Muslims ruled Al-Andalus

Kandinsky was influenced by Monet.

Monet was influenced by 'Islamic Abstraction'

http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html 

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/the-great-mosque-of-cordoba-spain.html 

Welcome to the official website of the campaign "Iran is Great"



Being aware of the fact that Iran has a relatively negative image abroad which does not correspond at all with the reality we have encountered throughout our trips through Iran, we have considered initiating an informational and promotional campaign in Europe starting April 2014 introducing Iran’s rich culture and civilization, promoting the cultural, historical, natural and tourism potentials.

The project does NOT deal with any political or religious matters whatsoever.

Support us if you think that Iran deserves a better image abroad and please submit idea about what you think we can do better in order to achieve this goal. 

Ivan Family

Emilia & Lucas

Our Kids

Audrey

Mother of the family

Cristian

Father of the family

http://www.iranisgreat.com/<<

Ukraine Crisis Accelerating the Restructuring of the World | Pierre Charasse | Voltaire Network | Mexico City (Mexico)

The Ukrainian crisis has not radically changed the international situation but it has precipitated ongoing developments. Western propaganda, which has never been stronger, especially hides the reality of Western decline to the populations of NATO, but has no further effect on political reality. Inexorably, Russia and China, assisted by the other BRICS, occupy their rightful place in international relations.

30 April 2014   >> http://www.voltairenet.org/article183542.html <<

Donald Sterling, Cliven Bundy to start “Racist/Jewish State” in rural Nevada | PLEASE PEOPLE OF AMERICA WAKE-UP | UNITED STATES 'ZIONIST-JEWRY' POLITICAL

Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today Editor

According to unconfirmed reports, Donald Sterling has traveled to Bunkerville, Nevada for a meeting with rancher Cliven Bundy. Their agenda: The creation of a new Racist/Jewish State on BLM land. The project would, for the first time in history, unite Jewish and goyish racists in a single apartheid state.

“That thar BLM land is a land without people,” Bundy explained, “and us racists is a people without land. So let’s all of us who don’t like neegras and goys and such make aliyah. I’ll betchya we can make that gosh-durned desert bloom.”

Sterling expressed cautious optimism about the project. “It could turn out to be even better than Israel,” the LA Clippers owner said. “After all, Israel still has a few darkies – both the shvartzers from Ethiopia and those sand neegras they call Philisteenians that we’re trying to eradicate. But the only dark skin on this BLM land is the hide on Bundy’s cattle.”

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/04/29/sterling-bundy/ 

[sidebar:  Jewry Political, Zionist Owned, United States of 'America'.  And, the slow but, certain WALL STREET ownership of all that was the Indians and then the GENOCIDE that was then and now, way the global criminally insane operate, too.]

Obama Vows, ‘We Will Rebuild’ and ‘Recover’

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/us/politics/25obama.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

National Honesty Day? America’s Book of Lies

April 30, 2014 ~

Neil Garfield

Today is National Honesty Day.

While it should be a celebration of how honest we have been the other 364 days of the year, it is rather a day of reflection on how dishonest we have been.

Perhaps today could be a day in which we say we will at least be honest today about everything we say or do. But that isn’t likely. Today I focus on the economy and the housing crisis. Yes despite the corruption of financial journalism in which we are told of improvements, our economy — led by the housing markets — is still sputtering. It will continue to do so until we confront the truth about housing, and in particular foreclosures. Tennessee, Virginia and other states continue to lead the way in a downward spiral leading to the lowest rate of home ownership since the 1990′s with no bottom in sight.

Here are a few of the many articles pointing out the reality of our situation contrasted with the absence of articles in financial journalism directed at outright corruption on Wall Street where the players continue to pursue illicit, fraudulent and harmful schemes against our society performing acts that can and do get jail time for anyone else who plays that game.

It isn’t just that they escaping jail time. The jailing of bankers would take a couple of thousand people off the street that would otherwise be doing harm to us.

The main point is that we know they are doing the wrong thing in foreclosing on property they don’t own using “balances” the borrower doesn’t owe; we know they effectively stole the money from the investors who thought they were buying mortgage bonds, we know they effectively stole the title protection and documents that should have been executed in favor of the real source of funds, we know they received multiple payments from third parties and we know they are getting twin benefits from foreclosures that (a) should not be legally allowed and (b) only compound the damages to investors and homeowners.

The bottom line: Until we address wrongful foreclosures, the housing market, which has always led the economy, will continue to sputter, flatline or crash again. Transferring wealth from the middle class to the banks is a recipe for disaster whether it is legal or illegal. In this case it plainly illegal in most cases. 

And despite the planted articles paid for by the banks, we still have over 700,000 foreclosures to go in the next year and over 9,000,000 homeowners who are so deep underwater that their situation is a clear and present danger of “strategic default” on claims that are both untrue and unfair.

Here is a sampling of corroborative evidence for my conclusions:

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Candid Take on the Foreclosure Crisis

There it was: The Treasury foreclosure program was intended to foam the runway to protect against a crash landing by the banks. Millions of people were getting tossed out on the street, but the secretary of the Treasury believed the government’s most important job was to provide a soft landing for the tender fannies of the banks.”

Lynn Symoniak is Thwarted by Government as She Pursues Other Banks for the Same Thing She Proved Before

Government prosecutors who relied on a Florida whistleblower’s evidence to win foreclosure fraud settlements with major banks two years ago are declining to help her pursue identical claims against a second set of large financial institutions.

Lynn Szymoniak first found proof that millions of American foreclosures were based on faulty and falsified documents while fighting her own foreclosure. Her three-year legal fight helped uncover the fact that banks were “robosigning” documents — hiring people to forge signatures and backdate legal paperwork the firms needed in order to foreclose on people’s homes — as a routine practice. Court papers that were unsealed last summer show that the fraudulent practices Szymoniak discovered affect trillions of dollars worth of mortgages.

More than 700,000 Foreclosures Expected Over Next Year

How Bank Watchdogs Killed Our Last Chance At Justice For Foreclosure Victims

The results are in. The award for the sorriest chapter of the great American foreclosure crisis goes to the Independent Foreclosure Review, a billion-dollar sinkhole that produced nothing but heartache for aggrieved homeowners, and a big black eye for regulators.

The foreclosure review was supposed to uncover abuses in how the mortgage industry coped with the epic wave of foreclosures that swept the U.S. in the aftermath of the housing crash. In a deal with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, more than a dozen companies, including major banks, agreed to hire independent auditors to comb through loan files, identify errors and award just compensation to people who’d been abused in the foreclosure process.

But in January 2013, amid mounting evidence that the entire process was compromised by bank interference and government mismanagement, regulators abruptly shut the program down. They replaced it with a nearly $10 billion legal settlement that satisfied almost no one. Borrowers received paltry payouts, with sums determined by the very banks they accused of making their lives hell.

Investigation Stalled and Diverted as to Bank Fraud Against Investors and Homeowners

The Government Accountability Office released the results of its study of the Independent Foreclosure Review, conducted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve in 2011 and 2012, and the results show that the foreclosure process is lacking in oversight and transparency.

According to the GAO review, which can be read in full here, the OCC and Fed signed consent orders with 16 mortgage servicers in 2011 and 2012 that required the servicers to hire consultants to review foreclosure files for efforts and remediate harm to borrowers.

In 2013, regulators amended the consent orders for all but one servicer, ending the file reviews and requiring servicers to provide $3.9 billion in cash payments to about 4.4 million borrowers and $6 billion in foreclosure prevention actions, such as loan modifications. The list of impacted mortgage servicers can be found here, as well as any updates. It should be noted that the entire process faced controversy before, as critics called the IFR cumbersome and costly.

Banks Profit from Suicides of Their Officers and Employees

After a recent rash of mysterious apparent suicides shook the financial world, researchers are scrambling to find answers about what really is the reason behind these multiple deaths. Some observers have now come to a rather shocking conclusion.

Wall Street on Parade bloggers Pam and Russ Martens wrote this week that something seems awry regarding the bank-owned life insurance (BOLI) policies held by JPMorgan Chase.

Four of the biggest banks on Wall Street combined hold over $680 billion in BOLI policies, the bloggers reported, but JPMorgan held around $17.9 billion in BOLI assets at the end of last year to Citigroup’s comparably meager $8.8 billion.

Government Cover-Up to Protect the Banks and Screw Homeowners and Investors

A new government report suggests that errors made by banks and their agents during foreclosures might have been significantly higher than was previously believed when regulators halted a national review of the banks’ mortgage servicing operations.

When banking regulators decided to end the independent foreclosure review last year, most banks had not completed the examinations of their mortgage modification and foreclosure practices.

At the time, the regulators — the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve — found that lengthy reviews by bank-hired consultants were delaying compensation getting to borrowers who had suffered through improper modifications and other problems.

But the decision to cut short the review left regulators with limited information about actual harm to borrowers when they negotiated a $10 billion settlement as part of agreements with 15 banks, according to a draft of a report by the Government Accountability Office reviewed by The New York Times.

The report shows, for example, that an unidentified bank had an error rate of about 24 percent. This bank had completed far more reviews of borrowers’ files than a group of 11 banks involved the deal, suggesting that if other banks had looked over more of their records, additional errors might have been discovered.

Wrongful Foreclosure Rate at least 24%: Wrongful or Fraudulent?

The report shows, for example, that an unidentified bank had an error rate of about 24 percent. This bank had completed far more reviews of borrowers’ files than a group of 11 banks involved the deal, suggesting that if other banks had looked over more of their records, additional errors might have been discovered.

http://www.marketpulse.com/20140430/u-s-housing-recovery-struggles/

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0429/Home-buying-loses-allure-ownership-rate-lowest-since-1995

http://www.opednews.com/articles/It-s-Good–no–Great-to-by-William-K-Black–Bank-Failure_Bank-Failures_Bankers_Banking-140430-322.html

[DISHONEST EUPHEMISMS: The context of this WSJ story is the broader series of betrayals of homeowners by the regulators and prosecutors led initially by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his infamous “foam the runways” comment in which he admitted and urged that programs “sold” as benefitting distressed homeowners be used instead to aid the banks (more precisely, the bank CEOs) whose frauds caused the crisis. 

The WSJ article deals with one of the several settlements with the banks that “service” home mortgages and foreclose on them.  Private attorneys first obtained the evidence that the servicers were engaged in massive foreclosure fraud involving knowingly filing hundreds of thousands of false affidavits under (non) penalty of perjury.  As a senior former AUSA said publicly at the INET conference a few weeks ago about these cases — they were slam dunk prosecutions.  But you know what happened; no senior banker or bank was prosecuted.  No banker was sued civilly by the government.  No banker had to pay back his bonus that he “earned” through fraud.

SCOTUS, POTUS, FLOTUS, COTUS/S, WOTUSP (We Of The United States People, too!)

Poly Druggie Dictated Chief, via SCOTUS

SCOTUS 1925, TAFT obese therefore, not exactly 'balanced?'!  Well balanced certainly not.  He who made up law from the bench when that was not the way the U.S. Constitution intended and then:  BRANDEIS not an attorney and sat on the Supreme Court and penned slight of hand, FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 'FED' into TREASON

Always known, to the world, "Sniggering Shrew"

Israel owns America?  Really!

We're almost there boss!

THE BOSS

MAFIOSO GLOBAL SNUG W/ COTUS/S

Not We Of The U.S. People, no not by any stretch of our entire collective imaginations can we continue to think this 'leadership' is what we honor as 'real', other than truly really criminally insane.

>>
Are Western Policies Evil or Desperate?  |  China: Rise, Fall and Re-Emergence as a Global Power  |  Kerry, Obama, Putin: The Fool, the Demagogue, and the Former KGB Colonel, ET CETERA

Are Western Policies Evil or Desperate?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/are-western-policies-evil-or-desperate/5379799

China: Rise, Fall and Re-Emergence as a Global Power

The Lessons of History

http://www.globalresearch.ca/china-rise-fall-and-re-emergence-as-a-global-power/29644

Kerry, Obama, Putin: The Fool, the Demagogue, and the Former KGB Colonel

Russia is under Serious Attack and Threat by the US

http://www.globalresearch.ca/kerry-obama-putin-the-fool-the-demagogue-and-the-former-kgb-colonel/5379810 

THE RAPE OF NANKING OR NANJING MASSACRE (1937)

We've got the FRAUD called POTUS#44, which is nothing really new, here.  When did the POTUS not do exactly what the POTUS is told to do?  Japan is the Ally we need to go to war, make no mistake the mass murderers in control of global earth in this time, that put POTUS#44 into the position where he "Kills Real Good", yes we can count on him to KILL KILL KILL and then some,  http://rt.com/op-edge/155644-obama-asia-region-security/<< Not Dolls Above Photo:  DEAD BABIES http://www.nanking-massacre.com/RAPE_OF_NANKING_OR_NANJING_MASSACRE_1937.html The Japanese invasion of China in 1937  |  Having already seized and annexed China's Manchurian region (1931) and Jehol province (1933), the Japanese were waiting for a pretext to invade and occupy the whole of China. That pretext came in July 1937, when tensions between Chinese troops and Japanese troops engaged in military exercises on occupied Chinese territory produced an exchange of firing near Peking (now Beijing). The Japanese used this incident as an excuse to wage all out war against China. Mass Killings in Nanjing

THE RAPE OF NANKING OR NANJING MASSACRE 1 The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 Having already seized and annexed China's Manchurian region (1931) and Jehol province (1933), the Japanese were waiting for a pretext to invade and occupy the whole of China. That pretext came in July 1937, when tensions between Chinese troops and Japanese troops engaged in military exercises on occupied Chinese territory produced an exchange of firing near Peking (now Beijing). The Japanese used this incident as an excuse to wage all out war against China. BURIAL ALIVE AT NANKING (NANJING) 1937 Chinese at Nanking (now known as Nanjing) are being buried alive by grinning Japanese troops who are competing with each other to invent new and more horrible ways to kill Chinese whom they regarded as sub-human. This photograph was taken by a Japanese and processed in a Japanese-owned photographic shop. A Chinese photographic technician made copies that were smuggled out of China. Mass Killings in Nanjing An ongoing raping

THE RAPE OF NANKING OR NANJING MASSACRE 2 Japanese armies invaded China's northern provinces and quickly captured the ancient Chinese capital Peking (now called Beijing). In the conduct of this war, the Japanese adopted a policy of deliberate savagery in the expectation that it would break the will of the Chinese to resist. Although poorly trained and equipped, the Chinese army and communist irregulars put up strong resistance to Japan's armies which enjoyed overwhelming superiority in numbers, training, and weapons. The Japanese troops responded to Chinese resistance to their invasion by embarking on an orgy of murder, rape, and looting that shocked the civilised world at that time, although it has now been largely forgotten in many Western countries where the rigorous teaching of history is becoming a neglected discipline. While fighting was continuing in northern China, the Japanese launched a second front at the city of Shanghai on the eastern coast of China. Despite determined resistance by Chinese Nationalist troops, the Japanese captured Shanghai in November, 1937. As if to make an exhibition of their brutality to the Western world, the Japanese marched hundreds of Chinese prisoners of war down to the Bund, or river bank, and slaughtered them by machine-gun in full view of horrified observers aboard foreign ships moored in the river. Having captured Shanghai, the Japanese were then able to move up the Yangtze River and lay siege to the Nationalist capital Nanking (now called Nanjing). It is not possible to document here the full extent of the horrors experienced by China at the hands of the Japanese between 1937 and 1945. Those who are interested in a detailed treatment of this terrible episode in China's history will find it in the books of Lord Russell of Liverpool, Iris Chang and Laurence Rees that are mentioned at the end of this chapter. I will mention here only the Rape of Nanking (now called the Nanjing Massacre) which is the best documented of Japanese atrocities in China owing to the presence of Western observers who were eyewitnesses to the mass slaughter, rape and looting that the Japanese inflicted on the unfortunate population of the Chinese capital. Many people were killed at downtown Training for new soldiers

The Japanese murder, rape, loot, and burn in Nanking (Nanjing) 1937 The Japanese murder, rape, loot, and burn in Nanking (Nanjing) 1937 The Japanese were infuriated by the strength of Chinese resistance, and when China's Nationalist capital Nanking fell in December 1937, Japanese troops immediately slaughtered thousands of Chinese soldiers who had surrendered to them. The Japanese then rounded up about twenty thousand young Chinese men and transported them in trucks outside the city walls where they were killed in a massive slaughter. Japanese troops were then encouraged by their officers to loot Nanking, and slaughter and rape the Chinese population of the city. For six weeks, life for the Chinese in Nanking became a nightmare. Bands of drunken Japanese soldiers roamed the city, murdering, raping, looting, and burning at whim. Chinese civilians who were stopped on the street, and found to possess nothing of value, were immediately killed. At least twenty thousand Chinese women were raped in Nanking during the first four weeks of the Japanese occupation, and many were mutilated and killed when the Japanese troops were finished with them. The Japanese troops were encouraged by their officers to invent ever more horrible ways to slaughter the Chinese population of the city. When the bodies of murdered Chinese choked the streets and the gutters ran red with their blood, the Japanese were forced to refine their methods of slaughter in the interest of preventing the spread of disease. Batches of Chinese civilians were rounded up and herded into slaughter pits. Here the grinning Japanese soldiers would either bury them alive, hack them to death with their swords, use them for bayonet practice, or pour petrol on the victims and burn them alive. The bodies of thousands of victims of the slaughter were dumped into the Yangtze River until the river was red with their blood. After looting Nanking of anything of value, the Japanese started fires that gutted one third of the city. Killing a young people Practise Killing

The Japanese murder, rape, loot, and burn in Nanking (Nanjing) 1937 Independent foreign observers of the Rape of Nanking, including a German businessman and Nazi Party member named John Rabe, were appalled to see Chinese civilians, both men and women, the elderly, and tiny children, put to death by Japanese troops with horrifying brutality. Rabe tried to save as many Chinese as he could by creating a safety zone on his estate. He appealed to Adolf Hitler to intervene, but the Nazi leader rebuffed his appeal. Convincing independent proof of the horrifying scale of the Japanese massacre at Nanking emerged in 1996 with the publication of John Rabe's diary record of the massacre. Japanese soldiers appeared to be quite willing to be photographed with raised swords beside their intended victims, in the act of bayoneting their victims, and posing with their dead victims in the slaughter pits. The atrocities committed by Japanese troops at Nanking were widely publicised by foreign observers, including newspaper correspondents. When the Japanese high command became aware of the full scope of the horror perpetrated by Japanese troops at Nanking, it went to considerable lengths to destroy evidence of the atrocity. Iris Chang gives a very detailed account of the extent and appalling nature of the Japanese atrocities in Nanking in her book "The Rape of Nanking" (published 1997). The horrifying photographs in her book survived the attempt by the Japanese high command to cover up the Nanking atrocities because the perpetrators entrusted the "happy snaps" recording their vile behaviour to a Japanese-owned photographic shop in Shanghai for processing. A Chinese employee secretly made extra copies and smuggled them out of China. Practise killing skills Training for new soldiers

THE RAPE OF NANKING OR NANJING MASSACRE 5 The judges of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials) were prepared to accept that at least 200,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the Japanese in the six weeks after Nanking fell. The judges were also prepared to accept that the death toll would be much higher if estimates of the number of Chinese burned alive by the Japanese in mass slaughter pits and bodies dumped in the river were added.  Non-Japanese historians are prepared to accept that the slaughter at Nanking could have reached as high as 370,000 victims. The appalling brutality displayed by Japanese troops at Nanking was by no means unique. It has been estimated by historians that several million Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were murdered in the course of Japan's undeclared war on China between 1937 and 1945. Despite photographic and independent eyewitness evidence, the Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge or permit Japanese schoolchildren to be told the full story of the slaughter, rape and looting that took place at Nanking in 1937. In recent years, the Japanese government has made a small concession to the weight of international and local criticism of this censorship by permitting brief and vague references in history textbooks to the Rape of Nanking (Nanjing Massacre), but the atrocities are described as the "Nanjing Incident" and the text suggests that the victims died during the battle for the city, and not in a horrifying massacre that took place during the six weeks that followed the fall of the city to the Japanese. Even these small concessions to historical truth are now coming under attack in Japan from militarists and neo-nationalists. The neo-nationalists, who include Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, prominent members of Japan's parliament, and senior academics such as Professor Nobukatsu Fujioka of Tokyo University, believe that these concessions have gone too far, and that school textbooks should be censored to delete all references to Japanese war guilt and atrocities, and to instil national pride rather than shame. Students of history interested in pursuing this aspect of a particularly brutal war may wish to examine the books and web-sites listed at the end of this chapter.  Those are not dolls, they are killed babies Many killed bodies

Unfortunately or fortunately?  This photo can't be seen unless going to the original source, "Murder of Innocents".  The Japanese took the Chinese innocent victims and cut their hearts out while they were alive, tied to a stake, men had their penises cut off and other organs exposed, alive these PEOPLE were and the Japanese acted as though they were not part of the same species, very-very criminally insane.  And that's our ALLY because POTUS#44 is exactly what he is and he says so loud and clear.  TIME FOR CHANGE?  Do we know what the MONSTERS are planning?  And do we KNOW that there isn't going to be another rape of China and Russia!  No, just as there has not been a continued rape of Syria, Iran, Et Al, as was already done in the countries that we know.  THE criminally insane are killing people for the agenda of those that are of our own species and completely, once more, out of control.  Time to make the change happen before anymore of the United Kingdom, Saudi, Israeli, America, Japan, Et Al, criminal insanity.

America's top 400 rich individuals own more wealth than half the population of some 155 million people. A quarter of all American workers are officially classed as subsisting below the poverty line. The real figure may be as high as 50 per cent.

It is estimated that the value in terms of average wages in the US is less than what it was back in the 1960s - a half century ago. This has led to a huge rise in poverty and polarization of wealth into the hands of the tiny social elite.

AGENDA?  NEED SLAVES MAKE SLAVES

GET THE BODY-MIND-SPIRIT RIGHT FOR KILLING SELF AND OTHERS!  MONEY MONEY MONEY DIGITAL FRAUD

VATICAN'S "PINE CONE" LARGEST BRONZE SCULPTURE OF A 'PINE CONE' IN THE WORLD!  http://theartof12.blogspot.com/2014/04/cliff-high-half-past-human-grand-penis.html<<

http://theartof12.blogspot.com/2013/04/metzitzah-bpeh-update-april-2-2013-baby.html <<

http://english.irib.ir/component/k2/item/186133-poverty-and-war-condemn-capitalism 

It is absurd, but deeply revealing, how the Western corporate media refuse to hold any views or discussions about capitalism and its abhorrent impact of poverty and warmongering.

As former German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg once said, we face a stark choice between the present barbarism under capitalism or creating a new democratic, viable world under socialism.

A first step would be for the Western public to begin talking and thinking openly about the destructive irrationality of capitalism.

That is what Western politicians and the rich elite, including their media mouthpieces, are most in fear of. They fear that moment when the vast majority of people will start to shout out "the emperor has no clothes!"

http://english.irib.ir/component/k2/item/186133-poverty-and-war-condemn-capitalism 

Iran police finds painting attributed to Pablo Picasso

1904, Suzanne Bloch, Picasso

A painting attributed to the renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso has been discovered in a border village in the Iranian province of Ardebil.

According to Press TV, the head of Anti-Contraband and Currency Trafficking in Ardebil provincial headquarters announced that Iran’s police seized the art piece when a person was seeking to sell the painting for USD 900,000 in the village of Ultan located near the town of Parsabad in Iran-Azerbaijan border.

The art experts of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department in Ardebil attributed the discovered painting to Picasso based on comparisons with the artist's other works.

The 33x25 cm painting belonged to private collections set in Cubism style of painting.

Many of Picasso's works have been repeatedly stolen and recovered during recent years. The world-famous artist's 1904, Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in 2007 and two of his engravings were snatched from a branch of the Pinacoteca Museum in 2008.

>>http://english.irib.ir/news/iran1/item/186240-iran-police-finds-painting-attributed-to-pablo-picasso 
MG

[sidebar:   Picasso is recognized as a GREAT ARTIST.  He is not, however, respected by one of the GREATEST ARTISTS to ever co-create art in earth, RUFINO TAMAYO >>

http://www.newpicasso.org/rufino-tamayo-paintings/art-rufino-tamayo-august-june-daily-47885/<<

Obama aims at regime change in Russia

The United States has announced a further set of sanctions against Russia. The White House statement justified the sanctions in terms of Russia’s “illegal intervention” and “provocative actions” in Ukraine and Moscow’s alleged refusal to follow through on the Geneva deal on de-escalation.
 

These are, again, “smart sanctions” targeted at what the White House calls “Mr. Putin’s inner circle” and entities directly connected with the Kremlin elites. The stunning thing is the inclusion of Igor Sechin, a powerful personality, indeed, whom many regard as Putin’s alter-ego — which presages that Obama is preparing to take the fight to the lion’s den.

Things are getting “personal”, indeed. Although Obama maintained, “The goal is not to go after Mr. Putin personally”, the goal increasingly seems to be precisely what he denied.

The US seems to have figured out meticulously the dark secrets of the Russian elites — where they keep their illegal wealth in the western world and so on.

Armed with that wealth of information, the US seems to be aiming to create dissensions within the Russian elites and crack up the calculus of power in Moscow — a veritable “regime change”. Capitulate or regime change — that’s the choice the US is offering Moscow.

It’s a high-risk project. Of course, the system that Putin created is not a pushover. But, the US is undoubtedly in a punishing mood. What accounts for it? Can’t be Syria. Can’t be Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan. Can’t be the Arctic, can’t be BRICS.

Yes, it has to be the unprecedented humiliation and damage caused to the US’ global standing and foreign and security policies by the Edward Snowden affair, which Washington believes was masterminded from the Kremlin. It’s payback time for the CIA.

Clearly, the Ukraine game is no longer being played by politicians and diplomats. Smiley’s people are on the prowl. The fact that the CIA director John Brennan visited Kiev a week ago underscores that the game is deadly serious.

According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the CIA station in Kiev is now occupying an entire floor of the Ukrainian intelligence agency’s headquarters and is controlling the flow of events from the very nerve centre.

http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2014/04/28/obama-aims-at-regime-change-in-russia/

By M K Bhadrakumar – April 28, 2014

THE ROVING EYE Obama's 'strategy' against 'pariah' Russia By Pepe Escobar

The Barack Obama administration seems to love the sound of unilateral sanctions in the morning. It must feel like "victory".

Real, hardcore sanctions, if ever applied, would be devastating mostly for North Atlantic Treaty Organization poodles, not Moscow. Meanwhile, (energy) adults continue to do business as usual.

There's no way to understand Cold War 2.0 without a flashback to November 2010, when Vladimir Putin directly addressed German business/industry, proposing an economic community from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

German interest in this key strategic relationship has been reciprocal. Amplified to other nations, that implies in the long run a full European Union-Russia economic/trade integration, and, in the bigger picture, a step closer to Europe-Asia integration. Which translates as absolute anathema for the embattled, Monopoly-addicted hyperpower/hegemon.

For all of US Think Tankland talking and theorizing, breathlessly, about "containment" of a "rogue state" - which in itself is laughable, as if Russia was Somalia - the Obama administration's overarching "strategy" is really in a class by itself. This masterpiece of juvenile delinquent diplomacy boils down to "ignore Putin".

Call it the "I don't like you; I don't wanna talk to you; I just wish you'd die" school of diplomacy. How come Talleyrand never thought if it? Well, with advisers such as the astonishing mediocrity Ivo Daalder, a former ambassador to NATO, no wonder Obama does not need enemies.

All we need is Lavrov
The sanctions hysteria is designed to force President Putin to bow to the hegemon's whims, as part of the overall "strategy"; forging an "international consensus" to "isolate" Russia and turn it into a "pariah state". "Pariah states" that do energy mega-deals, as in here and here.

Still, the predominant wishful thinking revolves around the economic strangulation of Russia - as it was relentlessly attempted against Iran (and bravely resisted by Iranians). Inside their bubble, the wishful thinkers even believe Beijing will be on board, oblivious to the fact that Beijing clearly sees the sanction hysteria/ignore Putin "doctrine" as a branch of the "pivoting to Asia" - which is essentially military containment of China.

In the end, the Kremlin has also reached a similar conclusion: it's useless to talk to Washington. After all, the hegemon's laundry list remains the same - the Kremlin is not allowed to support popular protests in eastern and southern Ukraine; everyone must submit to the neo-nazi/neo-fascist-allied regime changers in Kiev; and Crimea must be "returned" - to NATO - so NATO can kick Moscow out of the Black Sea.

Washington's ultimate wet dream would be to interrupt gas shipments by Gazprom from Russia to the EU - in fact trade sabotage, which Moscow would undoubtedly interpret as an act of war. Meanwhile, Washington/NATO's "Plan A" remains to lure the Kremlin into an "invasion" - so Putin can be (in fact already is) denounced as "the new Hitler" and the ultimate threat to the EU.

So much for the "containment/isolation" martini cocktail of arrogance, ignorance, impotence and irresponsibility. Diplomatic finesse? Forget it. In terms of a real diplomat at work, feel free to admit "All We Need Is Lavrov".

Go back to Game of Thrones
Moscow has so many ways to retaliate real hard against the hegemon: in Syria; on the Iran nuclear dossier; on NATO's ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan via the Northern Distribution Network, which goes through Russia; on the future of Afghanistan.

If the White House and the US State Department really wanted to listen to how Putin frames the relationship between the West and Russia, that has been voiced repeatedly by the Kremlin. Russia expects respect from "our Western partners", who since 1991 have treated it not as "an independent, active participant in international affairs", with "its own national interests that need to be taken into account and respected", but as a backward or dangerous nation to dismiss and "contain".

The historical record clearly shows Washington does not respect the national interests of anybody; the only thing that matters is that they should always be subordinated to Washington's interests.

The Kremlin, in a nutshell, has invited Washington to play realpolitik. Not Monopoly. The Obama administration, at best - and we are being very lenient here - plays checkers. Moscow plays chess. A mad drive to instill chaos in Russia's western borderlands while "ignoring" Putin won't change the Kremlin's defense of what it perceives as Russia's national interests.

Let's say the "project" was to seize Ukraine, kick Moscow out of the Sevastopol base, and thus from the Eastern Mediterranean; and then take over Syria, so Qatar - and not Iran-Iraq-Syria - may get "its" share of Pipelineistan via Jordan and a Sunni-ruled Syria towards EU markets. The "project" is miserably failing.

Yet the sanctions game will persist (like it did with Cuba, Iraq, Iran). The White House is already concocting more of the same. No adults in Europe will follow. Even poodles are able to sniff that the Obama administration does not even qualify to play Game of Thrones on PlayStation 3.

Pepe Escobar (Copyright 2014 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-290414.html