A new CNN/ORC poll finds that for the first time in more than two years, 50% of Americans approve of the way Obama is handling the presidency. Big deal! Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings hit all-time highs of 89 percent last Wednesday. And many of the disapproving 11% are not pleased because they want Putin to take a more hardline policy toward the West. So why are Obama and the US “mainstream media” demonizing Putin? Answer, they want Russia to be another vassal of Washington, whereas Russia has no intention to be anyone’s vassal. Wouldn’t you?

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Western Presstitutes Dumbfounded by Vladimir Putin’s 89% Approval Rating

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June 30, 2015 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Western Presstitutes Dumbfounded by Vladimir Putin’s 89% Approval Rating

Guest Column by The Saker

The Saker notes that the disapproving 11% are not pleased because they want Putin to take a more hardline policy toward the West. In other words, the country is unified in standing up to the West.

What does Vladimir Putin’s 89% rating mean?
June 30, 2015

Think Russians are tiring of conflict with the West? Not according to President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings, which hit all-time highs of 89 percent Wednesday (…) Putin’s ratings jumped from 65 percent in January 2014 to 80 percent two months later, and they’ve stayed in the 80s ever since, according to measurements from the Moscow-based Levada Center, the only independent polling organization in Russia. They’ve kept going up: In Putin’s 15 years in office, they’ve never been higher than June’s 89 percent (…) The 89 percent approval rating is also a testimony to the near-unanimity of views about Russia’s current direction.

The Washington Post is correct: the Russian people do fully support Putin, especially if you consider that the 11% which are not happy with him are largely composed of Communists who blame Putin for being too sympathetic to capitalist market economy practices, nationalists who think that the Kremlin is too soft or indecisive about supporting Novorussia against the Ukronazis and maybe 1-3% (max!) who generally support the USA & EU.  So in terms of the current confrontation with the AngloZionist Empire the real approval rating of Putin would be in the 97-98% range.

What does this mean?

1) There is no such thing as a “Putin” or even a “Kremlin” policy/stance on the Ukraine.  There is a Russian stance on the Ukraine.

2) The sanctions have had the exact opposite effect from the one hoped for: instead of triggering a wave of discontent against Putin, the Russians have rallied around him.

3) The AngloZionist “message” has absolutely zero traction in Russia.  The West has no credibility left, no appeal, no moral or political authority.  Most Russians view the USA as a dangerous foe trying to subjugate Russia and they view the EU as a voiceless subservient colony of the USA.

4) The Russian will not “blink”.  As I have been repeating it on this blog over and over again – Russians do not want war, but they are ready for it.  The country is fully mobilized, both psychologically and materially.  No amount of threats or sanctions will change this.

5) Putin’s power base is stronger than ever before.  Not only are the Russian people fully supporting Putin, but the anti-Putin pro-USA “liberals” and “democrats” (in the Russian meaning of these words) are in complete disarray and on the run (mostly politically, but sometimes literally).

6) It is becoming increasingly clear that while the Russian economy has suffered from the sanctions and, even more so, from the drop in energy prices, it has fared much better than expected (including by the Kremlin) and that the planned “isolation” of Russia is an abject failure.

7) Most indicators seem to point to the same conclusion: the Ukronazi regime is at a breaking point: the purges have begun, the number of defectors is rising, the regime is making truly crazy decision (Saakashvili in Odessa), Goldman Sachs predicts an official default for the 24th of July (unofficially the Ukraine is already in a default situation).

In other words, while Russia is now stronger than at any time during this conflict, the Ukraine is weaker than at any time before.  The US has no workable plan left.  The Empire has failed to draw Russia into a war with the Ukraine, the Ukrainian have failed to crush the Donbass and political cracks are all over the EU.  And while all the saber-rattling along the Russian border have angered the Russian people, it has completely failed to impress, much less scare, them.  It appears that Putin holds Obama by the balls.

So what is next?

Well, for one thing that now depends on the USA.  Russia can hold this position for as long as needed.  In contrast, the EU is suffering economically and, even more so, politically.  Should the Greek people rise against the AngloZionist plutocracy and reject their ultimatum the resulting political crisis will make the EU even weaker.  Moldova and Romania have shown no signs that they are willing to directly confront Russia over Transnistria, and that is also very good news.  I suspect that some clear warnings were given to the West about that by Russia (including a reminder of what happened the last time Russian peacekeepers were attacked).  The longer the USA sticks to a failed Ukrainian policy, the worse the tensions inside the EU will become.

Minsk-2 is dead and the Ukronazis have clearly given up on the Donbass: they are shelling it daily, they have cut off all the supply lines (including for water and medicines), they have not resumed the payment of pensions (in clear violation of the terms of M2A) and their political rhetoric is even more hostile and bellicose than before.

Still, there is no way the western elites can accept that.  They have invested their full political capital and credibility into their completely failed policy and now to admit that would entail an terminal loss of face.  So just like the Ukronazi junta in Kiev, I expect the western leaders will be all bark but no bite, least the Russian bear bite back.

http://thesaker.is/what-does-vladimir-putins-89-rating-really-mean/

Are Washington and Washington’s stooge EU governments too arrogant to crawl off the limb, or will they sit there until Russia cuts it off?

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The neoconservatives who now run U.S. foreign policy, like "Dr. Strangelove," want to start a nuclear attack on Russia ...likely bringing on the extinction of us human beings, or at least those in the northern hemisphere. Certainly all Americans and Europeans would oppose this ...unless "reliable sources" assure us that Russia is about to attack us. Who are these reliable sources? Why the neocons who have taken over Washington and it's European vassals, all of which are lying through their teeth -- pure propaganda. The "mainstream media?" They repeat this propaganda or lose their jobs. This leaves the human race only one chance: put aside your cognitive dissonances and watch what Russia has been saying on Russia Today (RT) or Sputnik News. Hint: you will find out that Russia wants peace more than anything. So, dear readers, if you take this advice our children and grandchildren may yet live to thank us.

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Truth is a Crime Against The State — Paul Craig Roberts

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June 28, 2015 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Truth Is A Crime Against The State

Paul Craig Roberts

The entire Western edifice rests on lies. There is no other foundation. Just lies.

This makes truth an enemy. Enemies have to be suppressed, and thus truth has to be suppressed.

Truth comes from foreign news sources, such as RT, and from Internet sites, such as this one.

Thus, Washington and its vassals are busy at work closing down independent media.

Washington and its vassals have redefined propaganda. Truth is propaganda if it is told by countries, such as Russia and China, that have independent foreign policies.

Propaganda is truth if told by Washington and its puppets, such as the EU Observer.

The EU Observer, little doubt following Washington’s orders, has denounced RT and Sputnik News for “broadcasting fabrications and hate speech from their bureaus in European Union cities.”

Often I appear on both RT and Sputnik. In my opinion both are too restrained in their reporting, fearful, of course, of being shut down, than full truth requires. I have never heard a word of hate speech or propaganda on either. Washington’s propaganda, perhaps, but not the Russian government’s.

In other words, the way Washington has the news world rigged, not even independent news sites can speak completely clearly.

The Western presstitutes have succeeded in creating a false reality for insouciant Americans and also for much of the European Union population.

A sizable percentage of these insouciant peoples believe that Russia invaded Ukranine and that Russia is threatening to invade the Baltic States and Poland. This belief exists despite all intelligence of all Western governments reporting that there is no sign of any Russian forces that would be required for invasion.

The “Russian invasion,” like “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections,” like “Assad of Syria’s use of chemical weapons against his own people,” like “Iranian nukes,” never existed but nevertheless became the reality in the Western media. The insouciant Western peoples believe in non-existent occurrencies.

In other words, just to state the obvious noncontroversial fact, the Western “news” media is a propaganda ministry from which no truth emerges.

Thus, the Western World is ruled by propaganda. Truth is excluded. Fox “news,” CNN, the NY Times, Washington Post, and all the rest of the most accomplished liars in world history, repeat constantly the same lies. For Washington, of course, and the military/security complex.

War is the only possible outcome of propaganda in behalf of war. When the irresponsible Western media brings Armageddon to you, you can thank the New York Times and the rest of the presstitutes for the destruction of yourself and all your hopes for yourself and your children.

Stephen Lendman, who comprises a good chunk of the remaining moral conscience of the West, explains the situation:

EU Bashes “Russian Propaganda”   

by Stephen Lendman

Western major media march to the same drummer – dutifully regurgitating managed news misinformation garbage, willfully burying hard truths on issues mattering most.

Alternative sources beholden to truth and full disclosure operate by different standards – engendering ire among Western nations wanting their high crimes suppressed – bashing sources revealing them.

The EU Observer (EUO) claims independent credentials while supporting policies responsible news sources denounce.

Independently reporting hard truths isn’t its long suit. Its editor, Lisbeth Kirk, is the wife of former Danish European Parliament member Jens-Peter Bonde. Human Rights Watch’s European and Central Asian advocacy director Veronika Szente Goldston calls its journalists “the most in-your-face in Brussels.”

EUO irresponsibly bashed Russia’s Sputnik News and RT International – two reputable sources for news, information and analysis – polar opposite Western media propaganda.

It shamelessly called their reporting valued by growing millions “broadcasting fabrications and hate speech from their bureaus in EU cities.”

It touted plans by EU officials to counter what they called “use and misuse of communications tools…play(ing) an important role in the dramatic political, economic and security-related developments (in) Eastern (European countries) over the past 18 months.”

It drafted a nine-page “action plan” intended to convey “positive” messages. It’ll increase funding to blast out Europe’s view of things more effectively.

It wants EU policies promoted in former Russian republics the old-fashioned way – by repeating Big Lies often enough until most people believe them.

A new EU foreign service cell called East StratComTeam operating by September will run things – functioning as a European ministry of propaganda.

It’ll “develop dedicated communication material on priority issues…put at the disposal of the EU’s political leadership, press services, EU delegations and EU member states.”

Material circulated in Russia and other EU countries aims to let news consumers “easily understand that political and economic reforms promoted by the EU can, over time, have a positive impact on their daily lives” – even though precisely the opposite is true.

It wants so-called benefits Europeans enjoy explained to people continent-wide. Will millions of unemployed, underemployed and impoverished people buy what’s plainly untrue from their own experience?

Sputnik News, RT, US independent sources like the Progressive Radio Network and numerous others steadily gain audience strength at the expense of scoundrel media people abandon for good reason.

Growing numbers want truth and full disclosure on things affecting their lives and welfare. Politicians in Western countries want ordinary people treated like mushrooms – well-watered and in the dark.

RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said “the European Union is diligently trying to stifle the alternative voice of RT, at a time when in Europe there are hundreds of newspapers, television channels and radio stations, which set out only one point of view on what is happening in the world.”

The BBC is Fox News with an English accent. US so-called public radio and broadcasting are no different – telling listeners and viewers everything except what they most need to know.

Simonyan explained “Britain (has) an entire army brigade of 1,500 men…whose tasks include the fight against Russia on social networks. NATO has a task force aimed at countering Russian influence throughout the world.” 

“Only recently, Deutsche Welle launched a 24-hour television channel in English to counter RT. At the same time, nearly all the major Western media, including the BBC, DW and Euronews have long disseminated their information in the Russian language, while Radio Liberty, funded directly by the US government, broadcasts in Russian.”

“(I)f after all this, the EU still complains that they are losing the ‘information war’ against Russia, perhaps it’s time to realize that” growing numbers of people are fed up with being lied to. 

People want reliable sources of news, information and analysis unavailable through mainstream Western sources using propagandists masquerading as journalists.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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As many as 99% of all Americans get their news from the so-called "mainstream media." And 100% of the "mainstream" newscasters keep their jobs by reporting only what the government allows them to report, which is close to 100% government lies. So when the neocon Dr. Strangeloves declare that they must foment a nuclear war with Russia, most Amercans will approve of this event, even though it will have been unjustified and likely to kill most Americans ...while the government hides in undeground bunkers.

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"New Crisis is Coming"

22-year Congressman speaks out and reveals #1 step to prepare

US, NATO Powers Intensify Preparations for Nuclear War

By Thomas Gaist                                      Region: Russia and FSU Global Research, June 26, 2015

Global Research, June 26,2015                                                       Theme: US NATO War Agenda World Socialist Web Site                                                                                             

The NATO military alliance is preparing to implement a more aggressive nuclear weapons strategy in response to alleged “Russian aggression,” according to NATO sources cited by the Guardian Wednesday evening.

Proposed changes include provisions for greater involvement of nuclear forces in ongoing NATO military exercises along Russia’s borders and new guidelines for nuclear escalation against Russia, according to the NATO officials.

The alliance’s nuclear doctrine has been the subject of quiet, informal discussions “on the sidelines” of the ongoing NATO summit. The new policies will be formally articulated and confirmed at an upcoming conference of the alliance’s Nuclear Planning Group, which was rescheduled for an earlier date this week as word got around about the secretive planning.

“There is very real concern about the way in which Russia publicly bandies around nuclear stuff. So there are quite a lot of deliberations in the alliance about nuclear weapons,” an unnamed NATO diplomat told the Guardian.

The claim that discussion about a revision of nuclear weapons policy is in response to Russian aggression turns reality on its head. In the aftermath of the US and NATO-backed coup in Ukraine last year, the major imperialist powers have engaged in a relentless militarization of Eastern Europe, including the establishment of a rapid reaction force of 40,000 troops.

This week, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that the US would permanently deploy tanks, military vehicles and other equipment to countries bordering Russia. There are also ongoing discussions about directly arming Ukraine, beyond the extensive assistance the right-wing government already receives.

NATO is now planning to respond to any attempt by Russia to maintain or counter US imperialism’s aggressive moves in Eastern Europe with even more massive military response, including nuclear weapons.

An indication of the thinking of NATO strategists was provided by a report in the Financial Times. In the event of a conflict involving one of the Baltic countries, “Russia might…accuse the alliance of escalating the conflict and threaten to use intermediate range nuclear weapons.” The Times quotes Elbridge Colby, of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS): “NATO does not need a total nuclear rethink. But it needs to be realistic about how it would respond and willing to show Putin that he would not get away with it.”

This scenario builds on allegations from the US that Russia has violated the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), allegations that the Russian government has denied. US officials have stated that the Pentagon is preparing to launch preemptive attacks against missiles or other targets in Russia, including with nuclear weapons, in response to Moscow’s alleged violation of the treaty.

The announcement of major revisions to NATO’s nuclear strategy came just days after the publication of an extensive report, “Project Atom: Defining US Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2025-2050,” by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The main portions of the report were authored by a career US government strategist and senior CSIS analyst, Clark Murdock, a man who previously worked in high-level strategy jobs at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of Defense (DOD), the US Air Force and the National War College. The report included contributions from a large team of researchers and experts, including panels from the CNAS and the National Institution for Public Policy (NIPP).

The thrust of the CSIS analysis is that the US must make its nuclear arsenal easier to use in a war with Russia, China or some other power. The military must adopt “a US nuclear strategy designed for twenty-first century realities,” based on new generations of tactical warheads and delivery systems.

More advanced tactical nuclear weapons will enable Washington to threaten and launch small nuclear wars, without being “self-deterred” by concerns that its actions would lead to a nuclear holocaust, the CSIS report argues.

“The United States needs to develop and deploy more employable nuclear weapons,” the CSIS wrote, including “low collateral damage, enhanced radiation, earth penetration, electromagnetic pulse, and others as technology advances.”

Such advances, the report argues, are the only way to counter the erosion of American technological superiority by the growth of the Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals, together with the addition of as many as nine new governments to the “nuclear club.”
Under the “Measured Response” theory advocated by the CSIS and Murdock, these types of highly mobile nuclear strike forces could engage in “controlled nuclear operations,” firing “low yield, accurate, special effects” nukes against enemy targets without leading to a full-scale nuclear war.

By “forward deploying a robust set of discriminate nuclear response options,” the US could launch tactical nuclear strikes “at all rungs of the nuclear escalation ladder,” Murdock wrote.
Such “small-scale” nuclear conflicts would inevitably claim tens, if not hundreds of millions of lives, even assuming they did not escalate into a global nuclear war.

The continental US, according to this theory, would be protected from the consequences of regional-scale nuclear warfare by the deterrent effect of Washington’s huge arsenal of high-yield strategic weapons. Any “controlled” nuclear conflicts started by the US government, moreover, would not involve nuclear operations targeting or launched from North America.

“The US homeland would not be engaged in the US response to a nuclear attack on a regional ally,” the CSIS wrote.

In barely veiled language, CSIS is suggesting that the US should utilize allied and client governments as staging areas and arenas for “controlled” atomic warfare.

As the product of collaboration between an extensive network of ruling-class policy theorists, such proposals are extremely ominous and represent a grave warning to the international working class.

There have been other calls for a significant expansion of US nuclear weapons capacity. In comments to the Atlantic Council earlier this week, US Congressman Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called for a “national conversation about building new nuclear weapons.”

“That’s something we haven’t been able to even have a conversation about for a while, but I think we’re going to have to,” Thornberry declared.

Late last year, the Obama administration announced plans for a $1 trillion, three-decades-long upgrade of nuclear weapons capability.

In the writings of the CSIS and the other discussions within the state apparatus, there is a degree of insanity. The strategists of American imperialism are coldly calculating the best tactics for waging and winning nuclear war. Yet this insanity flows from the logic of American imperialism and the drive by the financial aristocracy to control—ever more directly through the use of military force—the entire world.

The Greeks are like the Americans: Suckered into following the wishes of those who plan to take away their freedom and loot what ever wealth they may have left.

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Greek Democracy Is Failing — Paul Craig Roberts

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June 24, 2015 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Greek Democracy Is Failing

Paul Craig Roberts

The Greek debt is unpayable. It is simply too large to be repaid. The austerity that the EU and IMF have imposed on Greece has worsened the problem by driving down the Greek economy, thus making the burden of the debt even heavier. Despite the obvious fact that the EU’s austerity policy is a failure and cannot succeed, the Greek “debt crisis” drama continues.

A solution was possible at the beginning of the “crisis” prior to the economy being driven down by austerity. The debt should have been written down to the amount that the Greek economy could service or pay. This traditional solution was unacceptable to creditors, to the EU, and to the European Central Bank. As I explained in my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism (Clarity Press, 2013) http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Laissez-Faire-Capitalism/dp/0986036250/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435166756&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Failure+of+Laissez+Faire+Capitalism, Greece’s creditors, the EU and the European Central Bank have agendas unrelated to Greece’s ability to pay. The creditors are determined to establish the principle that they can over-lend to a country and force the country to pay by selling public assets and cutting pensions and social services of citizens. The creditor banks then profit by financing the privatization of public assets to favored customers. The agenda of the EU and the central bank is to terminate the fiscal independence of EU member states by turning tax and budget policy over to the EU itself.

In other words, the Greek

Greek “debt crisis”

is being used to create a precedent that will apply to every EU member government. The member states will cease to exist as sovereign states. Sovereignty will rest in the EU. The measures that Germany and France are supporting will in the end terminate their own sovereignty, very little of which actually remains as they do not have their own currency and their foreign policy is subservient to Washington.

Default and a turn to Russia is the only possible way out for Greece. The entire world would benefit from this course of action as Greece’s departure from the EU and NATO would begin the unraveling of NATO, Washington’s principal mechanism for creating conflict with Russia. In the end, all of Europe and the rest of the world would thank Greece for derailing the violence that will result from Washington’s effort to assert hegemony over Russia.

As a Greek default and a turn to the East is the only workable solution for Greece, the EU’s agents inside Greece have launched a huge campaign against a Greek turn to the East.

I fear that the Greek people are too brainwashed to be able to avail themselves of the opportunity to rescue themselves from the clutches of the One Percent, who will drive the Greek population into the ground. The Greek voters did not have sufficient judgment to give their current government a large enough percentage of the vote for the government to have any credibility with the EU and Greece’s creditors. What we are witnessing in Greece is the failure of democracy due to the people themselves.

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With your President, your Senator, and your Representative getting ready to give away your economic future with no ability to defend yourself, who needs a foreign enemy. Listen what Wall Streeter Gregg Hunter and state-operated-bank advocate Ellen Brown have to say about the impending TPP/TTIP/TiSA givaway to the criminal big banks and greedy corporations with no recourse.

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USAWatchDog: Obama Secret Trade Deal Serves Corporations and Banks

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Ellen Brown

https://youtu.be/diRUQBckMn8

Original Here: http://ellenbrown.com/2015/06/24/usawatchdog-obama-secret-trade-deal-serves-corporations-and-banks/

Even as I repost his lecture, Paul Craig Roberts is or soon will be presenting it in Delphi, Greece. And while of importance to the Greeks, you will read why it is of far greater importance to the citizens of the US and France. The message is that the neoconservatives that control both the US and its European vassals are looking toward the day when they can launch their nuclear attack on Russia and China with gullible Americans and Europeans becoming "collateral damage." The best, and perhaps only, way to avoid this horror is to ignore the lying "mainsteam media,” put away your cognitive dissonances, and make your voices heard in Washington and Paris. Digesting PCR's seminal lecture below can be your starting point.

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Paul Craig Roberts’ Address to the International Conference on the European/Russian Crisis Created by Washington

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June 19, 2015 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Paul Craig Roberts’ address to the Conference on the European/Russian Crisis, Delphi, Greece, June 20-21, 2015


Paul Craig Roberts, formerly Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, Associate Editor, Wall Street Journal, Senior Research Fellow, Stanford University, William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

The United States has pursued empire since early in its history, but it was the Soviet collapse in 1991 that enabled Washington to see the entire world as its oyster.

The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in the rise of the neoconservatives to power and influence in the US government. The neoconservatives have interpreted the Soviet collapse as History’s choice of “American democratic capitalism” as the New World Order.

Chosen by History as the exceptional and indispensable country, Washington claims the right and the responsibility to impose its hegemony on the world. Neoconservatives regard their agenda to be too important to be constrained by domestic and international law or by the interests of other countries. Indeed, as the Unipower, Washington is required by the neoconservative doctrine to prevent the rise of other countries that could constrain American power.

Paul Wolfowitz, a leading neoconservative, penned the Wolfowitz Doctrine shortly after the Soviet collapse. This doctrine is the basis of US foreign and military policy.

The doctrine states:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

 

Notice that Washington’s “first objective” is not peace, not prosperity, not human rights, not democracy, not justice. Washington’s “first objective” is world hegemony. Only the very confident so blatantly reveal their agenda.

 

As a former member of the Cold War Committee on the Present Danger, I can explain what Wolfowitz’s words mean. The “threat posed formerly by the Soviet Union” was the ability of the Soviet Union to block unilateral US action in some parts of the world. The Soviet Union was a constraint on US unilateral action, not everywhere but in some places. Any constraint on Washington is regarded as a threat.

 

A “hostile power” is a country with an independent foreign policy, such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have proclaimed. Iran, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, and North Korea also proclaim an independent foreign policy.

 

This is too much independence for Washington to stomach. As Russian President Vladimir Putin recently stated, “Washington doesn’t want partners. Washington wants vassals.”

 

The Wolfowitz doctrine requires Washington to dispense with or overthrow governments that do not acquiesce to Washington’s will. It is the “first objective.”

 

The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in Boris Yeltsin becoming president of a dismembered Russia. Washington became accustomed to Yeltsin’s compliance and absorbed itself in its Middle Eastern wars, expecting Vladimir Putin to continue Russia’s vassalage.

 

However at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, Putin said: “I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world.”

 

Putin went on to say: 

 

“We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law, and independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?”
 

When Putin issued this fundamental challenge to US unipower, Washington was preoccupied with its lack of success with its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Mission was not accomplished.

By 2014 it had come to Washington’s attention that while Washington was blowing up weddings, funerals, village elders, and children’s soccer games in the Middle East, Russia had achieved independence from Washington’s control and presented itself as a formidable challenge to Washington’s uni-power. Putin blocked Obama’s planned invasion of Syria and bombing of Iran.

 

The unmistakable rise of Russia refocused Washington from the Middle East to Russia’s vulnerabilities. 

Ukraine, long a constituent part of Russia and subsequently the Soviet Union, was split off from Russia in the wake of the Soviet collapse by Washington’s maneuvering. In 2004 Washington had tried to capture Ukraine in the Orange Revolution, which failed to deliver Ukraine into Washington’s hands. Consequently, according to neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Washington spent $5 billion over the following decade developing Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that could be called into the streets of Kiev and in developing Ukrainian political leaders willing to represent Washington’s interests.

Washington launched its coup in February 2014 with orchestrated demonstrations that, with the addition of violence, resulted in the overthrow and flight of the elected democratic government of Victor Yanukovych. In other words, Washington destroyed democracy in a new country with a coup before democracy could take root.
 

Ukrainian democracy meant nothing to Washington. Washington was intent on seizing Ukraine in order to present Russia with a security problem and also to justify sanctions against “Russian aggression” in order to break up Russia’s growing economic and political relationships with Europe. Washington feared that these relationships could undermine Washington’s hold on Europe.
 

Sanctions are contrary to Europe’s interests. Nevertheless European governments accommodated Washington’s agenda. The reason was explained to me several decades ago by my Ph.D. dissertation committee chairman who became Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. I had the opportunity to ask him how Washington managed to have foreign governments act in Washington’s interest rather than in the interest of their own countries. He said, “money.” I said, “you mean foreign aide?” He said, “no, we give the politicians bags full of money. They belong to us. They answer to us.”
 

Recently, the German journalist Udo Ulfkotte wrote a book, Bought Journalists, in which he reported that every significant European journalist functions as a CIA asset.
 

This does not surprise me. The same is the situation in the US.

 

As Europe is an appendage of Washington, a collection of vassal states, Europe enables Washington’s pursuit of hegemony even to the extent of being driven into conflict with Russia over a “crisis” that is entirely a propaganda creation of Washington’s.
 

The media disguises the reality. During the Clinton regime, six mega-media companies were permitted to acquire 90% of the US print, TV, radio, and entertainment media, a concentration that destroyed diversity and independence. Today the media throughout the Western world serves as a Propaganda Ministry for Washington. The Western media is Washington’s Ministry of Truth. Gerald Celente, the trends forecaster, calls the Western media “presstitutes,” a combination of press prostitutes.
 

In the US Putin and Russia are demonized around the clock. Every broadcast alerts us to “the Russian threat.” Even Putin’s facial expressions are psychologically analyzed. Putin is the New Hitler. Putin has ambitions to recreate the Soviet empire. Putin invaded Ukraine. Putin is going to invade the Baltic states and Poland. Putin is a threat on the level of ebola and the Islamist State. US Russian experts, such as Stephen Cohen, who state the facts are dismissed as “Putin apologists.” Any and every one who takes exception to the anti-Putin, anti-Russian propaganda is branded a “Putin apologist,” just as 9/11 skeptics are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists.” In the Western world, the few truth-tellers are demonized along with Putin and Russia.
 

The world should take note that today, right now, Truth is the most unwelcome presence in the Western world. No one wants to hear it in Washington, London, Tokyo, or in any of the political capitals of Washington’s empire.
 

The majority of the American population has fallen for the anti-Russian propaganda, just as they fell for “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people,” Iranian nukes,” the endless lies about Gaddafi, 9/11, shoe bombers, underwear bombers, shampoo and bottled water bombers. There is always a new lie to keep the fear factor working for Washington’s endless wars and police state measures that enrich the rich and impoverish the poor.

 

The gullibility of the public has enabled Washington to establish the foundation for a new Cold War or for a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia. Some neoconservatives prefer the latter. They believe nuclear war can be won, and they ask, “What is the purpose of nuclear weapons if they cannot be used?”
 

China is the other rising power that the Wolfowitz Doctrine requires to be constrained. Washington’s “pivot to Asia” creates new naval and air bases to control China and perpetuate Washington’s hegemony in the South China Sea.
 

We come to the bottom line. Washington’s position is not negotiable. Washington has no interest in compromising with Russia or China. Washington has no interest in any facts. Washington’s deal is this: “You can be part of our world order as our vassals, but not otherwise.”

 

European governments and, of course, the lapdog UK government, are complicit in this implicit declaration of war against Russia and China. If it comes to war, Europeans will pay the ultimate price for the treason of their leaders, such as Merkel, Cameron, and Hollande, as Europe will cease to exist.
 

War with Russia and China is beyond Washington’s capability. However, if the demonized “enemy” does not succumb to the pressure and accept Washington’s leadership, war can be inevitable. Washington has launched an attack. How does Washington back off? Don’t expect any American regime to say, “we made a mistake. Let’s work this out.” Every one of the announced candidates for the American presidency is committed to American hegemony and war.
 

Washington believes Russia can be isolated from the West and that this isolation will motivate those secularized and westernized elements in Russia, who desire to be part of the West, into more active opposition against Putin. The Saker calls these Russians “Atlanticist integrationists.”
 

After two decades of Russia being infiltrated by Washington’s NGO Fifth Columns, the Russian government has finally taken action to regulate the hundreds of Western-financed NGOs inside Russia that comprise Washington’ subversion of the Russian government. However, Washington still hopes to use sanctions to cause enough disruption of economic life within Russia to be able to send protesters into the streets. Regime change, as in Ukraine, is one of Washington’s tools. In China the US organized the Hong Kong “student” riots, which Washington hopes will spread into China, and Washington supports the independence of the Muslim population in the Chinese province that borders Kazakhstan.
 

The problem with a government in the control of an ideology is that ideology and not reason drives the action of the government. As the majority of Western populations lack the interest to search for independent explanations, the populations impose no constraint on governments.

 

To understand Washington, go online and read the neoconservative documents and position papers. You will see an agenda unconstrained by law, by morality, by compassion, by common sense. You will see an agenda of evil.
 

Who is Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for the Ukrainian part of the world? It is the neoconservative Victoria Nuland who organized the Ukrainian coup, who put in office the new puppet government, who is married to the even more extreme neoconservative, Robert Kagan.
 

Who is Obama’s National Security advisor? It is Susan Rice, a neoconservative.
 

Who is Obama’s Ambassador to the UN? It is Samantha Power, a neoconservative.
 

Now we turn to material interests. The neoconservative agenda of world hegemony serves the powerful military/security complex whose one trillion dollar annual budget depends on war, hot or cold.
 

The agenda of American hegemony serves the interests of Wall Street and the mega-banks. As Washington’s power and influence spreads, so does American financial imperialism. So does the reach of American oil companies and American agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto.
 

Washington’s hegemony means that US corporations get to loot the rest of the world.
 

The danger of the neoconservative ideology is that it is in perfect harmony with powerful economic interests. In the US the left-wing has made itself impotent. It believes all the foundational government lies that have given America a police/warfare state incapable of producing alternative leadership. The American left, what little remains, for emotional reasons believes the government’s 9/11 story. The anti-religious left-wing believes the threat posed to free thought by a Christian Russia. The left-wing, convinced that Americans are racists, believes the government’s account of the assassinations of Martin Luther King.
 

The left-wing accepts the government’s transparent 9/11 fable, because it is emotionally important to the American left that oppressed peoples strike back. For the American left, it is emotionally satisfying that the Middle East, long oppressed and exploited by the French, British and Americans, struck back and humiliated the Unipower in the 9/11 attack.
 

This emotional need is so powerful for the left that it blinds the left-wing to the improbability of a few Saudi Arabians, who could not fly airplanes, outwitting not merely the FBI, CIA, and NSA, which spies on the entire world, but as well all 16 US intelligence agencies and the intelligence agencies of Washington’s NATO vassal states and Israel’s Mossad, which has infiltrated every terrorist organization, including those created by Washington itself.
 

Somehow these Saudis were able to also outwit NORAD, airport security, causing security to fail four times in one hour on the same day. They were able to prevent for the first time ever the US Air Force from intercepting the hijacked airliners. Air traffic control somehow lost the hijacked airliners on radar. Two airliners crashed, one into the Pennsylvania country side and one into the Pentagon without leaving any debris. The passport of the leader of the attack, Mohammed Atta was reported to be found as the only undamaged element in the debris of the World Trade Center towers. The story of the passport was so preposterous that it had to be changed.
 

This implausible account did not raise any eyebrows in the tame Western print and TV media.
 

The right-wing is obsessed with immigration of darker-skinned peoples, and 9/11 has become an argument against immigration. The left-wing awaits the oppressed to strike back against their oppressors. The 9/11 fable survives as it serves the interests of both left and right.
 

I can tell you for a fact that if American national security had so totally failed as it is represented to have failed by the official explanation of 9/11, the White House, the Congress, the media would have been screaming for an investigation. Heads would have rolled in agencies that permitted such massive failure of the national security state. The embarrassment of a Superpower being so easily attacked and humiliated by a handful of Arabs acting independently of any intelligence agency would have created an uproar demanding accountability.
 

Instead, the White House resisted any investigation for one year. Under pressure from the 9/11 families who lost family members in the World Trade Center Towers, the White House created a political commission consisting of politicians managed by the White House. The commission sat and listened to the government’s account and wrote it down. This is not an investigation.
 

In the United States the left-wing is focused on demonizing Ronald Reagan, who had nothing whatsoever to do with any of this. The left-wing hates Reagan because he had to use anti-communist rhetoric in order to keep his electoral basis while he strove to end the Cold War in the face of the powerful opposition of the military/security complex.
 

Is the left-wing more effective in Europe? Not that I can see. Look at Greece for example. The Greek people are driven into the ground by the EU, the IMF, the German and Dutch banks and the New York hedge funds. Yet, when presented with candidates who promise to resist the looting of Greece, the Greek voters give the candidates a mere 36% of the vote, enough to form a government, but not enough to have any clout with creditors.
 

Having hamstrung their government with such low electoral support, the Greek people further impose impotence on their government by demanding to remain in the EU. If leaving the EU is not a realistic threat, the Greek government has no negotiating power.
 

Obviously, the Greek population is so throughly brainwashed about the necessity of being part of the EU that the population is willing to be economically dispossessed rather than to leave the EU. Thus Greeks have forfeited their sovereignty and independence. A country without its own money is not, and cannot be, an independent country.
 

Once European intellectuals signed off on the EU, they committed nations to vassalage, both to the EU bureaucrats and to Washington. Consequently, European nations are not independent and cannot exercise an independent foreign policy.
 

Their impotence means that Washington can drive them to war. To fully understand the impotence of Europe look at France. The only leader in Europe worthy of the name is Marine Le Pen. Having said this, I am immediately denounced by the European left as a fascist, a racist, and so forth. This only shows the knee-jerk response of the European left.
 

It is not I who shares Le Pen’s views on immigration. It is the French people. Le Pen’s party won the recent EU elections. What Le Pen stands for is French independence from the EU. The majority of French see themselves as French and want to remain French with their own laws and customs. Only Le Pen among European politicians has stated the obvious: “The Americans are taking us to war!”
 

Despite the French desire for independence, the French will elect Le Pen’s party to the EU but will not give it the vote to be the government of France. The French deny themselves their independence, because they are heavily conditioned by brainwashing, much coming from the left, and are ashamed to be racists, fascists, and whatever epithets have been assigned to Le Pen’s political party, a party that stands for the independence of France.
 

The European left-wing, once a progressive force, even a revolutionary one, has become a reactionary force. It is the same in the US. I say this as one of CounterPunch’s popular contributors.
 

The inability even of intellectuals to recognize and accept reality means that restraints on neoconservatives are nowhere present except within Russia and China. The West is impotent to prevent Armageddon.

 

It is up to Russia and China, and as Washington has framed the dilemma, Armageddon can only be prevented by Russia and China accepting vassal status.
 

I don’t believe this is going to happen. Why would any self-respecting people submit to the corrupt West?
 

The hope is that Washington will cause its European vassals to rebel by pushing them too hard into conflict with Russia. The hope that European countries will be forced into an independent foreign policy also seems to be the basis of the Russian government’s strategy.
 

Perhaps intellectuals can help to bring this hope to fruition. If European politicians were to break from Washington’s hegemony and instead represent European interests, Washington would be deprived of cover for its war crimes. Washington’s aggressions would be constrained by an independent European foreign policy. The breakdown of the neoconservative unipower model would be apparent even to Washington, and the world would become a safer and better place.

Is this a great country or what? The Guardian: "Every state in the US fails to comply with international standards on the lethal use of force by law enforcement officers, according to a report by Amnesty International USA."

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All 50 US states fail to meet global police use of force standards, report finds

Amnesty International report describes ‘shocking lack of fundamental respect for the sanctity of human life’ as nine states have no laws to deal with police force

Police response to protests across the country in the wake of several high-profile police shootings point to a need for better use of standards, says Amnesty. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Every state in the US fails to comply with international standards on the lethal use of force by law enforcement officers, according to a report by Amnesty International USA, which also says 13 US states fall beneath even lower legal standards enshrined in US constitutional law and that nine states currently have no laws at all to deal with the issue.

The stinging review comes amid a national debate over police violence and widespread protest following the high-profile deaths of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; 43-year-old Eric Garner in New York; 50-year-old Walter Scott in South Carolina; and 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore – all unarmed black men killed by police within the past 11 months.

Amnesty USA executive director Steven Hawkins told the Guardian the findings represented a “shocking lack of fundamental respect for the sanctity of human life”.

“While law enforcement in the United States is given the authority to use lethal force, there is no equal obligation to respect and preserve human life. It’s shocking that while we give law enforcement this extraordinary power, so many states either have no regulation on their books or nothing that complies with international standards,” Hawkins said. 

 The analysis, which Hawkins said he believed was the first of its kind, compared state statutes on law enforcement’s use of lethal force with international legislation, including the enshrinement of the right to life, as well as United Nations principles limiting lethal use of force to “unavoidable” instances “in order to protect life” after “less extreme means” have failed. Further UN guidelines state that officers should attempt to identify themselves and give warning of intent to use lethal force.

Amnesty found that in all 50 states and Washington DC, written statutes were too broad to fit these international standards, concluding: “None of the laws establish the requirement that lethal force may only be used as a last resort with non-violent means and less harmful means to be tried first. The vast majority of laws do not require officers to give a warning of their intent to use firearms.”

The report arrived just weeks after the recommendations of Barack Obama’s police taskforce were made public and his executive actions on police reform criticized for not going far enough to curtail police violence. The presidential commission stated that “not only should there be policies for deadly and non-deadly uses of force”, but that a “clearly stated ‘sanctity of life’ philosophy must also be in the forefront of every officer’s mind.”

The Amnesty review found that only eight states require a verbal warning to be given before an officer engages in lethal force. In nine states, law enforcement officers are legally allowed to use lethal force during riot. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the use of force statute mandates that deadly force is justifiable if it is “necessary to suppress a riot or mutiny after the rioters or mutineers have been ordered to disperse”.

Further, Amnesty found that in 20 states it is legally permissible for law enforcement officers to employ lethal force against an individual attempting to escape prison or jail, even if they pose no threat. In Mississippi, for instance, law declares “the killing of a human being ... justifiable ... [w]hen necessarily committed by public officers, or those acting by their command in their aid and assistance, in retaking any felon who has been rescued or has escaped”.

Amnesty’s report also charges that the laws on lethal force in 13 states do not even meet the less stringent constitutional standard set by the 1985 US supreme court case Tennessee v Garner. The case was centered on the death of an unarmed black 15-year-old, Edward Garner, a suspect in a home burglary. He was shot in the back of the head as he fled by officers acting under a Tennessee state statute which permitted “use all the necessary means” to make an arrest of a fleeing subject.

The 6-3 majority decision declared that police may not use deadly force to prevent a suspect from escaping unless “the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others”.

The states whose laws do not meet this constitutional standard, according to Amnesty, tend to include permissive or vague language around the use of force. North Dakota’s statute, for example, permits deadly force against “an individual who has committed or attempted to commit a felony involving violence”, without defining the level of violence that might warrant deadly force.

Amnesty identifies nine states – Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming – alongside Washington DC where no law enforcement officer lethal force statues exist.

“Those states can of course argue that they follow common law or supreme court standards, but is that good enough?” Hawkins said. “Certainly we would expect that international human rights standards are what should govern and our fear is that, unless these are clearly quantified, a citizen in any state can’t look at what the law is. That’s critically important to ensuring accountability.”

Amnesty’s report contends that the international standards laid out in the UN basic principles dictate all fatal incidents involving law enforcement officials should be mandatorily reported and well as impartially investigated.

The federal government does not collect a comprehensive record of people killed by police forces throughout the US. Instead, the FBI runs a voluntary program where law enforcement can choose to submit a number of “justifiable homicides” each year.

A Guardian investigation into deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers in the US has so far documented 515 people killed by police this year. The statistics reveal that black people are more than twice as likely as white people to be unarmed during fatal encounters with police, and show that black Americans are killed by police at more than twice the rate as white Americans.

The introduction of mandatory reporting to federal government for all deaths at the hands of law enforcement is a central recommendation of the Amnesty report.

The report also suggests taking action at all levels of government, making recommendations to the president, Congress and the US justice department, along with state legislatures and individual law enforcement departments. Amnesty suggests that laws be brought into compliance with international standards at every level, and that the justice department oversee a national commission “to examine and produce recommendations on policing issues, including a nationwide review of police use of lethal force laws ... as well as a thorough review and reform of oversight and accountability mechanisms”.

Hawkins told the Guardian he expected some resistance to the recommendations from police unions and other agencies but added his hope that “with so much attention on law enforcement and its use of lethal force within the US, in the next legislative session this report will produce some energy for change”.

The Soviet Union lost between 20 and 27 million troops and civilians in the course of winning WW II, so they have absolutely no intentions to foment a WW III. On the other hand, the American neocons, whose country has never been invaded and who have their own underground shelters already prepared, are hankering for the big one. Thus the US’s original agreements between NATO and Russia, including the clause that neither side should be considered an enemy, are now being flagrantly violated by arming NATO countries bordering on Russia. And the populace of these border countries are being aroused by lies claiming that Russia has been attacking Ukraine …a ludicrous claim given that Russia could have won such a war in a couple days had it wished to do so. But finally a couple days ago Vladimir Putin, certainly no war monger, has ordered 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to be added to the country's current “mutually assured destruction” deterrent. Unfortunately, the neocons think they need no such deterent...

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New York Times: U.S. poised to put heavy weaponry in East Europe

“Russia’s increasingly aggressive actions around NATO’s borders…”

NATO keeps moving its borders up to Russia’s borders.

“Professor [Mark] Galeotti said. ‘This is about telling Russia that you’re getting closer to a real red line.’”

NATO’s red line is a noose, drawing tighter and tighter around Russia and any country that defies the Anglo-American alliance.

This article is typical mainstream US “journalism”. Unless a reader follows the extensive equipment buildup that has been taking place for months,  and the ongoing, intensifying US/NATO military exercises in the region,  they would conclude from this article that the US and NATO have only a weak force in Europe.

June 13, 2015
By ERIC SCHMITT and STEVEN LEE MYERS

© Oksana Dzadan/Associated Press Stryker vehicles from the Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment took part in a military exercise in Riga, Latvia. RIGA, Latvia — In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, American and allied officials say.

RIGA, Latvia — In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, American and allied officials say.
 
The proposal, if approved, would represent the first time since the end of the Cold War that the United States has stationed heavy military equipment in the newer NATO member nations in Eastern Europe that had once been part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine have caused alarm and prompted new military planning in NATO capitals.
 
It would be the most prominent of a series of moves the United States and NATO have taken to bolster forces in the region and send a clear message of resolve to allies and to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that the United States would defend the alliance’s members closest to the Russian frontier.
 
After the expansion of NATO to include the Baltic nations in 2004, the United States and its allies avoided the permanent stationing of equipment or troops in the east as they sought varying forms of partnership with Russia.
 
“This is a very meaningful shift in policy,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former supreme allied commander of NATO, who is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “It provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery allies, although nothing is as good as troops stationed full-time on the ground, of course.”
 
The amount of equipment included in the planning is small compared with what Russia could bring to bear against the NATO nations on or near its borders, but it would serve as a credible sign of American commitment, acting as a deterrent the way that the Berlin Brigade did after the Berlin Wall crisis in 1961.
 
“It’s like taking NATO back to the future,” said Julianne Smith, a former defense and White House official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a vice president at the consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies.
 
The “prepositioned” stocks — to be stored on allied bases and enough to equip a brigade of 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers — also would be similar to what the United States maintained in Kuwait for more than a decade after Iraq invaded it in 1990 and was expelled by American and allied forces early the next year.
 
The Pentagon’s proposal still requires approval by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and the White House. And political hurdles remain, as the significance of the potential step has stirred concern among some NATO allies about Russia’s reaction to a buildup of equipment.
“The U.S. military continues to review the best location to store these materials in consultation with our allies,” said Col. Steven H. Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. “At this time, we have made no decision about if or when to move to this equipment.”
 
Senior officials briefed on the proposals, who described the internal military planning on the condition of anonymity, said that they expected approval to come before the NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels this month.
 
The current proposal falls short of permanently assigning United States troops to the Baltics — something that senior officials of those countries recently requested in a letter to NATO. Even so, officials in those countries say they welcome the proposal to ship at least the equipment forward.
 
“We need the prepositioned equipment because if something happens, we’ll need additional armaments, equipment and ammunition,” Raimonds Vejonis, Latvia’s minister of defense, said in an interview at his office here last week.
 
“If something happens, we can’t wait days or weeks for more equipment,” said Mr. Vejonis, who will become Latvia’s president in July. “We need to react immediately.”
 
Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University who has written extensively on Russia’s military and security services, noted, “Tanks on the ground, even if they haven’t people in them, make for a significant marker.”
 
As the proposal stands now, a company’s worth of equipment — enough for about 150 soldiers — would be stored in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Enough for a company or possibly a battalion — about 750 soldiers — would be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary, they said.
 
American military specialists have conducted site surveys in the countries under consideration, and the Pentagon is working on estimates about the costs to upgrade railways, build new warehouses and equipment-cleaning facilities, and to replace other Soviet-era facilities to accommodate the heavy American weaponry. The weapons warehouses would be guarded by local or security contractors, and not by American military personnel, officials said.
 
Positioning the equipment forward saves the United States Army time, money and resources, and avoids having to ship the equipment back and forth to the United States each time an Army unit travels to Europe to train. A full brigade’s worth of equipment — formally called the European Activity Set — would include about 1,200 vehicles, including some 250 M1-A2 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and armored howitzers, according to a senior military official.
 
The Army previously said after the invasion of Crimea last year that it would expand the amount of equipment it stored at the Grafenwöhr training range in southeastern Germany and at other sites to a brigade from a battalion.
 
Army units — currently a battalion from the Third Infantry Division — now fly into the range on regular rotations, using the same equipment left in place. They train with the equipment there or take it to exercises elsewhere in Europe.
 
That, along with stepped-up air patrolling and training exercises on NATO’s eastern flank, was among the initial measures approved by NATO’s leaders at their summit meeting in Wales last year. The Pentagon’s proposal reflects a realization that the tensions with Russia are unlikely to diminish soon.
 
“We have to transition from what was a series of temporary decisions made last year,” said Heather A. Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
 
The idea of moving prepositioned weapons and materials to the Baltics and Eastern Europe has been discussed before, but never carried out because it would be viewed by the Kremlin as a violation of the spirit of the 1997 agreement between NATO and Russia that laid the foundation for cooperation.
 
In that agreement, NATO pledged that, “in the current and foreseeable security environment,” it would not seek “additional permanent stationing of substantial ground combat forces” in the nations closer to Russia.The agreement also says that “NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries.” Many in the alliance argue that Russia’s increasingly aggressive actions around NATO’s borders have made that pact effectively moot.
 
The Pentagon’s proposal has gained new support because of fears among the eastern NATO allies that they could face a Russian threat.
 
“This is essentially about politics,” Professor Galeotti said. “This is about telling Russia that you’re getting closer to a real red line.”
 
In an interview before a visit to Italy this week, Mr. Putin dismissed fears of any Russian attack on NATO.
 
“I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO,” he told the newspaper Corriere Della Sera. “I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia. They just want to play the role of front-line countries that should receive some supplementary military, economic, financial or some other aid.”
 
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-poised-to-put-heavy-weaponry-in-east-europe/ar-BBl6eku?ocid=DELLDHP
 
Reprinted under Fair Use Rules.