Paul Craig Roberts

Who’s in charge? Certainly not the bought-and-paid-for-moderates that Washington and the EU hoped to install as the new government of Ukraine.

The agreement that the Washington and EU supported opposition concluded with President Yanukovich to end the crisis did not last an hour. Even the former boxing champion, Vitaly Klitschko, who was riding high as an opposition leader until a few hours ago has been booed by the rioters and shoved aside. The newly appointed president by what is perhaps an irrelevant parliament, Oleksandr Turchynov, has no support base among those who overthrew the government. As the BBC reports, “like all of the mainstream opposition politicians, Mr. Turchynov is not entirely trusted or respected by the protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square.”

In western Ukraine the only organized and armed force is the ultra-nationalist Right Sector. From the way this group’s leaders speak, they assume that they are in charge. One of the group’s leaders, Aleksandr Muzychko, has pledged to fight against “Jews and Russians until I die.” Asserting the Right Sector’s authority over the situation, Muzychko declared that now that the democratically elected government has been overthrown, “there will be order and discipline” or “Right Sector squads will shoot the bastards on the spot.” - The bastards are any protesters who dare to protest the Right Sector’s control. Muzychko declared, “The next president of Ukraine will be from Right Sector.”

Another Right Sector leader, Dmitry Yarosh, declared: “the Right Sector will not lay down its arms.” He declared the deal made between the opposition and the President to be “unacceptable” and demanded the liquidation of President Yanukovich’s political party.

The Right Sector’s roots go back to the Ukrainians who fought for Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union during World War 2. It was the Right Sector that introduced armed fighters and turned the tide of the protests in Kiev from peaceful protests in favor of joining the EU to violent attacks on police with the view of overthrowing the democratically elected government, which the Right Sector succeeded in doing.

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Xymphora

I've mentioned here before that the 'progressive' American way of regime change - as we've seen in Serbia, Libya, and planned again for Syria - is massive carpet bombing of civilians until the legitimate leader of the country is forced to withdraw simply in order to put an end to the slaughter (of course, the bombing so destabilizes the country that the violence continues for years and years after the 'progressive' genocide stops).

Sometimes, massive carpet bombing campaigns are not an option, and the new development, as we've seen in Ukraine, is hiring mercenary thugs to attack the institutions of government with extreme violence until the legitimate government has to back down rather than kill more civilians in the crossfire of defending itself.

You'll no doubt have noted that Americans of all political stripes are beside themselves with joy at the outcome of completely wrecking all legitimate institutions of government, and any hope for any real democracy in the foreseeable future, in Ukraine. Having armed thugs take over the legislature by violence is the most 'progressive' thing any American can imagine. Many Europeans who also support this might want to consider that the same procedure can, and no doubt will, be used against other countries who get out of line with American geopolitical plans. Moral and decent Ukrainians could do nothing but watch in horror as their country was being destroyed.

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Paul Craig Roberts

On the 100th Anniversary of World War 1, the Western powers are again sleepwalking into destructive conflict. Hegemonic ambition has Washington interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine, but developments seem to be moving beyond Washington’s control.

Regime change in Ukraine for a mere $5 billion dollars would be a bargain compared to the massive sums squandered in Iraq ($3,000 billion), Afghanistan ($3,000 billion), Somalia, and Libya, or the money Washington is wasting murdering people with drones in Pakistan and Yemen, or the money Washington has spent supporting al Qaeda in Syria, or the massive sums Washington has wasted surrounding Iran with 40 military bases and several fleets in the Persian Gulf in an effort to terrorize Iran into submission.

So far, in Washington’s attempt at regime change in Ukraine large numbers of Americans are not being killed and maimed. Only Ukrainians are dying, all the better for Washington as the deaths are blamed on the Ukrainian government that the US has targeted for overthrow.

The problem with Washington’s plot to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and install its minions is twofold: The chosen US puppets have lost control of the protests to armed radical elements with historical links to nazism, and Russia regards an EU/NATO takeover of Ukraine as a strategic threat to Russian independence.

Washington overlooked that the financially viable part of today’s Ukraine consists of historical Russian provinces in the east and south that the Soviet leadership merged into Ukraine in order to dilute the fascist elements in western Ukraine that fought for Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union. It is these ultra-nationalist elements with nazi roots, not Washington’s chosen puppets, who are now in charge of the armed rebellion in Western Ukraine.

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