NATO Expert Rick Rozoff on Current Operations

PART 1: Only US/NATO success in Afghanistan: 40 fold opium increase

January 11 2014  http://cdn.ruvr.ru/download/2014/01/10/17/ROBLES_ROZOFF_End_2013_Part_01.MP3

In a review of NATO and US military activity for the year 2013, Voice of Russia regular Rick Rozoff stated that 2013 saw a slowing of, if not the beginning of a reversal of a 22 year US/NATO/Western drive to assert global dominance economically, politically, culturally and militarily. Among the most important events of the last year, if not the last 20, was the stopping of the invasion of Syria by Russia. According to Mr. Rozoff as US/NATO “slinks away with its tail between its legs” from Afghanistan, the only accomplishment they can claim after 13 years of occupation is that opium cultivation has increased by 40 fold. The military monolith of NATO is having a bad time of late and no matter what they say, the fact of the matter is, they have failed. This is part one of a much longer year end interview with Mr. Rozoff.

Hello, this is John Robles, I am speaking with Mr. Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list.

Robles: Hello, Rick.

Rozoff: Hello, John.

Robles: End of another year, things seem to have gone kind of in the opposite direction as they seemed to have been going at the end of last year and the previous year. We of course would like to do a year end summary and get your views on where things are going. So, take it away.

Rozoff: You are correct. I mean, there has been, if you will, countercyclical or countervailing tendency dynamic over the past year and even though those who are superstitious about numbers might have thought 2013 would be an inauspicious one. I think that history will record even, you know, in the short term, that it has been momentous year in a number of ways.

And in particular what we have seen is (for the first time) a slowing up of, if not the beginning of a reversal of, what has been just an inexorable, unstoppable momentum by the West, the US primarily of course, in the entire post-Cold-War period (and we are now talking about 22 years) to assert global dominance economically, politically, culturally, but militarily in the first place.

More than in any other manner of course through the expansion of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, throughout the European continent but ultimately to transform it into a global military force. This is what we talked about a year ago if your listeners will recollect. And of course last year was the year of the NATO summit in Chicago here in May of 2012 and the US and its NATO allies set some fairly ambitious objectives, amongst which were the formal launching of the so called launching of the interceptor missiles system in Europe, the expansion of NATO….

Robles: I’m sorry, if I could interrupt you, just to remind our listeners: this was the first ever (in history) debate, an open debate with NATO, it was supposed to be with officials and you were one of the spokespeople there, speaking for the other side, right?

Rozoff: That is correct, John, thanks for reminding me as well as your listeners of that. That was in May of 2012, so roughly a year and a half ago. And there was a nationally and through Youtube, of course, internationally televised debate, the first of its kind.

Robles: And you did quite well. Anyway, please, go ahead.

Rozoff: Well, the fact was that we were looking at this a year ago, we saw, you know, signs that the uncontested role of the US as the “world’s sole military superpower” and pardon me again for quoting the president of the US Barack Obama whose term that is. He used it, well it will be now 4 years ago, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize and boasted of being the Commander in Chief of the world’s sole military superpower.

But what we’ve seen is that the military monolith has been having a bad time of it lately. And these past years signified, I think, on three or four different scores at least an indication there is a shift in the winds. And the most important by a long shot, the most strategically important is the fact that through Russian intervention, through many instances also, the heroic activities of a small group of individuals, I know you’ve interviewed the British Member of Parliament George Galloway recently, and in one of the segments of the interview you conducted with him which has been posted on voiceofrussia recently. The two of you discussed his role in NATO and maybe as few as three colleagues in the British House of Commons, in putting a spoke in the wheel of the Cameron Administration’s plans, to enter into war against Syria with the US and other NATO allies.

So, we saw that occur in the British Parliament, but we saw the intervention of Russia in the first instance around the question of dismantling the chemical weapons arsenal of the Syrian government as a way of really calling the US’ bluff (that of Secretary of State John Kerry in the first instance) and diffusing a situation were just few days earlier US president Obama had a press conference where he was openly laying the ground work for a Libyan style military intervention in Syria.

So, we saw that stopped. I know, amongst other people myself, drew the parallel between Syria this year and Spain in the 1930s in that, in both cases, in the case of Spain you had the emerging Axis Powers: Nazi’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy (Fascist Italy), supporting the armed insurrection of the Generalissimo Franco and his Moroccan mercenaries and others against the legally elected Republic the Government of Spain. And that battle in Spain in so many ways portended what was to happen in the entire European continent shortly thereafter, in other words, had the legitimate government of Spain unable to defend itself effectively and fend off an armed insurrection backed by foreign powers, WWII may not have occurred, and 50 million human lives that were lost may not have been lost.

And I think that Syria represented something comparable/analogues to that. But you had in these case Russia, Iran and China stepping in and saying that foreign military powers are not going to intervene and touch off either cataclysm strictly within Syria, but more likely a conflagration that would quickly pull into its vortex almost every country in the Middle East and perhaps even provoke an international crisis. So, we saw that occur.

Robles: I’d like to underline that point you just said about the possible (and people were saying) escalation of a Syrian war into a regional conflict and then into an actual world war. This all begun and caused by NATO, so what does that tell us about their role in the world as far as being an instrument for security and safety?

Rozoff: Your tone seems straightforward but I’m sure it is meant to imply irony and not only irony I think that almost demonical diabolical inversion of the truth, of course. But NATO itself is directly involved in sending batteries of interceptor missiles Patriot Advanced Capability 3 interceptor missiles to Turkey within the last year and a half which is something NATO has done twice in the past, which is to send the same sort (actually they were not quite as advanced a model of the Patriot the current one is even more long ranged and more sophisticated), but in 1991 and again in 2003 that is on the eves immediately of the wars against Iraq in those years 1991-2003 NATO also sent Patriot batteries as well as AWACS aircraft to Turkey for much the same purpose.

So, when US, German and Dutch Patriot batteries were sent to Turkey under NATO command a sensible person would have seen the analogy and reckoned that a war was imminent against Syria and it would include, because Turkey borders Syria and Turkey is a member of NATO, that NATO would have been involved its article 5, mutual military assistance clause, and the full force of a military alliance comprised of 28 countries accounting for some 70% of world military spending ($1 trillion a year collectively in military spending) arraigned against a very weak and isolated Syrian government.

This is what was in the offing just a few months ago we do have to remember. And that but for heroic efforts in the British Parliament as I mentioned but much more; the direct role of the Russian Government in a fairly sophisticated manner intervening diplomatically… This is what diplomacy is about: it is to prevent wars, not to give cover for wars, not to create the pretense for wars but to stop them.

And I believe history will record the Russian diplomatic intervention around Syria, defusing that crisis is both something likely (as Mr. Galloway, Parliamentarian Galloway, said on your show) something that really ought to get somebody in the Russian government for Nobel Peace Prize. As opposed to the person who got it 4 years ago and then immediately went to work waging military aggression around the globe.

So that we had that occur. We had the Edward Snowden affair which is also something that cannot be...

Robles: I’m sorry, as a force for stability, peace and security, you as one of the eminent (I would say) NATO experts in the world, did NATO do anything in the past year that lent to any sort of peace or stability or security for any of the people in the world?

Rozoff: No, of course it didn’t, nor has it ever been designed to do that. So it shouldn’t be surprising.

Another factor though which is not quite as salient or clear-cut, but I think just as important, is the fact that NATO is licking its wounds in Afghanistan, is getting ready to continue the metaphor I suppose, to slink away with its tail between its legs. And this into the 13th year, of not only the longest war in the history of the US, but the first ground war ever waged by NATO, the first military campaign launched and conducted by NATO in Asia, that is outside of Europe. It was followed of course by a war in Africa, the war against Libya two years ago.

Robles: To call that a war, I don’t know if you could call an onslaught of airstrikes and missile shot from hundreds of miles away a war, but basically just shooting fish in barrel, if I could use that expression.

Rozoff: You are correct about that, I should retract the use of the term “war” and just call it unilateral military aggression, overwhelming unilateral military aggression, the difference is (to use a historical analogy I suppose) between the Battle of Okinawa and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

So we do see the debacle, I think at this point it is irrefutable no matter how much Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen or any of his underlings, or his deputy –Alexander Vershbow former US ambassador to Russia (who is Deputy Secretary General of NATO), no matter how much these people try to put the best face on it, try to save face in fact, by claiming they have achieved anything in Afghanistan, as we know from the head of the Anti-Drug Agency in Russia, the only unarguable accomplishment if you want to call it that of NATO’s military assault in Afghanistan, is the fact that opium production has increased by a factor of 40.

Robles: I just want to underline, he is not just the head of the Anti-Drug establishment here in Russia – YuriyFedotov he is also the head of the United Nations Agency on Drugs and Crime that issued the 2013 opium report. And he himself was quite shocked at the level of heroine production. And Global Research published an expose of photographs of US soldiers guarding and protecting opium fields in Afghanistan. I mean, if you could comment on that, I’d really love to hear what you have to say about what NATO and the US were “really” doing in Afghanistan for 13 years.

Rozoff: On the question of the explosion of opium cultivation and the expansion of heroine abuse and the human tragedy thereof about which I hope I can speak in a second, being the only provable accomplishment or achievement of NATO in Afghanistan, that is simple beyond questioning, that is it, Nothing else has been accomplished.

Taliban is still active, other groups, which by the way, like the Haqqani network or Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin which are led by people the US supported. Supported primarily in the Mujahedeen war in the 1980s, these forces are still active both in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan.

There has been no consolidation of a viable representative or even reputable government in Kabul. So this has been an unequivocal debacle first of all for the Afghan people who have suffered immeasurably by 12 more years of dislocation, of night raids, of bombing raids, of other catastrophes, destruction effectively of their infrastructure and their agricultural economy.

And in its place we get again as we talked about a second ago, a 40 fold increase in the opium cultivation. This means, and we have to look at this in human terms, this means hundreds of thousands if not millions of Afghans themselves have become addicted to heroin.

This means that millions in Russia, in Iran, in Central Asia and elsewhere in the general region have become dependent on heroine.

This means tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of deaths through overdose, through HIV, through criminal activity, as a result of this epidemic of heroine.

And this is done under the watch of, at peak strength, 150,000 troops serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

Certainly the least that the world community could have asked for a military occupation force, which legally incidentally the US and NATO are in Afghanistan, is they would have provided some modicum of a civilian infrastructure, of extermination of the opium cultivation in the country and such like, but clearly evidences the fact that the West had no intention whatsoever in doing anything of the sort.

I don’t have the exact figures at my fingertips, John, but something in the neighborhood of 80% to 90% of total funds that have gone into Afghanistan since the US/British invasion of October 2001 have gone for military and security purposes, that money has not gone into civilian infrastructure, has not gone into building a viable economy and so forth, notwithstanding comments by certain western foreign ministers that they’ve gone in there for alleged humanitarian reasons.

That was the end of part 1 of an interview with Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at Voiceofrussia.com. Thank you very much for listening and as always I wish you the best wherever you may be.

PART 2: Russian/Chinese prevention of Syrian invasion: historic event

January 13 2014   http://cdn.ruvr.ru/download/2014/01/13/14/ROBLES_ROZOFF_End_2013_Part_02.MP3

On the surface it appears that US/NATO lost in Afghanistan. But did they? According to US/NATO’s own assessments and statements Afghanistan has proven to be the testing ground for developing interoperability between NATO members and over 50 nations which provided military forces for the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the consolidation of an international military strike force. Heroin production has also increased 40 fold and has devastated the peoples of many countries while providing black monies for secret operations. There are reports that there is a possible drug route from Afghanistan, through the air base in Manas in Kirgizstan and into the Balkans, probably Kosovo, which is used to get Afghan opium and heroin to market with Hashim Thaçi directly implicated. According to Voice of Russia regular contributor Rick Rozoff, the lack of oversight of US military installations, such as Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, makes it possible, if the US wants, to place even tactical nuclear weapons closer to the Russian or Iranian border. In part 2 of a 2013 year end summary Mr. Rozoff discusses those issues and more and cites Russian and Chinese moves to prevent an invasion of Syria as a major historical turning point.

This is John Robles, you are listening to an interview with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the stop NATO website and international mailing list. This is part 2 of an interview in progress. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com

Robles: Two points I’d like to make and then you can continue any way you’d like. You said you wanted to speak about the human toll, the heroin wreaks on the world. The US taxpayers have spent, as far as I know, the figures I saw were about $7 billion in fighting narcotics production; opium production, heroin production – in Afghanistan. I believe that figure is correct, if I’m wrong, please, tell me. So, they weren’t there to stop heroin production. They weren’t there to get rid of the Taliban, while making secret deals with them and they are going to come back in power even more powerful than they were before. So, what was the real point of 12 years in Afghanistan then?

Rozoff: Well, I mean, I know what the answer to that is, but it is not what generally is offered as an explanation for the invasion, the occupation of Afghanistan. To read between the lines slightly all one needs to do, is read Anders Fogh Rasmussen or any other NATO official on their website. I invite people to visit the NATO website, it is where you are going to find out the truth but you may have to decipher it a bit.

And what you hear again and again is that Afghanistan has proven the testing ground or the training ground for a developing interoperability between NATO members and partners. Again, over 50 nations provided military forces for NATO in the ongoing war in Afghanistan. And what NATO walks away from… the Afghans of course have suffered a disastrous period, the region likewise and the world security has certainly not gained in any manner from the spot, NATO has walked away by having fused or integrated military units from 50 different countries.

People without any sense of history may not appreciate the significance of that fact, but for a moment, you know, the act of belligerence, even in WW II, for example, I’d be surprised if formally there were more than 20 on the side of the allies and now you’ve got 50 serving in one country, under one military command – NATO. That’s what NATO used Afghanistan for. It was simply a training ground for consolidating an international military strike force, what is referred to as the NATO Response Force, the nucleus of which will be this 50-nation alliance that NATO was able to put together inside Afghanistan.

On the question of the human toll of heroin, I’ll be brief on that but I’ll be personal. I worked in the past as a substance abuse counselor. I worked at methadone maintenance clinic. I know what heroin addiction does to people. I’ve seen young women out prostituting themselves. I’ve seen young babies left in their own feces and so forth as their parents are hunting down a fix. I know what heroin does to people. And if you multiply that on the level of hundreds of thousands or millions and this is what is happening, this is the untold cost of the Afghan war.

And you don’t have to look too far. The Russian Government will tell you what the figures are in their own country in heroin deaths and heroin addiction. The Iranian Government will tell you the same. I’m sure the five nations of Central Asia can say something similar. I’m sure that Pakistan and India are suffering this as well. And this is going to take generations to rectify.

Robles: It is an insidious cycle, and I’d really like you to comment on this as well, the whole heroin cycle includes the cultivators, the farmers – right? It begins with them, it ends up with somebody dying in a stairwell in Chicago with a dirty needle in their vein or something. But in between you’ve got government officials, you’ve got even US diplomats, maybe, you’ve got the CIA, you’ve got NATO officials and everyone is making money of it. How much do you think the US and NATO have profited from the entire heroin scheme in Afghanistan?

Rozoff: That’s rich ground for speculation. I would reference I think, as you were talking about the golden triangle earlier, Alfred McCoy he is a Professor, or was at least, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He wrote a book on just that topic, about the Southeast Asia during the war in Indo-China.

Robles: I’ve actually read that.

Rozoff: Good, talk about it! Inevitably, all the other plagues follow in the track of war; famine, disease, drug addiction, prostitution, dislocation. It is as sure as the night follows day you are going to find that. However, there is a more insidious side that you are alluding to, which is that one way of in the post WW II period of financing counterinsurgency groups that are artificially governmental in nature is through the drug trade.

This occurred in central America, it has occurred in south America, it has occurred in Indo-China, it has occurred in the Balkans, it is occurring currently in south and central Asia where cutthroat mercenary outfits do the dirty work, particularly for the CIA, and in return are allowed to run narcotics trafficking, perhaps, in conjunction with US military forces, as a way of paying themselves outside of the congressionally scrutinized budget. You know, it is a slush fund or a secret budget of some sort. We just have to assume that’s going on.

There has been discussion, I think there’s even been some degree of proof that there is a drug route that goes now from Afghanistan possibly through the air base in Manas in Kirgizstan fairly directly into the Balkans, probably Kosovo. And we know that criminal gangs or syndicates affiliated with the putative government of Kosovo, of Hashim Thaçi, have been directly implicated in running the preponderance of the drug trade throughout Europe. So, it would seem logical that opium, cultivated, farmed, semi-processed in Afghanistan or even processed into heroin and other by-products would then make their way into the drugs circuit in the Balkans, and from there to the West. It is more than a likely possibility.

Robles: So, this is going through… out of US military installations in Afghanistan to the US base possibly in Kosovo you think or… ?

Rozoff: There has been a discussion about that. And it seems plausible, at the very least. We are talking about the transit center of Manas in Kirgizstan, which is supposed to be closed down finally next year, unless the US raises the bid, as they’ve done in the past to maintain it yet further. But assuming that’s closed down, the US has modernized and expanded several air bases within Afghanistan itself – the Bagram Air Base north of the capital, Shindand near the Iranian border and other places and the US has no intention of vacating those bases ever, I think it is safe in assuming.

So, amongst other things that provide them probably long enough and big enough runways to accommodate strategic aircraft, should the US want to position such in the center of the south Asian region, but also cargo planes – they can bring anything in or out of the country as they choose, much as Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. It is not under any international supervision. The Kosovo force, the NATO military force in Afghanistan is, at least nominally, under the UN mandate but the US military base in Kosovo – Camp Bondsteel, as far as I know, is not inspected by anybody.

There’s been speculation by the Russian officials that if the US chooses to place nuclear weapons, say tactical nuclear weapons closer to the Russian border or the Iranian border, they could do so in Kosovo without anyone being wised up. So, why not narcotics?

Robles: This collusion in narcotics trafficking has been very well documented and proven. And it doesn’t matter how many times Oliver North said “I have no recollection” I mean, this is a fact of their operations.

Rozoff: Yes, war is a filthy business. It is one that by definition really is without ethics. And if Congress puts up even a titular or nominal opposition in any way or demands any sort of supervision of activities, then the Oliver Norths of the world find some way of getting it done otherwise. And that if means arms to terrorist gangs in central America going south and those same cargo planes coming back with marihuana and cocaine coming north, then what is the objection from the point of view of somebody who is willing to kill innocent people. I mean, if murder is justifiable, then what crime is not?

Robles: And you are alluding to?

Rozoff: I mean, you were mentioning the example during the 1980s of the dirty-tricks-operations… oh, not dirty tricks actually, but covert operations run out of the basement of the White House.

Robles: You hit the nail on the head there. I’m sorry, go ahead Rick.

Rozoff: That's actually an allusion to the Nixon committee to reelect the president tactics in 1972. But, you know, be it whatever it is or however we want to call it. I don’t mean to go off on too much of a tangent on that, that is something that, hopefully, enterprising journalists are going to be able to dig up without spending the rest of their life in a dungeon somewhere for revealing the truth.

But in the interim, what we do know about this past year is that it has signaled the beginning of the slowing down of the post Cold War momentum of the US and its military allies around the world.

They still expanded in certain areas, we can’t deny or minimize that. The Asia-Pacific pivot of the Obama administration starting last year, where the new enemy transparently right at this point is China, which is to be encircled militarily by an increased number of new US military bases, including interceptor missile facilities throughout Asia, aimed clearly at China reproducing something analogous to what’s happened with Russia through NATO expansion on the western-southern borders of Russia.

That is something that has occurred, but we’ve seen I think psychologically, as well as maybe a little bit more tangibly, an important pivot with the situation in Syria, as we talked about. And coming out of that a clear resolve by many nations in the world, and we have to remember that Chinese navy is now assisting Russia, the Chinese Navy right now in the removal of chemical weapons from Syria, which a Russian official was quoted as of yesterday as saying: “… this is the first time Russian and Chinese military have cooperated together in a real life crisis.” I think that’s almost a quote.

So, what we are seeing now is the evolution again, and this is so important to emphasize, to underline, of a model of international multipolarity with the basis on international law. And what that means is if countries like Russia and China, who are simultaneously the mainstays of two very-very important organizations – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and what is loosely known as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa now)…

Robles: If I can make a little kind of maybe sarcastic comment, but, are you implying that Russia and China are somehow part of the “international community?”

Rozoff: I know they were written off some time, roughly 22 years ago and you didn’t have to consult their interests in any way or form. That has now changed and it changed pretty demonstrably. And what is evident this past year in particular is that because of consistency and determination we had from both those countries, particularly Russia but China also, we have to recall that in an unprecedented series of actions those three countries three times in succession vetoed the proposed resolutions in the UN Security Council that would have laid the groundwork for a replication of the Libyan model in Syria.

And the fact that Russia and China did not back down even in the face of what is very formidable American ability to mould public opinion internationally and even to have that reflected within the affected countries Russia and China, where media, either from the West or parroting the line of the West oftentimes, is able to influence public opinion domestically in those two countries – that despite all that Russia and China stood their ground, refused to back down.

And we can flash back to some of our earlier programs or interviews with the horribly insulting and condescending, and contemptuous statements made by major US political officials, for example, the former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Dr. Susan Rice – the current National Security Advisor – and others who spoke about Russia and China in terms that really do not belong in international diplomacy in any way or form.

But not withstanding all that the fact is a couple of very significant nations – Russia and China – they’ve proven thus far and no farther, I want to say.

They allowed a resolution against Libya in early 2011 to pass the UN Security Council and saw what occurred, which is six months of US and NATO bombardment of the country, as you indicated, and never again this is going to occur. And this is a very important stand that was taken on the issue of Syria. You know, had it not been Syria, it may have been some other nation. But the fact is – historically it was Syria and this is going to be recorded unquestionably as a major historical turning point.

Robles: Thank you Rick!

That was the end of part 2 of an interview with Rick Rozoff – the owner and manager of the stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at

PART 3: NATO’s Ukrainian Target: The Black Sea Fleet

January 17 2014  http://cdn.ruvr.ru/download/2014/01/13/11/ROBLES_ROZOFF_End_2013_Part_03.MP3

Robles: Coming up in the next year what countries, what areas should we be watching out for with regard to NATO expansion? We talked a little bit before about the Arctic, it’s heating up, about Scandinavia I think. What other areas do you think NATO is going to try to expand into? And I'd like you, if you could, comment on what does the loss of Ukraine mean for NATO?

Rozoff: Those are the good questions. On the first I would say it is the international analogue of what we in Chicago would call a crime alert. There are street gangs or burglary rings or something other operating in the area and you want to alert people to where they are likely to strike, and we are doing the world a service I think by anticipating that, but let's be real clear, the Ukraine indeed is one of them. Let me reserve that, discussion of that for a moment.

Let’s look at what is happening in Central Africa. We have seen French military intervention in Mali, direct military intervention with the assistance of the United States, the US Africa Command and US air forces Africa, US air forces in Europe and Africa, directly involved in ferrying and/or transporting French troops and armored vehicles and so forth, for what is a direct military action in Mali. We are seeing that replicated right now in the Central African Republic.

And these action … and now we see US Osprey helicopters attacked in South Sudan, where the US is going to become directly involved militarily, there are already calls for US direct military action in retaliation for that attack. We do have to recollect, that maybe a year and a half ago, the Obama Administration signaled, they announced formally, they were deploying special operations troops to foreign nations in Central Africa. Those are exactly the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Congo and what is the fourth - Uganda.

So that the US is already massively involved in Uganda; Ugandan troops are the US's proxies in Somali for the most part, as well as there are some Burundi and Kenyan. So Central Africa is clearly marked up. There is a massive propaganda campaign, many of your listeners may be aware of, by some shadowy mysterious individual to hunt down Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army, in a video that … promoted by the likes of Oprah Winfrey went viral and to build up a humanitarian justification for direct US involvement in Central Africa, now we are seeing what that really means.

What that really means is a direct US military role in the newest nation in the world South Sudan. It means the US once again supporting their French NATO ally in military conflicts in Africa, following that of Ivory Coast in 2011 where they overthrew the government of Laurent Gbagbo. And recently, last year in Mali, this year in Central African Republic, it is likely to shift into nations like Chad in not too distant future.

So we are seeing what African command was set up to do, which is to oversee, coordinate or to wage war in Africa in conjunction with the US's military allies and NATO friends it appears currently in the first place. So that is one area I would look at.

Robles: What are the US NATO Western interests in Africa for those of our listeners who aren't really aware of what they have to offer down there?

Rozoff: The American political leader Malcolm X said in entertaining but illustrative speech in the early 1960s called 'I don't mean bananas'. And he was talking about what, at that time, the Patrice Lumumba government in Belgian Congo had been overthrown. It is now clear, for all the conspiracy theorists, that the US all but admits that the Central Intelligence Agency was instrumental in the overthrow of his regime, and in his murder.

But what 40 years ago Malcolm X was talking about was the fact that Africa is one of the resource richest continents in the world and increasingly now with material needed for computer technology and energy, of oil in the first place, natural gas secondarily, that Africa is invaluable to the world. And what it represents is an opportunity for the United States and its allies to reclaim control of the African continent effectively.

We do have to remember that every major colonial power in Africa, former colonial power, is a member of NATO: France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, Italy - every single one. So NATO in many ways is a collective of the Western colonial powers internationally, in Asia and in the Western hemisphere as well, South and the Central America, including the Caribbean.

But these are the Africa that we are talking about is a consortium of Western military powers that want to control, the dealing in raw materials, precious and semiprecious metals, or stones and metals and so forth. The diamond trade in South Africa alone is worth looking at.

But we are looking at what are reported to be fairly large reserves of petroleum in Central Africa exactly, with at least tentative plans to have those reserves piped out through countries like Uganda to the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean. And I think it is important that these economic factors be taken into consideration when we look at where our militaries are being deployed and what overall military strategy may be.

The fact that the US set up its first unified combatant command, its first overseas integrated military command since the Cold War, in Africa, is a significant fact and it is not a fortuitous one. It suggests that the battle for Africa is in many ways a strategically important battle for the world resources and control and domination. Africa now is, with the population of over a billion people as of maybe three years ago, the second most populous nation … continent rather in the world, next to Asia.

So it is significant from a number of points of view and the US military is not going to sit aside and watch through diplomatic and economic measures countries like Russia and China are going to become more actively involved in China without putting up a battle to beat them on that board.

Robles: You mean more active in Africa?

Rozoff: Oh, I'm sorry, Africa indeed, pardon me.

Robles: Africa we should be watching at for, what about Scandinavia and the Arctic? Where do you see things - you are usually ahead of the curve Rick - so where do you see things going in the Arctic with NATO expansion and in Scandinavia? And with the continuing ABM placement, the missile shield, do you think they are going to keep doing it?

Rozoff: Yes, there seems to be a renewed interest in, or at least reporting on what five years ago would have been referred to, I certainly referred to it as such at that time as the scramble for the Arctic and what occurred in - it will be shortly five years as a matter of fact the very beginning of 2009 - is that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization held a conference in Iceland, I believe it was called the conference on the High North. High North is the NATO term or euphemism if you will, for the Arctic.

And what they were talking about at that time, this came immediately on the heels incidentally of the - a kind of a parting shot by the George W. Bush Administration in January of 2009 - immediately before his leaving the Oval Office George W Bush, a National Security Agency directive was issued on the Arctic. And it was evident at that time that there were five official claimants to parts of the Arctic Ocean and four of those five were members of NATO: they are the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark.

But other countries like Britain, other NATO members like Britain and Scandinavian countries like Finland, Sweden are getting involved in the oil rush, if I could put it that, amongst other things in the High North, with countries outside the region including China interested in what’s occurring there. But the fact that four of the five official claimants are members of NATO, and that the US is a major one amongst them, signals another potential bone of contention between NATO and Russia.

Russia has the most sizable and I would argue the most legitimate claim to areas, particularly the Lomonosov Ridge comes to mind in the Arctic Circle. And in fact I think it was about 3 or 4 years ago that Norway became the first country in the world to base its military headquarters within the Arctic Circle, it moved it north within the Arctic region.

Robles: I see.

Rozoff: So that we have that going on at the same time as I think you alertly allude to that Scandinavia is being targeted for, all but effective formal incorporation into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With Denmark and Norway being founding members of NATO, then that leaves of course Finland and Sweden which historically have been neutral, Finland at least since World War 2, Sweden for 200 years. But both of whom have been supplying troops, have been killing and dying in northern Afghanistan under NATO command, International Security Assistance Force. Sweden provided Gripen war planes for NATO's war against Libya in 2011.

So you have Sweden which had been not involved in military conflicts, had been neutral for 200 years, engage in NATO wars in Asia and Africa. I don't know how much of Swedish people really pay attention to this, but Sweden now is formally joining the NATO response force, the international strike force, as well as Finland, Georgia and up until recently the plan was for Ukraine to join them.

So what do we have is, that is not coincidental, that suggests that NATO feels it not only needs to encroach yet further on the Russian border, Finland has a sizable border with Russia of course, but also in the push to the North, to the High North, to the Arctic. And that those two, as you indicate in your question, are related issues, they really cannot be separated and that the US wants dominance at the top of the world as it does in most every other part of the world.

Robles: Can we segue into Ukraine then? And I'd like to get your year end summary on our President Vladimir Putin.

Rozoff:Ukraine became after what appears to be the resolution of the crisis of the crisis, of the catastrophe in fact, in Syria to have been the next point on the chessboard where the US and its western allies decided to face down Russia or challenge Russia by intervening, really interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, pressuring the government of Victor Yanukovich and his allies in Kiev which was elected expressly to foster cooperative relations with Russia after the government of his predecessor Victor Yushchenko, whose wife of course was born here in Chicago and worked in various capacities for the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations, people should recall. And after he had turned on Russia, including on pipeline arrangements where Russia was disadvantaged vis a vis Western Europe.

But the Yanukovich government was elected in large part to foster friendly relations with its neighbor of some 1400 km and to have them then be strong armed or pressured by the US and its western allies to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union at the very moment that Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus are in the course of consolidating a Customs Union. Well it is quite evident that the intent is to pull Ukraine away from Russia, shift it in the direction of the European Union and NATO.

And that the European Union, again as we had occasion to discuss, is really the cloak under which Ukraine is to be integrated into NATO. And the ships provided by the government of Ukraine already active, and two ongoing and presumably permanent North Atlantic Treaty Organization naval operations, one in the Mediterranean Sea, the other in the Arabian Sea, first is operation Active Endeavor, the second is Operation Ocean Shield, and the US continues to hold, again as we've discussed before, the annual Sea Breeze military exercises in the Crimea in Ukraine, which is also where the Russian Black Sea fleet is based.

Keep in mind, if you want to talk about geopolitics, that people can envision in their mind a map of that part of the world. Were the government of Syria to have been overthrown and Russia to lose its naval docking facility at least in Tartus, and if the government of Yanukovich is to be overthrown in one manner or another through violence, street uprising, we saw it that the press has proven to be quite adept at pulling off in countries from Yugoslavia to Ukraine 9 years ago, or through a rigged or extra constitutional election that brings about a change of regime in the country, and the Russian Black Sea fleet were to be ordered out of the Crimea which is I'm sure what the US is ordering its allies and the Ukraine to do, or to consider. Then you would have seen the eviction of Russia, not only from the Mediterranean, but except for a narrow strip of Russian territory out of the Black Sea. And this is pretty heavy duty geopolitics, and I think in that sense too the two are not unrelated.

That was the end of part 3 of an interview with Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the remaining parts of this interview on our website at Voiceofrussia.com. Thanks for listening and I wish you the best.

PART 4: US Puppet Saakashvili Invaded South Ossetia to Appease NATO

January 17 2014

20-20 hindsight is something we all may have in retrospect but something that at times may be more difficult to attain when there are concerted efforts at obfuscation and twisting the truth. This was the case with the invasion by Georgia of the restive enclave of South Ossetia, an area populated almost entirely by ethnic Russians who held Russian citizenship. We now know, thanks to the untiring efforts of individuals such as eminent NATO expert Rick Rozoff, the entire invasion was a move to evict Russian peacekeepers and settle a “territorial dispute” so that Georgia could join NATO. Sadly for tie-eating-Georgian-leader Mihail Sakashvili Russia defended its citizens and things did not work out as his US instructors had promised. In a long 2013 end of the year summary with the Voice of Russia, long time NATO expert and anti-NATO activist Rick Rozoff details those facts and sheds light on where the alliance is headed in the coming year and onward.

http://static.ruvr.ru/2014/01/17/04/Rozoff_1.jpg

This is John Robles, you are listening to an interview with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. This is part 4 of an interview in progress. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com

PART 1, PART 2, PART 3

Rozoff:Were the government of Syria to have been overthrown and Russia to lose its naval docking facility at least in Tartus, and if the government of Yanukovich is to be overthrown in one manner or another either through violence, street uprising, we saw it that the press has proven to be quite adept at pulling off in countries from Yugoslavia to Ukraine 9 years ago, or through a rigged or extra constitutional election that brings about a change of regime in the country, and the Russian Black Sea fleet were to be ordered out of the Crimea which is I'm sure what the US is ordering its allies and the Ukraine to do, or to consider. Then you would have seen the eviction of Russia, not only from the Mediterranean, but except for a narrow strip of Russian territory out of the Black Sea.

And this is pretty heavy duty geopolitics, and I think in that sense too the two are not unrelated.The Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels that have come to Syria recently have left their base in the Crimea, for the most part. By the way, this is a precondition for Ukraine joining NATO rather.

Robles: Evicting the Black Sea Fleet is a precondition?

Rozoff:Well not specifically, but inevitably, and I’ll need to describe how. When NATO re-asserted in 2009, if I’m correct, that Georgia and Ukraine were going to join NATO, that they have been invited to join as full members of NATO, it was with the proviso that two standard NATO conditions be met. And those two conditions are: no foreign military forces on the soil of the country that joins NATO, which is to say – no non-NATO military forces on the soil. That would be the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea exactly in the case of Ukraine. It would have been at that time Russian - actually it was 2008,it was 2008 because it was several months before the five-day war that the Saakashvili regime instigated in the South Caucasus.

The second condition is no unresolved territorial disputes. I read that immediately at the NATO Summit at the beginning of 2008

Robles: No unresolved territorial disputes?

Rozoff:Such as for example Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia but, arguably, Crimea in Ukraine. You know, at the point where the West could have portrayed or can now say that a largely ethnic Russian constituency in Crimea is interfering with the westernization or the European integration of Ukraine, then were a government like that of Yushchenko to call in Western support, including military support into the Crimea, that would not be beyond the realm of possibilities, that’s number one.

So, what we have here is two things. That I believe the war in the Caucasus in August of 2008 was the inevitable result of what NATO offered to Georgia and Ukraine earlier in the year, which was – once you get rid of foreign military forces, even peace-keepers on your territory and once you integrate restive areas and put them under your thumb, then you can join NATO. This was all but an invitation for Mikhail Saakashvili to invade South Ossetia and following that, had he been successful, Abkhazia. And it was also an invitation for Yanukovych to clamp down on political opponents in Eastern Ukraine.

Robles: That’s the first time I’ve heard that one. Why didn’t we talk about that before? You said it was a condition for them to do that. So, basically they invaded South Ossetia and killed all the Russian citizens there to join NATO?

Rozoff:That is my firm contention of this day, that it was known, it was explicitly stated at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania in 2008 that Georgia and Ukraine were to join NATO as full members. As a matter of fact, there were special commissions set up after the war. After the war in August of 2008 the US set up formal commissions with Ukraine and Georgia and NATO set up something comparable to that, you know a special program for both countries for their integration.

But it is common knowledge, and it was reiterated at the Bucharest Summit, that the two impediments for a nation joining NATO were unresolved territorial disputes within their national boundaries and the presence of non-NATO military forces in the country. Russia in this case was meant vis-à-vis Georgia and Ukraine. And that’s why I’m stating it.

In fact, the Commonwealth of Independent States mandated peace-keeping forces – peace-keeping forces mandated by the CIS! (ofwhich Georgia was a member at that time, before the war, let’s recall) – and that they were mandated to be in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. To NATO, itrepresented an impediment to the full incorporation of Georgia as a full NATO member, Mr. Saakashvili understood that and he acted accordingly. That’s my conviction.

But this applies equally, I would argue,or almost equally to Ukraine because the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine would be the biggest impediment, absolutely an impediment. It would be a sinequa non of NATO membership to evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Crimea. Mr. Yushchenko understood that perfectly in 2008 too.

But now that with the eastern partnership, because this is what the association agreement with the European Union meant. It is being done under the auspices of a program created also in 2008, exactly the same year, we’re talking about the Bucharest Summit, on the initiative of Poland and Sweden to invite all of the non-Russian, all the former Soviet republics in Europe and the Caucasus, except for Russia (meaning Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) into the eastern partnership to integrate them into the European Union. Which would mean what? That would mean the effective death of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

How else can that be interpreted? If you’re telling every single non-Central Asian Soviet Republic except Russia that they could be incorporated into the European Union, which is basically co-terminus with NATO. That’s something like 21 out of 28 members of the European Union are members of NATO and the others are partners.

Robles: I don’t think that would ever happen, because all the people have to do is sit down and look at the numbers, like they did in Ukraine and we talked about this before. $100billion in income over 7 years if we join the Customs Union and $1billion in income over 7 years if we join the EU. Plus they would have to divert all theirspending on social programs and everything else into upgrading their military, and becoming NATO compatible.

I don’t think that would ever happen. But, again, NATO was formed and founded to fight the Soviet Union and destroy the Soviet Union, OK or defend against the Soviet Union, however you want to put it. And it seems to me they have just continued along that same road despite the fact that the Soviet Union no longer exists. Would you agree with that?

Rozoff:On the second score I agree. On the first score I think we have to be careful. By the way, a mistake earlier – it is 27 members I believe of the European Union, of which 21 are members in NATO. But the other 6 are all NATO partners in the Partnership for Peace program. So, you know, it’s almost sleightof hand – NATO is EU, EU is NATO, or rather the EU is NATO minus the US and Canada.

Robles: I think people in Serbia know that. I think now people in Ukraine are beginning to realize that. I think people in Poland know that. I think most Russians are now waking up and realizing that but... Go ahead Rick.

Rozoff: However, as we talked about, if at the Bucharest Summit of NATO in 2008 it was told the US puppet regime in Kiev – and that’s all the Yushchenko Government was – you know, he was being led by the nose by his wife Kathy from Chicago. And if anyone doesn’t believe that, I suggest they look into the matter a little more closely. But that all the Government of Yushchenko or the one that would replace Yanukovych now, if some kind of a revived Orange Revolution were to occur, would have to do is to provoke some political crisis in the Crimea.

We know, for example, there’ve been demonstrations by Crimeans, local residents against the US-NATO military exercises – the Sea Breeze exercises that we talked about a few minutes ago. All they would have to do is have a some kind of provocation staged, US uses that as an excuse to protecting Ukraine against Russian proxy subversion or something of this sort, and then you have a real crisis on your hands. So, let’s not dismiss that possibility.

On the first part of the question you asked me – is NATO an outdated organization? That’s one argument by opponents of NATO that I don’t fully share. What it tends to suggest is that NATO was a perfectly legitimate organization at its inception and throughout the Cold War, but now we don’t need it. That is not at all what NATO has been transformed into in the post-Cold War period.

The US and its major allies in NATO – and this is not strictly a US thing – we have to understand that two of the world’s largest arms exporters right now are Germany, which I believe is number three (NATO has worked very well for German death merchants), another major international arms exporter is Sweden. Sweden, which has joined the international NATO response force, has taken good care of its politicians and certainly of its merchants of death as a result of affiliation with NATO. So, this is not simply a matter of an outdated organization to continue on its own momentum with no purpose.

The cliché that’s been used for the last 15 years as “in search of a mission” or “redefining itself” or something of this sort – no, the US instead has seen that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc as a whole – you know, the Comecon economic union, and the Warsaw Pact military alliance – as one official stated several years ago that basically the US moved the Berlin Wall to the Russian border.

Notwithstanding the assurances by the George H.W Bush Administration to the Mikhail Gorbachev Government that NATO would not move one inch eastward, we can see what is in fact…

Robles: Well, they made that promise they just refused to put it on paper.

Rozoff: I don’t want to belabor this point. And whatever it was, it is no longer such after 1991, and actually earlier than that.

In 1991 the Warsaw Pact, which had already been moribund for years, formally dissolved itself and then, in the same year, in 1991 the Soviet Union fragmented into 15 republics or nations.

So, that the whatever alleged justification that NATO might ever have had, it disappeared, it dissolved immediately. And at that point, if NATO was a defensive organization (I don’t believe it was, but for those who claim it was at any point in its history), then it of necessity had to dissolve itself too at that point. Yes or no?

Robles: What is NATO then? I mean, it wasn’t a defensive organization to begin with, what exactly was it then?

Rozoff: At the moment Berlin fell in 1945 the war waged by the US, France and Britain and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany became a conflict between the US, Britain and France against the Soviet Union. Everybody knows that.

One war had not ended before the next one – the Cold War – began. And NATO was necessary to sustain permanent US military presence in Europe, consolidate friendly (one might argue – compliant) governments in the major European countries, that would be beholden to the US military and would in fact be integrated politically and militarily with the United States.

However, at that time at least the name of the organization made some sense and some legitimacy when we speak about the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization. Of the original 12 members I believe all but Italy were on or near the Atlantic Ocean. We are now looking at a North-Atlantic Treaty Organization that from 1999 to 2009, that is in one decade, expanded from 16 countries to 28. That is a 40% increase.

Robles: Now North-Atlantic is into eastern Africa, I believe.

Rozoff: It is all over the world. And the 12 new members are all in eastern and central Europe, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, to the Adriatic Sea. And none of them are anywhere near the Atlantic Ocean.

So, if it was a defensive organization to defend democracies and the euro-Atlantic region, then why is up to 28 members, the majority of whom now are not on the Atlantic Ocean.

That’s I think a simple refutation of that claim. I mean, the fact that the three former Soviet republics – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – were brought in as full NATO members in 2004 and in the NATO Summit in Turkey seven new nations were brought in at one time – that is unprecedented – right? – except for the original inception.

Robles: I’d like to say one thing. Russia, does that pose a threat to the West. I’m sorry, people. Russia is not threatening America. Russia is not and has never threatened Europe. Russia is not threatening Scandinavia…

Rozoff: No, it is a bogeyman. I mean, you’ve talked about the four phantom enemies. You know, they concoct a man of straw, an imaginary threat and then they… as it was evidenced perhaps in the last year, maybe a little longer than that, a major military official, I believe a Defense Ministry official in Sweden has said: “If Russia invades Sweden, without NATO support we’d be overrun in days.” Now, come on!

Robles: Yes, we wouldn’t last eight hours I think he said.

Rozoff: Okay, it is even worse. In what geopolitical and what psychological universe does one frame scenarios like that? But it is clear that this is evoking images, you know, the absolute, the most horrifying images of the Cold War. You know, Russians are coming. And if: “… we – Sweden – do not join NATO immediately by the time you get home from work, there are going to be Russian troops in Stockholm.”

I mean, this is kind of lunacy that goes on. But because the media, as well as the political establishment in Western countries are so subservient, first of all, to the US and, second of all, to the Western elites as a whole… somebody like that should have been drummed out of his position immediately after making a statement like that. That is alarmism, that is fear mongering.

Robles: Who is this serving? It is serving the military industrial complex, isn’t it?

Rozoff: Including that in Sweden, including Sweden’s ability to sell arms around the world, based on its affiliation with NATO, because of the interoperability of weaponry.

There is something else that is significant and only a handful of people in Sweden, evidently, fully I think taken cognizance of this. About two or three years ago the Swedish Army revamped itself. It had been a territorial defense army, a citizen army and it was meant for one purpose only – in the very-very unlikely, if not impossible, case of foreign military forces assaulting Sweden, the Swedish Armed Forces were to defend Sweden, period.

That was the end of part 4 of an interview with Rick Rozoff – the owner and manager of the stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the remaining parts of this interview on our website at