One of the ironies of the Ukraine situation which has drawn no comment I can find is that the Ukrainians have been lectured on democracy by Baroness Ashton, who heads EU foreign policy despite never having been elected to anything. A distinction she shares with Baroness Amos, now in charge of beating the drum for a war on Syria at the UN. Amos was closely involved as a minister with the UK invasion of Sierra Leone, and shortly after resigning from office became a Director of Sierra Leone’s rutile mine, the single most profitable mine in the world.
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Wheels within wheels, AA. Any one melt-down could light us all up. Stock up on 12 year old Scotch. 🙂
Habbabkuk
Your response was pure sophistry.
Would you care to list which countries have invaded more countries than Britain in the past 900 years? It shouldn’t take you long.
Clarence,
I rarely post here, because despite the fact that most contributors are highly intelligent, I find their arrogance, from what I often perceive to be a position of ignorance, extremely annoying.
I disagree with Craig about most things, particularly his globalist and ultra-pro EU views. However, I do not doubt his integrity. As regards recent events in the Ukraine, I simply think he did not follow events that closely. The amount of conflicting information is so vast that even Mark Golding – who is one of the few posters here, that I have enormous respect for – was around 48 hours late in finding crucial information about what has been going on.
Craig obviously jumped the gun, and seriously upset some of his biggest followers who have been posting here – for an exceedingly long time…
For you to come on, and suggest that Craig has completely lost his marbles, is the height of insensitivity. He actually is exceedingly consistent with his views, and what he posted re Russia’s action in the Crimea – was technically correct – absent detailed background information re the lead-up to events in the Ukraine.
Everyone makes mistakes, and it is easy for people to take umbridge – when people jump to the wrong conclusions simply because they do not have the same information.
So here Mr. Arrogance, is some background information on Mr. Prager and his mini-nukes.
Personally, I would go with Bollyn, though I haven’t read his book – and Jones – cos he actually is a physicist who analysed what he found – and lost his job as a result. Tough decision to make, but his integrity – which you have already dissed through ignorance is in my view not impinged.
Where’s Mary?
http://www.bollyn.com/who-is-jeff-prager-2/
By the way, if you want to find a decent physicist check out Imperial College rather than Cambridge.
Tony
““Last month the Guardian did a feature showing how we have been at war every year for the past century. And yet William Hague has the audacity to lecture the Russians on how bad it is to invade countries.”
____________________
Good example of conflation designed to mislead for the sake of trying to make a “point”.”
From one trained in the art, who was doing just that by trying to divert from the message of the blog, without any mention of how international law is being broken. 3.59 p.m.
All these people who make it their business to detract from the truth and ignore obvious intervention to stop these stories getting further coinage when made available, like the one showing that France, Germany and Poland have broken international law by reneging on a signed agreement, are here with an agenda. It is the same agenda as MSM has adopted.
(Sorry the above was accidentally posted unfinished)
KingOfWelshNoir
“Would you care to list which countries have invaded more countries than Britain in the past 900 years?”
_______________________
Well, if that’s the point you were trying to make, you should have made it otherwise than by saying “we have been at war every year for the past century” and then conflating that with “how bad it is to invade countries”, shouldn’t you.
If it takes “sophistry” to point out the sloppiness of an argument, then that’s just tough 🙂 Better luck next time!
Private Eye
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=news
Ian Fraser
https://twitter.com/Ian_Fraser?original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.maxkeiser.com%2F&tw_i=442331920245207041&tw_p=tweetembed
Asked and answered. No good deed goes unpunished, KoWN.
Tovarish Goss!
“From one trained in the art {presumable you mean the art of conflation?}, who was doing just that by trying to divert from the message of the blog, without any mention of how international law is being broken. 3.59 p.m.”
___________________
You must really wean yourself off the mistaken belief that it is you who sets the message of this blog and the notion that it is therefore you who should decide on who is diverting. The message of this thread is the one contained in Craig’s lead-in post and not the long spiel contained in your post at 15h59.
I hope that’s not too difficult for you to understand and accept?
Hurby
“You’re very defensive of this EU monstrosity, its nomenklatura and institutions.”
______________________
Rather, I’m very defensive of the idea that people should get their facts right before they post. As you and many other Excellences have found out to their cost!
Tovarish Goss!
“(Sorry the above was accidentally posted unfinished)”
______________________
Worry not, John, it made as much sense unfinished as finished. In other words, very little.
Tovarish!
“All these people who make it their business to detract from the truth… are here with an agenda. It is the same agenda as MSM has adopted.”
__________________________
Would these by any chance be the same MSM as the “the Guardian (which) did a feature showing how we have been at war every year for the past century. ?
I think we should be told!
That’s five in a row, and I get a bonus point!
Habby
Are you in receipt of a pension or other emolument from the EU?
Yes or No.
That’s the trouble with certain individuals on this blog, unable to address the arguments and issues. The breaking of international law in this instance is the responsibility of Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Catherine Ashton the subject of the blog. It is others, and we all know who they are, who divert from important issues including non-coverage by the BBC and other MSM outlets of, as well as this gross breach of international law, non-coverage of the Catherine Ashton and Ambassador Paet conversation which pointed to the protestors being the instigators of violence and the repeated misinformation that there are 20,000 to 30,000 Russian troops and they invaded and took over Crimea, when these troops were already there. All this shit reporting comes from those who are here with an agenda. Don’t let them get to you.
Hurby
Are you the reincarnation of Sir Reginald Manningham- Buller or just a Rumpole?
If not, who are you? What’s your job? What size of socks do you wear? Etc, etc.
Habby
Ahhh.
You are.
I’d be grateful if in future you’d declare that interest.
Thanks.
Tovarish Goss
The subject of this thread is the irony (and hypocrisy) of the unelected Catherine Ashton lecturing others on democracy.
You just prove my point with your unstructured rant at 19h45 which – if I may be allowed to attempt to untangle it – seems to identify the subject of this thread as “the diversion from important issues including non-coverage by the BBC and other MSM outlets of, as well as this gross breach of international law, non-coverage of the Catherine Ashton and Ambassador Paet conversation which pointed to the protestors being the instigators of violence and the repeated misinformation that there are 20,000 to 30,000 Russian troops and they invaded and took over Crimea, when these troops were already there.”
As I’ve already pointed out, you are not the blogmaster and have no particular status here. Certainly not any status which enables you to determine the subject of this thread and therefore to pronounce on who is “diverting”.
For Heaven’s sake, man, get a grip.
Hurby
Definitely Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller! 🙂 Perhaps better known to you as Viscount Dilhorne (sometimes jokingly referred to as Viscount Dull-born).
Habbabkuk (La Vita È Bella!, You are even more boring and annoying than me after 10 pints of Speckled Hen.
Blimey,
Standards have really gone down here. I’m Off To The Pub To See a Rock Band with The Wife.
Craig – Give him the job as your new moderator. In my view moderators should be seen and not heard, except in extreme circumstances…otherwise they get drawn into the conflicting emotions, politics and arguments – and on a blog such as this slowly go mad.
You don’t expect the referee in a football match…to think “God this is so boring…you are all useless” – and do a Georgie Best – Dribble Round Both Teams and Score a Goal For One of Them…..
Do You??
It would however be extremely Funny if It Happened in The World Cup in Brazil.
Tony
AA… @ 1;27 am
This might help answer you’re Question… Sounds like Trouble ( or Worse Brewing )… Now as you say – Libya, and North Korea, facing off too… Time for another Party at yours 🙂
The Kremlin believes that the current Ukrainian leadership will manipulate the elections planned for May 25 to install a single leader or coalition government functioning much as former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili did in Tbilisi. A ”Ukrainian Saakashvili” will unleash an even more repressive campaign of intimidation against Russian-speakers, one that over several years would stoke anti-Russia hysteria among the general population.
After that, Kiev may evict Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol and purge Crimea of any Russian influence. Ukraine could easily become a radicalized, anti-Russian state, at which point Kiev will fabricate a pretext to justify taking subversive action against Moscow. This looks especially likely considering that ruling coalition members from the neo-fascist Svoboda and Right Sector parties have already made territorial claims against Russia. They could easily send their army of activists to Russia to join local separatists and foment rebellion in the North Caucasus and other unstable regions in Russia. In addition, Russia’s opposition movement will surely want to use the successful experience and technology of the Euromaidan protests and, with the help and financial support of the West, try to carry out their own revolution in Moscow. The goal: to remove President Vladimir Putin from power and install a puppet leadership that will sell Russia’s strategic interests out to the West in the same way former President Boris Yeltsin did in the 1990s.
The official census puts the Russian minority in Ukraine at 16 percent of the total population, although that number was falsified. The actual number is closer to 25 percent. Surveys indicate that 45 percent of the country’s population speak Russian at home, 45 percent speak Ukrainian and 10 percent speak both languages. In the most recent Gallup survey, when asked in which language they would like to be polled, 83 percent of respondents chose Russian. Taking into account the rural population in western and central Ukraine, about 75 percent of the people, probably speak Russian. Of that 75 percent, only about 10 percent are those in Kiev and a few other major cities who supported the protests. This means that only 35 percent of the population are attempting to impose its will on the remaining 65 percent, using a violent coup to achieve their goals.
Putin made the right decision: He did not to wait for that attack and took preventative measures. Many in the West say the Kremlin’s reactions were paranoiac, but Germany’s Jews also thought the same of leaving the country in 1934. Most of them chose to believe they were safe and remained in Germany even after Hitler came to power. The infamous Kristallnacht took place five years later, one of the first early chapters in the “Final Solution.” Similarly, just four years remain until Russia’s presidential election in 2018, and there is a strong risk that subversive forces within and outside Russia will try to overthrow Putin, in part using their new foothold in Ukraine.
If the extremists who seized power in Kiev do not accept Russia’s democratic proposals, Russia will likely be forced to revert to military means to solve the crisis in Ukraine.
Will there be war in Ukraine? I am afraid so. After all, the extremists who seized power in Kiev want to see a bloodbath. Only fear for their own lives might stop them from inciting such a conflict. Russia is prepared to move its forces into southern and eastern Ukraine if repressive measures are used against the Russian-speaking population or if a military intervention occurs. Russia will not annex Crimea. It has enough territory already. At the same time, however, it will also not stand by passively while Russophobic and neo-Nazi gangs hold the people of Crimea, Kharkiv and Donetsk at their mercy.
Sergei Markov is director of the Institute of Political Studies.
Why There Will Be War in Ukraine @
http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-there-will-be-war-in-ukraine/5372456
“Sergei Markov is director of the Institute of Political Studies.
Why There Will Be War in Ukraine @
http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-there-will-be-war-in-ukraine/5372456”
___________________________
What an interesting cut and paste from FUJISAN!
So interesting that I thought I’d check out his link and see where he lifted that long bit of turgid prose from.
Well. It’s an outfit called the “Centre for Research on Globalisation” in Québec, Canada. Unfortunately, its home page doesn’t – as might be considered usual – give any information about who set it up, who’s on the Board, or who are its Trustees, Fellows, Associates or whatever you might wish to call them. They’re as tight-lipped as …. the Bilderberg Group.
Burt never mind – mysteries are nice and perhaps they’re afraid of the spooks.
Anyway – this outfit runs a website called “Global Research” – this is where Fujisan’s cut and paste comes from. This website does contain some information about itself, although there is no mention of its Editorial Board (or similar). It does modestly claim of itself however, the following:
“The Global Research website was established on the 9th of September 2001, two days before the tragic events of September 11. Barely a few days later, Global Research had become a major news source on the New World Order and Washington’s “war on terror”. ”
OK – so we know where they’re coming from. Confirmation is provided by the frequent presence of articles from those egregious hero-gurus Professor Michel Chossudovsky and Dr Paul Craig Roberts.
Actually, the website actively welcomes submissions for articles, so I suppose that even Tovarish Goss – or even BlancMange/Black Jelly – could send something in and have a good chance of getting it published. Craig’s latest articles would however, I fear, have little chance of success…
All in all, therefore, I would judge that website to be garbage and its contents to be taken with the proverbial kilogram of best quality Siberian salt.
Fujisan take note.
Hey Habby, is it beyond your intellectual capabilities to actually refute points in articles posted, instead of wishing them away by attacking either the authors or the websites hosting them ? It’s called “Playing the man, instead of the ball”, a dishonest tactic that results in the perpetrator being expelled.
Here Habby, have a go at this one;
The Anti-Empire Report #126
By William Blum – Published March 7th, 2014
13
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, “#### 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 b###h.
EU: (sniffing): Seriously? You’re not joking?
US: You are, you’re my little b###h. 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 b###h.
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
13
Notes
Guardian Weekly (London), June 27, 2001
RT television (RT.com, Moscow/Washington, DC), March 1, 2014
Deputy Mikhail Golovko, RT, March 1, 2014
RT, March 5, 2014, “The EU’s Ukraine policy and moral bankruptcy”; the phone conversation is believed to have taken place February 26.
NED 2012 Annual Report
Washington Post, September 22, 1991
Victoria Nuland, speaking at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, December 13, 2013
Washington Post, September 26, 2013
“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.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1394296633.html
And here Habby, is another one to hone your non-existent debunking skills on;
tp://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/07/the-ukrainian-pendulum/
by ISRAEL SHAMIR
The stakes are high in the Ukraine: after the coup, as Crimea and Donbas asserted their right to self determination, American and Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory, both under cover.
The American soldiers are �military advisors�, ostensibly members of Blackwater private army (renamed Academi); a few hundred of them patrol Kiev while others try to suppress the revolt in Donetsk. Officially, they were invited by the new West-installed regime. They are the spearhead of the US invasion attempting to prop up the regime and break down all resistance. They have already bloodied their hands in Donetsk.
Besides, the Pentagon has doubled the number of US fighter jets on a NATO air patrol mission in the Baltics; the US air carrier entered the Black Sea, some US Marines reportedly landed in Lvov �as a part of pre-planned manoeuvres�.
The Russian soldiers ostensibly belong to the Russian Fleet, legally stationed in Crimea. They were in Crimea before the coup, in accordance with the Russian-Ukrainian treaty (like the US 5th fleet in Kuwait), but their presence was probably beefed up. Additional Russian troops were invited in by deposed but legitimately elected President Yanukovych (compare this with the US landing on Haiti in support of the deposed President Aristide ). They help the local pro-Russian militia maintain order, and no one gets killed in the process. In addition, Russia brought its troops on alert and returned a few warships to the Black Sea.
It is only the Russian presence which is described as an �invasion� by the Western media, while the American one is hardly mentioned. �We have a moral duty to stick our nose in your business in your backyard a world away from our homeland. It�s for your own good�, wrote an ironic American blogger.
Moscow woke up to trouble in Ukraine after its preoccupation, nay obsession, with the Winter Olympic games had somewhat abated, � when people began to say that �Putin won the games and lost the Ukraine�. Indeed, while Putin watched sports in Sochi, the Brown Revolution succeeded in Ukraine. A great European country the size of France, the biggest republic of the former USSR (save Russia), was taken over by a coalition of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and (mainly Jewish) oligarchs. The legitimate president was forced to flee for his very life. Members of Parliament were manhandled, and in some cases their children were taken hostage to ensure their vote, as their houses were visited by gunmen. The putsch was completed. The West recognised the new government; Russia refused to recognise it, but continued to deal with it on a day -to-day basis. However the real story is now developing in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, a story of resistance to the pro-Western takeover.
The Putsch
The economic situation of Ukraine is dreadful. They are where Russia was in the 1990s, before Putin � in Ukraine the Nineties never ended. For years the country was ripped off by the oligarchs who siphoned off profits to Western banks, bringing it to the very edge of the abyss. To avoid default and collapse, the Ukraine was to receive a Russian loan of 15 billion euros without preconditions, but then came the coup. Now the junta�s prime minister will be happy to receive a mere one billion dollars from the US via IMF. (Europeans have promised more, but in a few years� time�) He already accepted the conditions of the IMF, which will mean austerity, unemployment and debt bondage. Probably this was the raison d��tre for the coup. IMF and US loans are a major source of profit for the financial community, and they are used to enslave debtor countries, as Perkins explained at length.
The oligarchs who financed the Maidan operation divided the spoils: the most generous supporter, multi-billionaire Igor �Benya� Kolomoysky, received the great Russian-speaking city of Dnepropetrovsk in fief. He was not required to give up his Israeli passport. His brethren oligarchs took other Russian-speaking industrial cities, including Kharkov and Donetsk, the Ukrainian Chicago or Liverpool. Kolomoysky is not just an �oligarch of Jewish origin�: he is an active member of the Jewish community, a supporter of Israel and a donor of many synagogues, one of them the biggest in Europe. He had no problem supporting the neo-Nazis, even those whose entry to the US had been banned because of their declared antisemitism. That is why the appeals to Jewish consciousness against the Brown putsch demonstrably failed.
Now came the nationalists� crusade against Russian-speakers (ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians � the distinction is moot), chiefly industrial workers of East and South of the country. The Kiev regime banned the Communist Party and the Regions� Party (the biggest party of the country, mainly supported by the Russian-speaking workers). The regime�s first decree banned the Russian language from schools, radio and TV, and forbade all official use of Russian. The Minister of Culture called Russian-speakers �imbeciles� and proposed to jail them for using the banned tongue in public places. Another decree threatened every holder of dual Russian/Ukrainian nationality with a ten-years jail sentence, unless he gives up the Russian one right away.
Not empty words, these threats: The storm-troopers of the Right Sector, the leading fighting force of the New Order, went around the country terrorising officials, taking over government buildings, beating up citizens, destroying Lenin�s statues, smashing memorials of the Second World War and otherwise enforcing their rule A video showed a Right Sector fighter mistreating the city attorney while police looked other way. They began to hunt down riot policemen who supported the ex-president, and they burned down a synagogue or two. They tortured a governor, and lynched some technicians they found in the former ruling party�s headquarters. They started to take over the Orthodox churches of the Russian rite, intending to transfer them to their own Greek-Catholic Church.
The instructions of US State Dept.�s Victoria Nuland were followed through: the Ukraine had had the government she prescribed in the famous telephone conversation with the US Ambassador. Amazingly, while she notoriously gave �####� to the EU, she did not give a #### about the Russian view of Ukraine�s immediate future.
Russia was not involved in Ukrainian developments: Putin did not want to be accused of meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs, even when the US and EU envoys assisted and directed the rebels. The people of Russia would applaud him if he were to send his tanks to Kiev to regain the whole of Ukraine, as they consider it an integral part of Russia. But Putin is not a Russian nationalist, not a man of Imperial designs. Though he would like the Ukraine to be friendly to Russia, annexing it, in whole or in part, has never been his ambition. It would be too expensive even for wealthy Russia: the average income in the Ukraine is just half of the Russian one, and tits infrastructure is in a shambles. (Compare to the very costly West German takeover of the GDR.) It would not be easy, either, for every Ukrainian government in the past twenty years has drenched the people with anti-Russian sentiment. But involvement was forced upon Putin:
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians voted with their feet and fled to Russia, asking for asylum. Two hundred thousand refugees checked in during the weekend. The only free piece of land in the whole republic was the city of Sevastopol, the object of a French and British siege in 1852 and of a German siege in 1941, and the home base of the Russian Black Sea fleet. This heroic city did not surrender to the Kiev emissaries, though even here some local deputies were ready to submit. And at that last moment, the people began their resistance. The awful success of the putsch was the beginning of its undoing. The pendulum of Ukraine, forever swinging between East and West, began its return movement.
The Rising
The people of Crimea rose, dismissed their compromise-seeking officials and elected a new leader, Mr Sergey Aksyonov. The new leadership assumed power, took over Crimea and asked for Russian troops to save them from the impending attack by the Kiev storm troopers. It does not seem to have been necessary at this stage: there were plenty of Crimeans ready to defend their land from the Brown invaders, there were Cossack volunteers and there is the Russian Navy stationed in Crimea by treaty. Its Marines would probably be able to help the Crimeans in case of trouble. The Crimeans, with some Russian help, manned the road blocks on the narrow isthmus that connects Crimea to the mainland.
The parliament of Crimea voted to join Russia, but this vote should be confirmed by a poll on March 16 to determine Crimea�s future � whether it will revert to Russia or remain an autonomous republic within the Ukraine. From my conversation with locals, it seems that they would prefer to join the Russian Federation they left on Khrushchev�s orders only a half century ago. Given the Russian-language issue and the consanguinity, this makes sense: Ukraine is broke, Russia is solvent and ready to assume its protection. Ukraine can�t pay salaries and pensions, Russia had promised to do so. Kiev was taking away the lion�s share of income generated in Crimea by Russian tourists; now the profits will remain in the peninsula and presumably help repair the rundown infrastructure. Real estate would likely rise drastically in price, optimistic natives surmise, and this view is shared by Russian businessmen. They already say that Crimea will beat out Sochi in a few years� time, as drab old stuff will be replaced by Russian Imperial chic.
Perhaps Putin would prefer the Crimea gain independence, like Kosovo, or even remain under a token Ukrainian sovereignty, as Taiwan is still nominally part of China. It could become a showcase pro-Russian Ukraine to allow other Ukrainians to see what they�re missing, as West Berlin was for the East Germans during the Cold War. Regaining Crimea would be nice, but not at the price of having a consolidated and hostile Ukraine for a neighbour. Still Putin will probably have no choice but to accept the people�s decision.
There was an attempt to play the Crimean Tatars against the Russians; apparently it failed. Though the majlis, their self-appointed organisation, supports Kiev, the elders spoke up for neutrality. There are persistent rumours that the colourful Chechen leader Mr Kadyrov, a staunch supporter of Mr Putin, had sent his squads to the Tatars to strong-arm them into dropping their objections to Crimea�s switch to Russia. At the beginning, the Tatars supported Kiev, and even tried to prevent the pro-Russian takeover. But these wise people are born survivors, they know when to adjust their attitudes, and there is no doubt they will manage just fine.
Russian Nazis, as anti-Putin as Ukrainian Nazis, are divided: some support a �Russian Crimea� whilst others prefer pro-European Kiev. They are bad as enemies, but even worse as friends: the supportive Nazis try to wedge between Russians and Ukrainians and Tatars, and they hate to see that Kadyrov�s Chechnya actually helps Russian plans, for they are anti-Chechen and try to convince people that Russia is better off without Chechens, a warlike Muslim tribe.
As Crimea defied orders from Kiev, it became a beacon for other regions of the Ukraine. Donbas, the coal and steel region, raised Russian banners and declared its desire for self-determination, �like Crimea�. They do want to join a Russian-led Customs Union; it is not clear whether they would prefer independence, autonomy or something else, but they, too, scheduled a poll � for March 30. There were big demonstrations against the Kiev regime in Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and other Russian-speaking cities. Practically everywhere, the deputies seek accommodation with Kiev and look for a way to make some profit, but the people do not agree. They are furious and do not accept the junta.
The Kiev regime does not accept their quest for freedom. A popularly-elected Mayor of Donetsk was kidnapped by the Ukrainian security forces and taken to Kiev. There are now violent demonstrations in the city.
The Ukrainian navy in the Black Sea switched its allegiance from Kiev to Crimea, and they were followed by some units of the air force with dozens of fighter jets and ground troops. Troops loyal to Kiev were blocked off by the Crimeans, but there was no violence in this peaceful transfer of power.
The junta appointed an oligarch to rule Donbas, Mr Sergey Taruta, but he had difficulty assuming power as the local people did not want him, and with good reason: Taruta had bought the major Polish port of Gdansk and brought it to bankruptcy. It seems he is better at siphoning capital away than in running serious business. Ominously, Mr Taruta brought with him some unidentified, heavily armed security personnel, reportedly guns-for-hire from Blackwater (a.k.a. Academi) fresh from Iraq and Afghanistan. He will need a lot more of them if he wants to take Donbas by force.
In Kharkov, the biggest Eastern city, erstwhile capital of Soviet Ukraine, local people ejected the raiding force of the Right Sector from government offices, but police joined with the oligarchs. While the fake revolution took place in Kiev under the tutelage of US and EC envoys, the real revolution is taking place now, and its future is far from certain.
The Ukraine hasn�t got much of an army, as the oligarchs stole everything ever assigned to the military. The Kiev regime does not rely on its army anyway. Their attempt to draft able-bodied men failed immediately as hardly anybody answered the call. They still intend to squash the revolution. Another three hundred Blackwater mercenaries landed Wednesday in Kiev airport. The Kiev regime applied for NATO help and expressed its readiness to allow US missiles to be stationed in the Ukraine. Missiles in the Ukraine (as now stationed in Poland, also too close for Russian comfort) would probably cross Russia�s red line, just as Russian missiles in Cuba crossed America�s red line in 1962. Retired Israeli intelligence chief Yaakov Kedmi, an expert on Russia, said that in his view the Russians just can�t allow that, at any price, even if this means all-out war.
Putin asked the upper house of the Russian parliament for permission to deploy Russian troops if needed, and the parliament unanimously approved his request. They will probably be deployed in order to defend the workers in case of attack by a Right Sector beefed up by Blackwater mercenaries. Humanitarian catastrophe, large-scale disturbances, the flow of refugees or the arrival of NATO troops could also force Putin�s hand, even against his will.
The President in exile
President Yanukovych will be historically viewed as a weak, tragic figure, and he deserves a better pen with a more leisured pace than mine. He tried his best to avoid casualties, though he faced a full-scale revolt led by very violent Brown storm-troopers. And still he was blamed for killing some eighty people, protesters and policemen.
Some of the victims were killed by the Right Sector as they stormed the ruling party offices. The politicians left the building well in advance, but the secretarial staff remained behind � many women, janitors and suchlike. An engineer named Vladimir Zakharov went to the besieging rebels and asked them to let the women out. They killed him on the spot with their bats. Another man was burned alive.
But the majority of casualties were victims of sniper fire, also blamed on Yanukovych. The Kiev regime even asked the Hague tribunal to indict the President as they had President Milosevic. But now, a telephone conversation between EC representative Catherine Ashton and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet reveals that the EC emissaries were aware that dozens of victims of sniper fire at the Maidan were killed by Maidan rebel supporters, and not by police or by President Yanukovych, as they claimed. Urmas Paet acknowledged the veracity of this conversation at a press conference, and called for an independent enquiry. It turned out that the rebel snipers shot and killed policemen and Maidan protesters alike, in order to shed blood and blame it on the President.
This appears to be a staple feature of the US-arranged revolutions. Snipers killing both protesters and police were reported in Moscow�s 1991 and 1993 revolutions, as well as in many other cases. Some sources claim that famed Israeli snipers were employed on such occasions, which is plausible in view of Mr Kolomoysky�s Israeli connection. A personal friend of Mr Kolomoysky, prominent member of the then-opposition, Parliamentarian and present head of administration Sergey Pashinsky was stopped by police as he removed a sniper�s rifle with a silencer from the scene of murder. This discovery was briefly reported in the New York Times, but later removed. This revelation eliminates (or at least seriously undermines) the case against the President. Probably it will be disappear down the memory hole and be totally forgotten, as were the Seymour Hersh revelations about Syria�s sarin attack.
Another revelation was made by President Putin at his press-conference of March 4, 2014. He said that he convinced (read: forced) President Yanukovych to sign his agreement of February 21, 2014 with the opposition, as Western ministers had demanded. By this agreement, or actually capitulation act, the Ukrainian President agreed to all the demands of the Brown rebels, including speedy elections for the Parliament and President. However, the agreement did not help: the rebels tried to kill Yanukovych that same night as he travelled to Kharkov.
Putin expressed amazement that they were not satisfied with the agreement and proceeded with the coup anyway. The reason was provided by Right Sector goons: they said that their gunmen will be stationed by every election booth and that they would count the vote. Naturally, the agreement did not allow for that, and the junta had every reason to doubt their ability to win honest elections.
It appears Yanukovych hoped to establish a new power base in Kharkov, where a large assembly of deputies from East and South of Ukraine was called in advance. The assembly, says Mr Kolomoysky, was asked to assume powers and support the President, but the deputies refused. That is why President Yanukovych, with great difficulty, escaped to Russia. His landing in Rostov made quite an impression on people as his plane was accompanied by fighter jets.
Yanukovych tried to contact President Putin, but the Russian president did not want to leave the impression that he wants to force Yanukovych on the people of Ukraine, and refused to meet or to speak with him directly. Perhaps Putin had no time to waste on such a weak figure, but he publicly recognised him anyway as the legitimate President of the Ukraine. This made sense, as President Yanukovych requested Russian troops to bring peace to his country. He still may make a comeback � as the president of a Free Ukraine, if such should ever be formed in some part of the country, � or as the protagonist of an opera.
“Please see Black Jelly’s comment at 5.00pm. Go back to Tel Aviv. ”
Oh dear. Well that didn’t last long.
It’s been a long day, I’m off to bed.
Macky
“Hey Habby, is it beyond your intellectual capabilities to actually refute points in articles posted, instead of wishing them away by attacking either the authors or the websites hosting them ?”
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It’s called “providing context and background” on the sources, Macky.
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“It’s called “Playing the man, instead of the ball”, a dishonest tactic that results in the perpetrator being expelled.”
______________________
I think we’d better leave questions of expelling to Craig, hadn’t we, Macky? You’re exhibiting the same hubris as Tovarish Goss.
So I’m not too worried really.
Like Kempe, I think I’ll retire for the evening. Keep cutting and pasting!
“So I’m not too worried really”
And we both know why.
“Like Kempe, I think I’ll retire for the evening. Keep cutting and pasting!”
Yes, best retreat for now & give your self-acclaimed “intellectual firepower” some rest; no doubt tomorrow you will be refreshed & ready to pick these articles apart, point by point.
KingofWelshNoir re ‘It’s better than Gilbert & Sullivan’
Indeed, the waspish wit of Gilbert (to Sullivan: ‘There is composition and there is decomposition that’s what your music is, rot’) I digress:
When it comes to incompetence in politics, some things never change.
Have they gone? Thank God for that small mercy.
What an extraordinary night…it started whilst my wife and I were walking to our local pub…Now I might be a bit old, but I have really long blonde hair like my wife…This Big White Van..with at least one bloke inside…shouted to us…
Do You Two Girls Fancy a Threesome???
And There Was Me Thinking These Soft Lads Don’t Have a Sense of Humour…and it got even funnier…The Paramedics Turned Up – As Well as Some People I pretended not to recognise
I will piss off now and annoy The Telegraph readers especially Dan Hodges (Tony Blair’s Mate)
My Ex Didn’t Turn Up
I did invite her.
She said you will get in big trouble there…
You are Still In Love
Nah She will be all right
They Will Both Get On Like a House on Fire Together
I have not seen my ex for 33 years…
I naturally assumed she would look older
She asked me to be her Friend on Facebook
She looks exactly the same, and I know she didn’t fake it.
Rock Chicks are Like That.
They Keep Fit and Don’t Need any Make-up
Tony