Tag: sanctions

The US Sanctions on Russia are Indirect SANCTIONS on the European Countries

Michel Chossudovsky, RT on

European countries are toeing the US line on sanctions against Russia, but when it comes to the economy they say they don’t want those sanctions, Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Center for Research on Globalization, told RT. RT: Obama said that the West is united against Russia, and that Russia could face further isolation. Angela Merkel, though, wants to deescalate the situation. The Czech parliament also voted against more sanctions. Why aren’t they all on the same page? Michael Chossudovsky: This is a double-edged sword because the EU imports more than one-third of its gas and fuel from Russia. And consequently, if there are sanctions imposed on Russia, this will immediately backlash. In effect these are indirect sanctions on the EU, because the EU has no immediate alternative to those purchases of fuel and natural gas from the Russian Federation. The pressure for the imposition of sanctions is emanating from Washington – and the governments of the European countries may in fact toe the line at the diplomatic level. But when it comes to the economic and trade the answer is no, we don’t want those sanctions, because immediately it is going to penalize not the Russian people, but the people of the EU.

Washington Is Making War Inevitable in Ukraine: FAILure of German Leadership

Paul Craig Roberts on

The Failure Of German Leadership – Merkel Whores For Washington Washington, enabled by its compliant but stupid NATO puppets, is pushing the Ukrainian situation closer to war. German Chancellor Merkel has failed her country, Europe, and world piece. Germany is the strength of the EU and NATO. Had Merkel said “No” to sanctions on Russia, that would have been the end of the crisis that Washington is brewing, a crisis unlikely to be ended short of war. But Merkel has signed away the sovereignty of the German nation and assigned the fate of Germany to a province in the American Empire. Thus has Merkel and the weak German leadership consigned the world to war. Already blamed for World War 1 and World War 2, now Germany will be blamed for World War 3.

Neocons Who Brought YOU the Iraq War Endorse Most Powerful AIPAC’s Iran Bill

Jim Lobe / The 4th Media News on

The neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the successor organization of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), has just published another open letter (reproduced below) to Congressional leaders that implicitly endorses what I have called the “Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013,” known officially as the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 (S. 1881). I say implicitly, because it doesn’t come right out and urge support for the specific bill, which AIPAC and the Israel lobby, for which AIPAC is the vanguard, are flogging as hard as they possibly can. But the intention is pretty clear. This letter — like PNAC, FPI is essentially a “letterhead organization” that issues manifestos, rather than a real think tank or grassroots membership organization — was signed by 72 “former U.S. government officials and foreign policy experts,” the vast majority of whom are easily identified as neoconservatives, as opposed to “conservatives,” the highly questionable term used by the Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin, who reported on the letter even before it was published on the FPI website to describe the signatories. (One wonders whether Rogin was given the letter on the condition that the authors be described as “conservatives” rather than “neoconservatives,” which really has become something of a dirty word over the past decade due to its association with the Iraq war and their enthusiasm over other ill-advised military adventures.)