Category: UKRAINE - The Greanville Post

NATO maneuvers in Poland. Stoking the fires of a new global conflict.

Alex Lantier, wsws.org

_Since Crimea voted last Sunday to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, US officials and the American media have mounted a deafening propaganda campaign, posturing as defenders of world peace, the rights of small nations and international law in opposition to Russia. In this campaign, no lie told to justify support for the Ukrainian regime that emerged from last month’s fascist-led coup is too absurd.

As he announced new sanctions against Russia yesterday, President Obama denounced Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “Basic principles between governments in the world must be upheld in the 21st century,” Obama intoned, such as “the notion that nations do not redraw borders simply because they are larger or more powerful.”

Writing along similar lines, the Washington Post editorialized that “Mr. Putin’s claim that Russia should have a say in the political orientation of its neighbors, and whether they join alliances such as the European Union or NATO, is entirely unacceptable.”

Who is supposed to believe this nonsense? The governing principle of US foreign policy is that it has an unchallengeable right to determine the political orientation of its unfortunate “neighbors” in the Western hemisphere and that of every other country in the world.

As far back as the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States claimed the entire Western hemisphere as its sphere of influence, dictating what relations it could have with European powers.

A comprehensive history of blood-soaked US interventions in the internal affairs of the countries of South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean would require an encyclopedic work comprising dozens of volumes. A partial list of the depredations of US imperialism against its neighbors to the south would include the incursions into Mexico between 1914 and 1917, the military occupations of Haiti and Nicaragua, the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the countless CIA assassination plots against Castro, and the 1973 overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile.
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OBAMA ON THE UKRAINE CRISIS.

A region of the world that practically no one in the West ever heard of may soon become headlines around the clock as US raises hell again

Transdniestria may become part of Russia. 52412.jpeg

Get ready for the hypocritical cries of “Russian imperialism” and similar alarums denouncing “a return of Soviet style expansionism”…
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SUGGESTED BY GAITHER STEWART

_The Supreme Council of the unrecognized republic of Transdniestria appealed to the State Duma of Russia to provide for the possibility of entering the region in Russia in the Russian legislation. After the events in the Crimean Republic the country is under siege. Ukraine imposed restrictions on travel for Russians in Transnistria through its territory. The border was closed for cargo as well.

The information was confirmed by Deputy Prime Minister of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic for International Cooperation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nina Shtanski. “Russian citizens are not allowed in Transnistria and are not let out. Transnistria is home to nearly 200,000 Russian citizens, and not all of them can travel and leave the country through Moldova. This means that people are locked on both sides,” said Nina Shtanski.

“So far this problem affects only males with Russian passports, but it has affected not only those traveling by road, people are being removed from trains,” she added. The Minister said that blocking goods intended for peacekeepers was unacceptable. “Ukraine is not only a guarantor country in the normalization of the relations, but also a member of peacekeeping operations in which it acts as a military observer,” said Nina Shtanski.

Border Service of Ukraine declared that this is done to not allow terrorists allegedly prepared in Transnistria on the Ukrainian territory. According to the authorities of the unrecognized republic, in the near future they face a complete isolation. Under such circumstances, an appeal on behalf of the Chairman of the Parliament of Transnistria Mikhail Burla to the Speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament Sergei Naryshkin is justified.

The letter states that the Parliament of Transnistria has adopted in the first reading a law recognizing the Russian legislation as part of Transnistrian, and recognizing Russian as a national language. There are concerns that sanctions might follow from the official Chisinau, which would further worsen the “difficult position” of Transnistria. Mikhail Burla also noted that the bill of “Fair Russia” on the facilitation of accession of new Russian territories only makes it possible for Crimea to join.

“We withdrew the bill on a simplified procedure of joining of independent states and territories because the procedure of legal resolution on Crimea has changed,” explained to Pravda.Ru Tatiana Moskalkova, deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian integration and relations with compatriots. “Since Crimea has declared itself an independent state, its adoption to the Federation became possible bypassing intermediate contracts, i.e., according to the current legislation. The will of the people is what matters, and enclave status of Transnistria is not an obstacle. ”

The deputy believes that Russia should first use all diplomatic instruments and demand the elimination of violations. Until these measures are exhausted, there have to be appeals, but if Moldova does not make conclusions based on the Ukrainian events, Russia is ready to take decisive steps to protect its citizens as it was done in Ukraine, she said.

Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Tobuh, the chairman of the Republican movement of Transdniestria “Recognition,” member of the Supreme Council of the TMR, believes that Russia has a legal basis to accept Transdniestria to the Federation. Since there is a declaration of independence, the only thing that needs to be done is recognition of that status, as it was done in Crimea.

“On September 17, 2006, the referendum on Transnistria by an absolute majority made a positive decision on two issues. The first issue is the recognition of the TMR, and the second issue is the gradual entry into the Russian Federation,” the expert told Pravda.Ru. “Now we have to hold this position of the people and resist Western propaganda machine that has been working in Moldova on Transnistria,” said Vyacheslav Tobuh.

“I think that in Transnistria, like in Crimea, public organizations kept the momentum. We’ve done our part, now it’s up to the leadership of the Russian Federation. We sincerely believe and hope that the will and spirit will prevail, and we will live in one country,” said Vyacheslav Tobuh.

Russia’s position was stated by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. According to him, the situation in Transnistria may deteriorate further if Moldova signs an agreement with the EU. “Chisinau does not think about Transnistria and all their actions show that it is not their land. We will draw conclusions based of this reality,” said the Deputy Prime Minister.

“The political situation around Transnistria is different from the Crimean,” told Pravda.Ru Mikhail Emelyanov, deputy head of “Fair Russia” in the State Duma.
“There’s a legitimate government, Moldova observes truce, there have been no threats of armed attack on Transnistria and the lives of the Russian-speaking population. Much will depend on the leadership of Moldova. If there are further steps and even rhetoric aimed at the integration with Romania, Transnistria will immediately be part of Russia.”

Moldova President Nicolae Timofti on March 18^th said at a press conference that the address of TMR to RF was counterproductive, and was not intended to benefit Moldova or the Russian Federation. If Russia took such a step it would be a wrong decision, it would not add prestige to Russia in the international arena. Timofti, however, admitted that there were similarities between the situation in Ukraine, Crimea and Transnistria.

“Russia will not move on the request for annexing this territory, however, to preserve the legal framework on the left bank of the Dniester, it may recognize Transnistria as an independent state,” said an attorney Theo Kyrnats to Moldovan TV channel Publika TV.

“Moscow does not need Transnistria within the boundaries of the Republic of Moldova. According to the plan, that likely is being tested in the east of Ukraine, Russia most likely wants a federation, and not the country under the name Republic of Moldova without Transnistria,” said the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania Adrian Cioroianu.

However, Moldovan and Romanian experts say that the situation in Ukraine is destroying the existing format of negotiations on the Transnistrian issue. Two of the major international mediators and guarantors of stability in Transnistria are in a state of war.” The 5 +2 negotiation format was established in 1993. Under this format Chisinau and Tiraspol are parties in conflict. Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE are mediators, and the U.S. and the EU act as observers. Russia has 400 peacekeepers in Transnistria.

“All pro-Western politicians in the CIS countries should realize that the key to their independence and integrity is not in Washington, not in Brussels, not in Berlin, but in Russia,” said deputy Mikhail Emelyanov. “Only Russia’s goodwill and its desire to follow international agreements led to the fact that they were recognized painlessly, unlike Yugoslavia, were given the opportunity to develop as independent states and provided assistance, in fact, free of charge, and supplied oil and gas in the early stages. The West stimulates their aggressive behavior against Russia, but at the crucial moment gives them up. This happened in Georgia and Ukraine. Therefore, they should really think hard before performing any anti-Russian actions. ”

Copyright © 1999-2014, «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru’s editors.

Paul Craig Roberts
SOURCE: Author’s site

Paul Craig Roberts: Brave, often brilliant opinions punctuated with surprising blind spots.

P.C. Roberts

_Once upon a time the BBC was a news organization, but that was before the organization sold out to Washington. Today the BBC is a liar for Washington. Indeed, the BBC is a despicable organization that believes that “exceptional, indispensable” Washington has the right to determine the fate of all peoples.

The proof is everywhere. Just look here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26606097

The BBC says that the referendum in Crimera is disputed. But by whom? Not by the people voting. The dispute comes from the anti-democratic forces that are not voting–the Obama regime and its puppet UK government and puppet BBC ministry of propaganda.

How far the BBC has fallen! Look as these BBC lies:

Lie: “Many Crimeans loyal to Kiev boycotted the referendum, and the EU and US condemned it as illegal.”

Fact: More than 80% voted and the vote was 96% against Washington. So who precisely boycotted the vote, and how could it have made any difference? The BBC doesn’t care. The BBC’s job is to lie for Washington. Let’s assume that the 20% of voters who did not turn out would all have voted against rejoining Russia. That 20% together with the 4% who did vote not to rejoin Russia could give a vote of 24% against and 76% for. So, despite the BBC’s utterly dishonest attempt to suggest that it wasn’t a majority vote, it would have made no difference whatsoever if the vote turnout had been 100% instead of 80%.

Lie: “Pro-Russian forces took control of Crimea in February.”

Fact: Anyone who would repeat this Washington lie at this stage is totally devoid of all integrity.Crimeans took control of their destiny. Crimeans refused to let Washington and its corrupt British puppet take control of Crimea’s destiny. Crimeans stood up to the lies and intimidation coming out of Washington and its two-bit punk NATO puppets. Crimeans gave the finger to the utterly corrupt West.

The BBC has totally discredited itself as a news organization and revealed itself as an organ of Washington’s Ministry of Propaganda. The BBC has made itself totally unreliable. No informed person will ever agains believe a BBC report.

It is extraordinary that the BBC is so biased and careless in its reporting that the BBC did not notice that the BBC itself reported that 58% of the citizens of Crimea are Russian; yet more than 80% of the population voted and 96% voted to return to Russia where Crimea existed until Khrushchev put Crimea, without a vote, into Ukraine. Clearly, not merely the Russian population voted.

The BBC might as well be abolished. It is nothing but another mouthpiece for Washington. Anyone who believes any BBC report is a gullible fool. Who needs the BBC when you can tune into the lies issuing directly from the White House?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Craig Roberts has had careers in scholarship and academia, journalism, public service, and business. He is chairman of The Institute for Political Economy.

Why would the United States run the risk of siding with anti-Semitic, neo-Nazis in Ukraine?

Zbigniew Brzezinski: one of the masterminds of American imperialism. Incalculable suffering has followed his criminal recommendations. The man who “gave the Soviets their Vietnam.”

Posted By Chris Ernesto, antiwar.com

_One of the keys may be found by looking back at Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard in which he wrote, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

“However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”

The former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981 and top foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama, Brzezinski wrote that US policy should be “unapologetic” in perpetuating “America’s own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer still.”

Brzezinski delved into the importance of little known Ukraine by explaining in his 1997 book, “Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location… which in some cases gives them a special role in either defining access to important areas or in denying resources to a significant player.”

“Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Turkey and Iran play the role of critically important geopolitical pivots,” he wrote in The Grand Chessboard, a book viewed by many as a blueprint for US world domination.

Brzezinski wrote that Eurasia is “the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played,” and that “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America.”

Understanding Brzezinski’s long-term view of Ukraine makes it easier to comprehend why the US has given $5 billion to Ukraine since 1991, and why today it is hyper-concerned about having Ukraine remain in its sphere of influence.

It may also help explain why in the past year the US and many of its media outlets have feverishly demonized Vladimir Putin.

By prominently highlighting the mistreatment of activist group Pussy Riot, incessantly condemning Russia’s regressive position on gay rights, and excessively focusing on substandard accommodations at the Sochi Olympic Games, the Obama administration has cleverly distracted the public from delving into US support of the ultra-nationalist, neo-Nazi factions of the Ukrainian opposition, and has made it palatable for Americans to accept the US narrative on Ukraine.

zbigniew-brzezinski-OsamaBinLaden Interestingly enough, it was Brzezinski who first compared Putin to Hitler in a March 3 Washington Post Editorial. Hillary Clinton followed-up the next day with her comments comparing the two, followed by John McCain and Marco Rubio who on March 5 agreed with Clinton’s comments comparing Putin and Hitler. Apparently Brzezinski still continues to influence US political speak.

In his book, Brzezinski contends that “America stands supreme in the four decisive domains of global power: militarily… economically… technologically… and culturally.”

While this may have been accurate in 1997, it can be argued that today, other than militarily, the US no longer reigns supreme in these domains.

So late last year when Ukraine’s now-ousted president Viktor Yanukovych surprisingly canceled plans for Ukrainian integration into the European Union in favor of stronger ties with Russia, the US may have viewed Ukraine as slipping even further out of its reach.

At that point, with the pieces already in place, the US moved to support the ousting of Yanukovych, as evidenced by the leaked phone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When peaceful protests were not effective in unseating Yanukovych, the violence of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party and Right Sector was embraced, if not supported by the west.

In today’s Ukraine, the US runs the risk of being affiliated with anti-Semitic neo-Nazis, a prospect it probably feels can be controlled via a friendly western media. But even if the risk is high, the US likely views it as necessary given the geopolitical importance of Ukraine, as Brzezinski mapped out in 1997.

Chris Ernesto is co-founder of St. Pete for Peace, an antiwar organization in St. Petersburg, FL that has been active since 2003. Mr. Ernesto also created and manages OccupyArrests.com and USinAfrica.com.

Read more by Chris Ernesto

Look Who the US Is Siding With in Ukraine, Egypt, and Syria – February 28th, 2014

Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com

URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/chris_ernesto/2014/03/14/brzezinski-mapped-out-the-battle-for-ukraine-in-1997/

By William Engdahl. Republished from Global Research.
TGP News Syndicate / Cyrano’s Journal Today

[Protest in western Ukraine Dec. 1, 2013. Picture courtesy Press Europe.]

The recent protests in Ukraine have the stench of a foreign-orchestrated attempt to destabilize the government of Viktor Yanukovych after he walked away from signing an EU Association Agreement that would have driven a deep wedge between Russia and Ukraine. Glamor-star boxer-turned political guru, Vitaly Klitschko, has been meeting with the US State Department and is close to Angela Merkel’s CDU political machine in Germany.

The EU association agreement with Ukraine is widely resisted by many EU member states with deep economic problems of their own. The two EU figures most pushing it—Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski—are both well known in the EU as close to Washington.

The US is strongly pushing the Ukraine EU integration just as it had been behind the 2004 failed “Orange Revolution” to split Ukraine from Russia in a bid to isolate and weaken Russia. Now Ukrainians have found evidence of direct involvement of the Belgrade US-financed training group, CANVAS behind the carefully-orchestrated Kiev protests.

A copy of the pamphlet that was given out to opposition protestors in Kiev has been obtained. It is a word-for-word and picture-for-picture translation of the pamphlet used by US-financed Canvas organizers in the 2011 Cairo Tahrir Square protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak and opened the door to the US-backed Muslim Brotherhood.[1] The photo below is a side-by-side comparison:

The photo left is from Tahrir Square; the right from Kiev and here below is the English original used by the Belgrade CANVAS NGO:

Canvas, formerly Otpor, received significant money from the US State Department in 2000 to stage the first successful Color Revolution against Slobodan Milosovic in then-Yugoslavia. Since then they have been transformed into a full-time “revolution consultancy” for the US, posing as a Serbian grass-root group backing “democracy.” [2] Who would ever think a Serbian-based NGO would be a front for US-backed regime change?

The Strange Ukraine “Opposition”

Direct sources in Kiev that I have contacted report that the anti-government protestors have been recruited with money from among university students and unemplyed to come by bus into the heart of Kiev. The revealing aspect is the spectacular emergence of champion boxed Vitaly Klitschko as presumably the wise politician guiding Ukraine’s future. No doubt spending your career beating other boxers unconscious is a superb preparation for becoming a statesman, though I for one doubt it. It reminds of the choice of a low-grade Hollywood movie actor, Ronald Reagan as President. But more interesting about “opposition” spokesman Klitschko is who his friends are.

Klitschko is being backed by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. Nuland, former US Ambassador to NATO, is a neo-conservative married to leading neo-conservative hawk, Robert Kagan, and was herself a former adviser to Dick Cheney. [3]

Klitschko is also very friendly with German Chancellor Merkel. According to a recent Der Spiegel report, Merkel wants to support Klitschko in his bid to become Ukraine’s president in 2015. [4]

More evidence that a darker agenda lies behind the “democracy” opposition is the fact that the demands of the protestors went from demanding accession to the EU to demanding the immediate resignation of the Yanukovich government. Klitschko and the opposition used an unfortunate police crackdown on protesters to massively expand the protest from a few hundred to tens of thousands. On December 18, the government took the wind partly out of the Klitschko sails by signing a major economic agreement with Moscow in which Russia agreed to cut the price of Russian gas exported to Ukraine by a third, down to $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters from the current level of more than $400, and to buy $15 billion of Ukraine’s debt in eurobonds. That gives Ukraine breathing room to avoid a sovereign debt default and calmly negotiate over its future.

William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics in the New World Order. He is a contributing author at BFP and may be contacted through his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net where this article was originally published.

Notes:

[1] SysAdmin, Pamphlets in Ukraine handed out during protests and pamphlets that were handed out in Egypt, December 12, 2013, accessed in http://12160.info/photo/photo/show?id=2649739%3APhoto%3A1376645.

[2] Nebojsa Malic, Invasion of the Mind Snatchers: Empire’s Revolution Business, AntiWar.com, June 24, 2011, accessed in http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2011/06/23/invasion-of-the-mind-snatchers/.

[3] NTDTV,Ukrainian Opposition Vitaly Klitschko Meets US Official Victoria Nuland, December 6, 2013, accessed in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0miz548u0WY.

[4] Die Zeit, Merkel unterstützt Klitschko, 8. Dezember 2013, accessed in http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2013-12/merkel-klitschko-ukraine.

Anti-Russia propaganda and the fabrication of a new pro-war consensus

Transdniestria may become part of Russia

The BBC: Washington’s Mouthpiece

Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997

Surprise! Ukraine Protests Carefully Orchestrated: The Role of CANVAS, US-Financed “Color Revolution Training Group”