By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission
With the dogs of war on full alert, something extraordinary happened at the 19th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) late last week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Virtually unknown across the West, the SCO is the foremost Eurasian political, economic and security alliance. It’s not a Eurasian NATO. It’s not planning any humanitarian imperialist adventures. A single picture in Bishkek tells a quite significant story, as we see China’s Xi, Russia’s Putin, India’s Modi and Pakistan’s Imran Khan aligned with the leaders of four Central Asian “stans”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani walk as they attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of State in Bishkek on June 14, 2019. Photo: AFP / Vyacheslav Oseledko
These leaders represent the current eight members of the SCO. Then there are four observer states – Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia and, crucially, Iran – plus six dialogue partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and, crucially, Turkey.
The SCO is bound to significantly expand by 2020, with possible full membership for both Turkey and Iran. It will then feature all major players of Eurasia integration. Considering the current incandescence in the geopolitical chessboard, it’s hardly an accident a crucial protagonist in Bishkek was the ‘observer’ state Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani played his cards masterfully. Rouhani speaking directly to Putin, Xi, Modi and Imran, at the same table, is something to be taken very seriously. He blasted the US under Trump as “a serious risk to stability in the region and the world”. Then he diplomatically offered preferential treatment for all companies and entrepreneurs from SCO member nations committed to investing in the Iranian market.
The Trump administration has claimed – without any hard evidence – that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Washington brands as a “terrorist organization” – was behind the attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. As the SCO summit developed, the narrative had already collapsed, as Yutaka Katada, president of Japanese cargo company Kokuka Sangyo, owner of one of the tankers, said: “The crew is saying that it was hit by a flying object.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had accused the White House of “sabotage diplomacy” but that did not derail Rouhani’s actual diplomacy in Bishkek.
Xi was adamant; Beijing will keep developing ties with Tehran “no matter how the situation changes”. Iran is a key node of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It’s clear for the leadership in Tehran that the way forward is full integration into the vast, Eurasia-wide economic ecosystem. European nations that signed the nuclear deal with Tehran – France, Britain and Germany – can’t save Iran economically.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, right, in Bishkek at the SCO summit on June 14. Photo: Nezir Aliyev / Anadolu / AFP
The Indian hedge
But then Modi canceled a bilateral with Rouhani at the last minute, with the lame excuse of “scheduling issues”.
That’s not exactly a clever diplomatic gambit. India was Iran’s second largest oil customer before the Trump administration dumped the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, over a year ago. Modi and Rouhani have discussed the possibility of India paying for Iranian oil in rupees, bypassing the US dollar and US sanctions.
Yet unlike Beijing and Moscow, New Delhi refuses to unconditionally support Tehran in its do-or-die fight against the Trump administration’s economic war and de facto blockade.
Modi faces a stark existential choice. He’s tempted to channel his visceral anti-Belt-and-Road stance into the siren call of a fuzzy, US-concocted Indo-Pacific alliance – a de facto containment mechanism against “China, China, China” as the Pentagon leadership openly admits it.
Or he could dig deeper into a SCO/RIC (Russia-India-China) alliance focused on Eurasia integration and multipolarity.
Aware of the high stakes, a concerted charm offensive by the leading BRICS and SCO duo is in effect. Putin invited Modi to be the main guest of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in early September. And Xi Jinping told Modi in their bilateral get together he’s aiming at a “closer partnership”, from investment and industrial capacity to pick up speed on the stalled Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, another BRI stalwart.
Imran Khan, for his part, seems to be very much aware how Pakistan may profit from becoming the ultimate Eurasia pivot – as Islamabad offers a privileged gateway to the Arabian Sea, side by side with SCO observer Iran. Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea is the key hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), much better positioned than Chabahar in Iran, which is being developed as the key hub of India’s mini-New Silk Road version to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
On the Russian front, a charm offensive on Pakistan is paying dividends, with Imran openly acknowledging Pakistan is moving “closer” to Russia in a “changing” world, and has expressed keen interest in buying Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and Mi-35M attack helicopters.
Iran is at the heart of the BRI-SCO-EAEU integration road map – the nuts and bolts of Eurasian integration. Russia and China cannot allow Iran to be strangled. Iran boasts fabulous energy reserves, a huge internal market, and is a frontline state fighting complex networks of opium, weapons and jihadi smuggling – all key concerns for SCO member states.
There’s no question that in southwest Asia, Russia and Iran have interests that clash. What matters most for Moscow is to prevent jihadis from migrating to the Caucasus and Central Asia to plot attacks against the Russian Federation; to keep their navy and air force bases in Syria; and to keep oil and gas trading in full flow.
Tehran, for its part, cannot possibly support the sort of informal agreement Moscow established with Tel Aviv in Syria – where alleged Hezbollah and IRGC targets are bombed by Israel, but never Russian assets.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani attends a meeting with his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek on June 14, 2019. (Photo by Alexey DRUZHININ / SPUTNIK / AFP)
But still, there are margins of maneuver for bilateral diplomacy, even if they now seem not that wide. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued the new rules of the game; reduce imports to a minimum; aim for less reliance on oil and gas exports; ease domestic political pressure (after all everyone agrees Iranians must unite to face a mortal threat); and stick to the notion that Iran has no established all-weather friends, even Russia and China.
St Petersburg, Bishkek, Dushanbe
Iran is under a state of siege. Internal regimentation must be the priority. But that does not preclude abandoning the drive towards Eurasian integration.
The pan-Eurasian interconnection became even more glaring at what immediately happened after Bishkek; the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Bishkek and Dushanbe expanded what had already been extensively discussed at the St Petersburg forum, as I previously reported. Putin himself stressed that all vectors should be integrated: BRI, EAEU, SCO, CICA and ASEAN.
The Bishkek Declaration, adopted by SCO members, may not have been a headline-grabbing document, but it emphasized the security guarantees of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone Treaty, the “unacceptability of attempts to ensure one country’s security at the expense of other countries’ security, and condemning “the unilateral and unlimited buildup of missile defense systems by certain countries or groups of states”.
Yet the document is a faithful product of the drive towards a multilateral, multipolar world.
Among 21 signed agreements, the SCO also advanced a road map for the crucial SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, driving deeper the Russia-China strategic partnership’s imperative that the Afghan drama must be decided by Eurasian powers.
And what Putin, Xi and Modi discussed in detail, in private in Bishkek will be developed by their mini-BRICS gathering, the RIC (Russia-India-China) in the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka in late June.
Meanwhile, the US industrial-military-security complex will continue to be obsessed with Russia as a “revitalized malign actor” (in Pentagonese) alongside the all-encompassing China “threat”.
The US Navy is obsessed with the asymmetrical know-how of “our Russian, Chinese and Iranian rivals” in “contested waterways” from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf.
With US conservatives ratcheting up “maximum pressure” trying to frame the alleged weak node of Eurasia integration, which is already under total economic war because, among other issues, is bypassing the US dollar, no one can predict how the chessboard will look like when the 2020 SCO and BRICS summits take place in Russia.
Why the US rushed to propagate the ‘naval mine’ scenario to explain recent attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman
http://bit.ly/2FfPfVN
Excellent analysis of the key role that naval mines are playing in Washington’s plans against Iran. Doubtless based on Iran’s threats to close the waterway. Mines are the most widely expected Iranian tool. And the US Navy is strong in mine clearing capabilities.
Implicit in this thinking is “Our enemy will use tactics that our military planners have discussed and prepared for all these years. They will play right into our strength. It’s going to be a cake walk.”
Thanks. There are plenty of scenarios, yet even a small-scale US attack may have uncontrolable implications. There are numerous times the United States have failed to control things after an intervention and plans didn’t go as they wanted to go.
The USA has been the major instigator of wars since WW2, not just aggressions against victim states but also intrastate ‘civil’ wars, either through death-squad proxies or fascistic military trained in the USA or Panama in ‘National Security’ doctrine. The Empire of Death, aka Murder Incorporated (International).
“And the US Navy is strong in mine clearing capabilities.”
Uhm, no, they aren’t. The last time the US Navy held mine-clearing exercises in the Gulf, they only found fifty percent of the dummy mines used. I’m sure Iran took note of that failure. I’m also sure that no where near the number of mines Iran could release into the Gulf were used in that exercise. Iran has at least several thousand mines, with some estimates of up to 20,000 mines.
U.S. Navy, Allies Find Less Than Half the Sea Mines Planted in Key Exercise
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/us-navy-allies-find-less-than-half-the-sea-mines-planted-in-key-exercise
Then there’s this article:
A hidden danger
The U.S. Navy’s next generation mine-clearing vessel still isn’t up to the task. So the service must rely on ships and helicopters that were supposed to be retired years ago.
http://pilotonline.com/app/media/content/pilotonline/2016/mine-sweeping/why-navy-relies-on-old-ships-helicopters/
Or this:
Worries Surface On New Navy Mine Warfare Plan
https://breakingdefense.com/2017/10/distributed-mine-warfare-or-diluted-concerns-on-new-navy-plan/
So the US Navy is relying on some drones, some helicopters and *wooden* ships for its mine-clearing. With Iran sitting on its coast with antiaircraft and antiship missiles, how long will these mine-clearing gear be functional in an Iran war?
To Richard Steven Hack: good research work. I have to admit the whole mine thing did not even make a lot of sense to me, in spite of what I wrote in my comment. On the other hand, there may be some shallow spots in the Straits of Hormuz where a sunken VLCC could put a stop to anything. And floating it again could be a bit of a problem while being shot at from the Iranian shore.
RSH,
Let me quote you: “With Iran sitting on its coast with antiaircraft and antiship missiles, how long will these mine-clearing gear be functional in an Iran war”
This is precisely what I am thinking. All those exercises are just that. It’s fine as long as Iranians sit on their hands and do nothing.
MCM/MW was my specialty. The US has eleven MCM vessels with four stationed in Bahrain and four stationed in Japan. The vessels are between 25 and 30 years old and not that capable and from what I’ve seen, the operators are not that impressive.
The equipment is reasonably capable of detecting moored mines but seems to have problems detecting ground mines (though that could be due to the training of the operators).
Using helicopters to search for, and clear mines, is great in theory, but not in practice. They also make great targets in a narrow channel like the Strait of Hormuz. In fact every MCM vessel makes for a great target. Clearance is done at slow speed and along a predictable path.
All Iran has to do is declare that they’ve laid a minefield and all shipping is halted until that field is cleared. And that can take months to get the theoretical maximum clearance rate of 99%. If they actually lay a minefield, clearance will depend on what type of mines were laid. There are some pretty sneaky types out there. In one exercise three dummy ground mines were laid in a channel, we swept the exercise area and found five mine-like objects with the towed array. We found the three dummy mines plus two WWII Japanese mines that were in a Q-route that had been swept probably 50 or more times. Clearance is never 100%.
The Brits used to be the world’s best in MCM, but they like most other navies, treat MCM/MW as the bastard child that no-one wants to acknowledge until the SHTF. If Iran does lay a minefield in the Strait of Hormuz, I predict a clusterf@ck of monumental proportions.
Oh yeah,another “Mission Accomplished”,Only much worse
“Modi faces a stark existential choice.” I would disagree here with PE – the choice is not an existential one; it is purely contrived. Common sense tells one that China is a neighbour to India, and most likely will remain so. It ain’t going anywhere… The US is far away, and in a decline. It would behoove India to want to make the best of its neighbourhood – and not play opportunistic games that ultimately have a dead end.
The choice is clear – at least if one has a modicum of integrity. Which Modi – and too many in the Indian elite – probably do not have.
Well the Indian ruling class has never really gotten itself out from under the long heritage of control by England’s imperial Administaration has it. They learn’t their opportunistic lessons well it seems. Still sucking up to their English speaking overlords. The English take such a really long time leave India so Indians often say. Who said they ever really did? The games they play with the American’s appear to me the continuation of a very long game with the English.
Modi is trying to have it both ways, he is trying to play both sides to groom India for themselves, giving more and more to India in hopes of swaying them to their side. Which will fail, because while India is considered the fastest emerging market, that simply means they haven’t gotten to where China already is at. All together, the BRI encompasses a far, far bigger market than India could ever hope to be, so the reality is, India will lose out in the long run not committing to the BRI. While others are developing infrastructure, establishing markets and settling trade routes, India isn’t. Which means they will have to be integrated into an already established network later down the road, when, not if, they come crawling to Beijing. They should then expect mere scraps for the foreseeable future because nobody planned their production with India in mind, and with their wobbly past of trying to play both sides, it will take some time before the other players start seeing them as a serious long term partner.
While I don’t particularly think highly of Modi, the aforementioned being the biggest reason, I don’t think he is a moron. He is a smart leader, but being smart does not make one a visionary, which he has proven he is not.
By the way does anyone remember that idiotic, artificial, utterly unnecessary and simply stupid border tension episode with China he orchestrated? Not one of his brightest moments, to say the least.
The most recent growth figures showed India falling behind the vastly larger Chinese economy, although Vietnam, much, much, smaller, of course, beat both. India has gargantuan problems eg it is run by fascists, there are huge regional differences including of language, a huge Moslem population that is reviled by the ruling Hindutva fascists, tens of thousands of farmers suiciding every year, popular insurgencies in Kashmir and the Naxalite regions, ubiquitous pollution of every kind, including the world’s worst air pollution, and the insanity of the caste system etc. But it is ecological collapse, particularly anthropogenic climate destabilisation that will destroy India, and imminently. Vast areas will be uninhabitable in summer soon, when the wet bulb temperature exceeds 35 degrees Celsius, the limit of human tolerance, and most climate models predict changes, probably extreme, in the monsoon regime, from drought to unprecedented deluges and floods.
I didn’t think anybody still believed in agw. Even the elite who promote it know it’s a hoax but a good way to extract money from populations, enforce a globalist regime and especially to financialise the climate issue.
If the elite really believed in agw they would surely be spending billions on improved public transport and removing filthy diesel buses for example. But they are doing precisely nothing except inflicting unaffordable energy bills on everybody.
If one looks at the charts it becomes clear that CO2 is a result of warming not the cause. CO2 is a vital greening gas of course. First comes the warming then after a time lag, comes the rise in CO2
Yes there are environmental issues, depletion of non renewables, plastic pollution etc but no we are not all going to die from global warming. The sun controls the climate which is always changing and there is nothing we can do about that.
The linked video explains how they tried to fool us and how the scam was dismantled and continues to fall apart.
Highly recommended and with plenty of real science in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg
The problem with your argument is that the global elites have FAR more invested in fossil fuels than in replacing them. In fact the fossil fuel industry is by far the greatest repository of ‘wealth’ on Earth, its tens of trillions in assets under-pinning the stock-markets and the financial industries that finance it. And the US petro-dollar, guaranteed by the genocidal head-loppers and brothel-hoppers of Sordid Barbaria, is one of the two remaining strengths of the US regime, along with the military. That is why the West still does nothing to avert the climate destabilisation Holocaust, soon to engulf us all.
That is not to mention all the scientists eg ALL the Academies of Science and ALL the scientific societies on Earth, the vast consensus of climate scientists, oceanographers, cryosphere researchers, tropical rainforest scientists, lake and river scientists (limnologists), phenologists, pedologists and other soil scientists, ecologists etc. who ALL concur with the theory, because of the EVIDENCE from reality and from paleo-climate research eg ice-cores etc. They do this because the EVIDENCE of rapid climate destabilisation is IRREFUTABLE and growing rapidly. How can you believe that all these hundreds of thousands scientists are all wrong or engaged in some great conspiracy to be rewarded by drawing a salary? As for your CO2 story, that is what happens when a glacial period ends. The CO2 increases, and is a positive feedback to further warming, actually PROVING the basic science that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas. In the present case, however, it is not a natural process driven by the Milankovitch Cycles or some change in Solar radiance. This is greenhouse gas driven and anthropogenic, and the science is utterly ‘settled’.
It’s not completely true that there is no recognition of the risks of climate change by the oligarchy, David Koch, for example, is an MIT trained engineer and respectful of consensus scientific opinion. He accepts the reality of human-induced climate change although he rejects claims for the more extreme scenarios. He believes climate change will ultimately be beneficial to the planet.
More generally, however, any response will not be conservation based. For example, there is currently some interest in various terraforming scenarios to mitigate climate destabilization. These have not been shown to be practical and are expensive. But allow for continued high levels of carbon emissions and profits. Which, of course, is all that is really important.
Well if David Koch really thinks that the anthropogenic climate destabilisation heading towards us will be ‘…beneficial to the planet’, then he has Rochs in his head. Of course, he very well might see the deaths of several billion ‘useless eaters’ as beneficial, so long as his type somehow survive. Terraforming and geo-engineering would be the farce that follows the tragedy.
People live in places where the temp reaches 40 to 45 celcius, they are still with us. A friend recently returned from Tahiti, winter there, enjoyed 35 degree temps. Enough with the ‘chicken little’ sky is falling climate shit. Like the gone by 2020 glacier sign that was removed because the glacier is, wait for it………………still there. Climate change is a ‘weponized agenda’, that’s how $checkles are made.
Its actually the sky is growing, or the atmosphere is growing, its getting larger and therefore produces larger storms that deliver more rain and snow to places that were not accustomed to it in the past. So living in these new, i’ll call um danger zones, is now a hazard where in the past it was livable.
Who wants to remodel their home twice a decade or rebuild after the winds tore it down? These areas being affected are expanding and if you are not savvy in your choice of location, you could easily wind up being a victim of something that has yet to be politically accepted as such, but never the less is a real phenomenon, call it what you like, but its game on.
The atmospheric water vapour burden grows by c.7-8% for every one degree Celsius rise in global average temperatures. That disrupts the hydrological cycle resulting in greater deluges and floods than seen in the historical record-interspersed with deeper and longer droughts. However geology tells us that, in the past the planet has seen floods of vastly greater intensity, breadth and fury than anything we have seen yet. As we will soon experience.
Here in Austfailia, Townsville a red-neck redoubt, they suffered a ‘one in 2000 year’ flood a few months ago, then the bogans voted for a giant coal-mine. ‘Death wish’ doesn’t do their choice justice. That flood was soon followed by a massive inundation in north-western Queensland that created an inland sea that drowned 500,000 cattle and God knows how many wild and feral animals. And that came after seven years of deep, deep, drought. But, a few months later, the greedy numbskulls voted for the few hundred jobs in mega coal-mines, thereby killing their, and all our, children, some time in the next few decades.
Alabama, exactly. There is still the HAARP
https://www.wanttoknow.info/war/haarp_weather_modification_electromagnetic_warfare_weapons
which I believe has never been decommissioned and is the main reason for the weather anomalies.
Well they must be pretty busy with the HAARP, because there are a ton of weather ‘anomalies’ occurring these days.
sean, the ‘wet bulb’ temperature is a measure of ambient temperature PLUS humidity. At 35 degrees Celsius wet bulb the human body can no longer cool itself by sweating, so core temperature begins to rise and you either die then and there of hyperthermia, or you damage your body systems like the hundreds of agricultural workers in Central America dying of kidney failure. And if you are denying the rapid disappearance of more than 95% of montane glaciers on the basis of ONE ‘sign’ (did you see it yourself or are we in the territory of ‘urban myth’?)and the almost total consensus of glaciologists, well, then I am simply bemused.
“climate models”
Give us a break. That stuff is so artificial. All their models have failed to predict anything for the past 40 years. The sun is the source of most of the heat on earth. The heat from the sun fluctuates. At the moment, the sun is in quiet period and we are getting less energy from it. As a result, the temperatures are dropping in the upper atmosphere. That affects temperatures below.
“Don’t Tell Anyone, But We Just Had Two Years Of Record-Breaking Global Cooling”
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-global-warming-earth-cooling-media-bias/
Alf, no climate or any other scientist would deny that the Sun is the prime driver of our global climate. But it is NOT the ONLY one. The role of greenhouse gases like CO2 and water vapour and methane is settled science, as inviolate as the Laws of Physics like gravity. As for computer modeling, well we rely on it in virtually all walks of life, in making airplanes fly safely, for example. ‘All models are wrong, but some are useful’. And climate models have improved as computer power has increased, as models are tested and refined and as evidence from reality grows and grows and becomes inputs to the number-crunching. And the models are improving, not just in prediction, but in retrograde projection where they model past climate regimes, as revealed by paleoclimate research such as ice-core records, more and more accurately. And in general the models up to now have greatly UNDERESTIMATED the rate and breadth of global climate destabilisation.
Indians are in a bit of conundrum. They were a socialist country for a long time, say till 1991 and those were bad times for SSR/Russia and China. They finally pivot and open up markets and get to a pseudo free market economy, getting in on the tech industry and becoming pals with those who are leaders in tech.
Then 2008 happens and things end where it is today. They cannot turn back to being socialist. When they were neither Russia nor China played friends and the only one who did were the Americans. They have to plough the road they’ve chosen for the next 50 years, like it or not.
As I note above (and see the current heat wave and late, weak, monsoon)Indis does not have fifty years left. But none of us do.
Many thanks to Pepe Escobar for keeping us succinctly informed of these vitally important developments for future world peace. The SCO represents our best and only hope in the geopolitical sphere for stopping the ultimate destruction of humanity’s higher spiritual hopes by the Hegemon. We have just seen by the tragic death of former President Morsi of Egypt, now a martyr, the fate the Hegemon plans to inflict on all who stand in its way.
Western Europe has caved in to the Hegemon and is now a hopeless case, though millions know what is happening and still have hopes for a livable future. But the war for the future of mankind is on, let there be no doubt about that.
I, personally, am of the opinion that global warming is an issue. Why? Because every time someone mentions it, the conversation shifts to
whether it is bogus or not.
Therefore, thanks Rick for bringing Pepe’s comments back to the discussion.
Climate change is most certainly real. Those are in denial of it or think it is some cabal of elites trying to make money off of it are simply overlooking the many many multiples more that elites who profit of all those polluting industries make by keeping them going (how much is the fossil fuels industries valued at 10 trillion more??) how much are those climate changing profit suckers making 1 trillion if that? Let’s be real. There is a lot of money in polluting industries.
Now if you want to say the solutions being proposed by the climate crowd are also problematic and polluting I understand fully.
Pity that climate change has been made into some sort of left right issue in the US. It is not.
What has added to the confusion, to say the least, is the continued opportunistic approach by politicians, never waste a good tragedy, or however the saying goes.
They tried to use climate change against Russia and China and other emerging markets, to keep them down. That’s one reason for the big push for global climate taxes a couple of years ago. Another one was, of course, to establish a base for global governance, one tax is enough of a foot in the door for that to get kicked into high gear. Just look at the EU, started as a purely economic union and is now becoming a United States of Europe with it’s own flag and even it’s own “national” anthem.
Also, to me, it’s utterly irrelevant whether or not we are causing climate change, we need to get off of fossil fuels as fast as possible either way, it’s damaging to the environment in many, many ways. Next time you fly on an airplane, look out the window during takeoff, you will most likely see a grey layer of fog hindering your sight, I sure have here in Germany. It’s smog, we breathe this crap on a daily basis. Next is our absolute idiotic use of plastic, which is a by-product of oil refineries. We use this crap once then we throw it away and it ends up in the ocean or in a landfill where it just sits. It does not degrade, disintegrate, nothing, it just gets buried. I saw a small documentary by a small German alternative news outlet (KenFM) about Greece. They went there to see how things are. One of the things the crippling austerity imposed by the troika (of tyranny) caused, is that it’s no longer possible to maintain garbage piles, no manpower and no money to hire some. They showed a garbage pile where the protective layer, which is supposed to keep the garbage from contaminating the soil beneath it, ruptured and a disgusting liquid was flowing down the hill, creating a line of death along it’s path, all the plants were dead and animals caught in the stuff died on the spot, too. This stuff is seeping into the ground water… imagine the damage it’s still going to cause to humans coming in contact with that water years from now.
There are so many other aspects to fossil fuels which are not getting any attention what-so-ever because we are constantly bickering about climate change and climate change only… and many times we can’t even settle on whether or not it’s even real. It’s just a sad time to be alive right now. It feels like we are at the height of scientific discovery and the pinnacle of stupidity simultaneously.
Any discussion about pollution and the consequences is good, because they inherently influence and in the future be the major source of human issues.
People do not understand that the public discourse got militarized in the last decades. Each and every topic is split up and the resulting factions are played against each other. That is the best strategy to prevent a popular mass movement. Add to that the relentless push for global surveillance, food control and other measures aimed at installing a technocracy.
One example is that “glaciers are gone at 2020” sign issue. So during the Obama term these signs were installed and are obviously hyperbole. What the denialists fail to mention, is that the glaciers are receding anyways, just not as fast.
Global warming is real. The data is unmistaken, we have now a 1+ K rise in mean temp to preindustrialized times. There are hundreds of stations worldwide supporting this, you see it in the receding ice everyhwere.
The source are human GHG emissions. You could argue the sun is the source, with coming out of the Maunder-minimum (Little Ice Age 17th century). But again the data does not lie – The sun only increased in activity to around 1970s – after that it even declined a little, while the temperature delta is increasing.
This is one problem I have with many comments on this site, they are full in praise of advanced weapons systems, the capitalist projects of China, but almost never take the rising pressure of pollution and climate change and its consequences for species diversity, water availability, arable land etc into account.
You are correct, but, unfortunately, the denialists have won, and runaway warming to several degrees Celsius above the Holocene norm is now inevitable, with the inescapable consequences. Just look at what is happening in India, right now, for a foretaste of things to come.
Serg, when that particulate smog is reduced when fossil fuels, predominately coal, are removed, we are in deeper do-do. That is because ‘global dimming’ by particulate smogs, predominately from east and south Asia, has contributed to ‘global dimming’ as occurs after large volcanic eruptions. When that dimming is removed, another one to two degrees Celsius of average global temperatures is already ‘baked in’ by the rise in CO2 levels from 280 ppm to 415 ppm, and the similar rises in methane and nitrous oxide etc. We are stuffed.
Serg,
I agree with you. As an urban planner with experience in impoverished, oppressed countries, I have seen similar tragedies everywhere… These tragedies have been exported to us from the consumer countries for decades…
But, let’s not let the climate change controversy deviate our attention from what really matters:
The issues highlighted by Pepe Escobar are much more important, REAL, and are EVIDENCE that something really great is happening, made by real people, and will impact the whole world for good very soon! It is time to celebrate!!! It is time to be happy!
it’s NOT only Western Europe thats caving in. Bulgaria recently started buying America’s “freedom gas” and is not demanding that Russia lowers the price for its gas, because you see Russia, Bulgaria doesn’t need Russians gas that much. Russia should tell them to stuff it and keep on buying America’s gas if they want to.
American gas will run out rapidly, fracking wells peaking in one or two years, although they keep on leaking fugitive methane for decades. Long after anthropogenic climate destabilisation caused by that methane and other gases, will have rendered us extinct.
It is likely that an Israeli/US joint attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon is in the cards for this year or next year. That will be followed by a US/Israel (emphasis on the US, of course) war with Iran *after* the 2020 elections – when Trump will no longer be concerned about being reelected (and he couldn’t care less who will come after him since his ego will no longer be involved.) Unless someone like Tulsi Gabbard gets elected President, we can pretty much be assured that any new President will be the same sort of war-monger we’ve been getting for decades.
What will Russia and China do then – when Iran is being bombed continuously? I would say it will be a bit hard to build the BRI into Iran under those conditions. Unless Russia and China are prepared to militarily threaten the US directly over Iran – which I find extremely unlikely – I would say that Iran’s integration will be on hold for the next twenty or thirty years.
Because Iran will keep fighting the US for that long. And the US won’t pull out of Iran until it’s clear to even the idiot US electorate that the war is “lost” (except for all the profits the US military-industrial complex made from it.) The US electorate still seems not to mind that the US is still in Afghanistan after 18 years (and electing Trump didn’t make a dent in that situation.)
Its doubtful that anyone will ever go into Iran.
They won’t ‘go in’. They are killer cowards after all. They will just bomb Iran ‘back to the Stone Age’, like the heroes that they are.
They might try a ” D-Day ” type, which could fail miserably ( only conquering the beaches ) . A ” yuge ” Fiasco.
The future false flag design:
https://russia-insider.com/en/pompeo-unveils-new-us-strategy-attributing-blame-attacks-they-have-happened/ri27271
PS. USA rejecting ” climate change ” is by design. When Trump will go,all he represents( by design ) will go .America First,nationalism, climate change denial, mainstream media, the enemy of the people or fake news,some kind of US christians….and so on.
Even that is dubious, they would need consent from congress and the political civil war its self could prevent such actions. Lets not hold our breath waiting for this, the Japanese would tip us off if any Iranian offensive action was in the cards. All i’ve heard is crickets.
The US will have to go into Iran – at least on the Iranian coast. That will be the only way the US even has the slightest chance of being able to prevent Iran from mining the Gulf and the Straits.
The US will try to “finesse” the problem with air power and Special Forces raids for months – but that will fail, and no oil tanker will transit the Gulf or the Straits. Their mine-clearing ships will fail, as I noted in my post above. That leaves the only choice as sending tens of thousands of Marines and Army actually on to the Iranian coast to root out the missile sites and mine-laying vessels. That will take months and months, if not years. And all the while the US troops will be subject to attacks from whatever is left of the Iranian military, the IRGC, and the Basij militia (from one to ten million strong, depending on whose figures you accept.)
motto: The second ” Donald Trump ” is in pole position at 10 Downing Street circuit !
” It is likely that an Israeli/US joint attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon is in the cards for this year or next year. That will be followed by a US/Israel (emphasis on the US, of course) war with Iran *after* the 2020 elections. ”
So do you think they have wasted 2 false flag attacks already?! It would be redundant or a premiere,as far as I know.
If Russia and China haven’t helped Iran for a MAD in case of an USA attack,then it is not looking good .
But:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/06/18/598843/Iran-United-States-ballistic-missile-technology-IRGC-Salami
https://www.janes.com/article/89195/iran-unveils-new-sam-system
15 Khordad looks like Patriot ( which is very good ) but I hope it works like Vityaz.. The same with other ” gadgets “.
Putin’s continuing silence on Iran iss deafening. It aint looking good for BRI. And pepe somehow always fails to mention Russia for some reason isnt even part of BRI.
This should cause some serious thought. Tulsi Gabbard says good things about nonintervention and stopping the wars as did Trump in the run up to the election. She is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations!
Actually Trump never said that. This was hearing what we wanted to hear. Trump was against the Iraq war and much has been made of this. But the reason why Trump was against the Iraq war is that he felt it was a waste of resources and unprofitable. He wanted Imperialist spoils. That is, he wanted to take Iraq’s oil. Similarly, this is why an imperial war with Venezuela is so appealing to him. Trump is a unilateralist, a militarist and an imperialist. Nothing that he did or said during the election campaign or while in office supports otherwise.
@ Craig
Once immersed in the Swamp she gets dirty. Even if she would like to keep her promises,the Swamp will create new realities ( as Karl Rove once said ),like false flags, and the mainstream media,MIC,secret services et Co. will put pressure on her to act accordingly. Nothing new under the sun.
https://sputniknews.com/latam/201906191075949780-bolton-pence-ramp-up-rhetoric-against-maduro-as-usns-comfort-set-to-leave-on-humanitarian-mission/
Venuzuela is another pivot point in the great game. Hopefully the is no USS Liberty type repeat. Those HIV specialists who died in the Ukrainian shoot down of the Malaysian Airlines certainly demonstrate potential…a type of couplet for the sinisters in charge.
Interesting article in zerohedge coming from oilprice.com
Surely the author is related to western ntelligence.
But It provided analysis that I consider credible as it matches open sources infomation and my own analysis of the event.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-18/declassified-sino-russian-masterplan-end-us-dominance-middle-east
Few cookies.
Solemaini oil plan I read about before but without details. Here it is laid out.
Quote “In early April, a three-phase escalating war plan was drawn under Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani in order to deprive the West of access to the Arabian Peninsula’s oil if US sanctions persisted and Iran could no longer sell oil.
The first phase was to signal Iran’s resolve and might;
the second, sinking tankers transferring oil from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, as well as blocking the Strait of Hormuz;
and the third was to destroy the entire oil and gas infrastructure throughout the Arabian Peninsula.
In late-April 2019, Maj.-Gen. Mohammed Hossein Bagheri alluded to the Iranian resolve. “If our oil fails to go through the Strait, others’ crude will not either,” Bagheri warned. The Fujairah attack and the Gulf of Oman attack corresponded with the first two phases of Soleimani’s plan. The third was also to come.” End quote
In addition the string of event goes beyond the tankers.
Quote “But the US kept escalating its covert war with Iran, both in the Persian Gulf and in Syria. The extent of the escalation and the focusing on objectives of great importance for Iran could not but lead to Iranian harsh reaction.
First came escalation of the campaign against the transfer of oil along the long desert road stretch between Deir ez-Zor and Damascus. (…)” end quote.
And
Quote “On June 5, 2019, huge fire consumed a storage facility for oil products at the Shahid Rajaee port in southern Hormozgan Province. Located west of Bandar Abbas, the Shahid Rajaee port is Iran’s largest container shipping port.(…)
On June 7, 2019, six Iranian merchant ships were set ablaze almost simultaneously in two Persian Gulf ports.
First, five ships “caught fire” in the port of Nakhl Taghi in the Asaluyeh region of Bushehr Province. Three of these ships were completely burned and the two others suffered major damage. (…)
Several diplomats in Tehran reported that the local grapevines were attributing the fires to “expert mercenaries” of “unknown origin”. “Knowledgeable Iranians” opined, the diplomats reported, that “ferocious revenge” was only a question of time.” End quote
The other significant point is about Iran présence in Irak and Syria. Hints are provided about the extent of such présence.
Quote “Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force continued to expand the Iranian strategic deployment in Syria. Most important was the completion, in the first week of June 2019, of the forward emplacement of ballistic missiles in addition to the deployments in southern-western Iraq and nearby in Iran. The Iranians maintained Qods Force missile sites (as distinct from storage sites for the HizbAllah) — mainly Fatah-110 and Zulfiqar SSMs — at the T-4 airbase in Homs province, in Jubb el-Jarah east of Homs, in al-Safira near Aleppo, and in the Al-Kiswah area south of Damascus. In early June 2019, the Qods Force brought Toophan-1 anti-tank missiles to the T-4 airbase. These are all areas and installations that Israel has bombed repeatedly. Yet, the Qods Force keeps repairing the damage and redeploying new weapons and missiles; an expression of their growing importance to the forthcoming regional war.” End quote
In whole the article is very interesting and IMHO highly credible.
As last point. My answer to Vor Tak about the Magnier article :
Should you be less inhabited by prejudice you would have note that I postes my article Before the Magnier Article. Contrary to your insulting supposition to the contrary.
I would rather prefer analysis from comments rather than troll and one liner grunt you and Mulga are used to.
As for the sources credibility in general I do not care. As I cross and double check information from various origin. And I let my own common sense make the analysis. As an exemple I did not care for the official version and the alternative version to have my own opinion regarding 9/11.
The very same day of the event it has been quite clear to me that that was control demolition because of free fall of the towers.
And it has been clear for me from the months just after that event that was a Mossad and PNAC job.
Iran is none too happy with current status quo and makes it known.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/06/19/598890/Iran-nuclear-United-States-sanctions-tankers
Quote “Contrary to how some countries are trying to project the Tehran’s decision, “what we did was Iran’s minimum measure [in the face of the breaches],” Rouhani said in Tehran on Wednesday, addressing a cabinet meeting. (…)
Rouhani said to say that the US has just sanctioned Iran falls far short of what Washington has committed against the country.
“This is not sanctioning. This is a crime against humanity and economic terrorism,” he said, reminding that the bans target not only the country’s vital industries, but also foodstuffs and Iranians’ daily requirements.” End quote.
Well it will be interesting to see who blinks first.
It is clear now that Iran is going to leave the JCPOA. And that even after leaving that will not be the end of Iran retaliation…
Not sure how the US wil escape a disastrous war with world impacts drawing in by their hair China Europe and Russia.
Or the US to experience an humiliating strategic defeat by backing down.
I read elsewhere that Iran consider US as amateurish and without strategy.
Well my own opinion about Trump Strategy is that somehow it is consistent with…
Ending the globalization as we know it for 50 years through nationaliste policy.
Ending US world military presence by desgusting all other countries in medium term.
Ending USD hegemony with senseless sanctions and budget deficit.
Shaking up Europe to their sense.
Making clear the situation to Arab countries populace about arab slavery and tyranny.
Ending China free lunch.
Forcing and speeding up Israel issue negociation whatever the outcome would be.
That is truly the nightmare come true for all globalists.
For nationalists the plan is not that bad.
At the end of the day not sure that would be in Israel interest.
Lol
pundits maybe missing the tree for the forest, or is it the other way around,missing the forest for the tree,after 50 over years of following geopolitical reality ,nothing is as it seems, so readers are cautioned to take everything in cyber realm with a spoon of salt.
enough of this nationhood victim or state players theory , there is no such whole entity as ”america” or ”iran” or even israel or china or whatever you wanna colour.we humans are being played big time.What can be ascertained is there is a still to be uncovered fully ”MULTI GENERATIONAL INTERNATIONAL EVIL ORGANISATION”..that enjoys total control by division and constant war to keep us humanity in sorrow.
i am sick of reading ;”oh how great is china compared to america” have this morons lived in beijing in yellow colours.Get over it stop drinking ”we vs them” kool aide.
I have to agree- we are so conditioned to believe in the good guy/ bad guy paradigm.
I so wish there was a rising star of China or any other country to put things straight. However a tiny peek behind the veil reveals China is the chosen leader of international surveillance and an international money system which are the main instruments of the Beast.
Seeking Truth leads one down a meandering path with many false trails. It is a weary journey and I too would like to believe I could rest in the belief of a good guy.
I am a Putin hold out for now, but keep a watchful eye there too. Meanwhile the voice of the Good Shepherd is my only reliable source through the valleys of wolves.
k
k
maybe,but putin is not in total control either ,waiting for someone to save us from this constant geopolitical fear may be a bridge too far.We must first refuse to give hate any place in our heart.,cherokee saying,”don’t judge anyone until you have walked in their moccasin”,comes to mind.
Your comment is a sober one and should be taken very seriously. In fact it is most likely the closest to the truth.
However, for myself the discretion of Asian culture is a block for understanding. I have read that the Chinese central bank is foreign controlled. I have read the Chinese central bank is Chinese controlled. I find Asians keep everything close to the vest. I know there is a fifth column in Russia. I know Iran is fairly independent minus the western cultural immersion of their youth.
I know nothing about China’s true intentions. Is their creepy social credit system concerning and all the other surveillance? Absolutely. Is the fact they negotiate with other states as opposed to sending aircraft carriers not their sea lanes encouraging? yes. is their reversal of the one child policy encouraging? Yes
So i just don’t know what China’s true intentions are, at the end of the day.
early days was locked in the narrative that the ”east is east and the west is west and the twins will never meat’ claptrap ,it is a narrative that keeps the arm industry fully loaded ,why does nobody question why the east must be at odds with west?Have you ever been on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier ,it is mind blowing we the sheeps enable this war machine when millions go hungry or live in utter poverty.We don’t need to believe this b.s and when we do our hands are bloodied even if we don’t carry the sword.China,russia or america are not evil but it is a chimera manufactured by politicians and talking heads to keep us in suspended fear for the ”EVIL POWER IN TOTAL CONTROL”.
”america” was manufactured on the bones of the cherokee ,now the evil powers are manufacturing a eustania as the the present european birth rate is not good enough for their cash register ,’muslims” are bombed to leave for the promised eustania ,cheap labour ,can you not hear the chaaarrriching of the evil till.
from crusade to crusade ,we the sheeps the black,the white,the yellow but still sheeps, are dump enough not to know we are being played big time. Pass the kool aide please.
The Chinese social credit system is ‘creepy’ only to brainwashed Westerners. It is designed to reward good social behaviour, and identify and punish, rather mildly, spivs, rip-off merchants and shonks-the type who float to the top in the West. In fact it is mostly being used to inform the public of the trustworthiness of companies and other business groups. What I find creepy is thousands living on the street amidst human faeces and typhus, two million plus in prison, 100,000 in the Hell of solitary confinement and a country where the choice of Leader was between a carnival huckster and narcissistic bombast, and a ‘female’ psychopath who cackled her delight at the death by knife sodomisation of Gaddaffi. THAT is creepy.
Vesti News
Top Israeli Expert: US Can’t Defeat Iran in a Conventional War; Absolutely Ridiculous!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XVnuoKCfP8
Yakov Kedmi States the Obvious: Why Would Iran Do Something Stupid as Bombing a Japanese Tanker?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw0DuAh5Rg8
What the Anglo Americans fundamentally hate is Eurasian integration.
Since the days of the British Empire’s Halford MacKinder to the Anglo American Empire’s strategists like Zig. Brzezinski, the Anglosphere Axis has sought to dominate the world through the balkanization of Eurasia by sowing division, conflict, and wars (both hot and cold) in this “axial supercontinent.”
The Anglo Americans cunningly stand removed from these conflicts they are guilty of fomenting in the first place.
Brzezinski’s book _The Grand Chessboard_ effectively lays out the USA’s intentions to enforce American global “primacy”–which is to say American global dictatorship–by subordinating Eurasia.
All American regimes (including the fake “isolationist” Trump regime) will pursue this predatory plan of sowing chaos and division in Eurasia to enforce the American Empire’s New World Order.
The Americans will thus try to drive a wedge between Russia vs. Iran/China, just as it has already co-opted India in all but name.
India’s Strategic Alliance with U.S.: Towards an Anti-Russian Military Pivot
https://www.globalresearch.ca/indias-ambassador-us-strongly-hinted-anti-russian-military-pivot/5678388
This is the underlying meaning of Trump’s disingenuous “New Detente” overtures to Russia.
In reality, this is nothing more than America’s divide-and-conquer tactic to implicitly turn Russia against China and Iran.
From The SCO To The G20: United Eurasia Stands, Divided It Falls?
https://orientalreview.org/2019/06/03/from-the-sco-to-the-g20-united-eurasia-stands-divided-it-falls/
The Anglosphere Axis led by America will *never* relinquish their hegemonic grip over the world; they will instinctively resort to what they always do: deception, psyops, deceit, and geopolitical manipulation that would make even Machiavelli blush in shame.
At base, Americans possess a Christian-style fanaticism that they are the Indispensable nation and Exceptional people and thus have a God-given Manifest Destiny to dominate the world–of which Eurasia is key.
This ambition, above all else, lies behind America’s mask of “freedom and democracy.”
India is in deep do-do, from economic stagnation, inequality, trade debt, ecological collapse, massive pollution, caste warfare and widespread Islamophobic violence, grotesque misogynistic crimes, local insurrections and insurgencies, farmer suicides and widespread ruin, and anthropogenic climate destabilisation. In league with China and Russia they might yet save themselves, but as ‘honorary White Men’ in thrall to the USA and Israel they are rooted.