Russia's de facto invasion of Ukraine

[RocketMan]

Cheney's got his mojo back, his second wind! He'll outlive us all.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/chene ... inst-putin

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday cited treaty violations by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a reason that the U.S. should consider "military options" in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

"I worry when we begin to address a crisis, the first thing we do is we take options off the table," Cheney told CBS host Charlie Rose. "I don't think the administration should do that."

"In a sense, [the Obama administration said] no military," he continued. "He seemed to operate that way most of the time. There are military options that don't involve putting troops on the ground in Crimea. We could go back and reinstate the ballistic missile defense program."

Cheney pointed out that Putin had violated commitments "like the Budapest Memorandum, when Russia, the U.S. and Britain guaranteed the borders of Ukraine in return for Ukraine giving up their nuclear weapons. Very important. And Putin is just blowing that off."

"The real question is how much do you want to allow Putin to ignore those agreements -- very, very important agreements -- that ended the Cold War, led to the unification of Europe and the liberation of millions of people?" he asked. "I do not believe we should allow him to do that without paying a price."

"We have a treaty obligation under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, an attack against one is an attack against all."

As vice president of the United States, Cheney was accused of violating United Nations Convention Against Torture with his support for waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques of alleged terrorists.

"In ratifying the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman and Degrading Treatment in 1994, the Senate defined 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' as any practice that would violate the Fifth, Eighth or 14th amendments," a Washintgon Post editorial noted in 2005. "Interpreting the Constitution as permitting waterboarding in secret prisons is, to most experts outside the administration, legally outrageous and politically untenable."

"They want to give themselves the authority to commit human rights abuses without having to explain or justify themselves to the public, the world -- or an impartial court."

[seemslikeadream]

Crimea’s Case for Leaving Ukraine
March 9, 2014

Exclusive: Virtually everyone in Official Washington is condemning Russian “aggression” in Ukraine and demanding a belligerent U.S. response to Crimea’s desire to secede and join Russia, as a new Cold War hysteria grips U.S. pols and pundits, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

If you were living in Crimea, would you prefer to remain part of Ukraine with its coup-installed government – with neo-Nazis running four ministries including the Ministry of Defense – or would you want to become part of Russia, which has had ties to Crimea going back to Catherine the Great in the 1700s?

Granted, it’s not the greatest choice in the world, but it’s the practical one facing you. For all its faults, Russia has a functioning economy while Ukraine really doesn’t. Russia surely has its share of political and financial corruption but some of that has been brought under control.


Not so in Ukraine where a moveable feast of some 10 “oligarchs” mostly runs the show in shifting alliances, buying up media outlets and politicians, while the vast majority of the population faces a bleak future, which now includes more European-demanded “austerity,” i.e. slashed pensions and further reductions in already sparse social services.

Even if the U.S.-backed plan for inserting Ukraine into the European Union prevails, Ukrainians would find themselves looking up the socio-economic ladder at the Greeks and other European nationals already living the nightmare of “austerity.”

Beyond that humiliation and misery, the continuing political dislocations across Ukraine would surely feed the further rise of right-wing extremists who espouse not only the goal of expelling ethnic Russians from Ukraine but Jews and other peoples considered not pure Ukrainian.

This troubling racist element of the “inspiring” Ukrainian uprising has been mostly airbrushed from the U.S. media’s narrative, but more honest sources of news have reported this disturbing reality. [For instance, watch this report from the BBC.]

What’s Wrong with Secession?

And, despite what you hear from the U.S. government and the mainstream U.S. media, it’s not at all uncommon for people to separate themselves from prior allegiances.

It’s especially common amid political upheavals, like Ukraine’s neo-Nazi-spearheaded coup that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych – after he signed an agreement on Feb. 21 to relinquish much of his power, hold early elections and order police to withdraw.

Though this agreement was co-signed by European nations, they stood aside when neo-Nazi militias exploited the police withdrawal and overran government buildings, forcing Yanukovych and many government officials to flee for their lives.

Then, under the watchful eye of these modern-day storm troopers, the rump parliament “impeached” Yanukovych but did not follow the procedures laid out by Ukraine’s constitution. The overthrow was, in reality, a putsch.

But American political leaders and journalists have pretty well expunged that inconvenient history, making the crisis simply a case of black-hatted villain, Russian President Vladimir Putin, bullying the white-hatted “pro-democracy” coup-making heroes of Ukraine.

U.S. politicians and pundits now cite the Ukrainian constitution as some sacred document as they argue that Crimea has no right to hold a popular referendum on leaving Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation. President Barack Obama says a Crimean plebiscite would be illegitimate unless Crimea gets permission to secede from the national government in Kiev as stipulated in the constitution.

In other words, the Ukrainian constitution can be violated at will when that serves Official Washington’s interests, but it is inviolate when that’s convenient. That situational view also presumes that some normal constitutional process exists in Kiev when one doesn’t.

More Hypocrisy

This U.S. government/media hypocrisy on the Crimean vote is underscored, too, by Official Washington’s frequent role in advocating and even mid-wifing secession movements when they correspond with U.S. foreign policy interests.

Fifteen separate nations emerged from the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 as U.S. politicians celebrated. No one seemed to mind either when Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

That same decade, U.S. officials helped negotiate the dissection of Yugoslavia into various ethnic enclaves. Later in the 1990s, the U.S. government even bombed Serbia to help Kosovo gain its independence, despite centuries of deep historical ties between Serbia and Kosovo.

In 2011, the U.S. government supported the creation of South Sudan, carving this new oil-rich nation out of Sudan. The supposed motive for breaking South Sudan loose was to stop a civil war, although independent South Sudan has since slid into political violence.

The Obama administration disputes allegations of U.S. hypocrisy about secessions, calling these comparisons “apples and oranges.” But the truth is that all secession cases are unique, a balance of history, pragmatism and politics. Very seldom are they simple and clear-cut.

In Crimea, the case for secession from Ukraine seems strong: Crimea is populated mostly by ethnic Russians; many people speak Russian; and they have historically viewed themselves as part of Russia. If a large majority of the voters prefer joining Russia, why shouldn’t they?

Perhaps the case for Crimea’s secession would have been weaker if the Western nations hadn’t so eagerly embraced the putsch in Kiev. If the Feb. 21 agreement had been enforced – clearing the way for Yanukovych’s orderly departure – Obama’s argument might make more sense. The constitutional procedures would have remained intact.

But the haste with which Washington and Brussels recognized the coup government – with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s choice for Ukraine’s leadership, neoconservative favorite Arseny Yatsenyuk, named interim prime minister – shattered the formal political process of Ukraine.

That was followed by the post-coup rump parliament passing measures, often unanimously, that targeted the political security of ethnic Russians in the country’s east and south. Combined with threats from the neo-Nazis who have grabbed significant power and favor a purified Ukraine for ethnic Ukrainians, the nation confronts a potential civil war.

In such a case – with the prospects of ethnic cleansing and the violence that would surely follow – the most reasonable solution might well be to hold referenda in Crimea and in eastern Ukraine on whether the people in those areas want to stay attached to the Kiev regime. If the people in those regions want independence or association with Russia, why should the United States ratchet up a new Cold War to prevent that?

If what’s left of Ukraine wants to join the European Union — and if the EU would want it — then those Ukrainians could vote for their future, too.

Democracy means little if populations are compelled to remain part of an undemocratic regime that has seized power in the capital by force and demonstrates hostility toward outlying regions. Since such a predicament now exists in Ukraine, the best-imperfect solution could be to dispatch international observers to Crimea to monitor the plebiscite and verify whether the popular vote fairly reflects the people’s will.

[Dradin Kastell]

Democracy means little if populations are compelled to remain part of an undemocratic regime that has seized power in the capital by force and demonstrates hostility toward outlying regions. Since such a predicament now exists in Ukraine, the best-imperfect solution could be to dispatch international observers to Crimea to monitor the plebiscite and verify whether the popular vote fairly reflects the people’s will.

The problem with the referendum in the Crimea is that the peninsula is being led by an undemocratic regime that has seized power in the local capital by force, and is being supported by a foreign army and violent thugs who go around beating opposition activists, intimidating journalists and closing down independent news outlets.

A fair referendum on the Crimea might be a good solution to decide what the locals really want to do. But a fair referendum is not going to happen while the peninsula is being led by a government that came into power in a coup, while foreign soldiers occupy the area, while local opposition media is being silenced and while anyone disagreeing with being separated from Ukraine is facing violence and disenfranchement. International observers would be an excellent idea - unfortunately Russia itself is doing everything it can to keep observers away from the Crimea. Prior to the pro-Russian takeover of the Crimean local parliament on the 27th there was no decision about a referendum by made with the support of the biggest elected groups in the Simferopol parliament, though, and at that time the parliament was led by members of the Party of the Regions, Yanukovych's party, who legally since the 2010 elections has a simple majority in the Crimean parliament. In fact before the tiny pro-Russia minority group led by Aksyonov took over, supported by masked, armed men, the Crimean Council of Ministers leader, Mohyliov, had signalled a willingness to follow the lead of the majority of the Ukrainian parliament supporting the interim government in Kiev.

The ballots for the upcoming referendum are being printed, and they only give two options for the Crimea - join Russia, or become independent and join Russia later. A fair referendum held with an interest to the entire local population's wishes would at least allow the chance to vote to keep the status quo - to stay as an autonomous part of Ukraine as per the current Ukrainian constitution and the 1994 deal between Ukraine and Russia says. So this is not just a question of not following the Ukrainian constitution - it is also a problem with not allowing a real democratic choice to the Crimeans even in the ballot options.

Nations annexing parts of neighbouring states, areas that they have occupied by military force against the will of the neighbouring state's government and constitution, has not been done in Europe after WWII - in nearly 70 years now. It just hasn't been done. And so it is a major international departure if Russia is now allowed to go through with such a blatant land grab (camouflaged by manufactured "popular demand"). It signals a return to 19th century practices in European relations. I come from a small nation that once used to be a part of Russia - you might understand that this looks like a very bad precedent for the people living in the small neighbouring states to Putin's authoritarian, heavily nationalistic, homophobic regime seemingly pining for the glory days of the mighty Russian Empire.

The people of Ukraine are being fought over and screwed over by powerful corrupt Western internationalist elites (and the American, European and Ukrainian politicians in their payroll), by an authoritarian Russian leader colluding with corrupt Russian elites and by indigenous corrupt Ukrainian elites that have looted the country and stolen the people's money during the last two decades - the Yanukovyches and the Tymoshenkos both and the fascist thugs and their enablers who work as enforcers for both sides. The Euromaidan protests might have been hijacked by fascists, but the Ukrainian people has very good reasons today to want to get rid of the Janukovyches et al. who have betrayed their trust and flushed the nation's future down the toilet.

I don't think as anti-fascists we should be cheering one set of corrupt elites against other - we rather should be on the side of the people in Ukraine and the people in the Crimea and bring to light the abuses of power on all sides, not just those committed by the favourite "primary enemy". Putin, his Russian oligarch backers and his masked soldiers and violent thugs making their power plays over the heads of the ordinary people in Ukraine and in the Crimea are not our friends.

[Peachtree Pam]

Here is link to video with Max Kaiser talking with Dimitry Orlov about the Ukraine (second half of program).

http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/episo ... eiser-082/

[conniption]

If Crazy Fits Wear It

Ukraine – Putin On The Ritz?

Ron
March 9, 2014

According to the Western media Russian President Vladimir Putin has “invaded” the Crimea in Northeastern Ukraine by sending in 16,000 troops to “occupy” the region. Oh wait . . . the Russia-Ukraine agreement, to which the United States is also a signatory, allows for 25,000 troops in the Crimea. How is this an invasion?

The Western media is also reporting that it is the Russian Federation which is causing the problems in Ukraine and destabilizing the region by opposing the government in Kiev. Oh wait again . . . It was actually the revolutionary elements supported and funded by the American government that led the coup against the legitimate elected government of Ukraine thus changing the pro-Russian government with a pro European one, thus leading to the unrest in Eastern Ukraine which has an overwhelming number of ethnic Russians. The Eastern Ukraine used to belong to Russia until, according to Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, a drunk Nikita Khrushchev gave the Crimean territories to the Ukraine.

Add to this that the “government” put in place in Kiev is none other than the same oligarchs that raped and pillaged Greece and you come to understand that this is much more sinister than just angry citizens trying to overthrow their government. This is nothing more than a robbery on an international scale and the players don’t give a shit about the Ukrainian people and the people of East Ukraine want nothing to do with it.

Washington and the EU speak piously about the people’s right to protest and fight for self-determination but what they mean is they believe in the people’s right to self-determination as long as it means siding with them.

The danger in the situation is that between all the lies coming out of Washington and their propagandists, the Mainstream Media whores, and the international pressure being brought to bear by ignorant brainwashed fools who believe them, Putin is being backed into a corner from which the only way out may be a real live war. Because when all is said and done, as sure as God made little green apples, Putin is not going to give up the Crimea. Add to this the fact that in the arena of geopolitics Obama is a fool and there are people in the administration who are still pissed that Reagan didn’t go to war with the Soviets and believe that the Americans could win now, and you have a situation that resembles a man pouring gasoline on on a powder-keg while smoking a cigarette.

Basically what I’m saying is that this could get real fugly real quick.

We can always hope that the Idiot in Chief grows a brain and stops listening to all the dumbass, nitwitted, brain-dead, pea-brained, birdbrained, lame-brained, imbecilic knuckle-draggers that he has surrounded himself with and who believe that the US can act any way they damn well please with impunity.

Don’t hold your breath.

The problem with common sense is that it is not so common.

[Dradin Kastell]

[quote=conniption]The problem with common sense is that it is not so common.[/quote]

Indeed.

Anyone who keeps repeating the idea that there is Russian no invasion on the Crimea because Russia has a right to keep n amount of troops (of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and attached units) in Sevastopol should check their facts. The Black Sea Fleet base area where the Russians are allowed to keep their troops is a small part of the peninsula. Most of the peninsula is by Ukrainian and international law similar to any other part of Ukraine in terms of the rights of foreign military to use it. In other words, using these areas against the will of the Ukrainian national parliament means invading Ukraine.

The US army has military bases in Germany, maintained there in agreement with the German national government. The situation on the Crimean peninsula now is similar to one where suddenly the American troops would come out of the Ramstein Air Base, for example, in unmarked uniforms, armed and masked, and started to take over public buildings and German military installations in Rhineland-Palatinate, one of the sixteen Bundesländer making up the German Federal Republic, in violation of US-German agreements, German law and international law, demanding the German soldiers in their bases to abandon their posts and join the masked troops. The local government of Rhineland-Palatinate, sitting in Mainz, would have not have the right to call the American troops out of their bases to help it, even if was afraid that the national government is Berlin was just about to start oppressing the local people. The local government would have even less authority to ally with these American troops if it itself had come to power in a local coup that ousted a leadership elected in the last legal elections.

(That the US bases themselves are a relic of WWII and the Cold War and many Germans quite rightly question them being in Germany still today is of course something we could also compare to the Russian insistence of keeping troops or claiming "legitimate interests" in the nations that used to be parts of the USSR or the Communist Bloc, but that might be a discussion for some other time. Personally, I support the withdrawal of US bases from Germany or other European nations as much as Russian troops from these formerly Soviet areas.)

One can of course keep uncritically accepting the Russian justifications in this case if one needs that to keep his/her worldview intact in these trying times. It is quite understandable. Most people in the US, say, swallow the lies told by the mainstream media to escape the discomfort of having to think for themselves on a daily basis. But I think the people who spend any time on a forum like this should understand what kind of propaganda Moscow is trying to peddle to us by claiming that it has all the rights in the world to do what it is doing on the Crimea right now. Not all the lies come from the West and not all the propagandists are in Washington's payroll.

[seemslikeadream]

Preparing the Ground for NATO
The Anti-Empire Report #126
by William Blum / March 8th, 2014

Ukraine

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. 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?”1

The Holy Triumvirate would love to rip Ukraine from the Moscow bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US 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 militants2 … 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.3 … 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.”4 … neo-Nazi protestors 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 February 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 US State Department official Victoria Nuland and the US 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 US 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.5 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.

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.”6

NED, receives virtually all its financing from the US government ($5 billion in total since 19917 ), 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 US 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 January 25, to make two of his adversaries prime minister and deputy prime minister; all to no avail; key elements of the protestors, and those behind them, wanted their putsch.

Carl Gershman, president of NED, wrote last September that “Ukraine is the biggest prize.”8 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 US 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 pre-text.”9

Iraq was in the 21st century. Senator John Kerry voted for it. Hypocrisy of this magnitude has to be respected.

POSTSCRIPT: Ukraine’s interim prime minister announced March 7 that he has invited the NATO Council to hold a meeting in Kiev over the recent developments in the country. “I invited the North Atlantic Council to visit Kiev and hold a meeting there,” Arseny Yatsenyuk said during a visit to Brussels, where he met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and EU officials. “We believe that it will strengthen our cooperation.”

Love among nations

by Viktor Dedaj, Paris, France

Washington’s response, or lack of it, has confirmed the authenticity of a YouTube clip of a leaked telephone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that emerged February 6. In the call, posted by an anonymous Russian source, Nuland and Pyatt discuss installing a new, pro-US government that will incorporate the fascistic opposition which had been leading street protests against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Even though Washington’s campaign for regime-change had been coordinated with the European Union, in the phone conversation with Pyatt, Nuland attacks the EU for being insufficiently aggressive, saying at one point, “Fuck the EU.” The same source has provided us with the text of a subsequent conversation between the EU and the US.

EU: But you said you loved me!

US: (sigh) There you go again.

EU: I left everything behind for you. Democracy, market regulations, state-owned companies, social welfare, an independent foreign policy.

US: (lighting a cigarette): pffff… Nobody forced you.

EU: I could have been an international star, you know?

US: Yeah, yeah, blah, blah …

EU: The whole world had hope in me! Now it’s that slut, Latin America, who’s showing off with her crummy progressive policies.

US: Oh that one … She was a hotty. I must admit it was fun at the time. But it’s over (for the time being). Now, you’re my bitch.

EU: (sniffing): Seriously? You’re not joking?

US: You are, you’re my little bitch. Come here.

EU: Are you going to hit me?

US: What? Of course not! What’s wrong with you?

EU: Latin America … She says you’re arrogant, and violent. She says that you have no friends, only interests.

US: She’s crazy. Forget her. C’mon, come here my little bitch.

EU: Oh Sam … Sam …

A Question re: Syria

There have been numerous news stories about Syrian government bombing of its civilian areas, with reports of many dead, and photos and videos of heavily damaged buildings. The source of the stories I’ve come across, when it’s mentioned at all, is almost always some element of the “rebels”; i.e., those opposing the Syrian government.

In all these stories – Have you ever seen a photo or a video of a plane dropping bombs? Or of the bombs in the air? I’m not saying that the bombings have not taken place. I’m just wondering why there is no graphic evidence of them.

Dialogue with readers

Last month’s report evoked an unusually large number of critical responses, concerning two basic issues:

1) My questioning the widely-held belief that if John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated he would have ended US military involvement in Vietnam. Those who wrote to me are convinced that in a second term as president, without the need to worry about re-election, the genuine liberal and man of peace residing inside JFK would have been free to blossom, and he would quickly have put an end to a war that he supposedly abhorred.

I had written in the report: “It appears that we’ll never know with any kind of certainty what would have happened if JFK had not been assassinated, but I still go by his Cold War record in concluding that US foreign policy would have continued along its imperial, anti-communist path.”

As I read letter after letter challenging this assertion, the thought occurred to me: This is just what we heard for four years concerning Barack Obama – In his second term the genuine liberal and man of peace would emerge; the Nobel Peace Laureate would show why he deserved the prize. Well, do I need to go into the awful details of the man’s second term, from drone assassinations to relentless persecution of whistleblowers who question his foreign policy?

2) I suggested a possible solution to the international problem of suicide bombers: Go to the very source. Flood selected Islamic societies with this message: “There is no heavenly reward for dying a martyr. There are no 72 beautiful virgins waiting to reward you for giving your life for jihad. No virgins at all. No sex at all.”

I was informed by reader after reader that the whole thing about virgins is a myth. That may very well be the case, but as I pointed out to them, I was using the story metaphorically, to describe killing and dying for a religious cause, then counterposing US military men killing and dying for a “religious” cause called patriotism, nationalism, or American exceptionalism. Both “causes”, Islamic and American, need to be unlearned. That was my point. There’s no excuse for setting off a powerful bomb in a crowded restaurant nor for dropping a powerful bomb in a residential area.

In the land where happiness is guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence

President Obama and many other political and media figures have once again made discussion about the minimum wage a heated subject. Time for me to repeat something I wrote in 2007:

“Think raising the minimum wage is a good idea?”

“Think again.”

That was the message of a full-page advertisement that appeared in major newspapers in January. It was accompanied by statements of approval from the usual eminent suspects:

“The reason I object to the minimum wage is I think it destroys jobs, and I think the evidence on that, in my judgment, is overwhelming.” Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman

“The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws.” Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

Well, if raising the minimum wage can produce such negative consequences, then surely it is clear what we as an enlightened and humane people must do. We must lower the minimum wage. And thus enjoy less unemployment, less social unrest. Indeed, if we lower the minimum wage to zero, particularly for poor blacks … think of it! … No unemployment at all! Hardly any social unrest! In fact – dare I say it? – What if we did away with wages altogether?

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” – John Kenneth Galbraith10

[seemslikeadream]

MARCH 10, 2014

“Going into the woods to fight Jewry and other filth..."
Ukraine: The Sovereignty Argument, and the Real Problem of Fascism
by GARY LEUPP
The two most important questions shaping the discussion of events in Ukraine should, in my opinion, be:

1. How (relatively) important is Kiev’s claim on sovereignty over the Crimea, transferred from Russia to Ukraine by the stroke of Nikita Khrushchev’s pen in 1954?

and

2. How (relatively) important is it that neo-fascist groups, in particular the Svoboda Party, played a significant if not decisive role in the toppling of the elected President Viktor Yanukovich, installing Arseniy Yatsenyuk (who has announced in advance an “unpopular” austerity regime); and now hold major cabinet posts, including minister of defense, and control the National Security Agency?

To the first issue one can answer that, according to international law, in particular the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, the Russian Federation must respect Ukrainian sovereignty within its existing borders (however unfairly drawn those borders may seem to some). The principle of respect for sovereignty seems straightforward enough.

But consider the case of Croatia. In 1990, its parliament declared the country’s independence in what Washington considered a violation of international law. “You can’t just do that,” thought U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who made it clear the U.S. opposed the breakup of Yugoslavia. But U.S. ally Germany–the newly reunited Germany under the revanchist Helmut Kohl, swaggering towards Balkan hegemony–got its way. Once all hell broke loose due to sectarian conflict–which had been kept in check by Marshall Joseph Broz Tito’s secular regime–the U.S. moved in to split up a once-proud neutral country in Europe that had never been a threat to itself. All due to “humanitarian” concerns, we were told.

Recall how the U.S. wrested Kosovo away from Serbia in 1999, although there was absolutely no question then that Kosovo was and had been part of Serbia for many centuries. In the process it bombed a European capital (Belgrade) for the first time since 1945, creating a protectorate in Kosovo hosting a massive U.S. army base.

Even after driving out Serbian forces, the U.S. hesitated to promote Kosovo’s independence until 2008, when Condoleezza Rice proclaimed it “sui generis…because of the special circumstances out of which the breakup of Yugoslavia came.”

Russia warned at the time that this was setting a dire precedent. Sure enough, when former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili foolishly attacked South Ossetia (which had declared independence from Georgia in 1990) in August 2008, he prompted a brief war with Russia and the establishment of the two de facto independent states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. These are recognized by a handful of countries including Russia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. The U.S. cried foul. Sen. John McCain thundered “We are all Georgians now” and demanded intervention. But the U.S. could do nothing.

One might argue that, to insure global stability, respect for existing legally recognized borders should be an absolute. But the leaders of big powers don’t believe that. They simply argue for that principle when it suits their needs.

To the second question one can answer that it is very important that neo-fascists have a high profile within the new Ukrainian regime strongly supported by Washington. The fascist element is not, as the State Department (and even some people on the “left” suggest), a minor factor in all this, exaggerated by the Kremlin to discredit a mass movement. As we will show, it is quite central.

One can further question whether Kiev’s sovereignty claims over Crimea (and for that matter over the whole region east of the Dnieper River, which was Russian territory to the early twentieth century and is largely populated by Russian speakers) trump Russian concerns that forces promoting Ukrainian ultranationalism and anti-Semitism have taken over in Kiev. Does a sovereign Ukraine have the right to go fascist, to marginalize and mistreat minorities?

Neo-fascists in Cabinet Posts

Some have noted that, for the first time since 1945, neo-fascists hold cabinet posts in a European country. They include the Ukrainian interim defense minister, Ihor Tenyukh (a naval commander who has studied at the Pentagon and favors NATO membership); deputy prime minster for economic affairs Oleksandr Sych (chief Svoboda ideologist who as a member of parliament co-authored a bill banning abortion, who’s said that women have the right to avoid pregnancy by “leading an orderly life”); minister of agriculture Ihor Svaika (an agro-oligarch); and minister of ecology Andriy Moknyk (who has served as Svoboda’s envoy to Italy’s neo-fascist Forzo Nuovo. Group).

Other appointments worth noting include the National Security Council chief, Andry Parubiy (co-founder of Svoboda, leader of the U.S.-backed “Orange Revolution” in 2004, and “security commandant” during the Maidan protests directing attacks by the paramilitary organization “Right Sector”); and Deputy NSC chief, Dmytro Yarosh (founder of the “Right Sector”). The Prosecuter-general, Oleh Makhnitsky and Minister of Education Serhiy Kvit are also members of the Svoboda Party.

Imagine a National Security Council controlled by people whom (it now appears) hired snipers to fire on the Maidan crowd, with the intention of blaming this on Yanukovich’s security forces.) This is not business as usual. This is a leap into darkness.

The Svoboda (“Freedom”) Party so well represented in the interim cabinet was founded in 1991 as the successor to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) founded in 1929 by a man named Stepan Bandera. Svoboda still idolizes him. Former Ukrainian prime minister Victor Yushchenko in deference to their sentiments declared Bandera a “Hero of Ukraine” in 2010, producing protests from the European Court of Justice. The pro-Russian administration of the next prime minister—the recently deposed and widely vilified Yanukovich—reversed the decision a year later.

Some commentators are saying that, depending on one’s perspective, Bandera was a fascist or a national hero—as though there were some real moral ambiguity here. Bandera’s career was in fact complex, and he was actually detained by the Nazis between July 1941 and September 1944. But before that he solicited and received Nazi money and support for two battalions to be deployed against the Soviet Red Army. (One of these was the Nachtigall Battalian, which according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, rounded up around 4000 Ukrainian Jews for the Nazis in Lviv in July 1941.) And in 1944 he was allowed to set up an office in Berlin to coordinate sabotage of Red Army operations in Ukraine and encourage the Ukrainians to fight against the Soviets.

The faction of the OUN headed by Bandera held a conference in German-occupied Krakow in May 1941, where it declared: “The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine…The OUN combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously it renders the masses conscious of the fact that the principal foe is Moscow. . . Jews are hostile to us must be exterminated in this struggle, especially those who would resist our regime: deport them to their own lands, importantly: destroy their intelligentsia that may be in the positions of power … Jews must be isolated, removed from governmental positions in order to prevent sabotage, those who are deemed necessary may only work with an overseer… Jewish assimilation is not possible.”

In June 1941 OUN activist Yaroslav Stetsko wrote Bandera: ‘We are creating a militia which would help to get remove the Jews and protect the population.” That same month as Nazi troops invaded the Ukrainian SSR, Bandera declared an independent Ukrainian state. The “Act of Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood” proclaimed that that the party would “work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself from Moscovite occupation.”

Svoboda and Contemporary Anti-Semitism

So much for the historical OUN, Svoboda’s parent organization. But skipping forward: last December Svoboda Party officials in Lviv changed the name of the city’s Peace Street to Nachtigall Battalian Street. “‘Peace’ is a holdover from Soviet stereotypes,” a Svoboda spokesperson explained.

Should that not send a chill up all our spines? Imagine authorities in Berlin renaming a street Schutzstaffel Strasse.

According to the Nation, the Svoboda Party wants to ban abortion, gun control, foreigners’ adoption of Ukrainian children, and “the Communist ideology.” It has organized violent attacks on gay pride events.

Party leader Oleh Tyanhybok, a member of Parliament, routinely trashes “the Kikes” and calls for the liberation of Ukraine from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” He idolizes the OUN. “They did not fear,” he declared in 2004, “but took up their automatic rifles, going into the woods to fight Muscovites, Germans, Jewry and other filth which wanted to take away our Ukrainian nationhood. It’s time to give Ukraine to the Ukrainians.”

Tyanhybok visited Germany in 2010 to stand in solidarity with John Damanjuk, the Ukrainian-American convicted of abetting mass murder in a Polish death camp. Around that time close aide Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn established a think tank originally called “the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center.” (No, I am not making this up. The name has changed in pragmatic deference to international public opinion, but the think tank’s still there.)

Right Sector activist Oleksandr Muzychko, known for fighting in Chechnya against Russian forces in the mid-90s, and brandishing a Kalashnikov in a regional parliament session, stated baldly in 2007 that he would fight “communists, Jews and Russians for as long as blood flows in my veins.”

In 2010 the official Svoboda website carried a statement reading in part:

“To create a truly Ukrainian Ukraine in the cities of the East and South, only one lustration will not be enough, we will need to cancel parliamentarism, ban all political parties, nationalize the entire industry, all media, prohibit the importation of any literature to Ukraine from Russia… completely replace the leaders of the civil service, education management, military (especially in the East), physically liquidate all Russian-speaking intellectuals and all Ukrainophobes (fast, without a trial shot. Registering Ukrainophobes can be done here by any member of Svoboda), execute all members of the anti-Ukrainian political parties…”

The above-mentioned founder of the Right Sector and Deputy National Security Chief Yarosh has called upon Chechen Islamist militants to attack Russia in support of Ukraine. (Thus the U.S. has mid-wifed into power a soul-mate of the Tsarnaev brothers.) Shouldn’t this be an issue?

For what it’s worth, the World Jewish Congress declared Svoboda a “neo-Nazi” party last May. The U.S. State Department apparently does not agree.

U.S. Support for Oleh Tyahnybok

How do U.S.officials–who insist that Ukraine in its current shape, the result of a Soviet decision in 1954, must be preserved—relate to the Svoboda Party? Suffice it to say that Tyahnybok has appeared at a public rally with U.S. Sen. John McCain, and had a cordial meeting last month with U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Victoria Nuland. (Nuland is a neocon Cheneyite holdover in the Obama administration, a consistent liar who has campaigned for endless war on Iraq, Iran, Libya, etc. Her husband, pundit Robert Kagan is also well-known for his support for wars based on lies).

Nuland was famously recorded discussing with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine plans for regime change in Kiev. In the days leading up to the coup, she dismissed the EU’s advocacy of a role for Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s rival Viktor Klitschko (whose party has in fact been excluded from the present cabinet). “Fuck the EU!” snapped Nuland. More interestingly, he also declared that the newly installed Yatsenyuk needed “Tyahnybok on the outside” and needs to talk to him “four times a week.” (In fairness, she urged similar consultations with Klitschko.)

This may be the first time that a Jewish U.S. assistant secretary of state has directed a puppet leader to consult weekly with someone who publicly castigates “Jewry and other filth.” Quite remarkable (although drawing little attention so far from U.S. journalists).

By the way–Nuland told a US-Ukraine Foundation Conference last December that the US had invested $5 billion to “build democratic skills and institutions” in Ukraine. (Imagine if the Russian Federation were to invest $ 5 billion in the outcome of the next U.S. election. What would be the response?) The U.S. is up to its eyeballs in this regime change, and has in fact cultivated relations with thugs.

While Svoboda has only received about 10% of the vote in recent parliamentary elections, it was deeply involved in the street violence that toppled Yanukovich, executing a coup. One (anarchist) protestor in Maidan Square told Salon that 30% of the demonstrators were “fascists.” There has been a credible report, based on a leaked phone conversation between EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton and Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, that the sniper fire that occurred in Maidan Square, attributed by the opposition to Yanukovich’s security forces in order justify the coup, was actually arranged by neo-fascist forces. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov demands an investigation. But this report has not been mentioned prominently in the U.S. press, which wants to keep things simple.

Talking heads acknowledge that Ukraine is ethnically and linguistically divided. They acknowledge that Crimea was long Russian territory, that the majority probably want reunification of Russia, and that in fact things are kind of complicated. (Of course they are always complicated, although in some conflicts the U.S. corporate media in the service of policy-makers–taking advantage of the abject historical and geographical knowledge of the people of this country, and exploiting that ignorance—routinely project “good vs. evil” conflicts out there in the world, requiring urgent U.S. bombing.)

But the talking heads will seldom point out that this whole “crisis” results from Washington’s relentless push, from the first Bill Clinton administration, to rub Moscow’s nose in the dirt while planting the NATO flag up to its borders.

Main U.S. Goal: Expansion of NATO

Some basic facts:

NATO was founded in 1949 as a “mutual defense alliance” (that is, an instrument of U.S. hegemony in the North Atlantic, back when the U.S. GNP was half the world’s) versus the USSR and some conception of an international communist threat.

The USSR, noting the history of the US-Soviet anti-fascist alliance, requested to join NATO in 1954. The bid was dismissed by the NATO chief at the time who said it was “like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force.” A spurned Moscow organized the Warsaw Pact defensive alliance (a very natural response) in 1955.

There was never a war between the two blocs. The status quo in Europe held until uprisings in East Europe, encouraged by the U.S., brought down the Soviet bloc, and caused the dissolution of the USSR into its component parts. It all happened at lightening speed between 1989-1991. There was no revolution, just a collapse accompanied by the celebration of dormant (sometimes toxic) nationalisms. The results have left a bad taste in many people’s mouths, and throughout the former Soviet Union (if not the entire former eastern bloc), there are widespread feelings of nostalgia for a more comfortable, secure past.

(A December 2013 Gallup poll showed that 56% of Ukrainians feel the breakup of the Soviet Union was more harmful than beneficial to their country. In Russia the figure is 55%, Kyrgystan 61%, Armenia 66%. In the 11 former Soviet republics surveyed, the average percentage lamenting the dissolution is 51%.)

As the Soviet leadership faced the profound humiliation of the collapse of the alliance, George W. Bush (commander in chief during the first Persian Gulf War, who proclaimed “a New World Order”) assured Mikhail Gorbachev that following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact the U.S. would not expand eastwards. But during the Bill Clinton era, the U.S. did precisely that.

And it has ever since. Nine of the current 28 NATO countries were formally Soviet allies, and three more were once republics within the USSR. There are NATO bases and missile sites on the Russian border. The Russian Federation forces of course have nothing comparable near the U.S. The U.S. has over 700 military bases outside its borders and troops stationed in over 100 countries. The Russians have a dozen bases outside Russian territory, all on the periphery of the country.

No one in his or her right mind (this excludes the hysterical hawks in Congress and the neocons who help shape their views) would suggest that Russia poses a gathering threat to U.S. “national security.” But rational Russians might well question why NATO wants to encircle them. Russia’s been invaded from the west innumerable times (including 1610-12, 1708, 1812, 1941-45). It is arguably more vulnerable that the USA, surrounded by deferential neighbors and two oceans. Its people no doubt feel consternation at the tightening of the NATO noose.

Would people in this country feel otherwise, had the Warsaw Pact survived and expanded–even with verbal assurances that the expansion wasn’t aimed at anyone in particular—to embrace the countries of the Caribbean and Central America, and made overtures to Canada? Isn’t the expansion of an explicitly military alliance to one’s very borders a legitimate source of alarm?

In 1991 George Kennan, Truman-era U.S. diplomat and “father of containment” during the “Cold War,” watching the expansion of NATO, predicted “the beginning of a new cold war.” He added, “I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely, and it will affect their policies.”

What Russians Think

Of course it did! As we saw in Georgia in 2008 and as we see now. Why, many Russians must think, is the west so intent on incorporating Ukraine, fountainhead of Russian culture, into the western zone? Don’t they know that the Russian state traces its origins to Kievan Rus in the early ninth century, before there was a “Russia” or “Ukraine”? Don’t they know that Ukraine only emerged as a state after the Mongol invasions, and then as a satrapy of Poland, before joining Russia in 1654 by the Treaty of Pereyaslav? And then not as an independent kingdom but as a Russian principality?

Don’t they realize that that Russian principality of Ukraine for over two centuries was centered in the region west of the Dnieper River, and that the Russian speaking eastern section was only added after the Bolshevik Revolution, with the inception of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic? And that the Crimean Peninsula had been Russian territory since 1783, until 1954 when it was turned over, perhaps foolishly and capriciously, to Ukraine?

Russians may well ask: Don’t these people in the west realize that the U.S. has zero moral authority in this world, after its wars based on lies, and after having produced nothing but ruin and misery from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya?

Don’t they care about Babi Yar? Do they even know what this was? No doubt they don’t. So why does a clueless fool like Obama–who would, had he not been checked by his own people’s revulsion at more war, and deft diplomatic steps by Vladimir Putin (the adult in the room), launched missile strikes against Syria last year (once again on the basis of lies)–tell the people of Russia and the people of the Ukraine how to balance issues of international law with the morally unassailable cause of repressing European fascism?

Fascism Isn’t Dead

Because fascism isn’t dead, you know. The Golden Dawn Party, with its Nazi-like banner, holds 18 seats in the Greek parliament. The National Front of France holds seats in parliament. Fascism is recrudescent in a number of European countries, where the brown shirts surely look to Kiev with admiration and hope.

In Ukraine, neo-Nazis have achieved respectability, and can boast fine friends. Oleh Tyahnybok must feel deeply validated by Victoria Nuland’s stated opinion that the new puppet leader of Ukraine, Yatsenkyuk, “needs to be talking” to him “four times a week.”

Vladimir Putin has emphasized the involvement of “fascist hooligans” in the toppling of Yanukovich. Fox News calls this “playing the Nazi card to marginalize Ukraine’s revolution.” Fox is merely echoing the State Department of John Kerry and Victoria Nuland. It’s all about sovereignty, folks, they’re saying, and don’t worry about the fascist stuff.

And don’t worry about your emails and phone calls, collected and saved by the U.S.’s NSA with an efficiency the Nazi Ministry of State Security could never have imagined. Don’t worry about a president who would have attacked Syria, on the basis of dubious reports, unilaterally and illegally, had not Putin (the adult in the room) checked his hand. (Yes, popular opposition was important too.) Don’t even imagine there’s any fascist wind blowing across this great country—that would be such stretch, wouldn’t it?

Instead, line up behind the leader who openly promotes U.S. “exceptionalism,” attempts to implement the official Pentagon strategy of “full-spectrum dominance,” supports the eventual entry of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO and may well contemplate ultimate expulsion of the Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol. That’s the general, implicit cable news message.

To which one might respond–joining in this instance with the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the World Jewish Congress–that no, there is a real fascist threat here. The Russians are not imagining it. That doesn’t mean one unites with Putin, the soulless autocrat who has used his KGB connections to contain opposition and consolidate the current capitalist-imperialist Russian state. (Putin is reportedly influenced himself by the writings of Aleksandr Dugin, a professor who promotes a “Eurasianism” with its own clear fascist underpinnings.)

It means–certainly for people in this imperialist country, against which all others pale–that one shouldn’t take sides in this confrontation. And one certainly shouldn’t be naïve about the nature of the new regime in Kiev.

[coffin_dodger]

Look, No Teleprompter
Vladimir Putin Talks To Reporters About Ukraine
http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e37889.htm March 04, 2014

snip:

QUESTION: Mr President, can you tell us if you expected such a harsh reaction to Russia’s actions from your western partners? Could you give us any details of your conversations with your western partners? All we’ve heard was a report from the press service. And what do you think about the G8 summit in Sochi – will it take place?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Regarding the expected reaction, whether the G8 will meet and about the conversations. Our conversations are confidential, some are even held over secure lines. Therefore, I am not authorised to disclose what I discussed with my partners. I will, however, refer to some public statements made by my colleagues from the west; without giving any names, I will comment on them in a general sense.

What do we pay attention to? We are often told our actions are illegitimate, but when I ask, “Do you think everything you do is legitimate?” they say “yes”. Then, I have to recall the actions of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, where they either acted without any UN sanctions or completely distorted the content of such resolutions, as was the case with Libya. There, as you may know, the resolution only spoke of closing the airspace for government aircraft, while it all ended with bomb attacks and special forces land operations.

Our partners, especially in the United Sates, always clearly formulate their own geopolitical and state interests and follow them with persistence. Then, using the principle “You’re either with us or against us” they draw the whole world in. And those who do not join in get ‘beaten’ until they do.

Our approach is different. We proceed from the conviction that we always act legitimately. I have personally always been an advocate of acting in compliance with international law. I would like to stress yet again that if we do make the decision, if I do decide to use the Armed Forces, this will be a legitimate decision in full compliance with both general norms of international law, since we have the appeal of the legitimate President, and with our commitments, which in this case coincide with our interests to protect the people with whom we have close historical, cultural and economic ties. Protecting these people is in our national interests. This is a humanitarian mission. We do not intend to subjugate anyone or to dictate to anyone. However, we cannot remain indifferent if we see that they are being persecuted, destroyed and humiliated. However, I sincerely hope it never gets to that.

Not seeing many weasel words here. Long interview at link - seems cogent and dignified.

[Dradin Kastell]

Freedom of information in dire state in Crimea

Published on Friday 7 March 2014.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the increasingly oppressive climate of censorship in Crimea, where news media have been closed, media premises are being surrounded and journalists have been harassed and threatened.

“The media are being subjected to completely arbitrary actions and decisions,” said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire. “At a time when the entire world is following events in Crimea, those who control the region have duty to allow local and foreign journalists to do their job. The obstruction and censorship taking place under their authority is unacceptable.”

The signals of the Ukrainian TV stations 1+1 and 5 Kanal were cut suddenly yesterday in Crimea. At the same time, the Russia TV station Rossiya 24 began being broadcast instead of the local station Chernomorka, whose signal has been cut since 3 March. The Kyiv Post said this was the work of armed men who took over the radio and TV transmitting centre in Simferopol, the Crimean capital, in the morning.

Several dozen men in armed dress but without firearms blocked the entrance to the local state-owned TV station GTRK Krym in Simferopol yesterday. The head of the TV station, Stepan Gulevaty, said that, without giving any explanation, they were preventing anyone from leaving and allowing only the station’s employees to enter.

There has been no let-up in cases of journalists being attacked or threatened in Crimea. On 5 March, Russian soldiers with no insignia outside the Belbek military base aimed their guns at Olga Ivshina of the BBC’s Russian service and other journalists.

They searched the journalists and accused them of being British spies before releasing them. An officer told Ivshina that the western media were biased and that she should avoid provocations. He then told her not to come back.

Reporters with 1+1 and Al-Jazeera were briefly detained on 4 March when they tried to leave a military base at Yevpatoria that was also surrounded. It was only after showing their videos and their press IDs that they were allowed to leave. Individuals continued to escort them for a long time to ensure that they did not film.

Two reporters with the German newspaper Bild and the Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Ilchenko were harassed and threatened yesterday in Simferopol by a group of youths who shouted at them, “Occupiers, get out of Crimea!” Their assailants tried to grab one of their laptops and then pursued them.

Argumenty Tizhnia - Krym reporter Stanislav Yurchenko was threatened on 5 March in Simferopol by members of a “self-defence militia” while trying to cover the use of force to disperse a demonstration by “women against the war.” His assailants twisted his arm, tried to break his camera and threatened him with serious reprisals if he kept any images of the event.

Yevgeny Fedorov, a parliamentary representative of the ruling United Russia party, announced yesterday in Moscow that he intended to present a bill that would permit the arrest of media executives or editors who disseminate “mendacious anti-Russian information” or “provide news coverage in support of anti-Russian extremists or separatists.” The proposed law would also affect media coverage of events taking place outside Russia, he said.

In Kiev, the cable TV and Internet service provider Lanet stopped carrying the signals of three Russian TV stations – Pervy Kanal, RTR-Planeta and NTV Mir – on 4 March on the grounds that they were “broadcasting aggressive propaganda, calling for war and spreading hate.”

The day before this move, Nikolai Tomenko, the president of the parliamentary commission on freedom of expression and information, had asked the intelligence services to determine whether these TV stations were violating Ukrainian law.

Yesterday the Finnish TV carried a report of Finnish veteran journalist Rauli Virtanen interviewing people protesting in Simferopol with Ukrainian flags against the local government and the pro-Russian actions against the local Crimean media - they were demanding that "the beatings of our journalists should be stopped" and that "our media should be allowed to broadcast". One man was afraid that the pro-Russians and the Russian troops are trying to cut all contact to anywhere else than Russia, saying that "if they cut the internet, too, then true darkness will fall".

[Peachtree Pam]

http://www.zerohedge.com/

After Annexing Crimea, Russian Troops Are Piling Up By The East Ukraine Border
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/12/2014 15:26 -0400

Despite the relentless protests of Kiev, and of course the G7 group of world's most indebted nations, in the past two weeks Vladimir Putin once again succeeded in outplaying the west and annexed the Crimea peninsula without firing a single shot (granted there is still potential for material situational deterioration, one which would involve military participation by NATO whose outcome is not exactly clear). The market has "priced in" as much, with prevailing consensus now dictating that Russia will preserve its foothold in the Crimea however without additional attempts for annexation: certainly Poland is hoping and praying as much. However, as the following photos taken on the Russian side of East Ukraine, next to Belgorod, the Russian airborne troops ("VDV") are now piling up, only not in Crimea, which needs no further Russian military presence, but ostensibly to prepare for the next part of the annexation: that of Russian-speaking east Ukraine.

[seemslikeadream]

Kremlin Massing Armed Forces Near Eastern Ukraine
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ALISON SMALEMARCH 13, 2014

MOSCOW — Russia’s Defense Ministry announced new military operations in several regions near the Ukrainian border on Thursday, even as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany warned the Kremlin to abandon the politics of the 19th and 20th centuries or face diplomatic and economic retaliation from a united Europe.

In Moscow, the military acknowledged significant operations involving armored and airborne troops in the Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions abutting eastern Ukraine, where many ethnic Russians have protested against the new interim government in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, and appealed to Moscow for protection.

A day after a deputy minister denied any military buildup on the border, the Defense Ministry released a series of statements beginning early Thursday that appeared to contradict that. They outlined what was described as intensive training of units involving artillery batteries, assault helicopters and at least 10,000 soldiers.

Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at the German Parliament on Thursday.Germany Urges Russia to Help Solve Ukraine CrisisMARCH 13, 2014
Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk in Independence Square in Kiev on Feb. 27. Many thought him out of place during the opposition rallies.Ukraine’s New Premier, the ‘Rabbit,’ Seems to Be in His ElementMARCH 12, 2014
“There are a lot of variants here, which is why it is urgent that we have this conversation with the Russians,” Secretary of State John Kerry said.Kerry Plans 11th-Hour Meeting With Russians Over CrimeaMARCH 12, 2014
The operations confirmed, at least in part, assertions by Ukrainian leaders on Wednesday that Russia was massing forces, as well as amateur photographs that appeared to show columns of armored vehicles and trucks in a border village called Lopan, only 30 miles from the Ukrainian city Kharkov. One statement announced that another 1,500 paratroopers from Ivanovo, east of Moscow, had parachuted onto a military base in Rostov, not far from the Ukrainian cities Donetsk and Lugansk.

A visual survey of the continuing dispute, including satellite images of Russian naval positions and maps showing political, cultural and economic factors in the crisis.


With NATO announcing its own deployments of fighter jets and exercises to countries on Ukraine’s western border, the crisis appeared to worsening despite 11th-hour diplomatic efforts to halt a secession referendum scheduled for Sunday in Crimea. The ouster of the government of Viktor F. Yanukovych and Russia’s subsequent intervention in Crimea has deeply divided Russia and the West, and in Berlin, Ms. Merkel underscored the potential risks of what is being called the worst crisis in relations since the end of the Soviet Union.

Appearing before Parliament on Thursday, Ms. Merkel criticized Russia’s actions in some of her toughest language to date, declaring that “the territorial integrity of Ukraine cannot be called into question.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, if Russia continues on its course of the past weeks, it will not only be a catastrophe for Ukraine,” she said. “We, also as neighbors of Russia, would not only see it as a threat. And it would not only change the European Union’s relationship with Russia. No, this would also cause massive damage to Russia, economically and politically.”

As Russia’s largest trading partner in Europe, Germany is certain to have significant influence on the debate over how to respond to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Some politicians and observers in other European countries and in the United States have suggested that Germany’s traditionally close trading and other ties with Russia have made it hesitant to adopt sanctions against Russia.

Ms. Merkel’s speech, however, suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin might have miscalculated the anger the occupation and annexation of Crimea would cause – or that he might be impervious to it.


Mr. Putin, who has remained in Sochi to attend the Paralympics there, has so far showed no sign of bending to international criticism. In a meeting on Wednesday with the directors of national Paralympic teams, he implicitly reiterated the Kremlin’s argument that the ouster of Mr. Yanukovych was an armed coup instigated by outside forces. “I would like to assure you that Russia was not the initiator of the circumstances we are now facing,” Mr. Putin said.

In her remarks, Ms. Merkel rejected any comparison between the situation in Crimea today and that in Kosovo in the late 1990s, when NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days to halt the attacks on Kosovo Albanians by Serbian forces.

Ms. Merkel was clear that Germany would go along with the other 27 states of the European Union, and the United States, if Russia did not open meaningful diplomatic talks and the West moved to freeze Russian accounts and impose travel bans or restrictions on leading Russian figures.

“To make it unmistakably clear,” she said, “nobody wants it to come to that.”

The chancellor recalled that on Nov. 18, before Mr. Yanukovych rejected an association agreement with the European Union, she had made clear that the proposed accord was not directed against Russia and did not represent a choice for Ukraine between the West and Moscow.

On Thursday, she dwelled on the need for Russia to avoid what she predicted would be major damage to its interests by abandoning outdated geopolitics and adopting the 21st century language of mutual cooperation and interwoven globalization.

The possibility of sanctions has rattled Russia’s markets and currency, and while some of the country’s wealthiest tycoons have voiced concern, officials have responded to the threats defiantly, vowing to retaliate with sanctions of their own. “We are ready for any eventuality, working on all the options,” said Aleksei Y. Likhachyov, a deputy minister of economic development. “Our sanctions will naturally be symmetrical.”

As other leaders have, Ms. Merkel ruled out the use of force, but the military maneuvers on both sides underscored the risk of a far worse conflict over Ukraine’s fate. She referred obliquely to “worrisome developments” in eastern Ukraine, however.

The unrest there – though less violent than in Kiev – has raised fears that Russia could do what it did in Crimea. There local officials defied the central government in Kiev and declared independence, even as Russian special forces took control of airports and other important government facilities.

Russia has not acknowledged the presence of additional forces in Crimea beyond those allowed by contract for the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, although officials and analysts have said they include Russia’s elite special operations troops. On March 1, Mr. Putin asked for and received authorization from Russia’s upper house of Parliament to order the use of the armed forces in Ukraine.

“The main aim of the ongoing activities is to check fully the teamwork of the units with subsequent combat training tasks on an unknown territory and untested ranges,” one of the Defense Ministry statements said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Parubiy, claimed that Russian forces near the border totaled more than 80,000 solders, 270 tanks, 370 artillery systems and 140 combat aircraft. “Ukraine today is facing the threat of a full-scale invasion from various directions,” he said.

Aleksandr Golts, an author and military analyst, noted that the operations were not training exercises like the huge one Mr. Putin ordered at the end of February that require notification of neighboring states under a series of conventional arms agreements.

He added that the operations were clearly intended as a warning of Russia’s readiness to intervene, if necessary, noting that the parachute drop was on a scale not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also served to tie down Ukraine’s beleaguered military and prevent any effort to challenge the secession of Crimea.

“The goal is very clear: not to permit Ukrainian troops from moving toward Crimea,” he said.

[ShinShinKid]

Dradin is right, the Russians came out of their military bases, and also moved reinforcements into sovereign territory.
It's plain and simple. It's also plain to see why the Polish and Baltic Republics are also worried. All of these countries have Russian populations, whose lament can be used as a pretext for a soft invasion.
This situation is similar is some respects to the time just prior to the outbreak of the world wars.
Everyone, by everyone I mean state actors, are waiting to see just what is going to happen.
Of course the evangelists are loving all of these scenarios, because of the prophetic and biblical implications...

[justdrew]

so this is out there...

Hacked emails to and from US Army Attache Assistant in Kiev Jason Gresh with Ukrainian General Staff Igor Protsyk, discuss plans to arrange a massive attack on transport hubs and Ukrainian military bases in order to "frame-up the neighbor," and "create favorable conditions for Pentagon to act."

[82_28]

I have long loved to watch the religious right's programming, just in order to "see". I watched the Jack van Impe show last night and came away with the impression that for the first time in my life, I at least agreed 50% with that right wing fundamentalst motherfucker. I forget what he said, but he made sense. He echoed exactly everything I think about the situation except for the "right wing" part. I am in no way onboard, of course, but I was like "tell it" brother. Tell it.

He made perfect sense. I don't condone his rigid tell tale beliefs in shit, but he totally nailed the situation insofar as what is "known" and where it is likely headed if it continues. I mean, what we believe about "the powers" is now a given and this is what we know as it has been set up in order to unfold as it has. He of course welcomes what this comes of because it will mean he's right about the "rapture", however I think he is very well right about the situation. And if he's right about the "rapture" then I stand corrected.

Does this make sense? Certainly not undersigning on this, but it seems imminent.