Latest News fron Ukraine-Washington’s Arrogance, Hubris, and Evil Have Set the Stage for War
Posted on March 6th, 2014
Russia Starts Massive Air Defense Drills Amid Crimea Standoff
MOSCOW, March 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Western Military District has begun large-scale air defense drills at its southern testing range of Kapustin Yar on the backdrop of further escalation of tensions with the West over Ukraine.
Kapustin Yar, located some 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of the Ukrainian border, will host about 3,500 troops and over 1,000 units of military hardware for about a month. The exercise will culminate with live-firing drills, involving S-300, Buk-M1 and other air defense systems.
“It is for the first time that all air defense units from the district, including coastal defenses of the Northern Fleet, have gathered in one place,” said the district’s spokesman, Col. Oleg Kochetkov.
“It is the largest-ever exercise held by air defense units of the Western Military District,” Kochetkov said, adding that the drills were part of a regular combat training cycle.
The exercise, however, coincides with further escalation of a political crisis in Ukraine that has led to the current standoff between Russia and the West over the fate of Crimea, an autonomous Ukrainian region with a majority ethnic Russian population.
Crimean authorities have refused to recognize as legitimate the new central government in Kiev, which ousted President Viktor Yanukovych late last month, and on Thursday they announced a decision to become part of Russia.
A popular vote to approve the decision will be held in Crimea on March 16.
Russia’s parliament has recently approved military intervention in Ukraine, while thousands of “local militia” allegedly under Russian command have taken control over Ukrainian military bases across Crimea in the past week.
Following these developments, the West showered Moscow with accusations of aggression and threats of sanctions while cutting off military exchanges with Russia and scrambling to bolster military cooperation within NATO.
The Pentagon announced plans on Wednesday to expand combat pilot training in Poland and to send six additional F-15C fighter jets to a NATO mission carrying out air patrols over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Patrols have been carried out on a three- to four-month rotation basis by 14 NATO states from Lithuania’s air base in Zokniai, near the northern city of Siauliai, since 2004 when the ex-Soviet republics joined the alliance.
The Estonian military said Thursday that the six US fighter jets as well as two KC-135 aerial refueling tankers landed at Zokniai, joining four US F-15s deployed there since January.
Washington’s Arrogance, Hubris, and Evil Have Set the Stage for War
By Paul Craig Roberts
In some quarters public awareness is catching up with Stephen Lendman, Michel Chossudovsky, Rick Rozoff, myself and a few others in realizing the grave danger in the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine.
The puppet politicians who Washington intended to put in charge of Ukraine have lost control to organized and armed neo-nazis, who are attacking Jews, Russians, and intimidating Ukrainian politicians. The government of Crimea, a Russian province that Khrushchev transferred to the Ukraine Soviet Republic in the 1950s, has disavowed the illegitimate government that illegally seized power in Kiev and requested Russian protection. The Ukrainian military forces in Crimea have gone over to Russia. The Russian government has announced that it will also protect the former Russian provinces in eastern Ukraine as well.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pointed out, it was folly for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to transfer historic provinces of Russia into Ukraine. At the time it seemed to the Soviet leadership like a good thing to do. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and had been ruled by Russia since the 18th century. Adding Russian territory to Ukraine served to water down the nazi elements in western Ukraine that had fought for Hitler during World War 2. Perhaps another factor in the enlargement of Ukraine was the fact of Khrushchev’s Ukrainian heritage.
Regardless, it did not matter until the Soviet Union and then the former Russian empire itself fell apart. Under Washington’s pressure, Ukraine became a separate country retaining the Russian provinces, but Russia retained its Black Sea naval base in Crimea.
Washington tried, but failed, to take Ukraine in 2004 with the Washington-financed “Orange Revolution.” According to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, since this failure Washington has “invested” $5 billion in Ukraine in order to foment agitation for EU membership for Ukraine. EU membership would open Ukraine to looting by Western bankers and corporations, but Washington’s main goal is to establish US missile bases on Russia’s border with Ukraine and to deprive Russia of its Black Sea naval base and military industries in eastern Ukraine. EU membership for Ukraine means NATO membership.
Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Declare that Power Comes Out of the Barrels of their Guns
Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Declare that Power Comes Out of the Barrels of their Guns
Paul Craig Roberts
Reality on the ground in Ukraine contradicts the incompetent and immoral Obama regime’s portrait of Ukrainian democracy on the march.
To the extent that government exists in post-coup Ukraine, it is laws dictated by gun and threat wielding thugs of the neo-Nazi, Russophobic, ultra-nationalist, right-wing parties. Watch the video of the armed thug, Aleksandr Muzychko, who boosts of killing Russian soldiers in Chechnya, dictating to the Rovno regional parliament a grant of apartments to families of protesters. http://rt.com/news/radical-opposition-intimidating-techniques-882/
Read about the neo-nazis intimidating the Central Election Commission in order to secure rule and personnel changes in order to favor the ultra-right in the forthcoming elections. Thug Aleksandr Shevchenko informed the CEC that armed activists will remain in CEC offices in order to make certain that the election is not rigged against the neo-nazis. What he means, of course, is the armed thugs will make sure the neo-nazis win. If the neo-nazis don’t win, the chances are high that they will take power regardless.
Members of President Yanukovich’s ruling party, the Party of Regions, have been shot, had arrest warrants issued for them, have experienced home invasions and physical threats, and are resigning in droves in hopes of saving the lives of themselves and their families. The prosecutor’s office in the Volyn region (western Ukraine) has been ordered by ultra-nationalists to resign en masse .
Jewish synagogs and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches are being attacked.
To toot my own horn, I might have been the first and only to predict that Washington’s organization of pro-EU Ukrainian politicians into a coup against the elected government of Ukraine would destroy democracy and establish the precedent that force prevails over elections, thereby empowering the organized and armed extreme right-wing.
This is precisely what has happened. Note that there was no one in the Obama regime who had enough sense to see the obvious result of their smug, self-satisfied interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.
If a democratically elected president and ruling party are so easily driven from power by armed neo-nazis, what chance do Washington’s paid stooges among the so-called “moderates” have of forming a government? These are the corrupt people who wanted President Yanukovich out of office so that they could take the money instead. The corruption charge against Yanukovich was cover for the disloyal, undemocratic “moderate” schemers to seize power and be paid millions of dollars by Washington for taking Ukraine into the EU and NATO.
Crimean parliament votes to join Russia, hold referendum in 10 days on ratifying
The Crimean parliament has voted for the region to join Russia. The decision will only come in force if approved by the Crimeans at a referendum which will be held in 10 days.
Crimean MPs voted on Thursday for the region to “to become part of the Russian Federation as its constituent territory,” says the text of the regional parliament’s statement.
78 MPs said yes to Crimea joining Russia, while 8 abstained from voting.
When the decision was announced to several thousand people waiting outside the parliament building, they, according to Itar-Tass, welcomed the news with cheers and screams of “Russia!”
The parliament has also made a decision to ask the Russian leadership to “launch the procedure of Crimea becoming part of Russia.”
The speaker of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, explained that the parliament’s decision on the region joining Russia still has to be approved at a referendum, which has been scheduled for March 16. That’s two weeks earlier than announced last week.
“We are not in a rush, but that’s what the current situation demands,” Konstantinov told Itar-Tass. ‘We are trying to address the sentiments currently shared by the population. Those are uncertainty and fear. We must give them confidence and offer a clear political way out of the crisis.”
There will be two questions on the Crimean referendum ballots.
“The first one: Are you in favor of Crimea becoming a constituent territory of the Russian Federation. The second one: Are you in favor of restoring Crimea’s 1992 constitution,” the autonomous region’s First Deputy-Premier Rustam Temirgaliev said.
According to the 1992 constitution, the autonomous republic is part of Ukraine but has relations with Kiev, defined on the basis of mutual agreements.
The variant which gets the simple majority will be the winner in the referendum.
Obama: Crimea Separation Would Violate Law
WASHINGTON (AP) ”” President Barack Obama says a referendum for Ukraine’s Crimea region to separate and become part of Russia would violate international law.
Local government officials in Crimea on Thursday set a March 16 for the referendum vote.
Obama told reporters at the White House that would also violate the Ukrainian constitution.
US fighter jets, warship arrive in Ukraine region
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says six U.S. F-15 fighter jets have arrived in Lithuania to bolster air patrols over the Baltics as the stand-off over Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine continues. A U.S. warship is also now in the Black Sea to participate in long-planned exercises.
The fighter jets and 60 U.S. military personnel landed at Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania, adding to the four F-15s and 150 troops already there to do the air patrol mission. The additional fighters came from RAF Lakenheath.
The Navy destroyer USS Truxtun is participating in exercises with Romania and Bulgaria and is expected to be in the Black Sea for several days.
THE ROVING EYE –Spring fails in Ukrainian plunderland
By Pepe Escobar
Here’s the US’s exceptionalist promotion of “democracy” in action; Washington has recognized a coup d’etat in Ukraine that regime-changed a – for all its glaring faults – democratically elected government.
And here is Russian President Vladimir Putin, already last year, talking about how Russia and China decided to trade in roubles and yuan, and stressing how Russia needs to quit the “excessive monopoly” of the US dollar. He had to be aware the Empire would strike back.
Now there’s more; Russian presidential adviser Sergey GlazyevTHE ROVING EYE
Spring fails in Ukrainian plunderland
By Pepe Escobar
Here’s the US’s exceptionalist promotion of “democracy” in action; Washington has recognized a coup d’etat in Ukraine that regime-changed a – for all its glaring faults – democratically elected government.
And here is Russian President Vladimir Putin, already last year, talking about how Russia and China decided to trade in roubles and yuan, and stressing how Russia needs to quit the “excessive monopoly” of the US dollar. He had to be aware the Empire would strike back.
Now there’s more; Russian presidential adviser Sergey Glazyev
told RIA Novosti, “Russia will abandon the US dollar as a reserve currency if the United States initiates sanctions against the Russian Federation.”
So the Empire struck back by giving “a little help” to regime change in the Ukraine. And Moscow counter-punched by taking control of Crimea in less than a day without firing a shot – with or without crack Spetsnaz brigades (UK-based think tanks say they are; Putin says they are not).
Putin’s assessment of what happened in Ukraine is factually correct; “an anti-constitutional takeover and armed seizure of power”. It’s open to endless, mostly nasty debate whether the Kremlin overreacted or not. Considering the record of outright demonization of both Russia and Putin going on for years – and now reaching fever pitch – the Kremlin’s swift reaction was quite measured.
Putin applied Sun Tzu to the letter, and now plays the US against the EU. He has made it clear Moscow does not need to “invade” Ukraine. The 1997 Ukraine-Russia partition treaty specifically allows Russian troops in Crimea. And Russia after all is an active proponent of state sovereignty; it’s under this principle that Moscow refuses a Western “intervention” in Syria.
What he left the door open for is – oh cosmic irony of ironies – an American invention/intervention (and that, predictably, was undetectable by Western corporate media); the UN’s R2P – “responsibility to protect” – in case the Western-aligned fascists and neo-nazis in Ukraine threaten Russians or Russian-speaking civilians with armed conflict. Samantha Power should be proud of herself.
Ukraine: The clash of partnerships
John Feffer
The Cold War is history. For those growing up today, the Cold War is as distant in time as World War II was for those came of age in the 1970s. In both cases, empires collapsed and maps were redrawn. Repugnant ideologies were laid bare and then laid to rest, though patches of nostalgia persist.
Surely the Cold War has been consigned to the textbooks as irrevocably as the Battle of the Bulge. The Berlin Wall is in pieces. The US president speaks of the abolition of nuclear weapons. The “common European home” from the Atlantic to the Urals – a conceit embraced by such odd bedfellows as De Gaulle and Gorbachev – beckons on the horizon, with the OSCE in place andUkraine: The clash of partnerships
John Feffer
The Cold War is history. For those growing up today, the Cold War is as distant in time as World War II was for those came of age in the 1970s. In both cases, empires collapsed and maps were redrawn. Repugnant ideologies were laid bare and then laid to rest, though patches of nostalgia persist.
Surely the Cold War has been consigned to the textbooks as irrevocably as the Battle of the Bulge. The Berlin Wall is in pieces. The US president speaks of the abolition of nuclear weapons. The “common European home” from the Atlantic to the Urals – a conceit embraced by such odd bedfellows as De Gaulle and Gorbachev – beckons on the horizon, with the OSCE in place and
the European Union creeping ever eastward. Tensions inevitably crop up, but they’re nothing worth exchanging inter-continental ballistic missile’s over.
What was once confrontation has turned into joint efforts to address global challenges: stabilizing the world economy, negotiating nuclear agreements with Iran, ending the war in Syria. A long article in The New Yorker on a multi-billion dollar nuclear fusion project being constructed in France reminds us that this quest for a sustainable replacement for fossil fuels began as a late-Cold War agreement between Moscow and Washington. Impending environmental catastrophe is gradually uniting all sides in much the same way that Ronald Reagan once imagined that a Martian invasion would.
And then there’s Ukraine.
Just when you thought it was safe to get back into geopolitics, the Cold War has reared its ugly head once again. All your favorite characters have returned to the footlights – the iron-fisted Russian leader, the thundering American secretary of state, troops of multiple nations on alert, and lots of cloak-and-dagger intrigue behind the scenes. And starring in the role of Prague 1968 is that new and untested actor: Crimea 2014. We can only hope that history is repeating itself as farce, not as a tragic tale told twice.
SPEAKING FREELY
Reading Putin’s mind over Crimea
By Mikhail A Molchanov
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.
Western pundits cry foul over Russian intervention in the Crimea and deplore a purported resurrection of 19th-century power politics by President Vladimir Putin. They forget he learned his tactics from the US’s and North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s constant reliance on brute force.
Why exactly is NATO still in existence 23 years after the end of the Cold war? Back in the 1990s, Russia’s liberal reformers expected it to go the way of the Warsaw Pact. This hope wasbluntly defeated by Western proponents of global interdependence and co-prosperity. Instead, the Euro-Atlantic alliance started an eastward creep, with plans to encircle Russia and gobble up Moscow’s former allies.
Perhaps NATO means to include Russia as well? This is what Putin suggested in an early 2000 interview with the BBC: “We believe we can talk about more profound integration with NATO, but only if Russia is regarded as an equal partner.” Not so fast, was the response from Brussels. No equality between the Cold war “winners” and “losers” was ever on the cards.
Putin was the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service when the NATO bombs were falling on Belgrade. Russia could do nothing at the time. In 2003, the United States led the so-called “coalition of the willing” in the unlawful invasion of Iraq in clear violation of the UN Charter. Again, Russia could do little.
In 2004, United States spent US$40 million on the “orange revolution” in Ukraine, when street crowds forced the government into an unprecedented re-run of the presidential election. The ensuing government of the inept, US-dependent president Viktor Yushchenko succeeded in damaging Russian-Ukrainian relations and creating an atmosphere of intolerance for Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minority and their linguistic and cultural rights.
Corruption proliferated. Ukrainian people’s response to the “orange” lawlessness was the election of Viktor Yanukovych – the same person that Yushchenko defeated, with American help, in the third round of 2004 elections.
By the end of his second term in the office, Putin must have lost all doubt as to the real motivation behind the US championing of “democracy” world-wide – to expand its sphere of influence and prolong its global hegemony while eliminating and weakening potential rivals by all means available, not excluding crude military power. He witnessed, and could not prevent, the unlawful dismemberment of Serbia and the quick recognition that Western powers hastened to grant to the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo.
March 6th, 2014 at 3:28 pm
DEMOCRACY in Action … the WILL of its People is that Crimea joins the Russian Federation … as the Ukraine as a whole spirals towards disintegration into smaller “empowered democracies”.
The USA used this very argument to undermine, destabilize and divide many other countries aligned with the USSR in the past … like Yugoslavia. Now Putin is deploying the same strategy to return the favour.
All of this INTERFERENCE by foreign powers undermines NATIONS as units of governance and sovereignty, which moves me to ask: Are there NO LIMITS to the SIZE of a region that can demand secession to exercise its own democracy in opposition to the will of ALL the people of a nation? Can a Province, a District, a County, a City, a Town, a Village, or even a Street exercise its DEMOCRATIC right to secede? Where does it end?
Most nations are rarely perfectly uniform in demography, and have local concentrations with respect to ethnicity, religion, language, etc etc, that are small in relation to the population of the country as a whole. So, does the will of the people of each local region, no matter how small, have priority over the will of ALL of the people of a nation? Does the will of Eastern Ukraine supercede the will of all of Ukraine? Does the will of Crimea have priority over both?
This issue was addressed by Abraham Lincoln, during the US Civil war. President Lincoln argued that the legitimate aspirations of ALL people of the United States had accrued an inalienable right to a United Nation incorporating all of its territories, that had priority over the RIGHT of the Confederate States that had voluntarily united but now wished to secede. He argued that that RIGHT ACCRUED OVER TIME since Indeoendence from Britain, had a greater validity and force than the right of the Confederate States to secede. That was his LEGAL justification for waging the Civil War, and denying the DEMOCRATIC right of the Confederate States to a separate existence.
But we Americans, the inheritors and beneficiaries of Lincoln’s legal justification for preserving the Union, have since been all over the mao on this issue, with only our SELF-INTEREST deciding which side we are on.
In former Yugoslavia, we held that its individual provinces Serbia, Solvenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Hetzegovina, Macedonia, even Kosovo province of Serbia, had an inalienable right to a separate existence …. because we had an interest in Balkanizing the powerful Yugoslavia aligned with the USSR. In doing so, we opened up a Pandora’s box spilling out all of the old Balkan evils that Marshal Tito had managed to keep bottled up in a united Yugoslavia. That witches kettle is still brewing. Determined to divide up Sudan opposed to the US, we have similarly managed to stir up divisions and create a South Sudan, with another new nation in the Darfur region a distinct possibility. South Sudan is now at war with itself … that should keep them busy for a while, eh?
On the other hand, in Ukraine, the US is arguing that the National Sovereignty of Ukraine must remain inviolate while Russia has become the defender of Democracy and the Will of the People of Crimea! There is no “Internal Law” here, only the Rights of the Mighty and Powerful to have their way.
We Americans, in particular, should be wary of the recent trend in our foreign policy to exploit “human rights” and “democracy” to undermine, destabilize and partition other countries. We should be mindful of the demographic changes that are taking place within the United States, that are leading to polarization and alienation of people and regions of the US from one another on ethnic, linguistic, religious and political bases, and the po
tential for those to grow and crystallize into secessionist movements. There is now AMPLE EVIDENCE that is happening right now.
If that unfortunate situation were to again arise, as it did during the US Civil War period, all of the arguments we are currently using to dismantle other countries would be used against the United States by segments of its own citizens, aided and abetted by enemies of our country. Would then, an Abraham Lincoln arise to formulate new arguments and convince Americans to wage war against each other to keep the nation whole, so our descendents can enjoy the benefits of a one united nation extending from ocean to ocean, as we did?