BRITISH & NATO-ALLIED OIL ARAB ALLIANCE & IMPERIALIST FOREIGN POLICY RESPONSIBLE FOR JIHAD ON WEST

BRITISH & NATO-ALLIED OIL ARAB ALLIANCE & IMPERIALIST FOREIGN POLICY RESPONSIBLE FOR JIHAD ON WEST HIGHLIGHT FROM JOHN PILGER ARTICLE  ... British foreign policy ... alliance with extreme Islam, especially the sect known as Wahhabism or Salafism, whose principal custodian and banker is the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain's biggest weapons customer. This imperial marriage reaches back to the Second World War and the early days of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The aim of British policy was to stop pan-Arabism: Arab states developing a modern secularism, asserting their independence from the imperial west and controlling their resources. The creation of a rapacious Israel was meant to expedite this. Pan-Arabism has since been crushed; the goal now is division and conquest. —John Pilger Britain, Saudi Arabia, Jihad on Britain, FBI Leak, David Cameron, Theresa May, David Blair, UK-Saudi Arms Deal, Bank of Scotland Cluster Bombs, Yemen, South Sudan, Congo, Central African Republic, Libya, Uganda, Mali, MI5, Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger http://johnpilger.com/articles/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know TERROR IN BRITAIN: WHAT DID THE PRIME MINISTER KNOW? 31 May 2017 The unsayable in Britain's general election campaign is this. The causes of the Manchester atrocity, in which 22 mostly young people were murdered by a jihadist, are being suppressed to protect the secrets of British foreign policy. Critical questions - such as why the security service MI5 maintained terrorist "assets" in Manchester and why the government did not warn the public of the threat in their midst - remain unanswered, deflected by the promise of an internal "review". The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years. The LIFG is proscribed by Britain as a terrorist organisation which seeks a "hardline Islamic state" in Libya and "is part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaida". The "smoking gun" is that when Theresa May was Home Secretary, LIFG jihadists were allowed to travel unhindered across Europe and encouraged to engage in "battle": first to remove Mu'ammar Gadaffi in Libya, then to join al-Qaida affiliated groups in Syria. Last year, the FBI reportedly placed Abedi on a "terrorist watch list" and warned MI5 that his group was looking for a "political target" in Britain. Why wasn't he apprehended and the network around him prevented from planning and executing the atrocity on 22 May? These questions arise because of an FBI leak that demolished the "lone wolf" spin in the wake of the 22 May attack - thus, the panicky, uncharacteristic outrage directed at Washington from London and Donald Trump's apology. The Manchester atrocity lifts the rock of British foreign policy to reveal its Faustian alliance with extreme Islam, especially the sect known as Wahhabism or Salafism, whose principal custodian and banker is the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain's biggest weapons customer. This imperial marriage reaches back to the Second World War and the early days of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The aim of British policy was to stop pan-Arabism: Arab states developing a modern secularism, asserting their independence from the imperial west and controlling their resources. The creation of a rapacious Israel was meant to expedite this. Pan-Arabism has since been crushed; the goal now is division and conquest. In 2011, according to Middle East Eye, the LIFG in Manchester were known as the "Manchester boys". Implacably opposed to Mu'ammar Gadaffi, they were considered high risk and a number were under Home Office control orders - house arrest - when anti-Gadaffi demonstrations broke out in Libya, a country forged from myriad tribal enmities. Suddenly the control orders were lifted. "I was allowed to go, no questions asked," said one LIFG member. MI5 returned their passports and counter-terrorism police at Heathrow airport were told to let them board their flights. The overthrow of Gaddafi, who controlled Africa's largest oil reserves, had been long been planned in Washington and London. According to French intelligence, the LIFG made several assassination attempts on Gadaffi in the 1990s - bank-rolled by British intelligence. In March 2011, France, Britain and the US seized the opportunity of a "humanitarian intervention" and attacked Libya. They were joined by Nato under cover of a UN resolution to "protect civilians". Last September, a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry concluded that then Prime Minister David Cameron had taken the country to war against Gaddafi on a series of "erroneous assumptions" and that the attack "had led to the rise of Islamic State in North Africa". The Commons committee quoted what it called Barack Obama's "pithy" description of Cameron's role in Libya as a "shit show". In fact, Obama was a leading actor in the "shit show", urged on by his warmongering Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and a media accusing Gaddafi of planning "genocide" against his own people. "We knew... that if we waited one more day," said Obama, "Benghazi, a city the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world." The massacre story was fabricated by Salafist militias facing defeat by Libyan government forces. They told Reuters there would be "a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda". The Commons committee reported, "The proposition that Mu'ammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence". Britain, France and the United States effectively destroyed Libya as a modern state. According to its own records, Nato launched 9,700 "strike sorties", of which more than a third hit civilian targets. They included fragmentation bombs and missiles with uranium warheads. The cities of Misurata and Sirte were carpet-bombed. Unicef, the UN children's organisation, reported a high proportion of the children killed "were under the age of ten". More than "giving rise" to Islamic State - ISIS had already taken root in the ruins of Iraq following the Blair and Bush invasion in 2003 - these ultimate medievalists now had all of north Africa as a base. The attack also triggered a stampede of refugees fleeing to Europe. Cameron was celebrated in Tripoli as a "liberator", or imagined he was. The crowds cheering him included those secretly supplied and trained by Britain's SAS and inspired by Islamic State, such as the "Manchester boys". To the Americans and British, Gadaffi's true crime was his iconoclastic independence and his plan to abandon the petrodollar, a pillar of American imperial power. He had audaciously planned to underwrite a common African currency backed by gold, establish an all-Africa bank and promote economic union among poor countries with prized resources. Whether or not this would have happened, the very notion was intolerable to the US as it prepared to "enter" Africa and bribe African governments with military "partnerships". The fallen dictator fled for his life. A Royal Air Force plane spotted his convoy, and in the rubble of Sirte, he was sodomised with a knife by a fanatic described in the news as "a rebel". Having plundered Libya's $30 billion arsenal, the "rebels" advanced south, terrorising towns and villages. Crossing into sub-Saharan Mali, they destroyed that country's fragile stability. The ever-eager French sent planes and troops to their former colony "to fight al-Qaida", or the menace they had helped create. On 14 October, 2011, President Obama announced he was sending special forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops were sent to South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent was under way, largely unreported. In London, one of the world's biggest arms fairs was staged by the British government. The buzz in the stands was the "demonstration effect in Libya". The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a preview entitled "Middle East: A vast market for UK defence and security companies". The host was the Royal Bank of Scotland, a major investor in cluster bombs, which were used extensively against civilian targets in Libya. The blurb for the bank's arms party lauded the "unprecedented opportunities for UK defence and security companies." Last month, Prime Minister Theresa May was in Saudi Arabia, selling more of the £3 billion worth of British arms which the Saudis have used against Yemen. Based in control rooms in Riyadh, British military advisers assist the Saudi bombing raids, which have killed more than 10,000 civilians. There are now clear signs of famine. A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from preventable disease, says Unicef. The Manchester atrocity on 22 May was the product of such unrelenting state violence in faraway places, much of it British sponsored. The lives and names of the victims are almost never known to us. This truth struggles to be heard, just as it struggled to be heard when the London Underground was bombed on July 7, 2005. Occasionally, a member of the public would break the silence, such as the east Londoner who walked in front of a CNN camera crew and reporter in mid-platitude. "Iraq!" he said. "We invaded Iraq. What did we expect? Go on, say it." At a large media gathering I attended, many of the important guests uttered "Iraq" and "Blair" as a kind of catharsis for that which they dared not say professionally and publicly. Yet, before he invaded Iraq, Blair was warned by the Joint Intelligence Committee that "the threat from al-Qaida will increase at the onset of any military action against Iraq... The worldwide threat from other Islamist terrorist groups and individuals will increase significantly". Just as Blair brought home to Britain the violence of his and George W Bush's blood-soaked "shit show", so David Cameron, supported by Theresa May, compounded his crime in Libya and its horrific aftermath, including those killed and maimed in Manchester Arena on 22 May. The spin is back, not surprisingly. Salman Abedi acted alone. He was a petty criminal, no more. The extensive network revealed last week by the American leak has vanished. But the questions have not. Why was Abedi able to travel freely through Europe to Libya and back to Manchester only days before he committed his terrible crime? Was Theresa May told by MI5 that the FBI had tracked him as part of an Islamic cell planning to attack a "political target" in Britain? In the current election campaign, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has made a guarded reference to a "war on terror that has failed". As he knows, it was never a war on terror but a war of conquest and subjugation. Palestine. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Syria. Iran is said to be next. Before there is another Manchester, who will have the courage to say that? Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger http://johnpilger.com/articles/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know Very interesting article by investigative journalist, John Pilger, written in aftermath of Manchester Arena attack and ahead of the current London Bridge attack: 3RD JIHAD ATTACK - LONDON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE SLAUGHTER MANCHESTER ARENA SLAUGHTER LONDON BRIDGE SLAUGHTER At least seven people died and 48 people were injured in a two-pronged attack on London Bridge and Borough Market, with police shooting the three suspected assailants dead. The attack started when a van rammed into pedestrians on London Bridge and ended with multiple stabbings at restaurants nearby. Police say the suspects were shot dead within eight minutes of the first call. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/04/europe/london-terror-attack-witness-borough/index.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter It appears that the Western, including British, political establishment is in fact responsible for the attacks on Britons and all Europeans, by Jihadists - as the Jihad was manifested by British and NATO-allied oil Arab (terrorist funding) alliance machinations,  coupled with imperialist Western capitalist foreign policy, as well as capitalist-serving domestic ideology & accompanying domestic policy of decades standing, the consequences of which, the hostage domestic public subsequently reaps.

Thierry Meyssan - Mass Migration & Terrorism - Result of US Strategic Doctrine: Chaos Theory - Pillage of Middle Eastern & African Resources by Destruction of State

SOURCE http://www.voltairenet.org/article187588.html ARTICLE | THIERRY MEYSSAN The European Union is blind to the military strategy of the United States by Thierry Meyssan The political leaders of the European Union are entirely wrong about the Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe and the migration to the Union of people fleeing the war zones. Thierry Meyssan demonstrates here that these are not simply the accidental consequences of conflict in the wider Middle East and Africa, but a strategic objective of the United States. Voltaire Network | Damascus (Syria) | 14 May 2015 23rd April 2015 – the European Council observes a minute of silence in commemoration of the refugees who lost their lives in the Mediterranean. The leaders of the European Union are suddenly being confronted with unexpected situations. On the one hand, terrorist attacks or attempted attacks perpetrated or prepared by individuals who do not belong to any identified political groups; and on the other, an influx of refugees who cross the Mediterranean, several thousands of whom die along their coasts. In the absence of any strategic analysis, these two events are considered a priori as being unconnected, and are treated by different administrations. The former are handled by the Intelligence services and the police, the latter by Customs and Defence. However, they both share the same common origin – the political instability that reigns in the Levant and in Africa. The European Union has deprived itself of the means to understand If the military academies of the European Union had done their job, they would have been studying the doctrine of its « big brother », the United States, for the last fifteen years. Indeed, for many long years, the Pentagon has been publishing all sorts of documents on the « Chaos Theory» borrowed from the philosopher Leo Strauss. Only a few moths ago, an official who should have retired more than 25 years ago, Andrew Marshall, disposed of a budget of 10 million dollars annually to research this subject [1]. But no military academy of the Union has seriously studied this doctrine and its consequences. Partly because this is a barbaric form of warfare, and partly because it was conceived by one of the intellectual gurus of the US Jewish elite. And as everybody knows,the United-States-who-saved-us-all from-Nazism can not advocate such atrocities [2]. If the political personnel of the European Union had travelled a little, not only to Iraq, Syria, Libya, the horn of Africa, to Nigeria and Mali, but also to Ukraine, they would have seen with their own eyes the application of this strategic doctrine. Instead, the contented themselves with speeches delivered from a building in the Green Zone of Bagdhad, from a podium in Tripoli or on Maïdan Square in Kiev. They have no idea what these populations are really experiencing, and at the request of their « big brother », have often closed their embassies, thereby depriving themselves of eyes and ears on the ground. Even better, still at the request of their « big brother », they have participated in embargos, thus ensuring that no European businessmen will travel to these areas and see what is happening there. An undetermined number of refugees have died in the Mediterranean. Sometimes, the waves wash their bodies onto the beaches of Italy, where the Customs take charge of boats filled with corpses. Chaos is not an accident, it’s the goal Contrary to what President François Hollande has declared, the Libyan migration is not the consequence of a « lack of follow-through » of operation « Unified Protector », but the desired result of this operation, in which his country has played a leading role. Chaos did not evolve because the « Libyan revolutionaries » were unable to agree after the « fall » of Mouammar el-Kadhafi, it was the strategic goal of the United States, and they succeeded. There never was a « democratic revolution » in Libya, but a secession of Cyrenaïca. There never was an application of the UNO mandate aimed at « protecting the population »,  but the massacre of 160,000 Libyans, three quarters of whom were civilians, under the bombardments of the Alliance (numbers from the International Red Cross). Before I joined the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, I remember having been solicited to act as a witness during a meeting in Tripoli between a US delegation and the Libyan representatives. During our long conversation, the head of the US delegation explained that the Pentagon was ready to save us from certain death, but demanded that the Guide [Leader? Gaddafi] be handed over to them. He added that once el-Kadhafi was dead, Libya’s tribal society would be unable to name a new leader for at least a generation, and that the country would be plunged into chaos such as it had never experienced. I spoke of this interview on a number of occasions, and since the lynching of the Guide [Leader? Gaddafi] in October 2011, I have never stopped predicting what is now happening. Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was a specialist in political philosophy. He gathered a small group of students, most of whom later worked for the Secretary of Defence. They formed a sort of cult, and inspired Pentagon strategy. « Chaos Theory » When, in 2003, the US Press began to speak of « Chaos Theory », the White House answered by using the term « constructive chaos », suggesting that the structures of oppression must be destroyed in order that life might evolve without constraint. But neither Leo Strauss nor the Pentagon had ever used the expression until then. On the contrary, according to them, chaos had to attain such a level that no structure could be built without the will of the Creator of the new Order, in other words, the United States [3]. The principle of this strategic doctrine may be resumed as follows - the simplest way to pillage the natural resources of a country over a long period is not to occupy the target, but destroy the state. Without a state, there can be no army. With no enemy army, there is no risk of defeat. Thus, the strategic goal of the US army and the alliance that it controls, the UNO, is exclusively the destruction of states. What then happens to the populations concerned is not Washington’s problem. Such a project is inconceivable for Europeans who, since the British civil war, have been convinced by Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan that it is necessary to give up certain freedoms, even accept a tyrannical state, to avoid being plunged into chaos. The European Union denies its complicity in US crimes The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have already cost the lives of 4 million people [4]. These wars were presented to the Security Council as necessary counter-attacks undertaken in « legitimate defence », but it is accepted today that the wars were planned long before the 11th September, in the much wider context of « the remodeling of a greater Middle East », and that the reasons given for launching them were in fact propaganda fabrications. It is common wisdom today to recognise the genocides committed by European colonialism, but rare are those who will accept the figure of 4 million dead, despite scientific studies which attest to its accuracy. It’s because our parents were « bad », but we are « good » and we can not be complicit in these horrors. It is common practice to mock the poor Germans who maintained their trust in their Nazi leaders right to the end, and only learned of the crimes committed in their name after their country’s defeat. But we are doing exactly the same thing. We maintain our confidence in our « big brother », and do not want to know about the crimes in which he has implicated us. Our children will certainly mock us in turn … The errors of interpretation by the European Union - No West European leader, absolutely none, has dared to publicly express the idea that the refugees from Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Horn of Africa, Nigeria and Mali are not fleeing dictatorships, but the chaos into which we have deliberately, though unconsciously, plunged their countries. - No West European leader, absolutely none, has dared to publicly express the idea that the « Islamist » attacks which are affecting Europe are not the extension of the wars in the « greater Middle East », but are directed by those who have also directed the chaos in this region. We prefer to continue believing that the « Islamists » are attacking Jews and Christians, although the great majority of their victims are neither Jews nor Christians, but Muslims. We calmly accuse them of promoting the « war of civilisations », although this concept was developed by the National Security Council of the United States, and remains alien to their culture [5]. - No West European leader, absolutely none, has dared to publicly express the idea that the next stage will be the « Islamisation » of the drug market, on the model of the Contras of Nicaragua, who sold drugs to the black community of California with the aid, and under the orders, of the CIA [6]. We have decided to ignore the fact that the Karzaï family has taken the distribution of Afghani heroin from the Kosovar mafia and handed it to Daesh [7]. The Under-Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, and the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey R. Pyatt. In a telephone wire-tap revealed by the partisans of legality, she told him that she wanted to « fuck the European Union » (sic). The United States never wanted Ukraine to join the Union The military academies of the European Union have never studied the « Chaos Theory » because they were prevented from doing so. The few teachers and researchers who risked exploring this territory were heavily sanctioned, while the Press qualifies the civilian authors who show interest in the subject as « conspirationists ». The politicians of the European Union thought that the events of Maïdan Square were spontaneous, and that the demonstrators wanted to leave the orbit of authoritarian Russia and enter into the heavenly bosom of the Union. They were stupified when Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s comments were published, when they discovered that she spoke of her secret control of the events, and expressed her desire to « fuck the Union » (sic) [8]. VIDEO INSERT [ does not appear in article]  ꕤ COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- From that moment on, they were unable to comprehend what was going on. If they had allowed free research in their own countries, they would have understood that by intervening in Ukraine and organising « régime change », the United States ensured that the European Union would remain at their service. Washington’s great fear, since the speech given by Vladimir Putin at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, is that Germany will realise where its true interests lie – not with Washington, but with Moscow [9]. By progressively destroying the Ukrainian state, the United States has cut the main communication route between the European Union and Russia. You may look at the succession of events from any angle, but you will find no other logical explanation. Washington does not want Ukraine to join the Union, as Madame Nuland’s comments demonstrate. Its only aim is to transform this territory into a zone which is dangerous to cross. The 8th May 2007 (the anniversary of the fall of the German Nazi régime), in Ternopol (West Ukraine), Nazi and Islamist groupuscules created a so-called Anti-Imperialist Front in order to fight against Russia. Organisations from Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Russia also participated, including Islamist separatists from Crimea, Adyguea, Dagestan, Ingouchia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karatchaïevo-Tcherkessia, Ossetia, and Tchetchenia. Blocked by international sanctions, Dokka Umarov asked for his contribution to be read. The Front is presided by Dmytro Yarosh, who is now an advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. US military planning So now we are faced with two problems which are developing very rapidly - the « Islamist » attacks have only just begun. Migrations across the Mediterranean have tripled in a single year. If my analysis is correct, over the next decade we will see more « Islamist » attacks linked to the greater Middle East and Africa, doubled with « Nazi » attacks linked to Ukraine. We will then discover that al-Qaïda and the Ukrainian Nazis have been connected since their common inception, in 2007 at Ternopol (Ukraine). In reality, the grand-parents of both have known each other since the Second World War. The Nazis had at that time recruited Soviet Muslims for the fight against Moscow (that was Gerhard von Mende’s plan at the Ostministerium, or Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories). At the end of the war, both organisations were recuperated by the CIA (Frank Wisner’s programme with the AmComLib, or the American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia) in order to carry out sabotage operations in the USSR. The migrations across the Mediterranean, which for the moment remain a humanitarian problem (200,000 people in 2014), continue to increase to the point of becoming a serious economic problem. The recent decisions by the Union to go and sink the boats of Libyan drug traffickers will not serve to diminish the migrations, but to justify new military operations intended to maintain a state of chaos in Libya rather than solving the problem. All this will cause serious trouble in the European Union, which today seems like a haven of peace. It is out of the question for Washington to destroy this market which it still considers indispensable, but to ensure that Europe will never enter into competition with it, hence the desire to limit its development. In 1991, President Bush the elder asked one of Leo Strauss’ disciples, Paul Wolfowitz (as yet unknown to the general public), to elaborate a strategy for the post-Soviet era. The «Wolfowitz Doctrine » explained that the guarantee of US supremacy over the rest of the world demanded the curbing of the European Union [10]. In 2008, during the financial crisis in the United States, the President of the Economic Council of the White House, historian Christina Rohmer, explained that that the only way to refloat the banks was by closing the fiscal paradises in the third countries, and then to provoke trouble in Europe so that capital would flow back to the United States. Finally, today Washington is proposing to merge the NAFTA and the EU, the dollar and the Euro, dragging the member states of the Union down to the level of Mexico [11]. Unfortunately for them, neither the citizens of the European Union or their leaders have any idea what President Barack Obama is preparing for them. Thierry Meyssan Translation Pete Kimberley ------- Thierry Meyssan French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate. SOURCE http://www.voltairenet.org/article187588.html ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT I like this guy a lot.  His articles are always good. Had no idea he was in the Libyan government. Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (1977–2011) Gaddafi was designated the "Leader" (Qā’id) of the Libyan state and was accorded the honorifics "Brotherly Leader and Guide to the First of September Great Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". Libyan government stated that the Libyan Jamahiriya was a direct democracy without any political parties, governed by its populace through local popular councils and communes (named Basic People's Congresses). Official rhetoric disdained the idea of a nation state, tribal bonds remaining primary, even within the ranks of the military of Libya. source | wikipedia | here ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- This stood out for me: al-Qaïda and the Ukrainian Nazis have been connected since their common inception, in 2007 at Ternopol (Ukraine) Not sure what to make of it. The original article has a bunch of citations.  So it might be worthwhile checking out the author's citations, to get more of a handle on this stuff.  Not sure I'm up to it.  I'm already way behind on the various information I'd hoped to check out, as I'm best at re-tweeting cats.  lol Lots to digest and lots of look-ups to do. Think Meyssan might be being too kind to the European politicians.  Nobody could be as stupid as these politicians make out to be.  The European politicians are US and corporate puppets who know exactly what the score is.  These people would readily sell out their own nations in the service of a triple-headed god:  their corporate backers, USA, and profits. ------- "In the absence of any strategic analysis, these two events are considered a priori as being unconnected ..." a priori  Inference by reasoning from general to specific - here Relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience  | here So the EU just assume the events are unconnected, but the events (terrorists & immigrants) share the same origin (political instability), is what the author is saying? Isn't it easier just to say it's an assumption?  Would have saved me a heap of look ups.  lol ꕤ

SWEDEN - Nordic Battle Group 15 - Carl Bildt Blog

CARL BILDT BLOG [GOOGLE TRANSLATION - Original Swedish] What happens to NBG15? Is our preparedness enough? [Referring to Nordic Battle Group 15] ROM: Since the beginning again stand a Nordic Battlegroup under Swedish leadership ready for the efforts that the EU could decide as part of its common foreign and security policy. [Take this says:  a Nordic Battle Group is on standby, under Swedish leadership or command, waiting for the EU say-so, to take part in 'foreign & security policy.'] It was in 1999, after the Kosovo war experiences, as the EU summit in Helsinki decided to extend its also military facilities, and in June 2004 there were more officially precisely these battle groups of battalion size that should be in constant readiness.  [By 2004, battalion sized battle groups were on constant readiness, I gather.] As the EU had already in June 2003 in the so-called Operation Artemis conducted a successful military operation in the Congo to assist the UN in conjunction with the world organization with its little slower way of working would strengthen its peace efforts in the country. And Operation Artemis was also something of a baptism of fire for the Swedish Special Forces who participated in it, and whose efforts came to be valued significantly high. The idea has since been to the ever shall be two battle groups ready for action at short notice. And we had a Nordic battle deployable later than 2011. However, it is so stridssgrupperna as such never been deployed, and therefore has doubts about the concept has gradually increased. Not inconsiderable resources are used to equip, train and keep them in readiness in the various countries. Opportunities to use them has not been lacking. In the last year, suddenly became current with an EU military operation in the Central African Republic to prevent what very well could have led to an outright genocide, I belonged to those who argued that the EU's battle group would be deployed. That did not work. The reasons were a bit mixed. The main responsibility for the battle which then stood in readiness low of Greece, and Athens was the interest to say the least weak. But equally important was that the man in Paris clearly preferred to put together something that was indeed the EU, but that clearly was under French command.  [  (1) Greece not on-board; (2) general lack of enthusiasm (3) Frenchies wanted to be commanders of forces.] And the reason for that was that the course was about to reinforce and complement the French national strength which of course made the first rapid intervention in the country. [Maybe this says, French wanted to take the lead b/c the French  previously led a rapid response intervention in the African country in question.] For me - then foreign minister, and fairly active in the discussion on the issue of ministerial circuit - this was unfortunately a sign that the battle groups of days maybe numbered.  [No idea.  Rotation based leadership of these groups was discussed?] The situation in the Central African Republic was so close to the situations battle groups had been set up for that one could imagine:-threatening genocide, appeal from the UN, the need for rapid and limited effort. But that did not happen. After considerable difficulties did you design the much more limited strength EUFOR RCA which now has a mandate that extends until March of this year.  [EUFOR RCA -- ie European Union Force Republic of Central Africa -- the weaker force was deployed.  Fully operational @ 700 troops in mid 2014.  Bet CB was spewing it wasn't something more grand, with him at the helm?] Now, as our well trained and well equipped Nordic Battle Group in readiness for the next six months - 2,400 people from seven different countries.  [Now they've got the NBG @ 2,400 on standby & CB is just hanging for them to be deployed somewhere.] If it will be deployed, I think the concept of EU battlegroups survive. If it does not, I think it will fade away.  [Ooh, if there isn't a deployment, EU battle groups are kaput.] The speculation in the Irish press - Ireland is also part of the workforce - is spoken about possible interventions in Southern Sudan and Mali. I have not always easy to see, although nothing can be ruled out. The situation in Southern Sudan is catastrophic, and the characters right now tends to indicate that it will be worse, but a large UN force is already in place. [Must have resources.] And if the UN force in Mali suffer from challenges it fails, I think rather in other efforts to deal with the situation. Personally, I would probably rather see an option for operation in Libya. The situation there deteriorates continuously, and although the United Nations through its special envoy Bernardino Leon makes meritorious efforts to reach a political solution success has so far been limited.  Would begin to achieve success, it is well not entirely inconceivable that there could be a need for a force that can quickly secure some key installations or functions. Such a task would battle to have the potential to solve. Obviously there are also other situations that could arise - including a new collapse in the Central African Republic. To secure parts of the "line of contact" between the separatist Russian groups in eastern Ukraine and the rest of the Ukraine would be such, but the likelihood that the EU could collect himself to such a decision, I believe can best be described as non-existent.  [If sh*t hits the fan in Ukraine, CB doesn't think the EU will have its sh*t together so as to reach an immediate/quick enough decision to deploy the rapid response play-group.  Or so it would appear.  But it could be a trick.  Maybe they're ready to pounce.  ] In an effort is necessary decision by EU foreign ministers, and it requires no object. Thereafter, rapid decisions of the respective countries, and in Sweden, it is then that the government proposes the parliament a decision by a rapid procedure which it developed a model. How the Swedish government would react in a situation where the EU wanted a stake of battle, no one knows today, but first, we know that the Greens are almost always been opposed to thoughts like these, and secondly, we know that the money that was previously reserved for a possible effort is disappearing in other directions. In some places there are those who say that the investment in battle taking resources and energy from the work of national defense, and that it is now high time to saddle up on. I do not agree with. Let us not forget that the defense resolutions 2000 and 2004 were written off almost entirely on national defense task. The work of the battle groups was then an important way to ensure quality development in the Defence Forces in association with international collaboration. Without this work, we had been in a significantly worse position today. [Purpose of battle groups ('quality developement' & 'collaboration' ... sold as a domestic defence force investment (how clever); how financial sleight of hand, of sorts, does the trick -- ie a question of allocation, I guess.] And although the national defense tasks now - and rightly so! - Come into sharper focus, Sweden should not abdicate when it comes to international peace and stabilitertsinsatser.  [Hahaha ... it's not about peace & stability; it's about neo-con agenda on a global scale.] We are left with a small part in NATO's training mission in Afghanistan, are included in the EU's training efforts in Somalia and Mali, is now entering the demanding UN mission in Mali and will now once again be featured in the EU naval mission in the Indian Ocean. And the world around Europe's borders have hardly been peaceful and stable in recent years. That the EU would dispose of the instrument battle groups IS would hardly responsibly. But the coming months may become decisive. Source:  https://carlbildt.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/vad-hander-med-nbg15-ar-var-beredskap-nog/ -------------------------------------------------- COMMENT Pressed for time.  No sleep.  Massive on-line binge. Might come back to this.  Been good reading and seeing CB's views, although a pain having to make out the wonky Google translation. Some good information there about Swedish domestic scenario and the EU nations relations, I guess. Will come back to this.  Excuse any typos.  Rushed.