The Putin-Trump Summit in Helsinki. 
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during the bilateral summit in Helsinki, 16 July 2018
31 July 2018 - The Twilight of the War
The Twilight of the War, by Thierry Meyssan
If we consider the war in Syria not as a singular event, but as the culmination of a world war which has persisted for a quarter of a century, we have to ask ourselves about the consequences of the imminent end of hostilities. Its completion marks the defeat of an ideology, that is to say globalization and financial capitalism. The people who have not understood this, particularly in Western Europe, are defining their own exclusion from the rest of the world.
World wars do not only end with a winner and a loser. Their termination defines the contours of a new world.
The First World War ended with the defeat of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. The cessation of hostilities was marked by the elaboration of an international organization, the League of Nations (LN), tasked with abolishing secret diplomacy and settling any conflicts between the member-states by arbitration.
The Second World War ended with the victory of the Soviet Union over the Nazi Reich and the Japanese Empire of hakkō ichiu [1], followed by a frantic chase between the Allies to occupy what was left of the vanquished Coalition.
It gave birth to a new structure, the United Nations Organization (UNO), tasked with preventing new wars by establishing international Law around a double legitimacy – the General Assembly, where each state has a voice, irrespective of its size, and a directorate composed of the five main victors, the Security Council.
The Cold War was not the Third World War. It did not end with the defeat of the Soviet Union, but by its collapse in and onto itself. It was not followed by the creation of new structures, but by the integration of the states of the USSR into pre-existing organizations.
The Third World War began in Yugoslavia, continued in Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Libya and Yemen, and ended in Syria. Its battle-grounds were confined to the Balkans, the Caucasus and what we now call the « Greater Middle East ». It has cost the lives of countless Muslim and Orthodox Christian populations, without spilling over too much into the Western world.
It is in the process of drawing to a close since the Putin-Trump Summit in Helsinki.
The profound changes which have transformed the world over the last 26 years transferred a part of the power of governments towards other entities, both administrative and private – and also vice versa. For example, we saw a private army, Daesh, proclaim itself a sovereign state. Or again, we watched General David Petraeus organise the most voluminous arms traffic in History when he directed the CIA, and then continue it after his resignation on behalf of a private company, the hedge fund KKR [
2].
This situation may be described as a confrontation between, on the one hand, a transnational ruling class and, on the other, the governments responsible to their people.
Contrary to the imputations of propaganda, which attribute the causes of war to immediate circumstances,
the true causes are to be found in rivalries and in deep-seated, ancient ambitions. States take years to challenge one another. Often, it is only with the passage of time that we are able to understand the conflicts which devour us.
For example, very few people understood what was happening during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931) and waited until the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Germany(1938) to understand that
it was racist ideologies which provoked the Second World War. Identically, rare are those who understood that by the war of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992) the alliance between NATO and political Islam opened the way for the destruction of the Muslim world [3].
And today, despite the work of journalists and historians, many people have still not understood the enormity of the manipulation of which we have all been victims.
They refuse to admit that NATO coordinated its Saudi and Iranian auxiliaries on the European continent. And yet this is a fact which is impossible to contest [4].
Similarly, they refuse to admit that Al-Qaïda, accused by the United States of having perpetrated the terrorist attacks of 9/11, fought under the orders of NATO in Libya and Syria. And yet this is another fact that is impossible to contradict [5].
The initial plan, which was intended to set the Muslim world against the Orthodox world, became transformed as it unfolded. There was no « war of civilizations ». Chiite Iran turned against NATO, which it had served in Yugoslavia, and allied with Orthodox Russia in order to save multi-confessional Syria.
We must open our eyes to History and prepare ourselves for the dawn of a new world system in which certain of our friends of yesterday have become our enemies of today, and vice-versa.
In Helsinki, it was not the United States which drew up an agreement with the Federation of Russia. It was the White House alone. Because the common enemy is a transnational group which exercises authority in the United States. Since this group considers itself, and not the elected President, to be the representative of the USA, it did not hesitate to immediately accuse President Trump of treason.
This transnational group has succeeded in making us believe that ideologies are dead and that History is finished. It presents globalisation, in other words Anglo-Saxon domination by way of the extension of the US language and life-style, as the consequence of the technical development of transport and communication. It assures us that a single political system is the ideal for all humanity - democracy (in other words « government of the People, by the People, for the People ») - and that it is possible to impose this ideal by force on all humanity. Finally, it presents the freedom of circulation of people and capitals as the solution to all problems of labour and investment.
However, these assertions, which we all accept in the course of our daily lives, do not stand up to a minute of thought.
Behind these lies, the transnational group has systematically worn down the Power of states and amassed fortunes.
The side which will be the victor of this long war defends, on the contrary, the idea that in order to chose their destiny, people must organize themselves into clearly-defined Nations, based either on a land or else on a common history or project.
Consequently, it supports national economies rather than transnational finance.
We have just experienced the World Football Cup. If the ideology of globalization had won the war, we should have supported not only our national team, but also the teams of other countries according to their membership of our common supra-national structures. For example, the Belgians and the French would have had to support one another mutually by waving the flag of the European Union. But this did not occur to a single supporter. This fact shows the chasm which separates the propaganda with which we are force-fed and which we repeat, and our spontaneous behavior. Despite appearances, the superficial victory of globalism has not modified what we are.
It is obviously no coincidence if Syria, where the idea of a state was first imagined and developed several thousand years ago, is the land upon which this war will end. It is because they benefited from a true state which never stopped functioning that Syria, its people, its army and its President were able to resist against the most gigantic coalition in History, constituted by 114 member states of the United Nations.
7 August 2018 - How Putin and Trump put an end to the war against Syria
How Putin and Trump put an end to the war against Syria, by Thierry Meyssan
The Western Press continues to support the elite transnational financiers and to scorn the actions of President Trump. This attitude makes it difficult to understand the progress made towards peace in Syria.
It is with prudence and determination that the Russian Federation and President Trump put a definitive end to the domination of the world by transnational interests.
Convinced that the balance of powers does not depend on their economics but rather on their military capacities, President Putin has certainly reinvigorated the quality of life for his compatriots, but he developed the Red Army before making the Russians rich.
On 1 March, he revealed to the world the principal weapons in his arsenal and the beginning of his program for economic development.
In the days that followed, the war was concentrated in the Eastern Ghouta.
Russian Chief of Staff General Valeri Guerassimov telephoned his US counterpart, General Joseph Dunford ,and told him that in the case of US military intervention, Russian forces would target the 53 US ships in the Mediterranean and the Gulf, including their nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Above all, he requested that President Trump be made aware of his country’s new military capacities.
Finally, the United States allowed the Syrian Arab Army and a few Russian infantry-men to free the Ghouta of the jihadists who occupied it.
Only the United Kingdom attempted to anticipate events by organising the « Skripal affair » - if the current world order were to collapse, we would once again have to employ the rhetoric of the Cold War, which set the kindly cowboys against the big bad Russian Bears.
In June, when the Syrian Arab Army, supported by the Russian Air Force, moved into the South of the country, the US embassy in Jordan warned the jihadists that as from now, they would have to defend themselves alone, without the aid or the support of the Pentagon and the CIA.
On 16 July in Helsinki, Presidents Putin and Trump went a lot further. They broached the subject of reconstruction, in other words, war damage. Donald Trump, as we have been writing here for the last two years, is opposed to the Puritan ideology, financial capitalism and the imperialism which is a direct result. He rightly assumes that his country is in no way obliged to bear the consequences of the crimes of his predecessors, of which his people had also been victims. He affirms that these crimes had been committed at the instigation, and for the profit, of the elite transnational financiers. He therefore considers that it is for them to pay, even though no-one knows precisely how to make them do so.
The two Presidents also agreed to facilitate the return of the refugees. By doing so, Donald Trump overthrew the rhetoric of his predecessor, according to which they were escaping « dictatorial repression » and not the invasion by the jihadists.
While in the South of the country, the jihadists were themselves fleeing before the Syrian and Russian forces, and a few desperate units of Daesh were committing unimaginable atrocities,
the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergeï Lavrov, and the Russian Chief of Staff, Valeri Guerassimov, undertook a tour of Europe and the Middle East.
They were welcomed as discreetly as possible in the European Union. Indeed, according to the Western narrative, General Guerassimov is a conquistador who invaded and annexed Crimea. He is therefore forbidden access to the Union, a self-proclaimed defender of the « rule of law ». Unfortunately, since it was too late to remove his name from the list of sanctions, the Union decided to close its eyes to the grand principles and make
an exception, allowing a visit by the hero of the reunification of Crimea and Russia. The shame which swamped the West-European leaders when
faced with their own hypocrisy may explain the absence of official photographs of the hearings for the Russian delegation.
The Russian delegation resumed for each of its interlocutors a few of the decisions taken at the Helsinki Summit. Acting wisely, it abstained from asking for accounts concerning the role of each state during the war, calling on them only to help end it – withdrawal of the special forces, cessation of the secret war, suppression of the aid to the jihadists, return of the refugees, reopening of the embassies. In particular, it confirmed that everyone could participate in the reconstruction, all inclusive.
As soon as the delegation left, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron craftily interrogated the Pentagon in order to find out if it was true that President Donald Trump intended to make certain transnational companies pay (KKR, Lafarge, etc.) - just to destabilise the folks on the other side of the Atlantic. The attitude of President Macron, ex-bank executive, is all the more deplorable in that he tried to symbolise his good faith by offering 44 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the Syrian population, transmitted by the Russian army.
In the Middle East, the visit by the Russian delegation was more widely covered by the media.
Lavrov and Guerassimov were able to announce the creation of five committees for the return of the refugees. Each committee, in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, includes representatives of the host state, together with Russian and Syrian delegates. Yet no-one dared to ask the hard question – why would a committee like this not include the European Union?
Concerning the reopening of the embassies, the United Arab Emirates stole a march on the Westerners and their allies by negotiating the reopening of their own.
What was left was the Israëli preoccupation with obtaining Syria’s departure from the Iranian military advisors and the pro-Iranian militias, including Hezbollah. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu multiplied his return trips to and from Moscow and Sotchi in order to defend his cause. We may remember that Guerassimov had ironised about the nerve of the beaten Israëlis demanding the removal of the Iranian victors. As for Lavrov, he diplomatically ducked behind a refus de principe concerning interference in Syria’s sovereignty.
Russia solved the problem – Russian military police re-installed UNO forces along the line of demarcation between Syria and Israël, from which they had been ejected four years ago. During this whole period, they were replaced by Al-Qaïda, supported by Israel. Behind the line of demarcation, in Syrian territory,
Russia has also installed eight military observation posts. In this way, Moscow can guarantee both to the UNO and Syria that the jihadists will not come back, and to Israël that Iran will not attack from Syria.
Israël, which until now had been betting on the defeat of the Syrian Arab Republic, and qualified its President as a « butcher », suddenly admitted by the voice of its Minister for Defence, Avigdor Liberman, that Syria was the victor of the conflict, and that President el-Assad was its legitimate head. In order to demonstrate his good will, Liberman ordered the bombing of a group of Daesh jihadists that until now he had kept in reserve.
Little by little, the Russian Federation and the White House are putting some order into international relations, and convincing various protagonists to withdraw from the war, and even to offer bids for the reconstruction. From its side, the Syrian Arab Army continues the liberation of it territory.
It remains for President Trump to manage to withdraw his troops from the South (Al-Tanf) and the North of the country (East of the Euphrates), and for President Erdoğan to abandon the jihadist refugees in the North-West (Idleb) to their destiny.
Back-dated 19/06/2016 - The Russian World and European Civilization
The Russian World and European Civilization | OrientalReview.org
In recent years, both the Western as well as the liberal Russian press have had a lot to say about
Russian “barbarianism,” as if to contrast it with European “civilization.” But a closer inspection – through the prism of the heroic pages of Russian history – of the two groups’ moral ideals and actual lives presents us with quite a different picture.
For example, in pagan times, ancient Russians never worshipped a god of war, although their contemporaries in Europe were transfixed by their own martial deity, constructing an entire epic narrative around the concepts of war and conquest.
After defeating the “infidels” (the Golden Horde), Russians never sought to forcibly convert them to Christianity. In the epic poem “Ilya Muromets and the Pagan Idol,” the Russian hero liberates Constantinople from that mythological monstrosity, but refuses to become the
voevoda (or ruler) of the city and returns home.
Ancient Russian literature does not include tales of personal enrichment through conquest or plunder, although this is a common theme in the Western canon.
The hero of the “Nibelungenlied” is obsessed with his search for a hidden treasure – the Rheingold. The main character of the ancient English poem “Beowulf” dies, having beheld “the gorgeous heirlooms, golden store … Now I’ve bartered here for booty of treasure the last of my life.”
It would never occur to any hero from a Russian epic to sacrifice his life in exchange for riches.
Ilya Muromets is not even able to accept the inducement offered by the brigands he meets – the “golden treasure, richly colored robe, and as many fine horses as he needed” (citation from the Russian
fairytale “Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber”). He did not hesitate to reject the path by which he would “be rich,” instead voluntarily taking the road on which he would “be killed.”
And it is not only in this epic, but also in the legends, tales, songs, proverbs, and folk wisdom of the Russian people where it is evident that one’s duty to uphold one’s personal or tribal honor is something quite distinct from any duty to exact personal or tribal revenge.
The notion of retaliation, as such, is absent from Russian folklore, as if it were never part of the original “genetic code” of its people – the Russian champion has always gone to war as a liberator. And in this we can see the difference between Russians and Western Europeans.
The Russian historian and philosopher
Ivan Ilyin wrote:
“Europe cannot grasp us … because the Slavic and Russian way of contemplating the world, nature, and man is something alien to it. Humanity in Western Europe is motivated by will and intellect. The Russian people are above all guided by their hearts and imaginations, relegating the mind and will to a supporting role. Therefore, the average European is ashamed of sincerity, scruples, and kindness, viewing them as “foolishness.”
A European, nursed on the ideals of Rome, is secretly contemptuous of other nations and desires to rule over them. Russians, however, on the whole expect kindness, scruples, and sincerity from others.
The Russian people have always enjoyed the natural freedom of the vast space they inhabit … gazing “in wonder” at other nations, getting along with them amiably, with hatred only for oppressive invaders … “
Russians’ congenial relationships with their geographic neighbors are testament to their sense of justice and mercy. The Russian people never committed the same atrocities for which the enlightened Europeans were responsible in their own conquered lands.
The psychology of the nation includes a certain principle of moral restraint. These naturally strong, resilient, dynamic people have been endowed with an amazing ability to survive.
This spiritual strength is also the basis for Russians’ renowned forbearance and tolerance toward others.
Continually invaded from all sides and forced to live in an incredibly harsh climate, the Russian people managed to colonize vast swathes of land, but without slaughtering, enslaving, robbing, or forcibly baptizing any nation.
Western Europeans’ policies of colonialism annihilated the aboriginal populations on three continents and forced natives from across Africa into slavery, while its cities grew rich on the backs of those colonies.
The Russian nation, which also waged wars that were not purely defensive, acquired, like all great nations, large tracts of land, but never treated their conquered subjects as the Europeans did. The European people reaped the benefits of Europe’s conquests and its cities were enriched by the colonial plunder.
Russians robbed neither Siberia nor Central Asia nor the Caucasus nor the Baltics. Russia has preserved every nation within its borders, acting as their protector, granting them the right to own land and property and to practice their own faith, traditions, and culture.
Russia has never been a nationalist state – it has belonged to all who inhabit her. The Russian people were granted only one “advantage” – to bear the burden of nation-building.
The resulting state was like no other in the history of the world, and the Russian people defended it with their own blood, willingly sacrificing their very lives.
Precisely because they have borne so much suffering and heavy sacrifice, my people deeply empathized with the pain and suffering of other peoples languishing under the Nazi yoke.
And after liberating their own homeland, Russians channeled that same spirit of self-sacrifice and energy into liberating half of Europe.
This was an example of epic heroism! These are the stouthearted people born of the Russian earth! And I believe that such a feat can be accomplished even by a great nation only once a century.
The patriotism displayed by Russian soldiers in the fields of the Great Patriotic War met the highest ideal of patriotism – something unprecedented in the history of any nation anywhere in the world. And I will never agree with the media’s pronouncements about Russian “barbarianism” vs. European “virtue.”
I stand proud that our ancestors – our heroic ancestors – were so lovely, steadfast, courageous, and resilient, and that we are their descendants!
