On March 23 General Breedlove, Chief of Staff of the American European Command gave an address to the Ministry of Defence of Georgia, announcing new American-British-Georgian military exercises to be conducted in May this year under the code-name Noble Partner 2016. In that address he set out the real intention of the American elite; war with Russia. He stated the following, to his Georgian puppets, apparently with a straight face;

“Now, to my visit here. The security situation across Europe continues to evolve and become more and more complex. We continue to face security direct challenges from two directions. To the East, we face a resurgent, aggressive Russia, which has voluntarily chosen to be an adversary and poses an aggressive and long-term threat to the United States and our European allies and partners.

“To the South…Europe faces the daunting challenge of mass migration, spurred by state instability and collapse…and masking the movement of criminals, terrorists, and foreign fighters. As a result of conflict in the region “Daesh” – is spreading like a cancer, taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations – and our own – with terrorist attacks. Its brutality is driving millions to flee from Syria, and Iraq…creating an unprecedented humanitarian challenge. “As we work with allies and partners to respond and overcome both of these serious threats, we stand fully behind Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Today I was privileged to visit the Administrative Boundary Line with your Chief of Defense and our Ambassador. There I witnessed the illegitimate division of the Georgian people. As your brave, valiant nation has witnessed first-hand, Russia continues to seek to extend its coercive and corrosive influence on its periphery, and now it is also trying to re-establish a leading – and aggressive – role on the world stage. Russia ultimately seeks to overturn the established rules and principles of the international system, fracture the unity of the free world, and to challenge our resolve.”

There you have it-a declaration of war in all but name.

It does not take a military genius to look at a map and see that the build-up of NATO forces, particularly American, on Russia’s western frontier from Camp Bondsteel in the Serbian province of Kosovo, through Bulgaria and Romania, through Ukraine to Poland and the Baltic countries is constant and increasingly alarming.

The increasing concentration of forces around Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave in the Baltic which the Americans state is a threat to their control of the Baltic approaches to Russia, the increasingly frequent and violent violations of the Minsk 2 Agreement along the contact line in the Donbass, and the continued support of the collapsing ISIS forces in Syria and Iraq, despite pledges to fight “terrorism,” all indicate that plans for direct confrontation with Russia are in the active stage.

General Breedlove’s absurd characterization of what is reality can be laughed at but this is the propaganda being fed to his forces and the people in the west chained to a media totally controlled by the NATO intelligence services. The string of mysterious bombings and shootings the past months in both America and Europe, that we are told were committed by ISIS linked “terrorists” have had only two visible results; the increase of state surveillance and control of the people who are increasingly demoralized, angry and hungry for scapegoats and their use as justification for calls for a war against Syria in order to eliminate the “terrorists” that they themselves created, armed and trained.

Russia’s role in crushing ISIS in Syria along with the Syrian Amy and its other allies from Iran to Hezbollah is erased from the narrative or worse, said to be “complicating matters,” meaning that the victory over the ISIS forces has made the American war against the Syrian government more complicated.

They are quite open about it and now to try to undermine that victory, by putting out false information that Russia has agreed with the Americans to push President Assad aside. The Russian government denies it and it makes no sense since the Assad government has proved to be resilient and determined to defeat the enemies attacking Syria and is an ally Russia needs to stay in place. But once again, disinformation is used to try to create suspicion between Syria and Russia and to demoralize the Syrian Armed Forces.

This writer just received a letter from the Canadian Minister of Defence in response to a query about the legality of Canada’s bombing of Syria to which he attached a letter from the Canadian ambassador to the President of the Security Council of the United Nations. The letter is revealing. It attempts to justify Canada’s participation in the aggression against Syria. It states in part, that the United States and Canada are bombing Syria because

“…. States must be able to act in self-defence when the Government of the State where a threat is located is unwilling or unable to prevent attacks emanating from its territory.”

Of course ISIS poses no threat to Canada, though they claim it. But more importantly, the government of Syria and its allies are demonstrably, forcefully and effectively willing and able to prevent such attacks. But the successes and victories of the Syrian government the past months since Russia became actively engaged in Syria are completely ignored.

The letter ends with an even more telling statement;

“Canada’s military actions against ISIL in Syria…. are not aimed at the Syrian people, nor do they entail support for the Syrian regime.”

The use of the word “regime” is always an indicator that those bombing a country want to overthrow that “regime” The word is used to degrade the legitimate government and portray it as an illegitimate one and has been used as a propaganda device in all the NATO aggressions since Yugoslavia. The distortions of the facts contained in that letter are consistent with the statement of other NATO leaders from London to Berlin and again, read in context, the letter is tantamount to a declaration of war against Syria, and confirms Canada’s subservient role to the American generals like Breedlove who roam the planet planning new conquests.

But to return to General Breedlove, it was he who said a few months ago that he knows “with a certainty” that Russia is going to engage in hybrid warfare in the Baltic zone, meaning of course, that NATO will engage in false flag operations to be blamed on Russia in order to try to force Russia out of Kaliningrad as they tried with Crimea.

A few days ago Breedlove called for renewal of U2 spy plane flights near Russian borders that are only useful if they fly over Russian territory. The only purpose for such flights is to gather intelligence on the defence capabilities and disposition of forces inside Russia and that information is only useful in preparation for war.

In return the Russian defence ministry has stated it will respond asymmetrically and assured Russians that no U2s will fly over Russia. But the Russians know the Americans will try as they have done in China and as they did during the Soviet times.

Meanwhile, on the eastern flank of Asia the Americans continue their very provocative military exercises aimed at North Korea and which the government of North Korea rightly fears could turn into a real war at any second. In consequence they have warned the Americans that they may themselves not wait to be attacked but may instead attack the United States with nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike. Yet the exercises continue every day.

On April 1, China also sent out a similarly alarming signal stating that it will now put all its nuclear missiles on hair trigger basis. The objective is the same, to deter an American attack.

At the same time, street protests in Serbia seem to have persuaded the puppet government in Belgrade to delay joining NATO, the criminal gang that attacked Yugoslavia in 1999 and that threatened to flatten Belgrade if the government of President Milosevic did not accede to its diktats. But to add to the Serbian peoples’ humiliation this week the NATO controlled tribunal for Yugoslavia played out its assigned propaganda role and convicted Dr. Karadzic for the crimes of NATO, but acquitted Dr. Seselj. Both decisions were made for political reasons and both serve the same interests and can be considered as nothing more than the manipulation of the Serbian people and political process for NATO’s own ends.

We are in an extremely dangerous position. I would like to quote a statement by Zivadin Jovanovic, President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals set out in his text of March 23 because it states the situation better than I can. He states;

“Those who have been enjoying impunity while trampling the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, generating chaos and ‘low-intensity conflicts’, toppling and appointing leaders of other nations, those who pay no regard to the legitimate interests of other nations and states, those used to making others pay for the failures of their own policies, and those used to always have the last say, even deceiving their own people and the world public, will certainly not stop short of taking chances! And this is precisely the source of a great danger.”

Is there a way out? Again, I quote and close with the statement of the President of the Belgrade Forum;

“The way out is in restoration of observance of the fundamental principles of international relations and international law, and most notably, in observance of the principle of sovereign equality of all states. In a broader sense, the way out is in strengthening the role of the United Nations and respect of the UN Security Council as the most responsible body for the matters of peace and security; in acknowledging that the multipolarization of global relations is a process that cannot be halted or stopped by any means; in the light of the increased powers of Russia, China and other BRICS countries, it multipolarity is inevitable; in orientation towards democratization of global relations which, in essence, means the recognition that medium and small countries also have a right to own interests; in renouncing the misuse of fight against terrorism so to spread and impose the geopolitical interests of major powers; in cutting the funding, arming, training, and dispatching terrorists to the crisis areas; in paying priority attention to solving growing socio-economic problems in Africa, Near and Middle East and in all other parts of the world, especially, those originating all kinds of extremism, terrorism and international organized crimes. At present, for peace and security it is vital to identify a peaceful political solution for the war in Syria, while respecting the interests of all political factors, excluding the terrorists of all kinds and of any political ilk.”

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, he is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and he is known for a number of high-profile cases involving human rights and war crimes, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.