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

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.

Obama Backs Down on Crimea

Chicken Kiev

by MIKE WHITNEY, Counterpunch.org

“I never thought I’d live to see the day when the US State Department whitewashed the neo-Nazi views and heritage of a gang of thugs who had seized power in a violent coup d’état. In Iraq, Libya, and Syria, US policymakers empowered radical Islamists of one sort or another. That was bad enough. Today, however, in Ukraine they are empowering the heirs of Adolf Hitler. How is this not a scandal?”

–Justin Raimondo, From Iraq to Ukraine: A Pattern of Disaster

Satirical poster showing the reality of America’s cynical encirclement of Russia, Iran, and forward military bases around the world. The actual number exceeds 1000. America is the only nation since the Romans to maintain an international network of military outposts.

How could Russia & Iran put their countries right next to all our bases?

_The Obama administration suffered its worst foreign policy defeat in 5 years on Sunday when the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to reject Washington’s Nazi-backed junta government in Kiev and join the Russian Federation. The balloting, in which more than 93 percent of voters “approved splitting off and joining Russia” reflects the strong ethnic, cultural and historic ties its people share with Moscow as well as the understandable fear that being “liberated” by the US could lead to grinding third world poverty and widespread mayhem the likes of which are manifest in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

The Obama administration rejected the nearly-unanimous referendum opining that they would not accept the results and would push for economic sanctions on Russia as early as Monday. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the referendum “complied with international law” and that he would honor the will of the people. Putin, who was attending the Paralympic games in Sochi, has wisely stayed above the fray throughout the crisis brushing off the hysterical accusations and threats issued almost daily by President Obama or his vaudevillian sidekick John Kerry, the most incompetent buffoon to ever serve as US Secretary of State. Between Obama, Kerry and the irascible John McCain, who traipses from one media venue to the next spouting his cold war fulminations like an old man shooing kids off the front lawn, the US has made a spectacular hash of things leaving US foreign policy in a shambles. The Crimea fiasco shows that while Team Obama may be chock-full of fantasists, spin-doctors and crystal-gazing globalists it is sadly lacking in geopolitical pragmatists with a solid grasp of the way the world works. Obama has been no match for Putin who has tromped him at every turn. Here’s a clip from an article by the Associated Press:

“Moscow… called on Ukraine to become a federal state as a way of resolving the polarization between Ukraine’s western regions — which favor closer ties with the 28-nation EU — and its eastern areas, which have long ties to Russia.

In a statement Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry urged Ukraine’s parliament to call a constitutional assembly that could draft a new constitution to make the country federal, handing more power to its regions. It also said country should adopt a “neutral political and military status,” a demand reflecting Moscow’s concern about the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO.” (Crimea declares independence, seizes property, AP)

So, this is how Putin intends to play the game, eh; by using basic democratic institutions to block Washington from implementing its plan to deploy NATO and US missile bases in Ukraine? It sounds like a smart move to me.

Once again, Putin has made every effort to downplay his role in deciding policy so as not to embarrass the bungling Obama claque who seem determined to make themselves look foolish and impotent at every opportunity. Here’s how analyst Michael Scheuer summed up Putin’s behavior in an article at the Ron Paul website:

“The difference in the Ukraine intervention from others the West has conducted is that the terminally adolescent political leaders who run the West have run smack dab into a decisive, realistic, and nationalistic adult, in the person of Vladimir Putin, and they do not know what to do. They are learning that the Ukraine is not Libya or Egypt in that Putin will not to let the West make of Ukraine — or at least of Crimea — the same unholy mess its earlier unwarranted interventions made of Egypt and Libya. Putin has a very clear view of Russia’s genuine national interests, and reliable access to the Crimean base of the Black Sea fleet is one of them, it has been for centuries, and it will remain so in the future…

U.S. and Western leaders should be lining up to thank Vladimir Putin for a painful but thorough lesson in how the adult leader of a nation protects his country’s genuine national interests.” (Russia Annexing Crimea is the Cost of US/EU intervention in Ukraine, Michael Scheuer, Ron Paul Institute)

Putin realizes that derailing Washington’s strategy to control the Crimea will have serious consequences. He must now prepare for the typical litany of asymmetrical attacks including covert operations, special ops, arming Tatar jihadis to incite violence in Crimea, US-backed NGOs fomenting unrest in Moscow, etc etc, as well as stepped up US military and logistical support for Kiev’s thriving fascist element which has already morphed into the imposter-government’s security apparatus, a scary remake of Hitler’s Gestapo. Here’s the rundown from the World Socialist Web Site:

“On Thursday, the Ukrainian parliament voted to establish a 60,000-strong National Guard recruited from “activists” in the anti-Russian protests and from military academies. The force will be overseen by the new security chief, Andriy Parubiy, a founder in the early 1990s of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine. His deputy, Dmytro Yarosh, is the leader of the paramilitary Right Sector. It is the Ukrainian equivalent of Hitler’s storm troopers.

In addition to aiding the West in its provocations against Moscow, the main responsibility of these elements will be to carry through a social onslaught against the Ukrainian working class at the behest of international capital…” (What the Western-backed regime is planning for Ukrainian workers, World Socialist Web Site)

And here’s a bit more from the same article on the radical austerity program the IMF is planning to impose on Ukraine in order to shrink the government, reduce pensions, cut social services, and leave the country in a permanent state of Depression:

“Behind incessant rhetorical invocations of a “democratic revolution,” Ukraine’s newly-installed government of former bankers, fascists and oligarchs is preparing draconian austerity measures.

The plans being drawn up are openly described as the “Greek model,” i.e., the programme of savage cuts imposed on Greece by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) that has caused Greece’s economy to collapse by nearly 25 percent in five years and produced a massive growth in unemployment and poverty…” (“What the Western-backed regime is planning for Ukrainian workers, World Socialist Web Site)

So, Putin definitely has his work cut out for himself. Fortunately, he appears to be getting sound advice from his political and military advisors who have avoided pointless grandstanding, gamesmanship or incendiary rhetoric the likes of which erupt from the White House and State Department on a daily basis.

Despite the fact that the Kremlin does not want to see Washington “lose face”, sometimes events make that impossible, as the astute political analysts at Moon of Alabama pointed out on Sunday. Here’s a blurb from a post at MoA that shows how Washington has essentially capitulated to Moscow and accepted its basic framework for resolving the crisis while trying to dupe the public into thinking the policy was their idea. Here’s the excerpt:

“There was another phone call today between Secretary of State Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The call came after a strategy meeting on Ukraine in the White House. During the call Kerry agreed to Russian demands for a federalization of the Ukraine in which the federal states will have a strong autonomy against a central government in a Finlandized Ukraine. Putin had offered this “off-ramp” from the escalation and Obama has taken it. The Russian announcement:

(Reuters) – “Lavrov, Kerry agree to work on constitutional reform in Ukraine: Russian ministry…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed on Sunday to seek a solution to crisis in Ukraine by pushing for constitutional reforms there, the Russian foreign ministry said.

It did not go into details on the kind of reforms needed except to say they should come “in a generally acceptable form and while taking into the account the interests of all regions of Ukraine”.

“Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov and John Kerry agreed to continue work to find a resolution on Ukraine through a speedy launch of constitutional reform with the support of international community,” the ministry said in a statement.” (Ukraine: U.S. Takes Off-Ramp, Agrees To Russian Demands, Moon of Alabama)

Can you believe it? The goofy Obama team wants the public to believe that the whole “constitutional reform”-thing was their idea so people don’t notice that the clunker administration and President Featherweight have run up the white flag and headed for the hills. This is classic Barack “lead from behind” Obama trying to make a full-blown retreat look like a victory.

It’s pathetic!

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.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

OpEds—

No possible agreement given the hypocrisy of the American side.

Paul Craig Roberts

Washington’s plan to seize Ukraine and to evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base has come amiss. But to turn around Lenin’s quote, “two steps forward, one step back.”

Do you remember all the tough talk coming from John Kerry, the White House Fool, Hillary Clinton, and the lickspittle Merkel about the harsh sanctions that would “badly damage” the Russian economy unless Russia prevented the referendum vote in Crimea? Well, it was all bullshit, more hot air from the White House sock puppet and the lickspittle German chancellor who is a disgrace to the German nation. As the Russians kept telling John Kerry, sanctions on Russia would destroy Europe and do little damage to Russia.

I wish the Russians had kept this to themselves. I was looking forward to the Washington morons destroying NATO by closing down the European economy.

Of course, after pretending that they were macho tough guys, something that Washington’s presstitute media could hype as sanctions had to be imposed, so Washington came up with sanctions, not on Russia, but on eleven individuals: the deposed Ukrainian president, an advisor to the deposed president, 2 Crimean officials, and 7 Russians.

The choice of the officials is an utter mystery. The seven Russians are a Putin aid, a Putin adviser, four members of the Russian parliament (Duma) and a deputy prime minister. What any of these people had to do with the referendum in Crimea, no one knows.

Moreover, the sanctions only apply to foreign bank accounts that these 11 individuals might have outside Russia. Most likely, that means only the deposed Ukrainian president, if we are to believe all the propaganda about him. Other reports say that the sanctions are only for the next six months.

If the Washington and EU criminals steal any money from these persons, the Russian central bank can replenish their stolen accounts.

The people who decided that Crimea would disassociate from Ukraine and return to Russia were the people themselves. Under the wording of Obama’s stupid sanctions, his sanctions should apply to the Crimean people who voted to disassociate from the US stooge government in Kiev.

Additionally, Obama’s sanctions apply to himself and to his regime and to its NATO puppets as it was the West that overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, not Russia or Crimea. The Americans, of course, never apply law to themselves.

In other words, the sanctions are totally meaningless. Yet, the White House Fool declared: “If Russia continues to interfere in Ukraine, we stand ready to impose further sanctions.”

Obama’s hypocrisy makes a person want to puke. It is the White House Fool who is interfering in Ukraine. It was Washington that financed and organized the overthrow of the elected Ukraine government, using well organized and well armed neo-nazis to intimidate the unarmed police and ruling party, thus clearing the way for Washington to set up an unelected government of its well-paid stooges.

What the incompetent White House Fool overlooked is that southern and eastern Ukraine are Russian, not Ukrainian, so the fool’s coup has caused Crimea to depart and is causing widespread protests in eastern Ukraine against Washington’s stooge unelected government in Kiev. Washington’s stooge Kiev government has appointed unelected Ukrainian multibillionaire oligarchs, who have their own private security forces, as mayors of the Russian cities to put down the protests. If the oligarchs use violence against the Russian people, the likely result will be that the Russian Army will take control of eastern Ukraine, which in every essential way is Russian.

If eastern Ukraine returns to Russia, Washington will be left with the ultra-nationalists of western Ukraine, people who fought for Hitler during World War 2. The EU doesn’t want ultra-nationalists as the EU is busy stamping out nationalism and the sovereignty of European countries. Nevertheless, Washington will have gained a strategic advantage over Moscow, as Washington can place anti-ballistic missile and other military bases on western Ukraine’s border with Russia, thus completing Washington’s encirclement of Russia with hostile military and missile bases.

Russia will neutralize the US bases by targeting them with Iskander missiles, which cannot be intercepted by ABMs.

All that the White House Fool will have achieved is to further make clear to Russia, and to China, that Washington has both on its target list, because both are in the way of Washington’s world hegemony.

One can only wonder why Putin doesn’t preempt the coming US military attack on Russia by destroying NATO economically without firing a shot. All Putin needs to do is to cut Europe off from energy. It would take Washington three years to create the capability to deliver US natural gas, achieved by fracking’s destruction of US water supplies, to Europe. By that time NATO governments would likely have been overthrown by mass unemployment and economic suffering. Putin could also seize all foreign assets in Russia and rapidly complete the arrangements with China, India, Brazil, and South Africa to abandon the use of the US dollar in international settlements.

The US dollar as world reserve currency is the source of American imperialism. The five countries that comprise the BRICS have half of the world’s population. They can conduct their economic affairs without the dollar.

The world needs to understand that the neoconservative US government is the Third Reich on steroids. It is a malevolent force with no sense of justice or respect for truth, law, or human life. Just ask the residents of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Honduras, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran. Even the deluded western Ukrainians will soon catch on.

Obama himself declared that the US is “the exceptional nation.” This is the neoconservatives version of Hitler’s declaration that the German nation was exceptional and, therefore, above all others. The only difference between Washington and National Socialist Germany is that Washington has a far more powerful police state and nuclear weapons.

The hubris and arrogance that arises from Washington’s belief that it is the government of the “indispensable and exceptional nation” means Washington has no respect for any other country, nor for law whether its own or international. Washington can invade countries without cause, a war crime. Washington can kidnap and torture people, a crime under US and International law. Washington can ignore the self-determination of peoples, such as Crimeans. Who are mere Crimeans to vote on their own future without Washington’s consent, without Washington determining the outcome? Washington declares the Crimean people’s self-determination “illegitimate and illegal,” and refuses to recognize self-determination, while pretending to be the home of “freedom and democracy.”

No government in human history can come close to the hypocrisy and malevolence of Washington. Armed with nuclear weapons and a military doctrine of pre-emptive nuclear first strike, Washington alone stands as the threat to life on earth.

_{ABOUT THE AUTHOR}
_{A former establishmentarian with impressive credentials in academic life, from economics to history, and vast experience in the machinery of government and official media (having served, improbably, as a cabinet member in Ronald Reagan’s administration and as an editor at the Wall Street Journal), Dr Roberts is today one of America’s most vocal and lucid critics of the neocon cabal’s imperial policies.}

Fair and square election in Crimea chooses Russia, but American propaganda derides the result

Over 96% of Crimeans Vote to Join Russia – Full U.S. & E.U. Sanctions Delayed

17.Mar.2014 |

SCG News

crimea-referendum-join-russia-celebration

Apparently Congress is on vacation, so the sanctions will have to wait till they get back.

Yesterday Crimea held a referendum to decide whether to join the Russian Federation. 135 international observers from 23 countries monitored voting and found no evidence of fraud or coercion. But of course this means nothing to the U.S. and the E.U.

Washington was talking very tough leading up to the vote, claiming that sanctions would begin on Monday and that things would “get ugly fast”, but so far Washington and the E.U.’s response to the Crimean referendum has been laughable. They didn’t place any sanctions on Russia at all, instead they slapped “sanctions” on 21 unnamed Russian officials, supposedly banning their visas and freezing assets. Not exactly shock and awe.

However this doesn’t mean the drama is over. According to Sen. John Hoeven, who was part of the group of eight senators, led by John McCain, which visited Ukraine this past week, the Senate’s first order of business when lawmakers return to Washington on March 24 will be legislation to impose sanctions against Russia and provide aid to Ukraine. Hoeven was quoted as saying ““I believe that Congress will pass that bill,””.

Russia on the other hand didn’t wait around to find out. This past week the Federal Reserve’s treasury holdings dropped by 105 billion, which has led to speculation that this is a direct result of Russia moving its assets into offshore accounts where they will be less vulnerable to U.S. sanctions. Russian entities held $138.6 billion of Treasury debt as of December 31 according to the Treasury Department’s website.

Russia pulls Bonds out of the Fed

“This is only speculation on our part, but it seems likely that the Russian authorities had more than $100 billion of Treasury debt in custody at the Fed, and it doesn’t seem implausible that they moved it to a jurisdiction where it would be less vulnerable to a U.S. asset freeze,” said Lou Crandall at Wrightson ICAP LLC.

The fact that the Obama administration chose not to implement any real sanctions directly, instead passing the buck to Congress, is a sign that they recognize that this situation could blow up in their face in a big way. Now that it has surfaced that the U.S. and the E.U. backed known Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, and that the new coalition government was behind the sniper attacks, the White House is in a very weak position.

This scenario is reminiscent of the Syrian crisis of 2013 when Obama at first threatened to launch airstrikes unilaterally, then wavered as their story fell apart. The decision was handed to Congress, and Congress refused to even bring it to a vote.

The Ukrainian situation however, differs in one very significant way: the American public is not taking this seriously as of yet. The U.S. has applied sanctions against weak nations like Iraq, North Korea and Iran many times in the past without sustaining any damage at home. Many are inclined to view this situation through the same lens, but this is a mistake. Russia is not a weak nation. If Congress votes to impose sanctions on Russia there will be very serious consequences at home.

So will Congress have enough sense to realize that attacking Russia economically would be suicide? Will the public be interested enough in this chain of events to scare some sense into Congress? We’ll find out soon enough.

Sources

U.S. bill on Ukraine delayed as Congress debates IMF, campaign finance:http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/ukraine-crisis-usa-congress-idI…

U.S. Lawmakers Call For Quick Economic Retaliation Against Russia:http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/03/16/u-s-lawmakers-call-for-quick-ec…

Someone (probably Russia) just moved a 100 billion dollars worth of Treasuries out of the Fed:http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/03/14/did-russia-just-dump-its-treas…

_______________________

Crimeans Choose Russia

by Stephen Lendman

March 16 was historic. It was important. Crimean authorities showed how real democracy works. They shamed America’s sham process. Monied interests control things. People have no say. Both major parties control a rigged process. They’re two sides of the same coin. Not a dime’s worth of difference separates them. Independent candidates are virtually shut out. Americans get the best democracy money can buy.

Crimeans got the real thing. International observers praised the process. Voting went peacefully and smoothly. It was scrupulously open, free, and fair. No irregularities occurred. None were seen. No pressure. No intimidation. Not a single Russian soldier in sight. None invaded. None occupy Crimea. Claims otherwise are false. They’re Western propaganda. They’re malicious lies.

Turnout was impressive. It was unprecedented. It exceeded 83%. In Sevastopol, it was 89.5%. Over 1.274 million Crimeans voted. Plus Sevastopol residents excluded from this total. An astonishing 96.77% chose Russia – 95.6% of Sevastopol voters. A previous article said Russians comprise about 60% of Crimea’s population. Ukrainians around 25%. Tatars 12%.

Results show Crimeans overwhelmingly reject Kiev putschists. Russians, Ukrainians and Tatars agree. Claims otherwise are false. Referendum Commission chairman Mikhail Malyshev said.

“We were receiving protocols from the 27 district commissions all night long. The last one came at around 6:00AM. After that, our commission compiled the final protocol.” Commission members signed the official document. It certified election results.

A scant .72% of ballots were declared invalid.

Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksionov addressed a Simferopol rally, saying:

“No one can take away our victory. We are going to Russia.” He spoke accompanied by the Russian national anthem. “We are going home,” he added. “Crimea within Russia. Hooray, comrades.”

Parliament Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov added: “We have done it! You have done it! This is our victory, and nobody can take it away from us.” Crimeans celebrated their landslide victory. Ludmila Balatskays is a 72-year-old former Sevastapol city government deputy.

“Today is the greatest day of my life,” she said. “We are returning to mother Russia. I was just a little girl when they just informed us that Crimea was now Ukraine. Everything fell down around me.”

“We are Russia. We have always been Russian people in our souls here in Crimea, but today that becomes a practical reality again.” She spoke with tears in her eyes. Most other Crimeans share her joy. Gennady Basov chairs the Sevastopol Russian Block party. He said choosing Russia gives Crimea “protection from the neo-Nazis and fascists in Kiev.”

On Sunday, Putin and Obama spoke. Russia’s president correctly called the referendum legal. It complies with international law and UN Charter provisions. They uphold self-determination rights. A Kremlin statement said:

“Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin drew attention to the inability and unwillingness of the present authorities in Kiev to curb rampant violence by ultra-nationalist and radical groups that destabilize the situation and terrorize civilians, including the Russian speaking population.”

He urged steps taken to change things. Regional stability depends on responsible policies. An official White House statement said Obama called the referendum illegal. He accused Russia of “military intervention.” He lied saying so. Moscow didn’t intervene. Claims otherwise are false.

Obama said “the United States and the international community…would never” recognize referendum results. “(W)e are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions,” he added. Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin highlighted Western hypocrisy. On the one hand, its officials reject Crimean self-determination rights. On the other, they call Kiev putschists legitimate. They ignored their brazen coup d’etat.

On March 17, Crimea asked UN authorities and international community countries to recognize their self-determination. A resolution was adopted doing so. “The Republic of Crimea seeks equality, peace, and good-neighborliness as well as political, economic and cultural cooperation,” with all other nations, it said. On Monday, Russian State Duma Vice Speaker Sergei Neverov said parliamentarians will complete all necessary legislative procedures on accommodating Crimeans at the earliest possible time.

“The results of the Crimean referendum have clearly indicated that the residents of Crimea see their future only as part of Russia,” he said. “They voted for reunification of the people who always lived together.” The number of people who came to polling stations and supported Crimea’s re-unification with Russia speaks for itself.”

“It’s a reply to all those who attempted, throughout the past weeks, to prevent the residents of Crimea from determining their own destiny, their own future and the future of their children.” Russian upper house Federation Council Foreign Policy Committee deputy chairman Andrei Klimov praised Crimea’s democratic process, saying:

“(W)hat we saw in Crimea was a direct expression of citizens’ will – a system that the Americans might stand to benefit from. (T)he people of any territory on the globe should have the right to determine its destiny independently.”

“Whatever the situation, the people of Crimea didn’t give the right to choose destiny-making options for themselves either to Washington or to Brussels. A statement by White House press secretary that the referendum in Crimea stands at variance with the Ukrainian Constitution and hence the US rejects it is all too obvious. The thing is the White House is playing on the side of the new coalition in Kiev, and the US always supports only the ‘democracy’ that serves its national interests.”

On March 21, Federation Council and State Duma members will vote up or down on letting Crimea join the Russian Federation. Sentiment in both houses suggests overwhelming approval. Days earlier, Federation Council chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said so. Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin echoed her sentiment. Russia has been losing people for years, he said. “(A)t last, we’re getting our compatriots back. So that’s a historic moment for Russia.” Putin has final say.

Crimean Parliament Speaker Konstantinov said Crimea can join Russia in weeks. Perhaps by end of March, he added. Crimea will draft a new constitution. “We will send it for approval to the Russian parliament,” he explained.

Steps are underway to shift from Ukraine’s hryvnia to Russia’s ruble. Next week, the ruble will be introduced as a second official currency. Dual currencies will continue for about six months. Thereafter, Ukraine’s hryvnia will be discontinued. According to Crimea’s Prime Minister Aksyonov, integrating Crimea fully into Russia may take up to a year. Perhaps sooner, he added. At the same time, Crimea wants good relations with all nations, he stressed. On Monday, EU foreign ministers met in Brussels. Sanctions were discussed. Asset freezes and visa bans on 21 Russian officials were imposed. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevcius said “more EU measures (will be forthcoming) in a few days.”

According to an unnamed diplomatic source, Brussels “reached agreement on a list of names which is quite limited both in terms of their rank and the number of people.”

A second unnamed source said Brussels “might reopen discussion” in further talks. “At this late stage, I think they will focus instead on sending out a unified EU message,” the source added.

Reuters said an initial list of up to 130 senior Russian officials would be reduced to perhaps “tens or scores” for final consideration. Washington readied its own list. White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said “(y)ou can expect sanctions designations in the coming days.” Perhaps sooner.

Similar asset freezes and travel bans on Russian officials were announced. Putin was excluded. Washington imposed sanctions on 11 Russian and former Viktor Yanukovych government officials. Moscow’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin was named. A White House statement said sanctions target officials who “undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine.” None exist except in Crimea. On March 6, Obama’s Executive Order authorized “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine.”

It applies to foreign nationals and Americans. Property belonging to Russian nationals can be seized.

The same applies to “any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.”

Ahead of Crimea’s referendum, Obama declared a national emergency. He considers Crimean self-determination a “threat to US national security.” For sure it’s a threat of a good example. It runs counter to Washington’s imperial ambitions. Obama usurped the right to seize (read steal) assets belonging to anyone (including US citizens) “determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State:

(i) to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, directly or indirectly, any of the following:

(A) actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine;

(B) actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine; or

Wiggle room language permits circumventing fundamental rule of law principles. So-called “direct or indirect…actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine” aren’t defined. Nor is how Crimean self-determination threatens US national security. The claim is absurd on its face. It’s outrageous. It’s offensive. It turns logic on its head. It reveals lawless US governance. Obama can act any way he wishes. He can do so by diktat. He can act lawlessly. He can enforce Washington rules.

He’s playing with fire. British MP George Galloway is right saying Western leaders created a Frankenstein monster in Ukraine. It’s “a very serious threat,” he said. The damn fools in Washington and Brussels perhaps didn’t “read the novel Frankenstein to the end,” said Galloway.

“If they had, they’d have known that the monster Dr. Frankenstein created quickly got out of control. That’s why it’s called a monster. And this monstrous” Kiev neo-Nazi threat poses potential grave problems for Europe. Perhaps for humanity if war erupts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

America Has Long Ago Exceeded the Limits

Editorials—
Gaither Stewart in Rome

Russia FM Lavrov and Kerry looking dour after US “constructive ideas” were rejected. As they should have been.

_In recent days I have had several demoralizing experiences with articles on leftist web sites as well as with persons dear to me who are victims of the US exceptionalist propaganda as sketched above by Patrice Greanville. Especially on Facebook, where people as a rule express their real beliefs and convictions, I have seen that people are literally starving intellectually.

I recently encountered resistance to my approval that an American drone had been “shot down” over the Crimea. “What? Shoot? Shooting is no answer.” (Actually it was not “shot down”; it was brought down technologically, deleted so speak). How could I describe briefly America’s “shooting down” throughout its violent history since its “discovery and colonization”: shooting down of native Americans, that is the evil Indians, then the shooting down of Mexicans, thus opening the world of the South America of the Monroe Doctrine. Shoot first, occupy and control. In more modern times, shooting by American troops, mercenaries and proxies, followed by occupying and incorporating into the corporate system has followed systematically: Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela (yes, the proxies in Venezuela), Grenada, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Chile and in the Orient an endless war against first Vietnam and Laos, then Iran and Indonesia. Then more recently: Yugoslavia, Serbia, Bosnia (Kosovo), Montenegro, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, Egypt, Syria, and now Ukraine. (I have forgotten many others in this trip of American aggression against the world at large.) In any case all reinforced today by the over 1000 US military bases with forces ready to shoot throughout the world . If retaliatory shooting is not the answer, what then is an acceptable answer?

Yesterday I commented on the photo of a Nazi salute by a leader of the West Ukrainian (Nazi-Fascist Svoboda and Right Sector) revolutionaries during his speech to pro-western followers in Kiev. Rigid arm at the proper level, thumb folded under the extended four fingers, a stern look on his face. A Facebook nitpicking enthusiast suspected this was the work of Russian propaganda. In the photo the salute was with the left arm! Clearly it was a reverse photo as when you look at yourself in a mirror. The communist salute—if that was the person’s thought—is in any case a fist.

The implanted implication here is that the Ukraine-Crimea question reflects Russia’s imperialist ambitions. Instead it reflects America’s propagandistically implanted fear of Socialism/Communism. Inculcated from birth into every American. As if contemporary Russia were in any respect Communist. Unfortunately it is not. The implication is the result of the pervasive invisible propaganda. An outright lie. But how to explain that to the ideologically ignorant American of today.

A discussion has been ignited on left sites about an article posted on OpEd News by a certain Brock Novak. Real name? Non de plume? I don’t know. The tenor of the article that snuck onto the leftist OpEd News can be summed up in the words permeating the article: Czar Putin, the Re-Soviet Union II, the Putin strategy to OVA (occupy, vote, acquire) not only former Soviet territories like the sprawling Stans to the east, the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, but also the East Europe satellites, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria. Oh, the thirst of those imperialist Russians!

The real issue is something totally different from US imperialism and Russian resistance to being encircled by American missiles bases. The issue at play here is capitalism. Much of the rest of the world knows that capitalism is kaput, its propulsive thrust run out, finished. As Lenin predicted capitalism has hanged itself. It is already dangling.

One of the reasons for its approaching demise is excess. It has overplayed its hand. An Italian expression sums it up well: Chi troppo vuole, nulla stringe. He who wants too much, gets nothing. And as Alberto Camus commented, “The mind’s first step is to distinguish between what is true from what is false. “The ancient Greeks said that a limit existed and that whoever dared to exceed it was mercilessly struck down.”

The United States of America has long ago exceeded the limit. Today it backed down on The Crimea. Today the US accepted Russia’s conditions on the overall Ukraine issue, claiming, naturally, Russia’s demands as its own. Ukraine will consist of regions with wide-ranging powers which neutralize the capital of Kiev as well as the nation which in effect also remains neutral. Therefore, no NATO bases in Ukraine. No US missiles in Ukraine. The effective borders of the Ukraine are not in the east on Russia’s borders as the US wanted, but in the west on Russia’s borders with Poland. Precisely as Russia wanted. There is no necessity of invading and absorbing Ukraine. Much preferable a Ukraine-cushion state between Russia and the US/US dominated west. In this scenario new national elections will have little effect, at least not in favor of the West. And predictably the radical Nazis-Fascists today in Kiev will be put on the back burner. The Ukraine might sign on for increased trade with the EU but trade with Russia will predominate. Oil is after all oil. Here Russia dictates the conditions.

The reader will excuse a quote from my own novel of over a year ago, Lily Pad Roll, in which a Russian interviewee says: Keep this in mind: in a contest over Ukraine between Russia on the one hand and Europe-USA on the other, Moscow in a fair battle will always win.

Senior Editor Gaither Stewart is also The Greanville Post‘s European correspondent. His latest novel, The Fifth Sun, was just published by Punto Press. Stewart’s Europe Trilogy, of which two volumes have been published to date (also by Punto Press), focus their plots on the web of intrigue and artificial political tension created by Western intelligence services and militaries, in an effort to encircle and cripple Russia.