Exclusive: Pundit Thomas Friedman says the new Ukraine regime “shares our values” but as much of the world marked the 70th anniversary of the Nazi Holocaust finally being ended by Russian and U.S. armies politicians in Kiev were busy honoring Ukraine’s Nazi collaborators, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The U.S.-backed Ukrainian government came up with a curious way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust being brought to an end. The parliament in Kiev voted to extend official recognition to Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazis in killing Jews.
Though Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media continue to dutifully ignore the key role played by neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s February 2014 coup and in the post-coup regime’s subsequent military offensives against ethnic Russians in the east, Ukrainian politicians can’t stop their arms from snapping into Heil Hitler salutes like the fictional character Dr. Strangelove. They can’t hold back this reflex even as the world stopped this week to recall the Nazi barbarity that claimed the lives of some six million Jews as well as other minorities.
Peter Sellers playing Dr. Strangelove as he struggles to control his right arm from making a Nazi salute.
On April 9, the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill making the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army eligible for official government recognition, a demand that has been pushed by Ukraine’s current neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist movements, the same forces that spearheaded the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 and then the slaughter of thousands of ethnic Russians who resisted the new order.
Ukraine’s honor-the-Nazi-collaborators vote came amid increased repression of opposition politicians and journalists who dare to criticize the U.S.-backed regime as it moves to repudiate the political settlement envisioned by February’s Minsk-2 agreement and instead prepares for a resumption of the war to crush the resistance in eastern Ukraine once and for all. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s ‘Poison Pill’ for Peace Talks.”]
Emergence of ‘Death Squads’
Over the past several months, there have been about ten mysterious deaths of opposition figures some that the government claimed to be suicides while others were clearly murders. It now appears that pro-government “death squads” are operating with impunity in Kiev.
On Wednesday, Oleg Kalashnikov, a political leader of the opposition Party of Regions, was shot to death in his home. Kalashnikov had been campaigning for the right of Ukrainians to celebrate the Allied victory in World War II, a gesture that infuriated some western Ukrainian neo-Nazis who identify with Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich and who now feel they have the current government in their corner.
On Thursday, unidentified gunmen murdered Ukrainian journalist Oles Buzina, a regime critic who had protested censorship being imposed on news outlets that didn’t toe the government’s propaganda line. Buzina had been denounced by a pro-regime “journalistic” outfit which operated under the Orwellian name “Stop Censorship” and demanded that Buzina be banned from making media appearances because he was “an agent of the Kremlin.”
This week, another dissident journalist Serhiy Sukhobok was reportedly killed in Kiev, amid sketchy accounts that his assailants may have been caught although the Ukrainian government has withheld details.
These deaths are mostly ignored by the mainstream U.S. news media or are mentioned only in briefs with the victims dismissed as “pro-Russian.” After all, these “death squad” activities, which have also been occurring in government-controlled sections of eastern Ukraine, conflict with the preferred State Department narrative of the Kiev regime busy implementing “democratic reforms.”
But many of those “democratic reforms” amount to slashing old-age pensions, removing worker protections, and hiking the price of heating fuel as demanded by the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a $17.5 billion bailout for Ukraine’s collapsing financial structure.
Similarly, the decision by the Ukrainian parliament to bend to the demands of neo-Nazi and other ultra-right groups to honor Ukraine’s World War II fascists is also downplayed or ignored by the major U.S. media.
The Holocaust in Ukraine
During World War II, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, an offshoot of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, collaborated with the Nazis in their orgy of mass murder against Jews, Poles and other minority groups. The UIA also joined with the Nazis in fighting against the Soviet Union’s Red Army, although some UIA elements did ultimately turn against the Germans over their occupation of Ukraine.
Ukraine was the site of several major Holocaust atrocities including the infamous massacre at Babi Yar in Kiev, where local Ukrainian fascists worked alongside the Nazi SS in funneling tens of thousands of Jews to a ravine where they were slaughtered and buried.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned Ukraine’s recognition of the UIA as well as a second bill that equated Communist and Nazi crimes.
“The passage of a ban on Nazism and Communism equates the most genocidal regime in human history with the regime which liberated Auschwitz and helped end the reign of terror of the Third Reich,” said Wiesenthal Center director for Eastern European Affairs Dr. Efraim Zuroff, adding:
“In the same spirit the decision to honor local Nazi collaborators and grant them special benefits turns Hitler’s henchmen into heroes despite their active and zealous participation in the mass murder of innocent Jews. These attempts to rewrite history, which are prevalent throughout post-Communist Eastern Europe, can never erase the crimes committed by Nazi collaborators in these countries, and only proves that they clearly lack the Western values which they claim to have embraced upon their transition to democracy.”
Not Seeing Nazis
Despite propaganda efforts by the Obama administration and the major U.S. news media to play down western Ukraine’s legacy of Nazi collaboration, one of the heroes honored during the Maidan protests, which led to the Feb. 22, 2014 coup, was Stepan Bandera, an OUN leader who worked with the Nazis before falling out with them over issues of Ukrainian independence.
After spearheading the 2014 coup, the neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist militias from western Ukraine were enlisted as the shock troops to attack ethnic Russian cities in eastern Ukraine, which had been the political base for ousted President Yanukovych. Even though some of those militias sported Swastikas and SS symbols, the mainstream U.S. news media either ignored those inconvenient realities or acknowledged them in the final paragraphs of long stories. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Seeing No Neo-Nazi Militias in Ukraine.”]
The recognition of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was demanded last October by Ukraine’s right-wing and neo-Nazi groups, including the Svoboda party and the Right Sektor, which surrounded the parliament in Kiev with 8,000 protesters.
At that time, with U.S. officials sensitive to the image of the Ukrainian government caving in to rioters carrying neo-Nazi banners, the legislation was defeated. However, in recent weeks with the Kiev leadership leaning more heavily on the neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists to carry out the war against ethnic Russians in the east, more concessions are being made to the extremists.
Lurches to the Right
These lurches to the right have again been largely ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, which continues to blame the ethnic Russians for not submitting to the post-coup regime in Kiev and to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin as the supposed instigator of all the trouble.
But the Jerusalem Post noted, “While Jewish worries over anti-Semitism have been on the back burner due to the war [in Ukraine], several recent developments have shown that antipathy toward Jews, or at least indifference toward such attitudes when held by important military or political figures, still exists in Ukraine.
“Last November Jewish organizations expressed their displeasure when it was disclosed that the newly appointed police chief for the Ukrainian province in which Kiev is located came under fire after it was alleged that he had past ties with a neo-Nazi organization.”
The Jerusalem Post also took note of the Kiev regime’s recent appointment of right-wing extremist Dimitri Jarosch, who organized many of the fighters behind the February 2014 putsch, to be an official adviser to the army leadership.
The larger historical context is that Nazism has been deeply rooted in western Ukraine since World War II, especially in cities like Lviv, where a cemetery to the veterans of the Galician SS, a Ukrainian affiliate of the Nazi SS, is maintained. These old passions were brought to the surface again in the battle to oust Yanukovych and sever historic ties to Russia.
The muscle behind the U.S.-backed Maidan protests against Yanukovych came from neo-Nazi militias trained in western Ukraine, organized into 100-man brigades and bused to Kiev. After the coup, neo-Nazi leader Andriy Parubiy, who was commander of the Maidan “self-defense forces,” was elevated to national security chief and soon announced that the Maidan militia forces would be incorporated into the National Guard and sent to eastern Ukraine to fight ethnic Russians resisting the coup.
As the U.S. government and media cheered on this “anti-terrorist operation,” the neo-Nazis and other right-wing battalions engaged in brutal street fighting against Russian ethnic rebels. Only occasionally did this nasty reality slip into the major U.S. news media. For instance, an Aug. 10, 2014 article in the New York Times mentioned the neo-Nazi paramilitaries at the end of a lengthy story on another topic.
“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,” the Times reported.
“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.”]
Meeting the Nazis
The conservative London Telegraph offered more details about the Azov battalion in an article by correspondent Tom Parfitt, who wrote: “Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’ 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.”
Based on interviews with militia members, the Telegraph reported that some of the fighters doubted the reality of the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and acknowledged that they are indeed Nazis.
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 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.”
In other words, for the first time since World War II, a government had dispatched Nazi storm troopers to attack a European population and officials in Kiev knew what they were doing. The Telegraph questioned Ukrainian authorities in Kiev who acknowledged that they were aware of the extremist ideologies of some militias but insisted that the higher priority was having troops who were strongly motivated to fight. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]
Since the coup, the New York Times and other mainstream U.S. news outlets have decried any recognition of the significant neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine as “Russian propaganda.” So, Ukraine’s new initiative to honor Nazi collaborators in legislation coinciding with the commemoration of the end of the Holocaust also must be ignored.
The pro-coup propaganda in the U.S. media has been so pervasive that a powerful “group think” took hold with the Kiev regime revered as white-hatted “good guys,” certainly not brown-shirted neo-Nazis. Or as the New York Times’ dimwitted foreign policy pundit Thomas L. Friedman declared in a column earlier this year, the new leaders of Ukraine “share our values.”
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.
Some developments on the Maidan sniper story: http://rt.com/news/251961-ukraine-maidan-snipers-poland/ and the Polish original http://wiadomosci.wp.pl/kat,1027139,title,Korwin-Mikke-snajperzy-z-Majdanu-byli-szkoleni-w-Polsce,wid,17449668,wiadomosc.html?ticaid=114bbd&_ticrsn=3
This guy spends his half his article talking about how the Russians have the right to not be approached by NATO, or to have a friendly regime on their borders. What about the very country on its border, Ukraine? Do they have rights? Or do we just surrender them to Russia? The people of Ukraine have spoken – they want their independent country, with an economic association with the West, not with the backward and regressive Russia. And there was no coup. The Ukrainian Parliament, Verkhovna Rada, filled with centrists, (only 33 out of 455 MPs belonged to ANY right wing parties) removed the president for refusing to do his work. This parliamentary maneuver is available to parliaments all over Europe.
Ukraine does not support fascists or NAZIs, or ultra-right-wingers, or whoever the Stephen Cohen and Patrick Smith’s minds conjure up. As proof – see the May 2014 Presidential Election in Ukraine where all right-wing candidates COMBINED failed to garner 2%. And, for further evidence, consult the Ukrainian Parliamentary Election of October 2014 – right-wing parties were destroyed. So, Ukraine had been and remains a democratic, centrist party, whose people have spoken about the right to join Europe, not Russia. And if they want to join NATO – whose right is it to say NO? Obviously, the only reason Putin has not invaded Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania is that they are NATO members. Perhaps, Ukraine wants the same assurances.
And, look what is happening today – Putin has annexed Crimea, a part of Ukraine, according to every treaty and ever piece of international law since 1991 independence and has invaded Ukrainian industrial East. Things that NATO membership would have prevented.
We need to help Ukraine and concern ourselves less with whether it pains Russia.
Sure, the only reason Putin has not invaded Finland is because it’s a NATO member. Oh wait… It actually isn’t… Mmmm… Or maybe Putin just invaded your brain.
What about it? Nothing much was happening in Ukraine until the US-sponsored Nazi coup.
As for Crimea, that was already legally occupied by the Russians, so when they took over the place no “invasion” was necessary. And the population of Crimea was sensible enough to prefer the Russians to the Nazis. Actually, so do most folks who are allergic to nuclear wars.
NATO made a grab for Crimea, and lost. Now they – and their sock puppets – whine about it.
Oleg Kalashnikov, who was murdered in the past week, was previously the subject of a physical attack by the current Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. In a live TV studio recording, Avakov is seen throwing a desk at him and then walking towards Kalashnikov, who then retreats. This happened in January of last year, the month before Avakov was appointed Minister. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOZM6KRsaYw
Avakov expressed half-hearted regret afterwards on his Facebook page:
(translated from Russian) “Never fight with a pig in the mud – both get dirty … But it was hard to hold back … cowardly creature Kalashnikov … Sorry, that a) could not resist , and b) for the unfinished play ..”
https://www.facebook.com/arsen.avakov.1/posts/571153329641444
“Personal details of murdered journalist & ex-MP found posted on Ukrainian ‘enemies of state’ database”
http://rt.com/news/250529-ukraine-journalists-killed-database/
“The journalist and ex-MP who were gunned down in Kiev this week were on an ‘enemies of the state’ database – a social media website supported by the aide to Ukraine’s interior minister. The bloggers also have a Twitter account to share ‘successes.’
The volunteer-made website calling itself ‘Mirotvorec’ (Peacekeeper), posts very thorough and comprehensive information on anyone who happens to make the list – journalists, activists, MPs opposing the current Kiev authorities’ policies and rebels fighting against the government in the east. The posts include their addresses, social media account links, a substantial biography and any mentions in the Ukrainian press. There is also labeling involved e.g. “terrorist; supporter of federalization†and other tags.
The website indicates that politician Oleg Kalashnikov’s and journalist Oles Buzina’s details were published on the site no more than 48 hours before both were found dead.
The website has its own social media account, which frequently tweets cryptic messages of “successful missions.â€
Tweet translation: Agent 404 has done it again. For successfully completing today’s assignment, he has been granted a short-term vacation (vato-News) – Peacemaker center, 16 April 2015.
The website enjoys the support of at least one high-profile Ukrainian official: Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister and a member of the Ukrainian parliament. In one of his Facebook posts, he advised people to post updates to the website.”
Sad to say that this article is 100% propaganda generated by the Putin Propaganda shop…
The most prominent American Historian on Easter Europe is Timothy Snyder… professor at Yale.. here is a reference to the “Holocaust” in Ukraine taken directly out of his book…
https://books.google.com/books?id=NpFtAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=Ukrainian+government+commemorates+the+holocaust&source=bl&ots=SUWtCMdHfZ&sig=KwzcOLaHt6QqGC-40jRb5m8Rvsw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mZcyVa7zDKrIsASKkoCwBw&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=Ukrainian%20government%20commemorates%20the%20holocaust&f=false
One has to be more inventive in criticising the articles written against current Ukrainian government, Mr. Vlad (I guess from Ukraine originally) than seeing the hand of “powerful” Putin. Nothing Mr. Parry mentioned above is new to those who actually knows the history and reads at least a little bit of independent media.
According to people like you, the articles from the mainstream media that copy each other writing about the world affairs are the ultimate true because they apparently agree with your viewpoints. But as soon as someone writes anything pro-Russian or at least sees the Russian point of view then he/she immediately labeled as a Putin puppet. Don’t you think it’s a little bit narrow minded to be respectful to this site and not to use different words.
The world is in the trouble and majority is stupid enough to pretend that everything is actually fine!
Thank you Mr. Parry for presenting contrasting points to every conflict and every story. If only more journalists were doing their jobs and questioning those in power…
Neo-Nazis in Ukraine seem to have no inhibitions posing for the camera with their Nazi symbols and salutes.
That’s true even in the Kiev office of the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior (the Ministry’s logo and Ukrainian initials MBC in the background can be recognised as the same as in its website mvs.gov.ua):
http://rusvesna.su/news/1417363828
Translation from Russian: “Ukraine Police begin to live in a new way – “Sieg Heil” in Kiev regional administration of the Ministry of Interior (video added). Battalion “Azov”, merged with the ranks of the Kiev police, do not hide their neo-Nazi beliefs.”
Is that the same Friedman who advocate arming ISIS?
I rest my case.
It will come as a great surprise to some readers to learn here that the Nazis did not call themselves Nazis nor fascists. They called themselves socialists. Also, the term “fascist” was popularized by a long-time socialist leader (Mussolini) who operated a newspaper called the “socialist daily.” And the “Nazi salute,” as you put it, originated from the socialist Francis Bellamy’s early Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag (that is one of the many amazing discoveries by the historian Dr. Rex Curry). German socialists used their notorious symbol to represent crossed “S” letters for their socialism (another of Dr. Curry’s discoveries). And German socialists and Soviet socialists were allies in a pact to divide up Europe, invading Poland together, spreading WWII, and leading to the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part), the worst slaughter of humanity in the history of the world. All of the above will probably cause your head to explode. Try dealing with truth and reality sometime.
Madam, you seem to be very passionate about the term “socialism”, and that’s fine. However, I suggest you add “scholarship” to your “truth” and “reality” toolbox. You’re quite wrong about several of the claims you’ve made here. For example, unless ancient men in many parts of the world were all using modern English, the Swastika symbol sure didn’t originate from two “socialist” crossed S letters.
And regarding the WW2 Holocaust and other associated murders from that conflict, the body count of Mao’s Great Leap Forward was much, much higher.
Thank you for conceding that all of my comments are correct. Your strange response did not dispute a single comment of mine, and merely made it appear that you are confused.
What ancient men did has nothing to do with the fact that German socialists used their notorious symbol to represent crossed “S†letters for their socialism (another of Dr. Curry’s discoveries). Here is another news flash for you: German socialists did not call their symbol a swastika.
And thank you for conceding that, regarding the WW2 Holocaust, and other associated murders from that conflict, the body count of Mao’s Great Leap Forward was much, much higher. Your comment supports the fact that Chinese socialism was part of the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part) under the socialists Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, the worst slaughter of humanity in the history of the world.
German socialists and Soviet socialists were allies in a pact to divide up Europe, invading Poland together, spreading WWII, and leading to the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part), the worst slaughter of humanity in the history of the world under the socialists Stalin, Mao and Hitler.
It will come as a great surprise to some readers to learn here that the Nazis did not call themselves Nazis nor fascists. They called themselves socialists. Also, the term “fascist†was popularized by a long-time socialist leader (Mussolini) who operated a newspaper called the “socialist daily.†And the “Nazi salute,†as you put it, originated from the socialist Francis Bellamy’s early Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag (that is one of the many amazing discoveries by the historian Dr. Rex Curry).
All of the above will probably cause your head to explode. Try dealing with truth and reality sometime.
Thank you for conceding that all of my comments are correct.
Something tells me this girl has never lost a debate.
Tiffany Bell, is there a reason you keep repeating yourself?
Something tells me she never engaged in a debate…
because the response went off on an irrelevant tangent, so the respondent needs to be redirected to the topic and helped to focus on what the topic was.
tiffany bell, is there a reason you keep repeating yourself/
Isn’t that Putin who invented a swastika?
Putin did not invent the swastika. However the notorious German socialists did not call their symbol a swastika.
What other people did has nothing to do with the fact that German socialists used their notorious symbol to represent crossed “S†letters for their socialism (another of Dr. Curry’s discoveries).
Regarding the WW2 Holocaust, and other associated murders from that conflict, the body count of Mao’s Great Leap Forward was much, much higher. Chinese socialism was part of the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part) under the socialists Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, the worst slaughter of humanity in the history of the world.
German socialists and Soviet socialists were allies in a pact to divide up Europe, invading Poland together, spreading WWII, and leading to the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part), the worst slaughter of humanity in the history of the world under the socialists Stalin, Mao and Hitler.
It will come as a great surprise to some readers to learn here that the Nazis did not call themselves Nazis nor fascists. They called themselves socialists. Also, the term “fascist†was popularized by a long-time socialist leader (Mussolini) who operated a newspaper called the “socialist daily.†And the “Nazi salute,†as you put it, originated from the socialist Francis Bellamy’s early Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag (that is one of the many amazing discoveries by the historian Dr. Rex Curry).
All of the above will probably cause some heads to explode.
@Tiffany: I still did not quite get it. Could you please repeat it one more time? And just in case: it was not Stalin or Marx who invented a swastika, was it?
LOL!
Mao killed his own people,leave it to the Chinese to judge.And if it wasn’t for him,that nation would still be the corrupt warlord state it was,which is now the economic powerhouse of the world.(Although he might not approve)
Its all irrelevant whining about historical slights when today demands our attention.
the Holocaust Industry continues. When will we the world focus on the evil around us today?
Ah,the holocaust;Hitler accused of wanting to wipe out European Jewry,and after the war there were uncounted hundreds of thousands of survivors.
Does not compute.
The guy put his political enemies in CCs,Germany was attacked 24-7-365 by the largest air assault in history(at that time),Germans were eating out of garbage cans,and one expected his enemies in the camps were eating caviar?
And denial?Ive never heard one person in my life deny that millions of Jews and others were murdered by the Nazis.But the facts of the use of gas chambers in mass murder and intent of Hitler are disputable,and fly in the face of logic.Crematoriums are used to get rid of dead bodies so they don’t contaminate,they are nationwide in America,and guess what,gas has been used as execution in California,and Okl. just announced nitrogen gassing as backup.I saw the other day,that some German invented mobile gas trucks,and escaped to S America.Is that along the lines of Saddams mobile chem labs?The Zionist liars never sleep,in their desire to put more over on the American dupes.
Sir, there are some really good history books in existence, and I suggest you try to find one or more of them. Silly blather like this isn’t a bit impressive.
Hitler had learned from the WW1 German experience, and vowed that hunger on the home front would not be a problem in his wars. The Nazis stole from all parts of Europe they’d occupied, and until the very end of the war food for Germans was not an issue at all. I don’t know what they did with the bodies of the millions of Russian POWs they starved to death, and I’m not sure I want to know. Yes, they used food as a weapon. The deliberate starvation of thousands of inhabitants of the Netherlands in 1944 was just a small example of that policy.
Modern-day Zionists are in fact evil people, but they don’t have to lie OR exaggerate about Jewish suffering during WW2. It’s true they tend to minimize the suffering of others during the war so as to set themselves on a pedestal, but that’s another matter entirely.
“Two Hundred Years Together” was written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the famous Russian dissident who won a Nobel Prize for Literature.
http://truedemocracyparty.net/2012/05/most-banned-book-in-the-world-200-years-together-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/
Sorry Zach,the words of serial liars leave me cold.Hitler was accused of a final solution.The Germans at that time were the most efficient killing machine in history,and they left many alive!In fact,try and find an actual number of survivors from the camps.There are hundreds of thousands still receiving benefits today!
Hitler was a product of Western idiocy and revenge post ww1,so doesn’t the ultimate responsibility rest there?
And today’s depredations by the West and Israel make any tales of Hitler laughable,as dead is dead and there are almost as many corpses in our f*cking trees,no matter the method.Hitler goes to rehab.
It really is time that the “Holocaust” bullshit every time the Zionists plan a new war crime is put to rest.
the holocaust industry is blinding the world with its obsessions that only they were victims of nazi attrocities. 60 million died. nearly 12 million in the death camps. but all that is airbrushed out of history
Interesting to note the change of tone of the Simon Wiesenthal center. Back in Nov of last year AlterNet put out a piece entitled ‘How the Israel Lobby Protected Ukrainian Neo-Nazis’ where it states that an amendment to the the NDAA introduced by John Conyers which “would have explicitly barred those found to have offered “praise or glorification of Nazism or its collaborators, including through the use of white supremacist, neo-Nazi, or other similar symbols†from receiving any form of support from the US Department of Defense.” Both the Simon Wiesenthal center and the ADL refused to support the proposal, the SW Center hinting that “meetings between far-right political leaders in Ukraine and the Israeli embassy as evidence that groups like Svoboda and Right Sector had shed their extremism.” The training of paratroopers has begun, almost 300 US. This is obviously not a defensive training session as paratroopers are used in attack campaigns more often then not. Maybe the recent leaks regarding the US drone center in Germany will have some positive public blowback effect on their relationship with Russia…
http://www.alternet.org/world/how-israel-lobby-protected-ukrainian-neo-nazis
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150417/1021038705.html
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/
“Dimwitted” indeed, yet he is getting paid ten times as much per year as Parry is asking for in the Spring Fundraiser.
Robert,
I am trying to understand why the Obama Administration is going along with the media narrative. What benefit is there in making Putin our enemy? Is it just to have a country that borders Russia a member of NATO or are the neocons unhappy with Putin/Obama working together as they did regarding Syria.
There is no way Putin will accept a Ukraine full of American weapons. Just as we would not accept a potential enemy taking over Canada or Mexico. What am I missing? How does this dangerous game in Ukraine that will destroy any goodwill with Russia benefit the US?
You might consider that much of what the US government does these days is not in the US public’s interest but rather is in the interests of those who have power and profit from these decisions. The financial, military supply, energy, agriculture and related chemical industries all will benefit more if the Ukraine does less business with Russia; but theres much more behind their strategy than the obvious. Their loyalty is to personal power and greed more than any other interest or principle. There are so many hypocrisies evident in their actions and statements. What they do is not engaging in capitalism, but is economic blackmail and coercion – it is contrary to democracy and human rights – war crimes actually. The press is in reality a public relations organization for corporate interests as our US government now is. The press best serves itself by serving corporate interests.. The people that lead any one of these groups are all addicted to power and acquiring an amount of personal wealth which is so great, they realistically couldn’t enjoy spending it all – and yet they have no qualms about causing death and misery as they go about their “business”.
Lynne,
Goodwill has been gone some time. It is not just Ukraine that is bordering Russia now, but many other parts of the old Russia empire, bristling with NATO and US missiles.
Putin, a well respected politicians when compared to the likes of a USA now populated by Zionists, sycophants, corrupt politicians and neocons, is doing well to control his angst at the way the US has hemmed him in.
As for the Ukraine, the IMF and its US approved 17 billion dollar loan and the entrance into that part of the world by the likes of Monsanto, in an area pristine in soil quality like no other, is now a well engineered development of recent months, seldom mentioned in the press and designed again to encroach on areas of Russian influence and to poison Russian soil as opposed to American soil.
Yes, US & NATO actions (the same thing really) are designed to spark a flame for US hegemony. Ask McCain and Co., they arranged it all.
Lynne,
Goodwill has been gone some time. It is not just Ukraine that is bordering Russia now, but many other parts of the old Russia empire, bristling with NATO and US missiles.
Putin, a well respected politicians when compared to the likes of a USA now populated by Zionists, sycophants, corrupt politicians and neocons, is doing well to control his angst at the way the US has hemmed him in.
As for the Ukraine, the IMF and its US approved 17 billion dollar loan and the entrance into that part of the world by the likes of Monsanto, in an area pristine in soil quality like no other, is now a well engineered development of recent months, seldom mentioned in the press and designed again to encroach on areas of Russian influence and to poison Russian soil as opposed to American soil.
Yes, US & NATO actions (the same thing really) are designed to spark a flame for US hegemony. Ask McCain and Co., they arranged it all.
Reply from Robert Parry: Lynne, as I’ve reported in previous articles, the Ukraine crisis doesn’t help President Obama’s approach to the world at all. Prior to the crisis, he had teamed up with President Putin to smooth over crises in Syria and Iran, which is what I’m told Obama was hoping to continue to do. If you recall in 2013, Putin pressured Syria’s Assad regime to relinquish all its chemical weapons as a way to defuse a threatened U.S. bombing campaign. Putin also helped bring Iran to the bargaining table on its nuclear program. But those important assists were resented by the neocons who wanted war and regime change in both cases. So, they moved Putin up the list of targets, and key neocons — such as NED’s Carl Gershman, Sen. John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland — took aim at Ukraine as the wedge to splinter the Obama-Putin collaboration. They were extremely effective in this effort — and Obama failed to stand up to their scheming. Instead, he went with the flow, which became a torrent given the impetus added by the New York Times, the Washington Post and pretty much the entire mainstream U.S. media. I understand that Obama regrets how he was outmaneuvered but still doesn’t want to take on these powerful forces. Instead, he hopes to finesse the problems ahead. For more details, here is a story that I wrote more than a year ago: https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/19/neocons-ukraine-syria-iran-gambit/
Lynne,
Russian / USA goodwill has been gone some time. It is not just Ukraine that is bordering Russia now, but many other parts of the old Russia empire, bristling with NATO and US missiles.
Putin, a well respected politician when compared to the likes of a USA now populated by Zionists, sycophants, corrupt politicians and neocons, is doing well to control his angst at the way the US has hemmed him in. According to the US and Europe, that was never supposed to happen. One of those airy-fairy agreements from the USA.
As for the Ukraine, the IMF (with its US approved 17 billion dollar loan) has allowed the entrance into that part of the world by the likes of Monsanto, in an area pristine in soil quality like no other, now a well engineered development of recent months, seldom mentioned in the press and designed again to encroach on areas of Russian influence and to poison Russian soil as opposed to American soil. One should ask Joe Biden as it is his son who is up to his neck in the Ukraine
Look at the Malaysian Airlines MH 17 shootdown. No comment from America because they know it was a Ukrainian fighter plane that shot down the airliner. Obama and his CIA brigade left it the sycophant Foreign Minister in Australia, a country with just two casualties, to publicly berate Putin at a recent conference. They of course know no better than to dance to the US tune along with Canada, Germany and the rest of Europe.
Yes, US & NATO actions (as with the IMF and the US, the same thing really) are designed to spark a flame for US hegemony and to hem in the Russians. Ask McCain and Co., as they arranged it all along with Biden.
Robert Parry, can you confirm or refute a report that the U.S. military will be training the Azov Battalion?
It depends on whether you believe the announcement by the Ukrainian Interior Minister or the denial by the US spokesman:
“Although Interior Minister Arsen Avakov had said the guardsman units could include the Azov Battalion, a far-right formation notorious for using an insignia used by many military units in Nazi Germany, U.S. Embassy spokesman James Hallock said Azov fighters would not be among those trained.”
It’s not clear how the US Army paratroopers can tell if the fighters they’re training are members of Azov or of other battalions.
Curiously the training is due to begin on 20th April, Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/us-paratroopers-to-train-900-ukrainian-soldiers-starting-april-20-384796.html
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2015-04-17-EU–Ukraine/id-b9092c9d41d143dcaafaa75d897abb11
Adolph Hitler’s birthday! You can bet THAT wasn’t an accident. The Empire is still furiously working to agitate the Russians into doing something the sad-sack US media can portray as an invasion/incursion. The US is going to be training Nazis and criminals to more efficiently murder people – it’s really that simple.
Speaking of which, the 10th term of the Minsk agreement specified this:
I wonder if the 173rd Airborne Brigade soldiers will come in totally unarmed. And will they become temporary Ukraine citizens? Somehow I doubt it. It’s the old double standard thing. Russia supplying Iran with defensive missiles is completely unacceptable, but the US building a score of Aegis Ashore missile bases is A-OK, despite the latter having the potential to start a major war. These “defensive” bases directly threaten Russia’s nuclear deterrent, and as the Russians very well know, the MK-41 launcher tubes can be secretly loaded with Tomahawk cruise missiles for an up-front and near-by sneak attack on Russia.
Needless to say, Neocon Hillary is totally on-board with all this. In fact, she’s clamoring for more! Since 2008 we’ve endured Bush’s 3rd and 4th terms, and with HRC we’re looking at his 5th term. The smirking little ***** is probably secretly gloating about the situation.
Grr… forgot the link! Why can’t we at least have a “preview” button?
(4/16) – Hillary Clinton Calls For Greater Military Assistance And Financial Aid For Ukraine
With the announcement that the U.S. is sending 800 “advisers” to train Ukrainian troops, my fear is that this is going to make the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia turn into a hot war. When will we ever learn to stop meddling into other countries affairs.