icon bookmark-bicon bookmarkicon cameraicon checkicon chevron downicon chevron lefticon chevron righticon chevron upicon closeicon v-compressicon downloadicon editicon v-expandicon fbicon fileicon filtericon flag ruicon full chevron downicon full chevron lefticon full chevron righticon full chevron upicon gpicon insicon mailicon moveicon-musicicon mutedicon nomutedicon okicon v-pauseicon v-playicon searchicon shareicon sign inicon sign upicon stepbackicon stepforicon swipe downicon tagicon tagsicon tgicon trashicon twicon vkicon yticon wticon fm
27 Apr, 2011 17:46

NATO doing all the fighting for the US - former Reagan administration official

NATO doing all the fighting for the US - former Reagan administration official

Former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts believes that today European countries are US puppet states. And as today America has a strong interest in Syria, the country might want to get ready for foreign intervention.

“The documents that leaked to WikiLeaks have shown the US State Department has indeed been financing Syria opposition groups, and Washington is taking a much stronger interest in Syria and Libya than it took in Bahrain or Egypt,” Roberts told RT.According to Roberts, the American interest in Libya was to push China out of the Mediterranean, and Syria is being targeted because of the large Russian naval base located there. “The US, which was caught off guard by the Tunisia and Egypt protests, was quick to learn it could use Arab protests to detach China and Russia from the Mediterranean without directly confronting either power,” explained Roberts.Despite the seeming resetting of relations between Washington and Moscow, Washington has been circling Russia with military bases for the last decade, telling Russia it is because Washington is afraid of Iran, argues the former official.“The US response to China’s economic penetration of Africa was to form the US-African command Africom, created in 2008. These are the reasons why the US has taken such a strong interest in intervening in Libya and Syria,” said Roberts. “European countries are US puppet states,” he desclared. “NATO has been fighting for the US in Afghanistan, and now NATO is fighting a war in Africa. The US has succeeded in turning NATO into the Pentagon’s puppet.”Apart from Syria, another country, Iran, may become the next target. “What’s different about the protests in Syria and Iran is that in both cases we know for a fact that the US government was supporting opposition groups, which was not the case in Tunisia, Egypt or Bahrain,” he added. “It’s only in these two countries that Washington had opposition forces it was funding. The US has an interest in intervening.”

The director of international studies at Trinity College in the US, Vijay Prashad, says that the economic sanctions the US is calling for against Syria will not have any effect on Damascus.  “It should be pointed out that the Syrian political class has very few assets in the US,” he noted. “Their assets are principally in Europe. And it is to Europe that the Syrian political class typically goes for vacation and things like that. So unless the Europeans are going to come out in front on this and say that there should be economic sanctions, it is going to have absolutely no effect. And right now it seems like the Europeans have been doing little more than grandstanding on Syria.”

Sabah al-Mukhtar, president of the Arab Lawyers Association, is sure that the Arab League is happy to leave the Libyan issue to the UN and the West.“The Western community and Western countries operating under the UN mandate are not working in an ethical or moral way. They are pretending to defend human rights while killing Libyans,” stated Sabah al-Mukhtar.According to al-Mukhtar, resorting to the lethal use of force indicates a total failure of diplomacy.“Russia, China, India and Turkey have to play an ethical role, at the very least,” he said. “What France and Britain are doing goes way beyond the UN resolution 1973, which does not authorize countries use to force. The West is using international machinery to achieve its own objectives under the pretext that they are protecting human rights. Intervening now means feeding the fire with more weapons.”Al-Mukhtar also believes the unrest could spread to Iran, but says it would be much more difficult and take much more time than it has in Libya.

Podcasts
0:00
27:21
0:00
26:13