Who was funding the 70% or so of the Ukrainian opposition which was not far-right?
Because whoever was funding them probably can stake a claim to being Least Fascist, no?
Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by FourthBase » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:48 am
by kool maudit » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:50 am
FourthBase » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:48 am wrote:Who was funding the 70% or so of the Ukrainian opposition which was not far-right?
Because whoever was funding them probably can stake a claim to being Least Fascist, no?
by seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:01 pm
WEEKEND EDITION FEB 28-MAR 02, 2014
The Coup in Ukraine
Obama’s Dumbest Plan Yet
by MIKE WHITNEY
“Washington and Brussels … used a Nazi coup, carried out by insurgents, terrorists and politicians of Euromaidan to serve the geopolitical interests of the West.” — Natalia Vitrenko, The Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine
The United States helped defeat Nazism in World War 2. Obama helped bring it back.
As you probably know by now, Obama and Co. have ousted Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, with the help of ultra-right, paramilitary, neo-Nazi gangs who seized and burned government offices, killed riot police, and spread mayhem and terror across the country. These are America’s new allies in the Great Game, the grand plan to “pivot to Asia” by pushing further eastward, toppling peaceful governments, securing vital pipeline corridors, accessing scarce oil and natural gas reserves and dismantling the Russian Federation consistent with the strategy proposed by geopolitical mastermind, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski’s magnum opus–”The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and it’s Geostrategic Imperatives” has become the Mein Kampf for aspiring western imperialists. It provides the basic blueprint for establishing US military-political-economic hegemony in the century’s most promising and prosperous region, Asia. In an article in Foreign Affairs Brzezinski laid out his ideas about neutralizing Russia by splitting the country into smaller parts, thus, allowing the US to maintain its dominant role in the region without threat of challenge or interference. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“Given (Russia’s) size and diversity, a decentralized political system and free-market economics would be most likely to unleash the creative potential of the Russian people and Russia’s vast natural resources. A loosely confederated Russia — composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic — would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations with its neighbors. Each of the confederated entitles would be able to tap its local creative potential, stifled for centuries by Moscow’s heavy bureaucratic hand. In turn, a decentralized Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization.” (Zbigniew Brzezinski,“A Geostrategy for Eurasia”)
Moscow is keenly aware of Washington’s divide and conquer strategy, but has downplayed the issue in order to avoid a confrontation. The US-backed coup in Ukraine means that that option is no longer feasible. Russia will have to respond to a provocation that threatens both its security and vital interests. Early reports suggest that Putin has already mobilized troops to the East and –according to Reuters “put fighter jets along its western borders on combat alert.” Here’s more from Reuters:
“The United States says any Russian military action would be a grave mistake. But Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Moscow would defend the rights of its compatriots and react without compromise to any violation of those rights.” (Reuters)
There’s going to be a confrontation, it’s just a matter of whether the fighting will escalate or not.
In order to topple Yanukovych, the US had to tacitly support fanatical groups of neo-Nazi thugs and anti-Semites. And, even though “Interim Ukrainian President Oleksander Tuchynov has pledged to do everything in his power to protect the country’s Jewish community”; reports on the ground are not so encouraging. Here’s an excerpt from a statement by Natalia Vitrenko, of The Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine that suggests the situation is much worse than what is being reported in the news:
“Across the country… People are being beaten and stoned, while undesirable members of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are subject to mass intimidation and local officials see their families and children targeted by death threats if they do not support the installation of this new political power. The new Ukrainian authorities are massively burning the offices of political parties they do not like, and have publicly announced the threat of criminal prosecution and prohibition of political parties and public organizations that do not share the ideology and goals of the new regime.” (“USA and EU Are Erecting a Nazi Regime on Ukrainian Territory”, Natalia Vitrenko)
Earlier in the week, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that a Ukranian synagogue had been firebombed although the “Molotov cocktails struck the synagogue’s exterior stone walls and caused little damage”.
Another article in Haaretz referred to recent developments as “the new dilemma for Jews in Ukraine”. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“The greatest worry now is not the uptick in anti-Semitic incidents but the major presence of ultra-nationalist movements, especially the prominence of the Svoboda party and Pravy Sektor (right sector) members among the demonstrators. Many of them are calling their political opponents “Zhids” and flying flags with neo-Nazi symbols. There have also been reports, from reliable sources, of these movements distributing freshly translated editions of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Independence Square.” (“Anti-Semitism, though a real threat, is being used by the Kremlin as a political football”, Haaretz)
Then there’s this, from Dr. Inna Rogatchi in Arutz Sheva:
“There is no secret concerning the real political agenda and programs of ultra-nationalist parties in Ukraine – there is nothing close to European values and goals there. One just should open existing documents and hear what the representatives of those parties proclaim daily. They are sharply anti-European, and highly racist. They have nothing to do with the values and practices of the civilized world…
Ukrainian Jewry is facing a real and serious threat….To empower the openly neo-Nazi movements in Europe by ignoring the threat they pose is an utterly risky business. People should not have to pay a terrible price – again – for the meekness and indifference of their leaders. As Ukraine today has become the tragic show-case for all of Europe with regards to breeding and allowing race-hatred to become a violent and uncontrollable force, it is impertive to handle the situation there in accordance with existing international law and norms of civilization.” (“Tea With Neo-Nazis: The Violent Nationalism in Ukraine“, Arutz Sheva)
Here’s a little more background on the topic by progressive analyst Stephen Lendmen from a February 25 post titled “New York Times: Supporting US Imperial Lawlessness”:
“Washington openly backs fascist Svoboda party leader Oleh Tyahnybok…In 2004, Tyahnybok was expelled from former President Viktor Yushchenko’s parliamentary faction. He was condemned for urging Ukrainians to fight against a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.”
In 2005, he denounced “criminal activities” of “organized Jewry.” He outrageously claimed they plan “genocide” against Ukrainians.”…
Tyahnybok extremism didn’t deter Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. On February 6, she met openly with him and other anti-government leaders.
In early January, 15,000 ultranationalists held a torchlight march through Kiev. They did so to honor Nazi-era collaborator/mass murderer Stepan Bandera. Some wore uniforms a Wehrmacht Ukrainian division used in WW II. Others chanted “Ukraine above all” and “Bandera, come and bring order.” (Steve Lendman blog)
Of course, the US media has downplayed the fascistic-neo-Nazi “ethnic purity” element of the Ukrainian coup in order to focus on– what they think — are more “positive themes”, like the knocking down of statues of Lenin or banning Communist party members from participating in Parliament. As far as the media is concerned, these are all signs of progress.
Ukraine is gradually succumbing to the loving embrace of the New World Order where it will serve as another profit-generating cog in Wall Street’s wheel. That’s the theory, at least. It hasn’t occurred to the boneheads at the New York Times or Washington Post that Ukraine is rapidly descending into Mad Max-type anarchy which could spill over its borders into neighboring countries triggering violent conflagrations, social upheaval, regional instability or–god-help-us– WW3. The MSM sees nothing but silver linings as if everything was going according to plan. All of Eurasia, the Middle East and beyond are being pacified and integrated into one world government overseen by the unitary executive who defers to no one but the corporations and financial institutions who control the levers of power behind imperial shoji-screen. What could go wrong?
Naturally, Russia is worried about developments in Ukraine, but is unsure how to react. Here’s how Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev summed it up the other day:
“We do not understand what is going on there. A real threat to our interests (exists) and to the lives and health of our citizens. Strictly speaking, today there is no one there to communicate with … If you think that people in black masks waving Kalashnikovs (represent) a government, then it will be difficult for us to work with such a government.”
Clearly, Moscow is confused and worried. No one expects the world’s only superpower to behave this irrationally, to hop-scotch across the planet creating one failed state after another, fomenting revolt, breeding hatred, and spreading misery wherever it goes. At present, the Obama team is operating at full-throttle trying to topple regimes in Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, and god-knows where else. At the same time, failed operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have left all three countries in dire straights, ruled by regional warlords and armed militias. Medvedev has every right to be concerned.
Who wouldn’t be? The US has gone off the rails, stark raving mad. The architecture for global security has collapsed while the basic principals of international law have been jettisoned. The rampaging US juggernaut lurches from one violent confrontation to the next without rhyme or reason, destroying everything in its path, forcing millions to flee their own countries, and pushing the world closer to the abyss. Isn’t that reason enough to be concerned?
Now Obama has thrown-in with the Nazis. It’s just the icing on the cake.
Check out this blurb from Max Blumenthal’s latest titled “Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine?”:
“Right Sector is a shadowy syndicate of self-described ‘autonomous nationalists’ identified by their skinhead style of dress, ascetic lifestyle, and fascination with street violence. Armed with riot shields and clubs, the group’s cadres have manned the front lines of the Euromaidan battles this month, filling the air with their signature chant: ‘Ukraine above all!’ In a recent Right Sector propaganda video the group promised to fight ‘against degeneration and totalitarian liberalism, for traditional national morality and family values.’
With Svoboda linked to a constellation of international neo-fascist parties through the Alliance of European National Movements, Right Sector is promising to lead its army of aimless, disillusioned young men on “a great European Reconquest.” (“Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine?—Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine“, Max Blumenthal, AlterNet)
“Family values”? Where have we heard that before?
It’s clear, that Obama and his brainiac advisors think they have a handle on this thing and can train this den of vipers to click their heels and follow Washington’s directives, but it sounds like a bad bet to me. These are hard-core, died-in-the-wool, Nazi-extremists. They won’t be bought-off, co-opted or intimidated. They have an agenda and they aim to pursue that agenda to their last, dying breath.
Of all the dumb plans Washington has come up with in the couple years, this is the dumbest.
Ukraine: One ‘Regime Change’ Too Many?
March 1, 2014
Exclusive: Russia’s parliament has approved President Putin’s request for the use of force inside neighboring Ukraine, as the latest neocon-approved “regime change” spins out of control and threatens to inflict grave damage on international relations, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
By Ray McGovern
Is “regime change” in Ukraine the bridge too far for the neoconservative “regime changers” of Official Washington and their sophomoric “responsibility-to-protect” (R2P) allies in the Obama administration? Have they dangerously over-reached by pushing the putsch that removed duly-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given an unmistakable “yes” to those questions – in deeds, not words. His message is clear: “Back off our near-frontier!”
Moscow announced on Saturday that Russia’s parliament has approved Putin’s request for permission to use Russia’s armed forces “on the territory of the Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country.”
Putin described this move as necessary to protect ethnic Russians and military personnel stationed in Crimea in southern Ukraine, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet and other key military installations are located. But there is no indication that the Russian parliament has restricted the use of Russian armed forces to the Crimea.
Unless Obama is completely bereft of advisers who know something about Russia, it should have been a “known-known” (pardon the Rumsfeldian mal mot) that the Russians would react this way to a putsch removing Yanukovich. It would have been a no-brainer that Russia would use military force, if necessary, to counter attempts to use economic enticement and subversive incitement to slide Ukraine into the orbit of the West and eventually NATO.
This was all the more predictable in the case of Ukraine, where Putin – although the bête noire in corporate Western media – holds very high strategic cards geographically, militarily, economically and politically.
Unlike ‘Prague Spring’ 1968
Moscow’s advantage was not nearly as clear during the short-lived “Prague Spring” of 1968 when knee-jerk, non-thinking euphoria reigned in Washington and West European capitals. The cognoscenti were, by and large, smugly convinced that reformer Alexander Dubcek could break Czechoslovakia away from the U.S.S.R.’s embrace and still keep the Russian bear at bay.
My CIA analyst portfolio at the time included Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe, and I was amazed to see analysts of Eastern Europe caught up in the euphoria that typically ended with, “And the Soviets can’t do a damned thing about it!”
That summer a new posting found me advising Radio Free Europe Director Ralph Walter who, virtually alone among his similarly euphoric colleagues, shared my view that Russian tanks would inevitably roll onto Prague’s Wenceslaus Square, which they did in late August.
Past is not always prologue. But it is easy for me to imagine the Russian Army cartographic agency busily preparing maps of the best routes for tanks into Independence Square in Kiev, and that before too many months have gone by, Russian tank commanders may be given orders to invade, if those stoking the fires of violent dissent in the western parts of Ukraine keep pushing too far.
That said, Putin has many other cards to play and time to play them. These include sitting back and doing nothing, cutting off Russia’s subsidies to Ukraine, making it ever more difficult for Yanukovich’s successors to cope with the harsh realities. And Moscow has ways to remind the rest of Europe of its dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Another Interference
There is one huge difference between Prague in 1968 and Kiev 2014. The “Prague Spring” revolution led by Dubcek enjoyed such widespread spontaneous popular support that it was difficult for Russian leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksey Kosygin to argue plausibly that it was spurred by subversion from the West.
Not so 45-plus years later. In early February, as violent protests raged in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and the White House professed neutrality, U.S. State Department officials were, in the words of NYU professor emeritus of Russian studies Stephen Cohen, “plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine.”
We know that thanks to neocon prima donna Victoria Nuland, now Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, who seemed intent on giving new dimension to the “cookie-pushing” role of U.S. diplomats. Recall the photo showing Nuland in a metaphor of over-reach, as she reached deep into a large plastic bag to give each anti-government demonstrator on the square a cookie before the putsch.
More important, recall her amateurish, boorish use of an open telephone to plot regime change in Ukraine with a fellow neocon, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. Crass U.S. interference in Ukrainian affairs can be seen (actually, better, heard) in an intercepted conversation posted on YouTube on Feb. 4.
Yikes! It’s Yats!
Nuland was recorded as saying: “Yats is the guy. He’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy you know. … Yats will need all the help he can get to stave off collapse in the ex-Soviet state. He has warned there is an urgent need for unpopular cutting of subsidies and social payments before Ukraine can improve.”
And guess what. The stopgap government formed after the coup designated Nuland’s guy Yats, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, prime minister! What luck! Yats is 39 and has served as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister. And, as designated pinch-hitter-prime-minister, he has already talked about the overriding need for “responsible government,” one willing to commit “political suicide,” as he put it, by taking unpopular social measures.
U.S. meddling has been so obvious that at President Barack Obama’s hastily scheduled Friday press conference on Ukraine, Yats’s name seemed to get stuck in Obama’s throat. Toward the end of his scripted remarks, which he read verbatim, the President said: “Vice President Biden just spoke with Prime Minister [pause] – the prime minister of Ukraine to assure him that in this difficult moment the United States supports his government’s efforts and stands for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic future of Ukraine.”
Obama doesn’t usually stumble like that – especially when reading a text, and is normally quite good at pronouncing foreign names. Perhaps he worried that one of the White House stenographic corps might shout out, “You mean our man, Yats?” Obama departed right after reading his prepared remarks, leaving no opportunity for such an outburst.
Western media was abuzz with the big question: Will the Russians apply military force? The answer came quickly, though President Obama chose the subjunctive mood in addressing the question on Friday.
Throwing Down a Hanky
There was a surreal quality to President Obama’s remarks, several hours after Russian (or pro-Russian) troops took control of key airports and other key installations in the Crimea, which is part of Ukraine, and home to a large Russian naval base and other key Russian military installations.
Obama referred merely to “reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine” and warned piously that “any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing.”
That Obama chose the subjunctive mood – when the indicative was, well, indicated – will not be lost on the Russians. Here was Obama, in his typically lawyerly way, trying to square the circle, giving a sop to his administration’s neocon holdovers and R2P courtiers, with a Milquetoasty expression of support for the new-Nuland-approved government (citing Biden’s assurances to old whatshisname/yatshisname).
While Obama stuck to the subjunctive tense, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk appealed to Russia to recall its forces and “stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine.”
Obama’s comments seemed almost designed to sound condescending – paternalistic, even – to the Russians. Already into his second paragraph of his scripted remarks, the President took a line larded with words likely to be regarded as a gratuitous insult by Moscow, post-putsch.
“We’ve made clear that they [Russian officials] can be part of an international community’s effort to support the stability of a united Ukraine going forward, which is not only in the interest of the people of Ukraine and the international community, but also in Russia’s interest.”
By now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is accustomed to Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, et al. telling the Kremlin where its interests lie, and I am sure he is appropriately grateful. Putin is likely to read more significance into these words of Obama:
“The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine … and we will continue to coordinate closely with our European allies.”
Fissures in Atlantic Alliance
There are bound to be fissures in the international community and in the Western alliance on whether further provocation in Ukraine is advisable. Many countries have much to lose if Moscow uses its considerable economic leverage over natural gas supplies, for example.
And, aspiring diplomat though she may be, Victoria Nuland presumably has not endeared herself to the EC by her expressed “Fuck the EC” attitude.
Aside from the most servile allies of the U.S. there may be a growing caucus of Europeans who would like to return the compliment to Nuland. After all does anyone other than the most extreme neocon ideologue think that instigating a civil war on the border of nuclear-armed Russia is a good idea? Or that it makes sense to dump another economic basket case, which Ukraine surely is, on the EU’s doorstep while it’s still struggling to get its own economic house in order?
Europe has other reasons to feel annoyed about the overreach of U.S. power and arrogance. The NSA spying revelations – that continue, just like the eavesdropping itself does – seem to have done some permanent damage to transatlantic relationships.
In any case, Obama presumably knows by now that he pleased no one on Friday by reading that flaccid statement on Ukraine. And, more generally, the sooner he realizes that – without doing dumb and costly things – he can placate neither the neocons nor the R2P folks (naively well meaning though the latter may be), the better for everyone.
In sum, the Nulands of this world have bit off far more than they can chew; they need to be reined in before they cause even more dangerous harm. Broader issues than Ukraine are at stake. Like it or not, the United States can benefit from a cooperative relationship with Putin’s Russia – the kind of relationship that caused Putin to see merit last summer in pulling Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire on Syria, for example, and in helping address thorny issues with Iran.
by seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:30 pm
Look Who the US Is Siding With in Ukraine, Egypt, and Syria
US quietly partners with neo-Nazis in Ukraine, fascists in Egypt, and al-Qaeda in Syria
by Chris Ernesto, March 01, 2014
Print This | Share This
Imagine if protesters – supported by Russia – established an encampment in front of the US Capitol, threw Molotov cocktails into government buildings, fired guns at the police, and demanded that the US government relinquish power.
Obviously, the response from the US government would not be peaceful and there would be a loud call for war on Russia.
What if there were demonstrators in front of the White House who announced their events on Facebook by saying that members of congress should be incapacitated by having their knees smashed? Or if those same protesters posted YouTube videos saying that buses going into Washington should be set ablaze by dousing the roads with gas and diesel in the hopes of burning all the passengers inside?
Certainly, every US government official would demand the protesters be immediately arrested and charged with terrorism.
And what would happen if Islamic fundamentalists who had pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda began to bomb police stations and schools across the US?
Clearly, the US government would punish the responsible parties, and probably the countries in which they received training.
These things aren’t happening in the US, but they are occurring in Ukraine, Egypt and Syria by people who are funded, supported, encouraged or tacitly approved by the United States government.
US “guy” now running Ukraine
On Thursday, the Ukrainian parliament accepted Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the country’s new prime minister. Yatsenyuk is the lawmaker from the Fatherland Party who has been Washington’s choice to lead the country, as revealed by the State Department’s Victoria Nuland when she told US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Pyatt, “Yats [Yatsenyuk] is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience.”
The now infamous ‘f*ck the EU’ leaked phone conversation between Nuland and Pyatt revealed the role played by the United States in supporting Ukraine’s far-right opposition in its (ultimately successful) attempt to overthrow the left-leaning Yanukovych. “The utter criminality of Washington’s drive to install a pliant regime in Kiev sharply emerges in Nuland and Pyatt’s discussion of Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the neo-fascist Svoboda party (who recently met with John McCain in Kiev). Nuland describes Tyahnybok as one of the “big three” within the opposition leadership. These remarks confirm that there is no confusion whatsoever within the Obama administration that it is working in partnership with fascist movements in Ukraine,” wrote Patrick O’Connor.
tyahnybok
Another top Svoboda member, Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn, a deputy in parliament, often quotes Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, as well as other Third Reich luminaries like Ernst Rohm and Gregor Strasser. Among other things, Svoboda seeks to end all immigration and ensure that all civil service jobs are filled by ethnic Ukrainians. The Nation magazine reported that Svoboda also seeks to ban abortions, abolish gun control, “ban the Communist ideology,” and prohibit the adoption of Ukrainian children by foreigners.
“As for the “protesters” who came to Maidan Square in November, not all came simply to protest. Many set up tents and shacks, threw up barricades, seized government buildings, burned the headquarters of the ruling party, battled police and demanded the overthrow of the regime. How many Western countries would permit a planned putsch in their capital city?” asked Pat Buchanan.
“The most aggressive element of the opposition is a group calling itself Pravy Sektor, a right-wing nationalist organization that critics liken to Nazis,” according to the Washington Post.
In teaming up with “armed neo-Nazis, soccer hooligans, a variety of militant separatists, looters, arsonists and cop-killers” the US eventually got what it wanted in Ukraine. And now it will likely play a leading role in reconstructing Ukraine’s economy, National Security Adviser Susan Rice revealed on “Meet the Press” last week. Ms. Rice mapped out how the Obama administrator will be working with the International Monetary Fund to provide ‘financial aid’ to Ukraine.
US once again siding with repressive, “fascist” government in Egypt
Things have gotten so bad in Egypt that the government is now investigating a Muppet-style character that regularly appears on Egyptian television.
“As stupid as it is, it’s very telling,” Ziad Akl, a political analyst said of the puppet case. “It says a lot about the patriotism frenzy we are in. There is definitely a sentiment of fascist nationalism that you either subscribe to, or face being labeled a traitor.”
“The swelling nationalism – fanned by the country’s state- and privately-owned media – has given the army-backed government the legitimacy to quell further dissent in the name of national security. Today, opposition to the government is being suppressed even more brutally than it was under strongman Hosni Mubarak, the longtime ruler who was forced out in the Arab Spring revolt in 2011,” wrote the Washington Post’s Erin Cunningham.
As Egypt spirals out of control, virtually no mention is given to the revelation that the US was squarely behind the military overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohammed Morsi. According to an Al-Jazeera analysis of documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, the US has paid for some of the most unsavory characters in the coup.
“Make a road bump with a broken palm tree to stop the buses going into Cairo, and drench the road around it with gas and diesel. When the bus slows down for the bump, set it all ablaze so it will burn down with all the passengers inside. God bless.” Those were the words of Colonel Omar Afifi Soliman, a U.S.-funded anti-Muslim Brotherhood activist.
Soliman, who served in Egypt’s elite investigative police unit, received funding from the US State Department via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). IRS documents reveal that the NED paid Soliman $50,000 in 2009, $60,000 in 2010, and $10,000 in 2011.
Through a program created by the US State Department dubbed a “democracy assistance” initiative, the NED has bankrolled numerous ‘activists’ in Egypt, including an anti-Islamist politician who advocated closing mosques and dragging preachers out by force. Al Jazeera points out that such “democracy assistance” may have violated Egyptian law, which prohibits foreign political funding. It may also have broken US government regulations that ban the use of taxpayers’ money to fund foreign politicians, or finance subversive activities that target democratically elected governments. Further, a Congressional mandate is clear in that the NED is only to engage in “peaceful” political change overseas.
The US is teaming with the historically repressive Egyptian military and its leader in waiting, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has achieved cult-like status in whipping up nationalistic fervor. The Obama administration is virtually alone in not labeling last year’s ouster of Morsi as a “coup,” and with its support of Egypt’s current military government, the US is once again on the side of the repressive, and what many are now calling fascist leadership of Egypt.
US on same side as al-Qaeda in Syria
It is widely known that the US and al-Qaeda are on the same side in Syria in attempting to oust Syria’s Bashar al-Assad from office.
On February 12, 2012 the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, called on Muslims from other countries to support rebels in Syria seeking to overthrow Assad. Two weeks later Hillary Clinton raised serious concerns about calls to arm the Syrian opposition when she said, “we know al Qaeda leader Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria. Are we supporting al Qaeda in Syria? And in July of 2012, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said that as many as one-quarter of the 300 rebel groups in Syria may be fighting under the banner of al-Qaeda. In fact, one of the leading opposition groups, al-Nusra Front, has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
But those warnings didn’t stop the Obama administration from arming the opposition in Syria. One week after Rep. Rogers’ statement, it was revealed that President Obama had authorized covert support for Syrian rebels. And later, one day after al-Qaeda of Iraq announced that it was fighting with rebels in Syria, Obama pledged an additional $10 million in aid to the opposition. The following week, the Obama administration pledged another $123 million to the rebels.
The US attempts to ease people’s worries by claiming that American-provided weapons won’t get into the hands of the ‘bad’ opposition in Syria, but this is clearly unrealistic, particularly in light of the chaos that encompasses cities throughout the war-torn country. In fact, the USA Today reported that US arms were showing up in the hands of pro-Assad militias. The ability of Assad’s allies to obtain US weapons is one of many reasons the United States should not supply Syrian rebels with weapons, said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., former chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Syria is “already overflowing” with weapons being supplied to the Assad regime and to the rebels “that could one day be turned against the US,” Ros-Lehtinen said. It’s “extremely difficult” to distinguish between friend and foe in Syria, she said, and “no amount of safeguards can guarantee that weapons will not fall into the wrong hands.”
As former congressman Ron Paul warned, "There are a lot of factions out there, why don’t we ask about the Al-Qaeda? Why are we on the side of the al-Qaeda right now? So I think they want the weapons. The rebels want the weapons. There’s a bunch of people in there and Al-Qaeda is part of it and this is the test for us to drop a couple of bombs and then send in weapons."
The US government tries to spin the hypocritical position of working towards a similar goal as al-Qaeda in Syria while at the same time saying they are a threat to US national security in other parts of the world. Regardless of how it attempts to nuance its aid to the opposition, there’s no hiding the fact that the US is on the same side as al-Qaeda in Syria. Just like they are on the same side as neo-Nazis in Ukraine, and fascists in Egypt.
by Peachtree Pam » Sun Mar 02, 2014 3:53 pm
by seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:15 pm
Crimean Foreshadowing
By Joshua Keating
Pro-Russian activists wave Russian flags as they demonstrate in Simferopol, the administrative center of Crimea, on March 1, 2014.
Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/Getty Images
Given the degree to which this weekend’s events in Crimea seem to have caught the world off guard, I was curious to see if the Wikileaks cables contained any discussions by U.S. diplomats of a scenario like this one. Indeed, there is some now ominous foreshadowing to be found.
A 2006 cable under the name of Kiev Deputy Chief of Mission Sheila Gwaltney, who as it happens is now the highest ranking diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Moscow following the departure of Amb. Michael McFaul, warns of a possible Russian threat to Crimea – Ukraine’s “soft underbelly”:
Discussions with a wide range of contacts in Crimea November 20-22 and officials in Kyiv discounted recent speculation that a return of pro-Russian separatism in Crimea, which posed a real threat to Ukrainian territorial integrity in 1994-95, could be in the cards. However, nearly all contended that pro-Russian forces in Crimea, acting with funding and direction from Moscow, have systematically attempted to increase communal tensions in Crimea in the two years since the Orange Revolution. They have done so by cynically fanning ethnic Russian chauvinism towards Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, through manipulation of issues like the status of the Russian language, NATO, and an alleged Tatar threat to "Slavs," in a deliberate effort to destabilize Crimea, weaken Ukraine, and prevent Ukraine's movement west into institutions like NATO and the EU.
The cable notes that “the most active pro-Russian actors highlighted by our contacts were the Russian Society of Crimea and its affiliates, the Russian Bloc political party and the Crimean Cossack Union.” Russian Bloc has been particularly active in the last few days. setting up roadblocks on important highways in the region.
The cable quotes a member of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, claiming that “While there has always been overwhelmingly pro-Russian sentiment in Crimea's population, the beginning of systematic, organized efforts by pro-Russian groups backed by Russian money is a relatively new phenomenon.” Other officials acknowledge the “degradation of Kyiv's ability to assert central power and authority.”
An Oct. 5, 2009 cable discusses a visit by the visiting Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow, now Deputy Secretary General of NATO. In the read-out, Ukrainian officials don’t appear very optimistic that Russia’s treaty obligations, included the now-much-discussed Budapest Memorandum, would do much to prevent a Russian military incursion (my emphasis):
On security guarantees, ASD Vershbow said that the U.S. regarded the 1994 Budapest memorandum to be still in effect, regardless of the expiration of START in December.
We expect Russia to abide by the assurances in the memorandum, as he had stated publicly that afternoon in a speech to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Diplomatic Academy. Russia is legally bound to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity through a number of agreements as well.
While such documents are important, just as important is building up Ukraine's own strength and thickening Ukraine's ties with the U.S. and other Western countries, so as to establish "facts on the ground." That is why enhancing our military and security cooperation in concrete ways is critical. In addition, the Budapest memorandum and the NATO-Ukraine Charter contained provisions for consultation in times of crisis.
Responding, Former FM Ohryzko asked, rhetorically, whether such consultations would matter if Russian forces were to take over Crimea. He noted that Russia had violated its commitments in attacking Georgia and had not been punished for this.
Four days later, the embassy in Kiev issued another cable, titled “Ukraine-Russia: Is Military Conflict No Longer Unthinkable?” It discusses the views of defense analysts Volodymyr Horbulin, Ukraine’s former National Security Advisor, who believed that “internal Russian considerations are pushing Russia toward a confrontation with Ukraine prior to the expiration of the Black Sea Fleet basing agreement in 2017.”
The cable followed a highly critical letter sent by Russia’s then president, Dmitry Medvedev, which was interpreted by many as a warning to Kiev over its pro-Western policies. The cable notes (my emphasis):
While Horbulin believed that Russia has many non-military levers with which to influence Ukraine (above all, by stirring up trouble in the Crimea), he did not rule out the use of military force, especially if Ukraine's new president proves not to be as pliable as the Kremlin may hope.
…Horbulin characterized the Medvedev letter as unprecedented in the brazenness of Moscow's attempt to interfere in Ukraine's upcoming presidential election, with the message that "whoever becomes (the next Ukrainian) president must follow in the wake of Russian policies." Since the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, Russian military action against Ukraine is no longer unthinkable.
So it certainly doesn’t appear that a scenario like what’s playing out right now in Crimea was totally unanticipated. But neither the Ukrainian government nor U.S. officials appear to have thought of a way to prevent Russia from laying the groundwork for it.
by smiths » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:26 pm
While the images and local news have been suggesting that Russia is in control on the Crimean peninsula, US officials (according to Bloomberg) have confirmed this:
*RUSSIAN FORCES IN COMPLETE CONTROL OF CRIMEA: U.S. OFFICIAL
*RUSSIA HAS 6,000 TROOPS IN CRIMEA, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS
*KERRY TO REAFFIRM SUPPORT FOR UKRANIAN SOVEREIGNITY, PSAKI SAYS
Obama, Merkel, and Cameron are now on a conference call to discuss this "fact" and officials have just reported that US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Kiev tomorrow (though we suspect not Sevastopol):
U.S. IS FOCUSED ON ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND DIPLOMATIC OPTIONS ON UKRAINE, NOT ON ANY POSSIBLE U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS
*U.S. CONSIDERING SANCTIONS ON RUSSIAN BANKS, OFFICIAL SAYS
by seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:44 pm
What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis
March 2, 2014
Special Report: The Ukrainian crisis – partly fomented by U.S. neocons including holdovers at the State Department – has soured U.S-Russian relations and disrupted President Obama’s secretive cooperation with Russian President Putin to resolve crises in the Mideast, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
President Barack Obama has been trying, mostly in secret, to craft a new foreign policy that relies heavily on cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tamp down confrontations in hotspots such as Iran and Syria. But Obama’s timidity about publicly explaining this strategy has left it open to attack from powerful elements of Official Washington, including well-placed neocons and people in his own administration.
The gravest threat to this Obama-Putin collaboration has now emerged in Ukraine, where a coalition of U.S. neocon operatives and neocon holdovers within the State Department fanned the flames of unrest in Ukraine, contributing to the violent overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych and now to a military intervention by Russian troops in the Crimea, a region in southern Ukraine that historically was part of Russia.
President Barack Obama discusses the crisis in Ukraine for 90 minutes on March 1, 2014, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (White House photo/Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama discusses the crisis in Ukraine for 90 minutes on March 1, 2014, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (White House photo/Pete Souza)
Though I’m told the Ukraine crisis caught Obama and Putin by surprise, the neocon determination to drive a wedge between the two leaders has been apparent for months, especially after Putin brokered a deal to head off U.S. military strikes against Syria last summer and helped get Iran to negotiate concessions on its nuclear program, both moves upsetting the neocons who had favored heightened confrontations.
Putin also is reported to have verbally dressed down Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan over what Putin considered their provocative actions regarding the Syrian civil war. So, by disrupting neocon plans and offending Netanyahu and Bandar, the Russian president found himself squarely in the crosshairs of some very powerful people.
If not for Putin, the neocons – along with Israel and Saudi Arabia – had hoped that Obama would launch military strikes on Syria and Iran that could open the door to more “regime change” across the Middle East, a dream at the center of neocon geopolitical strategy since the 1990s. This neocon strategy took shape after the display of U.S. high-tech warfare against Iraq in 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union later that year. U.S. neocons began believing in a new paradigm of a uni-polar world where U.S. edicts were law.
The neocons felt this paradigm shift also meant that Israel would no longer need to put up with frustrating negotiations with the Palestinians. Rather than haggling over a two-state solution, U.S. neocons simply pressed for “regime change” in hostile Muslim countries that were assisting the Palestinians or Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Iraq was first on the neocon hit list, but next came Syria and Iran. The overriding idea was that once the regimes assisting the Palestinians and Hezbollah were removed or neutralized, then Israel could dictate peace terms to the Palestinians who would have no choice but to accept what was on the table.
U.S. neocons working on Netanyahu’s campaign team in 1996, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, even formalized their bold new plan, which they outlined in a strategy paper, called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The paper argued that only “regime change” in hostile Muslim countries could achieve the necessary “clean break” from the diplomatic standoffs that had followed inconclusive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
In 1998, the neocon Project for the New American Century called for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, but President Bill Clinton refused to go along. The situation changed, however, when President George W. Bush took office and after the 9/11 attacks. Suddenly, the neocons had a Commander in Chief who agreed with the need to eliminate Iraq’s Saddam Hussein — and a stunned and angry U.S. public could be easily persuaded. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]
So, Bush invaded Iraq, ousting Hussein but failing to subdue the country. The U.S. death toll of nearly 4,500 soldiers and the staggering costs, estimated to exceed $1 trillion, made the American people and even Bush unwilling to fulfill the full-scale neocon vision, which was expressed in one of their favorite jokes of 2003 about where to attack next, Iran or Syria, with the punch line: “Real men go to Tehran!”
Though hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney pushed the neocon/Israeli case for having the U.S. military bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities – with the hope that the attacks also might spark a “regime change” in Tehran – Bush decided that he couldn’t risk the move, especially after the U.S. intelligence community assessed in 2007 that Iran had stopped work on a bomb four years earlier.
The Rise of Obama
The neocons were dealt another setback in 2008 when Barack Obama defeated a neocon favorite, Sen. John McCain. But Obama then made one of the fateful decisions of his presidency, deciding to staff key foreign-policy positions with “a team of rivals,” i.e. keeping Republican operative Robert Gates at the Defense Department and recruiting Hillary Clinton, a neocon-lite, to head the State Department.
Obama also retained Bush’s high command, most significantly the media-darling Gen. David Petraeus. That meant that Obama didn’t take control over his own foreign policy.
Gates and Petraeus were themselves deeply influenced by the neocons, particularly Frederick Kagan, who had been a major advocate for the 2007 “surge” escalation in Iraq, which was hailed by the U.S. mainstream media as a great “success” but never achieved its principal goal of a unified Iraq. At the cost of nearly 1,000 U.S. dead, it only bought time for an orderly withdrawal that spared Bush and the neocons the embarrassment of an obvious defeat.
So, instead of a major personnel shakeup in the wake of the catastrophic Iraq War, Obama presided over what looked more like continuity with the Bush war policies, albeit with a firmer commitment to draw down troops in Iraq and eventually in Afghanistan.
From the start, however, Obama was opposed by key elements of his own administration, especially at State and Defense, and by the still-influential neocons of Official Washington. According to various accounts, including Gates’s new memoir Duty, Obama was maneuvered into supporting a troop “surge” in Afghanistan, as advocated by neocon Frederick Kagan and pushed by Gates, Petraeus and Clinton.
Gates wrote that Kagan persuaded him to recommend the Afghan “surge” and that Obama grudgingly went along although Gates concluded that Obama didn’t believe in the “mission” and wanted to reverse course more quickly than Gates, Petraeus and their side wanted.
Faced with this resistance from his own bureaucracy, Obama began to rely on a small inner circle built around Vice President Joe Biden and a few White House advisers with the analytical support of some CIA officials, including CIA Director Leon Panetta.
Obama also found a surprising ally in Putin after he regained the Russian presidency in 2012. A Putin adviser told me that the Russian president personally liked Obama and genuinely wanted to help him resolve dangerous disputes, especially crises with Iran and Syria.
In other words, what evolved out of Obama’s early “team of rivals” misjudgment was an extraordinary presidential foreign policy style, in which Obama developed and implemented much of his approach to the world outside the view of his secretaries of State and Defense (except when Panetta moved briefly to the Pentagon).
Even after the eventual departures of Gates in 2011, Petraeus as CIA director after a sex scandal in late 2012, and Clinton in early 2013, Obama’s peculiar approach didn’t particularly change. I’m told that he has a distant relationship with Secretary of State John Kerry, who never joined Obama’s inner foreign policy circle.
Though Obama’s taciturn protectiveness of his “real” foreign policy may be understandable given the continued neocon “tough-guy-ism” that dominates Official Washington, Obama’s freelancing approach gave space to hawkish elements of his own administration.
For instance, Secretary of State Kerry came close to announcing a U.S. war against Syria in a bellicose speech on Aug. 30, 2013, only to see Obama pull the rug out from under him as the President worked with Putin to defuse the crisis sparked by a disputed chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How War on Syria Lost Its Way.”]
Similarly, Obama and Putin hammered out the structure for an interim deal with Iran on how to constrain its nuclear program. But when Kerry was sent to seal that agreement in Geneva, he instead inserted new demands from the French (who were carrying water for the Saudis) and nearly screwed it all up. After getting called on the carpet by the White House, Kerry returned to Geneva and finalized the arrangements.[See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Saudi-Israel Defeat on Iran Deal.”]
Unorthodox Foreign Policy
Obama’s unorthodox foreign policy – essentially working in tandem with the Russian president and sometimes at odds with his own foreign policy bureaucracy – has forced Obama into faux outrage when he’s faced with some perceived affront from Russia, such as its agreement to give temporary asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
For the record, Obama had to express strong disapproval of Snowden’s asylum, though in many ways Putin was doing Obama a favor by sparing Obama from having to prosecute Snowden with the attendant complications for U.S. national security and the damaging political repercussions from Obama’s liberal base.
Putin’s unforced errors also complicated the relationship, such as when he defended Russian hostility toward gays and cracked down on dissent before the Sochi Olympics. Putin became an easy target for U.S. commentators and comedians.
But Obama’s hesitancy to explain the degree of his strategic cooperation with Putin has enabled Official Washington’s still influential neocons, including holdovers within the State Department bureaucracy, to drive more substantive wedges between Obama and Putin. The neocons came to recognize that the Obama-Putin tandem had become a major impediment to their strategic vision.
Without doubt, the neocons’ most dramatic – and potentially most dangerous – counter-move has been Ukraine, where they have lent their political and financial support to opposition forces who sought to break Ukraine away from its Russian neighbor.
Though this crisis also stems from the historical division of Ukraine – between its more European-oriented west and the Russian-ethnic east and south – neocon operatives, with financing from the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy and other U.S. sources, played key roles in destabilizing and overthrowing the democratically elected president.
NED, a $100 million-a-year agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against targeted states, lists 65 projects that it supports financially inside Ukraine, including training activists, supporting “journalists” and promoting business groups, effectively creating a full-service structure primed and ready to destabilize a government in the name of promoting “democracy.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Shadow US Foreign Policy.”]
State Department neocons also put their shoulders into shoving Ukraine away from Russia. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan and the sister-in-law of the Gates-Petraeus adviser Frederick Kagan, advocated strenuously for Ukraine’s reorientation toward Europe.
Last December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” by which she meant into the West’s orbit and away from Russia’s.
But President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed harsh austerity on the already impoverished Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine’s economy with discounted natural gas. Yanukovych’s decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country’s western and more pro-European region.
Nuland was soon at work planning for “regime change,” encouraging disruptive street protests by personally passing out cookies to the anti-government demonstrators. She didn’t seem to notice or mind that the protesters in Kiev’s Maidan square had hoisted a large banner honoring Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.
By late January, Nuland was discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt who should be allowed in the new government.
“Yats is the guy,” Nuland said in a phone call to Pyatt that was intercepted and posted online. “He’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy you know.” By “Yats,” Nuland was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had served as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister — and who was committed to harsh austerity.
As Assistant Secretary Nuland and Sen. McCain cheered the demonstrators on, the street protests turned violent. Police clashed with neo-Nazi bands, the ideological descendants of Bandera’s anti-Russian Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazi SS during World War II.
With the crisis escalating and scores of people killed in the street fighting, Yanukovych agreed to a E.U.-brokered deal that called for moving up scheduled elections and having the police stand down. The neo-Nazi storm troopers then seized the opening to occupy government buildings and force Yanukovych and many of his aides to flee for their lives.
With these neo-Nazis providing “security,” the remaining parliamentarians agreed in a series of unanimous or near unanimous votes to establish a new government and seek Yanukovych’s arrest for mass murder. Nuland’s choice, Yatsenyuk, emerged as interim prime minister.
Yet, the violent ouster of Yanukovych provoked popular resistance to the coup from the Russian-ethnic south and east. After seeking refuge in Russia, Yanukovych appealed to Putin for help. Putin then dispatched Russian troops to secure control of the Crimea. [For more on this history, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine.”]
Separating Obama from Putin
The Ukraine crisis has given Official Washington’s neocons another wedge to drive between Obama and Putin. For instance, the neocon flagship Washington Post editorialized on Saturday that Obama was responding “with phone calls” when something much more threatening than “condemnation” was needed.
It’s always stunning when the Post, which so energetically lobbied for the U.S. invasion of Iraq under the false pretense of eliminating its (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, gets its ire up about another country acting in response to a genuine security threat on its own borders, not half a world away.
But the Post’s editors have never been deterred by their own hypocrisy. They wrote, “Mr. Putin’s likely objective was not difficult to figure. He appears to be responding to Ukraine’s overthrow of a pro-Kremlin government last week with an old and ugly Russian tactic: provoking a separatist rebellion in a neighboring state, using its own troops when necessary.”
The reality, however, appears to have been that neocon elements from within the U.S. government encouraged the overthrow of the elected president of Ukraine via a coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who then terrorized lawmakers as the parliament passed draconian laws, including some intended to punish the Russian-oriented regions which favor Yanukovych.
Yet, besides baiting Obama over his tempered words about the crisis, the Post declared that “Mr. Obama and European leaders must act quickly to prevent Ukraine’s dismemberment. Missing from the president’s statement was a necessary first step: a demand that all Russian forces – regular and irregular – be withdrawn … and that Moscow recognize the authority of the new Kiev government. … If Mr. Putin does not comply, Western leaders should make clear that Russia will pay a heavy price.”
The Post editors are fond of calling for ultimatums against various countries, especially Syria and Iran, with the implication that if they don’t comply with some U.S. demand that harsh actions, including military reprisals, will follow.
But now the neocons, in their single-minded pursuit of endless “regime change” in countries that get in their way, have taken their ambitions to a dangerous new level, confronting nuclear-armed Russia with ultimatums.
By Sunday, the Post’s neocon editors were “spelling out the consequences” for Putin and Russia, essentially proposing a new Cold War. The Post mocked Obama for alleged softness toward Russia and suggested that the next “regime change” must come in Moscow.
“Many in the West did not believe Mr. Putin would dare attempt a military intervention in Ukraine because of the steep potential consequences,” the Post wrote. “That the Russian ruler plunged ahead shows that he doubts Western leaders will respond forcefully. If he does not quickly retreat, the United States must prove him wrong.”
The madness of the neocons has long been indicated by their extraordinary arrogance and their contempt for other nations’ interests. They assume that U.S. military might and other coercive means must be brought to bear on any nation that doesn’t bow before U.S. ultimatums or that resists U.S.-orchestrated coups.
Whenever the neocons meet resistance, they don’t rethink their strategy; they simply take it to the next level. Angered by Russia’s role in heading off U.S. military attacks against Syria and Iran, the neocons escalated their geopolitical conflict by taking it to Russia’s own border, by egging on the violent ouster of Ukraine’s elected president.
The idea was to give Putin an embarrassing black eye as punishment for his interference in the neocons’ dream of “regime change” across the Middle East. Now, with Putin’s countermove, his dispatch of Russian troops to secure control of the Crimea, the neocons want Obama to further escalate the crisis by going after Putin.
Some leading neocons even see ousting Putin as a crucial step toward reestablishing the preeminence of their agenda. NED president Carl Gershman wrote in the Washington Post, “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
At minimum, the neocons hope that they can neutralize Putin as Obama’s ally in trying to tamp down tensions with Syria and Iran – and thus put American military strikes against those two countries back under active consideration.
As events spin out of control, it appears way past time for President Obama to explain to the American people why he has collaborated with President Putin in trying to resolve some of the world’s thorniest problems.
That, however, would require him to belatedly take control of his own administration, to purge the neocon holdovers who have worked to sabotage his actual foreign policy, and to put an end to neocon-controlled organizations, like the National Endowment for Democracy, that use U.S. taxpayers’ money to stir up trouble abroad. That would require real political courage.
by smiths » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:56 pm
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan and the sister-in-law of the Gates-Petraeus adviser Frederick Kagan, advocated strenuously for Ukraine’s reorientation toward Europe.
Last December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” by which she meant into the West’s orbit and away from Russia’s.
by justdrew » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:03 pm
US President Barack Obama has called Russian troop deployments a “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty”.
by seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:20 pm
A Shadow US Foreign Policy
February 27, 2014
Exclusive: A shadow foreign policy apparatus built by Ronald Reagan for the Cold War survives to this day as a slush fund that keeps American neocons well fed and still destabilizes target nations, now including Ukraine, creating a crisis that undercuts President Obama, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The National Endowment for Democracy, a central part of Ronald Reagan’s propaganda war against the Soviet Union three decades ago, has evolved into a $100 million U.S. government-financed slush fund that generally supports a neocon agenda often at cross-purposes with the Obama administration’s foreign policy.
NED is one reason why there is so much confusion about the administration’s policies toward attempted ousters of democratically elected leaders in Ukraine and Venezuela. Some of the non-government organizations (or NGOs) supporting these rebellions trace back to NED and its U.S. government money, even as Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials insist the U.S. is not behind these insurrections.
So, while President Barack Obama has sought to nurture a constructive relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin especially in hotspots like Iran and Syria, NED has invested in projects in Russia’s close neighbor, Ukraine, that fueled violent protests ousting President Viktor Yanukovych, who won election in 2010 in balloting that was viewed by international observers as fair and reflecting the choice of most Ukrainian citizens.
Thus, a U.S.-sponsored organization that claims to promote “democracy” has sided with forces that violently overthrew a democratically elected leader rather than wait for the next scheduled election in 2015 to vote him out of office.
For NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic “reforms” required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for “regime change.”
Last September, NED’s longtime president, Carl Gershman, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to urge the U.S. government to push European “free trade” agreements on Ukraine and other former Soviet states and thus counter Moscow’s efforts to maintain close relations with those countries. The ultimate goal, according to Gershman, was isolating and possibly toppling Putin in Russia with Ukraine the key piece on this global chessboard.
“Ukraine is the biggest prize,” Gershman wrote. “The opportunities are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help. The United States needs to engage with the governments and with civil society in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to ensure that the reform process underway not only promotes greater trade and development but also produces governments that are less corrupt and more accountable to their societies. An association agreement with the European Union should be seen not as an end in itself but as a starting point that makes possible deeper reforms and more genuine democracy.
“Russian democracy also can benefit from this process. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
Shadow Structure
In furtherance of these goals, NED funded a staggering 65 projects in Ukraine, according to its latest report. The funding for these NGOs range from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars and created for NED what amounted to a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.
This NED shadow structure, when working in concert with domestic opposition forces, had the capability to challenge the decisions of Yanukovych’s elected government, including the recent coup – spearheaded by violent neo-Nazis – that overthrew him. Presumably, NED wanted the “regime change” without the neo-Nazi element. But that armed force was necessary for the coup to oust Yanukovych and open the path for those IMF-demanded economic “reforms.”
Beyond the scores of direct NED projects in Ukraine, other major NED recipients, such as Freedom House, have thrown their own considerable weight behind the Ukraine rebellion. A recent Freedom House fundraising appeal read: “More support, including yours, is urgently needed to ensure that Ukrainian citizens struggling for their freedom are protected and supported.” Freedom House meant the “citizens struggling” against their elected government.
So, over this past week, a policy dispute about whether Ukraine should accept the European Union’s trade demands or go with a more generous $15 billion loan from Moscow escalated into violent street clashes and finally a putsch spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who took control of government buildings in Kiev.
With Yanukovych and his top aides forced to flee for their lives, the opposition-controlled parliament then passed a series of draconian laws often unanimously, while U.S. neocons cheered and virtually no one in the U.S. press corps noted the undemocratic nature of what had just happened. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine.”]
An Incipient Civil War
On Wednesday, Yanukovych insisted that he was still the rightful president and his supporters seized government buildings in the eastern, ethnically Russian part of the country, setting the stage for what has the look of an incipient civil war.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government appears nearly as divided as the Ukrainian people. While neocon holdovers in the State Department, particularly Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, helped instigate the crisis, President Obama has seen his collaboration with Putin to tamp down crises in Syria and Iran put at risk. That cooperation was already under attack from influential neocons at the Washington Post and other media outlets.
Then, last December, Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” meaning out of the Russian orbit and into a Western one.
On Jan. 28, Nuland spoke by phone to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt about how to manipulate Ukraine’s tensions and who to elevate into the country’s leadership. According to the conversation, which was intercepted and made public, Nuland ruled out one opposition figure, Vitali Klitschko, a popular former boxer, because he lacked experience.
Nuland also favored the UN as mediator instead of the European Union, at which point in the conversation she exclaimed, “Fuck the E.U.” to which Pyatt responded, “Oh, exactly …” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons and the Ukraine Coup.”]
Yet, the larger question for Americans may be whether NED and its slush fund have helped create not only shadow political structures in countries around the world but whether one now exists in the United States. Though NED has always justified its budget by focusing on what it will do in other countries, it spends much of its money in Washington D.C., funding NGOs that pay salaries of political operatives who, in turn, write American op-eds often from a neocon, interventionist perspective.
Indeed, it would be hard to comprehend why the American neocon power structure didn’t capsize after the disastrous Iraq War without factoring in the financial ballast provided by NED and other neocon funding sources. That steady flow of NED funding, topping $100 million, gave the neocon movement the staying power that other foreign policy viewpoints lacked.
Cold War Relic
NED was founded in 1983 at the initiative of Cold War hardliners in the Reagan administration, including then-CIA Director William J. Casey. Essentially, NED took over what had been the domain of the CIA, i.e. funneling money to support foreign political movements that would take the U.S. side against the Soviet Union.
Though the Reagan administration’s defenders insist that this “democracy” project didn’t “report” to Casey, documents that have been declassified from the Reagan years show Casey as a principal instigator of this operation, which also sought to harness funding from right-wing billionaires and foundations to augment these activities.
In one note to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese, Casey endorsed plans “for the appointment of a small Working Group to refine the proposal and make recommendations to the President on the merit of creating an Institute, Council or National Endowment in support of free institutions throughout the world.”
Casey’s note, written on CIA stationery, added, “Obviously we here should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor do we wish to appear to be a sponsor or advocate. … We would be pleased to make suggestions on the composition of the Working Group and Commission.”
To organize this effort, Casey dispatched one of the CIA’s top propaganda specialists, Walter Raymond Jr., to the National Security Council. Putting Raymond at the NSC insulated the CIA from accusations that it institutionally was using the new structure to subvert foreign governments – while also helping fund American opinion leaders who would influence U.S. policy debates, a violation of the CIA’s charter. Instead, that responsibility was shifted to NED, which began doing precisely what Casey had envisioned.
Many of the documents on this “public diplomacy” operation, which also encompassed “psychological operations,” remain classified for national security reasons to this day, more than three decades later. But the scattered documents that have been released by archivists at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, reveal a whirlwind of activity, with Raymond in the middle of a global network.
Who Is Walt Raymond?
Reagan’s White House was so nervous that the press corps might zero in on Raymond’s CIA propaganda background that it prepared guidance in case anyone should ask, according to a document recently released by the Reagan library. If a reporter questioned White House claims that “there is no CIA involvement in the Public Diplomacy Program” – by asking, “isn’t Walt Raymond, a CIA employee, involved heavily?” – the scripted answer was to acknowledge that Raymond had worked for the CIA but no longer.
“It is true that in the formative stages of the effort, Walt Raymond contributed many useful ideas. It is ironic that he was one of those who was most insistent that there be no CIA involvement in this program in any way.”
As for the role of CIA officials, the guidance asserted, “they do not want to be involved in managing these programs and will not be. We have nothing to hide here.” But if a reporter then “pressed about where [Raymond] last worked,” the answer was “he retired from CIA. … If pressed about what his duties were: His duties there were classified.” Indeed, sources say Raymond was the CIA’s top expert on propaganda and psychological operations.
As NED took shape, Gershman was in frequent contact with Raymond, who oversaw a network of inter-agency task forces that implemented a global propaganda and psy-op strategy. Documents also make clear that Raymond kept CIA Director Casey periodically informed about the project’s developments.
In effect, NED took over many CIA responsibilities but did them more openly. The U.S. government also took steps to insulate NED from the resistance of targeted countries. Governments that objected to NED’s presence were deemed anti-democratic and thus subjected to other pressures.
But governments that permitted NED to function often found themselves facing internal political pressures from NED-funded NGOs to shift those countries’ policies to the right by eliminating social programs deemed “socialistic” and hewing to “reform” demands from international bankers, which usually meant ceding some sovereignty to the IMF or other global institutions. [For more details on Raymond’s operation, see Robert Parry’s Lost History.]
A Hand Out
Documents released by the Reagan library also reveal that one of the first organizations to put a hand out for U.S. government largesse was Freedom House, which describes itself as a human rights organization.
For instance, on Aug. 9, 1982, Freedom House executive director Leonard R. Sussman complained to Raymond that money problems had caused Freedom House to consolidate two of its publications, stating: “We would, of course, want to expand the project once again when … and if the funds become available. Offshoots of that project appear in newspapers, magazines, books and on broadcast services here and abroad. It’s a significant, unique channel of communication.”
Once NED was up and running in 1983 and beyond, Freedom House became a major recipient of grants as it frequently echoed U.S. propaganda themes, though the public had little knowledge about the behind-the-scenes relationships.
But the network that Casey and Raymond built has outlived both of them and has outlived the Cold War, too. Nevertheless, NED and its funding recipients have pressed on, trying to implement the strategies of hardliners such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, who wanted not just the dismantling of the Soviet Union but the elimination of Russia as any kind of counterweight to U.S. hegemony.
Indeed, the momentum that this three-decade-old “public diplomacy” campaign has achieved – both from NED and various neocons holding down key positions in Official Washington – now pits this shadow foreign policy establishment against the President of the United States. Barack Obama may see cooperation with Vladimir Putin as crucial to resolving crises in Iran and Syria, but elements of Obama’s own administration and U.S.-financed outfits like NED are doing all they can to create crises for Putin on his own border.
by smiths » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:24 pm
Internationalists and anarchists from Russia and elsewhere have issued a declaration condemning both the Russian and Ukrainian governments, arguing that the working class in both countries should reject nationalism and fight for their own interests.
(the echo of V.I.L)
Declaration of Internationalists against the war in Ukraine
War on war! Not a single drop a blood for the "nation”!
The power struggle between oligarchic clans in Ukraine threatens to escalate into an international armed conflict. Russian capitalism intends to use redistribution of Ukrainian state power in order to implement their long-standing imperial and expansionist aspirations in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine where it has strong economic, financial and political interests.
On the background of the next round of the impending economic crisis in Russia, the regime is trying to stoking Russian nationalism to divert attention from the growing workers' socio-economic problems: poverty wages and pensions, dismantling of available health care, education and other social services. In the thunder of the nationalist and militant rhetoric it is easier to complete the formation of a corporate, authoritarian state based on reactionary conservative values and repressive policies.
In Ukraine, the acute economic and political crisis has led to increased confrontation between "old" and "new" oligarchic clans, and the first used including ultra-rightist and ultra-nationalist formations for making a state coup in Kiev. The political elite of Crimea and eastern Ukraine does not intend to share their power and property with the next in turn Kiev rulers and trying to rely on help from the Russian government. Both sides resorted to rampant nationalist hysteria: respectively, Ukrainian and Russian. There are armed clashes, bloodshed. The Western powers have their own interests and aspirations, and their intervention in the conflict could lead to World War III.
Warring cliques of bosses force, as usual, force to fight for their interests us, ordinary people: wage workers, unemployed, students, pensioners... Making us drunkards of nationalist drug, they set us against each other, causing us forget about our real needs and interests: we don`t and can`t care about their "nations" where we are now concerned more vital and pressing problems – how to make ends meet in the system which they found to enslave and oppress us.
We will not succumb to nationalist intoxication. To hell with their state and “nations”, their flags and offices! This is not our war, and we should not go on it, paying with our blood their palaces, bank accounts and the pleasure to sit in soft chairs of authorities. And if the bosses in Moscow, Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Simferopol start this war, our duty is to resist it by all available means!
No war between "nations"-no peace between classes!
KRAS, Russian section of the International Workers Association
Internationalists of Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Israel, Lithuania
Anarchist Federation of Moldova
Fraction of the Revolutionary Socialists (Ukraine)
The statement is open for signature
From http://www.aitrus.info/node/3608
by smiths » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:35 pm
While the world watches the escalating crisis in Ukraine, investors and world leaders are considering how the instability could roil the global economy.
Here are five reasons the world's largest economies are watching what happens in Ukraine.
1. Ukraine is an important tie between Russia and the rest of Europe:
Ukraine doesn't hold the economic power it once did, but it does retain its geography.
Russia supplies about 25% of Europe's gas needs, and half of that is pumped via pipelines running through Ukraine. Moscow has cut off that flow in past disputes with Kiev and a disruption could push up energy prices for businesses and households.
The critical Crimean peninsula juts into the Black Sea, and the Russians base their Black Sea navy there.
2. Sanctions on Russia:
One prospect on the table would be the unusual circumstance of a top-10 global economy placing sanctions on another.
But Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday the U.S. is "absolutely" willing to consider sanctions against Russia. President Obama, he added, "is currently considering all options."
That possibility must be on the mind of Russia's government, which is certainly "looking very seriously at the economic component of" its military and diplomatic moves, said John Beyrle, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
"The reality is that Russia is dependent on the international economy in a way that wasn't true 10 years ago," Beyrle said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "Fully one -half of Russia's foreign trade now ... is with European Union countries. Russia depends on European imports to keep its stores filled, to keep the standard of living that Russians have gotten accustomed to."
3. European and world trade could be impacted:
The impact could be felt beyond Europe if the world's supply of grain is impacted. Ukraine is one of the world's top exporters of corn and wheat, and prices could rise even on concern those exports could halt.
And the current political uprising was fueled by the government's handling of a trade agreement that would have brought Ukraine closer to the European Union. The government cut off negotiations in November amid pressure from Russia, which offered discounts on natural gas if Ukraine signed a pact with Moscow's Customs Union.
4. Ukraine's government is in debt and needs assistance:
The situation arguably would not be so volatile if Ukranian government coffers were more stable or the economy stronger. The country owes $13 billion in debt this year and $16 billion comes due before the end of 2015. Without help, the country appears to be headed for default.
"In order to avoid a complete collapse in the coming weeks, Ukraine needs money now," Lubomir Mitov, emerging Europe chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, said. "Ukraine cannot survive without reforms in the next few months."
It's not clear who would supply the needed economic assistance, especially after the ouster of key Russian-aligned officials prompted Moscow to freeze a $15 billion bailout and there is no comparable alternative in sight. The most likely source of support would be the International Monetary Fund. Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the IMF is consulting with other bodies that could help raise the $35 billion Ukraine says it needs.
(reminds me of that film, "The IBBC is a bank. Their objective isn't to control the conflict, it's to control the debt that the conflict produces. You see, the real value of a conflict, the true value, is in the debt that it creates. You control the debt, you control everything.")
5. Ukraine isn't the only fragile emerging market:
Ukraine's instability comes at a difficult time for emerging markets worldwide, which are seeing growth slow as the Federal Reserve eases its economic stimulus. The situation in Ukraine could lead investors to reassess the risks of other emerging markets slowing economic growth. Troubles in Ukraine will also hurt Russian banks, which have leant heavily to Ukraine. The Russian ruble is down about 10% since the start of 2014.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/02/news/ec ... e-economy/
by FourthBase » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:46 pm
by smiths » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:59 pm
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 161 guests
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Site design by Likely Arts based on "Deluxe" by Artodia.