Exclusive: Ukraine’s President Poroshenko has tapped another international “carpetbagger” to rule his people, ex-Georgian President Saakashvili, a neocon hero wanted in his homeland for embezzlement and human rights abuses who now governs Odessa, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The latest political move by the U.S.-backed “pro-democracy” regime in Ukraine was to foist on the people of Odessa the autocratic Georgian ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, a neoconservative favorite and currently a fugitive from his own country which is seeking him on charges of human rights violations and embezzlement.
New York Times correspondent David M. Herszenhorn justified this imposition of a newly minted Ukrainian citizen on the largely Russian-speaking population of Odessa by saying that “the Ukrainian public’s general willingness to accept the appointment of foreigners to high-level positions underscores the deep lack of trust in any government after nearly a quarter-century of mismanagement and corruption.”
Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia and U.S. President George Bush at a NATO meeting. (Photo credit: NATO)
But Herszenhorn made no apparent effort to gauge how willing the people of Odessa are to accept this choice of a controversial foreign politician to govern them. The pick was made by President Petro Poroshenko and is just the latest questionable appointment by the post-coup regime in Kiev.
For instance, shortly after the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the new U.S.-endorsed authorities in Kiev named thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk in southeastern Ukraine. Kolomoisky, regarded as one of Ukraine’s most corrupt billionaires, ruled the region as his personal fiefdom until he was ousted by Poroshenko earlier this year in a dispute over Kolomoisky’s use of strong-arm tactics to maintain control of Ukrainian energy companies. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Oligarchs Turn on Each Other.”]
Poroshenko also has granted overnight Ukrainian citizenship to other controversial foreigners to hold key positions in his government, including Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an ex-U.S. State Department official whose qualifications included enriching herself through her management of a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund for Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Finance Minister’s ‘American Values’.”]
Beyond his recruitment of questionable outsiders, Poroshenko has made concessions to Ukraine’s far-right nationalists, including signing legislation to extend official recognition to Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazis in killing Jews and Poles during World War II. In a bitter irony, the new law coincided with the world’s celebration in April of the 70th anniversary of Russian and U.S. troops bringing an end to the Holocaust. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How Ukraine Commemorates the Holocaust.”]
Now Poroshenko has given Saakashvili his own province to govern, rescuing him from an obscure existence in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. According to a New York Times profile last September, Saakashvili was there “writing a memoir, delivering ‘very well-paid’ speeches, helping start up a Washington-based think tank and visiting old boosters like Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state.”
McCain and Nuland were key neocon backers of the coup that ousted Yanukovych and touched off the bloody civil war that has killed thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, while also reviving Cold War tensions between the West and Russia. Before the coup, McCain urged on right-wing protesters with promises of U.S. support and Nuland was overheard hand-picking Ukraine’s new leadership, saying “Yats is the guy,” a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who became prime minister after the coup.
According to the Times profile, Saakashvili also “entertained David H. Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” another neocon favorite who ran into legal trouble himself when the FBI discovered he had shared top-secret information with his biographer/lover and then lied about it to FBI agents. Petraeus, however, received only a suspended sentence and a fine in contrast to intelligence-community whistleblowers who have faced serious prison time.
Models, Nude Artist and Massage Therapist
While cooling his heels in Brooklyn, Saakashvili fumed over charges leveled against him by prosecutors in his home country of Georgia. According to the Times profile, Saakashvili was accused of “using public money to pay for, among other things, hotel expenses for a personal stylist, hotel and travel for two fashion models, Botox injections and hair removal, the rental of a yacht in Italy and the purchase of artwork by the London artist Meredith Ostrom, who makes imprints on canvases with her naked, painted body.
“Mr. Saakashvili is also accused of using public money to fly his massage therapist, Dorothy Stein, into Georgia in 2009. Mr. Saakashvili said he received a massage from Ms. Stein on ‘one occasion only,’ but Ms. Stein said she received 2,000 euros to massage him multiple times, including delivering her trademark ‘bite massage.’ ‘He gave me a bunch of presents,’ said Ms. Stein, who splits her time between Berlin and Hoboken,” including a gold necklace.
The Georgian prosecutors also have charged Saakashvili with human rights violations for his violent crackdown on political protesters in 2007.
However, in Herszenhorn’s May 31 article about Saakashvili’s appointment as Odessa’s governor, the Times correspondent (who has behaved more like a pro-Kiev propagandist than an objective reporter) wrote that the criminal charges against Saakashvili and other officials from his government are “widely perceived as a campaign of political retribution.”
Herszenhorn didn’t say where he had gained that perception, but it is true that Official Washington’s neoconservatives will broach no criticism of their longtime hero Saakashvili, who was a big booster of the Iraq War and even named a boulevard in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in honor of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Saakashvili apparently felt that his close ties to the Bush administration would protect him in summer 2008 when he provoked a border clash with Russian troops over the rebellious territory of South Ossetia. Georgia suffered a sharp military defeat and Saakashvili’s political star quickly faded among his countrymen, leading to his party’s rejection at the polls and his exile.
But Saakashvili’s love of the high life might find similar attitudes among some of the other “carpetbaggers” arriving in Ukraine to take Ukrainian citizenship and get top jobs in the post-coup government. Estonian Jaanika Merilo, an associate of Finance Minister Jaresko’s, was brought in to handle Ukraine’s foreign investments, but Merilo is best known on the Internet for her provocative party photos.
Yet, as much fun as some of these well-connected politicians and bureaucrats may be having in Kiev, the plight of the average Ukrainian continues to worsen as “free-market” reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund take hold. Those “reforms” have included slashing old-age pensions, removing worker protections, and hiking the price of heating fuel.
Now, the latest “democratic” reform is to appoint a neocon politician on the run from his own country’s criminal justice system to govern what is likely to be a hostile population of ethnic Russians in Odessa.
On May 2, 2014, neo-Nazi street fighters set fire to Odessa’s Trade Union Building and burned alive dozens of ethnic Russians who had taken refuge there. The building was also spray-painted with Nazi slogans, including praise for the Galician SS, a Ukrainian force that fought with the Nazis and slaughtered Jews. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Dr. Strangelove Reality.”]
Overseeing that tense city now is an unelected ex-Georgian neocon politician who is facing charges in his homeland for human rights abuses and misuse of government funds — more “democracy promotion” in the tragic land of Ukraine.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
It’s hard to believe that the US and its NATO allies are so single minded in their program of surrounding Russia with hostile states. The road to a third and devastating world war fought with the full panoply of nuclear weapons is frightfully clear. Perhaps, only the good offices of the United Nations will be able to follow the narrow road to peace. Let’s go guys. Time for peace in this world; through the one institution that represents the entire world – the UN.
I am from Russia, I live in Russia.
Well. There’s no doubt that this tie-eater and criminal together with UkroNazi and USF are going to engage my country into a Big War! I hope everyone heard about blockade of Pridnestrovye (Transnistria) and placing of S300 along border. And so-called OSCE seems has no words about it.
It means that this company (listed above) will force Russia to react. It is a simply the repetition of 5-Days War in 2008.
Saakashvili and his friends are still walking around because of what they know. They could tell a multitude of stories about networks of patronage and US intelligence agencies; even though these would all implicate themselves. Many observers in Georgia have concluded that these people have to be either protected or killed by foreign intelligence services, and at the moment it is the latter.
But they obviously thought they would always be protected in Georgia, until their crimes became too blatant. They were given a nasty shock when Bidzina Ivanishvili, a man with no political track record at all, was parachuted in and proved hugely popular. Using their connections they have found safe haven in Ukraine. But if this latest US scheme goes wrong, who will get the blame? The US? The Ukrainians? Or the foreigners who have been brought into the Ukrainian government with toxic records from elsewhere?
Saakashvili and his friends are useful for pursuing the sort of programme the US has introduced in any number of now failed states it has entered to impose its own interests on the local population. But the US and its proxies know that one day they will be found out. Saakashvili is one of those who can point fingers at them already. By using his methods when it suits them, and then making him take a fall if things go wrong, they can turn this around.
Saakashvili has got his new position as an indirect reward for the crimes he committed in his old one. For now he can still blame others for these, if forced. But if Ukraine goes the way of other US projects he, the dubious foreigner, will have to take the rap. Then no one will listen to stories from his time in Georgia.
Misha Reinvented in Ukraine: Not Safe, But Stupid
By Henry Kamens
http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/02/misha-reinvented-in-ukraine-not-safe-but-stupid/
More like the epitome of the U.å. EåCEÏŸÏŸ of EVIL in ODEÏŸÏŸA !
Soros wants Ukrainians to get rid of Vladimir Putin, and this requires heavily arming Ukraine. Soros was giving instructions to this regime that he had proudly helped bring into power. But he pretended that doing this would economically benefit Ukraine.
Soros declared his goal to be: “a functioning democracy in Ukraine that manages to reform its economy even in the midst of Russian aggression,†and that the reason for this goal is that it’s the way to “turn Putin’s narrative into a lie that no amount of propaganda could cover up. More and more Russians would want to follow Ukraine’s example.†In other words: Soros is saying that so many Russians will envy the new Ukraine that they’ll rise up and overthrow Putin. (But, actually, at the very time that Soros was writing this, Ukraine’s economy was already in free-fall with no light visible at the end of any realistic tunnel but only total economic collapse. Soros ignored that reality, which he almost certainly was aware of.)
Confidential Document: Soros’s Plan for Ukraine
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/06/confidential-document-soross-plan-for-ukraine.html
George Soros shouts “We will bury you!”
*Correction- John McCain got called out for palling around with real Ukranian nazis (not neo-nazis).
The Renaissance Foundation, a global consulting network formed by George Soros, had sponsored Kiev’s administrative “headhunting process”. It paid as much as $82,200 to two Prague-based global head hunting firms. Numerous potential employees were members of the Ukrainian community in Canada, the US and the UK.
Saakashvili earlier had been offered the post of Vice Prime Minister in the Ukrainian government.
Tbilisi, who had issued an arrest warrant for Saakashvili in August 2014, warned the Ukrainian leadership against such a hasty step. David Kereselidze, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia has emphasized that if the ex-president or someone from his team was appointed to the government of Ukraine, it would negatively affect the bilateral relations between the two states.
Saakashvili left Georgia immediately after President Giorgi Margvelashvili’s inauguration in November 2013. He has been facing several serious charges including abuse of power, using excessive force against protesters and murder.
Saakashvili stated on June 1, 2015 that he accepted Ukrainian citizenship to avoid “guaranteed imprisonment” in Georgia.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia has stated that the Saakashvili’s new appointment would not have a negative impact on the relations between Georgia and Ukraine.
In the early 1990s, Saakashvili was friends with Poroshenko at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Like Poroshenko, Saakashvili has American fingerprints all over him. He received a fellowship from the United States State Department to study law at Columbia and George Washington. He interned in the New York law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in 1995, immediately prior to launching his now notorious political career in Georgia.
It is very interesting, Abe, that the Soros foundation is employing American & Canadian Ukrainians, considering that a large number of the OUN-B skipped war crimes trials and emigrated across the Atlantic following WWII, some to be used for CIA intelligence (the OUN-B: extreme nationalist Russophobes who collaborated with Hitler & aligned themselves with Bandera.) Erik Zeuse has some interesting articles in Global Research & elsewhere that discuss the children of this generation- the “Bandera babies”, as being raised with the fascist and neo-nazi ideals of their parents (ideals that faded in Ukraine) . Also, these emigres tended not to be passive. They were very well connected with government & proved to be powerful boosters of the Republucan Party. John McCaine ended up getting in trouble for being a member of one of their groups which was infused with open neo-nazis….How the pieces come together… I have noticed also that the social media comment boards are often flooded with propagandizes obviously of Ukrsinian descent & living in North America… I’d be real interested to know what kind of role these emigres have been playing in all that has happened in Ukraine . . … .
Very interesting, indeed. 10 years ago, I would call this “conspiracy theories”, but not now. I am a Russian, but have been living in Norway for last 20 years. Part of my early childhood was spent in Crimea (then Ukraine). I remember, as a child in 1992 or 1993 being shown a brand new Ukrainian history textbook meant for 8th or 9th grade, which was supposedly written and printed in Canada (!) How I would like to see this book today… The book was full of quasi-historic nonsense about how all Russian history was fabricated, and Ukraine existed since the 8th Century, etc. According to the book, Russians did not really exist as a people, and those who called themselves Russians were really Tartars and Mongolians. (Considering the medieval history of Mongolian invasions, “Mongolian” or “Tartar” would sollicit very negative, racist feelings among the children reading the book). And, of course, cartoon-villain style description of everything from the Soviet period… Add to this the glorification of Bandera, and you’ve have a perfect starting point for demonizing “the others” – the Russian minority. Already in the 1990ies!
It is not hard to imagine what happens to the minds of Ukrainians (even if they are ethnic Russians) when they are raised with such books. I am not a journalist, but I can say, the role of such “diaspora” has been huge , and not a beneficial one :(
Many members of the Ukrainian diaspora are children of soldiers who fought with the Germans, but were sent to the Britain, Canada and the United States because their virulent anti-Russian mentality was deemed worthy of preservation.
The Ukrainians were influenced by German propaganda that portrayed the Soviet enemy in the most dehumanized terms, depicting the Red Army as a force of Slavic Untermensch (sub-humans) and “Asiatic” savages engaging in “barbaric Asiatic fighting methods” commanded by evil Jewish commissars to whom German troops were to grant no mercy.
Typical of the German Army propaganda was the following passage from a pamphlet issued in June 1941:
“Anyone who has ever looked into the face of a Red commissar knows what the Bolsheviks are. There is no need here for theoretical reflections. It would be an insult to animals if one were to call the features of these, largely Jewish, tormentors of people and beasts. They are the embodiment of the infernal, of the personified insane hatred of everything that is noble in humanity. In the shape of these commissars we witness the revolt of the subhuman against noble blood. The masses whom they are driving to their deaths with every means of icy terror and lunatic incitement would have brought about an end of all meaningful life, had the incursion not been prevented at the last moment;”
The last statement is a reference to the “preventive war” that Barbarossa was alleged to be.
German Army propaganda often gave extracts in newsletters concerning the missions for German troops in the East:
“It is necessary to eliminate the red sub-humans, along with their Kremlin dictators. German people will have a great task to perform the most in its history, and the world will hear more about that this task will be completed till the end.”
As a result of this sort of propaganda, the majority of the German officers and soldiers, as well as their non-German allies, tended to regard the war in Nazi terms, seeing their Soviet opponents as so much sub-human trash deserving to be trampled upon.
One German soldier wrote home to his father on August 4, 1941 that:
“The pitiful hordes on the other side are nothing but felons who are driven by alcohol and the [commissars’] threat of pistols at their heads…They are nothing but a bunch of assholes!…Having encountered these Bolshevik hordes and having seen how they live has made a lasting impression on me. Everyone, even the last doubter, knows today that the battle against these sub-humans, who’ve been whipped into a frenzy by the Jews, was not only necessary but came in the nick of time. Our Führer has saved Europe from certain chaos.”
As a result of these views, the majority of the German Army worked enthusiastically with the SS in murdering Jews in the Soviet Union. The Wehrmacht did not just obey Hitler’s criminal orders for Barbarossa because of obedience, but rather because they shared Hitler’s belief that it was necessary for Germany to completely destroy “Judeo-Bolshevism”.
The OUN steeped in this sort of propaganda, combining nationalism with the most vile racism.
Saakashvili to Become Fletcher’s First Senior Statesman
Date: January 15, 2014
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/News-and-Media/2014/01/15/Saakashvili-First-Senior-Statesman
Former president of the Republic of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, will serve as the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s first Senior Statesman starting this January.
The position of Senior Statesman is a new idea, intended to provide students with access to internationally known leaders and practitioners in a variety of fields, Admiral James Stavridis, dean of The Fletcher School said.
“Our concept is to try to bring each year some important international political figure to be affiliated with The Fletcher School,†he said.
Saakashvili, who served as president for two terms between 2004 and 2013, founded Georgia’s United National Movement Party and led the Rose Revolution, which forced the resignation of the Republic of Georgia’s president at the time.
Saakashvili will not be in residence at Fletcher full-time, but is expected to visit on three or four occasions during both semesters of his one-year appointment.
Saakashvili is excited to interact with students at The Fletcher School in both informal and educational settings, he said.
“I like to talk to students,†Saakashvili said. “I have always loved to talk to them, even when I was elected in politics.â€
After graduating from the Institute of International Relations at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Saakashvili came to the United States to study law, receiving a Master of Laws from Columbia University and taking doctoral-level classes at the George Washington University Law School. In 1995, he received a diploma in Comparative Law of Human Rights from The International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
Saakashvili was first elected to the Parliament of Georgia in 1995 and five years later became the country’s Minister of Justice under President Eduard Shevardnadze, his presidential predecessor. In 2004, after a bloodless revolution, Saakashvili became the youngest national president in Europe and third president of the Republic of Georgia.
“Throughout his presidency, [Saakashvili] was able to improve the economy dramatically, reduce corruption in the state and connect with the West, the United States and with NATO,†Stavridis said. “He is a practitioner of diplomacy in a very challenging position in a small nation, and has done a very good job leading his nation in its early days since finding independence.â€
Stavridis believes that one of Saakashvili’s most important contributions to Georgia was leading the Rose Revolution — a 20-day long peaceful protest that ended the previously totalitarian period of Soviet Era leadership. Saakashvili was instrumental in organizing more than 100,000 protesters during the revolution.
“To turn this many people out in a non-violent revolutionary setting was really quite remarkable,†Stavridis said. “I think it is fair to say that [Saakashvili’s] personal leadership and charismatic personality were very much a part of organizing all of this.â€
According to Academic Dean of the Fletcher School Ian Johnstone, Saakashvili’s experiences will be valuable to the students and faculty at Fletcher.
“[Saakashvili] was a very lively figure in a very crucial part of the world and has a lot of international experience as a result,†Johnstone said. “We are hoping he comes and shares that experience and the perspective … on relations with the United States, Europe and Russia, the evolution from authoritarian to democratic leadership and anti-corruption measures — all of which he was associated with when he was president.â€
Saakashvili chose to join The Fletcher School as Senior Statesman because Fletcher is a prestigious school with many faculty and students who focus on his region of the world, he said.
“The Fletcher School is really a top school in its category worldwide,†he said. “There are several great universities that I had offers from, a few of them in the [United States]. You can have a great university in the United States, but people might have no idea about the region where we come from or about the problems that are facing us. This is not a problem at Fletcher.â€
Beyond Fletcher’s connections to his region, the character and intellectual nature of the school also attracted Saakashvili, he said.
“What I like about Tufts University and Fletcher is [that], first of all, they are very fun and they are aspiring to something,†Saakashvili said. “These people [at Fletcher], they really want to make it. I always want to work with people who want to make it, who want to move fast to improve and to inspire. I think together we can do this.â€
Johnstone believes Saakashvili’s presence will bring excitement and intellectual stimulation to both Fletcher and Tufts, he said.
“We are excited to have somebody who will be associated with us and I’m sure stimulate a lot of interest and a lot of interesting discussion and debate when he is here, given the critical role that he has played,†Johnstone said. “I hope that Fletcher students and Tufts students as a whole benefit from his presence. I have little doubt that they will.â€
Stavridis considers both Saakashvili’s practical experience and personal character invaluable, he said.
“[Saakashvili] is a very dynamic, intellectual individual who I think will be a great addition to our community at The Fletcher School and at Tufts University,†Stavridis said.
Saakashvili’s was appointed as first Senior Statesman by retired United States Navy admiral, James G. Stavridis, now the 12th Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
The appointment of Saakashvili is an exercise in “soft power” as championed by Stavridis, who has deep connections the Pentagon, NATO and military intelligence
Stavridis served as the 15th Commander, U.S. European Command (USEUCOM, May 2009 – May 2013) and NATO’s 16th Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR, June 2009 – May 2013). He is the first Navy officer to have held these positions.
He served as a strategic and long range planner on the staffs of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
At the start of the “Global War on Terror”, Stavridis was selected as the director of the Navy Operations Group, Deep Blue, USA. He has also served as the executive assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and the senior military assistant to the United States Secretary of Defense.
Stavridis has long advocated the use of “Smart Power,” which he defines as the balance of hard and soft power taken together. He has stressed the need to connect international, inter-agency, and public-private actors, lining all of them with effective strategic communications.
Stavridis has frequently appeared on major broadcast and cable television networks to comment on national security and foreign policy matters.
A story from the past shows why neocons are dangerous for the global peace and security
http://bit.ly/1KKn0fl
There is a common misconception in the West that there is only one war in Ukraine: a war between the anti-Kiev rebels of the East, and the US-backed government in Kiev. While this conflict, with all its attendant geopolitical and strategic implications has stolen the majority of the headlines, there is another war raging in the country – a war to crush all dissent and opposition to the fascist-oligarch consensus. For while in the West many so called analysts and leftists debate whether there is really fascism in Ukraine or whether it’s all just “Russian propaganda,†a brutal war of political repression is taking place.
The authorities and their fascist thug auxiliaries have carried out everything from physical intimidation, to politically motivated arrests, kidnappings, torture, and targeted assassinations. All of this has been done under the auspices of “national unity,†the convenient pretext that every oppressive regime from time immemorial has used to justify its actions. Were one to read the Western narrative on Ukraine, one could be forgiven for believing that the country’s discontent and outrage is restricted solely to the area collectively known as Donbass – the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as they have declared themselves. Indeed, there is good reason for the media to portray such a distorted picture; it legitimizes the false claim that all Ukraine’s problems are due to Russian meddling and covert militarization.
Instead, the reality is that anger and opposition to the US-backed oligarch-fascist coalition government in Kiev is deeply rooted and permeates much of Ukraine. In politically, economically, and culturally important cities such as Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kherson, ghastly forms of political persecution are ongoing. However, nowhere is this repression more apparent than in the Black Sea port city of Odessa.
Kiev’s Repression of Anti-Fascism in Odessa
By Eric Draitser
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/27/kievs-repression-of-anti-fascism-in-odessa/
What do Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk have in common?
They both have been hosted by the Atlantic Council.
A regime change think tank, the Atlantic Council is managed by Western “policy makersâ€, military leaders, and senior intelligence officials, including four heads of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Atlantic Council has released a report co-authored by faux “citizen journalist” Eliot Higgins and his crew of faux “independent investigators” at Bellingcat.
The Atlantic Council uses video of Eliot Higgins and Michael Usher from the Australian “60 Minutes†program “MH-17: An Investigationâ€(see video minutes 36:00-36:55) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU0kuHI6lNg to promote the report.
It praises Higgins and Bellingcat for providing “undeniable proof†in support of US and EU governments accusations against Russia.
Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President of Programs and Strategy at the Atlantic Council, is a co-author with Higgins of the Atlantic Council report, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraineâ€
Wilson highlights Higgins’ effort to bolster Western accusations against Russia:
“We make this case using only open source, all unclassified material. And none of it provided by government sources.
“And it’s thanks to works, the work that’s been pioneered by human rights defenders and our partner Eliot Higgins, uh, we’ve been able to use social media forensics and geolocation to back this up.†(see video minutes 35:10-36:30)
However, the Atlantic Council claim that “none” of Higgins’ material was provided by government sources is an obvious lie.
Higgins’ primary “pieces of evidence†— a video depicting a Buk missile launcher and a set of geolocation coordinates — were supplied by the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) and the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior via the Facebook page of senior-level Ukrainian government official Arsen Avakov, the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Higgins and the Atlantic Council are working in support of the Pentagon and Western intelligence’s “hybrid war” against Russia.
Saakashvili will be the Reinhard Heydrich,the hangman of ukranian junta in Odessa,but I
remember the end of this nazi monster,the story must be repeated,as it is an insane situa
tion.
Following this chilling logic, the clueless Saakashvili will go the way of Boris Nemtsov and the Heavenly Hundred Heroes of Maidan Square, telegenic martyrs of Washington’s “hybrid war” on Russia.
How is it possible that the Neo-Nazis in Kiev getting all that money from IMF $17 billion, EU $ 5 bilion and USA $ 2 billion. It’s certainly NOT their ‘trustworthy’ looks of Yatsenyuk or Turchinov and now Saakashvili another criminal sought for embezzlement and abuse of Power in his native Georgia.
The reasons are simple Washington neocons do ‘whatever it takes’ to expand their colonization or geopolitical strategy to establish its power in Russia and use Ukraine as a jumping block. In addition it uses MSM propaganda and people like Soros/McCain/Nuland to demonetize the Russian people and its President Putin.
Looking at US aggression in the past 50 years I found more than 40 violations by US military attacking sovereign nations, removing or killing its presidents, murdering civilians, women and children by the hundreds of thousands and causing millions of refugees. In contrast to all civil nations USA is known to use cluster-, dirty/uranium- and napalm bombs in Yugoslavia, in Iraq and now in Syria, Yemen (thru Saudi Arabia) and in Europe in Ukraine. On top of that USA is NO member of UN International Criminal Court in the Hague on the contrary it will free by force ANY US citizen apparently also those criminals in Kiev that murdered 6000 fellow countrymen so far.
Washington has become the largest danger in the world of peace loving nations like Russia who lost 25 million people in WW II to defeat the Nazi’s and Europe should be thankfully to the Russians NOT the Americans whose only purpose was to conquer Europe as it new colony. To protect the American interests there are 67,000 US troops in Europe together with 120 nuclear war heads. It’s not that Europeans are afraid of Russia which is part of Europe anyhow, but we’re afraid of Washington to start WW III again in Europe.
So USA keep your aggression within your own borders keep on killing young black teenagers, have 2-year old kill their mother or torture people in Guantanamo of have schoolchildren kill their classmates, etc. How come I don’t read these type of atrocities in Russia. The answer is simple Russian people are humans and respect their families and their fellow countrymen For the American people an interesting lesson in humanity and peace.
This sounds pretty messed up and I am getting the impression that Ukraine is a seriously messed up country. If Poreshenko really wanted to respect the Minsk 2.0 agreement wouldn’t this be one of the worst appointments that he could have made considering it was Georgia that started a war with Russia in 2008, as the EU concluded, and the fact that a large swath of Eastern/Southern Ukraine are ethnic Russians (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/world/ukraine-divided/)? Maybe Poreshenko is trying to inflame Eastern Ukraine so that the Minsk 2.0 agreement goes out the window and the war continues using weapons and training from the US etc. – which he believes he can win! This seems to be a recipe for disaster…
It will be interesting to see now what effect this shameful appointment will have on Kolomoisky and also the separatist neighbor Transnistria. Saakashvili can always be counted on for starting provocation.
May god grant NATO the vision to recognize this criminal, and realize he will destroy them.
Another tale of the absurd and bizare from the new world order of NeoconOrwellian Hypocritesville — the world’s nightmare that the wicked and misled believe will create nirvana on earth, and from which sane people can’t awaken from…
It does seem more and more people are realizing that truthful information concerning anything important or controversial is generally absent from US government reports and those of their partners in deception, the mainstream mass-media networks.
Thanks Mr. Parry for all do here!
That was supposed to be “all you do here!”
This headline about Saakashvili is hard to believe but appears to be completely true:
“Georgia President Who Ate His Tie Advises Ukrainians How to ‘Capture All of Russia’”
http://observer.com/2015/02/georgia-president-who-ate-his-tie-advises-ukrainians-how-to-capture-all-of-russia/
You can see a video of Saakashvili chewing his tie during an interview in 2008.
In February this year, he said that Ukrainian troops will conquer all of Russia if they are given proper training and proper weapons from America:
“As soon as they [Americans] will burn down first 50 Russian tanks (a happy smile and a half-laugh) there will be absolutely different situation [on the ground]. And Americans are ready to give, Americans are ready to give the drones, the real ones, not the ones that are made here [in Ukraine] … and they will give you artillery, trucks with artillery. The most important task is the training of your troops (a big smile and touching of the tie). Our [Georgian] officers, that had been trained by the Americans and that now train your troops, they say that the spirit of the Ukrainian troops is the best in the world and that these guys that are fighting now if they are given the proper training and proper weapons they will conquer the entire Russia (a big witty smile). “
…ask yourself the following question: what are Saakashvili’s credentials? It is pretty obvious that his only “qualification†is his rabid hatred for Russia and Russians and his willingness to execute any US order.
I read this essay yesterday at the Saker site. The blogger’s opinion is that this is a new initiative to start a war with Russia. Raise all kinds of hell in Odessa, and if that doesn’t work, start an attack on the tiny enclave of Transnistria on the west edge of the Ukraine. He says that unlike the situation in East Ukraine where Russia holds all the high cards, in the West the US is the one which is setting pretty.
Victoria Nuland: “Misha is the guy who’s got the tie and the governing experience. And, you know, F*** the EU!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syKMsDS2OzE
On May 2, 2014, neo-Nazi street fighters set fire to Odessa’s Trade Union Building and burned alive dozens of ethnic Russians who had taken refuge there.
From the BBC today (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32969052 – Georgia ex-leader Saakashvili gives up citizenship for Ukraine):
“However, tensions in the strategic port remain high after clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters on 2 May 2014 left more than 40 people dead.
The majority of those who died were pro-Russian activists who perished in a fire in a trade union building. Investigations into what caused the blaze are continuing.”
I’m sure they are.
(On another tack, should you happen to pass through Luxembourg, you will see an exposition of photographs sponsored by Ukraine (“Ukraine today: defense against aggression, struggle for peace, freedom and democracy”), some of which feature Azov Battalion members in contemplative poses, with cats etc: http://villedeluxembourg.lu/Culture+et+Loisirs/Culture+et+loisirs/Exposition+%C3%A0+la+place+Guillaume+II.html … WHAT!)
Azov Battalion members in contemplative pose
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Nazis_bfad8c_391420.jpg
Above photo actually represents troops of the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian).
Numerous non-German Waffen SS units (including soldiers from Ukraine, Latvia, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium) fought on the German side against the advancing Soviets in 1944.
The original 20th century military campaign later became known as the “Battle of the European SS”.
Washington and NATO want to re-enact this campaign with live (possibly nuclear) fire
in the 21st century. They just need to recruit a few more Nazis.