Continuing Fire, Fury, Torches, and Disinformation over Ukraine

March 16 (alternately 18th, according to some) marked the four-year anniversary of the 2014 referendum in Crimea that resulted in reuniting with Russia.

Yes, this is longish, but I believe that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

In his March 13, 2018 op-ed at RT John Wight explains the reasoning behind his ‘Crimea is Russian, the matter is finished’.

He writes that not only is London peddling revisionist history, but that economic sanctions on Russia must continue until Crimea ‘returns to Ukrainian sovereignty’. On a similar note, the EU Council is calling on member states to do the same, but they add ‘the city of Sebastapol’ as well.  Yep, I hunted down the proclamation, and here’s part of it:

“The ongoing militarisation of the peninsula continues to impact the security situation in the Black Sea region [home of the sole warm water port where the Russian Fleet & Navy is anchored, and that NATO is jonesin’ for]. In violation of international humanitarian law, Russian citizenship and conscription in the armed forces of the Russian Federation have been imposed on Crimean residents.

Since the illegal annexation by the Russian Federation, the human rights situation in the Crimean peninsula has deteriorated further. Residents of the peninsula face systematic restrictions of fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of expression, religion or belief and association and the right to peaceful assembly.”, etc.

But back to John Wight:

He reminds us that the Crimea’s status hadn’t been brought about by Russia, but the Feb. 14 illegal coup in Ukraine that ousted Viktor Yanukovytch, and was underpinned by Western governments.  Hello, Miz Kagan-Nuland; hello, Geoffrey Pyatt; hello O-bomba!

After reminding readers about how many of the 2014 Maidan putsch’s government supporters were neo-Nazis, he cites this:

“It is false to claim that Russia annexed Crimea. The Russian troops and military personnel that were present in Crimea during the Maidan coup in Kiev were there legally, under the terms of the 2010 Kharkiv Accords, agreed between Moscow and Kiev with respect to the status of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The ensuing Crimean referendum in March 2014 restored the democratic rights of the region’s 2.2 million residents – rights that had been unceremoniously undermined and violated by the February coup. Thus it was a referendum conducted in extraordinary circumstances – circumstances created by an illegal coup with the open and active connivance of Western governments, including the British government, motivated by malign intent.”

Two things from the Guardian’s 2010 Kharkiv Accords page that I hadn’t known were that i) ‘Yanukovych said the lease on Russia’s Black Sea fleet that was due to expire in 2017 will be prolonged for 25 years, until 2042 at least.’, and that ii) Yanukovych’s predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, had vowed to eject Russia’s Black Sea fleet from the port of Sevastopol, arguing that its presence was an affront to Ukraine’s sovereignty and a destabilising factor in Crimea, a majority ethnic Russian region with a strong pro-Soviet mood.’

And as Wight says, clearly London has proven that it no interest in the people of Ukraine, or else it wouldn’t have inflamed the ‘riotous’ events in Maidan.

But on this Maidan putsch fourth anniversary  week also comes ‘All Fire and Fury in Ukraine’, Greg Maybury, March 13th, 2018, disidentvoice.org introducing Oliver Stone produced ‘Ukraine on Fire’, this is the trailer; the full hour and a half version is here.

He calls the film a vital counter to the MSM agitprop, evangelist double-speak, etc., but also ‘an essential historical document and one of the most important, insightful political documentaries of recent times. It may also be one of the most portentous.’  He brings in boatloads of related links to exposés  but for now, a few snippets:

“It underscores moreover Russia’s seemingly inexhaustible forbearance with the U.S., which, sans any rational, coherent geopolitical basis for doing so, has been tested beyond reasonable endurance or expectation. This point is rendered especially palpable during the interviews Stone conducts with Russian president Vladimir Putin for UOF. (This is not to mention the actual The Putin Interviews).”

“The narrative encompassed by UOF is by extension a serious indictment on President Barack Obama’s handling of the Ukraine situation and his role in the creation of this singularly unholy mess — a prime exemplar of just how chaotic, dysfunctional, indeed war-like, were in large part the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner’s foreign policies. Ukraine on Fire attests unequivocally just how far removed the reality of Obama’s tenure was from his campaign rhetoric.”

“…over one year after the Great Black Hope left office, that situation to all intents prevails, with few harboring any optimism things are going to get better anytime soon. In fact, ominously, quite the opposite scenario is unfolding. Earlier this year, Gilbert Doctorow reported that a new draft law adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament and awaiting president Petro Poroshenko’s signature, threatens to escalate the Ukrainian conflict into a full-blown war, pitting nuclear-armed Russia against the United States and NATO. “Due to dire economic conditions,” Doctorow says, “Poroshenko and other government officials in Kiev have become deeply unpopular, and with diminished chances for electoral success may see war as politically advantageous.”

He next brings in an April 1, 2018 editorial from orientalreview.org asking Ukraine’s future Nazi leader?’

Writing that present-day Ukraine is reminiscent of 1920s Germany, poor governance, betrayed hopes, and crumbling incomes paired with rising prices, the populace is seeking an authoritarian strong hand, due to rising dissatisfaction in the Chocolate King.  Embedded is this video that is apparently from Oct. 23, 2017.

Below it:

“And a man like that already exists in this destitute and disintegrating country. Andriy Biletsky, the commander of the Azov Battalion who is known to his comrades-in-arms as the “White Führer,” is making an ever-bigger name for himself in the Ukrainian parliament.”

It’s a long and difficult read of the recent narrative of related neo-Nazi groups like Right Sector and other (Stepan) Banderist groups, with photos and a video of the Azov Youth Squad, but apparently Biletsky is chameleon enough to be willing and able to hide his Aryan white pride when needed, and is finding acceptance in some strange corners.

Doctorow also writes that another ominous sign in that recently the US has provided military trainers on the ground, has budgeted $350 million for security assistance to Ukraine, and has now begun shipping ‘lethal weapons’ including Javelin anti-tank missile systems free of charge to Kiev.

Maybury links to Robert Bridge’s Feb. 26 2018 ‘Endgame Russia: NATO Sprawl Invades Eastern Europe, No More Illusions’ at strategicculture.org

The first paragraph sets the stage quite well; I won’t bring any more if it, you may not even need to read more of it, as it’s so very familiar, if not the particulars.

“In the past, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) justified its militarization of large swaths of Eastern Europe by pointing to the omnipresent threat of terrorism, or some ‘rogue’ foreign state, inherently understood to be Iran. Today the mask has slipped and it is no longer denied that NATO’s primary target is Russia.”

But back to his homage not only to the film, but to the late great Robert Parry of Consortium News, a couple bits:

“Whether one has already seen Ukraine on Fire or not, it now comes complete with a hitherto unexpected layer of revelation and significance, given that the late Consortium News founder and editor Robert Parry is interviewed at length therein. Parry’s appearance in the film, poignantly as it turns out, underscores the man’s trailblazing achievements and his unimpeachable stature within the alternative, independent media cosmos.

For those folks constantly on the lookout for exemplars of journalism’s fundamental values, his input into the film’s narrative [given his exhaustive reporting and commentary on Ukraine and Russia over the years, challenging the MSM narratives and accusations without substance]  is a reminder to us all just how much his political insight and measured analysis will be missed. It goes without saying that those values have themselves been missing in action for some time in our mainstream media, as Parry himself – to his eternal chagrin – was all too aware. This is a state of affairs to which he spent the last two decades of his life exposing via the Consortium News masthead.

So much so it seems, there was even some hint (by the man himself as it turns out) that the stress and pressure of being a media outlier had taken its toll and may have been the catalyst for the strokes he had in the weeks before his untimely death.”

Maybury then spends a dozen long paragraphs on his own coverage of the never resolved [save for the Bedlamites among us] shooting down of Maylasian flight MH-17 over Ukraine with 38 of his fellow Aussies on board, as well as Parry’s coverage as compared to the conventional wisdom in the papers of record, scribes to the Western Empire, let’s say.  Sound familiar?

Believe it or not, there’s much, much more, but I’ll just say ‘Amen’ to both Greg Maybury and Robert Parry (may he keep kickin’ ass and takin names in the afterlife), and move on to the film itself.

On August 17, 2017, TRNN’s Aaron Maté had interviewed Igor Lopatonok, the Ukrainian director of the film in ‘How the US Helped Set ‘Ukraine on Fire’; The documentary “Ukraine on Fire” from producer Oliver Stone tells the hidden story of how the ongoing conflict began, including the pivotal US role

A few bits from the transcript at the link above showing what else is in the full documentary past the initial transcript of the trailer:

Aaron Mate: So that’s a phone call between Victoria Nuland, at the time the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and they’re talking about Arseniy Yatseniuk, who they call Yats. And, low and behold, he became the leader of Ukraine after Yanukovych was deposed, not long after this phone call. So, Igor, talk about what is going on here.

Igor Lopatonok: That’s a very advanced operation. Who dispatch in Ukraine to organize the coup, to organize the regime change and talking to his supervisor. That’s very, very … I think that’s Russian Secret Service who intercept that call, and they make it available public, show in the light how to … how United States official just floating the result of coup d’etat in the country.

Aaron Mate: For you have interviews where Oliver Stone, who executive produced the movie, he interviews Yanukovych and also Putin. And when he talks to Yanukovych, Yanukovych tells him that his point man in the U.S., who he was talking to, was Biden.

Igor Lopatonok: Correct.

Aaron Mate: And he suggests very strongly that Biden was basically playing a double game with him. He was telling him one thing but doing another.

Igor Lopatonok: First of all, Biden’s son was involved in a business in Ukraine. He held a position in the board of company that’s named Burisma. Now that company accumulate up to 40 percent of all oil and gas exploitation in Ukraine as well, so Biden have an interest. And when Victoria Nuland delivering this speech, about $5 billion what the State Department United States spent on the promoting of democracy in Ukraine for the years. She talking on the ground of [Chevron], when Chevron tried to make the Shell oil pumping in Donetsk area.

So that’s follow the money rule working all the time. So Ukraine as usual was not only political battlefield, but also someplace when oil and gas involved. And don’t forget about pipeline from Russia to Europe was going through Ukraine, was giving them very big leverage against Russia.

So, that’s the big and complex situation. But that situation happened, and situation violently blow up. And is no way, no military solution for that war. And there’s a legit civil war going on in Ukraine and 10,000 people already killed. And it is no way, and only Minsk agreement when they tried to prevent the Ukrainians from attacking that. Because you cannot say there’s 3 million terrorists living in my country. This is your people who live in Donetsk. You cannot blame them to be terrorists because it’s like woman, older man, the kids …

(cross-posted from café babylon)

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wendy davis's picture

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Azazello's picture

@wendy davis @wendy davis
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfBu8tNZPYM width:400 height:240]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

wendy davis's picture

@Azazello

but as to this: ‘so as for the russian representatives and diplomats, they were doing the work that was assigned to them by moscow’. ? i must have missed the original Q somehow...

but no, the Bear won't be throwing crimea to the Wolves (wolfsangels?), will they?

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CB's picture

I watched Ukraine on Fire. Great expose of the truth of the western engineered coupe. I feel sorry for the many ordinary Ukrainians that were hoodwinked into destroying their own country.

But I also feel joy for the people of Crimea.

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mimi's picture

@CB
to the movie right now.

Is there the full script of the movie in a file somewhere I can look at? I didn't make it through your whole essay, but the film is a starting point for me to go through the whole history. If there was a link to the text of the film in there, I apologize.

I need to read the text. Thanks.

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CB's picture

@mimi

I've had those days too. Ok

I don't know of any text available (I checked) but you can readily download it at this site: https://vimeo.com/250899571 There's a Download button you can click on.

I usually download most of the longer videos so I can watch on my large screen TV at my leisure.

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mimi's picture

@CB
which would pull out all the subtitles running through the video to get ONE file out of it to have a text file just to read while listening to the movie.

I mean it's already great to get a movie with subtitles in English. Then if you can get a script of the narrator's words as a text file, even better.

I can't concentrate on reading subtitles or something else running on the bottom part of a movie and watching the film at the same time. The content then doesn't stick with me. The content of the subtitles doesn't stick, because they are running and I have to hasten to catch them. And besides, I am not in the business of a news junkie who produces essays about the news. I am just a normal mama.

Sigh. It's very weird for me to realize, that the fact that I now (in the last couple of month) can watch more often documentaries or analytical news pieces on German TV in my mother language, helps me still to understand something I might have read or watched in English before that didn't stick and I didn't understand. I constantly realize how huuuuuge a hole of news items about Germany I have, living in the US for 35 years plus, despite working for German news outlets located in the US (on a low level). (Forgive all the punctuation mistakes I just made here)

I just don't 'get' myself. Smile

I know what I would have to do to satisfy my own desire to understand the Ukraine war and history, but it would take me months. And reading online essays about the subject more often than not keep me from 'digging into the material MY WAY'.

On a more uplifting sound:


[video:https://youtu.be/CWzrABouyeE]
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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

but i just watched the beginning of the full documentary on youtube (linked in the OP), an the only subtitles are when russians are speaking. but they start the history of ukraine in 1648, so i expect that's a hella good look at some of the history.

thanks for the louis; i've always liked this version as well (smile):

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jW8_RMbFaM]

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mimi's picture

@wendy davis @wendy davis

as for the transcripts etc. I thought the movie is a great starting point to read up on the history. I just explained how I feel about subtitles running through videos on the bottom is good but not all I would need.

No worries, I grab books from my fathers (RIP) library and find great stuff in there and like to go to sites who have full transcripts of their shows and interviews. I just figured I need to really read the history and watch other documentaries as well... I have some extended family who were on either side, either as refugees fleeing east to west over Ukraine, Romania, Tchien etc or within the German Wehrmacht, bombarded by the US, captured by the Russians and shuttled back and forth as pow from Russia to Germany after 1947. I am even not capable of getting the geography right. Huge amounts of historical knowledge missing. I waited my whole life to dig into it. Now it's the time.

Theew are some documentary diaries by family members about their war experiences. It's just very complicated to dig into it. And I want to do it right. Not online. I can't read longish online essays. Two to three pages max. After that I want a 'part 2' essay.

But all the links are worthwhile and a starting point. Thanks. So, I love whatever I can get.
Thanks again.

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

and best of luck on your quest. the hardest part of learning 'history' is deciding which/whose versions are more truth than not, yes? i've been having to relearn a hella lot of the history i'd learned over the course of my life...now that being online gives a chance to learn what's now called 'revisionist history'.

whoever had observed that 'history belongs to the victor' said it right. or who gets the largest stage to advance their bias, as well. consider the utter bullshit of ken burns' vietnam, for instance. and yet it will stand as true history for a long, long, time, as will the award-winning 'Winter On Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom' (trailer)

best to you, mimi, and peace as you can...

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

which is why i'd tried to steer folks to the TRNN transcript of the trailer, and below...some of what aaron had discussed with igor lapotonok.

this might be a good time to bring this from the kyiv post, though:

StopFake #175 with Marko Suprun: Donbas and Crimea offensive and Ukrainian tracks in Skripal poisoning case

“Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post publishes the English-language videos from StopFake.org, a non-governmental organization that debunks myths and fake news about Ukraine. StopFake began its work after the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, triggering Russia’s war in Ukraine. The project was launched by alumni and students of Kyiv-based Mohyla School of Journalism and the Digital Future of Journalism.
StopFake News #175 with Marko Suprun. The March 18 edition debunks fake claims Ukraine’s military command announces punitive Donbas campaign and Crimea offensive; Ukraine to force Crimean and Donbas residents to repent; Ukrainian tracks in the Skripal poisoning case.'

and this recent tweet by graham phillips, on the ground in ukraine and crimea:

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CB's picture

@wendy davis
I used it for a month or so at the beginning of the Ukraine putsch. But, I found so many blatant examples of it being a propaganda mouthpiece for regime change I ditched it.

It is funded by Soros - the master of the color revolution.

https://southfront.org/hackers-rat-out-recipients-of-soross-money-among-...
16.08.2016

The documents also imply support of the StopFake website, which is maintained by “volunteers” from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA). They “check facts” of striking examples of the propaganda in Russian and Ukrainian (indeed, mostly Russian) media. The Soros Foundation noted that StopFake would cooperate with foreign portals of the similar format and it would need about 50,000 USD for the development of both the website and its network.

There's one going on in Macedonia as we speak.

The Color Revolution Continues In Macedonia

George Soros, NATO, US Color Revolution Apparatus Behind the Unrest In Macedonia

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snoopydawg's picture

@CB

Soros is a POS isn't he? Good grief, he's in his 80's and instead of enjoying his life and contemplating what comes next, he's causing misery and for what reason? Why can't people just keep their noses home?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@CB

but way too long for me now. given it was the kyiv post touting #stopFake, i found it an hilarious parallel to #propOrNot.

but from your soros-funding link, one word was the cautionary 'implies' soros, but this, wtf?:

"The document titled ‘Short-term and long-term prospects of a complex strategy of new Ukraine’ noted that former General Wesley Clark, Polish General Skrypchak and several experts of the Atlantic Council would advise president Poroshenko on how to restore the combat capability of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreements."

groovy two shoes, general clark. now wsws is reporting this morning that: ‘European Union joins UK in ratcheting up anti-Russia campaign’, Chris Marsden, 20 March 2018

“A statement issued by the 28 EU foreign ministers employed the same carefully worded phrases introduced by the British Foreign Office and repeated ad nauseam by the entire media and political establishment. They took “extremely seriously” “the UK government’s assessment” that it was “highly likely” Russia was guilty of the attack using a nerve agent “of a type developed by Russia.”

However, while backing the UK’s stance, the statement stopped short of blaming Russia directly, reflecting divisions within the EU over relations with Russia.” [large snip]
“However, former SDP foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel, whom Maas replaced, yesterday supported the lifting of sanctions against Russia and took up Putin’s offer to allow UN peacekeepers into Ukraine.”

now i did go to the EU council site, and while yes, the members votes that way, the press release never mentioned: because crimea and sebastapol, for what it's worth.

and ka-boom! back to the kyiv post:Is Ukraine Ready For UN Peacekeepers?’ i might rather eat worms than read the whole thing, but i may scan it later, smile.

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@wendy davis

Anyone know why some British newspapers I've seen were variously referring to Skripal as a 'Russian spy' and as a 'Russian citizen' if he's Ukrainian? Something perhaps fed to the reporters to try to imply some reason as to why TPTB were blaming Russia for his and his daughter's poisoning, or a conclusion they leapt to? Or was this because he spied on the Russians, rather than for them? I know nothing about this guy, other than what I've read, lol, and I've been a bit more out of it than usual lately.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

wendy davis's picture

@CB

did they happen to show the mass murders, including the one at the trade union building in odessa where dozens (the numbers vary from 36-41)? many were burned alive there, and having watched the footage of survivors going thru the building with electric torches to chronicle the deaths...in close to real time was sickening beyond belief.

but so many crimes there were 'unexamined' by police, including snipers firing on babushkas and chirren left to lie in the streets. i was never quite sure of the provenance of some of the white phosphorus bombings, myself. did the documentary corroborate any of that?

i was reminded while searching for more of what's in the long version that netflix: (see also: 'white helmets') and friends had created 'Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom' in 2015, yanno, 'a peaceful student demo that became a fight for Freedom™!

look who helped fund it:

"...a 2015 documentary film about the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, a coproduction of Ukraine, the United States, and the United Kingdom.[1] Produced in part by Netflix, it played at various film festivals before its release on October 9, 2015 on the online streaming service."

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snoopydawg's picture

brought slavery back to Libya and neo Nazis to Ukraine. That's some legacy, isn't it?

IMG_1827.JPG

Ukraine on Fire needed more exposure here. Great job, Wendy. The Ukraine fiasco has so many lies tied to it and most people believe that Russia did indeed do the deed when the truth is that it 'twas us that did it.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

mimi's picture

@snoopydawg

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

and can i add that when i read headlines akin to 'pompeo and haspell take us back to torture days under bush', it pisses me purple. not only did obomba keep outsourcing torture in whistle-stops (cripes, it was right in the NYT!), he wanted to look forward, not backward, because: he the fook didn't want to get tried for war crimes evah! (as if that would have happened)

but the heather nauert tweet above: does Drumf even know where ukraine is, what crimea is, or is he just listening to his new BFF theresa may? or jens stoltenberg?

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

as it took me some time to absorb this from you: 'Ukraine on Fire needed more exposure here'. while that's certainly true, i'd seriously meant the theme in my title, given recent events and continuing sanctions over 'russia having stolen crimea *and sebastapol* (alternately 'sevastapol', home of the russian black sea fleet)', nato wanting ukraine as a member, and the inf helping out so they could pony up their gdp percentage to 'officially' join. and yet things are apparently so corrupt there now that even the imf is refusing the next tranche of rubles or dollars or shekels so they can join.

but the kyiev post is reporting protests demanding that poroshenko resign, which is what the oriental review editorial was likening to nazis coming to power 'officially' in 1933.
and their narrative of the White Führer biletsky's rise to power, and his past alliances with those neo-nazis already in the ukranian rada.

here's more from that eposé:

"“Refusing to have his name listed on the ticket of the People’s Front party (led by Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk) during the 2014 parliamentary elections, Biletsky strengthened his position as the leader of Ukraine’s Nazis and won a seat in parliament as an independent candidate from one of Kiev’s single-seat districts. In the Verkhovna Rada he is the deputy head of the Committee on National Security and Defense and is ironically a member of a group on inter-parliamentary relations with Georgia, Great Britain, Israel, the US, Poland, and Lithuania.

His alliance with the new government in Kiev has made it possible for the White Führer to “legitimize” his militants and get the state to pay for their upkeep. The Azov Battalion was incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine, which is under the control of the minister of internal affairs and former governor of the Kharkov region, Arsen Avakov. Back in November 2014, Avakov posted the following on his Facebook page: “The work has begun to bring this regiment up to the combat standards of the National Guard brigades. That also means in terms of weapons and technology. Currently dozens of kids from the Azov Battalion are already being trained at an artillery school, getting the hang of new armored vehicles on the practice ranges, and learning how to coordinate operations with the tank squadron assigned to their regiment.”

but given the many chess pieces of the hegemon v. russia, the fact that old russian tanks are ubiquitous across ukraine, quite open for false flags, the anti-tank missiles that amerika just sent to ukraine for free, apparently... what might the joint nazi affiliates launch against the crimeans in retaliation, depose no-friend-of-nato-now poroshenko in the process, install a biletsky figure as leader, all in aid of western hegemony? of course, the new leader would be 'a freedom fighter' not a nazi, according to the MSM.

"In the Atlantic, in 2014, Ukrainian Nazis were dismissed as a “phantom menace”. Luke Harding wrote a (brilliantly argued) column in the Guardian saying that “there weren’t any Nazis in Ukraine because one of the Maidan protesters was Jewish.” Politico magazine mocked “Putin’s Imaginary Nazis”, whilst US News warned against Russia’s “Neo-Nazi Propaganda”. The Guardian simply headlined: “Don’t believe the Russian propaganda about Ukraine’s ‘fascist’ protesters!”

(off guardian writing about a reuters article addressed to ‘antisemitic?’ trump in 2017.)

now the larger question is 'what would putin do?', yes?

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snoopydawg's picture

@wendy davis

are there? That the countries involved in creating NATO are even considering admitting Ukraine into it is a head scratcher, isn't it? Most of those countries spent millions in lives and treasure to defeat the Nazis only to turn around one day and help them come back into power. Oh well, I guess when you remember that our country helped put Hitler in to power it isn't that strange after all.

The Ukrainian kids are being coerced into Nazism without a choice. No matter what the cost, US hegemony are corporate capitalism will continue until humanity is destroyed.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

i can't say. kinda like the nazi youth brigades. but they will be being brain-washed in 'white' nationalism, so there's that. of course nato wants ukraine! sebastappol, now that nato has more warm water greek ports courtesy of alexis tsipras 'sharing the same values as orange julius'. greg maybury's long epistle in the OP had questions about whether of not AIPAC would care about the nazis in ukraine 'movin' on up to the big house'. nah, as in the many, many articles to the opposite: not nazis, just freedom fighters.

but i did find the new yawk slimes piece, although when i first wrote about his 'terror tuesdays' back in the day, my link was...broken. but listen to this part:

‘Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will’, may 29, 2012

“The day before the executive orders were issued, the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo [john brennan’s consigliere], had called the White House in a panic. The order prohibited the agency from operating detention facilities, closing once and for all the secret overseas “black sites” where interrogators had brutalized terrorist suspects.
“The way this is written, you are going to take us out of the rendition business,” Mr. Rizzo told Gregory B. Craig, Mr. Obama’s White House counsel, referring to the much-criticized practice of grabbing a terrorist suspect abroad and delivering him to another country for interrogation or trial. The problem, Mr. Rizzo explained, was that the C.I.A. sometimes held such suspects for a day or two while awaiting a flight. The order appeared to outlaw that.

Mr. Craig assured him that the new president had no intention of ending rendition — only its abuse, which could lead to American complicity in torture abroad. So a new definition of “detention facility” was inserted, excluding places used to hold people “on a short-term, transitory basis.” Problem solved — and no messy public explanation damped Mr. Obama’s celebration.

“Pragmatism over ideology,” his campaign national security team had advised in a memo in March 2008. It was counsel that only reinforced the president’s instincts.”

but as to nato and ukraine: from RT:

" After NATO finally took note of Ukraine’s “aspiration” to get into the military alliance, ten years after its first application, Kiev praised the gesture and stated that its ambitions extend far beyond the symbolic status upgrade.

The military alliance mentioned in a Friday press release that, among others, it recognizes Kiev’s interest in entering the bloc, inviting it “to engage in an Intensified Dialogue” about its “membership aspirations and related reforms.”

Although the gesture is rather symbolic and doesn’t provide any guarantees, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has praised this “important long-awaited and logical decision by NATO to raise Ukraine’s ambitions” regarding the alliance. “Our next ambition is a Membership Action Plan (MAP),” the president declared in a Facebook post, referring to the bloc’s program on preparations, specifically tailored for nations wishing to join NATO."

note the tweet on the left sidebar, herr hair and volker, former ambassador to the UN.

from nato itself:

"At present, NATO has 29 members. In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the Alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), and Montenegro (2017).

• Any decision to invite a country to join the Alliance is taken by the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s principal political decision-making body, on the basis of consensus among all Allies.
• Currently, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia¹ are aspiring members.

then there are members and 'partners' (a map), under nato’s umbrella’ (how orwellian is that?) yeah, it's nato repurposed...but not really. it's all about the Bear now.

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snoopydawg's picture

@wendy davis

when we supported the Nazis in Ukraine. I also wondered how they felt when we brought so many of them here after WWII. I'd think that they would have had a problem with this. Most sane people would.

I did know that Obama's non torture policies did not include no rendition. This came out soon after he told us that "we tortured some folks," like we had asked the neighbors down the street to come for dinner!

Remember when this got out? "Gee, I'm pretty good at killing people."

Good lord! To even admit that! Grrr!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

mimi's picture

@snoopydawg
I invite you to join.

  1. We admitted we were powerless over our thoughts —that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our thoughts and our activism over to the care of God as we understood Him/HER.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our thoughts.
  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our righteous thinking.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these failures in our thinking.
  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our manipulative curse.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had manipulated, and became willing to make counter-manipulations to them all.
  9. Made direct counter-manipulation to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would manipulate them or others in reverse.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were manipulated, promptly admitted it.
  11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him/Her, praying only for knowledge of His manipulation for us and the willingness to think that over.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to our fellow neighbors, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I admit I am a manipulated asshole anonymous. Amen. I think this is snark, but I am not sure.

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

and while the site mr. webster had provided is very hard on my eyes and brain to read, there are a couple israeli op-eds noting objections to reflexive support for neo-nazis, but the one i'd read was more about bannon than azov batallion, et. al. in ukraine.

good on ya for knowing about O's exporting torture for brief pit-stops, but i swear most folks only know that he'd said: 'the US does not torture'. but yeah, his 'terror tuesdays' drone assassination, later his 'dispostition matrix': if satellites see people marching in lines...ka-boom! not that kids herding their families' goats don't 'walk in lines'. there's a photo in my wordpress media library who was drone-killed in afghanistan under obomba...that still makes me weep when i happen upon. and i admit, it's partly because he looks so much like one of our grandsons.

aaaand...the doomsday clock is now at two minutes to midnight, i've read. jezum crow; how many bedlamites can dance on the head of a pin?

also one edit: nato (post treaty of brussels) was formed to counter the 'Soviet Threat', although it's been amended as cover for a hella lot of 'missions'.

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Azazello's picture

Ukraine in Flames was the title of a 1943 Soviet documentary by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko. Original here: Ukraine in Flames (1943), YouTube, (1hr., 11 min.)

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

wendy davis's picture

@Azazello

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What is emerging on Russia;s western borders in the Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states is a growing fascist and anti-Semitic movements. Ukraine seems to be furthest along. The website DefendingHistory.com is primarily about documenting historical revisionism in the Baltics involving the Holocaust and collaboration. But in their reporting you can see historical revisionism goes hand-in-hand with latent and growing nationalistic fascism. And of course this always brings with antisemitism.

DefendingHistory.com

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wendy davis's picture

@MrWebster

defending history

gotta go do a bunch of honey-dews, and i'll take a gander.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture


I violently overthrew a democratically elected government

and all I got were these lousy Nazis.

Crimea river, Vicky.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

wendy davis's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

but 'crimea river' is awesome, as is your militant gorilla w/ a cigar avatar. my, my, not HK, and double lulz.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger
@wendy davis

IMG_1918.JPG

Smile

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

thanks, i needed that.

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wendy davis's picture

more than the single ink to my favorite writer on sovereign seeds and organic gardening, monsanto detractor, colin todhunter UK:

this one isn't visible:

but from colin todhunter:

"The United States has devised on ongoing strategy of tension towards Russia. It has initiated economic sanctions against Moscow, concocted a narrative about ‘Russian aggression’ for public consumption and has by various means attempted to undermine and weaken the energy-dependent Russian economy. It has moreover instigated a coup on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine and is escalating tensions by placing troops in Europe.

But what does the corporate media in the West say about this? That the US is a ‘force for good’ and constitutes the ‘world’s policeman’ – not a calculating empire underpinned by militarism.

Breaking previous agreements made with Russia/the USSR, over the past two decades the US and NATO have moved into Eastern Europe and continue to encircle Russia and install missile systems aimed at it. It has surrounded Iran with military bases. It is also ‘intervening’ in countries across Africa to weaken Chinese trade and investment links and influence. It intends to eventually militarily ‘pivot’ towards Asia to encircle China." and a long, long list of Imperial death-dealing to multiple millions...

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wendy davis's picture

and ye gods and little fishes:

(

see why #qatar here.

US mission to osce

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