Many people have engaged with me on the subject of the crisis in Ukraine. Thank you for that. I have been following the unfolding crisis with concern, reading many reports and articles in both the mainstream and alternative media. Of course, it is quite complex, with many conflicting points of view.     The most important thing is to try to make sense of this confusion, and find a rational, peaceful solution that serves the best interests of the ordinary people. Here are a few thoughts from me. What do you think? 

I think today's controversial vote in Crimea was made inevitable by the Western-supported violent coup in Kiev. The people of the autonomous region of Crimea are entitled to express their preferred choice for their future. 

Clearly, most people in Crimea really fear the extremists now controlling the Ukraine government. They would support closer relations with Russia rather than being dominated by Kiev, and integrated into the EU and NATO.

Joining the EU would open Ukraine up to the austerity policies that are so unpopular now in Greece and elsewhere, whereas friendly relations with both the West and Russia may improve their economic independence and welfare. 

They would probably really prefer genuine neutrality and autonomy within Ukraine, even more than integration with Russia, but that choice is not available to them now, due to the urgency of the crisis resulting from the Western-supported interference and violent coup in Kiev. 

The sad thing for me is that this whole crisis was unnecessary. 

It is the result of a long history of selfish Western imperial policy, which now threatens years of instability and divisive hatreds, possibly a destructive civil war, and, in the worst-case scenario, even a nuclear war, if the hotheads in the U.S., and their supporters, continue to recklessly provoke the Russian bear.

Instead, Ukraine could have remained a neutral buffer between EU/NATO and Russia, with mutually-beneficial economic relations and friendship, the Russians keeping their vital naval base agreement, and Ukraine not joining NATO or allowing the U.S. to place nuclear missiles on its territory, etc.  

I think Russia would also have preferred the status quo to continue. But the West has now made that impossible, and Russia has no choice but to protect its strategic interests on its vital border - and it will.

Throughout this crisis, the one-sided media coverage in the West, almost exclusively blaming Russia for everything, demonizing Putin, and omitting or downplaying important details, makes me smell a rat.

We have a right to be suspicious, when the mass media sets a single, simplistic narrative on any issue of great importance, and does not fairly consider the perspectives and interests of all sides.

I certainly do not agree with Putin on everything. It is always healthy to 'mistrust' people in power, at least until trust has been earned, but it does seem to me that Putin has shown himself to be a far more level-headed, rational and skilled diplomat than Obama, Kerry or anyone else in the West. 

He showed this with vetoing escalation of the war in Syria - another foreign-sponsored destabilization, using known terrorists, and fueled by lies about chemical weapons. Putin and Lavrov used their diplomatic skills to thwart Obama's imminent bombing spree there, much to the annoyance of the neo-cons who dominate U.S. government policy-making. 

Unfortunately, Putin failed to do the same to prevent the destruction of Libya, but I think that taught him a lesson. He will not be tricked again by the West, especially over Ukraine, which has obvious strategic interest to Russia.

I believe those who oppose the legitimacy of the vote in Crimea are being hypocritical, for their own political purposes, since they have no problem supporting similar democratic votes in Scotland, Quebec, and everywhere else.
Also, they supported the violent separation of Kosovo from Serbia, so their talk of "respecting national sovereignty" is meaningless.  

There are so many examples of hypocrisy, blatant violation of international law, warmongering, and lack of respect for national sovereignty by the West and its supporters, which makes me conclude they have zero credibility to lecture anyone on Crimea, or anything else. 

U.S. government foreign policy around the world just continues its very long history of causing deaths, suffering and chaos, regardless of the political colour of the occupant of the White House. My theory is that this is all quite deliberate and cold-blooded - "the Chaos Theory". Through such engineered chaos they 'divide and conquer', and loot the world's resources for Wall Street. Or, maybe my theory is wrong, and they are just insane!

We would do well to remember that what happens in Europe is of more than passing interest to the rest of the world. So far, two world wars started there, and humanity might not survive a third!

What do you think?



For further information ~ 
there's more to the news than the mainstream media is telling you ~

  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/  
  http://antiwar.com/    

Western media routinely "demonizes" Russian President Putin, with selective and dishonest reporting. Before jumping on that bandwagon, read this transcript of an informative talk given by Putin to reporters. Make up your own mind who is talking sense:

Vladimir Putin Talks To Reporters About Ukraine
By Vladimir Putin

Continue 

Who was really behind the violence in Kiev, where protestors and police were killed?:

U.S. Media Non-Coverage of the Urmas Paet – Catherine Ashton Sniper Revelation

By David Peterson 
 A stunning example of suppression of an important revelation, plain and simple. Continue

 

When it comes to Western-sponsored "regime change", there has been a pattern of peaceful demonstrations turning very violent, with unknown snipers firing into the crowds:

The Momentum for “Regime Change”: 
Snipers Are Commonly Used as “False Flag” Terrorists ...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-momentum-for-reg...

While the Western media dishonestly presents Russia as the bogey man in Ukraine, let's remind ourselves of a little bit of history that they would prefer you to never know:

A handy, but incomplete, history guide -- from A (Argentina) to Z (Zaire)

35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists:                

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_backed_international_crime_partner/

 

And while the world's attention is focused on Ukraine, the Empire is up to its dirty tricks yet again in Venezuela:

Venezuela, the United States, and Obama
By Paul Street
If Obama assisted right wing coups to preserve oligarchic and military rule in the relatively small and economically insignificant nations of Honduras and Paraguay, it’s not much of a reach to imagine he would like to see regime change in socialist Venezuela. Continue

Madeleine Sharp obituary

By Peter Lidgard
theguardian.com 

My colleague Madeleine Sharp, with whom I worked on delivering aid to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, has died aged 93. She was a dedicated campaigner for oppressed people all over the world.
 

Madeleine Sharp became a supporter of the Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam in 1965, which combined both aspects of her life's work

She was born in London, but the family moved to Newcastle when her father's work as a patent agent moved out of the capital. Her mother was the secretary of the British/Russian friendship society, and it was probably she who encouraged Madeleine to go into medicine. 

Her family could not afford to send her to medical school, however, so she began training as a nurse and enlisted in the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, serving in India.

This experience had a profound effect on her and she would spend the rest of her life campaigning for peace and seeking ways of helping the poor and sick of south-east Asia.

At the end of the second world war she fulfilled her wish to become a doctor. With the advent of the National Health Service, she was able to get a grant to study at Edinburgh University. Shortly after qualifying, she answered an advertisement for a locum at a practice in Coventry. The temporary position there soon became a permanent one and grew into a partnership in the practice, where she worked as GP for 30 years.

Madeleine joined the movement that protested about the US involvement in Vietnam. In 1965 she became a supporter of the Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam, combining both aspects of her life's work. 

The following years saw her involvement increase in both the charity, which became Medical and Scientific Aid to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and her peace campaigning, while continuing as a much-loved and respected GP. 

She took on the role of honorary secretary to MSAVLC from 1987 to 2009, and for many years she was also chair of the City of Coventry Lord Mayor's Peace Committee.

Madeleine first visited Vietnam in 1989, and made numerous trips there to see the many projects supported by MSAVLC. She was always a welcome visitor to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and made many friends; her last visit was a three-week tour in 2009.

She was appointed MBE for services to human rights and humanitarian causes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in 2002. She received the Coventry peace prize in 2004, the Vietnamese government's Order of Friendship in 1992 and its Order of Merit in 2013.

By Peter Lidgard

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/03/madeleine-sharp-obituary

 

I have been following the unfolding crisis in Ukraine with concern, reading and watching the mainstream news reports with anger and frustration at their consistent incompetence to report truthfully.

I have also been following the real journalism in various alternative news sources. Once again, the mainstream media is utterly appalling and wrong in its coverage. It is totally Orwellian, where Lies (of both commission and omission) have become the accepted 'Truth'. 

It is like we are living on two parallel universes - the propaganda nonsense of the mainstream media, versus another very different reality only to be found in the quality alternative media. No wonder people are confused and misled, if they choose a diet of only junk news! 

These differences can easily be seen by reading the best source of daily news - Information Clearing House:  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/



Has Russia Invaded Ukraine?
Propaganda Rules The News

By Paul Craig Roberts

Gerald Celente calls the Western media “presstitutes,” a term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites. 
 
Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia’s alleged invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to the Bush regime’s illegal attack on Iraq. The fact that Donahue had NBC’s highest rated program did not give him journalistic independence. 

Anyone who speaks the truth in the American print or TV media or on NPR is immediately fired. Russia’s RT seems actually to believe and observe the values that Americans profess but do not honor.

I agree with Greenwald. You can read his article here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37842.htm Greenwald is entirely admirable. He has intelligence, integrity, and courage. He is one of the brave to whom my just published book, How America Was Lost, is dedicated. 

As for RT’s Abby Martin, I admire her and have been a guest on her program a number of times.

My criticism of Greenwald and Martin has nothing to do with their integrity or their character. I doubt the claims that Abby Martin grandstanded on “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” in order to boost her chances of moving into the more lucrative “mainstream media.” My point is quite different. 

Even Abby Martin and Greenwald, both of whom bring us much light, cannot fully escape Western propaganda.

For example, Martin’s denunciation of Russia for “invading” Ukraine is based on Western propaganda that Russia sent 16,000 troops to occupy Crimea. 

The fact of the matter is that those 16,000 Russian troops have been in Crimea since the 1990s. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreement, Russia has the right to base 25,000 troops in Crimea.

Apparently, neither Abby Martin nor Glenn Greenwald, two intelligent and aware people, knew this fact. 

 Washington’s propaganda is so pervasive that two of our best reporters were victimized by it.

As I have written several times in my columns, Washington organized the coup in Ukraine in order to promote its world hegemony by capturing Ukraine for NATO and putting US missile bases on Russia’s border in order to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent and force Russia to accept Washington’s hegemony. 

Russia has done nothing but respond in a very low-key way to a major strategic threat orchestrated by Washington.

It is not only Martin and Greenwald who have fallen under Washington’s propaganda. They are joined by Patrick J. Buchanan. Pat’s column calling on readers to “resist the war party on Crimea” opens with Washington’s propagandistic claim: “With Vladimir Putin’s dispatch of Russian Troops into Crimea.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37847.htm

No such dispatch has occurred. Putin has been granted authority by the Russian Duma to send troops to Ukraine, but Putin has stated publicly that sending troops would be a last resort to protect Crimean Russians from invasions by the ultra-nationalist neo-nazis who stole Washington’s coup and established themselves as the power in Kiev and western Ukraine.

So, here we have three of the smartest and most independent journalists of our time, and all three are under the impression created by Western propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

It appears that the power of Washington’s propaganda is so great that not even the best and most independent journalists can escape its influence.

What chance does truth have when Abby Martin gets kudos from Glenn Greenwald for denouncing Russia for an alleged “invasion” that has not taken place, and when independent Pat Buchanan opens his column dissenting from the blame-Russia-crowd by accepting that an invasion has taken place?

The entire story that the presstitutes have told about the Ukraine is a propaganda production. 

The presstitutes told us that the deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, ordered snipers to shoot protesters. On the basis of these false reports, Washington’s stooges, who comprise the existing non-government in Kiev, have issued arrest orders for Yanukovych and intend for him to be tried in an international court. 

In an intercepted telephone call between EU foreign affairs minister Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet who had just returned from Kiev, Paet reports: 

“There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” 

Paet goes on to report that “all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides . . . and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened.” 

Ashton, absorbed with EU plans to guide reforms in Ukraine and to prepare the way for the IMF to gain control over economic policy, was not particularly pleased to hear Paet’s report that the killings were an orchestrated provocation. 

You can listen to the conversation between Paet and Ashton here: http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/


What has happened in Ukraine is that Washington plotted against and overthrew an elected legitimate government and then lost control to neo-nazis who are threatening the large Russian population in southern and eastern Ukraine, provinces that formerly were part of Russia. These threatened Russians have appealed for Russia’s help, and just like the Russians in South Ossetia, they will receive Russia’s help.

The Obama regime and its presstitutes will continue to lie about everything.



Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest books are, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America Was Lost. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ 

*

Spring Fails in Ukrainian Plunderland

By Pepe Escobar

"Russia will abandon the US dollar as a reserve currency if the United States initiates sanctions against the Russian Federation."

"Asia Times" - Here's the US's exceptionalist promotion of "democracy" in action; Washington has recognized a coup d'etat in Ukraine that regime-changed a - for all its glaring faults - democratically elected government.

And here is Russian President Vladimir Putin, already last year, talking about how Russia and China decided to trade in roubles and yuan, and stressing how Russia needs to quit the "excessive monopoly" of the US dollar. He had to be aware the Empire would strike back.

Now there's more; Russian presidential adviser Sergey Glazyev told RIA Novosti, "Russia will abandon the US dollar as a reserve currency if the United States initiates sanctions against the Russian Federation."

So the Empire struck back by giving "a little help" to regime change in the Ukraine. And Moscow counter-punched by taking control of Crimea in less than a day without firing a shot - with or without crack Spetsnaz brigades (UK-based think tanks say they are; Putin says they are not).

Putin's assessment of what happened in Ukraine is factually correct; "an anti-constitutional takeover and armed seizure of power". It's open to endless, mostly nasty debate whether the Kremlin overreacted or not. Considering the record of outright demonization of both Russia and Putin going on for years - and now reaching fever pitch - the Kremlin's swift reaction was quite measured.

Putin applied Sun Tzu to the letter, and now plays the US against the EU. He has made it clear Moscow does not need to "invade" Ukraine. The 1997 Ukraine-Russia partition treaty specifically allows Russian troops in Crimea. And Russia after all is an active proponent of state sovereignty; it's under this principle that Moscow refuses a Western "intervention" in Syria.

What he left the door open for is - oh cosmic irony of ironies - an American invention/intervention (and that, predictably, was undetectable by Western corporate media); the UN's R2P - "responsibility to protect" - in case the Western-aligned fascists and neo-nazis in Ukraine threaten Russians or Russian-speaking civilians with armed conflict. Samantha Power should be proud of herself.

Don't mess with Russian intelligence

 
The "West" once again has learned you don't mess with Russian intelligence, which in a nutshell preempted in Crimea a replica of the coup in Kiev, largely precipitated by UNA-UNSO - a shady, ultra-rightwing, crack paramilitary NATO-linked force using Ukraine as base, as exposed by William Engdahl.

And Crimea was an even murkier operation, because those neo-nazis from Western Ukraine were in tandem with Tatar jihadis (the House of Saud will be heavily tempted to finance them from now on).

The Kremlin is factually correct when pointing out that the coup was essentially conducted by fascists and ultra-right "nationalists" - Western code for neo-nazis. Svoboda ("Freedom") party political council member Yury Noyevy even admitted openly that using EU integration as a pretext "is a means to break our ties with Russia."

Western corporate media always conveniently forgets that Svoboda - as well as the Right Sector fascists - follow in the steps of Galician fascist/terrorist Stepan Bandera, a notorious asset of a basket of "Western" intel agencies. Now Svoboda has managed to insert no less than six bigwigs as part of the new regime in Kiev.

Then there are the new regional governors appointed to the mostly Russophone east and south of Ukraine. They are - who else - oligarchs, such as billionaires Sergei Taruta posted to Donetsk and Ihor Kolomoysky posted in Dnipropetrovsk. 

People in Maidan in Kiev were protesting mostly against - who else - kleptocrat oligarchs. Once again, Western corporate media - which tirelessly plugged a "popular" uprising against kleptocracy - hasn't noticed it.

Once again, follow the money

 
Ukraine's foreign currency reserves, only in the past four weeks, plunged from US$17.8 billion to $15 billion. Wanna buy some hryvnia? Well, not really; the national currency, is on a cosmic dive against the US dollar. This is jolly good news only for disaster capitalism vultures.

And right on cue, the International Monetary Fund is sending a "fact-finding mission" to Ukraine this week. Ukrainians of all persuasions may run but they won't hide from "structural adjustment". They could always try to scrape enough for a ticket with their worthless hryvnia (being eligible for visa on arrival in Thailand certainly helps).

European banks - who according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) hold more than $23 billion in outstanding loans - could lose big in Ukraine. Italian banks, for instance, have loaned nearly $6 billion.

On the Pipelineistan front, Ukraine heavily depends on Russia; 58% of its gas supply. It cannot exactly diversify and start buying from Qatar tomorrow - with delivery via what, Qatar Airways?

And even as 66% of Russian gas exported to the EU transits through Ukraine, the country is fast losing its importance as a transit hub. Both the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines - Russia not on-the-ground but under-seas - bypass Ukraine. The Nord Stream, finished in 2011, links Russia with Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. South Stream, beneath the Black Sea, will be ready before the end of 2015.

Geoeconomically, the Empire needs Ukraine to be out of the Eurasian economic union promoted by the Kremlin - which also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus. And geopolitically, when NATO Secretary General, the vain puppet Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that an IMF-EU package for the Ukraine would be "a major boost for Euro-Atlantic security", this is what clinched it; the only thing that matters in this whole game is NATO "annexing" Ukraine, as I examined earlier.

It has always been about the Empire of Bases - just like the encirclement of Iran; just like the "pivot" to Asia translating into encirclement of China; just like encircling Russia with bases and "missile defense". Over the Kremlin's collective dead body, of course.

Let's plunder that wasteland

 
US Secretary of State John Kerry accusing Russia of "invading Ukraine", in "violation of international law", and "back to the 19th century", is so spectacularly pathetic in its hypocrisy - once again, look at the US's record - it does not warrant comment from any informed observer. Incidentally, this is as pathetic as his offer of a paltry $1 billion in "loan guarantees" - which would barely pay Ukraine's bills for two weeks.

The Obama administration - especially the neo-cons of the "F**k the EU" kind - has lost is power play. And for Moscow, it has no interlocutor in Kiev because it considers the regime-changers illegal. Moscow also regards "Europe" as a bunch of pampered whining losers - with no common foreign policy to boot.

So any mediation now hinges on Germany. Berlin has no time for "sanctions" - the sacrosanct American exceptionalist mantra; Russia is a plush market for German industry. And for all the vociferations at the Economist and the Financial Times, the City of London also does not want sanctions; the financial center feeds on lavish Russian politico/oligarch funds. 

As for the West's "punishment" for Russia by threatening to expel it from the Group of Eight, that is a joke. The G-8, which excludes China, does not decide anything relevant anymore; the G-20 does.

If a wide-ranging poll were to be conducted today, it would reveal that the majority of Ukrainians don't want to be part of the EU - as much as the majority of Europeans don't want the Ukraine in the EU. 

What's left for millions of Ukrainians is the bloodsucking IMF, to be duly welcomed by "Yats" (as Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is treated by Vic "F**k the EU" Nuland).

Ukraine is slouching towards federalization. The Kiev regime-changers will have no say on autonomous Crimea - which most certainly will remain part of Ukraine (and Russia by the way will save $90 million in annual rent for the Sevastopol base, which until now was payable to Kiev.)

The endgame is all but written; Moscow controls an autonomous Crimea for free, and the US/EU "control", or try to plunder, disaster capitalism-style, a back of beyond western Ukraine wasteland "managed" by a bunch of Western puppets and oligarchs, with a smatter of neo-nazis.

So what is the Obama/Kerry strategic master duo to do? Start a nuclear war? 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at   pepeasia@yahoo.com

Copyright 2014 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd

To really understand the crisis in Ukraine, the mainstream media in Australia, UK, U.S. is no help at all. It reflects corporate, imperial interests, and is part of the problem, not the solution. However, real news and useful analysis can be found in alternative media, for those who want to know.

“…Russia has been slow to react to the many years of Washington’s provocations, hoping for some sign of good sense and good will to emerge in the West. Instead, Russia has experienced rising demonization from Washington and European capitals and foaming at the mouth vicious denunciations by the West’s media whores. The bulk of the American and European [and Australian] populations are being brainwashed to see the problem that Washington’s meddling has caused in Ukraine to be Russia’s fault...”       

-        Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37833.htm

Washington’s Arrogance, Hubris, and Evil Have Set the Stage for War
 
By Paul Craig Roberts
 
...The ignorance, absence of integrity, and lack of independence of the US media greatly enhances the prospect for war. The picture being drawn for insouciant Americans is totally false. 

An informed people would have burst out laughing when US Secretary of State John Kerry denounced Russia for “invading Ukraine” in “violation of international law.” 

Kerry is the foreign minister of a country that has illegally invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, organized the overthrow of the government in Libya, tried to overthrow the government in Syria, attacks the civilian populations of Pakistan and Yemen with drones and missiles, constantly threatens Iran with attack, unleashed the US and Israeli trained Georgian army on the Russian population of South Ossetia, and now threatens Russia with sanctions for standing up for Russians and Russian strategic interests. 

The Russian government noted that Kerry has raised hypocrisy to a new level...

Kerry, as is always the case, is lying through his teeth.

 Russia hasn’t invaded Ukraine. Russia sent a few more troops to join those at its Black Sea base in view of the violent anti-Russian statements and actions emanating from Kiev...

 Everyone needs to understand that Washington is lying about Ukraine just as Washington lied about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, just as Washington lied about Iranian nukes, just as Washington lied about Syrian president Assad using chemical weapons, just as Washington lied about Afghanistan, Libya, NSA spying, torture. 

What hasn’t Washington lied about?

Washington is comprised of three elements: Arrogance, Hubris, and Evil. 
There is nothing else there.


Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the U.S.Treasury for Economic Policy, and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest books are, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America Was Lost. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ 

Ukraine: This Isn’t A Revolution – It’s Regime Change
By Brendan O’Neill
 
...The word ‘meddling’ is used to describe Vladimir Putin’s interventions in Ukraine, but never to describe Angela Merkel’s or John Kerry’s cultivation of the oppositional forces – that is ‘mediation’...

The Western debate and coverage of Ukraine has cast a massive political fog over events there. It may not have quite made ‘murder seem respectable’, but it has certainly made externally generated regime change seem revolutionary, and the Western-assisted anti-democratic removal of an elected leader seem like an act of people’s democracy. It has exposed a severe dearth of independent critical thinking among the Western commentariat...   Continue

The Ukraine Crisis: John Kerry and Nato Must Calm Down and Back Off
By Jonathan Steele 
 
...At the back of Pentagon minds, no doubt, is the dream that a US navy will one day replace the Russian Black Sea fleet in the Crimean ports of Sevastopol and Balaclava. 

Since independence, every poll in Ukraine has shown a majority against Nato membership, yet one after another the elites who ran the country until 2010, and who are now back in charge, ignored the popular will. Seduced by Nato's largesse and the feeling of being part of a hi-tech global club, they took part in joint military exercises and even sent Ukrainian troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The deposed Viktor Yanukovych...was the first president to oppose Nato membership in his election campaign, and then persuade parliament to make non-alignment the cornerstone of the country's security strategy, on the pattern of Finland, Ireland and Sweden. Nato refused to accept it...   Continue

Heard the One About Obama Denouncing a Breach of International Law?

By Norman Solomon

...Unfortunately, during the last five years, no world leader has done more to undermine international law than Barack Obama...

Today, Uncle Sam continues to preen as the globe’s big sheriff on the side of international law even while functioning as the world’s biggest outlaw. Rather than striving for an evenhanded assessment of how “international law” has become so much coin of the hypocrisy realm, mainline U.S. media are now transfixed with Kremlin villainy.

...the same standards are not applied to President Obama, whose continuation of the Bush “war on terror” under revamped rhetoric has bypassed international law as well as “civilized behavior.”

In these circumstances, major U.S. media coverage rarely extends to delving into deviational irony or spotlighting White House hypocrisy. Yet it’s not as if large media outlets have entirely excluded key information and tough criticism.

For instance, last October the McClatchy news service reported that “the Obama administration violated international law with top-secret targeted-killing operations that claimed dozens of civilian lives in Yemen and Pakistan,” according to reports released by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Last week, just before Obama leapt to high dudgeon with condemnation of Putin for his “breach of international law,” the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed piece that provided illuminating context for such presidential righteousness.

“Despite the president's insistence on placing limits on war, and on the defense budget, his brand of warfare has helped lay the basis for a permanent state of global warfare via ‘low footprint’ drone campaigns and special forces operations aimed at an ever-morphing enemy usually identified as some form of Al Qaeda,” wrote Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University’s law school.

Greenberg went on to indicate the scope of the U.S. government’s ongoing contempt for international law: 

“According to Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the Obama administration has killed 4,700 individuals in numerous countries, including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Obama has successfully embedded the process of drone killings into the executive branch in such a way that any future president will inherit it, along with the White House ‘kill list’ and its ‘terror Tuesday’ meetings. Unbounded global war is now part of what it means to be president.”

But especially in times of crisis, as with the current Ukraine situation, such inconvenient contradictions go out the mass-media window. What remains is an Orwellian baseline, melding conformist ideology and nationalism into red-white-and-blue doublethink.

 Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” Information about the documentary based on the book is at www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.
   
  Continue

Pres. Obama's One Option: Put Up or Shut Up

By Pat LaMarche

...While President Obama believes President Putin should be sanctioned for his and his Federation's actions, he sees no need to demand payment from Vice President Cheney or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld...

If President Obama would like to lecture President Putin...then he must direct Attorney General Holder to issue arrest warrants for his invading predecessors. If President Obama lacks the stomach to seek justice at home, he's ill-equipped to wag his overly powerful finger in anyone else's direction. 

Because when you ignore the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the lies told to the American people to wage a war of invasion, the crippling of the U.S. economy and the death and devastation of your own military personnel, you don't stand qualified to criticize aggression in others, you set precedence for it.  Continue

Obama's Far Right Foreign Policy
By Shamus Cooke 

...There has been a virtual U.S. media blackout as to the leadership of the movements in Ukraine, Syria, and Venezuela, and for good reason... The American public would give zero support to these groups if they knew the truth, which is why the level of U.S. media misinformation about these groups is as Orwellian as the workings of Obama's NSA...

  Why does the Obama administration choose this type of foreign policy? The main reason is that the above-targeted countries had slid out of the U.S. orbit of control, and only these far-right groups are interested in getting their country back into the U.S. orbit. 

Ultimately, U.S. capitalists gain mountains of profit when a country is dependent on U.S. loans, U.S.-made weapons, manufactured goods, foodstuffs, etc.  

This is why the U.S. establishment — now represented by the Obama administration — will not simply leave Latin America, the Middle East, or Eastern Europe to be independent or fall into the orbit of a competing regional power like Russia. There is simply too much profit at stake.  Peace is not an option.  

In order to stop the never-ending warmongering of U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. government itself must be fundamentally transformed. The U.S. establishment that favors the capitalist economic system will endlessly provoke wars for profit, while an economic system without a profit-motive will have no need for foreign wars.   

 
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Compass ( www.workerscompass.org )  He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

   Continue

The Crisis in Ukraine

Statement by Stop the War Coalition

Stop the War Coalition 03 March 2014.

The highly dangerous situation in Ukraine has brought into focus the threat of a new cold war, and the possibility of military conflict. It is in the interests of no one for such military conflict to take place. The British and US governments are placing the blame for any escalation on Russia, which has sent troops into Crimea.

We oppose all foreign military intervention. But we should be clear that this is not the only intervention. In fact, the EU and the US have been very directly intervening in the affairs of Ukraine, and have played a major role in the changing of the government there, and in the composition of the new government, which contains within it far right and fascist elements.

We should also take no lessons from those who have supported intervention in the past in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and who proposed major air strikes in Syria as recently as last August. Nor should we believe concerns about national sovereignty from countries which have launched drone attacks on Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

There are many political differences in Ukraine that can only be resolved politically and by respecting the language and civil rights of all concerned. But the background to this lies far beyond the borders of the Ukraine in terms of conflict between major powers.

At the end of the Cold War, as agreed with the western powers, Russia disbanded the Warsaw Pact, its military alliance. But the United States and NATO broke their word to Russia, by adding most of Eastern Europe and the Balkan states to their own military alliance, and by building military bases along Russia's southern border.

The expansion of the EU and Nato eastwards has led to the growth of a neoliberal and militarised agenda in the region.

In addition the experience of the war on terror and previous interventions has built up a legacy of conflict between major powers. The defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and over Syria have led to a desire from the US neocons in particular for a settling of scores, especially with Russia. ‘At the same time the Russian and Chinese governments have been alarmed by the range of Nato interventions from Serbia in 1999 to the bombing of Libya in 2011’

It is these tensions which are really fuelling the new cold war, a war which is against the interests of the people of the world, whether in Ukraine or elsewhere.

http://stopwar.org.uk/statements/the-crisis-in-ukraine-and-crimea-statement-by-stop-the-war-coalition