IF THIEVES AND ROBBERS
COME TO THEE
BIG WHEELS TURNING
by Norman Pearlstine
CAPITALISM NOT ONLY WON, IT TURNED INTO A MARVELLOUS MACHINE OF PROSPERITY, LED BY PEOPLE WHO COULD TAKE AN IDEA AND TURN IT INTO AN INDUSTRY.
Make money, be proud of it; make more money, be prouder of it. Henry R. Luce, 1937.
With those words, this magazine's co-founder joined Calvin Coolidge ("The chief business of the American people is business"), former General Motors president Charles E. Wilson ("What is good for General Motors is good for the country") and, alas, Wall Street's Gordon Gekko ("Greed...is good. Greed is right. Greed works") in defining and defending the 20th century as the century of business.
This issue, Time's third in a series of five that chronicles the 100 most influential people of the century, is devoted to the 20 remarkable builders and titans (giants) who most embody capitalism and its triumphs...
From Henry Ford at one end of the century to Bill Gates at the other...It is no accident that our list is almost entirely American...
Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan were not the only robber barons...but the scale on which (they) operated was unprecedented, paving the way for a world of global companies and capital flows. And their money built a platform for philanthropy that has grown every bit as much as their corporations. Time, December 7, 1998.
CLINTON'S SPEECH TO THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
This is the biggest financial challenge facing the world in a half century, and the United States has an inescapable obligation to lead AND TO LEAD IN A WAY THAT'S CONSISTENT WITH OUR VALUES, and our obligation to see that what we're doing helps lift the lives of ordinary people, here at home and all around the world.
Now the Council on Foreign Relations has always stood for POLITICAN AND ECONOMIC FREEDOM (read license), since right after World War I...But if you consider today's economic difficulties, disruptions and plain old deep personal disappointments of--now--tens of millions of people around the world, it is clear to me that there is now a stark challenge not only to ECONOMIC FREEDOM, but, if unaddressed, a challenge that could stem the rising tide of POLITICAL LIBERTY as well.
Obviously we have profound interests here. It is a great irony that we are at a moment of unsurpassed economic strength at a time of such turmoil in the world economy. We, I think, all of us in this room, know that OUR FUTURE PROSPERITY depends upon whether we can, with others (read with or without others), restore confidence, manage change, stabilize the financial system and spur robust global growth...I believe the industrial world's chief priority today plainly is to spur growth (read increased environmental devastation)...
Growth at home depends upon growth abroad. A full 30 percent of our growth just since I became President has been due to OUR EXPANDING POSITIVE INVOLVEMENT IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. That's why ordinary Americans should care if Asia or Russia...is on solid economic footing...THESE PEOPLE ARE OUR CUSTOMERS...
Finally these nations are our friends, our allies and our security partners. WHERE ECONOMIC TURMOIL PLUNGES MILLIONS INTO SUDDEN POVERTY AND DISRUPTS AND ORIENTS THE LIVES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE (Who makes this happen?), the risks of political and social instability and of a turn from democracy clearly rise.
JUST LOOK AT RUSSIA. Russia is facing an economic crisis that threatens the extraordinary progress the Russian people have made in the last seven years, building a new society from the ground up. The ruble and the stock market have plummeted. Banks are weak. Tax collections are slow. The government has trouble paying its debts and its salaries.
Amid such political uncertainty and economic difficulty, some now talk of abandoning the path of reform and returning to policies of the past, even policies that have already failed.
At worst adversity in Russia could affect not only the Russian economy and prospects for our economic cooperation...it can have an impact on our cooperation with Russia on nuclear disarmament, on fighting terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, on standing together for peace from the Balkans to the Middle East.
Never has there been a more important moment to set a clear direction for the future, to affirm the commitment of Russia to democracy and to free markets and to take decisive steps to stabilize the economy and restore investor confidence. But if Russia is willing to take these steps we must do everything we can to provide support to them, because again I say as long as ordinary people don't feel any benefits from this in the end it's going to be difficult to sustain the direction we think the world should take...
At this moment, therefore, the United States is called upon once again to lead, to organize the forces of a committed world, to challenge the unruly elements of the global economy into positive avenues TO ADVANCE OUR INTERESTS, REINFORCE OUR VALUES, ENHANCE OUR SECURITY.
In this room I think it is not too simple to say we know what to do. The World War II generation did it for us 50 years ago. Now it is time for us to rise to our responsibility, as America has been called upon to do so often so many times in the past. We can, if we do that, redeem the promise of a global economy and strengthen our own nation for a new century.
NO EASY ANSWERS, CLINTON TELLS RUSSIANS
MOSCOW__President Clinton delivered a sober lecture to Russian leaders and the Russian people yesterday about the hard realities of capitalism and the price of international support for relief from Russia's current financial crisis...
The speech--the only extended public remarks he will deliver on the two-day visit--matched the mood of this sullen city. While he offered words of encouragement and vows of friendship, the message was blunt and bleak. Russia's creditors and its international partners, he said, will not tolerate a return to state control of important industries, efforts to escape financial hardship by printing rubles or special favors for cronies of powerful figures in the Kremlin.
Clinton then spelled out what he called "the rules of the road" that Russia must follow if it wishes to become a modern state in the global economy...
"These are not radical theories," Clinton said, "They are simple facts proven by experience. How Russia reacts to them will fundamentally affect your future."...New York Times News Service.
RUSSIA-CHINA THEME:
CONTAIN THE WEST
by Michael R. Gordon
Moscow__President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia and President Jiang Zemin of China pledged today to work together to limit American power and influence in the world.
In a summit meeting at the start of a five-day state visit that was laden with political symbolism, the two leaders did not single out the United States by name. But their message, aimed in part at a Russian public that has been bombarded by alarmist reports about NATO expansion and the United States role as the sole remaining superpower, was clear.
"No country should seek hegemony, practice power politics or monopolize international affairs," said a Russian-Chinese statement on the need for a "multipolar world."
"It is meant to be a political statement that there is no master of the universe," a senior Western official said...
MOSCOW JOURNAL
by Michael R. Gordon
MOSCOW__An angry, flame-spitting mechanical dragon rumbled across Red Square, as the former seat of Soviet Power was transformed into a stage for a glitzy, nationalist extravaganza.
By the time the weekend show for Moscow's 850th anniversary was over, the peasant-everyman-Ivan had slain the dragon, demonstrating the courage of the Russian people. St. George had ridden in on a gleaming white charger (see Revelation 19:11-16), demonstrating the inspiration the people derived from the Russian Orthodox Church...
Circus animals ,dancers, musicians and pop stars were woven into the nationally broadcast spectacular, which owed more to "Jesus Christ Superstar" than to "Aida" and which was crowned by a brilliant fireworks display...
The weekend of raucous celebration underscored the city's status as an economic as well as a political capital--with a powerful oligarchy and a small emerging middle class. There were really two sets of festivities: one for the inner circle and the other for the masses...
Russia's elite savored Luciano Pavarotti and other world-renowned artists. The political establishment now includes not only the newly rich business leaders and bankers, but also Gennadi A. Zyuganov the defeated Communist Presidential candidate. He was among the dignitaries who watched THE TITANIC STRUGGLE BETWEEN IVAN AND THE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON.
WORLDBEATERS
Puffed Up by Prosperity, U.S. Struts its Stuff
by Louis Uchitelle
Not long ago, Americans were envious of Japan. Its products seemed so superior, its corporate practices so effective. Western Europe, too, spawned juggernaut indistrial economies. And looking abroad, Americans were caught up in self-criticism. For all the wealth of their own giant system, it seemed pitiful and helpless. And they turned to emulation.
The mood has flipped, of course. Triumph and self-satisfaction are the rising American themes...It is corporate America that now demands emulation. After years of travail, this country has finally fielded the right formular for generating wealth and prosperity in the highly competative global economy...
Let Us Celebrate
The self-congratulation emerging...is exuberent. "We are the most flexible, adaptable economy on earth," declared Bruce Steinberg, chief economist at Merrill Lynch & Company. "Let us celebrate an American triumph," wrote Mortimer B. Zuckerman...in an editorial in U.S. News & World Report, which he owns. "The mantra," he added, "is privatize, deregulate and do not interfere with the market."
FREE-MARKET ECONOMY BREAKING DOWN
by William Greider
OFFICIAL WASHINGTON is slowly awakening to the storm upon us, but its faint-hearted response ensures that this global unraveling will become far more severe before the United States and other governments find the will to confront it decisively.
We are not yet at a worldwide depression resembling the one that unfolded between 1929 and 1933--not yet. But leaders in government, business, and finance are committing the same basic error of judgment that led, once before, to epic tragedy. Hubris, plus their weak grasp of economic history, blinds many smart and powerful people to the gathering dangers.
Authorities are clinging wishfully to the reigning free-market orthodoxy, as it breaks down before their very eyes. The laissez-faire theory of efficient markets did not predict this crisis and can't explain it...The proposition that utterly unregulated markets rule society more wisely than sovereign governments is being smashed by reality.
Most members of Congress, absorbed in other matters, seem oblivious to the economic portents and vast suffering in other nations. They will be shaken awake shortly...
ARE INVESTORS SETTING FREE THE BEARS?
by John Rothchild
Last Year, we heard we were leaders of a global economy, which explained why the stocks in big U.S. companies were selling at Tiffany prices. Earlier this summer, after Asian markets fell off the Pacific Rim, we heard we weren't very global after all, and our economy was highly impervious to Asian or later, Russian troubles. Lately the U.S. stocj market has disagreed. What an ironic end to the domino theory: It is not the old Communist dominoes that threaten our prosperity, it's the new capitalist dominoes.
So bears have replaced the barbarians at the gate, and prevailing expert opinion didn't announce the Bear's arrival. This is not unusual. Prevailing expert opinion didn't foresee the Mexican comedown in 1995, or the later Asian comedown. In fact, up to the month of Asia's fall, the financial press was tom-toming the Asian miracle, and trumpeting the superior economic growth rates of Singapore, Hong Kong and other regional powerhouses fueled by Asia's propriatary capitalist knack.
Over the history of financial forecasting, prevailing opinion at key turning points in shareholder fortune has been constantly mistaken. Domestic seers were rhapsodically at the edge of two crumbly peaks (in the late 1920s and the late 1960s).
Didn't a consensus of forecasters in early 1929 forecast a market of "manifest destiny," and that "the destiny is to go continuously forward?" (New York Times, September, 1929). That same month, didn't Business Week note a "holy-rolling exaltation of the unparalleled prosperity of the 'New Era?'"...
Ten years down the road, this latest setback likely will seem inconsequential, just as the 1987 crash that took the Dow from 2700 to 1700 seems trivial. But if this latest New Era ends the way the prior New Eras did, we're in for a financial winter of discontent.
GLOBAL TURMOIL
by Robert Samuelson
Washington__We should not fool ourselves that the recent sell-offs in world stock markets simply reflect a nervous reaction to Russia's turmoil or a long-overdue "correction." They signify instead a gathering fear that the global economy is drifting toward a dangerous slump driven BY FORCES THAT WORLD LEADERS ONLY VAGUELY UNDERSTAND AND SEEM POWERLESS TO EFFECT. EVEN THOSE SUPPOSED TITANS OF GLOBAL FINANCE--Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan--give little hint publicly that they grasp the threat or know what to do about it...
Given today's prosperity, Americans are naturally disbelieving. Unemployment is 4.5 percent (and this is considered very good). Inflation barely exists. Exports--the sector directly affected by the global slump--are only 12 percent of U.S. GDP. But economists (and others) often blunder by projecting the present into the future. America's prosperity is precarious precisely because things can't get better; they could easily get worse...
What is to be done? Good question. The International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury have treated each ailing economy as an isolated case in need of "reform." Larger problems--capital flight, global growth--have been ignored. Meanwhile political leaders in the world's three largest economies, (The United States, Japan, and Germany), are weak. The result is an intellectual and political vacuum.
Why shouldn't the world's stock markets be nervous? The wonder is that it took them so long to get that way. Richmond Times Dispatch.
ANOTHER TIME OF TROUBLES
by Mitchell Landsberg
MOSCOW__A strange thing happened when Russia's economy collapsed last summer. While Western economists spun out the most dire scenarios of hyperinflation, social unrest and even civil war, Russians went on with their daily business and, for the most part, coped. They cursed government ineptitude and corruption that, once again, had plundered their pockets and cleaned out their bank accounts. But they didn't riot; they didn't stop working; and they didn't starve.
Nearly a year later, Russia stands at a new crossroads, its political future even more the focus of concern... That's not to say things are rosey. Russia remains deeply rutted in a depression. Social problems continue to worsen. Declines in health care and education threaten the nation's future; growing crime and despair imperil the here-and-now.
But when people speak of crisis in Russia, they are more likely to be talking about politics than socioeconomics. For Russia's democracy is a work in progress, tattered by intrigue, scandal and corruption...
With presidential elections scheduled next summer, some question whether he (Yeltsin) will ever yield power willingly...For a better part of a decade, Yeltsin has been the strongest force pushing Russia toward the West,much as Peter the Great did three centuries ago.
For a time this spring, NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia awakened a fierce, anti-Western nationalism that appeared likely to do what inflation, stagnation and scandal could not: Shove Russia off the road set out roughly a decade ago, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev effectively declared the Cold War over and prepared Russia to rejoin the world it had turned its back on 70 years before.
"NATO has opened a new epoch for us like Hitler," the author Alexander Solzhenitsyn said at one point.
Yeltsin clearly is having none of that, as his performance at the June meeting of world leaders in Cologne, Germany, showed. "I am among my friends now," he declared, speaking of such figures as President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair...
"THEY WANTED THE FREE MARKET. They wanted liberalization. THEY WANTED TO LIVE LIKE AMERICANS," said Boris Kagarlitsky, a leftist political analyst witht he Russian Academy of Sciences. "I always say people were punished for their own stupidity."
"It's like getting on a plane and being told you're embarking for America and when you take off you discover that you're actually going to Burkina Faso or some such place," he added. "And at that point, you can't get off."
With the public disgusted by the path of economic reform and increasingly angry at the West, the situation seems ripe for an authoritarian, nationalist candidate who can promise to restore order and pride to the country.
Some people warn darkly that Russia is heading toward the creation of a new Iron Curtain, a new dictatorship...Kagarlitsky...sees the liklihood of a middle path--a semi-authoritarian, semi-leftist government. It would be, he said, "a very imperfect democracy. But I think that's better than a good dictatorship. The Associated Press.
BATTLE OF THE BANKERS
by Paul Quinn-Judge
IN POSTCOMMUNIST RUSSIA, THE SPOILS GO TO THE WELL CONNECTED. NOW THREE TOP CAPITALISTS ARE IN A VICIOUS FEUD THAT INVOLVES WEALTH AND POWER
In the old days of the Soviet Union, communist ideologists taught the simpleminded notion that the bourgeois capitalist world was run by small groups of monopolists who manipulated governments and the news media from the comfort of their wood-paneled offices.
Now, in the new Russia, the half-dozen or so richest men in the country seem to be living out that teaching. These new oligarchs, all fabulously rich thanks mainly to their intimacy with the country's democratic leaders, control as much as half of the country's gross domestic product and many of the most powerful media outlets. Last year they played a major role in the reelection of President Boris Yeltsin. To say, as many Russians do, that the oligarchs run the country is an exaggeration. To say they would like to is closer to the truth.
But their power and wealth are so great, their control of the economy so pervasive and their rivalries so bitter that Yeltsin is trying to bring them to heel, declaring that the state is once again going to take control of the economy...
The bankers' war...has deepened the impression widespread in the West, that Yeltsin's Russia is in danger of becoming what U.S. researchers recently called a "criminal-syndicalist state," controlled by an alliance of corrupt politicians, businessmen and crime bosses. It has shattered the credibility of the media, which for a few brief years following the collapse of the Soviet Union had a reputation for independence and integrity. And it has damaged the standing of young reformers...who take a bleak view of the war. Time, October 20, 1997.
RUSSIA SEES U.S. BID
TO DOMINATE THE WORLD
DOCUMENT BROADENS NUCLEAR ARMS USE SCENARIOS
MOSCOW__Saturday, January 15, 2000. Russia unveiled its new national security doctrine yesterday, broadening the Kremlin's authority to use nuclear weapons and accusing the United States of trying to weaken Russia and become the world's dominant power.
The doctrine replaces one adopted in 1997, a time when political and military partnership with the West were still buzzwords and many Russians remained optimistic about the country's economic future.
But Russia's attitude to the West was hardened following the eastward expansion of NATO and the alliance's intervention in Yugoslavia, and the nation's economic reform efforts have suffered serious setbacks.
"The idea of partnership has vanished," said Sergei Sokut, a military affairs writer...Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the "Concept of National Security" into law on Monday, but the full document wasnot published in Russian newspapers, until yesterday.
The most significant change in the lengthy document, which covers two full newspaper pages, concerns the use of Russia's powerful nuclear arsenal...
The previous doctrine stated that Russia would use nuclear weapons only in cases when its national sovereignty was threatened.
"The level and scale of military threats is growing," the doctrine said, as if to justify the new emphasis on the potential use of nuclear weapons...
The Doctrine identifies two "mutually exclusive trends in international relations following the end of the Cold War: one an attempt to create a multipolar world and the other an allleged effort led by the United States to dominate the world. The Associated Press.
__________
"They pay no heed to the real hidden meanings of things, but divert themselves instead with all kinds of iniquitous arcane lore…They do not know the hidden meaning of what is actually taking place, nor have they ever understood the lessons of the past. Consequently, they have no knowledge of what is coming upon them, and have done nothing to save their souls from the deeper implications of present events.
This, however, will symbolize things for you. What is going to happen is, as it were, that all iniquity is going to be shut up in the womb and prevented from coming to birth. Wrong is going to depart before Right, as darkness departs before light. As smoke disappears and is no more, so will Wrong disappear forever. But Right will be revealed like the Sun. The world will rest on the sound Foundation. All who cling to rarified arcane lore will cease to exist. The world will be filled with knowledge, and ignorance exist no more.
The thing is certain to come. The prophecy is true, and by this you may know that it will not be revoked:
Do not all peoples hate wrongdoing? Yet, is it not rampant among them all? Are not the praises of truth sung by all nations? Yet is there a single race or tribe that really adheres to it? What nation like to be oppressed by a stronger power? Or who wants his property plundered unjustly? Yet, is there a single nation that has not oppressed its neighbor? Or where in the world will you find a people that has not plundered the property of another?" The Dead Sea Scriptures, by. Theodor Gaster, p.429.
ARE THE ISRAELI'S WILLING TO START WORLD WAR III?
Exclusive to American Free Press
By M. Raphael Johnson
11-8-3
According to a recent article by veteran British military analyst Joseph Vialls, Russia has sent the most advanced and feared missile in the world, owned only by Russia and China, the P270 Moskit, also known as the 'Sunburn,' to Damascus and Tehran. This can only be understood as a counter to the Israeli threats to use nuclear weapons against their enemies.
The Sunburn flies at an altitude of 60 feet and is nearly impossible to defend against. A few fired at Israel could make that state 'history.' Add to this a new Russian air force installation near the Kyrgystan/Russia border, coupled with a Chinese base just over their western border with Kyrgystan, and Armageddon may be on the horizon. All Russian jets at this new base just outside of Bishkek are equipped with Sunburn missiles.
Vialls writes: The gloves are off, and with America and Israel still unable to steal any oil from Iraq because someone keeps blowing the pipelines, Russian and Chinese firepower buildup suddenly slammed the door firmly shut on Caspian oil reserves in the old Soviet republics. For more than a decade American oil multinationals have been conducting 'joint ventures' in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea, with the stated intent of pumping stolen crude oil out through Turkey, then on to western markets. Now this route has been blocked permanently, and America is in no position to do anything about it, because a large part of the U.S. conventional army is currently bogged down in Iraq, being shot at and killed on a daily basis.
For many who have been watching this region as a confrontation between the United States and Israel versus Russia largely over the control of the biggest gas and oil deposits in the world, a new front has been opened. As a response to this checkmate, Sharon recently visited Putin on Nov. 3 to meet with him concerning the nuclear issue in Iran. Quickly, Sharon permitted Palestinians to return to their jobs and eased their travel restrictions.
Since the end of the Gorbachev era, the Russian oligarchs, nearly all Jewish by ethnicity (with the noticeable exception of Vladimir Potanin), have controlled nearly all key sectors of the Russian economy. This, of course, includes Russia's major ace-in-the-hole, oil and gas. The giant YUKOS conglomerate is presently one of the largest oil companies in the world, valued at about $40 billion. YUKOS is the result of a 'loans for shares' deal brokered through the semi-coherent Boris Yeltsin in 1995. Here, the liberal Russian government swapped loyalty from the oligarchs in exchange for privatization at prices far below that of the market. This $40 billion giant was bought for about $300 million, thus looting the entire Russian economy for the benefit of a handful of Israeli citizens living in Russia.
When YUKOS' chair, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested at the end of last month, the American capitalist establishment went orbital. Forgetting the 1999 New York Times's expose on massive money laundering and fraud from YUKOS, the conservative establishment began to lionize oligarchy and, specifically, Khodorkovsky. Recently, The Financial Times weighed in with a giggly piece from Chrystia Freeland, which referred to the oligarch as a 'democratic activist.' About a paragraph later, the writer said - without irony - that the oligarch's model for economics is the robber baron factories of the early American 20th century. Fox News, on Nov. 3, referred to YUKOS as the most progressive corporation in Russia.
According to a Nov. 3 Agence France-Presse story, Khodorkovsky made a deal with Jacob Rothschild this year that control of the YUKOS giant would pass to Rothschild in the event of Khodorkovsky's arrest. (I DO NOT KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE). However, the Russian government has frozen all YUKOS assets for the time being. It is significant that YUKOS's liberal pressure group, the Open Russia Foundation, is completely controlled by Rothschild now that its founder is in jail. As their official mission statement reads, "The motivation for the establishment of the Open Russia Foundation is the wish to foster enhanced openness, understanding and integration between the people of Russia and the rest of the world."
Their board of trustees includes Rothschild and Henry Kissinger. The Washington, D.C. launch of the organization included Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Librarian of Congress James Billington, one of the leading voices against Russian traditionalism in the academic establishment. Significantly, the Open Russia Foundation recently provided Yale University with substantial grants to study the Russian economy as well as providing the Carnegie Foundation with 3 percent of its entire operating budget.
It seems that the drive to control the globe's energy is progressing. The American empire's battles in Serbia, Central Asia, Iraq and Chechnya are one and the same war. Other than fighting Israel's enemies, these adventures are also wars to control Central Asian oil and natural gas (one of the main pipelines from the Caspian Sea went straight through Serbia). The control of this wealth by the United States and Israel necessitates bypassing Russian channels. This means that the Jewish oligarchy in Russia would become the central actor in world politics.
The Israeli/CIA complex was using Khodorkovsky to sell off the assets of YUKOS to Exxon/Mobil (as well as a smaller piece to Texaco), hence bringing Russia's pipelines into the hands of the western powers. The Nov. 5 New York Times also indicated that the Bush family's Carlyle Group was involved. It was not long after Putin began threatening the YUKOS conglomerate that neo-conservative pundits such as William Kristol and Ariel Cohen began calling Putin a 'communist,' 'another Stalin' and 'tyrannical.'
The basis of these wild accusations, of course, is the fact that Putin stands in the way of Zionist domination.
From this, the roles of several other variables and players develop clearly. The State Department/Harvard University alliance was meant to 'deregulate,' or 'privatize' much of the Russian economy precisely to keep the Russian state out of the equation. Therefore, pro-Israel oligarchs (that is, Israeli citizens living in Russia) then benefited, placing most of the economy in their hands, and, by extension, Israel's.
Russia's response has been to clamp down on further foreign penetration into defense and other sensitive industries, and specifically, to target those believed to be working for both the CIA and Mossad and attempting to control Central Asian oil. It needs to be reiterated that where the (CIA goes, Mossad goes as well. Israeli and American interests have come together in the dominance of the Central Asian region and therefore, so have liberal ideology, the Beltway set, neo-conservatism, Ivy League eggheads, Christian Zionism, the Rothschilds and the American media.) Afghanistan through the Caspian Sea through to Georgia, Azerbaijan and into the Balkans (not to mention pipelines leading to oil-hungry China), have become one single theater of war over trillions of dollars in oil and gas wealth, incorporating every single power center in global politics. The battle against the New World Order is being decided in Moscow.
Therefore, all anti-Russian alliances in the region, from Islamic fundamentalism to Slavic separatism to the George Soros 'Open Society' Foundation, are in the interests of the CIA/Exxon/Ivy League/NWO complex. In Azerbaijan, for example, American elites have pushed for a 'democratic' state, that is, a state not under the control of pro-Moscow Heydar Aliev, thus leaving the country open to U.S. oil investment. Aliev, of course, is promoting Russian interests in the region, and thus, has become a ãtyrantä in the Beltway mind. The American response to this situation within this region is to create the GUAAM pact, including, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova.
Cohen gives us a clue as to why this entity was brokered under NATO auspices: "The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline will export up to 1 million barrels per year of high quality Caspian crude oil by 2005." In other words, billions of dollars of oil are slated to be pumped through this region very soon, and the economic/military alliance of GUAAM is the means to ensure American control over it. This connects the Serbian, Afghan and Iraqi wars.
Russia's response to Israel's terror threats against most of the Islamic world is fully understood as both a political and economic question. Further, increasing cooperation between Russia and India, as well as China, are clear markers that Putin, one of the few actually competent leaders in world politics, is building an anti-imperialist and anti-NATO alliance with the aim of countering American/Zionist moves for the world's oil and gas wealth.
The interests, however, go even further than Zionist control over American foreign policy decision-making. Vialls writes on another topic: that the existence of the American/Zionist empire is based on the victory of American forces over the Russian and Islamic. Of course, both in Bosnia and Chechnya, the Mossad/CIA operatives have not hesitated to assist fundamentalists in fighting Slavic nationalism, largely because Slavicism is a greater threat with Putin firmly in the saddle. Islam, divided and leaderless, with a history of centuries of defeat and colonialism behind it, is only a potential force in world politics.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/11_07_03/
Countdown_to_Armageddon/countdown_to_armageddon.html
