OMNI
Compiled by Dick Bennett for
a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
In this newsletter: The US superpower, imperial propaganda system
is inciting fear and hatred of Russia, as in Cold War days against the Soviet
Union, but alternative views are readily available in numerous independent print
or online magazines. If we are to have
peace in the world we must be able to see the world as others see it,
particularly as “enemies” see it.
Newsletters
Index:
Blog
CONNECTION BETWEEN US
ENCIRCLEMENT OF CHINA AND RUSSIA : See OMNI’s newsletters/blogs on US
Imperialism Westward Pacific/E. Asia
Contents Russia
Patrick
Smith, US/New York Times Spin
Stephen
Cohen, Anti-Russia Is Old Anti-Soviet
Alternative
Analysis
The Nation Editorial
Alterman,
Cold War Hysteria Revived
How
Russia/Ukraine Look in Beijing
Charles
Pierce, Dick Cheney’s View
Luke Harding , US
Refuses Crimea Poll
Ray
McGovern, Putin Says No to Regime Change on Its Border
Bruce
Gagnon, Danger of War Following US-led Coup for Gas and Oil
Pilger,
Other Coups, Same Superpower
Robert
Freeman, Ukraine
Contact Arkansas 
The first three articles interrogate the objectivity of US
media: Arkansas
“. . . American
media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and
scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold
War” (Cohen). The remaining articles
give a variety of background and context.
Perhaps the most important context is the encirclement of Russia Russia with which the US US military bases surrounding Russia China
A perspective we should hold in mind is
that of J. William Fulbright, expressed in all of his books, particularly in
his final book, The Price of Empire. His last chapter is entitled, “ Seeing the
World as Others See It.” Empathy is one
of the foundations underlying Fulbright’s thought, an attitude extremely
difficulty for imperial superpowers. The
Afterword of this book is entitled “Changing Our Manner of Thinking.” Cohen suggests that not only have our leaders
and their followers not changed their Cold War enmity, they have worsened it.
I have included information about the
credentials of several of the authors, which are impressive. --Dick
|
DICK, ANTI-RUSSIAN, PRO-WAR
I have assessed a dozen ADG reports published during the month of March, 2014,, with
Cohen’s stringent claim in mind. I did
not try
to compare present US mainstream media
reporting on
reporting of the Soviet
Union, because numerous books and articles have shown the
hostility toward the
post-Soviet
|
During
the month of March the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette reported on Russia and the Ukraine
in two main ways: 1) news from The New York Times and from the
Associated Press and 2) editorial ridicule, fear, and hatred of Russia Russia
In sharp contrast, the newspaper mounted a
sustained, belligerent, warmongering editorial attack on Russia US Russia Ukraine Russia Russia US
Thus in Arkansas
WEDNESDAY,
MAR 12, 2014 05:59 PM CDT
Propaganda, lies and the New
York Times: Everything you really need to know about Ukraine
The media
keeps buying the American spin on what's happening in Ukraine
TOPICS: CRIMEA, UKRAINE, PUTIN, JOHN KERRY, F THE EU, VICTORIA NULAND, NEW YORK TIMES, MEDIA CRITICISM,NEWS, POLITICS NEWS
Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin (Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)
You
need a machete these days to whack through the thicket of misinformation,
disinformation, spin, propaganda and straight-out lying that daily envelopes
the Ukraine crisis like
kudzu on an Alabama
telephone pole. But an outline of an outcome is now faintly discernible.
Here
is my early call: We witness an American intervention in the process of
failing, and the adventure’s only yields will be much pointless suffering among
Ukrainians and life for years to come in the smothering embrace of a
justifiably suspicious Russian bear.
Nice going, Victoria Nuland, you of the
famous “F
the E.U. tape,” and your sidekick, Geoffrey Pyatt, ambassador
in Kiev . Nice
going, Secretary of State Kerry. For this caper, Nuland and Pyatt should be
reassigned to post offices in the bleak reaches of Kansas , Khrushchev-style. Kerry is too big
to fail, I suppose, but at least we now know more about what caliber of
subterfuge lies behind all those plane trips, one mess following another in his
jet wash.
On
the ground, Vladimir Putin continues to extend the Russian presence in Crimea,
and we await signs as to whether he will go further into Ukraine . This
is very regrettable. Viewed as cause-and-effect, however, it is first a measure
of how miscalculated the American intervention plot was from the first.
Pretending
innocent horror now is a waste of time. The Ukraine tragedy is real estate with
many names on the deed. This must not get lost in the sauce.
On
the diplomatic side, the big charge now is intransigence. Washington
calls Moscow intransigent because Vladimir Putin
and his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, decline to talk to the self-appointed
government in Kiev ,
which Putin refuses to recognize. Moscow calls Washington intransigent because Kerry declines to meet
Lavrov unless the latter agrees first to meet the Kiev provisionals.
The
American line: The provisionals are legitimate, they are democrats worthy of
support, and there was no coup when they hounded President Viktor Yanukovych
from office Feb. 21. The protesters behind them with clubs, pistols and bottle
bombs are democrats, too.
The
Russian line: The provisionals are illegitimate, they took power in a coup
driven in considerable part by nationalist fanatics with a fascist streak
evident in their ranks, they are now dependent on same, and they merit neither
support nor recognition.
This
is it as of now, simplified but not simplistic, story and counter-story.
It is
difficult but not impossible to interpret these narratives. The first step,
admittedly hard for many Americans, is to drop all Cold War baggage and see
beyond the West’s century-and-a-half habit of demonizing Russia as the
emblematic power of the inherently autocratic East. “Oriental despotism” was a
passing fad conjured by a scholar-stooge named Karl Wittfogel in the late
1950s. It died a deserved death — around the time of hula hoops, I think — but
the prejudice lingers, remarkably, in many Western minds.
Here
comes the bitter bit. The Russian take in the Ukraine
crisis is more truthful than the artful dodge Washington attempts. The above forecast of
the outcome rests on the thought that the dodge is simply too flimsy to last.
You
cannot make a call such as this without looking closely. So let’s.
Putin
and Lavrov are open to negotiations with the U.S. and the European Union. Putin
commits to supporting Ukrainian elections set for May and backs the agreement
struck between Yanukovych and his opponents just before the latter abandoned it
and deposed him, even as Putin did not like it at the time. No, Moscow does not recognize the provisionals in Kiev , with sound reasons, but it does not require that Washington drop its support
before getting to the mahogany table.
In
the climate our media have generated, I almost feel the need to apologize for
this but will refuse: I cannot locate the intransigence in this.
Now
to Kerry and President Obama. Last week Lavrov invited Kerry to Sochi for face time with
Putin, and Kerry considered it. Then he abruptly declined on the argument that
the Russians must first commit to talks with the new crowd in Kiev . Here is the problem: Kerry’s demand
does not hold up as a precondition; it is logically a point of negotiation. Set
it as a precondition and you have, so far as I can make out, intransigence.
What
is the preoccupation with a Moscow-Kiev gathering, anyway? This gets
interesting, and you have to recall the dramatis personae in the Nuland tape of
Feb. 7.
Insisting
on direct talks between Russia
and the provisional government in Kiev
is to insist the former recognize the latter, a trap Putin cannot possibly be
stupid enough to fall into. Recognition, in turn, would complete the
Nuland-Pyatt project to gift Ukrainians with a post–Yanukovych puppet
government. This is Kerry’s unstated intent.
It is
remarkable what a good road map the Nuland tape has proven. She mentioned three
names in her exchange with Pyatt: Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Oleh Tyahnybok and Vitali
Klitschko. The first, Nuland’s favorite, is now prime minister; Tyahnybok was
running ahead of Yanukovych in polls at the time Nuland was taped and remains
the vigorously anti-Russian head of Svoboda, a power-balancing party of
rightists; Klitschko is not in the government but plans to run for president in
the May elections.
This
is precisely the constellation Nuland described as her work in progress:
Yatsenyuk in, the others more useful outside for now. As a measure of Washington ’s unseemly haste to lend legitimacy, Obama
meets Yatsenyuk in Washington
as I write — an unelected leader of who knows whom sitting in the White House.
Just
for good measure, Nuland also mentioned one Robert Serry, a U.N. official Washington arm-twisted Ban Ki-moon into sending to Kiev to give a veneer of
multi-sided consensus. And there was Serry in the news last week — when
Crimeans chased him across their border at gunpoint. They must be reading the
papers carefully, those Crimeans.
At
writing, the Obama scrum is debating whether to impose swift, cutting sanctions
on the Russians (the political people) or ease off for fear of self-inflicted
damage (the trade and business people). Leading the charge for tough stuff are
none other than Nuland and Pyatt.
Maybe
they are scared of getting sent to Kansas
if the project does not come good.
The
more I scrutinize it, the more the American case on Ukraine is held together with spit
and baling wire. Were I Obama or Kerry, I would be looking for an out by now,
cutting losses on a commitment to intervention that was sheer hubris from the
first.
Significantly
in this connection, the contorted logic of just who is running things in Kiev is soon to fail, in
my view. Washington
is all out in denying the character of the protest movement and the
provisionals, casting Putin as a paranoid in his characterizations. It is
wishful thinking. Incessantly repeated untruths never transform into truths.
The
decisive influence of ultra-right extremists, some openly committed to an
ideology of violence, some whose political ancestors sided with the Nazis to
oppose the Soviets, is a matter of record. Svoboda and Right Sector, the two
most organized of these groups, now propose to rise into national politics.
Right Sector’s leader, Dmytro Yarosh, intends to run for president. The New
York Times just described him as “an expert with firebombs” during the street
protest period.
These
people are thugs by any other name. One cannot see how this can be in question
— or why the Times suggests that Russia ’s descriptions of them as
such amount to “a fun house mirror.”
And
it is no good pretending their influence does not continue. They remain in the
street and maintain the barricades, and they are happy to tell you (as one told
a network correspondent last week) that they could take down the new
government, too, if they so chose. You can stop wondering why the provisionals
show zero interest in conducting promised investigations into the origins of
the violence that toppled Yanukovych. Washington
seems to have lost track of that idea, too.
On
the other side of the piles of tires, ultra-rightists hold three portfolios in
the 18–member provisional cabinet. Yarosh is deputy director of the security
council. (I suppose he would be assigned to investigate the violence were anyone
to get the job.) It is near to preposterous that Kerry would insist that Moscow officials meet
with this man or others like him.
I
read Ukraine
as a case of what happens when so much of policy, in all kinds of spheres, is
conducted in secret. Ordinary citizens cannot see events and are left to judge
them blind. And the media are not going to help you. However, there have been
notable exceptions to the media’s cooperation in keeping things from us instead
of informing.
Earlier this week, Leslie Gelb let loose
with a vigorous blast in the Daily Beast, calling on the
Americans (and others) to “stop their lies and self-destructive posturing or pay
costs they’re loath to admit.” Gelb is a longtime presence in foreign policy
cliques — former Times columnist, former State Department official, now
president emeritus at the Council on Foreign Relations. The critique reveals a
significant breach in the orthodoxy.
Not to root for the home team, but Nicholas
Davies just published in Salon an inventory of 35 cases wherein Washington has split the
sheets with fascists in the interest of intervention. Read it. Splendidly timed, it demolishes all
argument that what is in front of our eyes is somehow not. History so often
does the job, I find.
Elsewhere,
things go from bad to execrable. Here I have to single out Timothy Snyder, a
Yale historian, who froths at the mouth in a three-part blog series published
by the New York Review of Books. This guy should be brought up on charges under
toxic waste laws.
You
get lies: Yanukovych refused to sign the February compromise with his
opposition. (It was signed in his office so far as I understand.) You get bent
logic: The new cabinet includes three Jews, proving (somehow) it is legitimate.
The ultra-right has only three cabinet posts. (Only? That is 16 percent of it.
Why any?)
And
you get radical miscalculations. Snyder compares Putin with Hitler — unwise
given the composition of the government and the barricades people he wants to
say are fine. In trying to persuade us that the extremist bit is Moscow ’s propaganda, he
produces lengths of propaganda, some of it — no other word — extremist.
I carry no hatchet for Snyder, though the
Yale professorship causes me to wonder. But in bravely defending every aspect
of the Washington
orthodoxy, Snyder gives a faithful map of all its fault lines. So it is useful
reading, here, here and here, providing you know what you are getting.
Next
Sunday Crimeans will vote in a referendum as to whether they wish to break with
the rest of Ukraine and join
the Russian Federation .
The semi-autonomous region’s parliament has already voted to do so, and good
enough that they put the thought to a popular vote.
But
no. Self-determination was the guiding principle when demonstrators and pols
with records as election losers pushed Yanukovych out and got done via a coup
(I insist on the word) what they could not manage in polling booths. But it
cannot apply in Crimea ’s case. The Crimeans
are illegitimate and have no right to such a vote.
Simply
too shabby. I cannot see how it can hold much longer.
Patrick Smith is the author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century” was
the International Herald Tribune’s bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo Tokyo Washington
BASHING PUTIN
Stephen Cohen, “Distorting Russia
Distorting Russia
How the
American media misrepresent Putin, Sochi and Ukraine
(Reuters/Mikhail
Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Pool)
The degradation
of mainstream American press coverage of Russia ,
a country still vital to US
There are
notable exceptions, but a general pattern has developed. Even in the venerable New York Times and Washington Post,
news reports, editorials and commentaries no longer adhere rigorously to
traditional journalistic standards, often failing to provide essential facts
and context; to make a clear distinction between reporting and analysis; to
require at least two different political or “expert” views on major
developments; or to publish opposing opinions on their op-ed pages. As a
result, American media on Russia
The history of
this degradation is also clear. It began in the early 1990s, following the end
of the Soviet Union, when the US media adopted Washington’s narrative that
almost everything President Boris Yeltsin did was a “transition from communism
to democracy” and thus in America’s best interests. This included his economic
“shock therapy” and oligarchic looting of essential state assets, which
destroyed tens of millions of Russian lives; armed destruction of a popularly
elected Parliament and imposition of a “presidential” Constitution, which dealt
a crippling blow to democratization and now empowers Putin; brutal war in tiny
Chechnya, which gave rise to terrorists in Russia’s North Caucasus; rigging of
his own re-election in 1996; and leaving behind, in 1999, his approval ratings
in single digits, a disintegrating country laden with weapons of mass
destruction. Indeed, most American journalists still give the impression that
Yeltsin was an ideal Russian leader.
Since the early
2000s, the media have followed a different leader-centric narrative, also
consistent with US
Not
surprisingly, in January The Wall Street
Journal featured the
widely discredited former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, branding
Putin’s government as one of “deceit, violence and cynicism,” with the Kremlin
a “nerve center of the troubles that bedevil the West.” But wanton
Putin-bashing is also the dominant narrative in centrist, liberal and
progressive media, from the Post, Times and The New Republic to CNN, MSNBC and HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, where Howard
Dean, not previously known for his Russia expertise, recently declared, to the
panel’s approval, “Vladimir Putin is a thug.”
The media
therefore eagerly await Putin’s downfall—due to his “failing economy” (some of
its indicators are better than US ones), the valor of street protesters and
other right-minded oppositionists (whose policies are rarely examined), the
defection of his electorate (his approval ratings remain around 65 percent) or
some welcomed “cataclysm.” Evidently believing, as does the Times, for example, that democrats and
a “much better future” will succeed Putin (not zealous ultranationalists
growing in the streets and corridors of power), US commentators remain
indifferent to what the hoped-for “destabilization of his regime” might mean in
the world’s largest nuclear country.
Certainly, The New Republic’s lead writer on Russia Russia
* * *
For weeks, this
toxic coverage has focused on the Sochi Olympics and the deepening crisis in Ukraine US Europe pointed out, as much as $44 billion
may have been spent “to develop the infrastructure of the entire region,”
investment “the entire country needs.”
Overall
pre-Sochi coverage was even worse, exploiting the threat of terrorism so
licentiously it seemed pornographic. The Post, long
known among critical-minded Russia-watchers asPravda on the Potomac ,
exemplified the media ethos. A sports columnist and an editorial page editor
turned the Olympics into “a contest of wills” between the despised Putin’s “thugocracy”
and terrorist “insurgents.” The “two warring parties” were so equated that
readers might have wondered which to cheer for. If nothing else, American
journalists gave terrorists an early victory, tainting “Putin’s Games” and
frightening away many foreign spectators, including some relatives of the
athletes.
The Sochi Games
will soon pass, triumphantly or tragically, but the potentially fateful
Ukrainian crisis will not. A new Cold War divide between West and East may now
be unfolding, not in Berlin but in the heart
of Russia Georgia
Not long ago,
committed readers could count on The New York Review of
Books for factually
trustworthy alternative perspectives on important historical and contemporary
subjects. But when it comes to Russia
and Ukraine
Knight’s
innuendo prefigured a purported report on Ukraine
§ ”On paper, Ukraine Ukraine
§ ”The [parliamentary] deputies…have all but voted themselves out
of existence.” Again, Snyder is alluding to the
nullified “paper.” Moreover, serious discussions have been under way in Kiev
§ ”Through remarkably large and peaceful public protests…Ukrainians
have set a positive example for Europeans.” This astonishing statement may have been true in November, but it now raises questions about
the “example” Snyder is advocating. The occupation of government buildings in
Kiev and in Western Ukraine, the hurling of firebombs at police and other
violent assaults on law enforcement officers and the proliferation of
anti-Semitic slogans by a significant number of anti-Yanukovych protesters, all
documented and even televised, are not an “example” most readers would
recommend to Europeans or Americans. Nor are they tolerated, even if
accompanied by episodes of police brutality, in any Western democracy.
§ ”Representatives of a minor group of the Ukrainian extreme right
have taken credit for the violence.” This obfuscation implies that apart
perhaps from a “minor group,” the “Ukrainian extreme right” is part of the positive “example” being set. (Many of
its representatives have expressed hatred for Europe ’s
“anti-traditional” values, such as gay rights.) Still more, Snyder continues,
“something is fishy,” strongly implying that the mob violence is actually being
“done by russo-phone provocateurs” on behalf of “Yanukovych (or Putin).” As
evidence, Snyder alludes to “reports” that the instigators “spoke Russian.” But
millions of Ukrainians on both sides of their incipient civil war speak
Russian.
§ Snyder reproduces yet another widespread media malpractice
regarding Russia Ukraine
§ Perhaps the largest untruth promoted by Snyder and most US media is the claim that “Ukraine ’s future integration into Europe ” is “yearned for throughout the country.” But
every informed observer knows—from Ukraine’s history, geography, languages, religions, culture, recent politics and opinion surveys—that
the country is deeply divided as to whether it should join Europe or remain
close politically and economically to Russia. There is not one Ukraine
Such factual
distortions point to two flagrant omissions by Snyder and other US
But the most
crucial media omission is Moscow ’s reasonable
conviction that the struggle for Ukraine
is yet another chapter in the West’s ongoing, US-led march toward post-Soviet Russia , which began in the 1990s with NATO’s
eastward expansion and continued with US-funded NGO political activities inside
Russia , a US-NATO military
outpost in Georgia and
missile-defense installations near Russia Ukraine Ukraine
Any doubts
about the Obama administration’s real intentions in Ukraine should have been
dispelled by the recently revealed taped conversation between a top State
Department official, Victoria Nuland, and the US ambassador in Kiev. The media
predictably focused on the source of the “leak” and on Nuland’s verbal
“gaffe”—“Fuck the EU.” But the essential revelation was that high-level US
Americans are
left with a new edition of an old question. Has Washington ’s
twenty-year winner-take-all approach to post-Soviet Russia Kiev
And what of
Barack Obama’s decision to send only a low-level delegation, including retired
gay athletes, to Sochi Iran Sochi —either out of gratitude to Putin,
or to stand with Russia Russia
policies, or because the US
media misrepresented the varying reasons cited: the granting of asylum to
Edward Snowden, differences on the Middle East, infringements on gay rights in Russia , and now Ukraine
CONTEXTS, ALTERNATIVE VIEWS
Time for Realism and Common Sense on Ukraine
The
international community should be pushing for compromise to prevent this
fragile and bitterly divided country from breaking apart.
March 6, 2014 | This article appeared in the March 24, 2014 edition of
The Nation. [The article I read in the 3-24 issue
is entitled “Ukraine
·
Share
·
Armed
servicemen wait in Russian army vehicles in the Crimean town of Balaclava
The escalating
crisis in Ukraine Ukraine United States to ante up $15 billion for Ukraine and send a naval flotilla to the Black Sea . The same paper headlined that the crisis
“tests Obama’s focus on diplomacy over military force,” quoting Andrew Kuchins
of the Center for Strategic and International Studies decrying President
Obama’s “taking the stick option off the table.”
The Obama
administration has responded to the crisis by flexing its own rhetorical
muscles. When Russian President Vladimir Putin ignored Obama’s warning that
“there will be costs” if Russia sent troops into Crimea, Secretary of State
John Kerry denounced the “brazen act of aggression,” vowing that “Russia is
going to lose, the Russian people are going to lose” and suggesting “asset
freezes…isolation with respect to trade and investment,” while promising
“economic assistance of the major sort” for whatever government emerges in
Kiev.
European
governments were far more measured, with many condemning Russia Russia
are much closer than America Moscow
might avoid overt military intervention in Ukraine
We should take
a deep breath—and a sober look—before committing treasure and prestige to a
still-unsettled new leadership in a country on Russia’s border, one that has
had a fragile independent existence for barely two decades. Some history would
also serve us well if we’re to understand fast-moving developments. We are
reaping the bitter fruit of a deeply flawed post–Cold War settlement that looks
more like Versailles than Bretton Woods, a
settlement inflamed by the shortsighted American decision to expand NATO
eastward and pursue other policies aimed at isolating Russia
Viktor
Yanukovych was corrupt and unpopular, but he was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine Russia United
States
Yanukovych’s
decision to postpone the EU’s association agreement was not irrational. It
would have forced Ukraine to
decide between Russia and
the EU, flatly rejecting Putin’s offer of a tripartite arrangement that would
allow the country to sustain its ties with Russia Ukraine
is heavily dependent economically on Russia United States Germany , has inflicted brutal austerity on its
own troubled members like Greece ,
Spain and Portugal Ukraine Kiev
In the Western
media’s passion play, which largely disdains or distorts context and history,
Putin is the designated villain. But Ukraine
is central to Russian security, and Russia
is far less concerned about its next-door neighbor’s economic relations with
the EU (Russia Ukraine
might displace Russian bases on the Black Sea, harbor the US Ukraine Mexico to join a military alliance with Russia
Frustrated cold
warriors filling armchairs in Washington ’s
outdated “strategic” think tanks will continue to howl at the moon, but US Russia to preserve Ukraine ’s
territorial unity, support free elections and allow Ukraine
to be part of both the EU and the Russian customs union, while pledging that
NATO will not extend itself into Ukraine
Read Next: Eric Alterman on the American right wing’s
reaction to the situation in Ukraine. P. 10
How Crimea plays in Beijing
Global Network
[globalnet@mindspring.com] GN List Serve
[globenet@yahoogroups.com]
Thursday, March 20, 2014 12:49 PM
THE ROVING EYE
How Crimea plays in
Beijing
By Pepe Escobar
"We are paying very close attention to the
situation in Ukraine
This, via Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li
Baodong, is Beijing 's quite measured, official
interpretation of what's happening in Ukraine
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 Beijing
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
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 Iraq ,
bombing Libya and getting to
the brink of bombing Syria
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
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
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 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 Lhasa Beijing
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 Tibet , more than Taiwan
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 Syria , aborted at the last minute thanks to the
good offices of Moscow Russia ,
trampling the much-lauded "reset" and conceived as a payback for Syria
Those who believe Beijing
While the Western dogs bark …
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 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 Moscow Beijing China
- 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
Global Network
Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
Charles Pierce, The
Well-Known Zombie War Criminal Dick Cheney.
Esquire , Reader Supported News, March 10, 2014
Pierce writes: "The producers decided that who the country really needed to hear from concerning the situation in the Ukraine was well-known zombie war criminal Dick Cheney."
READ MORE
Pierce writes: "The producers decided that who the country really needed to hear from concerning the situation in the Ukraine was well-known zombie war criminal Dick Cheney."
READ MORE
US Will Not Recognize Crimea Poll
Luke Harding, Guardian UK, Reader Supported News, March 10, 2014
Harding writes: "America's ambassador in Kiev said the US would refuse to recognise next Sunday's 'so-called referendum' in Crimea, and said Washington would take further steps against Russia if it used the poll to legitimise its occupation."
READ MORE
Luke Harding, Guardian UK, Reader Supported News, March 10, 2014
Harding writes: "America's ambassador in Kiev said the US would refuse to recognise next Sunday's 'so-called referendum' in Crimea, and said Washington would take further steps against Russia if it used the poll to legitimise its occupation."
READ MORE
[Harding is the
author of the new excellent new book, The
Snowden Files, which recounts the suspenseful story of Snowden’s disclosure
of the NSA files, but gives dramatic, clear explanations of the various
institutions Snowden dealt with, from the NSA to The Guardian magazine. This
book is worth far more than its price. –Dick]
Ukraine
by Ray
McGovern. Common Dreams,
March 19, 2014.
Is
“regime change” in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given an
unmistakable “yes” to those questions – in deeds, not words. His message is
clear: “Back off our near-frontier!”
President Barack Obama discusses Ukraine
Putin described this move as necessary to
protect ethnic Russians and military personnel stationed in Crimea in southern Ukraine Crimea .
Unless Obama is completely bereft of advisers
who know something about Russia Russia would use military force, if necessary,
to counter attempts to use economic enticement and subversive incitement to
slide Ukraine
This was all the more predictable in the case
of Ukraine
Unlike
‘Prague Spring’ 1968
My CIA analyst portfolio at the time included
Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe, and I was amazed to see analysts of Eastern Europe caught up in the euphoria that typically
ended with, “And the Soviets can’t do a damned thing about it!”
That summer a new posting found me advising
Radio Free Europe Director Ralph Walter who, virtually alone among his
similarly euphoric colleagues, shared my view that Russian tanks would
inevitably roll onto Prague Wenceslaus Square
Past is not always prologue. But it is easy
for me to imagine the Russian Army cartographic agency busily preparing maps of
the best routes for tanks into Independence Square in Kiev, and that before too
many months have gone by, Russian tank commanders may be given orders to
invade, if those stoking the fires of violent dissent in the western parts of
Ukraine keep pushing too far.
That said, Putin has many other cards to play
and time to play them. These include sitting back and doing nothing, cutting
off Russia ’s subsidies to Ukraine Moscow has ways to remind the
rest of Europe of its dependence on Russian
oil and gas.
Another
Interference
There is one huge difference between Prague
Not so 45-plus years later. In early February,
as violent protests raged in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and the White House
professed neutrality, U.S. State Department officials were, in the words of NYU
professor emeritus of Russian studies Stephen Cohen, “plotting a coup d’état
against the elected president of Ukraine.”
We know that thanks to neocon prima donna
Victoria Nuland, now Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, who
seemed intent on giving new dimension to the “cookie-pushing” role of U.S.
More important, recall her amateurish, boorish
use of an open telephone to plot regime change in Ukraine U.S.
Yikes!
It’s Yats!
Nuland was recorded as saying: “Yats is the
guy. He’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy
you know. … Yats will need all the help he can get to stave off collapse in the
ex-Soviet state. He has warned there is an urgent need for unpopular cutting of
subsidies and social payments before Ukraine
And guess what. The stopgap government formed
after the coup designated Nuland’s guy Yats, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, prime minister!
What luck! Yats is 39 and has served as head of the central bank, foreign
minister and economic minister. And, as designated pinch-hitter-prime-minister,
he has already talked about the overriding need for “responsible government,”
one willing to commit “political suicide,” as he put it, by taking unpopular
social measures.
U.S. meddling has been so obvious that at
President Barack Obama’s hastily scheduled Friday press conference on Ukraine,
Yats’s name seemed to get stuck in Obama’s throat. Toward the end of his
scripted remarks, which he read verbatim, the President said: “Vice President
Biden just spoke with Prime Minister [pause] – the prime minister of Ukraine to assure him that in this difficult
moment the United States
supports his government’s efforts and stands for the sovereignty, territorial
integrity and democratic future of Ukraine
Obama doesn’t usually stumble like that –
especially when reading a text, and is normally quite good at pronouncing
foreign names. Perhaps he worried that one of the White House stenographic
corps might shout out, “You mean our man, Yats?” Obama departed right after
reading his prepared remarks, leaving no opportunity for such an outburst.
Western media was abuzz with the big question:
Will the Russians apply military force? The answer came quickly, though
President Obama chose the subjunctive mood in addressing the question on
Friday.
Throwing
Down a Hanky
There was a surreal quality to President
Obama’s remarks, several hours after Russian (or pro-Russian) troops took
control of key airports and other key installations in the Crimea, which is
part of Ukraine, and home to a large Russian naval base and other key Russian
military installations.
Obama referred merely to “reports of military
movements taken by the Russian Federation
inside of Ukraine ” and
warned piously that “any violation of Ukraine
That Obama chose the subjunctive mood – when
the indicative was, well, indicated – will not be lost on the Russians. Here
was Obama, in his typically lawyerly way, trying to square the circle, giving a
sop to his administration’s neocon holdovers and R2P courtiers, with a
Milquetoasty expression of support for the new-Nuland-approved government (citing
Biden’s assurances to old whatshisname/yatshisname).
While Obama stuck to the subjunctive tense,
Prime Minister Yatsenyuk appealed to Russia
to recall its forces and “stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine
Obama’s comments seemed almost designed to
sound condescending – paternalistic, even – to the Russians. Already into his
second paragraph of his scripted remarks, the President took a line larded with
words likely to be regarded as a gratuitous insult by Moscow
“We’ve made clear that they [Russian
officials] can be part of an international community’s effort to support the
stability of a united Ukraine
going forward, which is not only in the interest of the people of Ukraine and the international community, but
also in Russia
By now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is
accustomed to Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Adviser
Susan Rice, et al. telling the Kremlin where its interests lie, and I am sure
he is appropriately grateful. Putin is likely to read more significance into
these words of Obama:
“The United
States will stand with the international community in
affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine
Fissures
in Atlantic Alliance
There are bound to be fissures in the
international community and in the Western alliance on whether further
provocation in Ukraine Moscow
And, aspiring diplomat though she may be,
Victoria Nuland presumably has not endeared herself to the EC by her expressed
“Fuck the EC” attitude.
Aside from the most servile allies of the U.S. Russia Ukraine
Europe has other reasons to feel annoyed about
the overreach of U.S.
In any case, Obama presumably knows by now
that he pleased no one on Friday by reading that flaccid statement on Ukraine
In sum, the Nulands of this world have bit off
far more than they can chew; they need to be reined in before they cause even
more dangerous harm. Broader issues than Ukraine
© 2014 Consortium News
Ray
McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical
Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his career as a CIA analyst, he
prepared and briefed the President's Daily Brief and chaired National
Intelligence Estimates. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals.
Global Network
[globalnet@mindspring.com]GN List Serve
[globenet@yahoogroups.com]
Tuesday, March 04, 2014 1:11 AM
A couple of people
have wondered if I exaggerated the possibility of war with Russia over Ukraine
Two of the first things that happened following the US led coup d'etat inUkraine Kiev were in fact the
ultra-nationalist descendants of those Ukrainian Nazi sympathizers who
supported Hitler's invasion of the former Soviet Union
during WW II.
But there is even more. NSNBC International reports the following:
Two of the first things that happened following the US led coup d'etat in
But there is even more. NSNBC International reports the following:
Being one of the
most reliable sources of information about the activities of Turkey’s
intelligence service MIT and Turkey’s armed forces, Aydinlik Daily quotes
a “source that has spoken with the newspaper”, alleging, that an intelligence
unit linked to Turkey’s intelligence service MIT has headed to the Ukrainian
Autonomous Republic Crimea to provoke Crimean Turks to act against the ethnic
Russian majority and Russian interests in the autonomous republic. The source
reported that the deployment of the Turkish unit has been coordinated with both
the USA
Translated this essentially means that for all the moralistic talk coming from the Obama administration about how Russia should not be intervening in Crimea, the US-NATO are, and have been, deeply embedded in the drive to take over Ukraine.
Russian intelligence obviously is aware that this "low intensity" warfare is now being directed by US-NATO. That is why Putin asked his governing body for permission to move Russian forces into the
I am indeed a lifelong peace activist. I don't support war. But I also have always believed that someone under attack has the right to defend himself or herself. Whether they were the Native Americans; people in
This morning I watched a bit of mainstream TV news just to get a feel for what the talking heads were saying. Here are some of the things I heard:
- We
must put economic sanctions on
- Putin
does "not care" what the
- We
must "roll back this Russian invasion"
- Putin
is not in touch with reality
- It's
almost like we are dealing with
- Putin
is "unstable"
- There
is "confusion in
- Putin
is clumsy
- There
could be a military collision
- US
should help bail out
The video of Victoria Nuland speaking
last December, on a stage decorated with the logos of ExxonMobil and Chevron,
is particularly important as she reveals that the US "invested" $5
billion in this coup d'etat. There can be no doubt that the US-NATO have
pulled this stunt and is that not a violation of international law to
destabilize and overthrow an elected government? (Even if you don't
approve of it?) Is that not an act of war toward neighboring Russia and would not Russia
Yesterday I watched a video from a news conference where Ukrainian Navy Rear Admiral Berezovsky (who had just been appointed to that post by the "new revolutionary government" in Kiev) had come to Crimea and announced that he was not going to support the coup d'etat and instead pledged himself to the Crimean government, which is allied to Russia. The mainstream American media this morning was spinning that story by saying Berozovsky had "surrendered" toRussia
As you can see on the map above this whole situation is about natural gas and oil.Russia 's huge
supplies of natural gas are shipped to Europe and other locations by pipelines
that run throughout Ukraine Iraq ,
Libya , Venezuela
Yesterday I watched a video from a news conference where Ukrainian Navy Rear Admiral Berezovsky (who had just been appointed to that post by the "new revolutionary government" in Kiev) had come to Crimea and announced that he was not going to support the coup d'etat and instead pledged himself to the Crimean government, which is allied to Russia. The mainstream American media this morning was spinning that story by saying Berozovsky had "surrendered" to
As you can see on the map above this whole situation is about natural gas and oil.
Mr. Big is a bully and when anyone stands up to
the bully they will be demonized.
Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
John Pilger: The
Forgotten Coup - and How the Same Godfather Rules From Canberra
to Kiev
Tuesday, 18
March 2014 09:51 By John Pilger, Truthout | News Analysis
Ukrainian police with riot
gear guard the regional administration building from pro-Russia demonstrators
in the center of Since 1945, dozens of governments, many of them democracies, have met a fate similar to that of the elected government of the
The great game of dominance offers no immunity for even the most loyal
This
dictum was rudely set aside in 1972 with the election of the reformist Labor
government of Gough Whitlam. Although not regarded as of the left,
Whitlam - now in his 98th year - was a maverick social democrat of principle,
pride, propriety and extraordinary political imagination. He believed that a
foreign power should not control his country's resources and dictate its
economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm" and
speak as a voice independent of London and Washington
On the day after his election,
Whitlam ordered that his staff should not be "vetted or harassed" by
the Australian security organization, ASIO - then, as now, beholden to
Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the
Nixon/Kissinger administration as "corrupt and barbaric," Frank
Snepp, a CIA officer stationed in Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap - a joint US-Australian satellite tracking station in the center of
The CIA had just helped General Pinochet crush the democratic government of another reformer, Salvador Allende, in
In 1974, the White House sent Marshall Green to
Pine Gap's top-secret messages were decoded in
MORE
http://truth-out.org/news/item/22527-the-forgotten-coup-and-how-the-same-godfather-rules-from-canberra-to-kiev
Copyright,
Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
John Pilger
John Pilger is
an Australian-born, London-based journalist, filmmaker and author. For his foreign
and war reporting, ranging from Vietnam
and Cambodia to the Middle
East, he has twice won Britain Australia Britain and will open in Australia
Robert Freeman, Common Dreams, Reader Supported News, March 8, 2014
Freeman writes: "
READ MORE
Contact Arkansas
Congressional Delegation
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SENATORS
Sen. John
Boozman
Republican, first term 320 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-4843 Fax: (202) 228-1371 Arkansas offices: FORT SMITH: (479) 573-0189 JONESBORO: (870) 268-6925 LITTLE ROCK: (501) 372-7153 LOWELL: (479) 725-0400 MOUNTAIN HOME: (870) 424-0129 STUTTGART: (870) 672-6941 EL DORADO: (870) 863-4641 Website: www.boozman.senate.gov
Sen. Mark
Pryor
Democrat, second term 255 Dirksen Office Building Constitution Avenue and First Street NE Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-2353 Fax: (202) 228-0908 Little Rock office: (501) 324-6336 Website: www.pryor.senate.gov
Rep. Tom
Cotton
4TH DISTRICT Republican, first term 415 Phone: (202) 225-43772 HOT SPRINGS: (501) 520-5892 PINE BLUFF: (870) 536-3376 Website: www.cotton.house.gov |
REPRESENTATIVES
Rep. Rick
Crawford
1ST DISTRICT Republican, second term 1771 Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4076 Fax: (202) 225-5602 CABOT: (501) 843-3043 MOUNTAIN HOME: (870) 424-2075 Website: www.crawford.house.gov
Rep. Tim
Griffin
2ND DISTRICT Republican, second term 1232 Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-2506 Fax: (202) 225-5903 LITTLE ROCK: (501) 324-5491 Website: www.griffin.house.gov
Rep. Steve
Womack
3RD DISTRICT Republican, second term 1119 Longworth Office Building New Jersey and Independence Avenues SE Washington 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4301 Fax: (202) 225-5713 Arkansas offices: ROGERS: (479) 464-0446 HARRISON: (870) 741-7741 FORT SMITH: (479) 424-1146 Website: www.womack.house.gov
Con
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What is the mission of OMNI?
With the Quakers we seek:
a world free of war and the threat of war,
a society with equity and justice for all,
a community where every person’s potential may be fulfilled,
and an earth restored.
Join us if you are committed to these values and wish to advance
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