Only now do we belatedly learn what should have been obvious: the blurry photographs provided by the coup regime in Kiev and endorsed by the Obama administration don’t really prove anything. There were obvious alternative explanations to the photos that were ignored by the Times, such as the possibility that these were military veterans who are no longer associated with the Russian military. Or that some photos are not of the same person.Naturally, this admission is not being covered widely in the blogs or mainstream press. However, CNN does favor us with this...
And, one of the photos featured by the Times in its Monday lead article, purportedly showing some of the armed men in Russia, was actually shot in the Ukrainian town of Slovyansk, according to Maxim Dondyuk, the freelance photographer who took the picture and posted it on his Instagram account.
In an interview with state-run RT, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented how he felt U.S. officials were quick to blame his nation for everything awry in Ukraine and to insist Moscow can unilaterally solve it all. Lavrov said that while those in Ukraine's east and south who defiantly oppose the Kiev-based government are "not puppets" of the Kremlin, such a characterization would describe the relationship between Ukraine's leadership in Kiev and the United States.I think we're supposed to sneer and snicker at the Russian perfidy on display here. But I see no reason not to take Lavrov at his word. The question is always "Compared to what?" Who're ya gonna believe -- Lavrov or the neocons who have been sneaking dangerous bullcrap into the NYT?
"(Americans) have, I think, overwhelming influence," he said. "They act in a much more open way, without any scruples, compared to the Europeans ... You cannot avoid the impression that they are running the show very much, very much."
To put matters into perspective, I recommend this piece by the esteemed John Pilger. Yes, he's wrong about the "missile gap," which was a 1960 thing, not a 1964 thing. But he's right about much else...
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its "Nato Enlargement Project". Reneging a US promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that Nato would not expand "one inch to the east", Nato has all but taken over eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucuses, Nato's military build-up is the most extensive since the second world war.The economic foundation for all this belligerence is, I think, the emergence of the informal BRICS trading alliance, which could one day reduce this nation to third-rate status. This country doesn't make anything anymore, and the BRICS countries do. That's the key factor driving all of this.
Actually, there is one thing we still know how to make: War. Direct war, proxy war, covert war. And so...
In February, the United States mounted one of its proxy "colour" coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No Western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia.Yeah. You'd think that such a thing would make the news, wouldn't you?
Since Washington's putsch in Kiev - and Moscow's inevitable response in Russian Crimea, to protect its Black Sea Fleet - the provocation and isolation of Russia have been inverted in the news to the "Russian threat".Precisely.
Look, it's not as though I seriously consider Vlad Putin to be one of history's good guys. If you're an official member of The Cynics Guild, the proper stance is to acknowledge that most national leaders attained their position by being thugs. The tricky part of living in times like these is the need to recognize slanders and libels as slanders and libels, even when the people being slandered and libeled are assholes.
Saddam Hussein was the most obvious case in point. Nobody liked Saddam -- he was as awful as they come -- but he still didn't have anything to do with 9/11, and he didn't have WMDs. Assad's another example: The man is a beast. But he wasn't responsible for those sarin attacks, and it's not his forces that have been destroying churches and kidnapping nuns and eating hearts.
Sorry for rambling. Let's get back to Pilger's piece...
The US Air Force general who runs Nato forces in Europe - General Breedlove, no less - claimed more than two weeks ago to have pictures showing 40,000 Russian troops "massing" on the border with Ukraine. So did Colin Powell claim to have pictures of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What is certain is that Obama's rapacious, reckless coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap.Breedlove! The guy's name is Breedlove!
(Sudden thought: When WWIII comes, do you think the guy pushing The Button will have a last name like "Darling" or "Liebchen"? I think that'd be super.)
And there is China. On 24 April, President Obama will begin a tour of Asia to promote his "Pivot to China". The aim is to convince his "allies" in the region, principally Japan, to re-arm and prepare for the eventual possibility of war with China. By 2020, almost two-thirds of all US naval forces in the world will be transferred to the Asia-Pacific area. This is the greatest military concentration in that vast region since the second world war.Wasn't Obama supposed to be the peace guy? Only a few posts down, I opined that he probably doesn't long for war -- not in the way that the neocons seem to lust for it. I gave that opinion for a number of reasons. Primarily, I was thinking of his cautious response to the ginned-up Syria crisis, and of his laudable deafness to the incessant cries for war with Iran.
In an arc extending from Australia to Japan, China will face US missiles and nuclear-armed bombers. A strategic naval base is being built on the Korean island of Jeju less than 400 miles from the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai...
But maybe I was wrong. Maybe Obama is just another War Fraud. We've been seeing a lot of those lately.
I don't think that Obama wants to see another invasion occur on his watch, but he seems to be prepping a massive conflict to take place five, ten, twenty years after he leaves office. Maybe he's being snookered into acting this way, or maybe he's in on it.
8 comments:
Who ya gonna believe? The neocons who lied us into war with Iraq, or the Russians? Actually I do believe Robert Kagan's wife when she boasts that the US has spent 5 billion $$$ to destabilize and bring Ukraine into the fold of the IMF and NATO.
Putin meets with President of China, Xi Jinping next month and they'll probably sign the deal for Russia to supply China with natural gas through Siberia. This exchange will not be payed for in petro-dollars. And so begins the end of the dollar as the world currency.
I wonder if those pulling the strings recognize the imminent collapse of the American financial house of cards, and hope that a war can keep the money flowing a bit longer.
My opinion of Obama is he is 99% about Delegation. Once he has established his stable of people, its his job to trust them and interact with them.
The flaw in this system is that it usually uses the same old same old.
However, Obama has tried more new wavy people like Van Jones who have been crushed by the conservatives. Commie Blaster dot com
It doesn't make any difference what Obama thinks or what he wants; he is totally irrelevant. While the world drifts toward war in eastern Europe, he is touring Japan. The US State Department is in the hands of those like Victoria "f--k the EU" Nuland who are free to do as they please with US assets and military power.
The neocons are playing a game of Risk with real people and real equipment as Obama eats sushi for photo ops and bows to Japanese robots.
Joe Biden visits Kiev and makes a promise of 50 million dollars (chump change by international standards) and right on cue the unelected government that the US has installed in Kiev launches a military assault on recalcitrant pro-Russians citizens in eastern Ukraine. When Brenner visited, neo-Nazi thugs employed by Kiev (with pockets stuffed with $100 bills) showed up in the middle of the night before Easter morning to kill people. This show is run by the CIA and the State Dept, IMHO, and they intend to show the ghosts of Hitler and Napoleon how it's done and what's more, do it on the cheap. I wonder how enthusiastic members of the US military will be to attack Russia after over 12 and a half years of constant combat. And after Russia, there's China and Pakistan, and let's not forget Iran and Syria. Yemen? Why not?
One does not become powerful by being a thug, at least not in civilised countries. There it is done by being underhanded.
Soeaking of which, under our last government we not only had Chancellor Darling, but a secretary of state called Ladyman and a Labour fundraiser called Lord Adonis. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, General Breedlove.
Also, proper air forces don't have generals, they have Air Marshalls and Air Commodores.
Re: Obama
Pay no attention to that man in front of the curtain. He's not pulling any levers. He's just the woofer.
I believe the national security state is just too powerful for Obama to push back.
He's done his level best to avoid bombing Iran, and delt with Putin on Syrian gas weapons, which is why the neo-cons ramped up Ukraine to drive a wedge between Obama-Putin negotiations.
Former CIA analyst Ray Mcgovern has it on good authority that Obama is frightened by the CIA, and was quoted as saying "I don't want to end up like Martin Luther King".
I simply can't believe Obama wants a major war in his legacy, but I can see the neo-cons bad-jacketing him to taint his legacy, and that of the "Democratic Party".
If I have any problem with Lavrov and Russian leadership, it's that they seem to believe they are dealing with an ultimately well-intended American government.
Hopefully, that's just diplomacy's restraints.
In advance of the Ukrainian coup, eighty six Ukrainian ultra-rightist Neo Nazis from the Pravy Sector were sent to Poland for a month to train in military tactics including the use of sniper rifles.
"According to this source, in September 2013, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski invited 86 members of the Right Sector (Sector Pravy), allegedly in the context of a university exchange program. In reality, the guests were not students, and many were over 40. Contrary to their official schedule, they did not go to the Warsaw University of Technology, but headed instead for the police training center in Legionowo, an hour’s drive from the capital. There, they received four weeks of intensive training in crowd management, person recognition, combat tactics, command skills, behavior in crisis situations, protection against gases used by police, erecting barricades, and especially shooting, including the handling of sniper rifles."
http://www.voltairenet.org/article183373.html#nb1
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