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28 Aug 08
Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West| News | This is London
www.thisislondon.co.uk/...article.do - Preview
moscow russia black-sea declaration-war putin us-government naval-ships georgia poland missile-shield china iran crisis tension nato abkhazia montreux-treaty warships russian-navy
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Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West
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27.08.08
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Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia.
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The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin's envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - the 'real architect' of the Georgia conflict - and the Security Council (unseen) in Sochi yesterday
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The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia - where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state - came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.
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"If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia," he stated.
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Yesterday likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War.
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Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia.
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But his use of such intemperate language will be seen as dowsing a fire with petrol.
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The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas at Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi today, carrying what the U.S. says is humanitarian aid
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Top military figure Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies in Moscow, alleged that the US and NATO had been arming Georgia as a dress rehearsal for a future military operation in Iran.
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"We are close to a serious conflict - U.S. and NATO preparations on a strategic scale are ongoing. In the operation the West conducted on Georgian soil against Russia - South Ossetians were the victims or hostages of it - we can see a rehearsal for an attack on Iran."
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He claimed Washington was fine tuning a new type of warfare and that the threat of an attack on Iran was growing by the day bringing "chaos and instability" in its wake.
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With the real architect of the worsening Georgian conflict - prime minister Vladimir Putin - remaining in the background, Medvedev followed up on Rogozin's broadside with a threat to use the Russian military machine to respond to the deployment of the American anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech republic.
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Poland agreed this month to place ten interceptor missiles on its territory, and Moscow has already hinted it would become a nuclear target for Russia in the event of conflict.
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"These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us," Medvedev told Al-Jazeera television. "This will create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way, naturally using military means."
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The Russian president said that offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only aggravate the situation.
Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to the U.S. missile shield, saying it threatens its national security.
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The U.S. claims the shield is designed to thwart missile attacks by what it calls "rogue states," including Iran.
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Meanwhile, Russia - seen by the West as flouting international law - today demanded NATO abide by an obscure agreement signed before the Second World War limiting its warships in the Black Sea.
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"In light of the build-up of NATO naval forces in the Black Sea, our fleet has also taken on the task of monitoring their activities," said hawkish deputy head of Russia's general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn.
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The Montreux Convention, as it is called, sets a weight restriction of 45,000 tonnes on the number of warships that countries outside the Black Sea region can deploy in the basin.
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"Can NATO indefinitely build up its forces and means there? It turns out it cannot," said Nogovitsyn.
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NATO has said it is undertaking pre-arranged exercises in the Black Sea involving US, German, Spanish and Polish ships. Two other US warships sailed to Georgian waters with humanitarian aid.
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Georgia is poised to sever diplomatic relations with Russia, or reduce them to a bare minimum.
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"We will drastically cut our diplomatic ties with Russia," said a top official.
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Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin
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Russia sought Chinese backing for its action - but the Communist regime in Beijing appeared reluctant to offer support, instead issuing a statement saying it was "concerned" about recent developments.
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NATO called for Russia to reverse its decision on recognition for the two enclaves, both Georgian under international law.
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But the new 'president' of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoyty, called for Russian military bases on his territory.
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French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner warned today that an marauding Russian bear could trample over other ex-Soviet states.
"That is very dangerous," he said, pointing at Ukraine and Moldova.
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23 Aug 08
Missile Defense in Europe = Russia Bait? | Danger Room from Wired.com
blog.wired.com/...missile-defense.html - Preview
poland czech-republic missile-defense russia russian-border iran us-government usa defense missiles tension eastern-europe effective sales alaska phil-coyle tests
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Missile Defense in Europe = Russia Bait?
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August 21, 2008
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By David Axe
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The U.S. is expanding its controversial, and mostly untested, Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system into Poland and Czech Republic, provoking Russia into making thinly veiled threats.
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In the wake of the South Ossetia war, these threats have assumed a much more sinister edge than before.
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Phil Coyle, the Pentagon's former top weapons tester (pdf!), says it's all for nothing.
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"The system proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic doesn't exist,
has never been tested, and has no demonstrated effectiveness to defend
Europe or the U.S. under realistic operational conditions," Coyle contends in an exclusive conversation with DANGER ROOM. -
He says that even our existing missile defenses, installed in Alaska, couldn't stop more than one or two rudimentary missiles from, say, Iran.
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"For these reasons the U.S. BMD system proposed for Europe is causing strife with Russia for nothing."
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Ouch. But wait, there's more, Coyle says:
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You have to ask where might there be a short range missile threat
from which Poland would need a defense? Russia? -
But Russia can
overwhelm the most futuristic missile defenses we can imagine [with sheer numbers]. -
If
the Ground-based Mid-course system proposed for Poland were effective
against missiles launched from Iran, then it would also be effective
against Russian missiles launched towards the U.S. This is something
which Russia cannot accept. -
Iran is not reckless enough to attack Europe, and neither is
North Korea -
There are no real world missile defense needs that are driving this
system. -
Knowing the past history between Russia and Poland and
the Czech Republic, if I were a citizen of Poland or the Czech Republic
I'd be more concerned about the real threats from Russia than the
illusory threat from Iran.
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22 Aug 08
Georgian Crisis Is a Trap for U.S. Leadership
What leadership? You mean that gaggle of geese in Washington? I know half a dozen state governors around America who could govern better and make foreign policy decisions better than those Trotskyites of the Republican Party aka Neocons.
www.themoscowtimes.com/...370153.htm - Preview
usa us-government russia realpolitik geopolitical bush-cheney putin nato western-europe ukraine poland syria africa south-america hegemony world leadership threats
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Georgian Crisis Is a Trap for U.S. Leadership
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21 August 2008By Fyodor Lukyanov
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The fighting between Georgia and Russia has resulted in a serious political crisis in U.S.-Russian relations. It seems as if both sides have gone back to the sharp Cold War rhetoric of the early 1980s.
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But apart from the combative tone, the current conflict has nothing in common with the Cold War standoffs because the ideological element is absent in both Russian and U.S. foreign policies today.
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This may sound strange, since most people consider U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy to be extremely ideological.
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After all, the global advancement of democracy has been his principal credo for nearly eight years. In practice, however, exporting democracy is less an ideology than it is realpolitik at its core --
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an instrument for attaining geopolitical dominance around the globe.
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The United States had to immediately adjust to the burden of global leadership after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when it declared itself the victor in the Cold War -- a victory that it was not entirely ready for.
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In the course of a decade, from the Soviet collapse to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. foreign policy ideology was transformed into an overly ambitious plan to reshape global affairs with Washington sitting in the driver's seat.
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The United States was transformed into a truly international superpower, sincerely convinced of its own global responsibility as a guarantor of peace and democracy.
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After Sept. 11, 2001, the fact that U.S. territory could be threatened from remote regions of the world forced a reassessment of Washington's security policy. As a result, the entire planet became a sphere of vital U.S. interests.
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Since the United States considers democracy to be the most effective, progressive and nonaggressive form of governance, it feels that it can guarantee its own security by advancing democracy everywhere.
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As Bush has said repeatedly, "Democracies don't fight other democracies." The main problem with this simplistic formula is that building new democracies from scratch is a long and difficult process.
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Creating a stable democracy is only possible in countries that are already developed both politically and economically.
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The era when a holistic outlook on global leadership was formed in the United States, a period when Washington could act without taking the interests of others into account, is over.
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And the attempt to implement this established policy led to a series of failures and to a new level of global fragmentation. It also demonstrated the limitations of the United States' ability to influence global affairs unilaterally.
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At that moment, Russia, after recovering from the geopolitical and economic crises of the 1990s, tried to win back what had been lost during the first post-Soviet decade. Moscow's quest to regain its sphere of influence was understood in Washington.
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Russia is irritated the most when the United States interferes in those areas that Moscow believes Washington has no strategic interests.
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And the United States exacerbates this irritation when it opposes any issue that strengthens Russia's position in any way. Moreover, Washington is not prepared to impose limitations on itself, squeezing everyone else wherever it can.
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The traditional rule of realpolitik -- taking into account the interests of others to the extent that they do not contravene one's own interests -- is being violated.
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Moscow possesses well-defined levers in different parts of the world -- from Latin America to Africa, from the Middle East to the Far East.
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Russia is a global power with regional ambitions and interests.
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With the help of these instruments, Russia will pursue its strategic interests in Europe and Asia.
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Alliances in Syria and Venezuela are needed in order to gain bargaining chips in the game against rivals. This helps counterbalance U.S. expansion in countries that used to be Soviet republics. Yet Moscow does not rule out the exchange of minor ambitions for major ones.
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And here we come to the conceptual reason for the worsening of U.S.-Russian relations.
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The United States is a global power with global ambitions and interests. From the U.S. point of view, it has no interests that it would be willing to sacrifice.
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Regions that Moscow sees as secondary to U.S. interests have become necessary components of the complex U.S. structure known as American leadership.
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With the Russia-Georgia military conflict, the United States clearly fell into a dangerous trap.
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The Bush administration was not in a position to back up the implied promises and guarantees that it had given to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
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It hoped that its expansion in Russia's backyard would go smoothly and not be very costly from a geopolitical point of view.
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The United States has supported pro-U.S. regimes all along Russia's borders.
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But the United States did not seriously consider the consequences of defending these new allies -- both politically and militarily. And it turned out that at the critical moment, the United States was not in a position to give substantive support to its ally Georgia. It was even unable to prevent Georgia from making fatal mistakes.
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The position of global leader is dangerous in that it won't allow for even the most minor defeats.
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Indeed, the result the Georgia conflict may not simply be the decline of U.S. influence in that country (which in and of itself is not a catastrophe), but that other young, emerging democracies will be skeptical about the dependability of U.S. promises of support.
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To stop a domino effect in which nations en masse start losing faith in U.S. leadership, it won't be enough if Washington adopts an even tougher stance toward Moscow. It's possible that it will try once again to give direct guarantees for the security of countries like Georgia or Ukraine -- especially since NATO's ability to act is now in doubt.
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Western Europe will probably halt its expansion into the former Soviet republics.
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And relatively new NATO members, such as Poland, are doubting NATO's credibility.
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If these countries earlier thought that NATO and the United States were virtually one and the same, this is no longer the case. Indeed, Poland has approached the United States directly, bypassing NATO, for security guarantees to protect it against what it perceives to be a threat from Russia.
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Moscow considers direct U.S. military guarantees to Kiev and Tbilisi as an even greater provocation than NATO membership in and of itself.
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This has increased U.S.-Russian tensions even more.
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But, as the Georgian and South Ossetian conflict clearly demonstrated, it is doubtful that Washington has the ability to back up these guarantees.
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Because of its weakened position, the United States will be forced to rethink its fundamental role as a global leader. The United States and Russia both need to fully understand whether their strategic goals are realistically achievable or not.
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Fyodor Lukyanov is editor of Russia in Global Affairs.
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20 Aug 08
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/19/2008 | Rice warns Moscow about its bomber runs off Alaska
www.mcclatchydc.com/...49125.html - Preview
tu-95 russia russian-bombers alaska us-territory provocation condi-rice america usa moscow nato membership poland missile-defense georgia ukraine
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Monday, August 18, 2008
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Rice warns Moscow about its bomber runs off Alaska
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By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
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BRUSSELS, Belgium — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday ruled out accelerating Georgia's admission to NATO in response to the Russian invasion.
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But she warned Moscow that it is playing "a very dangerous game" by resuming Cold War-era strategic bomber patrols close to the Alaskan coast.
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"Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power," Rice told reporters
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en route to an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers set for Tuesday. "That's not the way to deal in the 21st century."
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With Europe divided between former Soviet bloc nations, which seek tough measures, and major powers such as Germany, which is hesitant to jeopardize significant business and energy ties with Russia, it was unclear whether NATO would produce a robust response to Russia's invasion of Georgia.
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Russian forces Monday continued to move around Georgia with impunity, and senior U.S. defense officials said they were troubled by intelligence showing the Russians had deployed SS-21 ballistic missiles into South Ossetia with a range to strike Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
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Rice said Russia has raised questions about its place in the international community through the invasion and other actions, including the resumption last year for the first time since the 1991 collapse of the former Soviet Union of air patrols near the Alaskan coast by Tu-95 strategic bombers, code-named Bears by NATO.
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"We've had Russian strategic aviation challenging in ways they haven't, even along our borders with the United States, which I might note is a very dangerous game and perhaps one that I suggest the Russians want to reconsider. This is not one that is cost-free," Rice said.
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She did not elaborate on a U.S. reaction to the flights, which have been widely seen as an attempt by Russia, flush with windfall oil profits, to reassert itself as a global power despite serious problems with its military.
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Since the flights resumed in August 2007, U.S. and Canadian fighters have intercepted the Russian bombers and escorted them away from the U.S. coast.
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U.S. officials have previously attached little real significance to the flights by the turboprop-powered Cold War relics, and defense officials said Monday recent flights did not provoke concerns within the Pentagon.
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Russian bombers also have made forays into neutral airspace near Norway and over U.S. aircraft carriers in the Pacific.
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Rice said, however, that the Alaska patrols and the invasion of Georgia contradicted Russia's stated desire for political and economic integration into the international community.
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She charged that Russia's offensive deep into Georgia was aimed at "undermining" the pro-U.S. government of President Mikhail Saakashvili and crippling the impoverished nation by damaging and destroying vital economic infrastructure.
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"That is an objective that will be denied because Georgian democracy stands and it will stand with the help of its allies around the world," Rice said. "Georgian infrastructure will be rebuilt. Georgia's economy will be reinforced."
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Rice said that NATO foreign ministers would consider measures to reinforce U.S. and European support for Georgia's territorial integrity.
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For its part, the United States is also sending teams to assess the re-equipping of Georgia's U.S.-trained military, which was battered by superior Russian forces, and to evaluate reconstruction needs, she said.
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But she said the United States would not push to accelerate approval by the 26 foreign ministers of plans for the admission to NATO of Georgia and the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
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Instead, the ministers were expected to reaffirm that the plans will be considered as scheduled at a regular foreign ministers meeting in December.
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"We are . . . going to send a message that we are not going to allow Russia to draw a new line at those states that are not yet integrated into the trans-Atlantic structures like Georgia and Ukraine," said Rice.
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France and Germany blocked approval in April of the criteria they must meet to qualify for membership, citing Georgia's unresolved territorial disputes and vehement Russian opposition.
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Rice said the ministers also would reaffirm NATO's support for former Soviet bloc nations like Poland and the Baltic states.
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Though now alliance members, those nations have been deeply unsettled by what they saw as a tepid Western response to a major step by Moscow to reassert its influence over its former empire.
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Rice is to visit Warsaw on Wednesday to formally sign an agreement that will allow the United States to locate anti-missile interceptors in Poland in exchange for bolstering the country's air defenses, a move that has enraged Russia.
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Finally, she said, the foreign ministers will reassess overall relations with Russia, which has been seeking membership in international financial institutions and closer ties with the European Union.
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"Frankly, Russia can't have it both ways. It can't act in a way that it did in the Cold War when it was the Soviet Union and expect to be treated as a responsible partner," Rice said.
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Nancy A. Youssef in Washington contributed.
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18 Aug 08
Sarkozy threatens 'consequences' as Russia stalls on Georgia pullout | World news | guardian.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk/...georgia.russia4 - Preview
russia georgia sarkozy ossetia abkhazia european-union europe france germany merkel putin russian-troops poland usa
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Sarkozy threatens 'consequences' as Russia stalls on Georgia pullout
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French president demands Moscow honour ceasefire as Medvedev pledges troops will begin withdrawal tomorrow
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- Ian Traynor in Brussels and Luke Harding in Tbilisi
guardian.co.uk,
- Sunday August 17 2008
- Ian Traynor in Brussels and Luke Harding in Tbilisi
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European leaders warned Russia today to withdraw forces rapidly from Georgia or face unspecified "consequences", as Moscow stalled on its pledges to honour a ceasefire and pull back thousands of troops from the Caucasus republic.
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With the US and European governments due to meet on Tuesday to consider their options for the first time since the crisis erupted, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, threatened the Kremlin with an ultimatum for the first time, warning that more delays to a pullout "would have serious consequences on relations between Russia and the European Union".
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The French warning echoed similar statements from the Americans in recent days, none of which appear to have rattled the Russians, whose forces remain in firm control of large tracts of Georgia well beyond the two separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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"People are going to begin to wonder if Russia can be trusted," Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said today of the Russian failure to keep its promises.
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The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, added her voice to the pressure on Moscow after holding talks with the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, in the capital, Tbilisi. She described a Russian retreat as "urgent" and said it should be "very fast, very prompt".
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In Moscow, President Dmitri Medvedev told Sarkozy the Russians would start pulling out tomorrow. But there is a yawning gap between what the Russians and the west understand by withdrawal.
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Today, Russian forces appeared to be entrenching their positions on the ground barely 20 miles from Tbilisi.
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Nato foreign ministers are to hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.
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The Americans could call for a suspension of the Nato-Russia council, a talking shop that dates back more than a decade and symbolises the post-cold war rapprochement that has been shaken by the invasion of Georgia.
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The conflict has reopened old rifts among the western allies that recall the old Europe-new Europe divisions over the Iraq war in 2003.
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France and Germany are keen to maintain smooth relations with Moscow and fear the EU's mediation role will be jeopardised if they take sides.
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The eastern Europeans in Nato and the EU are strongly on the side of Georgia, looking not to Brussels, Paris or Berlin but to Washington for leadership.
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The Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, slammed France and Germany for being too soft on Moscow and complained they were trying to monopolise the EU position.
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France was unapologetic. "We have to invent a new language with regard to Russia. That is what the European Union is trying to do," said Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister.
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Sarkozy, the current EU president who negotiated a six-point ceasefire agreement with the Russians and Georgians last week, called for the "withdrawal, without delay, of all the Russian military forces that entered Georgia since August 7" when the fighting started.
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The Russians, with an estimated 10,000 troops and 150 tanks in Georgia, show no intention of withdrawing the entire invasion force and are planning to leave troops in Georgia proper, beyond the two pro-Russian breakaway provinces.
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The Kremlin announced that from tomorrow "Russia will begin the withdrawal of the military contingent which was moved to reinforce Russian peacekeepers after the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia." But it stressed that the invasion force would not retreat to Russia but only to South Ossetia, and that Moscow would keep forces in the "security zone".
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The Russians intend to establish buffer zones in previously Georgian-controlled territory beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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One of the most contentious points of Sarkozy's ceasefire plan allows Moscow "to take additional security measures" beyond the two enclaves until "an international mechanism" is established.
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Sarkozy said this weekend that meant there could be no Russian presence in Georgian urban centres. But the Russians take the point as carte blanche to mount security patrols outside South Ossetia and to keep forces deployed in Georgia.
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Saakashvili insisted today that he would not be happy until the last Russian soldier had left. "Georgia will never give up a square kilometer of its territory," he said.
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The "international mechanism", entailing perhaps UN-mandated international peacekeepers, will take weeks to establish at a minimum.
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The EU is endeavouring to be the main middleman. But apart from perhaps sending a few dozen unarmed ceasefire monitors in the days ahead, it is unlikely to grapple with the bigger issues of peacekeepers until EU foreign ministers meet in Avignon in France next month.
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The Pentagon’s alarming project: Avian Flu Biowar Vaccine
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php - Preview
spanish-flu 40-million-deaths 1918 lethal vaccine h5n1 asia usa us-army tyson-foods conagra poland evil-men wicked avian-flu deaths bush-cheney sanofi-pasteur weaponized-viruses us-government
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Public relations efforts to the contrary, IF a vaccine is being made against the Avian Flu virus in its pandemic form, that means that the pandemic virus must already exist, period, end of discussion."3
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The genome of the 1918 pandemic, the so-called "Spanish Flu", was recently intentionally resurrected by the United States government from a frozen corpse that died of the flu in 1918 in Alaska.
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Because of that resurrection, both the Avian Flu, and its "vaccine" are now a significant threat to public health.
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The Spanish Flu, which was not Spanish at all, was created in the US through an early bioweapons program and injected into healthy young men (i.e., ’soldiers’) as the first mandatory vaccination in the military during World War I.
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The "Spanish Flu", which originated in Kansas on US Military bases, was one of the deadliest pandemics in modern history.
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It was also one of the most successful biological weapons ever created, until now.
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To date, there have only been around 385 human cases of Avian Flu identified worldwide (assuming those identifications are trustworthy, of course), with 243 deaths.
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To put the absurdity of this effort into perspective, Laibow points out, Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD), which researchers believe is heavily associated with aspartame consumption, is a leading cause of death which, according to the CDC, for example, killed 460,000 Americans in 1999 and the numbers keep rising (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5106a3.htm.)
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But, aspartame is not under criticism.
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Interesting as a footnote on Aspartame, G.D. Searle, the Chicago drugs company that held the patent on Aspartame was in danger of losing its license from the US Government Food & Drug Administration in the 1980’s until Donald Rumsfeld, out of Government, was named President of Searle.
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Rumsfeld used his contacts in Washington to get the FDA to approve Aspartame despite known tests showing serious health effects on rats.
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As I document in detail in my book, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, the same Don Rumsfeld went on to become chairman and principal stockholder of a California pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc., which developed and patented Tamiflu in 1996, first as a drug for AIDS, later as a vaccine for H5N1 Avian Flu.
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In 1997 Donald H. Rumsfeld was named Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, where he remained until early 2001 when he became Defense Secretary.
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As Secretary he refused to sell his stock at the time he came under conflict of interest allegations when he ordered $1 billion worth of Tamiflu be bought to injected into the US military personnel as a "precaution."
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It was later proven that Tamiflu was in no antidote for H5N1 and its side effects were sometimes very severe.
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Laibow adds, "Given the shockingly obvious lack of any threat from an un-weaponized H5N1 virus, how can we explain the Bush Administration spending billions of dollars preparing each of the 50 States, for what it calls the ‘inevitable Bird Flu pandemic,’ which they say could kill half or more of all Americans and similar numbers of people around the globe?"4
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Ominously, on June 3, Associated Press reported, "Tyson Foods Inc. has begun killing and burying the carcasses of 15,000 hens from a flock that tested positive for exposure to a strain of the bird flu in northwest Arkansas, state officials said Tuesday."
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Tyson Foods is the largest industrialized producer of chickens in the world and has been repeatedly under attack for its unsanitary conditions of breeding and slaughtering.
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In January 2005, a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to the US Senate, "Safety in the Meat and Poultry Industry," concluded that US meat and poultry processing plants had "one of the highest rates of injury and illness of any industry."
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They cited exposure to "dangerous chemicals, blood, faecal matter, exacerbated by poor ventilation and often extreme temperatures. Workers typically faced hazardous conditions, loud noise, must work in narrow confines with sharp tools and dangerous machinery."
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The industrialization of chicken-raising and slaughtering in the USA has progressed to the point that by 2003 when the first cases of H5N1 Avian Flu virus were reported from Asia, five giant multinational agribusiness companies dominated the production and processing of chicken meat in the United States.
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The five companies were Tyson Foods, the largest in the world; Gold Kist Inc; Pilgrim’s Pride; ConAgra Poultry; and Perdue Farms.5 Most outbreaks of Avian Flu in Asia have been traced back to such mass chicken industrial factory centers.6
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In May this year, The Canadian Press reported from Toronto, "An experiment mating H5N1 avian flu viruses and a strain of human flu in a laboratory produced a surprising number of hybrid viruses that were biologically fit, a new study reveals.
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And while none of the offspring viruses was as virulent as the original H5N1, about one in five were lethal to mice at low doses, showing they retained at least a portion of the power of their dangerous parent." 7
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The Toronto article went on, "The work suggests that under the right circumstances - and no one is clear what all of those are - the two types of flu viruses could swap genes in a way that might allow the H5N1 virus to acquire the capacity to trigger a pandemic.
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That process is called reassortment.
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‘This study is just showing exactly that: There is a risk this virus can successfully reassort with a human virus,’ said Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization's collaborating centre for influenza research at St. Jude Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee." 8
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Pentagon Bioweapon research
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Prof. Mathew Meselson, a professor of molecular biology at Harvard, and well-respected scientist in the area of chemical and biological warfare, confirms that the United States government has extensively researched and developed biological weapons in the past.
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Meselson described an American facility, north of Terre Haute, Indiana, built in 1944 that would have produced 500,000 four pound anthrax bombs monthly once in full operation.
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Meselson was part of a team that proved the accidental release of anthrax at a Soviet facility in 1979, disproved charges of biological warfare in Laos and Cambodia in the late 1970s, and was a driving force behind popularizing the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1994.
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Since coming in office, the Bush-Cheney Administration has done much to weaken that Chemical Weapons Convention as well as ones on biological weapons.
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One of George W. Bush’s first acts as President in early 2001 was to oppose a proposed international Biological and Toxic Weapons Protocol, without explanation, leading to the death of the talks.
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In a 2004 study, the British Medical Association warned that the world was perhaps only a few years away from "terrifying biological weapons capable of killing only people of specific ethnic groups," citing advances in genetic weapons technology. 9
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The US Department of Homeland Security has ominously enough announced it is ordering production and stockpiling of a pandemic influenza vaccine: "The U.S. Government is taking steps to minimize the need to make vaccine allocation decisions by supporting efforts to increase domestic influenza vaccine production capacity.
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Significant funding is being
provided to develop new vaccine technologies that allow production of enough pandemic influenza vaccine for any person in the United States who wants to be vaccinated within six months of a pandemic declaration."
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The US Government has been financing the development of a vaccine against H5N1 on a "fast track" basis since 2004.
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Sanofi Pasteur in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of the giant French pharmaceutical firm, the third largest in the world, manufactured an inactivated vaccine made from an H5N1 virus isolated in Southeast Asia in 2004.
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Sanofi Pasteur, part of the French-based Sanofi Aventis Group, was awarded a contract by the US Government’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIAID to manufacture the H5N1 vaccine in May 2004.11
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In April 2007 the FDA approved the Sanofi Pasteur vaccine for H5N1 even though one year before the FDA cited Sanofi Pasteur for producing contaminated Fluzone vaccines.12
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The FDA approved H5N1 vaccine is itself apparently not really effective in event of a human-to-human outbreak of Avian Flu.
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On announcing its approval, the FDA stated, "two injections given 28 days apart may provide ‘limited’ protection if a pandemic occurs. About 45% of people who got the vaccine in a study developed an immune response to the virus."13
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Is that what the researchers at Sanofi Pasteur and various labs under contract to the US Government are engaged in? If so it would be classified Top Secret, clearly.
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Until now H5N1 has not mutated into a form that can easily spread from person to person.
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The respected British magazine, New Scientist, commented, "If H5N1 does mutate, it is unclear if vaccines developed now would still work against a pandemic strain. Manufacturers could tailor a new vaccine to that strain, but current production methods take months."14
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The magazine noted that research on the Sanofi vaccine was conducted by the National Institutes of Health as part of the US Government's efforts to prepare for a flu pandemic.
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The salient question is whether they prepare "for a flu pandemic" or whether they prepare a flu pandemic.
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Why is the US Government spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to stockpile this H5N1 vaccine which likely would not work against such a pandemic outbreak?
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On July 2, 2008, the London Daily Telegraph newspaper reported, "Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus." 15
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The report added that the medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, were being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.
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Authorities claim that the alleged victims received €3 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug.
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The director of a Grudziadz homeless centre, Mieczyslaw Waclawski, told a Polish newspaper that last year, 21 people from his centre died, a figure well above the average of about eight.
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The Polish report did not specify if it was the vaccine being developed under contract to the US Government Department of Homeland Security by Sanofi-Pasteur. However, it is known that Sanofi-Pasteur has been producing large quantities of such a vaccine at a factory they have in China.
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Dr. Laibow reports that the "Pandemic Avian Flu Vaccine" was scheduled to be delivered to the United States this month by the French vaccine maker, Sanofi Pasteur, from a facility they own in China, where it is being produced. The US Government issued its "Vaccine" allocation plan in July.
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Laibow fears that a most sinister scenario of a deliberate release of Avian Flu pathogens on the population that could activate martial law and forced vaccination with resulting deaths in the millions could be imminent.
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Spanish Flu virus revived by Pentagon
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According to a report at the time by the watchdog group, The Sunshine Project, which monitors biological and chemical weapons research of the United States Government issued a statement that "The 'Spanish Flu' influenza virus that killed 20-40 million people in 1918 is currently under reconstruction.
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In 2003 US Army scientists created ‘Spanish Flu’ virus in the laboratory.
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Several genes of the extraordinarily lethal 1918 flu virus have been isolated and introduced into contemporary flu strains. These proved to be lethal for mice, while virus constructs with genes from a current flu virus types had hardly any effect.
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These experiments may easily be abused for military purposes, but provide little benefit from a medical or public health point of view."
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They continued, "The 1918 Spanish Flu was highly infectious and – in comparison to contemporary flu viruses – killed a very high percentage of those infected, including many younger people.
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The Spanish Flu alone caused the medium life expectancy in the US in 1918 to drop by 10 years. Hence, flu viruses are perceived today as a serious biological warfare threat.
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Just two weeks ago, a 15 million dollar research grant was awarded in the US to develop protective measures especially against a bioterrorist attack with flu viruses."
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The statement added, "Despite the very dangerous nature of the 1918 virus, efforts to reconstruct it started in the mid 1990s, when Dr Jeffrey Taubenberger from the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC succeeded in recovering and sequencing fragments of the viral RNA from preserved tissues of 1918 victims.
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In the current issue of the scientific journal Emerging Infectious Diseases new genetic details of the 1918 flu virus will be published."
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Most ominously, they report, "But after (partially) unravelling the genetic sequence of the virus, the scientists went a step further and began bringing the Spanish flu back to life.
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Unnoticed by the public, they succeeded in creating a live virus containing two 1918 genes that proved to be very lethal in animal experiments. This experiment is only one genetic step away from taking the 1918 demon entirely out of the bottle." 16
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They conclude, "A resuscitation of the Spanish flu is neither necessary nor warranted from a public health point of view.
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Allegedly, the recent experiments sought to test the efficacy of existing antiviral drugs on the 1918 construct. But there is little need for antiviral drugs against the 1918 strain if the 1918 strain had not been recreated in the first place.
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‘It simply does not make any scientific sense to create a new threat just to develop new countermeasures against it.’ says Jan van Aken, biologist with the Sunshine Project, ‘Genetic characterization of influenza strains has important biomedical applications.
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But it is not justifiable to recreate this particularly dangerous eradicated strain that could wreak havoc if released, deliberately or accidentally.’"17
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Let us sincerely hope not, but as Prof. Stephen Block, Stanford University biophysicist with years of experience in classified Pentagon and US Government biological research remarked in another context, "We’re tempted to say that nobody in their right mind would ever use these things." Block added, "But not everybody is in their right mind…" 18Sanofi Pasteur delivers H5N1 vaccine
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On April 28 of this year in an official Press Release from Sanofi Pasteur US headquarters in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania and Lyon, France, the company stated, "Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis Group, announced today that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has accepted H5N1 bulk vaccine antigen to produce approximately 38.5 million doses of vaccine to protect against a new strain of avian influenza.
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Sanofi Pasteur has a multi-year contract with HHS as part of its pandemic program, and will receive a payment of $192.5 million booked in the second quarter of 2008 for acceptance of the bulk vaccine lot."19
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Then, on June 16 of this year, Sanofi Pasteur issued the following release announcing that it will, "donate 60 million doses of H5N1 vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO) over 3 years for the establishment of an H5N1 vaccine global stockpile."
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The President and CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, Wayne Pisano, said in the release, "The H5N1 virus is currently circulating in some of the poorest regions of the world and an outbreak of pandemic influenza would most likely hit populations living in areas with limited access to vaccines. This donation of H5N1 vaccine aims to address the needs of those most vulnerable populations.
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In addition to supporting the efforts of governments," Pisano added, "it is essential that industry collaborates with international organizations such as WHO, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other global health players. This is the best way to build a stockpile of vaccines for developing nations, ready to be deployed on the ground in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak."20
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in addition to being a financial supporter of the so-called Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic, has dedicated its foundation billions to support population control especially inAfrica.
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Among other projects they, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, are financing The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, whose head is former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. 21
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As the world's leading influenza vaccine manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur produces approximately half of the influenza vaccine distributed worldwide.
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In the US it produced more than 40 percent of the influenza vaccine distributed for the 2007-2008 influenza season.
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The fact that the US Government has revived the 1918 Spanish Flu virus to make "tests" indicates that anything is possible.
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There are in this world some people not in their "right mind." God forbid if it is so in this instance.
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F. William Engdahl is author of Seeds of Destruction: the Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net. (see details on William engdahl's book below) -
Notes
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1Alfred W. Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp.207-8.
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The Spanish Influenza was unusual in that it struck infants as well as elderly.
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Crosby described its effects: "a disease that turned people the color of wet ashes and drowned them in the fluids of their own bodies and inspired names like the ‘purple death.’
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2 Rima E. Laibow, M.D., Weaponized Avian Flu Intelligence Report, in http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=742
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6 GRAIN, Fowl Play: The Poultry Industry’s Central Role in the Bird Flu Crisis, http://www.grain.org/go/birdflu , February 2006.
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In their report they note, "The transformation of poultry production in Asia in recent decades is staggering. In the Southeast Asian countries where most of the bird flu outbreaks are concentrated—Thailand, Indonesia, and Viet Nam—production jumped eightfold in just 30 years, from around 300,000 metric tonnes (mt) of chicken meat in 1971 to 2,440,000 mt in 2001. China’s production of chicken tripled during the 1990s to over 9 million metric tons per year." (Cited in Engdahl, Op. Cit., p. 288.).
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7 As well, a report by a Canadian organization, Beyond Factory Farming, described the transmission likely pathways from the giant industrialized chicken centers: ‘In Thailand, China and Vietnam there is a highly developed industrial poultry industry which has expanded dramatically in the past decade. The large poultry companies raise millions of birds, hatch chicks to supply other intensive poultry operations, export live birds and eggs to countries such as Nigeria (where the first Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak in Africa was recently reported) and produce and export feed which often includes "litter" (i.e., manure) in the ingredients.
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‘Manure that may contain live virus is spread on surrounding farmland, or exported as fertilizer, and through run-off may end up in surface waters where wild birds feed and rest. Chicken manure is even found in fish farm feed formulations where it is introduced directly into the aquatic environment.
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Wild birds and poultry that
have fallen victim to HPAI in Asia, Turkey and Nigeria appear to have been directly exposed to HPAI virus originating in the factory farm system.
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In Asia, a flock of wild ducks died from HPAI—after having come into contact with the disease at a remote lake where a fish farm used feed pellets made from poultry litter from a factory farm.
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In Turkey a massive cull of backyard flocks—and the deaths of three children—took place after a nearby factory farm sold sick and dying birds to local peasants at cut rate prices.
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Nigeria has a large and poorly regulated factory poultry production sector which is supplied with chicks from factory farms in China.’ (Engdahl, Op. Cit., p. 289)
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8 Study shows hybrids of bird flu and human flu viruses fit well, could occur, The Canadian Press, Toronto, undated. May 2008.
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15 Matthew Day, Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland, Daily Telegraph, July 2, 2008, accessed in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/2235676/Homeless-people-die-after-bird-flu-vaccine-trial-in-Poland.html.
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16 The Sunshine Project, Lethal Virus from 1918 Genetically Reconstructed: US Army scientists create ‘Spanish Flu’ virus in laboratory - medical benefit questionable, 9 October 2003, accessed at http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/pr/pr091003.html.
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17 Aug 08
Georgia, Russia and Ezekiel 38 - Jerusalem Dateline: Chris Mitchell Blog - CBN News
www.cbn.com/427240.aspx - Preview
cbn reporter jerusalem russia georgia ukraine poland usa europe israel turkey ezekiel-38-39 God invasion alignment muslim-world africa libya ethiopia end-time
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Georgia, Russia and Ezekiel 38
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August 13, 2008
- 32 more annotations...
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For five days, the world watched as Russia crushed its southern neighbor, Georgia. Political pundits wrote some sobering analyses of what this means for the world. Following are excerpts from several of them.
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Victor Davis Hanson in "Moscow's Sinister Brilliance:"
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"...Putin and Medvedev have called the West's bluff. We are sort of stuck in a time-warp of the 1990s, seemingly eons ago in which a once-earnest weak post-Soviet Russia sought Western economic help and political mentoring.
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But those days are long gone, and diplomacy hasn't caught up with the new realities. Russia is flush with billions.
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It serves as a rallying point and arms supplier to thugs the world over that want leverage in their anti-Western agendas.
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For the last five years, its foreign policy can be reduced to 'Whatever the United States is for, we are against.'
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The geopolitical message is clear to both the West and the former Soviet Republics: don't consider NATO membership."
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George Will in "Russia's Power Play:"
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"...Russia's aggression is really about the subordination of Georgia, a democratic, market-oriented U.S. ally. This is the recrudescence of Russia's dominance in what it calls the 'near abroad.'
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Ukraine, another nation guilty of being provocatively democratic near Russia, should tremble because there is not much America can do. It is a bystander at the bullying of an ally that might be about to undergo regime change."
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The geo-political ramifications of the war between Russia and Georgia are enormous.
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Others also believe this past week's war may have profound prophetic significance.
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Joel Rosenberg in his blog, "Flash Traffic:"
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"Observers of Biblical prophecies such as Ezekiel 38 and 39 will note that directly or effectively controlling Georgia would be key when Moscow one day begins moving Russian military forces through Turkey and into Lebanon, Syria and eventually against Israel."
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Chuck Pierce, president of "Harvest Watchman" and author of "God's Unfolding Battle Plan:"
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"This is what I wrote in God's Unfolding Battle Plan: One such nation that will align with others to come against Israel is Russia.
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She and her children, Gog and Magog, will arise with new strength in days ahead and attempt to rule.
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Ezekiel 38:3-6 says: 'Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords.
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Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops-many people are with you.'
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"As a result of Russia's newfound aggression, the United States and other nations will begin to distance themselves from Russia.
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In fact, 2008 will be the defining year for Russia. For a season, a new favor will arise and rest upon Russia so that new alignments can be formed.
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"The nations listed in Ezekiel will begin to align with this power from the north that is seeking a renewed role in world influence.
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The Cold War is over, and the thaw has occurred. Now these nations will become "hot" in the next 10 years. A new river of terror will begin to flow from the north."
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"The above quotes from God's Unfolding Battle Plan are very important to read because of the impact that the events beginning in that region will have on the realignment of the nations worldwide.
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"Here are some things to ponder: Russia will continue to be the pursuing, dominant force that attempts to rule the Caucasus.
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Russia is in the process of redefining that region of the world. The Georgia 'war' is the first major Russian intervention with this level of impact that has occurred in several years.
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"What you must notice is the new boldness and confidence that Russia is now poised to demonstrate to the world.
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"You also must be aware of their indifference to general worldwide opinion.
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"The Georgia conflict will become a defining moment in the future of world history.
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If you want to look at this from the standpoint of playing cards, Russia now holds the "trump" in the suit concerning America and Iran.
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Start watching very carefully for the reaction of the former Russian satellite states."
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While the world watches the Olympics, with this latest development, it's certainly also a time to heed the Biblical exhortation to "watch and pray."
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Tornado kills three people in Poland - Yahoo! News UK
Some are reporting this strange weather pattern developed the day after Russia's warning threat to Poland not to cooperate with the U.S. for a missile shield...??? Is, indeed, someone controlling the weather as an arm of military weaponry?
uk.news.yahoo.com/...-people-in-poland-41f21e0.html - Preview
poland weather strange tornado rain south southern-poland czestochowa deaths injuries
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Tornado kills three people in Poland
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Saturday, August 16 05:50 pm
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A tornado that struck southern Poland on Friday has killed at least three people and injured 34 more.
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Villages in southern Poland were devastated by the heavy storms, with roofs torn off homes, trees knocked down and vehicles overturned.
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The worst damage came in the southern province of Silesia, where two people were killed.
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One man near Czestochowa died after a tree crashed into his home, while a woman was crushed by the ceiling of her house in Rusinowice.
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In a separate incident one woman in the central city of Lodz was electrocuted by wires ripped off by heavy winds.
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Strong winds also swept through section of the A4 highway section near Opole, overturning cars and trucks, and blocking it for several hours.
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15 Aug 08
Excite News - Russia: US missiles in Poland won't go unpunished
Might it be ppossible that somewhere along the way of flexing it's new found muscle; pumped up on it's mis-matched success over Georgia; while taking advantage of a much weakened USA and the typical "pussified" Europe and all underwritten by it's vast oil/gas wealth, that Russia (Gog of Magog) will via hubris and pride, overstep itself, making one gigantic mistake that will end it's assertion and it's aggressive moves..only to find itself slinking back into it's cold regions to lick it's wounds in relative isolation?
apnews.excite.com/...D92IL1OO1.html - Preview
russia general-nogovitsyn poland defense missiles shield us-government agreement military-ties eastern-europe gog-magog muscle flexing
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Russia: US missiles in Poland won't go unpunished
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Aug 15, 5:44 AM (ET)
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MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian general says a deal for the United States to put a missile defense battery in Poland "cannot go unpunished."
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Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, did not give specifics on who was to be punished or how. But Russia has previously said it could aim missiles at any sites where elements of the U.S. missile defense system are deployed in Europe.
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Poland and the United States struck a deal on Thursday that will see a missile defense battery in the ex-communist state and deepen military ties.
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Nogovitsyn told reporters Friday that the U.S. is exacerbating relations with Russia that are already tense because of fighting between Georgian and Russian forces.
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