Category Archives: Asia

Status of the Wall of Enmity

To maintain its world power, the US has built a Wall of Enmity between the East and the West. With the fall of the USSR, the Wall was not abandoned but extended into the Russian territories of the former Soviet Union. The Baltic Republics are firm members of the Wall, despite the fact that they are in firm super depression because of severe Russophobia. Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, Slovakia, and the new republics of former Yugoslavia: Croatia, Slovenia, Monte Negro. Serbia, so far, have refused to join NATO. Promises not to expand NATO were made by the US to Russia. Apparently, promises were broken. In Europe, NATO is shaking but not breaking down;  it is the Key Stone of the Wall of Enmity.

In the Middle East, the Wall of Enmity is breaking down. Turkey, a key NATO member, is confronting the US on all fronts: Jerusalem, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Turkey has not forgotten the failed coup attempt of July, 2016. Turkey is suspicious of the US. The US is treading gently because Turkey is the main fresh water supplier to Israel. The US does not want to lose Turkey as it lost Iran.

In South Asia, Pakistan is definitely drifting away from the Wall of Enmity. Trade with its key partner, China, is in Yuan. Intelligence is no longer shared with the US and it may block US access to Afghanistan. The US is trying to woo India but India is very fickle; it is not likely that India would join the Wall of Enmity.

In South East Asia and Oceania, only distant Australia, New Zealand, and some island states of Oceania are firm members of the Wall of Enmity. All littoral states of South East Asia do not want to antagonize China.

The North East Asia Wall of Enmity is pivotal to US power in Asia and the Far East. Under no circumstances is the US willing to lose it. The only way to maintain its position in North East Asia is by stoking tensions with North Korea. South Korea under President Moon is trying to eliminate confrontations with North Korea. The Winter Olympic Games are possibly a blessing in disguise. No war during the Olympic Games was an ancient Greek tradition. Talks between the Koreas that will exclude the US may lead to something significant which the US will not like. Bluntly speaking, South Korea may refuse to be subservient to the US.

If South Korea refuses to be subservient to the US, will Japan be far behind? Not likely.

 

Short Observations II

The predominant idea or movement of the 21st Century has been the movement away from subservience to independence.

The power that is trying to arrest this flow is the US, the status quo power. Dialectics is the enemy of status quo. Dialectic change is a historical process, and is a  threat to US hegemonic position. The US is enlarging NATO, yet NATO is falling apart. Turkey, one of the most significant nations of NATO is moving away from it and the US after the unsuccessful putsch against Erdogan in 2016. Turkey is pursuing an independent policy in the Middle East, which are contrary to the interests of Israel and the US.

The EU is also moving away from unconditional subservience to the US to independence, as recent German elections have demonstrated. Actually, Germany is moving away from remaining an occupied state to being independent. The poor showing of the Christian Democratic Union Party of Angela Merkel and the Social Democratic Party of Martin Schultz is the proof. Alternativa fur Deutschland party scored big. They came from nowhere. They are the third largest party in Germany and they want change. Big change that is an anathema to US interests. Alternative for Germany wants to follow the Bismarck policy of friendship with Russia. Will the EU follow Germany?

Middle East great changes! Alliances are shifting and changing. Overall, huge Islamic alliance is forming in the Middle East and South Asia. Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, possibly Bangla Desh, Malaysia, Indonesia. At the same time that this Alliance is forming, India is drifting West. The lynch pin of this alliance will be Iran and Turkey. Just look at the geographical position of Turkey and Iran. The Saudi King is visiting Moscow. Very interesting…

Israel is in panic mode. Assad is successfully fighting ISIS. Iran is a key player in this game. Iran has strong connections with Hesbollah of Lebanon, as well as Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria have determined that an independent Kurdistan will fail;  Israel wants Kurdistan to succeed. Israel is instructing the US to destroy Iran, thereby assuring Israeli domination of the Middle East, and the fresh water resources which Israel critically needs. Whether the US will oblige remains to be seen.

There is an economic factor involved here as well. The Fed is pushing stocks higher. Some are predicting the DOW at 40,000 within a decade or sooner. Others are predicting total collapse. Foreigners are pouring their money into the US stock market, thereby supporting the dollar and the bond market. The Fed must support the stock market at all costs. If it fails, all hell will break loose. All three will collapse: the dollar, the bond market, and the stock market, and there will be no more free lunch for the US.

The Ukrainian situation is ‘dormant’; a low intensity war. Kiev has no choice but to do that. It must be in the game even though it is losing. Ukraine is slowly dying. Population is decreasing. Wages are decreasing. People are very angry. What is keeping the Kiev afloat are Ukrainian remittances from Russia where over 4,000,000 Ukrainians work. Kiev is selling the Ukraine on the cheap to the West. It is only question of when, not if, the Ukrainians revolt.

Africa and Latin America are two continents where natural wealth is in relative abundance and people are waking up to protect it. Epiphany is rampant in Africa and Latin America. Western corporations are milking them as in colonial times. Globalism is just another name, more modern, for colonialism. Epiphany cannot be stopped. Venezuela will not buckle. In due time, more countries will join Venezuela. That is the flow of History.

North Korea is a thorn in US foreign policy in Asia. US interest is to maintain a Wall of Enmity extending from the Baltic, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Persian Gulf, India, Straits of Malacca, Philippines, Japan, all the way to South Korea. The idea is to maintain this Wall of Enmity and push it to squeeze the hell out of China, Iran, and Russia.

China has said that if the US attacks North Korea it will automatically be on the North Korean side; a Korean War II would be inevitable and the potential catastrophe would be immense. North and South Korea would be destroyed. If China got involved, then Japan, China, and, possibly, the US would be severely damaged. A Korean crisis is, and will be, lots of thunder and very little, if any, rain.,

All scenarios discussed here could end up in a big war. In my opinion, the most likely scenario would be a US attack on Iran to make the Middle East safe for Israel. All kinds of excuses would be used to justify the attack. But wars never go according to plan. It seems that Iranian strategy is to receive and not give the first blow. After that, all hell would break loose. All of the Middle East, and possibly the world, would be in flames.

The only thing that will prevent wars that may occur anywhere is the collapse of the US stock market. Foreigners would pull their money out. At least, those who would be able. That would lead to the dollar and bond market collapsing. The US would have no choice but to turn inward. We will see.

 

 

Syrian War II

The ISIS stage of the Syrian war is changing; the US approach is changing. In addition to supporting ISIS it has also thrown its support behind the Kurds of Syria and Iraq. The plan to partition Syria and Lebanon has not changed. The occult plan to remove Assad and Partition Syria should have been accomplished by the end of 2014 but plans did not pan out; even the poison gas trick did not work.

The plan to remove Assad and to implement “Partition Syria” is still the goal, except it now has a sense of urgency. Assad is still in power and the Syrian Army is getting stronger. Assad is resilient and tough like his father Hafez was. Hafez would not buckle under US pressure and recognize the State of Israel, as did Egypt under Anvar Al Sadat and Jordan in the Camp David Accords under President Jimmy Carter. Lebanon would also not recognize Israel. By recognizing Israel, Anwar Al Sadat paid with his life. He was assassinated in 1979.

Israel thought it could partition Lebanon by itself, and get the waters of Lebanon, especially the Litani River. Israel, like any other state, is not viable without an abundance of fresh water, and their attempt did not succeed. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon of 2006 failed. Hesbollah gave Israel a very bloody nose. Israel sustained heavy losses and was forced to withdraw. The US and Israel decided to dismember Syria by proxy and so the Islamic State, ISIS, was created. The Syrian war started in earnest in 2011, the year that Gaddafi of Libya was impaled and killed. Remember what Hillary said: “We came, we saw, and he died. Ha! Ha !” Sick mind. Putting a demented twist on Caesar’s immortal words: Vene, Vidi, Vici.

By 2013, they blamed Assad for a chemical attack; it didn’t work. By 2014, the slogan was: Assad must go. Assad did not go. Russian support of Syria increased as did Iranian and that of Hesbollah of Lebanon. With their help, Assad was able to liberate the ancient Roman city of Palmyra, as well as Aleppo. Israel would bomb the Syrian Army position in support of ISIS. Even during so called peace time, prior to 2011, Israeli jets would regularly fly over Damascus and the summer residence of the President of Syria; Syria would not respond.

The situation today is very critical. The US has realized that the only way to partition Syria is to establish an independent Kurdistan out of North East Syria and North East Iraq. The US has forces in Iraq not to help Iraq fight ISIS but to control it and to delay its victory over ISIS. Independent Iraq would help Assad and the US wants to prevent that; the Iraqis know that, Especially Muqtada al Sader and the Shias. The Syrian war is heating up. Turkey will not tolerate an independent Kurdish state in Syria and Iraq. Severe estrangement is developing between US and Turkey and Turkey will probably leave NATO and abandon the US.

The US shot down a Syrian jet over Syria, an independent state and member of UN. In all honesty, this is a violation of International law. Syria is not an enemy of the US, nor has Syria asked for US help. Also, Syria is not a threat to US security. The actions of the US also violates the morals and ethics of the Universe. There is no justification for such actions except raw power. If the US persists in such actions, there will be a reaction. Remember the Third Law of Motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Russia will strengthen Syrian air defenses and US planes and drones will start falling from the sky a la Vietnam War. It is possible that Karma is based on the Third Law of Motion. Iran will also increase its help to Syria.

If the Kurds proclaim their independence with US help, Turkey will enter the fray on the side of Syria. If that happens, the US will lose. Would the US bomb Turkey? Possibly, but not likely. However, again, anything is possible.

Increased Iranian help, let us say, 200,000 Iranian Troops or Irano-Turkish combination of 300,000 troops would arouse US-Israeli-British ire and a huge Middle East War would begin. The war would engulf Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), Yemen. The Saudi dynasty and Jordanian monarchy would collapse. The petro dollar would be finished. Oil prices would skyrocket. The EU and the US would enter into super depression. The rest of the world would  not be any better. However, countries connected by land from the Pacific- Indian Ocean to the Atlantic would start to coalesce. Afro-Eurasia would start coalescing. The US and the UK would be excluded.

The plan of the US is partition of Syria via Kurdistan which would become an ally of Israel, supplying it with precious fresh water from the Euphrates as well as oil. The second reason is the humiliating defeat of Russia and its’ eviction from the Middle East. The third reason is the destruction and conquest of Iran, the enemy of Israel and Saudis. By controlling Iran, the US would be able to control the Persian Gulf. It also would enable the US to control Central Asia. Just look the geography of the area.  Extra big war is in the works in the Middle East which may go nuclear.

Subservience vs. Independence

In the next twenty five years, if there is no nuclear war, the intense struggle in the world will be between Subservience and Independence. By 1945, the US became the dominant power of the world. The dollar became the official currency of the world backed by gold and military power. The US obligated itself to protect European Empires as they disintegrated slowly. The British Empire became the British Commonwealth of Nations, the French Empire became the French Union, while other European Empires simply disintegrated. All the states of the European Empires became de Jure Independent States, but the de Facto were subservient to the West. The only country that could challenge the US was the USSR. The US proclaimed the USSR as the enemy and created military blocks such as NATO, CENTO for the Middle East and SEATO for South East Asia. With the collapse of USSR in 1991, the US became the Hegemon of the World. With Yeltsin in power there was the danger that Russia might disintegrate, but this did not happen.

With the advent of Putin, the Yeltsin policy of subservience to the US has been abandoned, and Russia has become stronger and is growing stronger despite sanctions. Iran, since the Islamic Revolution of I979, despite Western sanctions, has become much stronger and becomes a key player of the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Sea of the Indian Ocean. It is not likely that Iran would have become influential in the region and the world if it had stayed subservient to US, and not sought independence.The question must be asked as to why  the US fought the War of Independence against Britain if subservience is such a pleasant state? It is very simple, the US would have never become what it is today if it had stayed a member of the British Empire. Why did Britain elect to leave the EU if it so pleasant to obey the rules and regulations of the European Commission? One of the reasons why Japan is still stagnating is  because Japan is still occupied and subservient to the interests of the US. Ask China why its growth has been phenomenal. The main reason is that China is independent and subservient to no one. The end result is everybody wants good trade relations with China, including the US. The Rest of the World is also observing this geostrategic situation…

Turkey, under Erdogan, was questioning its relation to the US. Turkey was helping the US by supporting ISIS and allowing the US to use Incerlik Air Base to bomb the Syrian Government positions in their fight against ISIS. At the same time, the US was scheming with the Kurds to set up a Kurdish State of Northern Syria and Northern Iraq. Also, the Turks shot down a Russian bomber over Syria to please the US. Apparently, Erdogan was not involved in the Russia plane shooting. His pro-American Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutuglu ordered the shoot down. All hell broke loose. Erdogan fired his Prime Minister Davutuglu, appointed Binali Yeldirim as Prime Minister, and apologized to Russia. Rapprochement with Russia occurred followed by an unsuccessful coup engineered by US help from the Incerlik Air Base. Turks are very unhappy and very defiant. The main opponent  of Erdogan is Islamist Gulen who lives in US. Extradition of Gulen to Turkey will be very, very slow, if it ever occurs. Hope that Turkey would revert to being a subservient ally is gone. Turkey has chosen an independent path.

The Philippines has also chosen the path to independence. After the Spanish- American War of 1898-99 engineered by President McKinley using the sinking of the Battleship Maine in Havana Harbour to declare war on Spain. The US won with not much difficulty. Subsequent occupation and suppression of Philippino resistance was somewhat more difficult. After several years of guerilla war, the Philippines were fully pacified. One would expect that after 116 yrs under American Rule, the Philippines would be highly developed and prosperous! But it is not.  The Phiippines are one of the poorest countries of South East Asia. They resent their subservience to the US, and elected Duterte as their President. He immediately opted for independence.

Turkey and the Philippines, major countries of Afro-Eurasia have set an example for other countries of Latin America and Afro-Eurasia to follow. Germany will follow the policy of Otto von Bismarck, the friendship with Russia. France will resurrect the policy of General Charles de Gaulle of Europe from the Atlantic to Vladivostok. Italy, Spain, and other countries will follow. Russia only has to sit and wait and remain strong.

In Asia and South East Asia, countries following the Philippine example are Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, etc. They all want to be independent.

In Africa there is a yearning for independence from Algeria in the North to the Republic of South Africa in the South. The yearning to be independent and free is unstoppable.

Latin America is the same. There is a yearning from the Rio Grande in the North to Tierra del Fuego in the South to be free and Independent. Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin have not been forgotten by the people of Latin America and the West Indies.

Another name for subservience is globalization. Globalization is the system that allows giant multinational corporations to exploit and rule the world according to the rules set up by the City of London and Wall Street. Globalization has been around since the British East India Company ruled India, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Shri Lanka, Myanmar. Globalization sounds much nicer than subservience.

Also, subservient states are holding dollars, while independent ones are accumulating gold.

However difficult, the road to independence is unstoppable. That is the flow of history.

 

The significance of India-Pakistan animosity in the world of geo-politics

When India achieved independence from Britain in 1947, it split along the religious line: the Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan. The split was encouraged by the Anglo-Americans. The British did not like Mahatma  Gandhi or Jawarhal Nehru, and preferred Muhammad Ali Jinna, the founder of modern Pakistan.

When the split occurred, Hindu India, a much bigger country, ended up with Jammu Kashmir, a  beautiful Himalayan valley populated mainly by the Muslims, but ruled by a Hindu who sided with Hindu India. The fight over Kashmir persists to this day and will persist into the future.

Both Pakistan and India are multi-ethnic. In 1971, Pakistan split into West Pakistan, a larger region west of India, and East Pakistan, east of India, the so called Bengal. Its new name is Bangla Desh, land of Bengalis. Bitter war was fought in East Pakistan by West Pakistan to keep  East Pakistan in union with West Pakistan. Three million Bengalis lost their lives. Under the leadership of Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Nehru, India helped East Pakistan to become independent. The US sided with West Pakistan, and President Nixon sent the 7th Fleet from the western Pacific into the Bay of Bengal to intimidate the Indians. It did not work, as the Soviet Union sided with India. In December of 1961, Russia sided with India over the annexation of Portuguese Goa, while the US and Britain sided with Portugal. India considered Russia an “all weather friend”. How things change!

India is much bigger with a population of over 1.25 billion people and land area of around 1.2 million square miles. Pakistan, on the other hand, is much smaller with a population of over 200 million and a land area of around 300,000 square miles. Strategically speaking, Pakistan is holding more pivotal connections of Asia. Pakistan borders China on the North-East, India on the East, Afghanistan on North-West, Iran on the West, and the Indian Ocean on the South. India is considered a subcontinent of Asia jutting out to the Indian Ocean. Its land borders are Nepal, China in the North, Bangla Desh, Mayanmar to the East, Pakistan to the West.

Pakistan has a strategic relationship with China and a subservient role vis a vis the US. India has a rather cool relationship with China because of its’ border disputes in the Himalayas, a warming relationship with the US, and a geostrategic relationship with Russia.

As China enters the global stage, it is developing trade routes with South-West Asia and Europe via Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Balkans and into Europe, and if Turkey achieves rapprochement with Russia, the process will accelerate. Also, Pakistan is a transit country enabling the US to invade Afghanistan, maintain military operations against the Taliban, and control the opium trade, a highly profitable enterprise that helps maintain the dollar as the Reserve Currency of the world. It is self-evident that Pakistan is extremely important, geo -strategically speaking, to US and China; it is also a nuclear power.

As mentioned, India is a large and important country of the Asian Subcontinent and the center of Hindu Civilization. It has had a very independent foreign policy, first as the co- founding member  of the Non-Aligned Movement, and now as the co-founding member of BRICS, { Brazil, Russia, China, India, and the Republic of South Africa.) It is a nuclear power, and the 6th or the 7th economic power of the world.

India is drifting West, buying high tech weapons from Israel, Rafale jet fighters from France. It is entering some sort of military basing arrangements with the US which has never happened before. US wants India to be a keystone in the Wall of Enmity that the US is building from the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Black Sea, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Persian Gulf, India, Philippines, Japan to South Korea. The Wall would hem in Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia. The gate keeper with the keys would be the US.

If India joins the Wall of Enmity though, it would lose its privileged geostrategic relationship with Russia, and its moral influence in the world. It would also lose its influence in BRICS, and would never be able to participate in the Silk Roads that China and other countries are building. India would become the odd man out on the Afro-Eurasian land mass. India, most likely, will not join the Wall of Enmity. However, the only certainty is uncertainty.

Pakistan, on the other hand, would like to break out from US subservience. It has sent feelers to Russia. Russia and Pakistan will hold some kind of military exercises very soon. India is upset, understandably so, but India should understand that if it has the right to choose its partners, then so do other countries.

Afro-Eurasia and Latin America are coalescing, as more and more of its’ countries are abandoning the strict subservience which the US dictates. They are using their own currencies in two way trade, thereby avoiding the dollar and trade is growing amongst them  as a result. India, Pakistan, Iran, and Venezuela want to join the Shanghai Co-operation Organization. Other countries are also trying to re-assert their independence: Turkey, Philippines, Japan, plus France, Germany, and Italy are in the game.

The animosity between India and Pakistan might impede the coalescence of Afro-Eurasia. An India connected to the West would not be interested in Afro-Eurasian coalescence and a geo-strategic relationship with Russia. Pakistan, on the other hand, because of its geo-strategic position would enhance the coalescence of Afro-Eurasia especially if it joins the Shanghai Co-operation Organization and BRICS, minus India, and possibly, Brazil. So history is implying that with or without India, Afro-Eurasia and Latin America are coalescing. Only time will tell.

 

The new economic Black Death

The Black Plague, also known as the Black Death, took place in Europe from 1346 to 1353. In a span of seven years almost half the population of Europe was dead. Anywhere from 75 to 200 hundred million people died. It was the most horrible experience since the Fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. It was caused by a bacteria, Yersenia Pestis, aka, Pasteurella Pestis. It originated somewhere in China or Central Asia, and via the Black Sea trade entered Europe. The agent of transmission or vector was a rat aboard the trading ships. The population of Europe was estimated at around 250 to 350 million, and the population of the whole, known world was around one billion people. The Western Hemisphere was not known or had been discovered yet. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492.

In 2016, mankind ( with a world population of over 7 billion people) is facing another Black Death, caused not by bacteria but by human evil. There is no economic recovery in the West, and there will be no recovery until the West restructures totally and completely by embracing  a new system that will cherish life and the environment of the earth.

The economic system of the West, the new Neo-liberalism, has entered a phase of exhaustion from which there is no escape. The reason for the exhaustion is the immense debt which can no longer be sustained. There are several components to this world debt that must be explained.In 1944, the dollar became the official currency of the world as decreed by the Anglo-American Powers. All of the world’s trade would be done in dollars, and, the dollar would be the reserve currency of the world. The US became, in effect, the ruler of the world. The only country who opposed this arrangement was the USSR. That same year, Winston Churchill suggested,                “Operation Unthinkable”, the plan that Anglo-Americans join with Germans in fighting the Russians. The Cold War was in full swing. The official proclamation of Cold War was announced by Churchill in Fulton Head, Missouri in 1947.

The West, aka, the Anglo-American countries, realized that debt could be used as an instrument of power in re-enslaving the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia, by lending them money for so called “development.” The already independent Latin American countries were subjected to the same treatment with similar results, as were the Eastern European countries.

Domestically speaking, Americans were encouraged to go into debt. The reason for this was the fear that the slack in demand would lead into another “Great Depression”, and that was no,no policy in a time of “Cold War.” Wasteful consumption and debt was encouraged. Credit cards were created to increase consumption and debt. Economists glorified debt as good. Debt was no problem, the Americans were told, “after all we owe it to ourselves.”

Debt can be considered “safe and useful” in an economy that is growing, if wages and jobs are also rising. People feel good and secure. Buying houses on a mortgage is a sound economic policy. Also, in a prosperous economy, the crime rate decreases.

Internationally speaking, no effort is spared to indebt as much of the world as possible in dollars. The dollar indebtedness is the “Carte Blanche” for giant Western corporations to exploit the Third World. This situation enhances the power of the West and enslaves the rest.

The largest corporations are moving factories to the Third World because of the very cheap labor, and the cheap products are re-exported to the entire world at immense profits. By this policy, the US has de-industrialized itself, but enriched the trans-national corporations. This was the Age of Globalization which was pushed on the rest of the world. The World Trade Organization was established, which is above the law of each individual member country, as is the City of London above the British law, and the Federal Reserve Bank of the US, a private bank, is above the US laws. The trans-national corporations are modelled after the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company. These two companies controlled the world trade in slavery, spices, and the opium trade with China. They were progenitors of modern globalization. Nothing has changed in the last five hundred years except technology and the intensity of plunder and exploitation.

The Third World is already in maximum debt and depression where the poor are already dying and the anger is growing. Third World countries are trying to pay the interest on their debt, and some are trying to pay the debt off, so commodities are cheap and the dollar is strong.

Domestically speaking, the West is suffering from lack of consumption, because the vast majority of people are barely making enough to survive. Unemployment rates of the European Union and the US are sky high. According to John Williams of Shadow Stats, the unemployment rate is 23 percent in the US, and the work force participation of 62.8 percent has been the lowest in years. The number of people out of the labor force who can and want to work is around 95,000,000. The number of people on food stamps is around 47,000,000. The velocity of money has collapsed which implies that people have no money to spend. Pay Day Loans with monthly interest rates of 20 percent or more are increasing. One should not wonder why crime, prostitution, and drug use are increasing. ( Incidentally, the Baltic Dry Index is decreasing, which is a sign of collapsing world trade.)

The economic system of the West and the World has entered the phase of exhaustion, and nothing can save it. The ruling elite of the West thinks that a massive war with Russia or China, even nuclear war, will save the system, but nothing will. There will be collapse of the monetary system based on usury, and those responsible will be punished. Hunger, starvation, and deprivation is on the horizon. Violent revolution is inevitable, and nuclear war cannot be excluded. Only time will tell.