Winter Patriot Community Blog

Below is a brilliant article from William Engdahl. He is correct when he talks about Russia's central bank. Under the constitution drawn up by the American agents of western banks in the early 90's, Russian Central Bank (the Bank of Russia) is constrained in issuing currency as a ratio to her foreign currency holdings. This means that the Russian economy was forced into orienting itself as a export driven economy so that it could have sufficient money internally to fund its industrial and agricultural expansion. This has been a huge brake on the Russian economy and has cost it dearly. It is a credit to many in the Russian government that they have been able to recover from the disastrous Yeltsin years so well in spite of this economic restriction.

Sergei Glaziev, an economic advisor to the Russian Government, has been advising for some years the changes needed to the Russian Constitution to allow it to finally issue its own sovereign currency without Western impediments. The Russian Central Bank is owned entirely by the Russian Government and therefore its policy and constitution are within its power to change as they see fit. In the past, ways have been found around this currency bottleneck but the time is past due to change the constitution, the philosophy of the bank and probably many of its senior staff.

I feel I should make some comment about this video but words fail me. And if they didn't, where would I stop?

View on YouTube

The link was found at Syrian Perspective

Andrew Korybko is always enlightening to read. He writes with an insight into the essence and breadth geopolitics and its history which is rare, in my view.

In the article below, he lays out for us the history and purpose behind the jihadi terror and the 'color revolutions' that have brought such death and destruction to our world in recent decades and he makes it understandable. Andrew Korybko also points out the importance of Russia's intervention in Syria and why Bzezinski and the US administration are so incensed by it.

Over the last couple of days, many bloggers, journalists and various political analysts have agreed that the Russian bombing campaign has signalled a fundamental change in “international relations” or the power balance in the world. Many were surprised at both Russia's actions and at the US's lack of reaction. Most agreed that the US were “caught with their pants down”.

Russia has filled the moral vacuum that the US and its subservient states have left through their indulging in war crimes against innocent people the world round. Russia has also supplanted the United States as the dominant military power at least in the eyes of many people and nations in the world. Links to evidence of this are in my previous article, The Battle For Syria. The US has not openly contested this because they now, at last, are facing that it is true.

This situation has been building for years. Russia has not hidden its moves in creating alliances nor with supplying Syria with weapons and other diplomatic support. Russia has announced its moves in advance and emphasised that they were operating within international law at all times. Which they have been and continue to do.

Here is the incisive Daniel Patrick Welch speaking to these points on PressTV (you can view the short video interview at the link). West should compensate Russia for fighting terrorists in Syria: Pundit

So if Russia has been so transparent, how is it that the US were caught so 'flat-footed'?

Hubris, and the consequences of psychopathy. No doubt, there are many capable analysts within the US administration but they will not be listened to by their 'superiors'. These superiors, by definition almost, would be psychopaths and narcissists simply by being adept at climbing the corrupt bureaucratic structure that is the US administration and its agencies. Once enamoured with the perception of their own power, these top officials are not going to want to listen to any reality that will contradict that perception. Why should they bother their beautiful minds with this unpleasantness?

So, back to reality with the benefit of hindsight. The US has been desperate to turn Syria into another Libya. Two years ago, the NATO jihadi forces were losing ground and the false flag chemical attack was facilitated by Saudi Arabia but it backfired badly due to Russian naval force and Russian diplomacy. Following that incident, the jihadis were seriously vulnerable and the US, NATO and its allies in the region threw everything they could at the Syrian Arab Army. No expense was spared.

The battle raged on with the advantage swinging to and fro. Hezbollah forces, which had proved very effective, were increased and the al Quds special forces from Iran entered the fray. The Syrians held on. The Kurds, who had previously struck a deal for regional quasi independence with the Damascus govt in return for non-involvement particularly on the side of the jihadis, changed sides.

In early August, Obama declared that the US Air Force would protect US trained insurgents if attacked by the Syrian Army or Air Force. Buoyed by their success at being able to bomb Syrian infrastructure under the guise of attacking ISIS forces, they have ratcheted up the war against Syria with this latest move.

It is very audacious because if the Syrian govt. were to avoid attacking these US sponsored terrorists for fear of being attacked in turn by the USAF, then there is nothing to stop these terrorists from marching right into Damascus. This would be a intolerable situation.

In answer to this move, Russia is supplying more anti-aircraft missiles.

The missiles by themselves would immediately become a prime target for the USAF. But Russia is also sending more Russian technicians (and marines to protect them) to help in the training in the use of these missiles.

“I can tell you once again, that our servicemen and military experts remain there [in Syria] for the maintenance of Russian [military] hardware and assisting the Syrian army in using this hardware, there’s training under way,” Lavrov said, stressing that military hardware supplies will continue. source

There has been Russian personnel in Syria for decades but recently the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, indicated that these Russian instructors would be deployed in the field with the missiles and the Syrian forces. This means that if the USAF were to attack the missile batteries, they would also be striking Russian soldiers.

The US Administration know from the Georgia debacle in 2008 that Russia will not hesitate to retaliate against any attacks on their forces. And that is a serious problem for the US. Russia has the missile technology, the fighter aircraft and the electronic weapons to decisively defeat any US attack force. If this attack and defeat were to come about, the US would also suffer a massive political defeat around the world. Whatever is left of the myth of its all dominant position as the sole superpower would evaporate in a puff of smoke. Power is largely perception and the US has been leveraging that perception for a long, long time.

What is the US to do? Well, they've started to squeal like stuck pigs about Russia sending troops to Syria as if this will provoke a war when, in fact, to not send their technicians and specialists would ensure war. Russia is not deploying assault troops as there is no need to, at this stage. The US is also howling about the Russian Naval exercises off the coast of Syria this month. These ships (and, no doubt, accompanying submarines – which are almost impossible to detect) will nullify any further attack coming from any US/NATO fleet just like they did nearly two years ago.

I think it would be a reasonable to guess that accompanying the new missiles for Syria is electronic warfare equipment to defeat any fighter/bombers or missiles launched from the Incirlik air base in Turkey. I think it is also reasonable to say that Turkey will have been informed that it runs the risk of its air base being destroyed if it allows the US to persist in any attacks on Syrian soldiers and Russian advisers and technicians. Think Georgia.

After the Georgians attacked the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, Russia went through the Georgian forces like a 'dose of salts' and went on to destroy all their military infrastructure to render them harmless before withdrawing from Georgia. Russians are very touchy about being attacked and for good reason.

As one sided as this stand-off may be, it is still a very delicate situation. It has been made worse by the US government disallowing its senior military personnel from direct communication with their Russian counterparts.

Moscow fully supports the revival of contacts between the Russian and American military, Lavrov said.
“If Washington, like [US Secretary of State] John Kerry reiterated, is ready to unfreeze such contacts, than here’s our welcome,” Lavrov said, recalling that when the contacts, now suspended on the US initiative, were in place, they were extremely stable and trustful. source

This inter-service communication was cancelled after this incident late in 2013 where inter-agency communication prevented a military confrontation between the US and Russia over the firing and downing of American missiles aimed at Syria from escalating into a full-blown battle.

This isolation of these senior US commanders from their Russian counterparts makes them much more vulnerable to being misled by the Administration neocons who are desperate to maintain their imagined hegemony. And, most probably, that is the whole point. These are not rational people and are prepared to sacrifice anyone to get what they want even if it means a disastrous military confrontation. They think they create reality. Such is the handicap of psychopathy.

The US has prevailed upon Bulgaria and Ukraine to stop overflights of Russian cargo planes heading for Syria. There is the obvious motive of hindering the resupply of military materiel and the possible supply of electronic equipment. But Russia has other supply routes and a highly mobile and effective airborne Spetsnaz force and the US must have this in mind if Russian personnel ever come under fire from a ground invasion force.

Time is running out for the bankers, the paymasters of the neocons. They have managed to keep up the value of their dollar (which is the source of all their power) by depressing oil and gold prices and the values of other competing currencies while all the while the demand for the US dollar is shrinking and the supply is ever increasing due to the various bailouts and 'Quantitive Easings'. Quite a remarkable feat but it can't last. Countries around the world are increasingly jettisoning the dollar for trade purposes and China won't be denied their place in the sun with their Yuan increasingly becoming accepted as an international trade currency despite the best efforts of the bankers and their foot-dragging IMF.

The wounded Leviathan is a dangerous beast.

Further reading-
US backs those who want to use terrorists against Assad – Lavrov

Russia's Endgame in Syria

US Seeks Occupation as US Fighters Flood Syria
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/08/us-seeks-occupation-as-us-fighters-flood-syria/

This post is an answer to a question posed to me by Mark Nesop at his Kremlin Stooge blog in response to a previous comment of mine.
Mark's question was,
“(I) would be very interested in a comprehensive overview of how TTIP would benefit the USA. It is a fairly reliable implication of self-interest that the USA is so enthusiastic about it while Europe’s bellwethers – France and Germany – are broadly nervous about it. That suggests it threatens a loss of sovereign decision-making somehow.”

A shorter answer has been posted on his blog and the longer version has been posted below. It outlines some further background or context to my answer at Kremlin Stooge which would, due to its length, be rather an imposition in a comment thread.

Mark, thanks for your question. It has made me line my ducks up in a row which is of benefit to me, at least. I, like everyone else, do not know the details of the agreements (incl TTP) and given that the negotiations are being carried out by people none of whom have our interests at heart, we can't take at face value anything that has been revealed. So any details that have been leaked are likely to be less than the truth and serve the interests of those who leak them and not the public. For this reason, I have not even bothered to keep abreast of what has been available. However, we can deduce a lot from the political and historical context in which these deals are being pursued.

For 250 years, at least, certain banking dynasties have wanted to rule the world uncontested. They rule nations by issuing their currencies and it is a natural progression to want to rule the world through providing one international currency. But how to do it?

Without a formal world government to enforce compliance, the bankers would need to control a commodity that is essential for everyone and make it only available in exchange for the bankers international currency. That commodity proved to be oil.

It is my opinion that the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 was meant to trigger a crisis that would provide the 'solution' of a One World Currency (OWC). The GFC had been set up years in advance through underwriting dodgy mortgages and leveraging them with derivatives of all sorts with the express purpose of it all blowing up in the future. Meanwhile, the bankers set about controlling those oil producing nations, including Russia, that did not belong to OPEC (whose sales are formally tied to the US dollar). Unfortunately for the bankers when 2008 rolled around, many oil producers were not only not in the West's pocket but were positively hostile to the prospect. Things had been gone horribly wrong for the bankers for a few years.

First and foremost, Putin had come to power in Russia in 2000 and had soon set the priority to take back the stolen oil industry and was spectacularly successful in doing so. In 2006, israel attacked Lebanon hoping to draw Syria into the war which would, in turn, pull in Iran and either place their oil fields under the control of Wall Street or, at least, destroy them and take them off the market. It didn't happen. In 2011, the attack on Syria was renewed in the form of NATO's jihadists. Chavez of Venezuela also appeared on the scene and put his own spanner in the works.

So without control of the world's oil sales, the bankers could not bring in their OWC to replace the ailing, inflating and debt-plagued US dollar. So it has all been an ad hoc scramble for the bankers from there on in. So the job at hand now was to implement measures to rescue the dollar that they had been happy to undermine in previous years because they were anticipating replacing it.

One of those measures has been to artificially hold down the price of gold as its price moves counter to the US $. The price relationship is like a 'see-saw' or 'teeter totter' as it is called in North America.

Another move has been to issue a torrent of US dollars at zero interest rates for those in the know who will pore the money into the speculation of existing assets to prop up their values while keeping the money away from the productive economy to keep it and the general population screwed down and controllable.

While this is going on, Russia and China, in particular, have been focussed on conducting their international trade in their own currencies and away from US dollars (and swapping their US Treasury certificates for physical gold - and taking advantage of gold's depressed price). This is lessening the demand for dollars and therefore lessening the value and putting inflationary pressure on the dollar and weakening it as an international currency. Who wants to hold something that is depreciating in value?

Russia and China, along with the rest of the world, has been suffering from the imposition of the US dollar as the international currency. They have to sell something of actual substance to gain dollars with which to trade with. The US only has to print dollars in exchange for other countries' goods. This has allowed the US to build up the world's largest military machine at everyone else's expense, in every meaning of that word! The US has then bullied the world with this military machine to allow it to continue this world wide plunder.

The BRICS countries are putting an end to that and European countries will join them if they can get out from under the yoke (and physical military occupation) of the US. The Wall St bankers are determined to stop that because it will render themselves irrelevant in world trade and politics and even militarily. They have to stop the rot. But what to do?

Enter the TTIP and TTP international 'free trade' agreements. Their purpose is to tie up those countries not in BRICS and prevent them from joining. This means that these European and Asian countries will have to trade using US dollars and, importantly, not Rubles or Yuan. The proposition that the EU put to Ukraine (“No, you can't trade with Russia and the EU. Join us or you won't be joining anyone”) is now being put to Europe by the US. This is splitting the world into East and West again – another Cold War brought to us by the same group of people and for exactly the same reasons.

If the bankers can't control the whole world, then they will tighten their grip on as many countries as they can, prevent trade and cultural exchanges with countries they do not control and use the time to regroup and figure out another way to conquer the BRICS and associated nations. The first order of the day is to survive, though.

We do know that TTIP and TPP will disbar countries from passing laws or upholding existing laws that prevent international corporations maximising their profits in any way. Any attempts to address the imbalance of capital and economic clout that these international (Wall St dominated) corporations have in favour of any home grown corporations will be ruled illegal and 'anti-free-trade' by supranational bodies appointed and controlled by the international bankers.

This means that the comprador class (the local elite) in all these vassal countries (that have agreed to international dominance in exchange for the right to mercilessly exploit their own domestic population) will be rendered powerless as their own domestic banks and corporations get eaten up or left to wither on the vine. They will be eaten up by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Monsanto. Not a happy prospect for this privileged comprador class . Hence the resistance and ongoing and interminable negotiations.

It also means that the Euro will disappear one way or another as a medium of exchange within and without Europe if Goldman Sachs et. al. get their way. Wall St needs to replace the Euro with the US dollar to ensure the survival of said dollar and with it the survival of those bankers that issue it. It's dog eat dog now. They need to keep demand for the dollar as high as possible to maintain its value and power in a world that is rapidly abandoning it. Without that demand, that power, the bankers' generations long dream of world dominance cannot survive.