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Sinking The Lusitania: An Act Of Mass Murder By The Banksters

By Gabriel Donohoe | Fools Crow’s Blog  | May 7, 2014

On this day 99 years ago, a German U-boat sunk the RMS Lusitania off the southern Irish coast with the loss of 1,195 lives, including 128 Americans. 94 children perished, 31 of them mere babies. This incident became the major catalyst for drawing a reluctant America into the European slaughter pens of World War 1.

But was the sinking of the Lusitania one of those unfortunate acts that occur randomly during war or was there a more sinister and deliberate hand at work?

In a disputed incident like this, one often gets to the truth of the matter by asking the question, “Cui bono?” “Who benefits?” After a detailed examination of the facts, one can only come to the conclusion that it was the banksters who benefitted, and grossly at that.

The RMS Lusitania was one of the world’s biggest ships and the pride of the Cunard Line at the time of her demise. “RMS” stands for “Royal Mail Steamer” which meant that the Lusitania was certified to carry the mail, earning her owners an annual fee of some £68,000.

At the time of her final voyage, leaving New York for Liverpool on May 1st, 1915, Europe was embroiled in war. Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom to be a war-zone and German U-boats were wreaking havoc on enemy shipping.  300,000 tons of Allied shipping were sunk every week and one out of every four steamers leaving Britain never returned. Britain was virtually cut off from her allies and her waters were fraught with danger.

In contravention of the rules of war at the time (the Hague Conventions and the Cruiser Rules) the RMS Lusitania was carrying a considerable amount of ammunition, explosives, and other war matériel for the armies of England and France. As G. Edward Griffin wrote in The Creature From Jekyll Island, “…she [The Lusitania] was virtually a floating ammunition depot.” This meant that she wouldn’t have the status of a non-military ship and could be fired upon without warning. It was widely known that the Lusitania was entered into the Admiralty fleet register as an armed auxiliary cruiser and was so listed in Jane’s Fighting Ships and in The Navy Annual.

They Germans knew that The Lusitania was carrying military supplies bound for Germany’s enemies on the Western Front. The German embassy in Washington even took the precaution of placing an advertisement in 50 U.S. newspapers warning civilians not to sail on the Lusitania. Due to the intervention of the State Department most of the notices were not published. However, the Des Moines Register carried the following advert which was placed beside an ad for the Lusitania…

“NOTICE!

“TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

“IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY

“Washington, D.C., April 22, 1915.”

In the early stages of the War, England and France had borrowed heavily from American investors and had selected J P Morgan, partner and front man for the Rothschilds, to act as sales agent for their bonds. Morgan was also selected as a purchase agent to buy war materials when the bond money was returned to the States. Morgan was in the happy position of receiving lucrative commissions in both directions, which, in the case of England and France amounted to some $30 million. That’s not counting commissions on hundreds of millions of dollars of business done with Russia, Italy, and Canada.

Furthermore, through holding companies, the House of Morgan directly owned many of the manufacturing firms receiving production contracts for military goods from England and France. (Undoubtedly these firms were the foundation of the ‘military-industrial complex’ later referred to by President Eisenhower.) Soon, J P Morgan became the largest consumer on earth, spending up to $10 million per day. Morgan was in the privileged position of being buyer, seller, and producer and amassing profits from all sides.

However, when the War began to go badly for England and France, Morgan found it impossible to get new buyers for the Allied war bonds. There was a real fear in Whitehall at the time that England was about to lose the war. If the Allies were to default, Morgan’s large commissions would come to an end and his investors would suffer gigantic losses (some $1.5 billion). On top of that, Morgan’s war production companies would go out of business. Something needed to be done urgently.

As the RMS Lusitania departed Pier 54 in New York on May 1st, 1915, Morgan surmised that if the cruiser were to be sunk by a German submarine, the resulting furore would certainly bring America into the War on the side of the Allies. Not only would Allied bonds be in great demand but Morgan’s war production companies would have to go into overdrive to outfit over four million American soldiers who would be mobilized for the European War.

lusitania map

Six days later, on the afternoon of Friday, May 7th, 1915, the Lusitania approached within 12 miles of the southern Irish coast. Winston Churchill, the Lord of the Admiralty, knew that German U-boats were operating in the area after three ships had been sunk in the previous 2 days. Not only did Churchill not come to the assistance of the Lusitania but he ordered her planned escort, the destroyer Juno, to return to Queenstown harbour. Earlier, the Lusitania had been ordered to reduce speed by shutting down one of her four boilers (ostensibly to save coal). She was a sitting duck and the entire Admiralty knew it.

At least one of Churchill’s officers, Commander Joseph Kenworthy, was disgusted at the cynicism of his superior. In his 1927 book, The Freedom of the Seas, he would write: “The Lusitania was sent at considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn.”

At 2.10 in the afternoon of that fateful Friday, Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger of U-boat U-20 spotted the Lusitania and gave the order to fire one torpedo. The torpedo struck the Lusitania on the starboard bow, just beneath the wheelhouse. A few moments later, much to everyone’s surprise including the watching Germans, a second huge explosion took place within the hull and the ship began to founder rapidly. 18 minutes later, the Lusitania disappeared beneath the waves.

Irish rescuers sailed out from Cork, over 11 miles away, and plucked some 764 survivors from the cold waters.

Many researchers today believe that the second explosion was caused by some of the 600 tons of pyroxyline explosive, 6 million rounds of .303 bullets, 1248 cases on shrapnel shells, plus an unknown quantity of munitions that filled the holds on the lower deck.

Ever since, the British Government have endeavoured to keep the Lusitania’s cargo a secret. As late as the 1950s the Royal Navy used the wreck of the Lusitania for target practice by dropping depth charges in order to destroy any evidence that the ship breached Cruiser Rules of war or the Hague Conventions.

After the sinking, the British ordered an official enquiry under the direction of Lord Mersey. The Admiralty manipulated Lord Mersey to find the master of the Lusitania, Captain Turner, at fault for the disaster. Lord Mersey complied with the Admiralty’s wishes but, in a crisis of conscience, refused payment for his services and requested that henceforth he be “excused from administering His Majesty’s Justice.” Mersey’s only comment in later years was: “The Lusitania case was a damn dirty business.”

The sinking of the Lusitania was a major catalyst for America’s later entry into the World War. Total deaths from the War are estimated between 9 and 15 million souls; American casualties of dead and wounded were in excess of 300,000.

But the House of Morgan, House of Rothschild, and other banksters were thoroughly pleased at America’s entry into the War. It meant that they continued to benefit hugely from the wholesale slaughter and misery of millions of programmed human beings.

When one thinks of Pearl Harbour, Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11, and other false flags it seems that some things never change. The lessons of history are quickly forgotten. The public has always been so utterly gullible and predictable.

But thanks to the Internet and social media, that is all now beginning to change…

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Kiev Refuses to Acknowledge $3.5Bln Gas Debt to Russia

RIA Novosti | May 8, 2014

KIEV – Ukraine does not acknowledge the $3.5 billion debt for Russian gas deliveries earlier announced by Russian energy giant Gazprom, acting Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan said Thursday.

“We cannot accept the figure mentioned by Gazprom because Gazprom includes in this total some calculations that are based on an economically unsound price offered to Ukraine, about $500 per 1,000 cubic meters,” Prodan told reporters in Kiev.

Gazprom said Wednesday that it has not received payments for deliveries of Russian natural gas to Ukraine in April, which brings Kiev’s gas debt to a total of $3.5 billion.

When asked about whether Ukraine was ready to switch to the advance payment system for its gas supplies to Russia, Prodan replied that his country was unable to do that.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual question-and-answer session on April 19 that Moscow was ready to tolerate Ukraine’s non-payment for Russian gas for another month, but then will switch to advance payments.

Ukraine’s state-run gas company Naftogaz was expected to transfer payments for April deliveries by May 7.

Ukraine refuses to recognize the new gas price of $485.50 per thousand cubic meters, although the sum is fully in line with the contract that the two states signed in 2009.

Kiev wants to buy Russian gas at the old price of $268.50 per thousand cubic meters, which was in place before Russia cancelled two major discounts starting April 1.

In December, Russia offered Ukraine a 25 percent discount from the original price of around $400. The deal was cancelled because of Kiev’s overdue gas bills.

Another discount of $100 per thousand cubic meters of gas was granted by Russia in return for the right to use the Sevastopol port in Crimea to host the Black Sea Fleet. It was annulled shortly after Crimea became a part of Russia in March.

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Economics | , , | 2 Comments

Ukraine deploys 15,000 troops to Russian border, NATO beefs up forces in E. Europe – Moscow

RT | May 8, 2014

Ukraine has deployed 15,000 troops on its border with Russia, while NATO continues beefing up its forces in Eastern Europe, Russian Defense Ministry stated as the military alliance and Pentagon accuse Moscow of keeping armed forces close to Ukraine.

“The 15,000-strong grouping of Ukrainian forces has been deployed in the border areas. Military conscription has resumed [in Ukraine],” Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said in a statement on Thursday. “At the same time NATO amasses its grouping of forces in Eastern Europe,” he stressed, adding that such actions are not contributing to the efforts to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine.

Antonov said Russia has pulled all its forces from its borders with its crisis-torn neighbor. He echoed President Vladimir Putin’s statement on Wednesday, when the Russian President assured OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter that Russian troops were relocated to ranges where they conduct regular drills.

However, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted on Thursday that there is no sign that Russian troops have actually been withdrawn from the Ukrainian border.

“I have very good vision but while we’ve noted Russia’s statement so far we haven’t seen any – any – indication of troops pulling back,” Rasmussen said on his Twitter. “If we saw visible signs of a meaningful pullback by Russia troops I’d be the first one to welcome it,” he added.

Earlier, the Pentagon said that it also saw no change in the Russian force position along the Ukrainian border.

“We have seen no change in the Russian force posture and we’ve long called on the Russians … to withdraw their troops” from along the border, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said.

However, according to the Defense Ministry official, “there was traditionally no evidence supporting their positions, and especially American colleagues did not bother,” he said.

Antonov also urged official representatives of NATO and the Pentagon “to quit cynically deluding the international society concerning the real state of affairs on the Russian-Ukrainian border.”

He stressed that in the past two months Russia has contributed to about a dozen inspections, including emergency observation flights of Ukraine across the border region with Russia. The most recent flights took place on May 6, when an American-Norwegian group held its inspection along the borders with Kharkov and Lugansk regions, and on May 7, when the same group flew across the city of Bryansk.

“There was not noticed any undeclared military activities in these regions,” Antonov said. But despite that this fact was recorded “in the presence of Russian representatives in the official protocols”, in public “opposite propaganda cliché statements accusing Russia of violating its commitments were broadcast.”

The West has repeatedly accused Moscow of deploying armed forces close to the borders with Ukraine and demanded that they be pulled back. At the same time, NATO has lately increased its activity in the region near the borders of Russia. On May 5, NATO started its Spring Storm drills in Estonia. The 6,000-troop exercise is the biggest since 2003 when Spring Storm was first held.

On Wednesday NATO said it may permanently station additional troops in Eastern Europe as a defensive measure.

Russia views this recent build-up of NATO forces as a provocation and counter-productive in the struggle to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine.

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

5,000 prisoners begin mass hunger strike in Israeli jails

prisoners

Ma’an – 08/05/2014

RAMALLAH – Over 5,000 Palestinian prisoners started an open hunger strike on Thursday in solidarity with detainees held in administrative detention by Israeli authorities, a Palestinian official said.

Palestinian Authority Minister of Detainees Issa Qaraqe said that the prisoners are demanding that Israel end the practice of holding Palestinians in custody without charge or trial.

More than 100 Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched a mass, open-ended hunger strike on April 24 in protest against their detention without trial.

Qaraqe said he holds Israeli authorities responsible for this “explosion” in protest action. He declared May 9 a ‘Day of Rage’ in solidarity with administrative detainees, which will see a range of solidarity activities after noon prayers.

A number of the strike leaders have been placed into isolation in Beersheba prison, including Muayad Sharab, Sufian Jamjoum and Abd al-Kareem Qawasmi.

An Israeli prison services spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

A 2012 agreement which ended a hunger strike of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners was meant to end the detention without trial of Palestinians, but as of March 1, 183 Palestinians were still being held under administrative detention.

Palestinians held in administrative detention are often held without charge or trial for months and without access to the evidence leading to their detention, even though international law stipulates this tactic only be used in exceptional circumstances.

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

2 southeast Ukrainian regions to hold referendum May 11 as planned

RT | May 8, 2014

The councils of the People’s Republics of two southeastern cities of Donetsk and Lugansk won’t postpone the referendums on their regions’ future as part of Ukraine and will hold them as planned on May, 11, the cities’ anti-government activists said.

“This is not our decision [of the politicians] , this is the decision of people of Donbas region,” said Andrey Purgin, one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, “People of Donbas [Region] got their chance to make a heroic deed and we can’t deprive them from this chance.”

The decision of holding a referendum as scheduled was approved on the council of People’s Republic of Donetsk unanimously.

“People don’t trust Kiev authorities,” Miroslav Rudenko, one of the Donbas self-defense leaders, told Interfax, “Also the reaction of [coup-appointed PM Arseny] Yatsenyuk to the proposal of Russian President [calling for an end to Kiev’s military operation] was inadequate.”

According to another self-defense leader Denis Pushilin, “the region’s people are determined to organize the referendum.”

“There are millions of people who are ready to cast their votes,” he added.

Meanwhile, the council of the People’s Republic of another eastern Ukrainian city, Lugansk, has decided not to postpone the upcoming referendum and to organize it on May 11, said Vasily Nikitin, from the press service which is organizing the referendum.

“The referendum will take place as planned. The ballots have been already arrived at the polling stations,” said Nikitin.

According to him, at the referendum people will be asked if they “support the state independence of People’s Republic of Lugansk.”

He also added that the results of the referendum on the region’s future will be announced Monday.

Leonid Slutsky, the Chairman of the Russia’s State Duma Committee on the Commonwealth of Independent States, said that the refusal of Donetsk and Lugansk regions to postpone the upcoming referendums is their sovereign right.

Russia by proposing to postpone the referendums wanted only to “solve the conflict peacefully and not to allow further escalation of crisis in Ukraine,” he said.

He added that Russia won’t send observers to Donetsk and Lugansk as these referendums are “their internal affair.”

Meanwhile, the Kremlin will analyze the situation on eastern Ukraine’s refusal to postpone the referendum, said President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.

He added that Kremlin hasn’t yet received any proposals from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Ukraine’s crisis.

map

Google Maps

In April, activists in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, announced they were planning to hold a referendum on their regions’ future as part of Ukraine on Sunday, May 11.

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on anti-government protesters in southeastern Ukraine to postpone their May 11 federalization referendums.

“We are calling for southeast Ukraine representatives, supporters of federalization of the country, to postpone the May 11 referendum to create the necessary conditions for dialogue,” Putin said at a press conference with OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter in Moscow.

Ukraine’s coup-appointed PM Arseny Yatsenyuk criticized Putin’s proposal to postpone the referendum.

“The fact that Russia asks to postpone some referendum? Then we need to inform the Russian president that Ukraine hasn’t planned any referendum on May 11. And if terrorists and separatists, who are supported by Russia, were ordered to postpone what wasn’t planned, then it’s their internal affairs,” he said.

Kiev on Thursday said the military operation in the south-east of Ukraine will continue, regardless of the decision made on the regional referendum.

Earlier Thursday, the head of Ukrainian National Security and Defense Committee, Andrey Parubiy, said that the military operation in the southeast of Ukraine will continue, regardless of the decision made on the Donetsk regional referendum.

“The counter-terrorist operation will continue unhindered, despite the presence of terrorist and insurgent groups in the Donetsk region,” he said.

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

To Understand Or Not to Understand Putin

By Diana Johnstone | CounterPunch | May 8, 2014

In Germany these days, very many citizens object to the endless Russia-bashing of the NATO-oriented mainstream media.  They may point out that the U.S.-backed regime change in Kiev, putting in power an ultra-right transitional government eager to join NATO, posed an urgent threat to preservation of Russia’s only warm water naval base in Crimea. Under the circumstances, and inasmuch as the Crimean population overwhelmingly approved, reinstating Crimea in the Russian federation was a necessary defensive move.

In Germany, anyone who says something like that can be denigrated as a “Putinversteher” (a Putin understander).

That says it all. We are not supposed to understand.  We are supposed to hate.  The media are there to see to that.

While the West doggedly refuses to understand Putin and Russia, Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, seems to understand things pretty well.

He seems to understand that he and his nation are being systematically lured into a death trap by an enemy which excels in the contemporary art of “communication”.  In a war situation, NATO communication means that it doesn’t matter who does what.  The only thing that matters is who tells the story.  The Western media are telling the story in a way which depends on not understanding Russia, and not understanding Putin. Putin and Russia become fictional villains in the Western version, just the latest reincarnation of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

The horrific massacre in Odessa on May 2 proved this.  The photographic evidence, the testimony of numerous eye witnesses, the smoldering bodies and the shouts of the killers are all there to prove what happened.  Tents erected to collect signatures in favor of a referendum to introduce a federal system into Ukraine (now a politically divided but totally centralized state) were set on fire by a militia of fascist thugs who attacked the local federalists as “separatists” (accusing them of wanting to “separate” from Ukraine to join Russia, when that is not what they are seeking).  The local activists fled into the big trade union building on the square where they were pursued, assaulted, murdered and set on fire by “Ukrainian nationalists”, acting on behalf of the illegitimate Kiev regime supported by the West.

No matter how vicious the assaults, Western media saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil.  They deplored a “tragedy” which just sort of happened.

Odessa is proof that whatever happens, the NATO political class, political leaders and media united, have decided on their story and are sticking to it.  The nationalists that seized power in Kiev are the good guys, the people being assaulted in Odessa and in Eastern Ukraine are “pro-Russian” and therefore the “bad guys”.

Understanding Putin

So despite everything, let’s try to understand President Putin, which is really not very hard.  Behind every conscious action there should be a motive. Let’s look at motives. Today, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, who certainly gives every sign of never understanding – or wanting to understand – anything, parroted the NATO line that Russia was “trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation” in Ukraine’s east and south.

That makes no sense.  Putin has absolutely no motive to want civil war to rage in neighboring Ukraine, and very strong reasons to do all he can to avoid it.  It confronts him with a serious dilemma. Ongoing vicious attacks by fanatic nationalists from Western Ukraine on citizens in the east and south of the country can only incite the victimized Russian-speaking Ukrainians to call on Russia for help. But at the same time, Putin must know that those Russophone Ukrainians do not really want to be invaded by Russia. Perhaps they want something impossible.  And it is perfectly obvious that any use of Russia’s military force to protect people in Ukraine would let loose an even wilder demonization of Putin as “the new Hitler” who is invading countries “for no reason”. And NATO would use this, as it has already used the reunification of Crimea with Russia, as “proof” that Europe must tighten its alliance, establish military bases throughout Eastern Europe and (above all) spend more money on “defense” (buying US military equipment).

The Western takeover of the Kiev government is clearly a provocation to draw Putin into a trap that certain Western strategists (Zbigniew Brzezinski being the chief theorist) hope will cause Putin’s downfall and plunge Russia into a crisis that can lead to its eventual dismemberment.

Putin can only wish to find a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian mess.

While Washington reverts to Cold War “containment” policy to “isolate” Russia, Putin today held talks in Moscow with Didier Burkhalter, the Swiss president and current chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), in hope of initiating some sort of peaceful mediation.

Putin Pulls Back From False Flag Plan?

On this occasion, Putin announced that he had pulled back Russian forces from the border with Ukraine. He indicated that this was to ease concerns over their positioning, meaning claims that Russia was preparing an invasion. He also advised against holding referendums for greater autonomy in the Russophone areas until “conditions for dialogue” can be created.

However, news reports indicated that this reported military pullback caused new concerns among some Ukrainians, who felt Russia was abandoning them in their hour of need, and among some Russians, who feared the President was backing down under Western pressure.

It is not impossible that the pullback order was linked to a Novosti RIA report dated May 6, which indicated that the Ukrainian secret service was planning an imminent false flag operation in order to accuse Russia of violating the border with Ukraine.

Novosti said it had learned from security circles in Kiev that the Ukrainian secret service SBU had secretly shipped about 200 Russian army uniforms and some 70 forged Russian officer IDs into the Eastern Ukrainian protest stronghold of Donetz, to be used to stage a false attack on Ukrainian border patrols.

Novosti said the reports were unconfirmed, but they could nevertheless be taken seriously by the Russians.  “The plan would be to simulate an attack on Ukrainian border troops and to film it for the media”, the report said.  In connection with the plan, a dozen or so combatants from the ultranationalist Right Sector were to cross the border and kidnap a Russian soldier in order to present him as “proof” of Russian military incursion.  The operation was scheduled for May 8 or 9.

By pulling Russian troops farther away from the border, Putin could hope to make the false flag operation less plausible and perhaps to forestall it.

The whole Ukrainian operation, at least partly directed by Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department, has been characterised by false flag operations, most notoriously by the snipers who suddenly spread murder and terror in Maidan square in Kiev, effectively wrecking the internationally sponsored transition agreement.  “Pro-West” insurgents accused President Yanukovych of sending the killers and forced a rump parliament to give government power to Ms Nuland’s protégé, Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk.  However, there has been plenty of evidence to show that the mysterious snipers were pro-West mercenaries: photographic evidence, followed by the telephone statement by the Polish foreign minister to that effect, and finally by the German television channel ARD whose Monitor documentary concluded that the snipers came from the extreme right anti-Russian groups involved in the Maidan uprising.  Indeed, all known evidence points to a fascist false flag operation, and yet Western media and politicians continue to blame everything on Russia.

So whatever he does, Putin now has to realize that he will be deliberately “misunderstood” and misrepresented by Western leaders and media.  Over the heads of the American people, over the heads of the Germans, French and other Europeans, a private consensus has obviously been reached among persons we may describe as our own Western “oligarchs” to revive the Cold War in order to provide the West with an “enemy” serious enough to save the military-industrial complex and unite the transatlantic community against the rest of the world.

This is what Russian leaders are obliged to understand.  What they need most to save the world from endless and useless conflict is the understanding of all those Americans and Europeans who have never been consulted or informed about this perilous shift in strategy, and who, if they understood, would surely say no.

Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

The Kiev Putsch: Rebel Workers Take Power in the East

By James Petras | May 7, 2014

Not since the US and EU took over Eastern Europe, including the Baltic countries, East Germany, Poland, and the Balkans and converted them into military outposts of NATO and economic vassals, have the Western powers moved so aggressively to seize a strategic country, such as the Ukraine, posing an existential threat to Russia.

Up until 2013 the Ukraine was a ‘buffer state’, basically a non-aligned country, with economic ties to both the EU and Russia. Ruled by a regime closely tied to local, European, Israeli and Russian based oligarchs, the political elite was a product of a political upheaval in 2004, (the so-called “Orange Revolution”) funded by the US. Subsequently, for the better part of a decade the Ukraine underwent a failed experiment in Western backed ‘neo-liberal’ economic policies. After nearly two decades of political penetration, the US and EU were deeply entrenched in the political system via long-standing funding of so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs), political parties and paramilitary groups.

The strategy of the US and EU was to install a pliant regime which would bring Ukraine into the European Common Market and NATO as a subordinate client state. Negotiations between the EU and the Ukraine government proceeded slowly. They eventually faltered because of the onerous conditions demanded by the EU and the more favorable economic concessions and subsidies offered by Russia. Having failed to negotiate the annexation of the Ukraine to the EU, and not willing to await scheduled constitutional elections, the NATO powers activated their well-financed and organized NGOs, client political leaders and armed paramilitary groups to violently overthrow the elected government. The violent putsch succeeded and a US-appointed civilian-military junta took power.

The junta was composed of pliant neo-liberal and chauvinist neo-fascist ‘ministers’. The former were hand-picked by the US, to administer and enforce a new political and economic order, including privatization of public firms and resources, breaking trade and investment ties with Russia, eliminating a treaty allowing the Russian naval base in Crimea and ending military-industrial exports to Russia. The neo-fascists and sectors of the military and police were appointed to ministerial positions in order to violently repress any pro-democracy opposition in the West and East. They oversaw the repression of bilingual speakers (Russian-Ukrainian), institutions and practices – turning the opposition to the US-NATO imposed coup regime into an ethnic opposition. They purged all elected opposition office holders in the West and East and appointed local governors by fiat – essentially creating a martial law regime.

The Strategic Targets of the NATO-Junta

NATOs violent, high-risk seizure of the Ukraine was driven by several strategic military objectives. These included:

1) The ousting of Russia from its military bases in Crimea – turning them into NATO bases facing Russia.

2) The conversion of the Ukraine into a springboard for penetrating Southern Russia and the Caucasus; a forward position to politically manage and support liberal pro-NATO parties and NGOs within Russia.

3) The disruption of key sectors of the Russian military defense industry, linked to the Ukrainian factories, by ending the export of critical engines and parts to Russia.

The Ukraine had long been an important part of the Soviet Union’s military industrial complex. NATO planners behind the putsch were keenly aware that one-third of the Soviet defense industry had remained in the Ukraine after the break-up of the USSR and that forty percent of the Ukraine’s exports to Russia, until recently, consisted of armaments and related machinery. More specifically, the Motor-Sikh plant in Eastern Ukraine manufactured most of the engines for Russian military helicopters including a current contract to supply engines for one thousand attack helicopters. NATO strategists immediately directed their political stooges in Kiev to suspend all military deliveries to Russia, including medium-range air-to air-missiles, inter-continental ballistic missiles, transport planes and space rockets (Financial Times, 4/21/14, p3). US and EU military strategists viewed the Kiev putsch as a way to undermine Russian air, sea and border defenses. President Putin has acknowledged the blow but insists that Russia will be able to substitute domestic production for the critical parts within two years. This means the loss of thousands of skilled factory jobs in Eastern Ukraine.

4. The military encirclement of Russia with forward NATO bases in the Ukraine matching those from the Baltic to the Balkans, from Turkey to the Caucasus and then onward from Georgia into the autonomous Russian Federation.

The US-EU encirclement of Russia is designed to end Russian access to the North Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. By encircling and confining Russia to an isolated landmass without ‘outlets to the sea’, US-EU empire builders seek to limit Russia’s role as a rival power center and possible counter-weight to its imperial ambitions in the Middle East, North Africa, Southwest Asia and the North Atlantic.

Ukraine Putsch: Integral to Imperial Expansion

The US and EU are intent on destroying independent, nationalist and non-aligned governments throughout the world and converting them into imperial satellites by whatever means are effective. For example, the current NATO-armed mercenary invasion of Syria is directed at overthrowing the nationalist, secular Assad government and establishing a pro-NATO vassal state, regardless of the bloody consequences to the diverse Syrian people. The attack on Syria serves multiple purposes: Eliminating a Russian ally and its Mediterranean naval base; undermining a supporter of Palestine and adversary of Israel; encircling the Islamic Republic of Iran and the powerful militant Hezbollah Party in Lebanon and establishing new military bases on Syrian soil.

The NATO seizure of the Ukraine has a multiplier effect that reaches ‘upward’ toward Russia and ‘downward’ toward the Middle East and consolidates control over its vast oil wealth.

The recent NATO wars against Russian allies or trading partners confirm this prognosis. In Libya, the independent, non-aligned policies of the Gaddafi regime stood out in stark contrast to the servile Western satellites like Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia. Gaddafi was overthrown and Libya destroyed via a massive NATO air assault. Egypt’s mass popular anti-Mubarak rebellion and emerging democracy were subverted by a military coup and eventually returned the country to the US-Israeli-NATO orbit – under a brutal dictator. Armed incursions by NATO proxy, Israel, against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the US-EU sanctions against Iran are all directed against potential allies or trading partners of Russia.

The US has moved forcefully from encircling Russia via ‘elections and free markets’ in Eastern Europe to relying on military force, death squads, terror and economic sanctions in the Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Middle East and Asia.

Regime Change in Russia: from Global Power to Vassal State

Washington’s strategic objective is to isolate Russia from without, undermine its military capability and erode its economy, in order to strengthen NATO’s political and economic collaborators inside Russia – leading to its further fragmentation and return to the semi-vassal status.

The imperial strategic goal is to place neo-liberal political proxies in power in Moscow, just like the ones who oversaw the pillage and destruction of Russia during the infamous Yeltsin decade. The US-EU power grab in the Ukraine is a big step in that direction.

Evaluating the Encirclement and Conquest Strategy

So far NATO’s seizure of the Ukraine has not moved forward as planned. First of all, the violent seizure of power by overtly pro-NATO elites openly reneging on military treaty agreements with Russia over bases in Crimea, had forced Russia to intervene in support of the local, overwhelmingly ethnic Russian population. Following a free and open referendum, Russia annexed the region and secured its strategic military presence.

While Russia retained its naval presence on the Black Sea … the NATO junta in Kiev unleashed a large-scale military offensive against the pro-democracy, anti-coup Russian-speaking majority in the eastern half of the Ukraine who have been demanding a federal form of government reflecting Ukraine’s cultural diversity. The US-EU promoted a “military response” to mass popular dissent and encouraged the coup-regime to eliminate the civil rights of the Russian speaking majority through neo-Nazi terror and to force the population to accept junta-appointed regional rulers in place of their elected leaders. In response to this repression, popular self-defense committees and local militias quickly sprang up and the Ukrainian army was initially forced back with thousands of soldiers refusing to shoot their own compatriots on behalf of the Western-installed regime in Kiev. For a while, the NATO-backed neo-liberal-neo-fascist coalition junta had to contend with the disintegration of its ‘power base’. At the same time, ‘aid’ from the EU, IMF, and the US failed to compensate for the cut-off of Russian trade and energy subsidies. Under the advise of visiting US CIA Director, Brenner, the Kiev Junta then dispatched its elite ‘special forces’ trained by the CIA and FBI to carry out massacres against pro-democracy civilians and popular militias. They bussed in armed thugs to the diverse city of Odessa who staged an ‘exemplary’ massacre: Burning the city’s major trade union headquarters and slaughtering 41, mostly unarmed civilians who were trapped in the building with its exits blocked by neo-Nazis. The dead included many women and teenagers who had sought shelter from the rampaging neo-Nazis. The survivors were brutally beaten and imprisoned by the ‘police’ who had passively watched while the building burned.

The Coming Collapse of the Putsch-Junta

Obama’s Ukraine power grab and his efforts to isolate Russia have provoked some opposition in the EU. Clearly US sanctions prejudice major European multi-nationals with deep ties in Russia. The US military build-up in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Black Sea raises tensions and threatens a large-scale military conflagration, disrupting major economic contracts. US-EU threats on Russia’s border have increased popular support for President Putin and strengthened the Russian leadership. The strategic power grab in the Ukraine has radicalized and deepened the polarization of Ukrainian politics-between neo-fascist and pro-democracy forces.

While the imperial strategists are extending and escalating their military build-up in Estonia and Poland and pouring arms into the Ukraine, the entire power grab rests on very precarious political and economic foundations- which could collapse within the year – amidst a bloody civil war/inter-ethnic slaughter.

The Ukraine junta has already lost political control of over a third of the country to pro-democracy, anti-coup movements and self-defense militias. By cutting off strategic exports to Russia to serve US military interests, the Ukraine lost one of its most important markets, which cannot be replaced. Under NATO control, Ukraine will have to buy NATO-specified military hardware leading to the closure of its factories geared to the Russian market. The loss of Russian trade is already leading to mass unemployment, especially among skilled industrial workers in the East who may be forced to immigrate to Russia. Ballooning trade deficits and the erosion of state revenues will bring a total economic collapse. As a result of the Kiev junta’s submission to NATO, the Ukraine has lost billions of dollars in subsidized energy from Russia. High energy costs make Ukrainian industries non-competitive in global markets. In order to secure loans from the IMF and the EU, the junta has agreed to eliminate food and energy price subsidies, severely depressing household incomes and plunging pensioners into destitution. Bankruptcies are on the rise, as imports from the EU and elsewhere displace formerly protected local industries.

No new investments are flowing in because of the violence, instability and conflicts between neo-fascists and neo-liberals within he junta. Just to stabilize the day-to-day operations of government, the junta needs a no-interest $30 billion dollar handout – from its NATO patrons, an amount, which is not forthcoming now or in the immediate future.

It is clear that NATO ‘strategists’ who planned the putsch were only thinking about weakening Russia militarily and gave no thought to the political, economic, and social costs of sustaining a puppet regime in Kiev when Ukraine had been so dependent on Russian markets, loans, and subsidized energy. Moreover, they appear to have overlooked the political, industrial, and agricultural dynamics of the predictably hostile Eastern regions of the country. Alternately, Washington strategists may have based their calculations on instigating a Yugoslavia-style break-up accompanied by massive ethnic cleansing amidst population transfers and slaughter. Undeterred by the millions of civilian casualties, Washington considers its policy of dismantling Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya to have been great political-military successes.

Ukraine most certainly will enter a prolonged and deep depression, including a precipitous decline in its exports, employment, and output. Possibly, economic collapse will lead to nationwide protests and social unrest: spreading from East to West, from South to North. Social upheavals and mass misery may further undermine the morale of the Ukrainian armed forces. Even now, Kiev can barely afford to feed its soldiers and has to rely on neo-Fascist volunteer militias who may be hard to control. The US-EU are not likely to intervene directly with a Libya-style bombing campaign since they would face a prolonged war on Russia’s border at a time when public opinion in the US is suffering from imperial war exhaustion, and European business interests with links to Russian resource companies are resisting consequential sanctions.

The US-EU putsch has produced a failing regime and a society riven by violent conflicts – spinning into open ethnic violence. What, in fact, has ensued is a system of dual power with contenders cutting across regional boundaries. The Kiev junta lacks the coherence and stability to serve as a reliable NATO military link in the encirclement of Russia. On the contrary, US-EU sanctions, military threats and bellicose rhetoric are forcing Russians to quickly rethink their ‘openness’ to the West. The strategic threats to its national security are leading Russia to review its ties to Western banks and corporations. Russia may have to resort to a policy of expanded industrialization via public investments and import substitution. Russian oligarchs, having lost their overseas holdings, may become less central to Russian economic policy.

What is clear is that the power grab in Kiev will not result in a ‘knife pointed at the heartland of Russia’. The ultimate defeat and overthrow of the Kiev junta can lead to a radicalized self-governing Ukraine, based on the burgeoning democratic movements and rising working class consciousness. This will have to emerge from their struggle against IMF austerity programs and Western asset stripping of Ukraine’s resources and enterprises. The industrial workers of Ukraine who succeed in throwing off the yoke of the western vassals in Kiev have no intention of submitting themselves to the yoke of the Russian oligarchs. Their struggle is for a democratic state, capable of developing an independent economic policy, free of imperial military alliances.

Epilogue:

May Day 2014: Dual Popular Power in the East, Fascism Rising in the West

The predictable falling out between the neo-fascists and neo-liberal partners in the Kiev junta was evidenced by large-scale riots, between rival street gangs and police on May Day. The US-EU strategy envisioned using the neo-fascists as ‘shock troops’ and street fighters in overthrowing the elected regime of Yankovich and later discarding them. As exemplified by the notorious taped conversation between Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Kiev, the EU-US strategists promote their own handpicked neo-liberal proxies to represent foreign capital, impose austerity policies and sign treaties for foreign military bases. In contrast, the neo-fascist militias and parties would favor nationalist economic policies, retaining state enterprises and are likely to be hostile to oligarchs, especially those with ‘dual Israeli-Ukraine’ citizenship.

The Kiev junta’s inability to develop an economic strategy, its violent seizure of power and repression of pro-democracy dissidents in the East has led to a situation of ‘dual power’. In many cases, troops sent to repress the pro-democracy movements have abandoned their weapons, abandoned the Kiev junta and joined the self-governing movements in the East.

Apart from its outside backers-the White House, Brussels and IMF – the Kiev junta has been abandoned by its right-wing allies in Kiev for being too subservient to NATO and resisted by the pro-democracy movement in the East for being authoritarian and centralist. The Kiev junta has fallen between two chairs: it lacks legitimacy among most Ukrainians and has lost control of all but a small patch of land occupied by government offices in Kiev and even those are under siege by the neo-fascist right and increasingly from its own disenchanted former supporters.

Let us be absolutely clear, the struggle in the Ukraine is not between the US and Russia, it is between a NATO-imposed junta composed of neo-liberal oligarchs and fascists on one side and the industrial workers and their local militias and democratic councils on the other. The former defends and obeys the IMF and Washington; the latter relies on the productive capacity of local industry and rules by responding to the majority.

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow’s roadmap for Ukraine settlement sees mixed response

RT | May 8, 2014

Moscow’s call on pro-federalization protesters in Ukraine to postpone the referendums was welcomed by the West and Kiev, yet they still do not recognize the need to halt the military op in southeast as a prerequisite for national dialogue and elections.

Ukraine presidential hopeful Pyotr Poroshenko (UDAR Party) has welcomed President Vladimir Putin’s statements, saying that the situation significantly improved following the news from Moscow. “We have an appeal to stop an illegal referendum, Russia accepting presidential elections. I think this is great news for stabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine,” Poroshenko told reporters in Berlin.

On Wednesday, Putin called the presidential election in Ukraine, now scheduled for May 25, “a move in the right direction” adding however it would mean nothing unless all citizens of Ukraine have a full understanding of how their rights would be guaranteed afterwards.

The direct dialogue between Kiev and representatives of the southeastern regions is the “key element” of settling the conflict, Putin said, supported on this by the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter. In order to “create the necessary conditions for this dialogue,” Putin urged rescheduling of the referendum planned by anti-government protesters to determine the future of southeastern Ukraine.

However, for a dialogue to succeed, a ceasefire and halt of any violence should take place by all the military, paramilitary and illegal radical armed groups, Putin added. “Russia urgently appeals to the authorities in Kiev to cease immediately all military and punitive operations in southeast Ukraine,” he said.

Russia is not responsible for the deepening crisis in Ukraine, Putin reiterated, reciting concrete steps it made to de-escalate tensions.

“We have been told that our troops by the Ukrainian border are a concern – we have withdrawn them. They are now not near the border, but at locations where they conduct regular drills at ranges,” he said. “This can be easily verified using modern intelligence techniques, including from space, where everything can be seen.”

“We helped to secure the OSCE military observers’ release and I think also made a contribution to defusing the situation,” he added.

The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, noted on Wednesday evening that a “genuine national dialogue and the cessation of acts of violence and provocations are essential elements in advancing towards a political solution.”

“I take note of President Putin’s recent statements signalling a willingness to de-escalate the situation, including his call to refrain from holding a referendum in the Eastern part of Ukraine and the stated withdrawal of Russian troops from the borders of Ukraine,” Rompuy said.

The United States however claimed that, although being a step forward, is not enough and Russia should try harder to deescalate tensions in Ukraine.

“It is a helpful step but again there is far more the President Putin and the Russians can do to deescalate the situation and to ensure safe elections,” US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told journalists on Wednesday evening, without elaborating on which other moves she was expecting from Russia.

Shortly afterwords, Ukraine’s foreign ministry issued a statement welcoming the “important role of the OSCE in international efforts aimed at de-escalating the situation”, but adding that Moscow was covering up its “support of terrorist actions against Ukrainian citizens” behind a facade of “good will”.

“A full-scale national dialogue… is an absolute priority of the Government of Ukraine,” the ministry’s statement reads.“However, a dialogue with terrorists is impermissible and inconceivable. Protection of peoples’ lives and elimination of terrorism which undermines any possibility of the dialogue is the goal of the anti-terrorist operation being conducted in certain locations in the east of our country.”

The OSCE was ready to take responsibility for coordinating the “road-map” to resolve the crisis and negotiations with the US and the EU would be taking place soon, Burkhalter said earlier. But Ukraine’s FM stated that discussion of the peaceful settlement in Ukraine “without Ukraine” is “senseless and unacceptable.”

Representatives of the southeast in the meantime said they were ready for negotiations with Kiev and would on Thursday discuss possible rescheduling of the referendum.

But neither those in power in Kiev, nor the United States seem to be interested in accepting any kind of road-map that could bring about peaceful solution to the crisis, Lawrence Freeman of the Executive Intelligence Review magazine told RT.

“You have to keep in mind that the US State Department and in particular Victoria Nuland, who has been behind this coup since the end of last year, these are people who are actually running the show. And they want to force a confrontation. They’ve been lying about the entire situation since February 21-22… have not been telling the truth about who is actually responsible for the confrontations in Kiev and in Eastern Ukraine,” Freeman said.

The road-map proposed by President Putin and the OSCE chief, Freeman believes, is the best way of ”avoiding the confrontation” some would like to have with Russia.

“I think President Putin is actually strategically handling the situation quite well. Because he knows that there are people who would like to use this conflict to escalate to major war. So he is outmaneuvering the actual people behind this,” Freeman said.

If authorities in Kiev are really worried about Ukraine’s future as a country and its territorial integrity, Freeman says they have no other choice but stop their full-scale military operation against the population in the southeast.

“They have to, if they want to have a country,” he said. “They cannot allow neo-Nazis and right-wing fascists to run the country, to be part of security and military operation. If they want to be a country – they can’t do that.”

May 8, 2014 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment