For this reason, all public discussion of the war has consisted entirely of pro-war propaganda. In a desperate effort to create popular support for the war, the US and European media has for months conducted a systematic campaign designed to make their populations hate Russia. Any facts or opinions that contradict the pro-war narrative have been labeled as Russian propaganda, and those who question the war are labeled all but treasonous. (Or Putin lovers)

Robert Parry also wrote about the Ukraine coup back in 2014. Remember that Obama was caught on an open mic telling Putin/Russia that he would have more leeway with Russia after the election and he had mocked Romney for saying that Russia was a threat to America. He also refused to give Ukraine defensive weapons because he knew that they would threaten Russia. Funny that he wasn’t impeached for it like Trump was.

A Shadow US Foreign Policy

A shadow foreign policy apparatus built by Ronald Reagan for the Cold War survives to this day as a slush fund that keeps American neocons well fed and still destabilizes target nations, now including Ukraine, creating a crisis that undercuts President Obama, reports Robert Parry.

The National Endowment for Democracy, a central part of Ronald Reagan’s propaganda war against the Soviet Union three decades ago, has evolved into a $100 million U.S. government-financed slush fund that generally supports a neocon agenda often at cross-purposes with the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

NED is one reason why there is so much confusion about the administration’s policies toward attempted ousters of democratically elected leaders in Ukraine and Venezuela. Some of the non-government organizations (or NGOs) supporting these rebellions trace back to NED and its U.S. government money, even as Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials insist the U.S. is not behind these insurrections.

So, while President Barack Obama has sought to nurture a constructive relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin especially in hotspots like Iran and Syria, NED has invested in projects in Russia’s close neighbor, Ukraine, that fueled violent protests ousting President Viktor Yanukovych, who won election in 2010 in balloting that was viewed by international observers as fair and reflecting the choice of most Ukrainian citizens.

Thus, a U.S.-sponsored organization that claims to promote “democracy” has sided with forces that violently overthrew a democratically elected leader rather than wait for the next scheduled election in 2015 to vote him out of office.

Last September, NED’s longtime president, Carl Gershman, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to urge the U.S. government to push European “free trade” agreements on Ukraine and other former Soviet states and thus counter Moscow’s efforts to maintain close relations with those countries. The ultimate goal, according to Gershman, was isolating and possibly toppling Putin in Russia with Ukraine the key piece on this global chessboard.

“Ukraine is the biggest prize,” Gershman wrote. “The opportunities are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help. The United States needs to engage with the governments and with civil society in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to ensure that the reform process underway not only promotes greater trade and development but also produces governments that are less corrupt and more accountable to their societies. An association agreement with the European Union should be seen not as an end in itself but as a starting point that makes possible deeper reforms and more genuine democracy.

“Russian democracy also can benefit from this process. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

Shadow Structure

In furtherance of these goals, NED funded a staggering 65 projects in Ukraine, according to its latest report. The funding for these NGOs range from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars and created for NED what amounted to a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.

This NED shadow structure, when working in concert with domestic opposition forces, had the capability to challenge the decisions of Yanukovych’s elected government, including the recent coup spearheaded by violent neo-Nazis that overthrew him. Presumably, NED wanted the “regime change” without the neo-Nazi element. But that armed force was necessary for the coup to oust Yanukovych and open the path for those IMF-demanded economic “reforms.”

Beyond the scores of direct NED projects in Ukraine, other major NED recipients, such as Freedom House, have thrown their own considerable weight behind the Ukraine rebellion. A recent Freedom House fundraising appeal read: “More support, including yours, is urgently needed to ensure that Ukrainian citizens struggling for their freedom are protected and supported.” Freedom House meant the “citizens struggling” against their elected government.

So, over this past week, a policy dispute about whether Ukraine should accept the European Union’s trade demands or go with a more generous $15 billion loan from Moscow escalated into violent street clashes and finally a putsch spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who took control of government buildings in Kiev.

With Yanukovych and his top aides forced to flee for their lives, the opposition-controlled parliament then passed a series of draconian laws often unanimously, while U.S. neocons cheered and virtually no one in the U.S. press corps noted the undemocratic nature of what had just happened.

Then, last December, Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” meaning out of the Russian orbit and into a Western one.

On Jan. 28, Nuland spoke by phone to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt about how to manipulate Ukraine’s tensions and who to elevate into the country’s leadership. According to the conversation, which was intercepted and made public, Nuland ruled out one opposition figure, Vitali Klitschko, a popular former boxer, because he lacked experience.

Nuland also favored the UN as mediator instead of the European Union, at which point in the conversation she exclaimed, “Fuck the E.U.” to which Pyatt responded, “Oh, exactly ” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons and the Ukraine Coup.”]

Indeed, it would be hard to comprehend why the American neocon power structure didn’t capsize after the disastrous Iraq War without factoring in the financial ballast provided by NED and other neocon funding sources. That steady flow of NED funding, topping $100 million, gave the neocon movement the staying power that other foreign policy viewpoints lacked.

Indeed! And now we have most of the people who were against the Iraq war created by these psychopathic creatures cheering on the war in Ukraine created by them. Of course that was one of the goals of Russia Gate to create hatred of Putin/Russia and manufacture consent for the Ukraine conflict. I just read another shitlib diary on how Russia put Trump in office and how they cost the Hellabitch the presidency. Can’t wait to see how they square making China their enemy after defending them when Trump was creating them as our enemy. But they will of course.

See the article for more about the history of NED.

France and Germany helped create the Minsk agreement that would have stopped the slaughter in the Donbas, but Poroshenko the Ukraine president at the time has recently admitted that it was just a ploy to pretend that Ukraine would uphold it just to buy time for NATO to arm and train Ukraine’s military so they’d have a chance to win against Russia. NATO created one of the biggest armies in Europe with over 250,000 troops and yet Russia has slowly conquered more territory whilst that army has gotten wiped out.