-William Blum
When
it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much
information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try
putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the
larger, long-term picture.
The
United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their
main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United
States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy
Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World
Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep
in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the
IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act
too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy
punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their
leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or
irony.
And
who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy
Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as
the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was
self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade;
tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)
Since the end of the Cold War the
United States has been surrounding Russia, building one base after another,
ceaselessly looking for new ones, including in Ukraine; one missile site after
another, with Moscow in range; NATO has grabbed one former Soviet Republic
after another. The White House, and the unquestioning American mainstream
media, have assured us that such operations have nothing to do with Russia. And
Russia has been told the same, much to Moscow’s continuous skepticism. “Look,”
said Russian president Vladimir Putin about NATO some years ago, “is this is a
military organization? Yes, it’s military. … Is it moving towards our border?
It’s moving towards our border. Why?”
The
Holy Triumvirate would love to rip Ukraine from the Moscow bosom, evict the
Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on
Russia’s border. (In case you were wondering what prompted the Russian military
action.) Kiev’s membership in the EU would then not be far off; after which the
country could embrace the joys of neo-conservatism, receiving the benefits of
the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal,
Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family; but no
price is too great to pay for being part of glorious Europe and the West!
The Ukrainian insurgents and their
Western-power supporters didn’t care who their Ukrainian allies were in
carrying out their coup against President Viktor Yanukovych last month … thugs
who set policemen on fire head to toe … all manner of extreme right-wingers,
including Chechnyan Islamic militants … a deputy of the ultra-right
Svoboda Party, part of the new government, who threatens to rebuild Ukraine’s
nukes in three to six months. … the snipers firing on the protestors
who apparently were not what they appeared to be – A bugged phone conversation
between Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, and EU foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton, reveals Paet saying: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding
that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new
coalition.” … neo-Nazi protestors in Kiev who have openly denounced
Jews, hoisting a banner honoring Stepan Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian
nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and
whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.
The
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on February 24 that
Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman advised “Kiev’s Jews to leave the city and
even the country.” Edward Dolinsky, head of an umbrella organization of
Ukrainian Jews, described the situation for Ukrainian Jews as “dire” and
requested Israel’s help.
All
in all a questionable gang of allies for a dubious cause; reminiscent of the
Kosovo Liberation Army thugs Washington put into power for an earlier regime
change, and has kept in power since 1999.
The
now-famous recorded phone conversation between top US State Department official
Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to the Ukraine, wherein they discuss
which Ukrainians would be to Washington’s liking in a new government, and which
not, is an example of this regime-change mentality. Nuland’s choice, Arseniy
Yatseniuk, emerged as interim prime minister.
The National Endowment for Democracy,
an agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political
action and psychological warfare against states not in love with US foreign
policy, is Washington’s foremost non-military tool for effecting regime change.
The NED website lists 65 projects that it has supported financially in recent
years in Ukraine. The descriptions NED gives to the projects don’t
reveal the fact that generally their programs impart the basic philosophy that
working people and other citizens are best served under a system of free
enterprise, class cooperation, collective bargaining, minimal government
intervention in the economy, and opposition to socialism in any shape or form.
A free-market economy is equated with democracy, reform, and growth; and the
merits of foreign investment in their economy are emphasized.
The idea was that the NED would do
somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus,
hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. Allen
Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, declared in 1991:
“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
NED, receives virtually all its
financing from the US government ($5 billion in total since 1991 ),
but it likes to refer to itself as an NGO (Non-governmental organization)
because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US
government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO.
Its long-time intervention in Ukraine is as supra-legal as the Russian military
deployment there. Journalist Robert Parry has observed:
For NED and American neocons,
Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European
demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic “reforms” required by the
International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he
won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a
more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for “regime
change.”
Thus,
we have to ask, as Mr. Putin asked – “Why?” Why has NED been funding 65
projects in one foreign country? Why were Washington officials grooming a
replacement for President Yanukovych, legally and democratically elected in
2010, who, in the face of protests, moved elections up so he could have been
voted out of office – not thrown out by a mob? Yanukovych made repeated
important concessions, including amnesty for those arrested and offering, on
January 25, to make two of his adversaries prime minister and deputy prime
minister; all to no avail; key elements of the protestors, and those behind
them, wanted their putsch.
Carl Gershman, president of NED, wrote
last September that “Ukraine is the biggest prize”. The man knows
whereof he speaks. He has presided over NED since its beginning, overseeing the
Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003), the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004), the
Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (2005), the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (2005),
the Green Revolution in Iran (2009), and now Ukraine once again. It’s as if the
Cold War never ended.
The
current unbridled animosity of the American media toward Putin also reflects an
old practice. The United States is so accustomed to world leaders holding their
tongue and not voicing criticism of Washington’s policies appropriate to the
criminality of those policies, that when a Vladimir Putin comes along and
expresses even a relatively mild condemnation he is labeled Public Enemy Number
One and his words are accordingly ridiculed or ignored.
On March 2 US Secretary of State John
Kerry condemned Russia’s “incredible act of aggression” in Ukraine (Crimea) and
threatened economic sanctions. “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in
19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up
pre-text.”
Iraq
was in the 21st century. Senator John Kerry voted for it. Hypocrisy of this
magnitude has to be respected.
POSTSCRIPT: Ukraine’s
interim prime minister announced March 7 that he has invited the NATO Council
to hold a meeting in Kiev over the recent developments in the country. “I
invited the North Atlantic Council to visit Kiev and hold a meeting there,”
Arseny Yatsenyuk said during a visit to Brussels, where he met with NATO
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and EU officials. “We believe that it
will strengthen our cooperation.”
Love among nations
by
Viktor Dedaj, Paris, France
Washington’s
response, or lack of it, has confirmed the authenticity of a YouTube clip of a
leaked telephone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland
and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that emerged February 6. In the
call, posted by an anonymous Russian source, Nuland and Pyatt discuss
installing a new, pro-US government that will incorporate the fascistic
opposition which had been leading street protests against Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych. Even though Washington’s campaign for regime-change had been
coordinated with the European Union, in the phone conversation with Pyatt,
Nuland attacks the EU for being insufficiently aggressive, saying at one point,
“Fuck the EU.” The same source has provided us with the text of a subsequent
conversation between the EU and the US.
EU: But
you said you loved me!
US: (sigh)
There you go again.
EU: I
left everything behind for you. Democracy, market regulations, state-owned
companies, social welfare, an independent foreign policy.
US: (lighting
a cigarette): pffff… Nobody forced you.
EU: I
could have been an international star, you know?
US: Yeah,
yeah, blah, blah …
EU: The
whole world had hope in me! Now it’s that slut, Latin America, who’s showing
off with her crummy progressive policies.
US: Oh
that one … She was a hotty. I must admit it was fun at the time. But it’s over
(for the time being). Now, you’re my bitch.
EU: (sniffing):
Seriously? You’re not joking?
US: You
are, you’re my little bitch. Come here.
EU: Are
you going to hit me?
US: What?
Of course not! What’s wrong with you?
EU: Latin
America … She says you’re arrogant, and violent. She says that you have no
friends, only interests.
US: She’s
crazy. Forget her. C’mon, come here my little bitch.
EU: Oh
Sam … Sam …
A Question re: Syria
There
have been numerous news stories about Syrian government bombing of its civilian
areas, with reports of many dead, and photos and videos of heavily damaged
buildings. The source of the stories I’ve come across, when it’s mentioned at
all, is almost always some element of the “rebels”; i.e., those opposing the
Syrian government.
In
all these stories – Have you ever seen a photo or a video of a plane dropping
bombs? Or of the bombs in the air? I’m not saying that the bombings have not
taken place. I’m just wondering why there is no graphic evidence of them.
Dialogue with readers
Last
month’s report evoked an unusually large number of critical responses,
concerning two basic issues:
1)
My questioning the widely-held belief that if John F. Kennedy had not been
assassinated he would have ended US military involvement in Vietnam. Those who
wrote to me are convinced that in a second term as president, without the need
to worry about re-election, the genuine liberal and man of peace residing
inside JFK would have been free to blossom, and he would quickly have put an
end to a war that he supposedly abhorred.
I
had written in the report: “It appears that we’ll never know with any kind of
certainty what would have happened if JFK had not been assassinated, but I
still go by his Cold War record in concluding that US foreign policy would have
continued along its imperial, anti-communist path.”
As
I read letter after letter challenging this assertion, the thought occurred to
me: This is just what we heard for four years concerning Barack Obama – In his
second term the genuine liberal and man of peace would emerge; the Nobel Peace
Laureate would show why he deserved the prize. Well, do I need to go into the
awful details of the man’s second term, from drone assassinations to relentless
persecution of whistleblowers who question his foreign policy?
2)
I suggested a possible solution to the international problem of suicide
bombers: Go to the very source. Flood selected Islamic societies with this
message: “There is no heavenly reward for dying a martyr. There are no 72
beautiful virgins waiting to reward you for giving your life for jihad. No
virgins at all. No sex at all.”
I
was informed by reader after reader that the whole thing about virgins is a
myth. That may very well be the case, but as I pointed out to them, I was using
the story metaphorically, to describe killing and dying for a religious cause,
then counterposing US military men killing and dying for a “religious” cause
called patriotism, nationalism or American exceptionalism. Both “causes”,
Islamic and American, need to be unlearned. That was my point. There’s no
excuse for setting off a powerful bomb in a crowded restaurant nor for dropping
a powerful bomb in a residential area.
In the land where happiness is
guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence
President
Obama and many other political and media figures have once again made
discussion about the minimum wage a heated subject. Time for me to repeat
something I wrote in 2007:
“Think
raising the minimum wage is a good idea?”
“Think
again.”
That
was the message of a full-page advertisement that appeared in major newspapers
in January. It was accompanied by statements of approval from the usual eminent
suspects:
“The
reason I object to the minimum wage is I think it destroys jobs, and I think
the evidence on that, in my judgment, is overwhelming.” Alan Greenspan, former
Federal Reserve Chairman
“The
high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is
both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a
result of minimum wage laws.” Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist
Well,
if raising the minimum wage can produce such negative consequences, then surely
it is clear what we as an enlightened and humane people must do. We must lower the
minimum wage. And thus enjoy less unemployment, less social unrest. Indeed, if
we lower the minimum wage to zero, particularly for poor blacks … think of it!
… No unemployment at all! Hardly any social unrest! In fact – dare I say it? –
What if we did away with wages altogether?
“The
modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral
philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
Notes
1.
Guardian Weekly (London),
June 27, 2001
2.
RT television (RT.com,
Moscow/Washington, DC), March 1, 2014
3.
Deputy Mikhail Golovko, RT, March 1,
2014
4.
RT, March 5, 2014, “The EU’s Ukraine policy and moral bankruptcy”; the
phone conversation is believed to have taken place February 26.
6.
Washington Post,
September 22, 1991
7.
Victoria Nuland, speaking at the
National Press Club, Washington, DC, December 13, 2013
8.
Washington Post,
September 26, 2013
9.
“Face the Nation”, CBS, March 2, 2014
Any
part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided
attribution to William Blum as author and a link to this website are given.
No comments:
Post a Comment