THE GLOBALIZATION OF WAR

The world's attention is now increasingly focused on Syria and Iran as the region continues to move toward military confrontation. Less noticed, however, is that the pieces are being put into place for a truly global conflict, with military buildup taking place in every region and threatening to draw in all of the world's major powers.

The following video attempts to put these pieces together and draw the bigger picture (transcript provided).

Source: Global Research TV

TRANSCRIPT

Military Buildup Worldwide: The Globalization of War
By Global Research TV, 24 December 2011.

A series of steps toward open confrontation with Iran, Syria and Pakistan have been making headlines for months now in both the alternative and mainstream media.

Covered as essentially separate stories, however, few have so far connected these supposedly isolated incidences into a larger story about the creation of a zone of instability that is in fact engulfing all regions of the globe. When such a picture is assembled, it becomes evident that any number of skirmishes and power grabs taking place around the planet are sparks that could eventually light the fuse on open confrontation of the the world's nuclear superpowers.

In Iran, the US State Department is now admittedly working with the United Nation Assistance Mission in Iraq to relocate the Mujahedin-e-Khalq [or MEK] to a former US military base. The MEK is listed as a terrorist organization on the State Department's own watch list, but Foreign Policy magazine is reporting on the State Department's moves to work with the organization, which has being used as a proxy force to attack Iran in the past.

Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK)

This is in addition to the US' open cooperation with Jundullah, a Balochi terrorist organization responsible for the death and woundings of 500 Iranian citizens in the past 8 years, including confirmed CIA ties to the group.

Jundullah

The MEK revelation comes on the heels of the downing of the US reconnaissance drone in Iran, a drone that was initially said to have been operating exclusively in Afghanistan when it suddenly veered off course, but later admitted to be conducting spying operations on Iran.

An RQ-170 American drone shot down in eastern Iran

Now the Iranians are announcing a 10-day drill in international waters near the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chock point for ships transporting petroleum out of the Persian Gulf, a tiny passage through which fully 17% of the global oil transport trade passes each year.

Iranian Navy Drill

Strait of Hormuz

CNTV news report: The exercise bringing Iranian ships into close proximity with US navy vessels has been seen as a latest show of strength by Iran in the face of mounting international criticisms of its controversial nuclear program.

This comes days after fresh reports of live fire maneuvers by the Syrian Air Force and Air Defense, which included tracking and destroying hostile targets and firing real missiles.

Syrian Military Maneuvers

In Pakistan, tensions still simmer from a US-NATO air strike last month that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead, and caused Pakistan to to completely close its borders to NATO, causing a supply-chain nightmare for NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Chaman November 28, 2011
when Pakistani authorities suspended NATO supplies to the
latter forces in Afghanistan.

Press TV news report: The country's Foreign Minister told the meeting that Pakistan will fight foreign terror on its own terms. She acknowledged that Pakistan relations with the US are on hold and will be restored only on a clearly defined mandate from the Parliament.

[Now Pakistan is rejecting a US probe into the air strike which found that US and Pakistani forces shared blame for what the report called a “tragic” series of mistakes, saying: “Pakistan’s army does not agree with the findings of the US/NATO inquiry as being reported in the media. The inquiry report is short on facts.”]

Meanwhile in East Asia the North Korean military has raised its alert status once again despite no signs of provocation from its neighbours. Tension has flared up across the region as the infamously reclusive North Korean State goes through a precarious handover of power to Kim Jong Il’s elusive son, Kim Jong Un.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (right) and his youngest son and
successor Kim Jong Un (left)

In the Indian Ocean, tensions remain high as China has begun quietly increasing its military presence in the region. Ostensibly there to help fight pirates and protect Chinese export interests, the Chinese navy has already developed three vessels in the Gulf of Aden to combat Somali pirates, and the Seychelles asked the Chinese to establish a military presence in the region during an unprecedented visit by the Chinese Defense Minister earlier this month. Shortly thereafter, a US MQ-9 Reaper drone was downed in the area.

Drone crash in Seychelles

This comes on the heels of President Obama's recent trip to Australia, where he announced the establishment of a permanent US Marine presence in Darwin in what is being seen as the latest step toward a Chinese-American confrontation in the South China Sea.

President Obama: "We are here to stay. This is a region of huge strategic important to us."

TV news report: But the region's biggest economic power isn't welcoming the news. [Liu Weimin, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said:] "It may not be appropriate to strengthen and extend this military alliance. Whether it suits the common interests of countries around the region and the whole international community remains under question."

Even the Arctic is becoming a potential flashpoint for conflict as Canada begins militarizing the region in a scramble for Arctic resources with Denmark, Russia and Norway.

TV news report: The Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper who campaigned for election on platform of protecting the north is aware of the potential of economic threat from the Russians, the Europeans and even the Americans. During a 3-day visit to the region, he announces the construction of several Polar Class patrol ships and a deep water port in the Arctic.

Polar Class Patrol Ships

The Canadian Prime Minister: "The Arctic archipelago is an integral, indivisible part of the true north, strong and free, and that we will not compromise the defense or the sovereignty of Canadian territory."

Earlier this month I had the chance to talk to Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, about the various conflicts taking place around the globe right now, and how they represent the most worrying moves yet toward a full-scale implementation of World War III.

Michel Chossudovsky: "We are evolving towards an integrated Middle East-Central Asia war theatre where military initiatives have been taken by the United States and its allies in Pakistan, Iran through covert operations, and Syria through the process of regime change which is on-going and which is also consisting of supporting insurgent groups within that country and ultimately destabilizing the regime.

What must be understood is that all these military as well as covert initiatives are centralized and a part of a single military agenda. They are not separate initiatives and they are not separate war theatres. So that when we look at Pakistan, Iran, Syria - and bearing in mind that we already have several war theatres which are active within that region, namely Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, that are of a somewhat different nature - what we get is an extended war theatre, from the eastern Mediterranean right through to the Chinese borders.

All these countries have common borders: Syria has a border with Iraq, Iraq has a border with Iran, Pakistan has borders with Iran and Afghanistan. So that essentially what is likely to occur if a new military initiative is launched, is that that whole region will flare up, from the eastern Mediterranean right through to the Chinese borders. And I should mention that China and Russia are part of this equation.

We are in a very dangerous crossroad. The United States and its allies are waging wars in different parts of the world; they are using sophisticated weapon systems, covert operations, regime change. These are weapons of the 21st century. They contemplate the use of nuclear weapons ironically against Iran which does not possess nuclear weapons. These are tactical nuclear weapons which have an explosive capacity between one-third and six times the Hiroshima bombs and they are classified - and have been classified - as safe for the surrounding population by the Senate and can be used in the conventional war theatre.

This is a World War III scenario, it's the globalization of war. It is a long war which was defined in various national security/military documents. It's the war without borders contained in the Project of the New American Century which was formulated by the Neo-Cons in the year 2000.

What we must understand is that these military initiatives, particularly those directed against Iran, Syria, and Pakistan could unleash a global war. Pakistan is a military power. Iran has advanced capabilities to defend itself, it has very large conventional forces. Syria is a country of 20 million population. We have the Russian navy in the eastern Mediterranean. China is being threatened by the US as well in the South China Sea, and in areas adjacent to the Korean peninsula. And of course Russia is threatened on its European borders, in other words, on its western borders with the European Union on the pretext that the missile defense system is directed against Iran, and everybody knows this is directed against Russia and the former republics of the Soviet Union, many of which are tied in to military cooperation agreements with Russia and China under the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement.

So we are at a very very dangerous crossroad. This is the globalization of war. Unfortunately, World War III is not front page news."

Now, many are asking what can be done to avoid this seemingly inevitable march towards full-scale military confrontation in what could easily become the most devastating conflict in the history of the globe.

According to Rick Rozoff of Stop NATO International in an interview conducted last week, the fact that the anti-war movement has essentially abdicated its responsibilities since the Obama regime came to power, means that it will almost certainly be unable to avert this impending crisis.

As the bleak picture emerges of a world at the point of total war, it remains to be seen what notice, if any, the media will pay to these worrying developments, and whether the public is willing to expend their time and energy on putting together an effective resistance to the global war machine.

[Source: Global Research TV and The Corbett Report. Edited. Images added.]