There are claims that Russia shot down 4 Ukrainian ballistic missiles after they were fired towards east Ukraine (these missiles are capable of carrying nukes, or 500kg of explosives, or a host of other possibilities):
July 30th Combat SITREP by Juan Information from very reliable sources. These sources are in Novorossiya, Russian Federation, EU and Ukraine:
29.07.2014 in afternoon Ukraine time 4 SS-21 Tochka tactical ballistic missiles were fired by Ukraine Armed Forces. At least two were clearly aimed at Saur Moglia with the idea of the Ukes trapped in The Cauldron having a sudden escape route opened for them. Moments before launch Russian Federation units surged toward the border at The Cauldron area and to the north of The Cauldron.
None of the 4 Tochka missiles reached their targets. I repeat, none of the 4 Tochka missiles reached their targets and none impacted with the ground anywhere that can be found in anything close to one piece. As you know this missile can carry a tactical nuke, chem/bio, cluster munition or HE in the weight of just under 500 kilos.
When the 4 missiles failed to reach their targets the Armed Forces of RF immediately halted their surge and held position. They are in the same positions 30.07.2014.
There has been a noticeable slow down of fighting activity since the launches and Strelkov has pointedly said again that Novorossiya is open to negotiations. The 4 Tochka missiles were shot down over Novorossiya territory occupied by Ukraine Armed Forces before the missiles reached their programmed height. They were shot down from inside RF according to normally reliable sources. No visual evidence has been provided of RF shooting down the Tochka systems nor of the system used to shoot down the Tochka missiles.
Juan
And there was a CNN report yesterday, conveying some alarm that Ukraine had launched 3 ballistic missiles at the separatists. No mention of them being shot down by the Russians. (It was even covered on my local tv news, with the reporter standing in front of a pock marked but intact building, telling us that someone had died there where one of the ballistic missiles landed. I think probably not!):
The Canada-based Centre for Research on Globalization is also interesting. It was founded and is now headed by Michel Chossudovsky; among the Centre's contributors are Neil Clark, Mahdi D. Nazemroaya and William Engdahl. Chossudovsky, Nazemroaya and Engdahl are members of the scientific committee of the Italian journal Geopolitica, which also includes John Laughland and Natalya Narochnitskaya. Geopolitica is edited by Tiberio Graziani, a fervent advocate of the Eurasian cooperation and a member of the High Council of the International Eurasian Movement led by Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin. In 2008, Dugin called for the Russian occupation of Georgia, and even made a trip to South Ossetia together with his followers from the Eurasian Youth Union.
Aleksandr Dugin and his followers in South Ossetia in 2008
Geopolitica itself is an off-shoot from the Italian extreme right journal Eurasia, Rivista di Studi Geopolitici, published and edited by Italian Nazi-Maoist Claudio Mutti. The scientific board of Eurasia includes Aleksandr Dugin and William Engdahl. In the early January, Engdahl published a piece titled "The Belgrade US-Financed Training Group Behind the Carefully-Orchestrated Kiev Protests".
Dugin has been promoting the idea of the destruction of Ukraine and its colonisation by Russia since the early 1990s. He has also been an inspiration for the foundation of the Italian national-socialist organisation Stato & Potenza which openly calls for the annexation of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. Dugin and Mutti have been friends since 1990; Mutti himself is closely associated with Stato & Potenza.
Aleksandr Dugin and Claudio Mutti in 2012
All the above-mentioned people and groups form - apparently a small - part of the wide network which is aimed at promoting anti-Western, pro-Russian and pro-Eurasianist ideas in the EU and the US and Canada. Moreover, the following people from this network are official regular contributors to the Kremlin-sponsored Russia Today (RT) TV:
Michel Chossudovsky (Centre for Research on Globalization, Geopolitica) Neil Clark William Engdahl (Centre for Research on Globalization, Geopolitica, Eurasia) Eric Draitser (Centre for Research on Globalization, Stop Imperialism) Daniel McAdams (ex-BHHRG, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity) Mahdi D. Nazemroaya (Centre for Research on Globalization, Geopolitica)
And these authors are in the pool of political commentators of yet another Kremlin-sponsored media service, the Voice of Russia:
Mark Almond (ex-BHHRG, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity) Michel Chossudovsky (Centre for Research on Globalization, Geopolitica) Neil Clark Eric Draitser (Centre for Research on Globalization, Stop Imperialism) Aleksandr Dugin (International Eurasian Movement, Eurasia) William Engdahl (Centre for Research on Globalization, Geopolitica, Eurasia) Tiberio Graziani (Geopolitica) John Laughland (ex-BHHRG, Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity) Daniel McAdams (ex-BHHRG, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity) Natalya Narochnitskaya (Institute of Democracy and Cooperation)
The Voice of Russia's offshoot in France is ProRussia TV which is linked to the French far right National Front and headed by Gilles Arnaud, a former National Front councilor in the Upper Normandy. The National Front's leader Marine Le Pen has received a warm welcome in Russia last summer. Then, in particular, she met Vice-Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who helped found the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation when he was Russia's ambassador to NATO (2008-2011). It was during Rogozin's service in the Russian Mission to NATO when Ukraine and Georgia were denied membership in this organisation.
Marine Le Pen and Dmitry Rogozin in Moscow, 2013
Commenting on the Ukrainian government's decision not to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, Le Pen said that she was disappointed with the EU interference in the Ukrainian matters and recommended to the Ukrainians not "to join this nightmare", i.e. the EU (although nobody actually discussed Ukraine joining the EU). In this rhetoric, Le Pen was supported by Andreas Mölzer from the far right Freedom Party of Austria, who also suggested - when speaking about Ukraine's rapprochement with the EU - "to take into account the legitimate interests of Russia [which] is very sensitive to everything that happens in her immediate neighborhood [that] includes Ukraine, which, since the time of Peter the Great, was part of the Russian sphere of influence".
The large network consisting of pro-Russian authors and institutions is a hard/extreme right breeding-ground of all kinds of conspiracy theories, Euroscepticism, racism and anti-democratic theories.
To Sin By Silence: The Juggernaut of Ukrainian State Murder Lurches Onward
Posted on July 29, 2014 by marknesop
Uncle Volodya says, "Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everybody is for it. "
“To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.”
To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards of men. The human race has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised against injustice, ignorance, and lust, the inquisition yet would serve the law, and guillotines decide our least disputes.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “Protest”
“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Even Human Right Watch, despite its selective concern for human rights based on its political underpinnings, is beginning to get uncomfortable with the ongoing butchery in eastern Ukraine at the hands of “Poroshenko the Pragmatist”. I’ll say he’s pragmatic; he’s an exterminator. Ukraine under his rule is spiraling down, down to a hellish inferno where the basest appetites for cruelty are rewarded and no opposition is tolerated.
“A live interview with an HRW representative on Ukraine’s Hromadske TV came to an unexpected close when the host terminated the conversation after the guest refused to validate claims of Russia’s alleged “indisputable war crimes.” Hromadske TV journalist Danilo Janevsky abruptly cut off a live interview with Tatiana Lokshina, a representative of HRW after she refused to provide what she called a “political assessment” on the situation in eastern Ukraine. HRW is tasked with the objective reporting of human rights violations as set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These impartial reports do not produce a political verdict; rather, they are used as the basis for drawing international attention to abuses. The interview, which began on a predetermined note to blame Moscow for the internal armed struggle in Ukraine, ended with the sudden, uncommon practice of cutting the guest off live on-air. It happened just as Lokshina was about to provide an impartial assessment of the abuses in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict. Janevsky asked his program’s guest:
How do you estimate rocket, heavy artillery and air attacks on the territory of the bordering sovereign state? Does it constitute a war crime, from your point of view? Yes or no?
Lokshina tried to explain that HRW does not comment on matters of political responsibility. Just as she began to say “If you want to hear what we have found,” the conversation was abruptly cut off by Janevsky. He said:
Thank you very much, our conversation is over.”
Many of the west Ukrainians, who fancy themselves descended from a nobler strain than their grunting, subhuman Russian-speaking eastern cousins, support Kiev’s brutal ethnic cleansing operations, and only became piqued when it appeared western Ukraine’s sons and brothers and fathers would be thrown into the meat-grinder at the front as the desperate battle for Donetsk enters its final chapters and the dictatorship throws everything it has into crushing this last bastion of its fellow citizens.
While North America and the European Union continue to smile paternally and ward off feeble attempts at criticism with the off-key Greek chorus, “President Poroshenko has a right to protect his country”, the state brings up short-range ballistic missiles. Useless against moving targets such as troops in the field, these are used against cities and towns to frighten defenders into capitulation with the sheer scale of indiscriminate carnage (thanks for the tip, Paul).
Most who have been watching the conflict in Ukraine slowly go pear-shaped and explode out of control were of the opinion that the “government” would never dare to use tanks against civilians. That opinion looks delightfully antiquated now and sort of comical – how little we all knew of the true depravity of this cancerous ruling body! Tanks are now as routine for the civilian populace in the east to deal with as shooing cows out of the cornfield, and not even particularly frightening compared with ground-attack aircraft indiscriminately shooting up towns and bombing residential areas, leaving innocent noncombatants lying legless and writhing in the street, some of them dead alongside their infants. And now, ballistic missiles. Could any one of us, in his or her wildest dreams, ever have imagined a situation in which a nation supported to the hilt by the Anglosphere could fire ballistic missiles at its own cities, without a murmur of complaint from its watching patrons? Jesus Christ; I remember the United States of America throwing a complete wobbler when Assad’s troops were supposedly shooting into crowds of protesters with heavy machine guns, and that didn’t even happen. There’s no doubt this is happening, and…crickets.
What is it going to take for Kiev’s western supporters to finally become sickened and withdraw their endorsement? In the name of God, what has happened to the western democracies?
What would the Founding Fathers – whom Sarah Palin can’t name but who have been the go-to symbolic arbitrators of justice for Americans since 1894 – have to say about the crushing of free will by the military power of the state? What do you say, Thomas Jefferson?
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
Well said, Sir – how about you, Alexander Hamilton?
“The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”
I can’t argue with that, and I believe there is an emerging consensus on who is Ukraine’s master. What’s your opinion on the subject, James Madison?
“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
I’m glad you brought that up, Sir, because that is exactly the canard which is being aired, not only as justification for pounding the people of eastern Ukraine into acceptance of the yoke of imposed rule, but as substantiation for launching an economic war on the neighbouring country, which has long been in the west’s gunsights – Russia. The legitimately-elected government of Ukraine, the story goes, is engaged in an existential battle for self-determination of all Ukrainians against the terrorist forces of Russia, whose special forces and sophisticated weaponry seek to draw the country back into the embrace of the Soviet Union.
Let’s take a closer look at that. Is this an elected government? How? Its head of state, Poroshenko, won a landslide in an election in which nearly a third of the country did not vote, and not one individual in government has been elected since, although there have been plenty of appointments. The Rada remains essentially as it was after the coup government appointed itself, and still contains ministers who received their appointments as a reward for their activism at Maidan.
And don’t be misled by the hamfisted clumsiness of U.S. diplomatic efforts such as Ukrainian Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt’s ridiculous proffering of satellite maps alleging to prove Russian shelling of Ukrainian positions from inside the Russian border – there’s even a date on the map, and it’s 2010. That notwithstanding, the USA is watching the border like a hawk, and you couldn’t smuggle across a clip of bullets in a lunchbox without them noticing and shouting about it. All right, that’s an exaggeration, and I imagine a few light weapons are getting across, but certainly nothing so big as a vehicle, like a tank or APC, because they’re watching for just that and so far have had to rely on social media like Twitter and some loony SBU fabrications that purport to feature a rebel in east Ukraine conveniently reporting to his Russian controller that they have accidentally shot down an airliner. Yes, I really mean that; I’m not kidding. The nation that invented the internet, the personal computer and the spy satellite, the nation that spies on everyone else – even its allies – insists that video clips obtained from Twitter and unverified “phone intercepts” that are just fragments of conversations stitched together and which feature an unidentified “terrorist” are hard evidence of Russian culpability in the destruction of MH-17. Exactly as predicted, they are already starting to drift toward “we may never know”, which is as good as an admission that their useful tools in Kiev are the actual guilty parties, while Kiev’s seizing of the ATC records and refusal to release them is as good as an admission of guilt on their part – one hell of a lot better than something off of Twitter. Even Malaysia now says Kiev must accept responsibility; if not for having actually shot down the aircraft themselves, perhaps even deliberately in one of the most cold-blooded and grotesque false-flag operations in history, then at least for driving the aircraft out of the safety of the airlanes and directly over a war zone, as well as reducing its altitude.
What a disgrace. And on the political front, the Prime Minister – Arseniy Yatsenyuk, forever immortalized as “Yats” by that great nation-builder, Victoria Nuland – is getting out while the getting is good, probably knowing the country is doomed, while the political opposition is disbanded and coalition partners resign. If they could build a scaffold big enough to hold the entire Rada, they should all be pissing when they couldn’t whistle, and swinging by their necks. Ukraine has disgraced itself for a generation at least, and several notches below disgraceful has been the sickening hypocrisy and inhumanity of its backers. Take a bow, boys, because you’re on the hook for it every bit as much as your button-men are.
Your sins of silence now will rise up to confront you a thousandfold. _______
Comments (a worthwhile comment section, to be sure.)
Ukraine premier stays on, envoys agree on crash site route
Thu Jul 31, 2014
Ukrainian tanks move along a road near Eastern Ukrainian village of Novoselivka Persha July 31, 2014. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
By Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets
KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament rejected Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk's resignation on Thursday and finally passed legislation he said was needed to finance an army offensive against a separatist rebellion in the east and avert a national default on its debts.
The assembly's about-turn on laws it refused to back a week earlier offers relief to Kiev's Western backers, who had feared Ukraine was sliding deeper into political chaos and might renege on an international bailout as it heads into an election period.
"There are two pieces of news today. The first is that Argentina has defaulted, and the second is that Ukraine has not defaulted and never will," Yatseniuk told the chamber, making clear he would stay in office.
The political battle has been taking place against the backdrop of a military campaign to win back parts of the Donbass region, which borders Russia, from the pro-Moscow rebels.
Having recaptured the rebel stronghold of Slaviansk in early July, government forces are now moving on the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, with the latter now all but encircled and electricity and food supplies cut off.
Both sides stopped shooting long enough for an initial group of international experts, after several days of trying, to reach the site where a Malaysian airliner came down in rebel-held territory in the east on July 17, killing 298 people on board.
The experts hope a larger team of investigators will also soon have access to the site to recover the remains of the last missing victims and look for evidence showing what brought the plane down.
"It's been almost a week since we have been on the site and we haven't noticed many changes. Experts said they have detected human remains on the site," said Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for an observer team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which escorted the experts.
The group also said fighting around the crash site started again immediately after they left.
Western leaders accuse the rebels of shooting down the Malaysian plane and have imposed sanctions on Russia, which they accuse of arming the separatists, a charge Moscow denies.
There is scant hope of a quick end to the crisis, during which Moscow has annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, but envoys from Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE met in the Belarussian capital, Minsk.
Kiev said the sides had agreed to keep open the route to the crash site that was used on Thursday, despite fighting in the vicinity.
"CONSOLIDATION, NOT CONFRONTATION"
Thursday's vote in parliament was an important sign of political unity from Kiev, which is struggling to deal with an economic crisis as well as the war against the Moscow-backed rebels in the east.
In sharp contrast to a stormy parliamentary session last week at which Yatseniuk bellowed at legislators and accused them of betraying Ukraine by blocking reforms, deputies stood and applauded him after backing the amendments.
President Petro Poroshenko said the new votes in parliament would help Kiev in its fight against separatists.
"We need consolidation, not confrontation," Poroshenko said. "We have to be united against external aggression."
Parliament's support was needed to amend the 2014 budget to take account of falling revenue and release an additional 9.1 billion hryvnia ($758 million) to finance the military.
The government also wanted parliament to back legislation allowing consortiums with European or U.S. companies to operate the ageing gas distribution system.
Yatseniuk had said the government would have defaulted on debt payments and missed out on the release of further funds under a $17-billion International Monetary Fund bailout if it had failed to pass the legislation.
"The laws the government is insisting on are unpopular and difficult, but very necessary," Poroshenko said, adding that they would "enable the economy, the state as a whole, to function".
Laws passed on Thursday also introduce an additional 1.5-percent personal income tax until the end of the year to cover the military. Taxes were raised on tobacco and the mining, oil and gas sectors. Nearly 2 billion hryvnias were earmarked for rebuilding of infrastructure damaged by fighting in the east.
The exit of two parties from the ruling coalition last week amounted to the start of a campaign for seats in a legislature still packed with former allies of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich, who was ousted by street protests in February.
Western governments have come to regard Yatseniuk as a key interlocutor in the worst standoff between Russia and the West since the Cold War ended. His departure would have been seen as leaving a vacuum at the heart of decision making.
The United States and European Union imposed sanctions on Moscow this week that were far tougher than earlier measures. Russia has been hitting back.
It announced a ban on fruit and vegetable imports from Poland on Wednesday and a day later placed an embargo on Ukrainian fruit juice. Greek fruit and U.S. poultry could follow, Russian media said.
(Additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Donetsk, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Will Waterman)
Antiwar protests spreading in Ukraine as gov’t wages all-out war in the southeast and NATO threatens Russia
By Roger Annis July 31, 2014
Antiwar protest in city of Mykolaiv (Nikolaev), Ukraine, July 25, 2014, blocking traffic bridge over Bug River
July 31, 2014 -- A rising wave of antiwar and anti-conscription protest is taking place in cities and towns across western Ukraine. The protests are prompted by the announcement of Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko ten days ago that a “third” military mobilization is now required for the war that his governing regime began waging against the population of eastern Ukraine three months ago. Kyiv calls the war an "anti-terrorist operation."
The protests are paralleled by a rise in Ukraine army desertions and refusals of men and women to heed conscription orders.
Poroshenko’s mobilization proposal was approved by the Ukraine Rada on July 22. The measure means that more people will be conscripted into military service and that more reserve army units will be thrown into the battle theatre.
Since the crash of Malyasia Airlines Flight 17, Kyiv has embarked on a frenzied military push into southeast Ukraine to try and defeat a pro-autonomy rebellion there. It is blocking access by investigators to the MH17 crash site and the forward line of its military push consists of intense and random bombardments of towns and cities amounting to war crimes on a massive scale.
This video of shelling of an apartment block in the city of Donetsk on July 29 is an example of what is occurring. Buzzfeed reports, “Tuesday’s attack was the first time that shelling hit central Donetsk, a hitherto tranquil rebel stronghold. It left three people dead and wounded 15. The nearby city of Horlivka declared three days of mourning after heavy fire killed 17 overnight and wounded several dozen others. At least four more people died in shelling in the Donetsk suburb of Yasynuvata.”
Kyiv is in a race to defeat the rebellion before the crippling cost of it all as well as rising antiwar protests and army desertions bring its offensive to a halt. It also has to worry about anticipated revolts by the Ukraine population as a whole once the harsh consequences of the economic association agreement that Kyiv signed with the European Union on June 30 bite deeper and deeper.
Protests on the rise
Although the propaganda websites of the Kyiv government boast of the successes of its now three-month long "anti-terrorist operation" in eastern Ukraine (which it dubs its "ATO"), the special mobilization measure approved last week shows its war is in trouble. More fighting units are needed, the national treasury is effectively bankrupted by it all and there are rising numbers of desertions from the army and growing protests by mothers, wives, friends and neighbours of conscript soldiers. ICTV reports that the advisor to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Anton Gerashenko, has announced that anyone in Ukraine who agitates on social media against the regime’s war will be arrested.
The expanding protests have multiple messages. Some oppose the war outright. Others are specifically addressing the harsh and dangerous conditions that soldiers are facing in the east.
One of the most dramatic of the many protests since the "third mobilization" measure was announced has been in the port and shipbuilding city of Mykolaiv (also spelled Nikolaev), on the Black Sea, east of Odessa. Mothers and wives of soldiers repeatedly blocked the Varvarovsky Bridge over the Bug River for three days beginning July 25. They demanded a return of their sons or husbands from lengthy tours of duty in the 79th Paratroop Regiment. The tours have been extended and the regiment has suffered intense combat.
The women went on foot to the bridge carrying placards reading “Save our boys!” and used a pedestrian crossing to block traffic. Tussles with police and militia took place. (See dramatic video footage here from July 25.)
On the first day of the protest, the women drafted a letter to President Poroshenko which the mayor of the city and regional governor agreed to deliver. The women said their action would not end until they received a satisfactory reply. They didn’t receive that. A police mobilization ended the blockade on July 27. Some protesters were arrested.
The websites Hronika.info and ZIK.ua report that in the town of Bohorodchany in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast (region) [1], in southwest Ukraine bordering the Carpathia region, angry people attacked the military registration office and the premises of other local organs of power on July 22. They burned conscription documents. (Ukraine language report here.)
It’s a rural region and protesters sounded a theme that is common to many of the anti-conscription protests: they say their menfolk lack proper training and equipment and therefore face “certain death” when sent to the east.
“Certain death” faced by soldiers is not a sign of a war going well. It also suggests that the most recent report of the Office United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reporting “at least” 1,129 killed by the war in Ukraine is seriously understated. It’s a fact that the report’s claim of “100,000” people made refugee by the war is laughingly low -- Russia says more than 500,000 refugees have crossed its border since the war began in April and Ukraine admits to nearly 100,000 internal refugees.
Russia has condemned this latest report by the OUNCHR, saying, "Its key message is that the government of Ukraine is permitted to legitimately use force to restore law and order in the east of the country."
Also on July 22, residents of the village of Skobychivka linked arms and formed a human chain to block the road from Ivano-Frankivsk to Bohorodchany, causing a kilometre-long traffic jam. The protesters held placards reading: "No Afghanistan in Ukraine!" "Send call-up notices to the children of the higher-ups!" "Return our children to us," and "Stop the bloodshed." A common slogan in the protests is "Refuse!"
A separate report in Vesti quoted the relatives of soldiers saying their sons were being used as "cannon fodder." The report said people were also protesting in Yaremcha, in the same region, and in Sambor, Lviv region.
Not far from that area, in Bukovina region, residents in seven villages blocked roads on July 28. That region is southwest Ukraine includes a significant population of Romanian descent.
A video published by 112.UA shows soldiers’ relatives blocking a road in Obukhivs’kyi district, near Kyiv on July 24 demanding a return of soldiers from lengthy duty.
Protesters in the Odessa region blocked the Black Sea coastal highway for hours on July 28.
Residents of six villages in Sokyryanskyi region (Chernivtsi oblast) -- Bilousivka, Lomachyntsi, Mykhalkove, Serbychany, Korman and Romankivtsi -- blocked the highway between Chernivtsi and Novodnistrovsk on the morning of July 25, demanding that their menfolk not be sent to war.
Protests have gripped the entire region of Chernivtsi in southwest Ukraine. A video recording showed people saying, “We don’t war -- we want peace” and “We did not raise our children for war. We will not give them our children.”
This video (screen below) shows a group of people, mostly women, from Chernivtsi who gather to confront a local military recruitment officer. They are carrying their sons or husbands’ conscription orders.
"Go fight your own war," they tell the conscription officer, who tells locals to “go to the Internet" if they want to find out why the new mobilization is happening. He is referring to the Kyiv regime's intensely propagandistic websites devoted to all things "ATO." But the protesters are having none of that. They gather dozens of blue-coloured conscription orders into a pile and burn them.
As they stand around watching the flames, they're all voicing their opinions. One mother says, "[Kyiv authorities] are fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, but they come here to take our sons and send them to death. They made the mess and now they need us to clean it up." The conscription officer stands by helplessly. What can he do? He is following orders.
In the settlement of Marshintsi in the Novoselytskyy region of Chernivtsi, protesters blocked the entry of soldiers and police. Residents brought tyres and barricaded the road leading into the village. Many wrote letters of refusal, describing the events in the south-east as a “slaughter”.
On July 20, the Kyiv-Chop highway was blocked by local residents, mainly women, in the vicinity of the village of Hamaliivka near Lviv. A protest last month also blocked the highway. The same highway was blocked on July 28, in the villages of Rakoshyno and Znyatsevo, near the border of Slovakia and Hungary.
Here is one of the latest videos to be published on YouTube, of a protest in the town of Town of Novoselytsya in Chernivtsi oblast on July 30.
Many protests are voicing a "No Afghanistan in Ukraine" demand. This harkens back to the ten-year war that the Soviet Union fought against the people of Afghanistan, beginning in 1980. Altogether, 14,500 soldiers of the Soviet Union’s army died, 54,000 were wounded and many, many more Afghans died. The war was a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union, which happened not long after it withdrew from Afghanistan in ignominious defeat in 1988.
Post-Soviet, independent Ukraine later joined the U.S.-led occupation and war in Afghanistan. A small force still participates.
The well-known Ukrainian television journalist and commentator Ostap Drozdov has called for a boycott of the latest mobilization decree. The website Russkaya Vesna reports him saying: “My program yesterday (on the regional television channel ZIK) can be considered the start of an informal campaign to boycott the mobilisation. I state my intention to give my utmost support to this initiative, which goes by the provisional name "Mobilisation Equals Genocide.'"
He said, “It is very important that people who speak out against the mobilisation of the civilian population should see that they are not isolated. There are a great many of them.”
Army in trouble
Exact numbers of army desertions are not known and are the subject of considerable debate and counter-debate. This website report, for example, publishes a purported Ukraine army report saying that close to 3,500 soldiers deserted in the third week of July and that 1,600 soldiers died and 4,700 were wounded in that same time. Sources in Russia say the documents it cites are not authentic.
Here is a brief news report in which several Ukraine soldiers speak of their decision to take asylum in Russia. (Many videos of the fighting in eastern Ukraine are posted here on the "Anti-Maidan YouTube Channel.")
This video records a protest in Kyiv of relatives of the 72nd Army Brigade that suffered heavy losses from a rocket attack some days ago. The protesters chant "Help the heroes". A poster reads: "Send [Rada] deputies and generals to the battlefield!" They pray, and sing the Ukraine national anthem.
The Brigade was caught in a grisly cauldron in southeast Ukraine with many killed and injured and some survivors taking refuge in Russia. In this video, soldiers of the brigade speak for 13 minutes of their difficult and disturbing combat experience.
The pro-Kyiv, Interfax news service reports on 18 Ukraine soldiers who took refuge in Russia and received medical treatment.
Russia Today reported several days ago of this group of 40 soldiers who entered Russia and requested asylum.
Recasted fascist introduces conscription bill
Andriy Parubiy introduced the "third" mobilization bill to the Rada. He is Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, a key advisory body to the President and the Parliament on military matters. He says the measure will mobilize 15 more army combat units and 44 combat support units.
Parabuiy is a renowned fascist in Ukraine who has modified his image in the past year and risen to prominence in the Kyiv regime that seized power in February of this year. Last year, he joined the Fatherland party of former Ukraine prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and was elected to the Rada. Fatherland is a neo-conservative coalition/party.
U.S. journalist Robert Parry wrote of Paruiby earlier this year, “Parubiy is himself a well-known neo-Nazi, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991. The party blended radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols.
“Parubiy also formed a paramilitary spinoff, the Patriots of Ukraine, and defended the awarding [in 2007] of the title ‘Hero of Ukraine’ to World War Two Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose own paramilitary forces exterminated thousands of Jews and Poles in pursuit of a racially pure Ukraine.”
The United States is boosting its military aid and training to Ukraine. The announcement came from U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt on July 25. The U.S. already committed to $23 million in equipment; that will now rise to $33 million. It is also intervening in the countries it dominates in the region to boost the training and equipping of their armed forces, including Moldova and Romania on Ukraine’s southwest frontier and Poland on the northwest.
Kyiv’s ruthless shelling and bombing of towns and cities is running out of time due to the war’s huge financial cost. Describing Ukraine’s economy, the Washington Post wrote on July 26:
"The IMF forecasts that Ukraine's annual GDP will drop by 6.5% this year, while the government deficit is projected at 10.1% of GDP. This week, the government announced that it would need at least 800 million dollars to continue its counterinsurgency operation and asked the parliament to further increase taxes and cut public spending. The deputies' refusal to appropriate needed funds yesterday triggered Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's resignation as he recognized that soldiers would receive no pay next month. The reconstruction of Donbas is even more uncertain as the government promised to turn to foreign donors for funds in the coming fall."
In a remarkable admission last week, Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, Vadym Prystaiko, told the Globe and Mail, “We are pouring all the money in our budget… into the anti-terrorism campaign.”
The war is scandalously riding roughshod over the international investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Investigators were blocked from reaching the site on July 27 and in the days following by the relentless shellings and other bombings by the Ukraine army in the region.
As reported by international media, inspectors are lodged in hotels in Donetsk each night and the passed easily through self defense lines surrounding the city to get to the site. But as the days wore on, the international media reported the blockage as due to “fighting” and “clashes.”
On July 30, Kyiv propaganda began saying that rebel fighters had placed mines on the crash site and were shelling it. That story evaporated the following day when, in circumstances unexplained, inspectors finally reached the site.
The grim reality of Kyiv’s military campaign in eastern Ukraine has been airbrushed out of mainstream news reporting. Little or no visual presentation of bombardments or other war crimes is allowed to pass through editorial filters. The war and its consequences are explained away in the vacuous language of “fighting” or “clashes” taking place. The Toronto Star‘s Tanya Talaga began a front-page article on July 30 with, “The European Union and western nations joined on [July 29] to try to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop his military aggression in Ukraine…” (Inside the same edition, the Star published a factual account of the bombardments of cities and towns.)
The European Union is matching the Ukraine army offensive by upping its economic sanctions on Russia. The sanctions are punishment for Russia’s refusal to obey U.S. and European demands that it police the pro-autonomy movements in eastern Ukraine and pressure them to surrender. They are also part of the long-standing drive by the member countries of the NATO military alliance to weaken and isolate Russia.
The rising antiwar movement in Ukraine has profound consequences for the future of the country. Will protests stop Kyiv’s war before southeast Ukraine is reduced to ruin? Will Ukrainian as well as international protests give pause to the military planners at NATO who are increasingly training their sites on Russia?
Ukraine’s economic elite has made a sharp turn to embrace austerity Europe. The kind of austerity consequences that have ravaged Greece and other countries of southern Europe await the Ukrainian people. How will the antiwar protesters and other ordinary Ukrainians react as the government deepens unpopular cuts to social programs and subsidies that reduce the cost of essential items?
Protests around the world are needed to stay the hands of the warmakers in southeast Ukraine. Solidarity actions can stop the killings. They can also help Ukrainians to chart a different path of economic and social development. That would be fitting because anti-austerity sentiment was at the heart of the rebellion in eastern Ukraine in the first place.
A new, 80-minute video compilation, Ukraine Crisis, has been produced that provides a powerful record of the war in eastern Ukraine during the past month. A warning, there are some scenes of death and destruction caused by the Kyiv government’s shelling that are disturbing, particularly in the four to six minute section, inclusively. The testimony of the woman who speaks for five minutes at the 1'17"30 mark is especially insightful and heartrending. She has lost her son to the war, not knowing since March if he is dead or alive. She asks, "What has become of this Ukraine nation?"
This article draws in part from a July 28, 2014 article from the Russian website Rabkor ("Worker Correspondent") which was translated into English by Renfrey Clarke.
Notes:
[1] Ukraine is subdivided into 25 regions: 24 oblasts (regions, or provinces) and one city with special status, Kyiv. Two former oblasts -- Donetsk and Luhansk -- voted in May for autonomy. The ferocity of Kyiv’s war is driving those two regions to a de facto secession.
Ukrainians are burning their military drafts [eng subs]
Roger Annis is a longtime socialist and trade union activist. He began his political activism with the Young Socialists of the day in Nova Scotia while at university. Since then, he has lived in most regions of Canada, including in Montreal where he became fluent in French. He is a retired aerospace worker living in Vancouver. Roger writes regularly on topics of social justice, peace, and on issues concerning Haiti. His personal blog can be found at http://www.rogerannis.com/. Roger is also an editor of the Canada Haiti Action Network website canadahaitiaction.ca. The group campaigns for Canada to break from the neo-colonial policies it has been practicing in Haiti with its U.S. and European allies and instead provide meaningful assistance for human development.
“Recent history has repeatedly proven that nothing said by Washington and its officials should be accepted at face value. No other government in the world has been implicated in so many egregious lies as the United States.” Bill Van Auken, “US lies and hypocrisy on Gaza and Ukraine“, World Socialist Web Site
“Mendaci neque quum vera dicit, creditor.” Cicero (“A liar is not to be believed even when he speaks the truth.”)
Without a shred of public evidence to support their claim that Moscow was involved in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the United States and Europe have levied a new round of sanctions on Russia. The sanctions, which are designed to restrict Russia’s access to both capital and technology, will be imposed as soon as August 1, despite the fact that Moscow has repeatedly denied either involvement in the incident or of providing material support for the militants fighting in east Ukraine. Not surprisingly, Russia will not be given a chance to defend itself in court or present its case before an independent tribunal. Due process and the presumption of innocence are breezily jettisoned whenever US interests are involved. Instead, Washington will act as judge, jury and lord high executioner arbitrarily imposing penalties on the country that has provided hard evidence of what actually transpired prior to the crash using data it compiled from radar and satellite imagery. In contrast, the US hasn’t lifted a finger to help the investigation even though it has the most advanced, state-of-the-art surveillance systems in the world and even though it had a satellite — capable of reading a license plate from outer space — hovering directly overhead at the time the aircraft blew up. And here’s something else to consider from blogger Moon of Alabama:
“Pentagon officials told CNN (on Tuesday) that the Ukrainian government fired three ballistic missiles towards the federalists during the last 48 hours.” (Moon of Alabama)
If the Pentagon picked up the ballistic missile launches on their radar, they certainly saw the surface-to-air missiles that brought down MH17. Case closed.
So why hasn’t Washington been more forthcoming with the information they have? Why are they basing their judgment on the nonsense they’ve gleaned from social media and Twitter feeds instead of spy-in-the-sky photos and satellite imagery? Why are they dragging their feet and obstructing the investigation? And why, for God sakes, why has Europe agreed to go along with this charade when they know there’s not a scintilla of evidence linking Russia to the downed plane?
These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered a full two weeks after MH17 was downed by what appears to have been a surface-to-air missile launched from a BUK platform somewhere in east Ukraine. (Although even that fact is now in dispute given that MH17 was being allegedly being shadowed by two Ukrainian warplanes. Some analysts believe the aircraft was actually destroyed by air-to-air missiles fired from one of the two Su25 interceptors.)
One thing that’s clear, is that the lack of public evidence hasn’t stopped the Obama administration from smearing Russian president Vladimir Putin in the media or blaming Moscow for the tragedy that killed 298 passengers. The campaign to hold Moscow responsible started just hours after MH17 crashed and has only intensified over the last two weeks. This is amazing considering that, most of what we know about the incident has been provided by Russia. For example, it was Russia that provided the information about the two Su25 interceptors and the US satellite. It was also Russia that came up with the photographic evidence that showed Kiev had deployed anti-air missile systems (BUK) around the area where flight MH17 was downed. The Kiev government has repeatedly denied claims that it had BUK systems in the area, but on Friday, Russian military analysts released satellite images that made mincemeat of those denials. Here’s the story from RT:
“Satellite images Kiev published as ‘proof’ it didn’t deploy anti-aircraft batteries around the MH17 crash site carry altered time-stamps and are from days after the MH17 tragedy, the Russian Defense Ministry has revealed.
The images, which Kiev claims were taken by its satellites at the same time as those taken by Russian satellites, are neither Ukrainian nor authentic, according to a Moscow statement.
The Defense Ministry said the images were apparently made by an American KeyHole reconnaissance satellite, because the two Ukrainian satellites currently in orbit, Sich-1 and Sich-2, were not positioned over the part of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region shown in the pictures….
At least one of the images published by Ukraine shows signs of being altered by an image editor, the statement added.” (“‘Wrong time, altered images’ Moscow slams Kiev’s MH17 satellite data“, RT)
Ask yourself this, dear reader: Why would you provide “altered” photos that were taken on a different day to prove your innocence if you weren’t guilty as hell? And why would the US go along with this farce unless they were involved too?
Like we said earlier, there’s photographic evidence that Kiev had BUK systems operating in the area at the time of the crash. These “new” fake photos only increase the probability that it was a Ukrainian missile that brought down MH17. That’s why the administration hasn’t released any of its radar data or satellite imagery. It’s because they know the truth.
Consider this: The Obama administration has never inquired about the communications recordings between Air Traffic Control (ATC) and the aircrew of MH17.
Why? Don’t they want to know what happened?
Nor have they asked for:
“The information on the specific instructions from the Ukraine Aviation Administration to the air traffic control units of Ukraine with relation to the imposed restrictions on the airspace utilization in the area of Donetsk and Lugansk.” (RT)
Nor are they interested in why MH17 was rerouted over a warzone, 200 kilometers north of all previous flights for the last two weeks. Or whether MH17 was in fact being followed by Ukrainian warplanes. Or whether Ukrainian SAM units were active in the area before the incident took place.
How does one explain the Obama administration’s total lack of interest in any area of the current investigation? Doesn’t that suggest that they already know what happened? And doesn’t that also suggest that they’re trying to prevent the facts from leaking out?
Readers should take a quick look at the 28 questions that Russia’s Air Transport Agency would like the Ukrainian government to answer in order to clarify what happened to MH17. (See questions here.) This is the approach the Obama administration would take if they were genuinely interested in finding out what happened. The reason the administration hasn’t taken this approach, is because they’re not really interested in what happened. Why is that?
Most of the lies about MH17 have been coming from the State Department, where just last Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry appeared on all five Sunday morning talk shows claiming that Moscow had sent “a convoy of about 150 vehicles with armored personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers, tanks, artillery, all of which crossed over from Russia into the eastern part of Ukraine and was turned over to the separatists.”
Imagine making a bold statement like that on five different news programs without even one of the hosts demanding evidence to support the claim. Such is the state of the media in the US today.
So far, neither Kerry nor any of the US Intel agencies have produced proof that Russia is providing material support for rebels in east Ukraine. Zilch. It’s all uncorroborated speculation and unsubstantiated rumor.
Do you remember Kerry said he had proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the Aug. 21 Sarin gas attack outside Damascus, an incident that he hoped would lead the US to launch a war against Syria?
It was a lie. Here’s a clip from Robert Parry:
“A new report by two American weapons specialists, entitled “Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack,” makes clear that the case presented by Kerry and the Obama administration was scientifically impossible because the range of the key rocket carrying Sarin was less than a third of what the U.S. government was claiming.” (“The Mistaken Guns of Last August“, Robert Parry, Consortium News)
And what about Kerry’s grandstanding repudiation of the fake leaflets in Donetsk that said “Jews had to identify themselves as Jews … or suffer the consequences.”
Right. That was another whopper Kerry used to promote his attack on Russia.
And what about this from CNN: “Kerry: ‘Drunken separatists’ interfering at MH17 crash site“. Or this from Vice News “MH17 Crash Site Reportedly Looted by Rebels“.
It’s all just more outlandish speculation intended to smear Russia. There’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal by journalist Paul Sonne titled “After Flight 17 Crash, Agony, Debris and Heartbreak in Ukraine Villages” that dispels a lot of the lies that have popped up in the media in the last couple weeks. First of all, the rebels have not prevented inspectors from accessing the site (as Kerry claims) Here’s Sonne in an interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Wednesday:
“The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has actually gotten very good access to the site with the exception of the first day they showed up, which was the day after the crash where their time there was limited to 75 minutes, and they said that they weren’t given access to every piece of the crash site that they had wanted to see. So after the sort of first day standoff that they experienced with some of the rebel militants, it did seem like they were getting pretty full access to the crash site. The problem was that the investigation team, which is now being led by the Netherlands, wasn’t ready and didn’t, in fact, really arrive in Donetsk until a few days ago. And after they finally assembled in Donetsk, it took, you know, about a week or more. Then, fighting had already started to encompass the crash site. And the reason that they’re not getting access to the crash site now is not because the rebels are not allowing them to go to the crash site. It’s because the crash site has turned into an active, violent fighting zone.”
So the inspectors have had access to the site the whole time except just recently when US-backed goons from the Ukrainian army resumed hostilities in violation of their promise to honor a temporary ceasefire. It sounds like Kiev might have something they want to hide at the crash site, doesn’t it?
Meanwhile, according to the Independent, “John Kerry accused the separatists of displaying “an appalling disrespect for human decency” in carrying on fighting close to the area.”
Is Kerry lying again or is he just confused about the facts?
As far as the looting and drunken disrespect for the corpses of the victims; that’s all BS too. Sonne paints an entirely different picture of what took place on the ground. Just check out some of his description and see if it squares with Kerry’s breakdown:
“The plane’s cockpit and dozens of bodies plummeted into Rozsypne, about 2 miles from Petropavlivka. One body fell through a woman’s roof. A pilot strapped to a seat wound up next to a flight attendant in a nearby field. …Charred remains of an engine, landing gear and wings fell in a fireball next to Hrabove, with a tumbling storm cloud of at least 70 bodies, some of them largely intact…
No villagers on the ground died, but they are scared of what they might find next…
“We thought it was the end of the world,” the Orthodox priest says. He stayed on the ground in prayer, preparing to meet God, and then ran up the hill as burning pieces of the plane’s undercarriage and landing gear pelted a field like bombs. Then came a hail of bodies: arms, heads and fingers.
Farmers dashed to the village, afraid it would be engulfed by an inferno. Hrabove Mayor Vladimir Berezhnoi screamed at drivers and motorcyclists to get off the road as fire rolled across a field. When he saw bodies, Mr. Berezhnoi yelled at adults to take their children home.
A few miles away, Oleg Miroshnichenko, a retired miner who became the mayor of Rozsypne about 13 years ago, felt panic as he heard two loud blasts and watched the remains of about 40 passengers rain down on yards and homes. His phone started ringing off the hook.
“There’s a body here, a body there, another body,” he says…
“In mines, you don’t remove a body until they investigate it,” he says.
Villagers and emergency workers decided to start bagging bodies that were rotting in the sun. Local miners joined the effort. Heartbroken residents had been pleading in tears for the bodies’ removal.” (“After Flight 17 Crash, Agony, Debris and Heartbreak in Ukraine Villages“, Wall Street Journal)
See? These people were deeply traumatized by the experience, they weren’t throwing bodies around and disrespecting the dead. That’s pure bunkum, just like the claims that Russia has been firing rounds into Ukraine is bunkum. Just like the leaflets ordering “Jews to register or face deportation” were bunkum. It’s all bunkum. For whatever reason, the State Department doesn’t give a rip about its credibility anymore. They’ll say just about anything as long as they can skewer Moscow.
On Friday, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf was challenged by Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee, who demanded that Harf back up her claims that Russia has been firing rounds into Ukraine with something more substantial than the rubbish she’d read on Twitter. Here’s what the AP journalist said:
“I think that it would be best for all concerned here if when you make an allegation like that you’re able to make it up with something more than just ‘because I said so. You guys get up at the UN security council making these allegations , the secretary [of the State Dept., John Kerry] gets on the Sunday shows and makes these allegations, and then when you present your evidence to back up those allegations, it has appeared to, at least for some, fall short of definitive proof.”
The clearly-flummoxed Harf started backpeddling like crazy, unable to provide any hard evidence that her claims of Russian complicity were anything more than a complete fabrication. As it happens, the so called “satellite imagery data” and “electronic intelligence” that was used to incriminate Moscow was originally posted on coup-backer Geoffrey Pyatt’s Twitter account, which further underlines the fact that the real objective was to shape public opinion with propaganda not to reveal the truth. Here’s a bit more from Antiwar.com:
“During the past several days, there has not been a single report out of Ukraine of an artillery strike against any of their military bases, anywhere in the country. …And this is Ukraine we’re talking about, which comes up with its own dubious stories of Russian attacks on a near daily basis. If Russia was carried out concerted shelling against Ukrainian military targets, Ukraine would be harping on about it constantly. They aren’t even alleging anything close to that is happening. (“US Invents Reports of Russia Attacking Ukraine Bases“, antiwar.com)
A Twitter account, for god sakes! The US State Department is basing its theory on the crap they picked up on Twitter. It’s ridiculous.
Then there’s the State Department’s claim that Russia is massing troops along the border, another fairy tale that’s turned out to be complete baloney. In fact, an International team of inspectors were sent to Russia to check things out and here’s what the found:
“No instances of violations by Russia along the Ukrainian border had been registered by the inspectors,” the ministry said. “The last four months have witnessed 18 separate inspections along the Ukrainian border with the Russian Federation, all in line with the Vienna Open Skies Treaty and the Vienna agreement of 2011.” (RT)
If you’re starting to think that everything you’ve read about the MH17 crash is bullshit, you’re probably right. There’s not much truth to most of it.
But why would the administration lie about things that are so easy to disprove? What’s the point? Are they just getting sloppy and apathetic or is something else going on here?
To get a handle on what’s really going on, we have to understand that Ukraine is not just another bloody afterthought like Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, none of which would dramatically impact the US’s role as the world’s only superpower. Ukraine is different. Ukraine is an essential part of Washington’s plan to pivot to Asia. If Washington is unable to achieve its objectives in Ukraine — create a chokepoint for vital resources flowing from Russia to the EU, establish NATO bases in the heart of Eurasia, and drive a wedge between Moscow and Brussels — then the plan to maintain US global hegemony for the next century will fail. And if the plan fails, then China will gradually become the world’s biggest and most powerful economy, economic ties between Moscow and Europe grow stronger, and the US will slide into irreversible decline. Get the picture?
This is the scenario that Washington wants to avoid at all cost. That’s why the anti-Russia hysteria in the media has been so ferocious and unrelenting. That’s why the State Department assisted in the coup d’état that toppled the Ukrainian government and triggered the crisis. And that’s why ruling elites of all stripes have thrown their support behind a policy that recklessly pits one nuclear-armed adversary against another. It’s because the bigshot money-guys who run this country are bound and determined to be the Kingfish for the next hundred years even if it means plunging the world into the abyss of a third world war. That’s just a chance they’re willing to take.
MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.
The Second Aircraft Was Malaysia Flight 17 Shot Down? by MIKE WHITNEY “From start to finish, the Ukraine crisis has been instigated by US imperialism. Every action Washington has taken has been directed at exacerbating and intensifying this crisis. The longer this crisis goes on, the clearer it becomes that US policy is directed not so much at Ukraine as at Russia itself. Ukraine, it would seem, is meant merely to provide the pretext for a war with Russia.”
— Bill Van Auken, “Does Washington want war with Russia?“, World Socialist Web Site
German pilot and airlines expert, Peter Haisenko, thinks that Malaysia Flight 17 was not blown up by a ground-based antiaircraft missile, but shot down by the type of double-barreled 30-mm guns used on Ukrainian SU-25 fighter planes. Haisenko presented his theory in a widely-circulated and controversial article which appeared on the Global Research website titled “Revelations of German Pilot: Shocking Analysis of the “Shooting Down” of Malaysian MH17. “Aircraft Was Not Hit by a Missile”. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“The facts speak clear and loud and are beyond the realm of speculation: The cockpit shows traces of shelling! You can see the entry and exit holes. The edge of a portion of the holes is bent inwards. These are the smaller holes, round and clean, showing the entry points most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile….” (“Revelations of German Pilot: Shocking Analysis of the “Shooting Down” of Malaysian MH17. “Aircraft Was Not Hit by a Missile””, Global Research)
Haisenko notes that the munitions used on Ukrainian fighters–anti-tank incendiary and splinter-explosive shells–are capable of taking down a jetliner and that the dense pattern of metal penetrated by multiple projectiles is consistent with the firing pattern of a 30-mm gun.
The fact that Russian radar spotted a SU 25 in the area where MH17 was attacked, has persuaded many that Haisenko’s analysis is credible. Adding to the controversy, international monitor Michael Bociurkiw, who was one of the first inspectors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to reach the crash site and who spent more than a week examining the ruins–also appears to be convinced that the ill-fated jetliner was not hit by a missile but downed by machinegun fire consistent with the myriad bullet-holes visible on the fuselage. Here’s what he told on CBC World News:
“There have been two or three pieces of fuselage that have been really pock-marked. It almost looks like machine gun fire; very, very strong machine gun fire that has left these unique marks that we haven’t seen anywhere else.
We’ve also been asked if we’ve seen any signs of a missile?
Well, no we haven’t. That’s the answer.” (“Malaysia Airlines MH17: Michael Bociurkiw talks about being first at the crash site“, CBC News. Note: The above quote is from the video)
The idea that MH17 was downed by a surface-to-air missile (from a BUK system) is a theory that originated with the US government and spread by the western media. The theory has been repeated thousands of times in thousands of newspapers and TV programs without a shred of corroborating evidence. Needless to say, the repetition of a fable, does not make it true. The public needs more facts to determine what really happened. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has been stonewalling the investigation, preferring instead to use the tragedy to advance their own narrow political agenda by attacking Putin and smearing Russia. This strategy has clearly backfired as we can see by the fact that Haisenko’s analysis has caught on like wildfire convincing many that the missile theory is a fake.
The burden of proof now falls on Washington to produce whatever hard evidence they may have via radar or satellite imagery that will persuade the public that their story is credible. The best way to do that, would be to provide whatever relevant information and data they’ve compiled but refused to release for the last two weeks.
What we know about the crash so far, is that MH17 was rerouted from the flight-path that other Malaysia “Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur” flights had been taking for the two weeks prior.
Why was the flight path suddenly changed? Why was MH17 rerouted through a war zone? Why was the pilot told to fly at a lower altitude instead of the 35,000 ft he had requested? Why was the flight path suddenly adjusted 14 kilometers north just as the plane entered the war zone? Was MH17 outfitted with Boeing’s Uninterruptible Auto Pilot (BUAP), and if so, was the system engaged when it suddenly flew off course and began to lose altitude? (And why hasn’t Boeing sent an investigative team to the crash site which is what they do whenever one of their planes goes down?)
The Obama administration hasn’t answered any of these questions. They’ve chosen instead to use the tragedy to bash Russia and blame Putin without providing any solid evidence or data to support their claim that MH17 was downed by a missile launched from a BUK system. As a result, public confidence in their allegations has steadily eroded. This situation can only be remedied by taking concrete steps to show the administration is serious about the investigation and genuinely wants to get to the bottom of what happened on July 17.
Here’s what Obama should do.
First, he should demand that the Kiev government hand over the Air Traffic Control cockpit tapes that were recorded on the day the flight went down. That’s number one. That will clarify why the pilot veered “off course” 14 kilometers and why the plane suddenly lost altitude. (Once again, we ask: Was the Auto Pilot override system engaged or not?) The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) seized the recordings shortly after MH17 crashed and they haven’t been seen since. Why? Why hasn’t this critical piece of evidence been handed over to the proper authorities, the EU’s team of investigators? Does anyone really believe that Kiev’s US-backed lackey regime made this decision by themselves or that Washington ordered them to grab the tapes to prevent the public from knowing what really happened in the final minutes of the flight?
Second, Obama should come clean and provide whatever radar and satellite data he has that will shed light on how the plane was downed. Most of what we know so far, has been provided by Moscow from a news conference that was moderated by Russian air force chief Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev. Naturally, the western media blacked out most of what Makushev had to say. Surprisingly, however, the right wing Wall Street Journal published an excellent article on the press conference which covered most of the important details. Here’s a brief excerpt from the article:
“On Monday, Gen. Makushev said that the two Russian radar stations near Russia’s border with Ukraine observed the presence of the second aircraft over a period of four minutes on the day of Flight 17′s crash….
Gen. Makushev said that Russian radars could only spot the aircraft at the point of its ascension because the on-duty radars only detected objects at above 5,000 meters. Russian radars spotted the unidentified plane patrolling in the vicinity of Flight 17, “controlling the development of the situation,” he said….
The defense ministry also said it registered the Su-25 fighter jet ascending within close range of several civil aircrafts, including the Malaysia Airlines jet….
Another top military official, Lt. Gen. Andrei Kartapolov, said at the same news conference that the jet came as close as 1.8 miles to Flight 17, which is well within the range of the air-to-air missiles it is usually equipped with…
The suggested version of events echoed much of what has been reported on Russian state television in recent days, which has suggested that Ukraine could have shot down the plane, possibly via one of its fighter planes.
U.S. officials dismissed the Russian government’s claim that a second plane was present when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down last week as “desperate” propaganda.” (“Russia Presents Its Account of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash“, Wall Street Journal)
Russia’s findings appear to support the Bociurkiw-Haisenko theory that MH17 was gunned down by Ukrainian fighters. It’s up to the Obama administration to prove otherwise.
Here’s more from the WSJ:
“Similarly, Gen. Makushev said the Malaysia Airlines plane deviated from its course by close to 9 miles near Donetsk but then attempted to return to its course, crashing shortly after. Russian radars spotted the Flight 17 rapidly descending 32 miles away from the Russian border, Russian officials said…..He said Russia is prepared to hand all of the information it has to the European authorities, which included satellite imagery and data from its own radar.” (WSJ)
Why? Why was the pilot driving the gigantic 777 through a warzone like an intoxicated high-schooler out on a joyride? Does any of this sound suspicious to you, dear reader?
So far, the Obama administration hasn’t even admitted that they had a satellite overhead, preferring instead to stick with their pathetic propaganda strategy. Fortunately, CounterPunch has published an invaluable article by journalist Andre Vltchek that provides a translation of the Russian press conference to which the WSJ refers. Here’s an excerpt:
“According to our records from 17:06 till 17:21 Moscow time on the July 17 over the Southeastern territory of Ukraine, a US space satellite flew overhead. This is a special device of the experimental space system designed to detect and track various missile launches. If the US party has photos made by the satellite, please let us ask them to show them to world community for further investigation….(NOTE: The US satellite system MUST work, because just days later it detected the launching of three ballistic missiles by the Ukrainian government.)
Is it a coincidence or not? However, the time of the Malaysian Boeing-777 accident and the time of the observation done by the satellite over the Ukrainian territory are the same. In conclusion, I would like to mention that all the concrete information is based on the objective and reliable data of the different Russian equipment, in contrast to the accusations of the US against us, made without any evidence…” (“The New Cold War–MH17 – Sacrificed Airliner“, Andre Vltchek, Counterpunch
In other words, Moscow caught the US “red handed”. They spotted the US satellite, they know the US saw what happened, and they’re calling them out on it.
Where are the photos, Obama? Where is the satellite imagery? We KNOW you have them, so pony up!
Now ask yourself this: Where does this line of inquiry lead? And does it really matter if the Malaysia 777 was shot down by a warplane or blown up by surface-to-air missile?
Of course it matters. It makes all the difference in the world. If MH17 was shot down by an Ukrainian SU 25, then we need to know who gave the order and whether the people who stand to benefit from the incident were directly involved or not. And who does benefit from the downing of MH17, that’s what we need to establish. Just like we need to know why the Obama team has been so cock-sure that Moscow was involved in the incident. Why all the fingerpointing? Why the need to make Putin look like a homicidal maniac? How does that help to reveal the truth?
Finally: Was the downing of Malaysia Flight 17 an accident, a premeditated act of murder or a false flag operation?
We need to know.
Addendum: On Sunday, BBC reports: “Fresh fighting in eastern Ukraine has forced an international forensics team to halt operations in part of the vast crash site of Malaysian flight MH17. Observers had to withdraw from one village when they heard artillery fire although work is still continuing across much of the area.” (“Ukraine crisis: New fighting hampers MH17 crash probe“, BBC.)
Kiev has restarted hostilities realizing that if the Dutch inspectors find any shell casings or fragments that can be traced back to the SU 25s, the administration’s missile theory will collapse.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started. They could still get him out of office. But instead, they want mass death. Don’t forget that.
What Can Be Expected from Ukrainian Right in the Midst of Political and Military Crisis?
My interview to Nikolas Kozloff, author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and founder of the Revolutionary Handbook project.
In addition to the military crisis in Eastern Ukraine and the rise of pro-Russian separatist rebels, Kiev now confronts a growing political crisis as the country gears up for new elections. What can we expect from the Ukrainian right, and how will nationalist forces seek to profit from escalating tensions with Russia? For answers, I caught up with Anton Shekhovtsov, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna and an expert on Ukrainian politics.
NK: In the aftermath of the Malaysia flight 17 disaster, the media has tended to examine events in Ukraine in military and geopolitical terms. Yet we hear very little about what effect the crash will have upon domestic politics in Ukraine and nationalist as well as rightwing sentiment. What are your thoughts?
AS: I don't think the crash has exerted much impact on domestic Ukrainian politics. Bear in mind that Kiev has been militarily engaged with Russian separatists for some time now, and so the Malaysia airliner disaster won't do much to change the fundamental dynamic one way or the other. I also don't believe this incident has had much of an impact upon nationalist groups, again for similar reasons.
Wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 19 near Rossipne in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Denis Kornilov / Shutterstock.com
Editor’s note: The following is a letter from a concerned reader who prefers to remain anonymous, but raises some interesting questions about the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!”
—Donald Rumsfeld on not finding WMDs in Iraq
On the afternoon of July 17, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777-2H6ER plane carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members, was shot down at 33,000 feet over a rebel-held area in eastern Ukraine.
Those who downed the plane are war criminals and they must be deported to The Hague and tried. Russia, which signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, must ratify it. Ukraine, which signed on to the treaty only for this year—must sign on for good. And the United States, which left the treaty (along with Sudan and Israel) and since then has opposed it, must sign it. All three countries must join the community of nations that believes in the rule of law for all and punishment for breaching it, especially in cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
To solve a crime this horrific, hard data is required. However, thus far, the U.S. and the U.K. have been citing two sources: YouTube and Twitter. Satellite images taken after the crash have reportedly been released, but virtually all media venues have simply republished an image originally posted on Twitter by Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Those images, as Twitter would allow, are of very low resolution. More importantly, their earliest date is July 21. All publicly released U.S. satellite information thus far has been of several days after the downing of the plane. Let us also pay attention to the author of the Twitter account—Pyatt. And since he entered the fray via social media, let us recall that it was allegedly he who had discussed a political coup with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in a conversation in February entertaining thoughts on how to install American-friendly Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister of Ukraine.
Politically, the beating heart of the Russia-U.S. post-Cold War conflict is that the people on both sides making foreign policy are Cold War “warriors” or their direct heirs. They project old views and habits onto new situations. And we see the preparations: The information wars on both sides stirring up hatred had started long before July 17 of this year.
The tragedy of the downing of MH17 prompted a widespread assumption about what had happened because it occurred in that environment. And hence, before the investigators could fully examine the site of the crash, sanctions against Russia had been announced and passed—sanctions that the United States had been advocating long before the downing of the plane.
Despite making many claims about the cause of the crash, the U.S. has refused to share the hardest evidence of all: the satellite imagery immediately prior, immediately after and, if available, at the moment of the attack and the downing of MH17.
Both Russian and American satellites have been surveilling the area of the fighting between the rebels and the Ukrainian military as well as the groups referred to by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as “partisans.” With this deadly proxy war between Russia and the United States, it seems only logical that the U.S. intelligence community had its eyes on the area. If not, the CIA should go on record unequivocally stating that it has no satellite information of the area on the day in question.
The case of the MH17 downing resembles another tragic incident, the shooting down of a Korean Air passenger plane west of Sakhalin Island in what was then the Soviet Union on Sept. 1, 1983.
What is known is that the South Korean passenger plane’s pilots—during their stopover in Anchorage, Alaska, from New York to Seoul—typed a slightly erroneous route in to their autopilot, which tragically led them into Soviet airspace. At that time, American reconnaissance planes were routinely “tickling” the Soviet radar by getting very close to the U.S.-Russian border between the Aleutian Islands near Alaska and Sakhalin. There were many incidents of such tickling in the history of the Cold War. They were designed to both test and provoke the Soviet Union in order to assess its capabilities. Russian fighter jets scrambled, mistaking the South Korean airliner for an American surveillance plane and shot it down. All 269 passengers aboard were killed.
There may have been a similar pattern in the downing of MH17 over Ukraine. Apparently, previous passenger flights were closely followed by Ukrainian fighter planes, potentially tickling and enticing a surface to air missile response by badly trained and possibly drunk pro-Russian rebels. However, it must be stressed that the Buk missile systems, fighter jets and other military hardware made in Russia and in Eastern Ukraine are used by pro-Russian rebels and by the Ukrainian military. It is also highly likely that the expensive and sophisticated component that recognizes the type of plane in the air was either stripped off from the Buk missile system (if proven by direct evidence to have been used) and stolen or simply mishandled.
In order to dismiss this potential scenario, America should immediately publish—or publicly deny having—all satellite photos of MH17 in Ukrainian airspace as well as other commercial flights in the preceding days.
The Russian Defense Ministry quickly released what it says are radar and satellite shots of the day of the attack, showing Ukrainian fighter jets following MH17 over Ukrainian territory.
These were dismissed as propaganda just as quickly, yet nobody claimed that those images were falsified. If they were proven to be fake, one presumes it would have made the papers. The U.S. must present its own satellite data to counter the Russian data, and I hope it takes place in public, on the floor of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. And then let the chips fall where they may. It can happen now, if officials have the data. If they never had such satellite data, they must clearly state that fact as well, and stand by it.
Victims of the MH17 downing deserve evidence from all parties, not propaganda. We need data.
Yet even a superficial survey of the media landscape across American, Ukrainian and Russian outlets makes one thing clear: Everyone is lying. This, in turn, means only one thing: The truth is inconvenient for all parties and does not fit the stories around which the world is realigning today. There are no good guys here, but there is the truth.
Thus, a simple question stands before the world:
Why has the United States not released its satellite images of the time of the MH17 crash and, more importantly, moments prior to it?
Both the dead and the living deserve the truth.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started. They could still get him out of office. But instead, they want mass death. Don’t forget that.
AD, maybe its just a bit of 'your enemy's enemy is your friend'
no-one thinks Putin or Russia were innocent lambs just going about their peaceful business when the Western Wolf turned up threatening to pounce on them and devour them,
we all know that Putin is expansionist, that rich nasty psychopaths run Russia, and that they will cook up a story that suits them as quickly as the Americans or the British
but the dynamic is what counts here, America is weaker than it was 20 years ago by many measures The system it has imposed by force or coercion on the world is being eroded The 2 states that represent the biggest threats to the order are Russia and China and they seem to be increasingly close In the Rusian imagination and history, Ukraine is almost indistinguishable from Russia and the American have worked consistently and purosefully to prize it from the Russians (the best comparison would be Russia fomenting civil unrest in Mexico and working until it controlled the Mexican political structure - how would the US feel, how would the US respond?)
The Russians have drwan a line with Ukraine. They have decided, you will not sit a Western puppet regime across our border, you will not cut us off from our Black Sea port and limit our ability to project force. Can you really blame them?
Most of the commentary here I think is more anti-American than pro-Russian. It is a continuation of the challenge to American lies and progaganda regarding every event and news story we ever read about.
Is now the time to focus attention squarely on the crimes of Russia and how Russia creates lies and manages perceptions - I dont think so.
the question is why, who, why, what, why, when, why and why again?
also, I googled that commentator Mark Almond (mentioned on Shekhovtsov's blog) and as Shekhovtsov says, there is no reference to him being a lecturer at Oriel College Oxford as is claimed by Mark Almond and the wikipedia page on him
maybe he used to be, i couldnt find out
if he is not, then he is a liar, and that isnt good for his case
the question is why, who, why, what, why, when, why and why again?
@Noirette, et al, from previous thread: Evgeny Fedorov's presentations are very good; certainly in communicating the level of threat Russia feels. Also recommended are the various audio and video presentations of Joaquin Flores to be found around the web and on his website - Center for Syncretic Studies. He's quite young and a bit of an odd bird -- a former radical leftist from LA, now Dugin acolyte, or so he claims -- one never knows just who anyone really is these days on the innertubes. But he is quite humble and he has the big picture of a multi-polar world -- something which can unite people over many political persuasions -- foremost in his mind. Both give a good sense of what might be expected over the long game, and why Russia is taking things slow. Essential background.
But the most concise and prescient background on the current world situation are two brief articles Christof Lehmann, proprietor of the nsnbc website, wrote: first, "Russia – E.U. Meeting in Brussels: Risk of Middle East and European War increased," way back on Dec 22, 2012, and the second, "The Atlantic Axis and the Making of a War in Ukraine", written last week.
In the former article he begins: "On 21. December 2012 the political leaders of 27 E.U. countries and Russia´s President Vladimir Putin met in Brussels. On the top of the agenda were problems which are directly related to the ongoing war in Syria. Russian control over major parts of the energy which the European Union will require over the course of the next 100 years, Russian-Iranian dominance over the most competitive gas resources and pipelines in the Middle East, US-American and British initiatives to change the energy-dynamics militarily and a European dilemma between Trans-Atlantic allies who are pushing Europe toward a war with Russia to save the Petro Dollar and greater integration of Russian and European energy sectors and market economies."
He begins the later article thusly: "The war in Ukraine became predictable when the great Muslim Brotherhood Project in Syria failed during the summer of 2012. It became unavoidable in December 2012, when the European Union and Russia failed to agree on the EU’s 3rd Energy Package. The geopolitical dynamics which are driving the war in Ukraine were known in the early 1980s."
Remember that the real game is the breaking of the PetroDollar, not the back of poor "Chocula" Petrodollarshenko, and so every day that a major conflagration can be forestalled is a day closer to the real goal; and also that what we are witnessing in the Ukraine is cutting-edge 4th generation warfare -- sort of a quietly lethal pas de deux. One should not be so naive as to believe that this conflict has taken any of the world powers by surprise -- They all have had close to two years notice, at minimum. In a sense, we are still in the "chess opening" stage, where the majority of the moves have been charted out by both sides. But the middle game is very close at hand. And, yes, it is theoretically possible for the three sides to come to a backroom agreement before the deadly endgame closes in upon us. All the players are aware of the solemnity of the moment; certainly, there is far more action going on behind the curtains than we can possibly know. All Western actions -- from Nuland's doughnuts and raving expletives to Ashton's "Gosh!" now-forgotten investigation, from the barbarities of Maidan medieval siege warfare replete with Trebuchet to the various levels of massacre -- at Maiden, in Odessa, Mariupol, behind the lines, including Israel's atrocities, to the false-flag downing of MH17, and so on down the line -- beyond the piteous human cost -- are simply meant to incite and humiliate Russia into the pre-layed trap of overwhelming dollar dominated retaliation.
As I said above, we are witnessing a kind of 4th-generational street theater where "all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players." Same goes with the almost inexplicable: Bidens's "fractious" son, and Rothschild's drilling in the Golan. We are watching a continually escalating rollout of "Shock and Awe" twisted into a kind of Captagon addled "Ground Hog's Day" macabre mobius loop. Debord and Baudrillard and Stockhaussen must be dancing on their graves at the sheer spectacle of it all: Shock and Awe as daily fare. The Empire of Chaos as Russian Roulette with punk piercings, khokhol hairstylings, and wolfsangel tatoos. Its enough to give one a chub.
Expected reality is turned on its head: To "sanction" is to give permission, but "sanctions" are a penalty. Karl Rove's famous quote has been updated: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own hyperreality. And while you're studying that hyperreality -— judiciously, as you will -— we'll act again, creating other new hyperrealities..." The wanton destruction of Slaviansk as Bizarro version of Sim-City. Bloodless Sims on MH17. The only predictable is the unpredictable. Through the gnostic machinations of empire, the "banality of evil" has been spiritually transmogrified into a transcendent celebration, an entertainment, a celebration: "The Ravishment of Evil" -- and served up to western tastes as a form of exotic entertainment.
In Egypt, during the so-called "Arab Spring" modern day Lawrence of Arabias galloped through the set on camels, In Iraq, "I Dream of Jeannie" plays the role of sex jihadi, and now in the Ukraine, we consume daily re-runs of post-punk "Combat." One wonders if Phillip Zelikow will one day receive credit for the script, which is surely worthy of an "Oscar."
Baudrillard's "The Spirit of Terrorism" in particular merits a close re-reading. He muses, "War as continuation of the absence of politics by other means." The spectator, once an actor, is shocked into passivity. Performing the "détournement" implicit in Debord's text where the powers that be are the real terrorism, we find that "Another aspect of the terrorists' victory is that all other forms of violence and the destabilization of order work in its favour. Internet terrorism, biological terrorism, the terrorism... of rumor -- are all ascribed to (the other). He might even claim natural catastrophes as his own. All forms of disorganization and perverse circulation operate to his advantage. The very structure of generalized world trade works in favour of impossible exchange."
Poor, pathetic Viktor "Yorick"ovich was in way over his head, thinking he could play the two opposing forces of human civilization against themselves and come out unscathed and ahead; indeed, he is lucky to come out of this with his own head. Putin has nothing but contempt for the fool. He reminds one of the Zen koan where the Abott comes upon two monks fighting over a cat. He seizes the cat, and in some versions only threatens to cut it in half until the monk who really own's the cat relents and shouts "Stop!", in others he actually does that which Thomas Merton refers to as "the unspeakable." In our own hyper-real version, Yanukovich does cut the cat in half, only to recoil in horror when he realizes that it is HIS cat that now lies dead before him. The moral is instructive, for in reality Putin offered to divide the cat fairly, only to be refused.
In hyperreality, the bedraggled Ukrainian cat, shambolically and symbolically, has been elevated to human existence itself. To quote Baudrillard, ‘by seizing all the cards for itself, [the west] forced the Other to change the rules.’ The west asserted moral, cultural and economic dependence. Violence was then left as the only option for the Other to pursue.
I certainly do not claim to be able to predict the future here -- but I am sure that we have not been in such dangerous territory since the Cuban Missile Crisis -- although with time less of a crisis factor. And I have NEVER in my lifetime heard a President of the US trash talk a major power, much less two of them at once, to their faces, as Obama did this past week in the Rothschild rag to Russia and China: Russia, who couldn't even land a position as one of Santa's elves because it doesn't know how to "make anything," and China, the inscrutable Oriental who is not "sentimental, and ... not interested in abstractions." Well, he never claimed to be Malraux at work upon "Man's Fate!"
Clearly, the US is doing everything possible to provoke and spark a fire in the heart of Europe, which the world -- should it survive -- will never forget. All the world's a stage... Shakespeare could not know how predictive his poem could be, when he ended it thusly: "Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
Posted by b on August 8, 2014 at 12:45 PM | Permalink
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thanks for sharing this b. here and here are direct links to these two articles by Christof Lehmann "Russia – E.U. Meeting in Brussels: "Risk of Middle East and European War increased" from 2012 and "The Atlantic Axis and the Making of a War in Ukraine" from last week.
Up until this point Angela Merkel, and German media in general, had been staunchly on the side of the west when it comes to dealing with Russia, Putin and realpolitik in broader terms. That changed dramatically today when Gabor Steingart, the chief editor of Handelsblatt, Germany's leading economic newspaper, came out with a stunning op-ed, in German, English and Russian, titled simply that "The West on the wrong path" in which the editor comes out very vocally against the autopilot mode German media has been on for the past several months and calls for an end to a strategy of sanctions and Russian confrontation that ultimately "harms German interests" and is a dead end.
Some of the "must read" excerpts:
- The politics of escalation does not have a realistic goal – and harms German interests.
- Newspapers we thought to be all about thoughts and ideas now march in lock-step with politicians in their calls for sanctions against Russia's President Putin. Even the headlines betray an aggressive tension as is usually characteristic of hooligans when they 'support' their respective teams. The Tagesspiegel: “Enough talk!“ The FAZ: “Show strength“. The Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Now or never.“ The Spiegel calls for an “End to cowardice“: “Putin's web of lies, propaganda, and deception has been exposed. The wreckage of MH 17 is also the result of a crashed diplomacy.“
- Our purpose is to wipe off some of the foam that has formed on the debating mouths, to steal words from the mouths of both the rabble-rousers and the roused, and put new words there instead. One word that has become disused of late is this: realism.
- Germany has waged war against its eastern neighbor twice in the past 100 years. The German soul, which we generally claim to be on the romantic side, showed its cruel side.
- The politics of escalation show that Europe sorely misses a realistic goal. It's a different thing in the US. Threats and posturing are simply part of the election preparations. When Hillary Clinton compares Putin with Hitler, she does so only to appeal to the Republican vote, i.e. people who do not own a passport. For many of them, Hitler is the only foreigner they know, which is why Adolf Putin is a very welcome fictitious campaign effigy. In this respect, Clinton and Obama have a realistic goal: to appeal to the people, to win elections, to win another Democratic presidency.
- Even the idea that economic pressure and political isolation would bring Russia to its knees was not really thought all the way through. Even if we could succeed: what good would Russia be on its knees? How can you want to live together in the European house with a humiliated people whose elected leadership is treated like a pariah and whose citizens you might have to support in the coming winter.
- It is not too late for the duo Merkel/Steinmeier to use the concepts and ideas of this time. It does not make sense to just follow the strategically idea-less Obama. Everyone can see how he and Putin are driving like in a dream directly towards a sign which reads: Dead End. - Demonizing Putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for the lack thereof. He advises condensing conflicts, i.e. to make them smaller, shrink them, and then distill them into a solution. At the moment (and for a long time before that) America is doing the opposite. All conflicts are escalated. The attack of a terror group named Al Qaida is turned into a global campaign against Islam. Iraq is bombed using dubious justifications. Then the US Air Force flies on to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The relationship to the Islamic world can safely be considered damaged.
- The American tendency to verbal and then also military escalation, the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies has not proven effective. The last successful major military action the US conducted was the Normandy landing. Everything else – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan – was a clear failure.
Punchline #1:
Collective movements start in support of the sanctioned, as is the case today in Russia. The country was hardly ever more unified behind their president than now. This could almost lead you to think that the rabble-rousers of the West are on the payroll of the Russian secret service.
And Punchline #2:
History does not have to repeat itself. Maybe we can find a shortcut.
Also maybe those looking for the moment in time when Germany finally rotated away from its pro-western mindset and took a long, hard look at the rising Eurasian/BRIC/counter US Dollar axis, should remember this article...
