They're lying about Ukraine, again: Primitive prejudice, stupidity and the reflexive compliance of the New York Times

We have had the full-frontal porn of an American subversion op, a coverup -- then the media's supine cooperation

Patrick L. Smith

Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin (Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)

However Ukrainians settle their drastic differences — and they can, providing all sides find the will to do so — a large and welcome consequence of this crisis falls to Americans. This is summed up in a single word. Ukraine gives us the gift of revelation.

We Americans are destined to discover who we are in this century, as opposed to who we tell ourselves and others we are. The great dodge of the American century, chiseled in granite with Woodrow Wilson's famous line, "The world must be made safe for democracy," will lose its power to propel. This was a fairly easy call long before the events of the past six months on Russia's southwest border. In Ukraine we start to see how this will occur, what forms it may take, and what we will find when we look.

I did not see this coming, to be honest. It was Victoria Nuland's famous-but-not-to-be-mentioned "'F' the EU" appearance on YouTube in February that turned things. We have since had full-frontal porn of an American subversion op, the ensuing coverup, then the media's supine cooperation in the coverup, then the full-frontal of everybody in the bedroom. Even the coverup is not covered up.

American-sponsored coups have flopped before, goodness knows. The list is long. But this failure takes us further than ever before up the creek that smells, in my view.

At writing, the provisional government in Kiev has reluctantly opened talks on decentralizing the Ukrainian political structure. Hardly was this in Washington's plan, but the Obama administration will nonetheless have considerable influence on the outcome in Ukraine as it backs out the gate it crashed, as I am convinced it will before this is over.

This is not my point. My concern is with what the Ukraine crisis has unexpectedly exposed: the bankruptcy of the story, the hollowness of the pose. To be revealed is the great collection of presuppositions, prejudices, presumptions, myths, representations and ideological beliefs that were the ink with which the American century narrative was written.

Good for Ukrainians, all of them in the end, that Washington's effort to install a crew of neoliberal puppets in Kiev has been disrupted. Good for everyone, including Americans, that the Ukraine crisis exposes so many of the defects in the prevalent American worldview. I may judge the moment too optimistically, but there seems no going back from this.

 

I have asserted previously in this space that Moscow's account of the Ukraine crisis is more coherent than Washington's. Each time, the argument provokes a certain shock-horror syndrome among many readers — and, of course, numerous accusations that the writer of such things must be a shill for the Russians, an FSB agent, a Putin groupie, and so on.

To be honest, I greatly enjoy advancing this view. First of all because it is true, and second because so many of my fellow Americans choke on it. The default position, name-calling, is a boring but common ruse in the American conversation, always an indication that there is no comeback other than to invoke beliefs as opposed to thoughts.

The question raised is what lies behind this. The core idea is that if the Russians say something or think it, it cannot be right and no one's thinking can credibly coincide with theirs. I see something important to learn here; something needing to be revealed.

I am always one for history, so let us begin there.

The first thing to consider is how "the West" came to be. The idea of the West as opposed to "the East" is as old as Herodotus, maybe older. But the West as a political notion is much younger. It dates to the 1840s. Peter the Great had started modernizing Russia and building an empire — in imitation of the Europeans — in the early 18th century. By the mid-19th century it was evident that the czars had made Russia a contending power.

Ponder this observation: "There are only two peoples now. Russia is still barbarous, but it is great. The other young nation is America. The future is there between these two great worlds. Someday they will collide, and then we shall see struggles of which the past can give no idea."

That is a French historian and critic named Charles Augustin Sainte–Beuve. He wrote the passage in 1847 — a prescient call, we have to say. Within a few years, French and German thinkers wanted Europe and the U.S. to make common cause by way of some form of alliance against the rising Russians. Out of this came the political West, and it is a straight line all the way up to NATO.

The West, then, evolved from a cultural distinction to a function — an operational entity, a mechanism — and was a reaction from the start. Westerners accustomed to civilizational supremacy were fearful of the arriving East.

The scholars call what emerged from this current in 19th century thinking a national character argument. You find these in lots of places, and in every case they are to be countered without mercy, for they are nothing but ignorant prejudice. Germany after the war got this treatment: The Germans did this because they are German and this is what Germans do. The Chinese deploy this as we speak: The Japanese did what they did to us in the war because they are Japanese.

Essentialism substitutes for politics and history: This is the trick of the national character crowd. It is excellent for marshaling popular emotion but altogether an indecent exercise. The French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." Now you know what I think of people who signed on for this one during the Bush II years.

The Russians came in for a national character argument as Western opinion evolved in the 19th century and then the 20th. Russia was quintessentially of the East, and the East was cast as Edward Said described in "Orientalism": autocratic, irrational, dark of motive, and so on more or less infinitely.

You can anticipate the next thought easily enough. Exactly 100 years before time, Sainte-Beuve described the Cold War. There was a practice run after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and then the real thing as of 1947. (Amazing symmetry in these dates.) The Cold War was many things, but before it was anything else it was the consequence of intellectual habits formed a century earlier.

Plainly enough for anyone who lived it and suffered all the propaganda and rhetoric and appalling scholarship, the Cold War rested on a national character argument articulated with little inhibition — and no shame. Nothing Soviet was of any worth. All Soviet citizens suffered all the time. No Soviet market ever had enough on the shelves. Anything a Soviet apparatchik said was the very opposite of true. And never to be forgotten (my little fixation), Soviet officials always wore "ill-fitting suits." Had to be.

The Cold War ended in 1991, but only because the Soviet Union collapsed. The longer war, of which the Cold War decades were but an interim, went on. Russia was still Russia and Russia was still "the East" and all this had come to mean. The West proposed a partnership in the 1990s. As we can see now more plainly, this was impossible from the first in that the West would continue to insist on a divided world, West and East, as soon as it became clear "partnership" would have to mean more than a capitulation of all history and culture on the Russians' part.

This is why I take revelation as my topic. Most of us think we look at the Ukraine crisis, listen to our leaders, read our newspapers, and draw informed conclusions. Missed altogether is that we are merely taking our place in the long story. There is nothing in orthodox thinking, or in most people's views, that departs from the burdensome inheritance. (And part of the inheritance is not understanding that it is inherited and is a burden.)

All is in place. The West is the light side of the moon, Russia the dark. Russia has aggressed in Ukraine: We have no evidence but it must have, as this is what Russians do. If Putin says it, it has to be wrong: Russian autocrats are never right or truthful.

No Ukrainian could possibly want to live within the dense weave of his or her historic ties with Russia. This last is an assault on the American sensibility. The American inheritance makes this information indigestible, foreign food. So the Russians must be pulling the strings, manipulating millions of minds as they always do.

Here, just one example.

Last week, Vladimir Putin publicly urged those in revolt against the provisional government in Kiev to step back from their planned referendums on their future arrangements with Kiev. How did the New York Times report this? "It remains unclear what Mr. Putin's motives were for suggesting the delay," its correspondent in eastern Ukraine told us in Sunday's editions.

The baggage of primitive prejudice brings us to stupidity. It is the only way to explain this sentence. It could not be that Putin urged a delay because he thought it best and wanted one. Never, with a Russian, do you get what you see. Never is what is said meant.

The American orthodoxy on the Ukraine question is suffused with this kind of thing. It is irrationality masquerading as high-end rationality. And irrational minds are not equipped to judge.

This is what Ukraine reveals for us. We have a long tradition to overcome. As I have argued elsewhere, among our 21st century tasks is to cross divides, to remake our relations with "the Other" in all manifestations, to advance beyond old conceptions of "the West" and "the East," to take a divided world as being of the past but not the future.

With the Ukraine crisis as our point of revelation, we are not very far along, are we? In essence Washington has reverted to type, failing to register that this will no longer do. Simply on a practical plane, do American policy cliques seriously think Europe and the rest of the world will take more than a brief, altogether expedient interest in any prolonged attempt to isolate Russia? Out of the question.

Washington's refusal to acknowledge its role in the Ukraine crisis grows more remarkable by the day. A great game of pretend persists, in the face of pretty good dissemination of many facts. In keeping with the retro character of the strategy, Washington relies on 1950s-era credulousness to sell its story to Americans. But this willing suspension of disbelief common during the Cold War is no longer so reliable. We have the history this time, and the evidence of the history.

It is not encouraging, this stubborn adherence to the plainly untrue. I read it as Washington's way of deflecting all that Ukraine shows us about ourselves. I also read it as evidence of a profound lack of imagination within the American leadership. No capacity among them to move on from what once was.

It is a truism that self-discovery is never easily achieved. But in this case there is no choice. History's wheel will force this upon us Americans. We will have to come to terms with who we are and what we do if we are not to fall behind, if we are to avoid other Ukraines. It is doubtful other nations will have the patience or the stomachs for other Ukraines. This one has cost us, in my view, and more of them will cost us more.

Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/15/theyre_lying_about_ukraine_again_primitive_prejudice_stupidity_and_the_reflexive_compliance_of_the_new_york_times/

Russia's Lavrov Says Ukraine `Close to Civil War' - VIDEO

Russia's Lavrov Says Ukraine `Close to Civil War'

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov talks about the prospect of a civil war in Ukraine. He speaks with Bloomberg Television's Ryan Chilcote in Moscow. (Excerpt. Source: Bloomberg)

                                                                                                                                                                                

VIDEO….

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/ukraine-as-close-to-civil-war-as-possible-lavrov-Mxqx9qdZR8OCC1fmUTGbyA.html

 

 

WP: Ukraine needs Russia and the West

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Opinion Writer

Ukraine needs Russia and the West

(Yannis Behrakis/Reuters) - An armoured fighting vehicle with pro-Russian rebels patrols in the streets of the eastern Ukrainian city of Slaviansk on Monday evening.

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, Published: May 13

Violence in Ukraine is spreading. The Ukrainian military and police are splitting apart, a reflection of the fissures in that deeply divided country. Pro-Russian separatists are taking over government buildings and police stations in eastern Ukraine. Pro-government mobs have burned protesters alive. The referenda on self-rule cobbled together by pro-Russian movements in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions deepens the divisions. Zealots on both sides could drive the country into a bloody and destructive civil war.

The United States has no direct national security interests at stake in Ukraine, but we do have an interest in a united and functional Ukraine that has stable relations with its European Union neighbors to the west and with Russia to the east. And the United States surely wants to forestall a crisis that could disintegrate into civil war, economic collapse and chaos, possibly destabilizing a weak European economy.

But if the United States is to help stabilize Ukraine and prevent a much larger European crisis, then the American political establishment and much of the mainstream media will need a sober reassessment of reality.

U.S. actions over the past several months have defied common sense. Given the deep divisions in Ukrainian society and the vital interest Russia has in the country, it was a provocative step for the United States to immediately and unconditionally recognize as legitimate the government erected out of violent protests and in violation of the negotiated agreement for a peaceful transition. And it makes no sense to treat Russia's actions as an existential threat to the post-war international order, given that the West needs Russian cooperation to stabilize Ukraine both politically and financially.

Not only have the media and political class egged on the administration in a rash and destructive foreign policy, but the debate, shamefully inadequate as it has been, has had an Alice in Wonderland quality to it. Voices across the political spectrum have scorned the president as weak, fulminating about forceful action while forswearing any use of U.S. military forces, knowing the American people had no appetite for another conflict on the other side of the world.

Leaks from the White House to the New York Times suggest that Russia must be treated as a "pariah nation," in an updated form of Cold War containment. This would require isolating the sixth-largest economy in the world, one that supplies Europe with more than a quarter of its oil and gas and has growing ties with emerging powers, including China and India. The only way to sell that to Americans — much less the Europeans — would be to repeat the Dean Acheson formula at the beginning of the Cold War of painting the threat "clearer than truth." Action to deal with the crisis is vital before events on the ground get farther out of hand.

The first step is a return to common sense about basic reality. Ukraine is and has been a deeply divided country. Roughly half of the country looks west to Europe, and roughly half looks east to Russia for help.

Russia views its border with Ukraine as vital to its security. Neither the United States nor its European allies will go to war with Russia to defend Ukraine. Nor will they endlessly support Kiev financially or cover its energy bill. Inevitably, the country, if it is to survive, will have to find a way to coexist with Russia.

After the chaotic autonomy votes of this past weekend, negotiation could be the sole path to prevent Ukraine's disintegration. It is vital now to do what can be done to defuse the crisis on the ground and move to a broader, comprehensive settlement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposal for a multi-party roundtable to work out the details of such a plan was almost immediately supported by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin (in his barely reported statement on May 6). It is critical that the United States add its clear support for constructive steps forward.

The parameters of an acceptable outcome are clear and have, in essence, been agreed upon by the United States, Russia and the Ukraine authorities in the Geneva Declaration of April 17, updated by Merkel's "roundtable." Together these two measures call for all parties to disarm, while convening a national dialogue to consider a new constitutional arrangement that will provide for greater regional autonomy. The authorities in Kiev agree that regional authority is vital for the country to have any hope of cleaning out the corruption that has impoverished it. The premature presidential election scheduled for the end of May will be contested in much of eastern Ukraine. Hopefully, whoever emerges in the election will support the roundtable leading to constitutional reforms; that would provide the basis for nationwide agreement on new elections to create a legitimate national government. International bodies such as the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe could provide the space for the national dialogue.

A constitutional settlement inside Ukraine will solve nothing if the country remains a pawn in U.S.-Russian jockeying. Here, the bipartisan establishment dream of extending NATO to Russia's borders needs to be abandoned. Instead, the West should accept that Ukraine will remain independent of NATO, while Russia accepts that it will remain a unified independent country. Similarly, the European Union should abandon the effort to force Ukraine to choose between Russia and Europe. Instead, the E.U. should embrace the compromise put forward by Moscow that Ukraine should be part of both the European market and the Russian customs federation. If the country has any chance of recovery, assistance from both Russia and the West will be needed.

This outcome will be possible only if common sense can find some traction in Washington and in media coverage of the crisis. The United States needs to get over its post-Cold War triumphalism: It has neither the resources nor the mandate to "police" the world. Countries such as Ukraine need to find their own way to protect their independence while recognizing the reality of living with powerful neighbors. The United States, its allies and global institutions and opinion can help make those arrangements more or less stable. But we should be wary of risking the lives of others to fulfill the fantasies of those blind to the limits of our power or our military.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvel's archive or follow her on Twitter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-ukraine-needs-russia-and-the-west/2014/05/13/1f269790-da19-11e3-bda1-9b46b2066796_story.html

EU and NATO hypocrisy on Ukraine

 

May 9-11, 2014 -- EU and NATO hypocrisy on Ukraine Previous | Next   May 9-11, 2014 -- EU and NATO hypocrisy on Ukraine In one of the most blatant displays of hypocrisy in modern international affairs, the same state, supranational, and non-governmental organization actors who stood at the forefront of splitting apart Yugoslavia into seven smaller independent states are also standing at the helm in calling for the preservation of the unity of Ukraine. These players include the European Union, NATO, and the World Bank/International Monetary Fund, in addition to the United States, Britain, Germany, and organizations like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In fact, the OSCE expelled Yugoslavia from membership in 1992 because it did not want to listen to the Yugoslavian representative present his nation's views on the planned dismemberment of his country to the other OSCE delegations. The contradictions of how the OSCE treated Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and how it is dealing with Russia, Crimea, and the independence-seeking Russian-speaking regions of eastern and southern Ukraine serve as textbook examples of Western hypocritical policies. In the 1990s, the OSCE, which was already infiltrated by George Soros operatives, championed the independence of the constituent nations of Yugoslavia, starting with Slovenia and Croatia, and then moving into the country that would spark a bloodbath: Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the OSCE, the EU, and NATO performed their nation-busting, Yugoslavia was broken into seven nations: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia. The European "Triune" of the EU, NATO, and the OSCE, however, has vigorously opposed the retrocession of Crimea to Russia and declarations of sovereignty by Donetsk, Lugansk, and Odessa in Ukraine even though these regions have more of a claim to self-determination than did the NATO and EU creation of Kosovo, an Albanian-run statelet in the middle of the Balkans led by organized crime figures and terrorists. The EU and the United States maintain that any change in Ukrainian borders must be approved by a national referendum held in all of Ukraine. Yet, no national referendum on the preservation of Yugoslavia was ever held. NATO and the EU supported the various breakaway republics of "South Slavia," without any regard to the wishes of the Yugoslav people as a whole.  When Serbs, who found themselves trapped in the newly-independent countries of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, declared their wish for self-determination, they were branded "secessionists" and then "war criminals." In this regard, NATO and the EU treated the Serbs living outside of Serbia proper in the same manner as the moribund and corrupt Western organizations are treating the Russians trapped inside a Ukraine governed by a coalition of neo-Nazis and austerity-driven technocrats. NATO and the EU were more than happy to have ethnic Serbs have their future determined by the ideological descendants of the pro-Nazi Ustashe in Croatia and the pro-Hitler Bosniak Muslims running Bosnia from Sarajevo. The situation for the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia was no different than that which has befallen ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians in eastern and southern Ukraine. In both the cases of Yugoslavia and Ukraine, the EU, NATO, Soros's organizations, and the neoconservative think tanks in Washington allied with ethnic nationalists tainted with a neo-Nazi hue. Xenophobic anti-Russian attitudes, which now pervade the governments in Berlin, Washington, London, and eastern Europe, were also prevalent in these same capitals in the early 1990s. Johann Reismuller, the editor of the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, championed the cause of independent Croatia and Slovenia by deploring the "Yugo-Serbs" as "Russian Bolsheviks" who had no place in the European Union. Today, individuals like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, John Kerry, have brought their respective Polish Catholic and Jewish Czech "baggage" to bear on steering U.S. policy on a decidedly anti-Russian course. Brzezinski, Albright, and Kerry have adopted Russophobia as a hallmark of American foreign policy in the same manner as they embraced "Serbophobia" as U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s. The only difference is that where they championed the dissolution of Yugoslavia they now seek to maintain the unity of Ukraine. In both cases, they sought to tweak the nose of the Russian bear.  The Slavophobe, Serbophobe, and Russophobe Hungarian Jew George Soros (left) has been at the heart of the troubles of Yugoslavia and Ukraine. Hungarians are not a Slavic people. The progressive left has been co-opted by the Soros gang to demonize Russia just as they were co-opted to paint Serbia as some sort of evil aggressor. Condemning Serbs in the Bundestag, German Green leader Joschka Fischer equated Serbs with the German Nazis. It has been reported from a number of sources that Fischer, a radical leftist friend of German radical and "Paris 68" provocateur Daniel Cohn-Bendit, both had Cold War links to the CIA. Green Party leader Petra Kelly considered Fischer to be an "upstart" and a "careerist." The question remains: What organization provided Fischer with his lifetime career? Perhaps the same one that provided Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., the poseur "progressive," with his own storied career. The fact that the CIA and Soros were covering all bases in Europe in seeking the dismemberment of Yugoslavia is evidenced by the fact that independence for Croatia and Slovenia was supported by Fischer on one side and the octogenarian Otto von Habsburg, the heir to the crown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, when the CIA is involved in anything, strange bedfellows are always commonplace. The use of Pussy Riot "feminists" like Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, recently feted by the U.S. Senate, is nothing new. During the campaign to break up Yugoslavia, public relations spinners like the Ruder Finn public relations firm, contracted by Croatia, successfully marketed the meme to the international press that Serbs were running "rape camps." The intent was to stir feminist outrage toward Serbia. The story of rape camps was patently false but, was nevertheless, run as a legitimate news story by The New York Times and Newsday. CNN's Christiane Amanpour echoed other propagandists in the news media in reporting non-existent Serbian "atrocities" against "defenseless" Muslim Bosnians. In fact, CNN never reported that the Bosnian Muslims were well-armed. The CIA enabled a number of Arab and other Muslim paramilitary units to enter Bosnia to support the Muslim government in Sarajevo. These paramilitary units included one led by one Osama Bin Laden who moved in and out of Bosnia on a Bosnian diplomatic passport issued, with the approval of the CIA, by the Bosnian embassy in Vienna. Another Muslim paramilitary leader in Bosnia was one Colonel Mohammed Atta of the Egyptian Air Force. Today, there are reports that takfiri fighters, some linked to Al Qaeda, are being sent into Ukraine from Syria to help the Kiev government fight the Russian secessionists in the east. There are also reports of Chechen terrorist groups arriving in Ukraine to fight the Russians. Likewise, Jewish-American groups were targeted in a campaign that painted the Serbs as Nazis. Leading Jewish neocons like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith set up the "Bosnia Defense Fund" to funnel millions of donated dollars from Qatar, Brunei, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia to the Bosnian government based on the so-called "Muslim cleansing" threat posed by Serbia. The final nail in the coffin of Yugoslavia was brought about by the International Criminal Court, an institution which the United States rejects having jurisdiction over its own affairs, but is systematically used by Washington to carry out its political agendas. The indictments for war crimes destroyed any chance that any Yugoslav leader, including Slobodan Milosevic, who suspiciously died while in custody of the ICC in The Hague in 2006, could ever maintain political power. Now, the ICC has stated that it is looking at possible criminal indictments of pro-Russian Ukrainian and Crimean leaders, as well as the leadership of the Kremlin itself. Like the OSCE, the ICC is jam-packed with Soros operatives.

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Brzezinski endorses arming Ukrainian junta, to no avail

Brzezinski endorses arming Ukrainian junta, to no avail

© Collage: Voice of Russia

The situation in Ukraine is on the verge of spiralling out of complete control, especially now that the junta's military and Pravy Sector irregulars are deployed against the citizens of the Southeast. The US is bunkering down in its support of the coup-imposed Ukrainian authorities with a renewed round of sanctions against Russia and Congressional chatter about arming the Ukrainian forces.

Among the strongest advocates of American aggression is former National Security Advisor and influential policy activist Zbigniew Brzezinski (incidentally, the strategic founder of the Mujahedeen), who in a recent article argues that the US needs to step up its military commitment to Ukraine. What is most striking, however, is that Brzezinski's attempts to paint Russia in a negative light betray a self-conscious guilt on the part of the American ruling establishment. As such, Brzezinski's latest blather into public diplomacy should be seen as nothing more than the thinly disguised psy-op that it is.

Most news reports on Brzezinski's piece focus on his suggestion to arm the Ukrainian military (and by implicit understanding, the Neo-Nazi Pravy Sector forces now aligned with them) in order to create a type of guerrilla insurgency to sabotage any Russian peace and stabilization intervention in the beleaguered Southeast. This plan for proxy warfare reeks of the stench of 1980s Afghanistan, when the US (guided by Brzezinski) worked to trick the Soviets into a quagmire. A simple substitution shows that the US has a simple plan for copying this template into 2014 Ukraine. Whereas the Afghans had Stinger missiles, rural battlegrounds, and CIA-trained organization, the Ukrainians are envisioned to have hand-held rockets and anti-tank missiles, an urban battleground, and, like the Afghans, CIA organization as well. It's the same trick being played on the same audience, but this time the trickster himself is the fool. 

Nowhere is this seen more explicitly than in Brzezinski's plea for Obama to present a "comprehensive statement of what is really at stake". A point for point response as viewed by the Rest (non-West) follows: 

Brzezinski: Why we are facing this problem? 

Rest: There has been an explosion of Western-organized covert activity all across the world (Color Revolutions, "Arab Spring"), dangerously culminating on Russia's doorstep. Brzezinski's Arc of Crisis and Eurasian Balkans policy have leaped from the Mideast to Eastern Europe in order to separate Russia from Ukraine. Brzezinski wrote in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" that keeping Ukraine away from Russia is absolutely necessary to prevent Russia from restoring an "empire". This line of thinking fulfils Hillary Clinton's threat of "figure[ing] out effective ways to slow down or prevent [the Eurasian Union]". 

Brzezinski: Why it is in our common interest to resolve it? 

Rest: Nobody in Eurasia wants to see the Eurasian Balkans project succeed, because if it does, then a bloody divide and rule policy will conquer the supercontinent. 

Brzezinski: Why, if negotiation does not work out, (do) we have an obligation to help Ukraine? 

Rest: The entire world has an obligation to help the people of Ukraine, just not the junta. Color Revolutions and their spawn must be eradicated at the root, otherwise their non-state actor infrastructure will spread like weeds throughout the Eurasian lawn and choke out other Resistant and Defiant (R&D) States. 

Brzezinski: Above all, the president must clarify why we cannot tolerate an international system in which countries are invaded by thugs and destabilized from abroad. 

Rest: This is exactly what President Putin and the Russian Federation have been doing for years, and Putin most recently referred to the threat of Color Revolutions in his speech announcing the reunification of Crimea with Russia. Thugs have turned Libya into a "scumbag Woodstock", and they have been fighting for over three years to overthrow the popular secular government of Syria and replace it with an extreme Islamic dictatorship. Both are exported from abroad, and the US has now set its shadowy sights on Ukraine.

Brzezinski: And why this is a common responsibility not just for us but for our allies and other friends like the Chinese, whose stake in stability should be as great as ours. 

Rest: China most certainly has a stake in Eastern European stability, so much so that it has just announced its cooperation in linking Crimea to mainland Russia. 

The Rest understands the trick being played by the West, and they are not falling for the same games anymore. This is why Brzezinski implores Obama to address the American people, not the world, in pushing for an escalation of the crisis by arming the Ukrainian junta. It's a lost cause to try to sell the same old shtick to a global non-Western audience that is becoming more politically and economically empowered with each passing year. And interestingly enough, it may even be a sign of desperation for Obama to so explicitly address his American subjects on this topic. After all, at the end of March, 46 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Obama was handling the Ukrainian Crisis. Western pundits may spin this as meaning that the public wants Obama to "get tough" on the issue, but the opposite may be true. One needs look no further for evidence of the US population's weariness for warfare than the extreme unpopularity that a US strike on Syria last year, to say nothing of taking measures that could theoretically push Russia and the US to nuclear brinksmanship. 

The ultimate irony behind Brzezinski's piece is it is he who engineered this entire Ukrainian destabilization strategy through the theories advocated in "The Grand Chessboard". It is not realistic that he, of all people, would suddenly turn into a dove after his policy has seen relative success in disrupting Russia's foreign policy with its largest Eastern European neighbor. Taken from this obvious perspective, his article and its "peaceful" recommendations (a trilateral economic framework) should be taken with a grain of salt. Cursory research would indicate that it was first Russia, not Brzezinski, who thought of the trilateral idea, although this was flatly rejected at the time. 

Additionally, while using Turkey's 50+ years of trying to join the EU as some type of assurance that Ukraine would not immediately be gobbled up into the Union, Brzezinski conveniently omits the blinding speed that Brussels surged East into relatively poor and politically dysfunctional Bulgaria and Romania, to say nothing of formerly war-torn Croatia's ascension last year. The ease with which he mentions "vulnerable NATO countries" shows that he takes for granted these countries' membership in NATO in the first place, which itself clearly violates the agreement not to expand the alliance eastward after the Cold War. With these basic facts in mind, one can rightly (for once!) channel John Kerry and describe Brzezinski as the real "propaganda bullhorn" of the Ukrainian Crisis.

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_05_09/Brzezinski-endorses-arming-Ukrainian-junta-to-no-avail-3995/

 

 

 

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Ukraine: The Only Way to Peace by Anatol Lieven

 

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/may/05/ukraine-only-way-to-peace/

Ukraine: The Only Way to Peace

Jerome Sessini/Magnum Photos Ukrainian soldiers, Belbek, Crimea, March 4, 2014

As the first heavy fighting begins in eastern Ukraine, with an attempt by Ukrainian forces to retake the town of Sloviansk, and as violent clashes spread elsewhere, including now Odessa, in the country's southwest, there is a growing sense that a larger confrontation, one that could involve Russia and the West, may be unavoidable. Such a perception is a terrible mistake. There is nothing inevitable about the future course of the conflict. It is absolutely essential for Western governments to focus on what they can do to avoid war, preserve democracy, and keep Ukraine united.

What they cannot do is help the government in Kiev to win with military force in the east. The rebel forces that have taken control of cities of the Donbas, the Russian-speaking industrial and mining region in the east, appear well organized, have much local popular support, and are implicitly backed by the 45,000 Russian troops deployed to the Ukrainian border. It would take many months—more probably, many years—for Ukrainian forces to reach sufficient strength to retake the Donbas swiftly and relatively bloodlessly, or to defeat a Russian invasion of the east and south of the country. Moves to raise Ukrainian nationalist volunteer forces should be strongly discouraged by the West. The intervention of such groups would risk repeating what has just happened in Odessa, where dozens of people were killed in street battles on May 2. It would make a Russian invasion a certainty.

And the West itself will not fight for Ukraine. All the blowhard posturing of US and European government officials cannot hide this essential fact. In these circumstances, to give the unelected interim government in Kiev the idea that we are giving it military backing is irresponsible, immoral, and contemptible. Did we really learn nothing from the experience of Georgia in 2008? For that matter, did we learn nothing in the playground at the age of six?

If Ukrainian forces continue their assault on rebel strongholds in eastern Ukraine, then only three things can happen, separately or in sequence: they will be beaten back with the help of Russian weaponry—such as that used to shoot down two Ukrainian helicopters at Sloviansk on Friday; they will retake one or two towns, after which Russia will reinforce other towns with lightly-disguised Russian special forces, making their capture much harder; and if Ukrainian forces resort to heavy weaponry to blast the rebels from their positions, Russia will invade. The only question then will be where the Russian army will stop: whether Moscow would be content to hold the Donbas, as it previously held South Ossetia and Abkhazia as quasi-independent statelets formally still part of Georgia, or whether it would go on to seize half of Ukraine.

What is truly strange and terrible about this looming disaster is that all the leading players already know and agree about what the only solution can be, even if they disagree on the details and the timing: a federal Ukraine with elected regional governments and robust protection for regional interests. This, not further separation, is what Moscow is proposing; and this is what the Ukrainian interim president, Olexander Turchynov, has publicly hinted at for the Donbas. Although the rebels in Donetsk and other eastern cities have declared the Donetsk Republic and are now planning an independence referendum on May 11, many easterners, too, have indicated that they want some kind of federalization and not independence or annexation to Russia. As interviews published in Sunday's New York Times make clear, even some rebel commanders themselves hope to keep Ukraine united.

It is extremely important to note that regional autonomy—accompanied by a threat of independence—is what the government of the western region of Lviv, controlled by Ukrainian nationalists, declared for itself back in February, when it seemed that President Yanukovych would remain in power and take Ukraine into the Russian-dominated Eurasian Union. If Lviv could demand this as an insurance for its identity and interests when the national government was going in a direction it did not like, it is very hard to argue that Donetsk does not have the right to do the same. Nor is there any moral reason why the West cannot support federalization. The United States, Germany, Canada, and half a dozen other Western democracies are all federal states. Of course, we all know that a fundamental moral principle of Western foreign policy is that sauce for the goose can never under any circumstances be sauce for the gander—but to oppose a federal solution for Ukraine on such grounds is ridiculous.

Indeed, a constitutional solution to the crisis has already been supported by all sides—including Russia, the US, and Ukraine—in the Geneva Declaration of April 17, which called for Ukrainians from all parts of the country to disarm and take part in a national dialogue that would recognize regional interests. The problem with Geneva is that it did not set out an outline of the constitutional settlement—which will have to be agreed in advance before the rebel militias in eastern Ukraine will put down their weapons. There is also of course profound disagreement on the process by which constitutional change should be introduced, and how much regional autonomy should be granted.

President Turchynov suggested a referendum on autonomy for the Donbas to accompany the new presidential elections planned for May 25; but after the latest developments in Odessa and east Ukraine, it must surely now be acknowledged that these elections cannot take place on schedule, or until peace is restored. Nor, given the precedent in Lviv and the current protests elsewhere in Ukraine, can a case be made for a special status for the Donbas region alone. Far better to have an equal federation across the whole territory of Ukraine. (As for Crimea, we will have to content ourselves with formal statements to the effect that we regard Crimea as still legally part of Ukraine, while in practice making Crimea the subject of separate processes and talks—rather as with the northern Cyprus issue in the past. Unfortunately, if we make a peace process in Ukraine conditional on Russia giving up Crimea, there will be no peace process.)

Reality, and the long experience offered by such conflicts, shows that agreement on a new federal constitution for the country as a whole must be reached first, and ratified by a national referendum. The rebel militias in eastern Ukraine and the camp of demonstrators on the Maidan in Kiev should both agree not to use force and not to disrupt such a solution–-since clearly neither regional nor national democracy is possible if governments have to submit for approval to unelected crowds. Elections for the presidency, parliament, regional assemblies, and regional governorships can then be scheduled to take place simultaneously later in the year. Ideally, some kind of observer force would need to be put in place with United Nations backing to report on compliance by all sides.

Since the tragic killings in Odessa, it is no longer possible to deny that the Ukrainian crisis involves a serious threat from extreme nationalist groups as well as pro-Russian ones—and some of the extreme nationalists are sitting in the present interim government in Kiev. On the other hand, Russia undoubtedly has armed local allies in eastern Ukraine, which it has strengthened with some disguised Russian officers. But the masses of civilians who have blocked the path of Ukrainian troops in the Donbas show that the rebels also enjoy a very considerable measure of local support.

What all this reveals is something that should have been blindingly obvious ever since Ukraine became independent in 1991 and that is deeply rooted in Ukrainian history: Ukraine contains different identities, and cannot be ruled unilaterally by one of them alone, or pulled in a single geopolitical direction, without risking the breakup of the country itself. The huge demonstrations in Kiev this winter showed that Yanukovych's and Moscow's hope of taking Ukraine into the Eurasian Union was impossible, because many Ukrainians would literally give their lives to prevent it.

Now, events in the east and in Odessa make clear that a Ukrainian state that defines itself purely in pro-Western and anti-Russian terms is also out of the question, because a great many Ukrainians will not tolerate this either. In these circumstances, it is no good for one side to hope for absolute victory. When Russia tried for this with Yanukovych, the result was a fiasco, which among other things destroyed Russia's influence over Ukraine as a whole. The West is now risking an even greater failure in the opposite direction.

Critics of federalization say that it would allow Russia to block Ukrainian moves toward NATO and the EU. What is surely apparent however is that Moscow and its allies in Ukraine have already done this. The goal of the West must be to get all the opposing forces in Ukraine off the streets and back within a legitimate democratic process that is recognized by a majority of Ukrainians, and that will allow the possibility of economic and political reforms by democratic means. Time is short. We saw again and again, in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and elsewhere in the 1990s, that once fighting begins, previously possible solutions quickly become impossible. This would be a tragedy—Ukraine does not need to be Yugoslavia or Georgia.

Contrary to what is said in much of the Western media, most of Russia's allies in eastern Ukraine are not separatists. Rather, what many in the Donbas fear is that a government in Kiev—one that is either unelected or elected by a small majority, and which is under the sway of extreme nationalist demonstrators—will be able to decide their fate unilaterally. Thus, they are deeply opposed to the interim government in Kiev, but many of them continue to envision being a part of Ukraine in which they would have greater autonomy and recognition of regional rights and interests, rather than full independence. Until now, every opinion poll and election in the east has also suggested this.

But once a few hundred people have been killed, this reasonable position will quickly be destroyed. To return power to a reasonable majority, the international community must put forward the outline of a constitutional settlement on which a majority of Ukrainians can agree. It is hopeless to expect that the opposing sides themselves will be able to abide by a compromise proposal on their own, without outside help. The question then is whether Russia, the US, the EU, and the various parties in Ukraine including the Ukrainian government can reach agreement on the outlines of a federal constitution, which the UN Secretary General could then put forward. This will be an immensely difficult task in the days and weeks ahead. But the alternative could be catastrophic.

Argument

Sorry, America, the New World Order Is Dead

Putin isn't dragging the world back to the 19th century. Obama just needs to stop pretending it's 1991.

• BY Eric A. Posner
• MAY 6, 2014

 

Russia is dragging the world back into the 19th century, at least according to Barack Obama's administration. "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext," said Secretary of State John Kerry, following Moscow's annexation of Crimea. "What we see here are distinctly 19th- and 20th-century decisions made by President [Vladimir] Putin to address problems," added another senior administration official. "Sending in troops and, because you're bigger and stronger, taking a piece of the country -- that is not how international law and international norms are observed in the 21st century," President Obama declared a few weeks later.

As Moscow continues to threaten a broader invasion -- most recently demanding that Kiev withdraw its troops from eastern Ukraine -- America's indignant response reveals a great deal about how its leaders think about international norms.

Unfortunately, it is the Americans, not the Russians, who are trapped in a time warp.

Unfortunately, it is the Americans, not the Russians, who are trapped in a time warp. They believe that the legal norms promoted by the United States during its brief period of global hegemony -- which started in 1991 and has eroded over the last decade -- are still in force. They aren't.

In the 1990s, it was possible to believe that a new international order had replaced the bipolar system of the Cold War. Memorably dubbed the "new world order" by President George H.W. Bush, it was characterized by the peaceful settlement of disputes through international courts, universal human rights, international criminal justice, and free trade and investment. Above all, the new liberal order emphasized international rule of law -- the idea that international law and legal institutions would be the major source of global organization.

It was not a coincidence that this order emerged after the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving the United States the sole superpower -- and American politicians, commentators, and intellectuals supremely enthusiastic about it. Today, this order is breaking down, the result of the decline of U.S. power and hence America's ability to enforce its values and interests abroad. While many American intellectuals believed that the order reflected the consent of foreign elites to a self-evidently superior system of international organization, it in fact represented their acquiescence in the face of superior power. Now that this superior power is gone, so are the norms that it promoted.

The first pillar of the post-Cold War liberal order was the international court. The idea that countries should use international tribunals rather than war to settle their disputes actually dates back to the 19th century, when the United States and Britain successfully used arbitration to resolve their differences. But after World War I, and then again after World War II, the victors established permanent international courts with jurisdiction over all disputes that could arise under international law. The most prominent such court has been the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a U.N. organ established in 1945. In the 1990s, more than 100 countries established a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism aimed at resolving disagreements over trade barriers. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which was given jurisdiction over maritime disputes, began operations in the same decade.

But though such forums have helped resolve trade disputes, it is clear now that the broader ambition of international tribunals -- to provide a peaceful avenue for resolving quarrels that might otherwise lead to war -- has failed. The ICJ has successfully handled some minor border disputes, but when the interests of powerful countries are at stake, it has been evaded at every turn. When the court ruled against the United States in a dispute with Nicaragua in 1986, for example, the United States simply disregarded the judgment and withdrew from the ICJ's jurisdiction. Today, the two most dangerous sources of conflict are Russia's and China's relations with their neighbors. Neither country has been willing to submit those conflicts to international courts. The reason is simple: International law favors the status quo allocation of territory and the sovereignty of states, while Russia and China seek to enhance their power by exerting influence over foreign countries or areas. Because the United States and other countries are not strong enough to compel Russia and China to embrace international tribunals -- and these countries have no independent interest in doing so -- the forums gather dust.

The second pillar of the post-Cold War order was recognition of human rights. Under international human rights law, all governments must respect the rights of their citizens. While the number, nature, and scope of those rights are contested -- and while many countries that signed onto human rights treaties argued that rights must be interpreted in light of their own religious, traditional, or practical commitments -- the new liberal order envisioned a world that abided by the basic terms of liberal democracy. The Soviet Union's collapse seemed to provide spectacular vindication for this view and to portend its universal acceptance.

Yet the human rights regime has failed as well.

Yet the human rights regime has failed as well. It has become increasingly clear that many countries simply disregard their human rights commitments. Russia, for example, has moved toward authoritarianism despite its ratification of universal human rights treaties and its accession to the relatively robust European Convention on Human Rights, which empowers people to bring cases against their governments. China has certainly not liberalized. Most developing countries lack the capacity to implement their human rights commitments, even when their governments and publics support them. Even Western countries violated the spirit of these treaties by taking harsh measures against al Qaeda in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The failure of the human rights regime has put the West in a difficult position. When violations become too obvious to ignore -- as was the case in the Balkans and Rwanda in the 1990s and in Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria in the 2000s -- the West faces a choice between ignoring them and thus violating its commitment to human rights, and launching a military intervention that violates its commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes. The only escape from this dilemma is the U.N. Security Council, which alone possesses the legal authority to launch wars against countries that do not comply with their human rights obligations.

But the United Nations functioned effectively only during the early 1990s, when other members of the Security Council feared U.S. might. It was in 1991 that the Security Council authorized a military intervention in Iraq, following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. But today the Security Council is as frozen as it was during the Cold War, and declining U.S. power has made it difficult for the West to defy Russia, China, and world opinion as NATO did in 1999, when it intervened in Kosovo, and as the United States and its allies did in 2003 by invading Iraq. A small bright spot was the Security Council's 2011 authorization of military force in Libya, a resolution from which Russia and China abstained. But that brief period of cooperation quickly descended into acrimony as Moscow and Beijing accused Western countries of exceeding their authority to protect the civilian population and instead using military force to overthrow the Libyan government. Now both adamantly oppose intervention in Syria.

The third pillar of the liberal order was international justice: the idea that people, especially national leaders, who commit or order atrocities such as torture or genocide, or who launch illegal wars, should be tried and punished before an international criminal tribunal. The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II were the first to embody these ideas, but they were not expanded upon or replicated until after the Cold War. In the 1990s, the United Nations set up two ad hoc tribunals to try people accused of committing atrocities during the Balkan wars and the Rwanda genocide. In 2002, an international treaty signed by 139 countries entered into force to create a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC).

But international criminal justice has also ground to a halt. The tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda are being wound down. Although the ICC has launched a number of investigations and held a few trials, it is increasingly clear that it will never be more than a marginal institution. Only weak African countries seem to have anything to fear from it, and their leaders resent the court's nearly exclusive focus on them. Inevitably, the ICC has come to be seen as a tool of imperialists. It will never try Russians, Chinese, or Americans, because their governments never ratified the treaty. Moreover, the ICC depends on powerful countries to support it, to send it business through U.N. referrals, and to arrest suspects. It cannot risk offending them.

The fourth pillar was free trade and investment. After World War II, Western countries entered a legal regime, then known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, that required them to gradually lower tariffs. This regime was strengthened in the 1990s, when the WTO was established. Efforts were also made to bring international investment under legal control -- encouraging rich countries to invest in poor countries by preventing poor countries from expropriating those investments. In recent decades, hundreds of bilateral investment treaties have been signed, both protecting investments and providing for arbitration in case of dispute.

Trade is the one bright spot in the current international environment.

Trade is the one bright spot in the current international environment. No one is reverting to protectionism, as countries did prior to World War II. The WTO dispute settlement mechanism continues to function. But efforts to improve on past successes have nonetheless foundered. Investment law has also faced problems, as countries have begun to disregard adverse judgments from arbitration panels.

Back in the 1990s, at the height of optimism about international law, academics believed that they had to answer a puzzle. The four pillars of the new international legal system self-evidently embodied a liberal worldview that countries like China and Russia did not subscribe to and that indeed most countries outside the West had traditionally rejected. So what would compel these countries to obey international law? An enormous number of theories were produced, with their accompanying buzzwords: Countries complied with international law because their leaders had internalized the law. Or because they were bound by cooperative networks of judges and bureaucrats from different countries. Or because domestic and international NGOs put pressure on violators. Or because countries had become interdependent. Or simply because it was fair. At the heart of all these theories was the assumption that all countries complied with international law more or less equally.

The most obvious explanation for legal compliance was all but ignored. Countries obeyed international law in the post-Cold War period because the United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe forced them to do so. Part of the explanation, of course, was that with the Soviet Union's collapse, the liberal order gained significant prestige. But much of the explanation lies in the fact that countries feared that if they did not play by the rules set by the West, they would be deprived of aid, investment, technical cooperation, and opportunities to trade -- and, in extreme cases, might be threatened with sanctions and military force.

If this explanation wasn't clear in the 1990s, it is clear now. As the United States loses power, it has become obvious that no one else will guarantee the peaceful settlement of disputes, enforce human rights, or ensure that international criminals are tried and convicted. Indeed, the one exception among the collapsing pillars of the liberal order -- international trade -- proves the rule. The United States, Europe, Japan, and China are the four great trading blocs, and they cooperate with each other because they know that if anyone reverts to protectionism, others will retaliate. The system functions because it never depended solely on enforcement by the United States. The United States is just one of several countries that enforce the rules through the threat of mutual retaliation.

Put another way, the liberal order that was born with the Soviet Union's collapse rested on a fiction: that all nations were equal and submitted to the same rules because they reflected universal human values. In reality, of course, the rules were Western rules, and they were enforced largely by the United States, which was no one's equal. Today, the fiction has been exposed, and the world order looks increasingly like the one that reigned during the 19th century. In this order, a small group of "great powers" sets the rules for their relations with each other and interacts under conditions of rough equality. Smaller countries survive by establishing client relationships with the great powers. The great powers compete with each other over these client relationships, but otherwise try to maintain conditions of stability that allow for trade and other forms of cooperation. The major challenge for the great powers is to ensure that competition for clients does not erupt into full-scale war. In the late 19th century, the great powers were Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Today, they are the United States, China, Russia, and Europe.

The implications of this new-old order are significant. The great powers will settle their disputes through diplomacy (one hopes) or war, not with courts. Human rights and international justice will prevail only in the Western sphere of influence, at least until people in China and Russia decide that these ideals are attractive to them. But we can expect trade and investment to continue to flourish, as they did at the end of the 19th century up until World War I.

From this standpoint, many of today's conflicts, which seem inexplicable from the perspective of the post-Cold War order, are not hard to understand. In its disputes with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and other neighbors over various islands in the Pacific, China refuses to submit to a tribunal because its goal is not to vindicate international law, but to extend its power over its neighborhood. The same is true for Russia with respect to Georgia and Ukraine. Syria used chemical weapons against its own citizens because its government saw an advantage in doing so. President Bashar al-Assad does not fear the International Criminal Court because he enjoys the protection of Russia. North Korea provokes South Korea and the West in order to gain concessions in diplomatic negotiations; it does not fear the U.N. Security Council or the International Court of Justice because it can rely on China's support. Governments throughout the Middle East -- Egypt, Turkey, Libya, Iraq -- are cracking down on dissent because they are more worried about local disorder than about their obligations under human rights treaties. And Western powers share the fear of disorder and so will not pressure them to improve human rights.

These are the facts -- it's time for theory to catch up.

 

 

 

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/06/sorry_america_the_new_world_order_is_dead_russia_ukraine

 

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA400LI20140505?irpc=932

Ukraine moves special forces to Odessa, helicopter downed in east

By Aleksandar Vasovic and Maria Tsvetkova

ODESSA/SLAVIANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Pro-Russian rebels shot down a Ukrainian helicopter in fierce fighting near the eastern town of Slaviansk on Monday, and Kiev drafted police special forces to the southwestern port city of Odessa to halt a feared westward spread of rebellion.

Ukraine said the Odessa force, based on "civil activists", would replace local police who had failed to tackle rebel actions at the weekend. Its dispatch was a clear signal from Kiev that, while tackling rebellion in the east, it would vigorously resist any sign of a slide to a broader civil war.

Odessa, with its ethnic mix from Russians to Ukrainians, Georgians to Tatars a cultural contrast to the pro-Russian east, was quiet on Monday. Ukrainian flags flew at half mast for funerals of some of the dozens killed in clashes on Friday.

But in the east, fighting intensified around the pro-Russian stronghold of Slaviansk, a city of 118,000, where rebel fighters ambushed Ukrainian forces early in the day.

The Interior Ministry said five paramilitary police were killed. Separatists said four of their number had also died.

The sound of an air-raid siren could be heard in the center of Slaviansk, and a church bell rang in the main square.

Russia's foreign ministry called on Kiev to "stop the bloodshed, withdraw forces and finally sit down at the negotiating table". It also published an 80-page report detailing "widespread and gross human rights violations" in Ukraine over the past six months for which it blamed the new government and its Western allies.

CONCERNS FOR KIEV

Russia denies Ukrainian and Western charges it is seeking to undermine the country of 45 million and using special forces to lead the insurgency, as it did before annexing Crimea in March.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he feared neither side could now control forces unleashed.

"I'm convinced we are struggling against a situation that has taken on a dynamic of its own. There are groups in eastern Ukraine that are not listening to either Kiev ... or Moscow."

The self-declared pro-Russian mayor of Slaviansk Vyacheslav Ponomarev told Reuters by telephone: "(The Ukrainians) are deploying ever more forces here. Recently there was a parachute drop... For us, they are not military, but fascists."

Ukraine's Defence Ministry said rebels had shot down a military helicopter, the fourth since Friday, with heavy machine gun fire. The helicopter crashed into a river and the crew was rescued but there were no details of their condition.

Diana, 15, who lives near Slaviansk in a single-storey house at the strategic junction of the road between Kharkiv and Rostov, said she saw Ukrainian tanks fire on rebel cars. A fuel tank at a petrol station exploded and fighters fired at houses.

"My father was injured in the head by glass splinters. It's terrifying. There's just nowhere to live now. Everything is broken, our television, our computer; they shot at our car."

The violence in Odessa marked a watershed for Ukraine.

It increased fears that trouble could spread to the capital in the approach to Friday's celebrations of the Soviet victory in World War Two, an event that could kindle tensions over Kiev's relations with its former communist masters in Moscow.

Over 40 people were killed in Friday's clashes, the worst since pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich fled to Moscow in February amid protests by Ukrainians demanding closer ties to Europe. Most were pro-Russians killed when the building they occupied was set ablaze by petrol bombs.

It is not clear who started the fire, but Moscow accuses Kiev of inciting violence.

On Sunday, hundreds besieged a police station where fellow pro-Moscow activists were held after street fighting that led up to the house blaze. Police freed 67 of them, infuriating Kiev.

"The police in Odessa acted outrageously," Interior Minister Arseny Avakov wrote on his Facebook page. "The 'honour of the uniform' will offer no cover."

He said he had sent the newly formed Kiev-1 force to Odessa after sacking the entire Odessa force leadership.

The units Avakov referred to emerged partly from the uprising against Yanukovich early this year.

That could fuel anger among the government's opponents, who accuse it of promoting "fascist" militant groups, such as Right Sector, that took part in the Kiev uprising over the winter.

Alexander, a man in his mid-20s who said he took part in the anti-Kiev actions, agreed with Avakov that police had done nothing.

"But this special new battalion, they're stormtroopers from Western Ukraine who'll be hunting our people all over the city."

ODESSA'S ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE

Loss of control of Odessa would be a huge economic and political blow for Ukraine, a country the size of France that borders several NATO countries and aspires to join the military alliance, a primary source of concern for the Kremlin.

A city of a million people, with a grand history as the cosmopolitan southern gateway for the tsars' empire, Odessa has two ports, including an oil terminal, and is a transport hub.

Many on the city's streets were shocked by the violence.

"People who brought this to our city were not and are not and will not be true citizens of Odessa," said Alexei, 40, an ethnic Russian. "We are Odessa, and this is a special place."

Rabbi Fichel Chichelnitsky, an official with Odessa's 70,000-strong Jewish community, said: "I'm hoping these deaths serve as a stern warning to everyone that this is not a game."

The chant "Odessa is a Russian city!" was heard at pro-Russian demonstrations through the weekend.

Many Russians agree. Founded by Empress Catherine the Great, it has played a key role in Russian imperial history.

Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein set scenes of a massacre of civilians during a 1905 uprising on the grand steps that sweep down to the port. The images from "The Battleship Potemkin" are among the most famous in cinema history.

Diplomacy continued over the weekend.

Germany said on Sunday it was pressing for a second meeting in Geneva to bring Russia and Ukraine together with the United States and European Union. Moscow and Kiev accuse each other of wrecking an earlier accord on April 17.

Berlin said it was doing what it could to make sure a presidential election planned for May 25 went ahead.

"The election would be not just a means for stabilization but also a strong signal for a better future for Ukraine," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

He said a referendum planned by pro-Russian separatists in the eastern city of Donetsk, where rebels have proclaimed a "Donetsk People's Republic", would only increase tensions.

Certainly, failure by Kiev authorities to conduct the election in rebel-controlled eastern cities would give Moscow grounds to question the legitimacy of any government emerging, just as it challenges the present administration.

(Additional reporting by Ralph Boulton, Natalia Zinets and Elizabeth Piper in Kiev, Maria Tsvetkova in Slaviansk and Matt Robinson in Donetsk; Writing by Ralph Boulton; Editing by Will Waterman) nL6N0NR1KX

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/05/obamas-bloodbath-in-odessa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obamas-bloodbath-in-odessa

As Guilty as Anyone in Kiev

Obama's Bloodbath in Odessa

by MIKE WHITNEY

"As the building was engulfed in flames, photos posted on Twitter showed people hanging out of windows and sitting on windowsills on several floors, possibly preparing to jump. Other images showed pro-regime elements celebrating the inferno. Some jeered on Twitter that "Colorado beetles are being roasted up in Odessa," using a derogatory term for pro-Russian activists wearing St. George's ribbons."

– Mike Head, Washington responsible for fascist massacre in Odessa, World Socialist Web Site

"I think what's happening now shows us who's actually been orchestrating the process from the beginning. At first, the United States preferred to stay in the shadows, but now they've exposed themselves as the leaders of this whole process."

– Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Members of the fascist Right Sector set fire to Odessa's Trade Unions House on Friday killing 40 anti-coup activists who had retreated to the building to escape escalating street violence. Witnesses say that members of the Ukrainian security forces withdrew from the scene allowing the rightwing radicals to block the exits and firebomb the building forcing many to jump from open windows to the pavement below where they died on impact. The few who survived the fall were savagely beaten with clubs and chains by the nearly 300 extremist thugs who had gathered on the street. Much of the murderous provocation was caught on video including footage of the terrified occupants leaping to their deaths.

Just hours after the bloodbath took place in Odessa, President Obama praised the brutal crackdown in a joint-press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Obama announced that, "The Ukrainian government has the right and responsibility to uphold law and order within its territory." The president made no mention of the 40 victims who were burned alive or who jumped to their death trying to escape the fire. Nor did Obama offer his condolences to the families who lost loved one's in the Nazi-ignited blaze. Instead, the president demanded that heavier penalties be levied on Moscow for its 'defiance' in Crimea where people were allowed to choose their own future through a referendum. Here's a clip from the press conference transcript:

"We are united in our determination to impose costs on Russia for its actions, including through coordinated sanctions….And as Ukrainian forces move to restore order in eastern Ukraine, it is obvious to the world that these Russian-backed groups are not peaceful protesters. They are heavily armed militants who are receiving significant support from Russia. The Ukrainian government has the right and responsibility to uphold law and order within its territory, and Russia needs to use its influence over these paramilitary groups so they disarm and stop provoking violence… if the Russian leadership does not change course, it will face increasing costs as well as growing isolation, diplomatic and economic." (Wall Street Journal)

None of the victims of the tragedy were armed. None of them were Russian nationals. All of the people who were killed were identified as locals. There is no factual basis for Obama's allegation that the "protestors… are heavily armed militants who are receiving significant support from Russia." Obama's claims are uncorroborated nonsense, fabrications and outright lies.

According to Obama, the coup government has "the right and responsibility to uphold law and order", but (apparently) not to provide security for unarmed protestors who are burned alive by neo Nazis arsonists that perform their homicidal ritual in broad daylight while security troops look on approvingly. Do you see the flaw in Obama's reasoning?

And what prompted Right Sector goons to stage the massacre when they had never done so before? Doesn't that suggest that they must have gotten the green light from Kiev, which means, the attack must have been approved by Washington as well?

Is that where the bloody footprints lead; to the Oval Office?

Let's suppose for a minute, that the White House was involved in the Odessa bloodbath. Wouldn't that explain why the facts of the incident have not been accurately reported in any of the major media? Wouldn't that explain why Obama failed to mention the incident in his press conference, or why the White House has not issued a statement condemning the perpetrators, or called for an independent investigation, or tried to interview any of the hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw what happened and reported the facts on Russian media?

Who authorized the attack on Odessa's Trade Unions House? That's what we want to know. Why did the Ukrainian Security Services withdraw and allow the fascist thugs to burn down the Zuccotti Park-like tent city in front of the building, chase the occupants into the building, painstakingly barricade the exits, and then hurl Molotov cocktails and stun grenades through the windows until the entire edifice was engulfed in flames?

Street fighting thugs don't typically waste their time barricading exits unless it is part of a plan, a plan to create a big-enough incident to change the narrative of what is going on in the country.

But how does "changing the narrative" benefit Washington?

Well, just think of 9-11, for example: a "Pearl Harbor-type event" that changed all the rules and created the rational for curtailed civil liberties, authoritarian rule and perpetual war. Someone benefited from those changes, didn't they?

Indeed. But how does that apply Ukraine and the Odessa tragedy?

Let's say that Obama and his neocon advisors wanted to conceal what they're really up to. Let's say they felt they needed an excuse to justify NATO expansion, to block further EU-Russian economic integration, and to transform Ukraine into an anarchic, ungovernable failed state controlled by external powers. Let's say Obama's goals are not really altruistic after all, that he doesn't really give a damn about democracy or freedom; that the real motive is the "pivot to Asia", the dismemberment of the Russian Federation, the seizing of vital resources, and the control of China's growth. So how does one achieve those goals without hoodwinking the public?

They don't. Hoodwinking the public is an essential part any aggressive, imperialistic strategy, which is why western media has been embedded into the US Command Structure. The roll of propaganda is critical to the shaping of public opinion, garnering support for unpopular wars and policies, concealing the crimes of crooked politicians and outlaw corporatists, and diverting attention from the illicit, expansionist marauding of the Imperial state. In this case, Obama would rather propagate the fictitious narrative of an impending civil war then let people know what his real objectives are. The Odessa massacre fits perfectly into this strategy.

The incident suggests that deep ethnic and ideological differences are brewing just below the surface ready to explode at any minute into a full-blown civil war. But are they? The number of fascists in the country is actually quite small, probably just a few thousand altogether. That's certainly not enough to incite a civil war. But, of course, the coup government can amplify their importance by giving them a free hand to carry out their murderous rampages, just as the media can magnify their importance by portraying their barbarous behavior as a symptom of deeply-rooted ethnic antagonisms that threaten to bubble up and rip Ukrainian society apart.

And that's what they've done, isn't it? The imposter government and the media have taken the rogue actions of a small group of bloodthirsty misfits, and patched together a story of a state that is on the fast-track to disintegration.

This isn't the first time the US has tried to pull something like this off. In 2006, the Bush administration used a similar tactic in Iraq. That's when Samarra's Golden Dome Mosque was blown up in an effort to change the public's perception of the conflict from an armed struggle against foreign occupation into a civil war. Bush wanted to use psy-ops (psychological operation) to shift attention away from US causalities (from an effective Sunni-led resistance) to a fictitious religious war between Sunni and Shia. The bombing of the third most sacred shrine in Islam, was expected to provide the Pearl Harbor-type event that would make the new narrative seem credible.

The media, of course, pushed the civil war trope as expected, even though the story unraveled some years later in an investigative piece that popped up in the New York Times. Here's a blurb from the article titled "One Year Later, Golden Mosque still in Ruins" by Marc Santora:

"A caretaker at the shrine described what happened on the day of the attack, insisting on anonymity because he was afraid that talking to an American could get him killed. The general outline of his account was confirmed by American and Iraqi officials.

The night before the explosion, he said, just before the 8 p.m. curfew on Feb. 21, 2006, on the Western calendar, men dressed in commando uniforms like those issued by the Interior Ministry entered the shrine.

The caretaker said he had been beaten, tied up and locked in a room.

Throughout the night, he said, he could hear the sound of drilling as the attackers positioned the explosives, apparently in such a way as to inflict maximum damage on the dome". (NY Times)

Clearly, if the men were men dressed in "commando uniforms like those issued by the Interior Ministry", then the logical place to begin an investigation would be the Interior Ministry. (which was working hand in glove with US Intelligence agencies.) But there's never been an investigation and the caretaker has never been asked to testify about what he saw on the night of the bombing. However, if he is telling the truth, we cannot exclude the possibility that paramilitary contractors (mercenaries) or special-ops (intelligence) agents working out of the Interior Ministry may have destroyed the mosque to create the appearance of a looming civil war.

The Times also added, "What is clear is that the attack was carefully planned and calculated".

True again. We can see from the extent of the damage that the job was carried out by demolition experts and not merely "insurgents or terrorists" with explosives. Simple forensic tests and soil samples could easily determine the composition of the explosives and point out the real perpetrators.

The Times even provides a motive for the attack: "Bad people used this incident to divide Iraq on a detestable sectarian basis."

Precisely. The Bush administration used the incident to change the storyline from foreign occupation to civil war, thus, creating the rational for ongoing US occupation. The civil war meme provided cover for the "Salvador Option", "the Surge", massive ethnic cleansing, death squads, Abu Ghraib, and more than a decade of US-sponsored terror which turned Iraq into a decimated third world scrapheap incapable of providing food, water or security for its people. "Mission accomplished".

Now it's on to Ukraine where another set of distortions, fabrications and lies are being used to pull the wool over the public's eyes once again. This time "Hitler" Putin is the source of all the evildoing. Forget about the State Department's role in toppling the democratically-elected government in Kiev. Forget about the snipers who killed peaceful protestors in Maidan Square and who are tied to Washington's junta government. Forget about CIA Director John Brennan's visit to Kiev just hours before the first government crackdown. Forget Joe Biden's visit to Kiev just hours before the second government crackdown. Forget that, according to a report on Sunday by AFP, that:

"Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government…. helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure…" ("CIA, FBI agents 'advising Ukraine government': report", AFP)

Forget that Obama hasn't produced a shred of evidence to prove that Moscow is involved in the turmoil in the East. Forget that the United States has been at the center of every major conflagration in every part of the world for the last two decades. Forget about the 40 people who were incinerated in a conflict that is 100 percent Washington's doing and for which Barack Obama is personally responsible. Forget all of that and just remember this one thing: "Putin is evil. Putin is Hitler. Putin is cause of everything that's wrong in the world." Putin. Putin. Putin. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Got that?

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, summed up the feelings of many observers who've followed the outrageous developments in Odessa when he said 'the government in Kiev "bears direct responsibility, and is complicit in these criminal activities. They allowed extremists and radicals to burn unarmed people alive. And I stress that these people were unarmed … The people who justify this punitive operation… are up to their elbows in blood." (RT)

Obama is just as guilty as anyone in Kiev. Maybe guiltier.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.