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MILITARY ESCALATION FROM AFGHANISTAN TO THE CASPIAN SEA AND CENTRAL ASIA LARGEST SINCE VIETNAM WAR
The Market Oracle
http://marketoracle.co.uk/Article11997.html
July 13 2009
Rick Rozoff writes: The Pentagon and its NATO allies have launched
the largest combat offensive to date in their nearly eight-year war
in South Asia - Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword) with 4,000 US
Marines, attack helicopters and tanks and Operation Panchai Palang
(Panther's Claw) with several hundred British engaged in airborne
assaults - in the Afghan province of Helmand.
The American effort is the largest ground combat operation conducted
by Washington in Asia since the Vietnam War.
Other NATO and allied nations have also boosted or intend to increase
their troop strength in Afghanistan, with German forces to exceed
4,000 for the first time, Romanian troops to top 1,000 and contingents
to be augmented from dozens of other NATO member and partner states,
including formerly neutral Finland and Sweden.
The US, NATO, NATO's Partnership for Peace and Contact Countries
and other allied nations - states as diverse as Australia, New
Zealand, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and Macedonia - have some
90,000 troops in Afghanistan, all under the command of America's
General Stanley A. McChrystal, former head of the Joint Special
Operations Command in Iraq and a counterinsurgency master hand. The
Afghan-Pakistani war theater resembles the Vietnam War in more than
one manner.
The US troop contingent has nearly doubled since last year, more than
quintupled in five years, and will be in the neighborhood of 70,000
soldiers by year's end.
Concurrent with the ongoing offensive the US has fired missiles from
aerial drones into Pakistan in the two deadliest strikes of the type
ever in that country, killing 65 and 50 people in two recent attacks.
Large-scale government military operations on the Pakistani side of
the border, coordinated with the Pentagon through its new Pakistan
Afghanistan Coordination Cell and with NATO through the Trilateral
Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission, have uprooted and
displaced well in excess of two million civilians, the largest
population dislocation in Pakistan since the 1947 partition of
British India.
Pentagon And NATO Fan Out From Afghanistan To Central Asia
Complementing and extending the escalating war in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, the Pentagon and NATO have also intensified initiatives
to expand their military networks not only in South but also Central
Asia and in the littoral states of the Caspian Sea.
On June 24-25 NATO held the first Security Forum of its Euro-Atlantic
Partnership Council (EAPC) in Central Asia, the first outside of
Europe in fact, in the capital of Kazakhstan, which borders both
Russia and China and possesses the largest proven reserves of oil
and natural gas in Central Asia and among Caspian Sea states aside
from Russia and Iran.
The meeting gathered together the defense chiefs of 50 nations, 28
full NATO members and 22 partners; that is, from over a quarter of
the world's 192 nations.
One report of the summit succinctly summarized its main focus
as "reviewing the security situation, with special emphasis on
Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Caucasus region, and of energy
stability." [1]
With the arrival of the Barack Obama administration in Washington
this January 20th and its emphasis on shifting US focus and forces
from Iraq to Afghanistan, top Pentagon officials have paid a number
of visits to the South Caucasus and Central Asia to arrange logistics
for the war in South Asia and to solicit not only transit and basing
rights but also troop commitments from former Soviet republics like
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
The Pentagon has recently regained use of the Manas Airbase in
Kyrgyzstan where an estimated 200,000 US and NATO troops have passed
through since the beginning of the Afghan war. An unnamed Russian
official recently said of that development: "The real character of
the US military presence in Central Asia has not changed, which
goes against Russian interests and our agreement with the Kyrgyz
leadership." [2]
A Kazakh account of last month's NATO meeting in the capital of Astana
noted that "NATO is seeking to deepen cooperation with its partner
countries in Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan." [3]
As a reminder of the significance of the meeting and its location
the report added: "The EAPC Security Forum for the first time will be
held on the post-Soviet territory and Asian continent in general...."
NATO's outgoing secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, speaking
in the dual capacity characteristic of his post, that of Alliance
leader and that of a Pentagon mouthpiece, confirmed this: "As you
know, the new American leadership and President Barack Obama are
launching several initiatives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle
East region." [4]
He also didn't fail to highlight the role of the host country and
the Caspian region in general regarding several unprecedented oil
and natural gas projects beginning in Kazakhstan and running over and
under the Caspian Sea to the South Caucasus, Asia Minor, the Balkans,
Ukraine, Central Europe and the Baltic Sea, in some instances linking
up with Iraq, Egypt and Israel.
During the EAPC summit Scheffer told reporters: "My presence here today
means that cooperation between NATO and Kazakhstan is deepening." [5]
The official NATO website quoted Scheffer as saying "Today, Kazakhstan
is NATO's most active Partner in the Central Asian region. We have
also achieved solid progress in defence and military co-operation,
particularly in enhancing the ability of our military forces to work
together." [6]
With fifty defense chiefs attending the two day meeting, the scope
of discussions dwelt primarily but not exclusively with Central and
South Asia.
Eastern Caspian, South Caucasus And Arc Of Past Decade's Wars
The network of military 'lily pad' bases, transit routes (land, air,
sea), multinational and integrated war games and training that NATO
has consolidated and conducted from the Balkans to nations bordering
China like Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Kazakhstan over the past ten
years has been documented in an earlier article, Mr. Simmons' Mission:
NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border. [7]
The role of Azerbaijan on the eastern shore of the Caspian has been
discussed in Azerbaijan And The Caspian: NATO's War For The World's
Heartland [8], though much has occurred there recently.
The Western expeditionary military New Silk Road parallels
trans-Eurasian energy transit projects also running from the Balkans
to Central Asia, with troops and arms moving eastward and oil and
natural gas going in the opposite direction.
The trajectory is more significantly and ominously the same as
that of the major wars of the past decade in the former Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq and the South Caucasus. An 'arc of
instability' indeed, though not so much cause as effect of Western
military aggression.
At the NATO summit in Kazakhstan the individual most substantively
tasked to effect this triple passageway, through Republican and
Democratic administrations in Washington alike, the NATO Secretary
General's Special Representative to Central Asia and the South Caucasus
Robert Simmons, an American - addressing among others representatives
from all fifteen former Soviet republics - said about the results of
last August's five-day war between Georgia and Russia that "We believe
that the presence of Russian troops is inappropriate....Russia's
military contingent should be withdrawn from Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, as today it is greater than it was before the conflict
erupted." [9]
Simmons has recruited an initial force of 500 Georgia troops, veterans
of the Iraqi occupation and last year's war in South Ossetia, trained
by US Green Berets and the Marine Corps, for NATO's International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and has dragooned
additional Azerbaijani soldiers for the same purpose as well. Both
the above South Caucasus nations will play an enhanced role in the
transit of Western troops and materiel to the war zone, too.
Turkmenistan: Final Link In Caspian, Central Asian Energy And
Military Plans
Earlier this week the George Soros Open Society Institute news site
Eurasianet featured an article on Turkmenistan, which lies on the
southeast corner of the Caspian Sea and which borders Afghanistan
and Iran.
It includes the observation that "Turkmenistan is quietly developing
into a major transport hub for the northern supply network, which
is being used to relay non-lethal supplies to US and NATO forces
in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has confirmed a small contingent of US
military personnel now operates in Ashgabat [the capital city]...."
According to the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center, Turkmenistan
is "invaluable to the success of Operations Enduring Freedom and
Iraqi Freedom."
A US Defense Department spokesman added that "the Government of
Turkmenistan now allows the US overflights" and "the Turkmen government
permits the presence of US troops on its territory."
The Eurasianet piece also says that the Turkmen government has offered
the US the use of the "sprawling ex-Soviet air base at Mary," close
to Afghanistan and even closer to Iran. [10]
Four days before the above article appeared the U.S Energy Department
for Russia and Eurasia Deputy Director Meryl Burpoe was in Ashgabat,
the capital of Turkmenistan, where she said, "The U.S. Energy
Department completely supports the idea of diversifying gas export
routes from Turkmenistan."
By diversification is meant cutting off Turkmen hydrocarbons to
Russian pipelines and routing them to the Western-controlled Nabucco
and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum {Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey) natural gas and
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipelines which deliberately bypass Russia,
Armenia and Iran and are explicitly designed to drive Russia and Iran
as producer nations out of the European energy market. A policy that,
were it to be attempted against NATO member states, would be viewed
not only as a hostile action but a veritable act of war.
On the same day as Burpoe made her statement the government of
Turkmenistan announced an unprecedented move, that it had put up 32
Caspian oil and gas field units for international tenders. Bidders
include Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Marathon, Midland Oil & Gas, the
British British Petroleum, the German RWE, Austrian OMV, Norwegian
Statoil Hydro and French Total. [11]
According to estimates of the American WesternGeco Geophysical Company
"the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea [contains] up 11 billion tons of
oil and 5.5 trillion cubic meters of gas, in addition to the already
contracted units." [12]
A few days earlier the Special Envoy of the US Secretary of State
for Eurasian Energy, Richard Morningstar, made a trip to Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan.
Regarding the Turkmen leg of the journey, Morningstar "said the
progress reached at the meetings exceeded his expectations. He said the
stopping of gas transportation via the Turkmenistan-Russia pipeline was
one of the possible reasons for the results achieved in Ashgabat." [13]
How broad the US-led energy transit campaign against Russia is will
be seen in three days:
"An inter-governmental agreement on the Nabucco project envisaging
natural gas supplies from the basin of the Caspian Sea to Europe
avoiding Russia will be signed in Ankara on July 13....Azerbaijan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Iraq are considered as among
potential energy resources for Nabucco. The US stands against Iran's
participation in Nabucco's realization but supports gas transportation
to Europe from Iraq." [14]
Recent moves by the US and NATO directly across the Caspian Sea in
Azerbaijan replicate and complement those in Turkmenistan and the
other four Central Asian nations.
This very day the US State Department's Under Secretary for Political
Affairs William Burns and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
are in the capital of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan: US, NATO Front Line Aimed At Karabakh, Armenia, Iran
In late June the Commander of U.S. Marine Forces Europe and Africa
(dual commands), Major General Tracy Garrett, was in the capital of
Azerbaijan to solidify "mutual support on regional security issues"
and stated: "I am responsible for the United States' security in
Europe and African countries, including in Azerbaijan. The U.S. wants
to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the field of land forces." [15]
To indicate what US-Azerbaijani cooperation in developing the second's
army entails, on the very day that the above quote was reported and
presumably while the US Marine commander was still present in the
country, the nation's president, Ilham Aliyev, said: "Today, our army
is the mightiest army of this region. In case of necessity, we can use
our military power to restore Azerbaijan's territorial integrity....The
war has not ended yet. Only the first stage of the war ended." [16]
Aliyev referred to the lingering dispute with Armenia over Nagorno
Karabakh. Armenia is an ally of Russia; both are members of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization and Russia has a small
continent of troops in the country.
Armenia is also allied with Iran, which it borders. Otherwise it is
encircled by the NATO Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan axis discussed shortly.
As the Deputy Head of the Working Group of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs of the Federation Council of Russia Ramil Latypov mentioned
four days ago, "Formed by three countries, a so-called strategic axis
- Russia-Armenia-Iran - in fact has a major stabilizing influence in
the Caucasus.
"Created to oppose the NATO axis of Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan, [which]
on the contrary, in order to solve its own and the American-European
geo-strategic tasks, NATO is trying to drive a wedge between Russia
and Armenia, as well as between Iran and Armenia, using every method,
including military ones." [17]
Softening The Ground: 'Color Revolutions,' NATO's Fifth Column And
Trojan Horse
Revealingly, Latypov also noted that "the Iranian nation has learned
the correct lesson from the events in Ukraine and Georgia, as well
as taking into account the lessons learnt by Armenia, in March 2008.
"Calling people to rallies the main Armenian 'fighter for freedom'
[opposition leader] Levon Ter-Petrossian, and his Iranian counterpart,
do not understand that they are only pawns in the struggle of Western
countries for resources and the financial flows from the East and
Asia....
"They rather showed that the three countries should develop a unified
system of mutual support, triggered when external forces try to
destabilize the internal political situation." [18]
He is not the first to remark the resemblance between the so-called
Green Revolution in Iran and its predecessors in Georgia, Ukraine,
Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Belarus, Iraq, Myanmar, Venezuela, Armenia and
Moldova: The Rose, Chestnut/Orange, Tulip, Cedar, Denim, Purple,
Saffron/Maroon, White, Daffodil and Twitter uprisings, respectively.
The Iranian Mehr News agency claimed: "Half a year before the
Iranian presidential elections, the CIA was preparing an orange
revolution scenario. CIA agents met Iranian oppositionists and gave
them instructions in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kuwait and the UAE [United
Arab Emirates].
"The Woodrow Wilson Center and Soros Foundation are accused of setting
up an Iranian revolution plan and providing $32 million funding to
fulfill the strategy." [19]
As the Russian senator mentioned above, attempts to destabilize Iran,
Armenia and Russia are related and if one of the three is pulled into
the Western orbit the others will suffer. Armenia and Iran are the
only buffers Russia has to its south in the greater Caucasus region,
otherwise being ringed in by NATO states and partners from the Baltic
to the Caspian.
On June 25 Nikolae Ureku, the Romanian ambassador to Azerbaijan and
NATO liaison to the country, said to the participants of a roundtable
on NATO's role in the European security system that "Azerbaijan's
future cooperation with NATO will be in the field of protection of
energy resources and naval forces." [20]
Again, Western military forces move east as energy supplies move west.
New War Threat In Southern Caucasus As Pentagon Shores Up Azerbaijani
Armed Forces
>>From June 15-25 Azerbaijan conducted large-scale war games with a
title that could not be misconstrued in either Nagorno Karabakh or
Armenia, Restoration of the Territorial Integrity of the Republic of
Azerbaijan, which consisted of "more than 4,000 military personnel,
99 tanks, 55 armoured fighting vehicles, 123 artillery systems,
12 fighters, 12 military helicopters and 4 battle helicopters...." [21]
Former president of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic President Arkadi
Ghukasyan said on July 9 that "Aliyev keeps threatening war even if
he speaks of peace." [22]
Immediately preceding this dress rehearsal for a new Caucasus war
that would almost inevitably draw in Armenia, Russia, Iran, Turkey
and through Turkey NATO and the United States, the US held a five-day
workshop in the Azerbaijani capital on Strategic Defense Survey and
Final Document Support conducted "in accordance with the bilateral
cooperation plan." [23]
Azeri military personnel will also attend the "second half of the US
Mobile Exercise Group's maritime operation course on July 26-31, Joint
Combat Readiness training in Oklahoma on July 14-22 and US-Azerbaijan
consultations in Washington DC, on July 29-30." [24]
On June 29 the NATO International School in Azerbaijan launched a
conference on maritime security; that is, on the Caspian Sea.
Four days later US Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson conducted
an interview with a new agency in Azerbaijan in which she stated:
"Azerbaijan is one of the most important strategic allies in the
Caucasus region for the United States....Azerbaijan is in a very
serious and dangerous neighborhood with Russia and Iran." [25]
On July 8 the Azerbaijani ambassador to the United States, Yashar
Aliyev, confirmed that his nation and the US are to hold defense
consultations in Washington in late July and that "The current
situation of military cooperation between the two countries and its
prospects will be discussed during the consultations." [26]
The next day the Azerbaijani defense minister hosted Oklahoma National
Guard Mayor General Myles Deering and their meeting "focused on
U.S.-Azerbaijan relations, development of military cooperation and
exchange of views on the military and political situation in the
region." [27]
Earlier this week the nation's Defense Ministry announced that it was
preparing a new Military Doctrine and that "NATO has given a positive
review on the project of the Military Doctrine of Azerbaijan." [28]
NATO will hold a 28+1 (28 current Alliance members and Azerbaijan)
meeting in Brussels on July 15.
Azerbaijan's defense minister said that "representatives of the Defense
Ministry, State Border Service and other services will...participate
at the event.
"Cooperation issues on different spheres between Azerbaijan and NATO
will be in the focus of attention at the meeting." [29]
Israel Treads Road To Caspian Paved By NATO, Arms Azerbaijan And
Georgia For War
On June 28 Israeli President Shimon Peres and a delegation including
Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buchris began a journey to
the Caspian region with a visit to Azerbaijan. They left that country
for Kazakhstan, four days after the NATO summit there ended.
"The visit [was] the first official government visit of senior Israeli
figures to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan since diplomatic relations were
normalized in the 90s." [30]
In Azerbaijan Peres discussed energy cooperation and said of it that
"It has both economic and political aspects." [31]
An Armenian news site in a report called "Israel rearms Azerbaijani
army" divulged these details of the visit:
"The Israeli defense company Elta Systems Ltd will cooperate with
Azerbaijan in the field of satellite systems. Recently, the company
announced the creation of the TecSAR satellite.
"According to Azerbaijani military experts, this is an indispensable
system for military operations in a mountainous terrain. Given the
landscape of Nagorno Karabakh, the system is simply indispensable."
The source also mentioned that Israel would provide its military
partner with Namer {Leopard) Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicles and
that "Israel and Azerbaijan plan to cooperate in other areas of the
defense industry, in particular an agreement has been reached over
the construction of a factory for intelligence and combat drones." [32]
Israel supplied neighboring Georgia with drones for its war with
Russia last August.
At the time Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili (trained
in Britain and the US) told Israel Army Radio "Israel should be proud
of its military, which trained Georgian soldiers.
"We killed 60 Russian soldiers just yesterday. The Russians have lost
more than 50 tanks, and we have shot down 11 of their planes. They
have sustained enormous damage in terms of manpower." [33]
Yakobashvili's figures may have been hyperbolical but his assessment
of Israel's role in arming Georgia's burgeoning military was not.
Not only Armenia and Russia are threatened by increased
Azerbaijani-Israeli military cooperation. The Jerusalem Post reported
on July 1 in a story titled "Israel gains ground in Central Asia":
"President Shimon Peres's landmark visit to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
this week represents a significant advance for Israeli ambitions in
Central Asia. In the wake of the recent decision to permit Israel to
open an embassy in the Turkmen capital of Ashghabad, the visit reflects
the importance Jerusalem attaches to this strategically significant
part of what is sometimes known as the 'greater Middle East.'" [34]
The piece went on to say that "With regard to containing Teheran,
relations with Shi'ite Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran,
are of particular significance. Azerbaijan has close ethnic links
with Iran. Far more Azeris live in Iran than in Azerbaijan itself.
"Israeli defense industries have made very significant inroads. Israel
played the central role in rebuilding and modernizing the Azeri
military after its losses in Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Israel is reported to maintain listening and surveillance posts on
the Azerbaijan-Iran border...." [35]
Iran recalled its ambassador to Azerbaijan after Peres' trip and
shortly thereafter invited the Armenian defense minister to Tehran.
Russian analyst Andrei Areshev was quoted by an Armenian news source
earlier in the week as saying "Israeli experts have been carrying out
purposeful work to strengthen relations with Azerbaijan. Israel is
fortifying positions in the Caucasus, it's obvious. Let's not forget
that Israeli specialists trained the Georgian military before the
attack on South Ossetia."
"It's unclear whether Israel plays its own game or acts as an agent of
another power wishing the destabilization of Russia and Iran. At that,
it would be naive to think that the intensification of Baku-Tel Aviv
relations is still a secret for Iran and Arab states." [36]
In an Azerbaijani news report called "Israeli air force to join
overseas exercises with eye on Iran," it was revealed that the Israeli
Air Force "will take part later this year in a joint aerial exercise
with a NATO-member state, which is yet to be identified" and Israeli
defense officials were quoted as saying that "the overseas exercises
would be used to drill long- range maneuvers." [37]
Last week Israel for the first time brought one of its German-made
Dolphin submarines through the Suez Canal "as a show of strategic
reach in the face of Iran...."
"Each German-made Dolphin has 10 torpedo tubes, four of them widened at
Israel's request - to accommodate, some independent analysts believe,
nuclear-tipped cruise missiles." [38]
Last Sunday US Vice President Joseph Biden was asked on a
television interview "whether the U.S. would stand in the way if
the Israelis...decided to launch a military attack against Iranian
nuclear facilities," to which he responded:
"Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can
and cannot do." [39]
Thirty Year Afghan War, Twenty Year World Conflict With No End In Sight
The US has been engaged in hostilities against and armed conflict in
Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan for over thirty years, starting
with the training and arming of a surrogate armed force no later than
1978, prior to the arrival of the first Soviet troops in the nation
in December of 1979.
Four days ago Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari recalled the
incontestable fact that "The terrorists of today were the heroes
of yesteryear until 9/11 occurred...." [40] Heroes not only to the
Pakistani political, military and intelligence elite but to their
American sponsors as well.
In a genuine sense the US is now engaged in year thirty two of its
South Asian war.
The current, direct war being waged in Afghanistan and across the
border in Pakistan can also be seen as the twentieth year of a war that
commenced as the Cold War ended. The amassing by the US, all its major
NATO allies and assorted minor clients of as many as three-quarters
of a million troops for Operation Desert Shield in 1990 was the
opening salvo. After the following year's Operation Desert Storm
and its devastating, overwhelming assault on Iraq military forces
in Kuwait and on Iraq itself, then US President George G.W. Bush
announced the creation of a New World Order and the war front moved,
inexorably and unremittingly, to new theaters.
Almost immediately after the carnage on the Highway of Death and in
the Amiriyah shelter ended the US and its NATO allies shifted their
application of military force to the Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia,
Yugoslavia, Macedonia) and since then have waged, directed and
assisted armed conflicts - individually, multilaterally, collectively
and by proxy - in the Middle East (Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza), the
Horn of Africa (Somalia, Djibouti-Eritrea), Africa west of the Horn
(Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Congo, Chad, the Central African
Republic, Sudan, Mali), the Caucasus (Georgia-South Ossetia/Russia),
South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan) and as far away as the Philippines
in Southeast Asia and Colombia in South America.
The current main front in this global campaign is Afghanistan, NATO's
first ground war and the US's longest war since Vietnam. A war that
will be eight years old this October and that is escalating daily
with no end in sight.
A war that has already pulled in troops from 45 nations in four
continents and has extended itself through bases, troop transit and
military operations to several other countries - Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - with the logistical theater of operations
slated to expand to the Baltic Sea, the South Caucasus and even over
the skies of Russia.
The routes used for the transportation of troops, military hardware
and supplies are those envisioned and commenced by the United States
fifteen years ago in relation to anticipated hydrocarbon transit
projects which are only now reaching fruition. Projects utterly
dependent on oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea Basin. The
Caspian is where the US and NATO drive for military expansion into Asia
meets up with an equally ambitious campaign to monopolize control of
energy supplies for all of Europe and much of South and Far East Asia.
In anticipation of this past Monday's meeting of American and Russian
presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, a Russian commentator
averred that "presidents come and go - while NATO's Drang nach Osten
continues inexorably." [41]
1) Makfax, June 24, 2009 2) Press TV, June 24, 2009 3) New
Europe/Kazinform, July 5, 2009 4) Ibid 5) Trend News Agency,
June 25, 2009 6) NATO International,June 24, 2009 7) Stop NATO,
March 4, 2009 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/376 72
Correction: For Pora read Otpor 8) Stop NATO, June 10, 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messag e/39970 9) Trend News
Agency, June 25, 2009 10) EurasiaNet, July 8, 2009 11) Trend News
Agency, July 4, 2009 12) Ibid 13) Azeri Press Agency, June 24, 2009
14) Trend News Agency, July 3, 2009 15) Trend News Agency, June 24,
2009 16) Azeri Press Agency, June 24, 2009 17) PanArmenian.net,
July 6, 2009 18) Ibid 19) PanArmenian.net, June 29, 2009 20) Azeri
Press Agency, June 25, 2009 21) Azeri Press Agency, June 27, 2009 22)
PanArmenian.net, July 9, 2009 23) Azeri Press Agency, July 1, 2009
24) Ibid 25) Trend News Agency, July 3, 2009 26) Azeri Press Agency,
July 8, 2009 27) Today.az, July 9, 2009 28) AzerTag, July 8, 2009 29)
Azeri Press Agency, July 9, 2009 30) Ynetnews (Israel), June 28, 2009
31) Trend News Agency, June 29, 2009 32) PanArmenian.net, June 30,
2009 33) World Tribune, August 11, 2008 34) Jerusalem Post, July 1,
2009 35) Ibid 36) PanArmenian.net, July 6, 2009 37) Trend News Agency,
July 6, 2009 38) Trend News Agency, July 3, 2009 39) Trend News Agency,
July 5, 2009 40) The Hindu, July 9, 2009 41) Russian Information Agency
Novosti, July 3, 2009 Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato
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The Market Oracle
http://marketoracle.co.uk/Article11997.html
July 13 2009
Rick Rozoff writes: The Pentagon and its NATO allies have launched
the largest combat offensive to date in their nearly eight-year war
in South Asia - Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword) with 4,000 US
Marines, attack helicopters and tanks and Operation Panchai Palang
(Panther's Claw) with several hundred British engaged in airborne
assaults - in the Afghan province of Helmand.
The American effort is the largest ground combat operation conducted
by Washington in Asia since the Vietnam War.
Other NATO and allied nations have also boosted or intend to increase
their troop strength in Afghanistan, with German forces to exceed
4,000 for the first time, Romanian troops to top 1,000 and contingents
to be augmented from dozens of other NATO member and partner states,
including formerly neutral Finland and Sweden.
The US, NATO, NATO's Partnership for Peace and Contact Countries
and other allied nations - states as diverse as Australia, New
Zealand, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and Macedonia - have some
90,000 troops in Afghanistan, all under the command of America's
General Stanley A. McChrystal, former head of the Joint Special
Operations Command in Iraq and a counterinsurgency master hand. The
Afghan-Pakistani war theater resembles the Vietnam War in more than
one manner.
The US troop contingent has nearly doubled since last year, more than
quintupled in five years, and will be in the neighborhood of 70,000
soldiers by year's end.
Concurrent with the ongoing offensive the US has fired missiles from
aerial drones into Pakistan in the two deadliest strikes of the type
ever in that country, killing 65 and 50 people in two recent attacks.
Large-scale government military operations on the Pakistani side of
the border, coordinated with the Pentagon through its new Pakistan
Afghanistan Coordination Cell and with NATO through the Trilateral
Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission, have uprooted and
displaced well in excess of two million civilians, the largest
population dislocation in Pakistan since the 1947 partition of
British India.
Pentagon And NATO Fan Out From Afghanistan To Central Asia
Complementing and extending the escalating war in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, the Pentagon and NATO have also intensified initiatives
to expand their military networks not only in South but also Central
Asia and in the littoral states of the Caspian Sea.
On June 24-25 NATO held the first Security Forum of its Euro-Atlantic
Partnership Council (EAPC) in Central Asia, the first outside of
Europe in fact, in the capital of Kazakhstan, which borders both
Russia and China and possesses the largest proven reserves of oil
and natural gas in Central Asia and among Caspian Sea states aside
from Russia and Iran.
The meeting gathered together the defense chiefs of 50 nations, 28
full NATO members and 22 partners; that is, from over a quarter of
the world's 192 nations.
One report of the summit succinctly summarized its main focus
as "reviewing the security situation, with special emphasis on
Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Caucasus region, and of energy
stability." [1]
With the arrival of the Barack Obama administration in Washington
this January 20th and its emphasis on shifting US focus and forces
from Iraq to Afghanistan, top Pentagon officials have paid a number
of visits to the South Caucasus and Central Asia to arrange logistics
for the war in South Asia and to solicit not only transit and basing
rights but also troop commitments from former Soviet republics like
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
The Pentagon has recently regained use of the Manas Airbase in
Kyrgyzstan where an estimated 200,000 US and NATO troops have passed
through since the beginning of the Afghan war. An unnamed Russian
official recently said of that development: "The real character of
the US military presence in Central Asia has not changed, which
goes against Russian interests and our agreement with the Kyrgyz
leadership." [2]
A Kazakh account of last month's NATO meeting in the capital of Astana
noted that "NATO is seeking to deepen cooperation with its partner
countries in Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan." [3]
As a reminder of the significance of the meeting and its location
the report added: "The EAPC Security Forum for the first time will be
held on the post-Soviet territory and Asian continent in general...."
NATO's outgoing secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, speaking
in the dual capacity characteristic of his post, that of Alliance
leader and that of a Pentagon mouthpiece, confirmed this: "As you
know, the new American leadership and President Barack Obama are
launching several initiatives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle
East region." [4]
He also didn't fail to highlight the role of the host country and
the Caspian region in general regarding several unprecedented oil
and natural gas projects beginning in Kazakhstan and running over and
under the Caspian Sea to the South Caucasus, Asia Minor, the Balkans,
Ukraine, Central Europe and the Baltic Sea, in some instances linking
up with Iraq, Egypt and Israel.
During the EAPC summit Scheffer told reporters: "My presence here today
means that cooperation between NATO and Kazakhstan is deepening." [5]
The official NATO website quoted Scheffer as saying "Today, Kazakhstan
is NATO's most active Partner in the Central Asian region. We have
also achieved solid progress in defence and military co-operation,
particularly in enhancing the ability of our military forces to work
together." [6]
With fifty defense chiefs attending the two day meeting, the scope
of discussions dwelt primarily but not exclusively with Central and
South Asia.
Eastern Caspian, South Caucasus And Arc Of Past Decade's Wars
The network of military 'lily pad' bases, transit routes (land, air,
sea), multinational and integrated war games and training that NATO
has consolidated and conducted from the Balkans to nations bordering
China like Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Kazakhstan over the past ten
years has been documented in an earlier article, Mr. Simmons' Mission:
NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border. [7]
The role of Azerbaijan on the eastern shore of the Caspian has been
discussed in Azerbaijan And The Caspian: NATO's War For The World's
Heartland [8], though much has occurred there recently.
The Western expeditionary military New Silk Road parallels
trans-Eurasian energy transit projects also running from the Balkans
to Central Asia, with troops and arms moving eastward and oil and
natural gas going in the opposite direction.
The trajectory is more significantly and ominously the same as
that of the major wars of the past decade in the former Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq and the South Caucasus. An 'arc of
instability' indeed, though not so much cause as effect of Western
military aggression.
At the NATO summit in Kazakhstan the individual most substantively
tasked to effect this triple passageway, through Republican and
Democratic administrations in Washington alike, the NATO Secretary
General's Special Representative to Central Asia and the South Caucasus
Robert Simmons, an American - addressing among others representatives
from all fifteen former Soviet republics - said about the results of
last August's five-day war between Georgia and Russia that "We believe
that the presence of Russian troops is inappropriate....Russia's
military contingent should be withdrawn from Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, as today it is greater than it was before the conflict
erupted." [9]
Simmons has recruited an initial force of 500 Georgia troops, veterans
of the Iraqi occupation and last year's war in South Ossetia, trained
by US Green Berets and the Marine Corps, for NATO's International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and has dragooned
additional Azerbaijani soldiers for the same purpose as well. Both
the above South Caucasus nations will play an enhanced role in the
transit of Western troops and materiel to the war zone, too.
Turkmenistan: Final Link In Caspian, Central Asian Energy And
Military Plans
Earlier this week the George Soros Open Society Institute news site
Eurasianet featured an article on Turkmenistan, which lies on the
southeast corner of the Caspian Sea and which borders Afghanistan
and Iran.
It includes the observation that "Turkmenistan is quietly developing
into a major transport hub for the northern supply network, which
is being used to relay non-lethal supplies to US and NATO forces
in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has confirmed a small contingent of US
military personnel now operates in Ashgabat [the capital city]...."
According to the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center, Turkmenistan
is "invaluable to the success of Operations Enduring Freedom and
Iraqi Freedom."
A US Defense Department spokesman added that "the Government of
Turkmenistan now allows the US overflights" and "the Turkmen government
permits the presence of US troops on its territory."
The Eurasianet piece also says that the Turkmen government has offered
the US the use of the "sprawling ex-Soviet air base at Mary," close
to Afghanistan and even closer to Iran. [10]
Four days before the above article appeared the U.S Energy Department
for Russia and Eurasia Deputy Director Meryl Burpoe was in Ashgabat,
the capital of Turkmenistan, where she said, "The U.S. Energy
Department completely supports the idea of diversifying gas export
routes from Turkmenistan."
By diversification is meant cutting off Turkmen hydrocarbons to
Russian pipelines and routing them to the Western-controlled Nabucco
and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum {Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey) natural gas and
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipelines which deliberately bypass Russia,
Armenia and Iran and are explicitly designed to drive Russia and Iran
as producer nations out of the European energy market. A policy that,
were it to be attempted against NATO member states, would be viewed
not only as a hostile action but a veritable act of war.
On the same day as Burpoe made her statement the government of
Turkmenistan announced an unprecedented move, that it had put up 32
Caspian oil and gas field units for international tenders. Bidders
include Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Marathon, Midland Oil & Gas, the
British British Petroleum, the German RWE, Austrian OMV, Norwegian
Statoil Hydro and French Total. [11]
According to estimates of the American WesternGeco Geophysical Company
"the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea [contains] up 11 billion tons of
oil and 5.5 trillion cubic meters of gas, in addition to the already
contracted units." [12]
A few days earlier the Special Envoy of the US Secretary of State
for Eurasian Energy, Richard Morningstar, made a trip to Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan.
Regarding the Turkmen leg of the journey, Morningstar "said the
progress reached at the meetings exceeded his expectations. He said the
stopping of gas transportation via the Turkmenistan-Russia pipeline was
one of the possible reasons for the results achieved in Ashgabat." [13]
How broad the US-led energy transit campaign against Russia is will
be seen in three days:
"An inter-governmental agreement on the Nabucco project envisaging
natural gas supplies from the basin of the Caspian Sea to Europe
avoiding Russia will be signed in Ankara on July 13....Azerbaijan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Iraq are considered as among
potential energy resources for Nabucco. The US stands against Iran's
participation in Nabucco's realization but supports gas transportation
to Europe from Iraq." [14]
Recent moves by the US and NATO directly across the Caspian Sea in
Azerbaijan replicate and complement those in Turkmenistan and the
other four Central Asian nations.
This very day the US State Department's Under Secretary for Political
Affairs William Burns and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
are in the capital of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan: US, NATO Front Line Aimed At Karabakh, Armenia, Iran
In late June the Commander of U.S. Marine Forces Europe and Africa
(dual commands), Major General Tracy Garrett, was in the capital of
Azerbaijan to solidify "mutual support on regional security issues"
and stated: "I am responsible for the United States' security in
Europe and African countries, including in Azerbaijan. The U.S. wants
to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the field of land forces." [15]
To indicate what US-Azerbaijani cooperation in developing the second's
army entails, on the very day that the above quote was reported and
presumably while the US Marine commander was still present in the
country, the nation's president, Ilham Aliyev, said: "Today, our army
is the mightiest army of this region. In case of necessity, we can use
our military power to restore Azerbaijan's territorial integrity....The
war has not ended yet. Only the first stage of the war ended." [16]
Aliyev referred to the lingering dispute with Armenia over Nagorno
Karabakh. Armenia is an ally of Russia; both are members of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization and Russia has a small
continent of troops in the country.
Armenia is also allied with Iran, which it borders. Otherwise it is
encircled by the NATO Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan axis discussed shortly.
As the Deputy Head of the Working Group of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs of the Federation Council of Russia Ramil Latypov mentioned
four days ago, "Formed by three countries, a so-called strategic axis
- Russia-Armenia-Iran - in fact has a major stabilizing influence in
the Caucasus.
"Created to oppose the NATO axis of Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan, [which]
on the contrary, in order to solve its own and the American-European
geo-strategic tasks, NATO is trying to drive a wedge between Russia
and Armenia, as well as between Iran and Armenia, using every method,
including military ones." [17]
Softening The Ground: 'Color Revolutions,' NATO's Fifth Column And
Trojan Horse
Revealingly, Latypov also noted that "the Iranian nation has learned
the correct lesson from the events in Ukraine and Georgia, as well
as taking into account the lessons learnt by Armenia, in March 2008.
"Calling people to rallies the main Armenian 'fighter for freedom'
[opposition leader] Levon Ter-Petrossian, and his Iranian counterpart,
do not understand that they are only pawns in the struggle of Western
countries for resources and the financial flows from the East and
Asia....
"They rather showed that the three countries should develop a unified
system of mutual support, triggered when external forces try to
destabilize the internal political situation." [18]
He is not the first to remark the resemblance between the so-called
Green Revolution in Iran and its predecessors in Georgia, Ukraine,
Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Belarus, Iraq, Myanmar, Venezuela, Armenia and
Moldova: The Rose, Chestnut/Orange, Tulip, Cedar, Denim, Purple,
Saffron/Maroon, White, Daffodil and Twitter uprisings, respectively.
The Iranian Mehr News agency claimed: "Half a year before the
Iranian presidential elections, the CIA was preparing an orange
revolution scenario. CIA agents met Iranian oppositionists and gave
them instructions in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kuwait and the UAE [United
Arab Emirates].
"The Woodrow Wilson Center and Soros Foundation are accused of setting
up an Iranian revolution plan and providing $32 million funding to
fulfill the strategy." [19]
As the Russian senator mentioned above, attempts to destabilize Iran,
Armenia and Russia are related and if one of the three is pulled into
the Western orbit the others will suffer. Armenia and Iran are the
only buffers Russia has to its south in the greater Caucasus region,
otherwise being ringed in by NATO states and partners from the Baltic
to the Caspian.
On June 25 Nikolae Ureku, the Romanian ambassador to Azerbaijan and
NATO liaison to the country, said to the participants of a roundtable
on NATO's role in the European security system that "Azerbaijan's
future cooperation with NATO will be in the field of protection of
energy resources and naval forces." [20]
Again, Western military forces move east as energy supplies move west.
New War Threat In Southern Caucasus As Pentagon Shores Up Azerbaijani
Armed Forces
>>From June 15-25 Azerbaijan conducted large-scale war games with a
title that could not be misconstrued in either Nagorno Karabakh or
Armenia, Restoration of the Territorial Integrity of the Republic of
Azerbaijan, which consisted of "more than 4,000 military personnel,
99 tanks, 55 armoured fighting vehicles, 123 artillery systems,
12 fighters, 12 military helicopters and 4 battle helicopters...." [21]
Former president of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic President Arkadi
Ghukasyan said on July 9 that "Aliyev keeps threatening war even if
he speaks of peace." [22]
Immediately preceding this dress rehearsal for a new Caucasus war
that would almost inevitably draw in Armenia, Russia, Iran, Turkey
and through Turkey NATO and the United States, the US held a five-day
workshop in the Azerbaijani capital on Strategic Defense Survey and
Final Document Support conducted "in accordance with the bilateral
cooperation plan." [23]
Azeri military personnel will also attend the "second half of the US
Mobile Exercise Group's maritime operation course on July 26-31, Joint
Combat Readiness training in Oklahoma on July 14-22 and US-Azerbaijan
consultations in Washington DC, on July 29-30." [24]
On June 29 the NATO International School in Azerbaijan launched a
conference on maritime security; that is, on the Caspian Sea.
Four days later US Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson conducted
an interview with a new agency in Azerbaijan in which she stated:
"Azerbaijan is one of the most important strategic allies in the
Caucasus region for the United States....Azerbaijan is in a very
serious and dangerous neighborhood with Russia and Iran." [25]
On July 8 the Azerbaijani ambassador to the United States, Yashar
Aliyev, confirmed that his nation and the US are to hold defense
consultations in Washington in late July and that "The current
situation of military cooperation between the two countries and its
prospects will be discussed during the consultations." [26]
The next day the Azerbaijani defense minister hosted Oklahoma National
Guard Mayor General Myles Deering and their meeting "focused on
U.S.-Azerbaijan relations, development of military cooperation and
exchange of views on the military and political situation in the
region." [27]
Earlier this week the nation's Defense Ministry announced that it was
preparing a new Military Doctrine and that "NATO has given a positive
review on the project of the Military Doctrine of Azerbaijan." [28]
NATO will hold a 28+1 (28 current Alliance members and Azerbaijan)
meeting in Brussels on July 15.
Azerbaijan's defense minister said that "representatives of the Defense
Ministry, State Border Service and other services will...participate
at the event.
"Cooperation issues on different spheres between Azerbaijan and NATO
will be in the focus of attention at the meeting." [29]
Israel Treads Road To Caspian Paved By NATO, Arms Azerbaijan And
Georgia For War
On June 28 Israeli President Shimon Peres and a delegation including
Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buchris began a journey to
the Caspian region with a visit to Azerbaijan. They left that country
for Kazakhstan, four days after the NATO summit there ended.
"The visit [was] the first official government visit of senior Israeli
figures to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan since diplomatic relations were
normalized in the 90s." [30]
In Azerbaijan Peres discussed energy cooperation and said of it that
"It has both economic and political aspects." [31]
An Armenian news site in a report called "Israel rearms Azerbaijani
army" divulged these details of the visit:
"The Israeli defense company Elta Systems Ltd will cooperate with
Azerbaijan in the field of satellite systems. Recently, the company
announced the creation of the TecSAR satellite.
"According to Azerbaijani military experts, this is an indispensable
system for military operations in a mountainous terrain. Given the
landscape of Nagorno Karabakh, the system is simply indispensable."
The source also mentioned that Israel would provide its military
partner with Namer {Leopard) Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicles and
that "Israel and Azerbaijan plan to cooperate in other areas of the
defense industry, in particular an agreement has been reached over
the construction of a factory for intelligence and combat drones." [32]
Israel supplied neighboring Georgia with drones for its war with
Russia last August.
At the time Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili (trained
in Britain and the US) told Israel Army Radio "Israel should be proud
of its military, which trained Georgian soldiers.
"We killed 60 Russian soldiers just yesterday. The Russians have lost
more than 50 tanks, and we have shot down 11 of their planes. They
have sustained enormous damage in terms of manpower." [33]
Yakobashvili's figures may have been hyperbolical but his assessment
of Israel's role in arming Georgia's burgeoning military was not.
Not only Armenia and Russia are threatened by increased
Azerbaijani-Israeli military cooperation. The Jerusalem Post reported
on July 1 in a story titled "Israel gains ground in Central Asia":
"President Shimon Peres's landmark visit to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
this week represents a significant advance for Israeli ambitions in
Central Asia. In the wake of the recent decision to permit Israel to
open an embassy in the Turkmen capital of Ashghabad, the visit reflects
the importance Jerusalem attaches to this strategically significant
part of what is sometimes known as the 'greater Middle East.'" [34]
The piece went on to say that "With regard to containing Teheran,
relations with Shi'ite Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran,
are of particular significance. Azerbaijan has close ethnic links
with Iran. Far more Azeris live in Iran than in Azerbaijan itself.
"Israeli defense industries have made very significant inroads. Israel
played the central role in rebuilding and modernizing the Azeri
military after its losses in Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Israel is reported to maintain listening and surveillance posts on
the Azerbaijan-Iran border...." [35]
Iran recalled its ambassador to Azerbaijan after Peres' trip and
shortly thereafter invited the Armenian defense minister to Tehran.
Russian analyst Andrei Areshev was quoted by an Armenian news source
earlier in the week as saying "Israeli experts have been carrying out
purposeful work to strengthen relations with Azerbaijan. Israel is
fortifying positions in the Caucasus, it's obvious. Let's not forget
that Israeli specialists trained the Georgian military before the
attack on South Ossetia."
"It's unclear whether Israel plays its own game or acts as an agent of
another power wishing the destabilization of Russia and Iran. At that,
it would be naive to think that the intensification of Baku-Tel Aviv
relations is still a secret for Iran and Arab states." [36]
In an Azerbaijani news report called "Israeli air force to join
overseas exercises with eye on Iran," it was revealed that the Israeli
Air Force "will take part later this year in a joint aerial exercise
with a NATO-member state, which is yet to be identified" and Israeli
defense officials were quoted as saying that "the overseas exercises
would be used to drill long- range maneuvers." [37]
Last week Israel for the first time brought one of its German-made
Dolphin submarines through the Suez Canal "as a show of strategic
reach in the face of Iran...."
"Each German-made Dolphin has 10 torpedo tubes, four of them widened at
Israel's request - to accommodate, some independent analysts believe,
nuclear-tipped cruise missiles." [38]
Last Sunday US Vice President Joseph Biden was asked on a
television interview "whether the U.S. would stand in the way if
the Israelis...decided to launch a military attack against Iranian
nuclear facilities," to which he responded:
"Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can
and cannot do." [39]
Thirty Year Afghan War, Twenty Year World Conflict With No End In Sight
The US has been engaged in hostilities against and armed conflict in
Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan for over thirty years, starting
with the training and arming of a surrogate armed force no later than
1978, prior to the arrival of the first Soviet troops in the nation
in December of 1979.
Four days ago Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari recalled the
incontestable fact that "The terrorists of today were the heroes
of yesteryear until 9/11 occurred...." [40] Heroes not only to the
Pakistani political, military and intelligence elite but to their
American sponsors as well.
In a genuine sense the US is now engaged in year thirty two of its
South Asian war.
The current, direct war being waged in Afghanistan and across the
border in Pakistan can also be seen as the twentieth year of a war that
commenced as the Cold War ended. The amassing by the US, all its major
NATO allies and assorted minor clients of as many as three-quarters
of a million troops for Operation Desert Shield in 1990 was the
opening salvo. After the following year's Operation Desert Storm
and its devastating, overwhelming assault on Iraq military forces
in Kuwait and on Iraq itself, then US President George G.W. Bush
announced the creation of a New World Order and the war front moved,
inexorably and unremittingly, to new theaters.
Almost immediately after the carnage on the Highway of Death and in
the Amiriyah shelter ended the US and its NATO allies shifted their
application of military force to the Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia,
Yugoslavia, Macedonia) and since then have waged, directed and
assisted armed conflicts - individually, multilaterally, collectively
and by proxy - in the Middle East (Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza), the
Horn of Africa (Somalia, Djibouti-Eritrea), Africa west of the Horn
(Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Congo, Chad, the Central African
Republic, Sudan, Mali), the Caucasus (Georgia-South Ossetia/Russia),
South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan) and as far away as the Philippines
in Southeast Asia and Colombia in South America.
The current main front in this global campaign is Afghanistan, NATO's
first ground war and the US's longest war since Vietnam. A war that
will be eight years old this October and that is escalating daily
with no end in sight.
A war that has already pulled in troops from 45 nations in four
continents and has extended itself through bases, troop transit and
military operations to several other countries - Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - with the logistical theater of operations
slated to expand to the Baltic Sea, the South Caucasus and even over
the skies of Russia.
The routes used for the transportation of troops, military hardware
and supplies are those envisioned and commenced by the United States
fifteen years ago in relation to anticipated hydrocarbon transit
projects which are only now reaching fruition. Projects utterly
dependent on oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea Basin. The
Caspian is where the US and NATO drive for military expansion into Asia
meets up with an equally ambitious campaign to monopolize control of
energy supplies for all of Europe and much of South and Far East Asia.
In anticipation of this past Monday's meeting of American and Russian
presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, a Russian commentator
averred that "presidents come and go - while NATO's Drang nach Osten
continues inexorably." [41]
1) Makfax, June 24, 2009 2) Press TV, June 24, 2009 3) New
Europe/Kazinform, July 5, 2009 4) Ibid 5) Trend News Agency,
June 25, 2009 6) NATO International,June 24, 2009 7) Stop NATO,
March 4, 2009 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/376 72
Correction: For Pora read Otpor 8) Stop NATO, June 10, 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messag e/39970 9) Trend News
Agency, June 25, 2009 10) EurasiaNet, July 8, 2009 11) Trend News
Agency, July 4, 2009 12) Ibid 13) Azeri Press Agency, June 24, 2009
14) Trend News Agency, July 3, 2009 15) Trend News Agency, June 24,
2009 16) Azeri Press Agency, June 24, 2009 17) PanArmenian.net,
July 6, 2009 18) Ibid 19) PanArmenian.net, June 29, 2009 20) Azeri
Press Agency, June 25, 2009 21) Azeri Press Agency, June 27, 2009 22)
PanArmenian.net, July 9, 2009 23) Azeri Press Agency, July 1, 2009
24) Ibid 25) Trend News Agency, July 3, 2009 26) Azeri Press Agency,
July 8, 2009 27) Today.az, July 9, 2009 28) AzerTag, July 8, 2009 29)
Azeri Press Agency, July 9, 2009 30) Ynetnews (Israel), June 28, 2009
31) Trend News Agency, June 29, 2009 32) PanArmenian.net, June 30,
2009 33) World Tribune, August 11, 2008 34) Jerusalem Post, July 1,
2009 35) Ibid 36) PanArmenian.net, July 6, 2009 37) Trend News Agency,
July 6, 2009 38) Trend News Agency, July 3, 2009 39) Trend News Agency,
July 5, 2009 40) The Hindu, July 9, 2009 41) Russian Information Agency
Novosti, July 3, 2009 Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato
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