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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUkraine: The Truth
It's Becoming Apparent
Ukraine: The Truth
by GARY LEUPP
CounterPunch, APRIL 14, 2015
Reuters headline, April 9: Ukraine sets sights on joining NATO.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headline, April 9: Far-Right Leader Names Ukrainian Military Adviser.
Moscows official line on Ukraineand it should not be dismissed just because thats what it isis that the U.S. has spent about $ 5 billion backing regime change in that sad, bankrupt country, ultimately resulting in a coup detat (or putsch) in Kiev in February 2014 in which neo-fascists played a key role. The coup occurred because the U.S. State Department and Pentagon hoped to replace the democratically elected administration with one that would push for Ukraines entry into NATO, a military alliance designed from its inception in 1949 to challenge Russia. The ultimate intent was to evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the bases its maintained on the Crimean Peninsula for over 230 years.
Personally, I believe this interpretation is basically true, and that any rational person should recognize that its true. Victoria Nuland, the neocon thug who serves as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and is the key official shaping U.S. Ukraine policy, openly admitted to an international business conference on Ukraine in December 2013 that Washington had invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine achieve [the development of democratic institutions] and other goals.
She repeated this assertion in an CNN interview, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has proudly reiterated it as well on cable news. The unspoken goal was Ukraines membership in NATO.
(Imagine if a top-ranking official in the Russian Foreign Ministry were to boast of a $ 5 billion Russian investment in undermining the Mexican or Canadian government, with an aim towards incorporating one of those countries into an expanding military alliance. John McCain and Fox News would be demanding the immediate nuking of Moscow.)
SNIP...
The U.S. has military personnel stationed in about 130 countries in the worldthat is, in two-thirds of the countries who are members of the UN. In contrast, Russia has military forces stationed in, by my count, ten foreign countries, eight of them on its borders. And yet the U.S. press and political class depict Russia and specifically its president Vladimir Putin, a threatening juggernaut. (Just as they once did Saddam Hussein, that lame creature demonized asas the warmongers always do, before attacking and destroying hima new Hitler.)
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/14/ukraine-the-truth/
malaise
(268,994 posts)The truth is unbearable to way too many folks
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Things look different when in the light of day.
How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World
A trove of secret documents details the US government's global push for shale gas.
By Mariah Blake
Mother Jones | September/October 2014 Issue
EXCERPT...
Clinton, who was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, believed that shale gas could help rewrite global energy politics. "This is a moment of profound change," she later told a crowd at Georgetown University. "Countries that used to depend on others for their energy are now producers. How will this shape world events? Who will benefit, and who will not? The answers to these questions are being written right now, and we intend to play a major role." Clinton tapped a lawyer named David Goldwyn as her special envoy for international energy affairs; his charge was "to elevate energy diplomacy as a key function of US foreign policy."
Goldwyn had a long history of promoting drilling overseasboth as a Department of Energy official under Bill Clinton and as a representative of the oil industry. From 2005 to 2009 he directed the US-Libya Business Association, an organization funded primarily by US oil companiesincluding Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Marathonclamoring to tap Libya's abundant supply. Goldwyn lobbied Congress for pro-Libyan policies and even battled legislation that would have allowed families of the Lockerbie bombing victims to sue the Libyan government for its alleged role in the attack.
According to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, one of Goldwyn's first acts at the State Department was gathering oil and gas industry executives "to discuss the potential international impact of shale gas." Clinton then sent a cable to US diplomats, asking them to collect information on the potential for fracking in their host countries. These efforts eventually gave rise to the Global Shale Gas Initiative, which aimed to help other nations develop their shale potential. Clinton promised it would do so "in a way that is as environmentally respectful as possible."
But environmental groups were barely consulted, while industry played a crucial role. When Goldwyn unveiled the initiative in April 2010, it was at a meeting of the United States Energy Association, a trade organization representing Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and ConocoPhillips, all of which were pursuing fracking overseas. Among their top targets was Poland, which preliminary studies suggested had abundant shale gas. The day after Goldwyn's announcement, the US Embassy in Warsaw helped organize a shale gas conference, underwritten by these same companies (plus the oil field services company Halliburton) and attended by officials from the departments of State and Energy.
In some cases, Clinton personally promoted shale gas. During a 2010 gathering of foreign ministers in Washington, DC, she spoke about America's plans to help spread fracking abroad. "I know that in some places is controversial," she said, "but natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel available for power generation today." She later traveled to Poland for a series of meetings with officials, after which she announced that the country had joined the Global Shale Gas Initiative.
CONTINUED...
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron
The truth is unbearable for those whose heart it outweighs. Among the ancient Egyptians, I once read, was the belief that the soul faced Judgment upon death. A perfect and accurate balance was used, on one scale the deceased's heart, on the other, a feather. If the heart was heavier, the soul would be cast into the void and forgotten. If the feather outweighed the heart, it was a sign of goodness, so the soul would continue existence in additional life.
elias49
(4,259 posts)And it has been as long as I'm been alive...
Some are fine with that. They get to call the Russian president funny names.
No accounting for some peoples' taste.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)...and the American government is just one of their tools.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Take PNAC, please.
Neocons and Liberals Together, Again
The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security...
Tom Barry, last updated: February 02, 2005
The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.
SNIP...
Liberal Hawks Fly with the Neocons
The recent PNAC letter to Congress was not the first time that PNAC or its associated front groups, such as the Coalition for the Liberation of Iraq, have included hawkish Democrats.
Two PNAC letters in March 2003 played to those Democrats who believed that the invasion was justified at least as much by humanitarian concerns as it was by the purported presence of weapons of mass destruction. PNAC and the neocon camp had managed to translate their military agenda of preemptive and preventive strikes into national security policy. With the invasion underway, they sought to preempt those hardliners and military officials who opted for a quick exit strategy in Iraq. In their March 19th letter, PNAC stated that Washington should plan to stay in Iraq for the long haul: "Everyone-those who have joined the coalition, those who have stood aside, those who opposed military action, and, most of all, the Iraqi people and their neighbors-must understand that we are committed to the rebuilding of Iraq and will provide the necessary resources and will remain for as long as it takes."
Along with such neocon stalwarts as Robert Kagan, Bruce Jackson, Joshua Muravchik, James Woolsey, and Eliot Cohen, a half-dozen Democrats were among the 23 individuals who signed PNAC's first letter on post-war Iraq. Among the Democrats were Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution and a member of Clinton's National Security Council staff; Martin Indyk, Clinton's ambassador to Israel; Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute and Democratic Leadership Council; Dennis Ross, Clinton's top adviser on the Israel-Palestinian negotiations; and James Steinberg, Clinton's deputy national security adviser and head of foreign policy studies at Brookings. A second post-Iraq war letter by PNAC on March 28 called for broader international support for reconstruction, including the involvement of NATO, and brought together the same Democrats with the prominent addition of another Brookings' foreign policy scholar, Michael O'Hanlon.
CONTINUED...
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/Neocons_and_Liberals_Together_Again
That's from Rightweb. They're full of facts, for those who take the time to read and learn. One name to pay attention to is Victoria Nuland, our woman in Ukraine, who is married to PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan
Robert Kagan's brother is Frederick Kagan
Frederick Kagan's spouse is Kimberly Kagan
Brilliant people, big ideas, etc. The thing is, that's a lot of PNAC. And the PNAC approach to international relations means more wars without end for profits without cease, among other things detrimental to democracy, peace and justice.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Saddened, but not surprised, to read the "Hitler" comment was not the result of oxygen deprivation:
Hillary Clinton Calls For Greater Military Assistance And Financial Aid For Ukraine
By Christopher Harress April 16 2015 10:26 AM EDT
Source: International Business Times
Hillary Clinton has diverged from President Barack Obamas Ukraine policy by calling for more military assistance and greater financial aid for the partially war-torn former Soviet country. Clinton, who announced her run for U.S. president on Sunday, said that if Ukraine was to succeed against Russian-supported separatists, it would need better support from the U.S.
"I think we need to provide more financial assistance for the government of Ukraine, as it is trying to make the transition from a nonprofessional, corrupt system to a system that operates according to the global rules, Clinton told Voice of America in an interview Wednesday.
While the U.S. has provided basic equipment and training for Ukraines military, Obama has been reluctant to offer more help and has ruled out giving lethal assistance, despite overwhelming pressure from Congress prompting him to do so. A resolution calling for lethal aid passed 348-48 in Congress in March. However, Obama, who admitted to being influenced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel when making his decision, said that he would prefer to give Februarys Minsk II agreement a chance to bring peace to the region before resorting to alternative measures.
So far that peace has been elusive.
CONTINUED...
http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clinton-calls-greater-military-assistance-financial-aid-ukraine-1884637
Just because peace is elusive doesn't mean we give up. OTOH, peace becomes more problematic when those we trust to pursue it, don't.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)First, the author uses US and NATO interchangeably as if Europe is a mindless pawn to the evil american empire.
Second, the article reveals a partisan agenda by using the phrase "neocon thug".
Third, the article claims that NATO has been anti-Russia during the time between the Cold War and the Ukrainian Crisis. That remains to be proven.
Fourth. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Albania. They were all either members of the Soviet Union or loosely associated with it. Why, why in the name of the high heavens, would they be willing to turn from being allies of Russia to being allies of the West? Might it have to do something with Russia itself?
Fifth, the article mentions the destruction Ukraine suffered in WWII at the hands of european fascists (the Nazis). The article DOES NOT mention the genocide perpetrated by russian folk-hero Joseph Stalin in the 1930s which killed millions of Ukrainians and made them sympathetic to the Nazis in the first place.
The article also does not mention how this genocide split Ukraine into a Russia-loving and a Russia-hating population, which ultimately led to the internal political conflict that turned into this civil war.
Nobody wants complicated history when you can have good-vs-evil and be the noble hero fighting against an evil empire.
Fighting an evil empire is waaaaaaaaaaay cooler.
Fuck reality. It's way too complicated. I have the ULTIMATE AND FINAL TRUTH!!!!!!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)As for your version of history: True, the NAZIs and Hitler brought war and genocide to Ukraine, as did the Soviets and Stalin.
Which is why we shouldn't.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)It might come as a shock to, but, No, professors aren't infallible non-partisan wise men.
Your appeal-to-authority leaves my argument unconfronted:
Why does the article fail to mention that Ukraine was split into two populations with anti-russian and pro-russian sentiments, that also happened to be concentrated in the West and the East of Ukraine respectively?
Could it be... Could it be because it might lead the reader to think "Maybe that's the real reason why that country can't decide whether or not to ally with Russia?"
Could it be because it would replace the clean narrative with a nuanced mixture of history and politics that cannot be squeezed into a sensationalist headline?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)As for your "argument": So what? Leupp detailed the subject to discuss:
There is a fascist-friendly regime in Ukraine, ushered into power by the U.S. State Department. And it does want to enter NATO, and weaken Russiaif possible, by re-establishing control over Crimea and booting the Russian fleet out. Given German opposition to its admission into the alliance, it is doubtful that will occur short-term.
But with crazies running the U.S. State Department, successfully promoting a bogus narrative about whats happened in Ukraine over the last two yearsa narrative echoed slavishly by a clueless mainstream mediaits just barely conceivable that there might come a day in which U.S. forces join the Azov Battalion in battling forces of the Peoples Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.
It wont have anything to do with freedom, any more than the last few U.S. wars have had anything to do with that abstraction. It will be about imperial expansion, which while it might serve the .01% that rules this country, is not in your interest at all.
You must not have read that part.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)How is he supposed to come to the "truth" if he leaves information out?
Would he have come to the same conclusion ("the US caused the crisis" if he had had to take into account that Ukraine already was a politically divided country before the crisis?
And yes, if you hint that somebody is right because he's a professor, then that's an appeal to authority.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Gee. The subject then, too, involved CIA lies. What a coincidence.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)To be clear:
I don't like it how this mess full of holes that claims to be an article has the audacity to furthermore claim that it is able to put an end to the discussion.
The. Article. Left. Out. Critical. Information.
And exactly that makes the author's conclusion suspect. The author cannot claim that his conclusion is correct and yet he makes the claim that it's not only correct but wholesome.
Everybody lies, everybody lies... Except for the guys who present skewed viewpoints that support your position. No way they would lie, Nooooooooo. They tell the truth. No need to check on the author because he's a professor and he tells something you knew all along. No need to check his argument, Nooooooooo.
The CIA on the other hand, we should double-check everthing they say because they tell the opposite of your position.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Which brings up the heart of the matter: Money and Power.
The U.S. Owns the Narrative on Ukraine
Return of the Evil Empire
by JASON HIRTHLER
CounterPunch, Sept. 1, 2014
EXCERPT...
In 2014 the U.S. has succeeded in demonizing Vladimir Putin and Russia, precipitating a New Cold War that may yet become a hot one. The evil empire is back. The White House has made proficient use of mass media propaganda to get the job done. First, theyve controlled the narrative. This is critical for two reasons: one, because it permits the White House to sweep the February coup in Kiev into the dustbin of American memory, never to be seen again. Second, it has allowed it to swiftly assert its claim that Russia is a dangerously expansionist power on the edges of a serene and peace-loving Europe. In other words, the omission of one fact and commission of another.
On the former front, by the State Departments own concession, it spent some $5 billion in Ukraine, fomenting dissent under the standard guise of democracy promotion. The myriad NGOs beneath the nefarious cloud of the National Endowment for Democracy are little more than Trojan horses through which the State Department can launch subversive activities on foreign turf. We dont know all the surely insidious details of the putsch, but there are suggestions that the violence was staged by and on behalf of the groups that now sit in power, including bickering neofascists that were foolishly handed the nations security portfolio.begging slogans3
On the latter end, a frightful portrait of a revanchist Russia will be presented for public consumption. But consider the context before you consign Putin to the sordid annals of imperial tyrants. A belligerent superpower arrives on your doorstep by fostering a violent coup in a neighboring nation with the obvious intent of ensuring Kiev accepts an IMF deal rather than a better Russian one, and further that Ukraine become the newest and perhaps decisive outpost of NATO. Had you been in his shoes, would you have permitted an illegitimate, Western-infiltrated government to challenge the integrity of your Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol? Doubtful.
SNIP...
This is no surprise. A sophisticated doctrinal system adept at manufacturing consent will succeed less by what it asserts than by what it leaves out. The facts omitted are always inconvenient ones. Among other missing pieces of the story currently being peddled by the MSM, is the issue of NATOs raison dêtre, which vanished with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the USSR. No matter, it has swiftly refashioned its mandate into a rapid-reaction force ready to descend on flashpoints around the globe, like Serbia and Libya and Afghanistan. Despite promises to the contrary, it has essentially worked to bring all the former Warsaw Pact countries into its U.S.-dominated embrace. The goal is self-evident: put missiles on Russias doorstep, the better to alienate Moscow from Berlin and ensure that Washington isnt left out in the cold by its rivals.
SNIP...
Little if any coverage is given to another critical piece of real story, namely the obvious economic rivalry underlying the conflict. Ukraine is a major chip in the tussle for access to Black Sea resources, and for primacy in the provision of those resources to European homes. Likewise, the importance of channeling that access and supply through IMF-engineered loans, naturally denominated in dollars and central to the dollars now-threatened role as the worlds reserve currency.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/01/return-of-the-evil-empire/
Money and Power are the heart of Empire, too. What an undemocratic coincidence.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)"by the State Departments own concession, it spent some $5 billion in Ukraine, fomenting dissent under the standard guise of democracy promotion"
The sentence implies that the State Department said that it fomented dissent in Ukraine with this money. Which is wrong.
"We dont know all the surely insidious details of the putsch, but there are suggestions that the violence was staged by and on behalf of the groups that now sit in power..."
So, the article is based on rumors. Nice.
After that, I just stopped reading. There are funnier ways to waste time.
In the mean-time, Russia replaces a critical, independent crimean TV-channel with a russian-government-controlled one.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026510893
Nothing says "reliable information" like "government-controlled media"!!!
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)I teach courses on Japanese history with a primary research interest in labor, class and gender in the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). I also work on the global history of Buddhism and premodern western contacts with it.
...
Publications
Servants, Shophands, and Laborers in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan (1992)
Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan (1995)
Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 (2002)
Research and Scholarship
Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 (London: Continuum, 2003)
Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan (1995)
Servants, Shophands, and Laborers in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan (1992)
"Male Homosexuality in Early Modern Japan: An Overview of the Scholarship," in Michael O'Rourke and Katherine O'Donnell, eds., Queer Masculinities: 1550-1800 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006)
"The Five Men of Naniwa: Gang Violence and Popular Culture in Genroku Osaka," in James L. McClain and Wakita Osamu, eds., Osaka: The Merchants' Capital in Tokugawa Japan (New York: Cornell University Press, 1999)
"Images of Black People in Late Mediaeval and Early Modern Japan: Race Theory and Colour Consciousness, 1543-1900," Japan Forum (Oxford University Press), vol. 7, no. 1 (Spring 1995)
The Weavers of Nishijin: Wage-Labor in Tokugawa Japan (book in progress)
Octafish
(55,745 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)I'm saying you're claiming his being a professor of history is relevant to his article about events in Eastern Europe, when he's very clearly a professor of Japanese history.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)You edited that part out from his Tulane biography.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Not Eastern European history.
Unless I'm missing the possible insight a professor of 17th to 19th century Japanese history has on 20th and 21st century Eastern Europe, his title of "professor of history" is utterly irrelevant to his article.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)That's why they're professors. It's why I quote Gary Leupp, so others can learn about what's happened and what's going on.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Leupp is a professor of Japanese history. History as a discipline is very complex. There are countless specializations for regions and themes. Yes, people going for a history degree do get all of their general history credits, but someone going into Japanese history specialization isn't going to know much more about Eastern European history than most other people.
As far as writing goes, I don't know if you have access to any particular history journals, but this article isn't exactly going to be appearing in Perspectives on History. Writing on historical subject matter requires at least the appearance of objectivity, which Leupp completely loses as soon as he trots out the phrase "neocon thug."
So, no, his position as a Professor of History (History of Japan) means diddly as far as this article is concerned.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Then, again, you still haven't fixed what's really wrong. In fact, you can't. You certainly act like you don't know.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)A professor of Japanese history is not uniquely qualified to address the Ukraine situation. You asserted that. He didn't. You don't flaunt a mechanic's diesel qualifications in an article on electric engines.
So, really, you just set up an argument from a non-authority.
"As he sees it"
I see the sky as cotton candy pink and the rivers taste like hot chocolate. Does not make it true.
People are so wrapped around the axle of solving the super seekrit squirrel agenda that the obvious goes right past them.
Do you actually believe that President Obama would let some State Dept Official set policy that would lead this Country into War?
Simple IDing of the 2 Principles would give a good indication of intentions
President Obama a committed Democrat who has reduced two American Military campaigns, brokered deals with Cuba and Iran to open meaningful dialog. Yeah some real War monger there.
Putin ex-KGB, President for Life in rigged elections, invaded and threatened multiple break-away former Soviet Provinces, king of the HE-Man photo OP.
I see you yoke De-Bushie Sr all the time for his FBI and CIA affiliations and actions but Putin gets a pass on his old KGB days?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Twice, a "president" Bush did.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)He did, however, do a fantastic job of getting his country involved in invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Annals of Government - (How the US Armed Iraq)
In the Loop: Bush's Secret Mission
By Murray Waas and Craig Unger
The New Yorker Magazine - Originally published November 2, 1992
Posted to the web November 14, 2002
Introduction
This article, originally published in New Yorker Magazine, provides a clear picture of the direct involvement of the United States in arming Iraq, providing Saddam Hussein with technology, weapons, intelligence and funding - even in contravention of American law - enabling Iraq to amass the nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons that threaten the world. While the US does not openly acknowledge its role in arming Iraq, it now prepares to go to war against a monster of its own creation...
Since this article provides an excellent in-depth analysis of the US's dysfunctional Middle East policy dating back to the administrations of Presidents Reagan and Bush, it also provides the best perspective from which to view the Pollard case. As long as the US acknowledges no responsibility for its role in arming Iraq, Jonathan Pollard will continue to be buried alive in prison by successive American administrations fearing exposure and embarrassment.
***
In late July, 1986, William J. Casey, then the Director of Central Intelligence, sat down with George Bush, then the Vice-President of the United States, in an out-of-the-way study that Casey maintained on the third floor of the old Executive Office Building, the rococo structure adjoining the White House. Casey had something he wanted Bush to do.
For many years, both Bush and Casey had moved easily in the worlds of foreign policy and Republican politics, and Bush had once held Casey's job. But their relationship was never entirely comfortable. Casey, gruff and perpetually disheveled, was the product of public and parochial schools in Queens and on Long Island - his father was a Tammany Hall pension bureaucrat - and of Fordham. Bush, elaborately friendly in manner, was the offspring of Connecticut gentry. Like his father, an investment banker who served in the Senate, Bush attended Yale and was tapped for Skull and Bones. Casey made millions on his own as a stock speculator; Bush, with family help, grew moderately prosperous in the oil business before his political rise in Houston. Both men held high posts under Richard Nixon, but Nixon himself treated Casey as an equal and Bush condescendingly. It was under Gerald Ford that Bush was appointed to the job Casey now held.
The two men were different in more than background. Casey was part of the rising conservative movement, the historic antagonist of Bush and his ancestors within the Republican Party. In the Cold War, Casey believed not in containment but in what in the late forties and early fifties had been called rollback. He saw every stirring in every corner of the world through an unchanging ideological prism. Bush, by contrast, was a consummate pragmatist. As Casey knew, Bush was capable of rapidly adopting new positions if expediency or advancement seemed to demand it. He had done so on the issue of recognizing China under Nixon, and he had done so on abortion and on economic policy when he became Ronald Reagan's running mate. According to someone who knew both men, Casey had originally distrusted Bush's lack of conviction. Lately, however, he had begun to see Bush's pragmatism in a new light. Whatever vision the Vice-President might lack, he was a man of immense personal discipline, and he understood accommodation as a way to achieve goals. Moreover, during his service as permanent representative to the United Nations, as chief of the United States liaison office in China, and as director of the C.I.A., he had mastered the arts of compartmentalization and secrecy. "Casey knew there was nobody in government who could keep a secret better," a former high-level C.I.A. official who worked with Casey has told us. "He knew that Bush was someone who could keep his confidence and be trusted. Bush had the same capacity as Casey to receive a briefing and give no hint that he was in the know."
Now, in 1986, Casey, seventy-three years old and suffering from prostate cancer, said he needed Bush to run a covert errand. Iran was proving recalcitrant in secret negotiations to exchange arms for hostages who were being held in Beirut by terrorists with links to Iran, so Casey had dreamed up a scheme for forcing Iran's hand. It requires someone of authority to convey a message to Iran's enemy Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, indirectly and without leaving fingerprints. Vice-President Bush was the ideal courier. He was about to visit the capitals of countries in the Middle East in order to "advance the peace process" between Israelis and Arabs, as he told the New York Times. But if he accepted Casey's assignment he would also be there to advance the war process; that is, to heat up the war between Iran and Iraq, with an incendiary message from Washington to Baghdad - escalate the air war and escalate the bombing deep inside Iranian territory.
Casey's reasoning was that if Saddam Hussein could be induced to order his fastidiously cautious Air Force to attack Iran in strength, Iran would be forced to turn anew to the United States for missiles and other weapons of air defense. The United States would then use its enhanced leverage to get better terms from the Iranians for the release of the hostages. (Casey may have been particularly concerned about the plight of one of the hostages, the Lebanon C.I.A. station chief William A. Buckley.) And for Casey there was another enticement as well, according to two Reagan Administration officials whom he frequently confided in; by bringing off this scheme, he would be manipulating two rival policy factions in the Administration.
CONTINUED...
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2002/111402.htm
Go Empire.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)How many former Soviet republics are you okay with Putin invading and carving up?
I do know that if Ukraine and Georgia had been NATO members, they'd be whole right now.
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)You give Putin a pass on his Glory days in the KGB.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/espionage-a-complete-conformist-a-270555.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/stasi-files-shed-light-on-putins-kgb-past/254981.html
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)BIG, HUGE difference. That is why I listed him. President Obama is the one in charge now, not Bush.
You really comparing Obama to Bush on Foreign policy matter?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)The real subject of the thread is the coming war in Ukraine. Obama is doing his best to keep the peace. PNAC stay-behind turds at State, Defense, CIA and wherever else are working overtime to prevent that from happening.
malaise
(268,994 posts)The Marshall Plan was no gift.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)World War II along with countless Ukrianian Poles. Are you trying to argue that Stepan Bandera was not a pro-Nazi murderer?
The truth is that the word 'Holodomor' is a neologism, an invention of Ukrainian fascists after World War II who hoped after World War II to siphon Western sympathy for Jewish victims of the "Holocaust" by using a name with linguistic echoes to the latter and who piggy-backed on extant anti-Soviet sentiments in the West. When the REALITY is that those same Ukrainian fascists had killed a shit-load of Ukraine's Jews and Poles in the western parts of the country.
Let's let the Ukrainian Nazis speak for themselves, shall we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera (Emphasis added)
It is you who needs to revisit the history of the region and of the 30s and World War II before accusing others of over-simplifying.
Oh, BTW, the NeoCon pet Yushcenko had Bandera declared a 'Hero of Ukraine' in January 2010, a move that met with near-universal condemnation from various groups representing Bandera's victims.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Joseph Stalin facilitated the genocide in Ukraine that killed millions of people. During peace-time!!! And as a response Bandera became a terrorist bent on driving the Russians from Ukraine. And to achieve that he allied with the Nazis.
Bandera fought the Russians and that's what makes him a hero to this day in Ukraine. If you have a problem with mass-murdering terrorist Bandera being a hero to ukrainian Neonazis, then you better start complaining that mass-murdering tyrant Stalin is a folk-hero to roughly 50% of Russians.
If you think that the actions of ukrainian fascists during WWII play a role in the crisis today, feel free to elaborate.
Ukraine already was geographically and politically divided before the crisis. But if the author had mentioned that, he would have had to take more possible explanations into account than simply "the US did it".
Combine the author's willful incompetence with his one-sided insults and what do you get?
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)I know. My grandfather was one of them.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)The same folks who complain if the US sends troops to aid in a humanitarian mission after a natural disaster are working at a feverish pace to apologize for Putin's unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.
It's hilarious to watch.
MattSh
(3,714 posts)Or her doubly evil twin?
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)Or actually lose.
Whatever.
Cookies!
pampango
(24,692 posts)countries to seek collective self-defense against a large neighbor?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Whether it comes from the remnants of the Warsaw Pact or latest scams from Goldman Sachs.
From 2011, before the green got orange:
Goldman Sachs Is So Desperate To Get Into Ukraine It's Advising The Government For FREE
by Katya Wachtel,
Business Insider, June 25, 2011
Goldman Sachs has agreed to advise the Ukraine government for free, according to Bloomberg.
The bank, "which hasnt arranged a debt or equity sale in Ukraine since at least 1999... will advise the administration of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on managing its investments, state debt and 'other issues of financial-policy implementation.'"
"The selection follows Goldmans third attempt in 17 years to crack " the former Soviet Republic.
Meanwhile other American banks including JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley have work on various bond sales in Ukraine.
SOURCE:
http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-is-so-desperate-to-get-into-ukraine-its-advising-the-government-for-free-2011-6
Read more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-24/goldman-sachs-agrees-to-advise-ukraine-for-free-government-says.html
Personally, I don't believe war makes good policy, even when waged by money.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)The professor of history who wrote this piece seems to have forgotten what Russia did to a lot of the countries joining NATO.
KG
(28,751 posts)Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)due to this latest "Red Scare."
Octafish, as always, point on.
Xolodno
(6,390 posts)Often its "how" things are being handled that's being debated. Seldom do you here "should" we even be doing this.
Thankfully, Obama has given me some hope with...
Cuba - Should the embargo continue as opposed to how do we keep the pressure on.
Iran - Should we try negotiating as opposed to how to put the pressure on and when the military should get involved.
Syria - Should we get involved as opposed to how we get involved.
NATO - Unfortunately, that's still about how to expand rather than should it expand and should it still exist.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)BY MATT CORLEY
POSTED ON MARCH 31, 2009 AT 4:40 PM
In an interview on NPRs Fresh Air yesterday, host Terry Gross asked investigative journalist Seymour Hersh if, as he continues to investigate the Bush administration, more people were coming forward to talk to him now that the president and vice president are no longer in power. Hersh replied that though a lot of people that had told me in the last year of Bush, call me next, next February, not many people had talked to him. He implied that they were still scared of Cheney.
Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward, asked Gross. Ill make it worse, answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney put people back in government to stay behind in order to tell him whats going on and perhaps even do sabotage:
HERSH: Ill make it worse. I think hes put people left. Hes put people back. They call it a stay behind. Its sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, youve driven out the, you know, youve lost the war. You leave people behind. Its a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheneys left a stay behind. Hes got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him whats going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, theres still people that talk to him. He still knows whats going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But hes still there. Hes still a presence.
SNIP...
The idea that Cheney would seed the government with trusted contacts is not surprising. As Hersh noted in his talk with Gross, Cheney has been around forever and understands bureaucracy much better than almost anyone in government. In 2006, Robert Dreyfuss reported for The American Prospect that when Cheney helped staff the Bush administration in 2001, he put together a corps of hard-line acolytes that served as his eyes and ears in the federal bureaucracy. Former officials called them Dick Cheneys spies.
Additionally, before leaving office, the Bush administration aggressively placed political appointees into permanent civil service positions as part of a process known as burrowing. Some of the burrowed former political appointees have close ties to Cheney, such as Jeffrey T. Salmon, who was a speechwriter for Cheney when he served as defense secretary. In July, he was named deputy director for resource management in the Energy Departments Office of Science.
CONTINUED w/links...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/31/37200/hersh-cheney-behind/
Explains a lot, especially the continuing influence of neoconservatives. One name to pay attention to is Victoria Nuland, our woman in Ukraine, who is married to PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan
Robert Kagan's brother is Frederick Kagan
Frederick Kagan's spouse is Kimberly Kagan
Brilliant people, big ideas, and a lot of PNAC. And the PNAC approach to international relations means more wars without end for profits without cease, among other things detrimental to democracy, peace and justice.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)One country, the US, has over 700 military bases all over the world and spends more on its war budget than the rest of the world combined.
Another country, Russia, has a handful of bases clustered around its borders and spends a fraction of what the US spends on the military.
But Russia is described as an empire and the US is merely defending freedom.
Plus, why is NATO all over Europe? NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I checked the map and most of the NATO countries do not border the Atlantic, much less the North Atlantic. So why are these countries in NATO at all? Are there geopolitical and/or geostrategic reasons that this US dominated organization in slowly encircling Russia?
List of NATO members here:
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/nato_countries.htm
Octafish
(55,745 posts)If you are i the "Worker" class, you are gonna get used.
The Anti-Empire Report #138
By William Blum Published April 2nd, 2015
EXCERPT...
Cold War 2.0, part II
On Saturday, the Obama administration released a series of satellite images that it said showed the Russian army had joined the rebels in a full-scale assault to surround troops in the area around the city. Russia has denied that it is a party to the conflict, and it was impossible to verify the three grainy black-and-white satellite images posted to Twitter by the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.
According to the United States, the images, commissioned from the private Digital Globe satellite company, showed artillery systems and multiple-rocket launchers Thursday in the area near Debaltseve.
We are confident these are Russian military, not separatist, systems, Pyatt tweeted. (Washington Post, February 15, 2015)
When the time comes to list the ways in which the United States gradually sunk into the quicksand, slowly metamorphosing into a Third-World state, Washingtons campaign of 2014-15 to convince the world that Russia had repeatedly invaded Ukraine will deserve to be near the top of the list. Numerous examples like the above can be given. If I were still the jingoistic nationalist I was raised to be I think I would feel somewhat embarrassed now by the blatant obviousness of it all.
For a short visual history of the decline and fall of the American Empire, see the video Imperial Decay by Class War Films (8:50 minutes).
During Cold War 1.0 the American media loved to poke fun at the Soviet media for failing to match the glorious standards of the Western press. One of the most common putdowns was about the two main Russian newspapers Pravda (meaning truth in Russian) and Izvestia (meaning news). We were told, endlessly, that there was no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia.
As cynical as Ive been for years about the American mainstream medias treatment of ODE (Officially Designated Enemies), current news coverage of Russia exceeds my worst expectations. Im astonished every day at the obvious disregard of any kind of objectivity or fairness concerning Russia. Perhaps the most important example of this bias is the failure to remind their audience that the US and NATO have surrounded Russia with Washingtons coup in Ukraine as the latest example and that Moscow, for some odd reason, feels threatened by this. (Look for the map online of NATO bases and Russia, with a caption like: Why did you place your country in the middle of our bases?)
SOURCE: http://williamblum.org/aer/read/138
You are most welcome, guillaumeb. Thank you for grokking the situation for wars without end for profits and power without cease. That makes one idea stand out: Our democracy doesn't act like one.
EX500rider
(10,847 posts)Neither of those are true.
the US, has over 700 military bases all over the world
"The Defense Department every year publishes a list of military facilities in the United States and around the world. As of Sept. 30, 2010, the DOD list shows a list of 611 military facilities around the world (not counting war zones), though only 20 are listed as large sites, which means a replacement value of more than $1.74 billion.
That's counting Marine guards and military attaches as part of U.S. military power around the globe.... only 11 countries actually house more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel, the United States has 20 major bases around the world, not counting the war in Afghanistan, with major concentrations of troops in 11 countries."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/ron-pauls-strange-claim-about-bases-and-troops-overseas/2012/02/08/gIQApZpqzQ_blog.html
and spends more on its war budget than the rest of the world combined.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)One sources says 737:
http://www.alternet.org/story/47998/737_u.s._military_bases_%3D_global_empire
another says 1,077:
http://www.alternet.org/story/47998/737_u.s._military_bases_%3D_global_empire
Yet another says 5,300:
The US army has extended its military might to every continent except Antarctica. A Pentagon report in 2007 said there that while thirty-nine countries host only one military base, one hundred and forty countries contain more than one.. According to another report prepared by the Congress, the total number of the overseas bases is eight hundred and fifty. Including the bases within the US, the total number of military bases reaches 5300.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/haber/118686/washingtons-long-arms-uss-overseas-military-bases
Regardless of which number you believe, and I personally would doubt the DoD, the US bases are outposts of Empire. They exist as force projection points so that the US can run the world. Or attempt to run the world.
As to military spending, US military spending is deliberately hidden among many agencies so that the US people have no real idea how much is spent. Even if one accepts the SIPRI numbers, what possible reason would justify the US military expenditures equaling 39% of the total expenditures?
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)Any opinion piece parroting the Russian government line (willingly or unwillingly) regarding Ukraine will almost always contain these three easily debunkable lies.
1. The US spent $5 billion to overthrow the Ukrainian government in 2014.
2. There was a coup d'état in Ukraine in February 2014.
3. There was no Russian invasion of Crimea.
Of course, no matter how strenuously you produce demonstrable facts to defeat this claims, the propagators will insist that they hold the truth and that that truth should be self-evident, even if only to them. So the truth will be no matter to them.
EX500rider
(10,847 posts)Our ruling
Contrary to claims, the United States did not spend $5 billion to incite the rebellion in Ukraine.
Thats a distorted understanding of remarks given by a State Department official. She was referring to money spent on democracy-building programs in Ukraine since it broke off from the Soviet Union in 1991.
We rate the claim Pants on Fire.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)budget since 1991 so it's pretty clear where the money went.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Hear for yourself:
The Exxon/Mobil and Chevron logos add real respectability, don't you think?
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)Instead of a 20 plus year investment of various NGOs in Ukraine.
Yanukovych was president from 2010 to 2014. The much ballyhooed "$5 billion period" ran from 1992 and covered four different Ukrainian presidential administrations.
How can that number be attributed to regime change when there was never any one single regime to change?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"It wont have anything to do with 'freedom,' any more than the last few U.S. wars have had anything to do with that abstraction. It will be about imperial expansion, which while it might serve the .01% that rules this country, is not in your interest at all." -- Gary Leupp
But don't let that stop you from re-iterating your sideshow.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)Moscows official line on Ukraineand it should not be dismissed just because thats what it isis that the U.S. has spent about $ 5 billion backing regime change in that sad, bankrupt country, ultimately resulting in a coup detat (or putsch) in Kiev in February 2014 in which neo-fascists played a key role.
So if we apply the actual facts to Leupp's "logic", the US began planning to finance a "coup" in 1992 via NGOs that wouldn't actually take place for another 22 years and three presidential administrations later.
Who-kay.
BainsBane
(53,032 posts)Moscow planned the invasion months before the fall of the government in Kiev. Yes, Russia sees Nato expansion as a threat and they see aid packages (which is what that $5 billion is, aid since Ukrainian independence) as an aggression against them because they believe they have the right to control the Ukraine. The West dropped any efforts to have the Ukraine join Nato some years ago.
However, the idea that Russian story that the US was responsible for the fall of the govt in Kiev has been entirely debunked by the Kremlin documents and Putin's own actions in declaring a national holiday for the brave Russian soldiers who took Crimea.
This leak is nearly two months old now. I don't know how you could have missed it.
Russian Newspaper publishes Kremlin strategy paper on plans to annex the Ukraine
Drawn up before the fall of the government in Kiev.
First the link to the original publication in Russian: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/67389.html
Translation of the article and document as published on a Ukrainian website:
The document that has come into the possession of Novaya was presumably brought in to the Presidential Administration in the period between February 4 and February 12, 2014.
Now excerpts from the document:
First, the regime of Viktor Yanukovych has gone totally bankrupt. Its political, diplomatic, financial, and information support from the Russian Federation is no longer meaningful.
Second, as a sporadic civil war in the form of urban guerrilla of the so-called supporters of the Maidan against the leadership of a number of the countrys eastern regions has become a fact, while the disintegration of the Ukrainian state along the line of geographical demarcation of regional alliances - western regions plus Kyiv and eastern regions plus Crimea - has become part of the political agenda, in these circumstances, Russia should in no way limit its policy toward Ukraine only to attempts to influence the political situation in Kyiv and the relationship of a systemic opposition (A. Yatsenyuk, V. Klitschko, O. Tyagnybok, P . Poroshenko, etc.) with the European Commission.
Third, in an almost complete paralysis of the central government, unable to form a responsible government even facing threats of default and of Naftogaz lacking funds to pay for Russian gas, Russia is simply obliged to get involved in the geopolitical intrigue of the European Community directed against the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
First of all, this is because otherwise our country risks losing not only the Ukrainian energy market, but also indirect control over Ukraines gas transportation system, which is much more dangerous. This will endanger the position of Gazprom in Central and Southern Europe, causing huge damage to our countrys economy.
3. The Constitution of Ukraine is in no case able to provide for a mechanism that could legitimately initiate the integration of Ukraines eastern territories and Crimea into the state-legal framework of the Russian Federation.
. . .
Current events in Kyiv convincingly show that the Yanukovychs time in power could end at any moment. Thus, there is less and less time for an appropriate Russian response. The number of dead in riots in the capital of Ukraine is direct evidence of the inevitability of civil war and the impossibility of reaching consensus if Yanukovych remains president. In these circumstances, it seems appropriate to play along the centrifugal aspirations of the various regions of the country, with a view to initiate the accession of its eastern regions to Russia, in one form or another. Crimea and Kharkiv region should become the dominant regions for making such efforts, as there already exist reasonably large groups there that support the idea of maximum integration with Russia.
4. Of course, taking the burden of supporting Crimea and several eastern territories, Russia will be forced to take on budget expenses, which would be cumbersome in the countrys present position.
Undoubtedly, this will affect macroeconomic stability and the prospects for economic growth. However, geopolitically, the prize will be invaluable: our country will gain access to new demographic resources, highly qualified industry and transport personnel will be at its disposal. In addition, it can count on the emergence of new eastward Slavic migration flows - as opposed to the Central Asian migration trends. The industrial potential of the Eastern Ukraine, including the military-industrial sector, once included in the Russian military-industrial complex, will allow for the faster and more successful implementation of the program of rearmament of Russias military forces.
What is equally important, Russias constructive, smoothing participation in the highly probable disintegration of the Ukrainian state will not only give new impetus to the Kremlins integration project, but will also allow our country to retain control over Ukraines gas transportation system, as mentioned above. And at the same time, it will allow there to be significant changes in the geopolitical situation in Central and Eastern Europe, allowing Russia to regain its major role there.
5. To start the process of a pro-Russian drift of Crimea and eastern Ukrainian territories, events should be created beforehand that can support this process with political legitimacy and moral justification; also a PR-strategy should be built that draws attention to the forced, reactive nature of the actions of Russia and the pro-Russian political elites of southern and eastern Ukraine.
Read more on UNIAN: http://www.unian.info/politics/1048525-novaya-gazetas-kremlin-papers-article-full-text-in-english.html
The document lays out the strategy for annexation of Crimea and parts of the Eastern Ukraine, as well as Russia's clear economic and geopolitical motives--"the prize"--for doing so.
---------------------------
I continue to be stunned at how people who oppose war by the US work so hard to justify Russian war and imperial expansion. Your argument is that expansion of Nato into the Ukraine, which was dropped some time ago, and US economic assistance, justifies the death of Ukrainians at the hands of the Russian army and pro-Russian rebels. You are taking a pro-war position, using outdated information. Human life is at stake. And that you now join (you are quite late to the party) an effort to justify Russian imperial actions, Russian war and the killing of Ukrainians, is reprehensible. In fact, the Russia propagandists argument that right wingers in the Ukraine justify war sounds an awful lot like how Bush justified the Iraq invasion. Bush didn't like the Iraqi government, you don't like the Ukrainian government. Then there is the fact that the national front parties only won 1 and 1.5 percent of the vote in the last election. Whether their government is right-wing or not, they don't deserve to die and it doesn't justify Russian invasion, anymore than Russia's right-wing government would justify a US invasion of that country.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...and imperial expansion."
No offense to you or the Ukrainian News, BainsBane, but I'm sick and tired of warmongers who make excuses to justify American war and imperial expansion, people like George W Bush who said: "Money trumps peace" during a White House press conference on Feb. 14, 2007. Not a single member of the callow, cowed press corpse saw fit to ask a follow-up. And then he laughs.
Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention. Few others, if anyone, saw fit to comment.
As for where American's entrepreneurial spirit of war came from: Poppy: Bush Sr told the FBI he was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
BainsBane
(53,032 posts)So you thought you'd give it a go for Russia? How does that make sense?
My personal view is that war and empire doesn't need support from ordinary folk like myself. I prefer to concern myself with the lives of those caught up in the middle of it. I'm strongly anti-colonial, and I don't think Russian bombs and guns any less deadly than American. I believe that after centuries of colonial rule and only twenty-odd years of independence, Ukrainians have a right to self rule. You disagree. Bizarrely, you seem to think opposition to the Iraq war necessitates the sacrifice of Ukrainian lives.
Your video of Bush addresses none of the issues relating to the Ukraine, including the leaked document which shows that the Kremlin planned the overthrow of the government of the Kiev and the imperial grab of Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine. Literally, blood for oil. Yet you are willing to engage in none of the evidence about events in Ukraine, and bizarrely post a video on Iraq.
There is a strange idea going on that either one supports the Russian empire or it makes someone pro-US intervention in the Ukraine. It is possible to argue, as I do, that imperial takeover of the Ukraine is wrong and also to oppose US intervention in the region. Think about that for a second. It's not necessary to justify the killing of Ukrainians to oppose US intervention. One can see the situation for what it is, what the document from the Kremlin describes it as, and also say it's not the US's role to intervene.
Life isn't a Hollywood movie. There are no guys in white hats. The US and Russia are two empires that both conquer and kill. You choose to support murder by one. I choose to support murder by none. My values don't allow me to stump for war on behalf of any empire. Yours clearly allow you to justify the imperial takeover and murder of Ukrainians, which somehow you think has some relationship to Iraq. Unlike yourself, my concern for human life compels me to adopt a consistent anti-war, anti-empire position. People are dying; lives are being lost. The accent or nationality of the killers doesn't much matter, certainly not to the dead.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)The disinformation campaign (from Oct. 4, 2001)
Western media follow a depressingly familiar formula when it comes to the preparation of a nation for conflict
Phillip Knightley
The Guardian, Thursday 4 October 2001 05.47 EDT
The way wars are reported in the western media follows a depressingly predictable pattern: stage one, the crisis; stage two, the demonisation of the enemy's leader; stage three, the demonisation of the enemy as individuals; and stage four, atrocities. At the moment we are at stages two and three: efforts to show that not only Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are fanatical and cruel but that most Afghans - even many Muslims - are as well. We are already through stage one, the reporting of a crisis which negotiations appear unable to resolve. Politicians, while calling for diplomacy, warn of military retaliation. The media reports this as "We're on the brink of war", or "War is inevitable".
News coverage concentrates on the build up of military force, and prominent columnists and newspaper editorials urge war. But there are usually sizable minorities of citizens concerned that all avenues for peace have not been fully explored and although the mainstream media ignores or plays down their protests, these have to be dampened down unless they gain strength.
We now enter stage two of the pattern - the demonisation of the enemy's leader. Comparing the leader with Hitler is a good start because of the instant images that Hitler's name provokes. So when George Bush Sr likened Iraq's takeover of Kuwait with the Nazi blitzkrieg in Europe in the 1930s, the media quickly took up the theme. Saddam Hussein was painted as a second Hitler, hated by his own people and despised in the Arab world. Equally, in the Kosovo conflict, the Serbs were portrayed as Nazi thugs intent on genocide and words like "Auschwitz-style furnaces" and "Holocaust" were used.
The crudest approach is to suggest that the leader is insane. Saddam Hussein was "a deranged psychopath", Milosevic was mad, and the Spectator recently headlined an article on Osama bin Laden: "Inside the mind of the maniac". Those who publicly question any of this can expect an even stronger burst of abuse. In the Gulf war they were labelled "friends of terrorists, ranters, nutty, hypocrites, animals, barbarians, mad, traitors, unhinged, appeasers and apologists". The Mirror called peace demonstrators "misguided, twisted individuals always eager to comfort and support any country but their own. They are a danger to all us - the enemy within." Columnist Christopher Hitchens, in last week's Spectator article, Damn the doves, says that intellectuals who seek to understand the new enemy are no friends of peace, democracy or human life.
The third stage in the pattern is the demonisation not only of the leader but of his people. The simplest way of doing this is the atrocity story. The problem is that although many atrocity stories are true - after all, war itself is an atrocity - many are not.
Take the Kuwaiti babies story. Its origins go back to the first world war when British propaganda accused the Germans of tossing Belgian babies into the air and catching them on their bayonets. Dusted off and updated for the Gulf war, this version had Iraqi soldiers bursting into a modern Kuwaiti hospital, finding the premature babies ward and then tossing the babies out of incubators so that the incubators could be sent back to Iraq.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/oct/04/socialsciences.highereducation
Don't worry if you can't think how it applies to the present situation in Ukraine: I remember you were not all that interested in what I had to say about Sec. Clinton's private spy network a couple week's back.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Oh, it applies.
It just doesn't apply to the side you think it does.