The downing of the Russian plane and the military intervention in Syria

TAKIS FOTOPOULOS

(06.11.2015)

 

Abstract: In this article the significance of the downing of the Russian plane, possibly by a terrorist act, and of the Russian military intervention in Syria is analyzed in terms of the Transnational Elite’s plan for the integration of the entire Middle East into the New World Order of neoliberal globalization and of a possible split within the Russian elite between ‘globalists’ and ‘patriots/nationalists’.

 

The downing of the Russian plane: a terrorist act?

Although the inquiry on the downing of the Russian plane still continues and it is clear that the Transnational Elite (TE, i.e. the economic and political elites administering the New World Order of neoliberal globalization, which are mainly located in the G7 countries) has already attempted, through the UK government, to blame it on a ISIS terrorist act, an important question arises. Thus, irrespective of whether the downing of the airplane was indeed the result of a terrorist act—which is something that we may never learn— who could have the motive to carry out such an attack and why? The reason why we may never learn the real motives behind the downing of the passenger plane is that the main actors involved, certainly Egypt, and possibly Russia as well, may have reasons not to reveal any terrorist activity involved.

As far as Egypt is concerned, it is well known that the Egyptian economy was in a bad shape even before the outbreak of the “Arab Spring” and the situation has worsened even further since then, as the TE-instigated turmoil across the Arab world prompted many Western visitors to pull back from Egyptian tourist resorts. The salvation of the Egyptian tourist industry lately has come from Russia, where the combination of economic sanctions and the huge drop in the price of oil, engineered by the TE and Saudi Arabia—as part of the economic war against Russia and Iran[1]—has attracted lately many Russians to the Red Sea not only for its reliable climate but also by all-in package tours appealingly priced from as little as £350 a week. As Sunday Times reported, “more than 1m Russians opted for similar holidays in the first six months of 2015, helping to turn Egypt into their country’s most popular tourist destination. As turmoil across the Arab world prompted many Western visitors to pull back from Egyptian resorts, the Russians were flooding in. Soon, tourist signs that were once written in English switched to Cyrillic script. There were jobs galore along the Red Sea coast for Russian-speaking diving instructors — but not so many for the English or French.”[2] No wonder Al-Sisi, the Egyptian leader, was irritated when he heard about the British announcement to suspend flights from the UK to Sharm el-Sheikh, while he was travelling to London for an official visit arranged some time ago to boost economic relations between the two countries. Of course, if Egypt, at the end, adopts an approach to cover up the real causes of the disaster, it would simply “follow the example of numerous states in the past that have sought to hide or deny the causes of aircraft disasters.”[3]

However, much more complicated is the Russian case, which can only be explained with reference to a perceived split within the Russian elite.

The split within the Russian elite^[4]

It is obvious that Russia is not a member of the TE and therefore it does not share any significant transnational power. Yet Russia could, potentially, be a self-reliant economy and could therefore restore its national sovereignty, if its elite under Putin decided to do so. Furthermore, it could create ― if it so wished ― an economic and political union of similar sovereign nations based on self-reliance. However, it seems the Russian elite is split on the matter, with part of it (the ‘nationalists/patriots’) aiming at creating a Eurasian Union of sovereign nations, inevitably, outside the NWO, and another part (the ‘”globalists” or “liberals” as they are called in Russia) aiming at full integration into the NWO as an equal member of the TE ―something the latter could never allow for economic, geopolitical and cultural reasons.

As regards the patriots/nationalists first, it is well known that there is an informal popular patriotic front in Russia, which is encompassing the popular strata of Russian society that are going to be the main victims of globalization in case the country is fully integrated into the NWO. Their main aim is economic and national sovereignty, which implies also cultural sovereignty. It is this broad aim that unites in this informal front from communists to Orthodox Christians, from workers to farmers, from the new rising ‘services proletariat’ to the unemployed, occasionally employed and low paid employed as well as poor pensioners. This is why this trend is embraced by both the Communist Party (which is against the capitalist economic globalization that Russia’s integration into the NWO implied) and the Orthodox Christian Church (which is against the cultural homogenization implied by globalization). The National Liberation Movement under Evgeny Fedorov[5] and the Eurasia movement founded by Aleksandr Dugin[6] and others are just two of the main political expressions of this informal front.

As regards, second, the “globalists”, i.e. those who do not question globalization and the economic significance of the NWO, they are dominated by the economic oligarchs, who, although they cannot exercise in Russia the same political control as those controlling the Transnational Corporations (TNCs) who control the political elites in the West, they can still exert significant political power through their direct or indirect control of the media and academic institutions, as well as through the influence they have over the upper middle class which has been created in the major urban centers like Moscow and St. Petersburg during the boom period, as a result of the relatively high price of oil in the last decade or so. Globalists aim at the fuller integration of Russia into the NWO, albeit some of them believing erroneously that this could be done on a parity basis with the other members of the TE. Thus, although it seems that the vast majority of the Russian people are in favor of patriots/nationalists (something that could also explain the huge rise in popularity of Putin following his re-integration of Crimea into Russia), the “globalists” grasp of power within the Russian elite seems to be almost overwhelming.

The current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev seems to be leading the political expression of globalists, although most in the political leadership (as well as in the economic and media leaderships) seem to belong to this part of the Russian elite, whereas Putin seems to be attempting to accommodate both factions of the Russian elite under a “united Russia” tent, as it is also the name of the governing party in Russia with Putin as his chairman (2008-12). However, Putin was then involved in the creation of the All-Russia People’s Front (ONF) of which he was elected as its leader in its inaugural congress in June 2013.[7] Whether this new movement would develop as the successor party of “United Russia”, i.e. as a broad party uniting both main factions of the Russian elite, or whether instead it would develop as the main political expression of the present informal patriotic front remains to be seen and will be determined of course by the outcome of the present struggle within the Russian elite.

It is however clear that unless the informal patriotic front manages to impose its will on the “globalist” part of the Russian elite, the present twin crises involving Russia, i.e. the Ukrainian crisis and the Syrian crisis, will determine not only the future of Russia, either as a subordinate member of the TE or as leader of an alternative world order of sovereign states, but also the fate of the Eurasian Union (EEU) itself. In other words, it is the outcome of this struggle that will determine whether the EEU will just be a supplement to the NWO (as for example the German elite and Western Left globalists would wish it to be[8]), or, instead, the basis for an alternative democratic world order of sovereign nations. In case, for instance, the Minsk agreement of the “Finlandization” of Ukraine is eventually implemented, with some sort of political autonomy granted to Eastern Ukraine, as part of a Ukraine fully integrated into the EU (but not NATO as well) and, similarly, in case the Syrian conflict leads to negotiations with the TE for a transitional process that would eventually lead to the “voluntary” dismantlement of the Ba’athist regime (instead of the disastrous forced dismantlement of the Iraqi Ba’athist regime following the US invasion and occupation) then one could assume that this would be the first step towards the “normalization” of relations between Russia and the TE. This could well be followed by the creation of a huge free trade zone that could include the Eurasian Union and the EU and it would mark the full integration of Russia into the NWO, as the globalist part of its elite also wants. Highly indicative of the views of globalists is a recent article by Dr. Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom and ex- Deputy foreign minister (2005-2011), who, writing in RT, at the very moment the TE’s attack against Russia was reaching a climax, stressed that Russia did not have a problem with Ukraine’s integration into the NWO through EU but only with the US, which attempts to keep Russia and Germany apart![9]

Finally, it should be noted that this split within the Russian elite has already led to some serious inconsistencies on Russia’s foreign policy, first with respect to Libya and then with respect to Ukraine. As regards the former, the result of this split – which became public at the time – was that Russia in effect allowed the TE to destroy one of the two remaining Arab regimes (following the destruction of the Iraqi Ba’athist regime) based on national liberation movements, i.e. Libya. The other similar Arab regime is Syria, (which is still governed by the Ba’athist party) is in the process of being destroyed, although a TE attack against it was averted just at the last moment in 2013 when, through Russian intervention, the Assad regime consented to the destruction of its chemical weapons. Yet, this eventually proved a temporary reprieve, as the TE never abandoned its aim of regime change, either militarily or diplomatically or both.  Similarly, one could assume that it was perhaps the same split that prevented Russia from refusing to recognize – either directly or indirectly – the illegal regime installed in Ukraine, following the “coup from below” that was organized and financed by the TE. This has led to the successful integration of Ukraine into the NWO and the subsequent “legal” massacre of the people of East Ukraine, which began a heroic struggle against the junta occupation and in favor of self-determination – that was promptly christened by Orwell’s “Ministry of Peace” (i.e. NATO, etc.) as “terrorism”!

 Yet, one could assume that it was the failure of this “soft” approach, both with respect to Libya and Ukraine, which was presumably suggested by the globalist part of the Russian elite, that led Putin to adopt first a more aggressive policy on Ukraine, as expressed by Crimea’s re-integration into Russia and then on Syria, which led last month to the Russian military intervention in Syria.  Both these policies were enthusiastically adopted by the informal Popular Front mentioned above, as expressed by the explosion of Putin’s personal ratings to over 80 percent following Crimea and over 90 percent following the Syrian intervention.

No need to add that the “calamity Marxists”, who have no clue about the seismic changes brought about by the new systemic phenomenon of the emergence, and then dominance, of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) in the last thirty years or so and the consequent neoliberal globalization, still talk about intra-imperialist conflicts. This is in complete contrast to the pro-Eurasian Union stand aptly adopted by both the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian Communist Party.[10] Presumably, the two imperialisms to which these Paleolithic Marxists refer to are, on the one hand, the imperialism of the TE and all its associates and protectorates (the so-called “world community”) and, on the other, the Russian Federation, which has neither engaged in any imperialist war itself, nor does it control any major TNCs!

The Transnational Elite’s plan before the Russian intervention in Syria

As it is well known, it was the Gulf regimes, which, with the decisive help of the TE, literally massacred the peoples of Iraq, Libya and finally Syria in order to destroy the last states based on national liberation movements that refused to join the New World Order (NWO) of neoliberal globalization. The ISIS jihadis were of course at the time “ours sons of a bitch” (to recall Lyndon Johnson’s infamous phrase about the criminals used by US against national liberation movements) i.e. the “children of the TE” and of the regimes of the Gulf. Yet, from the moment the ISIS jihadis began attacking the organs of the TE and the Gulf states in Syria (the NATO “insurrectionists,” i.e. the Free Syrian Army, etc.) and Iraq (the Kurds in Northern Iraq), they were immediately proscribed by their sponsors and military trainers.[11]

Therefore, once the decision was taken by the TE to smash ISIS in the summer of 2014, the mass propaganda machine of the TE-controlled world media was set in full motion against the “pure evil terrorists” who were shown every night on western TV screens busy beheading Western journalists and others. Clearly therefore, the target of the mass TE propaganda against ISIS was not just to increase the wave of Islamophobia, as a counterbalance to the massive wave of anti-Zionism created by the far bigger massacre in Gaza going on at the time, but also to prepare the ground for the new campaign. It was actually for exactly this reason that the TE used the jihadists both in Libya and Syria.  The wild terror unleashed by ruthless jihadists against the national liberation movements in both Libya and Syria played a decisive role in the overthrow of Gaddafi and in dismantling much of Assad’s regime. Terrorism, along with brutal NATO bombings, achieved the destruction of these countries and their conversion into “failed states”, even though regime change, without NATO bombardment, has not yet been achieved in Syria. In fact, this conversion is only the preliminary stage in the process of a country’s full integration into the NWO, even if further TE action may be needed in the future to complete the integration process―as already requested by members of the TE like France. However, this process is completely misunderstood by the Paleolithic Marxist Left, which attempts to understand what is going on today using the redundant tools of imperialism and empires, with no clue whatsoever of the immense significance of the emergence of a new systemic phenomenon, the rise of transnational corporations, which effectively run the NWO of neoliberal globalization.[12]

The pretext given for the launching of the mass media campaign was the TV beheadings of Western subjects by ISIS jihadists, while at the same time the same media concealed the fact that beheadings are a common sentence in e.g. Saudi Arabia, one of the strongest and most criminal protectorates of theTransnational Elite (TE). Yet, this practice did not cause any NGO in the West defending “human rights” to demand from the Transnational Elite to punish the criminal emirs in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as they readily did for the enemies of the TE (Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, et. al).

It is therefore clear that the hysteria created about ISIS plays a very important role in preparing the “world community” for a new slaughter under preparation in the Middle East for the completion of the TE’s aims to fully integrate the entire area into the NWO. In this sense the hysteria following 9/11 was simply the first stage of this huge campaign aiming to create a series of failed states (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan), whereas the campaign against ISIS is simply the second stage of the same campaign aiming at “cleaning up” and consolidating the TE’s power in this critical for the economic and geostrategic aims of the TE area.

The TE plan therefore before the Russian intervention was, on the one hand, to attack ISIS when it turned its fire against rebel groups supported by the TE, including the pro-West among the Kurdish groups, and on the other to indirectly support (by not attacking them) the ISIS groups which were demolishing the Syrian army and Syrian infrastructure. The aim was the encroachment of vast areas of Syria and their occupation by elements hostile to the Ba’ath regime in Damascus, which eventually would have no other option but to effectively surrender through some sort of negotiations imposed on it by the “events on the ground” or, alternatively let its country become a failed state which could be easily divided between Kurds in the North and Islamists on the South. In fact, just before the Russian intervention in October, the situation in Syria had reached exactly this stage, as the Iranians, a faithful ally of the Ba’athist regime, (as they both shared the same aim of keeping their national sovereignty), informed the Russians.

In fact, a recent report in Washington Post made clear this plan. Here is how it explained and justified the Obama strategy:

“There is and always has been a strategy. From 2011 it has been to end the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, primarily through diplomatic rather than military means…Defeating the Islamic State in Syria, under Obama’s strategy, rests on enabling local Syrian forces not only to beat back Islamic State fighters but to hold freed territory until a new central government (my emphasis), established in Damascus, can take over.”[13]

The significance of the Russian intervention in Syria

 However, this entire Western plan was thrown into disarray and effectively neutralized by the Russian military intervention in Syria last month. The highly successful Russian air campaign, which was coordinated with a ground campaign by the Syrian army, not only managed to stop any further advance by ISIS and other anti-Assad military groups armed and financed by the TE and the Gulf States but also even to force them to retreat towards the Turkish border. This created another complication for the TE, as it turned Turkey against the Western plan. Yet, Turkey provided direct or indirect support to the campaign against the Ba’athist regime, on the condition that any idea for a Kurdistan at its borders (consisting of Iraqi, Syrian and Turkish Kurds) would be abandoned. However, a new protectorate of the TE in the area, in the form of a new Kurdistan state, seems to be a long-term aim of the TE for the full integration of the Middle East into the NWO, following the dismantling of the Ba’athist regimes in Iraq and Syria and of the Gaddafi regime in Libya––all three regimes which had arisen out of national liberation movements (as was also the case of the Iranian regime) that were obviously redundant (if not dangerous) in the era of neoliberal globalization and had therefore to be destroyed.

It was the Russian intervention which forced a change of tactics on the TE––as expressed on the military side by the American elite. Thus, following the Vienna conference on Syria, the US Defence Department adopted a new approach, involving “boots on the ground” –even if their numbers are limited in the first stage. As the same WP report describes this new approach:

“The new approach calls for fewer than 50 Special Operations members in teams to be sent in the next month from the United States to northern Syria to support selected Syrian Kurdish, Turkmen and Syrian Arab forces fighting in the area…For the foreseeable future, the new U.S. personnel will not do joint operations with those Syrian groups nor serve as forward air controllers to guide U.S. and coalition aircraft to targets. They are there “to work with the units that are there fighting ISIL [the Islamic State] and see what more is possible,” the Pentagon official said.”

In other words, as Walter Pincus stressed, “the door remains open for sending more American troops into Syria, depending on what happens in the next few months”,[14] or as Tony Cartalucci put it, “the move is to use the so-called Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) as a pretext to invade and occupy Syrian territory”. The idea is, as he explained, “to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via the presence of Special Forces as well.”[15] Clearly, the aim of the new strategy is the same as before: to force the Syrian regime to accept negotiations with its opponents aiming the transition to a non-Ba’athist regime, perhaps with safeguards securing the presence of the Russian base in Syria and behind the scenes promises of lifting the sanctions against Russia and its re-integration into the TE as the extra member of the G7. Clearly, whether the Russian side will accept such a compromise will depend on the outcome of the internal struggle between the “nationalists” and “globalists” within the Russian elite. The latter, unlike the former, will have no objection to such a compromise.

 Back to the downing of the Russian plane

 In view of the above analysis, it is obvious that in case the downing of the plane was the result of terrorist activity, the aim was to attack the Russian public, i.e. to terrorize a significant part of the vast majority of the population, which presently supports Putin and the nationalist part of the elite in their military campaign in Syria. In that case there are two main possible scenarios:

a)    If the “globalists” prevail in the Russian elite, we will never learn the truth about the real cause of the downing of the plane, and –in case of a terrorist act–, who carried it out and particularly who instigated it, as both the main actors (Egypt and Russia) will have every reason to hide it. An indication of a cover up will be a compromise agreement between Russia and the TE on both Syria and Ukraine, which will follow soon afterwards.

b) On the other hand, if the “nationalists” prevail in the Russian elite then Russia will proceed in charging ISIS as the executioners of the crime, although it is unlikely that the Russian elite will proceed to accuse directly the TE as instigating it, in order to avoid a direct conflict with it, which may lead to unpredictable consequences.

 Either way, barring the case of an undisputed accident, the next few months, if not weeks, will be crucial, in showing whether Russia and the Eurasian Union would lead a world struggle for national sovereignty, or whether instead they would be assimilated by the New World Order as subordinate members of the Transnational Elite. As Paul Craig Roberts in a similar context put it:

“This is an effort to weaken Russia, to threaten Russia, to make Russia back off from its resistance to American hegemony over the world.”[16]

P.S. 7/11/2015

The Russian elite today, in a very significant about-turn, just a day after Russian politicians and media berated Britain for halting flights to Sharm el-Sheikh over suspicions that the Russian Airbus was brought down by a bomb on board, stopped all flights to and from Egypt, presumably on the basis of strong evidence  indicating a bomb attack. Whether Russia knew this from the beginning but the globalist part of the elite prevailed over the nationalist part of it in hiding the evidence and now was forced by the overwhelming opposite evidence coming out to retreat, is something that is unclear at the moment. It seems therefore that we are moving towards the second scenario above, with unpredictable consequences.

 

[1] See Takis Fotopoulos, “Oil, economic warfare and self-reliance”, The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 10, Nos. 1/2 (Winter-Summer 2014),http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol10/vol10_no1-2_Oil_economic_warfare_and_self-reliance.html

[2] Nicola Smith and Mark Hookham, “Did Isis down Russian airliner, killing 224?” Sunday Times, 1/11/2015.

[3] Charles Bremner, The Times, 5/11/2015.

[4] Parts of this section are based in a forthcoming book by the author entitled, The New World Order in Action: War and economic violence, from the Middle East through Greece to Ukraine (Progressive Press, ch. 12).

[5] see e.g. Evgeny Fedorov, “The Russian revolution has begun”, Fort Russ, 5/3/2015, http://fortruss.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/evgeny-fedorov-russian-revolution-has.html

[6] see e.g. Alexander Dugin, “The Multipolar World and the Postmodern”, Journal of Eurasian Affairs, 14/5/2014, http://www.eurasianaffairs.net/the-multipolar-world-and-the-postmodern/

[7] Steve Rosenberg, “Putin inaugurates new movement amid fresh protests”, BBC News, 12/6/2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22879644

[8] see e.g. Pepe Escobar, “From Minsk to Wales, Germany is the key”, RT, 28/8/2014, http://rt.com/op-edge/183328-minsk-wales-germany-key/

[9] Alexander Yakovenko, ‘Which way to Europe and for Europe?’ RT, 14/4/2015, http://rt.com/op-edge/249657-ukraine-crisis-west-russia-relations/                                                                                                     

[10] “Communists call for halt to cooperation with IMF”, Kyiv Post, 7/11/2011, http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/communists-call-for-halt-to-cooperation-with-imf-116420.html

[11] See Takis Fotopoulos, “How the Transnational Elite created Islamic terrorism”, The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 11, Nos. 1/2 (Winter-Summer 2015), http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol11/vol11_no1_How_the_Transnational_Elite_created_Islamic_terrorism.html

[12] see e.g. James Petras, “The US and Global Wars: Empire or Vampire?”, Global Research, 11/9/2014, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-us-and-global-wars-empire-or-vampire/5400953

[13] Walter Pincus, “Obama has strategy for Syria, but it faces major obstacles”, Washington Post, 2/11/2015. 

[14] ibid.

[15] Tony Cartalucci, “Post Confirms: ISIS Supplied Via Turkey, a US Excuse to Seize Syria”, Land Destroyer, 3/11/2015,http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/washington-post-confirms-isis-supplied.html

[16] Soros’s ‘European values’ mean losing your national identity – Paul Craig Roberts , RT, 4/11/2015, https://www.rt.com/op-edge/320747-soros-european-values-orban/

 

source:

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