Uganda Doctor: Eye Bleeding Fever Is ‘An Epidemic Already’

The horrific outbreak of “eye bleeding fever” in East Africa has forced one doctor to admit the disturbing truth. The fatal outbreak of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is “an epidemic already.”

Amid news that this disease is the same on the wiped out much of the Aztec population, Dr. Mukuzi Muhereza, from the Uganda Medical Association (UMA) warns that immediate action should be taken to prevent the spread of this disease, which has a 40% fatality rate, and as a virus, has no cure.

Dr. Muhereza warned that the disease is “highly contagious” and said the people “must be protected” to prevent it spreading. Muhereza’s warning comes amid a growing war of words between the UMA and Uganda’s health ministry, who have said there is no CCHF in the country, despite confirming a case.

This horrific infection causes victims to suffer from a burning fever before beginning to bleed from orifices including their eyes, anuses, and mouths. World Health Organisation (WHO) officials label any outbreak of CCHF as a major threat to public health. “CCHF outbreaks constitute a threat to public health services because of its epidemic potential, its high case fatality ratio (10-40%), its potential for nosocomial outbreaks and the difficulties in treatment and prevention,” WHO’s description of the virus reads.

And new reports say that the Aztecs fell victim to a strikingly similar disease.

Joe Joseph of The Daily Sheeple says that history could be repeating itself with the reemergence of this deadly disease. “Interestingly enough, it’s [the disease that killed the Aztecs] showing striking similarities to the eye bleeding plague over in Africa,” says Joseph. “If we use history as a guide here, and I would say that it’s pretty serious if a disease like this could wipe out 80% of the Aztec population. And we often wonder why it was that the Aztecs just basically, in a very short span of time, just disappeared…we are starting to see similar chains of events unfold in Africa.”

Dr. Muhereza is in agreement with Joseph.  This could be a huge problem for those in East Africa. “There are several cases that are suspected,” said Muhereza. “We, therefore, state that one confirmed case of CCHF is an epidemic already. The government should activate emergency levels, it should activate epidemic levels.”

Muhereza added that he was “disappointed” in how the outbreak had been handled by the health ministry, saying it was “very very unprofessional.”

OUTBREAK ALERT: ‘Eye Bleed Fever’ Kills 4 As Virus Sweeps Through Uganda

Panic is setting in after a nine-year-old girl died suddenly of “eye bleed fever” in Uganda.  This new virus is said to be even more dangerous than the “Black Death,” killing 40 percent of those who contract the disease, and four have died already.

East Africans are fearing this will be a health crisis of epic proportions.  Health officials rushed to put the body of the deceased girl in a bag and to decontaminate the home she lived in not long after the disease took her life. This particular illness, known as the “eye bleed fever” is said to be even more deadly than the horrific bubonic plague that ravaged Madagascar late last year. 

The feared outbreak comes only months after hundreds of people were killed by the plague in Madagascar in what was described as the worst bout in 50 years. The symptoms of this new disease include headaches, bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea, and muscle pains, according to the Daily Star Sunday. The virus also leaves people bleeding from their eyes, mouth, and anus. Symptoms escalate when a person infected with the virus comes down with a fever, then begins vomiting blood.

This virus is thought to be spreading through South Sudan.

This viral disease was first identified in 1944 and more than 5,000 cases of the deadly bug have been reported worldwide since then.  The widespread disease is caused by a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus) and a total of 52 countries have reported a substantial number of cases each year. The disease has made its presence known in Russia, throughout the Mediterranean, northwestern China, central Asia, southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.

Unlike the Black Death, which is a bacterial infection and can be effectively treated with antibiotics, “eye bleed fever” has no cure. So far, four people have died in the worsening outbreak in Uganda.  Health Chiefs continue to warn that the spread of this disease could be “catastrophic.” Around 60 people have now been infected in East Africa.

The viral disease is transmitted to humans through tick bites, or through contact with the blood of infected animals, especially during slaughter. Human-to-human transmission can occur resulting from close contact with bodily fluids.

Authorities at the hospital said the body would be buried by health teams because of “sensitivity” about the disease spreading. The three victims in South Sudan, who died in late December, had no history of close contact and unlike the young girl who died, their burials were unsupervised.

Nigeria, Venezuela, & USA - "We"re Worse Off Today Than 50 Years Ago"

Fifty years ago, the world was a very different place.

PCs and smartphones were the stuff of Sci-Fi and numerous nations found themselves at crucial crossroads in their evolution.

While Russia and US could arguably be back in another Cold War, Pew Research asked 43,000 around the world whether life is better (or worse) now than 50 years ago.

The results may surprise you...

At a country level, some of the most positive assessments of progress over the past 50 years are found in Vietnam (88% say life is better today), India (69%) and South Korea (68%) – all societies that have seen dramatic economic transformations since the late 1960s, not to mention the end of armed conflict in the case of Vietnam. A majority in Turkey (65% better) also share a sense of progress over the past five decades. In some of the more developed countries, publics also report that life is better today, including 65% in Japan and Germany, and 64% in the Netherlands and Sweden.

But not everyone is convinced that life today is an improvement over the past.

Americans are split on this issue: 41% say life is worse while 37% say better. Though the divide is, as with everything else today, extremely partisan...

Meanwhile, half or more in countries ranging from Italy (50%) and Greece (53%) to Nigeria (54%) and Kenya (53%) to Venezuela (72%) and Mexico (68%) say life is worse today.

There are wide variations in the assessment of the last 50 years across the globe...

Latin Americans stand out for their widespread negative assessment of progress over the past half-century. Venezuelans and Mexicans (72% and 68% life is worse) are the most downbeat, but nowhere in the region do more than half say life has improved for people like themselves.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, views of life today compared with 50 years ago vary substantially by country. Turkey reports the most progress in the region, with 65% saying life is better, followed by Israel, where 52% say the same about their country. Tunisians, Jordanians and Lebanese tend to say life has gotten worse for people like them, with Tunisians expressing the most widespread negativity (60%).

In sub-Saharan Africa, comparative assessments of present and past are more evenly divided. A median of 46% say life today is worse than five decades ago, compared with 42% who think life is better. Positive ratings of progress range from 47% “better” in South Africa to 36% in Ghana.

Nigeria and Kenya are the only countries surveyed in the region where more than half say life is worse (54% and 53%, respectively).

Europeans tend to see the past half-century as a period of progress. A regional median of 53% describes life as better today, compared with 30% who take the opposite view. Upbeat assessments are most common in Germany (65% better), the Netherlands (64%), Sweden (64%), Poland (62%) and Spain (60%). Greeks (53% worse) and Italians (50%) are the least convinced that life is better than 50 years ago.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to some of the most favorable assessments of progress. Vietnam (88% better) stands out, but views of life today vs. the past are also quite rosy in India (69%), South Korea (68%) and Japan (65%). Filipinos are the least sanguine about progress, with fewer than half (43%) saying life is better.

In North America, Canadians widely report progress over the past five decades (55%) while fewer Americans (37%) say the same about life in their country.

In the U.S., Republicans are more likely to say life is better today, compared with Democrats – an attitudinal shift in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president in November 2016.

Trump, Netanyahu, & Bin Salman: Destroyers Of The Neoliberal World Order

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The neoliberal world order has been in crisis for some years now, with no signs of recovery. Trump"s victory is an expression of a breach of trust between the American people and the national elites.

The perfect storm. This is what the situation in the Middle East looks like. More and more events in the region seem to be leading towards an epochal change in the delicate balance of power.

The balance of power in the Middle East was quickly altered following the victory over terrorism in Syria by Damascus and her allies. Moscow’s new role guarantees Iran virtually unlimited space to manoeuvre in the region. The new Iranian military bases in Syria match the agreement between Russia and Egypt for the creation of common areas of cooperation against terrorism.

In this complicated context, Donald Trump emerges as a destroyer of US interests in the region. Observing the cooperation between the Kurdish Syrian Democratic forces (SDF) and the Americans in Syria, we can see the genesis of all the problems between Ankara and Washington. Turkey used to employ political Islam (Muslim Brotherhood) as a way of destabilizing the Middle East and North Africa, once one of the central strategies of Obama and the State Department as well. Turkey now gravitates towards the multipolar milieu of Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. The role conferred by these three nations allows Erdogan to manoeuvre skilfully between allied nations as well as fomenters of Islamic extremism like Qatar.

Turkey is just an example of the delicate balance upon which the region rests. Moscow has become the sole mediator for all parties, and does not appear to have bad relations with any of them. The Saudis are going to buy the S-400 system from the Russians; Netanyahu is forced to try to influence Moscow in order to retain some kind of leverage over Iran, but to little avail. Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) has gone further, thanks to Trump and the green light of his son-in-law, arresting dozens of Saudi authorities and financiers (very close to Clinton and Obama), undertaking a genocide against Yemenis, arming Wahhabist Islamist terrorists in every corner of the region, and cutting off all relations with Qatar in a quasi-war that is turning out to be manifestly ineffective.

In this uncontrolled chaos, and among the factions loyal to the United States, Netanyahu is seeing Israeli missiles, launched from uncontested Lebanese airspace, being shot down in Syria. MBS cannot even force his pupil Hariri to resign; and even Saleh in Yemen was killed after betraying and abandoning the Houthis. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are finding themselves coming under fire from Houthi forces, facing the consequences of their senseless military choices closer to home. In Israel, the Netanyahu government is drowning under a sea of corruption scandals, demonstrators on the streets demanding his resignation. Are coloured revolutions returning to bite the master"s hand? In order for Saudi Arabia to avoid a similar scenario, made worse by a dearth in welfare as a result of the drop in oil prices as well as the coffers being emptied by wars, MBS has decided to arrest and rob all of his opponents. Trump does not seem to care about the consequences of these actions, taking care to coordinate events at the highest levels with Xi Jinping in Asia and Putin in the Middle East.

Trump has made a wise choice by renouncing the impossible goal of achieving global hegemony, aiming instead to sort out domestic problems. He is committed to the cause of his electors, and to this end seeks to extract as much money as possible from his allies in order to restart the US economy, aiming for re-election in 2020.

In this sense, the lack of interest from the Trump administration in certain areas of the globe is emblematic. While the chemistry between Trump and Modi appears to be good, the tensions between India and China, heightened by border disputes, seems to have nevertheless dissolved. Following on from the failure of the neocons to divide Russia and China, even the border tensions between India and China seem to be now dissipating. In addition, in Ukraine, even the decision to send lethal weapons to Kiev has been downplayed, and the country now faces a counter-coup led by Saakashvili (yes, him again). Ukraine is a country in a mess, experiencing first-hand the consequences of an evil Atlanticist posture with its vicious anti-Russia policies.

The rest of the world, with mounting bewilderment, watches on while all manner of decisions are made with no rhyme or reason, such as the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The only ones to lose in this scenario are naturally the closest allies of the United States: Israel and all the Arab countries united behind the Saudi (money) state that are now obliged to stand up for the Palestinian cause. Whether out of incompetence or a strategic inability to take a position, it matters little why these decisions are being made. Donald Trump, MBS and Netanyahu are exactly what the region and the world needed. Why? Because these three figures, thanks to their actions, have reunited the axis of resistance in the Middle East, fortified the Russian presence in the region, and opened the door to Asian money for reconstruction, focused on integrating the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. These three stooges have open the door to total defeat thanks to their reckless decisions.

New technologies, like the blockchain, as well as the revaluation of the importance of gold, accompany an inexorable competition to diversify from the US dollar. American military power is in crisis, but the US dollar remains the main reserve currency of the world. In addition to solidifying alliances with opponents by turning them into friends, Moscow and Beijing are aiming to create a new economic environment based on real value ??(currencies supported by gold) to undermine the financial speculative bubble brought on by the dollar, central banks, and all those financial systems that have created a totally fictitious economy completely disconnected from reality.

Trump is focused on the United States and appears uninterested in global affairs, which is a boon for global stability in the long term. In the meantime, Russia, Turkey and Iran are trying, with new economic and military solutions, to govern a region that is the epicentre of global chaos. Cooperation in disputed areas could reach a new level with Egyptian and Chinese soldiers working as peacekeepers. This seems to be another Russian masterpiece to accelerate the pacification of the region and widen the spectrum of nations involved militarily in the new multipolar world order.

The crisis of the neoliberal-neocon system is evident, although its media, ever useful for propaganda, tries to portray a false and artificial reality. The sense of despair intensifies when mainstream media tries to sell to the world audience the fairy tale of evil Russians trying to influence American elections. Nevertheless, other defamatory claims made, with no evidence offered, involve the Russian national Olympic team and allegations of doping. Their small victories, such as censorship against RT, show the true evil face of the old neoliberal world order.

MBS, Netanyahu and Trump represent all that is wrong in the West and the Middle East. The more they try to survive, the more they harm the interests of the neoliberal elites, only serving to reveal their true genocidal face (as in Yemen or Palestine) or even publicly admitting that their every political move is intended to favour the United States (Trump"s doctrine of "America First" lays it out quite openly and clearly).

The neoliberal order is based on a deception knowingly perpetrated by the mainstream media. They cloud the news to give a specific, partisan view of events. For those firmly opposed to such a warlike and dehumanizing drift, advantage must be taken of the opportunity presented by the unlikely trio of MBS, Trump and Netanyahu. By sweeping away the neoliberal hypocrisy, it is easier to show the brutality of the West’s ruling elite. This unlikely trio even achieved the more than unexpected effect of uniting almost all forces opposed to this warmongering world order, consolidating alliances and friendships in various geographical areas.

From North Africa to the Middle East, passing through South America and Asia, Washington is no longer the unique voice dictating all the decisions. Unlike in the past, Washington no longer chooses for others but instead prefers not to participate in order to avoid making plain its military and economic weakness. Even the withdrawal from the world stage is a strategy, especially if it is promoted as being done of one’s own volition, rather than being forced by circumstances.

 

Soros & The Myth Of European Democracy: A Shocking Revelation

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

It’s an open secret that the “Soros network” has an extensive sphere of influence in the European Parliament and in other European Union institutions.

The list of Soros has been made public recently. The document lists 226 MEPs from all sides of political spectrum, including former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt, seven vice-presidents, and a number of committee heads, coordinators, and quaestors. These people promote the ideas of Soros, such as bringing in more migrants, same-sex marriages, integration of Ukraine into the EU, and countering Russia. There are 751 members of the European Parliament. It means that the Soros friends have more than one third of seats.

George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and the founder and owner of Open Society Foundations NGO, was able to meet with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker with “no transparent agenda for their closed-door meeting”, and pointed out how EU proposals to redistribute quotas of migrants across the EU are eerily familiar to Soros’s own self-published plan for dealing with the crisis.

The billionaire financier believes that the European Union should receive millions of immigrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa, provide each one with an annual 15,000 EUR in aid, and resettle these migrants in member-states where they do not wish to go and are not necessarily welcome.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused the EU of “eating out of the hand” of Soros. He believes that the billionaire open borders campaigner is behind the attacks on Hungary. The reason is the government’s attempts to take legal action over a new law which requires foreign-supported ‘civil society’ organizations — many funded by Soros — to list their big overseas donors in a public register and be transparent about their funding sources in their publications. The Hungarian government is applying efforts to close the Budapest-based Central European University founded by Soros.

“The whole of the European Union is in trouble because its leaders and bureaucrats adopt decisions like this,” said Orbán.

 

“The people support the ideal of the European Union. At the same time, they can’t stand the leadership of the EU, because it insults the Member-States with things like this, and it abuses its power. Everyone in Europe can see that. This is why the European leadership is not respected.”

The Visegrad group is trying to stand tall under the EU pressure on migrants’ policy. The European Commission of Migration and Home Affairs is pushing a new bill to make migrants quotas obligatory. At least 30 Soros supporters work for the commission.

Many people listed in the document are known for attacks on Russia. For instance, Rebecca Harms, a MEP from German Green Party, regularly calls the European Parliament to toughen the sanctions regime against Moscow. Guy Verhofstadt blames Russia for almost each and every thing going wrong in Europe. His article Putting Putin in his Place made a lot of noise last year. In 2012, former Croatian Primer Tonino Picula, who was the head of an observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), slammed the Russian presidential election of 2012 as unfair, saying it was “skewed” in Vladimir Putin’s favor.

The Soros list sheds light on the question of what makes the EU leadership implement policies, which run counter to the interests of Europeans. The answer is corruption. The politicians bribed by Soros dance to his tune. They fight against the attempts of national leaders to protect the interests of their peoples. Quite often those who oppose such policies have to face the resistance of political elites of their own countries. The standoff between Hungarian PM Orbán and the Soros network is a good example to illustrate how it works. The European Parliament under the influence of Soros friends is pushing Europe to suicide by letting millions of migrants in.

It shows that the much-vaunted European democracy is a façade to hide the activities of power structure close to feudal system with local lord holding the reins. It can hardly be called the power of people. The publication of Soros list provides a clue to understanding who rules the EU and who instigates anti-Russia sentiments in Europe. Actually, this is the case when EU member countries like Hungary happen to be in the same boat with Russia opposing the very same US-based forces, while protecting their sovereignty and independence. This is the time for Europeans to think about transforming the system to do away with outside pressure.

A Failing Empire, Part 3: China & Russia Are Transforming Enemies Into Friends

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In the previous articles, the military and economic means by which the United States initially aimed for global hegemony were addressed, detailing how the US became the (declining) superpower it is today. In both analyses I highlighted how the threat of US military power is no longer credible, and how sanctions and the strong-arming behavior of corporate giants and international bodies (IMF, World Bank, BIS, etc) have ceased their effectiveness. This has made the United States increasingly irrelevant, leaving in the process a vacuum to be filled by emerging powers like China and Russia, which effectively ushers in a new world order based on multipolarity. In this third and final part of the series, I will dive into the specific events that show how the military, economic and diplomatic combination of Iran, Russia and China have forged, by known as well as less-known means, an alternative world order to the unipolar American one.

Russia, China and Iran have in recent years drawn enormous benefit from the declining military and economic power of the United States, further propelled by a general mistrust of Washington"s diplomatic and political abilities, both with Obama and now with Trump. The two previous articles showed that Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, even as they addressed different situations, shared similar interests and came to coordinate their military, economic and diplomatic strategy.

The success of the Euro-Asian triptych is based on the essential principle of transforming enemies into neutral players, neutral players into allies, and further improving relations with allied nations. In order for this project to be realized, economic, military and diplomatic efforts are variously employed, depending on the country and the general regional context. The flexibility shown by Moscow and Beijing in negotiations has delivered historic deals, not only in the energy sector but also in the military sphere and also in education and poverty reduction, as seen in Africa.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria are three countries that, when analysed individually, reveal this precise strategy of Russia, China and Iran. Particular attention is focused on the Middle East for several reasons. It is the region where America’s declining military power, unable to achieve its geopolitical objectives in Syria, meets with the progressive loss of Washington"s economic influence, highlighted by the increasingly precarious position of the petrodollar that is about to be challenged by petroyuan deals between Saudi Arabia and China.

From Enemies to Neutrals

The military defeat of Syria"s enemies was mainly due to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) together with Iran (plus Hezbollah) and Russia"s military cooperation, together with Beijing’s diplomatic and economic support. Thanks to the strategy adopted by Putin in Syria, Russia was able to stop the advanced project of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, France, the United Kingdom, Jordan and Israel to dismantle Syria. The Russian Federation gradually entered into the Syrian conflict, and the military results immediately favored the axis of resistance, the US military unable to intervene directly to change the course of events.

The consequences of this choice have led historic allies in the region to doubt Washington’s real commitment to the region and America’s military ability to intervene in a conflict in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and change its course in favour of Riyadh, Doha, Ankara or Tel Aviv. The new Trump administration has showed itself not to live up to the expectations of Saudi regional hegemonic plans, even though the Kingdom agreed to buy up to $110 billion worth of US weapons and commit to further investments in the US.

Riyadh is in an even tighter position than one would ordinarily think. It has to individually support the weight of the petrodollar, which is increasingly shaky thanks to the Chinese desire to eliminate forms of payment in US dollars by switching to the petroyuan. Moreover, Riyadh sees little tangible benefits to the US militarily backing its aggressive anti-Iran policies, even though Trump has shown to different ideas than Obama on the Iran deal. Saudi Arabia shares a common interest with Israel in the region with regard to their shared anger concerning Washington’s diminishing effectiveness in the region.

From the Saudi point of view, everything went downhill within a relatively short period. The defeat in Syria that coincided with the agreement on the nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 countries. In both these scenarios, Riyadh feels the profound betrayal of its old North American ally. The Chinese economic pressure on Riyadh to accept yuan payments for oil, coupled with the growing ability of Moscow to effectively intervene in the region, and the renewed diplomatic and political role of Iran thanks to the JCPOA agreement, has left Riyadh on a certain path to destruction. The only solution is a strategic change that could affect the region in a significant manner.

The visit of Saudi King Salman to Moscow to sign trade agreements (an investment fund of over 1 billion dollars has been created) was of symbolic importance. The King’s actions, conducted in person, reflected recognition of Russia’s new dominant role in the Middle East as a result of American intentions to withdraw influence in the region. The need for the Saudi king to appear in person in Moscow also directly concerns the succession to the throne, with Mohammed bin Salman to inherit the keys to the kingdom, in spite of the disasters in Yemen and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis caused by the clash with Qatar. In a situation of extreme weakness, especially with oil prices so low, the Saudi monarchy is left with few cards to play and has to initiate a dialogue with Moscow and possibly start some kind of cooperation in various fields related to energy and investment. Initially, the main excuse for the Moscow meeting between Putin and the Saudi king was to coordinate the production and sale of petroleum and gas, a necessity for both countries given falling oil prices over the last 24 months.

The first goal achieved by Putin and the Saudi king appears to be a spike in oil prices to acceptable levels, following Washington and Riyadh’s failed strategy to bankrupt Moscow by plunging oil prices.

Secondly, the meeting focused on the acceptance of Riyadh’s defeat in Syria, recognizing Assad as the only legitimate leader of the Syrian Arab Republic.

A lot is developing behind the scenes, and this is evident with Riyadh now recognizing a political solution as the only way to end the conflict, something never mentioned by Saudi state representatives. It will be very difficult for Riyadh to give up the regime-change project, even if the political, diplomatic, military and economic pressure from China and Russia increases. A common faith accompanies Riyadh and Tel Aviv, as shown with both repeatedly trying to persuade Putin to abandon his friendship with Iran and Assad, but without success. The loyalty demonstrated by Moscow to Tehran and Damascus has also had a positive effect on the Saudis, who must recognize that while Putin may have different views on certain issues, he is a man of his word; unlike the United States, where new administrations may sometimes throw friends under the bus, Putin maintains his promises, even under extreme pressure. In this sense, Trump"s decision to decertify the Iran deal is a demonstration of good will to Israel and Saudi Arabia by the new administration.

Saudi Arabia finds itself with very low monetary reserves as a result of the lowered price of oil and involvement in several wars. To add to this is a military defeat in Syria and an even bigger debacle in Yemen. To cap it all off, the United States, its most valuable ally, is increasingly disinterested in the fate of the Saudi monarchy and the kingdom, thanks to increasing energy independence as a result of fracking. Adding to this, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has split as a result of the economic warfare against Qatar, representing another example of Washington not supporting Riyadh to the full extent the monarchy in Saudi Arabia would have been expecting. The reasoning for Riyadh is as simple as it gets. If Washington is not able to support Saudi Arabia militarily, but Riyadh has to bear the burden economically, then the Kingdom is in enormous trouble and needs alternatives like Russia and China. It is unthinkable for Saudi Arabia to continue supporting petrodollar hegemony while Iran becomes a regional leader in the Middle East.

The best way is by negotiating with the main players, and Russia looks like the perfect mediator, as recently announced. China is just waiting for all these disputes to settle down to bring to bear its  economic power to definitively relegate to the past the last forty years of chaos in the region stemming from Saudi-Iranian rivalry.

For Riyadh, even if the attempt to separate Russia and Iran were to fail, it would nevertheless bring about relations that send a clear signal to the West. The purchase of S-400s is a clear demonstration of expanding Russian influence in the Middle East, and Riyadh perhaps has an understandable fear of American retaliation in the event that it starts to change course regarding the sale of oil in currencies other than the dollar.

Moscow has achieved a diplomatic miracle with Saudi Arabia, thanks to the military efforts in Syria, Chinese economic pressure through the issuing of petroyuan, and Iranian diplomatic success, stemming especially from the nuclear energy agreement, which has served to rehabilitate Tehran on the international political scene.

The purchase of advanced Russian weapons systems sends a clear signal and indicates that the Saudi kingdom is ready to assume a more neutral position and has started to knock on the door of the multipolar world, an acknowledgement of Chinese economic power and the military-technological predominance of the Russian Federation.

From Neutral to Friends

In transforming itself into a more neutral country, Riyadh may be attempting to balance American economic and military influence with Russian and Chinese support. The importance for Russia and China in having a neutral country with great spending capacity in the region should also be noted. In the case of Turkey, Russian intervention in Syria, coupled with Turkish aspirations to become a Euro-Asian energy centre, progressively pushed Moscow and Ankara together. As a result of effective diplomatic work following Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet, relations have gradually improved, occurring in parallel to the operational success achieved by the Syrian army and Russian Air Force against Turkish-backed terrorists. The military defeat of Turkey was already clear twelve months ago. In the last three to four months, Erdogan seems to have changed priorities, focusing on the Kurdish issue and on growing relations with Qatar (the political movement of the Muslim Brotherhood is key in both countries and essential to their relationship). In the meantime, Turkey is distancing herself from her NATO allies, gravitating more and more towards the orbit of the “axis of resistance” that consists of Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The Syria peace talks held in Astana laid the foundation for diplomatic efforts by Tehran and Moscow to persuade Ankara to abandon the military option (even though this was already clear once Russia decided to intervene). Instead, Ankara would be encouraged to open up important energy deals between Ankara and Moscow. It seems that Ankara has now decided to become an energy hub, carrying Turkish Stream gas from Russia to Europe as well as gas from Qatar and Iran. It even seems that China has every intention of connecting with the Turkish facilities for the supply of gas and oil, thus increasing Ankara’s role as a central energy-transit hub for the region.

The other aspect that has firmly convinced Erdogan to yield on Syria concerns the Kurdish issue. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), consisting mainly of Kurdish fighters, operate in Syria under the command and on behalf of the US-led international coalition. Ankara has nominated the Kurds of the SDF as an armed extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group in Turkey. This divergence between Washington and Ankara has continued to grow, even during the Trump administration, contrary to forecasts during the US election period.

With the progressive use of the SDF in Syria by the international coalition headed by the US, Trump and Erdogan’s strategies have ended up clashing. Trump needs to give his domestic audience the impression that the US is devoted to fighting ISIS, even if this means relying on Kurdish soldiers that entails severing relations with Turkey. Erdogan sees this as a matter of national security. The situation has escalated to a point where a few days ago, a diplomatic dispute led to the suspension of the issuing of visas from the respective embassies in Ankara and Washington. Erdogan considers American aid to the Kurds as a betrayal of the worst kind from a NATO ally. A natural reaction to these actions by the US, therefore, was the the agreement between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey to preserve territorial integrity vis-a-vis the Kurdish issue.

The blessing of the Chinese and Russians is evident in this situation. In order to pacify the region, rebuild it and incorporate it into the One Belt One Road project, the Maritime Silk Road, and the North-South Transport Corridor, wars have to stop and diplomacy must prevail. For Ankara, it is a unique opportunity to exit the war in Syria without appearing as one of the defeated factions (hence the Turkish participation in the Astana talks with Russia and Iran). At the same time, Turkey emphasizes the importance of its geographical position as a centre for energy distribution on the Eurasian supercontinent. This is all at the expense of the US, with Turkey breaking free from Washington’s pressure.

Moscow has already removed all sanctions against Turkey, and vice versa, greatly increasing trade with considerable prospects for growth in the coming years. As for weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, Russian influence is expanding, thanks to the S-400 systems in the process of being sold to Ankara over the vehement protests of many NATO countries. The S-400 system is a further effort to deter US aggression, but is also the first indication of Ankara’s will to diversify, this time militarily, constituting a pillar of the new multipolar world order.

Ankara, after numerous diplomatic and military failures, has rebuilt its role in the region alongside Iran and Qatar, in a context where its partnership with Moscow and Beijing will guarantee Erdogan a margin of maneuver to progressively disengage from the NATO system that has brought so many problems to the country. A future entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could seal Ankara’s passage into the multipolar world, becoming in the process a fully fledged ally of Moscow and Beijing. In the meantime, it is already possible to say that Moscow and its allies have succeeded in the unlikely task of turning a nation that was on the brink of a direct involvement in Syria in the effort to remove Assad into one of the most important guarantors of Syria’s territorial integrity. Erdogan has agreed to Assad staying in power into the near future, and has even agreed to help fight terrorists in Syria, as evidenced with the recent Turkish military operations in Idlib.

How deep these new friendships between Moscow, Riyadh and Ankara are yet to be tested. Erdogan and the Saudi monarchs have been known not to keep their word. At it stands, this appears to be an economic, political and military masterpiece of the Iranian, Russian and Chinese triad. The war in Syria has almost been won; the terrorist groups supported by the Saudis and Turks have been neutralized; and the conditions for a full Eurasian economic and military integration of Riyadh and Ankara have been set.

Supporting Friends in need.

Ultimately, it is worth pointing out the contribution of Russia, China and Iran to the Syrian government and people. Over the six years of aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, Iran has never failed to contribute in terms of manpower, equipment and logistical support in the battle against terrorism. Moscow, in the early stages of the conflict, even before intervening directly, took steps to settle the Syrian foreign debt to Russia, and in fact lent money by providing armaments, energy and logistics as a way of actively contributing to the defeat of terrorists in Syria.

The People"s Republic of China has already paved the way for the future of Syria in economic terms, declaring the country an important transit route and a final destination of a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese economic power will allow Damascus to rebuild a nation devastated by six years of terrorism and foreign aggression. With Russian military capabilities, Damascus will have all the necessary means to end the conflict and stabilize the country, laying the foundation to prevent any future Western aggression. From a political and diplomatic point of view, the joint actions of Tehran, Beijing and Moscow, together with Damascus, are an integral part of the axis that stretches from Iran to Iraq and Syria and arrives at the Mediterranean, or could even go to Turkey. With the combination of economic, military and political elements, Syria has survived almost unprecedented aggression, emerging as the winner, thus ensuring its ability to determine its future autonomously without external impositions.

*  *  *

Series Conclusions

The path traced by Moscow, Beijing and Tehran is expected to stabilize the Middle East, thanks to the resolution of the Syrian conflict. Some key elements of this global change we are witnessing are: Chinese economic pressure on the Saudis to accept payment for oil in yuan; the eradication of terrorism in Iraq and neighbouring countries, thereby circumventing sanctions imposed on Iran by the US and its allies; and transforming Turkey into a regional energy-distribution centre.

The RPC intervenes economically in a number of regions, particularly in the Middle East, to support Russian military power through money, diplomacy, economic investment (OBOR) and by providing liquidity to allies, as seen with Moscow when it was hit with Western sanctions. For Beijing, the decline in terrorism is a key factor in fostering China"s development of the Silk Road 2.0 infrastructure, allowing Beijing to enter into areas destroyed in the Middle East to offer easy reconstruction plans. At the moment, Syria, Egypt, Libya and Pakistan seem to hold great importance for China"s future strategies.

Russia and China lead organizations such as the BRICS, the UEE, the SCO, and the AIIB. The grand strategy is to support the creation of an alternative to the US dollar-based neoliberal world order and to contain the effects of declining US empire. Nations will increasingly have to choose between two systems: whether the multipolar world order, based on friendship and win-win cooperation, or the unipolar one, based on the America’s declining military and economic power.

Strong Chinese economic support, together with Russian military might as well as Iran’s importance in the Middle Eastern region, are successfully shielding countries like Syria from American military interventions, driving a wedge between old US allies and paving the way for Washington’s planned economic and military isolation in the region. Thus, countries similarly facing US pressure, such as South Korea, Mexico and Venezuela, will increasingly gravitate toward the multipolar world led by Russia and China, accelerating the decline and influence of the United States beyond the Middle East.

The multipolar world order is here to stay. The US is no longer the lone superpower but rather one among two other nuclear-armed powers. The sooner the US realizes this, the better it will be for humanity and for peace around the world.

Preening Politicians & Europe's Lost Testicles

Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

Disarmed and docile Europeans pose no meaningful threat to their governments’ depredations.

All sorts of reasons have been advanced for declining birthrates. SLL spotlights Europe as an advanced case and offers a hypothesis: its testicles have gone missing.

What does it do to a continent when a country 3,000 miles and an ocean away strikes the decisive blows in two of its cataclysmic wars? What does it do to that continent when that distant power assumes control over much of its defense? At a primal level, the very essence of manhood is the ability to defend one’s self and loved ones. Perhaps ceding responsibility for doing so is not emasculation, but it made Europe the little brother who must rely on big brother to fight his battles.

Naturally, big brother calls the tune. During the Cold War, that meant accepting one’s place under the US defense umbrella and toeing the US line on the Soviet Union. Only French President Charles de Gaulle challenged US domination, and that was more show than substance. With a nuclear arsenal and geographic proximity, the Soviet Union posed an existential threat to Europe, even more than it did to the US. If the Soviet Union had invaded during the de Gaulle era, France would have quickly rejoined a US-led alliance.

European politicians had another reason for accepting US domination. They were erecting the world’s most generous welfare states. Money saved on defense spending was spent on benefits. With little protest Europeans also swallowed high and steeply progressive tax rates in return for state-provided largess.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 posed an existential threat to the US military-industrial-intelligence complex. NATO could have been disbanded and responsibility for Europe’s defense handed back to Europe. The US could have significantly cut military spending. It took ten years and 9/11, but the complex overcame the threat and preserved the status quo. It ginned up a story that Islamic extremism posed a danger to the West of the same magnitude as the former Soviet Union.

Islam has historically been riven with sectarian strife, notably the Sunni-Shia schism. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were living in caves when the US and United Kingdom invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Not one Islamic nation, and certainly none of the Islamic non-state groups, had any appreciable industrial capacity. Only one Islamic government, Pakistan’s, had nuclear weapons, and its arsenal was tiny compared to the West’s and Israel’s. To rate the Islamic “threat” as anything but minuscule compared to that posed by the Soviet Union was absurd

The only way the West could lose to Islam was if it defeated itself (see “How to Defeat Your Enemies,” SLL). To their credit, the governments of Germany, France, and New Zealand refused to swallow the US’s concocted rationales for the 2003 Iraq invasion—that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was fomenting terrorism—or support it. Globally an estimated 36 million people protested the invasion. The Guinness Book of Records lists a protest by three million in Rome as the largest ever antiwar rally.

We’ll see what happens if the US reneges on the Iran Nuclear Agreement, but to date 2003 remains the highpoint of European opposition to big brother. If they had known the consequences of US incursions into the Middle East and Northern Africa, they would have protested even more vociferously. The US has made a complete hash of it. The war against terror creates more terrorists, and turning the area into a hodgepodge of hell holes has prompted millions to flee, often to Europe.

They find a continent that economically has seen better days. The welfare state guarantees everything but the opportunity to work hard, keep what you earn, and make a better life for yourself. State favored companies use regulation to squelch smaller, less-connected competitors and stop innovative startups before they get started. The European Union is a bureaucratic, centralizing engine run amuck, creating more daunting obstacles to companies and entrepreneurs. There’s the usual corruption that comes with centralized bureaucracies. Monetary authorities are all-in on debt monetization and interest rate suppression policies that discourage honest savings and productive investment but encourage stock, bond, property, and derivatives speculation.

No surprise then that the European economy hasn’t grown much, if it all, the last few decades. Nor that it’s eating America and Asia’s dust in high-tech. It’s not even a surprise that this state of affairs evokes little protest among Europeans. When the government provides cradle-to-grave, you shut up and get with the program. Even if means you live with your parents into you’re thirties or forties, never have a real job or meaningful occupation, never marry or start a family, and nobody can remember one memorable thing you’ve done at your state-provided funeral.

Instead of taking an honest look at why Europeans are not having babies, politicians and other well-credentialed idiots have decreed that immigration is just the trick for declining birth rates and aging populations. They’ve been lucky; big brother America’s interventionist policies have created all sorts of refugees.

Islamic immigration is a focal point for all that ails Europe. Since 2003, there’s been no real opposition to the US’s refugee-creating policies. The refugees have found not just refuge, but state-provided benefits. Europe’s so-called leaders, apparatchiks, and media assure the population that Muslims bear no animus towards Europe. The fable goes that they will readily assimilate and become part of the taxpaying work force, forestalling the impending insolvency of the welfare state.

Only actual facts and a few alternative media outlets challenge this codswallop, for the most part Europeans have bought it. Are they fooled or neutered? The continent responsible for much of Western Civilization probably didn’t get stupid in a generation, which argues for the latter.

The isolated sparks of opposition are met with opprobrium, threats, fines and criminal sentences. Not a month goes by in which a prominent European politician doesn’t call for restrictions on the internet, the one forum that’s not completely cowed (or is it steered?). A few Eastern European nations are the resistance, pariahs. It wouldn’t be the worst thing for them if Angela Merkel-led “proper Europe” cut them off entirely.

One has to wonder if Europe’s preening politicians would be quite so obliviously oppressive (having old ladies beat up to stop them from voting and the like), if Europe’s population would be so docilely delusional, and if its Islamic immigrants would be better behaved if guns were as available as they are in the US. Pseudo-intellectuals smirk that guns are “potent phallic symbols.” True perhaps, but as noted, defending one’s self and loved ones is the first responsibility of the phallically endowed. Guns are a lot more effective than Tasers, knives, baseball bats, or calling the police.

There have been odious incidents of European women being groped, stripped, and sexually assaulted by Islamic criminals in public venues, unchallenged by what passes for European manhood. Just as odious is the pressure brought to bear on those seeking to publicize such incidents. In the US, your “intellectual” credentials aren’t in order unless you hail Europe as a “model.” It’s a model all right, for what happens when governments have no fear of their citizens. Europe’s emasculation is a potent argument for full firearms freedom in the United States.

Bloomberg: "Putin Is The New Master Of The Middle East"

With the Trump administration lately focused mostly on domestic policy - even as Mueller"s ongoing Russian probe continues to hang over Trump"s head - US power and influence in the Middle East has found itself in retreat, a continuation of unsuccessful and/or failed policies implemented by the Obama administration, resulting in a power vacuum that has to be filled, and one country has emerged willing to take America"s spot.

As Bloomberg writes today, "the Israelis and Turks, the Egyptians and Jordanians - they’re all beating a path to the Kremlin in the hope that Vladimir Putin, the new master of the Middle East, can secure their interests and fix their problems."

And now, none other than Saudi Arabia is the latest to make friendly overtures toward the Kremlin, when Saudi King Salman visits Moscow on Wednesday, the first monarch of the oil-rich kingdom to do so. At the top of his agenda will be reining in Iran, a close Russian ally seen as a deadly foe by most Gulf Arab states.

As Bloomberg concedes, until very recently, Washington stood alone as the go-to destination for such leaders. Now, however, "American power in the region is perceptibly in retreat" a testament to the success of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, which has not only succeeded in squashing the local Islamic State threat, but kept President Bashar al-Assad in power after years of U.S. insistence that he must go.

“It changed the reality, the balance of power on the ground,” said Dennis Ross, America’s former chief Mideast peace negotiator who advised several presidents from George H. W. Bush to Barack Obama. “Putin has succeeded in making Russia a factor in the Middle East. That’s why you see a constant stream of Middle Eastern visitors going to Moscow.”

Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

There"s also money: as RT writes, a joint Russian-Saudi fund to invest in the energy sector will be announced during the forthcoming visit of the Saudi King to Moscow, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told the Al Arabiya TV Channel. According to Novak, the basic agreement to establish the $1 billion fund has already been reached.

Novak said Russia is "focused on developing cooperation with Saudi Arabia not only within the OPEC framework but also outside the cartel,” including the energy sector, the electric power sector, and renewable energy resources. Additionally, Moscow and Riyadh are expected to announce a new investment platform and manufacturing projects. Last week, the Director-General of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev praised significant results in investment cooperation between the RDIF and Saudi Arabia"s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

In 2015 the two sovereign funds agreed to a partnership, establishing a joint $10 billion platform and inking several investment deals. RDIF has also signed a cooperation agreement with the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), to jointly search for investment projects in Russia. SAGIA is supposed to bring Russian companies to the Arabian market.

Still, Putin"s success will bring problems, because as conflicting demands pile up, it won"t be easy to send all the visitors home satisfied. “The more you try to adopt a position of dealing with all sides, the more you find that it’s hard to play that game,’’ Ross said.

To be sure, Moscow was a major power in the Middle East during the Cold War, arming Arab states against Israel, however as communism collapsed in the late 1980s, so did Russia"s influence. When the US invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, Russia was a bystander, unable to do more than protest. However, the tables began to turn in 2013, when the U.S. under Obama decided not to attack Assad. Two years later, Putin sent troops and planes to defend him.

For the most part, America’s local allies were firmly in the Assad-must-go camp. They were disillusioned when U.S. military might wasn’t deployed to force him out.

Russia’s clout in the region has grown “because Obama allowed it to,’’ said Khaled Batarfi, a professor at Alfaisal University’s branch in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “Unfortunately he withdrew to a great extent from the Middle East.’’

That view is widespread. It was bluntly expressed last month by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spent years urging American action against Assad. Talks with the U.S. “couldn’t get any results,’’ he said.

And, as discussed here previously, Turkey has now alligned with Russia and Iran in a plan to de-escalate the conflict. It’s “achieving a result,’’ Erdogan said.

Two years ago, tensions between Putin and Erdogan had threatened to boil over, after the Turkish military shot down a Russian jet on the Syrian border. Last Friday, the Russian president flew to Ankara for dinner with his Turkish counterpart and “friend,’’ who’s agreed to buy Russian S-400 air defense missile systems, riling fellow NATO members.

Meanwhile, in the most bizarre reversal, the Saudis, who had financed rebels fighting against Assad as well as radical, Al Qaeda splinter groups and according to Hillary Clinton, the Islamic State itself, are cooperating with Russia in coaxing the opposition to unite for peace talks – which will likely cement the Syrian leader in power, even as Saudi Arabia has splintered from its long-time ally Qatar.

America’s Middle East allies mostly welcomed the change of U.S. president, and Donald Trump’s tough talk about challenging Iran. So far, though, he’s stuck close to his predecessor’s policy in Syria, concentrating on fighting Islamic State not Assad.

So, as the goal of regime-change in Syria recedes, priorities have shifted. The Saudis and other Arab Gulf powers are urging Russia to reduce Iran’s role in Syria, where Hezbollah and other Shiite militias supported by Tehran have provided shock troops for Assad’s offensive.

“Russia is better off not to be on one side of it. That’s the key message," Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a U.A.E.-based political analyst, told Bloomberg. “Here is the king, representing Arab Gulf countries, representing a lot of geopolitical weight, coming to Russia. And Russia has to take that into consideration.’’

However any expectations the Saudi monarch may have of inserting a wedge between Russia and Iran will soon be dashed: Putin won’t shift his stance on Iran to accommodate Saudi wishes, according to a person close to the Kremlin quoted by Bloomberg. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has visited Russia four times in the past 18 months, has also found it hard to sway the Russian leader.

In August, Netanyahu told Putin that Iran’s growing foothold in Syria is “unacceptable.’’ In September he told CNN that the Iranians are trying to “colonize’’ Syria with the aim of “destroying us and conquering the Middle East."

Russia, though, refused his demand for a buffer zone inside Syria that would keep the forces of Iran and Hezbollah at least 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Israeli border, a person familiar with the matter in Moscow said. Instead, Russia offered a 5-kilometer exclusion zone, the person said.

Relishing its newly-found power broker position, Russia also rejected a U.S. demand to make the Euphrates river a dividing line between Syrian government troops and U.S.-supported forces in eastern Syria. This led to a race to capture territory from retreating Islamic State fighters in a strategic and oil-rich border region, and is currently manifesting itself in the scramble to control Drer Ezzor.

At the same time, Russia has succeeded in keeping open channels of communication to all sides, from Iran to Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian radical Islamist group Hamas to Israel, said Ayham Kamel, Middle East and North Africa director at Eurasia Group.

While Russia didn’t give way on the buffer zone, it has a tacit understanding that permits Israel to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah in Syria, said Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research group set up by the Kremlin.

It’s been mediating, along with Egypt, to end the decade-old inter-Palestinian rift between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Putin invited rival Libyan factions to Moscow, after a series of peace efforts by other countries came to nothing. Russia has become a leading investor in oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan, and was one of the few world powers to refrain from condemning its recent vote on independence.

What is most surprising, is that in economic terms, the contest for influence looks dramatically one sided: America’s GDP is 13 times Russia’s. However, that’s not always the decisive factor, said Alexander Zotov, Moscow’s ambassador to Syria from 1989 to 1994. “Sometimes you have two boxers coming out to the ring, one is huge with bulging muscles and the other is smaller but nimble, and has a better technique,’’ he said.

Making matters worse, the nimble fox has managed to, supposedly, sway US elections courtesy of $100,000 in Facebook ads, when both the Clinton and Trump campaign spent hundreds of millions.

While economics are a limiting factor for Russia, Putin has another material advantage over American presidents according to Paul Salem, vice president of the Middle East Institute in Washington. He has no Congress to worry about, and no elections that he risks losing. Putin has been around for almost two decades, a long time in geopolitics, with “very consistent leadership, a consistent message,” Salem said.

“He says what he does, he does what he says.”

Russia’s rise came as U.S. policy makers grew preoccupied with Asia, and the American public tired of Middle East wars – something both Obama and Trump acknowledged.

To be sure, “Washington remains the indispensable power in the region,’’ said Eurasia’s Kamel. But its commitment to traditional alliances is weakening, he said, and that’s encouraged regional leaders to hedge their bets.

As Bloomberg concludes, “The Kremlin is on everyone’s mind."

Kurdish Vote Won't Spark A Sustained Oil Price Rally

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Turkey and Iraq have stepped up the pressure on Kurdistan after the semi-autonomous region of Iraq voted for independence. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to block Kurdish oil exports through Turkish territory, while Baghdad called for an international boycott of Kurdish oil sales.

The Kurdish people appeared to have voted overwhelmingly for independence on Monday, pending final results. But the Kurdish Regional Government has said that the vote, which won’t be recognized internationally, will be a starting point for negotiations with Baghdad, and not the culmination of real independence.

Turkey’s President called the referendum “illegal, null, and void,” and threatened to shut down exports through the pipeline that runs from Kurdistan to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

“Let’s see where they are going to drain off the petrol — we control the valve,” he said. “Once you turn off the valve, it will be over.”

The referendum was also opposed by Iran, as well as the United States, which argued that it would destabilize the region.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday that all foreign countries should not purchase oil from Kurdistan, arguing that the sales are illegal if not conducted under the auspices of the Iraqi central government.

Iraq “asks the neighboring countries and the countries of the world to deal exclusively with the federal government of Iraq in regards to entry posts and oil,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said.

Kurdistan produces just over 600,000 bpd, or about 15 percent of Iraq’s total output. Most contentiously are the oil fields around disputed areas in Kirkuk, which the Kurds took control of in 2014 when ISIS burst onto the scene and rapidly seized swathes of territory from the Iraqi government.

“The Iraqi government is not going to stand still and watch Kirkuk’s integration into Kurdistan, and the mobilization that we’re seeing is an Iraqi effort to reassert control over the contested territory,” Ayham Kamel, director of the Middle East and North Africa at Eurasia Group, said in a Bloomberg interview. Ethnic clashes “might become a pretext for much wider mobilization,” he added.

Kurdistan is largely at the mercy of its much more powerful neighbors. The bulk of the region’s finances come from oil exports, much of which go through a pipeline across Turkey to the Mediterranean. If Turkey takes draconian action to shut down Kurdish oil exports, it would cripple the Kurdish economy.

“If this boycott call proves successful, a good 500,000 fewer barrels of crude oil per day would reach the market,” Commerzbank said in a note.

The threat of the boycott, as well as the possible shuttering of oil flows through Turkey, led to a significant increase in crude prices, which touched two-year highs on Monday. Brent rose above $58 per barrel, the highest price in more than two years, although prices fell back slightly on Tuesday.

A more serious scenario would be some sort of military clash between Kurdistan and its neighbors. Turkey conducted military exercises along its border with Kurdistan, and Turkish President Erdogan ominously warned that “we may arrive one night, suddenly.”

Kurdish President Massoud Barzani called for calm and diplomatic negotiations, but on Tuesday the Iraqi government ruled out talks. “Barzani is playing a dangerous game of poker,” Anthony Skinner, a director with U.K.-based forecasting company Verisk Maplecroft, told Bloomberg by email. “He is counting on Turkey, Iran and the U.S. not being able to sustain a united stance on pressuring the KRG.”

The gamble is risky, but if the Kurds can stave off retaliation, there is an upside. Because any clash would be a lop-sided affair, given the lack of international support for formal Kurdish independence, military hostilities are unlikely. Turkey could shut down the pipeline that carries Kurdish oil, but Ankara also benefits from tariffs it receives for allowing those shipments to proceed. Baghdad has much less influence, so if Turkey declines to follow through on its threats, the independence vote could give the Kurdish government some leverage with Baghdad in negotiations over revenue sharing, a longstanding grievance that has not been addressed. The Iraqi government has tried for years to halt Kurdish oil exports, but to no avail.

The Kurdish government also recently resolved some outstanding issues with energy companies operating within its borders, restructuring debts and sending payments to some drillers. Rosneft just announced plans to invest $1 billion in Kurdistan to build a natural gas pipeline, a move that comes on the heels of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of loans to the Kurdish government earlier this year, to be paid back by future oil sales. The recent deals bolster Kurdistan’s energy outlook.

In short, the belligerent rhetoric surrounding the independence vote between Kurdistan and its neighbors could have already peaked. That might mean that the case for higher crude oil prices will need to come from elsewhere; oil bulls cannot base their bets on supply disruptions from Kurdistan.

"It Is Our Very Existence That Is Unbearable To Jihadists"

Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,

• The Islamist attacks against Spain, Finland and Germany unmasked the central problem: Pacifism will not protect Europe from either Islamization or terror attacks. Spain and Germany were, in fact, among the most reluctant countries in Europe to take an active role in the anti-ISIS coalition.


• The Spanish press did not participate in a discussion of the Mohammed cartoons; no Spanish writer was accused of "Islamophobia" and no Spanish personality was put under police protection for "criticizing Islam". It seemed as if Spain were not even interested in what was at stake in Islamist attacks on Europe"s very existence. No Spanish city made headlines for having multicultural ghettos, as in France and Britain. The attack in Barcelona should have ended this illusion. Terrorists do not need an excuse to butcher "infidels".


• The sad conclusion seems to be that that jihadists do not need a "reason" to kill Westerners. They attack equally France, which conducts military operations in the Middle East and North Africa, and countries such as Spain and Germany, which are neutral.

In 24 hours, Spain suffered two major terror attacks. A jihadist cell killed 15 people in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils. In the past year, Germany was the other European country hit hard by armed Islamists. First, a jihadist plowed a large truck through a Christmas market in central Berlin and murdered 12 people. Then a man wielding a knife murdered one person during an attack at a supermarket in Hamburg.

One day after the carnage in Barcelona, another terror attack took place in Turku, Finland. Two women were murdered in the market square of the country"s oldest city. Jihad -- in Finland?

Jihad -- in Finland? Terrorists do not need an excuse to butcher "infidels". On August 18, an Islamic terrorist murdered two women in in Turku, Finland, during a stabbing spree in the city"s market square. Pictured: The Aura River in Turku. (Image source: Arthur Kho Caayon/Wikimedia Commons)

The Islamist attacks against Spain, Germany and Finland unmasked the central problem: Pacifism will not protect Europe from either Islamization or terror attacks. Spain and Germany were, in fact, among the most reluctant countries in Europe to take an active role in the anti-ISIS coalition.

John Vinocur of the Wall Street Journal recently defined Germany as "a country where the army and air force basically do not fight". And Spanish politicians, since the 2004 train bombings, have not backed U.S. and NATO operations in countries such as Libya and Mali. Spain has been described as a "reluctant partner" in the anti-ISIS coalition.

Spain and Germany contribute less than others to NATO"s efforts. US President Donald Trump has made clear that the existence of NATO is contingent on members meeting their agreed-upon obligations of spending 2% of GDP on defense. Spain spends less than half of that -- 0.91 percent. Germany does only a little better -- at 1.19 percent. Finland never even joined NATO.

The surprise of the Finnish élite over the Turku attack was noted by The Financial Times:

"The Nordic country of 5m people does not feature prominently in jihadi invective against the west. Despite Finland"s armed forces having occasionally supported Nato missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the country"s longstanding nonaligned and peaceable military status has insulated it from most blowback from crises in the Middle East."

In 2004, al-Qaeda, for the first time, was able to effect a regime change in Europe after committing terror atrocities on Madrid"s trains. Shortly after those bombings, Spain"s election turned into a referendum on its involvement in the Iraq War. The Socialist Party"s dramatic upset victory was followed by a withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. Since then, Spain has been almost non-existent in the international arena. Probably assuming that pacifism shielded it from further attacks, Spain was regarded as "the forgotten front in Europe"s ISIS war".

The Spanish press was diligently indifferent to any debate on freedom of expression, then, as now, under attack by Islamists in Europe. The Spanish press did not participate in a discussion of the Mohammed cartoons; no Spanish writer was accused of "Islamophobia", and no Spanish personality was put under police protection for "criticizing Islam". It seemed as if Spain were not even interested in what was at stake in Islamist attacks on Europe"s very existence. No Spanish city made headlines for having multicultural ghettos, as in France and Britain. The attack in Barcelona should have ended this illusion. Terrorists do not need an excuse to butcher "infidels".

Germany, the most generous country in Europe in welcoming Muslims, followed the same fate as Spain. The German government struck a cozy deal with Turkey about the migrants; and when a comedian, Jan Böhmermann, made a joke about a Muslim politician, the German government allowed its legal system to put the comedian on trial.

The sad conclusion seems to be that that jihadists do not need a "reason" to kill Westerners. They attack equally France, which conducts military operations in the Middle East and North Africa, and countries such as Spain and Germany, which are neutral. It is enough for them to state, that, according to Islamic doctrine, land once under Muslim rule is forever under Islamic rule. As Spain ("Al Andalus" for Islamists) was under Islamic rule until the Christian Reconquista (which began in 722), and then Muslims were expelled in 1492, the country, according to Muslim extremists, permanently belongs to Islam and therefore must be taken back.

About the massacre in Barcelona, the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner commented:

"no one is immune.... The picture that comes to me is that of The Plague of Albert Camus: a scourge that falls on an innocent city. The extension of the field of jihadist struggle is universal. The terrorists charge the whole world for their failure. They knock where they can hit. Trying to please them is vain, it is our very existence that is unbearable to them".

To paraphrase Trotsky, you may not be interested in fighting jihadism, but jihadism is interested in fighting you.

Strip-Mining The World

Authored by Robert Gore via StraightLineLogic.com,

The richest vein in the history of predatory mining is just about played out.

A gigantic mine engages in every conceivable destructive practice—strip mining, heap leaching, tailings dams and ponds and so on. It pays such low wages its workers only make ends meet by borrowing from the company at usurious rates. The mine has befouled the air and poisoned the water. Many workers are chronically sick and their children are afflicted with birth defects. The mine’s absentee owners know that the mine is played out and the tailings dam is structurally unsound. They close the mine, count their profits, and move on. A month later the dam gives way. A deluge of noxious sludge inundates the town below the dam, sparing no one and rendering the area uninhabitable.

The government is a strip mining operation, plundering the dwindling residual value of a once wealthy America. Forget ostensible justifications, policy is crafted to allow those who control the government to maximize their take and put the costs on their victims, leaving devastation in their wake.

Wars are no longer about defending the country or even making the world safe for democracy. They are about appropriations, not to be won, but profitably prolonged. The Middle East and Northern Africa have been a mother lode. You would think their sixteen-year war in backward and impoverished Afghanistan would be a shameful disgrace for the military and the intelligence agencies. It’s not. They’ve milked that conflict for all its worth, and now brazenly talk about a “generational war”: many more years of more of the same.

We can also look forward to generational wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen. The strip miners are agitating for an Iranian foray. That’s got Into The 22nd Century written all over it, a rich, multi-generational vein, perhaps America’s first 100-year war.

The only rival for richest mother lode is medicine. Health care is around 28 percent of the federal budget, defense 21 percent. Medical spending no longer cures the sick; it’s the take for insurance, pharmaceutical, and hospital rackets. The US spends more per capita on health care than any other nation (36 percent more than second-place Switzerland) but quality of care ranks well down the list.

In education there is the same gap between per capita spending (the US ranks at or near the top) and value received, in this instance as measured by student performance. What’s paid is out of all proportion to what’s received, especially at a time when computer and communications technology should be driving down the costs of education across the board.

Indoctrination factories formerly known as schools, colleges, and universities dispense approved propaganda. For students, higher education is now on the government-sponsored installment plan. There’s a litany of excuses why Johnny, Joan, Juan, Juanita, Jamal and Jasmine can’t read, compute, or think, but lack of funding and student loans don’t wash. Education dollars fund teachers’ unions, their pensions, administrators, and edifice complexes; learning is an afterthought. This vein will play out as the pensions funds, and the governments that have swapped promises to fund them for educators’ votes, go bankrupt. Probably around the same time as the student loan bubble pops.

Money itself has become a faith-based construct, a strip mining operation jointly owned by the government, the central bank, and the banking cartel it supports. Replacing gold with paper promises, monetizing debt, interest rate suppression, inflation of the money supply and the central bank’s balance sheet, macroeconomic meddling, maintenance of a bankers’ cartel, and insider dealing within the cartel have immeasurably increased the wealth and power of the entire banking complex.

Twenty trillion dollars in debt, two-hundred-plus trillion in unfunded liabilities, and an economy that has barely cruised above stall speed for eight years are core samples indicating the mine is exhausted. The tailings dam has sprung visible leaks. However, the townspeople below the dam remain willfully oblivious to the danger.

Recognizing reality and doing something about it are hallmarks of mental toughness, once considered a virtue. Now, in various tangible and virtual sanctuaries against facts and logic, the demand is made for reality to conform to the delusions of those who refuse to confront it. In the safe space between their ears, the only danger is someone warning of danger.

Lower even than the level of mental fortitude is physical toughness. When the dam breaks, the obese, opiated, otiose endomorphs resting their girths on couches across America will have no chance of escaping the sludge, even with their motorized carts. President Kennedy christened the President’s Council on Physical Fitness to address what he saw as a soft and flabby America. Fifty years later, America is exponentially softer and flabbier—physically, intellectually, and spiritually. Most Americans are in no condition to handle the emotional and physical stresses crises will bring.

It’s viciously ironic that many of them will look to the strip miners for salvation. A captive government that has turned America into a field of rackets, its string-pullers extracting power and wealth while ordinary people have seen their incomes stagnate, their meager savings dwindle, and opportunities shrink, is somehow going to make financial and economic catastrophe all better.

In one sense Hillary Clinton’s use of the term “deplorable” was unfortunate, in that it implies that the strip miners care enough about the townspeople to deprecate them. They don’t. The townspeople have had their uses, but they’re expendable once the mine is played out. Let someone else worry about pulling them from the sludge, or just leave them buried. The strip miners chose America first because it had the richest vein, now exhausted. The strip miners will move on to other, albeit less lucrative, lodes. That is what is meant by globalization.