Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

[FourthBase]

Here's another: South Korea. Or do you picture them as envying North Koreans?

I specifically said in the last 50 years -- for a reason. Because that was the year in which everything changed. Although American Blacks and American Natives might view this more as a change of direction rather than anything else.

Are you suggesting that the US hasn't interfered there in the last 50 years?
No, that can't be it. What's the problem, then? Oh, I see. It's just that I was right.

Your post is a rambling, incoherent rant meant to illustrate how "educated" you are, instead exposing the yawning gulf of ignorance that comprises your view of the world, of history, of how global economic and military power are used to destroy sovereign countries and enslave their people, your total ignorance of those Other Guys, caricatures of all those savage races who should be damn grateful for...all the "freedom" that is always promised at the end of a gun (or in the sights of an unmanned drone, or inside an "aid package" or a generous international loan), though what is always delivered instead is slavery and despair.

Sigh. No, your post is. I'm well aware of history, Alice. You only wish I were ignorant.
I'm glad your willful misinterpretation of me provided you a launching point to get literary.

If I were an Indian, I wouldn't give a shit either way, because either way a white nation was going to trample me...oh,well, maybe I'd be pro-Crown, right, given the lovely hospitality of Canadiannn...errr, nevermind.

Living in a world where Muslims do not make the rules. They make the worst rules, in general. Or will someone bother making a futile attempt to dispute that, out of an obligatory political-correctness? Ladies, you who bemoan American misogyny, you would prefer the 50-to-500-years-late-to-the-liberation-party Muslim world? No. At the risk of daring to answer for you like a sexist: No, you would not prefer to live in most of the Muslim world. But, hey, correct me if I'm wrong.

Duh, since I'm a non-Muslim woman who lives entirely by choice in a country whose population is around 90% Muslim, that was a bizarre question. Did it ever occur to you that almost everything you think you know is bullshit, or filtered through a sieve of politically-driven, malicious propaganda? Did it ever occur to you that one of the most efficient ways to destroy a nation, to break people, is from within? It so happens that Egyptians -- most of whom are genuinely devout Muslims -- have done more to defeat and destroy the spread of the artificial "Islam" (which has been nicknamed "Zionist Islam") so aggressively promoted by your own country, than any other people.

What exactly is "Zionist Islam"? Do you mean...the Muslim Brotherhood?
What exactly am I wrong about? What exactly do you like about living under Muslim rule?

The devout Muslims who voted for and empowered the MB in Egypt also defeated and destroyed the MB in Egypt? Well, that's reassuring. They only allowed fascist theocrats to control the country for, like, a year. Way better than it turned out in Iran. I give Egypt and Egyptians major props. There might even be actual moderate Muslims in Egypt. Turkey, too! But how about the innumerable mosques there and elsewhere which preach an extremist militaristic misogynistic hyperreligious ideology that would make you all involuntarily shit your pants if it were white Americans wearing crucifixes preaching it and then occasionally following it up with mass murder. Are those mosques something Pamela Geller dreamed up, or maybe they're all FBI bait? Is militant political Islam which seeks to dominate all other civilizations and control all our lives just a rumor spread by the Mossad? Are the imams all crisis actors?

They are a fundamentally-backwards culture, ethically, epistemologically, ruled by the worst set of religious memes out of all the extant sets of bad major religious memes. Islam, as it is believed by most Muslims, is an inevitable threat to all civilization, no matter how conservative or progressive. The vision of global Islam dreamed and pursued by the majority of politically-active Muslims in the world will obliterate us all, eventually All. All of our precious rights, all our dearest values. Christian, feminist, capitalist, socialist. Overthrown, given enough time, at their rate of expansion, and given the extraordinary tenetic resiliency of Mohammed's* creed. You ignore the right-wingers on that Malthusian angle at your own liberal peril. And yet, because of the grandiose sociopaths who've ensured that the world stay addicted to their Petroleum, Inc. (Thanks, oil barons! For doubly fucking the world over!) we've all wound up more or less hostage to that same Muslim world none of you would want to live in, logistically beholden to their worst autocrats and theocrats and oligarghs, either the puppet kind or the organic kind, and perhaps it would always be this case no matter what in certain countries if a people's takeover would inevitably lead to a theocratic tyranny like it did in Iran, like it almost did in Egypt. "Yay, go People! Okay, folks, you won, now you get to decide what to do with your lives! The world of possibilities opens before you, beyond the horizon...so, what shall it be?" And the Iranian people said, "Give all the power to this one guy so he can make all our decisions for us because he knows best what the ultimate one guy we must obey would want us to do." That is depressing, frightening given the power to make war. And yet, no one is supposed to be unhappy about this except deluded or agenda-driven American chauvinists, racists, Islamophobes, right-wingers, etc.?

You can't distinguish between the real thing and a caricature that has been given life, funded, armed and unleashed to destroy Muslim people and to demonize them at the same time. You are an ignorant man, with all the shallow self-assurance and smug self-righteousness of those who are as incapable of seeing themselves accurately as they are of seeing "Those Other Guys". In your own insignificant way, you play your part without knowing or caring that you are nothing more than a teeny cog in a big machine that you don't even begin to understand. Maybe it's easier to see from the outside.

Mmm-hmm. It probably is easier to see from the outside.

A little substance in your post next time would help, Alice.
I'm forced to shadowbox with the mere implications of your uncharacteristic emptiness.

[FourthBase]

If this were the beginning of a Eurasian Spring, would that necessarily be a terrible thing? If the CIA were to help Chinese dissidents launch a peaceful takeover of their own particular rigged economy and oppressive government (we all live in one), why should that necessarily be a terrible thing? Just because it would be a move rightward (from as left a starting point as it gets!) according to some silly left-right false bifurcation? There is free, and there is not-free. Fuck all non-freedom.

I can't decide if this is an example of dangerous naivete and ignorance and a cold, cold heart, or something else. To help me decide (if you wish): 1) can you point to a single example of US political/military intervention during the past 50 years, which made life better for the targets of this intervention rather than horribly, catastrophically worse? And, 2) do you give a shit?

Here's another: South Korea. Or do you picture them as envying North Koreans?

I mean, look, I'm obviously no fool. I used to have "The CIA's 50 Greatest Hits" more or less memorized, like schoolchildren memorize the 50 states. I know the evils American civilization is responsible for. If anything, since my true education (and probably yours, too) has been a guided autodidactic tour through the world of radical literature, what I don't know enough about, and what I'm constantly surprised by, is how much evil the Other Guys have been responsible for, too. I, for one, am quite fucking grateful to be:

· Not living in a world where the USSR had prevailed over the USA. (Sutton's thesis notwithstanding.) (Not to say that Communism is dead; hardly. Look over there, it's China. Oh, and the "Eurasian Union", whatever the hell that is.) If I were someone who had been traumatized by an American proxy or a School of the Americas death squad, then I would despise America. But to then be pro-America's-enemy would be a failure to understand that, eventually, some similar violation would have been visited upon me by America's enemy. And at least in America, there is the pretense of fairness. Pretenses are important, even if they are often betrayed. In places where they have no such pretenses, people are simply fucking executed. China, for example. Here, at least, you have to try really, really hard to earn yourself the evil eye from a shadowy assassination unit. China, they will just fucking run you over with a tank. (Off camera.) This website does not exist in China, does it?

· Not living in a world where Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had prevailed. Not a single person but for a monstrously stupid few in the world would have this otherwise.

· Living in a world where the American Revolution (or as my right-wing cousin puts it, Counter-Revolution) occurred. If I were black, then I might feel otherwise, given how that would mean decades more freedom for my entire family tree. Then again, a lot of black people have been actualizing the shit out of their lives for a long time, since the Civil War ended, occasionally before, and they accomplished this despite the immersive racism, and almost none of them chose to flee to Mexico or Canada or to take a cruise back across the Atlantic. So maybe that fact by itself is black assent for the Revolution. (Isn't it funny, this nation was founded in a revolution, by revolutionaries, who fought an empire with guerrilla tactics, who littered the marketplaces with radical philosophy, the most successful revolution in world history, and yet all you leftist revolutionaries can do is deconstruct it, subvert it, etc.) If I were an Indian, I wouldn't give a shit either way, because either way a white nation was going to trample me...oh,well, maybe I'd be pro-Crown, right, given the lovely hospitality of Canadiannn...errr, nevermind.

· Living in a world where Muslims do not make the rules. They make the worst rules, in general. Or will someone bother making a futile attempt to dispute that, out of an obligatory political-correctness? Ladies, you who bemoan American misogyny, you would prefer the 50-to-500-years-late-to-the-liberation-party Muslim world? No. At the risk of daring to answer for you like a sexist: No, you would not prefer to live in most of the Muslim world. But, hey, correct me if I'm wrong. How about those of you who are gay or whatever? Feel like moving to a majority-Muslim country? No. You don't. This is not just reverse-whataboutism. They are a fundamentally-backwards culture, ethically, epistemologically, ruled by the worst set of religious memes out of all the extant sets of bad major religious memes. Islam, as it is believed by most Muslims, is an inevitable threat to all civilization, no matter how conservative or progressive. The vision of global Islam dreamed and pursued by the majority of politically-active Muslims in the world will obliterate us all, eventually All. All of our precious rights, all our dearest values. Christian, feminist, capitalist, socialist. Overthrown, given enough time, at their rate of expansion, and given the extraordinary tenetic resiliency of Mohammed's* creed. You ignore the right-wingers on that Malthusian angle at your own liberal peril. And yet, because of the grandiose sociopaths who've ensured that the world stay addicted to their Petroleum, Inc. (Thanks, oil barons! For doubly fucking the world over!) we've all wound up more or less hostage to that same Muslim world none of you would want to live in, logistically beholden to their worst autocrats and theocrats and oligarghs, either the puppet kind or the organic kind, and perhaps it would always be this case no matter what in certain countries if a people's takeover would inevitably lead to a theocratic tyranny like it did in Iran, like it almost did in Egypt. "Yay, go People! Okay, folks, you won, now you get to decide what to do with your lives! The world of possibilities opens before you, beyond the horizon...so, what shall it be?" And the Iranian people said, "Give all the power to this one guy so he can make all our decisions for us because he knows best what the ultimate one guy we must obey would want us to do." That is depressing, frightening given the power to make war. And yet, no one is supposed to be unhappy about this except deluded or agenda-driven American chauvinists, racists, Islamophobes, right-wingers, etc.?

* Mohammed, whom I like to depict as:

Quoting myself so the entirety of this post can be seen on this new page.

Realize two things about that post, at the very least, prior to responding:

· It cannot be seen in China. Who is the worse enemy of RI? The country you all love to hate, America? Or the country which criminalizes the very conversation we're having, deletes from existence this entire board? How many of us would be in a Chinese prison right now, just for talking in public about what we do? Raise your hand. [We should all be raising our hands.] How many of us are Chinese citizens, writing from China? Raise your hand. [No hands should be raised.]

· That obligatory depiction of Mohammed as an innocuous smiley would get me executed in quite a few Muslim environments. This is an anti-fascist board, right? If drawing a smiley face can get you the death sentence in a particular system, then whatever system that is = fascism, no?

[seemslikeadream]

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Waiting in the Wings of Ukraine
Did Somebody Say Fascism?
by JOSHUA SPERBER
Yale historian Timothy Snyder recently warned concerned readers and listeners to refrain from assuming that Ukraine’s ongoing tumult signals the growth of fascism. Notwithstanding the widespread presence of fascist symbols and anti-Semitic violence in the Ukraine, Snyder emphasizes the diversity of Ukraine’s anti-government protestors as well as the fact that other European countries such as France and Austria are currently facing graver ultra-right threats. Conceding that Ukrainian fascists should nonetheless be taken seriously, Snyder asserts that the Ukrainian democratic process needs to be re-legitimized, a conclusion that notably reverses cause and effect as it ignores the fundamental global economic crisis that precipitated the ongoing political one.

This reversal of cause and effect is unsurprising given that Snyder’s discussion, as well as Stephen Cohen’s far more critical account, does little to describe fascism and nothing to explain it. The substitution of description for explanation in fact resembles much of the historical debate on fascism, with predominantly liberal scholars characterizing fascism as a nebulous phenomenon that is best defined negatively. Thus, fascism can be seen as anti-communist, anti-Semitic, anti-clerical (with exceptions depending on whether you consider Franco fascist, etc.), anti-democratic, anti-liberal, and so on. Meanwhile, writers mostly but not only (for instance Hannah Arendt) on the right have eschewed the concept of fascism altogether, instead suggesting that what has been termed fascist is in fact merely totalitarian. Reflecting the Cold War era goal of distancing Nazism from Western capitalism while comparing it to the Soviet Union instead, totalitarianism’s emphasis on an all-intrusive dictatorship, and not economics, struggled to explain the timing, and thereby the causes and implications, of fascism’s rise.

And it is this factor of historical timing that provides the greatest indication of what fascism in fact is. As Karl Polanyi noted in The Great Transformation:

In reality, the part played by fascism was determined by one factor: the condition of the market system. During the period 1917-23 governments occasionally sought fascist help to restore law and order: no more was needed to set the market system going. Fascism remained undeveloped. In the period 1924-29, when the restoration of the market system seemed ensured, fascism faded out as a political force altogether. After 1930 market economy was in a general crisis. Within a few years fascism was a world power.

That is, as Marxist historians of fascism have long argued, fascism at its essence is an outcome of capitalism in crisis. The quintessential counterrevolutionary movement, fascism responds to capitalism’s invariable crises by redirecting potentially revolutionary threats to capitalism to nationalist, (relatedly) racist (or within Europe’s right today, “culturalist”), and militarist violence that preserves the basic material conditions of class society. However, unable or uninterested in merely returning to what existed before, the defense of private property and profit amidst capitalist crisis frequently entails imperialist expansion abroad and the racially (or “culturally”) justified appropriation of wealth at home, as the maintenance of a status quo in crisis perforce requires its own radicalization.

In this regard, the Nazis’ rise is emblematic. Although Weimar Germany experienced recurrent crises throughout much of the 1920s – from the punitive Versailles Treaty to the failed Munich Soviet to the Beer Hall Putsch and hyperinflation – the Nazis did not escape electoral irrelevance until the global economic collapse of 1929.

While Henry Ashby Turner Jr. argues that big business was not responsible for installing Hitler into power, Turner nonetheless notes that Weimar’s system of social programs (Socialpolitik) had “despite employers’ objections, expanded through the 1920s…. (And in) the virtually unanimous opinion of the country’s capitalists, the burgeoning Socialpolitik of the Republic amounted to a burdensome, even, crippling, intrusion of state power into economic affairs that contravened all sound principles and imperiled the country’s recovery.”

Complaining that their profits were being “confiscated” due to the intractable political power of Germany’s unions, big business threatened to stop investing altogether unless the government, increasingly impotent amidst the intensifying crisis, weakened labor’s hand. Indeed, late Weimar was characterized by vicious street-fighting between communists and fascists, united in their shared hatred of the collapsing center but attempting to resolve the crisis in diametrically opposed ways. Notably, only the former were aggressively persecuted by the state, as state leaders, Junkers, and industrialists increasingly understood that only the fascists did not fundamentally threaten the capitalist order but could in fact be used to preserve it (albeit not always on the old guard’s terms) via fascism’s mass appeal. While the Comintern’s description of Hitler as the mere “puppet” of capital has been long rejected as a crude oversimplification, Turner notes that Franz von Papen, the principal politician in orchestrating Hitler’s appointment, indeed “had come to enjoy the virtually unanimous and enthusiastic support of big business.”

And whereas some observers were misled by the inclusion of “Socialist” in the Nazi moniker, this only reflected a cynical device to attract members of the massive German left – that is, those rejecting capitalism and nationalism (whatever sincere anti-capitalist Nazis there were would be eliminated by the 1934 “Night of the Long Knives”). Indeed, the combined Socialist and Communist (SPD/KPD) vote surpassed the Nazi vote in 1932, and as the Nazi vote declined in the November 1932 election it appeared to most observers that Hitler had missed his opening.

It was here, in January 1933, that Hitler was finally appointed chancellor, whereupon he immediately banned independent unions, froze wages, sent socialists and communists to concentration camps, and resolved the ongoing business-labor arbitration crisis to the exclusive benefit of business. Resolving Germany’s domestic capitalist crisis by weakening labor, confiscating wealth, and destroying obstacles to accumulation while replacing class consciousness with national-racial consciousness, the Nazis’ driving geopolitical aim was the destruction of the “Judeobolshevist” Soviet Union. And the Nazis indeed ultimately murdered over 20 million Soviets, including 3.3 million out of 5.7 million POWs, destroyed 70,000 villages, 30,000 factories, and the USSR’s 20 largest cities in what Arno Mayer describes as a “crusade.”

To be sure, Europe is different today from what it had been in the 1930s. Not least, there is no powerful organized opposition to capitalism, let alone a perceived communist alternative governing the biggest country in the world. While counterrevolutionary movements, as Corey Robin hasnoted, often despise the ruling regime – which they decry as decadent and inept – as much as they fear revolution, a ruling regime is unlikely to employ fascism – which has little regard for the rule of law – as a bulwark to revolution if there is no revolution at hand.

Notwithstanding Polanyi’s description of how fascism waited in the wings during periods of market stability, growing fascist movements today will likely wait in the economically depressed wings (Svoboda occupies eight percent of Parliament, while Golden Dawn occupies six percent of Greece’s Parliament, not mentioning the movements in Hungary, Austria, France, and the Netherlands) until they are called upon to destroy a serious political threat from the anti-capitalist left should one arise (which is not to discount the preemptive, radicalizing, and unpredictable character of the opposition to anti-capitalism).

This hardly suggests that we should spend our time fearing a fascist future that is far worse than today (whatever the future will bring, it will be natural and our own, as Raoul Vaneigem has written), but only that we should recognize that the fascism we fear tomorrow is merely the unmasked savagery of the capitalism we know today.

[seemslikeadream]

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Was the Ukraine Coup America’s Main Event at the Sochi Olympics?
by PETER LEE
In my previous essay on events in Ukraine, I speculated that the US and EU orchestrated the climax of the Ukraine crisis to occur while Vlad was preoccupied with presiding over his beloved Olympics, and unwilling or unable to destroy the soft power vibe by intervening forcefully in the Ukraine, or even giving the matter his more complete attention.

Clever, clever America, if this was the case.

Of course, with what we know now about the aggressive Western destabilization effort in Ukraine—which included subversion, coercion, and even comfort and aid to violent insurrectionists against Yanukovich’s hapless elected government—it is rather ironic that the Western media anointed Putin History’s Greatest Monster February 2014 Edition.

You remember that, don’t you? The mean, anti-democratic, gay-hating, Pussy-Riot whipping autocrat who might unleash tyrannical Russian might against the freedom fighters in Maidan Square?

Well, it is also ironic that Putin preached non-intervention and let Ukraine (and Yanukovich, obviously not his BFF) stew, while it was the West and the ever-reliable Western media that engaged in active cheerleading and more, intervening in Ukraine to facilitate the overthrow of an elected government on Russia’s borders.

Wait a minute. Maybe that’s too ironic. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe the Western campaign against Putin and Sochi was part of the pre-emptive framing effort to depict events in Ukraine as a struggle of freedom-loving Euro-Ukrainians against the Evil Empire.

I always thought the ostensible reason for the near universal boycott of the Sochi opening ceremonies by President Obama and the EU states always smelled a little fishy. As I recall, the guy who runs Belgium was the only Atlantic leader who showed up.

Of course, nobody said We’re boycotting. It was just, we’re too busy, (F*ck you Vladimir).

There was considerable rumbling in the Western press, I recall, that the forces of freedom were dumping on Putin and Sochi because of the anti-gay propaganda law, a justification that has a few holes in it, considering that the legal position of LGBTs is more protected in Russia than it is in several US states. And let’s not forget the brutal oppression of stray dogs—cute, cuddly puppies!—by the heartless Russian bear.

Maybe the Sochi-time hostility was more a matter of making sure that Putin and Russia were on the wrong side of global opinion—and less likely to risk spoiling the optics of the Games by throwing themselves into a regional crisis—when Ukraine finally blew up.

As to why the United States was so keen to hand Russia a geopolitical loss, maybe it has to do with support for the EU’s long-standing desire to wrench Ukraine into the Western column.

I hope so.

Because an alternate possibility is that the United States did it for revenge, to punish Putin for not going along with the US program on Syria.

That’s not great because, if so, the decision might have been made out of short-sighted spite, and the West might have taken sole custody of the Ukrainian tar baby just as its finances are teetering to collapse and the split between eastern and western Ukrainians threatens to turn into a permanent rift.

It would be…ironic! There’s that word again!—if punishing Putin over Syria turned Ukraine into another Syria.

I don’t think this revenge scenario is too outlandish. President Obama seems to be a man who likes his revenge served cold—icy cold—and maybe underneath that controlled façade he was itching to show Putin that Russia could not lightly defy US demands to withdraw support from Assad and collapse the Syrian government. I believe personal disdain and the need to assert his credentials as world’s numero uno big boss drives President Obama’s foreign policy with regard to Putin, with the Chinese leadership (ever since he was subjected to a finger-wagging tirade by China’s chief climate negotiator for America’s botched outing at the Copenhagen summit in 2010), and of course, his counterproductive crusade—now in its third dismal year with a promise of further escalation– to destroy Syria and further destabilize the Middle East in order to punish Bashar Assad for refusing to go when Obama told him to go.

One hopes that twelve-dimensional chess is guiding US moves in the Ukraine. But if that policy is in the hands of a crude neo-con like “Fuck the EU” Victoria Nuland, maybe we’re looking at another one of those “nobody could have foreseen” bloody foreign policy botches that the US seems to specialize in nowadays.

And Putin might have the last laugh, withholding Russia’s promised contribution of $15 billion while the EU scrambles to come up with the $30 billion Ukraine needs to get through the year (amazingly, the US has to date made no commitment to provide financial aid, something the EU is probably noticing; and thinking Thanks a Billion! Not! Vicky Nuland, since the aggressive US strategy blew up the transitional government negotiated by the EU that might have kept Russia in the game and on the hook).

A year from now it might be Vladimir Putin who’s saying Thanks! Victoria Nuland. Thanks to you I was spared the cost and trouble of propping up a dysfunctional pro-Russian government in the Ukraine. I saved $15 billion bucks…turned a nice profit since I could drop concessional pricing in the new gas contracts…and I picked up east and south Ukraine as new Russian provinces for free!

Clever, clever…maybe too clever America.

[seemslikeadream]

Viktor Yanukovych 'is in Moscow', says Russian news agency
RBC reports that toppled Ukrainian president arrived in Russia on Tuesday night and is staying in a luxury health resort outside the capital

Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Roland Oliphant, Simferopol and Hannah Strange6:48PM GMT 26 Feb 2014
Viktor Yanukovych is in a luxury health resort outside Moscow, a Russian news agency has claimed.
RBC, a Russian newspaper and news agency, quoted an unnamed “prominent Russian businessman” as saying that the fugitive Ukrainian president flew into Moscow on Tuesday night and was later seen in the Radisson Royal Hotel Ukraine in central Moscow.
Sources later told the paper that Mr Yanukovych had then moved to the Barvikha Clinical Sanitorium, a health resort run by the Russian department of presidential affairs on the prestigious Rublyovka-Uspenskoe highway to the west of the city.
It has not been possible to independently confirm the report.
The dacha neighbourhoods along the Rublyovka highway include President Vladimir Putin’s out-of-town residence at Novo Ogaryovo.

The presidential affairs department told the paper it did not have any such information, although an anonymous “high ranking official” confirmed the story, RBC said.
A Russian foreign ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, reportedly told RBC said that his department was engaged in matters of foreign policy, not the location of individuals.
The new authorities in Kiev said earlier yesterday that Mr Yanukovych was still on the run in the Ukraine. He had previously been said to be in hiding in the pro-Russian Crimea.
Earlier, Ukraine's acting prosecutor general said Mr Yanukovych had been put on the coutnry's international wanted list, although it was unclear whether a formal demand had been made to Interpol.
Oleh Makhnytsky said the former leader is wanted for "mass murder" connected with the shooting deaths of protesters during the crisis.
He said Ukraine would also be contacting international organisations with an official request to help trace bank accounts and assets controlled by the ousted president and his allies.
In an interview with Reuters, Mr Makhnytsky claimed Mr Yanukovych and his aides had stolen "millions but not billions" of dollars.
Documents discovered in the abandoned presidential residence and offices have indicated suspicious transfers of large amounts of cash, in some cases amounting to millions of dollars.
They have also revealed an extraordinarly lavish lifestyle and personal spending far in excess of his annual $100,000 presidential salary.
"We will check everything: all the schemes of the ex-regime," Mr Makhnytsky. "We are doing these checks because all the activity of the former regime was built on total corruption," he said.

[RocketMan]

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/25/is_the_ ... e_partner/

As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been filled with far-right streetfighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.

White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.

An Anarchist group called AntiFascist Union Ukraine attempted to join the Euromaidan demonstrations but found it difficult to avoid threats of violence and imprecations from the gangs of neo-Nazis roving the square. “They called the Anarchists things like Jews, blacks, Communists,” one of its members said. “There weren’t even any Communists, that was just an insult.”

“There are lots of Nationalists here, including Nazis,” the anti-fascist continued. “They came from all over Ukraine, and they make up about 30% of protesters.”

One of the “Big Three” political parties behind the protests is the ultra-nationalist Svoboda, whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has called for the liberation of his country from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” After the 2010 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 rushed to Germany to declare him a hero who was “fighting for truth.” In the Ukrainian parliament, where Svoboda holds an unprecedented 37 seats, Tyahnybok’s deputy Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn is fond of quoting Joseph Goebbels – he has even founded a think tank originally called “the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center.” According to Per Anders Rudling, a leading academic expert on European neo-fascism, the self-described “socialist nationalist” Mykhalchyshyn is the main link between Svoboda’s official wing and neo-Nazi militias like Right Sector.

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 [embedded at the bottom of this article], 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.”

Svoboda’s openly pro-Nazi politics have not deterred Senator John McCain from addressing a EuroMaidan rally alongside Tyahnybok, nor did it prevent Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland from enjoying a friendly meeting with the Svoboda leader this February. Eager to fend off accusations of anti-Semitism, the Svoboda leader recently hosted the Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine. “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.”

In a leaked phone conversation with Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, Nuland revealed her wish for Tyahnybok to remain “on the outside,” but to consult with the US’s replacement for Yanukovich, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, “four times a week.” At a December 5, 2013 US-Ukraine Foundation Conference, Nuland boasted that the US had invested $5 billion to “build democratic skills and institutions” in Ukraine, though she did not offer any details.

“The Euro-Maidan movement has come to embody the principles and values that are the cornerstones for all free democracies,” Nuland proclaimed.

Two weeks later, 15,000 Svoboda members held a torchlight ceremony in the city of Lviv in honor of Stepan Bandera, a World War II-era Nazi collaborator who led the pro-fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). Lviv has become the epicenter of neo-fascist activity in Ukraine, with elected Svoboda officials waging a campaign to rename its airport after Bandera and successfully changing the name of Peace Street to the name of the Nachtigall Battalion, an OUN-B wing that participated directly in the Holocaust. “’Peace’ is a holdover from Soviet stereotypes,” a Svoboda deputy explained.

Revered by Ukrainian nationalists as a legendary freedom fighter, Bandera’s real record was ignominious at best. After participating in a campaign to assassinate Ukrainians who supported accommodation with the Polish during the 1930’s, Bandera’s forces set themselves to ethnically cleanse western Ukraine of Poles in 1943 and 1944. In the process, they killed over 90,000 Poles and many Jews, whom Bandera’s top deputy and acting “Prime Minister,” Yaroslav Stetsko, were determined to exterminate. Bandera held fast to fascist ideology in the years after the war, advocating a totalitarian, ethnically pure Europe while his affiliated Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) carried out a doomed armed struggle against the Soviet Union. The bloodbath he inspired ended when KGB agents assassinated him in Munich in 1959.

The Right Connections

Many surviving OUN-B members fled to Western Europe and the United States – occasionally with CIA help – where they quietly forged political alliances with right-wing elements. “You have to understand, we are an underground organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions of influence,” one member told journalist Russ Bellant, who documented the group’s resurgence in the United States in his 1988 book, “Old Nazis, New Right, and the Republican Party.”

In Washington, the OUN-B reconstituted under the banner of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), an umbrella organization comprised of “complete OUN-B fronts,” according to Bellant. By the mid-1980’s, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members, with the group’s chairman Lev Dobriansky, serving as ambassador to the Bahamas, and his daughter, Paula, sitting on the National Security Council. Reagan personally welcomed Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7000 Jews in Lviv, into the White House in 1983.

“Your struggle is our struggle,” Reagan told the former Nazi collaborator. “Your dream is our dream.”

When the Justice Department launched a crusade to capture and prosecute Nazi war criminals in 1985, UCCA snapped into action, lobbying Congress to halt the initiative. “The UCCA has also played a leading role in opposing federal investigations of suspected Nazi war criminals since those queries got underway in the late 1970’s,” Bellant wrote. “Some UCCA members have many reasons to worry – reasons which began in the 1930’s.”

Still an active and influential lobbying force in Washington, the UCCA does not appear to have shed its reverence for Banderist nationalism. In 2009, on the 50th anniversary of Bandera’s death, the group proclaimed him “a symbol of strength and righteousness for his followers” who “continue[s] to inspire Ukrainians today.” A year later, the group honored the 60th anniversary of the death of Roman Shukhevych, the OUN-B commander of the Nachtigall Battalion that slaughtered Jews in Lviv and Belarus, calling him a “hero” who “fought for honor, righteousness…”

Back in Ukraine in 2010, then-President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the title of “National Hero of Ukraine,” marking the culmination of his efforts to manufacture an anti-Russian national narrative that sanitized the OUN-B’s fascism. (Yuschenko’s wife, Katherine Chumachenko, was a former Reagan administration official and ex-staffer at the right-wing Heritage Foundation). When the European Parliament condemned Yushchenko’s proclamation as an affront to “European values,” the UCCA-affiliated Ukrainian World Congress reacted with outrage, accusing the EU of “another attempt to rewrite Ukrainian history during WWII.” On its website, the UCCA dismissed historical accounts of Bandera’s collaboration with the Nazis as “Soviet propaganda.”

Following the demise of Yanukovich this month, the UCCA helped organize rallies in cities across the US in support of the EuroMaidan protests. When several hundred demonstrators marchedthrough downtown Chicago, some waved Ukrainian flags while others proudly flew the red and black banners of the UPA and OUN-B. “USA supports Ukraine!” they chanted.

[seemslikeadream]

Yanukovych's Fall: The Power of Ukraine's Billionaires

By Christian Neef in Kiev

Photo Gallery: The Role of the OligarchsPhotos
Maxim Dondyuk
The protesters in Kiev were largely responsible for the fall of the Ukrainian president. But his way out of office was paved by two of the country's most powerful oligarchs. Made rich by Viktor Yanukovych, the pair made early preparations for his departure.

Nobody told Ukrainian parliamentarian Yuri Blagodir that you had to be physically fit to be a representative. But last Thursday, the ability to run fast suddenly became a key skill. Just before 10 a.m., the parliament in Kiev was finally assembling in an effort to find a way out of the spiraling chaos that had gripped the country. Then came the order to clear the building.

ANZEIGE

Gunfire rang out, explosions shook the government quarter and special police and secret service units rushed to the scene. The opposition, it was said, intended to storm the parliament and the seat of government.
Blagodir, 40, ran up the street along with the other parliamentarians, away from the city center and away from the parliament building. They felt like they were running for their lives -- a pack of representatives being hunted by the people they represented.

It was afternoon before they returned to their workplace and the greatly anticipated special session only began at 5 p.m. For Yuri Blagodir, the session was of particular importance. Just a day earlier, he had still been a member of the Party of Regions, the governing party led by President Viktor Yanukovych.

Thursday was to be the first day of his new political life. A day prior, he had posted the following on his website: "The events of the last three months have shown that the official response to the crisis can only lead to civil war and the disintegration of the state." He joined three other Party of Regions members in renouncing their membership. A day later, 10 more representatives turned their backs on Yanukovych and huge numbers of functionaries across the country did the same.

It marked the beginning of the rapid end of Yanukovych's grip on power. It was his worst-case scenario: By the end of the day on Thursday, a third of his parliamentarians had abandoned him.

The reason was clear. Civil war no longer seemed merely a theoretical possibility. Snipers had opened fire on protesters in the city center, killing dozens with shots to the head, neck or chest. Over 50 people were killed on the streets of Kiev that day -- a day which was supposed to be one of mourning for the protesters who lost their lives that Tuesday. In total, according to Ukrainian authorities, 88 people died in the conflict last week.

An Understanding with the Oligarchs

As government loyalists and protesters battled it out on and around Independence Square, the rest of the city was ghostly silent. The subway was closed, as were shops, restaurants and banks. Only ambulances sped through the city streets. In front of the Radisson Hotel, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski climbed into a car to drive with his counterparts Frank-Walter Steinmeier, from Germany, and Laurent Fabius, of France, to a meeting with Yanukovych in an effort to re-establish peace.

Parliamentarians, meanwhile, began debating a crisis solution of their own -- even as others were pouring oil onto the fire. The country's secret service head demanded that the battle against the "terrorists" be fought to the bitter end. And former head of government Yulia Tymoschenko, still locked up in Kharkiv at the time, said that the many deaths in Kiev were the result of "negotiations with the dictatorship that were hopeless from the outset." It was essentially a call for a violent overthrow.

Yet by then, it had long since become clear that a solution to the crisis would not be found on Independence Square. Nor would it come from Moscow, Washington, Berlin or Brussels. Rather, it would have to come from parliament -- together with those people who had supported the president. The opposition was faced with the prospect of winning them over in order to establish a political majority.

More than anything, though, the opposition had to reach an understanding with the two men who controlled roughly half of Yanukovych's party: Rinat Akhmetov and Dmitry Firtash, the two most influential oligarchs in the country.

"The two knew that, were Yanukovych to fall, they would be the biggest losers. That is why they did everything to prevent the radical solution sought by the protesters on the Maidan," says Vadim Karasev. Karasev was an advisor to President Viktor Yushchenko, who came to office following the 2004 Orange Revolution only to lose it a short time later due to deep differences with his one-time ally Tymoshenko. Currently, Karasev heads up one of Ukraine's most important think tanks.

Our meeting with Karasev took place in an empty café at the Premier Palace Hotel, across from where Kiev's Lenin monument stood until it was pulled down by radical nationalists in December. "If Yanukovych had attempted to solve the crisis with violence, he would have lost, but the oligarchs would have too," Karasev says. "Tymoshenko would have replaced him immediately and then we would have seen a repeat of what happened after the Orange Revolution: the dispossession of the rich. But all of Ukrainian politics depends on them. The men who became rich thanks to Yanukovych want guarantees for their holdings."

Pulling Strings

Akhmetov and Firtash: Those two names have repeatedly surfaced in Kiev in recent weeks. But they have been careful to stay out of the spotlight and declined interview requests. It was reported over the weekend that they were both in London. Still, they both have been busy pulling strings in recent weeks.

Akhmetov is the more important of the two. The 47-year-old is worth $15 billion and is head of the holdings company System Capital Management, which controls more than 100 companies with some 300,000 employees. They include metallurgical and pipe factories, banks, real estate firms, mobile phone enterprises and a large media company. He is the de-facto ruler of Donbass, the home of Ukrainian heavy industry, and owns the football team Shakhtar Donetsk. He is also among the leaders of Yanukovych's Party of Regions.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian protesters have staked out houses of his in both Donetsk and London. They held up signs reading: "Just one phone call from him and the killing will stop."

Only once did Akhmetov show himself to the protesters. He drove up in his Mercedes and told them that he was prepared to talk. The worst for him, he said, would be if he "could no longer walk through Donetsk and breathe Ukrainian air." Akhmetov, who started "at zero" 25 years ago, as he likes to emphasize, didn't want to belong to the losers.

He comes from a poor mining family. "We lived in just 20 square meters (215 square feet) and had no toilet or sink at home," he has said. But then, at the beginning of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he made his first million trading coal in the mining city of Donetsk.

Nobody knew him at the time. He only entered the spotlight when Akhat Bragin, who was president of the Shakhtar football team at the time, was assassinated in an explosion during a game in 1995. Bragin was the godfather of Donetsk.

Akhmetov had had business dealings with Bragin and became his successor at Shakhtar. Just before, he had founded his first bank in Donetsk. He later said that he became rich via "a few risky deals immediately after the disintegration of the Soviet Union."

A short time later, the former automobile mechanic Viktor Yanukovych, previously convicted of robbery and assault, was named head of the Donetsk regional government. A business relationship developed between him and Akhmetov -- one which ultimately blossomed into a friendship. When Yanukovych became head of government in Kiev in 2002, Akhmetov's career looked to be on the rise.

The Rise

The budding oligarch of course went on to back Yanukovych's 2004 presidential candidacy. But when he failed -- after seeking to ride Russian support and clumsy electoral fraud to the presidency, and touching off the Orange Revolution in the process -- things began looking grim for Akhmetov as well. The country's new leadership, under Yushchenko, began confiscating parts of his steel conglomerate, accusing him of having obtained them illegally.

Then, in 2005, he was accused of involvement in economic crimes and police began raiding his properties and offices. He fled to Monaco and stayed there for a time, avoiding the unpleasantness at home. Ultimately, though, he returned and became a key sponsor of Yanukovych's Party of Regions. When Yanukovych finally did become head of state in 2010, the future looked bright for Akhmetov.

The second oligarch, Dmitry Firtash, 47, followed a similar path to his riches. After serving in the army, he became a fireman and began his business career with a deal that profited him $50,000: In Hong Kong, he traded 4,000 tons of evaporated milk from Ukraine for cotton from Uzbekistan.

Later, he went to Moscow where he lived in the Rossiya Hotel in Moscow, located across from the Kremlin. It is where Soviet businesspeople gathered and while there, he got to know key players in the Turkmen natural gas industry. He quickly entered the trade, receiving natural gas in exchange for foodstuffs.

He too advanced quickly. He bought a chemical factory in Estonia and later purchased an Austrian firm which specialized in natural gas transportation. In 2004, he joined the Russian gas company Gazprom in opening the company RosUkrEnergo, which specialized in transporting natural gas to Western Europe.

It was this company which later put him at odds with the Orange Revolution: A dubious 2009 deal between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ruined Firtash's business. He and Tymoshenko became bitter enemies.
When Yanukovych ascended to power, it was good for Firtash as well. He expanded his empire and today, with his media conglomerate Inter Media Group, controls several television channels.

There are, of course, differences between Akhmetov and Firtash. For one, Firtash is worth less than a billion dollars, in contrast to the monumentally rich Akhmetov. Furthermore, he works closely with partners in Russia whereas Akhmetov's business empire is more focused on Europe. But the two have divided the political playing field between them and they control their country's political scene as though it were a business joint venture. Key positions, whether in ministries or in parliament, are all occupied by their people. Yanukovych's economics minister, for example, came from Akhmetov's team while the deputy prime minister, in charge of natural gas issues, answered to Firtash. It is a loveless marriage of convenience, but it has held.

In the last parliamentary elections, Akhmatov filled roughly 60 spots on the Party of Regions list with his people while Firtash chose 30. That is how politics in Ukraine is done: Whereas Putin took power away from the oligarchs in Russia, they are still at the controls in Ukraine.

The pair came to the conclusion well before the current crisis that Yanukovych would not be around for much longer. They began carefully looking around for alternatives. Akhmetov, for example, had always gotten along well with Tymoshenko, in contrast with Firtash, and began supporting Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who took over the leadership of her Fatherland alliance when she was incarcerated. Firtash, for his part, backed Vitali Klitschko's party UDAR.

"In reality, Firtash early on placed people in Klitschko's UDAR Party, a former head of secret service, for example," says Vadim Karasev. "The contacts were made via the head of the presidential office."

"It may sound hard to believe," Karasev says, "but Firtash was looking for an alternative for the eventuality that Tymoshenko was released and claimed the right to the presidency. It would have been advantageous were Klitschko already there, as a puppet of Firtash."

That's how Akhmetov and Firtash built up options for a possible future without Yanukovych. When the protests broke out on Independence Square in November and both oligarchs saw how obstinately Yanukovych reacted, they began to distance themselves. It was clear to both of them that if worse comes to worst, and the West imposed sanctions on Ukraine, their businesses would be the first to be affected.

Akhmetov made it known that he was in favor of negotiations between the government and the opposition. Firtash also quickly called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, emphasizing that people on both sides of the barricades were Ukrainians.

Letting Yanukovych Fall

Last Tuesday's bloody conflicts tipped the scales. On Wednesday both Akhmetov's and Firtash's TV stations changed their coverage of Independence Square: Suddenly the two channels, Ukraina and Inter, were reporting objectively on the opposition. The message of the oligarchs was clear: We're letting Yanukovych fall.

And in parliament -- where the majority party had barely budged a millimeter in the past weeks -- the mood suddenly changed: Suddenly they were looking for a compromise after all. It became clear on Thursday what this would mean: the forming of a broad coalition, the return of the old constitution and, with it, a reduction of the presidential powers as well as an accelerated presidential election.

Friday was a cheerful day, with bright blue skies. There was still sporadic gunfire but on Independence Square it was hard to believe that, just a few days earlier, people had been gunned down there.

Shortly after noon Yanukovych addressed the people as though he were still calling the shots. He declared that he would "initiate" new elections, constitutional reform and the formation of a new government with national support. Then, things began moving very fast. On Friday evening, parliament got back its full former powers, dismissed the hated interior minister and ultimately Yanukovych himself and smoothed the way for the release of Yulia Tymoshenko.

[seemslikeadream]

Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine
February 26, 2014

Exclusive: There’s been much celebration in U.S. political and media circles over the violent ouster of Ukraine’s democratically elected president. Nearly everyone is hailing this putsch and ignoring that it was spurred on by neo-Nazi militias, Robert Parry reports.


By Robert Parry

There was always a measure of hypocrisy but Official Washington used to at least pretend to stand for “democracy,” rather than taking such obvious pleasure in destabilizing elected governments, encouraging riots, overturning constitutional systems and then praising violent putsches.

But events in Ukraine and Venezuela suggest that the idea of respecting the results of elections and working within legal, albeit flawed, political systems is no longer in vogue, unless the “U.S. side” happens to win, of course. If the “U.S. side” loses, then it’s time for some “shock doctrine.” And, of course, the usual demonizing of the “enemy” leader.

Logo of Ukraine's extreme right-wing nationalist party, Svoboda.

Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych was surely no one’s idea of a pristine politician, though it looks like there are few to none of those in Ukraine, a country essentially controlled by a collection of billionaire oligarchs who jockey for power and shift their allegiances among corrupt politicians.

But Yanukovych was elected in what was regarded as a reasonably fair election in 2010. Indeed, some international observers called the election an important step toward establishing an orderly political process in Ukraine.

But Yanukovych sought to maintain cordial relations with neighboring Russia, which apparently rubbed American neocons the wrong way. Official Washington’s still-influential neocons have been livid with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin because he cooperated with U.S. President Barack Obama in averting U.S. wars against Iran and Syria.

In both cases, the neocons thought they had maneuvered Obama into confrontations that could have advanced their long-term strategy of “regime change” across the Middle East, a process that started in 2003 with the U.S. invasion of Iraq but stalled with that disastrous war.

However, last year, prospects for more U.S. military interventions in two other target countries – Iran and Syria – were looking up, as Israel joined with Saudi Arabia in stoking regional crises that would give Obama no choice but to launch American air strikes, against Iran’s nuclear facilities and against Syrian government targets.

Putin’s Interference

That strategy was going swimmingly until Putin helped bring Iran to the negotiating table over guarantees that its nuclear program would not lead to a nuclear weapon. Putin also brokered a deal to avert threatened U.S. air strikes on Syria over disputed evidence regarding who launched a chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus. Putin got the Syrian government to agree to eliminate its chemical weapons arsenal.

So, Putin found himself in the center of the neocons’ bulls-eye and – given some of his own unforced errors such as defending Russia’s intolerance toward gays and spending excessively on the Sochi Olympics – he became the latest “designated villain,” denounced and ridiculed across the neocon-dominated op-ed pages of the Washington Post and other major news outlets.

Even NBC, from its treasured spot as the network of the Olympic Games, felt it had no choice but to denounce Putin in an extraordinary commentary delivered by anchor Bob Costas. Once the demonizing ball gets rolling everyone has to join in or risk getting run over, too.

All of which set the stage for Ukraine. The issue at hand was whether Yanukovych should accept a closer relationship with the European Union, which was demanding substantial economic “reforms,” including an austerity plan dictated by the International Monetary Fund. Yanukovych balked at the harsh terms and turned to Ukraine’s neighbor Russia, which was offering a $15 billion loan and was keeping Ukraine’s economy afloat with discounted natural gas.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the EU was driving too hard a bargain or whether Ukraine should undertake such painful economic “reforms” – or how Yanukovych should have balanced the interests of his divided country, with the east dominated by ethnic Russians and the west leaning toward Europe.

But protesters from western Ukraine, including far-right nationalists, sought to turn this policy dispute into a means for overthrowing the elected government. Police efforts to quell the disturbances turned violent, with the police not the only culprits. Police faced armed neo-Nazi storm troopers who attacked with firebombs and other weapons.

Though the U.S. news media did show scenes of these violent melees, the U.S. press almost universally blamed Yanukovych – and took almost gleeful pleasure as his elected government collapsed and was replaced by thuggish right-wing militias “guarding” government buildings.

With Yanukovych and many of his supporters fleeing for their lives, the opposition parties seized control of parliament and began passing draconian new laws often unanimously, as neo-Nazi thugs patrolled the scene. Amazingly, the U.S. news media treated all this as uplifting, a popular uprising against a tyrant, not a case of a coup government operating in collusion with violent extremists.

In the upside-down world that has become the U.S. news media, the democratically elected president was a dictator and the coup makers who overthrew the popularly chosen leader were “pro-democracy” activists.

A Curious History

There’s also a curious history behind U.S. attitudes toward ethnically divided Ukraine. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency – as he escalated Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union – one of his propaganda services, Radio Liberty, began broadcasting commentaries into Ukraine from right-wing exiles.

Some of the commentaries praised Ukrainian nationalists who had sided with the Nazis in World War II as the SS waged its “final solution” against European Jews. The propaganda broadcasts provoked outrage from Jewish organizations, such as B’nai B’rith, and individuals including conservative academic Richard Pipes.

According to an internal memo dated May 4, 1984, and written by James Critchlow, a research officer at the Board of International Broadcasting, which managed Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, one RL broadcast in particular was viewed as “defending Ukrainians who fought in the ranks of the SS.”

Critchlow wrote, “An RL Ukrainian broadcast of Feb. 12, 1984 contains references to the Nazi-oriented Ukrainian-manned SS ‘Galicia’ Division of World War II which may have damaged RL’s reputation with Soviet listeners. The memoirs of a German diplomat are quoted in a way that seems to constitute endorsement by RL of praise for Ukrainian volunteers in the SS division, which during its existence fought side by side with the Germans against the Red Army.”

Harvard Professor Pipes, who was an informal adviser to the Reagan administration, also inveighed against the RL broadcasts, writing – on Dec. 3, 1984 – “the Russian and Ukrainian services of RL have been transmitting this year blatantly anti-Semitic material to the Soviet Union which may cause the whole enterprise irreparable harm.”

Though the Reagan administration publicly defended RL against some of the public criticism, privately some senior officials agreed with the critics, according to documents in the archives of the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. For instance, in a Jan. 4, 1985, memo, Walter Raymond Jr., a top official on the National Security Council, told his boss, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, that “I would believe much of what Dick [Pipes] says is right.”

This three-decade-old dispute over U.S.-sponsored radio broadcasts underscores the troubling political reality of Ukraine, which straddles a dividing line between people with cultural ties oriented toward the West and those with a cultural heritage more attuned to Russia. Though the capital Kiev sits in a region dominated by the western Ukrainians, the Russian-allied Ukrainians represent most of the population, explaining Yanukovych’s electoral victory.

Loving a Putsch

Now, right-wing militias, representing those historical resentments toward the Russians and hostility toward the Jews, have seized control of many government buildings in Kiev. Faced with this intimidation, the often-unanimous decisions by the remaining legislators would normally be viewed with extreme skepticism, including their demands for the capture and likely execution of Yanukovych.

But the U.S. press corps can’t get beyond its demonization of Putin and Yanukovych. The neocon Washington Post has been almost euphoric over the coup, as expressed in a Feb. 24 editorial:

“Ukraine has shaken off its corrupt president and the immediate prospect of domination by Russia — but at the risk of further conflict. The decision by Viktor Yanukovych to flee Kiev over the weekend triggered the disintegration of his administration and prompted parliament to replace him and schedule elections for May.

“The moves were democratic — members of Mr. Yanukovych’s party joined in the parliamentary votes — but they had the effect of nullifying an accord between the former government and opposition that had been brokered by the European Union and tacitly supported by Russia.

“Kiev is now controlled by pro-Western parties that say they will implement the association agreement with the European Union that Mr. Yanukovych turned away from three months ago, triggering the political crisis.

“There remain two big threats to this positive outcome. One is that Ukraine’s finances will collapse in the absence of a bailout from Russia or the West. The other is that the country will split along geographic lines as Russian speakers in the east of the country, perhaps supported by Moscow, reject the new political order.”

The Post continued, “What’s not clear is whether Mr. Putin would accept a Ukraine that is not under the Kremlin’s thumb. The first indications are not good: Though Mr. Putin has been publicly silent about Ukraine since Friday, the rhetoric emanating from his government has been angry and belligerent. A foreign ministry statement Monday alleged that ‘a course has been set to use dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods to suppress dissenters in various regions.’”

So, the Washington Post’s editors consider the violent overthrow of a democratically elected president to be “democratic” and take comfort in “democratic” actions by a legislature, despite the curious lack of any no votes and the fact that this balloting has occurred under the watchful eye of neo-Nazi storm troopers patrolling government offices. And, according to the Post, the Russian government is unhinged to detect “dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods.”

The New York Times editorial page was only slightly less celebratory, proclaiming: “The venal president of Ukraine is on the run and the bloodshed has stopped, but it is far too early to celebrate or to claim that the West has ‘won’ or that Russia has ‘lost.’ One incontrovertible lesson from the events in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, is that the deeply divided country will have to contend with dangerous problems that could reverberate beyond its borders.”

There has been, of course, a long and inglorious history of the U.S. government supporting the overthrow of elected governments: Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Allende in Chile in 1973, Aristide in Haiti twice, Chavez in Venezuela briefly in 2002, Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, Morsi in Egypt in 2013, and others. After Yanukovych, the next target of these U.S.-embraced “democratic” coups looks to be Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.

In these cases, it is typical for the mainstream U.S. news media to obsess over perceived flaws in the ousted leaders. On Wednesday, for instance, the New York Times made much of an unfinished presidential palace in Ukraine, calling it “a fugitive leader’s folly.” The idea seems to be to cement in the minds of impressionable Americans that it is okay for the U.S. government to support the overthrow of democratically elected presidents if they have flaws.

The outcomes for the people of these countries that are “saved” from their imperfect leaders, however, often tend to be quite ugly. Usually, they experience long periods of brutal repression at the hands of dictators, but that typically happens outside the frame of the U.S. news media’s focus or interest. Those unhappy countries fade from view almost as quickly as they were thrust to center stage, next to the demonization of their elected leaders.

[FourthBase]

So, 70% of the protesters are not far-right nationalists?
Anyone have a competing percentage? Because 70% >>>>>>> 30%.

Putin’s Interference

That strategy was going swimmingly until Putin helped bring Iran to the negotiating table over guarantees that its nuclear program would not lead to a nuclear weapon. Putin also brokered a deal to avert threatened U.S. air strikes on Syria over disputed evidence regarding who launched a chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus. Putin got the Syrian government to agree to eliminate its chemical weapons arsenal.

So, Putin found himself in the center of the neocons’ bulls-eye and – given some of his own unforced errors such as defending Russia’s intolerance toward gays and spending excessively on the Sochi Olympics – he became the latest “designated villain,” denounced and ridiculed across the neocon-dominated op-ed pages of the Washington Post and other major news outlets.

Even NBC, from its treasured spot as the network of the Olympic Games, felt it had no choice but to denounce Putin in an extraordinary commentary delivered by anchor Bob Costas. Once the demonizing ball gets rolling everyone has to join in or risk getting run over, too.

That's hilarious.
Putin is a ghoul.

Anyone who defends Putin = Something not right.
It is impossible to "villainize" an actual villain.

[seemslikeadream]

Russian moves raise stakes in Ukraine conflict
By By Dalton Bennett And Maria Danilova February 27, 2014

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, Ukraine (AP) — Masked gunmen stormed the parliament of Ukraine's strategic Crimea region as Russian fighter jets screamed above the border, while Ukraine's newly formed government pledged to prevent a national breakup with the strong backing of the West — the stirrings of a potentially dangerous confrontation reminiscent of Cold War brinksmanship.

Moscow reportedly granted shelter to Ukraine's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, who was said to be holed up in a luxury government retreat and to have scheduled a news conference Friday near the Ukrainian border. As gunmen wearing unmarked camouflage uniforms erected a sign reading "Crimea is Russia" in the provincial capital, Ukraine's interim prime minister declared that the Black Sea territory "has been and will be a part of Ukraine."

The escalating conflict sent Ukraine's finances plummeting further, prompting Western leaders to prepare an emergency financial package.

VIDEO: Putin Tests Russian Military as Ukraine Looks to EU
Yanukovych, whose approach to Moscow set off three months of pro-Europe protests, finally fled by helicopter last weekend as his allies deserted him. The humiliating exit was a severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had been celebrating his signature Olympics even as Ukraine's drama came to a head. The Russian leader has long dreamt of pulling Ukraine — a huge country of 46 million people considered the cradle of Russian civilization — closer into Moscow's orbit.

For Ukraine's neighbors, the specter of Ukraine breaking up evoked memories of centuries of bloody conflict.

"Regional conflicts begin this way," said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, calling the confrontation "a very dangerous game."

VIDEO: Ukraine Comes Down to Russia vs. the West: Bremmer
Russia has pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. But the dispatch of Russian fighter jets Thursday to Ukraine's borders and drills by some 150,000 Russian soldiers — almost the entirety of its troop force in the western part of the country — signaled strong determination not to lose Ukraine to the West.

Thursday's dramatic developments pose an immediate challenge to Ukraine's new authorities as they named an interim government for the country, whose population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West. Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires.

In the capital, Kiev, the new prime minister said Ukraine's future lies in the European Union, but with friendly relations with Russia.

VIDEO: Czech President Zeman on Russia and EU, Ukraine
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, picked Thursday in a boisterous parliamentary session, now faces the thorny task of restoring stability in a country that is not only deeply divided politically but on the verge of financial collapse. The 39-year-old served as economy minister, foreign minister and parliamentary speaker before Yanukovych took office in 2010, and is widely viewed as a technocratic reformer who enjoys the support of the U.S.

Shortly before the lawmakers chose him, Yatsenyuk insisted that the country wouldn't accept the secession of Crimea. The Black Sea territory, he declared, "has been and will be a part of Ukraine."

In Simferopol, the Crimean regional capital, gunmen toting rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles raised the Russian flag over the local parliament building. The men threw a flash grenade in response to a journalist's questions. They wore black and orange ribbons, a Russian symbol of victory in World War II.

STORY: A Humiliated Putin Plans His Next Move in Ukraine
Oleksandr Turchynov, who stepped in as acting president after Yanukovych's flight, condemned the assault as a "crime against the government of Ukraine." He warned that any move by Russian troops off of their base in Crimea "will be considered a military aggression."

"I have given orders to the military to use all methods necessary to protect the citizens, punish the criminals, and to free the buildings," he said.

Experts described a delicate situation in which one sudden move could lead to wider conflict.

VIDEO: Ukraine Moves Toward Martial Law
"The main concern at this point is that Kiev might decide to intervene by sending law enforcement people to restore constitutional order," said Dmitry Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "That is something that would lead to confrontation and drag the Russians in."

In a bid to shore up Ukraine's fledgling administration, the Washington-based International Monetary Fund says it is "ready to respond" to Ukraine's bid for financial assistance. The European Union is also considering emergency loans for a country that is the chief conduit of Russian natural gas to western Europe.

[seemslikeadream]

Live Viktor Yanukovych news conference

Switzerland Launches Money Laundering Probe Against Ousted Ukraine Leader

Geneva prosecutors initiate an investigation against Viktor Yanukovych and his son Aleksander

By Nate Rawlings @naterawlingsFeb. 28, 2014Add a Comment
Switzerland has ordered a freeze of all funds in the country belonging to ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych or his allies, as authorities launch a corruption investigation into the former leader and his son.

Geneva’s chief prosecutor Yves Bertossa and members of the financial police searched a company owned by Aleksander Yanukovych on Thursday, part of an investigation into “aggravated money laundering” according to a statement by the prosecutor’s office. “Documents were seized,” the statement said, adding that no further details about the probe will be provided.

The Swiss government also ordered the country’s financial institutions to freeze assets belonging to Yanukovych and those associated with him, the Associated Press reports, saying it was an attempt to “prevent any risk of misappropriation of Ukrainian government property.” Authorities have not disclosed how much money Yanukovych has in Switzerland.

After signing a deal late last week to end violent clashes between police and protesters in Kiev, Yanukovych fled the Ukrainian capital and has apparently been under Russian protection. Ukraine’s interim Interior Minister Arsen Avakov issued a warrant for Yanukovych’s arrest on Monday on a charge of ”mass murder of peaceful civilians.” Yanukovych insists he is still the legitimate president of Ukraine and that people in the eastern and southeastern regions will not accept “lawlessness in the country, when the heads of ministries are appointed by the mob.”

[seemslikeadream]

Russian troops take over airports in Crimea

By William Booth, Friday, February 28, 9:14 AM E-mail the writers
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — Several hundred armed men in green camouflage, without insignia and carrying military-style automatic rifles, entered and secured areas of the civilian airport in Crimea’s regional capital of Simferopol early Friday.

Video taken at the scene showed the men patrolling inside the airport and standing guard outside. Flights continued to operate; no shots were fired.


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In Kiev, Ukraine’s new interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said the armed men were Russian troops.

“What is happening can be called an armed invasion and occupation. In violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provocation for armed bloodshed in the territory of a sovereign state,” Avakov said.

Avakov said troops from the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet, berthed principally at the Crimean port of Sevastopol, had also secured entrances to the Belbek military airport near the city.

“There is still no direct armed conflict. Diplomats should speak,” Avakov said.

A spokesman for the Black Sea Fleet denied the reports that its troops are involved in blocking the Belbek airfield, according to the Interfax news agency.

“No subdivision of the Black Sea Fleet has been advanced into the Belbek area, let alone involved in blocking it,” the spokesman said. “Given the unstable situation around the Black Sea Fleet bases in the Crimea, and the places where our service members live with their families, security has been stepped by the Black Sea Fleet’s anti-terror units.”

A Crimea news Web site, Argumenty Nedeli Krym, reported that the armed men carried M-4 assault rifles. “As journalists attempted to approach them, one of the servicemen warned that they would shoot to kill,” the Web site said.

At the Belbek airport, armed men and a military transport truck blocked the entrance. Whoever the men were, they did not appear to be civilian militiamen, but trained soldiers.


When a man who appeared to be a Russian officer with two bodyguards approached them, they spread out in defensive positions, squatted and waited for orders.

Dozens of troop transport trucks were scattered along the highway between Sevastopol and Simferopol.

The mysterious troops at the main airport in Simferopol slowly circulated at the arrival and departure concourses as international flights from Moscow and Istanbul continued as scheduled.

The soldiers refused to answer questions from reporters about who they are and what their mission is.

A dozen pro-Russian civilian self defense militiamen stood by, but not with, the soldiers.

In the Balaklava district near Sevastopol, at least 20 men wearing the uniform of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and carrying automatic rifles surrounded a Ukrainian border guard post Friday, initiating a tense standoff with Ukrainian border police inside, Reuters news agency reported.

A man who identified himself as an officer of the Black Sea Fleet told the agency: “We are here . . . so as not to have a repeat of the Maidan.” He referred to the popular uprising at Kiev’s Independence Square that led to the ouster of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych last weekend.

In the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovych said he would not ask Moscow to intervene militarily in Ukraine, but he stressed that Russia “cannot stand aside” and “cannot be indifferent to the destiny” of his country.

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin broke his week-long silence on Ukraine with a mixed message. He ordered Russian officials to consult with other nations as well as the International Monetary Fund on means of financial assistance for Ukraine. He also said that efforts to maintain and promote trade between Russia and Ukraine should continue.

At the same time, Putin said Moscow would consider the possibility of sending humanitarian supplies to Crimea.

A Ukrainian legislator from Yanukovych’s political party said Friday that the region, officially called the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, is not trying to secede from Ukraine.

Nestor Shufrych of the Party of Regions said the speaker of the Crimean regional parliament, Volodymyr Konstantynov, had told him by telephone that Crimea was interested only in broadening the terms of its current autonomous status.

“They are not asking for anything more,” Shufrych said. “The autonomous republic’s possible secession from our country is completely out of the question.”

The Ukrainian defense minister, Adm. Ihor Tenyukh, said he planned to go to Crimea later on Friday. The country’s foreign minister has requested talks with his Russian counterpart concerning Crimea.

“We have not received a reply from the Russian side so far,” said the acting foreign minister, Andriy Deshchytsa. “We are open to negotiations and wish an exclusively peaceful resolution of this problem.”

The revolutionary upheaval in Ukraine’s faraway capital has awakened the separatist dreams of ethnic Russians living on the Crimean Peninsula, where on Thursday pro-Russia gunmen who occupied the regional parliament building were met with an outpouring of support.

A group of men dressed in camouflage and armed with rocket-­propelled grenades entered the building early Thursday in the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region, according to local reporters, then barricaded themselves inside and raised the Russian flag on the roof — a succinct answer to warnings from the United States and Europe that Ukraine must remain united and Russia must stand back.

In the freezing weather outside the parliament, separatist fever was running hot, as newly formed self-defense militias paraded under Russian military colors. They shouted thanks to their Soviet grandfathers who had fought against the Germans in World War II in the siege of nearby Sevastopol, a brutal 250-day campaign that left tens of thousands dead and the city in rubble.


“We want Crimea to return to Russia, pure and simple,” said Igor, a leader of a militia group composed of men who had fought in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union. Like other citizen militiamen, he declined to give his last name.

The demonstrations in Simferopol unnerved the newly appointed government more than 400 miles away in the capital, Kiev.

“Measures have been taken to counter extremist actions and not allow the situation to escalate into an armed confrontation” in the center of Simferopol, said Avakov, the interim interior minister.

By early morning, police had surrounded the Crimean parliament, but they did nothing to oust the men who had stormed inside. The occupation began to seem like a bit of a show; it was possible the gunmen had already departed. Police officers out front showed no fear of anyone inside and, instead, turned their backs to the building, taking frequent breaks to smoke cigarettes and drink tea.

Meanwhile, thousands of ethnic Russians — who make up about half of Crimea’s population — arrived to demonstrate. They issued a warning to recalcitrant lawmakers here to give in to the crowd’s No. 1 demand: a referendum on, at minimum, whether to allow the Crimean Peninsula — an autonomous state — to become an even more independent region, with its own leadership, which many demonstrators hoped would enshrine Russian language and culture.

Others who came to the parliament clearly wanted much more, calling for Crimea to return to the arms of the Russian motherland. “The criminals had their revolution in Kiev, and now we are having ours in Crimea,” said Alexandr, a member of another self-defense brigade. “We’re Russian, and we belong to Russia.”

For all their fervor, the crowds have not been huge, and it is hard to judge how much support the cause of separatism or a more independent region might have across Crimea. The government that was approved in Kiev on Thursday is stepping gingerly to avoid arousing passions. Pravy Sektor, the right-wing nationalist group, has said it will not send its members to the peninsula, to avoid confrontations.


Moscow has expressed displeasure with the upheavals in Ukraine, questioned the legitimacy of the new government and stressed that the West should keep out of the country’s internal affairs. But although Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on Wednesday ordered a large-scale military exercise in regions bordering other parts of Ukraine, triggering concern about a possible intervention, Russia has not signaled any desire to bring Crimea back into its fold.

Even so, members of separatist militias in Crimea, organized under a political party called the Russian Bloc, have begun to flex their muscles. They threw up checkpoints Thursday along the main highway between Sevastopol and Simferopol, operated by men in mismatched camouflage who stood before a hand-painted sign warning: “Those who approach with a sword will die by the sword.”

Until now, it could be illegal, and sometimes dangerous, to advocate separatism in Ukraine. Now it is all the rage, with groups here demanding that Russia reclaim territory that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gifted to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. The Russian Black Sea naval fleet is berthed primarily in Sevastopol and supports 15,000 sailors and support staff.

Outside the parliament, voices in the crowd shouted, “Take us back!” as demonstrators unfurled a large Russian flag, sang patriotic Russian songs and denounced as “hooligans” the forces behind Yanukovych’s ouster.

Yanukovych, on the run for several days, appeared Thursday in Moscow, where he was apparently granted Russia’s protection.

Asked what he thought would happen next, a Russian Bloc politician from Sevastopol, Gennadiy Basov, said, “I have no idea.”

Basov said the pro-Russia militias in the Crimea “are prepared to defend our homes and families” from any forces sent by the central government in Kiev.

“Everything coming out of Kiev is illegal,” Basov said.

He and others outside the parliament, stoked on inflammatory Russian TV news shows that repeatedly broadcast images of protesters in Kiev hurling gasoline bombs and advancing with clubs, warned that if they let their guard down, hordes of “fascists” would descend on Crimea.


“They would come to steal, rape and kill,” one man said.

A woman who declined to give her name but described herself as “a Russian housewife from ­Simferopol” boasted that the demonstrators here were peaceful and unafraid to show their faces — ignoring for a moment that the protesters had gathered to support unknown gunmen inside the parliament.

In Kiev, Oleksandr Turchynov, Ukraine’s interim president, warned Moscow that any movement of military personnel off Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol “will be viewed as military aggression.”

Speaking in the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev on Thursday, Turchynov said, “Ukrainian enemies should not try to destabilize the situation, should not encroach on our independence, sovereignty and territory.”

[seemslikeadream]

Coping: With Ukraine War Woo-Woo
Posted on February 28, 2014 by George Ure
Every so often our http://www.nostracodeus.com project comes up with something that is truly amazing. And sometimes we get more than a slight hint of the future in the process. And readers there contribute some amazing emails…and that gets me to the point:

Suppose for a moment that I told you that a prediction that the “Third World War to begin during Winter Games in 2014” was made by astrologers, shamans and parapsychologists in Russia ways back in the spring of 2011 – three years ago!.

Well, it’s true, the prediction was, in fact, made. You can find it in Pravda’s English language archives here.

No kidding! And, if you read the story closely, you’ll find today is one of the “hot days.”

Third World War to begin during Winter Games in 2014
25.03.2011

On March 24, well-known Russian astrologists, shamans and parapsychologists gathered to discuss forecasts for near and distant future.

"The phenomenon that they call the world financial crisis, and which, as they believe, is now ending, was not the financial crisis per se. It was just an omen of the imminent crisis. The real financial crisis is going to take place in the future," astrologist Aleksei Kolov said in the beginning of the meeting.

The most impressive astrological forecast was made by Pavel Globa: "Many attack me now claiming that I was promising Russia a quiet year. What kind of quiet year is it if earthquakes rattle Japan. But Japan is not Russia. There will be wars in the world this year, but everything will be fine in our country, except for the summer. The summer is going to be tough: there will be three eclipses in a row in June-July. This year, there will be six eclipses in total. We had such a catastrophic year as this one 20 years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed," the astrologist said.

Eclipses will cause a lot of trouble this year, Globa warned. By the moment of the latest one, which is going to take place on December 10, armed conflicts will occur on the Balkans. Terrorists will plant a bomb at the Nobel Prize award ceremony.

According to Globa, this year can be compared to 1939 - the year preceding WWII, from the point of view of astrological data.

The participants of the meeting also unveiled the date for the beginning of Third World War. The new war is said to begin in March of 2014, during the Olympic Games in Sochi. It is also possible that the war may start five days after the Games end. Globa did not say in which country exactly the war would begin. He only said that the African revolutions would slowly be moving towards Russia. Massive protests will eventually spark in Central Asia, the astrologist said. According to Globa, such events are happening because of the Black Moon. NATO attacked Libya the day when the Black Moon allied itself with the sun. When the Black Moon allied itself with Uranus, the Japanese earthquake occurred.

In the nearest future, one shall expect revolutions in Syria and Yemen. The Yemeni leader will be toppled only in three years, though. Algeria will be the luckiest country among them all: the riots there will not last long.


"I studied the horoscopes of the leaders of all countries of the region. The Algerian president is the only leader who has no charisma at all. By the way, his birthday is the same day with Gorbachev - March 2nd, 1931. He will leave peacefully. They'll even give him a yacht and a villa. There will be no revolution in Algeria. As for Gaddafi's fate, the problem is that no one knows his birth date - it's either 1937 or 1940 or 1942. If he was born on June 7 indeed, he will die on his birthday - there is an eclipse just near that date. But I don't believe that he is a Gemini. He acts like an Aquarius. Newspapers have recently written that he is a son of a French pilot, they even published a photo of the pilot. I saw the photo - they both look the same indeed," Pavel Globa said.

Parapsychologist Larisa Vais did not predict anything positive either.

"It's going to be a long spring, the summer will be hot, six-fingered children and beasts will be born. I saw it inside of me," she said.

The parapsychologists also saw (inside of her as well, apparently) that the "supreme commander-in-chief" is already looking for his successor. The successor's name will start with a letter 'K'. Larisa Vais said that such visions had never tricked her before. Back in 1996, Larisa saw a Ukrainian woman with a braid. The parapsychologist even mentioned that in one of her interviews to a well-known Russian journalist during those years.

Now Larisa Vais can see a woman as well. This woman, Vais said, would be ruling Russia from behind the back of her husband, the president.

Speaking about global problems, Larisa Vais said that Japan would suffer from other mammoth earthquakes. "A lot of people will die on the planet this year," she said.
Andrei Dondukov, a shaman from Tuva Republic, said that the year 2009 marked the beginning of the era of Yamaraj, the god of death. "Everyone will be held accountable for all they did. Death will be especially close on November 5," shaman said.

Dondukov confirmed Vais's predictions. According to him, men lost their true power a long time ago. "We are living in the era of pseudo-patriarchate. This era will soon end and matriarchate will return," he said.

Russia will survive this change of trend easily. Dmitry Medvedev will remain the nation's ruler. Medvedev is the man, whom Russian Buddhists recognized as the incarnation of female deity - White Tara.

When asked about Putin's role, Dondukov said that Putin is a fighter.

"Putin is a military man, and Medvedev does yoga. There are two types of men in general. One of them is the horizontal type - this is where military men refer to. There's also the vertical type of men - they aim for spiritual growth. Medvedev is a true czar, the Lord's Anointed. Putin is just a duke," shaman Dondukov said

[seemslikeadream]

Armed men seize two airports in Ukraine's Crimea, Yanukovich reappears
BY ALISSA DE CARBONNEL AND ALESSANDRA PRENTICE
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:13pm EST
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(Reuters) - Armed men took control of two airports in the Crimea region on Friday in what the new Ukrainian leadership described as an invasion by Moscow's forces, and ousted President Viktor Yanukovich surfaced in Russia after a week on the run.

Yanukovich said Russia should use all means at its disposal to stop the chaos in Ukraine as tension rose on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, the only region with an ethnic Russian majority and the last major bastion of resistance to the overthrow of the Moscow-backed leader.

Acting President Oleksander Turchinov accused Russia of open aggression and said Moscow was following a scenario simliar to the one before it went to war with fellow former Soviet republic Georgia in 2008.

A day after gunmen seized the Ukrainian parliament and raised the Russian flag, a representative of Turchinov in Crimea said 13 Russian aircraft had landed on the Black Sea peninsula with 150 personnel on board each one.

More than 10 Russian military helicopters flew over Crimea and Russian servicemen blockaded a unit of the Ukrainian border guard in the port city of Sevastopol, the guard said.

A serviceman at the scene confirmed to Reuters he was from Russia's Black Sea Fleet, part of which is based in Sevastopol, and said they were there to stop the kind of protests that ousted Yanukovich in Kiev.

Some witnesses also reported seeing Russian armored personnel carriers and at least one warship on patrol.

The fleet denied its forces were involved in seizing the military airport near Sevastopol, where armed men later also occupied the runway, and a supporter described the armed group at the civilian international airport in Simferopol as Crimean militiamen. Ukraine's commercial airline said later that it had been refused entry into Crimean airspace.

Moscow has promised to defend the interests of its citizens in Ukraine. It has said it will not intervene by force, but its rhetoric since the removal of Yanukovich a week ago has echoed the run-up to its invasion of Georgia.

Any armed confrontation in Crimea would have major global repercussions, with Russia and the West already at odds over the change of power in Ukraine and supporting opposite sides in Syria's civil war. They have, however, pledged to cooperate to prop up Ukraine's faltering economy.

The U.N. Security Council called an emergency session for later on Friday at the request of Ukraine's new leaders, who warned the country's territorial integrity was threatened. Turchinov said he would not give in to "provocations".

KREMLIN ROLE

Ukraine's top security official, Andriy Paruby, said the armed men in Crimea were taking their orders from the top in Russia. "These are separate groups ... commanded by the Kremlin," Paruby, secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, told a televised briefing in Kiev.

One of the options being considered was declaring a state of emergency in Crimea, he added.

The United States warned all parties not to inflame the situation and said it had raised the issue of the reported armed takeovers of the airports with Russia. U.S. officials were seeking clarification of the origin of the armed men.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Moscow, which put 150,000 troops on high alert on Wednesday for war games near Ukraine's border, had told him it had no intention of violating Ukraine's sovereignty.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine's new leaders should implement a political deal brokered by the European Union before Yanukovich's ouster.

The Russian Foreign ministry said on its Facebook page that Russia's Consulate General in Crimea would hand out Russian passports to the servicemen of Ukraine's now-disbanded Berkut riot police. Protestors had accused the Berkut of firing the live bullets that killed dozens of protesters in Kiev.

ALL MEANS

Yanukovich - who is wanted by the new, pro-Europe government for mass murder after the protesters' deaths - reappeared in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. The new authorities in Kiev started moves to seek his extradition.

Yanukovich said he had not seen Russian President Vladimir Putin but had spoken to him by telephone and was surprised the Russian leader was not more vocal on the crisis.

"Russia cannot be indifferent, cannot be a bystander watching the fate of as close a partner as Ukraine," Yanukovich told a news conference. "Russia must use all means at its disposal to end the chaos and terror gripping Ukraine."

He denied he had run away, saying he had been forced to leave Kiev due to threats and denounced "lawlessness, terror, anarchy and chaos" in the country and said he had not ordered the shooting of demonstrators that preceeded his fall.

Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein moved to freeze assets and bank accounts of up to 20 Ukrainians including Yanukovich and his son. Yanukovich said talk of foreign bank accounts was "empty chatter".

Ukraine's new rulers have said loans worth $37 billion went missing from state accounts during Yanukovich's three years in power - a jaw-dropping sum even for a population now used to tales of a lavish lifestyle and opulent residence outside Kiev.

The new Ukrainian leadership has said the country needs almost as much as that - $35 billion - over the next two years to stave off bankruptcy. It said on Friday it hoped to get financial aid soon and was prepared to fulfill the reform criteria of the International Monetary Fund to get it.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said she did not see anything on the economic front worthy of panic and urged the leadership to refrain from throwing numbers about she said were meaningless until properly assessed.

ARMED INVASION

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accused Russian naval forces of taking over a military airport near the port of Sevastopol, where the Black Sea fleet has a base, and other Russian forces of seizing Simferopol's civilian international airport.

"I consider what has happened to be an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international agreements and norms," Avakov said on his Facebook page.

This met with a Russian naval denial of involvement in the military airport action. "No Black Sea Fleet units have moved toward (the airport), let alone taking any part in blockading it," Interfax quoted a spokesman for the fleet as saying.

Near the military airport, half a dozen men in camouflage uniforms with automatic rifles were blocking the road using a truck with no license plates. Reporters were kept from approaching them by volunteer militia, who formed a second road block about 150 meters away.

"Of course they are Russian," said Maxim Lovinetsky, 23, one of the volunteers. "They came last night."

Firebrand Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky appeared in Sevastopol where a crowd outside the city administration gave him a hero's welcome, shouting "Russia, thank you!".

"If the people have a right to rise up in a revolt and overthrow the authorities, why doesn't Sevastopol have a right to do that?" he told them. Although nominally part of the Russian opposition, he is widely seen as a servant of Kremlin policy, used to float radical opinions to test public reaction.

AVOIDING PROVOCATIONS

The United States has told Russia to show in the next few days that it is sincere about a promise not to intervene in Ukraine, saying using force would be a grave mistake.

The Kremlin said Putin had ordered his government to continue talks with Ukraine on economic and trade relations and to consult foreign partners including the International Monetary Fund on financial aid.

Yanukovich provoked protests in Ukraine in November by backing out of plans to sign landmark deals with the European Union and instead saying Kiev would seek closer economic and trade ties with its former Soviet master Russia.

Ukraine's hryvnia rose on Friday from historic lows after the central bank governor limited access to foreign currencies. Dealers said the hryvnia was trading around 9.80-10.10 to the dollar after weakening as far as 11.20-10.10 on Thursday. The hryvnia had been in freefall as investors worried about Kiev's ability to repay its debts.

Kiev's new rulers have said any movement by Russian forces beyond the base in Sevastopol would be tantamount to aggression. But they face a major challenge in Crimea which was Russian territory until it was transferred to Ukraine in 1954, during the Soviet era. Separatism there has often flared up at times of tension between Moscow and Kiev.

Armed men took control of Simferopol airport overnight and a Reuters eyewitness said the men, dressed in full battle gear and carrying assault rifles and machine guns, were moving freely in and out of the control tower.

A man called Vladimir, who said he was a volunteer helping the group, said: "We're simple people, volunteers ... We're here at the airport to maintain order."

[seemslikeadream]

Armed men seize two airports in Ukraine's Crimea, Yanukovich reappears
BY ALISSA DE CARBONNEL AND ALESSANDRA PRENTICE
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:13pm EST

(Reuters) - Armed men took control of two airports in the Crimea region on Friday in what the new Ukrainian leadership described as an invasion by Moscow's forces, and ousted President Viktor Yanukovich surfaced in Russia after a week on the run.

Yanukovich said Russia should use all means at its disposal to stop the chaos in Ukraine as tension rose on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, the only region with an ethnic Russian majority and the last major bastion of resistance to the overthrow of the Moscow-backed leader.

Acting President Oleksander Turchinov accused Russia of open aggression and said Moscow was following a scenario simliar to the one before it went to war with fellow former Soviet republic Georgia in 2008.

A day after gunmen seized the Ukrainian parliament and raised the Russian flag, a representative of Turchinov in Crimea said 13 Russian aircraft had landed on the Black Sea peninsula with 150 personnel on board each one.

More than 10 Russian military helicopters flew over Crimea and Russian servicemen blockaded a unit of the Ukrainian border guard in the port city of Sevastopol, the guard said.

A serviceman at the scene confirmed to Reuters he was from Russia's Black Sea Fleet, part of which is based in Sevastopol, and said they were there to stop the kind of protests that ousted Yanukovich in Kiev.

Some witnesses also reported seeing Russian armored personnel carriers and at least one warship on patrol.

The fleet denied its forces were involved in seizing the military airport near Sevastopol, where armed men later also occupied the runway, and a supporter described the armed group at the civilian international airport in Simferopol as Crimean militiamen. Ukraine's commercial airline said later that it had been refused entry into Crimean airspace.

Moscow has promised to defend the interests of its citizens in Ukraine. It has said it will not intervene by force, but its rhetoric since the removal of Yanukovich a week ago has echoed the run-up to its invasion of Georgia.

Any armed confrontation in Crimea would have major global repercussions, with Russia and the West already at odds over the change of power in Ukraine and supporting opposite sides in Syria's civil war. They have, however, pledged to cooperate to prop up Ukraine's faltering economy.

The U.N. Security Council called an emergency session for later on Friday at the request of Ukraine's new leaders, who warned the country's territorial integrity was threatened. Turchinov said he would not give in to "provocations".

KREMLIN ROLE

Ukraine's top security official, Andriy Paruby, said the armed men in Crimea were taking their orders from the top in Russia. "These are separate groups ... commanded by the Kremlin," Paruby, secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, told a televised briefing in Kiev.

One of the options being considered was declaring a state of emergency in Crimea, he added.

The United States warned all parties not to inflame the situation and said it had raised the issue of the reported armed takeovers of the airports with Russia. U.S. officials were seeking clarification of the origin of the armed men.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Moscow, which put 150,000 troops on high alert on Wednesday for war games near Ukraine's border, had told him it had no intention of violating Ukraine's sovereignty.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine's new leaders should implement a political deal brokered by the European Union before Yanukovich's ouster.

The Russian Foreign ministry said on its Facebook page that Russia's Consulate General in Crimea would hand out Russian passports to the servicemen of Ukraine's now-disbanded Berkut riot police. Protestors had accused the Berkut of firing the live bullets that killed dozens of protesters in Kiev.

ALL MEANS

Yanukovich - who is wanted by the new, pro-Europe government for mass murder after the protesters' deaths - reappeared in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. The new authorities in Kiev started moves to seek his extradition.

Yanukovich said he had not seen Russian President Vladimir Putin but had spoken to him by telephone and was surprised the Russian leader was not more vocal on the crisis.

"Russia cannot be indifferent, cannot be a bystander watching the fate of as close a partner as Ukraine," Yanukovich told a news conference. "Russia must use all means at its disposal to end the chaos and terror gripping Ukraine."

He denied he had run away, saying he had been forced to leave Kiev due to threats and denounced "lawlessness, terror, anarchy and chaos" in the country and said he had not ordered the shooting of demonstrators that preceeded his fall.

Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein moved to freeze assets and bank accounts of up to 20 Ukrainians including Yanukovich and his son. Yanukovich said talk of foreign bank accounts was "empty chatter".

Ukraine's new rulers have said loans worth $37 billion went missing from state accounts during Yanukovich's three years in power - a jaw-dropping sum even for a population now used to tales of a lavish lifestyle and opulent residence outside Kiev.

The new Ukrainian leadership has said the country needs almost as much as that - $35 billion - over the next two years to stave off bankruptcy. It said on Friday it hoped to get financial aid soon and was prepared to fulfill the reform criteria of the International Monetary Fund to get it.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said she did not see anything on the economic front worthy of panic and urged the leadership to refrain from throwing numbers about she said were meaningless until properly assessed.

ARMED INVASION

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accused Russian naval forces of taking over a military airport near the port of Sevastopol, where the Black Sea fleet has a base, and other Russian forces of seizing Simferopol's civilian international airport.

"I consider what has happened to be an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international agreements and norms," Avakov said on his Facebook page.

This met with a Russian naval denial of involvement in the military airport action. "No Black Sea Fleet units have moved toward (the airport), let alone taking any part in blockading it," Interfax quoted a spokesman for the fleet as saying.

Near the military airport, half a dozen men in camouflage uniforms with automatic rifles were blocking the road using a truck with no license plates. Reporters were kept from approaching them by volunteer militia, who formed a second road block about 150 meters away.

"Of course they are Russian," said Maxim Lovinetsky, 23, one of the volunteers. "They came last night."

Firebrand Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky appeared in Sevastopol where a crowd outside the city administration gave him a hero's welcome, shouting "Russia, thank you!".

"If the people have a right to rise up in a revolt and overthrow the authorities, why doesn't Sevastopol have a right to do that?" he told them. Although nominally part of the Russian opposition, he is widely seen as a servant of Kremlin policy, used to float radical opinions to test public reaction.

AVOIDING PROVOCATIONS

The United States has told Russia to show in the next few days that it is sincere about a promise not to intervene in Ukraine, saying using force would be a grave mistake.

The Kremlin said Putin had ordered his government to continue talks with Ukraine on economic and trade relations and to consult foreign partners including the International Monetary Fund on financial aid.

Yanukovich provoked protests in Ukraine in November by backing out of plans to sign landmark deals with the European Union and instead saying Kiev would seek closer economic and trade ties with its former Soviet master Russia.

Ukraine's hryvnia rose on Friday from historic lows after the central bank governor limited access to foreign currencies. Dealers said the hryvnia was trading around 9.80-10.10 to the dollar after weakening as far as 11.20-10.10 on Thursday. The hryvnia had been in freefall as investors worried about Kiev's ability to repay its debts.

Kiev's new rulers have said any movement by Russian forces beyond the base in Sevastopol would be tantamount to aggression. But they face a major challenge in Crimea which was Russian territory until it was transferred to Ukraine in 1954, during the Soviet era. Separatism there has often flared up at times of tension between Moscow and Kiev.

Armed men took control of Simferopol airport overnight and a Reuters eyewitness said the men, dressed in full battle gear and carrying assault rifles and machine guns, were moving freely in and out of the control tower.

A man called Vladimir, who said he was a volunteer helping the group, said: "We're simple people, volunteers ... We're here at the airport to maintain order."