One thing Barack Obama and Mitt Romney seem to have in common these days is an appreciation for the neoconservative historian Robert Kagan.
THE WORLD AMERICA MADE
By Robert Kagan
149 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $21.
The Romney campaign has retained Mr. Kagan as a foreign-policy adviser, and according to news reports, President Obama has read and been influenced by a recent Kagan essay in The New Republic, which addresses 'the myth of American decline' and underscores the importance of the United States’ maintaining its 'global responsibilities.'
Mr. Kagan’s sometimes shaky reasoning is combined with a failure to grapple convincingly with crucial problems facing America today, the very problems that observers who worry about American decline have cited as clear and present dangers, including political gridlock at home, falling education scores, lowered social mobility and most important, a ballooning deficit...
Mr. Kagan hops and skips around such issues, placing way more emphasis on the military aspects of power as a measure of a country’s health and global sway. For instance, of the burgeoning financial clout of China — which already holds more than $1 trillion in United States debt — Mr. Kagan asserts that it has implications for American power in the future 'only insofar as the Chinese translate enough of their growing economic strength into military strength.' [...]
This volume is peppered with vague lines like 'many believe that wars among the great powers are no longer possible,' or 'it is a common perception today that the international free market system is simply a natural stage in the evolution of the global economy.'
Robert Kagan... was a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century. More recently, his book The World America Made has been publicly endorsed by US President Barack Obama, and its theme was referenced in his 2012 State of the Union Address…
Ondanks het feit dat de neoconservatieve Robert Kagan incoherente opvattingen erop nahoudt, en levensgevaarlijke overtuigingen met betrekking tot de Amerikaanse geopolitiek is president Obama een groot bewonderaar van zijn gedachtenwereld en heeft hij de echtgenote van deze ideoloog, Victoria Nuland, staatssecretaris van Buitenlandse Zaken gemaakt voor Europa en Eurazië. Het zal dan ook niemand kunnen verbazen dat zij tijdens haar bemoeienis met de binnenlandse ongeregeldheden in de Oekraïne internationaal naam maakte vanwege haar opmerking 'Fuck the European Union.' Volgens de recensente Michiko Kakutani 'an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times' en 'considered a leading literary critic in the United States' wordt de schrijfstijl van Kagan gekenmerkt door een 'condescending tone, along with sometimes less than coherent reasoning,' die 'make readers ponder the curious development that it happens to be this historian who’s recently found public favor in both the Obama and Romney camps.'
Die minachtende toon blijkt ook uit Kagan's in 2003 verschenen boek Of Paradise And Power. America And Europe In The New World Order, dat eindigt met ondermeer de volgende conclusie:
The Bush administration viewed NATO's historic decision to aid the United States under Article 5 less as a boon than as a booby trap. An opportunity to draw Europe into common battle out in the Hobbesian world, even in a minor role, was thereby unnecessarily squandered.
But Americans are powerful enough that they need not fear Europeans, even when bearing gifts. Rather than viewing the United States as a Gulliver tied down by Lilliputian threads, American leader should realize that they are hardly constrained at all, that Europe is not really capable of constraining the United States.
Die 'neerbuigende' houding beperkt zich niet tot ideologen als Kagan. Over zijn boek schreef dr. Henry Kissinger: 'I consider this essay one of those seminal treatises without which any discussion of European American relations would be incomplete and which will shape that discussion for years to come.' En de vooraanstaande Amerikaanse neoconservatieve ideoloog Francis Fukuyama, die na de val van de muur meende dat het neoliberale systeem een einde aan de geschiedenis had gemaakt en dat de VS de eindoverwinning had behaald, betitelde op zijn beurt Kagan's analyse als 'Brilliant.' Hoewel de Amerikaanse grootheidswaan na de invallen in Irak en Afghanistan op niets concreets gebaseerd bleken, en hoewel het Amerikaanse militaire overwicht sinds 1945 niet heeft geleid tot het winnen van ook maar één echte oorlog (Korea was gelijkspel, Vietnam, Afghanistan en Irak verloor de VS wanneer men uitgaat van de oorspronkelijke Amerikaanse doeleinden) blijft de politieke macht in Washington geloven dat de VS de taak heeft de wereld met geweld te hervormen. 24 september 2013 berichtte The Daily Beast:
'I believe that America is exceptional,' said Obama. Its ability to 'stand up for the interests of all' is special… Obama said that right now he would focus American efforts on resolving the stand-off with Iran over its nuclear program… And he reserved the right to intervene militarily wherever America’s core security interests were challenged, including Syria, but not only in Syria. He called for the international community to support all this, but looked determined to go ahead with or without consensus.
Met andere woorden, of het nu in strijd is met het internationaal recht of niet de VS zal doorgaan met grootscheeps geweld tegen zwakkere staten die weigeren zich voetstoots bij de Amerikaanse hegemonie neer te leggen. In dat opzicht is er geen enkel verschil tussen Democratische en Republikeinse presidenten en is Geert Mak's bewering in 2012 dat het 'beter [is] voor Nederland en de internationale gemeenschap dat Obama de verkiezingen wint,' een illustratie van hoe weinig hij van geopolitieke drijfveren afweet, en vooral ook wil afweten. Geert Mak en de Makkianen in de Nederlandse polder wensen te blijven dromen binnen de grenzen van hun poldermodel, en wel omdat ze niet zonder 'hoop' kunnen, totdat straks de geschiedenis met geweld tenslotte via hun voordeur binnendringt. In zijn bestseller De eeuw van mijn vader staat een opmerkelijke rechtvaardiging van onder andere de antisemitische ressentimenten van zijn ouders in de jaren dertig tijdens de opkomst van het nazisme en fascisme. Mak schreef:
Mijn ouders wisten nu eenmaal niet, zoals niemand dat weet, op welke plek ze zich bevonden in de geschiedenis. En met name wisten ze één ding niet: dat hun leven zich afspeelde tussen een voorbije wereldoorlog en een komende.
Deze verdediging van hun opportunistische rol, wat Mak junior beschreef als 'Het zoeken naar een houding in deze wereld,' verbloemt de werkelijkheid. Zoals Mak zelf schreef weet 'niemand' hoe de toekomst zich precies zal ontwikkelen, maar dit legitimeert geenszins het feit dat zijn vader in 1935 als dominee zijn publiek liet weten dat het uitstoten van joden uit het publieke leven in nazi-Duitsland 'op staatsterrein tolerabel' was. En dat in dit opzicht zijn 'vader hierin niet [verschilde] van de overgrote meerderheid' van de Nederlandse bevolking is evenmin een excuus. Ik benadruk dit nog eens omdat Geert Mak voor de mainstream schrijft; zijn bewering dat het 'beter [is] voor Nederland en de internationale gemeenschap dat Obama de verkiezingen wint,' kan later niet verontschuldigd worden met de opmerking dat ook hij niet wist 'op welke plek' hij zich destijds bevond 'in de geschiedenis.' Precies hetzelfde geldt voor president Obama verdediging in 2013 dat 'the controversial intervention by the United States, France and Britain in Libya,' legitiem was 'saying the civil war there might still be going on had these powers not acted,
terwijl inmiddels algemeen bekend was dat
So far, the 'Libyan revolution' has created dramatically increased physical and economic insecurity for the mass of Libyan civilians, a weak state and the continuing activity of shadowy militias…
Awash with arms, competing militias and Qaddafi loyalists - named the Green Resistance after the sole color of the Jamahiriya flag - clashed for control of cities while tribal affiliations intensified. The terms thuwar (revolutionaries) and azlam (members of the old regime) deepened societal divisions; Qaddafi sympathizers were barred from participating in the postwar government, persecuted in general society and forced into exile. The result was social and economic disarticulation. Many militias had no allegiance to the central government, launching sporadic campaigns of violence and reprisal killings. Meanwhile, firefights in Tripolitanian towns like Zuwara and Bani Walid blurred the line between loyalist and rebel, plummeting the north into a power struggle for land and resources. The latter skirmish resulted in a two-month-long siege, emptying the town of nearly all its residents.
In the south, struggles took on a more regional and ethnic appearance. Libya's black minorities, the ethnically Chadian Toubou and Berber (Amazigh) Tuareg peoples of the Fezzan region engaged in bloody inter-urban fighting with Arab militants in the cities of Qatrun, Murzuk and Sabha. Elsewhere, black Libyans were arrested, tortured and became frequent targets of extra-judicial slayings. According to a 2010 United Nations Human Rights Council report, these groups had experienced widespread "ostracism, exclusion and discrimination" during the Qaddafi period. Evidently, they encountered more of the same after the revolution.
Three years later, little has changed in Libya. Still dubbed a "security vacuum" by policy analysts, the nation is lodged in a violent morass of sectarian fighting and intense factionalism. The current government, led by Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, struggles to maintain control of Tripoli while the economically underdeveloped eastern and southern regions of the country vacillate between numerous controlling groups. Libya's revolution has splintered, to be sure, but how might it be reconstituted? Will the aims of the so-called Green Resistance be reconciled, or are the political machinations of Qaddafi's Jamahiriya forever consigned to the dustbin of history? Further, and perhaps most importantly, will average Libyans return to a state of normalcy any time soon?
A damning report by Amnesty International says that a year after the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's militias are "largely out of control", with the use of torture ubiquitous and the country's new rulers unable – or unwilling – to prevent abuses.
The report says that the "hundreds of armed militias" that took part in the overthrow of Gaddafi's regime continue to operate more or less independently of the central authorities. Since the fall of Tripoli last August, the militias have failed to disband – and now pose a serious threat to a democratic Libya.
Unlike some of its Arab Spring counterparts, Libya is a wealthy, oil rich nation with a limited population and even smaller military. Its 2011 revolution, dissimilar from other historical precedents, was not influenced by an officer class or a strong army, but by an array of heavily equipped militias and tribes. A grouping of international actors - NATO, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Canada, the Arab League and Qatar - exacerbated the transition by supplying weapons, ordnance and air support, ostensibly to topple Qaddafi's regime while attending to concomitant geopolitical aims in the region.
To Mohammed-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, visiting professor and head of the Regional Program at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, the deterioration of Libya's political and social fabric and the roles of competing parties resembles the situation in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
"In many ways," he begins, "there have not been any new qualitative developments [in Libya], but an accumulation of dystrophies, if you may. The situation is not so much a newly emerging opposition between a front or a group of actors, but a global scene in which these situations are happening all the time, sometimes accelerating, sometimes decelerating. But there's a steady deterioration of the security aspect of the country.
'If one thinks of Iraq after the fall of Saddam and that level of insecurity, this is what I think we're seeing today playing out in Libya. I don't think it's reported enough. It's noted every time there is a spectacular kidnapping or election, but it's playing like low-level background news.'
Indeed, uncomfortable realities about post-revolution Libya - especially to those Western powers that contributed to the violence and ensuing turmoil - have frequently evaded the mainstream media. This is particularly surprising in light of recent developments. On January 18, alleged Green Resistance militants stormed an air force base near the southern city of Sabha, almost 800 kilometers from Tripoli, killing dozens before fleeing from government forces. A week before, on January 12, Libya's deputy minister Hassan al-Droui was assassinated by an unknown assailant east of the capital. A former member of the NTC, Droui was the first high-profile government official to be killed in Libya since American ambassador Christopher Stevens died during the storming of the US consulate in Benghazi in September 2012.
Though Qaddafi loyalists have been blamed for these attacks - and sightings of green flags are common in the south - their political influence and composition is unclear. Are they distinct from other tribal militias waging proxy battles against state forces elsewhere in Libya? Do they represent a realignment of forces in the region? Whatever the case, the presence of partisan forces still devoted to the old regime is upsetting conditions on the ground while puzzling the view for outsiders.
'It's a massive challenge for the government,' Mohamedou says of the recent flurry of violence and civil disorder. 'What we're seeing now in Libya are these dynamics of actors seeking territorial control, seeking to secure those resources that happen to be in those territories, and now and then, some of these actors calling for autonomy or secession or separatism… The storming of governmental offices, the killing of people, airport takeovers, facility blockading, the kidnapping of officials, militias clashing all the time. This is the kind of security vortex that's playing out.'
Complicating matters further is Libya's aforementioned position as one of the region's chief oil exporters. The sector has been severely affected by three years of constant upheaval, dropping output from 1.4 million barrels a day to as low as 200,000 in recent months. Hariga, the country's largest, centrally-controlled oil terminal in the sparsely populated eastern region of Cyrenaica, was hijacked by armed gunmen in late January. The seizure has curbed exports even more and reflected the country's wealth imbalance favoring Tripoli; though most of Libya's oil is concentrated in the south and east of the country, workers and their communities rarely see returns. Instead, a top-heavy power structure remains intact, a powerful symbol of what has not changed since Qaddafi's reign.
These examples are components of a difficult enigma facing the government and people of Libya: Will the country's future be defined by warring factions, each with contrasting visions of the future, or will reconciliation be achieved through redress and meaningful reform designed to mitigate inequities the revolution failed to confront?
Ibrahim Sharqieh, foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar, says disarmament is the key answer to the entire transition process. Without pacification on both sides, any effort to secure a stable future for Libyans will disintegrate.
'In a word. Disarmament,' he confirms, frankly. 'If you don't disarm, you face the consequences… It's a gloomy situation where the state is weak and is getting weaker, while the militias are strong and becoming even more powerful. They have more power than the state… It's still early to talk about another civil war or a serious spillover to other neighboring countries, but within the boundaries of Libya, it is getting worse. I don't see that order changing soon.'
Looking Ahead
Libya's 2011 revolution produced more problems than solutions for a people acclimatized to relative calm under the 40-year rule of Muammar Qaddafi. Even after three years, a civil war continues while a weak political order presides over Tripoli. For average Libyans - their lives constantly problematized by a legacy of Western intervention, tribalism and the dispersal of arms - normalcy is but a fleeting reality. The revolution only introduced more hardship and violence than ever before.
Het gevolg van de NAVO-steun aan de bendes is dat zij na de zogeheten 'revolutie' plotseling 'meer macht hebben dan de staat,' en er nu 'more problems' bestaan 'than solutions for a people acclimatized to relative calm under the 40-year rule of Muammar Qaddafi,' aldus de Canadese historicus Harrison Samphir. De westerse gewelddadige interventie heeft alleen maar geleid tot een nog grotere chaos en een permanente burgeroorlog, zonder dat ditmaal ook maar één westerse mainstream opiniemaker vandaag de dag oproept de NAVO 'humanitair te laten ingrijpen' om het geweld tegen de Libische burgerbevolking te stoppen. Overal waar sinds 2001 de VS met grootscheeps militair geweld intervenieerde werd de chaos almaar groter. Afghanistan, Irak, Libië. En toch blijven de Amerikaanse beleidsbepalers dezelfde politiek voeren. Dat is niet verwonderlijk, de politieke redenen van militaire interventies zijn niet de mensenrechten en democratie, maar zoals de hele geschiedenis door, allereerst het behartigen van de economische en geopolitieke belangen van elke grootmacht, belangen waarop de heerschappij van haar elite is gebaseerd. Dus financierde Washington de onlusten in de Oekraïne met als argument daar de democratie te bevorderen, terwijl hetzelfde Washington in Bahrein de democratiseringen demonstraties met grof geweld de kop laatdrukken, zonder in te grijpen.
http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/3864
De reden waarom het Bahrein-regime van Washington ongestraft kon martelen, moorden en de democratisering mocht saboteren is simpel: 'the U.S. 5th Fleet now directs operations in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Arabian Sea. Its headquarters are at NSA Bahrain located in Manama, Bahrain.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fifth_Fleet
Ook kinderen worden in Bahrein, als het ware onder de ogen van de Amerikanen, vermoord en gemarteld.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/bahrain-fears-violent-crackdown-ahead-third-anniversary-protests-2014-02-13
Doodgemarteld in Bahrein, waar de Amerikaanse vijfde vloot is gestationeerd.
Duidelijk zal zijn dat mensenrechten en democratie te verwaarlozen details voor Washington zijn zodra het om de economische en geopolitieke belangen van de economische macht handelt. Niet de westerse volksvertegenwoordigers bepalen de koers, maar de rijke elite, onder wie speculanten als de miljardair George Soros. Op 14 april 2011 werd bekend dat
The police response was described as a "brutal" crackdown on peaceful and unarmed protesters, including doctors and bloggers. The police carried out midnight house raids in Shia neighbourhoods, beatings at checkpoints and denial of medical care in a campaign of intimidation. More than 2,929 people have been arrested, and at least five died due to torture in police custody.
In June, King Hamad established the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry composed of international independent figures to assess the incidents. The report was released on 23 November and confirmed the Bahraini government's use of systematic torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuse on detainees, as well as other human rights violations. It also rejected the government's claims that the protests were instigated byIran. The report was criticised for not disclosing the names of individual abusers and extending accountability only to those who actively carried out human rights violations.
Bahraini human rights groups and opposition parties have heavily criticized recruiting mercenaries in the Bahraini security forces. Nabeel Rajab said 'They’re told they are going to go to a holy war in Bahrain to kill some non-Muslims or kafir [infidel] or Shias ... And those are maybe responsible for a lot of killing and a lot of systematic torture and human rights violations committed in the past months and years.' Michael Stephens, of the Royal United Services Institute linked recruiting mercenaries in the Bahraini security forces to the lack of government confidence in its own citizens. 'So they rely on foreign recruits to unquestioningly carry out orders of violently suppressing protests,' he said. Bruce Riedel, a leading American expert on South Asia said 'when the very serious demonstrations began and it looked like the regime might even be toppled at a certain point, their hiring of mercenaries went up substantially.'
On September 29, 2012, US journalist Amber Lyon, who was covering the uprising for CNN, described her investigation of how the US ally Bahrain was committing human rights abuses, but said that CNN and the US government pressured her to suppress the news. In an interview to RT, she claimed that Bahrain paid CNN for positive news coverage. Moreover, the documentary on which she had been working was never aired.
In 2011, the government of the United Kingdom approved the sale of military equipment valued at more than £1m to Bahrain, following the violent crackdown on demonstrators. This included licenses for gun silencers, weapons sights, rifles, artillery and components for military training aircraft; at least some of the equipment used by Bahraini authorities to suppress demonstrations was imported from Britain. The UK subsequently revoked many of its export licenses to Bahrain, amidst public pressure.
The 2012 status of these licenses has not been substantially documented. The United Kingdom has close ties with the Bahraini government; indeed, in late 2012, the United Kingdom signed a defense cooperation agreement with the Bahraini government.
De reden waarom het Bahrein-regime van Washington ongestraft kon martelen, moorden en de democratisering mocht saboteren is simpel: 'the U.S. 5th Fleet now directs operations in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Arabian Sea. Its headquarters are at NSA Bahrain located in Manama, Bahrain.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fifth_Fleet
Press releases
13 February 2014
Bahrain: Fears of violent crackdown ahead of third anniversary protests
There are fears that the Bahraini authorities may use violence to quash planned demonstrations on 14 February, said Amnesty International, when thousands are expected to take to the streets to mark the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising.
“The authorities’ relentless repression of dissent continues unabated – with security forces repeatedly using excessive force to quash anti-government protests,” said Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Scores of people, including dozens of children have been detained for participating in peaceful protests over the last year. Many of them alleged that they were tortured in detention. Protesters must be allowed to take part in peaceful demonstrations without the fear of reprisal or attack”.
In July 2013 Bahrain’s King issued a draconian decree banning demonstrations, sit-ins and public gatherings in the capital, Manama, indefinitely.
In the three years since the authorities crushed the mass demonstrations of 2011, the human rights situation in Bahrain has continued to deteriorate. Prominent human rights defenders and opposition activists have been rounded up, in many cases merely for calling for peaceful anti-government protests.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/bahrain-fears-violent-crackdown-ahead-third-anniversary-protests-2014-02-13
Doodgemarteld in Bahrein, waar de Amerikaanse vijfde vloot is gestationeerd.
Duidelijk zal zijn dat mensenrechten en democratie te verwaarlozen details voor Washington zijn zodra het om de economische en geopolitieke belangen van de economische macht handelt. Niet de westerse volksvertegenwoordigers bepalen de koers, maar de rijke elite, onder wie speculanten als de miljardair George Soros. Op 14 april 2011 werd bekend dat
Ukraine’s leading political party has said that the international financier George Soros has been preparing a 'Lybian scenario' for the country.
The information about George Soros’s involvement in Ukrainian politics was openly voiced by Yulia Timoshenko in 2008. Timoshenko, then the country’s prime minister, said that she was attempting to minimize the effect of the global financial crisis by following George Soros’s advice. This raised suspicions that through such advice George Soros could influence the rate of the Ukrainian national currency in his own speculative interests.
Bijna drie jaar later, nadat het 'Libische scenario' met financiële steun van Soros en de Obama-regering was uitgevoerd, schreef op 26 februari 2004 dezelfde George Soros verheugd: 'Ukraine is a potentially attractive investment destination.' Om nu het investeringsklimaat van grote concerns en schatrijke speculanten zo gunstig mogelijk te maken is alleen nog EU-belastinggeld nodig, en dus voegde hij hieraan toe:
In addition to encouraging foreign direct investment, the EU could provide support to train local companies’ managers and help them develop their business strategies, with service providers remunerated by equity stakes or profit-sharing… To encourage participation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) could invest in companies alongside foreign and local investors, as it did in Central Europe.
Ukraine would thus open its domestic market to goods manufactured or assembled by European companies’ wholly- or partly-owned subsidiaries, while the EU would increase market access for Ukrainian companies and help them integrate into global markets.
I hope and trust that Europe under German leadership will rise to the occasion… Today, Ukraine needs a modern-day equivalent of the Marshall Plan, by which the United States helped to reconstruct Europe after World War II.
En zoals gebruikelijk in de neoliberale democratie gehoorzaamde de Europese Unie en de VS binnen een week op de eisen van de neoliberale elite, want op woensdag 5 maart 2014 werd bekend gemaakt dat
De Europese Commissie bereid [is] om Oekraïne de komende jaren met 11 miljard euro te steunen. Dat heeft voorzitter Barroso in Brussel bekendgemaakt.
Het geld moet Oekraïne in stabieler vaarwater brengen. Het land is zo goed als bankroet. Alleen al tot eind 2015 heeft Oekraïne naar eigen zeggen 25 miljard euro nodig.
Volgens Barroso moet het hulppakket worden gezien als een Europese bijdrage voor economische hervormingen.
Het meeste geld (5 miljard) komt van de Europese Bank voor Wederopbouw en Ontwikkeling. Ook de Europese Investeringsbank stelt 3 miljard voor Oekraïne beschikbaar. De Europese Commissie komt met anderhalf miljard aan subsidies en nog eens 1,6 miljard aan leningen over de brug.
Gisteren stelde de VS zo'n 720 miljoen euro beschikbaar voor Oekraïne. Dat geld is volgens het Witte Huis bedoeld om de financiële gevolgen van hogere energieprijzen op te vangen.
Terwijl de bezuinigingen op de bevolking van de Europese Unie gewoon doorgaan, besluit het neoliberale 'Brussel' zonder dat de diverse lidstaten democratisch hierover hebben kunnen beslissen dat miljarden worden doorgesluisd naar een land dat financieel, economisch, politiek en moreel failliet is, en wel omdat 'Ukraine is a potentially attractive investment destination,' voor de rijke neoliberale elite aan wie de macht de afgelopen veertig jaar is overgedragen door de kapitalistische 'democratie.' Via deregulering en privatisering kan een kleine economische en politieke elite binnen de EU ongecontroleerd het lot van bijna een half miljard mensen bepalen. En dit alles wordt 'gelegitimeerd' door een opiniemaker als Geert Mak met de leuze 'Geen Jorwerd zonder Brussel,' en door alle anderen vorstelijk betaalde mainstream propagandisten. Morgen meer.
Geert Mak, zojuist door de Franse staat beloond met de toetreding tot het Legioen van Eer voor zijn onschatbare verdiensten voor de neoliberale Europese Unie. Merci beaucoup.
Op dezelfde dag dat de Europese Commissie bekend maakte miljarden te geven aan het nieuwe Oekraïnse regime lekte het volgende uit:
Geert Mak, zojuist door de Franse staat beloond met de toetreding tot het Legioen van Eer voor zijn onschatbare verdiensten voor de neoliberale Europese Unie. Merci beaucoup.
Op dezelfde dag dat de Europese Commissie bekend maakte miljarden te geven aan het nieuwe Oekraïnse regime lekte het volgende uit:
The EU's Ukraine policy and moral bankruptcy
Published time: March 05, 2014 19:16
The conversation between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Estonia's FM revealing Ukraine protesters were shot on the orders of their own leaders is a stinging indictment of the EU's policy towards Ukraine. Brussels has some explaining to do.
We now have a 'smoking gun' demonstrating the EU has been and remains in cahoots with fascists and extremists in Kiev. The political fiction that President Viktor Yanukovich ordered sniper attacks has been exposed. There are many (nasty and truly awful) things one can and should say about Yanukovich, but proof he ordered any targeted murders has always been only heresy propagated by Brussels, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Western mainstream media.
Allow me to quote Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, from the bugged conversation believed to have taken place on February 26:
'There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovich, but it was somebody from the new coalition.'
It is pathetic that Kerry only had high praise for this 'new coalition' when he visited Kiev today (with the promise of a billion dollar check – or should we describe it as blood money?). It is my opinion that Kerry, Ashton, and US State Department official Victoria Nuland know very well with whom they have decided to anoint as Ukraine's new leaders.
All three of these western officials intentionally overlook the racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-democratic sentiments of the 'new coalition' because the rebel government in Kiev is anti-Russia and against ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in Ukraine. That suits the EU and Washington just fine. The West's push into Ukraine has never been about democracy or 'civilizational choice' – it is about raw geopolitical power and advantage at the expense of Russia's legitimate security interests.
Instead of being honest and open about the thuggery the West has empowered in Kiev (and wants to invest in!), Western powers and Western media want the world to focus its attention on Crimea. This is a place that Russia has not invaded over the past few days, though it is a place that Russian military forces have been for 15 years under a treaty negotiated and ratified by Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
Since this crisis erupted in Ukraine back in November, we have learned of two bugged phone conversations on how the West's demands will be imposed on the Ukrainian people. I suspect those kinds of conversations happen every day. The public doublespeak and hypocrisy is obvious and dangerous.
Catherine Ashton should resign immediately and an investigation should be started. What else does she know about criminal acts committed in Ukraine? The same applies for Urmas Paet and Nuland, as well. But we all know this will not happen. Why? Because the Brussels gang (not to speak of the epicenter of this moral and political bankruptcy originating in Washington) believes they are all above the law and know what is best for the rest of us.
In light of both these revealed conversations, it is probably not a bad idea that Vladimir Putin's Russia is on the wings to repel anything that Western-sponsored fascists plan for Ukraine and those in Ukraine looking to Moscow for protection.
Peter Lavelle is host of RT's political debate program 'CrossTalk' and monthly business program 'On the Money.' His views are his own and not necessarily those of his employer.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten