FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:54 am wrote:ARE PEOPLE READING WHAT JUSTDREW IS WRITING?
He said his mind isn't made up.
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by brainpanhandler » Sat Mar 08, 2014 12:33 pm
FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:54 am wrote:ARE PEOPLE READING WHAT JUSTDREW IS WRITING?
by FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 1:34 pm
brainpanhandler » 08 Mar 2014 11:33 wrote:FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:54 am wrote:ARE PEOPLE READING WHAT JUSTDREW IS WRITING?
He said his mind isn't made up.
by justdrew » Sat Mar 08, 2014 2:10 pm
FourthBase » 08 Mar 2014 09:34 wrote:brainpanhandler » 08 Mar 2014 11:33 wrote:FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:54 am wrote:ARE PEOPLE READING WHAT JUSTDREW IS WRITING?
He said his mind isn't made up.
Which is transparently false.
by justdrew » Sat Mar 08, 2014 2:23 pm
Searcher08 » 08 Mar 2014 05:13 wrote:As for the Chechens, I dont think they were any worse than Hillbillies - the Russians really brutalised them till the Russians were shocked at the brutality shown to them. It then mirrored in my mind the death squads in Central America giving rise to traumatised victims who became the fodder for SM-13 narco-military gangs, with total psycho Chechen warlords coming to power.
by RocketMan » Sat Mar 08, 2014 2:33 pm
justdrew » Sat Mar 08, 2014 9:10 pm wrote:FourthBase » 08 Mar 2014 09:34 wrote:brainpanhandler » 08 Mar 2014 11:33 wrote:FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:54 am wrote:ARE PEOPLE READING WHAT JUSTDREW IS WRITING?
He said his mind isn't made up.
Which is transparently false.
oy, again with the certainty.
by justdrew » Sat Mar 08, 2014 2:48 pm
by vanlose kid » Sat Mar 08, 2014 3:46 pm
by semper occultus » Sat Mar 08, 2014 4:07 pm
The EU does not like the idea of its constituent nations begining to break apart into even more bickering and all-too-democratic factions. Centralization of decision making is what Brussels wants not nationalist democracies.
by vanlose kid » Sat Mar 08, 2014 4:16 pm
Debt Rattle Mar 3 2014: Is Ukraine A Case of Botched Kingmaking?
March 3, 2014 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 3:52 pm Finance
John Kerry made me laugh yesterday. Not that he seems to be a very amusing man, but then I don’t think he was looking to entertain. And there’s not a lot of funny material to be found in the Ukraine situation to begin with, obviously. But John still found an angle. Kerry, in his quest to appear muscular in his use of language and make Russia look like a nation filled with demons, said this on Sunday’s Face The Nation:“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text … “
That was exactly what I had been thinking, only not with Russia as the character stuck in the past, but the US. Reading through a whole bunch of background pieces, the impression arises of American government employees acting as kingmakers, and botching it in awful fashion, because they behave as the British or French would have in the 1800s. And that simply no longer fits. I guess that if you overestimate yourself long, wide and deep enough, it doesn’t seem to make any difference, because you think that if you’re sufficiently strong, you can push that square peg through that round hole no matter what. Well, guess what …
This idea is displayed probably most prominently by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. Who rose into the limelight when a tape was leaked recently in which she said “F*ck the EU”. She made that remark with regards to what she was busy trying to do in Ukraine. She thought the EU wasn’t acting rapidly enough in the process of toppling the Ukrainian government and replacing it with one that would better serve American and European interests.
There’s a video in which Nuland states that the US have invested $5 billion in developing Ukraine “democratic institutions”. In light of the evidence that Nuland and others were actively involved in regime change, one must wonder what those $5 billion were spent on, how much the EU added, and what Putin thought hearing about it.
While there can be no doubt that ousted president Yanukovych was a corrupt pr*ck, he was still democratically elected. And considering that, instigating regime change on Russia’s doorstep would have to be a step so risky that perhaps only a somewhat 18th century megalomaniac mind would attempt it. Victoria Nuland and US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt had been negotiating their goals for quite some time with the Ukraine opposition, so much so that Nuland calls new PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk “Yats” and leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Vitali Klitschko “Klitsch” in her conversations with Pyatt. These people know each other. Well.
“Yats” is now the PM of what should probably be called a technocrat government (illegal as it may be), he’s a former – central – banker, a pattern that has a familiar sound to it, most recently observed in southern Europe. For some reason Nuland and Pyatt didn’t want heavyweight boxing champ “Klitsch” to have a prominent cabinet post, though they apparently met many times. Too much of a conscience? Whatever the reasoning, they got what they wanted, and if anything shows their grip on the regime change process, it may be that: keeping out “Klitsch”.
Nuland wasn’t just impatient with the EU, she wanted the whole process to move faster. And that’s where she made here biggest kingmaker mistake: she got into cahoots with various highly shady and questionable right wing groups, who, since they were armed and willing, seemed the ideal partners for the US to speed up events. And it’s the influence of these right wing groups, often ultra-nationalist and with a deep hatred of everything Russian, Jewish, gay, dark colored, you name it, that Russia uses as justification for its present actions, which Kerry labeled an ‘incredible act of aggression’.
One of the first things the new government did was to revoke a 2012 law that allowed regions to use a second official language if more than 10% of its people spoke it as their native tongue. That measure smacks of these right wing groups. After all, why do it in the first place if you’re “Yats”, and why as one of your first acts? What’s the justification? Did “Yats” have an interest in antagonizing ethnic Russians? When protests got too loud, the measure was quickly withdrawn, but it was too little too late, because “Yats” and his buddies had lost what was left of the people’s trust.
Native Russians, the by far largest group affected by the language law, started thinking about seeking protection from Putin. The strong involvement on the coup and the new regime of the All-Ukrainian union “Svoboda” and the “Right Sector” group of semi-nazi militias, all of whom detest Russia and Russians, made them think a little stronger still. If you don’t feel that your government protects you, who are you going to turn to?
Putin’s claim that Russia’s troop movements to date are meant primarily to prevent fighting, not to instigate it, may not be all that wild a suggestion. There can be no doubt that at least some elements of the Kiev right wing, legitimized by the US Assistant Secretary of State, were, and are, more than willing to prolong their victorious mindsets with a move east to do a bit more “cleaning up”.
To understand Victoria Nuland a little better, it’s useful to know that she is married to Robert Kagan, co-counder and former director of the – now defunct – Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neo-conservative American organization with a pretty much 19th century set of ideas.
Not only is Nuland closely familiar with right wing ideas in general, which perhaps makes it more normal for her to associate with “Svoboda” and the “Right Sector” than it would be for most Americans, she’s also deeply affected by the – outdated – notions of American dominance and world government her husband and his cronies have. Why president Obama kept her on is a bit of a mystery perhaps, but since he’s already “her 3rd president”, maybe we shouldn’t let that baffle us.
If, just hypothetically since it won’t happen, but if Russia were to withdraw its troops from the Crimea and possible other strategic points it may have “secured”, and that would mean nationalist militia feel free to roam the country, what would the west do? Would America send troops into Ukraine? Would the UN gather another peacecorps together and station it in 100 different places through the large country? Are people such as Victoria Nuland, Geoffrey Pyatt and John Kerry sufficiently aware of these matters, of the chequered history of the region? And even if they do, do they care enough, or are their eyes mainly on the prize of Russian pipelines, oil and gas supplies and political dominance in the region?
Yes, Yanukovych was a piece of sh*t, but he was democratically elected, which means that the US and EU have been instrumental in toppling a legitimate government, while the legal status of “Yats” and “Klitsch” (to the extent he’s still involved) is not at all clear. Who elected them? Plenty of stories of parliamentarians voting with right wing guns to their heads.
Or, to frame the question a little differently, who’s the aggressor here? And maybe we can take it a step further still, and ask: what are the odds that Putin is busy saving America from a Bosnian-like quagmire?
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-r ... ingmaking/
by vanlose kid » Sat Mar 08, 2014 4:18 pm
Reichstag Fire in Kiev
[Tuesday Update:
Putin has held a conference on Ukraine. Here are the main points:
• No introduction of Russian troops into Ukraine is currently necessary; if it becomes necessary, then all the arrangements for doing so in accordance with domestic and international law are in place.
• Yanukovych is still Ukraine's official president, but doesn't have a future in Ukrainian politics. Ukraine needs reforms, but they have to be carried out in accordance with the law. To this end, a referendum on the constitution is highly recommended.
• All of the military activities in Crimea were carried out by Crimea's self-defense forces, which the Russians wholeheartedly support.
• Russia will not do anything to encourage separatism in Ukraine; such issues have to be decided by the population of Ukraine via a referendum.
In other news:
• The government in Kiev has announced that it is in communication with the government in Moscow. War has been cancelled for now, looks like.
• Russia will no longer be offering Ukraine a discount on natural gas, because it was conditional on Ukraine paying its bills on time, which it hasn't to the tune of a couple of billion dollars.
• There isn't much more on Ukraine's general mobilization in preparation for war. There are, however, reports from the east of the country that paramilitary groups associated with the extreme right-wing “Right Front” are looting armories. Also, something of a consensus among military experts has emerged: Ukraine's army can't fight.
• US State Secretary John Kerry is pushing for sanctions against Russia. For what, exactly? Not even UK is willing to go along with his plan. The Russian response is that if the Americans can't play nice then the Russians will take their business elsewhere. “We don't depend on the United States for anything” is the way one Russian commentator put it.]
[Monday Afternoon Update:
• Yesterday Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev flipped around in his copy of the Ukrainian constitution, and discovered that the ouster of President Yanukovych was illegal and therefore didn't happen. Likewise the appointment of the new government in Kiev, along with every decision it has made. Yanukovych is still Ukraine's president, Medvedev stated, although with “insignificant authority.”
• Yanukovych, in his capacity as Ukraine's president, has asked the Russian Federation that it introduce its military into the Ukraine and use military force to restore constitutional order: “Life and safety of people, especially in the southeast and in Crimea, are under threat. Under the influence of Western countries acts of terror and violence are being committed in the open. People are being persecuted based on political and linguistic characteristics.” [My translation.]
• Russian Federation has convened a meeting of the UN Security Council to inform it of having received this official invitation to introduce troops into Ukraine: “Actions of the Russian Federation are legitimate.” Above is a picture of UN Ambassador Churkin sort of smiling a little bit as he says that. Goose bumps...
• Boris Grebenshchikov has burst forth with a timely new anti-war song. “Love in the time of war,” baby!
• I haven't found much English-language commentary that's all that useful. Best by far is James Howard Kunstler's piece from this morning.]
[Monday Morning Update:
• The Kiev regime announces general mobilization; only 1% to 1.5% of conscripts bother to turn up
• A dozen major cities—pretty much everything southeast of the line that runs from Kharkov to Odessa—are flying the Russian tricolor
• Ukraine's naval flagship is flying Russia's naval flag
• The newly appointed head of Ukrainian navy has defected to the Russian side in Crimea within a few hours of being appointed
• Most of the Ukrainian military units in Crimea have gone over to the Russian side voluntarily, without a single shot fired
• Ukrainian troops from Kirov have been ordered to march on Crimea, but have refused to obey (illegal) orders from Kiev
• During the last two weeks of February 143,000 Ukrainian citizens have requested asylum in Russia]
Once upon a time I had an excellent history teacher, who has made a lasting impact on how I view the world. “It's about the dates,” he taught us; “Be sure to remember the dates, and you'll have the key to history.” You see, dates are important because most of the important historical events are, in fact, anniversaries. There is a hackneyed phrase that history does not repeat—it rhymes; but it would be a lot closer to truth to say that history has a rhythm—a rhythm based largely on multiples of the annual cycle.
Take, for instance, the Boston Marathon bombing which occurred on April 15, 2013. I seem to have been the only one to note that the unprecedented imposition of martial law in large pars of Boston—ostensibly justified by there being at large two Chechen youths who were thought to be carrying handguns—occurred on Patriot's Day. This day is a Massachusetts state holiday and a major anniversary of the American Revolution commemorating the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolution, which occurred on April 19, 1775. What an excellent choice of date for ignoring the constitution and setting a precedent for military take-over of a major urban area on the thinnest of pretenses! Perhaps future historians will see these two dates as the two book-ends in the 238-year history of American constitutional democracy.
On 23 February of this year in Kiev there took place a coup d'état in which armed neo-Nazi militants surrounded and took over Parliament and forced the parliamentarians, under duress, to replace the elected government with opposition figures who were supported and promoted by the EU representatives and the US State Department. Representatives of the party of the overthrown government—the Party of Regions—were threatened into resigning.
What provided the rationale for the coup d'état was the killing of demonstrators by uniformed snipers, blamed on the previous government. The overthrown president, who has since fled to Russia, was accused of mass murder, and the new government demanded his extradition (a dumb move, since Russia's constitution forbids extradition). But there are serious questions about this interpretation of events: the special forces were never issued rifles and were never ordered to open fire on the protesters; there were quite a few special forces members themselves among those killed; the killings were carried out in such a manner as to incite rather than quell protest, by targeting women, bystanders and those assisting the wounded. The killings were followed by a professionally orchestrated public relations campaign, complete with a catchy name—“Heaven's Hundred” (“Небесная сотня”)—complete with candlelight vigils, rapid clean-up and laying of wreaths at the scene of the crime and so on.
Unfortunately, this name has a nasty antecedent in the “Black Hundred” (“Чёрная сотня”), which was the name of a coalition of anti-Semites and ultra-right-wing nationalists back in 1905. It is illustrative of a certain ham-handedness on the part of the PR campaign's authors, and bears a similarity to the choice of white ribbons—a World War II symbol worn by Nazi collaborators and Wehrmacht auxiliaries in Nazi-occupied territories—which were shipped in from abroad for the anti-government demonstrations in Moscow in December of 2011. These demonstrations are commonly thought to have been organized by Western NGOs. It would seem that the same PR organization is behind both events. Wouldn't it then make sense to assume that this PR organization is staffed by fascists, hence their consistent choice of fascist symbols and terminology?
Now let's look back exactly 81 years. On February 23, 1933, somebody set fire to the Reichstag building in Berlin (the fire was blamed on the Communists, but this remains far from proven and the event is commonly suspected to have been a false flag operation). A day later, Hitler used the fire as an excuse to assume emergency powers and to flush the Communists from government, giving the National Socialists a majority. February 23, 1933 is the day remembered as the definitive turning point in the rise of fascism in Europe, setting it on course for World War II and the loss of millions of lives.
Obviously, this is far from a replay but more of a faint echo. It is a work-out of a long sequence of events. Leaving aside the dim past which gave rise to such organizations as the Black Hundred and its Pogrom artists, the major problem is that Western Ukraine (Eastern Poland prior to World War II) was never properly de-Nazified (the technical German term for this process is Entnazifizierung). Then there was the fateful mistake of giving away Russian Crimea to Ukraine by Khrushchev (a Ukrainian), neatly paralleling the giving away of Abkhazia to Georgia by Stalin (a Georgian). Then came the years of neglect following the collapse of the USSR during which Ukraine, never quite capable of self-governance, achieved truly stunning levels of misery and corruption and became famous for its main export—young prostitutes. Then came the Orange Revolution, in which Yushchenko, who is the husband of a former Reagan-administration neocon, was thrust into office in a US-orchestrated campaign. He, along with his side-kick Yulia Tymoshenko, continued the orgy of corruption, until they were voted out of office and replaced by an equally venal, but additionally very thick-headed Yanukovych, who was the one chased out of office on the anniversary of the Reichstag fire.
And now the situation in the Ukraine is roughly as follows. The new Ukrainian government, born, as it were, of an incestuous relationship between a Ukrainian neo-Nazi skinhead and his pig (or was it a US State Department operative?) lacks legitimacy. In the Russian-speaking provinces in the east, people are taking over local governments and appealing to Russia for help, which Russia is quick to offer, moving troops into the historically Russian Crimean peninsula and handing out Russian passports to anyone who wants one. (Interestingly, they are handing out Russian passports to the members of Ukrainian special forces, who are now on the run. Clearly, the Russians don't think that the allegations of mass murder will stick.) Having lost 26.6 million dead fighting fascists during World War II, it is not in Russia's political DNA to allow fascists to rise to power right in the Slavic heartland. Nor is a newly resurgent Russia, whose team just came in first at the winter Olympics in Sochi, beating the old Soviet record for the number of medals, is likely to strike a relaxed pose with regard to a fascist takeover of Ukraine. And so, on March 1, the Russian parliament approved Putin's request for the use of the armed forces in Ukraine. Right now in Western Ukraine they are busy demolishing World War II memorials and celebrating Nazi collaborators as national heroes, but my guess is that, as events unfold, Western Ukraine will finally be de-Nazified, 70 years late.
I realize that many readers in the US may find what I say here shocking, but it must be understood that they are subject to the same ham-handed PR campaign that has run amok in Moscow and Kiev. The people who run this campaign are not particularly well-read, but there are two books that they apparently find seminal and follow slavishly, textbook-fashion: George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Their initiatives tend to be a blend of these two approaches to mind control. Specifically, they have embraced the concept, from 1984, of “two minutes of hate”—a daily ritual in which the populace is made to redirect its negative emotions away from the obvious failings of its own government and toward a possibly nonexistent external enemy.
And so US citizens, saddled with their feckless, thieving Presidents and Congressmen and gradually going broke as a result, are being systematically conditioned to hate Vadimir Putin. (As thieving presidents go, Bush is ahead so far with over a trillion dollars stolen via the bank bailouts and the so-called “Iraqi Reconstruction” while Obama is behind, having gobbled up just the “stimulus spending,” but may pull ahead of Bush soon thanks to the massive grift scheme known as “Obamacare” and other assorted swindles.)
Now, Putin is only the most competent Russian leader since perhaps Peter the Great, enjoys greater popularity among his own people than Bush and Obama ever did put together, and is a respected statesman around the world, which, by the way, sees the US as the greatest threat to world peace. Putin's first great initiative, dictatorship of the law, transformed a once lawless Russia into a generally law-abiding state, though slightly too conservative and restrictive for some people's taste. His second great idea, sovereign democracy, made Russia almost completely impervious to Western attempts at political manipulation.
Add to that his economic successes (Russians' incomes have doubled repeatedly while US incomes have stagnated) and his foreign policy successes (his government recently prevented a major conflict in Syria, then engineered a rapprochement between the West and Iran) and you can begin to see why he makes US State Department apparatchiks and assorted US neocons absolutely livid with rage. That kind of anger tends to be catchy, and so we find journalists and commentators in the US so wrapped up in their negative feelings towards Putin that they are neglecting to do their job, which is to inform people. Even some otherwise fairly intelligent Russians have managed to get caught up in it. If Putin now manages to achieve peace in Ukraine, then perhaps they will all succumb of apoplexy, and the world will rejoice.
Finally, it bears pointing out that, Rechstag fires aside, the current state of affairs in Ukraine is the West's direct fault: Ukraine was forced to choose between signing a worthless deal with the EU and entering a customs union with Moscow. Both Washington and Brussels, along with most of Western media, completely ignored Putin's suggestion that all the sides negotiate a compromise solution to avoid Ukrainian bankruptcy, which is now all but assured. Because of Western intransigence, Ukraine's government was forced to lurch between the EU and Moscow, losing face in the process and providing the fascists with a convenient opening.
In light of all this, some people might wonder: were the people in Washington and in Brussels always eager to favor fascists, or is this a new thing for them? I believe the answer is that it doesn't matter. Their assigned job is to destroy countries, and this they do well. They have destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria, but these are small, and the beast is still hungry. They would love to destroy Iran, but that has turned out too tough a nut to crack. And so they have now set their sights on larger prey: Venezuela and Ukraine. And the reason they have to continue destroying countries is so that the process of wealth destruction, which is inevitable as the world runs short of critical resources, can run its course some place other than the West's economic heartlands in the US and Northern Europe. It matters very little to them whether they have to support al Qaeda fighters in Libya and Syria or fascists in Ukraine; it's all the same to them.
Some people might also wonder whether Ukraine's masked gunmen are really fascists. Yes, there are a lot of skinheads, and they like swastikas and their leaders hate Jews and like to quote Goebbels, but are they really fascist? (Yes, they are.) Such soul-searching on the subject of fascism is most touching (not to me). If you find the topic interesting, John Michael Greer recently came out with a 3,200-word treatise on the subject with a similarly lengthy follow-up. He takes a long time to define fascism and his thesis is, roughly, that fascism tends to spring forth like a naked lady from a cake whenever the political center fails to hold.
In case you would prefer something much shorter, my thesis is that fascism can be handily equated with militarized bigotry, and that while most countries are at this point immune to it, seeing it as idiotic at best and criminal at worst, certain countries are not—weak, socially disrupted, destitute countries, with an unresolved fascist past, that are subject to unscrupulous external political manipulation—such as poor Ukraine.
[Update: Based on some of the responses, people still have trouble imagining what it's like to have the fascists in charge. Well, here's a short video in which one of the “revolutionaries” is “holding discussions” with a Ukrainian Attorney General, on camera. You don't have to understand Ukrainian to see what's happening.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2014/03/re ... .html#more
by seemslikeadream » Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:31 pm
Explaining US Hypocrisy on Ukraine
March 8, 2014
U.S. government hypocrisy toward the Ukraine crisis has been breathtaking, as has the U.S. press corps’ stubborn refusal to see the hypocrisy (i.e. the Iraq War and many other U.S. interventions). William Blum looks at the reasons behind the double standards.
By William Blum
When it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the larger, long-term picture.
The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate.
A map showing stages of NATO's expansion. Dark blue showing original members; lighter blue the "round one" members; aqua the "round two" members; yellow represents neutral states; and brown and red (including Ukraine), otherwise aligned.
A map showing stages of NATO’s expansion. Dark blue showing original members; lighter blue the “round one” members; aqua the “round two” members; yellow represents neutral states; and brown and red (including Ukraine), otherwise aligned.
The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or irony.
And who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)
Since the end of the Cold War the United States has been surrounding Russia, building one base after another, ceaselessly looking for new ones, including in Ukraine; one missile site after another, with Moscow in range; NATO has grabbed one former Soviet Republic after another.
The White House, and the unquestioning American mainstream media, have assured us that such operations have nothing to do with Russia. And Russia has been told the same, much to Moscow’s continuous skepticism.
“Look,” said Russian president Vladimir Putin about NATO some years ago, “is this is a military organization? Yes, it’s military. … Is it moving towards our border? It’s moving towards our border. Why?” [Guardian Weekly (London), June 27, 2001]
The Holy Triumvirate would love to rip Ukraine from the Moscow bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a U.S. military and/or NATO presence on Russia’s border. (In case you were wondering what prompted the Russian military action.)
Kiev’s membership in the EU would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neo-conservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family; but no price is too great to pay to for being part of glorious Europe and the West!
The Ukrainian insurgents and their Western-power supporters didn’t care who their Ukrainian allies were in carrying out their coup against President Viktor Yanukovych last month … thugs who set policemen on fire head to toe … all manner of extreme right-wingers, including Chechnyan Islamic militants [RT.com, Moscow/Washington, DC, March 1, 2014] … a deputy of the ultra-right Svoboda Party, part of the new government, who threatens to rebuild Ukraine’s nukes in three to six months. [Deputy Mikhail Golovko, RT, March 1, 2014] … the snipers firing on the protestors who apparently were not what they appeared to be – A bugged phone conversation between Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, reveals Paet saying: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” [RT, March 5, 2014, “The EU’s Ukraine policy and moral bankruptcy”; the phone conversation is believed to have taken place Feb. 26.] … neo-Nazi protesters in Kiev who have openly denounced Jews, hoisting a banner honoring Stepan Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Feb. 24 that Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman advised “Kiev’s Jews to leave the city and even the country.” Edward Dolinsky, head of an umbrella organization of Ukrainian Jews, described the situation for Ukrainian Jews as “dire” and requested Israel’s help.
All in all a questionable gang of allies for a dubious cause; reminiscent of the Kosovo Liberation Army thugs Washington put into power for an earlier regime change, and has kept in power since 1999.
The now-famous recorded phone conversation between top U.S. State Department official Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine, wherein they discuss which Ukrainians would be to Washington’s liking in a new government, and which not, is an example of this regime-change mentality. Nuland’s choice, Arseniy Yatseniuk, emerged as interim prime minister.
The National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against states not in love with U.S. foreign policy, is Washington’s foremost non-military tool for effecting regime change.
The NED website lists 65 projects that it has supported financially in recent years in Ukraine. The descriptions NED gives to the projects don’t reveal the fact that generally their programs impart the basic philosophy that working people and other citizens are best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation, collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the economy, and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market economy is equated with democracy, reform and growth; and the merits of foreign investment in their economy are emphasized. [NED 2012 Annual Report]
The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, declared in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” [Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1991]
NED, receives virtually all its financing from the U.S. government, but it likes to refer to itself as an NGO (Non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official U.S. government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO. Its long-time intervention in Ukraine is as supra-legal as the Russian military deployment there.
Journalist Robert Parry has observed: “For NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European demands for new ‘trade agreements’ and stern economic ‘reforms’ required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for ‘regime change.’”
Thus, we have to ask, as Mr. Putin asked – “Why?” Why has NED been funding 65 projects in one foreign country? Why were Washington officials grooming a replacement for President Yanukovych, legally and democratically elected in 2010, who, in the face of protests, moved elections up so he could have been voted out of office – not thrown out by a mob?
Yanukovych made repeated important concessions, including amnesty for those arrested and offering, on Jan. 25, to make two of his adversaries prime minister and deputy prime minister; all to no avail; key elements of the protesters, and those behind them, wanted their putsch.
Carl Gershman, president of NED, wrote last September that “Ukraine is the biggest prize.” [Washington Post, Sept. 26, 2013] The man knows whereof he speaks. He has presided over NED since its beginning, overseeing the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003), the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004), the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (2005), the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (2005), the Green Revolution in Iran (2009), and now Ukraine once again. It’s as if the Cold War never ended.
The current unbridled animosity of the American media toward Putin also reflects an old practice. The United States is so accustomed to world leaders holding their tongue and not voicing criticism of Washington’s policies appropriate to the criminality of those policies, that when a Vladimir Putin comes along and expresses even a relatively mild condemnation he is labeled Public Enemy Number One and his words are accordingly ridiculed or ignored.
On March 2, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned Russia’s “incredible act of aggression” in Ukraine (Crimea) and threatened economic sanctions. “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext.” [“Face the Nation”, CBS, March 2, 2014]
Iraq was in the 21st century. Sen. John Kerry voted for it. Hypocrisy of this magnitude has to be respected.
by FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:00 pm
And who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)
by FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:01 pm
justdrew » 08 Mar 2014 13:10 wrote:FourthBase » 08 Mar 2014 09:34 wrote:brainpanhandler » 08 Mar 2014 11:33 wrote:FourthBase » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:54 am wrote:ARE PEOPLE READING WHAT JUSTDREW IS WRITING?
He said his mind isn't made up.
Which is transparently false.
oy, again with the certainty.
by American Dream » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:03 pm
by jingofever » Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:40 pm
(No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)
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