Thread: WORLD BRACES FOR WAR: Canada send Jetfighters to Poland to Bolster NATO Forces

WAR is the one ace in the hole 'o' has of accomplishing his 'hope and change' ...

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Indications that the U.S. Is Planning a Nuclear Attack Against Russia

Posted on June 13, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog
Preface by Washington’s Blog: Daniel Estulin is saying the same thing.
By Eric Zuesse:
On Wednesday, June 11th, CNN headlined “U.S. Sends B-2 Stealth Bombers to Europe,” and reported that “they arrived in Europe this week for training.” Wikipedia notes that B-2s were “originally designed primarily as a nuclear bomber,” and that “The B-2 is the only aircraft that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration.”
In other words, the primary advantage of the newer, “Stealth,” version of B-2, is its first-strike (or surprise-attack) nuclear capability. That’s the upgrade: the weapon’s ability to sneak upon the target-country and destroy it before it has a chance to fire off any of its own nuclear weapons in response to that “first-strike” attack. The advantage of Stealth is creating and stationing a nuclear arsenal for the purpose of winning a nuclear war, instead of for the goal of having continued peace via “Mutually Assured Destruction,” or MAD.
Some historical background is necessary here, so that a reader can understand why this is happening — the switch to an objective of actually winning a nuclear war (as opposed to deterring one). One cannot understand what’s happening now in Ukraine without knowing this bigger picture.
(This account is written under the assumption that the reader already knows some of the allegations it contains, but not all of them, and that the reader will click on the link wherever a given allegation requires documentation and support.)
I have previously reported about “How and Why the U.S. Has Re-Started the Cold War (The Backstory that Precipitated Ukraine’s Civil War),” and, “Do We Really Need to Re-Start the Cold War?” I pointed out there that we don’t really need to re-start the Cold War, at all, since communism (against which the Cold War was, at least allegedly, fought) clearly lost to capitalism (we actually won the Cold War, and peacefully) but that America’s aristocracy very much does need to re-start a war with Russia — and why it does. (It has to do with maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, something that benefits America’s aristocrats enormously.)
Consequently, for example, a recent CNN Poll has found that Americans’ fear of Russia has soared within just the past two years. Our news media present a type of news “reporting” that places Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, into a very bad light, even when it’s unjustified by the facts.
The situation now is thus rather similar to that right before World War I, when the aristocracy in America decided that a pretext had to be created for our going to war against Germany. That War had already started in Europe on 28 July 1914, and President Wilson wanted to keep the U.S. out of it, but we ultimately joined it on the side of J.P. Morgan and Company. This was documented in detail in an important 1985 book, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, 1914-1918, which was well summarized in Business History Review, by noting that: “J.P. Morgan & Co. served as Britain’s financial and purchasing agent, and the author makes especially good use of the Morgan Grenfell & Co. papers in London to probe that relationship. Expanding British demand for U.S. dollars to pay for North American imports made the politics of foreign exchange absolutely central to Anglo-American relations. How to manage those politics became the chief preoccupation of Her Majesty’s representatives in the United States,” and most especially of Britain’s financial and purchasing agent in the U.S.
In 1917, after almost two years of heavy anti-German propaganda in the U.S. press that built an overwhelming public support for our joining that war against Germany, Congress found that, in March 1915, “J.P. Morgan interests had bought 25 of America’s leading newspapers, and inserted their own editors, in order to control the media” so that we’d join the war on England’s side. Whereas back then, it was Germany’s leader who was being goaded into providing a pretext for us to declare war against his country, this time it’s Russia’s leader (Putin) who is being demonized and goaded into providing such a pretext, though Putin (unlike Germany’s Kaiser) has thus far refrained from providing the pretext that Obama constantly warns us that he will (a Russian invasion of Ukraine). Consequently, Obama’s people are stepping up the pressure upon Putin by bombing the areas of neighboring Ukraine where Russian speakers live, who have family across the border inside Russia itself. Just a few more weeks of this, and Putin’s public support inside Russia could palpably erode if Putin simply lets the slaughter proceed without his sending troops in to defend them and to fight back against Kiev’s (Washington’s surrogate’s) bombing-campaign. This would provide the pretext that Obama has been warning about.
I also have reported on “Why Ukraine’s Civil War Is of Global Historical Importance.” The article argued that “This civil war is of massive historical importance, because it re-starts the global Cold War, this time no longer under the fig-leaf rationalization of an ideological battle between ‘capitalism’ versus ‘communism,’ but instead more raw, as a struggle between, on the one hand, the U.S. and West European aristocracies; and, on the other hand, the newly emerging aristocracies of Russia and of China.” The conflict’s origin, as recounted there, was told in its highest detail in an article in the scholarly journal Diplomatic History, about how U.S. President George H.W. Bush in 1990 fooled the Soviet Union’s leader Mikhail Gorbachev into Gorbachev’s allowing the Cold War to be ended without any assurance being given to the remaining rump country, his own Russia, that NATO and its missiles and bombers won’t expand right up to Russia’s doorstep and surround Russia with a first-strike ability to destroy Russia before Russia will even have a chance to get its own nuclear weapons into the air in order to destroy the U.S. right back in retaliation.
That old system — “Mutually Assured Destruction” or MAD, but actually very rational from the public’s perspective on both sides — is gone. The U.S. increasingly is getting nuclear primacy. Russia, surrounded by NATO nations and U.S. nuclear weapons, would be able to be wiped out before its rusty and comparatively puny military force could be mustered to respond. Whereas we are not surrounded by their weapons, they are surrounded by ours. Whereas they don’t have the ability to wipe us out before we can respond, we have the ability to wipe them out before they’ll be able to respond. This is the reason why America’s aristocracy argue that MAD is dead. An article, “Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War” was published in the December 2008 Physics Today, and it concluded that, “the indirect effects ['nuclear winter'] would likely eliminate the majority of the human population.” (It would be even worse, and far faster, than the expected harms from global warming.) However, aristocrats separate themselves from the public, and so their perspective is not necessarily the same as the public’s. The perspective that J.P. Morgan and Co. had in 1915 wasn’t the perspective that the U.S. public had back then, and it also wasn’t the perspective that our President, Woodrow Wilson, did back then, when we were a democracy. But it’s even less clear today that we are a democracy than it was in 1915. In that regard, things have only gotten worse in America.
So, President Obama is now trying to persuade EU leaders to join with him to complete this plan to replace MAD with a first-strike nuclear capability that will eliminate Russia altogether from the world stage.
As I also documented, the IMF is thoroughly supportive of this plan to remove Russia, and announced on May 1st, just a day prior to our massacre of independence-supporters in the south Ukrainian city of Odessa on May 2nd, that unless all of the independence supporters in south and eastern Ukraine can be defeated and/or killed, the IMF will pull the plug on Ukraine and force it into receivership.
Obama clearly means business here, and so the government that we have installed in Kiev is bombing throughout southeastern Ukraine, in order to convince the residents there that resistance will be futile. Part of the short-term goal here is to get Russia to absorb the losses of all of Ukraine’s unpaid debts to Russia, so that far less of Ukraine’s unpaid debts to the IMF, U.S. and E.U., will remain unpaid. It’s basically an international bankruptcy proceeding, but without an international bankruptcy court, using instead military means. It’s like creditors going to a bankrupt for repayment, and the one with the most gunmen gets paid, while the others do not. This is the reason why the IMF ordered the leaders in Kiev to put down the rebellion in Ukraine’s southeast. What’s important to the IMF is not land, it’s the Kiev government’s continued control over the assets in the rebelling part of Ukraine — assets that will be worth something in a privatization or sell-off to repay that debt. However, for Obama, what is even more important than repaid debts is the continued dominance of the U.S. dollar. Wall Street needs that.
Among other indications that the U.S. is now preparing a nuclear attack against Russia is an article on May 23rd, “U.S. Tests Advanced Missile For NATO Interceptor System,” and also a June 10th report from a website with good sources in Russian intelligence, which alleges that Ukrainian President Petro “Poroshenko secretly met with … [an] American delegation headed by the Director of … the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, Frank Archibald, which also included former CIA chief in Ukraine Jeffrey Egan, the current – Raymond Mark Davidson, Mark Buggy (CIA, Istanbul), Andrzej Derlatka, a CIA agent in the Polish intelligence Agency, and member of CIA Kevin Duffin who is working as senior Vice President of the insurance company Brower. Poroshenko and Archibald signed a paper entitled an ‘Agreement on Military Cooperation between the U.S. and Ukraine’”
Furthermore, barely a month before the CIA and State Department overthrew the previous, the pro-Russian, President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, the government of Netherlands decided, after 18 years of “dithering,” to allow the U.S. to arm our F-35 bombers there with nuclear weapons. And this was already after Holland’s “Parliament in November signed off on a government plan to purchase 37 F-35As to replace the Dutch air force’s aging fleet of nuclear-capable F-16s. The Netherlands is widely understood to host about two dozen U.S. B-61 gravity bombs at the Volkel air base, as part of NATO’s policy of nuclear burden-sharing.”
Moreover, Obama isn’t only beefing up our first-strike nuclear capability, but is also building something new, called “Prompt Global Strike,” to supplement that nuclear force, by means of “a precision conventional weapon strike” that, if launched against Russia from next-door Ukraine, could wipe out Russia’s nuclear weapons within just a minute or so. That might be a fallback position, for Obama, in case the EU’s leaders (other than Netherlands and perhaps one or two others) might happen to decide that they won’t participate in our planned nuclear invasion of Russia.
Certainly, Obama means business here, but the big question is whether he’ll be able to get the leaders of other “democratic” nations to go along with his first-strike plan.
The two likeliest things that can stop him, at this stage, would be either NATO’s breaking up, or else Putin’s deciding to take a political beating among his own public for simply not responding to our increasing provocations. Perhaps Putin will decide that a temporary embarrassment for him at home (for being “wimpy”) will be better, even for just himself, than the annihilation of his entire country would be. And maybe, if Obama pushes his indubitable Superpower card too hard, he’ll be even more embarrassed by this conflict than Putin will be. After all, things like this and this aren’t going to burnish Obama’s reputation in the history books, if he cares about that. But maybe he’s satisfied to be considered to have been George W. Bush II, just a far better-spoken version: a more charming liar than the original. However, if things come to a nuclear invasion, even a U.S. “victory” won’t do much more for Obama’s reputation than Bush’s “victory” in Iraq did for his. In fact, perhaps Americans will then come to feel that George W. Bush wasn’t America’s worst President, after all. Maybe the second half of the Bush-Obama Presidency will be even worse than the first.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/...ck-russia.html

Poland Says Russian Gas Deliveries Tumble By 45%; Europe To Launch Sanctions On Friday, Russia Will Retaliate

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/11/2014 - 09:34 Yesterday, when Gazprom was supposedly "troubleshooting its systems", we reported that in what was the first salvo of Europe's latest cold (quite literally, with winter just around the corner) war, Poland complained that up to 25% of its usual gas deliveries from Russia had been cut. Russia indirectly hinted that this was also a result of Ukraine using "reverse flow" to meet its demands, with Europe allowing Kiev to syphon off whatever gas it needs without paying Gazprome for it. It also led Poland to promptly admit it would halt reverse flow to the civil-war ridden country. Fast forward to today when Polish financial website Biznes reports that things are going from bad to worse in Russia's energy retaliation war, after Poland claimed a 45% shortfall in Russian natgas imports as of Wednesday.

US Unveils Latest Russian Sanctions, Putin Immediately Responds That Russia Drafting Retaliation

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/12/2014 10:22 -0400

Moments ago, as was widely preannounced, the US Treasury unveiled its latest round of Russian sanctions. While the bigger picture was well-known, here are some of the highlights:

• U.S. SANCTIONS FOCUS ON FINANCIAL, ENERGY, DEFENSE SECTORS
• U.S. TREASURY ADDS SBERBANK TO SANCTIONS LIST,
• U.S. TREASURY SANCTIONS AFFECTS GAZPROM, GAZPROM NEFT, LUKOIL, ROSNEFT, AND SURGUTNEFTGAZ
• U.S. TIGHTENS DEBT FINANCING RESTRICTIONS TO 30 DAYS

As Bloomberg reports, action deepens existing sanctions on Russian financial institutions, expands sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, targets additional energy- and defense-related firms, U.S. Treasury says in statement. "Today’s actions demonstrate our determination to increase the costs on Russia as long as it continues to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty," Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen says in statement
Treasury Dept says it “maintains significant scope to expand these sanctions.”
Sberbank added to sanctions list; Treasury also tightens “debt financing restrictions by reducing from 90 days to 30 days the maturity period” for sanctioned banks
Also imposes sanctions that “prohibit the exportation of goods, services (not including financial services), or technology in support of exploration or production for Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil”
Step affects 5 cos.: Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Rosneft, Treasury says
And instantly: PUTIN: GOVT DRAFTING PROPOSALS TO RETALIATE AGAINST SANCTIONS

• PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA TO RETALIATE ONLY IF IT SERVES ITS INTERESTS
• PUTIN SEES MORE POSITIVES THAN NEGATIVES IN LATEST SANCTIONS
• PUTIN SAYS UKRAINE `HELD HOSTAGE' BY OUTSIDE INTERESTS
• PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA WON'T IMPOSE TRAVEL BANS IN RETALIATION

And Rosneft is pissed, via Bloomberg:

• Rosneft is improper target for sanctions as co. doesn’t influence political process, spokesman Mikhail Leontyev says by phone.
• Leontyev declines to comment on effect of sanctions, saying lawyers are studying issue
• New sanctions are even more groundless, unjust than previous measures
• Sanctions seem to target EU, U.S. partners; affect shareholders
• “If the sanctions are meant as a scare tactic, then the object of the scaring is an unlucky choice, because we have no influence over the process”

So back to square one, as Russia and China get progressively closer.
* * *
Full statement from the US Treasury:
*WASHINGTON – *Due to continued Russian efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew today determined that persons operating within Russia’s defense and related materiel sector may now be subject to targeted sanctions under Executive Order 13662. In addition, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today extended targeted financial sanctions to Russia’s largest bank, deepened existing sanctions on Russian financial institutions, expanded sanctions in Russia’s energy sector, and increased the number of sanctioned Russian entities in the energy and defense sectors.
Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has made a determination that persons operating within Russia’s defense and related materiel sector may now be subject to targeted sanctions under Executive Order 13662. Following Secretary Lew’s determination, Treasury has imposed sanctions that prohibit transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States involving new debt of greater than 30 days maturity issued by Rostec, a major Russian conglomerate that operates in the defense and related materiel sector.
Treasury has added Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank of Russia, to the existing prohibitions on U.S. persons providing equity or certain long-term debt financing. In addition, we have tightened the debt financing restrictions by reducing from 90 days to 30 days the maturity period for new debt issued by the six Russian banks subject to this restriction. These banks are Bank of Moscow, Gazprombank OAO, Russian Agricultural Bank, Sberbank, VEB, and VTB Bank.
Treasury has designated and blocked the assets of five Russian state-owned defense technology firms – OAO ‘Dolgoprudny Research Production Enterprise,’ Mytishchinski Mashinostroitelny Zavod OAO, Kalinin Machine Plant JSC, Almaz-Antey GSKB, and JSC NIIP – for operating in the arms or related materiel sector in Russia.
Treasury has also imposed sanctions that prohibit the exportation of goods, services (not including financial services), or technology in support of exploration or production for Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil, to five Russian energy companies – Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Rosneft – involved in these types of projects. This measure complements restrictions administered by the Commerce Department and is similar to new EU measures published today. U.S. persons have until September 26, 2014 to wind down applicable transactions with these entities pursuant to a general license that Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued today.
Treasury has also imposed sanctions that prohibit transactions in, provision of financing for, or other dealings in new debt of greater than 90 days maturity issued by two additional Russian energy companies – Gazprom Neft and Transneft.
“Today’s actions demonstrate our determination to increase the costs on Russia as long as it continues to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen. “The United States, in close cooperation with the European Union, will impose ever-increasing sanctions that further Russia’s isolation from the global financial system unless Russia abandons its current path and genuinely works toward a negotiated diplomatic resolution to the crisis.”
Despite the severity of these actions, Treasury maintains significant scope to expand these sanctions, and impose additional sanctions, against individuals and entities under the authorities of Executive Orders (E.O.) 13660, 13661 and 13662 should the Russian Government not take steps to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine.
* *
"Imposition of Sanctions on Several Russian State-Owned Firms Pursuant to E.O. 13661 and E.O. 13662 for Operation in the Defense or Related Materiel Sector in
Russia"
Treasury today has also imposed new sanctions and strengthened existing sanctions targeting firms operating in Russia’s defense sector.""
* *
*Determination about Russia’s Defense and Related Material Sector and Imposition of Sanctions against Rostec.
*Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew today made a determination under E.O. 13662 that persons operating within Russia’s defense and related materiel sector may now be subject to targeted sanctions. Following Secretary Lew’s determination, Treasury issued a new directive that imposes sanctions on Rostec, a major Russian conglomerate that operates in the defense and related materiel sector. Directive 3 pursuant to E.O. 13662 prohibits transactions in, provision of financing for, and other dealings in new debt of greater than 30 days maturity issued by Rostec, and its 50 percent or more owned subsidiaries, effectively cutting it off from U.S. debt financing.

*Rostec* is a Russia-based state-owned holding company for Russia’s defense industry. Rostec produces, develops, manufactures, and exports civil, military, and dual-purpose high-technology goods, and is involved in the manufacturing of weapons and military equipment. Rostec-held subsidiaries manufacture and export military products valued in the billions. Treasury designated Rostec’s Director General, Sergei Viktorovich Chemezov, on April 28, 2014, pursuant to E.O. 13661.
*Designation of Additional Defense Technology Companies under E.O. 13661.
*Treasury has also designated and blocked the assets of five Russian defense firms under E.O. 13661 for operating in the arms and related materiel sector in the Russian Federation. The firms designated today under E.O. 13661 include OAO ‘Dolgoprudny Research Production Enterprise,’ Mytishchinski Mashinostroitelny Zavod OAO, Kalinin Machine Plant JSC, Almaz-Antey GSKB, and JSC NIIP. The designated firms are responsible for the production of a range of materiel, from small arms to mortar shells to tanks. As a result of today’s actions under E.O. 13661, any assets of these entities that are within U.S. jurisdiction must be frozen. Additionally, transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States involving these entities are generally prohibited. ""
*OAO ‘Dolgoprudny Research Production Enterprise’* is a Russia-based company, which is primarily engaged in the production of weapons and ammunition, including the Buk missile system, known in the West as “Gadfly” or SA-11 or SA-17.
*Mytishchinski Mashinostroitelny Zavod, OAO* is a Moscow-based company that has produced weaponry and equipment focusing primarily on anti-aircraft missile systems and chassis for tracked military vehicles.
*Kalinin Machine Plant JSC* is a Russia-based, state-run company involved in the production of special purpose products such as weapons, ammunition, and combat anti-air missile system facilities for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Kalinin Machine Plant JSC produces artillery guns for infantry and anti-air defense and specializes in the production of launchers and anti-air missiles.
*Almaz-Antey GSKB* is a Moscow-based subsidiary of the Almaz-Antey Concern, which was designated under E.O. 13661 on July 16, 2014. Almaz-Antey GSKB designs and manufactures air defense systems for the Russian Ministry of Defense.
*JSC NIIP* is a Zhukovski-based Russian defense industrial firm owned by the Almaz-Antey Concern. JSC NIIP develops anti-aircraft defense systems, including on-board radar systems for MiG and Sukhoi fighters, and anti-aircraft missile systems for land forces, including the KUB and BUK systems.
"Expansion of Prohibition of Certain Types of Activities with Several Russian State-Owned Financial Institutions Pursuant to E.O. 13662"
Treasury today has imposed new sanctions and strengthened existing sanctions in Russia’s financial sector.
*Imposition of Sanctions against Sberbank of Russia and Lowering of Allowable Maturity for New Debt Issuance for Sanctioned Financial Institutions.
*Treasury has also modified Directive 1 pursuant to E.O. 13662 to lower the allowable maturity for new debt from 90 to 30 days, and has added Sberbank to the list of entities subject to the restrictions in Directive 1. Directive 1 pursuant to E.O. 13662 now prohibits transactions in, provision of financing for, or other dealings in new debt of greater than 30 days maturity and new equity of the banks listed under this Directive, by U.S. persons or within the United States. As a practical matter, this step will further remove access to U.S. dollar financing for these financial institutions, and impose additional significant costs on the Russian Government for its continued provocations.
*Sberbank of Russia *is Russia’s largest financial institution. Sberbank accounts for approximately one-quarter of Russian banking assets and one-third of its banking capital.
" "
"Prohibition of Certain Types of Activities with Several Russian State-Owned Energy Companies Pursuant to E.O. 13662"
Treasury today has imposed new sanctions and strengthened existing sanctions targeting firms operating in Russia’s energy sector.
" "
*Prohibition on Goods, Services, and Technology for Certain Energy Sector Activities. *New Directive 4 issued pursuant to E.O. 13662 prohibits the provision, exportation, or reexportation of goods, services (except for financial services), or technology by U.S. persons or from the United States in support of exploration or production for deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil in the Russian Federation, or in maritime area claimed by the Russian Federation and extending from its territory, and that involve five listed Russian energy companies: Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Rosneft. Treasury initially imposed sanctions against Rosneft, Russia’s largest petroleum company and third-largest gas producer, pursuant to E.O. 13662 on July 17, 2014. Today’s step, which complements Commerce Department restrictions and is similar to new EU measures published today, will impede Russia’s ability to develop so-called frontier or unconventional oil resources, areas in which Russian firms are heavily dependent on U.S. and western technology. While these sanctions do not target
or interfere with the current supply of energy from Russia or prevent Russian companies from selling oil and gas to any country, they make it difficult for Russia to develop long-term, technically challenging future projects.
*OAO Gazprom* is a Russia-based, government-owned global energy company engaged in gas exploration, production, transportation, storage, processing, and sales. It is one of the largest joint stock companies in Russia.
*Gazprom Neft *is an integrated Russian oil company engaged in the exploration, development, production, transportation, and sale of crude oil and gas, and is also involved in oil refining, marketing of petroleum products, oil field services, and construction and development of exploration wells. Gazprom Neft is majority owned by Gazprom.
*Lukoil OAO* is a Russia-based integrated oil and gas company. Lukoil is engaged in the business of oil exploration, production, refining, marketing, and distribution. The company is an owner of refineries, gas processing, petrochemical plants, and gas station networks located in Russia and abroad.
*Surgutneftegas *is a Russian oil company involved in oil and gas production and exploration, gas processing, power generation, output and marketing of petroleum products, petrochemicals and gas products.
* *
*Imposition of Sanctions against Gazprom Neft and Transneft. *Treasury has added two Russian energy companies, Gazprom Neft and Transneft, to the prohibitions under Directive 2 pursuant to E.O. 13662. Transactions in, provision of financing for, and other dealings in new debt of greater than 90 days maturity for these two companies, and their 50 percent or more owned subsidiaries, by U.S. persons or within the United States are prohibited. This sanction will impair their ability to raise financing in U.S. dollars, which is critical for their exploration and development of new oil fields.
*AK Transneft OAO* is Russia’s government-owned pipeline company. The company provides services for oil and oil products transportation via trunk pipelines systems within the Russian Federation and abroad.
* * *
And the FAQ for today's sanctions as released by the Treasury:
407. May a U.S. person consent to a replacement of its participation by a non-U.S. person in a long-term loan facility that was extended to a person subject to Directives 1, 2, or 3 prior to the sanctions effective date?
A U.S. person is not prohibited by Directives 1, 2, or 3 from engaging in transactions necessary to exit or replace its participation in a long-term loan facility that was extended to an SSI entity prior to the sanctions effective date. This would not constitute dealing in new debt. U.S. persons involved in such facilities should ensure that all newly negotiated drawdowns or disbursements from the facility utilize repayment terms that are not prohibited by the applicable sanctions effective date. See FAQ 394? for additional information on what constitutes a permitted drawdown or disbursement from an existing long-term loan obligation. [9-12-2014]
408. Is a U.S. person permitted under Directives 1, 2, or 3 to extend credit for greater than 30 days (for persons subject to Directives 1 or 3) or 90 days (for persons subject to Directive 2) to a non-sanctioned party for the purpose of purchasing goods or services from a person subject to Directives 1, 2, or 3?
Directives 1, 2, and 3 do not prohibit U.S. persons from extending credit for longer than 30 days (for persons subject to Directives 1 or 3) or 90 days (for persons subject to Directive 2) to non-sanctioned parties for the purpose of purchasing goods or services from an SSI entity, so long as the SSI entity is not the indirect borrower. [9-12-2014]
409. If a person determined to be subject to Directives 1, 2, or 3 makes successive draws under a short-term facility created after the sanctions effective date (e.g., it borrows $100 million with a 15-day maturity, then at the end of the 15 days, the debt “rolls over”), does the facility become prohibited if the SSI borrower makes successive short-term borrowings that cumulatively add up to more than 30 days (for persons subject to Directives 1 or 3) or 90 days (for persons subject to Directive 2)?
Two conditions must be met for short-term facilities created after the sanctions effective date to be permissible. As long as (1) each individual disbursement has a maturity of 30 or 90 days or less (depending on the applicable Directive) and the disbursement is paid back in full before the next disbursement and (2) the lender is not contractually required to roll over the balance for a cumulative period of longer than 30 or 90 days (depending on the applicable Directive) at the borrower’s request (i.e., it has the option to refuse the request for a new short-term loan and terminate the facility), the loan is not prohibited, even though the same borrower may obtain a series of short-term loans from the same lender over a cumulative period exceeding 30 or 90 days (depending on the applicable Directive). U.S. persons may not deal in a drawdown or disbursement initiated after the sanctions effective date with a repayment term of longer than the applicable authorized tenor if the terms of the drawdown or disbursement are negotiated or re-negotiated on or after the sanctions effective date. Such a newly negotiated drawdown or disbursement would constitute a prohibited extension of credit. [9-12-2014]
410. Are U.S. persons prohibited from entering into new contracts after the sanctions effective date with persons subject to Directives 1, 2, or 3 that provide payment terms to the SSI entities of greater than 30 days (for persons subject to Directives 1 or 3) or 90 days (for persons subject to Directive 2)? For instance, if a U.S. person agrees to sell shares or assets to an SSI entity in a corporate transaction that becomes effective on or after the sanctions effective date, is the U.S. person prohibited from agreeing to deferred purchase payments, even if no interest is involved, that may be paid more than the permissible number of days later by the SSI entity?
Directives 1 and 3 prohibit new extensions of credit to SSI entities of greater than 30 days maturity and Directive 2 prohibits new extensions of credit to SSI entities of greater than 90 days maturity, and these prohibitions include deferred purchase agreements extending payment terms of longer than 30 days or 90 days (depending on the applicable Directive) to an SSI entity. Such agreements would constitute a prohibited extension of credit to an SSI entity if the terms were longer than the permissible number of days and the agreement was entered into on or after the sanctions effective date. OFAC does not consider the inclusion of an interest rate to be a necessary condition for establishing whether a transaction represents new debt. [9-12-2014]
411. What does the prohibition contained in Directive 3 under Executive Order 13662 mean? What is the scope of prohibited services?
OFAC issued Directive 3, introducing new prohibitions on all transactions in, provision of financing for, and other dealings in new debt of longer than 30 days maturity of persons determined to be subject to the Directive, their property, or their interests in property. Transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States involving derivative products whose value is linked to an underlying asset that constitutes new debt with maturity of longer than 30 days issued by a person subject to Directive 3 are authorized by General License 1A pursuant to Executive Order 13662.
412. What does the prohibition contained in Directive 4 mean? What is the scope of prohibited services?
OFAC issued Directive 4, introducing new prohibitions on the provision of goods, services (except for financial services), and technology for certain activities involving certain persons operating in the energy sector of the Russian Federation. Directive 4 prohibits the direct or indirect provision, exportation, or reexportation of goods, services (except for financial services), or technology in support of exploration or production for deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil in the Russian Federation, or in maritime area claimed by the Russian Federation and extending from its territory, and involve any person determined to be subject to Directive 4 or that person’s property or interests in property. The prohibition on the exportation of services includes, for example, drilling services, geophysical services, geological services, logistical services, management services, modeling capabilities, and mapping technologies. The prohibition does not apply to the provision of financial services, e.g., clearing transactions or providing insurance related to such activities.
On September 12, 2014, OFAC issued General License 2, authorizing for 14 days all services and activities prohibited by Directive 4 that are ordinarily incident and necessary to the wind down of operations, contracts, or other agreements involving persons determined to be subject to Directive 4. In order to qualify under this General License, a transaction must (1) occur prior to 12:01 am E.D.T. September 26, 2014, and (2) relate to operations, contracts, or agreements that were in effect prior to September 12, 2014. General License 2 does not authorize any new provision, exportation, or re-exportation of goods, services, or technology except as needed to cease operations, contracts, or other agreements involving affected projects.
Please see this page for the Department of Commerce’s related license requirement on exports of certain goods for deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil or gas.
413. For the purposes of Directive 4, how does OFAC define "deepwater" projects that have the potential to produce oil?
A project is considered to be a deepwater project if the project involves underwater activities at depths of more than 500 feet.
414. Does Directive 4 apply to projects that have the potential to produce gas?
If a deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale project in the Russian Federation, or in maritime area claimed by the Russian Federation and extending from its territory, and involving a person named under Directive 4 has the potential to produce oil, then the prohibition applies, irrespective of whether the project also has the potential to produce gas. If the project has the potential to produce gas only, then the prohibition does not apply.
415. For persons determined to be subject to multiple Directives, how do the prohibitions and exemptions listed under one Directive affect prohibitions and exemptions under the other Directives?
Each Directive operates independently of the others. If a transaction involves a person subject to two Directives, for example, a U.S. person engaging in that transaction must comply with the requirements of both Directives. Exemptions in one Directive apply only to the prohibitions contained in that Directive and do not carry over to another Directive. For example, if a person is subject to both Directive 2 and Directive 4, the exemption for the provision of financial services by U.S. persons or in the United States under Directive 4 does not supersede the prohibition in Directive 2 on dealing in debt of longer than 90 days maturity of such a person. For these reasons, when OFAC references a prohibition involving an "SSI entity" in these FAQs or in other guidance, it is referring to an entity subject to the Directive(s) at issue in a particular FAQ or piece of guidance.
416. What does the "sanctions effective date" mean in the context of sectoral sanctions pursuant to E.O. 13662?
For purposes of the sectoral sanctions, "sanctions effective date" means the date a person is determined to be subject to the prohibition(s) of the relevant Directive. When a person has been previously determined to be subject to a Directive and the prohibition in the Directive is subsequently amended, (1) the sanctions effective date for the prohibitions of the original Directive remains the date on which the person was identified as subject to the prohibitions of that Directive, and (2) the sanctions effective date for the amended Directive is the date of the amendment (or other date specified in the amended Directive).

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...drafting-retal

POPE: WWIII UNDERWAY




http://drudgereport.com/

WW-III Prelude: German Leopard-2 Tanks In Ukraine.

Saturday, September 13, 2014 19:25
(Before It's News)

http://pravdoryb.info

According to the report Ukrainian Fascist Junta begun full scale offensive on Yasinovataya, Donetsk Region. Locals reporting heavy artilery firing on civilians from Makeevka, Donetsk Region. As reported earlier Kiev Junta used ceasefire to resupply and regroup Fascist forces in the region.



Here is the image of one of the 34 German tanks taken in Ukraine on 13 September 2014 heading EAST.






P.S. German tank batallion has not been declared as part of “Rapid Trident” exercise. Total amount of participants - 1100 from Azerbajdzhan, Cananda, Georgia, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, England, US contingent alone consist of 200 soldiers. Thus 700 strong German tank batallion deployed and driven under its own power across 3 countries leave no room for imagination.










Actual screenshots of Ukrainian Fascists taken by Norwegian TV2 Channel.


http://beforeitsnews.com/global-unre...t-2460694.html

Russia Admits WW3 Is Coming! ‘There Is A War Coming In Europe’

Tuesday, July 29, 2014 7:10
(Before It's News)
By Susan Duclos

One statement reported on by FT basically says it all, making it clear that Russia is gearing up for World War III and there is nothing that can stop it at this point.

The initial story is about the recent news of a $50 billion judgement against Russia, and the details of that can be seen at the FT article (free subscription) and in the video below, but it is the last paragraph of the FT article about a statement made by a person close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, that really brings the reality of what is coming, home.

One person close to Mr Putin said the Yukos ruling was insignificant in light of the bigger geopolitical stand-off over Ukraine. “There is a war coming in Europe,” he said. “Do you really think this matters?”

That is what everyone has been gearing up for. That is why the Ukraine situation was set up, orchestrated and preparations are being made to pull out old war plans from the cold war era.

WW III is what all of it has been about and we were warned consistently that this would happen because when global economies are ready to crash, war is the option TPTB always fall back to.

MAJOR UPDATE – Mother Of All Bombshells! Huge US Military Buildup In Ukraine – “This Is All Looking Pretty Ugly” – Gregory Mannarino





Cross posted at Wake up America

http://beforeitsnews.com/war-and-con...g-2453412.html

Drudge Report

WARNING TO ASSAD: DON'T SHOOT DOWN OUR PLANES!




Paths to War, Then and Now, Haunt Obama
Before recently announcing an escalated campaign against Islamic extremists, President Obama privately reflected on another time when a president weighed military action in the Middle East.
www.nytimes.com|By PETER BAKER

Middle East |​​NYT Now

Paths to War, Then and Now, Haunt Obama

By PETER BAKERSEPT. 13, 2014



President Obama on Wednesday in Washington. Mr. Obama says he is aware of the “political price” he pays for being deliberate. Credit Pool photo by Saul Loeb

WASHINGTON — Just hours before announcing an escalated campaign against Islamic extremists last week, President Obama privately reflected on another time when a president weighed military action in the Middle East — the frenzied weeks leading up to the American invasion of Iraq a decade ago.
“I was not here in the run-up to Iraq in 2003,” he told a group of visitors who met with him in the White House before his televised speech to the nation, according to several people who were in the meeting. “It would have been fascinating to see the momentum and how it builds.”
In his own way, Mr. Obama said, he had seen something similar, a virtual fever rising in Washington, pressuring him to send the armed forces after the Sunni radicals who had swept through Iraq and beheaded American journalists. He had told his staff, he said, not to evaluate their own policy based on external momentum. He would not rush to war. He would be deliberate.
“But I’m aware I pay a political price for that,” he said.
His introspection that afternoon reflected Mr. Obama’s journey from the candidate who wanted to wind down America’s overseas wars to the commander in chief who just resumed and expanded one. For Mr. Obama, that spring of 2003, when President George W. Bush sent troops to topple Saddam Hussein, has framed his own presidency. He has spent nearly six years trying to avoid repeating it.
In forming a plan to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria using airpower and local forces, but not regular American ground troops, he searched for ways to avoid the mistakes of the past. He felt “haunted,” he told his visitors, by the failure of a Special Forces raid to rescue the American hostages James Foley and Steven J. Sotloff — “we just missed them,” he said — but their subsequent murders were not the real reason he opted for war, although he noted that gruesome videos released by ISIS had helped galvanize public support for action.
He was acutely aware that the operation he was about to embark on would not solve the larger issues in that region by the time he left office. “This will be a problem for the next president,” Mr. Obama said ruefully, “and probably the one after that.” But he alternated between resolve as he vowed to retaliate against President Bashar al-Assad if Syrian forces shot at American planes, and prickliness as he mocked critics of his more reticent approach to the exercise of American power.
“Oh, it’s a shame when you have a wan, diffident, professorial president with no foreign policy other than ‘don’t do stupid things,’ ” guests recalled him saying, sarcastically imitating his adversaries. “I do not make apologies for being careful in these areas, even if it doesn’t make for good theater.”
Mr. Obama went on to reveal his thoughts on challenges he faces in combating the threat from ISIS. He expressed his frustration with the French for paying ransoms to terrorists, asserted that Americans are kidnapped at lower rates because the United States does not, resisted the idea of Kurdistan’s breaking away from Iraq and even speculated on what he would have advised ISIS to do to keep America out of the war in the region.
This account of Mr. Obama’s thinking as he arrived at a pivotal point in his presidency is based on interviews with 10 people who spoke with him in the days leading up to his speech Wednesday night. In quoting his private remarks, the people were recalling what he said from their best memories.
The president invited a group of foreign policy experts and former government officials to dinner on Monday, and a separate group of columnists and magazine writers for a discussion on Wednesday afternoon. Although three New York Times columnists and an editorial writer were among those invited to the second session, this account is drawn from people unaffiliated with The Times, some of whom insisted on anonymity because they were not supposed to share details of the conversations.
The president they described was calm and confident, well versed on the complexities of the ISIS challenge and in no evident rush to end the discussions. A briefing book sat in front of him during the second of the sessions, but he never opened it. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State John Kerry joined him for the dinner, and Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, and Susan Rice, the national security adviser, sat in on the meeting with the journalists, but none of them said very much.
Mr. Obama was relaxed enough, as he discussed the array of foreign policy crises facing him, that at one point he ridiculed President Vladimir V. Putin’s rationale for intervening in Ukraine to protect Russian speakers by saying the United States should intervene in Mexico to protect enclaves of Americans. When a writer jokingly asked if he was announcing plans to invade Mexico, he laughed and said no, Canada, because it has more oil.
The guests came away with different impressions; some said they thought he still seemed ambivalent about the course he was taking in Iraq and Syria, while others said he appeared at peace.
“It’s fair to say when the president imagined where he’d be in this sixth year, I doubt he expected to be here,” said Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Bush administration official who was among the guests at the dinner Monday. “But he’s been forced to react to events here.”
Jane Harman, a former Democratic congresswoman from California who now heads the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said she thought Mr. Obama had evolved. “He was all in,” she said. “I don’t know what the definition of reluctant is, but I certainly think he’s totally focused, this man at this time.”
If his thinking has evolved, Mr. Obama admitted no errors along the way. While some critics, and even his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, have faulted him for not arming moderate Syrian rebels years ago, Mr. Obama does not accept the premise that doing so would have forestalled the rise of ISIS.
“I have thought that through and tried to apply 20-20 hindsight,” he told some of his guests, as one recalled. “I’m perfectly willing to admit they were right, but even if they were right, I still can’t see how that would have changed the situation.”
He defended his decision to wait to approve airstrikes until last month in Iraq and last week in Syria, saying he wanted first to force Iraq to replace its government with a more inclusive coalition that could draw disaffected Sunnis away from supporting ISIS and take on the task of combating it.
But while Mr. Obama sees bolstering the new Iraqi government as his path to ultimate success on that side of the border, he struck his guests as less certain about the endgame on the Syrian side, where he has called for Mr. Assad to step down and must now rely on the same moderate Syrian rebels he refused to arm in the past.
Mr. Obama acknowledged it would be a long campaign, one complicated by a dearth of intelligence about possible targets on the Syrian side of the border and one that may not be immediately satisfying. “This isn’t going to be fireworks over Baghdad,” he said.
Asked by one of the columnists what he would do if his strategy did not work and he had to escalate further, Mr. Obama rejected the premise. “I’m not going to anticipate failure at this point,” he said.
He made clear the intricacy of the situation, though, as he contemplated the possibility that Mr. Assad might order his forces to fire at American planes entering Syrian airspace. If he dared to do that, Mr. Obama said he would order American forces to wipe out Syria’s air defense system, which he noted would be easier than striking ISIS because its locations are better known. He went on to say that such an action by Mr. Assad would lead to his overthrow, according to one account.
Mr. Obama dwelled on the killings of the two American journalists, Mr. Foley and Mr. Sotloff, telling guests that he had authorized the Pentagon to develop a rescue attempt this summer on the same day the matter was brought to him. It was conducted within days and executed flawlessly, he said. He noted that the United States does not pay ransom to terrorists, but remarked with irritation that President François Hollande of France says his country does not, when in fact it does.
Mr. Obama had what guests on Wednesday afternoon described as a bereft look as he discussed the murders of Mr. Foley and Mr. Sotloff, particularly because two other Americans are still being held. Days later, ISIS would report beheading a British hostage with another video posted online Saturday.
But the president said he had already been headed toward a military response before the men’s deaths. He added that ISIS had made a major strategic error by killing them because the anger it generated resulted in the American public’s quickly backing military action.
If he had been “an adviser to ISIS,” Mr. Obama added, he would not have killed the hostages but released them and pinned notes on their chests saying, “Stay out of here; this is none of your business.” Such a move, he speculated, might have undercut support for military intervention.
It was clear to the guests how aware Mr. Obama was of the critics who have charged him with demonstrating a lack of leadership. He brought up the criticism more than once with an edge of resentment in his voice.
“He’s definitely feeling it,” said one guest. At one point, Mr. Obama noted acidly that President Ronald Reagan sent Marines to Lebanon only to have hundreds of them killed in a terrorist attack because of terrible planning, and then withdrew the remaining ones, leaving behind a civil war that lasted years. But Reagan, he noted, is hailed as a titan striding the earth.
“He’s not a softy,” Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter and attended the dinner Monday, said of Mr. Obama. “I think part of the problem with some of his critics is they think he’s a softy. He’s not a softy. But he’s a person who tries to think through these events so you can draw some long-term conclusions.”
Mr. Haass said attention to nuance was a double-edged attribute. “This is someone who, more than most in the political world, is comfortable in the gray rather than the black and white,” he said. “So many other people in the political world do operate in the black and white and are more quote-unquote decisive, and that’s a mixed blessing. He clearly falls on the side of those who are slow or reluctant to decide because deciding often forces you into a more one-sided position than you’re comfortable with.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 14, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Paths to War, Then and Now, Haunt Obama. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/wo...bama.html?_r=0

General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned - Seven Countries In Five Years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

The Iraq Proxy War: Mapping Whose Troops Are Involved

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/14/2014 20:33 -0400

There is another "broad coalition" in The Middle East. With fighter from Sudan and Sweden to Spain and Switzerland, the following map shows where all the foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq's 'new crusades' are from...



Source: AFP

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...s-are-involved

Over 1000 US, NATO Troops Begin Military Exercises In Ukraine

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/16/2014 - 07:59 Russia could care less whether Ukraine signs meaningless accession agreements with Europe (as it just did) because at the end of the day, Ukraine needs Russia's gas (if only for the next 4-6 years until Hunter Biden develops Ukraine's shale deposits and the Qatar gas pipeline finally crosses Syria). Russia, however, is very angry when NATO gets ever closer to its borders, which it just did when earlier today, more than 1,000 troops from 15 NATO and non-NATO countries, including the US of course, are taking part in a military exercise in Ukraine.