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Last night, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) Tiger Forces, the Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) and their allies fully secured the Baghiliyah area from ISIS northwest of Deir Ezzor city after capturing the missiles base, the Hajjanah regiment, the radio transmitter station, the al-Jazeera university, the Saiqa Camp and the arms depots around Baghiliyah.
Separately, government forces captured the Nishan oil field, the Nishan gas station and the water pumping station east of Thurdah mount number 3 fully securing the western flank of Deir Ezzor Airport.
Southeast of Deir Ezzor, the SAA captured the Dhamn base and al-Kurum hill and deployed in about 35km from al-Mayadeen city, one of the key ISIS strongholds in the Euphrates Valley.
The Russian Aerospace Forces and the Russian Navy supported the government advance.
Two submarines, the Velikiy Novgorod and Kolpino, have fired seven Kalibr cruise missiles on ISIS targets, including “control centers, communications hubs, the militants’ weapons and ammunition warehouses in the ISIS controlled areas in the south east of the city of Deir Ezzor,” according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
According to local sources, Russian warplanes conducted multiple airstrikes on ISIS units and fortifications in the same area.
On Friday, the SAA and the SRG further advanced in the direction of Ayyash northwest of Deir Ezzor and Abu Amr southeast of the city using a superiority in the firepower.
The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq claimed that ISIS fighters destroyed two vehicles of the SAA east of al-Taim oil field southwest of Deir Ezzor city.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured Al-Husseiniyeh town capturing the eastern bank of the Euphrates River north of Deir Ezzor city.
With this advance, the SDF and the SAA fully besieged ISIS units deployed along the Euphrates River between the southern Raqqa countryside and the northwestern Deir Ezzor countryside. Maadan, At Tibini and Al Karash are the key ISIS strong points in the area.
Pro-government sources believe that no less than 1,000 will-armed ISIS fighters are deployed in this part of the Euphrates Valley. A major part of them is on the government-held bank of the river. This will create additional problems if the SAA and its allies want to push towards the Iraqi border. The ISIS terrorists remaining in southern Raqqah will pose a threat to the rear of the government assault force.
Amaq claimed that 120 civilians including 100 children were killed in an airstrike by the US-led collation on a refugee camp near the village of Jadid A’akidat in east of Deir Ezzor. So far, the mainstream media has ignored these claims and the US-led coalition has not commented on the issue.
glorious days to come … well done syria and her allies … God bless … thank you southfront
stop the good for hell us coalition from killing more civilians … real idiots
Good news! Always interesting to note that the corrupt US and EU MSM fails to report when the USAF once again kills a large number of civilians (“collateral damage”). No great surprise there. Just the same as the Waffen SS covering up their atrocities during the war and then trying to excuse themselves. The inconvenient truth is never wanted by the corrupt in power.
The crimes of the Waffen SS were easily uncovered and exposed, although mostly unpunished as the Cold War began and the Allies sought to integrate the Germans into NATO. A better analogy would be the many mistakes and friendly fire incidents that saw a lot of civilians in occupied Allied nations killed. Thousands perished during Allied bombing raids, which were not given much attention after the war. Or the thousands that were evacuated from warzones only to find their houses looted by Allied soldiers when they returned.
These incidents happened, they were documented, but few if any attention was ever paid to them. They pale of course in scale and atrocity compared to what the Germans did, just like ISIS is ten times worse, but they still happened.
The fire bombing of Dresdin was a crime worse than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
120 civilians of which 100 were kids! Seems like they were rushing things! There needs to be hard proof of this! If there is, its gonna be very bad for the US on this one!
Operation Paperclip
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Project Paperclip” redirects here. For the Holocaust project, see Paper Clips Project. For other uses, see Paper clip (disambiguation).
The examples and perspective in this article may not include all significant viewpoints. Please improve the article or discuss the issue. (January 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
A group of 104 rocket scientists (aerospace engineers) at Fort Bliss, Texas
Operation Paperclip was a secret program of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians, such as Wernher von Braun and his V-2 rocket team, were recruited in post-Nazi Germany and taken to the U.S. for government employment, at the end of World War II; many were members and some were leaders of the Nazi Party.[1][2]
The primary purpose for Operation Paperclip was U.S. military advantage in the Russo–American Cold War, and the Space Race. The Soviet Union were more aggressive in recruiting some 2,000 German scientists with Operation Osoaviakhim during one night.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) established the first secret recruitment program, called Operation Overcast, on July 20, 1945, initially “to assist in shortening the Japanese war and to aid our postwar military research”.[3] The term “Overcast” was the name first given by the German scientists’ family members for the housing camp where they were held in Bavaria.[4] In late summer 1945, the JCS established the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), a subcommmittee of the Joint Intelligence Community, to directly oversee Operation Overcast and later Operation Paperclip.[5]
The JIOA had one representative of each member agency of the Joint Intelligence Committee: the army’s director of intelligence, the chief of naval intelligence, the assistant chief of Air Staff-2 (air force intelligence), and a representative from the State Department.[6] In November 1945, Operation Overcast was renamed Operation Paperclip by Ordnance Corps (United States Army) officers, who would attach a paperclip to the folders of those rocket experts whom they wished to employ in America.[4] In a secret directive circulated on September 3, 1946, President Truman officially approved Operation Paperclip and expanded it to include one thousand German scientists under “temporary, limited military custody”.[7][8][9]
to continue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
Excellent commentary and very interesting; many thanks for posting! The quality of some people’s posts on this site is superb. SF is the best site covering the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Afghanistan on the internet. I shall be supporting it financially soon as I am unashamedly pro Russian.
I am a European, and I consider Russia part of the family, alike any other European Country ! NATO is America warmongers and Europe shame, we have to kick them out, faster better ! If we have disagreement with Russia, I didn’t worry for negotiation, we are done to be together since ever. Add on this Russia has all what Europe miss, and reciprocally, it’s all what the Anglo-American feared for their World domination obsessions.
Agree!
Alexander – see this link. No doubt you have, but it’s recommended reading:
http://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Annie%20Jacobsen%20-%20Operation%20Paperclip.pdf
Thanks, I just read the 10 first pages and will continue later, it’s good…
THE FOUNDER OF THE REAL DEEP STATE —– THE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND COLD BLOODED – ALAN WELSH DULLES. NAZI SYMPATHISER AND THE MAN WHO ORGANISED THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK
Maybe you will like this =====================
The US establishment against the rest of the world
by Thierry Meyssan
The US ruling class feels threatened by the international changes prompted by President Trump. It has just united in order to force him under the guardianship of Congress. In a law which was voted almost unanimously, it has re-introduced sanctions against North Korea, Iran and Russia, and has unravelled the investments of the European Union and those of China. For them, it is essential to block the President’s policy of cooperation and development, and to return to the Wolfowitz doctrine of confrontation and suzerainety.
It is a scandal without precedent. The White House Secretary General, Reince Priebus, was part of the plot designed to destabilise President Trump and prepare for his destitution. He was the source of daily leaks which trouble the political life of the United States, in particular those concerning the alleged collusion between Trump’s team and the Kremlin [1]. By dismissing him, President Trump has entered into conflict with the establishment of the Republican party, of which Priebus is the ex-President.
Let’s note as we go that none of these leaks concerning the agendas and the contacts between those concerned have provided the slightest proof of the allegations made.
The reorganisation of the Trump team which followed was exclusively to the detriment of Republican personalities and to the benefit of the military personnel who are opposed to the guardianship of the deep state. The alliance which was concluded – making the best of a difficult situation – by the Republican party with Donald Trump during the inaugural convention on 21 July 2016, is now worthless. We therefore find ourselves faced with the equation with which we started – one one side, the outsider President of « the People’s America », and on the other, all of the Washington ruling class supported by the deep state (meaning that part of the administration charged with the continuity of the state over and above political alternances).
It is apparent that this coalition is supported by the United Kingdom and Israël.
So what had to happen happened – the Democrat and Republican leaders came to an agreement to thwart President Trump’s foreign policy and preserve their imperial advantages.
To do so, they adopted, in Congress, a 70-page law which officially set up sanctions against North Korea, Iran and Russia [2]. The text unilaterally promulgates that all other states in the world must respect these commercial restrictions. The sanctions therefore apply equally to the European Union and to China as to the states officially targeted.
Only five parlementarians dissociated themselves from this coalition and voted against the law – representatives Justin Amash, Tom Massie and Jimmy Duncan, and senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders.
The dispositions of this law more or less forbid the Executive to ease these commercial interdictions by any means whatsoever. Theoretically, therefore, Donald Trump is tied hands and feet. Of course, he can use his veto, but according to the Constitution, it would be enough for Congress to revote the text in the same terms in order to be able to impose it on the President. He will therefore sign it, thus avoiding the insult of being called to order by Congress. In the next few days, we shall see the start of a war unlike any other.
The political parties of the United States have every intention of destroying the « Trump doctrine », according to which the United States must evolve faster than other states in order to conserve world leadership. On the contrary, they intend to re-establish the « Wolfowitz doctrine » of 1992, according to which Washington must conserve its advance over the rest of the world by hindering the development of all potential competitors [3].
Paul Wolfowitz is a Trotskyist who worked for Republican President Bush the Elder to help with the war against Russia. He became Assistant Secretary of Defense ten years later, under Bush Junior, and then President of the World Bank. Last year, he gave his support to Democrat Hillary Clinton. In 1992, he wrote that the most dangerous competitor of the United States was the European Union, and that Washington should destroy it politically, even economically.
The law casts doubt on everything that Donald Trump has accomplished over the last six months, notably the fight against the Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadist organisations, the preparation of the independence of Donbass (Malorossiya), and the re-opening of the Silk Road.
As a first reprisal, Russia asked Washington to reduce the staff of its embassy in Moscow to the level of its own embassy in Washington, in other words, 455 people – requiring the expulsion of 755. In this way, Moscow intends to remind us that even if it had interfered in US politics, their interference has no comparison to the importance of US interference in Russia’s own political life.
While we are on this subject, it was only on 27 February that the Minister for Defence, Sergeï Choïgou, announced to the Douma that the Russian armies now have the capability to organise « colour revolutions », 28 years behind the United States.
The Europeans now realise with stupefaction that their friends in Washington (the Democrats Obama and Clinton, the Republicans McCain and McConnell) have just put a full stop to any hope of growth within the Union. This is certainly a nasty shock, and yet they still have not felt able to admit that the allegedly « unpredictable » Donald Trump is in reality their best ally. Completely stunned by the vote, which rained on their summer holidays, the Europeans have opted for the « on hold » position.
Unless they react immediately, the companies who have invested in the European Union’s solution for their energy supply are now ruined. Wintershall, E.ON Ruhrgas, N. V. Nederlandse Gasunie, and Engie (ex-GDF Suez) had all committed to the doubling of the gas pipeline North Stream, which is now forbidden by Congress. They not only forfeit the right to respond to US calls for tender, but they also lose all their assets in the United States. They are refused entry to international banks and are forbidden to pursue their activities outside the Union.
For the moment, only the German government has expressed its confusion. We do not know whether they will be able to convince their European partners and rouse the Union against its US suzerain. Such a crisis has never arisen before, and as a result, there exists no element of reference which could enable us to anticipate what is to come. It is probable that certain of the member states of the Union will defend US interests – those who think according to Congress, against their European partners.
The United States, like any state, can forbid their companies to do business with foreign states and foreign companies to do business with them. But according to the Charter of the United Nations, they may not impose their own choices in terms of allies and partners. But this is what they have been doing since their sanctions against Cuba. At that time, under the influence of Fidel Castro – who was not a Communist – the Cuban Revolutionary Government launched an agrarian reform which Washington chose to oppose [4]. The members of NATO, who couldn’t have cared less about that tiny Caribbean island, followed obediently along. Progressively, the West, full of itself, considered it normal to starve out any states which resisted their all-powerful suzerain. So here, for the first time, the European Union is affected by the system which it helped set up.
More than ever, the conflict between Trump and the Establishment takes on a cultural form. It opposes the descendants of the immigrants who came seeking the « American dream » to those of the Puritans of the Mayflower [5]. This, for example, is the root of the denunciation by the international Presse of the vulgar language used by the new man responsible for White House communications, Anthony Scaramucci. Until now Hollywood was perfectly at ease with the manners of New York businessmen, but suddenly this uncouth language is presented as incompatible with the exercise of Power. Only President Richard Nixon talked that way, and he was forced to resign by the FBI who organised the Watergate scandal to bring him down. Nonetheless, everyone now agrees that he was a great President, who put an end to the Vietnam War and rebalanced international relations with the Peoples’ Republic of China, faced with the USSR. It is surprising to see the Press of old Europe take up the religious, Puritan argument against the vocabulary of Scaramucci in order to judge the political competence of Donald Trump’s team; and for the President himself to fire him when he had only just been nominated.
But behind what may seem to be no more than a class struggle, the future of the world is at stake. Either relations steeped in confrontation and domination, or cooperation and development.
Thierry Meyssan http://www.voltairenet.org/article197288.html
[1] “State Secrets : How an Avalanche of Media Leaks is Harming National Security”, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, July 6, 2017.
[2] H.R.3364 – Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act
[3] « US Strategy Plan Calls For Insuring No Rivals Develop », Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times, March 8, 1992. The daily NYT also publishes large extracts from Wolfowitz’s secret report on page 14 : « Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan : “Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival” ». Further information is provided in « Keeping the US First, Pentagon Would preclude a Rival Superpower » Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, March 11, 1992.
[4] “The Biggest Theft Committed by One Sovereign State against Another”, by Jorge Wejebe Cobo, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Cuban Agency News , Voltaire Network, 21 July 2017.
[5] “United States – reformation or fracture?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 26 October 2016.
Are you comparing the Waffen SS to the terrorists of the US???
During Wars, all humans are worst than each others,
logically, the Worst are the Winners !
If you take away the Winston Churchill media images and do some researches, you will discover a real “Monster” Just have a look to the Bangladesh
Churchill was the British equivalent of Hitler (self.badhistory)
soumis il y a 3 ans * par the_smiling_indian
This poster seems to think the Bengal Famine was as bad as the holocaust.
It all starts in a thread discussing the deaths of Indian soldiers in the battle of Kohima:
http://www.np.reddit.com/r/india/comments/28rrpv/a_largely_indian_victory_in_world_war_ii_mostly/
Eventually the thread turns into a slapfight between a poster that makes the claim that the holocaust and the bengal famine are equivalent, and another poster that keeps insisting that it’s not.
Some highlights:
Indeed. As an Indian, I find no difference in both. 1.5 million to 4 million died because of scorched earth tactics in the rice growing areas of Bangladesh and food stocks being redirected to supply the British soldiers at the cost of the average brown man.
A genocide is a genocide is a genocide. To say that the Nazi’s used gas chambers and hence it is more evil is being disingenuous at best. Gas chambers, bullets, machetes, starving to death they are all evil and are acts of genocide. Please do not do a disservice to the memories of the millions of other (non Nazi victims) who have died from starvation, bullets, exhaustion, swords, machetes and various other means.
What about the fact that the allies knew about the concentration camps yet didn’t bomb the railroads leading into these camps.
No matter which way you spin it, no British presence would have meant no deaths or very few.
Finally, accusations that sympathizing with the holocaust is nothing short of racism, since “white people” died:
Of course, neither the Indians (Bengalis in this case) or the natives of the New World were white. Sorry to be so direct, but is it that only white lives are important to you?
This appears to be a topic of controversy even on wikipedia in the article on the 1943 Bengal Famine
Most of the conversations appears to be in this thread, which starts after accusations that Gandhi was a sellout to the British and betrayed India.
/r/AskHistorians had a thread a while ago on the topic of the Bengal famine:
http://www.np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1c49ev/one_of_the_largest_mass_killing_of_humans_in/
I’m not an expert on India and have only studied the famine in a broader wartime context, but there are exculpatory circumstances for the British. The Bengal famine occured during some of the darkest hours of World War II for Britain, with the Japanese on India’s doorstep and German submarines harassing Allied merchant marine. Under those circumstances, the British Empire’s resources weren’t as formidable as they otherwise would have been. The Chinese famines under Mao, while brought about by stupendous ineptitude, were during peacetime.
Another factor is intent. Few official attempts were made in China to seriously combat famine during the Three Bitter Years even though low-level officials knew its extent and high-ranking officials certainly must’ve had some understanding of it. Even so, the Chinese government refused foreign aid, even from other communist countries, and Mao himself expressed disinterest if some of China’s many, many people died so long as the revolution continued onward. British and Indian officials, by comparison, misunderstood and underestimated the Bengal famine and therefore mismanaged their response to it — but they still responded. Their misunderstandings and underestimations are more readily attributed to poor communication, incomplete information, and the general disruptions of war, and not to malice or malign indifference.
If I could illustrate this difference metaphorically, think of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as these famine-stricken areas. With Bengal, British and Indian officials didn’t know how many people needed to be evacuated, where they were, or how to get to them — but they tried to help nonetheless. With China during the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other officials dismantled the levees to build something else, then pretended like nothing was wrong when the city flooded. With Ukraine during the Holodomor, Joseph Stalin dynamited the levees, summoned the hurricane, and shot those who tried to escape.
WW2 reports were done Black and White by Hollywood to please the US Monsters.
Strangely all the attention is only about the death of 6 Millions Jews.
Meanwhile the silent about the 20 Millions Civilians collateral damages is deafening
My approach is simplistic, the “winners” had bigger Bombs and did more killings and destructions +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.voltairenet.org/article187508.html
Anglo-American Money Owners Organized World War II
by Valentin Katasonov
To mark the 70th anniversary of the Victory against Nazism, we publish a study of Valentin Katasonov on financing of the NSDAP and the rearmament of the Third Reich. The author deals with new documents that confirm the organization of the Second World War by US and UK Bankers, covered by President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in the hope of destroying the USSR. This study raises new questions that will be addressed in a future article.
Hjalmar Schacht (left), Hitler’s finance minister, with his close friend Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944. According to documents reveled by the Bank of England in 2012, he Czechoslovak gold was held in London in a sub-account in the name of the Bank for International Settlements, the Basel-based bank for central banks. When the Nazis marched into Prague in March 1939 they immediately sent armed soldiers to the offices of the National Bank. The Czech directors were ordered, on pain of death, to send two transfer requests. The first instructed the BIS to transfer 23.1 metric tons of gold from the Czechoslovak BIS account, held at the Bank of England, to the Reichsbank BIS account, also held at Threadneedle Street. The second order instructed the Bank of England to transfer almost 27 metric tons of gold held in the National Bank of Czechoslovakia’s own name to the BIS’s gold account at the Bank of England.
The war was not unleashed by frenzied Fuhrer who happened to be ruling Germany at the time. WWII is a project created by world oligarchy or Anglo-American “money owners”. Using such instruments as the US Federal Reserve System and the Bank of England they started to prepare for the next world conflict of global scale right after WWI. The USSR was the target.
The Dawes and Young Plans, the creation of Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the Germany’s suspension of reparations payments it had to pay according to Paris Peace Treaty and the acquiescence of Russia’s former allies in this decision, large-scale foreign investments into the economy of Third Reich, the militarization of German economy and the breaches of Paris Treaty provisions – they all were important milestones on the way of preparing the war.
There were key figures behind the plot: the Rockefellers, the Morgans, Lord Montagu Norman (the Governor of the Bank of England), Hjalmar Schacht (President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in the Hitler’s government).The strategic plan of Rockefellers and Morgans was to subjugate Europe economically, saturate Germany with foreign investments and credits and make it deliver a crushing blow against the Soviet Russia so that it would be returned into the world capitalist system as a colony.
Montagu Norman (1871 – 1950) played an important role of go-between to keep up a dialogue between American financial circles and Germany’s business leaders. Hjalmar Schacht organized the revival of Germany’s defense sector of economy. The operation conducted by “money owners” was covered up by such politicians as Franklin Roosevelt, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. In Germany the plans were carried out by Hitler and Hjalmar Schacht. Some historians say Hjalmar Schacht played a more important role than Hitler. Simply Schacht kept away from spotlight.
The Dawes Plan was an attempt following World War I for the Triple Entente to compromise and collect war reparations debt from Germany. The Dawes Plan (as proposed by the Dawes Committee, chaired by Charles G. Dawes) was an attempt in 1924 to solve the reparations problem, which had bedeviled international politics following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (France was reluctant to accept it got over 50% of reparations). In 1924-1929 Germany got $2, 5 billion from the United States and $ 1, 5 billion from Great Britain, according to Dawes Plan. In today’s prices the sum is huge, it is equal to $1 trillion of US dollars. Hjalmar Schacht played an active role in the implementation of Dawes Plan. In 1929 he summed up the results, saying that in 5 years Germany got more foreign loans that the United States in the 40 years preceding WWI. As a result, in 1929 Germany became the world’s second largest industrial nation leaving Great Britain behind.
In the 1930s the process of feeding Germany with investments and credits continued. The Young Plan was a program for settling German reparations debts after World War I written in 1929 and formally adopted in 1930. It was presented by the committee headed (1929–30) by American industrialist Owen D. Young, creator and ex-first chairman of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), who, at the time, concurrently served at board of trustees of Rockefeller Foundation, and also had been one of representatives involved in previous war reparations restructuring arrangement – Dawes Plan of 1924. According to the plan, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) was created in 1930 to make Germany pay reparations to victors. In reality the money flows went in quite a different direction – from the United States and Great Britain to Germany. The majority of strategically important German companies belonged to American capital or were partly under its control. Some of them belonged to British investors. German oil refinery and coal liquefaction sectors of economy belonged to Standard Oil (the Rockefellers). FarbenindustrieAG chemical industry major wasmoved under the control of the Morgan Group. 40% of telephone network and 30% of Focke Wulf shares belonged to American ITT. Radio and AEG, Siemens, Osram electrical industry majors moved under the control of American General Electric. ITT and General Electric were part of the Morgan’s empire. At least 100% of the Volkswagen shares belonged to American Ford. By the time Hitler came to power the US financial capital practically controlled all strategically important sectors of German industry: oil refining, synthetic fuel production, chemistry, car building, aviation, electrical engineering, radio industry, and a large part of machine-building (totally 278 companies). The leading German banks – Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Donat Bank and some others – were under US control.
***
On January 30, 1933 Hitler was named the Chancellor of Germany. Before that his candidacy had been thoroughly studied by American bankers. HjalmarSchacht went to the United States in the autumn of 1930 to discuss the nomination with American colleagues. The Hitler’s appointment was finally approved at a secret meeting of financiers in the United States. He spent the whole 1932 trying to convince the German bankers that Hitler was the right person for the position. He achieved the goal. In mid-November 1932 17 German largest bankers and industrialists sent a letter to President Hindenburg expressing their demand to make Hitler the Chancellor of Germany. The last working meeting of German financiers before the election was held on January 4, 1933 in Kölnat the home of banker Kurt von Schröder. After that the National Socialist Party came to power. As a result, the financial and economic ties of Germany with Anglo-Saxons elevated to a higher level.
Hitler immediately made an announcement that he refused to pay postwar reparations. It put into doubt the ability of England and France to pay off WWI debts to the United States. Washington did not object to the Hitler’s announcement. In May 1933 Hjalmar Schacht paid another visit to the United States. There he met with President Franklin Roosevelt and big bankers to reach a $1 billion credit deal.In June the same year Hjalmar Schacht visited London to hold talks with Montagu Norman. It all went down smoothly. The British agreed to grant a $2 billion loan. The British offered no objections related to the Germany’s decision to suspend debt payments.
Some historians say the American and British bankers were pliant because by 1932 the Soviet Union had fulfilled the 5-year economic development plan to make it achieve new heights as an industrial power. A few thousand enterprises were built, especially in the sector of heavy industry. The dependence of USSR on import of engineering production has greatly dwindled. The chances to strangle the Soviet Union economically were practically reduced to zero. They decided to rely on war and launched the runaway militarization of Germany.
It was easy for Germany to get American credits. By and large, Hitler came to power in his country at the same time as Franklin Roosevelt took office in the United States. The very same bankers who supported Hitler in 1931 supported Roosevelt at the presidential election. The newly elect President could not but endorse large credits to Germany. By the way, many noticed that there was a big similarity between the Roosevelt’s “New Deal Policy” and the economic policy of the German Third Reich. No wonder. The very same people worked out and consulted the both governments at the time. They mainly represented US financial circles.
The Roosevelt’s New Deal soon started to stumble on the way. In 1937 America plunged into the quagmire of economic crisis. In 1939 the US economy operated at 33% of its industrial capacity (it was 19% in the heat of the 1929-1933 crisis).
Rexford G. Tugwell, an economist who became part of Franklin Roosevelt’s first “Brain, a group of Columbia University academics who helped develop policy recommendations leading up to Roosevelt’s New Deal,wrote that in 1939 the government failed to reach any success.There was an open seatill the day Hitler invaded Poland.Only the mighty wind of war could dissipate the fog. Any other measures Roosevelt could take were doomed to failure. [1] Only the world war could save the US capitalism. In 1939 the money owners used all leverage at their disposal to put pressure of Hitler and make him unleash a big war in the east.
***
The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) played an important role during the Second World War. It was created as an outpost of American interests in Europe and a link between Anglo-American and German businesses, a kind of offshore zone for cosmopolitan capital providing a shelter from political processes, wars, sanctions and other things. The Bank was created as a public commercial entity, it’s immunity from government interference and such things as taxes collection was guaranteed by international agreement signed in the Hague in 1930.
The bankers of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who were close to the Morgans, Montagu Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England, German financiers: Hjalmar Schacht (President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in the Hitler’s government), Walther Funk (who later replaced Hjalmar Schacht as President of the Reichsbank) and EmilPuhl – all of them played an important role in the efforts to establish the Bank. The central banks of Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and some private banks were among the founders. The Federal Bank of New York did its best to establish the BIS, but it was not listed as a founder. The US was represented by the private First National Bank of New York, J.P. Morgan and Company, the First National Bank of Chicago – all parts of the Morgan’s empire. Japan was also represented by private banks. In 1931-1932 19 European central banks joined the Bank of International Settlements. Gates W. McGarrah, a banker of Rockefeller’s clan, was the first BIS chairman of the board. He was replaced by Leon Fraser, who represented the clan of Morgans. US citizen Thomas H. McKittrick was President of the Bankduring the war years.
A lot has already been written about the BIS activities serving the interests of Third Reich. The Bank was involved in deals with different countries, including those Germany was at war with. Ever since Pearl Harbor the Bank of International Settlements has been a correspondent bank for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was under Nazi control during the war years, no matter American Thomas Huntington McKittrick was the Bank’s President. Soldiers were dying on the battlefields while the leadership of BIS held meetings in Basel with the bankers of Germany, Japan, Italy, Belgium, Great Britain and the United States. There, in the Swiss offshore zone, it was all peaceful, the representatives of belligerents quietly worked in the atmosphere of mutual understanding.
Switzerland became the place where gold seized by Germany in different corners of Europe was transported to for storage. In the March of 1938, when Hitler captured Vienna, part of Austrian gold was transferred to BIS vaults. The same thing happened with the gold of Czech National Bank (48 million USD). As the war started, the flows of gold poured into the Bank of International Settlements. Germany got it from concentration camps and as a result of plundering the wealth of occupied countries (including whatever belonged to civilians: jewels, gold crowns, cigarette cases, utensils…). It was called the Nazi Gold. The metal was processed into ingots to be stored in the Bank of International Settlements, Switzerland, or outside Europe. Charles Higham in his Trading With The Enemy: An Expose of The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 wrote that during the war Nazi transferred $378 million into the accounts of Bank of International Settlements.
A few words about the Czech gold. The details surfaced when after the Bank of England’s archives were declassified in 2012. [2] In the March of 1939 Germany captured Prague. Nazi demanded $48 million of national gold reserves. They were told that the sum had already been transferred to the Bank of International Settlements. Later it became known that the gold was transferred from Basel to the vaults of Bank of England. Upon the command from Berlin the gold was transferred to the ReichsbankBIS account. Then the Bank of England was involved in transactions done upon the orders of Reichsbank given to the Bank of International settlements. The commands were retransmitted to London. There was collusion between German Reichsbank, the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. In 1939 a scandal broke out in Great Britain because the Bank of England executed the transactions with Czech gold upon the commands coming from Berlin and Basel, not the Czech government. For instance, in the June of 1939, three months before the war between Great Britain and Germany started, the Bank of England helped Germans to get into their accounts the amount of gold equal to 440 thousand pounds sterling and transfer some gold to New York (Germany was sure that in case of German intervention into Poland the United States would not declare war).
The illegal transactions with Czech gold were implemented with tacit approval of the government of Great Britain which was aware of what was going on. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon and other top officials did their best to hide the truth, including outright lies (the gold was returned to the lawful owner or had never been transferred to Reichsbank). The recently declassified materials of Bank of England reveal the truth and show that the government officials lied to cover up themselves and the activities of the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements. It was easy to coordinate the joint criminal activities because Montagu Norman, the head of Bank of England, served as the chairman of the board of Bank of International Settlements. He never made secret of his sympathy for fascists.
The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II. The conference was held from 1 to 22 July 1944. All of a sudden the issue of the Bank of International Settlements hit the agenda. It was reported that the bank collaborated with fascist Germany. Leaving many details aside, I’d only mention that with great difficulty (some US delegates opposed the motion) the delegates reached an agreement to close the BIS. The decision of international conference has never been enacted. All the discreditable information related to the BIS wartime activities was classified. Today it helps to falsify the history of the Second World War.
Finally, a few words about Hjalmar Schacht (1877-1970) who served as President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in the fascist Germany’s government. He was a key figure controlling the economic machine of Third Reich, an extraordinary and plenipotentiaryambassador representing Anglo-American capital in Germany. In 1945 Schacht was tried at Nuremberg to be acquitted on October 1, 1946. He got away with murder. The same way it happened to Hitler. For some unexplained reasons he was not in the 1945 leading wartime criminals list. More to it, Schacht returned to his profession like if nothing happened and founded Schacht GmbH in Düsseldorf. This detail may go unnoticed, though it serves as another testimony to the fact that Anglo-American “money owners” and their plenipotentiary representatives in Germany prepared and, to some extent, influenced the outcome of the Second World War. The “money owners” want to rewrite the history of the war and change its results.
Valentin Katasonov
President Assad is the rightful leader of Syria. He is tolerant and gracious.
Well said!
Moderate Nato ISiS rebels and friends of Turkey and USA are on the run.Their have been overthrown by Russian smart bombs.Erdogan tries to be too close to Russia to gathering lot of information regarding the winners strategy.If Tufkey is deployed lot of chaose will start in Idlib second Albab will start. If Erdogan gets Dollar from USA he will defecting the Russians to NATO.Currently he supports Kurdistan state over oil rich Deir Ezzor to gain access again with his son.
Revealed: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2 Billion on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels
by Ivan Angelovski and Lawrence Marzouk
https://www.occrp.org/en/makingakilling/the-pentagon-is-spending-2-billion-on-soviet-style-arms-for-syrian-rebels
12 September 2017
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The Pentagon has relied on an army of contractors and sub-contractors – from blue-chip military giants to firms linked to organized crime – to supply up to US$ 2.2 billion worth of Soviet-style arms and ammunition to Syrian rebels fighting a sprawling war against the Islamic State (ISIS).
Arms factories across the Balkans and Eastern Europe – already working at capacity to supply the Syrian war – are unable to meet the demand. In response, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has turned to new suppliers like Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Ukraine for additional munitions while relaxing standards on the material it’s willing to accept, according to an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
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A female trainee with the Syrian Democratic Forces at her graduation ceremony in northern Syria on August 9, 2017. Credit: Sgt. Mitchell Ryan for US Army
Reporters have pieced together the Pentagon’s complex supply line to Syria using procurement records, ship-tracking data, official reports, leaked emails, and interviews with insiders. This program is separate from a now-defunct CIA effort to arm rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
The Pentagon is buying the arms through two channels: the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which oversees special operations across all services of the US military, and the Picatinny Arsenal, a little-known US Army weapons facility in New Jersey.
The munitions are being transported by both sea and air from Europe to Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait. They are then distributed to US allies in northern and southern Syria by plane and truck. (See: Black Sea Route)
Reporters discovered that the US is using vaguely worded legal documents which obscure Syria as the weapons’ final destination – a practice experts say threatens global efforts to combat arms trafficking and puts the Eastern European governments who sell the weapons and ammunition at risk of breaching international law. Others raise the issue of who, exactly, is using the arms and what will happen to them once ISIS has been defeated.
The Pentagon started the major buy-up in September 2015 under President Obama. By May this year, it had already spent more than $700 million on AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, mortars, and other weapons and ammunition.
More than $900 million has been contracted to be spent by 2022, and nearly $600 million more has been budgeted or requested by the Trump administration. This brings the grand total of the Pentagon’s intended spending on its Syrian allies to $2.2 billion.
This US-financed supply line is similar to a Saudi-backed €1.2 billion arms pipeline to Syria uncovered last year by BIRN and OCCRP.
Asked about the unprecedented purchase of Soviet-style arms for Syrian rebels, the Pentagon said that it had carefully vetted the recipients, adding that the equipment was provided “incrementally” and is the “minimum needed for the immediate mission.”
Syria Train and Equip: A Major Shift in Strategy
As ISIS swept across Syria in 2014, the Pentagon hastily launched a $500 million Syria Train and Equip program to build up a new force of rebels, armed with modern US weapons, in an attempt to counter the threat. SOCOM – the elite unit responsible for killing Osama Bin Laden – was tasked with buying the arms.
But nine months later, the program had collapsed, with only a few dozen recruits having made it onto the battlefield.
Amid a flurry of negative headlines, the Pentagon needed a new plan. Starting in September 2015, the US would focus not on building a new anti-ISIS army, but on arming rebels already on the ground.
While the Pentagon did not reveal the details of its new plan, a previously unreported spending request from February 2016 made clear that it would stop training new units and supplying them with modern weapons. Instead, it would select “vetted” opposition forces already on the ground and send them Soviet-style weapons and ammunition they were already using and familiar with.
The first delivery, which included 50 tons of ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades, arrived in October 2015, just a month after the shift in policy. The munitions were airdropped to the Kurdish-dominated coalition within the Syrian Democratic Forces currently spearheading the fight to reclaim Raqqa.
Many more shipments followed.
By May 2017 – the latest date for which data is available – SOCOM would purchase $238.5 million in weapons and ammunition from Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine, according to an analysis of thousands of procurement records by BIRN and OCCRP. Prior to the start of the program, its spending on Eastern Bloc weaponry had been negligible.
SOCOM will buy an additional $172 million in arms this fiscal year. The shopping list includes tens of thousands of AK-47s and RPGs and hundreds of millions of pieces of ammunition, according to requests made by the Pentagon. An additional $412 million has been requested by the Trump administration or budgeted for 2018.
SOCOM has not previously acknowledged its role in the Syria Train and Equip program. In a written statement to BIRN and OCCRP, the Pentagon confirmed that the secretive unit was charged with procuring weapons and ammunition for Syrian rebels. SOCOM is also known to covertly supply US partners in other conflicts.
The crew of a C-130 Hercules prepares to drop supplies to Syrian rebels as part of an anti-ISIS operation on Aug. 12, 2017. Credit: Staff Sgt. Michael Battles for U.S. Air Force
Picatinny: A New Supply Line Revealed
SOCOM is not the only Pentagon unit which has been procuring arms and ammunition for the Syria Train and Equip program.
The rest of the procurement is being handled by the Picatinny Arsenal, a US Army facility in New Jersey. Picatinny already has experience buying large quantities of Soviet-style arms (referred to in procurement documents as “non-standard weapons and ammunition”) for partner forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. These purchases are always clearly labelled with the end destination.
But one mysterious set of purchases – totaling $479.6 million – contains no end destination at all. An analysis of these procurement documents by BIRN and OCCRP reveals it is likely that much, if not all, of the arms in question are headed for Syria.
An important clue lay in seven of the contracts, signed in September 2016 and worth $71.6 million, which did initially cite Syria either by name or by the Pentagon’s internal code – V7 – for the Syria Train and Equip program. These references were deleted from the public record after BIRN and OCCRP asked the Pentagon about these deliveries this March.
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Before and after images from a Pentagon procurement database show how the end destinations, “Syria and Iraq,” were removed from the procurement records. (Click to enlarge.) Credit: BIRN
Reporters made copies of the documents before they were deleted. The Pentagon has declined to explain the alterations.
Picatinny is circumspect about its role supplying Syrian rebels given the sensitive nature of the conflict. In addition to pitting an array of militias against Syrian government forces, the fighting is described by experts as a complex proxy war involving Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Russia.
There is other evidence of Picatinny’s growing role in the Syria Train and Equip program.
A promotional story published on its website in December 2016 celebrated an internal Pentagon award for, among other successes, buying “significant quantities” of non-standard ammunition for Syria, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Picatinny presentation from March 2017 reveals that it will take over from SOCOM the role of procuring ammunition for the Syrian program. SOCOM will continue to buy weapons.
More than half of the $2.2 billion identified by BIRN and OCCRP has not yet been spent.
In March 2016, Picatinny tasked two military giants – Chemring, a British firm, and US-based Alliant Techsystems Operations (now part of Orbital ATK) – with procuring $750 million worth of ammunition on its behalf over the following five years, of which $372 million has yet to be spent. Another $500 million contract was awarded to Chemring, Alliant, and two other companies in August. On Picatinny’s website, the latter contract is specifically described as being intended to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
With at least 50,000 US-supported rebels engaged in active combat, Syria is likely to absorb much of the contracted ammunition in the coming years, but some may be spent on other conflict zones where Soviet-style weapons are in use.
Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel
The newly revealed $2.2 billion pipeline financed by the US, as well as the earlier €1.2 billion pipeline financed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have meant boom times for arms producers in Central and Eastern Europe.
VMZ Sopot, a Bulgarian state-owned ammunitions factory and one of Picatinny’s main suppliers, announced in early 2016 that it planned to add 1,000 employees to its workforce that year. During the three months prior, it had already hired 500 new staff.
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A ship carrying ammunition bound for Turkey and Jordan was observed by reporters in Burgas, Bulgaria in September 2016. Credit: Ivan Kolev, BIRN
Factories in Serbia, such as Krusik, a missile manufacturer, have also drastically increased production. Aleksandar Vucic, then Serbia’s Prime Minister, boasted last year that Serbia could increase its output five times and still not meet demand.
As the thirst for Soviet-style weapons grows, the competition is becoming fiercer.
The US had traditionally turned to Romania and Bulgaria for non-standard armaments, but the surge in demand has forced contractors to look to the Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and now Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and Croatia, according to US procurement records.
Scarce supplies have also forced the Pentagon to lower its standards for weapons and ammunition. Previously it had required suppliers to provide equipment less than five years old, but in February it dropped this requirement for some types of weapons and ammunition, according to official documents obtained by BIRN and OCCRP.
Munitions stored in poor conditions degrade, sometimes becoming unusable or even dangerous. A Pentagon contractor due to train Syrian rebels died in June 2015 when the decades-old RPG he was handling exploded at a firing range in Bulgaria. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has continued to use the contractor that supplied the faulty weapons.
There are other problems, too. Reporters have found that directors of three contractors it uses, and the president of a critical sub-contractor, have faced serious questions about their integrity, including one who bragged about paying “commissions” to foreign agents to secure deals. Another subcontractor employed a firm with links to organized crime.
Undermining the Arms Control System
In supplying the Syrian rebels, the Pentagon has used highly unusual and misleading legal documentation that exploits a loophole in the system designed to prevent diversions of arms to terrorists, embargoed groups, or war criminals.
To secure an arms export license, buyers must provide a valid end-user certificate guaranteeing the weapons’ final destination.
But a certificate issued by SOCOM under the Syria program and seen by reporters does not mention Syria as the final destination. Instead, it lists SOCOM as the final user.
The document states that “the material will be used for defense purposes in direct use by US government, transferred by means of grants as military education or training program or security assistance.”
The statement allows SOCOM to divert the equipment to any army or militia to whom it is providing security assistance, including Syrian rebels, according to arms control experts who have reviewed the evidence.
In a detailed written response, the Pentagon did not dispute its designation of the US Army as the end user, but explained that the certificates citing “security assistance” cover transfers to foreign fighters.
“We expect any partnered force or security assistance recipient to use the materiel as intended, i.e. for the counter-ISIS fight, and we monitor their usage to ensure they comply,” a Pentagon spokesman said.
But arms experts criticized this practice, describing it as a danger to the global arms control system.
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A side-by-side comparison of a “typical” end-user certificate, showing a clear end destination, and a misleading SOCOM certificate that allows the US to transfer weapons to any of its partners. (Click to enlarge.) Credit: BIRN
Roy Isbister, an expert on arms transfers at Saferworld, a non-governmental organization that works to prevent violent conflict, said, “The [end-user] system relies on clarity and diligence. If the US is manipulating the process and providing cover for others to claim ignorance of the end users of the weapons in question, the whole control system is at risk.”
Patrick Wilcken, a researcher on arms control and human rights at Amnesty International, described SOCOM’s end-user certificate as “very misleading.”
“An end user certificate that did not contain [the final destination] would be self-defeating and highly unusual,” he said. “The US is undermining the object and purpose of the ATT (United Nations Arms Trade Treaty).”
Wilcken explained that, while Washington has not yet ratified the agreement, and is therefore not legally bound by it, as a signatory it is expected not to undermine it.
As a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Washington has signed a series of measures to prevent weapons trafficking – including a binding decision that end-user certificates include the final destination country.
European exporter states have ratified the ATT and are also bound both by the OSCE’s decisions and the EU’s even stricter rules, known as the Common Position on Arms Exports. Most prospective members have already adopted these rules.
The Romanian, Czech, Bosnian, and Serbian governments confirmed that they had granted export licenses with the US – not Syria – listed as the final destination.
Georgia’s Ministry of Defense said that an export deal was under negotiation but it had not yet received an end-user certificate from the Pentagon and no contract had been signed.
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Click to enlarge. Credit: Edin Pasovic
Poland and Croatia said it had not approved any exports to Syrian rebels.
Officials from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the ATT and the EU Common Position, exporters must take action to prevent arms and ammunition from being diverted and used to commit war crimes or “undermine peace and security.”
Without knowing the final destination, such an assessment is impossible.
Wilcken said that Amnesty International was especially concerned that the US is supplying the Syrian Democratic Forces, given evidence that one of its largest component forces, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), had “razed villages,” an act Amnesty described as a war crime.
Wilcken said that such a vast inflow of weaponry raised fears about the future of the Middle East.
“Given the very complex, fluid situation in Syria … and the existence of many armed groups accused of serious abuses,” he said, “it is difficult to see how the US could ensure arms sent to the region would not be misused.”
Additional reporting from Anna Babinets, Nino Bakradze, Aubrey Belford, David Bloss, Roberto Capocelli, Maria Cheresheva, Pavla Holcova, Roxana Jipa, Frederik Obermaier and Atanas Tchobanov.