Victoria Nuland

Anti-NATO events in Washington DC

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From Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
by Bruce Gagnon
July 9, 2024

Bruce Gagnon and Rick Staggenborg in the march on Sunday

Four of us from Maine (MB Sullivan, Lisa Savage, Mark Roman and I) made the 10-hour drive to Washington DC last Friday to join the anti-NATO events planned to protest NATO’s ’75th anniversary celebration’ which begins on July 10. We were joined by former Mainers Melody Shank and Ken Jones  now living in North Carolina. 

Things began with a conference on Saturday morning at a local church attended by about 150 people and organized by a coalition led by World Beyond War. Disappointingly (but not surprising) several of the speakers once again blamed Russia for the war in Ukraine with words like ‘illegal, immoral, provocative’ Russian invasion. Sadly there are still some in the ‘peace movement’ who continue to be reluctant to pin the blame for the proxy war on US-NATO which was particularly uncalled for at an anti-NATO summit. Those that do at some point admit that US-NATO did in fact instigate the ‘tensions’ always seem to say that Russia should not have responded to protect the Donbass. That option was of course unacceptable to Moscow which I fully agree with.

This of course has been going on ever since the 2014 US-NATO orchestrated coup d’etat in Kiev which was led by the Obama-Biden administration under the direction of Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden [and John Kerry]. Soon thereafter the US-NATO regime in Kiev (infused with Nazis from Western Ukraine) began attacking the Donbass region of Ukraine where Russian-ethnics predominate and killed more than 15,000 and wounded around 35,000. 

Moscow made repeated attempts to create mechanisms to end the siege on the Donbass including the Minsk 1 & 2 agreements that leaders of Ukraine, France and Germany later admitted they never intended to honor – they just used the agreements to buy time to build up Ukraine’s US-NATO funded, trained, armed and directed army for a final charge against their own citizens whose only crime was they spoke Russian.

By early 2022 Russia knew that the western controlled Ukrainian military would soon launch a full scale attack on the Donbass so Moscow decided to preempt that move and began the slow and deliberate effort to push the Nazi-led forces away from the Donbass which sits on Russia’s border.

Later Saturday around 5:00 pm a larger conference began at another church in Washington. Oh, what a difference it was. This event was led by anti-imperialist organizations that have no doubt the US-NATO were in fact responsible for the war in Ukraine – to be used in a now failed strategy to force ‘regime change’ in Moscow in order for western resource extraction corporations to grab Russia’s vast resource base (among other reasons).

More than 300 (mostly young activists) gathered at this event with powerful speakers talking about a myriad of regions of the world where the US-NATO war machine is trying to regain their settler colonial domination. Good luck with that one.

This multi-ethnic coalition was a stark difference from the smaller event we had attended earlier that day. 

I learned years ago about the US anti-imperialist movement led by Mark Twain during Washington’s war on the Philippines.  At this event an impressive video was shown about the long US occupation of the Philippines that continues today as the Biden administration now floods that island nation with new missiles, warships, war planes and troops aimed at China. All part of NATO’s ‘pivot’ into the Asia-Pacific.

We also heard from young activists speaking about Palestine, Puerto Rico, black liberation movements across the US and much more. The Nicaraguan ambassador to the US also spoke and was roundly received. 

Fascism is growing worldwide in order to protect corporate interests and to suppress the resulting people’s movements for liberation. US-NATO wars in the Middle East have cost 4.5 million lives in the last 25 years. Israel is a ‘partner’ of NATO and takes part in its war games. NATO also trains Middle Eastern reactionary regimes that have served as western puppets for many years – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan and more.

On Sunday we joined a march led by the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist coalition to the White House. A rally was set up in Lafayette Park next to the White House led by the World Beyond War coalition. When we arrived very few people were at the rally site. Thanks to the 400 in the anti-imperialist march the rally began to look more respectable though I didn’t see any of the anti-imperialist leaders invited to the stage to speak to the largely younger crowd.

Despite the long drive from Maine to DC we all agreed that it was well worth the trip – especially to be with emerging activists. We often hear elder ‘peace movement’ folks wonder where are the ‘young people’? Actually they are out there leading the protests against zionist genocide in Palestine and doing great anti-NATO work against the empire’s ever expanding war machine. Some might call them radicals – but I stand by the definition of radical as those getting to the root of the problems that we face.

The half-stepping reformist peace groups (sometimes linked to the Democratic party and their foundation funders) have a long way to go if they hope to more fully integrate with the next generation of activism.

https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2024/07/anti-nato-events-in-washington-dc.html

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks at UN Security Council meeting on situation in Ukraine – September 20, 2023

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From the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the UN Security Council meeting “Upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter through effective multilateralism: maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine,” New York, September 20, 2023

Mr President,

Mr Secretary-General,

Colleagues.

The international order as it exists today emerged from the ruins of World War II and resulted from this tremendous tragedy. The UN Charter served as its foundation, as the key source of present-day international law. It is largely thanks to the United Nations that a new world war leading to a nuclear catastrophe has been averted.

Unfortunately, when the Cold War came to an end, the US-led so-called collective West appropriated the right to rule the destinies of the entire humankind and, driven by its exceptionalism complex, started ignoring the legacy of the UN founding fathers more often and on an increasingly greater scale.

Today, the West makes selective use of the Charter’s norms and principles, on a case-by-case basis, and only when they serve its vested geopolitical needs. This inevitably throws global stability off-balance, exacerbating the existing hotbeds of tension and creating new ones, which in turn raises the spectre of a global conflict in the process. Seeking to offset these risks and ensure that events unfold in a peaceful manner, Russia has been insisting and keeps insisting that all the provisions of the UN Charter be respected and carried out in full and with due regard for their interconnected nature, rather than selectively, including the principles of the sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their domestic affairs, respect for territorial integrity and the right of people to self-determination. However, we see that the balance of requirements stipulated in the Charter is being trampled upon by the actions undertaken by the United States and its allies.

The United States and its allies have been interfering in Ukraine’s domestic affairs in a blatant and open manner since the dissolution of the USSR, when independent states replaced it. In late 2013, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted publicly and even with some pride that Washington spent $5 billion on nurturing politicians in Kiev that would obey the West.

All the facts on how the Ukraine crisis was engineered have long been exposed, while everything is being done to sweep them under the carpet as if they wanted to cancel everything that happened before 2014. For this reason, the topic of today’s meeting as suggested by the Albanian Presidency is very timely. It offers us an opportunity to restore the sequence of events in the context of the way the key actors have been carrying out the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

In 2004 and 2005, the West sought to bring a pro-American candidate to power and for this purpose gave the green light to the first government coup in Kiev by forcing the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to adopt an illegal decision for holding a third round in the presidential election, even though the country’s Constitution does not provide for it. The West acted in an even more heavy-handed manner when it interfered in Ukraine’s internal affairs in 2013 and 2014, during the second Maidan movement. At the time, Western visitors travelled there one after another to directly encourage those taking part in anti-government demonstrations to engage in violence. It was the same Victoria Nuland who discussed the future cabinet to be formed by the putsch perpetrators with the US Ambassador in Kiev. At the same time, she showed where the European Union actually belongs, in Washington’s thinking, on the international political stage. We remember the two words she said, and it is quite telling that the European Union swallowed it.

Handpicked by the Americans, the key actors took part in carrying out a bloody coup in February 2014. Let me remind you that it was organised the next day after the legitimately elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, reached an agreement with the opposition leaders, with Germany, Poland and France acting as the guarantors. The principle of non-interference in domestic affairs was trampled upon many times over.

Right after the coup, its perpetrators said that curtailing the rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population was their utmost priority. They designated people in Crimea and southeastern regions who refused to accept the anti-constitutional coup as terrorists and unleashed a punitive operation against them. Crimea and Donbass responded by holding referendums in full compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as enshrined in Article 1, Paragraph 2 of the UN Charter.

When it comes to Ukraine, Western diplomats and politicians have been turning a blind eye to this fundamental tenet of international law in an attempt to cast what led to these developments and their meaning as being merely an unacceptable violation of territorial integrity. In this connection, I would like to recall the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States. It reads that the principle of territorial integrity applies to “states conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples <…> and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory.” It goes without saying that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis who seized power in Kiev did not represent the people of Crimea or Donbass. As for the unquestionable support the Western capitals offered to the criminal Kiev regime, it was nothing short of violating the self-determination principle on top on interfering in domestic affairs.

Following the government coup, Ukraine adopted racist laws to cancel everything Russian during Petr Poroshenko’s and Vladimir Zelensky’s presidencies, including education, media, culture, destroying books and monuments, banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and seizing its property. All this constituted a blatant violation of Article 1, Paragraph 3 of the UN Charter, which talks about encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. Let alone the fact that these actions clearly ran counter to the Constitution of Ukraine under which the state is under obligation to respect the rights of Russians and other ethnic minorities.

Hearing calls to follow the so-called peace formula and return Ukraine within its 1991 borders raises the following question: are those making these calls aware of the statements by the Ukrainian leadership on what they intend to do to the people living in those territories? These people have been targeted by multiple public threats of being exterminated, either in legal or physical terms, and this has been happening at an official level. Not only is the West unwilling to hold back its protégés in Kiev, but enthusiastically encourages them in their racist policies.

Similarly, the EU and NATO have been encouraging Latvia and Estonia for decades in their efforts to deny hundreds of thousands of Russian speakers their rights by designating them as non-citizens. They are now seriously discussing introducing criminal liability for using one’s native tongue. High-ranking officials have been making public statements that spreading information about opportunities for local students to follow the Russian school curriculum remotely must be viewed as nothing short of a national security threat requiring the attention of law enforcement agencies.

But getting back to Ukraine, the UN Security Council adopted a dedicated resolution to approve the February 2015 Minsk Agreements in full compliance with Article 36 of the Charter, which supports “any procedures for the settlement of the dispute which have already been adopted by the parties.” In this case, the parties included Kiev, the DPR and the LPR. However, last year, all those who signed the Minsk Agreements, apart from Vladimir Putin, i.e., Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Petr Poroshenko, all recognised in public and with a certain degree of satisfaction that they had no intention of fulfilling this document when they signed it. In fact, all they wanted was to win some time to reinforce Ukraine’s military capabilities and supply it with more weapons for countering Russia. For all these years, the EU and NATO engaged in an outright effort to support Kiev in sabotaging the Minsk Agreements while encouraging the Kiev regime to resolve the so-called Donbass issue by force. All this was being done in violation of Article 25 of the Charter, which says that all UN members must “accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.”

Let me recall that the Minsk Package included a declaration signed by the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine. In it, Berlin and Paris undertook to do many things, including help restore the banking system in Donbass. However, they did not even move a finger. All they did was stand back and watch Petr Poroshenko impose a trade, economic and transport blockade on Donbass despite all these commitments. In the same declaration, Berlin and Paris undertook to facilitate trilateral cooperation between the EU, Russia and Ukraine for addressing Russia’s concerns in trade, as well as promote the “creation of a joint humanitarian and economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” The Security Council adopted this declaration too, making it binding under Article 25 of the UN Charter as I have already mentioned. But this commitment by the leaders of Germany and France turned out to be null and void, becoming yet another violation of the Charter’s principles.

Andrey Gromyko, the legendary Foreign Minister of the USSR, often said, quite rightly, that “ten years of talks are better than one day of war.” In keeping with this maxim, we spent many years in talks and sought agreements on European security. We approved the Russia-NATO Founding Act and adopted OSCE declarations on indivisible security at the highest level in 1999 and 2010. Since 2015, we have been insisting that the Minsk Agreements be executed in full and without any exemptions as agreed during the talks. In all these instances, we acted in full compliance with the UN Charter, which talks about establishing “conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained.” Our Western colleagues have trampled upon this principle too by signing all these documents knowing in advance that they would not fulfil them.

As for talks, we do not refuse to talk now either. President of Russia Vladimir Putin said this on numerous occasions, including recently. I would like to remind the Secretary of State that President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky has signed an executive order prohibiting talks with the government of Vladimir Putin. If the United States is interested in such talks, I think it only needs to give the signal for Zelensky’s order to be cancelled.

Today, the rhetoric of our opponents is full of slogans such as “invasion,” “aggression” and “annexation.” They do not say a word about the inner reasons for the problem, or the fact that for many years they nurtured a downright Nazi regime, which is openly rewriting the results of World War II and the history of their own people. The West does not want to hold a substantial discussion based on facts and respect for all the requirements of the UN Charter, probably because they have no arguments for an honest dialogue.

One gets a strong impression that Western representatives are afraid of professional discussions where their empty rhetoric can be exposed. While chanting their mantras about the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the former colonial powers keep silent about the UN decisions inviting France to return the island of Mayotte to the Comoros and Britain to withdraw from the Chagos Islands and to resume negotiations with Argentina to resolve the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) issue. These “advocates” of Ukraine’s territorial integrity pretend to have forgotten the essence of the Minsk Agreements, under which Donbass was to be reintegrated into Ukraine on the condition of guaranteed respect for all the fundamental human rights, primarily the right to one’s own language. The West, which thwarted their implementation, is directly responsible for the disintegration of Ukraine and for inciting a civil war there.

Regarding other principles of the UN Charter, respect for which could have prevented the security crisis in Europe and could have helped coordinate confidence measures based on a balance of interests, I would like to cite Article 2 of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. It calls for developing the practice of a peaceful settlement of local disputes through regional organisations.

In accordance with that principle, Russia and its allies have been consistently encouraging contacts between the CSTO and NATO for promoting the implementation of decisions on the indivisibility of security adopted at the OSCE summits in 1999 and 2010. They stipulate, in part, that “no state, group of states or organisation can have any pre-eminent responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the OSCE area or can consider any part of the OSCE area as its sphere of influence.” Everyone knows that this is exactly what NATO has been doing, that is has been trying to create its complete pre-eminence first in Europe and now in the Asia-Pacific region. Numerous appeals from the CSTO to NATO were disregarded. The reason for that arrogance of the United States and its allies, as everyone can see today, is their unwillingness to conduct an equal dialogue with anyone. If NATO had not rejected the CSTO’s offers of cooperation, this could have likely prevented many of the negative processes that have led to the current European crisis because they refused to listen to Russia or deceived it for decades.

Today, when we are discussing “effective multilateralism” at the initiative of the presidency, we should also recall the numerous facts of Western rejection of any form of equal cooperation. One shocking example of the phrase by Josep Borrel, who said that “Europe is a garden [and] most of the rest of the world is a jungle.” It is a clear neocolonial syndrome and evidence of disregard for the sovereign equality of states and the goal of using effective multilateralism to defend the principles of the UN Charter, which we are discussing today.

Trying to hinder efforts to make international relations more democratic, the United States and its allies are taking over the secretariats of international organisations increasingly openly and impudently, violating the established procedure to create mechanisms with non-consensual mandates, which they can control and use to condemn anyone who does not suit Washington for whatever reason.

In this connection, I would like to remind you that not only member states but also the UN Secretariat must strictly comply with the UN Charter. Under Article 100 of the UN Charter, the Secretariat must act without bias and “shall not seek or receive instructions from any government.”

I have already mentioned Article 2 of the UN Charter. I would like to draw your attention to its main principle: “1. The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” In accordance with that principle, the UN General Assembly adopted a declaration on October 24, 1970, which I have mentioned before, to reaffirm that “every state has an inalienable right to choose its political, economic, social and cultural systems, without interference in any form by another state.” In this connection, we have serious questions for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said on March 29, 2023, that “autocratic leadership is not a guarantor of stability; it is a catalyst of chaos and conflict,” whereas “strong democratic societies are places that are capable of self-correction — and self-improvement. They can enable change — even radical change – without bloodshed and violence.” This brings to mind the “changes” that resulted from the actions of “strong democratic societies” in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and many other countries.

Antonio Guterres went on to say that “they [strong democratic societies] are centres for broad-based cooperation, rooted in the principles of equality, participation and solidarity.” It is notable that these statements were made at the “summit for democracy,” which was convened by US President Joe Biden outside the UN framework, whose participants were chosen by the US Administration based on the principle of loyalty not to so much to Washington as to the ruling Democratic Party. The attempts to use such forums as a crony gathering for discussing global matters stand in direct conflict with Paragraph 4 of Article 1 of the UN Charter, which says that the purpose of the United Nations is “to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.”

Contrary to that principle, France and Germany announced several years ago the establishment of an Alliance for Multilateralism, to which they invited those who are obedient, which confirmed the initiators’ colonial mentality and attitude to the principle of effective multilateralism we are discussing today. At the same time, they promoted the narrative about the EU as the ideal example of “multilateralism.” Today, Brussels calls for the EU enlargement as soon as possible, in particular, in the Balkans. Moreover, the main focus is not on Serbia or Turkey, which have been holding useless accession talks for decades, but on Ukraine. Josep Borrel, who claims the role of the ideologist of European integration, has recently gone as far as to call for accelerating the admission of the Kiev regime into the EU. According to him, without the war, Ukraine’s candidacy would have taken years, but now it can and should be admitted without any conditions. Serbia, Turkey and other candidates can wait, but a Nazi regime can be admitted out of turn.

By the way, the UN Secretary-General said the following at that “summit for democracy”: “Democracy flows from the United Nations Charter. Its opening invocation of ‘We the Peoples’ reflects the fundamental source of legitimate authority: the consent of the governed.” I suggest comparing that thesis with the “achievements” of the Kiev regime, which launched a war against a large part of its own people, the millions of people who did not grant their consent to be governed by the neo-Nazis and Russophobes who usurped authority in the country and buried the Minsk Agreements approved by the UN Security Council, thereby disrupting the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Those who divide the world into “democratic societies” and “autocracies,” contrary to the UN Charter, should ask themselves which of the two the Kiev regime is. But I do not expect them to answer.

When we talk about the principles of the UN Charter, we should also address the issue of relations between the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. The Western “team” has been aggressively espousing the idea of the “abuse of veto” for a long time and has ensured – by putting pressure on other UN member states – the adoption of a decision on convening a General Assembly meeting every time the veto is cast, even though it is the West that provokes this increasingly frequently. We do not regard this as a problem. Russia’s positions on all issues on the agenda are open to the public. We have nothing to hide, and it is not difficult for us to put forth our positions again. Besides, veto is an absolutely legitimate instrument that is stipulated in the UN Charter to prevent the adoption of decisions that can split the Organisation. However, since the procedure of discussing every veto at a General Assembly meeting has been approved, why not discuss also the Security Council resolutions that have been adopted, including many years ago, but are not being implemented, contrary to the provisions of Article 25 of the UN Charter? Why cannot the General Assemble discuss reasons for this, for example, with regard to UNSC resolutions on Palestine and the entire range of issues related to the Middle East and North Africa, the JCPOA, or Resolution 2202, which approved the Minsk Agreements on Ukraine?

The issue of sanctions should be given attention as well. It has become standard practice that after the UNSC adopts sanctions against a certain country, after long discussions and in strict compliance with the UN Charter, the United States and its allies adopt “additional” unilateral restrictions against that same state without the approval of the Security Council or the inclusion of these sanctions into a council’s resolution within the framework of a coordinated package. A regrettable illustration is a recent decision by Germany, France and Britain to use their national legislations to “extend” restrictions against Iran, which will expire in October under UNSC Resolution 2231. In other words, European countries and Britain have announced that they do not care that the UNSC decision has expired, because they have their own “rules.”

This is why it is so important to consider a decision according to which nobody will have a right to devalue UNSC resolutions on sanctions by adopting their own illegitimate restrictions against that same country.

Furthermore, all sanctions regimes adopted by the UN Security Council should have an expiry date, because the lack of a deadline is undermining the council’s flexibility when it comes to the ability to influence the policies of sanctioned governments.

It is also necessary to address the issue of the “humanitarian limits of sanctions.” It would make sense for the drafts of sanctions proposals submitted to the Security Council to include the assessment of their possible humanitarian consequences made by the UN human rights bodies, rather than the empty rhetoric of our Western colleagues to the effect that “ordinary people will not suffer.”

Colleagues,

Facts point to a deep crisis in international relations and the absence of the Western countries’ desire and will to overcome this crisis.

I hope a way out of this situation exists and will be found. But first all of us should acknowledge our responsibility for the future of our Organisation and the world in the historical context rather than in terms of the immediate populist electoral considerations in any member state. I would like to repeat that, when global leaders signed the UN Charter nearly 80 years ago, they agreed to respect the sovereign equality of all states be they big or small, rich or poor, monarchies or republics. In other words, back then humanity recognised the importance of an equal and polycentric world order as the guarantee of stable and safe development.

Therefore, the issue today is not about giving our consent to a “rules-based world order” but about fulfilling the obligations all of us assumed by signing and ratifying the UN Charter in their entirety and as a whole.

https://mid.ru/en/press_service/video/view/1905317/

Ray McGovern discusses Seymour Hersh’s story on Nord Stream attack by U.S.

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from Consortium News
February 12, 2023

Ray McGovern discusses Seymour Hersh’s story, “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline” on Garland Nixon and Wilmer Leon’s radio show, The Critical Hour. (With transcript).

Transcript

Garland Nixon

Sy Hersh has a piece at his Substack account entitled How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline. The New York Times called it a, quote unquote mystery. But the United States executed a covert C.I.A. operation that was kept secret until now. For insight into this, let’s turn to our first guest. He works with Tell the World, The publishing arm of the Ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner city Washington; has 27 year career as a C.I.A. analyst, serving as chief of the Soviet foreign policy branch and preparing the president’s daily brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and he is, of course, Ray McGovern. As always, Ray, welcome back.

Ray McGovern

Thanks for having me.

Garland Nixon

So Sy Hersh writes, last June, the Navy divers operating under the cover of a widely publicized midsummer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that three months later destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines. This is according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning. 

What I’ll say, Ray, is usually when we hear of unknown sources, we tend to question the veracity or validity of the piece.

But if it’s Sy Hersh, I got to give it its due. Ray McGovern.

Ray McGovern

I know Sy Hersh.

Garland Nixon

I know you do.

Ray McGovern

I know him to be a meticulous reporter, winner of five Polk Awards, Pulitzer Prize, you name it. Back in the day when honest reporters were so honored. This piece has all the earmarks of Sy’s meticulous approach, and he clearly has a very good source who felt, well, he felt a constitutional obligation to honor his or her oath to the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme oath any of us take. And that is to make sure that you tell the truth, especially when the Constitution is being violated. 

Now, this was an act of war, pure and simple. Curiously enough, it was against Germany. And curiously enough, President Joseph Biden, at a press conference in the presence of the chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, said this is going to happen if Russia invaded Ukraine. And, of course, he was asked, well, how do you do this? I mean, how can you how can you be so confident that Nord Stream will be killed and Biden said, well, just, you know, trust me, it’s going to happen. 

And so she, bilingual, the Reuters reporter, turned to Scholz – and this is not widely available now for obvious reasons – and she said, well, I mean, do you agree with that? I mean, hello, how do you feel about this? And this hack, this political hack said: we do everything together. We do everything together. We will be together on this now. So that’s available now. It’s available. Not Sy Hersh’s piece yet, but that interview is available in Germany.

You know, I describe Olaf Scholz as kind of the epitome of the abused spouse. Stands there and is abused not only by his master, Joe Biden, but also by this hack that he has as foreign minister. Her name is [Annalena] Baerbock. She is the the most vociferous of all the people saying that we are at war. That’s what she said. We are at war with Russia. 

So the question will be: it has been 90 years, count them, nine zero years since the Nazis were making a push for power in Germany. What happened? The Reichstag, the German parliament building was burned down at the end of January, 1933. What happened? The Germans caved. The Nazis didn’t have a majority, but they scared the living daylights out of German citizens.

First of all, Social Democrats gave in. Next to fall, the Zentrum party, the Catholic Party. No one spoke up. We know the rest of the story. All right. Now, sometimes history is replete with ironies. Here it is exactly to the month, 90 years later. Will the German people acquiesce in their industry, and then their bodies being frozen out this winter? Or will they rise up and say: “Look, Mr Scholz, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, and neither does Baerbock. Get out of here!”, and replace that government? 

Now, the key to all this, of course, is the fact I have already mentioned. Sy Hersh’s piece has not been published in Germany. The New York Times hasn’t published it. The major media haven’t published. Where did Sy have to publish this? On Substack. Now, at one point he had a friend at the German newspaper, Die Welt, and they published an incredible exposé on Syria. It turned out to be true, but Sy couldn’t get it published anywhere else. He used to publish in The New York Times, then in The New Yorker. He has been banned. 

So the question is, will it be possible to inform not only the American people, but more important, the German people that they’ve been had? Okay? This is depriving them of livelihoods and industry. Will they, unlike 90 years ago, act like adults, stand up and say: “Now we’ve had it. Blowing up our our gas pipeline, that’s too far. We’re going to look at things differently. First and foremost, our involvement in Ukraine.”

Garland Nixon

Ray, domestically. Here. In this piece, if it is to be believed – which, I believe it and it certainly warrants an internal investigation here – the Biden administration admitted that what they were doing was an act of war, which means they understood that only Congress could, in fact, constitutionally clear that action. And they, with malice and aforethought, took action to mitigate their accountability to the Constitution and Congress.

And Joe Biden was the head guy there. He was the man that… eventually they decided rather than just put explosives on it, apparently Biden wanted to give the word for when it was done. This is an impeachable offense. This is a requirement of Congress, to act on it. Your thoughts on Congress not acting on it? I don’t suspect they will. And if there will be ultimately in the long term, any ramifications for that? Your thoughts on that anyway Ray.

Ray McGovern

Well, again, if the big tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it fall, does it make a sound? It is incredible how The New York Times – actually I’ve taken to calling The New York Times The New Yellow Times, after yellow journalism, which as most people know is what you do when you exaggerate or slant things beyond the truth.

The New Yellow Times can prevent this from being heard, and more important now, prevent corroboration from being a voice. We have corroboration now from Gil Doctorow in Brussels, Larry Johnson in Tampa, it’s coming in. And so I applaud the source that told Sy Hersh all this information. I believe it implicitly. Sy has never been wrong on really important issues like this. As I say, he’s meticulous, and he was distraught – and I know this personally – distraught at all this stuff about Russiagate.

He and Bob Parry used to – my mentor, Robert Parry, Consortium News – used to commiserate on the phone and, you know, what’s happened to the to the media? So here again, we have the media right in the middle of this thing. Only Tucker Carlson has had the cajones so far to play this story. Will it go further? I suspect… well, I don’t know but I like to try to be the optimist. Can The New York Times and the major media suppress this indefinitely? Well, I suppose they can. They’ve suppressed other stories, equally important, like the fact that the Russians are proven not to have hacked into the DNC, and that the ‘Russian offensive’ there with Facebook amounted to nothing.

So if they can deceive the American people, as the American people are willing to be deceived, then you know this will not have its desired effect. The fact that that Sy had to go on Substack to do this is really a lurid manifestation of the fact that not even the most prized, the most meticulous investigative reporter in the United States, could not get this published elsewhere.

That speaks volumes.

Garland Nixon

Part of this piece, Sy discusses meetings that Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan held in the executive office of the President, where they debated options for an attack on the pipeline. And he writes that the C.I.A. argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. And at the time, the C.I.A. was directed by Bill Burns, as Sy describes him, a mild mannered former ambassador to Russia. I know you know Burns well. He says that Burns quickly authorized a C.I.A. working group whose ad hoc members included someone who was familiar with the capacity of these Navy deep sea divers. Your thoughts on Burns’s involvement in this?

Ray McGovern

I do know Burns. He let me, well, in effect shame James Clapper by pointing out to an audience that Clapper had admitted that he fudged the evidence on weapons of mass destruction before the attack on Iraq. Burns was, some of us hoped, that he might be the adult in the room, but Burns is the epitome of a cog in the wheels of the system. He’s a state Department type. He got to be number two in the State Department and you don’t get to be number two in the State Department unless you salute. Whether it’s a harebrained scheme or not you salute. Well, here you have the epitome of a harebrained scheme. Did did Burns salute? Yes, as soon as the president said do it. He turned to his people and he said, Do it.

And they they rubbed their hands and said: Oh, man, this is going to be fun! We can do this. We can work with the Navy. We can do it. Okay. Now, what do the analysts say? Well, Burns didn’t give a rat’s patootie about what his analysts say, but Sy Hersh includes the notion that some of them said: You know, this is really crazy, this is really stupid. This is going to come back to bite us. 

That’s what we always used to say on cockamamie schemes like this. What’s the point here? The point here is that the operations people at C.I.A. get all the money, get all the attention and get all the influence over whatever director comes in and another side lesson here is that if you’re going to pick a director for the C.I.A., don’t go to the State Department for a yes man. You don’t go to the Congress for somebody who compromises, for God’s sake. You find somebody like Admiral Stansfield Turner, four star, who had made his own his own mark on life and was not going to take any crap from nobody else, is going to tell the truth. He’s the last guy we had like that. God forbid we keep having these, well, these bureaucrats that salute when the president says jump.

Garland Nixon

One thing I did want to ask you, I had some thoughts. You know, the last – interesting – the last sentence where, you know, whoever the source is says, Oh, yeah, they did this thing. It was a brilliant operation, blah, blah, blah. He says the only flaw was the decision to do it. Here’s what it seems to me. I’m guessing it seemed like it came from somebody in the Pentagon, based on the knowledge. They basically said: You know, these idiots in the executive department, they have not a good move.

And C.I.A. was not real smart. State Department, bad move. The Pentagon wasn’t mentioned. And there are generally, I have heard recently, there are some pragmatists. It almost seems like there may. Well, anyway, your thoughts on the origins of this, if you have any?

Ray McGovern

Well, all I can say is that Sy Hersh has proven for about 40 years now that he is a trusted journalist. And when someone – and I suspect it aptly pertained to this particular source – when someone sees that an act of war has been has been committed by our government against all the… well, against the Constitution, maybe not against the U.S. designed “rules based order,” but, you know, we all swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Now this guy took that seriously. I suspect he went to that little corner in that bar where Sy meets his – I know where that is – meets his sources and told him this whole story. Sy said it only took him three months. I believe that. And American people… it’s eminently believable. The question is the fallout and whether the mass media can prevent this story from sneaking into the consciousness of Americans who have been taught, who have been brainwashed over the last seven years. Okay? Seven years now, to hate Russia. 

Okay. Will Rogers had that wonderful aphorism, the comedian way back a century or two ago. Will Rogers put it this way. He said: “The problem is this: it’s not what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so.” That’s the problem. And the people think that the Russians are just evil to the core. That Putin… Here’s an example. Okay? At the time when Sy Hersh’s story is going out, here’s The New York Times on February ninth. A yellow journalism piece by a fellow named Constant Méheut – a Frenchman, apparently – and it shows that Vladimir Putin was personally responsible for killing the 298 aboard Malaysian Airlines MH 17 over Ukraine in July of 2014. Now it says that in the title; it says that in the first paragraph; and third paragraph it says: Well, we can’t prove that Putin was really… Give me a break! Okay. So this is a day when they should have been featuring Sy’s research. They’re still at it. Blackening Putin, first and foremost, the rest of the Russians, and, you know, this was consequential. 

Let me remind you that after the coup in Kiev, after the annexation of Crimea, the U.S. could still not get the Europeans to shoot themselves in the foot by sanctions. It was only after Malaysian Airlines MH 17 was downed – according to The New York Times, by Vladimir Putin himself – that they could get real sanctions that bit the Europeans more than they bit anyone, including the Russians. So this was consequential. This was the beginning of really strict sanctions. And I just wonder if the West Europeans and the East Europeans will wake up and say: “You know, this is a this is a bad deal to get involved with, what the U.S. wants, because they want war with Russia. And this is going to come to, as the Chinese used to call it, a no good end.”

Garland Nixon

Ray McGovern, as always, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate that analysis and we look forward to having you back.

Ray McGovern

Aye and most welcome.

The views expressed are solely those of the speakers and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/12/listen-nord-stream-attack-an-act-of-war/

Ukraine on Fire, documentary by Oliver Stone

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Ukraine on Fire: The Real Story – Full Documentary by Oliver Stone (Original English version)

Ukraine, the ‘borderlands’ between Russia and ‘civilized’ Europe is on fire. For centuries, it has been at the center of a tug-of-war between powers seeking to control its rich lands and Russia’s access to the Mediterranean.

The Maidan Massacre in early 2014 triggered a bloody uprising that ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, spurred Crimeans to secede and join Russia, and sparked a civil war in Eastern Ukraine.

Russia was portrayed by Western media as the perpetrator, and has been sanctioned and widely condemned as such. But was Russia responsible for what happened?

Ukraine on Fire provides a historical perspective for the deep divisions in the region which led to the 2004 Orange Revolution, the 2014 uprisings, and the violent overthrow of democratically-elected Yanukovych.

Covered by Western media as a ‘popular revolution’, it was in fact a coup d’état scripted and staged by ultra-nationalist groups and the US State Department.

Investigative journalist Robert Parry reveals how US-funded political NGOs and media companies have emerged since the 1980s, replacing the CIA in promoting America’s geopolitical agenda abroad.

Executive producer Oliver Stone gained unprecedented access to the inside story through his on-camera interviews with former President Viktor Yanukovych and Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakharchenko, who explain how the US Ambassador and factions in Washington actively plotted for regime change.

And, in his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Stone solicits Putin’s take on the significance of Crimea, NATO and the US’s history of interference in elections and regime change in the region.

Now, at last, the full exposé is available in the West. Though, of course, everyone is encouraged to purchase a copy to support Stone’s important work.

NATO ‘Master Plan’ aimed at Russia; Washington is always looking for another war

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Secretary of War Lloyd Austen and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

From Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space

October 23, 2021
by Bruce Gagnon

It didn’t take long for the US to up the ante with China and Russia. So soon after the crushing defeat from 20 years of death and destruction in Afghanistan [the war against the people of Afghanistan officially started in 1979 under President Carter — at least 41 years of death and destruction] we find Washington stirring the fire pit and looking for more trouble.

It’s really no surprise. Just take a close look at US history – one filthy war after the other.

Just this past week we’ve seen ‘F the EU’ Victoria Nuland go to Moscow hoping for an audience with Putin. She only got to meet with lower level, but competent Russian diplomats, and came away with nothing other than furthering the divide between our two nations. Actually, that might have been the US strategy. 

The word is that Nuland went in with a list of Washington’s demands. Russia said ‘nyet’ and handed Nuland a list of their own. Of course Nuland said ‘No’ and was then sent packing back to the US.

Secretary of War Lloyd Austin (former Raytheon board member) just stopped in Georgia, Ukraine, and Romania before heading to Brussels for hand-wringing with the NATO clowns. 

Austin stated during a news conference in Bucharest that the purpose of these visits was to highlight “the importance of deepening cooperation among our Black Sea allies and partners to deter and defend against Russian malign activities in the region.” 

That’s the political hype. His real purpose in Georgia, Ukraine, and Romania? Spur them to make trouble for Moscow in any way and every way they possibly can. And I’m sure Austin said the magic words, ‘Of course the US will back you if you get into a fight with Russia. First, we’ll supply you with more weapons and plant more of our troops in your nation to protect you from the Russian bear.’ 

 At the Brussels meeting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the following:

  • Allies will kick off a $1.16 billion NATO Innovation Fund to develop dual-use emerging and disruptive technologies. NATO will also establish its first artificial intelligence strategy to incorporate data analysis, imagery, and cyber defense.
  • The allies are spending more on defense and they agreed to increase the readiness of forces.
  • Significant improvements are being made to alliance air and missile defenses. NATO calls for strengthening conventional capabilities with fifth-generation jets, adapting exercises and intelligence, and improving the readiness and effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent.
  • We exchanged views on how to preserve the gains and ensure Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorists.
  • NATO’s new strategy ensures that the alliance will have “the right forces in the right place at the right time.”

They also characteristically took at shot at China from behind the safe walls of NATO HQ in Brussels with a stream of rhetoric.

Austin’s remarks followed the completion of a two-day NATO ministerial where he said officials offered “unique perspectives” on China, which he noted remains the Pentagon’s “primary pacing challenge.”

“Indeed, I applaud NATO’s work on China and I made it clear that the United States is committed to defending the international rules-based order which China has consistently undermined for its own interests,” Austin told reporters.

At an October 21 CNN town hall, Joe Biden was asked about China.

“I just want to make China understand that we are not going to step back, we are not going to change any of our views.” Biden said. Asked whether the US would come to Taiwan’s defense if it were attacked, he replied: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”

Now let’s analyze this NATO meeting and the comments on China just a bit.

First, who has Russia invaded? Since the US orchestrated coup in Ukraine in 2014 (when the Russian-ethnic people in Crimea voted to ask Russia to take them back into the federation) there has been no invasion of anyone near its borders. At the same time US-NATO has been holding war games repeatedly all along Russian borders. When Moscow has responded by holding counter-war games inside its own country Washington and Brussels have howled in condemnation. Talk about a double-standard!

And please note the words above by Austin – “I applaud NATO’s work on China” – just what does that mean? 

NATO has gone global. The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance has now decided that it should be ‘defending democracy in the Pacific’. Who is the aggressor in this case? What right does NATO have to decide it is the new global cop?

Can’t lick Afghanistan so let’s take on China & Russia

NATO has no legitimate reason to exist today – the Soviet Union and their Warsaw Pact Alliance are long gone. Russia just built an undersea natural gas pipeline called Nord Stream 2 to furnish fuel to Europe in order to help alleviate their current energy crisis. It’s a big business deal for Moscow. Why would Russia want war with Europe?

The insanity of US-NATO is exposed for anyone willing to see the obvious. Washington and Brussels got their high-tech asses kicked by a ill-armed rag-tag but determined Taliban in Afghanistan. Now they somehow dream that they can take on both China and Russia who have formed a military alliance as they watch the NATO endless war machine heading their way.

I understand that all these moves by US-NATO absolutely benefit the military industrial complex which has installed one of their agents (Lloyd Austin) as secretary of war. But do these psychopaths actually believe they can start a war with China and Russia and possibly win? Don’t they know that such a war would go nuclear in a hot flash?

It’s obvious that the US-NATO war cabal are blinded by power and greed. There can be no other explanation that comes close to making sense.

It’s a dangerous and dirty game these fat cats are playing – at the same time that climate crisis rages in our faces, legions of people face evictions from their homes, and the basic cost of living goes sky high.

Are we heading for a collapse in the US and around the globe? How could that not be happening under these present conditions? 

And the US-NATO response? 

How about another war?

Which party in Washington is leading this descent into hell?

http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2021/10/washington-always-looking-for-fight.html

Victoria Nuland’s role in 30 years of U.S. invasions and interference

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“Progressives in Congress and their partners in the media, think tank world, and among grassroots activists should join forces with the growing caucus of anti-interventionist Republicans on the Hill and vigorously oppose her nomination.” — James W. Carden
theamericanconservative.com/articles/stop-bidens-neocon-nominee-to-the-state-department/

“Victoria Nuland is highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.”

From MintPressNews
February 11, 2012
Rick Sterling

As the Senate prepares to confirm Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, a reflection of her last 30 years in government shows how she was connected to nearly every foreign policy disaster undertaken by the United States.

President Joe Biden’s nomination of Victoria Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the third-highest position at the State Department, is a dangerous sign. Nuland exemplifies the neoconservatives who have led American foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years, all while evading any shred of accountability.

As a top-level appointee, Nuland must still be confirmed by the Senate. And while pro-peace groups have waged a campaign to stop her confirmation, reflecting on her career in public service makes clear why she is incompetent, highly dangerous, and should not be confirmed.

Afghanistan and Iraq

From 2000 to 2003, when the Bush administration attacked and then invaded Afghanistan, Nuland was serving as Bush’s permanent representative to NATO. The Afghan government offered to work with the Americans to remove al-Qaeda, but the offer was rejected. After al-Qaeda was defeated, the U.S. could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, splintered the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.

From 2003 to 2005, Nuland was principal foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney who “helped plan and manage the war that toppled [Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein, including making [the] Bush administration’s case for preemptive military action based on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.” The foreign policy establishment, including Nuland, insisted that removing Saddam Hussein and installing a U.S. “ally” would be simple.

The invasion and continuing occupation have resulted in over a million dead Iraqis, many thousands of dead Americans, hundreds of thousands with PTSD, and a bill for American taxpayers of 2 to 6 trillion dollars.

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Five years ago, U.S. installed a neo-Nazi government in Ukraine — a ‘flowering of democracy’?

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From Global Research

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Originally published March 6, 2014, reprinted in 2017
–

This article first published in March 2014 at the very outset of the Ukraine crisis explains the nature of the Kiev proxy regime. we are dealing with a Neo-Nazi government supported by “Western democracy” and the “international community”. 

According to the New York Times, “The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here as another flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.” ( After Initial Triumph, Ukraine’s Leaders Face Battle for Credibility,  NYTimes.com, March 1, 2014, emphasis added)

“Flowering Democracy, Revolution”?  The grim realities are otherwise. What is a stake is a US-EU-NATO sponsored coup d’Etat in blatant violation of international law.

The forbidden truth is that the West has engineered –through a carefully staged covert operation– the formation of a proxy regime integrated by Neo-Nazis.

Confirmed by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, key organizations in the Ukraine including the Neo-Nazi party Svoboda were generously supported by Washington: “We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals. … We will continue to promote Ukraine to the future it deserves.”

The Western media has casually avoided to analyze the composition and ideological underpinnings of the government coalition. The word “Neo-Nazi” is a taboo. It has been excluded from the dictionary of mainstream media commentary. It will not appear in the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post or The Independent. Journalists have been instructed not to use the term “Neo-Nazi” to designate Svoboda and the Right Sector.

Composition of the Coalition Government

We are not dealing with a transitional government in which Neo-Nazi elements integrate the fringe of the coalition, formally led by the Fatherland party.

The Cabinet is not only integrated by the Svoboda and Right Sector (not to mention former members of defunct fascist UNA-UNSO), the two main Neo-Nazi entities have been entrusted with key positions which grant them de facto control over the Armed Forces, Police, Justice and National Security.

While Yatsenuyk’s Fatherland Party controls the majority of portfolios and Svoboda Neo-Nazi leader Oleh Tyahnybok was not granted a major cabinet post (apparently at the request of assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland), members of Svoboda and the Right Sector occupy key positions in the areas of Defense, Law Enforcement, Education and Economic Affairs.

Neo Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok

Andriy parubiy.jpgAndriy Parubiy [right] co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) was appointed Secretary of the National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU). (Рада національної безпеки і оборони України), a key position which overseas the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, National Security and Intelligence. The RNBOU is central decision-making body. While it is formally headed by the president, it is run by the Secretariat with a staff of 180 people including defense, intelligence and national security experts.

Parubiy was one of the main leaders behind the Orange Revolution in 2004. His organization was funded by the West. He is referred to by the Western media as the “kommandant” of the EuroMaidan movement. Andriy Parubiy together with party leader Oleh Tyahnybok is a follower of Ukrainian Nazi Stepan Bandera, who collaborated in the mass murderer of Jews and Poles during World War II.

Neo-Nazi march honoring Stepan Bandera

In turn, Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector delegation in the parliament, has been appointed Parubiy’s deputy Secretary of the RNBOU.

Yarosh was the leader of the Brown Shirt Neo-Nazi paramilitary during the EuroMaidan “protest” movement. He has called for disbanding the Party of the regions and the Communist Party.

Dmytro Yarosh speech at Euromaidan (Centre)

The Neo Nazi party also controls the judicial process with the appointment of  Oleh Makhnitsky of the Svoboda party to the position of prosecutor-general of Ukraine. What kind of justice will prevail with a reknown Neo-Nazi in charge of the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine?

Cabinet positions were also allocated to former members of the Neo-Nazi fringe organization Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defense (UNA-UNSO):

“Tetyana Chernovol, portrayed in the Western press as a crusading investigative journalist without reference to her past involvement in the anti-Semitic UNA-UNSO, was named chair of the government’s anti-corruption committee. Dmytro Bulatov, known for his alleged kidnapping by police, but also with UNA-UNSO connections, was appointed minister of youth and sports.

Yegor Sobolev, leader of a civic group in Independence Maidan and politically close to Yatsenyuk, was appointed chair of the Lustration Committee, charged with purging followers of President Yanukovych from government and public life. (See Ukraine Transition Government: Neo-Nazis in Control of Armed Forces, National Security, Economy, Justice and Education, Global Research, March 02, 2014

The Lustration Committee is to organize the Neo-Nazi witch-hunt against all opponents of the new Neo-Nazi regime. The targets of the lustration campaign are people in positions of authority within the civil service, regional and municipal governments, education, research, etc.  The term lustration refers to the “mass disqualification” of people associated with the former government. It also has racial overtones. It will in all likelihood be directed against Communists, Russians  and members of the Jewish community.

It is important to reflect on the fact that the West, formally committed to democratic values, has not only spearheaded the demise of an elected president, it has instated a political regime integrated by Neo-Nazis.

This is a proxy government which enables the US, NATO and the EU to interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs and dismantle its bilateral relations with the Russian Federation. It should be understood, however, that the Neo-Nazis do not ultimately call the shots. The composition of the Cabinet broadly coincides with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland ” recommendations” contained in the leaked telephone call to the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Washington has chosen to spearhead Neo-Nazis into positions of authority. Under a “regime of indirect rule”, however,  they take their orders on crucial military and foreign policy issues –including the deployment of troops directed against the Russian federation– from the the US State Department, the Pentagon and NATO.

The World is at a dangerous crossroads: The structures and composition of this proxy government installed by the West do not favor dialogue with the Russian government and military.

A scenario of military escalation leading to confrontation of Russia and NATO is a distinct possibility. The Ukraine’s National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) which is controlled by Neo-Nazis plays a central role in military affairs.  In the confrontation with Moscow, decisions taken by the RNBOU headed by Neo-Nazi Parubiy and his brown Shirt deputy Dmytro Yarosh –in consultation with Washington and Brussels– could potentially have devastating consequences.

However, it goes without saying that “support” to the formation of a Neo-Nazi government does not in any way imply the development of “fascist tendencies” within the White House, the State Department and the US Congress.

“The flowering of democracy” in Ukraine –to use the words of the New York Times– is endorsed by Republicans and Democrats. It’s a bipartisan project. Lest we forget, Senator John McCain is a firm supporter and friend of Neo Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok (Image right).

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2017

A documentary you’ll likely never see: “Ukraine on Fire” by Oliver Stone

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Trailer

Neo-Nazis are being used by the Ukrainian Government,

“That whole process was headquartered in the US  Embassy” (former Ukraine president Yanukovitch)

Nobody should feel safe today… 

By James DiEugenio
Global Research, February 14, 2017
Consortiumnews 13 February 2017
0

It is not very often that a documentary film can set a new paradigm about a recent event, let alone, one that is still in progress. But the new film Ukraine on Fire has the potential to do so – assuming that many people get to see it.

Usually, documentaries — even good ones — repackage familiar information in a different aesthetic form. If that form is skillfully done, then the information can move us in a different way than just reading about it.

A good example of this would be Peter Davis’s powerful documentary about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Hearts and Minds. By 1974, most Americans understood just how bad the Vietnam War was, but through the combination of sounds and images, which could only have been done through film, that documentary created a sensation, which removed the last obstacles to America leaving Indochina.

Ukraine on Fire has the same potential and could make a contribution that even goes beyond what the Davis film did because there was very little new information in Hearts and Minds. Especially for American and Western European audiences, Ukraine on Fire could be revelatory in that it offers a historical explanation for the deep divisions within Ukraine and presents information about the current crisis that challenges the mainstream media’s paradigm, which blames the conflict almost exclusively on Russia.

Key people in the film’s production are director Igor Lopatonok, editor Alex Chavez, and writer Vanessa Dean, whose screenplay contains a large amount of historical as well as current material exploring how Ukraine became such a cauldron of violence and hate. Oliver Stone served as executive producer and conducted some high-profile interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin and ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

The film begins with gripping images of the violence that ripped through the capital city of Kiev during both the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 removal of Yanukovich. It then travels back in time to provide a perspective that has been missing from mainstream versions of these events and even in many alternative media renditions.

A Longtime Pawn

Historically, Ukraine has been treated as a pawn since the late Seventeenth Century. In 1918, Ukraine was made a German protectorate by the Treaty of Brest Litovsk. Ukraine was also a part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 signed between Germany and Russia, but violated by Adolf Hitler when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941.

German dictator Adolf Hitler

The reaction of many in Ukraine to Hitler’s aggression was not the same as it was in the rest of the Soviet Union. Some Ukrainians welcomed the Nazis. The most significant Ukrainian nationalist group, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), had been established in 1929. Many of its members cooperated with the Nazis, some even enlisted in the Waffen SS and Ukrainian nationalists participated in the massacre of more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar ravine in Kiev in September 1941. According to scholar Pers Anders Rudling, the number of Ukrainian nationalists involved in the slaughter outnumbered the Germans by a factor of 4 to 1.

But it wasn’t just the Jews that the Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered. They also participated in massacres of Poles in the western Ukrainian region of Galicia from March 1943 until the end of 1944. Again, the main perpetrators were not Germans, but Ukrainians.

According to author Ryazard Szawlowksi, the Ukrainian nationalists first lulled the Poles into thinking they were their friends, then turned on them with a barbarity and ferocity that not even the Nazis could match, torturing their victims with saws and axes. The documentary places the number of dead at 36,750, but Szawlowski estimates it may be two or three times higher.

OUN members participated in these slaughters for the purpose of ethnic cleansing, wanting Ukraine to be preserved for what OUN regarded as native Ukrainians. They also expected Ukraine to be independent by the end of the war, free from both German and Russian domination. The two main leaders in OUN who participated in the Nazi collaboration were Stepan Bandera and Mykola Lebed. Bandera was a virulent anti-Semite, and Lebed was rabidly against the Poles, participating in their slaughter.

After the war, both Bandera and Lebed were protected by American intelligence, which spared them from the Nuremburg tribunals. The immediate antecedent of the CIA, Central Intelligence Group, wanted to use both men for information gathering and operations against the Soviet Union. England’s MI6 used Bandera even more than the CIA did, but the KGB eventually hunted down Bandera and assassinated him in Munich in 1959. Lebed was brought to America and addressed anti-communist Ukrainian organizations in the U.S. and Canada. The CIA protected him from immigration authorities who might otherwise have deported him as a war criminal.

The history of the Cold War was never too far in the background of Ukrainian politics, including within the diaspora that fled to the West after the Red Army defeated the Nazis and many of their Ukrainian collaborators emigrated to the United States and Canada. In the West, they formed a fierce anti-communist lobby that gained greater influence after Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980.

Important History

This history is an important part of Dean’s prologue to the main body of Ukraine on Fire and is essential for anyone trying to understand what has happened there since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. For instance, the U.S.-backed candidate for president of Ukraine in 2004 — Viktor Yushchenko — decreed both Bandera and Lebed to be Ukrainian national heroes.

Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian ultra-nationalist and Nazi collaborator.

Bandera, in particular, has become an icon for post-World War II Ukrainian nationalists. One of his followers was Dmytro Dontsov, who called for the birth of a “new man” who would mercilessly destroy Ukraine’s ethnic enemies.

Bandera’s movement was also kept alive by Yaroslav Stetsko, Bandera’s premier in exile. Stetsko fully endorsed Bandera’s anti-Semitism and also the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Stetsko, too, was used by the CIA during the Cold War and was honored by Yushchenko, who placed a plaque in his honor at the home where he died in Munich in 1986. Stetsko’s wife, Slava, returned to Ukraine in 1991 and ran for parliament in 2002 on the slate of Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party.

Stetsko’s book, entitled Two Revolutions, has become the ideological cornerstone for the modern Ukrainian political party Svoboda, founded by Oleh Tyahnybok, who is pictured in the film calling Jews “kikes” in public, which is one reason the Simon Wiesenthal Center has ranked him as one of the most dangerous anti-Semites in the world.

Another follower of Bandera is Dymytro Yarosh, who reputedly leads the paramilitary arm of an even more powerful political organization in Ukraine called Right Sektor. Yarosh once said he controls a paramilitary force of about 7,000 men who were reportedly used in both the overthrow of Yanukovych in Kiev in February 2014 and the suppression of the rebellion in Odessa a few months later, which are both fully depicted in the film.

This historical prelude and its merging with the current civil war is eye-opening background that has been largely hidden by the mainstream Western media, which has downplayed or ignored the troubling links between these racist Ukrainian nationalists and the U.S.-backed political forces that vied for power after Ukraine became independent in 1991.

The Rise of a Violent Right

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Zakharchenko: Elenovka tragedy was the result of Nuland’s visit to Kiev

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From Fort Russ

April 30, 2016 – 
Novorossiya – 
Translated by J. Arnoldski 
 
 
“Zakharchenko to America: ‘Keep your hand-puppet in its booth'”
The head of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, believes that the result of Victoria Nuland’s visit to Kiev was the monstrous shelling of Elenovka which caused the death of innocent people. The leader of the republic stated this in a briefing to a correspondent of Novorossiya Information Agency.
“The result of Nuland’s visit to Kiev and her contact with Poroshenko was none other than the shelling of Elenovka,” he said, adding that Kiev has thus shown that it does not intend to comply with its obligations according to the Minsk Agreements. 
“The UAF’s shelling of Elenovka was addressed primarily to America. Ukraine does not want to pass the laws which they are obliged to according to the Minsk Agreements, such as the law on elections to local self-government bodies, the special status, and a new Constitution. For them, this equates to death. Therefore, I want to say to the leaders of the USA and Europe: if you want to have a hand-puppet, at least keep it in its booth and let it sit there. Otherwise, he’ll bite you,” Zakharchenko concluded. 
http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/04/zakharchenko-elenovka-tragedy-was.html

Key statements following meeting between Putin, Lavrov, and Kerry in Moscow

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The Kremlin website may have more substantial information, at least on what the Russian delegation said.

Hopefully, the Kremlin counted the silver before the US delegation left. With Nuland, Tefft and company, no telling what they would lift as souvenirs.

From Fort Russ

Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ
15th December, 2015

U.S. Secretary of state John Kerry confirmed to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin that Washington is ready to work with Moscow to defeat the terrorist organization ISIS.
The President of Russia Vladimir Putin met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after his talks in Moscow with Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
In the meeting, which lasted more than three hours, the Russian side was also attended by the Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, on the American side assistant Secretary of state Victoria Nuland, special assistant to the U.S. President for Russia Celeste Wallander and the US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft.
On the situation in Syria:
 
The parties agreed to continue work on compiling the list of terrorist organizations operating in Syria.
 

We agreed to continue to work in terms of compiling a unified list of terrorist organizations and to assist the UN in forming the delegations of the opposition – Sergei Lavrov

We found some areas of agreement in the classification of terrorist groups, but I can’t talk now about what we have agreed on a bilateral basis, because, as he said Sergei (Lavrov), the whole support Group Syria should participate in this discussion and it is important that all contributed to the decision – John Kerry

U.S. Secretary of state John Kerry confirmed to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin that the United States stands ready to work with Russia to defeat Russia banned terrorist organization “Islamic state” (is, formerly ISIS).
 

I confirmed to President Putin that U.S. ready to work with Russia to defeat the ISIL – John Kerry

Confirmed today the agreements that were reached between the military of the Russian Federation and the United States, and agreements that apply to the United States led a coalition to combat “Islamic state” (ISIS is a terrorist group banned in Russia). In practical terms agreed on some further steps that will help to make the fight against terrorism more effective – Sergei Lavrov

The parties agreed that the agreements reached in Vienna on Syria was approved by a UN resolution.

We agreed to continue work on the terrorist problem and on the organization of negotiations between the government and the opposition, we nevertheless deemed it appropriate at this stage to confirm the agreements that were reached in Vienna on October 30 and November 14 in the form of a resolution of the UN Security Council – Sergey Lavrov

During the negotiations was also affected by the military operation HQs of the Russian Federation in the SAR.

A recent report to the UN contained the assertion that the Russian operation in Syria has led to increased suffering of the civilian population. In these statements there were no references to facts. We requested the UN present such facts – Sergei Lavrov

 
Isolation of Russia is not included in the plans of the United States:
 
At the conclusion of the talks, Kerry said U.S. President Barack Obama about Russia’s isolation and explained that they were caused by the situation with the Crimea. Also the parties expressed unanimity in commitment to the Minsk agreements on settling the situation in Ukraine.
 

We exchanged assessments regarding the challenges to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. The Russian Federation and the USA are building on the agreements in principle reached between presidents Putin and Obama reaffirm their support of the Minsk agreements, we support “Normandy format” and will use their opportunities to achieve full implementation of the Minsk agreements – Sergei Lavrov

The USA does not have a specific policy on the isolation of the Russian Federation. We have a position related to the fact that we defend our principles and values. But, like I said, it is important for us to find areas of agreement and constructive behaviour – John Kerry

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/12/key-statements-following-meeting.html