How Putin’s Leverage Shaped the Syrian Ceasefire by Gareth Porter + Larry Wilkerson: Will the Syrian Ceasefire End the US-Russia Proxy War?

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

by Gareth Porter
Writer, Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Middle East Eye
Washington
March 28, 2016

By his military withdrawal, Putin was actually enhancing his leverage over both the military situation and the political negotiations still to come

When Russian President Vladimir Putin had a substantive meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry last week, it was an extremely rare departure from normal protocol. There was some political logic to the meeting, however, because Putin and Kerry have clearly been the primary drivers of their respective governments’ policies toward Syria, and their negotiations have already led to a stunningly successful Syrian ceasefire and possible Syrian negotiations on a political settlement.

NATO’s Syria War Footing Under Cover of Refugee Crisis + Why the Syria Ceasefire is a Long Shot by Finian Cunningham

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
February 15, 2016

The US-led NATO alliance is dispatching warships to the Mediterranean to allegedly help ease Europe’s refugee crisis. However, a closer look at the naval vessels in the NATO mission shows that this is no refugee rescue attempt – but rather a full-on war mobilization.

Downed Airliner: Fake Audio Tape Shows US-Backed Hit to Frame Russia by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
July 21, 2014

In a devastating twist to emerge over the weekend it now seems that the Malaysian civilian airliner downed over Ukraine was most probably brought down as a result of sabotage by the US-backed Kiev regime.

The purpose of this audacious act of mass murder – in which 298 lives were lost – was carried out with the intention of framing the Russian government. Washington, the chief sponsor of the Kiev regime, must have known about the plot, if not being fully complicit in it.

Ukraine: Anti-fascists Resist U.S.-backed Offensive by Melinda Butterfield

Dandelion Salad

by Melinda Butterfield
www.workers.org
April 25, 2014

April 25 — Pushed and prodded by U.S. officials, the far-right coup regime in Kiev is now in the twelfth day of an on-again, off-again military offensive against the rebellious working-class cities of southeastern Ukraine.

The so-called “anti-terrorist campaign” was launched after a visit by CIA Director John Brennan to Kiev on April 12-13. Following humiliating setbacks, including the desertion of many troops the regime had believed loyal, the attack resumed immediately after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden flew to Kiev on April 22 to apply more pressure and promise more aid.

Washington and NATO’s New Surrealpolitik by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
April 9, 2014

As the unelected Kiev junta sends armed balaclava-clad paramilitaries to quell protests in Ukraine’s eastern cities it declares the operation “anti-terrorism”. The acting (sic) president in Kiev Oleksandr Turchynov has labeled all those seeking political autonomy in Kharkov, Donetsk, Lugansk and other pro-Russian cities in the east of the country as “terrorists and criminals”; a new set of laws cobbled together by the junta – two months before scheduled official elections have taken place and therefore of dubious legality – gives the self-appointed politicians in Kiev the power to prosecute any one that does not recognize their self-imposed authority.

How Americans Can Help World Peace by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
April 1, 2014

A first step for world peace is for the American people to rein in their reckless government from the international stage and to stop it making misery for so many.

Americans need democratic government like the rest of the world needs rid of Washington’s thuggish global policeman.

This may come as a shock to many ordinary Americans who tend to think that their country is already the beacon of democratic light unto the world, bestowing all sorts of benevolence to others. Such delusional “American exceptionalism” has to stop. America is only special in a very negative meaning. It plays a central part in fomenting conflict in almost every scenario we care to look at.

Crimea Self-Determination Amid Western Law of the Jungle by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
March 15, 2014

Ahead of the referendum in Crimea this weekend on whether the Ukrainian autonomous republic should secede and join the Russian Federation, Washington and Europe are piling on the pressure to scupper the poll with unprecedented threats of reprisals.

German chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated provocative American claims that Russia is using “19th and 20th century tactics” and “law of the jungle” (meaning military aggression), when the reality is the reverse: it is Western states that are railroading political aims with wild threats of war.

Warpath Western States Block Diplomacy Over Ukraine by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
March 13, 2014

The US and its European allies are moving ever recklessly to a war footing with Russia over the crisis in Ukraine. Military maneuvers, inflammatory rhetoric and the readying of economic sanctions against Russia are creating an ominous momentum for confrontation – one that precludes even a modicum of diplomatic options to try to resolve the escalating tensions.

Washington and Brussels are condemning Russia for “aggression” and “violation” of Ukrainian territory without the slightest due consideration for the political background to the crisis, or for Russia’s legal rights to defend national interests in the Crimea Republic under a long-standing bilateral agreement.

Look in the Mirror, US, EU–Don’t Blame President Putin by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
March 6, 2014

“If you can keep your head, when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you …” (“If”, Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936)

The delusional and mind stretching hypocrisy of Western leaders and spokespeople regarding the outcome of external meddling in the Ukraine increasingly mirrors King George 111 whose: “life and reign were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia …”

Ukraine: The Dangers of Dealing with Delusional Western Leaders + Putin Holds Aces, Obama Deuces by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
March 4, 2014

Fittingly, given the coincidence of the US cinema Oscars ceremony held at the weekend, American politicians and their Western allies were also starring in bravura performances of hypocrisy and double think with regard to their denunciations of Russia’s recent security response to chaos in Ukraine.

Rick Rozoff: Ukraine: A Nazi-like Victory of US/NATO Lawlessness + Kerry tells Russia ‘one doesn’t invade country on phony pretext’

by Rick Rozoff
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
March 2, 2014

John Robles
Voice of Russia
March 2, 2014
Recorded on February 24, 2014

The US/NATO takeover of Ukraine, thought out and planned by the Neo-Conservative geopolitical architects and Zbignew Brezhinsky acolytes in the United States who have been driving the US policy of aggressive war and the destruction of countries since the events of 9-11, is not exactly going according to their plan for attaining complete global domination, uni-polarity and American hegemony.

Ukraine Shows Russia On Washington’s ‘To Do’ List For Regime Change by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
February 27, 2014

Days before Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from office he was told it was “game over” by America’s Vice President Joe Biden. According to the British Guardian newspaper, quoting anonymous US officials, Biden admonished the Ukrainian leader in an hour-long phone call that his efforts for finding a negotiated solution to the country’s political crisis was “a day late and a dollar short”. That’s hardly the friendly advice of a neutral bystander.

Syria’s Chemical Weapons Destruction–Chaos and Corruption by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
February 19, 2014

On 12th September last year, Syria’s President al-Assad committed to surrender Syria’s chemical weapons, with the caveats that the United States must stop threatening his country and supplying weapons to the terrorists. He has been as good as his word. The same cannot be said for the US and its boot licking allies.

US to Step Up War on Syria After Geneva by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV, Feb. 1, 2014
February 3, 2014

Image by The Weekly Bull via Flickr

Just as the designed-to-fail Geneva II negotiations between the Syrian government and the Western-backed fake opposition came to a close at the weekend, another media smear campaign against the Damascus authorities conveniently surfaces.

The latest “sensational” story is that the Syrian state army has been “wiping civilian residential areas off the map” in the cities of Damascus, Aleppo and Hama.

So-called Opposition SNC has No Entity in Syria Talks by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
January 26, 2014

It’s a moot question why the Syrian government is even meeting members of the so-called opposition Syrian National Coalition?

Both parties met for the first time in a Geneva negotiating room at the weekend. It was the first such meeting in nearly three years of conflict in the Arab country, which has caused some 130,000 deaths and a third of the population to be displaced.