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The U.S. versus Russia: even scholar Stephen Cohen is starting to speak the truth

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By Eric Zuesse
Posted on Global Research, March 26, 2015

An alarming development is that Stephen F. Cohen, the internationally prominent scholar of Russia, is acknowledging that (1:35 on the video) “for the first time in my long life (I began in this field in the 1960s), I think the possibility of war with Russia is real,” and he clearly and unequivocally places all of the blame for it on the U.S. leadership. He calls this “possibly a fateful turning-point in history.” He also says “it could be the beginning of the end of the so-called trans-Atlantic alliance.”

He goes on to say (2:20):

“This problem began in the 1990s, when the Clinton Administration adopted a winner-take-all policy toward post-Soviet Russia … Russia gives, we take. … This policy was adopted by the Clinton Administration but is pursued by every [meaning both] political party, every President, every American Congress, since President Clinton, to President Obama. This meant that the United States was entitled to a sphere or zone of influence as large as it wished, right up to Russia’s borders, and Russia was entitled to no sphere of influence, at all, not even in Georgia, … or in Ukraine (with which Russia had been intermarried for centuries).”

He also speaks clearly about the misrepresentations of Putin by the American Government, and he clearly states (5:25):

“He’s more European than 99% of other Russians.”

Regarding Ukraine (5:45):

“Since November of 2013, Putin has been not aggressive, but reactive, at every stage.”

Regarding, in America, the effective unanimity of allowed scholarly and media opinions to the contrary of the actual facts (and this is the most startling thing of all, so you might want to go straight to it, at 7:05):

“This is an unprecedented situation in American politics. … This is exceedingly dangerous, and this is a failure of American democracy. Why it happened, I am not sure.”

He condemns (7:30)

“this extraordinarily irrational [non] factual demonization of Putin … and this too is hard to explain.”

Europe (8:40):

“Now things have begun to change. Europe is splitting on this.” He acknowledges “Crimea is not coming back [to Ukraine],” and urges “a Ukraine — and this is what the dispute began over — free to trade with Russia and with the West.”

And,

“no membership in NATO for Ukraine. … This has to be in writing. No more oral promises such as they gave to Gorbachev. And it has to be ratified by the United Nations.”

Regarding Obama (13:00):

“I have never seen an American President make such personal remarks about a Russian leader [Putin] in public.”

Regarding the existing Ukrainian Government (14:10):

“This is not a democratic regime. … Unless the West stops supporting Kiev unconditionally, I fear we are drifting toward war with Russia.”

WOW! When even a word-mincer such as he, is stating that the U.S. Government is seeking to conquer Russia, that is news!

He doesn’t even so much as mention the Ukrainian Government’s war to eliminate the residents in the resisting region (Donbass — Ukraine’s far-east). There is still a lot of the ugliness that he covers up: Obama’s having installed these genocidally anti-Russian nazis into power, the IMFs subservience to the Obama regime, the failure of European leaders to state flat-out that this American establishment of a nazi regime in Europe (Ukraine) is disgusting and will receive no cooperation whatsoever from them.

But it’s a lot better than Cohen’s earlier mealy-mouthed statements. And what it shows to all of us is that he is now truly alarmed. Having started out by condemning “American hawks” regarding Ukraine, he has finally come to condemning specifically both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — two Democratic Party Presidents — and saying that democracy in America might itself already be gone, and that the end of civilization might be the result from all of this.

Which ought to alarm us all.

Things are so scary now, that even he is beginning to come close to saying publicly (to whatever small public the U.S. aristocracy will allow him to be heard) that America’s corruption at the top is threatening the continued existence of civilization.

Implicit in his statements is that there is massive and systematic censorship and warping of the truth on the part of America’s aristocrats.

Regarding the reason why Cohen had not previously been so alarmed and truth-telling about the Ukrainian situation, he provided a hint in this lecture — a lecture to a group of European scholars:

He said (7:55):

“We thought, some of us [Americans] when we got together and talked in 2014, that you would come to our rescue — ‘you’ I mean Europe — … we thought that Europe being part of the same history as Russia, closer to Russia, economically embedded in Russia to an extent that the United States isn’t, would put an end to this crisis. But instead most countries in the EU went along with Washington’s policies.”

In other words: He (and, evidently, his friends) ignored the evidence, such as this and this and this, all of which atrocities Obama supported and his White House was even personally implicated in, which indicated that Obama was hard-charging into conquering Russia, and was using Ukraine as the proxy-state to make it happen, and had used Ukraine’s nazis as his Ukrainian Government’s spearhead, specifically because Ukraine’s nazis fanatically hate Russians and want them dead.

Elsewhere in his talk, Cohen said (12:45) that Obama is “a weak foreign-policy leader.” This is like Hitler-supporter David Irving’s similarly explaining Hitler’s bad decisions by saying that Hitler was a “weak leader who was taken advantage of by his advisors.” Cohen (and presumably also his friends) are like that about Obama: they simply refuse to consider the evidence that the man is evil — they ignore it; they don’t want to see it.

Consequently, with such naïveté about power, they were expecting people such as this to block Obama. They shoved responsibility off onto Europeans. In other words: Cohen (and his friends) are blind to the ugliness in their own sty, because they want to be.

Maybe before people like that open their eyes to what’s happening, everybody will be turned to nuclear char, and so such liberals won’t even need to suffer disillusionment about the world in which they have lived.

Relying upon liberals to protect the world from fascists or even nazis, always fails. But that’s all the aristocracy will even allow onto the field, at all (at least in America). Progressives, people who acknowledge the reality, are portrayed simply as being kooks.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-versus-russia-even-scholar-stephen-cohen-is-starting-to-speak-the-truth/5438984

NATO: the imperial pit-bull

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Posted on Global Research
Original source: Z Magazine, February 2009  — 23 January 2009
By Edward S. Herman

One of the deceptive clichés of Western accounts of post World War II history is that NATO was constructed  as a defensive arrangement to block the threat of  a Soviet attack on Western Europe.  This is false. It is true that Western propaganda played up the Soviet menace, but many key U.S. and Western European statesmen recognized that a Soviet invasion was not a real threat.  The Soviet Union had been devastated, and while in possession of a large army it was exhausted and needed time for recuperation. The United States was riding high, the war had revitalized its economy, it suffered no war damage, and it had the atomic bomb in its arsenal, which it had displayed to  the Soviet Union by killing a quarter of  a million Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hitting the Soviet Union before it recovered or had atomic weapons was discussed in Washington, even if rejected in favor of “containment,”  economic warfare, and other forms of  destabilization. NSC 68, dated April 1950, while decrying the great Soviet menace, explicitly called for a program of destabilization aimed at regime change in that country, finally achieved in 1991.

Thus,  even hardliner John Foster Dulles stated back in 1949  that “ I do not know of any responsible high official, military or civilian…in this government or any other government, who believes that the Soviet now plans conquest by open military aggression.”   But note Dulles’ language—“open military aggression.”   The “threat” was more a matter of  possible Soviet support to left political groups and parties in Western Europe. Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a prime mover of NATO, openly stated that the function of  a NATO military buildup would be “chiefly for the practical purpose of assuring adequate defense against internal subversion.”  The much greater support of  rightwing forces by the United States was, of course, not  a help to internal subversion,  and a threat to democracy; only possible Soviet  help to the left fit that category. (Recall Adlai Stevenson’s claim in the late 1960s that the resistance within South Vietnam by indigenous forces hostile to the U.S.-imposed minority regime was “internal aggression.”)

The non-German Western European elites were more worried about German revival and a German threat, and, like U.S. officials, were more concerned about keeping down the power of the left in Europe than any Soviet military threat—and the United States was pressing the Europeans to build  up their armed forces, and buy arms from U.S. suppliers! Although knowingly inflated or even concocted, the Soviet military threat was still very useful in discrediting the left by tying it to Stalin and bolshevism and an alleged Soviet invasion and  mythical world conquest program.

In fact, the Warsaw Pact was far more  a “defensive” arrangement than NATO; its organization followed that of  NATO and was clearly a response, and it was a structure of the weaker party  and with less reliable members.  And in the end, it collapsed, whereas
NATO was important in the long-term process of  destabilizing and dismantling the Soviet regime. For one thing,  NATO’s armament and strength were part of the U.S. strategy of forcing the Soviets to spend resources on arms rather than provide for the welfare, happiness and loyalty of their population. It also encouraged repression by creating a genuine security threat, which, again, would damage popular loyalty and the reputation of the state abroad.  Throughout this early period the Soviet leaders tried hard to negotiate some kind of peace settlement with the West, including giving up East Germany, but the United States and hence its European allies-clients would have none of it.

As noted, in the U.S. official–hence mainstream media– view, only Soviet intervention in Western Europe after World War II was bad and threatened “internal subversion.” But in a non-Orwellian world it would be recognized that the United States far outdid the Soviet Union in supporting not only “internal subversion” but also real terrorism in the years after 1945. The left had gained strength during World War II by actually fighting against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The United States fought against the left’s subsequent bids for political participation and  power by any means, including direct warfare in Greece and by massive funding of anti-left parties and politicians throughout Europe. In Greece it supported the far right, including many former collaborators with fascism, and succeeded in putting in place a nasty rightwing authoritarian regime.  It continued to support fascist Spain and accepted fascist Portugal as a founding member  of NATO, with NATO arms helping Portugal pursue its colonial wars. And the United States, the dominant NATO power,  supported rightwing politicians and former Nazis and fascists elsewhere, while of course claiming to be pro-democratic and fighting against totalitarianism.

Perhaps most interesting was the U.S. and NATO support of  paramilitary groups and  terrorism. In Italy they were aligned with state and rightwing political factions, secret societies (Propaganda Due [P-2]), and paramilitary groups that, with police cooperation,  pursued what was called a  “Strategy of Tension,” in which a series of terrorist actions were carried out that were blamed on the left. The most famous was the August 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station, killing 86. The training and integration into police-CIA-NATO operations of former fascists and fascist collaborators was extraordinary in Italy, but common elsewhere in Europe (for the Italian story, see Herman and Brodhead, “The Italian Context: The Fascist Tradition and the Postwar Rehabilitation of the Right,” in Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection [New York: Sheridan Square, 1986]. For Germany, see William Blum, on “Germany 1950s,” in Killing Hope [Common Courage: 1995]).

NATO was also linked to “Operation Gladio,” a program organized by the CIA, with collaboration from NATO governments and security establishments, that  in a number of European states set up secret cadres and stashed weapons, supposedly preparing for the threatened Soviet invasion, but actually ready for “internal subversion” and available to support rightwing coups. They were used on a number of occasions by rightwing paramilitary groups to carry out terrorist operations (including the Bologna bombing, and many terrorist incidents carried out in Belgium and Germany).

Gladio and NATO plans were also used to combat an “internal threat”  in Greece in 1967: namely, the democratic election of  a liberal government. In response, the Greek military put into effect a NATO “Plan Prometheus,”  replacing  a democratic order with a torture-prone military dictatorship. Neither NATO nor the Johnson administration objected. Other Gladio forces, from Italy and elsewhere, came to train in Greece during its fascist interlude, to learn how to deal with “internal subversion.”

In short, from its inception NATO showed itself to be offensively, not defensively, oriented, antagonistic to diplomacy and peace,  and intertwined with widespread terrorist operations and other forms of political intervention that were undemocratic and actual threats to democracy (and if traceable to the Soviets would have been denounced as brazen subversion). .

The Post-Soviet NATO

With the ending of the Soviet Union, and that menacing Warsaw Pact, NATO’s theoretical rationale disappeared.  But although that rationale was a fraud, for public consumption NATO still needed to redefine its reason for existence, and it also soon took on a larger and more aggressive role. With no need to support Yugoslavia after the Soviet demise, NATO soon collaborated with its U.S. and German members to war on and dismantle that former Western ally, in the process violating the UN Charter’s prohibition of  cross-border warfare (i.e., aggression).

Amusingly, in the midst of  the NATO bombing war against Yugoslavia, in April 1999, NATO held its 50th anniversary in Washington, D.C.,  celebrating its successes and with characteristic Orwellian rhetoric stated its devotion to international law while in the midst of its ongoing blatant violation of the UN Charter. In fact, the original  1949 NATO founding document had begun by reaffirming its members “faith in the UN Charter,” and in Article 1, undertaking, “as set forth in the UN Charter, to settle any international disputes  by peaceful means.”
The April 1999 session produced a   “Strategic Concept” document that laid out a supposedly new program for NATO now that its “mutual defensive” role in preventing a Soviet invasion had ceased to be plausible. (“The Alliance’s Strategic Concept,” Washington, D.C., April 23, 1999 (http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm )). The Alliance still stresses “security,” though it has “committed itself to essential new activities in the interest of a wider stability.” It welcomes new members and new “partnership” arrangements, though why these are necessary in a post-Cold War world with the United States and its closest allies so powerful is never made clear. It admits that “large-scale conventional aggression against the Alliance is highly unlikely,” but of course it never mentions the possibility of  “large-scale conventional aggression” BY members of the Alliance, and it  brags about the NATO role in the Balkans as illustrative of  its “commitment of a wider stability.”  But not only  was this Alliance effort a case of  legal aggression—“illegal but legitimate” in the Orwellian phrase of  key apologists–contrary to this paper, NATO played a major destabilization role in the Balkans, helping start the ethnic warfare and refusing to pursue a diplomatic option in Kosovo in order to be able to attack Yugoslavia in a bombing war that was in process while this document was being handed out. (For a discussion of the NATO role, see Herman and Peterson, “The Dismantling of Yugoslavia,” Monthly Review, Oct. 2007: http://monthlyreview.org/1007herman-peterson1.php )

“Strategic Concept” also claims to favor arms control,  but in fact from its very beginning NATO promoted more armaments, and all the new members like Poland and Bulgaria have been obligated to build up their “inter-operable” arms, meaning  getting more arms and buying them from U.S. and other Western suppliers. Since this document was produced in 1999, NATO’s leading member, the United States, has more than doubled its military budget and greatly increased arms sales abroad;  it has pushed further into space-based military operations; it has  withdrawn from the 1972 ABM treaty, refused to ratify the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty, and rejected both the Land Mine treaty and UN Agreement to Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms. With NATO’s aid it has produced a new arms race, which  many  U.S. allies and clients, as well as rivals and targets, have joined.

The 1999 document also claims NATO’s support for  the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but at the same time it  stresses how important nuclear arms are for NATO’s power—it therefore rejects a central feature of the NNPT, which involved a promise by the nuclear powers to work to eliminate nuclear weapons. What this means is that NATO is keen only on non-proliferation by its targets, like Iran. Nuclear weapons “make a unique contribution in rendering the risks of aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable.”  But if Iran had such weapons it could make “Alliance”  “risks of aggression”—which Alliance member the United States and its partner Israel have threatened—unacceptable. Obviously that would not do.

In its Security segment, Strategic Concept says that  it struggles for a security environment “based on the growth of democratic institutions and commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes, in which no country would be able to intimidate or coerce any other through the threat or use of force.”  The hypocrisy here is mind-boggling. The very essence of NATO policy and practice is to threaten the use of force, and U.S. national security policy is now explicit that it plans to maintain a military superiority and prevent any rival power from challenging that superiority in order to hold sway globally—that is, it plans  to rule by intimidation.

NATO now claims to threaten nobody, and even talks in Strategic Concept  about possible joint “operations” with Russia. Again, the hypocrisy level is great.  As we know, there was a U.S. promise made to Gorbachev when he agreed to allow East Germany to join with the West, that NATO would not  move “one inch” further East. Clinton and NATO quickly violated this promise, absorbing into NATO all the former  Eastern European Soviet satellites as well as the Baltic states. Only self-deceiving fools and/or propagandists  would not recognize this as a security threat to Russia, the only power in the area that could even theoretically threaten the NATO members. But Strategic Concept plays dumb, and only threats to its members are recognized.

Although “oppression, ethnic conflict” and the “proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” are alleged great concerns of  the new NATO, its relations with Israel are close, and no impediment whatsoever has been (or will be) placed on Israeli oppression, ethnic cleansing, or its semi-acknowledged substantial nuclear arsenal, and of course neither its war on Lebanon in 2006 nor its current murderous attacks on Gaza have impeded warm relations, any more than the US-UK unprovoked attack on Iraq reduced NATO-member solidarity. If Israel is a highly favored U.S. client, it is then by definition free to violate all the high principles mentioned by Strategic Concept. In 2008 NATO and Israel have signed a military pact, so perhaps NATO will soon be helping Israel’s “security” operations in Gaza. (In fact, Obama’s choice as National Security Adviser, James Jones, has over the past year or so been clamoring for NATO troops to occupy the Gaza Strip and even the West Bank. He is not a lone voice in the U.S. establishment).

The new NATO is a U.S. and imperial pitbull. It is currently helping rearm the world, encouraging the military buildup of  the  former Baltic and Eastern European Soviet satellites–now U.S. and NATO satellites–working closely with Israel as that NATO partner ethnically cleanses and dispossesses its untermeschen–helping its master establish client states on the Russian southern borders, officially endorsing the U.S. placement of  anti-ballistic missiles in Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel, and threateningly elsewhere, at a great distance from the United States,  and urging the integration of  the U.S. plans with a broader NATO “shield.” This virtually forces Russia into more aggressive moves and  accelerated rearmament (just as NATO did in earlier years).

And of course NATO supports the U.S. occupation of  Iraq. NATO secretary-general Scheffer regularly boasts that all 26 NATO states are involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom, inside Iraq or Kuwait.  Every single  Balkan nation except for Serbia has had troops in Iraq, and now has them in Afghanistan. Half of  the former Soviet Commonwealth of  Independent States have also provided troops for Iraq, with some of these also in Afghanistan. These are training grounds for breaking in and “inter-operationalizing” the new “partners,” and developing a new mercenary base for the growing “out of area” operations of NATO, as NATO participates more actively in the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As noted, NATO brags about its role in the Balkans wars, and both this war and the wars in Iraq,  Afghanistan and Pakistan have violated the UN Charter. Lawlessness is built-in to the new “strategic concept.”  Superceding the earlier (fraudulent) “collective self defense,”  the ever-expanding NATO powers give themselves the authority to conduct military campaigns “out-of-area” or so-called “non-Article V” missions beyond NATO territory.  As the legal scholar Bruno Simma noted back in 1999, “the message which these voices carry in our context is clear: if it turns out that a Security Council mandate or authorization for future NATO ‘non-Article 5′ missions involving armed force cannot be obtained, NATO must still be able to go ahead with such enforcement. That the Alliance is capable of doing so is being demonstrated in the Kosovo crisis.” (“NATO, the UN and the Use of Force: Legal Aspects,” European Journal of International Law, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1999, reproduced at http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol10/No1/ab1.html).

The new NATO is pleased to be helping its master project power across the globe. In addition to helping encircle and threaten Russia,  it pursues “partnership arrangements” and carries out joint military maneuvers with the so-called Mediterranean Dialogue countries (Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania and Algeria). And NATO has also established new partnerships with the Gulf Cooperation Council states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates), thereby expanding NATO’s military  ambit from the Atlantic coast of Africa to and throughout the Persian Gulf. In the same time frame there has been a unbroken series of NATO visits to and naval exercises with most of these new partners as well as (this past  year) the first formal NATO-Israeli bilateral military treaty.

The pitbull is well positioned to help Israel continue its massive law violations,  to help the United States and Israel threaten and perhaps attack Iran, and to enlarge its own cooperative program of  pacification of distant peoples in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and no doubt elsewhere—all in the alleged interest of peace and that “wider stability” mentioned in Strategic Concept.  NATO, like the UN itself, provides a  cover of seeming multilateralism for what is a lawless and virtually uncontrolled imperial expansionism.  In reality, NATO, as an aggressive global arm of  U.S. and other local affiliated imperialisms, poses a serious threat to global peace and security. It is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary, and while it should have been liquidated back in 1991, it has instead expanded,  taking on a new and threatening role traced out in  its 1999 Strategic Concept and enjoying  a frighteningly malignant growth.

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-the-imperial-pitbull/11989

The war on Yugoslavia and the U.S. regime change model — the real face of American “diplomacy”

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“The lethality of American ‘diplomacy’ and the uncountable costs that can be incurred from resisting Washington’s will.”

From Sputnik, March 25, 2014
By Andrew Korybko

The 16th anniversary of NATO’s War on Yugoslavia gives cause to reflect on what American ‘diplomacy’ is really all about.

The US has long trumpeted itself as the only paragon of virtue and ‘defender of freedom’ in the world, going into overdrive with this message in the years following the Cold War. Millions of people were duped during this time, but their illusions were quickly dispelled after the 1999 War on Yugoslavia.

This tragedy exposed the true face of American ‘diplomacy’ as a duplicitous front for pursuing predetermined geopolitical ends. The war wasn’t so much about a ‘humanitarian intervention’ (the reality surrounding which was grossly exaggerated by the Western media) as it was the establishment of a pro-Western proxy state in the heart of the Southern Balkans.

The War on Yugoslavia also marked a turning point where the US began ramping up its aggression all across Eurasia and perfecting the first actual version of Hybrid Warfare.

Uncle Sam’s Sins

The US did a lot of horrible things during its War on Yugoslavia, but here’s three of the most audacious:

Supporting Terrorism:

The so-called ‘Kosovo Liberation Army’ (KLA), the armed wing of Albanian nationalists fighting in the Serbian province of Kosovo, was deemed a terrorist organization by the Yugoslav authorities. UNSC Resolution 1160, which was supported by the US, even condemned the group for its terrorist activity and urged it to immediately halt such actions. Be that as it may, the KLA served an decisive role in destabilizing Serbia, and was thus not only supported by the US throughout the conflict, but its leader Hashim Thaci was even recognized by Washington as the province’s ‘Prime Minister’ afterwards.

Lying to the World:

The US tried to convince the world that the Albanians in Kosovo were experiencing genocide at the hands of the Serbs, but this was nowhere near the reality on the ground. Although some Albanians were certainly killed during their violent uprising against the federal government, Serbs were too, and neither demographic experienced the ‘tens of thousands’ of deaths that the State Department evoked as the US’ excuse for bombing Yugoslavia.

Tens of thousands of more people have died during Mexico’s drug war in recent years, for example, but America’s southern neighbor has yet to experience a ‘humanitarian intervention’.

Bombing Civilian Infrastructure:

The US-led NATO bombing campaign killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed apartment buildings, farms, schools, hospitals, churches, and bridges. The Pentagon’s explanation for such horrors (when it chose to address them) was that its ‘precision-targeted munitions’ malfunctioned, but the surviving victims refused to believe this.

BONUS: Bombing China And Getting Away With It:

The US hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade (officially recognized as the sovereign territory of the country, as is any state’s embassy abroad) on 7 May, 1999, killing 3 people and injuring about 20 others. One need only imagine the militant response from the Pentagon if the shoe was on the other foot.

The Foreign Policy Toolkit

The War on Yugoslavia represented the first testing ground for the application of the US’ integrated regime change strategy, however sloppily applied. It combined the following characteristics that would later be developed and perfected in forthcoming conflicts:

Unconventional War:

In order to stir up chaos and create a pretext for an ultimatum and eventual military intervention, the US supported the KLA during its terrorist war in the Serbian Province of Kosovo.

Ultimatum:

The US gave President Milosevic the ultimatum to pull all Yugoslavian police and army forces out of Kosovo Province or face the pulverizing consequences.

Conventional Intervention:

The destabilization came to a dramatic climax when NATO launched its ‘humanitarian intervention’ against Yugoslavia, which ultimately led to its fragmentation and destruction.

Color Revolution:

American intelligence services and Gene Sharp’s teachings organized and directed the Bulldozer Revolution of October 2000, which has since been acknowledged as the first Color Revolution.

Nowadays, the methods above have been perfected and patterned in the following order:

1. Ultimatum:

The US gives an explicit/public or implicit/behind-the-scenes ultimatum to a targeted country or leader. If they refuse and a ‘palace coup’ can’t be pulled off, then the next step is initiated.

2. Color Revolution:

This ‘street coup’ attempt seeks to oust the targeted country’s leadership through the carefully constructed façade of ‘people’s power’, whereby the international media is fed the misleading impression that the majority of a country’s citizens are revolting against their government. Other than the ultimatum or conventional coup, it’s the most cost-effective tool for regime change.

3. Unconventional War:

The third step can be evoked in the midst of the second one before turning into its own full-fledged destabilization when the Color Revolution fails. It capitalizes off of some of the social infrastructure built during the street coup attempt, and then arms the participants and encourages them to commit to terrorism and insurgency in overthrowing their government. Foreign mercenaries can also be involved.

4. Conventional Intervention:

While the previous two steps typically involve a deep level of covert commitment, the final step purposely brings the external destabilizer’s actions into the open by initiating an open war. This is the most expensive form of regime change, but is always clothed in grand ‘humanitarian’ or ‘democratic’ rhetoric to hide its true intent.

Where Are They Now?

Let’s take a look at the most notable example of each stage of the US’ regime change template and see how these countries have since coped with the Hybrid War waged against them:

Steps 1-2: Ukraine

The implicit ultimatum against President Yanukovych was that he had to sign the EU Association Agreement, and when he delayed doing so at the last minute, a Color Revolution was unleashed against him. In some ways, the urban terrorism of EuroMaidan even fulfills the requirements for Step 3.

Nowadays, the country lies in ruin and bankruptcy, and the oligarchs (Poroshenko and Kolomoiskyi) are poised to fight a fratricidal war amongst themselves at the expense of more Ukrainian lives.

Steps 1-3: Syria

President Assad refused to allow a gas pipeline from pro-American Qatar to transit Syrian territory en route to the Mediterranean, preferring instead to opt for the Friendship Pipeline with Iraq and Iran. As a punishment, Syria was thus dragged into the theater-wide ‘Arab Spring’ Color Revolutions spearheaded by the US, but when the people resolutely stood by their democratically elected leadership and secular authorities and refused to allow the street coup to succeed, an Unconventional War was unleashed on the country.

As it stands, the most notorious terrorists from every corner of the world have infested the country, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people and turning entire cities to rubble in their four-year-long rampage.

Steps 1-4: Libya

Muammar Gaddafi refused to fully integrate his country into the EU-led ‘Union For the Mediterranean’, instead choosing to remain an observer member. Despite having surrendered Libya’s weapons of mass destruction during an earlier ultimatum in 2007, Gaddafi’s reluctance to move forward with Euro-Mediterranean integration made him a marked man.

The US-organized ‘Arab Spring’ Color Revolutions subsequently targeted him in 2011, and events in the country quickly spiraled into Unconventional Warfare as terrorists surged into the main cities and started killing civilians and government representatives.

NATO decided to commence a bombing campaign against the country shortly thereafter under a false ‘humanitarian intervention’ pretext, which consequently destroyed the state’s social and physical infrastructure and turned it into the fearsome terrorist battleground that it is today.

Remember, these above-cited tragedies would not have been possible had it not been for the US’ War on Yugoslavia and the ‘perfection’ of the regime change techniques that were first applied there. It is for this reason that the memory of 24 March should serve as a somber reminder each year of the lethality of American ‘diplomacy’ and the uncountable costs that can be incurred from resisting Washington’s will.

http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20150324/1019950056.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-war-on-yugoslavia-the-real-face-of-american-diplomacy/5438961

A revolt that didn’t happen — Kolomoisky

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From Colonel Cassad, March 25, 2015

Several theses about the consequences of Kolomoisky’s defeat.

1. The resignation of Kolomoisky from the position of the governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region implies that there will be a reconfiguration of the political and economical field of the South-Eastern Ukraine. The chief jew-banderovite will be replaced by Rezhnichenko, who is a person from Poroshenko’s deck. Previously, he was given the Zaporozhye region to be his feeding ground. Some mistakenly believed that the reason of the conflict lies in the energy assets. However, the real reason is primarily the establishment of political control over the regions of the south-east, which where Kolomoisky previously reigned unchallenged. The permission from Washington was obtained for this process, which predetermined the rapid capitulation of Kolomoisky. This whole story shows how, by a single motion from Washington, can the intra-Ukrainian political alignment change and how far a regular Ukrainian is far from determining his fate and how little power even the bloodsuckers from the junta leadership actually wield over it.

2. Some mistakenly believe that Kolomoisky has some kind of clever plan, that he’ll go now and then he’ll emerge and… and then he’ll do something.
In the reality he will do nothing, after his resignation and Korban’s resignation (he also left today), Kolomoisky lost the abilities that he obtained by integrating into the government bureaucracy. If before the governors whom he appointed in the South-East went to bow before Kolomoisky in Dnepropetrovsk, now they’ll go to bow before Poroshenko in Kiev. The appointee of the head of Poroshenko’s administration now sits in the domain of the former master of the South-East. Palitsa in Odessa rushed to remove the visiting bandits from the city even before the resignation of Kolomoisky, which of course didn’t save the city from yet another showdown. On this background, quite concrete threats directed at Kolomoisky were sounded, which were much more substantial than his weak attempts of collecting signatures for the resignation of Nalivaychenko or of threatening with a maidan. Actually, the essence of these threats is simple: Kolomoisky, having relinquished his political power, must also relinquish his repression power by releasing the punitive troops who obey him and locking them onto the centralized structures of the SBU and the MIA. The bandit nature of these units won’t change, but they must now report not to Kolomoisky but to Avakov, Nalivaychenko, and Poroshenko. Correspondingly, if this scheme will be implemented (and I believe that it will be implemented), then Kolomoisky will become just a rich and influential person, but also somebody who has no ability of opposing Poroshenko in matters of policy of force.

3. Whether Kolomoisky will be able to keep “his precious” in the state assets will depend on the terms of his capitulation. A scenario in which Kolomoisky may be allowed to keep the control over “Ukrnafta” in exchange for obedience the transfer of punitive troops to the different owners without too much hassle. However, considering the peculiarities of the Ukrainian politics, they’ll probably try to utterly fleece Kolomoisky, taking revenge for all of his previous misdeeds. Thankfully, Kolomoisky made plenty of enemies in Ukraine. The “Privat” group itself is unlikely to be dismembered, because this may trigger the collapse of the already weakened “Privat-Bank”. However, its influence will likely be maximally restricted, with the intent of turning Kolomoisky into yet another “unpretentious oligarch”. Naturally, Kolomoisky will resist where he can in order to not permit the full collapse of his empire, but these will be precisely the rearguard skirmishes, when the main battle is already lost.

4. This story will obviously strengthen Poroshenko’s power, but to a limited degree, because Avakov, Yatsenyuk, and Nalivaychenko are at this moment only situational allies of Poroshenko in his fight with Kolomoisky. Also, the emergence if these allies was secured not by the influence of Poroshenko himself, but rather by the “goodwill” of Washington, which made a clear bet on Poroshenko and which suggested to Kolomoisky that he shouldn’t cross the true owners of the Ukraine. Hence the absence of revolts, maidans, and marches on Kiev, because this would imply taking a stand directly against Washington. This would be funny, considering the fact that Kolomoisky’s assets are located in the West. Kolomoisky is certainly a thug, but he is not a moron. So it was easier to lose power than it was to lose everything. Therefore, despite all of their noisy threats against Kiev, Kolomoisky and Korban casually surrendered their power today.

5. Strengthening of the central authority in Kiev will mean that the controllability of the processes in the South-East will increase because instead of the headstrong Kolomoisky and his appointees there will be mostly obedient Gauleiters sitting there, who will implement the general line of the Kiev junta. It is also guaranteed that the portion of grey business associated with the trade through the front line will now belong to the new masters of regions (this primarily has to do with semi-legal and illegal schemes of coal trading). The punitive battalions will be forced to report to the centralized structures — either the MIA or the SBU (the “Right Sector” militants will likely remain under Nalivaychenko, naturally nobody is going to let Yarosh in the General Staff now) with a more realistic operational control by sector commands. Also it is worth expecting the decrease of pressure on the General Staff and Muzhenko, because the informational attack on them was sponsored by Kolomoisky. Besides this, after the fall of Kolomoisky the traditional outflow of his former associates to the winning camp will start. Naturally, Kolomoisky, unless he will be fully destroyed, will keep a part of his political clutter in the form of the purchased MPs in the Verkhovnaya Rada. However, this will be more of a regular lobbyist group than an instrument for the struggle for power now. For Novorossia the fall of Kolomoisky and the centralization of the command over punitive battalions will imply that it will no longer be possible to underwrite the ongoing war on the designs of Kolomoisky and “uncontrolled battalions”. “Partner Pete” is now responsible for everything. On the other side, the centralization of control in Ukraine will more likely serve the goals of internal mobilization of the junta in the face of the next stage of the war. Little has actually changed for Novorossia, just like before her future will depend on the outcome of the military standoff against the AFU.

Should we sympathize with Kolomoisky? Of course, not. Along with Turchinov and Poroshenko, Kolomoisky is one of the most bloody junta bosses, who did much for the civil war to follow its bloodiest scenario. The exasperation of the war is in many ways due to precisely the activity of Kolomoisky, which led to the Odessa Khatyn, after which all of the remaining bridges were burned. In principle, I don’t abandon the hope that sooner or later justice will reach Kolomoisky, as well as other chiefs of a coup that ended with a civil war.

Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2107559.html (in Russian)

http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com/151381.html

U.S. House votes 348-48 to arm Ukraine; Russia warns lethal aid will “explode the whole situation”

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From Zero Hedge
By Tyler Durden
Posted on Global Research, March 26, 2015

Yesterday, in a vote that largely slid under the radar, the House of Representatives passed a resolution urging Obama to send lethal aid to Ukraine, providing offensive, not just “defensive” weapons to the Ukraine army – the same insolvent, hyperinflating Ukraine which, with a Caa3/CC credit rating, last week started preparations to issue sovereign debt with a US guarantee, in essence making it a part of the United States (something the US previously did as a favor to Egypt before the Muslim Brotherhood puppet regime was swept from power by the local army).

The resolution passed with broad bipartisan support by a count of 348 to 48.

According to DW,  the measure urges Obama to provide Ukraine with “lethal defensive weapon systems” that would better enable Ukraine to defend its territory from “the unprovoked and continuing aggression of the Russian Federation.”

“Policy like this should not be partisan,” said House Democrat Eliot Engel, the lead sponsor of the resolution. “That is why we are rising today as Democrats and Republicans, really as Americans, to say enough is enough in Ukraine.”

Engel, a New York Democrat, has decided that he knows better than Europe what is the best option for Ukraine’s people – a Europe, and especially Germany, which has repeatedly said it rejects a push to give western arms to the Ukraine army, and warned that Russia under President Vladimir Putin has become “a clear threat to half century of American commitment to an investment in a Europe that is whole, free and at peace. A Europe where borders are not changed by force.”

This war has left thousands of dead, tens of thousands wounded, a million displaced, and has begun to threaten the post-Cold War stability of Europe,” Engel said.

Odd, perhaps the US state department should have thought of that in a little over a year ago when Victoria Nuland was plotting how to most effectively put her puppet government in charge of Kiev and how to overthrow the lawfully elected president in a US-sponsored coup.

Then again, one glance at the Rep. Engel’s career donors provides some explanation for his tenacity to start another armed conflict and to escalate what he himself defines as a cold war into a warm one.

 

So what will Obama do? As a reminder, the president has been far more eager to sit this one out, and giving Europe the upper hand when it comes to the decision if and when to escalate the proxy civil war in Ukraine.  To be sure, the vote puts even more pressure on the Obama administration, which has repeatedly said it was considering providing lethal aid to Ukraine; it just never dared to actually pull the trigger. Several months ago, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey said we would “absolutely consider” providing lethal aid, sentiments that were echoed by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who said that he was also “inclined” in that direction.

Obama’s options may be even more limited after NATO’s top military commander General Philip Breedlove said Sunday that the West should “consider all our tools” to assist Ukraine, including sending defensive weapons to areas held by pro-Russian rebels.

For now the president is delaying because according to the State Department, the White House is waiting to see whether the second Minsk ceasefire will hold before deciding whether to deliver lethal assistance.

Ironically, the biggest stumbling block ahead of an outright overture to World War III, may be Hillary Clinton herself. The former SecState, currently embroiled in an e-mail communication scandal, was recently revealed to have been a recipient of some very generous foreign donations into the Clinton foundation: donations where Ukraine was at the very top!

 

Considering last week’s news of a just as dangerous cold war being waged between Obama’s right hand (wo)man, Valerie Jarrett, and the Clintons, it is perhaps just as likely that Obama, whose foreign policy team is absolutely abysmal and whose offshore “achievements” can best be described as a disaster, is not eager to get involved in Ukraine not so much to avert the cold war with Russia to turn hot, but to make Hillary’s life difficult as she launches her challenge to Obama’s favorite populist Elizabeth Warren.

Then again, when it comes to calling the foreign shots, the US president is merely a figurehead, and the real decision-maker has always been the US military-industrial complex. So while Obama may stall sending weapons, he will ultimately get a tap on the shoulder from the gentle folks shown on the table below, who will soon demand something in exchange for their millions in lobby funding.

The prepackaged spin is already ready: “sending weapons to the Kiev government would not mean involvement in a new war for America”, claimed the abovementioned Eliot Engel who sponsored the document. “The people of Ukraine are not looking for American troops,” Engel said. “They are just looking for the weapons.”

Beautiful. And if weapons the Ukraine wants, the US MIC will be delighted to provide them.

So the only question is how Russia will responds to this escalation: according to RT, “Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with ammunition and weapons would “explode the whole situation” in eastern Ukraine and Russia would be forced to respond “appropriately,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the end of February.

“It would be a major blow to the Minsk agreements and would explode the whole situation,” TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying.

In other words, bullish for stocks – just think of the central-bank monetary paradrops that World War III would unleash.

US House Votes 348-48 To Arm Ukraine, Russia Warns Lethal Aid Will “Explode The Whole Situation”

Agent Orange funding opens door to U.S. militarism and covert action In Vietnam

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Posted on Global Research, March 26, 2015

Is the United States finally accepting responsibility for the devastating ongoing effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam,

Or is this funding just a way to get USAID in the door to meddle in the country’s affairs as part of Obama’s “Asian Pivot” strategy?

Originally published by MintPress News.
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers 

Martin Dempsey

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, right, and Vietnamese Chief of General Staff of the Army, Lt. Gen. Do Ba Ty, left, during an honor guard review before their talks in Hanoi, Vietnam. The easing of an arms embargo against Vietnam and a military agreement with the Philippines show the Obama administration wants deeper security ties with Asia. On Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, the State Department announced it would allow sales, on a case-by-case basis, of lethal equipment to help the maritime security of Vietnam, easing a ban that has been in place since communists took power at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Hanoi welcomed the step, saying it would promote the U.S.-Vietnam partnership. 

The use of Agent Orange constitutes a war crime with devastating effects on the people in Vietnam not only during the war but even today. The U.S. military knew that its use of Agent Orange would be damaging, but, as an Air Force scientist wrote to Congress, “because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned.”

Ecocide was committed when “the U.S. military sprayed 79 million liters of herbicides and defoliants over about one-seventh of the land area of southern Vietnam.” The 2008-2009 President’s Cancer Panel Report found that nearly five million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in “400,000 deaths and disabilities and a half million children born with birth defects.”

In this photo taken on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, Le Van Tam, 14, is picked up by his father at a rehabilitation center in Danang, Vietnam. The children were born with physical and mental disabilities that the center's director says were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange. On Thursday, the U.S. for the first time will begin cleaning up leftover dioxin that was stored at the former military base that's now part of Danang's airport. (AP Photo/Maika Elan)

Le Van Tam, 14, is picked up by his father at a rehabilitation center in Danang, Vietnam. The children were born with physical and mental disabilities that the center’s director says were caused by their parents’ exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war. Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012. 

No one has been held accountable for this crime. U.S. courts have blocked lawsuits brought by the people of Vietnam, and the United States has never paid adequate war reparations to assist in caring for the victims of Agent Orange or to clean up the environment.

In recent years, however, the U.S. has begun to fund cleanup and treatment programs for Agent Orange victims. The timing of this change in policy comes as the U.S. military has been building a relationship with the Vietnamese military as part of the so-called “Asian Pivot.” Yet this relationship has been impaired by the United States’ failure to properly deal with Agent Orange.

Funding for Agent Orange damages is being used to open the door to greater U.S. military involvement and influence in the region, but it will also allow an expansion of U.S. covert operations in Vietnam that set the stage for the U.S. to install a “friendlier” government, if necessary for U.S. hegemony in the region.

This funding is coming through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has close ties to the CIA and a long history of covert intelligence and destabilization. Vietnam is experiencing a greater U.S. military presence along with USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, also known for fomenting regime change.

 Drawing Vietnam into US militarism

With its Asian Pivot, the U.S. intends to surround and isolate China by moving 60 percent of its Navy to the Asia-Pacific region, developing military agreements with countries there, and conducting joint military exercises with Pacific countries. The U.S. is also negotiating a massive corporate power-expanding treaty, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which excludes China.

Map of current US military deployments in S.E. Asia. (Courtesy of the Copyright Schiller Institute, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved.)

Map of current US military deployments in S.E. Asia. (Courtesy of the Schiller Institute, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved.)

Vietnam has been a focal point for the U.S. military since the end of the George W. Bush administration, a prelude to the Asian Pivotthat was formally announced by President Obama. For the last five years, the U.S. and Vietnam have been involved in joint military exercises. The U.S. has also started to sell weapons to Vietnam, seeking to transition the Vietnamese from Russian weapons to American weapons. And there has been a series of high-level meetings between the two countries.

In June 2013, The Diplomat reported, “the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff hosted the first visit by the Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army (and Deputy Minister of National Defense), General Do Ba Ty. Ty’s delegation included the commander of Vietnam’s Air Force and the deputy commanders of the Navy and General Intelligence Department. His trip included a visit to the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state suggesting future possible joint activities.”

On July 25, 2013 Obama met with President Truong Tan Sang in Washington to form a U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership, covering a range of concerns including war legacy and security issues. They agreed to cooperate militarily through the U.S.-Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue and the bilateral Political, Security, and Defense dialogue to discuss future military cooperation.

That meeting was followed by two high-level meetings between the U.S. and Vietnamese militaries. On Oct. 1, 2013 they held the 6th U.S.-Vietnam Political, Security and Defense Dialogue. The U.S. delegation included representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, USAID and the U.S. Pacific Command, while the Vietnamese delegation included representatives from the foreign affairs, public security and national defense ministries. The agenda included counterterrorism, counternarcotics, human trafficking, cyber law enforcement, defense and security, disaster response, search and rescue, war legacy and cooperation in regional organizations.

On Oct. 28 to 29, 2013 a second meeting was held in Washington. The 4th U.S.-Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue was a deputy minister-level meeting and involved officials from their respective defense ministries. The Diplomat reported that “both dialogues were held within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding on Advancing Bilateral Defense Cooperation signed on September 19, 2011 and the U.S.-Vietnam Joint Statement of July 25, 2013.”

“What was new?” The Diplomat continued. “The two sides agreed to step up cooperation between their navies and their respective defense academies and institutions.”

Yet the Vietnamese are continuing to move slowly in building a military relationship with the U.S. Vietnam limits the U.S. Navy to one port call per year and continues to bar U.S. Navy warships from entry to Cam Ranh Bay. Further, Vietnam has yet to approve a request made by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in June 2012 to set up an Office of Defense Cooperation in the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.

A key factor holding back a closer military relationship is the inadequate cleanup of Agent Orange and the United States’ insufficient commitment to dealing with war legacies. After the 4th Defense Policy Dialogue, Vietnamese Deputy Defense Minister Nguyen Chi told Voice of Vietnam, “A better defense relationship should be based on the efficiency of practical cooperation, including overcoming [the] war aftermath… General speaking (sic), the U.S. has offered Vietnam active cooperation in the issue, but it is not enough as the consequences of war are terrible.”

Bloomberg reported last year on the fifth year of joint military operations, tying them to the Asian Pivot: “Two U.S. Navy ships began six days of non-combat exercises with the Vietnamese military as the U.S. seeks to bolster its presence in Asia at a time of growing tension between China and its neighbors.” Lt. Comm. Clay Doss, a Navy public affairs officer, described the evolution, saying: “The quality and depth of the exchanges is increasing each year as our navies get to know each other better.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey visited Vietnam in August – the first visit of a Joint Chiefs chairman since 1971. Dempsey’s trip came amid an escalation in conflicts between China and Vietnam. Among other things, he visited a U.S. military base where toxic defoliants had been stored.

In October, the U.S. eased a ban on lethal weapons sales to Vietnam. The U.S. said the arms sales would improve the maritime military capabilities of Vietnam so it could be more effective in conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region. In December 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry announced $18 million in assistance to Vietnam to provide its coast guard with five unarmed, high-speed patrol boats.

An October commentary in the People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of China’s Communist Party, described these acts as destabilizing and “a clear extension of America’s interference with the balance of power in the region.” Maritime conflicts between Vietnam and China have been increasing as the U.S. adds military strength to Vietnam’s navy and coast guard. China maintains that disputes should be resolved through negotiations. Citing the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the Chinese side maintains that “related countries should solve maritime disputes peacefully.”

Meanwhile, in Vietnam there are also concerns about an escalation of disputes: “Some senior Vietnam Communist Party leaders have worried over the years that moving to upgrade military-to-military ties with the US would provoke China to increase its pressure on Vietnam and its assertiveness in the South China Sea.”

In addition to challenging China, the U.S. also seeks to undermine the relationship between Vietnam and Russia. Russia, an arch rival of the U.S., has been the main weapons supplier for Vietnam since 2009. The U.S. wants to reorient Vietnam’s military away from Russia, which holds multi-billion dollar arms sales contracts with Vietnam, including the sale of submarines and fighter jets.

Sputnik, a Russian government-owned news media outlet, reported earlier this month that the U.S. “bullied” Vietnam to stop allowing Russia to use the Cam Ranh Bay naval base. The State Department says it has “urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in the region.” Igor Korotchenko, director general of the Russian Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade, described the U.S. as stirring up tensions, instituting an arms race and creating regional instability.

Agent Orange funding a tool for US militarism — and what else?

A U.S. Air Force C-123 flies low along a South Vietnamese highway spraying Agent Orange on dense jungle growth beside the road to eliminate ambush sites for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, Air Force C-123 planes sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides over the jungles of Southeast Asia to destroy enemy crops and tree cover.

A U.S. Air Force C-123 flies low along a South Vietnamese highway spraying Agent Orange on dense jungle growth beside the road to eliminate ambush sites for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, Air Force C-123 planes sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides over the jungles of Southeast Asia to destroy enemy crops and tree cover.

The Vietnamese government told the U.S. that one thing preventing a closer relationship between the U.S. and Vietnamese militaries is the failure of the U.S. to deal with the lasting effects of Agent Orange. After 50 years of the Agent Orange crisis the U.S. is finally beginning to fund some cleanup efforts. This funding is coming from USAID, which has a sordid history of serving as a cover for U.S. militarism and the CIA in Vietnam and around the world.

In William Blum’s 2004 book “Killing Hope,” John Gilligan, director of USAID under the Carter administration, describes the depth of the CIA-USAID relationship: “At one time, many AID [USAID] field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind.”

Likewise, The Washington Post reported in 2010 that, “In South Vietnam, the USAID provided cover for CIA operatives so widely that the two became almost synonymous.”

During the Vietnam War, USAID operated a police training program that was tied to death squads. Former New York Times correspondent A. J. Langguth wrote that “the two primary functions” of the USAID police training program were to allow the CIA to “plant men with local police in sensitive places around the world,” and bring to the U.S. “prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees.”

The covert role of USAID has persisted. As The Washington Post reported in 2010, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta promised spies “new cover” for secret ops, and agencies that provide such cover include USAID and the State Department.

USAID has recently used health crises as cover for its covert operations. In 2011, Pakistan had a polio crisis, recording the highest number of polio cases in the world; it was a spiraling health catastrophe. USAID used a vaccination program organized by Save the Children, which had operated for 30 years in Pakistan, as cover to find Osama bin Laden.

The USAID-funded vaccination program used a Pakistani doctor and a local group, Lady Health Workers, to gain entrance to bin Laden’s home by going door-to-door to administer vaccinations. When vaccinations were administered to bin Laden’s children and grandchildren USAID tested the DNA of the used needles. It is likely that the doctor and two organizations were not aware they were being used by USAID. Save the Children staff members were expelled from Pakistan and the doctor was sentenced to 33 years in prison. His lawyer was murdered last week, and 74 health care workers have been killed since December 2012.

Last year, The Associated Press uncovered a USAID HIV-prevention program in Cuba used for covert operations. Beginning in October 2009, USAID, working through the Washington-based Creative Associates International, sent “Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled around the island scouting for people they could turn into political activists.” They created an HIV-prevention workshop that “memos called ‘the perfect excuse’ for the program’s political goals.” Cuba uncovered the covert mission when the youth were questioned about their funding.

David Shear Nguyen Chi VinhU.S. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear, center, and Vietnam’s Deputy Defense Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh, third left, along with delegates, attend a ceremony marking the start of a project to clean up dioxin left over from the Vietnam War, at a former U.S. military base in Danang, Vietnam Thursday Aug. 9, 2012. 

Noting that USAID has “a long history of engaging in intelligence work and meddling in the domestic politics of aid recipients,” Foreign Policy reported on another USAID program in Cuba, also exposed in 2014, where USAID covertly launched a social media platform in 2010, creating a Twitter-like service that would spark a “Cuban Spring.” The digital Bay of Pigs failed to spark a revolt, but it did expose the political leanings of 40,000 Cubans. This was reportedly not a CIA project, but a USAID project meant to undermine the Cuban government. Indeed, USAID has evolved to carry out its own meddling in the affairs of governments.

A 2006 State Department cable, released by WikiLeaks in 2013, outlined the United States’ strategy for undermining the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez by “Penetrating Chavez’ Political Base,” “Dividing Chavismo,” and “Isolating Chavez internationally.” The same office responsible for the digital Bay of Pigs in Cuba, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, also carried out the program in Venezuela.

Bolivia expelled USAID in 2013 because it was meddling in Bolivian politics. President Evo Morales was upset that USAID money reached lowland regional governments that attempted to overthrow him in 2008. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that USAID provided “$10.5 million for ‘democracy-building’ awarded to Chemonics International in 2006 ‘to support improved governance in a changing political environment.’” (Democracy development is a common cover for programs to foment rebellion.)

Bolivia is one of the many countries that have recently expelled USAID over the organization’s meddling in internal politics. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2013 that “about 50 countries have adopted laws to limit foreign funding of civic groups or more strictly control their activities. About 30 other countries are considering restrictions.”

Meanwhile, U.S. covert actions in Vietnam have not ended. A blogger and lawyer who spent a year in the U.S. as a fellow the National Endowment for Democracy was arrested in December 2012 for pro-democracy activities. The National Endowment for Democracy has been providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Vietnamese projects related to changing the government in recent years. USAID has a major presence with 38 ongoing projects in Vietnam.

It may be that regime change activities are already beginning in Vietnam. In 2014, there were large anti-China protests and attacks on Chinese businesses in Vietnam. Some speculated that the Vietnamese government was behind the protests, but David Koh, a reporter for Singapore’s Straits Times, who works with NGOs in Vietnam, interviewed officials and businessmen in Vietnam and reported that the government was surprised by the protests.

The protests were also against economic conditions and other issues in Vietnam, and it remains unclear who planned and funded the events. Researchers in Singapore who interviewed people on the ground in Vietnam wrote:

“A large number of Vietnamese flags and T-shirts had been purchased before the demonstrations suggesting that the attacks were not spontaneous. Even maps locating Chinese and Taiwanese factories had been photocopied in large numbers. The leaders of the riots have been reported to have been using walkie-talkies to communicate with each other. The fact that the violence affected as many as 200 factories in a single day already suggests that a high level of professionalism and organization was involved. This suggests that the riots were premeditated, although unlike the earlier peaceful demonstration of the patriots, they were not announced openly. Workers were believed to receive from VND50,000 to VND300,000 VND (equivalent to US$2.3 to US$14) to follow the agitators. This begs the question: where did the money come from?”

It’s important to note that people were paid more than a day’s labor to participate.

The Singapore researchers ultimately concluded that the Vietnamese government was the big loser:

“However, for now, the notion that the riots and violence were simply the result of a wave of blind nationalism and anti-Chinese sentiments must be re-examined. The current crisis presents major challenges for not only Vietnam-China relations, regional stability and ASEAN’s unity, but most of all, for Vietnam’s political system.”

Agent Orange Trojan Horse compounds war crimes

In addition to opening up Vietnam to a deeper relationship with the U.S. military – which is dangerous enough for Vietnam, China, Russia and the broader Asia-Pacific region – what else will USAID do with its foothold in Vietnam? As USAID so routinely involves itself in the affairs of foreign governments, it would be foolish to assume that USAID does not have other plans for Vietnam.

Rather than paying war reparations, the U.S. is using Agent Orange as a Trojan Horse to further U.S. militarization in Vietnam, escalate conflict with China and break the Vietnamese relationship with Russia. It may also be laying the groundwork for regime change if Vietnam does not comply as a tool of U.S. empire.

Vietnam should continue to demand war reparations that are adequate for the problems the U.S. created and keep the U.S. military at arm’s length. Vietnam should kick out USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, and demand that payments be made directly to Vietnam to keep U.S. meddling out of their country. Indeed, the U.S. should not be allowed to leverage the war crime of its use of Agent Orange as a tool for more U.S. militarism and intervention.

Agent Orange Funding Opens Door To US Militarism And Covert Action In Vietnam

http://www.globalresearch.ca/agent-orange-funding-opens-door-to-us-militarism-and-covert-action-in-vietnam/5438809

 

 

 

 

A veia terrorista de Barack Obama

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English translation: https://freeukrainenow.org/2015/03/25/the-terrorist-vein-of-barack-obama/

Resistir.info
por José Goulão
13/Março/2015

Depois de ter herdado, de início com algum pudor e sob outras designações, a guerra contra o terrorismo inventada pelo seu antecessor, Barack Obama não se limita a igualar George W. Bush no recurso a práticas terroristas como, em alguns casos – e não apenas o do record mundial de execuções extra judiciais cometidas com drones – consegue ultrapassá-lo.

A situação mais flagrante, e que contribuiu para demonstrar como os Estados Unidos são governados por um partido único, porque em matéria de violações dos direitos humanos não há quem consiga distinguir um democrata de um republicano, é a da proliferação de ameaças, tentativas e execuções de golpes de Estado.

No reinado de Obama a série faz corar de inveja alguns dos mais empedernidos falcões que passaram pela Casa Branca: Honduras, Paraguai, Ucrânia, Macedónia, Egipto, Qatar, Síria, Líbia, Iraque, Mali, República Centro Africana e, como não podia deixar de ser, Venezuela.

O assunto venezuelano poderá ter passado quase despercebido. Foi escondido para com isso se tentar abadar o fracasso da intentona, ou então explicado ao contrário através dos mecanismos censórios doutrinários que caricaturam o papel da comunicação social.

O golpe esteve marcado para 12 de Fevereiro, tentando reeditar a tragédia chilena de 1973, mas as autoridades venezuelanas anteciparam-se e puseram a nu um contexto através do qual se prova que em Washington não se olha a princípios nem a meios para alcançar os fins pretendidos, sempre apresentados, como é de bom-tom, como a instauração da democracia onde supostamente ela não existe.

Nesse dia 12 de Fevereiro, no quadro da chamada “Operação Jericó”, um bombardeiro Tucano ENB 312, já anteriormente envolvido num atentado contra dirigentes das FARC colombianas, deveria ter bombardeado o palácio presidencial de Caracas, a Assembleia Nacional, instalações da ALBA e a televisão TeleSur para instaurar um “governo de transição” a entregar a reconhecidos fascistas como António Ledezma, significativamente conhecido como “o vampiro”, Maria Corina Machado e Leopoldo Lopez. O avião, pintado com as cores da aviação venezuelana, pertence a um bando de mercenários integrado na máfia mundial dos exércitos privados e empresas de segurança que dá pelo nome de Academi e outrora se chamou Blackwater – de que todos já ouviram falar como um dos mais activos braços terroristas na invasão do Iraque. Empresa onde pontificam um ex-patrão da NSA (Agência Nacional de Segurança) e o ex-procurador geral da Administração Bush.

A trama da intentona conduz ao quartel-general de operações em Bogotá e ao comandante da operação, Ricardo Zuñiga, assessor de Barack Obama para a América Latina e também, porque quem sai aos seus não degenera, neto do presidente do Partido Nacional das Honduras que organizou os golpes fascistas de 1963 e 1972. Acresce que Washington recorreu a outsorcing para montar a operação, atribuindo ao Canadá a gestão dos aeroportos civis a utilizar, ao Reino Unido a propaganda e ao Mossad israelita as eliminações físicas consideradas necessárias. Ledezma, o “vampiro”, viajara recentemente a Israel, onde foi recebido afectuosamente por Netanyahu, Lieberman & Cia.

Como o golpe falhou e foi desmascarado, em 9 de Março Barack Obama accionou o estatuto que lhe permite declarar a Venezuela “uma ameaça contra a segurança nacional” dos Estados Unidos, previsto para os casos em que exista “uma extraordinária e invulgar ameaça à segurança nacional e à política externa, situação que deve ser tratada como uma emergência nacional”. Isto é, Barack Obama instaurou a estratégia terrorista de golpe de Estado permanente contra a Venezuela, alegando a corrupção dos dirigentes de Caracas e a violação dos preceitos democráticos.

Ironia do destino, um dos escolhidos para o tal “governo de transição”, o supracitado “vampiro” Ledezma, em tempos autor do “Caracazo”, massacre de centenas de estudantes que protestavam contra a austeridade, é o governador da região de Caracas, eleito através dos mecanismos de um regime que ele próprio e os seus tutores não consideram democrático.

Eis como Obama em nada se distingue dos mais tenebrosos falcões que passaram pela Casa Branca. Anote-se, por ser verdade, que na Venezuela, na Ucrânia, na Macedónia e onde quer que tal lhe convenha, o presidente dos Estados Unidos não tem qualquer pudor em recorrer a dirigentes e grupos de assalto nazi-fascistas desde que seja, ele o diz, para instaurar a democracia.

[*] Jornalista.

O original encontra-se em jardimdasdelicias.blogs.sapo.pt/a-veia-terrorista-de-barack-obama-748181

Este artigo encontra-se em http://resistir.info/ .
http://www.resistir.info/venezuela/goulao_13mar15.html     

The terrorist vein of Barack Obama

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Vein: a distinctive quality, style, or tendency.

synonyms: mood, frame of mind, temper, disposition, attitude, tenor, tone, key, spirit, character, fashion, feel, flavor, quality, atmosphere, humor, manner, mode, way, style

From resistir.info
By José Goulão
March 13, 2015
Rough translation of original article in Portuguese

Once you have inherited, at first with some modesty and under other names, the war against terrorism invented by his predecessor, Barack Obama is not limited to match George W. Bush in the use of practices of terrorism as in some cases – not just the world record of extrajudicial killings with drones – he can surpass it.

The most egregious situation, and contributing to demonstrate how the United States is governed by a single party, because in matters of human rights violations no one can distinguish a Democrat from a Republican, is the proliferation of threats, attempts and execution of coups d’etat.

In the reign of Obama the series makes blush with envy some of the most hardened hawks that passed in the White House: Honduras, Paraguay, Ukraine, Macedonia, Egypt, Qatar, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Mali, Central African Republic and, it could not be, Venezuela.

The subject Venezuelan may have passed almost unnoticed. It was hidden for with this if you try abadar the failure of the putsch, or explained to the contrary by the doctrinal censorial mechanisms that caricature the role of the media.

The coup was scheduled for February 12, trying to re-edit the Chilean tragedy of 1973 but the Venezuelan authorities anticipated up and laid bare a context through which it proves that Washington does not look at the beginning nor the means to achieve the purposes intended, always presented, as good manners, as the establishment of democracy which supposedly does not exist.

On this day February 12, as part of “Operation Jericho,” a Tucano ENB 312 bomber, already involved in an attack against the Colombian FARC leaders, should have bombed the presidential palace in Caracas, the National Assembly, ALBA facilities and the Telesur television to establish a “transitional government” to deliver the fascists recognized as Antonio Ledezma, significantly known as the “vampire”, Maria Corina Machado and Leopoldo Lopez. The plane, painted with the colors of the Venezuelan aviation, belongs to an integrated band of mercenaries in the world mafia of private armies and security companies by the name of Academi and once was called Blackwater – that everyone has heard one of the most active terrorist arms in the invasion of Iraq. Company where pontificate a former boss of the NSA (National Security Agency) and the former attorney general of the Bush administration.

The plot of the putsch leads to the headquarters operations in Bogota and the operation commander, Ricardo Zuñiga, an adviser to Barack Obama for Latin America and also because those who leave with their non-degenerate, president of the grandson of the Honduras National Party that organized the fascist coups of 1963 and 1972. Moreover, Washington resorted to outsourcing to mount the operation, giving Canada the management of civil airports to use, the UK advertising and the Israeli Mossad physical deletions deemed necessary. Ledezma, “vampire”, recently traveled to Israel, where he was received warmly by Netanyahu, Lieberman & Cia.

As the coup failed and was exposed, on 9 March Barack Obama triggered the statute that allows you to declare Venezuela a “threat to national security” of the United States, provided for cases where there is “an extraordinary and unusual security threat national and foreign policy, a situation that should be treated as a national emergency.” That is, Barack Obama brought the terrorist strategy of permanent coup against Venezuela, claiming the corruption of leaders of Caracas and the violation of democratic principles.

Ironically, one of the chosen for such a “transitional government”, the aforementioned “vampire” Ledezma in time author of the “Caracazo” massacre of hundreds of students protesting against austerity, is the governor of the region of Caracas, elected through the mechanisms of a system that he and his tutors do not consider democratic.   Here’s how Obama is no different of the darkest hawks passed by the White House. Record yourself, to be true, that in Venezuela, Ukraine, Macedonia and wherever such suits him, the US president has no qualms about resorting to leaders and Nazi-fascist assault groups provided that, he says, it is to introduce democracy.

 

Original source: jardimdasdelicias.blogs.sapo.pt/a-veia-terrorista-de-barack-obama-748181

http://www.resistir.info/venezuela/goulao_13mar15.html

War Reparations and Germany’s 1952 Debt Reduction Plan

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This is in addition to the huge sums that Germany owes Greece.

Posted on Global Research
Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt
5 March 2015
by Oscar Ugarteche

The largest debt problems in terms of GDP faced in financial history have belonged either to the United States or to European Governments. Large debt problems in developing and emerging nations have usually stemmed out of a drop in GDP size due to a fall in export earnings and a rise in interest rates. The reason is that creditors stop lending at a certain point and start restructuring existing debt which leads to debt growth but it is not really new lending. In major nations, lending goes on as the strategic reason for borrowing has normally been justified: a war. As a result, the leading debt reduction and innovative management schemes are related to these.

Contrary to the impression generated by extensive works on the Latin American and African debt, it is the under researched European and US historical debt that must be looked into in order to understand some historical solution patterns to debt problems. Current European very high debt levels (over 90% of GDP) are due partially to accumulated current account deficits of over 3% of GDP for over a decade plus the cost of bank rescues in 2009-2010 plus some countercyclical policy costs. Greece has additional debt due to major infrastructure works. It entered the Euro with a high debt level (around 100% of GDP) but the total GDP amount shrunk 33.3% from 55,318 million euros to 36,866 million euros in constant terms between 2007 and 2013 as a result of austerity policies. |1| If GDP had remained stagnant, the index would be 131% and not 174.9% and rising.

Historically the debt that arose from the Confederate States of the United States was not recognised by the US Federal Government and was subject to complicated negotiations with British private bondholders until the late 1920’s when it was finally agreed that it would not be repaid. (Corporation of Foreign Bondholders, First Annual Report of the Council, London, February, 1904 and Fifty Seventh Annual of the Council, London, 1930) What was agreed finally in the League of Nations was that State debts have always to be guaranteed by the National Governments in order for creditors to be able to collect their debts.

The debt discussion revived after WWI, as the European war was financed locally in each country and internationally by the United States from 1915 onwards. This implied two things: first, the UK borrowed from the United States and onlent to third parties; and secondly the warring countries additionally borrowed directly from the US. At the end of the war this had to be solved somehow in order for those countries to recover growth. This is dealt with in H. Fisk’s The Inter Ally Debts. An Analysis of War and Post War Public Debts. New York, Banker’s Trust, 1924. Germany was not able to float bonds in New York after the War was declared so they only borrowed in Marks and dealt with through hyperinflation that did away with most of its value in 1922-1923.

Another aspect of the German debt was the introduction of reparation payments that although just from an ethical point of view, were extremely large for the economic capacity of the country as Keynes pointed out in his Economic Consequences of the Peace. According to Professor Albrecht Ritschl |2| from the LSE Germany managed to keep afloat borrowing money from the US during the 1920’s. The two largest loans are the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan but there were other loans adding up to 840.7 million dollars in 1939. The Young Plan contained massive debt reduction. Reparations payments were never met in full in the 1920’s and were suspended in 1932. They were reinitiated in 1990 without any readjustment in value after the reunification. The last quota was paid in 2010. |3|

In October 1929, U.S. President Hoover, under pressure from US academia, announced the creation of a Hoover Year that was meant to restructure debts payments due from July 1, 1931 to June 30, 1932, into ten yearly quotas. The mechanism would be in place as long as it was needed. The object was to relieve the UK from its payments to the US and to transfer this benefit on to the other allies that in turn would transfer them to German reparations. This relief was later eschewed by Chancellor Hitler who, after winning the elections, declared a debt cease payment in June 1933.

After WWII, in May 1951 a tripartite commission was formed by the US. UK and France in order to discuss post war and pre war debts. All creditors met in London in July 1951 to see what to do with the German debts and the solution proposed by Germany and widely accepted by the US and UK was that as Germany was divided into two, the debt would have to be divided equally and only 50% of the total public debt would be negotiated. Reparations would not be restored until after reunification. The other half would be left for negotiations also after the reunification, someday.

The Tripartite Commission announced that they were prepared to make important concessions in terms of the amounts and priorities of their claims some referred to post war assistance (1945-1951), making it clear that post war debts were conditioned by satisfactory and equitable agreement on pre-war debt. The amounts owed in 1939 were: 840.7 million dollars, 51.5 million pounds and 2,775.2 million French Francs, to name the debts of the leading three creditors. In 1939 constant US dollars the equivalent would be 206 billion dollars.

This plus the debt to the other 67 countries was reduced first by 50% and then the remaining 50% was reduced by half and made payable over a 25 year period (1953 to 1979). More interestingly, when the German unification finally came about, The German Federal Government demanded that the winning countries (of WWII) do not place a debt burden on the defeated countries, I.E. on East Germany. If they had respected the 1953 London agreement it would have meant recognising the other 50% of the debt and doping something with it. Instead, Germany was given a massive debt reduction in exchange for restoring reparations payments without any adjustment in value.

The German people should be grateful and remember the massive debt reductions and the concessional terms it received in time of need and despair after World War II. No one at the time either in the US, UK nor France, to name the three largest creditors, said “the taxpayers were unwilling to bail out those people.” History serves a purpose and we should all learn from it.

Source : Alainet

Oscar Ugarteche, a Peruvian economist, is the Coordinator of the Observatorio Económico de América Latina (OBELA), IIE-UNAM, Mexico – www.obela.org. Member of the SNI/Conacyt and president of ALAI. His most recent book is Arquitectura Financiera Internacional: una Genealogía de 1850-2008, México DF., IIEC-UNAM, 2014. 392pp. The material presented here uses that source except when stated otherwise.

http://cadtm.org/The-Debt-Reduction-Germany

http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-reparations-and-germanys-1952-debt-reduction-plan/5438502

IMF: Ukraine must now steal $1.5 Billion+ from Russia to buy weapons

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Originally from Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten
March 24, 2015
Posted on Global Research

IMF: Ukraine will not pay back [part of] its debts to Russia

German Economic News  |  Published: 03/24/15 00:25 clock [Translation, and interspersed notes, by Eric Zuesse.]

In December, a multi-billion-dollar loan [variously stated as $3-$3.5 billion] to Ukraine comes due, which Ukraine had received from Russia. The IMF has provided a new debt plan, however, dictating that existing loans to Ukraine that have an expiration-date are to be subjected to a haircut. Thus, the resource gap of the country totaling $40 billion is to be reduced.

Since the crisis, Ukraine has received several loans from the IMF and the EU [and the U.S.]. These loans must be repaid in a few years from now. However, the financial situation of the country remains vulnerable. Over the next four years overdue loans totaling $15 billion need to be paid [they’re mostly loans from Russia]. Only three billion of them are an old loan Russia that has to be paid in December of this year. The IMF might prevent it [from being repaid in full, even though it has seniority over the new loans that are coming from the West].

The IMF has developed a program for Ukraine, under which the current financial hole is to be filled in the amount $40 billion. The due debts [the senior debt] are part of the plan, and will be restructured, according to the IMF. Exactly how it is to happen, the IMF does not explain. Experts say that the IMF believes that Russia should participate in a haircut. The Financial Times reports [“Bailout projections indicate Ukraine will not repay Russia debt” 5:21 PM, 22 March 2015] that the IMF requires that Russia’s $3.5 billion bond issue be included in the restructuring. Charles Blitzer, a former IMF employee, has informed the FT of this.

However, Blitzer is uncertain how large the haircut will be. ”It is up to the Ukrainian authorities to determine the extent and nature of the debt restructuring,” he said. [In other words: the IMF will grant Ukraine the right to determine how much of that $3-3.5B will be repaid to Russia. The Kyiv Post puts it this way: “Kyiv does not intend to fully repay a $3 billion bond owed to Russia this year according to official projections underpinning Ukraine’s new international bailout, say credit experts.”] Government sources close to the matter estimate that there will be a planned debt reduction of 50 percent. ”But creditors would rather try to agree on a term extension,” said Blitzer.

Whether all international creditors will accept a haircut, and if so, to what extent, is not yet clear. Last week, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanow said that Russia still expects that the $3.5B debt will be repaid this December in full. And Franklin Templeton [Funds], the largest bondholder of Ukraine, has brought in Blackstone legal help for debt negotiations.

Last week, the Ukrainian Finance Minister [the American] Natalija Jaresko told the WSJ that so far pledged loans to Ukraine [$40B] will not be enough to bring Ukraine back onto its feet. ”The package will stabilize the banking system, but it is not enough to seriously re-stimulate growth,” said Jaresko. ”I need more support.” She said that no nation currently pays more to protect the entire world from a nuclear power [Russia] than does Ukraine, and that, “if our partners, for whatever reason, are not able to assist us with defensive military means, then they should provide us more financial assistance [so that we can buy the weapons against Russia ourselves].”

This past Friday, the Ukrainian central bank had to explain why three of Ukraine’s banks were being declared insolvent. The VAB Bank, Astra Bank and the City Commerce Bank are now deprived of their licenses. At the same time, Ukraine is already planning an expansion of military resources. In sum, for the year of 2015, a total of $3.8 billion will be spent on armaments. [This by a country that cannot even pay its bondholders, when all of the new Ukrainian bonds are actually paying only for Ukraine’s war against the residents of its own former Donbass region.]

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/imf-ukraine-must-now-steal-1-5-billion-from-russia-to-buy-weapons/5438508