America and Russia clash in Macedonia

By Ylli Përmeti

As Moscow was celebrating Victory Day over Nazism on May 9, we witnessed a fight in the city of Kumanovo in which the Macedonian police were protagonist. At first it was a fight without an opponent. A few hours later, news agencies reported that the "opponent" was "the National Liberation Army" of the Albanians. As a result, 22 innocent people were killed (14 members of the army, eight police officers, a lot of wounded and ruined residencies). Although the event will be reported by the final report of the Macedonian police, on how it begun, which, unsurprisingly, is being delayed, judging from the final result - we may conclude that it has fired without warning.

First, because the police had preliminary information of it. For the same reason they could manage it differently: for example, by encircling and pressuring it to hand over into the police. Second, there was an unequal confrontation of powers: a powerful army (state's forces with heavy army), with a very inferior power. The police, therefore, violated the mandate: because the police before attacking s/o seek preliminary negotiations. For the role of the police is to prevent injuries, pains and bloodshed. And if we judge from the communiqué and of the action of the Albanian "army" - it bears three main contradictions:

• it claims to be a "liberation" army for all national Albanians. This is a contradiction because to represent a whole people it must be approved by it;
• it was there 'as a result of the terror exercised upon the Albanian people from the police state of Macedonia'. This is a contradiction because it ignores the emergence of revolt "from within", namely, from the same people; and
• it does not mention the right of Kumanovian people, for Self-determination and for the creation of another institutional framework through it the Albanian and Macedonian people will live together in harmony. On the contrary, it tells us that it 'is loyal of the ideal and the last will of martyrs, [and it] will fight until the end, for an Albanian national state, free and pure'!

The realization of the objective 'for an Albanian national state, free and pure' implies a lot of dynamics. But I will emphasise the last two conceptions: "free" and "pure" - by raising a question: 'free' and 'pure' from whom? Presumably from Macedonians! The approach for a 'pure' nation has been adopted historically by the Nazi. But let us hope that with 'purity' they mean "something" else.

Who triggered the fighting in Kumanovo?

Thus, this "army" misrepresent every struggle for "social and national liberation": because the struggle for liberation begins "from the oppressed people" and must not be pushed "from without", whoever may be. So here we are talking about for "social and national liberation". Not only for "national liberation". The later has been embraced historically by the "National Front" in Albania which collaborated with the Nazi! In short, this "army", if we can call it an 'army', cannot represent the whole people of Albania, since it violates every principle of 'representing' and 'liberation'. And there is another contradiction: they showed a lack of military organization since they courted disaster. Because if they were truly military officers - they wouldn't undertake such an action - particularly in actual conditions in which both Albania and Kosovo are in a deep multi-dimensional crisis.

The state of Macedonia, on the other hand, suffers from everything that other neighbouring countries suffer too - if not every country integrated into the New World Order (NWO) of Neoliberal Globalization (N/G) fully or/and partly. 

So, first, in Macedonia, there is no political organization that would fight for Self-determination and national unification. Albanian political parties have adopted the approach similar to all political parties in Albania: to integrate the country into the NWO of N/G. Second, Macedonia has installed the modern institutional framework of representative "democracy" and market economy as all other countries in the region and beyond - where the heteronomy and the exploitation of humans by humans is the main characteristic of the state. The concentration of power therefore becomes unavoidable. The ecofascism, in the double sense -economic and ecological- becomes also unavoidable. The accusations that the state of Macedonia is fascistic and the solution is the eradication of Macedonia, which are coming from "patriotic" circles, are without scientific foundation. Even if we accept this approach, the issue of organised ecofascism, as it was mentioned above, cannot be solved.

The use of Scanderbeg, the national hero of Albania, on the other hand, as an inspiration for the liberation of the Albanian territories from these circles is contradictory: because Scanderbeg, just because he was a 'strategist' (this word implies good knowledge of the military strategies, the advantages and disadvantages of the parties involved in the war and, of international politics) - triumphed in his battles against the biggest Empire of the time: the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, he had the approval of the Albanian people for leading it in war battles; had created the conditions and had a visible enemy. Unlike that time, the Albanians who fight for 'freedom', not only failed to create the conditions in the 'bosom' of the oppressed Albanians (Macedonia etc.) but they, unlike Scanderbeg, cooperate with the biggest Empire of our time: America! Namely, they cooperate with the hub of global power in order to replace a smaller regional power: the Macedonian state power. In addition, they cooperate with a power that lives thousands of miles away from them. This orientation in itself will estrange the people of the region with which they lived and will live in the same area for thousands of years. So, these circles, instead of revealing the real enemy of the people -the modern institutional framework and neoliberal globalization- and to self-criticise for their spontaneous actions from different organizations, they conform with the general approach that the enemy is Gruevsky who, moreover, may use the military doctrine of state terror for political reasons under the flag of the opposition (false flag)!

Who wants to set up Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevsky? 

Thirdly, the crisis in Macedonia was caused by the opposition leader, Zoran Zaev, when he revealed in public that the government of Gruevsky wiretapped his citizens. According to him, wiretapping was made possible with the help of a foreign agency! Albanian political parties have stood far from this battle. So the appearance of the Albanian armed forces in Kumanovo cannot have any relation with the battle of the political parties in power. On the other hand, the actual government consolidated its relations with the Russian government with the appointment of the new ambassador to Moscow, Goce Karajanov, an ex-member of the Russian Institute for International Relations. Meanwhile, Russia supported Macedonia for the arrests in Kumanovo in April of this year and condemned the efforts of Zaev for the "colour revolution" he has warned. Unlike other countries in the region, Macedonia sent its president for the Victory Day in Moscow and does not support Washington's sanctions against Russia.

Russian and Serbian newspapers, meanwhile, propagate the creation of "Greater Albania". The main problem with this propaganda is that it does not mention the right of the Albanian people for Self-determination! Nor do they mention the main characteristic of modern state: the concentration of power. It would not be a surprise that the government of Russia related the events in Kumanovo with the opposing stance of the Macedonian government against anti-Russian Western sanctions and the Balkan Stream gas pipeline. This confrontation raged with the revealing conversation of the interior minister, Jankulofska, in which she's being fascisticised against the Albanians of Macedonia. Clearly, it aimed at angering and including the Albanians of Macedonia for the 17^th May protest against the government.

The Americans, on the other hand, understood that Russia, with the agreement with Turkey - and later on with Greece (the government of "SYRIZA")- that the new stream, which could pass through Macedonia and beyond, along the line of the "TAP", which is being controlled directly by Washington and Brussels' bureaucrats, may challenge its monopoly. In other words, it will threaten its profits from the "TAP". For the same reason the annulment of the gas-project of Russia in the Balkans for Washington is a priority. It is not accidental that Washington uses the argument of 'dependence' from Russia and ignores the fact that it 'monopolises' the sector of energy in the region and beyond! And it is not accidental that after the agreement between the Greek and the Russian governments about the Balkan Stream, Washington "castrated" Greek Foreign Minister Nikolaos Kotzias by visiting him in all Zionist's "nests" (AIPAC, B'nai B'rith etc.) and other centres of international relations (CSIS etc.). Immediately after the meeting Washington sent its envoy of the State Department of Energy, Amos Hochstein, to Athens.

If we judge from recent reports, Washington is putting pressure both on Athens and Brussels for the annulment of the Russian project. And, it is not accidental that Greece operates unilaterally in some disputed regions for oil, and Washington keeps silent: because Greece signed an agreement in 2013 for the creation of a US army base in southern Greece to patrol the entire region with the use of UAVs! To implement the project, it would be normal that the government of Greece would seek Washington's diplomatic assistance in puting pressure on Albania. 

The latter, moreover, is being occupied economically mainly by three countries: Italy, Greece and Turkey, and has no political power for negotiations.

Thus, instead of fighting for the Russian gas, both countries, Greece and Albania, in order to put pressure on the price of the western gas industry and to lower the cost of production...they are playing the game of Washington and are in the process of destroying not only relations between the two countries, but the ecosystem of our seas and beyond. It should be emphasised here that both the Greek and Albanian governments are being dominated by western oil corporations. In other words, the exploitation of oil resources will be realised mainly by American corporations. And if the project of Russia is going to be impeded - it passes from the destabilization of Macedonia too. Because if Macedonia gets politically destabilised - Brussels will suspend any gas-line that could pass through Macedonia and Serbia towards Europe.

In other words, Washington is playing the same time with two (if not more) project "cornerstones": the Greek elite and Macedonia. If the Greek elite moves forward the Russian project, which under actual conditions is impossible - Washington will play with Macedonia. If not, Macedonia will be used. And if the objective of suspending it is being realised - Washington monopolises the sector of energy for the next hundred years. The monopolization of gas sector has been put forward recently by global oil and gas companies, such as Shell. This is a war, as administrators of global companies argue, of who is going to dominate the sector of energy in Europe for the next hundred years. 

Ylli Permeti

Source: English Pravda 21-05-2015

How Putin is taming the shrew and outmuscling America

By Nicolas Bonnal  

 

Such duty as the subject owes the prince,

Even such a woman oweth to her husband;

Shakespeare

Fifteen months ago, Victoria Nuland was preparing a war against Russia, staging a coup in Ukraine and mobilizing a weak and dishonoured Europe (remember her 'f...the EU!'). Now she is humbly going to Moscow in order to be involved in the Minsk agreements. Suddenly our warmongers become smooth and repentant, and, having lost their pride and memory, they come to Putin as a disciple comes to his wise man, a wise man he compulsively insulted earlier. 

Mark my words: the Atlantic crumbling empire submits itself to the Heartland, to the Eurasian world-master. For Putin is no more a western target and Russia is no more a regional power, and Putin is with his Chinese ally the master of the world. Who rules the Heartland rules the world, said once McKinder. Remember that fact, nutty and dumb professor Brzezinski whose counsels and lack of science and patience precipitated China and India in the arms of Russia (read my text on Mearsheimer).

Russia is now a ruling world power

Russia is now a ruling world power, despite a relatively modest population and the sixth GNP in the World. But she rules the Heartland and she has the right allies; not Estonia or Portugal (this country is martyred by Goldman Sachs), but Brazil, South Africa and China again, which is using all her millenary wisdom and her current fantastic soft power to get rid us from the American dollar, a piece of crap since the end of the gold standard in 1971. And a fraying Ukraine, a country that lost thanks to America freedom and prosperity, signs now treaties with China, using Yuan and hryvna. And America is not even a regional power: look how Obama was humiliated by the Latino countries last month. Everybody had his word to reproach the unsafe master a wrong deed or to prevent any imperialistic move. Except a bunch of lunatic Western journalists and European commissars, who believes in American power nowadays? Ask Netanyahu for instance...

The posthumous reconnaissance of Hitler was not casual. European and American elite are insane and cruel; they have shown this state of mind anywhere these last years, from Libya to Syria and from the Donbas to Egypt. Yet they are incompetent and weak. Obama is fundamentally a weak man like Hollande in France or Cameron in England (whose incompetence prepares the secession of Scotland), and this is what partially motivates this sudden access of peacefulness. 

The absence of the West at the ceremonies of the 9^th may was a lack of tact, as we say in Paris. It was indeed an unqualified recognizance and a justification of the Nazi aggression on Russia, a reconnaissance of the Nazi western acting we have assisted since 2011, when Sarkozy and his NATO thugs destroyed Libya, helped to massacre 200 000 Libyans and precipitated the African invasion of Europe. But Jupiter makes mad those he wants to destroy, recalled humanist Enoch Powell - who was a friend of Soviet Union...

The posthumous reconnaissance of Adolf Hitler by the West has paradoxically been too a reconnaissance of the Russian power and a reconnaissance of Russian allies. Russia is not allied to unstable clown Donald Tusk or to Latvia. The deal is here more serious and America has finally recognized it. See how John Kerry reacted, as if he had read Dr Roberts:  

If you watched the 1 hour 20 minute video of the Victory Day Parade, you are aware that the celebration sent a powerful message. Russia is a first class military power, and Russia is backed by China and India, whose soldiers marched with Russia's in the parade.

So, while the increasingly irrelevant West, absorbed in its own self-importance, snubbed the celebration of the victory that the Red Army gave them over Hitler, the three largest countries in the world were present united. Russia has the largest land mass, and China and India, also large land masses, have the world's largest populations.

Does Russia feel humiliated or isolated?

You had to be dumb or a French official journalist to think or write that Russia felt humiliated or isolated. It is completely wrong; it is a mark of idiocy, that idiocy that is driving our people and economies to Hell. Adds Pr Roberts:

The celebration in Moscow made it clear that Washington has failed miserably to isolate Russia. What Washington has done is to make the BRICS more unified.

And Washington is slowly discovering that it is not the global power it thought it was. Saudi Arabia does what it wants; it does not obey anymore the foolish master. Many other countries too do not comply, except the most indebted countries in the World, IE Western Europe and Japan, whose economy had been sabotaged since the eighties by a Central Blank in the hands of CIA. The magnificent achievements of Japanese people and the prestigious MITI where thus annihilated on order to please the American master.

A Central Bank can easily erase any economy, more seriously than any weapon, and we know that in Washington or in Frankfort. The Chinese know that fact; this is why they will kick out the dollar. It is a matter of time, unless a neocon agitator in Washington (let's remember Dead Zone) orders the next erratic American president to damage humanity with the nuclear bomb. This is not impossible: the American hawks and neocons ('con' means 'jerk' in French) are expecting the next president, Jeb Bush, or Hillary Clinton to apply another lunatic agenda. Let us hope that Putin and China will prevent Mother Monster2 and Dubya2 from destroying the world. The Clash of civilizations is in reality the clash of the West against the rest of the World, which is 90% of humanity.

Any anticommunist is a dog, wrote Sartre during the Cold War. And he was right, since at these times everyone in the world, Chinese, Asians, Africans, Latino Americans, Russians, wanted to be or was communist. Everybody was fleeing from imperialism, so everyone was communist except the West, which used terrorism via Gladio to prevent the rise of communism in Europe.

Well, let us be optimistic and hope that the ex-shrew Victoria Nuland, Khazar Robert Kagan's wife, can be convinced or at least intimated by Putin. After all, any woman, even a postmodern and americanized one, is said to come from Venus...

Shakespeare concludes in a wonderful play which does not express any machismo, much more the art of being a good ruler and a good citizen:

And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,

And not obedient to his honest will,

What is she but a foul contending rebel

And graceless traitor to her loving lord?

Nicolas Bonnal 

Source: English Pravda 20-05-2015

Putin's Chief of Staff Is a Man to Watch

Triumphant success organising Victory Day celebrations points to growing influence of Sergei Ivanov

Alexander Mercouris

Kremlinology has never been our thing. However, for those for whom it is, they might care to note that the organiser of the tremendously successful Victory Day celebrations throughout Russia was Sergei Ivanov.

Sergei Ivanov is one of the most powerful men in Russia.  

Like Putin he was born in Leningrad and has an intelligence background. He served for a time in the KGB before the USSR broke up. Like Putin his work was in foreign intelligence, not police work. 

Ivanov and Putin are almost the same age (Putin is 3 months older) and are known to be close friends. Putin appointed Ivanov his deputy in 1998 when Yeltsin made Putin head of the FSB – Russia’s counterintelligence and antiterrorism agency. 

A year later Yeltsin made Ivanov secretary of Russia’s Security Council when he appointed Putin Prime Minister.
When Putin became President in 2000, he appointed Ivanov Defence Minister, which post Ivanov kept until 2007. Putin then appointed Ivanov Deputy Prime Minister with overall responsibility for the defence industries.

Ivanov then appeared to suffer a setback when Putin chose Medvedev to succeed him as President in 2008. Many had expected he would choose Ivanov instead.

During Medvedev’s Presidency Ivanov’s career marked time, but in December 2011, after Putin declared his intention to stand for the Presidency again, Ivanov was appointed chief of staff of the Presidential Administration. 

He has served in that post ever since, in effect as Putin’s chief of staff.

Ivanov speaks English fluently, as well as Swedish, and understands other Scandinavian languages, such as Danish and Norwegian. He is also said to speak some French.

He is reputed to be a brilliant analyst.  

There have been some questions about his skills as a manager. His stint as Defence Minister is sometimes seen as a failure and during his period as Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the defence ministries Russian military procurement appeared to be at a standstill.

This is unfair.

As Defence Minister it fell to Ivanov to bring the difficult war against the jihadist insurgency in the Caucasus to a successful conclusion. So far this remains the only case of a non-Islamic power winning a clearcut military victory against an armed jihadist movement.  

In August 2008 the Russian military won in just five days a decisive victory over Georgia, following Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia. 

There has been much criticism of the Russian military’s performance during that war, some of it reasonable, but most of it unfair. An objective observer would note that the Russian military carried out an exceptionally complicated military operation in sometimes difficult terrain against an enemy who on the battlefield equalled them in numbers at whirlwind speed and with total success.

The contrast with the chaotic handling of the Chechen war 10 years before is striking.

Whilst Ivanov was no longer Defence Minister when the war against Georgia took place, the Russian victory in that war is testament to the significant revival of the Russian military during his watch.

As for the procurement problems, these would appear to have been due more to a lack of resources than to any managerial failures on Ivanov’s part.  

Moreover, as might be expected from someone whose background is in analysis and intelligence, Ivanov appears to have focused the limited resources he was given on upgrading Russia’s command and control systems, rather than on new hardware. These are essential to a modern military but by definition are less visible to outsiders.

On close study it emerges that much of the criticism that is made of Ivanov’s time as Defence Minister and as head of the country’s military industries comes from Russian liberals and from the West.

It would be an understatement to say that the West does not like him.  Ivanov makes little secret of his mistrust of the West and is never hesitant to say so to Western officials in forthright terms and in faultless English.

I witnessed an example of this in January 2008, at the time of the so- called reset, when Ivanov gave an interview to RT in which he made no attempt to conceal his cynicism and mistrust of it.

For Russian liberals Ivanov is an arch typical silovik — a politician or official with a background in the defence and security establishment — and is therefore by definition someone to be opposed and feared. The fact that he is known to be suspicious of the West for some Russian liberals is further cause to dislike him.

Ivanov’s current position as Putin’s chief of staff and head of the Presidential Administration puts him right at the centre of the Russian political and administrative machine.

The Presidential Administration is the Russian government’s key coordinating and policy making body. It has inherited many of the functions (and allegedly some of the personnel) of the former Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, whose former offices in Moscow’s Staraya Ploshchad (“Old Square”) it now occupies.

As it head Ivanov’s influence reaches into every branch of the Russian administration, while as Putin’s chief of staff he acts as Putin’s principal political adviser and as Putin’s contact point with the state bureaucracy and with the government.

Whatever doubts there may have been about Ivanov’s management skills have now been laid to rest by his brilliant organisation of the Victory Day celebrations.

To say that the Victory Day celebrations were high profile would be an understatement. Their overwhelming success cannot but reflect well on Ivanov, their organiser. 

If it was Ivanov who came up with or backed the idea for the march of the Immortal Regiment, it shows he is acquiring the common touch, something he has previously appeared to lack. 

Moreover Putin’s website, very unusually, is carrying a transcript of an interview Ivanov has given RT, in which he discusses the Victory Day celebrations and their meaning for Russia. 

It is unusual, to say the least, for Putin’s website to carry someone else’s interview, and off the top of my head I do not remember seeing it happen before. The fact that Ivanov is being given space on Putin’s website is to say the least interesting.

It’s too early to talk of Ivanov as Putin’s likely successor, but he is obviously on the up and is someone to watch.

Source: Russia Insider 19-05-2015