Eric Zuesse -- Russiagate Investigation Now Endangers Obama

Russiagate Investigation Now Endangers Obama

Eric Zuesse

December 29, 2019

Former US President Barack Obama is now in severe legal jeopardy, because the Russiagate investigation has turned 180 degrees; and he, instead of the current President, Donald Trump, is in its cross-hairs.

The biggest crime that a US President can commit is to try to defeat American democracy (the Constitutional functioning of the US Government) itself, either by working with foreign powers to take it over, or else by working internally within America to sabotage democracy for his or her own personal reasons. Either way, it’s treason (crime that is intended to, and does, endanger the continued functioning of the Constitution itself*), and Mr. Obama is now being actively investigated, as possibly having done this. The Russiagate investigation, which had formerly focused against the current US President, has reversed direction and now targets the prior President. Although he, of course, cannot be removed from office (since he is no longer in office), he is liable under criminal laws, the same as any other American would be, if he committed any crime while he was in office.

A December 17th order by the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court severely condemned the performance by the FBI under Obama, for having obtained, on 19 October 2016 (even prior to the US Presidential election), from that Court, under false pretenses, an authorization for the FBI to commence investigating Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, as being possibly in collusion with Russia’s Government. The Court’s ruling said:

Jim Dean -- Can Bibi Hustle a Pardon to Avoid Jail?

30.12.2019 Author: Jim Dean

Can Bibi Hustle a Pardon to Avoid Jail?

Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

Country: Israel

“With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.” ~ Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the German Empire, 1871-1890

An exhausted Israeli public is getting a temporary respite from Israel’s two failed attempts to form a government by a hopelessly divided Knesset. The political party battle lines remain hardened, as no compromise was possible to put a majority coalition together. It seems the political egos must be served first, and the country’s interests come second.

March 2, 2020 is set for the next polling date. Early polls show Benny Gantz’ party, Blue and White, picking up 2 to 4 seats, and some shifting relations among the minor parties.

For example, the Labor party once ruled Israel for three decades until it was unseated by the former head of the Irgun terror organization, Menachem Begin. It now fears not making the minimum vote needed to be allotted seats and is looking for another party to join.

Smaller political parties looking to form new alliances

The Jewish Home-National Union’s Bezalel Smotrich told Channel 12 news he has called for the small rightwing parties to unite. “We need to learn from past mistakes. In the [April] election we ran with two lists and the New Right didn’t pass the electoral threshold. If it hadn’t been for that we’d already be nearing a year with a good right-wing government.” Smotrich called for a single slate representing the religious right.

Another unnamed top rightwing official reported to Channel 12 news that, “There will not be another blind following of Netanyahu… “A fourth election is not an option and would be unforgivable.”

Not everybody is on the join together train. New Right chief Naftali Bennett reiterated his party’s intention to run independently in March. As acting Prime Minister, Netanyahu appointed Bennett defense minister until a new government plays musical chairs with all the ministries once again in Israel. These are hard fought for positions for all the publicity they can generate for those wanting to run for the PM slot someday.

Bibi is using political turmoil as his prosecution shield

Vladimir Odintsov -- Peace and the Withdrawal of American Soldiers from Afghanistan Put on Hold

30.12.2019 Author: Vladimir Odintsov

Peace and the Withdrawal of American Soldiers from Afghanistan Put on Hold

Column: Politics

Region: Central Asia

Country: Afghanistan

According to Hawa Alam Nuristani, Chairwoman of the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan, the current president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, came first in the country’s presidential election in late September, gaining 50.64% of the vote.

Meanwhile the media previously reported that the campaign team of another presidential candidate, the country’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, filed over 4,000 complaints about the preliminary results of the election.

According to a number of experts, the situation around the country’s presidential election further hinders the possibility of a de-escalation of the Afghan conflict. It’s more likely to provoke a political crisis, which would unfold against the backdrop of strengthening interethnic tensions. As a result, the civil war may become interethnic in nature.

Tony Cartalucci -- The Syrian War: America’s “War on Terror” Exposed

30.12.2019 Author: Tony Cartalucci

The Syrian War: America’s “War on Terror” Exposed

Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

Country: Syria

Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem recently described the US as using the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) as “a scarecrow” the US uses to menace targeted nations all while secretly encouraging, protecting, and helping them “move from one area to another.”

Maullum’s comments perfectly encapsulate the twenty-plus year so-called “War on Terror” the US has used to expand itself across the globe militarily and to serve as a stand-in for legitimate economic and political development both within the United States and between the United States and the international community.

Maullum’s comments come at a time when – despite Washington’s collapsing machinations in Syria – the US is still working to undermine, divide, and destroy the Syrian nation by aiding its enemies while using all political, economic, and military options available to pressure Syria itself.

Muallem was also quoted as saying:

All nations that were victimized by this system need to join forces and resist those sanctions.

In many ways, this is already happening. Russia’s intervention in Syria from 2015 onward is part of growing international momentum working against US special interests, their collective hegemony, and the toxic impact it has had not only on international relations and development, but also on the US itself.

From Convincing Pretext to Obvious State-Sponsored Terrorism 

Phil Butler -- The Looming Dark Age of Business Warfare

29.12.2019 Author: Phil Butler

The Looming Dark Age of Business Warfare

Column: Politics

Region: USA in the World

The United States of America is waging an undeclared war on Russia. It’s a war for empire, a struggle to keep in place a system that can never be sustained. And it’s a conflict that will ultimately lead to a new dark age. This is a report about the unusual business that foreign policy has become.

I woke up the day after Christmas with a strange new sense of the current world crisis. Walking down the street to my office I felt a strange urgency to check my news feed. A second after clicking my desktop to life the reason for the urgency popped up, another Bloomberg bit by Putin hater Leonid Bershidsky struck me strangely. The story was about pipelines tilted to create heroes of anti-Putin Russophobes. But something more came from the financial newspaper page. Gas streams, the competition, the whole “versus” situation we see ourselves in now. There is was!

Putin Haters – Subliminal Messengers

Bershidsky is pretty good as a writer. And he knows a bit about the banksters and the plans to chop up Russia into resource blocks for BP, Exxon, and the others. Mr. Putin’s rescue of Russia’s legacy is a foregone conclusion now, but the “west’s” play has never really been spotlighted before now. Let me cite Bershidsky on how “Putin’s Grand Gas Project Makes Sense Now.” The former Managing Director of Russia’s KIT Finance Investment Bank tells Bloomberg readers:

“In the space of just a few momentous weeks, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most ambitious projects — a Russian natural gas export system to match the new geopolitical reality rather than the Cold War-era one — has taken its final shape. It will probably last, without major change, until the end of Russia’s run as a top energy exporter.”

He then goes about rewriting history as if the western hegemony waged an economic war on Russia and Putin in self-defense! Bloomberg View has become the bible of alternative creation and truth. Fortunately for those of us with brains, the “facts” actually do reveal what is happening in this undeclared war on Russia. Mr. Putin has had to adjust Russia’s energy export system to counter Washington’s monumental sanctions war. Yes, I said “sanctions war.”

DE -- Manlio Dinucci -- Die US-Strategie und was uns der Gaspipeline-Krieg kostet

 Die US-Strategie 

 und was uns der Gaspipeline-Krieg kostet 

von Manlio Dinucci

DEUTSCH  CASTELLANO ENGLISH  FRANÇAIS ITALIANO  
NEDERLANDS NORSK PORTUGUÊS ROMÎNA  TÜRKÇE

Obwohl sie in einem verworrenen Kampf um die Amtsenthebung von Präsident Trump gefangen waren, legten Republikaner und Demokraten im Senat die Waffen nieder, um quasi einstimmig für die Verhängung schwerer Sanktionen gegen die Unternehmen zu stimmen, die am Bau von North Stream 2, der Verdoppelung der Gaspipiline, die russisches Gas durch die Ostsee nach Deutschland liefert, beteiligt sind. Die Hauptopfer waren die europäischen Unternehmen, die das 11-Milliarden-Dollar-Projekt mit dem russischen Unternehmen Gazprom mitfinanziert hatten. Das Projekt ist nun zu 80 % abgeschlossen. Auch das  österreichische Unternehmen Omy, die britisch-niederländische Royal Dutch Shell, die französische Engie, die deutschen Unternehmen Uniper und Wintershall, die italienische Saipem und die schweizerische Allseas sind an der Verlegung der Pipeline beteiligt.

Die Verdoppelung der North Stream erhöht die Abhängigkeit Europas von russischem Gas, warnen die Vereinigten Staaten. Sie sind vor allem darüber besorgt, dass die Gaspipeline - durch die Durchquerung der Ostsee in den Gewässern Russlands, Finnlands, Schwedens und Deutschlands - die Visegrad-Länder (Tschechien, Slowakei, Polen und Ungarn), die baltischen Staaten und die Ukraine umgeht. Mit anderen Worten, die europäischen Länder, die über die NATO (zu der wir Italien hinzufügen müssen) die engsten Verbindungen zu Washington haben.

Das Ziel für die USA ist nicht wirtschaftlicher, sondern strategischer Natur. Dies wird durch die Tatsache bestätigt, dass die Sanktionen gegen North Stream 2 im National Defense Authorization Act enthalten sind, dem Genehmigungsgesetz zur nationalen Verteidigung, das dem Pentagon für das Haushaltsjahr 2020 die kolossale Summe von 738 Milliarden Dollar für neue Kriege und neue Waffen (einschließlich Weltraumwaffen) übergibt, zu denen noch weitere Posten hinzukommen, die die Militärausgaben der USA auf etwa 1.000 Milliarden Dollar bringen. Die Wirtschaftssanktionen gegen North Stream 2 sind Teil einer politisch-militärischen Eskalation gegen Russland.

Eine weitere Bestätigung findet sich in der Tatsache, dass der US-Kongress nicht nur Sanktionen gegen North Stream 2, sondern auch gegen Turkish-Stream beschlossen hat, das in seiner letzten Phase der Realisierung russisches Gas über das Schwarze Meer nach Ost-Thrakien, dem kleinen europäischen Gebiet der Türkei, bringen wird. Von dort aus soll russisches Gas über eine weitere Pipeline nach Bulgarien, Serbien und andere europäische Länder geliefert werden. Dies ist der russische Gegenschlag zur US-Aktion, der es gelang, die South Stream-Pipeline 2014 zu blockieren. South Stream sollte Russland durch das Schwarze Meer mit Italien und auf dem Landweg mit Tarvisio (Udine) verbinden. Italien wäre somit zu einem Umschlagsplatz für Gas in der EU geworden, was erhebliche wirtschaftliche Vorteile mit sich gebracht hätte. Die Obama-Administration konnte das Projekt in Zusammenarbeit mit der Europäischen Union ruinieren.

Das Unternehmen Saipem (italienische Eni-Gruppe), das erneut von den US-Sanktionen gegen North Stream 2 betroffen war, wurde von der Blockade von South Stream schwer getroffen - es verlor 2014 Aufträge im Wert von 2,4 Milliarden Euro, zu denen noch weitere Aufträge hinzugekommen wären, wenn das Projekt fortgesetzt worden wäre. Doch damals protestierte weder in Italien noch in der EU jemand gegen die Beerdigung des von den USA organisierten Projekts. Nun sind deutsche Interessen im Spiel, und in Deutschland und in der EU werden kritische Stimmen gegen die US-Sanktionen gegen North Stream 2 laut.

Es wird nichts darüber gesagt, dass die Europäische Union dem Import von verflüssigtem Erdgas (LNG) aus den USA zugestimmt hat, einem Extrakt aus bituminösem Schiefer durch die zerstörerische Technik der hydraulischen Frakturierung (Fracking). Um Russland zu schaden, versucht Washington, seine Gasexporte in die EU zu reduzieren und die europäischen Verbraucher zu verpflichten, die Rechnung zu bezahlen. Seit Präsident Donald Trump und der Präsident der Europäischen Kommission, Jean-Claude Juncker, im Juli 2018 in Washington die Gemeinsame Erklärung vom 25. Juli: Die Europäische Union importiert verflüssigtes Erdgas (LNG)  unterzeichnet hat die EU ihre LNG-Importe aus den USA verdoppelt, wobei sie die Infrastrukturen mit einem Anfangsaufwand von 656 Millionen Euro mitfinanziert hat. Dies hat die europäischen Unternehmen jedoch nicht vor den Sanktionen der USA bewahrt.

il manifesto, 17. Dezember 2019

Übersetzung: K.R.

http://www.natoexit.it/en/home-en/
http://www.natoexit.it/

ERKLÄRUNG VON FLORENZ

FÜR EINE INTERNATIONALE NATO-AUSTRITTS-FRONT

DANSK DEUTSCH ENGLISH ESPAÑOL  FRANÇAIS ITALIANO

NEDERLANDS PORTUGUÊS ROMÎNA SLOVENSKÝ SVENSKA

TÜRKÇE РУССКИЙ

Manlio Dinucci

Geograph und Geopolitiker. Seine neuesten Bücher sind Laboratorio di geografia, Zanichelli 2014 ; Diario di viaggio, Zanichelli 2017 ; L’arte della guerra / Annali della strategia Usa/Nato 1990-2016, Zambon 2016, Guerra Nucleare. Il Giorno Prima 2017; Diario di guerra Asterios Editores 2018, Premio internazionale per l'analisi geostrategica assegnato il 7 giugno 2019 dal Club dei giornalisti del Messico, A.C.

Andre Vltchek -- America, Where Great Literature Kicked the Bucket

America, Where Great Literature Kicked the Bucket

Column: Society

Region: USA in the World

Once in a while, people ask me: “Why did you accept the US citizenship, many years ago?” “After all,” they say, “now you are one of the most vocal critics of the United States, and of the West in general.”

Perhaps I never explained, or I did, some time ago, and now it is forgotten. So, let me try again, now that the world is facing destruction, and an unpronounced but real “new cold war” is ruining millions of lives.

First of all, let me clarify: I am a novelist. That’s what I am, essentially, no matter what other stuff of mine you are reading, and no matter what films of mine you are watching.

Really, seriously, you did not know? Of course, you did! Journalists do not write like this.

As a novelist, since my childhood, I was in love with the literature that used to be written in the United States. I am talking about North America about which people hardly know much, now.

The America of Huckleberry Finn, of Captain John Yossarian from “Catch 22”, or Robert Jordan from “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.

Commercialism, Western propaganda and so-called political correctness, made that country of daring, rebellion, dreams, and yes – depth – almost disappear from the ‘cultural radar’, all over the world. Selfishness, narcissism and lately, the inability to even listen to others, has made American culture basically ruin itself, and in the process, to ruin its literature, its society and what was positive about its very essence.

Also, it has managed to destroy the image of itself, all over the world.

***

“My America” was actually a country which we knew, loved and cherished in Leningrad and Prague, perhaps even much more than in Chicago or Atlanta. A country of giants such as Faulkner and Hemingway, Nathanael West, Steinbeck, Dreiser, Heller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O’Neill.

This America is now thoroughly unknown in the neo-colonies, from Jakarta to Guatemala, and from Nairobi to Riyadh.

The America that is renowned nowadays is that of the cheapest pop, of Hollywood blockbusters, sitcoms, junk food and junk clothing. An America of a pathetic narrative, of dumb slang, predictable humor and feel-good rubbish.

Yet, it was that deep, unknown, and mysterious America full of powerful and often dark narratives, as well as of brave voices, with which I fell, decades ago, deeply in love.

I fell in love with it, got enormously inspired by it, but when it changed and lost most of its strength, when it gained the excessive amount of aggressiveness and ignorance, I had no choice but to leave it behind.