Masking Tragedy in Ukraine
Sinister Illusions
by CHRIS FLOYD, Counterpunch.org
It is no secret that Barack Obama is one of the supreme illusionists of modern times. The disconnect between his words and his deeds is so profound as to be almost sublime, far surpassing the crude obfuscations of the Bush-Cheney gang. Their projections of unreality were more transparent, and in any case were merely designed to put a little lipstick on the pig of policies they were openly pushing (militarism, tax cuts for the rich, etc.). Indeed, the Bushists delivered their lines like bored performers at the end of a long run, not caring whether they were believed or not — just as long as they got what they wanted.
But Obama has taken all this to another level. He is a consummate performer, striving to “inhabit” the role and mouthing his lines as if they make sense and convey emotional truth. He is not just gilding his open agenda with some slap-dash lies; posing as a compassionate, progressive, anti-elitist peacemaker, he is masking a hidden agenda with a vast array of artifice, expending enormous effort to generate an alternate world that does not exist.
Take his astonishing attack on Vladimir Putin for “interfering” in Ukraine. That Obama could make this charge with a straight face — days after his own agents had been exposed (in the infamous “Fuck the EU” tape) nakedly interfering in Ukraine, trying to overthrow a democratically elected government and place their own favorites in charge — was brazen enough. But in accusing Putin of doing exactly what the Americans were doing in Ukraine, Obama also fabricated yet another alternate world.
Obama unilaterally declared that Ukraine should overturn the results of the 2010 election (which most observers said was generally “fair and free” — more so than elections in, say, the US, where losing candidates are sometimes wont to take power anyway, and where whole states dispossess or actively discourage millions of free citizens from voting). Instead, the Ukrainians should install an unelected “transitional government” in Kiev. Why? Because, says Obama, now channeling all Ukrainians in his own person, “the people obviously have a very different view and vision for their country” from the government they democratically elected.” And what is their vision, according to Obama the Ukrainian Avatar? To enjoy “freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, fair and free elections.” Something you might think they had enjoyed by having free elections 2010, and exercising freedom of speech and assembly to such a degree that a vast opposition force has occupied much of the central government district for months.
Now, this is not a defense of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s government. It is, by all accounts, a highly corrupt enterprise given to insider deals for well-connected elites who influence government policy for their own benefit. (I guess this might be a reason for overthrowing a democratically elected government with an armed uprising supported by foreign countries, but I would be careful about espousing this as a general rule if I were an American president.) But the reality in Ukraine is complex. Opposition forces have a legitimate beef against a corrupt and heavy-handed government. The Kremlin is obviously trying to manipulate events in Ukraine, just as the US is doing. Ukraine is polarized along several different lines — political, ethnic, historical, religious, linguistic — but these lines are not clear-cut, and often intersect, intermingle, are in flux. Many look to the West as a model, even a saviour, although the EU deal that Yanukovych turned down, precipitating the uprising, actually offered Ukraine little other than Greek-style financial servitude, while the Kremlin, at least, proffered cash on the barrelhead. The opposition itself is not a monolith of moral rectitude; one of its driving forces is an ultra-nationalist faction that spouts vile anti-Semitic rhetoric.
And the fact is, not a single one of the Western governments now denouncing Ukraine for its repression would have tolerated a similar situation. Try to imagine thousands of Tea Partiers, say, having declared that the elected government of Barack Obama was too corrupt and illegitimate to stand, setting up an armed camp in the middle of Washington, occupying the Treasury Building and Justice Department for months on end, while meeting with Chinese and Russian leaders, who then begin demanding a ‘transitional government’ be installed in the White House. What would be the government’s reaction? There is no doubt that it would make even Yanukovych’s brutal assault this week look like a Sunday School picnic.
So the situation in Ukraine is many-sided, complex, filled with ambiguity, change, nuance and chaos. But one thing that is nothappening in Ukraine is Barack Obama’s fantasy that the entire Ukrainian people is rising to rid themselves of a tyrant so they can hold fair and free elections. They had such elections in 2010; and if the entire Ukrainian people now want to get rid of their president, there are free elections scheduled for 2015. It is likely that Yanukovych’s corrupt and maladroit performance in office — not least his reaction to the protest movement — would have guaranteed his peaceful defeat at the ballot box next year. But it is also likely that these elections will not be held now. One way or another, Yanukovych will be forced from office by the violent chaos that he, and some opposition factions, and the machinations of Moscow and Washington have together produced. In any case, there is almost certainly more needless suffering in store for ordinary Ukrainians.
This is the reality, and tragedy, of the situation. But in the artfully hallucinated world of Barack Obama – a fantasy-land in which the entire American political and media elite also live – none of this matters. All that matters is the real agenda: advancing the dominance of a brutal ruling class through manipulation, militarism, and deception, whenever the opportunity arises.
Chris Floyd is a columnist for CounterPunch. He writes about Bob Dylan in the current issue of CounterPunch magazine. His blog, Empire Burlesque, can be found at www.chris-floyd.com.
Ukraine clashes intensify in Kiev
Propaganda effort picks up momentum once again
FEBRUARY 18, 2014, 2:34 PM|In Kiev, Ukraine, clashes between anti-government protesters and police turned deadly, with multiple deaths reported on both sides.
UN report on North Korea targets both Pyongyang and Beijing
More warmongering and hypocrisy from Washington and the corporate media
North Korea’s leader visits troops during exercises.
Not content with stirring trouble in the Middle East, Venezuela, and the Ukraine, now Washington is also seeking some sort of confrontation in the Far East
By Peter Symonds, wsws.org
The UN report on human rights in North Korea released yesterday marks an acceleration of the US-led campaign to destabilise and ultimately remove the Pyongyang regime. The catalogue of horrors in North Korea is designed to stampede public opinion behind any US provocations directed against Pyongyang, but above all to intensify the pressure on North Korea’s ally, China.
The highly political character of the UN commission of inquiry was underlined by the comments of its chair, former Australian judge Michael Kirby, who declared that the repressive methods of the North Korean regime were “strikingly similar” to the crimes of Nazi Germany. He likened North Korean prisons to the Nazi concentration camps in which millions of Jews, gypsies and political prisoners were exterminated.
Kirby has already written to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, declaring that his commission is recommending that “the international criminal court render accountable all those, including possibly yourself, who may be responsible for the crimes against humanity.” In his comments yesterday, Kirby declared that the purpose of the commission’s report was to “galvanize action on the part of the international community.”
Kirby’s condemnation of the North Korean regime, picked up and amplified by the US and international media, recalls the demonisation of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic as the “Serbian Hitler” prior to the 1999 NATO bombing campaign that rained death and destruction on that country’s population. Similarly, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was subjected to a campaign of vilification prior to the illegal 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that devastated the country and killed hundreds of thousands of people.
North Korea is a small, impoverished and isolated country, not an imperialist power like Germany, which, under the Nazis, launched wars of aggression that ravaged Europe. The international working class should give absolutely no political support to the Stalinist police-state regime in Pyongyang, which is certainly responsible for crimes against its people. However, the targeting of governments and individuals by the UN and its associated institutions is invariably highly selective, politically coloured and geared to the predatory interests of the imperialist powers, above all the United States.
No one is suggesting that a UN commission of inquiry be established into any of the crimes of US imperialism, such as waging wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq—the crime for which the Nazi leaders were convicted at Nuremberg. Similarly, no UN investigations are under way into the crimes and human rights abuses of US allies such as Israel or Saudi Arabia.
The lengthy report is based largely on the testimony of North Korean refugees and exiles who provided gruesome details of their treatment inside the prison camps. The commission of inquiry was barred from entering North Korea.
While some of the accounts are undoubtedly true, the North Korean exile community, particularly in South Korea, is heavily influenced by anti-communist organisations, right-wing Christian groups and the state apparatus, particularly the South Korean National Intelligence Service. The UN commission of inquiry has now given its official seal to testimony from this layer.
It is no accident that the report itself echoes the propaganda that has emanated from Washington for years. An entire section is devoted to “violations of the right to food,” which accuses the Pyongyang regime of causing widespread starvation and famine, while “large amounts of state resources… have been spent on the luxury goods and the advancement of his [the supreme leader’s] personality cult.”
Those who should be held criminally responsible for starving the North Korean people are above all the successive US administrations that maintained an economic blockade of the country following the 1953 termination of the Korean War, in which the United States killed hundreds of thousands of Korean civilians and soldiers. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington systematically tightened the sanctions regime on North Korea in a calculated effort to bring about its collapse. Any humanitarian aid came with political strings attached. In the mid-1990s, economic sanctions compounded food shortages caused by a string of natural disasters, leading to widespread famine and deaths.
While the role of the US and its allies in systematically destabilising North Korea goes unmentioned, the UN commission report does single out China for special mention. It specifically criticises China for its return of asylum seekers to North Korea, suggesting that it is in breach of its obligations under international refugee laws.
China is not alone, however, in branding asylum seekers as so-called “economic refugees” and forcibly repatriating them to face danger and persecution. Governments in Kirby’s own country, Australia, are notorious for the “refoulement” of refugees.
The real purpose of the accusation against China is to place it in the dock alongside North Korea, potentially opening up Chinese leaders to charges of complicity in “crimes against humanity.” The UN commission report feeds directly into the Obama administration’s escalating provocations and pressure against China throughout the Indo-Pacific region, as part of its “pivot to Asia.”
The US is targeting North Korea in particular because it is China’s only formal ally and acts as a buffer for China on its northern border. A change of regime in Pyongyang to one sympathetic to Washington would further tighten the noose of US alliances, bases and strategic partnerships around China.
Not surprisingly, the US State Department welcomed the UN report, saying it “clearly and unequivocally documents the brutal reality of North Korea.” An editorial in the Wall Street Journal praised the report for “naming and shaming Pyongyang’s accomplices in Beijing.”
The editorial continued, “The report marks the first major mention of China by name in a UN assessment of North Korea,” and concluded by bluntly declaring, “The report’s findings underscore that Western policy should focus on squeezing the regime with a goal of toppling it.”
The trip to Asia by US Secretary of State John Kerry over the past week signaled that the Obama administration intends to step up the “squeeze” not only on North Korea, but China as well. North Korea topped the agenda in Kerry’s talks with Chinese leaders. He told the media that China had to use “every tool at their disposal, all of the means of persuasion that they have” to compel North Korea to denuclearise.
By extending the accusations against the North Korean regime to “crimes against humanity”, the US is effectively ruling out any compromise or deal with North Korea and setting course for a confrontation with Pyongyang and its ally in Beijing.
Washington’s Dirty Game
OP-EDS
The foreign policy of a plutocratic superpower like the US can never deviate from high crimes, appalling corruption and hypocrisy. It’s in its DNA. No reforms can eradicate such vices.
by Stephen Lendman
Viktor Yanukovych: He has been slow to respond to American covert meddling in Ukraine’s politics.
Washington can’t hide its dark side. It’s too ugly to conceal. Its been exposed numerous times. Here we go again. Assistant Secretary of State for European and European Affairs Victoria Nuland was caught red-handed. More on this below. She’s hardcore neocon. She’s a career foreign service officer. She’s worked with Democrat and Republican administrations.
Early in her career, she covered Russian internal politics at Washington’s Moscow embassy. She served on the Soviet Desk in Washington. She worked in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. She served in Guangzhou, China. She was Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union. She directed a task force on Russia, its neighbors and an expanding NATO. She was Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott’s chief of staff. She was Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO. She was Dick Cheney’s Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. She was Permanent US Representative to NATO. She was a National War College faculty member. She was Obama’s Special Envoy for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.
To expect career plutocratic shills like Nuland to serve democracy is a laughable delusion. In Washington’s case duplicity is not only to lie, it’s to keep two different ledgers of morality.
On September 18, 2013, she was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for European and European Affairs.
Her husband is Project for the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder Robert Kagan. He’s a neocon foreign policy theorist/hardliner. He advised John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. He served on Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board. The Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) is PNAC’s current incarnation. He’s a board of directors member. He represents the worst of America’s dark side. So does Nuland.
Nuland: loyally serving the corporate flag.
She supports regime change. She backs neo-fascist governance replacing Ukrainian democracy. She’s involved in manipulating street thug violence. She’s part of a US-instigated insurrection. She wants legitimate Ukrainian governance toppled. She wants pro-Western stooge governance replacing it. She lied saying: “We stand with the people of Ukraine…”
She demands Ukrainian President Viktor Yanokovych engage “with Europe and the IMF.” She was caught red-handed urging regime change on tape. Her conversation with US Ukraine ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt was recorded. It’s circulating on You Tube. It’s more evidence of America’s dark side. It bears repeating. It’s too ugly to hide.
The leaked video is damning. It’s four minutes long. It’s titled “Maidan puppets.” It refers to Kiev’s Independence Square. The Kiev Post (KP) broke the story. On February 6, it headlined ” ‘F..k the EU,’ frustrated Nuland says to Pyatt, in alleged leaked phone call.” On February 4, the Nuland/Pyatt conversation was posted on You Tube. It’s unclear by whom. Both US officials expressed frustration over EU “inaction and indecision,” said KP. Nuland was heard saying “f..k the EU.”
Pyatt called opposition figure Vitali Klitschko the “top dog.” He heads the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party (UDAR). Pyatt and Nuland agreed he’s “too inexperienced to hold a top government post.” A US Kiev embassy spokeswoman had no comment. State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki downplayed what happened.
“I’m not going to confirm or outline details,” she said. “I understand there are a lot of reports out there and there’s a recording out there, but I’m not going to confirm private diplomatic conversations.” When pressed about the You Tube’s authenticity, she said she “didn’t say it was inauthentic. I think we can leave it at that.”
She was pressed again about the conversation revealing US intentions opposite of public comments about Ukrainians deciding their own future. She lied saying they aren’t “inconsistent in the least bit.” Her convoluted explanation doesn’t wash. She claimed Washington is working with Ukraine’s government, opposition elements, as well as “business and civil society leaders to support their efforts…”
Obama wants regime change. He wants Ukraine’s democratically elected government toppled. Not according to Psaki. She lied claiming it’s “up to the Ukrainian people themselves to decide their future. (It’s) up to them to determine their path forward, and that’s a consistent message that we’re conveying publicly and privately.” Psaki was hard-pressed explaining why Nuland felt the need to apologize. Doing so shows You Tube dialogue was authentic. White House and State Department officials barely stopped short of accusing Russia of surreptitiously recording Nuland’s conversation.
Psaki called the incident a “new low in Russian tradecraft in terms of publicizing and posting this. I don’t have any other independent details about the origin of the You Tube video,” she added.
Snowden exposed NSA’s systematic global spying. Foreign leaders are targeted. Their phone calls are monitored. Their emails are read. Psaki left that issue unaddressed. White House press secretary Jay Carney said “since the video was first noted and tweeted out by the Russian government, I think it says something about Russia’s role.” He wouldn’t comment on what Nuland and Pyatt said.
Hours before the You Tube surfaced, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin’s aide, Dmitry Loskutov, was among the first to tweet information about it, saying:
“Sort of controversial judgment from Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland speaking about the EU.”
According to the Kiev Post, “(t)he leaked phone call appears to have been made following (Ukrainian) President Viktor Yanukovych’s Jan. 25 offer to opposition leader Arseniy Yatseniuk to be prime minister and Klitschko to be deputy prime minister…”
In 2005 and 2006, Yatseniuk was Ukraine’s economy minister. In 2007, he was foreign minister. In 2007 and 2008, he chaired Ukraine’s parliament (the Verkhovna Rada). It’s a unicameral body. The All-Ukrainian Union “Fatherland” is Ukraine’s second largest party. Yatsenyuk heads its parliamentary faction. He and Klitschko refused Yanukovych’s offer to join his government. On January 28, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resigned. Yanukovych accepted his resignation. He signed a decree. He dismissed other cabinet officials.
He promised more concessions. He appointed a committee to propose constitutional revisions. It didn’t help. At the time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned street violence by “fascistic youths.” He warned against external interference. Russia “stands for a political settlement within the framework of Ukrainian law,” he said.
Washington’s dirty hands bear full responsibility for street violence. Regime change politics is longstanding US policy. It involves every dirty trick imaginable. Syria is in the eye of the storm. So is Ukraine. Conditions remain volatile. Nuland/Pyatt intentions reveal what Ukrainians have to fear. In December 1994, Washington, Russia, Britain and Northern Ireland welcomed Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, saying:
They “reaffirm(ed) their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE (Helsinki) Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” They “reaffirm(ed) their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine…in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
They “reaffirm(ed) their commitment…to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty…”
Washington is duplicitous. It can’t be trusted. Its word isn’t its bond. Its history is treacherous. It systematically ignores international law. It violates treaty obligations repeatedly. It wants all independent governments toppled. It goes all out to remove them.
It targets Ukraine for regime change. Nuland told Pyatt a UN official she spoke to said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon agreed to send someone to Ukraine to “help glue this thing and have the UN glue it.” She was told Ban will appoint former Dutch Ukrainian ambassador, Robert Serry, as his representative.
“That would be great I think to help glue this thing and have the UN glue it,” said Nuland. At that point, she said “And you know, f..k the EU.”
“Exactly,” Pyatt replied. “And I think we got to do something to make it stick together because you can be sure that if it does start to gain altitude the Russians will be working behind the scenes to torpedo it.”
“Let me work on Klitschko,” he added. “I think we should get a Western personality to come out here and midwife this thing.” Klitschko “is obviously the complicated electron here,” said Pyatt.
“And you’ve seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage (among opposition leaders) right now. So we’re trying to get a read really fast on where he is with this stuff.”
“But I think your argument to him, which I think you’ll need to make…is exactly the one you made to Yats (Yatseniuk), and I’m glad you kind of put him on the spot in where he fits in in this scenario. Nuland favors Yatseniuk for a leadership role. He’s “the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience,” she said
“What he needs is Klitsch (Klitschko) and (Svoboda party fascist leader) Tiahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I think Klitsch going in, he’s going to be at that level, working for Yatseniuk. It’s just not going to work,” she added.
“Yeah, I think that’s right,” said Pyatt. He urged Nuland to reach out directly to him and “help with the personality management among the three,” he added. The conversation ended with Nuland saying she can get Vice President Joe Biden to call Yanukovych “for an attaboy and to get the deeds to stick.”
In December, Nuland spent days in Ukraine. She met publicly with opposition leaders. She joined their street protests. She handed out cookies. Imagine if Russian, Chinese or other foreign officials acted the same way in Washington. Imagine the public rage. Imagine the threatening response. On Monday, EU foreign ministers will meet in Brussels. They’ll discuss imposing sanctions on Ukraine. Washington threatens its own. On Thursday evening, Nuland met with opposition leaders Yatseniuk, Klitschko and Tiahnybok. They plotted strategy.
Hours earlier the European Parliament approved an anti-Ukrainian resolution. It called for imposing sanctions. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry responded saying:
“We’re disappointed at prejudice with which the European Parliament assessed the Ukrainian government’s actions and at the fact that it ignored the vast majority of constructive efforts made by the Ukrainian leadership in relation to the implementation of plans for building trust and engaging into a peaceful and inclusive dialogue with both the opposition and the civilian population.”
“An unbalanced nature of the resolution and calls for introducing EU restrictions don’t contribute to nationwide reconciliation and trust in Ukraine and undermine the process of settling the conflict.”
Washington manipulated Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Yanukovych’s earlier government was ousted. In 2010, he was reelected president. He’s targeted again. Orange Revolution 2.0 continues. At stake is Ukrainian sovereign independence.
What’s ongoing involves weakening and isolating Russia. Washington’s dirty game is transparent. Imperial ruthlessness is longstanding US policy.
All independent states are targeted. So are major rivals. America wants unchallenged global dominance. It wants world resources plundered for profit. It wants ordinary people made serfs. It wants them impoverished. It wants vassal states beholden to US interests. It wants them trapped in debt bondage.
It wants ruthless control replacing democracy. It wants subservient stooges replacing legitimately elected officials. Empire building is dirty. Tactics include bullying, intimidation, sanctions, assassinations, coups and lawless aggression.
Ukraine’s future is at stake. Whether Yanukovych can save its democracy remains to be seen. The fate of 46 million Ukrainians hangs in the balance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”