With the underpinnings of the present world financial system growing shakier by the day, the outbreak of warfare in the Caucasus shows how quickly the current world situation can be thrown out of joint. It also gives us a foretaste of how quickly it could expand into a new general war. Even if no one can precisely predict how much time we have left to address the underlying cause of the growing threat of war—namely, the systemic crisis of the world financial system—the military operations in the Caucasus nevertheless make clear that our brief window of opportunity could close quite suddenly.

“Caucasus War Catches Europe Flat-Footed,” was Spiegel-Online’s headline to its article on Aug. 8 about the escalation of the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia—a conflict which has taken on the character of a typical proxy war between the United States and Russia. The article’s author, Hans-Jürgen Schlamp, reports from Brussels on the alleged “helplessness” of the European Commission and of the French government, which currently holds the EU Presidency, all of which can do nothing except express their “deep concern.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Back in February, when the European Union—Great Britain, France, and other nations, supported Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, it was already perfectly clear that this destabilization would not only affect the Balkan states, but was also giving the green light to every conceivable separatist movement and minority throughout the world. Just as in the Balkan wars leading up to World War I, and also in the 1991-95 Balkan War, this ethnically complicated region is serving as a chessboard for British geopolitical destabilizations, with the ultimate aim of drawing the great world powers into the conflict, and/or preventing any peaceful economic cooperation on the Eurasian continent. And it is certainly no accident that, since Dec. 12, 2007, the chief of the EU’s planning team for Kosovo has been none other than the British diplomat Roy Reeve, a Russia expert, whose previous postings took him to Northern Ireland, Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia—i.e., precisely those countries which have problems with nationalities and ethnic minorities.

Already on July 15, Ronald D. Asmus of the German Marshall Fund (GMF) wrote that a war between Georgia and Russia was in the offing, and that this could easily ruin relations between Russia and the West. And that was obviously the intention all along. Asmus also chaired a meeting of the GMF earlier this year in Brussels, where five former military general staff members presented an outrageous report proposing that NATO be transformed into a globally operating intervention force which, under certain circumstances, would be permitted to launch a first strike with nuclear weapons.

With its so-called “Rose Revolution,” and its desire to join NATO, Georgia has turned out to be a willing instrument of the Anglo-American strategy for encirclement of Russia. But what induced Georgia to reoccupy South Ossetia at this particular moment, 16 years after the latter declared its independence? The war in the Caucasus is part of a global destabilization effort, coinciding with the arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, as well as with the destabilizations of Turkey, Pakistan, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, by means of terrorist attacks or sanctions—and we are only mentioning the most prominent of many other similar crisis spots.

Financial Crisis Fuels War Threat
As I already pointed out above, the overall context of these events is the escalating collapse of the global financial system, which has been pulling ever larger chunks of the real economy down into the abyss with it. The Federal Reserve is now committed to using its rediscount facility for making practically unlimited liquidity available to the two de facto insolvent mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae—which together, guarantee $5.3 trillion in U.S. mortgages! Not only does this have enormous hyperinflationary ramifications, but it only plugs one solitary hole in the leaking boat. In the United States, speculators are debating whether it’s 3,000 or 5,000 banks which are bankrupt; eight banks have already officially shut their doors so far this year. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy—or what’s left of it, after years of “outsourcing”—is sinking ever more deeply into depression: the auto sector, the airline industry, the construction sector. More and more states and municipalities are being forced to make draconian cutbacks, such as in California, where 22,000 state employees have been laid off, and another 200,000 are threatened with having pay reduced to the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, some analysts have joined Lyndon LaRouche in the view that the rate of collapse in Europe is going to be even faster. Spain’s collapsing real estate sector is bringing a massive banking crisis in its wake, and similar scenarios are playing out in Great Britain, where the Royal Bank of Scotland has had to write off $12 billion in the aftermath of the government takeover of Northern Rock. The situation in Denmark is equally dismal. The official inflation rate in the EU is hovering above 4%, whereas the real rate of inflation for less well-off wage earners is far greater, because they have to spend the bulk of their income on food, energy, gasoline, housing, etc. And when none other than former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, “Mr. Bubble” himself, starts talking about the crisis of the century—a crisis for which he is personally responsible—then it’s clear that he wants to prepare the world for the great crash immediately ahead.

It wouldn’t be the first time in history that the international financial oligarchy has attempted to keep a worldwide financial and economic crisis under control by fanning the flames of war. And anyone who prepares for war, must first create an enemy image, so that the population can be brought into line.

Vile Attacks on China
That is precisely the intention behind the repulsive China-baiting being emitted by the media and by politicians on the occasion of the Olympic Games. Regardless of whether it’s coming from witting agents of the British Empire faction, or from mindless dumbos on the morning news shows: The irresponsible gossip that has been spread during the run-up to the Olympic Games, has been simply monstrous. Without any regard for the truth, and without a shred of knowledge of China’s history and culture, the wildest assertions have been floated—assertions which could well succeed in poisoning relations with China, and in helping prepare for coming conflicts with China (and with Russia).

Not only were the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing wonderfully beautiful and poetically conceived, but they were also a magnificently staged demonstration of the 5,000-year history of this great nation, one which, for a long time, was the world’s leader, and which is now preparing to resume that role sometime in the future. Even though China certainly has its fair share of problems—for example, the poverty of the great majority of its rural population, and also a certain degree of Western materialism which has infected part of its population—what counts is the vector of development, and in China that vector is going upwards—in contrast to what’s happening with the arrogant sophists of the West’s empire faction.

The Chinese government has blocked Internet access to anti-Chinese propaganda emanating from international and British organizations in connection with Tibet and the Uighurs—and it has every right to do so. After all, do the British and American governments allow the Taliban’s tracts or al-Qaeda’s instructions to be circulated around the country? What do destabilization efforts by an enemy power, have to do with democracy and human rights?

The fact that in Europe, a politician who voted for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, or a representative of the media which, even after the Irish “No” in their referendum, did not run a single pertinent article on an EU treaty which would abolish parliamentary democracy in Europe once and for all, and would establish an oligarchical dictatorship, would now dare to decry a lack of democracy and human rights in China—that is truly the height of Goebbels propaganda! It would have made Goebbels pale with envy. Europe is dominated by a truly terrifying democracy deficit, resulting in an increasingly deep-seated and extremely dangerous cultural pessimism, as expressed in the famous retort, “There’s nothing we can do about it, anyway.” And so, those politicians and journalists who raise a fuss about democracy in China, ought to go out and listen to what the population thinks about the political class and the media—in Germany, for example.

If we are to make use of the fast-closing window of opportunity, which will hopefully remain open long enough for us to prevent the great catastrophe, then we will have to embark on a radically different path. One very promising impulse in that direction, is an article that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote for the current issue of the journal Russia in Global Politics, under the title “Russia and the World in the 21st Century,” which directly reflects the positions of President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Lavrov affirms the obvious fact that the epoch of the past 400-500 years, during which European civilization has dominated the world, is now closing, and that a new vision is therefore required. He rejects not only the idea that the world will gradually adopt Western values, and the theory of “the end of history”—the idea of a global Anglo-American empire—but he also rejects the idea of a “post-American” world without the United States.

The Russian Foreign Minister emphasizes that he absolutely disagrees with the idea that current developments must end in chaos and anarchy. Rather, he believes that a new international political, financial, and economic architecture can be created, one in which Russia must play a major role as an equal partner.

The Anglo-Saxon (i.e., free-trade) model is tottering, Lavrov writes, just as it was in the 1920s, and therefore today, just as then, the model of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal is called for. China, India, Russia, and Brazil must be integrated into this new reform of our international institutions. On this basis, plans can be made for a common future for the entire Euro-Atlantic region and for the world as a whole, a future in which security and prosperity become truly inseparable, he states.

Two Options
The Western nations today have essentially two options: Either they follow the British line, treating Russia, China, and India as antagonists—which means, for example, using Georgia for anti-Russian operations, fostering separatist tendencies inside China, setting financial locusts against India, and other such things. In which case, the great catastrophe is sure to come.

Or, they can heed the proposal which LaRouche has been making for some time, that a new international financial and economic order, in the tradition of Roosevelt and his New Deal, and Bretton Woods, be put onto the agenda. In such an arrangement, the United States, Russia, China, and India must collaborate as a core grouping, around which other sovereign nations can congregate. And that is essentially what Foreign Minister Lavrov says in his article.

For Europe’s nations, this means that they must extricate themselves from the European Union straitjacket which, for Germany, since Maastricht at the latest, has become a new Versailles Treaty. Europe’s nations can, and certainly should cooperate as a Europe of sovereign republics—which will be vastly more in keeping with the spirit of humanist Europe, than is possible today with an EU bureaucracy which is farther away from Europe’s humanist tradition, than Earth is from a galaxy a couple million light-years distant.

Let us hope that the coincidence of what Greenspan himself has described as the financial system’s crisis of the century, with the realization of how quickly war can break out, will be sufficient to shock responsible people back to reason.

By the way, if Georgia is such a bastion of democracy, can anyone explain this:

“Georgian TV station taken over by troops

Georgia’s main opposition TV station is taken over by government troops after the president declared a state of emergency

This video has been removed as the copyright has expired

Thursday November 8 2007″

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news.....08/georgia

“I told you that the Russians were still bombing.”

And you, and the media, are still lying! Even the Georgians admitted these are controlled demolitions of the tons of explosives left lying around when the Georgian Army turned tail and ran like the cowards they are.

They were all gung-ho when the victims were civilians, but when the Russians turned up, they pissed themselves and ran. These dangerous weapons can’t be just left lying around, and note, the Russians AREN’T giving them to the South Ossetians! In other words, they really ARE trying to maintain the peace, unlike the US which talks about peace while arming one side to the teeth!

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@ashnbell

“much as i’d like to take a “mainstream” uk news source like the telegraph at its word about any event related to the russian/georgian/south ossetian conflict, the fact remains that the “mainstream” us/uk media blatantly attempted to convince me that the russians fired the first shot by invading south ossetia.”

Don’t forget that CNN broadcast footage it claimed was of the destruction caused by Russian bombing of Gori, only to have the Russian cameraman who took the footage come forward and say that it was in fact Tskhinvali and the damaged filmed had been caused by Georgians!

Also, how about the constant tales of Russia having seized Gori, with no photos to prove it, and while press were supposedly there. Over and over again we were told they had taken it, only to have the story change again when someone pointed out they hadn’t!

They are STILL trying this ploy, telling us the Russians have taken Gori, while at the same time telling us the a reporter was killed only yesterday IN GORI! So where is their footage showing Russian occupying forces? There is NONE. Not one frame!

They told us a Russian convoy was seen leaving Gori headed for Tblisi. A Times correspondent claimed he had stood beside the road while they drove past waving Russian flags and saying they were going to Tblisi.

Turns out it was a total lie. The only convoy headed out of Gori for Tblisi was Georgian! So where did the Russian flags come from? Were the Georgians pretending to be Russian, or did the reporter LIE about the flags?

By the way, he didn’t bother to take a single photo or video of this convoy that seemed to prove Russia was expanding its operation into a full blown invasion of Georgia. He had no problem telling the world that he could CONFIRM that was the case though!

Earlier today I watched a CNN video clip with a reporter (not wearing any body armour at all) claiming to be standing on the road between Tblisi and Gori. He said when they arrived there were Russian special forces troops there, but they had left and gone back into Gori (which couldn’t be seen at all) of course he TOO failed to film a single frame of these Russian soldiers.

Then he tells us that he is standing between the Russians in Gori, and Georgians further down the road to Tblisi. So essentially he was in no mans land between two very jumpy armies, wearing nothing but a T-Shirt, while reporters in Tblisi wore helmets and flack jackets!

Finally, while he’s telling us all this, a civilian SUV drives casually down the road… FROM GORI! So why did this reporter not go forward himself and film the Russians? Because they aren’t there!

He also explained how BOTH sides had told him that the explosions “near Gori”, but actually in the small strip of land between Gori and South Ossetia were controlled demolitions of abandoned ordinance, but he made sure to say that it was “IMPOSSIBLE to verify” (his emphasis) meaning to leave the impression that maybe the Russians are still killing people or blowing up Gori or whatever the latest claim is. Even the Georgians confirmed it, but he HAD to try and rescue the idea that this meant a breach in the ceasefire!

Also, note that whenever they talk about Russian checkpoints “on the outskirts of Gori” they never tell you which SIDE of Gori they are talking about. Could it be the side facing the battlefield where unexploded ordinance still lies around after being abandoned? Most likely. The Russians are cleaning up after themselves AND the Georgians, making the area safe for EVERYONE, and yet still these acts are being propagandised into some sort of vicious Russian perfidy!

Reporters claim they can’t get into South Ossetia to document the damage, nor into Gori now, yet Human Rights Watch (itself a phony mouthpiece of the US), managed to do it!

Also not long ago I saw a report from a CNN reporter in Tskhinvali. He stood in front of a burned out Georgian tank that he told us was bombed by the Russians. If you look closely it’s the same tank seen in the earlier CNN footage they claimed was Gori! He also shows some minor damage and tells us he will show us the civilian cost at some later date! Why wait? Why show the tank and not the burned out and destroyed houses? The answer is, the media are still trying to figure out how they can blame THAT on the Russians too!

So, not only do I not trust the western media about Georgia/South Ossetia/Abkhazia, I KNOW THEY ARE LYING NON-STOP!

This distortion of reality is a little too fresh in my mind for there to be any chance of me being duped into stupidity by the same bunch of wankers who attempted to make my mind their b*tch over this issue.

When someone decides to start a war they knowingly unleash chaos upon the world. And whilst there are many levels of guilt that can be attributed to any party in a conflict like this, the only people who are trully beyond redemption are those who decide to bring war to a people that long for peace.