THE ROVING
EYE NATO
aims for a Nobel war prize By
Pepe Escobar
The European Union (EU), this
Monday in Oslo, received the Nobel Peace Prize for
advancing peace, reconciliation, democracy and
human rights.
How exciting. Look at the
cast selected to receive the award; the
spectacularly useless Herman van Rompuy (president
of the European Council); the spectacularly
mediocre Jose Manuel Barroso (president of the
European Commission); and non-entity Martin
Schulz, president of the European Parliament. The Rolling
Stones may be geriatric, but at least they
still know how to work a crowd.
Barroso
must have been loaded on Douro wine; he said the
EU is "a powerful inspiration for many around the
world". Well, the love affair of the Chinese
masses with Audi and Prada is not exactly inspired
by the EU. He also said the EU is about "the free
consent of states to share sovereignty"; well, the
Brits are so thrilled with it that an overwhelming
percentage of the population wants to leave.
But Barroso may have been on to something
when he defended the euro: "We will stand by it."
So what the Norwegians - which, wisely,
are not part of the EU - did was to award a Nobel
Prize to the (battered, devalued) euro. Take it as
a PR boost; after all no two EU members are able
to agree on taxation, on regulating financial
turbo-capitalism, on what to do about a bankrupt
Greece and soon the whole Club Med, or on what
those somber suits at the European Central Bank
(ECB) are really up to.
As a matter of
fact, few apart from that legion of Brussels
bureaucrats on fat expense accounts know what the
hell the EU is for, other than lunch in Paris and
dinner in Parma without carrying a passport (oh
yes; fabulous gastronomy is the EU's saving grace,
at least for those who can afford it).
The
EU exists basically to uphold article 3 of the
Lisbon Treaty; it's supposed to be a
"highly-competitive market social economy",
transacting in euros. Yes, you have the right to
remain puzzled - because any examination of recent
headlines reveals this scheme is not working. The
scheme is run by a technocratic caste addicted to
"structural adjustments" that condemn dozens of
millions to the pit of austerity. It's as if those
Brussels bureaucrats were saying" You're either
with us - with the euro - or against us (and then
it's war). Yet the fact is, economic war - on
European citizens - is already on.
It's
only rock'n war... The EU's foreign policy
may also be a joke, as in 27 headless chickens
shooting at random - and at each other - on
everything from Palestine to the admission of
Turkey. But one thing the EU really well does is
to produce, market and sell weapons to everyone
involved in the business of war.
Asia
Times Online has independently confirmed with two
EU-based diplomats that the EU - via its
US-dominated military arm, NATO - is getting ready
to yet another war, in Syria. This confirms a
recent report along the same lines by German daily
Suddeutsche Zeitung (Moon of Alabama offers a very
good translation here).
The diplomats confirmed to ATol that the
secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) - the spectacularly mediocre
Anders Fogh Rasmussen - is itching for a war in
Syria, enveloped in "NATO must not bury its head
in the sand" rhetoric.
Reciting his lines
directly from Washington, Rasmussen is strongly
supported by Turkey, Britain and France, with
Germany caught in an extremely ambivalent
position; German Foreign Minister Guido
Westerwelle has discarded war in favor of a
political solution.
Yet itching for war is
one thing, clinching the deal is another. Even a
directive for NATO to start getting its act
together in Syria needs to be approved by all 28
NATO member countries. Still, here is the skeleton
of the deal; Washington will keep ordering its
Danish puppet Rasmussen to prepare the ground for
war, by all means necessary. Welcome to Syria as
Libya 2.0 - even though there's no way Washington
can justify yet another Responsibility to Protect
(R2P) scam at the UN Security Council.
Yes
Brussels, we got a problem. This is happening just
as Patriot missiles are being deployed to the
Turkish border, along with 400 German troops.
German public opinion does not want yet another
war in the Muslim world. There are elections in
Germany in 2013. Angela Merkel and Westerwelle are
not exactly a suicidal bunch.
The spin on
the Patriot missiles - that they will "protect"
Turkey against any possible missiles launched from
Syria - comes straight from the weapons of mass
deception playbook. Frederick Ben Hodges, the head
of NATO's brand new Allied Land Command, based in
Izmir, Turkey, told the Anatolia news agency that
the Patriots will be there to stop Syrian chemical
missiles.
As if Bashar al-Assad, as much
as Frau Merkel, was a suicidal nut. The only
people who really believe the
Washington-instigated intel hype according to
which Damascus "might" use chemical weapons as a
last resort are Danish lapdog Rasmussen and the
British/French/Turkish club of political
mediocrities. Crude NATO psy ops is not likely to
scare the Syrian government.
As for the
spectacularly erratic Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, he has been consistent in only one
thing; he's got a fever, and the only prescription
is a no-fly zone. Even though Turkish public
opinion also does not want a war, Erdogan could
not get rid of his fever. The US/NATO spin machine
tried everything - from bribing hordes of
officials in Damascus to blaming mini-Holocausts
on Assad every other week. It didn't work.
The so-called "rebels" - infested with
Salafi-jihadis - in fact "control" only rural,
Sunni-majority backwaters or slums around the
major cities. There may be as many as 40,000
fighters around the suburbs of Damascus; but they
may be about to step into a monstrous ambush set
up by the Syrian Army.
So the alleged
game-changer has got to be extended show time for
the chemical weapons scare, leading - hopefully? -
to the no-fly zone Holy Grail.
...But I
like it Never mind that the incessantly
hyped "pro-democracy" Free Syrian Army (FSA) - a
dodgy bunch financed and logistically supported by
the US, NATO and those Persian Gulf paragons of
democracy - is totally infiltrated by
Libyan/Syrian/Iraqi hardcore jihadis killing
civilians indiscriminately on behalf of the human
rights-loving Nobel Peace Prize EU.
Yet
they persist. Under the watchful eyes of the US
and NATO-GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) club, top
rebels met in Turkey last Friday to elect a
"30-member unified command". Predictably, these
are all linked to either the Muslim Brotherhood
(MB) or Salafis; from Islamist commanders Jamal
Marouf and Ahmad al-Issa to Salafi icon Colonel
Abdelbasset al-Tawil. The top two from Aleppo are
- what else - Salafis. Translation; these are the
ones that the US State Department has not
rebranded (yet) as "terrorists".
The
overall modus operandi is to be expanded: more
European-financed weapons to Salafi-jihadi killer
gangs. France is showering euros on them across
the Turkish border. And this Wednesday the Friends
of Syria meet again in Marrakech, Morocco, heavily
biased towards the NATO-GCC "we want war" nucleus.
Norwegians, you have nothing to lose but
your sense of ridicule - as if that was not
already lost; after all, if a messy EU, messy
currency and all, may bag your Nobel Peace Prize,
it's time to award a struggling NATO a Nobel War
Prize. Rasmussen may be no Mick Jagger, but he's
itching for it; it's only rock'n war, and he likes
it.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
