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U.S. military officials are interested in further presence in Afghanistan due to luring contracts

Despite the recent Trump’s call to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Pentagon and CIA are interested in further presence in the Islamic Republic.

One of the pillars to hold U.S. military in the region is the financial benefits from luring government contracts aimed at financial support of Afghanistan. For almost over 2 decades Washington has been providing financial aid not only for security issues in Afghanistan, but also for an economic and social development of the country. Since 2001, the U.S. spent over 130 billion dollars on Afghanistan, however not all the money was spent as intended. A huge part of it was “laundered” and used as payoffs. John F. Sopko, U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Restoration has been consistently providing the evidence for it in his reports to the U.S. Congress. Corruption schemes, according to Sopko, have intensified the U.S economic crisis. The U.S. government is using a multilevel contract system that involves a huge number of contractors on sites. The key role in this process is played by USAID as it is responsible for allocation of funds, while Afghanistan does not get a half of it.

The recent reform to alter the Ministry of finances introduced by Afghanistan’s President A. Ghani testifies on the Afghanistan’s leader attempt to corner the foreign financial aid. However, the U.S government has criticized this reform and said the decision a «corrupt scheme». Soon after the statemen Ghani cancelled the reform, a move that proves the Afghanistan political dependence on Washington.

The U.S. Defense Industry officials are interested in financial aid provided by the U.S. government to Afghanistan. Procurement purchases for the needs of the U.S and Afghan troops and NATO are often made at higher prices. For instance, Washington continues buying rifles M-4 and M-6 for 57 cents per item. Instead, the U.S. government could have built a military plant in Afghanistan that would produce the rifles for 12 cents per item. The United States have also refused to buy kerosene from Russia for as much as 94 cents per liter and preferred to use the complicated scheme with Greece and wire the purchase at $1,4 per liter. The United States are supporting Afghan military by its own structures that allow them to avoid transparent schemes in international organizations and unnecessary control. The same scheme is used by U.S contractors in its civil projects where the key role is again played by the USAID. For instance, Afghanistan has issued 10K COVID-19 tests at $48 per item while the real price for 1 test is $5 per item.

Obviously, the most luring contracts are those that relate to oil and gas sector, military provision for the Afghan troops and the NATO. They are being lobbied by U.S. Congressmen that appoint their relatives as CEOs of contracting companies. It’s no surprise that huge U.S. military aid to Afghanistan has gone far beyond the planned budget that was proposed by the Marshall plan. Besides, money acquisitions by U.S. contractors rank from 50% to 90%.

The scale of the U.S. financial aid is also impressive. In February, 2020, John Sopko in his report to the U.S. Congress mentioned the amounts of the funds provided to Afghanistan are far beyond the capability of the Afghan economy. According to John F. Sopko, the U.S. investments to Afghanistan should be from 15% to 45% of the country’s GDP, while in 2007 and in 2010 they were estimated of over 100% of Afghanistan’s GDP. Such schemes create enormous opportunities for stripping. Besides, the U.S government attempts to stop funding Afghanistan are opposed by the U.S. military as they are interested in keeping the «income». On March, 23 Mike Pompeo claimed the U.S. would better decrease money infusions to Afghanistan by $1 billion due to the internal political crisis in Afghanistan. However, the decision was not proceeded.

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Trump’s Afghanistan Strategy Unveils US Stronger Ties with Tajikistan

President Donald Trump walks out of Air Force One upon his arrival at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Hagerstown, Md., Aug. 18, 2017, en route to nearby Camp David, for a meeting with his national security team to discuss strategy for South Asia, including India, Pakistan and the way forward in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The United States continue expanding their presence in the Central Asia as part of the program «The Great Central Asia». As President Trump announced his new policy on Afghanistan earlier this week, the US Administration have started looking towards Tajikistan, the key region on the Central Asia which has a longer border with Afghanistan.

Boosted earlier in 2016 by the Secretary of State John Kerry, the cooperation between the United States and the Central Asia in trade, economic development, the anti-terrorism fight is likely to be particularly focused on making stronger ties with Tajikistan as the US Embassy in Dushanbe have lobbied the military and technical aid agreement between the United States and Tajikistan. The $100 billion agreement for a period of 5 years, from 2018 to 2023, has already been approved by Tajikistan authorities, according to the head of the Tajik Border Security Forces col. Avzalov.

As part of the agreement, the US Embassy in Tajikistan with support of «AT Communication US» will implement a new operation control system designed by «HARRIS» to the Tajik Border Security Forces. The system is designed according to the C4ICR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) standard which is used by NATO. The system will also let the United States track Tajik military actions online by integration with the communication channels of the Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The stronger ties the bigger funding. The United States have decreased their military and technical financing around the world from $1 billion to $800 million since the start of 2017, while Tajikistan continues to receive larger funding than any other country in the region.

However, by integrating the NATO control system to its Military Tajikistan will no longer be able to be a part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization which uses the Russian operation and control technologies while further strengthening of the US-Tajikistan relations may cause tension for Tajikistan authorities both with the Central Asian countries and Moscow. Finally, the initiative courageously taken by the Tajik Border Security Forces may have negative results considering the authoritative and self-dependent course of the President Emomali Rahmon.

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Turkey’s new role: From NATO lapdog to Emerging Empire

Turkey’s new role: From NATO lapdog to Emerging Empire

Gearóid Ó Colmáin

The recent Turkish coup attempt marks a turning point in NATO’s war on Syria. An emerging empire and portal to the orient, Turkey has always played a key role in NATO’s ‘Drang Nach Osten’- the drive to encircle Russia, destroy its client-states Syria and Ukraine, and serve as a bulwark against other emerging powers such as Iran. But now it seems Turkey may no longer be carrying out its designated role.

That the United States was behind the coup attempt there is little doubt, though some prominent analysts such as Thierry Meyssan disagree that the coup was orchestrated by Gülenists. Fethullah Gülen is known to be close to the CIA and the U.S. obmutescence during the coup was typical of standard procedure during U.S. covert regime change operations. While Erdoğan is unquestionably a war criminal who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Syria and Libya and heavy repression at home, nonetheless, as in the case of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the Turkish leader seems to have fallen out of favour in the West. The media have already begun the predictable, clichéd demonisation process – publishing pictures of the Turkish incumbent’s opulent palaces etc. Turkey desperately needs a new, progressive regime, which would contribute to peace in the Middle East. But if the choice is between a monster the CIA wants out and a monster the CIA wants in, the latter is the best option as it weakens U.S. imperialism.

Turkey’s strategic imperatives

Stratfor director George Friedman claims Turkey is now a world power whose military is more powerful than the French or British. The U.S. strategy for Europe was to force Turkish entry into the EU – most recently through weapons of mass migration. The policy worked in Turkey’s favour. But the British decision to exit the European Union changed the balance of power. Moscow took the opportunity to extend the hand of friendship once more to Ankara. Just before the July 19th coup attempt, there were reports of a possible détente between Turkey and Syria.

U.S./Turkish relations have soured considerably since 2013 when U.S.-based billionaire Fethullah Gülen fomented the Gezi Park protest movement against the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regime. Though there was certainly popular discontent in the country with Erdoğan’s Islamisation policies and his support for terrorism in Syria, the Gezi Park protests were really about pushing Gülen’s attempt to destabilise the regime and take over. Fethullah Gülen is the founder of a vast empire of private prep schools throughout the world. He promotes an extremist form of Islam.

Though originally close to Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), Gülen’s movement Hizmat (service) is less nationalist and therefore more amenable to U.S./Zionist interests. The Gülenist network operates as a fifth column in Turkey, a para-state operating at the highest levels of the military, intelligence and judicial apparatuses. I was asked by Russian state media RT to comment on the Turkish shooting down of a Russian jet in November 2015. I said then that the Turkish government was acting against the national interest. It has since transpired that the attack was carried out by Gülenist military personnel who have been prosecuted for the crime. President Erdoğan recently apologised to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attack. In fact, Turkey had indicated on July 13th that it intended to normalise relations with Syria, thus ending the war against Assad. Contacts between Ankara and Damascus have been growing in recent months and it now looks like Russia and Turkey may have begun to mend relations. Southstream, Russia’s plan to pipe oil to Europe through Turkey, had to be abandoned last year due to U.S. pressure on Ankara. There is now a possibility of renegotiation recommencing between Moscow and Ankara. Recent Turkish/Iranian contacts also indicate that the Kurdish question is forcing Ankara to re-calibrate its foreign policy.

Although secret talks have reportedly been taking place between Ankara and Damascus, the two countries remain at war in Syria and there is no change yet in the official position of either state.

The geopolitical theories of Greek turkologist Dmitiry Kitsikis have had a major influence on Turkish foreign policy. Kitsikis is famous for promoting the notion of Turkey as a civilisation-state which naturally encompasses the region stretching from North Africa, through the Balkans and Eastern Europe; Kitsikis refers to this as the ‘Intermediate Region’. Turkey’s previous ‘good neighbourly’ policy seemed to be in accordance with Kitsikian geopolitics but was sabotaged by Ankara’s treacherous collaboration with U.S. chaos strategy in the Middle East since the U.S.- fomented ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011.

U.S. policy towards Turkey has always been to support the regime as a strong regional power to wield against Russia while at the same time supporting the Kurdish YPG (people’s defense units) in Syria. U.S. support for the Kurds is part of the long-term geopolitical remodeling of the region – the creation of what former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at the start of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings in 2011 referred to as the “New Middle East”. The U.S. and Israel want to carve out a Kurdistan in the region, which would become a client-state of Israel; thus providing the Zionist regime with an effective proxy army against its Arab enemies – once the Da’esh-fomented genocide has created the requisite Lebensraum.

Erdoğan’s ambitions of reviving the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East ultimately threaten U.S. hegemony. The United States Navy rules the waves. The U.S. will not allow another major maritime power to threaten its global control. Rapid economic growth and the paying off of its IMF debt in 2013 have seen Turkey emerge more and more as a strategic regional power with increasing independence and political assertiveness. Turkish investment in Africa has increased more than ten-fold since 2000. The Turks have opened embassies all over Africa. Ankara is selling the notion of ‘virtuous power’ in Africa with infrastructural development projects and investments designed to compete with China and the United States. Turkish involvement in Somalia has turned the East African nation into a veritable client-state of the emerging Turkish Empire. In 2015 Turkey opened a military base in Somalia. Turkey will henceforth have a strategic reach in the Gulf of Aden, one of the most important oil choke-points in the world. Ankara also has plans to establish military bases in Azerbaijan, Qatar and Georgia.

The Turkish regime has been attempting to oust the presence of the Gülenist movement in many African countries by offering to supply state funds for education programmes. A recent statement by a Turkish government spokesman alluded to Ankara’s desire to counter Western ‘neo-colonial’ interests in Africa. The statement clearly shows that Turkey intends to join the new ‘scramble for Africa’ as part of neo-ottoman imperialism.

Turkey in Central Asia and China

Turkey has considerable power and influence in Central Asia where many Turkic-speaking people reside. In 2009, Turkey helped found the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States. Turkish investment has been increasing in Central Asia. Ankara has also been training military personnel in Central Asian states. The oil-rich Turkmenistan is one nation which has received visits in recent years from the ‘Sublime Porte’. During its spat with Moscow, Ankara sought to deepen ties with Turkmenistan in hopes of enticing that state to participate in the Trans-Caspian Pipeline – a project to pipe gas from the Caspian Sea through Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey to Europe, thereby bypassing Russia. Turkey also has considerable influence in Turkic speaking regions of the Russian Federation such as Tartarstan. Though relations with Moscow have now improved, Ankara’s links in Central Asia remain key strategic levers in the renaissance of Turkish imperialism.

Turkey’s links with Uighur terrorists in China’s troubled Xinjiang (East Turkestan) province has led to diplomatic rows with Beijing. Many of the Uighur terrorists operating against China have been trained and facilitated by Turkey in Syria. Although Turkey’s support for Uighur terrorists in Xinjiang complies with NATO policy towards China, it shows once again the potential reach of Turkish power.

Turkey’s drive for world power status, together with the decline of Europe as a political entity, means that Ankara will continue to flex its muscles in the international arena. The French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has said that Turkey is no longer a reliable partner in NATO’s fight against the Islamic State. Of course, Ankara was never a partner in the war against the Islamic State as the Turkish regime has been arming and training the Islamic State terrorists along with its NATO partners and has been caught in flagrante delicto on several occasions. But what the French Foreign Minister’s remarks mean is that Turkey may no longer be as sanguine in its support for terrorism in Syria, due to the West’s support for the Kurds; rapprochement with Moscow and Damascus, and now more than ever after the failed U.S.-backed coup attempt.

Israel’s double game

The situation is further complicated by Israel’s stance towards the Turkish coup attempt and its aftermath. The Turkish regime thanked Israel for its help quashing the coup. Relations between Tel Aviv and Ankara have improved, in spite of the current dispute with Washington. One should not overlook the fact that, although the Israeli Lobby exerts considerable control over U.S. foreign policy, Israel often adopts a friendlier attitude to many of America’s so-called enemies. Israel’s relationship with Belarus has always been generally good, in spite of repeated U.S. aggression. Israel’s relationship with Azerbaijan has been good, in spite of major diplomatic rows with the U.S..

Israeli/Russian relations are far better than Moscow’s relationship with Washington. Israel has always had a more nuanced oriental policy than the U.S. The Israelis are masters at playing both sides off each other in international conflicts. During the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s regime while Israel eventually provided Israel covert supplies of weapons to Iran with on U.S. approval. The Israelis had established ties with Iranian fifth columnists Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Hachemi Rafsanjani. The aforementioned Stratfor director George Friedman has said that the Iran/Iraq war would be a template for dealing with the rise of Turkey as a world power.

A rising maritime power in trouble?

Turkey will pay dearly for the folly of abandoning its ‘good neighbourly’ regional policy, which showed some promise until 2011. It had a glorious opportunity then to exercise ‘virtuous power’. Now the country could be facing civil war. The purge of Gülenists in the Turkish regime has already led to hundreds of arrests of top military and government personnel. If Turkey is to emerge as a regional empire, it will have to leave the Zionist axis and find a solution to the Kurdish question in conjunction with Syria and Russia. It is currently beginning to appear that previous secret plans agreed upon by Ankara and Paris to carve out a Kurdish state in Northern Syria may have to be abandoned. As the French escalate bombing of Raqqa in Syria in the wake of the Nice terrorist psyops, Turkey could be facing an acute state of emergency.

The United States cannot tolerate the emergence of a major maritime power like Turkey which, since the Cold War, has been used as a tool against Russia. Turkey’s Incirlik Airbase holds up to 80 percent of Washington’s nuclear arsenal in Europe. A significant oriental shift in Ankara’s foreign policy would signal the end of America’s prospects of ‘full spectrum dominance’, creating the conditions for a new imperial division of the world- a geopolitical reconfiguration some might imagine as falling in with conjectures of a Moscow/Constantinople axis or, in mytho-historical terms, a ‘Third Rome’.

It is possible that the U.S. already sees that a reconfiguration of imperialist alliances is necessary with the influential former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski advocating a détente in U.S. relations with Russia and China. What is clear from recent events in Turkey is that the world imperialist system is going through seismic changes, with old military alliances breaking down and new configurations of imperial power emerging. What prospect exist for global,working-class liberation in a period of deepening capitalist crisis and war remain to be seen.

Ahttp://www.gearoidocolmain.org/

bout Gearóid Ó Colmáin

Gearóid Ó Colmáin is an Irish journalist and political analyst based in Paris. His work focuses on globalisation, geopolitics and class struggle.

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STANLEY A. WEISS: IT’S TIME TO KICK ERDOGAN’S TURKEY OUT OF NATO

It has always been a matter of historical curiosity that one of the American diplomats who was deeply involved in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was named Achilles. As the head of the State Department’s Office of Western European Affairs after World War II and the eventual U.S. Vice Deputy of the North Atlantic Council, Theodore Achilles played a lead role in drafting the treaty that was designed to deter an expansionist Soviet Union from engaging in an armed attack on Western Europe. With 11 European nations joining the U.S. as founding members in 1949, the alliance quickly grew to include two other countries – Greece and Turkey – by 1952 and today encompasses 28 members.

It’s a reflection of how difficult it was to imagine that any member of the organization would betray the rest of the alliance that to this day, NATO has no formal mechanism to remove a member in bad standing or to even define what would constitute “bad standing.” Yet, nearly three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO members still make the same solemn vow to one another, known as Article 5, that they made in 1949: that an attack against any member state will be considered an attack against all member states, and will draw an immediate and mutual response. For nearly seven decades, this combination of factors has been the potential Achilles heel of NATO: that one day, its members would be called to defend the actions of a rogue member who no longer shares the values of the alliance but whose behavior puts its “allies” in danger while creating a nightmare scenario for the global order.

After 67 years, that day has arrived: Turkey, which for half a century was a stalwart ally in the Middle East while proving that a Muslim-majority nation could be both secular and democratic, has moved so far away from its NATO allies that it is widely acknowledged to be defiantly supporting the Islamic State in Syria in its war against the West. Since Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2003, Turkey has taken a harshly authoritarian turn, embracing Islamic terrorists of every stripe while picking fights it can’t finish across the region – including an escalating war with 25 million ISIS-battling Kurds and a cold war turning hot with Russia, whose plane it rashly shot down in November. With those fights coming home to roost – as bombs explode in its cities and with enemies at its borders – Turkish leaders are now demanding unconditional NATO support, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declaring on Saturday that he expects “our U.S. ally to support Turkey with no ifs or buts.”

But it’s too little, too late. NATO shouldn’t come to Turkey’s defense – instead, it should begin proceedings immediately to determine if the lengthy and growing list of Turkish transgressions against the West, including its support for Islamic terrorists, have merit. And if they do – and they most certainly do – the Alliance’s supreme decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, should formally oust Turkey from NATO for good before its belligerence and continual aggression drags the international community into World War III.

This is an action that is long overdue. As I argued five years ago, “Erdogan, who is Islamist to the core, who once famously declared that “the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers”-seems to see himself as the Islamic leader of a post-Arab-Spring Muslim world.” He has spent the past 13 years dismantling every part of Turkish society that made it secular and democratic, remodeling the country, as Caroline Glick of the Center for Security Policy once wrote, “into a hybrid of Putinist autocracy and Iranian theocracy.” Last fall, he even went so far as to praise the executive powers once granted to Adolph Hitler.

Under Erdogan’s leadership, our NATO ally has arrested more journalists than China, jailed thousands of students for the crime of free speech, and replaced secular schools with Islamic-focused madrassas. He has publicly flaunted his support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood while accusing long-time ally Israel of “crimes against humanity,” violated an arms ban to Gaza, bought an air defense system (and nearly missiles) from the Chinese in defiance of NATO, and denied America the use of its own air base to conduct strikes during the Iraqi War and later against Islamic terrorists in Syria. As Western allies fought to help repel Islamic State fighters in the town of Kobani in Western Syria two years ago, Turkish tanks sat quietly just across the border.

In fact, there is strong evidence (compiled by Columbia University) that Turkey has been “tacitly fueling the ISIS war machine.” There is evidence to show that Turkey, as Near East Outlook recently put it, allowed “jihadists from around the world to swarm into Syria by crossing through Turkey’s territory;” that Turkey, as journalist Ted Galen Carpenter writes, “has allowed ISIS to ship oil from northern Syria into Turkey for sale on the global market;” that Erdogan’s own son has collaborated with ISIS to sell that oil, which is “the lifeblood of the death-dealing Islamic State”; and that supply trucks have been allowed to pass freely across Turkey in route to ISIS fighters. There is also “evidence of more direct assistance,” as Forbes puts it, “providing equipment, passports, training, medical care, and perhaps more to Islamic radicals;” and that Erdogan’s government, according to a former U.S. Ambassador, worked directly with the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the al-Nusrah Front.

While Ankara pretends to take military action against ISIS, with its obsessive view of the Kurds, it has engaged in a relentless series of artillery strikes against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that are routing ISIS troops in northern Syria. The Kurds are the largest ethnic group on earth without a homeland – 25 million Sunni Muslims who live at the combined corners where Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey meet. Turkey has waged a bloody, three-decade civil war against its 14 million Kurds – known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK – claiming more than 40,000 lives. The most recent peace process failed when Turkey again targeted the PKK, plunging the southeast of the country back into war while increasingly worrying Erdogan that Syrian and Turkish Kurds will join forces just across Turkey’s border.

The Kurds, like the Turks, are sometimes seen through the lens of who they used to be, and not who they are now. In 1997, Turkey convinced the U.S. to put the PKK on its list of terrorist organizations, and Erdogan claims Syria’s Kurds are guilty by association. But in fact, the YPG has worked so closely with the U.S. against Islamic terrorists that the Washington Post recently referred to its members as “U.S. proxy forces.” The Kurds – whether in Syria, Iraq, or Turkey – are, by all accounts, the fiercest and most courageous fighters on the ground in the war against the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria. What’s more, the group represents a powerful alternative to the apocalyptic vision of Islamic jihadists, embodying what has been described as “a level of gender equality, a respect for secularism and minorities, and a modern, moderate, and ecumenical conception of Islam that are, to say the least, rare in the region.”

The Turkish government has tried to lay blame for recent bombings in Ankara at the feet of the YPG in an attempt to sway the U.S. to oppose the Kurds. An exasperated Erdogan railed about the loyalties of the West, accused the U.S. of creating a “sea of blood” in the region by supporting the Kurds, and issued an ultimatum: he demanded that the time had come for America to choose between Turkey and the Kurds.

I couldn’t agree more: the time has come for the U.S. to choose the Kurds over Erdogan’s Turkey.

Critics argue that the Kurds are unwilling to take the fight to ISIS beyond their borders, but this actually presents the U.S. with an opportunity. In exchange for fighting ISIS throughout the region, an international coalition can offer the Kurds their own state. A Kurdish state would become a critical regional ally for the US and play an invaluable role in filling the power vacuum that has emerged in the Middle East. With the help of the U.S., a Kurdish state could also help to accommodate Syrian refugees that have overwhelmed immigration systems in Turkey and Europe. In the long term, it would serve as a valuable regional partner to stabilize the region, and it would set a strong example of successful democracy. In other words, Kurdistan could play the role that Turkey used to play.

It’s been said that the difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying. NATO can do without an Achilles heel: It’s time to kick Turkey out for good.

Author: Stanley A. Weiss / pr-controlled.com ©
Illustration: Antique old map of Turkey
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Scotland – the Referendum for Independence, and the reasons of a temporary failure

1 2By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

 

 

When the first results were announced (as there were no exit polls), it became clear that Scotland had lost a once-in-a-generation chance to become independent. This does not mean that Occupied Scotland will stay within the so-called United Kingdom for another 20 or 30 years, but it makes clear that there will be no change for the next 5-6 years for sure.

 

What was the reason for No-vote to prevail?

 

Scottish independence leader Alex Salmond and his team underwent a great effort in which a great historical perspective was missing. The Yes-campaign supporters were offered too little of a vision to make of Scotland’s independence their basic need of existence.

 

Lack of Inspiring Vision & Disregard for Historical and National Identity

 

As per the details of a presentation elaborated by an outfit of the Yes-campaign (http://www.independentscotland.org/content/voting-YES-for-scottish-independence.htm), no 1 reason to vote Yes for an Independent Scotland was or should be “Taking Responsibility by moving all Governing Powers to Scotland”; no 2 reason was or should be “Get the Government we choose”, and the minor reasons included financial benefits, irrelevant issues of international affairs (nuclear weapons), and a very weak denunciation of a ‘forced political marriage’ (the innocuous term was coined to describe the nefarious English annexation of Scotland).

 

A very simple Google search will remove the last doubts about the main reason for which the Yes-campaign failed to gather the support of more than 45% of the voters. If you write “Occupied Scotland” (in brackets), you have around 58000 results only (which is very low a number), and if you search for the contents, you realize that they are mainly historical of nature and they refer to Viking Crusaders, king Edward of England, who was known as the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, and Cromwell! Very scarce links to political analysis and/or editorials can be found in the search.

 

If Scotland is not viewed by Scots as ‘Occupied by England’, Scots will not find the need to do all that it takes to liberate their country.

 

This means in other words that, even for Yes-campaign supporters, today’s Scotland is NOT an Occupied country, which is of course very wrong. Certainly, the means and the conditions of Scotland’s foreign occupation are not similar to those attested in Occupied Palestine or Occupied Oromia in Africa, but this reality does not lessen the fact that Scotland has been occupied since 1707, after having been targeted and threatened, aggressed and attacked by England for centuries.

 

A country is always occupied by an enemy; this is an undeniable fact in World History. There is no such thing as a ‘friendly occupation’. Trying to minimize the inimical character and nature of a foreign occupation does never bode well with the occupied nation’s aspirations and chances to achieve liberation, independence and self-determination.

 

When a hostile country invades a nation, the occupying forces try to find immoral, corrupt, and idiotic persons that, placing their personal interests above the national interests of their Occupied Land, find it normal, easy and ethical to collaborate with the occupier. Outmaneuvering this plague is by definition one of the major targets and tasks of a national liberation effort.

 

In the case of Scotland, these catastrophic persons were very active indeed in the last weeks before the referendum, and they intend to remain as such thereafter simply because this issue did not end. The disreputable former prime minister (who was never elected to that post) Gordon Brown is one of them; as he knows how to be a loyal lackey to the City, he has just announced a new Scotland Act to be ready as draft legislation by the end of January 2015 (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2014/sep/20/gordon-brown-timeline-scottish-devolution-independence-video). Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and their likes know very well that the spectrum of Scotland’s Independence will only become more forceful in the years ahead; and with ridiculous measures of advanced devolution, they try to appease and besot more Scots. These are the enemies who should have been denounced in the most stressed terms.

 

Unfortunately, First Minister Alex Salmond and the Yes-campaign supporters failed to duly, fully and irrevocably discredit Gordon Brown and his likes as they should. To do so, they should have first properly and adequately presented Scotland as an Occupied Land, and they should have underscored, and focused, on issues of Historical and National Identity. That they did not attempt anything in this direction is clearly shown in their way of presenting (http://www.independentscotland.org/content/voting-no-for-scottish-independence.htm) the possible reasons to vote No. As per their presentation, no 1 reason is: ‘believing England and Scotland are better off together’. However, for a Scot, this ‘belief’ is tantamount to high treason.

 

It is exactly the same as if Marshal Philippe Pétain said, after signing the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940, that he ‘believed France and Germany are better off together’. In this regard, it is important to keep in mind that political correctness does not validate (neither does it invalidate) demands for national servility and submission. Simply, national capitulation is a matter of high treason – anytime anywhere.

 

The lack of an inspiring vision of an Independent Scotland dramatically reduced the scope of the Yes-campaign. National independence is something far higher than mere economic considerations, natural resources exploitation, and cheap anti-nuclear ideology.

 

What does it matter whether the divorce is going to be ‘messy’ (as per Jill Lawless here: http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Scottish-independence-could-mean-messy-divorce-5754503.php)? And if it is ‘complicated’ to divorce after a 300-year union, it is even more unacceptable to call a foreign occupation merely a ‘union’. Actually, it was not a union; it was a systematic burial of an entire nation, and a sophisticated, yet not brutal, genocide – mainly spiritual, not physical, of character.

 

Ill-conceived Eligibility

 

At the practical level, one should however begin pondering about a key issue that, if viewed and considered differently, would change – in and by itself – the result of the referendum automatically.

 

Who voted for Scotland’s Independence?

 

For the national independence of a country, only those, who belong to that nation, have a birth right to have a say, and therefore to vote. In this regard, it is paranoid to offer voting right to another nation’s citizens. And it is self-disastrous to offer voting right to the hostile nation’s citizens, who are to be considered as the first enemies of the occupied land, and as the most resolute opponents of the occupied nation’s right and will to achieve national independence.

 

Quite paradoxically, the 2010 Draft Bill extended the voting right in the referendum to all the British citizens who were resident in Scotland!

 

This is tantamount to offering the voting right to Nazi soldiers in a referendum held in Occupied France 1940-1944!

 

Occupiers have by definition no right to decide on anything about the future of the country that they hold captive.

 

However, a significant number of English, Welsh and North Irish live in Scotland; offering them the voting right in the referendum for Scotland’s independence was indeed the main reason for the calamitous result. According to an estimate, around 500000 English live in Occupied Scotland (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2753400/Revealed-How-half-million-English-voters-living-Scotland-set-block-independence.html). They should have been blocked out of the referendum.

 

Another paranoid measure was to offer voting right to all the citizens of the 52 other Commonwealth countries and to all the citizens of the 27 other European Union countries who were resident in Scotland. This means that a Sri Lankan, a Nigerian, an Arawakan from Guyana, and a Bulgarian would have a say about the future of a nation to which they did not belong and even did not bother to belong. It should be anticipated that, if invited to participate, these foreigners would only care about per their own interests, and not about the genuine local interests – let alone the interests of Scotland as a nation. As it could be expected, in their majority, they voted against Scotland’s independence.

 

Another incredible measure was preventing ca. 800000 Scots living south of the borderline between England and Scotland from voting. In fact, all Scottish expatriates did not have a vote, which is a matter of indignation and outrage. As early as January 2012, Elaine Murray, a Labor party member of the Scottish Parliament, demanded that the voting right be extended to Scots living in other parts of the UK, but the debate was opposed by the Scottish government itself! Ridiculous excuses were advanced at the time such as that the UN Human Rights Committee suggested that other nations would question the legitimacy of a referendum if the franchise is not territorial, and the like!

 

Ill-defined Future

 

Except the lack of a great vision, the disregard for the National Identity, and the paranoid extension of voting right to the enemies of Scotland’s independence, Alex Salmond and his team made many wrong suggestions and decisions about what Independent Scotland would look like. In fact, they acted as if they intended to minimize as maximum as possible the otherwise shocking dimensions of a secession. This can be really detrimental in politics.

 

If something, which is shocking by its nature, ceases to be shocking for one reason or for another, people lose their appetite for it and disrespect it altogether. What follows is a list of mistakes ensuing from this very erroneous perception of politics.

 

If Scotland seceded from England, Elizabeth II would still be the monarch of the kingdom of Scotland. This is preposterous! The Republic of Scotland would be a far clearer vision and a far happier perspective; as such they would motivate a greater number of more enthusiastic supporters. Today, the fact that Scotland and England shared a monarch for almost a century before the two countries ‘united politically’ in 1707 does not matter much. And it certainly does not mean that, after separating from England, Scotland needs to be organized as a kingdom, and not as a republic.

 

  • Confiscate Balmoral!

 

This would be the correct slogan for a passionate debate among only Scots.

 

Another mistake of the Scottish government was to promise Scottish citizenship to non-Scottish, British citizens living in Scotland, as well as to Scotland-born Britons who live elsewhere. Although this measure showed a certain magnanimous spirit, it would not change in anything the vicious vote intension of the English residents in Scotland. So, as they should never be given a voting right, they should never be promised Scottish nationality.

 

In a materialistic world, mass media-guided, brainless and thoughtless populations are forced to consider economic issues as vitally important for their otherwise valueless lives. However, assuming that political pragmatism is necessary, one understands the reason economic issues are dealt with great concern by politicians, advocates, activists and campaigners.

 

But then it was a terrible mistake for Alex Salmond and his team to announce that the pound sterling would remain Scotland’s official currency after a Yes-victory in the referendum. Global mass media tried to portray an Independent Scotland as a small country in a dangerous global environment. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, stated even that ‘a currency union is incompatible with sovereignty’ in an indirect form of blackmailing. Yet, the only real economic danger is for Scotland to remain within a financially collapsed state, like England that has a 10 trillion external debt to serve. In reality, escaping from bankrupt England should have been reason good enough even for English residents in Scotland to vote in favor of Scotland’s independence. In this regard a clear language should have been articulated in total opposition to the global mass media and the criminal gangsters of the City.

 

In fact, there have been bloggers and writers who saw this reality, like Ian R. Crane (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muiZCgC7QB4) and Ellen Brown (http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-public-bank-option-for-scotland/5402542). Ian R. Crane was very right in demanding an independent Central Bank of Scotland, a new currency for Scotland, strict currency controls for at least the first 3 years of Scotland’s independence, nationalization of the energy sector, and Scotland’s immediate withdrawal from EU and NATO. And Ellen Brown was quite correct in her prediction: “If Alex Salmond and the SNP [Scottish National Party] are serious about keeping the Pound Stirling as the Currency of Scotland, there will be no independence”.

 

In fact, in the atmosphere that enveloped the referendum, there was too much of material concern and a very weak expression of national idealism; this does not constitute the correct combination to speak to the soul of the Scots. Another language will be needed in this regard in perhaps 5 or 10 years. What language? Pure Scottish! As the great Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns (1759 – 1796), the national poet of Scotland, put it: “We are bought and sold for English gold. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation”!