And Now
for a Putsch in Athens? Yes, If Nuland's Hubby Has His Way
US has a long history of meddling in Greek politics. And if you ask Robert Kaplan - the influential neo con ideologue - time has come for another intervention By John Helmer July 07, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - Moscow -- A putsch in Athens to save allied Greece from enemy Russia is in preparation by the US and Germany, with backing from the non-taxpayers of Greece – the Greek oligarchs, Anglo-Greek shipowners, and the Greek Church. At the highest and lowest level of Greek government, and from Thessaloniki to Milvorni, all Greeks understand what is happening. Yesterday they voted overwhelmingly to resist. According to a high political figure in Athens, a 40-year veteran, “what is actually happening is a slow process of regime change.”
Until
Sunday afternoon it was a close-run thing. The Yes and No votes were equally
balanced, and the margin between them razor thin. At the start of the morning,
Rupert Murdoch’s London Times claimed “Greek security forces have drawn up a
secret plan to deploy the army alongside special riot police to contain
possible civil unrest after today’s referendum on the country’s future in
Europe. Codenamed Nemesis, it makes provision for troops to patrol large
cities if there is widespread and prolonged public disorder. Details of the
plan emerged as polls showed the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps neck and neck.” Greek
officers don’t speak to the Murdoch press; British and US government agents
do.
“It was
neck to neck until 3 pm,” reports the political veteran in Athens, “then the
young started voting. “
Can the
outcome — the 61% to 39% referendum vote, with a 22% margin for Οχι (No)
which the New York Times calls “shocking” and a “victory [that] settled
little” – defeat Operation Nemesis? Will the new Axis – the Americans and the
Germans – attack again, as the Germans did after the first Greek Οχι of
October 28, 1940, defeated the Italian invasion?
The
Kremlin understands too. So when the State Department’s Victoria Nuland (nee
Nudelman; lead image, right) visited Athens to issue an ultimatum against
breaking the anti-Russian sanctions regime, and the Anglo-American
think-tanks followed with warnings the Russian Navy is about to sail into
Piraeus, the object of the game has been clear. The line for Operation
Nemesis has been that Greece must be saved, not from itself or from its
creditors, but from the enemy in Moscow. The Russian line has been to do
nothing to give credence to that propaganda; to wait and to watch.
As the
head of State’s Bureau of European and Eurasian affairs, Nuland is the
official in charge of warmaking in Europe. Her record in the Ukraine has been
documented here.
Almost unnoticed, she was in Athens on March 17 to deliver two ultimatums.
The communique released by the US Embassy in Athens was
headlined, “we want to see prosperity and growth in Greece.”
What
Nuland (above, left) was doing with her hands is in the small print of the
release. She told Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (right) not to break
ranks with the NATO allies against Russia. “Because of the increasing rounds
of aggression in eastern Ukraine” she reportedly said the US is “very
gratified that we’ve had solidarity between the EU and the U.S., and that
Greece has played its role in helping to build consensus.”
Nuland
also warned Tsipras not to default on its debts to Germany, the European
Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Tsipras was told “to
make a good deal with the institutions”. The referendum Tsipras called on
June 27 was a surprise for Nuland. The nemesis in Operation Nemesis is the
retribution planned for that display of Greek hubris.
Having thundered
for a year on the illegitimacy of the March 2014 referendum in Crimea, saying
yes to accession to Russia, the State Department ignored the Greek referendum
for forty-eight hours. On June 29, asked what the US government was thinking
of doing if the outcome “is a no vote”, Nuland’s spokesman, Mark Toner, said the US would ignore it. “We’re focused on,
frankly, the opposite, which is finding a path forward that allows Greece to
continue to make reforms, return to growth, and remain in the Eurozone.”
The only
other official Washington reference to the Greek referendum came on June 30
when the question at the State Department daily briefing was: “what are you
doing within the International Monetary Fund, of which the U.S. is the
largest shareholder, to try to also press from that side for more leniency
with the Greeks?” The official reply: “we’re carefully monitoring the
situation…we continue to believe that it’s important that all sides work
together to get back to a path that’s going to allow Greece to resume reforms
and to return to growth within the Eurozone. But again, we’re monitoring this
very closely.”
The last
concerted attempt the US government made to overthrow an elected Greek
government was against Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou between 1987 and
1989. With his son and successor George Papandreou, there was no such
necessity – George and his mother Margarita Papandreou were already under
Washington’s control. But against Andreas serious counter-measures were
required. Military ones, of the type which ruled Greece between 1967 and
1974, had been unpopular domestically and internationally. They were
demonstrably costly; they also discredited the US and NATO military which
stood behind the Athens junta.
So, the
Reagan Administration decided Papandreou had to be overthrown by his own
people, if possible at an election. The strategy was “to give Papandreou
enough rope to hang himself”, said Robert Keeley the US Ambassador to Athens
at the time. That too was an Operation Nemesis of sorts – the plan was for
Papandreou’s hubris to be defeated in front of the Greek electorate, first in
a military showdown in the Aegean with Turkey, then in an allegation of
bribery of the prime minister by a Greek banker and football club owner.
Papandreou with Turgut Ozal, Turkey’s Prime Minister, in March 1987 – before the Greek victory and Ozal’s collapse.
Both were
neutralized in surprise Greek moves US officials had not anticipated. The
Turks retreated after a display of combined Greek and Bulgarian force, and
the Turkish Prime Minister was medivaced to a Houston, Texas, cardiology
clinic. George Koskotas, Papandreou’s accuser, was arrested in Boston and
returned to a Greek jail. Hubris reversed, you might say. For more, read this.
On Sunday,
had Greek voters divided evenly down the old Civil War lines, right versus
left, blue versus red, the security forces would have been mobilized to
confront demonstrators on Maidan, er Syntagma Square, and sharpshooters
deployed from the roof of the Grande Bretagne Hotel to kick off Operation
Nemesis. To prepare hearts and minds for that, however, the think-tank army
has failed almost totally, firing blanks in every direction but Greece.
In London
the US-funded Legatum Institute skipped the poll evidence and panel
discussions, attacking Venezuela, China, Syria and Russia instead for using
“phenomena previously associated with democracy—elections, the Internet, the
press, the market—to undermine freedoms”, along with “the self-organising
potential of society.” Legatum left Anne Applebaum by herself to announce the Greek government can be overthrown
because it was “elected on a completely false premise”.
The Royal
Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the thunderer against
Russian info-warfare last month, has since roared on Tunisian and
Nigerian democracy; this week it is preparing for a panel discussion on “the progress that Kyiv has
made in increasing transparency and reforming key government institutions”.
Chatham House has stayed silent on Greek democracy and the referendum.
In
Washington, the International
Republican Institute (IRI) – motto, “helps democracy become more
effective where it is in danger” — has been issuing its State
Department-funded democracy polls for months, but for Ivory Coast and
Zimbabwe; not for Greece. At the same time, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) has been
preoccupied with its democracy schemes in Georgia, Iraq, and Kosovo.
The Pew Research Centre in Washington tried
anticipating the Greek referendum by surveying 2.5 million Twitter messages
in Greece, and publishing the results on July 3. In the Greek language the
tweets were 40% to 33% in favour of voting Yes. In the English language the
Greek tweets ran 32% to 7% in favour of Yes. In the event, the social media
results were contrived. If Pew hadn’t invented them, the large numbers of
“neutral” tweets all turned into No votes on the day.
The
Brookings Institution and the Peterson Institute – both funded by the
Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk to beat the anti-Russian drum in Ukraine —
stopped short of forecasting the Greek referendum result, but condemned the
government in Athens for offering it. On July 1, Carlo Bastasin, an Italian
journalist on the Brookings stipend, claimed to have eyewitness evidence for
“Greek leaders’ conduct as unscrupulous”, and for the Greek government’s
“plans [as] more recessionary and austerity-driven than the European ones.”
The reporter’s sources lacked names.
On the
Peterson Institute’s executive committee Greek strategy is directed by Andreas
Dracopoulos. He is a member of the family of the Greek shipowner
Stavros Niarchos, whose foundation money Dracopoulos is in charge of
awarding. When Dracopoulos has been asked what the Niarchos money is doing for
the domestic crisis, he has mentioned food vouchers for the poor and beds for
the homeless. He didn’t mention paying tax. Dracopoulos has been
knighted by a previous Greek government as Grand Commander of the Order of
the Phoenix; that was for the Niarchos Foundation’s philanthropy. Dracopoulos
is pictured above with Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the American Diocese
of the Greek Church, a traditional foe of governments in Athens the diocese
considers left wing, or worse.
The
Greek-American community has avoided a public statement on the referendum.
Instead on July 1, the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association
(AHEPA), as the national lobby group is known, announced: “We also call on
the Obama Administration to step-up its engagement to ensure the parties
achieve a proper solution.” If the Greek-Americans, Dracopoulos, and the
Church meant Operation Nemesis, they weren’t saying no on July 5. Ahead of
the vote, AHEPA issued its second announcement: “Regardless of the outcome of the
referendum held in Greece on July 5, 2015, what is crucial to the Greek
American community is that U.S.-Greece relations remain strong and certain
and Greece’s geostrategic importance and contributions to the security
interests of the U.S. and NATO is valued and appreciated.”
Political
sources in Athens acknowledge that after taking power in January, Tsipras and
his Syriza colleagues quietly took precautions against a putsch by the
security forces. “The leadership [of the military and intelligence services]
was changed,” the sources say, “but not radically. The defence minister
[Panos Kammenos] is rightist so there are no ‘radicals’ in command.”
In Moscow
there has been scepticism from the start that Tsipras could or would
withstand the American and German pressure. For more, read this.
In April, and then again in June, Kammenos sidestepped the issue of what
fresh military cooperation with Russia is contemplated by the Greek side.
Discussion of the details has been postponed until the two governments hold a
joint ministerial commission meeting later this month.
Kammenos meets Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on April 15, 2015. Source: http://www.greece.mid.ru
Russian
military analysts expect Cyprus to arrange increased military cooperation,
including the Russian Navy and naval support aircraft. They do not expect
Greece will ask for, nor the Kremlin agree to comparable Greek cooperation.
That story can be read here.
So where
did Robert Kaplan (lead image, rear) get the idea
that the US and the European Union (EU) should act “to keep Russian warships
away from Greek ports”? Kaplan, from the Center for a New American Security
(CNAS) in Washington, reported to Wall Street Journal readers on June 30 that
the Kremlin plot is to use Syriza as its stalking horse to drive Greece out
of the EU, and dismantle US alliance positions along the Mediterranean shore
and in the Balkans. Russia, according to Kaplan, “may [sic] be helping to
inflame Syriza’s internal divisions in the hope that Greece’s ruling party
cannot make the difficult concessions necessary to stay in the eurozone.”
Combined “with the dismemberment and weakening of Ukraine, [Greece’s no vote]
will seriously weaken Europe’s geopolitical position vis-à-vis Russia.”
Kaplan’s
think-tank in Washington reports that its funding comes from well-known
military equipment suppliers, US oil companies, the governments of Japan,
Taiwan, and Singapore; NATO; the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force;
plus George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Chief executive of CNAS is
Michele Flournoy, a founder of the think-tank which is serving as her
platform to run for the next Secretary of Defense, if Hillary Clinton wins
the presidential election next year. Flournoy is one of the drafters of a
recent plan for the US to escalate arms and troop reinforcements in Ukraine
and along the Russian frontier with the Baltic states. Here’s her plan for “What the United States and NATO Must
Do” . For more on Flournoy, read this.
Until
Kaplan’s report last week, the only notice CNAS has taken of Greece was a report last January explaining “Why Putin Is
the Big Winner in Greece’s Election”. The think-tank expert for that one was
an ex-US Treasury official with a training in Arabic and no record on Europe,
let alone Greece. Kaplan, an Israeli soldier as well as a
Pentagon employee and lecturer to US intelligence agencies, explains his
expertise on Greece comes “from living in Athens during that decade [1980s].”
If he wasn’t on an extended holiday, Kaplan may mean he was under cover.
For
warfighting in Greece now, all you need to know is who the Greeks must be
saved from. If the Greeks have voted more demonstratively than the Ukrainians
against sacrificing themselves to this idea, the experts are confident that’s
not democracy, as the Axis understands it, but hubris, for which there’s
Operation Nemesis. Natch!
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