08/ 2007

MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Space Forces will not give up using the Gabala radar in Azerbaijan, the forces’ spokesman said, commenting on media reports that Russia could soon abandon the site.

“The activity of the Space Forces is aimed at all radars eventually being on Russian territory. But we do not intend to give up the agreement on the use of the Gabala ahead of time,” Alexei Zolotukhin said.

He added that Russia and Azerbaijan concluded a lease agreement that expires in 2012, but that it could be prolonged.

Russia has said it is ready to upgrade its early-warning radar in Gabala, which was proposed as an alternative to U.S. anti-missile plans, but Washington has called the facility obsolete.

The U.S. has said it wants to place a radar and a host of interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic to fend off what Washington sees as an impending missile threat from Iran and North Korea. However, Russia regards the plan as a threat to its national security.

Source: Novosti

>USA File: Mexican trucks to obtain unrestricted access to US highways on Labor Day weekend, buffer zone gone; continental integration trumps security

>This is kind of a conspiracy of big business to create a scenario where there are no minimum wage limits and no requirements for safety. They basically want to erase all the borders. This is big business that wants to be able to run stuff out of Mexico, which is much cheaper, into Canada and into the United States. All of this is being greased right now by big business.

— James Phillip Hoffa, President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters; son of past Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa (1913-1975); statement made in response to US Department of Transportation pilot program for Mexican truckers

Teamsters leader James Hoffa is right: As we have documented there certainly is a conspiracy of North American “Nepman” capitalists, under the leadership of pro-communist arch-capitalist David Rockefeller, to merge the USA, Canada, and Mexico into one political-economic entity. Notwithstanding platitudes about “continental security,” the Western globalists cannot be trusted because they do not practice capitalism within the context of patriotism and morality. The nationalist left and its union backers like Hoffa, meanwhile, undermine capitalism as a very concept through their persistent antagonism against profit. Pictured above: Hoffa opens a new Teamsters local in South Charleston, West Virginia and expresses solidarity with far-left Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry during the 2004 election.

Hoffa: Mexican trucks are disaster for U.S.
Posted: August 31, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern

A test program being launched by the Bush Administration to allow what could be thousands of Mexican trucks and their drivers unrestricted access to U.S. highways will be a “disaster,” according to the chief of the Teamsters.

James Hoffa, whose union is working in court to halt the scheduled launch of the trucking test program this weekend, told G. Gordon Liddy on his radio talk show that the Mexican trucks and drivers will endanger U.S. lives, damage U.S. jobs, pollute the U.S. environment and benefit no one but big business.

“They want to make it so there’s no regulation. You get in your truck in Monterey, Mexico, and drive to Montreal. You’d have to be on speed to do it,” Hoffa said.

He said corporate interests have decided, “We’re going to run ’em to death so we can make more money.”

“That’s that this is about,” he told Liddy.

WND began reporting on the plan months ago, and has documented the growing opposition to the plan, which many blame on the 2005 Security and Prosperity Partnership signed by President Bush and the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

Supporters say that plan is a way to smooth the regulations so business flows more easily between the nations of North America, opponents consider it another step in a not-so-veiled attempt to set up a merger of the three nations.

Hoffa said right now the unregulated and often-unmonitored trucks from Mexico are contained to a zone along the border where they are allowed to be. The test plan set up by the government would erase that limit.

“All we’re asking is that Mexican trucks and truckers meet the same standards as American trucks and drivers,” Hoffa said. He cited the requirements in the United States for commercial drivers’ licenses, drug screening, physical evaluations, hazmat certifications, etc.

“It’s a whole process to make sure he’s a safe driver,” he said. But in Mexico, there are no databases of drivers with a history of recklessness and arrest, or even drug testing facilities, he said.

“And can you believe they’re doing this on Labor Day?” he said, calling it a slap in the face to American workers.

Also significant is the concern over national security, he said. There isn’t any way to adequately monitor the individual vehicles that will be representing the 100 Mexican trucking corporations expected to be involved in the program, he said.

“This is kind of a conspiracy of big business,” Hoffa warned, to create a scenario where there are no minimum wage limits and no requirements for safety.

“They basically want to erase all the borders. This is big business that wants to be able to run stuff out of Mexico, which is much cheaper, into Canada and into the United States,” he said. “All of this is being greased right now by big business.”

Joining the Teamsters in the legal challenge to the program were the Sierra Club and Public Citizen.

Source: WorldNetDaily.com

>Latin America File: FARC scores propaganda coup, compels 1,100 peasants to Ecuador to protest Bogota’s anti-coca/cocaine campaign

>On August 28 we reported that “Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has accused his nation’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, of forcing peasants to flee to Ecuador in a bid to undermine relations between the nations.” The purpose of this mass protest/emigration was nothing less than a propaganda coup on the part of FARC, which is protesting the Colombian government’s US-backed coca/cocaine eradication program. Colombia’s Marxist insurgents are simply protecting their “turf.” Along with the allied regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, FARC is the most imporant element in the Communist Bloc’s 45-year-old narco-subversion plan against the West. Pictured here: Ecuadorean soldiers break up FARC camp on their side of the border with Colombia, February 2006.

Colombians protesting coca eradication in Ecuador to return home in 24 hours
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 29, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: At least 1,100 Colombians in Ecuador protesting their government’s eradication of coca will return home within 24 hours, the Colombian foreign minister said.

The United Nations reported last week that the Colombians — numbering 1,600 on Sunday — had fled combat between leftist guerrillas and the army, seeking refuge across the border in Ecuador.

But Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo said Wednesday that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the nation’s largest guerrilla group, was using the peasants to pressure the government to stop eradicating coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine, along the border.

Araujo told RCN radio in Bogota on Wednesday that a government commission signed an agreement with the Colombian nationals to return to Colombia on Thursday.

He said they accepted “the government’s program to continue manual eradication” of coca, adding that they will cooperate in alternative crop programs.

Ecuador’s civil defense director, Carlos Vasco, said handling the influx of Colombians costs US$60,000 (€44,000) a day.

“We were tricked,” Vasco said in an interview with Gamavision television. “In the end we realized that they used us because the real motive was to pressure (Colombian) President Alvaro Uribe to let them grow coca.”

Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and coca.

Andrea Escalante, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that there were 1,100 Colombians still in shelters in the northern Ecuadorean town of San Lorenzo, 12 kilometers (8 miles) from the Colombian border.

Associated Press Writers Gonzalo Solano and Jeanneth Valdivieso in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Tyrant-in-Training Chavez, as we previously reported, has offered to broker negotiations designed to release hostages held by FARC. “Raul Reyes, a top FARC leader,” reveals Reuters, “told an Argentine newspaper recently he welcomed Chavez’s involvement and said guerrillas would hold talks anywhere. But he insisted on a demilitarized zone and an exchange of hostages inside Colombia.”

>Latin America/Africa Files: Managua-Tripoli Axis stands firm: Ortega congratulates Gaddafi on 38th anniversary of Libyan Revolution

>Made-over revolutionaries and veteran scumbags Daniel Ortega and Muammar al-Gaddafi (“Duck”) play the moderates for Western media consumption, but their supporting role in the Communist Bloc remains unwavering. Both neo-Sandinista Nicaragua and the “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” have resumed military relationships with neo-Soviet Russia, which is all too eager to reclaim past client states in Central America and North Africa. Pictured here: Comandante Ortega visits his old pal Muammar al-Gaddafi in Tripoli, June 2007. Translation below courtesy Babelfish with some refinements by your resident blogger.

Daniel congratulates Gaddafi on anniversary of the Libyan Revolution
By: Francisco Palaces
30 of August of 2007 11:34:17

On Wednesday Comandante-Presidente Daniel Ortega sent a congratulation message to his counterpart Muammar al-Gaddafi on the occasion of the 38th anniversary of the triumph of the Libyan Revolution, on September 1, 1969.

“I want to express my sincere congratulations to you, for yet another anniversary of that Great Model of Revolution, and of your wise leadership,” stated the text, which was released on Wednesday in Managua by the Council of Communication and Citizenship of the Sandinista government.

In the letter, Daniel emphasizes the support that the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya offers to the revolutionary processes in the world.

“We send a big hug to him on this most important date for you, the Libyan people, and for all the believers and lovers of the Freedom, and the Revolution,” adds the message of the Sandinista leader, who returned to power by the electoral route last January 10.

Daniel signs the letter in the name of the Nicaraguans, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and the government of that Central American country.

On September 1, 1969 then Colonel Gaddafi participated in the revolution that overthrew King Idris, and who in March of 1977 proclaimed the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Source: La Voz del Sandinismo

>USSR2 File: Kremlin-run polling agency: Russians view China as "most friendly country," USA as "key potential enemy"; Pravda: US-dominated world over

>Just in time to legitimize the Kremlin’s blatant war preparations against the West Russians, we learn, view the USA as their “key potential enemy.” So much, too, for the Cold War-era lie in which Soviet Russia and Red China were “enemies.” In New Lies for Old (1984) KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn ably dispels any misconceptions about the Sino-Soviet “split” as pure propaganda designed to confuse the West about the intentions of the Moscow-Beijing Axis. We can thank the state-owned All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) for producing the statistics reported below and state-owned Kommersant Daily for publishing them.

Meanwhile, Americans and their few allies stagger along in a collective stupor, viewing “post”-communist Russia as a resource-heavy country seeking worldwide market niches, with a Chechen terrorism “problem,” some leftover nukes, an itchy trigger finger, and a “few” authoritarian tendencies of no consequence to the West. In his latest column (linked above) American geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist writes: “The American shopping mall regime produces stupefaction and complacency. The regime is predicated on economic optimism and entertainment. This optimism is about to be shattered. The Russians know this is going to happen, and they are preparing even as we fail to prepare.”

China Is No Longer Potential Enemy for the Russians
August 30, 2007

The Russians view China the most friendly country, while the United States is the key potential enemy for them, signaled the poll of All-Russia’s Center of Public Opinion.

China is absolutely favored by 21 percent of respondents, which makes it the leader of preference list of the Russians. It is followed by Germany and Belarus, each of which with the vote of 12 percent. Of interest is that exactly Belarus was thought most friendly in 2006, while China was deemed the second potential enemy after the United States (16 percent past year vs. 3 percent this year). Though still leading amid the unfriendly nations, the bad score of the United States shed from 45 percent to 26 percent. Today’s second enemy for the Russians is Georgia (19 percent), while the third leading position is shared by Britain, the Baltic nations and Ukraine (7 percent each).

Another feature of this year’s poll is the surge in number of undetermined respondents – 49 percent (vs. 37 percent in 2006) proved unable to call Russia’s friends, and 51 percent (vs. 26 percent) found it too difficult to name enemies.

As to China, the favorable rating could be attributed to the active economic and political cooperation, especially in Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the analysts speculate, pointing out that Belarus fell on gas clashes with Russia.

Source: Kommersant Daily

In addition to state-run agencies, Pravda, the organ of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, is gloating over the resumption of the Russian strategic bomber patrols and the end of a 15-year period in which NATO aircraft dominated the skies of Europe.

The resumption of flights for Russian strategic bombers made NATO express serious concerns on the matter. In addition, NATO closely watches tests of a new Russian submarine. This news made “the most democratic country in the world” see that Russia is an equal rival for NATO. The NATO command is seriously concerned about the surprises that Russia makes.

When Russia’s strategic aviation recommenced flights in the areas of its traditional patrolling the Pentagon and European headquarters were shocked to learn the news. Russian aircraft have not patrolled the air space above the Atlantic waters within the past fifteen years, which made NATO believe that it held the absolute power there.

There are even some hysteric statements saying that the recommencement of flights by strategic aviation of the Russian Federation may mean the start of a new cold war. But some experts scoff at Moscow’s attempts to scare Europe with its outdated airplanes as they call the Russian strategic bombers.

Although the CPRF has declared its intentions to oust the Putinist-Chekist-Gryzlovist-Surkovist regime in the Kremlin, the communist leadership has no objections to the Russian Air Force’s combat-ready status and the revitalization of the country’s military-industrial complex. Even more so, the CPRF gloats over what it sees as the impending demise of the USA as a result of Washington’s “neoconservative doctrine”: “Now the structure of the one-pole world is coming tumbling down.”

It is quite logic that Russia is actively reviving its military industrial complex and recommencing patrolling of the strategic aviation. In the past years, the West traditionally treated Russia as a weak part that regularly proposed peace initiatives and demanded peace for its own security. So, the West saw the role of Moscow as that of a petitioner.

But when Russia exhausted all the opportunities to make all countries friends it decided to pursue its own interests. That made the West and Europe first of all realize that Moscow would have its own way independently and may act even contrary to Europe’s interests.

After the breakup of the USSR the USA felt its global responsibility that later transformed into unrestricted domination over the world that allowed Washington to apply a neoconservative doctrine and intrude countries with unwanted regimes. Now the structure of the one-pole world is coming tumbling down.

Russia is not the only country that disagrees with the present-day model of the world order, and Moscow knows how to make others hear its opinion. Russia can definitely be an equal rival to NATO in the sky and at sea.

Russia’s hidden communist masters have given the signal: War with the West is coming.

>USA File: Bush: Iran’s quest for nukes will lead to holocaust, US military to confront regime; Baghdad to Tehran: Stop shelling Kurdish positions

>The Bush White House is most certainly developing a public case for whacking Iran in the very near future. While a potential “Operation Iranian Freedom” might mitigate the threat of a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East, Chief of the Russian General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky has clearly articulated the Kremlin line on that subject: Leave Iran alone. Excerpts from US President George W. Bush’s address to the 89th Annual National Convention of the American Legion follows. While still playing the “religion of peace” card, no doubt to appease dubious Islamic allies such as Pakistan (see below), Bush clearly portrays Iran as a serious global and regional threat via “Shia Muslim extremism.”

The murderers and beheaders are not the true face of Islam; they are the face of evil. They seek to exploit religion as a path to power and a means to dominate the Middle East. The violent Islamic radicalism that inspires them has two main strains. One is Sunni extremism, embodied by al Qaida and its terrorist allies. Their organization advances a vision that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of political power. We saw this vision in the brutal rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where women were publicly whipped, men were beaten for missing prayer meetings, and young girls could not go to school.

These extremists hope to impose that same dark vision across the Middle East by raising up a violent and radical caliphate that spans from Spain to Indonesia. So they kill fellow Muslims in places like Algeria and Jordan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia in an attempt to undermine their governments. And they kill Americans because they know we stand in their way. And that is why they attacked U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and killed sailors aboard the USS Cole in 2001 [sic]. And that is why they killed nearly 3,000 people on 9/11. And that is why they plot to attack us again. And that is why we must stay in the fight until the fight is won. (Applause.)

The other strain of radicalism in the Middle East is Shia extremism, supported and embodied by the regime that sits in Tehran. Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region. It is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran backs Hezbollah who are trying to undermine the democratic government of Lebanon. Iran funds terrorist groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which murder the innocent, and target Israel, and destabilize the Palestinian territories. Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which could be used to attack American and NATO troops. Iran has arrested visiting American scholars who have committed no crimes and pose no threat to their regime. And Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.

In Iraq, Sunni extremists, led by al Qaeda, are staging sensational attacks on innocent men, women, and children in an attempt to stoke sectarian violence. Their operatives have assassinated those seeking to build a new future for the Iraqi people. Their targets include everyone they consider infidels — including Christians and Jews and Yezidis and Shia, and even fellow Sunnis who do not share their radical distortion of Islam. Their ranks include foreign fighters who travel to Iraq through Syria. Their operations seek to create images of chaos and carnage to break the will of the American people. These killers don’t understand our country. America does not give in to thugs and assassins — and America will not abandon Iraq in its hour of need. (Applause.)

Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people. Members of the Qods Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons, including sophisticated IEDs. And with the assistance of Hezbollah, they’ve provided training for these violent forces inside of Iraq. Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the last few months — despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq.

Some say Iran’s leaders are not aware of what members of their own regime are doing. Others say Iran’s leaders are actively seeking to provoke the West. Either way, they cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities. (Applause.)

Source: WhiteHouse.gov

According to a new study by two British researchers the White House is indeed preparing to dismantle Tehran’s military capabilities. Citing Dr. Dan Plesch at the University of London and Martin Butcher, a former adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, The Raw Story reports:

The study concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order. The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

Plesch and Butcher acknowledge that, with the November 2008 elections around the corner, the Bush White House is in a race against time to resolve the “Iranian issue”:

We should not underestimate the Bush administration’s ability to convince itself that an “Iran of the regions” will emerge from a post-rubble Iran. So, do not be in the least surprised if the United States attacks Iran. Timing is an open question, but it is hard to find convincing arguments that war will be avoided, or at least ones that are convincing in Washington.

Washington might wish to move quickly against Tehran, too, because the political landscape in “pro”-American states like Pakistan might be altering soon. On August 29 the Washington Post reported that President General Pervez Musharraf has agreed to step down as army chief–but not as president–in an agreement with exiled political rival and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Elections are tentatively scheduled for October 11 of this year and could bring Bhutto’s center-leftist Pakistan People’s Party to power. The centrist pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League currently holds the most seats in the National Assembly. In an August 9, 2004 article published in The Guardian Bhutto writes scathingly of the “marriage of convenience” between the USA and Musharraf:

Other important leaders continue to be caught in dribs and drabs every six months, including Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian, who was arrested in the Pakistani city of Gujrat last month. This is good and bad news for Islamabad’s military ruler. The positive part is that General Pervez Musharraf gets to play good cop and earn Washington’s pleasure to continue his dictatorship. The bad part is that eyebrows are raised as to why leading al-Qaida militants found it necessary to hide in a land run by Washington’s “key ally” in the war against terror.

Instead of the “War on Terror,” in typical leftist fashion, Bhutto advocates a “war on poverty.”

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has delivered an ultimatum to Iran: Stop shelling Kurdish positions in the northern party of its country. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari affirmed:

Iranian shelling has been ongoing and unfortunately has become a daily or a routine practice. Recently, we summoned the Iranian ambassador and handed him a note of protest. The Iraqi government demanded an immediate cessation of these attacks on innocent people because it has led to extensive damage to the property, to the environment of the area and it also has led many people to leave their homes because of the continuation of the shelling.

There is probably no way, however, that Baghdad can stand its ground against Tehran without US intervention and thus, in part, the conclusions reached by Plesch and Butcher above.

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russia unveils mock-up of pilotless stealth bomber at Moscow air show; CIS holds Combat Commonwealth 2007 drills

>In the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s August 17 announcement concerning the resumption of permament bomber patrols, much attention has been given to Russia’s “lumbering” 1950s-era Bear bombers with their “enormous” radar signatures. Cyber-chatter like this tends to downplay the Russian threat to world security. In any case, Russia’s “antiquated” Bears are simply one component in a larger airborne delivery system that includes nuke-tipped cruise missiles. Meanwhile, the unveiling of a mock-up of Russia’s new stealth bomber-drone “Skat” at the MAKS 2007 air show demonstrates that the Kremlin refuses to play second fiddle to the White House.

Russia unveils pilotless ‘stealth’ bomber
by Staff Writers
Moscow (AFP) Aug 23, 2007

Russia unveiled on Thursday the mock-up of a pilotless bomber plane that its constructors say will be even better than the famous US stealth fighter at evading enemy radars and anti-aircraft fire.

NTV television showed a full-sized model of the bat-like plane known as Skat, which means “stingray,” at an airshow just outside Moscow — the first public glimpse of the project run by Russia’s MiG corporation.

The aircraft has a flattened, swept-back profile reminiscent of the US air force’s stealth aircraft, with a bubble-like cockpit area, although the plane will not have a pilot, NTV reported.

According to the report, the Skat’s constructors claim the stealth technology will make it even less vulnerable than the US version to radar detection.

“Many firms are trying to work in this area, but few so far have achieved results. Today we have begun real work on building an assault craft,” the director of MiG’s Mikoyan design bureau, Vladimir Barkovsky, said on NTV television.

RIA Novosti news agency quoted Barkovsky saying that the Skat will be able to attack land and sea targets, particularly enemy anti-aircraft sites, even if coming under heavy fire.

It will weigh 10 tonnes, be able to carry up to two tonnes of ordnance and have a range of 4,000 kilometres (2,485 miles), RIA Novosti reported.

Source: DefenseTalk.com

The Commonwealth of Independent States, which constitutes a placeholder for the soon-to-be-restored Soviet Union and overlaps with the membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, coordinates its individual militaries through annual “Combat Commonwealth” war games. These maneuvers not only facilitate the re-integration of the Soviet armed forces, but also enable Moscow to prepare to take on the North Atlantic Alliance without attracting too much attention. Russian Deputy Air Force Chief Lieutenant General Vladislav Stytsenkov admitted that “The principal goal of the live firing is to repel a simulated massive attack on the joint CIS air defense system by a potential foe.” Pray tell, who is that “potential foe?” Surely not the USA? These military exercises were held concurrently with the SCO’s “Peace Mission” 2007 “anti-terrorist” drill and will continue into September, as state-run Novosti reports below.

CIS defense chiefs arrive in south Russia for live firing drill
09:40 22/ 08/ 2007

ASHULUK (Astrakhan Region) – The defense ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States arrived Wednesday at the Ashuluk firing range in south Russia for the final day of a joint annual exercise.

Units of the ex-Soviet countries’ joint air defense system will conduct live firing as part of the Combat Commonwealth 2007 drills in the Astrakhan Region near the Caspian Sea, which began on August 14.

Russian Deputy Air Force Chief Lieutenant General Vladislav Stytsenkov said: “During the joint CIS air defense exercises, more than 20 ground-to-air and air-to-air missiles will be fired.”

“The principal goal of the live firing is to repel a simulated massive attack on the joint CIS air defense system by a potential foe,” he said.

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and the defense ministers of other CIS countries are attending the exercise, which is part of the second stage of Combat Commonwealth 2007.

The exercise involves live intercepts of dummy cruise missiles by S-300 (SA-10 Grumble) and S-125 (SA-3 Goa) air defense systems and a variety of simulated air missions performed by over 30 Su-24 Fencer, Su-25 Frogfoot, Su-27 Flanker and MiG-29 Fulcrum aircraft.

The third and fourth stages of the exercise will take place at Kazakh and Uzbek training grounds later in August and September, and will involve Kazakh and Uzbek Air Force and Air Defense units.

Conducted annually, the exercises are part of efforts to build a joint air defense shield for the CIS, a loose association of former Soviet republics. An integrated air defense network was set up by 10 CIS-member countries February 10, 1995, but so far exists only on paper.

Source: Novosti

>Useful Idiots Bin: Castro tacitly endorses Clinton-Obama ticket, "seemingly invincible"; damns Eisenhower, lauds Carter; played golf with Che

>Did you know that Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro, who delights in persecuting journalists and religious dissidents, has a thoughtful side? Indeed, the Communist Party of Cuba’s mouthpiece Granma features a regular column by the grandfatherly figure, the object of adoring worship by communists worldwide, Hollywood leftists, and other deranged, ideologically arrested persons. Did you know that terrorist Che Guevara–whose mugshot appears on T-shirts worn by hygienically challenged be-dreadlocked individuals at coffee shops, street corners, and college campuses everywhere–liked to head for the links and play a few rounds of golf with ol’ Fidel? It’s true.

In the article below Castro offers (unsolicited) opinions on several US presidents. He lauds Jimmy (“I Gave Away the Panama Canal and Still Love Daniel Ortega”) Carter for not being “an accomplice to the brutal terrorism against Cuba,” exonerates Gerald Ford as a hapless “symbolic president,” damns Dwight Eisenhower for “initiating anti-Cuban terrorism,” rebukes Bill (“Slick Willie”) Clinton for passing the Helms-Burton Act that enforces the US embargo against Cuba, and characterizes George W. Bush as a president “elected by fraud” with the aid of the Cuban-American lobby in Florida. Of course, communist Cuba has nooo history of fraudulent elections. Castro also describes a potential Democratic ticket consisting of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama as “seemingly invincible.” Pictured below: Obama-nation: The Communist Bloc’s favored (Manchurian) candidates for the US presidency and vice-presidency: Barack Obama and Hillary (“I Could/Should Have Stayed Home and Baked Cookies”) Rodham Clinton.

On August 7 former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani insisted that he is the only (moderate) Republican candidate who can beat a Democratic ticket consisting of Clinton and Obama: “If you want to defeat Hillary Clinton, I would be the best person to do that because I can make this campaign nationwide. We can build it to have a chance of winning in New York and in New England and in California and Oregon – these are states where Republicans haven’t even had a campaign for a long time.” Pictured above: “I Love New York”: With a little nudge Rudy gives Hillary the grand tour of that city’s subway.

Reflections of President Fidel Castro
Submission to imperial politics

OF all the presidents of the United States, and those who aspire to that office, I only met one who, for ethical-religious reasons, was not an accomplice to the brutal terrorism against Cuba: James Carter. That assumes, of course, another President who forbade that United States officials should be used to assassinate Cuban leaders. That was the case of Gerald Ford who replaced Nixon after the Watergate scandal. Given his irregular manner of ascending to the office, one might characterize him as a symbolic President.

It is to the illustrious President Eisenhower, not in the least opposed to anti-Cuban terrorism but rather its initiator, that we owe thanks for at least providing a definition of the industrial-military complex which today, with its insatiable and incurable voracity, makes up the motor that is driving the human species to its current crisis. More than three billion years have gone by since planet Earth saw the first forms of life springing up.

One day, Che [Guevara] and I went to play golf. He had been a caddie once to earn some money in his spare time; I, on the other hand, knew absolutely nothing about this expensive sport. The United States government had already decreed the suspension and the redistribution of Cuba’s sugar quota, after the Revolution had passed the Agrarian Reform Law. The golf game was a photo opportunity. The real purpose was to make fun of Eisenhower.

In the United States, you can have a minimum of votes and still become President. That is what happened to Bush. Having a majority of electoral votes and losing the Presidency is what happened to Gore. For that reason, the State of Florida is the prize everyone aspires to, because of the presidential votes it provides. In the case of Bush, an electoral fraud was also needed; for this, the first Cuban emigrants, who were the Batista supporters and the bourgeois, were best masters.

Clinton is not excluded from all of this, neither is the Democratic Party’s candidate. The Helms-Burton Act was passed with his support, with a ready-made excuse: the downing of Brothers to the Rescue planes, those which on more than one occasion had flown over the city of Havana and which had violated Cuban territory dozens of times. The order to fend off flights over the Capital had been given to the Cuban Air Force just weeks earlier.

I must tell you that, close to that episode, Congressman Bill Richardson had arrived on a visit to Cuba on January 19, 1996. As usual, he brought with him petitions asking that several counter-revolutionaries be released from prison. We explained to him that we were by now tired of receiving such petitions, and I talked to him about what was happening with the Brothers to the Rescue flights. I also talked to him about the unfulfilled promises regarding the blockade. Richardson returned a few days later, on the 10th of February, and very earnestly told me, to the best of my recollection, the following: “That will not be happening again; the President has ordered those flights to be suspended”.

In those days, I believed that orders issued by the President of the United States would be carried out. The planes were brought down on February 24, some days after the reply. The New Yorker Magazine supplies details about that meeting with Richardson.

Apparently, Clinton gave the order to suspend those flights, but nobody paid any attention to it. It was an election year, and he took advantage of that excuse to invite the Foundation leaders over and to sign that criminal Act, with the approval of all.

Following the migratory crisis of 1994, we learned that Carter wanted to do something to find a solution. Clinton didn’t accept it and he called Salinas de Gortari, the President of Mexico. Cuba had been the last nation to recognize his electoral victory. He had contacted him on his inauguration as the new President of Mexico.

Salinas informed me by phone of Clinton’s decision to find a satisfactory solution, and in turn he was asked for his cooperation in this effort. That was how an agreement was reached in principle. That agreement with Clinton included the idea of putting an end to the economic blockade. The only witness we could count on was Salinas. Clinton had thus left out Carter. Cuba was not able to decide who the mediator would be. Salinas relates this episode accurately. Anyone with an interest can read about it in his books.

Clinton was really kind when we informally crossed paths at a UN meeting attended by many heads of state. Moreover, he was friendly, as well as intelligent, in demanding adherence to the law in the case of the kidnapped boy, when he was rescued by special federal agents sent from Washington.

The candidates are now immersed in the Florida adventure: Hillary, the Clinton successor; Obama, the popular African American candidate and several of the other 16 who, up until the present, have proposed their candidacy in both parties, with the exception of Republican Congressman Ronald Ernest Paul and the former Democratic Senator from Alaska, Maurice Robert Gravel, and the other three Democrats Dennis Kucinich, Christopher Dodd and Bill Richardson.

I don’t know what Carter said during his race to the White House. Whatever his position was, I was right when I guessed that his election could avoid a holocaust for the people of Panama, and that is just what I said to Torrijos. He established the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba and promoted an agreement about jurisdictional maritime limits. The circumstances surrounding his term prevented him from taking things any further and, in my opinion he embarked on several imperial adventures.

Today, talk is about the seemingly invincible ticket that might be created with Hillary for President and Obama for Vice President. Both of them feel the sacred duty of demanding “a democratic government in Cuba”. They are not making politics: they are playing a game of cards on a Sunday afternoon.

The media declares that this would be essential, unless Gore decides to run. I don’t think he will do so; better than anyone, he knows about the kind of catastrophe that awaits humanity if it continues along its current course. When he was a candidate, he of course committed the error of yearning for “a democratic Cuba”.

Enough of tales and nostalgia. This is written simply to increase the conscience of the Cuban people.

Fidel Castro Ruz
August 27, 2007.

>Latin America File: Correa welcomes Chavez to Ecuador, plans giant oil refinery; Bolivia suspends constitutional re-write in face of protests

>Latin America’s Red Axis is laboring, under the radar and in plain view, to communize the Western Hemisphere. Two weeks ago Chavezista “knock off” Rafael Correa welcomed the virulently anti-American Venezuelan dictator to Ecuador where they pledged solidarity in oil, neo-communism, and constitutional “reform,” meaning institutional socialism. Pictured above: Fidel Castro’s “mini me” Hugo Chavez (in trademark red shirt) and “mini mini me” Correa, in Quito. The mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, People’s Daily Online, reported:

Ecuador, Venezuela to study building giant oil refinery in Ecuador

11:05, August 10, 2007

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday agreed to conduct a joint feasibility study on building giant oil refinery in Ecuador.

The refinery in Ecuador’s Pacific coast province of Manabi which is expected to have a daily processing capacity of 300,000 barrels of oil and cost nearly 5 billion U.S. dollars to build.

The two leaders also agreed to boost the strength of Sacha, an oil field in Orellana province, in Ecuador’s Amazon region.

Ecuador’s state oil company currently produces close to 42,732 barrels a day of 27 degree API oil from Sacha.

At the start of the year, Venezuela agreed to support Ecuador’s Esmeraldas refinery and exchange crude oil and refined products.

Chavez arrived in Ecuador on Wednesday night to talk with Correa about energy cooperation and a possible purchase of 500 million dollars of Ecuadorian government’s bonds to help it with its debts.

Chavez was cheered by dozens of Ecuadorians in Plaza Grande. “As I have told your president, Venezuela is the home-from-home for all Ecuadorians,” Chavez said to the crowd.

Not surprisingly, nothing was said in public by either dictator, both of whom sympathize with Colombia’s leftist insurgent armies, of the 250,000 refugees who have fled Colombia’s civil war for the relative safety of neighboring Ecuador. On August 26 the International Herald Tribune reported that “Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has accused his nation’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, of forcing peasants to flee to Ecuador in a bid to undermine relations between the nations.” Nor was there any public mention of the 5,000 Russian sniper rifles that Caracas will be purchasing. The Dragunovs are the latest item in a long shopping list of military equipment, including 24 Sukhoi fighter jets, 100,000 Kalashnikov AK-103 assault rifles, and diesel submarines, that Comrade Hugo has presented to the eager arms merchants in Moscow. On August 26 the Venezuelan dictator threatened: “I’m going to buy 5,000 Dragunov rifles from Russia … with telescopic sight, the best in the world, with infrared night-view. We will knock out any imperialist that approaches.” This, by the way, is Comrade Rafael’s mentor.

Meanwhile, freedom lovers are waking up to President Evo Morales’ drive to socialize Bolivia. Streets protests over the location of the national capital, which is divided between Sucre and La Paz, have forced the Bolivian Tyrant-in-Training to suspend the constituent assembly rewriting the country’s constitution. On August 23 the Associated Press reported:

An assembly rewriting Bolivia’s constitution has been suspended because of rising protests over a proposal to relocate the Andean nation’s capital.

Constituent Assembly President Sylvia Lazarte said Wednesday night that deliberations on a new framework will be halted “until further notice” after a day of occasionally violent demonstrations. The body was convened last year by President Evo Morales to give more voice to the country’s long-oppressed poor majority.

Protesters waving Sucre’s red-cross flag, many of them university students, marched in front of the historic theater where the assembly’s governing committee met on Wednesday, throwing rocks at riot police before being dispersed by tear gas. Others stoned a house where a delegate had taken refuge.

Organized by Sucre civic leaders, the protesters are demanding the seat of government return to the southern city which was the capital from Bolivia’s founding in 1825 until a little over a century ago.

The nation’s courts are still in Sucre, but the legislative and executive branches reside in La Paz, high in the Andes mountains. Bolivian maps mark both cities with a capital’s star.

Interestingly enough, this piece observes that many of the anti-Morales protesters were university students. One would expect this group to support that country’s Trotskyist president. In February 2007, however, ABC News reported that “A Cuban dissident who was recently deported from Bolivia for criticizing President Evo Morales plans to relocate to Norway . . .” In light of this incident, perhaps the reality of an incipient socialist dictatorship is sinking into the otherwise “enlightened” consciences of the Student Left.

While protesters raged in the streets, in the Bolivian Congress lawmakers who support Morales’ sweeping reforms and hold a slim majority in that body exchanged blows with those who do not. On August 24 Bolivia’s neo-communist government, taking a cue from Nicaragua’s Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, accused opposition parties and authorities from six departments of seeking to destabilize the country during another strike slated for the 28th.

Fist Fight Breaks Out In Bolivian Congress
Leaders Fight For Control Of Judicial Branch
UPDATED: 4:19 pm CDT August 23, 2007

LA PAZ, Bolivia — LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) – Bolivian lawmakers exchanged blows Wednesday as a long-simmering fight for control of the Andean country’s judicial branch boiled over in the aisles of Congress.

Opposition leaders seized the dais in the lower house in a failed effort to block legislators aligned with President Evo Morales from bringing charges against the country’s highest court for suspending four of his judicial appointees.

Lawmakers from Morales’ party, who hold a slim majority in the chamber, tried to dislodge their rivals. Both sides stood on tables and yelled at the other before flinging cups of water and engaging in brief but violent fisticuffs.

The feud first began when Morales appointed four magistrate judges during a congressional recess in December.

Opposition leaders complained to Bolivia’s Constitutional Tribunal, which ruled in May that the judges could serve only 90 days unless confirmed by Congress and ordered them temporarily suspended. Lawmakers approved their appointments last month.

But Morales has continued to press the issue, arguing the tribunal did not have the authority to suspend the magistrates. He asked Congress to file charges against four of five Constitutional Tribunal justices who had ruled against his appointees, saying they overstepped their legal duties.

Later Wednesday, lawmakers from Morales’ party voted to approve the charges, effectively suspending the tribunal justices. The government hopes to name their replacements on Thursday, Vice President Alvaro Garcia said.

Opposition lawmakers decried the move as a violation of the nation’s separation of powers and an attempt to stack the tribunal with justices favorable to Morales.

Source: WSMV.com

>USSR2 File: Georgia court convicts 13 communists, monarchists of plotting coup; Moscow-based mastermind son of republic’s red leader

>In November 2006 we reported on a failed communist coup that occured in the Not-So-Former Soviet Republic of Georgia in September of that year. The mastermind was Igor Giorgadze, former chief of Georgia’s National Security Service and son of General Panteleimon Giorgadze, chairman of the United Communist Party of Georgia, which belongs to Oleg Shenin’s restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Presently living “in exile” in Moscow, Giorgadze is wanted by Interpol for organizing the August 29, 1995 attempt on the life of “ex”-CPSU Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.

Coupled with Tblisi’s accusations of repeated airspace violations by the Russian Air Force, the manufactured crisis between Russia and Georgia must be viewed within the context of the CPSU’s long-range strategy of holding the “ex”-Soviet republics within Moscow’s orbit until such time as the reds can openly reclaim power, as well as confusing Western analysts. The recent conviction of 13 communists and monarchists in the abortive putsch against “pro”-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili demonstrates this point. The lines of control between Moscow and Georgia’s communists apparently remain firm too. The Kremlin granted Igor asylum in 2006 and regularly utilizes the ex-spy chief as a propaganda tool in its current anti-Georgian campaign. Eurasia Daily Monitor explains the convoluted politics of the Caucasus:

Undoubtedly, the asylum decision on Giorgadze was a political decision by the Kremlin, not a technical one by law-enforcement agencies. It seems intended to energize the motley collection of Georgian fringe groups that Moscow seeks to marshal into a local fifth column, and of which Giorgadze seems to be a designated centerpiece. Staking on marginal groups and discredited figures is a sign of Moscow’s utter lack of credible political allies within Georgia.

Ironically, or not so, the Interpol President, South African Jackie Selebi, is a past member of two communist fronts, the African National Congress and the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

Thirteen people convicted for plotting a coup in Georgia
August 24, 2007, 23:14

A court in Georgia has convicted 13 people for plotting a coup against the government. They were sentenced from four to eight years in prison. All of the accused, who were arrested in September of last year, are supporters of the opposition group – the Georgian Party of Justice.

During the trial – which was held behind closed doors – twelve of the accused pleaded not guilty, calling themselves political prisoners. None of the twelve was present in court on Friday to hear the verdict – in protest at the way the case was conducted, according to a party representative.

Of the dozens of opposition supporters arrested, only 13 were charged with plotting a coup.

As a reaction to the verdict, a member of the Georgian opposition, Irina Sarishvili, says the case highlights not just the weakness of the Georgian legal system, but the entire government structure.

“Political prisoners are not the only problem in Georgia. We have so many problems, and so many of them are unsettled. In some cases there’s even no way out. So we demand the resignation of our government,” she said. The defence, for their part, say they are going to appeal the verdict.

“I’ve personally observed the trial and I think the verdict is shocking. The evidence presented in no way supports the conviction. However, given the notorious lack of independence of Georgian judiciary, this is not surprising at all. Last year 17,000 individuals were convicted in Georgia and only 37 acquitted. Those numbers are staggering,” said Melinda Sarafa, defence lawyer.

“This verdict will be appealed until the truth is known and each of these individuals is vindicated. There are courts, including the European Court of Human Rights that do respect the rule of law and do have honest independent judges who care about human rights,” she added.

“The verdict was illegal and unfair. The judge did not take into account the defence’s convincing evidence. Political trials like were held in the thirties in the Soviet Union. It is a disgraceful decision, this verdict will in the future become an example in law school about how to fabricate a political trial,” said defence lawyer Gela Nikoleishvili.

Earlier, another defence lawyer, Lawrence Barcella, spoke against the trial, which he said was “built on lies”.

“The final statements of the defence witnesses and the defence lawyers occurred this week. I have been a lawyer for 37 years – I have been a prosecutor, and I’ve been a defence attorney. I have never seen a case so completely destroyed. I’ve never seen a government prosecution so completely dismantled, as I saw over the course of the past few weeks. It is a case that was built on lies, that was continued with lies, and those lies were all exposed this week. If the courtroom had been open as it should have been – even Saddam Hussein’s trial was open – then everybody would see the lies that we saw,” he said.

The convicted come from across the political spectrum of Georgia’s opposition – from Communists to Monarchists. But all share a connection to the ex-chief of the Georgian national Security Service, Igor Giorgadze, who fled the country in the mid-90s after being accused of an attempted assassination of Eduard Shevarnadze in 1995. His guilt was never established.

Despite being in exile, Mr Giorgadze launched an opposition party, which staged loud protests against Mikhail Saakashvili, who became President following the 2003 Rose Revolution. Mr Giorgadze has denied that he was behind the alleged plot.

“The government is conducting an unbridled, fascist public relations campaign. This isn’t only meant to discredit us, but the whole idea of an opposition in Georgia,” stated Igor Giorgadze.

The convicted were arrested on September 6 last year and charged with planning a provocation, which would then lead to a violent suppression by the authorities, with the conspirators taking advantage of the ensuing instability.

The prosecution demanded prison terms of four to nine years for the accused, and a two-year suspended sentence for Maia Nikolaishvili, who had agreed to co-operate with the investigation and has testified. The proceedings, which started in March, were closed in order “to protect key witnesses”, according to the prosecution. Apart from one, all of the Giorgadze supporters say the case is political, and the evidence was manipulated by the police.

Source: Russia Today

>USSR2 File: Russian Prosecutor Chaika insinuates Berezovsky orchestrated Politkovskaya and Klebnikov murders, exile seeks to destabilize Russia

>The unfolding murder cases of Anna Politkovskaya, US-born Novaya Gazeta journalist (pictured here), and Paul Klebnikov, US-born editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, is intriguing in that all of the players are connected to the old Soviet regime: Russian Prosecutor, former Minister of Justice, and Putin appointee Yuro Chaika is “ex”-CPSU while exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky–whom Chaika insinuates is behind the murders of both Politkovskaya and Klebnikov–is “ex”-Komsomol. Russia Today, the Kremlin’s slick European-wide televised platform for propaganda, quotes Chaika, who utilizes all of the old communist terminology to depict Russia’s foreign-based, profit-hungry enemies:

Regarding the motives of the murder, we can say that the results of the investigation show that this murder was profitable only to those who live outside the Russian Federation. First of all these are people who seek to destabilise the situation in the country, to change the constitutional order, to force a crisis upon the country. These people want to return to the previous system of governing, when money and oligarchs decided everything. They seek to discredit the leaders of Russia and provoke outside involvement in the governing of our country.

Berezovsky has publicly announced his intention to dislodge the Putinist regime by force, a stance that prompted Russia to request his extradition from Britain in what could be characterized as a “mini Cold War” between the two states. Politkovskaya’s former colleagues at Novaya Gazeta, however, are not convinced that Berezovsky orchestrated the murders from his base in London. “This is called political PR,” Sergey Sokolov, the newspaper’s deputy editor commented. Former Soviet Tyrant Mikhail (“I’ll Always Be a Communist”) Gorbachev and “ex”-KGB agent, billionaire, and United Russia member Alexander Lebedev own a controlling interest in Novaya Gazeta. In view of Gorbachev’s open and consistent support for President Putin, the presence of outspoken anti-Putin critic Politkovskaya on the staff of this newspaper from 1999 until her death is intriguing to say the least. Indeed, it testifies of more communist-scripted drama.

Politkovskaya murder aimed at destabilising situation in Russia: Prosecutor General
August 28, 2007, 8:47

Ten people have been arrested in connection with the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, including her suspected murderer. The details were announced by Russia’s Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, who said that her murder was profitable to those seeking to destabilise the situation in the country.

The group may also be linked to the 2004 murder of Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Russia’s Forbes magazine – this version and other details were announced at a meeting in the Kremlin.

Anna Politkovskaya’s murder has been seen as a political case, if not in its motive then at least in the reaction it provoked. Ms Politkovskaya was gunned down on October 7, 2006, the same day Vladimir Putin celebrated his birthday. For some it was more than just a coincidence, a view which seems to be supported by that of the prosecution.

The prosecution believes the person behind the murder is hiding abroad and journalists wasted no time in putting a name forward, asking whether or not Berezovsky was believed to be involved in Politkovsky’s murder.

“This is the most concise question. Once again we are examining each version,” Russia’s Prosecutor General answered.

Still, the prosecution insists they already know how the crime was carried out. They say the murder was carefully planned, with two surveillance groups watching Anna Politkovskaya’s movements up until her last moments.

She was shot 4 times. A CCTV video showed a man entering the apartment building and then walking out at about the time the journalist was murdered. Her killing has provoked many theories, most of them focusing on revenge. She wrote extensively about abuses in Chechnya, which earned her many enemies.

Now the prosecution says the gang suspected of carrying out the journalist’s murder was headed by a Chechen resident. Among its alleged members were former and current employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as a member of the Federal Security Service.

“On August 21 the General Prosecutor’s Office arrested and detained a staff member of the Central Administrative District Security Services of Moscow and Moscow region named Lieutenant-Colonel Pavel Ryaguzov. The General prosecution suspects him of illegal actions in the case of Anna Politkovskaya. The FSB special security services were watching Lieutenant-Colonel Ryaguzov because of information received regarding his possible involvement in a criminal group and participation in blackmail and actions that went beyond his powers,” Aleksandr Kupryazhkin from the Federal Security Service stated.

At Novaya Gazata, where Anna Politovksaya worked for seven years, her desk still remains untouched. For her colleagues, any progress in the case is more than welcome, but the latest revelations left them uneasy.

“This statement by the Prosecutor General is premature and a mistake. I do not know whether Berezovsky or Gusinsky have anything to do with this case. They may be involved as anybody else may. But you have to have proof to say that, and there is none. This is called political PR,” Sergey Sokolov, deputy editor of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper commented.

The prosecution believes the gang might have also been involved in the killing of Paul Klebnikov, the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.

The killing of a well-known journalist would be a prime topic for Anna Politkovskaya’s story. Politics, corruption, abuse – this case features everything she reported on. Also while her investigative work resulted in dozens of criminal cases, the final investigation into her murder is still far from being over.

Source: Russia Today

>Final Phase Backgrounder: Moscow nominates Czech red for top IMF post; recession looming: Clinton Treasury Secretary Summers, Countrywide CEO Mozilo

>In New Lies for Old (1984) KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, as we have documented before, describes the designs that the Soviet communists have developed with respect to exploiting an economic depression in the West:

“Liberalization” in Eastern Europe on the scale suggested could have a social and political impact on the United States, especially if it coincided with a severe economic depression. The communist strategists are on the lookout for such an opportunity. soviet and other communist economists keep a careful watch on the American economic situation. Since the adoption of the long-range policy, an institute of World Economy and International Relations, orginally under Arzumanyan and now under Inozemtsev, has been analyzing and forecasting for the Central Committee the performance of the noncommunist, and especially, the American, economic system. Inozemtsev is a frequent visitor to the United States and was a member of the Soviet delegation received by the U.S. Congress in January 1978. The communist bloc will not repeat its error in failing to exploit a slump as it did in 1929-32. At that time the Soviet Union was weak politically and economic depression as proof of the failure of the capitalist system (page 342).

Moscow’s intense interest in manipulating the Western economy is evident in its counter-proposal for chairman of the International Monetary Fund. By convention a Western European directs that organization, while an American heads up the World Bank. The favored candidate for the IMF’s top post is French Socialist and economist Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Moscow’s man is Czech communist and former prime minister and Czech National Bank president Josef Tosovsky. According to Forbes.com, Tosovsky is unquestionably “more qualified” than Strauss-Kahn. Nevertheless, “Given that Strauss-Kahn has the backing of the European Union and the U.S., Tosovsky doesn’t have much of a shot at the post, as Putin is likely aware. But Putin’s message is plain: he is signaling that as Russia gains global prominence it is no longer content to accept Western dominance, including over who heads the IMF and the World Bank.” Tellingly, the Czech Republic refuses to endorse Tosovsky’s candidacy.

Since 2000 Tosovsky has chaired the Financial Stability Institute at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. Founded in 1930 as an organization of central banks, the BIS regulates capital adequacy and maintains reserve transparency among its 55 member central banks. Tosovsky’s presence at the BIS is a perfect example of a Central European communist who has infiltrated a major European institution.

In the quote above Golitsyn notes the communists’ failure to exploit the Great Depression in order to advance world revolution during the 1930s. Undaunted, in 1945 at the Yalta Conference the Soviets insisted upon receiving Eastern Europe as “war spoils” in exchange for Western compliance. Recessions have come and gone since then but the West’s system of capitalism has remained for the most part robust, although weakened here and there by social democratic policies. Now Russia, too, is flush with oil and gas cash and the sleep-walking citizens of the West no longer perceive a communist threat.

Just in time for Christmas and a Republican defeat at the ballot box in November 2008, the subprime mortgage implosion is primed to sink the US economy and the Bush legacy. The “R” word is again bandied about. On August 24, 2007, the Guardian Unlimited interviewed Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp., a major mortgage lender that is laying off employees following the “subprime implosion.” Mozilo warns: “The US economy is on the edge of recession after a severe downturn in the housing market and reports of a collapse in consumer spending. The housing crisis was the result of one of the greatest panics I have ever seen. I can’t believe … that this doesn’t have a material effect … on the psyches of the American people and eventually on their wallet.” On August 27 The Telegraph interviewed Larry Summers, US Treasury Secretary between 1999 and 2001. Summers prognosticated: “It would be far too premature to judge this crisis over. I would say the risks of recession are now greater than they’ve been any time since the period in the aftermath of 9/11.”

While we should expect former US President Bill Clinton’s last treasury secretary, a Democrat by affiliation, to paint a gloomy picture of the US economy prior to the next presidential election, Mozilo’s prediction of recession should not be overlooked. The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter lists 136 mortgage lenders that have since late 2006 “imploded,” or sacked numerous employees, declared bankruptcy, or temporarily halted major operations. Mortgage lenders are not the only financial institutions that are ailing. Last week Citigroup, Bank of America and two other big banks borrowed US$500 million from the Federal Reserve, which “bent the rules” to prop up their operations. CNN.com reports: “This unusual move by the Fed shows that the largest Wall Street firms are continuing to have problems funding operations during the current market difficulties, according to banking industry skeptics.”

In the wake of the August 15 global stock crash, neo-Soviet officialdom persisted in painting a rosy picture of Moscow’s role in the global economy. On August 22, according to state-owned Kommersant, Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref declared: “For us, it wasn’t such a critical fall, but more like a correction with regard to the previous unprecedented growth, so I agree with you; those assessments are absolutely sound. I think that the temporary fluctuations shouldn’t have a significantly long tail.” Five days later, though, Kommersant reported that non-residents were leaving the Russian market: “According to Emerging Portfolio Fund Research data, funds that invest in Russia and the CIS took $76 million out of the area during the week ending August 22. In the week previous to that, they made $4 million in new investments.” Finally, on August 28 the same publication disclosed: “The markets of Russia and of other states of former Soviet Union proved most vulnerable to financial crisis triggered by sub-prime loan problems in the United States, AFP reported with reference to Institute of International Finance.”

The “post”-communist Russian economy sports systemic flaws, not the least of which is its ongoing re-Sovietization, in which the Kremlin is actively acquiring and amalgamating private enterprises, including media, and the abiding threat of a full-blown communist resurgence and re-implementation of a command economy.

The 2007 Index of Economic Freedom, which is published by the Heritage Foundation, describes Russia’s economy as 54 percent free and, hence, the world’s 120th freest economy, compared to the USA, which is the world’s fourth freest economy. “Russia,” contends the foundation, “enjoys high levels of fiscal freedom, labor freedom, and business freedom.” Restrictions, however, abound: “Russia’s significant weaknesses lie in monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, and freedom from corruption. Foreign investment in virtually all sectors faces both official and unofficial hurdles, including bureaucratic inconsistency, corruption, and outright restrictions in lucrative sectors like energy.”

By unleashing its Federal Tax Police and going after Russia’s oligarchs for tax evasions and “shady” business dealings, furthermore, the Kremlin is creating an environment in which its intermediaries can purchase what were formerly private enterprises. A current case in point is that of oil company RussNeft, whose CEO Mikhail Gutseriyev, presently “living abroad” (in exile), has been charged with tax evasion. Now a Kremlin front, an industrial holding called Basic Element that operates under the chairmanship of billionaire Oleg Deripaska, had applied to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service for permission to purchase a controlling interest in RussNeft. State-run Novosti admits that the Gutseriyev case is “reminiscent of legal battles for the now bankrupt oil firm Yukos, widely seen in the West as punishment against company founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and as part of a Kremlin campaign to regain control of oil and gas assets.” You got that right.

Pictured here: Cartoon satirizes United Russia’s woes.

In addition to accusing the USA and its alleged lackey, President Vladimir Putin, of holding Russia as a “financial hostage,” the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is also hacking away at the United Russia edifice by denouncing the corruption trial of the Tver City Duma, in which prosecutors contend that 14 legislators accepted 4.3 million rubles in bribes for lobbying corporate interests. CPRF State Duma deputy V. F. Rashkin describes the municipal lawmakers as a “an organized crime group of United Russia” and paints a bleak picture of Russia under the Putinist-Chekist-Gryzlovist-Surkovist regime:

And as it was shown in several reports about the corruption, key figures in the corruption criminal cases of the officials of all levels were representatives of the party of authority, United Russia. The corruption field of “United Russia” covers the entire country. Mr. Putin declares that overcoming corruption is one of the primary tasks of his authority. United Russia declares that it is the party of the President, which carries out the “plan of Putin.” Is the organized criminal group of the deputies of “United Russia” in the Tver Duma the advance detachment on the realization of the “plan of Putin?”

The spin begins. Russia’s only hope, declares the CPRF, is a return to communism.

>USA/Middle East Files: 1st Battalion 265 Air Defense Artillery deploys to Washington, DC from Florida; Israeli government builds nuke bunker

>The deployment of the 1st Battalion 265 Air Defense Artillery to Washington, DC from Florida is part of Operation Noble Eagle, an ongoing component of homeland defense following the September 11, 2001 attacks. On the one hand, this action could simply represent a regular troop rotation. On the other hand, in view of the new combat-duty status of the Russian Air Force and the August 6 deployment of the new S-400 missile defense system around Moscow, it is a prudent move, but the Hate America Left will bemoan any attempt, however small or short-sighted, by the US government to preserve national security. Pictured above: An F-16 Fighting Falcon, assigned to the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, flies over the Pentagon as part of Noble Eagle, apparently some time in 2007.

Local Troops Deploy To Nation’s Capital
POSTED: 12:20 pm EDT August 22, 2007
UPDATED: 11:54 am EDT August 24, 2007

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Members of the 1st Battalion 265 Air Defense Artillery have mobilized and are on a plane headed first to Ft. Bliss, then for federal active duty in the capital region.

The troops will be deployed for a year.

“It’s going to be all right It’s OK if he helps people and everything, and it’s his job. He’s got to do it. He just got to do it,” Jessica Ward said, whose father is being deployed.

Jessica speaks for many when she talks about her father’s deployment.

Michael Ward and company are leaving for a year, and that weighs heavy on families.

The 265th is part of Operation Noble Eagle.

They are ordered by the president to the nation’s capital, where they will operate high-tech weapons systems against any potential air threat.

Yolanda McCormack is relieved husband Charles isn’t headed to Iraq, but there is always a risk.

“Doesn’t mean he won’t be in the line of fire in Washington, D.C., but it does give me a little comfort,” Yolanda McCormack said, whose husband is being deployed.

Families may get one or two opportunities to see loved ones during this year-long deployment, but it’s not encouraged. Though the solders are staying in the states, they are on serious business.

Staff Sgt. James Todd said duty at home is just as important as the mission overseas.

Source: WESH.com

Meanwhile, the Israeli government, no doubt fearing a nuclear attack from the genocidal Islamo-Nazi regime in Tehran, is heading underground. Israel’s new National Command Center will be located under a mountain in Jerusalem and scheduled for occupation by 2011, although I rather suspect that Iranian President Mahmoud (“Iwannajihad”) Ahmadinejad might lob a few nukes at Israel before then. Not surprisingly, the Israeli Left and its proxies in the environmental movement are displeased by any notion of “continuity of government.” YNetNews.com reports: “Israel’s environmental organizations have already begun protesting the facility’s effects on the natural reserve under which it is being built, but no organization has been allowed to inspect the construction site, or its plans, for security reasons.”

It is likely that both the US and Israeli governments believe that a world war, which is not of their making, is imminent. Along those lines, US ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad, who is also a Muslim and received a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship in 1984, recently stated in an interview with Die Presse that a world war is around the corner: “The (Middle East) is going through a very difficult transformation phase. That has strengthened extremism and creates a breeding ground for terrorism. Europe was just as dysfunctional for a while. And some of its wars became world wars. Now the problems of the Middle East and Islamic civilization have the same potential to engulf the world.”

>Breaking News: "Ex"-CPSU Russian Prosecutor Chaika: Chechen gang, FSB, Internal Affairs Ministry behind murder of Politkovskaya, 10 suspects arrested

>“Ex”-CPSU Russian Prosecutor Yuri Chaika (pictured here) announced today the arrests of 10 individuals–including the Chechen-born leader of a Moscow organized crime group, an active member of the Federal Security Service (FSB/KGB), and active and former employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs– in connection with journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s 2006 murder. Chaika was formerly minister of justice under “ex”-CPSU President Vladimir Putin and appointed by the president to his current post in 2006.

In exposing the FSB, which is the “sword and shield of the Party,” and Internal Affairs as the perpetrators of Politkovskaya’s slaying, the collective leadership of the restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union can absolve itself of any responsibility behind the murders of at least 21 Russian journalists since 1999, when Putin assumed the presidency. State-run Novosti admits, in fact, that 88 journalists have been slain in Russia since 1997, second only to Iraq, which has witnessed the deaths of 138 media personnel during the same period.

FSB officers involved in murder of Politkovskaya
27.08.2007, 16.31

MOSCOW, August 27 (Itar-Tass) – Acting and former officers of the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry are involved in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika told reporters on Monday. He said ten suspects had been arrested.

The murder of Politkovskaya killed last year might have been of interest to someone staying outside the Russian Federation, Chaika declared.

Workers of the Prosecutor’s Office have been arriving at this conclusion about the motives of Politkovskaya’s murder “as a result of the investigation” into the circumstances of the crime, he said.

In the group of those detained in connection with the murder of investigative journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, there is the man who gunned down the victim.

The officer of the federal security service FSB detained in connection with the Politkovskaya case had long been under the surveillance of the FSB’s internal security division, its chief, Lieutenant-General Alexander Kupryazhkin, said on Monday.

Slain investigative reporter Politkovskaya had known and met with the man who is suspected of ordering her murder, Yuri Chaika said.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Furthermore, by using the crypto-Stalinist United Russia party–which is allied to the siloviki, or Russia’s military-intelligence-security apparatus–as a front, the CPSU has incrementally re-Sovietized the Russian political-economic-social system without alarming the West. As the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union endeavors to openly reassert itself during the 2007-2008 political season, the Politkovskaya case will provide Gennady Zyuganov and Oleg Shenin with yet another opportunity to vilify the “party of authority” in the Kremlin. The CPRF/SU, they crow, will “clean house” and restore Russia to the path of socialism.

The FSB takes the fall, the Party continues, the sleep-walking shopping mall regime staggers on.

Everything Is Under Control: Putin Re-Sovietizes the Russian Economy for Zyuganov

With the acquistion and amalgamation of all major aircraft enterprises into the state-run United Aircraft Building Corporation–including Tupolev, Sukhoi, Mikoyan, Ilyushin, Yakovlev, and Irkut–under the chairmanship of First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, the re-Sovietization of the Russian economy continues apace. Incidentally, on August 4, 2006 the US State Department imposed sanctions on Sukhoi for supplying fighter jets to Iran in violation of the US Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. One year later, Sukhoi is unrepentant. The July 30, 2007 edition of the Jerusalem Post reports: “Israel is looking into reports that Russia plans to sell 250 advanced long-range Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to Iran in an unprecedented billion-dollar deal.”

In addition to the aerospace industry, the Kremlin is taking over other strategic sectors of the Russian economy, including gold mining, in a draft law that will effectively ban foreigners from owning and exploiting Russia’s natural resources without the oversight of the KGB. On August 16 state-run Moscow News Weekly reported:

Under the bill, a foreign company will only be able to buy more than 50 percent of the shares in a Russian company classified as ‘strategic’ with prior permission from the Russian government. And state-owned foreign companies will be allowed to buy only small stakes of less than 25 percent of ‘strategic’ Russian companies. The Federal Security Service will monitor the law’s enforcement. If it finds that foreigners have been buying up shares in strategic enterprises via front firms, the Russian government will have the right to protest against such purchases in court.

Using tactics akin to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Kremlin, which–if one recalls the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster–was rarely if ever concerned about environmental safety during the days of the old Soviet Union, has also dispatched its “environmental watchdog” to go after foreign companies that are allegedly trashing Russia’s landscape. The same issue of the Moscow News Weekly reports: “Two weeks ago, Rosprirodnadzor announced that it was starting unannounced checks on 19 foreign companies active in Russia. Among them are Timan Oil and Gas, Heritage Oil, Arawak Energy, JKX Oil and Gas, and Dana Petroleum.” Is Rosprirodnadzor taking a cue from the EPA, or was US President Richard Nixon taking a cue from the Kremlin, to wit the Seventh Plank of The Communist Manifesto, when he established the EPA in 1970?

>Useful Idiots Bin: Sûreté du Québec admits cops posed as protesters at Montebello; John Birch Society, communists converge in opposition to NAU

>The “anti-globalization” left and “New World Order” conspiracymongering faux right, especially as represented by Alex Jones, regularly accuse the capitalist elite of employing agents provocateurs and “false flag” ops. In a new twist Sûreté du Québec has admitted that three of its agents were in fact planted amongst the protesters who arrived in Montebello to oppose the third summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). TheStar.com reported on August 24:

Quebec provincial police are defending the actions of its three agents who posed as protesters during this week’s North American Leaders’ summit in Montebello, Que. Insp. Marcel Savard defended the three agents today at a news conference in Montreal and insisted they were not there to provoke demonstrators. He also says one of the officers was given a rock by protesters but the officer had no intention of using it.

After originally denying it, the force has admitted the trio were involved in the protest after a video clip of the them showed up on the popular website, Youtube.com. But the provincial police are denying they were attempting to provoke protesters into violence and say the three officers were planted in the crowd to locate any protesters who were not peacefully demonstrating.

The controversy shows that in an age of proliferating cellphones with video capability, ordinary citizens are poised to become watchdogs of police accountability, experts say.

The video showed a union leader confronting three apparent protesters at the North American Leaders’ Summit in Montebello, Que., accusing them of being police officers attempting to incite violence at an otherwise peaceful demonstration. After days of denials, the force admitted Thursday the trio were, in fact, police officers, but not the ‘provocateurs’ protesters made them out to be. Protesters and the union leader in the video, Dave Coles, note the video clearly shows a fist-sized rock in the hand of at least one undercover officer.

Frankly, I would expect any security force that is detailed to protect heads of state, such as the Canadian Prime Minister and US and Mexican Presidents who were present at the “North American summit,” to insert undercover agents into a protest mob. Nevertheless, don’t expect angry anarchists, lunatic leftists, and freaked out faux rightists to appreciate such government tactics.

In another twist of events, the venerable anti-communist John Birch Society (JBS), which over the years has published a number of excellent exposes of Soviet strategic deception ala Anatoliy Golitsyn, is converging with its putative enemy to denounce the proposed North American Union, a byproduct of the pro-communist Council on Foreign Relations and allied groups in Canada and Mexico. Fightback, a Marxist organization that has infiltrated Canada’s center-left, union-based New Democratic Party, does not rail against regional and world integration per se, but only against the NAU for its failure to implement socialism in the constituent countries:

From August 19th to 21st, the warmonger George Bush and fraudulently elected Mexican president Felipe Calderón will be guests of Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In the secluded town of Montebello, Québec, they will meet with a select group of CEOs and military brass to map out the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). This is a continuation of the effort to increase corporate power through treaties such as NAFTA, FTAA, and WTO, but this time with an added military dimension.

The People’s Voice, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of Canada, promotes the left nationalist line by likewise railing against the SPP and any attempts to merge Canada into the “US empire”:

The Montebello protests will serve to raise awareness of this danger among Canadians. Sooner or later, the Harper Tories will be forced to go to the polls, and their full-scale drive to integrate Canada into the U.S. empire will be the single most critical election issue. The last time an election was held on such terms was the 1988 “free trade” campaign, when corporate money and fear tactics pulled out a victory for the Conservatives, even though more than 60% of voters backed anti-free trade parties. We can’t afford to lose again!

In similar fashion, the JBS, while ostensibly pro-capitalist, denounces the NAU on the basis of the proposed merger’s assault on “US sovereignty”:

The phrase “North American Union” conjures the image of the European Union, truly the prototype for what our elites have planned. One of the first orders of business will be a borderless North America. According to “Building a North American Community” (a Council on Foreign Relations task force report), the playbook for the construction of the North American Union, “Canada and the United States should consider eliminating restrictions on labor mobility altogether and work toward solutions that, in the long run, could enable the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico as well.” Full labor mobility throughout North America would mean no borders between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, spelling the end of our nation’s independence.

Last year we documented that Washington State Representative Albert F. Canwell once identified Robert Welch, founder of the JBS, as a communist:

The issues were that Robert Welch was not an anti-Communist. He was an opportunist, a world socialist actually, and he was doing a very dishonest job . . . And I found that he had attended the London School of Economics, the top socialist school in the world . . . Another phase of this that I turned up was that Robert Welch was a long-time member of the American Civil Liberties Union . . . Jack Ruby had Welch ‘s confidential number in his little black book.

Canwell’s statements are reprinted in the Disposition of the Canwell Committee Records (page 283), which forms part of the Washington State Oral History Program. In 1947 the Washington state legislature formed the Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Canwell, a Republican representing Spokane.

While I view the SPP as a Fabian socialist stepping stone to regional government with a mixed, or social democratic, economy, the convergence between left and faux right over elite-driven “stealth integration” demonstrates that both “borderless capitalists” and communists perceive regional government as a battleground for supremacy.

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Moscow holds Backfire bomber drills over Russia, Kazakhstan; Austrian DM accuses USA of "provoking" Russia

>In his latest timely column American geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist writes of “Russia’s undeniable war preparations” and the US State Department’s tepid response to the resumption of permanent strategic patrols on the part of Russia’s bomber fleet. Nyquist mocks the White House’s cowardice: “One might imagine Washington’s reaction to a Russian missile strike against U.S. targets. ‘It’s interesting,’ the State Department would purr. ‘This is not the sort of missile strike we would have expected from the Soviet Union. Of course, it’s a different era. If Russia feels that they want to launch some old, useless missiles, that’s their decision.'”

Russian Air Force Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky would no doubt find that comment amusing. In connection with Moscow’s current Backfire bomber exercises over Russia and Kazakhstan, state-run Novosti quotes him as saying: “We held a series of strategic bomber exercises [involving Tu-22M3 bombers] Tuesday and Friday to practice penetrating the air defenses of a potential adversary.”

A potential adversary in the “post”-Cold War Era? Now who could that be? Perhaps the Austrian Defense Minister knows the answer. “The fact that the US now wants to build a defence shield in former eastern Europe is a provocation, in my opinion,” Norbert Darabos opined in an August 23 interview with Die Presse. No doubt he was instructed by Social Democratic Prime Minister Alfred Gusenbauer to grovel before Moscow’s KGB terrorist regime in view of the one billion euros that Vienna plans to invest in Russia. “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Vienna in late May, when a total of 30 contracts had been signed gave an additional impetus to the development of our countries’ economic relations,” reveals Johann Kausl, trade counsellor at the Austrian Embassy in Russia. Euros and dubious neo-Soviet economic concessions apparently speak a common language.

While some military analysts might intelligently argue that placing NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center on “warm standby” is a strategic maneuver designed to distribute critical C4I functions away from a single potential ICBM/SLBM target, one is forced to ask: “What about civil defense?” The Department of Homeland Security’s solution for a nuclear catastrophe looks like a corny Red Green episode and inspires no confidence: Got duct tape?

Now that Russia has assumed a war footing with little alarm by the West we recommend that you monitor the state-run media for signs of a full-scale civilian mobilization. The website of the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergency Situations and Disasters (MCHS) should provide indicators that this is underway. Be reminded that the Kremlin will probably disguise such a mobilization under the rubric of coping with a “terrorist attack.” The MCHS operates under the leadership of “ex”-communist Sergei Shoigu, who is married to the niece of the wife of Oleg Shenin, August 1991 coup mastermind and chair of the restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Comforting thought. Got duct tape?

Russia conducts Tu-22 strategic bomber drills in the south
15:0924/ 08/ 2007

MOSCOW, August 24 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bombers successfully conducted a series of tactical exercises in the south of the country and in Kazakhstan this week, an Air Force spokesman said Friday.
The Tu-22M3 Backfire-C is a supersonic, swing-wing, long-range strategic bomber that Russia uses mainly to patrol the skies over its southern borders, Central Asia and the Black Sea region.

“We held a series of strategic bomber exercises [involving Tu-22M3 bombers] Tuesday and Friday to practice penetrating the air defenses of a potential adversary,” Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky said.

“The crews also conducted simulated bomber raids at the Guryanovo testing range in the Saratov Region [southern Russia], and practiced launches of cruise missiles at the Emba testing range in Kazakhstan,” he said.

President Vladimir Putin announced August 17 that Russia had permanently resumed long-range patrol flights of strategic bombers, which were suspended in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Speaking on the final day of large-scale military exercises involving Russia, China, and four Central Asian countries in the south Urals, Putin said: “Air patrol areas will include zones of commercial shipping and economic activity. As of today, combat patrolling will be on a permanent basis. It has a strategic character.”

The announcement gained substantial coverage in British and other Western media, which called the Kremlin’s move a return to the Cold War era.

It also apparently triggered serious concerns in NATO, which recently increased its monitoring of Russian bomber flights in neutral airspace.

Last Friday, the British Defense Ministry reported an alleged incident, the second this summer, in which the Royal Air Force had to scramble its Typhoon fighters to intercept a Russian Tu-95MS Bear-H strategic bomber that approached British air space during a flight over the North Atlantic.

Russia has denied any wrongdoing, saying its planes never violate foreign airspace, and their actions have no aggressive intent against other countries.

However, the Kremlin’s assurances did not stop attempts by foreign media to further fuel fears that a new military buildup is underway in Russia.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said Friday on its Web site that NATO vessels are closely monitoring sea trials of the latest Russian diesel missile submarine with enhanced stealth capability in the Baltic Sea.

The Project 677 Amur submarine features a new anti-sonar coating for the hull, an extended cruising range, and advanced anti-ship and anti-submarine weaponry.

The newspaper speculated that Russia could be testing NATO’s “ability to defend territorial waters in much the same way that bomber flights can test its ability to defend airspace.”

Source: Novosti

While it is true that Russia’s bomber fleet is ageing, with the exception of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, which was introduced in 1997, the US Air Force’s bomber fleet is ageing too. The mainstays of the Russian bomber fleet include the 50s-era prop-driven Bear, the 70s-era swing-wing Backfire (pictured above), and the 80s-era variable-geometry Blackjack. The mainstays of the US bomber fleet include the 50s-era jet-powered B-52 Stratofortress, the 70s-era variable-geometry B-1 Lancer and, of course, the newer B-2.

>EU/USSR2 Files: Cold War 2: NATO responds to Kremlin’s provocative tests of Western airspace; ex-NTV head: August politically "hot" month in Russia

>It is very well known to all that this old form of shameless Soviet diplomacy continues.
— Merab Antadze, Deputy Foreign Minister, Republic of Georgia; statement made in response to Russia’s missile attack near Tsitelubani, South Ossetia, on August 6, 2007

These circumstances remind me of one more August — August 1991. During Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s term, conservative, anti-reform members of his inner circle realized that he was serious about his intention to sign a new, revolutionary treaty with the Soviet republics that could have terrible consequences for their political careers. . . . Could a similar thing happen now, when many high-ranking officials are suddenly realizing that Putin is in fact leaving and that they could be left with nothing? . . . One thing is clear. In the critical 2007 and 2008 election season, some of the most unpredictable events still await us.
— Yevgeny Kiselyov, former General Director of NTV, The Moscow Times, August 17, 2007

Bookmark August 2007 in the annals of history as the prelude to the Fourth World War. Pictured here: Map of strategic bomber bases in the Russian Federation.

NATO steps up monitoring of Russia
By Thomas Harding and David Blair
Last Updated: 3:12am BST 24/08/2007

NATO vessels are closely monitoring the sea trials of Russia’s latest submarine, following Moscow’s increasingly provocative tests of Western airspace.

In the latest twist to worsening East-West relations, Nato submarines and surface ships, which may include Royal Navy vessels, are trying to gather information on the new Amur class boat being tested in the Baltic.

The greater-than-normal scrutiny is, in part, a response to Russia’s decision to resume long-range bomber flights close to Nato airspace which has revived memories of Cold War confrontation between the two blocs.

Twice this summer, Russian Tu-95 nuclear bombers have been spotted heading towards British airspace off Scotland, prompting the RAF to send intercepting aircraft to warn them off.

On another occasion, Russian planes came within striking distance of the US Pacific airbase of Guam.

Yesterday, Russian airforce spokesman Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky insisted there was no provocative intent.

“Our pilots never violate foreign airspace and their actions have no aggression against other countries,” he said.

“The long-range aircraft [off Scotland] were on a scheduled mission over international waters. We have made prior announcements of all flights. There is no sabre-rattling involved.”

The Amur class submarine being studied by Nato can test the alliance’s ability to defend territorial waters in much the same way that bomber flights can test its ability to defend airspace.

The vessel is an extremely stealthy model, capable of striking surface targets with torpedoes or missiles.

Apart from the threat it poses as part of the Russian navy, Moscow is believed to have won contracts to export it to other states such as Venezuela, which is challenging the United States’ influence in Latin America.

Russia also exports weapons to Iran and Sudan, although there is no sign yet that either country plans to buy an Amur class submarine.

The fact that President Vladimir Putin’s regime is testing a powerful new addition to the Russian navy – after its fleet went through years of decline – shows a new military build-up is underway.

Russia’s neighbour Georgia claimed yesterday that it, too, was being intimidated by Moscow.
Russian jets, the government said, had twice entered its airspace this week. Earlier this month, a Russian warplane had fired a missile at a village on its territory.

But Russia protested its innocence yesterday, accusing Georgia of inventing the charge to stir up tensions.

Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, said that the bomb fragments produced as evidence were of foreign origin.

This meant they could not have been used in a Russian missile, he claimed, adding that Russian pilots were even prohibited from wearing Swiss-made watches.

But Merab Antadze, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, said this kind of disinformation was a typical tactic of the Kremlin.

“It is very well known to all that this old form of shameless Soviet diplomacy continues,” he said.

Source: The Telegraph

Meanwhile, the Moscow Times, which unlike most news sources in Russia is not owned by one of the Kremlin’s state-run enterprises, editorializes on the August 13 bomb that derailed the Nevsky Express. Not so coincidentally, this event occured while the Moscow-Beijing Axis’ “Peace Mission” 2007 “anti-terrorist” exercise was underway and Russia’s 2007-2008 election season was ramping up. In terms of Kremlin-orchestrated provocations, Yevgeny Kiselyov, who was formerly General Director of NTV when the media outlet was privately owned, writes: August is a “hot” month in Russia.

Another explosive August
Publication time: 17 August 2007, 08:20

We are once again in the month of August. And again another explosion — this time on a Moscow-St. Petersburg train. It seems to me that there is more to this incident than meets the eye because a “terrorist” act has taken place at such an important moment for the country — on the eve of a presidential election.

And the central figure in all of this drama is President Vladimir Putin. He will be the main figure in the upcoming presidential election even if he is not a candidate, because whomever he names as his successor will probably come out the winner.

The first time a bombing interrupted the election campaign process was on Aug. 31, 1999. Just 22 hours after then-President Boris Yeltsin announced that he was appointing then-Federal Security Service director Vladimir Putin as the new prime minister and that he would like to see Putin succeed him as head of state, a homemade bomb exploded in an underground shopping strip on Manezh Square, which is located adjacent to the Kremlin. One person was killed and 40 wounded. On Sept. 4, 1999, a bomb exploded at an apartment building in the Dagestani city of Buinaksk. Then two more explosions leveled Moscow apartment buildings: the first on Guryanova Ulitsa on Sept. 9, and the second on Kashirskoye Shosse on Sept. 13. Three days later, on Sept. 16, a bomb exploded at an apartment building in Volgodonsk.

In each case, “terrorists” packed explosives in either the building’s basement or in a truck parked close by. They then set the bomb’s timer to go off in either the evening or early morning, when most people would be home. The number of dead and wounded ran into the hundreds. Chechen militants were named the main suspects. In his sensational book titled “The FSB Blows Up Russia,” former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko said the explosions had been organized by the FSB to stir up support for a new war in Chechnya — and for Putin personally as the self-appointed leader of the war effort. Need I remind the reader that Litvinenko was murdered last year in London?

In March 2000, long before Litvinenko’s book was published, the NTV television station, which was privately owned at the time, aired an investigative report on the whole murky affair of the bombings in the Moscow apartment buildings. On Sept. 23 of that year, the Interior Ministry announced that it had just prevented the bombing of another apartment building in Ryazan. Late in the evening of Sept. 22, residents noticed suspicious-looking people unloading something from a car and called the police, who discovered sacks and an armed detonator in the basement.

But a full day later, FSB director Nikolai Patrushev caused a sensation when he explained that the whole affair had actually been an anti-terrorism training exercise — that the sacks were not filled with explosives, but with sugar, and that the detonator was really a fake.

There were so many strange incongruities in Patrushev’s version that people began to grumble among themselves and contemplate what could have happened if the police hadn’t discovered the explosives in the building’s basement in time. Six months after this incident, NTV aired a program in which eyewitnesses to the Ryazan incident expressed all of their doubts as to the “Ryazan sugar” version of events without blaming anyone specifically.

I was the general director of NTV at that time, so I know first-hand that the day after the program aired, one of the television company’s shareholders received a phone call from a high-ranking government official responsible for working with the media. This official had a more or less positive attitude toward NTV, although he had often warned us that reporters should exercise restraint, and that nothing good would come of being overly aggressive in reporting events that the Kremlin considered sensitive. “Everything you’ve aired up until now is nothing compared with what you reported on yesterday’s program,” he said, and then added a dire prediction: “You will not be forgiven for that.”

Soon after Putin was elected president in March 2000, the FSB and the Prosecutor General’s Office organized a wide-scale attack against NTV. Vladimir Gusinsky, NTV’s owner at the time, was arrested on trumped-up charges and jailed for three days in Moscow’s Butyrskaya prison. He was released only after he agreed to sell all his business holdings. Gusinsky left the country soon after that. Nine months later, NTV was taken over by Gazprom, which, for all intents and purposes, means the Kremlin. NTV reporters who were critical of the new Kremlin administration were forced out of their jobs.

Four years later, in 2004, bombs went off again in Russia. First, 89 people died after Chechen suicide bombers blew up two passenger planes in mid-air after they took off from a Moscow airport. Then, a powerful explosion went off next to the Rizhsky market.

On Sept. 1, 2004, rebels seized a school in Beslan. We all remember the efforts to negotiate the hostages’ release and the bloodbath that resulted in 334 deaths, including 186 children. Using Beslan as a pretext, Putin cancelled direct elections of governors in favor of presidential appointments, a move that clearly strengthened his power.

And now Putin appears to be on the way out. The ruling elite has only recently realized that Putin wasn’t joking last spring when he said during an annual Kremlin speech before the State Duma that next year a different president would be addressing them from that tribune. The hopes of many among the elite who didn’t want to see any changes take place in the country and who wanted to persuade Putin to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term did not pan out.

It is clear, however, that Putin will continue to exert significant control over politics and foreign policy even after his term expires. Some sociologists assert that just one word from Putin would be enough for nearly half the electorate to vote for the candidate whom the president endorses. And isn’t it strange that at precisely this moment, with only two weeks remaining before the official start of Duma election campaigns, which will be followed by the presidential election, another mysterious terrorist attack takes place, igniting more fears of terrorism and pushing the country toward emergency measures.

These circumstances remind me of one more August — August 1991. During Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s term, conservative, anti-reform members of his inner circle realized that he was serious about his intention to sign a new, revolutionary treaty with the Soviet republics that could have terrible consequences for their political careers. Gorbachev’s opponents realized that if this treaty was signed, they could very well wake up in a entirely new country in which there would no longer be a Soviet Union and all of their high positions as prime minister, head of the KGB, defense minister, interior minister, chairman of the Supreme Soviet would be eliminated. They started to panic, and, out of fear, attempted a coup against Gorbachev.

Could a similar thing happen now, when many high-ranking officials are suddenly realizing that Putin is in fact leaving and that they could be left with nothing?

Even Putin’s most ardent opponents are in a somewhat confused state of mind. By building his “power vertical,” Putin has consolidated all power around himself. Moreover, he has become the single center of all criticism among his opponents; once Putin is gone, who will they be able to attack?

Things must be twice as bad for Putin’s supporters. Putin’s popularity is the main — if not the only — source of legitimacy for the current system of strong state governance.

One thing is clear. In the critical 2007 and 2008 election season, some of the most unpredictable events still await us.

Source: Kavkaz Center

>Breaking News: Iranian troops invade northern Iraq after months of shelling, leaflet drop, target Kurdish militants; secret alliance with Turkey

>DOT REVIEW for those returning from summer vacation:

March 2006: Then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is infiltrating Iraq in order to support the anti-US insurgency

May 2006-present: Iranian troops sporadically shell Kurdish targets in northern Iraq

June 1, 2007: Turkey deploys additional troops to its frontier with northern Iraq (pictured above); last Turkish incursion occured in 1997

July 19: Visiting Damascus, Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared: “We hope that the hot weather of this summer would coincide with similar victories for the region‘s peoples, and with consequent defeat for the region‘s enemies.”

August 17: Neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin, while attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s “Peace Mission” 2007 “anti-terrorist” exercise, announces the resumption, after a 15-year hiatus, of permanent strategic bomber patrols

August 21: Soviet ally Iran drops leaflets over northern Iraq, demanding that Kurds evacuate their villages within 48 hours

August 23: Iranian troops invade northern Iraq, Tehran announces development of 2,000-pound smart bomb; NATO monitoring sea trials of Russia’s newest submarine

Tentative conclusion: The Fourth World War ala ex-CIA Director James Woolsey is apparently underway in earnest . . . Time to rumble and put the Communist Bloc and its Islamic proxies in their place.

Iranian forces reportedly attack several villages in Iraq
Chris Collins and Yaseen Taha
August 23, 2007 4:15 PM
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

BAGHDAD – Iranian soldiers crossed into Iraq on Thursday and attacked several small villages in the northeastern Kurdish region, local officials said.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said he couldn’t confirm the attacks, but five Kurdish officials said that troops had infiltrated Iraqi territory and fired on villages.

The Iranian military regularly exchanges artillery and rocket fire with Kurdish rebels who have taken refuge across the border, but Iraqi Kurdish officials worried that Iran’s willingness to cross the border raises the possibility of a broader confrontation that would draw the Iraqi government and U.S. forces into an unwanted showdown.

One Kurdish legislator said that if reports of the attacks were true, then Iraq must ”stand firmly” against future Iranian encroachments.

Details of the incursion were sparse. Abdul Wahid Gwany, the mayor of Choman, a village 250 miles north of Baghdad, said Iranian troops crossed the border in 10 places and traveled approximately three miles into the mountainous Iraqi region, bombing rural villages in the process. He didn’t say how many Iranian troops were involved.

Jamal Ahmed, the police chief of Benjawin, a village a little more than 200 miles north of Baghdad, said the attacks killed some residents.

“We don’t know the amount of casualties as the bombing was continuous and so severe,” Ahmed said. Gwany said the attacks also killed many cattle and left villages and farms burned to the ground.

Gen. Jabbar Yawr, a spokesman for the Kurdish militia, said Iranian troops have been lobbing artillery at Iraq from across the border since Aug. 16, though Thursday was the first time that Iranian troops crossed the border.

He said that a statement issued by the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, a branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is also known as the PKK, claimed credit for the recent assassination of an Iranian intelligence official. Yawr said the Iranian raid was in retaliation.

The United States has declared the PKK to be an international terrorist group.

Ethnic Kurds make up much of semi-autonomous northern Iraq and also populate large swaths of Iran, Turkey and Syria. Kurdish separatist rebels, who have sought to establish their own independent state, have long been at odds with all three countries.

Earlier this year, Turkey, a NATO ally, threatened to invade northern Iraq if the United States and Iraq didn’t stop PKK guerrillas from taking shelter there. Turkey said the PKK’s battle for an ethnic homeland has claimed the lives of 30,000 people.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament, said he hadn’t heard about Iranian soldiers crossing the border, but that if they had, ”then this is open intervention. Iraq should stand firmly against it.”

Hiwa Osman, the spokesman for Iraqi Vice President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, said he had heard about Iranian troops crossing the border, but that ”details are sketchy.”

”It seems something is taking place,” he said. ”It’s definitely seen as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.”

Yawr said PUK sent a letter to Tehran demanding that it rein in its troops. He said representatives from the political party went to Baghdad on Thursday to lobby for the Iraqi government’s help.

Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ghareeb, the chief commander of the border guards in the Sulaimaniyah region, where some of the attacks occurred, said he has asked U.S.-led coalition forces to help protect the border.

”We told them about this matter and we asked them to stop it immediately,” he said.

The U.S. military didn’t respond to questions about Ghareeb’s assertions.

(Special correspondent Taha reported from Sulaimaniyah, Iraq.)

Source: Santa-Barbara News-Press

On August 21, when reports of an Iranian leaflet drop over Iraqi Kurdistan “came over the wire,” we refrained from posting with the expectation that additional reports would confirm the incident. It seems that the confirmation has arrived . . .

Iranians order Kurdish border villages to evacuate
By DPA
Aug 21, 2007, 10:51 GMT

Baghdad – Iranian authorities have asked residents of Kurdish villages which lie near the borders with Iran to evacuate their homes, according to pamphlets distributed across the villages on Tuesday.

Local sources said that the said flyers, written in Kurdish, instructed the Kurds to relocate in order to avoid damage that either ground or airborne military operations could cause to them during attacks against anti-Iranian fighters.

Sources in Hajj Omran town in the northern Arbil province had said Sunday that Iranian troops were massing along the north-eastern stretch of the Iran-Iraq border near Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

The unnamed Kurdish source had said that Iranian forces looked about to launch a large-scale offensive targeting members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party and the Party for Freedom and Life known as PJAK.

Members of the ‘rebel’ groups, who fiercely oppose the governments of Iran and Turkey, are said to be based near mountains that stretch along the borders with Iran.

“Our enemies, mainly the Americans, are trying to plant security hurdles in our country (Iran),” Tuesday’s flyers said. “They achieve this through using agents in the areas of Qandeel and Khaneera inside the Kurdish region. The authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran will work on cleansing this area,” the flyers said. Unconfirmed Iranian reports said that they succeeded in shooting down a helicopter involved in military manoeuvres in north-eastern Iran.

Military attacks targeting the two Kurdish groups are not uncommon. Only last Thursday, Iranian and Turkish forces shelled two northern Iraqi border cities in the autonomous region.

On the same day, a group of Kurdish villages were bombed while an intense Iranian strike on the province of Sulaymanyah was also reported.

Meanwhile, Jamal Abdullah, spokesman for the government of the Kurdish region, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the Kurdish authorities were not certain about the identity of the distributors of the flyers, or whether they are from the Iranian authorities or not as the flyers do not carry signatures.

‘If they were indeed released by the Iranian authorities, then we believe that any operations inside the Kurdish region do not serve the interests of security and stability,’ Abdullah said. ‘The Iraqi government will not accept it.’

Source: Monsters and Critics

A website that sympathizes with the Marxist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the US State Department classifies as a terrorist org, is reporting that an Iranian dissident has publicized a secret alliance between Iran and Turkey to seize Kurdish-held territory in northern Iraq and form a buffer zone. This plan, alarmingly, will require Iranian forces “to push a possible American front further from the official Iranian border” and involve Turkish troops “embedded” in the Iranian army and wearing Iranian uniforms. The MSM, as the article below observes, has been complicit with this plot through its silence. “KRG” refers to the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Secret Iranian war plan captured by Kurds
NEWSDESK, Aug 23 (DozaMe.org)

An alleged secret Iranian war plan outlines aggressive military operations in coordination with the Turkish army to capture Kurdish land in northern Iraq to create a buffer zone, Kurdish sources close to the PKK says. The primary objective is to sabotage a possible blitz by American ground troops into Iran. The information was disclosed by a dissident Iranian military official.

The Iranian pretext for the offensive into southern Kurdistan will be to root out and destroy PKK forces along the border with eastern [Iranian] Kurdistan.

“Iran has since last year tested the territorial integrity of Iraq and the KRG with incursions into south Kurdistan. The areas along Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq bordering Iran have been shelled by Iranian artillery and raiders have conducted one-day operations several kilometers into what is officially Iraqi territory. The Iraqi and American silence has encouraged them and they’re continuing to push the limits,” a PKK-source told DozaMe.org.

The Iraqi and American silence has embroiled KRG who has sent Iran several diplomatic notes warning them against any military adventure in southern Kurdistan [northern Iraq].

THE PLAN

# The operations will start with an offensive against PKK’s military units, but the real aim will be to capture border areas to push a possible American front further from the official Iranian border.

# Turkey will give air support to Iranian ground troops with attack helicopters. The Turkish helicopters will lift and land in Urmiye. A small number of Turkish special forces consisting of privates and NCO’s will act as tactical support, advising invading Iranian troops. Turkish officers will remain in Operational HQ’s on Iranian soil coordinating the Turkish troops embedded into the Iranian army. Turkish troops will wear Iranian uniforms or Kurdish pro-Iranian paramilitary uniforms.

# Any support to Iranian troops, open or covert, by the Kurdish PUK will be rewarded by Iran. Iran will then hand over PKK-controlled areas such as Asos, Martyr Harun, Martyr Ayhan and Qandil to the PUK. It is not known whether PUK has accepted or declined the offer.

# Coinciding with the Iranian incursion, Turkey will conduct enormous military operations against PKK forces in the border provinces of Hakkari, Van and Sirnak.

Source: DozaMe.org

>Red World: Mexico: Calderon challenges PRI domination, Obrador sets up counter-regime; EZLN, EPR revitalize insurgency; FSB controls drug cartels

>On August 20 and 31, 2007 Mexican President Felipe Calderon (pictured here, left) and his US and Canadian counterparts, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, converged at Montebello, Quebec to confer over the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. This and other secretive and semi-secretive “North American summits” between politicians and business leaders trouble patriots in all three countries in view of hostile irredentists who have reclaimed southwestern USA for Mexico nearly 160 years after Washington paid for the land, eight to 11 million known illegal aliens in the USA, sporadic battles between the outgunned US Border Patrol and Mexican army units that are collaborating with drug smugglers, and an elite-driven push for North American integration. During the Montebello meeting a Fox News reporter posed the following question to President Bush regarding the last topic:

As you three leaders meet here, there are a growing number of people in each of your countries who have expressed concern about the Security and Prosperity Partnership. This is addressed to all three of you. Can you say today that this is not a prelude to a North American Union, similar to a European Union? Are there plans to build some kind of superhighway connecting all three countries? And do you believe all of these theories about a possible erosion of national identity stem from a lack of transparency from this partnership?

In his response Bush refused to categorically deny the existence of capital-level plans for “North American Union”:

We represent three great nations. We each respect each other’s sovereignty. You know, there are some who would like to frighten our fellow citizens into believing that relations between us are harmful for our respective peoples. I just believe they’re wrong. I believe it’s in our interest to trade; I believe it’s in our interest to dialogue; I believe it’s in our interest to work out common problems for the good of our people.

And I’m amused by some of the speculation, some of the old – you can call them political scare tactics. If you’ve been in politics as long as I have, you get used to that kind of technique where you lay out a conspiracy and then force people to try to prove it doesn’t exist. That’s just the way some people operate. I’m here representing my nation. I feel strongly that the United States is a force for good, and I feel strongly that by working with our neighbors we can a stronger force for good.

So I appreciate that question. I’m amused by the difference between what actually takes place in the meetings and what some are trying to say takes place. It’s quite comical, actually, when you realize the difference between reality and what some people are talking on TV about.

In spite of the “War on Terror,” the border between Mexico and the USA remains for the most part unsecured and chaotic. The 2006 Secure Fence Act obligates the US government to erect 392 miles of fencing between Calexico, California and Douglas, Arizona by May 30, 2008. Eighteen miles have been built thus far.

This profile on Mexico continues the North American chapter of our “Red World” series on communist influence worldwide. Since spring of last year we have profiled Europe, Asia, Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. We profiled Canada on August 14. The USA is our next stop.

United Mexican States
Type of state: Republic with some constitutional socialist features and minor Cuban/Venezuelan-backed communist insurgency
Independence: September 27, 1821 (from Spain)
President of Mexico: Felipe Calderon (National Action Party): December 1, 2006-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, which occurred on July 2, 2006, the seats were distributed in the following manner: National Action Party (conservative) 206, Coalition for the Good of All/Broad Progressive Front (consisting of Party of the Democratic Revolution (social democratic with neo-communist factions), Labor Party (democratic socialism), and Convergence (social democratic)) 157, Alliance for Mexico (consisting of Institutional Revolutionary Party (social democratic, centrist, corporatist) and Ecologist Green Party of Mexico) 123, New Alliance Party (liberal) 9, and Social Democratic Alternative Party 4.

Next general elections: Mexico’s next legislative elections are scheduled for 2009, while the next presidential election is scheduled for 2012. Following the failure of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to win the presidential election, the Coalition for the Good of All rejected the lawful winner Felipe Calderon and anointed AMLO “Legitimate President” and head of a national counter-government called the “Legitimate Government of Mexico.” The counter-government of the state of Oaxaca, known as the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), is openly allied with AMLO and his sympathizers. Organized by striking teachers and sympathizers in 2006, APPO enjoys the open support of several communist organizations, including the Party of Communists, Popular Revolutionary Front, Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and Popular Revolutionary Army. Mexico has been in what can only be called a state of low-level civil war since AMLO refused to concede defeat to Calderon.

Semi-communist government:

1) Institutional Revolutionary Party (formerly PRM) dominates all branches and levels of government until National Action Party (PAN) takes presidency in 2000 and Congress in 2006: 1946-2000
2) Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM, formerly PNR): 1938-1946
3) National Revolutionary Party (PNR, founded by President Calles): 1929-1938
4) Reformist presidencies of Álvaro Obregón and crypto-fascist Plutarco Elías Calles with support of Mexican Labor Party/Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers: 1920-1929
5) Reformist presidency of Venustiano Carranza with support of Mexican Democratic Party and Liberal Constitutionalist Party; Carranza drafts social democratic Constitution of 1917; opposed by popular revolutionaries Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa: 1914-1920
6) Reformist presidency of Francisco Madero with support of Anti-Reelectionist Party; opposed by popular revolutionary/anarcho-communist Emiliano Zapata: 1911-1913

Communist insurgencies:

1) December 2 Execution Brigade: This group operates in a coalition with four other guerrilla organizations that claimed responsibility for the November 6, 2006 bombings in Mexico City.

2) Group of Guerilla Combatants of Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon (CGN-JMMP): Organized in March 2001 the CGN-JMMP is an umbrella organization that encompasses three small splinter factions of the Popular Revolutionary Army, including: the Clandestine Revolutionary Committee of the Poor-28th of June Justice Command (CCRP-CJ), the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People (FARP), and the Villista Revolutionary Army of the People (EVRP). The group’s namesake Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon was a patriot who fought in Mexico’s War of Independence against Spain.
3) Insurgent Movement of the South West (MIS): This is a political-military configuration.
4) Insurgent Organization of May 1: This group operates in a coalition with four other guerrilla organizations that claimed responsibility for the November 6, 2006 bombings in Mexico City.
5) Insurgent Socialist Army (ESI): This is a political-military configuration.
6) Liberation Army of the South (ELS): This political-military configuration was founded in 1994.
7) Lucio Cabañas Barrientos Revolutionary Movement (MR-LCB): This political-military configuration was founded in 2001. It operates in a coalition with four other guerrilla organizations that claimed responsibility for the November 6, 2006 bombings in Mexico City.
8) National Liberating Front (FNL): No information.
9) New Peasant Punishment Brigade (NBCA): This is a political-military configuration.
10) Popular Army of the Insurgent Revolution (ERPI): Founded in 1998 as a split from the Popular Revolutionary Army, this is a political-military configuration.
11) Popular Liberation Brigades: This group operates in a coalition with four other guerrilla organizations that claimed responsibility for the November 6, 2006 bombings in Mexico City.
12) Revolutionary Army of the South East (ERS): This is a political-military configuration.
13) Revolutionary Democratic Tendency of Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR-TDR): This political-military configuration split from the Popular Revolutionary Army. It operates in a coalition with four other guerrilla organizations that claimed responsibility for the November 6, 2006 bombings in Mexico City.

Past insurgent groups in Mexico, with date of last known terrorist action, dissolution, or destruction by government forces, include: United Popular Liberation Army of America (1960s-1970s), Movimiento Armado Nacionalista Organizacion (1974), 23rd of September Communist League (1982), Armed Communist League (1982), Comando Internacionalista Simon Bolivar (1987), Justice Army of Defenseless People (1998), and Comando Jaramillista Morelense 23 de Mayo (2004).

Active insurgent armies:

1) Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR): The EPR was organized in 1996, carried out a number of terrorist attacks in six Mexican states that year and in 1997, and then went underground for nearly a decade, experiencing a schism in 2000. In October 2006, however, the EPR released a communiqué that denounced “neo-liberal” President-Elect Felipe Calderon and Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and expressed solidarity with the striking teachers and leftist protestors of Oaxaca state: “To the oligarchs and administrators in turn, Fox, Calderón, Ulises, Abascal, we say that the story is still unfinished, for us it is only the beginning of new stages and forms of struggle, the final victory will be that of our heroic and dignified people.”

On November 6, 2006 five leftist guerrilla groups—the Lucio Cabañas Barrientos Revolutionary Movement, the Revolutionary Democratic Tendency of Popular Revolutionary Army, the Insurgent Organization of May 1, the December 2 Execution Brigade, and the Popular Liberation Brigades—claimed responsibility for three bombings in Mexico City. A branch of Canada’s Scotiabank, an office of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, and the Federal Electoral Tribunal, which on September 5 ruled against leftist presidential candidate Andres Manual Lopez Obrador’s claims of election fraud. The guerrilla coalition identified the federal police action that forced leftist protestors from Oaxaca City’s central plaza in October as its rationale for the bombings. On the same day two grenades were tossed from a condominium window in the resort town of Ixtapa, hours before President-Elect Calderon was scheduled to visit. A splinter group of the EPR known as the Popular Army of the Insurgent Revolution (ERPI) also claimed responsibility for these bombings. It is not clear how these six organizations are related.

On July 5, 2007 two explosions at a state-run Pemex pipeline in Guanajuato state forced evacuations but caused no injuries. Five days later three bombs exploded, two of them along the main 36-inch pipe between Mexico City and Salamanca in Guatemala state. More than 90 factories were forced to reduce or suspend production. The EPR released a communique that accepted responsibility for the pipeline bombings and again refered to the group’s opposition to “the interests of the oligarchy and of this illegitimate government.” The army was deployed to guard Pemex facilities.

If the EPR attacks against Pemex’s pipelines herald a new campaign of revolutionary violence, then one might only have to look as far as Russian communist leader Gennady Zyuganov’s April 2007 visit to Mexico for a rationale. With respect to the “sophisticated” hydrogel plastic explosives that the EPR guerrillas allegedly used to sever the pipelines, Mexican authorities might only have to look as far as Havana or Caracas for the supplier.

According to Mexican journalist Francisco Resendiz, the EPR and its offshoots are receiving funding and arms from the Cuban and Venezuelan governments. In March 2006 La Cronica de Hoya reported: “Violent groups and political organizations related to the PRD that supports Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have been infiltrated since 2001 by ‘Bolivarian cells’ financed by the government of Venezuela, to build a structure of ‘promotion’ and ‘self-defense’ in case of a possible triumph of the Mexican left in the next presidential electoral day.”

WorldThreats.com founder Ryan Mauro confirms: “Venezuelan intelligence is also claimed [to] be providing weapons, specifically AK-47s, to the People’s Revolutionary Army of Mexico. Cuban embassy officials are involved in the transfers; money reportedly makes its way to Venezuela, via Havana. According to a report (Geostrategy-Direct.com, 6/7/05), Venezuela and Cuba are also backing members of the Party of Democratic Revolution in Mexico.” The neo-communist Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) is the main coalition partner in Obrador’s counter-government.

In May 2006, furthermore, Gordon Thomas published an article at WorldNetDaily.com in which he presented information linking the EPR with Al Qaeda: “Another Pakistani document shows the links between al-Qaida and Mexico’s Popular Revolutionary Army, EPR. The documents reveal that al-Qaida sees EPR as collaborators in attacks in Mexico on foreign targets – ‘especially those of the United States and Britain.’ It also says that EPR can play a key role in allowing al-Qaida operatives to enter the United States through the busiest land crossing in the world – Tijuana.”

The Popular Revolutionary Democratic Party-Popular Revolutionary Army, founded in 1996, constitutes the political wing of the EPR.

The EPR openly supports Oaxaca state’s leftist counter-government, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). APPO, in turn, supports AMLO’s “Legitimate Government of Mexico.”

2) Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN): The EZLN was organized on November 17, 1983 by a mysterious, masked figure called Subcomandante Marcos (pictured here at US-Mexican border, 2006). The Mexican government believes that Marcos is Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente, the Mexican-born son of Spanish immigrants. Allegedly a former professor at Metropolitan Autonomous University, the Zapatista leader retreated to the jungle with several followers to begin an armed communist uprising. Subcomandante Marcos dumped the orthodox Marxist rhetoric around 1990 in order to promote the international left’s new cause of “anti-globalization,” and address the grievances of the peasants and indigenous peoples of Chiapas state.

On January 1, 1994, a date that was chosen to coincide with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Zapatistas launched their armed rebellion. Nearly 150 people were killed in almost two weeks of clashes between the rebels and the Mexican army before an informal truce emerged. In spite of the truce, the EZLN continues to act like a terrorist group by appearing in public with ski masks and retaining a military option for revolution. The Zapatistas also continue to agitate for indigenous rights by publicly appealing to Mexican voters and organizing marches and rallies. Dozens of villages in Chiapas have declared themselves under the control of the EZLN.

Subcomandante Marcos emerged after several years in hiding in June 2005 to declare that the EZLN was entering mainstream politics by way of its “Other Campaign.” On November 1, 2006 the Zapatista leader took his propaganda tour to the middle of Stanton Street Bridge, which connects El Paso, Texas with Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. There Marcos conducted a symbolic meeting with a delegation from the Sin Fronteras farmworkers center of South El Paso. Overhead a US Customs and Border Protection Black Hawk helicopter hovered. There Marcos decried the US government’s plan to build a border wall, urged spectators to support the Oaxaca insurgents, and denounced the Mexican government’s repression of Chiapas. He declared:

The Other Campaign considers the other side [of the US-Mexican border] as a part of Mexico, a part of ourselves, like our blood, and our fight doesn’t recognize neither this helicopter, nor this line, nor this [US] flag that waves above. Comrades, there is no other side. Those on the other side are those sitting in this helicopter, in the White House and in Los Pinos [the Mexican presidential residence].

In denouncing all borders and boundaries, Subcomandante Marcos effectively established a rationale for the elite-driven North American Union, albeit with an overt communist flavor. Several weeks later, the pro-communist Narco News Bulletin published a statement from Marcos that was frankly violent in its tone: “We do not recognize the official president or the legitimate one [Felipe Calderon]. What happens at the top does not matter at all to us. What matters is what will arise from below. When we carry out this uprising, we will do away with the entire political class, including those who call themselves the ‘parliamentary leftists.'”

Apparently the EZLN’s peaceful “Other Campaign” is not yielding its expected results: namely, providing a rationale for bloodless communist revolution in Mexico. The leftist CounterPunch reported in November 2005: “The Other Campaign will also provide the EZLN with a platform from which to build an organization of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in every state in the Mexican union.” With his latest tirade in the wake of the Mexican Left’s defeat in the July 2006 general elections, Subcomandante Marcos’ anti-globalization rhetoric has fallen away to reveal standard communist jargon.

The EZLN openly supports Oaxaca state’s leftist counter-government, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). APPO, in turn, supports AMLO’s “Legitimate Government of Mexico.”

Pictured here: The Popular Revolutionary Front openly supports the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca.

Communist parties:

1) Broad Party of the Socialist Left (PAIS): Founded in 1990 as a split from the Mexican Socialist Party (PMS), this party is radical left in orientation.
2) Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist) (PCM(M-L)): This Stalinist party was founded in 1978 and associates with the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (Hoxhaist).
3) Communist Party of Mexico Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (in Reconstitution) PCM(R): Founded in 2001 this Maoist party associates with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
4) Emiliano Zapata Proletarian Organization (OPEZ): Founded in 1979 this party is radical left in orientation.
5) Emiliano Zapata Revolutionary Popular Union (UPREZ): No information.
6) Francisco Villa Popular Front (FPFV): Founded in 1989 this party is radical left in orientation.
7) Francisco Villa Popular Front-Independent (FPFVI): Founded in 1998 as a split from the Francisco Villa Popular Front, this party is radical left in orientation.
8) Independent Party of Workers-Popular Unity (PUOI): Founded in 1987 by the Independent Workers’ Unity (UOI), this party is radical left in orientation.
9) Independent Popular Front (FPI): Founded in 1994 as a split from the Francisco Villa Popular Front this party is radical left in orientation.
10) Independent Proletarian Movement (MPI): This ex-Maoist party was founded in 1984.
11) Internationalist Group (GI): Founded in 1996 as a split from GEM, this party is Trotskyist in orientation and associates with the League for the Fourth International.
12) Labor Party (PT): Founded in 1990 this ex-Maoist, left-socialist party associates with the Sao Paulo Forum.
13) Leading Party of Socialist Unity (PLUS): No information.
14) Mexican Communist Party (PCM): The original PCM was founded in 1911 as the Socialist Workers’ Party and changed its name to the Mexican Communist Party in November 1919, following the Bolshevik Revolution. The PCM was banned between 1925 and 1935, during the presidency of leftist Lazaro Cardenas, who welcomed Russian exile Leon Trotsky. In 1981 the PCM merged with three other leftist parties to form the United Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM). Most PSUM members then merged with moderate leftists to form the Mexican Socialist Party (PMS) in 1987. The PMS joined the National Democratic Front (FDN) to support the presidential campaign of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the son of Lazaro, in 1988. Under Cardenas’ guidance the PMS and its FDN allies were absorbed into the newly formed Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1989. A Marxist-Leninist faction in the PMS continued as the new Mexican Communist Party, which merged with the Party of Socialist Revolution in 2003 to form the Party of Communists. The new PCM associated with the Sao Paulo Forum.
15) Movement of Mexican Communists (MCM): Founded in 2002 this alliance united the Party of Socialist Revolution, new Mexican Communist Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolutionary People’s Party, and People’s Electoral Movement. The MCM was a member of the Sao Paulo Forum.
16) New Democracy (ND): This radical left party operates under the leadership of Juan Gualberto Campos Vega.
17) Party of Communists (PC): This party was founded in 2003 by a merger of the new Mexican Communist Party (PCM) and Party of Socialist Revolution (PRS).
18) Party of Socialist Revolution (PRS): This party was founded in 1985 as a split from the United Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM) and merged with the new Mexican Communist Party to form the Party of Communists in 2003.
19) People’s Electoral Movement (MEP): Founded in 1998 as a split from the Party of Socialist Revolution, this party is communist in orientation.
20) People’s Power Bloc (BPP): This party is radical left in orientation.
21) People’s Workshop (TdeP): This party is Trotskyist in orientation.
22) Popular Democratic Left (IDP): Founded in 1999 this party is radical left in orientation.
23) Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR): This communist party supports the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, the leftist counter-government in Oaxaca state, formed in 2006.
24) Red Workers’ Party (POR): This party is Stalinist in orientation.
25) Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR): No information.
26) Revolutionary Labour Organization (ORT): This party was founded in 1997.
27) Revolutionary People’s Party (PRP): This party is communist in orientation.
28) Revolutionary Workers’ Party (PRT): Founded in 1999 as a split from the other Revolutionary Workers’ Party, this Trotskyist party associates with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
29) Revolutionary Workers’ Party-Socialist Convergence (PRT-CS): Founded in 1976 this Trotskyist party associates with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International and operates under the leadership of Edgard Sánchez Ramírez.
30) Socialist Alliance (AS): This radical left alliance was founded in 2004 by the Revolutionary Workers’ Party-Socialist Convergence, LUS, UNIOS, Socialist Convergence, Socialist Collective, and other parties.
31) Socialist Bloc (BS): Founded in 2002 this radical left alliance united UCLAT, LUS, POS, IDP and TdeP.
32) Socialist Collective (CS): This Trotskyist party was founded by mainly former members of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party-Socialist Convergence.
33) Socialist Convergence: This party was founded in 1996 by the Revolutionary Workers’ Party-Socialist Convergence (PRT-CS).
34) Socialist Opposition (OS): Founded in 2000 this Trotskyist party associates with the Left Party (USA) and formerly associated with the Committee for a Workers’ International.
35) Socialist Party of Mexico: This party formed in 1987 through a merger of moderate leftists and the United Socialist Party of Mexico, itself a merger of the old Mexican Communist Party and other far leftists.
36) Popular Socialist Party (PPS): Founded in 1948 this communist party associates with the International Communist Seminar hosted by the Workers’ Party of Belgium and frequented by Oleg Shenin’s restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
37) Popular Socialist Party of Mexico: This communist party was founded in 1997 as a split from the Popular Socialist Party. The PPSM associates with the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties.
38) Socialist Unity League (LUS): Founded in 1996 as a split from Radical Democracy, this Trotskyist party associates with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
39) Socialist Workers’ Organization (OST): This Trotskyist party associates with the International Secretariat of the Fourth International.
40) Revolution Youth (JR): No information.
41) Socialist Workers’ Party (POS): Founded in 1980 this Trotskyist party associates with the International Workers’ League (Fourth International).
42) Socialist Workers’ Unity (UOS): This Trotskyist party formerly associated with the International Workers’ Unity (Fourth International).
43) People’s Front: This party was founded in 1989.
44) Spartacist Group of Mexico (GEM): Founded in 1990 this Trotskyist party associates with the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).
45) Union of Working Class (UCLAT): This Trotskyist party associates with the International Workers’ Unity (Fourth International).
46) Unity and Popular Struggle Movement (MULP): This alliance was founded in 1997.
47) Workers’ League for Socialism-Against the Current (Unified) (LTS-CC Unificada): Founded in 1988 as a split from the Socialist Workers’ Party (POS), this Trotskyist party associates with the Trotskyist Faction-International Strategy.
48) World Revolution (RM): This left communist party associates with the International Communist Seminar hosted by the Workers’ Party of Belgium and frequented by Oleg Shenin’s restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Party of the Democratic Revolution’s “currents” (factions):

1) Current of Advancing Democratic Left (CIDA): Founded in 1998 as a split from the CID this current operates under the leadership of Armando Quintero Martínez.
2) Current of Democratic Left (CID): Founded in 1993 this current operates under the leadership of René Bejarano and Dolores Padierna.
3) Current of Democratic Socialism (CSD): This communist current was founded in 1995.
4) Emiliano Zapata Brigades of Party of Democratic Revolution (BEZ-PRD): This current is radical left in orientation.
5) The Militant: Founded in 1989 this Trotskyist current associates with the International Marxist Tendency.
6) Movement of the Insurgent Bases (MBI): This current operates under the leadership of Gerardo Fernández Noroña and Raúl Alvarez Garín.
7) Movement of the Libertarian Left (MIL): This radical left current operates under the leadership of Félix Salgado and Héctor Sánchez.
8) Movement of Social Left (MISOL): This current operates under the leadership of Héctor Sánchez and Félix Salgado Macedonio.
9) New Left (NI): This social democratic current operates under the leadership of Jesús Ortega and Jesús Zambrano.
10) New Sun Forum (FNS): This social democratic current operates under the leadership of Amalia García and Raymundo Cárdenas.
11) Refoundation: This left socialist current operates under the leadership of Party of Democratic Revolution founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.
12) Revolutionary Left Network (REDIR): Founded in 1999 this radical left current operates under the leadership of José Camilo Valenzuela and José Antonio Rueda.
13) Social Alliance of the Left (ASI): Founded in 1997 this current is radical left in orientation.
14) Unity and Renovation (UNYR): Founded in 2003 this current operates under the leadership of Rosario Robles.

National Assembly of the Socialist Left

The National Assembly of the Socialist Left (ANIS) is an alliance of numerous far-left parties that formed in 2005 to establish a “socialist front.” The ANIS includes at least three currents in the social democratic Party of the Democratic Revolution.

1) Alliance of Social Organizations
2) Barricade Collective of Independent Youth of Ecatepec
3) Che Guevara Cell
4) Citizens’ Dignity
5) Citizens’ Pact
6) Citizens’ Power
7) Collective of Ex-Militants of MRP (CE MRP)
8) Communist Party of Guerrero (PCG)
9) Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist) (PCM(M-L))
10) Communist Party of Valley of Mexico
11) CRISOL
12) Current of Democratic Socialism (Party of Democratic Revolution current)
13) Democratic Broad Front (FAD)
14) Democratic Convergence “Valentín Campa”
15) Democratic Front 23rd Section X National Educational Workers Union (SNTE)
16) Democratic Movement for Socialism “Ricardo Flores Magón” (MDS RFM)
17) Encuentro Nacional de las Izquierdas
18) For a Different Party of Democratic Revolution of Sonora
19) Health Workers’ Socialist Committee “Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara”
20) Modern Times
21) Movimiento Magisterial del Sindicato de Maestros al Servicio del Edo. de México
22) Communitarian Context
23) Marxist Collective of Colima
24) Movement of Popular Struggle (MLP)
25) New September 23 Movement
26) New Socialist Movement
27) Permanent Forum of Truth Commission
28) Party of Communists (PC) (supports Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca)
29) Polytechnic National Coordination
30) Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) (supports Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca)
31) Popular Socialist Party (PPS)
32) Proletarian Political Organization (OPP)
33) Promoting Committee of Unity of Socialists of Michoacán (CPUSM)
34) Regional Committee for First Centenary of Socialist Party of Mexico
35) Revolutionary Left Network (Party of Democratic Revolution current)
36) Revolutionary Workers’ Party (PRT)
37) Socialist Alliance
38) Socialist Collective
39) Socialist Convergence
40) Socialist Fraternity Political Cell “Gastón García Cantú” of Socialist Party of Mexico
41) Socialist Movement of Northern Frontier (MSFN)
42) Socialist Unity League (LUS)
43) Sustainable Development in Latin America (DSAL)
44) UJRM-FPR
45) Union of Revolutionary Struggle-Collective of Reflection in Action
46) Workers’ and Socialist Unity (UOS)
47) Workers’ League for Socialism (LTS)
48) Youth and Students’ Front “Ernesto Che Guevara” of Revolutionary Left Network (Party of Democratic Revolution current)

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Latin American Parliament, North American Union (in formation)
Socialist International presence: Institutional Revolutionary Party, Party of the Democratic Revolution
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Labor Party, Popular Socialist Party (communist)
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Mexico has well-established relations with China and incipient but growing relations with Russia.

On December 12, 2003 Mexican President Vicente Fox received Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and together the leaders announced the establishment of a strategic partnership between the two countries. “Since China and Mexico established diplomatic relations 31 years ago, their bilateral ties, which have withstood the test of time and vicissitudes on the international arena, are at the best period for development,” Premier Wen stated. The partnership will lead to the establishment of an inter-governmental standing committee to coordinate bilateral cooperation in various fields; exchanges between the Chinese and Mexican governments, parliaments, parties and non-governmental organizations; bilateral economic cooperation, including investment protection and avoidance of double taxation; bilateral exchanges in culture, education and science and technology; and coordination and cooperation in multilateral affairs. China is considering approving Mexico as a tourism destination for its nationals.

In 2005 Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), traveled to Mexico City where he met with President Fox. Jia’s mission was to enhance the Sino-Mexican partnership. The People’s Daily Online reports: “Fox told Jia that his government attaches great importance to the strategic partnership between Mexico and China and is willing to work together with China to further this relationship and enhance bilateral cooperation in international affairs.” Fox, moreover, reassured Jia of Mexico’s commitment to a one China policy that prohibits Taiwanese independence.

Li Changchun (pictured here), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, visited President Felipe Calderon in March 2007 to enhance the Sino-Mexican partnership still further. Calderon affirmed: “Our two countries have maintained frequent exchanges of high-level visits in recent years, which in turn have pushed forward bilateral cooperation in such fields as trade, economy and culture. Mexico places great importance on its relations with China, and the growth of Mexico-China friendship has brought about a great deal of opportunities and benefits for Mexico.”

The Kremlin’s influences in Mexico in the “post”-Cold War era extend to the largely under-reported sale of Russian military equipment to the Mexican armed forces, as well as the under-reported infiltration of the Mexican drug cartels by “ex”-KGB agents. This influence also extends to the largely unreported covert sale of weapons via Cuba and Venezuela to Marxist insurgents such as the Popular Revolutionary Army, as well as the unreported networking between the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Mexican communists and leftists. All of these factors contribute to the destabilization of the USA’s southern neighbor.

Pictured here: Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Mexico in 2004 to confer with his counterpart, then President Vicente Fox.

An August 2003 Knight Ridder News Service report confirms the main thesis of Joseph Douglass’ 1990 book Red Cocaine, in which this expert on terrorism and Soviet strategy outlines the Communist Bloc’s plan for the narco-subversion of the West. In Red Cocaine Douglass interviews Czech defector General Jan Sejna, who divulges Moscow’s plan to flood the West with narcotics in collaboration with Prague, Havana, and other communist capitals.

MEXICO CITY – The Russian mafia, including former KGB agents, has infiltrated Mexico’s weakened drug cartels and is helping them smuggle illegal narcotics to the United States, according to U.S. and Mexican officials and independent drug experts.

Russian mobsters have been most effective in penetrating drug gangs in the Tijuana-Baja California-San Diego region, Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the head of the Mexican attorney general’s Special Unit for Organized Crime, told Knight Ridder. He described the Russians as highly skilled and “extremely dangerous.”
TRADING FAVORS

Some of them are advising Mexico’s drug cartels and laundering their money in exchange for being allowed to operate, Steven W. Casteel, assistant administrator for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration, told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington in May. The fee for laundering drug proceeds typically is 30 percent or more.

Casteel, whose agency declined to make him available for an interview, told lawmakers that the Russian mafia’s Mexican infiltration was consistent with the globalization of organized crime in recent years.

Russians first showed up in Colombian cocaine cartels a decade ago. They have been spotted in Mexico since the late 1990s.

Their extensive penetration in the Tijuana-San Diego area follows the 2002 arrests of Benjamín Arellano-Félix, the alleged patriarch of the region’s drug cartel, and a dozen more of its alleged leaders.

Russians took up some of the slack when the weakened cartel broke into ”cartelitos,” said Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami professor of international studies who has written extensively about drugs, organized crime and the Russian mafia.

Another leading Mexican trafficker, the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the head of the Juárez cartel, pioneered the use of surplus Soviet military aircraft as smuggling planes. He’s said to have visited Moscow in the late 1990s to confer with leaders of Russian drug gangs. Carrillo Fuentes, known as ”Lord of the Skies,” died in 1997 while undergoing surgery. His cartel has also decentralized, according to drug analysts, giving Russians new opportunities in Mexico.

”Russian drug thugs are leaner and meaner,” Bagley said.

“They operate on a low profile, don’t wear gold chains and don’t cut people up with power saws or dump them in rivers.”

Still, ”these guys are the bloodiest human beings you can imagine,” he said. Bagley, who recently finished a year’s sabbatical at a prestigious Mexico City research center, the Center for Research and Economic Education, is the author of a bibliographic survey titled Drug Trafficking in the Americas: Aggressive Russian Groups Have Flourished.

The decapitation of Mexico’s biggest drug cartels, for which U.S. authorities credit President Vicente Fox, is giving the Russians what Bagley called “a golden opportunity in Mexico.”

SMALLER GANGS

The cartels have fractured into smaller gangs operating at city and state levels, where they’re harder to detect and officials are easier to bribe. The smaller groups are more open to the Russians, Bagley said, because they need help with protection, transportation and money laundering.

Much Russian money laundering is done offshore, he said, in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba, as well as in Russia.

In the biggest seizure ever to implicate the Russian mob, the U.S. Coast Guard in April 2001 seized the 152-foot-long fishing vessel Svesda Maru in international waters off Acapulco and arrested its crew of 10 Russians and Ukrainians. More than 13 tons of cocaine was buried beneath its rotting squid bait, according to the Coast Guard.

U.S. prosecutors said the shipment originated in Colombia and was to be smuggled into the United States via Mexico. At the time, Errol Chavez, the head of the DEA’s San Diego office, said the crew must have had permission from the Arellano-Félix drug cartel.

The Knight Ridder report is confirmed by another report that was published two years before by Bruce Michael Bagley of the School of International Studies, at the University of Miami. Bagley is quoted in the article above. In the 2001 report below, titled “Globalization and Transnational Organized Crime: The Russian Mafia in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Bagley describes the relationship between the Red Mafiya, which is widely known to consist of “ex”-KGB types, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia via the Mexican drug cartels.

Interpol reports indicate that a variety of Russian criminal organizations, operating through literally “hundreds” of small cells, are engaged in a wide range of illegal activities in Mexico. Russian mafia groups such as the Poldolskaya, Mazukinskaya, Tambovskaya and Izamailovskaya, all linked to one of Russia’s major transnational criminal organization — Vory v Zakone (or “ladrones de la ley”) — are among the most active. The Moscow-based Solntsevskaya gang is also reported to be present in Mexico as are other mafia gangs from Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Albania and Rumania. Their major activities include drug and arms trafficking, money laundering, prostitution, traffic in women from Eastern and Central Europe and Russia, emigrant smuggling, kidnapping and credit card fraud.

Linkages with one or more of the seven principal Mexican criminal organizations or cartels operating in the country allow these Russian gangs to obtain drugs (especially cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines) at low prices and under relatively secure circumstances (often in resorts, hotels or houses protected and owned by their Mexican associates). Over the past five years, Pacific Ocean smuggling routes have increasingly supplanted the more closely monitored and congested Caribbean as the cocaine traffickers’ most lucrative smuggling option. More than half of all the cocaine entering the United States is now believed to come up the Pacific side. Seizures of South American cocaine bound for Mexico and the United States more than doubled between 1999 and 2000 alone. This upsurge in confiscations was both a function of the overall increase in drug flows through the eastern Pacific, especially from Colombia, and a result of a major redeployment of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pacific Coast forces away from their traditional mission of fisheries enforcement to support for U.S. military counter drug operations. It also reflects the greater cooperation and information sharing between U.S. law enforcement and the Mexican navy evident in the last two years.

A May 3, 2001, U.S. Coast Guard seizure (off the Pacific coast 1,000 kilometers south of Acapulco and 1,500 miles south of San Diego) of a Russian/Ukranian-manned, 152-foot, Belize-flagged fishing trawler named the Svesda Maru loaded with 12 tons of Colombian cocaine provided dramatic new evidence of Russian mafia involvement in drug trafficking in Mexico. Suspecting that the boat may have been involved in drug smuggling, U.S. authorities boarded the vessel April 28 and spent some five days looking for contraband. The 12 tons of cocaine were eventually found in the ship’s fuel tanks after a U.S. Coast Guard structural engineer performed “soundings” of various cavities in the vessel. It proved to be the largest cocaine seizure in U.S. maritime history. U.S. authorities maintain that the crew, comprised of eight Ukrainians and two Russians, must have had the permission of the Tijuana cartel (led by the infamous Arellano Felix clan) to ship so much cocaine to the U.S. West Coast. According to San Diego-based DEA agent Errol Chavez, the nationalities of the Svesda Maru crew are an “indication that there is direct involvement or some kind of association between Russian organized crime and members of the Arellano Felix organization.”

Previous revelations in November 2000 by the Mexican Attorney General’s office to the effect that Mexican authorities had uncovered proof that Tijuana’s Arellano Felix gang had provided Russian military hardware and cash to Colombia’s FARC guerrillas in exchange for large shipments of cocaine also pointed to a pattern of deepening Russian mafia involvement in the Colombian-Mexican drug connection.

U.S. officials in Southern California reportedly suspect the Russian and Ukrainian crew of the Svesda Maru of belonging to a Russian organized crime syndicate based in Los Angeles where between 600 and 800 known Russian crime figures live, mostly in the North and West Hollywood areas. A 1999 California Department of Justice report found that Russian crime groups based in Los Angeles had formed alliances with La Cosa Nostra in North America, Colombian cartels in South America and with the Sicilian mafia in Europe. Prior to this May 2001 seizure, however, Mexican authorities claimed that Amado Carillo Fuentes (alias “El Senor de los Cielos” or Lord of the Skies) of the Juarez cartel had forged the only known Mexican-Russian criminal alliance just prior to his death in 1997.

“Post”-communist Russia under President Vladimir Putin is gradually moving into Mexico as arms dealer with sales that have not received the high-profile media coverage that has accompanied Hugo Chavez’s purchase of Russian weaponry. In June 2004 the New York Times reported:

Mexico and Russia made a deal to assemble Russian military helicopters in one of Mexico’s poorest states, Hidalgo, after a meeting in Mexico City between Presidents Vicente Fox and Vladimir V. Putin. The project, which President Putin described as ”interesting, but small,” is still in negotiation. It would aid Mexico’s economy, which grew rapidly in the late 1990’s but has been stagnant since 2001. A loss of 300,000 jobs in the ”maquiladora” industry, which assembles piece goods from abroad into finished products, is in large part to blame for the slowdown. Many of those jobs have been lost to China and Central American countries, where wages are even lower than in Mexico.

In addition to assembling Russian military helicopters, whose ultimate destination is not clear, the Mexican Navy will be obtaining 10 Sukhoi Su-27s to conduct strategic surveillance along Mexico’s coasts. The September 2006 FlightGlobal.com reported:

The Mexican navy has selected Sukhoi’s Su-27 over the Saab/BAE Systems Gripen to equip its first air defence unit. Head of the service Adm Armando Sánchez Moreno says the new fleet of 10 fighters will enable the navy to carry out “strategic surveillance” over key areas of Mexico’s coastline. Preliminary selection work was initiated in early 2005, and the navy is now entering into contract negotiations with Russia’s Rosboronexport agency for the purchase of eight single-seat Su-27s and two Su-27UB two-seat trainers. Local sources indicate that the entire package – which also includes spare parts, tools and personnel training – is worth slightly over $410 million.

Mexico has also turned to Russia, which is pursuing a policy of “energy imperialism” according to some Western analysts, for natural gas supplies. In June 2005 NGV Global reported:

Mexico’s President Vicente Fox has announced that Mexico is to commence imports of Russian LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas).”Mexico is a producer of natural gas, but we don’t have enough reserves to meet our home demand,” said President Fox in a press conference. The country currently relies on imports for 30% of its demand. “We are obliged to buy gas where it is most expensive, Texas,” he added. The deal was announced after a meeting between President Vicente Fox and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Fox announced the deal, through which Sakhalin Energy will ship 37 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas to a terminal in Mexico over 20 years. The gas supply will start in 2008.

In April 2007 Gennady Zyuganov, Russian communist leader and 2008 presidential candidate, visited Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela in a story that was almost exclusively reported in the world’s communist press. In Mexico he networked with the Labor Party, which forms part of the Broad Progressive Front of Pretender President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador. According to the website of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Zyuganov intended to meet Obrador himself, although we have been unable to obtain photos of any such meeting. Moving on to Cuba and Venezuela, Zyuganov met Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro and the leadership of the pro-Chavez Communist Party of Venezuela. “Latin America is turning Red,” Zyuganov is quoted as saying in the January 27, 2006 edition of Eurasia Daily Monitor.

“Conservative” President Calderon has vowed to “mend fences” with the communist regimes in Havana and Caracas after Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro branded past Mexican President Fox as a “lap dog” of the USA and Venezuelan Tyrant-in-Training Chavez, like failed leftist presidential candidate Obrador, refused to recognize Calderon’s slim victory. Accordingly, Mexico will be dispatching new ambassadors to Cuba and Venezuela.

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Combat-ready Russian Air Force drills off Britain; Moscow applies pressure, Prague postpones US ABM system

>Even as neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin announced on August 17 the resumption of permanent strategic bomber patrols, after a 15-year interruption allegedly caused by internal political turmoil and fuel shortages, Russian aircraft were testing Norway and Britain’s airspace. Russian pundits responded:

The decision was taken many months ago and specially announced on that day and at that place. This of course is very dangerous. The planes will be flying carrying nuclear weapons and flying in positions from which they can strike the United States.
— Pavel Felgenhauer, independent military expert

It looks nice from a propaganda point of view, but it would have been better to do it a few years later since the United States has vastly more resources than Russia does for responsive measures.
— Alexander Pikayev, independent military expert

Russia could not fail to respond to the expansion of NATO military infrastructure in Europe. It was important to demonstrate again that Russian bombers can reach targets in the United States. I think it’s a little early to provoke the US in the context of the strategic balance.
— Vladimir Yevseyev, Senior Researcher, Center for International Security, Russian Academy of Science

Pavel Felgenhauer’s assessment of Putin’s announcement is particularly worth noting: “The decision was taken many months ago and specially announced on that day and at that place.” Indeed. The Kremlin thinks long-term, unlike Western politicians who can barely think past the next election.

The ongoing flights will take place over the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Indian Oceans. No worries, though. According to the Russian Air Force brass, the aircraft are carrying only “dummy” bombs. State-run Voice of Russia reports: “‘Russian planes are on a combat mission in the most far-away geographic regions, having dummy missiles, not nuclear weapons, on board,’ said the deputy commander of the Russian long-range air force Anatoly Zhikharev.” Sure, Comrade Anatoly. Did you say “dummies”? The only dummies around here are blind Western leaders and their blind followers.

Pictured above: An RAF Typhoon from No. 11 Squadron shadows a Russian Bear-H bomber over the North Atlantic Ocean, August 17, 2007. This and another pic can found at the website of the British Ministry of Defence.

British jets shadow Russian plane
Aug. 21, 2007, 1:44PM
By THOMAS WAGNER Associated Press Writer

LONDON — Two Royal Air Force jets shadowed a Russian strategic bomber that approached British air space last week, the Ministry of Defense said Tuesday.

The incident occurred Friday, the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin flexed his military’s muscle by placing strategic bombers back on long-range patrol for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Britain’s defense ministry issued two photographs on its Web site showing one of the two RAF Typhoon F2s flying near the Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber over the North Atlantic ocean.

The ministry provided few details about where and why this happened. But the Russian warplane apparently was in international air space and approaching Britain’s skies when it was shadowed.

Last month, two Russian bombers briefly entered British air space but turned back after British fighter jets intercepted them.

Under British and NATO regulations, Typhoon F2s are responsible for defending British air space.

In Russia on Friday, Putin announced that 20 strategic bombers had been sent far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans — showing off Moscow’s muscular new posture.

Putin said halting long-range bombers after the Soviet collapse had hurt Russia’s security because other nations — an oblique reference to the United States — had continued such missions.

Soviet bombers routinely flew missions to areas where nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States. They stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown. But the wealth from booming oil prices has allowed Russia to sharply increase its military spending.

Eleven Russian military planes — including strategic bombers and fighter jets — carried out maneuvers west of NATO member Norway on Friday, a military official said.

Norway sent F-16 fighter jets to observe and photograph the Russian planes, which rounded the northern tip of Norway and flew south over the Norwegian Sea toward the Faeroe Islands before turning back, said Brig. Gen. Ole Asak, chief of the Norwegian Joint Air Operations Center.

A pair of Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers approached the Pacific Island of Guam — home to a major U.S. military base — this month for the first time since the Cold War.

Last month, Norwegian F-16s were also scrambled when Tu-95s headed south along the Norwegian coast in international air space.

Source: Houston.Chronicle.com

Ironically, or perhaps not so taking into account communist treachery, one of the main stated reasons for the Kremlin’s belligerent statements and actions is the US plan to install its missile defense system in the “post”-communist Czech Republic, which remains under Moscow’s thumb. However, after a little comradely persuasion from Moscow, it appears that Prague is moving this issue to the backburner. The persuasion came in the form of General Yuri Baluyevsky, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces who conferred today with Martin Bartak, Czech First Deputy Defence Minister, in Moscow. State-run Novosti reports General Baluyevsky’s criticism of the Czech government: “Russian-Czech consultations on the issue, which were held four months ago, regrettably brought no change in the Czech position. You made the decision to push ahead with the deployment of a radar on your soil. I believe that would be a huge mistake by your leadership.” The arm twisting worked. Note the Czech minister’s timid response, below: “We are interested in the development of military-technical cooperation with Russia.” Same as it ever was. Viva Golitsyn!

Czech parliament not to adopt resolution on ABM this year
21.08.2007, 15.46

MOSCOW, August 21 (Itar-Tass) — The Czech parliament will not adopt a resolution on the deployment of the radar, integrated in the U.S. ABM system, at least before the end of the year, Czech First Deputy Defence Minister Martin Bartak has said after the end of the talks with General Yuri Baluyevsky, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

“We have not made a final decision so far, and we shall not make it before the talks are over and before all aspects of the problem are evaluated. Anyway, the decision will not be made before the end of the current year,” Bartak said. A referendum on the problem will not be held in the Czech Republic.

“We shall continue our discussions, and we shall follow most closely the talks between Russia and the United States,” he stressed. In his opinion, the problem of the ABM system is a separate problem, which should not affect negatively other spheres of bilateral relations between the Czech Republic and Russia.

“We are interested in the development of military-technical cooperation with Russia,” Bartak said.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Notwithstanding the cozy relationship between Prague and Moscow, in the sight of Russia’s citizen-slaves and offended leaders, the USA now looks the part of the “aggressive criminal regime” that is encircling the Motherland with bases. Someone in the White House has been taking cues from “Dummies for Dummies.” As we have been insisting for months, Washington swallowed Moscow’s pretext for war, hook, line, and sinker.

>Blogger’s Note: Edit requested for Wikipedia’s entry on Jeffrey Nyquist

>At Once Upon a Time in the West we greatly appreciate the work of American geopolitical analyst Jeffrey Nyquist, and highly recommend his book Origins of the Fourth World War. However, Nyquist’s Wikipedia entry, under External Links, lists our blogsite as his own. Perilous Times is not, we repeat, Nyquist but, rather a Canadian who shares his views of KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn. If the composer of that entry reads this message, please make the appropriate change immediately. Thanks!

>Communism with Canadian Characteristics: Harper, Bush, and Calderon meet under heavy security in Quebec, promote red dream of regional integration

>North America’s three “conservative” national leaders–Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, US President George W. Bush, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon–promote “free trade” which, according to Karl Marx himself, is a tool for world revolution: “But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade” (“On the Question of Free Trade,” speech delivered to Democratic Association of Brussels, January 9, 1848). Marx was not far off the mark in his analysis of free trade’s socio-political ramifications. He was dreadfully in error, by contrast, in his solution.

Jerome R. Corsi, the author of the piece below, has been diligent in exposing the furtive activities of those politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, and academics promoting the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). The publicized rationale for the SPP is suspect since the venerable North American Aerospace Defense Command is already designed to provide continental security, at least for Canada and the USA. North American integrationists, according to Corsi, plan to extend continental security to Mexico by way of NORTHCOM. At present, though, “dot.gov” contends that the SPP is designed to complement and expand upon the North American Free Trade Association: “The SPP builds upon, but is separate from, our long-standing trade and economic relationships. It energizes other aspects of our cooperative relations, such as the protection of our environment, our food supply, and our public health.” On the surface these appear to be laudable goals.

There is no hiding the fact, however, that the prime mover behind North American integration is pro-communist US billionaire David Rockefeller (now 92 years of age) and his cohorts in business and academia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). In 2005 the CFR authored Building a North American Community, which admits that the project was sponsored by the organization in cooperation with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales, which is Mexico’s version of the CFR. (Canada’s “CFR” is the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, while Britain’s “CFR” is Chatham House, also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs.) Building a case for continental integration on the back of the “War on Terror,” the report peddles a vision for North America that is “more ambitious than even the SPP.”

North America is vulnerable on several fronts: the region faces terrorist and criminal security threats, increased economic competition from abroad, and uneven economic development at home. In response to these challenges, a trinational, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America has developed a roadmap to promote North American security and advance the well-being of citizens of all three countries.
When the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States met in Texas recently they underscored the deep ties and shared principles of the three countries.

The Council-sponsored Task Force applauds the announced “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” but proposes a more ambitious vision of a new community by 2010 and specific recommendations on how to achieve it.

The NACC was formed in 2006 under the aegis of Rockefeller’s little-known Americas Society/Council of the Americas, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and the Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad. In the article below Corsi reveals that “The only ‘civilians’ actually scheduled to attend the SPP closed-door sessions were representatives of the 30 multi-national corporations appointed by the Chambers of Commerce of the three nations to constitute the North American Competitiveness Council, or NACC.”

While we do not sympathize for the most part with the aims of Canada’s “anti-globalist” nationalist left, as represented by the Canadian Action Party and the larger New Democratic Party, it has been vocal in its opposition to “North American Union” (NAU). If the political integration of Canada, Mexico, and the USA is indeed the ultimate aim of NAFTA and the NAU, then consider the following facts: 1) Fact: Canada and Mexico have strategic partnerships with Red China, 2) Fact: the USA is economically dependent on Red China, 3) Fact: Red China has a strategic partnership and military alliance with the resurgent Soviet Union, 4) Fact: Cuba and Venezuela are fomenting red revolution in Mexico, 5) Fact: Beijing front company Hutchison Whampoa and partner Lockheed Martin will be installing radio sensing stations to monitor traffic and cargo along the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway corridor, and 6) Fact: Russian bombers are again patrolling the skies 24/7. In short, the USA is ensnared in a web of international economic and political relationships that beholden it to the Communist Bloc. These relationships, moreover, constitute the East-West convergence of which KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn warned in New Lies for Old (1984) and The Perestroika Deception (1995, 1998).

Unlike globalist Rockefeller and faux rightist politicians like Harper, Bush, and Calderon, true conservatives do not support regional or world integration or government, nor do they believe in bankrolling communist regimes. Rather, they believe in bilateral relationships that respect the sovereignty of each nation, due process of law in terms of recognizing international treaties and obligations, and ostracizing red dictatorships and “reform” communists whose commitment to freedom is dubious.

Pictured above: Harper and Bush in Quebec. Pictured below: Leftist rabble-rousers outside the heavily fortified Fairmont Le Chateau resort in Montebello, Quebec.

Leaders of 3 nations meet for SPP confab
Bush, Harper, Calderon talking behind closed doors
Posted: August 21, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi

MONTEBELLO, Quebec – Leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico have begun their discussions of the Security and Prosperity Partnership behind closed doors here at the five-star Fairmont Le Chateau resort in Montebello, Quebec.

President Bush arrived at mid-afternoon yesterday, with the presidential helicopter landing on the club’s golf course, as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was waiting to greet him.

As the two met, Harper commented that Bush appeared to travel with his own security army of Secret Service.

Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon arrived later, and could be the first to depart as forecasters estimated Hurricane Dean is pressing on a southern route headed toward the Yucatan peninsula.

Ottawa, Canada’s nearby capital city, appeared militarized for the meetings, with police squad cars visible on virtually every downtown corner and cross-street.

All roads leading to Montebello were blocked off by military-like roadblocks, with the local police backed up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s national police force, in charge.

A last-minute court decision forced the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police, to allow protesters to be close enough to the Montebello resort to be seen.

But a security fence surrounded the Le Chateau resort to keep out the growing number of protesters who were confronted by Canadian police armed in full riot gear.

Protesters at several different perimeter security lines advanced yesterday toward police lines and were driven back by provincial police in riot gear, including batons and shields, using pepper gas and pellet bullets.

Harper brushed off the protesters when greeting Bush, who, in a comment recorded by cameras, noted the numbers.

Harper shrugged to Bush, “A couple of hundred? It’s sad.”

WND estimates put the protesters at several thousand, mixing radical anarchists with protesters whose message appeared more partisan, aimed at the Harper government’s efforts to use the meetings to advance a North American integration message they opposed.

In Ottawa, hundreds of more subdued political protesters carried banners and chanted slogans in peaceful protest marches around the city’s distinctive parliament buildings.

Only those with proper accreditation issued by the Canadian government after Royal Canadian Mounted Police security checks had any chance of getting within Montebello resort grounds.

The only “civilians” actually scheduled to attend the SPP closed-door sessions were representatives of the 30 multi-national corporations appointed by the Chambers of Commerce of the three nations to constitute the North American Competitiveness Council, or NACC.

Today’s confidential sessions are scheduled to involve top-level trilateral working group bureaucrats meeting with NACC business members.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has set up the NACC to serve as the chief policy adviser to the 20 SPP trilateral working groups that have been “integrating” and “harmonizing” North American administrative laws and regulations across a wide spectrum of public policy issues.

As WND previously reported, the NACC is expected to dominate the SPP agenda.

“The SPP is pursuing an agenda to integrate Mexico and Canada in closed doors sessions that are getting underway today in Montebello,” Howard Phillips, the chairman of the Coalition to Block the North American Union, told a press conference in Ottawa.

“We are here to register our protest,” Phillips added, “along with the protests of thousands of Americans who agree with us that the SPP is a globalist agenda driven by the multi-national corporate interests and intellectual elite who together have launched an attack upon the national sovereignty of the United States, Canada and Mexico.”

Connie Fogel, head of the Canadian Action Party, agreed with Phillips.

“Canadians are complaining that the SPP process lacks transparency,” Fogel told the press conference. “Transparency is a major issue, but even if the SPP working groups were open to the public, we would still object to their goal to advance the North American integration agenda at the expense of Canadian sovereignty.”

Source: WorldNetDaily.com

>USA File: Capital One lays off 1,900 workers, Countrywide to follow; CPUSA follows CPRF line: "Mortgage crisis stoked by ‘incredible greed’"

>A late-breaking report from the Wall Street Journal indicates that credit card behemoth Capital One Financial Corp. plans to terminate its struggling GreenPoint mortgage unit, eliminating 1,900 jobs and 31 branches. The Associated Press also reports that Countrywide Financial Corp., the largest mortgage lender in the USA, is also cutting jobs: “The job cuts occurred in Countrywide’s Full Spectrum Lending unit, which handles mortgages given to customers with minor credit problems or who can’t provide full income documentation required for traditional prime loans, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing an internal e-mail sent Friday to employees of that division.” GreenPoint and Full Spectrum are the latest casualties in the subprime meltdown. First Magnus announced it would be laying off 6,000 workers last week.

Pictured above: Russian stock broker.

Capital One Shuts Down GreenPoint Mortgage Unit
Plans to Close 31 Locations And Eliminate 1,900 Jobs
By VALERIE BAUERLEIN
August 20, 2007 4:38 p.m.

Capital One Financial Corp. plans to shut down its struggling GreenPoint mortgage unit, becoming the latest casualty in the mortgage meltdown.Capital One bought GreenPoint in last year’s $13.2 billion purchase of North Fork Bancorp, of Melville, N.Y. North Fork had earlier paid $6.3 billion for GreenPoint Financial Corp., then a large N.Y. savings-and-loan specializing in mortgages.

The unit specialized in so-called nonconforming loans, which do not meet the standards set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored providers of mortgage funds. GreenPoint specialized in “jumbo” loans above the $417,000 limit and Alt-A loans to home buyers who do not fully document their income or assets.

Citing great difficulty selling loans to the secondary market, Capital One officials said the bank will closing GreenPoint’s 31 locations and eliminating 1,900 jobs immediately. The credit-card giant said the subsidiary would not make any more new mortgages but will fund those in the pipeline with locked-in rates.

In a statement, Capital One, McLean, Va., said it will take an after-tax charge this year of $860 million, or $2.15 per share. The company is revising downward its 2007 earnings guidance to approximately $5 a share.

Capital One made its name in the direct marketing of no-fee credit cards but has been on a two-year quest to become a full-service bank.

Capital One was optimistic when it acquired GreenPoint that the mortgage unit’s national footprint and infrastructure would give it immediate scale and a growing earnings stream. But the housing market slowed shortly after the purchase and investors cooled on nonconforming mortgages.

Capital One lost $9.69 million on its mortgage unit in the first half. The company said recently that it was slowing the origination of new mortgages to drain its pipeline but was still having trouble selling packaged mortgages and could not easily hold them.Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard D. Fairbank said in an internal memo Monday to employees that the decision was “the function of an unprecedented set of market circumstances.”

Predictably, the Communist Party USA, following the line of its masters in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union, is spinning the subprime mortgage meltdown in the USA and its “ripple effect” throughout the world’s financial markets as another “perfect example” of the fundamental flaws of capitalism. Writing at the People’s Weekly World, red Susan Webb attributes the home loan crisis and attendant stock crash to “‘incredible greed and looting’ by the nation’s financial institutions.” Webb then quotes Art Perlo, who chairs the CPUSA’s economics commission. Perlo pontificates: “The subprime mortgage crisis is the trigger that has set off a whole number of financial imbalances — it triggered the whole pile to start falling. They don’t care. The execs are paying themselves millions every year. Even if the company goes bust, so what? They can retire. The homebuyers who allegedly ‘should have known better’ are victims of fraud. These lenders should all be sent to jail.”

In the wake of the home loan industry collapse, expect the CPUSA to continue its unacknowledged public relations campaign for the next Democratic President of the USA. Enter Billary.

Meanwhile, on August 18 Kommersant Daily (which is owned by a subsidiary of state-run Gazprom Media) attributed the “two-week almost unrelenting collapse in world markets . . . [to] bad news on the American mortgage market. Stock in Countrywide, the largest operator on that market, dropped almost 13 percent due to rumors that the company is having trouble attracting capital.” Kommersant Daily quotes Andrey Zokin, chief director for investment management at Gazprombank Asset Management, who disclosed that “The largest international funds have begun to take their money out of the Russian market.” Today Kommersant reported that: “The capitalization of the Russian stock market fell below $1 trillion yesterday for the first time in two months. The RTS index rose 0.67 percent in the early hours of trading yesterday, before heading steadily downward for a loss of 1.2 percent. The index has lost 5.6 percent in the last three days and it has dropped below 1800 points for the first time since June 8. ‘The market is being driven not by its fundamental indicators, but by fear,’ one broker said.” While the Russian Trading System Stock Exchange (RTS) takes its hits and foreign investors flee or are “relieved” of their assets by the Kremlin, expect the collective leadership of the CPRF/CPSU to rally leftists to the presidential candidacy of Gennady Zyuganov.

Communists, ever the master manipulators of envy.

>Latin America File: Leftist Colom poised to beat rightist Molina in Guatemala’s presidential election, as many as 38 dead in political violence

>The communist regimes of Latin America are closely monitoring Guatemala’s general elections, which will take place on September 9. Prensa Latina, a mouthpiece for the Communist Party of Cuba, reported on August 14: “Alvaro Colom, favorite candidate to win the Guatemalan presidency, praised Tuesday the labor carried out by a group of Cuban physicians in distant communities of this country. ‘I have seen them here working and I think this is a praiseworthy and solidarity labor to the Guatemalan people,’ Colom told Prensa Latina.” Colom’s party is the National Union of Hope.

Thus far, however, the campaign trail has been bloody. International Herald Tribune reports that 26 people have died in violent attacks on candidates and party activists: “So dangerous is campaigning that Álvaro Colom, the leading presidential candidate, flies in a helicopter to avoid being ambushed and travels with a doctor with experience in bullet wounds. ‘I hate to say this, but it’s more violent now than during the war,’ he said.” Angus-Reid.com (below) reports that 38 people have died.

In a sensational but still unsolved case three members of El Salvador’s ruling ARENA party were also murdered in Guatemala in February 2007. The politicians, including the son of party founder Roberto D’Aubuisson, were en route to the Central American Parliament at the time. Their alleged assassins, four members of a Guatemalan police anti-gang unit, were subsequently gunned down while behind bars. We provided circumstantial evidence that the communist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, which is seeking the Salvadoran presidency in 2009, might be behind the slayings.

Pictured above: Guatemalan presidential candidate Colom with the Socialist President of Chile Michelle Bachelet, who hosted the communist-infiltrated Socialist International in Santiago in November 2006. Bachelet’s government plays an important support role in Latin America’s Red Axis, otherwise known as the Sao Paulo Forum.

Pérez Molina Closer to Colom in Guatemala
August 18, 2007

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Two candidates appear headed for the second round in Guatemala’s presidential race, according to a poll by Demoscopía published in Siglo XXI. 41.1 per cent of respondents would vote for Álvaro Colom of the left-leaning National Union of Hope (UNE) in this year’s ballot, down 2.5 points since July.

Otto Pérez Molina of the right-wing Patriot Party (PP) is second with 30 per cent—up 6.2 points in a month—followed by Alejandro Giammattei of the Grand National Alliance (GANA) with 9.5 per cent, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú of Encounter for Guatemala (EPG) with five per cent, Luis Rabbé of the Republican Guatemalan Front (FRG) with 4.8 per cent, and Eduardo Suger of Centre for Social Action (CAS) with 4.3 per cent.

The presidential election is scheduled for Sept. 9. If no candidate garners more than 50 per cent of all cast ballots, a run-off would take place on Nov. 4. In a prospective second round scenario, Colom is first with 41.4 per cent, followed by Pérez Molina with 39.3 per cent.

Earlier this month, José Dávila, the head of the Central American Institute of Political Studies (INCEP), revealed that since the electoral campaign officially began on May 2, at least 38 people have been killed in Guatemala, including activists, candidates and political leaders. INCEP is part of Election Watch 2007, a coalition of five non-governmental organizations monitoring the campaign.

On Aug. 15, Authentic Integral Development (DIA) presidential candidate Héctor Rosales said members of a rival party attacked his convoy during a campaign event, adding “The men wore FRG caps, jackets and T-shirts.”

Source: Angus-Reid.com

>Red Terror File: Russian police unearth 2 weapons caches near Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, pipeline; bombed train used same transportation corridor

>The ordnance might be obsolete, but the Kremlin can and will use such propaganda fodder to variously alarm or pacify Russia’s citizen-slaves as elections approach. A “home-made” bomb derailed the Nevsky Express, which runs between Moscow and St. Peterburg, on August 14, concurrent with the Moscow-Beijing Axis’ “Peace Mission” 2007 “anti-terrorist” exercise. There’s no coincidence, of course, just another event convergence.

Two weapons caches found near Russian highway, oil pipeline
Published: 8/19/2007

MOSCOW – Russian police overnight found two weapons caches hidden meters away from the Moscow-Saint-Petersburg highway and an oil pipeline, NTV television reported Monday.

The first cache contained some 40 mines and shells, while the other concealed two bombs, officials said, adding that the discovered weaponry apparently dated back to the second World War.

Last week, a homemade explosive device placed on the tracks derailed a Moscow-Saint Petersburg train, injuring 60 passengers.

Source: TurkishPress.com

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russian Air Force drill off Norway accompanies Putin announcement on domestic, long-haul patrols

>Following several weeks of escalating strategic bomber exercises over three oceans, which included a previous flight down the Norwegian coast in July, on August 17 Comrade Czar Vladimir Putin formally announced that the Russian Armed Forces would resume permanent (24/7) domestic and overseas patrols. The Russian president was then in attendance at the second-ever Sino-Soviet war game in the South Urals, “Peace Mission” 2007. However, we have updated this report in order to include information about the latest foray into NATO’s penumbra. The geopolitical/ideological blindness of Western officialdom in the face of a resurgent Soviet Union is staggering. The report below quotes US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack who nonchalantly declared: “We certainly are not in the kind of posture we were with what used to be the Soviet Union. It’s a different era. If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that’s their decision.”

Pictured above: In this pic made available by the 331/332 Squadron of the Norwegian Air Force a Russian MIDAS IL76 refuels MIG31 fighter planes on August 17, 2007. Pictured below: On the same day leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, including neo-Soviet Tyrant Putin and Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao, survey a mock-up of the joint military exercises held near Chelyabinsk, Russia.

Russian drills send message to U.S.
Saying its security has weakened, nation also resumes bomber patrols for the first time since Soviet collapse.

By Ivan Sekretarev
The Associated Press

CHEBARKUL TESTING RANGE, Russia – President Vladimir Putin placed strategic bombers back on long-range patrol for the first time since the Soviet breakup, sending a tough message to the United States on Friday hours after a major Russian military exercise with China.

Putin reviewed the first Russian-Chinese joint exercise on Russian soil before announcing that 20 strategic bombers had been sent far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans – showing off Moscow’s muscular new posture and its growing military ties with Beijing.

“Starting today, such tours of duty will be conducted regularly and on the strategic scale,” Putin said. “Our pilots have been grounded for too long. They are happy to start a new life.”

Putin said halting long-range bombers after the Soviet collapse had hurt Russia’s security because other nations – an oblique reference to the United States – had continued such missions.

“I have made a decision to resume regular flights of Russian strategic aviation,” Putin said in nationally televised remarks. “We proceed from the assumption that our partners will view the resumption of flights of Russia’s strategic aviation with understanding.”

U.S.-Russian relations have been strained over Washington’s criticism of Russia’s democracy record, Moscow’s objections to U.S. missile defense plans and differences over crises such as the Iraq war. But the Bush administration downplayed the significance of the renewed patrols.

“We certainly are not in the kind of posture we were with what used to be the Soviet Union. It’s a different era,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that’s their decision.”

Soviet bombers routinely flew missions to areas where nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States. They stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown. Booming oil prices have allowed Russia to sharply increase its military spending.

Russian Air Force spokesman Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky said that Friday’s exercise involved Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers, tanker aircraft and air radars. NATO jets were scrambled to escort the Russian aircraft over the oceans, he said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Eleven Russian military planes – including strategic bombers and fighter jets – carried out maneuvers west of NATO member Norway on Friday, a military official said.

Norway sent F-16 fighter jets to observe and photograph the Russian planes, which rounded the northern tip of Norway and flew south over the Norwegian Sea toward the Faeroe Islands before turning back, said Brig. Gen. Ole Asak, chief of the Norwegian Joint Air Operations Center.

A pair of Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers approached the Pacific Island of Guam – home to a major U.S. military base – this month for the first time since the Cold War.

Source: Daily Breeze

>USSR2 File: Crypto-Komsomol Young Guard blockades communists’ Moscow HQ, Zyuganov threatens "ruling" United Russia in red-scripted drama

>The ultranationalists, led by head of the liberal union Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the corrupt, homophobic, billionaire Moscow Mayor Yuri Lushzkov and leftist, the so-called “Black General” Albert Makashov, as well as the head of the Communist Party in Russia Gennady Zyuganov are behind the crackdown on democracies, even inside the country. They dream of restoring the Soviet Union to all its crumbling, dysfunctional glory. They dream of seeing the United States under a red flag (seriously).
— Tsotne Bakuria, Visiting Scholar, George Washington University; quoted in Washington Times, May 18, 2006

The showdown between the Russian “Left” and “Right” in advance of the December parliamentary election and March 2008 presidential election has begun in earnest. For the most part state-run media in Russia are not covering the confrontation between the crypto-Stalinist United Russia party’s youth section, the Young Guard, which is blockading communist headquarters in Moscow, and the youth sections of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and its restored parent body, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The nationalist and putatively “anti-communist” Young Guard is named after the Soviet resistance in the German-occupied city of Krasnodon. The anti-communism of Young Guard is also suspect in view of its opposition earlier this year to the Estonian government’s removal of the Soviet monument known as the Bronze Statue in Tallinn. Both United Russia and Young Guard enjoy the guidance of neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin’s ideologist, the youthful “ex”-GRU officer Vladislav Surkov.

The young communists who resisted the attempted blockade today include the Union of Communist Youth of the Russian Federation (SKMRF) and the Red Youth Vanguard (AKM), which are related to the CPRF and CPSU, respectively. Nearly all the major political players in Russia, as we have documented, are some shade of red.

Pictured above: Youthful reds repel Young Guard toughs in confrontation outside CPRF headquarters in Moscow. Sergei Udaltsov, AKM leader, wearing black T-shirt, is located in the middle of the photo. He also appears here at an August 1 red demonstration to support strikers outside the Avto-Vaz car plant in Samara. Avto-Vaz manufactures the Lada line of automobiles. Exiled “Komsomol capitalist” Boris Berezovsky started his business career in 1989 under the so-called economic reforms of past Soviet Tyrant Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika (“restructuring”) by buying and reselling automobiles from this former state car manufacturer.

From the point of view of the long-range Soviet strategy, the purpose of Nashi, Young Guard and other street-fighting crypto-Komsomol Putinist organizations is to create, in the words of Konstantin Krylov, editor of the Spetsnaz newspaper, a “virtual fascist threat.” This tactic, of course, plays directly into the hands of the CPRF/CPSU leadership, which can then portray itself as Russia’s savior from fascism, capitalism and the “Washington-backed regime” in the Kremlin.

Pictured below: CPRF Chairman and declared presidential candidate Gennady Zyuganov on the campaign trail. CPSU chairman, co-Stalinist, and “man in the shadows” Oleg Shenin is lurking in the (political) background, orchestrating the re-Sovietization of Russia. Shenin’s candidacy for the presidency might be a feint as he has yet to obtain any significant media exposure in Russia (or anywhere else in the world for that matter outside the communist press). By contrast, Udaltsov, who is subordinate to Shenin in the CPSU, is generating much-needed media coverage for “Project USSR2.” Translation below courtesy Babelfish with some refinements by your resident blogger.

G.A. Zyuganov: If the government of “United Russia” decides to start a power confrontation, then the Communist Party of the Russian Federation will answer
20.08.2007 KPRF.RU

The chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and the leader of the faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma, G.A. Zyuganov specially commented to KPRF.RU on the events, proceeding around the building of the CPRF CC, blocked by the police after provocateurs from the “Young Guards” of United Russia were repelled by the young Communists and Komsomol members:

“Recently in Novosibirsk an excellent youth action took place — the concert meeting “Forward, to the USSR!” Thousands of young people attended and expressed their desire to live in the revived country — a new union state. In that country fraternal peoples again will be combined. In that country, there will be reunited the very important divided people of peace — the Russians. In that country, there will be a celebration of the good and the truth.

Apparently, this tendency of the new generation to revive the union has not pleased “United Russia.” And near the headquarters of the CPRF CC this party decided to arrange a provocation and committed an outrage against the symbols of the epoch of the USSR and the great history of our country.

I want to warn the provocateurs from “United Russia” that the sickle and hammer are the respected symbols of our people in their diligence. They decorate the victory banner. For the Red Banner, with the sickle and the hammer, represent the ideals of socialism the real young guards fought, erecting in Krasnodon the same flag with the sickle and the hammer. And for the faithfulness to that Red Banner with the sickle and the hammer fascists shot and brutally tortured the [original] young guards.

These young “bears” [referring to United Russia’s bear motif] arranged for an action against the Red Banner, with the sickle and the hammer, attempted to defile great symbols of the USSR. Upon the directive of their elders and masters they wanted to vulgarize history and to humble the victory of the Soviet people in World War II. This blasphemy above the national sacred things caused the legal protest of our young people. The provocation fell through, the profaners obtained a worthy rebuff.

I thank all young Communists, Komsomol members [SKMRF], children from AKM [Red Youth Vanguard], which after escorting the “bears” away, demonstrated faithfulness to the brightest ideals of our people, they rose to the defense of the USSR, the Red Banner, sickle and hammer.

I want to warn the government of “United Russia.” If it in the course of the forthcoming elections decides to use power confrontations, such as this type confrontation, then the Communist Party of the Russian Federation will answer. But responsibility for the political consequences of this line lies completely with the party of authority.

Source: CPRF Website

Young Guard’s spin on the confrontation, as well as photos, appears here.

>USA File: Subprime mortgage meltdown: First Magnus lays off 6,000 workers, closes 300 offices; Countrywide’s LA branch experiences bank run

>It’s all over.
— Countrywide Financial Corp. depositor, Los Angeles, August 17, 2007

No one wants to say “recession” in view of the subprime mortgage meltdown in the USA, which has earned a spot in the annals of Wikipedia. On August 13 CNN reported: “A grim forecast has economists more pessimistic over how far the collapse will spread to the rest of the economy.” However, be assured the Kremlin will continue to plot as another nail is whacked into the coffin of the Republican Party. Enter Billary?

Pictured above: Ben (“Bailout”) Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve and advocate of “inflation targeting.” In the wake of national housing woes, credit crunches, and stock market shivers, Forbes.com reports: “The Fed said that ‘financial market conditions have deteriorated and tighter credit conditions and increased uncertainty have the potential to restrain economic growth going forward.'” Yesterday Bernanke and Co. dropped the Fed’s discount loan rate to banks in an attempt to stabilize the markets.

Mortgage Lender Lays Off Nearly 6,000
Friday August 17, 11:22 pm ET

First Magnus Lays Off 99 Percent of Its Nearly 6,000 Workers, Closes More Than 300 Offices

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — First Magnus Financial Corp., a national mortgage lender that is suspending operations, says it has laid off 99 percent of its nearly 6,000 employees nationwide and closed all of its more than 300 offices.

According to a notice filed with the state Friday, the Tucson-based company that originated home loans and then sold bundled loans into the secondary loan market expects to retain only about 60 of its employees.

First Magnus officials said a bankruptcy filing was possible.

On Thursday, First Magnus announced that it had stopped originating new loans and was suspending operations.

Company officials said the lender was caught in the credit liquidity crunch now causing a meltdown in the mortgage industry, even though First Mangus was not engaged in selling “sub-prime” mortgages that sparked the crisis in recent months.

First Magnus, which calls itself one of the largest privately held mortgage banking operations in the country, funded more than $30 billion in loans in 2006.

The company’s retail outlets include Great Southwest Mortgage and Charter Funding, recently renamed First Magnus Home Loans.

Source: Biz.Yahoo.com

In the report below depositors jam Countrywide Financial’s branches in Los Angeles. This time there’s no bank holiday. Economic analysts are predicting that any collateral damage from the subprime implosion will be contained to the USA and will have little effect in the Canadian and British real estate markets. Driven by a robust natural gas and oil industry in Alberta and sun-seeking retirees in British Columbia, Western Canada’s property values, in particular, are borderline insane.

The mortgage meltdown

A rush to pull out cash
By E. Scott Reckard and Annette Haddad
August 17, 2007

Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and website of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank.

Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the nation, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable. And federal regulators said they weren’t alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank.

The mortgage lender said it would further tighten its loan standards and make fewer large mortgages. Those moves could make it harder to get a home loan and further depress the housing market in California and other states.

The rush to withdraw money — by depositors that included a former Los Angeles Kings star hockey player and an executive of a rival home-loan company — came a day after fears arose that Countrywide Financial could file for bankruptcy protection because of a worsening credit crunch stemming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

The parent firm borrowed $11.5 billion Thursday by using up an existing line of credit from 40 banks, saying the money would help the lender meet its funding needs and continue to grow. But stock investors, apparently alarmed that the company felt compelled to use the credit line, sent Countrywide’s already battered stock down an additional 11%.

At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early ’90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names.

In West Los Angeles, a Countrywide supervisor brought in from another office served coffee to more than 25 people waiting calmly for their turn with the one clerk who could help them.

Bill Ashmore drove his Porsche Cayenne to Countrywide’s Laguna Niguel office and waited half an hour to cash out $500,000, which he then wired to an account at Bank of America.

“It’s because of the fear of the bankruptcy,” said Ashmore, president of Irvine’s Impac Mortgage Holdings, which escaped bankruptcy itself recently by shutting down virtually all its lending and laying off hundreds of employees.

“It’s got my wife totally freaked out,” he said. “I just don’t want to deal with it. I don’t care about losing 90 days’ interest, I don’t care if it’s FDIC-insured — I just want it out.”

Customers, most of whom said they were acting just in case, said they went to the lightly staffed branches because they couldn’t get through to the bank via its toll-free number or its slow-moving website.

“I doubt it will go under, but I want to protect myself,” said Rogie Vachon, who was the Kings’ most valuable player for several years in the ’70s. Vachon said he went to the West L.A. branch to withdraw some money because his account balance exceeded the limit on insurance provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

In a statement, the bank said: “It is very important to remember that Countrywide Bank is well capitalized, with FDIC-insured deposits, and is one of the largest banks in the United States, with assets over $107 billion.”

The bank added that it had significant access to outside capital and was still highly rated by debt-rating firms.

As for parent firm Countrywide Financial, the mortgage giant said draining its credit line would allow it to continue operations while refocusing its business on the “plain vanilla” mortgage loans that can be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance companies.

Countrywide said it planned to fund more mortgages through Countrywide Bank and have the bank invest in certain loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t buy, such as “jumbo” mortgages, which in California are defined as those over $417,000.

Countrywide recently was funding about $40 billion a month in mortgages. Of those, about half qualified to be sold to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, and half were “nonconforming” loans the agencies don’t buy, including sub-prime mortgages to higher-risk borrowers as well as jumbo loans, which account for 43% of all mortgages issued in Southern California.

Company executives declined to discuss how the heavy withdrawals at Countrywide Bank branches Thursday might interfere with that strategy.

Mortgage industry executives, however, said that although Countrywide Bank was the nation’s third-largest savings and loan, after Washington Mutual and Wachovia Bank’s World Savings unit, it was far too small to absorb the entire $20 billion a month in nonconforming loans Countrywide Financial produced.

As a result, the company is likely to make fewer loans while applying more stringent criteria in deciding who gets them — a transition that could further pinch the strained housing market.

In recent months, sales of high-end houses have been stronger than those for cheaper homes. Now, with a pullback in larger loans by Countrywide and other major lenders, the weakness at the low end is likely to spread upward, said Esmael Adibi, director of Chapman University’s Anderson Center for Economic Research.

“The implication will be declining home prices, higher foreclosures, a significant slowdown in spending by consumers,” he said. As home sales fall further, “ultimately job growth will slowly deteriorate.”

Those long-term concerns weren’t the first thing on the minds of depositors withdrawing money Thursday.

At a branch near Countrywide’s corporate headquarters in Calabasas on Thursday, a flood of spooked customers seeking to withdraw their certificates of deposit and money-market accounts overwhelmed the small staff.

The Countrywide employees were forced to resort to taking down names and asking people to wait it out or come back later.

“I’m at the age where I can’t afford to take the risk,” a 69-year-old retiree who asked not to be identified said after transferring money out of his money market account. “I’ll gladly put it back as soon as I know the storm is over.”

After reading news reports of Countrywide’s troubles, Elsie Ahrens of Calabasas decided to close two of her CD accounts at Countrywide.

“It’s not worth it,” said Ahrens, 42. “I don’t think it’s going to go under, but you never know.”

Ahrens, who runs a voice and data business, took her money and opened a new account at Bank of America, which she said felt more secure and offered a comparable interest rate.

In Laguna Niguel, Ashmore, the Impac Mortgage president, remarked on how the credit problems stemming from sub-prime loans had filtered down to a local bank branch.

“It started out with this global credit crunch we’ve been reading about,” he said as another Countrywide depositor left the bank’s office. “It’s now gotten down to affecting people like him and me who are closing our accounts.”

The other depositor shook his head as he climbed into his car.

“It’s all over,” he said, and drove away.

Source: Los Angeles Times

>Latin America File: Chavez offers to mediate prisoner exchange between Colombian government and Marxist guerrillas

>Allowing Venezuela’s neo-communist dictator to mediate between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia will, in the long run, only advance red revolution in that war-wracked country. The DiscovertheNetworks.org profile on Chavez summarizes the illicit relationship between the “Bolivarian” leader and the world’s largest insurgent army:

Hugo Chavez is also alleged to have ties to another designated terrorist organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to Ivan Osorio, “General Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez, another military dissident, says Chavez has rooted weapons and supplies from Cuba through Venezuela to Marxist guerrillas in Colombia.”

Thor Halvorssen adds to the case of a Chavez-FARC alliance. He writes, “the Colombian government declared that the head of the FARC terrorist group, Manuel Marulanda, is hiding in Venezuela.” According to Halvorssen, “Venezuelan Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton gave a press conference where he unequivocally stated that the Chavez government will not refer to the FARC Columbian terrorists as ‘terrorists,’ because the Chavez government wishes to remain ‘neutral.'”

We have previously documented that FARC has pledged “unconditional support” to Comrade Hugo should the USA ever invade Venezuela. This scenario is apparently a constant source of paranoia for the Venezuelan dictator, whose acquisition of Russian weapons reflects that fear. If the pro-Western regime in Bogota should fall to the insurgents, therefore, the narco-communist Sao Paulo Forum’s plan to digest South America will for the most part be complete.

Pictured above: FARC denied responsibility for the deadly Bogota club bombing that occured in 2003.

Chavez offers to help in Colombia hostage mediation
August 17, 2007 — Updated 1947 GMT (0347 HKT)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will meet with his Colombian counterpart this month in an offer to help mediate a prisoner-hostage exchange with Colombia’s largest rebel group, a Colombian senator said Friday.

Sen. Piedad Cordoba, who met with Chavez a day earlier, announced the planned meeting with President Alvaro Uribe at a news conference in the Venezuelan capital, though she did not name a date or place for the meeting.

“We are going to dedicate ourselves to achieve freedom for the hostages,” said Cordoba, who has received permission from Uribe to facilitate a possible prisoner exchange with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The FARC repeatedly has expressed support for the socialist Chavez, who also maintains cooperative relations with Colombia’s conservative president.

The FARC holds hundreds of hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors. They seek to exchange them for imprisoned guerrillas and a temporary demilitarized zone.

The state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported that Chavez would meet with relatives of some hostages next week but did not say where.

Chavez was quoted as saying that he would be involved only if Uribe’s government and rebel leaders are open to the idea.

Source: CNN.com

>USSR2 File: Kremlin orders BBC’s Russian-language service off FM radio; critics: Putin seeking to control media during 2007-2008 election season

>The latest broadcasting restrictions imposed by the Kremlin against foreign broadcasters continues a pattern of similar actions initiated under the Putinist regime. The tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats by Britain and Russia last month, in the wake of the November 2006 murder of FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko, has certainly contributed to this situation. Germany’s Deutsche Welle also faced broadcasting restrictions implemented last year. BBC News observes: “Critics say Russia is taking measures to curb media freedom ahead of parliamentary elections in December and a presidential poll in March.” No doubt. And so the Iron Curtain continues its re-descent.

BBC radio ordered off Russian FM
Last Updated: Friday, 17 August 2007, 17:18 GMT 18:18 UK

The BBC’s Russian-language service will no longer be heard on Russian FM radio, after the country’s media regulator ordered that it be removed.

The broadcaster’s last FM distribution partner in Russia, Bolshoye Radio, said it had been told to remove BBC content or risk being shut down.

Two other Russian FM stations have dropped BBC programming recently.

The BBC’s Russian Service can still be heard online and on medium and short wave frequencies in Russia.

BBC executives said they would appeal against the decision.

‘Propaganda’

“The BBC entered into the relationship with Bolshoye Radio in good faith,” said Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC Global News.

“We cannot understand how the licence is now interpreted in a way that does not reflect the original and thorough concept documents.”

He said the licensing agreement allowed for 18% of Bolshoye’s content to be foreign-produced.

Bolshoye Radio’s owners, financial group Finam, told the BBC that Russia’s media regulators required that all programming be produced by the station itself.

A spokesman for the company said management had made the decision without outside prompting and that it was well known that the BBC was set up to broadcast foreign propaganda.

“Any media which is government-financed is propaganda – it’s a fact, it’s not negative,” the spokesman, Igor Ermachenkov, told the BBC.

A BBC spokesman, Mike Gardner, said: “Although the BBC is funded by the UK government… a fundamental principle of its constitution and its regulatory regime is that it is editorially independent of the UK government.”

Critics say Russia is taking measures to curb media freedom ahead of parliamentary elections in December and a presidential poll in March.

Source: BBC News

>USSR2 File: CPRF Duma deputy reacts to global market crisis: "Russia is financial hostage of USA"; Kremlin economist predicted 911

>Some fluctuation in this date is possible. Serious forces are acting against those who are now preparing the attack on the United States. August, with very high probability, will bring the financial catastrophe to the U.S. … The last 10 days of August have especial importance from a religious-sensible point of view.
— Tatyana Koryagina, Senior Economist, Institute of Macroeconomic Research, Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, quoted in Pravda, July 11, 2001

As we predicted, Russian communists are “capitalizing” on the current global stock market crash in order to condemn capitalism, their archnemesis the USA, and Washington’s supposed lackey in the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union will use the spectre of economic collapse to leverage their position vis-a-vis the crypto-Stalinist United Russia party in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.

Pictured above: Sergei Vasilyevich Sobko, CPRF Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Industry. In the statement below Sobko refers to Stabfond, Russia’s Stabilization Fund, set up in 2004. According to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, Stabfond consists of: “a portion of the export duty on oil and petroleum products, part of the revenues from the severance tax on mineral resources, and a portion of the surplus of the federal budget at the beginning of the fiscal year.” Stabfond’s establishment “reflects the government’s desire to achieve greater control over the revenues collected from the oil sector.” Sobko’s main point, however, is clear: The world’s capitalist economy is tanking and this fact can be traced to the US government’s financing of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the so-called “Orange Revolutions” in the Not-So-Former Soviet Union.

Translation courtesy Babelfish with some refinements by your resident blogger.

The Communists and Russian society
Deputy of the State Duma from the faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Sergei Sobko: “Russia became the financial hostage of the USA”
17.08.2007 KPRF.RU

World financial markets are running at a fever. Russian Stabfond, whose large investments are placed in American currency and securities of the USA, are under threat. The intention of Putin to stabilize the means of Stabfond through Russian campaigns against the background of today’s losses of 35 billion dollars, related to the domestic fund market, appears now even more dangerous. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Industry and Communist Deputy Sergei Vasilyevich Sobko comments on the situation:

Russia long ago become the financial hostage of the USA, and this direct consequence of the economic policy of the liberal [Putinist] government of our country. The fact is that the world financial crisis, the source of which is America, was not connected some there with mortgage, as some domestic experts speak. States began on their rakes of globalization. They expend astronomical sums on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, they finance “orange revolutions.” All this brought the financial system of America to the point of bankruptcy, which can bring down the dollar, and after the entire world economy.

Even to a student it is understandable what to do in this situation with respect to Russia’s stabilizer fund. American currency and securities are the height of folly. Nevertheless, the department of the Minister of Finances Kudrina continues to export profit from oil production for the boundary and to convert it into the dollar. This saves us only due to the fact that the financial systems of the developed countries of the West and Asia are tied to the American currency. Now they will not allow the dollar to collapse. However, the situation can change, since infinite support for the dollar is not possible. If we do not begin to invest Stabfond on the domestic market, we simply will lose it.

Again I emphasize, the position of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation lies in the fact that the stabilizer fund must find its source in domestic investments, and be the tool of industrial policy and development of the real sector of economy, which helps work sites and increases the incomes of the population. This a question that is not only economic, but also political. The present liberal government [Putin], which is supported by the “United Russia” party, does not want to and does not know how to carry out the appropriate course of action. It must resign together with “United Russia” itself.

Source: CPRF Website

In order to head off a banking failure, the US Federal Reserve System is cutting its discount rate from 6.25 to 5.75 per cent. The Financial Times reports today: “Stocks around the world rose on news of the Fed action, but the yield on the two-year US Treasury note tracked lower, signalling continuing risk aversion in the credit markets.” The Fed’s intervention in the US economy is ironic because the very concept of a central bank is communistic. Indeed, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels demand in the fifth plank of the Communist Manifesto: “Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

As we approach the sixth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, we are again witnessing ominous rumblings in the world economy. On July 12, 2001 Pravda, the mouthpiece of the CPRF, published an article titled: “Will the Dollar and America Fall Down on August 19? That’s the Opinion of Dr. Tatyana Koryagina, Who Very [Accurately] Predicted the August Default in 1998.” An excerpt from Pravda’s interview with Russian economist Koryagina (pictured here) can found at NewsMax.com:

Pravda: All the participants at the hearings stated that America is a huge financial pyramid which will crash soon. Still, it is hard to understand how this could happen in the first and richest country of the world – without a war, without missile or bomb strikes?

Koryagina: Besides bombs and missiles, there are other kinds of weaponry, much more destructive ones. …

Pravda: Well, economic theory. But how it is possible for you to give an exact date [for the U.S. crash] – August 19?

Koryagina: The U.S. is engaged in a mortal economic game. The known history of civilization is merely the visible part of the iceberg. There is a shadow economy, shadow politics and also a shadow history, known to conspirologists. There are [unseen] forces acting in the world, unstoppable for [most powerful] countries and even continents.

Pravda: Just these forces intend to smash America on August 19?

Koryagina: There are international “super-state” and “super-government” groups. In accordance with tradition, the mystical and religious components play extremely important roles in human history. One must take into account the shadow economy, shadow politics and the religious component, while predicting the development of the present financial situation.

Pravda: Still, I don’t understand what could be done to this giant country [the U.S.], whose budget is calculated in the trillions of dollars.

Koryagina: It is possible to do anything to the U.S. … whose total debt has reached $26 trillion. Generally, the Western economy is at the boiling point now. Shadow financial actives of $300 trillion are hanging over the planet. At any moment, they could fall on any stock exchange and cause panic and crash. The recent crisis in Southeast Asia, which touched Russia, was a rehearsal.

Pravda: What is the sense of smashing just America?

Koryagina: The U.S. has been chosen as the object of financial attack because the financial center of the planet is located there. The effect will be maximal. The strike waves of economic crisis will spread over the planet instantly and will remind us of the blast of a huge nuclear bomb.

Pravda: Did Russia’s crisis of 1998 have this religious-mystical component?

Koryagina: … The Russian crisis of 1998 was preconditioned by internal factors. Yeltsin’s policy enlarged its consequences. Now we have President Putin, and this is a good choice.

Pravda: What do we have to do now?

Koryagina: Recommendations, compiled by the Duma Commission of Economic Politics after the recent Duma hearings, offer instruction on what should be done to escape the consequences of a world crisis inspired by a financial catastrophe in the U.S. This document will be sent – or has already been sent – to President Putin.

Pravda: What should Russian citizens do?

Koryagina: They should start changing their dollars for rubles. President Putin and the Russian Central Bank are already taking the necessary healthy measures. There are high chances that after 19 August the ruble will become a very good currency.

Pravda: Why 19 August, say, and not the 21st?

Koryagina: Some fluctuation in this date is possible. Serious forces are acting against THOSE WHO ARE NOW PREPARING THE ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES [emphasis added]. August, with very high probability, will bring the financial catastrophe to the U.S. … The last 10 days of August have especial importance from a religious-sensible point of view.

On June 29, 2001 Koryagina also addressed the Russian State Duma on the subject of “Measures To Ensure the Development of the Russian Economy Under Conditions of a Destabilization of the World Financial System.” At the time she predicted: “The main blow will be inflicted on the United States of America. My colleague [Andrei] Kobyakov said here, that his analysis shows that the eye of the cyclone will be in America. I would only add, that it will emerge there, but this will be done on purpose.” In a warning to Russians to dump their US dollars, she added: “Those who have a lot of money will use their greenbacks to wallpaper the bathroom, where they’ll be able to admire the portrait of a past President of the U.S.A.” This speech is published at the website of the Schiller Institute, a project of Lyndon Larouche and his wife Helga Zepp, both of whom are connected to the Soviet propaganda organ, Axis of Peace. Lyndon was present at the hearings during which Koryagina spoke.

To whom was Koryagina referring when she spoke of a “shadow government” that exerts influence worldwide and which was seeking the destruction of the USA? While leftists and faux rightists would probably identify the Western capitalist elite, might we suggest the collective leadership of the restored/continuing CPSU? Granted, in the final analysis, the Council on Foreign Relations’ New World Order is only a paler shade of Moscow’s Red World Order. Do the Soviets know something that the West doesn’t know about the current instability in the global markets? Apparently. In our previous post we reported that Russian bombers as of today have resumed 24/7 border patrols after a 15-year hiataus. As we move toward Missile Day, look for widespread civil defense preps in Russia, unless the Kremlin intends to sacrifice its own population for the sake of the element of surprise, which is very possible.

>MISSILE DAY ALERT: Russian bombers resume border patrols after 15-year hiatus and Nevsky Express bombing; event convergence with global stock crash

>Let’s save the human race, let’s finish off the U.S. empire. This task must be assumed with strength by the majority of the peoples of the world.
— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, statement made in Tehran, July 30, 2006

On August 17, in the wake of the “terrorist” bombing that derailed the Moscow-St. Petersburg express train while the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was not so coincidentally holding an “anti-terrorist” exercise in southern Russia, the Russian Air Force has dispatched its bombers to patrol the country’s borders 24/7. State-run Novosti reports that Russia unilaterally suspended its aerial border patrols in 1992 and then quotes President Vladimir Putin, as he observed the SCO war game Peace Mission 2007 with his counterparts:

I made a decision to restore flights of Russian strategic bombers on a permanent basis, and at 00:00 today, August 17, 14 strategic bombers, support aircraft and aerial tankers were deployed. Combat duty has begun, involving 20 aircraft. Air patrol areas will include zones of commercial shipping and economic activity. As of today, combat patrolling will be on a permanent basis. It has a strategic character. Unfortunately, not everyone followed our example. Other states’ long-distance strategic patrol flights have created certain problems for national security. We act on the assumption that our partners will treat with understanding the resumption of strategic air flights. Our pilots have been grounded for too long.

Fox News has picked up the story via the Associated Press, but will the import of this development really register in the minds of Americans?

Note Putin’s troubling comments above. First, he refers to “other states’ long-distance strategic patrol flights,” an obvious allusion to the USA. Second, he refers to those who failed to follow Russia’s “post”-Cold War example of suspending such flights. State-run Russia Today, quoting Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, all but admits that Peace Mission 2007 is a cover for preparing to confront another state actor (meaning the USA?) in the region:

The military exercises in Chelyabinsk are called anti-terrorist but it really is more serious than that. Because several hundred pieces of military equipment are involved as well as different kinds of troops. It’s quite obvious that it’s not the way you fight with terrorists – Special Security Services deal with them. Even though the main enemies here are abstract terrorists, what we see is a military interaction between two major powers in the region.

Am I imagining things or are Russia and her allies in the Communist Bloc suddenly moving into a full-blown war footing just as the West is facing an economic crisis that has been simmering for months (if not years) and has finally exploded.

Regarding the latter, The Guardian reports that Ken Murray of Edinburgh-based Blue Planet is characterizing the current worldwide stock market crash in the following fashion: “The credit cycle has turned, bad debts are soaring, banks will go bust and stock markets will fall much further.” Robert Talbut, chief investment officer at Royal London Asset Management, offers an even gloomier assessment: “Some people are likening this situation to the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund crisis [in 1998], but I think it’s more like the secondary banking crisis of 1974. A number of secondary and tertiary financial organisations are not going to be able to continue – both in the US and elsewhere. [It] could spiral out of control into the real economy.”

Novosti comments: “These developments have a direct influence on the Russian mortgage market, although the blow has reached it in a roundabout way.” “See, see! We told you,” the Kremlin’s Leninist masterminds gloat, “Capitalism is bad, real bad.” Time for the coup de grace.

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Peace Mission 2007: Moscow-Beijing Axis prepares to take on West under guise of "anti-terrorist" exercise

>In Chelyabinsk, Russia troops of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China and most of the Central Asia states, hunt terrorists (meaning US soldiers). The SCO searches high . . .

and low . . .

Still no terrorists. But wait!

SCO troops flush out a terrorist.

Got one! Bagged me a terrorist, Boris! Perhaps he’s from Nebraska or New York!

Good job, men! Comrade Czar Putin is pleased. “Seventy-five hundred men and more that 150 vehicles make this a serious event. But leaders of our military have shown great capacity and organisational abilities. The participants of the exercises, soldiers and officers have shown excellent competence. These games are yet another step towards strengthening relations of our countries,” Putin gushed as he observed the military exercise with his guest, Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao.

“Peace Mission” 2007 began in the Xinjiang Province of China on August 9 before moving on to the South Urals. Photos courtesy our buds at the Communist Party of China. Message received loud and clear. Bring it on.

>Breaking News: Kremlin gold reserves all-time high, 38.4% hike since Jan.; Asian stock markets, Wall Street plummet in wake of US mortgage loan crisis

>We have previously documented the long-term and intense interest on the part of the Communist Bloc to hasten a financial collapse in the West and thereby precipitate internal chaos and revolution. On August 8 British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote that the People’s Republic of China is holding in its hand a so-called “nuclear option” that has nothing to do with missiles and everything to do with liquidating US$1.33 trillion in foreign reserves: “He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.”

State-run Voice of Russia reports today: “The Central Bank said Thursday that as of January 1, Russia’s gold and currency reserves had increased by 38.4 % and now stood at 420 billion dollars, which notably exceeded this year’s financial forecasts. For the moment, Russia is the world’s third biggest hard and currency holder after China and Japan.” Meanwhile, Asian stock markets are collapsing in the wake of mortgage loan “problems” in the USA. The Voice of Russia also reports:

Asian stock markets crashed earlier in the day following problems with mortgage loans in the United States. Investors, unsure about the extent to which the US crisis affects global financial system, opt for selling assets and have cash. Nikkei, a stock market index that reflects the performance of 225 top companies across Japan, dropped to a record low since November 2006 during today’s trading at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. A plunge in share prices was registered at stock exchanges in South Korea, Philippines and Indonesia, and nearly all markets of major South East Asia economies have lost in value.

As the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Peace Mission 2007 war game wraps up in the South Urals, America’s enemies are not only preparing for the worst, but also preparing to strike at the worst possible moment.

>Latin America File: Chavez presents self as "president for life"; Managua to host Central American Parliament for 3rd time, Sandinistas hold top posts

>On August 15 Venezuelan Tyrant-in-Training, and strategic ally of Vladimir Putin and Gennady Zyuganov, Hugo Chavez appeared before the National Assembly, dominated by his newly formed United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and announced new constitutional reforms that will further communize that poor, benighted country. Among these reforms, Comrade Hugo proposed his continuous re-election as president. No one should be surprised by this proposal because Chavez has tied the success of his “Bolivarian Revolution” to his position as big kahuna. “If I die,” he threatened, “this revolution will be carried away in the wind because we don’t have a party, a big political machine, a big political direction.” Hmm. Be careful what you wish for, Hugo. Did you want a small or large gathering at your funeral?

Pictured above: Too close for comfort: the personification of the Caracas-Tehran Sub-Axis. President Mahmoud (“Iwannajihad”) Ahmadinejad buds around with Hugo in the Iranian capital, in July 2006. “Let’s save the human race, let’s finish off the U.S. empire,” Chavez urged. “This task must be assumed with strength by the majority of the peoples of the world.”

Watch out, Hugo, Delta Force could be making those funeral arrangements right now . . .

Chavez Proposes Continuous Re-election of President

Caracas, Aug 16 (Prensa Latina) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez included Thursday the immediate re-election of the head of State, during the presentation of his Constitution Reform proposal at the National Assembly.

Chavez also decided to extend the presidential period until seven years, instead of six as currently occurs. According to the new writing, “The President of the Republic” can be re-elected immediately for a new mandate.”

The statesman said this is a controversial issue, but nobody surprises with that, because before December 3, 2006, date of the presidential elections, he expressed the need to include the topic in a constitutional reform.

Also on the list is to appoint more than one vice president, according to necessities of the country’s political-administrative structure.

Source: Prensa Latina

The Esquipulas Peace Agreement, which was designed to terminate the civil wars that were then wracking the region, was signed by five Central American presidents in Guatemala City, on August 7, 1987. Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Oscar Arias of Costa Rica are the only signatories who have returned to power in their respective countries. Since retaking Nicaragua’s presidency, Comandante Ortega has accused his Costa Rican counterpart of conspiring with the USA to impose a Washington-directed peace on the region and questioned the merits upon which Arias was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1987.

Sandinistas hold top posts in Parlacen. Jacinto Suárez, for example, is not only Secretary of International Relations for the FSLN but also President of the Political Commission of Parlacen. Francisco Campbell, moreover, is Vice President of Parlacen.

Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who has made his own peace with the neo-Sandinista regime, will host a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Esquipulas accords in the facilities of the Catholic University of Managua. We have elsewhere documented the Catholic-communist convergence in Latin America.

Pictured below: Comrades Hugo and Dan at the Third Summit of Petrocaribe, in Caracas, August 10, 2007. While not officially a member of this organization that obligates a number of Caribbean states to purchase oil from state-run Petróleos de Venezuela SA, Nicaragua has joined the Havana-Caracas Sub-Axis by way of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. Translation below courtesy Babelfish with some refinements by your resident blogger.

Managua will become political capital of Central America next week

Next week the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) will celebrate a series of forums that will turn Managua into the political capital of the Isthmus

15 August of 2007 14:15:19

The vice-president of the Parlacen, Sandinista Francisco Campbell, today informed a press conference that the forums will occur between the 20th and the 24th of August in this capital. During the meeting of political parties representatives of 40 groups of all the political phantom and ideological present of the region and of other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In this forum the parties of the region will discuss their positions in relation to the future negotiations on agreement of association, cooperation and political negotiation between Central America and the European Union.

Also, on August 20, there will be present in Managua women representing the political parties of the region, Latin America and the Caribbean, to debate the subject on deals with it people, sexual and commercial operation.

Deputy Albertina Urbina, who represents Parlacen’s Commission of the Childhood, Youth and Family, informed the press that the women will try to elaborate a strategy so that each one of the countries of the region can work of joint form against the flagellum. To this meeting 250 women of the isthmus are expected to attend.

The Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, by his side, has declared August 21 to be a celebration of the 20th anniversary in the agreements of Esquipulas in the facilities of the Catholic University (UNICA) of Managua. It is predicted that at this forum will attend all the presidents who subscribed to the agreements of Esquipulas.

The National Assembly of Nicaragua will also celebrate on August 22 a solemn session in the occasion of the anniversary of the signing of the agreements of Esquipulas (Guatemala) that made possible peace in the region.

The 120 deputies of the Parlacen, besides to attend the meeting of political parties, will also participate in the other activities programmed for the next week.

The President of the Political Commission of the Parlacen, Sandinista Jacinto Suárez, informed the press that the meeting of parties that will take place next week is the 16 edition of this type of forums. Every year these meetings are held in different nations from the Central American isthmus.

This is the third time that Managua has hosted this type of regional conference.

Suárez said that the agreement of association, cooperation and political dialogue between Central America and the EU is a subject that will be discussed until 2008, when he expects that they will conclude these negotiations between both regions.

In the conference of political parties they will disertarán expert of the region and round Europe, as well as questions and answers and tables.

The conference of political parties will conclude with a Declaration of Managua and a message from the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega.

Source: La Voz del Sandinismo

>USSR2/China/Middle East Files: SCO summit concludes in Bishkek; Ahmadinejad: US missile defense threatens all of Eurasia; Afghan president attends

>The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is the organizational embodiment of the Moscow-Beijing Axis, Eurasia’s new communist bloc. Iran holds observer status and has applied for full membership. Both the Iranian President Mahmoud (“Iwannajihad”) Ahmadinejad and Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended the Bishkek summit this week. Nearly all of the heads of state/government present were communists, “ex”-communists or communist stooges. State-run Novosti observed that Ahmadinejad’s presence at the event clearly revealed that the SCO summit was an “anti-NATO event.” The Don of the Iranian Mafia warned: “The United States’ plans to deploy elements of a missile defense system around the world are threatening not just one country, but also the entire Eurasian continent, Asia and members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

In keeping with the Kremlin’s energy imperialism, the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev submitted a draft strategy for forming an SCO oil and gas cartel that would surplant OPEC. The Iranian president seconded the motion. Russia and Iran, as the article below reports, have the world’s first and second largest reserves of natural gas.

The so-called Bishkek Declaration, which emerged from the meeting moreover, states: “The SCO heads of state believe that stability and security in Central Asia can be ensured primarily by the regional states themselves, through existing regional associations.” In other words: Moscow-Beijing Axis to USA: Get out of Dodge (Central Asia). The stage is now set for the world’s revived Communist Bloc to confront the West for its “transgressions” against global stability.

Even though Russia is the world’s most experienced terrorist-sponsoring regime, the declaration also pledged the SCO to combating “terrorism, separatism and extremism in Eurasia.” Good luck!

Lastly, dovetailing with the SCO’s supposed “humanitarian mission,” Putin proposed the formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization University. “In this context the creation of the SCO University is a very important theme. The university would comprise a network of educational institutions with coordinated curriculum,” the neo-Soviet dictator urged. Can you say “SCO U?”

Unprecedent security measures to guard the summit from disruption included the grounding of aircraft utilizing the nearby US military base, located at the Bishkek airport since 2001.

Pictured above: Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao and neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin greet each other at the Bishkek Summit of the SCO. Pictured below: Iranian Mafia Don Ahmadinejad and Hu in photo op.

Wrap: Regional security summit vows to ensure stability in Asia
17:1716/ 08/ 2007

BISHKEK, August 16 (RIA Novosti) – Central Asian states can ensure regional stability and energy security without outside assistance, leaders of the six Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries said at a summit in Kyrgyzstan Thursday.

The SCO comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and has Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia as observers. The bloc, which primarily addresses security issues, is seen by many as a counterbalance to U.S. influence in the region.

Participants of the summit in the Central Asian nation’s capital, Bishkek, signed eight documents, including a Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation, a Bishkek Declaration, a joint communique, and a plan of action to ensure international information security.

The leaders said in the declaration: “The SCO heads of state believe that stability and security in Central Asia can be ensured primarily by the regional states themselves, through existing regional associations.”

Regional security and counter-terrorism

The document also said the organization’s regional antiterrorism structure had sufficient resources to fight terrorism, separatism and extremism in Eurasia. Member states pledged to push forward with creating a joint mechanism to counter threats to regional peace, stability and security, and to deepen cooperation in fighting drug trafficking and illegal migration.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed conducting holding regular counter-terrorism exercises, similar to the drills now underway in Russia.

The six countries’ armed forces have been taking part in the Peace Mission 2007 exercises in Russia’s south Urals since August 9. Leaders of the SCO member states are expected to attend the final day of drills Friday.

President Putin told the SCO Council of Heads of State, “As you know, the exercises are being conducted successfully, and are demonstrating growing technical potential and a good coordination level among units. It is therefore worth considering regularly holding such exercises on the territories of different Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries.”

The Russian leader said the world needed a multi-polar system for international security, and spoke out against attempts by any one nation to take global security into their own hands.

“Russia, like other SCO states, favors strengthening the multi-polar international system providing equal security and development potential for all countries. Any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally have no future,” he said.

Afghanistan and the drugs trade

Putin also proposed setting up financial security belts around Afghanistan to counter money laundering, and holding a special security conference on the country.

“It is essential to continue forming anti-drug security belts around Afghanistan, which could be complemented with financial security belts supervised by SCO financial monitors,” Putin said. “This will improve the effectiveness of measures to counter both drug trafficking and money laundering.”

The Russian president said that since all SCO member states were interested in ensuring stability in Afghanistan, a special conference should be held to discuss means of helping the volatile country. He proposed that SCO countries’ foreign ministers make corresponding preparations.

According to the World Drug Report, Afghanistan accounts for more than 90% of the world’s illegal opium production, which is used to produce heroin.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was present at the summit, which took place two days after his bilateral meeting in Kabul with another summit guest, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Karzai called on the organization to prioritize measures against drug-trafficking, a major source of terrorist financing.

“We understand well enough the negative effect of the drugs problem on all countries in the region… It is necessary to work out a specific regional plan to fight the problem,” the Afghan leader said.

He said his country, where attacks on security forces by Taliban insurgents have escalated in recent months, was ready to step up cooperation in countering narcotics and terrorism.

The day before the summit, several bilateral meetings were held, including talks between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a meeting between Putin and the summit’s host, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

United States missile shield plans

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose presence at the event added to its image as an anti-NATO event, told the summit that the deployment of a U.S. missile defense elements in Central Europe threatens not only Iran but also the whole of Eurasia.

The U.S. announced in January plans to place a radar and a host of interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic to fend off what Washington sees as an impending missile threat from “rogue states”, including Iran.

United States plans “to deploy elements of a missile defense system around the world are threatening not just one country, but also the entire Eurasian continent, Asia and members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO],” Ahmadinejad said.

Russia has strongly opposed the U.S. missile shield plans, saying Washington has no justification for deploying a missile defense system in Europe until there is conclusive evidence showing that Iran has the capability to launch long-range nuclear-armed missiles.

Ahmadinejad called for closer cooperation between members of the so-called Shanghai Six on a variety of global challenges, including drug-trafficking, terrorism and organized crime.

The Iranian leader arrived in Kyrgyzstan after visits to nearby Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, where he met with the countries’ presidents, Hamid Karzai and Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, who was also a guest at the summit.

At his bilateral meeting with Hu Jintao the previous day, Ahmadinejad had thanked the Chinese leader for his country’s support in the ongoing international dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.

Oil and gas cooperation

Addressing SCO leaders, the president of oil-rich Kazakhstan proposed creating an oil and gas regulating body and exchange to service member states.

Nursultan Nazarbayev presented a draft of strategy for creating an SCO oil and gas club, an idea which has been considered since February.

“The draft Asian energy strategy envisions the establishment of an SCO energy agency, which would be a type of ‘brain center’ and database, while transactions on the market for energy resources could be made through an SCO energy bourse,” Nazarbayev said.

The ex-Soviet state’s president said that forming an oil and gas club was one of the pivotal ideas for the SCO, and that the existing pipeline system linking Russia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia and China, could serve as a basis for establishing a uniform SCO market.

President Putin also spoke in favor of greater fuel trade cooperation, saying this could give provide an impetus for regional projects. “I am sure that the initiated energy dialogue and accompanying national energy strategies, as well as the establishment of an energy club, will set the priorities for our further cooperation,” Putin said.

President Ahmadinejad, whose country has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves behind Russia, reiterated his proposal to hold a meeting of SCO energy ministers.

Iran proposed in January establishing an international gas cartel similar to OPEC. Plans are still at the discussions stage, but have already angered the West, in particular the United States.

The ministers’ meeting would “optimize cooperation in transportation, prospecting, development and refining. As before, Iran is ready to organize such a meeting,” he said.

Security measures at the summit

In advance of the summit in the mountainous Central Asian republic, attended by around 1,500 foreign diplomats and journalists, unprecedented security measures were put in place. From Monday Bishkek’s only airport, Manas, was closed to all flights except those of delegations. Planes from the United States military base, located at the airport since 2001, were also banned from flying.

More than 5,000 police were deployed to guard the event, and guard helicopters hovered over the leaders’ vehicles as they passed through the city. All private taxis in Bishkek have been temporarily banned, and all alcoholic drinks have been removed from shelves of shops and kiosks in the city’s main thoroughfares. Residents of other Kyrgyz cities have been refused entry to the capital since August 10.

Source: Novosti

>USSR2 File: Belarusian KGB and Russian FSB to conduct joint "anti-terrorist" exercises at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan in autumn

>Taking into account the deceptive nature of the “dissolution” of the Soviet Union, the joint exercises to be conducted by the Belarusian KGB, which decided to retain that name of infamy, and its Russian parent organization, which adopted a new label palatable for Western consumers, are simpy business as usual. Note how in this “post”-Cold War era the entire neo-Soviet military-intelligence-security apparatus conducts drills almost exclusively under the rubric of “anti-terrorism.”

Pictured here: Belarusian KGB chief Yuri Jadobin. President Alexander Lukashenko appointed Jadobin on July 17, 2007 after dismissing his intelligence chief Stepan Sukhorenko. The Belarusian dictator would not confirm that Sukhorenko’s dismissal was linked to the alleged discovery of a Polish spy ring in the Not-So-Former Soviet republic. Jadobin was formerly head of Lukashenko’s security detail.

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, who founded the Cheka, the predecessor to the Soviet KGB, was born in what is now Belarus. He is a national hero in that country and to multitudes of Chekists in Putin’s Russia to this day.

Belarusian KGB officers to partake in Russian FSB’s antiterrorism exercise at Baikonur
17:49, 14/08/2007

Representatives of the State Security Committee (KGB) of Belarus will partake in an antiterrorism exercise of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia at the Baikonur launch site, BelTA learnt from Nikolai Ivinsky, commander of a special unit of Belarus’ KGB’s special operations team Alpha. In his words, the exercise involving several phases is scheduled for autumn. In some of the phases Belarus’ representatives will act as observers.

Nikolai Ivinsky also mentioned the high level of cooperation between special units of the two countries. In particular, fine contacts have been established with the Special Operations Centre of the FSB of Russia and Russian special operations team Alpha, which belongs to the abovementioned centre. Joint exercises are held, with the best practices shared.

The source underscored, Russian special operations units have a record of successful counterterrorism operations and use bleeding-edge solutions in the field. They share these with Belarus’ special services. The Belarusian side is grateful to the Russian colleagues for cooperation, said Nikolai Ivinsky.

Source: Charter97.org

>Middle East File: US State Department classifies Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization under Executive Order 13224

>Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is the world’s first national military unit to enjoy the label “terrorist,” per a new White House directive.

In March 2006 former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Tehran of infiltrating its Revolutionary Guard forces into US-occupied Iraq: “They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq, and we know it, and it is something that they will look back on as having been an error in judgement.” During the 2006 Lebanon War, moreover, reports surfaced that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was on the ground, side by side with Hezbollah, fighting against the Israeli Defense Forces: “Another foreign source, based in Washington, said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps contingent in Lebanon is based in Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley. He said the troops usually number a few dozen, but that the size of the force increased in connection with the hostilities that have broken out between Israel and Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, over the past week.”

The article below reports that not only is Iran hiding its nuclear weapons program behind China and Russia on the United Nations Security Council, but also Russia herself is hiding behind China, reversing their roles in the First Cold War: “After the Iranian government refused to comply with two U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with its nuclear program, Beijing balked at a U.S. proposal for a resolution that would have sanctioned the Revolutionary Guard, U.S. officials said. China’s actions reverse a cycle during which Russia was the most reluctant among the veto-wielding members of the Security Council. ‘China used to hide behind Russia, but Russia is now hiding behind China,’ said a U.S. official familiar with negotiations.”

In summary, this is an excellent decision. Frankly, I don’t see how Iranian President Mahmoud (“Iwannajihad”) Ahmadinejad, who rose through the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard, could be any more enflamed by such a policy than he is at present. Now, if only the US State Department added the Russian Federation’s Federal Security Service to its list of terrorist organizations . . . Not likely.

Iranian Unit to Be Labeled ‘Terrorist’
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard
By Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; A01

The United States has decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a “specially designated global terrorist,” according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group’s business operations and finances.

The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran’s nuclear program, officials said.

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said — a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that “provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists.”

The move reflects escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran over issues including Iraq and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran has been on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984, but in May the two countries began their first formal one-on-one dialogue in 28 years with a meeting of diplomats in Baghdad.

The main goal of the new designation is to clamp down on the Revolutionary Guard’s vast business network, as well as on foreign companies conducting business linked to the military unit and its personnel. The administration plans to list many of the Revolutionary Guard’s financial operations.

“Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. “It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people.”

For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Although administration discussions continue, the initial decision is to target the entire Guard Corps, U.S. officials said. The administration has not yet decided when to announce the new measure, but officials said they would prefer to do so before the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly next month, when the United States intends to increase international pressure against Iran. Formed in 1979 and originally tasked with protecting the world’s only modern theocracy, the Revolutionary Guard took the lead in battling Iraq during the bloody Iran-Iraq war waged from 1980 to 1988. The Guard, also known as the Pasdaran, has since become a powerful political and economic force in Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose through the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard and came to power with support from its network of veterans. Its leaders are linked to many mainstream businesses in Iran.

“They are heavily involved in everything from pharmaceuticals to telecommunications and pipelines — even the new Imam Khomeini Airport and a great deal of smuggling,” said Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Many of the front companies engaged in procuring nuclear technology are owned and run by the Revolutionary Guards. They’re developing along the lines of the Chinese military, which is involved in many business enterprises. It’s a huge business conglomeration.”

The Revolutionary Guard Corps — with its own navy, air force, ground forces and special forces units — is a rival to Iran’s conventional troops. Its naval forces abducted 15 British sailors and marines this spring, sparking an international crisis, and its special forces armed Lebanon’s Hezbollah with missiles used against Israel in the 2006 war. The corps also plays a key role in Iran’s military industries, including the attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons and surface-to-surface missiles, according to Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The United States took punitive action against Iran after the November 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, including the breaking of diplomatic ties and the freezing of Iranian assets in the United States. More recently, dozens of international banks and financial institutions reduced or eliminated their business with Iran after a quiet campaign by the Treasury Department and State Department aimed at limiting Tehran’s access to the international financial system.

Over the past year, two U.N. resolutions have targeted the assets and movements of 28 people — including some Revolutionary Guard members — linked to Iran’s nuclear program.The key obstacle to stronger international pressure against Tehran has been China, Iran’s largest trading partner. After the Iranian government refused to comply with two U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with its nuclear program, Beijing balked at a U.S. proposal for a resolution that would have sanctioned the Revolutionary Guard, U.S. officials said.

China’s actions reverse a cycle during which Russia was the most reluctant among the veto-wielding members of the Security Council. “China used to hide behind Russia, but Russia is now hiding behind China,” said a U.S. official familiar with negotiations.

The administration’s move comes amid growing support in Congress for the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, which was introduced in the Senate by Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and in the House by Tom Lantos (D-Calif.). The bill already has the support of 323 House members.

The administration’s move could hurt diplomatic efforts, some analysts said. “It would greatly complicate our efforts to solve the nuclear issue,” said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Center for American Progress. “It would tie an end to Iran’s nuclear program to an end to its support of allies in Hezbollah and Hamas. The only way you could get a nuclear deal is as part of a grand bargain, which at this point is completely out of reach.”Such sanctions can work only alongside diplomatic efforts, Cirincione added.

“Sanctions can serve as a prod, but they have very rarely forced a country to capitulate or collapse,” he said. “All of us want to back Iran into a corner, but we want to give them a way out, too. [The designation] will convince many in Iran’s elite that there’s no point in talking with us and that the only thing that will satisfy us is regime change.”Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

Source: Washington Post

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russian Air Force promises 6 exercises over Arctic, bombers begin another drill; event convergence similar to 911

>The Russian Air Force’s previous exercise over the Arctic Ocean, which the Kremlin recently claimed as its backyard, was reported here on August 9. “Units of the 37th Air Army of the Strategic Command,” state-run Novosti reported then, “will conduct a total of six tactical exercises in August as part of an annual training program, the Defense Ministry earlier said in a statement.”

The Novosti website, as we have previously documented, is also regurgitating leftist/faux rightist propaganda by sporting a banner (pictured above) attributing the next major terrorist attack on US soil to the Bush White House. The current convergence of events worldwide is similar to those immediately preceding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when Russian bombers were conducting “exercises” over the Arctic as Kremlin proxies dove their aircraft into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The Left/Faux Right promptly claimed that the Bush Admin was behind the attacks and secretly allied with Osama bin Laden. One day Russia’s bomber “exercises” might morph into a real nuclear attack on the West.

Nuclear bombers conduct exercises over North Pole
Published: Wednesday, 15 August, 2007 01:33 AM Doha Time

MOSCOW: Russian strategic bombers began five days of exercises yesterday over the North Pole, marking the latest in a series of displays of Moscow’s military muscle.

The nuclear-capable bombers will practice firing cruise missiles, navigation in the polar region and aerial refuelling manoeuvres, the Russian air force said in a statement.

The exercises come barely a week after Russian strategic Tu-95 bombers flew over the Pacific to within a few hundred kilometers of the US military base on the island of Guam – and, according to a Russian general, exchanged grins with US fighter pilots sent to intercept.

They also follow recent attempts by Moscow to bolster Russia’s territorial claims in the Arctic region.One Russian air force officer, who asked not to be identified, told AFP that he expected US interceptors would once again make their presence felt during this week’s exercises.

“It is a traditional practice for military pilots to see foreign pilots come up to meet them and say to hello,” he said. “The US are aware of our exercise,” he added.

Russia’s long-range bombers have been involved in a number of other exercises in recent months.

On July 20, Norway and Britain scrambled its fighter planes after Norway detected Russian bombers flying over the North sea between Norway and Britain.

About 30 Russian aircraft will take part in the polar exercises: TU-95s (Tupolevs) a long-range strategic bomber; TU-22s, the strategic supersonic bomber most used by Russia; and Il-78s (Ilyushins), a four-engine aerial refuelling aircraft. – AFP

Source: Gulf Times

>Latin America File: Mexican police find explosives used by Marxists in pipeline blasts; EPR claims another incident in Chiapas, 2 more in Oaxaca City

>Mexico’s Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) appears to have access to gelled slurry explosives (GSX). “Slurries,” according to GlobalSecurity.org, “sometimes called water gels, contain ammonium nitrate partly in aqueous solution. Depending on the remainder of the ingredients, slurries can be classified as either blasting agents or explosives.” GSX contains the following over-the-counter ingredients: “Slurry blasting agents contain nonexplosive sensitizers or fuels such as carbon, sulfur, or aluminum, and are not cap sensitive; whereas slurry explosives contain cap-sensitive ingredients such as TNT and the mixture itself may be cap sensitive. Slurries are thickened and gelled with a gum, such as guar gum, to give considerable water resistance.” Viva la revolucion! Pictured above: Mexicans soldiers near sabotaged Pemex pipeline, July 2007.

Possible plastic explosives used in oil facility attacks found in Mexico
2007-08-14 13:43:44

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) — Mexico City police on Monday found 13 cylinders containing possible hydrogel plastic explosives used in attacks on oil facilities last month, a local radio station reported.

The cylinders, each labeled dangerous, were found in a cardboard box in the John F. Kennedy Housing complex in the east of the city, Radio Formula said.

The cylinders, which are five cm in diameter and 20 cm long, were taken to a field in the south of the City for study by the Civil Protection Ministry and the Mexico City Public Security Authority, it said. Police are performing forensic tests for further confirmation.

The radio said the explosives appeared to be similar to that used in attacks on oil facilities belonging to the state-owned oil monopoly Pemex.

Mexico’s Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, was said to be behind the attacks on Pemex pipelines on July 5 and 10 in the central Mexican states of Queretaro and Guanajuato.

Mexico’s Attorney General said it is clear that the attacks were a deliberate sabotage.

Pemex, a major supplier to the U.S., has beefed up its police and army presence at installations after the left-wing military group vowed to carry out further attacks.

The EPR, which emerged in 1996, is opposed to the government of conservative president Felipe Calderon, whose razor-thin 2006 election victory was contested for months by leftists claiming fraud.

Source: XinhuaNet.com

Not surprisingly, Political Affairs, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party USA, citing comments by Mexico’s Pretender President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is spinning the pipeline bombings as a plot by the regime of President Felipe Calderon to privatize Pemex, rather than a resurgence of the EPR. In addition to the July 5 and 10 attacks, EPR guerillas fired on a prison under construction in Chiapas on the 28th of the same month. On August 1 the shadowy organization claimed responsibility for two small incidents in the commercial district of riot-weary Oaxaca City: a bomb that damaged the gate of a Sears store and another bomb that failed to detonate at the local branch of the Citigroup-owned bank Banamex. A hat tip goes to Zionist Anti-Communist for picking up this information.

>Red World: Canada: Trudeau, successive Liberal regimes expose Canada to Chinese, Russian spies; Harper confronts espionage; dormant FLQ trained by KGB

>Pictured here: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin at the 2006 G8 Summit, held in St. Petersburg. The two countries, like the USA, Norway, and Denmark, claim various portions of the Arctic Ocean and its natural resources. In a frosty response to the Kremlin’s August 2 Arctic submarine expedition, in which explorers planted a Russian flag on the seabed, Ottawa was quick to reassert its sovereignty over its northern archipelago. BBC News reports: “Mr Harper said a cold-weather army training base would be set up at Resolute Bay and an existing port at a former mine at Nanisivik would be refurbished to supply Arctic patrol vessels.”

Canada (unofficially Dominion of Canada until 1982)
Type of state: Constitutional monarchy with history of pro-communist governments
Independence: July 1, 1867 (from United Kingdom)
Prime Minister of Canada: Stephen Harper (Conservative Party of Canada): February 6, 2006-present
Queen of Canada (Head of State): Elizabeth II
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the House of Commons, which occurred on October 14, 2008, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Conservative Party of Canada 143, Liberal Party of Canada (infiltrated by pro-communists, pro-terrorists, and social radicals) 77, Bloc Québécois (separatist, social democratic) 49, New Democratic Party (social democratic with pro-communist socialist faction) 37, and independent candidates 2.
Next general elections: In 2007 the Canadian Parliament passed a law fixing federal election dates every four years, but the law does not limit the powers of the Governor General, the monarch’s representative and de facto head of state, to dissolve Parliament at any time.
Communist government: none

Pictured here: Two Jesuit-educated advocates of “social justice”: buds Fidel Castro and Pierre Trudeau. The latter’s socially permissive vision for Canada was called the “Just Society.” The former’s vision for Cuba was an all-inclusive resort from hell. In an unscientific poll conducted in July 2007 Canadians rated their former prime minister as the country’s “worst Canadian.” Some legacy.

Pro-communist government:
1) Liberal minority government of Prime Minister Paul Martin, with personal business interests in China and informal support of New Democratic Party, adds “sexual orientation” to “hate propaganda” section of Criminal Code and legalizes “same-sex” marriage: 2003-2006
2) Liberal majority government of pro-Beijing Prime Minister Jean Chretien leads four “Team Canada” trade missions to China: 1993-2003
3) Liberal majority government of pro-Castro Fabian socialist Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau repatriates constitution from United Kingdom, implements National Energy Program, alienates Western Canadians: 1974-1980, 1980-1984
4) Liberal minority government of pro-Castro Fabian socialist Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, with informal support of New Democratic Party, creates Petro-Canada: 1972-1974
5) Liberal majority government of pro-Castro Fabian socialist Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau legalizes abortion and sodomy: 1968-1972
6) Two Liberal minority governments of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in coalition with New Democratic Party introduce universal health care and create new flag sans Union Jack: 1963-1968
7) Liberal governments of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King continue elite-driven communization of Canada through National Housing Act, National Employment Commission, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Trans-Canada Airlines (precursor to Air Canada, privatized 1989), and National Film Board of Canada; transforms Bank of Canada into Crown (public) corporation: 1935-1948
8) Conservative government of Prime Minister Richard B. Bennett begins elite-driven communization of Canada through that country’s version of the “New Deal,” including laws establishing progressive income tax, minimum wage, maximum working hours per week, unemployment insurance, health insurance, expanded pension program, and grants to farmers; establishes private Bank of Canada: 1930-1935

Communist insurgency:

1) Front de libération du Québec (FLQ, Quebec Liberation Front): Founded in the early 1960s the FLQ was a Marxist terrorist group that perpetrated more than 200 bombings, bank robberies, and kidnappings, as well as the deaths of at least five people. The FLQ’s campaign of separatist, anti-Anglophone terrorism culminated in 1970 with what is known as the October Crisis, the first terrorist crisis in Canadian history. The organization was influenced by the ideology of Algeria’s National Liberation Front and the communist regimes of Cuba and Vietnam.
Members and sympathizers of the FLQ were called Felquistes. Some members were organized and trained by Georges Schoeters, a Belgian revolutionary and alleged KGB agent, whose hero was Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara. Felquistes Normand Roy and Michel Lambert received guerrilla training in selective assassination from Palestinian terrorists in Jordan. Pierre Vallières joined the FLQ in 1965, three years after he read Karl Marx’s analysis of Canadian history in which the lot of the Quebec working class is compared to that of Black Americans.

The FLQ gave birth to various cells over the years, including the Viger Cell founded by Robert Comeau, history professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal; Louis Riel Cell, named after the nineteenth-century rebel leader of Manitoba’s Metis; as well as the Dieppe Cell, Nelson Cell, Saint-Denis Cell, Liberation Cell, and Chénier Cell. The last two cells perpetrated the events that led to the October Crisis. In 1966 the FLQ prepared the Revolutionary Strategy and the Role of the Avant-Garde, a manifesto that detailed the organization’s strategy of terrorism leading to insurrection.

The FLQ commenced its attacks on March 7, 1963 when the organization bombed a railway utilized by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, and used a mail bomb to kill Walter Leja, a resident of Montreal’s wealthy Anglophone district Westmount. By June 1 the FLQ’s original cell was behind bars. Later that year Gabriel Hudon and Raymond Villeneuve were sentenced to 12 years in prison for bombing Montreal’s Canadian Army Recruitment Centre, an action that killed watchman Wilfred O’Neill. The FLQ’s targets also included Anglophone-owned businesses and banks, and McGill University, whose language of instruction is English. Gabriel, Raymond, and Georges were released from prison in 1967.

Between 1963 and 1964 Robert Hudon and Jean Gagnon, operating as the “Quebec Liberation Army,” stole approximately C$534,000 (adjusted for inflation) in goods and money. These criminals were also released by 1967. In 1964 Cyr Delisle, Gilles Brunet, Marcel Tardif, François Schirm, and Edmond Guenette, operating as the “Revolutionary Army of Quebec,” were sentenced to life in prison for a failed robbery that resulted in two deaths. In 1965 a group of French Canadians and Black Americans were arrested in 1965 for planning an attack on the Statue of Liberty.

In 1965 Charles Gagnon and Pierre Vallières merged their “Popular Liberation Movement” with the FLQ, producing a terrorist group with a manifest socialist orientation. This new group raided a New Democratic Party office and a radio station for supplies, which were used to produce the FLQ’s call to arms La Cognée (“The Axe”). The Gagnon-Vallières faction extensively used explosives to carry out their terrorist actions. By August 1966 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had arrested many Felquistes. Charles and Pierre fled to the USA, where they protested in front of the United Nations but were later arrested. In September 1967 the pair was extradited to Canada.

In 1968 yet another faction of the FLQ emerged and detonated 52 bombs. The members of this group were arrested by May 2, 1969. On February 13, 1969, the FLQ detonated a powerful bomb that tore through the Montreal Stock Exchange, causing massive destruction and seriously injuring 27 people. After additional bombings, on September 28, 1969 the FLQ bombed the home of Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau. Police inspectors later concluded that Felquistes had placed the bomb in a toilet.

On October 5, 1970 the FLQ’s Liberation Cell kidnapped James Richard Cross, the British Trade Commissioner, and on October 10 the Chénier Cell kidnapped the Minister of Labour and Vice-Premier of Québec, Pierre Laporte. In the following days, FLQ leaders held meetings to generate public support for violent Quebec separatism and, in response Francophone students and teachers closed down most of the province’s French-language secondary and post-secondary academic institutions. On October 15 more than 3,000 students attended a protest rally in favour of the FLQ. On October 17 the FLQ contacted a radio station to announce that Laporte had been murdered and divulged the location of a map that led to the discovery of his body.

In December 1970 police discovered the location of the kidnappers holding Cross. The British Trade Commissioner’s release was negotiated. Following negotiations between the Government of Canada, then under the premiership of pro-communist Pierre Trudeau, and Fidel Castro, five Felquistes were granted safe passage to Cuba.

As a result of Prime Minister Trudeau’s invocation of the War Measures Act, civil liberties were suspended in Quebec. By December 29, 1970 police had arrested 453 persons with suspected ties to the FLQ. Of those arrested, 435 were eventually released without ever being charged. Four weeks after the kidnappers of Cross were found, Paul Rose and the kidnappers and murderers of Laporte were located in a farmhouse basement. This group was tried and convicted for kidnapping and murder.

In July 1980 police arrested and charged a sixth person in connection with the Cross kidnapping. Nigel Barry Hamer, a British radical socialist and FLQ sympathizer, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months in jail.

The events of October 1970 contributed to the loss of support for violent means to attain Québec independence, and increased support for the Parti Québécois (PQ), which assumed power in Quebec City in 1976. Most former FLQ members joined the PQ, which last controlled the provincial government in 2003. Over the next three decades isolated members of the FLQ continued to conduct terrorist actions.

In 2001 Rhéal Mathieu (pictured here), a Felquiste who in 1967 was sentenced to nine years in prison for murder, was convicted of the attempted firebombing of three Second Cup coffee shops in Montreal. Mathieu targeted the Second Cup for its use of English in the company name. Shortly thereafter, seven McDonald’s restaurants were firebombed and the Second Cup changed its name to Les cafés Second Cup.

On January 19, 2007 the RCMP released information about a letter threatening attacks on Montreal’s traditionally Anglophone western districts from February 15 to March 15. No attacks materialized, but on February 14 a police officer was injured when a car bomb destroyed his van in downtown Sherbrooke, which is located in south-central Quebec. This incident apparently remains unsolved.

Soviet influence in Canada:

1) Gouzenko Affair: Born in Belorussia in 1919, Igor Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for Russian military intelligence (GRU) and the Soviet embassy in Ottawa. He defected on September 5, 1945 with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West. Gouzenko’s defection disclosed Moscow’s attempts to swipe nuclear secrets and its technique of planting “illegals,” or long-term sleeper agents. The Gouzenko Affair altered Western views of the Soviet Union from a war-time ally to an enemy and is often considered as the catalyst that started the First Cold War (1945-1991).

Gouzenko initially went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), but the officers on duty dismissed his story. He then visited the Ottawa Journal, but the newspaper’s night editor was likewise disinterested in the defector’s information. Fearing for his life, Gouzenko hid his family in an apartment across the hall from his own. Through a keyhole, Gouzenko watched as a group of Soviet agents broke into his apartment and began rifling through his personal effects until confronted by Ottawa police.

In the wake of this incident, Gouzenko was transported by the RCMP to the secret “Camp X,” located in Oshawa, Ontario. During the Second World War Camp X was used to train Allied spies. While at the camp Gouzenko was interviewed by investigators from Britain’s MI5 and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. At this time Canada did not possess its own spy agency and the US Central Intelligence Agency was only in formation.

Preferring to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Gouzenko defection, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King opposed granting asylum to the former Soviet embassy employee. The evidence provided by Gouzenko, however, led to the arrest in Canada of 39 suspects, of which 18 were convicted, including Fred Rose, the only communist Member of Parliament, and Sam Carr, the Communist Party of Canada’s national executive. A Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by Justices Robert Taschereau and Roy Kellock, was conducted into the Gouzenko Affair. The commission’s findings alerted the US and British governments that Soviet agents had more than likely infiltrated their countries too.

Gouzenko’s testimony was crucial to the successful prosecution of Klaus Fuchs, the German communist physicist who emigrated to Britain and who later pilfered atomic secrets for the Soviets. Fuchs worked at Chalk River Laboratories, near Ottawa, where atomic research had been conducted since the early 1940s. Gouzenko’s information also assisted in the investigation of Soviet spies in the USA, especially Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and the discovery of Soviet spies in Britain, such as the notorious Cambridge Five—which included Donald Maclean (bisexual), Guy Burgess (homosexual), Anthony Blunt (homosexual), Kim Philby, and John Cairncross (alleged “Fifth Man”). All members of the Cambridge Five were communists, while three–Burgess, Blunt and Cairncross–belonged to the Cambridge Apostles, a secret Marxist debating society.

The Canadian government eventually granted asylum and a new identity to Gouzenko and his family. With a new name, he settled in a Toronto suburb. Igor and his wife raised eight children together. Gouzenko wrote his autobiography This Was My Choice and a novel The Fall of a Titan, which won the Governor General’s Award in 1954. Gouzenko died of a heart attack in 1982 while his wife Svetlana died in 2001. In 2002 Gouzenko’s children erected a headstone for their father, whose grave was not initially marked.

In 2003 the City of Ottawa and in 2004 the Canadian government commemorated the Cold War’s first Soviet defector with memorial plaques in Dundonald Park. It was from this park that RCMP officers watched Gouzenko’s apartment the night Soviet agents came looking for the defector.

2) Hampel (2006) and Lambert-Brodie (1996) Cases: Following the self-collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, Russian “illegals,” or long-term sleeper agents, continued to infiltrate Canada. On November 14, 2006, following a lengthy investigation by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), authorities arrested a suspected agent of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) operating under the pseudonym Paul William Hampel. Russian “businessman” Hampel took up residence in Canada around 1995, but refused to confess that he had been engaged in espionage activities for Moscow. The Russian government, moreover, has not acknowledged that Hampel is one of its intelligence officers. However, Hampel agreed to deportation. At the time Martin Rudner, Director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at Carleton University, observed: “To express a willingness to return to Russia is, in effect, a signal to the Russian espionage agency that he has not betrayed their interests.” Security experts insist that the description of Hampel’s activities in Canada fits the pattern used by the SVR’s Directorate S, which operates a covert international network of illegals. Organized in 1991 the SVR is the successor to the First Directorate of the infamous Soviet KGB.

The Hampel case is similar to another case of espionage that occurred about the same time that the Russian “businessman” arrived in Canada. In June 1996 Canadian authorities arrested and deported a married Toronto couple who traveled under the names Ian Mackenzie Lambert and Laurie Brodie. “Ian” worked at a Blacks photography plant, while “Laurie” worked for an insurance company. A CSIS investigation, however, concluded that Ian and Laurie were actually SVR spies named Dmitriy Vladimirovoch Olshevskiy and Yelena Borisovna Olshevskaya, who had been resident in Canada since 1990. These alleged Russian agents had stolen the identities of two Canadian children who died in 1963 and 1966. Dmitriy and Yelena divorced following their deportation.

In a bizarre twist to this case, Yelena was denied re-entry to Canada in 2006 to live with her new husband, Canadian medical doctor Peter Miller, whom she married in December 1996. Yelena Miller admits that she resigned from the SVR in October of that year, but signed an affidavit that prevents her from divulging her espionage activities in Canada. Yelena insists that she no longer poses a security risk. Dr. Miller sponsored Yelena’s application for permanent residence in Canada in 1998. As of October 2006 Yelena is suing Citizenship and Immigration Canada for refusing her admission, although Canadian immigration lawyer Sergio Karas believes her case will be dismissed as one without merit.

Communist parties of Canada:

1) Alliance Marxist-Leninist (AML): Founded in 1991 this party is Stalinist in orientation and associates with International Struggle-Marxist-Leninist.
2) Autonomy and Solidarity: Founded in 2004 this network of local cells is anarchist/radical left in orientation.
3) Canadians for Peace and Socialism: Founded in 1978 as a split from Communist Party of Canada, the CPS was first known as the Committee of Canadian Communists.
4) Communist League: Founded in 1977 as the Revolutionary Workers’ League this party is Trotskyist in orientation and associates with the Socialist Workers’ Party of the United States.
5) Communist Party of Canada: Founded in 1921 this party formerly associated with the Communist International and World Marxist Review.
6) Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist): Founded in 1970 this party is Stalinist in orientation and also known as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. Its Quebec affiliate is the Marxist-Leninist Party of Quebec (PMLQ).
7) De Leonist Society of Canada: This Marxist party split from the Socialist Labour Party in 1978.
8) FightBack: This Trotskyist party associates with the International Marxist Tendency.
9) Freedom Socialist Party (FSP): This party is Trotskyist in orientation.
10) Friends of the IWA: This anarcho-syndicalist party is related to the International Workers’ Association.
11) Industrial Workers of the World (IWW): This revolutionary international union, which maintains a Canadian section, was founded in Chicago in 1905 by socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists.
12) International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT): This Trotskyist party was founded in 1982 as a split from the Sparacist League.
13) International Socialists: This Trotskyist party was founded in 1975.
14) Internationalist Workers’ Group: This left communist party was founded in 2000.
15) Maoist Internationalist Party-Kanada (MIP-Kanada): Founded in 2005 this party is related to MIM-USA.
16) New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus: This faction is left socialist in orientation.
17) New Socialist Group (NSG): Founded in 1995 as a split from the International Socialists this party is radical left in orientation.
18) Fourth International Caucus of the NSG: This Trotskyist faction comprises the United Secretariat of the Fourth International current within the New Socialist Group.
19) Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC): Founded in 2000 this party is anarcho-communist in orientation.
20) Revolutionary Communist Party (Organizing Committees): Founded in 2000 by Groupe Action Socialiste this Maoist party associates with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
21) Socialist Action: Founded in 1994 as a split from the SC/GB, this Trotskyist party associates with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. Socialist Action practices entryism in the New Democratic Party.
22) Socialist Alternative: Founded in 1986 as Labour Militant this Trotskist party associates with the Committee for a Workers’ International.
23) Socialist Alternative: Founded in 2002 as a split from the previously listed Socialist Alternative this Trotskyist party associates with the Committee of International Rapprochement and operates under the leadership of Wendy Forrest.
24) Socialist Equality Party (SEP): This Trotskyist party was founded in1992 and associates with the International Committee of the Fourth International.
25) Socialist Labour Party (SLP): This party associates with the Socialist Labour Party US.
26) Socialist Party of Canada: Founded in 1931 this Marxist party associates with the World Socialist Movement.
27) Socialist Project: Founded in 2000 this left socialist party is based in Toronto.
28) Socialist Voice: Founded in 2004 this Trotskyist party is a split from the Communist League.
29) Trotskyist League: Founded in 1975 this Trotskyist party associates with the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).

Communist parties of Quebec:

1) Communist Party of Quebec (PCQ): This party was founded in 1965 from the Quebec section of the Communist Party of Canada. The PCQ fielded candidates in Quebec general elections from 1936 to 1998. The party was banned between 1941 and 1959, during which time it fielded candidates under the Labour Progressive Party banner. In 2002 the PCQ merged with the Party of Democratic Socialism, formerly the Quebec section of the New Democratic Party (NDPQ), Rally for a Political Alternative, and the Quebec section of International Socialists (Trotskyist) to form the Union of Progressive Forces (UFP). In 2006 the UFP merged with Option Citoyenne to form Québec Solidaire, the province’s largest far leftist party. The NPDQ was expelled from the federal NDP in 1992 after nominating convicted Front de Libération du Québec terrorist Paul Rose as a federal election candidate and adopting a program demanding Quebec independence.

2) Québec Solidaire (Quebec Solidarity): Founded in 2006 as a broadly left-wing and separatist political party QS represented a merger of Citizens’ Option and the Union of Progressive Forces (UFP), itself a merger of the Communist Party of Quebec, Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)–formerly the Quebec section of the New Democratic Party (NDPQ)–Rally for a Political Alternative (RAP), and the Quebec section of International Socialists (Trotskyist). The new party’s main strategy is to steal votes from the social democratic separatists of the Parti Quebecois, the main political vehicle for Quebec “sovereigntists,” as well as undermine support for the Liberal Party of Quebec and the conservative Democratic Action of Québec. The QS considers the other three parties to be vehicles for “neoliberalism” (capitalism). Like its predecessor UFP, QS supporters are drawn from the ranks of the old PCQ, PDS, RAP, and International Socialists. The ideology of QS, therefore, appeals to traditional Marxists, Trotskyists, environmentalists, “homo-Leninists,” feminists, pacifists, anarchists, and anti-globalization activists.

3) Revolutionary Front of Quebec (FRQ): This party is radical left nationalist in orientation.

Other leftist parties of Canada:

1) Bloc Quebecois (BQ): Founded in 1991 the BQ is a social democratic separatist party that advocates the secession of Quebec from Canada. Members of the BQ, or “The Bloc,” are known as “Bloquistes” or “Blocheads” by detractors. The BQ maintains close relations and has overlapping membership with the provincial Parti Québécois, since they have the same goal of Quebec independence. As noted in the profile of the Front de libération du Québec above, many former members of the terrorist FLQ joined the PQ in the 1970s. The BQ and PQ support each other during election campaigns and prominent members of each party attend and speak at the other’s public events. However, organizationally the parties are distinct entities. Quebec’s labor unions strongly support the BQ. Like many other center-left parties worldwide, the BQ supports the Kyoto Accord, “same-sex” marriage, and the decriminalization of marijuana, and opposed Canadian participation in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The 60-year-old leader of the BQ is Gilles Duceppe, a “former” communist who has held that position since 1997. In his youth Duceppe belonged to the Workers’ Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) for three years. Although he later repudiated communism, Duceppe subscribed to the tenets of Maoism well into his thirties, or the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Globe and Mail reported in 2004: “He grew up in Montreal’s working-class east end and took an early liking to communism. As a young man, Gilles Duceppe went so far as to label himself a Maoist and was fired from his job as a hospital orderly for militant union activities. In the 1980 referendum on sovereignty-association, he even spoiled his ballot out of protest — saying the working classes of Quebec and Canada had to stay united to fight their common capitalist enemy.”

Theoretically, given Quebec’s allotted number of 75 out of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, the BQ could form a minority government in coalition with another party, even though Canada’s other federal parties are formally committed to the retention of Quebec within “Confederation,” or a united Canada.

2) New Democratic Party (NDP): The social democratic NDP was created in 1961 as a merger of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The CCF, in turn, was founded as a party in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, agrarian, co-operative, and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR). The leading members of the LSR were F.R. Scott (socialist, Rhodes Scholar), Frank Underhill (anti-British Empire, Fabian Society), Graham Spry (socialist, Rhodes Scholar), Eric A. Havelock (Canadian/USA-based British socialist), and Eugene Forsey (socialist, Rhodes Scholar). The LSR opposed capitalism and advocated democratic socialist reforms and a planned economy.

Today the NDP is affiliated with the communist-infiltrated Socialist International and is known for its relationships with non-governmental organizations, leftist activist groups, and organized labour. Officially secular and pluralistic, the NDP maintains a long-standing relationship with Canada’s “Christian left,” advocates of the Social Gospel, and the pro-liberation theology United Church of Canada, which also serves as Canada’s national (but not state) church.

The NDP holds the balance of power in the 39th Parliament, elected in January 2006. The Conservative minority government can pass legislation with the cooperation of the NDP, the Liberals or the Bloc Quebecois. Although the NDP has never formed a government at the federal level, it has done so at the provincial level in British Columbia (1991-2001), Saskatchewan (1944-1964, 1971-1982, 1991-present), Manitoba (1969-1977, 1981-1988, 1999-present), Ontario (1990-1995), and Yukon Territory (1985-1992, 1996-2000).

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, North American Union (in formation)
Socialist International presence: New Democratic Party

Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: While Canada and Russia do not have a “strategic partnership” as such, the two countries maintain bilateral relations across many fronts. The Joint Action Plan for an Enhanced Bilateral Partnership created in 2002 delineates guiding principles for expanding the Canada-Russia bilateral relationship. The last embraces high-level visits, trade and investment, and cultural exchanges, as well as the Arctic Council, Technical Cooperation Program, Global Security Talks, and Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. In addition, Canadian provinces, municipalities, universities, and other organizations have formed, according to the Government of Canada website, a “dense and growing network of contacts” with Russian counterparts that facilitate commercial, cultural, and academic partnerships.

Pictured here: Prime Minister Martin welcomes Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao to Ottawa on September 9, 2005.

During the watch of pro-Beijing shipping magnate and Canadian “Nepman” Prime Minister Paul Martin, who maintains personal business interests in China, Canada established a strategic partnership with the People’s Republic in 2005. “Why Martin would be building ships in Communist China,” inquires Canadian journalist Judi McLeod, “is as much a mystery as why the Quebec-based Bombardier, propped up with millions of dollars by a Canadian Liberal government, would be handing China access to Tibet with a state-of-the-art railway line. (Although Martin’s three sons now run CSL, Martin owned the company when he entered the shipbuilding deal with Jiangnan Shipyard.)” According to China’s state-run media, the multi-front partnership addresses concerns related to “politics, economy, trade, science, technology, culture, education, health and environmental protection.”

The main business organization by which China subverts Canada is the Canada China Business Council (CCBC), which maintains its Beijing office in the state-run China International Trust and Investment Company building. The CCBC’s Honorary Chairman is Andre Desmarais, past Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s son in law. The CCBC’s Honorary Director is Maurice Strong, Martin’s mentor at the Desmarais dynasty’s Power Corporation, a leading proponent of the global warming theory, current President of the Council of the United Nations’ University for Peace, chair of the 1992 UN Earth Summit, and past envoy to North Korea for UN General Secretary Kofi Annan. In 2005 Strong stepped down from the last position as a result of his personal relationship with South Korean businessman Tongsun Park, who was accused of accepting millions of dollars from Iraq’s Ba’athist regime, operating as an unregistered agent for Baghdad, and lobbying for oil-for-food contracts. Sinophile Strong is currently residing in the PRC where, in collaboration with US billionaire leftist George Soros, he is attempting to market China’s controversy-plagued Chery automobile to Western motorists.

China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the USA, with a total of C$36.6 billion of trade in 2005. The Sino-Canadian trade imbalance is reflected in the fact that Canada imported C$22.4 billion more Chinese goods than it exported to the other country during the same year. The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is openly critical of the PRC’s human rights record, is pursuing a policy concerning Chinese investment in Canada that is “politically cold, but economically warm.” Wenran Jiang of the University of Alberta’s China Institute observes: “China’s state-owned companies have largely stayed away from Canada’s burgeoning oil sands developments, in part due to concerns investments will trigger a political backlash.” State-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation holds a 17 percent stake in Canada’s MEG Energy Corporation, while state-run China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) owns a 40 percent stake in Canada’s Northern Lights oil sands project in collaboration with Synenco Energy Inc. In January 2007 the two investments together were worth less than C$300 million.

Pierre Trudeau initiated the Liberal Party’s hopeless infatuation with communist China when, as national leader, he met Chinese Tyrant Mao Zedong in Beijing, on October 13, 1973 (pictured here). Trudeau traveled to China again in 1983.

In 2003 the Vancouver-based Asian Pacific Post identified 300 to 500 Chinese front companies in Canada. “But unlike the Americans,” the paper reports, “China experts say the political climate in Ottawa is not conducive to cracking down on this significant threat. ‘Virtually all the recent prime ministers and Paul Martin who is likely to be the next have strong connections to China on the personal, business and political fronts,’ said an intelligence analyst specialising in East Asian affairs. ‘They find it difficult to understand this threat–some just deny it,’ he said.”

In April 2006, after forming a minority government, the Conservatives expressed a willingness to confront Chinese espionage. CTV reported: “The federal government is ‘concerned’ that Chinese spies are stealing Canada’s industrial and high-technology secrets, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay told CTV. ‘We’re very concerned about economic espionage,’ MacKay said in an interview with CTV’s Question Period . . . While in opposition, the Conservatives challenged the Liberal-led government to act on reports of Chinese espionage.”

One of these reports was the 1997 RCMP-CSIS Sidewinder Report, which blew the lid on Beijing-directed subversion in Canada, but the Liberal government of then Prime Minister Jean Chretien suppressed the revelations. “The document itself,” Prime Time Crime relates in a 2000 article, “describes how Beijing’s spies and the triads worked in concert in matters like stealing high-tech secrets, engineering control of Canadian firms in real estate, security, media and other influential sectors, money-laundering and political influence through substantial party donations.” Canadian journalist Leo Knight describes the political fallout: “The resulting outcry in the media and in the House of Commons prompted the civilian watchdog of CSIS to announce an inquiry investigating allegations that the original Sidewinder report was suppressed because of political pressure. It is expected to complete its investigation and release the results to Parliament within weeks.”

>Red Terror File: Bomb derails Moscow-St. Petersburg train, 60 injured, two suspects sought; Putin, Patrushev to coordinate investigation

>Between 1999 and 2004 acts of Kremlin-orchestrated “Chechen” terrorism on Russian soil were regular and well publicized by state and foreign media. While terrorism in Russia has continued since then, most episodes have been minor and relegated to the extreme south of the country, particularly the volatile Caucasus. Now that Russia is moving toward the 2007-2008 political season and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union is preparing to reassert iself, expect more incidents, actions, assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, and general mayhem in the cities of European Russia. Writing of two bombings that occured in 2003, Jeff Nyquist reveals:

Last July a suicide bomber killed 15 people at a Moscow rock concert. In August a suicide truck bomb killed 50 people at a military hospital in North Ossetia. These acts have been blamed on Islamic extremists. But now a new twist has appeared in the story, casting doubt on our easy assumptions. An out-of-step investigator with the Russian security services has acknowledged that the chief suspects behind the suicide bombings in Moscow and North Ossetia are Interior Ministry policemen. Of course, the acknowledgement is sure to be retracted or buried by Kremlin fixers. The indiscreet investigators and security officials who exposed the provocation will be called on the carpet. The controlled press in Moscow, with its pet liberals and democrats, will offer a few cynical asides. No major shift in world consciousness will occur.

Russia’s citizen-slaves can rest well tonight, however, knowing that Comrade Czar Vladimir (“There’s No Such Thing as a Former KGB Man”) Putin will personally supervise the investigation into the train bombing. The Russian president’s henchentity, Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service (KGB), moreover, has also assured Russians that everything is under control: “Counterterror commissions of the RF regions should provide for taking comprehensive actions [to ensure] solid counter-subversion protection of potentially hazardous facilities, life-support facilities and places of mass gathering of residents.”

The reds are masters of provocation.

Police say identikits compiled on suspects in train derailment -1
19:5314/ 08/ 2007

ST. PETERSBURG, August 14 (RIA Novosti) – A police spokesperson said photofits have been compiled on two people suspected of setting off a bomb that caused a train derailment in northwest Russia Monday night.

The train hurtled off the rails en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the country’s busiest rail line. Carriages were overturned, and 60 people were injured. A 2-meter (6-foot) crater was left in the track.

Alexander Bastrykin, a deputy general prosecutor, said investigators considered terrorism to be one of the most likely causes of the incident, but that: “a final conclusion has yet to be reached.”

The senior investigator said the bomb that derailed the train near Veliky Novgorod had a yield of three kilograms of TNT equivalent. However, he said it was too early to speak of motives for the crime.

Nikolai Kovalyov, head of the committee for veterans’ affairs at the State Duma, parliament’s lower house, and a former chief of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), said last night’s incident could be connected to a military operation in Ingushetia, a volatile North Caucasus republic, where almost 2,500 Interior Ministry officers have been deployed to fight militants.

“This could have been an attempt to divert attention to another location – a method frequently used by terrorists,” Kovalev told RIA Novosti. “Or else there could be quite a trivial explanation of boys playing war games.”

Mikhail Grishankov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma’s security committee, said: “This was an unusual crime, and it’s too early and complicated to speculate. We should wait for the expert report.”

Rail authorities throughout the country tightened security measures following the Nevsky Express train incident. Anti-terrorist measures will be put in place in the Nizhny Novgorod Region on the Volga, a source said.

Anastasia Popova, spokesperson for the Tyumen department of the Sverdlovsk Railway in West Siberia, said extra security measures were in place in the region.

On south Russia’s North Caucasus network, reinforced police patrols have been dispatched to key rail facilities and passenger and commuter trains.

The section of track damaged by the blast has been repaired, and the first commuter train passed over the track at 3:50 p.m. (11:50 a.m. GMT). Inter-city train services have resumed, but are running at around nine-hours behind schedule.

Source: Novosti

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: NORAD: Russian bomber probes surge, hold concurrent exercises in 2 oceans; US carrier strike force drills in Pacific

>With the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Peace Mission 2007 exercise underway in the South Urals and the Russian Air Force’s latest simulated bombing raid over the Arctic complete, the Kremlin is projecting its military power over the two oceans that protect the Continental USA from its many adversaries. NORAD officials report increased Russian bomber activity around North America over the last three months. “Russian aircraft carrying cruise missiles ran an aviation exercise near Alaska two weeks ago,” admits Canadian Forces Colonel Andre Dupuis. “They didn’t do it to practice alone. They’re making a point, doing it outside of their normal training cycle. They maintain capability.” US Air Force General Gene Renuart, commander of NORAD and US Northern Command, confirms: “Over the last probably three months or so the Russians have been flying their bomber force maybe a little bit more than we’ve seen in the past, certainly they’re ranging farther than they have in the past. We’ve had a couple times where we’ve intercepted them out over international waters, near Alaska.”

Backfires, Blackjacks, and Bears, O my! Preps anyone?

The John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, meanwhile, is currently holding the Valiant Shield 2007 exercise in the Pacific Ocean.

Pictured above: A Su-27 Flanker fighter (left) and a Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bomber (right) at an air show marking the 95th anniversary of the Russian Air Force.

Russia strategic aviation holds exercise over Pacific, Atlantic
13:3014/ 08/ 2007

MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) – Units of the 37th Air Army of the Strategic Command have begun tactical exercises with test launches of cruise missiles over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, an Air Force spokesman said Tuesday.

“In all, over 30 Tu-95 Bear-H strategic bombers, Tu-22 Backfire-C theater bombers and Il-78 Midas will be conducting flights August 14,” Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky said. “During the exercises, the crews will test launch cruise missiles over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and fly to the North Pole.”
The exercises, which will run through August 18, are held under the command of Major-General Pavel Androsov, the commander of the Russian Air Force’s long-range aviation.

According to various sources, the Russian Air Force currently deploys 141 Tu-22 Backfire-C theater bombers, 40 Tu-95 Bear-H strategic bombers, and 14 Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers.

Source: Novosti

>China File: Defense Minister advocates biowarfare against USA, colonization, admits "China Threat"; toy boss suicide, more product recalls

>A secret speech attributed to Chi Haotian, Minster of Defense and vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, and apparently delivered in early 2005 or before confirms that “the concept of a ‘China Threat’ is definitely correct, and this is a fairly typical western thought.” In past blogs we have asserted that China’s pseudo-capitalist reforms since the 1980s were a strategic maneuver designed to shore up the PRC’s stagnant command economy and beef up the People’s Liberation Army using Western capital. The ploy worked. Chi not only also confirms this analysis of communist strategy, but also articulates Beijing’s horrifying vision for the USA, Canada, and Australia: The elimination of the citizens of these countries through biological warfare and the colonization by China’s massive population of the same landmasses. Chi’s speech is published by the New York-based bilingual Epoch Times.

With respect to communist deception and the general plan for economic subversion, Chi states:

Second, once we open our doors, the profit-seeking western capitalists will invest capital and technology in China to assist our development, so that they can occupy the biggest market in the world. Third, our numerous overseas Chinese help us create the most favorable environment for the introduction of foreign capital, foreign technology and advanced experience into China. Thus, it is guaranteed that our reform and open-door policy will achieve tremendous success. Fourth, China’s great economic expansion will inevitably lead to the shrinkage of per-capita living space for the Chinese people, and this will encourage China to turn outward in search for new living space. Fifth, China’s great economic expansion will inevitably come with a significant development in our military forces, creating conditions for our expansion overseas.

Specifically citing the Nazi concept of “living space” (lebensraum) for the German population, Chi identifies three countries targeted for Chinese colonization: “Only countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have the vast land to serve our need for mass colonization.” With respect to the extermination of Americans, Chi (pictured below) explains the Chinese plan to “clean up” the USA:

Only by using special means to “clean up” America will we be able to lead the Chinese people there. This is the only choice left for us. This is not a matter of whether we are willing to do it or not. What kind of special means is there available for us to “clean up” America? Conventional weapons such as fighters, cannons, missiles and battleships won’t do; neither will highly destructive weapons such as nuclear weapons. We are not as foolish as to want to perish together with America by using nuclear weapons, despite the fact that we have been exclaiming that we will have the Taiwan issue resolved at whatever cost. Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves. There has been rapid development of modern biological technology, and new bio weapons have been invented one after another. Of course we have not been idle; in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind. We are capable of achieving our purpose of “cleaning up” America all of a sudden. When Comrade Xiaoping was still with us, the Party Central Committee had the perspicacity to make the right decision not to develop aircraft carrier groups and focus instead on developing lethal weapons that can eliminate mass populations of the enemy country.

Be reminded, by the way, that “post”-communist Russia is locked into a strategic partnership, predicted by KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn nearly 25 years ago, with Beijing’s genocidal communist regime. The second Sino-Soviet Peace Mission exercise, underway in the South Urals, is only one component in that alliance against the West.

Does China have the capability to unleash biological warfare against the USA? In the wake of a suspicious swine flu outbreak in Sichuan Province in summer 2005 a Chinese physician identified only as Dr. Wang stated: “I believe that this is basically a bloodborne virus with the Ebola and bubonic plague as its main constituents.” A UPI journalist speculated: “Whether China may have been developing Ebola as a biological weapon is uncertain, but the U.S. State Department said as recently as 2002 it was possible China was maintaining a biological-weapons program. In addition, Ken Alibek, the former deputy chief of the Soviet biological-weapons program who now resides in the United States, previously said Soviet officials had detected a biological-weapons facility in China. Alibek also said two epidemics of hemorrhagic fever – a class that includes Ebola – occurred in that area in the late 1980’s that Soviet analysts presumed to be due to an accidental release from a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases.” Some microbiologists and various conspiracy researchers have speculated too that the current deadly pandemic of SARS and bird flu, both of which emerged/re-emerged in China in 2002/2003, might constitute a “dry run” for biowarfare.

In a somewhat related story, the current glut of dangerous Chinese products in the West and the suicide of toy company CEO Zhang Shuhong merely represent the tip of the iceberg with respect to the communist contempt for human life and stated communist plans to sabotage the West’s economies, retake Taiwan, and humble the US Armed Forces. With nearly three million Communist Party cadres working in China’s “private” sector, economic sabotage is very feasible and might very well be the motivation behind the exportation of toys tainted with lead paint to the West. The US government banned lead paint in 1978. The People’s Republic of China has yet to adopt a similar policy.

Apparently, as in Japan, suicide among disgraced Chinese officials is not uncommon. On the one hand Zhang, who managed the Guangdong-based toy manufacturing company Lee Der Industrial, could have been burdened with a guilty conscience. On the other hand, he might have been worried about a one-way trip to the laogai archipelago. Suicide might have appeared as a pleasent option. Still, the article below reports that “The morning of his suicide, he greeted workers and chatted with some of them.” Indeed, perhaps someone higher up in the Party placed the noose around Zhang’s neck.

China toy boss kills self after massive recall

(8/13/07 – BEIJING, China) – The head of a Chinese toy manufacturing company at the center of a huge U.S. recall has committed suicide, a state-run newspaper said Monday.

Lee Der made 967,000 toys recalled earlier this month by Mattel Inc. because they were made with paint found to have excessive amounts of lead. The plastic preschool toys, sold under the Fisher-Price brand in the U.S., included the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters.

It was among the largest recalls in recent months involving Chinese products, which have come under fire for globally for containing potentially dangerous high levels of chemicals and toxins.

The Southern Metropolis Daily said that a supplier, Zhang’s best friend, sold Lee Der fake paint which was used in the toys.

“The boss and the company were harmed by the paint supplier, the closest friend of our boss,” a manager surnamed Liu was quoted as saying.

Liu said Zhang hung himself on Saturday, according to the report. It is common for disgraced officials to commit suicide in China.

“When I got there around 5 p.m., police had already sealed off the area,” Liu said.

A company official who answered the telephone at the Lee Der factory in the southern city of Foshan on Monday said he had not heard of the news. A man at Lee Der’s main office in Hong Kong said the company was not accepting interviews and hung up.

According to a search on a registry of Hong Kong companies, Zhang whose name is spelled Cheung Shu-hung in official documents is a co-owner of Lee Der. The other owner, Chiu Kwei-tsun, did not return telephone messages left for him.

The recall by El Segundo, California-based Mattel came just two months after RC2 Corp., a New York company, recalled 1.5 million Chinese-made wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line because of lead paint.

The maker, Hansheng Wood Products Factory, was also included in the export ban announced Thursday by the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, one of China’s quality watchdogs.

The administration also ordered both companies to evaluate and change their business practices.

Lead poisoning can cause vomiting, anemia and learning difficulties. In extreme cases, it can cause severe neurological damage and death.

The quality watchdog also said police were investigating two companies’ use of “fake plastic pigment” but did not give any details. Such pigments are a type of industrial latex usually used to increase surface gloss and smoothness.

Telephones rang unanswered at the public security bureau in Foshan and at Dongxing New Energy Company, which is the paint supplier.

In its report, the Southern Metropolis Daily said Zhang, who was in his 50s, treated his 5,000-odd employees well and always paid them on time.

The morning of his suicide, he greeted workers and chatted with some of them, the newspaper said.

Chinese companies often have long supply chains, making it difficult to trace the exact origin of components, chemicals and food additives.

On Sunday, a Chinese court sentenced a reporter to a year in jail for faking a television story about cardboard-filled meat buns in a case that has drawn even more attention to China’s poor food safety record.

Zi Beijia, 28, pleaded guilty to charges of infringing on the reputation of a commodity during his trial at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He was sentenced to a year in jail and a fine of $132, it said.

Zi’s story, reportedly shot with a hidden camera, appeared to show a makeshift kitchen where people made steamed buns stuffed with shredded cardboard softened with caustic soda plus a little bit of fatty pork.

Zi paid four migrant workers from China’s northern Shaanxi province to prepare the buns according to his instructions, Xinhua said. The buns were then fed to dogs, it said.

The story was first broadcast on Beijing Television’s Life Channel, where Zi was a freelance reporter, on July 8 and then again on China Central Television. It was also widely seen on YouTube.com.

Source: ABC13.com

>Final Phase Backgrounder: Gorbachev condemns US "imperialism," war in Iraq; backs Putin’s foreign policy, Red World Order via United Nations

>In a March 1990 memorandum to the US Central Intelligence Agency KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn offers the following prediction concerning the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s abandonment of the public monopoloy of power the following year: “The Party apparatus, though less visible, will continue to provide guidance to Party members in the reformed institutions. The Party not only has a vast organization but also has long experience including of illegal operation under the Tsarist regime and in those territories which fell under German occupation in the Second World War. It will have no difficulty in adjusting to the environment of a fictional ‘multi-Party system’ which in practice it will control. The Party itself may well be split in two–into reform and orthodox Communist Parties, as is already happening in Hungary. The ultimate control will stay the same” (The Perestroika Deception, 1995, 1998; page 101).

Golitsyn, who boasts a nearly 100% accuracy rating in his predictions of Soviet strategy, was correct in his assessment of the division of the CPSU into two “factions.” When the new Russian section of the CPSU, initially founded by Oleg Shenin and Gennady Zyuganov in 1990, reorganized itself as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) in 1993, the CPRF continued its journey as the nationalistic “revisionist” faction, while the continuing CPSU, otherwise known as the Union of Communist Parties-CPSU–to which the CPRF nevertheless belonged–portrayed itself as the faithful banner bearer of “international communism.” The collective leadership of the “invisible party economy,” however, continued to function and, thus, the leadership of the neo-Soviet state passed smoothly from Mikhail (“I’ll Always Be a Communist”) Gorbachev to “ex”-communists Boris Yeltsin and then Vladimir Putin. Blinded by Soviet propaganda, Western analysts paid little attention to apparent schisms among the reds. Communism, after all, was “dead.”

Former Soviet tyrant Gorbachev always stood behind Boris Yeltsin, now deceased, and Yeltsin’s hand-picked successor Putin. When Yeltsin died in April 2007, Gorby reflected: “I express my deep condolences to the family of the departed. He did a lot for this country, even though he committed serious errors. A tragic fate.”

However, as Golitsyn observes, Yeltsin, as president of the “new” Russian Federation, made no attempt at any time during the 1990s to purge the state institutions of communist influence: “Yeltsin has allegedly banned the Communist Party in Russia. But the question should be asked: ‘Why did he forget to ban the Komsomol youth organization?’ To carry conviction, the necessary purge of former Communists would have to be carried out at all levels, as was the intention with the de-nazification programme in Germany after the war. Without any such programme, present changes, however impressive, will remain cosmetic.”

Yeltsin, furthmore, failed to acknowledge that in 1960 the CPSU and the KGB had committed themselves to a long-range plan of deceiving the West. Golitsyn writes: “. . .[O]ne important criterion for judging the sincerity of the abrupt and virtually simultaneous conversion of former Communist leaders into true democrats would be a frank official statement from them that the Soviet Party and Government adopted a long-range strategy in the years 1958 to 1960, that ‘perestroika’ is the advanced phase of this strategy, and that it is to be abandoned forthwith in favour of normal, open, civilised relations. There has been no sign whatsoever of any such admission” (page 142).

Although the Putinist regime, as embodied by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, “banned” Gorbachev’s potemkin Social Democratic Party of Russia in April 2007, the report below reveals Gorby’s unswerving support for the crypto-communist regime in the Kremlin. He articulates a dismissive attitude toward the anti-Putin Other Russia coalition, which operates under the leadership of Garry Kasparov, as well as his opposition to US “warmongering.”

Gorbachev Blasts American ‘Imperialism’
By ALEX NICHOLSON The Associated Press

Friday, July 27, 2007; 4:14 PM

MOSCOW — Former President Mikhail Gorbachev said Friday that the fall of the Soviet Union, which he helped bring about, ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism responsible for many of the world’s gravest problems.

Gorbachev is lauded in the West for ushering in democratic reforms but widely despised in Russia for paving the way to the economic free-for-all of the 1990s, which brought fabulous wealth for a well-connected few while plunging much of the country into humiliating poverty.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev listens to a question during a news conference in Moscow on Friday, July 27, 2007. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev laid the blame for the current low in Russia’s relations with the West squarely at Washington’s door on Friday, saying that the U.S. was guilty of committing “major strategic mistakes” that had thrown the world into a period of “global disarray.”

He has since became a supporter of President Vladimir Putin’s assertive foreign policy and resistance to American power _ calling occasional news conferences to praise Putin’s policies _ but his criticism of the United States on Friday was especially harsh.

“The Americans want so much to be the winners. The fact that they are sick with this illness, this winners’ complex, is the main reason why everything in the world is so confused and so complicated,” he told the packed news conference.

Instead of ushering in a new era of cooperation with the West, the USSR’s collapse put the United States into an aggressive, empire-building mood, the former leader said. Ultimately, he said, that has led the U.S. to commit a string of “major strategic mistakes.”

“The idea of a new empire, of sole leadership, was born,” Gorbachev said.

“Unilateral actions and wars followed,” he added, saying that Washington “ignored the Security Council, international law and the will of their own people.”

Gorbachev, 76, shared Putin’s strong opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq.

Russia has fallen out with Washington on a host of other issues, pushing relations to a frosty state that some commentators have likened to the Cold War.

The Kremlin says the Bush administration’s plans for a missile defense system in eastern Europe to guard against Iranian and North Korean missiles could spark a new arms race. It has refused to back Washington’s draft Security Council resolution on Kosovo’s independence and has suspended its participation in a key treaty on arms reduction in Europe.

Gorbachev, who won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War, echoed Putin’s frequent endorsement of a so-called “multipolar world,” without the perceived dominance of the United States.

“No one, no single center, can today command the world. No single group of countries … can do it,” Gorbachev said. “Under the current U.S. president, I don’t think we can fundamentally change the situation as it is developing now … It is dangerous. The world is experiencing a period of growing global disarray.”

Gorbachev also claimed that Putin’s recent decision to suspend Russia’s participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty was aimed at “encouraging” a dialogue on the amended version of the document which Russia has ratified but the United States and other NATO members have not.

He called for calm in the bitter diplomatic squabble with Britain over Russia’s refusal to extradite a suspect in the radiation poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. The case has seen expulsions of diplomats by both countries.

And with parliamentary and presidential elections approaching, Gorbachev bemoaned the absence of a major liberal party in Russian politics, which is dominated by the pro-Kremlin United Russia. He dismissed Russia’s main opposition group, Other Russia, as only “about making a bit of noise,” and riding on the star power of its leader, former chess champion Garry Kasparov.

“It’s a very weak opposition,” he said.

Source: Washington Post

“Unilateral actions and wars followed,” Gorbachev states above, lamenting over Washington’s “disappointing” conduct during the post-Cold War era. “The US government ignored the [United Nations] Security Council, international law and the will of their own people.” The Soviet leadership, including Gorbachev it will be noted here, is still committed to that communist project called the United Nations. In another memorandum to the CIA, penned immediately after the August 1991 coup, Golitsyn writes: “One can expect that the Soviet strategists will come forward with fresh initiatives combined with deliberate provocations and crises in order to enhance the role of the United Nations. They will do this because they regard the United Nations as a stepping stone to a future World Government” (page 139). “Global warming,” which represents the Left’s attempt to deindustrialize the West, and the “War on Terror,” which traces its origins to the Kremlin-spawned international terrorist movement, are two such crises manufactured by the Leninist masterminds.

That Putin is merely a frontman for the restored/continuing CPSU is evident in past utterances of Gorbachev. In 2001, for example, Pravda reported similar glowing praise by Gorby for the Russian president:

The ex-president of the U.S.S.R., Mikhail Gorbachev, has expressed his support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policy. Addressing on Friday the 3rd congress of the Russian United Social Democratic Party which he heads, Gorbachev said that Putin’s policy promotes Russia’s national interests and the interests of a majority of the Russian population. Gorbachev said he supports Putin on major issues and will continue supporting him in the future. At the same time, the former Soviet president expressed concern that “many of the president’s initiatives are not being adequately fulfilled.” Speaking of the Civil Forum which closed the day before, Gorbachev emphasised that he cannot agree with statements made there about Putin’s “authoritarianism and attempts to impose his will on the public opinion.” Gorbachev also supported the Russian president’s latest foreign-policy moves. He said that in its foreign policy Russia is taking “approaches that can lead to the establishment of a world order based on cooperation and a balance of interests.” Gorbachev said he has an impression that “the West has not yet realised the value of all Putin’s proposals.” At the same time, he expressed conviction that the president’s foreign-policy moves are aimed at “giving Russia the second wind.”

When Gorbachev insists that Putin is adopting foreign policy “approaches that can lead to the establishment of a world order based on cooperation and a balance of interests,” be assured that the putatively non-communist administration in the Kremlin is still pursuing Red World Order. Should East-West convergence ultimately fail, the Sino-Soviet “Peace Mission” war games are preparing the groundwork for eliminating a “unipolar” world dominated by the USA and installing a “multipolar” communist world, revolving around the Moscow-Beijing Axis.

Shenin and his ilk, who led the faux coup against Gorbachev in 1991, will condemn the same for dismantling the Soviet Union but, in reality there’s only one team in Russia: the Red Team. Its US cheering squad features the Democratic Party, the Hollywood Left, and a vast array of anti-American leftist/faux rightist conspiracymongers.

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: SCO observes 95th anniversary of Russian Air Force, Peace Mission 2007 commanders praise Sino-Soviet cooperation

>Under the guise of “anti-terrorist” exercises, the Moscow-Beijing Axis hones its ability to coordinate the operations of its multiple armed forces and prepares to take on the West. Russia’s missile power. China’s man power. One clenched fist. Which terrorist organization does the Communist Bloc have in its sights? Ask Oleg Shenin, chair of the restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union: “In the [former Soviet] republics, the now ‘independent states’ (with exception of Byelorussia) guide comprador regimes headed by pro-Western, pro-American marionettes. The oppression that affects the lives of entire peoples originates not in the capitals of these states, but in Washington, the military-political and financial center of world globalism, center of robbery, aggression and international terrorism.”

Interviewed during the exercise, Chief of the Russian General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky accused “certain Western states”–meaning the USA and its allies–of meddling in the internal affairs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): “These states continue to make attempts to convince our nations of the necessity to form so-called ‘true democratic’ institutions of state and public management using the Western model, which destabilises the situation in the states of the region.” Baluyevsky has also been very bellicose with respect to proposed US National Missile Defense in Central Europe. And, thus, the Kremlin continues to build its pretext for a preemptive strike against the West.

Pictured above and below: Chinese troops training in Russia. On August 12, 2007 the SCO, which is in Chelyabinsk for the Peace Mission 2007 drill, held a joint parade to mark the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Russian Air Force. Looks like someone managed to find an old Soviet flag for the occasion.

Last picture below: The chiefs of staff of the SCO member states–Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan–dispatch orders to the commanders of the respective troops to launch Peace Mission 2007. The drill began in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on August 9. During the First Cold War (1945-1991) the political and military leaders of the West would have viewed with great alarm such developments. Now, because communism is “dead,” no one bats an eyelash.

Dress rehearsal of SCO Peace Mission 2007 exercise held
13.08.2007, 20.13

CHEBARKUL RANGE (Chelyabinsk region), August 13 (Itar-Tass) – The military commanders of Russia and China praised the results of a dress rehearsal of the active phase of the Peace Mission 2007 joint antiterrorist manoeuvres of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states that was conducted on Monday.

“Officials that were at the observation site made a unanimous assessment: the training session passed quite satisfactorily. All tactical tasks have been fulfilled at a rather high level,” the commander of the manoeuvres from the Russian side, Colonel-General Vladimir Moltenskoi said. “So we consider the training to be quite successful,” he added.

However, the Russian military commander admitted that “not all tasks have been fulfilled properly” and a number of problems have been exposed during the dress rehearsal. “The main thing is to make all developments on the tactical field quickly appear on the monitor so that everybody could understand what the troops are doing,” he said.

Moltenskoi stressed that the activities of the SCO countries’ armed forces are conducted “within the framework of national and international law.”

“We taught the troops to act within the framework of the tactical tasks that may encounter commanders and servicemen in real life and they have to be prepared to deal with them,” the general said.

He noted earlier that under the scenario of the SCO drill, the performance of combat tasks would be practiced in view of the deteriorating domestic political situation in the state “A” (a conventional state in the Chelyabinsk and Kurgan regions in Russia that joined the SCO), the masterminding of a coup by separatists and opposition with a view to toppling the legitimate president and the government of the country and escalating the internal armed conflict.

The SCO states have taken political, diplomatic, economic and forcible measures to settle the conflict, including a joint anti-terrorist operation in cooperation with the state authorities and the law enforcement agencies of the state “A” in order to destroy illegal armed units, Moltenskoi said.

Deputy commander of the exercise from the Chinese side, Major-General Qian Lihua said, “Chinese troops are ready for the active stage of the exercise in full measure”, adding, “the troops of other SCO states acted successfully”.

He said “beautiful weather allowed us to use all possibilities in full, and I think the training was a complete success”.

It was the first joint training with the participation of military contingents from all SCO states. “If everything goes just as well on August 17and if the weather is just as beautiful, there is no doubt that the exercise will be a success,” the general said.

More than 4,000 servicemen from five SCO states (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) participated in the general rehearsal. Uzbek officers worked at the headquarters of the exercises, Cololen Igor Konashenkov, an assistant to the exercise commander on the Russian side, told Itar-Tass. Over 500 pieces of military and special hardware and about 70 aircraft of Russia and China were involved in the dress rehearsal.

According to Konashenkov, taking part in the general rehearsal were all formations of the United Army Group – army and attack aviation, units of the Ground and Airborne Troops, as well as units of the Interior Troops, the Federal Security Service, and the Federal Penitentiary Service.

During the dress rehearsal, 120 paratroopers and six airborne combat vehicles on each side from Russia and China landed from Ilyushin-76MD military transport planes.

Konashenkov said the task of destroying the terrorists in a settlement was fulfilled only with blank ammunition. The aviation and armoured vehicles used combat ammunition.

According to the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Yuri Baluyevsky, the Peace Mission 2007 manoeuvres mean a specific step in the training of the armed forces of the SCO member states for joint response to security threats in the region. Along with terrorism, extremism, drug aggression, organised crime and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Baluyevsky also mentioned problems related to security “in the conditions of growing pressure from mass media of certain Western states.”

“These states continue to make attempts to convince our nations of the necessity to form so-called ‘true democratic’ institutions of state and public management using the Western model, which destabilises the situation in the states of the region,” Baluyevsky said.

The SCO member states held the first such manoeuvres in China in 2005.

The current Peace Mission 2007 antiterrorist command and staff exercise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) started in the Chelyabinsk region on Saturday.

The exercise opening ceremony took place at the Chebarkul military range in the morning.

The first joint training session involving about 4,000 servicemen and over 500 combat and special-purpose vehicles followed the ceremony.

Ahead of the manoeuvres that will last till August 17, the Chiefs of the General Staff of the SCO countries held military-political consultations in Urumqi.

The Chief of General Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Liang Guanglie, said the consultations were held “in a cordial and friendly atmosphere.”

“We exchanged views on problems of international and regional security, issues of military cooperation and the Peace Mission 2007 exercise. The parties reached broad mutual understanding on all the matters discussed,” he said.

Source: ITAR-TASS

>Africa File: Nigerian insurgents blow up oil facility, radio station, kill 15; army deployed; rebel leader trained by Soviet ally Gaddafi, released

>Nigeria, one of few African countries that has yet to fall to communism, has been since 2004 wracked by an insurgency in the Niger Delta in which red revolutionaries have targeted domestic and foreign petroleum facilities, managers, and rig workers. Alhaji Mujahid Asari Dokubo, leader of the rebel Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), is a self-avowed Islamo-Marxist and devotee of Osama bin Laden. In a 2005 interview Asari affirmed:

The big question again is from my student union days till now, what has been the ideology of Dokubo Asari? I have always remained a Marxist. I am a member of the Salafist movement which believes in the purity of Islam. I am a student of revolution and I have actually partaken in revolutionary armed struggle outside Ijaw nation. I know that it does not take everybody to start a struggle. It does not even take five per cent of the population. All it takes is may be a handful of determined and courageous men. Like the Cuban example, like the Mao Tse Tung example in China. A handful of men at the Niger-Delta Volunteer Force can do it.

There is evidence to indicate that the Kremlin might be indirectly manipulating the Nigerian insurgency through its North African ally and veteran trainer of terrorists and aspiring sub-Saharan dictators, Muammar al-Gaddafi. Like Liberia’s Marxist warlord Charles Taylor, Sierra Leonean crypto-Marxist warlord Foday Sankoh, and Burkina Faso’s Marxist President Blaise Campaoré, Asari received military and political training from the Libyan dictator, who himself continues to receive military assistance from Moscow. The November 2006 edition of World Defense Review reports:

The forty-something Asari Dokubo, né Dokubo Melford Goodhead, Jr., is an ethnic Ijaw from a Christian family who, after failing out of two universities, converted to Islam. In the early 1990s, like other unscrupulous West Africans of the period who were willing to embrace violence to achieve their political ambitions, he eventually found his way to Mu’ammar Qadhafi’s Libya which, as this column has chronicled, was then nurturing aspiring warlords from throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2005 Asari admitted that the NDPVF acquires its weapons through the international black market: “Dokubo-Asari told IRIN in 2005 that Nigeria’s Atlantic waters were indeed the main channel through which his militia obtained weapons. “We are very close to international waters, and it’s very easy to get weapons from ships,” he said in the interview. “We have AK-47s, general-purpose machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.” Nigerian researcher Babafemi Ojudu contends that smugglers operating out of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon and Nigeria coordinate the small arms trade between Eastern Europe and the Niger Delta militants. “Using fast boats, these smugglers cruise to ships in the high seas and obtain guns, the origins of which may be as far afield as Eastern Europe and Asia.” Africa, of course, is the haunt of Russian arms merchant and “ex”-KGB operative Victor Bout.

In September 2005 Asari was arrested and jailed. On May 31, 2007 Asari’s personal manifesto was published. Concerning his stint behind bars, he laments: “I am not even allowed to practice my religion as prescribed by the Koran (the suna of the prophet (SWS)) and the Sharia of Islam.” He advocates hostage taking as an effective means of advancing revolution:

The seizure of persons representing the political and economic instuitions of the occupation forces oppressors in any occupation conquered and colonized territory is a powerful tool to wrest enormous political and economic concessions from the oppressive occupation and colonial forces. In most places like Palestine, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and amongst the communist/Marxist revolutionary parties of Latin America and Asia, it has served as an effective tool for the release of captured and detained members of the various progressive and revolutionary movement and parties.

Comparing the NDPVF to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the African National Congress, Asari urges his followers to establish a government in exile in preparation for ousting the government of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua:

We urge you to embrace their historic and epoch moment in one struggle by setting up a government in EXILE and work for the recognition of this government as the authentic government and representative of the Ijaw and Niger Delta territories if Darfur can hold the world spell bound how much more the vast rich Ijaw and Niger Delta territories. Brothers we are at a threshold. This is the very moment, seize it and bring freedom to our people.

On June 14, 2007 the Nigerian government released the unrepentant terrorist Asari on bail on grounds of ill health and in attempt to appease the insurgents. Pictured at top of post: Asari after his release. Pictured immediately above: Asari, center, sits with unidentified supporters in a court room in Abuja, October 6, 2005, while a judge reads a number of charges against the rebel leader, including treason and plotting to overthrow the government. Pictured here: Asari with his NDPVF guerrillas in the jungles of the Niger Delta, September 28, 2004.

Asari’s personal home page features a Flash slideshow of the rebel leader sporting Islamic garb and a Che T-shirt and cap.

Pictured below: Nigerian President Yar’Adua, a Muslim who represents the centrist People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and formerly the leftist People’s Redemption Party. In June 2007 President Yar’Adua formed a government consisting of the PDP, the conservative All Nigeria’s People’s Party, and the Progressive People’s Alliance.

Bandits kill 15, bomb NNPC, radio stations
By Ibanga Isine and Mudiaga Affe
Published: Sunday, 12 Aug 2007

Bandits on Saturday bombed two government facilities in Port Harcourt and killed no fewer than 15 persons, on the sixth day of their onslaught on the state.

Four of those killed were policemen, who were shot at their duty posts in Trans-Amadi, Garrison and Diobu.

The gun-wielding youths reportedly detonated dynamite on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation mega station and Radio Rivers on Degema Street, before daybreak.

They killed a security man in a house close to the radio station, but could not gain access to the transmitters of the station.

The gunmen later moved towards the main industrial area of the state, Trans-Amadi, and killed three riot policemen.

In Garrison, they gunned down a riot policemen and a civilian, who were apparently unaware of the invasion of the city by the attackers.

No fewer than 15 bullet-riddled corpses had been recovered and deposited at the Rivers State-owned Braithwaite Memorial Hospital near the Government House Port Harcourt, by daybreak.

The Nigerian Army moved in soldiers to check the festering security situation.

The soldiers deployed from the 2nd Brigade of the Nigerian Army in Port Harcourt, immediately mounted roadblocks from the entrance of the Government House to the Old Port Harcourt Township and frisked motorists and pedestrians.

The police came out with more Armoured Personnel Carriers and deployed their men in all the roads to curtail the excesses of the militias.

As the stop-and-search operations began, soldiers intercepted a Carina Toyota car loaded with arms and ammunitions just as it was heading towards the Government House, Port Harcourt.

The occupants reportedly opened fire and wounded a soldier on the leg, while the soldiers in turn killed two of them and destroyed the car.

The relics of the car was left at the Government House Road Junction with one of the head lamps still on for sometime and was later towed away by policemen from the Governor’s Office.

Some posters of a former member of the Rivers State House of Assembly were reportedly found in the car used by the militants and taken away by security agents. It was not clear at press time if the former lawmaker had been questioned.

Worried by the worsening situation in Port Harcourt, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Andrew Azazi, and the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, flew into Port Harcourt and held a closed-door meeting with the state Governor, Mr. Celestine Omehia, on the development in the state.

Addressing newsmen at the end of the meeting, Okiro said the security agencies were set to battle the criminals in Port Harcourt and bring an end to the killings in the state.

He said the killings were unacceptable to the Federal Government and that the government was all out to put an end to the lawlessness in the city.

Okiro said, “We want to confront these hoodlums head on. On the lawlessness we see in Port Harcourt, we are here to make sure that it is stopped. The hoodlums have been confronted by the JTF today.”

Okiro, who attributed the violence, which started in Port Harcourt since last Monday, to the clash by rival gangs, disclosed that the JTF had drawn up strategies to deal with the growing insecurity in the state.

The IGP said that the situation on the ground did not warrant the declaration of a state of emergency, as the security agencies were in full control of the situation.

The police boss stated, “The mere fact that we are here should tell you that the Federal Government has already taken action.

Okiro said also that the security agencies were in possession of how arms were moved into the state and vowed that the arms would be retrieved once the hoodlums were dealt with.

Rivers State Government has in the meantime rejected calls for the declaration of a state of emergency, saying that the situation did not warrant it.

The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Paulinus Nsirim, who spoke on a special radio programme in Port Harcourt on Saturday, said that those calling for a state of emergency were disgruntled elements bent on discrediting the state government.

Nsirim said the governor was operating an all-inclusive government and had taken steps to improve the security situation in the state by setting up the Peace and Rehabilitation Committee to assist repentant militants in the state.

The Federal Government had deployed soldiers to strategic government facilities on Wednesday following the escalation in cult violence in Port Harcourt.

Senate President, David Mark, said that the National Assembly had no plan to declare a State of Emergency in Rivers State.

He told aviation reporters on Saturday that government was seriously discussing with interest groups to stop the bizare killings in Port Harcourt.

He said, “The Port Harcourt killings is not the best for this country. We’re really looking into it. We should be able to calm the nerves of the people. The government is working with various interest groups for the violence to stop. It’s really bad.

On assets declaration he said, “We’ve already declared our assets before we came into office. The only thing left is for us to make it public and that to me is no big deal. We’ll make it public soon.”

Source: PunchontheWeb

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), in conjunction with Asari’s and other militant groups, also wages war against the Nigerian government and foreign oil interests. Shortly after his imprisonment in 2005, MEND appeared on the scene and demanded Asari’s release. MEND was responsible for a number of terrorist actions, including the February 18, 2006, attack on Royal Dutch Shell’s Forcados oil terminal, during which the militants sabotaged two pipelines, torched a tanker, and kidnapped nine foreign staff members from the US petroleum services contractor Willbros Group. Notwithstanding the possible links between the Kremlin and the Nigerian insurgency, on August 7, 2007 BBC News reported that militants released six Russian hostages in the employ of Russia Aluminum.

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Putin, Hu to review Peace Mission 2007 troops in South Urals; US admiral denies Russian bombers buzzed Guam

>State-run Novosti reports in the article below: “Russia’s then Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov said in May that the organization, often referred to as the Shanghai-Six, has never intended to become a military bloc.” Even if the Kremlin could tell the truth, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has most definitely become the Eurasian communist bloc’s de facto anti-NATO military alliance. Not exactly the topic of dinner table discussions in the West. Pictured above: The personification of the Moscow-Beijing Axis, neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin and Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao.

Putin, Hu to meet Aug. 16-17 during regional antiterrorism drill
13:3810/ 08/ 2007

MOSCOW, August 10 (RIA Novosti) – The presidents of Russia and China will meet in the South Urals August 16-17 for talks and a review of troops engaged in a regional antiterrorism exercise, Peace Mission 2007, China’s ambassador to Russia said Friday.

“On the invitation of President Vladimir Putin, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Republic Hu Jintao will visit Russia on August 16-17 to watch the joint antiterrorism exercise conducted by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO),” Liu Guchang told a news conference.

The diplomat said the leaders would meet twice, and the heads of all SCO states would gather August 17 for a review of the troops in the Chelyabinsk Region, on the final day of the exercises, which started on August 9.

The group, comprising Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is largely viewed as a counterweight to NATO in the region. It has Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia as observer nations.

The SCO never before held a full-scale military exercise involving all its member states, but Russia and China have already held several joint exercises under the auspices of the organization, including Peace Mission 2005. About 5,000 servicemen and 82 Russian and Chinese aircraft are engaged in the current exercises.

Established in 2001 as a non-military alliance, the SCO initially focused on Islamist extremism and other security threats in Central Asia, but has since expanded its scope to include cooperation in disaster relief and trade.

Russia’s then Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov said in May that the organization, often referred to as the Shanghai-Six, has never intended to become a military bloc.

Source: Novosti

In a somewhat related story US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Robert F. Willard is denying that Russian Bear bombers came within 500 kilometers of Guam on August 8, 2007, despite the claim of a Russian Air Force commander. “US planes went to an orbit point in preparation for an intercept that never occurred because the Bears didn’t get close enough,” Willard insisted. The US Navy is currently holding large-scale war games in waters and air space near Guam. Termed “Valiant Shield,” the drills involve more than 22,000 troops, 30 ships and 275 planes. The Associated Press reports: “Willard said the appearance of the bombers did not affect the Valiant Shield exercises, aside from the brief diversion of the fighter jets that were put on standby.”

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russia simulates bomber raids over Arctic, overflies Guam; CIS holds joint exercise; Novosti justifies arms sales

>With the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Peace Mission 2007 “anti-terrorist exercise” underway in Xinjiang and the Urals, the Russian Air Force continues to prep for Missile Day. The Kremlin’s current war game over the North Pole not only dovetails nicely with its claim on that region’s natural resources, but also provides a pretext for the presence of the Russian military there. State-run Novosti reports that “six long-range aviation regiments were involved in the exercise to practice interaction with fighter aircraft, air refueling, and overcoming enemy air defenses.” The official Kremlin line, which is not widely disseminated by the deaf, dumb, and blind Western MSM, is that the USA remains Russia’s principal enemy. In April the New York Times disclosed this fact: “In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin.”

Not so coincidentally, Russian bombers were conducting exercises over the Arctic on September 11, 2001. The Nuclear Threat Initiative reports: “Maneuvers to simulate defense against a large-scale airspace attack began on 10 September 2001. According to Air Force chief Anatoliy Kornukov, they were intended to cover the whole Arctic, as well as northern parts of the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, including the vicinity of Norway, Iceland, the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The main task was reportedly to penetrate the air defense of NATO and North America (NORAD).”

Let’s connect some dots for the entertainment-numbed shopping mall regime: 1) another Russian military exercises over the Arctic, 2) Russian bombers can in most cases only approach North American airspace over the Arctic, 3) America is still Russia’s enemy. But that’s OK, ’cause communism’s dead.

Pictured above: Tu-160 Blackjack bomber.

Russia’s strategic aviation holds tactical exercises in Arctic-1
16:47 08/ 08/ 2007

MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s strategic aviation started Wednesday an active phase of military exercises to fly over the North Pole and conduct test launches of cruise missiles, an Air Force spokesman said.

During the active phase, four Tu-160 Blackjack, 12 Tu-95 Bear-H strategic bombers, and 14 Tu-22 Backfire-C theater bombers will conduct simulated bombing raids, and more than ten cruise missile launches at the Pemboi range near Vorkuta [in Russia’s Arctic], and fly over the North Pole, the Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans.

“On Wednesday, Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers conducted eight successful [test] launches of cruise missiles at designated targets in northern Russia,” Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky said, adding that the planes made over 40 sorties throughout the day.

The Russian aircraft were closely monitored by NATO fighters during the missions.

The spokesman said six long-range aviation regiments were involved in the exercise to practice interaction with fighter aircraft, air refueling, and overcoming enemy air defenses.

Units of the 37th Air Army of the Strategic Command will conduct a total of six tactical exercises in August as part of an annual training program, the Defense Ministry earlier said in a statement.

According to various sources, the Russian Air Force currently deploys 141 Tu-22M3 bombers, 40 Tu-95MS bombers, and 14 Tu-160 planes.

Source: Novosti

Russian bombers are not only probing North American, British, and Norwegian airspace, as we have documented, but also the airspace over US territories in the Pacific Ocean, such as Guam. Reuters reported on August 9, 2007: “A Russian bomber flew over a U.S. naval base on the Pacific island of Guam on Wednesday [August 8] and’ exchanged smiles’ with U.S. pilots who had scrambled to track it, said Major-General Pavel Androsov, head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force.”

The war readiness of the Russian Armed Forces entails its integrated coordination with the forces of the Not-So-Former Soviet republics under the aegis of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, hence the Combat Commonwealth-2007 exercise in Russia’s Astrakhan Region this month. Pictured below: On August 3 six Il-76MG transport aircraft of the People’s Liberation Army delivered 526 servicemen to the Shagol airfield in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Region for Peace Mission 2007, held concurrently with Combat Commonwealth-2007.

CIS annual air defense exercise continues in August
31/07/2007 14:14

MOSCOW, July 31 (RIA Novosti) – The second stage ofthe joint air defense exercise of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) will be held at the Ashuluk training ground, in Russia’s Astrakhan Region near the Caspian Sea, August 14-21, Russia’s Air Force spokesman said Tuesday.

The first stage of the Combat Commonwealth-2007 annual exercise was held in June at the Telemba training ground in East Siberia’s Chita Region and involved the Russian and Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense troops, as well as Russia’s Baltic Fleet.

“The second stage of the exercise will involve Russian, Armenian, Kyrgyz and Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense troops,” Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky said.

The official said the August exercise would include live firingconducted by S-300 (SA-10 Grumble) and S-125 (SA-3 Goa) air defensesystems and a variety of simulated air missions performed by Su-24 Fencer, Su-25 Frogfoot, Su-27 Flanker and MiG-29 Fulcrum aircraft.

The third and fourth stages of the exercise will take place at Kazakh and Uzbek training grounds in August-September and involve Kazakh and Uzbek Air Force and Air Defense units, the spokesman said.

Conducted annually, such exercises are part of efforts to build an integrated security system for CIS, a loose association of former Soviet republics. An integrated air defense network was set up by 10 CIS-member countries February 10, 1995, but so far exists only onpaper.

Source: Novosti

Meanwhile, Novosti justifies the sale of Russian arms to Israel’s adversaries, Syria and Iran. The Kremlin is totally unapologetic and, therefore, totally dangerous and unpredictable.

Why Russia should sell weapons to Iran and Syria
22:0008/ 08/ 2007

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya) – In the United States, the debate on pulling out of Iraq has given way to a dispute about the wisdom of supplying the Saudis with the latest American weapons.

A similar situation is taking place in France, where passions are running high around the planned delivery of weapons and a nuclear power plant to Libya. In both cases, the commercial and political benefits are being weighed against the threat of nuclear proliferation and concern about terrorists getting their hands on nuclear arms.

With whom is it OK to trade in such commodities, and on what terms? These have always been relevant questions.

The U.S. Congress warned President George W. Bush that in September, after their return from summer recess, they would submit to both the House and the Senate a bill that would block supplies of certain weapons to the Saudis. They explained that Saudi Arabia did not behave like an American ally; rather, it supplied militants and suicide bombers for the war in Iraq and funded terrorist activities all over the world.

These comments were made about one of Washington’s key partners in the Arab world. The United States is hurling the same accusations at its number one enemies: Syria and Iran. What is the difference between a friend and a foe?

It is true that terrorists are coming to Iraq both from Saudi Arabia and Syria. Many of the militants captured in Iraq have Saudi passports. But this does not mean that the kingdom’s government supports them. (There is no evidence that Syria is backing them, either). Quite the contrary, the Saudis are interested in fighting terrorism.

But there are private funds helping the Islamic extremists in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Muslim world.

After September 11, 2001 the Gulf governments became much more cautious in their attitude to such funds and generally changed their attitude to the extremists, who are now primarily a major headache for them. Extremists are a problem for the entire Muslim world, rather than just the Saudis.

Does this mean that it is necessary to ban the sale of weapons in the Middle East?

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a telling comment on this subject. He told the Israelis that the Saudis and other moderate Arab countries would be able to get the weapons elsewhere, including from Russia, if America did not supply them.

The logic is understandable: it is better to try and control which weapons are sold and where, or put the sales under international supervision, say, the IAEA, rather than cede the market to other countries.

But Moscow is following the same logic in cooperating with Syria and Iran. Many arguments may be cited to explain the difference between Saudi Arabia and Iran, or Syria and Iraq, but they are largely politically motivated. The entire Middle East, or rather the Muslim world, is in the same boat. Weapons supplied to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan or the Palestinian National Authority may end up in terrorist hands just like weapons sold to Syria and Iran. There is no guarantee that if Russia leaves this niche tomorrow, it won’t be occupied by American or European defense companies.

The impossible becomes possible all too often. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, a former swore enemy of the West accused of supporting terrorism, can now be seen hugging French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He also hosted Tony Blair when the latter was British prime minister. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she wouldn’t mind visiting Libya. As a result, major Western oil companies have come back to that country; large-scale arms deals and the construction of a nuclear power plant are in the offing.

Obviously, all this has happened because Tripoli changed its foreign policy, abandoned the development of weapons of mass destruction and stopped lashing out at the West. But Gaddafi is the same man; yesterday, he profited from certain things, whereas now he stands to gain from others. Time and circumstance will dictate what he will be interested in tomorrow.

Or take an example from another region: North Korea. Today the world community, including the United States, is discussing ways of helping that country, but only yesterday Washington was calling it part of the Axis of Evil.

Everything is relative: friends and foes, and rules for trade in weapons. The United States supplying arms to Iran and Syria does not seem like such a fantastic notion, and as we see, regime change is not at all necessary. If such trade is profitable and politically feasible, why not go for it?

We could go on and on about whether arms trafficking is ethical at all. But if it cannot be stopped, let it be controlled as much as possible by respectable salesmen, be they the United States, France or Russia. Otherwise, as Robert Gates rightly noted, the niche may be occupied by completely different players.

Source: Novosti