Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby Sounder » Fri Oct 24, 2014 4:24 pm

Then again you have a track record of apologizing for far right groups and far right violence.


If you have evidence of this please post it so that I may defend myself. Otherwise this is simply one more example of scurrilous charges with no basis in fact, yet more attempted character assassination.

Sorry for you, this is probably backfiring right about now.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby American Dream » Fri Oct 24, 2014 6:00 pm

Sounder » Fri Oct 24, 2014 3:24 pm wrote:
Then again you have a track record of apologizing for far right groups and far right violence.


If you have evidence of this please post it so that I may defend myself. Otherwise this is simply one more example of scurrilous charges with no basis in fact, yet more attempted character assassination.


You are interpreting things through your own lens, which is very different than mine. All I know of you is what I've seen on this board. If anything, I'd warn you to beware of the far Right not because I think of you as a particularly significant player in the political realm, but most of all because of a concern for you, personally.

As may or may not be clear from my postings here, I'd imagine the far Right- and here I'm referring especially to the militant, armed, revolutionary Right- as a snake pit filled with spooks, nuts, haters, double and triple agents, violent creeps, and probably some sincere and kind-hearted (but misguided) individuals, too.

Don't get me wrong- I'd imagine a lot of armed revolutionary Left factions- especially those operating inside the territory of the Empire called the United States- as containing suspicious elements also. I'm thinking in particular of a broad tendency comprising notorious groups that peaked in the 70's such as: SLA, Weather Underground, New World Liberation Front, Red Brigades, Red Army Faction, Carlos the Jackal, Tribal Thumb, Japanese Red Army- also Abu Nidal, PFLP-GC, etc. There are other armed left groupings like the Frente Zapatista that I feel very positively towards. Mostly, though I don't think that this is the best avenue of struggle in our time. Personally, I think Shane Burley is on a better path:

Spokes on the anti-austerity wheel: moving beyond reform

by SHANE BURLEY OCTOBER 24, 2014 CAPITALISM & CRISIS

Image

If we want to envision an anti-austerity movement that can genuinely empower people, we will have to create one that moves beyond austerity altogether.

Read more…



As to your politics, all I know is what I see- and I would say, "If it looks, walks, and talks like a supporter of what most everyone would term, 'the far Right'"...

Anyway, you are welcome to clarify what you mean by "far Right", what kind of world you would like to work towards, what you think we can do now to get there, movements and trends that you have strong criticisms of, others that you generally support, etc., if you want.

Or not- you really don't have to say or do anything here that you don't care to. But you're welcome to do it, if you choose to and agree that it might be helpful in this process.




.
Last edited by American Dream on Fri Oct 24, 2014 6:12 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Fri Oct 24, 2014 6:01 pm

Putin at Valdai - World Order: New Rules or a Game without Rules (FULL VIDEO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F9pQcqPdKo
Streamed live on Oct 24, 2014

Russian President Vladimir Putin is delivering a speech at the plenary session of Valdai International Discussion Club, a forum involving the world leading experts at foreign and domestic policy.


http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/23137

Vladimir Putin took part in the final plenary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club’s XI session. The meeting’s theme is The World Order: New Rules or a Game without Rules.

This year, 108 experts, historians and political analysts from 25 countries, including 62 foreign participants, took part in the club’s work.

The plenary meeting summed up the club’s work over the previous three days, which concentrated on analysing the factors eroding the current system of institutions and norms of international law.

Excerpts from transcript of the final plenary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club’s XI session
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby Sounder » Fri Oct 31, 2014 7:42 am

This will get no coverage in the western press, like it didn't happen.

Who's walking like a duck now? :coolshades


http://www.thesakersrpski.rs/
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Something very, very interesting has happened in Novorussia
Something fantastically interesting has happened in Novorussia: two senior Novorussian commanders, Igor Bezler and Alexei Mozgovoi have attempted to communicate with those Ukrainians who are on the other side.

Though I am not sure about the exact dates of the events (all I have is the dates of the posting on YouTube), this apparently began when Igor Bezler agreed to be interviewed by three TV crews at the same time: a Russian one, a Novorussian one, and a Ukrainian one. The big news here was, of course, that a Ukrainian journalist was given access to the city of Gorlovka, currently surrounded by Ukrainian forces, and that she got to speak with the local people, including combatants and then that she was given access to Bezler himself. Since all the journalists were more or less openly accusing each other of "filtering the truth" all parties agreed that the full recording, unedited, would be made available on YouTube. Now please keep in mind that in Banderastan, Russian journalists are blacklisted, Russian TV stations banned, and that the people in the junta controlled Ukraine are told that the other side are terrorists and Russian soldiers. Oh, and the Ukrainian media is the most disgusting, sold out, subservient, propagandistic you can imagine. And then suddenly, at least one Ukrainian TV crew agrees to show the face of one of the most feared Novorussian commanders and he get's to speak his mind.

But the next event was even more amazing. Alexei Mozgovoi agreed to a videoconference with not only Ukrainian journalists, but with actual field commanders of the Ukrainian military. To see Mozgovoi and the Ukrainians speak directly to each other was absolutely amazing. And here I have to apologize. I will not ask our translators to translate and subtitle the full thing. First, there were not one, but two such videoconferences. Then, we are talking about three long videos…….


………There are hundred of small moments and exchanges which I wish I could convey to you, but that would take too much space and time. What I will say is that it was quite amazing to see enemies talking to each other in a very friendly manner. I was also amazed at how readily the Ukrainians agreed that the Ukraine must rid herself from the Nazis and the oligarchs. In various occasions people on both sides said "let's do that together!". Others were more dubious. Frankly, I am extremely impressed by the courage and decency of many of the Ukrainians in these interviews who, while standing their ground on the issue of the territorial integrity of the Ukraine, quite openly said how much they hated the Nazis and the oligarchs. I sure hope that God will protect these men for their courage.

Both Bezler and Mozgovoi looked very, very good. The latter especially surprised me by explicitly stating that his goal was regime change in Kiev and not just the separation of Novorussia which he clearly sees as a only temporary solution and as a necessary self-defense measure. Clearly, both Bezler and Mozgovoi are first and foremost anti-Nazis and both of them see that there is not "Novorussian solution". Mozgovoi explicitly stated that he think that both sides could live together if the Ukrainians got rid of their Nazis and oligarchs.

While I have always said that the only possible stable solution of the crisis is a de-nazification of the Ukraine and a conversion of the current Banderastan into a "mentally sane" Ukraine, I am not naive and I also see that this might take a decade or more. However, seeing how Mozgovoi and his Ukrainian counterparts agreed on the need to de-nazify and de-oligarchise (is that English?) I see that there is hope because the bottom line is this: both sides have much more in common than what separates them!

Again, these were regular Ukrainians, not crazed Nazi death-squad members, I understand that. And the two sides do disagree on fundamental issues. I see that too. But I also see that there is a basis, a minimum in common, to negotiate. This does not have to be a war of extermination.
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby American Dream » Sat Nov 01, 2014 2:32 pm

Russian leftist group: Putin/Russian nationalists are NOT anti-fascists


11/03/2014

Statement by the Committee of 19 January about the events in Ukraine

translated by @pyotr_kropotkin

Recent events in Crimea and Ukraine have generated much political speculation. We want to pay special attention to the use of the concept of ‘anti-fascism’.

The anti-fascist rhetoric and symbolism being used now is absolutely disconnected from the real struggle against fascism and neo-Nazism: the Russian imperial oriented nationalist organizations have suddenly become ‘fighters against fascism’ in Ukraine; they hold rallies ‘in support of Russians’, which are based on the separation of people along ethnic lines, while using well-known symbols of the struggle against fascism. Such performances can only lead to a further escalation of violence in the Ukraine.

We do not deny the danger to the liberty and security of citizens posed by radical right organizations in Ukraine. But resistance should be directed specifically against those political forces that have clearly denoted their positions. The slogan ‘in support of Russians’ has nothing at all to do to with the fight against fascism, since everyone else—people who consider themselves Ukrainians, Tatars, Greeks, or some other nationality—are not fascists, simply because they are not-Russian.

The official symbol of ‘anti-fascism’ in Russia—St. George’s Ribbon—was turned, by the efforts of nationalists, into a symbol aggressive imperial policies, humiliation of the weak and suppression of the opposition. People who use this symbol often resort to violence against those who they know will not be able to fight back. On 6 March, officers of the Central ‘E’ [a police division], wearing St. George Ribbons, attacked Tolokonnikova and Alekhine, who arrived in Nizhny Novgorod to advocate for the rights of prisoners.

In Crimea, the ‘Georgievtsy’ established roadblocks, insult and intimidate civic activists, journalists, representatives of international organizations—all those who they do not like. Apparently, they think that the ribbon of St. George ‘sanctifies’ their actions as a struggle against fascism, but their arrogance and impunity only speaks to the fact that they are hand puppets of Russian authorities seeking to establish control over Crimea.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby Sounder » Sun Nov 02, 2014 6:31 am

Yes, it's sad to see anti-fascism being used as a prop to support warmongering.

Back to the thread subject of incitement of revolution. Revolutions are circles, they don't go anywhere.

The following is for the Fair reporting, but more for the comments. Where "Drew" supports the establishment line by saying, surprise, surprise, Assad, Gaddafi, and Putin are really, really bad men, so what the US has done and is doing is all for the 'good'.

http://fair.org/blog/2014/10/28/the-was ... utinology/
Oct
28
2014
The Washington Post's Putinology
By Peter Hart 11 Comments

The Washington Post accused Vladimir Putin (cc photo: WEF/Sebastian Derungs)
We're supposed to know by now that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a really bad guy–so bad that anything that he says is further proof of his screeching hostility to the United States.

The Washington Post reported (10/24/14) on a recent Putin speech with this blistering lead sentence:
Making clear that the Kremlin has no intention of backing down from the worst Russia/Western crisis since the Cold War, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Friday of trying to "reshape the whole world" for its benefit, in a fiery speech that was one of the most anti-American of his 15 years as Russia's paramount leader.
Fiery anti-Americanism!

It's not hard to believe that Putin was highly critical of the US foreign policy, but what precisely did he say? The Post called it "a bitter distillation of Putin's anti-American rhetoric." The Post Karoun Demirjian> and Michael Birnbaum reported that the address was an
unsmiling, straightforward worldview that blasted the United States as taking advantage of its powerful post-Cold War position to dictate misguided terms to the rest of the world. Putin faulted the United States for a rise in global terrorism, a resumption of a global arms race and a general worsening of global security.

"It never ceases to amaze me how our partners have been guilty of making the same mistakes time and again," Putin said, accusing the United States of breeding terrorists by upsetting the established order in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.

OK, so fiery anti-Americanism is the belief that the United States desires a unipolar world where it calls the shots. Does anyone doubt US elites think otherwise?
And the US, he thinks, bears some responsibility for fueling the global arms race. The United States is, according to some less than fiery and not particularly anti-American news outlets, the leading supplier of arms in the world ("US Arms Sales Make Up Most of Global Market," New York Times, 8/26/12; "US Doubles Down on Foreign Military Sales," Defense News, 7/19/14).

On the subject of nuclear arms, a key issue in US/Russia relations, the New York Times (9/21/14) recently reported on the US plan to increase its nuclear arsenal–a "nationwide wave of atomic revitalization" that could cost well over a trillion dollars.

And it's hard to argue with Putin's critique of US foreign policy accomplishments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; those countries have suffered extreme violence and instability due to US military actions. Would there even be an ISIS without the US invasion of Iraq?

None of that should be mistaken as an endorsement of anything Putin or Russia has done. But if the Post means to show us that a foreign leader is a fiery, bitter anti-American, it might want to make a stronger case.

The news article, though, was nothing compared to the Post's editorial (10/27/14). Under the Web headline "Putinoia on Full Display," the paper blasted Putin for his
poisonous mix of lies, conspiracy theories, thinly veiled threats of further aggression and, above all, seething resentment toward the United States.
Again, that's a pretty serious charge. It's not hard to imagine a politician telling lies; which ones did Putin tell?

Protesters violently overthrew the elected government of Ukraine–but if you call it a "coup," the Washington Post will call you a liar. (cc photo: Mstyslav Chernov/Wikimedia)
The Post doesn't seem to want to tell us. It does say Putin claimed that the United States has
promoted a "unipolar world [that] is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and countries." According to Mr. Putin, Washington has created chaos across the world by conspiring to foment revolutions, including what he views as an armed "coup d'etat" in Ukraine.

Again, the United States does see itself as the world's lone superpower, with a dominant military and an obvious record of attempting to use military force, directly or otherwise, to change the world to its liking (though these efforts are not always successful). In Ukraine, in particular, Washington certainly supported the violent overthrow of an elected government–whether you want to call that a "coup d'etat" or not.

The editorial began with this observation:
Anyone wondering what Western leaders have been up against when they try to reason with Vladi¬mir Putin need only read the transcript of the Russian ruler's three-hour performance at the annual Valdai conference in Sochi on Friday.

The thing is, if you're going to say someone is a poisonous liar who traffics in conspiracy theories, then you should show that. That the Post doesn't seem to feel the need to do so either means the evidence isn't there, or that the burden of proof is very low when it comes to official enemies.

(Eh, I don't need no steenking citations.)

• Drew
4 days ago
Hey Peter,
You love nothing more than to call Americans hypocrites, or to notice double standards. Why, then, is that not your target when Putin talks about global instability and violence, coming from a man who is so autocratic, nationalistic, homophobic, and chauvinistic, and so callous about the lives of others that he will send arms to Syria to put down a just rebellion against Assad?

Why are you so interested in shaming America, that you will go out of your way to defend Putin to make that point, curiously overlooking the hypocrisy of Putin himself?
And the U.S. did not "create" the problems in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. These were awful, despotic places before the U.S. intervened, and because of our interventions, they are on the path toward democracy – however chaotically (let's not forget how chaotic and bloody our own experience with democracy has been).

Again, I applaud your work when you call out the lack of diversity in the corporate media, or its willful ignorance of corporate malfeasance. But you lose your credibility as a pundit (in my view), when you use your position as a media critic to come to the defense of vile people like Putin to tout your anti-American bona fides.
• Romero Wren
4 days ago
Drew,
I don't think the author was attempting to defend Putin or his policies, but was criticizing a media outlet for attacking the things Putin said as lies, exaggerations and conspiracy theories, when they clearly have merit.

In a perfect world, where journalistic operations such as the Post operate more along the lines of "All the Presidents Men" and less along the lines of "Kill the Messenger", depraved autocrats such as Putin wouldn't have to point out the shortcomings of the United States because outlets such as the post would already be doing it. Sadly, they are too busy cheerleading their elite friends in the upper echelons of the deep state to be bothered with any type of accountability journalism.
Also, Drew, the author of this article is a media critic, not a foreign policy critic.
• Brian
4 days ago
That Drew person has read too much MSM . President Putin is a nationalist (not a crime !) he is not autocratic chauvinistic or homophobic and certainly isn't launching wars . President Assad of Syria is not crushing the Syrian people : only an American whack job would ignore the massive rallies in support of Assad .
Drew epitomised why there is antiamericanism : in his poisonously lies and support for empire
• Brian
4 days ago
Drew epitomised the articles thesis! Rabid media driven russiaphobia .
• Barbara Mullin
3 days ago
The whole world has been watching and knows more than the average American who has been grossly misinformed by the corporate mainstream media. America has lost any moral leadership.
• Janson Croley
3 days ago
"None of that should be mistaken as an endorsement of anything Putin or Russia has done."
Well, that's because Putin is still a thug who isn't anything other than envious of the power of the American national security state. I know it isn't FAIR's mission to critique Kremlin media as it is for American media, but it's not worth pretending that Putin is any more honest or sincere in his protests.
• Padremellyrn
1 day ago
"" None of that should be mistaken as an endorsement of anything Putin or Russia has done. But if the Post means to show us that a foreign leader is a fiery, bitter anti-American, it might want to make a stronger case. – From The Article"
"Why are you so interested in shaming America, that you will go out of your way to defend Putin to make that point, curiously overlooking the hypocrisy of Putin himself? – Drew"
Great another case of if we don't all fall down in obsequious, Sycophantic Toady adoration of everything the Corporate Lords and Masters do and say, we are all guilty of Lese Majesty. I suppose next it will be if we don't accept everything they (NYT) say as "the absolute perfection of truth and light" it will be our fault for allowing the ISIS to form in the first place.
In the past it was the job of the Press to criticize the Government and those in power to ensure they didn't become "Lords and Masters". When did America become the home of sniveling, cowardly, children scared of their own shadow who can not take the least criticism with out breaking out in a 2 year-old-with-sore-tooth hissy fit.
_______________________________
On the other hand, it is a sad day when the President of the Russia is able speak the truth as such about America. Folks, either we wake up and start removing the Kockroaches from our places of humanity, or we are going to become those countries which have, in the past fought against. Make no mistake, this is how a country turns into a Fascist or Dictatorial state. The common man sits around thinking 'oh this isn't as bad as 'so-and-so' country where they do "this and thus". We only do it a little so we are so much more perfect and better than they.
The Pots are busy calling the kettle black while sitting in the fire themselves.

All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:56 pm

pandodaily
(embedded links)

Omidyar-funded candidate takes seat in new Ukraine parliament

By Mark Ames
On October 30, 2014


Image
[illustration by Brad Jonas for Pando]

Ukraine just held its first post-revolution parliamentary elections, and amid all of the oligarchs, EU enthusiasts, neo-Nazis, nepotism babies, and death squad commanders, there is one newly-elected parliamentarian’s name that stands out for her connection to Silicon Valley: Svitlana Zalishchuk, from the billionaire president’s Poroshenko Bloc party.

Zalishchuk was given a choice spot on the president’s party list, at number 18, ensuring her a seat in the new Rada. And she owes her rise to power to another oligarch besides Ukraine’s president — Pierre Omidyar, whose funding with USAID helped topple the previous government. Zalishchuk’s pro-Maidan revolution outfits were directly funded by Omidyar.

Earlier this year, Pando exposed how eBay billionaire and Intercept publisher Pierre Omidyar co-funded with USAID Zalishchuk’s web of nongovernmental organizations — New Citizen, Chesno, Center UA. According to the Financial Times, New Citizen, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Omidyar, “played a big role in getting the [Maidan] protest up and running” in November 2013. Omidyar Network’s website features Zalishchuk’s photograph on its page describing its investment in New Citizen. Zalishchuk was brought into the NGOs by her longtime mentor, Oleh Rybachuk, a former deputy prime minster who led the last failed effort to integrate Ukraine into the EU and NATO.

Zalishchuk’s photos also grace the Poroshenko Bloc’s website and twitter feed, as she emerged as one of the presidential party’s leading spokespersons. The Poroshenko Bloc is named after Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire with a lock on Ukraine’s confectionary industry, as well as owning a national TV station and other prized assets. He came to power this year thanks to the revolution originally organized by Zalishchuk’s Omidyar-funded NGOs, and has rewarded her with a seat in the Rada.

The president’s party tasked Zalushchik with publicly selling the highly controversial new “lustration law” — essentially a legalized witch-hunt law first proposed by the neo-fascist Svoboda Party earlier this year, and subsequently denounced by Ukraine’s prosecutor general and by Human Rights Watch, which described a draft of the law as “arbitrary and overly broad and fail(s) to respect human rights principles,” warning it “may set the stage for unlawful mass arbitrary political exclusion.”

The lustration law was passed under a wave of neo-Nazi violence, in which members of parliament and others set to be targeted for purges were forcibly thrown into trash dumps.

Zalishchuk, however, praised the lustration law, claiming that the legalized purges would “give Ukraine a chance at a new life.”

Shortly before the elections, on October 17, Zalishchuk used her Omidyar-funded outfit, “Chesno,” to organize a roundtable with leaders of pro-EU and neo-fascist parties. It was called “Parliament for Reform” and it brought together leaders from eight parties, including Zalishchuk’s “Poroshenko Bloc” (she served as both NGO organizer and as pro-Poroshenko party candidate), the prime minister’s “People’s Party” and leaders from two unabashedly neo-Nazi parties: Svoboda, and the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, who was denounced by Amnesty International for posting YouTube videos of himself interrogating naked and hooded pro-Russian separatist prisoners. Lyashko’s campaign posters featured him impaling a caricatured Jewish oligarch on a Ukrainian trident.

Meanwhile, Zalishchuk’s boss, President Petro Poroshenko, has led a bloody war against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country that left at least 3700 dead in a half year of fighting. Human Rights Watch recently accused Poroshenko’s forces of “indiscriminate” use of cluster bombs in heavily populated areas, that “may amount to war crimes.” Poroshenko’s forces include neo-Nazi death squads like the notorious Azov battalion.

Last month, Poroshenko further cemented his ties to the extreme right by hailing Ukraine’s wartime Nazi collaborators, the violently anti-Semitic UPA, as “heroes.” The fascist UPA participated in the Holocaust, and were responsible for killing tens of thousands of Jews and ethnic Poles in their bid to create an ethnically pure Ukraine. Many UPA members filled the ranks of the Nazi SS “Galicia” Division. The neo-Nazi Right Sektor, which spearheaded the violent later stages of the Maidan revolution, sees itself as the UPA’s contemporary successors; Right Sektor’s leader, Dmitry Yarosh, believes that any “ethnic minority that prevents us from being masters in our own land” is an “enemy.” Yarosh was just elected to the new parliament.

This latest twist in Omidyar Network’s murky, contradictory or two-faced roles raises more disturbing questions about what the tech billionaire is up to. On the one hand, Omidyar plays the “adversarial” watchdog of the US National Security State, having privatized Snowden’s NSA files, the largest national security secrets leak in history, for his startup publication The Intercept with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the only two people entrusted with the complete Snowden cache.

On the other hand, Omidyar and his wife have been among the most frequent visitors to the Obama White House, intermingling with members of his National Security Council and State Deptartment. Meanwhile, in just the past year Omidyar Network has co-funded Ukraine revolution groups in Ukraine with the US government, and directly financed far-right, pro-business political actors in both Ukraine and in India, where a former top figure in Omidyar Network, Jayant Sinha now serves in the ultranationalist BJP Party and as close advisor to its controversial far-right leader, Narendra Modi. Previously, Sinha had served in a powerful BJP Party think-tank, the India Foundation to elect Modi, while simultaneously working as head of Omidyar Network India Advisors, and serving on the five-member global Executive Committee of Omidyar Network.

Omidyar Network @OmidyarNetwork
Follow
CONGRATULATIONS @JayantSinha from your friends @OmidyarNetwork - Best Wishes!
10:15 AM - 16 May 2014


This week, Omidyar Network’s “investment lead” for Ukraine, Stephen King, accepted an award for Omidyar Network’s role in a major new USAID-backed project, Global Impact Investing Network.

There is truly nothing like Omidyar’s contradictory roles — fighting the empire, leaking the empire’s secrets, while also working hand-in-glove with the empire’s agencies to make the world more pliable to US government and corporate interests. Perhaps it reflects the multibillionaire’s bizarre Howard Hughes-like schizophrenia; perhaps it’s deliberate, a co-optation of the dissident activist wing. Perhaps there’s no rhyme or reason, only the effects — an eerie silence from nearly the entire activist community when it comes to holding Omidyar or his many endeavors accountable.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Sun Nov 02, 2014 1:49 pm

russia insider

Western Media Get Ukraine Elections Wrong. There's Big Trouble Ahead

Western media says they are legitimizing, stabilizing, and a vote for a turn towards the EU. This is simply not the case

> The country is still badly split, East vs. West
> Turnout was low, especially in the critical East
> The East is dis-enfranchised
> Neo-Nazi street violence still a real political factor
> Popular support for Poroshenko is low
> Support for the war is low
> The government, and popular opinion, are deeply fractured
> Poroshenko failed to consolidate himself as the country's leader


opinion / analysis Fri, Oct 31

Alexander Mercouris


Image
The elections confirm that Poroshenko has failed to consolidate his position as the country’s undisputed leader.

Sunday’s Ukrainian parliamentary elections are being misunderstood by the international media and by elements of the Russian press.

There is a misperception that they were between competing parties with differing ideologies, such as those that take place elsewhere in Europe and throughout the world.

This is very far from being the case.

Ukraine this year has experienced a major power struggle between two factions of its political elite. In February 2014, one faction won the power struggle by resorting to a violent coup that gave it control of the levers of power.

Since then, this faction has moved to consolidate its control over the country by eliminating what is left of the defeated faction. Having secured control of the Presidency and the government and purged the Constitutional Court and media, it has now made use of early elections to purge the country’s parliament – a fact admitted to by Poroshenko in his election decree.

This is intended to be followed by a thorough purge of the state bureaucracy, the police and the army, as authorised by a draconian albeit unconstitutional new “lustration” law. The intention is that by the end of this process, there will be no remnant of the rival faction that held power before the coup in February represented in any body of the state power.

The banner under which this purge is being carried out is, of course, “anti-corruption” and “democracy”.

Neither should be taken too seriously.

That slogan, “the fight against corruption” is a perennial catchphrase that has been repeatedly used since the 1980s; it was used in the former Soviet Union by pro-Western liberal factions who desired to discredit and eliminate their opponents. As the post-Soviet history of both Russia and Ukraine show, pro-Western crusaders against corruption are largely unconcerned when it is committed by those they count amongst themselves.

As for “democracy”, pro-Western liberal factions in both Russia and Ukraine have long since reinterpreted this word to mean a political system where they hold power and their opponents don’t.

That this was a purge is revealed in the way in which the two parties most closely identified with the defeated faction – the Party of the Regions and the Communist Party – were destroyed before the elections to prevent them from taking part.

These parties were eliminated not just by an administrative act, which is undemocratic enough, but via sustained political violence and the persecution of their leaders and supporters.

An attempt has been made by supporters of the defeated faction to create a substitute political force in the form of the Boyko Opposition Bloc. Its chances of withstanding the political violence and ongoing purge and having an effective presence in the new parliament, despite its surprisingly good showing in the elections, are minimal.

What explains much of the misunderstanding about the elections is that the present regime, which is carrying out the purge, is itself highly fractured.

The bitter feuds within the regime should not however obscure the fact that they remain united in their key aims, which are (1) the total elimination from Ukrainian political and social life the old, pro-Russian opposition, and (2) the realignment of Ukraine in a way that maximally distances it from Russia. In the case of the two leading blocs, the Poroshenko bloc and the Yatsenyuk bloc, it is impossible to see any ideological divide at all. The differences that do exist are entirely matters of tactics and personality.

The elections do nonetheless provide some indication about the balance of forces within the regime and of the regime’s present standing within Ukrainian society.

The elections confirm that Poroshenko has failed to consolidate his position as the country’s undisputed leader. The fact that his bloc came second or tied with the one led by his sometime ally and rival Yatsenyuk shows the extent to which his popularity has declined as a result of the economic crisis and the military defeat in August.

If one of Poroshenko’s objectives in calling the election was to consolidate his position at the head of the regime, then that objective has failed.

The relatively poor showing of the Tymoshenko and Lyashko blocks and of Svoboda by contrast show that public support for extreme politics is waning amid the public’s war-weariness.

It should be said clearly that there are no “peace parties” within the present Ukrainian regime. All of the leaders of the various factions that make it up, including Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk, are united in their militant hostility to the separatist (or federalist) aspirations of the people of the country’s east. Yatsenyuk has in fact been consistently more hawkish than Poroshenko.

However if there is no “peace party”, there very definitely is a “war party”, whose talk can be construed as seeking an immediate renewal of hostilities. The comparatively poor showing of these factions, including those of Tymoshenko and Lyashko, shows that behind the monolithic front of the regime’s propaganda, there is little enthusiasm amongst the Ukrainian public for a renewal of the war.

That fact does not however mean that a renewal of the war will not happen. If the history of this year’s power struggle proves anything, it is that in Ukraine it is not governments, elections, parliaments or public opinion that ultimately matters. It is political violence exerted by those who control the streets.

As for the Right Sector and various Nazi groups, the fact that they have little electoral support (a point endlessly made by the regime’s apologists) does not reduce their real political role. This is not to win elections; as militantly anti-democratic organisations they have little interest in doing so. It is to actively terrorize and intimidate the regime’s enemies.

This is the role these Nazi groups played in the coup in February and it is the role they have continued to play ever since. This gives them considerable power within the regime since there is always the threat that they will use violence in the perpetual inter-factional quarrels.

This threat has already been put to use on several occasions, most notably with the pressure these groups exerted on the regime in June to renew the war in June and more recently to enact the new anti-corruption law. It is entirely possible that this threat could be used again to force a resumption of the war.

The election however also shows the narrowing political base of the regime. Turnout seems to have been around 52% nationally, much lower than might have been expected following a “democratic revolution”, and suggesting scant enthusiasm for the regime. While voter turnout surged in the west, it has tapered significantly in the east and south.

In the 2012 parliamentary elections, when the pro-Russian Party of the Regions won 34.4% of the vote, voter turnout was highest in eastern Ukraine: the most active voter turnout was registered in Donetsk region (59.46%), Luhansk region (57.57%), and Zaporizhia region (55.96%), according to the Kyiv Post.

During the recent snap elections, the reverse was true, according to Ukrainian radio. The highest turnout was registered in the three westernmost regions: Lviv region (70%), Ternopil region (68.28%), and Volyn region (64.85%). Meanwhile, the lowest turnout was seen among the Kiev-controlled parts of Donetsk region (32.4%) and Luhansk region (32.87%), as well as the predominantly Russian-speaking Odessa region (39.52%), site of the May 2 massacre of Anti-Maidan activists in the Trade Union House in Odessa.

On the assumption that most eastern voters who took part in the election voted for the Boyko Opposition Bloc (the nearest approximation to the old Party of the Regions that until February represented the region), it shows that the pre-February political divide in Ukraine between east and west continues exactly as before and that the claim made by the regime’s supporters that the war has somehow won over the people of the east is untrue.

The low turnout in the east and the probable success there of the Boyko Opposition Bloc also incidentally explain why the February coup took place. Given the extent of Ukraine’s political divisions and the abiding hostility to the regime and its policies in the east, it is clear that without the coup and the purge that has followed it, the current government could never have hoped to achieve the untrammelled control of Ukrainian politics and society it has since achieved.

The elections are therefore far from being a consolidating or legitimising event as some claim, and may be setting the scene for further instability.

The rebel regions refused to participate in the elections and have made clear that they will continue with the elections they have called for themselves on November 2, 2014. Ukraine is therefore set to witness two rival sets of elections within a week of each other, further crystallising the effective partition of the country which is now underway.

The elections have also failed to stabilise the regime in Kiev or to resolve its internal differences. On the contrary they appear to have worsened them. Instead of one leader – Poroshenko – the regime now has two – Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk.

It is generally acknowledged that one of the reasons for the failure of the“Orange Revolution” government between 2004 and 2010 was the divisions between its leaders: Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. The falling-out occurred when Prime Minister Tymoshenko’s corruption became apparent to the former president. She attempted to re-nationalize thousands of private assets and re-privatize them in a way that would be financially beneficial to her and her allies among the country’s oligarchs.

Although Tymoshenko had effectively discredited herself by the time of her 2011 arrest and left behind a party that was too corrupt and ineffectual to generate popular electoral support in western Ukraine, many of her Fatherland Party compatriots managed to revive their political careers by joining the People’s Front of Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

The result is that the previous pattern of regime division between two leaders, previously Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, now Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk, is repeating itself

Despite the infighting among Ukraine’s leaders (which often results in actual fistfights in the legislature) it’s doubtful that the collapse of the regime is imminent or that the fragile peace in the east has been secured.

The consistent pattern since the 2004 Orange Revolution is that inter-factional fighting and the narrowing of the political base has led to further radicalisation.

The regime retains a core of popular support in the country’s western regions and in Kiev. Having seized power violently and having ruled violently, this is not a regime that will compromise easily or pass away quietly.

In Ukraine, predictions are foolish but the omens are not good and point to further instability and more violence.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby American Dream » Sun Nov 02, 2014 3:46 pm

From an earlier era of "superpower" clashes:

You don't know if they're on CIA fee
Or even with the KGB
Cause you think your country is oh, so free
Until you look at the Economy

Aid Travels With a Bomb-
LOOK OUT!


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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 03, 2014 6:02 pm

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Politics on Syria
November 3, 2014

Exclusive: Typically when crude oil prices plummet, Saudi Arabia cuts back production to stop and reverse the fall, but this time that hasn’t happened, raising questions about why. Is the reason business or geopolitics, possibly a way to punish Russia and Iran over Syria, asks Andrés Cala.

By Andrés Cala

Saudi Arabia is keeping its oil taps wide open even as a glut tumbles world prices to the low $80s per barrel, the lowest level in four years and well below the level that Saudi Arabia must maintain to avoid running a fiscal deficit. But the big question is why? Is the motive just business or is it geopolitics, i.e., punishing oil producers Iran and Russia over Syria?

The mainstream explanation for the Saudi behavior is that it’s acting to defend its market share in an increasingly oversupplied oil market, which is awash with robust U.S. production while demand growth from China and Europe has stalled. The conventional thinking goes: If Saudi Arabia cut exports, prices would rise but other suppliers might snatch away its clients. So the Saudis would rather weather the storm of lower prices – and hold onto its clients – until the market balances itself.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers a greeting from President Barack Obama during a meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on November 4, 2013. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers a greeting from President Barack Obama during a meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on November 4, 2013. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Other analysts have suggested that Saudi Arabia is undertaking an indirect assault on the U.S. production of so-called “tight oil,” which is more expensive to extract from shale than pumping light crude from Saudi oil reserves. The lower the world’s oil prices, the less viable these more costly oil extractions become.

But business concerns may not be the main driver of this Saudi oil policy. Instead, the Saudis may be flexing their muscular dominance of the world’s oil markets to advance geopolitical interests, from helping the energy-dependent military government of Egypt – a Saudi ally – to undermining the adversarial regimes in Syria and Iran as well as Russia, which has emerged as a key ally for those two embattled governments.

While falling oil prices certainly do hurt Saudi Arabia, the Saudis with their vast financial reserves are well-positioned to withstand the economic pain. That is less the case with Russia and Iran, both heavily invested in the defense of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. In other words, the Saudis may see the precipitous drop in oil prices as a weapon in the broader regional Shiite-Sunni proxy war, with Saudi Arabia leading the Sunni side versus Shiite-ruled Iran.

The depressed oil prices also dovetail with the Obama administration’s geopolitical interests by putting the squeeze on Russia and Iran as the West seeks to consolidate its control over Ukraine and tries to force Iran to capitulate in talks over its nuclear program.

But the Saudi geopolitical calculation to sustain record production above 9.5 million barrels per day is probably most directed at Syria where the Saudis have financed the Sunni-led campaign to overthrow Assad, who largely represents Alawite, Shiite, Christian and other minorities. By toppling Assad and replacing him with a Sunni-dominated government, Saudi Arabia would deal a severe blow to Iran and the region’s Shiites.

Thus, Saudi Arabia is willing to resist pressure from its partners in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in order to advance what the Saudis see as their broader regional interests. For Riyadh, the self-inflicted economic pain is acceptable as long as it contributes to the broader imperative of inflicting pain on Assad and his backers.

The Geostrategic Imperative

For years Saudi Arabia’s Sunni monarchy has maneuvered, at times with allies such as Turkey and at times alone, to replace Syria’s Assad who comes from the Alawite community, a spinoff of Shiite Islam. Israel also shares the goal of ousting Assad, hoping to shatter “the Shiite crescent” reaching from Tehran through Damascus to Beirut. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Israel Sides with Syrian Jihadists.”]

But Saudi Arabia’s Syrian-regime-change policy stumbled when President Barack Obama refused to go to war against Assad last year and Syria’s Iranian-backed forces began regaining lost ground against the Sunni rebels. Russia, too, came to Assad’s defense for its own strategic interests. Russia publicly admonished Saudi Arabia and Qatar for unscrupulously turning Syria into a terrorist haven that threatened global security, particularly the emergence of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and the even more brutal Islamic State.

As these Sunni extremists took over the anti-Assad rebellion, Saudi Arabia found itself in the de facto position of aiding and abetting these terrorist elements, which control large swaths of Syria and – after an Islamic State offensive – a significant part of Iraq. Then, the Islamic State’s strategy of using brutality, including mass executions and beheadings, to intimidate its enemies shocked the world and created political pressure on Obama to intervene against these extremists.

Saudi Arabia’s monarchy also sensed a growing danger to its stability if the Islamic State’s “caliphate” continued to expand. The Royal Family understands that the Islamic State is popular among some of Saudi Arabia’s conservative Sunni Salafites who might join the Islamic State in turning their guns on the monarchy with the goal of seizing the country’s extraordinary oil wealth. The Islamic State is already active on the Saudi borders with Iraq and Yemen.

So, recognizing these risks and responding to U.S. pressure, the Saudis agreed to join the U.S.-led coalition mounting airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria. But Saudi Arabia has not entirely abandoned its hopes of dislodging Assad and thus it demanded assurances from Secretary of State John Kerry during a September visit that Assad would not be allowed to stay in power, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Saudi Arabia’s use of oil as a weapon supports the longer-range goal of ousting Assad by raising the costs on Iran and Russia for backing him.

Global Impact of Lower Prices

There are, of course, other risks for Saudi Arabia from its acceptance of lower oil prices. For one, the lost income undercuts the monarchy’s ability to co-opt its population by providing financial and other benefits. The oil money has shielded the country so far from the extreme political instability undercutting its neighbors, both enemies and allies.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Saudi Arabia risked running a fiscal deficit as early as 2015, a warning that preceded the recent drop in oil prices. Saudi public spending soared 50 percent between 2010 and 2013 as stimulus for an already hyper-inflated welfare state that is trying to fend off its own Arab Spring. The government is building infrastructure, improving services and increasing handouts. Spending is forecast to continue increasing through 2018.

The IMF said Saudi Arabia’s government spending might exceed its income – almost entirely from oil revenue – in 2015. This public deficit could increase to 7.4 percent of gross domestic product by 2019. The break-even oil price required to balance the state budget is $91 for 2015, but the price is currently lower than that.

Still, the price tumble is disproportionally more damaging to Russia and Iran. Russia, already coping with Western sanctions over Ukraine, is heavily dependent on its oil revenue and President Vladimir Putin is well aware of the destabilization of Russia that falling energy prices can inflict. That said, Russia is a lot better prepared than it was in the 1980s and 1990s and thus is in a position to endure for some time.

Iran will suffer, too, but probably not enough to make it flinch in its various confrontations with the United States and the West. Iran’s economy is weak, especially under sanctions over its nuclear program and from the costs of several proxy wars in the region that are draining its budget. But Iran has historically weathered economic hardship and has recently demonstrated its resilience when it comes to priorities, such as defending its Shiite allies in Syria and Iraq.

On the other hand, the Saudis know Western allies will appreciate the decision to keep prices low and thus give oil-importing countries a financial break. When the U.S. consumers save on oil imports, which still represent about a third of the net oil that America uses, that means they have more money in their pockets for other purchases.

The Saudis also knew that the typical market reaction to instability in the oil-rich Middle East is for prices to soar, possibly to $150 a barrel, which would have had a depressing effect on Western economies and added to the political pressures across the developed world. By flooding the world markets with oil now, however, the opposite occurred, with prices sharply declining.

Another geopolitical gain for Saudi Arabia from the lower oil prices is the relief provided to Egypt’s economy where the Saudis have already lavished billions of dollars in aid on the military regime that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi. Though the Muslim Brotherhood is also Sunni, its ideology of Muslim populism represents what the Royal Family views as an existential threat.

The Muslim Brotherhood has strong supporters, including Qatar, so shielding the Egyptian military regime economically is vital to the Saudis. Lower oil prices, more than direct Saudi aid to the government, brings relief to average Egyptians and thus reduces the likelihood of a popular uprising against the military regime.

But Saudi Arabia can’t sustain the lower prices indefinitely. OPEC meets in December and could cut nominal production goals, although Saudi Arabia is the ultimate decider. Since the beginning of the world economic crisis in 2008, Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as a central bank of sorts in global oil markets. It is the only country capable of pumping more oil or less to influence supply and demand to a significant degree.

The Kingdom also has built hard currency reserves that give it ample time, years even, to survive lower oil prices. But it’s not about surviving, but expanding, and thus the likely window of low oil prices will probably close some time in the first half of 2015.

Saudi Arabia knows there is no reason to panic because its 2014 budget is safe, and the country could easily survive with prices around $85 in the first half of 2015, as long as prices rise to around $95 in the second half.

Ultimately, Saudi timing on oil prices is anybody’s guess. It likely will be determined by how the Syrian war evolves and the post-election political circumstances in the United States. In the meantime, the world will continue guessing about how much self-inflicted financial pain the Saudi monarchy is ready to accept in its efforts to inflict more pain on Syria’s allies.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Tue Nov 04, 2014 5:56 pm

The Vineyard of the Saker

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

A few more hyper-short items + open thread (IMPORTANT UPDATE!!)

Dear friends,

I am exhausted. Badly. Had to spend many hours on the road this week-end so here is my schedule:

Today I will, insha'allah, answer the most (all?) the emails I have to answer. Then I will write a bunch of emails to try to get a few apparently stuck "balls" rolling again.

Tomorrow I should be back with an analysis of what happened in Novorussia.

Thanks a lot for all the positive feedback about the podcast. Vox populi: I will try to make a podcast every two weeks. I will post in invitation to questions a week before which will give you enough time to send them in. I will also post "show notes" with references to the people/events/sources/etc. I mention.

One more thing: Google drive is useless. Mediafire and 4Shared saved my bacon apparently. If any of you had a SSH2/SFTP server with a high bandwidth to host my podcasts I would be very grateful. Either that, or advice on where I can post them.

Okay, I need to work on them email now. See you all tomorrow :-)

Cheers and thanks,

The Saker

PS: grab this one for yet another open thread!

UPDATE: Thanks to Martin, the podcast is now available for download at this URL:

http://www.opensxce.org/vineyardsaker.b ... %20No1.mp3

(thanks Martin!!)

Posted by VINEYARDSAKER: at 15:49

21 comments:


~

An excellent podcast it is, too:

http://www.opensxce.org/vineyardsaker.b ... %20No1.mp3

Thanks so much, Saker guy!
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Thu Nov 13, 2014 6:55 pm

russia insider

Russia's Favorite Weekly Political Talk Show. Fascinating! (Captions)

Seriously interesting. Thought leaders in politics, journalism, academia. As good as anything you will find in Europe or the US.

TV Sat, Oct 18, 2014

Image
The host, Vladimir Soloviev

If you want to understand what's going on in Russia, then this is seriously insightful.

One can't usually get captions for this show, but a group of volunteers around the world did it for this show, and shared them with us.

This is the nation's favorite political talk show. These are prominent politicians, authors, journalists, and academics. They are very representative of main-stream thinking in Russia. This is no "censored", or "managed" media. This is the real deal, what most people in Russia think.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiOiSQG5iVY

The audience applause is also real, not staged.

The format is typically Russian: emotional, slightly chaotic, with flashes of brilliance.

If you don't have time for the whole thing, then pay attention to what one of the guests, Nikolai Starikov, says.

Image
Nikolai Starikov, an up-and-coming politician

He is an up-and-coming force in Russian politics. An historian who has become very popular due to his history books aimed at a broad, popular audience, he is omni-present in the media. He recently started a political party, which is steadily gaining in popularity. He is very conservative.

You'll be hearing more about him in the future, we think. He's very smart, very articulate, and very popular.

His comments start at the following points: 7.24, 16.50, 27.31, 39.04.

Just so you understand how poorly the western media reports about what is going on here, 90% of journalists who cover Russia do not speak Russian well enough to understand this kind of fast-clip debate. And this program isn't usually translated. So they are really playing catch-up most of the time.

We keep repeating it. Most people in the West, and especially the media which writes about Russia, have a very foggy understanding about what is going on here.

Following is comment about this show from one of our most insightful contributors and analysts, The Saker. It originally appeared on his blog a few days ago.

--------------------------------------

The show in question called "Sunday evening with Vladimir Soloviev" is one of the most watched shows on Russian TV. It airs at prime time, right after the main Sunday evening news. The people invited to this show are typically very well-known public figures and the topics discussed are the hot topics of the day.

What I am trying to say here is that this show is a very good reflection of the mood in Russia.

I can hear the objection "this is state controlled TV!". Okay, let's say it is. But in this case, is it not interesting to see what kind of ideas the state is trying to sell to the general public? Same goes for the "oligarch controlled TV" argument. What are the oligarchs paying for? Finally, if this channel is trying to appeal to the general public, then it shows what the publics wants to hear.

In reality, this is a state controlled TV channel, a very "mainstream" and "approved one", but also a very popular one. The host, Vladimir Soloviev, is a Russian Jew who is very patriotic and who regularly *blasts* Russian "liberals" (in Russia that means pro-US russophobes) and who makes no secret of his disgust for the current Ukrainian government.

Please watch this very mainstream "state approved" discussion and ask yourself the following questions:

a) If the Kremlin wanted to backstab Novorussia - would it allow such shows on prime time TV?
b) What will happen to Putin if he lets Novorussia be over-run by the Nazi death squads?
c) Do you detect any sign of fatigue, fear, demoralization, surrender or weakness which would indicated to you that "the sanctions are biting" and the Russian public opinion getting weary or otherwise willing to negotiate with the Ukraine, the EU or the USA?

Again, this is very "mainstream", I could *easily* have found far more "patriotic" or "anti-Nazi" shows.

But I wanted to share with you something very "middle of the road", the tip of a much bigger iceberg. I hope that you will find this interesting.

Kind regards,

The Saker


+

The latest from The Saker's Blog:

Thursday, November 13, 2014
"Submarines in the desert" (as my deepest gratitude to you)

Image
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby coffin_dodger » Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:53 am

^^ that video - erm - well..the Russians don't pull any punches when talking about American hegemony, do they?

If that really is the popular sentiment in Russia, we may all be in trouble. :ohwh
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:16 am

How the Israel Lobby Protected Ukrainian Neo-Nazis
Rep. John Conyers wanted to block U.S. funding to neo-Nazis in Ukraine. But the ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center refused to help.

November 18, 2014 |
AlterNet has learned that an amendment to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have forbidden US assistance, training and weapons to neo-Nazis and other extremists in Ukraine was kept out of the final bill by the Republican-led House Rules Committee. Introduced by Democratic Representative John Conyers, the amendment was intended to help tamp down on violent confrontations between Ukrainian forces and Russian separatists. (Full text of the amendment embedded at the end of this article).

A USA Today/Pew poll conducted in April while the NDAA was being debated found that Americans opposed by more than 2 to 1 providing the Ukrainian government with arms or other forms of military assistance.

If passed, Conyers' amendment would have explicitly barred those found to have offered “praise or glorification of Nazism or its collaborators, including through the use of white supremacist, neo-Nazi, or other similar symbols” from receiving any form of support from the US Department of Defense.

The amendment was presented by congressional staffers to lobbyists from Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, two of the country’s largest established Jewish pressure groups. Despite their stated mission to combat anti-Semitism and violent extremism, the ADL and Wiesenthal Center refused to support Jeffries and Conyers’ proposal.

According to Democratic sources in Congress, staffers from the ADL’s Washington office and the Simon Wiesenthal Center rejected the amendment on the grounds that right-wing Ukrainian parties like Svoboda with documented records of racist extremism had “moderated their rhetoric.” An ADL lobbyist insisted that “the focus should be on Russia,” while the Wiesenthal Center pointed to meetings between far-right political leaders in Ukraine and the Israeli embassy as evidence that groups like Svoboda and Right Sector had shed their extremism.

The ADL’s Washington office and the Simon Wiesenthal Center did not respond to numerous requests by email and telephone for comment.

Earlier this year, the ADL’s outgoing National Director Abraham Foxman noted Svoboda’s “history of anti-Semitism and platform of ethnic nationalism” in a press releasedemanding the party renounce its past glorification of Stepan Bandera, a World War Two-era Nazi collaborator who has become a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism.

When the Ukrainian parliament failed to pass a bill this October honoring Bandera’s Ukrainian Rebel Army, about 8000 supporters of Svoboda and the extremist Right Sector marched on the building, attacking riot police with homemade weapons while waving Banderist flags and Svoboda banners. The violent backlash was a reminder that the legend of Bandera would not die any time soon, and that Foxman’s admonitions had fallen on deaf ears.

Svobodoa’s leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, once called for the liberation of his country from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” In 2010, following the conviction of the Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk for his supporting role in the death of nearly 30,000 people at the Sobibor camp, Tyahnybok flew to Germany to praise him as a hero who was “fighting for truth.”

Since the Euromaidan revolution, however, Svoboda has fought to rehabilitate its image. This has meant meeting with Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Reuven Din El and appealing to shared national values. “I would like to ask Israelis to also respect our patriotic feelings,” Tyahnybok has remarked. “Probably each party in the [Israeli] Knesset is nationalist. With God’s help, let it be this way for us too.”

Right Sector, the radical right-wing movement that battled riot police during the latter stages of the Euromaidan uprising, earned plaudits from the ADL’s Foxman when its leader arranged his own meeting with Din El. “[Right Sector leader] Dmitry Yarosh stressed that Right Sector will oppose all [racist] phenomena, especially anti-Semitism, with all legitimate means,” the Israeli embassy declared.

The results of this month’s Ukrainian parliamentary elections were widely portrayed as a setback for the ultra-nationalist right-wing, with Svoboda taking around 6 percent of the vote while Yarosh’s Right Sector failed to qualify for seats. The outcome cheered the American Jewish Committee, which declared that “Jews in most of Ukraine are heartened by the election results and even optimistic about the country’s future.”

But the dismal showing by the traditional ultra-nationalist parties was hardly evidence of a diminished right-wing. With President Petro Poroshenko leading the nationalists’ dream war in the East, Svoboda and Right Sector lost the protest vote they had commanded during the heady years of insurrection. As Anton Shekhovtsov, an expert on Europe’s radical right, explained, “in 2012, Svoboda was also considered almost the only ‘patriotic’ party, but now all democratic parties are patriotic, so Svoboda has lost its ‘monopoly’ on patriotism.”

During the national election campaign, Ukraine’s leading party, the People’s Front of neoliberal Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was honeycombed with far-right militants. Andrei Parubiy, the co-founder of the neo-Nazi-inspired Social National Party and former chief of the Maidan defense committees, was among the extremists who won seats on the People’s Front ticket.

Besides Parubiy, the People’s Front included Andriy Biletsky, leader of the overtly Azov militia, an overtly neo-Nazi fighting force that has been on the front lines of the battle against Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Azov deputy commander Vadym Troyan joined him on the party’s electoral list, rounding out a peculiar mix of khaki shirt clad fascists and buttoned-down neo-liberals.

Unlike Svoboda, these figures do not even feign moderation. “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival,” Biletsky recently wrote. “A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”

Azov fighters are united by their nostalgia for Nazi Germany and embrace of open fascism. Sporting swastika tattoos, the battalion “flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag,” the New York Times’ Andrew Kramer recently reported.

With the government in a state of flux, Azov is filling the void in the East. As Ukrainian parliamentarian Gregory Nemira complained to reporter Anna Nemtsova in September, “The president still has not appointed a chief of staff for the armed forces. He has not admitted we are in a state of war, preferring to throw the battalions like Azov into the most dangerous combat zones, where authorities would not have the courage to send regular troops.”

Azov is precisely the sort of neo-Nazi organization that Conyers’ NDAA amendment would have deprived of US assistance. But when the congressman sought help from the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center in moving the proposal forward, he was rebuked. The amendment died a quiet death and Azov’s American supply line remains intact.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby 8bitagent » Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:18 am

Call me a sell out, ban me, etc I dont care. I fucking HATE Russia, and I see them way more of a threat than the US. You think I like the idea of living in California and having long range tactical nuke armed Russian jets patrol my coastline, or Alaska or Canada or the east coast

And all these people calling Ukraine a bunch of fascists. Russia IS THE MOST far right gay hating minority killing psychopathic group on the plannet. Russia was the main arm suppliers to the Sudanese genocide. Putin orchestrated false flag terror attacks to oppress Muslims. Putin orders the assassination of hundreds of journalists.

Don't tell me Russia is innocent. Russia is worse than they ever were during the Cold War, and sorry if I lose conspiracy progressive points for saying so
"Do you know who I am? I am the arm, and I sound like this..."-man from another place, twin peaks fire walk with me
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8bitagent
 
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