Once again my friend Michael Collins has researched the situation in Ukraine, exposing Obama's lies by digging out materials published in U.S. newspapers and journals. Russian President Putin has won, but not by use of military force. Rather he held back his troops while offering to negotiate, a gesture that Obama not only ignored but falsely asserted that Russian troops were attacking. In the meantime, the Russian speakers of the eastern provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk repelled the entire Ukrainian army following its vicious shelling of civilian homes, stores, and factories. So Obama has now quietly dropped his failed Ukraine adventure in favor of the pointless bombing of ISIS.

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OpEdNews Op Eds 9/28/2014 at 04:09:14   
It's Official! Resistance Defeats Kiev Junta in Ukraine
By Michael Collins (about the author)     Permalink

opednews.com                                                           Headlined H2 9/28/14

Flag of Peoples Republic of Lugansk
(image by WikiCommons)

Flag of Peoples Republic of Donetsk
(image by WikiCommons)

The results are in. The official tally is complete and the winner announced.

According to an opinion piece in in Bloomberg News (9/26), Russian President Vladimir Putin is the victor in the conflict in Ukraine (Bloomberg News, Ukraine Can't Hide Putin's Victory, Leonid Barshefky, 9/26),.

Clearly, Putin comes out ahead in this conflict but the real winners are the people of the eastern Ukraine and their resistance militia. Resistance forces fought brilliantly against much larger, better-equipped troops dispatched by the Kiev junta to assault people in cities and towns it declared terrorists. The terrorist acts consisted of political opposition to Ukraine's ruling neo Nazis and oligarchs along with an expressed desire for self-rule. The United States puppets in Kiev started the violence. The people of the east finished it, decisively.

The military tide turned at the end of August when the western politicians and media could no longer hide a string of stunning defeats suffered by Kiev forces. All of a sudden, Kiev's holy crusade against the east was replaced with a Russian brokered ceasefire, the Minsk protocol (9/5). This slowed the intensity of hostilities. The agreement also legitimized the resistance governments of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Their representatives signed the protocol along with the Ukraine government, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

In an attempt to mask the extent of his nation's defeat, Ukraine oligarch and President Petro Poroshenko spoke to the United States Congress in mid September. The bought and sold politicians gave Poroshenko a dozen or so standing ovations for his warnings about the new Cold War. But, when he pleaded for weapons, he left empty handed. Congress sent Poroshenko off with a consolation prize of a few million dollars when he needs billions to avoid an economic meltdown.

The real action took place behind the scenes between Ukraine's leaders and Russia. Unlike the very public chest thumping defiance, Ukraine's rulers offered a three-year period of autonomy for the regions it sought to crush plus other concessions that reflect the nation's diminished support by the U.S. financial elite.

The Bloomberg piece is of special interest since it comes from the homeland of the U.S. financial elite. Aside from one factual lapse, the author sums things up clearly. The piece may become the epitaph for the failed conflict.

Here are the high points from the article.

The Magic Show

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is running a magic show. By pretending his country has a chance of joining the European Union or NATO, he is hoping to obscure Kiev's, and Europe's, gradual capitulation to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine Can't Hide Putin's Victory, Bloomberg, Sep 26

Poroshenko's address to the U.S. Congress was the peak of his magic show. Nothing of substance was gained but it helped divert attention from his capitulation to resistance and Russian demands

Poroshenko's recent concessions to Putin's demands

Just last week, the Ukrainian parliament passed a Poroshenko-approved law granting self-government and budgetary support to the areas of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian rebels, and Kiev agreed not to lower trade barriers for European goods. In return, Russia apparently pulled out most of its troops from eastern Ukraine and facilitated some prisoner exchanges between the rebels and the Ukrainian military. Bloomberg, Sep 26

Self-government is another word for autonomy. The idea of a happy reunion between the breakaway regions and central government of Ukraine is inconceivable. They're likely gone for good. As for the author's claimed Russian troop presence in Ukraine (initially called an invasion), that falls in the same category as the accusation that the resistance shot down Malaysian flight MH17: a political convenience absent any supporting evidence.

NATO membership for Ukraine not likely

"Pragmatic" is the key word. There is no way the EU and NATO are going to admit Ukraine if it fails to settle its accounts with Russia. It would be too much of an economic burden as well as a constant military threat. Europeans realize there will have to be a lasting three-way deal, and have little desire to take full responsibility for a large, dangerously unbalanced nation. Bloomberg, Sep 26

When Bloomberg calls your country a dangerously unbalanced nation, you're in real trouble. NATO and the EU don't want an economic basket case. Apparently, the U.S. doesn't either.

Ukraine opened on the road but failed to make it on Broadway. It's too messy and too expensive. Its army can't win a battle, let alone a war. Then, there's the problem with all that Nazi regalia and those swastikas on the helmets of their soldiers. Say good night Petro. The show is over.

The neoconservatives never relent on their core policy of endless war, however. They just shifted it to ISIL and the Middle East as they await the installation of top neoconservative operative, Hillary Clinton, as the next president. After her nation destroying efforts in Libya and Syria, one can only imagine what she has up her sleeve.

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http://www.opednews.com/author/author3863.html
Researcher, writer DC Area

"The drums for war are being loudly beaten in Washington, European capitals, and the presstitute Western media." "The deadly consequences of such a war would extend beyond Russia, Europe, and the US to the entire world. The Western use of lies to demonize Russia endangers life on earth and reveals the West to be both reckless and irresponsible. Yet, few voices are raised against this recklessness and irresponsibility." -- Paul Craig Roberts

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Washington Has Placed The World On The Road To War — Paul Craig Roberts

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August 14, 2014 | Original Here                                              Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Washington Has Placed The World On The Road To War
Does the world have a death wish?

Paul Craig Roberts

The drums for war are being loudly beaten in Washington, European capitals, and the presstitute Western media. A headline in the Asia Times is “NATO Is Desperate For War.” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-080814.html This time the target is Russia, a major nuclear power.

The deadly consequences of such a war would extend beyond Russia, Europe, and the US to the entire world. The Western use of lies to demonize Russia endangers life on earth and reveals the West to be both reckless and irresponsible. Yet, few voices are raised against this recklessness and irresponsibility.

Ron Unz brings to our attention the important voice of a distinguished Dutch journalist, Karel Van Wolferen. Wolferen http://www.unz.com/article/the-ukraine-corrupted-journalism-and-the-atlanticist-faith/ and Unz himself http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-who-shot-down-flight-mh17-in-ukraine/ are important offsets to what Unz regards, correctly in my opinion, as “the utter corruption and unreliability of the mainstream American media.”

Wolferen’s article is long but very important. Readers will see analysis akin to my own.
Wolferen shows how the Washington hegemon has captured Europe within an Atlanticist ideology that forecloses any independent thinking or foreign policy on the part of Europeans who are reduced to a state of vassalage. Wolferen concludes that as Washington drives Europe toward war, “Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.”

With no internal checks on Washington’s recklessness from allies, the media, and US Senators, the only brake on Washington’s drive to war is Russian, Chinese, Indian, and South American diplomacy. If this diplomacy fails, Fukushima, as bad as it is, becomes a mere raindrop in the ocean. http://www.globalresearch.ca/weve-opened-the-gates-of-hell-fukushima-spews-radiation-world-wide/5395912

The slaughter by Washington, Washington’s Kiev stooges and Washington’s EU vassals of civilians in the former Russian territories that comprise the southern and eastern borders of present-day Ukraine is not only largely unreported in the Western media, but also denied or blamed on Russia.

The crimes that Washington is perpetrating while blaming Russia has aroused a high level of anger among the Russian people. Such anger is dangerous as it could force Putin, who continues to emphasize non-confrontation http://rt.com/news/180268-putin-russia-mobilize-confrontation/ , to turn away from diplomacy to violence.

Egor Prosvirnin, the chief editor of a Russian news site, shows us the extent of the anger in Russia caused by the dangerous mixture of Washington’s broken promises with the vicious propaganda war against Russia and the German government’s complicity. http://sputnikipogrom.com/europe/germany/18213/russian-appeal/

Prosvirnin expresses anger that is white hot: “Germans have failed their test. When Evil has returned again to Europe, you do not even attempt to resist it, and immediately fall prostrate at its feet like a slave.” As Russians see it, all of Europe is a slave to the evil emanating from Washington.

Why did Merkel allow Washington to force Germany into a conflict with Russia that has produced enormous Russian anger toward Germany? What accounts for Merkel’s total failure as a leader?

The Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes have set the world on the path to the final war.
How is it possible for their evil to go unrecognized?

The two murderous states are the US and Israel. By tolerating their endless slaughters and endless lies, the world prepares its own demise.

The only hope for life and truth is that the world unite against these two criminal governments, isolate them diplomatically and economically, and make it impossible for their government officials to travel abroad without being arrested and placed on trial.

Why does the world need Washington and Israel? Unless the world has a death wish, the world does not need Washington and Israel.

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"Americans are very susceptible to propaganda. They seem to have a special taste for it." "In America hate and the cultivation of hate is alive and well. But not a single moral virtue is." -- Paul Craig Roberts "If you should think these are over statements, be sure to test your beliefs against Paul Craig Roberts' deep scholarship." -- David L. Griscom

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The Lies Grow More Audacious — Paul Craig Roberts

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June 6, 2014 | Original Here                                              Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

The Lies Grow More Audacious

Paul Craig Roberts
 
If there were any doubts that Western “leaders” live in a fantasy make-believe world constructed out of their own lies, the G-7 meeting and 70th anniversary celebration of the Normandy landing dispelled the doubts.

The howlers issuing from these occasions are enough to split your sides. Obama and his lap dog Cameron described the Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, as “the greatest liberation force that the world has ever known” and took all the credit for the US and Britain for the defeat of Hitler. No mention was made of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, which for three years prior to the Normandy landing had been fighting and defeating the Wehrmacht.

The Germans lost World War II at the Battle of Stalingrad, which was fought from August 23, 1942 until February 2, 1943, when most of the remnants of the powerful German Sixth Army surrendered, including 22 generals.

Nineteen months previously the largest invasion force ever assembled on planet earth invaded Russia across a one thousand mile front. Three million crack German troops; 7,500 artillery units, 19 panzer divisions with 3,000 tanks, and 2,500 aircraft rolled across Russia for 14 months.

By June 1944, three years later, very little of this force was left. The Red Army had chewed it up. When the so-called “allies” (a term which apparently excludes Russia) landed in France, there was little to resist them. The best forces remaining to Hitler were on the Russian front, which collapsed day by day as the Red Army approached Berlin.

The Red Army won the war with Germany. The Americans and the British showed up after the Wehrmacht was exhausted and in tatters and could offer little resistance. Joseph Stalin believed that Washington and London stayed out of the war until the last minute and left Russia with the burden of defeating Germany.

Hollywood and popular writers have, of course, buried the facts. Americans have all sorts of movies, such as “A Bridge Too Far,” that portray insignificant events, however heroic, as turning points in the war. Nevertheless, the facts are clear. The war was won on the Eastern front by Russia. Hollywood’s movies are fun, but they are nonsense.

Russia is again on the outs with “the world community,” because Obama’s plan to seize Ukraine and to evict Russia from its Black Sea base in Crimea has come a cropper. Crimea has been a part of Russia for as long as the US has existed. Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, stuck Crimea into the Ukrainian Socialist Republic in 1954 when Russia and Ukraine were part of the same country.

When the Washington-imposed stooge government in Kiev recently declared that it was abolishing the use of the Russian language and arresting Ukrainians who had dual Russian citizenship and began tearing down Russian war memorials consecrated to the liberation of Ukraine from the Nazis, the people in Crimea used the ballot box to disassociate from Washington’s stooge government in Kiev, first voting their independence and then voting for reunification with their mother country.

Washington, and the other G-7 countries following Washington’s orders, described this Crimean act of self-determination, which is exactly comparable to the act of self-determination declared by Britain’s American colonies, to be a case of “Russian invasion and annexation.” Similar efforts to disassociate from Kiev are underway in other former Russian territories that today comprise eastern and southern Ukraine. Washington has equated self-determination in eastern and southern Ukraine with “terrorism” and has encouraged its stooge in Kiev to use military violence against protesting civilians. The reason for branding separatists “terrorists” is to make it OK to kill them.

It is extraordinary to any learned person that the President of the United States and the titular heads of state of the Western European countries would publicly declare such blatant lies to the world. The world has historians. The world has peoples whose knowledge vastly exceeds that of the “mainstream media,” a.k.a., the Ministry of Propaganda, or, as Gerald Celente brands them, “the presstitutes.” Whatever name we use, the Western media is a collection of well paid whores.They lie for money, dinner party invitations, and speaking invitations with large honorariums and book contracts with large advances.

I know. They tried to recruit me.

Notice how narrowly Washington defines “the world community.” The “world community” consists of the Group of 7. That’s it. Seven countries make up the “world community.” The “world community” consists of six white countries and Washington’s puppet state of Japan. The “world community” is the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan. The other 190 countries are not part of Washington’s “world community.” In the neocon doctrine, they are not even part of humanity.

The “world community” doesn’t have the population of single excluded countries, such as China or India. I haven’t done the calculation, but probably the land mass of Russia itself exceeds the land mass of the “world community.”

So, what is this “world community?”

The “world community” is the assemblage of US vassal states. Britain, France, and Germany were important on the 20th century scene. Their histories are studied in universities. The populations had a decent standard of living, although not for all citizens. Their past is the reason for their present importance.

In effect, these countries were propelled forward by history, or by the history important to the West. Japan, being an appendage of Washington, has tried to become “western.” It is extraordinary how such a proud, war-like people became nothing.

As I have finally stopped laughing at the presumed non-role of Russia in the defeat of Hitler, let’s return to the G-7 meeting. The Big Happening of this meeting was Russia’s exclusion and the shrinkage of the G-8 to the G-7.

This was the first time in 17 years that Russia was not allowed to participate in the meeting of which Russia is a member. Why?

Russia is being punished. Russia is being isolated from the 7 countries that the White House Fool thinks constitute “the world community.”

Obama is angry that his National Security Council and the morons he appointed to the State Department and UN were so poorly educated that they did not know that much of the Ukraine consists of former Russian provinces inhabited by Russians. These ignorant Obama-appointed morons thought that they could grab Crimea, evict Russia, and leave Russia without access to the Mediterranean, thus unable to hold on to its naval base in Tartus, Syria, the easier for Washington to invade Syria.

Crimea has been part of Russia since Russia completed the reconquest from the Tartars. I remember the Tarter, or Tater, ethnics from my visit to Tamerlane the Great’s (Timur as he was also known) tomb in Samarkand 53 years ago. Today Tamerlane’s city is refurbished as a tourist site. 53 years ago it was a desolate place in ruins, overgrown with trees growing out of the tops of the minarets.

As Obama’s plan to seize Ukraine failed, like every one of his other plans has failed, Washington’s spokesmen for the vested private interests have seized on the opportunity to demonize Putin and Russia and to restart the Cold War. Obama and his Group of 7 puppets or vassals used the occasion to threaten Russia with real sanctions, in place of the present propaganda sanctions that have no effect. According to Obama and his British lap dog, Putin must somehow prevent the Russian populations of eastern and southern Ukraine from protesting their subservience to a neo-fascist government in Kiev backed by Washington, or else.

Putin is supposed to embrace the Oligarch, a former minister of the government that Washington overthrew, put in office by a fake vote in which turnout was a small percent of the population. Putin is supposed to kiss this corrupt Oligarch on both cheeks, pay Ukraine’s natural gas bills and forgive its debts. In addition, Russia is supposed to repudiate the Crimean people, evict them from their re-unity with Russia and hand them over to the neo-Nazi Right Sector to be eliminated as retribution for Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany, for whom some Western Ukrainians fought. In exchange, Washington and NATO will put anti-ballistic missile bases on Ukraine’s border with Russia in order to protect Europe from nonexistent Iranian nuclear ICBMs.

This is supposed to be a win-win deal for Russia.

The Obama regime used its well-paid NGOs in Ukraine to overthrow an elected, democratic government, a government no more corrupt than those in Western or Eastern Europe or Washington.

The political morons who have England, France, Germany, and Italy in their hands are wagging their fists at Russia, warning of more, this time real, sanctions. Do these morons really want their energy supplies cut off? There is no prospect, despite the propagandistic claims, of Washington supplying the energy on which Germany industry depends and on which Europeans depend so that they do not freeze in the winter.

Sanctions on Russia will wreck Europe and have little, if any, effect on Russia. Russia is already moving, with China and the BRICS, outside the dollar payments mechanism.

As the demand for dollars drops, the dollar’s exchange value will drop. Initially, Washington will be able to force its vassals to support the dollar, but eventually this will become impossible.

What the White House Fool, the neoconized National Security Council, the presstitute media, and subservient Congress are doing is to support and uphold the policies based on hubris and arrogance that are leading the US into the abyss.

An abyss is like a black hole. You don’t get out.

Washington’s lies are so blatant and transparent that Washington is destroying its own credibility. Consider the NSA spying. Documents released by Snowden and Greenwald make it completely clear that Washington spies not only on government leaders and ordinary people but also on foreign businesses in order to advance US commercial and financial interests. That the US steals Chinese business secrets is not in doubt. So what does Washington do? Washington not only denies what the documents prove but turns the charge around and indicts five Chinese generals for spying on US corporations.

The only purpose of these indictments hyped by the US attorney general is propaganda.The indictments are otherwise totally meaningless, not merely false. China is not about to turn over five Chinese generals to the liars in Washington. For the presstitute media the story is a way to move the NSA’s spying out of the spotlight. China is substituted for the NSA as the guilty party.

Why doesn’t China, Brazil, Germany and every other country issue arrest warrants for NSA’s top officials, for Obama, and for the members of the congressional oversight committee? Why do other countries always allow Washington to control the explanation with propaganda first strikes?

Americans are very susceptible to propaganda. They seem to have a special taste for it. Consider the hate whipped up against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier just released by the Taliban in a prisoner exchange with the US. The hatred and bloodlust that the presstitute media have whipped up against Bergdahl has caused his hometown to cancel the celebration of his release. The press engineered hatred of Bergdahl has spilled over into threats against Hailey, Idaho.

What is the basis for the attacks on Bergdahl? Apparently, the answer is that Bergdahl, like pro-football star Pat Tillman who turned down a $3.6 million contract to join the Army Rangers and go to defend freedom in Afghanistan, came down with a case of doubts about the war. Originally Pat Tillman’s death was attributed to his heroic action and enemy fire. Then it emerged that Tillman was a victim of “friendly fire.” Many concluded that he was murdered, because the government did not want a sports hero speaking out about the war. As Bergdahl is off the battlefield, he has to be murdered in the press–like Russia, China, Iran, Putin, Assad, Crimeans, and the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine.

In America hate and the cultivation of hate is alive and well. But not a single moral virtue is. 

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"Perhaps if the Kiev students had listened to the Hungarian rock group instead of to Washington's NGOs, they would understand what it means to be looted by the West, and Ukraine would not be in turmoil and headed toward destruction." "As Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland made clear in her speech last December and in the leaked recording of her telephone conversation with the US ambassador in Kiev, Washington spent $5 billion of US taxpayer dollars engineering a coup in Ukraine that overthrew the elected democratic government." "The entire world should be alarmed at the reckless and irresponsible interference by Washington in Ukraine. By bringing a direct strategic threat to Russia, the crazed Washington hegemon has engineered a Great Power confrontation and created the risk of world destruction." -- Paul Craig Roberts

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OpEdNews Op Eds 2/25/2014 at 14:03:31

The Crisis In Ukraine

By Paul Craig Roberts (about the author)     Permalink

opednews.com

Source: Paul Craig Roberts

Opposition leaders, whose power base is among protesters massing in the square whose name evokes
the independence Ukraine gained in 1991, continued to press for concessions including early elections
and the repeal of an anti-protest law.(image by Reuters)

In 2004, Hungary joined the EU, expecting streets of gold. Instead, four years later in 2008 Hungary became indebted to the IMF. The rock video by the Hungarian group, Mouksa Underground sums up the result in Hungary today of falling into the hands of the EU and IMF.



The song is about the disappointing results of leaving socialism for capitalism, and in Hungary the results are certainly not encouraging. The title is "Disappointment with the System Change." Here are the lyrics:

"Over twenty some years now
We've been waiting for the good life
For the average citizen
Instead of wealth we have poverty
Unrestrained exploitation

"So this is the big system change
So this is what you waited for

"No housing No food No work
But that's what was assured wouldn't happen

"Those on top
Prey upon us
The poor suffer everyday 

"So this is the big system change
So this is what you waited for

"(Repeat)

"When will real change occur?
When will there be a livable world
The ultimate solution will arise
When this economic system is forever abandoned

"So this is the big system change
So this is what you waited for

"(Repeat)

"There is no solution but revolution"

Perhaps if the Kiev students had listened to the Hungarian rock group instead of to Washington's NGOs, they would understand what it means to be looted by the West, and Ukraine would not be in turmoil and headed toward destruction.

As Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland made clear in her speech last December and in the leaked recording of her telephone conversation with the US ambassador in Kiev, Washington spent $5 billion of US taxpayer dollars engineering a coup in Ukraine that overthrew the elected democratic government.

That it was a coup is also underlined by the obvious public lies that Obama has told about the situation, blaming, of course, the overthrown government, and by the total misrepresentation of Ukrainian developments by the US and European presstitute media. The only reason to misrepresent the events is to support the coup and to cover up Washington's hand.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the coup is a strategic move by Washington to weaken Russia. Washington tried to capture Ukraine in 2004 with the Washington-funded "Orange Revolution," but failed. Ukraine was part of Russia for 200 years prior to being granted independence in the 1990s. The eastern and southern provinces of Ukraine are Russian areas that were added to Ukraine in the 1950s by the Soviet leadership in order to water down the influence of the nazi elements in the western Ukraine that had fought for Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union during World War 2.

The loss of Ukraine to the EU and NATO would mean the loss of Russia's naval base on the Black Sea and the loss of many military industries. If Russia were to accept such strategic defeat, it would mean that Russia had submitted to Washington's hegemony.

Whatever course the Russian government takes, the Russian population of eastern and southern Ukraine will not accept oppression by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and neo-nazis.

The hostility already shown toward the Russian population can be seen in the destruction by Ukrainians of the monument to the Russian troops that drove Hitler's divisions out of Ukraine during World War 2 and the destruction of the monument to Russian General Kutuzov, whose tactics destroyed Napoleon's Grand Army and resulted in the fall of Napoleon.

The question at the moment is whether Washington miscalculated and lost control of the coup to the neo-nazi elements who seem to have taken control from the Washington-paid moderates in Kiev, or whether the Washington neocons have been working with the neo-nazis for years. Max Blumenthal says the latter...

The moderates have certainly lost control. They cannot protect public monuments, and they are forced to try to pre-empt the neo-nazis by legislating the neo-nazi program. The captive Ukrainian parliament has introduced measures to ban any official use of the Russian language. This, of course, is unacceptable to the Russian provinces.

As I noted in a previous column, the Ukrainian parliament itself is responsible for the destruction of democracy in Ukraine. Its unconstitutional and undemocratic actions have paved the way for the neo-nazis who now have the precedent to treat the moderates the same way that the moderates treated the elected government and to cover up their illegality with accusations of crimes and arrest warrants. Today the illegally deposed President Yanukovych is on the run. Tomorrow will the current president, Oleksander Turchinov, put in office by the moderates, not by the people, be on the run? If a democratic election did not convey legitimacy to President Yanukovych, how does selection by a rump parliament convey legitimacy to Turchinov? What can Turchinov answer if the neo-nazis put to him Lenin's question to Kerensky: "Who chose you?"

If Washington has lost control of the coup and is unable to restore control to the moderates whom it has aligned with the EU and NATO, war would seem to be unavoidable. There is no doubt that the Russian provinces would seek and be granted Russia's protection. Whether Russia would go further and overthrow the neo-nazis in western Ukraine is unknown. Whether Washington, which seems to have positioned military forces in the region, would provide the military might for the moderates to defeat the neo-nazis is also an open question, as is Russia's response.

In a previous column I described the situation as "Sleepwalking Again," an analogy to how miscalculations resulted in World War 1.

The entire world should be alarmed at the reckless and irresponsible interference by Washington in Ukraine. By bringing a direct strategic threat to Russia, the crazed Washington hegemon has engineered a Great Power confrontation and created the risk of world destruction.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He was associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He is a contributing editor to Gerald Celente's Trends Journal. He has had numerous university appointments. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is available here:  http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Capitalism-Economic-Dissolution-ebook/dp/B00BLPJNWE/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1362095594&sr=8-17&keywords=paul+craig+roberts

This Blog Features Only The Very Best Economists That Money CAN'T Buy. These include Republicans as well as Democrats. Their common denominators are deep understanding of macro economics and intellectual honesty.

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 theREALnews                                                                               Permalink

Obama's "Cat Food" Social Security Reform

Michael Hudson: Obama's "bargain" on social security reform will push more retirees into poverty in exchange for a minor increase in high end income tax - a class that receives most revenue from capital gains - April 11, 13

Bio

Michael Hudson is a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His two newest books are “The Bubble and Beyond” and “Finance Capitalism and its Discontents,” available on Amazon.

Obama Sends Lew to Europe Preaching Growth While Practicing Austerity at Home,

Bill Black: Treasury Secretary Lew tells Europe to ease up on austerity while Obama makes major cuts at home - April 11, 13

Original Here

Bio

William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. Black developed the concept of "control fraud" frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a "weapon." Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined. He recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae's former senior management.