Propaganda, Confrontation, And Profit

Authored by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The waves, the artificial tides of anti-Russian propaganda continue to beat upon the ears and eyes of Western citizens, spurred by Washington politicians and bureaucrats whose motives vary from deviously duplicitous to blatantly commercial.

It is no coincidence that there has been vastly increased expenditure on US weaponry by Eastern European countries.

Complementing the weapons’ build-up, which is so sustaining and lucrative for the US industrial-military complex, the naval, air and ground forces of the US-NATO military alliance continue operations ever closer to Russia’s borders.

Shares and dividends in US arms manufacturing companies have rocketed, in a most satisfactory spinoff from Washington’s policy of global confrontation, and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) records that “arms sales are recognized widely as an important instrument of state power. States have many incentives to export arms. These include enhancing the security of allies or partners; constraining the behaviour of adversaries; using the prospect of arms transfers as leverage on governments’ internal or external behaviour; and creating the economics of scale necessary to support a domestic arms industry.”

The CRS notes that arms deals “are often a key component in Congress’s approach to advancing US foreign policy objectives,” which is especially notable around the Baltic and throughout the Middle East, where US wars have created a bonanza for US weapons makers — and for the politicians whom the manufacturers reward so generously for their support. (Additionally, in 2017 arms manufacturers spent $93,937,493 on lobbying Congress.)

Some countries, however, do not wish to purchase US weaponry, and they are automatically categorised as being influenced by Russia, which is blamed for all that has gone wrong in America over the past couple of years. This classification is especially notable in the Central Asian Republics.

The US military’s Central Command (Centcom) states that its “area of responsibility spans more than 4 million square miles and is populated by more than 550 million people from 22 ethnic groups, speaking 18 languages... and confessing [sic] multiple religions which transect national borders. The demographics create opportunities for tension and rivalry.” Centcom is deeply engaged in the US wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and supports Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen, and the extent of its influence in the Pentagon’s self-allotted geographical Area of Responsibility is intriguing, to say the least. Some of its priorities were revealed in March 2017 by the Commander of this enormous military realm, General Joseph Votel, in testimony to the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives in Washington.

General Votel’s description of US self-allocated “responsibilities” was astonishing in its imperialistic arrogance.

As Commander of Centcom, General Votel gave the Armed Services Committee a colourful tour of his territory, describing nations in terms ranging from condescendingly supportive to patently insolent, and he devoted much time to describing relations with countries abutting Russia, Iran and China, which nations, he declared, are trying “to limit US influence in the sub-region.” That “sub-region” includes many countries immediately on the borders of Russia, Iran and China, and averaging 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometres) from Washington.

CENTCOM countries (coloured)

First he dealt with Kazakhstan with which the US has its “most advanced military relationship in Central Asia” in furtherance of which Washington is “making notable progress... despite enduring Russian influence.” It is obviously unacceptable to the Pentagon that Russia wishes to maintain cordial relations with a country with which it has a border of 6,800 kilometres. Then General Votel went into fantasyland by claiming that “Kazakhstan remains the most significant regional contributor to Afghan stability...” which even the members of the Congressional Committee would have realised is spurious nonsense.

But more nonsense was to follow, with General Votel referring to Kyrgyzstan in patronising terms usually associated with a Viceroy or other colonial master of a region that Votel describes as “widely characterized by pervasive instability and conflict,” which he failed to note were caused by the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He told the Committee that Kyrgyzstan “sees political pressure from its larger, more powerful neighbours, including Russia, hosting a small Russian airbase outside the capital, Bishkek. Despite ongoing challenges in our bilateral and security cooperation, we continue to seek opportunities to improve our mil-to-mil relationship.” He did not explain why Kyrgyzstan should be expected to embrace a military alliance with United States Central Command, but Viceroys don’t have to provide explanations.

Votel then moved to consider Tajikistan with which “our mil-to-mil relationship is deepening despite Moscow’s enduring ties and the presence of the military base near Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe, Russia’s largest military base outside of its borders.” Not only this, says Votel, but China (having a 400 Kilometre border with Tajikistan) has had the temerity to have “initiated a much stronger military cooperation partnership with Tajikistan, adding further complexity to Tajikistan’s multi-faceted approach to security cooperation.”

No: China hasn’t added any complexity to Tajikistan’s circumstances. What has complicated their relations is the fact that Afghanistan is in a state of chaos, following the US invasion of 2001, and drugs and terrorists cross the border (1,300 kilometres long) from Afghanistan into Tajikistan, which is trying to protect itself. During its sixteen years of war in Afghanistan there has been no attempt by the United States to secure that border.

None of these countries wants to be forced into a military pact with the United States, and Turkmenistan (border with Afghanistan 750 kilometres) has made it clear it doesn’t want to be aligned with anyone. But General Votel states that its “UN-recognized policy of ‘positive neutrality’ presents a challenge with respect to US engagement.” No matter what is desired by Turkmenistan, it seems, there must always be a way for the United States Central Command to establish military relations and, as General Votel told the Defence Committee, “we are encouraged somewhat by Turkmenistan’s expressed interest in increased mil-to-mil engagement with the US within the limits of their ‘positive neutrality’ policy.”

In the minds (to use the word loosely) of General Votel and his kind, it doesn’t matter if a country wants nothing whatever to do with the United States’ military machine, and wants very much to be left alone to get on with things without any interference. Adoption of such a policy by any nation presents a “challenge” and the United States, which in this region is overseen by General Votel’s Central Command, is determined to seek military “engagement” irrespective of what is desired by governments. Arms sales would swiftly follow.

Votel’s tour of his area of responsibility covered Afghanistan, about which his most absurd assertion  was “I believe what Russia is attempting to do is they are attempting to be an influential party in this part of the world. I think it is fair to assume they may be providing some sort of support to [the Taliban] in terms of weapons or other things that may be there.”

There was not a shred of evidence provided, but the Committee accepted the pronouncement. Obviously if an allegation is made about Russia it doesn’t matter if it is false. It must be believed. But unfortunately for the imperial Votel and his deferential audience, a person with some sense of truth and balance came up two months later with a statement rubbishing Votel’s unfounded and provocative accusation. In May the Director of the US Defence Intelligence Agency told a Senate Committee that “We have seen indication that [Russia] offered some level of support [to the Taliban], but I have not seen real physical evidence of weapons or money being transferred.” The mainstream media gave no publicity to the truth, and continue to blame Russia for all the ills that befall the US Empire, at home and overseas.

The state of affairs was summed up admirably by Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation on December 4 when he wrote that “Central to any national-security state is the need for official enemies, ones that are used to frighten and agitate the citizenry. If there are no official enemies, the American citizenry might begin asking some discomforting questions: What do we need a national-security state for? Why not abolish the CIA and dismantle the military-industrial complex and the NSA. Why can’t we have our limited-government, constitutional republic back?”

The Motto of the Pentagon’s Central Command is “Prepare, Pursue, Prevail.” and the Central Asian Republics would be well-advised to bear in mind these threats and think hard about the underlying motif of the US military-industrial complex which is “Propagandise, Provoke, Profit.”

How Come PMC’s Are Doing All of Washington’s Dirty Work?

It is no secret that the last couple decades saw an abrupt increase in the number of private military companies or private security contractors (the so-called PMCs), the overall budgets of some of which can easily surpass the military budgets of certain sovereign states. The turning point in the creation of those companies occurred in 1995 during the military operations conducted by the Armed Forces of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Serbian troops, when the right to carry on hostilities was outsourced by a number of security contractor firms.

The can be no second opinion about Washington being the most faithful adept of the PMC concept, since with the amount of wars the US has been waging against other states the Pentagon needs spare hands to do the dirty job for it, so that Washington won’t lose any further. American intelligence agencies were quick to comprehend in mid 90s that they would need a lot of private contractors if they are to carry on their dubious operations across the globe over the next couple decades. Therefore, the Pentagon started motivating various companies to outsource a wide range of military tasks. As a result, over the last decade alone the US military department has signed more than 3 thousand contracts with PMCs.

Today PMCs are operating more that 90% of all drones that US Air Force and Navy have together, they are also engaged in reconnaissance missions, data analysis, along with developing of promising technologies and materials, on top of providing routine military training, convoy escorts, and air cargo support. In May 2007, the US government disclosed for the first time the total amount of funds allocated on the PMCs by American intelligence agencies, with the total amount reaching 33.6 billion dollars. In January 2015, the US Central Command published statistics on contract employees of PMCs, specifying the CENTCOM alone employs more than 43 thousand individuals that fulfill all sorts of contracts, of which no more than 17 thousand are American citizens, with the rest being natives of UK and Australia.

According to rough estimates, the PMC market worth exceeds 150 billion dollars. As for the continuous increase in the actual of number and their value it can be attributed to an ever expanding share of “secret operations” deals among those that Washington keeps on signing.

Although the existing US legislation has set in stone the principle that “the most complex and sensitive tasks shouldn’t be fulfilled by private organizations”, when it comes to the situation on the ground we witness quite the opposite happening.

This notion has recently been confirmed by the Daily Mail as it reported on the activities of the Academi PMC, which was formerly known under its scandalous name of Blackwater. According to these revelations Academi contractors were engaged in torturing and physically abusing the members of the Saudi royal family and those businessmen that were detained along with them in Saudi Arabia in early November. According to the publication, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally participated in the said interrogations thanks to the dubious services provided to him by Academi. As a result of these interrogations, the Crown Prince received a total of 194 billion dollars in “voluntary donations” from those that he was questioning.

One can recall that Saudi law enforcement agencies arrested a total of 11 princes, four ministers and several dozens of former ministers and prominent businessmen on charges of corruption. Among those arrested one could find one of the richest men on the planet – Al-Waleed bin Talal. Earlier in the Middle East and Western media leaked details about the harsh treatment that the detainees were exposed to, regardless of their social status or previous achievements. Thus, the newspaper The New York Times has already reported that at least 17 prisoners among those arrested on suspicion of participating in corrupt schemes were brutally beaten.

Another example of Washington’s privatization of “right on violence” is the organization of deliveries of lethal weapons to both the areas of armed conflicts, which is prohibited by international law, but even to those regions where extremist and terrorist groups haven’t started violence yet.

Thus, in spite of Washington’s continuous claims that there has been no instance of American lethal weapons being delivered to Ukraine, Western PMCs have been delivering those to Ukraine for over two years now. For instance, AirTronic PMC has been delivering American-made grenade launchers to Kiev for a long while as it’s been confined by its CEO, Richard Wendiver in his interview for the Voice of America. In particular, he specified that the companies initiated such deliveries last year and has been carrying on them until this very day. He added that such deliveries have been coordinated by the US Embassy in Kiev, in close cooperation with the State Department, the Pentagon and the Ukrainian government.

Since other American PMCs have been fulfilling similar contracts in other regions of the world, one shouldn’t be surprised when he seas a picture of a radical terrorist armed with top-notch US weapons systems, especially when those operate in Syria and Iraq. Almost one and a half thousand fully loaded trucks worth of weapons was delivered to the terrorists of ISIS, as it’s been announced by the Syrian Defense Ministry earlier this year. Automatic weapons and grenade launchers produced in American are pretty common among the radicals that the Pentagon has been unofficially supporting. All this has already been proven true, as tons of units of such weapons have already been confiscated from radical militants.

Despite the presence of a wide range of international actors, modern geopolitics is far from being public. A significant role in it is played by the behind-the-scenes actors and secret deals, which are then fulfilled by all sorts of PMCs. Thus, we have found ourselves in an age when private companies are capable of influencing individual countries and even whole regions. This, in particular, confirms the involvement of American PMCs in torture of representatives of the Saudi elites and the ongoing US-made arms deliveries to the Middle East, Ukraine, Afghanistan.

In 2008, the status of PMCs was clarified in the so-called Montreux Document, that was signed by a total of 17. This document contains rules of engagement for those companies and regulates their operations in conflict zones. According to this document, the state that hosts a private military company bears full responsibility for its actions in various regions of the world.

What this basically means is that Washington will not be able to escape responsibility for the crimes committed by its contractors somewhere behind-the-scenes.

Valery Kulikov, expert politologist, exclusively for the online magazine ‘New Eastern Outlook’.

Pentagon Busted Working with Organized Crime to Funnel Billions in Weapons to Terrorists

Damascus, Syria – A damning new report by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), published this week, exposes the Pentagon’s falsifying of documents – likely to hide the use of a shady network of private arms dealers, intimately connected to Eastern European organized crime groups, to transfer some $2.2 billion dollars worth of mostly old Soviet weaponry to al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria.

As part of the OCCRP/BIRN report, a map/infographic — its accuracy confirmed by Foreign Policy magazine — denotes that prior CIA weapons went directly to Idlib province (northwest, the section in green) and the Golan border region (south).

Note that both of these regions were, and continue to be, occupied by al-Qaeda (in Idlib, AQ’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham). While in Idlib province, analysts have confirmed ethnic cleansing of religious minorities conducted by al-Qaeda “rebels” directly assisted by arms procured from the now-shuttered covert CIA weapons program.

The two international weapons monitoring groups found conclusive evidence in the form of manipulated Department of Defense documents that revealed the Pentagon had scrubbed documents — such as end-user certificates — in an effort to hide the paper trail of U.S. government involvement with the nefarious groups.

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The extensive investigation by the BIRN and OCCRP exposed a massive U.S. weapons trafficking ratline that originates in the Balkans and Caucus regions, and ends in Iraq and Syria. The groups published internal U.S. defense procurement documents that conclusively prove that billions of dollars worth of weapons have been trafficked.

The program is part of an ongoing regime change operation that the United States has engaged in to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad under the guise of being a humanitarian operation. Obviously, however, humanitarianism doesn’t involve flooding Syria with more weapons. Of course, in an Orwellian-style logic, the U.S. essentially claims all those fighting the Assad government to be “moderate rebels,” regardless of their allegiance.

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According to a report by Foreign Policy magazine:

The Department of Defense has budgeted $584 million specifically for this Syrian operation for the financial years 2017 and 2018, and has earmarked another $900 million of spending on Soviet-style munitions between now and 2022. The total, $2.2 billion, likely understates the flow of weapons to Syrian rebels in the coming years.

According to the report, many of the weapons suppliers — primarily in Eastern Europe but also in the former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Ukraine — have both links to organized crime throughout Eastern Europe and spotty business records.

The sheer amount of material necessary for the Pentagon program — one ammunition factory announced it planned to hire 1,000 new employees in 2016 to help cope with the demand — has reportedly stretched suppliers to the limit, forcing the Defense Department to relax standards on the materials it’s willing to accept.

The cover-up by the Pentagon is likely due to the direct connection with Eastern European organized crime groups.

Although the Defense Department likes to claim they only supply the “moderate rebels” with arms, the extreme volume of armaments being trafficked into Syria and Iraq almost guarantees that these weapons proliferate to terror groups, like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Also, their affiliated armies such as al-Nusra – which has already been extensively documented in connection with the covert CIA weapons program that has ostensibly been ended — are also receiving them.

Make no mistake that there is a documented fluid relationship of associations and connections between former Free Syrian Army groups that the U.S. Department of Defense continues to publicly support in eastern and northern Syria. The U.S. arms ratline passes arms along with virtually no accountability as to what groups end up with them.

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“The Pentagon is removing any evidence in their procurement records that weapons are actually going to the Syrian opposition,” Ivan Angelovski, one of the authors of the OCCRP/BIRN report, told Foreign Policy.

The BIRN/OCCRP report is based on internal US government memos which reveal that weapons shipment destination locations have been scrubbed from original documents.

“Seven US procurement documents were whitewashed to remove reference to ‘Syria’ after reporters contacted the Pentagon to enquire about whether the exporting countries – Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia – had been informed of the destination,” Balkan Insight, which hosts the original investigative report noted.

Interestingly, the fact that Foreign Policy, which has been generally pro-interventionist in Syria, would tacitly admit that the Department of Defense’s Syria weapons trafficking ratline is tied to East European organized crime is extremely significant. It is known as one of the most well-respected national security publications amongst mainstream academics and geopolitical experts.

According to the Balkan Insight report:

FP further reports that the Pentagon program “appears to be turbocharging a shadowy world of Eastern European arms dealers.” And adds further that, “the Pentagon is reportedly removing documentary evidence about just who will ultimately be using the weapons, potentially weakening one of the bulwarks of international protocols against illicit arms dealing.”

The fact that the Pentagon is willing to use European organized crime groups to procure weapons to ship to al-Qaeda terrorists in an ongoing regime change operation, which is sold to the American public as a humanitarian endeavor, should wake every American up to the farce that is ‘spreading democracy.’