One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."
In my last column I provided reasons for believing that the deal will
fail. I saw a larger downside for Russia and the Donetsk and Luhansk
republics because Putin and the break-away provinces will be blamed.
English is the world language, and this enables Washington and its
presstitutes to control the explanation.
The Saker and I are in agreement that the provisions of the peace
deal are ridiculous and cannot and will not be implemented. However,
The Saker sees an advantage for the republics in the provision, if
implemented, to remove heavy weapons from the conflict zones. The
Saker’s viewpoint is worth knowing. Whereas I have stressed that the
conflict could be ended by Russia accepting the republics’ requests for
unification with Russia and that the longer the conflict is drawn out
the more the West can demonize Putin and the break-away republics, Saker
sees the conflict ending this year with the economic, military, and
political collapse of Ukraine. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40979.htm
Alexander Mercouris makes the point that one positive feature of the Minsk agreement,
which isn’t actually a deal or an agreement, is that Europe is now
involved and opposes Washington’s plan to escalate the military
conflict. He writes that the outcome in Ukraine depends on what the
Europeans do, a point with which I concur. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40967.htm
It is difficult to believe that European governments are not aware
that the entire Ukraine crisis is a Washington orchestration. Now that
Europeans are beginning to realize the risk and recklessness in
Washington’s aggressive hostility toward Russia, Europeans might develop
an independent foreign policy, as opposed to lining up with Washington,
and cast off their vassalage. If this were to happen, Washington’s
hegemonic aggression would cease to have enablers. The Evil Empire would
begin its break-up, and the chances for peace would improve.
As Washington is not a partner to the Minsk peace deal, how can there
be peace when Washington has made policy decisions to escalate the
conflict and to use the conflict as a proxy war between the US and
Russia?
The Minsk agreement makes no reference to the announcement by Lt.
Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of US Army Europe, that Washington is sending
a battalion of US troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces how to
fight against Russian and rebel forces. The training is scheduled to
begin in March, about two weeks from now. Gen. Hodges says that it is
very important to recognize that the Donetsk and Luhansk forces “are not
separatists, these are proxies for President Putin.”
How is there a peace deal when Washington has plans underway to send arms and
training to the US puppet government in Kiev?
Looking at the deal itself, it is set up to fail. The only parties to
the deal who had to sign it are the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk
break-away republics. The other signers to the Minsk deal are an OSCE
representative which is the European group that is supposed to monitor
the withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides, a former Ukrainian
president Viktor Kuchma, and the Russian ambassador in Kiev. Neither
the German chancellor nor the French, Ukrainian, and Russian presidents
who brokered the deal had to sign it.
In other words, the governments of Germany, France, Ukraine, and
Russia do not appear to be empowered or required to enforce the
agreement. According to RT, “the declaration was not meant to be signed
by the leaders, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.” http://rt.com/news/231571-putin-minsk-ukraine-deal/
The terms of the agreement depend on actions of the Ukrainian
parliament and prime minister, neither of which are under Poroshenko’s
control, and Poroshenko himself is a figurehead under Washington’s
control. Moreover, the Ukrainian military does not control the Nazi
militias. As Washington and the right-wing elements in Ukraine want
conflict with Russia, peace cannot be forthcoming.
The agreement is nothing but a list of expectations that have no chance of occurring.
One expectation is that Ukraine and the republics will negotiate
terms for future local elections in the provinces that will bring them
back under Ukraine’s legal control. The day after the local elections,
but prior to the constitutional reform that provides the regions with
autonomy, Kiev takes control of the borders with Ukraine and between the
provinces. I read this as the total sell-out of the Donetsk and
Lugansk republics. Apparently, that is the way the leaders of the
republics see it as well, as Putin had to twist their arms in order to
get their signatures to the agreement.
Another expectation is that Ukraine will adopt legislation on
self-governance that would be acceptable to the republics and declare a
general amnesty for the republics’ leaders and military forces.
Negotiations between Kiev and the autonomous areas are to take place
that restore Kiev’s taxation of the autonomous areas and the provision
of social payments and banking services to the autonomous areas.
After a comprehensive constitutional reform in Ukraine guaranteeing
acceptable (and undefined) autonomy to the republics, Kiev will take
control over the provinces’ borders with Russia.
By the end of 2015 Kiev will implement comprehensive constitutional
reform that decentralizes the Ukrainian political system and provides
privileges of autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Both Putin and Poroshenko are both reported as stating that the main thing achieved is a ceasefire starting on February 15.
The ceasefire is of no benefit to the Donetsk and Lugansk republics
as they are prevailing in the conflict. Moreover, the deal requires the
republics’ forces to give up territory and to pull back to the borders
of last September and to eject fighters from France and other countries
who have come to the aid of the break-away republics. In other words,
the agreement erases all of Kiev’s losses from the conflict that Kiev
initiated.
All of the risks of the agreement are imposed on the break-away
republics and on Putin. The provinces are required to give up all their
gains while Washington trains and arms Ukrainian forces to attack the
provinces. The republics have to give up their security and trust Kiev
long before Kiev votes, assuming it ever does, autonomy for the
republics.
Moreover, if the one-sided terms of the Minsk agreement result in failure, Putin and the republics will be blamed.
Why would Putin make such a deal and force it on the republics? If
the deal becomes a Russian sell-out of the republics, it will hurt
Putin’s nationalist support within Russia and make it easier for
Washington to weaken Putin and perhaps achieve regime change. It looks
more like a surrender than a fair deal.
Perhaps Putin’s strategy is to give away every advantage in the
expectation that the deal will fail, and the Russian government can say
“we gave away the store and the deal still failed.”
Washington’s coup in Kiev and the attack on the Russian-speaking
Ukrainians in the east and south is part of Washington’s strategy to
reassert its uni-power position. Russia’s independent foreign policy
and Russia’s growing economic and political relationships with Europe
became problems for Washington. Washington is using Ukraine to attack
and to demonize Russia and its leader and to break-up Russia’s economic
and political relations with Europe. That is what the sanctions are
about. A peace deal in Ukraine on any terms other than Washington’s is
unacceptable to Washington. The only acceptable deal is a deal that is a
defeat for Russia.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Russian government
made a strategic mistake when it did not accept the requests of the
break-away provinces to be united with Russia. The people in the
Donetsk and Lugansk provinces favored unification with the same massive
majorities that the people in Crimea showed. If the provinces had been
united with Russia, it would have been the end of the conflict. Neither
Ukraine nor Washington is going to attack Russian territory.
By failing to end the conflict by unification, Putin set himself up
as the punching bag for Western propaganda. The consequence is that
over the many months during which the conflict has been needlessly drawn
out, Putin has had his image and reputation in the West destroyed. He
is the “new Hitler.” He is “scheming to restore the Soviet Empire.”
“Russia ranks with ebola and the Islamist State as the three greatest
threats.” “RT is a terrorist organization like Boco Haram and the
Islamist State.” And so on and on. This CNN interview with Obama
conducted by Washington’s presstitute Fareed Zakaria shows the image of
Putin based entirely on lies that rules in the West.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duu6IwW3sbw
Putin could be no more demonized even if the Russian military had invaded Ukraine,
conquered it, and reincorporated Ukraine in Russia of which Ukraine was
part for centuries prior to the Soviet collapse and Ukraine’s separation
from Russia at Washington’s insistence.
The Russian government might want to carefully consider whether
Moscow is helping Washington to achieve another victory in Ukraine.
Ukraine ceasefire deal agreed at Minsk talks Ceasefire will come into force on Sunday, but Hollande and Merkel say much work still to be done after marathon overnight negotiations. Original Here
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, says fighting will end at midnight on 15 February and that both the Ukrainian government and separatist rebels will withdraw heavy weapons from the front line The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany have reached a ceasefire deal after 17 hours of talks in Minsk, Belarus, on the Ukrainian conflict. The ceasefire will come into force on Sunday as part of a deal that also involves the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line. Russian president Vladimir Putin was the first to announce the deal, saying: “We have agreed on a ceasefire from midnight 15 February.” Putin added: “There is also the political settlement. The first thing is constitutional reform that should take into consideration the legitimate rights of people who live in Donbass. There are also border issues. Finally there are a whole range of economic and humanitarian issues.” The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who helped to broker the deal alongside the French president, François Hollande, said “we now have a glimmer of hope”, but added that the leaders were under no illusions and that “there is very, very much work still to do”. Merkel also confirmed that Putin put pressure on the separatists to agree a truce. Hollande said the deal covered all the contentious issues, including border control, decentralisation, and the resumption of economic relations, but also warned that much more needed to be done to resolve the crisis. Hollande and Merkel will ask the European Union to support the agreement later on Thursday. European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini sounded a note of caution, saying the Minsk agreement was important but not definitive. She added that she did not expect EU leaders to discuss sanctions against Russia at their summit on Thursday after the deal. The main points of the agreement are: Ceasefire to begin at midnight on 15 February
Heavy weapons withdrawn in a two week period starting from 17 February
Amnesty for prisoners involved in fighting
Withdrawal of all foreign militias from Ukrainian territory and the disarmament of all illegal groups
Lifting of restrictions in rebel areas of Ukraine
Decentralisation for rebel regions by the end of 2015
Ukrainian control of the border with Russia by the end of 2015 The participants also agreed to attend regular meetings to ensure the fulfilment of the agreements, a Russian-distributed document said.
Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, said: “The main thing which has been achieved is that from Saturday into Sunday there should be declared without any conditions at all a general ceasefire.” Speaking after the talks, Donetsk rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko called the treaty a “major victory for the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics”. Luhansk leader Igor Plotnitsky said they would “give Ukraine a chance, so that the country changes its constitution and its attitude”. But despite the celebratory words, the fledgling peace process remained very fragile. Zakharchenko warned that all “responsibility will be on Petro Poroshenko”, and that the peace process would fall through if Kiev violated the new agreements, Russian news agency Interfax reported. “All the points require additional approval, and for this reason there will be no meetings and new agreements if any violations take place,” Zakharchenko said. http://youtu.be/_vGK63sbiks
Residents of Donetsk, where civilians have continued to be killed by shelling this week, greeted the news of the peace agreement with cautious optimism. A small group of people rallied outside the rebel government’s headquarters in the Donetsk regional administration building, and a woman on stage declared that “today is a holiday.” More hardcore supporters of the rebels were disappointed with the new agreement. The popular Russian nationalist publication Sputnik i Pogrom called the Minsk treaty a “betrayal of all that the rebels fought for, including some of our readers” and derided the “clownish half-autonomous status” offered to the breakaway republics. Earlier, Ukraine had played down speculation about a possible ceasefire agreement, accusing Russia of imposing “unacceptable” conditions. At one point during the negotiations Putin signalled his apparent frustration at the lack of progress by snapping a pen or a pencil.
More than 5,300 people have died since April in the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in two eastern provinces, and the bloodshed rose sharply in recent weeks. Although the Minsk agreement represents a breakthrough in a long-frustrated peace process, several key points will be difficult and time-consuming to achieve. It remained unclear what actions were to be taken in Debaltseve, the current major point of contention between the warring sides in eastern Ukraine. Pro-Russian fighters have been trying to take the town and its railroad junction from Ukrainian forces in weeks of heavy fighting, with violence escalating in the buildup to the peace talks. The rebels have said they have Debaltseve surrounded, while the Ukrainian military has repeatedly denied this. But a volunteer battalion commander said on Thursday morning that Kiev’s forces were storming Lohvynove, a town located along the only highway leading out of Debaltseve to Ukrainian positions, suggesting that the troops really were surrounded. Speaking to Russian channel RT, Putin said he had ordered “military experts” to look into how to solve the situation in Debaltseve peacefully. The Minsk agreement stipulates that the rebel republics withdraw their forces from the demarcation line laid down in the September ceasefire, and that Kiev withdraws its forces from the current de facto frontline. “If it really is surrounded, then according to the normal logic of things, those who are surrounded will make attempts to break out, and those who are outside will make attempts to organise a corridor for the surrounded troops to leave,” Putin said.
“Look what the Russians are now bargaining for,” tweeted Ukrainian
foreign ministry representative Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday, with a link
to rebel claims that they had Debaltseve surrounded. “Without
Debaltseve, the [Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics] are in a
transportation bind.”
Another particularly difficult point to implement will be
re-establishing Kiev’s control of the border, through which Russian
volunteers, arms and allegedly troops have been coming to the rebels’
aid. Many of the border crossings with Russia are under rebel control,
and the boundary between the two countries is notoriously porous anyway.
Poroshenko said Kiev will only restore full control of the border by
the end of 2015.
The US president, Barack Obama, has faced rising calls at home to send military aid to Ukraine,
but European leaders fear it would only aggravate the violence. Russia,
meanwhile, faces a severe economic downturn driven in part by sanctions
the west has imposed for supporting the separatists with troops and
equipment, which Moscow vehemently denies it is doing.
The urgency felt by all sides appeared to be underlined by the
extraordinary length and discomfort of the talks between the leaders of
Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. They sat down with each other
Wednesday evening in the Belarusian capital and the talks continued as
sunrise neared on Thursday.
In a diplomatic blitz that began last week, Merkel and Hollande
visited Kiev and Moscow to speak to Poroshenko and Putin, paving the way
for the marathon session in Minsk.
Is Ukraine a Proxy Western-Russia War? U.S. Weighs Arming Kiev as Violence Soars http://youtu.be/PIxjULs46Kk
The United Nations has raised the death toll from fighting in eastern Ukraine to more than 5,300 people since last April following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych one year ago this month. Another 1.5 million people have been displaced. As fighting intensifies, the Obama administration is now considering directly arming Ukrainian forces against Russian-backed rebels. Washington already supplies nonlethal military equipment to Ukraine, but top officials are reportedly leaning toward sending arms, from rifles to anti-tank weapons. The role of the U.S. and European allies in Ukraine has prompted former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to accuse the West of dragging Russia into a new Cold War. We are joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University.
GUEST
Stephen Cohen,
professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New
York University and Princeton University. His most recent book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, is out in paperback. His recent writings on the Ukrainian crisis are on TheNation.com.
According to news reports, Washington has decided to arm Ukraine for
renewed military assault on Russian ethnics in Donetsk and Luhansk.
A Russian foreign ministry official condemned Washington’s reckless
decision to supply weapons to Kiev as a violation of agreements that
would make a political resolution of the conflict less likely. This
statement is perplexing. It implies that the Russian government has not
yet figured out that Washington has no interest in resolving the
conflict. Washington’s purpose is to use the hapless Ukrainians against
Russia. The worse the conflict becomes, the happier Washington is.
The Russian government made a bet that Europe would come to its
senses and the conflict would be peacefully resolved. The Russian
government has lost that bet and must immediately move to preempt a
worsening crisis by uniting the separatists provinces with Russia or by
reading the riot act to Europe.
It would be a costly humiliation for the Russian government to
abandon the ethnic Russians to a military assault. If Russia stands
aside while Donetsk and Luhansk are destroyed, the next attack will be
on Crimea. By the time Russia is forced to fight Russia will face a
better armed, better prepared, and more formidable foe.
By its inaction the Russian government is aiding and abetting
Washington’s onslaught against Russia. The Russian government could
tell Europe to call this off or go without natural gas. The Russian
government could declare a no-fly zone over the separatist provinces and
deliver an ultimatum to Kiev. The Russian government could accept the
requests from Donetsk and Luhansk for unification or reunification with
Russia. Any one of these actions would suffice to resolve the conflict
before it spins out of control and opens the gates to World War III.
The American people are clueless that Washington is on the brink of
starting a dangerous war. Even informed commentators become sidetracked
in refuting propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine and is supplying
weapons to the separatists. These commentators are mistaken if they
think establishing the facts will do any good.
Washington intends to remove Russia as a constraint on Washington’s
power. Washington’s arrogance is forcing a stark choice on Russia:
vassalage or war.
