The Less Americans Know about Ukraine’s Location, the More They Want U.S. to Intervene

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Keld Bach

Where’s Ukraine? Each dot depicts the location where a U.S. survey respondent situated Ukraine; the dots are colored based on how far removed they are from the actual country, with the most accurate responses in red and the least accurate ones in blue. (Data: Survey Sampling International; Figure: Thomas Zeitzoff/The Monkey Cage)

Since Russian troops first entered the Crimean peninsula in early March, a series of media polling outlets have asked Americans how they want the U.S. to respond to the ongoing situation. Although two-thirds of Americans have reported following the situation at least “somewhat closely,” most Americans actually know very little about events on the ground — or even where the ground is.

On March 28-31, 2014, we asked a national sample of 2,066 Americans (fielded via Survey Sampling International Inc. (SSI), what action they wanted the U.S. to take in Ukraine, but with a twist: In addition to measuring standard demographic characteristics and general foreign policy attitudes, we also asked our survey respondents to locate Ukraine on a map as part of a larger, ongoing project to study foreign policy knowledge. We wanted to see where Americans think Ukraine is and to learn if this knowledge (or lack thereof) is related to their foreign policy views. We found that only one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map, and that this lack of knowledge is related to preferences: The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.

Source: Washington Post

See also: Which Country Should We invade Next?

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US Secretly Sending Anti-Tank Weapons to Syrian Rebels

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Keld Bach


Rebels embattled against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have reportedly come into possession of high-powered anti-tank weaponry, the likes of which may have been supplied by the United States.

Full story at RT USA

See also: Reports of rebels with ‘tank-busters’ raises questions of US role in Syria

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Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian Rebels

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Keld Bach

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Barack Obama live in their own make-believe world.

By Seymour M. Hersh

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.​ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.

Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’

Full article at London Review of Books

See also: Was Turkey Behind Syrian Sarin Attack?

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The Kerry-Lavrov Chess Match

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Keld Bach

By Pepe Escobar

It’s hardly a match between equals – as one is playing Monopoly while the other plays Chess. It’s as if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been postponing his checkmate, while US Secretary of State John Kerry increasingly realizes he’s facing the inevitable.

Lavrov has explained over and over again, a loose federation is the only possible solution for Ukraine, as part of a “deep constitutional reform”. That would imply ethnic – and even sentimentally – Russian eastern and southern Ukraine would be largely autonomous. Kerry gave signs of agreeing around two weeks ago that Ukrainian regions need more decision power; but then the White House recharged its moral blitzkrieg – coinciding with President Barack Obama’s trip to The Hague and Brussels. Still, even after an inconclusive four-hour Kerry-Lavrov chess match in Paris, there will be a checkmate.

The Russian solution is the same plan proposed by Moscow already a few weeks ago, and again discussed on the phone by Obama and President Vladimir Putin on Friday – which prompted Kerry to redirect his flight to Paris. Each Ukrainian region, according to Lavrov, would be able to control its economy, taxes, culture, language, education and “external economic and cultural connections with neighboring countries or regions”. That’s such a sound plan that even former – or perennial, depending on spin – cold warriors such as Henry Kissinger and Zbig Brzezinski reasonably agree.

The key problem is that Washington immovably considers the present Kiev set up – also known as the Khaganate of Nulands, as in State Department Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nulands – as legitimate. Moscow sees them as a bunch of putschists and fascists. And Washington still refuses to press Kiev to accept a federal system – thus allowing, among other things, Russian as an official second language.

Full story at Asia Times

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Sanctions Gone Crazy, Now Also to Include Football

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Keld Bach

The Russian national football team

In light of Russia’s recent decision to invade Ukraine’s Crimea region, two Republican senators have called for FIFA President Sepp Blatter to exclude Russia from the 2014 World Cup and to switch locales for Russia’s 2018 World Cup.

Senators Mark Kirk of Illinois and Dan Coates of Indiana insisted in a letter to Blatter last week via the Guardian that Russia “doesn’t deserve the honor of either hosting the World Cup or participating in one.”

As precedent, the Senators cited the Yugoslav wars, which consequently banned Yugoslavia from the 1992 European Championships and the 1994 World Cup.

The letter read, in part:

“In light of Russia’s military occupation of sovereign Ukraine, we respectfully ask that you urgently convene an emergency session of FIFA to consider suspending Russia’s membership in FIFA, stripping Russia of the right to host the 2018 World Cup, and denying the Russian national team the right to participate in the upcoming 2014 World Cup in Brazil.”

“Since Russia has similarly displayed a brazen disrespect for fundamental principles of FIFA and international law, I hope you will agree that it does not deserve the honor of either hosting the World Cup or participating in one. We ask that a more deserving World Cup 2018 bid should be re-considered instead.”

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t sit well with Russian politicians, who responded with their own scathing retort – using the exact same wording as did the US politicians.

Russia’s response read:

“In light of US’s military aggression against several sovereign states such as Yugoslavia with no particular reason; Iraq and Libya — alleged search chemical weapons; attempt to invade and occupy Syria and numerous cases of human rights violations all over the world revealed by E. Snowden, we respectfully ask that you urgently convene an emergency session of FIFA to consider suspending US’s membership in FIFA, and denying the United States team the right to participate in the upcoming 2014 World Cup in Brazil.”

Russia was drawn into Group H for this summer’s tournament and will face Belgium, Algeria and South Korea. The US has a significantly harder task against Germany, Portugal and Ghana.

Source: CBSSports.com

Latest: Own goal: US senators fail to kick Russia out of 2014 World Cup

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NATO Suspends Civilian and Military Cooperation with Russia

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Keld Bach


NATO has announced that it is suspending all military and civilian cooperation with Russia over the Ukrainian crisis, the bloc said in a joint statement.

“We have decided to suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia. Our political dialogue in the NATO-Russia Council can continue, as necessary, at the Ambassadorial level and above, to allow us to exchange views, first and foremost on this crisis,” the statement reads. The alliance plans to review its relations with Russia at a meeting in June.

The decision could affect cooperation on Afghanistan in areas such as training counter-narcotics personnel, maintenance of Afghan air force helicopters and a transit route out of the war-torn country.

NATO foreign ministers also urged Moscow in “to take immediate steps … to return to compliance with international law.”

The bloc said that it was stepping up its cooperation with Ukraine, promoting defense reforms and increasing the activity of a liaison office in Kiev.

NATO and Ukraine issued a joint statement after a meeting of their ministers in Brussels. They said that they would “implement immediate and longer term measures to strengthen Ukraine’s ability to provide for its own security.”

Source: RT News

Ukraine Agrees to Host NATO War Games

Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday approved a series of joint military exercises with NATO countries that would put US troops in direct proximity to Russian forces in the annexed Crimea peninsula.

“This is a good opportunity to develop our armed forces,” acting defense minister Mykhailo Koval told Verkhovna Rada lawmakers ahead of the 235-0 vote.

The decision came as NATO foreign ministers gathered in Brussels for a two-day meeting dominated by concern over the recent buildup of Russian forces near Crimea that US officials estimate had at one point reached about 40,000 troops.

Source: GlobalPost

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IPCC: Climate Change We Can Believe in?

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Keld Bach

No longer able to channel the zeitgeist in the way it once could, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a similar feel to an ageing rock band. Seven years ago, when it released its greatest hit, its fourth assessment report or, ‘the end of the world and what we’re gonna to do about it’, the IPCC was where it was at. News reports were brimful with the IPCC’s rather doom-laden tunes; commentators were inspired by the IPCC’s mastery of The Science songbook; and Western politicians hung around at IPCC gigs like eager groupies.

Since then, however, the IPCC’s star, like the grand cause of climate change itself, has waned. It just doesn’t quite have the same lustre that it once did. Which is hardly surprising. Tall tales involving the (non-)melting of the Himalayan glaciers, not to mention the small matter of the palpable absence of global warming over the past 15 years, somewhat undermined the IPCC’s claim to a terrifying truth. Indeed, in December 2012, the UK Met Office revealed that not only had global temperatures not risen for over a decade, they were also unlikely to rise significantly in the period up to 2017. Likewise, at the start of 2013, even global-warming advocate James Hansen, the retired head of NASA’s climate-change research arm, admitted that the ‘five-year-mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade’. So whereas in 2007 the media hung on the IPCC’s every apocalyptic word, in 2014 it is no longer quite so smitten. There are other, more pertinent, stories out there, issues that resonate more, concerns that feel more pressing.

Full story at Spiked

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impact

The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), a coalition of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), and The Heartland Institute has just released its new volume of real climate science that opposes the science fiction of the UN’s IPCC. The documents can be obtained from the NIPCC main website: Climate Change Reconsidered

A History of the Disastrous Global Warming Hoax

“It is the greatest deception in history and the extent of the damage has yet to be exposed and measured,” says Dr. Tim Ball in his new book, “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science”.

Dr. Ball has been a climatologist for more than forty years and was one of the earliest critics of the global warming hoax that was initiated by the United Nations environmental program that was established in 1972 and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established in 1988.

Several UN conferences set in motion the hoax that is based on the assertion that carbon dioxide (CO2) was causing a dramatic surge in heating the Earth. IPCC reports have continued to spread this lie through their summaries for policy makers that influenced policies that have caused nations worldwide to spend billions to reduce and restrict CO2 emissions. Manmade climate change—called anthropogenic global warming—continues to be the message though mankind plays no role whatever.

Full story at Warning Signs

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Turkey’s Insane False Flag Plot to Start a War with Syria

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Keld Bach


Abby Martin talks about a leaked conversation between Turkish officials discussing a planned false flag operation to justify starting a war with Syria.

See also: Standby NATO: Turkey Plots Justification to Syria Strike

Posted in Espionage & Secret Agencies, False Flag Operations, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Meet Crimea’s Chief Prosecutie

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Keld Bach


Ukrainian national security service has put Crimea’s chief prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya on its wanted list. She is charged of taking actions aimed at the violent overthrow of constitutional order and takeover of government power.

Poklonskaya took the office as Crimea defied the coup-imposed government in Kiev and sought independence from Ukraine. After the peninsula joined the Russian Federation, she was appointed as Crimea’s acting chief prosecutor by Russia’s General Prosecutor Yury Chaika.

The Ukrainian National Service for Security and Defense accuse her of violating article 109 of the Criminal Code, which deals with overthrow of the government.

Poklonskaya became somewhat of an internet sensation due you relative youth, attractive appearance and emotional media conferences. A number of anime-style drawings of the official are currency circulation on the web, with many supporters calling her ‘kawaii prosecutor’ after the Japanese term for cuteness.

The now-wanted in Ukraine officer of the law is somewhat irritated with her web popularity, she told the media, because it undermines the serious nature of her job.

Source: RT News and RT News

Posted in Democracy & Liberty, Human Rights & Justice, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Standby NATO: Turkey Plots Justification to Syria Strike

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Keld Bach


The Turkish government is red-faced after a leak on YouTube revealed a daring plot to justify invading neighboring Syria. An anonymous source posted audio of a secret meeting between top Turkish officials – discussing a false flag operation that would appear as a Syrian attack. It’s not the first time Ankara has tried to rally NATO against Syria. RT’s Marina Portnaya has a collection of Turkish attempts to spark a full-blown war with its neighbor, with the backing of the Alliance.

Source: RT News

See also: Erdogan’s Government Waged Aggression Against Syria on Behalf of Terrorism

Posted in Espionage & Secret Agencies, False Flag Operations, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment