Page 1 of 1

In Ukraine, Chaos and Violence Hide Nefarious Role of US

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:28 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Image
Image
In Ukraine, Chaos and Violence Hide Nefarious Role of US
Image
In Ukraine, Chaos and Violence Hide Nefarious Role of US
From plotting a 'coup' to endorsing fascist elements of opposition, the Obama administration accused of playing with fire in Kiev
- Jon Queally, staff writer -
Published on Thursday, February 20, 2014 by Common Dreams
Image
Image
Image
A lone Ukrainian stands in the streets of a smoke-filled Kiev street on Thursday holding the national flag. (Photo: Reuters)

As renewed violence in the city of Kiev on Thursday broke a brief truce between protesters and government security forces, the U.S. government and the European Union are escalating—not helping—the situation, according to critics, by threatening sanctions against the embattled government of President Viktor Yanukovych while supporting (either directly or indirectly) the destabilizing actions of radical right elements lurking within the opposition movement.


Protesters advance to new positions in Kiev on Thursday. (Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)
Latest reports from the ground suggest that 70 or more people have been killed so far in two days of violence, with hundreds more injured as use of petrol bombs, gunfire, and more aggressive tactics on both sides have intensified.

Painting a scene of events and the city on Thursday, the Guardian reports:
  • The battle erupted as dawn broke on Thursday when radical street fighters among the protesters attacked and broke through the police lines established on Independence Square on Tuesday. A firefight left at least 10 dead, including nine opposition fighters. The militants then surged out of the square up the hill to the south where police snipers could be seen picking out targets as the city centre turned into a warzone.

    The deafening noise included the clear sound of automatic weapons, as well as smoke and percussion grenades raining down on an avenue leading away from the square towards the parliament and the central bank. Demonstrators also reoccupied government buildings evacuated earlier in the week. Busloads of common riot police swiftly deserted the scene of the battle to be replaced by the special units of the Berkut security service. They, too, retreated very quickly, allowing the protesters to advance.

    Dead and wounded were hauled away on their backs, on wooden planks, on makeshift metal shields and in blankets. Corpses lay temporarily abandoned on the streets. Police vehicles were set ablaze and then hacked to pieces.

    Protesters ducked behind trees and ran for cover as police opened automatic gunfire. But by mid-morning the city centre was firmly in the hands of the opposition. The police seizure of the part of the square which cost 28 lives on Tuesday was finished, however temporarily. Some 60 riot police surrendered or were "taken prisoner" when the protesters stormed the police lines.
But as the violence itself has captured most of the headlines—and even as moderate opposition leaders in Ukraine have admitted they have "lost control" of the protests to more "quasi-fascist" and nationalist factions—experts on the situation in Ukraine say that most western media outlets are performing a disservice to the overall situation by casting Russia and Yanukovych as the source of blame for the bloodshed while glossing over key facts about the manner in which Europe and the U.S. have added to the recent instability.

"We are talking about the possibility of sanctions or other steps in order to create the atmosphere for compromise," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday from Paris. European leaders have issued a similar threat in the last twenty-four hours.

And for its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry, also on Wednesday, painted the U.S. and its western allies in Europe as the hidden culprit for the explosion of violence this week. "What's going on [in Kiev] is the direct result of the policy of connivance on behalf of Western politicians and European structures," read a statement from the government of Vladimir Putin. "From the very start of the crisis, [the U.S. and E.U.] have turned a blind eye to the aggressive actions of radical forces in Ukraine, encouraging them to engage in escalation and provocations against the legitimate government."

Dmitry Peskov, a Putin spokesman, said Russia sees the violent behavior of the violent factions within the protest movement as a "coup attempt."

And though many agree that the turmoil in Ukraine has become a proxy political battle with Moscow on one side and Brussels and Washington on the other, Russian historian and Ukraine expert Stephen Cohen is not alone when he says that people in the West, specifically in the United States, are not being allowed to see the political tensions and violence in Ukraine in a full and proper context.

Appearing on Democracy Now! Thursday morning and asked to respond to President Obama's recommendation that Yanukovych withdraw his security forces and cede Kiev to the chaos that has gripped Independence Square, Cohen said Obama's approach to the situation was nothing short of shameful. Cohen said:
  • (Obama) is saying that the responsibility for restoring peace is on the Ukrainian government, and it should withdraw its security forces from the streets. But let me ask you, if in Washington people throwing Molotov cocktails are marching on Congress—and these people are headed for the Ukrainian Congress—if these people have barricaded entrance to the White House and are throwing rocks at the White House security guard, would President Obama withdraw his security forces? This is—this is—and do you know what this does? And let’s escape partisanship here. I mean, lives are at stake. This incites, these kinds of statement that Obama made. It rationalizes what the killers in the streets are doing. It gives them Western license, because he’s not saying to the people in the streets, "Stop this, stop shooting policemen, stop attacking government buildings, sit down and talk."
And Ban Aris, editor of Business New Europe, who says he is very sympathetic to some of the protesters and those critical of Yanukovych, asks people to look at the situation this way: "Yanukovych is corrupt and should be voted out in 2015. But we can't just ignore the democratic process. U.S. officials were on the streets of Kiev handing out cookies to the demonstrators. Imagine if the Russian foreign minister was on the streets with Occupy Wall Street handing out cookies at Zuccotti Park."

The mention of cookies being given to opposition protesters refers to the appearance US Assistance Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffery Pyatt handing out treats to protesters in Independence Square last month. Subsequently, the diplomatic pair were the source of outrage after a private conversation of them discussing the situation in the country was made public. In the conversation, Nuland was widely chided for employing the phrase "void the EU," but Cohen, among others, argues that the real scandal of the conversation had nothing to do with use of a curse word.

"Well, here again," said Cohen, after being played a clip of the conversation by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman,"the American political media establishment, including the right and the left and the center—because they’re all complicit in this nonsense—focused on the too sensational, they thought, aspect of that leaked conversation. She said, 'F— the European Union.'" But the significant part is what the conversation actually represented, continued Cohen: "The highest-ranking State Department official, who presumably represents the Obama administration, and the American ambassador in Kiev are, to put it in blunt terms, plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine."

Neither of these critics of U.S. involvement suggest that the Kremlin is a supremely noble actor in the ongoing events and stipulate that Putin's government is also operating to serve its own financial and geopolitical interests. And the same is said of Yanukovych, who was forced in many ways to "choose" between dueling financial bailout deals offered by his European neighbors to the west and his backers in Moscow in the east.

As Aris explains:
  • It’s critical to understand the economics of the situation. Ukrainian hard currency reserves have dwindled from $35 to $17 billion — not enough to ensure the stability of the government. Ukraine is bankrupt. Under the terms of the EU offer of last year — which virtually nobody in the Western media seriously examined, the EU was offering $160 million per year for the next five years while just the bond repayments to IMF were greater than that. In contrast, Russia offered $15 billion in cash and immediately paid $3 billion. Another $3 billion was to be paid today but that was just suspended. Now [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych is indeed very corrupt, but it’s being reported as if he is some sort of Putin puppet — and somehow Putin ends up demonized on the cover of the Economist. Had Yanukovych accepted the EU deal, the country would have collapsed.
As Thursday ended in Kiev, the Guardian was still tracking live updates and developments on the ground and reactions from around the world on the dynamic and complex situation.

Watch Cohen's complete interview with Democracy Now! below:

Image
http://www.youtube.com/v/NhDs45vb0ok?rel=0"
Image
Image
Image
Image
CommonDreams.org
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

Re: In Ukraine, Chaos and Violence - I Am a Ukrainian

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 4:09 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Image
Image
I Am a Ukrainian
Image
http://www.youtube.com/v/Hvds2AIiWLA?rel=0"
Image
Image
Image[url=http://www..htm]Whisper Roar[/url]
Image

Published on Feb 10, 2014
To see more of the Maidan and the people who are protesting there, please visit this website:
https://www.facebook.com/maidaners1

Watch an interview on Andersoon Cooper on (Feb. 20) with the girl in the video.
Category
News & Politics
License
Standard YouTube License
Image
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

The Road to Moscow Goes Through Kiev: A Coup d’Etat

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 5:06 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
The Road to Moscow Goes Through Kiev: A Coup d’Etat That Threatens Russia
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, February 25, 2014
Region: [url=http://www..htm]Russia and FSU[/url]
Theme: Media DisinformationUS NATO War Agenda
Image
Image
Image

The takeover of power in Kiev by the mainstream opposition is a coup that has been executed by force, which overlooks the opinions of at least half of the Ukrainian population. Yet, you would not know this from listening to such media outlets and networks as CNN or Fox News or reading the headlines being produced by Reuters and the state-owned British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The events in Kiev are misleadingly being billed and framed by these media sources and the so-called “Western” governments they support, either directly or indirectly, as the triumph of people power and democracy in Ukraine.

Utter hypocrisy is at work. When similar protests and riots broke out in Britain and France, the positions taken and the tones used by the above actors was very different. These actors framed the protests and riots in Britain and France as issues of law and order, using language very favourable to the British and French governments. Where were the statements of concern about the rights and safety of protesters from the US government and the European Commission when force was used by the British and French governments or when protesters died?

While not overlooking, disregarding, or devaluing the loss of life in Kiev, the roots of the violence there need to be discussed honestly and traced back. On the same note, it has to be understood that members of the Ukrainian opposition and their supporters were agitating for a violent confrontation against the Ukrainian government. There is no argument here against the right of citizens to protest, but rioting or taking up arms with the intent to oust a democratically-elected government is a different matter that no government in the US or the EU would accept on their own territory.

When the laws that the US and EU countries have in place are quickly glimpsed at, gross double-standards are evident. Universally, the criminal codes of these governments forbid the assembly of their citizens for the purpose of discussing the overthrow of the government alone. Their criminal codes consider whoever advocates, aids, advises, or preaches for the overthrowing or the government by political subversion as a criminal and threat to the state. In the US “anyone with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so” is considered a felon under the criminal code. If two or more persons even meet to talk about removing the government in most these countries, they can be imprisoned. In the case of the United States, as the US Criminal Code states, these individuals “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.”

Washington and the European Union have aided and encouraged the above acts by openly supporting the campaign of the Ukrainian opposition and even sending officials and politicians to encourage the anti-government forces in Ukraine. The irony is that this is the exact type of behaviour that the US and the European Union have outlawed on their own territories and would not tolerate against themselves whatsoever.

If it were merely a case of ethnocentrisim, this attitude could be called exceptionalism. It, however, is not exceptionalism. To be very candid, it is heartless regime change perpetrated by governments that have a record of insincerely hiding behind democracy and humanitarianism.

How the European Union Enabled the Coup

What has taken place in Kiev is a coup that has unfolded through the manipulation of the emotions and hopes of a significant segment of the Ukrainian population by opposition leaders. It has to be emphasized that many opposition supporters are doing what they believe is right for their country and that they themselves are the victims of their own corrupt leaders. It must equally be emphasized, regardless of which side they support, that the Ukrainian people are all the victims of their corrupt politicians. Both the governing party and opposition parties have taken turns ruling the country and exploiting Ukraine for their personal gains.

The opposition leadership has basically usurped power while the European Union and the United States have given their full support to them. This has been done via EU and US attempts to legitimize the opposition power grab through the portrayal of the coup in Kiev as the climax of a popular revolution in Ukraine.

Albeit the mainstream opposition is not truly united, opposition leaders have grossly refused to fulfill any of their obligations after an agreement was brokered between them and the Ukrainian government by the European Union through mediation by the troika of France, Germany, and Poland. The Ukrainian government and Russia have rightly accused the European Union and the EU mediators of refusing to fulfill their obligations to make sure that the opposition respects the EU-brokered agreement. Instead the European Union has allowed Ukrainian opposition leaders to ignore their commitments and to grossly violate the agreement.

While one faction of the opposition was negotiating another faction of the opposition continued the pressure from the streets, refusing to stop until the government was ousted. The agreement signed between the Ukrainian government and the mainstream opposition on February 21, 2014 had no clause or terms, however, that granted the opposition the rights or power to take over the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of Ukraine or to unilaterally create new legislation. Any information that implies that the agreement allows for this to take place is false and misleading.

Instead the agreement has been used as a disguise for the opposition’s takeover of the state. In truth, the European Union helped broker the agreement as a means of empowering the Ukrainian opposition. The leaked phone conversation about the protests in Ukraine between the US Department of State’s Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador in Kiev, even indicated that the US and EU were planning on creating a new government in Ukraine. The Nuland tape reveals that Washington was working to inaugurate a new opposition-led government in Ukraine with Ukrainian figures that would readily submit and acquiesce to US and EU demands.

What Nuland and Pyatt discussed is regime change in Ukraine, which has nothing to do with what the Ukrainian people want and everything to do with what the US government and its allies need from Ukraine. If the US government really believed that the Ukrainian people have the right to determine their future, it would not be busy working to appoint political figures in the Ukrainian government or trying to configure how the Ukrainian government would be constructed. Instead Washington would leave the creation of government in Kiev to the Ukrainian people.

Using Parliamentary Camouflage in the Rada to Disguise a Coup

The leaders of the opposition are trying to cosmetically deceive Ukrainians and the world by hijacking the legislative branch of their country’s government. There are strong chances that this is being done with the coordination and the encouragement of the US government and the European Union. To legitimize their takeover, the Ukrainian opposition is now using the Ukrainian Parliament or Verkhovna Rada. The Rada was already a heavily corrupt place with notoriously crooked and dishonest politicians dominating both the pro-government and opposition sides of the aisle, now it is functioning as a rubber stamp legislature. In other words, the Ukrainian opposition leadership is trying to legitimize its coup in Kiev by using the dysfunctional Ukrainian Rada.

The Rada has not been at full decorum for all the voting. The opposition initially used the instability and fleeing of the government to opportunistically declare its unchallenged Rada bills as legitimate. This happened while approximately half of Ukraine’s parliamentarians were either absent or in hiding due to the violence and riots in Kiev. In other words, opposition leaders used the absence of about half the parliamentarians in the Rada to falsely give a cover of legality to their coup by taking the opportunity to pass parliamentary legislation that would be defeated if all the Rada’s members were present and voting.

Albeit under the management of the opposition the Rada has retained a sufficient amount of parliamentarians or deputies to hold an emergency session, there are serious ethical, procedural, technical, legal, and constitutional questions about what is taking place. To hold an emergency session, the Rada needs at least two hundred and twenty-six of its parliamentarians to be present. Under opposition management there were initially two hundred and thirty-nine deputies, but this did not entitle the opposition to pass any type of legislature that it pleased or to pretend that the Rada was operating under a regular constitutional session. Moreover, there were important and specific procedures that still needed to be followed that the opposition parties outright ignored and violated.

Ukraine’s biggest political party, the Party of Regions, and the other pro-government parties or independent parliamentarians have not been present for all the Rada votes taking place. Albeit an increasing number of pro-government deputies are now beginning to negotiate with the opposition and a faction of the deputies from the Party of Regions have returned to the Rada to protect themselves, the absence of many of the Rada’s deputies and the fact that all Ukrainian parliamentarians are not inside the Rada to challenge the opposition bills makes, at the very least, the legislation that has been passed questionable. Examining other factors, the laws being passed in the Rada become even more questionable.

The Rada’s chairman (speaker or president), Volodymyr Rybak, has not been present for the reading of Rada bills either. It has been reported that Rybak has resigned from his Rada post. Not only must the individual that has been elected as Rada chairperson by a full constitutional session of the Rada be present for the voting process to be legitimate, but the Rada chairperson must also approve the acts adopted by the Rada with their signature before they are sent to the executive branch of government for promulgation. Nor can Ukrainian bills be passed into law or promulgated after the Rada votes without a final presidential signature. The only way that a presidential veto can be overturned is if two-thirds of the Rada’s deputies or members support a bill after the presidential veto, in which case either the president must sign it or the Rada’s chairperson signs the bill into law.

The opposition has tried to circumvent the necessary presidential approval and the absence of a Rada chairperson. Instead opposition leaders got their parties to unilaterally select a new chairman, Oleksandr Turchynov, so that they can push their political agenda forward without getting challenged. Turchynov’s appointment as Rada chairman was meant to give the Ukrainian opposition’s parliamentary work the cover of legitimacy. The opposition appointed Turchynov to claim that constitutional procedures have been followed, because a Rada chairperson has been overseeing their partisan bills and approving them. Moreover, Oleksandr Turchynov is not only overseeing and approving the unilateral bills of the Ukrainian opposition, but has signed them into law as the acting president of Ukraine too.

What the opposition has done with Turchynov, however, is illegal for a number of reasons. Firstly, most of the Rada, meaning all the deputies or members of the Ukrainian Parliament, must convene before a new Rada chairman or speaker is selected to oversee parliamentary voting on bills. This did not taken place, because many of the Rada’s members were missing when he was selected. Secondly, Turchynov cannot assume the role of Rada chairperson if there is already a chairperson with a first vice-chairperson (first deputy chairperson) or assume the role of acting president until President Viktor Yanukovych resigns or is impeached by the Rada, which did not take place when he was declared acting president.

Using divisions inside the bewildered Party of Regions hierarchy, the opposition has sought to cover its unconstitutional tracks. Days after Turchynov was appointed chairman of the Rada, the opposition got a faction of the Party of Regions deputies that returned to the Rada and a series of independent Rada deputies to impeach President Yanukovych. These Party of Regions and independent parliamentarians are working with the opposition in order to keep their places or to secure positions for themselves under the new political regime in Kiev.

The Rada is now a rubber stamp body controlled by the opposition. It has already acted illicitly. Although there is still uncertainty or arguments on whether the 2004 version or 2010 version of the Ukrainian Constitution is in operation, Article 82 of the Ukrainian Constitution (regardless of whichever version is in operation) stipulates that the Rada is only “competent on the condition that no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition has been elected.”

Discussions have also taken place about new media regulations and expelling the Russian media from Ukraine. Exposing just how fake their democratic leanings are, the opposition leadership has threatened to use the Rada to additionally outlaw any of the political parties in Ukraine that have opposed them. This includes banning Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions

The Party of Regions is not only the most widely supported Ukrainian political party; it also holds nearly forty percent of the seats in the Rada. No other political party even comes close to holding this type of support in the Ukrainian political landscape or the Rada. Excluding the parliamentary seats of its political allies in the unicameral Rada, which houses four hundred and forty-two seats in total, the Party of Regions alone has one hundred and sixty-five seats. The opposition political parties and coalitions comprised of the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland (Batkivshchyna), the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, and Svoboda have a combined one hundred and sixty-seven seats. There is no question about which party the majority of Ukrainian voters support. Outlawing the Party of Regions essentially annuls the electoral choice of the most significant plurality of Ukrainians.

Opposition leaders also want to illicitly use the Rada to outlaw the Ukrainian Communist Party. The Ukrainian Communist Party has called the so-called EuroMaidan/Euromaidan protests a foreign-sponsored coup against Ukraine and its people. The opposition threats about banning the Ukrainian Communist Party, and even killing its members in the streets, is meant to punish it for the position it has taken and for the support it has given to the Ukrainian government against the anti-government protests in Kiev.

The Balkanization of Ukraine? Is Ukraine to follow Yugoslavia’s Path?

It seems that maybe the worst is yet to come. Is Ukraine destined to go the way of the former Yugoslavia? The question is being entertained more and more seriously. Andrei Vorobyov, a Russian diplomat in Kiev, even commented, much to the angst of the Ukrainian government, that federalization may be the best solution for Ukraine and that Ukraine was already in a de facto federal state. The reasons behind the angst about the federalization comments are the increasing anxieties of Ukrainian authorities and citizens about the possibility that their country could divide or fragment.

Before the opposition takeover of Kiev in February 2014, Ukraine was already a polarized country and society. The western portion of Ukraine has been under the influence and control of the mainstream opposition whereas the eastern and southern portions have been under the influence and control of the Party of Regions and its political allies. The opposition’s actions outside of the framework of democracy have opened the door for lawlessness and a devolution of governmental power.

Different areas of Ukraine have fallen into the hands of opposition militias. The militia of Aleksandr Muzychko, one of the ultra-nationalist opposition leaders and a fervent opponent of Russia that fought alongside Chechen separatists in Grozny against the Russian military, now control different towns in the western portion of Ukraine. They have threatened to wage war against the Ukrainian government using tanks and heavy weaponry.

Political machinations from all sides are at work too. After the opposition takeover, officials from President Yanukovych’s own Party of Regions laid responsibility for the deaths in Kiev squarely on his shoulder and condemned him as a coward and traitor to Ukraine, virtually ignoring the role that opposition leaders played in igniting the political crisis and the loss of life. Fearing the violent segments of the opposition, the Party of Regions has additionally condemned the mainstream opposition’s intimidation campaign and threats of violence against the Party of Regions and its supporters.

There are Rada deputies or parliamentarians from the Party of Regions that are now in the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine and afraid to return to Kiev due to the violent opposition militias that have taken over. There are reports that a parallel parliament may be established somewhere in eastern or southern Ukraine, which would effectively divide the country like Bosnia was divided when the Bosnian Serbs created their own parallel parliament after the Bosnian Parliament in Sarajevo ignored Bosnia’s communitarian formula that essentially guaranteed a veto to Bosnia’s Bosniak, Croat, and Serb communities as a means of maintaining co-existence.

The silent or unheard of half of Ukraine, which the mainstream media in the US and the EU refuse to acknowledge, is now bracing itself and preparing for an expansion of the violence in Kiev. It fears the spread of violence being perpetrated by the militant segment of the opposition. The violence has already begun to touch Kharkiv. There are now calls for secession from the predominately-Russophone Crimean Peninsula, which wants to annul the Soviet era decision of Joseph Stalin to detach the Crimean Peninsula from Soviet Russia as an award to Soviet Ukraine that symbolizes unity and kinship between Russia and Ukraine.

If the Crimean Peninsula should separate, there are suggestions that Russia could intervene militarily in the Crimean Peninsula. If this was to happen, it would take place through an invitation by Crimean officials and the Autonomous Rada (Duma or Parliament) of the Crimea, which in June 2006 even created anti-NATO legislation banning North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from entering Crimean territory while its officials called Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-NATO president of Ukraine, a puppet of the US and the EU. The concern about Russian intervention has even been addressed with an ironically hypocritical and indirect warning from Susan Rice to the Kremlin not to sent troops into Ukraine.

The Crimean Peninsula is not the only place in Ukraine that has threatened to take action as a result of the coup in Kiev. As a precautionary reaction to the violent and armed segments of the Ukrainian opposition that have destabilized Kiev, counter-militias are now being formed in places like the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, which is the historical home of Ukraine’s Muslim minority, or the oblasts of Kharkiv and Donetsk in the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine. Officials and Ukrainians from these eastern and southern parts of Ukraine have also said that they do not recognize the Rada in Kiev as legitimate any longer and that the legislation being passed by it is illegal and void.

Ukraine’s polarized politics also overlap with the contours of organized religion. While the majority of Ukrainians are Christians that belong to the Russian Orthodox Church of Ukraine (simply called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church), there is also a division among them that is linked to nationalist politics. About half the followers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church look to Patriarch Kirill in Moscow as their patriarch and as the supreme primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but the other half belongs to the breakaway portion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that follows Patriarch Filaret in Kiev. At least in nominal terms, ultra-nationalists and opposition supporters mostly follow the Kiev Patriarchate and those supporting the Party of Regions generally look to Moscow as their spiritual centre. These divisions have the potential of being manipulated in a Yugoslavia-style scenario.

The picture gets more complicated when the minority faiths in Ukraine are examined. Ukrainian Catholics, both the Unites of the Greek Catholic Church and the Roman Catholics, generally seem to favour the opposition and integration with the EU too. There has actually been growing resentment towards the Ukrainian Catholics, who are viewed as Polish agents, by members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Despite the well-known and advertised dislike of Jews by a segment of opposition supporters (similar negative views about Jews, which have historically existed in Ukraine, also exist among some government supporters), Ukrainian Jews are divided between the pro-government and anti-government camps. According to he Jerusalem Postt and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ukrainian Jews have taken part in the anti-government protests alongside Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. Ukrainian Muslims, three-fifths of which are Crimean Tartars, on the other hand seem to generally support the pro-government side, albeit there is Muslim support for opposition parties. Ukrainian Muslims, however, are cautious and do not support the dissolution of Ukraine or separatist feelings that exist among the Russian community.

The Blurred Lines that Exist between Ukrainians and Russians

The Eastern European country’s politics are even more complicated by the fact that the Russian language is prevalent in the eastern and southern sections of Ukraine. There is an ongoing dispute about the exact numbers. Due to the closeness of both the Russian and Ukrainian languages, in some parts of Ukraine it is hard to identify if the local population is actually speaking a dialect of the Ukrainian language or the Russian language. Even more confounding, the lines between Ukrainian and Russian identity and language are not clear cut.

Aside from the blurred language lines and the fact that both Ukrainian and Russian were once one language, there is a blurred line on who is ethnically Ukrainian and who is ethnically Russian. Approximately thirty percent of Ukrainians consider Russian as either their first or mother language and are Russophones according to the Ukrainian government, but only about half of these Russophone Ukrainian citizens are actually ethnically Russkiye (ethnic Russian). Sociological work conducted in 2004 asserts that the number of Russophones is actually much higher and that Russian and Ukrainian are actually used almost equally.

There is even a minority of ethnic Russians that speak Ukrainian as their first language and a much larger minority of ethnic Ukrainians that speak Russian as their first language. Many Ukrainian citizens are also bilingual and there is also a preference for using Russian as a daily language and business language in many parts of Ukraine. As part of a historical and sociological process, ethnic Ukrainians have adopted the identity of ethnic Russians and vice-versa, ethnic Russians have adopted identities as ethnic Ukrainians. When asked, many Ukrainian citizens are not even sure if they are Russkiye or ethnic Ukrainian.

If anything is to be remembered about the causes of the First World War and the Second World War, it should be that nationalism and feelings of exceptionalism were used like opiates to captivate and manipulate ordinary citizens into supporting war and the rise of opportunists. The Ukrainian opposition leadership has deliberately promoted and nurtured ultra-nationalist sentiments to blind and manipulate its followers. Ukrainian nationalism, specifically the Western-leaning pro-European Union type, has been formulated on the unhealthy basis of anti-Russian sentiments and a distorted notion of the cultural superiority of the European Union and the cultural inferiority of the Eastern Slavs (particularly Russians, but including Ukrainians and Belarusians).

It is the multiple convergences between Ukrainians and Russians and the complex relationship between the Ukrainian and Russian identities that make the decidedly anti-Russian attitudes of the mainstream opposition, some of which openly glorify Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich and its invasion of the Soviet Union, so dangerous for solidarity in Ukrainian society and Kiev’s future relations with Russia and the other countries bordering Ukraine.

Revolution for Democracy or Riots Promoting Subversion to the European Union?

The crisis in Ukraine did not take place, because the Ukrainian government was corrupt or used force against the protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square. It started, because the Ukrainian government refused to sign the European Union’s EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in November 2013. This is why the violence in Kiev has not only unreservedly been given political cover from the political establishment in the United States and the European Union to internationally give it public legitimacy, but has also received media support in the form of biased reporting that favours the opposition.

Social media has been saturated by advertisements and questionable grassroots videos and footage, like the professionally-produced Council for Foreign Relations-linked “I Am a Ukrainian” YouTube video, that paints a distorted narrative of the reasons behind the anti-government riots. Like the other propaganda ignoring the reasons behind the anti-government protests, the “I Am a Ukrainian” video totally ignores the fact that the protests in Kiev did not start on the basis of democratic demands, but started due to the Ukrainian government’s refusal to sign an agreement with the European Union.

Image
I Am a Ukrainian
Image
http://www.youtube.com/v/Hvds2AIiWLA?rel=0"
Image
Image
Image[url=http://www..htm]Whisper Roar[/url]
Image

Actually, the Ukrainian government and the Party of Regions were initially very supportive of the association agreement with the European Union, but backed out after the EU refused to renegotiate the agreement or to give financial guarantees and economic relief to Kiev for the trade losses and higher gas prices that Ukraine would face as a result of signing the agreement. Moreover, the Ukrainian oligarchs aligned to President Yanukovich and his Party of Regions realized that the agreement would allow corporations from the European Union to dismantle their own corporations and to replace their monopolies with EU corporate monopolies and control. The EU agreement would force Ukraine to change many of its trade laws and regulations that would disadvantage the Ukrainian oligarch’s corporations and, in economic terms, allow for Ukraine to be gutted and essentially reduced to an Eastern European colony.

The Ukrainian government did not sign the EU agreement because it is pro-Russian. Albeit the Party of Regions politically caters to Ukrainians that view Russia favourable, anyone that says or thinks that the leadership in the Party of Regions is pro-Russian or that the Party of Regions is a pro-Russian political party is grossly misinformed or lying. For many years the leadership of the Party of Regions has even openly said that they are not hostile to NATO and Viktor Yanukovych, in the role of prime minister, himself even implemented the NATO integration policies that President Leonid Kuchma was pursuing. The Ukrainian government did not sign the European Union’s EU-Ukraine Association Agreement because of its own interests and not on the basis of favourable sentiments towards Russia.

If the deal only targeted the Ukrainian economy without challenging the monopolies and privileges of the Ukrainian oligarchs, President Yanukovich and the Ukrainian government would have signed it without any hesitation. The EU deal, however, was simply unfeasible and suicidal for both the Ukrainian oligarchs and the economy. The agreement with the EU additionally would force Ukraine to cut its trade ties with its major economic partners, Russia and the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), without providing any alternative. It would have politically hurt the Party of Regions in the future too.

The Euro-Atlantic Drive into Eurasia: Using Kiev to Target Russia and Beyond…

The US and EU support for the Ukrainian opposition, even if in part, is aimed at bringing Ukraine into their orbit and to encircle, isolate, and eventual subvert the Russian Federation. Resurgent Orangists and a new coalition of opposition figures have formed a new front, which can be called a neo-Orangist front, which is intensely intent on shifting Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic orbit of Washington and the European Commission through eventual membership in such institutions and supranational structures as NATO and the European Union.

These opposition politicians made a mess of things after the Orange Revolution when they ran Ukraine earlier. It remains to be seen if they can re-orient Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic zone (the word “Euro-Atlantic” camouflages the role that the US plays in Europe; more properly it should be called the Euro-American zone). When mainstream opposition leaders were ruling Ukraine, they were too busy embezzling and fighting one another to further the goals of the US and the EU. Yulia Tymoshenko, when she was in the position of prime minister, and the Orangist President Viktor Yushchenko were even busy accusing one another of corruption and betrayal.

There is a simultaneous campaign to erase Ukraine’s history and its deep and historic ties to Russia from the Soviet and pre-Soviet eras. Not only has the Russian Federation been demonized and the Russian language discriminated against in Ukraine by the mainstream opposition and the ultra-nationalist elements inside its ranks, but Ukrainian citizens with ethnic Russian background or favourable views towards Russia and Eurasian integration have also been portrayed as traitors, foreigners, or the enemies of Ukraine. Any reminders of a common history with Russia have been attacked, including monuments to the fallen soldiers that defended Ukraine and the Soviet Union from the Germans during the Second World War or, as it is called in Ukraine and Russia, the Great Patriot War.

Concerning Syria and Iran, it has been repeatedly stated many times that the road to Tehran goes through Damascus and that the US and its allies have targeted Syria as a means of going after Iran. In regards to Ukraine and Russia, a very similar axiom is also applicable. The road to Moscow goes through Kiev. The takeover of Ukraine is part and parcel of a geo-strategic campaign against the Russians, as is the regime change campaign against Damascus to a lesser degree.

Regime change in Ukraine is part of a covert and overt war against the Russian Federation. The installment of a puppet government in Ukraine will remove one of the most important partners that Moscow has. If Ukraine joins the EU and NATO, it will be a direct threat to the western borders of Russia and the security of one of the most important Russian naval bases, which is the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and located at Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula.

If they escalate, the events in Ukraine will disrupt the security and diplomatic ties between all the regional countries in Eastern Europe. Poland is already being watched with distrust from Belarus and Russia. The Polish government, in its interaction with Ukraine, has acted just like the Turkish government has acted towards Syria. With the backing of the governments of the US, Britain, Germany, and France, Warsaw has supported Ukrainian anti-government forces in multiple ways, just as Ankara has supported anti-government forces and regime change operations inside Syria in multiple ways.

Russia is not alone. The Russian Federation is not the only country concerned about what has happened in Ukraine. The estrangement of Ukraine from Russia additionally aims to isolate Russia from Europe and to reduce the Eurasian Union being formed by Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus into a predominately Asiatic project instead of a dually European and Asian project. Both the Belarusian and Kazakhstani government are worried too. Countries like Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, and China are watching the events in Kiev with concern as well. Ukraine has been a partner to these countries and they all view the conflict in Syria and the anti-government riots in Ukraine and Venezuela as part of a multi-front global war that the US has waged against them and their allies.

The views of the Iranians are not much different from that of the Russians. Iran has voiced its concerns that what has been set in motion in Kiev will result in the eventual disintegration of Ukraine with far-reaching consequences that will destabilize the flanking Caucasus region, which shares the Black Sea with Ukraine, and will eventually reach Iran. The head of the Iranian military has even commented on the coup as a “move from independence to dependence.”

Just to give an idea on the importance of the value that this group of countries put on Ukraine, it should be noted that the Chinese signed a December 5, 2013 bilateral agreement announcing that Ukraine was Beijing’s strategic partner. Included in the agreement was a Chinese pledge to provide Kiev with the military protection of a Chinese nuclear umbrella. The governments of Ukraine, China, and Russia had also discussed admitting Ukraine into the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement (SCO)

Image
Image
Image

There is no question that the Ukrainian government is corrupt, but the opposition is no better and equally as corrupt. It cannot be denied, however, that when it comes to the question of popular backing by the Ukrainian people, the Party of Regions and its political allies have greater support from Ukrainians than the opposition parties that have taken over the country through the use of force and intimidation. Nor does the pandering of fearful Party of Regions officials towards the empowered opposition justify or hide the coup that has taken place in Kiev; these officials are now trying to either save their own skins or salvage the situation.

Even if it is denied that the opposition originally planned a coup, only when democratic means are exhausted can such a use of force be legitimate. The mainstream opposition leadership in Ukraine galvanized all their supporters and mobilized them into pouring into Kiev and pushed for a violent escalation, while the pro-government half of the country remained mostly immobilized. As mentioned and alluded to earlier, the show of numbers in the streets of Kiev by the opposition also has an equally large or possibly even larger number of Ukrainians opposing it. What about their opinions about the future of Ukraine?
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
GlobalResearch.ca
Image

Media Disinformation: What’s Really Going On in Ukraine?

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 3:17 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Media Disinformation: What’s Really Going On in Ukraine?
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By Andy Dilks
Global Research, January 27, 2014
orwellwasright
Region: EuropeRussia and FSU
Image
Image
Image

You’d be forgiven for knowing very little about the unrest in Ukraine – the violence, the rioting on the streets, the armed protesters storming government buildings amidst plumes of thick black smoke rising from makeshift barricades. Most of the public have once again been Beibered by the mainstream media – the arrest of this precocious, spoilt physical embodiment of crass corporate culture proving newsworthy enough for an MSNBC host to interrupt an interview with a member of Congress discussing the true scale of NSA spying.

In this climate of superficial distractions and media inanity, you’d be equally forgiven for not really knowing why there is political unrest in Ukraine. Most of the explanations for the violence offered by the mainstream media present the information in simplistic soundbytes – talking points without the relevant wider political and historical context which renders current events coherent.

The following article from The Independent provides us with a brief overview of the media’s presentation of recent events in Ukraine:
  • In November President Viktor Yanukovych decided to pull out of a treaty with EU, an agreement many felt would have paved the way for the Ukraine to join the union. It looked like he was going to sign the agreement before performing a U-turn, which has made Ukrainian disappointment all the sharper. However the government would rather stay friendly with Putin in return for favourable treatment. The protesters think it would benefit ordinary people far more to be aligned with the EU and consider Yanukovych a man who only represents the interests of the richest.

The article goes on to define the demonstrations as ”more than a pro-EU movement”, one which represents popular resentment towards perceived government corruption and violent repression towards peaceful activists.

Image
Image
Image

President Viktor Yanukovych’s government forces are certainly guilty of using excessive force against the rioters, and accusations of torture appear to be well-founded and should not be excused. But condemnation is certainly clouded when you consider the level of violence from the rioters. By the same token, when mobile phone users near the scene of the riots received text messages from the state reading, “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass riot” it brought to home just how omnipresent - and ominous - surveillance technology in the 21st century has become.

The problem with the “popular protests against the government and for integration into the EU” narrative is that it omits crucial information regarding the role of the West is fomenting and orchestrating demonstrations such as these; a role which illuminates broader geopolitical objectives in the region and the extent to which intelligence agencies and their offshoot organizations meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations. Understanding the nature of soft power – the use of coercion and bribery – and the subversion and infiltration of grassroots political movements by NGOs and other organizations backed either directly or indirectly by the US government, helps us to more broadly understand why the unrest in Ukraine is reaching such a fever pitch.

The seemingly spontaneous 2004 Ukrainian “Orange Revolution”, sparked by alleged electoral fraud and allegations of voter intimidation, was led largely by a number of grassroots movements tied to political activists and student groups. Many of the groups involved, however, were funded and trained by organizations intimately linked to the US government. The foreign donors of these groups included the US State Department, USAID, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Open Society Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy.

The candidate who emerged victorious in the wake of these widespread orchestrated protests, Viktor Yushchenko, was not only endorsed by the same institutions which wielded their influence over the protest movements themselves, he was also supported by the International Monetary Fund. A central banker by profession, Yushchenko was a firm advocate of implementing IMF monetary reforms and, equally crucially, an advocate of NATO membership. Before entering into Ukrainian politics he had worked at the US State Department,the Reagan White House, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. In short, it’s safe to say that he was a product of Washington, an image only exacerbated by his hostility towards Russia.

It is tempting to automatically assume that the same process is taking place in Ukraine at the moment. Certainly, intelligence agencies have historical form when it comes to covert operations and the manipulation of activists via social media – similar US-backed ”Colour Revolutions” have taken place in Georgia, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. The widespread political support for the protesters in Ukraine and the lack of condemnation for their use of violence would certainly add to the view that these protests are at least tacitly backed by the West, if not outright orchestrated. While none of this constitutes “proof” of outside interference, at the very least it is enough to raise suspicions. On the other hand, without firm evidence it is perhaps equally plausible that the support for the protesters is simply a case of making political capital out of the situation, stoking the flames of an already lit fire.

As the violence on the streets of Kiev continues, already spreading away from the capital, the Russian State Duma recently passed a resolution slamming foreign politicians and other players for interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs in an attempt to escalate the conflict. It’s a marked contrast to the rhetoric emerging from Washington and the EU, both of whom have expressed the possibility of intervening, with the US adopting a stance which hints at another planned ”regime change” on Russia’s doorstep.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of the West’s stance over Ukraine and their support for what they refer to as a “pro-democracy protest movement” is the profoundly anti-democratic leanings of the violent protestors at the vanguard of the assault on the Ukrainian authorities. Anyone familiar with the crisis in Syria and the attempts to topple President Assad will be all too familiar with the US’s willingness to get into bed with extremists of the worst possible nature in order to achieve their objectives.

In Ukraine today it appears that very little has changed. Just as the Western-backed Syrian rebels with intimate ties to al-Qaeda were presented in our media as “pro-democracy” organizations, so too are many of those protesting in Ukraine drawn from far-right and fascistic groups such as the opposition Svoboda party, whom John McCain was more than happy to appear on stage with in December 2013 and offer his – and by extension America’s – support.

Yet it would also be wrong-headed to characterize the protests in Ukraine as being led by far-right extremists – many protesters are taking to the streets through genuine and legitimate grievances with the current government. The danger lies in these moderate protesters allying themselves with those on the far-right – combined with tacit support from the US for the likes of the Svoboda party, it could be a concoction which would set the stage for a dictatorship far more corrupt and repressive than those currently clinging onto power.

With the geopolitical stakes as high as they are, not least with the potential for a broader NATO influence in the region, it would be wise to view the situation in Ukraine through the wider prism of the global balance of power and all that this entails. Equally, we should be wary of simplistic media narratives which seek to paint any conflict in black and white/good vs. evil terms, particularly when the “good guys” are being backed by the US government and her allies. All too often this amounts to little more than propaganda designed to rouse support for opposition movements favourable to “regime change”, and by now it should be very clear how little this has to do with vague, idealistic notions of “democracy”, and how much it has to do with regional – and ultimately global – hegemony.

Image
Image
GlobalResearch.ca
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

Ukraine Protests Carefully Orchestrated: The Role of CANVAS,

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 3:27 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Ukraine Protests Carefully Orchestrated: The Role of CANVAS, US-Financed “Color Revolution Training Group”
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, February 21, 2014
engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net 7 January 2014
Region: EuropeRussia and FSU
Theme: Intelligence
Image
Image
Image

The recent protests in Ukraine have the stench of a foreign-orchestrated attempt to destabilize the government of Viktor Yanukovych after he walked away from signing an EU Association Agreement that would have driven a deep wedge between Russia and Ukraine. Glamor-star boxer-turned political guru, Vitaly Klitschko, has been meeting with the US State Department and is close to Angela Merkel’s CDU political machine in Germany.

The EU association agreement with Ukraine is widely resisted by many EU member states with deep economic problems of their own. The two EU figures most pushing it—Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski—are both well known in the EU as close to Washington.

The US is strongly pushing the Ukraine EU integration just as it had been behind the 2004 failed “Orange Revolution” to split Ukraine from Russia in a bid to isolate and weaken Russia. Now Ukrainians have found evidence of direct involvement of the Belgrade US-financed training group, CANVAS behind the carefully-orchestrated Kiev protests.

A copy of the pamphlet that was given out to opposition protestors in Kiev has been obtained. It is a word-for-word and picture-for-picture translation of the pamphlet used by US-financed Canvas organizers in the 2011 Cairo Tahrir Square protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak and opened the door to the US-backed Muslim Brotherhood.[1] The photo below is a side-by-side comparison:.......more

Ukraine: The Lies Of Empire and the Smokescreen Of Democracy

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 3:22 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Ukraine: The Lies Of Empire and the Smokescreen Of Democracy
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By Colin Todhunter
Global Research, March 01, 2014
Region: EuropeRussia and FSU
Theme: [url=http://www..htm]Media Disinformation[/url]
Image
Image
Image

John Herbst, US ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006 , this week gave an interview to the RT television channel about current developments in Ukraine . According to Herbst, what we are witnessing is a peaceful uprising against an authoritarian, oppressive regime. He is unequivocal about this. He said that the protests and protesters are being smeared and discredited, and the only ones wanting to portray the opposition in Ukraine as being ultra nationalist, neo Nazis and violent are those who fear democracy on their own doorstep (i.e. Russia).

Herbst says the protests are a reaction to four years of oppressive government. While admitting that Yanokovych won a free and fair election in 2010, Herbst argues since that time he has put increasingly authoritarian strictures on the opposition and asserts that Yanokovych authorised the use of armed snipers against unarmed protesters.

In response to certain reports that state it was the opposition that first started any firing, Herbst says that such a claim is simply a lie. Herbst quotes Orwell to imply that people and sections of the media are not only lying, but are propagandising by using smear words about the protesters, such as ‘ultra nationalists’ or ‘anti-Semitic’

As far as an attack on a Jewish synagogue in Ukraine is concerned, he merely asks who attacked it and answers his own question with “Nobody knows” and that it is quite likely the attackers were “provocateurs.” Despite ‘nobody knowing’ he immediately implies it was carried out by former government forces to discredit the opposition.

For a man who refers to Orwell, his words flow easily with doublespeak and hypocrisy. While he doesn’t appear to know who attacked the synagogue, not wanting to apportion any wrong doings to the people the US has supported in Kiev, he is conveniently adamant that government snipers gunned down protesters, which is highly debatable, if not totally untrue (1).

Fine for him to make his unfounded claims that suit US goals and smear Yanokovych, but when others make claims he doesn’t like to hear, backed up with evidence, they are merely looking for a reason to tarnish the US-backed protesters.

During the interview with RT, he was asked how would it be perceived if Occupy protesters were to take over government buildings or a city hall in the US , as the people he supports in Ukraine have done: would it be labelled as a peaceful protest?

Of course it wouldn’t. The US state has long been involved in the illegal monitoring and subversion of perfectly legitimate democratic groups on home soil. Its security and intelligence agencies have been used to crush genuine democracy. From Martin Luther King and the Occupy Movement to Veterans for Peace, the US state has used the full panoply of resources to infiltrate, monitor or subvert. Today, democratic movements that seek to legitimately question the influence of Wall Street, US military policy abroad and a range of other policies that have serve elite interests are spied on and ‘neutralised’ (2).

But this is not up for debate. Best to move swiftly along, as indeed Herbst did. In order to prevent further analysis of how the US might or does treat dissent on its own soil, the former ambassador continued with his rhetoric (seemingly in the belief that if you keep on repeating something, people will eventually believe it) and went on to state during the interview:

“But let’s acknowledge something… The policies of Yanukovych were authoritarian and oppressive, and it’s natural that people will respond forcibly against oppressive and authoritarian policies. People were finally fed up with the restrictions as well as the massive corruption. … One side was brutal, slaughtering scores of people. The other was merely seizing buildings… You talk about a new election was scheduled for 2015. We all knew Yanukovic was preparing to steal that election.”

By this reasoning, it would mean that we should have pre-emptive action prior to any election based on fears about who might win and the reason for why they might win. Democracy works the other way around. You have an election and then you protest, if you feel it was discredited in some way, for example like when Bush stole the 2004 election.

And, of course, Herbst would not for one moment contemplate that the US authorities are oppressive, authoritarian and corrupt. For him, such traits are only prevalent in places like Ukraine . Don’t expect the likes of Herbst to be lining up in support of Occupy protestors at home who are demanding similar things that he is supporting in Ukraine (or at least says he is supporting). His moralistic bleatings only apply to other countries.

Although Herbst strived to portray the US as a neutral observer concerning events in Ukraine , it is clearly based on a lie (3) , (4). It is patently obvious that the US has a definite geo-political agenda aimed at weakening Russia (5). When asked about US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nulan appearing in Kiev handing out cookies, according to Herbst she was just expressing support for peaceful protest, and it did not imply that the US was taking sides in the situation.

How would that look in the US ? How would Herbst feel about Russia ‘s foreign minister doing that in US at Occupy Wall Street?

In response to such questions, Herbst continued to repeat and deflect by saying:
  • “I think you have trouble understanding there is a repressive government in Ukraine . There is not a repressive government in Washington …. Your problem is that you are a newscaster in a country that is undemocratic and you therefore do not want to see democracy in a country on your doorstep”
When the interviewer said that she does live in a democratic country ( Russia ), Herbst retorted:
  • “You have to say you live in a democratic country. Just like in the Soviet era journalists had to say that. It was not true then and it’s not true now.”
This comment and many others made by Herbst, displayed all of the arrogance associated with the ideology of US ‘exceptionalism’ in terms of that country being qualitatively different from other states, being a beacon of freedom and democracy and having the right to act in any way as and when it deems fit (6). He also displayed the complete contempt that people like him have for the public with his falsehoods, misleading claims, warped logic and attempts to deceive. Herbst should have realised that he was not talking (down) to a Fox news audience in the US . But, given the US ‘s role in events in Ukraine , maybe this was the best performance that could have been expected by someone in his shoes whose sole aim is to deliberately mislead.

Herbst, Nulan and others would do well to contemplate their country’s post-1945 record of war mongering and destabilisations of democratic governments (7) and which has led to millions of deaths (8), its global surveillance network exposed by Edward Snowdon that illegally spies on individuals and governments alike and its ongoing plundering of resources and countries supported by militarism, ‘free trade’ or the outright manipulation of markets (for example: (9) ,(10) , (11).

Such ‘champions of democracy’ would also do well to contemplate the debasement of democracy at home and the US ‘s transformation into what increasingly appears to be a police state (12).

But, of course, they are already well aware of this. And they know full well that what the US is doing in Ukraine represents more of the same: the brutality and lies of Empire attempting to hide behind the smokescreen of democracy.

Image
Notes
Image
colintodhunter.com
Image
Orwell’s 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual
Image
Image
Image
GlobalResearch.ca
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

Is Ukraine Drifting Toward Civil War & Great Power Confronta

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:57 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Is Ukraine Drifting Toward Civil War And Great Power Confrontation?
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, February 20, 2014
PaulCraigRoberts.org
Region: EuropeRussia and FSURussia and FSU
Image


Image
ImageImage
Image

People ask for solutions, but no solutions are possible in a disinformed world. Populations almost everywhere are dissatisfied, but few have any comprehension of the real situation. Before there can be solutions, people must know the truth about the problems. For those few inclined to be messengers, it is largely a thankless task.

The assumption that man is a rational animal is incorrect. He and she are emotional creatures, not Dr. Spock of Star Trek. Humans are brainwashed by enculturation and indoctrination. Patriots respond with hostility toward criticisms of their governments, their countries, their hopes and their delusions. Their emotions throttle facts, should any reach them. Aspirations and delusions prevail over truth. Most people want to be told what they want to hear. Consequently, they are always gullible and their illusions and self-delusions make them easy victims of propaganda. This is true of all levels of societies and of the leaders themselves.

We are witnessing this today in western Ukraine where a mixture of witless university students, pawns in Washington’s drive for world hegemony, together with paid protesters and fascistic elements among ultra-nationalists are bringing great troubles upon Ukraine and perhaps a deadly war upon the world.

Many of the protesters are just the unemployed collecting easy money. It is the witless idealistic types that are destroying the independence of their country. Victoria Nuland, the American neoconservative Assistant Secretary of State, whose agenda is US world hegemony, told the Ukrainians what was in store for them last December 13, but the protesters were too delusional to hear.

In an eight minute, 46 second speech at the National Press Club sponsored by the US-Ukraine Foundation, Chevron, and Ukraine-in-Washington Lobby Group, Nuland boasted that Washington has spent $5 billion to foment agitation to bring Ukraine into the EU. Once captured by the EU, Ukraine will be “helped” by the West acting through the IMF. Nuland, of course, presented the IMF as Ukraine’s rescuer, not as the iron hand of the West that will squeeze all life out of Ukraine’s struggling economy.

Nuland’s audience consisted of all the people who will be enriched by the looting and by connections to a Washington-appointed Ukrainian government. Just look at the large Chevron sign next to which Nuland speaks, and you will know what it is all about. http://www.sott.net/article/273602-US-A ... rt-Ukraine

Nuland’s speech failed to alert the Ukraine protesters, who are determined to destroy the independence of Ukraine and to place their country in the hands of the IMF so that it can be looted like Latvia, Greece and every country that ever had an IMF structural adjustment program. All the monies that protesters are paid by the US and EU will soon be given back manyfold as Ukraine is “adjusted” by Western looting.

In her short speech the neoconservative agitator Nuland alleged that the protesters whom Washington has spent $5 billion cultivating were protesting “peacefully with enormous restraint” against a brutal government.

According to RT, which has much more credibility than the US State Department (remember Secretary of State Colin Powell’s address to the UN setting up the US invasion of Iraq with his “evidence” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a speech Powell later disavowed as Bush regime disinformation) Ukrainian rioters have seized 1,500 guns, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, 3 machine guns, and grenades from military armories.

The human-rights trained Ukrainian police have permitted the violence to get out of hand. A number of police have been burned by Molotov cocktails. The latest report is that 108 police have been shot. A number are dead and 63 are in critical condition. http://rt.com/news/ukraine-kiev-firearm ... olice-934/ These casualties are the products of Nuland’s “peacefully protesting protesters acting with enormous restraint.” On February 20, the elected, independent Ukraine government responded to the rioters use of firearms by allowing police to use firearms in self-defense.

Perhaps the Russophobic western Ukrainians deserve the IMF, and perhaps the EU deserves the extreme nationalists who are trying to topple the Ukraine government. Once Ukrainians experience being looted by the West, they will be on their knees begging Russia to rescue them. The only certain thing is that it is unlikely that the Russian part of Ukraine will remain part of Ukraine.

During the Soviet era, parts of Russia herself, such as the Crimea, were placed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, perhaps in order to increase the Russian population in Ukraine. In other words, a large part of today’s Ukraine–eastern and southern provinces–are traditional Russian territory, not part of historical Ukraine.

Until Russia granted Ukraine independence in the early 1990s, Ukraine had experienced scant independence since the 14th century and had been a part of Russia for 200 years. The problem with the grant of independence is that much of Ukraine is not Ukrainian. It is Russian.

As I have reported previously, Russia regards the prospect of Ukraine as a member of the EU with NATO with US bases on Russia’s frontier as a “strategic threat.” It is unlikely that the Russian government and the Russian territories in Ukraine will accept Washington’s plan for Ukraine. Whatever their intention, Secretary of State John Kerry’s provocative statements are raising tensions and fomenting war. The vast bulk of the American and Western populations have no idea of what the real situation is, because all they hear from the “free press” is the neoconservative propaganda line.

Washington’s lies are destroying not only civil liberties at home and countries abroad, but are raising dangerous alarms in Russia about the country’s security. If Washington succeeds in overthrowing the Ukrainian government, the eastern and southern provinces are likely to secede. If secession becomes a civil war instead of a peaceful divorce, Russia would not be able to sit on the sidelines. As the Washington warmongers would be backing western Ukraine, the two nuclear powers would be thrown into military conflict.

The Ukrainian and Russian governments allowed this dangerous situation to develop, because they naively permitted for many years billions of US dollars to flow into their countries where the money was used to create fifth columns under the guise of educational and human rights organizations, the real purpose of which is to destabilize both countries. The consequence of the trust Ukrainians and Russians placed in the West is the prospect of civil and wider war.

Image
UPDATE:

Reading the collection of foreign news dispatches provided by Richard Rozoff about the situation in Ukraine http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e37700.htm reminded me of histories about how the pointless and destructive First World War began. In their blind desire to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine and impose an EU puppet state in its place, the American, British, and French governments are lying through their teeth and provoking a situation that is headed toward armed conflict.

Unless the Russian government and people are willing to accept Washington’s hegemony over Russia, Russia cannot tolerate the coup that the West is preparing in Ukraine. As it is unlikely that Western forces would be a match for the Russian army in its own backyard, or that self-righteous, hubristic Washington could accept defeat, the conflict toward which the corrupt Western governments are driving is likely to turn nuclear.

As worldwide polls consistently show, Washington is regarded as the greatest threat to world peace. As I have often written, Washington is not merely a threat to peace. Washington and its despicable European puppet states are a threat to the existence of life on the planet. Essentially, Washington is insane, and European “leaders” are paid to provide cover for Washington’s insanity.

The world could end before the unpayable Western debts come due

284

Image




Image
Image
GlobalResearch.ca
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

The U.S. has Installed a Neo-Nazi Government in Ukraine

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:27 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
The U.S. has Installed a Neo-Nazi Government in Ukraine
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, March 02, 2014
Region: EuropeRussia and FSU
Theme: Media DisinformationPolice State & Civil Rights
Image
ImageAccording to the New York Times, “The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here as another flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.” (After Initial Triumph, Ukraine’s Leaders Face Battle for Credibility , NYTimes.com, March 1, 2014, emphasis added)

“Flowering Democracy, Revolution”? The grim realities are otherwise. What is a stake is a US-EU-NATO sponsored coup d’Etat in blatant violation of international law.

The forbidden truth is that the West has engineered –through a carefully staged covert operation– the formation of a proxy regime integrated by Neo-Nazis.

Confirmed by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, key organizations in the Ukraine including the Neo-Nazi party Svoboda were generously supported by Washington: “We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals. … We will continue to promote Ukraine to the future it deserves.”

The Western media has casually avoided to analyze the composition and ideological underpinnings of the government coalition. The word “Neo-Nazi” is a taboo. It has been excluded from the dictionary of mainstream media commentary. It will not appear in the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post or The Independent. Journalists have been instructed not to use the term “Neo-Nazi” to designate Svoboda and the Right Sector.

Composition of the Coalition Government

We are not dealing with a transitional government in which Neo-Nazi elements integrate the fringe of the coalition, formally led by the Fatherland party.

The Cabinet is not only integrated by the Svoboda and Right Sector (not to mention former members of defunct fascist UNA-UNSO), the two main Neo-Nazi entities have been entrusted with key positions which grant them de facto control over the Armed Forces, Police and National Security.

While Yatsenuyk’s Fatherland Party controls the majority of portfolios and Svoboda Neo-Nazi leader Oleh Tyahnybok was not granted a major cabinet post (apparently at the request of assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland), members of Svoboda and the Right Sector occupy key positions in the areas of Defense, Law Enforcement, Education and Economic Affairs.

Image
Image
Image
Neo Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok


Image
Image
Image
US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland together Neo Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok (left)


Image Andriy Parubiy
Andriy Parubiy co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) was appointed Secretary of the National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU). (Рада національної безпеки і оборони України), a key position which overseas the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, National Security and Intelligence. The RNBOU is central decision-making body. While it is formally headed by the president, it is run by the Secretariat with a staff of 180 people including defense, intelligence and national security experts.

Parubiy was one of the main leaders behind the Orange Revolution in 2004. His organization was funded by the West. He is referred to by the Western media as the “kommandant” of the EuroMaidan movement. Andriy Parubiy together with party leader Oleh Tyahnybok is a follower of Ukrainian Nazi Stepan Bandera, who collaborated in the mass murderer of Jews and Poles during World War II.

Image
Image
Image
Neo-Nazi march honoring Stepan Bandera

In turn, Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector delegation in the parliament, has been appointed Parubiy’s deputy Secretary of the RNBOU.

Yarosh was the leader of the Brown Shirt Neo-Nazi paramilitary during the EuroMaidan “protest” movement. He has called for disbanding the Party of the regions and the Communist Party.

Image
Image
Image
Dmytro Yarosh speech at Euromaidan (Centre)

The Neo Nazi party also controls the judicial process with the appointment of Oleh Makhnitsky of the Svoboda party to the position of prosecutor-general of Ukraine. What kind of justice will prevail with a reknown Neo-Nazi in charge of the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine?

Cabinet positions were also allocated to former members of the Neo-Nazi fringe organization Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defense (UNA-UNSO):

Tetyana Chernovol, portrayed in the Western press as a crusading investigative journalist without reference to her past involvement in the anti-Semitic UNA-UNSO, was named chair of the government’s anti-corruption committee. Dmytro Bulatov, known for his alleged kidnapping by police, but also with UNA-UNSO connections, was appointed minister of youth and sports.
  • Yegor Sobolev, leader of a civic group in Independence Maidan and politically close to Yatsenyuk, was appointed chair of the Lustration Committee, charged with purging followers of President Yanukovych from government and public life. (See Ukraine Transition Government: Neo-Nazis in Control of Armed Forces, National Security, Economy, Justice and Education, Global Research, March 02, 2014
The Lustration Committee is to organize the Neo-Nazi witch-hunt against all opponents of the new Neo-Nazi regime. The targets of the lustration campaign are people in positions of authority within the civil service, regional and municipal governments, education, research, etc. The term lustration refers to the “mass disqualification” of people associated with the former government. It also has racial overtones. It will in all likelihood be directed against Communists, Russians and members of the Jewish community.

It is important to reflect on the fact that the West, formally committed to democratic values, has not only spearheaded the demise of an elected president, it has instated a political regime integrated by Neo-Nazis.

This is a proxy government which enables the US, NATO and EU to interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs and dismantle its bilateral relations with the Russian Federation. It should be understood, however, that the Neo-Nazis do not ultimately call the shots: Under a “regime of indirect rule” they take their orders on crucial military and foreign policy issues –including the deployment of troops directed against the Russian federation– from the the US State Department, the Pentagon and NATO.

The World is at a dangerous crossroads: The structures and composition of this proxy government installed by the West do not favor dialogue with the Russian government and military.The RNBOU

Image
Lest we forget, Senator John McCain is a firm supporter and friend
of Neo Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok (Image right).

A scenario of military escalation leading to confrontation of Russia and NATO is a distinct possibility. The Ukraine’s National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) which is controlled by Neo-Nazis plays a central role in military affairs. In the confrontation with Moscow, decisions taken by the RNBOU headed by Neo-Nazi Parubiy and his brown Shirt deputy Dmytro Yarosh –in consultation with Washington and Brussels– could potentially have devastating consequences.

However, it goes without saying that “support” to the formation of a Neo-Nazi government does not in any way imply the development of “fascist tendencies” within the White House, the State Department and the US Congress.

“The flowering of democracy” in Ukraine –to use the words of the New York Times– is endorsed by Republicans and Democrats. It’s a bipartisan project. Lest we forget, Senator John McCain is a firm supporter and friend of Neo Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok (Image right).


Image
Image
GlobalResearch.ca
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

What is the Endgame? The Break-up of Ukraine?

Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2014 3:41 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
What is the Endgame? The Break-up of Ukraine?
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By R. Teichmann
Global Research, March 03, 2014
News Beacon Ireland
Region: EuropeRussia and FSU
Theme: Oil and EnergyUS NATO War Agenda
Image
Image
Image
  • The question of what is intended with the coup in Ukraine cannot be answered by solely looking at what is appearing on the surface as a highly dangerous powerplay between the US, the EU and Russia. There may be more to it than meets the eye.
We can safely assume that from the beginning it was clear to those behind the scenes that Russia would not tolerate a manufactured failed state on its doorstep, a possible base for terrorism against it (calls to the Chechen ‘freedom fighters’ by the putsch regime in this regard have already been heard) and another missile base within minutes of flight time. Only fools would have thought that Russia would tolerate such a situation and the potential threat to its Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. With the support of Russia for the mainly Russian speaking populace of Crimea and eastern Ukraine a split of the country seems to be on the cards. The coup regime in Kiev and its western supporters make no effort to go back to the agreement signed between Yanukovich and the opposition, which could have prevented a split. So what could the global power cabal gain by splitting this country?

Oil and Gas Geopolitics

Today it was announced that the coup regime in Kiev will sign a deal with energy giant Chevron to commence large scale shale gas fracking operations in western Ukraine. Already in 2013 the Yanukovich government signed a production sharing agreement with Shell and in November 2013 with Chevron. According to the US Energy Information Administration Ukraine has Europe’s 4th largest shale gas reserves (almost 3 trillion cubic meters). After the decision of the Yanukovich government to turn to Russia for help and cooperation instead of handing Ukraine to the global banking cabal in the shape of the infamous Troika or the IMF, which would have had a devestating effect on the countries economy, this deal had to be protected.

While the industrial hubs of Ukraine are mostly located in the eastern parts, the western parts of Ukraine with its very rich and fertile soil have been the ‘breadbasket’ of Europe and the ex-USSR for a long time. These lands are perfectly suiting the agro-chemical monters like, Monsanto, Cargill, Bayer, Syngenta to implement their destructive genetically modified agriculture on a large scale. However they are are only the means for the international cabal to control the food chain. To get their hands on this land is a very important objective towards this goal. Once the local farmers have been driven off the land by making it uninhabitable by fracking it can be obtained for pennies on the dollar and then their plan can unfold. With Ukraine under the influence of the EU it could have also be coerced to sign one of the so called ‘Free Trade Agreements’ basically surrendering its independence to the global coorporations. The Yanukovich turn towards Russia, with its opposition to genetically modified crops, and with its own trade agreements, endangered this sinister plan too.

Again the events in Ukraine have nothing to do with democracy, freedom or self-determition but with the furthering of the global power cabal’s agenda. The ‘pro-European uprising’ and the ouster of the Yanukovich government must be viewed in this context and the break-up of Ukraine could be just what is intended. The step by the Kiev agent provokateur regime to pass legislation against the use of Russian as an official language, alienating half of the county’s populace, points in that direction.

About the author: R. Teichman is an activist living in West Cork, Ireland and is an editor with news-beacon-ireland.info and a frequent contributor to this blog.

Image
Image
GlobalResearch.ca
Image

Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

Putin - Press conference (konferenca per shtyp)

Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2014 8:02 pm
by Paul Kemp
Image
Image
Image
Putin - Press conference (konferenca per shtyp)
Image
http://www.youtube.com/v/uscjzJDNOpU?rel=0"
Image
Image
Image[url=http://www..htm]Gazeta Shekulli[/url]
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

George Galloway: US approach to Ukraine 'ludicrous, nonsensi

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 3:26 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
George Galloway: US approach to Ukraine 'ludicrous, nonsensical'
Image
http://www.youtube.com/v/PPam_aAWnJA?rel=0"
Image
Image
ImageRT America
Image
Published on Mar 4, 2014
Much of the media's reporting on the geopolitical tensions surrounding Ukraine has focused on the US and Russia. Missing from that coverage has been reaction from the European Union. RT's Ameera David speaks with George Galloway, a member of Parliament from the United Kingdom's Respect Party, about the Ukrainian conflict and asks how he would like to see the EU proceed.

Find RT America in your area: http://rt.com/where-to-watch/
Or watch us online: http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/

Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTAmerica
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_America
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

Re: In Ukraine, Chaos and Violence Hide Nefarious Role of US

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 5:44 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Image
Image
US Attempts to Vilify Russia are Astounding Hypocrisy
Image
04.03.2014 Author: Tony Cartalucci
Column: Politics ● Region: Russia in the World
Image
Image
Image

In the wake of the West’s horrifying handiwork in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, condemnation for Russia’s “intervention” falls flat. For all intents and purposes, “intervention” in Ukraine has already been carried out. Without the extensive backing by the West, its media machine, its corporate-funded foundations, and covert political manipulation for years in Eastern Europe and in Ukraine in particular, the “Euromaiden” mobs would never have materialized in the first place – let alone successfully overthrown an elected government. Surely without the Western media spinning what are otherwise detestable, literal Neo-Nazis, racists, and bigots, the world would have recoiled from events unfolding in Kiev, not cheered them on.

While the West points its accusing finger toward the more overt, superficially dramatic mobilization of Russian troops responding to the foreign-backed chaos consuming Ukraine, extraterritorial meddling was first initiated by the West, not Russia.

Astounding are the comments coming from US Secretary of State John Kerry and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague “demanding” Russia respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, after provoking the conflict in the first place. This is with the burning wreckage of Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan still billowing smoke in the duo’s rear-view mirror – with US and British troops still occupying the nation of Afghanistan and the consequences of Western intervention abroad still destroying lives and sowing chaos for millions.
Slight of Hand
The key to the West’s strategy is to covertly carry out their conflicts and immediately pounce on any overt reaction they are able to provoke. This is documented policy put to paper in 2009 in regards to Iran by the corporate-funded think tank, the Brookings Institution. In their lengthy report, “Which Path to Persia?,” they stated the following (emphasis added):
  • If the United States were to decide that to garner greater international support, galvanize U.S. domestic support, and/or provide a legal justification for an invasion, it would be best to wait for an Iranian provocation, then the time frame for an invasion might stretch out indefinitely. With only one real exception, since the 1978 revolution, the Islamic Republic has never willingly provoked an American military response, although it certainly has taken actions that could have done so if Washington had been looking for a fight.

    Thus it is not impossible that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion and it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocative move, which Iran has been wary of doing most times in the past, the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.

    - page 65 (page 78 of the PDF) “Which Path to Persia?” 2009, Brookings Institution
And (emphasis added):
  • …it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)

    -page 84-85 (page 97-98 of the PDF) “Which Path to Persia?” 2009, Brookings Institution
It is a dirty ploy the West has used against many nations, not just Iran. In the case of Ukraine and Russia, there is clearly a growing number of people around the world that recognize the “actions” the West has taken as being “too obvious” – intentional provocations that have led to this growing, but entirely unnecessary confrontation.
Systematic Provocations
The West – and in particular the US, UK, NATO, and the EU – have been pursuing a not-so-clandestine encirclement of Russia, targeting nations that have traditionally laid within its sphere of influence, both politically and culturally. The West has been backing opposition movements in Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, and even within Russia itself.

US Senator John McCain, chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI) – a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is chief among the foundations funding proxy opposition groups carrying out regime change on behalf of the West worldwide – has openly declared Russia and China as the ultimate targets of widespread global political chaos being fueled by the US.

His International Republican Institute (IRI) was mentioned by name in the New York Times as being behind the supposedly “indigenous” “spontaneous” “Arab Spring” unrest in the first place. In an April 2011 article published by the New York Times titled, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” it was stated:
  • “A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.”
After helping overthrow the Egyptian government, McCain would lead representatives from Wall Street’s Fortune 500 corporations on a tour of Cairo like conquerors surveying their new dominion. He would also taunt the heads of state of both Russia and China, revealing the final destination of the chaos and destabilization he has been helping along by claiming:
  • “I would be a little less cocky in the Kremlin with my KGB cronies today if I were Vladimir Putin. I would be a little less secure in the seaside resort [of] President Hu and a few men who govern and decide the fate of 1.3 billion people.”
The Daily Beast reveals what McCain and the operational plans he and his foundation are figureheads for have in store for Russia in this latest round of confrontation in an article titled, “Exclusive: McCain Tells Obama How to Punish Putin.” In it it states:
  • President Obama promised Friday there would be “costs” if Russia moved troops into Ukraine, but he didn’t specify what those costs might be. Sen. John McCain has several suggestions for Obama, including the sanctioning of high-level Russian officials; restarting missile defense plans in Eastern Europe; and bringing Georgia, a former Soviet republic, into NATO. McCain plans to push from the Congressional side, he told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview Saturday evening.
Of course, this is an agenda that has been being pursued before Obama ever took office, and is the grand strategy the West has been pursing in order to contain, overthrow, and reconstitute Russia as part of the Wall Street/London global order, for decades. Large leaps made in the agenda are generally the result of “quiet” provocations that are met with more overt Russian responses. With the Western-backed destabilization of Ukraine forcing Russia to react in defense of itself and an important historical, cultural, and economic ally, the stage is once again set for the West to push forward otherwise unjustifiable moves eastward.

What should ultimately be remembered is that the West, when it “intervenes,” does so with the most tenuous of lies, and in nations thousands of miles beyond their borders, and even the borders of their immediate neighbors. Ukraine on the other hand is on Russia’s borders, speaks Russian, shares a common history and heritage, have fought alongside one another against grave threats from abroad, and are entwined across a broad spectrum of socioeconomic metrics.
In terms of justifying an intervention, Russia has a headstart – with documented Western meddling destabilizing its neighbor and sowing violence that has directly threatened its own security. It is a far cry from fabricating intelligence regarding “weapons of mass destruction” and invading a nation on the other side of the planet for dubious ulterior agendas.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine [url=http://www..htm]“New Eastern Outlook”[/url]

Image
HomeLocationsContributorsSearchHotLog
Address: 12, Rozhdestvenka Street, office 111, Moscow
E-mail: info@journal-neo.org Phone +7 (495) 624-40-91
Electronic analytical journal New Eastern Outlook 2010-2014
Republishing of the articles is welcomed with reference to NEO.
The views of the authors do not necessarily coincide with the opinion of the editorial board.
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:25 am
by Paul Kemp
Image
Image
Image
What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis
Image
Published on Monday, March 3, 2014 by Consortium News
What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis
by Robert Parry
Image
President Barack Obama has been trying, mostly in secret, to craft a new foreign policy that relies heavily on cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tamp down confrontations in hotspots such as Iran and Syria. But Obama’s timidity about publicly explaining this strategy has left it open to attack from powerful elements of Official Washington, including well-placed neocons and people in his own administration.

The gravest threat to this Obama-Putin collaboration has now emerged in Ukraine, where a coalition of U.S. neocon operatives and neocon holdovers within the State Department fanned the flames of unrest in Ukraine, contributing to the violent overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych and now to a military intervention by Russian troops in the Crimea, a region in southern Ukraine that historically was part of Russia.
Image
Image
Image
resident Barack Obama discusses the crisis in Ukraine for 90
minutes on March 1, 2014, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(White House photo/Pete Souza)
Though I’m told the Ukraine crisis caught Obama and Putin by surprise, the neocon determination to drive a wedge between the two leaders has been apparent for months, especially after Putin brokered a deal to head off U.S. military strikes against Syria last summer and helped get Iran to negotiate concessions on its nuclear program, both moves upsetting the neocons who had favored heightened confrontations.

Putin also is reported to have verbally dressed down Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan over what Putin considered their provocative actions regarding the Syrian civil war. So, by disrupting neocon plans and offending Netanyahu and Bandar, the Russian president found himself squarely in the crosshairs of some very powerful people.

If not for Putin, the neocons – along with Israel and Saudi Arabia – had hoped that Obama would launch military strikes on Syria and Iran that could open the door to more “regime change” across the Middle East, a dream at the center of neocon geopolitical strategy since the 1990s. This neocon strategy took shape after the display of U.S. high-tech warfare against Iraq in 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union later that year. U.S. neocons began believing in a new paradigm of a uni-polar world where U.S. edicts were law.

The neocons felt this paradigm shift also meant that Israel would no longer need to put up with frustrating negotiations with the Palestinians. Rather than haggling over a two-state solution, U.S. neocons simply pressed for “regime change” in hostile Muslim countries that were assisting the Palestinians or Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Iraq was first on the neocon hit list, but next came Syria and Iran. The overriding idea was that once the regimes assisting the Palestinians and Hezbollah were removed or neutralized, then Israel could dictate peace terms to the Palestinians who would have no choice but to accept what was on the table.

U.S. neocons working on Netanyahu’s campaign team in 1996, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, even formalized their bold new plan, which they outlined in a strategy paper, called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The paper argued that only “regime change” in hostile Muslim countries could achieve the necessary “clean break” from the diplomatic standoffs that had followed inconclusive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In 1998, the neocon Project for the New American Century called for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, but President Bill Clinton refused to go along. The situation changed, however, when President George W. Bush took office and after the 9/11 attacks. Suddenly, the neocons had a Commander in Chief who agreed with the need to eliminate Iraq’s Saddam Hussein — and a stunned and angry U.S. public could be easily persuaded. (See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”)

So, Bush invaded Iraq, ousting Hussein but failing to subdue the country. The U.S. death toll of nearly 4,500 soldiers and the staggering costs, estimated to exceed $1 trillion, made the American people and even Bush unwilling to fulfill the full-scale neocon vision, which was expressed in one of their favorite jokes of 2003 about where to attack next, Iran or Syria, with the punch line: “Real men go to Tehran!”

Though hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney pushed the neocon/Israeli case for having the U.S. military bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities – with the hope that the attacks also might spark a “regime change” in Tehran – Bush decided that he couldn’t risk the move, especially after the U.S. intelligence community assessed in 2007 that Iran had stopped work on a bomb four years earlier.

The Rise of Obama

The neocons were dealt another setback in 2008 when Barack Obama defeated a neocon favorite, Sen. John McCain. But Obama then made one of the fateful decisions of his presidency, deciding to staff key foreign-policy positions with “a team of rivals,” i.e. keeping Republican operative Robert Gates at the Defense Department and recruiting Hillary Clinton, a neocon-lite, to head the State Department.

Obama also retained Bush’s high command, most significantly the media-darling Gen. David Petraeus. That meant that Obama didn’t take control over his own foreign policy.

Gates and Petraeus were themselves deeply influenced by the neocons, particularly Frederick Kagan, who had been a major advocate for the 2007 “surge” escalation in Iraq, which was hailed by the U.S. mainstream media as a great “success” but never achieved its principal goal of a unified Iraq. At the cost of nearly 1,000 U.S. dead, it only bought time for an orderly withdrawal that spared Bush and the neocons the embarrassment of an obvious defeat.

So, instead of a major personnel shakeup in the wake of the catastrophic Iraq War, Obama presided over what looked more like continuity with the Bush war policies, albeit with a firmer commitment to draw down troops in Iraq and eventually in Afghanistan.

From the start, however, Obama was opposed by key elements of his own administration, especially at State and Defense, and by the still-influential neocons of Official Washington. According to various accounts, including Gates’s new memoir Duty, Obama was maneuvered into supporting a troop “surge” in Afghanistan, as advocated by neocon Frederick Kagan and pushed by Gates, Petraeus and Clinton.

Gates wrote that Kagan persuaded him to recommend the Afghan “surge” and that Obama grudgingly went along although Gates concluded that Obama didn’t believe in the “mission” and wanted to reverse course more quickly than Gates, Petraeus and their side wanted.

Faced with this resistance from his own bureaucracy, Obama began to rely on a small inner circle built around Vice President Joe Biden and a few White House advisers with the analytical support of some CIA officials, including CIA Director Leon Panetta.

Obama also found a surprising ally in Putin after he regained the Russian presidency in 2012. A Putin adviser told me that the Russian president personally liked Obama and genuinely wanted to help him resolve dangerous disputes, especially crises with Iran and Syria.

In other words, what evolved out of Obama’s early “team of rivals” misjudgment was an extraordinary presidential foreign policy style, in which Obama developed and implemented much of his approach to the world outside the view of his secretaries of State and Defense (except when Panetta moved briefly to the Pentagon).

Even after the eventual departures of Gates in 2011, Petraeus as CIA director after a sex scandal in late 2012, and Clinton in early 2013, Obama’s peculiar approach didn’t particularly change. I’m told that he has a distant relationship with Secretary of State John Kerry, who never joined Obama’s inner foreign policy circle.

Though Obama’s taciturn protectiveness of his “real” foreign policy may be understandable given the continued neocon “tough-guy-ism” that dominates Official Washington, Obama’s freelancing approach gave space to hawkish elements of his own administration.

For instance, Secretary of State Kerry came close to announcing a U.S. war against Syria in a bellicose speech on Aug. 30, 2013, only to see Obama pull the rug out from under him as the President worked with Putin to defuse the crisis sparked by a disputed chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. (See Consortiumnews.com’s “How War on Syria Lost Its Way.”)

Similarly, Obama and Putin hammered out the structure for an interim deal with Iran on how to constrain its nuclear program. But when Kerry was sent to seal that agreement in Geneva, he instead inserted new demands from the French (who were carrying water for the Saudis) and nearly screwed it all up. After getting called on the carpet by the White House, Kerry returned to Geneva and finalized the arrangements.(See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Saudi-Israel Defeat on Iran Deal.”)

Unorthodox Foreign Policy

Obama’s unorthodox foreign policy – essentially working in tandem with the Russian president and sometimes at odds with his own foreign policy bureaucracy – has forced Obama into faux outrage when he’s faced with some perceived affront from Russia, such as its agreement to give temporary asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

For the record, Obama had to express strong disapproval of Snowden’s asylum, though in many ways Putin was doing Obama a favor by sparing Obama from having to prosecute Snowden with the attendant complications for U.S. national security and the damaging political repercussions from Obama’s liberal base.

Putin’s unforced errors also complicated the relationship, such as when he defended Russian hostility toward gays and cracked down on dissent before the Sochi Olympics. Putin became an easy target for U.S. commentators and comedians.

But Obama’s hesitancy to explain the degree of his strategic cooperation with Putin has enabled Official Washington’s still influential neocons, including holdovers within the State Department bureaucracy, to drive more substantive wedges between Obama and Putin. The neocons came to recognize that the Obama-Putin tandem had become a major impediment to their strategic vision.

Without doubt, the neocons’ most dramatic – and potentially most dangerous – counter-move has been Ukraine, where they have lent their political and financial support to opposition forces who sought to break Ukraine away from its Russian neighbor.

Though this crisis also stems from the historical division of Ukraine – between its more European-oriented west and the Russian-ethnic east and south – neocon operatives, with financing from the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy and other U.S. sources, played key roles in destabilizing and overthrowing the democratically elected president.

NED, a $100 million-a-year agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against targeted states, lists 65 projects that it supports financially inside Ukraine, including training activists, supporting “journalists” and promoting business groups, effectively creating a full-service structure primed and ready to destabilize a government in the name of promoting “democracy.” (See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Shadow US Foreign Policy.”)

State Department neocons also put their shoulders into shoving Ukraine away from Russia. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan and the sister-in-law of the Gates-Petraeus adviser Frederick Kagan, advocated strenuously for Ukraine’s reorientation toward Europe.

Last December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” by which she meant into the West’s orbit and away from Russia’s.

But President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed harsh austerity on the already impoverished Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine’s economy with discounted natural gas. Yanukovych’s decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country’s western and more pro-European region.

Nuland was soon at work planning for “regime change,” encouraging disruptive street protests by personally passing out cookies to the anti-government demonstrators. She didn’t seem to notice or mind that the protesters in Kiev’s Maidan square had hoisted a large banner honoring Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.

By late January, Nuland was discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt who should be allowed in the new government.

“Yats is the guy,” Nuland said in a phone call to Pyatt that was intercepted and posted online. “He’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy you know.” By “Yats,” Nuland was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had served as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister — and who was committed to harsh austerity.

As Assistant Secretary Nuland and Sen. McCain cheered the demonstrators on, the street protests turned violent. Police clashed with neo-Nazi bands, the ideological descendants of Bandera’s anti-Russian Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazi SS during World War II.

With the crisis escalating and scores of people killed in the street fighting, Yanukovych agreed to a E.U.-brokered deal that called for moving up scheduled elections and having the police stand down. The neo-Nazi storm troopers then seized the opening to occupy government buildings and force Yanukovych and many of his aides to flee for their lives.

With these neo-Nazis providing “security,” the remaining parliamentarians agreed in a series of unanimous or near unanimous votes to establish a new government and seek Yanukovych’s arrest for mass murder. Nuland’s choice, Yatsenyuk, emerged as interim prime minister.

Yet, the violent ouster of Yanukovych provoked popular resistance to the coup from the Russian-ethnic south and east. After seeking refuge in Russia, Yanukovych appealed to Putin for help. Putin then dispatched Russian troops to secure control of the Crimea. (For more on this history, see Consortiumnews.com’s “[url=http://www..htm]Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine.[/url]”)

Separating Obama from Putin

The Ukraine crisis has given Official Washington’s neocons another wedge to drive between Obama and Putin. For instance, the neocon flagship Washington Post editorialized on Saturday that Obama was responding “with phone calls” when something much more threatening than “condemnation” was needed.

It’s always stunning when the Post, which so energetically lobbied for the U.S. invasion of Iraq under the false pretense of eliminating its (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, gets its ire up about another country acting in response to a genuine security threat on its own borders, not half a world away.

But the Post’s editors have never been deterred by their own hypocrisy. They wrote, “Mr. Putin’s likely objective was not difficult to figure. He appears to be responding to Ukraine’s overthrow of a pro-Kremlin government last week with an old and ugly Russian tactic: provoking a separatist rebellion in a neighboring state, using its own troops when necessary.”

The reality, however, appears to have been that neocon elements from within the U.S. government encouraged the overthrow of the elected president of Ukraine via a coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who then terrorized lawmakers as the parliament passed draconian laws, including some intended to punish the Russian-oriented regions which favor Yanukovych.

Yet, besides baiting Obama over his tempered words about the crisis, the Post declared that “Mr. Obama and European leaders must act quickly to prevent Ukraine’s dismemberment. Missing from the president’s statement was a necessary first step: a demand that all Russian forces – regular and irregular – be withdrawn … and that Moscow recognize the authority of the new Kiev government. … If Mr. Putin does not comply, Western leaders should make clear that Russia will pay a heavy price.”

The Post editors are fond of calling for ultimatums against various countries, especially Syria and Iran, with the implication that if they don’t comply with some U.S. demand that harsh actions, including military reprisals, will follow.

But now the neocons, in their single-minded pursuit of endless “regime change” in countries that get in their way, have taken their ambitions to a dangerous new level, confronting nuclear-armed Russia with ultimatums.

By Sunday, the Post’s neocon editors were “spelling out the consequences” for Putin and Russia, essentially proposing a new Cold War. The Post mocked Obama for alleged softness toward Russia and suggested that the next “regime change” must come in Moscow.

“Many in the West did not believe Mr. Putin would dare attempt a military intervention in Ukraine because of the steep potential consequences,” the Post wrote. “That the Russian ruler plunged ahead shows that he doubts Western leaders will respond forcefully. If he does not quickly retreat, the United States must prove him wrong.”

The madness of the neocons has long been indicated by their extraordinary arrogance and their contempt for other nations’ interests. They assume that U.S. military might and other coercive means must be brought to bear on any nation that doesn’t bow before U.S. ultimatums or that resists U.S.-orchestrated coups.

Whenever the neocons meet resistance, they don’t rethink their strategy; they simply take it to the next level. Angered by Russia’s role in heading off U.S. military attacks against Syria and Iran, the neocons escalated their geopolitical conflict by taking it to Russia’s own border, by egging on the violent ouster of Ukraine’s elected president.

The idea was to give Putin an embarrassing black eye as punishment for his interference in the neocons’ dream of “regime change” across the Middle East. Now, with Putin’s countermove, his dispatch of Russian troops to secure control of the Crimea, the neocons want Obama to further escalate the crisis by going after Putin.

Some leading neocons even see ousting Putin as a crucial step toward reestablishing the preeminence of their agenda. NED president Carl Gershman wrote in the Washington Post, “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

At minimum, the neocons hope that they can neutralize Putin as Obama’s ally in trying to tamp down tensions with Syria and Iran – and thus put American military strikes against those two countries back under active consideration.

As events spin out of control, it appears way past time for President Obama to explain to the American people why he has collaborated with President Putin in trying to resolve some of the world’s thorniest problems.

That, however, would require him to belatedly take control of his own administration, to purge the neocon holdovers who have worked to sabotage his actual foreign policy, and to put an end to neocon-controlled organizations, like the National Endowment for Democracy, that use U.S. taxpayers’ money to stir up trouble abroad. That would require real political courage.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Image
Image
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat. His two previous books are Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'.
Image

Image
Image
CommonDreams.org
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

Ukraine: Secretive Neo-Nazi Military Organization Involved..

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 7:54 pm
by Paul Kemp
Image
Ukraine: Secretive Neo-Nazi Military Organization Involved in Euromaidan Snyper Shootings
Image
ImageImageImage
Image
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, March 03, 2014
21st Century Wire and Global Research
Region: Europe ● [url=http://www..htm]Russia and FSU[/url]
Theme: Police State & Civil Rights
Image
Image
Yanoukovitch, ousted president of Ukraine

The events in Ukraine since November 2013 are so astonishing as almost to defy belief.

An legitimately-elected (said by all international monitors) Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovich, has been driven from office, forced to flee as a war criminal after more than three months of violent protest and terrorist killings by so-called opposition.

His “crime” according to protest leaders was that he rejected an EU offer of a vaguely-defined associate EU membership that offered little to Ukraine in favor of a concrete deal with Russia that gave immediate €15 billion debt relief and a huge reduction in Russian gas import prices. Washington at that point went into high gear and the result today is catastrophe.

A secretive neo-nazi military organization reported linked to NATO played a decisive role in targeted sniper attacks and violence that led to the collapse of the elected government.

But the West is not finished with destroying Ukraine. Now comes the IMF with severe conditionalities as prerequisite to any Western financial help.

Image
Image
Image
Victoria Nuland

After the famous leaked phone call of US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland with the US Ambassador in Kiev, where she discussed the details of who she wanted in a new coalition government in Kiev, and where she rejected the EU solutions with her “void the EU” comment,◄1► the EU went it alone. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier proposed that he and his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, fly to Kiev and try to reach a resolution of the violence before escalation. Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski was asked to join. The talks in Kiev included the EU delegation, Yanukovich, the three opposition leaders and a Russian representative. The USA was not invited.◄2►

The EU intervention without Washington was extraordinary and reveals the deeping division between the two in recent months. In effect it was the EU saying to the US State Department, “F*** the US,” we will end this ourselves.

After hard talks, all major parties including the majority of protesters, agreed to new presidential elections in December, return to the 2004 Constitution and release of Julia Tymoshenko from prison. The compromise appeared to end the months long chaos and give a way out for all major players.

The diplomatic compromise lasted less than twelve hours. Then all hell broke loose.

Snipers began shooting into the crowd on February 22 in Maidan or Independence Square. Panic ensued and riot police retreated in panic according to eyewitnesses. The opposition leader Vitali Klitschko withdrew from the deal, no reason given. Yanukovich fled Kiev.◄3►

The question unanswered until now is who deployed the snipers? According to veteran US intelligence sources, the snipers came from an ultra-right-wing military organization known as Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO).

Image
Image
Image
IMAGE: Members of UNA-UNSO marching in Lviv.

Strange Ukraine ‘Nationalists’

The leader of UNA-UNSO, Andriy Shkil, ten years ago became an adviser to Julia Tymoshenko. UNA-UNSO, during the US-instigated 2003-2004 “Orange Revolution”, backed pro-NATO candidate Viktor Yushchenko against his pro-Russian opponent, Yanukovich. UNA-UNSO members provided security for the supporters of Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko on Independence Square in Kiev in 2003-4.◄4►

UNA-UNSO is also reported to have close ties to the German National Democratic Party (NDP). ◄5►

Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the crack-para-military UNA-UNSO members have been behind every revolt against Russian influence. The one connecting thread in their violent campaigns is always anti-Russia. The organization, according to veteran US intelligence sources, is part of a secret NATO “GLADIO” organization, and not a Ukraine nationalist group as portrayed in western media. ▼6▼

According to these sources, UNA-UNSO have been involved (confirmed officially) in the Lithuanian events in the Winter of 1991, the Soviet Coup d’etat in Summer 1991, the war for the Pridnister Republic 1992, the anti-Moscow Abkhazia War 1993, the Chechen War, the US-organized Kosovo Campaign Against the Serbs, and the August 8 2008 war in Georgia. According to these reports, UNA-UNSO para-military have been involved in every NATO dirty war in the post-cold war period, always fighting on behalf of NATO. “These people are the dangerous mercenaries used all over the world to fight NATO’s dirty war, and to frame Russia because this group pretends to be Russian special forces. THESE ARE THE BAD GUYS, forget about the window dressing nationalists, these are the men behind the sniper rifles,” these sources insist. ▼7▼

If true that UNA-UNSO is not “Ukrainian” opposition, but rather a highly secret NATO force using Ukraine as base, it would suggest that the EU peace compromise with the moderates was likely sabotaged by the one major player excluded from the Kiev 21 February diplomatic talks—Victoria Nuland’s State Department.◄8► Both Nuland and right-wing Republican US Senator John McCain have had contact with the leader of the Ukrainian opposition Svoboda Party, whose leader is openly anti-semitic and defends the deeds of a World War II Ukrainian SS-Galicia Division head.◄9► The party was registered in 1995, initially calling itself the “Social National Party of Ukraine” and using a swastika style logo. Svoboda is the electoral front for neo-nazi organizations in Ukraine such as UNA-UNSO.

One further indication that Nuland’s hand is shaping latest Ukraine events is the fact that the new Ukrainian Parliament is expected to nominate Nuland’s choice, Arseny Yatsenyuk, from Tymoshenko’s party, to be interim head of the new Cabinet.

Whatever the final truth, clear is that Washington has prepared a new economic rape of Ukraine using its control over the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF plunder of Ukraine Crown Jewels

Now that the “opposition” has driven a duly-elected president into exile somewhere unknown, and dissolved the national riot police, Berkut, Washington has demanded that Ukraine submit to onerous IMF conditionalities.

In negotiations last October, the IMF demanded that Ukraine double prices for gas and electricity to industry and homes, that they lift a ban on private sale of Ukraine’s rich agriculture lands, make a major overhaul of their economic holdings, devalue the currency, slash state funds for school children and the elderly to “balance the budget.” In return Ukraine would get a paltry $4 billion.

Before the ouster of the Moscow-leaning Yanukovich government last week, Moscow was prepared to buy some $15 billion of Ukraine debt and to slash its gas prices by fully one-third. Now, understandably, Russia is unlikely to give that support. The economic cooperation between Ukraine and Moscow was something Washington was determined to sabotage at all costs.

This drama is far from over. The stakes involve the very future of Russia, the EU-Russian relations, and the global power of Washington, or at least that faction in Washington that sees further wars as the prime instrument of policy.

Writer F. William Engdahl is a geopolitical analyst and the author of “Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order”.

Image
notes
Image Image

Image
Image
GlobalResearch.ca
Image
Image
Image

Tweet Image Tweet
Image
Image
Join the discussion:
You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)
Image

Re: In Ukraine, Chaos and Violence Hide Nefarious Role of US

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 9:48 pm
by Paul Kemp