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» Sleepwalking Again

By: pcr3| February 22, 2014 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: | Print This Article

Sleepwalking Again

Paul Craig Roberts

On the 100th Anniversary of World War 1, the Western powers are again sleepwalking into destructive conflict. Hegemonic ambition has Washington interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine, but developments seem to be moving beyond Washington’s control.

Regime change in Ukraine for a mere $5 billion dollars would be a bargain compared to the massive sums squandered in Iraq ($3,000 billion), Afghanistan ($3,000 billion), Somalia, and Libya, or the money Washington is wasting murdering people with drones in Pakistan and Yemen, or the money Washington has spent supporting al Qaeda in Syria, or the massive sums Washington has wasted surrounding Iran with 40 military bases and several fleets in the Persian Gulf in an effort to terrorize Iran into submission.

So far, in Washington’s attempt at regime change in Ukraine large numbers of Americans are not being killed and maimed. Only Ukrainians are dying, all the better for Washington as the deaths are blamed on the Ukrainian government that the US has targeted for overthrow.

The problem with Washington’s plot to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and install its minions is twofold: The chosen US puppets have lost control of the protests to armed radical elements with historical links to nazism, and Russia regards an EU/NATO takeover of Ukraine as a strategic threat to Russian independence.

Washington overlooked that the financially viable part of today’s Ukraine consists of historical Russian provinces in the east and south that the Soviet leadership merged into Ukraine in order to dilute the fascist elements in western Ukraine that fought for Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union. It is these ultra-nationalist elements with nazi roots, not Washington’s chosen puppets, who are now in charge of the armed rebellion in Western Ukraine.

If the democratically elected Ukraine government is overthrown, the eastern and southern parts would rejoin Russia. The western part would be looted by Western bankers and corporations, and the NATO Ukraine bases would be targeted by Russian Iskander missiles.

It would be a defeat for Washington and their gullible Ukrainian dupes to see half of the country return to Russia. To save face, Washington might provoke a great power confrontation, which could be the end of all of us.

My series of articles on the situation in Ukraine resulted in a number of interviews from Canada to Russia, with more scheduled. It also produced emotional rants from people of Ukrainian descent whose delusions are impenetrable by facts. Deranged Russophobes dismissed as propaganda the easily verifiable report of Assistant Secretary of State Nuland’s public address last December, in which she boasted that Washington had spent $5 billion preparing Ukraine to be aligned with Washington’s interests. Protest sympathizers claim that the intercepted telephone call between Nuland and the US Ambassador in Ukraine, in which the two US officials chose the government that would be installed following the coup, is a fake.

One person actually suggested that my position should be aligned with the “sincerity of the Kiev students,” not with the facts.

Some Trekkers and Trekkies were more concerned that I used an improper title for Spock than they were with the prospect of great power confrontation. The point of my article flew off into space and missed planet Earth.

Spock’s mental powers were the best weapon that Starship Enterprise had. Among my graduate school friends, Spock was known as Dr. Spock, because he was the cool, calm, and unemotional member of the crew who could diagnose the problem and save the situation.

There are no Spocks in the US or any Western government and certainly not among the Ukrainian protesters.

I have often wondered if Spock’s Vulcan ancestry was Gene Roddenberry’s way of underlining by contrast the fragility of human reason. In the context of modern military technology, is it possible for life to survive humanity’s penchant for emotion to trump reason and for self-delusion to prevail over factual reality?


» Is Ukraine Drifting Toward Civil War And Great Power Confrontation?

By: pcr3| February 20, 2014 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags:


Is Ukraine Drifting Toward Civil War And Great Power Confrontation?

Paul Craig Roberts

People ask for solutions, but no solutions are possible in a disinformed world. Populations almost everywhere are dissatisfied, but few have any comprehension of the real situation. Before there can be solutions, people must know the truth about the problems. For those few inclined to be messengers, it is largely a thankless task.

The assumption that man is a rational animal is incorrect. He and she are emotional creatures, not Mr. Spock of Star Trek. Humans are brainwashed by enculturation and indoctrination. Patriots respond with hostility toward criticisms of their governments, their countries, their hopes and their delusions. Their emotions throttle facts, should any reach them. Aspirations and delusions prevail over truth. Most people want to be told what they want to hear. Consequently, they are always gullible and their illusions and self-delusions make them easy victims of propaganda. This is true of all levels of societies and of the leaders themselves.

We are witnessing this today in western Ukraine where a mixture of witless university students, pawns in Washington’s drive for world hegemony, together with paid protesters and fascistic elements among ultra-nationalists are bringing great troubles upon Ukraine and perhaps a deadly war upon the world.

Many of the protesters are just the unemployed collecting easy money. It is the witless idealistic types that are destroying the independence of their country. Victoria Nuland, the American neoconservative Assistant Secretary of State, whose agenda is US world hegemony, told the Ukrainians what was in store for them last December 13, but the protesters were too delusional to hear.

In an eight minute, 46 second speech at the National Press Club sponsored by the US-Ukraine Foundation, Chevron, and Ukraine-in-Washington Lobby Group, Nuland boasted that Washington has spent $5 billion to foment agitation to bring Ukraine into the EU. Once captured by the EU, Ukraine will be “helped” by the West acting through the IMF. Nuland, of course, presented the IMF as Ukraine’s rescuer, not as the iron hand of the West that will squeeze all life out of Ukraine’s struggling economy.

Nuland’s audience consisted of all the people who will be enriched by the looting and by connections to a Washington-appointed Ukrainian government. Just look at the large Chevron sign next to which Nuland speaks, and you will know what it is all about. http://www.sott.net/article/273602-US-Assistant-Secretary-of-State-Victoria-Nuland-says-Washington-has-spent-5-billion-trying-to-subvert-Ukraine

Nuland’s speech failed to alert the Ukraine protesters, who are determined to destroy the independence of Ukraine and to place their country in the hands of the IMF so that it can be looted like Latvia, Greece and every country that ever had an IMF structural adjustment program. All the monies that protesters are paid by the US and EU will soon be given back manyfold as Ukraine is “adjusted” by Western looting.

In her short speech the neoconservative agitator Nuland alleged that the protesters whom Washington has spent $5 billion cultivating were protesting “peacefully with enormous restraint” against a brutal government.

According to RT, which has much more credibility than the US State Department (remember Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the UN setting up the US invasion of Iraq with his “evidence” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a speech Powell later disavowed as Bush regime disinformation), Ukrainian rioters have seized 1,500 guns, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, 3 machine guns, and grenades from military armories.

The human-rights trained Ukrainian police have permitted the violence to get out of hand. A number of police have been burned by Molotov cocktails. The latest report is that 108 police have been shot. A number are dead and 63 are in critical condition. http://rt.com/news/ukraine-kiev-fire...ns-police-934/ These casualties are the products of Nuland’s “peacefully protesting protesters acting with enormous restraint.” On February 20, the elected, independent Ukraine government responded to the rioters use of firearms by allowing police to use firearms in self-defense.

Perhaps the Russophobic western Ukrainians deserve the IMF, and perhaps the EU deserves the extreme nationalists who are trying to topple the Ukraine government. Once Ukrainians experience being looted by the West, they will be on their knees begging Russia to rescue them. The only certain thing is that it is unlikely that the Russian part of Ukraine will remain part of Ukraine.

During the Soviet era, parts of Russia herself, such as the Crimea, were placed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, perhaps in order to increase the Russian population in Ukraine. In other words, a large part of today’s Ukraine--eastern and southern provinces--are traditional Russian territory, not part of historical Ukraine.

Until Russia granted Ukraine independence in the early 1990s, Ukraine had experienced scant independence since the 14th century and had been a part of Russia for 200 years. The problem with the grant of independence is that much of Ukraine is not Ukrainian. It is Russian.

As I have reported previously, Russia regards the prospect of Ukraine as a member of the EU with NATO with US bases on Russia’s frontier as a “strategic threat.” It is unlikely that the Russian government and the Russian territories in Ukraine will accept Washington’s plan for Ukraine. Whatever their intention, Secretary of State John Kerry’s provocative statements are raising tensions and fomenting war. The vast bulk of the American and Western populations have no idea of what the real situation is, because all they hear from the “free press” is the neoconservative propaganda line.

Washington’s lies are destroying not only civil liberties at home and countries abroad, but are raising dangerous alarms in Russia about the country’s security. If Washington succeeds in overthrowing the Ukrainian government, the eastern and southern provinces are likely to secede. If secession becomes a civil war instead of a peaceful divorce, Russia would not be able to sit on the sidelines. As the Washington warmongers would be backing western Ukraine, the two nuclear powers would be thrown into military conflict.

The Ukrainian and Russian governments allowed this dangerous situation to develop, because they naively permitted for many years billions of US dollars to flow into their countries where the money was used to create fifth columns under the guise of educational and human rights organizations, the real purpose of which is to destabilize both countries. The consequence of the trust Ukrainians and Russians placed in the West is the prospect of civil and wider war.

UPDATE:
Reading the collection of foreign news dispatches provided by Richard Rozoff about the situation in Ukraine http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle37700.htm reminded me of histories about how the pointless and destructive First World War began. In their blind desire to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine and impose an EU puppet state in its place, the American, British, and French governments are lying through their teeth and provoking a situation that is headed toward armed conflict.

Unless the Russian government and people are willing to accept Washington’s hegemony over Russia, Russia cannot tolerate the coup that the West is preparing in Ukraine. As it is unlikely that Western forces would be a match for the Russian army in its own backyard, or that self-righteous, hubristic Washington could accept defeat, the conflict toward which the corrupt Western governments are driving is likely to turn nuclear.

As worldwide polls consistently show, Washington is regarded as the greatest threat to world peace. As I have often written, Washington is not merely a threat to peace. Washington and its despicable European puppet states are a threat to the existence of life on the planet. Essentially, Washington is insane, and European “leaders” are paid to provide cover for Washington’s insanity.

The world could end before the unpayable Western debts come due.


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