Exclusive: The mainstream U.S. media is hazing German Chancellor Merkel and President Obama for sidestepping the “I-word” invasion in reference to Russia and Ukraine. But the MSM goes mute on Ukraine’s “N-word” for “Nazi” so as not to disrupt the pro-Kiev “group think,” says Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The New York Times, in its ceaseless anti-Russian bias over the Ukraine crisis, now wants everyone to use the “I-word” for “invasion” when describing Russia’s interference in Ukraine despite the flimsy supporting evidence for the charge presented by Kiev and NATO.
The evidence, including commercial satellite photos lacking coordinates, was so unpersuasive that former U.S. intelligence analysts compared the case to the Iraq-WMD deception of last decade. Yet, while ignoring concerns about the quality of the proof, the Times ran a front-page story on Friday mocking Western political leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama, for not uttering the “I-word.”
The Wolfsangel symbol on a banner in Ukraine.
The Times’ article by Andrew Higgins essentially baited Merkel and Obama to adopt the most hyperbolic phrasing on the crisis or risk being denounced as weak. The Times couched its criticism of their “circumspect” language or what it called “terminological fudges” as a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But the Times and other U.S. mainstream news outlets have engaged in their own “terminological fudges” regarding Ukraine’s “N-word” for Nazi by hiding or burying the fact that the Kiev regime has knowingly deployed neo-Nazi militias to wage bloody street fighting against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
This grim reality has become one of the most sensitive facts that U.S. State Department propaganda and MSM coverage have sought to keep from the American people who surely would recoil at the notion of siding with modern-day Nazis. Yet, to fully understand the role of these neo-Nazi extremists, Americans would need a translator for the circumlocutions used by the Times and other U.S. news outlets.
Typically, in the U.S. press, Ukraine’s neo-Nazis are called “nationalists,” a term with a rather patriotic and positive ring to it. Left out is the fact that these “nationalists” carry Nazi banners and trace their ideological lineage back to Adolf Hitler’s Ukrainian auxiliary, the Galician SS, and to Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose paramilitary forces slaughtered thousands upon thousands of Poles and Jews.
Other MSM references to the Nazis are even more obscure. For instance, the neo-Nazi militias are sometimes called “volunteer” brigades, which makes them sound like the Boy Scouts or the Rotary Club.
But usually there is just the simple omission of the Nazi “N-word.” On Thursday, for instance, the Times published a contentious article critical of Putin’s plan for resolving the Ukraine crisis while also noting that the peace talks faced obstacles from elements of both sides: “Moscow does not fully control the separatists; nor is it clear that Kiev can automatically rein in the armed militias it has unleashed alongside its military in the east.”
Filtered out of that sentence was the “N-word.” The reason that those “armed militias” might resist peace is because they consist of neo-Nazi ideologues who want a racially pure Ukraine. They are not reasonable people who favor living with ethnically diverse neighbors.
Ukraine’s militias include openly neo-Nazi battalions such as the Azov brigade, which flies a version of the “wolfangel” banner that was favored by the Nazi SS. Azov leaders espouse theories of racial supremacy deeming ethnic Russians to be “Untermenschen” or subhumans.
Sidestepping the N-word
But the Times sidesteps the Nazi “N-word” because otherwise readers might start doubting the “white hat/black hat” narrative that the Times has spun since the beginning of the crisis last winter. Usually whenever Ukraine’s neo-Nazis are mentioned, it is in the context of the Times dismissing their presence as a myth or as simply “Russian propaganda.”
Other times, the reality is buried so deep in articles that very few readers will get that far. For instance, an Aug. 10 Times article by Andrew E. Kramer mentioned the emerging neo-Nazi paramilitary role in the final three paragraphs of a long story on another topic.
Given how extraordinary it is that armed Nazi storm troopers are being unleashed on a European population for the first time since World War II, you might have thought that the Times missed the lede. But the placement of this juicy tidbit fit with the newspaper’s profoundly unprofessional treatment of the Ukraine crisis throughout.
You had to get to the third-to-the-last paragraph to learn: “The fighting for Donetsk has taken on a lethal pattern: The regular army bombards separatist positions from afar, followed by chaotic, violent assaults by some of the half-dozen or so paramilitary groups surrounding Donetsk who are willing to plunge into urban combat.”
Then, the next-to-the-last paragraph told you: “Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate their actions, but the militias, which count about 7,000 fighters, are angry and, at times, uncontrollable. One known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Discovers Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis at War.”]
The conservative London Telegraph provided more details about the Azov battalion in an article by correspondent Tom Parfitt, who wrote: “In Marinka, on the western outskirts [of Donetsk], the [Azov] battalion was sent forward ahead of tanks and armoured vehicles of the Ukrainian army’s 51st Mechanised Brigade.
“But Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’, proclaimed in eastern Ukraine in March, should send a shiver down Europe’s spine. Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming. The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.”
In interviews, some of the fighters questioned the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and acknowledged that they are indeed Nazis, a fact known by Kiev authorities, the Telegraph reported.
Andriy Biletsky, the Azov commander, “is also head of an extremist Ukrainian group called the Social National Assembly,” according to the Telegraph article which quoted a recent commentary by Biletsky as declaring: “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]
Russian Claims ‘Essentially True’
Recently at the port city of Mariupol, Foreign Policy’s reporter Alec Luhn also encountered the neo-Nazis of the Azov and other Ukrainian government militias. He wrote: “Blue and yellow Ukrainian flags fly over Mariupol’s burned-out city administration building and at military checkpoints around the city, but at a sport school near a huge metallurgical plant, another symbol is just as prominent: the wolfsangel (‘wolf trap’) symbol that was widely used in the Third Reich and has been adopted by neo-Nazi groups.
“Pro-Russian forces have said they are fighting against Ukrainian nationalists and ‘fascists’ in the conflict, and in the case of Azov and other battalions, these claims are essentially true.”
But this inconvenient truth is not something that the U.S. State Department and the mainstream U.S. press want you to know. Instead they have spun a false narrative that blames the entire Ukraine crisis on Russia’s President Putin and his diabolical design to reclaim countries to his west for a revival of the Soviet Union.
The actual reality was that Putin wanted to maintain the status quo in Ukraine by supporting elected President Viktor Yanukovych. It was the West that stirred up trouble in Ukraine with neocon U.S. officials like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Sen. John McCain actively supporting a coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi street fighters that overthrew Yanukovych on Feb. 22.
After the coup, in recognition of the crucial role played by the neo-Nazis, they were given several ministries and their militias were later incorporated into the Ukrainian military for the offensive into eastern Ukraine to crush the uprising of ethnic Russians who had supported Yanukovych and favored closer economic ties to Russia. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Reality.”]
But that more nuanced narrative recognizing the complicated reality of Ukraine’s history and politics would destroy the white hat/black hat storyline favored by the New York Times and the MSM, making the coup regime in Kiev the “good guys” and making Putin and the ethnic Russians the “bad guys.”
To protect that narrative, everyone has to go silent on Ukraine’s “N-word.”
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, 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.
Why Obama and Merkel aren’t using the “i” word is easy: If Ukraine is at war, it becomes ineligible for IMF loans. But putting down a “terrorist” uprising gets the banksters okay. Poroshenko himself used the “i” word the first time he claimed the Russians had invaded. His office within a couple of hours issued a retraction.
Why Obama and Merkel aren’t using the “i” word is easy: If Ukraine is at war, it becomes ineligible for IMF loans. But putting down a “terrorist” uprising gets the banksters okay. Poroshenko himself used the “i” word the first time he claimed the Russians had invaded. His office within a couple of hours issued a retraction.
Thanks for your article. It is a breath of fresh air from the US media propaganda we’re also fed by the mainstream media. I’m glad I stumbled upon this website as I’m an avid reader and follower of the US foreign policy and weary of the havoc it has and continues to cause in the world. Keep up the progressive and objective writing.
Thanks for your article. It is a breath of fresh air from the US media propaganda we’re also fed by the mainstream media. I’m glad I stumbled upon this website as I’m an avid reader and follower of the US foreign policy and weary of the havoc it has and continues to cause in the world. Keep up the progressive and objective writing.
America leads to rebellion dark part of Ukraine. This embittered bunch of scoundrels from Western Ukraine (the territory of Galicia). They historically unlucky (it was owned by Austerity, Poles, Hungarians, … the Communists ). And being under the wing of the Hitler – they have all decided to take revenge. They consisted in the division of the Nazi SS troops “Galicia”. They were killing Poles and Jews – entire villages. And old and young children. Now their descendants are trying to honor their ancestors http://youtu.be/jCjxgXteOYw But the rest part of Ukraine fought against Hitler. Therefore, the basis of they begin to split, and the war of East and West. America supports nationalists in Western Ukraine http://youtu.be/6NZnHyTYsqU Because they are opposed against , frendly to Russia, people from the East of Ukraine. Friendly – because together we beat Hitler on the Eastern frontech the second world war. And forget about this would be to betray feat ancestors – those whom we owe our life and freedom. Nationalists from Western Ukraine – try brutally to crush dissent throughout the territory of Ukraine http://youtu.be/Sm-bjDyO0qA The worst thing is human selfishness and indifference, not wanting to know. This is the etc distribution evil.
With begin, Nationalists keep goverment in the central Ukraine http://youtu.be/dfzMnP3ilcI. They keep mind of Ukrainians, who life in these territoties, by media.
Us, Russians, greatly slandered over the last few years, in the world. And in 2008. – When Georgia attacked Ossetia, and then Russian troops just pushed the Georgian Army back. And now – when fighting the East vs South of Ukraine. We try to help the East with food and medicine. Some are written in volunteers. In Eastern Ukraine live ordinary workers. To take up arms they were forced extreme need. They need the help of the Russians. And about the Crimea. Crimea also decide separated from the Ukraine by vote, such a possibility was provided for by the Constitution of this territorial entity. Rossiiskie armed detachments of local volunteers, attended in the Crimea to provide security during the elections, because of course there was a threat to the civilian population by the ultra-nationalists.
Washington is confronting Russia with a very stark situation:
Surrender or a war.
– Paul Craig Roberts (not a CIA officer) speaks slowly, uses small words, breaks it down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHYJpuszMDw
“I Got Your ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Right Here” –
Let’s just say, a certain preponderance of neo-cons might enjoy goading the Russkies and NATO to lob half a dozen tactical nukes down on the old Pale of Settlement and “completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.â€
Nah, better to use DU bombardment. Less mess. Worked on the Babylonians. It’ll work on the Persians in good time.
Neo-con note to self: First pillage, then burn.
The PNAC connection and US policy.
Victoria Nuland served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and then as U.S. ambassador to NATO and became Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in May 2013.
..
She prefers the United Nations as mediator, instead of the European Union, adding “Fxxk the EU,” and Pyatt responds, “Oh, exactly …..
Victoria Nuland’s husband is historian Robert Kagan, Council on Foreign Relations member, and co-founder of the think-tank “Project for the New American Century” (PNAC).
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-rattle-sep-6-2014-we-dont-want-the-ceasefire-to-hold/
Great link. I read this earlier, but it took you to reference…good work.
INTELLIGENCE TEST:
Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis is “Mein Kampf” for what N-word group?
a) Neo-Nazis in Western Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe
b) Nuclear war advocates from Washington to Tel Aviv
c) NATO
d) all the above
Check your answer here:
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2014/3/1/204/17909
The one weapon the west has is the MSM media. I continually meet people who have never heard of Victoria Nuland, and yet these same Americans consider themselves well informed. Putting Americans back into a Cold War mine set seems regrettably to be working all to well for the war hawks. This is so unfortunate that for me it is hard to fathom how unbelievably insane all this is unfolding out before my very own eyes.
Read this;
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-rattle-sep-6-2014-we-dont-want-the-ceasefire-to-hold/
It also saddens me that we are starting a new Cold War, especially since I believe that it is our Western governments that actually started it by supporting a coup in Kiev. I am Canadian and 40 years old and I well remember the constant rhetoric. I remember all of the stupidity about “Star Wars” and a senile Ronald Reagan that could “push the button” at any time. I also remember songs being written about the fear and stupidity such as “Gods of War” by Def Leppard and “Land of Confusion” by Genesis. I was really hopeful that we were developing a new relationship with Russia and that the world that we were moving into would be that of a more equal multipolar world. The difference this time though is that it looks like the economics of the world is moving to Asia and with the economic clout will also come a change which I believe will effect the outcome of a new Cold War. Frankly, it makes me sad to say this, but I hope that we do not win this Cold War.
Joe, I am right there with you on your well thought out points. Yes, I as you, hope that something will occur to bring us around to making the world a better place. To much war, not enough peace. I am so disappointed to see Canada becoming more like the US than it being the other way around. Harper from what I understand is even screwing up the Canadian healthcare…is this true? Peace neighbor! Joe Tedesky
I really don’t like my Prime Minister, Stephen Harper or his Conservative pundits. I hope that people don’t take this wrong but I see the Conservative government as being the closest thing to an American government that I have ever seen, and I don’t see this as a good thing but rather a very bad thing. Harper has not been good for the environment, also has broken up strikes a few times over now, and just seems very aggressive and warmongering – that is typically not a Canadian ideal. Did you know that when Stephen Harper was the opposition leader, not Prime Minister, that he actually plagiarized the speech from the Australian Prime Minister to try and convince Canada to go to war in Iraq? I am thankful that Jean Chretien did not fall for this line and we stayed out. As for healthcare, it seems much the same as always. Mainly where Canada has had some real hiccups has been with our politicians extorting money or doing some crooked deals related to financial well-being. I truly hope, in the next election, that Canada votes out the Conservative government. We will see…
Diversity is code for anti-white. People shouldn’t allow these cultural marxists to destroy their nation from within via multi-culturalism.
Quacks like a racist duck “cultural” trash talk from Samuel P. Huntington.
“People shouldn’t allow these cultural marxists to destroy their nation from within via multi-culturalism.” — Who else, besides neo-Nazis, subscribes to this view? https://consortiumnews.com/2013/10/11/netanyahus-scheme-for-palestine/
The democracynow site looked interesting, and I’ve bookmarked it. One new story there had this title:
Did Major Countries Agree Not to Disclose Key Details in Downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17?
I’d really hate to think this is even a possibility.
Ditto for the West provoking a nuclear war. Obviously they wouldn’t do it unless they figure they can win. To make that assumption they’ve got to figure the Russians and Chinese have room-temperature IQs. Only, they don’t.
You really know how to make a guy feel superfluous, Zach…it’s true, and they’re going to get away with it. Now, about that bullet hole in the front windshield of Kennedy’s limo….
It’s been a slow day, and for some reason I’m not dismissing conspiracy notions out of hand.
Regarding those Ukraine Nazis: who else besides the CIA might be encouraging them?
This piece somebody copied from an Israeli site set me to thinking:
https://www.facebook.com/moveisrael/posts/539182049504222
Oddly enough, this is something which I’d never read about before tonight. Perhaps the story is covered as well by the Corporate Media as the Ukrainian Nazis.
But assume it’s factual – that it really is difficult to make a decent living in Israel, and people are leaving the S.L. nation-state.
That eventuality means they need a fresh supply of warm bodies. Maybe somebody got the notion of getting some of those warm bodies from the Jewish population in Ukraine. Stir things up, and be very helpful with arranging the move. Scary Rebels. Scary Russians. Scary Nazis. Standard of living constantly going down and no real prospects of improvement. Then you hear (from the friendly recruiters) stories about a land flowing with milk and honey.
And since I’m wearing my tinfoil hat, perhaps another motive for the recruiting is to KEEP the holy land Jewish peasants in their place. That’s the method used by the fat cats in the US: encourage immigration from below the border. Lower wages, fewer unions, insecure work force, and higher profits for the fat cats. What’s not to like? One other factor: these new inhabitants will need places to live. An excuse to steal even more Palestinian land and water.
BTW, since I’m on a roll, consider the possibility that all the neo-Nazis everywhere are doing good things for Holy Israel. I’ve read that Jews moving from France to Israel are another (besides Ukraine) major source of immigrants.
F.G. Glad you brought up the disinformation angle. I always tell people the best cover up is done by flooding the media with so much theory that you confuse the populace. Yet, the truth maybe possibly out there, but who knows the truth. It’s like hiding in plain site. Add to it that people get caught up in their own lives they lose site of events even reported. Although, my dad’s old Italian friends back then just seemed to know that LBJ had it done…maybe, it’s an Italian thing. Last year for the 50th JFK assassination anniversary I read a ton of JFK books. I then jotted down at least eight names of people who had made death bed confessions stating that JFK was murdered by LBJ aided by others. This information is out there, although not in one single book. So for those who wish to know the truth well start reading. Oh then once you know the truth then get ready to be called crazy by others who won’t know what you know. Have a nice morning …uh, make it a great day! J.T.
Ihor Kolomoisky, who is a dual citizenship Ukrainian Israeli, is one of the wealthy oligarchs funding and directing some of the worst of the worst. Kolomoisky runs the Dnieper-1 Brigade. There was speculation in March that generating incentive to emigrate was one of the likely derivatives of the overall scheme. Kolomoisky is not the only Borscht Belt comedian financing Nazis. And, there really was a bullet hole in the front windshield of Kennedy’s limo. They rushed it right back to Michigan to have the original changed. A foreman at the Ford plant swears to it, and so does a doctor from Parkland. It also shows up in photos taken by official photographers in the motorcade. The concept of making conspiracy “theories” look like the product of crackpots is actually a CIA disinformation program. They participate in promoting both sides of every conspiracy theory to discredit legitimate investigation. I suspect even Stanton Friedman, the UFO loon, is a CIA asset.
F.G. See my response above Joe Tedesky
Thanks, Joe – I needed that. They talk about “Balkanization” of geographic regions to achieve destabilization…disinformation amounts to “Balkanization” of the truth. Get enough B.S. out there, and pretty soon, everybody becomes a fool. It works like a charm.
F.G. Remember, don’t ever let the truth get in the way of a good story.
“The evidence, including commercial satellite photos lacking coordinates, was so unpersuasive that former U.S. intelligence”
Déjà vu? The St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired satellite images of the Saudi border, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert:
“Shortly before US strikes began in the Gulf War, for example, the St. Petersburg Times asked two experts to examine the satellite images of the Kuwait and Saudi Arabia border area taken in mid-September 1990, a month and a half after the Iraqi invasion. The experts, including a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who specialized in desert warfare, pointed out the US build-up – jet fighters standing wing-tip to wing-tip at Saudi bases – but were surprised to see almost no sign of the Iraqis.
“That [Iraqi buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn’t exist,†Ms. Heller says. Three times Heller contacted the office of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (now vice president) for evidence refuting the Times photos or analysis – offering to hold the story if proven wrong.
The official response: “Trust us.†To this day, the Pentagon’s photographs of the Iraqi troop buildup remain classified.
Two questions:
1) Interference in Ukraine? How about the latest bs:
“We’ve got to stop ISIS…al-Qaida…Syria’s Assad…Hamas…Hezbollah…Taliban …Shebab…the wicked Ruskis in Ukraine..those Yemeni Houthis…Iran… Sudan…Islamists in Libya and Mali… Boko Haram in Nigeria…the Red Chinese in Asia. Oh yes, and defend Latvia and fight the Lord’s Army in Uganda.
http://ericmargolis.com/2014/09/just-say-no/
2) What about the MH17 black boxes? How long does it take to look at them? What are we going to see on Tuesday? Not much:
On August 8, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium signed a non-disclosure agreement pertaining to data obtained during the investigation into the causes of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17
Professor Stephen Cohen says “There seems to have been an agreement among the major powers not to tell us who did it,” Cohen says.”There are reports from Germany that the White House version of what happened is not true”
Did Major Countries Agree Not to Disclose Key Details in Downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17?
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/5/did_major_countries_agree_not_to
STEPHEN COHEN: Most importantly, Ukraine is linked to Russia not only in terms of being Russia’s essential security zone, but it’s linked conjugally, so to speak, intermarriage. There are millions, if not tens of millions, of Russian and Ukrainians married together. Put it in NATO, and you’re going to put a barricade through millions of families. Russia will react militarily.
In fact, Russia is already reacting militarily, because look what they’re doing in Wales today. They’re going to create a so-called rapid deployment force of 4,000 fighters. What is 4,000 fighters? Fifteen thousand or less rebels in Ukraine are crushing a 50,000-member Ukrainian army. Four thousand against a million-man Russian army, it’s nonsense. The real reason for creating the so-called rapid deployment force is they say it needs infrastructure. And the infrastructure—that is, in plain language is military bases—need to be on Russia’s borders. And they’ve said where they’re going to put them: in the Baltic republic, Poland and Romania.
Now, why is this important? Because NATO has expanded for 20 years, but it’s been primarily a political expansion, bringing these countries of eastern Europe into our sphere of political influence; now it’s becoming a military expansion. So, within a short period of time, we will have a new—well, we have a new Cold War, but here’s the difference. The last Cold War, the military confrontation was in Berlin, far from Russia. Now it will be, if they go ahead with this NATO decision, right plunk on Russia’s borders. Russia will then leave the historic nuclear agreement that Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987 to abolish short-range nuclear missiles. It was the first time nuclear—a category of nuclear weapons had ever been abolished. Where are, by the way, the nuclear abolitionists today? Where is the grassroots movement, you know, FREEZE, SANE? Where have these people gone to? Because we’re looking at a new nuclear arms race. Russia moves these intermediate missiles now to protect its own borders, as the West comes toward Russia. And the tripwire for using these weapons is enormous.
One other thing. Russia has about, I think, 10,000 tactical nuclear weapons, sometimes called battlefield nuclear weapons. You use these for short distances. They can be fired; you don’t need an airplane or a missile to fly them. They can be fired from artillery. But they’re nuclear. They’re radioactive. They’ve never been used. Russia has about 10,000. We have about 500. Russia’s military doctrine clearly says that if Russia is threatened by overwhelming conventional forces, we will use tactical nuclear weapons. So when Obama boasts, as he has on two occasions, that our conventional weapons are vastly superior to Russia, he’s feeding into this argument by the Russian hawks that we have to get our tactical nuclear weapons ready.
Thanks Abe for the Cohen’s interview. I read news couple times per day now. I can’t believe that it’s really happening. These days political leaders are stupid and their diplomacy is scary and childish at the same time. It is sad and frustrating to realise that these mediocre people were elected by whole nations to be in charge of world security.
Sidestepping Ukraine’s ‘N-Word’ for NUCLEAR
Ukraine Ceasefire Takes Hold, but an Expanding NATO on Russia’s Borders Raises Threat of Nuclear War
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/5/ukraine_ceasefire_takes_hold_but_an
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University, is the author of numerous books on Russia and the Soviet Union.
STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, it is. It certainly is President Obama. Look, here’s the underlying problem. What Obama just said implies, if not asserts, that if it wasn’t for Russia, Ukraine would be stable, that Russia has destabilized Ukraine. No serious person would believe that to be the case. Ukraine is in the throes of a civil war, which was precipitated by the political crisis that occurred in Ukraine last November and then this February, when the elected president of Ukraine was overthrown by a street mob, and that set off a civil war, primarily between the west, including Kiev, and the east, but not only. There’s a central Ukraine that’s here and there. This civil war then became, as I said it would or might when we first started talking earlier this year, a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
Now, it’s absolutely true that Russia has made the destabilization of Ukraine worse. It’s also absolutely true that the United States has contributed to the destabilization of Ukraine. But if tomorrow the United States would go away and Russia would go away, Ukraine would still be in a civil war. And we know what civil wars are. We had one in our country. Russia had one. There were many civil wars around the world in the 20th century and elsewhere today. The point is, the only way you can end a civil war, either the one side completely conquers and the other side gives up, as happened with the Confederacy in the United States, or there’s a stalemate or somebody says, “Enough killing, because these are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, they’re part of the same family,” and you negotiate.
So we will see later today, perhaps, or tomorrow whether this ceasefire comes and if it holds. Now, negotiating a civil war is terribly complex. In some ways, we’re still arguing about the American Civil War. I grew up in Kentucky, segregated Kentucky, and in my childhood, people were still claiming we, the South, won. So, this isn’t going to end if the United States and Russia goes way. But both sides have the capacity to get these negotiations going. But when Obama says that Russia destabilized Ukraine, it’s a half-truth.
JUAN GONZÃLEZ: Well, Stephen Cohen, I wanted to ask you—you’ve come under some criticism by other Russia experts in the U.S. as being an apologist for the Russian intervention in Ukraine, I think in Forbes magazine. Op-ed piece there claimed that you were questioning whether Ukraine had the right to exercise control over its own territory, that it was plotting to seize its own territory. I’m wondering your response to that criticism.
STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, I mean, many very harsh and unpleasant, probably libelous and slanderous things have been said about me, which suggests to me that they have no factual response to me. Rather than call me a toady and an apologist and a paid hiring of the Kremlin, I’d like to hear what factual mistakes I’ve made. And I haven’t seen any, because I’m a scholar and I try not to make factual mistakes.
It’s not about whether Ukraine has the right to take back its territory. The problem is, as I just said, that a civil war began when we, the United States, and Europe backed a street coup that overthrew an elected president. When you overthrow a constitution and when you overthrow a president, you’re likely to get a civil war. It usually happens. Now, when you have a civil war, the country is divided. And in this case, the government in Kiev is trying to conquer where the rebels, so to speak, are located. The problem is that the rebel provinces do not recognize the legitimacy of the government in Kiev. The United States recognizes the legitimacy, but that doesn’t make it legitimate.
Now, let’s go to what’s going on in Kiev now. I mean, Obama also said—and I kind of chuckled and cried—that we are helping Ukraine build a democracy. What kind of democracy is unfolding in Kiev? All right, they had a presidential election. About a fifth of the country couldn’t vote. Now, Poroshenko has called a parliamentary election in October, a month from now. But where the war is, in the south and the east, they won’t vote. So you’re going to end up with a rump country, further dividing the country. Meanwhile, they’re shutting down democracy in Kiev. Communist Party is being banned. Another party that represents the east is being banned. People are being arrested. There’s censorship kicking in. There’s no democracy in Kiev, because it’s a wartime government. You just don’t get democracy. So, these assertions by the United States that we’re democracy builders, we’re virtuous, and it’s all Putin’s fault, this is—it’s worse than a half-truth; it’s actually a falsehood.
AMY GOODMAN: The possibility of Ukraine in NATO and what that means and what—
STEPHEN COHEN: Nuclear war.
… I only ever read the last three paragraphs of the story. That’s where the truth is printed these days.
Now that is an interesting insight. Yesterday I checked Google News for instances of the NYT speaking of the Ukrainian nazis and found essentially no examples.
Today I saw an article in The New York Review of Books where the word “nazi” was actually mentioned. But the word was buried deeply.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/sep/05/ukraine-catastrophic-defeat/
So I’m going to try to remember to begin reading at about the 2/3 point in these ‘mainstream’ articles.
Ha! These days when reading the NYT, Telegraph or Guardian I only ever read the last three paragraphs of the story. That’s where the truth is printed these days.
I heard it was the same in the Soviet Union back in the day.
Also. It’s hard to believe our western democracies are aligning with nazis and cannibals (in Syria) WTF has happened to our civilization?
Phantom Tanks and the Desperation of Kiev
By Caleb Maupin
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2014/09/phantom-tanks-and-desperation-of-kiev.html
In the early months of 2014, the elected Ukrainian government was removed by a violent mob of fascists. The new regime, imposed by the west, and backed with millions of dollars from western banks and NGOs now faces an uprising of its people.
The regime’s brutal tactics, burning innocent people alive, employing Neo-Nazi terrorist groups, bombing civilians, and engaging in other cowardly acts of fascist violence, are not rendering victory.
Even many of the most bigoted, Russian hating people in West Ukraine are unwilling to die for a regime that has cut the retirement pension by 50% and doubled the price of heating oil. The economic dominion of IMF and the European Union mean poverty for throughout Ukraine’s various regions and ethnic groups.
A number of Ukrainian soldiers have already laid down their guns, rather than kill women and children from their own country. What was presented as first an as “Anti-Terrorist†police operation, has stretched for months. Kiev has attempted to declare that those who have risen up against them are merely paid Russian agents, but it is now clear to all observers that they have they have a huge amount of support among the population.
Predictably, the Kiev Junta is doing what the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Libyan insurgents, and the terrorists in Syria have done. As they face defeat on the battlefield, and support for them even among their own base is crumbling, they turn to Washington to the fighting for them.
Kiev seems to have pinned its hope for US/NATO intervention on creating a mythology about a “Russian Invasion.†Kiev is doing its best to convince the world that Russia is marching into their country. They have falsified stories of Tanks crossing the border. They have tried to claim that the resistance fighters in Donbass are actually Russian special forces. They hope that they can create some kind of justification for further US/NATO intervention.
The only hope the Kiev Junta, with its Neo-Nazi thug militias, its banning of the Russian language, its destruction of WWII memorials, and vicious austerity measures has, is further US intervention. It cannot win a war against its own population.
The Ukrainian Army discovers what banner it is marching under:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU
Skulls, skulls, are we the baddies?
Abe, you made me laugh, but now you have me googling US military insignia’s. Darn, you Abe?
Totenmasken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCOQkau9r0M
I had a friend years ago who was in black opts. He had the Ace of Spades sewn on his fatigues along with he carried a chrome 357. As bad as that sounds, and yes he was a killer, he always insisted on buying the drinks. Although, to me a killer dressed as a hippie or a priest could pull off a surprise attack even more so. Why I am talking like this…I’m going now to light a candle. PEACE!
What Americans are being told is happening in Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOZuLD1u_K4
What Americans are not being told is happening in Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sp3dIyNA2A