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Over 100,000 Venezuelans mobilized throughout the country for a series of national military exercises in defense of their national sovereignty on Saturday.

The exercise featured the participation of 20,000 civilian volunteers who joined an additional 80,000 soldiers of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces in nationwide preparations for a potential U.S. aggression against the Bolivarian Republic.  Alongside active duty soldiers participated members of the Bolivarian Militia, which was expanded by over 35,000 members by President Chávez in 2010. The Bolivarian Militia represents the foundation of a popular “civic-military alliance” that has kept the Bolivarian Revolution in power amid repeated efforts to overthrow the government, including the reversed 2002 coup backed by the United States. 

Bolivarian soldiers and civilians additionally welcomed the participation of a contingent of Russian soldiers and naval craft, who assisted in exercises testing Venezuela’s air defense system, which included the launching of Russian-made BM-30 Smerch ground to air missiles.  The defensive preparations inaugurated on Saturday will continue over the course of ten days, encompassing approximately 30 exercises. 

Two multilateral bodies, the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), joined the international chorus condemning President Obama's executive order targeting Venezuela this week. The executive decree, which declares Venezuela an "unusual and extraordinary threat" and imposes further sanctions against top Bolivarian officials, was also firmly rejected on Saturday by the twelve South American nations that make-up UNASUR.

In an emergency summit held in Caracas on Tuesday, heads of state of the 11 nations that make up ALBA expressed their solidarity and "unconditional support" for Venezuela and called on the U.S. to "immediately cease its harassment and aggression against the government and people of Venezuela." The statement issued by the regional body went on underscore the need for dialogue based on mutual respect for sovereignty and self-determination, as outlined in international law. To this end, the regional leaders proposed the creation of a group of facilitators drawn from hemispheric institutions such as the CELAC, UNASUR, and ALBA, who would be tasked with mediating talks between Venezuela and the US "in order to alleviate tensions and guarantee a friendly solution." During his intervention at the summit, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega noted that the Obama administration's latest aggressive move towards Venezuela has cemented the unity of Latin American nations in an unprecedented way.

"I would say that we are getting close to practically 80% of the members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States [...] 27 nations who have clearly declared themselves against this [executive] decree, and we are demanding that it be repealed." Raul Castro also expressed Cuba's resolute support for Venezuela.

What does a pipeline in Afghanistan have to do with the crisis in Ukraine? Everything. It reveals the commercial interests that drive US policy. Just as the War in Afghanistan was largely fought to facilitate the transfer of natural gas from Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea, so too, Washington engineered the bloody coup in Kiev to cut off energy supplies from Russia to Europe to facilitate the US pivot to Asia. This is why policymakers in Washington are reasonably satisfied with the outcome of the war in Afghanistan despite the fact that none of the stated goals were achieved. Afghanistan is not a functioning democracy with a strong central government, drug trafficking has not been eradicated, women haven’t been liberated, and the infrastructure and school systems are worse than they were before the war. By every objective standard the war was a failure. But, of course, the stated goals were just public relations blather anyway. They don’t mean anything. What matters is gas, namely the vast untapped reserves in Turkmenistan that could be extracted by privately-owned US corporations who would use their authority to control the growth of US competitors or would-be rivals like China. That’s what the war was all about. The gas is going to be transported via a pipeline from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the Arabian sea, eschewing Russian and Iranian territory. The completion of the so called TAPI pipeline will undermine the development of an Iranian pipeline, thus sabotaging the efforts of a US adversary.

I have been trying to wait as long as possible to get some facts confirmed, but at this point in time I am confident enough to say that there are numerous and convergent signs that things are going extremely badly for the regime in Kiev. Just look at the following recent headlines:​Kiev urgently summons NATO-Ukraine meeting in BrusselsJunta officers get the right to shoot their man in case of insubordinationKiev introduces state of emergency in Donbass, high alert across UkraineResistance to New Wave of Ukraine Mobilization Has Already BegunPanic in Kiev: Ukrainian forces surrender DonbassClearly, things are not going well *at all* for the Junta.

I am generally weary of triumphalism and I always get nervous when I see somebody underestimating the enemy.  Most importantly, we should remember that while the regime in Kiev seems to be suffering major military losses, it still has two options available a false flag operation and declare war with Russia. Option one: false flagThe worse the Junta's military defeats, the higher the risk of a major false flag. Keep in mind that the Kiev Junta despises the east Ukrainian which it considers as "bugs", "insects" and "subhumans" which should be barbecued and that it will have no pity for its own forces if they are defeated or, worse, disloyal. And remember the Nazi slogan about Crimea: "the Crimea will be Ukrainian or empty". We have to assume that the regime in Kiev is capable of anything and, having already shot down a civilian airliner, I would not put it past them to sabotage a nuclear plant or some other very high risk target.

Option two: declare with with RussiaNotice, I did not say war "on Russia" because that would make Kiev the aggressor. But the Rada is quite capable tomorrow of declaring Russia an "aggressor state".And if that is not enough, Kiev is absolutely capable of striking (at least a few times) anywhere along the Russian-Ukrainian border (including in Crimea) in order to pull Russia in. Even if Russia does not take the bait and simply rides out the strikes, or if Russia responds with a very minimal amount of force, Kiev will continue to declare the "thousands" of Russian troops have invaded and that Russian "tactical battalion groups" are operating all along the line of contact. There is no way that Kiev will ever admit that its forces have been defeated by local Novorussian resistance fighters. In other words, any defeat of the Junta forces will always be presented as a "Russian aggression against the European choice of the free Ukrainian nation".Folks like Yatseniuk or Turchinov will never just flee like Yanukovich did - before they do that, they will make darn sure to destroy as much of the Ukraine as possible and that happens to be exactly the US plan too: if Uncle Sam cannot have it, neither will anybody else.

The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has announced that a total of 3,088 government troops have been killed in the battle for the flashpoint city of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine."All in all, 3,048 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Debaltseve plus another 40," Eduard Basurin, an official with the defense ministry, told reporters on Thursday.Ukrainian officials have not made any comment on the claim yet.

The racist-fascist (or “nazi”) anti-Russian regime that the U.S. installed in a February 2014 coup does not permit protest (except from its small right: the few overt nazis demanding even more militancy); so, the only way that thousands of Ukrainians were safely able to express their loathing of the U.S. Embassy in Kiev on April 1st was by mooing as a non-verbal expression against the regime-controllers inside the compound, telling them, in effect, “We are not cattle.” However, at the end of the protest, someone managed to throw cow-dung at the compound. The police-state prohibited this event from being broadcast, and removed it even from the internet locally, but pictures and video have seeped out by now (after having been posted on April 2nd), and are made available (along with the mock braying of cattle), and are shown here summarized below as stills taken from various positions around the U.S. compound. The full video (less than two minutes) can be seen and heard at, and is from: http://offguardian.org/2015/04/03/were-not-cattle-kiev-protesters-throw-manure-at-us-embassy/

Whereas the “Maidan” demonstrations were orchestrated by the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, this anti-imperialist demonstration was truly grass-roots and not organized by any foreign government.

Bolivian president Evo Morales harshly condemned the United States Government for creating chaos, for promoting destabilization, and for attacking the sovereignty of nations as it continues to move forward with imperialist attitudes against countries around the world. Morales also spoke about poverty in Latin America, saying that it was important to point out that the causes of the problem lie in Washington and their imposition of neoliberal measures in the region. “The United States continues to see Latin America and the Caribbean as its backyard and the people of the region as its slaves, and this is the cause of extreme poverty in the region,” Morales said. The Bolivian president accused Washington of all the military coups that affected Latin America during the second half of the 20th century. “It is important to remember,” he stated, “that in the relations between the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean there are more failures than successes. The relations are loaded with armed interventions by the United States, invasions and constant aggressions.”

He criticized the United States for labeling the countries of the region as villains, when all these nations want to do is defend their people, their sovereignty, their right to freedom and democracy. “I want to tell [President Barack] Obama that empires disappear, while democracies last for ever,” he stated. “I want to express that mistake the U.S. makes when calling the Latin American and Caribbean countries the evil ones, when all they want to do is defend their sovereignty, their resources and their people.” Morales rejected the attacks by Washington and its allies against the region, accusing them of promoting wars, terrorism and poverty around the world. “I ask the United States what have we done to deserve being treated as slaves in our own countries?” he said. “We want to tell you Obama that Latin America has changed forever.” He called on Obama to stop extorting and attacking the countries of Latin America.

The president also state that, “Latin America has been kidnapped by the United States and we no longer want this. We no longer want presidential decrees that call us a threat to their country, we no longer want to be spied on … we want to live in peace.” Morales, therefore, called on Obama to engage in peaceful talks with the countries of region and to leave its double standards behind. “The United States should dispose of that double morale, because, for example, it is the country that resorts to torture more than any other country,” he said, questioning the human rights discourse of Washington when justifying interventionist policies against another nation. “We ask that (The United States) stop destroying complete civilizations and to stop looking for ghosts … we want to live in peace because it is less painful and more satisfying.”

Prominent neocon Robert Kagan has endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, saying she represents the best hope for saving the United States from populist billionaire Donald Trump, who has repudiated the neoconservative cause of U.S. military interventions in line with Israel’s interests. In a Washington Post op-ed published on Thursday, Kagan excoriated the Republican Party for creating the conditions for Trump’s rise and then asked, “So what to do now? The Republicans’ creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out.” Then referring to himself, he added, “For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The [Republican] party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.”

While many of Kagan’s observations about the Republican tolerance – and even encouragement – of bigotry are correct, the fact that a leading neocon, a co-founder of the infamous Project for the New American Century, has endorsed Clinton raises questions for Democrats who have so far given the former New York senator and Secretary of State mostly a pass on her pro-interventionist policies. The fact is that Clinton has generally marched in lock step with the neocons as they have implemented an aggressive “regime change” strategy against governments and political movements that don’t toe Washington’s line or that deviate from Israel’s goals in the Middle East. So she has backed coups, such as in Honduras (2009) and Ukraine (2014); invasions, such as Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011); and subversions such as Syria (from 2011 to the present) – all with various degrees of disastrous results.

It’s spy thriller stuff; no one is talking. But there are indications Russia would not announce a partial withdrawal from Syria right before the Geneva negotiations ramp up unless a grand bargain with Washington had been struck.Some sort of bargain is in play, of which we still don’t know the details; that's what the CIA itself is basically saying through their multiple US Think Tankland mouthpieces. And that's the real meaning hidden under a carefully timed Barack Obama interview that, although inviting suspension of disbelief, reads like a major policy change document. Obama invests in proverbial whitewashing, now admitting US intel did not specifically identify the Bashar al-Assad government as responsible for the Ghouta chemical attack. And then there are nuggets, such as Ukraine seen as not a vital interest of the US – something that clashes head on with the Brzezinski doctrine. Or Saudi Arabia as freeloaders of US foreign policy – something that provoked a fierce response from former Osama bin Laden pal and Saudi intel supremo Prince Turki.

Tradeoffs seem to be imminent. And that would imply a power shift has taken place above Obama — who is essentially a messenger, a paperboy. Still that does not mean that the bellicose agendas of both the Pentagon and the CIA are now contained.

Russian intel cannot possibly trust a US administration infested with warmongering neocon cells. Moreover, the Brzezinski doctrine has failed – but it’s not dead. Part of the Brzezinski plan was to flood oil markets with shut-in capacity in OPEC to destroy Russia. That caused damage, but the second part, which was to lure Russia into an war in Ukraine for which Ukrainians were to be the cannon fodder in the name of “democracy”, failed miserably. Then there was the wishful thinking that Syria would suck Russia into a quagmire of Dubya in Iraq proportions – but that also failed miserably with the current Russian time out. 

Russia has finalized an agreement with Turkey on the sale of the S-400 air defense missile system. Vladimir Kozhin, a presidential aide who oversees Russia’s matters of military cooperation, said Thursday that the deal was now finalized and Moscow would begin delivery of the system to Ankara in late 2019. “The first deliveries are likely to begin at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020,” Kozhin said. He said no more issues remained about the deal, which was discussed between Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the former’s visit to Ankara on December 11. “All aspects have been resolved over the past few days ... All parameters, all technologies, the entire deal has been agreed ... Practically speaking, the contract is entering the phase of realization,” he said.

The deal comes as Turkey has been establishing closer relations with Russia after it experienced glitches in its relations with Western governments following a crackdown in the country over the July 2016 coup attempt. The alliance originally reacted skeptically to the decision, saying the system was not compatible with its equipment. However, the Pentagon said recently that Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 system, the most significant deal Ankara has signed with a non-NATO military supplier, was generally “a good idea” as it was inter-operable with the military alliance's other systems. The S-400 is Russia’s latest surface-to-air missile defense batteries. Moscow aims to sell the system to Saudi Arabia, with Kozhin saying Thursday that the deal with Riyadh could also be finalized before the end of the year.