ANALYSIS INFORMATION FROM A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

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HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM EUROPE

Harald Dahle-Sladek

Founder and Editor-in-chief

 Основатель и главный редактор

 創始人兼總編輯

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UKRAINE WAR CRIMES

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Visits Ukraine, Reaffirms U.S. Commitment to Help Identify, Apprehend, and Prosecute Individuals Involved in War Crimes and Atrocities

Garland meets with Ukrainian Prosecutor General; Announces Counselor for War Crimes Accounta-bility

“There is no hiding place for war criminals. The U.S. Justice Department will pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”

In a meeting with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland commended the efforts of the Ukrainian people to defend democracy and uphold the rule of law, and announced additional U.S. actions to help Ukraine identify, apprehend, and prosecute those individuals involved in war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.

“The United States stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s continued aggression and assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said Attorney General Garland. “America – and the world – has seen the many horrific images and read the heart-wrenching accounts of brutality and death that have resulted from Russia’s unjust invasion of Ukraine.”

Specifically, Attorney General Garland announced the launch of a War Crimes Accountability Team to centralize and strengthen the Justice Department’s ongoing work to hold accountable those who have committed war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine. This initiative will bring together the Department’s leading experts in investigations involving human rights abuses and war crimes and other atrocities; and provide wide-ranging technical assistance, including operational assistance and advice regarding criminal prosecutions, evidence collection, forensics, and relevant legal analysis. The team will also play an integral role in the Department’s ongoing investigation of potential war crimes over which the U.S. possesses jurisdiction, such as the killing and wounding of U.S. journalists covering the unprovoked Russian aggression in Ukraine.

“There is no hiding place for war criminals. The U.S. Justice Department will pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine,” said Attorney General Garland. “Working alongside our domestic and international partners, the Justice Department will be relentless in our efforts to hold accountable every person complicit in the commission of war crimes, torture, and other grave violations during the unprovoked conflict in Ukraine.”

To lead this effort, the Attorney General has tapped Eli Rosenbaum to serve as Counselor for War Crimes Accountability. Rosenbaum is a 36-year veteran of the Justice Department who previously served as Director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which was primarily responsible for identifying, denaturalizing, and deporting Nazi war criminals. In his role as Counselor for War Crimes Accountability, Rosenbaum will coordinate efforts across the Justice Department and the federal government to hold accountable those responsible for war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine. Rosenbaum will be joined in his work by other prosecutors from the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP), including Acting Section Chief Hope Olds and prosecutors Christian Levesque, Christina Giffin, and Courtney Urschel.

In addition, the Justice Department will provide additional personnel to expand its work with Ukraine and other partners to counter Russian illicit finance and sanctions evasion. Among other things, the Department will provide Ukraine an expert Justice Department prosecutor to advise on fighting kleptocracy, corruption, and money laundering. In addition, it plans to deploy two expert attorneys from the Office of International Affairs (OIA) – one to a U.S. Embassy in Europe, and another to a U.S. Embassy in the Middle East – in support of the Department’s KleptoCapture Task Force. These senior attorneys will work closely with their counterparts in EU member states and Middle Eastern countries to facilitate mutual legal assistance and extraditions relating to Russian illicit finance and sanctions evasion, including with respect to designated Russian oligarchs who have supported the Russian regime and its efforts to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty.

Attorney General Garland announced the KleptoCapture Task Force in March to further leverage the Department’s tools and authorities against efforts to evade or undermine the economic actions taken by the U.S. Government in response to Russian military aggression. Since then, the task force has facilitated the seizure of superyachts of two sanctioned individuals with close ties to the Russian regime; dismantled Russian criminal networks; and enforced sanctions violations, among other actions.



LITHUANIA

RUSSIAN FAIT ACCOMPLI CONFRONTS NATO WITH UNPALATABLE CHOICES.

 Russian forces knocking on the gates of Riga and Tallinn in two or three days would present NATO leaders with a set of highly unattractive options. The leaders and people of the Baltic states, who would need to decide whether to defend their capitals, would confront the first quandary.

Quality light forces, like the U.S. airborne infantry that the NATO players typically deployed into Riga and Tallinn, can put up stout resistance when dug into urban terrain. But the cost of mounting such a defense to the city and its residents is typically very high, as the residents of Grozny learned at the hands of the Russian Army in 1999–2000.

Furthermore, these forces likely could not be resupplied or relieved before being over- whelmed. Whether Estonia’s or Latvia’s leaders would choose to turn their biggest cities into battlefields—indeed, whether they should—is, of course, uncertain. The second and larger conundrum would be one for the U.S. President and the leaders of the other 27 NATO countries.

Under the best of circumstances, this would require a fairly prolonged buildup that could stress the cohesion of the alliance and allow Russia opportunities to seek a political reso- lution that left it in possession of its conquests. Even a successful counteroffensive would almost certainly be bloody and costly and would have political consequences that are unforeseeable in advance but could prove dramatic. Any counteroffensive would also be fraught with severe escalatory risks. If the Crimea experience can be taken as a precedent, Moscow could move rapidly to formally annex the occupied territories to Russia.

NATO clearly would not recognize the legitimacy of such a gambit, but from Russia’s per- spective it would at least nominally bring them under Moscow’s nuclear umbrella. By turning a NATO counterattack aimed at liberating the Baltic republics into an “invasion” of “Russia,” Moscow could generate unpredictable but clearly dangerous escalatory dynamics.

On a tactical level, a counteroffensive campaign into the Baltics would likely entail the desire, and perhaps even the necessity, of striking targets, such as long-range surface-to-air defenses and surface-to-surface fires systems, in territory that even NATO would agree constitutes “Russia.” Under Russian doctrine, it is unclear what kinds or magnitudes of conventional attacks into Russian territory might trigger a response in kind (or worse), but there would certainly be concern in Washington and other NATO capitals about possible escalatory implications.

 Finally, it is also unclear how Russia would react to a successful NATO counteroffensive that threatened to decimate the bulk of its armed forces along its western frontier; at what point would tactical defeat in the theater begin to appear like a strategic threat to Russia herself?

 The second option would be for NATO to turn the escalatory tables, taking a page from its Cold War doctrine of “massive retaliation,” and threaten Moscow with a nuclear response if it did not withdraw from the territory it had occupied. This option was a core element of the Alliance’s strategy against the Warsaw Pact for the duration of the latter’s existence and could certainly be called on once again in these circumstances.

The deterrent impact of such a threat draws power from the implicit risk of igniting an escalatory spiral that swiftly reaches the level of nuclear exchanges between the Russian and U.S. homelands. Unfortunately, once deterrence has failed—which would clearly be the case once Russia had crossed the Rubicon of attacking NATO member states—that same risk would tend to greatly undermine its credibility, since it may seem highly unlikely to Moscow that the United States would be willing to exchange New York for Riga.

 Coupled with the general direction of U.S. defense policy, which has been to de-emphasize the value of nuclear weapons, and the likely unwillingness of NATO’s European members, especially the Baltic states themselves, to see their continent or countries turned into a nuclear battlefield, this lack of believability makes this alternative both unlikely and unpal- atable.

 The third possibility would be to concede, at least for the near to medium term, Russian control of the territory they had occupied. Under this scenario, the best outcome would likely be a new cold war, with the 21st century’s version of the old “inner German border” drawn somewhere across Lithuania or Latvia. The worst be would be the collapse of NATO itself and the crumbling of the cornerstone of Western security for more than seventy years. 



THE KALININGRAD LITHUANIA RUSSIA STAND OFF.

Vladimir Putin: Nuclear Doctrine Allowing for First Strike! Iskander M soon to be moved to Belarus.

President Vladimir Putin has endorsed Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy which allows him to use atomic weapons in response to a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.

By including a non-nuclear attack as a possible trigger for Russian nuclear retaliation, the document appears to send a warning signal to the US. The new expanded wording reflects Russian concerns about the development of prospective weapons that could give Washington the capability to knock out key military assets and government facilities without resorting to atomic weapons. In line with Russian military doctrine, the new document reaffirms that the country could use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or an aggression involving conventional weapons that “threatens the very existence of the state”. But the policy document now also offers a detailed description of situations that could trigger the use of nuclear weapons.

They include the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies and an enemy attack with conventional weapons that threatens the country’s existence. In addition to that, the document now states that Russia could use its nuclear arsenals if it gets “reliable information” about the launch of ballistic missiles targeting its territory or its allies and also in the case of “enemy impact on critically important government or military facilities of the Russian Federation, the incapacitation of which could result in the failure of retaliatory action of nuclear forces”.

The reference to a non-nuclear strike as a possible trigger for nuclear retaliation reflects longtime Moscow concern about US military plans. The buildup of conventional forces near Russia’s borders and the deployment of missile defence assets and space-based weapons are among the threats identified by Moscow in the new document. US-Russia relations are at post-Cold War lows over the Ukrainian crisis, the accusations of Russian meddling in the US 2016 presidential election and other differences. Amid the tensions, the Kremlin has repeatedly voiced concern about the deployment of US and allied forces in the Baltics and Nato drills near Russia’s borders.

Russia's access to Kaliningrad at stake. Can be forced to break blocade. Larger conflict looms. The Suwalski Gap is NATO's nightmare.

Nato cannot successfully Defend the Territory of its most Exposed Member. In a series of wargames conducted between summer 2014 and spring 2015, the RAND Corporation examined the shape and probable outcome of a near term Russian invasion of the Baltic states. The games’ findings are unambiguous.

As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members. Across multiple games using a wide range of expert participants in and out of uniform playing both sides, the longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours.

Defending the Baltic states is a strategic challenge for NATO

The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO. Across multiple plays of the game, Russian forces eliminated or bypassed all resistance and were at the gates of or actually entering Riga, Tallinn, or both, between 36 and 60 hours. 

NATO'S WAR GAMES ANACONDA 2016:

PROTECTION OF THE BALTIC STATES

Vladimir Putin has now attacked neighboring countries three times, with his second invasion of Ukraine still unfolding. His pursuit of greater Russian influence along Moscow’s periphery has ended what was nearly a generation of post–Cold War peace and stability in Europe and revived legitimate fears of Moscow’s intentions among its neighbors.

 After eastern Ukraine, the next most likely targets for an attempted Russian coercion are the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Like Ukraine, all three spent many years as component republics of the Soviet Union, gaining independence only on its dissolution.

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 The three are also contiguous to Russian territory. Also like Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia are home to sizable ethnic Russian populations that have been at best unevenly integrated into the two countries’ postindependence political and social mainstreams and that give Russia a self-justification for meddling in Estonian and Latvian affairs.

This storyline is disturbingly familiar. Unlike Ukraine, the Baltic states are members of NATO, which means that Russian aggression against them would trigger Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty —the collective defense provision according to which an at- tack against any signatory is considered to be an attack against all. This creates an obligation on the part of the United States and its alliance partners to be prepared to come to the assistance of the Baltic states, should Russia seek to actively and violently destabilize or out-and-out attack them.

In a September 2014 speech in the Estonian capital of  Tallinn, President Barack Obama articulated and strongly affirmed that commitment: [W]e will defend our NATO Allies, and that means every Ally. . . . And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single Ally. . . . Because the defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the defense of Berlin and Paris and London. . 

One mistake, and the world as we know it is gone. One slightest error, and the civilization that we so proudly and arrogantly cling to will dissolve into fine dust encircling our desolated planet.

European leaders at the Munich Conference 1938.

But, that fact does not seem to bother anyone. Wrapped in hyper-logic exasperations of the most desolated sort, mankind is rapidly drifting towards its own disintegration; proclaimed by rational world leaders as “a sustainable future” with “zero emission”. It is all a lie! There is no “sustainable future” and “zero emission” is a fantasy product presented, while death and destruction are filling our lungs.

 And I am not referring to the ongoing pandemic. Not at all. That, after all, is a minor incident in the Grand drama. In 1993 I went with the Norwegian-owned buoy-tanker Anna Knutsen from Antwerp in the Netherlands to the Statfjord C buoy on the Norwegian side. We collected 200.000tons of crude and brought it back to Teesside in England. There are twenty and more tankers shuttling up to Norway every month collecting crude. Each of these giants evaporate enough carbon-gas to destroy life in a small town. Multiply that with 2000, because that is the daily gift of poisonous vapor which Norway, in all it’s green, self-proclaimed hype, gives back to mankind. Just a thought.

Here is another one. In 2003 I visited Fushun in North-East China. What’s so interesting about Fushun, you might ask? Fushun is the place of the Ping Ding Massacre. The one that Japan committed towards the local, Chinese population there. But, again, that is a minor incident in the Grand drama. For centuries Fushun’s West Pit has been the largest open-pit coal mine in Asia. It contributed greatly to China’s new prosperity, before it was shut down in 2019.

 We will accept any solution – and I underline “any” – to advance the economy. We will even burn down the Rain Forrest in Brazil. The common longue of renewable oxygen in the world. While lame European Union and the United States watch by and do nothing.

 We are on the edge of an unfathomable deep abyss. From where there is no hope of survival. Just as it was in 1938 in the German Reich. They believed in the cause and failed. We believe in our cause, and we are failing big time.

TEHRAN

Seyed Hossein Adeli, PhD.

Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs Tehran - Governor of the Central Bank - Ambassador to England, Canada and Tokyo.

The Success of the United Sates in Afghanistan also comes as the Active Support from Iran. A Golden Opportunity for Washington to better its relations with Tehran went out of the Window. Harald Dahle reports.

Click picture Play video

Adeli: "Great disappointment!" Dahle: "Frustration was high."



This interview was conducted in Dr. Hussein Adeli's office in the Foreign Ministry in Tehran. It was the first of two meetings that Harald Dahle had with Dr. Adeli. The first was in April 2002, and the second meeting was held in May 2003.

During the interview made in April of 2002  it became quite clear to the Editor-in-Chief, that the rejection of the United Sates to appreciate what Iran had done for the country in Afghanistan, neither did not sit well with the upper echelon of the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor was it well received by the Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs.

This would have been a Golden Opportunity for the United States to better the relations with Iran, but in wain. Washington was not ready to hand Tehran a firm handshake.

Dahle: -Tehran has sent an invitation to Washington for a meeting and better the relations between the two sides. I understand that the United States has rejected this initiative. How do you view the current relations with the U.S. after this disappointment?

Adeli: -Well, actually our relations with the West in general has improved a lot during the last, may be four, five years.

Dahle: -Yes.

CLICK PICTURE PLAY STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP TREATYUSA: President Obama                         Afghanistan: President Karzai

Adeli: -Specially with the policies that have been followed by President Khatami, Dialogue among Civilization, the Rule of Law, the Principles of Civil Society, the elimination of tensions between Iran or other countries, the elimination of misunderstanding.

All of these policies have been seriously followed by Iran in its Foreign Policy and has contributed to the relations with all countries except the United States. And with the West in general we have been able to exchange delegations on the level of Foreign Minister and head of Governments.

Dahle: -Aren't the operations of the United States in Afghanistan very much based on the early assistance from Iran?

Adeli: -But with the United States, it is unfortunately to see, that even developments in Afghanistan, which owes a lot to understanding and effective assistance from Iran, has not, I believe, been able to penetrate into the hearts or the minds of decision makers in the United States.

Dahle: -You say Dr. Adeli that without the help from Iran in Afghanistan the United States would not have been where they are today?

Adeli: -I think that there is no doubt even in the American eyes, that what we now see in the situation in Afghanistan owes a lot to Iranian assistance, Iranian understanding. The military success of the United States owes a lot to understanding and appreciation from Iran, and also the political process in Afghanistan owes the same thing. 

Dahle: -That is a fact one cannot easily stick under the table!

Adeli: -And may be that was a very unique opportunity for the United Sates to reciprocate these kinds of understanding, and to seize and stop those kinds of policies that are pursued by them, in the past couple of decades. But apparently there is still not a very strong sign from that side!

Dahle: -Iran has friendly relations with many countries in the world, why not also with the United States?

Adeli: -Off course, the general policy of Iran is to have friendly relations with every country in the world, including the United States, provided that this kind of relationship would be based on an equal footing, on a mutual beneficial sort of relationship.

Dahle: -Are you hopeful that the United States might come back on a later stage and give Iran the handshake it deserves?

Adeli: -This is why I think that, as the policies of the United States, which are normally a unilateral policy, we hope that one time they would join the other countries of the West and developing countries and join that kind of understanding of Iran. That the developments in the region would open their eyes, and that they would adopt a new policy towards our country!

Dahle: -Thank you Dr. Adeli.

FINANCIAL CRIME

تهران و اسلو

TEHRAN AND OSLO

    Iran's powerful Minister of Oil Bijan Namdahr Zangeneh

PETROFILM.COM

Crime Story of the Month

Bribery embezzlement corruption and sanctions busters

 داستان جنایی ماه پایان بازی تهران

INTRODUCTION

In 2000 Norway finally entered the Islamic Republic of Iran. Then, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran had waited for thirty years and longer wondering why Norway with its specialized deep-water technologies had not come and helped Iran to develop the South Pars project, as well as other on -and offshore  projects in the Islamic Republic.

Assaluyeh Pars Special Energy Economi Zone

Even before the plane with its Government officials and representa-tives of the petroleum-related industries had left the Norwegian air-space, Norway had in fact already lost its unique business opportunity in the Islamic republic of Iran. These fish eating latecomers had all arrived Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport from a country which, in a radical way, distances itself from piety and where spirituality does not have any important place in the daily lives of the people. And were the word "Islam" in their nordic consciousness often is associated with terrorism and threats. The stage was now set for a humongous clash between two contradictory civilizations!

 THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

داستان جنایی ماه پایان بازی تهران

ENDGAME  TEHRAN

If Justice shall have any meaning at all, it must include

the person responsible for the Crime.

 Harald Dahle-Sladek

The Editor-in-chief

From the very outset it was the twisted Norwegian mindset, the whole chain of command in Oslo and it's ill prepared bureaucracy that faulted. Right from the Parliament down through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Energy and Oil, INTSOK and the industry, and the medium sized oil company Statoil whose ethical bearing were out of course.

Their factual as well as empathic relations to Iran were all seriously lagging behind and bribery and corruption were only two unpleasant sides of a larger and more complex picture. Welcome to Norway's worst diplomatic, ethical and industrial catastrophy in modern times.



THE PEOPLE OF IRAN GOT NOTHING

Norwegians in Tehran were rapidly revealing a devastating lack of empathic feelings and an over emphasizing on cognitive thinking in general and diplomatic correctness in particular. Among Norwegian dignitaries in Oslo and Tehran the phrase "the People of Iran" was nowhere to be heard. However, from the Iranian side, having the People of Iran in focus was a prerequisite for doing business in the country. Thus, as we shall see, from the very outset Norway were on a collision course with the Islamic republic; Norway and Statoil did nothing for the People of Iran.



HOW TO PAY YOURSELF OUT OF BRIBERY

In the case of Norway and Statoil in Iran, the agreement between Department of Justice and Statoil did not include that person responsible for the crime. Thus, the US Department of Justice and Norway's Økokrim both failed their obligation, to indict and prosecute the head of Statoil Olav Fjell. It gives the wrongest signal possible, and that is very serious. That the medium sized Norwegian oil company Statoil can pay itself out of bribery is intollerable. And the US-based Law firm Sulliwan & Cromwell representing Statoil did a splendid job facilitating just that!

To read the full article scroll to above grey library:

IRAN: NIOC -END GAME TEHRAN CEO OLAV FJELL DID NOT CALL

The Continuation of an evolutionary process.

The Cambridges

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, KG, KT, PC, ADC is a member of the British royal family. He is the elder son of Charles, Prince of Wales and the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II. Since birth, he has been second in the line of succession to the British throne after his father.