Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

[FourthBase]

"Flooding the board", lmfao. And shall we actually do a count?
Or would you like to concede now that you were totally full of shit?

I ask completely fucking legitimate questions and raise completely fucking valid points, and no one has the decency to respond substantively, and yet I'm the bad guy. Fuck that.

[Lord Balto]

"Flooding the board", lmfao. And shall we actually do a count?
Or would you like to concede now that you were totally full of shit?

I ask completely fucking legitimate questions and raise completely fucking valid points, and no one has the decency to respond substantively, and yet I'm the bad guy. Fuck that.

To be fair, it's not as bad as Democratic Underground, where one is expected to toe the party line or be summarily ejected.

As for the notion that Putin's evilness has been sufficiently covered, I should expect that at least each instance of evilness should be duly noted. The invasion of Crimea (beyond the area of the Russian naval base there) should be noted as a new instance of Evil Putinism. And I will point out again that anyone who thinks that Yanukovych is somehow legitimate should watch some of the videos of his palace. I mean, a pirate ship fitted out as a restaurant? A glass conservatory? A private zoo? A farm? Massive amounts of hardwood and gold? An extension of the grounds already in progress? (See Google Earth if you don't believe the latter: 50.614785° 30.473951°) All this in the face of national financial meltdown?

As for this board being anti-U.S., I think that it would be more accurately described as anti-U.S. governement, or even more accurately as anti-U.S.secret government. Are there U.S. secret forces in Ukraine? Of course. Are they the single important reason for the revolution in Ukraine? Of course not. The current stste of affairs was not orchestrated by the U.S. government, no matter what Webster Tarpley says.

[seemslikeadream]

"Flooding the board", lmfao. And shall we actually do a count?
Or would you like to concede now that you were totally full of shit?

I ask completely fucking legitimate questions and raise completely fucking valid points, and no one has the decency to respond substantively, and yet I'm the bad guy. Fuck that.

To be fair, it's not as bad as Democratic Underground, where one is expected to toe the party line or be summarily ejected.

As for the notion that Putin's evilness has been sufficiently covered, I should expect that at least each instance of evilness should be duly noted. The invasion of Crimea (beyond the area of the Russian naval base there) should be noted as a new instance of Evil Putinism. And I will point out again that anyone who thinks that Yanukovych is somehow legitimate should watch some of the videos of his palace. I mean, a pirate ship fitted out as a restaurant? A glass conservatory? A private zoo? A farm? Massive amounts of hardwood and gold? An extension of the grounds already in progress? (See Google Earth if you don't believe the latter: 50.614785° 30.473951°) All this in the face of national financial meltdown?

As for this board being anti-U.S., I think that it would be more accurately described as anti-U.S. governement, or even more accurately as anti-U.S.secret government. Are there U.S. secret forces in Ukraine? Of course. Are they the single important reason for the revolution in Ukraine? Of course not. The current stste of affairs was not orchestrated by the U.S. government, no matter what Webster Tarpley says.

well to be fair DU finds a place in their basement for you ...where they collect the subversives and then they are ejected...that's the way it used to be when they were trying to increase membership ..once they had enough tow the line members then they got rid of the trash and replaced them with ads

[conniption]

Asia Times

Carnival in Crimea

By Pepe Escobar
Feb 28, '14

Time waits for no one, but apparently will wait for Crimea. The speaker of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, has confirmed there will be a referendum on greater autonomy from Ukraine on May 25.

Until then, Crimea will be as hot and steamy as carnival in Rio - because Crimea is all about Sevastopol, the port of call for the Russian Black Sea fleet.

If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a bull, this is the red flag to end all red flags. Even if you're deep in alcohol nirvana dancin' your troubles away at carnival in Rio - or New Orleans, or Venice, or Trinidad and Tobago - your brain will have registered that NATO's ultimate wet dream is to command a Western puppet Ukrainian government to kick the Russian navy out of its base in Sevastopol. The negotiated lease applies until 2042. Threats and rumors of reneging it have already emerged.

The absolute majority of the Crimean peninsula is populated by Russian speakers. Very few Ukrainians live there. In 1954, it took only 15 minutes for Ukrainian Nikita Krushchev - he of the banging shoe at the UN floor - to give Crimea as a free gift to Ukraine (then part of the USSR). In Russia, Crimea is perceived as Russian. Nothing will change that fact.

We're not facing a new Crimean War - yet. Only up to a point. NATO's wet dream is one thing; it is quite another to pull it off - as in ending the Russian fleet routinely leaving Sevastopol across the Black Sea through the Bosphorus and then reaching Tartus, Syria's Mediterranean port. So yes, this is as much about Syria as about Crimea.

The new Ukrainian Orange, Tangerine, Campari, Aperol Spritz or Tequila Sunrise revolution seems so far to have answered NATO's prayers. But it's a long and winding road for NATO to reenact the 1850s and remix the original Crimean War.

For the foreseeable future, we will be drowning in a white sea of platitudes. As in Pentagon supremo Chuck Hagel "warning" Russia to stay out of the turmoil, while NATO's defense ministers issue the requisite pile of statements that no one reads "showing support" for the new leadership, and corporate shills reassure the populace this is not a new Cold War. [1]

Dance to my strategy, suckers

Where's H L Mencken when we need him? No one ever lost money underestimating the mendacity of the Pentagon/NATO/CIA/State Department system. Especially now, when Ukrainian policy seems to have been subcontracted by the Obama administration to the likes of neo-con Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland, married to Dubya darling neo-con Robert Kagan.

As Immanuel Wallerstein has already observed, [2] Nuland, Kagan and the neo-con gang are as much terrified of Russia "dominating" Ukraine as of a slowly emerging, and eventually quite possible, geopolitical alliance between Germany (with France as a junior partner) and Russia. That would mean the heart of the European Union forging a counter-power to the dwindling, increasingly wobbly American power.

And as the current embodiment of wobbly American power, the Obama administration is really in a class by itself. They are now lost in their own, self-concocted "pivot" maze. Which pivot comes first? That one to China? But then we need to pivot to Iran first - to end that Middle East distraction. Or maybe not.

Take this latest sound bite by US Secretary of State John Kerry, on Iran: "We took the initiative and led the effort to try to figure out if before we go to war there actually might be a peaceful solution."

So suddenly it's not about a nuclear deal to be possibly attained in 2014 anymore; it's about "if before we go to war". It's about bombing a possible deal so the Empire may bomb a country - again. Or maybe that's just a wet dream supplied by the Likudnik puppet masters.

The great Michael Hudson has speculated that "multi-dimensional chess" might be "guiding US moves in the Ukraine". Not really. It's more like if we can't pivot to China - yet - and if the pivot to Iran is going to fail anyway (because we want it to), we might as well pivot somewhere else. Oh yes, that pesky place that prevented us from bombing Syria; it's called Russia. And all that under the profound guidance of Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland. Where's a neo-Aristophanes to chronicle these marvels?

And never forget US corporate media. That CNN hack has been Amanpouring lately about the Budapest Agreement - stressing Russia should stay out of Ukraine. Well, visibly a horde of producers at ratings-falling-to-the-floor CNN have not even read the Budapest Agreement which, as University of Illinois professor Francis Boyle has noted, "also states that the US, Russia, Ukraine, and UK need to immediately jointly 'consult' - meaning meet at least at the foreign minister level".

So who pays the bills?

The new prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is - what else - a "technocratic reformer", code for Western puppet. [3] Ukraine is a (torn) basket case. The currency has fallen 20% since the start of 2014. Millions of unemployed Europeans know the European Union does not have the dough to bail out the country (perhaps Ukrainians could ask former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for some tips).

In Pipelineistan terms, Ukraine is an appendix to Russia; it's Russian gas that transits through Ukraine to European markets. And Ukrainian industry depends on the Russian market.

Let's take a closer look at the new Aperol Spritz "revolutionary" wallet. Every month, the natural gas import bill from Russia is roughly US$1 billion. In January, the country also had to spend $1.1 billion in debt repayment. Foreign currency reserves plunged to $17.8 billion from $20.4 billion. Ukraine has a minimum debt repayment of no less than $17 billion in 2014. They even had to cancel a $2 billion eurobond issue late last week.

Frankly, Russian President Vladimir Putin - aka Vlad the Hammer - must be grinning like the Cheshire cat. He could simply erase the significant 33% discount on natural gas imports he gave Kiev late last year. Rumor after rumor already state - ominously - that the Aperol Spritz revolutionaries won't have the cash to pay pensions and public servants' salaries. In June comes a monster payment to a bunch of creditors ($1 billion in debt will mature). Afterwards, it's bleaker than north Siberia in winter.

The US offer of $1 billion is risible. And all this after the ""F**k the EU" "strategy" of Victoria Nuland torpedoed an Ukrainian transitional government - by the way, negotiated by the EU - which might have kept the Russians on board, money-wise.

Without Russia, Ukraine will totally depend on the West to pay all its bills, not to mention avoid being bankrupt. That amounts to a whopping $30 billion until the end of 2014. Unlike Egypt, they cannot dial the House of Saud's number and ask for some juicy petrodollars. That $15 billion loan from Russia promised recently could come in handy - but Moscow must get something in return.

The notion that Putin will order a military attack on the Ukraine should be billed to US corporate media's sub-zoological intellectual quotient. Vlad the Hammer just needs to watch the circus - as in the West squabbling about where to get those billions to be squandered in a (torn) basket case. Or the International Monetary Fund churning out yet another dreadful "structural adjustment" to send Ukraine's population back to the Paleolithic.

Crimea could even stage its own delayed carnival, voting not only for more autonomy but to leave the (torn) basket case altogether. In this case, Putin will even get Crimea for free - Krushchev-style. Not a bad deal. Thanks to that oh so strategic "F**k the EU" Russian "pivot".

Notes:
1. US and Britain say Ukraine is not a battleground between East and West, Daily Telegraph, February 26, 2014.
2. See here.
3. Biden: U.S. Supports Ukraine's New Government, Voice of America, February 27, 2014.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

~

RT

Thousands protest against new govt in eastern Ukraine, raise Russian flags (PHOTOS)

Published time: March 01, 2014


Pro-Russian protesters hold a banner (C) reading "Donetsk region with Russia" and a placard reading "South-east against fascism!" during a rally in the industrial Ukrainian city of Donetsk on March 1, 2014. (AFP Photo/Alexander Khudoteply)

Thousands of pro-Russian demonstrators across eastern Ukraine and Crimea are protesting against the new government, with administration buildings being seized in several cities. Gunshots have been reported as anti- and pro-Maidan protesters clash.

Protesters in Kharkov and Donetsk stormed local government offices and removed Ukrainian flags, replacing them with the Russian tricolor on Saturday.

Between 7,000 to 10,000 demonstrators gathered in the center of Donetsk, a large industrial city in eastern Ukraine. Reportedly, protesters seized the regional administration building. While a group of demonstrators were storming the building from the central entrance, a crowd in Lenin Square in front of it kept chanting “Russia!”


People march on the street with a giant Russian flag in Simferopol, Crimea March 1, 2014. (Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili)

The participants of the rally are demanding to hold a referendum on the future of the region, and particularly, on the status of Russian language.

Earlier, according to a local news portal, a scuffle occurred between Party of Regions supporters and the so-called Volunteers’ Crops commanded by activist Pavel Gubarev, who was spontaneously proclaimed “regional governor.” Addressing the crowd, Gubarev said the authorities in Kiev were illegitimate and called for establishing popular rule. He then urged demonstrators to set up a peaceful protest camp in front of the regional government’s office.

In Kharkov, the largest city in eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian protesters managed to break through the cordon of Maidan supporters and captured the government building. The storming was accompanied by clashes and shooting, RBC daily reports.

Some 97 people have been injured in clashes between anti- and pro-Maidan demonstrators in Kharkov, reports Itar-Tass, citing the city’s deputy mayor, Svetlana Gorbunova.

“Luckily, there are no gunshot wounds,” she added.

At least 10 explosions were heard, both in the building and in the area around it. At least one policeman was among those hurt in the clashes, according to Itar-Tass.

One of the demonstrators got on to the roof of the administration building, waving the Russian flag. Meanwhile, pro-Maidan activists, who barricaded themselves inside one of the offices, are hanging a white flag out of the window. Police were accompanying injured supporters of the new government out of the building to ambulances, Unian agency reports.


Pro-Russian protesters raise a Russian flag in front of the regional administration building during a rally in the industrial Ukrainian city of Donetsk on March 1, 2014. (AFP Photo/Alexander Khudoteply)

In the Crimean capital of Simferopol, around 6,000 people marched, chanting “Russia!” and “No to Fascism!” and carrying a huge Russian flag.

Thousands are also demonstrating with Russian and Soviet flags in Odessa, the third-largest city in the country. According to police, around 5,000 people are taking part in the gathering, while organizers insist there are up to 20,000.

Crimeans began protesting after the new self-proclaimed government in Kiev introduced a law abolishing the use of other languages for official documents in Ukraine. More than half the Crimean population are Russian and use only this language for their communication. The residents have announced they are going to hold a referendum on March 30 to determine the fate of the Ukrainian autonomous region.


Pro-Russian protesters with Russian flags take part in a rally in central Donetsk March 1, 2014 (Reuters / Stringer)

[conniption]

Moon of Alabama

March 01, 2014

The Crimean Anti-Coup Move

The U.S. and EU sponsored coup against the elected government and president of the Ukraine had several strategic implications and aims. One of them is the Black Sea base of the Russian Navy which is used to supply and defend Syria. A takeover of the government in Kiev was necessary but not sufficient to neutralize the base as a strategic Russian asset. To do that a takeover of the local government of the Crimea and all its powers would also have to take place. The Crimea is historically Russian and most of it inhabitants are Russians. There is also a rather small minority of Tatars of Muslim heritage.

There seem to have been plans in place to use that minority to help with a takeover of the Crimean government by the "western" sponsored coup-government in Kiev.

In mid December 2013(!) the Turkish website Aydinlik Daily reported:

According to news appearing in the French, Ukrainian and Russian press, Turkish Intelligence has a finger in the ongoing pro-EU protests in Ukraine. News stories from these three nations have claimed that the governmental intelligence organization of Turkey, the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) organized the transfer of separatist, jihadist Tatars trained in Turkey to the Ukraine. According to French news site Egalite et Réconciliation, dozens of Crimean Tatar Jihadists were extracted from Syria by the MİT and transferred to Ukraine via Turkey on an İstanbul-Sevastopol flight of Turkish Airlines on the 22 November. According to information based on sources from the Security Service of Ukraine, (SBU), Crimean Tatars who attended the protests in Ukraine's capital Kiev on November 21 were charged with establishing the security of the square. The Crimean security staff who obtained the support of separatist "Azatlık" movement operating in Russian city of Kazan received political support from Nail Nabiullin, the current president of Tatar Youth League in Azatlık.

An February 26, shortly after the Kiev coup-government was installed, Tataric groups rioted in the Crimean capital:

In Crimea, fistfights broke out between rival demonstrators in the regional capital of Simferopol when some 20,000 Muslim Tatars rallying in support of Ukraine's interim leaders clashed with a smaller pro-Russian rally.

The protesters shouted and attacked each other with stones, bottles and punches, as police and leaders of both rallies struggled to keep the two groups apart.

One health official said at least 20 people were injured, while the local health ministry said one person died from an apparent heart attack. Tatar leaders said there was a second fatality when a woman was trampled to death by the crowd. Authorities did not confirm that.

Voice of Russia reports about an alleged Anonymous hack of emails between the coup plotters in Kiev and a Tatar leader:

[H]ackers posted a quote from one of the emails:

"Everything is going according to the plan. We are ready to proceed with the second part of the play. As agreed earlier last week, my guys together with people from the "Karpatskaya Sech" and UNA-UNSO will arrive wherever is needed and with the necessary weapons. You only need to let us know the addresses of the warehouses in Simferopol, Sevastopol, Kerch, Feodosia and Yalta, and the time of the meeting...Don't worry about the money, everything will be fine, just a little bit later. In the end, you know that if we succeed, you will get a lot more."

According to the text, the neo-Nazi organization "Trizub imeni Stepan Bandera" along with "Karpatskaya Sech " and UNA-UNSO are ready to fulfill all the dirty work: to kill, burn and banish all the opponents of Maidan from Crimea. Crimean Tatars should "only" provide them with "instruments", ie weapons and store them in the most important cities of the Crimea.

A lot of people might consider that the Ukrainian nationalists and Crimean Tatars pursue different goals, and their union at first glance looks quite unnatural. However, they have one aim in common, which is to eliminate the Russian-speaking population from the Crimean region and for that their «union» is neccessary in pursuing the common strategic objective.

It is also important to note that Aslan Omer Kyrymly is the founder of several companies and president of the board of the Crimean International Business Association (CIBA). He controls serious financial flows associated with various business projects, both in Ukraine and abroad. It is believed that Aslan Omer Kyrymly is a true leader of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars.

Anonymous (or Russian intelligence) earlier published emails between coup-plotter Klitschko and the Lithuanian government.

On February 27 Russian forces stationed in the Crimea and supported by allegedly local paramilitary took over security at two airports and of some government buildings in Crimean cities. A Turkish flight to Simferopol airport was called back and further Turkish fights to Crimea were canceled. The Turkish foreign minister Davutoglu announced that he would today visit the coup-government in Kiev:

"Crimea is important in Ukraine due to its strategic location, multi-ethnic and multi-faith formation. It is difficult to maintain peace in Eurasia unless it is secured in Ukraine. Likewise, maintaining peace in the Black Sea is difficult unless it is secured in Crimea," [Davutoglu] added.
...
The status of Crimea amid the Ukraine crisis cannot be determined without Turkey playing a role, a deputy from Turkey’s ruling AK Party said Friday.

"Turkish Foreign Minister [Ahmet] Davutoglu's visit to Ukraine is an indication of Turkey's intention to be proactive in developments in Crimea," Samil Tayyar told the Anadolu Agency.
...
Two Turkish Airlines flights from Istanbul to the Crimean capital of Simferopol on Friday night have been canceled amid escalating tension on the peninsula.
...
Early Friday, another Turkish airline, Atlasjet, cancelled a flight to Simferopol after media reports that Simferopol International Airport had been seized by armed groups.

An alleged attempt by coup forces to seize the interior ministry of the Crimea tonight was repelled. In Kiev anti-Russian Tatars call for more trouble:

Meanwhile, Tatar lawmaker Mustafa Dzhemilev of Batkivshchyna has asked acting President Oleksandr Turchynov to deploy the entire Ukrainian army to Crimea.

“I spoke with Turchynov that all of our military might should be deployed to Crimea. There are no threats in other oblasts yet. Call a state of emergency and take control,” said Dzhemilev cited by RBK-Ukraine.

The picture emerging from the above seems to show that:

Turkish intelligence helped with training Tatars in support of a local Crimea anti-Russian coup

Russian intelligence has thoroughly penetrated the coup-plotters communications (see Nuland tape) and knew what was coming

Russian aligned forces secured the Crimea and prevented infiltration of more Tataric units from Turkey

On the Crimea, as well as in other Russian aligned areas in east Ukraine (Donetsk, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk), counter coups are establishing separate regions which will ask for Russian support and eventual incorporation into the Russian Federation

If all this goes well for the Russians the "western" coup in Kiev will have resulted in the "west" acquiring a bankrupt, dirt poor west Ukraine while Russia will acquire the industry and resource rich east Ukraine and will keep the Crimea as its strategic asset

In the context of the war of Syria the coup in the Ukraine was a countermeasure to Russian support for Syria. Unless the Crimea falls to coup forces that countermeasure will have failed.

There is little the U.S. can say against Russian troops in Crimea. According to the status of force agreement Russia can post up to 30,000 soldiers there. The normal size of its forces there is just half of that. If Russia wants to reinforce those it can do so without breaking any national or international agreement.

Today the government of Crimea brought forward a referendum on the region's status to March 30 and called for Russian help. What is the "west" going to say against that? If self-determination applies to Kosovo it surely also applies to the Crimea as well as to other east Ukrainian areas.

Posted by b on March 1, 2014 at 07:35 AM

[FourthBase]

http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2014/03/crimea.html

There is a risk of appearing perverse or flippant when, in the face of unfolding events, one insists on taking the very long view and invoking centuries-old battles. Often, indeed, one senses that many of the seemingly intractable problems on the fringes of Europe could be swiftly resolved if history were finally forgotten, or at least deemed definitively irrelevant to politics.

And yet sometimes such a perspective is just what is needed. I do not know whether Crimea is one such time, but when I read of a new Russian annexation of the Black Sea peninsula, I cannot help it: I think straightaway of 1783 and the fall of the Crimean Khanate.

There is talk in the Russian and Ukrainian social media of a 'Second Crimean War', the first being, of course, the war of 1853-56, which pitted the Russian Empire against a coalition of Ottoman, British, and French troops, along with an assortment of minor players. Paris has both a 'Crimée' as well as a 'Sebastopol' metro stop, and the French role in this affair seems to have been crucial for France's rediscovery of its bellicose potential after Napoleon I's defeat. But the First Crimean War can tell us little about its supposed sequel, since in truth it was not principally Crimean until the tail end, but rather pan-Pontic, and even Baltic. France's military objectives were reached in the conquest of some territories in the Danube delta that had been seized by Russia. But by the time of this small victory the French public was hungry for more, and so the troops went on to the mythic battle of Sebastopol, and took at least a part of the peninsula, at least for a time, ostensibly in the aim of reconstituting a lost Turkish hegemony around the Black Sea.

So what is happening right now is less a repeat of the 19th-century battles around Crimea than it is of the initial 18th-century annexation. In neither case, of course, was there any question of Ukrainian sovereignty or historical claim to the peninsula. The khanate was one of many realms controlled by Muslim Turkic Tatars to the north and east of the Black Sea. It was established as an Ottoman vassal state in the late 15th century, and had its capital at Bahçesaray (now moderately Slavicized as 'Bakhchysarai'). The de-Tatarization of the peninsula was the principal concern of the Russian Empire from the time of its initial annexation.

A great number of Crimean Tatars assimilated, or went to Anatolia and assimilated there in some degree (estimates for the Crimean Tatar population of Turkey today differ wildly, from a few hundred thousand to several million; it all depends what criteria are used). Over the couse of the 19th century the Tatars were ethnically cleansed, expelled, and brutally repressed. In this respect, one should see the Russification of Crimea as part of the same broader process of annexation and incorporation of the Caucasus region (some but not all of whose ethnolinguistic groups are also Turkic). We see in fact a close parallel history with the Adyghe or Circassians of the Krasnodar region around Sochi, who like the Crimean Tatars ended up relocating in large numbers to Anatolia.

This project continued well into the Soviet period, and the Crimean Tatars were subjected to particularly brutal repression by Stalin and Beria in 1944, under suspicion of being 'fascists'. From the Soviet perspective, Ukranianization of the region was nearly as good as Russification. Both replaced an inherently intractable ethnic group with people from the USSR's Slavic core. This history is worth recalling because it reminds us that, today, it is somewhat superficial to analyze what is happening in Crimea in the way we've become accustomed to doing for the events in Kyiv and points west. Crimea has a long history as a Russian colony, and when it fell into Ukraine's hands at the collapse of the Soviet Union this was effectively the transfer of a colony, rather than the consolidation of a historical nation.

There is no question but that Putin is leaping on the opportunity opened up by the instability of Ukraine to attempt to reconsolidate the empire that partially contracted in 1991, and that has been going through phases of contraction and expansion for centuries. To this extent, the re-annexation of Crimea is to be vigorously opposed, not because it fractures a natural unity (as, say, a Russian invasion of Western Ukraine would), but because it marks the renascence of a properly imperial power. Ukraine had simply enjoyed temporary usufruct, by geographical circumstance, of a sliver of that empire.

I see Crimea more in continuity with recent events in Sochi than in Kyiv: the symbolic consolidation of Russian hegemony in historically non-Slavic, Muslim regions that have been contested since the late-18th and early-19th centuries. This development is in many respects more significant than the matter of Kyiv's geopolitical orientation. It hints at a growing thirst for hegemony over the entire Black Sea. This could eventually lead to a confrontation with Turkey, which for its part is rediscovering, in parallel fashion, its own neo-Ottoman imperial ambitions.

Putin's only argument to justify the new Russian imperialism is that, as a matter of fact, Russia is strong enough to pull it off. There is nothing more to it than that. If you have some time, watch a video or two of Ramzan Kadyrov on YouTube. Watch him on horseback, or at target practice, or throwing money in the air while dancing. This is Putin's appointed warlord in Chechnya, and his only claim to authority in that beleaguered republic is (i) heredity, and (ii) his proven track-record of violence. One rises to the position of statesman, under Putin's regime, by the display of virtues that would not have been out of place a millennium ago: strength, mightiness, ferocity in the field of battle.

There have been recent reports that Putin has sent one of his faithful ministers of parliament, Nikolaï Valuev, to assess the situation in Crimea. Valuev is a former heavyweight boxer, who is over seven feet tall and once knocked out Evander Holyfield. He looks like a classic James Bond villain. One of the leaders of the Ukrainian revolution is a man named Vitali Klitschko, leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform-- UDAR, which means 'punch' in both Ukrainian and Russian. He is also a former professional boxer who once fought Lennox Lewis. There is already talk in the Russian Twittersphere of an inevitable match between Klitschko and Valuev that will decide the fate of Crimea. Such a thing is not impossible in a moral-political climate set by Putin.

There is a legend that extends at least back to the stories the Greeks told themselves about the Scythians, according to which these people were such savage warriors that they were prepared to kill great numbers of their own people just to make the enemy quake and run the other way. While the Scythians were probably northern Indo-Aryans, the label 'Scythian' has always been slippery: sometimes it's the Turks, sometimes the Mongols, and sometimes Russians. Balkan and Slavic peoples are praised or condemned for being able to turn back their enemies by adopting 'Scythian' ways themselves, as when Vlad the Impaler made a wall of impaled Transylvanian Christians before the gates of Brașov, and drove back the invading Turks. The stereotype extends all the way to popular entertainments of recent years, as when the vaguely Turkish character Keyser Söze, in the 1995 American movie, The Usual Suspects, resolved the crisis of his family's tragic kidnapping at the hands of evil enemies by shooting, not the enemies, but his entire family.

One cannot help but think of this ancient trope when one recalls the Russian security forces' response to the hostage crisis in Beslan in 2004, or the Nord-Ost siege in Moscow two years earlier. The enemy shows force, we show more force in retaliation, and we demonstrate our invincibility by demonstrating our indifference to the loss of innocent lives on either side. The regime acts as force majeure, as a power of nature that can't be talked down or made to see things differently. We are in the realm of stereotypes here, and there is nothing natural or inevitable about Russia taking up the ancient role of the Scythians. But I am convinced that Putin himself believes in these stereotypes, that playing out these stereotypes is a winning strategy for his political career, and that this does not bode at all well for Russia's neighbors.

[smiths]

there is no neutral position for a country like the Ukraine, since it is absolutely strategic

anyone who thinks that Ukraine could just seek 'democratic' independence and move culturally and economically into the European sphere is kidding themselves

The US has enjoyed the hegemonic position for 20 years, and Russia has played a, until recently, a quieter long game,
but in recent years the US has put pressure on all of the Russian spheres of influence has it has sought to push its domination ifurther and further to the East and into the last few remaining independent states in the Middle East

Russia had to draw a line at some point, and Ukraine is the obvious point to do so,

regardless of whether you think Putin is a villain in some cartoonish sense, Putin is right strategically to fight the US over the Ukraine, I would if i were in his position

[smiths]

a twisted story which raises more questions than it answers



http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omid ... ents-show/

Just hours after last weekend’s ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyar’s newest hires at national security blog “The Intercept,” was already digging for the truth.
Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site’s “senior policy analyst,” speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a “coup” engineered by “deep” forces on behalf of “Pax Americana”:
“There’s quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is.”
Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed “coup,” but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.
But that’s not the shocking part.
What’s shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the “dark deep force” acting on behalf of “Pax Americana”).
Step out of the shadows…. Wheeler’s boss, Pierre Omidyar.
Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwald’s government-bashing blog,“The Intercept,” co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine.

What all this adds up to is a journalistic conflict-of-interest of the worst kind: Omidyar working hand-in-glove with US foreign policy agencies to interfere in foreign governments, co-financing regime change with well-known arms of the American empire — while at the same time hiring a growing team of soi-disant ”independent journalists” which vows to investigate the behavior of the US government at home and overseas, and boasts of its uniquely “adversarial” relationship towards these government institutions.

Of the many problems that poses, none is more serious than the fact that Omidyar now has the only two people with exclusive access to the complete Snowden NSA cache, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Somehow, the same billionaire who co-financed the “coup” in Ukraine with USAID, also has exclusive access to the NSA secrets—and very few in the independent media dare voice a skeptical word about it.
In the larger sense, this is a problem of 21st century American inequality, of life in a billionaire-dominated era. It is a problem we all have to contend with—PandoDaily’s 18-plus investors include a gaggle of Silicon Valley billionaires like Marc Andreessen (who serves on the board of eBay, chaired by Pierre Omidyar) and Peter Thiel (whose politics I’ve investigated, and described as repugnant.)
But what is more immediately alarming is what makes Omidyar different. Unlike other billionaires, Omidyar has garnered nothing but uncritical, fawning press coverage, particularly from those he has hired. By acquiring a “dream team” of what remains of independent media — Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Wheeler, my former partner Matt Taibbi — not to mention press “critics” like Jay Rosen — he buys both silence and fawning press.
Both are incredibly useful: Silence, an absence of journalistic curiosity about Omidyar’s activities overseas and at home, has been purchased for the price of whatever his current all-star indie cast currently costs him. As an added bonus, that same investment buys silence from exponentially larger numbers of desperately underpaid independent journalists hoping to someday be on his payroll, and the underfunded media watchdogs that survive on Omidyar Network grants.
And it also buys laughable fluff from the likes of Scahill who also boasted to the Daily Beast of his boss’ close involvement in the day to day running of First Look.
“[Omidyar] strikes me as always sort of political, but I think that the NSA story and the expanding wars put politics for him into a much more prominent place in his existence. This is not a side project that he is doing. Pierre writes more on our internal messaging than anyone else. And he is not micromanaging. This guy has a vision. And his vision is to confront what he sees as an assault on the privacy of Americans.”

[smiths]

and the response from Greenwald

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014 ... ependence/

On the Meaning of Journalistic Independence
By Glenn Greenwald1 Mar 2014, 8:50 AM EST 344
This morning, I see that some people are quite abuzz about a new Pando article ”revealing” that the foundation of Pierre Omidyar, the publisher of First Look Media which publishes The Intercept, gave several hundred thousand dollars to a Ukraininan “pro-democracy” organization opposed to the ruling regime. This, apparently, is some sort of scandal that must be immediately addressed not only by Omidyar, but also by every journalist who works at First Look. That several whole hours elapsed since the article was published on late Friday afternoon without my commenting is, for some, indicative of disturbing stonewalling.

I just learned of this article about 30 minutes ago, which is why I’m addressing it “only” now (I apologize for not continuously monitoring Twitter at all times, including the weekend). I have not spoken to Pierre or anyone at First Look – or, for that matter, anyone else in the world – about any of this, and am speaking only for myself here. To be honest, I barely know what it is that I’m supposed to boldly come forth and address, so I’ll do my best to make a few points about this specific article but also make some general points about journalistic independence that I do actually think are important:

(1) The Pando article adopts the tone of bold investigative journalism that intrepidly dug deep into secret materials and uncovered a “shocking” bombshell (“Step out of the shadows…. Pierre Omidyar”). But as I just discovered with literally 5 minutes of Googling, the Omidyar Network’s support for the Ukrainian group in question, Centre UA, has long been publicly known: because the Omidyar Network announced the investment at the time in a press release and then explained it on its website.

In a September 15, 2011 press release, the Omidyar Network “announced today its intent to grant up to $3M to six leading organizations focused on advancing government transparency and accountability” including “Centre UA (Ukraine)”. The Network then devoted an entire page of its website (entitled “New Citizen (Centre UA)”) to touting the investment and explaining its rationale and purpose (the group, claims the Network, “seeks to enable citizen participation in national and regional politics by amplifying the voices of Ukrainian citizens and promoting open and accountable government”).

I think it’s perfectly valid for journalists to investigate the financial dealings of corporations and billionaires who fund media outlets, whether it be those who fund or own Pando, First Look, MSNBC, Fox News, The Washington Post or any other. And it’s certainly reasonable to have concerns and objections about the funding of organizations that are devoted to regime change in other countries: I certainly have those myself. But the Omidyar Network doesn’t exactly seem ashamed of these donations, and they definitely don’t seem to be hiding them, given that they trumpeted them in their own press releases and web pages.

(2) Can someone please succinctly explain why this is a scandal that needs to be addressed, particularly by First Look journalists? That’s a genuine request. Wasn’t it just 72 hours ago that the widespread, mainstream view in the west (not one that I shared) was that there was a profound moral obligation to stand up and support the brave and noble Ukrainian opposition forces as they fight to be liberated from the brutal and repressive regime imposed on them by Vladimir Putin’s puppet? When did it suddenly become shameful in those same circles to support those very same opposition forces?

In fact, I’ve been accused more times than I can count – including by a former NSA employee and a Eurasia Foundation spokesman - of being a Putin shill for not supporting the Ukrainian opposition and not denouncing Russian involvement there (by which they mean I’ve not written anything on this topic). Now we seem to have the exact opposite premise: that the real evil is supporting the opposition in Ukraine and any journalist who works at First Look – including ones who are repeatedly called criminals by top U.S. officials for publishing top secret government documents; or who risk their lives to go around the world publicizing the devastation wrought by America’s Dirty Wars and its dirty and lawless private contractors; or who have led the journalistic attack on the banks that own and control the government - are now tools of neo-liberal, CIA-cooperating imperialism which seeks to undermine Putin by secretly engineering the Ukrainian revolution. To call all of that innuendo muddled and incoherent is to be generous.

(3) Despite its being publicly disclosed, I was not previously aware that the Omidyar Network donated to this Ukrainian group. That’s because, prior to creating The Intercept with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, I did not research Omidyar’s political views or donations. That’s because his political views and donations are of no special interest to me – any more than I cared about the political views of the family that owns and funds Salon (about which I know literally nothing, despite having worked there for almost 6 years), or any more than I cared about the political views of those who control the Guardian Trust.

There’s a very simple reason for that: they have no effect whatsoever on my journalism or the journalism of The Intercept. That’s because we are guaranteed full editorial freedom and journalistic independence. The Omidyar Network’s political views or activities – or those of anyone else – have no effect whatsoever on what we report, how we report it, or what we say.

The author of the Pando article seems to understand this point quite well when it comes to excusing himself from working for a media outlet funded by national-security-state-supporting tech billionaires whose views he claims to find “repugnant”:

It is a problem we all have to contend with—PandoDaily’s 18-plus investors include a gaggle of Silicon Valley billionaires like Marc Andreessen (who serves on the board of eBay, chaired by Pierre Omidyar) and Peter Thiel (whose politics I’ve investigated [GG: before working for a media outlet he funded] and described as repugnant.)

So he acknowledges the truly repellent politics of those who fund the media outlet where he does his journalism: Andreessen, a Romney supporter, has become one of the NSA’s most devoted defenders, while the company owned by Paypal founder Thiel, Palantir Technologies, works extensively with the CIA and got caught scheming against journalists, WikiLeaks supporters and Chamber of Commerce critics. But he obviously believes those repellent views and activities do not reflect on him or his journalism. Indeed, any of you who are approvingly citing the Pando article are implicitly saying the same thing: namely, that media outlets funded by government-supporting tech moguls with repugnant histories can produce important journalism, including reporting on other tech moguls.

More generally, you’re endorsing the point that the political ideology of those who fund media outlets, no matter how much you dislike that ideology, does not mean that hard-hitting investigative journalism is precluded or that the journalism reflects the views of those who fund it. Anyone who thinks that The Intercept is or will be some sort of mouthpiece for U.S. foreign policy goals is invited to review the journalism we’ve produced in the 20 days we’ve existed.

Now, if you want to take the position that people should not work at organizations funded by oligarchs, or that journalism is inherently corrupted if funded by rich people with bad political views, then I hope you apply that consistently. Groups like the ACLU, Media Matters, the Center for Constitutional Rights and a whole slew of left-wing groups have been funded for years by billionaire George Soros and his foundations despite a long history of funding of and profiting from all sorts of capitalism projects anathema to the left, including Ukrainian pro-democracy groups (the same Pando writer previously claimed without evidence that the ACLU received a $20 million donation from the Koch Brothers) ...

Are Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow responsible for all the bad acts of Comcast, which owns MSNBC, or is their journalism impugned by those bad acts? Was WikiLeaks infected with Vladimir Putin’s sins, as some argued, because Julian Assange’s show appeared on RT? Or go ahead and apply those questions to virtually every large media organization or advocacy group you like, which needs substantial funding, which in turn requires that they seek and obtain that funding from very rich people who undoubtedly have political views and activities you find repellent.

That journalistic outlets fail to hold accountable large governmental and corporate entities is a common complaint. It’s one I share. It’s possible to do great journalism in discrete, isolated cases without much funding and by working alone, but it’s virtually impossible to do sustained, broad-scale investigative journalism aimed at large and powerful entities without such funding. As I’ve learned quite well over the last eight months, you need teams of journalists, and editors, and lawyers, and experts, and travel and technology budgets, and a whole slew of other tools that require serious funding. The same is true for large-scale activism.

That funding, by definition, is going to come from people rich enough to provide it. And such people are almost certainly going to have views and activities that you find objectionable. If you want to take the position that this should never be done, that’s fine: just be sure to apply it consistently to the media outlets and groups you really like.

But for me, the issue is not – and for a long time has not been – the political views of those who fund journalism. Journalists should be judged by the journalism they produce, not by those who fund the outlets where they do it. The real issue is whether they demand and obtain editorial freedom. We have. But ultimately, the only thing that matters is the journalism we or any other media outlets produce.

(4) Typical for this particular writer, the Pando article is filled with factual inaccuracies, including one extremely serious one:

Of the many problems that poses, none is more serious than the fact that Omidyar now has the only two people with exclusive access to the complete Snowden NSA cache, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Somehow, the same billionaire who co-financed the “coup” in Ukraine with USAID, also has exclusive access to the NSA secrets—and very few in the independent media dare voice a skeptical word about it. [emphasis added]

Let’s leave to the side the laughable hyperbole that Omidyar is now the mastermind who has secretly engineered the Ukrainian uprising. Let’s also leave to the side a vital fact that people like this Pando writer steadfastly ignore: that there are numerous media entities in possession of tens of thousands of Snowden documents, including The Guardian, Bart Gellman/The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ProPublica, rendering absurd any conspiracy theories that Omidyar can control which documents are or are not published.

The real falsehood here is that Omidyar himself has any access, let alone “exclusive access”, to “the NSA secrets.” This is nothing short of a fabrication. The writer of this article just made that up.

The only Snowden documents Omidyar has ever seen are the ones that have been published as part of stories in media outlets around the world. He has no possession of those documents and no access to them. He has never sought or received access to those documents. He has played no role whatsoever in deciding which ones will be reported. He obviously plays no role in deciding which documents all those other news outlets will report. Other than generally conveying that there is much reporting left to be done on these documents – something I’ve publicly said many times – I don’t believe I’ve ever even had a single discussion with him about a single document in the archive.

We’ve continued to report on those documents with media outlets around the world – in the last month alone, I reported on numerous documents with NBC, while Laura did the same with The New York Times - and will continue to report on them at The Intercept with full editorial independence. But the claim that he has obtained possession of, or even access to, the archive (in full or in part) is an outright falsehood.

Other inaccuracies pervade the article. Marcy Wheeler, whose comments were prominently featured, complained rather vehemently and at length that the article wildly misrepresented what she said.

(5) I have a long history of condemning U.S. government interference in the governance of other countries, and of the accompanying jingoistic moral narrative that this interference is intended to engender Freedom and Democracy rather than the promotion of U.S. interests. I have equal scorn for those who feign opposition to Russian interference in the sovereignty of other countries while continuing to support all sorts of U.S. interference of exactly that sort. I know little about the specific Ukrainian group at issue here – do any of you touting this article know anything about them? – and I certainly don’t trust this writer to convey anything accurately.

But what I do know is that I would never temper, limit, suppress or change my views for anyone’s benefit – as anyone I’ve worked with will be happy to tell you – and my views on such interference in other countries isn’t going to remotely change no matter the actual facts here. I also know that I’m free to express those views without the slightest fear. And I have zero doubt that that’s true of every other writer at The Intercept. That’s what journalistic independence means.

[smiths]

Most Russians believe the Crimea is theirs – Putin has acted on his belief
Masha Gessen - The Observer, Sunday 2 March 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ine-crimea

Can something be evident and incredible at the same time? Certainly, if you are in denial. Until Russian troops landed in the Crimea many Russians were in denial about Vladimir Putin. They believed he was all bark and no bite.

Not that Putin had kept his intentions secret. He has always denied the idea that the Soviet Union was a colonising power; furthermore, he called the breakup of the USSR "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of our time".

He has annexed chunks of Georgia, most recently by means of a military invasion in 2008. But there are two differences between now and the war in Georgia. Technically, it was not Putin but Dmitry Medvedev who was nominally president when Russia invaded Georgia. More importantly, Russian liberals were not rooting for their fellows in Georgia during that war; indeed, they were scarcely aware of the political struggles within the country.

Ukraine is different: for three months, Russians had been watching the stand-off, and the oppositionally minded were strongly identifying with the anti-Yanukovych forces in Kiev.

Perhaps the last time the Russian intelligentsia watched the internal struggle in another country this intently was in 1968 during the Prague Spring, when they hoped the Czechs would succeed in building what they called "socialism with a human face". They also believed it would hold out the promise of something better for life in the Soviet Union. In August 1968, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, quashing the Prague Spring. In Moscow, seven people came out to protest against the invasion; they were arrested and the modern dissident movement was born.

The parallels end there. It's unlikely that what's happening in Ukraine will foment a new protest movement in Russia: the ongoing crackdown on civil society makes the cost of protest too high. Still, the Crimean invasion is a landmark in Russian domestic politics.

It signals a loss of innocence: no longer will Russians be able to think that Putin merely feels nostalgic for the USSR. It also signals ever greater polarisation of Russian society: in addition to all the other lines along which Russians are divided and across which civilised dialogue is impossible, there is now the chasm between supporters and opponents of the planned annexation. It also means the political crackdown in Russia will intensify further.

These clear and tragic consequences obscure the challenge the new Crimean war poses to Russia's post-imperial consciousness. "I can be reasonable about everything, but I cannot give up the Crimea," was a line from the late Galina Starovoitova, who as Boris Yeltsin's adviser on nationalities policy, oversaw Russia's first attempts at releasing its colonies.

She meant that, like just about every Russian, she felt the Black Sea resort area was part of her birthright, whatever the maps may say. Most, if not all, Russians harbour this Crimean exceptionalism, even if they belong to the minority that otherwise rejects Soviet nostalgia.

If Russia functioned as a society with rule of law and some common understanding of its complicated history, the inhibition against acting on this exceptionalist impulse would come from the top. But with the government sending troops into the Crimea, it is up to individual Russians to find the arguments and, even more difficult, the motivation to resist the aggression.

Masha Gessen is the author of The Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

[smiths]

sorry if this has already been posted, but it is important i think

"What haunts the Nulands of this world is not a putative "absorption" of Ukraine by Russia - an eventuality with which she could live. What haunts her and those who share her views is a geopolitical alliance of Germany/France and Russia. The nightmare of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis has receded a little bit since its acme in 2003, when U.S. efforts to have the U.N. Security Council endorse the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 were defeated by France and Germany.

The nightmare has receded a bit but lurks there just beneath the surface, and for good reason. Such an alliance makes geopolitical sense for Germany/France and Russia. And in geopolitics, what makes sense is a constraint that insisting on ideological differences can affect very little. Geopolitical choices may be tweaked by the individuals in power, but the pressure of long-term national interests remains strong.

Why does a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis make sense? There are good reasons. One is the U.S. turn towards a Pacific-centrism replacing its long history of Atlantic-centrism. Russia's nightmare, and Germany's as well, is not a U.S.-China war but a U.S.-China alliance (one that would include Japan and Korea as well). Germany's only way of diminishing this threat to its own prosperity and power is an alliance with Russia. And her policy towards Ukraine shows precisely the priority she gives to resolving European issues by including rather than excluding Russia.

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/02/15-3

[Sounder]

Thanks for posting the whole Glenn Greenwald rebuttal Smiths.

It reads well and shows Glenn to be quite sharp.

(4) Typical for this particular writer, the Pando article is filled with factual inaccuracies, including one extremely serious one:

Of the many problems that poses, none is more serious than the fact that Omidyar now has the only two people with exclusive access to the complete Snowden NSA cache, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Somehow, the same billionaire who co-financed the “coup” in Ukraine with USAID, also has exclusive access to the NSA secrets—and very few in the independent media dare voice a skeptical word about it. [emphasis added]

Let’s leave to the side the laughable hyperbole that Omidyar is now the mastermind who has secretly engineered the Ukrainian uprising. Let’s also leave to the side a vital fact that people like this Pando writer steadfastly ignore: that there are numerous media entities in possession of tens of thousands of Snowden documents, including The Guardian, Bart Gellman/The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ProPublica, rendering absurd any conspiracy theories that Omidyar can control which documents are or are not published.

The real falsehood here is that Omidyar himself has any access, let alone “exclusive access”, to “the NSA secrets.” This is nothing short of a fabrication. The writer of this article just made that up.

[slimmouse]

I sit here, once again wondering exactly when the rest of humanity will begin to understand how both sides in yet another conflict are essentially controlled by the same tiny few.

Be that whether the aforementioned 'tiny few' are positioned on either side of this, or both.

The latter being my own working assumption.

[seemslikeadream]

everyone is blaming the little ones...it's MAJICK

we are but a pawn in their game


Ride the Worldwide Wave of Transformation
001101000010111000110100001011100011000100110100
#www


Terence McKenna on the #WaveOfAction

[conniption]

More from Moon of Alabama:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/03/white-ribbon-armed-men-explain-russias-crimea-reaction.html

March 02, 2014
"White Ribbon" Armed Men Explain Russia's Crimea Reaction?

Secretary of State Kerry on Face the Nation:

Russia chose this brazen act aggression and moved in with its forces on a completely trumped set of pre-texts claiming that people were threatened ...

Kerry should watch the following videos...continued

~

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/03/billmon-the-ukrainian-grand-delusion.html

March 02, 2014
Billmon: The Ukrainian Grand Delusion

The patron saint of this blog, Billmon, provides us with a concise (though necessarily incomplete) history of meddling in the Ukraine:

U.S. and E.U. to pro-West Ukrainians: "You fucked up, guys. You trusted us."

continued

~

Also... another RI thread on Ukraine: Russia's de facto invasion of Ukraine