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British general warns about possible ‘accidental’ war with Russia
13 Nov, 2021 14:56
The UK and its allies are at a greater risk of a military conflict with Moscow now than they ever were during the Cold War, the chief of the Defence Staff said, adding that "traditional diplomatic mechanisms" are no longer there.
The emergence of a "multipolar world" from the ashes of the bipolar international system of the Cold War has led to greater competition between nations, which can easily see the UK as well as other western states and Russia pitted against each other, General Sir Nick Carter told The Times Radio on Saturday.
"We're in a much more competitive world than we were even ten or 15 years ago," the four-star general said, adding that "the nature of the competition between states and great powers leads to greater tensions."
The general then warned politicians that the belligerent "nature" of some of their policies could lead to a situation in which "escalation leads to miscalculation." At the same time, he accused the Kremlin of being ready to go to any lengths to supposedly undermine western-European nations and the US.
Carter, 62, sounded somewhat nostalgic for the Cold War times as he said that "many of the traditional diplomatic tools and mechanisms that you and I grew up with in the Cold War" are "no longer there." He also called the present-day situation a "real challenge we are confronted with," adding that, without those Cold War-type mechanisms, there is "a greater risk."
The general said he believes that the risk of war with Russia was greater now than at any moment of his 44-year-long career and called on the UK to be "careful." His words came as the Ministry of Defence confirmed that a team of British soldiers were sent to Poland to explore how they could provide "engineering support" to Warsaw amid a migrant crisis on its eastern border with Belarus.
Earlier, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak confirmed that NATO nations, including the UK, would help his country to prevent migrants from crossing into Polish territory. The British troops in particular were expected to construct a fortified border wall there.
The EU was quick to blame the crisis on Minsk's "hybrid war" as it accused Belarus of encouraging migrants to attempt a new route into Western Europe through its territory. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko denies the accusations and said that his government was no longer prepared to help the EU prevent migrants from entering Poland.
Some western officials also rushed to blame the situation on Russia. Moscow responded by saying it had nothing to do with the crisis.
Are they blaming Russia without a shred of evidence? If there is evidence, let's hear it.
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How many billions of dollars will go into this project? Just think of what all that money could be used for to make the world a better place instead of more dangerous.
Russia in talks with NATO's Turkey about designing
fifth generation fighter jet
14 Nov, 2021 11:13
Moscow is ready to help NATO-member Turkey develop its newest fighter jet, a leading Russian defense official revealed, on Sunday. Ankara has previously indicated it was open to cooperating on the matter with friendly countries.
“Russia has repeatedly expressed readiness to assist Turkey [in the development of a fifth-generation fighter jet], but right now this project is in the negotiation phase,” the head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC), Dmitry Shugayev, told RIA Novosti.
Ismail Demir, the chairman of the Presidency of Defense Industries, a Turkish government agency, told the media in September that Ankara was looking to cooperate with friendly states on the design of such an aircraft.
The US expelled Turkey from its F-35 program in 2019, canceling the delivery of jets promised to Ankara after it rejected America’s demand to scrap the deal to purchase S-400 mobile air defense missile systems from Russia.
That's what you call 'shooting yourself in the foot'.
Turkey has maintained that it will choose arms sales partners regardless of outside pressure and in spite of its membership of the US-led NATO military bloc.
US military covered up its ‘war crime’ in Syria – NYT
14 Nov, 2021 02:50
August 9, 2019 © Reuters / US Air Force
The US military tried to cover up a deadly attack on Syrian civilians that killed as many as 80 people, claiming that women and children could have been terrorist fighters, according to a New York Times investigation.
On March 18, 2019, a US F-15E fighter jet dropped a bomb on “a large crowd of women and children huddled against a river bank” near the town of Baghuz and then proceeded to drop several more, killing survivors, according to a New York Times report published on Saturday.
The attack reportedly shocked even US military officers, who watched the incident unfold live through a drone camera and questioned whether it could be considered a war crime. However, the bombing was soon covered up by the military and an investigation never took place, the report claimed.
“At nearly every step, the military made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike,” the report alleged, claiming that “the death toll was downplayed,” reports were “delayed, sanitized and classified,” the blast site was bulldozed, and “top leaders were not notified,” in an effort to keep what happened firmly under wraps.
US Central Command admitted that the strike killed 80 people – of which only 16 were alleged Islamic State terrorists – after being approached for comment by the newspaper, and Central Command bizarrely attempted to justify the rest of the deaths by claiming that the women and children could also have been terrorists.
So, we must kill all women and children, just in case?
According to the report, after Central Command identified 16 alleged fighters and 4 civilians killed in the strike, it said that it “was not clear” that the 60 other casualties were civilians, “in part because women and children in the Islamic State sometimes took up arms.”
The strike would be one of the Pentagon’s worst civilian casualty events in Syria, if 64 civilian deaths were officially acknowledged, but even the Times admitted that civilian deaths in US strikes are often “undercounted even in classified reports” – hinting that the true number of casualties could be even higher.
With memories still fresh of a US drone strike in Kabul that killed an aid worker and seven children – but not a single ISIS terrorist – also first unveiled by the NYT, the new revelation shocked readers in the US and around the world, who called for action over what many called a war crime.
“How do you even get around a defense like you don't know for certain that those babies weren't ISIS fighters?” journalist Caitlin Johnstone questioned, while Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) director Daniel Mahanty tweeted, “This is nothing short of criminal conspiracy. They bulldozed the strike site and manipulated logs. Who is going to jail for this?”
A former spokesperson for President Barack Obama, Tommy Vietor, called on the Department of Defense to release all information related to the attack, describing it as a “truly horrifying story.”
Let us not forget, the USA has no business being in Syria in the first place. They are there illegally, and they are there for the oil. This whole episode of America in Syria is incredibly shameful.
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