Vladimir Putin speaks to the Russian Security Council

SOTT Exclusive: Putin on fighting extremism, color revolutions
By Harrison Koehli
November 20, 2014

Putin at meeting of Security Council, 20 November

Putin at meeting of Security Council, 20 November

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently spoke about countering extremism in the next decade at an expanded Security Council meting in the Kremlin. As usual, he had some interesting things to say. Here are some highlights, with commentary.

On the inhumanity of extremism

“I do not believe there is any need to prove how dangerous the very nature of extremism is and how destructive its ideology is – the ideology of intolerance, hatred and animosity. In all its manifestations, extremism is aggressive in nature, seditious and often violent and linked to terrorism.

It infringes on the rights and freedoms of citizens, often even endangering their very lives; it is a threat to national security, capable of cardinally unbalancing the political, economic and social systems. Such types of extremism as nationalism, religious intolerance and political extremism are especially dangerous for society and for the state. Every crime of this type (usually resonant and heinous in itself) can provoke mass violations of public order.”

The western puppet masters also know how dangerous and destructive extremism is, which is why they foment it in regions they wish to control. They also know that ordinary people also know how dangerous and destructive it is. But unlike their leaders, they see this as a bad thing, which is why their governments make a big show about ‘fighting terrorism’.

What none of them seem to know, or what none of them wish to reveal, is that extremism has a very real cause, not to be found in its specific ideology per se. There is nothing inherently ponerizing about an extremist ideology. The reason they work is because 1) they are created by individuals with certain psychopathologies with tendencies to see the world in anti-social, anti-human, doctrinaire, black-and-white, us-and-them ways, and 2) similar people gravitate towards those ideologies, either because they share the same emotional deficits or because they are simply ignorant of what’s really going on and get riled up by the revolutionary aspects. Andrew Lobaczewski laid it all out in Political Ponerology. If only the world would listen. [“Ponerology” is the study of evil.]

On color revolutions

“I would like to add that in the modern world extremism is often used as a geopolitical instrument to rearrange spheres of influence. We see the tragic consequences of the wave of so-called ‘colour revolutions’, the turmoil in the countries that have undergone the irresponsible experiments of covert and sometimes blatant interference in their lives. We take this as a lesson and a warning, and we must do everything necessary to ensure this never happens in Russia.”

Yep.

What to do

“This should not be piecemeal involvement, but a unified front, so to speak, which should act to prevent extremism, jointly educate people, including via the Internet, and create conditions for stronger peace and accord in society.

Once we achieve such coordination in every region, in each municipality, then we will have overall results in countering extremism. People would know that on their territory, there are authorities and there is a proactive and concerned society and together they can effectively resist any manifestations of extremism and maintain calm and stability.

In such conditions of trust and support, it is much easier to create an atmosphere of renouncing extremist propaganda. At the same time, the recognition by the citizens of the danger posed by extremism guarantees the efficiency of the measures taken by the authorities.

… I would like to reiterate that one of our key priorities is to breed public rejection of and civic immunity to the dissemination of extremist and radical ideas. For this purpose, we must unite the efforts of the authorities, society and all state and social agencies.”

Education is certainly important. As is a centralized effort to combat the ponerogenic process in such groups. The people need a central authority, otherwise foreign agents would be free to create and rile up existing extremist groups (ponerogenic unions). But that authority needs to be informed as to the exact causes and dynamics behind the process.

The weak spots

“I would like to single out some priority areas of our work. We should pay special attention to interethnic and inter-religious relations and fully support the culture, traditions and identity of the peoples living in a given area, town or city. This is a very delicate job, but you know what can happen if it is left undone.

The second area is work with the younger generation. It is among them that the leaders of extremist organisations are trying to find followers and conduct their propaganda, primarily using the internet. Extremist ideology is gaining momentum in the virtual world, spilling out into the real one.”

Putin is correct in that ponerogenic unions propagandize to youths (often those who are disenfranchised, who don’t feel they have any purpose, who feel powerless in the face of a national or global system that doesn’t give a shit about them) and exploit ethnic and religious differences. Most, if not all, religions have some degree of ponerogenic material, ripe for exploitation. The only solution is education, and a big part of that education is instilling real values into youths.

Illegal immigration

“The third important area is the improvement of the migration policy. We still have quite a few problems here that have to do with illegal, uncontrolled migration. We know that this breeds crime, interethnic tensions and extremism. We need greater control over compliance with regulations covering migrants’ stay in Russia and we have to take practical measures to promote their social and cultural adaptation and protect their labour and other rights.”

Whereas the U.S. seems to be against illegal immigration simply because it is a totally xenophobic and racist society, it can be a real problem. The Central Asian region of Russia’s border is largely uncontrolled, making easy entry for foreign mercenaries, drug traffickers, human traffickers, and smugglers. The U.S. has been exploiting this fact for years.

Conclusion

“…countering extremism has nothing to do with intolerance towards dissenters. Russia is a free democratic country and its citizens have the right to their opinion, the right to voice it and to be in opposition to the authorities. Moreover, no national leadership could ever be effective without society playing this role. … It is important that they exercise their rights, express their political preferences, positions and views in a civilised and legal manner.

As we assert our freedom of choice, the right to hold meetings, marches and rallies, we should not forget that we are responsible for our words and deeds. We must know and bear in mind that breeding conflict between people of different ethnicity and religion, propaganda of nationalist ideology, mass violations of public order on these grounds and particularly calls for a violent overthrow of the existing regime are direct manifestations of anti-national thinking and extremism. … Leaders of public movements should remember this; they should know that such actions are punishable by law.”

Those who cry “censorship!” should remember that freedom is not the same as free license. There are lines that should not be crossed, lines crossed by groups like ISIS, Ukraine’s neo-Nazi battalions, the U.S. government, NATO, etc.

On Jerusalem

“I have mentioned developments in the world. Life keeps teaching us new lessons. Sometimes this happens far from our borders; however, we should still be aware of them. The latest atrocity in Jerusalem, where praying people were attacked with an axe – this is beyond comprehension. Knowing this, realising the danger of such manifestations and having analysed their causes, we must make timely decisions that would save our country from such things.”

Putin is no doubt aware of the extent of Mossad operations in Israel. But he plays by the rules. In this case, if Mossad had a hand in the recent attack (it almost always does), it has given Putin the opportunity to use it as support for his own policies that run directly counter to the actions of countries like Israel, who foment extremism in countries they don’t like.

Harrison Koehli
Harrison Koehli hails from Edmonton, Alberta. A graduate of studies in music performance, Harrison is also an editor for Red Pill Press and has been interviewed on several North American radio shows in recognition of his contributions to advancing the study of ponerology. In addition to music and books, Harrison enjoys tobacco and bacon (often at the same time) and dislikes cell phones, vegetables, and fascists.

Source:
http://www.sott.net/article/289263-SOTT-EXCLUSIVE-Putin-on-fighting-extremism-color-revolutions

 

American scholars: U.S. sanctions aimed at crushing Iran’s independence

The United States and the Anglo-European 1% repeat the same pattern over and over again — that is, aggression seeking complete dominance. Rivals are not tolerated. This is true of Cuba, Russia, North Korea, and any country that will not “integrate” or “harmonize” with Anglo-European policy.

Chairman Alaeddin Boroujerdi of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission also said, “Dividing terrorism to good and bad has created and spread the terrorist groups in the region and has endangered the regional and international security.”

As nations and peoples of the world seek to extricate themselves from Western dominance, they have powerful resources in their ancient  wisdom and knowledge, and in their Earth-based traditions. These are far greater than modern artificial technologies.

Posted on Farsi News, November 17, 2014

TEHRAN (FNA)- A group of American professors in separate messages to a conference titled ‘Minus Dignity, Plus Sanction’ in Tehran on Monday underlined that the US has now kept its promises with regard to Iran, adding that Washington has imposed sanctions on Tehran due to its opposition to Iran’s independence.

The American professors made the statements in video messages to the conference which focused on the western sanction imposed against Iran.

Dr. Randy Short, American university professor, human rights activist and political commentator pointed to Iran-Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany) negotiations, and said, “I am worried about the negotiations (between Iran and the six world power) because the US has a bad record in fulfilling its undertakings.”

He said the US has imposed sanctions against Iran not because of Iran’s nuclear program, but due to its independence.

He said Washington’s problem is that the Central Bank of Iran and the country’s economy are not under the control of the US and Europe, and they mainly “fear that Iran will become the superior power in the Central Asia region”.

Anthony James Hall, Canadian professor of Globalization Studies, said that “if we closely look at the US history we see that the sanctions are meant to weaken Iran and it has nothing to do with the human rights, but they (the US and its allies) have a problem with Iran’s independence”.

He noted that all the freedom-seekers of the world have pinned hope on Iran, and said, “The US will never accept an agreement which will benefit Iran.”

Earlier this year, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei outlined the general policies of the program to promote the “economy of resistance”, which can lead the Iranian nation to victory in “the economic war” imposed by the West.

The Supreme Leader called the western sanctions against Iran “a full-fledged economic war” and said that the Islamic Republic was determined to force the West to retreat.

Under the program, the government must take action to expand the production and exportation of knowledge-based products, increase domestic production of strategic goods, and develop markets in neighboring countries.

It also encourages greater privatization and increased exports of electricity, gas, petrochemicals, and oil byproducts instead of crude oil and other raw materials.

On Sunday, Chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said imposing sanctions against Tehran is an already failed policy.

“The sanctions imposed on Iran are a failed policy; the sanctions tool has never been able to make the Iranian nation withdraw from its righteous positions,” Boroujerdi said in a meeting with new Italian Ambassador to Tehran Mauro Conciatori.

“Sanctions have only resulted in ample financial loss for the European industrial and trade companies,” he added.

Elsewhere, he underlined that the continued regional crises are the result of the US and its allies’ strategic mistakes, and said, “Dividing terrorism to good and bad has created and spread the terrorist groups in the region and has endangered the regional and international security.”

Source:
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930826001594

Posted under Fair Use Rules.

Additional information:

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/World/Middle-East/2012/0608/Iran-s-nuclear-program-4-things-you-probably-didn-t-know/President-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-never-said-that-Israel-should-be-wiped-off-the-map.

http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/rumor-of-the-century/

http://web.mit.edu/mitir/2009/online/mossadegh.htm

http://warisacrime.org/content/waking-Tehran — The book reviewed in this article was never published. It would have been too damning to the official U.S. account.

http://www.esquire.com/features/iranbriefing1107

The United States’ 12 steps to regime change — China knows it’s in the crosshairs

How many Americans are aware of what the U.S. government and allied organizations do routinely? Too few, unfortunately.

From Signs of the Times — SOTT, November 17, 2014
By Aeneas Georg

VIDEO on website

Though it has a new catchy name, the recent “revolution” in Hong Kong followed a very familiar pattern of US engineered regime change and destabilisation. And the Chinese are well aware of it!

Now we know that Russia knows full well the ways and means of ‘regime changing’ the empire of chaos uses over and over to ensure its supremacy. This was made clear by Putin in his Valdai Club speech:

Incidentally, at the time, our colleagues [the US] tried to somehow manage these processes, use regional conflicts and design ‘colour revolutions’ to suit their interests, but the genie escaped the bottle. It looks like the controlled chaos theory fathers themselves do not know what to do with it; there is disarray in their ranks.

China has also been subject to attempts at regime change both in the Xinjiang province in West China and most recently in Hong Kong. The question is how aware are the Chinese of the US role in these protest movements? A recent YouTube video makes it abundantly clear that the Chinese read the geopolitical chess game very well, if the views presented also reflect the views of Chinese people generally. The video maps out 12 steps that the US uses for regime change and goes on to explain how these “regime changes” around the world and the antagonizing of Russia and China follow a pattern that could lead to World War III.

The 12 Steps to regime change, employed by the USm as outlined in the video:

  1. Dispatch CIA, MI6 and other intelligence officers as students, tourists, volunteers, businessmen, and reporters to the target country
  2. Set up non-governmental organisations (NGO) under the guise of humanitarianism to fight for “democracy” and “human rights” In order to attract advocates of freedom and ideals
  3. Attract local traitors and especially academics, politicians, reporters, soldiers, etc., through bribery, or threaten those who have some stain in their life
  4. If the target country has labour unions, bribe them
  5. Pick a catchy theme or color for the revolution. Examples include the Prague spring (1968), Velvet revolution (Eastern Europe, 1969), Rose revolution (Georgia, 2003), Cedar revolution (Lebanon, 2005), Orange revolution (Ukraine), Green revolution (Iran), Jasmin revolution, Arab Spring and even Hong Kong’s Umbrella revolution
  6. Start protests for whatever reasons to kick off the revolution. It could be human rights, democracy, government corruption or electoral fraud. Evidence isn’t necessary; any excuse will do
  7. Write protests signs and banners in English to let Americans see and get American politicians and civilians involved
  8. Let those corrupted politicians, intellectuals and union leaders join the protests and call upon all people with grievances to join
  9. The US and European mainstream media help continuously emphasize that the revolution is caused by injustice thereby gaining the support of the majority
  10. When the whole world is watching, stage a false-flag action. The target government will soon be destabilised and lose support among its people
  11. Add in violent agent provocateurs to provoke the police to use force. This will cause the target government to lose the support of other countries and become “deligitimized” by the international community
  12. Send politicians to the US, EU and UN to petition so that the target government will face the threat of economic sanctions, no-fly zones and even airstrikes and an armed rebel uprising

Anyone who has being paying just a little attention to the world events can recognise this pattern. Psychopaths are not that creative and therefore tend to use the same method again and again. And mostly it works out to the benefit of the psychopaths in power, to whom it doesn’t matter if their hand in the regime change is exposed after the installment of a new puppet. The subservient MSM is always on hand to further the propaganda and knock down any objecting views that reveal the hand of the man behind the curtain and can always rely on name calling when arguments are lacking. An example of how this works with regard to the Hong Kong protests can be seen here:

And the public memory is conveniently very short, with all the distraction that Hollywood, the social media and the General Law can come up with.

The video goes on:

If the 12 steps above do not work, then the US will find an excuse to intervene militarily and overthrow the target government by force. In fact, these steps have proven to be very effective.

[…]

Therefore, it is not by spontaneous civil movements that countries are overthrown. On the contrary, the revolts are carefully planned and plotted. In fact, overthrowing a country by means of civil unrests is far cheaper than sending troops to attack and destroy it. That’s why the US kept applying these 12 steps against countries it deem as enemies.

Though the video blames it all on the Freemasons, it would be more correct to say the pathological elite. One of the key defining traits of this subspecies is the fact that they have no conscience and therefore care naught about human suffering and deaths. It could even be argued that they relish such suffering.

As always the onus is on us to acquire knowledge and to wake up to this nightmare and the fact that there are predators among us who don’t have essential human qualities. This is becoming easier as the empire of chaos, in its desperate battle to maintain hegemony, is showing its true nature for all to see. Thus the emperor is exposed as being naked, something that the BRICS countries and a number of other countries are becoming aware of. There is no doubt that greater cooperation among these countries has helped to spread knowledge about the psychopaths’ modus operandi. The above video is an example of the exposure of this pattern.

Source:
http://www.sott.net/article/289089-SOTT-EXCLUSIVE-China-is-onto-US-regime-change-tactics
SOTT EXCLUSIVE: China is on to U.S. regime change tactics

Also posted at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/from-hong-kong-to-xinjiang-beijing-is-catching-on-to-washingtons-insidious-regime-change-tactics/5415217
From Hong Kong to Xinjiang…: Beijing is Catching on to Washington’s Insidious “Regime Change Tactics”

The resumption of all-out war in Eastern Ukraine

From Russia Insider, November 11, 2014
By Federico Pieraccini

The truce in Ukraine is at risk.

Last night Donetsk was subjected to hours-long artillery bombardment, the most intense in weeks.

Looking at the Ukrainian side, there are other signals their forces may launch a full-scale offensive.

The recent elections in Ukraine have created a very difficult political situation.

Political representation in the Rada is everything that foreign actors have been dreaming of since the onset of destabilization of Ukraine in Febuary.

The goal of filling the parliament with politicians who harbor radical ideas, and above all a strong anti-Russian sentiment has been achieved.

Essentially, these political groups are, directly or indirectly, related to the most extreme factions of nationalist Ukrainians such as the National Guard.

The information that has filtered out in recent months has made it possible to certify that these private battalions are financed by oligarchs close to foreign actors, especially in the US.

For these reasons, the fragile cease fire is holding less and less with each passing day. There have even been reports of Ukraine military vehicles operating in areas under rebel control.

In recent weeks it could be observed the Ukrainian forces in theater have increased their firepower, the number of vehicles at their disposal and strengthened the positions they occupy.

In the mean time, the National Guard, which draws the most of the worst war criminals and neo-Nazi fighters, has completed a training process for the men of its punitive battalions. The training took weeks, said the deputy head of the National Security Council Vladimir Polevoy: “The soldiers were trained according to the standards established and perfected the techniques of war,” – at a press conference in Kiev. He insisted the National Guard units, including those fighting in the south-east of Ukraine, would be composed of qualified men only.

In the current situation the main drivers toward renewed fighting are:

  • Political motivation
  • A diversion from the catastrophic economic situation
  • Foreign pressure toward the resumption of active conflict

Kiev’s strategy is unclear and it is difficult to predict future developments for the next few weeks. What is clear is that the most violent factions continue to push for a resumption of the conflict. More likely than not, the current situation will not hold for much longer.The so called winter-factor seems to be less relevant than originally thought. We will see if that is indeed the case, or if the period of “frozen conflict” will be a prelude to full-scale fighting in spring.

Federico Pieraccini is a military analyst who writes the WAR UPDATE blog for RI.  He has covered conflicts in Ukraine, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.  

Native of Florence, Italy, he maintains a popular blog (in Italian), called Fractions of Reality, which seeks to present interesting information about Russia and Ukraine not widely available in the mainstream Italian media.  He lives in Milan

Source: http://russia-insider.com/en/military_politics_ukraine/2014/11/10/06-29-30pm/resumption_all_out_war_ukraine_seems_more_and_more

Posted at
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-resumption-of-all-out-war-in-eastern-ukraine/5413156

 

Top German General: “We have to be very careful” about Western/Ukraine claims

From Russia Insider, November 11, 2014
By Damir Marinovic

This guy, Harald Kujat, is a big deal in the German military.  He was Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces.  He doesn’t believe Western and Ukrainian evidence of a Russian invasion.

This comes from a recent episode of one of the most popular political talk shows in Germany, Maybrit Illner.

The other guests on the show including Martin Shulz, President of the European Parliament, kept talking about “Russian aggression”.

General Kujat doesn’t buy it.  Here’s what he said:

  • It’s lot of speculation. Proof of Russia’s involvement with regular force has not come to my attention so far.
  • For example, the announcement of the Ukrainian President that 23 Russian armed vehicles have been destroyed on Ukrainian soil.  There are no photos of surviving Russian soldiers nor of killed Russian soldiers.
  • We have been shown five satellite pictures as a proof that Russian Forces are in the Ukraine. Three of them were marked officially as “on Russian territory”. Two of them are marked as “on Ukraine territory”. The Russian pictures are marked with the exact location, while the Ukrainian ones have no mention of location and coordinates.
  • We have to be very careful about what the Ukraine and the West says.

 

Source:
http://russia-insider.com/en/germany_military_tv_ukraine/2014/11/11/08-38-23am/top_german_general_western_evidence_russian Top German General: Western Evidence of Russian Invasion is Baloney

For more information on Harald Kujat:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Kujat

See also:

Russian invasion threat is a hoax—interview with Veterans Today


Russian invasion threat is a hoax—interview with Veterans Today

Phantom tanks and the desperation of Kiev


Phantom tanks and the desperation of Kiev

Alexander Mercouris: Putin just made the most important speech of his career. The West should listen more closely

For President Putin’s speech at the Valdai Club, October 24, 2014:
https://freeukrainenow.org/2014/10/27/russian-president-vladimir-putins-speech-at-the-valdai-club-october-24-2014/

From Russia Insider, October 29, 2014
By Alexander Mercouris

What he really wants are stability, rules, and a global balance of power – traditional conservative ideas. He thinks the rest of the world needs to rein-in out-of-control US global activism.

Last Friday, Vladimir Putin delivered the single most important speech on foreign policy since he became President in 2000.  Mikhail Gorbachev said he thought it was the best, and most significant speech Putin has ever made.

In it he charted a clear course for Russia, defining its place in international affairs and setting out the principles and objectives of its foreign policy.

The response of the western political and media elite has been pitifully inadequate.  The speech has attracted surprisingly little attention.  The emphasis has been not on what Putin said about Russia or international relations in general but on what he specifically said about the US.

Western commentary wrongly but overwhelmingly treats the speech as simply a critique of US foreign policy (a “diatribe”) with Putin hypocritically condemning a US foreign policy he feels is targeted against him.  Behind this is the assumption that the speech is Putin’s defiant response to the US sanctions policy imposed on Russia since the start of the Ukrainian crisis even though the actual speech barely touches on this question.

Putin did have a lot to say about US foreign policy and what he said was very critical.  However to focus purely on that part of the speech is to fail to do it justice and to ignore its very coherent intellectual framework.

Putin came across a very different person from the aggressive expansionist and nationalist demagogue and gambler of western commentary.  It is also different from the Putin some other people want him to be.  Anyone looking to Putin to lead some great crusade against the US is on the evidence of this speech going to be disappointed.  As some have noticed, what he actually wants from the US is not conflict but cooperation.

Putin’s vision of the international system is a profoundly conservative one – a fact he actually admitted himself after the speech in answer to a question.  Running like a thread throughout the speech is a typical conservative’s yearning for stability and mistrust of change, a wish for a predictable rule based system in which the sovereign rights of nations are respected and in which change when it happens is contained and managed and never encouraged.

Since Putin’s concern is for stability, an aspect of his vision, which would be instantly familiar to an old style European conservative but which is totally alien to a modern western liberal, is that it is totally value neutral.  Where westerners today habitually divide nations into democracies and dictatorships and decide their attitudes to them on that basis, Putin treats them all the same, considering their domestic arrangements to be something for them to worry about.

Underpinning everything is a belief in the need for an orderly system preserved by a balance of power.  For Putin, the USSR’s greatest contribution was precisely in that by providing a counter weight to the US it secured international stability.  Much of the speech is a lament for the loss of the counterweight provided by the USSR.

The part of the speech that criticises US foreign policy draws on these assumptions: the US became intoxicated by the unexpected position it achieved as a result of the USSR’s collapse and rather than acting to preserve the stability of the international system went instead on a rampage through a sequence of violent unilateral actions designed to reshape the world according to its image and interests and in order to perpetuate its dominance.

In the process order and stability have been thrown away and the result is violence and chaos.  Putin recites the list: Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan (where he traces the story back to US support for jihadism against the Soviet army in the 1980s), Libya, Syria and now Ukraine, pointing out that none of these places is better off than it was before the US began to take an interest in them.

In a striking phrase that may cause offence in the US Putin compares the US to a nouveaux riche fecklessly squandering away the windfall.

The speech also shows where Putin wants to position Russia.  In another striking phrase Putin says that he wants Russia to assume leadership of nothing save possibly the defence of international law.

Running like a thread through the speech is a deep commitment to international law interpreted in the most conservative way on the basis of legal documents, treaty texts and Court decisions.  The creative efforts of (as Putin would put it) self-interested western reinterpretation of international law (such as R2P) are spurned as rationalisations for violating it.

By contrast Putin’s response to Western criticism of his Crimean policy is to defend it in the most traditional way by citing the UN Charter and the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Kosovo.

Putin’s training as a lawyer is an aspect of his background that few in the west are aware of.  Judging from his words, it is at least as formative as was his service in the KGB.

This is a vision of Russia as the sheet anchor of the international system, acting together with its allies China and the other BRICS states to restrain the US where possible, rescuing the US from its follies whilst upholding international law, world order and stability.

It is a vision European statesmen of the nineteenth century would have instantly recognised but which political leaders in the US and Europe today barely understand, which is one reason why his speech is little understood.

It is a vision that is very popular in Russia, a country with a history of turmoil where order and stability are highly prized.  It is also arguably a vision that corresponds with Russia’s interests.  As an emerging economy Russia needs a stable and orderly international environment to allow space for its economy to develop.

Importantly throughout the speech Putin made it repeatedly clear that economic development remains for Russia an overriding priority and that the government would take no retaliatory action that might get in the way.

It is also a vision that is likely to be very popular around the world outside the Western camp, where governments and people have become increasingly wary of western interference in their affairs.

In the west, and in the US especially, it will inevitably be seen as a challenge.
 

Alexander Mercouris is a writer on international affairs with a special interest in Russia and law.  He has written extensively on the legal aspects of NSA spying and events in Ukraine in terms of human rights, constitutionality and international law.  He worked for 12 years in the Royal Courts of Justice in London as a lawyer, specializing in human rights and constitutional law.

His family has been prominent in Greek politics for several generations.  He is a frequent commentator on television and speaker at conferences.  He resides in London.

Source:
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics_ukraine_opinion/2014/11/04/02-02-43pm/putin_just_made_most_important_speech_his_career_west

Media blackout as U.S. sponsors genocide in Southeastern Ukraine

Posted on Washington’s Blog, November 13, 2014
By Eric Zuesse

Here’s a typical example of what’s being blacked-out:

This is a photo of a Ukrainian soldier guiding a truck-full of prisoners toward a ditch, to which the prisoners are then dragged one-by-one, and thrown in, and shot — then covered over with dirt after all the corpses (and perhaps some living bleeding survivors) are piled in it. (Of course, any survivors then quickly choke to death, from the dirt):

http://rinf.com/alt-news/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-10-at-1.21.09-PM.png

And here’s an explanation of how this extraordinary video of a genocide being carried out, came to be found by the resistance-fighters against Ukraine’s war to exterminate the residents in Ukraine’s southeast, Ukraine’s region where the vast majority of the people are ethnic Russians, or commonly called “Moskals” by many people in northwestern Ukraine, which term employed by them is equivalent to the terms “nigger,” and “kike” that are used in some other countries: all psychological terms of de-humanization.

Though this video of a genocide-in-action is rare, the event itself is routinely happening in southeastern Ukraine, so that the Ukrainian Government can reduce the population in the area of Ukraine that had voted over 80% for the Ukrainian President whom the Obama Administration overthrew in a violent CIA-paid, U.S.-State-Department planned-and-run, coup, that climaxed on 22 February 2014. The new Government is trying to eliminate enough of the people who had voted for him so that the coup-imposed regime will be able to stay in power ‘democratically,’ with those Russia-friendly voters gone — enough of those voters gone so that America’s coup-regime can continue even as a democracy.

This is the video from which that still-photo is taken — you can see this entire event (except the burial), here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3f9_1413978229. The victims who are shoved into, then shot in the ditch, are all dressed in civilian clothes. They’re not soldiers.

As is evident from that video, the troops who are executing these people don’t care whether any one of the bodies down in that ditch are still alive; the next victim just gets thrown promptly on top, and shot. These troops are interested only in speed, without concern for victims.

Their only “concern” for the victims is to rape the ones they want, and to kill as many of the residents who live there as possible. The objective is officially called “punishment.” That’s the Ukrainian Government’s term. The aim is to make them suffer.

Here is how deeply immersed in hatred of “Moscals” these people are. The Ukrainians who fought on Hitler’s side in WWII are heroes to them. An American friend who happens to live in the conflict-zone, the southeast, where the “Moskals” are predominant, wrote me today about the city of “Mariupol. The hospital there is being inundated with rape victims. A lot of girls are just going missing. People are disappearing constantly. The photo enclosed is from Artemosk yesterday. The Ukraine army ran over the car killing two people. It got stuck on top of the car.” Kill them however you can, is their assignment. Soldiers in the Ukrainian Army are taught that everyone who lives in these areas is the enemy. Killing the residents there is considered to be ‘patriotic.’

There is also plenty of bombing, and firing missiles at, the cities and villages there, to destroy people and buildings, so that many of the surviving residents will flee over the border into neighboring Russia, from whence they’ll never again be allowed to vote in a Ukrainian election — thereby further reducing the number of those voters in Ukrainian national elections. Such bombing and shelling seem to be the Government’s main methods of eliminating residents in the southeast. Also, white phosphorous and other illegal weapons of terror are used, in order to especially induce the residents to evacuate into Russia.

This is a “genocide” against ethnic Russians whose families have lived inside Ukraine, in many cases, for centuries. It is also, and in the very same sense, an “ethnic cleansing,” to lock-in the anti-Russian regime that Obama installed earlier this year.

Here are some of the people who have been fleeing into Russia. Every one of those busloads of refugees exiting Ukraine is further success for Obama’s plan, because it means fewer pro-Eastern, anti-Western, voters.

So, as you can see, the new Ukrainian Government is having considerable success in its efforts to murder and terrorize enough of the residents there, for Ukraine’s electoral map to be no longer as favorable as it formerly was toward political candidates who prefer Russia over the United States. This is a way to gain a new ally against Russia, right next door to Russia. It’s conquest of Ukraine’s southeast, by Ukraine’s northwest.

Here is a Gallup poll that had been taken throughout Ukraine in April 2014, just after the coup. As you can see, the northwest liked the U.S., the European Union, and NATO, while the southeast liked Russia and didn’t want to join either the EU or NATO. Furthermore, Crimeans, the residents in what had been the far-southernmost part of Ukraine, loathed Ukraine, and were relieved to be restored again to Russia. Sectional differences in Ukraine are extreme. Obama forced the Russia-haters into power, and wants to keep them in power.

Moreover, Gallup had polled 500 Crimeans during May 16-30 in 2013, and found that only 15% considered themselves “Ukrainian” at all. This was when Crimea was still part of Ukraine. 24% considered themselves simply “Crimean,” which nonetheless was a renunciation of any Ukrainian identity for themselves; so, that’s 24% who didn’t think of themselves as being Ukrainian. And additionally, 40% — a number virtually matching the totality of the other two, and nearly three times larger than the percentage who called themselves “Ukrainian” — considered themselves already to be “Russian,” even before the coup. The people there overwhelmingly wanted to secede from Ukraine, and they preferred to be part of Russia, just as Crimea had been prior to 1954.

Immediately after the coup, Russia sent troops into Crimea to preserve its Black Sea Fleet which has always been stationed there; and this military presence protected Crimeans, too, against the ethnic cleansing that was quickly started by the new Ukrainian regime to eliminate the residents in other areas of Ukraine’s southeast than Crimea. You’ll see those areas in purple on Ukraine’s 2010 electoral map, with the purple areas being the ones where the election’s pro-Russian winner, Viktor Yanukovych, had received over 80% of the vote. Here is the map of that 2010 vote, with the purple areas being the same areas that are now being ethnically cleansed. This map shows the exact voting-percentages: the three districts that voted more than 80% for the man whom Obama overthrew are now the ones that either broke away from Ukraine or are trying to. This is where the genocide is being concentrated. The people who live there aren’t wanted by Kiev’s new Government; only their land is.

Back when the U.S-engineered “Maidan” demonstrations had first placed into power a pro-U.S. Ukrainian President, Yanukovych’s opponent in 2004, here is the election map, which showed just the same areas that were strongly pro-Russian then as now.

Obviously, the U.S. CIA, and State Department, and President Barack Obama, can read electoral maps; and, as long as those voters in Ukraine’s far-east stayed alive where they were, inside Ukraine, no anti-Russian regime in Ukraine would be able to remain securely in power.

However, a pretext needed to be established in order to ‘justify’ this ethnic cleansing; and that pretext was that they were separatists who threatened the presumed (but always fictional) unity of the Ukrainian culture and State.

In order to scare the residents in the pro-Russian areas and get them to become separatists — to become terrified enough for them to want to become part of Russia or else flee into safety inside Russia rather than to be attacked, bombed, and shot, by this new regime in Kiev — the Government, or actually one of its officials who happens to be one of Ukraine’s oligarchs, with a fortune over five billion dollars, held a massacre of peaceful pro-Russian demonstrators they trapped inside the Odessa Trade Unions Building on 2 May 2014, and then the army itself invaded other cities in the southeast on May 9th. By this time, many residents throughout the southeast, basically in the areas where Yanukovych had received over 80% of the vote, formed themselves into militias and moved to secede from Ukraine (to protect themselves and their families from the new regime), which this new Ukrainian Government promptly called ‘terrorism,’ and the Government announced an “Anti-Terrorist Operation,” or “ATO,” in order to exterminate them. Also, many people in Ukraine’s northwest openly mocked the people who had been burnt and clubbed to death at the Trade Unions Building massacre. The victims of that massacre were blamed for the massacre, because they had been ‘terrorists.’

Here is how Ukraine’s Defense Minister described his plan:

“There will be a thorough filtration of people. There will be special filtration measures put in place. We will filter out people, including women, who are linked to separatism, who were committing crimes on Ukrainian territory, crimes related to terrorist activities. We have a lot of information regarding this, and we have a formidable framework to combat this, and respective power structures will carry out this operation. Besides, this is a serious issue, related to the fact that people will be resettled to other regions.”

The new Government is also training Ukraine’s children to view extermination of Russians as being a patriotic necessity for Ukrainians. There are summer camps to which children are sent to be taught Ukrainian nazi ideology, where they march under both the Ukrainian flag and also various nazi flags, sometimes including the swastika. Both at such camps, and inside the parliament, the German nazi salute of the stiff right arm raised upward, with the hand and fingers positioned stiffly forward, is commonly given, as a sign of the individual’s loyalty to the country. Also, Ukraine’s military is increasingly filled with men who are tattooed with the swastika and other German nazi insignia. The common heritage back to Adolf Hitler (whom America’s WWII veterans went to war to defeat, of course) is being honored, not merely more overtly, but also more privately, by right-wing Ukrainians, as having been the leading edge of the new Ukraine, which U.S. President Barack Obama — the United States Government — installed on February 22nd, and which perpetrated the Odessa massacre on May 2nd, as well as the civil war that followed. These are America’s new  allies.

But it’s all being blacked-out, in countries that claim to represent democracy. This black-out adds insult to the injury that the present regime is causing, and not only to Ukraine, but to US. It’s complicity in this Administration’s criminality. And it is dangerous.

This is no mere game. The public needs to know that this is happening, and why it’s happening. Otherwise, there is no democracy, because what’s at stake here is not only the character of today’s America, but is America’s future, and the world’s. If the American people are manipulated about this, then they are no free people, and American democracy is then itself fake, no longer real, in any significant sense. Just a sham. And a shame — not of the public, but of the people who hide the truth from the public.

Due to the Internet, this is the first genocide that is being documented in real time, as it occurs. Historians will note this genocide, and will also note where it was reported, and where it was not reported.

———-

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.

Source:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/11/media-blackout-u-s-sponsors-genocide-southeastern-ukraine.html

Former CIA officer says the CIA won the midterm elections

The grounds for such a reversal of fortune has been well prepared by the intelligence community’s persistent overhyping of what Clapper refers to as a “perfect storm” of “diverse” threats currently confronting the United States, most notably ISIS and associated groups together with the manufactured crisis in Ukraine

From American Conservative, November 13, 2014
The CIA Won the Midterms
By Philip Giraldi

Note: Midterm elections are the elections halfway through an American president’s 4-year term.

Incoming intel committee chair Richard Burr will end any hope of holding out of control spy agencies accountable.

The wheels up party is a venerable CIA tradition, normally celebrated at overseas stations when a particularly incompetent Chief of Station or a hostile ambassador was in the process of permanently leaving post. The drinking would begin at a time estimated to coincide with the moment when the dearly departed’s aircraft lifted off from the tarmac on its way to Washington.

Wheels ups are rarer at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., though celebrations were reported when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980; but as a number of senior officers in the Agency actually had a hand in that development, there was probably a measure of self-congratulation at a job well done.

One might well imagine that the partying began at Langley shortly after the polls closed last Tuesday, as soon as it became clear that there would be a GOP Senate majority. More to the point, Sen. Dianne Feinstein would be performing her own wheels up, relinquishing her position as Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) chair to be replaced by the little known Richard Burr of North Carolina. Burr is regarded by the Agency as a good friend, someone who had already staked out a position in favor of protecting government secrecy, stating “I personally don’t believe that anything that goes on in the intelligence committee should ever be discussed publicly.” He also basically supports the CIA position that torture produced information critical to the killing of Osama bin Laden, commenting that “The information that eventually led us to this compound was the direct result of enhanced interrogations…” Burr is regarded as a right-wing conservative and has earned the ultimate accolade of a zero rating from the American Civil Liberties Union. Continue reading

Dozens of “near miss” incidents have brought NATO and Russia to the brink of war

From World Socialist Website, November 11, 2014
By Alex Lantier

According to a report published yesterday by the London-based European Leadership Network think tank (ELN), there have been at least 40 “near misses” in which the Russian military and NATO forces, sent to Eastern Europe following last February’s far-right, NATO-backed putsch in Kiev, came close to military conflict.

The ELN writes that NATO-Russian relations since March 2014, have been in “a situation in which mistrust, fear, and shortened leadership decision times characterize a volatile stand-off between a nuclear-armed state and a nuclear-armed alliance.” The report continues: “To perpetuate that reality in the circumstances described in this report is risky at best. At worst, it could prove catastrophic.”

The ELN is comprised of top-level security officials from a number of European imperialist countries. Its board includes Munich Security Conference Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, former Defense Secretaries Des Browne and Malcolm Rifkind (UK), Volker Ruehe (Germany), and Alain Richard (France), and former UN Special Commissioner on Iraq Rolf Ekeus. In its report, it carefully selects the incidents it describes to falsely cast Russia as the aggressor.

Nonetheless, the reported incidents clearly illustrate the immense dangers posed to the survival of humanity by NATO’s reckless escalation in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the US-led NATO regime-change operation in Ukraine.

Armies worldwide are on a hair trigger, with NATO jets patrolling the skies of the Baltic republics and other Eastern European states as little as a quarter hour’s flight time from Russian cities. Minor miscommunications between Russian forces and the NATO troops, fighter jets and warships flooding into Eastern Europe—or deployed in North America and the Pacific, where other “near misses” occurred—could rapidly escalate into a global nuclear conflagration.

One so-called “high-risk” incident occurred on September 5, two days after US President Barack Obama visited Estonia to assure it of Washington’s “eternal support” against Russia. “On 5 September 2014, an Estonian security service operative, Eston Kohver, was abducted by Russian agents from an Estonian border post. He was later taken to Moscow and accused of espionage,” the ELN writes. “Had the incident resulted in loss of life, there could have been a dangerous and uncontrolled escalation.”

As with most of the incidents the ELN reports, this event shows that the main war danger comes from NATO’s aggressive policies. Estonia is a tiny, non-nuclear Baltic country of 1.3 million people near the Russian city of St. Petersburg. It would use diplomatic channels to resolve the matter and not risk military escalation against Russia, if it were not receiving encouragement and strong assurances of support against Russia, including direct military support, from NATO and the United States.

Another “high-risk” incident was Sweden’s bellicose but fruitless hunt for a Russian submarine it believed to be in its territorial waters between October 17 and October 27. “Supreme Commander General Sverker Goranson underlined that Sweden was ready to use ‘armed force’ to bring the vessel to the surface if necessary,” the ELN writes. “Had the submarine been found and force used by Swedish authorities, this may have resulted in casualties and a further Russian military response.”

The last “high-risk” incident was the near-collision on March 3 of an SAS passenger plane and a Russian reconnaissance aircraft that was not transmitting its position to civilian air authorities. According to the ELN, a collision leading to passenger deaths would have led NATO to classify “further un-logged or blind air activity over Europe as a possible threat to life requiring forceful pre-emptive interdiction.”

That is, NATO would adopt the incendiary policy of tracking and destroying all unidentified flying objects in European air space—rapidly risking war with Russia.

The conflicts and the danger of nuclear war raised in this report underscore the catastrophic implications of the crisis of world capitalism. A quarter century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, followed by the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, a new world war is being prepared as the imperialist powers manipulate ethnic divisions within the former USSR to encircle and divide Russia.

The central danger to the working class is the aggressive policy of the NATO powers, led by the United States and Germany. They backed a putsch in Kiev spearheaded by forces of the Ukrainian fascist Right Sector militia. They then seized upon the resulting civil war that broke out between the far-right Kiev regime and ethnic Russian areas in eastern Ukraine to denounce Russia and dispatch military forces to Poland, the Baltic republics, the Black Sea region and Ukraine itself.

This offensive was justified in the NATO countries with lying claims that the US-led military alliance was intervening to support freedom. The risk of nuclear war resulting from the offensive against Russia was concealed from working people in America and Europe.

Recognizing the central role of NATO aggression in the Ukraine crisis does not imply support for reckless policies the Kremlin might employ as it tries to work out a new modus vivendi with Western imperialism. Representing a layer of super-rich oligarchs that emerged from the looting of public property in the Soviet Union, the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin can make no appeal to opposition to war in the global working class.

Its Russian nationalist appeals are reactionary. They aid the imperialists in their efforts to stir up divisions between Russian and Ukrainian workers and within the international working class more generally.

Significantly, the ELN avoids mentioning nuclear weapons in the incidents it describes. However, both NATO and Russia are preparing their nuclear forces.

Washington has never issued a so-called “no-first-use” pledge, i.e., a guarantee that it will not be the first power to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. Top Russian officers are pushing for the Kremlin to explicitly define scenarios in which they would launch nuclear strikes against NATO countries.

In May, Russian and US strategic nuclear forces carried out dueling exercises. According to Kremlin outlet Russia Today, the Russian drills “demonstrated how the missile corps, artillery, aviation, and anti-aircraft defenses can be used—for instance, to destroy troops on the ground or to counter massive missile, aviation, or nuclear strikes by an enemy. Plus, it was shown how to inflict a launch-through-attack strike with nuclear missiles”—that is, a retaliatory Russian nuclear strike carried out as a NATO nuclear attack on Russia took place.

In September, as Russia carried out a further round of nuclear exercises, Russian General Yury Yakubov told Interfax: “In my view, our primary enemy is the US and the North Atlantic bloc … it is necessary to hash out the conditions under which Russia could carry out a preemptive strike with the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces.”

The ELN does report the following incident:

“In early September 2014, Russian strategic bombers in the Labrador Sea near Canada practiced cruise missile strikes on the United States. The Russian aircraft stayed outside of Canada’s ADIZ, but this was still a provocative move in light of the NATO summit ongoing at the time. Cruise missiles launched from the Labrador Sea would have Ottawa, New York, Washington, Chicago, and the Norfolk Naval Base in range.”

The cruise missiles the Russian bombers could fire at these cities could be armed with nuclear warheads.

Prior to the ELN report, this event was reported only in a Washington Free Beacon article by journalist Bill Gertz. Otherwise, this event—which illustrates all too clearly the risks posed by US policy in Ukraine—was totally blacked out by the US media.

Source:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/11/11/nato-n11.html

Re-posted at
http://www.globalresearch.ca/dozens-of-near-miss-incidents-have-brought-nato-and-russia-to-the-brink-of-war/5413371

Posted under Fair Use Rules.

Eyewitness account from Eastern Ukraine: National Guard and Right Sector battalions killing civilians

Posted on Slavyangrad.org, October 28, 2014

Preamble: What follows is a first-hand account of events that took place in the area of the MH17 crash site in August of this year, written by someone who was part of the team of OSCE inspectors and observers. The Slavyangrad team was approached by this individual with a view to publishing their account as they believed that more mainstream news sources would either distort or censor the account. Accordingly, we have made only minor alterations to improve the English and to iron out typographical and/or grammatical errors (the author’s first language is not English). For obvious reasons (evident from the final paragraph of this account) we have substituted a pseudonym for the author’s real name.

Written by “Col. Tulip”
Edited by @GBabeuf & Olga Luzanova

On August 8, we received information that a farmer located in the most southern area of the crash site had reported that he had found materials which he believed had originated from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. According to the report, the farmer also believed that there might be human remains on his fields and he was asking for instructions on what to do. On Sunday, August 10, we attempted to reach the farmer. For this we had to cross from Ukrainian-held territory into rebel-held territory, crossing the no-man’s-land between the front lines. In reality, this basically means the space between the final road-blocks on the main roads.

Azov Battalion emblem

Azov Battalion emblem

At the last Ukrainian-manned road-block (manned by a volunteer unit wearing the insignia of the Azov Battalion), well within the twenty kilometre perimeter around the crash site, we were prohibited from continuing because there were ongoing military operations in the area ahead of us. In response to our questions about the operations, we were told “none of your business,” and “be glad we let you leave.” We decided to take a detour in order to try our luck at another road-block. At this road-block, in the hands of the regular army, we were simply waved through after having our papers checked. We asked if there were any military operations ongoing in the area ahead of us; the answer was “not that we know of—we have orders to hold our position and only to defend ourselves.”

Knowing that road-blocks are a regular target for both sides, we decided to move on quickly and see how far we would get. Our designated fixer told us that he expected another road-block ahead of us and a few kilometres along the road his suspicion was confirmed: an improvised road-block constructed from burned out cars and felled trees, manned by irregular troops. They seemed very excited, urging us “go back, go back, we are fighting!” One soldier with Azov badges and the black-red Right-Sector identification, seemingly the commander of this group, came over to our car and told us: “You have already been told that there is a military operation going on and that you are not allowed to proceed.” This made it clear to us that while irregular or volunteer units were communicating with each other, they were not communicating with the regular army unit holding the road-block we had previously passed through.

We took this man aside and reminded him of his government’s commitment to ensuring access to the crash site and to maintaining a twenty kilometre cease-fire zone around it. The reply was, to us, shocking: “I don’t take orders from Kiev,” and after this his tone became threatening. We decided to drive back to the army held road-block and ask around there. The commander at the army road-block said he did not know where the “amateurs” (as he referred to the irregulars) had their road-blocks or what they were doing. His exact statement was “I don’t know who gives them orders, we have no communication with them. My orders are to hold this position and to act only to defend ourselves, so that is what we do.” We asked him again if he knew about any ongoing military operation in the area we were attempting to visit, and his reply was very straightforward: “Did your translator misunderstand something? We have orders to hold this position.” His annoyance seemed real—despite lacking any real insight into his actual orders, I believed he was telling the truth.

We decided to leave the area that was visible from the road-block and instead to try to find access by taking back-roads since our fixer was sure he would be able to find a way to bypass the road-blocks and get to the farmer who was awaiting us. Using back-roads and dirt tracks through fields, we were able to bypass the road-blocks of both sides, including those controlled by Ukrainian irregular forces.

Close to the village we met the farmer. While we were introducing ourselves we could hear artillery fire and explosions in the distance, which was a regular occurrence in this area despite the supposed commitment to a cease-fire around the crash site. The farmer, Gennady, explained to us what he had found and that he wanted to make sure he was not disturbing anything, but that he also needed to start preparing for harvesting his crop. When we approached the path into his fields I noticed two candles, some flowers and a cross. Gennady knelt down to take some dirt away and sat there for a moment. Our translator whispered, “he is praying.” When he got up, he said something which apparently touched our translator so much that she at first replied to Gennady in English, “tell him,” before continuing in Russian.

What Gennady had said was: “I thanked God you are here because they will not attack us now that you are.” What followed was a description, shocking to me, of regular artillery barrages against the villages and settlements in this area. Gennady told us that the villagers say “they are playing tennis, because they play three sets every match to try and kill us.” We had heard about people using the term ‘tennis’ for those actions before, but so far we had thought this meant watching the shells flying over like a tennis ball during a game. Evidently it was not; we were shocked by the cold description. Gennady pointed out some of the sites which he knew to have been hit—all farms, settlements and the two villages in the immediate vicinity. No military emplacements, no military objectives. Continue reading