Undeniable, glaringly obvious facts about the US, Russia & Syria that people need to get into their heads

1. The democratically-elected government of Syria invited Russia to help them fight ISIS and related terrorist groups. This is in accordance with international law (host-state consent, intervention by invitation). The United States was never invited by the Syrian government to intervene.

Please copy this text & tweet this page:

Undeniable facts about the #US, #Russia & #Syria that people need to get into their heads http://tinyurl.com/qx5fbyf  #FireCarterB4WW3

2. There are no moderate rebels fighting against the government of Syria. The moderate opposition is in the parliament. The armed opposition outside the parliament that’s attempting to overthrow the government are terrorists. These so-called “moderate” rebels are linked with well-known terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Nusra, and are responsible for handing US weapons over to ISIS. It is simply a matter of playing with words to speak of moderate rebels or relatively moderate rebels or reconcilables as Former CIA Director and CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus recently put it. The reconcilable, relatively moderate Syrian rebels are doing the same things and pose the same threat to civilization that ISIS, ISIL, or IS do.

Can we get over this “moderate Syrian rebels” myth, for crying out loud? There is no “moderate” opposition running around with machine guns and shooting at people, even if the people they’re shooting at are all military and police. What would you call, say, “moderate” Tea Party rebels (and this is totally hypothetical) trying to remove Obama from office through an armed uprising? Would you call that a “legitimate” and “pro-democracy” moderate opposition? And what would you call it if another country actively supported and funded it? Would it matter to you if you approved of President Obama’s activities or not?

Bashar al-Assad: Do you have military opposition in the United States? Would you accept it? You wouldn’t!

3. Bashar al-Assad (the democratically-elected leader of Syria) has never attacked and has never even threatened to attack the United States.

Assad has warned of blowback against the West if they attack Syria, but he has never threatened the United States or the NATO allies. Newspapers such as The Guardian try to spin his warnings into direct threats:

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has hinted at terrorist reprisals against western interests in the event of a US strike against his country, saying he could not rule out that chemical weapons might be used.

If you read his actual statements, it becomes clear that Assad is simply warning of repercussions in the region (or blowback) as many western analysts have also said:

Assad: “If you strike somewhere, you have to expect repercussions somewhere else. It may take different forms, direct and indirect. Direct when governments want to retaliate, and indirect when you are going to have instability and the spread of terrorism over the region that will influence the west directly.”

Asked if chemical warfare could be one repercussion, Assad added: “That depends if the rebels or the terrorists in this region or any other group have it. It could happen. You are going to pay the price if you are not wise with dealing with terrorists.”

What he is saying is factual and based on historical precedent – if you attack Syria, you will unleash forces that neither I (Assad) nor you (the West) can predict or control. This is actually a friendly warning and nothing more.

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has also made the same type of warning to Russia for being involved in Syria, but the Western media do not attempt to spin this into a direct threat.

4. The refugee crisis in Europe was caused by ISIS and their allies, the “moderate” Syrian rebels, not Assad.

5. The regime-change policies of the United States have ended in catastrophe in every case.

6. “Humanitarian intervention” means war. This is doublespeak.

“Police actions” are wars. The Vietnam “conflict” or “police action” was a war, and it doesn’t matter what words are used to designate it.

“Kinetic military actions with no boots on the ground” are wars. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a kinetic military action with no boots on the ground, and it was indeed an act of war.

This also applies to the following (real) examples: limited operations; time-limited, scope-limited military action; a very limited operation that is geared to save lives; an unbelievably small military action; a response to violations of a norm; surge; overseas contingency operation; humanitarian mission; nation-building mission; action limited in duration and scope; a signal; the authorized use of force; a very limited, very targeted, short-term effort; putting enablers on the ground.

7. The US and UK governments lied about Saddam Hussein having nuclear weapons. They invaded Iraq and overthrew his government. The US, UK, and France lied about Muammar Gaddafi killing peaceful protesters and overthew his government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then gloated over his brutal death. The US and UK lied about Assad using chemical weapons on his own supporters. They’ve been obsessed with overthrowing his government ever since.

8. If pro-American, anti-Russia propaganda is OK, then so is Russian propaganda. The difference is that the US media does it on a much larger scale with a lot more money and bigger audiences, and relies more on lies (eg. Saddam’s nuclear weapons), deception, doublespeak (eg. kinetic military actions), twisted logic, blatant hypocrisy (eg. accusing Russia of bombing “moderate” rebels in Syria at the same time the US bombed a hospital in Afghanistan), constantly claiming to be unbiased (eg. Fox News), and faked evidence (eg. the September Dossier).

A bias in reporting the news will always be present – it can’t be avoided. In telling any story, decisions have to be made about what to leave in and what to leave out. It is impossible to present every angle to a story and to do so in an entirely neutral way. Nor is this necessarily a bad thing. Who, for example, would care to see the History Channel give a “fair and balanced” or unbiased account of Nazi Germany, giving equal time and weight to both the pro- and anti-Nazi sides?

Nearly the entire US media tells the US side (or the Pentagon side) while bashing Putin at every opportunity. Why shouldn’t Russia be allowed to tell their side of the story? Why is it always propaganda when they do it, and “investigative journalism” when we do it?

9. Russian news outlets RT and Sputnik are state-funded. So is the BBC. In shaping public opinion against the Assad government and their supposed war crimes against the Syrian people, the BBC and other news outlets have relied heavily upon “evidence” gathered from “experts” such as Eliot Higgins (an unemployed office worker with no training in weapons) and his Brown Moses blog. There is also the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (according to Wikipedia: cited by virtually every western news outlet since the beginning of the uprising), which is run by Rami Abdulrahman (a shop owner in Coventry, England) from his home.

10. Russia (unprovoked) poses no threat to American national security – on the contrary, they are vital partners in the national security of the United States. Russia has neither attacked nor even threatened to attack the United States or Europe.

On September 11, 2001, Vladimir Putin was the first international leader to call President George Bush to express his sympathy and to offer the support of Russia in the war on terror. When the US was preparing to launch the invasion of Afghanistan, Putin said, “Russia will continue to provide intelligence information we have collected on the infrastructure, location and training of international terrorists.” He also allowed and coordinated for the US the use of former Soviet military bases in central Asia. Until 2015, Russia generously gave the US and NATO allies access to Afghanistan through a vital transit route for military and non-lethal supplies.

On two occasions, Russian authorities warned the US government about the Tsarnaev brothers who were accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings.

When the US and UK governments were planning a lunatic invasion of Syria over the made-up story of Assad gassing his own people, it was not Obama (the Nobel Peace Prize winner) who prevented the US from leaping into yet another Iraq war disaster, it was Putin and Lavrov who gave Obama a way of getting out of his foolish “red line” promise. It was Putin and Lavrov who saved American and British kids from getting plunged into the chaos of the Syrian Civil War.

And now Russia is joining Assad in the fight against ISIS in Syria. This means that Russian soldiers are now putting their lives at risk instead of Americans. Isn’t this worth our gratitude?

11. Putin never said that he wants to bring back the Soviet Union. Here’s what he said:

“Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.”

“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”

12. Syria, Ukraine, and Crimea are all of vital national security interest to Russia. Russia has close ties to Assad and has a naval base in Syria, as well as in Crimea. The United States may have some security or economic interests in Syria, but is currently unwelcomed there. The United States has countless military bases all over the world. Ukraine and Crimea represent no national security interests for the United States.

13. The US strategy in Syria has been muddle-headed (at best) and doomed to failure from the beginning. This is due in large part to the unwillingness of the US government to work with Assad. Instead, the US has adopted the hopeless strategy of working with so-called moderate rebels to overthrow Assad while at the same time fighting terrorist groups who also seek to overthrow Assad. The worst-kept secret in the world is that these “moderate” rebels have been working with ISIS to overthrow Assad all along. As pointed out by Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif in an interview with Charlie Rose, the US government didn’t care about ISIS until they started attacking Iraq. Before that, the US was content to sit back and watch ISIS attack the Syrian government.

Now, after over a year of fighting ISIS, the US and NATO allies have achieved practically nothing.

In spite of this, we still have people like David Ignatius, one of the US State Dept. mouthpieces at The Washington Post, saying that the Pentagon needs to find a more secretive way to work with al Qaeda in Syria: “The Pentagon needs to assess immediately why this overt, U.S.-backed program failed so badly, and whether it can be rebuilt. A better bet may be the CIA’s covert training program, whose fighters can make tactical battlefield deals with Jabhat al-Nusra without publicly allying with it.”

By working with the government of Syria and refusing to work with any terrorist groups, Russia has a much better chance of eliminating the threat of ISIS and alleviating the refugee crisis in Europe. This should be cause for celebration everywhere.

14. Everyone, starting with the United States, should be happy that Russia is fighting terrorists in Syria, but instead they whine, criticize, and even threaten military retaliation against Russia!

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov: “One would think the world should applaud, but then we have US and the West worrying about ISIL losses. Yesterday they said it was evil, yet as soon as Russian aviation started conducting airstrikes, they suddenly condemn bombings and call for taking measures against Russia. But there’s the nation behind our army, and nobody cares about the West’s whining.”

Among the lunatics in the US who have actually called for military action against Russia to protect our so-called “assets” in Syria, we have: Presidential candidates Carly Fiorina and Senator Marco Rubio, career Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Senator John McCain. I submit to you that these people are traitors to the real national security interests of the United States. These fascist lunatics talk about “standing up to Russia” and protecting our “assets” in Syria, but nobody wants to call it what it really would be: World War III. We have no assets in Syria worth that! We need to get our ASSETS out of Syria now if they’re so important, and anyway, didn’t we already say NO several times to “intervention” in Syria?

15. Obama’s (now former) ISIS Czar General John Allen conducted the “fight” against ISIS by doing everything possible to undermine the main enemy of ISIS – Assad. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has employed the same strategy by working to overthrow Assad, bombing ISIS a little from time to time, bombing the Kurds (true enemies of ISIS and effective fighters as well) a lot, and refusing to seal the Syria-Turkey border, allowing ISIS terrorists in and out of Syria. Erdogan’s daughter even runs a covert hospital to treat wounded ISIS terrorists!

15. Globalization (including the Washington Consensus and global free trade policies with America as the world policeman) has been an unmitigated disaster for the entire world, including the United States.

The unipolar world led by the United States as the lone superpower (otherwise known as the world police) has not led to a golden age of universal democracy and freedom and the free market utopia promised in the post-USSR 90s. It has led instead to a world of brutal IMF-style austerity, out-of-control speculation and toxic derivatives markets, the absolute rule of finance capitalism in place of industrial capitalism, a Wall Street / military-industrial-complex oligarchy with an utterly subservient, toothless political class to do their bidding (lest the Too-Big-To-Fails fail and the apocalypse ensues, bringing, so they say, death, destruction, anarchy and martial law), seemingly endless wars (not of conquest of land, but of the vital assets and resources of nations), nation-building (doublespeak for attacking nations), CIA-backed color revolutions and uprisings (the disastrous Arab Spring, the Euromaidan in Kiev), speculation-driven financial warfare on nations such as Greece (followed of course by demands for ruthless, barbaric austerity), and low-wage, rip-off, monetarist economies in place of the high-wage, productive labor-oriented economies of the past, just to name a few glorious triumphs of the globalized / free trade world. The living standards of the lower and middle classes have declined throughout Europe and America, while the wealthiest of the wealthy, the one percent of the one percent, have acquired ungodly, incalculable wealth, expanding the gap between the rich and the poor to unprecedented levels. Borders open up everywhere, first world jobs are lost, third world sweat shops thrive, profits roll in, bankers rejoice, the jobless recovery is trumpeted from the mountaintops, and Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” gets louder and louder year after year.

The return to a multipolar world will not solve all of these problems, nor will socialism, or communism, or Bernie Sanders, or anything we can imagine. Jeremy Corbyn can’t save us and neither can Putin. But as Russia takes back their rightful place as a global power, along with China and the BRICS nations, what we can now hope for is the beginning of the end of Francis Fukuyama’s prophesied pseudo-Hegelian “End of History” American style – the ultimate and utter triumph of “Washington Consensus” liberal democracy, small (and feckless) government dominated by multi-national corporations and cocaine-addicted Wall Street speculators, and at the very least we can hope for an end to the nightmare of the lunatic “Wolfowitz Doctrine” neocon wars to spread democracy and topple governments around the world without any meaningful dissent. As Peter Lavelle put it, “Finally we are witnessing the first steps beyond the post-Cold War order – and praise God for this!” Since the neolibs and neocons couldn’t care less what the people think about all of this, we should all welcome Vladimir Putin’s insistent NYET, and we should all be asking our leaders the same question Putin put to them at the UN General Assembly:

Do you realize what you’ve done?

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Sources & Relevant Links

Russia’s Aim in Syria Is to Strategically Defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda: http://tinyurl.com/o5ve9d9

Bashar al-Assad wins re-election in Syria as uprising against him rages on: http://tinyurl.com/nsbvedq

Worst refugee crisis in a generation as millions flee Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: http://tinyurl.com/po7xghg

Only ‘4 Or 5’ U.S.-Trained Rebels In Syria? Not Exactly: http://tinyurl.com/nw37yep

Question for Obama’s Syria plan: Who are the moderate rebels?: http://tinyurl.com/nya7854

Russian Airstrike in Syria Targeted CIA-Backed Rebels, U.S. Officials Say: http://tinyurl.com/pbwrm4g

Most CIA-backed rebels in Syria ‘anti-American, anti-Western and anti-democracy’: http://tinyurl.com/pwdjxnp

“Free Syrian Army” is just a brand name without a product: http://tinyurl.com/nrhf5f3

Russian Foreign Minister calls Free Syrian Army ‘phantom’ group: http://tass.ru/en/politics/826244

Petraeus Is Wrong: You Can’t “Peel” Jihadist Away From Jihad: http://tinyurl.com/nzb8aet

Who Are the Terrorists in Syria?: http://tinyurl.com/qzdsf23

War on Islamic State: A New Cold War fiction: http://tinyurl.com/pq8d4k9

“Which Side are you Fighting for?” Russia Blasts US for Refusing to Share ISIS Intel: http://tinyurl.com/q9r64cl

Should US Ally with Al Qaeda in Syria?: http://tinyurl.com/p6oplt7

Newly-Declassified U.S. Government Documents: The West Supported the Creation of ISIS: http://tinyurl.com/mqzof7u

Corralling Our Objectives in Syria, by David Ignatius: http://tinyurl.com/o44gdwc

Wait! You’re bombing the wrong terrorists!: http://tinyurl.com/pp4bgbd

US has trained only ‘four or five’ Syrian fighters against Isis, top general testifies: http://tinyurl.com/nk6vjzs

Doublespeak and Vagueness in Lead-up to Invasion of Syria: http://tinyurl.com/oqtpmsf

What should Obama call the next war?: http://tinyurl.com/pn6lxr3

Most Syrians back President Assad, but you’d never know from western media: http://tinyurl.com/mc6q3el

Syrian president Assad threatens ‘repercussions’ if US launches strikes: http://tinyurl.com/q5eodcb

Russia will pay price for Syrian airstrikes, says US defence secretary: http://tinyurl.com/pzqule3

Libyan ‘Regime Change’ Worsened Chaos: http://tinyurl.com/n9jnm72

Libyan Regime Change: U.S./NATO Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds: http://tinyurl.com/3wuc7wm

All of the Countries which the U.S. “Regime Changed” – Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya – Have Descended into Brutal Chaos: http://tinyurl.com/n7qpf9y

The Six Most Disastrous Interventions of the 21st Century: http://tinyurl.com/plsvnx9

Imperial Failure: Lessons From Afghanistan and Iraq, by Ralph Nader: http://tinyurl.com/o93ec47

WikiLeaks Reveals How the US Aggressively Pursued Regime Change in Syria, Igniting a Bloodbath: http://tinyurl.com/p533yme

Zbigniew Brzezinski On Trial At The UN General Assembly: http://tinyurl.com/pkyffzb

Brzezinski’s “Retaliation” Agenda: Break Up Russia And Absorb It: http://tinyurl.com/o2po77g

Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997: http://tinyurl.com/nbjaqgj

Brzezinski: Obama should retaliate if Russia doesn’t stop attacking U.S. assets: http://tinyurl.com/oqmos85

Fiorina Explains How She Would Deal with ‘Unholy Alliance’ in Middle East: http://tinyurl.com/pajq5f5

Marco Rubio Would Risk War With Russia In Order To Enforce Safe Zone In Syria: http://tinyurl.com/qc55qkb

War Psychosis Grips Washington Elites as Russia Hits CIA’S Pet Syrian Terrorist Rebels with Ship-Launched Cruise Missiles from Caspian Sea: http://tinyurl.com/p434lzu

Syria Is In Russia’s Backyard … Not Ours: http://tinyurl.com/qagzvoc

A Plea for Caution From Russia: http://tinyurl.com/orxslpr

9/11 a ‘turning point’ for Putin: http://tinyurl.com/nk4qoua

Russia closes NATO supply corridor to Afghanistan: http://tinyurl.com/oaadj4p

Russia warned U.S. about Boston Marathon bomb suspect Tsarnaev: http://tinyurl.com/petycg8

Turkish President Erdogan’s Daughter Heads ‘Covert’ Medical Facility for Treating Injured Isis Fighters: http://tinyurl.com/pouafh8

Syrian Civil War: http://tinyurl.com/o79rf2t

Assad Did Not Gas Civilians in Ghouta in 2013: http://tinyurl.com/pljw39s

Did Assad gas his own people?: http://tinyurl.com/n9pkd69

Accusations that Syria used chemical weapon ‘against logic’ – Assad: http://tinyurl.com/ncsdvcz

2 Turkish Parliament Members: Turkey Provided Chemical Weapons for Syrian Terrorist Attack: https://t.co/NMXDbq5G7G

Turkish MPs: Turkey provided chemical weapons for Syrian terrorist attack: http://tinyurl.com/nnb3zz9

Sy Hersh Reveals Potential Turkish Role in Syria Chemical Strike That Almost Sparked U.S. Bombing: http://tinyurl.com/kezlth5

Classified U.S. Military Document: Syrian Rebels DO Have Chemical Weapons: http://tinyurl.com/l2lhmcp

Turkish Political and Military Leaders ADMIT to Planning False Flag Terror to Justify a War with Syria: http://tinyurl.com/kzhnwb3

The Big Fat Honking Lie in Obama’s UN Speech (Sarin Gas Attack): http://tinyurl.com/owfqn5c

Presidential candidate Clinton says removing Assad in Syria is No. 1 priority: http://tinyurl.com/onvxmfm

The tragi-comedy that is “Brown Moses”: http://tinyurl.com/nknjcrd

“Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”, Source Widely Cited by BCC, CNN, Guardian, etc, Is a Fraud: http://tinyurl.com/p8huoej

Who is behind Syrian Observatory for Human Rights?: http://tinyurl.com/nmtr9bg

Soros-Sponsored NGO (The White Helmets) in Syria Aims at Ousting Assad, Not Saving Civilians: http://tinyurl.com/p9txfcb

Counting the Dead in Syria:

Consistent with earlier analyses, most people who have tragically lost their lives in Syria are not civilians, but rather active combatants. This is worth bearing in mind when U.S. senators repeat the inaccurate statement that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has “massacred” 200,000 of his own people.

http://tinyurl.com/pf95skv

Did Vladimir Putin call the breakup of the USSR ‘the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century?’: http://tinyurl.com/nlb5hkp

The Double-Speak of American Civilian Humanitarianism: http://tinyurl.com/nz45esd

Civilian Bombing Reports Emerged BEFORE Strikes Began: http://tinyurl.com/npek44f

Answering Russia’s Critics on Syria: http://tinyurl.com/oeayfsd

US Congresswoman: Russia Is Bombing Al-Qaeda Terrorists. How Is That a Bad Thing?: http://tinyurl.com/nqn43yp

An Assad Apologist? Who’s Apologizing?: http://tinyurl.com/o3y2jdb

A Useful Prep-Sheet on Syria for Media Propagandists: http://tinyurl.com/o9abhx2

Russia’s campaign is snuffing out the CIA’s Al-Qaeda forces: http://tinyurl.com/om3pu9os

Putin Has Just Put An End to the Wolfowitz Doctrine: http://tinyurl.com/q9oukfd

Deep State America: http://tinyurl.com/oflg6sj

Tarpley.net: http://tarpley.net/

TWSP/UFAA Morning Briefing for Friday, October 2, 2015: http://twsp.us/briefing/20151002

RT: http://www.rt.com/

Sputnik News: http://sputniknews.com/

Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/

Strategic Culture: http://www.strategic-culture.org/

   

   

   

   

   

Keep Saying No to War Against Russia!

No matter how many times the American people say no to regime change in Syria through “limited military action with no boots on the ground” (in other words – WAR) the warmongers in both parties never give up.

The same applies to war against Russia (in other words – World War III). The American people do not under any circumstances want to declare war on Russia for the benefit of an ethno-Nazi Lvov-Kiev statelet run by a CIA-installed junta.

But is that what Congress is actually doing as we speak?

Behind the White House’s political smokescreen in Ferguson and New York, US lawmakers were busy sliding through a pre-declaration of war against Russia.

Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich warns about the House’s reckless adoption of the HR 758: “NATO encirclement, the US-backed coup in Ukraine, an attempt to use an agreement with the European Union to bring NATO into Ukraine at the Russian border, a US nuclear first-strike policy, are all policies which attempt to substitute force for diplomacy.”

US Declares War on Russia, from 21st Century Wire:

http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/12/04/us-declares-war-on-russia-step-one/

H.Res.758 – Strongly condemning the actions of the Russian Federation, under President Vladimir Putin, which has carried out a policy of aggression against neighboring countries aimed at political and economic domination:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-resolution/758

Pepe Escobar: THE US CONGRESS HAS DECLARED WAR ON RUSSIA. I can’t emphasize enough how terrifying – and stupid – this is. And now it’s official. House Resolution 758 was approved yesterday by an overwhelming, bipartisan 411-10 score at the US Congress.

This resolution, rushed to a vote only two weeks after it was introduced, depicts Russia as an “Aggressor Nation” which has invaded Ukraine and was behind the downing of MH-17. The resolution virtually calls for war on Russia.
Take a very good look at the language:
The President of the United States, in consultation with the US Congress, must “conduct a review of the force posture, readiness, and responsibilities of the United States Armed Forces and the forces of other members of NATO to determine if the contributions and actions of each is sufficient to meet the obligations of collective self defense under article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and to specify the measures needed to remedy any deficiencies.”
Translation: the US Congress wants the Empire of Chaos to use NATO’s collective security doctrine under article 5 (an attack on one member is an attack on all members) to advance a war on Russia, even though Ukraine is not a member (but will soon become a major non-NATO ally).
The resolution now goes to the Senate. If it becomes law, the resolution allows the President of the United States to declare war on Russia bypassing the formal permission of Capitol Hill.

See the vote breakdown here:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2014/h548

Only 10 Members of Congress Opposed Bill Pushing for War with Russia:

http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/only-10-members-of-congress-opposed-bill-pushing-for-war-with-russia/

The worst part is, many of them don’t even bother reading bills like this:

http://rt.com/usa/211879-ndaa-congress-read-bills/

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Call or email Congress. Let them know that we the people do not agree to fight a war against Russia (a country which has shown no hostility towards the United States) nor do we agree to support the Kiev fascist clique!

Find Your Representative:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Contacting Senators:

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/general/one_item_and_teasers/contacting.htm

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Freedom Fries are never free! Tell Congress that instead of declaring war on Russia, we could try the old trick of renaming food again. Here are some suggestions:

Borscht could be renamed freedom soup, vodka could become spirits of liberty, caviar could be Pussy Riot eggs, and Beef Stroganoff could be Beef Bandera!

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Also let them know that we do not buy into the propaganda myths used by the government and the media to bring us back into a Cold War based solely on Russophobia.

These anti-Russia myths include:

Myth #1 – It is in America’s national security interests to weaken Russia. Russia is our enemy and always has been.

Stephen Cohen: “So for saying this, I’m called a Putin apologist. These people have no understanding. They don’t care about real national security. So I’m the patriot. I’m the one who cares about American national security. And all they’re doing is the old kind of McCarthy-ite red baiting.”

The American Who Dared Make Putin’s Case:

http://www.newsweek.com/american-who-dared-make-putins-case-231388

No, Russia has not always been America’s enemy. More often than not, we have been friends. Let’s take one example from history that very few people know about.

Tarpley’s 2013 CSPAN Lecture on Russian Fleets of 1863:

CrossTalk – Russophobia:

Modern Russophobia

Russophobia II: a vague and confused sense of paranoia

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Myth #2 – Putin is an evil dictator who wants to invade Europe and establish a new USSR.

We’ve all heard politicians and media talking heads tossing around the quote from Putin that he wants to restore the USSR, but here is the actual quote:

“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.” – Vladimir Putin.

Abysmal War Propaganda. Falsehoods in the New York Times – Mr. Putin Tests the West in Ukraine:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/abysmal-war-propaganda-falsehoods-in-the-new-york-times-mr-putin-tests-the-west-in-ukraine/5399592

Vox Populi – Readers Comments Show anti-Putin Propaganda Not Working:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/vox-populi-readers-comments-show-anti-putin-propaganda-not-working/5416022

The Crimea Referendum – Why You Probably Shouldn’t Care:

The Crimea referendum: why you probably shouldn’t care

Here’s a balanced and informed analysis of Vladimir Putin which claims that he is “neither the defiant counterweight” to Anglo-American dominance, nor the “Putler” of Euromaidan fantasy. I don’t completely agree with this analysis / critique, but it’s definitely worth a read:

Sorry America, Ukraine isn’t all about you:

You can see it in the aftermath of the Odessa fire massacre that killed over 40 pro-Russian separatists: It shut up even Navalny. The liberal-yuppie elites’ momentum is over. Putin’s popularity among the rest of the country has never been higher. So if Putin is neither the defiant counterweight hero or the neo-Stalinist imperialist, but rather playing a Russian version of vicious Nixon politics, what should the West do? That’s easy: Stay the Hell out of Russia’s way for a while…

http://pando.com/2014/05/14/sorry-america-the-ukraine-isnt-all-about-you/

Putin ‘like Hitler’? How did Prince Charles get it so wrong?:

A more pro-active Russian ruler would have sent troops to Kiev a long time ago. Thus did Czar Alexis when the Poles, Cossacks and Tatars argued for it in 17th century. So also did Czar Peter the Great, when the Swedes occupied it in the 18th century. So did Lenin, when the Germans set up the Protectorate of Ukraine (he called its establishment “the obscene peace”). So did Stalin, when the Germans occupied the Ukraine in 1941.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/putin-like-hitler-how-did-prince-charles-get-it-so-wrong/5383160

How I know that V. V. Putin isn’t Hitler:

Hitler grabbed territory and made war and committed genocide in order to grab territory. Putin has grabbed territory in order to keep what he has. Putin has fought to hold on to South Ossetia, Dagestan and the Russian naval port of Sevastopol because neither he nor anyone else in Russia can see where the continuous slicing away of Russian influence will end. Russia thinks this way in no small part because they were on the receiving end of Hitler’s Drang nach Osten.

Putin may treat gay people as badly as they’re treated in Alabama, and he may be an autocratic White Tsar. He’s no Yeltsin, but he surely isn’t Hitler.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-i-know-that-v-v-putin-isnt-hitler/

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Myth #3 – There are no Nazis in Ukraine. The Maidan coup was a popular, grassroots movement.

Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997:

Understanding Brzezinski’s long-term view of Ukraine makes it easier to comprehend why the US has given $5 billion to Ukraine since 1991, and why today it is hyper-concerned about having Ukraine remain in its sphere of influence. It may also help explain why in the past year the US and many of its media outlets have feverishly demonized Vladimir Putin.

Brzezinski: “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

Brzezinski wrote that US policy should be “unapologetic” in perpetuating “America’s own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer still.”

http://original.antiwar.com/chris_ernesto/2014/03/14/brzezinski-mapped-out-the-battle-for-ukraine-in-1997/

USAID Exposed in Cuba – What it Tells Us About US Subversion Worldwide:

Not only has Ukraine suffered because of this admitted US-backed political destabilization over the years, but as revealed by the Guardian and other sources, all of Eastern Europe has fallen prey to this brand of foreign-backed subversion, manipulation, and regime change.

http://nsnbc.me/2014/12/13/usaid-exposed-cuba-tells-us-us-subversion-worldwide/

There are No Neo-Nazis in Ukraine. And the Obama Administration does not support Fascists:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/there-are-no-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-and-the-obama-administration-does-not-support-fascists/5370269

Washington Fuels Rise of Neo-Nazism and Anti-Semitism in Ukraine. The Role of John McCain:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/washington-fuels-rise-of-neo-nazism-and-anti-semitism-in-ukraine-the-role-of-john-mccain/5373569

The Odessa Massacre – May 2, 2014:

The Odessa Massacre

Ukraine Crisis Today – Democracy caught on camera:

Ukraine Crisis – What You’re Not Being Told:

The ground will burn under their feet!

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Myth #4 – Kiev is trying to free eastern Ukraine from the Russian invaders.

Death and destruction in Eastern Ukraine – in their own words:

In the Words of the Eastern Ukrainians

Watch this video and hear the voices of Ukrainian people, both from the east and the west:

Ukraine Crisis – Death and destruction continues in Eastern Ukraine / Хунта убивает людей. [ENG SUB]:

Former Ukrainian PM Elena Bondarenko’s Open Letter to the Citizens of the World:

Alexander Turchinov the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, deprived me of the right to speak from the podium as a member of the opposition Party of Regions, only for this: I declared “Any power that commissions its army to bomb its peaceful cities, is criminal.” After which, he magnanimously gave the radical parliamentarians the option to call for shooting the opposition.

The everyday life of an opposition deputy is this: constant threats, unofficial ban from the airwaves, targeted persecution. Everyone who calls for peace is immediately branded as an enemy of the people, just as in 1930’s Germany, or in McCarthyite US.

http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2014/12/former-ukrainian-pm-elena-bondarenkos.html

Ten ways you can tell if Russia has invaded Ukraine or not:

http://stopwar.org.uk/news/ten-ways-you-can-tell-if-russia-has-invaded-ukraine-or-not#.VAZNRvl_uYt

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Myth #5 – Joining the EU and accepting IMF loans is Ukraine’s best chance to develop into a free, democratic and prosperous nation.

If you really believe this, well… think Greece!

What is the “European way of life”? For the working class, not just in Greece but across the continent, it means social misery—drastic cuts in jobs, wages, public services and living conditions—to satisfy the demands of the same banks, financial institutions and corporate giants that were responsible for the economic meltdown that erupted in 2008.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/eu-ukraine-trade-deal-paves-the-way-for-brutal-economic-austerity-imf-to-apply-the-greek-model/5374802

Will the IMF Bailout Turn Ukraine Into Another Greece?:

http://www.thenation.com/article/179212/will-imf-bailout-turn-ukraine-another-greece

Ukraine Can’t Afford the IMF’s Shock Therapy:

Ukraine Can’t Afford the IMF’s ‘Shock Therapy’

Crimean leaders blame Kiev for selling Ukraine off for IMF loans:

…the country’s entire gas pipeline system will be handed over for free in the American company Chevron’s ownership the moment the basic agreement is signed, while the owners of the Mariupol, Zaporizhzhya and Dnipropetrovsk steel mills will be obliged to surrender their 50% stakes to Germany’s Ruhr. The Donbass coal industry will be handed over to Ruhr’s subsidiary in Finland…

Gas prices for municipal companies will have to be increased by 50% and for private will double. Electricity tariffs will be raised by 40%, housing utility tariffs will be raised, too, gasoline excises will go up 60% and transportation tariffs 50%, while state support for childbirth will be cancelled, the free distribution of textbooks will be annulled at schools and the VAT relief will be scrapped in rural regions…

“VAT will be introduced on medications, which will push up prices and bring citizens’ living standards down,” Kovitidi said.

“The planned annulment of the moratorium on the sale of farmland looks appalling. The selloff of Ukraine’s black soil zone, including to foreign countries, may have disastrous economic and social consequences,” she said.

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_09/Crimean-leaders-blame-Kiev-for-selling-Ukraine-off-for-IMF-loans-1082/

With friends like the IMF and EU, Ukraine doesn’t need enemies:

You can’t destroy an economy in order to save it.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/5/ukraine-economy-imfeuropeanunionrussia.html

Medicine and Meat Out of Reach Amid Ukrainian Price Shock:

The plight of Zhytomyr’s 270,000 residents shows how bailout-mandated austerity and the strains of an eight-month insurgency are playing out in everyday life.

“Glory to Ukraine?” said Valya, 76, referring to a slogan of the street uprising. “Glory for what? Higher prices? The war? We’re just tolerating the authorities.”

http://en.ukraina.ru/analytics/20141124/1011261086.html

Ukraine’s healthcare system in crisis:

http://en.ukraina.ru/opinions/20141213/1011483434.html

About 100,000 teachers in Ukraine may lose jobs due to new government’s austerity program:

http://tass.ru/en/world/766330

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Here is the reality:

– Ukraine is none of our business. It’s very far away and the US has no national interests connected with Ukraine.

– Ukraine is Russia’s business. It borders Russia.

– Ukraine is the victim of a fascist coup. America and Russia agree (and have always agreed) on the topic of fascism: it’s bad.

– Ukraine is not worth risking a military confrontation with Russia (a nuclear power) over. It’s called World War III: it’s a bad idea.

– Ukraine is not worth the blood of even a single American soldier.

– If anything, we should be supporting Russia as an ally against fascism!

https://bperet.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/ukrainian-uprising-coup-some-things-you-may-have-missed/

Ukraine – Fascist Dictatorship Masquerading As Democracy:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-fascist-dictatorship-masquerading-as-democracy/5418412

Why Everything You’ve Read about Ukraine is Wrong, from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/05/19/why-everything-youve-read-about-ukraine-is-wrong/

25 Recent Events in Ukraine the U.S. Wants You To Forget:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/25-recent-events-in-ukraine-the-u-s-wants-you-to-forget/5393572

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Chances are, if you’re reading this and it’s the year 2014, the economy of your own country is in serious trouble. Contact your elected representatives and tell them to butt out of Russia’s business and get to work on an economic recovery plan for your country.

http://againstausterity.org/

http://tarpley.net/docs/five-point-program.pdf

Meanwhile in Michigan – The Rev. Pinkney Case:

Meanwhile in Michigan… a Human Rights Violation You May Have Missed!

GET ACTIVE… OR GET RADIOACTIVE!

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Petitions

No to War, Hot or Cold, with Russia:

http://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/no-to-war-hot-or-cold-with-russia

Petition to Keep Ukraine out of NATO:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keep-ukraine-out-of-nato

Act Now to Avoid War over Ukraine! To President Obama:

http://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/president-obama-act-now-to-avoid-war-over-ukraine?bucket&source=facebook-share-button&time=1400200702

Halt Momentum Toward War in Ukraine:

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/halt-momentum-toward-war-in-ukraine?source=direct_link

Tell the White House and Congress: No support for neo-Nazis in Ukraine!

https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=4841FB3B6BA4FE09B43C89AD99C89530.app252a?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=505

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Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of spreading democracy.

“Whenever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benedictions and her prayers. But she does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the wellwisher to freedom and independence for all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She well knows that by once enlisting other banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extridition, in all wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom….She might become the dictress of the world but would no longer be ruler of her own spirit… Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of spreading democracy.”
– John Quincy Adams

A Russian Grandma’s Advice to Obama:

CIA’s Chechen Terrorists AKA “ISIS” Attack in Grozny as Putin Gives Key Address in Kremlin:

CIA’s Chechen Terrorists AKA “ISIS” Attack in Grozny as Putin Gives Key Address in Kremlin; Allen-Petraeus Clique Demands Attack on Assad; Obama Names Utopian Ashton Carter to Head Pentagon; “No Jobs, No Peace”: US Needs 10 Million WPA-Style Youth Jobs as Exemplified by Marion Barry; Corrupt Officials in Benton Harbor, Michigan Face Jail Time as Pinkney Sentencing Nears

Russian Propaganda and the Rainbow Bridge of Hysteria

Russophobia is sweeping the world! Well, maybe not the world, just Europe and America. In other words, The International Community.

Modern Russophobia

Russophobia II: a vague and confused sense of paranoia

But there is more to this mass Western hysteria than mere Russophobia. New psychological disorders have arisen that require an entirely new set of terminology:

Schizoputinia: when you see, hear and feel Putin where he doesn’t exist. (As far as I know, this term was coined by Gulia Ismailova-Adams.) Many have recently been afflicted with this disorder, including Anders Fogh Rasmussen of NATO. Schizoputinia is often accompanied by Putinophobia.

Putinophobia (also known as Amanpouria): wetting one’s pants every time Putin sneezes, accompanied by excessive whining and hysterical babbling. Typified by Christiane Amanpour, and most EU politicians, especially those of the NATO Protectorate of Poland.

Russopropagandophobia: an excessive fear of Russian propaganda accompanied by complete memory loss regarding your own country’s obnoxious and shallow propaganda. One of the main causes of Russopropagandophobia for many seems to be news outlets such as the Russian news channel RT, which often presents rather biased news reports of world events. Considering the relative lack of pro-Russia perspectives in the West, their bias would normally be regarded by the sane observer as fighting fire with fire, rather than pure propaganda.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/17/crimea-crisis-russia-propaganda-media

Greg Satell (Forbes) warns us of Russian propaganda, chiding those who would make too big a deal out of extreme right-wing nationalists in Europe and Ukraine, explaining that it’s OK in Europe because they don’t have American standards of political correctness, and anyway, there are some Jews in the Ukrainian government.

Russia Is Winning Its Non-Stop Propaganda War On America, from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/03/13/russia-is-winning-its-non-stop-propaganda-war-on-america/

This obvious point (fighting fire with fire) is lost on Russopropagandophobes who see every defense of the Russian position (whether it comes from American sources, well-respected journalists such as Pepe Escobar or John Pilger, or Russian sources like RT and Voice of Russia) as pure Kremlin-funded propaganda. Let’s imagine for a moment that the pro-Russia position is indefensible and those who peddle it are either victims or paid agents of the Kremlin and its massive propaganda machine. Would the Kremlin be any match for the much better-funded armies of anti-Russia, pro-NATO media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, Fox, nearly every major news channel and newspaper in Europe and the US, and the leader of the pack these days, The New York Times?

The mysterious masked men

Let’s take a look at The New York Times to see what real propaganda looks like:

The U.S. and the New York Times pretended that Syria’s government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack … but that claim was debunked, and even the New York Times was forced to retract it several months later.  (The alternative media, including Pulitzer prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh, has also pointed out that it was the Syrians rebels – with the help of the Turkish government – did it).

Then the U.S. and the New York Times pretended that they had proof that Russian soldiers were the mysterious “masked men” seizing government buildings in Russia.  But a couple of days later, they were forced [by] reporting from the alternative media – especially Robert Parry, winner of the George Polk Award for National Reporting – into retracting that claim, and admitting that their “proof” was almost as flimsy as proof of Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction”.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-york-times-admits-it-pushed-fabricated-evidence-about-iraq-syria-and-ukraine/5379049

Throughout the Ukraine crisis, there has been a suggestion that Russian forces were on the ground stirring up some of the unrest, first in Crimea and now in some eastern cities. On April 20, the New York Times had a front-page scoop that offered firm evidence of this. Or maybe it didn’t.

Is NYT Walking Back ‘Russia’ Photos Scoop?

http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2014/04/08/media-blacks-out-seymour-hersh

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/04/stop-reading-that-senile-liar-seymour-hersh-and-get-the-truth-from-the-nyt-and-wall-street-journal-2934706.html

The Times’ supposed proof of Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine is a red herring. Its immediate political purpose is indicated in the article itself. The Times writes: “The question of Russia’s role in eastern Ukraine has a critical bearing on the agreement reached Thursday in Geneva among Russian, Ukrainian, American and European diplomats to ease the crisis. American officials have said that Russia would be held responsible for ensuring that the Ukrainian government buildings were vacated, and that it could face new sanctions if the terms were not met.”

Washington has no interest in defusing the crisis. It entered into the Geneva agreement in bad faith, intending to use Russia’s supposed violation of the agreement to justify further sanctions and stepped up military provocations. By supposedly publishing “proof” that the protests in the east are manipulated by Russia, the Times is supplying the US government with propaganda to claim that the failure of the protesters to disband is Moscow’s doing, which is to become the pretext for further escalating the crisis.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-new-york-times-purports-to-provide-definitive-proof-that-russian-spies-are-active-in-eastern-ukraine/5378700

“He could be a Russian special forces soldier or a character from Duck Dynasty.”

Now, the New York Times has led its Monday editions with an article supposedly proving that Russian military special forces are secretly directing the popular uprisings in eastern Ukraine…

The Times based its story on grainy photographs provided by the Kiev regime supposedly showing the same armed “green men” involved in actions with the Russian military earlier and now with the pro-Russian protesters who have seized government buildings in towns in eastern Ukraine.

The Times apparently accepts the photos as legitimate in terms of where and when they were taken, but that requires first trusting the source, the post-coup regime in Kiev which has a strong motive for making this argument as a prelude to violently crushing the eastern Ukrainian protests.

Secondly, one has to believe that the fuzzy photographs of the circled faces are the same individuals. They may be, but it is difficult to be sure from what is displayed. The principal figure shown is a man with a long beard and a cap sometimes pulled down over his forehead. He could be a Russian special forces soldier or a character from “Duck Dynasty.”

“The State Department says that the Ukrainian evidence is convincing.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/peddler-of-iraq-war-lies-now-pushes-lies-on-urkaine-to-drum-up-confrontation-with-russia/5378708

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/04/huffington-post-uncritically-trumpets-obama-republican-big-lie-syrian-war.html

Putin’s Dilemma, from Counterpunch:

The pattern, of course, is unmistakable. It begins with sanctimonious finger-wagging, economic sanctions and incendiary rhetoric, and quickly escalates into stealth bombings, drone attacks, massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, millions of fleeing refugees, decimated towns and cities, death squads, wholesale human carnage, vast environmental devastation, and the steady slide into failed state anarchy; all of which is accompanied by the stale repetition of state propaganda spewed from every corporate bullhorn in the western media.

Robert Parry: “In my four-plus decades in journalism, I have never seen a more thoroughly biased and misleading performance by the major U.S. news media. Even during the days of Ronald Reagan… there was more independence in major news outlets. There were media stampedes off the reality cliff during George H.W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War and George W. Bush’s Iraq War, both of which were marked by demonstrably false claims that were readily swallowed by the big U.S. news outlets.

But there is something utterly Orwellian in the current coverage of the Ukraine crisis, including accusing others of “propaganda” when their accounts… are much more honest and more accurate than what the U.S. press corps has been producing… The casualness of this propaganda… is not just wretched journalism but it is reckless malfeasance jeopardizing the lives of many Ukrainians and the future of the planet.”

Putin’s Dilemma

Ukraine, Through the US Looking Glass:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/55402/ukraine-through-the-us-looking-glass

‘Propaganda bullhorn’: John Kerry attacks RT during his Ukraine address:

“The propaganda bullhorn that is the state-sponsored RT program has been deployed to promote – actually, RT network – has been deployed to promote President Putin’s fantasy about what is playing out on the ground,” Kerry said.

http://rt.com/news/154760-kerry-attacks-rt-propaganda/

Pepe Escobar fires back at John Kerry and his “scripted” ravings:

Ukraine has launched military raids to regain the buildings, which Mr Lavrov described as a “bloody crime”.

“The West… wants to seize Ukraine so to speak, being solely motivated by its own geopolitical ambitions and not the interests of the Ukrainian people,” Mr Lavrov said, according to AFP.

“The might of US propaganda” was aimed “at smearing Russia, smearing those who protest against the illegal actions of the [Kiev] authorities,” he went on.

Ukraine crisis: West wants to ‘seize control’ – Russia, from BBC:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27153909

Putler

Edward Lucas of the Daily Mail exemplifies the drooling, hysterical paranoia of the Anglo-American establishment in the article below, referring to Russia as “a rogue state on Europe’s doorstep,” doublespeak for “a country that does not follow the dictates of NATO.” In the article, Lucas takes us through the standard neo-con list of grievances du jour: Putin is the aggressor, NATO wants to help Ukraine, Western leaders are too weak, Putin wants to reestablish the USSR, Britain failed to support intervention in Syria, etc.

I hope I’m wrong but historians may look back and say this was the start of World War III, from Mail Online:

We are soon to face a bleak choice. We can chose to surrender any responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states — almost certainly Putin’s next target — from further Russian incursion. Or we can mount a last-ditch attempt to deter Russia from furthering its imperial ambitions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2605578/Edward-Lucas-I-hope-Im-wrong-historians-look-say-start-World-War-III.html

It is entirely unclear where our “responsibility to protect” Ukraine (fascist-controlled or otherwise) comes from, but it is clear that Edward Lucas is reading from the song sheet of US United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, with her updated version of “The White Man’s Burden.”

Power, like many others in the ‘responsibility to protect’ industry, has done a great deal to publicize the plight of child soldiers in Africa, in order to justify the continued presence of US troops. However, in Syria there are thousands of child soldiers she and her allies promoting US regime change and militarism seem to be completely unconcerned about.

Protect Syria: Will Samantha Power’s words fool us again? From RT:

http://rt.com/op-edge/un-protect-syria-us-ambassador-700/

Note that when Samantha Power speaks of America’s “responsibility to protect,” hardly anyone raises an eyebrow. When Putin speaks of Russia’s “responsibility to protect” ethnic Russians in Ukraine, he is suddenly the reincarnation of Hitler. “The International Community’s” shallow parody of concern for humanity accomplishes nothing apart from dividing humanity into those who hate Russia, and those who hate America.

Russophobia – the obsession of the UK elite, from RT:

http://rt.com/op-edge/russophobia-uk-elite-obsession-873/

Czar Vladimir? The New York Times characterizes Putin as a Czar:

The New York Times really outdid themselves when they blamed Moscow for the Boston Marathon bombing:

And the American people, once again, are fed pig slop and told to imagine sirloin.

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/04/10/new-cover-boston-bombing-saga-blaming-moscow/

http://rt.com/news/russia-boston-bombing-report-180/

The writers at The Moscow Times have developed a fear of Putin bordering on mania, shown here as they call on “the international community” to stop Putin/Hitler!

A Subtle Similarity Between Hitler and Putin, from The Moscow Times:

Regrettably, the international community is unwilling or unable to stop the violation of human rights in Russia today, just as it was against Germany in the 1930s.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/a-subtle-similarity-between-hitler-and-putin/498193.html

There are also a couple of subtle similarities between The Moscow Times and journalism. It doesn’t mean they should be confused for the same thing.

The US-Russia Ukrainian deal, by Pepe Escobar:

By the time you read this Russia will have invaded Ukraine. Well, that’s what the Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, is spinning. Breedlove Supreme says the Russians are “ready to go” and could easily take over eastern Ukraine. Western corporate media have already dusted off their Kevlar vests.

The heart of the matter – obscured by a rainbow bridge of hysteria – is that neither Washington nor Moscow want Ukraine to become a festering wound. Moscow told Washington, officially, it has no intention of “invading” Ukraine.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-03-040414.html

Putinophobia often involves the hysterical fear that Putin is reestablishing the USSR:

http://news.yahoo.com/west-struggles-russia-moves-dominate-old-ussr-071312738.html

Foreign Policy Magazine is always quick to remind us of the great Russian threat to The International Community, including a recent article on the threat of Russian hackers!

http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/04/22/it_s_not_beijing_s_hackers_you_should_be_worried_about_it_s_moscow_s

The Heritage Foundation (as is customary these days) blames their Putinophobic bed-wetting problems on Obama’s inability to be tough with Putin, whatever that means:

http://blog.heritage.org/2014/03/28/russia-ukraine-crimea-3-things-that-dont-make-sense-in-putins-world/

When You Buy Cheap Gas, You Shop with Putin:

http://ivn.us/2014/03/17/buy-cheap-gas-shop-putin-warfare-sacrifice-21st-century/

The Russian threat to Sweden!

A severe case of schizoputinia in Sweden: Were it not so tragic, it would be outrageously hilarious to learn that even the Swedes are scrambling to prepare for an imminent Putin invasion, or as the Putinophobes call him, Putler.

Swedish Government Plans Higher Defense Spending Due to Russian Threat, from The Moscow Times:

“What we are seeing now is that Russia’s actions confirm and exceed the fears we had then,” it added in a clear reference to Ukraine, where Moscow’s annexation of Crimea has triggered the worst crisis in relations with the West since the fall of communism.

Defense contractors somewhere are pinching themselves!

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/498713.html

Politicians throughout Europe work tirelessly to spread Russophobic panic, none more so than Polish politicians:

… Poland’s defense minister is worried about a possible “Putin doctrine” that aims to recreate the Soviet Union with a “New Russia.”

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2014/04/poland-fears-putins-new-russia-doctrine/82750/

http://www.dw.de/polands-fear-of-the-russian-bear/a-17472541

Of course NATO is always there to provide a false sense of security for Poland’s false sense of threat:

Nato head Anders Fogh Rasmussen has shown sympathy for Polish and Baltic states’ fears of Russia’s aggressive posture in Ukraine and beyond.

http://euobserver.com/defence/123350

Maybe the Polish politicians who helped train Right Sector thugs for the Maidan coup ought to be worried:

The Polish left-wing weekly Nie (No) published a startling witness account of the training given to the most violent of the EuroMaidan activists. According to this source, in September 2013, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski invited 86 members of the Right Sector (Sector Pravy), allegedly in the context of a university exchange program. In reality, the guests were not students, and many were over 40. Contrary to their official schedule, they did not go to the Warsaw University of Technology, but headed instead for the police training center in Legionowo, an hour’s drive from the capital. There, they received four weeks of intensive training in crowd management, person recognition, combat tactics, command skills, behavior in crisis situations, protection against gases used by police, erecting barricades, and especially shooting, including the handling of sniper rifles. Such training took place in September 2013, while the Maidan Square protests were allegedly triggered by a decree suspending preparations for the signing of the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement, which was issued by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on November 21, i.e. two months later. The Polish weekly refers to photographs attesting to the training, which show the Ukrainians in Nazi uniforms alongside their Polish instructors in civilian clothing.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/polands-hand-in-ukraine-coup-detat-trained-putchists-two-months-in-advance/5378655

Double Standard

Russopropagandophobia also involves a double standard – an irrational fear of Russian propaganda coupled with a near or total lack of awareness (or simply denial) of American and European (The International Community) propaganda directed towards countries not generally regarded to be members of The International Community, eg. Russia and Syria.

This double standard is reflected in Western media coverage and attitudes towards popular uprisings in Ukraine. Euro-Maidan protesters violently attacked police with various weapons including Molotov cocktails, occupied and burned government buildings as well as a trade union building in Kiev, and were supported on the front lines by Right Sector and Svoboda fascists and neo-Nazis. They were and continue to be hailed as champions of democracy deserving of full US and European financial and military support. Eastern Ukrainian pro-Russia protesters have also occupied government buildings but have done so without the violence and without the fascism. They are regarded in the Western media as Russian agents, provocateurs, militants, and even terrorists, despite the fact that most of them are ethnic Russian Ukrainian citizens.

Kiev and the West believe Moscow is stirring up the unrest and a senior U.S. official made clear that Russian leaders had to de-escalate the crisis.

“The idea here is that they would stop aiding and abetting and supporting these separatists and that they would pull their troops back from the borders,” the official told reporters as Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Geneva.

http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-tightens-grip-eastern-town-talks-073939979.html

Confusing:

Neil Clark: I’m confused. A few weeks ago we were told in the West that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine was a very good thing. These people, we were told by our political leaders and elite media commentators, were ‘pro-democracy protestors’.

The US government warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these ‘pro-democracy protestors’ even if, according to the pictures we saw, some of them were neo-Nazis who were throwing Molotov cocktails and other things at the police and smashing up statues and setting fire to buildings.

Now, just a few weeks later, we’re told that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine are not‘pro-democracy protestors’ but ‘terrorists’ or ‘militants’.

Why was the occupation of government buildings in Ukraine a very good thing in January, but it is a very bad thing in April? Why was the use of force by the authorities against protestors completely unacceptable in January, but acceptable now? I repeat: I’m confused. Can anyone help me?

http://rt.com/op-edge/west-leaders-ukraine-democracy-600/

Utter Hypocrisy:

“WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed strong concern that attacks by armed militants in eastern Ukraine have been orchestrated and synchronized, and are similar to previous attacks in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.” Associated Press, Apr 12

As far as Secretary of State Kerry is concerned:

– It’s all right for anti Russian protesters to stage violent demonstrations and occupy buildings to protest the former Ukrainian government, but not all right for pro Russian Ukrainians to stage non violent demonstrations and occupy buildings to seek independence from the the current government.

– It’s all right for the United States to invade Iraq without any cause, but not all right for Russia to accept the Crimea’s non violent protests and super majority vote to return to Russia.

– It’s all right for the United States to spend $5 billion to destabilize the government of the Ukraine in order to create an anti-Russian government, but not all right for Russia to resist.

Triumph of the Ill – Ukraine Coup Leaders Turn on People, from Scoop:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1404/S00116/triumph-of-the-ill-ukraine-coup-leaders-turn-on-people.htm

The soldiers had been told that the city was swarming with Russian special forces — and, finding none, they disarmed and either deserted their unit or stayed around and joined the local people protesting for autonomy for their region. The “anti-terrorist operation” ordered by the interim government in Kiev, with American backing, stands discredited.

http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2014/04/17/ukraine-no-winners-only-losers/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ukrainian-troop-defections-escalate-tensions-in-eastern-ukraine/2014/04/16/4d36b1b6-c532-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_22/People-in-the-eastern-Ukraine-do-not-feel-their-interests-are-represented-in-Kiev-political-analyst-3654/

According to The Moscow Times, Putin is making up all the antisemitism in Ukraine.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/putins-fabricated-anti-semitism-in-ukraine/497950.html

The involvement of fascists, extreme right-wing nationalists, and outright Nazis in the Euro-Maidan coup, and now in the unelected government of Ukraine, is not a myth made up by the Kremlin. The proof is there for anyone to analyze without the need to swallow any kind of Russian government propaganda. Political parties like Svoboda and the Right Sector are openly fascist and clearly label themselves – how this could be called Russian propaganda is beyond comprehension. The fascists of Kiev must be getting frustrated wondering what they have to do to convince the world of their sincerity. Maybe if they all grew little square mustaches you’d finally believe them!

See my blog entry for a partial list of fascists that entered the government after the Maidan coup:

Ukrainian uprising / coup: Some things you may have missed.

The BBC ran a report on “ultra-nationalist” Svoboda in December 2012:

Svoboda seems to have attracted voters who would otherwise have stayed away from the polls altogether. Its strong anti-corruption stance – promising to “clean up” Ukraine – has resonated deeply.

– Founded in 1991 as Social-National party

– Won 30-40% of vote in three western regions in 2012 – and about 1% in three eastern regions

The open letter (2005)

– Title – Stop the Criminal Activities of Organised Jewry

– Signed by Tyahnybok and 17 others

– Lists Jewish businessmen, who got rich in the 1990s, and claims they control Ukrainian media

– Describes Zionism as “Jewish Nazism” and warns of “genocide” through the impoverishment of Ukrainians

– Demands investigation into the activities of Jewish organisations headed by people “suspected of serious crimes”

“We want Ukrainians to run the country,” says Bohdan, a participant in a recent Svoboda rally, as he waves a Ukrainian flag and organises cheering and chanting.

“Seventy percent of the parliament are Jews.”

Svoboda: The rise of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists, from BBC:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20824693

The thing that baffles a lot of Russians about this whole Euro-Maidan fiasco is not that western Ukrainians hate Russians (Russians already knew that), it is that they hate Russians so much that they would be willing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of EU and IMF austerity, becoming a NATO puppet state / buffer zone in the process, simply to feel that they are now “part of Europe.” Evidence of this shallow, short-term thinking is easy to find among the people, though it is never reported on properly in the news media.

As Lviv gradually rediscovers its fashionable high society roots and the city gentrifies itself, it is inevitable that people will start to point to the longer European link the region enjoys instead of focusing exclusively on the more recent Soviet experience. Seeing yourself as a European in today’s Ukraine has become something of a status symbol in itself, and Lviv’s European culture gives it enormous kudos. It is also often a factor in allowing European businessmen to set up operations in the region, commenting that the European architecture of the city helps them to feel at home. In the days of the Habsburg Empire Lviv was known as Lemberg, the graceful capital city of Galicia, the north-eastern province of the realm.

A Rich Habsburg Inheritance, from Lviv Today:

http://www.lvivtoday.com.ua/lviv-history/314

Rather than obsessing over these childish fantasies of “fashionable high society roots” and “European cultural kudos,” western Ukrainians should look at what the IMF promises to bring them:

Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the IMF

http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wbimf/oppose

Ukraine Crisis – What You’re Not Being Told:

John Pilger: Obama’s coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and lured Putin into a trap:

In February, the US mounted one of its proxy “colour” coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly antisemitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the invasion of their country by Hitler’s Nazis, who were supported by the infamous Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the UPA) which was responsible for numerous Jewish and Polish massacres. The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, of which the UPA was the military wing, inspires today’s Svoboda party.

The West has tried to counter the bad press the Kiev fascist clique has been getting by attempting to label the other side fascist and xenophobic. Of course Putin has been compared to Hitler by countless journalists and politicians such as Hillary Clinton (known herself by many as Hitlary), but it now goes much further.

http://stopwar.org.uk/videos/john-pilger-obama-s-rapacious-coup-in-ukraine-has-ignited-a-civil-war-and-lured-vladimir-putin-into-a-trap#.U1cxaVWSwrX

The New York Times never sleeps in their quest to paint Moscow as the villain. Here they claim that xenophobia is the latest fad among Muscovites.

Xenophobic Chill Descends on Moscow, from The New York Times:

The antisemitic flyer

An antisemitic flyer was passed around in Donetsk, telling Jews that they had to register or get out. It was signed by Denis Pushilin, pro-Russia “people’s governor.” US Secretary of State John Kerry and others immediately pounced on this opportunity to (at last!) accuse the pro-Russia side of antisemitism.

Pepe Escobar: they were distributed by “three unidentified men wearing balaclavas and carrying the flag of the Russian Federation,” and carrying the logo of “the People’s Republic of Donetsk”

The flyers were signed by Denis Pushilin, in theory the ‘people’s governor’. Pushilin then told Ukrainian media the flyers with the logo were really distributed in Donetsk – but fiercely rejected their content, denying his group had printed them, and even denying he had used the title ‘people’s governor’. Pushilin had no idea who was behind the operation, which he labeled “a provocation’”

Also not surprisingly, Israeli media – and their American echo chambers – were all over the place with the non-story, always failing to stress that anti-Semitic attacks since the Maidan coup had in fact been perpetrated by rabid anti-Russian, Western Ukrainian neo-Nazis/neo-fascists.

And then Kerry, alongside EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton at the press conference, had to condemn the “grotesque flyers that have no place in our 21st century,” as in forcing Jews in eastern Ukraine to ‘register’. Translation: the State Department accepted what bears all the hallmarks of a CIA-style psy-op as a true story. A not-so-subtle push to imprint in misinformed layers of public opinion the toxic tie-up between Russophobia and anti-Semitism.

On Nazis, Jews & Ukraine ‘de-escalation’ by Pepe Escobar:

http://rt.com/op-edge/geneva-ukraine-deescalation-eu-420/

Anyone with half a brain could see this coming from miles away, but just in case you don’t already know, it’s a fake.

“It’s a fake flyer,” says Lesley Weiss, deputy director of the National Conference Supporting Jews (NCSJ), which focuses its efforts on Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States.

That ‘Jewish registry’ in Ukraine is not what you think

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/18/antisemitic-donetsk-peoples-republic-ukraine-hoax

A flyer ordering Jews in eastern Ukraine to register with pro-Russian forces or face deportation has been branded a fake by religious leaders, including the area’s rabbi.

Pamphlets circulating in Donetsk demanded ‘citizens of Jewish nationality’ over the age of 16 pay $50 to register and be issued special passports ‘marking the confession of faith’.

But the flyer, described as ‘grotesque’ by US Secretary of State John Kerry, has now been classed by the leader of the city’s Jewish community as a hoax, aimed at stirring up trouble.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2608486/Grotesque-anti-Semitic-flyer-handed-Jews-Ukraine-fake-aimed-stirring-trouble-discredit-pro-Russians.html

“It’s an obvious provocation designed to get this exact response, going all the way up to Kerry,” says Fyodr Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs.

This may be just another tactic to smear the so-called anti-Maidan in the east of Ukraine: you think we’re fascists? Well, take a look at these guys.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117415/relax-ukraine-not-ordering-its-jews-register

The Rise of Putin’s Russia is a good thing

What is lost in all this anxiety, despair, paranoia, hand-wringing, and bed-wetting, is that a powerful Russia is good for the world – the whole world, including Europe and the United States. The post-Soviet world has seen the US as the lone superpower, and what has come of it? Unchecked by any other global power, the US has been led by its oligarchical ruling class of “blitzkrieg” neo-cons and “color revolution” neo-libs (alternating every eight years) on one democracy-spreading mission after another, leaving very little behind in the way of freedom, and very much in the way of deep resentment. The US has overthrown regimes around the world it deemed tyrannical, but in the process has become the tyrant it feared, and with nothing to show for it but an economy often without direction, and more often than not in free-fall. Compared with the days of the Soviet Union, America is a much weaker country economically, and rather than being adored worldwide as the beacon of liberty, it is (rightly or wrongly) widely hated. The USSR often lived up to its “evil empire” reputation, and had it won the Cold War, we could have hardly expected it to behave much better than the Anglo-American elites are behaving now. Nevertheless, a balance of powers was and is a good thing for all involved.

Why a militarily powerful Russia is good for the world:

http://rbth.com/blogs/2014/03/25/why_a_militarily_powerful_russia_is_good_for_the_world_35361.html

Webster Tarpley for PressTV:
• Will western financial war against Russia trigger the collapse of globalization and an era of multipolarity? (We can only hope)
• Kiev coup on a killing spree, inviting WW3 as Russia regains control of Ukraine
• London willing to sacrifice Germany and Italy to protect its financial interests

Biden Visit to Ukraine Triggers New Murder Spree in Eastern Ukraine by Pro-Kiev Forces; Fascist Premier Yatsenyuk Raves of World War III; Major Russian Move Likely in Coming Week; Psychosis of Russophobia Grips Washington Elites

http://tarpley.net/warmonger-clique-exposed-kerry-samantha-power-gen.-keane-petraeus-press-obama-and-dempsey-to-attack-syria-for-benefit-of-erdogan-saudis/

http://tarpley.net/

http://againstausterity.org/

What is propaganda?

For those of us in the West who live in constant fear of pro-Kremlin propaganda, we have quite a lot of reading to catch up on. I suggest, as an introduction, looking into two names which everyone should be well acquainted with – Noam Chomsky and Edward Bernays:

• Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky and the Media:

“But now, with a most inhuman cruelty, they who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness.” John Milton

• In defense of a phrase: “conspiracy theory” by James Richard Bailey, fom Daily Kos:

Edward Bernays: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/12/1208580/-In-defense-of-a-phrase-conspiracy-theory

• The Century of the Self – BBC documentary series by Adam Curtis:

http://vimeo.com/67977038