Robert Kagan's wife is Asst Sec of State Victoria Nuland.
Published on Mar 23, 2017
These ain't the Cleavers, folks!
Showing posts with label Asst Sec of State Victoria Nuland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asst Sec of State Victoria Nuland. Show all posts
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Robert Kagan: War Monger, War Profiteers, Co-Founder of Project for the New American Century
Robert Kagan's wife is Asst Sec of State Victoria Nuland.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
CounterCurrents: Soros-Obama-Merkel-Erdogan Win Control Of Europe, European Union And Turkey Reach Deal To Seal Borders And Expel Refugees
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European Union And Turkey Reach Deal To Seal Borders And Expel Refugees
By Jordan Shilton
http://www.countercurrents.org/shilton200316.htm
A summit between the 28 European Union (EU) heads of government and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu produced an agreement in Brussels aimed at hermetically sealing off Europe’s borders to the millions of refugees fleeing war zones in the Middle East and North Africa. Unveiling the deal after two days of talks, EU Council President Donald Tusk declared it would apply to refugees arriving in Greece after March 20. Refugees arriving on the Greek islands by crossing the Aegean Sea will be returned to Turkey, following the completion of a farcical asylum procedure in Greece. In exchange, the EU pledged to accept one Syrian refugee via legal means for every Syrian sent back to Turkey from Greece. This process will commence on April 4
Soros-Obama-Merkel-Erdogan Win Control Of Europe
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse200316.htm
On Friday, March 18th, a combined effort by George Soros, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, and Tayyip Erdogan, has arranged to get the EU to abandon previously sacrosanct fundamental human rights of refugees, and to transfer $6B+ to Turkey, in return for placing the refugee burden onto Turkey and getting Turkey to cooperate so as to assist the breakup of Syria, which will enable a gas-pipeline and an oil-pipeline to be built through Syria to enable Qatar’s gas and Saudi Arabia’s oil to be pipelined through Syria into the EU, so as to replace Russian oil and gas, which now fuel the EU
On Friday, March 18th, a combined effort by George Soros, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, and Tayyip Erdogan, has arranged to get the EU to abandon previously sacrosanct fundamental human rights of refugees, and to transfer $6B+ to Turkey, in return for placing the refugee burden onto Turkey and getting Turkey to cooperate so as to assist the breakup of Syria, which will enable a gas-pipeline and an oil-pipeline to be built through Syria to enable Qatar’s gas and Saudi Arabia’s oil to be pipelined through Syria into the EU, so as to replace Russian oil and gas, which now fuel the EU.
Here, in my rush translations from the original German-language reports at German Economic News (Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten) are the key reports and headlines:
Turkey deal: Germany could take majority of refugees
[Translated by Eric Zuesse from] German Economic News | Published:18:03:16 02:56 Clock
The most important consequence of the EU summit is not in the official statement. A plan long discussed, now finalizing: Germany takes the majority of refugees from Turkey, and oil and gas pipelines will replace Russian oil and gas to Europe by Saudi oil and Qatari gas.
Europe's energy supply should result in future Syria. (Graphic: oilprice.net)
According to Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, the leaders of the European Union mutually agreed with Turkey to cut Russia out of the EU gas market, cut Qatar [a U.S. ally] in. They agreed in the early hours of Friday on a refugee-&-gas-pipeline package to be approved by the Turkish government.
This agreement will substantially correspond to the Pact of Angela Merkel with Turkish President Erdogan. But it apparently comprises only a small portion of the prepared between Germany, Turkey and the USA.
Gerald Knaus, director of the Soros-funded think tank "European Stability Initiative" (ESI), for many months now has been advising Chancellor Angela Merkel on the refugee crisis. His ESI submitted the plan in October.
The original plan consists of two parts: On the one hand, Germany should, during the coming year, "grant 500,000 Syrian refugees asylum, who are now in Turkey.” Other European countries may participate, but on a voluntary basis. At the same time Turkey will take from Greece "all new migrants."
Knaus, himself Austrian, told the Viennese daily the press, that "in the background, a more radical idea has already been largely negotiated” which will "probably very soon be announced": Knaus said that a "coalition of the willing” will take 900 Syrians per day — "no matter how many Syrians come to Greece.” This would be about 300,000 people per year — slightly less than in the original Soros plan.
The reason for Europe's acquisition of hundreds of thousands of refugees is obvious: The proposed EU summit one-to-one solution would not be enough to relieve Turkey significantly. Moreover, it’s not lawful from the perspective of the Geneva Convention, as human rights organizations have complained since the start of the Soros proposal. The coalition of the willing currently consists of Germany, Portugal and Sweden. Austria has not yet agreed. Presumably Merkel will move some other countries also to participate. Thus, the plan could be presented as a European solution.
From an organizational standpoint, Knaus thinks that consideration in Turkey of the plan will succeed in an agreement being reached. Knaus holds this to be essential. He told the newspaper Die Welt: "The acceptance, by the public, of receiving the refugees is essential. Had we in Europe started earlier with a quota solution, we’d be farther along today. I think that also Sweden and Austria would have been on our side. Unfortunately, the process in the past year fell out of control. We had no idea who is coming into our country. This fueled fears. "
The Soros plan is apparently agreed with the US government. Angela Merkel supported in this way the geopolitical plans of the Americans, who have a special interest in developing their energy policies in the region. They are planning the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). Construction of TAP is pushed by the United States. This will run from the Turkish border via Greece, Albania and the Strait of Otranto to Italy. Thus, one of the main refugee routes to Europe, which is particularly overloaded after the closure of the Balkan route, will be cleared for pipelining gas into Europe.
Further destabilization of the TAP region is therefore not in the interests of the United States. They also want to ensure that Europe is supplied via a pipeline that's under US control, not under Russian control. The US and Russia are fighting for the European energy market.
It is interesting in this context that a competing Russian pipeline through Syrian territory could also result. The surprising retreat of the Russians from Syria might suggest that there could be an agreement between Russia and the US: In this way, the geopolitical interests of both Great Powers could be safeguarded. The relationship between the pipeline projects and the war in Syria has the raw material site Oilprice.net analyzed in order that all parties want to solve the dependence of Saudi oil.
In this connection the role of the Americans is also in the media largely ignored regarding the visiting US diplomat Victoria Nuland in Idomeni. Nuland's pithy sayings (such as "fuck the EU") and her role in Ukraine, made her try to become known as a Goodwill Ambassador for Europe; she Thursday visited the refugee camps in the northern Greek Idomeni, reports Kathimerini .
The Turkish news portal Haberler reports what Nuland said in Idomeni: "It needs to be done for these people more. Athens has made a direct request to Washington. In this difficult situation, I'm here, for American-Greek solidarity. We will work together to solve the problem of distribution of refugees within the EU. In addition, we want to help ensure that the deal between the EU and Turkey is fair and transparent. It's time to better accommodate the migrants. "
On 11 March, Nuland met with representatives of the Greek government in Athens to discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues, including the request for assistance of Greece to the United States, in solving the migration problem, reported the US State Department .
This context could explain also why Angela Merkel has waited so long to go to the German public with a real plan for the refugee crisis — even though they have long been familiar with the Soros plan and he apparently also laid the basis with the Chancellor for Turkey jointly to launch the proposal at the EU summit: this was to help Merkel not to inflame sentiment in Germany before the state elections. Because the message that Germany could possibly be the only country to take a large number of refugees, would have a serious impact that has led even without this perspective to tectonic shifts in favor of the AFD [anti-immigrant party].
Knaus sees the axis Ankara-Berlin as crucial for geopolitical orientation against Russia. He said in an international interview that Germany made the mistake not to place undue reliance on the EU Commission: "Germany has early understood much. But it made the mistake of relying too much on the implementation by the Commission. Germany would have taken matters into its own hands earlier."
Knaus sees the role of Germany as partners with Turkey and the USA. Here lies the common interest to host the refugees: "Germany does not expire like other states in an anti-Islam rhetoric. At the same time it sees Ankara, in a delicate geostrategic position between anti-Muslim governments in Europe and a strong Putin. A successful and connected in partnership by Berlin may be worth a lot for Turkey and its approach to Europe."
This closes the circle for the TAP pipeline: The Americans want to snatch the European energy market away from Russia. In the absence of our own energy policy, Europeans are currently completely dependent on Russia. If both pipelines - quasi in a duopoly of the Americans and the Russians - are built, the energy policy space for the EU would increase significantly.
That led to the present situation, a murderous war that's driven hundreds of thousands from Syria and Iraq. It had to be, from a geopolitical point of view of the parties — Russia, the US and the EU — regarded as collateral damage.
After all, the Soros plan would in fact lead to the result that the right of asylum would be respected so that immigration to Europe is not completely disordered. What guarantees that the EU gets Turkey to treat the refugees humanely, is completely unclear. It also is unclear whether the acceptance of refugees in Germany can be satisfactorily prepared. It also remains open whether the EU will have, as a result of the apparent cleavage of the project, neither the power to play as a political union, nor a role that goes beyond that of simply a large, attractive market.
——
The EU and Turkey have agreed on a deal. The deal enters into force on March 20. From then on, refugees who arrive irregularly in Greece will be returned to Turkey.
German Economic News | March 18, 2016, 19:08 Clock
——
The human rights organization Pro Asyl has sharply condemned the deal with Turkey. Today is a day of mourning for the right of asylum. The organization announces that it will file lawsuits.
German Economic News | March 18, 2016, 19:00 Clock
——
EU deal: Turkey does not agree to respect human rights Angela Merkel and Dutch Mark Rutte at the summit in Brussels. (Ph
The deal with Turkey stipulates that Turkey serves as large refugee camps for the EU. Turkey seems to have succeeded to determine the standards for the treatment of refugees and migrants. A commitment to respect for human rights was deleted from the final document.
German Economic News | March 18, 2016, 18:13 Clock
——
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Patriarchy, ISIS And Female Slaves
By Mahfuz Quazi
http://www.countercurrents.org/quazi200316.htm
The ISIS has been running a full-fledged and organized system of enslaving their captives as spoils. Hordes of women have been herded off in looted Hajj(pilgrimage) buses to the cities of Mosul and Raqqa, to their makeshift slave markets for the purpose of being bought and sold like cheap second hand garments no one has any use for, in exchange of arms, money and even cigarettes
Kurdistan - Turkey’s Kosovo
By Prof. Vladislav B. Sotirović
http://www.countercurrents.org/sotirovic200316.htm
A blast caused by a suicide car bombing hit the centre of Ankara on Sunday evening (March 13th, 2016) resulting in over a hundred casualties. The Turkish authorities were very quick to announce the identity of the suicide person: A Kurdish woman in close relation with the Kurdistan Workers Party. Nevertheless, this terror act in Ankara, followed by a new one on March 19th in Istanbul, once again opened the “Kurdish Question” which is in direct connection with the question of Kurdistan’s independence and terrorism as the political instrument in the realization of the national projects and ultimate goals
Trumpism: It Did Happen Here, And It’s Happening Here Again
By Mickey Z.
http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz200316.htm
The media-fueled rise of Trumpism has re-emboldened racists and white supremacists all across God’s Country™. To view this phenomenon as some form of low brow entertainment spectacle is to betray one’s lack of historical context. For some Americans to flippantly talk of moving to Canada is a betrayal to all those without the resources to leave or fight back or earn justice. To trot out the classic “it can’t happen here” is to ignore that it’s already happened here many times and, in some cases, never stopped happening
One Pound Capitalism, A Pinch Of Democracy, And The Not-So-Holy Buffalo
By Priti Gulati Cox
http://www.countercurrents.org/cox200316.htm
The series "One Pound Capitalism, a Pinch of Democracy" brings to our elite dinner tables meals that highlight issues exposing the extreme consequences of neoliberal policies that are disproportionately affecting the daily lives of Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, and other marginalized people. The type and quantity of each ingredient used and the presentation of a meal is determined by choosing key statistics that are embedded in the issue being conveyed, converting that to a measurement, and then using it in the recipe. Indeed, there may be a dish or two that tastes somewhat strange, with an ingredient or two out of whack. But that’s intentional. This recipe is designed around the issue of India simultaneously holding the title of the #1 beef exporter in the world and the title of the #1 beef-ban murderer in the world
Modi’s Sufiana Kalam And Owaisis’s Venom
By Sazzad Hussain
http://www.countercurrents.org/hussain200316.htm
While appeals like Modi’s bring some glimmers of hope, hatemongers like Owaisi always play spoilsports. His bellicose speech on ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, aimed at creating religious polarization for the next year’s UP polls, could justify the majoritarian mantra. However, as termed by eminent poet Javed Akhtar, Owaisi represents the very different cultural spaces of some Indian Muslims, that as stated above, are non-Sufi and homogenous created in a ghettoised world following state’s failure to contain religious violence. Let’s hope that the wider world of Sufism would be imbibed by all the stakeholders of our nation to make India awesome
India Needs A Welfare State Not Elite State:
Why Slashing Of Rates On Small Savings?
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava
http://www.countercurrents.org/vks200316.htm
NDA government has reduced the interest rates on small saving schemes Kisan Vikas Patra and others, mainly G- Sec securities and Public Provident Fund in huge manner thereby affecting a large section of the Indian middle class. The government had indicated about such steps in its Economic Survey which was presented before the Annual Financial Statement. The government has charted a path where the neo liberal policies are now becoming a norm. this may be debated whether such policies are in the interests of the common people or not, one thing is explicit that government is keen to seal the leakages as it has clarified in its Economic Survey but the reduction of the interest rates which directly affects the old age persons, pensioners and the people with the low income is not a right step
Does India Need A Militant Hindutva?
By Shubhda Chaudhary
http://www.countercurrents.org/chaudhary200316A.htm
Militant Hindutva does not have any future in India. Any form of fundamentalism has its own decay, with time. The same fate would be met with the RSS and other organizations when they continue to harp on a tune which, one day, they would realize, would cause their own demise. The India of today is cerebral, it thinks, it questions, it debates. It does not ridicule
The Double Standards Of RSS
By Suraj Kumar Thube
http://www.countercurrents.org/thube200316.htm
M S Golwalkar's reservations on accepting the Indian constitution verbatim at his time, as he points out in his Bunch of Thoughts, is constitutive of the non committal nature of the Sangh mentality to accept it as the most supreme legal text of this land. It will be interesting to know what the young RSS sympathisers feel about this dichotomy and where they envision themselves of standing in this larger debate. Do they have an open mind in choosing between the two - one which envisions a socially egalitarian idea of Indian citizenry and the other that represents modern hate
Umar Khalid And Anirban Bhattacharya Return To JNU’s Freedom Square
By Shubhda Chaudhary
http://www.countercurrents.org/chaudhary200316.htm
The entire campus of JNU resonated with the slogans of ‘Azaadi’ on 18th March when Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, charged with the draconian laws of criminal conspiracy and sedition finally got interim bail and headed towards their university. The entire campus erupted in a Holi-like celebration It was an infectious moment of solidarity, zeal and fervor, as the student fraternity was finally able to earn ‘justice’ from how obnoxiously the university has been targeted by the state and media trials
Thursday, October 1, 2015
RSN: Robert Parry | The Power of False Narrative
This is American Empire Building created by the Chicken Hawk Neo Cons, founders of the Project for the New American Century.
They profit by creating Endless Wars, killing people and creating global chaos.
The US has no $$$ to repair crumbling infrastructure, yet has gazillions to arm the world?
FROM:
US Empire, Your Tax Dollars and Why WIkileaks was important...
FOCUS: Robert Parry | The Power of False Narrative
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Parry writes: "In this age of pervasive media, the primary method of social control is through the creation of narratives delivered to the public through newspapers, TV, radio, computers, cell phones and any other gadget that can convey information. This reality has given rise to an obsession among the power elite to control as much of this messaging as possible."
READ MORE
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Parry writes: "In this age of pervasive media, the primary method of social control is through the creation of narratives delivered to the public through newspapers, TV, radio, computers, cell phones and any other gadget that can convey information. This reality has given rise to an obsession among the power elite to control as much of this messaging as possible."
READ MORE
The Power of False Narrative
30 September 15
“Strategic communications” or Stratcom, a propaganda/psy-op technique that treats information as a “soft power” weapon to wield against adversaries, is a new catch phrase in an Official Washington obsessed with the clout that comes from spinning false narratives, reports Robert Parry.
n this age of pervasive media, the primary method of social control is through the creation of narratives delivered to the public through newspapers, TV, radio, computers, cell phones and any other gadget that can convey information. This reality has given rise to an obsession among the power elite to control as much of this messaging as possible.
So, regarding U.S. relations toward the world, we see the State Department, the White House, Pentagon, NATO and other agencies pushing various narratives to sell the American people and other populations on how they should view U.S. policies, rivals and allies. The current hot phrase for this practice is “strategic communications” or Stratcom, which blends psychological operations, propaganda and P.R. into one mind-bending smoothie.
I have been following this process since the early 1980s when the Reagan administration sought to override “the Vietnam Syndrome,” a public aversion to foreign military interventions that followed the Vietnam War. To get Americans to “kick” this syndrome, Reagan’s team developed “themes” about overseas events that would push American “hot buttons.”
Tapping into the Central Intelligence Agency’s experience in psy-ops targeted at foreign audiences, President Ronald Reagan and CIA Director William J. Casey assembled a skilled team inside the White House led by CIA propaganda specialist Walter Raymond Jr.
From his new perch on the National Security Council staff, Raymond oversaw inter-agency task forces to sell interventionist policies in Central America and other trouble spots. The game, as Raymond explained it in numerous memos to his underlings, was to glue black hats on adversaries and white hats on allies, whatever the truth really was.
The fact that many of the U.S.-backed forces – from the Nicaraguan Contras to the Guatemalan military – were little more than corrupt death squads couldn’t be true, at least according to psy-ops doctrine. They had to be presented to the American public as wearing white hats. Thus, the Contras became the“moral equals of our Founding Fathers” and Guatemala’s murderous leader Efrain Rios Montt was getting a “bum rap” on human rights, according to the words scripted for President Reagan.
The scheme also required that anyone – say, a journalist, a human rights activist or a congressional investigator – who contradicted this white-hat mandate must be discredited, marginalized or destroyed, a routine of killing any honest messenger.
But it turned out that the most effective part of this propaganda strategy was to glue black hats on adversaries. Since nearly all foreign leaders have serious flaws, it proved much easier to demonize them – and work the American people into war frenzies – than it was to persuade the public that Washington’s favored foreign leaders were actually paragons of virtue.
An Unflattering Hat
Once the black hat was jammed on a foreign leader’s head, you could say whatever you wanted about him and disparage any American who questioned the extreme depiction as a “fill-in-the-blank apologist” or a “stooge” or some other ugly identifier that would either silence the dissenter or place him or her outside the bounds of acceptable debate.
Given the careerist conformity of Washington, nearly everyone fell into line, including news outlets and human rights groups. If you wanted to retain your “respectability” and “influence,” you agreed with the conventional wisdom. So, with every foreign controversy, we got a new “group think” about the new “enemy.” The permissible boundary of each debate was set mostly by the neoconservatives and their “liberal interventionist” sidekicks.
That this conformity has not served American national interests is obvious. Take, for example, the disastrous Iraq War, which has cost the U.S. taxpayers an estimated $1 trillion, led to the deaths of some 4,500 American soldiers, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and unleashed chaos across the strategic Middle East and now into Europe.
Most Americans now agree that the Iraq War “wasn’t worth it.” But it turns out that Official Washington’s catastrophic “group thinks” don’t just die well-deserved deaths. Like a mutating virus, they alter shape as the outside conditions change and survive in a new form.
So, when the public caught on to the Iraq War deceptions, the neocon/liberal-hawk pundits just came up with a new theme to justify their catastrophic Iraq strategy, i.e., “the successful surge,” the dispatch of 30,000 more U.S. troops to the war zone. This theme was as bogus as the WMD lies but the upbeat storyline was embraced as the new “group think” in 2007-2008.
The “successful surge” was a myth, in part, because many of its alleged “accomplishments” actually predated the “surge.” The program to pay off Sunnis to stop shooting at Americans and the killing of “Al Qaeda in Iraq” leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi both occurred in 2006, before the surge even began. And its principal goal of resolving sectarian grievances between Sunni and Shiite was never accomplished.
But Official Washington wrapped the “surge” in the bloody flag of “honoring the troops,” who were credited with eventually reducing the level of Iraqi violence by carrying out the “heroic” surge strategy as ordered by President Bush and devised by the neocons. Anyone who noted the holes in this story was dismissed as disrespecting “the troops.”
The cruel irony was that the neocon pundits, who had promoted the Iraq War and then covered their failure by hailing the “surge,” had little or no regard for “the troops” who mostly came from lower socio-economic classes and were largely abstractions to the well-dressed, well-schooled and well-paid talking heads who populate the think tanks and op-ed pages.
Safely ensconced behind the “successful surge” myth, the Iraq War devotees largely escaped any accountability for the chaos and bloodshed they helped cause. Thus, the same “smart people” were in place for the Obama presidency and just as ready to buy into new interventionist “group thinks” – gluing black hats on old and new adversaries, such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and, most significantly, Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Causing Chaos
In 2011, led this time by the liberal interventionists – the likes of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and White House aide Samantha Power – the U.S. military and some NATO allies took aim at Libya, scoffing at Gaddafi’s claim that his country was threatened by Islamic terrorists. It was not until Gaddafi’s military was destroyed by Western airstrikes (and he was tortured and murdered) that it became clear that he wasn’t entirely wrong about the Islamic extremists.
The jihadists seized large swaths of Libyan territory, killed the U.S. ambassador and three other diplomatic personnel in Benghazi, and forced the closing of U.S. and other Western embassies in Tripoli. For good measure, Islamic State terrorists forced captured Coptic Christians to kneel on a Libyan beach before beheading them.
Amid this state of anarchy, Libya has been the source of hundreds of thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe by boat. Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean. But, again, the leading U.S. interventionists faced no accountability. Clinton is the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Power is now U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Also, in 2011, a similar uprising occurred in Syria against the secular regime headed by President Assad, with nearly identical one-sided reporting about the “white-hatted” opposition and the “black-hatted” government. Though many protesters indeed appear to have been well-meaning opponents of Assad, Sunni terrorists penetrated the opposition from the beginning.
This gray reality was almost completely ignored in the Western press, which almost universally denounced the government when it retaliated against opposition forces for killing police and soldiers. The West depicted the government response as unprovoked attacks on “peaceful protesters.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Hidden Origins of Syria’s Civil War.”]
This one-sided narrative nearly brought the U.S. military to the point of another intervention after Aug. 21, 2013, when a mysterious sarin gas attack killed hundreds in a suburb of Damascus. Official Washington’s neocons and the pro-interventionists in the State Department immediately blamed Assad’s forces for the atrocity and demanded a bombing campaign.
But some U.S. intelligence analysts suspected a “false-flag” provocation by Islamic terrorists seeking to get the U.S. air force to destroy Assad’s army for them. At the last minute, President Obama steered away from that cliff and – with the help of President Putin – got Assad to surrender Syria’s chemical arsenal, while Assad continued to deny a role in the sarin attack. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case.”]
Upset over Iran
Putin also assisted Obama on another front with another demonized “enemy,” Iran. In late 2013, the two leaders collaborated in getting Iran to make significant concessions on its nuclear program, clearing the way for negotiations that eventually led to stringent international controls.
These two diplomatic initiatives alarmed the neocons and their right-wing Israeli friends. Since the mid-1990s, the neocons had worked closely with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in plotting a “regime change” strategy for countries that were viewed as troublesome to Israel, with Iraq, Syria and Iran topping the list.
Putin’s interference with that agenda – by preventing U.S. bombing campaigns against Syria and Iran – was viewed as a threat to this longstanding Israeli/neocon strategy. There was also fear that the Obama-Putin teamwork could lead to renewed pressure on Israel to recognize a Palestinian state. So, that relationship had to be blown up.
The detonation occurred in early 2014 when a neocon-orchestrated coup overthrew elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and replaced him with a fiercely anti-Russian regime which included neo-Nazi and other ultra-nationalist elements as well as free-market extremists.
Ukraine had been on the neocon radar at least since September 2013, just after Putin undercut plans for bombing Syria. Neocon Carl Gershman, president of the U.S.-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, wrote a Washington Post op-ed deeming Ukraine “the biggest prize” and a key steppingstone toward another regime change in Moscow, removing the troublesome Putin.
Gershman’s op-ed was followed by prominent neocons, such as Sen. John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, urging on violent protests that involved firebombing the police. But the State Department and the mainstream media glued white hats on the Maidan protesters and black hats on the police and the government.
Then, on Feb. 20, 2014, a mysterious sniper attack killed both police and demonstrators, leading to more clashes and the deaths of scores of people. The U.S. government and press corps blamed Yanukovych and – despite his signing an agreement for early elections on Feb. 21 – the Maidan “self-defense forces,” spearheaded by neo-Nazi goons, overran government buildings on Feb. 22 and installed a coup regime, quickly recognized by the State Department as “legitimate.”
Though the fault for the Feb. 20 sniper attack was never resolved – the new Ukrainian regime showed little interest in getting to the bottom of it – other independent investigations pointed toward a provocation by right-wing gunmen who targeted police and protesters with the goal of deepening the crisis and blaming Yanukovych, which is exactly what happened.
These field reports, including one from the BBC, indicated that the snipers likely were associated with the Maidan uprising, not the Yanukovych government. [Another worthwhile documentary on this mystery is “Maidan Massacre.”]
One-Sided Reporting
Yet, during the Ukrainian coup, The New York Times and most other mainstream media outlets played a role similar to what they had done prior to the Iraq War when they hyped false and misleading stories about WMD. By 2014, the U.S. press corps no longer seemed to even pause before undertaking its expected propaganda role.
So, after Yanukovych’s ouster, when ethnic Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine rose up against the new anti-Russian order in Kiev, the only acceptable frame for the U.S. media was to blame the resistance on Putin. It must be “Russian aggression” or a “Russian invasion.”
When a referendum in Crimea overwhelmingly favored secession from Ukraine and rejoining Russia, the U.S. media denounced the 96 percent vote as a “sham” imposed by Russian guns. Similarly, resistance in eastern Ukraine could not have reflected popular sentiment unless it came from mass delusions induced by “Russian propaganda.”
Meanwhile, evidence of a U.S.-backed coup, such as the intercepted phone call of a pre-coup discussion between Assistant Secretary Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt on how “to midwife this thing” and who to install in the new government (“Yats is the guy”), disappeared into the memory hole, not helpful for the desired narrative. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine.”]
When Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, the blame machine immediately roared into gear again, accusing Putin and the ethnic Russian rebels. But some U.S. intelligence analysts reportedly saw the evidence going in a different direction, implicating a rogue element of the Ukrainian regime.
Again, the mainstream media showed little skepticism toward the official story blaming Putin, even though the U.S. government and other Western nations refused to make public any hard evidence supporting the Putin-did-it case, even now more than a year later. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “MH-17 Mystery: A New Tonkin Gulf Case.”]
The pattern that we have seen over and over is that once a propaganda point is scored against one of the neocon/liberal-hawk “enemies,” the failure to actually prove the allegation is not seen as suspicious, at least not inside the mainstream media, which usually just repeats the old narrative again and again, whether its casting blame on Putin for MH-17, or on Yanukovych for the sniper attack, or on Assad for the sarin gas attack.
Instead of skepticism, it’s always the same sort of “group think,” with nothing learned from the disaster of the Iraq War because there was virtually no accountability for those responsible.
Obama’s Repression
Yet, while the U.S. press corps deserves a great deal of blame for this failure to investigate important controversies independently, President Obama and his administration have been the driving force in this manipulation of public opinion over the past six-plus years. Instead of the transparent government that Obama promised, he has run one of the most opaque, if not the most secretive, administrations in American history.
Besides refusing to release the U.S. government’s evidence on pivotal events in these international crises, Obama has prosecuted more national security whistleblowers than all past presidents combined.
That repression, including a 35-year prison term for Pvt. Bradley/Chelsea Manning and the forced exile of indicted National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, has intimidated current intelligence analysts who know about the manipulation of public opinion but don’t dare tell the truth to reporters for fear of imprisonment.
Most of the “leaked” information that you still see in the mainstream media is what’s approved by Obama or his top aides to serve their interests. In other words, the “leaks” are part of the propaganda, made to seem more trustworthy because they’re coming from an unidentified “source” rather than a named government spokesman.
At this late stage in Obama’s presidency, his administration seems drunk on the power of “perception management” with the new hot phrase, “strategic communications” which boils psychological operations, propaganda and P.R. into one intoxicating brew.
From NATO’s Gen. Philip Breedlove to the State Department’s Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Richard Stengel, the manipulation of information is viewed as a potent “soft power” weapon. It’s a way to isolate and damage an “enemy,” especially Russia and Putin.
This demonization of Putin makes cooperation between him and Obama difficult, such as Russia’s recent military buildup in Syria as part of a commitment to prevent a victory by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Though one might think that Russian help in fighting terrorism would be welcomed, Nuland’s State Department office responded with a bizarre and futile attempt to build an aerial blockade of Russian aid flying to Syria across eastern Europe.
Nuland and other neocons apparently would prefer having the black flag of Sunni terrorism flying over Damascus than to work with Putin to block such a catastrophe. The hysteria over Russia’s assistance in Syria is a textbook example of how people can begin believing their own propaganda and letting it dictate misguided actions.
On Thursday, Obama’s White House sank to a new low by having Press Secretary Josh Earnest depict Putin as “desperate” to land a meeting with Obama. Earnest then demeaned Putin’s appearance during an earlier sit-down session with Netanyahu in Moscow. “President Putin was striking a now-familiar pose of less-than-perfect posture and unbuttoned jacket and, you know, knees spread far apart to convey a particular image,’ Earnest said.
But the meeting photos actually showed both men with their suit coats open and both sitting with their legs apart at least for part of the time. Responding to Earnest’s insults, the Russians denied that Putin was “desperate” for a meeting with Obama and added that the Obama administration had proposed the meeting to coincide with Putin’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday.
“We do not refuse contacts that are proposed,” said Yuri Ushakov, a top foreign policy adviser to Putin. “We support maintaining constant dialogue at the highest level.” The Kremlin also included no insults about Obama’s appearance in the statement.
However, inside Official Washington, there appears to be little thought that the endless spinning, lying and ridiculing might dangerously corrode American democracy and erode any remaining trust the world’s public has in the word of the U.S. government. Instead, there seems to be great confidence that skilled propagandists can discredit anyone who dares note that the naked empire has wrapped itself in the sheerest of see-through deceptions.
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.
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