Freefalling markets, energy wars and domestic collapse - International Social/Political

Analysts are watching Central Asia, Kosovo, and the maligned and severely pressured Serbian people – who are capable of waging a most comprehensive guerilla campaign in Western EUROPE for centuries if necessary. The burgeoning populations of Asia are poised and ready to spill across borders at the first sign of upheaval. Kill us and you kill yourselves, we embrace you like a lover!

NATO and U.S. neo-colonial expansionism may have been halted in the Balkans and Central Asia or these regions may prove to be the powder keg that leaves America in economic and social ruin – a situation largely created by neo-conservatives and their ideology of ‘might is right,’ why trade like civilised people when you can shove a gun in someone’s face and steal what you want? Just hope and pray that China doesn’t start dumping US bonds and other assets, Uncle – it CAN afford it!

You’ve obviously learnt nothing from history, Uncle! You are guaranteed to FAIL as surely as all the petty dictators and empires that preceded you. But you might as well give it a shot, ay! You haven’t got the skill or intelligence to do it any other way. This time the GLOBE will MOBILISE against YOU, the AGGRESSOR, so in language you easily understand, “bring it on!” Tempting isn’t it?

How does it feel to be so thoroughly exposed as the most stupid nation on the planet; you remember, “bouquets of flowers, mission accomplished, unknown knowns, WMD, broke the back of the insurgency, unsupported credit/debt economy, porous borders, failed drug wars” etc etc. A real success story! But dream on (that’s all you have) a dream so divorced from reality it promises to become an end-time nightmare – a pathology your population actually embraces, you bunch of sick shits. The sooner you implode the better for ALL life on earth.

A succession of incompetent clowns and criminals has destroyed your nation from within. However, the biggest failure of ALL is the failure of the American people who – according to the founding principles of the nation -- are legally OBLIGED to remove destructive and clearly incompetent governments.

Postscript:
It is tragically obvious from information freely available that criminal neo-conservative forces are preparing to detonate a dirty bomb in another black flag operation -- a last ditch effort to save their own filthy criminal hides. Karl Rove didn’t retire he merely removed himself from the spotlight; he is now working in the shadows.

How is it the whole world is able to read the coming event but you cannot? Perhaps it’s just as well; it has all come home to roost -- the Scorpion turns its poison barb on itself when faced with no viable options.

Who serves and dies for liars, fools and criminals? Bigger fools!

"The past was not predictable when it started." -- Donald Rumsfeld -- for Christ's sake! But we imagine it does make sense to Americans!

Fueled by billions in oil wealth, it looks to reclaim the USSR's status as a global military power.

MOSCOW -- As a newly self-confident, oil-rich Russia teams up with China in joint military exercises Friday, it is moving to reclaim the former Soviet Union's status as a global military power.

A seven-year, $200-billion rearmament plan signed by President Vladimir Putin earlier this year will purchase new generations of missiles, planes, and perhaps aircraft carriers to rebuild Russia's arsenal. Already, the new military posture is on display: This summer, Russian bombers have extended their patrol ranges far into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, forcing US and NATO interceptors to scramble for the first time since the cold war's end.

"Diplomacy between Russia and the West is increasingly being overshadowed by military gestures," says Sergei Strokan, a foreign-policy expert with the independent daily Kommersant. "It's clear that the Kremlin is listening more and more to the generals and giving them more of what they want."

Economic bloc ups military teamwork

On Friday, Mr. Putin will join leaders of China and other members of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Russia's Chelyabinsk region to view the final stage of the group's most ambitious joint military maneuvers yet, to include 6,500 troops and over 100 aircraft. Also on hand will be leaders of SCO observer states and prospective members, among them India, Pakistan, Iran, and Mongolia.

At an SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan Thursday, Putin stressed that while Russia is not seeking to build a cold war-style "military bloc," he does see the SCO expanding from its original purpose as an economic association to take on a greater military role.

"Year by year, the SCO is becoming a more substantial factor in ensuring security in the region," he said. "Russia, like other SCO states, favors strengthening the multipolar international system providing equal security and development potential for all countries. Any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally have no future," he added.

The SCO, founded in 2001, is often referred to as a "club of dictators" due to less-than-democratic ex-Soviet members such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. The group has been holding joint war games since 2005, when it also demanded that the US vacate military bases it had acquired after 9/11 in former Soviet Central Asia, whose oil and gas reserves are garnering increased attention from the West.

"The SCO clearly wants the US to leave Central Asia; that's a basic political demand," says Ivan Safranchuk, Moscow director of the independent World Security Institute. "That's one reason why the SCO is holding military exercises, to demonstrate its capability to take responsibility for stability in Central Asia after the US leaves."

New naval base, long-range missiles

Moscow's growing military footprint – and the apprehensions of others about it – is evident in a spate of recent news events.

• Last week the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia accused Russian warplanes of invading its airspace and firing a missile, which failed to explode, at a radio station. Russian officials denied the allegation and suggested that Georgian leaders fabricated the incident. Tensions have been high between Russia and Georgia over Moscow's support for two breakaway Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are protected by Russian "peacekeeping" troops.

• Russian naval chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin announced this month that Russia may reclaim a naval base at Tartus, in Syria, from which Soviet warships used to keep tabs on US ships. "The Mediterranean is an important theater of operations for the Russian Black Sea Fleet," he said. "We must restore a permanent presence of the Russian Navy in this region."

• In July, amid worsening relations between Russia and Britain over the still unsolved poisoning death of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, two Russian Tu-95 bombers flew deep into NATO territory for the first time since the cold war's end and, according to Britain's defense ministry, briefly entered British airspace before being escorted away by British fighter planes.

Last week, in another post-Soviet first, Russian bombers "revived the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet US aircraft carriers and greet US pilots visually," ending up near the American Pacific base of Guam, Russian Air Force Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov told Russian media. He added that the pilots on both sides "exchanged grins."

• Russia has recently conducted tests of new land- and sea-based intercontinental missiles, which are expected to soon replace the country's aging Soviet-era nuclear deterrent. As a partial response to US missile defense plans, Russia will develop a missile defense "project that will include not only air defense systems but also antiballistic missile and space defense systems" to protect Moscow and other Russian centers, Russian Air Force chief Col. Gen. Alexandr Zelin told Russian media last week.

Critics are skeptical that, despite major Putin-era infusions of cash, Russia's weak industrial base can deliver on the Kremlin's ambitions to restore a global military presence.

"Now our military leaders have enough money to create a kind of caricature of the Soviet armed forces, and they want to do a lot of the same old things," says Alexander Goltz, military expert with the independent online magazine Yezhednevny Zhurnal. "But their plans are a confused mixture of realistic goals and unworkable Soviet-style symbolism," says Mr. Goltz.

© 2007 The Christian Science Monitor

Vladimir Putin today ordered the Russian air force to resume the cold war practice of long-range flights by strategic bombers.

"We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis," the president told reporters at joint military exercises with China and four central Asian states in the Russian Ural mountains.

Earlier this month, Russian air force generals said bomber crews had flown near a US military base on the Pacific island of Guam, causing US aircraft to be scrambled to track them.

In a reference to the US, Mr Putin said the halting of long-range bomber flights after the Soviet Union's collapse had affected Russia's security because other nations had continued such missions.

Around 6,000 troops and hundred of armoured vehicles and fighter jets took part in military manoeuvres in the Urals, watched by Mr Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.

The two men took part in yesterday's regional summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation along with the leaders of a clutch of former Soviet central Asian republics.

The meeting concluded with a thinly veiled warning to the US to keep away from the energy-rich and strategic region.

A statement said: "Stability and security in central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations."

Without mentioning the US directly, Mr Putin called for a "multi-polar" world order. "Any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally are hopeless," he said.

The SCO, founded 11 years ago, focuses on border security and combating extremism in central Asia.

As well as its full members, Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia have signed up as observers in recent years.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, took advantage of the platform to call US missile defence plans that could include stationing missile interceptors in Europe a threat to central Asia.

"These intentions go beyond just one country," he said. "They are of concern for much of the continent, Asia and SCO members."

Moscow and Beijing have developed what they describe as a "strategic partnership" in the region.

Washington supports plans for pipelines that would carry the region's oil and gas to the west and bypass Russia, while Moscow has pushed strongly to control the export flows. China is eyeing the region to secure energy for its booming economy.

This week, the China National Petroleum Corporation announced that Turkmenistan, which is not a member of the SOC, would aim to supply China with 30bn cubic metres of gas annually over 30 years.

In 2005, the SCO called for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from two member countries, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The US left Uzbekistan later that year, but Kyrgyzstan still has a US base, which supports operations in nearby Afghanistan. Russia also has a military base Kyrgyzstan.

In another move with cold war overtones, Russia took the BBC's Russian-language FM broadcasts off the air.

The Moscow distributor of the broadcasts said the programmes were "foreign propaganda."

The decision by Bolshoye Radio - and similar moves by two other radio station in the past year - leaves the BBC's Russian-language services available only on medium and shortwave broadcasts, the corporation said in a press release.

© 2007 Guardian News and Media Limited

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