James Petras

The NATO proxy war in the Ukraine started with the violent US-EU-sponsored overthrow of the elected government via a mob putsch in February 2014. This was well financed at $5 billion, according to President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland.

The result was a junta, composed of neo-liberal puppets, rightist nationalists and fascists, which immediately proceeded to purge the Ukrainian legislature of any politicians opposed to the coup and Kiev’s submission to the European Union and NATO. The NATO-sponsored client regime then moved swiftly to extend its control by centralizing power and overturning the official policy of bilingualism (Russian and Ukrainian) in the southeastern regions. It was preparing to break its long-standing agreement over the huge Russian naval base in Crimea and renege on its massive debts to Russia for gas and oil imports.

These extremist measures by a violent coup regime amounted to a radical break with existing economic, cultural and political institutions and, naturally, provoked a robust response from large sectors of the population. The overwhelmingly Russian speaking majority in Crimea convoked a referendum with 90% voter participation: 89% voted to secede and rejoin Russia. The ethnic Russian and bilingual, industrialized southeast regions of Ukraine organized their own referenda, formed popular militias and prepared for an armed response from what they viewed as an illegal junta in Kiev. Threatened by the new measures against their language and traditional and economic ties with Russia, the resistance drew its fighters from the vast reservoir of skilled industrial workers, miners and local business people who understood that they would lose thousands of jobs and access to the Russian markets as well as cultural and family links under the boot of the EU-NATO puppet in Kiev.

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William Blum

Ever since serious protest broke out in Ukraine in February the Western mainstream media, particularly in the United States, has seriously downplayed the fact that the usual suspects – the US/European Union/NATO triumvirate – have been on the same side as the neo-Nazis. In the US it’s been virtually unmentionable. I’m sure that a poll taken in the United States on this issue would reveal near universal ignorance of the numerous neo-Nazi actions, including publicly calling for death to “Russians, Communists and Jews”. But in the past week the dirty little secret has somehow poked its head out from behind the curtain a bit.

On September 9 NBCnews.com reported that “German TV shows Nazi symbols on helmets of Ukraine soldiers”. The German station showed pictures of a soldier wearing a combat helmet with the “SS runes” of Hitler’s infamous black-uniformed elite corps. (Runes are the letters of an alphabet used by ancient Germanic peoples.) A second soldier was shown with a swastika on his helmet. [1]

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Peter Symonds

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey set the stage for a massive and protracted expansion of US military operations in Iraq and Syria.

“This will require a sustained effort over an extended period of time. It is a generational problem,” Dempsey told the committee.

In his opening testimony, Dempsey contradicted President Obama’s pledge last week that there would be no American troops engaged in combat in Iraq or Syria. “To be clear,” he stated, “if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] targets, I will recommend that to the president.”

Obama has already authorised the deployment of 1,600 American military personnel in Iraq, including the placement of US troops with Kurdish peshmerga militia and Iraqi army forces fighting ISIL, more commonly known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Speaking on behalf of the US military hierarchy, Dempsey made clear that such advisers could not be confined to headquarters, but would be needed to provide “close combat advising” in complex operations such as dislodging ISIS from urban areas like Mosul.

In remarks bordering on insubordination, Dempsey implicitly criticised Obama when he explained that the president had already turned down the recommendation of Central Command chief, General Lloyd Austin, to deploy American troops as spotters to call in air strikes during last month’s offensive to retake the Mosul Dam from ISIS. Dempsey’s public disagreement points to tensions with the White House and the degree to which the military and intelligence apparatus are calling the shots in the new US-led war in the Middle East. The real purpose of the military intervention, a revival of plans shelved last year, is the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This will necessarily require a far greater American military commitment than currently acknowledged.

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Stephen Lendman

It's longstanding Israeli policy. Palestinians aren't wanted. Israel considers them subhuman. It wants them eliminated. It wants Jewish exclusivity. It wants maximum Jews and minimum Arabs. Israel's entire history is blood-drenched. Depravity defines it. It's longstanding genocidal war on Palestine reflects it. In 1985, then Israeli president Chaim Herzog said:

"We are certainly not willing to make partners of the Palestinians in any way in a land that was holy to our people for thousands of years. There can be no partner with the Jews of this land."

Former Israeli military leader Moshe Dayan urged treating Palestinians like dogs.

They're denied fundamental human and civil rights. Israel spurns peace and stability. Militarized occupation harshness persists. Rule of law principles don't matter. War without mercy is waged preemptively whenever Israel wishes. Victims are blamed for its crimes.

Imagine living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Imagine being denied self-determination. Imagine having no control over your daily life. Imagine living in constant fear. Imagine being economically strangled. Imagine being collectively punished. Imagine being denied free expression and movement. Imagine Gaza's suffocating blockade. Imagine isolated West Bank population centers. Imagine closed borders, curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls. Imagine daily Kristallnacht in Palestine. Imagine hellish state terror. Imagine normal life denied. Imagine torture as official Israeli policy. Imagine mass arrests and imprisonments. Imagine thousands of Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israel's gulag. Imagine their brutal treatment. Imagine it for wanting to live free on their own land in their own country. Imagine land and resource theft, targeted assassinations, and diaspora Palestinians prevented from returning to land rightfully theirs. Imagine Israeli security forces given authority to kill, brutalize, and otherwise collectively punish Palestinians with impunity. Imagine them taking full advantage. Imagine them being promoted, decorated or otherwise honored for cold-blooded murder and brutality. Imagine justice denied. Imagine Western leaders supporting Israeli genocide.

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The Saker

Yesterday, I watched with interest a talkshow called "The Right to Know" which featured an hour long interview with Sergei Lavrov (those who understand Russian can watch it here). It was an interesting exchange between Lavrov and five Russian reporters. It was not important enough to warrant translating it all into English, but I want to share with you something which I had noticed in the past but which was powerfully expressed during this conversation.

Predictably, the topics included the civil war in the Ukraine, the status of the investigation about the shooting down of MH17, sanctions against Russia, the expansion of NATO, the negotiations in Minsk and Russia's engagement with the BRICS countries.

All all these topics, the Q&A had a similar format. One of the reporters asked Lavrov to comment on what appeared to be a dead-end situation and Lavrov confirmed saying "we tried our best, but to our great regret, that had no effect". What was so interesting is that while the reporters were expressing bafflement that things had gone so far, Lavrov's reaction was "yes, you are right, this is truly hopeless". The overall effect was one of a PTA meeting discussing some hopelessly stupid and incapable student. Except the "student" in this case was the entire West.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The real danger to Russia is a continuation of its low-key, moderate response to the sanctions.

The new sanctions against Russia announced by Washington and Europe do not make sense as merely economic measures. I would be surprised if Russian oil and military industries were dependent on European capital markets in a meaningful way. Such a dependence would indicate a failure in Russian strategic thinking. The Russian companies should be able to secure adequate financing from Russian Banks or from the Russian government. If foreign loans are needed, Russia can borrow from China.

If critical Russian industries are dependent on European capital markets, the sanctions will help Russia by forcing an end to this debilitating dependence. Russia should not be dependent on the West in any way.

The real question is the purpose of the sanctions. My conclusion is that the purpose of the sanctions is to break up and undermine Europe’s economic and political relations with Russia. When international relations are intentionally undermined, war can be the result. Washington will continue to push sanctions against Russia until Russia shows Europe that there is a heavy cost of serving as Washington’s tool.

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Margaret Kimberley

The United States and NATO attack on the Russian Federation has failed. The Ukrainians who refused to accept the legitimacy of the West’s puppet government emerged victorious on the battlefield. If there is any doubt on that point, Ukraine’s decision to sign the Minsk Protocol cease fire agreement is proof. President Poroshenko seemed like a man in the cat bird seat when western nations chose sides in a civil war and kicked out his predecessor. The road to hell was paved with very bad intentions.

One wouldn’t know it from reading and viewing the corporate media, but the western gambit has been disastrous. More than 1 million people have been displaced (most fled to Russia), the economies of many countries have been damaged by sanctions, and atrocities such as the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 would have been avoided if there had been any grown ups at work in the western capitals.

The talking heads should be telling us about the failing effort to prop up the empire, but instead they parrot the words of the losing side. After destroying Libya and killing president Gaddafi the evil empire concluded that they had found a winning formula.

Fortunately for humankind, Bashir al Assad hangs on in Syria and all that NATO has to show for its misadventures is ISIS, which grows stronger by the day, beheads American journalists on video, and attacks the legitimacy of Saudi Arabia and the other gulf monarchies who worked hand in hand on the imperial project.

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John W. Whitehead

“Police are specialists in violence. They are armed, trained, and authorized to use force. With varying degrees of subtlety, this colors their every action. Like the possibility of arrest, the threat of violence is implicit in every police encounter. Violence, as well as the law, is what they represent.” — Kristian Williams, activist and author

If you don’t want to get probed, poked, pinched, tasered, tackled, searched, seized, stripped, manhandled, arrested, shot, or killed, don’t say, do or even suggest anything that even hints of noncompliance. This is the new “thin blue line” over which you must not cross in interactions with police if you want to walk away with your life and freedoms intact.

The following incidents and many more like them serve as chilling reminders that in the American police state, “we the people” are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

For example, police arrested Chaumtoli Huq because she failed to promptly comply when ordered to “move along” while waiting outside a Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant for her children, who were inside with their father, using the bathroom. NYPD officers grabbed Huq, a lawyer with the New York City Public Advocate’s office, flipped her around, pressed her against a wall, handcuffed her, searched her purse, arrested her, and told her to “shut up” when she cried out for help, before detaining her for nine hours. Huq was charged with obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

Oregon resident Fred Marlow was jailed and charged with interfering and resisting arrest after he filmed a SWAT team raid that took place across the street from his apartment and uploaded the footage to the internet. The footage shows police officers threatening Marlow, who was awoken by the sounds of “multiple bombs blasting and glass breaking” and ran outside to investigate only to be threatened with arrest if he didn’t follow orders & return inside.

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Stephen Lendman

Amnesty International (AI) is an imperial tool. It fronts for power, wealth and privilege. It receives generous corporate foundation donations. According to Francis Boyle:

Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money. Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf battles. And then finally, human rights, genuine human rights concerns.

To be sure, if you are dealing with a human rights situation in a country that is at odds with the United States or Britain, it gets an awful lot of attention, resources, man and woman power, publicity, you name it. They can throw whatever they want at that.

But if it's dealing with violations of human rights by the United States, Britain, Israel, then it's like pulling teeth to get them to really do something on the situation. They might, very reluctantly and after an enormous amount of internal fightings and battles and pressures, you name it. But you know, it's not like the official enemies list.

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Barry Grey

It will become increasingly clear that the central aim of the new war launched by the Obama administration is the overthrow of the pro-Iranian, pro-Russian regime in Syria and installation of a US puppet government. The campaign against ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) is camouflage for a decision to implement the war against Damascus that was called off last September and, at the same time, consolidate American control of Iraq.

ISIS, a creation of US imperialist intervention in Iraq, Libya and Syria, has provided a new pretext for US aggression in the Middle East. The coalition of states being organized by Washington is directed against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and its ally Iran—a fact underscored by the declaration on Friday by Secretary of State John Kerry that the US would seek to exclude both Iran and Syria from diplomatic talks scheduled in Paris on Monday.

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Les Visible

Today is here and today is the 13th anniversary of Israel's 9/11 attack on the United States. If it happened in 2001 and this is 2014, it would be 13 anniversaries, correct? Ah... the number 13. Today we celebrate many things. We celebrate the incredible corruption of the American government, following 9/11. It was bad before that but it got much, much worse. We celebrate the transparent and obvious fact that Israel controls American foreign and domestic policy, via their control of the money supply and control of the fluctuations of that money supply, in order to control the state of the culture and the basic elements of life. Today we celebrate the transition of a domestic police force that has been turned into a military force, designed and developed by agents of Israel, in order to strike fear into the hearts of the populace and to both control and frustrate the movement of ordinary people no matter what direction they may seek to travel in.

Today we celebrate the incredible and mind blowing ignorance of the American public, not only their ignorance but also their cowardice and arrogant sense of entitlement. We celebrate the many wars generated by the dual national Israeli neo-cons who used the lies woven around 9/11 in order to justify attacking one country after another in the Middle East to fulfil their Ersatz Israel Zionista fantasies. Millions have died and millions more displaced. There was no reason for these wars because these wars all came out of a ridiculous presumption that a handful of stone age Arabs had masterminded this colossal event, when, in fact, it was masterminded and carried out by agents of Israel and compromised and corrupt intelligence agencies.

Today we celebrate denial and we celebrate indifference. We celebrate the dumb gentile who sends his children to die in Israeli engineered wars and who also expose (as military combatants) them to the performance of cold blooded murder against various peoples who had nothing to do with this attack and no connection to any terror organizations. The only terror organizations killing and torturing and operating with impunity around the world are Israeli constructs and are funded by the governments of the west.

Today we celebrate the reassuring knowledge that the same people who did 9/11 are also planning yet another enormous terror action against some unsuspecting part of America and possibly also other locations in the west.

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Stephen Lendman

He did so in flagrant violation of international law. It's not the first time. It won't be the last. It is longstanding US policy. All US wars are lawless.

They violate the Constitution's Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2). It states all US laws and treaties "shall be the supreme law of the land…"

International law is clear and unequivocal. No nation may attack another except in self-defense. None may do so without Security Council authorization. None exists. Expect none forthcoming.

UN Charter Article 2(7) states:

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter.

Under no circumstances may one nation, or combination thereof, intervene against another without Security Council authorization: Article 8 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention of Rights and Duties says:

No state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another. [Under Article 10, differences between states] should be settled by recognized pacific methods. [Article 11 calls sovereign state Territory] inviolable...

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Paul Craig Roberts

The tragedy of September 11, 2001, goes far beyond the deaths of those who died in the towers and the deaths of firefighters and first responders who succumbed to illnesses caused by inhalation of toxic dust.

For thirteen years a new generation of Americans has been born into the 9/11 myth that has been used to create the American warfare/police state.

The corrupt Bush and Obama regimes used 9/11 to kill, maim, dispossess and displace millions of Muslims in seven countries, none of whom had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11.

A generation of Americans has been born into:

● a distain and distrust of Muslims,
● a police state in which privacy and constitutional protections no longer exist,
● continuous warfare while needs of citizens go unmet, and
● into a society in which truth is replaced with the endless repetition of falsehoods.

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Stephen Lendman

Obama and Merkel: As Guilty as Anyone in Kiev

Ukraine is the epicenter of European fascist reemergence. May's Odessa massacre revealed its ugly face. Kiev bore full responsibility. What happened was no-holds-barred barbarism. Reports at the time suppressed. Premeditated mass murder was committed as planned. More on this below.

On September 9, Itar Tass said Odessa-based media accused Kiev of fabricating its report. "(W)itnesses' evidence proving the involvement of National Security and Defense Council head Andryi Paruby" was excluded. Kiev's report suppressed "evidence of numerous witnesses about involvement in the riots of about 500 (Maidan) radicals…" Regional governor Vladimir Nemrovsky "accommodated (them) in Odessa."

Kiev's report excluded Odessa branch Center Right Ukraine Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) leadership names. Former world heavyweight boxing champion/current Kiev major Vitali Klitschko heads it. Other names are omitted. They include Maidan veteran Andrei Yusov and other Maidan leaders.

"…Radical nationalists…set ablaze a tent camp of pro-federalism activists and the House of Trade Unions (TUH)." Kiev wrongfully blamed "pro-Russian activists" for neo-Nazi-infested Maidan radicals' crimes. Its report lied calling it "impossible" to determine cause of death of Odessa victims "due to the lack of state-of-the-art equipment." Verifiable evidence proves otherwise. Neo-Nazi Right Sector thugs set Odessa's Trade Union House (TUH) ablaze.

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Michael Hudson

In April 2014, fresh from riots in Maidan Square and the February 22 coup, and less than a month before the May 2 massacre in Odessa, the IMF approved a $17 billion loan program to Ukraine’s junta. Normal IMF practice is to lend only up to twice a country’s quote in one year. This was eight times as high.

Four months later, on August 29, just as Kiev began losing its attempt at ethnic cleansing against the eastern Donbas region, the IMF signed off on the first loan ever to a side engaged in a civil war, not to mention rife with insider capital flight and a collapsing balance of payments. Based on fictitiously trouble-free projections of the ability to pay, the loan supported Ukraine’s hernia currency long enough to enable the oligarchs’ banks to move their money quickly into Western hard-currency accounts before the hernia plunged further and was worth even fewer euros and dollars.

This loan demonstrates the degree to which the IMF is an arm of U.S. Cold War politics. Kiev used the loan for military expenses to attack the Eastern provinces, and the loan terms imposed the usual budget austerity, as if this would stabilize the country’s finances. Almost nothing will be received from the war-torn East, where basic infrastructure has been destroyed for power generation, water, hospitals and the civilian housing areas that bore the brunt of the attack. Nearly a million civilians are reported to have fled to Russia. Yet the IMF release announced: “The IMF praised the government’s commitment to economic reforms despite the ongoing conflict.”[1] A quarter of Ukraine’s exports normally are from eastern provinces, and are sold mainly to Russia. But Kiev has been bombing Donbas industry and left its coal mines without electricity.

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