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Who are the oligarchs? Kolomoisky, Tymoshenko, and others

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From Washington’s Blog, May 18, 2014
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/key-man-behind-may-2nd-odessa-ukraine-trade-unions-building-massacre-many-connections-white-house.html

The key person behind the May 2nd massacre inside Odessa’s Trade Unions Building appears to have been Ihor Kolomoyskyi

who was appointed to be the regional governor in that area by Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukrainian Presidential candidate that the Obama Administration has apparently been hoping will win the May 25th election to take over the Ukrainian Government, from the junta that the Obama Administration imposed in Ukraine on February 22nd. Just weeks before this coup, on February 4th, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Asia, Victoria Nuland, chose Tymoshenko’s ally Arseni Yatsenyuk to head the post-coup interim government, which appointed Kolomoyskyi.

Only a few months before this coup, Nuland had asserted that U.S. taxpayers had already invested more than $5 billion, in order to bring “democracy” to Ukraine, by which she was referring to the U.S. effort to oust the Russian-oriented, democratically elected, leader of Ukraine, President Viktor Yanukovych, who had prosecuted and imprisoned Tymoshenko for embezzlement and abuse of governmental office. Tymoshenko was then on 11 October 2011 sentenced to seven years in prison, and was ordered to pay the government restitution of $188 million. She was released from prison less than three years later, two days after the coup, on 24 February 2014. The Ukrainian criminal code was immediately changed, in order to legalize the actions for which Tymoshenko had been imprisoned. This allowed Tymoshenko to run for the Ukrainian Presidency. She had been Prime Minister 2007-2010. Both she and her husband, Oleksandr Tymoshenko, and his father, all three of whom were on the board of United Energy Systems of Ukraine (and thus Ms. Tymoshenko was called “the gas princess”), have been legally prosecuted as embezzling state funds; but so have most of Ukraine’s oligarchs and political leaders (and there’s a lot of crossover between those two categories).

Kolomoyskyi, who lives in Geneva Switzerland, is generally regarded as the second-richest man in Ukraine, with a fortune estimated at about $6 billion. Tymoshenko used to be called “the Eleven Billion Dollar Woman,” but, like all of Ukraine’s oligarchs (including Kolomoyskyi), nobody really knows precisely how wealthy she is, nor even whether she is more, or perhaps less, wealthy than Kolomoyskyi. Almost all of the oligarchs’ money is hidden offshore; so, is invisible.

Most of Ukraine’s oligarchs live in Geneva (like Kolomoyskyi), London (like the Tymoshenkos’ daughter, Yevhenia), NYC, Rome, and other Western cities, and they tend to stash their money in secret bank accounts in tax-haven countries, not only in order to avoid paying taxes, but also in order to make more difficult their being successfully sued by each other, for violating handshake business deals that had helped them to become so rich. After all, illegal contracts cannot be enforced by any legal government (since they’re illegal, and have secret illegal terms). Thus, other means than written contracts — handshake deals — are resorted to between these aristocrats.

For example, in one such case, a Ukrainian oligarch who lives in London, Victor Pinchuk (whose fortune is around $4 billion), is suing Kolomoyskyi by alleging him to have sold him a company, “KZhRK,” for $143 million, and then to have re-seized it from him by force of arms. As is usual (since virtually all of Ukraine’s oligarchs had become oligarchs from the privatizations, or sell-offs of government assets, which accompanied Ukraine’s abandonment of communism), this case hinges on verbal testimony, and the various parties to the case contradict each other. Kolomoyskyi is well known for taking over corporations through his team entering with guns drawn. Pinchuk claims that when Kolomoyskyi did that here, Pinchuk nonetheless, somehow, managed to get Kolomoyskyi to restore Pinchuk to control, but that Pinchuk later discovered “it appears that they may have sold approximately 50% of KZhRK to a third party in 2007″; so, Pinchuk filed suit against Kolomoyskyi, in London, on this murky case.

According to a summary by wikipedia of several news reports: “Kolomyski has used [his banking company] Privat’s ‘quasi-military forces’ to enforce hostile takeovers of companies, sending a team of ‘hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber bullet pistols and chainsaws’ to forcibly take over a Kremenchuk steel plant in 2006,[17] and has used ‘a mix of phony court orders (often involving corrupt judges and/or registrars) and strong-arm tactics’ to replace directors on the boards of companies he purchases stakes in.[18] Kolomyski was criticized by Mr Justice Mann in a court case in London involving an attempted hostile takeover of an oil company, with the judge stating that Kolomyski had ‘a reputation of having sought to take control of a company at gunpoint in Ukraine’.”

Consequently, the reports of Kolomoyskyi’s tactics against the Ukrainians who refuse to be ruled by the Obama-installed government in Kiev seem to be consistent with this oligarch’s violent norm. Oriental Review headlined on 14 May 2014, “Bloodbath in Odessa guided by interim rulers of Ukraine,” and reported that, “The information provided below was obtained from an insider in one of Ukraine’s law-enforcement agencies, who wished to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.” The account there is a more detailed one than has ever before appeared, and it’s consistent with those others (such as this and this). It alleges that:

“Ten days before the tragedy a secret meeting was held in Kiev, chaired by the incumbent president Olexander Turchinov [a long-time political ally and business-partner of Tymoshenko; he had destroyed crucial documents in the government’s case against Tymoshenko], to prepare a special operation in Odessa. Present were minister of internal affairs Arsen Avakov [a gangster who was placed on Interpol’s ‘Wanted’ list on 21 March 2012], the head of the Ukrainian Security Service Valentin Nalivaychenko [a long-time NATO agent], and the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Andriy Parubiy [co-founder of Ukraine’s National Socialist, or Nazi, Party]. Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskiy, the Kiev-appointed head of regional administration of the Dnepropetrovsk region, was consulted in regard to the operation [he being well-experienced in violent operations].

“During that meeting Arsen Avakov … reportedly came up with the idea of using football [soccer] hooligans, known as ‘ultras,’ in the operation. Ever since his time as the head of the Kharkov regional administration he [Avakov] has worked closely with the fans’ leaders, whom he continued to sponsor even from his new home in Italy.

“Kolomoisky temporarily delivered his private ‘Dnieper-1′ Battalion under the command of law-enforcement officials in Odessa and also authorized a cash payment of $5,000 for ‘each pro-Russian separatist’ killed during the special operation. [That would be over $500,000, lent by his bank to the Ukrainian Government, to pay for the estimated 116 corpses thus produced.]

“Mykola Volkov [Captain Mykola Volkov Nikolaevich, born 1981 Odessa] was wanted by the Ukrainian police since 2012 for fraud. A couple of days before the operation in Odessa Andriy Parubiy brought dozens of bullet-proof vests to local ultra-nationalists. This video shows an episode of handing the vests to the local Maidan activists in Odessa. Take note of the person who receives the load. He is Mykola Volkov, a local hard-core criminal who would be repeatedly screened [filmed] during the assault on Trade Unionist House gun-shooting at the people and reporting about the ‘incident’ by phone to an official in Kiev.”

This video is one of several that show “Mykola” at various stages during the May 2nd massacre.

Basically, the Kiev regime bussed in far-right or “Pravy Sektor” people, in civilian clothes, to pretend to be separatists and shoot at crowds of people who were supporting a soccer team from the western part of Ukraine and now leaving a soccer match. Whatever members of the local police force hadn’t quit it in protest against the scheme were now employed to bring these enraged western Ukrainian, pro-Kiev, soccer fans to the encampment of the anti-Kiev demonstrators at the Trade Unions Building, to join in setting it ablaze. As indicated in some of the videos (such as this), part of the preparation in advance of the arrival of these enraged western soccer fans was the burning of the tents in front of the Trade Unions Building, where literature had been distributed against the Kiev regime. Regime agents pretended to support the protesters inside those tents, and warned those anti-Kiev people that attackers were coming, and that they’d better go into the building for their own safety. Then, the attackers came and set fire to the tents, and threw firebombs into the building. However, even before many of the anti-Kiev people were incinerated, the regime’s gunmen entered the building’s basement where many of those protesters were hiding, and shot as many of them as they could. Most of the corpses were dragged out and taken away in vans, but the victims on the upper floors were later counted by the police, who announced that 46 people were killed. The actual number is indeterminate, but generally estimated at over a hundred: the number most often cited is 116.

Here is a summary of many of the best videos that were taken of these events and uploaded to youtube. It shows the best-documented massacre in all of history.

Commissioning this massacre wasn’t out of character for Tymoshenko. For example, on 24 March 2014, she was caught, for the umpteenth time, urging the extermination of Ukrainian Russians, and even of all Russians. She said in a tapped phone call, “They must be killed with nuclear weapons.” She seems to have meant this for Russia itself, not just for Russians living in Ukraine: “I’ll use all my connections, I’ll raise the whole world — as soon as I’m able to — in order to make sure.. Bugger! … even scorched earth won’t remain where Russia stands.” So, she was as anti-Russian as a person can be. Perhaps she believes that Obama will unleash nuclear weapons against Russia.

Despite the U.S.’s apparent hopes for Tymoshenko to win in the upcoming May 25th Presidential election, current polls show her as only a weak third, perhaps because most Ukrainians don’t want a President who is as corrupt as virtually all previous leaders (including their former Prime Minister Tymoshenko) have been. The person currently leading in the polls is Petro Poroshenko, the owner of Roshen Confectionery Corporation, Ukraine’s giant choclatier, whose fortune is only around $1 billion. Most of the other oligarchs are in industries such as banking, oil, and heavy industries, such as coal and steel; Poroshenko is unusual in this regard — he didn’t get his fortune from privatizations.

The oligarchs also own all of the country’s airlines (most of which are owned by Kolomoyskyi), and the news media, as well as the banks. Poroshenko, if he is allowed to win on May 25th, might try to restrain the Obama-installed oligarchic forces, but it would require great courage for him even to try to do that, and it would almost certainly fail.

The richest person in Ukraine is generally thought to be Rinat Akhmetov, whose fortune is estimated at around at $12 billion to $24 billion; and he, too, has not committed himself as of yet, except to say that the Ukrainian federation must not break up (which would decimate his export businesses). No one knows how he “earned” his fortune, but it was in the privatizations. He is currently on the fence, because most of his exports and imports have been to and from Russia. But he also relies heavily upon the Ukrainian Government; he is certain to lose from what’s now happening.

Whomever is declared the winner on May 25th, will be taking over a government that’s overwhelmingly being run, at present, by conservative extremists. Now that Obama has placed those individuals so firmly in charge, any path back away from the far right, for Ukraine, will be extremely difficult, at best.

WHY THIS IS HAPPENING

The reason why the Kiev government is ousting Russian-speaking Ukrainians from government buildings in the east is to retain control of the east. CNBC had headlined on May 1st, just the day before these massacres, “IMF warns Ukraine on bailout if it loses east” and reported: “‘This is something of a leap of faith for the IMF and is politically driven by key IMF shareholders [the international aristocracy in the U.S and Europe] to support the (interim prime minister Arseniy) Yatseniuk ‘kamikaze’ administration in its reform efforts,’ according to Tim Ash, head of emerging markets research at Standard Bank.”

That “kamikaze” term there was referring to the following: Euronews on February 27th had bannered “Ukraine’s New Premier Suggests Sacrifices Are Unavoidable.” When Nuland’s choice, the far-right economist “Yats,” became the appointed interim leader, he immediately said: “We need to form a responsible government — and it’s not about personalities, this is about responsibility. You know, to be in this government is to commit political suicide. And we need to be very frank and open. This is the political suiciders.” He was looking to impress the lenders by imposing “austerity” on his country, so that when he’d retire from government, he’d be able to cash in for his having served not Ukrainians, but the corrupt Western lenders to the corrupt former Ukrainian political leaders, who had bought the votes of Ukrainians by this borrowed money, in order to get themselves into positions to skim money from this government that they ran.

Inasmuch as Ukraine’s oligarchs have their billions stashed away in places like Switzerland, it’s clear who will probably end up paying for these billions that they had skimmed off from lenders in Europe and the United States. The masses of Ukrainians obviously will take the losses, if the plan of the IMF and U.S. succeeds. That’s what the Ukrainian civil war is actually all about: getting the Ukrainian public to pay the losses that prior Ukrainian governments had engendered from Ukraine’s monumental corruption, a money-funnelling operation, from the masses to the classes.

How gigantic is Ukraine’s corruption? According to the World Economic Forum, in their “Global Competitiveness Report, 2013-2014,” Ukraine ranks #122 out of the 148 rated nations for “Diversion of public funds,” #143 for “Property rights,” #139 for “Judicial independence,” #130 for “Irregular payments and bribes,” #133 for “Favoritism in decisions of government officials” (otherwise known as cronyism), #143 for “Wastefulness of government spending,” #144 for “Efficiency of legal framework in settling disputes,” #146 for “Efficiency of legal framework in challenging regs,” #146 for “Protection of minority shareholders’ interests,” and #133 for “Reliability of police services.” In other words: it’s already like failed states.

And, going forward, the Ukrainian public won’t even have the poor government services that they’ve had up till now.

Ukraine will then be a libertarian paradise, assuming that this operation succeeds. The government will serve only the “job creators,” nobody else. No more “socialism,” except of the “National Socialist” type. [Note from Washington’s Blog: We disagree with Mr. Zuesse’s reflexive rejection of libertarianism.  We believe that some libertarians are highly-principled, while others are corrupt and cynical. Indeed, we believe that is true of all “isms”.]

On 12 May 2014, Burisma Holdings announced, “Hunter Biden Joins the Team of Burisma Holdings,” and reported that, “Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, has expanded its Board of Directors by bringing on Mr. R Hunter Biden as a new director. R. Hunter Biden will be in charge of the Holdings’ legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations.”

The company’s holdings were in eastern Ukraine; so, the operation by Obama and the IMF would need to succeed in order for this appointment to make Hunter Biden a very rich man.

That could be very rich indeed. On 26 August 2012, the Anticorruption Action Center had headlined “Kings of Ukrainian Gas,” and reported that the chief of the Zasyadko gas mine had requested President Viktor Yanukovych to privatize the mine, and Yanukovych responded, “Put the gas deposits in your name, and hand half of them over to Oleksandr [Yanukovych’s son]. Then we’ll give you the mine.” So: “On November 19, 2010, the State Property Fund of Ukraine approves Order No.1710 on the privatization of the O.F. Zasyadko mine. A month later, on December 22, 2010, the government approves a decision to hand nine oil and gas fields in Eastern Ukraine to the Zasyadko mine without organizing tenders. … And the mine then transferred four of them to Inter-Regional Gas Company LLC in Donetsk in 2011.” Then, “In May this year, Inter-Regional Gas Company LLC received the Baranykivska field free-of-charge from the Luhansk Regional Council for exploration and extraction of gas. According to our sources, the company, closely associated with Oleksandr Yanukovych, will soon get five more licenses.” So, Yanukovych’s son was set to become an oligarch. But, “In fact, the tastiest and largest morsels (gas fields) were obtained not by the president’s son, but by a more experienced businessman – Ihor Kolomoisky.” A certain Mr. “Zlochevsky, former Minister of Environment and Natural Resources,” had set up “a Cypriot company – Burisma Holdings Limited,” and placed in it “the largest Ukrainian gas field – Sakhalinska,” owned by an entity, “Ukrnaftoburinnya,” and, in turn, “Ukrnaftoburinnya is owned by a Cypriot company, Deripon Commercial Ltd.” But, “In fact, the end owner of Deripon Commercial Ltd. is a company based in the British Virgin Islands – Burrad Financial Corp. This company has often been involved in various financial schemes of the Privat Group and especially with Ihor Kolomoisky.” In fact, “The Privat Group is the immediate owner” of the entire group of gas companies, including Burisma Holdings. So: Hunter Biden is now an employee of, and co-board-member with, the man who masterminded and oversaw the May 2nd massacre in Odessa.

On 15 May 2014, Voltairenet bannered “In Ukraine, Joe Biden’s Son Mixes Business with Pleasure,” and reported that, “Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, confirmed on 13 May 2014 the appointment of R. Hunter Biden (photo) to its Board of Directors. He will be rubbing elbows with Devon Archer, who has preceded him by a few weeks. … Devon Archer chaired the support committee for the 2004 presidential campaign of current Secretary of State, John Kerry. Devon Archer was the roommate of Christopher Heinz (John Kerry’s step-son) during their studies at Yale University.” It sounds as if the U.S. is strikingly similar to Ukraine. Moreover, it was John Kerry who had advanced Victoria Nuland, from being Hillary Clinton’s official Spokesperson at the U.S. State Department, to the powerful policymaking position of Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Asia. Had anything really changed since Nuland — raised at Yale, schooled at Choate, and sent to college at Brown — had served as the Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney (who had flunked at Yale)?

And what will result if this operation fails? Two failed states: one half of the former Ukraine pro-“Western”; the other half of it dependent upon Russia, and perhaps a nuclear war being the ultimate outcome (which would be especially likely if this operation succeeds, because its success would surround Russia with nuclear-armed enemies, which would be intolerable for Russia).

A world with no accountability for aristocrats has served them well, but even they might end up suffering from what they are now doing.

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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.

 

 

William Blum: God, country, and torture

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More articles on the redacted CIA torture report at Global Research including
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-senate-cia-torture-report-dick-cheney-the-report-is-full-of-crap-highlights-executive-summary/5419604
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Global Research, December 12, 2014
Originally published May 13, 2004
http://www.globalresearch.ca/god-country-and-torture/5419566

This incisive article on torture by Bill Blum was published by Global Research more than ten years ago. It is of particular relevance in our understanding of the insidious Senate report on CIA torture

On October 21, 1994, the United States became a State Party to the “Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”.  Article 2, section 2 of the Convention states: ”No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture.”‘

“If you open the window [of torture], even just a crack, the cold air of the middle ages will fill the whole room.”{1}

“The thing with the soldiers there, they think because we’re Americans, you can do whatever you want,” said Spc. Ramon Leal, an MP who served at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“You get a burning in your stomach, a rush, a feeling of hot lead running through your veins, and you get a sense of power,” said another soldier.  “Imagine wearing point-blank body armor, an M-16 and all the power in the world, and the authority of God. That power is very addictive.”{2}

America and God … Bush, Cheney, and other eminences of the imperial mafia know well how to invoke these feelings; with the help of the rest of flag-wavin’ and bible-wavin’ America the proper emotions can be easily imparted down to the ranks.  The American part — the mystique of “America” — can also be exported, and has been for decades.  Here’s Chief Inspector Basil Lambrou, one of Athens’ well-known torturers under the infamous Greek junta of 1967-74.  Hundreds of prisoners listened to this little speech given by the Inspector, who sat behind his desk which displayed the red, white, and blue clasped-hand symbol of American aid.  He tried to show the prisoner the absolute futility of resistance:  “You make yourself ridiculous by thinking you can do anything.  The world is divided in two.  There are the communists on that side and on this side the free world.  The Russians and the Americans, no one else.  What are we?  Americans.  Behind me there is the government, behind the government is NATO, behind NATO is the U.S.  You can’t fight us, we are Americans.”{3}

And here’s Colin Powell at the 1996 Republican Convention: America is “a country where the best is always yet to come, a country that exists by divine providence.”  He then punched his fist into the air and shouted out, “America!”{4}

Defenders of the American soldiers accused of abusing the prisoners in Iraq have been insisting that the soldiers were only following orders.  At the end of the Second World War, however, we read moral lectures to the German people on the inadmissibility of pleading that their participation in the holocaust was in obedience to their legitimate government.  To prove that we were serious, we hanged the leading examples of such patriotic loyalty and imprisoned many of the rest.

Notes

  1. Hans Christian Stroebele, Green Party member of the German parliament. 2. Knight Ridder newspapers, May 10, 2004 3. James Becket, Barbarism in Greece (New York, 1970), p.16.  Becket was sent to Greece in December 1967 by Amnesty International. 4. The Economist (London), August 17, 1996, U.S. Edition

William Blum <bblum6@aol.com > is the author of:

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2

Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
www.killinghope.org
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

 

 

U.S. torture report exposes European powers’ involvement in CIA crimes

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From World Socialist Web Site, December 12, 2014
By Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/12/12/euto-d12.html

The publication of the US Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture has exposed the European powers’ complicity in ghastly crimes of US intelligence. Even though European states’ complicity in CIA torture and rendition operations has been documented for nearly a decade, no European officials have been held accountable.

In 2005, the Council of Europe tasked former Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty with preparing a report on secret CIA prisons in Europe. He released two reports, in 2006 and 2007, documenting the complicity of dozens of European states in setting up facilities for illegal CIA rendition and torture. The states involved included Britain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Albania.

The existence of approximately 1,000 CIA flights and of secret prisons in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Bucharest (Romania), Antavilas (Lithuania), and Stare Kiejkuty (Poland) has since been confirmed.

Nonetheless, after the US Senate recognized CIA use of the grisliest forms of torture—including murder, sexual assault, sleep deprivation and forcing inmates to stand on broken limbs—officials across Europe reacted by insisting that they should enjoy immunity.

Top officials of the Polish government, which is appealing a July ruling against it over its role in CIA torture by the European Court on Human Rights, denounced the report. “Certain secrets should stay that way,” said Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak.

Polish prosecutors have been investigating the case for six years, including a two-year investigation of former Polish intelligence chief Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, without bringing any charges. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, was waterboarded as soon as he arrived at Stare Kiejkuty. One medical officer there noted: “We are basically doing a series of near-drownings.”

Other detainees at Stare Kiejkuty, which housed Saudi, Algerian and Yemeni detainees, were subjected to mock executions with a power drill while standing hooded and naked.

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski lamely claimed that CIA officials did not explain how they planned to use their secret prisons in Poland. “It was a question as we saw it only of creating secret sites,” he said, adding that he closed down the facility in 2003 because “the Americans’ secret activities began to worry” Polish authorities.

Lithuanian officials confirmed that the black site named “detention center Violet” by the US Senate report appears to be the Lithuanian detention center near the capital, Vilnius, identified in a 2009-2010 parliamentary investigation. Lawmaker Arvydas Anusauskas told Reuters, “The US Senate report, to me, makes a convincing case that prisoners were indeed held at the Lithuanian site.”

Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi detainee now kept at Guantanamo Bay, has stated that he was kept and tortured at the site. Washington paid the Lithuanian government $1 million to “show appreciation” for operating the prison, according to the US Senate report, though the funds were reportedly paid out through “complex mechanisms.”

Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius has asked Washington to confirm whether or not the CIA tortured prisoners at its secret prisons in Lithuania.

British Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed the issue of torture and Britain’s role in rendition flights to countries including Libya, saying that it had been “dealt with from a British perspective.” He told the public to trust British intelligence to police itself, as official investigations had “produced a series of questions that the intelligence and security community will look at … I’m satisfied that our system is dealing with all of these issues.”

In fact, the CIA torture report has revealed the advanced state of collapse of democratic forms of rule not only in the United States, but also in Europe. What has emerged across Europe since the September 11 attacks is the framework of a police state far more technically powerful than even the most ruthless dictatorships of twentieth-century Europe. The methods deployed as part of the “war on terror” will also be used against opposition in the working class to unpopular policies of austerity and war.

European governments participate in the digital spying on telecommunications and Internet activities of the European population, carried out by the US National Security Agency and its local counterparts, as revealed by Edward Snowden. They also are planning joint repression of social protests, based on talks between German federal police, France’s Gendarmerie, and other security forces with the European Commission.

“During my investigation, people called me a traitor and said I was making things up,” Marty told the Tribune de Genève. “The Europeans disappointed me. Germany, the United Kingdom, and many others blocked the establishment of the truth. In fact, most European countries actively participated in a system that legitimated large-scale state crimes.”

“I think we must recall, and it is very important, that this operation, this anti-terrorist policy, was decided and carried out under the aegis of NATO,” Marty told Swiss television channel RTS.

“The United States invoked Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which says that if one member of the alliance is attacked militarily [e.g., as Washington claimed, on September 11], all NATO members are required to come to its aid,” Marty said. Once this was accepted, he added, “there were a whole series of secret accords between the United States and European powers. And all the European countries pledged to grant total immunity to CIA agents, which is manifestly illegal.”

The European powers’ participation in the CIA torture program underscores the utter hypocrisy of the humanitarian pretensions used to justify operations ranging from NATO wars in Syria and Libya to this February’s NATO-backed, fascist-led putsch in Ukraine.

The ferocious opposition of the European ruling elites to attempts to bring this criminality to light is the clearest indication that the democratic rights of the population cannot be secured by appeals to any section of the state. The defense of the population’s democratic and social rights is a question of the revolutionary mobilization of the working class in an international struggle against European capitalism.

Re-posted at

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-torture-report-exposes-european-powers-involvement-in-cia-crimes/5419480

 

Petition demands full release of Senate report on CIA torture

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Petition and letter from former U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich:
http://action.kucinich.us/page/s/call-upon-the-us-senate-intelligence-committee

Yesterday, the US Senate Intelligence committee released its long-awaited report of the CIA torture practices.
As some of you may remember, six years ago I brought some of the same information about illegal torture in Article XVIII of the Impeachment President Bush.
One surprising response in the Senate report is that the torture, called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’  was “ineffective,” as if torture would have been OK if the torturers at the CIA had gained ‘useful’ information!
The CIA’s post-911 history of the use of torture, documented in the Senate report should cause every American to demand release of the full, unredacted report. There should be no hiding place nor refuge for anyone who was involved in the program. Torturers and those who authorized them ought to be brought to justice.
Sign the petition here demanding full release of the Senate’s Report on CIA Torture. Please contribute to our on-going efforts to keep the American people aware of the truth and of a path to action to reclaim our nation.
Once again we see the need for a US Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, where the American people can finally come face to face with the lies which our nation has been living since 911, address those lies and chart a new course of truth, at home and in the world.
It is imperative that the American people know what was done in our name and what continues to be done by our government and its agencies to promote division and war around the world.
Petition text:

WE THE UNDERSIGNED…

… call upon the US Senate Intelligence Committee to access and release the full, unredacted, unedited report on CIA torture.

We demand the creation of a US Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, modeled after such a commission formed in post-apartheid South Africa. Congress and the President must appoint such a commission to invite torture victims and witnesses to provide written or in-person testimony. The commission should compel all those Americans involved in torture to testify with appropriate penalties for noncompliance and provision for amnesty for those who cooperate and tell the truth.

To sign the petition: http://action.kucinich.us/page/s/call-upon-the-us-senate-intelligence-committee

Hungary’s Viktor Orban: Washington’s new enemy image

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This article was written before the South Stream pipeline was stopped.

From New Eastern Outlook Journal, November 21, 2014
By William Engdahl
http://journal-neo.org/2014/11/21/hungary-s-viktor-orban-washington-s-new-enemy-image/

Hungary and its populist nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban have come into the cross-hairs of Washington’s political elites. His sin? Not buckling under to the often destructive diktats of the Brussels EU Commission; attempting to define a Hungarian national identity. But his cardinal sin is his deepening relationship with Russia and his defiance of Washington in signing an agreement with Gazprom for bringing the Russian South Stream gas pipeline into the EU via Hungary.

Orban has himself undergone a political journey since he was elected as Hungary’s second-youngest Prime Ministers in 1998. Back then he oversaw the entry of Hungary along with Poland and the Czech Republic into NATO over Russia’s protest, and into the EU. As Prime Minister during far more prosperous economic times in the EU, Orban cut taxes, abolished university tuition for qualified students, expanded maternity benefits, and attracted German industry with low-cost Hungarian labor. One of his American “advisers” then was James Denton, linked with the Color Revolution Washington NGO, Freedom House. Orban seemed the darling of Washington’s neo-cons. In 2001 he was given the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute’s Freedom Award.

But in 2010 after six years in the opposition, Orban returned, this time with a resounding majority for his Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union Party, Fidesz for short. In fact Fidesz won a 68% supermajority in Parliament, giving it the necessary votes to alter the Constitution and pass new laws, which it did. Ironically, in a case of the pot calling the kettle black, the United States Obama Administration and the European Parliament for placing too much power in the hands of Fidesz. Orban was accused by Daniel Cohn-Bendit of the European Greens of making Hungary on the model of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. He was definitely not playing by the approved Brussels Rulebook for politically submissive EU politicians. Fidesz began to be demonized in EU media as the Hungarian version of United Russia and Orban as the Hungarian Putin. That was in 2012.

Now it’s getting alarming for the Atlanticists and their EU followers. Orban has defied EU demands to stop construction of Russia’s important South Stream gas pipeline.

Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline would guarantee EU gas together with German-Russian Nord Stream that could bypass the war in Ukraine something Washington bitterly opposes for obvious reasons

Last January Orban’s government announced a € 10 billion deal with the Russian state nuclear energy company to refurbish Hungary’s only nuclear power plant at Paks, originally built during the Soviet era with Russian technology.

That caused some attention in Washington. Similarly when Orban criticized the United States this past summer for failing to ultimately resolve the global financial crisis its banks and its lax regulation caused, and praised China, Turkey and Russia as better models. He declared in words not too different from what I have often used that Western democracies, “will probably be incapable of maintaining their global competitiveness in the upcoming decades and will instead be scaled down unless they are capable of changing themselves significantly.” In addition, Orban’s government managed to free Hungary from decades of devastating IMF bondage. In August 2013, the Hungarian Economic Ministry announced that it had, thanks to a “disciplined budget policy,” repaid the remaining €2.2 billion owed to the IMF. No more onerous IMF-forced state privatizations or conditionalities. The head of the Hungarian Central Bank then demanded the IMF close its offices in Budapest. In addition, echoing Iceland, the State Attorney General brought charges against the country’s three previous prime ministers because of the criminal amount of debt into which they plunged the nation. That’s a precedent that surely causes cold sweat in some capitals of the EU or Washington and Wall Street.

But the real alarm bells rang when Orban and his Fidesz party approved a go-ahead, together with neighboring Austria, of the South Stream Russian pipeline, ignoring EU claims it violated EU rules. Orben proclaimed at a meeting with Germany’s Horst Seehofer in Munich on November 6, “”Es lebe die österreichisch-ungarische Energiemonarchie” („The Austro-Hungarian Energy Monarchy Lives.“)

The US elites sounded the alarm immediately. The ultra-establishment New York Times ran a lead editorial, “Hungary’s Dangerous Slide.” They declared, “The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary is sliding toward authoritarianism and defying the fundamental values of the European Union — and getting away with it.”

The Times revealed the real cause of Washington and Wall Street alarm: “Hungary’s most recent expression of contempt for the European Union is its passage of a law on Monday that clears the way for Russia’s South Stream natural gas pipeline to traverse Hungary. The new law is in clear violation of the European Parliament’s call in September for member states to cancel South Stream, and of the economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the European Union and the United States after Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Instead of issuing tepid expressions of concern over antidemocratic policies, the European Union should be moving to sanction Hungary. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, should exercise his power to force Mr. Navracsics to resign.” Tibor Navracsics, has just been named the new European Commissioner of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, a post in Brussels that has arguably little to do with gas pipelines.

Next we can expect the National Endowment for Democracy and the usual US Government-backed NGO’s to find an excuse to launch mass opposition protests against Fidesz and Orban for his unforgivable crime of trying to make Hungary’s energy independent of the US-created insanity in Ukraine.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/11/21/hungary-s-viktor-orban-washington-s-new-enemy-image/

 

U.S. House of Representatives votes 98% to donate U.S. weapons to Ukraine. U.S. public is 67% against. Is this democracy?

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By Eric Zuesse, December 7, 2014

In a remarkable disjunction between voters and their elected (supposed) representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives, the members of the House voted on December 4th, by  411 “Yea” to 10 “Nay,” to donate U.S. weapons to the bankrupt Ukrainian Government, which is engaged in trying to eliminate the civilian population of the portion of Ukraine that had voted 90% for the former Ukrainian President whom the U.S. Government (CIA, State Department, USAID, etc.) had overthrown in a violent coup in February of this year. (Click onto that link for full documentation.)

This 411 to 10 vote margin is 98%, and it contrasts starkly against the 62% of Americans who, in the most recent poll, opposed sending U.S. arms to the Ukrainian Government; 30% favored sending those weapons. (8% had no opinion.) (The above link includes also that poll-result.) So, 67% of those who had an opinion (62% divided by 92% is 67%) shared the view of the 10 members (2%) of the U.S. House who voted against this measure. Only 33% of the surveyed Americans who had an opinion on it shared the view of the 411 House members (98%) who voted in favor of this measure.

This is a war-and-peace issue, so the U.S. Constitution assigns it to the Congress; the President is assigned the executive function of carrying out the will of Congress, as the Commander-in-Chief and U.S. Chief Executive Officer.

However, the situation here is actually even a bit more extreme than that, because the way that the Pew poll of the U.S. public was phrased, it had the U.S. “sending arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government,” and not “donating arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government.” The Ukrainian Government cannot possibly actually pay back all of the financial obligations that it already has, much less pay those plus interest, and buy more weapons. As was documented in the first of the links within the linked report above, “The only reason that things haven’t totally imploded [for the Ukrainian Government] is because of the $18 billion package of assistance from the IMF and the $9 billion in additional assistance pledged by the United States and the European Union.” All of the weapons that the U.S. will be technically ‘selling’ to Ukraine will now go to the back of the line of creditors for Ukrainian debt — never be paid. U.S. arms-makers will receive payment for those arms from U.S. taxpayers (the sale won’t be merely technical for them, nor for the lobbyists they pay), it won’t be paid actually by the Ukrainian Government. Consequently, the U.S. taxpayer is totally funding Ukraine’s bombing campaign going forward, to eliminate the residents in the area which overwhelmingly supported the previous Ukrainian President.

In fact, on September 18th, when the U.S.-installed new Ukrainian President was greeted with standing ovations by a special Joint Session of the U.S. Congress, he addressed them and the weapons-lobbyists to cheers as if he were a hero; he said that this was “the forefront of the global fight for democracy,” and said “I urge America to help us, I urge America to lead the way.” He was doing a sell-job for them and their financial backers. Of course, those financial backers also fund the sale of these politicians to the public.

His use of the term “democracy” there was interesting. A secretly recorded phone conversation on 25 February 2014, right after the coup, was subsequently uploaded to the Internet, and the discussants were Catherine Ashton, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Minister, and her appointed investigator into how Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych came to be ousted on February 22nd, Urmas Paet. In it, was revealed that the snipers who precipitated the coup had been hired by “somebody from the new coalition” (perhaps the U.S. CIA) that replaced Yanukovych, and that, “it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, … they don’t want to investigate [since they were its beneficiaries].” Paet told Ashton that, “what was quite disturbing, the same oligarch [Poroshenko — and so when he became ‘democratically elected’ as President of all of Ukraine on May 25th, he already knew this] told [Paet] that well, all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers, from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, [this will shock Ashton, who had just said that Yanukovych had masterminded the killings] that they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides.” So, Poroshenko himself knows that his regime is based on a false-flag (meaning set up so as to falsely blame the other side) U.S.-controlled coup d’etat against his predecessor. So, there can be no reasonable doubt that, despite his rhetoric when speaking before the Special Joint Session of the U.S. Congress on September 18th, Poroshenko actually knew, by no later than February 25th, that the regime that replaced Yanukovych was being appointed by the United States Government, hardly a ‘democratic Maidan’ event (though it is sold as if it were). Continue reading →

Ukraine receives new weapons and tanks

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From Global Research, December 8, 2014
By Eric Zuesse

The Government of Ukraine held a ceremony on Saturday, December 6th, with the country’s President, Petro Poroshenko, reviewing newly donated weapons, from undisclosed donors.

According to the official announcement, “The Armed Forces’ units received tanks Т-64BМ ‘Bulat’, tanks Т-64 BV, Т-72 B1, Т-72UA, Т-72A, BТR-3е and BТR-4е, self-propelled artillery 2C1 and helicopters Mi-8 and Mi-2. The President personally inspected all.”

Poroshenko said:

“We are providing the troops with new armored vehicles, precise anti-tank means, counterbattery means, means of communication and protection systems. At the same time, we are holding negotiations with our partners on the procurement of modern weapons that are not produced in Ukraine.”

Weapons bought from other countries can be paid for only with borrowed money, because the Government of Ukraine is basically broke and soaring even deeper into debt, and is sharply cutting back on pensions and other expenditures than military, which is receiving the Government’s virtually total focus. Any added loans will never be able to be paid back, because Ukraine will not be able to pay back all of the existing loans. Consequently, all countries that are now ‘lending’ additional funds to Ukraine are simply donating to Ukraine. Furthermore, the IMF is demanding that the breakaway Ukrainian areas be conquered in order for additional loans to be made to the Ukrainian Government. So, all newly loaned money will be going to Ukraine’s military.

Here are the new tanks:

http://www.president.gov.ua/en/gallery/2369.html#39924

These weapons will be sent to the southeast, in order to conquer the breakaway republics that reject the regime that was forced upon them on February 22nd, in an extremely violent coup against the then-existing President, Viktor Yanukovych, for whom the residents in that area had voted approximately 90%. That rejection of the coup-regime sparked an on-again, off-again, invasion from the Ukrainian armed forces, which can be seen at various sites, such as here and here and here and here.

The official announcement of this ceremony said that the new weapons will “help Ukrainian warriors win and liberate the Ukrainian territories from the occupants.”

The election of President Poroshenko was held only in the areas of Ukraine that accepted the coup-imposed regime. “The occupants” (as the President there referred to them) in the other area did not participate in that election, the election of him, though his Government demands they accept that Government as representing them, nonetheless. After the new regime started dropping bombs on them, and sending tanks in to kill as many of them as fast as possible, their determination not to accept this Government only hardened.

The last Ukrainian Government election in which those people, “the occupants,” were voting, occurred in 2010, at which Viktor Yanukovych won above 80% in some districts, and above 90% in other districts. A map showing the vote in each district of Ukraine, in that election — the last fully national Ukrainian election — can be seen here:

 

Vladimir Putin’s Presidential Address to the Russian Federal Assembly, December 4, 2014

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From the Kremlin, Moscow
http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/23341

Vladimir Putin delivered the annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly. The Address was traditionally delivered at the Kremlin’s St George Hall before an audience of over 1,000 people.

In his Address, the President set out his views on the situation in Ukraine and outlined Russia’s position with regard to events taking place there. In the foreign policy section of the Address, Mr Putin also spoke about international security issues and the integration processes taking place in the world.

On the subject of Russia’s economic strategy, the President said that Russia is open to the world, to investment and to carrying out projects together, but ultimately, Russia’s development depends above all on the country’s own efforts. Mr Putin named development of new technology and competitive goods, giving the country’s industry and financial sector a more solid foundation, and training the needed personnel as priority tasks. 

The President also talked about relations between the state and business, in particular the need to free up the environment for doing business as much as possible and the concrete steps that can be taken to achieve this. Mr Putin proposed that no changes be made to the current tax rules for the next four years, and also proposed an amnesty for capital returning to Russia.

The President set the goal of reaching growth rates above the world average within the next 3-4 years.

Mr Putin also set objectives in the financial sector, agribusiness, and the banking sector, and declared the need to free Russia from dependence on foreign technology. Import substitution is a long term strategy, the President said, and is a goal for Russia regardless of the situation with sanctions. Mr Putin also gave the main target figures for Russian exports and investment levels.   

The President proposed implementing a national technology initiative that will involve forecasting the technology needs required to guarantee Russia’s national security and ensure high living standards and economic development over the coming 10-15 years.

The President also spoke about demography, healthcare and education.

In his concluding section, Mr Putin focused on the dialogue between the state authorities and the public and the need to raise civic activeness and Russia’s civil society potential.

The ceremony was attended by members of the Federation Council, State Duma deputies, members of the Government, heads of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, heads of the constituent entities, chairpersons of regional legislative assemblies, heads of Russia’s traditional faiths, public figures, including heads of regional civic chamber, and executives of Russia’s major media outlets.

* * *

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Citizens of Russia, members of the Federation Council and deputies of the State Duma,

Today’s address will be related to the current situation and conditions, as well as the tasks we are facing. But before delivering it I’d like to thank all of you for the support, unity and solidarity you have shown during the landmark events that will seriously influence the future of our country.

This year we faced trials that only a mature and united nation and a truly sovereign and strong state can withstand. Russia has proved that it can protect its compatriots and defend truth and fairness.

Russia has done this thanks to its citizens, thanks to your work and the results we have achieved together, and thanks to our profound understanding of the essence and importance of national interests. We have become aware of the indivisibility and integrity of the thousand-year long history of our country. We have come to believe in ourselves, to believe that we can do much and achieve every goal.

Of course, we will talk about this year’s landmark events. You know that a referendum was held in Crimea in March, at which its residents clearly expressed their desire to join Russia. After that, the Crimean parliament – it should be stressed that it was a legitimate parliament that was elected back in 2010 – adopted a resolution on sovereignty. And then we saw the historical reunification of Crimea and Sevastopol with Russia.

It was an event of special significance for the country and the people, because Crimea is where our people live, and the peninsula is of strategic importance for Russia as the spiritual source of the development of a multifaceted but solid Russian nation and a centralised Russian state. It was in Crimea, in the ancient city of Chersonesus or Korsun, as ancient Russian chroniclers called it, that Grand Prince Vladimir was baptised before bringing Christianity to Rus.

In addition to ethnic similarity, a common language, common elements of their material culture, a common territory, even though its borders were not marked then, and a nascent common economy and government, Christianity was a powerful spiritual unifying force that helped involve various tribes and tribal unions of the vast Eastern Slavic world in the creation of a Russian nation and Russian state. It was thanks to this spiritual unity that our forefathers for the first time and forevermore saw themselves as a united nation. All of this allows us to say that Crimea, the ancient Korsun or Chersonesus, and Sevastopol have invaluable civilisational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism.

And this is how we will always consider it.

Dear friends,

We cannot fail to mention today our perspective on the developments in Ukraine and how we intend to work with our partners around the world.

It is well known that Russia not only supported Ukraine and other brotherly republics of the former Soviet Union in their aspirations to sovereignty, but also facilitated this process greatly in the 1990s. Since then, our position has remained unchanged.

Every nation has an inalienable sovereign right to determine its own development path, choose allies and political regimes, create an economy and ensure its security. Russia has always respected these rights and always will. This fully applies to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

It is true that we condemned the government coup and the forceful takeover of power in Kiev in February of this year. The developments we are currently witnessing in Ukraine and the tragedy unfolding in the country’s southeast prove that we were right to take such a stand.

How did it all begin? I will have to remind you what happened back then. It is hard to believe that it all started with a technical decision by President Yanukovych to postpone the signing of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. Make no mistake, he did not refuse to sign the document, but only postponed it in order to make some adjustments.

As you recall, this move was fully in line with the constitutional authority vested upon an absolutely legitimate and internationally recognised head of state.

Against this background, there was no way we could support this armed coup, the violence and the killings. Just take the bloody events in Odessa, where people were burned alive. How can the subsequent attempts to suppress people in Ukraine’s southeast, who oppose this mayhem, be supported? I reiterate that there was no way we could endorse these developments. What’s more, they were followed by hypocritical statements on the protection of international law and human rights. This is just cynical. I strongly believe that the time will come when the Ukrainian people will deliver a just assessment of these developments.

How did the dialogue on this issue begin between Russia and its American and European partners? I mentioned our American friends for a reason, since they are always influencing Russia’s relations with its neighbours, either openly or behind the scenes. Sometimes it is even unclear whom to talk to: to the governments of certain countries or directly with their American patrons and sponsors. Continue reading →

U.S. Congress approves “No Social Security for Nazis” Act, while providing ongoing U.S. military and logistical aid for Ukrainian Nazis

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“Congress never intended for participants in Nazi persecution[i] to be allowed to enter the United States or to reap the benefits of United States residency or citizenship, including participation in the Nation’s Social Security program.”

Last week, Congress unanimously approved the “No Social Security for Nazis” Act – HR 5739.[ii] It was a reaction to a scandal that broke out this fall.

In October, the news media reported that Nazi immigrants, some brought to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip, were induced to leave the country by allowing them to retain Social Security benefits.

Outrage reigned in this pseudo-scandal. Taxpayer dollars were spent to support Nazis? How could this be?

Lawmakers quickly put together HR 5739 to show their opposition to Nazis… that is “1940s Nazis who directly supported Hitler” Nazis, not American Nazis, not Nazis in other countries since then. Conveniently, there are reportedly only 4 of the HR 5739 Nazis left.

The rules about who may not enter the United States are here: http://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-2006.html

Read the very carefully defined scope of Nazis.
———————————————————————-
From the Immigration and Nationality Act — INA:

(E) PARTICIPANTS IN NAZI PERSECUTION, GENOCIDE, OR THE COMMISSION OF ANY ACT OF TORTURE OR EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLING 

(i) Participation in nazi persecutions.-Any alien who, during the period beginning on March 23, 1933, and ending on May 8, 1945, under the direction of, or in association with- 

(I) the Nazi government of Germany, 

(II) any government in any area occupied by the military forces of the Nazi government of Germany, 

(III) any government established with the assistance or cooperation of the Nazi government of Germany, or 

(IV) any government which was an ally of the Nazi government of Germany, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person because of race, religion, national origin, or political opinion is inadmissible.
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Notice the very narrow time frame and geographical reference. Notice that it does not include current governments or organizations. However, the U.S. government even violated these provisions for programs such as Operation Paperclip and Operation Nightingale (Nachtegall) (not to be confused with the current Nightingale program, named perhaps to confuse, and providing archaeological training to veterans).[iii]

Interestingly, there are INA provision that apply to these Ukrainian officials and leaders, including Voldymyr Parasiuk[iv] and President Poroshenko. For instance,

(ii) Participation in genocide.-Any alien who ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in genocide, as defined in section 1091(a) of title 18, United States Code, is inadmissible.

There is also a lengthy section on terrorism.

However, these individuals are not just allowed into the United States. They are welcomed, feted, and given standing ovations in Congress if they serve a specific foreign policy objective.

And what about the Americans who assist and train them?

The House just approved supporting Ukrainian Nazis in H. Res 758. And the National Defense Authorization Act 2015 has specific provisions supporting these same ultra-nationalist and Nazi groups. The CIA and FBI provide assistance and training to these groups. The California National Guard continues to train and assist the Ukrainian National Guard, including bringing them into the United States. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland stated in May that the U.S. had spent $5 billion on Ukraine thus far. She was directly involved in selecting the current Kiev regime leaders.

When Congress gave its robust welcome to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko this fall, it clearly demonstrated either a profound and dangerous ignorance about events and history in Ukraine (an example of ignorance about other critical areas of U.S. policy) or a warm support for U.S. historical intervention, covert operations, and regime change in Ukraine.

The United States recently refused to approve the latest UN resolution condemning Nazism and hate crimes, and it has refused to approve the previous ones.

So, don’t lie to me about United States condemnation of Nazism. This hypocritical action will be used as a PR stunt together with the powerful Jewish lobby to show opposition to Nazism, when the exact opposite is true — support for ongoing, current Nazi, ultra-nationalist actions and genocide in the Ukraine, and a welcome mat into the United States and other Western nations.

————————————————————————-

[i] It’s not clear what they’re saying: persecution by Nazis or persecution of Nazis. Currently, it seems that the latter definition applies.

[ii] https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/5739/text

[iii] http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-and-americas-global-war-on-terrorism-is-us-nato-applying-the-syria-model-in-ukraine/5380611

[iv] http://journal-neo.org/2014/11/12/stewart-colbert-and-the-upcoming-nazi-terrorist-conference-in-new-york-city/

Petition: No new nukes, dismantle old nukes

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Sign the petition and pass it on http://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/no-new-nukes-dismantle-old-ones

Then let your elected officials know how you feel.

From Roots Action –

To the U.S. Congress, President, Department of “Defense”:

Build no new nuclear weapons. Stop struggling with an aging arsenal and begin dismantling it, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Why is this important?

It is an outrage that the U.S. President is planning to ask the Congress for ONE TRILLION DOLLARS over the next 30 years to perpetuate the nuclear terror by building a new nuclear bomb factory, as well as new nuclear bombs, and their delivery systems — missiles, planes and submarines capable of destroying all life on earth many times over.

We can either eliminate all nuclear weapons or we can watch them proliferate. There’s no middle way. We can either have no nuclear weapons states, or we can have many. As long as some states have nuclear weapons others will desire them, and the more that have them the more easily they will spread to others still. If nuclear weapons continue to exist, there will very likely be a nuclear catastrophe, and the more the weapons have proliferated, the sooner it will come. Hundreds of incidents have nearly destroyed our world through accident, confusion, misunderstanding, and extremely irrational machismo.

Recently nuclear bombs were mistakenly flown to Mississippi from their bases in North Dakota and no one knew they were missing for over 38 hours. And a number of soldiers with their finger on the nuclear button in the missile launch silos were dismissed for drunkeness and cheating on tests, while silo doors were found to be improperly secured.

Possessing nuclear weapons does absolutely nothing to keep us safe, so that there is really no trade-off involved in eliminating them. They do not deter terrorist attacks by non-state actors in any way. Nor do they add an iota to a military’s ability to deter nations from attacking, given the United States’ ability to destroy anything anywhere at any time with non-nuclear weapons. The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China have all lost wars against non-nuclear powers while possessing nukes.

The elimination of nuclear weapons is globally a widely recognized need, as well as a legally mandated action, and a step toward a world beyond war.