Fresh Russian-U.S. ‘Skirmish’ Reported in Syria

Fresh Russian-U.S. ‘Skirmish’ Reported in Syria

one day ago

  

American troops have reportedly blocked a Russian convoy from accessing the oil fields at least four times in the past eight days. U.S. Army Reserve photo by Spc. DeAndre Pierce / The National Guard / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Russian and U.S. forces have faced off for what could be the fourth time in less than two weeks in oil-rich northeastern Syria, the local Kurdish news outlet Anha reported Saturday.

Video of the reported standoff in the Hasakah province showed a Russian-flagged armored vehicle and what appeared to be two U.S. Army armored vehicles standing on a highway off-ramp.

Rojava Network@RojavaNetwork

 

US forces has blocked an Russian military patrol eastern entrace of Tell tamr city and blocked the way to M4 international road. Russian military patrol were forced to retreat back to Tell tamr city.

9:55 AM - Jan 25, 2020

Following the “skirmish” at the entrance to the town of Tal Tamr — which lies on a highway to the region’s key oilfields — the U.S. and Russian convoys reportedly headed in different directions. 

Russian helicopters and U.S. warplanes flew over Tal Tamr half an hour after the incident, Anha reported. The outlet did not say how long the standoff lasted.

American troops have blocked a Russian convoy from accessing oil fields at least four times in the past eight days, Turkey’s Daily Sabah newspaper reported Sunday. U.S. troops also “blocked” a Russian military patrol from accessing an oilfield in the Hasakah town of Rmelan on Jan. 18

A Russian army helicopter flies over a patrol of US soldiers in the town of Tal Tamr in Syria's Hasakeh province on the border with Turkey 

AFP news agency

✔@AFP

A Russian army helicopter flies over a patrol of US soldiers in the town of Tal Tamr in Syria's Hasakeh province on the border with Turkey

Delil Souleiman

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2:32 AM - Jan 27, 2020

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The latest standoff took place two days after Kurdish forces similarly prevented Russian troops from passing through a major city to establish a military zone near the Rmelan oilfield, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported.

‘Atrocious’: 188 Democrats Join GOP to Hand Trump $738 Billion Military Budget that Includes ‘Space Force’

‘Atrocious’: 188 Democrats Join GOP to Hand Trump $738 Billion Military Budget that Includes ‘Space Force’

By Jake Johnson

Global Research, December 26, 2019

Common Dreams 12 December 2019

Region: USA

Theme: Intelligence, Militarization and WMD

“It is Orwellian for Congress to hand over billions of dollars worth of weapons and bombs to a president waging a horrific, unconstitutional war in Yemen—and call that progressive.”

***

More than 180 House Democrats joined a nearly united Republican caucus Wednesday night to pass a sweeping $738 billion military spending bill that gives President Donald Trump his long-sought “Space Force,” free rein to wage endless wars, and a green light to continue fueling the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.

Just 48 members of the House, including 41 Democrats, voted against the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which increases the Pentagon budget by $22 billion. The final vote was 377-48.

“This NDAA is atrocious, and it’s very depressing that only 48 members of congress voted against it,” tweeted anti-war group CodePink.

In a floor speech ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the most vocal opponent of the NDAA in the House, said “there are many things you can call the bill, but it’s Orwellian to call it progressive.” Khanna was standing across the aisle from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who hailed the measure as “the most progressive defense bill we have passed in decades.”

“Let’s speak in facts,” said Khanna. “This defense budget is $120 billion more than what Obama left us with. That could fund free public college for every American. It could fund access to high-speed, affordable internet for every American. But it’s worse. The bipartisan amendment to stop the war in Yemen: stripped by the White House. The bipartisan amendment to stop the war in Iran: stripped by the White House.”

PHILIP GIRALDI -- The Afghanistan Fiasco and the Decline and Fall of the American Military

The Afghanistan Fiasco and the Decline and Fall of the American Military

PHILIP GIRALDI • DECEMBER 19, 2019

120229-A-8536E-817 U.S. Army soldiers prepare to conduct security checks near the Pakistan border at Combat Outpost Dand Patan in Afghanistan's Paktya province on Feb. 29, 2012. The soldiers are paratroopers assigned to Company A, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Epperson, U.S. Army. (Released)

A devastating investigative report was published in the Washington Post on December 9^th. Dubbed the “Afghanistan Papers” in a nod to the Vietnam War’s famous “Pentagon Papers,” the report relied on thousands of documents to similarly expose how the US government at the presidential level across three administrations, acting in collaboration with the military brass and civilian bureaucracy, deliberately and systematically lied repeatedly to the public and media about the situation in Afghanistan. Officials from the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations have all surged additional troops into Afghanistan while also regularly overstating the “success” that the United States was attaining in stabilizing and democratizing the country. While they were lying, the senior officers and government officials understood clearly that the war was, in fact, unwinnable.

The story should have been featured all across the US as Afghanistan continues to kill Americans and much larger numbers of Afghans while also draining billions of dollars from the United States Treasury, but the mainstream media was largely unresponsive, preferring to cover the impeachment saga. Rather more responsive were the families of Army Chief Warrant Officer Second Class David C. Knadle, 33, of Tarrant, Texas, and Chief Warrant Officer Second Class Kirk T. Fuchigami Jr., 25, of Keaau, Hawaii. Both were killed in a helicopter crash on November 20^th in Afghanistan’s Logar province while assisting troops on the ground, according to a Pentagon press release. They were participating in what was characteristically dubbed Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. Both men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division in Fort Hood, Texas. The Taliban took credit for the downing of the chopper, but the Army is still investigating the cause.

Christopher Black -- This Outlaw Power

07.06.2019 Author: Christopher Black

This Outlaw Power

Column: Politics

Region: USA in the World

On June 4th the Chinese government issued a travel alert for Chinese tourists thinking of visiting the United States, a day after it issued a similar advisory to Chinese students thinking of studying in the US over concerns for their safety and security. Chinese in the US are reporting harassment and interrogations by US immigration authorities and many now have the impression they are not welcome in the US.

The Global Times, speaking on behalf of the government stated,

“The Chinese people find it difficult to accept the fact that they are being taken as thieves. The US boasts too much superiority and has been indulged by the world. Due to its short history, it lacks understanding of and respect for the rules of countries and laws of the market. The Americans of the early generations accumulated prosperity and prestige for the US, while the current US administration behaves like a wastrel generation by ruining the world’s respect for the US.”

It seems to me they are being generous to the US since the “early prosperity” of the US was built on the backs of slave labour, extermination of the indigenous peoples and theft of their lands, colonization and exploitation of other countries, including China, and two hundred years of continual warfare to secure the resources and markets of first the western hemisphere, then the world. Their “prestige” comes out of the barrel of a gun. The US economic and military aggression against those nations that refuse to obey American demands to serve their interests ever increases and never abates. A few days ago Mike Pompeo stated, with feigned innocence, that the US was willing to talk to Iran “without preconditions” when the real conditions Iran faces include an almost total embargo of its trade and threats of immediate attack by US forces, including nuclear attack. The Iranians quickly rejected this hypocrisy.

In the Balkans the US and its NATO war machine have again stirred up problems in Serbia where, in the NATO occupied province of Kosovo-Metohija, Serbs and Russians were detained and beaten up by Albanian security forces designed to put further pressure on Serbia to fall into the NATO camp so that the NATO machine will have complete control of the Balkans to complete the encirclement of Russia. The war goes on in Syria, goes on in Ukraine, goes on in Afghanistan. The terrible situation of the Palestinians becomes even worse as the US plans the final solution for them-their disappearance as a people to be absorbed as citizens of other states, while Israel continues its aggressive expansion and acts as agent of the US bully in the region; the threats against Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea continue.

But the principle preoccupation of the US is still China and Russia. 

LARRY ROMANOFF -- Tiananmen Square: The Failure of an American-instigated 1989 Color Revolution

Tiananmen Square: The Failure of an American-instigated 1989 Color Revolution

Beijing: June 04, 1989

By Larry Romanoff

Global Research, September 24, 2019

Region: Asia, USA

Theme: Intelligence, Politics

There are few places in China that seem more burned into the consciousness of typical Westerners than Tiananmen Square, and few events more commonly mentioned than the student protests of 1989. But the stories are wrong on several levels. It was never reported in the Western media that there were two separate events that occurred in Beijing on June 4, 1989. One was a student protest that culminated in a sit-in in Tiananmen Square by several thousand university students, which had lasted for several weeks and finally terminated on June 4. The other was a one-day worker strike that occurred (perhaps not by chance) also on June 4, when a group of workers unhappy with their lot in life, organised their own protest independently of the students, and in a different place. For reasons that will become apparent, the workers’ protest is the necessary focus for understanding the events of that date, so I will begin there.

The Workers’ Revolt

A group of workers gathered, and barricaded several streets in Muxidi, an area in Beijing five or six kilometers from Tiananmen Square, the barricades attended by several hundred mostly adult workers, with an undetermined few young people. However, there was a third quite large group present that to my knowledge has never been clearly identified, though it is obvious from the photos they were not workers and certainly not young students. (1) Thugs or anarchists might be an appropriate adjective, but the facts seem to support the conclusion (and my own personal judgment) that they were mercenaries. (2)

The government sent in busloads of soldiers, accompanied by a few APCs to clear the barricades and re-open the streets to traffic. (3) The violence began when the third group attacked the young men attempting to clear the barricades. They were well-prepared, armed with at least hundreds and perhaps thousands of gasoline bombs, and immediately torched dozens of buses and the few APCs – with the soldiers still inside. Many soldiers in both types of vehicles escaped, but many others did not, and many burned to death. There are countless photos of dead soldiers burned to a crisp, some hung by the thugs from lampposts, others lying in the street or on stairs or sidewalks where they died, others hanging out of bus windows or the APCs, having only partially escaped before being overcome by the flames. There are documented reports and photos showing that the group of thugs managed to get control of one APC, and drove it through the streets while firing the machine guns on the turret. (4) It was only then that the government sent in armed soldiers and military equipment.

Government reports and independent media personnel generally claim a total of 250 to 300 civilian deaths before the violence subsided, but a similar number of soldiers had already been killed. When police or military are attacked in this way, they will surely use force to defend themselves and cannot be faulted for that. If you or I were the military commander on the scene, watching our men being attacked and burned to death, we would have done the same. From everything I know, I can find no fault here.

Here is an eyewitness report from someone who was there, an excerpt from the book ‘Tiananmen Moon’: (5)

A Rússia não exclui guerra nuclear na Europa

A Rússia não exclui a hipótese de guerra nuclear na Europa

1     17 de Setembro de 2019

       • Os países que estão preparados para instalar qualquer tipo de armas sugerido pelos EUA tornar-se-ão verdadeiros alvos para a Rússia.

Enviado por Adomas Abromaitis…

Nos últimos dias, o problema do risco de escalada nuclear num conflito não nuclear e de guerra por engano, está intensamente presente.

É mais que óbvio, que a estabilidade estratégica está em profunda crise. De acordo com o relatório (http://svop.ru/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/REPORT_Eng_1.pdf ), que se baseia nos resultados de uma análise das circunstâncias problemáticas, dirigida por Sergei A. Karaganov e ocorrida no Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros russo, “seria um erro pensar que o novo cenário estratégico militar é estável”.

Do ponto de vista do autor, a principal ameaça provém do risco de conflito militar entre potências nucleares, incluindo um conflito nuclear ou não nuclear não intencional, que pode, posteriormente, transformar-se numa guerra nuclear global, com a probabilidade da escalada ser agora maior do que antes.

De acordo com o relatório, é claro que a Rússia está convencida de que os EUA estão a destruir, constantemente, a sua arquitectura tradicional - o sistema de acordos de controlo de armas nucleares - considerando, novamente, opções para usar armas nucleares num conflito convencional para vencer a guerra, bem como recusar-se a iniciar negociações positivas, para fortalecer a estabilidade estratégica.

O autor tem a certeza de que esta circunstância cria um vazio no campo das armas nucleares e reduz o limite inicial para o seu uso, numa ocasião em que o risco de um choque armado entre potências nucleares na situação política e tecnológica actual, permanece bastante elevado.

No que diz respeito à Europa, o relatório afirma que os riscos mais sérios de choque militar inadvertido resultam dos esforços contínuos dos EUA para construir a sua infraestrutura militar, incluindo defesas de mísseis e drones, na Europa Oriental, bem como os seus planos para aumentar o arsenal de armas nucleares de pequeno conteúdo explosivo (low-yield nuclear weapons) e colocá-las em sistemas estratégicos de transporte, a fim de neutralizar a ameaça militar russa.

Numerosas propostas dos EUA para fortalecer a sua presença militar e a instalação de armas nos territórios da Polónia e dos Estados Bálticos indicam, claramente, que os EUA admitem a possibilidade de um conflito militar regional com a Rússia, na Europa e estão a  tomar medidas para impedir a Rússia de vencer, usando armas nucleares tácticas ou mísseis de médio alcance armados convencionalmente.

O autor considera que esta tendência é bastante perigosa: para a Rússia, o uso de armas nucleares tácticas ou mísseis de médio alcance armados contra ela, significaria um ataque estratégico e, inevitavelmente, desencadearia um segundo ataque nuclear contra os EUA ou contra os países que instalaram no seu território, essas armas nucleares americanas.

Assim, os países que estão preparados para usar qualquer tipo de arma sugerido pelos EUA, tornar-se-ão alvos reais para a Rússia.

A guerra nuclear na Europa já não é mais uma intimidação fantasmagórica, mas uma ameaça muito concreta.

Pepe Escobar -- Somos todos reféns do 11/09

Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar, jornalista e correspondente de várias publicações internacionais

Somos todos reféns do 11/09

"Para o desespero dos neocons estadunidenses, toda a fúria e som combinada do 11/09 e a Guerra Global ao Terror/Operação de Contingenciamento Ultramar, em menos de 2 décadas, acaba em metástases representadas não somente por um rival mas também na parceria estratégica Rússia-China. Esse é o 'inimigo' real – não a Al-Qaeda, uma mera invenção do imaginário da CIA, reabilitada e higienizada na forma de 'rebeldes moderados' na Síria", escreve o correspondente Pepe Escobar

11 de setembro de 2019, 22:55 h Atualizado em 12 de setembro de 2019, 13:06

Por Pepe Escobar, no Asia Times

Tradução de Regina Aquino

Após anos de reportagens sobre a Grande guerra ao terror, muitas questões permanecem pendentes.

O Afeganistão foi bombardeado e invadido por causa do 11/09. Eu estava lá desde o começo, bem antes do 11/09. Em 20 de Agosto de 2001, eu entrevistei o comandante Ahmad Shah Massoud, o “Leão do Panjshir *“, que me contou sobre a aliança profana entre o Talibã, a al-Qaeda e o ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence, o serviço de Inteligência paquistanesa).

De volta a Peshawar, eu fiquei sabendo que algo realmente grande estava para acontecer: meu artigo foi publicado pelo Asia Times em 30 de Agosto. O comandante Massoud foi morto em 9 de Setembro: eu recebi um e-mail sucinto de uma fonte em Panjshir, afirmando somente, “atiraram no comandante”. Dois dias depois, o 11/09 aconteceu.

China prepares its 'nuclear option' in trade war

Published time: 17 Aug, 2019 10:26

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FILE PHOTO: The mushroom cloud of the first test of a hydrogen bomb, "Ivy Mike" © Reuters

As the trade war continues to escalate, China is becoming increasingly active in Iran and is considering retaliating with what has long been described as the country’s ‘nuclear option’.

For the first of these projects - Phase 11 of the supergiant South Pars non-associated gas field (SP11) - last week saw a statement from the chief executive officer of the Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) that talks had resumed with Chinese developers to advance the project. Originally the subject of an extensive contract signed by France’s Total before it pulled out due to re-imposed US sanctions on Iran, talks had been well-advanced with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to take up the slack on development. As per the original contract, CNPC had been assigned Total’s 50.1 percent stake in the field when the French firm withdrew, giving it a total of 80.1 percent in the site, with Iran’s own Petropars Company holding the remainder. At the same time, Iran was desperate to increase the pace of development of the fields in its oil-rich West Karoun area, including North Azadegan, South Azadegan, North Yaran, South Yaran, and Yadavaran, in order to optimise oil flows ahead of further clampdowns on exports by the US.

NED et. al.: The CIA’s Successors and Collaborators

NED et. al.: The CIA’s Successors and Collaborators

US Overt and Covert Destabilisation

By Hernando Calvo Ospina

Global Research, April 15, 2008

Le Monde Diplomatique 15 April 2008

Region: USA

Theme: Intelligence

When a scandal in the 1980s revealed the CIA’s 35 years of international manipulations, President Ronald Reagan established the National Endowment for Democracy as a more discreet and less controversial instrument. It had the same purpose – to destabilise unfriendly governments by funding the opposition.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in 1983, ostensibly as a non-profit-making organisation to promote human rights and democracy. In 1991 its first president, the historian Allen Weinstein, confessed to The Washington Post: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA” (1).

Long before the NED was created, the same newspaper had revealed in 1967 how the CIA funded foreign trade unions, cultural organisations, media, and prominent intellectuals. As Philip Agee, a former operative with the Company told me in an interview in 2005: “The CIA used known American foundations, as well as other custom-made entities that existed only on paper.”

Under pressure, President Lyndon Johnson ordered an investigation, although he was aware that the CIA had been mandated to carry out such activities since its creation in 1947. Agee said: “In the aftermath of World War II, faced with threats to our democratic allies and without any mechanism to channel political assistance, US policy makers resorted to covert means, secretly sending advisers, equipment and funds to support newspapers and parties under siege in Europe” (2). They had to counter the Soviet Union’s ideological influence at the start of the cold war.

Provocations Have A History Of Escalating Into War

Provocations Have A History Of Escalating Into War

August 31, 2018 

Provocations Have A History Of Escalating Into War

Can War Be Avoided and the Planet Saved?

Paul Craig Roberts

The Russian Government and President Putin are coming under pressure not from US sanctions, which are very good for Russia as they force Russia into independence, but from Russian patriots who are tiring of Putin’s non-confrontational responses to Washington’s never-ending insults and military provocations. Russian patriots don’t want war, but they do want their country’s honor defended, and they believe Putin is failing in this job. Some of them are saying that Putin himself is a West-worshipping Atlanticist Integrationist.

This disillusionment with Putin, together with Putin’s endorsement of raising the retirement age for pensions, a trap set for him by Russia’s neoliberal economists, have hurt Putin’s approval ratings at the precise time that he will again be tested by Washington in Syria.

In many columns, I have defended Putin from the charge that he is not sufficiently Russian. Putin wants to avoid war, because he knows it would be nuclear, the consequences of which would be dire. He knows that the US and its militarily impotent NATO allies cannot possibly conduct conventional warfare against Russia or China, much less against both. Putin also understands that the sanctions are damaging Washington’s European vassals and could eventually force the European vassal states into independence that would constrain Washington’s belligerence. Even with Russia’s new super weapons, which probably give Putin the capability of destroying the entirety of the Western World with little or no damage to Russia, Putin sees no point in so much destruction, especially as the consequences are unknown. There could be nuclear winter or other results that would put the planet into decline as a life-sustaining entity.

The Monster in the Mirror… The US Network of Military Bases

The Monster in the Mirror… The US Network of Military Bases

By Nora Fernandez

Global Research, September 01, 2018

Region: USA

Theme: History, Militarization and WMD

First published by Global Research on January 3, 2018

In 2007, the late Prof. Jules Dufour raised concerns about US global deployment of military personnel and its network of military bases. The US views the world, he said, “as a vast territory to conquer, occupy and exploit.” “Humanity is being controlled and enslaved” he argued by this network.

The US is dividing the world into geographic command units, like US Northcom or US Southcom, proved the US focus on global control.

Dufour mentions the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases (No Bases Network) as essential in achieving a cohesive, coordinated front against US global control. The No Bases Network, born at the conference in Ecuador (March 2007), was concerned about the expansion of US Network of bases, and specifically about the plan for renewal of permission of the US Military base in Manta. Rafael Correa, then president of Ecuador, was invited and he expressed there his decision to not renew permission for the base, a position that will be later included in Ecuador’s new Constitution, approved by referendum in 2008, which specifically prohibits foreign military bases on Ecuador’s soil. The Manta base was closed in September 2009. (1, 2)

This year the Conference of the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases will take place in Baltimore, US (Jan. 12 to 14).  It will have three keynote speakers: Mr. Ajamu Baraka, 2016 US Green Party candidate for vice president and current President of the Black Alliance for Peace; Ms. Ann Wright, Retired US Army Colonel and leading member of Veterans for Peace and CODEPINK; and, Mr. David Vine, Associate Professor of Anthropology, American University in Washington DC, and author of the 2015 book “Base Nation. How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and The World.” (3)