THE ROVING EYE Crimea and Western 'values' By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Crimea and Western 'values' By Pepe Escobar Every sane sentient being knows that Ukraine's "unity" is not worth a new hot or warm war. Or even the current Western-peddled Cold War-style hysteria. Especially when Russia, once again, fights fascism - as embodied by some of the key players now in power in Kiev, and the US and EU's response is to relentlessly demonize Russia. Crimea - historically, culturally, sentimentally - is Russian, conquered by Catherine the Great from the Ottomans in 1783. Sevastopol was founded by Catherine. If a swing band would play a version of I Left My Heart in Sevastopol, all hearts involved would be Russian. Yet those eminent Western practitioners of state idolatry have ruled that the population of Crimea has no right to conduct a referendum to decide its future - be it rejoining Russia or remaining in Ukraine with a huge degree of autonomy, according to the 1992 constitution. The eminences could not possibly admit that does not suit their geopolitical power play. Thus the current Mass; a ritualistic, hysterical invoking in unison of "international law" (Obama), (distorted) history and even morality (in the US's case, considering the historical record, a positively dreadful joke). No question the original inhabitants of Crimea are the Tatars - whose rights will be fully protected in a new Crimea. They had not achieved their self-determination for the same reason Native Americans also did not. Yet much more alarming in the whole case is how the West once again conveniently, selectively manipulates the arbitrary carving of colonized lands - the key reason of ongoing, intractable geopolitical disasters. South Sudan's independence was obsessively fought for by Washington - helped by Hollywood clones of the Clooney variety. The pretext was to correct an arbitrary colonial carving. So that applies to Sudan, but it does not apply to Crimea. Thomas Jefferson's "insurgents" had the right to rebel against the British, but Crimeans cannot rebel against what most view as an illegal, fascist-laden, putschist regime in Kiev. [1] And that is superimposed on an arbitrary colonial carving; Ukrainian-born former premier Nikita Khrushchev, then at the head of the USSR, gave Crimea away to Ukraine, in the name of Soviet solidarity, without a Crimean referendum. Washington - via a NATO war - dismantled the former Yugoslavia in the name of the "right of nations". While Crimea is not allowed a peaceful referendum, Kosovo - essentially a drug mafia scam - had the right to be "liberated". It would be so complicated to explain to public opinion that was essential for the maintenance of Camp Bondsteel - the largest military base outside of the US. The Empire of Bases trumps any "right of nations". The arbitrary carving of the Pakistani tribal areas via the Durand Line - yet another imperial British masterpiece - is the key reason for Pakistan and Afghanistan being eternally at odds. But that suits the Empire - even at the risk of miserably losing a war (NATO in Afghanistan), because that keeps it "involved" in the crucial intersection of Central and South Asia, close to both China and Russia. These few examples - Iraq in itself would be worth zillions of bytes - show there are no "international law" or universal values. Only when the Empire says so. Flying blindly into the night Obama's foreign policy could now be interpreted as the geopolitical equivalent of the doomed Malaysia Airlines Boeing, flying blindly into the deep Asian night before a fatal plunge (into the Indian Ocean?) - taking with it a load of unsuspected costumers. The New Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia proceeds with its infernal logic. Russia should be sanctioned because it's not behaving like a true democracy - those that are allowed to bomb Iraq and Libya and support weaponized jihadis in Syria, always for a good, uplifting reason. Would the Khaganate of Nulands gang in Washington have the balls to force Obama to sanction "communist China" because they illegally occupy Tibet and Xinjiang, without the consent of their original Tibetan and Uighur inhabitants, which will never be offered even the dream of a referendum? Obama said, "We completely reject a referendum patched together in a few weeks with Russian military personnel basically taking over Crimea." What he could not say is that the new supplicant puppet - interim prime minister "Yats" - has already kneeled before the Emperor; his "foundation" has been supported by the usual suspects (including the NED, the State Department and NATO ) [2]; and that "teams from the Treasury and Justice departments and the FBI" have been to Kiev to "to unravel the kleptocracy of Yanukovych's deposed government", as the proverbial "officials" put it to US corporate media - leading to furious, unconfirmed rumors that all Ukrainian gold deposits may have already been shipped to the US, in what would be a regal repayment for the US$5 billion or so (copyright Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland) Washington has spent to advance regime change. Once again; this is always about NATO encroaching on Ukraine and the regime changers trying some ruse to deprive Russia from its naval base in Sevastopol. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, is already on a charm offensiveplugging "treaty obligations with our NATO allies", under the (false) premise that Moscow is about to invade Ukraine (which is not even part of NATO - yet). And this is also about Pipelineistan [3]; not accidentally, Crimean Supreme Council speaker Vladimir Konstantinov already stated that Crimea wants Gazprom to develop the peninsula's oil and natural gas deposits, and not US Big Oil. In the threat game, Russia's Deputy Economy Minister Alexei Likhachev already announced "symmetrical" sanctions if the EU proceeds with their own. That aspiring Metternich, John Kerry, issued a deadline to Moscow. It takes China to behave sensibly. Shi Mingde, the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, said that, "sanctions could lead to retaliatory action, and that would trigger a spiral with unforeseeable consequences … We don't see any point in sanctions." As much as non-brainwashed world public opinion don't see any point in the West's moral lessons. Notes: 1. Kiev Snipers Shooting From Bldg Controlled By Maidan Forces – Ex-Ukraine Security Chief, RT, March 13, 2014. 2. See here. 3. Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry, The Guardian, March 6, 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.

THE ROVING EYE The new Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE The new Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia By Pepe Escobar In Ukraine, the West supported an unconstitutional putsch against an elected government perpetrated, among others, by fascist/neo-nazi storm troopers (Svoboda, Right Sector) instrumentalized by US intelligence. After a Russian counterpunch, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that any referendum in Crimea would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and violate international law." This is just the latest instance in the serial rape of "international law". The rap sheet is humongous, including; NATO bombing Serbia for 78 days in 1999 to allow Kosovo to secede; the 2003 US invasion and subsequent trillion-dollar occupation and civil war creation in Iraq; NATO/AFRICOM bombing Libya in 2011 invoking R2P ("responsibility to protect") as a cover to provoking regime change; US investment in the secession of oil-wealthy South Sudan, so China has to deal with an extra geopolitical headache; and US investment in perennial civil war in Syria. Yet Moscow still (foolishly?) believes international law should be respected - presenting to the UN Security Council classified information on all Western intel/psy-ops moves leading to the coup in Kiev, including "training" provided by Poland and Lithuania, not to mention Turkish intelligence involvement in setting up a second coup in Crimea. Russian diplomats called for an unbiased international investigation. That will never happen; Washington's narrative would be completely debunked. Thus a US veto at the UN. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also called for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to objectively investigate those snipers shooting everyone on sight in Kiev, as revealed by Estonia's foreign minister to EU foreign policy supremo Catherine "I love Yats" Ashton. According to Russia's ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, "a completely different picture would be drawn compared to what is being depicted by American media and, unfortunately, by some American and European politicians." Needless to say, there will be no investigation. Hi, I'm your good neo-nazi Everyone remembers the "good Taliban", with which the US could negotiate in Afghanistan. Then came the "good al-Qaeda", jihadis the US could support in Syria. Now come the "good neo-nazis", with which the West can do business in Kiev. Soon there will be "the good jihadis supporting neo-nazis", who may be deployed to advance US/NATO and anti-Russian designs in Crimea and beyond. After all, Obama mentor Dr Zbigniew "The Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski is the godfather of good jihadis, fully weaponized to fight the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan. As facts on the ground go, neo-nazis are definitely back as good guys. For the first time since the end of World War II, fascists and neo-nazis are at the helm of a European nation (although Ukraine most of all should be characterized as the key swing nation in Eurasia). Few in the West seem to have noticed it. The cast of characters include Ukrainian interim defense minister and former student at the Pentagon Ihor Tenyukh; deputy prime minister for economic affairs and Svoboda ideologue Oleksandr Sych; agro-oligarch minister of agriculture Ihor Svaika (Monsanto, after all, needs a chief enforcer); National Security Council chief and Maidan commander of Right Sector neo-nazis Andry Parubiy; and deputy National Security Council chief Dmytro Yarosh, the founder Right Sector. Not to mention Svoboda leader Oleh Tyanhybok, a close pal of John McCain and Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland, and active proponent of an Ukraine free from the "Muscovite-Jewish mafia." As the Kremlin refuses to deal with this bunch and the upcoming March 16 referendum in Crimea is practically a done deal, Team "Yats" is fully legitimized, with honors, by Team Obama, leader included, in Washington. To quote Lenin, what is to be done? A close reading of President Putin's moves would suggest an answer: nothing. As in just waiting, while outsourcing the immediate future of a spectacularly bankrupt Ukraine to the EU. The EU is impotent to rescue even the Club Med countries. Inevitably, sooner or later, threat of sanctions or not, it will come crawling back to Moscow seeking "concessions", so Russia may also foot the bill. Meanwhile, in Pipelineistan … Meanwhile, the New Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia advances unabated. Moscow would willingly compromise on a neutral Ukraine - even with neo-nazis in power in Kiev. But an Ukraine attached to NATO is an absolute red line. By the way, NATO is "monitoring" Ukraine with AWACS deployed in Polish and Romanian airspace. So as the much lauded "reset" between the Kremlin and the Obama administration is for all practical purposes six feet under (with no Hollywood-style second coming in the cards), what's left is the dangerous threat game. Deployed not only by the Empire, but also by the minions. That monster collection of Magritte-style faceless bureaucrats at the European Commission (EU), following on the non-stop threat of EU sanctions, has decided to delay a decision on whether Gazprom may sell more gas through the OPAL pipeline in Germany, and also delay negotiations on the legal status of South Stream, the pipeline under the Black Sea which should become operational in 2015. As if the EU had any feasible Plan B to escape its dependency on Russian gas (not to mention eschew the very profitable financial game played between key European capitals and Moscow). What are they do, import gas on Qatar Airways flights? Buy LNG from the US - something that will not be feasible in years to come? The fact is the minute a gas war is on, if it ever comes down to it, the EU will be under immense pressure by a host of member-nations to keep (and even extend) its Russian gas fix - with or without "our (neo-nazi) bastards" in power in Kiev. Brussels knows it. And most of all, Vlad the Hammer knows it. 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 Brzezinski plan for the "Finlandization" of Ukraine and Balkanization of Russia

The Brzezinski plan for the "Finlandization" of Ukraine and Balkanization of Russia

It would not be entirely correct to refer to former Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski as a "neo-con." Brzezinski, a nationalist Polish-American Catholic has earned successive rebukes from the hard core neo-cons for his perceived "anti-Israel" bias. However, when it comes to Russia, there is little difference between the rabidly anti-Russian Brzezinski, who sees Eurasia as a massive chess board, and his erstwhile neo-con colleagues of the "AIPAC persuasion."

Brzezinski has offered both the Obama administration and the coup leaders in Kiev advice on how to limit Russian influence in Ukraine while punishing Moscow for its move to take control of majority-Russian Crimea from Ukraine. One of the reasons why President Obama's academic records from Columbia University have been sealed is a strong belief that Obama participated in Brzezinski's high-level Soviet policy graduate-level classes before the future president joined Business International Corporation, a CIA front that sent journalists and economists under cover to eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to collect intelligence.

Brzezinski's 1998 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, sees Eurasia as a natural expansion zone for American influence. Brzezinski is a promoter of Halfrod Mackinder's "Heartland" theory, which postulates that any country that controls the Eurasian landmass, controls the world.

Mackinder wrote in 1919, "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island controls the world." Mackinder's theory was at the heart of the desire of the Third Reich, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union to dominate the Heartland. Brzezinski and the more Zionist-leaning neo-cons have adopted the Heartland theory as key to the plan to have the United States dominate the world in the 21st century. However, there have been a number of stumbling blocks, including Ukraine's former close ties with Russia, the embryonic "Eurasian Union" of Russia and the central Asian "stans," and the Shnghahi Cooperation Organization "counter-NATO" alliance of the Russian Federation and People's Republic of China.

With the fall of Ukraine to a group of pro-Western technocrats, trained and funded by Brzezinski's old friend George Soros, who are allied with neo-Nazis and Ukrainian right-wing nationalists, Brzezinski and his fellow travelers see a golden opportunity to march on Moscow. Brzezinski sees Western control of Ukraine as key to eventual Western control of Russia.

Brzezinski has referred to the Ukrainian junta that seized power in a coup, the "new Ukrainian democracy." Ukraine today is no more a democracy than Georgia was after a coup placed Mikheil Saakashvili, a Brzezinski and Soros acolyte, in the presidential palace in Tbilisi. Georgia immediately began threatening the autonomy of pro-Russian Abkhazians and South Ossetians, prompting Russia to deploy protective forces to the two Georgian autonomous republics. Russia's similar deployment of troops to protect the Russian majority in the Crimean autonomous republic of Ukraine is a further carrying out of the Putin Doctrine, which calls for Russia to protect ethnic Russians and other pro-Russian ethnic groups like the Abkhaz and South Ossetians in Russia's "Near Abroad" from the machinations of Western-installed nationalist and anti-Russian regimes.

Not coincidentally, the same day the coup leaders took over power in Kiev, February 22, the Financial Times, which is owned by the Pearson Group, the same company that controls The Economist Group, which absorbed Obama's old Business International Corporation employer in 1986, ran a Brzezinski article titled "Russia Needs to be Offered a ‘Finland Option’ for Ukraine." In the article, Brzezinski says that Ukraine must be absorbed into the European Union as quickly as possible and that Putin's idea of a Eurasian Union must be deterred at all levels, including economically and politically.

Although Brzezinski wants to assuage Russia by calling for the "Finlandization" of Ukraine, in other words, no NATO membership for Ukraine but no division of Ukraine and "mutual respect" between Moscow and Kiev, it is well known that the Finland model no longer applies in Europe. Today, Finland is, for all practical purposes, a de facto member of NATO, with its forces constantly participating in NATO exercises. In addition, it is well known to Brzezinski that during the Cold War, Finnish intelligence covertly cooperated with both the CIA and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

What Brzezinski actually sees for eastern Europe is not "Finlandization" of Ukraine but "Balkanization" of Russia, similar to what NATO accomplished when it divided Yugoslavia into seven separate republics, including one that never had any basis for independence, Kosovo. Crimea, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia have more legal grounds for independence than does Kosovo, an Albanian region of Serbia, governed by mafiosi smugglers and carved out by NATO to ensure a continued military presence for the U.S. and its allies in the Balkans.

Some members of the Ukrainian coup government, including the newSecretary of the National Security and Defense Council Andriy Parubiy, have made common cause with Chechen and other Islamist guerrillas inside Russia. Their goals are the same of those of Brzezinski: the eventual carving up of the Russian Federation into a more easily manageable group of smaller states controlled by the European Union and NATO.
















The Brzezinski-neocon plan: A "Balkanized" Russia consisting of as many as 80 mini-states.

The early plans for the then-Soviet Union can be seen in a propaganda pamphlet discovered in the CIA's archives from 1968. The pamphlet, produced by Hungarian anti-Soviet emigres in New York, states what CIA-supported eastern Europe nationalists, the fathers of the neo-Nazis now controlling part of the Ukraniian government, had in store for what was described as the Soviet "Paradise of the Workers":

"The very existence of the Soviet Union started in 1462 by the Grand Ducky of Muskovy. Czarist Russia expansion by territories of the peoples in European part of the Euro-Asian continent is: 1492-1505: Samoyeds, Nentsis-Samoyeds, Komi-Zyrians, Permiaks, Kereliansl 1505-1682: Edmurts, Tartars, Bashkirs, Mordovians, Uralian Cossacks, Kalmucks, Cossacks on the Don, Cossacks on the Terek, Little Russians, Ukrainians; 1682-1725: Estonians; 1725-1796: Latvians, Lithuanians, White Russians; 1796-1825: Karachays, Ossentins, Kabardinians, Daghesti, Armenians, Azerbaidzhani, Cherkessi, Abhazi, Rumanians, Bessarabians, Poles, Fins [sic]; 1825-1881: Georgians.

The Soviet Union followed the imperialism of the Czarist Russia. 1920-1921: Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan; 1939-1945: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania; after 1945 with more or less results: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and the Eastern part of Germany.

In Asia: 1462-1584: Mari, Chuvashi, Udmurts, Manis-Voguls, Nentsis-Samoyeds, Ostyak-Khantys; 1584-1689: Evenkis-Tungus, Yakuts, Khakassis, Tuvinians, Buryats-Mongols, Yukagirs, Chukchis-Luravetianys, Koryaks, Nymylanys, Kamchadatics; 1689-1796: Oyrots, Altasi, Khalkas; 1796-1914: Kara-Kalpaks, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Tadshiks, Kirghisi, Kurds. After 1945: Kurils Islands and Sakhalin."

The Hungarian expatriate monograph states: "Some names appear twice, since those peoples lived in European as well as Asian territory. Also, because some of them were liberated then subjugated again." As evidence that the new leadership in Ukraine is in lockstep with the ilk who penned the aforementioned tract are statements from the new chief of the Ukrainian Security Service, Valentin Nalivaychenko, that refer to his neo-Nazi followers' plans to "liberate" historical Ukrainian lands in the Kuban region , which lies east of the Sea of Azov in the Russian motherland.


Ukraine's neo-Nazi government leaders want Ukraine to seize and annex Russia's Kuban region.

It is interesting that the CIA, in promoting certain Hungarian exile groups, was giving assistance to other beliefs from right-wing eastern European emigres, including hatred for the Kennedy family. The authors of the above monograph, published on September 1, 1968, three months after Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, criticized the "glorification" of the "Kennedy clan." Today Caroline Kennedy serves as Obama's ambassador to Tokyo, representing a State Department that has made common cause with the sons and grandsons of those who took pleasure in the assassinations of her father and uncle.

The Anti-Empire Report #126 - By William Blum

The Anti-Empire Report #126

By William Blum – Published March 7th, 2014

12

Ukraine

When it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the larger, long-term picture.

The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or irony.

And who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)

Since the end of the Cold War the United States has been surrounding Russia, building one base after another, ceaselessly looking for new ones, including in Ukraine; one missile site after another, with Moscow in range; NATO has grabbed one former Soviet Republic after another. The White House, and the unquestioning American mainstream media, have assured us that such operations have nothing to do with Russia. And Russia has been told the same, much to Moscow’s continuous skepticism. “Look,” said Russian president Vladimir Putin about NATO some years ago, “is this is a military organization? Yes, it’s military. … Is it moving towards our border? It’s moving towards our border. Why?” 

The Holy Triumvirate would love to rip Ukraine from the Moscow bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on Russia’s border. (In case you were wondering what prompted the Russian military action.) Kiev’s membership in the EU would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neo-conservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family; but no price is too great to pay to for being part of glorious Europe and the West!

The Ukrainian insurgents and their Western-power supporters didn’t care who their Ukrainian allies were in carrying out their coup against President Viktor Yanukovych last month … thugs who set policemen on fire head to toe … all manner of extreme right-wingers, including Chechnyan Islamic militants  … a deputy of the ultra-right Svoboda Party, part of the new government, who threatens to rebuild Ukraine’s nukes in three to six months.  … the snipers firing on the protestors who apparently were not what they appeared to be – A bugged phone conversation between Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, reveals Paet saying: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.”  … neo-Nazi protestors in Kiev who have openly denounced Jews, hoisting a banner honoring Stepan Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on February 24 that Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman advised “Kiev’s Jews to leave the city and even the country.” Edward Dolinsky, head of an umbrella organization of Ukrainian Jews, described the situation for Ukrainian Jews as “dire” and requested Israel’s help.

All in all a questionable gang of allies for a dubious cause; reminiscent of the Kosovo Liberation Army thugs Washington put into power for an earlier regime change, and has kept in power since 1999.

The now-famous recorded phone conversation between top US State Department official Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to the Ukraine, wherein they discuss which Ukrainians would be to Washington’s liking in a new government, and which not, is an example of this regime-change mentality. Nuland’s choice, Arseniy Yatseniuk, emerged as interim prime minister.

The National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against states not in love with US foreign policy, is Washington’s foremost non-military tool for effecting regime change. The NED website lists 65 projects that it has supported financially in recent years in Ukraine.  The descriptions NED gives to the projects don’t reveal the fact that generally their programs impart the basic philosophy that working people and other citizens are best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation, collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the economy, and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market economy is equated with democracy, reform, and growth; and the merits of foreign investment in their economy are emphasized.

The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, declared in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” 

NED, receives virtually all its financing from the US government ($5 billion in total since 1991  ), but it likes to refer to itself as an NGO (Non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO. Its long-time intervention in Ukraine is as supra-legal as the Russian military deployment there. Journalist Robert Parry has observed:

For NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic “reforms” required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for “regime change.”

Thus, we have to ask, as Mr. Putin asked – “Why?” Why has NED been funding 65 projects in one foreign country? Why were Washington officials grooming a replacement for President Yanukovych, legally and democratically elected in 2010, who, in the face of protests, moved elections up so he could have been voted out of office – not thrown out by a mob? Yanukovych made repeated important concessions, including amnesty for those arrested and offering, on January 25, to make two of his adversaries prime minister and deputy prime minister; all to no avail; key elements of the protestors, and those behind them, wanted their putsch.

Carl Gershman, president of NED, wrote last September that “Ukraine is the biggest prize”.  The man knows whereof he speaks. He has presided over NED since its beginning, overseeing the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003), the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004), the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (2005), the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (2005), the Green Revolution in Iran (2009), and now Ukraine once again. It’s as if the Cold War never ended.

The current unbridled animosity of the American media toward Putin also reflects an old practice. The United States is so accustomed to world leaders holding their tongue and not voicing criticism of Washington’s policies appropriate to the criminality of those policies, that when a Vladimir Putin comes along and expresses even a relatively mild condemnation he is labeled Public Enemy Number One and his words are accordingly ridiculed or ignored.

On March 2 US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned Russia’s “incredible act of aggression” in Ukraine (Crimea) and threatened economic sanctions. “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.” 

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

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

Love among nations

by Viktor Dedaj, Paris, France

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

EU: But you said you loved me!

US: (sigh) There you go again.

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

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

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

US: Yeah, yeah, blah, blah …

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

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

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

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

EU: Are you going to hit me?

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

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

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

EU: Oh Sam … Sam …

A Question re: Syria

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

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

Dialogue with readers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Think again.”

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

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

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

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

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

12

Notes

1. Guardian Weekly (London), June 27, 2001
2. RT television (RT.com, Moscow/Washington, DC), March 1, 2014
3. Deputy Mikhail Golovko, RT, March 1, 2014
4. RT, March 5, 2014, “The EU’s Ukraine policy and moral bankruptcy”; the phone conversation is believed to have taken place February 26.
5. NED 2012 Annual Report
6. Washington Post, September 22, 1991
7. Victoria Nuland, speaking at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, December 13, 2013
8. Washington Post, September 26, 2013
9. “Face the Nation”, CBS, March 2, 2014

Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to this website are given.

"Soros Eruption" and "sleeper agents" at RT: subtle warning signs were there all along threatening unbiased news coverage

"Soros Eruption" at RT: subtle warning signs were there all along

Three years ago, this editor forecast the downward spiral which has led to the recent on-air diatribes by two RT (formerly Russia Today) anchors against Russia's policy of ensuring security in the majority ethnic Russian autonomous republic of Crimea in Ukraine. In 2008, I became the first American journalist to provide RT with a regularly-scheduled live news feed (12 noon Moscow time, 4:00 am Eastern time) from RT's original studio on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC. After RT moved to a larger broadcasting facility on G Street in Washington, thus expanding its broadcast operations, this editor became a regular commentator on RT, appearing at least three times a week on the network and additionally, for breaking news stories, and for commentary on RT's Spanish and Arabic language broadcasts.

RT's satellite news broadcasts in English, Spanish, and Arabic reached an estimated 380 million people around the world. With its expanding news coverage and influence, RT caught the attention of both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors chairman Walter Isaacson. In October 2010, Isaacson called RT and other broadcasters, including Press TV of Iran and CCTV of China, "autocratic" and enemies of the United States.

That same month, radio broadcaster and self-proclaimed "progressive" Thom Hartmann relocated his radio and television programs from Portland, Oregon to Washington, DC. Hartmann's radio program broadcast from studios of the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) in Washington, DC. Soros is an avowed enemy of the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the hedge fund multi-billionaire funds many of the domestic pressure groups against Putin in Russia, including the notorious Pussy Riot.

After signing off on his afternoon radio show at the CAP offices on H Street, Hartmann walked around the corner to RT's studio on G Street to air his one-half to one-hour television program.

Only weeks after Hartmann began showing up at RT's studios, there were subtle changes at the network and none of them were for the better. In addition to my own schedule of three appearances per week being pared back, it was apparent that RT was losing some of its veteran reporters and anchors, in addition to my own producer. Eventually, loyal anchors were replaced with newcomers like Liz Wahl and Abby Martin.

Earlier discussions about this editor co-hosting an on-air debate program called CrossTalk with Peter Lavelle in Moscow and a solo interview program in Washington were replaced by last-minute canceled appearances by the network.

By the summer of 2011, many former fans of RT in Washington, DC, including some who would recognize me on the streets, subways, and at the National Press Club, asked about RT "losing its bite." I merely explained to them that there had been some "changes" at the network.

In March 2011, Mrs. Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that she was concerned that RT, Al Jazeera, and CCTV were outgunning the United States in the propaganda war. Of course, Clinton wanted more money for Isaacson's operations at the BBG.

After Clinton's warnings about RT, this editor heard rumors at RT that Russia was being pressured by the Obama administration to tone down what the White House and State Department considered "anti-American" rhetoric on the network. In 2011, Russia was negotiating its membership of the World Trade Organization and the message from Washington was clear: curtail the rhetoric or face problems with WTO membership. Russia acceded to the WTO in 2012.

RT began inviting more and more "mainstream" guests to its programs, including policy wonks at the CAP, which hosted Hartmann's radio program. Neo-conservatives and pro-Obama "neo-liberals" began showing up more and more at the RT studio. Vapid policymakers from such institutions as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies replaced commentators like myself, retired CIA officer Ray McGovern, and radio host Alex Jones who take a more critical view of U.S. policies and did so with vigor during both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.

Infiltration of RT was made known by this editor to officials at RT in Moscow and its parent, RIA Novosti.

Within the past few days, Martin used her broadcast to issue a scathing attack on Putin's policies in Ukraine, although she admitted she was not familiar with the history of the country. That was followed by Wahl resigning from RT during a live broadcast. Wahl's screed was nothing more than a jingoistic pro-American attack on Putin and RT's coverage in a manner more befitting a Fox News commentator.

The danger of what was nothing more than an infiltration operation targeting RT was communicated in late 2010 and early 2011 by this editor to RT and its former parent company, the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti, by email and in person.

Now that we have experienced two "sleeper" agents, Wahl and Martin, slam Russia on RT in a premeditated "Soros Eruption" earning the immediate attention of and praise from the likes of the pro-Obama Daily Beast, CNN, Huffington Post, and other supporters of U.S. intervention in countries ranging from Ukraine and Syria to Venezuela and Libya, the warnings conveyed by this editor have, unfortunately, come to full fruition.

RT operates in the United States through its RT Television America subsidiary, with bureaus in Washington, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.

Russia reached out to the concept of freedom of the press in America long after it was known by many Americans that independent news outlets were not allowed to function without overt and covert subterfuge from organs of the U.S. government like the State Department, BBG, and their privatized agents-of-influence like Soros and his infrastructure of propagandists and provocateurs. Russia took a chance on broadcasting independently from American shores while playing by First Amendment principles.

Russia found out like the rest of us that the concepts of free speech and freedom of the press were short-circuited within the Soros media matrix. With the recent on-air "Soros Eruptions" by two RT anchors, the attempt by Russia to experiment with America's First Amendment rights failed miserably. The news content of RT, for a few moments, was indistinguishable from Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. And the statement by RT and RIA Novosti successor -- Rossiya Segodnya -- editor-in-chief in Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, seemingly defending the bizarre and misinformed on-air statements of Wahl and Martin, suggest the subterfuge of RT in the United States also extends to its main news bureau in Moscow.