Can Washington overthrow three governments at the same time? by Thierry Meyssan

"BEFORE OUR EYES"

Can Washington overthrow three governments at the same time?

by Thierry Meyssan

The power of a state is measured by its ability to defend itself and to attack on one or more fronts. In this context, Washington is trying for the first time to show it can overthrow three governments simultaneously: Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. If it succeeds, no government would be henceforth able to resist it.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS | 23 FEBRUARY 2014 

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Since when are revolutions supported by imperialism? (here: Maidan , Kiev).

Washington, which failed in 2011 to bomb Libya and Syria simultaneously, is now engaged in a new demonstration of its strength: organizing regime change in three states at the same time, in different regions of the world: Syria (CentCom), Ukraine (EuCom) and Venezuela (SouthCom).

To do this, President Obama has mobilized almost the entire National Security Council team.

First, Advisor Susan Rice and Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power. These two women are champions of "democratic" talk. They have for many years specialized in advocating interference in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretext of preventing genocide. But behind this generous rhetoric, they couldn’t care less about non-US lives as shown by Ms. Power during the chemical weapons crisis in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. The ambassador, who was aware of the innocence of the Syrian authorities, had gone to Europe with her husband to attend a film festival dedicated to Charlie Chaplin, while her government denounced a crime against humanity, the responsibility for which was placed upon President al Assad.

Then, the three regional co-ordinators: Philip Gordon ( Middle East and North Africa ), Karen Donfried (Europe and Eurasia ) and Ricardo Zuñiga ( Latin America). 

• Phil Gordon (personal friend and translator of Nicolas Sarkozy) organized the sabotage of the Geneva 2 Peace Conference as long as the Palestinian issue is not settled to the U.S. liking. During the second session of the conference, while John Kerry spoke of peace, Gordon met with the heads of Jordanian, Qatari , Saudi and Turkish intelligence services in Washington to prepare for yet another attack. The plotters have gathered an army of 13,000 men, of whom only 1,000 were given brief military training, to drive tanks and take Damascus. The problem is that the column may be destroyed by the Syrian Army before arriving in the capital. But they fail to agree on how to defend it without distributing anti-aircraft weapons that could later be used against Israel. 

• Karen Donfried is the former national intelligence officer for Europe. She has long led the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. Today, she manipulates the European Union to hide Washington interventionism in Ukraine. Despite the leak of a phone conversation involving Ambassador Victoria Nuland, she succeeded in convincing Europeans that the opposition in Kiev wanted to join them and was fighting for democracy. Nonetheless, more than half of the Maidan rioters are members of the Nazi party and brandish portraits of collaborator Stepan Bandera. 

• Finally, Ricardo Zuñiga is the grandson of the namesake President of the National Party of Honduras who organized the coups of 1963 and 1972 in favor of General López Arellano. He directed the CIA station in Havana where he recruited and financed agents to form opposition to Fidel Castro. He mobilized the extreme Trotskyist Venezuelan left to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, accused of being a Stalinist.

The whole process is hyped under the leadership of one Dan Rhodes. This propaganda specialist has already written the official version of September 11, 2001, drafting the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry. He managed to remove all traces of the military coup (power was removed from the hands of George W. Bush at about 10am and it was returned that evening; all the members of his cabinet and those of Congress were placed in secure bunkers "to ensure their safety") so that we remember only the attacks.

In all three cases, the U.S. narrative is based on the same principles: accuse governments of killing their own citizens, qualify opponents as ’democratic’; impose sanctions against the "murderers" and ultimately operate coups.

Each time, the movement begins with a demonstration during which peaceful opponents are killed, and where both sides accuse each other of violence. In fact U.S. or NATO special forces placed on rooftops shoot at both the crowd and the police. This was the case in Daraa (Syria) in 2011, Kiev (Ukraine) and Caracas (Venezuela) this week. Alas for bad luck: autopsies in Venezuela show that two victims, one opponent and one pro-government, were killed by the same weapon.

Qualifying opponents as democratic activists is a simple game of rhetoric. In Syria, they are Takfirists supported by the worst dictatorship in the world, Saudi Arabia. In Ukraine, a few sincere pro-Europeans surrounded by many Nazis. In Venezuela, young Trotskyists from good families surrounded by goon squads. Everywhere the false U.S. opponent, John McCain, brings his support to true and false on site opponents.

Support for opponents rests with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). This agency of the U.S. government falsely presents itself as an NGO funded by Congress. But it was created by President Ronald Reagan, in association with Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. It is headed by the neoconservative Carl Gershman and the daughter of General Alexander Haig (former Supreme Commander of NATO, then Secretary of State ), Barbara Haig. This is the NED (actually the State Department), which employs the "opposition" senator John McCain.

To this operating group, you must add the Albert Einstein Institute, an "NGO" funded by NATO. Created by Gene Sharp, it trained professional agitators from two bases: Serbia (Canvas) and Qatar (Academy of currency).

In all cases, Susan Rice and Samantha Power take on airs of outrage before imposing penalties, soon echoed by the European Union, while they are in fact the sponsors of the violence.

It remains to be seen whether the the coups will be successful. Which is far from being certain.

Washington is thus attempting to show the world it is still the master. To be more sure of itself, it launched the Ukrainian and Venezuelan operations during the Olympic Games in Sochi. It was certain that Russia would not move for fear of having its party upset by Islamist attacks. But Sochi ended this weekend. Now it’s Moscow’s turn to play.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Roger Lagassé

Source
Al-Watan (Syria)

THE ROVING EYE - Russian sanctions as war and farce - By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Russian sanctions as war and farce By Pepe Escobar If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as if it was not there - Marshal Georgy Zhukov Let's start with the serious stuff. As Russia's Federation Council ratifies a treaty with Crimea, concluding the formal annexation, Ukraine signs the political chapters of an association agreement with the European Union (EU). The signing of the full EU agreement will only happen later in 2014. These are the facts on the ground. Now let's turn to comedy hour - also known as the sanctions war. The oh-so democratic EU has punished the democratic Crimea referendum by sanctioning 33 Russians and Crimeans with asset freezes and travel bans, according to that Magritte-style walking fiction, European Council President Van Rompuy. The EU also canceled the EU-Russia summit in Sochi on June 3. And the vast, Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the European Commission (EC) has taken time out from subsidizing European cows to prepare for "possible economic sanctions", according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The EU is irretrievably split on what to do. Whatever it does, Moscow's capacity to make the EU badly hurt is stronger. There may be another meek set of sanctions next week, as Merkel advertised. But that's it. European poodle action mirrors His Master's Voice - as in US President Barack Obama solemnly imposing, by executive order, further sanctions on "senior officials of the Russian government." Other US targets are private businessmen close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Only exceptionalist logic legally allows sanctions on private individuals deemed responsible for political steps taken by the country they live in. International lawyers should have thought about sanctioning the entire US population for the Bush-Cheney junta's disaster. Well over 60% of Americans and Europeans are against a New Cold War against Russia. Putin's approval rating in Russia is around 75% - and arguably similar all across the developing world. Still, no one will lose money betting on the juvenile amateurism of the Obama administration. As if they and selected European minions could intimidate Moscow with some cosmetic "message". The American sanction religion, imposed with a conquistador/slave owner fury, did destroy Iraq for years - and was supposed to destroy Iran as well. But Russia is not Iraq or Iran. I love a man in sanction uniform Sanctioned Russians are not exactly quaking in their made-in-London brogues. After all, the practical impact of these sanctions is exactly zero. And most people targeted have minimal direct links with the US. The original American list included Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin and presidential aide Vladislav Surkov. They laughed it off, loudly - adding it felt like a badge of honor. The expanded list includes key Putin advisers and even some of his friends. Obama, Iran-style, sanctioned the Bank of Russia - a minor player (less than US$10 billion in assets; compare it with giant Sberbank at $528 billion). But Bank of Russia is used by some Gazprom subsidiaries for some low-key deals - even as Gazprom owns its own bank, GazpromBank. The "message" here is that Washington is watching Gazprom. Chief of Presidential Administration Sergei Ivanov is a key adviser on Ukraine and a top negotiator with the US, the EU and NATO. The - counterproductive - "message" implied here is that Moscow and Washington are not talking anything substantial in the immediate future. So much for the West's "diplomatic efforts". Then there's Yuri Kovalchuk, a board member of the Bank of Russia, a key business adviser and - allegedly, no conclusive evidence - Putin's personal banker. The message here is of the "I'm gonna git you sucka" kind. Finally, among the notables, there's Gennady Timchenko, who has absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine. He's an energy deal operator, controlling oil and natural gas trading firm Gunvor. In this case, the "message" is that the US will target Russia's energy deals. Message void, because the EU - which needs Gazprom badly - is not inclined to sanction Timchenko. Other sanctioned include the head of the Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov, Chief of Military Intelligence Igor Sergun and Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin. They are all part of the Russia-US team involved in the Northern Distribution Network - the long, across-Central Asia highway that will allow NATO to flee Afghanistan. A swift Moscow counter-attack would be to leave the Americans and Europeans hanging dry - or to close the NDN altogether. I want to be sanction-free Moscow, predictably, struck back. The Russian Foreign Ministry has "repeatedly" stressed that using sanctions is a "double-edged thing" and it will have a "boomerang" effect against the US. Already barred from entering Russia is a nasty bunch including the senile John McCain, plus Robert Menendez, Daniel Coats, Mary Landrieu, Harry Reid, John Boehner and Obama advisers such as the cosmic mediocrity Ben Rhodes. Vicky "F**k the EU" Nuland has not made the list - yet. Moscow is playing it cool because it may choose among a staggering array of counterpunches. It enjoys the support of the BRICS group of emerging powers, the non-aligned movement (NAM) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Composing with the US, Moscow agreed to impose sanctions on Iran, and is a key player in the P5+1 nuclear negotiations. If the sanction comedy goes on, Moscow has already announced it will play hardball with the P5+1, will cease to sanction Iran, and may even, finally, weaponize Tehran with jewels of the S-400 variety. Moscow - the number one oil and gas exporter on the planet - can also play further hardball with Europe's dependency on Gazprom; clinically target US companies working in Russia; speed up the BRICS-coordinated escape from the US dollar, as in a new international payment system in a basket of currencies for the BRICS as well as other emerging markets; and even activate the ultimate economic nuclear bomb - which is to accept payment for Russian oil and gas in ruble, yuan, euros or gold, thus delivering a terminal blow to the petrodollar. And that, ladies and gentlemen, will be the end of the comedy hour. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE How Crimea plays in Beijing By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE How Crimea plays in Beijing By Pepe Escobar "We are paying very close attention to the situation in Ukraine. We hope all parties can calmly maintain restraint to prevent the situation from further escalating and worsening. Political resolution and dialogue is the only way out." This, via Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong, is Beijing's quite measured, official interpretation of what's happening in Ukraine, tailored for global consumption. But here, in a People's Daily editorial, is what the leadership is really thinking. And the focus is clearly on the dangers of regime change, the "West's inability to understand the lessons of history", and "the final battlefield of the Cold War." Yet again the West misinterpreted China's abstention from the UN Security Council vote on a US-backed resolution condemning the Crimea referendum. The spin was that Russia - which vetoed the resolution - was "isolated". It's not. And the way Beijing plays geopolitics shows it's not. Oh, Samantha … The herd of elephants in the (Ukraine) room, in terms of global opinion, is how the authentic "international community" - from the G-20 to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) - who has had enough of the Exceptionalist Hypocrisy Show, has fully understood, and even applauded, that at least one country on the planet has the balls to clearly say "F**k the US". Russia under President Vladimir Putin may harbor quite a few distortions, just like any other nation. But this is not a dinner party; this is realpolitik. To face down the US Leviathan, nothing short of a bad ass such as Putin will suffice. NATO - or shorthand for the Pentagon dominating European wimps - keeps issuing threats and spewing out "consequences". What are they going to do - launch a barrage of ICBMs equipped with nuclear warheads against Moscow? Furthermore, the UN Security Council itself is a joke, with US ambassador Samantha "Nothing Compares to You" Power - one of the mothers of R2P ("responsibility to protect") - carping on "Russian aggression", "Russian provocations" and comparing the Crimean referendum to a theft. Oh yes; bombing Iraq, bombing Libya and getting to the brink of bombing Syria were just innocent humanitarian gestures. Samantha The Humanitarian arguably gives a better performance invoking Sinead O'Connor in her shower. Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin was polite enough to say, "these insults addressed to our country" are "unacceptable". It's what he added that carried the real juice; "If the delegation of the United States of America expects our cooperation in the Security Council on other issues, then Power must understand this quite clearly." Samantha The Humanitarian, as well as the whole bunch of juvenile bystanders in the Obama administration, won't understand it. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov gave them a little help; Russia didn't want to use the Iranian nuclear talks to "raise the stakes", but if the US and the EU continue with their sanctions and threats, that's what's going to happen. So the plot thickens - as in a closer and closer strategic partnership between Tehran and Moscow. Secessionists of the world, unite?  Now imagine all this as seen from Beijing. No one knows what exactly goes on in the corridors of the Zhongnanhai, but it's fair to argue there's only an apparent contradiction between China's key principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, and Russia's intervention in Crimea. Beijing has identified very clearly the sequence of affairs; long-running Western interference in Ukraine via NGOs and the State Department; regime change perpetrated with the help of fascists and neo-nazis; a pre-emptive Russian counterattack which can be read as a by-the-book Samantha The Humanitarian R2P operation (protecting Russians and Russian speakers from a second coup planned in Crimea, and thwarted by Russian intelligence.) On top of it Beijing well knows how Crimea has been essentially Russian since 1783; how Crimea - as well as a great deal of Ukraine - fall smack into Russian civilization's sphere of influence; and how Western interference directly threatened Russia's national security interests (as Putin made it clear.) Now imagine a similar scenario in Tibet or Xinjiang. Long-running Western interference via NGOs and the CIA; a take over by Tibetans in Lhasa or Uighurs in Kashgar of the local administration. Beijing could easily use Samantha's R2P in the name of protecting Han Chinese. Yet Beijing (silently) agreeing to the Russian response to the coup in Kiev by getting Crimea back via a referendum and without a shot fired does not mean that "splittists" Tibet or Taiwan would be allowed to engage in the same route. Even as Tibet, more than Taiwan, would be able to build a strong historical case for seceding. Each case bears its own myriad complexities. The Obama administration - like a blind Minotaur - is now lost in a labyrinth of pivots of its own making. A new Borges - that Buddha in a gray suit - is needed to tell the tale. First there was the pivoting to Asia-Pac - which is encircling of China under another name - as it's well understood in Beijing. Then came the pivoting to Persia - "if we are not going to war", as that Cypher in Search of an Idea, John Kerry, put it. There was, of course, the martial pivoting to Syria, aborted at the last minute thanks to the good offices of Moscow diplomacy. And back to the pivoting to Russia, trampling the much-lauded "reset" and conceived as a payback for Syria. Those who believe Beijing strategists have not carefully analyzed - and calculated a response - to all the implications of these overlapping pivots do deserve to join Samantha in the shower. Additionally, it's easy to picture Chinese Think Tankland hardly repressing its glee in analyzing a hyperpower endlessly, helplessly pivoting over itself. While the Western dogs bark … Russia and China are strategic partners - at the G-20, at the BRICS club of emerging powers and at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Their number one objective, in these and other forums, is the emergence of a multipolar world; no bullying by the American Empire of Bases, a more balanced international financial system, no more petrodollar eminence, a basket of currencies, essentially a "win-win" approach to global economic development. A multipolar world also implies, by definition, NATO out of Eurasia - which is from Washington's point of view the number one reason to interfere in Ukraine. In Eurasian terms, it's as if - being booted out of Afghanistan by a bunch of peasants with Kalashnikovs - NATO was pivoting back via Ukraine. While Russia and China are key strategic partners in the energy sphere - Pipelineistan and beyond - they do overlap in their race to do deals across Central Asia. Beijing is building not only one but two New Silk Roads - across Southeast Asia and across Central Asia, involving pipelines, railways and fiber optic networks, and reaching as far as Istanbul, the getaway to Europe. Yet as far as Russia-China competition for markets go, all across Eurasia, it's more under a "win-win" umbrella than a zero-sum game. On Ukraine ("the last battlefield in the Cold War") and specifically Crimea, the (unspoken) official position by Beijing is absolute neutrality (re: the UN vote). Yet the real deal is support to Moscow. But this could never be out in the open, because Beijing is not interested in antagonizing the West, unless heavily provoked (the pivoting becoming hardcore encirclement, for instance). Never forget; since Deng Xiaoping ("keep a low profile") this is, and will continue to be, about China's "peaceful rise". Meanwhile, the Western dogs bark, and the Sino-Russian caravan passes. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE Russia 1, Regime Changers 0 By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Russia 1, Regime Changers 0 By Pepe Escobar Let's cut to the chase - short and sweet. 1. The Obama administration's "strategic" gambit to subcontract the State Department's "Khaganate of Nulands" to extricate Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence - and ultimately annex it to NATO - by instrumentalizing a coalition of willing neo-nazis and fascists with a central bank veneer (prime minister "Yats"), is in utter shambles. 2. Moscow's counterpunch was to prevent in Crimea - as intercepted by Russian intelligence - a planned replay of the putsch in Kiev. The referendum in Crimea - 85% of turnout, roughly 93% voting for re-joining Russia, according to exit polls - is a done deal, as much as the oh-so-democratic European Union (EU) keeps threatening to punish people in Crimea for exercising their basic democratic rights. (By the way, when the US got Kosovo to secede from Serbia, Serbians were offered no referendum). 3. The main rationale for the whole US "strategic" advance - to have their proxies, the regime changers in Kiev, cancel the agreement for the Russian naval base in Sevastopol - is up in smoke. Moscow remains present in the Black Sea and with full access to the Eastern Mediterranean. And the rest is blah blah blah. All aboard the Finland station  The US State Department has practically agreed to a federal and in fact Finlandized Ukraine [1] which, by the way, is the solution being proposed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov right from the start, as this Russian white paper attests. US Secretary of State John Kerry - as when Moscow saved the "red line" Obama administration from bombing Syria - will go on overdrive to steal all the credit from the Russians. US corporate media will duly buy it, but not independents such as Moon of Alabama. [2] This - sensible - road map implies, among other crucial points; strong autonomous regions; Russian reinstated as an official language, alongside Ukrainian; and most of all political/military neutrality, that is, Finlandization. To get there will be the mission of a support group - once again, proposed by Moscow from the start - with the US, EU and Russia as members. All that finally sanctified by a UN Security Council resolution (true, it could go spectacularly wrong, and most of all sabotaged by the "West".) And all that, as well, without Moscow having to officially recognize the regime changers in Kiev. In a nutshell; Moscow called Washington's bluff - and won. So after all that barrage of ominous threats including everyone from Obama, Kerry and assorted neo-con bomb-firsters down to minions such as Cameron, Hague and Fabius, the meat of the matter is that the Obama administration concluded it would not risk a nuclear war with Russia for the Khaganate of Nulands - especially after Moscow made it known, discreetly, it would create the conditions for eastern and southern Ukraine to also secede. Sweden, for instance, proposed an arms embargo on sales to Moscow. Paris took a quick glance at its industrial-military complex interests and immediately said no. Only the brain dead entertain the notion Paris and Berlin are willing to jeopardize their trade relations with Russia. As well as the notion that Beijing would ever join sanctions against fellow Group of 20, BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization member Russia just because what they perceive as an increasingly irrational - and dangerous - Washington said so. And yet, Western hysteria of course will persist unabated. In the US, where it matters, the meme of the subsequent days will be, inevitably, who lost Syria and who lost Ukraine. Here's the record. Dubya launched two wars. He (miserably) lost both. Obama attempted to launch two wars (Syria and Ukraine). He - lucky for him - lost both even at the "attempt" stage. Assorted neo-cons and the whole exceptionalist brigade are predictably livid. Expect the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal to go ballistic. And expect US ambassador to the UN Samantha "R2P" Power to wish she were Sinead O'Connor singing Nothing Compares to You. It's a gas, gas, gas, not! The Kiev regime-changers are already announcing their intentions, as in Right Sector capo and confirmed neo-nazi Dmytro Yarosh saying, "… Russia makes money sending its oil through our pipelines to the West. We will destroy these pipelines and deprive our enemy of its source of income." That's a brilliant strategy straight from the Khaganate of Nulands playbook. So homes and the whole industrial base in Ukraine should be out of (cheap, discounted) gas, not to mention great swathes of Germany, so the neo-nazis can claim "victory". With friends like these … Gazprom's executives are not exactly raising an eyebrow. Russia is already shipping roughly half of its gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine, and after South Stream is completed in 2015, that percentage will increase (EU "sanctions" against South Stream are just empty rhetoric.) The regime changers will be trying to wreak havoc in other fronts as well. The new Ukrainian parliament has voted to assemble a 60,000-strong National Guard crammed with "activists". Guess who will be in charge; the new security chief, Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders of the neo-nazi Social-National Party. And his deputy happens to be none other than Yarosh, the leader of the paramilitary Right Sector. Feel free to add your own custom-made Hitlerian metaphors - even as the risk persists of Ukraine breaking apart. Which is not necessarily a bad deal. Let the "democratic" EU pay Ukraine's gas bills. Notes: 1. Lavrov, Kerry agree to work on constitutional reform in Ukraine: Russian ministry, Reuters, March 16, 2014. 2. Ukraine: U.S. Takes Off-Ramp, Agrees To Russian Demands, Moon of Alabama, March 16, 2014. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.