SCO Military Exercise Challenges Uncle Sam, Alters Geopolitical Chessboard

Last weekend, leaders of the SCO - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - gathered for the commencement of the unprecedented 'Peace Mission 2007' military exercise. AFP reported:

The vast show of firepower... involved some 6,000 personnel from the six countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan....

The exercises come after Thursday's summit where SCO leaders underlined their common opposition to perceived US hegemony. The summit was held in the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad observing.

The exercises - coordinated from separate command centers in Russia and China - featured movement of Chinese forces across Russian rail lines, joint special forces activities, and fly-overs by the Chinese Air Force over Russian airspace. The sophisticated operations concretely formalized the military alliance between China and Russia designed to prevent further penetration into Central Asia by Uncle Sam. Nothing could convey this objective more clearly than the presence of the Iranian President at the summit. The Zionist propaganda site DEBKA reported:

The capability to transfer large-scale military contingents across vast distances is essential should Moscow and Beijing decide on joint military action in the event of a possible American military operation against Iran spilling over into the Caspian and Central Asian regions.

Making a similar point in a different manner, AP reported:

The leaders of Russia, China and Iran warned the outside world Thursday to let Central Asia look after its own stability and security, in a veiled message to the United States issued on the eve of major war games between Russia and China...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an observer at the summit, blasted U.S. missile defense plans as a threat to the entire region. "These intentions go beyond just one country. They are of concern for much of the continent, Asia and SCO members," he said.

Putin himself recently attacked the same plan for a 'missile shield' in Eastern Europe on the grounds that it threatened Russia and the world. "If this missile system is put in place, it will work automatically with the entire nuclear capability of the United States," he declared.

Russia's foreign policy establishment responded, announcing a series of counter-measures to Uncle Sam's provocative act:

• Recognizing that a loss of 'dollar hegemony' would emaciate Uncle Sam's power, Putin called for a "new architecture of economic relations" based on the "creation of several world currencies and several financial centers."
  
• Deputy Prime Minister Ivanov declared that Russia they had an asymmetrical response to the shield.
• "Russia introduced a moratorium on its observance of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty and related international agreements."
• When Uncle Sam's NATO lackeys asked Russia to reconsider this decision, Nikolaus von Twickel reported in The Moscow Times that, "the [Russian] Defense Ministry.. rejected an offer... to hold a conference about Russia's decision to suspend its participation... and called for a new treaty to be drafted."

These measures rattled Uncle Sam. So in an attempt to ameliorate the escalating diplomatic war, He sent a diplomatic dream-team on a heavily censored summit to Russia. Henry Kissinger led the delegation, which also included:

former Secretary of State George Schultz, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Special Representative for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr., former Senator Sam Nunn and Chevron Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David O'Reilly.

But the secret meeting did not go well. Kissinger called the discussions "frank" - another way of saying Putin refused to grovel and genuflect at the delegation's awe-inspiring presence.

In response, Uncle Sam ordered the UnionJack to punish Russia's intransigence. Uncle Sam's obedient lackey - backed by the EU - expelled four Russian diplomats. Days later, Russia responded with a round of expulsions of their own that included Andrew Levi, who The Moscow Times calls, "the British Embassy's top trade and investment official... responsible for liaising with Russian government officials and British investors."

The tit-for-tat expulsions and increasingly hostile East-West rhetoric set the stage for the SCO summit and military exercises. But many other issues, too - NATO expansion, Kosovo 'independence', and weapons sales to Venezuela and Syria (among others) - point to a widening chasm of global imperialist forces. In this context, the growth of the China-Russia military alliance - through the SCO - takes on an added significance.

As Uncle Sam's economy continues to deflate and as the Iraq Genocide flounders and sputters along with no end in sight, one can be certain that Sam is searching for ways change the dynamic of the geopolitical chessboard. If that changed equation involves a proxy attack by Apartheid Israel on Syria or Lebanon - or another alCIAda Black-Op terror attack on Uncle Sam's Plantation used as a pretext to attack Iran - the likelihood of a conflict that expands into the very region in which the exercises took place appears increasingly likely.