Russia didn’t veto attack on Libya and now wants cease-fire

NationalJournal.com
March 22, 2011

In a stinging rebuke of U.S. policy in Libya, the Russian defense minister accused the U.S.-led coalition of killing Libyan civilians through errant air strikes and called for an immediate cease-fire on Tuesday. The comments drew a quick rebuke from visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said the Russian criticism was based on “outright lies.”

Speaking to reporters following an hourlong meeting with Gates, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Russia continued to support the United Nations resolution authorizing the creation of a no-fly zone over Libya but made clear that Moscow was increasingly uneasy about the escalating campaign.

“Unfortunately, recent developments in the country demonstrate that it is experiencing real hostilities, destroying civilian facilities, and the killing of civilians,” Serdyukov said. “This shouldn’t have been let to happen and we informed our U.S. counterparts of our opposition.”

Gates, in his own remarks, said the coalition was going out of its way to avoid civilian deaths, noting that most of the strikes have targeted Libyan defensive systems located far away from major population centers. Gates also said he expected major combat operations over Libya to taper off markedly within the next few days; he is the first senior American official to put any sort of timetable on the ongoing offensive there.

Gates fired back at the Russians shortly after departing the Ministry of Defense. Speaking to reporters in his hotel overlooking the Kremlin, the American defense chief said he was taken aback by the ferocity of the Russian criticism of the ongoing American-led military operations.

“I’m a little curious, frankly, about the tone that has been taken,” Gates said. “It’s perfectly evident that the vast majority, if not nearly all, civilian casualties have been inflicted by Qaddafi… and it’s almost as though some people here are taking at face value Qaddafi’s claims about the number of civilian casualties, which as far as I’m concerned are just outright lies.”

Gates’s comments were an implicit rebuke to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who on Monday accused the U.S. of causing significant civilian casualties in Libya and likened the entire American-led operation there to a “crusade.”

That triggered an unusual public spat between Putin and his nominal ally and successor, President Dmitri Medvedev, about the country’s support for the U.S.-led military campaign against Libya. Medvedev fired back quickly, telling reporters was that Putin’s comments were “unacceptable.”

Russia had abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote that authorized members to take “all necessary measures,” including military force, to protect Libyan civilians from attacks by loyalists to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and enforce a no-fly zone.

American officials traveling with Gates said the two Russian leaders had probably been surprised by the scale and intensity of the allied bombing campaign inside Libya. But the U.S. officials said that, at least for the moment, they didn’t expect Russia to take steps aimed at bringing the conflict to a close.

Qaddafi-controlled media reported dozens of deaths by coalition airstrikes, while the U.S., France, and Britain reported Monday that they had no indications of civilian casualties.

“We have been very precise in our instructions to the air crews about what they may and may not do, and we are very, very conscious in… limiting civilian casualties,” said commander of the operation in Libya, Gen. Carter Ham, on Monday, adding that the missions to protect civilians will only be conducted with force “where we can safely without risk to other civilians and causing collateral damage.”

Coalition air forces from the U.S., France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and the United Kingdom flew missions to sustain the no-fly zone over Benghazi to protect civilians from attack by regime ground forces and to conduct further reconnaissance, Ham said.

Russian President: New World Order with new Global Currency

By Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
June 19, 2010

As many other puppet presidents have done it before, Russia’s Dmitri Medvedev is taking his opportunity to call for a new world

Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev

order and to push the Russian currency up, as the new reserve paper.  “What had seemed untouchable has collapsed. The bubbles that created the illusion of flourishing economies have burst,” said the Russian president in St Petersburg.  As he opened Russia’s annual economic forum, Medvedev said the times when western corporations dominated the economy had ended and the new interest in Russia was a sign that the world was changing.

“For Russia this situation is a challenge and an opportunity.  And we should use it to build a modern, flourishing and strong Russia … which will be a co-founder of the new world economic order.” he added.  Talking in front of many businessmen from around the world, the Russia leader followed the steps of other governments and presidents as well as of non-governmental institutions.  In the past, George H.W. Bush, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barack Obama, among others, have called for the formation of a new world order.  In fact, all those leaders have cited the creation of a centralized global entity as the only way to cure the many illnesses the world suffers from today.

Together with governments, there are supranational institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and their respective leaders, who have echoed the same calls for the creation of a new global order.  This order would have the power, will amass the resources of the planet and will decide how to use them.  The plan also includes the creation of a single monetary policy to which all countries will have to submit to.  The adherence to such policy will enable the countries to receive loans and aid packages that will make them more dependent on the foreign centralized organization, and less dependent on their own Constitutions and laws.  In fact, in the world seen through the eyes of people like Medvedev and the other power men, there is no need for nationality, sovereignty or identity.

Russia has already taken significant steps to aid the lifeline of the new world order -which has existed for many years now-.  The country will introduce a policy of zero taxation on capital gains which will indeed allow the free flow of monies in and out of, much like it happens in corrupt countries where this policy aides and enables money laundering through the banking system.  This would transform Russia into the new United States when it comes to moving large amounts of money coming from all places -drug trade, arms trade, slave trade- to circulate and make its way across the world.  Of course Medvedev did not present it like that.  Instead, he said his policy would allow companies working on long-term investments.  Russia, he said, “was improving the legal system to offer better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.”  In other words, crime, of the kind recently experienced through Wall Street banks around the world will have a safe heaven in Russia.  What Mr. Medvedev’s words mean is that all the policies that allowed the bankers to suck countries dry of their resources will also exist in the world order he dreams about, where Russia is the new leader and he’s the new Al Capone.  Limits to bureaucracy means zero regulation or a perfect environment for the corporations to run their shady Ponzi schemes.

The Russian president also talked about something that would make any corporate businessman smile, even in the rainiest day.  Russia has completed the process of simplifying migration procedures, so that workers can go in the country; or better, Russia just like China will allow corporations to pay some of the lowest wages to its citizens in exchange for long working days with no benefits and no rights.  Again, it’s clear he did not present it this way.  He said Russia had changed to attract “highly-qualified specialists” from the financial and technology sectors.  “The state should not tear down the apples from the tree of economics,” he said.

Medvedev complemented his speech on a new world order by forcefully attacking the dollar and claiming that it was time for a new reserve currency.  “Only three, five years ago it seemed like a fantasy” to create a new reserve currency. Now we are seriously discussing it.”  He does not seem to be alone in that ride.  It seems China is up to the challenge as well.  In the meantime, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer added his voice to the Russian’s, but from a very different point of view, one that is rarely heard.  He said: “New reserve currencies don’t emerge by fiat. They emerge as countries change.”  A fiat currency is paper or electronic  money that is not backed up by a nation’s industry or production, but by an inflated system of blind trust on what a piece of paper says it is worth.

Apparently, both Russia and China think it is time for the East to drive the world and its markets.  “We really live at a unique time, and we should use it to build a modern, prosperous and strong Russia, a Russia that will be a co-founder of the new world economic order,” he said.  The problem with Medvedev’s vision is that his plan will not work, at least not for as long as he wants.  Although he intends to build something new, better and different, he plans on using the same old policies that brought us to the disaster he so clearly criticizes.  He wants prosperity, a modern economy and a strong Russia, but he wants zero regulation, a centralized dictatorial government and no sovereignty.  Maybe he forgets that Capitalism, the real Capitalism, was born from free independent nations that based their development on the use of their resources to produce quality goods that benefited the world.  Instead, he wants a global economy filled with cheap, slave-made products that need to be changed every few months.  He wants the best workers, but will follow the same old low-paying policies that maintains Asia’s and Latin America’s people in a continuous feudal model of development.

“If the world depended completely on the dollar, the situation would have been more difficult,” Medvedev reminded the audience.  So why does he want a single global currency, then?

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