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The European Union is not (anymore) guided by politicians with a grasp of history, a sober assessment of global reality, or simple common sense connected with the long term interests of what they are guiding. If any more evidence was needed, it has certainly been supplied by the sanctions they have agreed on last week aimed at punishing Russia.
One way to fathom their foolishness is to start with the media, since whatever understanding or concern these politicians may have personally they must be seen to be doing the right thing, which is taken care of by TV and newspapers.
In much of the European Union the general understanding of global reality since the horrible fate of the people on board the Malaysian Airliner comes from mainstream newspapers and TV which have copied the approach of Anglo-American mainstream media, and have presented ‘news’ in which insinuation and vilification substitute for proper reporting. Respected publications, like the Financial Times or the once respected NRC Handelsblad of the Netherlands for which I worked sixteen years as East Asia Correspondent, not only joined in with this corrupted journalism but helped guide it to mad conclusions. The punditry and editorials that have grown out of this have gone further than anything among earlier examples of sustained media hysteria stoked for political purposes that I can remember. The most flagrant example I have come across, an anti-Putin leader in the (July 26) Economist Magazine, had the tone of Shakespeare’s Henry V exhorting his troops before the battle of Agincourt as he invaded France.
One should keep in mind that there are no European-wide newspapers or publications to sustain a European public sphere, in the sense of a means for politically interested Europeans to ponder and debate with each other big international developments. Because those interested in world affairs usually read the international edition of the New York Times or the Financial Times, questions and answers on geopolitical matters are routinely shaped or strongly influenced by what editors in New York and London have determined as being important. Thinking that may deviate significantly as can now be found in Der Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit and Handelsblatt, does not travel across German borders. Hence we do not see anything like a European opinion evolving on global affairs, even when these have a direct impact on the interests of the European Union itself.
The Dutch population was rudely shaken out of a general complacency with respect to world events that could affect it, through the death of 193 fellow nationals (along with a 105 people of other nationalities) in the downed plane, and its media were hasty in following the American-initiated finger-pointing at Moscow. Explanations that did not in some way involve culpability of the Russian president seemed to be out of bounds. This was at odds right away with statements of a sober Dutch prime minister, who was under considerable pressure to join the fingerpointing but who insisted on waiting for a thorough examination of what precisely had happened.
The TV news programs I saw in the days immediately afterwards had invited, among other anti–Russian expositors, American neocon-linked talking heads to do the disclosing to a puzzled and truly shaken up audience. A Dutch foreign policy specialist explained that the foreign minister or his deputy could not go to the site of the crash (as Malaysian officials did) to recover the remains of Dutch citizens, because that would amount to an implicit recognition of diplomatic status for the “separatists”. When the European Union en bloc recognizes a regime that has come into existence through an American initiated coup d’état, you are diplomatically stuck with it.
The inhabitants and anti-Kiev fighters at the crash site were portrayed, with images from youtube, as uncooperative criminals, which for many viewers amounted to a confirmation of their guilt. This changed when later reports from actual journalists showed shocked and deeply concerned villagers, but the discrepancy was not explained, and earlier assumptions of villainy did not make way for any objective analysis of why these people might be fighting at all. Tendentious twitter and youtube ‘news’ had become the basis for official Dutch indignation with the East Ukrainians, and a general opinion arose that something had to be set straight, which was, again in general opinion, accomplished by a grand nationally televised reception of the human remains (released through Malaysian mediation) in a dignified sober martial ceremony.
Nothing that I have seen or read even intimated that the Ukraine crisis – which led to coup and civil war – was created by neoconservatives and a few R2P (“Responsibility to Protect”) fanatics in the State Department and the White House, apparently given a free hand by President Obama. The Dutch media also appeared unaware that the catastrophe was immediately turned into a political football for White House and State Department purposes. The likelihood that Putin was right when he said that the catastrophe would not have happened if his insistence on a cease-fire had been accepted, was not entertained.
As it was, Kiev broke the cease-fire – on the 10th of June – in its civil war against Russian speaking East Ukrainians who do not wish to be governed by a collection of thugs, progeny of Ukrainian nazis, and oligarchs enamored of the IMF and the European Union. The supposed ‘rebels’ have been responding to the beginnings of ethnic cleansing operations (systematic terror bombing and atrocities – 30 or more Ukrainians burned alive) committed by Kiev forces, of which little or nothing has penetrated into European news reports.
It is unlikely that the American NGOs, which by official admission spent 5 billion dollars in political destabilization efforts prior to the February putsch in Kiev, have suddenly disappeared from the Ukraine, or that America’s military advisors and specialized troops have sat idly by as Kiev’s military and militias mapped their civil war strategy; after all, the new thugs are as a regime on financial life-support provided by Washington, the European Union and IMF. What we know is that Washington is encouraging the ongoing killing in the civil war it helped trigger.
But Washington has constantly had the winning hand in a propaganda war against, entirely contrary to what mainstream media would have us believe, an essentially unwilling opponent. Waves of propaganda come from Washington and are made to fit assumptions of a Putin, driven and assisted by a nationalism heightened by the loss of the Soviet empire, who is trying to expand the Russian Federation up to the borders of that defunct empire. The more adventurous punditry, infected by neocon fever, has Russia threatening to envelop the West. Hence Europeans are made to believe that Putin refuses diplomacy, while he has been urging this all along. Hence prevailing propaganda has had the effect that not Washington’s but Putin’s actions are seen as dangerous and extreme. Anyone with a personal story that places Putin or Russia in a bad light must move right now; Dutch editors seem insatiable at the moment.
There is no doubt that the frequently referred to Moscow propaganda exists. But there are ways for serious journalists to weigh competing propaganda and discern how much veracity or lies and bullshit they contain. Within my field of vision this has only taken place a bit in Germany. For the rest we must piece political reality together relying on the now more than ever indispensable American websites hospitable to whistleblowers and old-fashioned investigative journalism, which especially since the onset of the ‘war on terrorism’ and the Iraq invasion have formed a steady form of samizdat publishing.
In the Netherlands almost anything that comes from the State Department is taken at face value. America’s history, since the demise of the Soviet Union, of truly breathtaking lies: on Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, Libya and North Korea; its record of overthrown governments; its black-op and false flag operations; and its stealthily garrisoning of the planet with some thousand military bases, is conveniently left out of consideration. The near hysteria throughout a week following the downed airliner prevented people with some knowledge of relevant history from opening their mouths. Job security in the current world of journalism is quite shaky, and going against the tide would be almost akin to siding with the devil, as it would damage one’s journalistic ‘credibility’.
What strikes an older generation of serious journalists as questionable about the mainstream media’s credibility is editorial indifference to potential clues that would undermine or destroy the official story line; a story line that has already permeated popular culture as is evident in throwaway remarks embellishing book and film reviews along with much else. In the Netherlands the official story is already carved in stone, which is to be expected when it is repeated ten-thousand times. It cannot be discounted, of course, but it is based on not a shred of evidence.
The presence of two Ukrainian fighter planes near the Malaysian airliner on Russian radar would be a potential clue I would be very interested in if I were investigating either as journalist or member of the investigation team that the Netherlands officially leads. This appeared to be corroborated by a BBC Report with eyewitness accounts from the ground by villagers who clearly saw another plane, a fighter, close to the airliner, near the time of its crash, and heard explosions coming from the sky. This report has recently drawn attention because it was removed from the BBC’s archive. I would want to talk with Michael Bociurkiw, one of the first inspectors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to reach the crash site who spent more than a week examining the wreckage and has described on CBC World News two or three “really pock-marked” pieces of fuselage. “It almost looks like machine gun fire; very, very strong machine gun fire that has left these unique marks that we haven’t seen anywhere else.”
I would certainly also want to have a look at the allegedly confiscated radar and voice records of the Kiev Air Control Tower to understand why the Malaysian pilot veered off course and rapidly descended shortly before his plane crashed, and find out whether foreign air controllers in Kiev were indeed sent packing immediately after the crash. Like the “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity”, I would certainly urge the American authorities with access to satellite images to show the evidence they claim to have of BUK missile batteries in ‘rebel’ hands as well as of Russian involvement, and ask them why they have not done so already. Until now Washington has acted like a driver who refuses a breathalyzer test. Since intelligence officials have leaked to some American newspapers their lesser certainty about the American certainties as brought to the world by the Secretary of State, my curiosity would be unrelenting.
To place European media loyalty to Washington in the Ukraine case as well as the slavish conduct of European politicians in perspective, we must know about and understand Atlanticism. It is a European faith. It has not given rise to an official doctrine, of course, but it functions like one. It is well summed up by the Dutch slogan at the time of the Iraq invasion: “zonder Amerika gaat het niet” (without the United States [things] [it] won’t work). Needless to say, the Cold War gave birth to Atlanticism. Ironically, it gained strength as the threat from the Soviet Union became less persuasive for increasing numbers among European political elites. That probably was a matter of generational change: the farther away from World War II, the less European governments remembered what it means to have an independent foreign policy on global-sized issues. Current heads of government of the European Union are unfamiliar with practical strategic deliberations. Routine thought on international relations and global politics is deeply entrenched in Cold War epistemology.
This inevitably also informs ‘responsible’ editorial policies. Atlanticism is now a terrible affliction for Europe: it fosters historical amnesia, willful blindness and dangerously misconceived political anger. But it thrives on a mixture of lingering unquestioned Cold War era certainties about protection, Cold War loyalties embedded in popular culture, sheer European ignorance, and an understandable reluctance to concede that one has even for a little bit been brainwashed. Washington can do outrageous things while leaving Atlanticism intact because of everyone’s forgetfulness, which the media do little or nothing to cure. I know Dutch people who have become disgusted with the villification of Putin, but the idea that in the context of Ukraine the fingerpointing should be toward Washington is well-nigh unacceptable. Hence, Dutch publications, along with many others in Europe, cannot bring themselves to place the Ukraine crisis in proper perspective by acknowledging that Washington started it all, and that Washington rather than Putin has the key to its solution. It would impel a renunciation of Atlanticism.
Atlanticism derives much of its strength through NATO, its institutional embodiment. The reason for NATO’s existence, which disappeard with the demise of the Soviet Union, has been largely forgotten. Formed in 1949, it was based on the idea that transatlantic cooperation for security and defense had become necessary after World War II in the face of a communism, orchestrated by Moscow, intent on taking over the entire planet. Much less talked about was European internal distrust, as the Europeans set off on their first moves towards economic integration. NATO constituted a kind of American guarantee that no power in Europe would ever try to dominate the others.
NATO has for some time now been a liability for the European Union, as it prevents development of concerted European foreign and defense policies, and has forced the member states to become instruments serving American militarism. It is also a moral liability because the governments participating in the ‘coalition of the willing’ have had to sell the lie to their citizens that European soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a necessary sacrifice to keep Europe safe from terrorists. Governments that have supplied troops to areas occupied by the United States have generally done this with considerable reluctance, earning the reproach from a succession of American officials that Europeans do too little for the collective purpose of defending democracy and freedom.
As is the mark of an ideology, Atlanticism is ahistorical. As horse medicine against the torment of fundamental political ambiguity it supplies its own history: one that may be rewritten by American mainstream media as they assist in spreading the word from Washington.
There could hardly be a better demonstration of this than the Dutch experience at the moment. In conversations these past three weeks I have encountered genuine surprise when reminding friends that the Cold War ended through diplomacy with a deal made on Malta between Gorbachev and the elder Bush in December 1989, in which James Baker got Gorbachev to accept the reunification of Germany and withdrawal of Warsaw Pact troops with a promise that NATO would not be extended even one inch to the East. Gorbachev pledged not to use force in Eastern Europe where the Russians had some 350,000 troops in East Germany alone, in return for Bush’s promise that Washington would not take advantage of a Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Bill Clinton reneged on those American promises when, for purely electoral reasons, he boasted about an enlargement of NATO and in 1999 made the Czech Republic and Hungary full members. Ten years later another nine countries became members, at which point the number of NATO countries was double the number during the Cold War. The famous American specialist on Russia, Ambassador George Kennan, originator of Cold War containment policy, called Clinton’s move “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.”
Historical ignorance abetted by Atlanticism is poignantly on display in the contention that the ultimate proof in the case against Vladimir Putin is his invasion of Crimea. Again, political reality here was created by America’s mainstream media. There was no invasion, as the Russian sailors and soldiers were already there since it is home to the ‘warm water’ Black Sea base for the Russian navy. Crimea has been a part of Russia for as long as the United States has existed. In 1954 Khrushchev, who himself came from the Ukraine, gave it to the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, which came down to moving a region to a different province, since Russia and Ukraine still belonged to the same country. The Russian speaking Crimean population was happy enough, as it voted in a referendum first for independence from the Kiev regime that resulted from the coup d’état, and subsequently for reunification with Russia.
Those who maintain that Putin had no right to do such a thing are unaware of another strand of history in which the United States has been moving (Star Wars) missile defense systems ever closer to Russian borders, supposedly to intercept hostile missiles from Iran, which do not exist. Sanctimonious talk about territorial integrity and sovereignty makes no sense under these circumstances, and coming from a Washington that has done away with the concept of sovereignty in its own foreign policy it is downright ludicrous.
A detestable Atlanticist move was the exclusion of Putin from the meetings and other events connected with the commemoration of the Normandy landings, for the first time in 17 years. The G8 became the G7 as a result. Amnesia and ignorance have made the Dutch blind to a history that directly concerned them, since the Soviet Union took the heart out of the Nazi war machine (that occupied the Netherlands) at a cost of incomparable and unimaginable numbers of military dead; without that there would not have been a Normandy invasion.
Not so long ago, the complete military disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan appeared to be moving NATO to a point where its inevitable demise could not to be too far off. But the Ukraine crisis and Putin’s decisiveness in preventing the Crimea with its Russian Navy base from possibly falling into the hands of the American-owned alliance, has been a godsend to this earlier faltering institution.
NATO leadership has already been moving troops to strengthen their presence in the Baltic states, sending missiles and attack aircraft to Poland and Lithuania, and since the downing of the Malaysian airliner it has been preparing further military moves that may turn into dangerous provocations of Russia. It has become clear that the Polish foreign minister together with the Baltic countries, none of which partook in NATO when its reason for being could still be defended, have become a strong driving force behind it. A mood of mobilization has spread in the past week. The ventriloquist dummies Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer can be relied upon to take to TV screens inveighing against NATO member-state backsliding. Rasmussen, the current Secretary General, declared on August 7 in Kiev that NATO’s “support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is unwavering” and that he is looking to strengthen partnership with the country at the Alliance’s summit in Wales in September. That partnership is already strong, so he said, “and in response to Russia’s aggression, NATO is working even more closely with Ukraine to reform its armed forces and defense institutions.”
In the meantime, in the American Congress 23 Senate Republicans have sponsored legislation, the “Russian Aggression Prevention Act”, which is meant to allow Washington to make the Ukraine a non-NATO ally and could set the stage for a direct military conflict with Russia. We will probably have to wait until after America’s midterm elections to see what will become of it, but it already helps provide a political excuse for those in Washington who want to take next steps in the Ukraine.
In September last year Putin helped Obama by making it possible for him to stop a bombing campaign against Syria pushed by the neocons, and had also helped in defusing the nuclear dispute with Iran, another neocon project. This led to a neocon commitment to break the Putin-Obama link. It is hardly a secret that the neoconservatives desire the overthrow of Putin and eventual dismemberment of the Russian Federation. Less known in Europe is the existence of numerous NGOs at work in Russia, which will help them with this. Vladimir Putin could strike now or soon, to preempt NATO and the American Congress, by taking Eastern Ukraine, something he probably should have done right after the Crimean referendum. That would, of course, be proof of his evil intentions in European editorial eyes.
In the light of all this, one of the most fateful questions to ask in current global affairs is: what has to happen for Europeans to wake up to the fact that Washington is playing with fire and has ceased being the protector they counted on, and is instead now endangering their security? Will the moment come when it becomes clear that the Ukraine crisis is, most of all, about placing Star Wars missile batteries along an extensive stretch of Russian border, which gives Washington – in the insane lingo of nuclear strategists – ‘first strike’ capacity?
It is beginning to sink in among older Europeans that the United States has enemies who are not Europe’s enemies because it needs them for domestic political reasons; to keep an economically hugely important war industry going and to test by shorthand the political bona fides of contenders for public office. But while using rogue states and terrorists as targets for ‘just wars’ has never been convincing, Putin’s Russia as demonized by a militaristic NATO could help prolong the transatlantic status quo. The truth behind the fate of the Malaysian airliner, I thought from the moment that I heard about it, would be politically determined. Its black boxes are in London. In NATO hands?
Other hindrances to an awakening remain huge; financialization and neoliberal policies have produced an intimate transatlantic entwining of plutocratic interests. Together with the Atlanticist faith these have helped stymie the political development of the European Union, and with that Europe’s ability to proceed with independent political decisions. Since Tony Blair, Great Britain has been in Washington’s pocket, and since Nicolas Sarkozy one can say more or less the same of France.
That leaves Germany. Angela Merkel was clearly unhappy with the sanctions, but in the end went along because she wants to remain on the good side of the American president, and the United States as the conqueror in World War II does still have leverage through a variety of agreements. Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, quoted in newspapers and appearing on TV, repudiated the sanctions and points at Iraq and Libya as examples of the results brought by escalation and ultimatums, yet he too swings round and in the end goes along with them.
Der Spiegel is one of the German publications that offer hope. One of its columnists, Jakob Augstein, attacks the “sleepwalkers” who have agreed to sanctions, and censures his colleagues’ finger-pointing at Moscow. Gabor Steingart, who publishes Handelsblatt, inveighs against the “American tendency to verbal and then to military escalation, the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies” and concludes that also German journalism “has switched from level-headed to agitated in a matter of weeks. The spectrum of opinions has been narrowed to the field of vision of a sniper scope.” There must be more journalists in other parts of Europe who say things like this, but their voices do not carry through the din of vilification.
History is being made, once again. What may well determine Europe’s fate is that also outside the defenders of the Atlanticist faith, decent Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.
Karel van Wolferen is a Dutch journalist and retired professor at the University of Amsterdam. Since 1969, he has published over twenty books on public policy issues, which have been translated into eleven languages and sold over a million copies worldwide. As a foreign correspondent for NRC Handelsblad , one of Holland’s leading newspapers, he received the highest Dutch award for journalism, and over the years his articles have appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , The New Republic , The National Interest , Le Monde , and numerous other newspapers and magazines.
UPDATE 2: Scott Horton has a podcast interview of Karel van Wolferen regarding his article at: http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2014/08/15/081514-karel-van-wolferen/
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Excellent article Mr. Van Wolferen and well said. One could suppose that Europeans are as obsequious as would be American sheeple. It is ever so easy to just accept the “official” dogma and never have to spend time or energy having to think for yourself.
Is Ukraine in the midst of a civil war because a large portion of those in the East want to break off? Or is this simply a Russian invasion that is made to look like a civil war? Put it this way, if there was really support for the separatists, where are the Ukrainian politicians who have gone over to their side? Why is the rebel “leadership” made up of FSB agents and guys who were manufacturing soap before they joined the war?
In one of Sailer’s threads a few days ago, we went back and forth on this issue and no one was able to produce a shred of evidence that such an agreement existed. None is presented here either.
I guess some people thought that the internet would result in more people knowing more truth. The bad guys won’t get away with anything anymore. Unfortunately, at the same time that the internet took off so did the total corporatization of the main stream media. And so here we are a handful of people reading the truth here at unz dot com while the whole world is led into madness by the non journalists in the main stream media.
On the face of it what you wrote is stupid ..but more fundamentally dishonest. You want to go to war with Russia whatever the consequences.
That Russia has a Red Line is obvious….and for good reason given the very obvious malignant intent of the Obama Regime.
The Russians and the ethnic Russians in the Eastern Ukraine have right to not be exterminated by the Kenyan Dear
Leader POTUS.
I don’t know what happened. I agree with the argument that the US should show us the evidence it has. It is telling that it hasn’t shown it.
I think Carroll Quigley was onto something when he described there being a core civilization and peripheries that are crude imitations of the core civilization. Western Civilization expands and then enters periods of conflict like World War II. It reorganizes itself and continues according to Quigley except something happened in World War II. The US became the power center of the civilization and thus became the Universal Empire. If Europe does not get its act together there will be decay and then invasion according to his argument. The supposed cure is for Europe to grow a pair and bring back the power center back to Europe, and reorganize Western Civilization so it can expand again. Europe should take responsibility for its own security. The EU isn’t a weakling. It has the largest economy in the world. The question is do Europeans have a workable plan to reorganize Western Civilization? The West is still wealthy but things aren’t looking too good.
Source: pages 10-11 of Tragedy and Hope: http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf
If the US doesn’t bait Russia into harming Europe then it will be the Islamic world. Europeans are working against their economic interest when they go after Russia. Also, Europeans should avoid conflict with the Islamic world because they have invited it into their homes.
And what will be Susan Rice’s and Samantha Power’s defense when they are prosecuted for Mass Murder and Crimes Against Humanity.?….. “Oh ….we didn’t know there was a Red Line at the Ukraine border…..The Crimea Border….and….the Russian border….The Russians never told us that there was a Red Line….”
I find it hard to care. Unless Europe ends mass immigration it will all be moot anyway. How can anything else matter compared to the single biggest mistake in Europe’s history?
Bad policy can ruin a country for decades at most, bad culture for centuries, bad genes for millennia.
…”decent Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.”
Yeah, lady, whatever. I used to work for a Dutch company, and I don’t recall ever meeting or seeing another Dutch person so frazzeled and discombobulated as dear Karel. You sound like you just woke up to find your house full of frat boys in the midst of an international kegger. Gee wilikers, Karel, at least you must be well rested after that 30 year nap you’ve been enjoying. We’ll ignore for a moment the fact that your parents and grandparents have been living off the American tit (editor: if you wish to use “teat” instead, fine) since June 6, 1944, after all, Karel, you have been living in the glow of that day since the moment you were born. Or would you prefer to be speaking Russian? In truth, it was never your choice, sweetcheeks, again, it was your parents and grandparents decision, but you (and the rest of us) are stuck with it. So grow up and stop whining. Europe has been ever so content to let the US spend big piles of cash to keep the EU’s ungracious derriere out of the nearest segment of the Gulag; which, in an apparent demonstration of industrial strength hubris, your squeal “NATO has for some time now been a liability for the European Union” is just plain stupid. F U Karel. Go get you own army and start spending 50%+ of your GDP for defense and let’s see how many microseconds your vaunted ‘EU’ continues to exist.
America treats the EU like a pet chihuahua because that’s the way the EU acts, and has acted since 1944.
Karel, if you want to live in Russia, go live in Russia. Or Pago Pago, or the Antarctic, or wherever you tiny heart desires. But, wherever you freely choose to live, you can thank an American for that option. If you want it all to get better, then get with your friends and find and empower true leaders of men, not that gaggle of pederasters, creeps, thieves, and just general psychotic gutter-trash scum that you keep coming up with for national leaderships. Yeah, yeah, we got the same problem over here, and we are starting to work on it. Maybe. But my point is, you and the rest of Europe are still looking to the US for the answer to your problems. Realizing that you have never ever known any different action taken by any member of the EU in your entire lifetime is a reason for your current situation, it is not an answer. You have to break the habit sometime, Karel, it might as well be now.
Great piece. One issue is simply that absolutely NOBODY who isn’t Russian wants to live under Russian rule — including the vast majority of Ukrainians (and everybody west of the Dnieper). So … there is a perennial challenge in trying to keep foreign policy neutral in that part of the world. It’s an easy sell for the US foreign policy establishment to expand in central Europe …
Well, there’s South Ossetia.
America has been sweeping up after the Continental imperial-fascist circus parades since 1918. If Europe had kept its house in order then America wouldn’t need to come in and take away everybody’s toys. Europe got to splurge on social democracy; we had to spend on aircraft carriers, nuclear missiles and mechanized armies. Now we’re off in Iraq, helping yet another group of people who can’t govern themselves.
Europe will eventually be under the rule of liberal female Quislings and African and Arab Muslims; then the old folks will be muttering to each other that their grandparents should have just surrendered to Germany.
The counter to your rant (and it’s a good, healthy rant) is that liberal democracy/multiculturalism is actually an Anglo-American imposition.
There seems to be a strange incuriousness in the media about how these SAM systems actually operate. From what I have read, you can just program these things to go off at radar blips and go drink vodka and smoke cigarettes with your friends. That’s why civilian airliners fly around, not over, war zones. Maybe I’m wrong and the Rooskies really did order the secessionists to target those lousy Malaysian airliners and their insufferable Dutch passengers.
Hepp
Whether or not such a agreement it exists, it’s not wise to push a nuclear armed nation and one that holds the economic fate of the EU in it’s hands, into a corner. Then to make matters worse, toppling a regime right next to Putin’s with a bunch of shadowy NGO’s that are front groups for the USG. That wasn’t going to be well received by Putin and he rebuked us by taking back the Crimea, not that it was Ukraine’s to begin with despite what a bunch of sleazy Americans from the Hamptons say.
I agree with everything you say. I detest Western policy towards Eastern Europe, which was bound to cause a backlash.
It comes down to whether or not one thinks that the Russian People have a right to defend themselves againt the mass murderers Susan Rice and Samantha Powers. I’d say it is mighty obvious that the Russian People do.
Samantha Powers is very close personally to the Havard Economists whose economic warfare against the Russian People during the 1990s caused a massive demographic collapse of the Russian Population during the Clinton Era. How many Russians are missing from the Russian Population in 2014?..The ones that died directly from the billionaire Oligarchs gang rape of Russia and the Russian infants who were never born as a consequence of Clinton Democratic Party Economic Warfare. Is Genocide too strong a word?
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Karel van Wolferen (born 1941, Rotterdam) is a Dutch journalist, writer and professor, who is particularly recognised for his knowledge of Japanese politics, economics, history and culture.[1][2]
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[per Wikipedia.org]
“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain”
You would do better, Art, to close your mouth and think instead, and also learn from those who are far more intelligent than you, and who have actually taken the trouble to read and study and think. You are the all too typical American “jerk”–a vulgar loutish insolent philistine without manners or culture or an awareness of your own ignorance, and of course thoroughly brainwashed and therefore an automaton “knee jerk” “love it or leave it” sort of “patriot”. As an American, I am ashamed of you and the hordes of other fools like you.
The EU is a weakling because it has little energy (I mean oil). They should team up with Russia that could be its Texas then they could talk. But that’s exactly what the US wants to avoid. They have it easy because those who lived under Russian rule (Poles, Baltics, Ethnic Ukrainians, etc) are very happy to see the Americans coming. It was not fun to live behind the iron curtain. So Europe is a pawn of the US but recent history favors the US vs. Russia and without Russia, Europe can only remain a power of second order.
” I don’t recall ever meeting or seeing another Dutch person so frazzeled and discombobulated as dear Karel. You sound like you just woke up to find your house full of frat boys in the midst of an international kegger.”
Arguing by ridicule just means you really have no knowledge or information to add. And instead of advancing your animus towards having others concur, it makes your position appear even weaker than it may be.
I found Karel’s arguments logical and reality-based.
One can only hope for the eventual ascendency of more reasonable and informed leadership in the West, including here in the U.S.
It is quite prescient to point out how an economically important war economy, where so much less else is now made, drives much of the worldwide policy for conflict. And how it continues, because those interests make those who run for political office conform to those policies.
America is bankrupt,printing money for its military industrial complex,it’s divide and rule wars,it’s budget deficit,it’s stock market interventions,it’s foreign fifth columnists NGO’s….it’s thousand plus military worldwide bases.,it’s endless bank bailouts,it’s Wall Street cronies,the ruling elites.
The psychopaths have taken over the Sanatorium(Washington,the judiciary,the media,The Fed,Law enforcement,CIA,The Pentagon,Nato,Global corporations..Their mission to subjagate the world,or destroy the world.
American hegemony is Sauron…..The all seeing eye…..Absolute Corruption with a malevolence that knows no bounds…..
Let’s supply the jihadist’s in Syria as our proxy army……our psychopathic brothers in arms.
Let’s oppose the same jihadist’s in Iraq,after totally destroying the infrastructure and stoking up the sectarian violence……..
Might be a great idea to arm the Kurds,to protect them there oilfields……humanitarian ?
Arm both sides seems like a WIN-WIN.
The downing of Flight MH17 over Ukraine has the hallmarks of an American false flag attack.
Why?Worse case scenario:A bungled fascist American inspired Ukrainian attempt to assassinate Putin…..similarly marked plane….or it could also serve as a way to impose tougher sanctions on Russia
The Russians could never admit the former as war would then be inevitable.
The Ragtag Ukrainian army with Blackwater advisors is butchering the population in the Russian speaking Southeast,on a wave of fascist inspired nationalism,sounds familiar.
How about a UN National Security Council inspired no fly zone…….as in Libya,to protect the civilian population from genocide ……..and an immediate ceasefire.
The Americans tell the fascists.The Russians mediate with the russian speaking seperatists.
A diplomatic solution is started.
“Sorry we aren’t interested in a peaceful conclusion”
I wonder whose stance that conveys……..answers on a postcard……It’s called Obamacare.
The USA wants to keep Europe under its thumb as it has since 1945. Since that date the US economy has been following a military-Keynesian model of demand side economics first pioneered by none other than Hitler’s Germany: use government planning and tax payers money (in this case, to be spent on military expenditures) to stimulate the economy. When Russia used state planning to get out of the great depression caused by capitalist finance they called it communism and attacked and destroyed it; and when Germany used military-Keynesianism to do the same they called it fascism and attacked and destroyed it. But when the United States does it they call it capitalism and hail it as humanity’s salvation.
The US, in short, has been using military expansionism (and capitalism is built around the idea of limitless expansion) to keep its economy afloat. Unfortunately, it’s found that it can’t expand forever without expanding right into China, India and Russia’s territory. And this resistance to further US growth, and the inability of the elites to comprehend this fact, might very well be the undoing of us all.
I know what I wrote.
And you are boring. I’ll take it as a personal victory, however, that I motivated at least 1 American to get off of his/her slouchy couch and say something. Anything. Oh God Brenden, how can you be so smart and yet let all this happen? I obviously let this happen because I’m stupid, what’s your excuse?
…”decent Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.”
The strange case of Woodrow Wilson should have taught you to avoid US hegemony. The Europeans brought this on themselves by bringing in the Americans to help fight their battles.
I like this Moldbug quote:
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-i-stopped-believing-in-democracy.html
Then, perhaps, you should apologize to Mr. van Wolferen, for addressing him– a 73-year-old man who, perhaps, has accomplished just a tad more than you have managed, to date– as “lady,” Art. Or, do you consider anyone who fails to share your personal opinions about world affairs to be utterly beneath your contempt, and thus wholly deserving of such disrespect?
@Art M
I read your rant and I was immediately on a research mode. I read about a ranter like you on a popular blog and I’m glad I found it so we can all share.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.jp/2013/12/blessed-are-idiots.html
As Mr. Orlov says, an American by the way, “So long, and please get some professional help!”
Leaving aside the immediate argument of who shot down the airplane, I am struck by how little attention is given to the fundamental of nationalism. News: Whites are quite capable of nationalist struggle. For example, Canadian French today know the date of their war loss to England back in late 18th century, etc.
The Ukraine crisis is getting internationalized at the cost of clear-headed understanding of simple competing nationalisms.
Also, missing from the commentary is the Jewish Factor: Jewish hatred of Russia for neutralizing the Jewish Power…oligarchs, etc. Neocons are Jews in the final analysis. The New York Times ran a cartoon a few days ago with the neocons represented as Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld. Not a Jew to be seen.
Big Power politics has something to do with all of this, but the fundamental is nationalism. The hysterics of Paul Craig Roberts and others is great fun, but dangerous.
Globalism, or Liberal Totalitarianism, both economic and political, and racial, plays its part. Russia is Very Bad for opposing the Atlanticist, or American empire. And , for containing the Jewish Power.
The main point here is that Ukrainians and Russians have their nationalist conflicts, and the mantra of nazis vs. Ruskies is ideological junk, calculated to obfuscate/pettyfog, and the nationalist character is overlooked by ideological axe-grinders.
Joe Webb
This is a Jewish War on Russia. Jewish oligarchs almost swallowed all of Russia in the 90s, but Putin the patriot took Russia back. So, Jews are trying to bring him down. Jews triggered the crisis in Ukraine by pumping $5 billion to destabilize the democratically elected regime. They brought Yanukovich down like the CIA toppled the regimes in Iran and Chile decades ago.
90% of US media is owned by Jews who are only 2% of the population.
Bush II and Obama are puppets of the Jewish elites. Just look at how US politicians grovel before the likes of Sheldon Adelson.
Look how even Elizabeth Warren runs away from questions about Zionist massacre of Gazans since she’s afraid of Jewish power.
‘Left’ or ‘right’, American politicians are whores of Jewish elites. Jews are trying to destroy Russia by sending a message that any nation that defies the Jewish globalist agenda will be destroyed. To bring Putin down, Jews are now collectively punishing all Russians.
In Ukraine, it’s Putin who’s been acting defensively. He’s trying to protect eastern Ukrainians from ethnic cleansing, but Jewish elites that run US and UK don’t care how many gentiles die.
I enjoyed, and largely agreed with, the article, but I enjoyed the varied responses even more. Wow, with a bunch of Kooks like us it scarcely matters whose propaganda eventually triumphs!
I always fine it amusing that Americans assume their state practice is actually democracy because they have a choice between one right -wing lunatic and another right-wing lunatic; both bought by their “business’ supporters.
There’s no question the world would have been a different place if the US hadn’t entered the war against the Germans- but Western Europe as a Russian gulag?- somehow I don’t think that history will show that US policy since WW2 saved anybody other than US big business.
The endless atrocities and genocide in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan Iraq, Israel/Palestine… all for absolutely nothing except to keep the war machine alive. Somehow Western state ethics dont stack up well against the realities of history and present day invented “terrorist” wars.
My country built state of the art gun emplacements at great expense to keep out the totally fabricated Russian Fleet threat in the 1890s- here we go again….
Brendan @ comment No 20. I agree entirely. It is the boorish ignorant idiocies of people like Art M that have played a major part in creating the problems in the first place.
“NOBODY who isn’t Russian wants to live under Russian rule”.
So why do Russians must live under USA rules?
And where did you get it?
Why do you say : “NOBODY”? Are you EVERYBODY to declare it ?
F…K that criminal obama klinton and washington!
Mr. Van Wolferen, thanks for the article. Agree with every word of it. And I am so glad that there are still true and honest journalists left in the Western world and not only presstitude media feed in the so-called “news”. I am so glad that the TRUE reasons for all that shit that is now happening in the Ukraine is starting to break thru tonns of lies! Europe, wake up! You are already Washington’s vassals but very soon it might so happen that the US crops will be furtililsed by your ashes if we do not stop Washington’s hawk-senators who are dreaming of a “preemptive nuclear attack” on Russia. Open your eyes before it is too late!
Exactly 100 years ago the great European nations were mobilizing their armies to destroy one another. I hope we’ve learned from their errors but I fear these lessons may have been lost. It’s terrible, it was only a few years ago we still had living witnesses to the horrors of that war.
Excellent question. And one that seems to be politically incorrect among most!
Uit mijn hart gegrepen artikel, dat aansluit bij mijn aanklacht tegen premier Mark Rutte, zie mijn artikel “Premier Mark Rutte, gemangeld tussen de grootmachten” in De Wereld Morgen, http://www.dewereldmorgen.be/blog/paullookman/2014/08/14/premier-mark-rutte-gemangeld-tussen-de-grootmachten. Een kleine kanttekening: ik denk dat Angela Merkel heel goed weet waar het allemaal over gaat en in haar hart een heel andere koers wil varen, alleen wordt zij onder ondragelijke druk gezet door Washington door de kwetsbaarheid in de VS van Commerzbank en vooral Deutsche Bank. Daarbij vergeleken was de boete voor de “misstappen” van BNP Parisbas maar een peuleschil. Ergo: Europa wordt met zware middelen gechanteerd!
I concur with this article in every respect. It is in line with my indictment of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, see my article “Premier Mark Rutte, gemangeld tussen de grootmachten” in De Wereld Morgen, http://www.dewereldmorgen.be/blog/paullookman/2014/08/14/premier-mark-rutte-gemangeld-tussen-de-grootmachten. Just a little side note: I think Angela Merkel knows very well what it’s all about in her heart wants to steer Germany in a different direction. However, the problem is that she is under unbearable pressure by Washington as a result of the vulnerability in the US of Commerzbank and especially Deutsche Bank. In comparison, the fine for BNP Paribas’ “missteps” are only peanuts. The final analysis: Europe is being blackmailed with heavy means!
I too wonder where is the journalistic inquisitiveness of far too many who claim to be journalists. I think one of the larger unanswered issues may be at the heart of this:
“I would certainly also want to have a look at the allegedly confiscated radar and voice records of the Kiev Air Control Tower”
We have a very understanding editor/moderator here, who accepts a post that is nothing more than an ad hominem attack. Read the article, mr anonymous, and address the arguments with counterarguments, add value to this fine article.
Ad hominem attacks are the true marker of a failed argument. Your post was truly cringe-worthy… but this takes the cake,
“Yeah, yeah, we got the same problem over here, and we are starting to work on it.”—- hahahahahaha! How is that genius? By trying to create another war in Syria, and when the you tube clips didn’t work, funding the Islamic extremists (have you heard of ISIS? Where do you think they came from?) who are now slaughtering thousands of Christians and other “non-believers”. Now the US is bombing ISIS… who have been supplied with American military equipment. In effect the US is destroying its own hardware, but you don’t hear about that in the news.
The EU is a pawn in the game, that’s how the US sees it, that is, until winter comes. I think when Russia turns off the gas for a week in December, the EU may finally come to their senses that they need to look out for their own interest with their neighbors, not blindly join the bankrupt (morally and financially) political establishment of the USSA.
Wake up Europe… Victoria Nuland summed the US attitude toward Europe very succinctly when she said “F*** the EU”.
Typical American woman denigrating pig. And stupid too. The writer’s a man.
Here it is for you!
http://operation-gladio.net/nato-foreign-ministers-lied-about-natos-eastern-expansion
Here another example of the kind of hypocrisy of the West
Resolution from the EU parliament about the political party Svoboda, when the latter holds key positions in the Ukrainian government.
European Parliament resolution of 13 December 2012 on the situation in Ukraine 2012/2889(RSP))
8. Is concerned about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada; recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party;
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2012-0507+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
Your comment is quite interesting, I admit. Sauron, the All-Seeing Eye in the Lord of the Rings is quite a description. I’d put that description on Zionism/Bolshevism and compare the USSA with Gandalf’s evil counterpart (I forget that wizard’s name).
Outside of that, I totally agree with your assessment of the situation in Ukraine. The Ukrainian forces, the Blackwater and other mercenaries, I’d compare with the Orcs; the separatists with the Elves, Hobbits, Dwarves, and Humans; and, Russia itself with Gandalf, the good wizard.
You’re the first commenter I’ve come across who compared the Ukraine situation with the Lord of the Rings. Great job, buddy.
We’re witnessing the dawn of the empire and we should be glad for that.
I have no plans to send my kids to fight the war for “bankster destroyed” USA and to die for some corporate neo-imperialistic interests- Rotshilds, Kissingers, Clintons…It is well known that USA always profitted from the wars. Knowing that their economy is completely destroyed (check their national dept) and that only industry segment that is not moved to China is a military one, you do not have to be genious to understand. Also knowing the plans of BRICS and the bank they have formed, the world will in the future not be forced to buy worthless USD in order to purchase oil and gas.
Only hope that Rock’n’Roll will survive. Cannot remeber anything else american I am going to miss. Certainly not their “world cop- we know best-we need most and you nothing-lying journalists-corupted sex maniac presidents-paris hilton/kim kardashian clones-stereoid machos” politics.
It is about time to be free and decent again!
Really?
“Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
The supposed “controversy” on this (as exemplified on the Wikipedia entry on this issue for example) is because of the backpedaling of crucial players of the time from the American side for obvious reasons – they weren’t going to admit that they took advantage of Gorbavhev’s naiveté in trusting them and not ask for those assurances in writing. So the argument they have tried to present was that the agreement was about East Germany but not for any other country of Eastern Europe. In that scenario, Gorbachev would have had concerns for East Germany but wouldn’t care about all the other countries which have since joined NATO and are much closer to Russia’s borders! This argument could only work on people who have never consulted an atlas, are total idiots or would accept any lame excuse to advance an agenda towards NATO expansion.
This is no trivial issue. Russia will never allow NATO first-strike capability which is really NATO’s goal here and Russia still has several thousands of nuclear warheads. It’s total madness.
As I was saying…
http://news.jornal.us/article-681053.THE-RUSSIANS-ARE-COMING--THE-RUSSIANS-ARE-COMING.html
http://news.jornal.us/article-681090.WHOS-ROOTIN-FOR-PUTIN.html
Thank you for that. I appreciate those who can bring new facts to my attention.
“Thinking that may deviate significantly as can now be found in Der Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit and Handelsblatt, does not travel across German borders.”
Dear Mr. van Wolferen, unfortunately not even “may”. The German papers mentioned in your article are fully in line with the corporate anglo-american media. The responsible journalists for foreign affairs are: Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, member of the Trilateral Commission), Stefan Kornelius (not mentioned, but influential, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, member of the “Atlanik-Bruecke), Jochen Bittner (Die Zeit, dito). The latter placed an article in the NYT blaming Germany for alleged pacifism
“Rethinking German Pacifism”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/opinion/bittner-rethinking-german-pacifism.html?_r=2&
Der Spiegel was an alternative magazine only until Rudolf Augstein’s death, once upon a time, as it where. Only Handelsblatt tries to report and to comment in a distinguished manner. With regard to your former job at NCR Handelsblad: if Holland buys F-16s and F-35 instead of Eurofighters everything is said. Holland looks traditionally towards the anglo-american sphere as a former see power. Poor Europe.
This is what I have been saying to Russophobes everywhere.
Thanks, Mr. Van Wolferen, for an excellent and honest article. I agree with all of it. As soon as I heard about the US supporting a regime change in Ukraine that included neo-nazis as state ministers of internal security and defence, while mouthing rhetoric about bringing democracy to Ukraine, I thought that the US elites have become totally cynical, corrupt, delusional and dysfunctional. This view was solidified by my remembering neocon lies about the Syrian government using chemical weapons against their population, the Iraq WMD lies, etc. I now believe that the US economy/government is completely dysfunctional, and the dysfunction arises from its increasingly desperate attempts to maintain dollar, and especially petrodollar hegemony. Since Nixon rejected the gold standard in 1971, and Kissinger made deals with Saudi Arabia for oil surpluses to be denominated in dollars, the US has militarily enforced dollar hegemony. It has not posted a trade surplus since the late 1960s, and is totally indebted; a fact it can ignore as long as petrodollar hegemony is maintained. I agree that Europe is probably being blackmailed due to the structural weaknesses of its banking sector, controlled overall by Wall Street: the BNP Paribas fine was apparently going to be ‘forgiven’ if France did not complete its sale of warships to Russia. Increasingly reckless militarism to defend dollar hegemony, the basis of American empire, or super-imperialism (Michael Hudson) will be our immediate future. The structural weaknesses of the American economy demand this. Look at the fate of those leaders who tried to follow an independent economic path and change their accounting of oil wealth in currencies other than dollars: Saddam Hussein, Assad, Ghadafi, and now Putin. China is also now in their crosshairs, especially since their yuan/rouble pipeline deal with Russia. Putin was correct in pointing out that American militarism will only be checked if the dollar loses its status as a reserve currency, and America will be forced to act as an ordinary, and not as the ‘exceptional’, ‘indispensable’ nation, to quote Obama’s recent phrases. It will be forced to seek out peaceful trade and fix their internal problems in e.g. infrastructure, education, and banking reform. In the meantime, the US Fed’s printing presses can keep churning out dollars and racking up debt, based on no real standard of universal value, to pay for their immense military spending. European countries, plus the anglosphere, are the enablers of this destructive, and dysfunctional addiction to US dollar supremacy. I think now that the dominant perspective in Washington is to take out Russia and China before the dollar loses its reserve status. And that can mean, possibly, even nuclear war, in which Europe will pay perhaps the heaviest price. Wake up, Europe, I repeat, our immediate future as enablers of this destructive addiction is to be complicit in increasingly dysfunctional and delusional American neoconservative aggression. The America of 2014 is not the America of 1945. You may not agree with what I’m saying, but my motivation is sincere: I am frankly terrified that the US and its media are pushing a direct military, even nuclear, confrontation with Russia so that its elites do not lose their overweaning power.
Beautifully written article, balanced, well argued, and badly needed. Thank you!
Bravo!
Maybe that’s the the problem. The Russians didn’t get it in writing.
You only have to look at the way police in the US treat its own citizens to realise that the US has become utterly corrupt and that foreigners do not stand a chance. Fortunately there are a number of Americans like Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts and David A. Stockman who stand for real conservative American values against the crony capitalism of Washington, Wall Street, big business and the jingoists in the military. Whether they will succeed in stopping the nonsense remains to be seen.
First off I would like to say thank you Karel, thank you for your honesty, your bravery and your humanity. I was with you Karel, and mostly still am. I especially want to thank you for supporting the VIPs letter in Consortium, one of the few voices of reason here in the shadow of the “beacon of democracy”. In fact Karel, I was with you all the way until the end, until I saw no mention of BRICS Bank and the fact that it was formed the day before MH17 went down, and Israel started it’s ground invasion. A global development bank, with a democratic design that is in direct conflict with the US run IMF and World Bank systems, the same systems that started at the end of WWII, the same systems that helped form the “state” of Israel. Here we are, on the verge of WWIII and here we have a new global bank… this is not what I call coincidence. Further, your praise of Der Spiegel is not to be believed so readily as I have done a piece on Propaganda using a Der Spiegel article as an example, and yes, I used it knowing that it was a journalistic high water mark. I read it hoping for the very thing you say it offers, but I found many traces of the NATO/US/IMF MSM propaganda littered through the piece done by Christian Neff – here are my findings and other articles on MH17, BRICS & Propaganda.
Oh, and by the way….
@Art M – You are an utter embarrassment to any true American – let me assure the international community reading these comments that I as an “American” think Art is a MORAL SQUID – Art, DON’T REPLY.
@Hepp – Everyone and their grandmother knows about the line and the angry inch, many know that the US/NATO Policies & IMF Bankers have stepped over it many times, many know that the US has ignored Russia at least 4 times (1 ending in the Cuban Missile “crisis”), when approached with de-escalation preferring the US response of Nuclear Proliferation as brought up magnificently by Noam Chomsky (see Tom Dispatch).
@Harold – You are an excellent example of why the world is rife with war and sectarianism – you are unable to integrate, that is strictly born of a World Wide Epidemic known as the Identity Fallacy, get a grip and grow up – or you will find yourself “off the bus”.
@fnn – thanks for that & btw, I dated an Idonesian/Dutch girl a while back… and she was beautiful.
@Rob Harris – I’m with you 100%
@Paulm – you and me both
On that note I would like to add that it is my firm conviction that all Politicians/Leaders should get an MRI of their Amygdalas (flight fright), to make sure that they are not in fact disproportionately large compared to their frontal lobes (cognitive powers). If there are any questions about this you can refer to the TEDx presentation on Meditation and the Brain, or what I like to call Moral Neurogenesis.
peace.
sorry, i forgot the links…
An open letter to Robert Parry & Tom Engelhardt & the Families of Flight #MH17 – A Rant of the West – http://whiteapple.ninja/
Response to Christian Neef & Der Spiegel http://whiteapple.ninja/index.php/8-technological-progress-and-moral-evolution/8-international-law-of-private-propaganda
MH17 Regarding the Shelling of the Donetsk Train Station 7/21 http://whiteapple.ninja/index.php/8-technological-progress-and-moral-evolution/5-kiev-conflicts-itself
Response to the VIPS letter written to Obama 7/29/14 http://whiteapple.ninja/index.php/8-technological-progress-and-moral-evolution/6-where-is-mccain
How to Seduce A Bear while Running Down the Mountain http://whiteapple.ninja/index.php/8-technological-progress-and-moral-evolution/4-a-perspective-on-cold-war-disarmament
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175877/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_why_national_security_has_nothing_to_do_with_security/
Hey Art M:
Can’t you be more original in your comments. You sound like a child telling Karel “Lump it or leave it.” Leave these peurile comments at home. Maybe you are the one that has been asleep for 30 years.
A very detailed overview of current events with the correct historic background. I can only see one flaw: the German mainstream tabloids and news outlets are fully involved in spreading the Atlantacist doctrines. Even Der Spiegel! Jakob Augstein may be one small exception within their staff, but it was Der Spiegel which covered the propaganda headline “Stop Putin Now”. So they are full in line.
Thank you Mr. Van Wolferen, for this good and honest article. This all has to do with the fact that Putin is not dancing to the IMF, Rotshilds, Kissingers etc. anymore….
Thanks again for your article…I agree with all of it .
Newsflash Art, I believe Karel is a male but reading your ignorant screed leads me to believe you have no clue about gender much less anything else.
European people are not represented by European politicians.
The IMF banker robbers are controlling ALL the EU and LOCAL politicians.
European people do not care.
Why should they care?
Elite is grinded through taxation and inflation.
We do not have the American problem in which the elite can hold on to their fortunes for many generations.
All problems originate from the USA.
USA is weak. Europeans know this. And someone that is losing power is extremely dangerous.
So then it is better to say nothing and wait some time.
unverified report : from source via other source – per higher level NATO officer in Brussels that war in the EU will break on the 21st – that many EU officers/soldiers are against the policy but that the US & UK are pushing it – the results of the investigation won’t be released until Sept per the NYT. If this is in any way true, we are all in deep.
sorry that release date was per the Moscow Times http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/505122.html
This was already discussed in the thread Hepp mentioned. If you actually read the article, here is one passage:
“But were such assurances intended to be valid indefinitely? Apparently not. When the two colleagues discussed Poland, Genscher said[to Baker], according to the British records, that if Poland ever left the Warsaw Pact, Moscow would need the certainty that Warsaw would ‘not join NATO the next day.’ However, Genscher did not seem to rule out accession at a later date…Baker said that it appeared ‘as if Central European countries wanted to join NATO.’ That, Genscher replied, was an issue ‘we shouldn’t touch at this point [emphasis mine].’ Baker agreed.”
So while there was some agreement between Baker and Genscher to try and avoid rubbing the Soviets’ face in the German reunification by immediately expanding NATO, there was nothing else, Russian claims notwithstanding. If anyone had really wanted to stop NATO permanently, there would presumably have been some document stating as much that both sides could point to — such as were signed at Yalta, at SALT, and at any other juncture in East/West relations.
If there was any permanence to this agreement, one might question who gave Baker and Genscher the right to bargain away the future boundaries of NATO in exchange for German reunification? Did Holland and the UK and France get a say in all this, given their presumed reluctance over German reunification in the first place? If you read through all the other attempts to dig up the document in the thread, what you’ll find is that there is no evidence the Soviet even asked for such assurances. To wit,
“It is these conversations that may have left some Soviet politicians with the impression that NATO enlargement, which started with the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999, had been a breach of these Western commitments. Some statements of Western politicians – particularly German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and his American counterpart James A. Baker – can indeed be interpreted as a general rejection of any NATO enlargement beyond East Germany. However, these statements were made in the context of the negotiations on German reunification, and the Soviet interlocutors never specified their concerns. In the crucial “2+4” negotiations, which finally led Gorbachev to accept a unified Germany in NATO in July 1990, the issue was never raised. As former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze later put it, the idea of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolving and NATO taking in former Warsaw Pact members was beyond the imagination of the protagonists at the time.[emphasis mine].”
Of course, that’s not what the Russians are saying now, and there’s plenty of Putin fan-gurls willing to back them up, but some actual evidence for what they are claiming would be nice. Again, see the thread. (Interestingly, the quote in question was located by someone who believed he had just found proof of such an agreement, but this turned out to be based on what might be referred to as terrifyingly Orwellian translation skills on his part.)
There remains the question of why the editorial writer decided to use the more click-bait worthy byline that he did, alleging that this somehow supports the Russian position, instead of something more honest like “documents discovered find no smoking gun and therefore there’s no real reason to bother going through this article”. I’m going to leave it to the rest of you to come up with a possible reason for that.
But this is present and has a lot of weight re current situation:
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
Wolfowitz Doctrine
You completely omitted the beautiful neo-nazi flavor of the suddenly-sprouted Kiev regime that is supported and financed by the White House (financed before Ukraine will be undressed and stripped by the Hunter Biden and likes).
Some people just want to be in goose step with those in power; great for carrier.
if you don’t believe me just go on twitter and look at @USNATO @DeptofDefense or check the date of the Operation Atlantic Resolve Fact Sheet – made on 7/16/14 – again with the #BRICS Bank http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/operation-atlantic-resolve-factsheet
Whether or not such a agreement it exists, it’s not wise to push a nuclear armed nation and one that holds the economic fate of the EU in it’s hands, into a corner.
Yeah, Putin has gotten a lot of mileage out of hoping enough people will say “I think he’s crazy, we’d better do what he says and avoid setting him off”, but that will not work forever. And even though the NATO-stoppage agreement that the West supposedly violated is proving to be an illusion, the agreement that Russia signed with Ukraine (exchanging respect of the latter’s territorial integrity by the former in exchange for the latter giving up its nukes) is far more substantive, and is clearly in breach.
If Putin is the kind of politician who cannot be trusted to abide by those kinds of agreements, it is NATO that needs security from him, not the other way around. Moreover, Russia’s stability is still an open question. That nuke-filled expanse barely survived a military overthrow about two decades ago. The country has a history of following strong leaders with a series of weak, unstable ones. The oligarchs are supposedly shackled now, but their money is still there, and they will be around long after Putin is gone. None of these are ingredients in a recipe for peace and tranquility.
Of course, everything may all turn out well for everyone, but whether to try and avoid antagonizing an unstable situation, or else to try and position oneself to be better situated when things do fall apart (even at the risk of further antagonism) is a judgment call. Various agents are going to take various approaches along those two extremes. As such, those who argue the way you do are giving the Victoria Nulands of this world all the vindication and job security that they could hope for. That’s not a good thing for anyone.
Russian Strategy in the Face of Anglo-American Imperialism
The Beginning of World Shift http://www.voltairenet.org/article185074.html
Vanishing point … Pepe Escobar http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-150814.html
The USA has been spoiling for a war for many months since supposedly withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. The plan to bomb Iran has still not reached fruition, the plan to bomb Syria was abandoned/postponed, the plan to remove Qaddafi using contractors worked but at the expense of the same old, same old mess following thereafter.
Then picking a war with Putin came up as a possibility, not least as a punishment for not complying with instructions to allow the bombing of Syria to happen. The Western media fiction about Ukraine and Russia marks a new high in lunacy, and incredibility. We are expected to believe that a civilian airliner is shot down by air-to-air cannons and the blame goes to East Ukrainian separatists six miles below? What? Then we are supposed to believe Russia decided to invade and occupy Ukraine using only twenty armed vehicles, with no air support, and then the victorious Ukrainians defeated them and all evidence disappeared into thin air?
Who writes this stuff? No Bruce Willis screenplay was ever as stupid as this.
In a way it doesn’t matter. Russia will not tolerate Ukraine in NATO and will go to war to prevent it.
This is really just the standard behavior of big powers to their small neighbors. The small neighbors must recognize and support the big power’s interests. Finland vs. USSR is the usual example cited in the West, but a better example is the Caribbean and Central America vs. the US. The US routinely invades countries in that region that do not conform to its wishes. Cuba is semi-free only because of an agreement with the USSR that prevented a nuclear war.
Jezza – “The USA has been spoiling for a war for many months since supposedly withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. The plan to bomb Iran has still not reached fruition, the plan to bomb Syria was abandoned/postponed, the plan to remove Qaddafi using contractors worked but at the expense of the same old, same old mess following thereafter.”
First of all, where do you get you news? You claim USA is spoiling for war yet all “planned” attacks haven’t reached fruition. If such need for war existed, why would the plans be abandoned?
As for Ukraine, you’re simply wrong. You need to expand your news base to include at least SOME news from people ACTUALLY FROM OR IN UKRAINE. I happen to have very close friends and loved ones in Ukraine, have extensive experience in Ukraine and Russia and Crimea, and believe it is people like you who spread anti-Ukraine Propaganda, that prolongs the bloodshed and emboldens Putin to invade directly, which would serve only to make your dream of USA needing a war, closer to reality. What the hell is wrong with you people that you make such idiotic statements believing that you are somehow helping the understanding for people who have none. YOU have none. Stop with the anti-Ukraine propaganda BS. They are fighting to save their nation and against an invading enemy which wants to divide it. And why not learn about asymmetrical warfare before spouting stupid BS about “if Russia wanted to invade.. ” The fact is THEY DID and they now control and occupy part of what is Ukraine, or haven’t you heard? sheez
I agree that the media are very reluctant to write the truth. You mentioned a lot of examples. I add these thoughts:
– It is very surprising how quick the US were recognizing the street movement in Kiev in the name of democracy. There were demonstrations, organized by the social media. Immediately, the opposition is recognized and the government has to resign! But the regime change has failed: a war is going on.
– The other drama, which we think is even worse, is that since years, a kind of blame game is going on. Everyone points the finger at Putin. First there was a boycott of the winter games, then Syria, now this. In fact, there are more responsible parties concerning Ukraine, not only the current regime, but also the EU and the US. We must act professionally, use ‘the art of diplomacy’ to mediate, e.g. between Russia and Ukraine. In diplomacy one should negotiate with the enemy.
– It is very astonishing how the real but unchosen head of the European Union, Angela Merkel, is serving the plans of the US. A policy of sanctions and a trade war with Russia is performed. Even after the most humiliating practices by NSA – tapping her mobile phone – she goes on to execute all orders of Obama.
Time will tell what is happening now in Europe. It seems to me that what was not possible during WW2 – the submission of the whole Europe and the Soviet Union, is now aimed for by economic means. The US and EU have the same tactics: allocate huge funds to the former republics of the Soviet Union and tackle Russia in order to attach the whole region to the EU. The current TTIP talks between US and EU must hasten this process.
If this will happen, we are at the beginning of a long new war in Europe. The alternative is: regular negotiations between EU, Russia and the US. But as long as Putin is considered as the great ennemy and excluded from the G8, dangerous times will come, with the complicity of Europe!
Meanwhile in Lugansk innocent civilians die under the bombardment of the Ukrainian army. To this, the European Union is guilty because the Kiev government is supported on a large scale as a result of the expansionist motives of EU leaders. We are hardly informed about this by the media.
After the first world war, we learned that minorities should be recognized and that their needs should be negotiated with the enemy in order to prevent war. Apparently the EU forgot the lessons of World War I.
More information about the lack of democracy in the EU can be found on this page: http://users.skynet.be/fc298377/EN_EC_dem_def.htm.
The US routinely invades countries in that region that do not conform to its wishes.
What, you mean Panama and Haiti? I don’t recall the US chopping off a chunk of either country for themselves. You’re right in the sense that if Putin had succeeded in actually installing a puppet government in Ukraine and left it intact, no one would have cared much. He probably assumed he already had enough sway in Ukraine to get whatever he wanted, without the usual retinue of spies, blackmailers and bribers. But he was too ham-fisted, and when he pulled his puppet’s strings and got Ukraine’s EU agreement nullified, the rabble in the street realized what was going on, and they threw the puppet out.
And Putin’s Plan B, which amounts to rewriting boundaries, even though Russia signed a very explicit agreement with Ukraine saying it would respect its territorial integrity, complicates things immensely, and opens up a Pandora’s box of demons. He might get away with it, given Russia’s nukes and size and gas, but it will still likely cost him. However much the EU or the US overplayed their hands (not to mention Ukraine’s mosh-pit approach in removing their so-called president), that’s peanuts in comparison with Putin’s bungling, not to mention his lame and bloody efforts to save face afterwards.
and now a new story form TruthOut By Frédéric Mousseau, Inter Press Service | News Analysis What Do the World Bank and IMF Have to Do With the Ukraine Conflict? http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25616-what-do-the-world-bank-and-imf-have-to-do-with-the-ukraine-conflict
You’re correct there ! My Gov has only one source to go to , to manipulate the masses= Media ! Please people need to wake up . This is not Russia or Putin’s doing . This is my USA Governments doing . Russia has a right to stop the slaughter of the EUkraine people ! My Gov is crazy !
I will always defend Putin & the people of Russia because my Government is out of control !
A great article and tells the truth. Perhaps the so called journalist in Europe can be sent a copy, also Polticians. But they alas cant tell the truth to busy worry about careers and other matter, when in truth they stand to have all of these destroyed in a war they helped create !
Art, thank you for your typical American reaction. Your position is clear: the USA is big old daddy knowing best, working hard for the good of all, and paying up for the worldwide family. So you are right when you say “Karel, you and the rest of Europe are still looking to the US for the answer to your problems.” You wouldn’t expect it to be any different, do you?
Excellent article, I believe what we are seeing is propaganda being pushed by the corporate media and the elites of the New World Order (NWO). They want total control and most of the puppet politicians do their bidding. See links below:
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/08/the-war-makers-to-meet-in-wales.html
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/04/what-country-will-be-next-for-warmongers.html
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/03/the-imposition-of-new-world-order-nwo.html
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/03/are-these-political-puppets-of-new.html
Yes, and Democracy for all, the US way.
Immensely relevant.
The US… has annexed Ukraine… enthroned unelected extremists in Kiev who wage civil and ethnic war against Western Ukraine… realigned Ukrainian, Russian and European military, economic and political relations…. and threatens to provoke World War III. !
Thus the imperial US demonstrates the abject depth of its contempt for Europe and Europe’s neighbours and yet the NATO/US led EU leaders would march its youth to death attacking our neighbour, RUSSIA.??? It is a madcap Neo-con plan to stay on top and take others down.
EUROPE IS FINISHED, it risks losing forever its credibility, purpose (peace) and dignity.
You give the Americans generous tax breaks,… you end up a hostage in their wargames seems to be the lesson.
WOW Art, quite full of yourself what? So you worked for a Dutch company and know all about the Dutch, the country, a veritable oracle of wisdom and spite!!! Were you spitting as you wrote all that tripe. Europe lived of the American teat? Truly? Europe has been occupied by the U.S. since 1945. Uncle Sam controls their trade its banking including it deregulations. It routinely schlepps EU Companies and Banks before U.S. Courts and fines them for trading with country Uncle Sam does not like. Recently it charged a French bank over $8.5 BILLION in fines…..Yeah that’s calling living of a teat alright. European teat’s more like it. Hmm. NATO ostensibly to prevent the Soviets from ever attacking another EU country was really a way to control Europe. Since the demise of the USSR, NATO now has become a global force requiring EU countries to provide troops and arms in whatever illegal conflict Uncle Sam engages in around the globe in countries the EU has no issues with. So who is using whom hey? So get off your high horse. The Allies did not win WWII, the Soviets did when they decimated the Wehrmach and Luftwaffe in Dec. of 1941. It took another 2.5 years before the allied landing in Normandy took place to do the mopping up, and to prevent the Soviets from overrunning Europe. The Netherlands and Germany have created a Rapid Deployment Force which is under the direction of a German General, very much against NATO rules. The idea is that other countries will join and NATO can be sent home.
I didn’t just work for a Dutch company……Art baby….I survived Nazi occupation in the Netherlands, was raised and educated there, so when it come to knowing the Dutch you’re only an indoctrinated American mouthpiece, nothing more.
A compelling and thought provoking analysis of imperialism in the 21st Centuary. You are indeed the redeemer of journalistic ethics and enquiry for which all of us should applaud. Well done.Now could you educate journalists in Australia who appear to be reared on the fetid teat of Murdoch bile and bluster.
Bollocks. You have an axe to grind. Your “Putin fan-gurls” quote gave you away, I guess you couldn’t resist. Anyone who will read the Spiegel article can draw their own conclusions. Here are some other quotes you forgot to mention, where Spiegel goes out of its way to not embarrass old statesmen contradicted by the actual documents unearthed:
1)
2)
3)
4)
***********
People should simply read the article. There is a reason why the intro to the article states: “Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.” But nice try.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
Bollocks. You have an axe to grind. Your “Putin fan-gurls” quote gave you away, I guess you couldn’t resist. Anyone who will read the Spiegel article can draw their own conclusions.
Yes, by all means. In particular, they should ask themselves how it is that Genscher and Baker, two foreign ministers of administrations that shift about every election cycle or so, get to swap out the future boundaries of NATO for the unification of Germany, and how it is that the governments of the UK, Denmark, France, etc. are conspicuously absent from these conversations and why no one thought to gauge their opinions on the matter (or for that matter, of any NATO official). And all this without a single document to show for it? I am not denying that Baker and Genscher had no plans for (or even that they were not strongly against or were eager to dismiss) any NATO expansion to the East. What I am denying is that they have any final say in the matter or that the assurances they gave were supposed to last indefinitely, even after the Soviet Union, the counterparty to these negotiations, had ceased to exist. I also maintain that the Soviet counterparties knew all this, as would any sophomore poli sci major.
In particular, how exactly, would this NATO stoppage be enforced, especially since no one apparently thought to provide any document or memorandum of understanding on the matter (not that that would have helped much, if Baker and Genscher provided the only Western signatures)? In that sheaf of documents that one President’s administration passes to another (along with who really killed JFK and the Masonic rigamarole that Nic Cage movies and Dan Brown novels alerted us all to), was there to be some specific instruction about how “henceforth, we cannot expand NATO at all because once upon a time, James Baker said so”? Who appointed him king of NATO?
Russian Ministry of Defense Press Conference on #MH17 07/21/2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6U85E6x0_U
There was absolutely nothing present around flight MH17.
What they say in the video is different from what is actually show you in the video.
Here is a technical explanation of the radar data shown by Russia, explained by someone with technical knowledge about radar data.
http://whoisstrelkov.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/russian-atc-lesson-101-the-phantom-su25/
From a non-technical point of view we can conclude that the object was only seen after MH17 had already slowed down to 200km/h, as the official Russian story mentions. The most logical explanation is that the object on radar is debris of MH17. So Russia blames a Ukrainian Su-25, which is not there at all, only to pursue it’s own political goals.
Please go ahead and ask someone, for example from TU Delft, about how a civil radar system works and what the Russian data is actually showing.
Who wouldn’t?
But in any air crash investigation the data will not be shared with the public immediately.
The Dutch investigators have said to follow ICAO protocol, as Putin also suggested.
But it’s actually Putin’s people who are not following ICAO protocol, by releasing radar date.
ICAO Annex 13 section 5.12 (e) refers:
Non-disclosure of records
The State conducting the investigation of an accident or incident shall not make the following records available for purposes other than accident or incident investigation, unless the appropriate authority for the administration of justice in that State determines that their disclosure outweighs the adverse domestic and international impact such action may have on that or any future investigations:
a) all statements taken from persons by the investigation authorities in the course of their investigation;
b) all communications between persons having been involved in the operation of the aircraft;
c) medical or private information regarding persons involved in the accident or incident;
d) cockpit voice recordings and transcripts from such recordings;
e) recordings and transcriptions of recordings from air traffic control units;
f) cockpit airborne image recordings and any part or transcripts from such recordings; and
g) opinions expressed in the analysis of information, including flight recorder information.
And using Russia Today new channel to provoke a reaction from Ukraine and the US.
http://rt.com/news/174496-malaysia-crash-russia-questions/
And then we have some information from the man himself:
Vladimir Putin talks about Malaysian MH 17 plane crash in Ukraine [English Subtitles]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWsXSTUe2M
Part of what he says:
Are Putins actions different from what he says, or has he no influence on his country at all?
“Vladimir Putin could strike now or soon, to preempt NATO and the American Congress, by taking Eastern Ukraine, something he probably should have done right after the Crimean referendum,” writes Karel Van Wolferen.
Eric Margolis doesn’t think much of Obama and NATO, for the same reasons most of us are disgusted. But I found his comment about the weakness of the Russian military to be interesting. Can Russia defend itself against American machinations in Ukraine and at the hands of an aggressive NATO or not? (http://bit.ly/1odpL8x)
Rule 1: Anyone who calls Ukraine “The Ukraine” is ignorant and a Putin apologist. But I repeat myself.
What is incomprehensible is that the EU, and Merkel in the first place, supports on a large scale the Ukraine government. It is known that some oligarchs who are financiers of neo-Nazigroups, hold a public position. Example: Igor Kolomoisky was appointed governor of the Dnipropetrovsk District. He is also the lender of some volunteer battalions (private militias), including the Azov battalion, the Dnepr battalion and the Donbass battalion.
The whole expansionist policy of the EU, performed at all price, even of human lifes, has to end immediately. Negatiotions have to take place, not war. No longer huge funding should be allocated to the government of Ukraine which does not recognize the human rights of minorities. Russia should be admitted again to the G8.
More information: http://users.skynet.be/fc298377/EN_EC_ext_rel.htm
A German pilot: Shocking Analysis of the ‘Shooting Down’ of Malaysian MH17
http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/
Quote:
From a non-technical point of view we can conclude that the object was only seen after MH17 had already slowed down to 200km/h, as the official Russian story mentions. The most logical explanation is that the object on radar is debris of MH17. So Russia blames a Ukrainian Su-25, which is not there at all, only to pursue it’s own political goals.
Answer:
http://slavyangrad.org/2014/07/18/spanish-air-controller-kiev-borispol-airport-ukraine-military-shot-down-boeing-mh17/
http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/
(In the spirit of Karel van Wolferen..!)
re: ICAO Annex 13 section 5.12 (e)
I do not see how the disclosure would have adverse impact on investigation
ICAO Annex 13 section 5.12 (e) refers:
I do not see how the disclose could have adverse impact on the investigation.
Does it matter what you think? It was simply agreed to work in this way, and the Russian Federation also signed this convention on October 15th 1970.
Russia is trying to train peoples brain not to accept the solution of the official investigation, when that deviates from what Russian officials told. It is not trying to help or inform anyone.
They are trying to lure out a mud fight:
http://rt.com/news/173976-mh17-crash-questions-ukraine/
But the US and Ukraine didn’t bite.
http://rt.com/news/174496-malaysia-crash-russia-questions/
And what does that answer?
The hard evidence that Russia is showing us for proof, shows that there was nothing near MH17/MAS17.
Ignore the diagram with the fighter plane, look at the radar data in the video.
The object on radar has no speed or heading.
Any airplane needs forward motion to fly, military or civilian!
Again, technical explination:
http://whoisstrelkov.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/russian-atc-lesson-101-the-phantom-su25/
– The radar paint that the RU MOD tries to describe as the phantom SU25 is in fact the MH17 primary paint of what is now falling wreckage
Presenting another point of view than mainstream is vital and it requires strict accuracy. This sentence decreases credibility:
>>{NGO’s} by official admission spent 5 billion dollars in political destabilization efforts prior to the February putsch in Kiev, <<
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland should have been named and her words included. She herself is a government official so to identify her as NGO is inaccurate. She did not admit 'political destabilization', and the word 'prior' is misleading. She was making a speech to an NGO when she said last December was "Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations,” she said. “We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.”
I sadly believe the US is involved in all sorts of regime change,including in the Ukraine this February, however I also remember the Nunn-Lugar CTR [co-operative threat reduction]. How much did the US pay to remove nuclear weapons from the Ukraine?
Well, there are plenty of politicians who went to the Novorossia side, some like Oleg Tsarev are fairly remarkable and brave individuals. One should remember that Ukraine under Kiev junta is a fascist dictatorship, where political dissent is suppressed and even some forms of thought, if publicly expressed, are a punishable offense; at least two political parties, the Party of Regions and the Communist Party are de facto banned.
Dear Karel, most of the people on Earth will be consistent with the main stream view point. It “was, is and always will be” like we Russians always say. The problem here is because 1) a person itself is very trustful and 2) no one bothered to learn history. History wears down across the generation. Ask some young people, do they remember Afganistan? Libiya? At least Iraq? The reasons, the conclusions? No, they don’t. The half of them know the main stream point. But only small group of people will try to dig up the truth. It’s sad.
Dude, how about google and get a clue?
There are many politicians – remember the whole Yanukovych-administration was democratically elected and the OSCE said it was ok. The Communist party got forbidden recently. The Gladio-militias did beat them up. Other members of parliament did repeatedly beat them up in the parliament. Google for the pictures. Get a clue about the Svoboda, formerly National Socialist Party of Ukraine and their Josef Goebbel centre.
So hey, tell me, where are all these politicians of the opposition? Maybe remove the hand over your eyes, so you can see?
But don’t worry, this just happened many times before in Europe. All the crisis candidates of Southern Europe were targets of Gladio-missions and regime change before. So I am sure, you will get another chance to learn, if you dont get it this time.
Btw. election without peace in Eastern Ukraine wont work. I know, you and other Americans will be surprised. No, I am not Russian.
tl:dr
It is like always, if Americans say “Bow down or we bring you our democracy!”, shit is real, like in Afghanistan, Libya or Iraq.
Van Wolferen’s logic to me seems questionable. Do we owe Russia for the fact that it “took the heart out of the Nazi war machine at the cost of incomparable and unimaginable numbers of military dead; without which there would not have been a Normandy invasion”? We owe Russian military, as much as we owe other military who gave their lives for our freedom. However, why does Van Wolferen not remember Stalin’s pre-WWII genocides and post-WWII deportations? An estimated 14 million passed through the Gulag between 1929 and 1953 and a further 7 to 8 million were deported and exiled to remote areas including entire nationalities of which some 45% died of diseases and malnutrition. What about Russia as a democratic constitutional state since WWII, or die Wende (1989), or Gorbachov (perestrojka and glasnost), or right now in the community of such states of this time? In Van Wolferen’s argumentation we read nothing, for example, about the history of Chodorkovski and Yukos, and Russia’s condemnation before the European Court for Human Rights (to compensate Yukos shareholders 50 billion USD – just a political hassle?), or about journalists killed for being Putin critics, or Pussy Riot that came away merciful for an anti-Putin song (are they still alive?), just to mention a few examples. It is clear enough that Russians reject western capitalism, and that this is rooted in the country’s history and defines their attitude towards the West. Are we weird to accept our 1% social inequality over their oligarch social inequality?
One of the biggest Problems in my point of view is, that the western countries believe, the rest of the world is a colony, and no matter what they do, they always right.
My big apologies for putting all these links here, but I just wanted to share similar articles to this excellent and sober article by Von Wolferen. Perhaps other might want to read these as well?
There are 3 categories – Geopolitics, Fascism in Ukraine, and Boeing incident
Geopolitics of the crisis in Ukraine
https://www.unz.com/article/the-ukraine-corrupted-journalism-and-the-atlanticist-faith/http://jackmatlock.com/2014/03/ukraine-the-price-of-internal-division/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict
http://www.thenation.com/article/179579/cold-war-against-russia-without-debate#
Dutch MP Geert Wilders: EU cares about expansion, not Ukraine — RT Op-Edge
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-colored-revolutions-at-the-crossroads-of-euro-atlantic-and-eurasian-power-politics/5367573
Scottish Officials Condemn West’s Support for Neo-Nazis in Ukraine | World | RIA Novosti
Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev
http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/ukraine-and-yugoslavia/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-is-the-bully-the-united-states-has-treated-russia-like-a-loser-since-the-cold-war/2014/03/14/b0868882-aa06-11e3-8599-ce7295b6851c_story.html
Fascism active in Ukraine’s current regime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pculDDRKHdg English subtitles of the Bundestag speech by a prominent German politician Gysi – read what he says
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/10/burning-ukraines-protesters-alive/
Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret | The Nation
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37729.htm
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/02/26/ukrainian-neo-nazis-declare-power-comes-barrels-guns/
http://buchanan.org/blog/will-mobocracy-triumph-ukraine-6218
http://veracityvoice.com/?p=20331
tries to sort out the myths “Fascists” and “terrorists”
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/commentary/ukraine-russia-distortion-vs-reality
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/16/the-hushed-up-hitler-factor-in-ukraine/
Boeing
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/27/blaming-russia-as-flat-fact/
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-190714.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-190714.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-010814.html
http://www.nst.com.my/node/23569 Shameful neglect of evidence
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/29/obama-should-release-ukraine-evidence/
The reality is that the US got to benefit from 100 years of accumulated European capital sent over to the so called arsenal of democracy. The US used the massive capital injection to create its first military industrial complex; boom times for 1950 America (Happy Days).
Currently as for the US “having” to spend on arms and military, NO. What the US does is print up dollars and export its inflation to the rest of world, enforced by the same military! (the petro-dollar system in a nutshell)
Ever been to Africa? Nigeria borrowed 1 billion in the 1970s, it now owes 50 billion to New York banks. Ever seen people starve because the country has to grow “cash crops” to service these dollar loans? Then “US Food Aid” (subsidy to its own farmers) comes in and puts what left of local farmers out of business.
I’m sorry but you are just another ignorant, sanctimonious American. War and finance are linked, before you comment further I suggest you read.
War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Honors_and_awards
Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
You will see that Perkins simply validates what Butler was saying.
I can’t believe you actually wrote “Now we’re off in Iraq, helping yet another group of people who can’t govern themselves.”
Take a look at this charnel house (shock and awe) and explain to me how the US in any way “helped” govern Iraq?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAhhlzJrMlw&list=FLNMAdU0Z1y7Wtxo5f-p_rbA&index=307
If you can’t be bothered to watch it all just move to 1 min 45
You are utterly insane. What a far fetched conspiracy theory. Way to fuel antisemitism and hatred. -Slow clap-
Having been born and raised far west of the Dnieper, and having visited (100+), lived (10) & worked (22) in many countries and cities, and not being Russian (or even close), I can say your SHOUTING is misplaced. I found, out of all of that 40 yrs of experience, that Russia is the one place where one can in fact live. If it wasn’t for the damn winters…
I suggest (as politely as any green man) that in your future writing you not betray the arrogance-through-ignorance of the parochial upbringing you continue to labour under.
BTW, if your acronym refers to Soren, you you do his legacy no justice.
I was about the say the same … well done for underlining this.
“”Thinking that may deviate significantly as can now be found in Der Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit and Handelsblatt, does not travel across German borders. “”
One can add Welt.de to the above list.
Also, the FAZ has now closed the comments section on any articles that discuss Ukraine.
I only read these Online ( NATO-parroting ) papers to see what the German locals have to say.
So far , I would say that 99% of all the German people’s comments DISAGREE with what these newspapers print … with respect to Ukraine , Syria and Gaza .. just the most recent exampes.
There was a lot of truth spoken in the article … but was IMO being too kind – as in diplomatic – to the West.
I also got the impression that the populations of Europe don’t read enough books.
May I recommend the following , which put together gives you the big picture (IMO):
Full Spectrum Dominance – William F. Engdahl … Pentagon “Vision 2020” etc.
Bases of Empire – Prof. C. Lutz … NATO Expansion & US / NATO bases world wide
The Creature from Jekyll Island – Prof. G. Edward Griffin … the Central Banking Cartel
Confession of an Economic Hitman – J. Perkins … how the US/IMF/WB uses Debt (loans to poor countries) as a Geopolitical weapon
I could recommend over 150 serious books on this subject, but the above 4 are enough to give one the overall picture.
The End-Game in Brezinski’s so-called Chess Game ( US NeoCons ) is to make sure that EUROPE + RUSSIA + CHINA do NOT unite as a thriving Economic Super-Continent.
If that happens, it will be curtains for US World Hegemony and the USD within 20 years …
… unless the US changes it’s Foreign Policy from being an aggressor to ‘becoming a friend’.
Very well said .
Sonny, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet !
Ancianna is insane ?
Ha !
Spot on A’c’a.
” white man makes ; the jews take ”
Run along now.
The people in East Ukraine obviously want to speak Russia and live in Russia, so why not let them go, instead of shelling them in their homes?
So why not let those who do want to be Russian, in East Ukraine and Crimea, choose which country they want to be part of? I personally like living in the West, but I have talked to people in the East who have different but perfectly legitimate priorities. A lot of people in Ukraine, esp East Ukraine, have family in Russia, and being able to travel freely to Russia, and to work there, is a priority for them.
The attractions of EU membership that were dangled before Ukrainians were quite utterly dishonest – the ‘Association agreement’ was not the same as ‘EU membership – no visa-free freedom of movement, or right to work in the West, IMF-style austerity and dismemberment of the already-fragile social support system which is a legacy of Soviet times, and no cash to bail out the bankrupt economy. No wonder Yanukovych didn’t sign. There was nothing in it for Ukraine. But just as we in the West haven’t been informed, Ukrainians have also been denied honest and open reporting – they simply don’t know how to choose between one oligarch and another, or who to believe.
Where do you get the idea that capitalism is built around the idea of limitless expansion?
What would a discussion of U.S. policy be without mention of “atrocities and genocide”?
Good job.
As an American who is dismayed by the totalitarianism being instituted in a country that once held the beacon of freedom aloft to the world, I find every feature of this article plausible, and would expect that there are documentable facts to back much of it up. However, I would like to take exception to one thread that runs through it. Blaming a handful of “neocon” Republican Senators for the institution of a new, American evil empire, will not do. Obama is the US president, and the it is his policies of military adventurism that are wholly to blame for the American bullying and military adventurism of the last six years in the Middle East and now in the Ukraine, though his Republican predecessor, Bush2, and before that liberal Democrat Clinton set the tone for those policies. It has now finally become clear to most Americans that Obama represents a splinter faction of the American polity, and goes his own arrogant and feckless way on foreign policy. Apparently it’s still not clear though to the Europeans who took this con man at his word and awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize for a bunch of glib rhetoric.
In pointing this out, I don’t mean to deny that the continuation and even escalation of American neo-imperialism in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union (which was brought about by President Reagan and his neocon team, not by Bush1) has enjoyed broad bipartisan support, or that the Big Brother establishment figures in control of the Republican Party since the retirement of Reagan, haven’t been powerfully instrumental in propagandizing and lying to the American people to make their case. And ultimately, the American people in their ignorance of history and foreign affairs, are themselves responsibility for the evil done in their name by the US government.
At any rate here is one American who believes that we should disengage everywhere in the world and leave it to its own devices. The rationale for the US being the world policeman and world sugar daddy has worn thin, and in any case, thanks to the contining Wall Street financial scams, and our out-of-control welfare state, we can no longer afford military adventurism, and certainly the world, with widespread nuclear weaponization can no longer afford the world war that the US seems bent on provoking.
It was also the State Department/CIA/NSA which engineered the fall of Poland, Berlin Wall in and the domino like fall of Czechoslovakia etc. in 1989.
The discussion of politics is typically philosophical, and intellectual, except when Muslim fanatics, liberals, or neocons gets to participate. Then venomous language is used.
The alleged Obomba regime is really just the Zionist regime,with MSM selected American traitors of either duopoly of mythical antagonistic parties to head it.
OK Adolf.Bad genes?Oh,bad jeans?Chinese overthrow of western hegemony of casual attire??Too late.Gen(e)ius is in the eye of the beholder,ask Gandhi.
And,as with the Americon people,Europeons never were asked about immigration.it was foisted on them by the Ziomonsters.
Long time coming but I witnessed the jets that hit MH17. They were very visible. I live SW of Hrabove and the jets flew directly over my head.