This clip was filmed for inclusion in a program about the role of the World Bank in deliberately subjugating and ripping off developing countries...
(Anyone who's read John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hit Man will be on familiar ground here
Perkins claims that, as an 'economic hit man', his function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure to 'reform' their economies and turn over public assets and resources to private finance.
The catch, of course, in Perkins' thesis was its implication that this sort of thing happened in the past, as opposed to the present, and only happened to developing countries)
In his film Kaiser mentions the World Bank funded BTC pipeline. A provocative little number which may end up transporting oil to Ashkelon and Eilat - which might explain those rumours of Israeli ornithologists and cycle tourists taking their summer holidays in the Caucasus
Methinks there's a lively few decades ahead for residents of a certain geopolitically interesting little gap between Russia and IranThe unswervingly anti-Russian bias in the mainstream news coverage I was obliged, thanks to a lost Internet connection, to endure this weekend seals the deal as far as my opinion as to what's going on in Georgia is concerned
And, sorry Mr Murray, you're flat wrong
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33 comments:
My thesis:
The US/NATO promised Georgia to blow up the Roki-Tunnel. Capturing South Ossetia would have been an easy game for Georgian forces then.
I don't know if it is true (so much PR these days in the media, Goebbels would have been proud) but it seems someone waited to blow up the Roki-Tunnel until some 200+ Russian MBTs went through the tunnel.
Either this was a giant fuck-up or the US/NATO just wanted to weaken both Russia and Georgia.
Anyway, the Georgians learned the hard way, that they are NOT part of the family...
And, with regards to oil&wars, I always think: Oil companies are like any other capitalistic company. They want to increase prices and eliminate competition.
Is this little scuffle going to increase oil prices? Yes. Is it going to hinder the the competition? Yes.
There's your motive.
That's a very good thesis and would explain why the Georgians (and their Advisers) tried something so apparently stupid
Ahmadinejad must be pissing himself with laughter...
I do like The leader of the opposition's penetrating analysis:
"David Cameron has branded Russia "a massive and dangerous bully" and urged the international community to stand up and condemn its action in Georgia.
He also called for Georgia's membership of Nato to be "speeded up".
The Tory leader told the BBC: "The only language that bullies understand is when someone stands up to them."
That shiny faced boy will go far
... and the more I think about that tunnel thesis the better it sounds
The Russians were awfully quick with their response to the Georgian aggression
and the logistics required to send a few hundred tanks and a few thousand troops into a country are not the kind of thing you can put together in a day or two
You'd also have make your preparations in such a way to elude satellite surveillance
So, I'd extend that speculative thesis to include the probability that the Russians had a very good idea of what was being planned and had prepared themselves accordingly; tunnel security and all
Somebody fucked up big time
I don’t think it was a fuck-up at all, its all going perfectly to plan. The Georgians were not to win, they were to look pitiful. Doing a good job of that.
The question remains though, will it be enough to chain the bear to the porch when the real show starts?
as Tony said above...
Either this was a giant fuck-up or the US/NATO just wanted to weaken both Russia and Georgia.
right now, I personally favour the fuck-up scenario - simply because the results so far are not a great advert for the US/ UK/ Israel client state customer loyalty program
...though you really would think that someone's satellite would have picked up a few hundred Russian tanks revving up and ready to go
The question remains though, will it be enough to chain the bear to the porch when the real show starts?
Another, related, question is are Cheney and the boys crazy enough to take on the Iranians (and therefore the Russians and the Venezuelans) when all they have to do in response is turn a few taps off
The Roki tunnel angle is certainly the right one, as it is a highway into Georgia. Sealing the tunnel would mean keeping Russia away behind the mountains.
This operation has been long prepared. As Stef mentioned there were many spooks around, including Israelis, but also Blackwater, and MPRI, the guys who interestingly enough trained the Croats before their liberation/ethnic cleansing of Krajina.
I think it's just plain old military defeat.
Having access to US satellites, the Georgians could see all these big khaki blobs massed at the border.
So either somehow the US/NATO boys had assurances that Russia wouldn't move, or they were confident they would swiftly beat the Russians to the tunnel.
Or maybe they wanted bait the Russians in, so you would be scared of WWIII like in the good old days?
By the way: If I were in the shoes of Medvedev&Putin (glad I'm not), I would seize the chance and create a "security"-corridor to Gyumri (Armenia). Split Georgia in half and seriously weaken that country. This would consolidate Abchasia and South Ossetia without any nasty occupation og Georgia. West-Georgia could be the target to establish a pro-Russian regime. East-Georgia would be another question...
(I guess I played too many board games...)
/ big Risk fan
The West has painted Russia as aggressive and dangerous in recent years, and now seems to have invited them into Georgia. Everything points to the present outcome being entirely predictable with Russia almost being lured in, ie this doesn't seem like a strategic blunder on the part of Georgia.
There's a link to a Jerusalem Post article on Wayne Madsen's site, citing the Kuwaitis as being worried about Iran being attacked and yet more reports of US warships heading for the Gulf.
Taken with other reports, one example being the Saudis preparing for the event of dealing with nuclear fallout, maybe we're seeing a classic distraction to lessen the chances of Russia intervening in the event of Iran being attacked.
The questions to ask are would Russia intervene regarding Iran and would having to deal with Georgia leave them too stretched to do so? Would they risk David Cameron et al painting them out to be a 'massive bully'?
As intimidating as a really severe ticking off from Cameron may be, it might not be enough
And if Operation Bear Bait really was a Machiavellian Scheme to draw Russia into a distraction the Big Brains behind that master plan maybe should have thought about coming up with a distraction which...
a) didn't draw the Russians into combat in an area where they have have massive indigenous support
b) avoided pitting the Russians against an opposing force which shat itself and headed for home as soon as it realised that it might be facing something other than little old ladies armed with headscarves
As long as the Russians avoid occupying territory where they're not wanted this probably won't turn out to be much of a distraction at all
I'm inclined to believe that the Russians have learned more from their past fuck ups than their US counterparts
Hmmm, you're presupposing an awful lot there, the US doesn't have many options and will cut their cloth accordingly in my opinion.
Let's see how the Russians handle things and how it develops. The invading part is usually the easiest, but the occupying/regime change part isn't as easy as it seems.
Can you see a better motive or explain why the US would give Russia an easy excuse to control that rather important oil pipeline? It don't make any sense to me.
Hmmm, you're presupposing an awful lot there
Yes, I am
But I don't think I'm presuming too much to assume that the Russian leadership is familiar with Brzezinski’s boasting about the history of their country's (provoked) interventions
I also don't think I'm presuming too much in giving Putin credit for being sly enough to fool some of the most ruthless SoBs ever born into handing him the Presidency before rogering them silly
I've read the opinions of several people whose judgment I rate making the same call as you have and I don't discount it
and I'm not discounting the western media coverage of the Russian operation which has been positively gagging for the Russians to move into undisputed Georgia - breathlessly reporting even the slightest rumour to that effect
but, as distractions go, I think it would have worked a lot better if the Russians had been slower off the mark and not poured quite so many tanks and troops in the area quite so effectively
Going back to the tunnel thesis mentioned at the start of this thread - if it had been blocked to the Russians the result would have been a much messier situation with all sorts of scope for calling in foreign assistance
I too don't think the US set out to give the Russians any easy excuses - which is why, unusually for a conspiraloon, I'm thinking about playing my fuck up card
Mind you, the last time I did that was to give David Davis the benefit of the doubt, shortly before discovering that he really was in league with the Dark Ones
There's always the theory that Europe is setting the US up for a big fall, I believe Engdahl recently published to this effect.
According to the theory, there are reasons for Europe to play Russia against the US, with Europe becoming pre-eminent after their mutual destruction. Maybe some dark dealings within the European camp are already conspiring to this effect.
Personally, I can't wait for the film depicting these events (not directed by Guy Ritchie) starring the token sinister Swiss character.
BTW, I don't mean this bloke
After reading this from our inside man in the ruling class, I have to cast my vote against fuck up, and consider cameron's tom brown schoolday's realpolitik closer to the mark than it first appeared.
Now that OBL's taxi driver is safely locked up, its time to move onto a more reliable, tangible menace. What could be more useful than a confident, vengeful bear with one paw on the spigot and the other reaching through the flimsy railings of fortress europe to bring the fractious NATO brotherhood into line?
Looks to me as if this was a classic LIHOP move with Georgia as the tethered goat.
For that reason I will keep my fuck up card firmly in my hand.
Europe becoming pre-eminent after their mutual destruction
While I have a lot of time for Engdhal, this fails to convince me.
As the OP states, Russia has many gas, Europe has much willing buyers. Separating the two would seem to be a logical course of action for those whose sole raison d'etre is the crushing of the great bear. If anyone is playing, it is the world's superpower.
Gambling on them wiping each other out, without razing everything in-between, seems a little unconsidered.
"LIHOP move with Georgia as the tethered goat."
We will go with that.
"Georgia's always on my my my my my my my my my mind"
With a decent beat you could make a song with that ....
Still thinking about that Roki-Tunnel thing. Well, the US would use some sort of cruise-missile (and cowardly hide behind their hi-tech).
The problem is, there are two kinds of US cruise missiles: sea-based and air-based. I guess we can rule out sea-based. Which leaves us with the AGM-84K SLAM-ER (150 mi. range) or a TAURUS KEPD 350 (300 mi. range), which could be mounted on a F/A-18 jet. Which would leave the US asking all kind of countries for their OK (turkey, germany, spain)...
that, or truck bomb
though, obviously, no-one in the US intelligence services would have any experience in organising one of those
Hmmm, truck bomb, you say? Then it seems like the Russians saw that one coming.
My conspiracy theory:
Georgia is a "sacrifice hit" to give the US a pretext to dismantle the UN and establish their "League of 'Democracies'".
Isn't that what NATO is?
One would think so.
I guess the NATO states are not willing enough - time to put some pressure on them. And NATO has another "problem": No way to add countries outside of Europe (at least countries not neighboring on Europe).
We will, we will, Roki!
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/russias-rushed.html
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/did-israel-trai.html
http://www.telegraph.co.u...008/08/29/cnrussia129.xml
Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea.
Any such move would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgia crisis and play havoc with the oil markets.
We launch sanctions against Russia ---> they cut off the oil. It's so obvious a child could work it out, so this can only be a deliberate ploy. Someone wants higher oil prices don't they?
WE'RE A GIGANTIC COUNTRY FILLED WITH OIL, GAS AND WHEAT, RUSSIA REMINDS EU
RUSSIA brushed aside the threat of EU sanctions last night, stressing it is a vast country, filled to bursting with absolutely everything it needs.
Moscow is braced for a Bovril shortage
As foreign secretary David Miliband told Russia its continued support for South Ossetian independence was incredibly rude, the Russians continued with their purchase of another 700 square miles of Surrey.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said: "Sanction what? Maybe you cut off supplies of Colman's mustard and H and P sauce, yes?
"Or maybe you cut off supply of gas and oil. Oh wait, we have more gas and oil than all you put together. In fact I am having more gas in lower intestine than in all of North Sea. You want my gas?
"Maybe we cut off your gas and no turn back on until you sing Bryan Adams song and give foot massage."
He added: "Also I have wheat farm size of France so am being unlikely to starve. Or maybe I just take half of grain from farm and use it to bury Scotland. You know, for laugh.
"But, oh no, maybe you cut off foreign investment, yes? Maybe you no buy our football teams, our mansions and our vast, highland shooting estates?
"Anyway, who care? We go do business with Arab and Chinese who not give gold-plated, sweet and sour shit."
It's like the someone dying of thirst launching sanctions against a man with a the giant bottle of evian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/28/russia.usforeignpolicy
Some rare rational opinion in the UK press.
http://www.radio-utopie.de/2008/08/30/reuters-faked-images-of-georgian-victims-allegedly-killed-by-russian-attacks/
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