Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

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Club Orlov
(embedded links)

Tuesday, March 11, 2014
The Crimean “Crisis” and Western Bias

[Tuesday update:

The guest post from Renée last week appeared on this blog because Huffington Post refused to run it. And now I hear that no comment linking the new Ukrainian government to the neo-Nazis or the neo-Nazis to the mass murder in Kiev can get through on any news site. It seems like there is an actual news blackout on this message:

"It appears that the US State Dept. gave $5 billion to Ukrainian neo-Nazis who used some of the money to hire mass murderers who massacred protesters, policemen and bystanders in order to provide a rationale for overthrowing the democratically elected government of Ukraine and installing an anti-Russian puppet government."

That's about as short and sweet as I can make it. Please go and see how many places you can cut and paste that sentence. It would give us an idea of the extent of the censorship in the US. First they take over Ukraine, then Huffington Post, what's next? Your living-room?]

[Ukraine update:

Everybody now admits that the Kiev massacre was a false flag operation, just like I said it was. The leading theory is that the snipers who fired indiscriminately on policemen, demonstrators and bystanders were hired by the Ukrainian opposition. (Interesting question: Were they paid with US State Dept. funds?) But in response the newly installed authorities in Kiev have gone full-retard and are blaming... why, Russia, of course! So obvious! Russia had just signed a historic deal with Yanukovych, accepting Ukraine into the Customs Union and giving it a huge discount on natural gas, plus the Winter Olympics in Sochi were underway. Of course Russia would want to throw all of that away, watch helplessly as Ukraine's government gets overthrown and replaced by US-financed neo-Nazis, and now face sanctions for defending the rights of its citizens in Crimea. No, not really.

Meanwhile, Putin is having trouble explaining to Western leaders that Russia is not doing anything illegal: Russian troops are in Crimea legally, based on a long-term agreement with Ukraine and the self-defense forces in charge there are irregulars who do not report to the Russian military. Crimea is about to hold a referendum on independence from Ukraine (having ended up as part of Ukraine as an accident) but the West says the referendum is illegal. You see, unlike the Albanians in Kosovo or the South Sudanese or just about any other group, the Russians in Crimea do not have the right of self-determination. Why? Because they are Russian?

This week's guest post is by Outlook Zen. It strikes me as exceptionally balanced; the one quibble I have is against mentioning Godwin’s Law while ignoring this. Goodwin rightly called out people who use the terms “fascism” and “Nazi” and gratuitously compare people to Hitler. But what about those who don jackboots and Swastika armbands and stomp around saluting each other with the Hitlergruß? Is the comparison still gratuitous? There seems to be a taboo in the US against mentioning that there were neo-Nazis behind the putsch in Kiev. The allegations that they hired snipers to shoot other protesters, to produce a rationale for overthrowing the government, are being hushed up too. Too embarrassing? Well, it should be! But there should still be a full investigation.]

Just two weeks ago, we had discussed the bias in international reporting, and the tendency of media outlets to report the most sensational facts without providing proper context and a full-view of the situation. How time appropriate, given the outbreak of the Russia-Crimea situation in the past few days. As we hear the reporting of the situation in US and western media, I’m reminded over and over again of my earlier complaints. So many of the articles seem so sensational and biased in their reporting. What stands out glaringly is the extent to which Russia has been condemned. Over the past days, I’ve seen Putin compared to Hitler, Russia compared to Nazi Germany, and the Crimean annexation compared to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. The same media that has always jumped to condemn Bush-Hitler comparisons, is now the first to invoke Godwin’s Law when describing Russia and Putin.

Personally, as someone who has no ties to Russia, neither positive nor negative, none of their actions thus far strike me as being outrageous. Hence why the hyperbolic media reporting in the US strikes me as being a bit too biased & extreme.

A recap of the key events in recent days:

Ukraine’s democratically elected government was overthrown by mass-protests in the capital, Kiev.

These protests represent popular sentiment in Western Ukraine, but not in the East. Eastern Ukraine is strongly pro-Russian, and it was this faction that won the most recent elections and installed the President Viktor Yanukovych. The protests could thus be seen as a non-democratic overthrow of a democratically elected government, by the losing minority. It can also be credibly cast as the political censorship and subjugation of the pro-Russia Eastern-Ukraine, by the pro-EU Western-Ukraine.

Russia, in protest of the above, annexes/liberates Crimea, the already semi-autonomous and most heavily pro-Russian province in Ukraine. It was a bloodless takeover, with no casualties. There is no local protest or uprising against the Russian occupation. The Russian army is cheered on and; greeted warmly by the local population. Secession fever breaks out all over Eastern Ukraine, as people protest against the protester-installed government in Kiev. Pro-Russian protesters drape Russian flags over government buildings. Ukraine’s own Admiral Berezovsky, who was appointed by the interim government in Kiev, orders Ukrainian naval forces on the peninsula to disregard any orders from the “self-proclaimed” authorities in Kiev. Pro-Russian leaders in Crimea have scheduled a referendum to be held later this month, that will let the locals decide on secession and ties with Russia. Ironically, both Kiev and the West are opposed to this democratic vote that would allow the locals to chart their own future. Recapping these events, I’m having a hard time expressing outrage over anything Russia has done in the past weeks.

To be sure, this is a very complicated situation, and I certainly do not mean to oversimplify it. What exactly the locals in Crimea and Eastern-Ukraine want, and whether this is aligned with Russian intervention, is certainly a debatable topic. There are good arguments that can be made both for and against Russian intervention in Crimea. If the day ever comes when Russia ignores or suppresses the popular will of the Crimean people, I will be the first to condemn Putin.

However, what I do find most objectionable today is the hyperbole with which Russia is being regarded by Western media. The bias inherent in almost all reporting, and the arguments presented to justify only 1 of the 2 sides, is virtually bordering on propaganda. Even worse is the lack of context with which Russia’s actions are being presented. Consider the following list of US interventions in foreign countries over the past half century.

--- The US invasion of Panama, in order to protect their interests in the Panama Canal
--- The US sponsored invasion of Cuba to overthrow the popular revolutionary, Fidel Castro
--- US Intervention in Vietnam
--- US Invasion of Iraq, in violation of both UN law and Iraqi public sentiment, resulting in 500,000 Iraqi civilian deaths
--- US assassination attempts on foreign leaders, such as Fidel Castro, in the past decades
--- US spying on Allies, other countries’ Heads of States, and virtually everyone using the Internet

After looking at this list, it’s hard to make the case that Russian intervention in Crimea is outrageous compared to what we have been doing for decades. At no point during any of the above controversies did the media question whether our country is deserving of economic sanctions, whether we should have our G8 membership revoked, or whether we’re becoming a police-spy-war state like Nazi Germany. And yet, Russian intervention in Crimea has been deemed worthy of all the above.

[...P]atriotism is no excuse for biased reporting & hyperbole against Russia. It’s been 25 years since the Cold War ended. It’s time we evaluated Russia’s actions objectively, and not from the narrow prism of Western ethnocentrism.

~

Moon of Alabama - March 11 Update On Ukraine

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo9LDbgClps
Published on Mar 12, 2014

dailykos

Wed Mar 12, 2014 at 03:20 PM PDT

by Transcripts EditorsFollow for Transcripts and Documents

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

March 12, 2014

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA
AND UKRAINE PRIME MINISTER ARSENIY YATSENYUK
AFTER BILATERAL MEETING

Oval Office

3:30 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It is a pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Yatsenyuk to the Oval Office, to the White House.

I think all of us have seen the courage of the Ukrainian people in standing up on behalf of democracy and on the desire that I believe is universal for people to be able to determine their own destiny. And we saw in the Maidan how ordinary people from all parts of the country had said that we want a change. And the Prime Minister was part of that process, showed tremendous courage, and upheld the principles of nonviolence throughout the course of events over the last several months.

Obviously, the Prime Minister comes here during a very difficult time for his country. In the aftermath of President Yanukovych leaving the country, the parliament, the Rada, acted in a responsible fashion to fill the void, created a inclusive process in which all parties had input, including the party of former President Yanukovych. They have set forward a process to stabilize the country, take a very deliberate step to assure economic stability and negotiate with the International Monetary Fund, and to schedule early elections so that the Ukrainian people, in fact, can choose their direction for the future. And the Prime Minister has managed that process with great skill and great restraint, and we’re very much appreciative of the work that he has done.

The most pressing challenge that Ukraine faces at the moment, however, is the threat to its territorial integrity and its sovereignty. We have been very clear that we consider the Russian incursion into Crimea outside of its bases to be a violation of international law, of international agreements of which Russia is a signatory, and a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. And we have been very firm in saying that we will stand with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in ensuring that that territorial integrity and sovereignty is maintained.

I think we all recognize that there are historic ties between Russia and Ukraine, and I think the Prime Minister would be the first one to acknowledge that. And I think the Prime Minister and the current government in Kyiv has recognized and has communicated directly to the Russian Federation their desire to try to manage through this process diplomatically. But what the Prime Minister I think has rightly insisted on is, is that they cannot have a country outside of Ukraine dictate to them how they should arrange their affairs. And there is a constitutional process in place and a set of elections that they can move forward on that, in fact, could lead to different arrangements over time with the Crimean region, but that is not something that can be done with the barrel of a gun pointed at you.

And so Secretary Kerry is in communications with the Russian government and has offered to try to explore with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Lavrov, a diplomatic solution to this crisis. We are in close communication with the Ukrainian government in terms of how we might proceed going forward. But we will continue to say to the Russian government that if it continues on the path that it is on then not only us, but the international community -- the European Union and others -- will be forced to apply a cost to Russia’s violations of international law and its encroachments on Ukraine.

There’s another path available, and we hope that President Putin is willing to seize that path. But if he does not, I’m very confident that the international community will stand strongly behind the Ukrainian government in preserving its unity and its territorial integrity.

Let me just make two final points. Obviously, because of the political turmoil, the economic situation in Ukraine has become more challenging, not less. And that’s why I’m very proud that not only as critical members of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, we are working with the Prime Minister and his team in a package that can help to institute necessary reforms inside of the Ukraine, but also help to stabilize the situation so that people feel confident that in their daily lives they can meet their basic necessities.

We’re also asking Congress to act promptly to deliver on an aid package, including a $1 billion loan guarantee that can help smooth the path for reform inside of Ukraine and give the Prime Minister and his government the capacity to do what they need to do as they are also organizing an election process. So I would just ask both Democrats and Republicans, who I know are unified in their support of Ukraine, to move quickly to give us the support that we need so that we can give the Ukrainian people the support that they need.

And then, finally, Mr. Prime Minister, I would ask that you deliver a message on behalf of the American people to all the Ukrainian people, and that is that we admire their courage; we appreciate their aspirations. The interests of the United States are solely in making sure that the people of Ukraine are able to determine their own destiny. That is something that here in the United States we believe in deeply. I know it’s something that you believe in deeply as well. And you can rest assured that you will have our strong support as you move forward during these difficult times.

Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER YATSENYUK: Thank you, Mr. President. And we highly appreciate the support that you have given to the Ukrainian people. And my country feels that the United States stands by the Ukrainian people.

Mr. President, it’s all about the freedom. We fight for our freedom. We fight for our independence. We fight for our sovereignty. And we will never surrender.

My country has faced a number of challenges. The military one is a key challenge today, and we urge Russia to stick to its international obligations, to pull back its military into barracks, and to start the dialogue with no guns, with no military, with no tanks, but with the diplomacy and political tools.

On behalf of my government, I would like to reiterate that we are absolutely ready and open for talks with the Russian Federation. We adhere to all international obligations. And we as the state of Ukraine will fulfill all bilateral and multilateral international treaties.

On the economic side, Mr. President, we highly appreciate the support of the United States and the decision to guarantee $1 billion loan for the Ukrainian economy. You know that we resumed talks with the IMF. We do understand that these are tough reforms, but these reforms are needed for the Ukrainian state. And we are back on track in terms of delivering real reforms in my country.

As I already informed you, probably in the nearest future, next week or in 10 days, Ukraine is to sign a political part of -- association agreement with the European Union, and we want to be very clear that Ukraine is and will be a part of the Western world, and our Russian partners have to realize that we are ready to make a new type or to craft a new type of our relationship where Ukraine is a part of the European Union, but Ukraine is a good friend and partner of Russia.

So much will depend on whether Russia wants to have this talk and whether Russia wants to have Ukraine as a partner or as a subordinate. As I already indicated, we will never surrender and we will do everything in order to preserve peace, stability, and independence of my country. And we appreciate your personal support, the support of your government, support of the American people to the Ukrainian people.

Thank you, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you very much.

Q (Inaudible.)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Julie, we completely reject a referendum patched together in a few weeks with Russian military personnel basically taking over Crimea. We reject its legitimacy. It is contrary to international law. It is contrary to the Ukrainian constitution.

I know that we've heard from the Russian Federation this notion that these kinds of decisions are often made in other places, and they’ve even analogized it to Scotland or other situations of that sort. In each of those cases that they’ve cited, decisions were made by a national government through a long, lengthy, deliberative process. It's not something that happens in a few days, and it's not something that happens with an outside army essentially taking over the region.

As you just heard the Prime Minister indicate, the people of Ukraine recognize historic ties with the people of Russia. The Prime Minister you just heard say, repeat what he said often, which is they’re prepared to respect all international treaties and obligations that they are signatories to, including Russian basing rights in Crimea. The issue now is whether or not Russia is able to militarily dominate a region of somebody else’s country, engineer a slapdash referendum, and ignore not only the Ukrainian constitution but a Ukrainian government that includes parties that are historically in opposition with each other -- including, by the way, the party of the previous President.

So we will not recognize, certainly, any referendum that goes forward. My hope is, is that as a consequence of diplomatic efforts over the next several days that there will be a rethinking of the process that's been put forward.

We have already put in place the architecture for us to apply financial and economic consequences to actions that are taken. But our strong preference is to resolve this diplomatically. And as you heard the Prime Minister say, this idea that somehow the Ukrainian people are forced to choose between good relations with the West or good relations with Russia, economic ties with the West or economic ties with Russia, is the kind of zero-sum formulation that in the 21st century, with a highly integrated, global economy, doesn’t make any sense and is not in the interests of the Ukrainian people.

I actually think, in the end, it's not in the interests of Russia either. Russia should be thinking about how can it work with Ukraine to further strengthen its economic ties and trade and exchanges with Europe. That will make Russia stronger, not weaker. But obviously Mr. Putin has some different ideas at this point.

We do not know yet what our diplomatic efforts will yield, but we'll keep on pressing. In the meantime, the main message I want to send is that we are highly supportive of a government in Kyiv that is taking on some very tough decisions, is committed to law and order, inclusivity, committed to the rights of all Ukrainian people, and is committed to fair and free elections that should settle once and for all any questions that there may be about what’s transpired since former President Yanukovych left the country.

And the most important thing to remember is this is up to the Ukrainian people. It's not up to the United States. It's not up to Russia. It's up to the Ukrainian people to make a decision about how they want to live their lives. That's what all of us should support. And certainly that's the reason why I'm so pleased to have the Prime Minister here today.

END 3:46 P.M. EDT

~

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It is a pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Yatsenyuk to the Oval Office, to the White House.

I think all of us have seen the courage of the Ukrainian people in standing up on behalf of democracy and on the desire that I believe is universal for people to be able to determine their own destiny. And we saw in the Maidan how ordinary people from all parts of the country had said that we want a change. And the Prime Minister was part of that process, showed tremendous courage, and upheld the principles of nonviolence throughout the course of events over the last several months.

Террористические акции "мирных" демонстрантов (взгляд из Германии)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4cuJZQdfvo

PRIME MINISTER YATSENYUK: Thank you, Mr. President. And we highly appreciate the support that you have given to the Ukrainian people. And my country feels that the United States stands by the Ukrainian people.

Mr. President, it’s all about the freedom. We fight for our freedom. We fight for our independence. We fight for our sovereignty. And we will never surrender.

~

BBC
11 March 2014
Ukraine crisis: John Kerry rejects Vladimir Putin talks

~

[conniption]

antiwar
(embedded links)

What Color is Ukraine’s ‘Color Revolution’?

Washington whitewashes Ukraine’s brownshirts

by Justin Raimondo
March 12, 2014

As the real nature of Ukraine’s "democratic" and allegedly "pro-Western" opposition becomes all too apparent, the pushback from the regime-change crowd borders on the comic. The War Party is stumbling all over itself in a frantic effort to cover up and deny the frightening provenance of the neo-fascist gang they’ve helped to seize power in Kiev.

First up to bat is Amelia M. Glaser, associate professor of Russian literature at the University of California, San Diego, who avers in the New York Times that the Ukrainian opposition couldn’t possibly be anti-Semitic because, "despite an anguished history":

"The past decade has been a time of significant rapprochement between Ukrainian Jews and their countrymen, particularly among cultural and intellectual figures. The National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy has partnered with the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine to create a Jewish Studies degree program. Outside Ukraine, organizations like the Canada-based Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter Initiative have encouraged dialogue. Scholars of Ukrainian literature, like Myroslav Shkandrij of the University of Manitoba, and of Jewish history like Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern of Northwestern University, have helped to complicate the narrative of animosity, recalling Ukrainian writers’ varied portrayals of Jews as well as Jews who wrote in Ukrainian."

Well, that’s a relief: I was afraid all those white power symbols – including Confederate flags – adorning Kiev city hall and anti-Semitic rhetoric from Svoboda and Right Sector, was a sign of a neo-Nazi resurgence. I wondered whether Svoboda – which idolizes Stepan Bandera, leader of an armed gang that collaborated with the Nazis – and its torchlight parades signaled trouble. Luckily, a bunch of Westernized professors are having a "dialogue" with their Jewish counterparts: in the face of this scholarly group hug, there’s no need to worry about tens of thousands of protesters cheering Oleh Tyahnybok in the Maiden.



Tyahnybok, you’ll recall, was expelled from the Rada, or parliament, for making a speech denouncing the "Jewish Muscovite" conspiracy against Ukraine. According to Glaser, because a bunch of high-toned intellectuals are sitting around talking about Ukrainian literature, there’s no need to even acknowledge this shocking report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the openly anti-Semitic rhetoric routinely voiced by all the major parties of the opposition, not just Svoboda and Right Sector.

If it’s easy to laugh at Glaser’s nearsightedness – she doesn’t mention the eight top-level positions held by Svoboda and Right Sector in the new government – it’s downright painful to contemplate Timothy Snyder’s two-part apologia for the ultra-nationalist coup leaders in the New York Review of Books. Part I emphasized the supposedly "moderate" tenor of the opposition, but recent developments – such as the composition of the new "interim" government – demanded an update. Now he is forced to acknowledge a severely edited version of the truth:

"The Ukrainian far right did play an important part in the revolution. What it did, in going to the barricades, was to liberate itself from the regime of which it had been one of the bulwarks. One of the moral atrocities of the Yanukovych regime was to crush opposition from the center-right, and support opposition from the far right. By imprisoning his major opponents from the legal political parties, most famously Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovych was able to make of democracy a game in which he and the far right were the only players."

That Yanukovich secretly plotted the resurgence of Ukrainian fascism has got to be one of the silliest conspiracy theories ever devised. Tymoshenko was crushed by her own corruption, i.e. outright thievery and worse. Snyder’s whitewashing of Svoboda, however, is particularly noteworthy in its forthright defense of a party with undeniably fascist roots and organizational links. "In fact," he confides:

"Svoboda was a house opposition that, during the revolution, rebelled against its own leadership. Against the wishes of their leaders, the radical youth of Svoboda fought in considerable numbers, alongside of course people of completely different views. They fought and they took risks and they died, sometimes while trying to save others. In the post-revolutionary situation these young men will likely seek new leadership. The leader of Svoboda, according to opinion polls, has little popular support; if he chooses to run for president, which is unlikely, he will lose."

As Svoboda’s prominence and growing power draws increased scrutiny to its origins and ideology, Western cheerleaders for the coup leaders must resort to desperate measures, and I have to admit this is an ingenious one – although perhaps only in the NYRB could one get away with such a word-cloud of obfuscating rhetoric. Svoboda is reborn in the purifying flames of the Revolution, its history, including recent history erased. In a variant of the "look-over-here" strategy, Snyder says "Right Sector is the group to watch," oh but don’t worry because:

"For the time being, its leaders have been very careful, in conversations with both Jews and Russians, to stress that their goal is political and not ethnic or racial. In the days after the revolution they have not caused violence or disorder. On the contrary, the subway runs in Kiev."

Yes, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. One has to wonder about Snyder’s choice of metaphors. He fails to mention that Right Sector Fuehrer Dymtro Yorash has been named deputy head of security, i.e. the police. Nor does he mention the eight prominent positions held by Svoboda and Right Sector in the new government.

Outside the "we are all Ukrainians now" bubble, however, people are sitting up and taking notice. A Reuters piece spotlights the general uneasiness about the exact color of this latest US-sponsored "color revolution":

"When protest leaders in Ukraine helped oust a president widely seen as corrupt, they became heroes of the barricades. But as they take places in the country’s new government, some are facing uncomfortable questions about their own values and associations, not least alleged links to neo-fascist extremists."

Citing Svoboda and Right Sector, the piece reports in some detail the long history of Svoboda as the inheritor of the Banderist tradition, which extols the World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. However, "experts" are supposedly "divided" over Svoboda, with one condemning it as "neo-fascist" and the other explaining the party is "not now" fascist and anti-Semitic. US government officials echo this latter line:

"A U.S. official said one of the main reasons that McCain and other Americans met Tyahnybok, who does not have a position in the new Ukrainian government, was because he headed one of the three principal opposition factions leading the Ukrainian protests. The US government says Svoboda is moving away from extremism and trying to become a more conventional political party.

“’Since entering the Ukrainian Parliament in October 2012, the Svoboda leadership has been working to take their party in a more moderate direction and to become a modern, European mainstream political party,’ a senior US official told Reuters. ‘The leadership has been much more vigilant about expelling or otherwise punishing individual members who engage in xenophobic behavior or rhetoric.’”

The idea that Svoboda is "moving away from extremism" wasn’t demonstrated when the first act of the newly reconstituted Rada passed a Svoboda-supported bill banning the use of Russian as a second official language throughout Ukraine (including Crimea). The legislation was later vetoed by the executive branch. I’m not surprised these US officials won’t talk on the record: it’s a sorry day indeed when defending the entrance of "reformed" neo-Nazis into a US-supported government is all in a day’s work for this administration.

Reuters reports practically everything first reported here, but they get the number of Svoboda members slightly skewed:

"Two of the groups under most scrutiny are Svoboda, whose members hold five senior roles in Ukraine’s new government including the post of deputy prime minister, and Pravyi Sector (Right Sector), whose leader Dmytro Yarosh is now the country’s Deputy Secretary of National Security."

Depending on what you mean by "senior," this downplays the extremists’ strength: the correct number is actually eight, as I pointed out here. In any case, I don’t know which is more alarming: the entrance into government of a party that traces its origins back to a fighting battalion affiliated with Hitler’s SS, or the sight of US officials whitewashing it. They’re flying the Confederate flag and the Celtic cross in Kiev, and the first African American President is hailing them as liberators. That’s one for the history books!

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo

Israel and the Conservative Movement in America – March 9th, 2014
A Monster Reawakens: The Rise of Ukrainian Fascism – March 4th, 2014
Crimea for the Crimeans – March 2nd, 2014
The Worst Snowden Revelation of Them All – February 27th, 2014
A World of Trouble – February 25th, 2014

~

Let Crimea Go!
by Justin Raimondo, March 14, 2014

[conniption]

Member of "Right Sector" - Jung & Naiv in Ukraine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j65dBEWd7go

Published on Mar 14, 2014

Politics for the indifferent. This week from Ukraine. Filmed on Kiev's Maidan: Alexander Kontsevych on why he came from Canada to help Ukraine's "Pravy Sektor" (Right Sector)

[conniption]

Washington's Blog

The Genius of Erasmus

Posted on March 15, 2014
by DavidSwanson

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, who lived from October 27, 1466, to July 12, 1536, faced censorship in his day, and has never been as popular among the rich and powerful as has his contemporary Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli. But at a distance of half a millennium, we ought to be able to judge work on its merit — and we ought to have regular celebrations of Erasmus around the world. Some of his ideas are catching on. His name is familiar in Europe as that of the EU’s student exchange program, named in his honor. We ought perhaps to wonder what oddball ideas these days might catch on in the 2500s — if humanity is around then.

In 1517, Erasmus wrote The Complaint of Peace, in which Peace, speaking in the first-person, complains about how humanity treats her. She claims to offer “the source of all human blessings” and to be scorned by people who “go in quest of evils infinite in number.”

The Complaint is not a contemporary twenty-first century piece of thinking; its outdatedness in any number of areas is immediately obvious. But that’s to be expected in an essay written 500 years ago in Latin for a readership made up of what we would call creationists, astrologers, monarchists, and Eurocentric bigots.

What ought to amaze us is the extent to which the Complaint does address the same troubles we face today and the same bad arguments used today in defense of wars. The Complaint offers rebuttals to such arguments that have never been surpassed. Its text could serve as the basis for dozens of important sermons were some preacher inclined to favor peace on earth.

Peace, in her complaint to us, begins by imagining that humans must be insane to pursue war instead of her. She does not complain out of indignation, but weeps over people who actively bring so much harm on themselves and are incapable of even realizing it. The first step, Erasmus/Peace says, is recognizing that you have a problem. Or rather, “It is one great step to convalescence to know the extent and inveteracy of a disease.”

War was deemed to be the supreme international crime at Nuremberg following World War II, because it includes all other evils within it. Erasmus defined war in that manner a good four-and-a-half centuries earlier, calling war an ocean “of all the united plagues and pestilences in nature.”

Erasmus (in the voice of Peace) notes that many other types of animals do not wage war on their own species. And he notes the universal presence of love and cooperation among humans, animals born unarmed and obliged to find safety in numbers.

Erasmus proposes that we think of ourselves as humans, and thereby become unwilling to make war on any of our brother and sister humans anywhere. Admittedly, 500 years may be a little rushed for some people to catch on to that idea.

On a search for peacefulness, Peace hunts in vain among seemingly polite and amicable princes, among academics whom she finds as corrupted by war as we find ours today, among religious leaders whom she denounces as the hypocrites we’ve come to know so well, and even among secluded monks. Peace looks into family life and into the internal mental life of an individual and finds no devotion to peace.

Erasmus points Christian readers toward the words supporting peace in the New Testament. One might accuse him of hand-picking his quotes and avoiding those that don’t support his goal, except that Erasmus quite openly says that that’s what he’s doing and advises others to do the same. The vengeful God of the Old Testament should be ignored in favor of the peaceful God of Jesus, Erasmus writes. And those who can’t so ignore Him, writes Erasmus, should re-interpret him as peaceful. Let “God of vengeance” mean vengeance “on those sins which rob us of repose.”

Solomon the peace-maker was more worthy than David the war-maker, Peace says, despite David’s war-making being at the bidding of God. So, imagine, Peace argues, if David’s divinely commanded wars rendered him unholy, “what will be the effect of wars of ambition, wars of revenge, and wars of furious anger” — i.e. the wars of Erasmus’ day and our own.

The cause of wars, Erasmus finds, is kings and their war-hungry chickenhawk advisors. The term in Latin is not exactly “chickenhawk” but the meaning comes through. Erasmus advises addressing the causes of war in greed and the pursuit of power, glory, and revenge. And he credits Jesus with having done the same, with having taught love and forgiveness as the basis for peace.

Kings, writes Erasmus, start wars to seize territory when they would be better off improving the territory they have now. Or they start wars out of a personal grudge. Or they start wars to disrupt popular opposition to themselves at home. Such kings, Erasmus writes, should be exiled for life to the remotest islands. And not just the kings but their privileged advisors. Ordinary people don’t create wars, says Peace, those in power impose wars on them.

Powerful people calling themselves Christian have created such a climate, says Peace, that speaking up for Christian forgiveness is taken to be treasonous and evil, while promoting war is understood to be good and loyal and directed at a nation’s happiness. Erasmus has little tolerance for Orwellian propaganda about “supporting the troops” and proposes that clergy refuse to bury in consecrated ground anyone slain in battle:

“The unfeeling mercenary soldier, hired by a few pieces of paltry coin, to do the work of man-butcher, carries before him the standard of the cross; and that very figure becomes the symbol of war, which alone ought to teach every one that looks at it, that war ought to be utterly abolished. What hast thou to do with the cross of Christ on thy banners, thou blood-stained soldier? With such a disposition as thine; with deeds like thine, of robbery and murder, thy proper standard would be a dragon, a tiger, or wolf!”

” . . . If you detest robbery and pillage, remember these are among the duties of war; and that, to learn how to commit them adroitly, is a part of military discipline. Do you shudder at the idea of murder? You cannot require to be told, that to commit it with dispatch, and by wholesale, constitutes the celebrated art of war.”

Peace proposes in her complaint that kings submit their grievances to wise and impartial arbiters, and points out that even if the arbiters are unjust neither side will suffer to remotely the extent that they would from war. Perhaps peace must be purchased — but compare the price to the cost of a war! For the price of destroying a town you could have built one, Peace says.

For arbitration to replace war, Peace says, we will need better kings and better courtiers. You can’t get any more timely and relevant than that.

[conniption]

MoA

March 16, 2014

Ukraine: U.S. Takes Off-Ramp, Agrees To Russian Demands

There was another phone call today between Secretary of State Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The call came after a strategy meeting on Ukraine in the White House. During the call Kerry agreed to Russian demands for a federalization of the Ukraine in which the federal states will have a strong autonomy against a central government in a finlandized Ukraine. Putin had offered this "off-ramp" from the escalation and Obama has taken it.

The Russian announcement:

Lavrov, Kerry agree to work on constitutional reform in Ukraine: Russian ministry

(Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed on Sunday to seek a solution to crisis in Ukraine by pushing for constitutional reforms there, the Russian foreign ministry said.

It did not go into details on the kind of reforms needed except to say they should come "in a generally acceptable form and while taking into the account the interests of all regions of Ukraine".
...
"Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov and John Kerry agreed to continue work to find a resolution on Ukraine through a speedy launch of constitutional reform with the support of international community," the ministry said in a statement.

The idea of "constitutional reform" and the "interests of all regions" is from the Russians as documented in this Russian" non-paper".

The non-paper describes the process of getting to a new Ukrainian constitution and sets some parameters for it. Russian will be again official language next to Ukraine, the regions will have high autonomy, there will be no interferences in church affairs and the Ukraine will stay politically and militarily neutral. Any autonomy decision by the Crimea would be accepted. This all would be guaranteed by a "Support Group for Ukraine" consisting of the US, EU and Russia and would be cemented in an UN Security Council resolution.

It seems that Kerry and Obama have largely accepted these parameters. They are now, of course, selling this solution as their own which is, as the "non-paper" proves, inconsistent with the reality.

Here is Kerry now suddenly "urging Russia" to accept the conditions Russia had demanded and which Kerry never mentioned before:

Secretary of State John Kerry called on Moscow to return its troops in Crimea to their bases, pull back forces from the Ukraine border, halt incitement in eastern Ukraine and support the political reforms in Ukraine that would protect ethnic Russians, Russian speakers and others in the former Soviet Republic that Russia says it is concerned about.

In a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, their second since unsuccessful face-to-face talks on Friday in London, Kerry urged Russia "to support efforts by Ukrainians across the spectrum to address power sharing and decentralization through a constitutional reform process that is broadly inclusive and protects the rights of minorities," the State Department said.

Obama has given up. His empty threats had now worked and he now has largely accepted the Russian conditions for the way out of the crisis.

The U.S. plot to snatch the Ukraine from Russia and to integrate it into NATO and the EU seems to have failed. Russia taking Crimea and having 93% of the voters there agree to join Russia has made the main objective of the U.S. plans, to kick the Russians out of Sevastopol and thereby out of the Middle East, impossible.

The Russian (non public) threat to also immediately take the eastern and southern provinces from the Ukraine has pushed the U.S. into agreeing to the Russian conditions mentioned above. The only alternative to that would be a military confrontation which the U.S. and Europeans are not willing to risk. Despite the anti-Russian campaign in the media a majority of U.S. people as well as EU folks are against any such confrontation. In the end the U.S. never held the cards it needed to win this game.

Should all go well and a new Ukrainian constitution fit the Russian conditions the "west" may in the future well be allowed to pay for the monthly bills Gazprom will keep sending to Kiev.

It will take some time to implement all of this. What dirty tricks will the neocons in Washington now try to prevent this peaceful outcome?

comments 84

~

MoA

March 16, 2014
Ukraine: Vitaly And Samantha

Samantha protesting Vitaly's booking for the joint Crimea vacation? I don't know.

How about some funny caption for the pic.



comments 61

[seemslikeadream]

Crimea Vote provokes fear of Domino Effect in Eurasia: Turkish FM
By Juan Cole | Mar. 17, 2014 |

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday warned that Crimea’s referendum on seceding from Ukraine pose the threat of a “domino effect” in Eurasia.
Will Russia’s rush to referendum and the outcome affect other populations who want to secede, throughout the world? Will it destabilize the current world order?
Davutoglu likely had the Kurdish issue in mind. The some 2 million Kurds in northeast Syria have de facto seceded from Syria, and have fought off both regime troops and the guerrillas of the extremist Sunni Arab al-Qaeda affiliates. Their de facto secession has disturbed Turkey, which has a big Kurdish population of its own in the southeast, and which has fought Kurdish separatist guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) for decades.
The Kurds in northern Iraq likewise have a semi-autonomous statelet; Turkey now has good relations with that enclave, but there have been tension in the past, and Turkey certainly doesn’t want the Iraq model of ethnic conflict and separatism to spread to Turkey.
Beyond the Kurdish issue, there is a sense in which the Sunni Arab cities of Falluja and Ramadi in Iraq have de facto seceded, under the leadership of the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Shiite-dominated Iraqi army is probably strong enough to take those cities back for the central government, but Sunni Arab grievances against the Center are growing.
In Europe, secessionists in Scotland and Spain’s Catalonia will likely take hope from Crimea’s secession vote. The Spanish central government will be upset (it still has not recognized Kosovo). To be fair, the Catalan leader was careful to distinguish his province’s aspirations from the events in Crimea, underlining that the elements of coercion and violence visible in the latter are absent in Catalonia.
Even in Ukraine itself, some activists in the East of the country where there are substantial numbers of Russian-speakers, want the same deal Crimea got. If that process, of yet another partition, goes forward American-Russian relations will be deeply harmed.
One thing is certain: The EU rashness in making Urkaine choose between it and Russia; and the Russian boldness in arranging for Crimea to be detached from Ukraine, have spread instability not only in Ukraine but throughout the region.

[seemslikeadream]

MARCH 18, 2014

Challenging the Narrative of U.S. Exports As Energy Weapons
ExxonMobil, Russia and Ukraine
by STEVE HORN
In a long-awaited moment in a hotly contested zone currently occupied by the Russian military, Ukraine’s citizens living in the peninsula of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to become part of Russia.

Responding to the referendum, President Barack Obama and numerous U.S. officials rejected the results out of hand and the Obama Administration has confirmed he will authorize economic sanctions against high-ranking Russian officials.

“As I told President Putin yesterday, the referendum in Crimea was a clear violation of Ukrainian constitutions and international law and it will not be recognized by the international community,” Obama said in a press briefing. “Today I am announcing a series of measures that will continue to increase the cost on Russia and those responsible for what is happening in Ukraine.”

But even before the vote and issuing of sanctions, numerous key U.S. officials hyped the need to expedite U.S. oil and gas exports to fend off Europe’s reliance on importing Russia’s gas bounty. In short, gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is increasingly seen as a “geopolitical tool” for U.S. power-brokers, as The New York Times explained.

Perhaps responding to the repeated calls to use gas as a “diplomatic tool,” the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced it will sell 5 million barrels of oil from the seldom-tapped Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Both theWhite House and DOE deny the decision had anything to do with the situation in Ukraine.

Yet even as some say we are witnessing the beginning of a “new cold war,” few have discussed the ties binding major U.S. oil and gas companies with Russian state oil and gas companies.

The ties that bind, as well as other real logistical and economic issues complicate the narrative of exports as an “energy weapon.”

The situation in Ukraine is a simple one at face value, at least from an energy perspective.

“Control of resources and dependence on other countries is a central theme connecting the longstanding tension between Russia and Ukraine and potential actions taken by the rest of the world as the crisis escalates,” ThinkProgress explained in a recent article. “Ukraine is overwhelmingly dependent on Russia for natural gas, relying on its neighbor for 60 to 70 percent of its natural gas needs.”

At the same time, Europe also largely depends on Ukraine as a key thoroughfare for imports of Russian gas via pipelines.

“The country is crossed by a network of Soviet-era pipelines that carry Russian natural gas to many European Union member states and beyond; more than a quarter of the EU’s total gas needs were met by Russian gas, and some 80% of it came via Ukrainian pipelines,” explained The Guardian.

Given the circumstances, weaning EU countries off Russian gas seems a no-brainer at face value. Which is why it’s important to use the brain and look beneath the surface.

ExxonMobil and Rosneft

The U.S. and Russian oil and gas industries can best be described as “frenemies.” Case in point: the tight-knit relationship between U.S. multinational petrochemical giant ExxonMobil and Russian state-owned multinational petrochemical giant Rosneft.

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson sung praises about his company’s relationship with Rosneft during a June 2012 meeting with Vladimir Putin.

“I’m pleased that you were here to be part of the signing today, and very much appreciate the strong support and encouragement you have provided to our partnership,” said Tillerson. “[N]othing strengthens relationships between countries better than business enterprise.”

A year later, in June 2013, Putin awarded ExxonMobil an Order of Friendship. But what does the friendship entail?

In 2012, ExxonMobil and Rosneft signed an agreement ”to share technology and expertise” with one another. Some of the details:

-Forming of a joint venture to explore offshore oil and gas in the Kara Sea and the Black Sea

-Rosneft acquiring a 30 percent stake in 20 ExxonMobil-owned offshore oil and gas blocks in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The 20 blocks have a total area of approximately 111,600 acres (450 square kilometers) in water depths ranging between 2,100 and 6,800 feet (640 and 2,070 meters),” explained a Rosneft press release.

Rosneft obtained a 30 percent stake in ExxonMobil’s share in the La Escalera Ranch project in the Permian Basin Shale in West Texas. It also gained a 30 percent stake in a portion of ExxonMobil’s stake in Alberta’s Cardium Shale formation.

In 2013, ExxonMobil and Rosneft announced a partnership to conquer the Arctic for oil and gas, creating the Arctic Research and Design Center for Continental Shelf Development.

ExxonMobil put down the first $200 million for the initial research and development work, while Rosneft threw down $250 million later. Officially, Rosneft owns 66.67 percent of the venture and ExxonMobil owns 33.33 percent.

“[S]taff will be located with the Rosneft and ExxonMobil joint venture teams in Moscow to promote resource efficiency and interaction between technical and management staffs,” explained a press release. “The [Arctic Research Center] initially will be staffed with experts from ExxonMobil and Rosneft.”

Also part of the 2013 deal, ExxonMobil gave Rosneft a 25 percent stake inAlaska’s Point Thomson natural gas field. Further, the two companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding to study the possibility of jointly building a LNG (liquefied natural gas) facility in the Russia’s far east.

Then at the end of 2013, ExxonMobil and Rosneft inked a deal to start a pilot project for tight oil reserves development in Western Siberia’s shale basins. Rosneft owns a 51 percent stake, ExxonMobil a 49 percent stake.

Despite the myriad ties to Russia, the DOE announced Exxon was one of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve buyers of 500,000 barrels of the five million barrels of oil the DOE offered up for sale.

Tillerson recently said the ongoing events in Crimea and Ukraine at-large will have no expected impact on his company’s partnerships with Rosneft.

“There has been no impact on any of our plans or activities at this point, nor would I expect there to be any, barring governments taking steps that are beyond our control,” he said at the company’s recent annual meeting, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. “We don’t see any new challenges out of the current situation.”

“Not a U.S. Company”

In Steve Coll‘s book “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” he documents that Lee Raymond — former CEO of ExxonMobil from 1993-2005 — was asked if his company would build more U.S. refineries to fend off gasoline shortages.

Raymond’s reply: “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.”

So what does this all mean when looked at in aggregate?

As The Washington Monthly put it, “The clout, reach, and mission of ExxonMobil mean that it runs what amounts to its own foreign policy, raising the question of how that policy relates to the foreign policy of the United States.”

And ExxonMobil is not alone in this. ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Shell also have their own unique deals with Russia. BP operated in Russia for years until selling off its stake to Rosneft in 2012.

Climate Trump Card

Exciting as the energy geopolitics stand-off is to follow from afar, the climate disruption implications of it serve as the ultimate trump card.

“Sadly, few seem to care about diminishing the threat posed by climate change, since it has become increasingly clear that LNG would make things worse,” wrote ClimateProgress Editor Joe Romm in a March 12 article.

“First, natural gas is mostly methane, (CH4), a super-potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period. So even small leaks in the natural gas production and delivery system can have a large climate impact.”

It appears the U.S. push to export LNG has trumped climate change concerns, with export facilities in Freeport, Texas; Elba Island, Georgia; and Lusby, Maryland all barreling ahead through the permitting process.

So even if the U.S. (and/or ExxonMobil) comes out ahead in this energy-centric geopolitical brouhaha, we still all end up losing in the end.

[conniption]

The Raccoon Arms
(more embedded links at source)

The Ukraine – the Pain and the Gain.

by Anna Raccoon on March 28, 2014

Down here on planet Sky TV the new cold war is going well. Macho Generals are booming across the airwaves of the need for more money to be sent their way to combat ‘the re-emergence of state threats that we may have been tempted to think had diminished with the end of the Cold War’; whereas up above us in the celestial Sky, the entente cordiale continues unabated, as American astronauts cheerfully stump up the $71 million ticket to put their life in the hands of the Russian Bear and blast off into space aboard the Russian made Soyuz-FG rocket. The media seem strangely reluctant to mention this. More surprisingly, they do manage an oblique dig that perhaps the Ukrainians are not all rosy cheeked, hearty peasants who must be protected from those dreadful Russians – FIFA is still having an attack of the vapours over the Ukrainian pro-Nazi banners on display in San Merino, and has insisted that the nasty Ukrainians be hidden from the view of decent people when next they play those nice Russians…it’s a confusing story.

To read the commentary in the western media, one must believe that the duly elected, but inherently corrupt, government of the Ukraine was overthrown by a spontaneous revolt of the freedom-seeking Ukrainian people. Russia apparently has ‘expansionist desires to recreate a Russian empire’. Allegedly by forcibly invading and taking possession of Western Ukraine; an agricultural area of high unemployment, unsupportable civl debt, civil unrest between the pro-Nazi’s that so exercise FIFA and the mostly Muslim population who take a light hearted view of jihad, and who have never forgiven the Russians for the years of starvation during the Stalin era. What first attracted you to the Western Ukraine, Mr Russian Bear? After Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, one would suspect the answer was ‘not a lot’.

When Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the reunification of Germany, a cultural icon in the post ‘ich bin ein Berliner‘ Kennedy era, and also threw in the dissolution of the Warsaw pact, and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from eastern Europe for good measure, it was on the understanding that neither NATO, nor the EU would attempt to move eastward. On Tuesday I was querying why the EU, in the form of Ms Ashton had deliberately broken that memorandum of understanding by using economic coercion to subordinate Ukraine to their own interest – offering the Ukrainians 11 Billion to ‘come on over’ to the EU.

Today I want to look at NATO, or rather Uncle Sam’s pocket book that is behind NATO, to see whether they were the hand operating Ms Ashton from behind…I am indebted to the work of an independent journalist by the name of Steve Weissman who has been remarkably dogged in uncovering the forces behind the media’s universal belief that this is all the fault of those nasty Russians. Steve doesn’t work for the mainstream media – but then his interest in establishing facts probably already told you that.

Around the time that the Russian speaking multi-billionaire gas and oil oligarch Yulia Tymoshenko was being repackaged into an all singing, all dancing, innocent Ukrainian girl-child, perfect for the western media as an icon of naïve peasantry that the emotional American public would support and finance to overthrow the shackles of Russian repression – other shadowy US departments were working out how best to bring this revamped image of pro-Nazi’s and multi-billionaire oligarchs to the fore in the media.

Social media was the new gizmo for yer forward thinking rainbow coalition of revolutions. Yellow, Pink, Orange, will we have Taupe? Very popular colour I am told. Perhaps Magnolia for the British revolution, if it ever occurs. I digress.

What the Ukrainians peasants needed was that all American invention, the Internet, and Twitter, and Blackberries and everything like that. It must have sounded so logical in the salons of Texas and California. They dug deep in their pockets. With a $10,000 here and a $50,000 there, in no time at all they had raised astounding sums – far outstripping the generous donations to rebuild clitorises in Burkina Faso – but it was not all private money. Weissman has systematically traced all the money that was flowing into ‘bringing Ukraine into the 21st century’ and teaching them the wonders of the Internet. I do commend the full and lengthy article to you, when you have time.

What particularly caught my eye, was the millions, many millions that was being poured into teaching these ‘poor peasants’ about the Internet, that was coming, directly or indirectly, from the US government. For if anybody knew that actually nobody needed to teach the Ukrainians anything at all about the Internet and how to use it, it was the US Government.

You see, when the Internet was barely a twinkle in many a back bedroom, the Ukrainians had smartly stepped aboard the digital highway. The Ukrainian mafia had realised that its ability to put stranger in touch with stranger anonymously held all sorts of possibilities for your criminal mind – and pornography occurred to them long before any thoughts of fomenting revolutions of any other shade. You could call it the ‘blue’ revolution. The Ukrainians practically invented ‘kiddy porn’, certainly of the digital variety.

Back in 2001, Kiev parents were sending their children – and they were children, some as young as 8 – off to the ‘Ukrainian Angels Studio’ in Kiev to be photographed in a variety of indecent poses, for mass distribution on the Internet. They were getting paid between $10 to $40 for a photo session:

A spokesman for the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry said that the majority of girls’ parents knew, or had a suspicion of their children’s “work,” although no one went to the police to report the crime, Interfax (Pravda) said.

Nice, huh? The quality and quantity of material from that studio was unmatched, and soon it became the most popular child erotica website in the world. The site brought in several hundred thousand dollars in profit during the 3 years it was in service. Although two people connected to the studio were arrested, the parents refused to press charges and they were released. It didn’t end there. Ukrainians spread out throughout the western world, carrying their knowledge of the Internet and how to use it to create a social revolution, in child pornography at least, to all corners of the profitable western world.

A few months ago, Ukrainian Maksym Shynkarenko found himself with a 30 year sentence in New Jersey for running a derivative of that original Kiev business, as did a host of New Jersey residents who had accessed the site. In Canada, a local man, Barry Jefferson, pleaded guilty to trading 1,583 images of children in sexual poses many of which were traced back to those original Ukrainian Kiev ‘chickens’. He got 12 months. The most astounding result was in what would eventually be known as ‘Operation Joint Hammer’, still tracking down copies of the photographs of those Ukrainian children – they turned up a list of 5o,000 subscribers for this sort of material, spread across 28 countries – amongst which were some 5,000 American subscribers.

And amongst those were 264 employees of those same US departments of government and defence that were busy raising money for the poor uneducated Ukrainians who needed to know how to use the Internet…does the left hand ever talk to the right hand?

So the result of all the ‘high level diplomacy’ and ‘skilled negotiations’ and billions employed in funding this revolution is that we get the most Internet savvy child porn purveyors in history, footballer supporters so racist their team can’t be allowed to show their face, several million uneducated unemployed agricultural workers, a population that has been groomed to believe that there will be no austerity for them, and its only costing us 11 billion. Meanwhile the Americans hand over $71 million a throw to enable them to continue to foster the idea that they can afford to be in the ‘space race’.

I don’t think the Russian Bear is growling at us at all – I think that rumble you can hear is possibly him laughing his socks off.

{ 11 comments )

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The Raccoon Arms

The Kiev Chickens Coming Home to Roost.

by Anna Raccoon on March 26, 2014

Ukraine was once the 3rd largest bearer of nuclear weapons in the World, after the U.S. and Russia. This all changed with an agreement to scrap all its nuclear weapons in 1992. By 1996 Ukraine was free from nuclear weapons. Let us not forget that those weapons were not just held in the Ukraine, they were made in the Ukraine, by Ukrainians. Ipso, the technology is still there. Ukraine still has fifteen operating nuclear reactors, which contribute half the country’s electricity. Chernobyl was a mere 60 miles from Kiev. When Gorbachov signalled the end of the cold war, the Ukraine had some 1,900 nuclear warheads – stored at the Krasnokamensk military base in the Crimea.

Would any of you like to hazard a guess as to how long it would take ‘American thugs’ to ‘storm’ the ‘British base’ at Lakenheath or Mildenhall, in the event of a rag tag and bobtail group of demonstrators installing a disorganised government in Birmingham composed of neo-communists supported by Moscow? The Americans also have a long-standing agreement, similar in every way to the agreement the Russians had happily been abiding by with their Ukrainian partners, until the fluffy-wuffy EU in the form of Catherine Ashton decided that they would try a bit of expansionist aggression.

Suitably poked, and threatened with finding themselves cut off from access to the black sea and deprived of their military bases in an area which is strongly Russian; Russian speaking, Russian supporting, and mostly Russian fully employed, The Russian population held a referendum and decided that their economic interests were best nurtured by Russia. This isn’t the sort of ‘democratic decision’ that the EU approves of. Ms Ashton and her backers have retired clutching ‘victim’ status. ‘Ooh those evil Russians wouldn’t let us take their toys away from them’ – No! They wouldn’t – and whatever gave you the half-baked idea that they would?

There is a lot of talk recently that Russia has ‘violated the Budapest agreement’ under which Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom promised each other, reasonably faithfully, but not giving any guarantees, that they would never threaten or use force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. They also pledged that none of them would ever use economic coercion to subordinate Ukraine to their own interest.

That means you, Ms Ashton, offering to give Ukraine 11 billion to bail out their bankrupt country, if they would just join your blasted EU. That means you William Hague, supporting demonstrators against a democratically elected government.

The agreement merely requires that the signatories would ‘consult in the event a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.’

So how are we doing, consulting wise? So far we’ve kicked Russia out of the G8 meeting, turning it into the G7; and we’ve stopped a few Russian oligarchs wives from doing their shopping in London. Scarcely surprising since we were the first to contravene this non-binding agreement of which the western media only seem to be interested in quoting the bit that appears to put Russia in the wrong for ‘using force against the territorial integrity’.

How is Russia doing on this obligation to consult? So far they’ve hung onto their bases and their weapons in the loyal Russian speaking Eastern territory of Crimea, and reluctantly, oh so reluctantly, ‘let go’ of the largely unemployed and bankrupt, to say nothing of heavily indebted, Western part of Ukraine. It must have broken Russian hearts, er, I don’t think so. A western part of Ukraine which is full of a ‘suicidal nationalism‘, with far right nationalists and neo Nazi’s jumping for joy at the idea of the West now ensuring that they have all the money they want, new Mercedes for everyone, and entry into Britain if they need medical attention.

People do realise that Babi Yar, which is credited as the site of the single most obscene act of holocaust in WW2, some 200,000 Jewish and other ‘vermin’ souls sent up in smoke, is in Kiev, don’t they? That the Banderas, supporters of whom – I’m looking at you Julia Tymoshenko – were responsible for the murder of some 500,000 Polish souls. Somehow, the Banderas escaped trial at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity.

“Ukrainian genocide committed against the Poles during World War II surpassed German and Soviet genocide …. [It] was marked by the utmost ruthlessness and barbarity, and … up until the present day, it has been denied or, at best, presented with reminders that all is “relative’ or other such evasions.”

Yet history is being whitewashed in front of our very eyes.

Yesterday, Oleksandr Muzycko, better known by his nom de guerre Sashko Bilyi, a prominent Ukrainian ultra-nationalist who played an active part in the recent anti-government demonstrations, was shot dead in Rivne after opening fire at police during an attempt to arrest him. Ukrainian Police say Muzychko was sought for organised crime links, hooliganism and for threatening public officials. Last month, in a scene captured on video, he assaulted employees at a prosecutor’s office in Rivne, grabbing one man by his tie and beating him.

So, even the Police, now loyal to the new ‘authorities’ accept that this man was a right-wing thug that they were trying to arrest, yet the western media chose to speculate ’that Muzychko had been targeted by Russian special forces in a Mossad-style assassination’.

Why is the west so keen to ratchet up fear of the ‘Russian Bear’? Why are we so keen to hand over 11 Billion in order to inherit the responsibility of millions of unemployed agricultural workers, currently ruled over by a bunch of unelected, murderous, right-wing thugs?

continued

34 comments

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again...RI's other de facto Ukraine thread.. - (most recent post).

[conniption]

MoA

April 14, 2014

Ukraine: Update And Don't Forget The Religious Side

In ten cities in the Donbas region (mostly Donetsk oblast) in Ukraine the important administrative buildings are now in the hands of pro-federalization activists.

A second ultimatum from Kiev against the activists has passed and nothing happened. It had been issued after CIA director Brennan visited Kiev and relayed Obama's orders. This morning the coup-government in Kiev (again) replaced the head of the anti-terror police without giving any reason. We can assume that he did not want or could follow orders to clear the east of Ukraine of protesters. The Defense Minister said that several military units going east were held up by villagers along the roads. Some videos showed artillery and Katusha missile units allegedly moving east. I doubt that those would be used against protesters. One needs infantry to clear those out but I find it unlikely that Kiev will find any regular unit willing to do so.

The coup president became the joke of the day when he asked the UN to join with "peacekeepers" to clear the "terrorists" in eastern Ukrainian cities.

Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov on Monday called for the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping troops in the east of the country, where pro-Russian insurgents have occupied buildings in nearly 10 cities.

In a telephone conversation with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Turchynov suggested that an "anti-terrorist operation" could be conducted jointly by Ukrainian security forces and UN peacekeepers, according to the presidential web site.

The UN Security Council would have agree to such and Russia (and China) would only agree if Russian troops would get the mandate to do so. They also have the advantage of being able to start the job with just a few hours notice .

While the media have said a lot about Russian speaking versus Ukrainian speaking people missing in those reports is another important distinction between east and west Ukraine. The east and south is mostly Russian orthodox while the west Ukraine is catholic. During the recent days several orthodox priests could be seen mingling with the protesters in the east. The difference may not look important for people who have grown up in mostly secular "western" societies. But there are important differences in believes and the ethos of those two churches. Orthodox believe seem stronger and more intense then today's catholicism.

This week, between palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, is the holy week for the orthodox believers. Easter is their highest holiday of the year. Any attack on the east during this week would be seen as an offense against a holy realm and answered with more spirit than usually. Not only from Ukrainians but also from Russians. The miners and steelworkers in the Donbas have yet to come out in great numbers against the Kiev coup government. Any attack now would probably see them react in force. It would likely mean the end for the coup plotters in Kiev.

Posted by b on April 14, 2014 at 02:07 PM

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2 of 41 comments

@all - any comment relating to "zionists" "jews" and the like in this thread will result in the ban of the commentator from this side. I am simply tired of this stupid repetitive stuff.

Posted by: b | Apr 14, 2014 2:15:32 PM | 1

Religion in Ukraine isn't just a matter of Catholics vs. Orthodox. Most of the Ukrainian Catholics are Greek Catholics, who are superficially closer (although aligned with Vatican) to their Orthodox countrymen, except that they have always hated each other with passion. Both the Czarist Russia and USSR had formally banned Greek Catholic (which they never did to the Roman Catholics) and only in the regions that never belonged to the Russian Empire (the Czarist variety) do they have a significant following.

The Orthodox in Ukraine is also divided, with 3 major factions. One is aligned with Moscow. The other two had broken off from Moscow at two different times when an independent Ukraine was created: one in 1921 and the other in 1991 (the first, obviously, had been banned under USSR).

There are conflicting reports on their relative numbers, but the religious affiliation aligns closely with the attitude towards Moscow. The 15% or so who are Greek Catholics intensely despise Russia. The rest are ambivalent towards Russia to various extent--some (Russian Orthodox) are more pro-Russian, while those who are Ukrainian Orthodox (of either faction) are to various degrees, skeptical of Russia but not necessarily hostile in general. If the conflict does become religious in scope, Ukraine likely becomes another Ireland and perhaps Lviv another Belfast.

Posted by: a different anon | Apr 14, 2014 2:25:56 PM 3

[conniption]

RT

Ukraine’s great unraveling, brought to you by corporate America

Robert Bridge has worked as a journalist in Russia since 1998. Formerly the editor-in-chief of The Moscow News, Bridge is the author of the book, “Midnight in the American Empire.”

Published time: April 14, 2014


Kiev on 20 February, 2014 (RIA Novosti / Andrey Stenin)

To the casual consumer of McMedia happy meals, the Ukrainian crisis is a consequence of Russia’s yearning for empire lost, a Nazi-style Anschluss that began with Crimea and will end, judging by the big-font hysteria, somewhere near Alaska.

For the more sober-minded observer, however, whose worldview has not been vandalized by misguided Russophobic inclinations, the reality of the situation is a bit more complicated.

In December 2013, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich made a decision that seems radical only because we have been trained to believe that national indebtedness to foreign institutions is the natural order of things: After telling EU's officials that he intended to sign the European association agreement, Yanukovich sent shock waves across the Western world when he suddenly reversed his decision (Until now, only Iceland has had the courage to say 'no' to western liberal reformers and their massive cash injections since the bottom fell out of the global economy in 2008).

Why the change of heart? Because the now-deposed Ukrainian leader had no desire to sell his proud nation down the river. Yanukovich understood that the harsh austerity measures demanded by the EU-IMF-NATO triumvirate would have served as a final death blow to the Ukrainian people, already suffering from many years of high unemployment and a withering economy.

Yanukovich decided instead to accept a no-strings-attached loan of $15 billion from neighboring Russia - interest-free! Considering the ongoing meltdown of EU member states, most notably in Greece, which continues to stagnate despite a massive $145 billion injection in 2010, Kiev’s volte-face toward Russia was not without merit.

However, that is not the way the Masters of the Western Universe, who wish to control the debt of nations, saw the situation.

No sooner had Yanukovich adjusted his reading glasses to read the fine-print conditions on the EU-IMF agreement, US Senator John McCain was in central Kiev, agitating the local populace with boilerplate promises of a debt-free future while shaking hands and kissing so many babies you’d think he was running for the Ukrainian presidency.

“Ukraine will make Europe better, and Europe will make Ukraine better,” McCain told a confused crowd in Kiev. “We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe.”


John McCain (Allison Shelley / Getty Images / AFP)

Later, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was in Kiev, just as anti-government protests had reached fevered pitch, handing out pastries to Ukraine’s protesters and riot police. While there was no word on the expiration date of the bakery goods, the idea of the American superpower acting self-righteous and charitable in the middle of a foreign nation’s internal crisis – triggered in no small part by Washington’s own manipulations – was unappetizing to say the least.

So how does one explain Washington’s extreme diplomatic overtures in Kiev? Is it simply a case that the United States, as the self-designated champion of human rights and cake distribution, is merely acting as an impartial advocate on behalf of an internal political struggle (with emphasis on the word 'internal')? History would suggest otherwise.

It is no secret that the United States has been angling for a strategic advantage in Eastern Europe since the end of World War II, with special attention focused on strategically important Ukraine, which could serve as a future bridgehead into Central Asia and beyond. In an interview with Kiev’s Weekly Digest (May, 2004) Zbigniew Brzezinski, Washington’s premier adviser on geopolitical strategy, emphasized the importance of Russia's neighbor.

Ukraine “is certainly not a pawn; it may not be a queen, but it certainly is an important element on the chessboard – one of the most important.”

We could probably agree that one does not normally allude to the ultimate game of strategy when discussing democracy and people power. Clearly, Brzezinski and his worn-out chess board was making an unmistakable reference to Ukraine's military importance to the United States. It was not, of course, a call for humanitarian action.

So what conclusion should Russian strategists draw from such analysis, especially as NATO continues its mechanized march toward Russia’s border, and despite pledges made to Moscow following the collapse of the Soviet Union that the military bloc would not “move an inch” beyond Germany?

Reset ‘Nyet’

Washington’s disingenuous approach to the so-called “reset,” an Obama-conceived initiative used to camouflage America’s militaristic designs in the region, was finally revealed by NATO’s blunt refusal to permit Russia's participation in the US missile defense shield project in Eastern Europe – a stone’s throw from the Russian border.

Moscow warned if NATO failed to agree on some sort of mutual agreement with Russia over the ambitious project, which has all the potential to destroy the fragile strategic balance in the region, another arms race could occur on the continent. Yet as incredible as it may seem, NATO seems willing to alienate Russia over an unproven system allegedly designed to neutralize an unproven enemy (Iran) while risking an all-out nuclear-tipped arms race.


Kiev on 20 February, 2014 (RIA Novosti / Andrey Stenin)

Judging by the relative insanity of NATO's decision, which ignores the necessity of bilateral cooperation in the war on terror, to which Russia is certainly no stranger, the only thing the “reset” achieved was to sow dissent and disagreement between the former Cold War foes. The Ukrainian crisis was merely the final straw on the back of an overloaded camel.

However, one nation’s crisis is another corporation’s windfall. Indeed, developments in Ukraine certainly spell big bucks for America’s bloated defense industry, which has used the Ukraine crisis in general, and the Crimean “annexation” in particular, to warn Capitol Hill of Russia’s “return to imperialism.” Never mind that Russia has not violated the territorial integrity of a single foreign country - without being attacked first, as was the case with Georgia - since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“Everybody in the Pentagon and in the defense industry is using the Ukraine crisis as a warning for why the department needs to spend more on military technology,” Loren Thompson, chief operating officer for the Lexington Institute, told AP.

Military advantage, however, is not the only reason for Washington imposing itself on Kiev. To understand the full picture, it is only necessary to consider the corporate circus that US Congress has become, in which the “people’s representatives” now take their marching orders from boardrooms across corporate America.

Consider, for example, efforts by the American Petroleum Institute to take advantage of Kiev’s chaos.

“We’ve just had a consistent drumbeat going since the beginning of last year,” Erik Milito, API’s director of industry operations, told Bloomberg. “We just kept doing it, and this became a more heightened debate during the whole Ukraine situation.”

Milito said the message from API, whose members include the likes of Chevron and Exxon Mobil, was not lost upon Democrat and Republican members of Congress.

“It’s a common thing when there’s a crisis for companies to see opportunity, and they will use advocacy to pursue their interests,” said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington.

This begs the obvious question: Is the United States purposefully provoking crises, like the one presently ripping Ukraine apart by the seams, in order to advance itself not only militarily in the region (after all, EU membership de facto implies NATO membership as well), but to quell the inordinate appetite of American corporations?

Judging by recent revelations on the part of Russia regarding the work of NGOs and particular government agencies, that is a very strong likelihood.

In September 2012, Russia’s Foreign Ministry informed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that, after operating on the territory of Russia for 20 years, it would no longer be welcome.


People walk past the US Embassy in Moscow, the headquarters of US Agency for International Development (USAID ) Russia’s mission (AFP Photo / Kirill Kudryavtsev)

According to the Foreign Ministry, USAID was attempting to manipulate the election processes in the country.

“The character of the agency's work … did not always comply with the declared aims of cooperation in bilateral humanitarian cooperation,” the Foreign Ministry said on its website. “We are talking about issuing grants in an attempt to affect the course of the political processes in the country, including elections at different levels and institutions in civil society."

Russian civil society has become fully mature, the Foreign Ministry said, and did not need any "external direction."

Over the last 20 years, USAID has pumped $1.8 billion into various Ukrainian projects, which its website says help “Ukrainians experience increased political freedoms, stronger transparency guarantees, and more economic and social opportunities.”

How much that massive investment of US taxpayer dollars was used – knowingly or otherwise – to spread the seed of dissent revolution in Ukraine is anybody’s guess. But one thing is certain: the crisis in Ukraine has proven that the American empire is a borderless, virtual construct, which needn’t physically dominate a territory to possess it.

Like a fly-by-night vampire, the EU-IMF-NATO troika only requires an invitation to enter and operate inside of a country before the bloodletting, bank loans and corporate takeovers can begin. Eventually, the debtor country is stuffed into an ill-fitting NATO uniform and becomes a mere shadow of its former self.

Like so many international “patients” that came and went before, Ukraine will never be the same again.

~

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

[Ben D]

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/04/14/russian-jet-makes-multiple-passes-by-us-destroyer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+militarydotcom%2Fdailynews+%28Military.com+News%29

Russian Jet Makes Multiple Passes by US Destroyer


Apr 14, 2014 | by Richard Sisk

A Russian Su-24 fighter jet made multiple low-level passes close to a U.S. destroyer in the Black Sea in the latest "provocation" by Moscow related to the crisis in Ukraine, Pentagon and White House officials said Monday.

The Russian Jet never flew directly over the Arleigh Burke Class destroyer Donald Cook but at one point made a pass at 500 feet within 1,000 yards of the ship, Pentagon officials said.

The Cook did not go to battle stations in the incident that lasted about 90 minutes on Saturday off Romania's coast in the Black Sea. The destroyer later docked at the Romanian port of Constanta.

The Cook was expected to remain in Constanta through Thursday and then participate in training exercises with the Romanian navy, Romanian media reported.

The incident was the latest evidence of Moscow's intentions to destabilize the region and gain sway over eastern Ukraine after annexing the Crimean peninsula, Pentagon and White House officials said.

"We've seen the Russians conduct themselves unprofessionally and in violation of international norms in Ukraine now for several months," said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

The incident with the Donald Cook and other "continued acts of provocation and unprofessionalism do nothing to help de-escalate the situation in Ukraine, which is what we've called on the Russians to do," Warren said.

Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, was scheduled Tuesday to provide the alliance with options for bolstering the defenses of NATO members in Eastern Europe. Breedlove's recommendations could include deploying more U.S. troops to the region and expanding military exercises.

In another sign of heightening tensions, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed that CIA Director John Brennan was in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev over the weekend to consult with authorities there on the pro-Moscow militants who have taken over government offices in eastern Ukraine.

Congressional critics of the Obama administration's response to the Ukraine crisis have repeatedly called for the sharing of intelligence on Russian activities with the struggling new government in Kiev.

Carney also said that President Obama was expected to phone Russian President Vladimir Putin to protest the Cook incident and warn of tougher economic sanctions if Russia fails to pull back the estimated 40,000 troops on Ukraine's borders.

Carney stressed that the faceoff with Russia was not intended to start a new Cold War but "we have profound differences with Russia, and we confront those differences directly."

"I can assure you that Russia's provocations and further transgressions will come with a cost," Carney said, referring to economic sanctions that are being discussed with the European Union.

[conniption]

Consortium News

Ukraine, Through the US Looking Glass
April 16, 2014

Exclusive: As the post-coup regime in Ukraine sends troops and paramilitaries to crack down on ethnic Russian protesters in the east, the U.S. news media continues to feed the American public a steady dose of anti-Russian propaganda, often wrapped in accusations of “Russian propaganda,” Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry

The acting president of the coup regime in Kiev announces that he is ordering an “anti-terrorist” operation against pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine, while his national security chief says he has dispatched right-wing ultranationalist fighters who spearheaded the Feb. 22 coup that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

On Tuesday, Andriy Parubiy, head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, went on Twitter to declare, “Reserve unit of National Guard formed #Maidan Self-defense volunteers was sent to the front line this morning.” Parubiy was referring to the neo-Nazi militias that provided the organized muscle that overthrew Yanukovych, forcing him to flee for his life. Some of these militias have since been incorporated into security forces as “National Guard.”
Ukrainian Secretary for National Security Andriy Parubiy.


Ukrainian Secretary for National Security Andriy Parubiy.

Parubiy himself is a well-known neo-Nazi, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991. The party blended radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy also formed a paramilitary spinoff, the Patriots of Ukraine, and defended the awarding of the title, “Hero of Ukraine,” to World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose own paramilitary forces exterminated thousands of Jews and Poles in pursuit of a racially pure Ukraine.

During the months of protests aimed at overthrowing Yanukovych, Parubiy became the commandant of “Euromaidan,” the name for the Kiev uprising, and – after the Feb. 22 coup – Parubiy was one of four far-right Ukrainian nationalists given control of a ministry, i.e. national security.

But the U.S. press has played down his role because his neo-Nazism conflicts with Official Washington’s narrative that the neo-Nazis played little or no role in the “revolution.” References to neo-Nazis in the “interim government” are dismissed as “Russian propaganda.”

Yet there Parubiy was on Tuesday bragging that some of his neo-Nazi storm troopers – renamed “National Guard” – were now being sicced on rebellious eastern Ukraine as part of the Kiev government’s “anti-terrorist” operation.

The post-coup President Oleksandr Turchynov also warned that Ukraine was confronting a “colossal danger,” but he insisted that the suppression of the pro-Russian protesters would be treated as an “anti-terrorist” operation and not as a “civil war.” Everyone should understand by now that “anti-terror” suggests extrajudicial killings, torture and “counter-terror.”

Yet, with much of the Ukrainian military of dubious loyalty to the coup regime, the dispatch of the neo-Nazi militias from western Ukraine’s Right Sektor and Svoboda parties represents a significant development. Not only do the Ukrainian neo-Nazis consider the ethnic Russians an alien presence, but these right-wing militias are organized to wage street fighting as they did in the February uprising.

Historically, right-wing paramilitaries have played crucial roles in “counter-terror” campaigns around the world. In Central America in the 1980s, for instance, right-wing “death squads” did much of the dirty work for U.S.-backed military regimes as they crushed social protests and guerrilla movements.

The merging of the concept of “anti-terrorism” with right-wing paramilitaries represents a potentially frightening development for the people of eastern Ukraine. And much of this information – about Turchynov’s comments and Parubiy’s tweet – can be found in a New York Times’ dispatch from Ukraine.

Whose Propaganda?

However, on the Times’ front page on Wednesday was a bizarre story by David M. Herszenhorn accusing the Russian government of engaging in a propaganda war by making many of the same points that you could find – albeit without the useful context about Parubiy’s neo-Nazi background – in the same newspaper.

In the article entitled “Russia Is Quick To Bend Truth About Ukraine,” Herszenhorn mocked Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev for making a Facebook posting that “was bleak and full of dread,” including noting that “blood has been spilled in Ukraine again” and adding that “the threat of civil war looms.”

The Times article continued, “He [Medvedev] pleaded with Ukrainians to decide their own future ‘without usurpers, nationalists and bandits, without tanks or armored vehicles – and without secret visits by the C.I.A. director.’ And so began another day of bluster and hyperbole, of the misinformation, exaggerations, conspiracy theories, overheated rhetoric and, occasionally, outright lies about the political crisis in Ukraine that have emanated from the highest echelons of the Kremlin and reverberated on state-controlled Russian television, hour after hour, day after day, week after week.”

This argumentative “news” story spilled from the front page to the top half of an inside page, but Herszenhorn never managed to mention that there was nothing false in what Medvedev said. Indeed, it was the much-maligned Russian press that first reported the secret visit of CIA Director John Brennan to Kiev.

Though the White House has since confirmed that report, Herszenhorn cites Medvedev’s reference to it in the context of “misinformation” and “conspiracy theories.” Nowhere in the long article does the Times inform its readers that, yes, the CIA director did make a secret visit to Ukraine last weekend. Presumably, that reality has now disappeared into the great memory hole along with the on-ground reporting from Feb. 22 about the key role of the neo-Nazi militias.

The neo-Nazis themselves have pretty much disappeared from Official Washington’s narrative, which now usually recounts the coup as simply a case of months of protests followed by Yanukovych’s decision to flee. Only occasionally, often buried deep in news articles with the context removed, can you find admissions of how the neo-Nazis spearheaded the coup.

A Wounded Extremist

For instance, on April 6, the New York Times published a human-interest profile of a Ukrainian named Yuri Marchuk who was wounded in clashes around Kiev’s Maidan square in February. You have to read far into the story to learn that Marchuk was a Svoboda leader from Lviv, which – if you did your own research – you would discover is a neo-Nazi stronghold where Ukrainian nationalists hold torch-light parades in honor of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

Without providing that context, the Times does mention that Lviv militants plundered a government weapons depot and dispatched 600 militants a day to do battle in Kiev. Marchuk also described how these well-organized militants, consisting of paramilitary brigades of 100 fighters each, launched the fateful attack against the police on Feb. 20, the battle where Marchuk was wounded and where the death toll suddenly spiked into scores of protesters and about a dozen police.

Marchuk later said he visited his comrades at the occupied City Hall. What the Times doesn’t mention is that City Hall was festooned with Nazi banners and even a Confederate battle flag as a tribute to white supremacy.

The Times touched on the inconvenient truth of the neo-Nazis again on April 12 in an article about the mysterious death of neo-Nazi leader Oleksandr Muzychko, who was killed during a shootout with police on March 24. The article quoted a local Right Sektor leader, Roman Koval, explaining the crucial role of his organization in carrying out the anti-Yanukovych coup.

“Ukraine’s February revolution, said Mr. Koval, would never have happened without Right Sector and other militant groups,” the Times wrote. Yet, that reality – though actually reported in the New York Times – has now become “Russian propaganda,” according to the New York Times.

This upside-down American narrative also ignores the well-documented interference of prominent U.S. officials in stirring up the protesters in Kiev, which is located in the western part of Ukraine and is thus more anti-Russian than eastern Ukraine where many ethnic Russians live and where Yanukovych had his political base.

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland was a cheerleader for the uprising, reminding Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations,” discussing who should replace Yanukovych (her choice, Arseniy Yatsenyuk became the new prime minister), and literally passing out cookies to the protesters in the Maidan. (Nuland is married to neoconservative superstar Robert Kagan, a founder of the Project for the New American Century.)

During the protests, neocon Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, took the stage with leaders of Svoboda – surrounded by banners honoring Stepan Bandera – and urged on the protesters. Even before the demonstrations began, prominent neocon Carl Gershman, president of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, had dubbed Ukraine “the biggest prize.” [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “What’s the Matter with John Kerry?”]

Indeed, in my four-plus decades in journalism, I have never seen a more thoroughly biased and misleading performance by the major U.S. news media. Even during the days of Ronald Reagan – when much of the government’s modern propaganda structure was created – there was more independence in major news outlets. There were media stampedes off the reality cliff during George H.W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War and George W. Bush’s Iraq War, both of which were marked by demonstrably false claims that were readily swallowed by the big U.S. news outlets.

But there is something utterly Orwellian in the current coverage of the Ukraine crisis, including accusing others of “propaganda” when their accounts – though surely not perfect – are much more honest and more accurate than what the U.S. press corps has been producing.

There’s also the added risk that this latest failure by the U.S. press corps is occurring on the border of Russia, a nuclear-armed state that – along with the United States – could exterminate all life on the planet. The biased U.S. news coverage is now feeding into political demands to send U.S. military aid to Ukraine’s coup regime.

The casualness of this propaganda – as it spreads across the U.S. media spectrum from Fox News to MSNBC, from the Washington Post to the New York Times – is not just wretched journalism but it is reckless malfeasance jeopardizing the lives of many Ukrainians and the future of the planet.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

[conniption]

Antiwar

The Strangelove Effect – Or How We Are Hoodwinked Into Accepting a New World War

by John Pilger
April 19, 2014

I watched Dr. Strangelove the other day. I have seen it perhaps a dozen times; it makes sense of senseless news. When Major T.J. “King” Kong goes “toe to toe with the Rooskies” and flies his rogue B52 nuclear bomber to a target in Russia, it’s left to General “Buck” Turgidson to reassure the President. Strike first, says the general, and “you got no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops.”

President Merkin Muffley: “I will not go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler.”

General Turgidson: “Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people than with your image in the history books.”

The genius of Stanley Kubrick’s film is that it accurately represents the cold war’s lunacy and dangers. Most of the characters are based on real people and real maniacs. There is no equivalent to Strangelove today, because popular culture is directed almost entirely at our interior lives, as if identity is the moral zeitgeist and true satire is redundant; yet the dangers are the same. The nuclear clock has remained at five minutes to midnight; the same false flags are hoisted above the same targets by the same “invisible government”, as Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations, described modern propaganda.

In 1964, the year Strangelove was made, “the missile gap” was the false flag. In order to build more and bigger nuclear weapons and pursue an undeclared policy of domination, President John Kennedy approved the CIA’s propaganda that the Soviet Union was well ahead of the US in the production of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. This filled front pages as the “Russian threat”. In fact, the Americans were so far ahead in the production of ICBMs, the Russians never approached them. The cold war was based largely on this lie.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its “NATO Enlargement Project”. Reneging a US promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east”, NATO has all but taken over eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucuses, NATO’s military buildup is the most extensive since the second world war.

In February, the United States mounted one of its proxy “color” coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No Western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the invasion of their country by Hitler’s Nazis, who were supported by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the UPA, responsible for numerous Jewish and Polish massacres. The UPA was the military wing, inspiring today’s Svoboda party.

Since Washington’s putsch in Kiev – and Moscow’s inevitable response in Russian Crimea, to protect its Black Sea Fleet – the provocation and isolation of Russia have been inverted in the news to the “Russian threat”. This is fossilized propaganda. The US Air Force general who runs NATO forces in Europe – General Breedlove, no less – claimed more than two weeks ago to have pictures showing 40,000 Russian troops “massing” on the border with Ukraine. So did Colin Powell claim to have pictures of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What is certain is that Obama’s rapacious, reckless coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap.

Following a 13-year rampage that began in stricken Afghanistan well after Osama bin Laden had fled, then destroyed Iraq beneath a false flag, then invented a “nuclear rogue” in Iran, dispatched Libya to a Hobbesian anarchy and backed jihadists in Syria, the US finally has a new cold war to supplement its worldwide campaign of murder and terror by drone.

A NATO Membership Action Plan or MAP – straight from the war room of Strangelove – is General Breedlove’s gift to the new dictatorship in Ukraine. “Rapid Trident” will put US troops on Ukraine’s Russian border and “Sea Breeze” will put US warships within sight of Russian ports. At the same time, NATO war games throughout eastern Europe are designed to intimidate Russia. Imagine the response if this madness was reversed and happened on America’s borders. Cue General “Buck” Turgidson.

And there is China. On 24 April, President Obama will begin a tour of Asia to promote his “Pivot to China”. The aim is to convince his “allies” in the region, principally Japan, to re-arm and prepare for the eventual possibility of war with China. By 2020, almost two-thirds of all US naval forces in the world will be transferred to the Asia-Pacific area. This is the greatest military concentration in that vast region since the second world war.

In an arc extending from Australia to Japan, China will face US missiles and nuclear-armed bombers. A strategic naval base is being built on the Korean island of Jeju less than 400 miles from the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai and the industrial heartland of the only country whose economic power is likely to surpass that of the US. Obama’s “pivot” is designed to undermine China’s influence in its region. It is as if world war has begun by other means.

This is not a Strangelove fantasy. Obama’s defense secretary, Charles “Chuck” Hagel, was in Beijing last week to deliver a menacing warning that China, like Russia, could face isolation and war if it did not bow to US demands. He compared the annexation of Crimea with China’s complex territorial dispute with Japan over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. “You cannot go around the world,” said Hagel with a straight face, “and violate the sovereignty of nations by force, coercion or intimidation”. As for America’s massive movement of naval forces and nuclear weapons to Asia, that is “a sign of the humanitarian assistance the US military can provide”.

Obama is currently seeking a greater budget for nuclear weapons than the historical peak during the cold war, the era of Strangelove. The United States is pursuing its longstanding ambition to dominate the Eurasian landmass, stretching from China to Europe: a “manifest destiny” made right by might.
_______

Read more by John Pilger
‘Good’ War, ‘Bad’ War – February 17th, 2014
The Truth About the Criminal Bloodbath in Iraq Can’t Be ‘Countered’ Indefinitely – February 9th, 2014
Is The Media Now Just Another Word for ‘Control’? – January 5th, 2014
From Hiroshima to Syria, the Enemy Whose Name We Dare Not Speak – September 10th, 2013
The Courage of Bradley Manning Will Inspire Others To Seize Their Moment of Truth – August 7th, 2013

[conniption]

Sergey Lavrov gives interview to "Russia Today" (engl.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3FihkBjbms
~
Published on Apr 23, 2014

Интервью Министра иностранных дел России С.В.Лаврова телеканалу "Russia Today", Москва, 23 апреля 2014 года

Сайт МИД РФ http://www.mid.ru

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