Crimea and WWIII
Two articles about the Crimea "issue".
The first is by Eric Zuesse of Washington's Blog and Strategic Culture Foundation. In it, he posits:
"The preparations for war between the U.S. and Russia continue naturally apace until the United States publicly acknowledges that Russia had not ‘seized’ Crimea — acknowledges that the cause for all of these war-preparations by the U.S. and its NATO and other allies against Russia is fake, a U.S. lie, and that Russia is purely America’s victim in this entire matter and acting in a 100% defensive way against America’s aggressions in this matter."
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/02/07/things-will-get-worse-u...
As long as the lies of the Empire continue, the potential for more war, even a WWIII, remains.
He goes on to prove in his article, with links, that the entire "Russia invades Ukraine, Annexes Crimea" narrative, the basis for the Obama/Trump sanctions and the escalation of the Cold War, is pure propaganda based on lies, something many of us have known since it started.
"Obama-Trump economic sanctions against Russia are based upon the lies that are to be exposed as lies, in the links here. So too are the NATO movements of U.S. troops and missiles right up to Russia’s very borders — ready to invade Russia — based especially upon the lie of ‘Russian aggression in Crimea’. All of the thrust for WW III is based upon U.S. President Barack Obama’s vicious lie against Russia: his saying that the transfer of Crimea from Ukraine to Russia was not (which it actually was) an example of the U.N.-and-U.S. universally recognized right of self-determination of peoples (such as the U.S. recognizes to apply both in Catalonia and in Scotland, but not in Crimea) but was instead an alleged ‘conquest’ of Crimea by Russia. (As that link there documents, Obama’s allegation that it was ‘Putin’s conquest’ of Crimea is false, and he knew it to be false; he was well informed that the people of Crimea overwhelmingly wanted their land to be restored to Russia, and to be protected by Russia, so as not to be invaded by the Ukrainian government’s troops and weapons, after a bloody U.S. coup by Obama had — less than a month earlier — overthrown the democratically elected President of Ukraine, for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted. Obama’s own agents were behind that coup; they were doing his bidding. The aggressor here is entirely the U.S., not Russia, despite Obama’s lies.)"
The second article, by Anna Tsukanova, is titled "What America Should Know about “Annexed Crimea”: “We the People of Crimea." It includes a lengthy 2015 documentary about the events in 2014 in Crimea and Ukraine. She focuses on the speech U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley gave at the U.N. last week where she followed the imperial script regarding Crimea and Russia.
"The speech by the new US permanent representative to the UN Security Council, Nikki Haley, at a Security Council meeting on 3 February backed up the idea that the new administration policy on Crimea will be followed up. Haley said exactly the same nonsense as Samantha Power before her: «Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine». The White House supported Haley’s statement the same day.
It is interesting that Mrs Haley was speaking about the territory of Crimea rather than the people. I wonder how she seeks the «return» of the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine – with the people or without them? It’s a pity that this question has remained unanswered yet.
Does Nikki Haley know whether the Crimean people regard themselves as Ukrainians or not?
It is unlikely that the US ambassador to the UN wants to move the people out of Crimea so that she can give the peninsula back to Ukraine.
Especially as she would have to move not only the living, but also the dead, since the ‘Ukrainian’ history of Crimea is very short, around a quarter of a century. It is surprising that the citizen of a country whose constitution begins with the words «We the people of the United States…» is doing everything to avoid a conversation in terms of «We the people of Crimea…»"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-america-should-know-about-annexed-crim...
The hypocrisy of the U.S. government knows no bounds and continues under Trump. Of course many Americans still believe the lies about Crimea and Ukraine which is why Haley can get away with lying to the world at the U.N., like Colin Powell and Samantha Power before her. Democrats, especially like those on Daily Kos, will keep to this line about Crimea, Ukraine and Russia because it started with Obama and the democrats fell in line with it. They can hardly go back now.
Which will present a problem with the coming antiwar protests. How can the democrats protest against Trump's wars when they also support them?
The same can be said about the Trump administration and the global war OF terror, which is also a "war" based on and sustained by massive lies and propaganda. Trump and his regime are doing nothing to separate from those lies regarding the war OF terror, they'll all in.
Where all this leads no one knows, but I agree with Zuesse, if the lies continue, anything goes.
Late Note:
"Meanwhile, the new US President, Donald Trump said on Monday that the US strongly supports NATO, adding, however, that Washington wants all members to make their full contributions to the alliance."
https://www.rt.com/news/376627-nato-troops-arrival-lithuania/
All the talk about Trump wanting out of NATO was just that, talk. It's what he's been saying all along, what he's been told to say, what others have been saying for quite some time. He just wants a better "deal".
Comments
This goes beyond the people in this country
It's also the NATO allies who are using this lie to put their troops in the countries that surround Russia.
Those countries too are lying to their citizens about Russia's aggression and telling them that they need to support the war against Russia.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Sure does.
Citizens in other NATO countries are no different and are subjected to the same propaganda, lies and false narratives we are. It does work the same in every country. Trump and Haley know it's a lie, about Crimea, yet they're repeating it. That is not good news for those that thought the good thing about Trump was that there would not be a war with Russia, or for any of us. Not saying there will be, but the lies continue and that tells the story.
well, in the case of Germany, I would think
we have parts in our population who have personal fears and experiences with propaganda from the cold war style Soviet Union propaganda as much as other parts in our population, who bought into US propaganda through the last five decades. German and European politicians are careful to not show too much that they do understand the propaganda part, but also understand that they have to pay a price to speak up against the propaganda. Everybody has his price and many are cheap.
I think fewer people than decades ago felt that Putin's Russia has threatened Eastern European countries, the ones that wanted to join and be part of Europe. What has Putin done to Germany lately? I don't think many Germans can come up with something that make them feel fearful of Russian aggression. But all of the ones, who remember Soviet occupation, have ingrained in them those fears and are not able to 'discard' them. It's a human condition and you can't blame those to have 'memories'.
I try to listen to the little people and try to understand what they are fearful about. And I do not believe that they are all manipulated by propaganda of either side, but they all have their own little experiences and observations out of their real past lives, that make up their beliefs. I am not willing to discard those as 'dumb' or as a result of 'being bought'.
All I can say is that I observe folks in Germany, who would feel better, if those darn tanks and darn military forces of the US and other NATO allies would 'go home' and leave them alone. Not that different from the late sixties and seventies. They do not buy into propaganda or do understand that they are spoon fed with propaganda, but they can't help the fact that their own politicians are 'carefully weighing the options', because they think about the 'economic' consequences to not be part of the globalized trade, their profits and losses.
The population of 'little people' (including me) can't grasp what it would mean economically for their country to be a more independent, self-sustaining nation. And it seems there are shifts in their thinking now, which makes the situation even more 'scary'.
So far Germans seem to be a bit more confident, because they still produce a lot of their products and do not import them. But everybody is pretty helpless, I think, and they realize that they can't get rid of those politicians who are scared to 'resist' those, who try to persuade them that US interests come first. Economics and trade issues are difficult to understand and to report about. So, most of us, feel it's over their 'paygrade' to really know what it is all about and have no energy and time to do their own learning and research.
Yeah, blame me, I can't keep up and am tired being a serf of internet links, I am all supposed to read, understand and make up my mind about.
Thx, Al, I am glad that those links are there in my bookmarks, ready to be accessed when I am ready for them.
@mimi Yes, All the world's
Yes, All the world's conflicts is over "gold". Follow the money.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho
mimi, thank you so much
for this response, especially this part:
In spite of the fact that the most memorable statement in Victoria Nuland's telephone call with our Ukrainian ambassador was, "Fuck the EU," the whole conflict probably turns on whether Ukraine agrees to EU or Russian policies. This was essentially the conflict that started the Balkans War, I think, in that the former Yugoslavian territories struggled with being taken over by the IMF or World Bank, rather than to form their own small or cooperative businesses. Suddenly there was unlimited money for fascist death squads, mass murder, and rape camps.
The proof, if we're in doubt, that our government installed the fascist government in Ukraine emerges from President Obama's statements and from the fact that Nuland's phone conversation naming the persons to be installed in the new government happened BEFORE the coup.
Nuland's phone call, worth listening to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTos0duooaU
Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call
7 February 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
2014 Ukrainian revolution
18–23 February 2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution
President Obama's statement:
Thank You, Linda Wood, for the links
It's the first time I heard the telephone call and read the transcript. I had read about it, but not more. It all sounds so banal, a girlish voice of Nuland, so sure about herself that she can afford to talk "sweet and smopthly" and just ... ack. I swallow my words. I always tried to figure out what our own correspondents, who worked in both the US and the Moscow studios were thinking, I recently heard them on German TV in a discussion round table panel, and often I was so disappointed because they were never clear about what they personally believed, though they had the most access through their work.
I remember that our feed producer in the Washington DC studio of ARD German TV explosded several times in front of her monitor when the pool feed of State Department's spokes women 'smooth talks' were transmitted live. I myself couldn't really follow it as I would have wanted to (busy with other tasks), and for me it's today interesting to listen and watch older links and German documentaries about it or German talking heads discussing Trump and US- EU - Russian relations. But a bit too much for me right now. I that sense your links were interesting to me. Thank you.
It's dealing with the believers that bothers me
The question that troubles me is, how do we get people to see that what they know about Russia, Crimea, Syria, etc. is a lie? I mean, I understand now that it is a lie, but many others do not, and sometimes in my interactions with people who still firmly believe the lie I am more squishy than I would like (I feel I must work to be more firm). And the people who believe these lies often believe them so firmly, that I am not sure at all what is to be done about them. They must be persuaded to abandon these lies, but I don't know how. They are so neck deep in this propaganda, that I am not even sure that providing them with facts that show them to be wrong would be sufficient.
In many cases, this stubbornness seems born of a firm belief that Vladimir Putin is the greatest menace to the world in modern history. There may very well be legitimate points upon which Putin should be opposed, but it is impossible now to have a fair discussion of these points, given that according to Russian Studies expert Stephen Cohen, Putin is now the most demonized Russian political leader since Stalin, which is no mean feat.
As it is, none of these people seem to have a coherent idea of what can be done to oppose Putin and Assad that does not necessarily and consequentially empower the American Empire and its reactionary regional proxies. Quite simply, the left is not in a position to craft a positive policy in either Syria, Ukraine, or anywhere else, so it seems to me that the best thing to do is to oppose our own government's imperialism until we are in a position to craft a positive policy that does not perpetuate and intensify American imperialism.
And "we" are supporting particularly ugly groups in Ukraine
The Kiev junta still has groups that revere the WW2 Nazi Stepan Bandera (even in Ukrainian communities in this country), all big supporters of Hillary in our election (foreign meddling!). They have politicians advocating killing all Russian speakers in Ukraine. There are reports of mass graves and trapping people in buildings and burning them all.
http://thesaker.is/how-the-kiev-regimes-war-on-donbass-broke-geopolitics...
That is amazing isn't it?
this country is not only arming and funding Al Qaida who fought against our troops during the Iraq war, it's now in bed with the same group of Nazis that the world fought against during the WWII.
Why no one calls out how it is the USA that is responsible for the mayhem going on around the world is something I don't understand.
Anyone know what to make of this article that accuses Hillary's campaign and the DNC working with a group in Ukraine that was responsible for the DNC hacks?
http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/indict-clinton-for-the-russian-dnc-a...
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
@snoopydawg It's not just Ukraine
It's not just Ukraine, either. The European Union/NATO seems to have a fascism problem, and it can't all be laid at Putin's feet. Poland's government is taking an increasingly right wing, authoritarian turn, and in Lithuania the government has actually been prosecuting former partisans for war crimes. That latter one is really one that you just can't make up, a case of the truth being stranger than fiction -- that a bunch of old grannies and grandpas are being brought to court for fighting the Nazis as part of irregular militias during World War II. In many of these cases, the accused are Jews, so they were not only fighting for their country, but for their very lives. If memory serves, Lithuania is also the country where a city recently erected a monument to the local war dead -- specifically, the local war dead who fought for the Germans.
Another example is Croatia, where the Nazis had a very reliable local group of fascist collaborators. Those fascist collaborators' are in the process of having their reputations rehabilitated, and one of their fascist intellectual heirs was recently appointed Minister of Culture.
In Lithuania and Croatia, the local fascists outdid the Germans in their slaughter of Jews and other "undesirables." In some places, the Lithuanians started killing Jews before the Germans even arrived, and in both Lithuania and Croatia the locals were so vicious in their slaughter that they disgusted even the Germans. In Poland, the nationalist resistance organization, the Home Army, refused to give any aid to the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto when they staged their uprising in 1943, despite having plenty of weapons stockpiled; the only Polish group that assisted the Jews was the Polish Communists.
Provocative NATO military exercises
now ongoing all around the Black Sea, called ‘Sea Shield 2017’. Russia responds defensively.
What the hell is NATO trying to prove here? And how much of this belligerence is being greeen-lighted by Trump? Using Crimea as a casus belli for these "exercises" is bullshit... pure red-white-and-blue-baloney. Amerika's favorite snack food, vacuum packed, ready to eat, and chock full of toxins.
All these hot-shot NATO generals poking their sticks at the Russian bear, thinking they've got her surrounded. Yapping like a pack of deranged hyenas, with the msm dispensing propaganda like candy to the masses. I get the distinct feeling that this will not end at all well.
native
Oh I agree that this is not going to end well for any
and I have no idea why they think provoking Russia is a good idea. The Russian people are being made ready for a possible war. I don't have the link to the article.
And anyone who thinks that we will survive using nuclear weapons, even a little one is nuts.
Russia won't use a little one back from the submarines that we don't know where they are.
Good lord this world has gone more insane.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I think that my sigline is true.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
The tired old fools in the Pentagon are still looking for a war
that they can win. The U.S. has been whipped or fought to a standstill in every one of our military actions since WWII. And the U.S. didn't win that one either. If the British hadn't held out during the blitz, all of Europe would have been goose stepping to Hilter's tune.
They all want to go down in history as Patton. And they vain fools don't care who or how many they kill making it happen.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
@Amanda Matthews Those tired old fools are
Those tired old fools are getting rich being the spokesmen for the MIC. It has nothing to do with winning wars.It's criminal and immoral.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho
Of course they're getting rich but if you don' think they're not
out to start a war with Russia that's where I totally disagree. There is a reason that our troops and NATO are lining up on Russia's border, and it isn't because they've coming for a weekend visit. They fully intend to start something to prove they're still the world's police force, that America is truly 'exceptional'.
These guys were like rabid attack dogs under Bush II, Obama, and now they want to go even farther under Trump. War is their end game.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Of course they're getting rich but if you don' think they're not
out to start a war with Russia that's where I totally disagree. There is a reason that our troops and NATO are lining up on Russia's border, and it isn't because they've coming for a weekend visit. They fully intend to start something to prove they're still the world's police force, that America is truly 'exceptional'.
These guys were like rabid attack dogs under Bush II, Obama, and now they want to go even farther under Trump. War is their end game.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Here's a radio interview with Stephen Cohen.
It's a recap of the history and where things stand now. 40 minutes long, very informative for those who have the time to listen. Ukraine Revisited
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Azazello, I listened in to the whole interview ...
and found it extremely helpful. Unfortunately I couldn't understand (sound-wise) the one thing he said about Merkel with regards to agrrements Yanukovich had (supposedly) refused to sign, saying Merkel was furious about it. (Around TC 18:00)
I wonder if we could find a clip supporting this remark.
Demystifying Yanukovych’s Decision to Not Sign the Association Agreement explains the situation back then a bit in detail, but still I have so much to ketch up on this, I barely can understand it fully. I scanned also this link Ukraine protests after Yanukovych EU deal rejection.
I never could follow what was happening there and why exactly. The interview with Stephen Cohen you posted was a catalyst to get back and try to search for older news reports. I think he explained it well. I remember vaguely that I had to search for TV news clips that showed the promise that was made during Germany's reunification negotiations to not expand NATO beyond the Eastern European borders. Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow?. Apparently it was Gorbachev who said in an interview Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge? Gorbachev Says “No”
But now these troops are stationed there in large numbers. So much for that NATO promise.
Thanks, Azazello. Nice that your link to the Cohen interview triggered me to search for more information what exactly happened back then. It's still difficult to understand. Or I am just tired of all the bullshit. Take your pick, whatever comes first.
Hi Mimi. The deal Russia thought they made.
Publicly and officially, Moscow has long asserted that the Soviet Union allowed Germany to unify if Washington pledged never to expand the Atlantic alliance.
It seems insane to imagine that Russia was on board withWestern guns permanently pointed to their heads from their own borders. But Deep State advisers to Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have all dismissed the Russian claim that they never intended to live on a reservation, surrounded by the the paranoid and empire-obsessed West.
Yet, the fact remains that no legally binding prohibition on NATO enlargement emerged from the era of German unification. The due diligence was just not there. It was probably allowed to slide because no one, neither the Russians nor the American people, expected the US to turn into warrior-class Klingons. And no one expected a redux of "Springtime for Hitler" to emerge in Europe. Both those expectations are currently being dashed.
What happened was complicated, but we now have recorded evidence of how the current nightmare (for Russia) unfolded. It was laid out and documented in a NYT editorial. It struck me as credible.
The narrative continues at the link above, in intricate detail.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
oh, many thanks, Pluto, that is a worthy article
and I can understand that Gobachev complained about feeling to have fallen into a trap, from what the article describes.
May be closer to the truth it might not have been an intentional trap, that Kohl laid out, but a thing of over-enthusiasm about the possibility of reunification that simply made Kohl and Genscher capable of fuzzying up with weasel word formulations (May be that's diplomacy) the question about extension of NATO east of former East German territory into Warsaw Pact territory. The article linked in the article of the NYT you linked to above, makes it clear.
UPHEAVAL IN THE EAST: Soviet Union; KOHL SAYS MOSCOW AGREES UNITY ISSUE - By CRAIG R. WHITNEY, Special to The New York Times - Published: February 11, 1990
So, they weaseled around the question of the inviolability of postwar European borders. I guess that was meant to mean no NATO expansion into Warsaw Pact territory? They just let it glide into obscurity, basically to make nothing stand against the process of reunification to go forward.
Then they never touched upon those border questions again, I guess.
Amazing stuff. Thank You for this history lesson, Pluto. Very, very kind of you pulling out those two articles. I just remembered being dumbfounded watching the Berlin Wall come down on US main stream TV channels. (Didn't work in the news business back then). Happy and puzzled. Only twenty years later I was supposed to find "proof" via video material that these NATO assurances to NOT expand into Warsaw Pact territory were given. And I did sweat, because I couldn't find anything in our little archives.
This was a nice and educative look back. Pluto. Thanks again. I shall go and read up about the origins of NATO and Warsax Pact after WWII. It all seems so far away nowadays.
$900,000,000,000 a year for NATO/US combined military budget
Russia's military budget for this year is around $45.15 billion with cuts due to the price of oil.
http://in.rbth.com/economics/defence/2016/11/02/russian-military-spendin...
Is there no remembrance of WWII in Europe. No wonder Europe has been a constant killing ground over centuries. And we have idiots here who think the US can win a limited tactical nuclear with Russia.
Even more
The total cost is even higher if you add in the interest on the debt incurred by massive military expenditures. There are also military expenditures outside of the nominal military budget.
Even if we lose,
it would keep the nuclear weapons industry in power and in business. They have no loyalty.
@Linda Wood
According to a paper I previously posted on C-9 and am too lazy to dig for right now, previous extrapolations created prior to modern computer models - which are apparently still used to estimate probable effects - missed some major factors, including the fact that nuclear explosions kick up dust rising far higher than do the volcanic emissions used as a comparable proxy in previous modelling.
Even a limited nuclear war usng smaller but now more powerful modern nukes and involving only two small countries would, apart from radiation issues, cause severe global dimming for at least a decade causing global crop failure, (oxygen-producing plant death,) and increased drought resulting in global famine - and reduced oxygen, and a further radical die-off of planetary plant and animal life forming our natural life support system already dying off far, far faster than was previously admitted due to current levels of industrial/military pollution/destruction.
A 'limited' nuclear war-crime between multiple and larger countries doesn't actually bear thinking of. Not by the sane, at any rate.
So, without food, water or breathable air, where does that leave life on the irradiated planet?
There would have to be automated systems 'selling' each other virtual weapons for them to continue making useless data-dot 'money' for the corporations to 'survive', I suppose, but that assumes power is available for this.
What the MIC lacks is sense.
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.
Absolutely.
I mean, no matter how it's estimated, a nuclear war would be suicide for life as we know it. But the procurement people, like our most recent Defense Sec., are driven to keep the industry in power, alive and threatening us. The No First Use doctrine went out the window at some point, possibly during W's administration. So we now threaten to use such weapons first. It goes without saying that such a use would be without warning. So if the other side, presumably a nuclear power, even suspects we are going to use one nuclear weapon, they would have to know we would use all of them necessary to destroy the enemy's nuclear defense capability, meaning all of their nuclear weapons, meaning thousands, I guess. So that would be the end.
The mindset of these moral imbeciles appears to be that if they used a few less destructive nuclear weapons, the modernized ones programmed to kill a somewhat limited number of people, a smaller number than our older nukes would kill, the enemy would be so shaken and terrified they wouldn't respond, which is absurd.
They're working with the mindset of 1945, when we used atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and no one responded. That was because our enemies didn't have nuclear weapons. But now they do. So apparently our weapons planners think either it's worth the risk or they don't care. Either way, they're insane.
Maybe someone in this forum knows more about the planning for reduced yield nuclear war promoted by the Obama administration. But from the position of an average American, it looks like psychotic mass murder.
@Linda Wood
In other words, to the sane it looks like psychotic mass murder, since that's what it is... this would be why so many politicians are obvious lunatics, as who else would support and promote such policies?
But wide-ranging and typically more gradual murder-for-profit/expediency has for so very long been acceptable among those in the Old Boys Club, whether politicians or industrialists, that it's seemingly viewed as a right, especially where polluting industry is concerned, and this threatened nuclear destruction of the planet is merely more obvious than much of the ongoing poisoning of the environment/water/food supply, workers, consumers/breathers and the general public, and the extinction of planetary life inevitable within the century already, unless corporations and the military are prevented from further poisoning and destruction starting now-ish. If it's not already too late...
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.
So true.
Of course. Plunder is what they do.