Russia Throws Down the Gauntlet: Fly at Your Own Risk

Written on October 15th, 2016 in politics Comments Off

Published on Counterpunch, by RAY MCGOVERN, Oct 12, 2016.

During the Reagan administration, I was one of the CIA analysts assigned to present to White House officials the President’s Daily Brief, which summed up the CIA’s views on the pressing national security issues of the day. If I were still in that job – and assuming CIA analysts are still able to speak truth to power – I am afraid that I would be delivering alarming news about the potential of a U.S.-Russian military clash … //

… In other words, U.S. aircraft, which have been operating in Syrian skies without Syrian government approval, could be vulnerable to attack with the Russian government preemptively warning that such an incident won’t be Moscow’s fault.

As for the prospects of reviving the Syrian negotiation track, its demise was never clearer than in the remarks on Sunday by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a lengthy interview with Russian Channel One. He ended it with a pointed comment: “Diplomacy has several allies in this [Syria] endeavor – Russia’s Aerospace Forces, Army, and Navy” … //

… Often overlooked is the fact that China played down its longstanding insistence on the inviolability of sovereign borders and avoided criticizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, following what was widely viewed as a U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine that removed elected President Viktor Yanukovych. The Chinese do not care for “regime change” – whether in Kiev or Damascus – and look askance at U.S. insistence that President Assad “must go.”

More important, military cooperation between Russia and China has never been closer. If Russia finds itself in a major escalation of hostilities in the Middle East and/or Europe, the troubles may not end there. The U.S. should expect significant saber-rattling by China in the South China Sea

All of these signs point to very dangerous days ahead, though there has been little intelligent discussion of these risks in the major U.S. news media or, seemingly, in Washington’s halls of power. There is a sense of sleepwalking toward an abyss.

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(Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@gmail.com. A version of this article first appeared on Consortiumnews.com. More articles by RAY MCGOVERN).

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Related to this above warning:

Secret Underground Complex, on Elohim Leaks, July 8, 2016: the 60 richest people on Earth are now secretly building an underground complex that can withstand any nuclear, chemical or biological world war or world revolution. This complex will have room for the 60 richest people and their families for a total of 480 people; plus 240 top scientists, especially geneticists and agronomists; 60 medical people representing all the specialties; 120 military commandos to keep order and protect the complex from any force trying to enter it (plus batteries of remotely controlled missiles and drones); and 60 of the most beautiful young women to repopulate the earth after the cataclysm ends and the atmosphere is clean again … // … It’s a top priority for peace lovers to find and destroy such a place to prevent any escape for these 60 people. They are the 0,000001% who own the planet, and they will want it for themselves after financing a world war that would destroy the rest of humanity. If they have no place to escape to, they will stop financing the next nuclear world war;

Links:

Cold Britannia: Searching for the True Britain, on Spiegel Online International, an Essay by Christoph Scheuermann, Oct 13, 2016: what happened to Britain? It’s a question many Europeans are currently asking. I traveled through the country on the search for answers – and found a deeply divided land;

Bolivia and Equador: Recovering Sovereignty over Natural Resources, on Defend Democracy Press, Oct 13, 2016: this document analyzes the renegotiation process of oil and gas contracts in two Latin American countries, Bolivia and Ecuador, from 2003 to 2010 and the measures taken for sectorial policy reform in the hydrocarbon sector and our conclusions are that it has been favourable …; Download the pdf, 68 pages;

Hillary Clinton’s Axis of Evil, on Counerpunch, by PEPE ESCOBAR, Oct 13, 2016: anticipating an outcome of the US presidential election as a remix of the 1972 Nixon landslide, Hillary has also coined, George “Dubya” Bush-style, a remixed axis of evil: Russia, Iran and “the Assad regime” …;

Battle for Kunduz: The Taliban Erases Western Gains in Afghanistan, on Spiegel Online International, by Susanne Koelbl, Oct 12, 2016: the Taliban has carried out repeated raids on Kunduz in northern Afghanistan despite ongoing Western presence in the country As the situation has deteriorated, locals have become caught between two fronts — and the future of the country is at stake;

Social democracy and the radical left: why we continue to build Left Unity, on Defend Democracy Press, by Kate Hudson, Oct 11, 2016: Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election to the leadership of the Labour Party on an increased vote is a significant victory for the left in the Labour Party and for progressive politics in Britain. It is a victory that everyone on the left celebrates …;

Schlachtfeld Deutschland – ein Land im Ausnahmezustand, 26.04 min, von Alternativ TV am 20. Sept 2016;

Wir schaffen es nicht – Flüchtlingshelferin Katja Schneidt erklärt, warum die Flüchtlingskrise uns überfordert, 5.43 min, von Alternativ TV am 14. Sept 2016.

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