UKRAINE THE
PROBLEM CONTINUES, by William Blum
Published March 7th, 2014
When
it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much
information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try
putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the
larger, long-term picture.
The
United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their
main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United
States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy
Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World
Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep
in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the
IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act
too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy
punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their
leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or
irony.
And
who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy
Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as
the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was
self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade;
tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)
Since
the end of the Cold War the United States has been surrounding Russia, building
one base after another, ceaselessly looking for new ones, including in Ukraine;
one missile site after another, with Moscow in range; NATO has grabbed one
former Soviet Republic after another. The White House, and the unquestioning
American mainstream media, have assured us that such operations have nothing to
do with Russia. And Russia has been told the same, much to Moscow’s continuous
skepticism. “Look,” said Russian president Vladimir Putin about NATO some years
ago, “is this is a military organization? Yes, it’s military. … Is it moving
towards our border? It’s moving towards our border. Why?”
The
Holy Triumvirate would love to rip Ukraine from the Moscow bosom, evict the
Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on
Russia’s border. (In case you were wondering what prompted the Russian military
action.) Kiev’s membership in the EU would then not be far off; after which the
country could embrace the joys of neo-conservatism, receiving the benefits of
the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal,
Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family; but no
price is too great to pay to for being part of glorious Europe and the West!
The
Ukrainian insurgents and their Western-power supporters didn’t care who their
Ukrainian allies were in carrying out their coup against President Viktor
Yanukovych last month … thugs who set policemen on fire head to toe … all
manner of extreme right-wingers, including Chechnyan Islamic militants … a
deputy of the ultra-right Svoboda Party, part of the new government, who
threatens to rebuild Ukraine’s nukes in three to six months. … the snipers
firing on the protestors who apparently were not what they appeared to be – A
bugged phone conversation between Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister,
and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, reveals Paet saying: “There is
now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not
Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” … neo-Nazi protestors
in Kiev who have openly denounced Jews, hoisting a banner honoring Stepan
Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German
Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against
Jews and Poles.
The
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on February 24 that
Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman advised “Kiev’s Jews to leave the city and
even the country.” Edward Dolinsky, head of an umbrella organization of
Ukrainian Jews, described the situation for Ukrainian Jews as “dire” and
requested Israel’s help.
All
in all a questionable gang of allies for a dubious cause; reminiscent of the
Kosovo Liberation Army thugs Washington put into power for an earlier regime
change, and has kept in power since 1999.
The
now-famous recorded phone conversation between top US State Department official
Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to the Ukraine, wherein they discuss
which Ukrainians would be to Washington’s liking in a new government, and which
not, is an example of this regime-change mentality. Nuland’s choice, Arseniy
Yatseniuk, emerged as interim prime minister.
The
National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by the Reagan
administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare
against states not in love with US foreign policy, is Washington’s foremost
non-military tool for effecting regime change. The NED website lists 65
projects that it has supported financially in recent years in Ukraine. The
descriptions NED gives to the projects don’t reveal the fact that generally
their programs impart the basic philosophy that working people and other
citizens are best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation,
collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the economy, and
opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market economy is equated
with democracy, reform, and growth; and the merits of foreign investment in
their economy are emphasized.
The
idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing
covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with
CIA covert activities. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation
establishing NED, declared in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done
covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
NED,
receives virtually all its financing from the US government ($5 billion in
total since 1991 ), but it likes to refer to itself as an NGO (Non-governmental
organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that
an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category.
NED is a GO. Its long-time intervention in Ukraine is as supra-legal as the
Russian military deployment there. Journalist Robert Parry has observed:
For
NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long
as he accepted European demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic
“reforms” required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was
negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high
for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately
became a target for “regime change.”
Thus,
we have to ask, as Mr. Putin asked – “Why?” Why has NED been funding 65
projects in one foreign country? Why were Washington officials grooming a
replacement for President Yanukovych, legally and democratically elected in
2010, who, in the face of protests, moved elections up so he could have been
voted out of office – not thrown out by a mob? Yanukovych made repeated
important concessions, including amnesty for those arrested and offering, on
January 25, to make two of his adversaries prime minister and deputy prime
minister; all to no avail; key elements of the protestors, and those behind
them, wanted their putsch.
Carl
Gershman, president of NED, wrote last September that “Ukraine is the biggest
prize”. The man knows whereof he speaks. He has presided over NED since its
beginning, overseeing the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003), the Orange
Revolution in Ukraine (2004), the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (2005), the Tulip
Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (2005), the Green Revolution in Iran (2009), and now
Ukraine once again. It’s as if the Cold War never ended.
The
current unbridled animosity of the American media toward Putin also reflects an
old practice. The United States is so accustomed to world leaders holding their
tongue and not voicing criticism of Washington’s policies appropriate to the
criminality of those policies, that when a Vladimir Putin comes along and
expresses even a relatively mild condemnation he is labeled Public Enemy Number
One and his words are accordingly ridiculed or ignored.
On
March 2 US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned Russia’s “incredible act of
aggression” in Ukraine (Crimea) and threatened economic sanctions. “You just
don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another
country on completely trumped up pre-text.”
Iraq
was in the 21st century. Senator John Kerry voted for it. Hypocrisy of this
magnitude has to be respected.
POSTSCRIPT: Ukraine’s interim prime minister announced
March 7 that he has invited the NATO Council to hold a meeting in Kiev over the
recent developments in the country. “I invited the North Atlantic Council to
visit Kiev and hold a meeting there,” Arseny Yatsenyuk said during a visit to Brussels,
where he met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and EU
officials. “We believe that it will strengthen our cooperation.”
Anti-Empire
Report, March 8, 2014
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