The Outlook for the New Year by Paul Craig Roberts

Reprint from: The Outlook for the New Year by Paul Craig Roberts

Washington has shaped 2015 to be a year of conflict.  The conflict could be intense.

Washington is the cause of the conflict, which has been brewing for some time. Russia was too weak to do anything about it when the Clinton regime pushed NATO to Russia’s borders and illegally attacked Yugoslavia, breaking the country into small easily controlled pieces.  Russia was also too weak to do anything about it when the George W. Bush regime withdrew from the ABM treaty and undertook to locate anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia’s borders.  Washington lied to Moscow that the purpose of the ABM bases is to protect Europe from non-existent Iranian nuclear ICBMs.  However, Moscow understood that the purpose of the ABM bases was to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent, thereby enhancing Washington’s ability to coerce Russia into agreements that compromise Russian sovereignty.

By summer 2008 Russian power had returned.  On Washington’s orders, the US and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army attacked the breakaway republic of South Ossetia during the early hours of August 8, killing Russian peacekeepers and civilian population. Units of the Russian military instantly responded and within a few hours the American trained and equipped Georgian army was routed and defeated.  Georgia was in Russia’s hands again, where the province had resided during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Putin should have hung Mikheil Saakashvili, the American puppet installed as president of Georgia by the Washington-instigated “Rose Revolution”, and reincorporated Georgia into the Russian Federation.  Instead, in a strategic error, Russia withdrew its forces, leaving Washington’s puppet regime in place to cause future trouble for Russia.

Washington is pushing hard to incorporate Georgia into NATO, thus adding more US military bases on Russia’s border.  However, at the time, Moscow thought Europe to be more independent of Washington than it is and relied on good relations with Europe to keep American bases out of Georgia.

Today the Russian government no longer has any illusion that Europe is capable of an independent foreign policy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated publicly that Russia has learned that diplomacy with Europe is pointless, because European politicians represent Washington’s… -->

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U.S. hostilities against North Korea continue the economic war

U.S. started hostile operations against North Korea using unknown hackers attack to a Japanese company as an excuse. Just as in the case of continuing hostilities against Russia the sanctions against North Korea are justified only by empty political rhetoric. The unilateral attack against North Korea is not likely to result in anything more than a purely political demonstration but the accompanying rhetoric is worrying as it may hint at the possibility of a yet another war planned by U.S. for the near future against a smaller state.

Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in a statement that Washington had a “commitment to hold North Korea accountable for its destructive and destabilising conduct.”

The case of North Korea indicated that U.S. is far from being embarrassed by the recent disastrous events in Libya, Iraq and Ukraine. They will obviously not shy away from any means of aggression given even no excuse whatsoever. When needed, an excuse will be manufactured and used, even when it’s as ridiculous as claims that North Korea attacked Sony Corporation.

Anything goes when it’s war time and since many years for USA it is war all the way – economic here, military there.

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Did North Korea hack Sony Corporation?

The attack on the networks of Sony Corporation was revealed in November. Almost immediately North Korea was blamed. Nobody in computer security circles took the accusations seriously. Now it appears that only a couple of weeks after the incident FBI is certain that North Korea was behind the attack.

Apparently, there were many traces of North Korea involvement left behind. So many, in fact, that it becomes reasonable to question the motivation of those who push the blame.

Attackers used computer servers in Bolivia, Cypress, Italy, Poland, Singapore, Thailand and the United States to attack Sony. The IP addresses associated with those servers have “previously [been] linked to North Korea” by the FBI. The malware used against Sony had what the FBI calls “lines of code” and “data deletion” methods similar to malware “North Korean actors previously developed.” The computer-wiping software used against Sony was also used in a 2013 attack against South Korean banks and news outlets, which the FBI attributed to North Korea. The malware was built on computers set to Korean language — unusual in the hacking world. Hackers demanded Sony Pictures pull “The Interview” to avoid starting a war over a movie.

Nobody in their right mind would execute a long term attack while leaving behind so many traces. Like in criminal stories, when something is too obvious, it may well be the planted evidence.

Political motivation is even more questionable. Sony is a private Japanese company. Why does the US government show such involvement? Obviously, they want an excuse to disconnect North Korea from the Internet or, even better, receive a pretext for a war against them. Obama already promised to strike back at North Korea “proportionately”, without waiting for any evidence of North Korea involvement in the act.

Too often, USA declares something to be true and uses their own statements as justification for waging economic and military aggression against other countries. Now it’s North Korea’s turn. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing has been orchestrated and executed under the US command.… -->

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