“Comrade Wolf knows who to eat, and he eats without listening to anyone.”
– Russian President Vladimir Putin referring to the United States

The Ukraine crisis has its roots in a policy that dates back nearly 20 years. The origins of the policy can be traced to a 1997 article in Foreign Policy magazine by Zbigniew Brzezinski, titled “A Geostrategy for Eurasia.” The article makes the case that the United States needs to forcefully establish itself in Central Asia in order to maintain its position as the world’s only superpower.

While many readers may be familiar with Brzezinski’s thinking on these matters, they might not know what he has to say about Russia, which is particularly illuminating given that the recent uptick in violence has less to do with Ukraine than it does with Washington’s proxy-war on Russia. Here’s what Brzezinski says:

“Russia’s longer-term role in Eurasia will depend largely on its self-definition…Russia’s first priority should be to modernize itself rather than to engage in a futile effort to regain its status as a global power. Given the country’s size and diversity, a decentralized political system and free-market economics would be most likely to unleash the creative potential of the Russian people and Russia’s vast natural resources. A loosely confederated Russia — composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic — would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations with its neighbors. Each of the confederated entitles would be able to tap its local creative potential, stifled for centuries by Moscow’s heavy bureaucratic hand. In turn, a decentralized Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization.” Zbigniew Brzezinski, A Geostrategy for Eurasia, Foreign Affairs, 76:5, September/October 1997.

So is this the goal of US policy, to create “A loosely confederated Russia” whose economy can be subsumed into America’s market-based system?

Notice how easily Brzezinski chops Russia into smaller, bite-size statelets that pose no threat to US imperial expansion. Brzezinski undoubtedly envisions a Russia that will sell its vast resources in petrodollars and recycle them into US Treasuries further enriching the corrupt rent-skimmers in Washington and Wall Street. He foresees a Russia that will abdicate its historic role in the world and have no say-so in shaping global policy. He imagines a compliant Russia that will help facilitate US imperial ambitions in Asia, even to the point where it will pay to police its own people on behalf of US oligarchs, weapons manufacturers, oil magnates, and 1 percenters. Here’s the paragraph in Brzezinski’s piece that sums up Washington’s objectives in Ukraine, Russia and beyond. It is fittingly headlined with the following words in bold print:

“TRANSCONTINENTAL SECURITY

“Defining the substance and institutionalizing the form of a trans-Eurasian security system could become the major architectural initiative of the next century. The core of the new transcontinental security framework could be a standing committee composed of the major Eurasian powers, with America, Europe, China, Japan, a confederated Russia, and India collectively addressing critical issues for Eurasia’s stability. The emergence of such a transcontinental system could gradually relieve America of some of its burdens, while perpetuating beyond a generation its decisive role as Eurasia’s arbitrator. Geostrategic success in that venture would be a fitting legacy to America’s role as the first and only global superpower.” Zbigniew Brzezinski, “A Geostrategy for Eurasia,” Foreign Affairs

Translation: The United States will police the world, dispatch troublemakers, and eliminate potential threats wherever it finds them. It will impose its neoliberal dogma (Austerity, privatization, structural adjustment, anti labor reforms, etc) across-the-board and on all participants. Also, minor partners–”Europe, China, Japan, a confederated Russia, and India”–will be expected to provide security for their own people at their own expense in order to “relieve America of some of its burdens.”

Nice, eh? So you even have to pay for your own jailers.

And what is “Transcontinental Security” anyway? Isn’t it just a fancy way of saying “one world government”?

Indeed, it is. It’s the very same thing. Here’s more from Brzezinski:

“Failure to widen NATO…would shatter the concept of an expanding Europe… Worse, it could reignite dormant Russian political aspirations in Central Europe.”

This is an oddly convoluted statement. In the first sentence, Brzezinski supports the idea of an “expanding Europe”, and then in the next breath, he worries that Russia might want to do the same thing. It’s another case of the pot calling the kettle black.

What’s clear, is that –in Brzezinski’s mind– EU and NATO expansion will help Washington achieve its hegemonic aspirations. That’s all that matters. Here’s what he says:

“Europe is America’s essential geopolitical bridgehead in Eurasia…A wider Europe and an enlarged NATO will serve the short-term and longer-term interests of U.S. policy… A politically defined Europe is also essential to Russia’s assimilation into a system of global cooperation.”

“Bridgehead”? In other words, Europe is just a means to an end. But what would that “end” be?

Global domination. Isn’t that what he’s talking about?

Of course, it is.

What makes the Ukrainian crisis so hard to understand, is that the media conceals the policy behind the impenetrable fog of daily events. Once the fog lifts though, it’s easy to see who’s causing all the trouble. It’s the party that’s calling the shots from abroad, the good old US of A.

Putin doesn’t want this war and neither do most Ukrainians. The whole thing was conjured up by Uncle Sam and his minions to stop the flow of Russian gas to Europe, to push NATO further eastward, and to break the Russian Federation into little pieces. That’s what it’s really all about. And these madmen are willing to raze Ukraine to the ground and kill every living organism within a 3,000 mile radius of Kiev to get their way. After all, isn’t that what they did in Iraq? They sure did. And did I mention that, according to this week’s Wall Street Journal, “Iraq’s Oil Output Surged to Highest Level in Over 30 Years” with all the usual suspects raking in hefty profits.

The point is, if they’d did it in Iraq, they’ll do it in Ukraine too. Because what Washington cares about is constituents not carnage. Carnage they can handle.

Brzezinski is not the only one supporting the current policy either. There’s also fellow traveler, Hillary Clinton. In fact, it was Secretary of State Clinton who first used the term “pivot” in a 2011 article in Foreign Policy Magazine titled “America’s Pacific Century”. Clinton’s op-ed described a “rebalancing” plan that would open up new markets to US corporations and Wall Street, control the flow of vital resources, and “forge a broad-based military presence” across the continent. Here’s an excerpt from the text of Clinton’s seminal speech:

“The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.

As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region…

Harnessing Asia’s growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology…..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia…The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama’s goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia…

…as I talk with business leaders across our own nation, I hear how important it is for the United States to expand our exports and our investment opportunities in Asia’s dynamic markets.” (“America’s Pacific Century”, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton”, Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)

“Harnessing Asia’s growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama”?

Does that sound like someone who wants to cultivate a mutually-beneficial relationship with their trading partners or someone who wants to move in, take over and run the show?

Washington’s plan to shift its attention from the Middle East to Asia is all about money. Clinton even says so herself. She says, “The region generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade…Asia’s markets … provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and…a vast and growing consumer base.”

Money, money, money. The upside-profit potential is limitless which is why Madame Clinton wants to plant Old Glory right in “the center of the action”, so US corporations can rake in the dough without fear of reprisal.

Brzezinski says the same thing in his magnum opus “The Grand Chessboard” Here’s an excerpt:

“A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” (Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It’s Geostrategic Imperatives”, page 31)

Get the picture? It’s a gold rush! Having successfully looted every last farthing from the battered US middle class and left the economy in a ghastly shambles, Brzezinski, Clinton and Co. are headed for greener pastures in Central Asia, home of the world’s largest oil producing nation, boundless reserves in the Caspian Basin, and zillions of voracious consumers who’ll need everything from I Pads to leisure wear, all graciously provided by US-owned corporations. Cha-ching!

So don’t get tripped up on the daily events in Ukraine. This isn’t a clash between pro-government forces and anti-government activists. This is the next big phase of Washington’s plan to conquer the world, a plan that will inevitably pit Moscow against the amassed military power of the United States of America. This is David vs. Goliath, Mother Russia vs. the Great Satan, Vladie Putin vs. Comrade Wolf.

Ukraine is just Round 1.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

_The Supreme Court’s recent decision, McCutcheon v FEC, granted further political influence to the 1 percent, enabling them to spend as much as they wish influencing political campaigns.  It followed the Court’s 2010 ruling, Citizens United v. FEC, allowing the rich to spend unlimited sums on political advertising.  Some wonder if this is not a 21^st century form of buying an election?

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) lamented the toll these decisions will likely have on American popular democracy.  “If present trends continue, elections will not be decided by one-person, one-vote,” he warned.  He added, “this process — a handful of the wealthiest people in our country controlling the political process — is called ‘oligarchy.’”

Sanders acknowledged the potential consequences of the Court’s decisions: “The great political struggle we now face is whether the United States retains its democratic heritage or whether we move toward an oligarchic form of society where the real political power rests with a handful of billionaires, not ordinary Americans.”

The contemporary concept of oligarchy was popularized by the Russian experience.  Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, innumerable state companies were privatized.  The country was in disarray and, in an effort to stabilize the economy, the Yeltsin government “redistributed” state-owned enterprises to trusted cronies.  They came to wield unprecedented power over the economy, the state apparatus and the mass media.

The term “oligarchs” is gaining currency in the U.S.  Sanders defined them as “a small number of very wealthy families who spend huge amounts of money supporting right-wing candidates who protect their interests.”  He means to differentiate this “small number” from the larger world of the rich and superrich, the plutocrats, who – as a class – have long exercised considerable influence on the U.S. political system.  Who are these oligarchs and how do they different from today’s plutocrats?  And how does this generation of oligarchs differ from previous generations of the superrich who, over the last century, have dominated American politics?

* * *

Oligarchy is defined as “government by the few” and came into English use around 1570.  The term derives from two Greek words: oligos meaning “few” and arch for “rule”; similar English-language terms include monarch or hierarchy.  Plutocracy is derived from the Greek ploutos meaning “wealth” and kratos for “govern.”

Today, both concepts — plutocrats and oligarchs — refer to the growing influence the rich – and especially the superrich – have on the national (and international) political economy.  Oligarchs are plutocrats who use their enormous wealth to further a particularly conservative, if not rightwing, agenda.

Piketty: The good academic just took more than 700 pages to prove what Marx and generations of leftists have known for almost 200 years.  Capitalism stinks. Capitalism breeds inequality. What’s all the fuss about?  Yawn.

Thomas Piketty’s study, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, reveals that the U.S. – along with much of the advanced capitalist world — is returning to what economist Paul Krugman calls the “new Gilded Age.”  Piketty finds that that in 2010, the top 1 percent controlled 20 percent of U.S. income and, together with the next 9 percent, the superrich controlled 50 percent of all income.  The IRS recently noted that in 2011, 11,445 U.S. taxpayers declared incomes of more than $10 million.

According to Forbes, the three richest Americans in 2013 were: Bill Gates ($72 bil net worth), Warren Buffet ($58.5 bil) and Larry Ellison ($41 bil).  They may well be plutocrats in the old-fashioned sense of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford.  But are they oligarchs?

Michael Bloomberg was New York’s mayor for 12 long years and is ranked 10^th on Fortune’s list of wealthiest Americans with a net worth of $31 billion.  He leveraged his public position and private wealth vigorously promoting two pet projects, gun control and obesity?  Both initiatives stalled in the political marketplace.  Is he an oligarch?

Today’s grand plutocrats include the Walton family, the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson.  They make up seven of the top 11 wealthiest Americans: Charles Koch ($36 bil), David Koch ($36 bil), Christy Walton ($35.4 bil), Jim Walton ($33.8 bil), Alice Walton ($33.5 bil), Samuel Robson Walton ($33.3 bil) and Adelson ($28.5 bil).  This is real money.

These plutocrats become oligarchs by employing their vast wealth in an apparently more aggressive – and conservative – way than, for example, Gates, Buffet or Bloomberg.  The Koch brothers are major backers of the Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity; they are reported to have donated an estimated $196 millions to fight the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare—which stinks, anyway—Eds.).  The Waltons have led the charge against public education, committing an estimated $1 billion promoting privatization – no teachers’ union or community accountability — through charter schools.  Adelson famously holds court for Republican presidential hopefuls who visit his Las Vegas castle to kiss his ring and proclaim their undying support for Israel.

* * *

America is stuck.  The “American Century” is over and globalization is restructuring capitalism.  The rich are getting phenomenally richer while the income of the rest of Americans stagnates or falls.  Both American plutocrats and oligarchs are fighting to hold on to — and increase! — their wealth and influence during this restructuring.  And they are succeeding.

Over the last quarter-century, globalization has spawned a new class of superrich who wield historically unprecedented power.  This elite truly enjoys the privileges of its social status, operating on its own economic, political and moral terms.  It’s a value system shared by plutocrats around the globe.  They endow cultural institutions, their names shamefully promoted; they are delivered anywhere on the globe via private jets; they are escorted in chauffeured limousines through busy city streets; and they are celebrated at exclusive get-togethers like the Davos World Economic Forum.  Like nobility of old, the fawning media present them – like other celebrities – in the most favorable light.

In the U.S., pay-to-play payoffs — whether in cash or kind — define everyday politics.  Local Chambers of Commerce, real-estate interests, financial players, large retailers, trade associations, and other special interests lubricate the wheels of government.  Lobbyists facilitate, legislators dutifully legislate, deals are cut, someone wins and – in most cases – the vast majority of ordinary Americans lose.  It’s the way the game is played.

However, the U.S. is not Russia, let alone Greece or Afghanistan or almost anywhere else around the globe.  Most U.S. officials don’t take cheap bribes.  Corruption takes place, but low-level scammers, whether from the private or public sector, are regularly busted.  However, when it comes to real money, that’s another story.

American plutocrats are at the top of the political foodchain.  Their wealth buys influence.  They use their financial power to determine public policy, involving laws, court decisions, tax codes, zoning ordinances, corporate subsidies, outsourcing and purchasing contracts.  Their wealth enables them to promulgate their self-serving vision at the local, state and federal levels, benefiting every step of the way.  They link economic policy to social programs, seeking to dictate civic values — public morality — with regard to abortion rights, teen sex and gay rights.

This is nothing new.  For more then a century, plutocrats have used their wealth to influence public policy.  In the fin de siècle era, modern, industrial capitalists like Rockefeller and Carnegie remade America, promoting not only free-market capitalism but eugenics as well.  These grand oligarchs garnered their wealth the old-fashioned way, by brutally exploiting their wage-labor workers.  And in those good-old-days, politicians were really for sale, no questions asked.  And then came the Progressives.

Ford — and the Fordist manufacturing process — defined the modern era.  He introduced the assembly line and the $5-per-day salary – ostensibly so his workers could buy the cars they made.  The collapse of the Great Depression stalled economic growth.  The enormous expansion of the national economy during World War II and the post-war recovery made Ford # 1.  Ford symbolizes the highpoint of consumer capitalism.  And then came globalizations and a new generation of plutocrats and oligarchs.

In 1937, amidst the Great Depression, Ferdinand Lundberg published an influential book, America’s 60 Families.  It revealed the financial and political power of the nation’s great fortunes.  Nearly three-quarters of a century ago he warned:

The United States is owned and dominated today by a hierarchy of its sixty richest families, buttressed by no more than ninety families of lesser wealth… These families are the living center of the modern industrial oligarchy which dominates the United States, functioning discreetly under a de jure democratic form of government behind which a de facto government, absolutist and plutocratic in its lineaments …. It is the government of money in a dollar democracy.

It’s more important than ever to wonder just how much has changed.

A century ago the Progressive movement, led by Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, W.E.B. DuBois and Teddy Roosevelt, focused national attention on the robber barons.   The Occupy Movement focused popular attention on the 1 percent.  Inequality – and the growing power of the oligarchs – is becoming a national political issue, most evident in the election of Bill de Blasio as New York’s mayor.

Today’s plutocrats and oligarchs, backing both Democrats and Republicans, have failed to deliver.  They’ve backed two expensive — in dollars and blood – failed foreign military interventions.  They championed financial and economic policies contributing to the great recession of 2008-2010 from which the nation has yet to fully recover.  And they’ve made the lives of ordinary Americans harder, materially worse.  Their policies have failed, yet they remain in power.

For many Americans, Obama was the great black hope who realized far less than hoped for.  He did move (however slowly) to end the military misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.  And he did secure the passage of Obamacare, a possible (don’t hold your breath!—Eds) stepping-stone to a national, single-payer program.  Yet, he dutifully bailed out the banks and let walk the perpetrators of the financial crisis.  And he’s backed the most reactionary immigration and intelligence policies as well as promoted the worst trade pact (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) since Nafta.

Is the U.S. ready for four, if not eight, more years of another centrist Democrat?  Hillary Clinton will likely only be Obama-heavy.  If elected, Clinton will have much to prove, especially that she’s tough.  The plutocratic ruling class has no national answer, a workable program, to address the changes the nation faces amidst capitalism’s global restructuring.  Their goal is to maximize private gain at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary Americans.  And Clinton, like her husband before her, will help facilitate the further distribution of wealth to the top 1 percent.

Given this possibility, could a Republican victory in the 2016 presidential election be a good thing for “progressives”?  If both the presidency and the Congress fell under Republican control, life in the U.S. for middle-income, working-class and poor would get really worse.  But at least no one will have any illusions that it could be different.

David Rosen’s personal blog is at  www.DavidRosenWrites.com. He can be reached at drosennyc@verizon.net. 

“While Russia has been making efforts to de-escalate and resolve the crisis, the Kiev regime has chosen to launch airstrikes on peaceful residential areas, literally destroying the last hope for preserving the Geneva accords.” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman

“The crisis in Ukraine is not the result of ‘Russian aggression,’ but of a criminal strategy by the US and its European allies to install a hostile regime on Russia’s borders in Ukraine and, ultimately, dismember Russia itself.” Johannes Stern, NATO boosts military build-up against Russia as protests spread in east Ukraine, World Socialist Web Site

Fighting broke out on Friday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk when Kiev’s coup government deployed military helicopters to fire on the city while troops and armored vehicles stormed checkpoints. At the time this article went to press, two helicopters had been shot down killing at least two pilots while one was captured. In an impassioned statement on Russian TV, Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, appealed to allies in the EU to do whatever they could to persuade Ukrainian authorities to call off the operation and stop the violence.

“We are calling on the European capitals, the United States of America to give an assessment of the current events and are of course calling on those carrying out airstrikes on residential areas to…immediately end the punitive operation and any violence against its own people…”

So far, there has been no response from Washington although it’s clear that the Obama administration had a hand in organizing the crackdown. Not only were the State Department and CIA directly involved in the putsch that removed democratically-elected president Viktor Yanukovych from office, but Washington has also been implicated in punitive operations directed against ethnic Russian protestors in east Ukraine. Both CIA Director John Brennan and Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev just hours before two previous crackdowns were ordered by imposter-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. As Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blandly noted, It’s clear that Washington is “calling the shots”.

On Thursday, it looked like violence might be avoided when coup-President Oleksandr Turchynov said that he had lost control of the situation. In an exasperated message to the media, Turchynov said, “It is hard to accept but it’s the truth, but the majority of law enforcers in the east are incapable of performing their duties.”

Turchynov was referring to the fact that Ukrainian troops have refused to attack their own countrymen. The mutiny has reportedly spread from elite airborne units to local police who sympathize with the protestors. The only group that’s willing to carry out Washington’s proxy war is the Right Sector neo-Nazis who helped topple the Yanukovych government. Just last week, members of this openly fascist party, commemorated “the perpetrators of the massacre of Yanova Dolina,” where “600 Poles were murdered by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in what is now Bazaltovoye. The massacre marked the beginning of ethnic cleansing in what is now western Ukraine, where tens of thousands of Poles were killed within a few months.” (World Socialist Web Site)

These are Obama’s new allies in America’s war against Russia. Now check this out from Reuters:

“The International Monetary Fund warned that if Ukraine lost territory in the east it would have to redesign a $17 billion bailout of the country, probably requiring additional financing.” (Ukraine attacks rebel city, helicopter shot down, Reuters)

Tell me, dear reader, when was the last time you heard of the IMF threatening to withhold funds if a political leader didn’t wage war on his own people? Anyone with half a brain can see that the IMF is just acting on orders from the White House. This is Obama’s war. His fingerprints are all over the policy. Obama is determined to draw Russia into a bloody guerilla war that leaves Ukraine in the same condition as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria.

Here’s a clip from the New York Times:

Not Getting Through to Mr. Putin, New York Times)

Putin wants a “chaotic” failed state on Russia’s border? Have you ever read such nonsense in your life?

Putin didn’t topple the Ukrainian government. The US State Department did. (Victoria Nuland’s hacked phone calls prove it.) And Putin didn’t violate the Geneva agreement less than 24 hours after the deal was signed by launching a crackdown on civilian protestors in the east. That was US-puppet Yatsenyuk. Nor did Putin deploy the military to surround cities, cut off their water supplies and deploy helicopter gunships to fire missiles at civilian infrastructure and terrorize the local population. That was the work of Obama’s fascist junta in Kiev. Putin had nothing to do with any of the trouble in Ukraine. It’s all part of the US “pivot to Asia” strategy to encircle and (eventually) dismember Russia in order to seize vital resources and control the flow of energy to China. Washington wants to reduce Ukraine to Mad Max-type pandemonium to justify establishing NATO bases on Russia’s perimeter. It’s all part of the plan to control Central Asia and rule the world.

Putin has acted as peacemaker throughout the crisis, but Obama is determined to provoke the Russian president by attacking and killing ethnic Russians. Consider the statement by Russia’s Foreign Ministry following the helicopter incident on Friday morning:

“As we have warned many times before, the use of the army against its own people is a crime and is leading Ukraine to catastrophe…By supporting the organizers of the Kiev coup in their strategy of violently putting down protests, the US and EU are taking on a huge responsibility, essentially closing the door to a peaceful solution to the crisis.” (Putin says Geneva agreement no longer viable after Ukrainian military action, Guardian)

It’s clear now that Obama merely used the Geneva agreement to buy time to move troops and military hardware to Poland and the Balkans. It’s also clear that Obama invited German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Washington so that it would appear that Europe is united behind the US in its proxy war on Russia. But what does Obama hope to achieve by stirring up this hornet’s nest? He knows that Putin cannot afford to back down on Crimea, so what’s the point? And, more importantly, what is Ukraine going to look like when Washington is finished using it as a staging-ground for its geopolitical landgrab? Here’s an insightful piece by Russian academic, Andrei Fursov, who thinks he knows what Obama wants and explains the impact the policy is going to have on Ukraine for years to come.

“The Americans need controlled chaos and civil war…Moreover, it is clear that this country (post-coup Ukraine) is intended to be absolutely anti-Russian, nationalist, Banderite and neo-Nazi. So the dual goal of establishing this anti-Russian state is to constantly apply pressure on the Russian Federation…

As Bismarck (said) ‘We must cultivate among the Ukrainians, a people whose consciousness is altered to such an extent, that they begin to hate everything Russian.’ …

Thus we are talking about a historical psy-op, an information-psychological sabotage, whose purpose is to establish Russophobic Slavs… They are the means to separate Ukraine from Russia and to oppose Russia as a kind … totalitarian empire. This was all devised under the Galician Project, on which the intelligence services of Austro-Germany and Kaiser German worked, followed by the intelligence service of the Third Reich, later – CIA and BND…

Banderastan, if that’s what Ukraine is fated to become, as designed by the puppet-masters across the ocean, is to be an oligarchic, terroristic, Russophobic state…An oligarchic Banderite…oligarchy is the ideal vehicle for external control. Clearly, this will suit both the oligarchs and the West.” (Battleground Ukraine: A Comprehensive Summary, Zero Hedge)

So, there it is: Divide and rule. We saw the Bush administration pull it off with the Shia and Sunnis in Iraq, and now Obama wants to do the same with the Ukrainians and Russians. Same strategy, different continent.

This is Obama’s plan for the “New Ukraine” a fascist-ruled failed state that follows Washington’s directives and puts pressure on Russia thorough endless provocations, belligerence, and war. Ukraine will be Washington’s pit bull in the East, separating Moscow from crucial sources of revenue and thwarting efforts at greater EU-Russia economic integration. This is how Washington hopes to insert itself into Eurasia, to improve its prospects in the Great Game, and to establish global hegemony into the next century.

(Note: “Banderite” refers to Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader who collaborated with the Nazis. Bandera headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) According to the World Socialist Web Site: “The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) carried out numerous massacres of the Polish population in western Ukraine…The UPA served as a military executive organ of the OUN. It was founded in the spring of 1943 and recruited primarily from Nazi collaborators who were previously active in the SS.”)

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.