March 16, 2014

Trifkovic - Everything You Wanted To Know About Putin And Crimea But Were Afraid To Ask, Part I

 

 

Srdja Trifkovic - Everything You Wanted To Know About Putin And Crimea But Were Afraid To Ask, Part I

 

March 13, 2014

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Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript –"If we wanted to look for a parallel with Hitler -- and frankly, I'm sick and tired of this Reductio ad Hitlerum.  We seem to be keen on finding the Hitler de jure whenever there's a crisis, whether it's Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad.  The Hitler parallel is invoked.  In the case of Ukraine, we actually have a fairly decent parallel with the boys from western Ukraine who have been the spearhead of violence in Kiev over the past three months..." Check out today's transcript for the rest…

PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS PT I OF A TWO PART TRANSCRIPT, CHECK BACK TOMORROW FOR PT II!

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Let's go to our Dude Maker Hotline.  We will welcome, for the first time, Srdja Trifkovic, who writes at Chronicles Magazine, among other places.  Srdja, welcome to the program.  I didn't mean to botch the pronunciation of your name.  Did I get it right?

Srdja Trifkovic:  Almost.  The stress is on the first syllable of Trifkovic, otherwise it's fine.

Mike:  I have been enjoying your writing for years at Chronicles, including your ruminations about our modern demonization of monarchy and how you're trying to figure out: How did this greatest and oldest form of government get to the station in life where it's regarded as something that is the equivalent of Satan himself?  I know that's not our subject today, but I just wanted to let you know that I've been reading it with great interest.  Keep writing about it because I find it fascinating.

Also, let's face it, some of his policies that are very vocally criticized in the Western world, for instance, concerning the legislation of homosexuality, is certainly something that would resonate with many American conservatives.  In other words, he is not persecuting the gays, far from that.  He has introduced legislation that bans propagation of gay lifestyle to minors.  American parents who are faced with what amounts to equalization of homosexual lifestyle with heterosexual one would probably find it highly desirable.

Trifkovic:  Well, some of the most fabled democracies in the world are monarchies, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and, of course, Norway.  If you have a head of state, it's far better to have someone with established credentials that transcends the volatile barometer of daily politics.  Of course, the optimum form would be an absolute monarchy with a benevolent Christian ruler, but we're a little bit beyond that, I'm afraid.

Mike:  Yes.  That is something that perhaps we can revive.  Let's talk about the Ukraine for just a moment.  Your latest post at Chronicles is under the headline "Ukraine Bosnified, Putin Hitlerized."  Do you look at this as Putin being Hitlerized as a case of mistaken identity?

Trifkovic:  Absolutely.  If we wanted to look for a parallel with Hitler -- and frankly, I'm sick and tired of this Reductio ad Hitlerum.  We seem to be keen on finding the Hitler de jure whenever there's a crisis, whether it's Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad.  The Hitler parallel is invoked.  In the case of Ukraine, we actually have a fairly decent parallel with the boys from western Ukraine who have been the spearhead of violence in Kiev over the past three months, the Svoboda Party of various associated groups, who openly parade the black and red flag of the SS division Galician from 70 years ago, and who are quite unabashedly keen on reviving the tradition of the Ukrainian collaboration from World War II.

It's funny that when you have similar emanations of extreme right-wing nationalism and racism in Western Europe, they're demonized by the European Union, whether it's the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, whether it's the BNP in England or Marine Le Pen and Front National in France.  Far worse fellows in Kiev, the jackbooted, helmeted peaceful protestors are embraced with open arms.  Even in December we had the inimitable Senator John McCain share the platform with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the Svoboda Party.  It's entirely a matter of situational morality.  Just as we have our jihadists and bad jihadists -- just look at Syria -- so it seems to be the case with our fascists in Ukraine and the bad fascists when they raise their heads within the European Union.

Mike:  So Putin -- I jokingly refer to him as Vlad the Impaler, harkening back to his Transylvanian namesake.  So Vlad the Impaler is being made out to be the baddest of all bad guys in the history of bad guys, but he seems to at least have a firmer grasp on the history of these events than anyone in our country does, don't you think?

Trifkovic:  Absolutely.  Also, let's face it, some of his policies that are very vocally criticized in the Western world, for instance, concerning the legislation of homosexuality, is certainly something that would resonate with many American conservatives.  In other words, he is not persecuting the gays, far from that.  He has introduced legislation that bans propagation of gay lifestyle to minors.  American parents who are faced with what amounts to equalization of homosexual lifestyle with heterosexual one would probably find it highly desirable.  Likewise, in the Western world, which is reverting to some kind of post-Christian Godlessness, to insist on the Christian rooting of one's identity, as Putin does, and giving the Russian Orthodox Church a special place in society would also resonate with those of us who remember that the founding fathers certainly found in the scriptures the inspiration to such an extent that in fact in the Bill of Rights religious freedom comes before the freedom of speech.

The attempt to legislate human rights in accordance with post-modern criteria of the State is the problem.  That means that if the State, with its highly-volatile principles of what constitutes human rights, steps in, then you have federal judges overturning the majority of citizens of the most conservative states in the union.  What we are witnessing is in fact the denial of human rights for the silent majority of those who subscribe to traditional moral code and traditional lifestyles, in favor of highly-voluntaristic, post-modern concepts that have nothing to do with the human rights traditionally understood.

Mike:  Very well said.  Now, Srdja, where are you calling us from today?

Trifkovic:  From Belgrade.  We arrived from Switzerland last night and I'm leaving for Moscow and then Crimea on Friday, where I will be an observer at the referendum on Sunday.

Mike:  You say you're going to be an observer.  I am, of course, joking when I say, did the United Nations send you?  Are you going to monitor?

Trifkovic:  Well, in fact, the local government of Crimea has invited me and a number of other foreigners who take an active interest in Ukrainian and Russian and Crimean affairs because, of course, there will be the standard cries of illegality from the United States when it comes to the Crimean referendum, even though they didn't raise any such heckles when Kosovo separated from Serbia, or for that matter when various Soviet republics separated from the Soviet Union in 1991.  We are looking at the situation which is legally quite clear.  The Ukrainian Parliament acted illegally and unconstitutionally in impeaching Yanukovych.

Yanukovych is, of course, a useless and rather corrupt individual, but nevertheless, if we are talking about the legality of the proceedings, the way in which the government in Kiev acted with this impeachment and then with a whole series of pronouncements, including the abolition of the use of the Russian language in the Russian majority areas, is unconstitutional.  They have effectively suspended the Ukrainian constitution on February 22nd and 23rd, and therefore they have very little to complain when the Crimean peninsula, which is overwhelmingly Russian, and which was transferred to Ukraine by the stroke of Nikita Khrushchev's pen exactly 60 years ago, in February 1954, well, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  The United States established a very tricky precedent by recognizing self-proclaimed Kosovan independence in 2008.  That same precedent is now being applied in Crimea.  To cry foul and say that it is an entirely different situation simply doesn't stand the test of either legality of morality.  If the United States proclaimed in 2008 that it is legal and justified for a minority in a state, which constitutes a majority in a province such as Kosovo, to secede, then exactly the same principle applies to Crimea.

Mike:  So the way the American public, especially American conservatives who are decentralizers, ought to look at this is that the Crimean people are basically asserting their ancient and constitutional rights as Crimeans, and they're choosing to secede, and then they will choose, I assume, to join the Russian Federation.  They're not on any compulsion to join the Russian Federation, are they?

Trifkovic:  Well, if you look at the reception of the Russian troops in the Crimean peninsula, it is quite obvious that it is exactly the opposite.  If there was any element of compulsion, if there was any form of lingering sentiment to stay part of the Ukraine, it simply would not have been possible for a handful of Russian soldiers to take over all of the key infrastructure in Simferopol or Sevastopol.  It's quite obvious that self-organized local militia is composed of people who reflect the will of the people of Crimea, just as we witnessed, let me repeat, with Kosovo where the Albanians enthusiastically welcomed independence, which was enthusiastically supported and promptly recognized by the United States.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

 

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March 14, 2014

Op-ed published in Pravda....The triumph of fascism

 

 

                                The triumph of fascism

 

      Over one year ago, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's billionaire media mogul and former Prime Minister, publicly declared that Benito Mussolini, Italy's fascist WWII-era dictator and puppet of Hitler's was a "good leader."  Of course, the mainstream corporate-controlled Western media scarcely covered the story except as an interceding afterthought between celebrity stories of amoral behavior and more of latest "star"-worshiping "gossip." 

     Berlusconi is not the first and only major Western leader to publicly support fascist ideology with a sickening nostalgia that would seek a return to the "glorious" days of the past.  Indeed there are many "civilized" nations in Europe such as Croatia, Estonia, and now the Ukraine that openly adore Hitler and have not come to terms with the past.  It was just surprising that a leader/member of the "elite" from a much larger nation than neofascist postage stamp banana republics would openly endorse fascism.  And now we daily witness the open celebration of fascist "heroes" such as Stepan Bandera in the Ukraine with scarcely any Western condemnation.

 

     But this is now in vogue in the West.   As one example, a fanatical effort is afoot amongst various pseudo-intellectual "scholars" to rewrite history and yet-again blame the Serbs for WWI based on the "evidence" that Gavrilo Princip (who was a Bosnian Serb) was supported by Serbia.  Of course, whenever facts get in the way, they are just conveniently disregarded.  Bosnia was illegally and viciously occupied by Austria after the Ottoman Turkish retreat from the Balkans.  The homegrown Bosnian "Black Hand" organization comprised Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Bosnian Croats and had little to do with Serbia but much to do with freeing Bosnia from illegal and brutal occupation.    When Austria declared war on Serbia due to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Serbs handily defeated the Austrians and defended their territory, throwing the Austrian army out of Serbia. 

 

    That should have been the end of it with the Austrians retreating with their tails between their legs.  But no, Germany had to step into defend Austrian "honor" and the Russians defended the Serbs which catalyzed and ignited WWI in Europe, ending the outdated and unfair social order based upon extreme wealth polarization.  The goal of rewriting history is to make a new case for fascism's reemergence into the mainstream of political discourse.

 

      Now, it seems, we returning to this world of extremes where a small group of "elites" exercise far too much influence and control all over the world via money.  Money controls what news stories are broadcast and how they are distorted or even just plain concocted as we saw daily in the Western coverage of the Yugoslav civil wars where the lie told 1000 times becomes the truth.  Money controls which candidates get the most public exposure and therefore which get elected. Money controls politicians when they make their "decisions" to (e.g.) barbarically and illegally bomb Serbia at the behest of corporate oligarchs.  Money also encourages traitors who sell out their own people and nation to the highest bidder as we have seen in Yugoslavia and the Ukraine.  Such is the state of our world today.

 

     When examined this way, it now becomes apparent why the fabulously (and in many cases illegally) wealthy "elites" would long for a return to fascism.  They will be able to exercise far more control on the subjugated plebian populations of the world and sustain their parasitic existences on the unsuspecting hard working populations of the Earth indefinitely.  This is why many members of the British aristocracy supported Hitler [1].  This is why Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathizer [2].  This is why George W Bush's grandfather  (Prescott Bush) allegedly loaned money to the Nazis and aided Hitler [3-4]. 

     Today, we see an all out effort to subvert and destroy America's democracy by controlling bought America's "leaders" to disregard our beloved Constitution and enact "laws" that remove our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.  As we witnessed in NATO's barbaric and illegal war against the Serbian people, politicians act first and then let American ask questions later.

  The US is becoming so thoroughly corrupt that many Americans worry about an inevitable internal revolution because the politicians are no longer "of the people, for the people, and by the people" but "of the corporations, for the corporations, and by the corporations."  Despite the valiant efforts of millions of Americans vis a vis Wall Street protests (e.g.), their will is not being respected and they are finding that fascism is creeping into the American way of life, which will ultimately destroy it as it destroyed Germany in WWII.  As witnessed during NATO's illegal and vicious bombing of Serbia, Western leaders acted without any respect for international or even domestic laws  (e.g. the War Powers Act of 1973) and get judicial cronies and the media to cover their tracks [5].  And then American leaders have the chutzpah and gall to condemn Russia for its efforts to protect ethnic Russians in the Crimea!

     Whether it is the recent NSA illegal spying scandal, barbaric and sinister efforts to place tracking chips in humans, goose-stepping information control/censorship within the corporate-controlled mainstream Western media: all of these efforts point toward more control of the unsuspecting general populace - more fascism.   Even in Canada, an acquaintance of mine, well known historian and author, Dr. Srdja Trifkovic was denied entry there because he was going to give an alternative, rarely heard, Serbian perspective of the Bosnian civil war for an invited academic talk [6].  However, the Canadian government did not want ordinary Canadians to hear his views.  This mere concept violates just about every cherished rule of democracy and true intellectual discourse, which require the presentation of all points of view and for these points to be openly debated.  This barbaric act of censorship is fascist, plain and simple.

     It should be noted that one of the worst companies that was a strong supporter of Hitler's was IG Farben - a chemical company that produced (e.g.) Zyklon B - "rat" poison - that exterminated untold millions of Holocaust victims and benefited greatly from slave labor.  Today, Monsanto, another multinational chemical company is seeking to inflict fascist control on the world's food supply, poisoning humanity with pesticides ("insect" poison), causing massive increases in the cancer rate, rendering soil infertile, which may inevitably provoke another world war (as Vladimir Putin recently warned to total censorship/silence in the Western media) - by destroying the ability of humans to feed themselves.  This is fascism, and now it's beginning to overtake America and perhaps soon, the world.  We should prepare for yet more loss of our Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms as governments that have removed checks and balances of power transform into tyrannies.  For now, fascism has triumphed in the West.   Those who forget their history will be doomed to repeat it.

 

References: 

6.  "Banned from Canadistan," Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, Chronicles Magazine, 2/25/11,https://archive.is/GRWwE

Dr. Michael Pravica

 

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March 09, 2014

MI5 Brit talks about coup

 

4 March, 23:55

Ukraine was coup d'état by the CIA – David Shayler

© Photo "Golos stolitsy" (Voice of capital/Kiev)

What has occurred in Ukraine was not a popular revolution, it was a carefully orchestrated coup d'état. The "demonstrators" with the metal barricades, bullet proof vest, army helmets, weapons, shield and masks were very well organized and trained. The whole affair was orchestrated by the West in an attempt to bring Ukraine into NATO and split Russia. Mr. David Shayler a former MI5 officer spoke to the Voice of Russia on the activities of the intelligence services and on what the forces behind the scenes are doing. He says President Putin is merely protecting his country and his people and is in a strong position.

Hello this is John Robles your listening to an interview with Mr. David Shayler, he's a former MI-5 officer, turned whistleblower and truth campaigner. This is part 1 of a longer interview.

 

Robles: Hello David how are you this evening?

Shayler: Hello John I am fine. Thanks for having me on the show again.

Robles: Thanks for agreeing to speak to us. It is a very difficult time for Russia, for Ukraine, very strained relations. Something is getting lost in the media coverage in the West and I've seen a lot of reports from the West it is completely skewed. What is being lost, I think, is the fact that 80% or more of the Ukrainian population are Russian-speaking or Russian nationals and their rights are being obliterated. Can you comment on what you know about, since you are former intelligence officer, on subversive operations by NATO and the West in Ukraine? What do you think their objective is?

Shayler: When I first saw this it was absolutely clear to me that this was not a popular revolution. Immediately you had people turning up with metal barricades, they were very organized, they were in masks and so on. Now I would say if I was pissed off with my government, now I'm going to demonstrate, where would I get a metal barricade from?

So, clearly these people are paid mercenaries and this revolution was nothing to do with the will of the people. As you say, most of the people in the Ukraine either speak Russian or have relations in Russia and so on. This was something that's been orchestrated by the west, they've been trying to start the Third World War, and we saw that last year in Syria. It failed then, but they are obviously now trying to open another front to try and cause that war.

And what's a bit curious in this country has been the propaganda for both sides, on the one hand we've been told on certain newspapers, this is Putin trying to build an empire, and you've only got to look at the maps of bases that go around Iran, US bases, to see what empire building looks like. And obviously, I don't believe Vladimir Putin is trying to build an empire at all, I think he is trying to protect his own country.

And on the other hand, we've had people then trying to say that Putin is extremely, in a very weak position. No, he is not in a weak position, because he supplies gas to Europe basically. Now people are trying to say "Oh he couldn't turn the gas off, it's got to be a bad news for him", but if he turned that gas off, Europe would be ruined in about 3 or 4 days.

So, Putin once again is in a very strong position, he played his hand very, very well in Syria, and won enormous admiration in the west, he has won enormous admiration in the west for setting up Russia Today, which is the fastest growing English news channel, and the one that we all log on to, we don't trust the BBC anymore, we don't trust our mainstream media in this country.

So, the idea that it is some kind of Russian operation to try and take over the world, it is just absolutely nonsense, it belongs to the old rhetoric of the Cold War, and as we saw then most of that stuff in that period of the Cold War, was that the American intelligence inventing things about the Soviet Union to try and get more funding, and to get more intelligence officers and so on.

And when the Soviet Union collapsed - they didn't predict that - and it was quite obvious the Soviets weren't trying to take over the world in the way that they suggested. So, this whole thing, from the beginning to the end, is a total nonsense of the western coverage.

It is uncritical of people like John Kerry, when he says "unacceptable for Russian troops to go into the Crimea". I mean, we've got troops in Afghanistan still, we had huge invasions of Iraq, we've had illegal activity in Libya, in a country that is now, again, being taken over by Islamic extremists.

So, people in this country make comments, but they don't seem to be able to see that the west is doing these things far worse than any other country. But there is a good reason why this is happening, because the economy of the west is about to collapse. There have been articles suggesting that the spring of this year will be when we start to see the collapse, somebody has even named the date of March 4th 2014, which is actually tomorrow, because they've got to a point now where they can't go either way, they can't put interest rates any lower, and they can't print any more money without devaluing the currency.

So, they've got to do one or the other, and either of them are going to lead to massive chaos on the streets. People are going to start losing their homes, they are not going to be able to afford food, and that is that. So that's why we are seeing all this propaganda in the western media. It is just that – it is propaganda. This was a textbook revolution stoked up by western intelligence services basically.

Robles: The coverage now, if you could. You are in the UK, you are bombarded with this propaganda, they are putting out, and I've had people say it is so egregious, it seems like pre-invasion or pre-war propaganda, I mean threats, and these are repeated. First it was Obama saying there is going to be a price to pay etc, characterizations I've heard of in the western media that there are these innocent little Ukrainian soldiers being surrounded by this huge Russian invasion force. Actually in Crimea all of the military, they switched sides, they declared the generals, the commanders, they all said the government in Kiev is illegitimate, they are now under the command of the Governor of Crimea.

Shayler: In the west they have reported that these Ukrainian generals who have refused to play ball, are going to be charged with treason. But doing this is not treason, as you say, this was a democratically elected government. But what we saw over the last few days, in weeks, and everything in Kiev, I say has been a violent insurrection, there have been lots and lots of people killed.

Now could you imagine if that had been the streets of London and we had been protesting, and taking police kidnap, and shooting people? The western media would not be reporting that as a popular revolution, they would be reporting that as an armed insurrection, which is what it is.

Robles: It was even worse than that David, they were actually, they were killing police officers who were unarmed. They were shooting them in the head, snipers shooting them in the head. There was like 89 police officers, with either … out of all of them were either killed or taken to hospital. They had bullet wounds to their head or the neck.

Shayler: Yes, no, this is what we are seeing; it is a bit like a few years ago with Georgia as well. The western media was full of how the Russians were invading Georgia, and then Putin sent over Gorbachev because he had got quite a profile in the west, to actually come and tell western governments that this was all a load of rubbish. If it hadn't been for intervention of Gorbachev, whom they trusted, that could have provoked a war.

And as I say, the problem is, the people … the powers that that be are in absolutely desperate situation. They've been pursuing these lies, these policies that are impoverishing the British people, impoverishing the people of the west, and they thought they could get away with it by starting the Third World War in Syria, because once they've done that, they can bring in all sorts of repression, all sorts of austerity and no one can complain. Now it hasn't happened, so 6 months down the line from that failure to invade Syria they are now being exposed on all fronts.

The only place where they still have any reputation, or they try and preserve any reputation is in the western mainstream media. But believe me, our alternative news people here, people who are doing their own websites, the bloggers, and all those people have seen through this stuff.

So, let's take some solace from that, but the vast majority, well I know they don't take part in blogging, but certainly not the people I know. I don't think they are probably representative, but there are certainly a lot of people in this country who know the truth of what is going on, and this is western propaganda and the Russians are just trying to defend their own stage. I say, I put out a spoof article saying "breaking news, Russia sites missiles in Cuba", kind of thing, because that is how crazy it is. If the Russians are siting missiles in Cuba, provoking revolutions in Mexico on the doorstep of America, the Americans would have something to say about that. Of course they would.

It just shows how stupid the whole thing is. And I say, I just cannot get inside the heads of western leaders; I cannot believe that in this day and age they cannot know what is going on. Obviously they try and insulate them, they lead very strange lives, American presidents are constantly watched by the secret service, even when they no longer presidents.

And that way of course, they can't talk to anybody they shouldn't be speaking to, because the secret service will report it back again. But even in those circumstances surely these people must have some time to get on the Internet and just check things for themselves. But they don't. And I say, that is a frightening, frightening state of affairs. It really is.

Robles: So, do you believe that Obama is ignorant of the real situation in Ukraine?

Shayler: Well I tend to think that the reason they choose these people is because they have a level of stupidity and compliance. You see stuff on the Internet saying it is all a conspiracy, and Obama is part of it, Tony Blair was part of it, and so on. But what those people never seem to allow for is just sheer human vanity and ego, and stupidity. These are people who are academically educated, that can be extremely stupid when it comes to actually thinking for themselves. So, I generally think they keep people away from it, so they can actually, obviously go on the television and say the lies without realizing they are lies.

If they work for television they knew there were lies, they might give it away through their facial ticks and body language. That is my personal opinion; I don't think these people are signed up to it, but I fully believe that behind that, in terms of the military, the intelligence, those organizations have been penetrated by the Zionists. Now, once you understand all of that, you begin to understand what is going on in the world at the moment.

Robles: Zbigniew Brzezinski has populated the entire US foreign policy establishment, the top of it, including Obama's advisors - they are all Brzezinski acolytes. From your view, as someone who was on the inside, what can you tell us about Brzezinski?

Shayler: I only know about Brzezinski, what I've seen on the Internet and so on, but he does appear to be part of this New World Order, and it is about control of the media through membership, through discrediting the enemies of the media through off-the-record briefings, and in fact we've actually had this leaked recently, something that Edward Snowden took.

It has been written about by Glenn Greenwald, and they've now released the actual slides for a presentation of a secret section of GCHQ, which is like the Joint Intelligence Task something or other, and all the things I've been talking about, how they stop you by creating false victims on the Internet, or go on the Internet and claim that you've done something to them, by taking away your means of income, by trying to discredit you in all ways. This is now a matter of record.

All of the things I've been saying for 16 years of intelligence services and the secret services have now all been disclosed but that doesn't seem to get through to parliament, it hasn't stopped the head GCHQ from going to the parliamentary committee and go and see the intelligence services and say they are working in our interest, they are trying to protect us. They are clearly not. The whole invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq have put the citizens of the west at far greater risk of attack.

Robles: Now how is the UK involved? Now, after 9/11, I don't know if you are aware of General Wesley Clark. He was shocked himself that Paul Wolfowitz came to him one day, he was assistant secretary of Defense in the US, Clark was the Head of NATO, and he told him, we are now in the business of destroying countries. And they came out with this list of 7 countries that they had to destroy in 5 years. How is UK involved in all that? Where do they play in?

Shayler: What we play is the kind of junior partner of the US, don't we, we call it special relationship, so we live in this country with American airbases, we have no independent UK, we've got 5 nuclear weapons as well as Americans, so we essentially are the first country to become colonized by the Americans using the new form of neo-imperialism.

They've got some basis but you don't need a law soldiers there, it is more a kind of imperialism done through the control of the political class in the media. When you look at the power of the CIA, the CIA is a larger economy than many of the economies in Africa, they own companies, airlines, publishing companies. Then you realize the CIA has got enormous tentacles and I am now inclined to believe the CIA was behind the problems we had for example during the minor strike in 1980s.

There was a man called Roger Windsor, we worked for National Union of Mineworkers, who basically to try to avoid sequestrations, sent money out of the accounts abroad, but that could easily be traced. And he'd actually cut his teeth in organization, I can't remember the name of, but it was known to be a CIA-funded organization. This man was alleged to be an MI-5 agent and he approached me after I blew a whistle. He came to me and said "do you think I am MI-5 agent?". I said, "no, I don't, I think your profile was not like to be an MI-5 agent".

Then I looked at his case and the conclusion I came to is that he was MI-6 agent. Next time he phoned me up, he says "do you think I am an MI-5 agent?" – I said no, he says "good". And then I say, "you are an MI-6 agent", at which point he put the phone down. MI-6 and CIA work very closely.

What it does with MI-6 is MI-6 is funded by CIA but there is no freedom of information in Britain surrounding the intelligence services. So, the things the CIA can't do in America, in case to it, they get MI-6 to do, knowing that nobody in Britain is allowed to see what MI-6 does and therefore they will be clear basically.

 

 

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March 04, 2014

Stephen F. Cohen: Distorting Russia

Distorting Russia

How the American media misrepresent Putin, Sochi and Ukraine.

Stephen F. Cohen <http://www.thenation.com/authors/stephen-f-cohen>

February 11, 2014 | This article appeared in the March 3, 2014 edition
of The Nation. <http://www.thenation.com/issue/march-3-2014>



(Reuters/Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Pool)

The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country
still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If
the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory
articles in leading newspapers and magazines—particularly about the Sochi
Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin—is an
indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm.

There are notable exceptions, but a general pattern has developed. Even in
the venerable New York Times and Washington Post, news reports, editorials
and commentaries no longer adhere rigorously to traditional journalistic
standards, often failing to provide essential facts and context; to make a
clear distinction between reporting and analysis; to require at least two
different political or "expert" views on major developments; or to publish
opposing opinions on their op-ed pages. As a result, American media on
Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely
less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War.

The history of this degradation is also clear. It began in the early 1990s,
following the end of the Soviet Union, when the US media adopted
Washington's narrative that almost everything President Boris Yeltsin did
was a "transition from communism to democracy" and thus in America's best
interests. This included his economic "shock therapy" and oligarchic looting
of essential state assets, which destroyed tens of millions of Russian
lives; armed destruction of a popularly elected Parliament and imposition of
a "presidential" Constitution, which dealt a crippling blow to
democratization and now empowers Putin; brutal war in tiny Chechnya, which
gave rise to terrorists in Russia's North Caucasus; rigging of his own
re-election in 1996; and leaving behind, in 1999, his approval ratings in
single digits, a disintegrating country laden with weapons of mass
destruction. Indeed, most American journalists still give the impression
that Yeltsin was an ideal Russian leader.

Since the early 2000s, the media have followed a different leader-centric
narrative, also consistent with US policy, that devalues multifaceted
analysis for a relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for
facts. (Was any Soviet Communist leader after Stalin ever so personally
villainized?) If Russia under Yeltsin was presented as having legitimate
politics and national interests, we are now made to believe that Putin's
Russia has none at all, at home or abroad—even on its own borders, as in
Ukraine.

Russia today has serious problems and many repugnant Kremlin policies. But
anyone relying on mainstream American media will not find there any of their
origins or influences in Yeltsin's Russia or in provocative US policies
since the 1990s—only in the "autocrat" Putin who, however authoritarian, in
reality lacks such power. Nor is he credited with stabilizing a
disintegrating nuclear-armed country, assisting US security pursuits from
Afghanistan <http://www.thenation.com/afghanistan?lc=int_mb_1001> and Syria
to Iran or even with granting amnesty, in December, to more than 1,000
jailed prisoners, including mothers of young children.

Not surprisingly, in January The Wall Street Journal featured the widely
discredited former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, branding
Putin's government as one of "deceit, violence and cynicism," with the
Kremlin a "nerve center of the troubles that bedevil the West." But wanton
Putin-bashing is also the dominant narrative in centrist, liberal and
progressive media, from the Post, Times and The New Republic to CNN, MSNBC
and HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, where Howard Dean, not previously known
for his Russia expertise, recently declared, to the panel's approval,
"Vladimir Putin is a thug."

The media therefore eagerly await Putin's downfall—due to his "failing
economy" (some of its indicators are better than US ones), the valor of
street protesters and other right-minded oppositionists (whose policies are
rarely examined), the defection of his electorate (his approval ratings
remain around 65 percent) or some welcomed "cataclysm." Evidently believing,
as does the Times, for example, that democrats and a "much better future"
will succeed Putin (not zealous ultranationalists growing in the streets and
corridors of power), US commentators remain indifferent to what the
hoped-for "destabilization of his regime" might mean in the world's largest
nuclear country.

Certainly, The New Republic's lead writer on Russia, Julia Ioffe, does not
explore the question, or much else of real consequence, in her nearly
10,000-word February 17 cover story. Ioffe's bannered theme is devoutly
Putin-phobic: "He Crushed His Opposition and Has Nothing to Show for It But
a Country That Is Falling Apart." Neither sweeping assertion is spelled out
or documented. A compilation of chats with Russian-born Ioffe's disaffected
(but seemingly not "crushed") Moscow acquaintances and titillating personal
gossip long circulating on the Internet, the article seems better suited
(apart from some factual errors) for the Russian tabloids, as does Ioffe's
disdain for objectivity. Protest shouts of "Russia without Putin!" and
"Putin is a thief!" were "one of the most exhilarating moments I'd ever
experienced." So was tweeting "Putin's fucked, y'all." Nor does she forget
the hopeful mantra "cataclysm seems closer than ever now."

* * *

For weeks, this toxic coverage has focused on the Sochi Olympics and the
deepening crisis in Ukraine. Even before the Games began, the Times declared
the newly built complex a "Soviet-style dystopia" and warned in a headline,
Terrorism and Tension, Not Sports and Joy. On opening day, the paper found
space for three anti-Putin articles and a lead editorial, a feat rivaled by
the Post. Facts hardly mattered. Virtually every US report insisted that a
record $51 billion "squandered" by Putin on the Sochi Games proved they were
"corrupt." But as Ben Aris of Business New Europe pointed out, as much as
$44 billion may have been spent "to develop the infrastructure of the entire
region," investment "the entire country needs."

Overall pre-Sochi coverage was even worse, exploiting the threat of
terrorism so licentiously it seemed pornographic. The Post, long known among
critical-minded Russia-watchers as Pravda on the Potomac, exemplified the
media ethos. A sports columnist and an editorial page editor turned the
Olympics into "a contest of wills" between the despised Putin's "thugocracy"
and terrorist "insurgents." The "two warring parties" were so equated that
readers might have wondered which to cheer for. If nothing else, American
journalists gave terrorists an early victory, tainting "Putin's Games" and
frightening away many foreign spectators, including some relatives of the
athletes.

The Sochi Games will soon pass, triumphantly or tragically, but the
potentially fateful Ukrainian crisis will not. A new Cold War divide between
West and East may now be unfolding, not in Berlin but in the heart of
Russia's historical civilization. The result could be a permanent
confrontation fraught with instability and the threat of a hot war far worse
than the one in Georgia in 2008. These dangers have been all but ignored in
highly selective, partisan and inflammatory US media accounts, which portray
the European Union's "Partnership" proposal benignly as Ukraine's chance for
democracy, prosperity and escape from Russia, thwarted only by a "bullying"
Putin and his "cronies" in Kiev.

Not long ago, committed readers could count on The New York Review of Books
for factually trustworthy alternative perspectives on important historical
and contemporary subjects. But when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, the NYRB
has succumbed to the general media mania. In a January 21 blog post, Amy
Knight, a regular contributor and inveterate Putin-basher, warned the US
government against cooperating with the Kremlin on Sochi security, even
suggesting that Putin's secret services "might have had an interest in
allowing or even facilitating such attacks" as killed or wounded dozens of
Russians in Volgograd in December.

Knight's innuendo prefigured a purported report on Ukraine by Yale
professor Timothy Snyder in the February 20 issue. Omissions of facts, by
journalists or scholars, are no less an untruth than misstatements of fact.
Snyder's article was full of both, which are widespread in the popular
media, but these are in the esteemed NYRB and by an acclaimed academic.
Consider a few of Snyder's assertions:

§ "On paper, Ukraine is now a dictatorship." In fact, the "paper"
legislation he's referring to hardly constituted dictatorship, and in any
event was soon repealed. Ukraine is in a state nearly the opposite of
dictatorship—political chaos uncontrolled by President Viktor Yanukovych,
the Parliament, the police or any other government institution.

§ "The [parliamentary] deputies…have all but voted themselves out of
existence." Again, Snyder is alluding to the nullified "paper." Moreover,
serious discussions have been under way in Kiev about reverting to
provisions in the 2004 Constitution that would return substantial
presidential powers to the legislature, hardly "the end of parliamentary
checks on presidential power," as Snyder claims. (Does he dislike the
prospect of a compromise outcome?)

§ "Through remarkably large and peaceful public protests…Ukrainians have
set a positive example for Europeans." This astonishing statement may have
been true in November, but it now raises questions about the "example"
Snyder is advocating. The occupation of government buildings in Kiev and in
Western Ukraine, the hurling of firebombs at police and other violent
assaults on law enforcement officers and the proliferation of anti-Semitic
slogans by a significant number of anti-Yanukovych protesters, all
documented and even televised, are not an "example" most readers would
recommend to Europeans or Americans. Nor are they tolerated, even if
accompanied by episodes of police brutality
<http://www.thenation.com/section/police-brutality?lc=int_mb_1001> , in any
Western democracy.

§ "Representatives of a minor group of the Ukrainian extreme right have
taken credit for the violence." This obfuscation implies that apart perhaps
from a "minor group," the "Ukrainian extreme right" is part of the positive
"example" being set. (Many of its representatives have expressed hatred for
Europe's "anti-traditional" values, such as gay rights.) Still more, Snyder
continues, "something is fishy," strongly implying that the mob violence is
actually being "done by russo-phone provocateurs" on behalf of "Yanukovych
(or Putin)." As evidence, Snyder alludes to "reports" that the instigators
"spoke Russian." But millions of Ukrainians on both sides of their incipient
civil war speak Russian.

§ Snyder reproduces yet another widespread media malpractice regarding
Russia, the decline of editorial fact-checking. In a recent article in the
International New York Times, he both inflates his assertions and tries to
delete neofascist elements from his innocuous "Ukrainian extreme right."
Again without any verified evidence, he warns of a Putin-backed "armed
intervention" in Ukraine after the Olympics and characterizes reliable
reports of "Nazis and anti-Semites" among street protesters as "Russian
propaganda."

§ Perhaps the largest untruth promoted by Snyder and most US media is the
claim that "Ukraine's future integration into Europe" is "yearned for
throughout the country." But every informed observer knows—from Ukraine's
history, geography, languages, religions, culture, recent politics and
opinion surveys—that the country is deeply divided as to whether it should
join Europe or remain close politically and economically to Russia. There is
not one Ukraine or one "Ukrainian people" but at least two, generally
situated in its Western and Eastern regions.

Such factual distortions point to two flagrant omissions by Snyder and
other US media accounts. The now exceedingly dangerous confrontation between
the two Ukraines was not "ignited," as the Times claims, by Yanukovych's
duplicitous negotiating—or by Putin—but by the EU's reckless ultimatum, in
November, that the democratically elected president of a profoundly divided
country choose between Europe and Russia. Putin's proposal for a tripartite
arrangement, rarely if ever reported, was flatly rejected by US and EU
officials.

But the most crucial media omission is Moscow's reasonable conviction that
the struggle for Ukraine is yet another chapter in the West's ongoing,
US-led march toward post-Soviet Russia, which began in the 1990s with NATO's
eastward expansion and continued with US-funded NGO political activities
inside Russia, a US-NATO military outpost in Georgia and missile-defense
installations near Russia. Whether this longstanding Washington-Brussels
policy is wise or reckless, it—not Putin's December financial offer to save
Ukraine's collapsing economy—is deceitful. The EU's "civilizational"
proposal, for example, includes "security policy" provisions, almost never
reported, that would apparently subordinate Ukraine to NATO.

Any doubts about the Obama administration's real intentions in Ukraine
should have been dispelled by the recently revealed taped conversation
between a top State Department official, Victoria Nuland, and the US
ambassador in Kiev. The media predictably focused on the source of the
"leak" and on Nuland's verbal "gaffe"—"Fuck the EU." But the essential
revelation was that high-level US officials were plotting to "midwife" a
new, anti-Russian Ukrainian government by ousting or neutralizing its
democratically elected president—that is, a coup.

Americans are left with a new edition of an old question. Has Washington's
twenty-year winner-take-all approach to post-Soviet Russia shaped this
degraded news coverage, or is official policy shaped by the coverage? Did
Senator John McCain stand in Kiev alongside the well-known leader of an
extreme nationalist party because he was ill informed by the media, or have
the media deleted this part of the story because of McCain's folly?

And what of Barack Obama's decision to send only a low-level delegation,
including retired gay athletes, to Sochi? In August, Putin virtually saved
Obama's presidency by persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to
eliminate his chemical weapons. Putin then helped to facilitate Obama's
heralded opening to Iran. Should not Obama himself have gone to Sochi—either
out of gratitude to Putin, or to stand with Russia's leader against
international terrorists who have struck both of our countries? Did he not
go because he was ensnared by his unwise Russia policies, or because the US
media misrepresented the varying reasons cited: the granting of asylum to
Edward Snowden, differences on the Middle East, infringements on gay rights
in Russia, and now Ukraine? Whatever the explanation, as Russian
intellectuals say when faced with two bad alternatives, "Both are worst."

http://www.thenation.com/article/178344/distorting-russia
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March 01, 2014

Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin

Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin

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Ukraine's interim prime minister, Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk, may prove to be arsenic to the beleaguered nation.

"Recall the phone exchange between the Ukraine ambassador and Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs) that got leaked out, where she basically said 'we want Yats in there.' They like him because he's pro Western," says Vladimir Signorelli, president of boutique investment research firm Bretton Woods Research LLC in New Jersey. "Yatsenyuk is the the kind of technocrat you want if you want austerity, with the veneer of professionalism," Signorelli said. "He's the type of guy who can hobnob with the European elite. A Mario Monti type: unelected and willing to do the IMFs bidding," he said.

Mario Monti was a centrist Italian technocrat who passed an austerity package that called for increased taxes, pension reform and measures to fight tax evasion.

Over the past several weeks, Ukraine has been battling political infighting between pro-Russian Ukrainians and pro-Europeans. The fight stepped into high gear in the fall when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych decided to tilt towards Moscow instead of Brussels in a trade deal.  Last week, Yanukovych left Kiev and headed to an undisclosed location, believed to be holed up in a Russian Naval base.

After Yanukovych and the political opposition agreed to an orderly transition toward new elections, the opposition shattered the agreement quickly and took strategic positions around Kiev. Many voices in the Western press say the country could break apart.

Despite these ominous signs, Ukraine Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt hailed the current crisis as "a day for the history books." Most of the mainstream media have leaned decisively in the anti-Yanukovych camp.

Ukraine's new 450-seat parliament approved the appointment of the former Central Banker Yatsenyuk on Thursday by a vote of 371 to 1. Oddly enough, earlier this month, the pro-Western Yats trailed behind popular opposition leaders such as former heavyweight boxer Viltali Klitschko and the leader of the nationalist, Svoboda Party, Oleh Tyahnybok. But Yats had friends in high places and while he does not have strong support of the electorate, and would have no chance of winning an election, he is pro-IMF austerity and apparently the bulk of parliament is as well.

"Yatsenyuk was saying that what the Greeks did to themselves we are going to do ourselves," said Signorelli. "He wants to follow the Greek economic model. Who the hell wants to follow that?"

Also today, Yatsenyuk promised to implement "very unpopular measures" to stabilize the country's finances. The government said it needs $35 billion to support the country over the next two years. His language in a news report broadcast by Bloomberg today indicates he is heading toward a potentially destabilizing austerity campaign:

"The treasury is empty. We will do everything not to default. If we get the financial support from the IMF, the U.S., we will do it. I'm going to be the most unpopular prime minister in the history of my country," he said. "But this is the only solution. I would never promise any kind of huge achievements. First and the most important issue is to stabilize the situation."

He also said that, "We want Russia to have transparent and fair relations with Ukraine. We want to be partners with Russia…we strongly believe it will never intervene with a military force in Ukraine."

Under the brewing divide-and-conquer political crisis lies Ukraine's economic problems. The Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, is down over 16% year-to-date, a record decline against the dollar.

It is unclear the kind of measures Yatsenyuk will tolerate, but it appears austerity is the path forward. That includes a regimen of tax increases, interest rate hikes and further currency devaluation.

Yanukovych resisted the International Monetary Fund's demand to raise taxes and devalue the currency. Yatsenyuk doesn't mind. For economists who think austerity is a disaster, Ukraine is on a path to ruin.

"We saw this in the 90s and what the IMF did to Russia with Yeltsin. They'll do that to Ukraine," said Signorelli. Remember Slobodan Milošević in Yugoslavia? After the IMF finished with Yugoslavia it was only a matter of time before the separatist movements gained traction," he said. "I think things in Ukraine can get really really bad."

 

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2014/02/27/washingtons-man-yatsenyuk-setting-ukraine-up-for-ruin/

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December 30, 2013

Politicised NATO

Politicized Nobel

 

Wednesday, 30th December 2013

 

Živadin Jovanović
Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals

Recently a news came from Washington that some US congressmen initiated that Nobel Peace Award for 2013 be given to the Lady Catherine Ashton, EU Commissar for Foreign Policy and Security, Ivica Dacic, Prime Minister of Serbia and Hashim Tachi, "Prime Minister of self-proclaimed Republic of Kosova", in recognition for reaching  so called Brussels Agreement on Normalization, under EU auspices, in April 2013. 

For quite some time, the Nobel Prize has been heavily politicized and compromised due to its being awarded not for genuine contributions to peace and democracy but rather abused as a tool for imposing imperialistic interests of western power centers on other countries and nations. What does it mean if, for example, this award was given to someone responsible for a renewed arms race, for the chaos reigning today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other countries as well as  and for the global bugging and spying on own citizens and closest allies!

Such a reward could hardly promote peace, democracy, observance of the principles of international law and other true civilization values. It serves rather as a tool for promotion of obedience, dictate and inequality, in the interests of selfish corporative financial capital.

The initiative was moved by the Albanian lobby in Washington, which itself speaks of its objectivity and principled nature. In the core of it lie the interests of the very same power centers which in 1999 had launched the armed aggression against Serbia (the FRY), and which in 2013 imposed on Serbia the dictate called "Brussels Agreement" on Kosovo and Metohija. True meaning of this dictate is - seizure of a part of state territory of Serbia, violation of international law, particularly, violation of the UN SC resolution 1244 (1999) guaranteeing sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia. This dictate is aimed at legalizing true goal of the 1999 NATO armed aggression and the amnestying of the NATO leaders from the crime against peace and humanity. Evidently, all this has nothing to do with peace, stability and justice.

What, really, are morality and criteria of those who put on equal footing peace deeds of Baroness Catherine Ashton, EU Commissar for Foreign Policy and Security and Hashim Tachi, nick-named "Snake", former leader of the terrorist KLA organization, person who has been indicated by the Report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe as involved in human organ harvesting and trafficking, who has been accused of sponsoring international organized crime, such as drug, arms and human beings smuggling?  

 

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