Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts

Thursday, January 07, 2016

Those who believe US Government propaganda constantly repeated by the despicable mainstream media, must believe that Russia, with the finest army in the world, attacked Ukraine but somehow have not yet reached Kiev. Talk about gullible! The true story is that the US overthrew the freely-elected president and replaced him with a US-manipulated stooge, amounting to a literal coup d'etat. So while Americans take their "facts" from the mainstream medea, the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine have become subjects to ethnic cleansing ...and Russia is sanctioned for allegedly attacking Ukraine. How many lies can you swallow America?


Gallup: Ukrainians Loathe the Kiev Government Imposed by Obama

By Eric Zuesse                                                                           Region: ,
Global Research,December 24, 2015                                              Theme:

On December 23rd, Gallup headlines “Ukrainians Disillusioned With Leadership,” and reports that “nearly nine in 10 Ukrainians (88%) say corruption is widespread in their government, and about eight in 10 (81%) see the same widespread problem in their country’s businesses.” 8% of Ukrainians now say they “have confidence … about the national government.” 17% approve of the job-performance of their President, Petro Poroshenko. While the pre-coup President, Viktor Yanukovych, was in office, 2010-2014, that figure had been averaging about 23%, and was never as low as Poroshenko’s is now.

Gallup reports, “fewer Ukrainians now say their leadership is taking them in the right direction than before the revolution,” but that statement calling this coup a ‘revolution’ embodies the propaganda-lie of one of Gallup’s main clients, the U.S. government itself, which calls the U.S. coup in Ukraine in February 2014 a “revolution,” when every honest and knowledgeable person now knows that this U.S. government claim — that it had helped install democracy instead of having ended it in Ukraine on 20 February 2014 — to have been a lie. Even the founder of the “private CIA” firm Stratfor has called the overthrow of Yanukovych “the most blatant coup in history.” It had been that because it was the first coup to be videoed by numerous people from many different angles with their cellphones and by TV cameras, uploaded to the Web by even anti-Yanukovych countries such as the UK’s BBC; and those videos, the best compilation of which is here, make clear that this was, indeed, a coup d’etat, no authentic revolution at all, such as the U.S. government claims.

Furthermore, the EU’s investigator who had been assigned to report to their Foreign Affairs Minister Cathy Ashton about the overthrow, reported to her that it had been a coup, and that even Petro Poroshenko himself said that “our” side — meaning the anti-Yanukovych people, had done it. Subsequently, evidence came to light showing how it had been organized: the organization for it had started in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev by no later than March 2013. Then, after all of that preparation, on 4 February 2014, the U.S. State Department’s Victoria Nuland gave the final instruction to the U.S. Ambassador in Kiev, to have Arseniy Yatsenyuk appointed to run the country after the coup, and he became appointed 18 days later, on 22 February 2014, to run the country as Prime Minister, until a new President would be elected ‘democratically’; but, even the election of President Poroshenko on 25 May 2014 was no democratic event, because the U.S. government didn’t want residents in the area of Ukraine that had voted over 90% for Yanukovych to be voting in that election. That area of Ukraine (which historically had been a part of Russia) was called Donbass, and it had no say whatsoever in determining Ukraine’s President after the coup, because the new coup-imposed Ukrainian government was already bombing it, starting on 9 May 2014. None of this could have happened without that ‘revolution’: U.S. President Barack Obama’s very bloody coup in Ukraine.


And then, right after the coup, America’s stooge who now was running Ukraine for the U.S. regime, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, installed leaders of Ukraine’s two rabidly anti-Russian racist fascist or nazi parties into all of the top internal security and military positions, in order to carry out what they called the ‘Anti Terrorist Operation’ (ATO), or program to exterminate and drive out the residents of Donbass. The prestigious fascist U.S. think tank, the Brookings Institution, urged Obama to increase the firebombings of Donbass, but he decided not to follow that advice, at that particular time.

Obama wants ultimately to base American nuclear missiles in Ukraine on Russia’s border (much like the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev had unsuccessfully tried to do to America in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis), and this coup and ethnic-cleansing (to make the coup-regime stick) is how he goes about achieving his goal. Perhaps the next U.S. President will succeed in it. The entire plan had started under U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, in 1990; and every U.S. President since then has advanced it further. The United States, ever since around 1980, hasn’t been a democracy; it’s a dictatorship. That’s why it does things like this.

Back in June 2014, shortly after Poroshenko became Ukraine’s President, a Gallup poll in Ukraine taken for the U.S. government showed (p. 27) a geographical breakdown of the answers to the question “Tell me whether you think Russia has played a mostly positive role or a mostly negative role in the crisis in Ukraine. Percent ‘mostly positive’”. The entire country was broken down into 6 regions there, which included not only the regions that had voted against Yanukovych in 2010 (such as the May 25th election had excluded) but also the two regions that had voted the most heavily for Yanukovych, Donbass (which had voted over 90% for him, and which here constituted the eastern half of the region called “East,” which entire region was shown as having rated Russia’s “role in the crisis in Ukraine” 35.7% as having been “mostly positive”), and also Crimea (which constituted the entirety of one of those 6 regions, and which had voted around 75% for Yanukovych, and which answered 71.3% that Russia’s “role” had been “mostly positive”). The only other region where Russia’s “role” had been rated as “mostly positive” by more than 3% was the area around Odessa, called here “South,” where 28.4% of the people rated it “mostly positive.”

All three of the other regions of the pre-coup Ukraine were the regions where the Presidential election had been held on May 25th of 2014: these were the regions Gallup categorized as Center (2.4% “mostly positive”), North (1.8% “mostly positive”), and West (1% “mostly positive”). So, Poroshenko had been elected as the President for all of Ukraine, but by  only voters in the most anti-Russian half  of that extremely divided country; and now the residents of two of the other areas (areas in the strongly pro-Yanukovych half of Ukraine) had tried to separate from Ukraine and to join again with Russia (of which those regions had long been parts): Crimea, and Donbass. Crimea was accepted by Putin into Russia, but Donbass was not.

U.S. President Obama imposed the economic sanctions against Russia for Russia’s having accepted the pleas of Crimeans to rejoin Russia, and for Russia’s having accepted the pleas of Crimeans to rejoin Russia, and for Russia’s opposition to the Obama-imposed government’s ethnic-cleansing program to exterminate and/or expell from Ukraine the residents of the Donbass region of Ukraine. The same European Union that accepted Obama’s bloody February 2014 Ukrainian coup have also been accepting his ethnic-cleansing campaign there; and Obama insists upon its being ultimately continued, notwithstanding his Secretary of State, John Kerry’s, internal opposition to it.


Sunday, October 04, 2015

Paul Craig Roberts' introduction: "In his guest column Eric Zuesse reports that Washington’s world exploitation is encountering opposition. An Iraqi parliamentarian tells Washington “to give up its hypocrisy.” France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Trade rejects Washington’s Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership as a device for placing US corporations in control of France and outside of the reach of the laws of France. TTIP, the minister correctly declares, eliminates the sovereignty of the participating countries." http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-western-alliance-is-crumbling-eu-is-abandoning-u-s-on-overthrowing-assad/5479566


The Western Alliance Is Crumbling: EU Is Abandoning U.S. on Overthrowing Assad


Obama Cannot Defeat Assad without EU’s Help. EU Also Rejects Obama’s TTIP & TISA Demands. Obama’s Presidential ‘Legacy’ Heads to Failure


By Eric Zuesse                                                                            Region: , ,         Global Research, October 03, 2015                                                                        Theme:   

Europe is being overrun by refugees from American bombing campaigns in Libya and Syria, which created a failed state in Libya, and which threaten to do the same in Syria. Europe is thus being forced to separate itself from endorsing the U.S. bombing campaign that focuses against the Syrian government forces of the secular Shiite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, instead of against his fundamentalist Sunni Islamic opponents, the jihadist groups (all of which are Sunni), such as ISIS, and Al Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra).

A member of the Iraqi parliament has said:

The pressure on the Syrian regime, which is fighting ISIS, must be lifted. They should not try to strengthen the feeble Free Syrian Army [FSA]. There is no FSA. There is ISIS in Syria and Iraq. You cannot fight ISIS in Iraq, yet support it in Syria. There is one war and one enemy. The U.S. should give up its hypocrisy. People are not brainless.
The European publics oppose America’s bombings, which have poured these refugees from American bombing, into Europe. European leaders are starting to separate from alliance with the United States.

U.S. Senator John McCain, who, as a fanatical Vietnam-war bomber-pilot, has always hated Russia even more than does U.S. President Barack Obama (who got his hatred from other sources), is egging Obama on to war against Russia in Syria; he says, “We need to have a no-fly zone,” where we prohibit Russia’s planes from bombing areas that are controlled by American-supported jihadists (which the U.S. government still euphemistically calls “the Free Syrian Army”). Actually, as Agence France Press had reported on 12 September 2014,“Syrian rebels and jihadists from the Islamic State have agreed a non-aggression pact for the first time in a suburb of the capital Damascus, a monitoring group said on Friday.” ISIS and FSA had already been close; but now they were and are essentially one-and-the-same; it’s just not been reported in the U.S. press. The U.S. Government’s distinctions are thus entirely specious; Obama’s top goal in Syria is clearly to replace Russia’s ally, Assad, not to defeat the Islamic State (and the little that still remains of FSA). McCain just wants Obama to go all the way, to nuclear war against Russia, to overthrow Assad. (Perhaps he thinks Obama will ‘chicken out,’ and McCain will then criticize Obama for ‘abandoning the people of Syria,’ who have benefited so much from America’s bombing that they’ve been fleeing Syria by the millions. McCain and other Republicans are so “pro-life” — for zygotes anyway. When the Iraqi parliamentarian said, “People aren’t brainless,” he wasn’t referring to people like that.)

On October 1st, NPR presented McCain saying, “I can absolutely confirm to you that they [Russian air strikes] were strikes against our Free Syrian Army or groups that have been armed and trained by the CIA because we have communications with people there.” (Oh, a few of them still exist, even after the’ve been absorbed into the Holy-War group? And the CIA is still funding them? Really? Wow!)

Russia announced on October 2nd that their bombing campaign against America’s allies in Syria — ISIS and Al Nusra (the latter being Al Qaeda in Syria) — will intensify and will last “three or four months.” U.S. President Barack Obama is insisting upon excluding Russia from any peace talks on Syria; the U.S. will not move forward with peace talks unless Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad first steps down. But Russia is the only serious military power against the jihadists who are trying to defeat Assad, and Russia is now committing itself also to providing Lebanon with weapons against the jihadists, who are America’s allies in Lebanon too.

U.S. pretends that overthrowing Assad would be for ‘democracy.’ But when the Qatari regime, which funds al-Nusra, hired a polling firm in 2012 to survey Syrians, the finding was that 55% of Syrians wanted him to remain as President. Then, as I reported on 18 September 2015, “Polls Show Syrians Overwhelmingly Blame U.S. for ISIS,” and those recent polls were from a British firm that has ties to Gallup. No question was asked then about whether Assad should stay; but, clearly, support for him had strengthened considerably between 2012 and 2015, as the Syrian people now see with greater clarity than they possibly could have before, that the U.S. regime is an enemy, not a friend, to them. Obama’s, and the Republicans’, pretenses to favor democracy are blatantly fraudulent.

That’s hardly the only ‘legacy’ issue for Obama — his war against Russia, via overthrowing Gaddafi, then Yanukovych, and his still trying to overthrow Assad — which is now forcing the break-up of the Western Alliance, over the resulting refugee-crisis. An even bigger such conflict within the Alliance concerns Obama’s proposed treaty with European states, the TTIP, which would give international corporations rights to sue national governments in non-appealable global private arbitration panels, the dictates from which will stand above any member-nation’s laws. Elected government officials will have no control over them. This supra-national mega-corporate effort by Obama is also part of his similar effort in his proposed TPP treaty with Asian nations, both of which are additionally aimed to isolate from international trade not just Russia, but China, so as to leave America’s large international corporations controlling virtually the entire world.

As things now stand regarding these ‘trade’ deals, Obama will either need to eliminate some of his demands, or else the European Commission won’t be able to muster enough of its members to support Obama’s proposed treaty with the EU, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). Also, some key European nations might reject Obama’s proposed treaty on regulations regarding financial and other services: TISA (Trade In Services Agreement). All three of Obama’s proposed ‘trade’ deals, including the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) between the U.S. and Asian countries, are the actual culmination of Obama’s Presidency, and they’re all about far more than just trade and economics. The main proposed deal with Europe might now be dead.

On September 27th, France’s newspaper SouthWest featured an exclusive interview with Matthias Fekl, France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, in which he said that “France is considering all options, including outright termination of negotiations” on the TTIP. He explained that, ever since the negotiations began in 2013, “These negotiations have been and are being conducted in a total lack of transparency,” and that France has, as of yet, received “no serious offer from the Americans.”

The reasons for this stunning public rejection had probably already been accurately listed more than a year ago. After all, France has, throughout all of the negotiations, received “no serious offer from the Americans”; not now, and not back at the start of the negotiations in 2013. The U.S. has been steadfast. Jean Arthuis, a member of the European Parliament, and formerly France’s Minister of Economy and Finance, headlined in Le Figaro, on 10 April 2014, “7 good reasons to oppose the transatlantic treaty”. There is no indication that the situation has changed since then, as regards the basic demands that President Obama is making. Arthuis said at that time:
First, I am opposed to private arbitration of disputes between States and businesses. [It would place corporate arbitrators above any nation’s laws and enable them to make unappealable decisions whenever a corporation sues a nation for alleged damages for alleged violations of its rights by that nation of the trade-treaty.] Such a procedure is strictly contrary to the idea that I have of the sovereignty of States. …
Secondly, I am opposed to any questioning of the European system of appellations of origin. Tomorrow, according to the US proposal, there would be a non-binding register, and only for wines and spirits. Such a reform would kill many European local products, whose value is based on their certified origin.
Thirdly, I am opposed to the signing of an agreement with a power that legalizes widespread and systematic spying on my fellow European citizens and European businesses. Edward Snowden’s revelations are instructive in this regard. As long as the agreement does not protect the personal data of European and US citizens, it cannot be signed.
Fourth, the United States proposes a transatlantic common financial space, but they adamantly refuse a common regulation of finance, and they refuse to abolish systematic discrimination by the US financial markets against European financial services. They want to have their cake and eat it too: I object to the idea of a common area without common rules, and I reject commercial discrimination.
Fifth, I object to the questioning of European health protections. Washington must understand once and for all that notwithstanding its insistence, we do not want our plates or animals treated with growth hormones nor products derived from GMOs, or chemical decontamination of meat, or of genetically modified seeds or non-therapeutic antibiotics in animal feed.
Sixth, I object to the signing of an agreement if it does not include the end of the US monetary dumping. Since the abolition of the gold convertibility of the dollar and the transition to the system of floating exchange rates, the dollar is both American national currency and the main unit for exchange reserves in the world. The Federal Reserve then continually practices monetary dumping, by influencing the amount of dollars available to facilitate exports from the United States. China proposes to eliminate this unfair advantage by making “special drawing rights” of the IMF the new global reference currency. But as things now stand, America’s monetary weapon has the same effect as customs duties against every other nation. [And he will not sign unless it’s removed.]
Seventh, beyond the audiovisual sector alone, which is the current standard of government that serves as a loincloth to its cowardice on all other European interests in these negotiations, I want all the cultural exceptions prohibited. In particular, it is unacceptable to allow the emerging digital services in Europe to be swept up by US giants such as Google, Amazon or Netflix. They’re giant absolute masters in tax optimization, which make Europe a “digital colony.”
President Obama’s negotiator is his close personal friend, Michael Froman, a man who is even trying to force Europe to reduce its fuel standards against global warming and whose back-room actions run exactly contrary to Obama’s public rhetoric. Froman and Obama have been buddies since they worked together as editors on Harvard Law Review. He knows what Obama’s real goals are. Also: “Froman introduced Mr. Obama to Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary,” who had brought into the Clinton Administration Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, and had championed (along with them) the ending of the regulations on banks that the previous Democratic President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had put into place. (President Bill Clinton signed that legislation just as he left office, and this enabled the long process to occur with MBS securities and with financial derivatives, which culminated with the 2008 crash, and this same legislation also enabled the mega-banks to get bailed out by U.S. taxpayers for their crash — on exactly the basis that FDR had outlawed.)
Froman has always been a pro-mega-corporate, pro-mega-bank champion, who favors only regulations which benefit America’s super-rich, no regulations which benefit the public. Froman’s introducing the Wall Street king Robert Rubin to the then-Senator Obama was crucial to Obama’s becoming enabled to win the U.S. Presidency; Robert Rubin’s contacts among the super-rich were essential in order for that — Obama’s getting a real chance to win the Presidency — to happen. It enabled Obama to compete effectively against Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. His winning Robert Rubin’s support was crucial to his becoming President.

The chances, that President Obama will now be able to get the support from any entity but the U.S. Congress for his proposed TTIP treaty with Europe, are reducing by the day. Europe seems to be less corrupt than is the United States, after all.

The only independent economic analysis that has been done of the proposed TTIP finds that the only beneficiaries from it will be large international corporations, especially ones that are based in the United States. Workers, consumers, and everybody else, will lose from it, if it passes into law. Apparently, enough European officials care about that, so as to be able to block the deal. Or else: Obama will cede on all seven of the grounds for Europe’s saying no. At this late date, that seems extremely unlikely.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.


Thursday, August 13, 2015

Blogger's Note: I am a Fellow of the American Physical Society and have had (trivial) contacts with two of the physicists mentioned below, i.e., as an invited visitor to Rush Holt's Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and having had Nobel-Prize-winner Leon Cooper as a substitute instructor of my Quantum Mechanics course at Brown University. And I agree with this august group that the recent nuclear weapons deal with Iran is safe and appropriate.








Physicists Endorse Nuclear Deal with Iran


Letter addressed to President Obama calls the deal “innovative” and “stringent”
August 11, 2015  |  Emily Conover  |  Original Here

President Obama can now count many prominent U.S. physicists among the supporters of the proposed nuclear weapons deal with Iran. The agreement, reached between Iran, the U.S., and other world powers, now hinges on U.S. Congressional approval. On Saturday, a group of 29 scientists sent a letter to the White House congratulating the President on the deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The plan would lift some sanctions on Iran, and would put in place restrictions aimed at preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

The list of signers includes experts in nuclear weapons technologies and nonproliferation, Nobel Prize winners, and former science advisors to Congress and the White House. The scientists strongly support the plan, calling it “innovative” and “stringent,” and stating that the deal “will advance the cause of peace and security in the Middle East and can serve as a guidepost for future non-proliferation agreements.”

The letter asserts that, prior to the beginning of negotiations, the additional enrichment time necessary for Iran to create a nuclear weapon was only a few weeks. The letter argues that the agreement would increase that “breakout time” to many months, and would make it easier for the U.S. to know if Iran began working towards nuclear weapons capabilities.

Physicists who penned the letter include Richard Garwin, a physicist who worked on the design of the first hydrogen bomb, plasma physicist Robert Goldston of Princeton University, Frank von Hippel of Princeton University, who served as assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Rush Holt, a former member of Congress and CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and nuclear scientist R. Scott Kemp of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Many other prominent physicists signed the letter, including Nobel laureates Philip Anderson of Princeton University, Leon Cooper of Brown University, Sheldon Glashow of Boston University, David Gross of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Burton Richter of Stanford University, and Frank Wilczek of MIT.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

"The Exceptional Country is above all the others and, therefore, doesn’t have to be concerned about how it treats them. Obviously, Americans and their vassals think America is exceptional as the millions of people murdered, maimed, and dislocated by Washington’s wars in eight countries in the 21st century has not resulted in condemnation of Washington. Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the puppets in Canada, Australia, and Japan still suck up, holding tight to Washington." -- Paul Craig Roberts


Insanity Grips The Western World — Paul Craig Roberts

April 27, 2015 | Original Here                                                Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Insanity Grips The Western World


Paul Craig Roberts


Just as Karl Marx claimed that History had chosen the proletariat, neoconservatives claim that History has chosen America. Just as the Nazis proclaimed “Deutschland uber alles,” neoconservatives proclaim “America uber alles.” In September 2013 President Obama actually stood before the United Nations and declared, “I believe America is exceptional.”


Germany’s political leaders and those in Great Britain, France, and throughout Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan also believe that America is exceptional, which means better than they are. That’s why these countries are Washington’s vassals. They accept their inferiority to the Exceptional Country — the USA — and follow its leadership.


It is unlikely that the Chinese think that a handful of White People are exceptional in anything except their diminutive numbers. The populations of Asia, Africa, and South America dwarf those that comprise Washington’s Empire.


Neither do the Russians believe that the US is exceptional. Putin’s response to Obama’s claim of American superiority was: “God created us equal.” Putin added: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”


If all countries are exceptional, the word loses its meaning. If America is exceptional, it means others are inferior for lacking this designation. Inferiors have less rights and can be bullied into submission or bombed into oblivion.


The Exceptional Country is above all the others and, therefore, doesn’t have to be concerned about how it treats them. Obviously, Americans and their vassals think America is exceptional as the millions of people murdered, maimed, and dislocated by Washington’s wars in eight countries in the 21st century has not resulted in condemnation of Washington. Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the puppets in Canada, Australia, and Japan still suck up, holding tight to Washington.


Instead, Russia and Iran, countries that, unlike the US, are not militarily aggressive, are portrayed in the White People’s Media as threats and are condemned.


The White Media claims, and has claimed since February 2014, that there are Russian tanks and troops in Ukraine. Putin has pointed out that if this indeed was the case, Kiev and Western Ukraine would have fallen to the Russian invasion early last year. Kiev has been unable to defeat the small breakaway republics in eastern and southern Ukraine and would stand no chance against the Russian military.


Recently a brave news organization made fun of the White Media’s claim that Russian tanks have been pouring into Ukraine for 14 months. The parody pictured Ukraine at a standstill. All traffic on all roads and residential streets is blocked by Russian tanks. All parking places, including sidewalks and people’s front and rear gardens have tanks piled upon tanks. The entire country is immobilized in gridlock.


Although a few have fun making fun of the gullible people who believe the White Media, the situation is nevertheless serious as it concerns life on planet Earth.


There is little sign that Washington and its vassals care about life on Earth. Recently, the largest political group in the European Parliament–the European People’s Party–expressed a cavalier opinion about life on Earth. We know this, because, if we can trust Euractive, an online EU news source, the majority EU party believes that declaring the EU’s readiness for nuclear war is one of the best steps to deter Russia from further aggression. http://www.unian.info/politics/1070675-meps-believe-eu-should-be-ready-for-nuclear-war.html The aggression to be stopped by Europe’s declaration of its readiness for armageddon is the alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the “further aggression” is Putin’s alleged intention of reestablishing the Soviet Empire.


It must be disappointing to the Russian government to see that leaders of the European Union prefer to endorse nuclear war than to challenge Washington’s propaganda.


When I read that the governing party in the European Parliament thought non-existent aggression had to be stopped by a declaration of readiness for nuclear war, I realized that money could buy any and every thing, even the life of the planet. The European People’s Party was speaking in behalf of Washington’s propaganda, not in behalf of Europe. Europe’s nuclear war with Russia would end instantly with the destruction of every European capital.


The crazed vice-president of the European People’s Party, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski revealed who the real aggressor is when he declared: “Time of talk and persuasion with Russia is over. Now it’s time for a tough policy.”


Clearly, the European Parliament is a great danger to life on the planet. Is it realistic to think that Russia will allow herself to become a concubine of Washington?




Sunday, October 19, 2014

For those who don’t know, “RT” stands for “Russia Today,” a news channel headquartered in Russia. “Russia Today America” is run by Americans, who are not interfered with by Russians. The proof of this is Abby Martin, hosting her own show “Breaking the Set,” closed on 3 March 2014 with a minute-long statement condemning the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Those of us who have done our “homework” know that this was a lie (possibly unknown to Abby at the time). In fact the U.S. government lies about anything of importance to its citizens …and these lies are repeated by the so called “mainstream media” without the slightest attempt of verification. So did Russia Today fire Abby? Nope! In fact RT issued a statement saying: "Contrary to the popular opinion, RT doesn't beat its journalists into submission, and they are free to express their own opinions, not just in private but on the air." (Find the preceding quote in Wikipedia.) In the first part of the video below American patriots Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts, take on what’s really happening in America today. Sen. Warren concludes “When the going got tough (Obama’s team) protected Wall Street, not families who were losing their homes.”



http://youtu.be/4L8QpysFwI0


Boom Bust: Paul Craig Roberts on the revolving door in Washington and Martenson on the collapse in oil prices 

Inde Pendent




Published on Oct 14, 2014

Over the weekend, US Senator Elizabeth Warren admonished President Obama for "catering to Wall Street and dismissing Main Street" following the 2008 recession. In an interview with Salon, Senator Warren argued the Obama Administration protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Shes certainly right on the housing front, considering 32% of working-age adults are living in doubled-up households. Erin weighs in. Then, Erin sits down with Paul Craig Roberts chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and former assistant secretary to the Treasury in the Reagan Administration to talk about bank fraud and the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street.

After the break, Erin talks to Chris Martenson co-founder of PeakProsperity.com to discuss the recent drop in oil prices. Martenson believes oil is only temporarily headed lower because he says cheap oil is in short supply. And in The Big Deal, Erin is joined by Edward Harrison to further the discussion of oil prices.

Category              News & Politics
License                Standard YouTube License

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Here we go again! Because Russia has not withdrawn it's troops from Ukraine (impossible because none were ever sent there), the US and EU have cooked up some nasty new sanctions (not a big problem for Russia but really bad news for Germany, which still feels compelled to do the will of it's lying liege lord of the West).


The US-EU-Russia sanctions puzzle






Published time: September 17, 2014 10:55

Whatever Russia does, doubt does not even enter the equation. The answer is sanctions. So here we go again. The US Treasury-EU latest sanction package targets Russian banking, the energy industry and the defense industry.

The sanctions are mean. The sanctions are nasty. And there’s no euphemism to describe them; they amount to a declaration of economic war.

Sberbank, Russia’s largest won’t be able to access Western capital for long-term funding, including every kind of borrowing over 30 days. And the current 90-day lending bans affecting six other large Russian banks – a previous sanctions package - will also be reduced to 30 days.

On the energy front, what the US-EU want is to shut down new Russian exploration projects in Siberia and the Arctic, barring Western Big Oil from selling equipment and technology to offshore, deepwater or shale gas projects.

This means Exxon and Shell, for instance, are frozen in their operations with five top Russian oil/gas/pipeline companies: Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz, and Rosneft.

No one ever lost money betting on the stupidity of the usual, unknown “senior US officials” – who are now spinning the latest sanction package is to force Moscow to “respect international law and state sovereignty.” A cursory examination of the historical record allows this paragraph to be accompanied by roaring laughter.

And then there’s the US Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, who insists the package will further “isolate” Russia from the global financial system.


The package was also described by Western corporate media as capable of “unnerving already jittery financial markets.” Well, they were not exactly “unnerved.” In Russia, the stocks of companies on the sanctions list went up. In the US, energy stocks went down. Short translation; the “unnerved” markets interpreted the latest package as yet another own goal by Washington and Brussels.

Splitting up Eurasia

As for Russia’s “isolation”, companies are barred from, in Washington-Wall Street newspeak, “important dollar-denominated funding sources.” Or, euphemistically, “Western capital.” This means the US dollar and the euro. Anyone following superimposed moves towards a multipolar world knows Russia does not need more US dollars and euro.

Moscow might use both to cross-purchase goods and services in the US and the EU. Yet these goods and services may be bought elsewhere around the world. For that, you don’t need “Western capital” – as Moscow is fast advancing the use of national currencies with other trade partners. The Atlanticist gang assumes Moscow needs goods and services from the US and the EU much more than the other way around. That’s a fallacy.

Russia can sell its abundant energy resources in any currency apart from US dollars and euro. Russia can buy all the clothing it needs from Asia and South America. On the electronics and high-tech front, most of it is made in China anyway.

Crucially, on the energy front, it would be no less than thrilling to watch the EU – which still does not even have a common energy policy - trying to come up with alternative suppliers. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Qatar, for a number of complex reasons – ranging from insufficient gas to be committed, to an absence of pipelines – are out of the picture.

The Obama administration, for its part, simply won’t allow the EU to start importing energy from Iran like, virtually, tomorrow. Even with a now quite wobbly nuclear deal reached before the end of 2014 - presumably opening the way to an end to sanctions.

The “irrational” markets see what’s really goin’ on; they are not “irrational” but moved by profit derived from realpolitik.

And all this while Moscow has not even counterpunched. And that could be quite lethal – targeting EU exporters to Russia and even energy supplies from Russia. Then the EU will retaliate. And Russia will counter-counterpunch. That’s exactly what Washington wants: a trade/economic war ravaging and splitting up Eurasia.

About that $20 trillion…

On the political front, Ukraine and EU had initially agreed to “postpone the EU Association Agreement until the end of 2016.” You can’t make this stuff up; that’s exactly what Yanukovich did last November, as he knew Kiev could not allow itself to lose most of its certified trading with Russia in favor of a vague “free trade” with the EU. This agreement to “postpone” the agreement was in fact overseen by astonishing mediocrity and outgoing European Commission (EC) President Jose Manuel Barroso.

But then the European Parliament, during a plenary session in Strasbourg, hurried up to ratify Ukraine’s Association Agreement as President Petro Poroshenko simultaneously submitted it to the Ukrainian Parliament. This does not mean the agreement goes immediately into effect. Economic “integration” with the EU – a euphemism for a one-way invasion of Ukraine by EU products - will start only in January 2016. And there’s no way a crisis-hit EU will incorporate Ukraine anytime soon – or ever.

On Thursday, Poroshenko meets his master, US President Barack Obama, and addresses a joint session of the US Congress. Expect “evil empire” rhetoric to reach interstellar levels.

But it’s on Saturday in Berlin that the real thing starts unfolding; energy negotiations between Russia, the EU and Ukraine. Needless to say, Moscow holds all the key cards.

Washington’s humongous debt is reaching almost $20 trillion – and counting. With a monster crisis approaching like a tsunami from hell, no wonder Washington had to resort to the perfect diversionary tactic; the return of the “evil empire.” It’s the Marvel Comics school of politics all over again.

Russia has a huge surplus of foreign capital - and is able to weather the storm. Germany – the EU’s top economy – on the other hand, is already suffering. Growth is already at a negative 0.2%. This is the way the hysterical sanction wind is blowing – further derailing EU economies. And no one is betting the EU will have the balls to stand up to Washington. Not in vassal-infested Brussels. 


The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Paul Crag Roberts reflects on the flimsiness of the current cease fire in Ukraine, the trouble that Washington has caused Russia, the fact that Ukraine was a part of Russia longer than the US has existed, and Washington's strategic goals to build up military forces on Russia's borders and push the European Union into imposing sanctions on Russia that disrupt the trade relationships and create distrust. Consequently, it appears that the European Union may be getting set to impose sanctions on the Russian energy firms Rosneft, Gazpromneft and Transneft. To this, PCR remarks that "The Russian response to this audacity should be to turn off the gas in the winter without warning. All of it" ...reasoning that "That would bring an end to Washington’s assault on Russia."


The Ukraine Crisis Remains Unresolved — Paul Craig Roberts

September 9, 2014 | Original Here                                              Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

The Ukraine Crisis Remains Unresolved

Paul Craig Roberts

Some Western commentators interpret the cease fire in Ukraine obtained by President Putin as a victory for Russia. The reasoning is that the cease fire leaves Ukraine with disputed borders, which rules out Ukraine’s membership in NATO.

But will the cease fire hold? The right-wing Kiev militias, whose members often wear nazi insignias, are not under Kiev’s complete control. These militias can easily violate the cease fire, and there are already reports of violations. Moreover the billionaire oligarch that Washington has installed in Kiev as president of Ukraine will violate the ceasefire on Washington’s orders, unless, of course, Putin has put the fear of God in him.

To a military strategist the Russian response to the trouble that Washington has caused Russia in Ukraine, longer a part of Russia than the US has existed, is a mystery. Russia lost Ukraine because of its weakness when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Washington forced Russia to permit an independent Ukraine, which served Washington’s purpose of breaking up the Russian Federation.

The western Ukrainians, who fought for Hitler during World War II, maintained an impressive lobby organization in Washington and secured their independent country, but they did not control Ukraine because much of the country consists of former Russian territories made part of Ukraine by Soviet leaders in the 20th century.

Blood ties from intermarriage over centuries and tied economic interrelationships between Russia and Ukraine achieved over centuries essentially left Ukraine as part of Russia, where it has resided for centuries.

This frustrated the World Empire Neoconservatives, who have controlled the US government since the corrupt Clintons, whose regime brought Third World corruption into American political life. Remember Robert Reich, Clinton’s university friend and Secretary of Labor who resigned from Clinton’s cabinet on principle. Clinton betrayed the constituency that elected him, as did Obama. Clinton’s two-timed wife, allied with Zionist Israel, the banksters, and the military/security complex, is the Democrats’ current favorite for their next presidential nominee.

As it was in Rome, dynasties are now the sources of US presidential leadership. And as it was in Rome, the US is on the path to destruction, which occurs when the ambitions of leaders take precedence over the fate of the country.

Keeping Ukraine out of NATO is no doubt a goal of the Russian government. However, the trouble that Washington brought to Russia in Ukraine–by orchestrating a coup, installing a puppet government, and unleashing violence against the residents of the former Russian territories that Soviet leaders attached to Ukraine–is being used for wider purposes than to incorporate Ukraine within NATO.

In other words, Washington’s strategic goals go beyond NATO membership for Ukraine.

One goal is to break apart the economic and political relationships between Europe and Russia. By using Ukraine to demonize Russia, Washington has pushed the European Union into imposing sanctions on Russia that disrupt the trade relationships and create distrust.

The distrust serves Washington’s purpose. Washington has demonstrated to Russia that Washington’s bought and-paid-for European politicians are unwilling to have foreign policies independent of Washington’s. Europe’s lack of an independent policy means that the Russian government is hampered in its use of diplomacy.

Another Washington goal is to build up military forces on Russia’s borders. NATO has used the “crisis” to stoke fear of Russia in the Baltics and in Poland. Washington and NATO generals speak of Russian attacks as if it is a foregone conclusion that Russia intends to invade Eastern Europe. To protect against the “Russian threat,” NATO has created a “quick reaction force” and is building up supplies of military equipment and new bases on Russia’s borders. Whatever the outcome in Ukraine, Washington has used Ukraine to start a new Cold War.

The Western presstitute media, a collection of government propagandists, has misrepresented the situation in Ukraine from the beginning. In place of news coverage, there has been propaganda against Russia. Consequently, Western peoples who rely on the media are misinformed about Ukraine and place all blame on Russia. The fact that the American people are misinformed makes it easy for Washington to continue to orchestrate events to Russia’s disadvantage.

Washington has no interest in resolving the troubles in Ukraine. Washington has successfully used Ukraine to create fear of Russia both in Europe and in the United States. Washington has successfully used Ukraine to damage European-Russian economic and political relations, and Washington has succeeded in starting a new Cold War that will keep profits flowing into the US military/security complex.

As the Kiev government is Washington’s puppet, there is no reason to expect a resolution of the conflict that Washington brought to Ukraine and to Russia.

It is not only Washington that rejects a resolution of the Ukrainian difficulties created by Washington, but also the EU. Washington’s puppet, Herman Van Rompuy, President of the Washington front group – the European Council – announced, if news reports are correct, which they seldom are, that the European Union is imposing sanctions on the Russian energy firms Rosneft, Gazpromneft and Transneft as well as state-run companies with turnover of more than $27 billion a year.

The Russian response to this audacity should be to turn off the gas in the winter without warning. All of it.

As Putin’s interest is to separate Europe from Washington’s control, this would do it. All of East and West Europe and Ukraine would be on their knees in Moscow begging for the energy to be turned back on. All Putin would have to say is 
“only non-NATO members get gas.”

That would bring an end to Washington’s assault on Russia.

The American neoconservatives, a deranged cadre of warmongers, are denouncing Obama for “weakness” for not sending troops to Ukraine. The neocons, who have involved the US since the Clinton regime in costly and failed US military aggressions abroad, claim that Obama’s leadership has resulted in NATO loosing its will and its muscle.

It remains for the Russian government to demonstrate that all muscle over Ukraine and Europe resides in Moscow.


Sunday, August 24, 2014

Followers of Paul Craig Roberts and others who have abandoned the presstitute mainstream media are aware of what has really been going on in Ukraine. No, it's not an invasion by Russia. Au contre, President Putin has tried valiently to show Russia's good will by not annexing the Russian-speaking eastern provences of Donetsk and Lugansk. But the despicable mainstream media instead repeats our government's lie that Russia has attacked. In fact, those provences were long-ago parts of Russia before Lenin gave them to Ukraine in 1919. Currently those peaceful people are being brutally slaughtered by russophobes and bloodthirsty neo-Nazis armed by the U.S. This video shows you some of the grim results.


If America has a free press, why don’t you know about the Obama regime’s atrocities in Ukraine?

August 22, 2014 | Original Here                                              Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

If America has a free press, why don’t you know about the Obama regime’s atrocities in Ukraine?

It might not be possible for most Americans ever to understand the criminal nature of the Obama regime and the presstitute media that protects the criminal regime by keeping the American people disinformed and in the dark.

For those of you who can stomach the truth, this report on what Washington and its
stooge criminal government in Kiev are doing to the Russian populations of eastern and southern Ukraine starkly demonstrates that Washington is the seat of evil.

http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/enemies-ukraine-speak/


Monday, August 11, 2014

The Malaysian press trumps the U.S. government and its presstitute media's no-evidence claim that Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was brought down by Russia.


OpEdNews Op Eds

Malaysian press charges Ukraine government shot down MH 17


By (about the author)     Permalink


Cross-posted from WSWS

A plane somewhat resembling Malaysia Airlines flight
MH 17 that crashed in Ukraine (image by YouTube)

















A Thursday article in the New Straits Times, Malaysia's flagship English-language newspaper, charged the US- and European-backed Ukrainian regime in Kiev with shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 in east Ukraine last month. Given the tightly controlled character of the Malaysian media, it appears that the accusation that Kiev shot down MH17 has the imprimatur of the Malaysian state.

The US and European media have buried this remarkable report, which refutes the wave of allegations planted by the CIA in international media claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin was responsible for the destruction of MH17, without presenting any evidence to back up this charge.

The New Straits Times article, titled "US analysts conclude MH17 downed by aircraft," lays out evidence that Ukrainian fighter aircraft attacked the jetliner with first a missile, then with bursts of 30-millimeter machine gun fire from both sides of MH17. The Russian army has already presented detailed radar and satellite data showing a Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 fighter jet tailing MH17 shortly before the jetliner crashed. The Kiev regime denied that its fighters were airborne in the area, however.

The New Straits Times article began, "Intelligence analysts in the United States have already concluded that Malaysia flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government had had something to do with it. This corroborates an emerging theory postulated by local investigators that the Boeing 777-200 was crippled by an air-to-air missile and finished off with cannon fire from a jet that had been shadowing it as it plummeted to earth."

It cited "experts who had said that the photographs of the blast fragmentation patterns on the fuselage of the airliner showed two distinct shapes -- the shredding pattern associated with a warhead packed with 'flechettes,' and the more uniform, round-type penetration holes consistent with that of cannon rounds."

The New Straits Times cited several sources to substantiate its position. One was testimony by a Canadian-Ukrainian monitor for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Bociurkiw -- one of the first investigators to arrive at the crash site. Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on July 29, Bociurkiw said: "There have been two or three pieces of fuselage that have been really pockmarked with what almost looks like machine gun fire; very, very strong machine gun fire."

Another source the paper cited was an article, "Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts," by former Associated Press reporter Robert Parry, who now writes for the ConsortiumNews.com web site. Given the lack of any evidence supporting US charges that pro-Russian forces shot MH17 down with a Buk anti-aircraft missile, Parry said, "some US intelligence analysts have concluded that the rebels and Russia were likely not at fault, and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame, according to a source briefed on these findings."

Perry indicated that sections of the US intelligence apparatus have concluded that US secretary of state John Kerry's claims that pro-Russian forces shot down the plane are lies.

"Only three days after the crash, Secretary of State Kerry did the rounds of the Sunday talk shows making what he deemed an 'extraordinary circumstantial' case supposedly proving that the rebels carried out the shoot-down with missiles provided by Russia. He acknowledged that the US government was 'not drawing the final conclusion here, but there is a lot that points at the need for Russia to be responsible,'" Perry wrote. "By then, I was already being told that the US intelligence community lacked any satellite imagery supporting Kerry's allegations, and that the only Buk missile system in that part of Ukraine appeared to be under the control of the Ukrainian military."

Finally, the New Straits Times and Parry both cited retired Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko, who has pointed to photographic evidence of MH17 wreckage suggesting that cockpit panels were raked with heavy machine gun fire from both the port and starboard sides. "Nobody before Haisenko had noticed that the projectiles had ripped through the panel from both its left side and its right side. This is what rules out any ground-fired missile," Parry wrote.

The New Straits Times report constitutes a powerful accusation not only against the Ukrainian government, but against Washington, Berlin, and their European allies. They installed the Kiev regime through a fascist-led putsch in February. They then deployed a series of intelligence operatives and Blackwater mercenaries who are closely coordinating the various fascist militias and National Guard units fighting for Kiev on the ground in east Ukraine, where MH17 was shot down.

These forces now stand accused not only of stoking an explosive political and military confrontation with Russia on its border with Ukraine over the MH17 crash, which threatens to erupt into nuclear war, but of provoking the confrontation through the cold-blooded murder of 298 people aboard MH17.

These charges from Malaysia are all the more significant, in that Malaysia is not a strategic adversary of the United States. Unlike Russia, which already presented evidence suggesting Ukrainian involvement in the crash, Malaysia has no political motive for trying to discredit the US, the European powers, or their puppet regime in Kiev.

While it has not aligned itself as openly as the Philippines or Vietnam with the US "pivot to Asia" aimed at isolating China, Malaysia has in fact pushed for deployments of its forces in the South China Sea to contest Chinese influence in the area, in line with the agenda of the US "pivot."

Indeed, the New Straits Times and its sources are basing themselves on sections of US intelligence that, disgruntled by the complete lack of evidence to back up US charges against Putin and fearing catastrophic military escalation, have criticized Washington's handling of the crisis (see: "Former US intelligence personnel challenge Obama to present evidence of Russian complicity in MH17 crash").

These events also constitute yet another indictment of the Western media, who have completely blacked out the investigation of the crash of MH17 and the latest material in the New Straits Times. Instead, the elements in the CIA and their Ukrainian proxies driving the war in east Ukraine have been able to escalate the confrontation with Russia and demonize Putin, without any of their unsubstantiated accusations of Russian involvement in the MH17 crash being challenged.

Kiev regime officials are continuing to stonewall the investigation, refusing Malaysian requests for information about MH17, such as the record of communication between the doomed plane and air traffic controllers in Kiev.

In an interview with the New Straits Times, Ukrainian ambassador to Malaysia Ihor Humennyi denied reports that the tapes had been seized by Ukraine's State Security Service (SBU). "There is no proof or evidence that the tapes were confiscated by the SBU. I only read this in the newspapers," he said.

When the New Straits Times asked where the tapes were, Humennyi said he did not know. "We don't have any information that it had not been given to the investigation team, or that it was not received by the [team of international] investigators," he said.


Alex Lantier has written extensively for www.wsws.org, a forum for socialist views & the website for the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). His writings have also appeared on www.globalresearch.ca, www.countercurrents.org, www.inteldaily.com, www.axisoflogic.com & others.