Western Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun — Paul Craig Roberts
March 29, 2014 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter
Western Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun
Paul Craig Roberts
It is now apparent that the “Maiden protests” in Kiev were in
actuality a Washington organized coup against the elected democratic
government. The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on
Ukraine’s border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that
serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country.
The sincere idealistic protesters who took to the streets without being
paid were the gullible dupes of the plot to destroy their country.
Politically Ukraine is an untenable aggregation of Ukrainian and
Russian territory, because traditional Russian territories were stuck
into the borders of the Ukraine Soviet Republic by Lenin and Khrushchev.
The Crimea, stuck into Ukraine by Khrushchev, has already departed and
rejoined Russia. Unless some autonomy is granted to them, Russian areas
in eastern and southern Ukraine might also depart and return to Russia.
If the animosity displayed toward the Russian speaking population by the
stooge government in Kiev continues, more defections to Russia are
likely.
The Washington-imposed coup faces other possible difficulties from
what seems to be a growing conflict between the well-organized Right
Sector and the Washington-imposed stooges. If armed conflict between
these two groups were to occur, Washington might conclude that it needs
to send help to its stooges. The appearance of US/NATO troops in
Ukraine would create pressure on Putin to occupy the remaining Russian
speaking parts of Ukraine.
Before the political and geographical issues are settled, the Western
looting of Ukraine has already begun. The Western media, doesn’t tell
any more truth about IMF “rescue packages” than it does about anything
else. The media reports, and many Ukrainians believe, that the IMF is
going to rescue Ukraine financially by giving the country billions of
dollars.
Ukraine will never see one dollar of the IMF money. What the IMF is
going to do is to substitute Ukrainian indebtedness to the IMF for
Ukrainian indebtedness to Western banks. The IMF will hand over the
money to the Western banks, and the Western banks will reduce Ukraine’s
indebtedness by the amount of IMF money. Instead of being indebted to
the banks, Ukraine will now be indebted to the IMF.
Now the looting can begin. The IMF loan brings new conditions and
imposes austerity on the Ukrainian people so that the Ukraine government
can gather up the money with which to repay the IMF. The IMF
conditions that will be imposed on the struggling Ukraine population
will consist of severe reductions in old-age pensions, in government
services, in government employment, and in subsidies for basic consumer
purchases such as natural gas. Already low living standards will
plummet. In addition, Ukrainian public assets and Ukrainian owned
private industries will have to be sold off to Western purchasers.
Additionally, Ukraine will have to float its currency. In a futile
effort to protect its currency’s value from being driven very low (and
consequently import prices very high) by speculators ganging up on the
currency and short-selling it, Ukraine will borrow more money with which
to support its currency in the foreign exchange market. Of course, the
currency speculators will end up with the borrowed money, leaving
Ukraine much deeper in debt than currently.
The corruption involved is legendary, so the direct result of the
gullible Maiden protesters will be lower Ukrainian living standards,
more corruption, loss of sovereignty over the country’s economic policy,
and the transfer of Ukrainian public and private property to Western
interests.
If Ukraine also falls into NATO’s clutches, Ukraine will also find
itself in a military alliance against Russia and find itself targeted by
Russian missiles. This will be a tragedy for Ukraine and Russia as
Ukrainians have relatives in Russia and Russians have relatives in
Ukraine. The two countries have essentially been one for 200 years. To
have them torn apart by Western looting and Washington’s drive for world
hegemony is a terrible shame and a great crime.
The gullible dupes who participated in the orchestrated Maiden protests will rue it for the rest of their lives.
When the protests began, I described what the consequences would be and said that I
would explain the looting process. It is not necessary for me to do so.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky has explained the IMF looting process
along with much history here:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/regime-change-in-ukraine-and-the-imfs-bitter-economic-medicine/5374877
One final word. Despite unequivocal evidence of one country after
another being looted by the West, governments of indebted countries
continue to sign up for IMF programs. Why do governments of countries
continue to agree to the foreign looting of their populations? The only
answer is that they are paid. The corruption that is descending upon
Ukraine will make the former regime look honest.
Propaganda Rules The News –Paul Craig Roberts
March 5, 2014 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter
Propaganda Rules The News
Paul Craig Roberts
Gerald Celente calls the Western media “presstitutes,” an ingenuous
term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for
access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the
corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media,
there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except
for some Internet sites.
Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media
organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia’s alleged
invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and
Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to
the Bush regime’s illegal attack on Iraq. The fact that Donahue had
NBC’s highest rated program did not give him journalistic independence.
Anyone who speaks the truth in the American print or TV media or on NPR
is immediately fired.
Russia’s RT seems actually to believe and observe the values that Americans profess but do not honor.
I agree with Greenwald. You can read his article here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37842.htm
Greenwald is entirely admirable. He has intelligence, integrity, and
courage. He is one of the brave to whom my just published book, How America Was Lost, is dedicated. As for RT’s Abby Martin, I admire her and have been a guest on her program a number of times.
My criticism of Greenwald and Martin has nothing to do with their
integrity or their character. I doubt the claims that Abby Martin
grandstanded on “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” in order to boost her
chances of moving into the more lucrative “mainstream media.” My point
is quite different. Even Abby Martin and Greenwald, both of whom bring
us much light, cannot fully escape Western propaganda.
For example, Martin’s denunciation of Russia for “invading” Ukraine
is based on Western propaganda that Russia sent 16,000 troops to occupy
Crimea. The fact of the matter is that those 16,000 Russian troops have
been in Crimea since the 1990s. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreement,
Russia has the right to base 25,000 troops in Crimea.
Apparently, neither Abby Martin nor Glenn Greenwald, two intelligent
and aware people, knew this fact. Washington’s propaganda is so
pervasive that two of our best reporters were victimized by it.
As I have written several times in my columns, Washington organized
the coup in Ukraine in order to promote its world hegemony by capturing
Ukraine for NATO and putting US missile bases on Russia’s border in
order to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent and force Russia to accept
Washington’s hegemony.
Russia has done nothing but respond in a very low-key way to a major strategic threat orchestrated by Washington.
It is not only Martin and Greenwald who have fallen under
Washington’s propaganda. They are joined by Patrick J. Buchanan. Pat’s
column calling on readers to “resist the war party on Crimea” opens with
Washington’s propagandistic claim: “With Vladimir Putin’s dispatch of
Russian Troops into Crimea.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37847.htm
No such dispatch has occurred. Putin has been granted authority by
the Russian Duma to send troops to Ukraine, but Putin has stated
publicly that sending troops would be a last resort to protect Crimean
Russians from invasions by the ultra-nationalist neo-nazis who stole
Washington’s coup and established themselves as the power in Kiev and
western Ukraine.
So, here we have three of the smartest and most independent
journalists of our time, and all three are under the impression created
by Western propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine.
It appears that the power of Washington’s propaganda is so great that
not even the best and most independent journalists can escape its
influence.
What chance does truth have when Abby Martin gets kudos from Glenn
Greenwald for denouncing Russia for an alleged “invasion” that has not
taken place, and when independent Pat Buchanan opens his column
dissenting from the blame-Russia-crowd by accepting that an invasion has
taken place?
The entire story that the presstitutes have told about the Ukraine is
a propaganda production. The presstitutes told us that the deposed
president, Viktor Yanukovych, ordered snipers to shoot protesters. On
the basis of these false reports, Washington’s stooges, who comprise the
existing non-government in Kiev, have issued arrest orders for
Yanukovych and intend for him to be tried in an international court. In
an intercepted telephone call between EU foreign affairs minister
Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet who
had just returned from Kiev, Paet reports: “There is now stronger and
stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych,
but it was somebody from the new coalition.” Paet goes on to report
that “all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers
from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that
they were the same snipers killing people from both sides . . . and
it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want
to investigate what exactly happened.” Ashton, absorbed with EU plans
to guide reforms in Ukraine and to prepare the way for the IMF to gain
control over economic policy, was not particularly pleased to hear
Paet’s report that the killings were an orchestrated provocation. You
can listen to the conversation between Paet and Ashton here: http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/
What has happened in Ukraine is that Washington plotted against and
overthrew an elected legitimate government and then lost control to
neo-nazis who are threatening the large Russian population in southern
and eastern Ukraine, provinces that formerly were part of Russia. These
threatened Russians have appealed for Russia’s help, and just like the
Russians in South Ossetia, they will receive Russia’s help.
The Obama regime and its presstitutes will continue to lie about everything.
