Corbett Report Interviews Pepe Escobar on R2P and MEK

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Today we talk to veteran investigative journalist about the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine by which NATO has begun waging its “humanitarian” wars around the world. We discuss where this idea came from, how it has been used, and the way it is shaping international geopolitics. We also talk about the MEK, a bizarre terror cult that is increasingly popular inside the beltway in Washington.

Why Putin is Driving Washington Nuts

Source: Asia Times
Pepe Escobar

Forget the past (Saddam, Osama, Gaddafi) and the present (Assad, Ahmadinejad). A bet can be made over a bottle of Petrus 1989 (the problem is waiting the next six years to collect); for the foreseeable future, Washington's top bogeyman - and also for its rogue North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners and assorted media shills - will be none other than back-to-the-future Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And make no mistake; Vlad the Putinator will relish it. He's back exactly where he wants to be; as Russia's commander-in-chief, in charge of the military, foreign policy and all national security matters.

Anglo-American elites still squirm at the mention of his now legendary Munich 2007 speech, when he blasted the then George W Bush administration for its obsessively unipolar imperial agenda "through a system which has nothing to do with democracy" and non-stop overstepping of its "national borders in almost all spheres"." 

So Washington and its minions have been warned. Before last Sunday's election, Putin even advertised his road map The essentials; no war on Syria; no war on Iran; no "humanitarian bombing" or fomenting "color revolutions" - all bundled into a new concept, "illegal instruments of soft power". For Putin, a Washington-engineered New World Order is a no-go. What rules is "the time-honored principle of state sovereignty".

No wonder. When Putin looks at Libya, he sees the graphic, regressive consequences of NATO's "liberation" through "humanitarian bombing"; a fragmented country controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militias; backward Cyrenaica splitting from more developed Tripolitania; and a relative of the last king brought in to rule the new "emirate" - to the delight of those model democrats of the House of Saud.

More key essentials; no US bases encircling Russia; no US missile defense without strict admission, in writing, that the system will never target Russia; and increasingly close cooperation among the BRICS group of emerging powers.

Most of this was already implied in Putin's previous road map - his paper A new integration project for Eurasia: The future in the making. That was Putin's ippon - he loves judo - against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Monetary Fund and hardcore neo-liberalism. He sees a Eurasian Union as a "modern economic and currency union" stretching all across Central Asia.

Escobar: Putin Not Part of NWO, Labelled Evil by Elites

Source: RT

It's official - Vladimir Putin has won the presidential race to become Russia's leader for a third term. Official results have given him almost 64 per cent of the vote. Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar in Thailand says that despite the Russian people making their choice clear, the U.S. is still on a mission to vilify the country.

Escobar: 'Al-Qaeda agents worm into Syrian rebel army'

Source: RT

The EU states are calling for creating humanitarian corridors in Syria, which some fear could open the door to foreign intervention. But Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar says it's already underway.

Exposed: The Arab Agenda in Syria

Source: Asia Times
Pepe Escobar

Here's a crash course on the "democratic" machinations of the Arab League - rather the GCC League, as real power in this pan-Arab organization is wielded by two of the six Persian Gulf monarchies composing the Gulf Cooperation Council, also known as Gulf Counter-revolution Club; Qatar and the House of Saud.

Essentially, the GCC created an Arab League group to monitor what's going on in Syria. The Syrian National Council - based in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries Turkey and France - enthusiastically supported it. It's telling that Syria's neighbor Lebanon did not.

When the over 160 monitors, after one month of enquiries, issued their report ... surprise! The report did not follow the official GCC line - which is that the "evil" Bashar al-Assad government is indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order.

indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order.

The Arab League's Ministerial Committee had approved the report, with four votes in favor (Algeria, Egypt, Sudan and GCC member Oman) and only one against; guess who, Qatar - which is now presiding the Arab League because the emirate bought their (rotating) turn from the Palestinian Authority.

So the report was either ignored (by Western corporate media) or mercilessly destroyed - by Arab media, virtually all of it financed by either the House of Saud or Qatar. It was not even discussed - because it was prevented by the GCC from being translated from Arabic into English and published in the Arab League's website.

Until it was leaked. Here it is, in full.

The report is adamant. There was no organized, lethal repression by the Syrian government against peaceful protesters. Instead, the report points to shady armed gangs as responsible for hundreds of deaths among Syrian civilians, and over one thousand among the Syrian army, using lethal tactics such as bombing of civilian buses, bombing of trains carrying diesel oil, bombing of police buses and bombing of bridges and pipelines.

Fear and Loathing in the American Gulf

Source: Asia Times
Pepe Escobar

Persian Gulf? Khaleej-e-Fars? Forget it; time to call it the American Gulf - to the delight of the vultures, jackals and hyenas of war, Israeli and Anglo-American. The House of Saud wouldn't be too displeased either.

So much for the Pentagon's "pivoting" strategy from the Middle East to East Asia - recently announced by United States President Barack Obama. The confrontation against China starts in Southwest Asia - in the American Gulf; and goes way beyond Washington cheerleading the hardcore Sunni sectarian killers of Jundallah in Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province, Israeli Mossad agents posing as US Central Intelligence Agency operatives, serial assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, computer viruses, and ludicrous accusations of Tehran helping al-Qaeda and vice-versa. 

MOP it all up
Time to review the evidence. In roughly one month, no less than three US aircraft carriers and their strike groups will be sloshing around the American Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea; the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson and USS Enterprise, plus good ol' French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. And yet one more Pacific-based US aircraft carrier can be swiftly dispatched.

Apart from this naval hajj of US aircraft carrier groups, the 40-year-old USS Ponce is being retrofitted into a special ops amphibious hub - to be dispatched to the American Gulf.

The Pentagon's CENTCOM is fast upgrading the 14,000-kilogram Orwellian bunker-buster monster known as Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP), theoretically capable of taking out Iran's underground nuclear installations.

A certain Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Project - one of those myriad revolving doors in Washington mixing politicians and military-complex types - wants to give Israel some 200 additional MOPs and three KC-135 aerial refueling tankers to "increase the credibility of a military strike" against Iran.

DEBKA-Net is a digital front for Israeli propaganda/disinformation - so it's essentially untrustworthy. But its latest bombast deserves scrutiny. DEBKA is peddling that the Pentagon is in fast and furious mode in two strategic islands; the paradisiacal Socotra, 380 kilometers southeast of Yemen (where the Pentagon has been building a giant base since 2010); and Camp Justice in Masirah, 70 km south of the Strait of Hormuz, in Oman.

Escobar: US, Iran... 2012 Will Be Hardcore

Source: RT

Iran has been holding naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz since December 23, and has threatened to close the key oil supply route if new US sanctions hit its exports. It later backed down. However, in an escalating war of words, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said that closure of the Strait would not be tolerated.

Pepe Escobar, Asia Times correspondent told RT the year 2012 would be a hardcore one, mainly because of the US-Iran tensions.

The Shadow War in Syria

Source: Asia Times
Pepe Escobar

Target Syria - the strategic prize that outstrips Libya. The stage is set. The stakes couldn't be higher. Libya 2.0 equals Syria? It's more like Libya 2.0 remix. With the same R2P (''responsibility to protect'') rationale - starring civilians bombed into ''democracy''. But with no UN Security Council resolution (Russia and China will veto it). Instead, Turkey shines, fanning the flames of civil war.

US Secretary of State Hillary ''we came, we saw, he died'' Clinton set the scene on Indonesian TV a few weeks ago, when she prophesied there would be ''a civil war'' in Syria, with a well financed and ''well-armed opposition'' crammed with army deserters.

Now it's up to NATOGCC to make it happen. NATOGCC is of course the now fully accomplished symbiosis between selected North Atlantic Treaty Organization members such as Britain and France and selected petromonarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council, aka the Gulf Counter-revolution Club, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

So feel free to bask in the glow of yet another mercenary paradise.

Pepe Escobar: US Missiles Around Russia is Bay of Pigs all over again

Source: RT

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that Russia may arm itself with missiles to counteract the US missile shield in Europe. In addition Medvedev said if the US continues to build up their missile shield Russia will withdraw from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for the Asia Times, breaks down what is going on.

Corbett Report Interviews Pepe Escobar

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Pepe Escobar, roving correspondent for the Asia Times Online, joins us once again for an in-depth discussion of “Pipelinestan,” the network of pipelines hardwiring the countries of Central Asia, Russia, and Europe in a strange and intricate energy corridor dance. We discuss some of the main pipelines and projects in the Caspian Basin and what these mean for the geopolitics of Eurasia.

Pepe Escobar: Iran Would Be an Excellent New Field for Predatory Capitalism

Source: RT
Pepe Escobar

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN watchdog, released a report claiming Iran conducted computer modeling that would only be relevant to nuclear weapons. The allegations for many are just another pretext for going to war with Iran. Are the Western powers planning an attack on Iran? Pepe Escobar, correspondent for Asia Times, gives his take on the situation.

Why America is Getting Involved in African Civil War

Last week the White House announced that 100 American combat troops would be deployed to central Africa. Their mission would be training and advising forces that are in conflict with the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army. Some think the US is only asking for trouble getting involved in the ethnic war that has been going on for decades. Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for Asia Times, helps us understand why now.

Source: Asia Times Online
Pepe Escobar

The mineral rush in Africa is already one of the great resource wars of the 21st century. China is ahead, followed by companies from India, Australia, South Africa and Russia (which, for instance, has set up a fresh gold refinery in Kampala). The West is lagging behind. The name of the game for the US and the Europeans is to pull no punches to undermine China's myriad commercial deals all across Africa.