Robert Parry: The State Department's Ukraine Fiasco

[eridani]

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/24/the-state-departments-ukraine-fiasco/

Besides ripping Ukraine apart – and getting scores of Ukrainians killed – the U.S.-supported coup in February has injected more uncertainty into Europe’s economy by raising doubts about the continued supply of Russian natural gas. Such turbulence is the last thing that Europe’s fragile “recovery” needs as mass unemployment now propels the rise of right-wing parties and threatens the future of the European Union.

Any new business downturn in Europe also would inflict harm on the U.S. economy, which itself is still clawing its way out of a long recession and needs a healthy Europe as an important trading partner. But the crisis in Ukraine, spurred on by Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and other anti-Russian hardliners, is now complicating the U.S. recovery, too.

The two longtime adversaries, who faced off as communist rivals during the Cold War, have joined together recently as a bloc on the United Nations Security Council to block Western initiatives on Syria, for instance. That means that instead of isolating Russia at the UN, the State Department’s hawkish approach to Ukraine has had the opposite effect. Russia now has a new and powerful ally.

<snip>

The key Ukraine question now is: Can Putin and Obama overcome Official Washington’s chest-thumping hysteria and deescalate the violence — along with the rhetoric — for the good of all rational parties in the dispute?

I’m told that Putin, though stung by Obama initially joining the anti-Russian stampede, has begun working again with Obama with the goal of a possible summit meeting in Normandy on June 6 during the ceremonies honoring the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Yet, even if the pieces of a shattered Ukraine can be glued back together, one still has to wonder why the U.S. State Department and other parts of Official Washington undertook this provocative project in the first place: contributing to the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government, violently destabilizing the country, heightening tensions with Russia, stirring up new threats to the EU and U.S. economies, and pushing Russia and China back together.

It may be understandable at some level that the still-powerful neocons saw the Ukraine wedge as a useful tool in splintering the Putin-Obama cooperation that had eased tensions over Syria and Iran – two of the neocons’ top targets for “regime change” – but it remains a mystery how anyone could think that the Ukraine adventure has served U.S. national interests.

[woo me with science]

1. K&R

[malaise]

2. K & R

The neo-cons should have been stopped ages ago.

[reddread]

3. yup n/t

[Octafish]

4. Russia and China united agin' us? Who knew?

[MisterP]

9. and another

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. I'm in total disbelief that Parry was once considered a respectable investigative journalist.

Because his narrative of events is so easy to debunk that I simply cannot take him seriously.

First in his continued characterization of the events in February 2014 as a "coup" or a "putsch". The man clearly hasn't seen the inside of a dictionary since his glory days in the 1980s. All he does in this piece--as in past pieces--is repeat the same allegations over in over again, the first clear rule of propaganda. Ergo:

1. Nuland hands out cookies
2. $5 billion
3. John McCain visits Ukraine
4. Nuland's telephone call
5. ???????????
6. Coup!

Of course, none of what he writes actually shows there was an actual coup in Ukraine, but it doesn't stop him from repeatedly calling it that over and over and over again.

Then, he insists there was no Russian military invasion of Crimea in the lead up to Russia's annexation of that territory, writing:

"Almost never does the U.S. press note that the Russian troops were already in Crimea under an arrangement with Ukraine allowing Russians to maintain their historic naval base at Sevastapol. The vote also clearly reflected the popular will of the Crimean people given their historic ties to Russia and the chaos in Ukraine."

Never mind that men on those bases were to be contained to a very small part of the Crimean peninsula, yet the armed green men--which Putin later admitted after the fact to be Russian military--were all over the entirety of Crimea, thus indeed constituting an invasion.

And the notion that supposed 96% was a fair and accurate reflection of public sentiment in Crimea is just as laughable a falsehood.

Oh, and he uses "neo-Nazi" 10 different times in the piece, all about a country where the two notorious far-right, ultranationalist and supposedly "neo-Nazi" political parties garnered a grand total of less than 2% in this weekend's presidential elections. Which--unlike the supposed vote reflecting the "popular will of the Crimean people--was actually monitored and closely scrutinized by outside observers.

I'd be very surprised if Robert Parry didn't have an Order of the Fatherland award on his mantle:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/05/vladimir-putin-pro-kremlin-journalists-medals-objective-crimea

"The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, secretly gave prestigious awards to pro-Kremlin journalists for their "objective coverage" of the events leading up to the March annexation of Crimea, it has emerged.

Putin awarded medals of the "Order of Service to the Fatherland" to 300 journalists including several editors, directors and television hosts known for their Kremlin-friendly coverage in an executive order signed on 22 April that was not made public. After the well respected newspaper Vedomosti first published details of the awards on Monday, presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the order had been signed but declined to provide details."

Hack. A serious hack. But to his credit, he plays to the tinfoil crowd quite well.

[eridani]

8. If deposing an elected leader isn't a coup, what is?

Now they have another corrupt oligarch. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

And please let us know when Crimea ever voted to become part of the Ukraine in the first place.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

14. You might want to check up on the definition of "coup"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coup%20d%27%C3%A9tat

coup d'état
noun \ˌkü-(ˌ dā-ˈtä, ˈkü-(ˌ dā-ˌ, -də-\

: a sudden attempt by a small group of people to take over the government usually through violence


Who was the "small group of people"? Where was the violence that forced Yanukovych to leave against his will?

Yanukovych took three days to pack up various valuable possessions such as oil paintings and flew away on his own accord in his own helicopters. There's clear video evidence to that fact. There is nothing to indicate that he was kidnapped or forced to leave against his will. Nothing.

There was no coup. Regime change, yes, but no coup.

Regarding Crimea, before the heavily controverted vote this year, Crimea never voted to become part of anyone. It was conquered by the Russians in the late 18th Century and heavily Russified, and most of its native population was deported by Stalin in World War II. While under Soviet rule, it was shuffled around from the Russian SSR to Ukrainian SSR, which was pretty much meaningless given that it was all under tight Soviet control.

[eridani]

15. Violence? Svoboda?

And another corrupt oligarch just got elected.

[eridani]

16. NYT's One-Sided Ukraine Narrative

http://www.nationofchange.org/us-empire-decline-1401205010

Though most protesters appeared motivated by a desire for better governance and a hope that an association with Europe would improve their economic prospects, a significant percentage of the crowd on the Maidan came from neo-Nazi and other far-right movements that despised Yanukovych and his ethnic Russian political base for their own reasons, dating back to Ukraine’s split in World War II between pro-Nazi and pro-Soviet forces.

The increasingly disruptive protests on the Maidan were also egged on by U.S. officials and pushed by U.S.-funded non-governmental organizations, some subsidized by the National Endowment for Democracy, whose neocon president Carl Gershman last September had termed Ukraine “the biggest prize” and a key step in undermining Putin inside Russia.

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, a neocon who had been an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, personally urged on the demonstrators, even passing out cookies at the Maidan. In one speech, she told Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”

Nuland also was caught in an intercepted phone conversation with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt explaining whom she wanted to see running the government once Yanukovych was gone. Her choice was Arseniy Yatsenyuk or “Yats.”

Sen. John McCain, another prominent neocon, rallied the Maidan protesters while standing near a Svoboda party banner honoring Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose radical paramilitary force had helped the Nazis expel and exterminate tens of thousands of Poles and Jews during World War II.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

21. Yanukovych was not kidnapped, killed, arrested, or forcibly removed. He left on his own accord.

There is video to this effect. It shows Yanukovych's possessions (including a vast array of being carefully packed up by literally the truckloads, and he and his entourage climbing into his own fleet of helicopters around the early morning of February 22nd. He had actually started packing two days before. Not a single piece of evidence showing that he was forced out against his own will. And honestly--if someone is supposedly fleeing for their life or is violently ousted, why would he take so much time and care to pack up friviolious possessions?

(The first video is rather long, but Yanukovych himself is seen at 13:45 in the video)

Do you now understand that the situation does not fit into the definition of a "coup"? And that people who use such a term--especially allegedly respected journalists like Parry--are doing so extremely recklessly by painting a picture of something that was not actually the case?

Svoboda is a red herring. It was a minority party during Maidan, a minority party in the interim government, and--based on the recent electoral showing--still quite the minority party now. Whatever presence it had in the Maidan protests does not change the fact that the change in regime does not qualify as a coup.

As for Poroshenko, we don't know how he will govern. Time will tell. By all accounts from the international community, his election was fair and democratic. I'm thinking that if all he does is not shoot protesters, he's an improvement over Yanukovych, no matter how slight. But again, time will tell.

[eridani]

83. And none of this had anything to do with the Svoboda stormtroopers, right? n/t

[Tommy_Carcetti]

84. The "Svoboda stormtroopers", whoever they were, did not force Yankovych to leave.

What you see on the video is someone who is not acting in fear for his life and is not acting under any direct threat of violence.

Do you honestly believe someone who takes three days to pack up his most valuable possessions is a victim of "Svoboda stormtroopers"?

Yanukovych had enough of the protests, he had the money to flee and still live comfortably, and so he fled. Once he fled, the police no longer felt obligated to follow his orders and so they disbursed. Following that, the Rada voted to remove Yankovych from power, in part because he had essentially abdicated his duties. It's really as simple as that.

[pampango]

86. Yanukovich still had complete control of his military and security forces, including the Berkut and

police forces. If he did not consider that enough protection to feel safe in office, he was not cut out to be a president. Every country has violent right wingers and anarchists that join largely peaceful demonstrations to stir up trouble.

The protests continued despite heavy police presence, regularly sub-freezing temperatures, and snow. Escalating violence from government forces in the early morning of 30 November caused the level of protests to rise, with 400,000–800,000 protesters demonstrating in Kiev on the weekends of 1 December and 8 December. In the weeks since, protest attendance has fluctuated from 50,000 to 200,000 during organised rallies. Violent riots took place 1 December and 19 January through 25 in response to police brutality and government repression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan

There are currently over 110 identified victims. Almost all of them were conflict participants. In addition, 16 security forces were also killed while on duty during the conflict.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_during_Euromaidan

Yanukovich abdicated after 16 security forces had been killed (as well as over 110 protesters). If the current Kiev president has no more courage than Yanukovich he will be abdicating soon. Their security forces have already had more than twice that number killed.

Something tells me it was not merely a case of Yanukovich being cowardly. If you look at who has gained by his decision to flee Kiev after ordering security forces not to protect government buildings so that they would be taken over by "fascist forces", it is apparent that the subsequent 'chaos' was designed to create the justification for what later happened in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

If he had lived up to the agreement that he signed with the protesters, he would still be in power running the government until elections in December. And Crimea would still be part of Ukraine. Funny how things worked out.

[geek tragedy]

29. So, in your opinion, all popular revolutions are coups?

The overthrow of Ceauceasceau was a coup? Ben Ali was deposed in a coup?

Come on.

The 'coup' language is Russian propaganda.

[Octafish]

10. Yeah. He only broke Iran-Contra.

And the Iran-Contra drug smuggling -- before Hasenfus' plane went down.

Then, there's his book, series of stories and Frontline special on the October Surprise -- all corroborated by eyewitness testimony from Jimmy Carter, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Yasser Arafat, Gary Sick, William Casey, Cyrus Hashemi, Lawrence Silberman, many other direct participants, as well as by declassified and leaked documents since.

There are many, many stories he's broken and covered. What's more, his analyses have been spot-on regarding Selection 2000 to news in the present day.

Too bad what he's revealed about the current administration doesn't jive with the official line. Because he doesn't pull his punches or show favorites, he's doing something more important for democracy. He's living up to his job as a member of the press. Unlike the toadies who go along to get along, Parry has what they will never know, Integrity.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. And Cuba Gooding Jr. once won an Oscar.

And yet now, he's doing "Boat Trip" and mostly straight to DVD work.

Parry's "reporting" (if you can call it that) on the Ukrainian crisis for his own outfit has been truly atrocious. He's essentially parroted the Russian state media line. Take for example his write-up of the violent Odessa riots. Instead of providing a full, comprehensive narrative that showed the riots for what they actually were--an escalating series of mob violence from both sides--he instead chose to totally eliminate all the facts leading up to the fire at the Trade Union building and frame it as a one-sided massacre of "anti-fascists" by "neo-Nazis". What sort of investigative journalist worth his salt purposefully omits key facts to a story like that?

He's a hack. He might have been good long ago, but now he's nothing but a hack.

[Octafish]

17. Saying he's a hack is slander. Putting it in print is libel.

Why you'd write that is your business, Tommy_Carcetti, but it isn't true.

NYT’s One-Sided Ukraine Narrative

Exclusive: The U.S. press coverage of the Ukraine crisis has been stunningly biased and one-sided, placing virtually all the blame on Russian President Putin. One of the worst offenders in this journalistic travesty has been the New York Times, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews, May 26, 2014

As part of the New York Times’ sorry descent into becoming a propaganda sheet for the U.S. State Department, the Times’ front-page story on the Ukrainian presidential election offered a near perfect distillation of Official Washington’s false narrative on the crisis.

“The special election was called by Parliament to replace Viktor F. Yanukovych, who fled Kiev on Feb. 21 after a failed but bloody attempt to suppress a civic uprising, and whose toppling as president set off Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea,” wrote David M. Herszenhorn, one of the most consistently biased reporters on Ukraine.

Very little about the Times’ summary is either accurate or balanced. It is at best a one-sided account of the tumultuous events over the past several months in Ukraine and leaves out context that would enable a Times’ reader to get a more accurate understanding of the crisis.

Indeed, that false narrative, which has now become engrained as American conventional wisdom, has itself become a threat to U.S. interests because, if you believe the preferred storyline, you would tend to support aggressive counter-measures that could have dangerous and counter-productive consequences.

Beyond that, there is the broader risk to U.S. democracy when major news organizations routinely engage in this sort of propaganda. Just in recent years, the U.S. government has launched wars under such fake pretenses, inflicting casualties in faraway lands, engendering profound hatred of the United States, depleting the U.S. Treasury, and maiming and killing American soldiers.

That is why it’s important for journalists and news outlets to do all they can to get these kinds of stories right and not just pander to the powers-that-be.

Ukraine’s Real Narrative

Regarding Ukraine, the real narrative is much more complex and nuanced than the New York Times described. The origins of the immediate crisis date back to last year when the European Union rashly offered an association agreement to Ukraine, a proposal that elected President Yanukovych considered.

However, when the International Monetary Fund insisted on a harsh austerity plan that would have made the hard lives of the Ukrainian people even harder – and when Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a more generous aid package of $15 billion – Yanukovych turned away from the EU-IMF deal.

That provoked demonstrations in Kiev from Ukrainians, many from the west, who favored closer ties to Europe and who were tired of the endemic corruption that has plagued Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and since the “shock therapy” capitalism that saw a handful of oligarchs plunder the nation’s wealth and resources.

Though most protesters appeared motivated by a desire for better governance and a hope that an association with Europe would improve their economic prospects, a significant percentage of the crowd on the Maidan came from neo-Nazi and other far-right movements that despised Yanukovych and his ethnic Russian political base for their own reasons, dating back to Ukraine’s split in World War II between pro-Nazi and pro-Soviet forces.

The increasingly disruptive protests on the Maidan were also egged on by U.S. officials and pushed by U.S.-funded non-governmental organizations, some subsidized by the National Endowment for Democracy, whose neocon president Carl Gershman last September had termed Ukraine “the biggest prize” and a key step in undermining Putin inside Russia.

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, a neocon who had been an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, personally urged on the demonstrators, even passing out cookies at the Maidan. In one speech, she told Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”

Nuland also was caught in an intercepted phone conversation with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt explaining whom she wanted to see running the government once Yanukovych was gone. Her choice was Arseniy Yatsenyuk or “Yats.”

Sen. John McCain, another prominent neocon, rallied the Maidan protesters while standing near a Svoboda party banner honoring Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose radical paramilitary force had helped the Nazis expel and exterminate tens of thousands of Poles and Jews during World War II.

The Putsch

Contrary to Herszenhorn’s boilerplate paragraph, the violence was not entirely from the embattled government. Neo-Nazi militias, which had secured weapons and organized themselves into 100-man brigades, launched repeated attacks on the police, including burning some policemen with firebombs.

On Feb. 20, as the violence worsened, mysterious snipers opened fire on both demonstrators and police, killing some 20 people and escalating the confrontation dangerously. Though the Western press jumped to the conclusion that Yanukovych was to blame, he denied ordering the shootings and EU officials later came to suspect that the attacks were done by the opposition as a provocation.

“So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition,” Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, as reported by the UK Guardian.

On Feb. 21, Yanukovych sought to tamp down the violence by signing an agreement with representatives of Germany, France and Poland in which he accepted early elections (so he could be voted out of office) and agreed to reduced presidential powers. He also pulled back the police.

However, when the police were withdrawn, the neo-Nazi militias completed their putsch on Feb. 22, seizing control of government buildings and forcing Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives. In effect, the storm troopers controlled the Ukrainian government.

I was told by an international diplomat who was on the ground in Kiev that the Western countries felt there was no choice but to immediately work with the shaken Parliament to put together an interim government, otherwise the “thugs” would remain in charge.

So, Yanukovych was hastily impeached through an illegal process that circumvented the Ukrainian constitution, and the Parliament picked a new government which ceded four ministries, including national security, to the neo-Nazis in recognition of their crucial role in the coup.

To head up this interim government, Yatsenyuk was named prime minister and one of his first orders of business was to enact the IMF austerity plan that Yanukovych had rejected. The intimidated Parliament also approved a ban on Russian as an official language, although that scheme was later dropped.

In other words, the Times misleads its readers when it summarizes the events by simply saying Yanukovych “fled Kiev on Feb. 21 after a failed but bloody attempt to suppress a civic uprising.”

The Aftermath

After the coup, ethnic Russians in the east and south were outraged that their elected president had been removed violently and illegally. In the southern peninsula of Crimea, the local parliament voted to arrange a referendum on secession in order to rejoin Russia, which had controlled Crimea dating back to the 1700s.

Russia did not “invade” Crimea since Moscow already had some 16,000 troops stationed in Crimea under an agreement with Ukraine for Russia to retain its historic naval base at Sevastopol. Russian troops did back up the local Crimean authorities as they planned their referendum which showed overwhelming public support for secession.

It became another U.S. conventional wisdom that the referendum was “rigged” because the turnout was high and the vote in favor of secession was 96 percent. But exit polls showed a similarly overwhelming majority of around 93 percent – and no serious person doubts that most Crimeans favored escaping from the failed Ukrainian state.

Russia then agreed to accept Crimea back into its federation. So, while the Crimean referendum was surely hastily organized, it reflected the popular will and was central to the Russian decision to reclaim the historical peninsula.

Yet, the Times summarized those events as “Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea,” creating the image of Russian troops swarming across the border and seizing the territory against the will of the people.

If Herszenhorn’s paragraph were the first time that he or the newspaper had offered such a misleading account on Ukraine or other international hotspots, one might excuse it as just a rushed and careless synopsis. But the summary is only the latest example of the Times’ deeply biased pattern, marching in lockstep with the State Department’s propaganda themes for years.

The Times’ failures in the run-up to the disastrous Iraq War were infamous, particularly the “aluminum tube” story by Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller. The Times showed similar bias on the Syrian conflict, including last year’s debunked Times’ “vector analysis” tracing a Sarin-laden rocket back to a Syrian military base when the rocket had less than one-third the necessary range.

But the Times’ prejudice over the Ukraine crisis has been even more extreme. Virtually everything that the Times writes about Ukraine is so polluted with propaganda that it requires a very strong filter, along with additives from more independent news sources, to get anything approaching an accurate understanding of events.

Since the early days of the coup, the Times has behaved as essentially a propaganda organ for the new regime in Kiev and the State Department, blaming Russia and Putin for the crisis. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Will Ukraine Be NYT’s Waterloo?”]

Embarrassing Gaffes

In the Times’ haste to perform this function, there have been some notable journalistic gaffes such as the Times’ front-page story touting photographs that supposedly showed Russian special forces in Russia and then the same soldiers in eastern Ukraine, allegedly proving that the east’s popular resistance to the coup regime in Kiev was simply clumsily disguised Russian aggression.

Any serious journalist would have recognized the holes in the story – since it wasn’t clear where the photos were taken or whether the blurry images were even the same people – but that didn’t bother the Times, which led with the scoop.

However, only two days later, the scoop blew up when it turned out that a key photo — supposedly showing a group of soldiers in Russia who later appeared in eastern Ukraine — was actually taken in Ukraine, destroying the premise of the entire story.

Herszenhorn himself has been one of the most biased Times’ reporters. (See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine, Though the US ‘Looking Glass.’”)

Now, since Ukrainian voters – with the exception of those in the rebellious eastern provinces – have selected a new president, billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko, the question is whether the twisted and distorted U.S. narrative will stop President Barack Obama from taking pragmatic steps to defuse the crisis.

Poroshenko, who has done past business in Russia and knows Putin personally, appears ready to deescalate the crisis with Ukraine’s neighbor. After Sunday’s election, Poroshenko vowed to repair relations with Russia and Putin, who himself has made conciliatory comments about respecting the election results.

“Most probably the meeting with the Russian leadership will certainly take place in the first half of July,” said Poroshenko,. “We should be very ready tactically in approach to this meeting, because first we should create an agenda, we should prepare documents, so that it will not be just to shake hands.”

Poroshenko also has voiced a willingness to accept greater federalism that would grant a degree of self-rule to the provinces in eastern Ukraine. And, there are tentative plans for Obama and Putin to meet on June 6 in Normandy around ceremonies honoring the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Despite these few positive developments, the violence in eastern Ukraine continues to escalate with scores of ethnic Russian separatist rebels and pro-Kiev troops killed in clashes around the Donetsk airport on Monday.

Still, the major remaining obstacle to some reconciliation of the Ukraine crisis may be the deeply biased reporting at the Times and other mainstream American news outlets, which continue to insist that the story has only one side.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.


SOURCE: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/26/nyts-one-sided-ukraine-narrative/

Reprinted in full with the permission of the author.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

19. My position that he's a "hack" is my own statement of opinion based on facts I've gathered.

That's not libel or slander in any legal sense of the word.

Now, if I were to call him a "drug abusing child murderer", that would be libel or slander. I'm not calling him that.

I simply see him as an opportunist--he's managed to repeat unsubstantiated talking points from Russian state media and direct them towards conspiracy-minded westerners hungry for any salacious theory of western malfeasance, no matter how divorced from the facts they may be.

But let the libel lawsuits commence, I suppose.

There was no coup, and it is grossly reckless for Parry to claim that there was.

[Octafish]

20. Who's being reckless?

Parry reported what he found and explained what he thought.

You make a point of putting down Parry, evidently because he makes clear the hypocrisy of the current administration.

I'll go with Parry over you. He's got a record of telling the truth that goes back to Watergate.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

23. Parry "found" jack shit. I doubt he's been in Ukraine over the past year, if at all.

He's simply regurgitating a hastily strung along narrative of the Russian state press that acts as if there was a grand western conspiracy to sponsor a "coup" in Ukraine. And yet there was no actual coup. None. A coup is a very specifically defined term wherein a small group conspires to overthrow the ruling leader by violence, threat of violence, or detention. That did not happen. Yanukovych left on his own terms and under his own power. He casually packed up various valuables from his mansion over the course of several days and flew away in his own fleet of helicopters. It's all on video for you to see, if you don't believe my word.

There are blatant out-and-out falsehoods in that Parry piece that you posted, including:

*Claims that EU officials had concluded that the snipers that shot and killed dozen of Maidan protesters were members of Maidan themselves creating a provocation. Never happened. Russia Today severely twisted the words of a single Estonian official who had zero firsthand knowledge of the situation.

* Yanukovych fled after "neo-Nazi" militia seized government buildings on February 22nd. Not true. Yanukovych fled on the night of February 21-22, before police pulled back and the impeachment vote was had. He had actually been packing for two days before that, meaning that even as it relates to the initial negotiated deal that would have kept him in power but would have called for early elections--he apparently had no desire to stay in Ukraine and honor that.

* Russia never invaded Crimea because it already had troops there. False and disgustingly unprofessional journalism on Parry's part. Pre-annexation and pursuant to treaty, Russia had been allowed to keep its Soviet era naval base in Sevastapol, and naturally, Russia was allowed to have troops *ON THAT BASE*. That does not account for the well-armed and equipped uniformed men who appeared throughout Crimea and *OFF THE BASE* following the events in Maidan--troops Putin initially denied were Russian, but after annexation was achieved, he unequivocally admitted were in fact Russian military. Incredible chutzpah for Parry to lie about that.

This has nothing to do with Watergate, or Iran Contra, or anything else. This has to do with Parry's "reporting" for his own web outfit Consortium News in 2014, "reporting" that is nothing more than regurgitating red herrings and innuendoes and passing them off as fact for gullible persons who still think Parry has an unstained pedigree.

Decades ago he might have been an investigative journalist. Today, he's nothing more than a keyboard commando with no inside knowledge or investigative skills, undistinguishable from millions of other keyboard commandos on the internet.

[Octafish]

27. Bullshit.

I'd say that you know it, but that I don't know.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

42. So if it's bullshit, do you have the evidence to bolster Parry's claims that I challenged?

I mean, since you say it's bullshit and all.

Please proceed, Governor.

[Octafish]

64. For starters, you attribute to Parry what RT wrote.

Which is what was known at the time. If you go from what Frontline reported last night, there's a propaganda war going on. From the footage that aired, I could see with my own eyes that there are murderers aplenty on both sides.

But, what really gets to me:

* Yanukovych fled after "neo-Nazi" militia seized government buildings on February 22nd. Not true. Yanukovych fled on the night of February 21-22, before police pulled back and the impeachment vote was had. He had actually been packing for two days before that, meaning that even as it relates to the initial negotiated deal that would have kept him in power but would have called for early elections--he apparently had no desire to stay in Ukraine and honor that.

If Parry wrote the guy left on Feb. 22 and you make it out like he was the night of Feb. 21/22, that is some catch you made.

Then there's:

* Russia never invaded Crimea because it already had troops there. False and disgustingly unprofessional journalism on Parry's part. Pre-annexation and pursuant to treaty, Russia had been allowed to keep its Soviet era naval base in Sevastapol, and naturally, Russia was allowed to have troops *ON THAT BASE*. That does not account for the well-armed and equipped uniformed men who appeared throughout Crimea and *OFF THE BASE* following the events in Maidan--troops Putin initially denied were Russian, but after annexation was achieved, he unequivocally admitted were in fact Russian military. Incredible chutzpah for Parry to lie about that.

Spin all you want, Russia owned Crimea. Most of the people in Crimea have Russian roots. Russia had troops defending its Naval base.

The United States has not done much to be proud of in the region. Boxing in Russia by converting its former fellow Soviet Republic states into allies, including Ukraine and its newly installed fascist regime, is not advancing the cause of world peace. It's moving the world toward war.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

71. Are you daft?

What Parry wrote in the article that you posted:

"However, when the police were withdrawn, the neo-Nazi militias completed their putsch on Feb. 22, seizing control of government buildings and forcing Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives."

First of all, the accuracy of all of those statements (for example, that there was in fact a "putsch" and the bit about "neo-Nazi militias&quot are seriously, seriously in doubt. But even if you assume all of that was true, the cause/effect just doesn't match up with the facts. Supposedly protesters seized government buildings on February 22nd, which caused Yanukovych to flee.

In reality, however, by the afternoon of February 21st, Yankoyvch was already two days into packing up his valuable possessions. And by that night, he was ready to fly off in his fleet of helicopters, before the vote of impeachment took place on February 22nd. Videos don't lie:

&feature=player_embedded

&feature=player_embedded

Then your claim that "Russia owned Crimea." No, actually it did not. The 1994 Budapest memorandum, to which Russia, Ukraine and the United States were all signatories, stated that Russia was to respect Ukrainian sovereignty within its existing borders--which included Crimea, like it or not. An exception was carved out to allow Russia to maintain its existing naval base in Sevastopol, but Crimea itself was Ukrainian territory (like it or not) and the Russians violated the agreements by moving their military beyond the naval base and into Crimea proper.

You simply cannot dodge those facts by claiming blatant falsehoods. You have to admit that Parry was being disingenuous when he claimed that the Russian presence on the naval base gave them authority to invade all of Crimea.

[Octafish]

72. No, I quoted what you wrote. And I stand by what I wrote.

From another one of my sources:

USSR ceded Crimea to SR Ukraine.

Now that Ukraine wants to go with Europe rather than Russia, Russia took it back.

Making it all legal like was the referendum.

A real brain explained:

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Ukraine and The New Russia

I recalled correctly from my Russian studies a half century ago that Soviet leaders had stuck Russian territories into Ukraine, but I mistakenly attributed all of the transfers to Khrushchev. (Paul Craig Roberts)

An Interview With Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” by Paul Klebnikov, in the May 9, 1994, issue of Forbes magazine

(Klebnikov) With Russia in chaos, it does sound a bit far-fetched to see her as an aggressor.

(Solzhenitsyn) Russia today is terribly sick. Her people are sick to the point of total exhaustion. But even so, have a conscience and don’t demand that–just to please America–Russia throw away the last vestiges of her concern for her security and her unprecedented collapse. After all, this concern in no way threatens the United States.

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski disagrees. He argues that the U.S. must defend the independence of Ukraine.

In 1919, when he imposed his regime on Ukraine, Lenin gave her several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings. These provinces have never historically belonged to Ukraine. I am talking about the eastern and southern territories of today’s Ukraine.

Then, in 1954, Khrushchev, with the arbitrary capriciousness of a satrap, made a “gift” of the Crimea to Ukraine. But even he did not manage to make Ukraine a “gift” of Sevastopol, which remained a separate city under the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. central government. This was accomplished by the American State Department, first verbally through Ambassador Popadiuk in Kiev and later in a more official manner.

Why does the State Department decide who should get Sevastopol? If one recalls the tactless declaration of President Bush about supporting Ukrainian sovereignty even before the referendum on that matter, one must conclude that all this stems from a common aim: to use all means possible, no matter what the consequences, to weaken Russia.

Why does independence for Ukraine weaken Russia?

As a result of the sudden and crude fragmentation of the intermingled Slavic peoples, the borders have torn apart millions of ties of family and friendship. Is this acceptable? The recent elections in Ukraine, for instance, clearly show the [Russian] sympathies of the Crimean and Donets populations. And a democracy must respect this.

I myself am nearly half Ukrainian. I grew up with the sounds of Ukrainian speech. I love her culture and genuinely wish all kinds of success for Ukraine–but only within her real ethnic boundaries, without grabbing Russian provinces.

SOURCE: http://www.globalresearch.ca/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-ukraine-and-the-new-russia/5373508

So, Parry and Solzhenitsyn makes it 2-0 versus you and ad hominem.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

75. Crimea was shuffled around by the Soviets from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR.

Given that both were under strict Soviet control at the time, that move was pretty much meaningless--like giving Michigan's upper peninsula to Wisconsin or something to that effect.

At the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Crimea was within Ukrainian control. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum confirmed this, and Russia--like it or not--was to respect those boundaries. Regardless of whether or not Solzhenitsyn thought that to be wise is pretty much beside the point. Legally, Crimea was Ukrainian territory and Russia was to respect that fact.

[NuclearDem]

30. Oh give us a break.

From someone who constantly suggests other people are shills with absolutely no basis other than they hold a different opinion, the libel whining is just rich.

[Octafish]

34. Did I call you a shill?

Shills are paid. Are you paid?

Either way, defending nuclear warmongers and warprofiteers must be a calling.

[NuclearDem]

36. And there you go again.

I'm "defending" nobody. Just pointing out how disingenuous that tactic is coming from you.

[Octafish]

65. You say that a lot, but you never answer the question.

No problem. I wouldn't take your word, anyway.

[NuclearDem]

69. Other than when I did.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4981813
Whether you read it or not is your problem.

Given your almost religious devotion to the shill gambit, argumentum ad martyrdom, and the Galileo fallacy, I don't expect you would.

[Octafish]

70. No, I asked if you were a shill.

Just above. You said you weren't defending anybody.

As for your time in the military at a nuclear base, great. You never answered if you are employed now by the nuclear industry.

[NuclearDem]

80. Other than the countless times that I've mentioned I'm an unemployed student.

So, again, for someone who apparently takes such great offense at character attacks, you seem to expend an awful lot of energy suggesting other people are on the take, almost exclusively with no evidence to back it up whatsoever.

Just a bunch of ridiculous assumptions, martyrdom fallacies, and shill gambits.

[Octafish]

82. News to me.

Best wishes. Personally, I vote for Democrats as my party traditionally put working people ahead of corporations. In fact, I was hoping the economy would have changed by now. You may remember the New New Deal for the 21st century, Apollo Program for clean energy, and Main Street over Wall Street was mentioned a lot six, and to a lot less degree, two years ago. We could have rebuilt America, addressing infrastructure to healthcare to investing in education. Instead, it's been austerity and sequestration for the 99% and all the money that Banksters and War Inc want.

[stevenleser]

18. I agree. Blaming the US for the Russian invasion is laughable and unsupportable.

1. Russia has no right to it's preferred government in Ukraine.

2. Both Russia and the US have the right to try to influence what happens in Ukraine via non-military means.

3. Political intrigue will never be an excuse for armed invasion.


Once you accept those three points, all of Parry's contentions are exposed for the nonsense that they are.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

25. It's sad thought that people insist we must defer to his opinion...

....simply because of works he did decades ago on totally unrelated topics.

Maddening, actually.

[Octafish]

31. Normally I don't take offense on DU...

When it comes to denigrating good reporters, I do.

What have you ever covered, Tommy_Carcetti?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

47. Well, I was on my high school newspaper and all....

....Seriously though, what difference does it make?

Parry makes some very questionable claims that can be easily be debunked with easily ascertainable facts. That a supposedly respectable journalist can fall victim to such amateurish tactics says all that needs to be said about said journalist.

[sabrina 1]

46. Parry is one of the most respected US Journalists. And Nuland, we all know HER 'ties' btw, did way

more than 'hand out cookies' which we also all know.

I'm flabbergasted to see anyone here slam Parry to be perfectly honest.

If Parry is a hack,, that is going to be BIG NEWS to most people here and elsewhere.

You do yourself no favor by slamming one of the most journalists in the US today. After that, people are likely to stop reading.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

48. Robert Parry of 2014 runs a two-bit website. His columns on Ukraine are rehashed RT stories....

....which are easily discredited with a quick internet search.

That he still pushes the "coup" theory says all that needs to be said.

Are you familiar with the phrase "fall from grace" per chance?

[sabrina 1]

53. There was a coup in Ukraine, Parry is hardly the only one who recognizes that. Are you

seriously arguing that there was NOT?

As for falling from grace, sure. But first one has to have had that grace.

Parry certainly has had it and still does.

As for his detractors, most of them we never heard of before so 'falling' doesn't apply.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

55. Yes, I am arguing that there was not a coup. "Coup" has a specific meaning....

...and the facts as it relates to Ukraine simply don't warrant such a label.

At the risk of being redundant, I'll refer you to my prior post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024952406

In short, however, the videos are key. They demonstrate without a doubt that Yanukovych was not forcibly removed from power nor was he acting in fear for his life when he left the country. He took several days to pack up his valuable possessions and flew away in his own fleet of helicopters.

Not a coup.

[sabrina 1]

57. Definitely fits all the definitions of a coup. Complete with the tapes of the plotters several

months BEFORE the actual coup took place. Sorry, but this was a classic coup which few deny btw. Even those who support it are rather proud of their accomplishment.

It's not easy to argue against facts, so I give you some credit for that. But this was a coup and will go down in history as such. The aftermath was predictable, as we've seen it before after other coups.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

59. So in your belief, Victoria Nuland plotted the "coup"?

And how exactly did she carry it out then?

[starroute]

6. I've taken to plugging in "military-industrial complex" everywhere I see "Neocon"

The Neocons have never been real conservatives. The initial set were Cold War liberals until the Cold War began winding down in the 1970s. Then they joined with the diehard military-industrial complex types to try to keep it going (check out the membership of Team B for an example). And at the same time, they started up JINSA to promote the sale of US arms to Israel (much of which Israel promptly turned around and sold elsewhere.)

But it's always been a racket. It's the global equivalent of the US gun manufacturers creating a loyal market of gun huggers to keep up sales as the general population becomes less rural and generally less interested in guns. The overall sales strategy is to promote as much regional instability as possible, and the greatest fear is of peace breaking out.

So don't look at the Neocons. Don't look at the pathetic remnants of Cold War mentality. Look at who benefits in terms of hard cash.

[bemildred]

7. +1. I've been watching them all of my life.

It is completely bipartisan too.

[Octafish]

11. ''Money trumps peace.'' -- George W Bush, press conference, Feb. 14, 2007

Wikileaks and Snowden demonstrated the criminal warmongering and war profiteering at the highest levels of government. Why these treasonous turds aren't locked up is a question an uncorrupted Supreme Court needs to weigh.

[woo me with science]

13. [phone] Neocons, neolibs. Same monster no matter the party.

You are absolutely right. Neocons are not conservatives. And neoliberals are not liberals.

They are all corporatists lying to both sides and dividing us to get what they could never get if they advertised themselves honestly.

[pampango]

77. Agreed. Neocon Putin sent his head of the MIC to Syria to accept thanks from Assad

DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Saturday thanked key ally Moscow for its support during a meeting in Damascus with a Russian delegation led by deputy premier Dimitry Rogozin, state media said.

The meeting comes days after Russia vetoed a draft UN resolution that would have referred crimes committed in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Assad expressed "his appreciation for the Russian position of support for the Syrian people in their war against terrorism," state news agency SANA said, using the government's term for its opponents.

Rogozin, who headed the delegation, is also special envoy to Russian President Vladimir Putin's and heads the country's Military-Industrial Commission, according to his Twitter account.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=66146

I imagine Russia has made a ton of money of the military exports to Assad in the past 3 years. Mr. Rogozin should be thanking Mr. Assad, too.

[snooper2]

22. Ah, to remember the days when this type of bullshit was banned in GD

At least they haven't caught onto the fact that chemtrails have tripled in the East of Ukraine over the past 40 days.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

24. But Robert Parry was an investigative reporter in the 1980s!!!!!!!

Therefore, whatever he writes must be given the utmost deference.

Also, it's high time that we go back to wearing Members Only jackets and Aerobics suits as casual wear.





Because those were also popular in the 1980s!

[Octafish]

32. Ad hominem is so you, Tommy_Carcetti.

Enjoy your, ah, hobby.

[Union Scribe]

35. Well, it's hard these days

to continue supporting the violent right wing Kiev "government" without looking like a neo-con/lib so the only recourse is to attack those exposing how wretched our nation's bedfellows truly are.

[Octafish]

41. Thanks, Union Scribe.

Parry has pointed out the problems with the Buy-Partisan support for War Inc. It's cost him plenty.

[Union Scribe]

50. True, and I dare say

that Parry has had better character assassins than the quality we're seeing take aim at him, and he's still standing.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

45. It's not really ad hominem.

More like poking fun at the notion that we are supposed to respect and trust someone based on things they did 30 years ago, while simultaneously ignoring their current dubious track record.

[sabrina 1]

51. The day that Robert Parry is banned from this site, will be the day it has to declare itself

irrelevant. But I doubt that will happen, Parry is one of this country's most credible journalists and always was.

His work is highly respected which may be why there is so much feeble effort to discredit him.

What's always interesting about these attempts to smear journalists like Parry is there is never any credible refutation of what they are reporting.

Nothing to refute the work of these journalists. Always the same old 'he's a hack etc' which is why they receive no traction.

What exactly in this article do you disagree with?

What he is saying here is not new NEWS it is pretty old actually, that the US State Dept led by Nuland,, recorded actually DISCUSSING the plans for the coup, were deeply involved in what has become a tragic situation for the people of Ukraine, and with huge side effects for Europe, which is why they are not on board with more sanctions against Russia.

These neocons have 'brilliantly' driven Russia to form a huge economic alliance with China, something that had lingered for ten years as Russia and the West were making progress towards peaceful, economic partnerships.

Hey thanks again to the PNACers for contributing to more harm to this country as if they hadn't done enough already.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

52. Sabrina: A simple question for you.

How exactly did the alleged "coup" in Ukraine happen?

How was Victor Yanukovych forcibly removed from power?

Thank you, I'll take the answer off the air.

[sabrina 1]

54. The same way many leaders are forced out of office in coup d'etats.

Are you unfamiliar with the history of coup d'etats?

Let me ask you a question. Why did those who drove him out of office not wait for the democratic process to take place?

A few months more and they could have VOTED him out without the violence they perpetrated in Kiev?

And another question. Supposing eg, US Protesters like OWS, had beaten up the police, what do you think our government would have done? What if they had been armed? Do you support protesters being violent? Just wondering.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

58. Something you might not know about the timeline of events in February 2014.

Yanukovych began packing his house on February 19th.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/12/what-did-yanukovych-take-with-him-as-he-fled-his-mansion-paintings-guns-and-a-small-dog-according-to-new-video/

He left a little after midnight on February 22nd.

The initial brokered deal that would have kept Yanukovych in power but would have scheduled elections later in the year was signed on February 21st.

So in other words, Yanukovych himself had no interest in sticking around for elections later that year. He had already made the decision to flee before that initial deal was signed.

You understand now why there was no coup?

[newthinking]

61. He also stated he was not leaving his post in a televised address *before* the controversial vote

and the Rada summarily dismissed the nations top judges so there was no way the unconstitutional action could be challenged.

It was illegal period.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

62. Why did he leave then?

And why did he take such diligent care over the period of three days in packing up his belongings? Does someone truly in fear for his life really worry about getting movers to pack up your vast collection of oil paintings?

What he said has to be considered in contrast to what he did and how he acted.

And how he acted was that he did not want to be bothered with the business of running Ukraine anymore.

[sabrina 1]

66. The coup timeline goes way further back than Feb. Yanukovych had no chance of being left in power,

and he knew it, which is why he fled. And the reason was, he knew who was backing the violence in the streets and they were never going to stop until they got what they wanted.

As Parry outlines in his article, was predicted by many credible sources back before it all ended in the current, tragic violence that has now spread across the country. All HE is doing is commenting on what was predicted, once it was known, and it was, who was backing the thugs in Kiev.

See here for some insight into who was influencing the riots: Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev and if you really care about the facts, click all the links in the article.

There are many more sources from before and since the coup that corroborate most of what was written in this article.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

74. Coups involve an actual scheme and execution. You've shown none of that.

All you can point to is a generalized desire from some figures in the West to want to see someone other than Yanukovych in power. You've proven nothing as to how they themselves acted on that desire to forcibly remove him from power. And you totally--totally--gloss over the fact that millions of ordinary Ukrainians also wanted to see someone other than Yanukovych in power. But I guess their opinions mean nothing when compared to Victoria Nuland and her magical coup cookies.

How did the coup actually happen? How did X persons go about actually removing Yanukovych from power, as opposed to simply sitting around and wanting him to go?

Is there something I'm missing? Is there some missing document where it reads, "On February 21st, Victoria Nuland, John McCain, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Hunter Biden arrived at Victor Yankovych's residence disguised as movers. They proceeded to stick a gun to Yanukovych's head and forced him to pack up his entire vast collection of oil paintings in multiple moving trucks and then fly away in his fleet of helicopters. They then proceeded to continuously give each other high-fives, while laughing manically and eating cookies." Did I somehow miss something of that sort?

[sabrina 1]

81. 'Some figures' in the West, included those that were exposed publicly, members of the State Dept.

an Ambassador, two US Senators, just to start with. You are wasting your time, there was a coup in Ukraine and I know no one who denies that who has any knowledge of the facts.

To give ANY public support to a gang of thugs from the Far Right was a huge mistake. And now we are seeing the results of that terrible decision.

So many dead victims, simply because the people did not get the opportunity to speak for themselves, because of the same kind of 'proxy' interference that has become SOP for Western powers, we saw it in Libya, in Syria and now in Ukraine, all ending in tragedy and destruction.

Coups never result in anything but devastation and more violence. As is happening in Syria, in Libya, and now in Ukraine.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

85. Victoria Nuland's got what Ukrainians crave! She's got coup cookies!

Seriously though, what exactly did these members of the State Department, Ambassador, Two Senators, etc. do to execute the coup, other than to visit Ukraine and have phone calls with one another? You've never, ever explained that. Neither has the OP. Neither has the revered investigative journalist Robert Parry.

Everyone likes to say the word "coup" but no one can explain how the coup actually happened, i.e. how exactly was Yankovych unwillingly extricated from office via violence or force. Just because you or Parry uses the word doesn't mean that's what happened.

So how did the coup happen? It's a simple question. If you don't know, it's okay to admit that you don't know. Better that than to continue to make an ass out of yourself claiming things you can't prove.

[Oilwellian]

26. Parry has always hated fascists

I've followed his work for decades. Look how much he's focused on the criminal right wing for most of his career. It's sad to see our own party leaders follow in their footsteps.

Parry joined the Associated Press in 1974, moving to its Washington bureau in 1977. After the 1980 presidential election he was assigned to its Special Assignment (investigative reporting) unit, where he began working on Central America.[1] In 1982 Parry noted the treatment received by the New York Times' Raymond Bonner, who was vilified and pushed out after reporting on the El Mozote massacre, an incident deeply unhelpful to the US government's effort to support the El Salvador government.[1]

Parry was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984 for his work with the Associated Press on Iran-Contra, where he broke the story that the Central Intelligence Agency had provided an assassination manual to the Nicaraguan Contras (Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare).[2][3] In mid-1985 he wrote the first article on Oliver North's involvement in the affair, and, together with Brian Barger, in late 1985 he broke the CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US scandal,[4] helping to spark Senator John Kerry's interest in investigating Iran-Contra.[5] The Associated Press had refused to publish the drug trafficking story, and only relented when its Spanish-language newswire service accidentally published a translation.[3] Barger and Parry continued to press their investigation of North even as most of the media declined to follow it up, eventually publishing a story in mid-1986, based on 24 sources, which led to a Congressional committee asking questions of North. After North denied the allegations, Barger was pushed out of Associated Press, and Parry was unable to publish any further follow-ups to the story until after Eugene Hasenfus' plane (Corporate Air Services HPF821) was shot down in Nicaragua in October 1986.[1] After finding out that his boss had been "conferring with [Oliver] North on a regular basis", Parry left AP in 1987 to join Newsweek.[3] At Newsweek an early story concerned United States National Security Council staff being ordered by the White House to cover up aspects of the Iran-Contra affair, which Newsweek, under great political and media pressure, asked Parry to retract, despite his source holding firm. Parry refused, and he eventually left in Newsweek in 1990.[6]

In August 1990 PBS' Frontline asked Parry to work on the October Surprise conspiracy theory,[1] leading to Parry making several documentaries for the program,[6][7][8] broadcast in 1991 and 1992. He continued to pursue it after a Congressional investigation had concluded the story was untrue, turning his Frontline research into a book published in 1993,[9] and in 1994 he unearthed "a treasure-trove of government documents" supporting the theory,[6] "showing that the [Congressional] task force suppressed incriminating CIA testimony and excluded evidence of big-money links between wealthy Republicans and Carter's Iranian intermediary, Cyrus Hashemi".[3] In 1996 Salon.com wrote about his work on the theory, saying that "his continuing quest to unearth the facts of the alleged October Surprise has made him persona non grata among those who worship at the altar of conventional wisdom."[6]
Consortium News
See also: Consortium News

In November 1995, Parry established Consortium News as an online ezine dedicated to investigative journalism, describing it in 2004 as "a home for important, well-reported stories that weren't welcome in the O.J. Simpson-obsessed, conventional-wisdom-driven national news media of that time". From 2000 to 2004, he also worked for the financial wire service Bloomberg.[10]

Subjects of Parry's articles and reports on Consortium News include the presidency of George W. Bush,[11] the career of Army general and Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell (with Norman Solomon),[12] the October Surprise controversy of the 1980 election,[13] the Nicaraguan contra-cocaine investigation,[14] the efforts to impeach President Clinton,[15] right-wing terrorism in Latin America,[16] the political influence of Sun Myung Moon,[17] mainstream American media imbalance,[18] United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates,[19] the presidency of Barack Obama,[20] the influence of Sarah Palin,[21] efforts to rewrite history[22] as well as international stories.[23]
Books

Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, The Press & Project Truth (1992)
Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery (1993)
The October Surprise X-Files: The Hidden Origins of the Reagan-Bush Era (1996)
Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq (2004)
Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush (2007)
America's Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama (2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parry_%28journalist%29

[geek tragedy]

28. Parry is a puppet of Putin, routinely reprints whatever

his sources in Putin's government tell him.

He licks the boots of a foreign fascist dictator.

[Octafish]

33. So, those who post against him lick Bush's boots.

He's really a fascist.

[Union Scribe]

37. You're like a parody of yourself at this point. nt

[geek tragedy]

38. No, Parry has been carrying water for Putin

for quite some time now.

I am not one of those idiots who gets their news from rt.com-- now those people are self- parodies.

Those idiots, for example, think that the only reason Ukrainians rose up against the corrupt thug Yanukovych was because Victoria Nuland gave them cookies and the US manipulated them.

[Octafish]

40. Parry is reporting what he found.

Something his readers know: These fascist wars without end are for profit.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

44. What did he find?

What shocking sources does he have?

Did he travel to Ukraine to get said sources?

You keep saying Parry "found" stuff, and all I see is things that already appeared on RT.

[Octafish]

68. What Ray McGovern wrote, published on Parry's ConsortiumNews.com.

Here's what Parry found:

Premature US Victory-Dancing on Ukraine

Exclusive: The post-coup election of a pro-Western politician as president of Ukraine – and the escalating slaughter of lightly armed anti-coup rebels in the east – have created a celebratory mood in Official Washington, but the victory dance may be premature, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern
ConsortiumNews, May 28, 2014

Washington’s role in the coup d’etat in Kiev on Feb. 22 has brought the U.S. a Pyrrhic victory, with the West claiming control of Ukraine albeit with a shaky grip that still requires the crushing of anti-coup rebels in the east. But the high-fiving may be short-lived once the full consequences of the putsch become clear.

What has made the “victory” so hollow is that the U.S.-backed ouster of elected President Viktor Yanukovych presented Russia’s leaders with what they saw as a last-straw-type deceit by the U.S. and its craven satellites in the European Union. Moscow has responded by making a major pivot East to enhance its informal alliance with China and thus strengthen the economic and strategic positions of both countries as a counterweight to Washington and Brussels.

In my view, this is the most important result of this year’s events in Ukraine, that they have served as a catalyst to more meaningful Russia-China rapprochement which has inched forward over the past several decades but now has solidified. The signing on May 21 of a 30-year, $400 billion natural gas deal between Russia and China is not only a “watershed event” – as Russian President Vladimir Putin said – but carries rich symbolic significance.

SNIP...

A Major Missed Opportunity

Not only were these Western encroachments toward Russia’s border alarming to Moscow but the moves also represented a breach of trust. Several months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, President George H. W. Bush had appealed for “a Europe whole and free.” And, in February 1990, his Secretary of State James Baker promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would move “not one inch” to the East, if Russia pulled its 24 divisions out of East Germany.

Yet, a triumphant Washington soon spurned this historic opportunity to achieve a broader peace. Instead, U.S. officials took advantage of the Soviet bloc’s implosion in Eastern Europe and later the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. As for that “Europe whole and free” business, it was as if the EU and NATO had put up signs: “Russians Need Not Apply.” Then, exploiting Moscow’s disarray and weakness, President Bill Clinton reneged on Baker’s NATO promise by pushing the military alliance eastward.

Small wonder that Putin and his associates were prospecting for powerful new friends ten years ago – first and foremost, China. And, the West kept providing the Kremlin with new incentives as NATO recruiters remained aggressive. NATO heads of state, meeting in Bucharest in April 2008, declared: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/28/premature-us-victory-dancing-on-ukraine/

War is great for Wall Street.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

73. Simply repeating the word "coup" over and over again does not mean there was actually a coup.

There was a regime change, arguably a people's revolution demonstrated by the massive street protests, but a coup there was not. When you have the former leader voluntarily and under his own power leave--without being kidnapped, arrested, detained, or forcibly removed--it's not a coup. Period. Coups involve specific schemes from a small group of conspirators utilizing violence or the threat of violence to remove a leader. The mere desire that the West may have preferred someone other than Yanukovych in charge of Ukraine does not in and of itself mean they facilitated a coup to remove him. And there's been no evidence of an actual coup to remove him. To the contrary, all the evidence suggests Yanukovych left under his own power and free will after massive protests against him failed to subside.

[joeybee12]

39. Does Parry get paid for this?

I mean, I can make sh*t up too, probably make it more believable also.

[Octafish]

43. Judy Miller? Is that you?

The aspens are connected, donchaknow.

[geek tragedy]

49. he gets access to Russian government officials.

whenever he says "I am told" it's a Putin flunky's words he's about to regurgitate.

[Tarheel_Dem]

56. +1

[Tommy_Carcetti]

78. There was a great Non-Sequitur cartoon a few years back.....

...where the girl character Danae gives a school report containing all sorts of incredible, unbelievable nonsense, which she prefaces with the phrase "unnamed sources say." And thus she justifies everything to be true simply because she attributes everything to "unnamed sources."

Wish I could find it.

[broiles]

60. +1

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

63. Getting involved in other peoples civil wars have been ever so successful before.

See Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, etc for glorious precedents.

[Blue_Tires]

67. To hear Parry talk about it, you'd think this is all our fault

And Russia has been an uninterested bystander in all this...

Yeah, it's clear that whatever USAID/State/whoever were planning at the start, it was half-assed and ended up blowing up in their faces, so no argument there...

It would have been nice if he could have at least mentioned the EU angle and their involvement, since a Westernized Ukraine as an EU member is what they were covertly working towards for years (and Putin working covertly to prevent)

[Tommy_Carcetti]

76. Parry doesn't bother to mention things that don't fit his narrative.

His column on the Odessa riots--which he deemed a "massacre"--focused only on the fire at the Trade Union building that he alleged "neo-Nazis" had set without any type of provocation whatsoever, and that it was simply them reinacting old World War II atrocities.

Not a single mention of the fact that the fire occurred only after pro-Russian individuals had attacked a pro-Ukrainian demonstration and were shooting and killing people in the pro-Ukrainian crowd from the rooftops, and only then did the action move to the Trade Union building (where it should be noted that both sides were acting aggressively as well).

In other words, while horribly tragic, it was your classic mob violence gone awry with blame to be assigned to both sides. But Parry couldn't bother to actually paint an accurate portrayal of that event. What sort of "investigative journalist" does that?

[geek tragedy]

79. or treated Ukrainians as sentient human beings who have goals and hopes

and will of their own, instead of being brainless puppets of European and American masterminds.