Cold war thinkers have drawn up Mitt Romney’s foreign policy stance and it does not look good neither for the U.S., nor for Russia or the free world. Continuing the rhetoric that Russia is geo-political enemy number one and promising to confront and make Russia cow to U.S. interests the Republicans have once again proven their complete disregard for diplomacy.

Whether or not the Republicans are just playing for their base or are seriously proposing such policies, they have proven that they will be force for more instability and conflict in the world.

Mitt Romney and his vice-presidential running mate, now the official contenders for the White House, will dangerously radicalize U.S. foreign policy in particular they will openly and with extreme prejudice confront the Russian Federation on a number of issues, and advance U.S. interests and geo-political policies and plans regardless of the wishes of the international community.

To say that Romney and his Republican brethren are a danger to world peace would be an understatement. Their “ultra-conservative” views and stances on a number of issues will bring about another era of neo-conservative subjugation for the American people and the world and their backward thinking and confrontational posturing will destroy much of the delicate compromise that has kept the world stable for the last four years.

According to Romney, who not long ago called Russia enemy number one, and his Republican advisors who have approved a program for their party at their convention in Florida, the Russian Federation is the number one geo-political enemy of the United States and a “traditional rival” along with North Korea, Iran and China. They also believe the Russian Government is authoritarian, does not respect human rights, suppresses the press, aligns with dictatorial regimes and the clincher: “was guilty of an unprovoked invasion of Georgia”.

In short all of the prehistoric, cold-war style, holier-than-thou, self-elevating, self-advancing, blatantly false and confrontational rhetoric and talking points that the Republicans are famous for.

To take their points apart one by one is to give them credibility they do not deserve but in case you just arrived from planet Sirius 7, Russia did not invade Georgia but rather prevented the genocide of Russian citizens in South Ossetia by the Georgian Army, the press in Russia is freer than ever, the U.S. is currently supporting and creating more dictators than ever before (Bahrain anyone?), the U.S. is engaged in a program of global domination and instigating regime change wherever they see fit and the U.S. through its military surrogates and NATO is attempting to subjugate the entire planet and bend it to its will by placing it under it military control.

Romney adviser Rich Williamson at the "round table" on the Foreign Policy Initiative, a paper filled with misconceptions laying out Republican Foreign Policy posturing and their political stance, stated that the Romney Administration will end the “reset” and confront Russia on issues such as Georgia, Iran, Syria and others.

Georgia I have already mentioned, Syria and Iran are points of contention for the most part only when it comes to the U.S.’ plans to aggressively invade these two countries and attempt to make the sovereign nations bend to Washington’s will and bring these peoples to their knees.

Williamson also said that Russia has “chosen the path of confrontation rather than cooperation", apparently such blatant lies are more rhetoric for the Republican “base” who as I have already said see no difference between a “Sheik” and a “Sikh”. To say that Russia has chosen such a path when the entire Republican platform is based on and call for confrontation with Russia is disingenuous and a complete and total lie.

Russia has embarrassingly bent to almost every U.S. encroachment on its sovereignty, its geo-political position, its internal functions and its military security since the collapse of the Soviet Union, even going so far as to attempt to repeatedly work with NATO and the U.S. in their plans to surround Russia with their missiles.

To listen to Romney and his Republican like and read how they plan to “curb Moscow”, “confront Russia”, surround Russia with missiles and the like is to get the impression that he is talking about some small third world nation they can just obliterate at any moment and not the largest country on the planet and a formidable nuclear power.

The Republicans shamelessly have also said they will meddle in European affairs and attempt to reduce Europe’s “dependence” on Russian oil and gas, which Europe obtains cheaply. I suppose if the oil and resource starved U.S. succeeds in re-making the Middle East and seizing control of all of the oil and resources in the region they will offer Europe a cheaper alternative.

As for the Asia-Pacific Region Romney has said he will strengthen ties with Asian countries, it seems whether they want it or not, and reduce Russian influence in the region.

Lastly, according to Pravda.ru, “Romney expressed his willingness to be the godfather of the Russian opposition and organize the training for opposition activists at American educational centers.”

As for the RNC Convention Republicans have once again let their hypocrisy shine, with Tampa expecting a wave of strippers and prostitutes who will no doubt “service” the “family values” of the Republican conventioneers. Even a porn star named Lisa Ann, who impersonates Sarah Palin, making millions on Republican’s lustful desires for the Alaska Governor and right-wing propaganda mouthpiece.

Not only prostitutes have descended on Tampa but those opposing the Republican’s narrow minded platform including Occupiers from all over the U.S.

According to Jeffrey Billman at the Orlando Weekly, for Americans the Republican plan to gut Medicare, bring back the gold standard, eviscerate abortion rights, ban gay marriage, deport brown people, and more. The Huffington Post was also not very “optimistic” in a look at the GOP’s extreme positions, in short promising hell not only for Russia but for Americans if these people come to power.

From where I am sitting, even taking into account the fact that Romney is playing to his base, he will no doubt be detrimental to Russian-U.S. relations and will be a "tyrant" and a "threat to global security" if he becomes president.

Hopefully Americans will not let this happen.

The views and opinions expressed here are my own. I can be reached atrobles@ruvr.ru.

President of Australian Lawyer's Alliance speaks out in defense of Assange - interview

Julian Assange has finally been given asylum by Ecuador and Greg Barns spoke with the Voice of Russia's John Robles regarding the case of Julian Assange and Australia's slavish relationship with the United States. He says that there is still a lot Australia can do to ensure Mr. Assange's safety behind-the-scenes.

Hello! This is John Robles. I’m speaking with Mr. Greg Barns – he is a barrister (or a lawyer) and the Director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance in Australia.

My first question is regarding your reaction to the Australian Government’s lack of protection for Julian Assange? What do you make of Australian Government’s inaction or lack of reaction?

Since he had been originally held for questioning in Sweden, the reality is that the Australian Government has been very scared to do much more for Mr. Assange because its alliance with the United States is so strong that it does not want to offend the US. And I think there is no doubt that the Australian Government understands that the US would like to extradite Mr. Assange from Sweden despite the fact that the Australian Government has been saying they know of no plans to do so.

What do you know about the secret grand jury that met in Virginia?

My understanding is that certainly a secret grand jury met. My understanding also is that the Stratfor documents show that there was a sealed indictment. Look, it would just be extraordinary to think that the Americans are not seeking to have Julian Assange prosecuted in the same way as they’ve had Bradley Manning prosecuted. The Americans have taken a very dim view of Julian Assange from day one. The Australian Government has been ensuring that it doesn’t upset the United States and that’s why, despite the fact that the Australian Government says that it’s done all it can to help Mr. Assange there are many Australians who think that it should have done a lot more by making correct representations to Washington that it does not want Julian Assange to be extradited to the United States and if he goes anywhere he goes to Australia.

What would you say to people who say that Australia has been taken over by the US as some say apparently has been the case with the UK and Sweden?

Well, I think Australia's track record when it comes to US foreign policy in recent years has played one of slavish adherence. Australia was one of the first to sign up to the war in Iraq, it’s been involved in Afghanistan. Last year the Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced putting a US base in Darwin, a northern city, which China was very hostile about. There is no doubt also that the United States is the premier ally for Australia and I think when it comes to Julian Assange, his rights come well behind those of Australia maintaining its alliance with the United States.

How do you think this is going to affect or has it affected Australian journalists and journalists worldwide as far as US censorship goes and strong arm tactics by the US?

I think what it does show is the United States’ hypocrisy on this particular issue. If the US Government decides to leak materials against other regimes such as China for example, or Russia, then that’s all ok. But if there’s material out there that the United States doesn’t want to be out there, then the United States comes down upon that journalist very very hard. And I think that the so called “land of the free” has shown that it has got a glass jaw when it comes to tactics being used against it, that it itself uses against other nations.

Why do you think the reaction was so extreme from the US?

The extreme reaction by the United States was because of the volume of material. And also what it did was that it exposed another side of the United States version of events about Iraq and Afghanistan. And the United States, like any empire, likes to control the flow of information. What Julian Assange and WikiLeaks did was to upend that control. It also showed I think that the world of international diplomacy, the inherent duplicity of that world, was exposed for all to see. One of the difficulties in this case I think for the United States is that Julian Assange doesn’t appear to have committed any offence, he certainly committed no offence in Australia. It is certainly highly questionable whether he committed any offence in the United States.

And the other difficulty I think is that whilst Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr says that Sweden has a track record of not extraditing people to the United States when they are on political crimes, in recent years that hasn’t been the case as Sweden has proved very weak when it comes to extradition of people from Sweden back to the United States in what we would say is a politically charged atmosphere in relation to the war on terror.

The UK threatening to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy compound I think is an unprecedented event in recent times. Do you see this as growing US influence? Do you see that as a dangerous precedent?

I think it’s a very dangerous precedent and I think what iе shows is that the stranglehold that the United States has over its allies like the United Kingdom and Australia when it wants to get its man, in this case Julian Assange, it will effectively rip up international diplomacy and the normal rules of civility that apply in order to do so. It was going to use an act of Parliament passed in 1987 not for this purpose, but to stop terrorist activities taking place in embassies. There is no sense in which Julian Assange could be in any way considered to be a terrorist.

Looking at the terrorist issue, do you think that has been exploited, manipulated and over-used by the United States?

The problem with the war on terror is that we have seen a growing erosion of fundamental liberties and rights in Australia, United Kingdom, Canada – a range of countries that participate in the war on terror. The difficulty with the war on terror is that it is ongoing, it is never-ending, and so legislation can be justified simply under the rubric that this is all part of the war on terror. And governments which use terrorism as a tool to oppress individuals or as a tool to curtail civil liberties are generally doing so simply because they want political control. It’s got nothing to do with illegitimate acts of terrorism at all.

Do you see a hand behind orchestrating the entire so called war on terror in order to take away the civil liberties and rights of individuals, not only in the United States but worldwide?

Certainly the United States led the war on terror through the PATRIOT Act passed in the heated moments after 9\11, and other countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom followed. And those laws have led to the jailing of many many people who were innocent, it also led to racial-profiling, it also have been counterproductive in terms of relations with the Muslim world.

Has an Australian citizen ever been granted asylum in another country?

That’s a very good question, John. I’m not aware of one. Certainly during the Vietnam War when Australians were resisting going to Vietnam, being conscripted, some Australians certainly may have gone, for example to Canada. Pierre Trudeau was granting asylum to the Americans, I’m not sure of any Australians going over there. But certainly I’m not aware of any Australians seeking asylum in the circumstances of Julian Assange. But the Australian Government certainly could have said – we want Julian Assange to come home, we’ve got some leverage over the Americans – the Americans want us as essentially a base for their Pacific-Axis in terms of containing China, we want Julian Assange home as part of that.

How do Australians feel towards the Government? Is there a noticeable backlash going on there in Australian right now?

Look, I think the difficulty is that both the major political parties in Australia have the same position on Julian Assange: they would effectively have sat on their hands and done very little to support him. I think a lot of Australians are very upset at the way in which Julian Assange is being treated by their Government. In the same way they were about David Hicks, an Australian who was found in Afghanistan, who was then taken in Guantanamo Bay where he languished for a number of years and eventually was brought back to Australia. Ordinary Australians are outraged about what happened to Hicks as they are about Assange simply because they expect their Government to protect their citizens when they get into trouble overseas.

Sure! As it should be. Do you think this is a sign, the fact that he was granted asylum in Ecuador, do you think it is a sign of the world maybe waking up? Or is it a sign of increasing or decreasing US influence?

I think what it shows is that there are many countries that have their own minds and that Australia needs to be very careful, that its rock solid, long-standing alliance with the United States doesn’t blind it to the fact that there are other countries in the world, particularly countries in central and Latin America or in the Asian region which take a much more, if not hostile view towards the United States, a certainly a more balanced view. And Australia needs to recognize that.

Ecuador is a very small country. A large percentage of their trade and economy is dependent on the US, yet they took such a bold step as granting Julian asylum. As a lawyer you know all that legal angles to this. How do you think Julian is going to get out of the embassy? And what do you think, this is going to proceed in the future? Do you think the Australian Government may in fact come out in support of him later on?

This is where the Australian Government can get involved. Its relationship with the United Kingdom is a long and historic relationship, it says it can’t get involved in this, it can get involved behind the scenes, as it can with the United States. Julian Assange should be given safe passage either to Ecuador or directly to Australia. And that can be done and that is what is usually done when a person seeks asylum. He should not be sent to Sweden because firstly the charges that he faces in Sweden are not even charges he’s simply wanted for questioning. And we know now that this is has been highly political exercise by the prosecutors in that country. And there is also no guarantee that Sweden won’t hand him over to the Americans. Australia should get involved in persuading the United Kingdom Julian Assange should be given safe passage to the airport and as I say he either goes to Quito Ecuador or he returns home to Australia.

Thank you very much.

Anna Chapman spy ring accused of “grooming” kids

 

Citing anonymous sources including “current and former U.S. officials”, “people familiar with the long-running investigation” and “U.S. counterintelligence officials”, Devlin Barret at the Wall Street Journal published a story on July 26 making the wild claim that members of the Russian espionage team that was burned in the U.S. by Former SVR colonel and director of directorate “S” Alexander Vasilevich Sherbakov and assistant director Alexander Poteev, were grooming their children to be spies.

While some of the un-sourced statements made in the article are perhaps plausible the fact that the only cited source in the material, Peter Krupp a Boston lawyer who defended Andrei Bezrukov “Donald Heathfield”, called the accusations “crap” works to the detriment of the piece.

The attack on the children of the accused spies is a despicable one and the motivations behind it are to be questioned. Is the Wall Street Journal, a respected publication, simply attempting to improve their readership? Or perhaps the U.S. Government is feeding them information for political and other gain? Whatever the reason, the putting forward of such allegations without undeniable proof, accusations which could effectively black-list the kids for life, is unethical.

If one has any knowledge about the world of espionage and even just plain common sense one can come to the conclusion that not only are the allegations “expletive” but they are simply ludicrous for many reasons. The first one we should take apart is the allegation that Tim Foley’s parents told him that they were deep cover illegal Russian agents (illegal is the term for an agent operating under deep cover with a false identity and no diplomatic cover job), now who in their right mind, living decades to support their legend, would tell their teenage kid they were spies? The risk of capture or even death for the entire family would logically make such an “opening of the soul” unadvisable to put it lightly.

Second is the statement that young Mr. Foley then agreed to travel to Russia for intelligence training after the above-mentioned discussion. It is highly unlikely such an order was ever given from Moscow. For one if you are dealing with a second generation illegal and wish to groom him for service you do not, under any circumstances do anything that would blow the covers of all of the principles, agents involved in an operation that has been in place for decades. Nor would you do anything that might raise questions during a background check, one of the top alarm bells being foreign travel.

Using the allegations against young Mr. Foley, who is now not allowed to return to the U.S., the writer then somehow reaches the conclusion that of the other 7 children were also the subjects of some evil scheme to “groom” them to become spies, not all however.

Another claim the article makes is that all of the arrested “ring” members were “trained agents of the SVR”, this is also false as some had been recruited by their agent controller and had never had any official spy training. The author also cites “Moscow Center”, giving away the fact that he reads too many spy books which often use the term to refer to Moscow’s spy headquarters.

Due to these claims we again see the name of Anna Chapman being used by the world’s press, some headlines claiming she was grooming kids to be spies. They just can’t seem to leave her alone. The reason for this may be the fact that she is seen as being the team leader by some in the press, or the fact that she is so beautiful and caught the imagination of millions of people worldwide, or perhaps they just want to sell papers and increase readership and any time you mention Anna Chapman people are interested.

The process of choosing, recruiting, training and finally putting an agent into the field is a long, rigorous and secrecy shrouded one. You don’t just walk into SVR Headquarters and as one Russian “analyst” put it “enlist” so your kids can study English abroad and the state will foot the bill. You don’t just “groom” a kid to be a spy.

Such statements and articles, if they are to be believed would then make every Russian kid studying abroad a suspect for FBI Counter Intelligence surveillance. This is an example of irresponsible journalism and only goes to further Russo-phobia. But unfortunately the public eats it up.

So guilty or not, and I would just like to recall, that all of the “agents” in the Anna Chapman “spy ring”, were given a choice, innocent or not, they could plead guilty and be exchanged or they could plead innocent and stand trial, and of course they would have been found guilty. What choice did they have? As if the fact that innocent people may have been found guilty is not enough for the American public, they now want to vilify and go after the children.

I have one more thing to say to certain journalists, please stop reading spy novels and assuming everything they say is true, and please if you are going to make accusations which may damage people’s lives, make sure you have real-live-sources that can actually be verified, otherwise it all looks like another hack-job. And please keep the poor kids out of it, they have been through enough already or watch out, you never know, you might have a Ramon Mercader shadowing your every move. Give me a break!

Being an illegal is one of the most (if not the most) difficult jobs in the world. You give up your life and your very identity for your country and live for years under the intense pressure of being undercover, never being able to trust anyone, always having to live in fear for your life, giving your all and ready to make the ultimate sacrifice at any moment, it is not something everyone has the psychological fortitude to withstand and it is a life few would likely want for their children, especially someone who has been through it.

US Savages

Another case of US Forces desecrating remains ends with a slap on the wrist for some of the perpetrators while others received no disciplinary action and on the same day the burning of Korans was also brushed off with those guilty also escaping serious punishment. Against the backdrop of increased Afghan on NATO violence and the beheading of 17 partygoers by Islamists, the question as to who really is the "savage" in Afghanistan begs to be asked.

Once again, as with almost every case involving egregious misconduct by US troops who have committed what can only be characterized as war crimes, those involved have received nothing more than the proverbial slap on the wrist, and the cases are in the hundreds if not thousands. We do not know the accurate figures because most such events are hidden and not reported.

This time the events in question could be called benign by US standards. For some reason, probably to minimize the backlash, both judgments came at the same time, namely rulings on cases of soldiers urinating on Taliban corpses and the burning of Korans.

In the case of the urinating Marines some of them received unspecified administrative “discipline,” it was reported on Monday, despite the US claiming that it was a “huge” embarrassment and caused a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation, as well as condemnation and an apology from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and even US Secretary of State Clinton, who vowed that the culprits would be found and punished.

The other judgment also released on Monday, involved the burning of Korans by US troops, an event which caused widespread riots, multiple deaths and calls from the Taliban and Islamists to kill foreign troops in Afghanistan and Americans in order to defend Islam’s Holy book.

Despite the outrage and deaths caused by their actions nothing “criminal” really occurred, according to the US.

Like I said these were benign events by US standards, after Abu Ghraib and similar events in Iraq, the mass murders of almost 20 civilians while they slept in their homes earlier this year by a “deranged” sergeant, cases of cutting off body parts as trophies (including the cutting off of fingers, noses, ears and even the peeling off of faces), families being set on fire, denial of medical care to mass numbers of civilians leading to their deaths, snipers posing with Nazi symbols, multiple cases of rape, sodomy and massacre after massacre after massacre, sure Marines simply urinating on corpses seems almost comic.

The Taliban are almost no better, however they trail far behind compared to the overall creativity and level of atrocity of NATO’s finest. Their savagery is just as brutal as that committed by some of the NATO forces but less widespread and frequent. The latest event attributed to the Taliban but denied by them and quite possibly carried out by “insurgents,” was the beheading of 15 men and 2 women for having a party with dancing and music, something they view as immoral and un-Islamic.

The Afghan authorities has launched an investigation with President Hamid Karzai saying,”…the attack shows that there are irresponsible members among the Taliban."

The beheading of the partygoers occurred in an area of Musa Qala district which is almost totally under Taliban control. Governor of Musa Qala, Nematullah Khan said, "They were having a music party and the Taliban came and killed them and cut off their heads."

On the same day to the south 10 Afghan soldiers were killed at a checkpoint and 2 NATO soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier while they were on joint patrol bringing the number of victims of Afghan soldier on NATO soldier violence to 42 this year alone. Now called “green-on-blue-killings” a further sign of the utter failure of almost 12 years of “coalition” occupation.

These are facts the west would rather we did not know because in Afghanistan as in Iraq every move against the citizenry and every bomb dropped has been done illegally. Both of these countries were attacked in illegal acts of military aggression for involvement in events they had nothing to do with, namely the events of 9-11, both of the countries never threatened or even posed a threat to the US, yet they have paid the price and have been illegally occupied so it is not surprising that the people are fighting back.

Going back to the subject of slaps on the wrists for those committing atrocities, for me, the reason they never pay the price for their illegal behavior has been clear for a long time. How on earth could the US judicial system or the US military deem anything their own killing machines do to be illegal if the whole war and occupation of Afghanistan is in and of itself illegal to begin with?

The truth is an extremely dangerous thing especially when it is something that might end plans for world domination, and that is what it is all about, but it looks like they may be failing.

In Afghanistan, a country decimated by close to 12 years of war the truths are hidden on a daily basis and as sites such as Wikileaks have found out (the hard way), reporting on the facts is something the US Empire will not allow.

The destruction and atrocities that the US has unleashed on the Afghan people continue on a daily basis and have been something the US has attempted time and time again to hide. As they continue so will the response from the Afghan side.

In Afghanistan the US obfuscates, hides and doctors the facts at every turn so that even finding an accurate count of the number of civilian deaths in the country is almost an impossibility with numbers ranging from the 10s of thousands to the millions. Yet one thing is crystal clear the US has failed in Afghanistan and there is little likelihood that there is a way out.

One question that I feel truly begs to be answered is quite a simple one: who in fact are the real “savages” in Afghanistan?

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_08_28/US-in-Afghanistan-who-s-the-savage/