zaterdag 13 oktober 2012

Sheila Sitalsing van de Volkskrant 13


Laten we deze foto nog eens nader bekijken:

Study Group members Jeanine Jerkovic (American), Sheila Sitalsing (Dutch), and Friederike Stützle-Dahns (German).   

U ziet: borreltijd. Een keurig ogend gezelschap, de vrouwen laten hun parelwitte tanden zien, de mannen spreken over ernstige zaken.

De foto werd gemaakt tijdens een cursus van de 'American Council on Germany', een door de VS na de Tweede Wereldoorlog in het leven geroepen instelling waar speciaal geselecteerde jongeren werden voorbereid op een carriere die geheel in dienst zou staan van het kapitalisme en als zodanig een wal moest opwerpen tegen mogelijk linkse gedachten. De ACG's missie wordt tegenwoordig als volgt omschreven:


'Mission Statement.  The American Council on Germany (ACG) is an independent, nonpartisan nonprofit organization which promotes dialogue among leaders from business, government, and the media in the United States and Europe. The ACG strengthens transatlantic understanding and coordinates policy initiatives on key issues in the post-September 11th world.'


De 'Board of Directors,' bestaande uit vooraanstaande CEO's van banken en grote concerns benevens rechtse politici, onder wie Henry Kissinger, zorgt ervoor dat er niet wordt afgeweken van de nauw omschreven missiekoers. 

http://www.acgusa.org/about2.php?pagename=About+Us&subpagename=Board+of+Directors

Henry Kissinger staat wereldwijd bekend als de man die achter de Chileense militaire staatsgreep zat, waarbij de democratisch gekozen president Allende ten val werd gebracht en tenminste 3000 Chileense burgers werden dood gemarteld of direct werden vermoord omdat ze de economische belangen van Amerikaanse concerns die in Chili hadden geinvesteerd in gevaar zouden hebben gebracht.

In 2004 schreef ik over Henry Kissinger het volgende:

Onder leiding van de toenmalige Nationale Veiligheidsadviseur Henry Kissinger werd in het geheim ‘een strategie van destabilisatie, ontvoering en moord,’ ontwikkeld ‘met het doel een militaire staatsgreep uit te lokken,’ zo blijkt uit vrijgekomen documenten. Op 11 september 1973, de dag dat de Senaat Kissinger’s benoeming als minister van Buitenlandse Zaken sanctioneerde, werd Allende tijdens een gewelddadige staatsgreep vermoord. Omdat hier sprake was van een grove schending van de internationale rechtsorde verklaarde minister Kissinger tegenover de Senaatscommissie voor buitenlandse betrekkingen dat de Amerikaanse regering geen enkele rol had gespeeld in die militaire coup. Op zijn beurt beschreef de Amerikaanse marineattaché in Chili, Patrick Ryan in een intern rapport de elfde september tevreden als ‘onze D-day’ om vervolgens te concluderen dat ‘Chili’s coup de etat (sic) bijna perfect’ was. Onmiddellijk nadat de wettige en democratisch gekozen regering van Chili was uitgeschakeld, kreeg het militaire regime die de macht had gegrepen aanzienlijke economische en militaire steun van de VS. Dat in Chili intussen op grote schaal de mensenrechten ernstig werden geschonden, speelde daarbij geen enkele rol. Integendeel, zo valt te lezen in een in 1999 vrijgegeven Amerikaans memorandum, waarin een gesprek tussen Kissinger en juntaleider Pinochet te lezen is. Het onderhoud vond plaats op 8 juni 1976, op de dag dat Henry Kissinger een toespraak zou houden voor de Organisatie van Amerikaanse Staten over het onderwerp mensenrechten. Gedwongen door de publieke opinie en het Congres moest hij als Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken in het openbaar enkele kritische opmerkingen maken over de martelingen en verdwijningen van politieke tegenstanders in Chili. Voorafgaand aan dit optreden zei Kissinger in een gesprek onder vier ogen geruststellend tegen de despoot Pinochet: ‘De toespraak is niet tegen Chili gericht. Dat wilde ik u zeggen. Naar mijn oordeel bent u een slachtoffer van alle linkse groeperingen ter wereld en bestaat uw grootste zonde erin dat u een regering omver hebt geworpen die bezig was communistisch te worden… We hebben de omverwerping van de pro-communistische regering hier met instemming begroet. We zijn er niet op uit uw positie te verzwakken… Ik wil graag onze betrekkingen en vriendschap bevorderen.’


De auteur Christopher Hitchens portretteerde Kissinger in zijn in alom geprezen boek The Trial of Henry Kissinger als een gangster. En met deze 'schurk' in de Raad van Directeuren van ACG leerde  Sheila Sitalsing wat wel en niet politiek correct is voor westerse studenten die carriere willen maken binnen de kringen van de gevestigde orde. Dit verklaart de haat die ze publiekelijk toont voor Hugo Chavez en anderen die weigeren in het gareel van de 'vrije markt'-ideologie mee te marcheren. Afgelopen maandag schilderde ze de regering Chavez af als 'in Hummers rondtuffende revolutionairen met Rolex.' Wanneer men de stukken van Sitalsing leest dan valt op dat ze al jaren een goede leerling is van wat we gemakshalve de Kissinger-doctrine kunnen noemen. Het volgende schreef ik op 6 oktober 2008:

Sheila Sitalsing, chef Economie bij de Volkskrant, is niet de minste, want zij studeerde voor ‘Young Leader’ bij The American Council on Germany: Zie foto: ‘Study Group members Jeanine Jerkovic (American), Sheila Sitalsing (Dutch), and Friederike Stützle-Dahns (German) ’The program fosters leadership qualities in participants by stimulating dialogue on current political, economic, and social issues across national boundaries. It also forges a new network of future leaders. Een “private, nonprofit, organization” met in het bestuur Henry Kissinger en de voormalige militair Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor van Gerald R. Ford en George H.W. Bush, voorzitter van het Forum for International Policy en de uitvinder van de term “New World Order”.
Mevrouw Sitalsing, als populistische spreekbuis voor multinationals, maakt zich wel eens boos: ”De lijst maatschappelijke problemen die Den Haag over de heg gooit bij de werkgevers, wordt langer en langer. Hou daar eens mee op! … De lijst – niet alleen Shell en Unilever, maar ook de bakker en de ijsboer – is lang en groeiende. Van files tot herintredende moeders, van kutmarokkaantjes tot het repareren van het beroerde onderwijs via vakopleidingen: het bedrijfsleven wordt overal voor ingeschakeld. … Het jongste plan, van de GroenLinksfractie in de Tweede Kamer, om jonge vaders twee weken doorbetaald babyverlof te geven, spant de kroon.”  En:
“Een geliberaliseerd Nederland, internationaal gericht en met weinig sociale voorzieningen is in 2040 aanmerkelijk rijker dan in Nederland dat sociale voorzieningen hoog in het vaandel draagt en de verdere overdracht van soevereiniteit aan Europa of multilaterale instellingen beperkt houdt,” schreef Sitalsing in 2004 in de Volkskrant, dus lijkt het mij wel duidelijk dat mevrouw het neoliberale geloof promoot (en dus niet de titel journalist mag gebruiken).’
De teksten van Sitalsing is inmiddels om niet nader omschreven redenen bij de Volkskrant verwijderd, maar hier nog wel te lezen: http://forum.viva.nl/forum/list_message/1623019
http://managing21.skynetblogs.be/archive/2004/11/28/toekomst-rijker-of-socialer.html
Al in de jaren twintig van de vorige eeuw schreef de befaamde Amerikaanse columnist Walter Lippmann dat journalisten als ‘gespecialiseerde klasse’ de taak hebben om de ‘gemeenschappelijke belangen… die voor het overgrote deel de publieke opinie ontgaan’ zo te presenteren dat ze door de massa aanvaard werden, waarbij natuurlijk de ‘gemeenschappelijke belangen’ vooral de rijken dienden. Met andere woorden: de media moesten de visie van de machtigen propageren. De toonaangevende Lippmann, een fervent adept van de imperialistische presidenten Theodore Roosevelt en Woodrow Wilson, was uiterst sceptisch over de mogelijkheid van een ware democratie in een complexe moderne samenleving. Het gewone volk kon zijn eigen belangen niet zomaar gaan formuleren, want dan zou het een chaos worden. ‘Het publiek moet zijn plaats weten,’ zodat ‘verantwoordelijke mensen… niet gestoord door het gestamp en het gebrul van een verbijsterde kudde’ hun beleid kunnen bepalen. De enige ‘functie’ in een democratische samenleving van ‘onwetende en bemoeizuchtige buitenstaanders’ was die van ‘geïnteresseerde toeschouwers.’ 


 
Kissinger. de Rockefeller-protege. die de moordenaar Pinochet aan de macht hielp om de westerse economische belangen veilig te stellen.

Syrie 86


'Engdahl: Syria, Turkey, Israel and a Greater Middle East Energy War

October 12, 2012


On October 3, 2012 the Turkish military launched repeated mortar shellings inside Syrian territory. The military action, which was used by the Turkish military, conveniently, to establish a ten-kilometer wide no-man’s land “buffer zone” inside Syria, was in response to the alleged killing by Syrian armed forces of several Turkish civilians along the border. There is widespread speculation that the one Syrian mortar that killed five Turkish civilians well might have been fired by Turkish-backed opposition forces intent on giving Turkey a pretext to move militarily, in military intelligence jargon, a ‘false flag’ operation. [1]
Turkey’s Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Foreign Minister, the inscrutable Ahmet Davutoglu, is the government’s main architect of Turkey’s self-defeating strategy of toppling its former ally Bashar Al-Assad in Syria. [2]
According to one report since 2006 under the government of Islamist Sunni Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his pro-Brotherhood AKP party, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood [3]. A well-informed Istanbul source relates the report that before the last Turkish elections, Erdogan’s AKP received a “donation” of $10 billion from the Saudi monarchy, the heart of world jihadist Salafism under the strict fundamentalist cloak of Wahabism [4]. Since the 1950’s when the CIA brought leading members in exile of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to Saudi Arabia there has been a fusion between the Saudi brand of Wahabism and the aggressive jihadist fundamentalism of the Brotherhood [5].
The Turkish response to the single Syrian mortar shell, which was met with an immediate Syrian apology for the incident, borders on a full-scale war between two nations which until last year were historically, culturally, economically and even in religious terms, closest of allies.
That war danger is ever more serious. Turkey is a full member of NATO whose charter explicitly states, an attack against one NATO state is an attack against all. The fact that nuclear-armed Russia and China both have made defense of the Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime a strategic priority puts the specter of a World War closer than most of us would like to imagine.
In a December 2011 analysis of the competing forces in the region, former CIA analyst Philip Giraldi made the following prescient observation:
“NATO is already clandestinely engaged in the Syrian conflict, with Turkey taking the lead as U.S. proxy. Ankara’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has openly admitted that his country is prepared to invade as soon as there is agreement among the Western allies to do so. The intervention would be based on humanitarian principles, to defend the civilian population based on the “responsibility to protect” doctrine that was invoked to justify Libya. Turkish sources suggest that intervention would start with creation of a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian border and then be expanded. Aleppo, Syria’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, would be the crown jewel targeted by liberation forces.
Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum on the Syrian border, delivering weapons from the late Muammar Gaddafi’s arsenals as well as volunteers from the Libyan Transitional National Council who are experienced in pitting local volunteers against trained soldiers, a skill they acquired confronting Gaddafi’s army. Iskenderum is also the seat of the Free Syrian Army, the armed wing of the Syrian National Council. French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers” [6].
Little noted was the fact that at the same day as Turkey launched her over-proportional response in the form of a military attack on Syrian territory, one which was still ongoing as of this writing, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) undertook what was apparently an action to divert Syria’s attention from Turkey and to create the horror scenario of a two-front war just as Germany faced in two world wars. The IDF made a significant troop buildup on the strategic Golan Heights bordering the two countries, which, since Israel took it in the 1967 war, has been an area of no tension [7].
The unfolding new phase of direct foreign military intervention by Turkey, supported de facto by Israel’s right-wing Netanyahu regime, curiously enough follows to the letter a scenario outlined by a prominent Washington neo-conservative Think Tank, The Brookings Institution. In their March 2012 strategy white paper, Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings geo-political strategists laid forth a plan to misuse so-called humanitarian concern over civilian deaths, as in Libya in 2011, to justify an aggressive military intervention into Syria, something not done before this [8].

The Brookings report states the following scenario:

Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Assad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training [9].
This seems to be precisely what is unfolding in the early days of October 2012. The authors of the Brookings report are tied to some of the more prominent neo-conservative warhawks behind the Bush-Cheney war on Iraq. Their sponsor, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, includes current foreign policy advisers to Republican right-wing candidate Mitt Romney, the open favorite candidate of Israel’s Netanyahu.
The Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy which issued the report, is the creation of a major donation from Haim Saban, an Israeli-American media billionaire who also owns the huge German Pro7 media giant. Haim Saban is open about his aim to promote specific Israeli interests with his philanthropy.The New York Times once called Saban, “a tireless cheerleader for Israel.” Saban told the same newspaper in an interview in 2004, "I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel" [10]."
The scholars at Saban as well as its board have a clear neo-conservative and Likud party bias. They include, past or present, Shlomo Yanai, former head of military planning, Israel Defense Forces; Martin Indyk, former US Ambassador to Israel and founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a major Likud policy lobby in Washington. Visiting fellows have included Avi Dicter, former head of Israel’s Shin Bet; Yosef Kupperwasser, former Head, Research Department, Israeli Defense Force’s Directorate of Military Intelligence. Resident scholars also include Bruce Riedel, a 30 year CIA Middle East expert and Obama Afghan adviser [11]; Kenneth Pollack, another former CIA Middle East expert who was indicted in an Israel espionage scandal when he was a national security official with the Bush Administration [12].
Why would Israel want to get rid of the “enemy she knows,” Bashar al-Assad, for a regime controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood? Then Israel’s security would seemingly be threatened by the emergence of hard-line Muslim Brotherhood regimes in Egypt to her south and Syria to her North, perhaps soon also in Jordan.

The geopolitical dimension

The significant question to be asked at this point is what could bind Israel, Turkey, Qatar in a form of unholy alliance on the one side, and Assad’s Syria, Iran, Russia and China on the other side, in such deadly confrontation over the political future of Syria? One answer is energy geopolitics.
What has yet to be fully appreciated in geopolitical assessments of the Middle East is the dramatically rising importance of the control of natural gas to the future of not only Middle East gas producing countries, but also of the EU and Eurasia including Russia as producer and China as consumer.
Natural gas is rapidly becoming the “clean energy” of choice to replace coal and nuclear electric generation across the European Union, most especially since Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear after the Fukushima disaster. Gas is regarded as far more “environmentally friendly” in terms of its so-called “carbon footprint.” The only realistic way EU governments, from Germany to France to Italy to Spain, will be able to meet EU mandated CO2 reduction targets by 2020 is a major shift to burning gas instead of coal. Gas reduces CO2 emissions by 50-60% over coal [13]. Given that the economic cost of using gas instead of wind or other alternative energy forms is dramatically lower, gas is rapidly becoming the energy of demand for the EU, the biggest emerging gas market in the world.
Huge gas resource discoveries in Israel, in Qatar and in Syria combined with the emergence of the EU as the world’s potentially largest natural gas consumer, combine to create the seeds of the present geopolitical clash over the Assad regime.

Syria-Iran-Iraq Gas pipeline

In July 2011, as the NATO and Gulf states’ destabilization operations against Assad in Syria were in full swing, the governments of Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an historic gas pipeline energy agreement which went largely unnoticed amid CNN reports of the Syrian unrest. The pipeline, envisioned to cost $10 billion and take three years to complete, would run from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh near the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, to Damascus in Syria via Iraq territory. Iran ultimately plans then to extend the pipeline from Damascus to Lebanon’s Mediterranean port where it would be delivered to EU markets. Syria would buy Iranian gas along with a current Iraqi agreement to buy Iranian gas from Iran’s part of South Pars field.
South Pars, whose gas reserves lie in a huge field that is divided between Qatar and Iran in the Gulf, is believed to be the world’s largest single gas field [14]. De facto it would be a Shi’ite gas pipeline from Shi’ite Iran via Shi’ite-majority Iraq onto Shi’ite-friendly Alawite Al-Assad’s Syria.
Adding to the geopolitical drama is the fact that the South Pars gas find lies smack in the middle of the territorial divide in the Persian Gulf between Shi’ite Iran and the Sunni Salafist Qatar. Qatar also just happens to be a command hub for the Pentagon’s US Central Command, headquarters of United States Air Forces Central, No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group RAF, and the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing of the USAF. In brief Qatar, in addition to owning and hosting the anti-Al-Assad TV station Al-Jazeera [15], which beams anti-Syria propaganda across the Arab world, Qatar is tightly linked to the US and NATO military presence in the Gulf.
Qatar apparently has other plans with their share of the South Pars field than joining up with Iran, Syria and Iraq to pool efforts. Qatar has no interest in the success of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, which would be entirely independent of Qatar or Turkey transit routes to the opening EU markets. In fact it is doing everything possible to sabotage it, up to and including arming Syria’s rag-tag “opposition” fighters, many of them Jihadists sent in from other countries including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Libya.
Further adding to Qatar’s determination to destroy the Syria-Iran-Iraq gas cooperation is the discovery in August 2011 by Syrian exploration companies of a huge new gas field in Qara near the border with Lebanon and near to the Russian-leased Naval port of Tarsus on the Syrian Mediterranean [16]. Any export of Syrian or Iranian gas to the EU would go through the Russian-tied port of Tarsus. According to informed Algerian sources, the new Syrian gas discoveries, though the Damascus government is downplaying it, are believed to equal or exceed those of Qatar.
As Asia Times’ knowledgeable analyst Pepe Escobar pointed out in a recent piece, Qatar’s scheme calls for export of its huge gas reserves via Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba, a country where a Muslim Brotherhood threat to the dictatorship of the King is also threatening. The Emir of Qatar has apparently cut a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in which he backs their international expansion in return for a pact of peace at home in Qatar. A Muslim Brotherhood regime in Jordan and also in Syria, backed by Qatar, would change the entire geopolitics of the world gas market suddenly and decisively in Qatar’s favor and to the disadvantage of Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq [17]. That would also be a staggering negative blow to China.
As Escobar points out, “it’s clear what Qatar is aiming at: to kill the US$10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, a deal that was clinched even as the Syria uprising was already underway. Here we see Qatar in direct competition with both Iran (as a producer) and Syria (as a destination), and to a lesser extent, Iraq (as a transit country). It’s useful to remember that Tehran and Baghdad are adamantly against regime change in Damascus.” He adds, “if there’s regime change in Syria - helped by the Qatari-proposed invasion - things get much easier in Pipelineistan terms. A more than probable Muslim Brotherhood (MB) post-Assad regime would more than welcome a Qatari pipeline. And that would make an extension to Turkey much easier [18].”

The Israeli Gas dilemma

Further complicating the entire picture is the recent discovery of huge offshore Israeli natural gas resources.
The Tamar natural gas field off the coast of northern Israel is expected to begin yielding gas for Israel’s use in late 2012. The game-changer was a dramatic discovery in late 2010 of an enormous natural gas field offshore of Israel in what geologists call the Levant or Levantine Basin. In October 2010 Israel discovered a massive “super-giant” gas field offshore in what it declares is its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) [19].
The find is some 84 miles west of the Haifa port and three miles deep. They named it Leviathan after the Biblical sea monster. Three Israeli energy companies in cooperation with the Houston Texas Noble Energy announced initial estimates that the field contained 16 trillion cubic feet of gas—making it the world’s biggest deep-water gas find in a decade, adding more discredit to “peak oil” theories that the planet is about to see dramatic and permanent shortages of oil, gas and coal. To put the number in perspective, that one gas field, Leviathan, would hold enough reserves to supply Israel’s gas needs for 100 years [20].
Energy self-sufficiency had eluded the state of Israel since its founding in 1948. Abundant oil and gas exploration had repeatedly been undertaken with meager result. Unlike its energy-rich Arab neighbors, Israel seemed out of luck. Then in 2009 Israel’s Texas exploration partner, Noble Energy, discovered the Tamar field in the Levantine Basin some 50 miles west of Israel’s port of Haifa with an estimated 8.3 tcf (trillion cubic feet) of highest quality natural gas. Tamar was the world’s largest gas discovery in 2009.
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At the time, total Israeli gas reserves were estimated at only 1.5 tcf. Government estimates were that Israel’s sole operating field, Yam Tethys, which supplies about 70 percent of the country’s natural gas, would be depleted within three years.
With Tamar, prospects began to look considerably better. Then, just a year after Tamar, the same consortium led by Noble Energy struck the largest gas find in its decades-long history at Leviathan in the same Levantine geological basin. Present estimates are that the Leviathan field holds at least 17 tcf of gas. Israel went from a gas famine to feast in a matter of months [21].
Now Israel faces a strategic and very dangerous dilemma. Naturally Israel is none too excited to see al-Assad’s Syria, linked to Israel’s arch foe Iran and Iraq and Lebanon, out-compete an Israeli gas export to the EU markets. This could explain why Israel’s Netanyahu government has been messing inside Syria in the anti-al-Assad forces. However, a Muslim Brotherhood rule in Syria led by the organization around Mohammad Shaqfah would confront Israel with far more hostile neighbors now that the Muslim Brotherhood coup by Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi has put a hostile regime on Israel’s southern border.
It is no secret that there is enmity bordering on hate between Netanyahu and the Obama Administration. The Obama White House and US State Department openly back the Muslim Brotherhood regime changes in the Middle East. Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Turkey’s Davutoglu in August this year was reportedly aimed at pushing Turkey to escalate its military intervention into Syria, but without direct US support owing to US election politics of wanting to avoid involvement in a new Middle East debacle [22].
State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin has been accused by several Republican Congress Representatives of ties to organizations controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Dalia Mogahed, Obama’s appointee to the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, also a member of the US advisory council of the Department of Homeland Security, is openly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and an open foe of Israel as well as calling for the toppling of Syria’s al-Assad [23]. Obama’s Washington definitely seems to be backing the Muslim Brotherhood horse in the race for control of the gas flows of the Middle East.

And the Russian role

Washington is walking a temporary tightrope hoping to weaken al-Assad fatally while not appearing directly involved. Russia for its part is playing a life and death game for the future of its most effective geopolitical lever—its role as the leading natural gas supplier to the EU. This year Russia’s state-owned Gazprom began delivery of Russian gas to northern Germany via Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from a port near St. Petersburg. Strategically vital now for the future role of Russia as an EU gas supplier, is its ability to play a strategic role in exploiting the new-found gas reserves of its former Cold war client state, Syria. Moscow has long been engaged in promoting its South Stream gas pipeline into Europe as an alternative to the Washington Nabucco pipeline which was designed to leave Moscow out in the cold [24].
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Already Gazprom is the largest natural gas supplier to the EU. Gazprom with Nord Stream and other lines plans to increase its gas supply to Europe this year by 12% to 155 billion cubic meters. It now controls 25% of the total European gas market and aims to reach 30% with completion of South Stream and other projects.
Rainer Seele, chairman of Germany’s Wintershall, the Gazprom partner in Nord Stream, suggested the geopolitical thinking behind the decision to join South Stream: "In the global race against Asian countries for raw materials, South Stream, like Nord Stream, will ensure access to energy resources which are vital to our economy." But rather than Asia, the real focus of South Stream lies to the West. The ongoing battle between Russia’s South Stream and the Washington-backed Nabucco is intensely geopolitical. The winner will hold a major advantage in the future political terrain of Europe [25].
Now a major new option of Syria as a major source for Russian-managed gas flows to the EU has emerged. If al-Assad survives, Russia will be in the position as savior to play a decisive role in developing and exploiting the Syrian gas. Israel, where Russia also has major cards to play, could theoretically shift to back a Russian-Syrian-Iraqi-Iran gas consortium were Israel and Iran to reach some modus vivendi on the nuclear and other issues, not impossible were the political constellation in Israel to change after the coming elections. Turkey, which is presently in a deep internal battle between Davutoglu and President Gül on the one side and Erdogan on the other, is dependent on Russia’s Gazprom for some 40% of gas to its industry. Were Davutoglu and his faction to lose, Turkey could play a far more constructive role in the region as transit country for Syrian and Iranian gas.
The battle for the future control of Syria is at the heart of this enormous geopolitical war and tug of war. Its resolution will have enormous consequences for either world peace or endless war and conflict and slaughter. NATO member Turkey is playing with fire as is Qatar’s Emir, along with Israel’s Netanyahu and NATO members France and USA. Natural gas is the flammable ingredient that is fueling this insane scramble for energy in the region.
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[1] Reuters, Turkish artillery strikes on Syria continue for second day: Several Syrian soldiers killed in overnight attack; Turkey launched artillery strikes after mortar bomb fired from Syria killed five Turkish civilians, October 4, 2012.
[2] Hüsnü Mahalli, Davutoglu Betting on the Fall of Assad, Al Akhbar English, August 7, 2012.
[3] Steven G. Merley, Turkey, the Global Muslim Brotherhood, and the Gaza Flotilla, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2011, accessed inhttp://www.jcpa.org/text/Turkey_Mus.... See also for more ties between Erdogan’s Turkish AKP and the Musllim Brotherhood, GlobalMB, Syrian Ambassador Names Associate Of Turkish Prime Minister As Muslim Brotherhood Leader, May 25, 2011.
[4] The figure of $10 billion was relayed in a private discussion with the author by a Turkish businessman and political figure who asked to remain anonymous. Indian diplomats, including H.E. Gajendra Singh, former Ambassador to Ankara, have independently confirmed Saudi funding of the Turkish AKP. Presumably like most $10 billion cash grants, it came with heavy strings attached from Riyhad.
[5] F. William Engdahl, Salafism+CIA: The winning formula to destabilize Russia, the Middle East, Voltairenet.org, 13 September, 2012.
[6] Philip Giraldi, NATO vs Syria, December 19, 2011, The American Conservative.
[7] Linda Gradstein, Israel fears Syrian violence spilling over Golan Heights border, October 4, 2012.
[8] Linda Gradstein, Israel fears Syrian violence spilling over Golan Heights border, October 4, 2012.
[9] Ibid. p. 6.
[10] Andrew Ross Sorkin, Schlepping to Moguldom, September 5, 2004; see also Source Watch, Haim Saban.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Nathan Guttman, Bush officials subpoenaed in AIPAC trial, Jerusalem Post, March 13, 2006.
[13] Alexander Medvedev, Role of Gas in a Sustainable Energy Future, 2nd Ministerial Gas Forum, Doha, Qatar, 30 November, 2010.
[14] Hassan Hafidh and Benoit Faucon, Iraq, Iran, Syria Sign $10 Billion Gas-Pipeline Deal, The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2011.
[15] “Wadah Khanfar, Al-Jazeera and the triumph of televised propaganda”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 26 September 2011.
[16] Daily Star, Syria Announces Gas Discovery, August 17, 2011.
[17] Pepe Escobar, Why Qatar Wants to Invade Syria, Asia Times, September 27, 2012.
[18] Ibid.
[19] F. William Engdahl, The New Mediterranean Oil and Gas Bonanza - Part 1: Israel’s Levant Basin—a new geopolitical curse?, VoltaireNet.org, 20 February, 2012.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] The Economist, Turkey’s political in-fighting: Erdogan at bay: The Turkish prime minister faces new enemies both at home and abroad, Feb 25th 2012; see also Hillary Clinton, Remarks With Foreign Minister Davutoglu After Their Meeting, Conrad Hotel Istanbul, Turkey, August 11, 2012.
[23] CSP, Center Report Reveals Radical Islamist Views and Agenda of Senior State Department Official Huma Abedin’s Mother, Washington,Center for Security Policy, July 22, 2012. See also Aaron Klein, Muslim Brotherhood endorses Obama faith adviser: Gives thumbs up to ’Sister Mogahed’ for Twitter post on dead journalist, WorldNetDaily, April 29, 2012.
[24] F. William Engdahl, Moscow’s High Stakes Energy Geopolitics,Voltairenet.org, 15 November, 2011.

[25] Ibid.'


http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-turkey-israel-and-the-greater-middle-east-energy-war/ En:


http://www.blacklistednews.com/Engdahl%3A_Syria%2C_Turkey%2C_Israel_and_a_Greater_Middle_East_Energy_War/21971/0/38/38/Y/M.html 

Sheila Sitalsing van de Volkskrant 12

Study Group members Jeanine Jerkovic (American), Sheila Sitalsing (Dutch), and Friederike Stützle-Dahns (German).   

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Matches 1 - 10 of 17 – ... Dräger Stiftung Study Group members Jeanine Jerkovic (American), Sheila Sitalsing (Dutch), andFriederike Stützle-Dahns (German))

Is de Volkskrant-columniste Sheila Sitalsing de enige die president Hugo Chavez bekritiseert vanwege ondermeer het feit dat zijn regering zorgt voor 'gratis huivesting, gratis onderwijs, talloze gratis voorzieningen voor de armen' in plaats van het 'marktdenken' volledig te omarmen zoals elders in de Derde Wereld gebeurt waar de armen deze voorzieningen helemaal niet krijgen? Nee, Sitalsing is zeker niet de enige, zij verwoordt de consensus van de westerse commerciele massamedia, die uitgaat van het geloof dat alleen door het nog rijker maken van de rijken, de armen een graantje kunnen meepikken.

Hoe weten nu bijvoorbeeld de Nederlandse spreekbuizen van de zogenaamde 'vrije markt'  hoe afvalligen van het neoliberale geloof aangepakt moeten worden? Dat weten ze allereerst instinctmatig, journalisten die dit instinct niet bezitten worden gemarginaliseerd, zoals elke westerse journalist weet en zeker iemand als Sitalsing met haar 'Hindoestaans-Surinaamse,' voorouders die maar al te goed wisten hoe de blanke kapitalistische slaveneigenaren konden uitbuiten, bijna even meedogenloos als de wijze waarop vandaag de dag westerse concerns vrouwen in Azie uitbuiten om voor twee dollar per dag in een sweatshop onze kleding te maken. Daarnaast krijgen de volgzamen in ons systeem, zoals Sitalsing, speciale curssusen om hen nog meer te scholen in het doctrinaire denken. Zie foto hierboven. En tenslotte zijn er de belangrijke spreekbuizen in de VS die de toon aangeven van wat er geschreven en gezegd moet worden. Vandaar dat dit slag westerse spreekbuizen de New York Times nauwlettend bijhouden en de wat luiere CNN. Dan weten ze precies wat er van hen verwacht wordt.

Het gevolg van deze uniformering van meningen werd vele jaren geleden beschreven door de auteur Milan Kundera die journalisten 'de termieten van de reductie' noemde die zelfs de grootste liefde weten terug te brengen tot een geraamte van schrale herinneringen. Hij wees er daarbij op dat:


'het niet zo belangrijk [is] dat in de verschillende organen van de media de verschillende politieke belangen tot uiting komen. Achter het uiterlijke verschil heerst een en dezelfde geest. Je hoeft de Amerikaanse en Europese opiniebladen maar door te kijken, van rechts zowel als links, van Time tot Der Spiegel: in al die bladen tref je dezelfde kijk op het leven aan, die zich in dezelfde volgorde waarin hun inhoudsopgave is opgebouwd weerspiegelt, in dezelfde rubrieken, dezelfde journalistieke aanpak, dezelfde woordkeus en stijl, in dezelfde artistieke voorkeuren en in dezelfde hierarchie van wat ze belangrijk en onbeduidend achten. De gemeenschappelijke geestesgesteldheid van de massamedia, die schuilgaat achter hun politieke verscheidenheid is de geest van de tijd.’

Die westerse gelijkschakeling verklaart waarom de kritiek van Sitalsing op Chavez 
als twee druppels water lijkt op die van CNN. 'Dezelfde journalistieke aanpak, dezelfde woordkeus en stijl... en in dezelfde hierarchie van wat ze belangrijk en onbeduidend achten.' En dus ook dezelfde criminalisering van iemand  wiens bewind de werkloosheid en de armoede heeft gehalveerd en dus als een alternatief gezien kan worden voor het corrupte 'marktdenken' dat in 2008 tot een kredietcrisis leidde die ons in een economische crisis heeft gestort die tot nu toe onoplosbaar blijkt.


CNN Exposes 'Villain' Chavez's Dastardly Plot to House the Poor

You want to be careful about throwing around words like "buffoonish," though, when you're making arguments like "Hugo Chavez has laid Venezuela's economy to waste." Here's a chart of Venezuela's per capita GDP since 1999, when Chavez was first elected; since 2003, when Chavez took control of the national oil company from its self-enriching management, the purchasing power of the average Venezuelan has increased more than two and a half times. We should all be so wasted!Venezuela's authoritarian president Hugo Chavez is a villain out of a Batman movie: buffoonish and sinister in equal measure.
Venezuelan GDP per capita (PPP) (US$)
These numbers come from the CIA World Factbook, by the way, not exactly a source known for its Bolivarian sympathies.
What really seems to rankle Frum, though, is not how well Venezuela's economy is doing but who it's benefiting, characterizing the channeling of the country's oil wealth to the poor as "massive government vote-buying." As an example, he cites a program "that aims to build 200,000 housing units for Venezuela's poor."
Only a supervillain could conceive of so dastardly a plot.
Frappant nietwaar, hoe geconditioneerd Sitalsing reageert. Vandaar dat ze een column heeft gekregen in de Volkskrant. Afwijkingen van de leer worden in totalitaire systemen niet getolereerd. Journalistiek bestaat er niet, alleen propaganda, maar die wordt steeds dunner en is nu flinterdun. Je kunt er op alle manieren dwars doorheen kijken. Alleen de diep gelovigen geloven er nog in. 





EU NOBEL PEACE PRIZE??? 2




     Would you choose them for Nobel Peace Prize?

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Published on Oct 12, 2012 by
The peace prize was conceived by Alfred Nobel to foster fraternity between nations. But, as Gayane Chichakyan reports, some recent winners have done more to fuel conflicts around the world than to calm it.

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