ERIC ZUESSE |
06.01.2017 | WORLD | BUSINESS
SUMMARY
If the March 2014 annexation of Crimea
by Russia was based upon the overwhelming desire by
Crimeans that Crimea become again a part of Russia such as Crimea had
been until 1954, instead of upon Russia’s ‘conquest’ of Crimea such
as Obama has charged, then the economic sanctions that Obama
placed against Russia on the basis of that annexation is on
false ground, and has no authentic justification in law or in fact. Also, in
that case, NATO's subsequent military buildup against Russia,
purportedly to protect NATO against ‘another such conquest
by Russia’, would be based upon this same lie:
the lie that Crimea’s becoming again a part of Russia was
something other than a legitimate carrying-out of any people’s sovereign right,
of self-determination of peoples — a right that the West recognizes for
Catalonians in Spain, and for Scotch in UK, but not for Crimeans in Ukraine.
Consequently, essential to addressing this crucial matter is forthrightly to
address misrepresentations that are commonly asserted regarding it, and also to
address in a credible way what the motivations might be for any such commonly
asserted misrepresentations of this historically crucial matter. In other
words, an unusually frank discussion is necessary here, which does not mince
words where outright lies have been stated and become widespread in the West,
and which instead presents the facts that stand forth the most clearly upon the
basis of the evidence that is of the very highest reliability and credibility
concerning each respective point in question in the matter. The most reliable
evidence is presented here, and is consistently in favor of the Russian
position, and against The West's (the U.S. and its allies) position,
on this crucial, even mega-historical, issue.
INTRODUCTION
This question’s importance derives from its concerning the
validity, or not, of the rationale for the economic sanctionsagainst
Russia, and of the NATO military
buildup against Russia on Russia’s borders (which latter
buildup now threatens
World War III). Nothing is more important than this.
On the American/NATO side of this dispute, both
the sanctions and the military buildup against Russia have been
alleged to be justified responses to Russia’s ‘conquest’
of Crimea, from Ukraine. However, Russia contends that there was no
such ‘conquest’ of Crimea, and that Crimeans’ separation from Ukraine and
joining Russia was instead an entirely voluntary act by Crimeans
— a fulfillment by Crimeans of their fundamental right of self-determination of
peoples — and that it was precipitated by what Russia alleges to have
been a «coup» in Ukraine that overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian
President for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted, and so created a suddenly
intensified desire of Crimeans to break away from Ukraine, and to rejoin
with Russia, of which Crimea had been a part until Crimea was
involuntarily transferred from Russia to Ukraine by the Soviet
dictator Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. The Russian government claims
that Russia has protected the right of Crimeans to make this crucial
choice, and that Russia enabled Crimeans voluntarily to
rejoin Russia, after Crimeans had been forced to become part of Ukraine in
1954 — and, now, after the «coup» in Kiev, Crimeans intensely wanted to
rejoin Russia. Russia contends that The West, not Russia,
has been, and is, insisting upon dictatorship regarding the Crimean people, by
The West’s refusal to respect the right of self-determination of peoples, to
the Crimean population, whom Russia has protected and enabled in
March 2014 peacefully to exercise that inalienable right, which any people
possess the peaceful right to do.
No one can deny that the overthrow of Victor Yanukovych — the
democratically elected President of Ukraine, who had won 75% of
the votes of the people of Crimea — led directly
to the movement of the Crimean people to separate themselves from being ruled
by the newly installed, post-overthrow, Ukrainian government. Without the violent overthrowof
Yanukovych, there would have been no reason for Crimeans to have been in fear, as
they overwhelmingly were. But
the question remains of whether the separation of Crimea from Ukraine was a
legitimate act of self-determination of peoples, by the Crimeans, in response
to a coup (such as Russia contends to have been the case), or was it
instead a ‘seizure’ of Crimea by Russia — a
seizure against which The West legitimately retaliated
by economic sanctions, and now by sending arms (including nuclear
weapons) and troops to Russia’s very borders?
So, this question of whether or not the overthrow of Yanukovych was a
«coup» — an illegitimate takeover of the Ukrainian government — is absolutely
central to world history, at the present stage. If it was a coup, then all
of The West’s sanctions and arms-buildups against Russia are
on fraudulent ground and thus entirely illegitimate; but if it
was not a «coup», then at least an argument can be made by The West,
that The West’s response to Russia’s subsequent actions (especially The
West’s response to Russia’s accepting the broadly expressed will of the
Crimean public to quit Ukraine and rejoin Russia) isn’t disproportionate
to Russia’s actions — (even if Russia did what The West alleges, such as
‘seizing’ Crimea — if it can legitimately be called that).
What can it mean for Russia to be said to have «seized» Crimea?
No one questions that the overwhelming majority of Crimeans wanted to quit
Ukraine and join Russia after Yanukovych was overthrown — one Western
poll of Crimeans after Crimea had separated from Ukraine and
joined Russia showed that 82.8% of
Crimeans said «Agree», and only 6.7% (less than a tenth as many) said
«Disagree», to the statement «The results of the referendum
on Crimea’s status likely reflect the views of most people here», and another
Western poll after Crimeans had done it, confirmed that over 90% of
Crimeans supported the change. Did they not
have the right of self-determination of peoples, which even The West
recognizes in The West, such as for Catalonians in Spain, for Scotts in UK,
and for Quebecois in Canada? (Though Western-controlled bodies such as the OSCE
in post-coup Crimea, announced that condition #5 for automatic recognition,
which is «their parent
state shall flagrantly violate their human rights», had
not been met, overwhelming evidence existed to the contrary and was
blatantly ignored, even while the OSCE’s investigator acknowledged that «There is a real risk of bloodshed», and
much bloodshed had already
occurred but was simply being ignored by her. So, the
official statements on this matter were based upon who held real
power, not on application of authentically neutral and ethically founded
principles, and thus granted the post-overthrow, now Western-backed, Ukrainian
government everything they wanted. ‘The international community’ failed the
people of Crimea and made a farce out of ‘international law’ in this case —
especially if the overthrow of Yanukovych was a coup.)
The West and its international organs are enforcing the Soviet dictator
Nikita Khrushchev’s arbitrary 1954 transfer of Crimea to Ukraine, and are
utterly denying the residents of Crimea their sovereign right of
self-determination, even denying their right to reverse that dictator’s
arbitrary action, which was taken 60 years prior to Crimea’s 2014
Russian-reunification referendum. The West has now taken on the dictatorial
role (denying Crimeans the right of self-determination), which The West had claimed
to have opposed in principle during the Cold War.
As Himanil Raina said in
regard to the authority of the post-overthrow Ukrainian government, in the case
of Crimea: «A greater problem however relates to the legitimacy of the
Ukrainian government itself given the Russian position that the government came
to power by means of a coup d’état», and, «Ultimately, regardless of the West’s
assertions on any other point, the fact is that Yanukovych was elected to power
via elections declared fair by Western monitors themselves. As Kym
Bergman has commented, baying mobs no matter what their size present no
justification to remove a constitutionally elected President from power». Raina
wasn’t alleging that the overthrow of Yanukovych necessarily was a «coup», but
instead that even if it was a democratic revolution, the
government it produced was illegitimate and thus possessed no authentic status
of national government under the Ukrainian Constitution, for it to cite that
Constitution against Crimeans’ intrinsic right of self-determination.
Only fools don’t care about getting to the truth here, because the truth
here answers the question of whether the violator of international law in our
time, and the source of the present
buildup toward World War III, is Russia,
by accepting the overwhelming desire of the Crimean people to separate from
Ukraine and to rejoin with Russia, or whether the violator is instead The
West, by the West’s now sanctioning Russia and militarily threatening
to invade Russia on account of Russia’s having accepted the will
of the Crimean people to rejoin with Russia.
This question of whether the separation of Crimea from Ukraine was in
response to a coup in Ukraine, is thus the central question in our era
of history: the question of whether the source of blame for bringing
the world to its current brink of nuclear war is partly Russia’s and is
partly The West’s (for The West’s overreacting to Russia’s illegitimate
seizure of Crimea); or whether it’s instead entirely The West’s fault
(for The West’s having, to begin with, illegitimately seized Ukraine by a
U.S. coup, and then fraudulently charged and sanctioned and
threatened Russia as having ‘seized’ Crimea).
STRATFOR’S POSITION ON THIS
On 20 December
2014, I reported that in a Russian business publication
published in the Russian language the day before, the head of the «private CIA»
firm Stratfor, George Friedman, was quoted as telling that publication in an
interview, that the overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych in
February of that year had been «the most
blatant coup in history».
Subsequently (on 17 January 2015), that complete interview was translated
into English, where the entire context of his statement on this
important matter can be seen and evaluated.
Perhaps because Mr. Friedman’s firm relies heavily upon, and cooperates
with, the U.S. CIA, he publicly renounced the publication of his statement on
this matter, when he headlined on 21 April 2016 at the website of the convicted
Wall Street fraudster Henry Blodget, Business Insider, «George Friedman: Russia
is winning the internet», and Friedman
portrayed «the Russians» there as master deceivers, and mentioned in this
regard, as if it were being said only in passing:
I was a minor player in one such event last year. On a visit
to Russia, I told the business journal Kommersant that if
the US were behind a coup in Kiev, it would have been the
most blatant coup in history, as the US government openly
supported the uprising and had provided some funding for
the demonstrating groups.
In other words, it was no coup. The Russian news service
Sputnik published what I said, cutting out a few odds and ends, and
quoted me as saying that Ukraine «was the most blatant coup in
history». The neat part is that they didn’t make it up. I did say it.
They just left out the words before and after the statement. Since I
was of no importance in the United States, they had to promote me as
someone significant, which on the whole was nice of them.
(If you have absolutely nothing to do someday, check the internet
and Twitter, and you will find me saying the United States staged the
most blatant coup in history.)
Most Russians and most Americans didn’t notice this turn of events.
But in a systematic campaign to saturate the internet, the Russians
fed the quote back into some major Russian print publications, then
back onto the internet, until it resonated and fed back on itself.
Multiply this twisting of my statement several thousand
times with the abuse of statements or near statements from other
people, and the echo effect can reach a saturation point where the
Russian narrative on what happened in Kiev becomes widely accepted.
* * *
So: who is falsifying here? Is it «the Russians»? Or is it George
Friedman (now saying «it was no coup»)?
Let’s go back to the entire passage in which he had said that
the overthrow of Yanukovych was «the most blatant coup in history», as it had been
translated on 17 January 2015 (so that we
can see the complete context there):
At the beginning of this year there existed in Ukraine a slightly
pro-Russian though very shaky government. That situation was fine for
Moscow: after all, Russia did not want to
completely control Ukraine or occupy it; it was enough that Ukraine
not join NATO and the EU. Russian authorities cannot tolerate a situation
in which western armed forces are located a hundred or so kilometers
from Kursk or Voronezh.
The United States, for its part, were interested in forming a
pro-Western government in Ukraine. They saw that Russia is on
the rise, and were eager not to let it consolidate its position in
the post-Soviet space. The success of the pro-Western forces in Ukraine
would allow the U.S. to contain Russia.
Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of
this year a coup d'etat organized by the United States. And it
truly was the most blatant coup in history.
KOMMERSANT: You mean the termination of the agreement of February
21, or the entire Maidan?
GEORGE FRIEDMAN: The whole thing. After all, the United States
openly supported human rights groups in Ukraine, including
financially. Meanwhile, Russia's special services
completely missed these trends. They didn't understand what was
taking place, but when they did realize what was going on they were unable
to take action to stabilize the situation, and then they misjudged
the mood in East Ukraine.
KOMMERSANT: In other words, the Ukrainian crisis is the result of
the confrontation between Russia and the United States?
GEORGE FRIEDMAN: Here you have two countries: one wants a Ukraine
that is neutral. The other wants Ukraine to form part of a line
of containment against Russian expansion. One cannot say
that one party is mistaken: both are acting based on their
national interests. It's just that these interests don't jive.
* * *
The article by Friedman denying that he had actually meant that the
overthrow of Yanukovych was «the most blatant coup in history», and that really
«it was no coup», was subsequently cited by readers at reddit, in order to (so
they thought) ‘disconfirm’ a news report that I had just published on 7 June
2016, which was headlined «Germany
Preparing For War Against Russia». That article
was criticized at
reddit for two reasons. One was that the website which
had published it, rinf.com, is
little-known and is therefore «an
'alternative news' source. it might be an alternative to reality». In
other words: it was criticized because the website that published it wasn’t
part of the newsmedia that are big enough so that the people who control the
U.S. newsmedia buy it out or else put it out of existence altogether. But, in
any case, the attack was ad-hominem, and therefore irrelevant.
Then appeared there the second reason, in this response at reddit:
[–] rikudemyx
It's not true.
First off, notice that the article calls the Ukrainian Revolution a
coup. More several times, the article delves into a full digression
that just repeats it.
Second, the author has written several absurd articles, I suggest
you look him up.
Third, the website itself. It declares itself as an
"alternative" news source. Never a good sign. Further, they
have written articles about 9/11 being an inside job, and Sandy Hook
being a false flag. That's never a good sign.
Fourth, let's take a look at their source, shall we. Deutsche
Wirtschafts Nachrichten (AWikipedia#DeutscheWirtschafts_Nachrichten) about
them shows that it is considered to be a conspiracy website.
All in all, no, it's not trustworthy.
* * *
The assumption there that I agree with everything at that site, or even
that all of the articles and authors there are relevant to the article of mine
that was posted there, was obviously false.
I tracked the sources cited against Deutsche Wirtschafts
Nachrichten, in that Wikipedia article (which
was the only source cited by the commenter, and which source was indeed a
prominent one in my article that this person was attacking), and found no
indication that anything against DWN was noted there beyond the
ordinary types of post-publication editorial corrections which are made by all
serious newsmedia, including by extremely famous ones. Consequently, the
reader-comments at reddit were disbelieving on false grounds, and were
believing on false grounds. The readers were evidently so determined to
rationalize their existing beliefs, as to be critical against whatever
disconfirms them, and to accept, on shoddy (if any) grounds, whatever they can
find that they think somehow discredits the allegations that are contrary to
their existing beliefs (basically rationalizing, on an ad-hominem level, against an ad-rem argument,
which they find personally unpalatable to believe).
Any reader of the present article can make up his or her own mind on the
matter at hand, simply by clicking onto the links that are being here provided.
Before proceeding directly onto the broader issue of the evidence that
the overthrow of Yanukovych was a coup (which central issue any reader here is
now invited to skip directly down to, if so choosing), it might be
worth pointing out in the present context, that the readership at
reddit tends to be rabidly predisposed to detest Russia. Here is
just one other contemporaneous example of that evidence of the success of
this heavy indoctrination
by the American ‘news’ media displayed at
reddit, so as to make clear the widespread prejudice (perhaps due to Western
‘news’ reporting) that exists on this serious matter:
* * *
On 20 May 2016, a «u/Met5anvartija» posted at reddit.com a Reutersheadline «Russia proposes
joint airstrikes on Syria rebels with U.S.-led coalition» (with
no functioning link to the Reuters news report, which is at many sites, such
as here), and
many readers at reddit (there were 90 comments posted there as of the present
writing) insisted that Russia supports (Al Qaeda in Syria) Al Nusra, and
that (quoting here «inevitablelizard»), «America does not actively or
deliberately send supplies to jihadist groups like Nusra». The gist of the
comments was that the U.S. is anti-jihadist and that therefore the Russian
proposal «Will never work. The ‘rebels' Russia wants to bombs
aren't the same 'rebels' America wants to bomb»; to which another commenter
replied, «Depends. America gladly bombs Al-Nasura [sic], an Al-Queda
affiliated group». Basically, the attitude of the majority was
that Russia’s government isn’t fighting against »Al-Nusara», but
America’s government is. The facts are exactly contrary to that assumption.
Earlier similar examples of reader-comments at reddit were posted responding to
an article «Americans
Accept Saudi Royals as Friends of America», which had
indicated that both the Sauds and the U.S. have been backing Al Nusra and other
jihadist groups in Syria. So, both ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ of America are being
identified by the American public on the basis of what the owners of the media
present to Americans as constituting such. Americans evidently trust ‘their’
media (even if they overwhelmingly
say they don’t). This trust is displayed at reddit, and this
unfortunate reality explains the criticism that reddit’s readers commonly
direct against articles which violate the basic assumptions of
America’s newsmedia.
THE BROADER ISSUE
Beyond that narrow issue of what Mr. Friedman (a widely respected
expert) had to say on this subject, of whether or not it was a «coup», the
evidence is overwhelming, and is as conclusive as any can be in important
historical questions such as this (important especially because its outcome
might become a nuclear World War III), that the overthrow of Yanukovych was,
indeed, a «coup», and that the breakaway of Crimea from Ukraine was a direct
consequence of the coup.
Extensive video
documentation exists demonstrating that it was a coup, and
even demonstrating that the ObamaAdministration had selected Ukraine’s post-coup leader
22 days prior to his being formally appointed by the Ukrainian parliament.
Furthermore, the only
detailed scholarly study of the evidence that has been performed came
to the same conclusion — that it was a coup no ‘revolution’. The last month
before the coup, was incredibly violent, with Obama’s hired fascists
attacking the government’s securitly forces brutally: Here in videos taken of
the events is some of the bloodshed from the prior month, on January 21st, then January 22nd, then January 25th. Those
are well-trained thugs terrifying the police — which is exactly the opposite of
the way those events were described by U.S. officials and their press.
Moreover, immediately after the overthrow, when the EU sent its own
investigator into Kiev to report back on how the overthrow had taken
place, he too
reported that it had been a coup. Subsequently
revealed was that the ObamaAdministration had started
preparing the coup inside the U.S. Embassy in Kiev by no later than 1 March
2013 — almost a year prior to the coup.
Also, the even earlier preparation for the coup, extending through
decades, on the part of CIA-affiliated ‘nonprofit’ or NGO organizations (funded
by Western aristocrats and their corporations), laying the groundwork for this
coup, has been brilliantly documented at
some online sites. And
the Obama Administration’s careful planning of the coup existed even as early
as 2011. None of this information has been widely published —
it’s virtually not at all published in The West. Though the potential audience
for it might be vast (especially since Western publics pay much of the tab for
this operation and yet receive none of the benefits from the resultant looting
of Ukraine, which goes all to aristocrats in the U.S. and allied
aristocracies), the market in The West for reporting it, is virtually nil,
because the market is The West’s news media, and they’ve all (except
for a few small ones like this) been taken over by the aristocracy, and serve
the aristocracy — not the public (their audiences, whom they’re in
business to deceive in the ways that the aristocracy wants). The aristocracy’s
companies advertise in, and thereby fund, most of those ‘news’ media, and the
aristocracy’s governments («oligarchies») fund
the rest — and the public pays for that, too, not just by being manipulated to
vote for the aristocracy’s (or ‘oligarchy’s’) politicians, but by being taxed
to pay what the NGOs and their aristocrats don’t (so that the public are buying
the weapons etc.). It’s a vast money-funnel, from the many, to the few, with
the ‘news’ media being an essential art of it.
Though the transfer of Crimea from Ukraine to Russia is
treated by Western ‘news’ media as having been a ‘conquest’ by Russia,
and as being Russia’s ‘seizure’ of
Crimea, and Russia’s ‘stealing’ Crimea, nothing of the
sort is true (and Crimeans had good
reason to be terrified of the Obama-coup regime
that had just been installed, from
which Russiasaved Crimeans), but the lie needs
to be promulgated in
the West, in order for the aristocracy’s invasion
of Russia to be able to be organized and carried out (if they’ll go
all the way in this).
In addition, there was also the far eastern, Donbass, region of Ukraine,
which also refused to accept the coup that overthrew Yanukovych, and which
likewise separated itself from Ukraine after the coup. Donbass had
voted 90 % for Yanukovych — even higher than did Crimea.
Barack Obama and his followers blamed Russia for
supposedly trying to ‘seize’ Donbass too. However, on 17
September 2014, a leader of Donbass announced «We will build our own
country» because Putin had made clear to Donbass’s leaders that he wasn’t going
to allow Donbass to become a part of Russiaas he had done in the case of
Crimea. Then, on Monday 6 April 2015, the Moscow Times bannered «Putin Refused
Poroshenko’s Offer to ‘Take Donbass’ — Forbes», and
reported that «President Vladimir Putin in February turned down an offer from
his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to ‘take the Donbass’ — the
area in the country's east that is currently partly controlled by
pro-Russian insurgents — and asked Poroshenko whether he was ‘out of his
mind,’Forbes magazine reported Monday»
That day, Forbes had headlined (with perhaps
intentional obscurantism so as not to attract attention to, or make waves
about, this matter), «Donbass Russia:
Putin talked about the unexpected assertion by Poroshenko», and
reported that «at a closed meeting with the Board» of a Russian business
association, «one of the participants at the meeting, who requested
confidentiality, confirmed to Forbes, that Putin had told the businessmen
of an unexpected proposal from Poroshenko to take Donbass and his
refusal to do that. ‘Poroshenko offered Russia to take the
Donbass and provide its financial support’ [said the source].» The confusingly
written news story provided half-baked explanations as to why Putin said no,
and then concluded by quoting one ‘expert’ who said that, «The offer from
Poroshenko that Russia ’take Donbass' does not look believable —
perhaps the phrase was uttered as a joke.» That was no ‘expert’: he
evidently didn’t even know about Putin’s having earlier told Donbass leaders
that Russia wasn’t going to accept Donbass into Russia. So: the
Western accusations that Russia wants to ‘grab’ Donbass are also lies
(Putin wants to help the residents there as much as possible short of adopting
the burden of restoring that region, which Obama’s people — his Ukrainian
forces — have bombed and destroyed to hell).
Finally, in regards to the legitimacy-or-not of the overthrow of
Yanukovych, all of the arguments that have been put forth by
the Obama Administration and its Ukrainian regime (and the rest of
The West), arguing that the overthrow of Yanukovych was legitimate, were
decisively disproven by an extraordinarily honest and thorough — and starkly clear
— anonymous web-posting, «Yanukovych’s
Removal Was Unconstitutional», wherein the
Ukrainian Constitution’s provisions for the «ways in which a president can be
removed from power» were contrasted with the steps that actually were taken by
Ukraine’s parliament in order to remove Yanukovych, and it showed that,
definitely and incontestably, Yanukovych was not Constitutionally removed from
power. The successor government — including all its actions and assertions that
were made against both Crimea and Donbass — were illegal, even under
Ukrainian law. The West hasn’t got a legal leg to stand on in this entire
matter, but has instead trumped that by its sheer and raw coercive power, in a
global world order that is thereby exposed as being lawless in the most
profound sense: truly a law-of-the-jungle world-order.
In any case, The West is continuing to accuse Russia of
attempting to ‘seize’ Donbass, after Russia had allegedly ‘seized’
Crimea — and a global
nuclear war could ultimately result from these Western lies. But
the master-lie is The West’s Big Lie, that
the overthrow of Yanukovych «was no coup».
The aggressor is clearly The
West, not Russia. And
that is where the danger comes
from. And, on a deep level, despite The West’s
propaganda, this fact is even widely recognized
around the world even before Obama’s outright coup in
Ukraine.
If there were any international justice,
the economic sanctions would be against the U.S. and
its vassal-aristocracies such as the EU, and Russia would be
prosecuting those aristocrats in the International Court of Justice, and suing
the governments that they control.
The biggest challenge for incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be
whether he will carry on this putrid international policy of its founder, his
1990 predecessor, President George Herbert Walker Bush, and all of Bush’s successors
up till the present, or else, finally, end the Cold War on the Western side,
just as it was ended on the Eastern side in 1991 by the dissolution of the
East’s military alliance the Warsaw Pact: by ending NATO. He would have
available to assist him in that heroic action only the warning by an even
earlier U.S. President, Dwight Eisenhower, who fatally warned on 17 January
1960:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced
power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties
or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
After 24 February 1990, all U.S. Presidents since have flouted that
warning and done exactly 100% the opposite: the will of America’s aristocrats,
not really of any democracy at all. And Obama’s coup in Ukraine in
February 2014 and subsequent abuse of not only Ukrainians but also of Russians
(not to say more), is an even more dangerous culmination of that flouting, than
was George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. No penalty is too high for such
persistent utter betrayal and lying.
No comments:
Post a Comment