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?” [1]
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 [2]
… 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. [3]
… 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.” [4]
… 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. [5]
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.” [6]
NED, receives virtually all its financing from the US government ($5 billion in total since 1991 [7]), 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”. [8]
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.” [9]
Iraq was in the 21st century. Senator John Kerry voted for it. Hypocrisy of this magnitude has to be respected.
Notes:
Source: williamblum.org
|