Sultan Erdogan's War on...Russia -Are We Sliding Towards World War

Sultan Erdogan's War on...Russia -Are We Sliding Towards World War

 

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones": - Albert Einstein

 

In 1962, in Cuban waters, a Russian submarine officer averted a nuclear war and a catastrophe between USA and USSR. But with US high like a bull on military industry testosterone, things can go wrong any time and the world will collapse in an Armageddon .US led west and Sunni allies have been destroyed Middle East and North Africa since 2003 .There seems no end to US hubris.

 

Consider the consequences of Ankara shooting down a Russian jet fighter with contested warning signals .Turkish Sultan President Erdogan with a newly built 500 room palace against all local rules is riding roughshod, with all democratic check and balances having been dismantled,, media and opposition cowed down .He has threatened that his air force after shooting down a Russian jet in the territory of Russian ally Syria could do it again.

 

Sultan Erdogan's War on...Russia

By Pepe Escobar

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43530.htm

 

November 25, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Sputnik" - Let's cut to the chase. The notion that Turkey's downing of a Russian Su-24 by a made in USA F-16 was carried out without either a green light or at least pre-arranged "support" from Washington invites suspension of disbelief.

Turkey is a mere vassal state, the eastern arm of NATO, which is the European arm of the Pentagon. The Pentagon already issued a denial — which, considering their spectacular record of strategic failures cannot be taken at face value. Plausibly, this might have been a power play by the Neocon generals who run the Pentagon, allied with the Neocon-infested Obama administration.

The privileged scenario though is of a vassal Turkey led by Sultan Erdogan risking a suicide mission out of its own, current, desperation.

Here's Erdogan's warped reasoning in a nutshell. The Paris tragedy was a huge setback. France started discussing close military collaboration not within NATO, but with Russia. Washington's unstated aim was always to get NATO inside Syria. By having Turkey/NATO — clumsily, inside Syrian territory — attacking Russia, and provoking a harsh Russian response, Erdogan thought he could seduce NATO into Syria, under the pretext (Article 5) of defending Turkey.

As Bay-of-Pigs dangerous as this may be, it has nothing to do with WWIII — as apocalyptic purveyors are braying. It revolves around whether a state which supports/finances/weaponries the Salafi-jihadi nebulae is allowed to destroy the Russian jets that are turning its profitable assets into ashes.

Married to the (Erdogan) Mob

President Putin nailed it; it was "a shot in the back". Because all evidence is pointing towards an ambush: the F-16s might have been actually waiting for the Su-24s. With Turkish TV cameras available for maximum global impact.

Two Su-24s were getting ready to strike a bunch of "moderate rebels". Ankara says they were Turkmen — which the Turks finance and weaponize. But there is just a small bunch of Turkmen in northern Syria.

The Su-24s were actually after Chechens and Uzbeks — plus a few Uyghurs — smuggled in with fake Turkish passports (Chinese intel is also on it), all of these operating in tandem with a nasty bunch of Turkish Islamo-fascists. Most of these goons transit back and forth between the CIA-weaponized Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Jabhat al-Nusra. These were the goons who machine-gunned the Russian pilots as they parachuted down after the hit on the Su-24.

The Su-24s posed absolutely no threat to Turkey. Turkish UN Ambassador Halit Cevik's letter to the Security Council is a joke; two Russian jets "warned 10 times in five minutes" to change direction, both flying "more than a mile" into Turkey for an interminable 17 seconds. The whole thing has already been amply debunked. Not to mention that Turkish — and NATO — planes "violate" the Syrian border all the time.

 

Erdogan well knows how US neocons were livid with French President Francois Hollande after his "it's war" cry was followed by a drive to work together with Russia against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. 

So the real target was not a Su-24, but the evolving possibility, after the Paris attacks, of a real coalition — the US, Britain and France on one side, the "4+1" (Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah) on the other side — finally converging their interests into a unified fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

Where would that leave Ankara, which for years has invested heavily in the Salafi-jihadi nebulae, from Jabhat al-Nusra to Ahrar al-Sham and myriad other outfits, culminating with aiding and abetting and even funding ISIS/ISIL/Daesh?

Turkey, for all practical purposes, has been a handy, sprawling Salafi-jihadi Infrastructure and Logistics Center; it offers everything from porous borders enabling countless jihadi return tickets from Syria to Europe, facilitated by corrupt police, to a convenient crossroads for all kinds of smuggling and a hefty money laundering ops.

So Ankara, with a missile, thought it might completely change the narrative. 

Hardly. Just follow the money. Even in the US and Europe the Turkish game is becoming increasingly transparent. A research paper at Columbia University details at least a fraction of the multiple instances of collusion between Turkey and ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. 

Bilal Erdogan, the Sultan's son, is a major profiteer of illegal trading of stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil. Imagine his terror after Putin revealed to G-20 leaders in Antalya — Turkish territory! — how Russian intel has identified most of the mobster maze of connections pointing directly to ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

Imagine mobster/Turkish commodity dealer sentiment at the prospect of losing their cut with the impossibility of buying Syrian stolen oil to the tune of $50 million a month. After all the Russian Air Force had already destroyed oil farms, refineries and most of all over 1,000 tanker trucks — and counting; imagine the prospect of losing all the oil flow, the money flow, a Smugglers Inc. scattered in the desert with no place to go.

And we Also Do Extortion

NATO command may be stand-up comic material — just watch Dr. Strangelove's Greatest Hits, as in Gen. Philip Breedlove and his "Russian aggression" meme. But the generals are not foolish. NATO won't go to war with Russia over a mere vassal. And Russia won't provide NATO with a pretext for war.

In the Big Power Politics arena, certainly now we do have the post-modern return of the historic tension between the Russian and Ottoman empires. But that will play over time, slowly. The Russian direct response will be cold, calculated, extensive, swift — and most of all unexpected. No response would imply a carte blanche for "moderate rebels" to be weaponized in Syria ad infinitum.

What's certain is that Russia wills turbo-charge the bombing of all ISIS/ISIL/Daesh supply corridors from Turkey into northern Syria, as well as the stolen oil smuggling routes from northern Syria into Turkey.

Russia can play with so many options to increase the pressure. For instance, S-300 and S-400 air defense systems covering the Turkish-Syrian border. That would be part of a Russian no-fly zone in Syria, approved by Damascus, for any jet daring to fly without explicit permission from the government. The Sultan wouldn't dare "violate" this airspace. 

 

Erdogan's desperate gambit reveals that the last thing Ankara wants is a Vienna-conducted peace process in Syria. "Assad must go" is non-negotiable — for an array of geopolitical reasons (neo-Ottomanism), political (the need for a Sunni-dominated, pliant, Syrian satrapy) and economic (the proposed Qatar gas pipeline traversing Syria all the way to Turkey.)

And the whole thing is about to get hotter. Not only a Turkish mobster maze is aiding, abetting and profiting handsomely from doing business with ISIS/ISIL/Daesh and other exponents of Jihad Inc.; Ankara itself is in the extortion business. And the willing "victim" is — who else — Europe.   

German chancellor Angela Merkel had to go to Ankara to kiss the Sultan's feet so she may be able to "save" her refugee policy. Erdogan came up with the proverbial offer you can't refuse. You want me to hold the refugees here? Just give me 3 billion Euros. Unfreeze Turkey's accession dossier to the EU (guess who the top nation against it is: France). And let me have my "safe zone" in the Turkish-Syria border.

Incredible as it may seem, Europe gave in. The European Commission (EC) has just given Erdogan the 3 billion Euros. He starts getting the cash on January 1, 2016. The official spin is these funds are part of the "efforts to solve the migrant crisis." European Commission First-Vice President Franz Timmermans glowingly framed the so-called Turkey Refugee Facility as "providing support to further improve the daily lives and socio-economic conditions of Syrians seeking refuge in Turkey."

Don't expect the EC to monitor how the cash will vanish in the mobster maze — or will be used to further weaponize "moderate rebels".

Erdogan does not give a damn about refugees. What he wants is his "safe zone", not in Turkey, but 35 km deep in northern Syria, out of bounds for the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), militias under Iranian command, Hezbollah forces and most of all the Russian Air Force. He wants his no-fly zone and he wants NATO to get it for him.

Erdogan is on a mission from Allah — at least his version of Allah. The downing of the Su-24 is just the preamble. Get ready, because 2016 promises an even bigger bang.

© 2015 Sputnik. All rights reserved

 

Why We're Sliding Towards World War

by George Washington on 11/25/2015 13:32 -0500

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/why-we%E2%80%99re-sliding-towards-world-war

 

Paul Craig Roberts – former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, listed by Who's Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world, PhD economist – wrote an article about the build up of hostilities between the U.S. and Russia titled, simply: "War Is Coming".

 

Similarly, Ronald Reagan's head of the Office of Management and Budget – David Stockman – is posting pieces warning of the dispute between the U.S. and Russia leading to World War 3.

 

Trend forecaster Gerald Celente – who has been making some accurate financial and geopolitical predictions for decades – saysWW3 will start soon.

 

Investment fund manager and adviser Martin Armstrong has charted the "cycles of war" back to 600 BC … and says that we'll have major wars between now and 2020. He has written pieces recently entitled, "Why We will Go to War with Russia", and another one saying, "Prepare for World War III".

 

Investment adviser Larry Edelson – who has long studied the "cycles of war" – recently wrote:

This year … we will also be hit by another ramping up of the related war cycles.

 

***

 

All part and parcel of the rising war cycles that I've been warning you about, conditions that will not abate until at least the year 2020.

 

Former Goldman Sachs technical analyst Charles Nenner – who has made some big accurate calls, and counts major hedge funds, banks, brokerage houses, and high net worth individuals as clients – says there will be "a major war", which will drive the Dow to 5,000.

 

Veteran investor adviser James Dines forecast a war as epochal as World Wars I and II, starting in the Middle East.

 

What's causing the slide towards war? We discuss several causes below.

Debt, Economic Collapse and Distraction

 

Martin Armstrong – who studies cycles, and managed multi-billion dollar sovereign investment funds – argues that war plans against Syria are really about debt and spending:

The Syrian mess seems to have people lining up on Capital Hill when sources there say the phone calls coming in are overwhelmingly against any action. The politicians are ignoring the people entirely. This suggests there is indeed a secret agenda to achieve a goal outside the discussion box. That is most like the debt problem and a war is necessary to relief the pressure to curtail spending.

Armstrong says the same thing caused Turkey to shoot down a Russian fighter jet over Syria:

 

This mess lies squarely in the hands of the Obama Administration and then to have the audacity to pretend Turkey had a right to defend its airspace when not being attacked is just too much. These people NEED war to distract everyone from the Sovereign Debt Crisis that is causing the collapse of governments for a system of borrowing year after year with ABSOLUTELY no intention of ever paying any debt off.

 

The same logic applies to Europe and other countries …

 

Armstrong writes:

Our greatest problem is the bureaucracy wants a war. This will distract everyone from the NSA and justify what they have been doing. They need a distraction for the economic decline that is coming.

 

Billionaire hedge fund manager Kyle Bass notes:

Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation.

Billionaire investor Jim Rogers notes:

A continuation of bailouts in Europe could ultimatelyspark another world war, says international investor Jim Rogers.

 

***

 

"Add debt, the situation gets worse, and eventually it just collapses. Then everybody is looking for scapegoats. Politicians blame foreigners, and we're in World War II or World War whatever."

Economist and investment manager Marc Faber says that the American government will start new wars in response to the economic crisis:

 

"The next thing the government will do to distract the attention of the people on bad economic conditions is they'll start a war somewhere."

"If the global economy doesn't recover, usually people go to war."

 

A Handful of People Make a Killing Off War

War is very good for a handful of defense contractors andbanksters who make huge sums from backing unnecessary war.

 

America is now officially an oligarchy.  And a high-level Bush administration official – Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – says that the oligarchy controls American war-making decisions.

So the people who stand to make a killing from wars push the government into fighting them.

 

Voodoo Economics

Many influential economists and talking heads hold thediscredited belief that war is good for the economy.

 

Therefore, many are overtly or more subtly pushing for war under the mistaken view that it will help the economy.

 

Challengers Give Declining Empires "Itchy Fingers"

Historians say that declining empires tend to attack their rising rivals … so the risk of world war is rising because the U.S. feels threatened by the rising empire of China.

The U.S. government considers economic rivalry to be a basis for war. Therefore, the U.S. is systematically using the military to contain China's growing economic influence.

 

Competition for Resources Is Heating Up

In addition, it is well-established that competition for scarce resources often leads to war. For example, Oxford University's Quarterly Journal of Economics notes:

 

In his classic, A Study of War, Wright (1942) devotes a chapter to the relationship between war and resources. Another classic reference, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels by Richardson (1960),extensively discusses economic causes of war, including the control of "sources of essential commodities."A large literature pioneered by Homer-Dixon (1991, 1999) argues that scarcity of various environmental resources is a major cause of conflict and resource wars (see Toset, Gleditsch, and Hegre 2000, for empirical evidence).

 

***

 

In the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), Chile fought against a defensive alliance of Bolivia and Peru for the control of guano [i.e. bird poop] mineral deposits. The war was precipitated by the rise in the value of the deposits due to their extensive use in agriculture.

 

***

 

Westing (1986) argues that many of the wars in the twentieth century had an important resource dimension. As examples he cites the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the Six Day War (1967), and the Chaco War (1932–1935). More recently, Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a result of the dispute over the Rumaila oil field. In Resource Wars (2001), Klare argues that following the end of the Cold War, control of valuable natural resources has become increasingly important, and these resources will become a primary motivation for wars in the future.

 

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan (and many world leaders) admitted that the Iraq war was really about oil, and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And see this and this. Libya, Syria, Iran and Russia are all oil-producing countries as well …

 

Indeed, we've extensively documented that the wars in the Middle East and North Africa are largely about oil and gas. The wars in Syria and Iraq are about pipelines.  The war in Gaza may be no exception. And see this. And Ukraine may largely be aboutgas as well.

 

And James Quinn and Charles Hugh Smith say we're running out of all sorts of resources … which will lead to war.

Central Banking and Currency Wars

We're in the middle of a global currency war – i.e. a situation where nations all compete to devalue their currencies the most in order to boost exports. Brazilian president Rousseff said in 2010:

 

The last time there was a series of competitive devaluations … it ended in world war two.

 

Jim Rickards agrees:

Currency wars lead to trade wars, which often lead to hot wars. In 2009, Rickards participated in the Pentagon's first-ever "financial" war games. While expressing confidence in America's ability to defeat any other nation-state in battle, Rickards says the U.S. could get dragged into "asymmetric warfare," if currency wars lead to rising inflation and global economic uncertainty.

 

As does billionaire investor Jim Rogers:

Trade wars always lead to wars.

 

Given that China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa have joined together to create a $100 billion bank based in China, and that more and more trades are being settled in Yuan or Rubles – instead of dollars – the currency war is quickly heating up.

 

Indeed, many of America's closest allies are joining China's effort … which is challenging America and the Dollar's hegemony.

 

Multi-billionaire investor Hugo Salinas Price says:

 

What happened to [Libya's] Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn't want any solid competing currency out there vs the dollar. You know Gaddafi was talking about a gold dinar.

 

Senior CNBC editor John Carney noted:

Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.

 

Robert Wenzel of Economic Policy Journal thinks the central banking initiative reveals that foreign powers may have a strong influence over the rebels.

 

This suggests we have a bit more than a ragtag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences. "I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising," Wenzel writes.

Indeed, some say that recent wars have really been about bringing all countries into the fold of Western central banking.

 

Runaway Inequality

Paul Tudor Jones – founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation and the Tudor Group, which trade in the fixed-income, equity, currency and commodity markets – said recently:

This gap between the 1 percent and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist.

 

Historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes or wars.

And see this.

 

War Is Destroying Our National Security, Our Democracy and Our Economy

We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet we're now less safe after 13 years of war.

Never-ending wars are also destroying our democratic republic. The Founding Fathers warned against standing armies, saying that they destroy freedom. (Update). Perversely, our government treats anti-war sentiment as terrorism.

The Founding Fathers – and the father of free market capitalism – also warned against financing wars with debt. But according to Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the U.S. debt for the Iraq war could be as high as $5 trillion dollars (or $6 trillion dollars according to a study by Brown University.)

Indeed, top economists say that war is destroying our economy.

But war is great for the bankers and the defense contractors. And – as discussed above – governments are desperate for war.

 

So it's up to us – the people – to stop wider war.

 

Ankara ‘s Syrian Kinsmen Turkmen; who shot dead pilots of downed Russian jet

Ankara 's Syrian Kinsmen Turkmen; who shot dead pilots of downed Russian jet

 

Note ;As for the downing of the Russian jet, it was a foolish act by megalomaniac Erdogan.How ever a principle has been established after Assad invited Russia to help out under a treaty ,that Ankara cannot enter Syrian air space.

 

Ankara had planned to create a no fly Zone inside Syrian territory to transfer millions of Syrians now in refugee camps in Turkey , who had to flee because of illegal intervention by US led West, Turkey , Saudis and Qataris.

 

Turkmen forces in Syria shot dead the two pilots of a Russian jet downed by Turkish warplanes near the border with Turkey on Tuesday as they descended with parachutes, a deputy commander of a Turkmen brigade told reporters.

 

"Both of the pilots were retrieved dead. Our comrades opened fire into the air and they died in the air," Alpaslan Celik, a deputy commander in a Syrian Turkmen brigade said near the Syrian village of Yamadi as he held what he said was a piece of a pilot's parachute.

 

Who are the Turkmen in Syria , about whom Ankara had a quarrel with USA earlier after the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003 , beginning of rampant US led era of war of destruction.

 

Turkey snaps over US bombing of its brethren    18 September, 2004
By K Gajendra Singh     http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FI18Ak02.html

For the first time since the acrimonious exchange of words in July last year following the arrest and imprisonment of 11 Turkish commandos in Kurdish Iraq, for which Washington expressed "regret", differences erupted publicly this week between North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies Turkey and the US over attacks on Turkey's ethnic cousins, the Turkmens in northern Iraq.

Talking to a Turkish TV channel, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned that if the US did not cease its attacks on Tal Afar, a Turkmen city at the junction of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, Ankara might withdraw its support to the US in Iraq.

"I told [US Secretary of State Colin Powell] that what is being done there is harming the civilian population, that it is wrong, and that if it continues, Turkey's cooperation on issues regarding Iraq will come to a total stop." He added, "We will continue to say these things. Of course we will not stop only at words. If necessary, we will not hesitate to do what has to be done."

Turkey is a key US ally in a largely hostile region. US forces use its Incirlik military base near northern Iraq. Turkish firms are also involved heavily in the construction and transport business in Iraq, with hundreds of Turkish vehicles bringing in goods for the US military every day. It is an alternative route through friendly northern Kurdish territory to those from Jordan and Kuwait. But many Turks have been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgent groups and some have been killed.

Turkey contains a large ethnic Turkmen population and Ankara has long seen itself as the guardian of their rights, particularly across the border in northern Iraq, where they constitute a significant minority.

The US attacks on Tal Afar, which Iraqi Turkmen groups in Turkey say have left 120 dead and over 200 injured, were launched, the US says, to root out terrorists. The US has denied the extent of the damage, saying that it avoided civilian targets and killed only terrorists it says were infiltrating the town from Syria.

US ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman commented, "We are carrying out a limited military operation and we are trying to keep civilian losses to a minimum. We cannot completely eliminate the possibility [of civilian casualties] ... We believe the operation is being conducted with great care," he said after briefing Turkish officials. There have not been any reports of further attacks since the Turkish warning.

The deterioration in US-Turkish relations underlines the fast-changing strategic scenario in the region in the post-Cold War era after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the September 11 attacks on the US, the US-led invasion on Iraq, now conceded as illegal by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the deteriorating security situation in that country.

Despite negative signals on Ankara's mission to join the European Union, Turkey is moving away from the US and closer to the EU - it is even looking to buy Airbuses, and arms, from Europe rather than the US.

At the same time, Turkey is drawing closer to Syria, normalizing relations with Iran and improving economic relations with Russia, as well as discuss with Moscow ways to counter terrorist acts, from which both Russia and Turkey suffer. Russian President Vladimir Putin called off a visit to Turkey when the hostage crisis broke at Beslan in the Russian Caucasus last week.

And Turkey has also moved away from long-time friend Israel, the US's umbilically aligned strategic partner in the Middle East. Turkey has accused Israel of "state terrorism" against Palestinians. A recent ruling party team from Turkey returned from Tel Aviv not satisfied with Israeli explanations over charges that it was interfering in northern Iraqi affairs.

With newspapers full of stories and TV screens showing the Turkmens being attacked in the US operations at Tal Afar, many Turks are angry at what is being done to their ethnic brethren. These have been large protests outside the US Embassy in Ankara, and the belief that the US attacks are a part of a campaign to ethnically cleanse the Turkmens from northern Iraq is widespread.

"Some people are uncomfortable with the ethnic structure of this area, so, using claims of a terrorist threat, they went in and killed people," said Professor Suphi Saatci of the Kirkuk Foundation, one of several Turkmen groups in Turkey.

He claims that the attacks are a part of a wider campaign to establish Kurdish control over all of northern Iraq, and he points to the removal of Turkmen officials from governing positions in the region to be replaced by Kurds. He also says that the Iraqi police force deployed in northern Iraq is dominated by members of Kurdish factions. "The US is acting completely under the direction of the Kurdish parties in northern Iraq," says Saatci. "Tal Afar is a clearly Turkmen area and this is something they were very jealous of."

While Kurdish officials deny any attempt to alter the ethnic balance in the region, last week Masud Barzani, leader of one of the two largest Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), said that Kirkuk "is a Kurdish city" and one that the KDP was willing to fight for, which certainly did not calm fears of the Turkmens and angered the Turks. Many Turkmen see Kirkuk as historically theirs. Turkey considers northern Iraq - ie Kurdistan - as part of its sphere of influence, especially the Turkmen minority. Ankara is especially concerned that the Kurds in Iraq don't gain full autonomy as this would likely fire the aspirations of Turkey's Kurdish minority.

The US military disputes that its forces laid siege to Tal Afar, saying that the operation was to free the city from insurgents, including foreign fighters, who had turned it into a haven for militants smuggling men and arms across the Syrian border. And a military spokesman denied that Kurds were using US forces to gain the upper hand in their ethnic struggle with the Turkmens. The US characterized the resistance in Tal Afar as put up by a disparate group of former Saddam Hussein loyalists, religious extremists and foreign fighters who were united only by their opposition to US forces.

Gareth Stansfield, a regional specialist at the Center of Arab and Islamic Studies at Britain's University of Exeter, said recently that "the most important angle of what the Turkish concern is [and that is] that there is a strong belief in Ankara that Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, and the Americans, were suckered into attacking Tal Afar by Kurdish intelligence circles, and really brought to Tal Afar to target ostensibly al-Qaeda and anti-occupation forces with the Kurds knowing full well that this would also bring them up against Turkmens and create a rift between Washington and Ankara over their treatment of a Turkmen city."

Turkey maintains a few hundred troops in the region as a security presence to monitor Turkish Kurd rebels who have some hideouts in the region. But any large-scale presence has been derailed by the objections of Iraqi Kurdish leaders. "That has created an uneasy state of co-existence between Ankara and the two major Kurdish political parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a balance which any US military operation in the area could easily disturb."

Stansfield added that the incident shows how volatile tensions remain between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds, despite ongoing efforts by both sides to work together. "The Turkish position has become increasingly more sophisticated over the last months, and arguably years, with Ankara finding an accommodation with the KDP and PUK and beginning to realize that while it is not their favored option to allow the Kurds to be autonomous in the north of Iraq, it is perhaps one of the better options that they are faced with in this situation," said Stansfield.

He added, "However, the relationship between the two principle Kurdish parties and the government of Turkey will always be sensitized by the Kurds' treatment of Turkmens and indeed now the American treatment of Turkmens vis-a-vis Kurds."

Transfer of sovereignty and the Kurds
In January this year, the then Iraqi Governing Council agreed to a federal structure to enshrine Kurdish self-rule in three northern provinces of Iraq. This was to be included in a "fundamental law" that would precede national elections in early 2005. The fate of three more provinces claimed by the Kurds was to be decided later. "In the fundamental law, Kurdistan will have the same legal status as it has now," said a Kurdish council member, referring to the region that has enjoyed virtual autonomy since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

"When the constitution is written and elections are held, we will not agree to less than what is in the fundamental law, and we may ask for more," said the Kurdish council member. Arabs, Turkmens, Sunnis and Shi'ites expressed vociferous opposition to the proposed federal system for Kurdish Iraq. They organized demonstrations leading to ethnic tensions and violence in Kirkuk and many other cities in north Iraq. Many protesters were killed and scores were injured.

However, when "sovereignty" was transferred on June 30 to the interim government led by Iyad Allawi, the interim constitutional arrangement did not include a federal structure for Kurdish self-rule, although to pacify the Kurds, key portfolios of defense and foreign affairs were allotted to them.

A press release from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) stated that "the current situation in Iraq and the new-found attitude of the US, UK and UN has led to a serious re-think for the Kurds. The proposed plans do not seem to promise the expected Kurdish role in the future of a new Iraq. The Kurds feel betrayed once again." It added that "if the plight of the Kurds is ignored yet again and we are left with no say in the future of a new Iraq, the will of the Kurdish people will be too great for the Kurdish political parties to ignore, leading to a total withdrawal from any further discussions relating to the formation of any new Iraqi government. This will certainly not serve the unity of Iraq." Underlining that the Kurds have been the only true friends and allies of the US coalition, the release concluded that "the Kurds will no longer be second-class citizens in Iraq". However, the Kurds did not precipitate matters.

Demographic changes in north Iraq
Kirkuk, with a population of some 750,000, and other towns are now the scene of ethnic and demographic struggles between Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds, with the last wanting to take over the region and make the city a part of an autonomous zone, with Kirkuk as its capital.

The area around Kirkuk has 6% of the world's oil reserves. In April 2003, it was estimated that the population was 250,000 each for Turkmen, Arab and Kurd. A large number of Arabs were settled there by Saddam Hussein, and they are mostly Shi'ites from the south. The Turkmens are generally Shi'ites, like their ethnic kin, the Alevis in Turkey, but many have given up Turkmen traditions in favor of the urban, clerical religion common among the Arabs of the south. Kirkuk is therefore a stronghold of the Muqtada al-Sadr movement which has given US-led forces such a hard time in the south in Najaf. The influential Shi'ite political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), also has good support, perhaps 40%, in the region. Kurds are mostly Sunnis, and were the dominant population in Kirkuk in the 1960s and 1970s, before Saddam's Arabization policy saw a lot of Kurds moved further north.

According to some estimates, over 70,000 Kurds have entered Kirkuk over the past 17 months, and about 50,000 Arabs have fled back to the south. It can be said, therefore, that now there are about 320,000 Kurds and 200,000 Arabs in the city. The number of Turkmen has also been augmented. During the Ottoman rule, the Turkmen dominated the city, and it was so until oil was discovered. It is reported that, encouraged by the Kurdish leadership, as many as 500 Kurds a day are returning to the city. The changes are being carried out for the quick-fix census planned for October, which in turn will be the basis for the proportional representation for the planned January elections, if these are even held, given the country's security problems. Both the Turkmens and Arabs have said that the Kurds are using these demographic changes to engulf Kirkuk and ensure that it is added to the enlarged Kurdish province which they are planning. The Kurds hope to get at least semi-autonomous status from Baghdad.

North Iraq and Turkey's Kurdish problem
Turkey has serious problems with its own Kurds, who form 20% of the population. A rebellion since 1984 against the Turkish state led by Abdullah Ocalan of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has cost over 35,000 lives, including 5,000 soldiers. To control and neutralize the rebellion, thousands of Kurdish villages have been bombed, destroyed, abandoned or relocated; millions of Kurds have been moved to shanty towns in the south and east or migrated westwards. The economy of the region was shattered. With a third of the Turkish army tied up in the southeast, the cost of countering the insurgency at its height amounted to between $6 billion to $8 billion a year.

The rebellion died down after the arrest and trial of Ocalan, in 1999, but not eradicated. After a court in Turkey in 2002 commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence passed on Ocalan and parliament granted rights for the use of the Kurdish language, some of the root causes of the Kurdish rebellion were removed. The PKK - now also called Konga-Gel - shifted almost 4,000 of its cadres to northern Iraq and refused to lay down arms as required by a Turkish "repentance law". The US's priority to disarm PKK cadres was never very high. In fact, the US wants to reward Iraqi Kurds, who have remained mostly peaceful and loyal while the rest of the country has not.

Early this month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey's patience was running out over US reluctance to take military action against Turkish Kurds hiding in northern Iraq. In 1999, the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire after the capture of its leader, Ocalan. But the ceasefire was not renewed in June and there have been increasing skirmishes and battles between Kurdish insurgents and Turkish security forces inside Turkey. Turkey remains frustrated over US reluctance to employ military means against the PKK fighters - in spite of promises to do so.

Iraqi Kurds have been ambivalent to the PKK, helping them at times. Ankara has entered north Iraq from time to time - despite protests - to attack PKK bases and its cadres. Ankara has also said that it would regard an independent Kurdish entity as a cause for war. It is opposed to the Kurds seizing the oil centers around Kirkuk, which would give them financial autonomy, and this would also constitute a reason for entry into north Iraq. The Turks vehemently oppose any change in the ethnic composition of the city of Kirkuk .

The Turks manifest a pervasive distrust of autonomy or models of a federal state for Iraqi Kurds. It would affect and encourage the aspirations of their own Kurds. It also revives memories of Western conspiracies against Turkey and the unratified 1920 Treaty of Sevres forced on the Ottoman Sultan by the World War I victors which had promised independence to the Armenians and autonomy to Turkey's Kurds. So Mustafa Kemal Ataturk opted for the unitary state of Turkey and Kurdish rebellions in Turkey were ruthlessly suppressed.

The 1980s war between Iraq and resurgent Shi'ites in Iran helped the PKK to establish itself in the lawless north Kurdish Iraq territory. The PKK also helped itself with arms freely available in the region during the eight-year war.

The 1990-91 Gulf crisis and war proved to be a watershed in the violent explosion of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey. A nebulous and ambiguous situation emerged in north Iraq when, at the end of the war, US president Bush Sr encouraged the Kurds (and the hapless Shi'ites in the south) to revolt against Saddam's Sunni Arab regime. Turkey was dead against it, as a Kurdish state in the north would give ideas to its own Kurds.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the Gulf were totally opposed to a Shi'ite state in south Iraq. The hapless Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites paid a heavy price. Thousands were butchered. The international media's coverage of the pitiable conditions, with more than half a million Iraqi Kurds escaping towards the Turkish border from Saddam's forces in March 1991, led to the creation of a protected zone in north Iraq, later patrolled by US and British war planes. The Iraqi Kurds did elect a parliament, but it never functioned properly. Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani run almost autonomous administrations in their areas. This state of affairs has allowed the PKK a free run in north Iraq.

After the 1991 war, Turkey lost out instead of gaining as promised by the US. The closure of Iraqi pipelines, economic sanctions and the loss of trade with Iraq, which used to pump billions of US dollars into the economy and provide employment to hundreds of thousands, with thousands of Turkish trucks roaring up and down to Iraq, only exacerbated the economic and social problems in the Kurdish heartland and the center of the PKK rebellion.

But many Turks still remain fascinated with the dream of "getting back" the Ottoman provinces of Kurdish-majority Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq. They were originally included within the sacred borders of the republic proclaimed in the National Pact of 1919 by Ataturk and his comrades, who had started organizing resistance to fight for Turkey's independence from the occupying World War I victors.

So it has always remained a mission and objective to be reclaimed some time. The oil-rich part of Mosul region was occupied by the British forces illegally after the armistice and then annexed to Iraq, then under British mandate, in 1925, much to Turkish chagrin. Iraq was created by joining Ottoman Baghdad and Basra vilayats (provinces). Turks also base their claims on behalf of less than half a million Turkmen who lived in Kirkuk with the Kurds before Arabization changed the ethnic balance of the region.

With its attacks on Tal Afar, the US is stirring a very deep well of discontent.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Emai: Gajendrak@hotmail.com

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

 

The French Republic Taken Hostage;Chickens coming home to roost.

The French Republic Taken Hostage

Mayhem in Paris is a result of France's interference in its former colonies and discriminating and brutal policies at home against immigrants from them. The French were kicked out from its colonies in South East Asia after brutal wars in 1970s , where US and the new neocolonialists created havoc and devastation. The French then shifted attention to its colonies in North West Africa, where its occupation of Algeria which it claimed to be part of France was very brutal, with a devastating and brutal war of liberation (1954-63)

 

There have been cries of outrage in Paris and western capitals, with war declared on ISIS. France has followed in the footsteps of other criminal ruling elites in Washington and London which have run amok in destroying countries in Middle East beginning with Iraq in 2003. Unlike with almost total control over communications, of USA and UK at home, France is more open to so-called terror activities not only from Syria but also as a result of its former brutal occupation and war of liberation by Algeria, with millions of Algerians and other North West Africans from France's former colonies living in Paris and elsewhere. Badly discriminated, maltreated, un-integrated and sullen.

 

So it should not come as a surprise to what has happened in Paris and what is likely to happen in future in the capital and France. Below is an excellent article by Thierry Meyssan, a French intellectual who gives the background to the crisis France is faced with. The chickens are coming home to roost.

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43470.htm

 

The war which has now spread to Paris is incomprehensible for those French citizens who are ignorant of practically all the secret activities of their government in the Arab world, of its unnatural alliances with the Gulf dictators, and its active participation in international terrorism. These policies have never been discussed in Parliament, and the major media have rarely dared to take an interest in them.

By Thierry Meyssan

November 18, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Voltaire Network" -- For the last five years, the French people have been hearing about distant wars, but without ever understanding what they meant. The Press informed them about the engagement of their army in Libya, but never about the presence of French soldiers on mission in the Levant. My articles on this subject are widely-read, but perceived as some sort of Oriental aberration. Despite my personal history, it remains quite acceptable to qualify me as an « extremist », or a « conspiracy theorist », and to point out that my articles are reproduced by Internet sites of all political colours, including those which are in fact authentically extremist or conspiracist. Yet nobody seems to have any quarrel with what I write. But neither do they pay any attention to my warnings about the alliances concluded by the French governement.

Now, suddenly, the unheeded truth surfaces.

France was attacked on the night of Friday 13th November 2015 by several commandos who massacred at least 130 people in five different areas of Paris. The state of emergency was decreed for a period of 12 days over the whole territory, and may be extended by act of Parliament.

No direct link with the Charlie Hebdo affair

The French Press interprets these acts of war by linking them to the attack made on Charlie Hebdo, although the operational modes were completely different. In January, the attack was aimed at killing specific people, while in this case, it was a co-ordinated attack on a large number of people chosen at random.

We know today that just before the January attack, the editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo had received a « gift » of 200,000 Euros from the Near East in order to continue his anti-Muslim campaign [1] ; that the killers were linked to the French intelligence services [2] ; and that the origin of their weapons is covered by the Official Secrets Act [3]. I have already demonstrated that the attack was not an Islamist operation [4], that it was immediately recuperated by a state [5], and that this recuperation had raised echoes in populations hostile to the Republic [6] – an idea which was brilliantly developed a few months later by the demographer Emmanuel Todd [7].

To get back to the war which has just spread to Paris, it has been a shock for Western Europe. It can not be compared to the attacks in Madrid in 2004. In Spain, there were no shooters, no kamikazes, but 10 bombs placed in 4 separate locations [8]. The type of horror which has just exploded in France is the daily lot of many populations of the « Wider Middle East », and has been since 2001. And comparable events can be found elsewhere, like the three days of attacks in six distinct locations, in Bombay, 2008 [9].

Even if the assaillants of the 13th November were Muslims, and even if some of them shouted « Allah Akbar ! » as they killed passers-by, there is no link to such earlier attacks, to Islam, or to an eventual « war of civilisations ». These commandos had clearly received the order to kill at random, without first enquiring as to the religion of their victims.

In the same way, it is absurd to take at face value the motive claimed by Daesh against France – even if there is no doubt about its implication in this attack. Indeed, if the terrorist organisation had wanted to « avenge » itself, it would have struck at Moscow.

France has been a terrorist state since at least 2011

The interpretation of these events is unclear, because behind non-state groups there are always states which sponsor them. In the 1970's, the Venezualan Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as « Carlos » or « The Jackal » aligned himself by conviction with the Palestinian cause and the Revolution, and was offered the discrete support of the USSR. In the 1980's, the example of Carlos was revived by mercenaries working for the highest bidder, like Sabri al Banna, known as « Abou Nidal », who carried out terrorist attacks for Libya and Syria as well as Israël. Today, there exists a cloudy network of terrorism and secret actors implicating a large number of states.

In principle, states always deny their participation in terrorist groups. However, the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, declared in December 2012, during the « Friends of Syria » conference in Marrakesh, that Al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaïda, had « done a good job » [10].

Because of his status, M. Fabius knew that he did not risk being taken to court to answer for supporting an organisation listed as « terrorist » by United Nations Security Council, but he took a serious risk for his country by dropping them into the cauldron of terrorism with this statement.

In truth, France had been implicated on the side of Al-Qaïda at least since the beginning of 2011. At that time, the United Kingdom and France had signed up for the US project called « the Arab Spring ». The goal of this operation was to overthrow all the secular Arab régimes and replace them with dictatorships run by the Muslim Brotherhood. Although London and Paris had discovered this operation while it was on-going in Tunisia and in Egypt, they had previously been solicited for Libya and Syria [11]. In Libya, with the help of the Italian Special Forces, they organised the massacres in Benghazi, and then, with the help of Al-Qaïda, the capture of the Libyan arsenals. I can attest to the fact that in August 2011, while I was under the protection of Khamis el-Kadhafi, NATO assaulted the capital, and the Hotel Rixos, where we were staying, was seiged to cries of « Allah Akbar ! » by a unit of Al-Qaïda. They were called the Tripoli Brigade, and were commanded by Mahdi al-Harati and supervised by operational French officers. The same Mahdi al-Harati was present with his commanding officer, Abdelhakim Belhaj, the founder of the so-called « Free Syrian Army » which was in reality a section of Al-Qaïda, fighting under the French colonial flag.

In Syria, the presence of French officers supervising armed groups while they were committing crimes against humanity is widely attested.

France then went on to play an extremely complex and dangerous game. In January 2013 - in other words, one month after Laurent Fabius' public support for Al-Qaïda in Syria - France launched an operation in Mali against the same Al-Qaïda, provoking the first reaction against its agents infiltrated in Syria.

You, of course, have never heard anything about all that, because although France has democratic institutions, its current policy in the Arab world has never been publicly discussed. In violation of article 35 of the Constitution, it decided to enter into war with Libya and Syria after only a few hours of superficial parliamentary debate - at the most - and without a vote. The French parliamentarians thus discarded their mandate to excercise control over the Executive as far as foreign policy was concerned, apparently believing that this was a private domain of the President, and without real consequence for daily life. However, as anyone can now see, on the contrary, peace and security, one of the four « Human and Citizens' Rights » of 1789 (article 2), depend upon it directly. The worst is yet to come.

In the beginning of 2014, while the liberal US hawks were working on their plan for the transformation of the Islamic Emirate in Iraq and Cham into what was going to become Daesh, France and Turkey transported munitions to Al-Qaïda so that they could fight the Islamic Emirate – this point is attested by a document presented to the Security Council on the 14th July 2014 [12]. However, France later joined this secret operation, and participated in the international anti-Daesh Coalition, which, as everyone now knows, contrary to its name, did not bomb Daesh, but delivered weapons to it for a year [13]. The situation evolved further after the signature of the 5+1 agreement with Iran. The United States suddenly turned on the terrorist organisation and pushed it back to Al-Hasakah (Syria) [14]. But it was only in mid-October 2015 – a month ago – that France began to fight Daesh. Not to stop the massacres, but to conquer part of the territory it occupies in Syria and Iraq, and install a new colonial state which is to be called « Kurdistan », even though the Kurdish population will be largely in the minority [15].

In this perspective, France sent its aircraft-carrier – which has not yet arrived – to support the Marxist-Leninists of the Kurdish party YPG against its ex-ally Daesh. But what does this polititcal reference mean when the project is to create a colonial state ?.

We are currently witnessing the second reaction. Not from al-Qaïda in Syria this time, but from Daesh in France, on the instructions od France's unmentionable allies.
Who directs Daesh

Daesh is an artificial creation. It is nothing more than the instrument of the policies of several states and multinationals.

Its principal financial resources come from petrol, Afghan drugs – of which the French have not yet understood the implications on their own territory – and Levantine antiques. Everyone agrees that the stolen petrol freely crosses Turkey before being sold in Western Europe. Given the quantities involved, there can be no possible doubt about Turkish support for Daesh [16].

Three weeks ago, a spokesperson for the Syrian Arab Army revealed that three planes, respectively chartered by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, had exfiltrated Daesh combatants from Syria and taken them to Yemen. Once again, there can be no possible doubt concerning the links between these three states and Daesh, in violation of the pertinent resolutions of the UN Security Council.

Following the first Geneva Conference in June 2012, I explained in depth that a faction within the US state apparatus was waging its own policy, contrary to that of the White House. At first, this conspiracy was directed by the head of the CIA, which was the co-founder of Daesh in 2007 (« The Surge ») [17], General David Petraeus, until his removal in handcuffs the day after the re-election of President Barack Obama. Then it was the turn of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was prevented by an unfortunate « accident » from completing her mandate during the period of presidential transition. Finally, the combat was continued by ambassador Jeffrey Feltman from his offices at the UNO, and by General John Allen, at the head of the phoney anti-Daesh Coalition. This group, a part of the US « deep state », which had never ceased from opposing the 5+1 agreement with Iran and fighting the Syrian Arab Republic, maintains its members within the Obama administration. Above all, it can count on the multinational corporations, whose budgets are greater than those of the states themselves, and who can finance their own secret operations. In particular, this is the case of the petrol company Exxon-Mobil (the true owner of Qatar), the investment fund KKR, and the private army Academi (ex-Blackwater).

France has thus become a mercenary state working for these multinationals.

France, object of blackmail

On the 11th November 2015, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared that France was engaged against terrorism [18].

On the 12th November, the Observatoire national de la délinquance et des réponses pénales (National Observatory for Delinquency and Legal Response) - attached to the Ministry of the Interior – published a report stating that terrorism has become the second preoccupation of the French people, after unemployment [19].

On the morning of the 13th November, in Nanterre, the Minister for the Interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, presented a 20-part plan to limit the arms traffic [20].

Clearly, the government was expecting the worst, which implies that France was in negotiation with the organisation that attacked it. France made engagements that it did not respect, and is now certainly the victim of blackmail by the terrorist leaders it has betrayed.

An excercise simulating terrorist attacks was carried out on the very morning of the attack by the hospital emergency services [21]. A coïncidence that had already been revealed during the attacks of the 11th September 2001 in New York and Washington, those of the 11th March 2004 in Madrid, and also the 7th July 2005 in London.
Provisional Conclusion

The successive French governments have created alliances with states whose values are opposed to those of the Republic. They have successively engaged in secret wars on their behalf, and then retreated. President Hollande, his private Chief of Staff, General Benoit Puga, his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, and Fabius' predecessor Alain Juppé, are today the objects of blackmail from which they can not extricate themselves without revealing the mess in which they have implicated their country, even if this exposes them to the High Court of Justice.

On the 28th September, at the tribune of the United Nations, President Putin, addressing the United States and France, exclaimed: « I would like to ask those responsible for this situation – "Are you at least aware of what you have done ?" But I fear that this question will remain unanswered, because these people have not renounced their politicies, which are based on an exaggerated self-confidence and the conviction of their exceptional nature and their impunity » [22]. Neither the United States nor France listened to him. It is now too late.

Keep in mind

- The French government has progressively distanced itself from international legality. It has perpetrated political assassinations and supported terrorist actions since at least 2011.
- The French government has created unnatural alliances with the petrol dictatorships of the Persian Gulf. It is working with a group of US personalities and multinational companies to sabotage the politicies of appeasement advanced by Presidents Obama and Putin.
- The French government has entered into conflict with some untrustworthy allies. One of these organisations sponsored the attacks in Paris.

[1] «Charlie Hebdo : les révélations de la dernière compagne de Charb», Thibault Raisse, Le Parisien, 18 octobre 2015.

[2] « Selon McClatchy, Mohammed Mehra et les frères Kouachi seraient liés aux services secrets français », Réseau Voltaire, 9 janvier 2015.

[3] « Les armes de Charlie-Hebdo couvertes par le Secret-Défense », Réseau Voltaire, 17 septembre 2015.

[4] « Qui a commandité l'attentat contre Charlie Hebdo ? », par Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, 7 janvier 2015.

[5] « Charlie Hebdo a bon dos », par Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, 12 janvier 2015.

[6] « De quoi ont peur les politiques et les journalistes français ? », par Réseau Voltaire, 25 janvier 2015.

[7] Qui est Charlie ? : Sociologie d'une crise religieuse, Emmanuel Todd, Seuil,‎ 5 mai 2015, 252 p.

[8] « 11 mars 2004 à Madrid : était-ce vraiment un attentat islamiste ? », « Attentats de Madrid : l'hypothèse atlantiste », par Mathieu Miquel, Réseau Voltaire, 11 octobre et 6 novembre 2009.

[9] The Siege, Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark, Penguin, 2013.

[10] « Pression militaire et succès diplomatique pour les rebelles syriens », par Isabelle Maudraud, Le Monde, 13 décembre 2012.

[11] Watch the declaration of the ex-President of the Constitutional Council Roland Dumas sur LCP.

[12] Lire l'intervention du représentant syrien « Résolution 2165 et débats (aide humanitaire en Syrie) », Réseau Voltaire, 14 juillet 2014.

[13] This point is ignored by the Western Press, but has been widely discussed for a year by the Arab and Persian Press. The truth was made clear when fifty analysts from CentCom denounced the lies in the Coalition reports, an internal inquiry was set into motion, and finally, General John Allen was obliged to resign. See, in particular : « Stewart, Brennan et Cardillo dénoncent les manipulations du Renseignement au Pentagone » et «Le général Allen présente sa démission (Bloomberg) », Réseau Voltaire, 12 et 23 septembre 2015.

[14] « La France tente d'entraver le déploiement militaire russe en Syrie », Réseau Voltaire, 6 septembre 2015.

[15] « Les États-Unis et Israël débutent la colonisation du Nord de la Syrie », Réseau Voltaire, 1er novembre 2015.

[16] More information : « Le rôle de la famille Erdoğan au sein de Daesh », Réseau Voltaire, 26 juillet 2015.

[17] Daesh was initially created in Iraq as part of a plan aimed at stopping the Resistance to the US occupation. To facilitate this plan, the USA created a number of anti-Chiite armed groups – including the Islamic Emirate in Iraq, the future « Daesh » - then a number of anti-Sunnite groups. Finally, the two groups of the local population forgot about the occupying army and fought each other.

[18] «Valls: la France engagée contre le terrorisme», AFP et Le Figaro, 11 novembre 2015.

[19] «La grande peur du terrorisme», Timothée Boutry, Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France, 13 novembre 2015.

[20] «Bernard Cazeneuve présente un plan contre le trafic d'armes», AFP, 13 novembre 2015.

[21] Cf. Declaration by Dr Patrice Pelloux, President of the Association of Emergency Specialists of France, on France Info at 10h26 and on the evening news on France2, 14th November 2015. «Comment le Samu s'est préparé aux attentats simultanés de Paris», Kira Mitrofanoff, Challenges, 15 novembre 2015.

[22] « Discours de Vladimir Poutine à la 70ème Assemblée générale de l'Onu », par Vladimir Poutine, Réseau Voltaire, 28 septembre 2015.

Thierry Meyssan - Translation - Pete Kimberley