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Nemtsov assassination:
who benefitted from the transformation of political cadaver to a real cadaver?

News Propaganda: Journalism Vacation from Truth Recommended Links The patterns of Western coverage Inside "democracy promotion" hypocrisy fair The Guardian Slips Beyond the Reach of Embarrassment Color revolutions
Fifth column Compradors Bombing country with dollars Interference of foreign agents into election process via NGO Media as a weapon of mass deception Fighting Russophobia  
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Fifth column and NGOs The art of manufacturing of prisoners of consciousness Human rights activists or globalism fifth column IntelliXencia: Corruption of Intelligensia and it usage in fifth column in Russia Frustrated underachievers Humor Etc

We do not know what the objectives pursued by Boris Nemtsov assassins. If it were extremists like neo-Nazis  or radical Islamists (one of the versions), the goal was very simple -- revenge -- and they achieve it  -- Nemtsov is dead.

But if it was some three letter agency, or some Boris's friends from the fifth column and the goal was to destabilize Russia and to increase sanction, them it is not clear weather they achieved the results intended. In a way "sacrificial lamp" type of killing of opposition figure like Nemtsov belongs to standard technologies of inciting color revolution. In other words Putin now got his own "Head of Gongadze" - and now he will have to choose what to do next.

But situation in Russia now is somewhat different that situation in Ukraine at the moment of killing of Gonganze. First of all NGO activities and ability to channel cash recieved by diplomatic mail by embassies  to fuel the protest is somewhat tamed. Many NGO were kicked out and those Western owned MSMs which still operate do not have audience outside Moscow fifth column. In other word they are preaching to the choir. 

With the memories of Georgia color revolution, Libya color revolution, Egypt as well as Russia own recent botched attempt to stage a color revolution" in 2012 and two color revolutions in Ukraine way too many people now understand at least superficially the spectrum of technologies behind the color revolutions. and that means that that instantly correlated killing of Gongadze with killing of Nemtsov and asked themselves  a simple question, who exactly can benefit from the assassination of this particular political cadaver.

If the fact that he was political cadaver understand many even in West ( Le Figaro, March 2, 2015):  

"Why we don't understand anything in Russia?"

I doesn't know what to do: laugh or cry. this is how a journalist for the French newspaper Le Figaro Irina de Shicoff, reacted to reading articles about the death of Boris Nemtsov in the Western MSM. Immediately after the assassination of the opposition leader, whose name was known only to selected few in the West the MSM was full of eye-catching headlines: "Putin killed me", "I  am Charlie Nemtsov".

The screens again and again show the face of the murdered politician. All commentators, quickly consulted  Wikipedia about relevant fact of the biography of Boris Nemtsov, who BTW was in charge of energy sector under Yeltsin and lauded his performance as the former Governor of Nizhny Novgorod and first Deputy Prime Minister, writes de Shicoff.

But the whole generation of Yeltin camarilla to which Boris Nemtsov, Yegor Gaidar, Irina Khakamada, Grigory Yavlinsky and Sergei Kirienko were swept by political tsunami, completely destroyed after the financial collapse of 1998, which heralded the end of the "pseudo-democratic renaissance of Russia" which resulted in huge economic rape of the country with assets flown tot he West for pennies on a dollar.

Democrats have scattered like a flock of sparrows, and Vladimir Putin came to power in the country which was on the verge of bankruptcy, writes the journalist.

For a long time the Russians were extremely angry with this generation of politicians, which brought them so many tears - the whole social catastrophe. And even today their crimes against the country were not forgiven. "If the Russians, to the great surprise of the West, appears allergic to any praise the virtues of democracy, it is because they remember Yeltsin regime that it ended in a huge mess", - says Irina de Shicoff.

According to the writer, all these ridiculous articles on the front pages show "all the misery of the Western media, their ignorance, their contempt to the tragic history of the country." It seems they forgot that in the best years of triumphant democracy, in the era Nemtsov, Gaidar, Yavlinsky, Hakama and Kiriyenko dozens of bankers, MPs, journalists, and businessmen were killed in the same way - one or more bullets in the back.

And in those days, an assassin, overworked, feasted in the most luxurious restaurants. Champagne was flowing, the girls were beautiful, and the money is easy, reminds us  de Shicoff.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/2015/03/02/31002-20150302ARTFIG00371-poutine-nemtsov-pourquoi-nous-ne-comprenons-rien-a-la-russie.php#

And that understanding help to provide a strong backlash against fifth column of globalization attempt to destabilize the country.  As a result, demonstrative conversion of anti-crisis march into  "March of mourning"  Charlie Hebdo   style did not succeed and as a result the potential number of participants might well  decreased, not increased. Although the level of preparation and organization (and by extension the level of financing of this event) was impressive, which can be seen from slogans, expensive large portraits of Nemtsov, as well as multi-color t-shirts with his face seen on the demonstration). 

Even among my friends the liberals five people who planned to go to stigmatize mode, eventually go, considering trampling with the wordstrip "Same sui Boris" blatant nonsense and vulgarity. Among reasonable people willing to associate themselves with the Russian allergen that caused the idiosyncrasy of the country, is not enough, you know. Decent people should condemn any killing, there is absolutely no obligation to feel this personal tragedy.

In the end my the forecast, which I gave some of the publications that have come true with medical precision - I remember prophesied 50 thousand participants, and they came.

Discussing the assassination Western MSM try to ignsh and swipe under the capen unpleasant fact that politically Nemtsov was a "political cadaver", which was mainly useful only in the role of  sacrificial lamp, as a dead body pointing to Putin,  which at the end was the role he performed.  Previously in Ukraine Gongadze killing played very similar role.

Actually the fact that fifth column and its sponsors can get this low was clear to some people as early as in 2012 (Anatoly Wasserman We are guilty by the mere fact that they want to eat… )

Feb 20, 2012 | smena.ru

Legendary scholar telling our readers why for the USA is very profitable  to destabilize the situation in Russia

The famous scholar Anatoly Wasserman, considered by many to be the most intelligent person in Russia. When the great Onotole, as he was nicknamed Internet users, involved in intellectual games, it seems that he knows everything. The Wasserman - diploma in physics, for many years he worked as a programmer, but now he defines his occupation as "political consultant". However, he stated that he does not advise individuals for a long time, now he just publicly expresses his views on Russian politics.

The opposition showed its incompetence

Q: Anatoly Alexandrovich whether Russia today faces the threat of the "orange revolution"? Is it possible we have a repetition of what happened in Ukraine or in Georgia?

A: Possible. And for a very simple reason. Because the Russian government is quite democratic. The technology of color revolutions was described in the quite popular book "From dictatorship to democracy". by an Evangelist of "color revolutions" Gene Sharp. Although in reality, the recipes contained in this book are, on the contrary, directly on conversion of the country from democracy to dictatorship. Because the dictatorship simply will not allow to use these recipes. But for the authorities who respond to the opinion of the people, it is easy to convince that the people wants "regime change". We all know that, for example, the recent attempt in Belarus attempt to carry out a coup using color revolution templates  failed. But now this is a new situation when those strategies became well known and, in my opinion, it does not indicate the non-democratic nature of the Lukashenka regime, but simply the fact that Belarusian authorities were well aware of the template and possible price Belarussian people will pay in case of success... Hope that the Russian government is not only democratic, but also sensible. It is important not to confuse the artificial paid protestors created using Sharp's  recipes e and the real will of the people...

Q: If they are artificial paid protestors created using recipes by Sharp, why our so called non-systemic opposition, managed to conduct large meetings - such as the meeting on Bolotnaya square and Sakharov Avenue in Moscow?

A:  Yes, paradoxically, they were able to.  Paradoxically because our opposition is led by former Yeltsin functionaries, people,  who already convincingly had proven their incompetence during those days, when they were in power. By the way, the main players in the "orange" color revolution in Ukraine, too, belong to this category. They try to mobilize supporters to overthrow the current regime, as the backdoor path to power, which they can not get by legitimate, democratic means via elections. And they can rely of Western financial and organizational support. That's why such a practice has become quite popular and reasonably successful. Western support is the key.

Q: You said "I do not exclude high-profile crimes".  Will we have a new wave of protests or, on the contrary, it will gradually fade? Does the opposition, in your opinion, prepared any surprises?

A: After the March 4 presidential election the meeting activity will probably rise. I do not exclude that at this time there could be the high-profile crimes - like the murder on 7 October 2006 journalist Anna Stepanovna Mazepa, better known by the name of the husband as Politkovskaya. She was killed on the birthday of Putin, as a kind of hidden message, a "birthday present" so to speak. Today in the opposition movement there a lot of people whose death will provide the anti-state movement powerful advertising. I would name, for example, Boris Nemtsov. And I would seriously recommend to him  either to go abroad or to seek shelter in one of the domestic prison several days before the elections. Better a few days to spend in prison, than to be in the grave... There are a lot of "spent" politicians in the opposition, people who as dead are more useful for the opposition then alive... But even if high-profile crimes will not materialize, I think the organizers of rallies will still try to find some new moves for the mobilization of the masses, even acting outside the recipes be Gene Sharp. There are some "very creative" people in opposition, no doubt about that. But at the same time, the opposition is so heterogeneous, its leaders so much hate each other that I wonder how they still manage to meet on the same square...

Yes, the leaders of the protest movement are bitterly fighting among themselves and in the near future will not discontinue those internal fights. But this is the usual state of our (and not only our) opposition movement. Nothing new here.  and that will not suppress the protest activity of ordinary citizens. Mass consciousness rarely see apparent contradictions in the behavior of their idols. There are General laws of mass psychology: the crowd at the meeting is behaving stupider than the stupidest person among the participants of the meeting.

 But they try to wile anti-Russian hysteria yet another type and this is clearly visible in how they covered the event (somewhat reusing the bag of tricks played during coverage of Litvinenko death):

World Leaders Condemn Murder of Russian Politician Boris Nemtsov

Former deputy PM and critic of Vladimir Putin, who was due to lead major rally on Sunday, was killed near the Kremlin.

World leaders led by David Cameron and Barack Obama have condemned the killing of prominent Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in Moscow on Friday evening.

Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and a sharp critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was reportedly shot four times in the back by a killer in a passing car.

Cameron said the callous murder must be “fully, rapidly and transparently investigated, and those responsible brought to justice”.

“His life was dedicated to speaking up tirelessly for the Russian people, to demanding their right to democracy and liberty under the rule of law, and to an end to corruption,” the prime minister said. “He did so without fear, and never gave in to intimidation.”

The US president called on Russia’s government to conduct a “prompt, impartial and transparent” investigation, describing Nemtsov as a “tireless advocate” for citizens’ rights and fighting corruption.

‘Assassination’

A spokesman for German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said she was dismayed by Nemtsov’s killing and praised his courage in criticising government policies.

The office of the French president, François Hollande, described the killing as an “assassination” and described the politician as a “courageous and tireless defender of democracy and a dogged fighter against corruption”.

The killing took place in the very centre of Moscow late on Friday evening on a bridge near St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin, two days before Nemtsov was due to lead a major opposition rally in Moscow.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the president would take the investigation into Nemtsov’s death under “personal control”, which was considered odd given the Kremlin is a leading suspect in Mr. Nemtsov's death.

However, “Putin claimed that this cruel killing has all the signs of a hit, and is a pure provocation,” said Peskov. He said Putin offered condolences to Nemtsov’s family.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev echoed the suggestion that the killing was a provocation: “It’s an attempt to push the situation into complications, maybe even to destabilising the situation in the country.”

Russia’s investigative committee was pursuing several lines on inquiry, including the possibility it was an attempt to destabilise the political landscape.

The committee, which reports to Putin, said the killing could be linked with events in Ukraine or have been carried out by radical Islamists. Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the committee, said Nemtsov had received threats in connection with his position on the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris last month.

Nemtsov, 55, was deputy prime minister during the 1990s in the government of Boris Yeltsin. He had written a number of reports in recent years linking Putin and his inner circle to corruption, and was one of the most well-known politicians among Russia’s small and beleaguered opposition.

‘Shot four times in the back’

Footage from the scene showed police experts examining the corpse of a man, dressed in jeans and lying on the tarmac, with the domes of St Basil’s in the background. Fellow opposition politicians confirmed the news, while a police spokeswoman said a manhunt was under way for the killer.

“He was shot four times in the back, as a result of which he died,” Elena Alekseyeva told Russian television. She added that the killer escaped in a light-coloured car.

Other official sources told Russian media that Nemtsov had been walking with a female companion, who was unharmed, at the time of the killing. The woman was reportedly a Ukrainian national and was taken for questioning by police. One report described her as a model who was 30 years his junior.

Just hours before his death, Nemtsov had appeared on Ekho Moskvy radio calling on Muscovites to attend an opposition march planned for Sunday. The march against Putin’s government and the war in Ukraine was due to take place in a suburb of Moscow.

On Saturday opposition leaders said they wanted to cancel the rally and hold a memorial event in the centre instead. Authorities said this would not be permitted.

Opposition figure Leonid Volkov later tweeted that a march had been sanctioned by the Moscow mayor’s office. It would go from Kitay-Gorod metro station to the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, where the politician was killed.

One of the other organisers of the march, Alexei Navalny, was jailed on 19 February for 15 days. Nemtsov himself had been detained briefly a number of times in recent years for taking part in political rallies, and was seen as one of the old guard of the Russian opposition.

“Today before the programme he asked me if I wasn’t scared to have him on air,” Alexei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy, tweeted. “It wasn’t me who needed to be scared.”

“We will answer Nemtsov’s murder with everyone coming out to the rally on 1 March, it’s the best thing we can do for now,” wrote Gennady Gudkov, another opposition politician, on Twitter.

The immediate reaction in Moscow was one of shock and amazement. While there has been a noticeable crackdown on opposition since Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012, and especially since the conflict in Ukraine, no major political figure has been killed in Russia for a decade. Many previous contract killings, such as that of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, were never solved.
‘Rolling into the abyss’
On Saturday morning, people came to lay flowers at the site of the murder.

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister now also in opposition, said: “In the 21st century, a leader of the opposition is being demonstratively shot just outside the walls of the Kremlin.

“The country is rolling into the abyss.”

Russian pro-democracy activist and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said on his Facebook page: “Devastated to hear of the cold-blooded murder of my long-time opposition colleague Boris Nemtsov in central Moscow, quite close to the Kremlin.

“Shot four times, once for each child he leaves behind. A man of Boris’s quality no longer fit Putin’s Russia.

“He always believed Russia could change from the inside and without violence; after 2012 I disagreed with this. When we argued, Boris would tell me I was too hasty and that in Russia you had to live a long time to see change. Now he’ll never see it. Rest In Peace.”

Michael McFaul, US ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014 and now a Stanford University professor, called the shooting “one of the most shocking things that I can remember happening in Russia for a long, long time”.

Earlier this month, Nemtsov gave an interview in which he said he was scared that Putin would try to have him killed. A self-assured and colourful character, Nemtsov enjoyed the media spotlight and never minced his words. He came to prominence as a reform-minded governor in the Nizhny Novgorod region during the 1990s, before he was named deputy prime minister under Yeltsin.

He had criticised Putin and his regime both for corruption and for the recent war in Ukraine, which he said was manufactured by Putin. He was featured in a number of lists of traitors and members of a supposed “fifth column” inside Russia published by pro-Kremlin and nationalist figures.

Putin himself has spoken of a “fifth column” in the country and, in recent weeks, politicians and nationalists launched an “anti-Maidan” movement in Russia and said they would not allow opposition politicians to create a Ukrainian-style uprising in Moscow, suggesting that the opposition was working at the behest of foreign enemies of Russia.

As usual the key question "Cue Bono?" was not asked. Instead it is typical smoke screen of lies and omissions.

Below you can find somewhat more skeptical treatment of this event.

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[Mar 20, 2019] Bankrupt British Empire Keeps Pushing To Overthrow Putin

This is anold, 2015 article that is still rrrelenet today. Well written overview of British policies toward Russia
Notable quotes:
"... Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt and its entire system is coming down. ..."
"... EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putin's bid for the Presidency, and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil. ..."
"... In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against the Russian government as "authoritarian," "dictators," and so forth. She said, "The trend lines for freedom and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power and set about the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state." She announced at that point that the elections would be illegitimate: "[T]he current regime will likely use the upcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March 2012 with the inevitable falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its rule." ..."
"... The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy, from which perch she has spread "Cold War" venom against Putin and the Russian government. ..."
"... Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08. ..."
"... NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online "anti-corruption" activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on the street, Navalny sounds more like Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic. Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow. ..."
Jan 09, 2012 | http://schillerinstitute.org/russia/2012/0122_overthrow_putin.html
This article appears in the January 20, 2012 issue of Executive Intelligence Review and is reprinted with permission.

[PDF version of this article]

January 9, 2012 -Organizers of the December 2011 "anti-vote-fraud" demonstrations in Moscow have announced Feb. 4 as the date of their next street action, planned as a march around the city's Garden Ring Road on the 22nd anniversary of a mass demonstration which paved the way to the end of the Soviet Union. While there is a fluid situation within both the Russian extraparliamentary opposition layers, and the ruling circles and other Duma parties, including a process of "dialogue" between them, in which ex-Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is playing a role, it is clear that British imperial interests are intent on-if not actually destroying Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's bid for reelection as Russia's President in the March 4 elections-casting Russia into ongoing, destructive political turmoil.

Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt and its entire system is coming down.

Review of the events leading up to the Dec. 4, 2011 Duma elections, which the street demonstrators demanded be cancelled for fraud, shows that not only agent-of-British-influence Mikhail Gorbachov, the ex-Soviet President, but also the vast Project Democracy apparatus inside the United States, exposed by EIR in the 1980s as part of an unconstitutional "secret government,"[1] have been on full mobilization to block the current Russian leadership from continuing in power.

Project Democracy

Typical is the testimony of Nadia Diuk, vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), before the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs last July 26. The NED is the umbrella of Project Democracy; it functions, inclusively, through the International Republican Institute (IRI, linked with the Republican Party) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI, linked with the Democratic Party, and currently headed by Madeleine Albright).

Diuk was educated at the U.K.'s Unversity of Sussex Russian studies program, and then taught at Oxford University, before coming to the U.S.A. to head up the NED's programs in Eastern Europe and Russia beginning 1990. She is married to her frequent co-author, Adrian Karatnycky of the Atlantic Institute, who headed up the private intelligence outfit Freedom House[2] for 12 years. Her role is typical of British outsourcing of key strategic operations to U.S. institutions.

EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putin's bid for the Presidency, and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil.

In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against the Russian government as "authoritarian," "dictators," and so forth. She said, "The trend lines for freedom and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power and set about the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state." She announced at that point that the elections would be illegitimate: "[T]he current regime will likely use the upcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March 2012 with the inevitable falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its rule."

Diuk expressed renewed hope that the disastrous 2004 Orange Revolution experiment in Ukraine could be replicated in Russia, claiming that "when the protests against authoritarian rule during Ukraine's Orange Revolution brought down the government in 2004, Russian citizens saw a vision across the border of an alternative future for themselves as a Slavic nation." She then detailed what she claimed were the Kremlin's reactions to the events in Ukraine, charging that "the leaders in the Kremlin-always the most creative innovators in the club of authoritarians-have also taken active measures to promote support of the government and undermine the democratic opposition...."

Holos Ameryky

The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy, from which perch she has spread "Cold War" venom against Putin and the Russian government.

While lauding "the democratic breakthroughs in the Middle East" in 2011, Diuk called on the Congress to "look to [Eastern Europe] as the source of a great wealth of experience on how the enemies of freedom are ever on the alert to assert their dominance, but also how the forces for freedom and democracy will always find a way to push back in a struggle that demands our support."

In September, Diuk chaired an NED event featuring a representative of the NED-funded Levada Center Russian polling organization, who gave an overview of the then-upcoming December 4 Duma election. Also speaking there was Russian liberal politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who predicted in the nastiest tones that Putin will suffer the fate of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In this same September period, Mikhail Gorbachov, too, was already forecasting voting irregularities and a challenge to Putin's dominance.

The NED, which has an annual budget of $100 million, sponsors dozens of "civil society" groups in Russia. Golos, the supposedly independent vote-monitoring group that declared there would be vote fraud even before the elections took place, has received NED money through the NDI since 2000. Golos had a piecework program, paying its observers a set amount of money for each reported voting irregularity. NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny-the online anti-corruption activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations-since 2006, when he and Maria Gaidar (daughter of the late London-trained shock therapy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar) launched a youth debating project called "DA!" (meaning "Yes!" or standing for "Democratic Alternative"). Gorbachov's close ally Vladimir Ryzhkov, currently negotiating with Kudrin on terms of a "dialogue between the authorities and the opposition," also received NED grants to his World Movement for Democracy.

Besides George Soros's Open Society Foundations (formerly, Open Society Institute, OSI), the biggest source of funds for this meddling, including funding which was channeled through the NDI and the IRI, is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Officially, USAID has spent $2.6 billion on programs in Russia since 1992. The current acknowledged level is around $70 million annually, of which nearly half is for "Governing Justly & Democratically" programs, another 30% for "Information" programs, and only a small fraction for things like combatting HIV and TB. On Dec. 15, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon announced that the Obama Administration would seek Congressional approval to step up this funding, with "an initiative to create a new fund to support Russian non-governmental organizations that are committed to a more pluralistic and open society."

Awaiting McFaul

White House/Pete Souza

The impending arrival in Moscow of Michael McFaul (shown here with his boss in the Oval Office), as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, is seen by many there as an escalation of Project Democracy efforts to destabilize the country.

People from various parts of the political spectrum in Russia see the impending arrival of Michael McFaul as U.S. Ambassador to Russia as an escalation in Project Democracy efforts to destabilize Russia. McFaul, who has been Barack Obama's National Security Council official for Russia, has been working this beat since the early 1990s, when he represented the NDI in Russia at the end of the Soviet period, and headed its office there.

As a Russia specialist at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Hoover Institution, as well as the Carnegie Endowment, and an array of other Russian studies think tanks, McFaul has stuck closely to the Project Democracy agenda. Financing for his research has come from the NED, the OSI, and the Smith-Richardson Foundation (another notorious agency of financier interests within the U.S. establishment). He was an editor of the 2006 book Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough, containing chapters by Diuk and Karatnycky.

In his own contribution to a 2010 book titled After Putin's Russia,[3] McFaul hailed the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine-which was notoriously funded and manipulated from abroad-as a triumph of "people's political power from below to resist and eventually overturn a fraudulent election."

Before coming to the NSC, one of McFaul's many positions at Stanford was co-director of the Iran Democracy Project. He has also been active in such projects as the British Henry Jackson Society which is active in the drive to overthrow the government of Syria.

The Internet Dimension

The December 2011 street demonstrations in Moscow were organized largely online. Participation rose from a few hundred on Dec. 5, the day after the election, to an estimated 20,000 people on Bolotnaya Square Dec. 10, and somewhere in the wide range of 30,000 to 120,000 on Academician Sakharov Prospect Dec. 24.

Headlong expansion of Internet access and online social networking over the past three to five years has opened up a new dimension of political-cultural warfare in Russia. An EIR investigation finds that British intelligence agencies involved in the current attempts to destabilize Russia and, in their maximum version, overthrow Putin, have been working intensively to profile online activity in Russia and find ways to expand and exploit it. Some of these projects are outsourced to think tanks in the U.S.A. and Canada, but their center is Cambridge University in the U.K.-the heart of the British Empire, home of Bertrand Russell's systems analysis and related ventures of the Cambridge Apostles.[4]

The scope of the projects goes beyond profiling, as can be seen in the Cambridge-centered network's interaction with Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, a central figure in the December protest rallies.

While George Soros and his OSI prioritized building Internet access in the former Soviet Union starting two decades ago, as recently as in 2008 British cyberspace specialists were complaining that the Internet was not yet efficient for political purposes in Russia. Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism produced a Soros-funded report in 2008, titled "The Web that Failed: How opposition politics and independent initiatives are failing on the Internet in Russia." The Oxford-Reuters authors regretted that processes like the Orange Revolution, in which online connections were crucial, had not gotten a toehold in Russia. But they quoted a 2007 report by Andrew Kuchins of the Moscow Carnegie Center, who found reason for optimism in the seven-fold increase in Russian Internet (Runet) use from 2000 to 2007. They also cited Robert Orttung of American University and the Resource Security Institute, on how Russian blogs were reaching "the most dynamic members of the youth generation" and could be used by "members of civil society" to mobilize "liberal opposition groups and nationalists."

Scarcely a year later, a report by the digital marketing firm comScore crowed that booming Internet access had led to Russia's having "the world's most engaged social networking audience." Russian Facebook use rose by 277% from 2008 to 2009. The Russia-based social networking outfit Vkontakte.ru (like Facebook) had 14.3 million visitors in 2009; Odnoklassniki.ru (like Classmates.com) had 7.8 million; and Mail.ru-My World had 6.3 million. All three of these social networking sites are part of the Mail.ru/Digital Sky Technologies empire of Yuri Milner,[5] with the individual companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore locations.

The Cambridge Security Programme

Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08.

Two top profilers of the Runet are Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, who assessed its status in their essay "Control and Subversion in Russian Cyberspace."[6] At the University of Toronto, Deibert is a colleague of Barry Wellman, co-founder of the International Network of Social Network Analysis (INSNA).[7] Rohozinski is a cyber-warfare specialist who ran the Advanced Network Research Group of the Cambridge Security Programme (CSP) at Cambridge University in 2002-07. Nominally ending its work, the CSP handed off its projects to an array of organizations in the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), including Rohozinski's SecDev Group consulting firm, which issues the Information Warfare Monitor.

The ONI, formally dedicated to mapping and circumventing Internet surveillance and filtering by governments, is a joint project of Cambridge (Rohozinski), the Oxford Internet Institute, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and the University of Toronto.

Deibert and Rohozinski noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08. They cited official estimates that 38 million Russians were going online as of 2010, of whom 60 had broadband access from home; the forecast number of Russia-based Runet users by 2012 was 80 million, out of a population of 140 million. Qualitatively, the ONI authors welcomed what they called "the rise of the Internet to the center of Russian culture and politics." On the political side, they asserted that "the Internet has eclipsed all the mass media in terms of its reach, readership, and especially in the degree of free speech and opportunity to mobilize that it provides."

This notion of an Internet-savvy core of the population becoming the focal point of Russian society is now being hyped by those who want to push the December demonstrations into a full-scale political crisis. Such writers call this segment of the population "the creative class," or "the active creative minority," which can override an inert majority of the population. The Dec. 30 issue of Vedomosti, a financial daily co-owned by the Financial Times of London, featured an article by sociologist Natalya Zubarevich, which was then publicized in "Window on Eurasia" by Paul Goble, a State Department veteran who has concentrated for decades on the potential for Russia to split along ethnic or other lines.

Zubarevich proposed that the 31% of the Russian population living in the 14 largest cities, of which 9 have undergone "post-industrial transformation," constitute a special, influential class, as against the inhabitants of rural areas (38%) and mid-sized industrial cities with an uncertain future (25%). Goble defined the big-city population as a target: "It is in this Russia that the 35 million domestic users of the Internet and those who want a more open society are concentrated."

The Case of Alexei Navalny

In the "The Web that Failed" study, Oxford-Reuters authors Floriana Fossato, John Lloyd, and Alexander Verkhovsky delved into the missing elements, in their view, of the Russian Internet. What would it take, they asked, for Runet participants to be able to "orchestrate motivation and meaningful commitments"? They quoted Julia Minder of the Russian portal Rambler, who said about the potential for "mobilization": "Blogs are at the moment the answer, but the issue is how to find a leading blogger who wants to meet people on the Internet several hours per day. Leading bloggers need to be entertaining.... The potential is there, but more often than not it is not used."

NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online "anti-corruption" activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on the street, Navalny sounds more like Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic. Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow.

It is difficult not to wonder if Alexei Navalny is a test-tube creation intended to fill the missing niche. This would not be the first time in recent Russian history that such a thing happened. In 1990, future neoliberal "young reformers" Anatoli Chubais and Sergei Vasilyev wrote a paper under International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) auspices, on the priorities for reform in the Soviet Union. They stated that a certain personality was missing on the Soviet scene at that time: the wealthy businessman. In their IIASA paper, Chubais and Vasilyev wrote: "We now see a figure, arising from historical non-existence: the figure of a businessman-entrepreneur, who has enough capital to bear the investment responsibility, and enough technological knowledge and willingness to support innovation."[8]

This type of person was subsequently brought into existence through the corrupt post-Soviet privatization process in Russia, becoming known as "the oligarchs." Was Navalny, similarly, synthesized as a charismatic blogger to fill the British subversive need for "mobilization"?

Online celebrity Navalny's arrest in Moscow on Dec. 5, and his speech at the Academician Sakharov Prospect rally on Dec. 24 were highlights of last month's turmoil in the Russian capital. Now 35 years old, Navalny grew up in a Soviet/Russian military family and was educated as a lawyer. In 2006, he began to be financed by NED for the DA! project (see above). Along the way-maybe through doing online day-trading, as some biographies suggest, or maybe from unknown benefactors-Navalny acquired enough money to be able to spend $40,000 (his figure) on a few shares in each of several major Russian companies with a high percentage of state ownership. This gave him minority-shareholder status, as a platform for his anti-corruption probes.

It must be understood that the web of "corruption" in Russia is the system of managing cash flows through payoffs, string-pulling, and criminal extortion, which arose out of the boost that Gorbachov's perestroika policy gave to pre-existing Soviet criminal networks in the 1980s. It then experienced a boom under darlings of London like Gaidar, who oversaw the privatization process known as the Great Criminal Revolution in the 1990s. As Russia has been integrated into an international financial order, which itself relies on criminal money flows from the dope trade and strategically motivated scams like Britain's BAE operations in the Persian Gulf, the preponderance of shady activity in the Russian economy has only increased.

Putin's governments inherited this system, and it can be ended when the commitment to monetarism, which LaRouche has identified as a fatal flaw even among genuinely pro-development Russians, is broken in Russia and worldwide. The current bankruptcy of the Trans-Atlantic City of London-Eurozone-Wall Street system means that now is the time for this to happen!

Yale Fellows

In 2010, Navalny was accepted to the Yale World Fellows Program, as one of fewer than 20 approved candidates out of over a thousand applicants. As EIR has reported, the Yale Fellows are instructed by the likes of British Foreign Office veteran Lord Mark Malloch-Brown and representatives of Soros's Open Society Foundations.[9] What's more, the World Fellows Program is funded by The Starr Foundation of Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, former chairman and CEO of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), the recipient of enormous Bush Jr.-Obama bailout largesse in 2008-09; Greenberg and his C.V. Starr company have a long record of facilitating "regime change" (aka coups), going back to the 1986 overthrow of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. Navalny reports that Maria Gaidar told him to try for the program, and he enjoyed recommendations from top professors at the New Economic School in Moscow, a hotbed of neoliberalism and mathematical economics. It was from New Haven that Navalny launched his anti-corruption campaign against Transneft, the Russian national oil pipeline company, specifically in relation to money movements around the new East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline. The ESPO has just finished the first year of operation of its spur supplying Russian oil to China.

Navalny presents a split personality to the public. Online he is "Mr. Openness." He posts the full legal documentation of his corruption exposés. When his e-mail account was hacked, and his correspondence with U.S. Embassy and NED officials about funding him was made public, Navalny acknowledged that the e-mails were genuine. He tries to disarm interviewers with questions like, "Do you think I'm an American project, or a Kremlin one?"

During the early-January 2012 holiday lull in Russia, Navalny engaged in a lengthy, oh-so-civilized dialogue in Live Journal with Boris Akunin (real name, Grigori Chkhartishvili), a famous detective-story author and liberal activist who was another leader of the December demonstrations, about whether Navalny's commitment to the slogan "Russia for the Russians" marks him as a bigot who is unfit to lead. Addressing crowds on the street, however, Navalny sounds like Mussolini. Prominent Russian columnist Maxim Sokolov, writing in Izvestia, found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic.

Navalny may well end up being expendable in the view of his sponsors. In the meantime, it is clear that he is working from the playbook of Gene Sharp, whose neurolinguistic programming and advertising techniques were employed in Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004.[10] Sharp, a veteran of "advanced studies" at Oxford and 30 years at Harvard's Center for International Affairs, is the author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle, which advises the use of symbolic colors, short slogans, and so forth.

While at Yale, Navalny also served as an informant and advisor for a two-year study conducted at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, one of the institutions participating in the OpenNet Initiative, launched out of Cambridge University in the U.K. The study produced a profile titled "Mapping the Russian Blogosphere," which detailed the different sections of the Runet: liberal, nationalist, cultural, foreign-based, etc., looking at their potential social impact.

Allen Douglas, Gabrielle Peut, David Christie, and Dorothea Bunnell did research for this article.

Related pages:

[email protected]

The Schiller Institute, PO BOX 20244, Washington, DC 20041-0244, 703-771-8390

[Nov 16, 2015] Bankrupt British Empire Keeps Pushing To Overthrow Putin

Notable quotes:
"... Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt and its entire system is coming down. ..."
"... EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putins bid for the Presidency, and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil. ..."
"... In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against the Russian government as authoritarian, dictators, and so forth. She said, The trend lines for freedom and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power and set about the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state. She announced at that point that the elections would be illegitimate: [T]he current regime will likely use the upcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March 2012 with the inevitable falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its rule. ..."
"... The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy, from which perch she has spread Cold War venom against Putin and the Russian government. ..."
"... Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08. ..."
"... NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online anti-corruption activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on the street, Navalny sounds more like Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic. Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow. ..."
January 1, 2012 | http://schillerinstitute.org/russia/2012/0122_overthrow_putin.html
This article appears in the January 20, 2012 issue of Executive Intelligence Review and is reprinted with permission.

[PDF version of this article]

January 9, 2012 -Organizers of the December 2011 "anti-vote-fraud" demonstrations in Moscow have announced Feb. 4 as the date of their next street action, planned as a march around the city's Garden Ring Road on the 22nd anniversary of a mass demonstration which paved the way to the end of the Soviet Union. While there is a fluid situation within both the Russian extraparliamentary opposition layers, and the ruling circles and other Duma parties, including a process of "dialogue" between them, in which ex-Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is playing a role, it is clear that British imperial interests are intent on-if not actually destroying Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's bid for reelection as Russia's President in the March 4 elections-casting Russia into ongoing, destructive political turmoil.

Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt and its entire system is coming down.

Review of the events leading up to the Dec. 4, 2011 Duma elections, which the street demonstrators demanded be cancelled for fraud, shows that not only agent-of-British-influence Mikhail Gorbachov, the ex-Soviet President, but also the vast Project Democracy apparatus inside the United States, exposed by EIR in the 1980s as part of an unconstitutional "secret government,"[1] have been on full mobilization to block the current Russian leadership from continuing in power.

Project Democracy

Typical is the testimony of Nadia Diuk, vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), before the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs last July 26. The NED is the umbrella of Project Democracy; it functions, inclusively, through the International Republican Institute (IRI, linked with the Republican Party) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI, linked with the Democratic Party, and currently headed by Madeleine Albright).

Diuk was educated at the U.K.'s Unversity of Sussex Russian studies program, and then taught at Oxford University, before coming to the U.S.A. to head up the NED's programs in Eastern Europe and Russia beginning 1990. She is married to her frequent co-author, Adrian Karatnycky of the Atlantic Institute, who headed up the private intelligence outfit Freedom House[2] for 12 years. Her role is typical of British outsourcing of key strategic operations to U.S. institutions.

EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putin's bid for the Presidency, and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil.

In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against the Russian government as "authoritarian," "dictators," and so forth. She said, "The trend lines for freedom and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power and set about the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state." She announced at that point that the elections would be illegitimate: "[T]he current regime will likely use the upcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March 2012 with the inevitable falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its rule."

Diuk expressed renewed hope that the disastrous 2004 Orange Revolution experiment in Ukraine could be replicated in Russia, claiming that "when the protests against authoritarian rule during Ukraine's Orange Revolution brought down the government in 2004, Russian citizens saw a vision across the border of an alternative future for themselves as a Slavic nation." She then detailed what she claimed were the Kremlin's reactions to the events in Ukraine, charging that "the leaders in the Kremlin-always the most creative innovators in the club of authoritarians-have also taken active measures to promote support of the government and undermine the democratic opposition...."

Holos Ameryky

The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy, from which perch she has spread "Cold War" venom against Putin and the Russian government.

While lauding "the democratic breakthroughs in the Middle East" in 2011, Diuk called on the Congress to "look to [Eastern Europe] as the source of a great wealth of experience on how the enemies of freedom are ever on the alert to assert their dominance, but also how the forces for freedom and democracy will always find a way to push back in a struggle that demands our support."

In September, Diuk chaired an NED event featuring a representative of the NED-funded Levada Center Russian polling organization, who gave an overview of the then-upcoming December 4 Duma election. Also speaking there was Russian liberal politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who predicted in the nastiest tones that Putin will suffer the fate of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In this same September period, Mikhail Gorbachov, too, was already forecasting voting irregularities and a challenge to Putin's dominance.

The NED, which has an annual budget of $100 million, sponsors dozens of "civil society" groups in Russia. Golos, the supposedly independent vote-monitoring group that declared there would be vote fraud even before the elections took place, has received NED money through the NDI since 2000. Golos had a piecework program, paying its observers a set amount of money for each reported voting irregularity. NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny-the online anti-corruption activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations-since 2006, when he and Maria Gaidar (daughter of the late London-trained shock therapy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar) launched a youth debating project called "DA!" (meaning "Yes!" or standing for "Democratic Alternative"). Gorbachov's close ally Vladimir Ryzhkov, currently negotiating with Kudrin on terms of a "dialogue between the authorities and the opposition," also received NED grants to his World Movement for Democracy.

Besides George Soros's Open Society Foundations (formerly, Open Society Institute, OSI), the biggest source of funds for this meddling, including funding which was channeled through the NDI and the IRI, is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Officially, USAID has spent $2.6 billion on programs in Russia since 1992. The current acknowledged level is around $70 million annually, of which nearly half is for "Governing Justly & Democratically" programs, another 30% for "Information" programs, and only a small fraction for things like combatting HIV and TB. On Dec. 15, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon announced that the Obama Administration would seek Congressional approval to step up this funding, with "an initiative to create a new fund to support Russian non-governmental organizations that are committed to a more pluralistic and open society."

Awaiting McFaul

White House/Pete Souza

The impending arrival in Moscow of Michael McFaul (shown here with his boss in the Oval Office), as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, is seen by many there as an escalation of Project Democracy efforts to destabilize the country.

People from various parts of the political spectrum in Russia see the impending arrival of Michael McFaul as U.S. Ambassador to Russia as an escalation in Project Democracy efforts to destabilize Russia. McFaul, who has been Barack Obama's National Security Council official for Russia, has been working this beat since the early 1990s, when he represented the NDI in Russia at the end of the Soviet period, and headed its office there.

As a Russia specialist at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Hoover Institution, as well as the Carnegie Endowment, and an array of other Russian studies think tanks, McFaul has stuck closely to the Project Democracy agenda. Financing for his research has come from the NED, the OSI, and the Smith-Richardson Foundation (another notorious agency of financier interests within the U.S. establishment). He was an editor of the 2006 book Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough, containing chapters by Diuk and Karatnycky.

In his own contribution to a 2010 book titled After Putin's Russia,[3] McFaul hailed the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine-which was notoriously funded and manipulated from abroad-as a triumph of "people's political power from below to resist and eventually overturn a fraudulent election."

Before coming to the NSC, one of McFaul's many positions at Stanford was co-director of the Iran Democracy Project. He has also been active in such projects as the British Henry Jackson Society which is active in the drive to overthrow the government of Syria.

The Internet Dimension

The December 2011 street demonstrations in Moscow were organized largely online. Participation rose from a few hundred on Dec. 5, the day after the election, to an estimated 20,000 people on Bolotnaya Square Dec. 10, and somewhere in the wide range of 30,000 to 120,000 on Academician Sakharov Prospect Dec. 24.

Headlong expansion of Internet access and online social networking over the past three to five years has opened up a new dimension of political-cultural warfare in Russia. An EIR investigation finds that British intelligence agencies involved in the current attempts to destabilize Russia and, in their maximum version, overthrow Putin, have been working intensively to profile online activity in Russia and find ways to expand and exploit it. Some of these projects are outsourced to think tanks in the U.S.A. and Canada, but their center is Cambridge University in the U.K.-the heart of the British Empire, home of Bertrand Russell's systems analysis and related ventures of the Cambridge Apostles.[4]

The scope of the projects goes beyond profiling, as can be seen in the Cambridge-centered network's interaction with Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, a central figure in the December protest rallies.

While George Soros and his OSI prioritized building Internet access in the former Soviet Union starting two decades ago, as recently as in 2008 British cyberspace specialists were complaining that the Internet was not yet efficient for political purposes in Russia. Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism produced a Soros-funded report in 2008, titled "The Web that Failed: How opposition politics and independent initiatives are failing on the Internet in Russia." The Oxford-Reuters authors regretted that processes like the Orange Revolution, in which online connections were crucial, had not gotten a toehold in Russia. But they quoted a 2007 report by Andrew Kuchins of the Moscow Carnegie Center, who found reason for optimism in the seven-fold increase in Russian Internet (Runet) use from 2000 to 2007. They also cited Robert Orttung of American University and the Resource Security Institute, on how Russian blogs were reaching "the most dynamic members of the youth generation" and could be used by "members of civil society" to mobilize "liberal opposition groups and nationalists."

Scarcely a year later, a report by the digital marketing firm comScore crowed that booming Internet access had led to Russia's having "the world's most engaged social networking audience." Russian Facebook use rose by 277% from 2008 to 2009. The Russia-based social networking outfit Vkontakte.ru (like Facebook) had 14.3 million visitors in 2009; Odnoklassniki.ru (like Classmates.com) had 7.8 million; and Mail.ru-My World had 6.3 million. All three of these social networking sites are part of the Mail.ru/Digital Sky Technologies empire of Yuri Milner,[5] with the individual companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore locations.

The Cambridge Security Programme

Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08.

Two top profilers of the Runet are Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, who assessed its status in their essay "Control and Subversion in Russian Cyberspace."[6] At the University of Toronto, Deibert is a colleague of Barry Wellman, co-founder of the International Network of Social Network Analysis (INSNA).[7] Rohozinski is a cyber-warfare specialist who ran the Advanced Network Research Group of the Cambridge Security Programme (CSP) at Cambridge University in 2002-07. Nominally ending its work, the CSP handed off its projects to an array of organizations in the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), including Rohozinski's SecDev Group consulting firm, which issues the Information Warfare Monitor.

The ONI, formally dedicated to mapping and circumventing Internet surveillance and filtering by governments, is a joint project of Cambridge (Rohozinski), the Oxford Internet Institute, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and the University of Toronto.

Deibert and Rohozinski noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08. They cited official estimates that 38 million Russians were going online as of 2010, of whom 60 had broadband access from home; the forecast number of Russia-based Runet users by 2012 was 80 million, out of a population of 140 million. Qualitatively, the ONI authors welcomed what they called "the rise of the Internet to the center of Russian culture and politics." On the political side, they asserted that "the Internet has eclipsed all the mass media in terms of its reach, readership, and especially in the degree of free speech and opportunity to mobilize that it provides."

This notion of an Internet-savvy core of the population becoming the focal point of Russian society is now being hyped by those who want to push the December demonstrations into a full-scale political crisis. Such writers call this segment of the population "the creative class," or "the active creative minority," which can override an inert majority of the population. The Dec. 30 issue of Vedomosti, a financial daily co-owned by the Financial Times of London, featured an article by sociologist Natalya Zubarevich, which was then publicized in "Window on Eurasia" by Paul Goble, a State Department veteran who has concentrated for decades on the potential for Russia to split along ethnic or other lines.

Zubarevich proposed that the 31% of the Russian population living in the 14 largest cities, of which 9 have undergone "post-industrial transformation," constitute a special, influential class, as against the inhabitants of rural areas (38%) and mid-sized industrial cities with an uncertain future (25%). Goble defined the big-city population as a target: "It is in this Russia that the 35 million domestic users of the Internet and those who want a more open society are concentrated."

The Case of Alexei Navalny

In the "The Web that Failed" study, Oxford-Reuters authors Floriana Fossato, John Lloyd, and Alexander Verkhovsky delved into the missing elements, in their view, of the Russian Internet. What would it take, they asked, for Runet participants to be able to "orchestrate motivation and meaningful commitments"? They quoted Julia Minder of the Russian portal Rambler, who said about the potential for "mobilization": "Blogs are at the moment the answer, but the issue is how to find a leading blogger who wants to meet people on the Internet several hours per day. Leading bloggers need to be entertaining.... The potential is there, but more often than not it is not used."


Creative Commons
Creative Commons/Bogomolov.PL

NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online "anti-corruption" activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on the street, Navalny sounds more like Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic. Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow.

It is difficult not to wonder if Alexei Navalny is a test-tube creation intended to fill the missing niche. This would not be the first time in recent Russian history that such a thing happened. In 1990, future neoliberal "young reformers" Anatoli Chubais and Sergei Vasilyev wrote a paper under International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) auspices, on the priorities for reform in the Soviet Union. They stated that a certain personality was missing on the Soviet scene at that time: the wealthy businessman. In their IIASA paper, Chubais and Vasilyev wrote: "We now see a figure, arising from historical non-existence: the figure of a businessman-entrepreneur, who has enough capital to bear the investment responsibility, and enough technological knowledge and willingness to support innovation."[8]

This type of person was subsequently brought into existence through the corrupt post-Soviet privatization process in Russia, becoming known as "the oligarchs." Was Navalny, similarly, synthesized as a charismatic blogger to fill the British subversive need for "mobilization"?

Online celebrity Navalny's arrest in Moscow on Dec. 5, and his speech at the Academician Sakharov Prospect rally on Dec. 24 were highlights of last month's turmoil in the Russian capital. Now 35 years old, Navalny grew up in a Soviet/Russian military family and was educated as a lawyer. In 2006, he began to be financed by NED for the DA! project (see above). Along the way-maybe through doing online day-trading, as some biographies suggest, or maybe from unknown benefactors-Navalny acquired enough money to be able to spend $40,000 (his figure) on a few shares in each of several major Russian companies with a high percentage of state ownership. This gave him minority-shareholder status, as a platform for his anti-corruption probes.

It must be understood that the web of "corruption" in Russia is the system of managing cash flows through payoffs, string-pulling, and criminal extortion, which arose out of the boost that Gorbachov's perestroika policy gave to pre-existing Soviet criminal networks in the 1980s. It then experienced a boom under darlings of London like Gaidar, who oversaw the privatization process known as the Great Criminal Revolution in the 1990s. As Russia has been integrated into an international financial order, which itself relies on criminal money flows from the dope trade and strategically motivated scams like Britain's BAE operations in the Persian Gulf, the preponderance of shady activity in the Russian economy has only increased.

Putin's governments inherited this system, and it can be ended when the commitment to monetarism, which LaRouche has identified as a fatal flaw even among genuinely pro-development Russians, is broken in Russia and worldwide. The current bankruptcy of the Trans-Atlantic City of London-Eurozone-Wall Street system means that now is the time for this to happen!

Yale Fellows

In 2010, Navalny was accepted to the Yale World Fellows Program, as one of fewer than 20 approved candidates out of over a thousand applicants. As EIR has reported, the Yale Fellows are instructed by the likes of British Foreign Office veteran Lord Mark Malloch-Brown and representatives of Soros's Open Society Foundations.[9] What's more, the World Fellows Program is funded by The Starr Foundation of Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, former chairman and CEO of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), the recipient of enormous Bush Jr.-Obama bailout largesse in 2008-09; Greenberg and his C.V. Starr company have a long record of facilitating "regime change" (aka coups), going back to the 1986 overthrow of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. Navalny reports that Maria Gaidar told him to try for the program, and he enjoyed recommendations from top professors at the New Economic School in Moscow, a hotbed of neoliberalism and mathematical economics. It was from New Haven that Navalny launched his anti-corruption campaign against Transneft, the Russian national oil pipeline company, specifically in relation to money movements around the new East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline. The ESPO has just finished the first year of operation of its spur supplying Russian oil to China.

Navalny presents a split personality to the public. Online he is "Mr. Openness." He posts the full legal documentation of his corruption exposés. When his e-mail account was hacked, and his correspondence with U.S. Embassy and NED officials about funding him was made public, Navalny acknowledged that the e-mails were genuine. He tries to disarm interviewers with questions like, "Do you think I'm an American project, or a Kremlin one?"

During the early-January 2012 holiday lull in Russia, Navalny engaged in a lengthy, oh-so-civilized dialogue in Live Journal with Boris Akunin (real name, Grigori Chkhartishvili), a famous detective-story author and liberal activist who was another leader of the December demonstrations, about whether Navalny's commitment to the slogan "Russia for the Russians" marks him as a bigot who is unfit to lead. Addressing crowds on the street, however, Navalny sounds like Mussolini. Prominent Russian columnist Maxim Sokolov, writing in Izvestia, found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic.

Navalny may well end up being expendable in the view of his sponsors. In the meantime, it is clear that he is working from the playbook of Gene Sharp, whose neurolinguistic programming and advertising techniques were employed in Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004.[10] Sharp, a veteran of "advanced studies" at Oxford and 30 years at Harvard's Center for International Affairs, is the author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle, which advises the use of symbolic colors, short slogans, and so forth.

While at Yale, Navalny also served as an informant and advisor for a two-year study conducted at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, one of the institutions participating in the OpenNet Initiative, launched out of Cambridge University in the U.K. The study produced a profile titled "Mapping the Russian Blogosphere," which detailed the different sections of the Runet: liberal, nationalist, cultural, foreign-based, etc., looking at their potential social impact.

Allen Douglas, Gabrielle Peut, David Christie, and Dorothea Bunnell did research for this article.

Related pages:

[email protected]

The Schiller Institute
PO BOX 20244
Washington, DC 20041-0244
703-771-8390

[Mar 14, 2015] Geremeev -- a new name in the Nemtsov case

yalensis, March 13, 2015 at 2:32 am
Meanwhile, in the Nemtsov case, there is a new name , that of:

Geremeev

As the investigation proceeds, the evidence is drawing more into what looks like to be betrayal at the highest levels of Kadyrov's inner circle.
Above analysis is written by Petr Akopov. In his autobiographical blurb he writes that he completed his degree in History, just in time for the collapse of the Soviet Union. He took off for the Caucasus, became a journalist/essayist and Kremlinologist. Describes his own political views as (I think a bit jokingly):

"Extreme right-wing, monarchist views, a nationalist, imperialist, and also communalist socialist."

Anyhow, returning to the "Caucasian connection":

Akopov recounts how, immediately after the murder, people wanted to pin it on "nationalists" and "Putinists"; the liberals themselves complained about a "campaign of fear and hate" supposedly launched by Putin against liberals such as Nemtsov; which would have "created a climate" in which some lone nut would inevitably step up to the plate and kill him.
Next, there were a few days in which the investigation fell quiet, and the liberals were shaking their heads and saying it would never be solved, Putin ordered Nemtsov to be killed, and everything just swept under the rug.

And then – boom! all of a sudden it's some guys in Kadyrov's inner circle.

Akopov holds to the view that Nemtsov's assassination was a flagrant provocation directed at the Kremlin. Which was also Putin initial, spontaneous (and emotional) reaction, when he first heard the news, even before any facts were known about the crime.

Akopov sees the provocation as serving the needs of the Atlanticists and Fifth Columnists.
However, it is too abstract to just say that, because this serves their needs, they must have done it. Instead, the Russian government has exerted every effort to get down to the actual nitty-gritty facts of how this was done, and who dunnit.

Akopov dismisses the notion, that Kadyrov, whatever his contempt for the likes of Nemtsov, would feel that he had the authority to order the latter's assassination. Kadyrov knows his place in the scheme of things, and is the farthest thing from being some rogue element.

It is also inconceivable, according to Akopov, that Dadaev, a member of the elite Chechen army forces, would take it upon himself to just stroll out there and shoot Nemtsov. He DID shoot Nemtsov, true, but on whose orders? His excuse about "Charlie Hebdo" is simply ridiculous.

Already, the organs are operating on the theory that Dadaev was given his order by a specific man: Major Ruslan Geremeev. Who has already been interrogated in Grozny. Geremeev is highly placed in Chechen power structure: one of his uncles is a member of the Soviet from Chechnya. If Geremeev's guilt can be proved, then that would one rung further up the ladder of this conspiracy.

The key point, according to Akopov, is that there is a traitor at the highest level in the Chechen power structure. This traitor must have convinced Dadaev/Geremeev, that there was an order coming directly from Ramzan Kadyrov, to assassinate Nemtsov. The reasonable assumption (99% probability) is that there was NO such order, but these guys didn't know that. In which case, who put them up to it?

In short, the immediate killers were not hired by Washington, Kiev, Tbilisi, or the like, according to Akopov. They were patriotic citizens of the Russian Federation, loyal both to Kadyrov and to Putin, who were led to believe that Kadyrov wanted to them to do something, and they did it.

Under Akopov's theory, Nemtsov was neither here nor there, just a target of convenience. Others would have served the purpose just as well. The point was to do something that would bring down Kadyrov.

Akopov speculates that the entire cunning plan might have originated with MI-6, maybe Khodorkovsky or Nevzlin. He recommends that the best way to bust this wide open is to continue to follow the chain of evidence.

Jen, March 13, 2015 at 5:44 am

Akopov's theory does not contradict my view that the objective of Nemtsov's murder must be to drive a wedge between Putin and Kadyrov with the ultimate aim of isolating Chechnya and setting that republic up for destabilisation, so that it becomes a point of entry into Russia from Georgia for jihadists. Ruslan Geremeyev may also prove to be a bottom-feeder taking his orders from others either within Russia or without, albeit he is one ladder rung higher than Dadayev and the others who were arrested.

Whoever is trying to destabilise Chechnya must be doing so on the assumption that most Chechens or their clan leaders and religious clergy don't support Kadyrov and that he must be entirely reliant on Putin's support to give his leadership legitimacy.

marknesop, March 13, 2015 at 7:48 am

I suppose a plausible rationale is that a war on another border will draw Putin's attention away from Ukraine.

et Al, March 13, 2015 at 8:13 am

Someone higher up pulling the strings indeed. That would explain the timing of this. I wonder if the British are involved?*

* I'm using the same level of analysis & fact as the British press does.

yalensis, March 13, 2015 at 1:44 pm

Wonder no more!
The British are DEFINITELY involved.
I know this, because I am psychic!

et Al, March 13, 2015 at 2:52 pm

Psychic or psychic-pathic? A kind of passive-agressive diagnosis I have just invented. ;)

Using Chechens as hit men means that you have more chance of predicting next years Champion's League winners than knowing who ordered the hit. Everybody has a finger in the Chechen pie ffs.

kirill, March 13, 2015 at 2:53 pm

No, it's called detective intuition. The likelihood of the usual suspects of committing a crime is higher than some other scenario. In the case of the Nemtsov murder, timing is everything. It kills off competing theories for the motive and for those responsible.

yalensis, March 13, 2015 at 1:43 pm

Dear Jen:
Your view is very close to Akopov's.
For reasons of time, I omitted to translate one paragraph from Akopov's piece, in which he went into the current political situation in Chechnya. The Chechen Republic is fairly stable and lives its own life, there is a very delicate balance there, balancing the clan system, the religious authorities, Kadyrov's power, Chechnya's status as an important subject of the Russian Federation, etc. For a while the right balance was found, with Russia maintaining mostly hands-off. But, as with any complex society, a few things are seething under the surface, and outside intereference definitely does not help the situation.

I think the West is mistaken, however, if they believe that the sole source of Kadyrov's legitimacy lies with Putin's support. His legitimacy and power have a much broader base than that, within the clan system itself. Something else must be going on. Usually these kerfuffles happen around succession struggles; but Kadyrov is too young to have to worry about that, and as far as I know he is not pushing any grown sons into powerful jobs, so I don't think nepotism is an issue, although I could be wrong about that.

Anyhow, the going theory is that the Brits finally got smart, realized they would get nothing further from Zakaev and the "Ichkerians" still fighting in the mountains (bunch of losers), but somehow found a hook into the real elites.

Reply


[Mar 12, 2015] Eurosceptics playing into Vladimir Putin's hands, says Labour

Mar 12, 2015 | The Guardian

ID5868758 12 Mar 2015 00:49

I often wonder what the Middle East would look like today had the advice of that "evil Putin" been followed by the "exceptional Americans" and their allies. He was opposed to the war in Iraq. He was opposed to the attacks on Ghaddafi and Liibya, but overruled by Medvedev, who was president at the time. And of course he was against the US and their obsessive campaign against secular Assad and Syria.

But somehow we are supposed to believe that this man is the danger in the world, that everything would be fine and dandy if we could just get rid of Putin? Please.

Me109BfG6 11 Mar 2015 19:58

Stop better the mad house of s.c. "Ukraine". Until you can't find it on a map, you can't argue anything. I personally know a brigade of house constructors of 6 persons, of which 2 are Ukrainians and who have procured their passports somewhere is the Baltics for money. Now, do realize how you would once have to notice those 45 M Ukrainians standing on all street crossings in the UK and in the EU as well while beggaring. Yes, do realize that instead of any abstract demagogy and propaganda insulting Russia and Putin along with all the Russians in the s.c. "Ukraine". Stop the Nazis over there instead. The West Ukraine will elong to the Poland. The East Ukraine will belong to Russia or remain independent in order to speak freely Russian instead of that South Russian dialect called "Ukrainian" which is spoken - to the Forbes - by some 17% of the whole population in Ukraine only.

T_Wallet 11 Mar 2015 18:46

This article is nonsense. If there was no such thing as NATO then maybe it would have a credible point.

The EU is about as Democratic as Russia. Both want, like US and China, to extend their spheres of influence. Empires by other names.

JoseArmando0 -> psygone 11 Mar 2015 01:24

Money money money only thing yanks understand cant take it with you in the end anyway poetic justice

HARPhilby -> jezzam 11 Mar 2015 16:04

Rockefeller and JP Morgan financed hitler in 1929, 1931 and 1933. Read free pamphlet HITLER'S SECRET BACKERS by Sidney Warberg which came out in Holland in 1933 and was suppressed after 4 days.

http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/Warburg_Hitler's%20Secret%20Backers.pdf

vr13vr -> Damocles59 11 Mar 2015 14:31

UN chapter or not, but not everything in life is done according to legal interpretations. It's shouldn't be about bunch of lawyers arguing about legalese, it's about 10 million people. Why does UN chapter give more rights to 1.5 million people in Lithuania than to 10 million people in Donbass and South Ukraine?

It's about principles, not about legalese.

irishmand -> psygone 11 Mar 2015 11:11

The largest trading partners of both China and India: the EU and the US.

But not the exclusive partners. India and China will continue to trade with everybody. They are making honest money and don't care about US ambitions for world domination and its bad habit of toppling governments.

Don't take me wrong, I don't hate americans. The most of you are just brain washed regular citizens. It is not your fault, except for what you allowed your government to do with your school system. But I also see the extremism is growing in american society and that is the result of people being told about how exceptional they are comparing to the rest of the world. Germans started the same way in 30's...

anewdawn 11 Mar 2015 10:19

Listen to the Victoria Nuland tapes.
Other evidence that the Ukraine is a US military coup

And more from the Guardian.

Russian aggression from the Blairites is about as believeable as Iraqs weapons of mass distraction.
I am a Labour supporter - I feel ashamed of them. They should be kicked out just like militant was - and for much better reasons - lies and war criminality. The Libdems and Tories are no better.

Ross Vassilev -> jezzam 11 Mar 2015 09:56

Jezzam, you're either an idiot or a liar. NO ONE in the US wants a war with Russia except the neo-cons in Washington. And the dismembering of Serbia is proof that not all countries are entitled to territorial integrity, including Ukraine.

Ross Vassilev jezzam 11 Mar 2015 09:52

At least Russia is only invading neighboring countries. There's hardly a country in the world the US hasn't bombed or invaded.


Калинин Юрий Bosula 11 Mar 2015 09:22

The guys there always need somebody to blame. They have to justify their existence by pointing their fingers to an enemy. The enemy unites the nation and you can sell to this nation all kind of junk as a needed stuff to fight this enemy.

People love to believe is some mystic junk - invisible Russian threat, coup theory of communists in Moscow against Washington DC, etc.


igoraki Sceptical Walker 11 Mar 2015 08:14

Would like to recommend you a book to read, "L'Europe est morte à Pristina" by Jacques Hogard.You can learn a lot about all the good West and NATO did on Kosova and also you will see how the Albanians treated Serbs once our army retreated from Kosova.


madeiranlotuseater jezzam 11 Mar 2015 08:03

I am NOT a Kremlin supporter. The corruption sponsored by the state at home in Russia is appalling.
That is not my point. The USA has intervened in countless countries since the end of WW2. The problems in Ukraine are of the USA's making. It hasn't gone well for you. Europe (apart from Desperate Dave) doesn't want to use your hawkish methods to achieve a solution. How lovely of you to believe that you can have a war in our back yard. People such as Merkel and Hollande almost certainly did not get it okayed by your lot. More probably they told you how is was going to be, so get used to it.

America believes that killing people is the answer to find peace. It isn't.


Babeouf 11 Mar 2015 07:26

Well who would have guessed it the the Labour Party doesn't recognize US imperialism anywhere on planet earth. And if Labour form a government and the US/Iran negotiations fail they will happily join the next US coalition of the Shilling. On the substantive point apparently the I.MF won't loan Ukraine the billions of Euros unless the truce holds together. Now that really does help Vlad'the West is led by US sycophants and outright morons' Putin. But so has the entire US coup in Ukraine. There certainly is some Russian agent helping to formulate US State Department policy.


Orangutango 11 Mar 2015 07:14

It is utterly incoherent for our prime minister to call for tougher European action against President Putin in one breath and then threaten to leave the EU in the next. Security is the unspoken dimension of this European debate.

"This is no time for democratic nations to consider breaking from their allies. While Eurosceptics crave the breaking of ties to the EU, the security situation demands common action and resolve."


The Origin of the 'New Cold War'


http://rinf.com/alt-news/featured/origin-new-cold-war/

Eric Zuesse


decaston 11 Mar 2015 04:57

Euroscepticism (sometimes Euroscepticism or Anti-EUism) is the body of criticism of the European Union (EU), and opposition to the process of political European integration, existing throughout the political spectrum.
A survey in 2012, conducted by TNS Opinion and Social on behalf of the European Commission, showed that, for the European Union overall, those who think that their country's interests are looked after well in the EU are now in a minority (42%) About 31% of EU citizens tend to trust the European Union as an institution, and about 60% do not tend to trust it. Trust in the EU has fallen from a high of 57% in 2007 to 31% in 2012, while trust in national governments has fallen from 43% in 2007 to 28% in 2012.
Trust in the EU is lowest in the United Kingdom (16% trust, 75% distrust)

Spain is ranked the second most distrustful of the European Union, making it one of the three most Eurosceptic countries in the EU, along with the UK and Greece. 72 per cent of the Spanish people do not trust the EU, comparing to only 23% that trust this Union.
Portugal is the 8th most eurosceptic country in the European Union (not counting with Croatia) as shown by the "The Continent-wide rise of Euroscepticism", with 58% of the people tending not to trust the EU, behind Greece (81%), Spain (72%), UK (75%), Cyprus (64%), Sweden (62%), Czech Republic (60%) and Germany (59%).[57] The Eurosceptic parties currently hold 24 out of 230 seats in the parliament. The Euroscepticism of the left wing prevails in Portugal.
The Irish people voted no to initial referendums on both the Nice and Lisbon Treaties. There were second referendums held on both of these issues, and it was then, following renegotiations that the votes were swayed in favour of the respective 'Yes' campaigns.
In relation to both the Nice and Lisbon treaties, the decision to force second referendums has been the subject of much scrutiny and widespread criticism. It is claimed that rejection of the Irish peoples decision to vote no stands testament to the European Union's lack of regard for democracy and lack of regard for the right of people of nation states to decide their futures.
In Italy The Five Star Movement (M5S), an 25.5% of vote in the 2013 general election, becoming the largest anti-establishment and Eurosceptic party in Europe. The party also in 2013 the party was particularly strong in Sicily, Liguria and Marche, where it gained more than 30% of the vote.
In France in the European Parliament election, 2014, the National Front won the elections with 24.85% of the vote, a swing of 18.55%, winning 24 seats, up from 3 previously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroscepticism


Ilja NB Tom20000 11 Mar 2015 03:32

You can't even clean up your own mess ( Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, former Yougoslavia ).


Parangaricurimicuaro PlatonKuzin 11 Mar 2015 03:28

Victoria Nuland is looking for a way out for her and her politics (save face). She realizes that Europe is not happy with the way that the State Department hijacked the whole Ukrainian crisis


Budanevey 11 Mar 2015 03:22

The emergence of Redneck Labour is one of the genuine mysteries of our politics that historians will one day ponder, a Party that adopted American Sub Prime finance, State Department Foreign Policy, neo-liberal corporatism, neo-con wars, NSA total surveillance, waterboarding, secret prisons, secret justice, indefinite detention, Anglophobia, TTIP and a de facto Eurodollar, and now the fear tactics of Commies and Terrorists everywhere to keep us servile to the interests of Washington and their agenda for an expanding US empire via a cloned United States of Europe, fears that were similarly misused during the Cold War when the American umbrella was first being used to envelop us.

Didn't Labour learn anything from WW2 when we went to war to protect Polish independence, only to have Washington give it to Stalin, along with the rest of Eastern Europe, and then surrender our own commonwealth and independence to Washington's creature in Brussels? Who is pulling the strings when we see demands for the UK to subordinate its interests to EU expansion in the East, just as we see northern Eurozone interests being compromised to keep hold of southern Europe - Washington.

The largest country on Earth, Russia, has long been a sub prime performer because of its own extreme history of imperialism and arbitrary government, which makes it an investors' nightmare and a paradise for corporate, criminal and political gangsterism preying on its long-suffering people and their unfortunate neighbours. The Yeltsin Privatisation era following the White Revolution compounded the problem by making new oligarchies and dubious billionaires, leading to the latest twist in Putinism.

The answer to these differing examples and extremes of imperialism is not to join in new imperialisms, but to re-assert the value of honesty and accountability in business, government, the rule of law, and international relations. Redneck Labour has completely lost the plot.

madeiranlotuseater 11 Mar 2015 03:21

Soap Box Dave really believes he can hold onto power by scaring Europe into believing there is a threat from Russia. Past UK Premiers have done well with wars, Maggie, John and Tony all got re-elected. But Dave pitched for free flights on Air Force One and sucking up to POTUS whilst many of us felt that the whole game plan in Ukraine was of the CIA making. Poke the Bear enough and you will get a response. Germany and France saw through this and quickly side lined Davy and Kerry. Result: Dave, at a stroke, has reduced Britain's influence in the world to little more than not a lot.

elias_ 11 Mar 2015 02:19

All organisations are judged on the results of their actions. In the court of world opinion we can apply this logic to states. So let's see:
1. Iraq. We lied, killed a million people and now it is haven for Isis.
2. Libya. Far far worse now than under gadafi.
3. Syria. We wanted war but putin stopped it.
4. Egypt. Worse now than when we intervened.
5. Ukraine. Supporting neocon Victoria f*** the EU nuland doing violent regime change on Russia's borders and expecting Russia to sit idly by. Yes the protests were about oligarchy but then got hijacked by hired goons without which power would have transitioned peacefully.

Q. Is it any wonder we are losing credibility outside the west? Especially as many of these actions went without UN approval.


Peter Schmidt UncleSam404 11 Mar 2015 02:14

There is no British 'foreign policy'. They do as the US says.


irishmand jezzam 11 Mar 2015 02:13

Proof that Putin planned to annex Crimea and invade E Ukraine before Yanukovych was deposed.

Who said it is truth, it is propaganda, I don't believe a word of this bull.... The western media lied so many times, there is no credibility.


irishmand SystemD 11 Mar 2015 02:10

One might ask you for proof of CIA plots, except that there is none. Are you prepared to provide the same standard of proof of your allegations that you demand of others?

One might. We got Crimea, that's right. And Russia is helping the rebels. Well, US is helping the nazies in Kiev, so to make the chances equal...
Now, CIA What was CIA director doing when he was secretly visiting Ukraine? A vacation... And those CIA operatives in Kiev Speigel wrote about? A vacation...


Калинин Юрий jezzam 11 Mar 2015 01:48

Putin sending his troops to Ukraine? Then you know way much more then CIA, MI-5, Mossad, etc all together. Finally all these countries do not have to spent billions on the intelligence since you alone do all the job and have all the possible evidences to present to the world.

By the way yesterday the Russian troops used secret space waves on the drivers in Ukraine so 2 of British old APC's are out of service and in a ditch outside the road. This is the proof of the Russian regular army and thousands of dead Russian soldiers as well as billions of wounded in the Russian hospitals. Russia sends trains to Donetsk to take out all of them and OSCE at the border crossing station inspect them together with the Ukranian customs. Those, that have no chances to escape are captured by the Ukranian army and been exchanged for the Ukranian soldiers in front of hundreds of journalists. Anyway, Russian army is the most invisible army in the world.


Goodthanx 11 Mar 2015 01:20

According to McFadden, are we to presume that like NATO, one of the EU functions was/is the 'containment' of Russia?

A sign of EU immaturity is that member countries cant voice independent views and questions of sovereignty, without the scaremongers reducing their arguments to todays bogey man, Putin.


irishmand jezzam 10 Mar 2015 23:43

What you say is entirely true, To Kremlin supporters though, facts don't have any objective reality. They believe that facts are simply tools in the propaganda campaign. Thus in their eyes inventing "facts" is perfectly OK. They believe that the West does it as well - the depth of cynicism in Russia is hard to fathom.

What facts were invented?
ultra right coup in Kiev supported by US
bombardments of Donbass civilians by Kiev
relentless russophobic campaign in US and EU
Nuland saying F...the EU
Nazi elements in the Ukranian government
Crime voting to join Russia


BorninUkraine irishmand 10 Mar 2015 23:36

The objective of current US propaganda campaign is to prevent EU and Russia from cooperating to the point of creating a credible US competitor. As you could have noticed, this BS for European consumption works admirably: Europe just lost its last chance of becoming something of consequence.


irishmand MentalToo 10 Mar 2015 22:50

It is only an expense to Russia preventing other urgent investments to improve living conditions of the people in Russia. Russian leaders urgently needs to realize cooperation based on mutual respect of both sovereignty of nations as well as civil rights of individuals is the only way to improve relations to Europeans countries. Trying to use military force either directly or by coercion harms Russia more than anything. Russia is not in a competition to win over it neighbor states. Russia's mission is to win over it's own past through gaining trust of it's neighbors by peaceful cooperation.

It is a declaration of good will, which, unfortunately, is not supported by any actions in reality.
What have US/EU did recently:

Where is the mutual respect you are talking so much about? Where is your freedom of speech?
How can Russians trust you when you behave like bunch of liars and bullies, threatening to destroy Russia and celebrating every time something bad happens in Russia?
To get respect from Russia you have to show your respect too.
What saved Russia from american/NATO invasion? The very same army and the nuclear weapons. If it wouldn't be for them, americans would attack 6-8 months ago.
So, before you start teaching Russia manners turn around and look in the mirror of your society. You are not a democracy anymore. You became a bunch of power drunk, profit greedy warmongers who only understand "I want" and ready to sacrifice other people's lives in other countries for your personal well being.

[Mar 10, 2015] A Europe-U.S. Divorce Over Ukraine

Mar 10, 2015 | moonofalabama.org

The German government finally wakes up, a little bit at least, and recognizes the obvious fact that U.S. neocons want to drag Europe into a war. It is now openly blaming certain circles within the U.S. government and NATO of sabotaging the Minsk ceasefire agreement. Especially offensive is the fantasy talk of U.S. and NATO commander General Breedlove:

For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.

The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove's comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

But Breedlove hasn't been the only source of friction. Europeans have also begun to see others as hindrances in their search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. First and foremost among them is Victoria Nuland, head of European affairs at the US State Department. She and others would like to see Washington deliver arms to Ukraine and are supported by Congressional Republicans as well as many powerful Democrats.

Indeed, US President Barack Obama seems almost isolated. He has thrown his support behind Merkel's diplomatic efforts for the time being, but he has also done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine. Sources in Washington say that Breedlove's bellicose comments are first cleared with the White House and the Pentagon. The general, they say, has the role of the "super hawk," whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.

The U.S., including Obama, wants to strengthen the U.S. run NATO and thereby its influence in Europe. And Europe, by losing business with Russia and risking war, is supposed to pay for it.

The German public, despite tons of transatlantic propaganda, has well understood the game and the government can not escape that fact. It has to come back to some decent course and if that means trouble with Washington so be it. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and the U.S. are currently meeting in Paris and Secretary of State Kerry will not like what he will hear:

In Berlin, top politicians have always considered a common position vis-a-vis Russia as a necessary prerequisite for success in peace efforts. For the time being, that common front is still holding, but the dispute is a fundamental one -- and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action. Additionally, the trans-Atlantic partners also have differing goals.

Whereas the aim of the Franco-German initiative is to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, it is Russia that concerns hawks within the US administration. They want to drive back Moscow's influence in the region and destabilize Putin's power. For them, the dream outcome would be regime change in Moscow.

Europe has no interest in regime change in Russia. The result would likely be a much worse government and leader then the largely liberal Putin.

The U.S., the empire of chaos, does not care what happens after a regime change. In the view of U.S. politicians trouble and unrest in the "rest of the world" can only better the (relative) position of the United States. If production capabilities in Europe get destroyed through war the U.S. could revive its export industries.

It seems that at least some European leaders now understand that they got played by Washington and they are pushing back. A Eurasian economic sphere is in Europe's interest. Will Obama accept their view and turn off the hawks or will he escalate and risk the alliance with Europe? A first sign looks positive. The U.S. called off, on short notice, a plan to train Ukrainian National Guard (i.e. Nazi) forces:

[O]n Friday, a spokesman for US forces in Europe, confirmed the delay in a statement and said: "The US government would like to see the Minsk agreement fulfilled."

"The training mission is currently on hold but Army Europe is prepared to carry out the mission if and when our government decides to move forward," the statement said.

Some Europeans, like the writers in the piece above, still see Obama as a reluctant warrior pushed to war by the hawks in his own government and the Republicans in Congress. But the surge in Afghanistan, the destruction of Libya, the war on Syria and the trouble in Ukraine have all been run by the same propaganda scheme: Obama does not want war, gets pushed and then reluctantly agrees to it. It is a false view. The buck stops at his desk and Nuland as well as General Breedlove and other official hawks concerned about their precious bodily fluids are under Obama's direct command. He can make them shut up or get them fired with a simple 30 second phone call. As he does not do so it is clear that he wants them to talk exactly as they do talk. Obama is the one driving the neocon lane.

The Europeans should finally get this and distance themselves from that destructive path.

Posted by b on March 7, 2015 at 01:09 PM | Permalink

Selected Skeptical Comments

Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 7, 2015 2:05:22 PM | 1

Great analysis b.
Loved this bit...

The general, they say, has the role of the "super hawk," whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.

It's rather insulting to the EU that the dumbass, gutless, Yankees would appoint a war-mongering chicken-hawk called Breedlove to lecture them about The Importance Of Being Ernest - about hating Putin.

jayc | Mar 7, 2015 2:47:21 PM | 2

"the dispute is a fundamental one -- and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action."

Insisting that the "threat of military action" always be present during the practice of international diplomacy is a fundamental repudiation of international law as proscribed by the United Nations at the end of WW2. In the current Orwellian situation, the foreign policy hawks (in particularly the Anglo 5 Eyes countries) articulate policy informed by this repudiation while on the other hand insisting that they are motivated by upholding mid-century international law. Here is John Boehner speaking for a bi-partisan Congressional committee quoted today in the Washington Times:

"It is even more than simply a component of a revisionist Russian strategy to redraw international borders and impose its will on its neighbors,it is a grotesque violation of international law, a challenge to the west and an assault on the international order established at such great cost in the wake of World War II."

ToivoS | Mar 7, 2015 2:59:09 PM | 3

When this crisis in Ukraine first broke out last year it made no sense at all for Obama to have let Nuland carry on as she was doing. He could have defused the whole thing simply by firing Nuland or I thought. However, his actions over the past year seem to show that this was his policy as b says here.

It is hard to understand why He and Kerry have pursued this policy. For sure, as was predictable one year ago it has turned their widely touted 'pivot to asia' into irrelevancy. It has directly forced China and Russia into a stronger alliance. Those are some big prices to pay for our provocations against Russia.

So why did we do it? I will guess. Putin's 2010 speech proposing a common economic union from Vladivostok to Lisbon must have been seen as a very serious threat by some powerful forces in the US. Fear of losing or at least lessening US hegemony over Europe was probably a major factor in deciding to 'pivot back to Europe'. Our influence there must have seemed much more important than Asia or even the ME. Ukraine provided an opportunity to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe or so US power brokers thought. As a secondary reason, at least one that brought the US military on board with the new policy, is that a new cold war with Russia provided an opportunity to reinvigorate NATO, that has always been a favorite play thing the army and airforce. After the collapse of the Soviet Union it was very difficult to justify NATO's existence.

It would be ironies of ironies if this crisis now forces Germany to declare its independence and work harder to rebuild relations with Russia and in the process become a major player in the Eurasian Union. This is what Pepe Escobar just suggested this last week is a possibility.

Laurence | Mar 7, 2015 3:04:18 PM | 4

Some Europeans, like the writers in the piece above, still see Obama as a reluctant warrior pushed to war by the hawks in his own government and the Republicans in Congress. But ...

You may be correct. But:

You haven't established that the evident appearance of `reluctance' is a "false view". In theory, "The buck stops at his desk". The obvious fact that it hasn't, however, is -- at best -- by no means creditable.

I can hardly wait 'til the `progressive' Twittercrats start calling for Obama to "go nuclear" with Putin. ...

Colinjames | Mar 7, 2015 3:05:26 PM | 5

#2, I guess he's taking his cues from Noodles, here's some highlights from her Match 4 address to Foreign Affairs Committee, lifted from Stephen Lendman

Claims-

Bizzaro world. Completely upside down from reality. And no I'm not trying to one up you #2! It's just crazy stuff coming out of the mouths of every politician and official and media whore, I've never seen anything like it.

Wayoutwest | Mar 7, 2015 3:07:24 PM | 6

Good report, b especially including the fact that this is a bipartisan project led by the Liberal Democrats.

The European actions especially Germanys may be more or less than they appear to be. I doubt that Germany would or could stand in the way of US demands but they may be facilitating an escape path for the US to use to avoid a more dangerous confrontation with Russia.

james | Mar 7, 2015 3:25:46 PM | 7

thanks b.. some good points in your post which i strongly share, this one in particular - The U.S., the empire of chaos, does not care what happens after a regime change. In the view of U.S. politicians trouble and unrest in the "rest of the world" can only better the (relative) position of the United States.

when does this nightmare called us foreign policy die?

Piotr Berman | Mar 7, 2015 4:47:47 PM | 8

"Europe has no interest in regime change in Russia. The result would likely be a much worse government and leader then the largely liberal Putin."

What is wrong with those two sentences? First, "Europe", a landmass in western Eurasia usually demarcated by the crests of Ural and Caucasus mountain chains and Ural river. The text refers mostly to the governments of France and Germany. Who are "NATO hawks"? Danes and Norwegians, latter day Varangians? Or Latvians and Estonians who would like to have a re-match of Battle on Ice? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Ice_(Lake_Peipus)

Second, "The result …" This has to be a joke. "Europe" has many headaches with the governments of Greece and Hungary, but can they change them? Actually, in the case of Greece, this sentence could make sense, because in Greece they have a real opportunity of causing a government crisis and getting a more extreme government. But in the case of Russia, it is only a question of having a long-term gain in mutually assured economic destruction, or not.

Double-talk is bread and butter of diplomacy, but we simple folk can afford to express ourselves more directly. The real problem in arming Ukraine is that the government there is untrustworthy and it would probably use the aid to further neglect the economy and concentrate even more on futile military endeavor, and it could also commit some atrocities as it would be at it. Being "a little bit Nazi" is perfectly fine with Baltic governments and Croatia, plus USA and Canada, could be fine with Hungary but the leader there is constantly on the prowl for good deals and just now got one from Putin, and causes mixed feeling elsewhere.

So the trillion dollar question for most responsible European leaders is if US is more trustworthy than Poroshenko crew?

jfl | Mar 7, 2015 5:09:32 PM | 11

Yes, good analysis. Especially the Empire of Chaos' goal of reimplementing the aftermath of WWII : everyone outside North America flat on their backs and the US the colossus by virtue of still standing. But ...

' Will Obama accept their view and turn off the hawks or will he escalate and risk the alliance with Europe? ... Obama is the one driving the neocon lane. '

Whether it's the neocon line or in the neocon lane, Obama's not driving. Never has been. He was hired to sit behind the wheel of the neoliberal, neocon drone of state, operated by 'pilots' from Langley, the Pentagon, Wall Street - seemingly by all three, via rapid context switch in pseudo-parallel.

The reason US policy seems to lurch ever more violently toward disaster is because none of the actors actually implementing it by turn are identified. The Nihilist Nobel Peace Prize Laureate gets dunked everytime, hauls himself out of the tank, climbs back up on the stool, makes faces and jeers at the crowd throwing balls at the trip target ... all absurdly trying to effect a change in policy.

It's just a job ... 2,236 days down, 686 days till payday.

Mar 7, 2015 5:21:18 PM | 12

@8,9,10

Thanks for the analysis with Russia at the center rather than the USA. Catchy restatement of the difference between 'the chicken then the egg' vs 'the egg then the chicken'.

I'm rooting for Russia, and Putin's been in charge there. Of course, I'm really rooting for my USA, but for my USA to survive the present oligarchy must be defeated : the Chicken's neck must be wrung and its carcasse flung into the stew pot.

dan of steele | Mar 7, 2015 6:31:13 PM | 13

it is my opinion that the German government led by Mrs Merkel is a lot more involved in the crisis that is Ukraine than is being discussed in this forum. There was quite a lot of support for Tymoshenko from Merkel including her drive to boycott the Ukraine when Tymoshenko had been imprisoned for embezzlement.

she was also promoting Vitaly Klitschko for the longest time abruptly ending when Vickie Nuland let it be known that he was not accceptable as a leader of Ukraine.

The German government has been a very willing stooge of the US in causing or continuing the unrest in Ukraine. That many people in Germany have suffered due to this behavior from sanctions and embargoes on both the European side as well as the Russian side might be a consequence that the German elite decided they could live with rather than simply something forced upon them from the US.

As far as I can tell, the fecal matter hit the air moving device right after Yanukovich decided to maintain close economic ties with Russia rather than throw in with the EU. EU for all intents and purposes Germany.

just a thought. ymmv

JohnH | Mar 7, 2015 7:16:23 PM | 19

"The U.S., the empire of chaos, does not care what happens after a regime change. In the view of U.S. politicians trouble and unrest in the "rest of the world" can only better the (relative) position of the United States."

And it does not appear that the US cares what happens to Europe, either. If sanctions on Iran hurt European business, meh. If sanctions on Russia push Europe back into recession...meh.

Maybe someday Europe will get a clue...

Benu | Mar 7, 2015 8:02:30 PM | 20

I felt like I was reading the lyin-ass New York Times. (How do these so-called journalists get ANY work done with all that CIA/StateDept/JSOC cock in their mouth? Inquiring minds want to know. Anyway…)

Germany is presented like an old grandma, wringing her hands and saying, "Oh, mercy me! Can't we all just get along?" … If it wasn't for that dang Gen. Breedlove…except, well, he's actually right, don't you know, except, OK, he exaggerates a bit. There's LOTS of Russia aggression, and we have proof we won't show you…but not as much as he says. I mean, credibility, and all, right?…And that Vicki Nuland, well, she's bitch we all agree, but she gets things done and sometimes you need to get tough, don't ya know. She "loves Russia" (yeah, I bet…like I love a nice rare steak….sliced sooooo thin.) So…come on, dial it back a little won't you guys over in Langley…?

This seemed to me like CIA drizzle from Der Spigot!

A few carefully breaded pieces of True served with a piquant sauce of Lies and a side of Dissembling and Disinformation. One of those articles that is structured like, "yeah, true…BUT!"

ToivoS @ | 3

Putin's 2010 speech proposing a common economic union from Vladivostok to Lisbon must have been seen as a very serious threat by some powerful forces in the US.

So says Mike Whitney in an important post re Nemtsov's assassination over at Counterpunch. I agree with you and him. I wonder what Uncle Ruslan thinks? He must have some ideas, having lived with Graham Fuller for all this those years.

Colinjames @ 5

Those excerpts really infuriated me. I have the most terrible desire to bitch slap Vicki Nudelman until she falls down and begs me to stop. I see her face and my hand itches. I need to stop watching Jess Franco movies.

Wayoutwest @ 6

The European actions especially Germanys may be more or less than they appear to be. I doubt that Germany would or could stand in the way of US demands but they may be facilitating an escape path for the US to use to avoid a more dangerous confrontation with Russia.

Ayuh. I agree, with you (see above) --and dan of steele's very excellent and needful post at 13. Germany's in this shit up to their eyeballs. I recall reading in "The Brothers" that after WW2 the CIA just basically took over (and presumably still owns) German intelligence. Took their Nazis in and kept all the spy lines and assets. Gladio was an outgrowth of that, I guess.

But I don't think the blood-thirsty vampires in the US can dial it back. They are all up in that snatch (to slightly paraphrase a vulgar version of the Petraeus bio's title that actually got shown on US news.)

Piotr Berman's delightful rants at 18 @ 19

What interesting ideas and insights you bring to the discussion. If you don't mind saying, are you German? If I was a German citizen I would be very upset and I have read that, like here in the States, this Ukraine shit combined with NSA spying combined with that book about how all the media are CIA assets has caused a crisis of confidence between reasonably-informed citizens and dissembling government, media, military, etc.


I agree with all the posters here saying that Obama has never had hold of the levers of power. A few, yes. But what with the "tunneling" of political appointees transformed into civil servants at the end of the Bush admin…yeah, no. And that's not the only reason…just one.

jfl | Mar 7, 2015 8:11:20 PM | 21

@13

Certainly Germany is covetous of Russia/the Ukraine. And Merkel, like Obama, knows how to get along by going along with the ones who brung her. Used to be the Russians in East Germany, are now the Americans in West/Unified Germany.

Both are puppets, 'loyal' to the their puppeteers. The rest of the EU apparat are in the pocket of the US, and dance to the same tune piped to Obama.

Germany on its own is not capable of subduing Russia, yet hopes to be in position to reap the benefits of the US' destruction of same.

They're all losers, betting on making a killing, benefiting from their neighbors' collapse. Their neighbors have other ideas ... must have to survive. TIAA.

Benu | Mar 7, 2015 8:33:21 PM | 22

jfl @ 21

Love your vampires and vultures scenario. Tolstoy's Vourdalak or the folkloric Russian
Волколак or Volkolak is what I've been thinking of late, because I am a Mario Bava kind of gal.

You know, Russia is one of the few countries NOT 110% indebted to German/London/Wall Street/Brussels banks. Seems to me that definitely has something to do with all this. They've got something to plunder. (Lotta gold. yum!) I bet there's some truth to the assertion that the flaming tire of blame for global economic collapse is being readied for Russia's neck...just in case. We're very close.

NotTimothyGeithner | Mar 7, 2015 9:02:57 PM | 25

Demian @ 23

WTF did Germany THINK was going to come of this?

But perhaps there is no one Germany. I can only suppose that it must be like it is here in the US...different factions with their own power bases pulling their own levers.

Benu | Mar 7, 2015 8:48:57 PM | 24

@24 I think the plan was for a rapid victory in Ukraine and Putin just stomping his feet. Keeping Crimea, the uprisings, and the general thuggery/incompetence in Kiev weren't in the plans. The Chinese didn't defend Russia against accusations about flight #mh17, the Chinese openly scoffed at the West not even giving fools like Kerry the time of day.

German firms were supposed to win contracts replacing Russian firms not see the SCO grow and face losses from self-imposed sanctions. Merkel and people in her sphere overdid the rhetoric. Voters won't forget a major propaganda change, and Merkel and her ilk know this but can't see how to get out of the mess especially with Kiev in need of European cash.

PBenu | Mar 7, 2015 9:19:53 PM | 26

NotTimmeh @ 25

So, you seem to be saying that this is rather like what WoW maintains...an offering of an exit ramp to the US...because Germany really, really wants off this highway to hell.

Hideous to think they were all for it when it looked like easy rapings and little to no consequences.

International finance needs to be dismantled. That's what's behind all this shit. Bankster's wars.

Helena Cobban | Mar 7, 2015 9:31:25 PM | 27

The practices of Ms. Nuland (taking cookies out to support the demonstrators during the "Maidan" actions) echoed exactly those of Amb. Robert Ford in Syria. In both cases it was a strange perversion and repudiation of traditional standards of diplomatic practice. It was not just a Nuland aberration.

And we've seen the outcome, a few years later, in both these war-ravaged countries. God help the people of both countries.

Pluto | Mar 7, 2015 9:52:56 PM | 28

@3 ToivoS

Interesting points you make. I believe what we have here IS the pivot to Asia, - through the backdoor. The US is haunted by the inevitable rise of Eurasia as a superpower. And, the fact is, the "pivot" was unrealistic and a rather silly strategy. China's New Silk Road Economic Belt, both rail and maritime - stretching from Beijing through Russia and across Europe to Madrid (with spurs to India, Iran, the ME and down the African continent) - was a preemptive strike that neutered US aspirations. Even worse, it's already funded.

Picture the US on the globe: Isolated and alone, separated from the lively Eastern Hemisphere by two vast oceans. Adrift, stewing in its own juices, in desperate need of a world war to elevate it once again out of its economic doom and into super-stardom.

This is further evidenced by the US desperation over the TPP and TTIF. It has reached a fever pitch, with endless negotiations inside the super-secret US "cone of silence." For the US, these corporate-ruled trade agreements are their last hope for hegemony over global trade, especially now that the Petrodollar is dead. (Another consequence of the Ukraine stupidity.) But, both trade treaties seem to be failing badly (there are anti-TTIF demonstrations throughout Germany today). In any event, China rendered them both irrelevant with APEC and the New Silk Road, which popped into existence the very instant that the US stepped into the Ukraine tar pit. For China, they are done deals. Even Australia and New Zealand have come to their senses and seem to be climbing on board.

Surely, Europe already knows this. They've seen many empires decline. I suppose its only prudent to string the US along and contain the chaos....

Demian | Mar 7, 2015 9:58:02 PM | 29

@Helena Cobban #27:

God help the people of both countries.

Well, no one knows whether either one of them will continue to exist, do they? The Kremlin's intention is clearly to keep Ukraine's territory as it is (sans Crimea; that question is closed), but Ukraine is increasingly entering into full-spectrum social collapse, so wha the outcome will be is unpredictable, especially since the Ukraine was an artificial country to begin with, patched together from the territories of other countries.

As for Syria, I am all for secular states in the Islamic world, like Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya before the US destroyed them. Our fan of the Islamic State Wayoutwest can say much more about this than I can, but it is possible that states created by Sykes-Picot will disappear, to be replaced by a caliphate. In the larger scheme of things, that would be a good thing because

(1) even though the caliphate would initially have a regressive form of Islam, once Arabs are in control of their own destiny, they will not fear engaging in reforms;

(2) a caliphate would create one more pole for the emerging multipolar world.

NotTimothyGeithner | Mar 7, 2015 10:13:03 PM | 30

@26 They are giving Obama an out and blame can be heaped on Nuland and Breedlove. Rasmussen didn't make the Der Spiegel article, and he is completely deranged as anyone outside of GOP politics.

IMHO Obama only responds to extreme embarrassment. Offering him an out won't work without tying Obama and Nuland at the hip.

It's overlooked, but in 2012 when Obama came out for gay marriage, he cloaked his support in nonsense about state rights but only after his campaign machine had worked against an effort in North Carolina to defeat anti-gay/woman/child referendum. There were political reasons, but there was a growing anger. Biden saw this and just randomly announced Obama's pro gay marriage views. It took three days, but Obama got around to tepidly endorsing a form of gay marriage. Obama only acted because Biden forced his hand. It took almost two weeks after everyone in the U.S. knew Shinseki from the Veteran Affairs Department for Obama to dismiss him when Shinseki should have been fired right away, but Obama only acts when faced with total embarrassment.

fast freddy | Mar 7, 2015 10:14:08 PM | 31

Obama is a puppet. Cheney, Kissinger, Negroponte, GHWBush and friends, CIA, Brzezinski, Rockefeller, etc. Deep State pulls his strings. Obama was himself a CIA protege at BIC. There are no pesky principles to contend with.

And he is not allowed to fire Nuland or any other neocon warmonger.

Did you see what they did to JFK for stepping out of line?

@ jfl | 11

But exactly!

Obama's not driving. Never has been. He was hired to sit behind the wheel of the neoliberal, neocon drone of state, operated by 'pilots' from Langley, the Pentagon, Wall Street - seemingly by all three, via rapid context switch in pseudo-parallel.

The reason US policy seems to lurch ever more violently toward disaster is because none of the actors actually implementing it by turn are identified.

Pluto | Mar 7, 2015 10:45:33 PM | 34

Although it seems there are two schools of thought about that around here, this has been my assumption from the beginning.


@3 ToivoS

Forgot to mention,: You spoke of consequences. That is of particular interest, I believe, and speaks to the destiny of the US as it stumbles about on the world stage, without future awareness.

It is hard to understand why He and Kerry have pursued this policy. For sure, as was predictable one year ago it has turned their widely touted 'pivot to asia' into irrelevancy. It has directly forced China and Russia into a stronger alliance. Those are some big prices to pay for our provocations against Russia.

There are more than a few significant unintended consequences that have come in short order as a result of the Ukraine blunder. For example:

The US is paying a mighty high price for its neocon folly.

Piotr Berman | Mar 7, 2015 10:55:20 PM | 35

In response to questions, I used my real name, I am Polish citizen living in USA.

European elite, including Germany and France, are almost instinctively aligning themselves with American elite, but they take exception to a favorite American trick: penciling a grandiose plan to be paid by EU.

Russian counter-sanctions fall on Europeans, and it is pointless to quibble if "dollar is dead" -- it is not, but USA will not pay to integrate Turkey and Ukraine with EU, to cite some of the grandiose ideas. German conservatives in particular are notorious bean counters, they generously paid to integrate Eastern Germany, but are much less enthusiastic to have foreign beneficiaries. (In Poland, the consensus is that it is OK to help Ukrainians, provided that it will not cost anything. There is also a minority that hates Ukrainians more than Russians, and younger folks seem not to care at all.)

As it is, EU duly enacted sanctions on Iran, Syria and Russia, and Merkel is resolute at sending mixed signals, so to some extend there is no "divorce". If anything, they are on the same wavelength as Obama. Recall how Europe resisted joining Bush jr. war in Iraq. "New Europe", including Poland, provided a bunch of little contingents, and that proved to be quite unpopular domestically. Even so, regime change in Libya was accomplished mostly by Europeans, and this is perhaps one of the unique successes in history that has a dearth of claimants. On the heals of that feat, even ever supine Brits rebelled when they had a chance to repeat the success in Syria. The belief that "Americans surely know what they are doing" is eroding even as we scribble. But so far, there is hardly any "European alternative".

I guess Putin will graciously lift sanctions on Hungarian and Greek produce, Ukraine will get some weapons and training, but not a hell lot -- seriously, what scale of military aid would truly make a difference?

TikTok | Mar 7, 2015 11:42:48 PM | 36

Harper has given citizenship to Yatsenyuk in case 'something goes wrong'. Fcuk. http://www.pravda.ru/news/world/formerussr/ukraine/06-03-2015/1251452-yacenyk-0/

james | Mar 8, 2015 12:02:59 AM | 37

@35 piotr.. thanks for pointing out euro's role in libya and how nothing is going to change, as i personally believe just like the usa is bought and paid for, so is germany and france.. to suggest there will be much of a fracture is to suggest the international banker mafia don't have these politicians on the same page. i think they do.. whether they get elected again, or the required politicians to do the job of the bankers do - i think they do..

as for obama being anything other then a rubber stamp - i agree with @31 fast freddy.. step out of line and look what you will get.. it is hard not to be cynical..

@36 tiktok.. what a pathetic pos we have for a leader here in canada, but like i say about most of these western leaders and to which i include harper - they are all beholden to the same narrow interests that have nothing to do with the common people's interest.. they continue to think we are stupid or worse..

Demian | Mar 8, 2015 12:04:56 AM | 38

@Piotr Berman #35:

so far, there is hardly any "European alternative".

There does not need to be any European alternative. And the EU is dominated by Germany, the intelligence services of which, as someone here observed recently, are infiltrated by the CIA (although there was a report that Germany is now setting up a branch of its intelligence service independent of USG). The alternative is Russia. It is too late for Europeans to come up with alternatives. (They did that first with Hegel and then with Marx, but neither attempt held.) Europeans just need to realize that since the world is becoming multipolar, they belong in the Eurasian pole, not a contrived Atlanticist one.

Russia has grave flaws, an Europeans can help Russians fix those, if Europeans make a break with the predatory and anti-human Anglosphere.

Nana2007 | Mar 8, 2015 12:16:52 AM | 40

The push back is far too late. The gorgon Nuland and Dr Strangelove himself Zed Breszinski testifying before the mouth breathers of the foreign affairs committee this week continued to ratchet up the rhetoric:
"I wonder how many people in this room or this very important senatorial committee really anticipated that one day Putin would land military personnel in Crimea and seize it. I think if anybody said that's what he is going to do, he or she would be labeled as a warmonger. He did it. And he got away with it. I think he's also drawing lessons from that. And I'll tell you what my horror, night-dream, is: that one day, I literally mean one day, he just seizes Riga, and Talinn. Latvia and Estonia. It would literally take him one day. There is no way they could resist. And then we will say, how horrible, how shocking, how outrageous, but of course we can't do anything about it. It's happened. We aren't going to assemble a fleet in the Baltic, and then engage in amphibious landings, and then storm ashore, like in Normandy, to take it back. We have to respond in some larger fashion perhaps, but then there will be voices that this will plunge us into a nuclear war

I'll tell you what Brezinski's real horror night dream is dying before the US attempts a full on takeover of Russia. Whether Germany likes it or not they'll continue to be a pawn in the dark lords 8 dimensional chess game. It's a little late to be thinking twice now that the breadbasket of Europe is a basket case. The hope is that the whooping that's coming to the USSA shakes out the aristocracy that brought it about and sends them fleeing with nothing but their assholes.

Harold | Mar 8, 2015 3:48:14 AM | 43

Oddly, Brzezinski himself not too long ago recommended the "Finlandization" of Ukraine. The neo-cons and armaments industry have adopted a cartoonish version of his theories -- which, in any case, hark back to the Geographical Pivot theory dating to 1904! It's become a crude dogma that doesn't even rise to the level of ideology.

Prosperous Peace | Mar 8, 2015 5:20:41 AM | 44

Decent analysis but misses two important points:

1) "Special British-US relationship" - US has been a British colony for at least last 100 years, ie. a muscle-man for the Rothschildes-Jewish-Zionist cabal with its HQ in the City of London, Israel plays a "mad dog" role for them, Canada, Australia, and many other in the Commonwealth have their parts to play too. Because Obama since the evening of his reelection turned against the Crow Corporation, they have been forced to increasingly rely on themselves and other subjects - notice rapidly intensifying British military presence in the Central (Poland, which is situated at the very heart of the continent) and Eastern Europe (Baltic republics), as well as in the ME - Bahrain, police force now on the Turkish-Syrian border. Also British lying propaganda has been very intense, by far the worst in the EU. The neocons, McCain, Soros et al respond to the Rothschildes, always have. The British have been leading the charge recently and you will see more and more of this soon.

2) Obama's team has been under the threats form the global criminal cabal many times itself. Security breaches at the White House, warnings of assassination, "third force" trying to start a civil war in the US by abusing the police powers and killing the police officers, fake social movements menacing the White House with "marches" like the one of Jewish Adam Kokesh...

Summing up - it's been the City of London pulling the strings all along and Obama have been in danger of a violent overthrow already for some time.

somebody | Mar 8, 2015 5:40:49 AM | 45

RE: Piotr Berman | Mar 7, 2015 10:55:20 PM | 35

You are right about the issue of paying for grandiose plans.

Seems though that Europeans are really pissed off.

Jean Claude Juncker calls for European Army with headquarters in Brussels

Key sentence

Juncker wies zugleich auf die organisatorischen und finanziellen Vorteile des Vorhabens hin. So würde es zu einer intensiven Zusammenarbeit bei Entwicklung und Kauf von militärischem Gerät führen und erhebliche Einsparungen bringen.

Brief translation: Juncker highlighted the organizatorial and financial advantages. Cooperation in the development and procurement of military equipment could be shared and save considerable amounts.

jfl | Mar 8, 2015 8:13:07 AM | 46

German official says Saudi Arabia top 'terror exporter' in Mideast
[Vice President of the German Parliament (Bundestag) Claudia] Roth called Riyadh "the top terror exporter in the Middle East," adding that "a large portion" of extremist militants in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq hail from Saudi Arabia.

Germany's guidelines on weapons exports make it "crystal clear that deliveries cannot be made to such countries," she stressed.

"Besides the weapons deals, Germany is also discussing other trade ties with Saudi Arabia," she said. "Pressure could certainly be brought to bear using these."

The results of a recent survey conducted for German daily Bild have shown that 78 percent of Germans believe Berlin should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, while a further 60 percent favor breaking off trade relations all together with the Persian Gulf monarchy due to its human rights violations.

Great place for the crack to open up/spread from/to Ukraine.

ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 8, 2015 10:42:49 AM | 49

I would note that Merkel working with Timoshenko was more likely a tactical move - one in which Germany would get some leverage vs. Russia regarding natural gas moving through Ukraine as well as benefits within Ukraine.

This is very different than the American tactic of exaggerating ethnic tensions on order to create a failed state a la Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, ad nauseam. American doesn't necessarily intend to create a failed state - the correct view is that the goal is a puppet regime, but a failed state in someone else's backyard is almost as good...or good enough.

I'd also note that this is different than the British Empire tactic - the British would also arm "their" rebels, but they would put skin in the game (soldiers on the ground) in order to ensure that they wound up with the correct puppet regime.

It is still unclear to me whether the American abridgement of Byzantine/Ottoman/British Empire tactics is an evolution or a devolution.

dh | Mar 8, 2015 11:02:42 AM | 50

@49 I think America has always attempted to maintain the 'good guy' facade. Since 911 it's been more like 'no more Mr. Niceguy'.

guest77 | Mar 8, 2015 11:05:10 AM | 51

If the EU and Russia can edge the United States out of the situation, it is a win/win for everyone except the US, who will have seen $5B and an old Cold War dream go up in smoke.

If the US can be ejected, it will be the EU and especially the Germans who have gained the most mightily by the Maidan. The partition of Ukraine - getting rid of those parts that did vote more heavily for the Party of Regions and the Communists, leaves the EU with a "Orange", oligarchical Ukraine forever. A Ukrainian horse that the EU can hitch their currently broken cart to, a huge area for Germany to dominate in the heart of Europe - (one of Germany's oldest dreams). It's not something I'd personally wish on the Ukrainian population, but Ukraine becoming a proper EU member would require the suppression of the Nazis who, if they are not, would at least be loud, violent, internal opposition allied with the trouble-making USA, or at worst would try and wage a disruptive terrorist war over Crimea and the East.

Would this situation be acceptable to Russia? Wins there would be the retention of Crimea with no question as to its return to the rump Ukraine, plus the advantage of having the US out of the Ukraine completely and having caused an EU/US fissure. The status of the East would have to be determined, but it would seem that independence or becoming part of Russia would be the best bets there now that they'd no longer be able to offset the vote of the far west.

Anyway, that's all details. The real good thing here - for people all over the globe - would be that the war-making US elite would have been ejected from another region where they've been making trouble.

chalo | Mar 8, 2015 11:26:00 AM | 52

Ah, the utopian dreams of the unwashable internet junky. Germany will never reject the US. You heard it hear first. LOL

Scott | Mar 8, 2015 11:42:29 AM | 53

So far when it comes to any "divide" all I've seen is rhetoric and posturing. Considering the Fourth Reich and it's vassals are owned and controlled by the same puppet-masters I don't see any actual schism happening. Small European countries that actively resist will find a "color" revolution brewing. Large nations who actually push back will be hit with economic warfare. The courage to stand up for their people and stop the lunatics in D.C. doesn't exist in the currant political actors in Europe. I truly hope I'm wrong, but until we see DEEDS instead of mere WORDS...the steady slide toward war will continue.

rufus magister | Mar 8, 2015 11:43:22 AM | 54

...To get back on topic, Russia Insider considers the broader question of the regime's attitudes; the open fascism of the junta is I think at root of much of European unease. Kiev's Drive to Dehumanize East Ukrainians is certainly a key component of that mentality.

purple | Mar 8, 2015 11:59:18 AM | 55

All the European leaders are compromised in some way, the NSA probably has everything they have written, said, or done in a database. Merkel looks to have been involved in some shady activities in East Germany if you look closely enough. Don't expect Europe to break from Pax Americana.

Wayoutwest | Mar 8, 2015 12:24:05 PM | 56

RM@54

I think that the unease in Europe about the rise of open fascism is superficial and more a PR concern than true opposition at least among the Ruling Class. So long as fascism serve their purposes and feeds their true agendas but remains obscured it is supported and protected.

OT again, many of us Oldies experienced music somewhat differently than today where albums or sides of albums were how we enjoyed the performances. Even radio DJs were judged by the way they programmed their shows and we were always in search of the perfect segway.

Anonymous | Mar 8, 2015 12:40:07 PM | 57

Divorce? Hardly. EU want an EU army, http://rt.com/news/238797-eu-joint-army-threat/

Another US puppet idea.

rufus magister | Mar 8, 2015 12:53:42 PM | 58

...On topic -- the fascism by itself is not too great a worry. That they're incompetent and it will cost someone lots of money to fix things more so. Events may not break up "the Allies" now, but with the proper moves and missteps by the varied parties involved.... Someone's planning a few moves ahead, and I don't think it's DC. Sadly, we can't overlook the power of short-sighted deviousness.

diogenes | Mar 8, 2015 1:20:48 PM | 60

It looks to me as if the differences between Obama and Merkel on Ukraine are tactical not strategic, viz:

Merkel doesn't have to deal with the infamous American "bottom line" every 90 days, and this gives her leisure to actually think about what she is doing.

German voters have a mind of their own and are not compliant stooges like American voters, who only require a few weeks of cheap propaganda to go along with the most crackpot of schemes. The saying "the burned child fears the fire" does not apply in their case.

The goal from Merkels point of view must be the neoliberal exploitation of Russia - not bringing Ukraine into NATO, which is only useful in an aggressive war against Russia; or for use as a provocation resulting in the removal of Putin.

Therefore Merkel has no qualms about putting the Western project against Russia on hold until a more opportune time.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 1:25:48 PM | 61

Hm, excellent article b, as always, though my first thoughts were, 'overly optimistic' ...

However, upon some reflection and reconsideration, there does seem to be a confluence/pattern of events occurring recently, which may signal that a real 'Newer Great Game' may be afoot, in our currently Unipolar, sole superpower, Empire dominated world.

The Minsk agreement was done without US involvement, in fact explicitly excluded US involvement, and the subsequent events of the EU players give every indication of having continued in that vein ... ie. Germany and France clearly acting independent of the Empire ... Poroschenko exposed as a powerless puppet, purely a pawn, a mere agent of influence of the US.

Now there are firm calls for no new sanctions by the EU, 'give Minsk a chance' ...

The reports re Breedlove/NATO and German governments new 'perspective' re Ukraine/Russia in this thread ... effectively denouncing the Empires warmongering, baseless propaganda, and willingness to have the EU 'go fuck itself' re Russia/Ukraine for no-ones benefit except the US. History, and US geopolitical strategy repeats ...

Now the EU (President Junckers) calling for the creation of an EU Integrated Army ... with only the UK and France so far having expressed concerns. France has always had a firm view to an independent military, regardless of NATO. UK view is irrelevant as they are merely viewed as the US suborned 'spoiler' in the EU, so again no surprise and no leverage/clout. Reports are Germany support the EU/Junckers proposal ... claims an integrated EU army would be far more effective and significantly less costly, as well as utilizing EU resources for the EU's benefit, not that of the US. Which would be quite true if micro and macro duplication at all levels was reduced by allocating specific functions and roles to relevant EU nations militaries within such a 'truly integrated' force ... for example, German Armored Corps, French Naval/Marine forces, Spanish Airborne/Airmobile, Italian Air Defence, a smaller member state to speciliaze as MPs, etc. The very proposal implicitly and explicitly would result in the dissolution of NATO, which has only ever been a US political-military agency within Europe serving exclusively the US interest. Such a proposal is NOT for the Empires benefit and very far from a trivial event. The Empire appears to have completely missed this coming ...

Reports the German government has created a new 'independent' offshoot of the BND, ie. a true German Intelligence service (or the seeds of ?) actually serving German National interests, as opposed to the US created and ever since suborned BND since the end of WWII ... is this also happening 'under the radar' in other EU states ?

Escalation of explicit diplomatic rhetoric calling out the prime US ally and Empire linchpin in the ME, Saudi Arabia, as the major source of terrorism, in the War on Terra ...

The extensive Snowden revelations, and fallout (latest blatant example - GEMALTO sims), re AUSCANUKUSNZ (Five-Eyes), could probably have led to the actual realization that there is the US and its four privileged 'Vassals', Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and New Zealand, first and foremost actually comprising the 'West' as far as the Empire is concerned, and only then so called 'third tier' pseudo allies, such as Germany, France, etc (which are treated as actual 'potential hostiles' by the five eyes), and then lastly all the rest of the 'Barbarians' in the world ... all the Empires sweet words and false comforts/assurances over the years may have finally come home to roost.

China and Russia, are clearly progressively entering ever closer into an integrated Political/economic/defence anti Empire bloc at multiple levels ... significant overtures between Egypt and Russia, Russia and Iran ... the BRICS economic and South American economic 'exit' from the domination of the Empires Petrodollar and previous economic/political exploitation/dominance.

Perhaps the Empire and the five eyes have been so busy attempting to 'collect it all' and endlessly pivot from here to there and back again, whilst playing divide and rule from one nation state to the other, filled to the brim with their own exceptionalism, that they have missed the bigger picture, missed seeing the new 'forest' emerging, having paid far to close attention to their brushfires and all those individual trees ...

OTOH, however, there would appear to be enough concurrent events occurring quickly enough to envisage the ground moving from under the feet of the Empire and the five eyes ... and in plain view ...

Peace. Salaam. Shalom.

Noirette | Mar 8, 2015 2:13:07 PM | 63

.. it is my opinion that the German government led by Mrs Merkel is a lot more involved in the crisis that is Ukraine than is being discussed in this forum. -- dan of steele at 13.

You bet. Merkel is an unexamined mover in these stories. (Germany has paid penance and is so cool…not.) Recall the break-up of Yugoslavia, under the radar Germany was the no 1 champion and mover, with the US.

Merkel has been meddling in Ukraine since forever, due to for a large part to up EU expansionism (Germany is the only country that benefits from the Eurozone, not in an evil or illegit way, all the other countries agreed..), to stretch out again, for more territory, cheap labor, factories run at low labor costs, the well-off in 'satellite' countries and elsewhere buying German products, finance ad loans, and so on. See Poland.

German expansionism! (Not that France is any better but they have less clout so are wimpy followers.) The Eurozone works like that: lend, give, money to poor 'southern' countries so that they buy your goods, when they stop buying or believing, you cut them off, and look for new markets. Or downscale etc.

Re. Ukraine, the fantasy was it could join the EU (not considered realistic by any reasoned analysts or actors unless talking about 20 years down the road without war) and Merkel pushed that.

Cuddled up to the US who had other aims, to make it short, provoke Russia, the whole thing was to be wrapped up with a lot of love-handshakes, as the Coup-Kiev Gvmt. was expected to maintain it's hold on a 'unitary' country which would be, it goes without stating, open to new 'industrialism', 'farming', 'reforms' (open up for foreign capital to make huge profits), and/or from the Nuland-type side, attack Russia by cutting ties, banning trade with Russia (see sanctions), forbidding Russian influence, media, commerce, and pushing for war, etc.

Donbass ppl objected, rose up, and it turned out that the Ukr. Gvmt could not deliver, - no army that could perform, no will, incompetence, also thieves...

These completely contradictory aims, of the EU and the US, are now public.

- one pov there are many others

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 2:40:02 PM | 64

@ Okie Farmer

Many 'perhaps's and certainly not clear yet what the EU Army proposal truly indicates yet, but Germany is clearly behind and for it ... Ultimately the EU is Germany-France and there are many new possibilities emerging.

The geopolitical consequences of the reality of the Snowden revelations re the five-eyes conduct/actions/objectives and falsity of supposed alliances for 'mutual' as opposed to exclusive benefit of the Empire at every level may well have triggered recalculations amongst the 'pseudo allies' governments, this may well be the case with Germany, at least.

Usually very pessimistic, in this instance 'overly optimistic', or momentarily envisioning an alternate possible ?

Is it really in the EU interests to take a hit for the Empires benefit re Cold War 2.0 or the possibility of WW3 or move towards a less Atlanticist future ?

ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 8, 2015 3:21:11 PM | 65

@dh #50
With the single exception of the Romans - because they literally ruled everything - every other empire always tries very hard to present the best front.

The British had their "White Man's Burden", the US had the "American Dream" but which has since been switched with the "War on Terror".

No doubt because only the least informed believe that old lie anymore.

Ed Lozano | Mar 8, 2015 3:25:29 PM | 66

Anonymous #57

An European Army would be the final act of the divorce from US, since it would be a de facto ending of NATO. No wonder why both US and their major "European" puppet UK radically oppose the idea. NATO's purpose was not only to counter Soviet military, but also to make sure Germany would never "rise again". That purpose is still biding and Germans know it. But under NATO umbrella, there's not much they can do to restore even a glimpse of the military power they had in the past. They "voluntarily" abdicate from developing nuclear weapons and most of their military spending is restricted to defensive air/ground capabilities, instead of means of projecting power such as naval vessels and long-range missiles. However, in an European unified defense system most of these restrictions should be lifted so to allow Germany to fulfill its obligations to the European allies. Most of American military bases would be rendered futile, and it's almost certain that NATO's nuclear silos stationed in Europe would have to be redeployed elsewhere, since an European defense agreement would demand full control of all military assets in European territory. Finally, Eastern Europe would turn to Germany and France instead of US when dealing with Russia, thus bringing more political stability to the region (violent "Maidans" would be less likely in the presence of foreign troops who, unlike Americans, have to answer for their actions when they come back home).

Needless to say, all these events would be catastrophic for US global domination strategy, since they would lose not only military control over strategic assets in Western Europe, but also major influence in the only part of the European Union they are actually welcome today. But one should remember none of this is new: since its creation European Union was conceived to have its own unified defense system, but this part of the European pact was sabotaged by British and Americans from the beginning. Even French nationalist leader De Gaulle became fond of the idea, but his efforts would be futile while Germany was not reunified and European Union was still a project. And one should notice an unified Europe is still a project today. Eurozone is crumbling, resentment among the periphery is running high and both Germans and French know it. One of the necessary solutions for preserving European Union is a unified defense system, for it would lift the minor associates defense spending burden while allowing the major ones to exert much more effective political influence among them, so to prevent that every economic crisis in those countries become a threat to the stability of the entire bloc itself.

Noirette #63

Undoubtedly Germany played a role in Maidan and there's enough evidence of that, but I don't think their objective was to produce a violent divorce between Ukraine and Russia. As far as I know German ambassadors were the major force in bringing to the negotiating table both President Yanukovitch and the opposition groups, who then signed the 21st of February agreement for Constitutional reform and anticipated elections. This agreement was also supported by Russia, and since Germany is the natural interlocutor for Moscow in "European" affairs, I assume the whole thing was arranged by Berlin. Problem is, no one really expected what happened the day after - except of course the Americans who had already decided to sabotage the deal and take it all for themselves, bypassing both Europe and Ukrainian "moderates" (like Yulia Timoshenko) through bribing the major oligarchs and former members of Yanukovitch's cabinet and the use of Right Sector thugs to attack Government buildings and seize power at once.

Germany won absolutely nothing with this outcome. Sure, Ukraine turned to West, but at what price? Now it's a devastated and bankrupted country with no control over a large portion of its own territory. And guess who will have to pay for their reconstruction? Yes, Germany. Merkel is anything but stupid. She knew from the beginning how Russia would react if threatened in her most sensitive interests. Georgia is not a far off memory for them. So yes, Germans would sure act to topple Yanukovicth if they had the chance, but only in a way "negotiated" with Russia. And that's exactly what they thought they had achieved in February 21st, 2014. Yanukovicth would be turned into a powerless President; there was to be new elections and Merkel's favorite Timoshenko would certainly win; Ukraine would join EU soon; and Russia would have to be satisfied with her Crimea's bases, and nothing more than that. The German plan was going too well, until Vic Nuland decided to f.. the EU once again. And here we are now.

Anonymous | Mar 8, 2015 3:26:40 PM | 67

Outraged

Did you miss that the EU mentioned Russia as the reason why EU wanted a EU army? Again, nothing but a US puppet proposal.

@63,64

jfl | Mar 8, 2015 4:20:37 PM | 68

It seems obvious to me that the EU - Germany - is much better off with Russia, the junior partner, than it is with the USA, the dominant partner.

Ok... but that's the way Germany sees itself vis a vis Russia and the way the US sees itself vis a vis Germany.

I guess the only question is on the downside of the switch ... how much pain can the US inflict on Germany thereafter?

And that's relative to how much pain the US' vicious, one-sided schemes can elicit for Germany (the EU) from the Russians. And that seems, everyday in every way, to be increasing.

I imagine that if the US does get a real war going with Russia they will have tipped the balance ... everything will then get unfrozen and move really quickly.

The reality will be apparent before news of it reaches our ears. Supersonically.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 4:25:08 PM | 69

@ Anonymous

If the intent is to replace NATO would you declare it or justify it 'falsely' by using the Empires propaganda justifications as a false cover ?

Again with the US puppet proposal crap, and why would the US want to create such a force when it would undermine nay invalidate NATOs very reason for existence for the last 60 plus years. NATO has been a political-military Trojan within Europe effectively controlled and literally commanded by the US, serving US interests for all that time.

Respectively, and reluctantly your 'point' suggests you are either naive, a fool or trollish, perhaps. Ed Lozano #66 touches on some relevant history and context if you are not aware of it ...

Ultimately nations only have and act on thier 'interests'.

okie farmer | Mar 8, 2015 4:53:54 PM | 70

Too much optimism in this thread. Heads of NATO, both European and US, have been urging NATO countries to "spend more on defense" - also many US politicians. There is a faction in Germany that have 'dreams' of their own MIC. Ukraine offers the chance to fulfill those dreams, they're pushing hard while they see the chance.

All but two of NATO members are headed by neoliberal scumbags, Greece and Hungary are the exceptions. France and Germany lead the way. Merkel has always been a neoliberal, Hollande has come to it only slightly reluctantly.

Neoliberalism is what US and EU have most in common - politically/economically. Very important. I don't think Germany has given up on buying up and privatizing as much of Ukraine as they can; and certainly the US based multinational corps are already buying Ukraine's assets - probably those corps in Europe too.

Perhaps the Spiegel article is a kind of false flag - or not; nonetheless it airs out what I see as a false resistance meme. Merkel, like Thatcher before her, is a committed neoliberal. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!

Ed Lozano | Mar 8, 2015 5:15:02 PM | 73

@Anonymous #71

The fact that the main "cause" for EU Army is the need containing Russia changes nothing on the discussion about EU-US "divorce". Containing Russia has always been the issue of any Western alliance. Problem is, US and EU have major divergences about how to do it. US favors a far more provocative and offensive approach, by positioning military bases, missile shields and naval fleets around Russian border, and encouraging Russia's neighbors to cut their ties with Moscow and join Western partnerships. Europe on the other hand advocate a strictly defensive pact, that respects Russia's interests and influence over its near abroad.

The main reason for this divergence is quite easy to understand. European leaders know that in the event of war with Russia, the battlefield will be in their own lands. US on the other hand has nothing to risk and much to gain with a conflict between Russia and Europe, unless of course Russia decides to end the World (but for some odd reason that possibility never comes into account for neocons). But again, the divorce between US and EU is quite clear in this case. And I believe it's needless to say Russia would strongly support an European Army proposal, even if it's main purpose was to counter Russian military. For threats should be perceived not by one's alleged purposes, but by the means one employs to achieve those purposes.

lysias | Mar 8, 2015 5:16:45 PM | 74

Yes, the powers that be did that to JFK when he stepped out of line. But they must know that, if they did the same thing to Obama, there would be riots all over the country. So Obama has power that JFK never had, but he's too cowardly or opportunistic to use that power.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 5:23:09 PM | 75

@ jfl

Agreed, though the US has always been cowardly, has always avoided risking open conflict with first world countries. It far prefers to have others fight it out between or amongst themselves and benefit from picking up the spoils at little cost afterwards. Everyone else is weaker thier economies damaged and the US relevant power enhanced.

See the Iran-Iraq war, see the US conduct in WWI, profiting handsomely throughout and only entering the conflict at the last moment once Germany was already on her knees and France and UK were crippled. Rinse and repeat in WwII letting the Nazis and Japanese Empire do their worst and handsomely profiting from all sides until they were dragged in on Dec 07 41. The cost exacted from 'helping' the UK was a takeover of their former empire and relegation to junior poodle vassal status. The UK was required to pay every single last dollar owed including interest accrued for Lend Lease during WWII and they only cleared the debt a few years ago.

The US doesn't want actual war with Russia, however, ongoing conflict both economic and low-medium military in Europe weakens all the europeans at no cost to and for the further benefit of the Five-eyes.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) works, unless miscalculations happen ...

It would seem the economic cost to Germany and to a lesser extent the rest of the EU regarding Russia is more than acceptable to the US, which ultimately has little skin in the game, for the US its a win-win, though apparently Germany and the EU? may be developing an entire different perspective, again all comes back to national 'interests'. And there appears to be no upside for Europe's interests re 'fuck the EU' ... even the somewhat rabid Poles are questioning the economic cost of Russia baiting re sanctions which are only hurting Russia and EU, US cost/pain=nil.

Anonymous | Mar 8, 2015 5:28:06 PM | 76

okie farmer

You are right, too much naive folks here suddenly. When people say that the EU army will somehow be "defensive" and will go against America's policies its just get too much to even comment further.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 7:21:58 PM | 78

@ Okie Farmer

The Military Commander of NATO (Supreme Allied Commander Europe - *barf*) is always a US General Officer and says publicly exactly what he is instructed to say by DC (ie. Breedlove), his counterpart the NATO Secretary-General supposedly speaks for all NATO members however due to the US largely rigging the appointments has most often been little more than a rabid Atlanticist warmonger also receiving his talking points from DC, former Anders Fogh Rasmussen having been one of the worst, and the current Jens Stoltenberg is no better (he's a champion for NATO getting its very own Nukes, yay), hence there isn't much room for other individual members of NATO to even get airtime re issues relative NATO.

Yes, the US Commander of NATO and the effectively US appointed Secretary-General sockpuppet and lots of US politicians want the Europeans to spend a lot more of their Euros on an expanded NATO military that the US commands, especially if its US armaments, and even more so if that caused the Russians to have to waste more money to further counter/offset a NATO expansion, for the benefit of US interests. Cost/pain to US=nil.

However, there has been little discernable success because of sustained resistance to this call for some time now by NATO member countries, regardless of the over-the-top US propaganda re Russia and Ukraine, as NATO members have better things to do with those Euros given the state of the EU economy (austerity - public antipathy to military expenditure) since the GFC and the only beneficiary would be the US including indirectly by further weakening the EU economy to further US economic advantage globally. The indications are that even the UK poodle intends to further cutback, not expand, its military budget after the upcoming election.

The selling points of this possible EU Army apparently being put forward by Junckers/Germany are an EU Commander (ie. Not a US officer, rotating national appointment ?), under EU command serving EU interests, supposedly greater effectiveness/efficiency/reduced duplication, and therefore purportedly costing less Euros overall re current military expenditure (compared to US controlled NATO ?).

Nah, can't for the life of me see why the UK and US would be adamantly opposed ... *cough*

ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 8, 2015 10:07:10 PM | 80

I would separate German policies in the rest of the EU/world with German policies within their own borders.
A strong proxy for the presence of neoliberal economic policies is property prices. Nations which undergo a property bubble - are almost always neoliberal. Germany in this respect had pretty much the lowest property price growth of any EU nation.

Debs is dead | Mar 8, 2015 10:08:00 PM | 81

If American foreign policy can engineer a war based around the Ukraine where European troops fight russian troops at the same time as a major schism develops in Europe between the 'new Europeans' of the Baltic states, Poland and the Czech republic and the old Europeans of France germany italy and spain, the amerikan empire will have killed two birds with one stone.

I reckon the European schism won't be splintering along such neat and tidy fault lines if it splinters at all, however.

While the old school euro politicians may be reluctant to go to war, I am unsure their military leadership shares that view.

For too long Nato command structures have been trained with an American ethos and a value set likely to see war as being 'a good thing'. The alacrity with which Nato tossed its European defense goal aside to jump into Afghanistan and then encouraged Nato members to deploy to then, despite both deployments being at odds with the wishes of their fellow citizens, ably illustrates the fault line between political and military leadership which successive euro pols have desperately tried to conceal from their voters

In the immediate post war period the euro governments had little say in the matter but with the occasional exception of france the bulk of european pols have been content to let amerika pick up the training tab for staff officers. With the short term goal orientation typical of elected leaders, most euro pols chose to believe they were getting 'free' training for their military commanders, rather than the truth - that europe was paying vast sums for a military whose commanders would dance the washington jig.

The short-sightedness of europe's pols has them choking their Greek brothers and sisters while the euro continues to decline yet the US$ arcs ever upwards, and never asking themselves "why are we working so hard to help amerika at the expense of fellow europeans?"

I have no doubt however much Merkel and co claim to oppose a full on war with Ukraine; instigated at least in part by their own military leaders whose patriotism must be open to question, that in the end they will acquiese to Nuland's strategy.

Not to do so would rquire vision and personal courage both of these in short supply among euro neo-liberals.

Especially for Merkel there is an easy out. All she needs to do is to tap into the just below the surface and rarely enunciated beliefs of a substantial number of her fellow citizens - that Germany has the 'right' to expand its influence further east.

whack | Mar 9, 2015 5:15:16 AM | 85

@Outraged 78

What a relief to see finally somebody who gets it. Bravo!

(Some hasbara trolls here pretend not to, in order to spread fear and disnfo).

Prosperous Peace | Mar 9, 2015 2:25:19 AM | 84

I think you give Obongo way too much credit.

He is "President" yes, but is he really? Or is he just a token face for the McCain´s and the other white House plantation owners to hold up for the 99%, a mere House n*gger?

Everytime the man open his mouth accompanied as always by his Telepromter or advisors, even then puerile stupidities ansd ridicolous threats comes out. I think he is doing a better characterization of himself than the North Koreans possibly could imagine...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-27/north-korea-trolls-obama-compares-us-president-monkey-tropical-jungle

Anonymous | Mar 9, 2015 6:17:16 AM | 87

@ Debs is Dead

The whole purpose of NATO from inception was to undermine and suborn the military command of the NATO members military forces to US control for the benefit of the Empire. To have leverage of those militaries and direct command influence outside of their 'sovereign' governments. To keep Germany 'down'. Many Non-US-UK NATO officers are very aware indeed of what NATO really is, US provided 'training' or not. De Gaulle was well aware of the threat and gave NATO 'the finger' many times.

Five-eyes military officers are routinely utilized by their intelligence agencies to actively and aggressively cultivate and suborn any military officer who is not Five-eyes. The same process is aggressively pursued by the intelligence agencies against their counterparts amongst their tier three and four pseudo-allies such as Germany, France, Italy, etc. This has been going on for many decades.

The Chinese learnt this lesson during WWII and under no circumstances allow any officer with Operational/Line command in the PLA to have direct contact with US military counterparts except under very strict circumstances. The PLA has a dedicated corps of officers to conduct such interaction and liasion who will never be given PLA Operational/Line commands in their career as a result. To say the least, this really pisses the US off no end. A PR/Liaison officer in the PLA is of no use as an agent or future agent of influence given such policies, bummer.

These 'harmless' military-military and intelligence-intelligence interactions have been the very basis/foundation stone of the vast majority of the coups and destabilization operations the US has conducted on every continent since WWII.

There is the Five-eyes and then every other country on the planet, who are merely given different ratings of 'hostile' or 'enemy' and treated accordingly, regardless of any public utterings re so called 'alliances' and 'partnerships'.

'Old Europe' has dragged its feet and more many times despite dictats from the US. Latin America provides many examples of where the US polices/actions are ultimately counter-productive, compare its current state to the 60's-70's-80's absolute US dominance.

Regardless of US Neoliberal politics/virus the serving militaries of NATO as a whole would be bound more tightly to their own communities and individual national interests, should push come to shove, me thinks, given histories lessons.

IF the EU is to get out from under US domination/control/influence which is more and more counter to its own and europes interests (and many of its individual nations interests), it has to create separation of its intelligence services from the Five-eyes and take back control of its own military commands and agencies. A very big IF indeed ...

Outraged | Mar 9, 2015 5:38:28 AM | 86

More proof for the naive folks here:
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/03/09/400990/Russia-MP-calls-EU-army-idea-provocative

www.lefigaro.fr-vox-monde-2015-03-02-31002-20150302ARTFIG00371-poutine-nemtsov-pourquoi-nous-ne-comprenons-rien-a-la-russie.php

FIGAROVOX/mood - When a former correspondent in Moscow was surprised to see the French wonder what Vladimir Putin's Russia does not resemble Western democracies.

Irina's Chikoff is a journalist and writer. She has been corresponding to Moscow for Le Figaro. "" She is the author of "Adrien or the Russian dream" at les Éditions de Fallois.

Should we laugh or cry? After the murder in Moscow of Boris Nemtsov which almost nobody knew the name, more teaser tracks have flourished in the press: "Putin got kill. "I'm Nemtsov. And the face of this old young 55-year-old man whose Brown curls had become grey, passes, looped on the screens of televisions. All commentators, after a quick click on Wikipedia, sing the praises of the former Governor of Nizhny Novgorod who was vice Prime Minister in charge of the energy sector under Boris Eltsine. Just before the great crash of 1998 that sounded the end of the democratic nickname recreation of the Russia.

All commentators, after a quick click on Wikipedia, sing the praises of the former Governor of Nizhny Novgorod who was vice Prime Minister in charge of the energy sector under Boris Eltsine.

A whole generation that Boris Nemtsov as well as Egor Gaidar, Irina Khakamada, Grigory Yavlinsky or even Sergei Kirilienko, regarded as a Wunderkind, was swept by this tsunami. That one who was never wrong, cast them the first stone.

Caught between the Red barons converted back into Affairs, Soviet underworld mobsters and former buddies of the Komsomol (Communist Youth), which were considered more appropriate to seize the country's riches rather than strut on the stands, the Democrats were volatilizing such a swarm of sparrows while Vladimir Poutine, first at the head of the FSB (former KGB) then appointed Prime Ministerwas called to the rescue of a bankrupt country. Nearly 48% of the population was no longer receiving wages or well in the form of matchboxes.

Long the Russians held rigour to this generation of young sorcerers apprentice who had led them, after so many tears, to a new disaster. Many, even today, have not forgiven them. And the Russians, to the amazement of Westerners, develop a form of eczema when it touts them of democracy, if they remember that it ended with a gigantic "bardak". (brothel).

The Russians, to the amazement of Westerners, develop a form of eczema when it touts them of democracy, if they remember that it ended with a gigantic "bardak". (brothel)

The Russians have memory. Compassion also. They rendered tribute to the former Governor of Nizhny Novgorod, as they always bend over the dead. But the good feelings spread as jam leave them indifferent. As for the moral lessons... Poor Western media! They have with the well Russia's struggling to make the cutting. Is that the Russia is a hard land! Ice! Ruthless to his own. And on the tundra, taiga, when you walk in, it's been: crac! CRAC! Because these are millions of bones that your boots trample!

Be - it to laugh or cry? "Putin got kill. "I'm Nemstov. All the futility of Western media, their ignorance, contempt even for the tragic history of a country, are summarized by these ridiculous "one".

All the futility of Western media, their ignorance, contempt even for the tragic history of a country, are summarized by these ridiculous "one".

The press has forgotten that in the heyday of triumphant democracy, at the time the Nemtsov, the Gaidar, the Yavlinsky, the Khakamada or the Kirilienko, dozens of bankers, members, journalists and businessmen have been murdered. The method was almost always the same. One or more balls in the back. And in these times where the hired assassins, overwhelmed, banquetaient happily in the most lavish restaurants that had opened their doors. The champagne flowed afloat. The girls were beautiful. Easy money. Whip check!

In the middle of this hubbub, a Russian, dead drunk friend said to me: 'you see, my little Dove, we are in progress. Not so long ago, there were our deaths per million, today, it is more than tens. Do not, do not despair of the Russia. And failing to understand, you must love him."

[Mar 09, 2015] Boris Nemtsov ally: Islamist speculation over murder 'useful for Kremlin' by Shawn Walker

They still want to play the war propaganda game. Here we go. Shawn Walker writings. Foreign Office talking points. What not this Illya Yashin (not sure if he was co-leader of Nemtsov's opposition party then), involved with distribution to protesters several millions in West-supplied cash that were discovered at Ksenia Sobchak apartment during Russian color revolution of 2012 ?
Mar 09, 2015 | The Guardian

founderchurch

The NEW Cold War is back with a vengeance. Similar lineup but very different ideologies in conflict. Before you had atheistic communism against religious capitalism, now the roles are reversed. America and England are now resembling the old socialist USSR and Red China, while Russia and China are now increasingly coming to resemble the formerly religious and capitalistic America and England. What irony... OMG one thing is the same, eminent Nuclear War...

richiep40 -> Jose C. Sandoval

We will never know who started the fire in Odessa, The Guardian.

What happened to the open and transparent investigations into the shootings in Maidan, the fire in Odessa and the downing of the Malaysian aircraft I wonder ?

VladimirM

"Putin has said he has taken "personal control" of the investigation"

The phrase has sparked a sort of controversy here, some people are even using it as a proof of conspiracy. It's mainly because they are not aware of what this expression actually means.
The phrase "взять под личный контроль" in Russian does not mean that Putin is personally in charge of the team of investigators giving orders which line to follow or not, who to charge or arrest or not.

It simply means that police and security service are informing him regularly about the progress in the investigation, meetings or briefings may be held, reports are being made, etc., etc. The importance of the case is unprecedented, so the people, resources, etc. must be involved, engaged in the same unprecedented scale. The highest level of control is just facilitating all this as well as cooperation and coordination of law-enforcement agencies.
That's what this eye-catching phrase means.

Laudig, 2015-03-10,00:16:54

This is what a political assassination looks like American-style. "After two years of guerrilla warfare, leading Péralte to declare a provisional government in the north of Haiti, Charlemagne Péralte was betrayed by one of his officers, Jean-Baptiste Conzé, who led disguised US Marines Sergeant Herman H. Hanneken (later meritoriously promoted to Second Lieutenant for his exploits) and Corporal William Button into the rebels camp, near Grand-Rivière Du Nord.[1]:215-217" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne_P%C3%A9ralte

Solongmariane 9 Mar 2015 14:41

Contrary to JFK & Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Isaac Rabin .!!!! .we get a lot of arrested suspects. It's a conjuration, and with so much complices it will possible to get informations. Objectivily, I don't see why Putin will need to eliminate physically Nemtsov, because he didn't exist before his assassination.

It was so easy to destroy him politically, with the kind of life he has ( too much women). It's the west who created a anti-Putin heros, for his propaganda..

Andrew -> Oldtruster

I think Ramzan Kadyrov said the truth. He illustrated the motivation of the killer. The killer seems a simple-minded person. It was easy to convince him that Nemtsov had outraged the prophet. This have nothing to do with real motives of the murder but we will never get to know them as a man who convinced the killer has died. Investigators are off the trail, case closed.

susandbs12 9 Mar 2015 14:38

Rather than speculation we should wait for the results of the investigation to be published.

The Russia haters are too quick to expect instantaneous results, and jump to preposterous conclusions based on nothing.

Wait for the investigation to be completed. This constant sniping will not have a positive effect on those who are doubtlessly working very hard to find out what happened and why.

seaspan -> Standupwoman 9 Mar 2015 15:13

Nemtsov's allies, the US/CIA, and Kiev.

Or Muslims...

The list was rather short for Sherlock, and you cant convict them all. Muslims are the perfect patsie and the crazy fundies can and are indirectly connected to any number of third "western" parties already. So all in all, a good choice. I can just see the conspiracy loons at RT and elsewhere busy connecting the dots, to defend their main man Putin.

Ciarán Here 9 Mar 2015 14:38

Boris Nemtsov ALLY and the guardian make fine cocktail Islamist speculation over murder 'useful for Kremlin' ....but not useful for the USA UK EU....

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves

Ciarán Here -> tjmars 9 Mar 2015 14:34

Yes you spotted it, it is called pointing the finger away from oneself - look over there! No not there in Detroit or Greece for example but there in Russia we need to demonize a enemy to distract the plebs from our mistreatment of them...and to justify our wars against those who simply say no and that we are a sovereign state not a vassal of your greed ...


aucontraire2 MasonInNY 9 Mar 2015 14:19

You are not naive if you are from NY. You know that the Putin saga is all a made up story to hide the failures of the west on the international scene.

The US is a failed leader now because it has failed the world in not providing justice to Palestinians. The world needs a moral leader. Obviously the Chinese aren't interested at becoming the world's moral leader, Russia can't become a moral leader for obvious reasons, Canada was on its way to take the leadership, but the US republicans saw to it by forcing a nutcase called Harper who hides in a closet at the first sound of firecrackers.

tjmars 9 Mar 2015 14:18

The Guardian Trusts's new way of keeping privileged access to governmental news is to promote propaganda pieces for the government. The Guardian had to do a 180 after Snowden, so we'll forever more get the likes of subjective opinions of young idealists from a Russian political party that couldn't afford a security detail for its leader.

I guess with the ceasefire in Ukraine and the arrests of two conspirators so far from Chechnya, they are running out of angles to spread the BS around with.

How about switching over to the not-so breaking news that globalization is devastating currencies and economies, politics and human rights and resources and environmernts; the monetising and marketing on everything worldwide.

Why report on the failure of politics and economics in one lousy country, when there's a "failure du jour" everyday caused by globalization.

Why not cover the wars resulting from it on a daily rotation?

Who could have predicted that World War 3 would be a protracted economic war that would plunge the world into a neo-Dark Age for hundreds of years?

The real wars are now suicides where people, who can't stand the stifling boredom of repititous consumer product variations, sign up to commit suicide en mass in a foreign country. That, adversely, is video gaming creating its own reality...

Standupwoman 9 Mar 2015 14:12

A predictable approach, but it misses something rather important. If the murder is indeed brought home to the Chechens, then that is very convenient for all the other and much more likely suspects - Nemtsov's allies, the US/CIA, and Kiev. Putin had no motive, but each of those three had much to gain from a Nemtsov assassination, and have been gleefully cashing in ever since.

If Putin wanted to deflect blame onto someone else, why on earth wouldn't he choose one of those? If Russia is the gangland state so many seem to think, then it would be simple to 'do a Kiev' and stage a 'confession' implicating the CIA, Poroshenko, or anyone it wanted. So why hasn't it?

Unless of course the investigation is genuine and the Chechens did it after all...

irishmand -> seaspan 9 Mar 2015 15:06

It is my understanding that his area of influence and political activity was limited to Moscow, the place Stalin over defended as he correctly surmised it was the brain of the USSR. Yeltsin also understood Moscow as the place to agitate to shake up the national leadership.

If you want to start a coup, you have to do it in Moscow. Nemtsov was losing his influence in Moscow. He was an member of the local duma in Yaroslavl'.

therealbillythefish 9 Mar 2015 15:05

Unfortunately for those on the West and their agents in Russia, the killers have been caught fairly quickly and at least one has already confessed.

So, better go find something else to scream and shout about.

irishmand McStep 9 Mar 2015 15:03

I have no shame. Sorry, I lost it somewhere on my way... Maybe, after reading the western press for a while, I started mimicking them.

But, in my defense, I only troll the trolls. If somebody wants to have a meaningful discussion I am ready to have it too..

artdeco McStep 9 Mar 2015 15:02

Yeah, suspected so (Not that there's anything wrong with being Russian!, to paraphrase Seinfeld) - the frequent absence of the little word the in sentences is a quite reliable "tell"...
;)

seaspan -> 1waldo1 9 Mar 2015 15:00

Why would he have to be in the "western press" to be considered important by the Kremlin? He was involved in Moscow and was assassinated for his political activity there, not in Chechnya or London. Doesn't Russia have its own independent domestic political dynamic?

No one else outside that venue should have given a damn about him.

rodney9 -> UBX525AEZ 9 Mar 2015 14:58

They even had a snow removal truck come by there to obstruct any potential witnesses at that exact moment of the murder.The snow truck seemed to be slowed down at the point of the murder to provide the killer or killers cover

You clearly belong to the Gary Kasparov school of en passant criminologists.

McStep -> crystaltips2 9 Mar 2015 14:55

mate, there are so many apparatchik trolls on this and other related threads, it's a joke. the laughable thing about them is that most Russians know their media system is woefully centrally controlled and censored, but they actually agree with this because they think the function of news media is to tell the people want they want to hear in order to maintain solidarity in times of trouble.

in essence, they know, or a part of them knows, that they're talking utter **** but i guess like some poor domestically abused partner it's a case, of, " SHUT UP, WHAT DO YOU KNOW??? HE LOVES ME!!!!!"

but it's understandable. if your leader is perpetuating generations of the indoctrinated notion that the tsar has every right to pillage the state, murder its people and incite conflict on a whim, then its probably is very difficult to come to terms with the abject sense of shame they should be feeling.

therealbillythefish

Unfortunately for those on the West and their agents in Russia, the killers have been caught fairly quickly and at least one has already confessed.

So, better go find something else to scream and shout about.

Fromrussia1976 -> therealbillythefish

Or you'd better to investigate who has downed that plane in the Ukraine... Half a year has left, but no result!

vr13vr

We don't know yet all the details and we are not sure what is behind this Chechen link. But no matter what the working hypothesis are and what the results are, this opposition is going to criticize it. That's why he is in anti-government opposition. There is no need to put his doubts into a front page article.

SonnyTuckson

Scripted by the Kremlin. Again. Nothing new here. Getting rid of one opponent by blaming another.

irishmand -> SonnyTuckson

Scripted by CIA Again. Nothing new here. Stage a murder, blame on somebody else.

rodney9

Perhaps it would be more to the point, and better journalism, to elaborate and contexualise the comments made by Nemtsov on Charlie Hebdo, or the German cartoon he published on his facebook side, as well as Nemtsov's personal attack on Kadyrov, rather than blanket denials that it has anything to do with insulting the prophet Mohammed. Fortunately, following a few links here in the comment section makes that all possible. That they are ignored here in the article is evidence once again of poor journalism, it's almost like being told don't bother to go there, it's not worth it, just keep on believing it was Putin. The Guardian published an editorial not so very long ago about " a cynical post-modern media strategy" all those Kremlin controlled channels manipulating the truth for daring to suggest 5 (sic) lines of enquiry, and how truth itself was "vanishing" in a flurry of what they called "weaponised relativism". CCTV cameras were conspicuously inoperative, some bigots speculated that a snow plough had been strategically sent in (Gary Kasparov) to mask the actual footage of the moment of the killing.

We realise that this must be very disppointing for all those who wanted this to be a sure fire mafia hit in a "mafia state" carried out by a mafia boss, rather than an act of Islamic terrorism from fanatics that we have recently seen elsewhere in Paris and Copenhagen.

We shouldn't forget that hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Chechnya against Charlie Hebdo, finding it all very provocative. I will probably watch France 24, that news channel might not be so hostile to looking at the real connections and Nemtsov's comments in depth rather than denials by an English newspaper.

Simon311 -> rodney9

Well the Guardian and others who have spent months telling us that the Russian media is not worth reading and watching, now quotes the Russian media when it agrees with thier view.

This is almost mental illness in its inconsistency.

Ludicrous - the Russian media is always wrong, until it says someting we like, then it is completely right.

MentalToo

Saw this headline at TASS:

First suspects in Nemtsov murder identified - Federal Security Service

Surprisingly it turned out the suspects was not FSB after all, but some of Kadyrov's lunatics arrested by FSB. Who could have guessed that.

It seems they have found some, who are even more crazy than he is.

daltonbernard

...some of Nemtsov's associates ... do not believe fanatics acting alone could have shot someone dead so close to the Kremlin.

I mean, that's just dumb. It's not hard to shoot somebody. I don't see how the proximity to the Kremlin makes it any more difficult. You just ... do it. It takes all of a second or two to pull a trigger a few times. Unless the Russians have installed some kind of electromagnetic field around the Kremlin that magically stops guns from firing. But the article doesn't say they have, so I'm at a loss as to how "some of Nemtsov's associates" could be so irrational.

seaspan -> daltonbernard

Rumour's are flying in Moscow, and lazy journalists will report whatever they hear without putting it into a more understandable context or making better sense of it. What I've heard that makes more sense is that a Chechen fanatic muslim "motive" doesn't make any sense, even though someone from there could have been hired to kill Nemtsov -- the important point is that the motive remains open and officially obscured...

Simon311 -> Havingalavrov

Howd o you know

a) He was a "complete professional"?

b) Criminals make mistakes all the time

c) You appear to be beleieving Russian media which you have said is full of lies.

So self contradictory pompous rubbish.

Yes you do not like Putin - got it.

BunglyPete

Make of this what you will but this seems to be the official line so don't expect much else

In 2007 Boris Nemtsov gave an interview to the magazine "Expert", in which he stated that all the measures of President Vladimir Putin are aimed at increasing the birth rate, primarily in the regions populated by Muslims, and it is "extremely dangerous for the future of Russia". After that Nemtsov was accused by well-known representatives of the Muslim world of Islamophobia.

In January 2015, the year after the execution of cartoonists from the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the politician in his blog on the website of "Echo of Moscow" had justified the actions of the cartoonists, and wrote that "Islam is stuck in the middle ages", and called recent events the "Islamic Inquisition".

A few days later, Nemtsov said that "Everyone is tired of Kadyrov's threats", and "it is time to arrest him". This happened after the head of Chechnya said very unflattering things about the opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky and journalist Alexey Venediktov because of their support for the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo.

Zaur Dadaev decided that Boris Nemtsov offended Muslims, and out of a false sense of patriotism and defense of religion decided to punish the politician

http://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2015/03/08/1375743.html

Simon311 -> BunglyPete

The US, Russia and Germany - you can't beat any of them for producing weird types.

Simon311 -> RedTelecaster

Whatever a "Putinbot" may be. SOunds like a new word for "commie" as it was used 40 years ago.

Renfrow

Reading the posts here it is clear to me that people that blamed Putin for this will continue to do so regardless of what evidence to the contrary is presented simply because it suits their agenda.

FrancesSmith -> RedTelecaster

go on help the neocons destroy eastern europe. do nuland and breedlove pay you are or do you do it for free?

but in truth you just reveal the ugliness that lies at the heart of the demonisation of putin, and repel people. keep it up..................

midnightschild10

It's the silly season again. The Obama administration is demanding a thorough investigation of Nemtsov' s death. They don't want a whitewash. The US certainly knows a whitewash when it sees one. Our Justicell Department looked high and low in the White House and couldn't find one banker or CEO to hold responsible for the housing crises. ( They all hang out on Wall Street.) Given a second chance to do their job, they couldn't find any military/industrial contractor who committed fraud in either not building incinerators on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan or built them but they could not be used because of shoddy workmanship. ( Should have asked soldiers returning home with respiratory problems due to trash pits.) And finally the DOJ was unable to find anyone responsible for the torture and rendition programs ( could have found Cheyney on Fox News continuing to do interviews.)

So it shouldn't be too difficult for Russia to do a better job investigating the death of Nemtsov, since the US has set the bar so low.

irgun777

Shaun Walker writes about " Islamic speculation convenient for Kremlin '

One of the suspects blow himself in traditional Islamic suicide tradition, others were charged in court hiding their faces from reporters. This is where Mr Walker, the speculation stops.

[Mar 07, 2015] Washington's Cloned Female Warmongers By Finian Cunningham

What is it about America's women diplomats? They seem so hard and cloned - bereft of any humanity or intelligence. Smear Campaigns, Bullying, Flattery ... All set of tricks of female sociopaths...
February 09, 2014 | Information Clearing House

What is it about America's women diplomats? They seem so hard and cloned - bereft of any humanity or intelligence. Presumably, these women are supposed to represent social advance for the female gender. But, far from displaying female independence, they are just a pathetic copy of the worst traits in American male politicians - aggressive, arrogant and completely arrant in their views.

Take Victoria Nuland - the US Assistant Secretary of State - who was caught using obscene language in a phone call about the European Union and the political affairs of Ukraine. In her previous posting as a spokeswoman for the US State Department, Nuland had the demeanor of a robotic matron with a swivel eye.

Now in her new role of covertly rallying anti-government protesters in Ukraine, Nuland has emerged to sound like a bubblegum-chewing Mafia doll. In her leaked private conversation with the US ambassador to Kiev, the American female diplomat is heard laying down in imperious tones how a new government in Ukraine should be constituted. Nuland talks about "gluing together" a sovereign country as if it is a mere plaything, and she stipulates which members of the US-backed street rabble in Kiev should or should not be included in any Washington-approved new government in the former Soviet republic.

We don't know who actually tapped and leaked Nuland's private call to the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt. It could have been the Ukrainian or Russian secret services, but, regardless, it was an inspired move to reveal it. For the disclosure, which has been posted on the internet, lays bare the subversive meddling agenda of Washington in Ukrainian internal affairs. Up to now, the Americans have been piously pretending that their involvement is one of a bystander supporting democracy from afar.

But, thanks to the Nuland's foul-mouthed indiscretion, the truth is out. Washington, from her own admission, is acting like an agent provocateur in Ukraine's political turmoil. That is an illegal breach of international rules of sovereignty. Nuland finishes her phone call like a gangster ordering a hit on a rival, referring to incompetent European interference in Ukraine with disdain - "F...k the EU."

What we are witnessing here is the real, ugly face of American government and its uncouth contempt for international law and norms.

Next up is Wendy Sherman, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, who is also Washington's top negotiator in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Sherman is another flinty-eyed female specimen of the American political class, who, like Nuland, seems to have a block of ice for a heart and a frozen Popsicle for a brain.

Again, like Nuland, Sherman aims to excel in her political career by sounding even more macho, morose and moronic than her male American peers.

Last week, Sherman was giving testimony before the US Senate foreign affairs committee on the upcoming negotiations with Iran over the interim nuclear agreement. The panel was chaired by the warmongering Democrat Senator Robert Menendez, who wants to immediately ramp up more sanctions on Iran, as well as back the Israeli regime in any preemptive military strike on the Islamic Republic.

Sherman's performance was a craven display of someone who has been brainwashed to mouth a mantra of falsehoods with no apparent ability to think for herself. It's scary that such people comprise the government of the most nuclear-armed-and-dangerous state in the world.

Programmed Sherman accused Iran of harboring ambitions to build nuclear weapons. "We share the same goal [as the warmonger Menendez] to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." And she went on to repeat threadbare, risible allegations that Iran is supporting international terrorism. That is a disturbing indication of the low level of political intelligence possessed by the US chief negotiator.

"Iran also continues to arm and train militants in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Bahrain. And Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah continue," asserted Sherman without citing an iota of proof and instead relying on a stale-old propaganda narrative.

The number three in the US State Department went on to say of the interim nuclear deal with Iran: "What is also important to understand is that we remain in control over whether to accept the terms of a final deal or not. We have made it clear to Iran that, if it fails to live up to its commitments, or if we are unable to reach agreement on a comprehensive solution, we would ask the Congress to ramp up new sanctions."

Remember that Sherman and her State Department boss John Kerry are considered "soft on Iran" by the likes of Menendez, John McCain, Lyndsey Graham, Mark Kirk, and the other political psychopaths in Washington. So, we can tell from Sherman's callous words and mean-minded logic that the scope for genuine rapprochement between the US and Iran is extremely limited.

Sherman finished her performance before the Senate panel with the obligatory illegal threat of war that Washington continually issues against Iran: "We retain all options to ensure that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon."

In the goldfish-bowl environment of Washington politics, perhaps such female officials are to be even more feared. The uniform monopoly of America's political class is dictated by militarism – weapons manufacturers, oil companies and Zionist lobbyists. The only way to "succeed" in this cesspool is to be even more aggressive and imperialist than your peers.

Nuland and Sherman illustrate the cold-hearted logic at work in American robotic politics: it's a system programmed for imperialism and war, and it doesn't matter whether the officials are Democrat, Republic, male or female. They are all clones of a war criminal state.

Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism.

This article was originally published at Press TV

[Mar 07, 2015] Germany Has Had Enough With US Neocons: Berlin "Stunned" At US Desire For War In Ukraine

Nuland somewhat reminds Madeleine Albright. Both are so fund of bulling their opponents, that probably might be classified as female psychopaths... As one commenters noted "I take it that "hard-charging" is an American euphemism for foul of mouth and coarse of temperament?"
Mar 07, 2015 | zerohedge.com

While Russia's envoy to NATO notes that statements by the deputy head of NATO testify to the fact that the leaders of the bloc want to intervene in Russia's internal politics, and are "dreaming of Russian Maidan," Washington has a bigger problem... Germany. As Der Spiegel reports, while US President Obama 'supports' Chancellor Merkel's efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin's approach. And NATO's top commander in Europe hasn't been helping either with sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda."

... ... ...

And as Der Spiegel reports, The Germans are not happy.

... ... ...

Nuland Diplomacy

Nuland, who is seen as a possible secretary of state should the Republicans win back the White House in next year's presidential election, is an important voice in US policy concerning Ukraine and Russia. She has never sought to hide her emotional bond to Russia, even saying "I love Russia." Her grandparents immigrated to the US from Bessarabia, which belonged to the Russian empire at the time. Nuland speaks Russian fluently.

She is also very direct. She can be very keen and entertaining, but has been known to take on an undiplomatic tone -- and has not always been wrong to do so. Mykola Asarov, who was prime minister under toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, recalls that Nuland basically blackmailed Yanukovych in order to prevent greater bloodshed in Kiev during the Maidan protests. "No violence against the protesters or you'll fall," Nuland told him according to Asarov. She also, he said, threatened tough economic and political sanctions against both Ukraine and the country's leaders. According to Asarov, Nuland said that, were violence used against the protesters on Maidan Square, information about the money he and his cronies had taken out of the country would be made public.

Nuland has also been open -- at least internally -- about her contempt for European weakness and is famous for having said "Fuck the EU" during the initial days of the Ukraine crisis in February of 2014. Her husband, the neo-conservative Robert Kagan, is, after all, the originator of the idea that Americans are from Mars and Europeans, unwilling as they are to realize that true security depends on military power, are from Venus.

When it comes to the goal of delivering weapons to Ukraine, Nuland and Breedlove work hand-in-hand. On the first day of the Munich Security Conference, the two gathered the US delegation behind closed doors to discuss their strategy for breaking Europe's resistance to arming Ukraine.

On the seventh floor of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the heart of Munich, it was Nuland who began coaching. "While talking to the Europeans this weekend, you need to make the case that Russia is putting in more and more offensive stuff while we want to help the Ukrainians defend against these systems," Nuland said. "It is defensive in nature although some of it has lethality."

Jurassic

general Breedwar or Breedhatred? Hes war maniac!

cossack55

Typical wingnut general. Notice you don't hear the grunts talkin' shit. Gotta go. Dr. Strangelove is about to start.

XqWretch

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

bania

Breedlove? Heading up an army? Can't make this stuff up!!!

Took Red Pill

"Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine." We all are!

chunga

Hmmm...Nudelman and Kagan aren't from Mars or Venus are they?

Urban Redneck

Frau Ferkel is just a muppet cocktease, and so is the "concern". It's nothing but political cover for the political whores. If they were seriously alarmed, they would simply revoke General Ripper's diplomatic credentials and issue an arrest warrant for the psychopath.

Lumberjack

Read this:

The Obscenely Easy Exile of Idi Amin

https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/164/28440.html

On a reporting trip to Saudi Arabia seven years ago, I went to Idi Amin's house. I had heard that Mr. Amin, the former Ugandan dictator who died last weekend at the age of 78, was living in Jidda, the Red Sea port, and I wanted to see for myself. Was it possible that a man who, in the 1970's, had ordered the deaths of 300,000 of his countrymen, raped and robbed his nation into endless misery and admitted to having eaten human flesh was whiling away his time as a guest of the Saudi government?

It was. There, in a spacious villa behind a white gate, Mr. Amin made his home with a half-dozen of his 30 or so children. He was not there the day I rang (a son said he was out of town), but locals said he could often be seen pushing his cart along the frozen food section of the supermarket, being massaged at the health club, praying at the mosque. He had long ago abandoned his British-style military uniform for the white robe of the Saudi man, but as an African measuring 6-foot-3 and nearly 300 pounds, he did not exactly blend in.

A former Sudanese colonel who worked as a manager at the local supermarket said, "People greet him and say, `Hello, Mr. President.' " Why? Wasn't he a savage dictator?

"Oh yes" he used to eat people," the manager replied, laughing. "But this is our nature. We forget."

But what would prompt the Saudi government to play host to such a man?

The answer, when the question was posed to Saudi officials, was an excursion into the desert habits of hospitality, and Mr. Amin's conversion to Islam. His support for the Arab boycott of Israel in the 1970's certainly also endeared him to his hosts.

During the nearly quarter-century of his soft exile, no nation tried to bring Mr. Amin to justice. A few years ago, after Spain's government went after Chile's former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, Human Rights Watch did bring up Mr. Amin's case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, but to no avail. Under international law, any nation, including Saudi Arabia, could have and should have prosecuted Mr. Amin.

But, as Reed Brody, special counsel for prosecutions at Human Rights Watch, says, "If you kill one person, you go to jail; if you kill 20, you go to an institution for the insane; if you kill 20,000, you get political asylum." Mr. Brody keeps a melancholy map on his wall of other tyrants gone free: Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay, lives in Brazil; Haiti's Raoúl Cedras is in Panama; Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia is in Zimbabwe; Hissí¨ne Habré of Chad lives in Senegal. Today there is the International Criminal Court, which can bring a future Amin to justice, although the United States is among 100 countries that have shortsightedly declined to participate in the court.

I was sorry not to have had a chance to talk to Mr. Amin directly. But those who did speak with him suggest that I missed little. An Italian journalist, Riccardo Orizio, asked him in 1999 whether he felt remorse. No, Mr. Amin replied, only nostalgia. Six years earlier, a British writer, Tom Stacey, saw him. At one point, Mr. Amin pulled from his pocket a paraphrase of Psalm 22 and commented: "Remember we are special to God. He sees a beauty in us few see."

Harbanger

"The term "neoconservative" refers to those who made the ideological journey from the anti-Stalinist LEFT to the camp of American conservatism."

-Straight from the definition for the morons that don't know how to do research..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism

August

I continue to believe that the US goal in the Ukraine is to distract and bedevil Russia merely by expending a few billion zio-dollars, and thousands of Ukrainian lives, both of which are truly dirt cheap in Washington's calculus. This is to be followed by the USA's ultimately just walking away, leaving a broken Ukraine for its neighbors, chiefly Russia, to reconstruct.

Every now and then, though, some US spokes-toady makes statements that imply that the USA actually wants a major war... with Russia. I hope and pray that this is merely Grand Chessboard Theatre, but I am starting to have doubts. For a taste of the motivational fare now offered to US "conservatives", you might want to take a look at the recently posted anit-Russia piece posted at National Review, which openly calls for regime change in Moscow. It's a well-written polemic which makes some sense... provided that you accept that Washington and Brussels are citadels of freedom and human rights, Russians are ignorant, drunken blockheads, and Putin is evil incarnate.

sunaJ

"I continue to believe that the US goal in the Ukraine is to distract and bedevil Russia merely by expending a few billion zio-dollars,"

In your estimation is the second part of this Kansas City Shuffle being Syria and pipelines to Europe, or are they also symptoms of some greater neocon fear, ie. Russian oil dominance in a petrodollar world?

Jack Burton

Breedlove is talking his book. His glory and promotions would increase and his power would expand the more he can talk the NATO into war. Breedlove will be secure in the command bunker, and like the Iraq war command, be fully secure while his men faced possible death and mutilation.

The text book for this is Yugoslavia. Europe had brokered a few peace deals, but the USA stepped in and undercut them all with lies and flase intelligence, leading to several bloody wars. Right now Washington seeks the Yugoslavia solution, a long bloody war.

Ignatius

"According to Asarov, Nuland said that, were violence used against the protesters on Maidan Square, information about the money he and his cronies had taken out of the country would be made public."

Did Nuland also say that about Occupy to the Obummer administation?

Escrava Isaura

Ohh Boy.

The US military industrial complex doesn't care about European press, or America press, for that matter. US military industrial complex doesn't' even care who the President is.

Do you think the US military complex cares if the US government bails out lots of big lemons-banks, insurance, auto makers, airlines, and food stamps to the working poor? No, they could care less, because US military industrial complex is immune to budget constraints and they are the biggest supporters of failing industries and projects.

Do you think that the US military complex cares for what industries the analysts and brokers at an investment firms such as JP Morgan, Goldman, or Rothschild's picks as winners for government contracts or a stock market bubble? Hell no, because they are the biggest winners.

So, the Germans are stunned about NATO? Are you kidding me?

Germany and NATO are branches of the US military industrial complex.

johngaltfla

Obama is a Neocon?

Who'dathunkit!??!!?

In reality, the world is sick of this bullshit. I'm sick of it. Rand Paul's approach is 1000% correct; quit meddling!

Germany is correct to object to this because if we get involved in the Ukraine with Poland then Russia will be outside of Berlin with several brigades of tanks in days. The US nor NATO are ready for a major multi-front conflict unless they use nukes.

Which wouldn't be all that bad because some of the US cities we would lose are a major part of the economic drag and societal/political problems we have at this time....

Never mind. Fire away boys.

krage_man

The instutute of US presidency is shockingly weak.

Basically, very little can Obama do if all career burocrats continue doing what they always doing.

Obama is not able to get control of the goverment staff which demonstrate how weak leader he is and how unimportant any political office change is for foregn policy.

Dems or Reps - no matter who is there will always be criminal actions on the world scine.

sunaJ

Germany needs to wake up NOW to the fact that this country is commanded by psychopathic, warmongering neocons, mitigated only by a willfully cluless and gutless president. NATO will prove a deathtrap for Germany.

max2205

Don't expect a lot of help from the old axis countries, Germany Italy Japan......neutered

Questan1913

Good point...but let's elaborate further: The US wrote the constitutions of Japan and Germany after the end of WWll. It also continues to occupy, militarily, both countries with approximately 50,000 military personnel in each and a huge naval presence in Japan.

Neither conquered country has been able to recover a shred of its former sovereignty for 70 years! They are vassal states subject to the most ruthless hegemonic power since the Roman empire.

ebworthen

If Germany were really concerned about NATO they'd kick the U.S. Armed Forces out.

This is political banter; the Germans need Russian NatGas and are playing both sides.

They have guilt over the death of 20+ million Russians in WWII, but Russia is en export market - and they don't want their Eastern flank open.

Just like Greece; they feel bad about WWII, but they want a downtrodden island to vacation on too.

And Neocons? Both the Left and the Right are war happy pumpers of the M.I.C. here in the U.S.A.

nope-1004

Dude.... it's US hegemony at risk here. Pipelines and what not. Read up, pull your head out of the sand, and watch US foreign policy implode on itself. After all, WTF is the US meddling in Europe for anyway? Why are they there? What does the Ukraine have that the US or Russia needs?

It's all about energy and how it flows to customers. The US has the most to lose, which is why they created the coup to overthrow the previously elected government in Ukraine.

They are, without question, the most hypocritical government to ever grace God's green earth. They say one thing publicly and do the opposite in practice. And it appears they've got you sucked in too.

malek

Two points:

1. The headline to me seems to indicate the path for the usual whitewash towards the "Democrats": currently a few US Neocons came to head the "Democratic" party like wolves in sheep clothing, but overall the leftists still hold the moral highground!

2. It is curious German magazine Der Spiegel doesn't mention it's own role in this, posting a headline STOP PUTIN NOW on it's frontpage after MH-17 had been shot down.

JustObserving

The Nobel Prize Winner and the Neocons have always wanted to put Russia in its place and the destabilization of Ukraine was the starting point. It was payback for Putin protecting Assad and granting asylum to Snowden. USA wants Russia on its knees and complete full spectrum domination with no one to question US hegemony and infinite spying. Unfortunately Putin stands in the way and he must be demonized and destroyed.
Victoria Nuland Lied to US Congress about Phantom Russian Hoards in Ukraine

On March 4, Nuland addressed House Foreign Affairs Committee members.

She called murdered US-funded, Boris Nemtsov a "freedom fighter, Russian patriot and friend."

She absurdly called Ukraine "central to our 25 year Transatlantic quest for a 'Europe whole, free and at peace.' "

Fact: Washington wants Ukraine used as a dagger against Russia's heartland – with menacing US bases on its borders threatening is sovereign independence.

Nuland called US planned and implements year ago Maidan violence using well-trained Nazi thugs "peaceful protest(s) by ordinary Ukrainians."

"They braved frigid temperatures, brutal beatings and sniper bullets…Ukraine began to forge a new nation…holding free and fair election…and undertaking deep and comprehensive economic and political reforms."

Fact: US-deposed President Viktor Yanukovych's police showed remarkable restraint.

Fact: Washington-supported Nazi thugs bore full responsibility for beatings, sniper killings and other violence.

Fact: Ukrainian parliamentary and presidential elections were farcical – with no legitimacy whatever.

Fact: So-called economic reforms involve crushing hardships on already impoverished Ukrainians in return for loan-shark-of-last-resort IMF blood money.

Fact: No responsible political reforms exist. None are planned. It bears repeating. Ukraine is a US-installed fascist dictatorship.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/victoria-nuland-lied-to-us-congress-about-p...

The Neocons have killed millions in Iraq and got away scot-free:


US Sponsored Genocide Against Iraq 1990-2012. Killed 3.3 Million, Including 750,000 Children

http://www.globalresearch.ca/victoria-nuland-lied-to-us-congress-about-p...

Ignatius

The basis of neocon philosophy is a LIE, that if you don't have a real enemy just make shit up.

How then can one "debate" a neocon with anything other than a baseball bat?

Their starting point is that neocons will lie if they have to and probably also just for the fun of it.

Psychopaths.

JustObserving

The Nobel Prize Winner has bombed 7 Muslim countries, destabilized Ukraine, attempted a coup in Venezuela, lied about sarin use in Syria to almost start a war, assassinated US citizens without a trial, regularly drones women and children and wedding parties and yet is the most admired man in the world in a Gallup poll in 2014. I would cry at humanity's stupidity, cruelty and corruption but I prefer to laugh. You love your lying war criminals then you will get lot more war.

yogibear

Meet Neocon "Doughnut Dolly" Victoria Nuland

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/12/18/meet-neocon-doughnut-do...

Nuland's career has been one of ensuring that the underpinnings of the Cold War never completely died out in Europe. Her State Department career began as the chief of staff to President Bill Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State and close friend, Strobe Talbott. It was under Talbott that Nuland helped completely fracture Yugoslavia and ensured that the U.S. slanted against the interests of Russia's ally, Serbia.

markar

Angie needs to end her triangulating charade and choose sides. Keeping a foot in the Russian door while appeasing her Neocon masters in the West won't work much longer. She knows Obama is a spineless puppet who won't back her and Ukraine is a failed state run riot by neo Nazi thugs and oligarchs.

What's it going to be Angie, an act of heroism or taking Germany down with the Western ship?

lesterbegood

Angie like Obama, Nuland, et al, is another political puppet/spokesperson for the power behind the money.

Winston Churchill

Which means her puppet masters are changing horses mid race.

No honor amongst thieves and/or psychopaths.

HowdyDoody

I wonder what on earth the CIA/NSA has on her that keeps her putting the interests of the US above her own country.

Wile-E-Coyote

Come on Germany tell the USA to fuck right off............................. won't happen.

css1971

35 US military bases in Germany say you are absolutely correct.

Son of Loki

Simply look at the quality of our State dept -- Nuland, etc -- The average IQ and emotional intelligence there has to be at an all-time low.

Gone are the days when you had brillant statespeople in the state dept who were thoroughly versed in history, politics, economics and debate.

yogibear

"Gone are the days when you had brillant statespeople in the state dept who were thorougly versed in history, politics, economics and debate."

People are used to dumb and dumber DC. It matches the rest of the country.

Stumpy4516

The statespeople may have been more intelligent at one time but their actions (covert murders, regime change, wars, etc.) have always been the same.

[Mar 07, 2015] Two men charged over nemtsovs murder opposition fear scapegoating

Mar 07, 2015 | zerohedge.com

Two men from Russia's southern region of the North Caucasus, have been detained, according to FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov, suspected of the murder of Boris Nemtsov. As Reuters reports, The Investigative Committee, the state body leading the investigation, named the two men as Anzor Gubashev and Zaur Dadayev, and said they were "involved in the organization and execution of the killing," of Nemtsov.

Opposition politicians fear scapegoating once again as past high-profile killings in Russia have led to people being jailed for pulling the trigger - often hired hitmen from the Caucasus - while investigators have failed to track down those who ordered the assassinations.

Thirst Mutilator

Round up the usual suspects, & BY ALL MEANS... Keep the story front & center in the news until there's time to organize the next delicatessen getting shot up, which results in bullet ridden kosher pastrami [foto-ops] all over the street...

Publicus

This Western false flag is backfiring on them big time. What worked for them in the West does not work in the East. World War 3 is the Western Elite's last hope, they will try their hardest to start it.

Hannibal

Iraq Arrests ISIL's US, Israeli Military Advisors in Mosul

Iraqi Special Forces said they have arrested several ISIL's foreign military advisors, including American, Israeli and Arab nationals in an operation in Mosul in the Northern parts of the country.

The Iraqi forces said they have retrieved four foreign passports, including those that belonged to American and Israeli nationals and one that belonged to the national of a Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member-state, from ISIL's military advisors.

The foreign advisors were arrested in a military operation in Tal Abta desert near Mosul city.

Last year, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Mossad of training ISIL terrorists operating in Iraq and Syria.

Alexander Prokhanov said that Mossad is also likely to have transferred some of its spying experiences to the ISIL leadership, adding that Israel's military advisors could be assisting the Takfiri terrorists.

Prokhanov said ISIL is a byproduct of US policies in the Middle East.

http://thesaker.is/iraq-arrests-isils-us-israeli-military-advisors-in-mo...

JustObserving

UN Report Reveals How Israel is Coordinating with ISIS Militants Inside Syria

21WIRE reported back in December 2014 and again in January 2015, how the State of Israel has consistently provided both material, medical relief and IDF airstrike support to various terrorist and 'rebel' insurgents fighting in Syria.

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/02/19/un-report-reveals-how-israel-is-co...

General Clark reveals that Daesh (ISIS) is an Israeli project

http://www.voltairenet.org/article186827.html

JustObserving
Putin Predicted Washington Would Employ Assassination Tactic Against Russia - Paul Craig Roberts

The Saker provides a one minute video with translation of Putin explaining two years ago the Russian government's concern that an overseas entity would use a false flag assassination within Russia in order to create an "involuntary martyr" that the Western media would use to demonize Russia.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41124.htm

According to this report by The Saker, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-boris-nemtsov-assassination-russias-non-system-opposition-refuses-to-blame-the-kremlin/5434206 , the Washington-financed Russian opposition has not, as Washington hoped it would, joined the Western anti-Putin media campaign. Possibly the Washington-financed Russian NGOs have wised up from observing events in Ukraine. In place of "more democracy," they got a Washington stooge government squandering Ukraine's last cent on a losing war.

The most likely explanation of Nemtsov's murder is that the CIA decided, as Nemtsov was completely marginalized as an opposition politician with 5% as against Putin's 85%, that Nemtsov was worth more dead than alive. But the ploy, if that is what it is, has not worked inside Russia.

Part of the circumstantial evidence that Nemtsov's murder was a CIA tactic to destabilize Russia is the orchestrated US media. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and the rest of the presstitutes were ready on cue with reports insinuating that Putin was responsible. Stephen Lendman has done a good job tracking the US media's unquestioning adherence to Washington's propaganda line. http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/03/01/putin-predicted-washington-em...

Lea

Of course the opposition fears scapegoating. They pray day and night for Putin to be guilty, so they will call any other suspect "a scapegoat".

And these are not Putin's "opposition". The Russian liberals rank about 8%, tops, in the polls. Nemtsov ranked 1%.

The only opposition Putin has ever had is the 17% Russian Communist party.

[Mar 07, 2015] Russia detains two men in Boris Nemtsov murder inquiry by Chis Johnston

Note: Guardian did not risked to open comments for this article. Should somebody put a tattoo on Chis Johnston right arm with the words "Cue Bono", the classic Roman approach to such crimes. Why Putin on peak of his popularity would decided to eliminate political cadaver by converting him into real, much more dangerous cadaver. But there are two parties who can benefit from this killing. As the guy who with Chubais and his friends from Harvard sold Russia assets, he incite such level of hate in Russia that even 1% of votes (that means strictly Moscow fifth column of neoliberal globalization) are way too much for him. Why Chris Johnson is so shy to name them is understandable and despicable. Even presstitutes should sometimes behave... Also analogies with Politkovskaya killing and Litvinenko killing are way to obvious to ignore. The USA now try to fight off the challenge that Putin version of state capitalism and Chinese version of "neoliberalism within communist dogma" present and rising tide of nationalism in Europe, which threatens the fundamental postulates of neoliberalism and the USA role as Kremlin of neoliberalism (if we consider this neoliberal globalization as replay of Communist International ideas on a new level). Ukrainian nationalists, while reasonably good at destruction of the economy, proved to be incapable to rule the country and face financial default. They can resort to desperate means to postpone the day of reckoning. Russian newspaper Vzglyad noted that version of the involvement of Chechens fighting in the Ukraine was one of the most plausible. "Izvestia" citing law enforcement sources reported that the organizer of the assassination could be the Ukrainian security services, and assassins - Chechen militants from the so-called battalion named Dzhokhar Dudayev, which fights in Ukraine against DND and LNR.
.
By the way, the commander of this detachment Adam Osmayev was previous held as defendant in the case of the preparation of the assassination of President Vladimir Putin. Perhaps the plan was to discredit the Russian government and destabilize the political situation in the country.
Mar 07, 2015 | The Guardian

Russian authorities have detained two men in connection with the murder of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

The pair were named as Anzor Gubashev and Zaur Dadayev, both from the North Caucasus, a volatile region of southern Russia plagued by insurgency.

Nemtsov was deputy prime minister in the 1990s in the government of Boris Yeltsin.

... ... ...

Putin has called the killing a "provocation", vowing that everything would be done to convict those who committed a "vile and cynical murder".

[Mar 07, 2015] Meet the Big Wallets Pushing Obama Towards a New Cold War By Christian Stork

February 25, 2015 | Alternet
As for those in the K Street elite pushing Uncle Sam to confront the bear, it isn't hard to see what they have to gain. There's a familiar ring to the U.S. calls to arm Ukraine's post-coup government. That's because the same big-money players who stand to benefit from belligerent relations with Russia haven't forgotten a favorite Cold War tune.

President Obama has said that he won't rule out arming Ukraine if a recent truce, which has all but evaporated, fails like its predecessor. His comments echoed the advice of a report issued a week prior by three prominent U.S. think tanks: the Brookings Institute, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Atlantic Council. The report advocated sending $1 billion worth of "defensive" military assistance to Kiev's pro-Western government.

If followed, those recommendations would bring the U.S. and Russia the closest to conflict since the heyday of the Cold War. Russia has said that it would "respond asymmetrically against Washington or its allies on other fronts" if the U.S. supplies weapons to Kiev.

The powers with the most skin in the game -- France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine -- struck a deal on Feb. 12, which outlines the terms for a ceasefire between Kiev and the pro-Russian, breakaway provinces in eastern Ukraine. It envisages a withdrawal of heavy weaponry followed by local elections and constitutional reform by the end of 2015, granting more autonomy to the eastern regions.

But not all is quiet on the eastern front. The truce appears to be headed the route of a nearly identical compromise in September, which broke down immediately afterward.

Moscow's national security interests are clear. Washington's are less so, unless you look at the bottom lines of defense contractors.

As for those in the K Street elite pushing Uncle Sam to confront the bear, it isn't hard to see what they have to gain. Just take a look below at the blow-by-blow history of their Beltway-bandit benefactors:

No Reds Means Seeing Red

Following the end of the Cold War, defense cuts had presented bottom-line problems for America's military producers. The weapons dealers were told that they had to massively restructure or go bust.

Luckily, carrots were offered. Norm Augustine, a former undersecretary of the Army, advised Defense Secretary William Perry to cover the costs of the industry mergers. Augustine was then the CEO of Martin Marietta -- soon to become the head of Lockheed Martin, thanks to the subsidies.

Augustine was also chairman of a Pentagon advisory council on arms-export policy. In that capacity, he was able to secure yet more subsidy guarantees for NATO-compatible weapons sales to former Warsaw Pact countries.

But in order to buy the types of expensive weapons that would stabilize the industry's books, those countries had to enter into an alliance with the U.S. And some members of Congress were still wary of shelling out money to expand a military alliance that had, on its face, no rationale to exist.

Enter the NATO Expansion Squad

Enter the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO. Formed in 1996, the Committee wined and dined elected officials to secure their support for NATO enlargement. Meanwhile, Lockheed buttressed its efforts by spending $1.58 million in federal contributions for the 1996 campaign cycle.

The Committee's founder and neocon chairman, Bruce Jackson, was so principled in his desire to see freedom around the globe that he didn't even take a salary. He didn't have to; he was a vice president at Lockheed Martin.

By Clinton's second term, everyone was on board. Ron Asmus, a former RAND Corporation analyst and the "intellectual progenitor" of NATO expansion (who would later co-chair the Committee to Expand NATO), ended what was left of the policy debate in the State Department. He worked with Clinton's diplomatic point man on Eastern Europe, Strobe Talbott.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were all in NATO come 1999. The Baltic States would soon follow. By 2003, those initial inductees had arranged deals to buy just short of $5 billion in fighter jets from Lockheed.

Bruce Jackson began running a new outfit in 2002. It was called the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

(36 F-16s are currently slated for delivery to Iraq at an estimated $3 billion.)

Rivers of Cash

Brookings is Washington's oldest think tank. For most of its existence, its research was funded by a large endowment and no-strings-attached grants. But all of that changed when Strobe Talbott took the reins.

Strobe Talbott, President

• Talbott sought to bolster Brookings' coffers with aggressive corporate fundraising. He took it from annual revenues of $32 million in 2003 to $100 million by 2013. Though always corporate-friendly, Brookings has become little more than a pay-to-play research hub under Talbott's reign.

• Among the many corporate donors to Brookings are Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin and cyber-defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

David M. Rubenstein, Co-Chairman of Board of Trustees

• Rubenstein is co-founder and co-CEO at the Carlyle Group, a massive private equity firm. Among the companies in which Carlyle has a controlling stake in is Booz Allen Hamilton -- a military and intelligence IT firm that is currently active in Ukraine.

• Booz, which both sells to and operates within the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, counts four former Carlyle executives among its directors. Ronald Sanders, a vice president at Booz, serves on the faculty of Brookings.

Atlanticists

The Atlantic Council was formed in 1961 as a "consolidation of the U.S. citizen groups supporting" NATO, according to its website.

Stephen Hadley, Director

• A former national security advisor for George W. Bush, Hadley doubles as a director for Raytheon. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the U.S. Committee on NATO, on whose board he sat, and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

• Prior to joining the Bush White House, Hadley was a lawyer for Shea & Gardner, whose clients included Lockheed Martin.

James Cartwright, Director

• A retired general and former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, James Cartwright has an active work life. He's "an advisor to defense and intelligence contractor TASC, defense consulting firm Accenture, and Enlightenment Capital, a private equity firm with defense investments," according to the Public Accountability Initiative. He's also on the board of Raytheon, which earned him $124,000 in 2012.

Other notables include:

• Nicholas Burns – former diplomat and current senior counselor at The Cohen Group, which advises Lockheed Martin, among other defense companies

• James A. Baker III – Bush 41 Secretary of State and partner at law firm Baker Botts. Clients include a slew of defense companies

• Thomas R. Pickering – former senior vice president for Boeing

Chi-town Chickenhawks

Founded in 1922, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs has since served as the premier voice of Midwest business leaders in American foreign policy. Jeb Bush recently made his "I am my own man" speech, outlining his foreign policy priorities, to the council:

Lester Crown, Chairman

• The chair of Henry Crown & Co., the investment firm that handles the fortune started by his father, Henry Crown. Henry put the "dynamic" in General Dynamics, helping to turn it into the world's largest weapons manufacturer by the time Lester became its chairman in 1986. The defense behemoth remains the single largest source of the family's treasure; they're currently the 35th richest clan in America. General Dynamics produces all of the equipment types proposed for transfer to Ukraine in the think-tank report.

Ivo Daalder, President

• A co-author of the report, Daalder is a former diplomat and staffer on Clinton's National Security Council. He later served on the Hart-Rudman Commission from 1998-2001. It was chartered by Defense Secretary William Cohen -- later to become a Lockheed consultant -- and tasked with outlining the major shifts in national security strategy for the 21st century. Among its commissioners was none other than Norm Augustine.

The commission concluded that the Department of Defense and intelligence community should drastically reduce their infrastructure costs by outsourcing and privatizing key functions, especially in the field of information technology.

The main beneficiaries have been America's major defense contractors: Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton and Lester Crown's outfit, General Dynamics.

General Dynamics' revenue tripled between 2000 and 2010 as it acquired at least 11 smaller firms that specialized in exactly the sort of services recommended for outsourcing. Roughly one-third of GD's overall revenue in 2013, the same year that Daalder was appointed president of the Council by Crown, came from its Information Systems and Technology division.

So even without a Cold War Bear to fuel spending, the re-imagining of that old foe is oiling the revolving door between the government and defense contractors.

[Mar 07, 2015] CIA Urged Rebels to Assassinate Their Own In Order to Create "Martyrs" by George Washington

03/03/2015 | zerohedge.com

A CIA "psychological operations" manual prepared by a CIA contractor for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels noted the value of assassinating someone on your own side to create a "martyr" for the cause.

The manual was authenticated by the U.S. government.

The manual received so much publicity from Associated Press, Washington Post and other media that – during the 1984 presidential debate – President Reagan was confronted with the following question on national television:

At this moment, we are confronted with the extraordinary story of a CIA guerrilla manual for the anti-Sandinista contras whom we are backing, which advocates not only assassinations of Sandinistas but the hiring of criminals to assassinate the guerrillas we are supporting in order to create martyrs.

Indeed, this is just one of scores of admitted false flag attacks by governments all over the world.

P.S. We're SURE this has nothing to do with this completely unrelated story:

Russian Opposition: Putin Did NOT Assassinate Opposition Leader

Budd aka Sidewinder

George, much respect but the Lincoln quotes have got to go

Son of Captain Nemo
CIA Urged Rebels to Assassinate Their Own In Order to Create "Martyrs"

Owned and managed by the same "LLC" that gave us the Patrot Act(s) and the NDAA and 4 going on 5 wars of choice!!!!

Whole lotta 9/11 love!

VWAndy

This killing of guys on your team practically guaranties the leader of a revolution will be a psyco killer too. A win win deal.

It would work best if they kill the centrist/moderates. Right out of the commie handbook.

JoJoJo

Dont forget the Kerry Committee in 1985 where Sen Kerry fawned over dictators who promised they were not Communists - before they allied with communist Soviet Union.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1219935/posts

Radical Marijuana

Thanks for trying to stay on top of these kinds of stories, George Washington! More and more, it is practically impossible for any individual to keep up ... I appreciate articles that have organized a presentation of crucial information that one could review!

SoilMyselfRotten

Would love to know how Reagan answered that one

shovelhead

Thank Dog we have the CIA

Imagine the trouble they could cause if we had an organization that was competent?

peanuts

This revelation feels like nothing compared to the other shit that was in that manual, along with all the training that was done at the School of the Americas at Ft. Bening, Georgia to carry out what was in the manual down in Nicaraqua in the 80's.

dexter_morgan

OK, lets look at these alleged terrorists. What the hell is it they want anyways?

If their goal is to eliminate Israel as megalomaniac nuttyyahoo wants us to believe - THEN WHY THE FUCK DO THEY ATTACK AND KILL EVERYBODY BUT ISRAELI'S????????

If it's global redistribution of wealth, then WHY DON"T THEY ATTACK THE ROTHSCHILDS, MEMBERS OF THE BILDERBERGERS, DAVOS ATTENDEES, BANKSTERS IN GENERAL, etc.

Seriously, either they are the stupidest fucking people in the world, or they are playing someone elses game for fucks sake.

amanfromMars

If their goal is to eliminate Israel as megalomaniac nuttyyahoo wants us to believe - THEN WHY THE FUCK DO THEY ATTACK AND KILL EVERYBODY BUT ISRAELI'S????????

If it's global redistribution of wealth, then WHY DON"T THEY ATTACK THE ROTHSCHILDS, MEMBERS OF THE BILDERBERGERS, DAVOS ATTENDEES, BANKSTERS IN GENERAL, etc.

Seriously, either they are the stupidest fucking people in the world, or they are playing someone elses game for fucks sake. ...... dexter_morgan

Possibly, and therefore quite probably, an active work in progress, d_m, and something to look forward to in the near future as intelligence takes over from stupidity?

WTFRLY

New Anonymous op as White House still ignores murder of American reporter Serena Shim in Turkey

UN Chief: Israel may have purposely targeted UN base in Lebanon, killing Spanish soldier – VIDEO

Reaper

Trust in his government masters is the enslaving opiate of the patriotic fool. The greater his government lies, the more the patriotic fool emotes.

Reptil

This is interesting: Former advisor to Nemtsov, Mikhail Delyagin comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eACsWwJgoa0

Rollo57

An even more interesting question; "How did they manage to make those 'T'-Shirts so quickly?

http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/03/were-props-and-slogans-for-nemtsovs....

In less than 24 hours, a four colour shirt complete with logo's in Ukrainian and Russian?

Obaminator

Yeah, GW can go live somewhere else and see if he can write stuff like this from all the GREAT countries he likes to defend...like Russia, and see how far he gets.

Not only that, but his quotation isnt even a Question, it was a STATEMENT.

Doooooooh

btdt

no need to wait!

habara are standing by!

-------------

glad to see your operation now has harbara version 3.4 so you can post at the top.

[Mar 07, 2015] The killing of my friend Boris Nemtsov must signal the death of appeasement by Garry Kasparov

This man can do anything for money. What a low-lifer. Looks like talent in chess does not extend to other human qualities. Of cause NED/IRI money does not smell, and that means its quite natural for Gary Kasparov to become a buddy of neocons. From comments: "The constant attacks on Putin from the MSM, are an indicator of just how desperate the elite are to instigate some form of rebellion against him in Russia -- hence the Nemtsov assassination. "

March 6, 2015 | The Guardian

ID4534229

Kasparov, you should be ashamed of yourself. A shill of the west, much like Klitchko. Are you really complaining about Russia when you share a platform with Saakashvili ? A man who is wanted back home for corruption? You are a useful idiot, like Klitchko and like Saakashvili. The only difference between you and the criminal and corrupt billionaires expelled from Russia is that you don't have the money.

Why do these "Russian" dissenters, once they leave their country, immediately end up in US Senate hearings and with US politicians who would love to see Russia reduced to a mess? Have you no shame?

caotama 6 Mar 2015 17:47

"Yesterday I was in Washington DC, speaking to a US Senate subcommittee about how and why the Russian dictator must be stopped". So you are buddies with the neocons? Case closed.

"Nearly every head in the room nodded in agreement as I and other invitees – such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili..." Isn't that discredited IMF puppet on some wanted list?

"Russian forces nearly reached Tbilisi before they turned back". Why did they turn back, Gaz?

irishmand -> Treabhar Mac Oireabaird 6 Mar 2015 17:31

If you don't like the West, why are you staying here?

I don't like what americans did to the west. The democracy we heard so much about is being dismantled quickly. The school education is ruined. University education is becoming less and less affordable. Medical system in US is almost the genocide of poor. The media are lying on industrial basis. The moods in the society are pro war, people want blood. I am trying to fight it explaining that the west is walking towards abyss but you don't want to listen. Many people call me a Kremlyn troll. I don't care, but it demonstrates the points I just made.

BMWAlbert

Meanwhile in Odessa, far from the front lines, all is tranquil...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HacQe4GYIY#t=138

MarVas

The "More than 100,000 people rallied to mourn Boris in Moscow" line links to a page that says "Police put numbers at 7,000, while those involved said the protest drew 50,000."

After the event police adjusted their numbers to 21,000 but apparently it is not worth mentioning.
Even if provided by promoters' numbers are correct, it's still less than 0.5% of Moscow population.
Is it a good reason to openly lie?

HollyOldDog -> MarVas

Strange how foreign newspapers always try to clutch at invisable straws. Protestors usually overestimate their numbers but the police on viewing airborne video have the advantage when estimating crowd numbers.

There was supposed to be a protest march in a city in Siberia where the protestors informed the police that thousands would turn up but only 12 were present on the day. The Police could be still searching for someone to pay for the extra police overtime for the non event.

PlatonKuzin

"Boris Nemtsov's whole career was not aimed at helping Russia, but at the interests of foreign states," said Nikolai Starikov, one of Anti-Maidan's leaders. "Boris Nemtsov is the first victim of the Maidan in Russia… He was killed by his American curators."

I also think so.

Obfusgator

Anti-negotiator Kasparov sounds like your proto-typical war and conflict addicted general, always ready to sacrifice millions of chess piece lives. He should stick to what he does best (playing games) and let his anger at Putin's Russia subside.

We're all seeing bloody red at the moment Garry, but aren't you sick of war? You could have mentioned in your article the US funded coup in the Ukraine that led to Russia moving to protect assets there and you omitted important details regarding the increasing encirclement of Russia by US/NATO forces.

In case you haven't noticed, when the US sticks its nose into rival countries' business (sanctions first closely followed by militarily assistance) things get out of control.

We don't need that playing out again, now do we?

Russia's problems are hers to sort out.

notEvenNibling -> Obfusgator

Ukraines problems are "hers" to sort out.

Obfusgator -> notEvenNibling

Ukraine's US coup problem.

Parangaricurimicuaro

Do you remember Iraks Ahmed Chalabi? The guy that pushed for the war? Kasparov is the 2015 version

Russia will always be my country, but it is difficult to imagine returning while Putin is still in the Kremlin.

EugeneGur

No, it aren't, my friend. Russia isn't you country - you betrayed it, you are openly inviting foreign powers to attack it. Just because you say "Putin" instead of "Russia", you think it makes a difference? Assuming the policy of "isolation and condemnation" is successful, do you think Putin will suffer or do you even suspect that ordinary Russians will feel the pain? Do you care?

This is a good article showing very clearly what kind of "opposition" this is. For the life of me, I cannot imaging an opposition of any kind, say, in the US or any European country, inviting foreign countries to start a war against the homeland and surviving. But it's perfectly fine in Russia. He is downright pleading with the West: don't be afraid, you won't have to defeat the entire Russian army or start WWIII. Just "inflict enough damage". The man is disgusting. He is also lying. It would be necessary to defeat the entire Russia, if it comes to that. Russia is not populated only by Karparovs.

The opposition movement that Boris and I believed in, and that Boris died for, should be openly supported, the way the west once championed the Soviet dissidents.

So, the "opposition" is a Western-paid performer, a.k.a. a whore.

Ronald Reagan told those of us behind the iron curtain that he knew it was our leaders, not us, who were his adversaries.

I do believe that. Personally, Garry did very well as did Nemtsov. But the rest of Russia did turn out to be Reagan's adversary, at least, it was treated as such.

I do hope you Westerners understand now and believe us when we say that this 'opposition" has absolutely no influence in Russia, and most people have nothing but contempt for them. You are wasting your money paying them.

PeregrineSlim

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts…The United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way….And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this - no one feels safe." Vladimir Putin, Munich 2007

willpodmore

The Minsk peace agreement's terms included 'Withdrawal of all foreign armed groups, weapons and mercenaries from Ukrainian territory'. In direct violation of the agreement, the US government announced in late February that it would send 300 troops to Ukraine to help train Ukraine's forces, and Prime Minister David Cameron announced on 24 February that 75 British troops would also be sent to help train Ukraine's forces.

AlexUspen

Kasparov: "More than 100,000 people rallied to mourn Boris in Moscow last Sunday, a number that gives the lie..."

Well, it really does.

The link gets you to a Guardian story, putting the number of rally participants somewhere between 7,000 and 50,000. The 100K figure is repeated in the picture caption… This is some very strange math.

PeregrineSlim

The opposition in Russia will go nowhere as long as they function as errand boys for the american empire.

MyDogLikesPorridge

With Nemtsov gone, Kasparov and his ilk will be again trying to sell Navalny as the next saviour of Russia. Below is an excerpt from an article published in May/2011. It is both frighteningly relevant and prescient of events to come.

"But the following interview was much more interesting. It's with The New Times, a Russian magazine... Navalny says "I think that the power in Russia will change not by an election process; they can elect whoever they like in March of 2012, but everything will be finished by April", and then clarifies – "by something like a Tunis scenario". Answering the question "Do you expect the wave from the bottom", he says – "No, I don't wait for it, I'm organizing it. We don't know when it will happen, but it's within our power to bring it closer. The current Russian authorities are thieves and swindlers. We must fight against them, exert pressure on them, create problems for them, and involve more and more people in creating problems. This pressure can be of different kinds – from simple negotiations to mobs on the streets that drag civil servants from their cabinets and hang them. And the faster authorities realize that and start negotiating, the less plausible the violent scenario becomes. I don't think that any political technologies or twitter can make people come out on the streets and chase away thieves and swindlers, so normal people could take over." (emphasis mine) .

Well… first of all, let's just recall that every state has the right to defend its constitutional system by force, and such citadels of democracy as the UK and the US have no qualms about invoking it. Secondly, the Russian criminal code has the article "Violent takeover of power or violent retention of power", punishable by from 12 to 20 years in prison. And I don't remember anything in the Constitution that says that hanging of government officials is a legitimized feature of a democratic process. The code also has the article "Calls to extremist actions". But let's leave that aside for a moment.

Navalny clearly states that he's working towards a typical colour revolution. First, I don't know what can be more undemocratic than a handful of raucous people changing power by riots and violence, simply because they don't like the government, the outcome of some election or any other quality. The opinion of the rest of the people is commonly ignored. It's also usually accompanied by tens or hundreds of corpses. Second, a common misconception is that power is transferred from bad authoritarian groups to "the people". That's a brazen lie; power simply gets transferred from one group to another, and the benefactor is well-known beforehand. Did anyone doubt that Yuschenko would become president when the Orange revolution succeeded? Or Saakashvili in Georgia? Third, and this is the most important point – there have been plenty of such revolutions. Has a single country benefited from it? Saakashvili's more and more authoritarian rule and the unleashed war are something that the Georgians dreamed of in 2003? Yuschenko's rating lying in the gutter is what the Ukranians stood in Maidan Square for? The deposing of Bakiev in 2010 by yet another revolution was worth launching the first one in 2005? Navalny suggests that "normal people will take over". Needless to say, that one statement will inspire laughter in any politologist worth his salt. Will these "normal people" spontaneously inherit another law framework and its institutions? Obviously, no. Then we have to take their word that after they come into power, these mysteriously benevolent "normal people" will start to limit their own authoritiy in favour of common people. Please remind me; how often has that happened in history? But OK, let's be believers for a while, so let's assume that they really are that incorruptible. In order to improve governance, the state should have better institutions and laws, so after the coup someone will have to write them. But what's stopping "normal people" from drafting them now, even promoting them? Maybe the current power will adopt them, so there will be no need for a revolution! And finally, who will determine the suitability of these people? Navalny?

I sincerely hope that this whole interview is just idle thoughts, and Navalny doesn't vest any serious meaning in them. But alas, evidence suggests the contrary. All the traditional components are present – branding authorities as hopelessly corrupt and despotic, the government's consummate demonization and alienation; praise from abroad of one group, presenting them as progressives; the preparing of key people in the West. It's also useful to attach to the big picture the recent interview of Kasparov, in which he repeats Vice-President Joe Biden's threat that if Putin should be reelected in 2012, the US will topple him with a colour revolution.

PeregrineSlim

The Washington War Party is shipping off its troops to the Ukraine in the coming week in defiance of the Minsk agreement.

sensitivepirate

It is not about right or wrong, because in this case there are wrongs on both sides.

Here we see the United States located on the other side of the world, standing up for its interests and investments in owning and controlling Ukrainian oil, gas, coal, manufacturing, transportation, strategic location, and agricultural resources in a country without any Americans.

Here we see Russia standing up for Russians.

Be careful what you wish for. With Russia, your ideals may never be realized.

henrihenri -> sensitivepirate

We live in world deprived of ideals. Money!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q&feature=player_detailpage

therealbillythefish

"with the belief that the days of changing Europe's borders by force"

The Serbs of Kosovo were disabused of that belief by NATO.

therealbillythefish Sceptical Walker

The KLA started a campaign of murder and were suppressed with much less brutality than the yanks showed in places like Fallujah.

NATO handed Kosovo to the human organ traffickers of the KLA with the result that non-Albanians have been driven out and the economy is a basket case with thoussnds of Kosovans attempting to claim asylum in the EU every month.

johnbonn

Sanctions are not appeasement, so what is he talking about. Kiev has already done its best to destroy the east where ethnic Russians live.

If he wants something stronger, don't worry. The UK and the US are preparing for the invasion by restarting the civil war.
The Guardian does not report that the largest oil companies in the west have paid large amounts of money to Ukraine for the rights to drill off the Crimean coast.

These companies can't get their money back, so the west must invade.

McCain and Kerry and Cameron will insure that he and Europe will soon get their war with Russia. Sadly this will bring a major realignment of the middle east to this major war.

frombrussels

....Elephants NEVER forget, they say ......People however are the worst "forgetters"!.....

The Ukraine mess and all its horrible consequences started when Nuland b*tch and CIA decided to orchestrate a coup against a democratically elected, yet pro russian president, as a consequence of which Putin took back HIS Crimea and people in E Ukraine decided they wanted to belong to Russia ......

It s as easy as that....let s make it complicated though, to justify deliverance of lethal weapons to Ukraine by "godfather" USA !

amcalabrese2

Or maybe we (the US in particular and the West in general) needs to realize that this is not our war. Is Russia really a threat to the us? Russia is not the Soviet Union. Unlike the days of the USSR, there are no armies of people in the west willing to do the party's bidding. Those days the Soviets were a deep threat to us. Had the Soviets won, freedom would have been extinguished. And the Soviets could have won. The Russians are having trouble paying their state employees.

nnedjo

Given that we are talking about a chess genius, and with regard to this very eloquent text that he wrote now, Garry Kasparov, without a doubt, is an extremely capable man. That is why it is a very pity that such a man has not found the right way to help his country. As I already said, this text of Kasparov is really very eloquently written, but besides that, it's full of nonsense. That a man of such intelligence can write so many things contrary to common sense, can only be explained by his blind hatred against Putin's Russia.

But, for now, I will mention only one of the nonsense that Garry Kasparov wrote here.
He says, "police state is very good at keeping the monopoly of violence for themselves, and given that prominent opposition politician was killed in the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin, the chances that this occurred without any involvement of Russian security services is vanishingly small."

So, if the goal was to remove a vocal critic of the Kremlin, why was it necessary to do so near the very Kremlin? Does the state that holds the monopoly of violence could not do it in any other, less significant place. I do not see any sense in it, that the security services killed prominent opposition leaders at also prominent places, and not in some other places.

Especially those security services who are trying to maintain a monopoly of violence, as they are also trying to maintain the illusion of safety in the country, even when it is not like that. So, for Kasparov probably would not look anything absurd, even that Boris Nemtsov was killed at the same time when Putin and his entourage crossed the Red Square, and that the bullets that are missed Nemtsov whizzed around Putin's head. Or, perhaps Putin's involvement in the murder would be even more apparent for Kasparov that Nemtsov was killed in the lobby of Putin's office, and there would be no wonder that the Russian security services have not thought of it first.

I will repeat once again. In addition to being the chess genius Garry Kasparov is obviously a very talented writer. However, if he intends to devote to such a profession even more, I would recommend him not to write crime stories, but of another type, or from some other genre.

SalmanShaheen

It seems unlikely Putin had Nemtsov killed. What would he have to gain?

dropthemchammer -> SalmanShaheen

It would send a message to other around him.
If the sanctions are starting to bite and people close to Putin muttering then this action would get them to hold their tongues.

Oskar Jaeger -> SalmanShaheen

No man, no problem (J V Stalin).

henrihenri -> Oskar Jaeger

There was a man, true, but there wasn`t a problem.

FrancesSmith

I'm wondering. Here in the UK we could do with a better opposition, and we could also do with a better electoral system, and the ownership of the press is a serious issue, and the current government has appointed its close associates to run the BBC. And what about the way our political parties are funded, corrupt or what?

But what if there was some rich UK chess player went to the USA and started writing articles in the foreign press asking them to intervene and remove our elected government.

ok, we haven't invaded anywhere recently, and we haven't had an opposition leader shot dead, no need really they can't get past the tory press.

But just imagine how you would feel, putin demonisers, if there was someone from the UK talking about our government like this, and asking for intervention, and trying to impose a new government on us that has minimal support in the country.

ApfelD

The opposition movement that Boris and I believed in, and that Boris died for, should be openly supported

Kasparov makes me laugh
He is asking for the open support from the US
It's like Alex Salmond will ask Putin about the missile strike on London

PSmd

For all Kasparov's ideals for liberal transparency and a capitalist economy, what our press seems to not emphasise is that the Communists are the big opposition in Russia. They are the ones kept out possibly by United Russia, certainly by Yeltsin. They are big in towns and cities, among pensioners. In fact, theire following is a bit like UKIP, they recognise the grimmer past, but the certainties that came before the deracinatiing effects of globalisation.

BunglyPete

Its worrying just how easily history can be rewritten.

This BBC report titled Georgia 'started unjustifiable war' says

The shelling of Tskhinvali (the South Ossetian capital) by the Georgian armed forces during the night of 7 to 8 August 2008 marked the beginning of the large-scale armed conflict in Georgia," the report says.
It adds later: "There is the question of whether [this] use of force... was justifiable under international law. It was not."
It also says Georgia's claim that there had been a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia before the outbreak of war could not be "sufficiently substantiated", though it said there was evidence of a lower-level military build-up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8281990.stm

Now it does go on to say that Russia's response was over the top and illegal too, but the key point is it began with Saakashvili, Kasparov's ally, shelling a city.

Now we are told the conflict was provoked by Putin, is proof of his imperialistic plans, and that Saakashvili is a person we should take seriously.

If you want to do so I won't stop you, but to do so is foolish given the evidence against the Georgian regime from 2008.

Renfrow

Wow. Gary had turned into quite a radical. This article is definitely designed for the far right western audience. No wonder his support in Russia is close to 0.

aprescoup

Navalny is the first Russian opposition figure of any stature. Kasparov lost his credibility amongst Russians by becoming an obvious lackey of the West. Nemtsov never had any credibility amongst Russians because he could never clean himself of the tarnish of being associated with the Yeltsin years.

Navalny has an altogether different stature, and does have credibility with Russians, but probably only in the Moscow region. Navalny does not lick Western arses as much as Kasparov and Nemtsov because he knows what arse-licking of Westerners will do to his credibility amongst Russians.

In an October 2014 interview with Ekho Moskvy, Navalny said that he would not return Crimea to Ukraine if he were to become the President of Russia but that a "normal referendum" should be held in Crimea to decide what country the peninsula belongs to. Interestingly the West does not listen to the only Russian opposition figure with any proven credibility amongst Russians, hence Western policy-making towards Russia is becoming ad-hoc and ineffective.

MacCosham -> aprescoup

No, Zyuganov is the first opposition figure in Russia. The fact that he is not a US government stooge does not change this.

FrancesSmith -> MacCosham

But he's a communist! I just have a feeling, though I may be wrong, that these right wing neocons in the US wouldn't want to see Zyuganov replace Putin.

Though they should perhaps be a little careful what they wish for as according to wikipedia Boris Nemstov and others said after the 1996 election that the communists should have won.

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2107565,00.html

geedeesee -> Germaan

"The fact is that Putin unleashed war against Ukraine..."

Except it was Kiev regime which sent tanks over to Donbass to attack the separatists, and we saw the people come out and plead with the tank crews not to attack them. Then the Kiev regime sent aircraft to bomb the civilians - bombing their own people! Putin didn't tell the Kiev regime to send tanks and military aircraft to deal with civilians. The Kiev regime called it an anti-terror operation.

elias_ -> richard1

AFAIK the ruskies didn't invade georgia in 2008. Georgians attacked and killed numerous russian soldiers operating under UN mandate. In response russians gave the georgian military (partly trained by nato) a jolly good spanking before going back to where they were before.

aprescoup

Mexico's human rights crisis is even worse than Russia's, but no one in the West cares. The real reason Putin is so disliked by the West is not because Russians suffer under Putin, but because Russia under Putin (unlike Russia under Yeltsin) no longer takes orders from Washington. China's human rights crisis is also worse than Russia's, and again no one in the West cares, because everyone in the West knows that China is more powerful than the US, and that China will never take its orders from Washington. What particularly upsets Washington is that the US is losing its soft-power: the US has no soft power over China, no soft power over Russia under Putin, and no soft power over Israel under Netanyahu.

ID5868758

Is Kasparov's support in Russia 5%, or.5%?

MacCosham -> ID5868758

0.05%

JohnMc2015

I respect Mr Kasparov as an outstanding chess master very much, but his biting a cop in 2012 tells me that a chess player's skill has nothing to do with a serious opposition leader's decent behaviour who really could lead people. Even if such leader finds appropriate words, there appears to be some doubts concerning his adequacy in a critical situation. An opposition leader is supposed to be a cool cucumber.

PeregrineSlim

Kasparov seems to have lost sight of the fact that the chess board is in Ukraine and he is a long way from being able to move any pieces.

BloodOnTheWattle -> PeregrineSlim

he is still upset at Deep Blue...he cried rivers over the loss. so you must forgive him.

ID5868758

What the hell is the matter with the US Senate, hosting such a fringe politician from Russia, and one calling for the overthrow of the elected leader of a sovereign nation? Despicable behavior from the "land of the free", apparently you're "free" only if your opinion is in line with that of the US, otherwise we will make sure we help you change your mind.

StatusFoe ID5868758

What the hell is the matter with the US Senate

What do you mean? He's the US establishment's man in Russia, a Carrier of the Flame and honoured Bilderberger.

ApfelD Magyar2lips

let us nuke Hungary and Russia and that's all
wait a minute
and Azerbaijan
and Iran
and Ukraine (the most corrupted country according to Graun)
and Saudi Arabia (for gay rights)
and North Korea
and Switzerland+Lichtenstein (for the tax avoidance schemes)
and France (Madonna said that they looks like Nazis)
and Germany (they don't speak English)

BloodOnTheWattle ApfelD

and Germany (they don't speak English)

most germans do..but lets nuke 'em all the same...the bastards tried to talk to Putin about peace...peace imagine that Merkel escaped our firewall..

geedeesee

Russians are questioning events:

"Since the current US ambassador arrived in Russia, they killed Nemtsov, while he was in Georgia they killed Zhvaniya, and in Ukraine-Gongadze. Coincidence?"

Each of the three was a prominent opposition figure, and in each case his death had led to political upheaval. To quote Ian Fleming, "once is a happenstance, twice--a coincidence, three times--enemy action."

dmitryfrommoscow

Garri, why didn't you address the U.S. Congress with philippics in the 1990's when the oligarchs who propped up Yeltsin were pumping tens of billions of dollars out of Russia every month? When millions of your fellow-countrymen had to live from hand to mouth because the economy was totally divested of funds and lay dysfunctional? When people were dying at hospitals because there was nothing except aspirin there? When selling a bunch of homegrown dill or parsley at a local market was a matter of life and death for innumerable babushkas on a vast space from Vladivostok to the Baltic shores? Give us an answer...

aprescoup

As long as Russian opposition figures are arse-lickers of the West, cosying up with MPs, MEPs and Congress members, they will not mobilise Russians against Sistema Putin. The struggle between the West and Russia is between the West's idea of a Post-Westphalian order and Russia's (and China's and Israel's) preference for staying put with the Westphalian order that has been around since 1648. Anyone who does not understand the difference between a political Westphalian order (based around nation-States) and a technocratic Post-Westphalian order (based around technocratic organizations, eg Swift for finance payments, BIS for banking regulation, ICANN for Internet), and the consequences of the West's attempt to change its imperial control over the world from a Westphalian Empire to a Post-Westphalian Empire, is a fool. Ironically, it may have been the USSR that launched Post-Westphalianism with Comintern (Third International, 1919-1943).

willpodmore

Kasparov is another warmonger. NATO continues its march to the east. NATO aims to seize control of Ukraine, to complete the hostile glacis to Russia's west. The US government considered it had exclusive rights to run Ukraine: senior US diplomat Richard Holbrooke absurdly declared that Ukraine was part of 'our core zone of security'.

The US government is pursuing Zbigniew Brzezinski's strategy of trying to draw Russia into a 'prolonged and costly' war in Ukraine. Brzezinski had used this strategy in the 1980s, when he armed Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan as part of a proxy war against the Soviet Union. The US government aimed to do to Russia via Ukraine what it did to the Soviet Union via Afghanistan. Ukraine would become another wasteland of death and destruction, with the constant risk of a wider war, and Russia would descend into chaos.

US Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the head of both the US European Command and NATO in Europe, insisted that we could not 'preclude out of hand the possibility of the military option' in Ukraine. At the Munich Security Conference, Republican senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham poured scorn on European negotiations with President Vladimir Putin. McCain summed up Merkel's speech at Munich, which included a statement of opposition to arming Ukraine, with one word: 'foolishness'. He added, "I can assure you that [Putin] will not stop until he has to pay a much higher price."

Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister, has called for 'full scale war' with Russia. Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko stated, "there is no ceasefire, and so there is no precondition for a pull-back of heavy weapons." Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh announced that his private army and the Azov Battalion would ignore the agreement and fight on.

PeregrineSlim

As Milne points out, the West is already in the process of violating the Minsk agreement:

But it's certainly grist to the mill of those pushing military confrontation with Russia. Hundreds of US troops are arriving in Ukraine this week to bolster the Kiev regime's war with Russian-backed rebels in the east. Not to be outdone, Britain is sending 75 military advisers of its own. As 20th-century history shows, the dispatch of military advisers is often how disastrous escalations start. They are also a direct violation of last month's Minsk agreement, negotiated with France and Germany, that has at least achieved a temporary ceasefire and some pull-back of heavy weapons. Article 10 requires the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Ukraine.

ApfelD -> StatusFoe

it's difficult to understand why Russians don't like Kasparov

StatusFoe -> ApfelD

He certainly can come accross as an arrogant prick.

MacCosham -> richard1

What bollocks. Putin is not coming close to anyone. What is happening is that anti-establishment parties in Europe, whether left-wing (Die Linke, Podemos, Syriza), centrist (Five Stars) or right wing (FN, Fidesz) are following public opinion which sees that the establishment parties (socialists and conservatives) are puppets of US-based big money.

guster86

"I will continue to do whatever I can to draw support to the cause of returning Russia to the path of democracy."

Possibly sacrifice a few pawns.

dropthemchammer -> guster86

You say this after Putin had his opposition assassinated lol

Simon311 -> dropthemchammer

Did he? You have certain knowledge of this? Cause Global warming too did he.

jonno61

Kasparov has absolutely not credibility on this matter. Why the Guardian choose to publish his propaganda is beyond me ?

RobHardy -> jonno61

Fits into a general pattern of propaganda propagation by the Guardian in the last few years, probably much longer. no shortage of fellow travelers for the US management of Vichy Britain.

altergeist

"But we must cease to be surprised by the violence and hatred emanating from Russia today if we are to combat it successfully."

I am ceaselessly amazed by the near-complete unity in the chorous of anti-Russia/Putin propaganda.

" prominent critic of the regime,"

With roughly 5% popular support, and quite widely reviled for his part in the Yeltsin era pillage of Russia, when male life expectancy fell about 10 years in just 10 years - a spectacular collapse in living standards. 'Prominent' indeed. And certainly hardly a plausible electoral threat, his prominence and influence is largely hyped to western audiences. One could easily argue he was worth more to western sponsors dead than alive, while Putin had very little to gain from his murder, since it would be eagerly and predictably be blamed upon him... as we have seen: Many western media outlets were ready with their accusations.

"such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili - discussed the global danger presented by Putin's increasingly belligerent regime."

Says the belligerent in the recent, if brief, South Ossetian military adventure.

" cite the official statements of a dictatorship "

An elected dictator. Whatever next!?

Look I'm not saying Putin didn't do it, nor that I don't think he's capable of murdering his opponents, nor that I don't think he has murdered any in the past, but even the Russian opposition has quite broadly said it doesn't think he's responsible, that this is a 'provocation.' But shall we wait for some evidence to be in this time? It's all starting to smack a bit of MH17, Assad's chemical weapons, Iraq's WMDs, 45 minutes etc... Accusations without evidence, or bare-faced lies. It certainly does fit with a pattern of CIA led destabilization but then again, maybe Putin has used that plausibility as a cover. Who knows!?

What I do know is that this wholly unnecessary, largely western provoked West-East showdown is easily and singularly the most potentially dangerous geopolitical situation of my lifetime. Fascinating, but terrifying. Can't the US and Russian leadership just realise that they have a lot in common (democratic deficit, corrupted oligarchic rule, surveillance state, a long history of brutality) and get along?!

Socraticus

How much credence can be given to any of Kasparov's claims when he grossly exaggerates that "more than 100,00 people rallied to mourn Boris in Moscow last Sunday"?

According to the Guardian, the "Police put numbers at 7,000, while those involved said the protest drew 50,000".

Meanwhile, in other international publications the figure has been cited to be closer to 21,000 and "not tens of thousands as reported by some media outlets", further elaborating that "The reason why official estimates are closer to the real numbers is because all demonstrators had to pass through metal detectors before joining the march and were registered by computers".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/01/boris-nemtsov-marchers-moscow-honour-murdered-opposition-politician-live-updates)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/01/boris-nemtsov-marchers-moscow-honour-murdered-opposition-politician-live-updates#block-54f305cde4b011581586e731

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/03/simple-murder-boris-nemtsov-150302081839658.html

uracan

Kasparov really is an idiot.

If Putin for whatever reason is deposed, does he really think the traitorous liberals will get into power.

It is the communists with their 20% of the vote that will gain the most.

It will take decades for the liberals to regain any credibility amongst the Russian general population.

CharlesBradlaugh

I'm on the left of politics and view the USA's imperialism with disdain and fear, but I agree 100% with this article, you have to be blind not to see that Putin is a dangerous adventurer who will undertake any aggression that will bolster his position.

SirHenryRawlins -> CharlesBradlaugh

I don't believe for one second you are on the left. You view the USA's imperialism with disdain and fear, US meddling in Ukraine, the backing of government that took power after the coup, and then say Putin is the adventurer and the aggressor.

Gooddoggy -> CharlesBradlaugh

Absolutely true, I am still sickened by Milnes atrocious view that Putin Imperialism is somehow acceptable whereas US Imperialism is not....clearly any sane and decent human being knows that both are unacceptable and need to be fought against with the tools of liberal social justice and liberal left democratic values.

johhnybgood

More propaganda. The constant attacks on Putin from the MSM, are an indicator of just how desperate the elite are to instigate some form of rebellion against him in Russia - hence the Nemtsov assassination. However, my reading of the situation is, that the general public across Europe are not buying the rhetoric. It seems that people are becoming far more discerning in their analysis of the propaganda headlines -such as "Russian forces invade Ukraine", with no supporting evidence. The PTB are losing the information war; the genie is out of the bottle, and cannot be put back. At last people's BS meters are now on full alert.

Time for the MSM to start some independent reporting, especially where Russia is concerned.

aprescoup

Kasparov, you completely overestimate the influence that the West, even with its all-powerful dollar refinancing sanctions and quasi-monopolies on advanced technologies, can have on nudging Russians, both oligarchs and ordinary voters, into overthrowing Sistema Putin. If pathetically weak North Korea can continue to defy the West in the ways it does, then don't you think it more likely that a Russia isolated by further sanctions will become more like North Korea? Get real: Putin will not be pushed out of power by sanctions.

It is time for the West to ignore the Russian opposition: not because the opposition is wrong to condemn Putin as a dictator, but because the Russian opposition completely underestimates the total power that Sistema Putin already has, and the absolute impotence of the West to undermine that total power. The likes of Kasparov, Nemtsov and Navalny are fools: they have underestimated what they are up against, and they are paying for that underestimation with their lives, alternatively with exile or house arrest and an accompanying fear of assassination.

henrihenri

Garry Kasparov was afraid of attending Nemtsov`s funeral under the pretext of being killed in Russia. As he explained he was nit ready to buy one-way ticket! Wow! Now every single leader of opposition says, I`m next! It is so ridiculous that even `The Ekho Moskvy`, their radio, laughed at this trend of theirs for a while. The matter, however, is none needs them. It`s just their coquetry. As to Mr. Kasparov none remembers him in his fatherland. Too many new, much younger and more handsome male stars!

ID5868758

Same propaganda, different mouthpiece. And don't you find it ironic, Kasparov complaining about "Putin's oligarchs", when he himself is in league with the all the oligarchs who escaped Russia with their stolen billions, and now fight from places like London and Tel Aviv for a return of Russia to the "good old days" of Boris Yeltsin, when the assets and resources of the Russian people were being sold off to the banks and the multinational corporations for pennies on the dollar.

Junkets

For a start, the assumption that Putin was behind Nemtsov's murder still remains to be proved. Jumping to conclusions based on political agendas is not the way a good investigator would go about things. After a bit of light from Seumas, didn't you just know that the Guardian would revert to type.

Appeasement suggests Nazis. Are there concentration camps in Russia? Is Putin engaged in a process of mass-extermination? I remember when Saddam Hussein was compared to Hitler and Tony Blair was praised for his 'Churchillian' qualities. The hyperbole is all getting a bit too transparent.

Keep on banging the war-drums, Graun, you might just get what you are looking for.

FOHP46

Mr Kasparov and Mr Saakashvili..wow! what a tandem, poor sods! Was it not Mr Saakashvili who started a war with Russia in 2008 when his army killed some Russian peace keepers? Is he not wanted for crimes in his country of origin Georgia? Nevertheless, he now lives in Boston, USA, the land of the free. Unbelievable.

underbussen

What a terrible article. Sorry but what the hell has happened to journalism these days? Why is "Putins Russia" responsible of this murder? This is like saying "Obamas America" is responsible for all the police shootings in the USA - clearly ridiculous. This article has Putin tried, drawn and quartered before the investigations even get really started. This is NOT journalism, this is propaganda. Shame on you Guardian.

dropthemchammer Evgeny Petrov

its quite easy to outsiders but the RUssian people have little access to free media

Simon311 dropthemchammer

You mean Rupert Murdoch? Lucky them

Continent

Yesterday I was in Washington DC, speaking to a US Senate subcommittee about how and why the Russian dictator must be stopped. Nearly every head in the room nodded in agreement as I and other invitees – such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili – discussed the global danger presented by Putin's increasingly belligerent regime.

global danger ... how shocking. I haven't realized it. I has been thinking that ISIL and its terror acts, the violant instability in Afghanistan and North Africa (especially in Lybia), the wars in Iraq and Syria, the atrocities in Nigeria and Sudan, Ebola and the aftermath left on the economic and society of Liberia were the global dangers we would have to deal with.

Rialbynot

Kasparov: "Yesterday I was in Washington DC, speaking to a US Senate subcommittee about how and why the Russian dictator must be stopped. Nearly every head in the room nodded in agreement as I and other invitees – such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili – discussed the global danger presented by Putin's increasingly belligerent regime."

Groupthink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

RobHardy richard1

Has Britain ever been substantially different? We have Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind happily willing to sell their access to Chinese businesses. Media almost entirely controlled by corporate influences. Parliament and Civil Service increasingly manned by corporate lobbyists and loan staff. Our defence policy just a subdepartment of Pentagon policy making, GCHQ an outstation of the NSA.

Yes, we are different, there is the possibility of democracy in Russia, but nothing but a empty sham illusion of democracy in this country.

UnclePatsy -> dropthemchammer

Let's first agree on a definition for "invade". Possible definitions may include:
1. To enter by force in order to conquer
2. To move into
3. To infest or overrun.
4. To attack; to infringe; to encroach on; to violate.

I see civil internal strife within Novorussia and Kievan Ukraine aggravated by external forces, but not an outright invasion by NATO or Russia. Crimea was ceded to Ukraine SSR as a province along with Novorussia only in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev.

uracan -> jezzam

Don't you realize that what Putin is doing will consign Russia to poverty for a decade at least.

This is just wishful thinking.

Moreover Putin has destroyed any respect for Russia in the world

If your world consist of US/UK and assorted lackeys.

There is a bigger world out there than just the West and now that Russia has used the sanctions as an opportunity to do its own pivot to the cash , growing economies of the East, the future of Russia looks a whole lot better than the debt overburdened, decaying economies of the West.

cherryredguitar

The problem with the way that America has continually meddled in countries around the world for at least the last century is that every opposition leader in every country that America doesn't like starts looking like a neocon stooge. Because that's how the neocons work. It's their fault, not mine, that I think that way.

Ilja NB

Kasparov is a worthless peace of trash, he traveled all around the world on expense of Russian state, and then he suddenly decided he wanted to become a big shot politician, but instead of coming with some idea's that would benefit the country he only was bashing Mr. Putin while Mr. Putin was putting Russia on it's feet.

Pedro Garcia

That seems to be a law of life: you are good for one thing, you are bad for another. Kasparov is a despicable man, however a genius in chess. Just reading what he wrote, make me despise him. You don't like Putin, fine, but do you have to run into the US, too?

Nemtsov as a Politician was null for many years, Putin didn't need to do anything to him, because he didn't represented any threat: his popularity was less than 1%. Nobody, even in Russia, knew who he was till he was shot dead. Politkovskaya was shot dead on Putin's birthday, Nemtsov shot dead aside the Kremlim, don't you see it? The killer is desperately trying to point out Putin. This are not bread crumbs this are the whole chain of bakeries pointing at Putin.

This has happened before: Nisman in Argentina, to get rid of President Kirchner Party just before the elections, the killing of Hariri in Lebanon to blame Syria.

Look who is profiting from it and you'll find who's to blame.

Johhny Efex

With the end of the USSR the 'free west' had a golden opportunity to disband NATO. This would have given breathing-space for other democratic forms to develop naturally in all sorts of places, including Russia. But instead the USA thought they would go for broke with Full Spectrum Dominance and other ridiculous utopian plans like PNAC to 'install' democracy around the world. Too paranoid and power-hungry to relax their suffocating grip one tiny bit. This is one of the unfortunate consequences.

dropthemchammer Johhny Efex

"Full Spectrum Dominance"? NATO is a defense organisation. why disband it when USSR died. there were and are other threats around the world.

cherryredguitar dropthemchammer

NATO is a defense organisation


So why are Nato military generals continually making aggressive comments about Ukraine, which is not a member of Nato? Why is Nato defending non-member states? Because it is an expansionist organisation.

The original poster is right - Nato should have been disbanded at the end of cold war.


SASOVIET Johhny Efex

The North American Terrorist Organisation (NATO) has a new role since fall of USSR:
1. Terrorize Russians by annoying presence in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland
2. Gang up against third world countries to remove leaders that doesn't support US foreign policy like Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc...

Old_Donkey

Mr Kasparov's views can be compared to the open letter which descendants of the white emigration published in France.

The white emigres declare their "Solidarity with Russia during the Ukrainian Crisis". They also object to the way in which "Russia has been accused of every kind of crime, without any proof, it is judged to be guilty a priori, whereas other countries benefit from a particularly disgusting leniency, in particular, where human rights are concerned."

The emigres go on to protest against "the calumnies which day after day are heaped on modern-day Russia, its leaders and its President, who have been subjected to sanctions and vilified in defiance of all common sense."

The descendants of the white emigration are prepared to give a KGB Colonel the benefit of the doubt. So why can't Garry Kasparov? At this point, no one can prove whether Boris Nemtsov died for the Russian opposition movement or not. The law is no respecter of persons and everyone should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, even the President of the Russian Federation.

http://www.russkymost.net/spip.php?article70&lang=fr
http://stanislavs.org/descendants-of-the-white-emigration-against-russophobia-in-western-msm/

Standupwoman

This is very sad. We must make allowances for the fact that Kasparov was brought up in the old USSR and is clearly unable to shake off that way of thinking, but he must have had a good mind once, and it's hard not to wonder if he mightn't be ill.

His arguments are frighteningly bad. First he claims Putin is a murderer on the sole ground that a lot of US senators and a discredited war criminal (Saakashvili) agree with him - the kind of argument we would expect from the lowest CiF troll. It's absolutely true that there have been politically-motivated and gangland style murders in Russia, but I have no idea if Putin was responsible for any of them - and neither can Mr Kasparov. What we do know is that if the West had even the slightest shred of evidence against him they'd have plastered it over the media long ago.

Then he starts rewriting history. After the initial rush of 'blame Putin' in 2008, even the EU was forced to admit that Georgia was not only the aggressor but also responsible for serious war crimes. A good piece in the Guardian gives links to much of this, including some excellent reporting by the BBC. Kasparov is basing his entire argument on a history of 'Russian aggression' which never happened.

Then worst of all, he sweeps away any concept of fairness and justice. Putin has no motive for killing Nemtsov, he had every motive for not doing so, and there is not the slightest evidence against him - but to even mention these things (as the BBC does) is to be Putin's 'defence lawyer'. There is no need for the presumption of innocence, no need for evidence and a trial, and finally no need even for 'investigation'. Putin is guilty because Kasparov says so, and anyone who disagrees is a Kremlin troll.

This is frightening on many levels, but not least for where it leads. The sub-headline echoes the hate-filled argument that the only thing that matters now is making Putin look like a loser - and it is precisely for that argument that people are dying. The conflict in Ukraine could stop tomorrow, but the US can't allow anything that suggests Putin has 'won'. Crimea could be resolved instantly by a second, properly monitored referendum, but (as the Lords Report pointed out) this would imply we were 'condoning' Putin. People must go on suffering and dying for as long as it takes - just to ensure the US doesn't lose face.

That's chilling. In a world where people care about both Russians and Ukrainians, it isn't even sane. So yes, to hear someone like Kasparov come out with this dribbling hate-rant is very sad indeed.

BunglyPete -> Standupwoman

Very well written as usual sir/m'am :)

I don't get why its such a big deal if Putin 'wins' either. If the case against him is so strong, even if pulling out the UAF leaves swathes of Ukraine in Russian control, you can sort it out through the UN later.

The primary goal has to be the end of violence, not the removal of Putin.

VladimirM

It has never occured to me how aggressive [neo]liberals may be, how radical and prone to violence they are. Peacemongering efforts of hawks of peace, whose hatred is so blind that they are not fussy about the means to pursue their agenda, will lead to chaos rather than to prosperity of Russia. They are ready to attack BBC presenters if they are on their way, they are close to calling names when it comes to the EU leaders not living up to liberal expectations when dealing with Russia.


"I will continue to do whatever I can to draw support to the cause of returning Russia to the path of democracy. "

You are too agressive, tov. Kasparov. I don't like it. Please, make revolutions somewhere else. For example somewhere you live in, there are problems over there no doubt.

If you really want to do something, start a charity to help children of Donbass instead of begging for weapons. That would be a decent move.

SHappens

Despite all attempts by Kasparov to revive Nemtsov through mouthpiece for the US/NATO, it will not change the fact that on a political point of view Nemtsov was a nobody. Sure he didnt deserve to die but we must ask whom this crime profits.

It is obvious that Putin has been the target of this attack, together with all of Russia and, being the target, it is highly unlikely that he has been the author of this assassination.

So now we have Kasparov going for his propaganda by calling Putin a dictator, and Russia a dictatorship, and advocating a full war to defeat the Russian army. Seems that Kasparov didn't learn anything during in glory years as a chess player because that is not a good strategy, this is a loosing strategy for him and the West, Europe in particular, and Ukraine with certainty.

Nemtsov's death will fall in oblivion in a few months, that is, he will return where he came from. Nobody at least in the West knew this guy before the media rant. He was not even popular in Russia except for the 3%. Nothing to worry the Kremlin.

ElmerFuddJr

Astoundingly poor quality commentary in this thread. Y'all sound like American Republicans, or Bibi defenders...utterly incapable of dealing with complex subjects which, given that blood is being shed, require a modicum of understanding of world history these last 40 years (at least) and a bit of nuance here and there...

Viktor Gofman ElmerFuddJr

Serious commentary is for a serious article. Kasparov's article is a circus... So there is a circus in the thread as a result.

PeregrineSlim

Engagement with Russia has never been tried.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union the policy has been to drive NATO tanks to the Russian border.

American democracy is in a death spiral due to its militarism.

And America is hindering the peaceful and democratic development of other countries due to its interference in their domestic politics.

MacCosham

It is telling how Putin, who has got where he is by competitive elections is described as a "dictator" while president Mikheil Saakashvili who:

is described as a former "president"

[Mar 05, 2015] The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war by Seumas Milne

Lebensraum was the ideology behind Drang Nach Ost. This EU expension is just more modern version of the same. This describes what EU/Nato is currently up to.
Mar 05, 2015 | The Guardian

yoron_ -> AlanC 5 Mar 2015 18:36

"The U.S. and Russia keep hundreds of missiles armed with thousands of nuclear warheads on high-alert, ready to launch with only a few minutes warning. High-alert status permits the launch a retaliatory nuclear strike before the arrival of a perceived nuclear attack.

Early Warning Systems (EWS), high-alert nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, and nuclear command and control systems, all working together, provide the U.S. and Russia the capability to Launch-on-Warning.

When Early Warning Systems warn of an impending nuclear attack, then decisions have to be made very quickly because the flight times of the missiles are very short. 30 minutes or less are required for a nuclear-armed land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) to travel between the U.S. and Russia and vice versa; 15 minutes or less for a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) to reach its target.

Thus, once the attack is detected, evaluated and passed up the chain of command, the U.S. and Russian president would have at most 12 minutes to make the decision to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike before the arrival of the perceived attack.

In the event an attack is believed to be real, the president must decide whether or not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike before the arrival of the perceived attack is confirmed by nuclear detonations. To launch a retaliatory nuclear strike based only upon electronic information derived from Early Warning Systems is to Launch-on-Warning. If the perceived warning turns out to be false but a retaliatory nuclear strike has already been launched, then accidental nuclear war will have occurred.

The US and Russia are the only two nations believed to have the capacity to carry out Launch-on-Warning (they both have nuclear C3I systems connected to their nuclear weapon systems which enable them to carry out LoW). "

Arthur_Pendragon 5 Mar 2015 18:46

There isn't any invasion of Ukraine. There hasn't been an invasion. And there never will be an invasion.

The Crimea incident wasn't an invasion or annexation at all. It was the will of the people - a popular uprising just like the one in Kiev. Self-determination is a right according to the UN. Well, that right was upheld on March 16th 2014.

The problems in East Ukraine, also, are connected with a popular uprising of the peoples who live there. They have been attacked by their own government and many civilians have died because Kiev and its western backers did not have the balls to give those people what they initially and peacefully requested - a referendum.

The people of Crimea have acted in the true spirit of democracy. The people of Donetsk and Lugansk have acted within the true spirit of democracy. The only party that didnt act within this spirit was Kiev. There was no vote to remove Yanakovych. There was no vote to join Europe.

The west has turned black into white again.

codeinesunrise -> Skalla 5 Mar 2015 18:41

Your arrogance betrays your historical ignorance. These 'old powers' that you refer to largely have the Marshall Plan to thank for their economic prosperity - an injection of money that dwarfs current EU investment (and that's what it is, investment - many European companies benefit from these contracts) in Eastern Europe.

It is important to also remember that a lot of the 'wealth' these countries created often came at the expense of its colonies, which it raped mercilessly. At least our 'poor little' Eastern European countries don't have this shameful legacy upon our conscience.

You would also do well to remember that Britain itself was bailed out by the IMF in 1976 when it was little better than a failed state. Have a little humility, nothing is more embarrassing than misplaced, fatuous triumphalism.

str8shtr -> Dzomba 5 Mar 2015 20:00

1. And of course NATO couldn't say "Sorry, we already have an important agreement, we can not include countries from Warsaw pact"? And wasn't it told to Hungary and others that joining NATO is the shortest way to become a part of EU and west?

I wonder about complains of Russian invasion after WWII. So u preferred to be under Nazi Germans and soviet solders paid their lives in vain? Or Russian troops had to go home leaving everything for US? Yes, you suffered from soviet framework and communist system, but it wasn't only Russian framework, it was soviet. You couldn't choose any other ideology except communist? So nobody in Ussr could. Everyone was equal in that)) In soviet Russia the regime was much more strict then in Warsaw pact countries. In east European countries national languages were taught, they had their own party (communist, of course), their own leaders (communist of course), constitution (communist) etc and the union invested a lot in recovering after the war and developing it economies. It doesn't look like a devastating invasion.

2. Everything is on the contrary. The problem was that Russia did not give a damn about Ukraine after the fall of communism, coz it had it's own huge problems till 2001. Meanwhile Ukrainian nationalism was rising. Communists invented country "Ukraine" in the beginning of the 20th century and started nationalism there, but during USSR existed it was under control. Also US started to invest in changing Ukrainian loyalty to anti-Russian in early 90s, same as in east Europe ("red invasion", "you were their slaves", "they used you", "you suffered enough" and so on), it was a bit more difficult then in east Europe but time and nationalism of west Ukraine helped them much.

3. Yanukovich was a weak president. He was trying to balance between EU/US, Russia and ukranian billioners interests trying to trade the best conditions for his country (for his family first of all). He played to much in that game.

4. I didnt read the text of the Minsk agreement, but if the advisers have ranks and are a part of military forces don't they are a military help?..

gnorblitz 5 Mar 2015 19:58

This is the ultimate fantasy for these threads. The Right and the Left actually spilling blood over ideology instead of the typers here on Guardian Commentary spitting bile at one another. No matter what camp you're in or who you think is the good guy, war is always murder. And the people in this region are the ones suffering. The rest of you are just ghouls, looking on and stroking your political peckers.

BloodOnTheWattle Strangest 5 Mar 2015 19:56

I am not sure actually, you make it sound like President Obama is more than a match for President Putin. I mean, he has sanctioned the killing of 5000 people by killer drones during the last 4 years, created havoc in Ukraine, cheerlead and assisted NATO in what is today a cauldron of terrorism in Lybia, picked the wrong guys (yet again in Syria), institutionalized, torture and kidnapping and arm twisting of nations by not acting on the perpetrators of these criminal acts.

So there you have it apparently Obama makes Putin look like a choir boy.


irishmand sikaniska 5 Mar 2015 19:42

The demonization of Russia risks paving way for a credible military defence capability in Europe.

Which will be a waist of money and will only help to US MIC. Russia is not going to attack any of the european countries. It doesn't need it.

geedeesee psygone 5 Mar 2015 19:50

It speaks volumes when you keep dodging these opportunities to show the Russian Army invaded Ukraine. :-)

irishmand LesiaUkrainka 5 Mar 2015 19:37

Moscow's ambitions are an obvious threat to the whole world because the Kremlin's aggressive tactics may not be limited to just Ukraine. If the EU and NATO fail to stand up to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, later Russia will very possibly turn against the Baltic states and/or Moldova.

Why are you not working hard to bring the Ukrainian economy back from ruins? You should be doing that instead of trying to create more hatred and fear in people. Or you only good at jumping?

geedeesee LiamIrl 5 Mar 2015 19:47

Ha ha - the protesters were nowhere that many. The Guardian said about 30,000. The more thuggish the protestors became, the smaller the crowd. The ultra-nationalist thugs appeared to number about 5000. But as I said, it's called a Coup when a government is overthrown violently by a small group. The democratic way is through elections, which were scheduled for later in the year.

irishmand LesiaUkrainka 5 Mar 2015 19:45

The Russian plan is clear. They will seize more of Ukraine and depose the government in Kiev if not checked in time. Only the swift and immediate action of the West to train and equip the Ukrainian army can stop Putin's strategy to deconstruct the trans-Atlantic architecture, to deconstruct the post-cold war order. Like a cancer, Putin and his elites, must be cut out.

1. How are you going "check" Russia?
2. Russia already had a chance to take over Ukraine and didn't do it. I don't see why it will decide to do it in the future.
3. Train ukis so they could kill more people and more efficiently?You want more blood? More dead bodies?


geedeesee -> Kamil Piwko 5 Mar 2015 19:16

Of course, we watched many reports of Ukraine Army defecting and joining separatists. Kiev lost many military barracks, depots and arsenals. We know Ukraine Armed Forces totalled around 220,000 men (and maybe some women). The head of the Ukraine Navy went over. Elite forces went over. We read the reports; we saw the TV. Over and over again it happened. We know all this. Just type "Ukraine Army defects" into Google or your search engine. Also type in "Ukraine Army defectors" for more. This is why anti-democratic Kiev Regime of ultra-nationalists passed new draconian law to shoot soldiers who do not obey orders

BUT - you have replied to a call for evidence showing and proving this huge Russian Army has invaded Ukraine, and yet you don't take the opportunity to reply with the evidence. Instead you tell us what is already known.

Rossiya 5 Mar 2015 16:25

What a wonderful and truthful article. Surprised it was published in so anti-Russia country/times/hysteria.

Every evening the meteorologists remind us how the bad weather always comes from Siberia, it never comes from Scandinavia or North Pole for instance...

Simply the Anglo-Saxons are born with 'hate Russia' genes unfortunately.
Perhaps it is right time to press Reset button and return to the Stone Age (?!)

yoron_ -> AXWE08 5 Mar 2015 17:15

AXWE. There are no clean hands in this. It's about geopolitical power and who will exploit what. Putins Russia is definitely no cleaner than USA, both though are superpowers, both have nuclear missiles, some of them modernised recently, directed at Stockholm some minutes away, with one of those superpowers calling itself democratic, making its moves at another continent.

No clean hands, and those that will lose to this stupidity are firstly Europeans, secondly Americans.

Pavel Prokofiev -> Roguing 5 Mar 2015 17:13

Ukraine was a colony of Russia?? What?? So, Russia was ruled by Georgian Stalin, by Ukraininan Khrushev and Brezhnev from Moldau, i.e. people from colonies?

We will discuss you question once a person of indian origin will become a king of the UK.

ID1439675 -> Evgeny Skorobogatko 5 Mar 2015 17:12

But yeah, the few instructors of another country is a major violation.

Although it's hard to disagree with much of what you have to say, you are incorrect on this point. The presence of British and US instructors does not violate the Minsk2 package of measures for two reasons. First, by virtue of the Budapest memorandum the US and the UK are both guarantors of Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty. That means, amongst other things, they are obliged to provide whatever support is deemed necessary to restore Ukrainian territorial integrity when it is adjudged to have been breached. Although not parties to the Minsk2 agreement it could be argued that by sending instructors the US and British are violating the UNSC resolutuon which amongst other things urged all parties to observe the Minsk2 package. However, a UNSC resolution cannot override an existing treaty obligation or agreement unless the resolution specifically allows for that. Secondly, were this matter taken before a court for adjudication the most likely judgement would be that the Minsk2 reference to the removal of foreign troops relates primarily to the disputed area and to Ukraine's demand during the agreement's formulation that Russian troops leave Ukrainian territory. It was never intended to refer to instructors from other countries invited in by the Ukrainian government to train its troops in areas well away from the line of contact and the disputed area.

Of course all this a moot point since neither the Russian Federation nor its proxies have fulfilled their obligations since the agreement was signed. Minsk2 is a convenient fiction for all but those who are still being killed, maimed and made homeless by the fighting. Those who believe otherwise should consult the OSCE sitreps and the Ukrainian casualty announcements (which are anyway widely believe to be understating the true figure). The hardcore fighting will resume when the Russian proxy army has reorganised its forces in preparation for the next part of its offensive - the capture of Mariupol, further territorial gains in the Donbas region and the capture of Kharkiv.

Evgeny Skorobogatko -> Pavel Prokofiev 5 Mar 2015 17:12

1) You changed topic from neo-nazis to something else. You lost.
To your other topic of anti-Russia rhetoric - what kind of rhetoric would you expect vis-a-vis an invading nation? Pro-invasion? The rest is unclear and unsubstantiated narrative that I can hardly understand. Can you try to first at least make a statement before you try to prove it?
2) Agreed, and Putin is one of those enemies, he's a dictator.
3) If only were you able to quote an article from the Minsk-2 agreement that allowed killing the army inside the self-defined encirclement past the start date.
4) both statements flat out lies. Prove them. Some of the many politicians participating in Maidan (incl. Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk) got a lot of popular vote in the coming general elections. Also, no one is forcing Ukraine into NATO (even if Ukraine wholeheartedly wanted that, it's like a ~10-year journey)
4') Another lie, no one is marching into any cities which haven't been invaded by the Russian army, special forces and paramilitary fighters.
5) See 4'. Didn't get the rest of the post re. population growth, not relevant to Russian invasion
6) Thanks for sharing your dreams.

wheresmewashboard -> Smileyosborne12 5 Mar 2015 17:05

Russians generally have such confidence in Putin that they believe that however difficult the problems may be that their president will find a way to overcome them.

I don't doubt that this is true, but the point that I was making is that if the Russian economy ends up suffering terribly due to the sanctions, both as they are now and how they may increase, then it is inconceivable that over time the Russian people wouldn't start to think that there are other options.

The admiration for Putin is mostly as a result of the fact that he brought stability to Russia. The force of his personality is not to be taken for granted I admit, but it is relatively superficial compared to the stability he and Medvedev have brought. If, however, this stability is lost, and Russia enters a protracted period of economic slump, or potentially worse, then his approval ratings, over time will surely begin to collapse. This has happened in every example of economic calamity within a democracy in history. Admittedly, it may take longer in Russia than in most Western countries, but to think that the Russian people will continue to support Putin regardless of the depths of economic hardship and for how long it goes on for is naive, to say the least. Russian people may well be stoical, but they are not masochists.

The potential problem from Putin's point of view, is that his actions in Ukraine are isolating him and therefore his country. The SEC rules the world of financial regulation, like it or not. No foreign banks / financial institutions will deal with Russian banks or businesses whilst they remain persona non grata with the SEC. Russia's reserves will see them right for a while longer but not forever. The new structure of the world financial system places a lot of power in the hands of American regulators, and this will cause all manner of problems for those who are blacklisted. Russia cannot hope to win in an economic battle with America.

Ukraine is a regional dispute in America's eyes. They are probably not likely to get involved in a proxy war with Russia. The damage they can do to Putin economically is enough.

Pavel Prokofiev -> Evgeny Skorobogatko 5 Mar 2015 16:48

To 1) What for Svoboda is needed, if Yatzenyk and Poroshenko have taken its role with "Heil Ukraine!" and full anti-Russian rhetoric. Who would vote for Tyagnibok if they see that he is not tolerated by the Europe and U? If Europe and US would make clear that they do not support violence of nazi on Maidan - there would be no nazi coup. If Europe and US would not support killings of civilians there would be civil war. Even Venediktov warned Ukrainians that "tituschkas" and "policemen" are also citizens and have rights and own views, but very well educated journalists ignored and ignore this. One can got an impression that such journalists represent the common view, but the truth is that they are in a minority. The truth is that the durty work including fighting with Kalashnikovs is done by other type of people. It is possible to ignore the reality for some time, but one day there will be a hard confrontation with it.

2) Murder of Nemtsov benefits only enemies of Russia.

3) Debaltsevo is just one of the cases of confrontation with reality. Poroshenko believed that there was no encirclement - reality proved to be different.

4) NATO expansion is ok, but why to use nationalistic minority (who could not get even 5% of votes) to make a coup and force a country into NATO?

4') Poroshenko promised that there would be no civil war and any fighting would end within hour after his election - same lies as all stories and policy itself in the current Ukraine. Uncontrolled bataillons are marching into your city - your action? This what people in Eastern Ukraine were doing. Trying to protect themselves from uncontrolled Nazi battalions.

5) Military solution?? Russia will pay high price? But it is the population in Eastern Ukraine, who disagree with Kyiw policy - they are the driving force. If do not want that some Nazi battalions are marching on their streets, you want to force them at any price? The question is, what price will then pay the Ukrainian people on both sides of the conflict, to make Russia to pay high price? This is the main question. The result will be the following: by birthrates Ukraine with 40 million people is now on the same level as Somalia with population of 10 million. During Soviet times each year almost one million people were born in Ukraine, now it is about 400 thousand. 60 years ago population of Ukraine was equal to population of Nigeria or Pakistan (was 1 to 1). Today in Nigeria or Parkistan each year are born 10 to 20 times more children. In Nigeria alone are born more children than in entire EU+Ukraine. At the end of the day we have now Ukraine and Russian and Europe with 30% population of pensioners, and in other countries we see for 40 years now non-stop demographic revolution. Western values against family values? Do you see, who will be the winner? Certainly not Russians, Ukrainians or Europeans.

6) Neutrality? No Neutrality but united and mutualy beneficial block from Roca to Dezhnev.

MysticMegsy -> Tonterias 5 Mar 2015 16:33

US bases are a relic of the cold war - they are of absolutely no strategic importance now - how could they be without tanks?

Both the US and Russia will have a large number of SLBMs parked off the coast of the other's country, so whining about bases and NATO encroachment in Europe is irrelevant. NATO and Russia could wipe out each other's cities regardless of how many bases they have, no matter how close to the other's border.
This argument that Putin 'feels threatened' by Ukraine joining the EU is a total smokescreen to justify his own expansionist agenda (to secure power at home), when the real danger lurks under the Barents Sea regardless.

nnedjo -> richard1 5 Mar 2015 16:28

Ukraine didn't want to be a part of Putin's Eurasian Union which triggered Russian invasion Russian Eurasian Union is a non starter without Ukraine, and Putin knows it.

Read what former Ukrainian prime minister says on this subject:

Top EU officials, rather than Russia, threatened Ukraine with a coup d'état if Kiev refused to sign an association agreement in 2013, Nikolay Azarov, Ukraine's former prime minister, said.

"I've never heard neither Putin nor Medvedev saying that if you sign an agreement with the EU, you'll have a different government. But I've heard [EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy, Stefan] Fule, repeatedly saying that if you don't sign then the other government will sign it," Azarov said at the presentation of his book 'Ukraine at a crossroads. Prime Minister's notes' in Moscow.

EugeneGur 5 Mar 2015 16:27

The great writer Anton Chekhov wrote a short story "A letter to a learned neighbor ". The story has a personage whose favorite argument was: "It cannot be because it can never be". A lot of people commenting here strongly remind me of that personage. No amount of evidence or logic can possibly convince them of anything they prefer not to see.
Example:
Crimea referendum was under the gunpoint. You can point them to multiple perfectly anti-Russian sources showing that Crimeans voted not only willingly but happily - not, it was annexation, referendum illegal (because we say so), Crimea is occupied, and so on.

One question. If Crimea is occupied, and the population was forced to vote to join Russia, how come the West sanctions Crimea? Just recently the US said Crimea will be under sanctions until it returns to Ukraine. Does it make any sense to punish occupied people for something they had no control over?

I don't think even the US is that stupid. I think they know perfectly well that Crimea is heavily pro-Russian; they knew it before the referendum, after the referendum, and they know it now. They are punishing Crimeans precisely for that: for their desire to reunite with Russia, a.k.a. self-determination. A round of applause for our "democratic leader of the free world", please.


OldStickie Wolfsz 5 Mar 2015 16:16

Lebensraum was a component of Drang Nach Ost which describes what Nato is currently up to.

BorninUkraine -> richard1 5 Mar 2015 16:14

Because it's not Russians, it's the people of Donbass fighting for their freedom.

Before you ask, I grew up in Lugansk, I have lots of friends and relatives in Donbass. Every one of them knows that their cities are shelled and women and children are routinely killed by Kiev Nazis.

BunglyPete

A letter published from a NATO representative in the Guardian today disputes this articles assertions about NATO expansion

In an interview published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 15 October 2014, former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev said: "The topic of 'Nato expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years." As the man to whom the promise is said to have been given, his words carry weight.

This conviently misses out the rest of the interview

Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO's military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces from the alliance would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker's statement, mentioned in your question, was made in that context. Kohl and Genscher talked about it.

"Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled. The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. ...

"The decision for the US and its allies to expand NATO into the east was decisively made in 1993. I called this a big mistake from the very beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990. With regards to Germany, they were legally enshrined and are being observed."

http://m.rbth.co.uk/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbachev_i_am_against_all_walls_40673.html

While there was no written agreement the implication was that the US wouldnt take advantage,

Matlock recalled that Baker began his argument saying something like, "Assuming there is no expansion of NATO jurisdiction to the East, not one inch, what would you prefer, a Germany embedded in NATO, or one that can go independently in any direction it chooses." [emphasis added]

The implication was that Germany might just opt to acquire nuclear weapons, were it not anchored in NATO. Gorbachev answered that he took Baker's argument seriously, and wasted little time in agreeing to the deal.

Ambassador Matlock, one of the most widely respected experts on Russia, told me "the language used was absolute, and the entire negotiation was in the framework of a general agreement that there would be no use of force by the Soviets and no 'taking advantage' by the U.S."

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/15/how-nato-jabs-russia-on-ukraine/

Barry Klinger

I agree that there's been a lot of knee-jerk propaganda against Russia, and that NATO should not have expanded into the former USSR, and that arming Ukraine is probably a bad idea. But...

Last spring President Putin said that the "green men" in unmarked green uniforms were not Russian soldiers. Then a few weeks later he admitted that they were. Now he says Russia is not helping Ukraine... except for some volunteers going on their own initiative. Press reports of Russian hardware rolling into Ukraine, circumstantial evidence of war-fighting capability surprising for a revolt that just started months ago... Balance of forces have consistently looked to be in rebels favor, especially if they have Russia literally at their back. So who is more likely to be breaking the cease-fire, the ones who stand to gain or the ones who stand to lose?

To me, all this points to Russian aggression to shrink the independence of neighboring countries, independence that the US foolishly encouraged to be too aggressive. It looks like Russia started and continues to stoke the war in Eastern Ukraine, which is not a minor offense compared to any complicity US had in unrest in Kiev last year.

PlatonKuzin -> Barry Klinger

I guess that the most appropriate answer to all the questions you have raised in your post are the words said more than 130 years ago by genious German politician Otto von Bismarck. They refer to the economic relations with Russia but the general principles stated there are universal and absolutely every word in it is of great significance. Please, read carefully what he said:

Do not expect that once taken advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends forever. Russians always come for their money. And when they come – they will not rely on the Jesuit agreement you signed, that supposedly justify your actions. They are not worth the paper it is written. Therefore, with the Russians you should use fair play or no play.

Erik Lyng

Thank you. Is about time someone actually talked about this.

BorninUkraine -> Erik Lyng

Yes, it's the first sensible and balanced comment from the Guardian staff in a long time. It shows that not everyone in the media is blind (or paid enough to play blind). Thank you, Seumas Milne!

PlatonKuzin

I hope that shifting to a more balanced coverage of developments in Ukraine and Russia is caused both by the author's commitment to truth and change of the editorial policy in favor of truth.

PlatonKuzin

This is the first article written by a Western author in which he bona fide tries to provide the audience with a balanced and unbiased view on what happens in Ukraine, Russia and relations between Russia and the West. Bravo, Mr. Milne. For the first time ever I personally agree with major author's conclusions and ideas. A rare case for me with respect to the Guardian publications.

EugeneGur

Russia had been compliant with the West for far too long. And look where it got it? The fault line was, of course, the bombing of Yugoslavia. That was the first time Yeltsin opened his mouth and objected to anything the West did. Overnight he was transformed in the Western press from the glorious Russian leader into incompetent drunkard, which he undoubtedly was. Russians have been weary of NATO ever since.

That NATO operation is justified by many that it stopped genocide. Pardon me, but NATO killed people in Belgrade that weren't engaged in any genocide. It's like targeting civilians in a war or killing hostages. Both could be quite effective in a military or terrorist operation. But we wouldn't condone them, would we?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I can't recall a single defensive operation by NATO, although plenty of offensive ones. Beauty is as beauty does, isn't it?

Demi Boone

Putin is merely reacting to NATO expansionism that began with the Administration of Bill Clinton in 1993. He broke the promise of George Bush (I) who said he would not encroach on the boarders of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union by bringing Poland into NATO and arming them with missiles.

Then Clinton began talking about bringing in other countries as well as Ukraine. This was all done seeking little or no advice from experienced High ranking US Foreign Policy advisers and after it was done he received much criticism for doing it because it infuriated and alienated Russia's Western oriented politicians.

if NATO pushes into Ukraine then Putin will push back

this is what has been occurring (simmering) since the time of Clinton what the US is trying to tell the world is

if Putin pushes into Ukraine then NATO will push back

they are two completely different arguments......research the topic historically.

irishmand -> richard1

He's alienated Ukraine, EU and USA and strengthened NATO, meanwhile unleashing strong nationalist forces in Russia. He cannot win in Ukraine and if he's seen to loose Ukraine, in the Russian mind, (inevitable) these forces are going to "come for him" and his billions.

US/EU alienated Russia by sponsoring a nazi driven coup in Kiev and unleashing a wild russophobic propaganda campaign.

bokhar

Peace in Russia (see Nemtsov murder on the Kremlin steps), Ukraine and its neighbouring countries will only occur when the zombies who enable Putin and his cronies are woken from their slumber and realize how much Putin has stolen from the Russian state and how many innocent people he has killed (including many Russians - see Donbass, Moscow apartment bombings, Georgia).

SEUMUS WAKE UP! If you care about Russia and its future you should recognize that Putin is bad for Russia - he has done nothing but suppress and kill political opposition, independent media, all the while maintaining an ever tightening noose around the necks of ordinary Russian citizens.

EugeneGur -> bokhar

Somehow, ordinary Russia citizens disagree with this appraisal - but, of course, you know better, being an enlightened European as opposed to them zombies. Do you people even read what you've written before you post or does it come straight from the heart?

irishmand -> bokhar

Peace in Russia (see Nemtsov murder on the Kremlin steps), Ukraine and its neighbouring countries will only occur when the zombies who enable Putin and his cronies are woken from their slumber and realize how much Putin has stolen from the Russian state and how many innocent people he has killed (including many Russians - see Donbass, Moscow apartment bombings, Georgia).

How much? Give us numbers and maybe we will believe you. Or maybe we won't. Look how many people US/EU killed, are they sorry?

NaMorris

But we want war. It's our not so secret desire. We want to live, not watch, our favorite action and war movies. In war everyone can be a hero. In war there are only good and evil, nothing in between, no middle men. War is blissful simplicity. This is why we pave the way for war.

Eaglesson

Victoria Nuland just few days ago smiling shaking hands with Andriy Parubiy the same founder of Ukrainian Social National Party and also the founder of Joseph Goebbels Institute. The white supremacist was invited in US and he came back with promises that Pentagon will supply them with weapons very soon (as he declared)
Some people have no shame!!

SirHenryRawlins -> Eaglesson

Nuland is a neoconservative. Birds of a feather Parubiy and Nuland.

Danish5666 -> Hucker

"have a right as independent countries to choose who they see as their friends"

Russia is rank dilettantes when compared to the US. Covert United States foreign regime
change actions:

1949 Syrian coup d'état
1953 Iranian coup d'état
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état
1959 Tibetan uprising
1961 Cuba, Bay of Pigs Invasion
1963 South Vietnamese coup
1964 Brazilian coup d'état
1973 Chilean coup d'état
1976 Argentine coup d'état
1979–89 Afghanistan, Operation Cyclone
1980 Turkish coup d'état
1981–87 Nicaragua, Contras
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions

Smileyosborne12

Come ON the red arrows! I am an unashamed supporter of Vladimir Putin.

When one realises the severe problems,financial,military,politically,ecumenically and territorially the man faced when he took over I have a lot of time for him.Firstly he was preceded by a succession of Premiers who generally in succession just served to weaken the country.

Lenin,Stalin,Khruschev,Pavlov, Kosygin and the drunken megalomaniac Yeltsin, left Russia as weak as at any time in its modern history. Putin gave up the Muslim states which had weakened Russia since the days of Stalin and finally came to an understanding with Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya the most militant of them all. In spite of the best attempts of the UN,Nato, President Obama,Angela Merkel,David Cameron and Francois Hollande to ruffle and destabilise him he has almost twice the approval rating of any of them and survived a litany of attempts to tie him to murders of his "opponents" without any concrete evidence brought against him. Pretty good record I would suggest.

willpodmore

Matthew Parris wrote in The Times ('It's time we washed our hands of Ukraine', 28 February, p. 21) "Ukraine? With an inward groan, I write again what I wrote about Saddam's Iraq, about Gaddafi's Libya and about Assad's Syria. Intervention almost always makes things worse."

adoeli -> no_ref

Gas disputes are resolved in an international court of arbitration. Head of the Energy Commission of the European Union recognized the guilt of Ukraine in non-payment of supplies. Kiev just doesn't it, till won't come the Z-day. Russia itself depends on the supply of gas through Ukraine. The pipe goes through Ukraine to Europe. Moscow concerns about the reputation of the honest supplier. Moscow's role as an unscrupulous suppliers is profitable for US. Ukraine, that had become a puppet of the United States, is capable for any provocation. Moscow was glad to be rid of such an intermediary that it did in fact, has planned a new gas pipeline project with Turkey. Now are you happy? Neither Ukraine nor Bulgaria nor the other will depend on Russian gas supplies. What are the problems?

SHappens -> jezzam

Russia did not make a fuss on all those Eastern countries joining NATO even if, of course, it might not pleased them. The red line was passed with Ukraine. Crimea in particular.

In the past deals were made, promises were made, tacit agreements if you will and everybody was coping. But when the US decided to come and play in Russia's backyard with the intend to literally rob Ukraine to threat Russia, well Putin said stop. Now the US dont want to listen thus the assault on everything Russian through the conciliatory mass media.

If you think about it all objectively you can only agree that without the US meddling, Ukraine would have sorted its differences already.

ToddPalant -> Andrew Baldwin

Fight for reform? With the dissolution of the USSR Yeltsin had a tabula rasa. They could start from the beginning by founding a truly democratic Russia. Unfortunately Mr. Nemtsov presided, along with other western proteges, over the looting of the Russian public wealth, virtually delivering it in the hands of the "chosen" few. Nemtsov although pro western, was no reformer. In his later years he was, to put it simplistically, a repeater of Mrs. Nuland's and her husband's aggressive narrative (the "f**k soft politics, bring in the troops" kinna thingy )

jezzam -> SHappens

No. I still don't get it. If Russia did not make a fuss about all the other countries joining NATO, why make a fuss about Ukraine?

What does your statement that the US "intend to literally rob Ukraine to threat Russia," mean? In what way were the US intending to rob Ukraine? In what way would this have threatened Russia?

"without the US meddling, Ukraine would have sorted its differences already". I find it hard to agree with this statement as it is again difficult to understand. Do you mean that by now Putin would have imposed his will?

SHappens -> jezzam

I'll try to make it short, you know I can be prolific.

Crimea base lease, Fuck the EU coup using Maiden revolt, installation of a government chosen by her in Kiev.

Rob resources, gas Biden, cereals Monsanto, install NATO, control Russia and why not annihilate it + cheap human labour flooding in Germany and the EU for a more low leverage of EU wages.

By now there would have been the regular vote as planned in May 2014.

gnorblitz

This is Kiev and Moscow using centuries old blood feuds and nationalist fervor in a struggle over territory and its concomitant resources, infrastructure, tax revenue and political power. Washington is fueling it in order to widen its sphere of influence in the region, sell arms, entrench political back home and further contain Russia politically and economically. All three governments have the blood of the people in the region on their hands.

gnorblitz -> gnorblitz

That should read entrenching political support back home. Since the Second World War, standing up to Russia is guaranteed political currency in the U.S.

ToddPalant -> gnorblitz

If it were simply an isolated power play on the part of the US, although atrocious, it would not be as threatening as it is now. It seems like a culmination of a plan hatched in the late 40's.

It also looks like an act of desperation as the US having lost its economic "power house" status relies solely on its still impressive war machine, certainly a policy that has an expiry date.

When the dollar loses its reserve currency status, the US will have reached the point of no return. All three have blood on their hands, true. But the instigator, the accessory before the fact, is draped in stars and stripes

EugeneGur

A reasonable article in the Guardian? Sounds like an oxymoron. Someone must be sick on the editorial board to allow this.

The alternative is a negotiated settlement which guarantees Ukraine's neutrality, pluralism and regional autonomy. It may well be too late for that.

This was an alternative more than a year ago but it is no longer on the table. Under no circumstances Donbass will be a part of the present day Ukraine no matter how many sanctions are applied to Russia. Besides, the US wants a conflict with Russia, which means Kiev will fight on. What the US will do when Kiev gets its ass kicked for the third time, which will undoubtedly happen, I don't know. But everything they've done so far is bringing us all closer to the real possibility of a war.

jezzam -> EugeneGur

If what you say is true, it is obvious what will happen. E. Ukraine will effectively become part of Russia. Russia and its ill-gotten gains will be isolated culturally and economically and left to stew in their own juice. Is it worth it just to grab a useless piece of devastated territory?

EugeneGur -> jezzam

What I always admire is the "humanitarian" zeal of out western friends. They lecture us relentlessly on human right, European values, etc, but when it come to opposing Russia, all humanitarian concerns disappear like the smoke they really are.

This "useless piece of devastated territory" is populated by 8 millions of human beings, and it wasn't devastated by itself but by our Ukrainian brothers that claimed for some mysterious reason that land for itself. Russia didn't grab anything - Russia is helping these people to survive. Got something against it?

StanislavCh -> jezzam

Russia and its ill-gotten gains will be isolated culturally and economically

It's the most amazing part of Western narrative. Isolated from whom ? The whole world wants to cooperate with Russia , does it and will continue. If US and EU do not - fine, nobody cares , just piss off, but it's so ridiculous to call it isolation!

bananasandsocks

There was no democratic outcome ebcause there was no democratic vote.

There was a vote. And objective evidence from polling indicates that Crimeans overwhelmingly consider it free and fair. So there is democratic confirmation of its validity.

No option to vote for the status quo.

According to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

No independent oversight of vote counting.

According to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

No campaigning allowed for the Ukrainian side.

According to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

Voters intimidated by masked armed thugs.

Nonsense. But according to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

Roguing -> bananasandsocks

Do non-Russian populations currently living in Russia have the right to transfer sovereignty of their territory from Moscow to another state?

[Mar 05, 2015] Goncharenko detention

james, March 4, 2015 at 11:44 pm
is he still in limbo in russia?
Moscow Exile . March 5, 2015 at 12:11 am
I think he's still holed up in the Yukie Embassy here.

Could he end up like Assange has at the Embassy of Ecuador in London?

Somehow, I don't think so – apart from the fact that reports are out that watching over that embassy in London has so far cost the UK government £6.5 million.

Here is Goncharenko observing events last May and later inspecting (in an official capacity?) the victims' corpses in the Trades Union House, Odessa:

Interesting how quickly they ran of those T-shirts and all those placards of Nemtsov so quickly after the murder:

Reminds me of the many well made posters of that protesters (mostly very old women) brandished outside courthouses here whenever Navalny or Khodorkovsky appeared in them.

[Mar 02, 2015] Whodunnit?

From comments "Live by the sword, die by the sword. Nemtsov oversaw Russia's transition to a lawless, wild west where tens of millions suffered and died from crime, drugs, depression and privation - and now he met the same fate he helped condemn so many to during the 1990s. The same fate he was actively working to condemn tens of millions more to."
Mar 02, 2015 | Moon of Alabama

So someone killed Boris Nemtsov while the 56 year old man walked with his 22 year old Ukrainian "model" on a bridge in Moscow. There is some CCTV coverage of the crime scene.

As vice-premier under Boris Yeltsin Nemtsov was at least partially responsible for the mafiazation of the Russian economy. Everyone but some oligarchs and the "western" neoliberals was happy when he and the Yeltsin gang had to leave.

After he was kicked out and until yesterday Nemtsov was a very minor opposition politician polling at some 1%. The communists, the real opposition party in Russia, poll at about 20%. No one in the government had reason to care about or fear Nemtsov.

The former Soviet president Gorbachov points to those who will gain from Nemtsov's death:

Asked if he thought anti-Russian forces abroad might exploit the crime in pursuit of their own ends, he argued this would definitely happen.

"Of course, certain forces will try to take advantage of this crime for their own ends - all of them are thinking how to get rid of Putin, aren't they? But I don't think, after all, that the West will go as far as that, that it will use that crime to attain its own purposes. However, that was unquestionably the goal of the criminals who murdered Boris," he said.

"Crimes of this kind are taken on by executors who are hard to find. All efforts must be made to find the criminals," the ex-president said.

Gorbachov still uses rose colored glasses when locking at the "west". The "west" would never use a crime to attain its purpose? That is laughable naive.

And what about all those legitimate and popular opposition politicians currently getting suicided in Ukraine?

So whodunnit?

Someone with relations to the "model"? Someone hurt in the gangster "privatizations" executed under Nemtsov's rule? Some Ukrainian oligarch interested in creating more schism between the "west" and Russia? Some "western" government plotting the destabilization of Russia?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Posted by b on March 1, 2015 at 08:41 AM | Permalink

ALAN | Mar 1, 2015 9:25:21 AM | 3

LaRouche Says the Murder of Russian Opposition Leader Nemtsov "Smells Like Nuland"
https://larouchepac.com/20150301/larouche-says-murder-russian-opposition-leader-nemtsov-smells-nuland

somebody | Mar 1, 2015 9:33:09 AM | 5

Nemtsov's complicated Romantic life

Nemtsov considered asking for political asylum in 2012

Putin in 2012 - Opposition is looking to turn someone into "involuntary martyr"
coming across in body language across as absolute villain.

x | Mar 1, 2015 9:33:25 AM | 6

Who pulled the trigger, or who paid to have it pulled?

My bet, it was a little pay back to Putin (by proxy) from Kiev ... which means a combo of underworld murk and politically convenient 'fact' on the ground to distract msm from the US arms sales thru the ME -- which means Soros, McCain, and the DC 'cookie' Gang et al.

Who pulled the trigger? One the best money can buy obviously -- Mossad would be in the top list of the usual suspects.

He was obviously a man who liked to access all areas... photo

Harry | Mar 1, 2015 9:54:27 AM | 10

I dont believe in coincidences, hence timing points to a political hit. I'm quite sure Russia will eventually find who did it, but it will be just a man-for-hire, real masterminds will remain unknown, we just can make an educated guess - look who benefits the most. As well as history of those potential culprits.

Scott | Mar 1, 2015 10:24:30 AM | 11

OK here's my take on it before I read the latest updates. Nemtsovs murder was either because of a personal grudge or it was a sponsored false flag. You can combine the two as well. What bothers me is again, the timing and location. My gut tells me that tends to exclude the strictly personal. Would you whack a guy 200 yds. from the White House? I wouldn't. So I look at the symbolism and perhaps red herrings.

I see a stolen car with Ingush plates. A subtle warning of trouble in the Caucus? I see the creation of a martyr and shrine in Red Square. Message? Look what we can do on your doorstep Putin.

Why Nemtsov? Minor player who has value as a martyr but not as a "leader". He was a spent force trying to remain relevant. This clears the way for Navalny to step up. Whether it was a professional hit? A pro can make it appear any way he wishes.

So before I start to ramble...I think timing, location, messages sent, and who benefits. Who did it? It could be the result of a personal grudge instigated by shadowy figures who promise protection to the shooter, who could be anywhere including a landfill by now. This was a bit too convenient and bold to be strictly personal. So...for what it's worth...that's my thinking as of right now.

AMomyMous | Mar 1, 2015 10:33:07 AM | 12

As Raisa Gorbachev allegedly said: Youth is a mistake that is soon over.

But not soon enough for Mikhail, perhaps, because his vision still appears rosy and not clouded by reality or cataract.

Or maybe he is just speaking in diplomat-ese for public consumption- language wasted on a neanderthal opponent that uses all levers on the force gauge.

Gorbachev was urged by China's wiser leaders not to glasnost before perestroika.
The circumstances of USSR at that time were critical then. But had Gorbachev not succumbed to naivete and the Western forked tongue, the night would not have been as long and desperate for post-Soviet Russia.

The collapse of Red Moscow turned Washington's cross-hairs on the Balkans and West Asia, ie, Iraq - a narrow time frame that gave China to complete Stage A of its spectacular rise.

The next level is a bit harder to reach, with the West whipping up the fog of war, from Ukraine to the Asian seas.

Putin and Xi Jinping are now helmsmen on the same boat.

denk | Mar 1, 2015 10:34:45 AM | 14

here's the long ans....

*Boris Nemtsov's last appeal
Boris Nemtsov, Putin's vocal critic and opposition leader, was murdered late Feb. 27 in Moscow in what is said to be a contract hit by his Kremlin adversary.

Here is Boris Nemtsov's last story he wrote in Facebook:

"Putin annexed Crimea while giving away Siberia to Chinese* [1]

+nemtsov is a fierce critics of putin,
+he parrots the zwo meme of *yellow peril gonna overrun russia*,
a typical divide n conquer ploy in fukus playbook.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-borders-need-to-be-redrawn/why-china-will-reclaim-siberia

this smells like another zwo smear job on putin, right after the mh17 ff.
by martyrising nemtsov, it boost the image of putin the *ruthless dictator who silence his critics* in the western sheeples mindset , [see the moron at (2)]

it also serves to subvert putin's supporters base, many of whom might be led to believe that *putin the traitor who give siberia to the chinese* silence nemtsov for *blowing the whistle*

here's the no brainer ans....
zwo rule 1
*who else but the UsualSuspects ?*


[1]
http://zik.ua/en/news/2015/02/28/boris_nemtsovs_last_appeal_568549

Noirette | Mar 1, 2015 10:39:06 AM | 15

He is now a person who becomes famous after death. I had only heard of him vaguely a few times and paid no attention. OK, as a Kreminologist I suck, yes.

He was not an important person, or not in any public way in years past, imagining that murdering him would achieve any political objectives, either national within Russia or world-wide, is completely loony, be it from Putin's side, the liberal-oppo-Russian side, or the West, including Israel.

Focussing on him shows only that the media has sway and shunts the debate onto trivia, pointed to individuals, away from finance and geo-politics.

In a previous post, I argued that the first causes of these street shooting deaths should be top of the line: from being a thief, a traitor to one's group, in deep financial trouble, to stealing a woman, even mistaken identity, etc.

ben | Mar 1, 2015 10:59:07 AM | 19

"What would The West have to gain from this assassination? "

One has only to tune in to America's MSCM ( Main Stream Corporate Media), and the headline "News" programs, to answer that question.

Pat Bateman | Mar 1, 2015 11:34:17 AM | 22

If I had spent months fighting in East Ukraine for "New Russia", having seen what I'd seen, done what I done, and returned to find this guy bumping his gums on the radio rubbishing my fallen comrades and my beloved President, I'd have no qualms about putting a bullet in his back either.

But then again, isn't the image of a dead political opponent lying on a bridge overlooked by the Kremlin a bit rich? I mean, short of a dagger lodged between his shoulder blades with the inscription "if found, please return to Mr Putin", I can't think of a more over-egged attempt at trying to implicate the Government. And on the night before an opposition rally Nemtsov hoped to lead. I mean, come on.

Surely even an enraged nationalist would not have missed this.

ohmyheck | Mar 1, 2015 11:35:57 AM | 23

Fort Rus is all over this. They have translated conversations from a wiretap. Wonder where they got those? Anyway, heeeeeeeere's Boris:

http://fortruss.blogspot.de/2015/02/nemtsov-wire-taps-how-to-organize.html

And everything else: http://fortruss.blogspot.de/

guest77 | Mar 1, 2015 12:05:08 PM | 25

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Nemtsov oversaw Russia's transition to a lawless, wild west where tens of millions suffered and died from crime, drugs, depression and privation - and now he met the same fate he helped condemn so many to during the 1990s. The same fate he was actively working to condemn tens of millions more to.

B makes a great point. Nemtsov, like Navalny, are only "opposition figures" in the mind of their boosters inside the Beltway. Neither are well loved. Neither have the best interests for Russia in mind - Navalny would like to split the country on ethnic lines, Nemtsov would have like to sent it back to the 1990s dark ages. Both are intent on delivering Russia over to the west - whole, or in bite-sized pieces.

The New York Observer has an interesting piece entitled "Slain Russian's Complicated Romantic Life May Be Key to the Case". Nemtsov comes off accurately as a foul-mouthed, oversexed Bill Clinton³ (though, I have to say, Nemtsov at least has better taste). The man had three beautiful wives, yet was still out trying to score with 19 year olds. Good for him - though one gets the distinct impression that maybe he has more interest in power for the sake of the young women it attracts than anything else (I don't know if anyone has searched the Epstein/Clinton flight manifests for his name, but it would probably be wise). In any case, this is not the kind of behavior Russians like to see in their leaders, any more than Americans would accept it in theirs.

I suppose we might look at his young Ukrainian girlfriend (worth a peek anyway). She had just arrived from Kiev and is now missing so cannot be questioned by police. Did she lead him to his death? Killing off their own supporters to score political points certainly is the MO of Right Sektor, Yats, and that beast Nuland - that we do know.

Though there are many open questions, yet we get these kinds of headlines we see in the Western media:

guest77 | Mar 1, 2015 12:15:24 PM | 28

It's all propaganda coming from the US and the US is at war with Russia. So nothing more needs to be said. They don't know what happened- though their trolls like are working double time to capitalize on his death, here and in Russia. The American people will no more be allowed to know the truth about this incident anymore than we were told the facts about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

Lies and propaganda is the order of the day. To expect anything less from the United States at this point would be like expecting the sun to suddenly rise at midnight.

In my reading, I have found it amazing the distinct muted response by the USSR to the deaths of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, and RFK. These were all events that the Soviets could have capitalized on wildly but did not.

And of course we should consider the high caliber of those men - especially of Martin Luther King - compared with Nemtsov. MLK's murder set off an insurrection that spanned the country. No doubt the US would like to see the same thing - but it won't happen. Few love Nemtsov and he certainly did not love Russia.

I noticed CNN couldn't resist doing a little "product placement" as the odious Wolf Blitzer brought up Nemtsov's CNN interview with Anthony Bourdain.

ben | Mar 1, 2015 12:17:14 PM | 29

guest77 @ 25:

"Lies and propaganda is the order of the day. To expect anything less from the United States at this point would be like expecting the sun to suddenly rise at midnight."

Excellent post, and summation.

NotTimothyGeithner | Mar 1, 2015 12:21:25 PM | 31

@22 Wanting a particular outcome can cloud judgement, and even a "Russian nationalist" or a hold over communist might be expected to be hailed as a hero for offing the servants of international bankers.

Given the set up, the location might have been picked as a known location where a hooker from Kiev could bring her John with a way for the gunmen to get away. If they chose an apartment or hotel, they run the risk of construction or trucks unloading in alleys. The Kremlin is an open area. It's accessible which means there are people at any time of day, and that means the police can't tear through the roads or even shut down raids just to get one car despite what movies try to teach us. The Los Angeles police "chases" last so long because they are clearing the roads.

In the aftermath of the Boston marathon, everyone saw a person with a package, and the two were only nabbed because one shot a random cop in a spot where blending in might not be possible.

Personally, I believe the CIA/Kiev element was involved which is why the description of "opposition leader" was out there so early. With no evidence or more than anyone else, I could come up with a rationale explanation as to why a Putin ally might be behind the operation. An ally might think Putin is still wavering between Europe and Eurasia and needs to be forced into an irrevocable separation and knowing the western media the murder might do the trick.

Alberto | Mar 1, 2015 2:40:15 PM | 45

When the Ukraine putsch offensive starts in March it will be a short lived Charlie Foxtrot*.

Let me ask you this Question. What do John Kerry, Joe Biden, Brzezinski and quite possibly Kissinger have in common? I believe they are all either Jesuit trained or actual Jesuits. ALL WWII Fascist States were Roman Catholic. The Kiev putsch junta bears all the trappings of Roman Catholic savagery, assassination of opponents, displays of pseudo crucifix insignia, crude assassination of opponents and Fascist military trappings.

The Church of Rome is the antithesis of the Constitution of the United States of America.


*Cluster F*#K

Just my opinion. I could be right.

guest77 | Mar 1, 2015 3:49:10 PM | 49

Meanwhile, in Ukraine: Lvov KPU Cadre Rostislav Vasilko in Kiev: "They Drove Needles under My Fingernails, Beat Me with Clubs"

But no matter that. He's not a neo-liberal US ass kisser so who cares, right?

PeteCaroll | Mar 1, 2015 3:53:12 PM | 51

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/international/324295/ally-of-ousted-ukraine-leader-found-dead-in-apparent-suicide

Kiev--Ukrainian police on Saturday said a leading ally of former president Viktor Yanukovych was found dead after falling from his 17th storey Kiev flat in an apparent suicide.

Former lawmaker Mykhaylo Chechetov -- one of the most prominent politicians during Kremlin-backed Yanukovych's time in power -- was facing criminal charges for abuse of power over attempts to crush protests that eventually toppled his former boss.

Investigators said that Chechetov, 61, was found dead late Friday in front of his home after apparently throwing himself from his apartment window.

Piotr Berman | Mar 1, 2015 3:56:35 PM | 52

I think that Demian read the same comment in Russkaya Vesna as I did. Slightly bizarre, seemingly written in "been there, done that". Like, "when we were putting together a hit squad, we would insist on a control shot". However, the killer was not a novice, he pumped six shots without slightest hesitation. However, only four shots hit the torso, and the killer sloppily made no control shot once the body hit the pavement. One interpretation is that the hit man did not care too much if Nemtsov would survive or not, and that is consistent with some scenarios, like "mess up Russian politics" or "stop him from messing with this girl".

The location of the hit was very brazen, police was there in less than 2 minutes. That points to authorities, but the sloppy style does not. My first girlfriend and her friend were in a shooting club, if you train, a carefully aimed shot hits a man's eye from 80 feet (for 10, you must have mostly 10s to be competitive), and quickly aimed shot hits a spot on the torso with the size of a fist (10) or somewhat larger (9). A person trained for inter-collegiate competitions or special forces would not miss a shot.

My impression was that while Putin is not a "model democrat", he has a certain style of dispatching his opponents that does not involve killing. Lower level criminal organizations may have local political ties, and inconvenient people may get shot. If someone would cross certain Kadyrov in a bad way, a gold-plated pistol would be dropped by a hit man (after the hit), that guy is definitely special.

Alberto | Mar 1, 2015 5:55:13 PM | 57

"These chinks in the Freemason brick wall are spreading and the City of London is becoming increasingly desperate."

ALAN comment 46 ...

What about this?

"
It speaks to the globalist agenda of a one-world-economic system and a one-world-government and how it is being achieved. I remind you that the House of Rothschild has been the "Fiduciary" agent for the Vatican's money-lending activities since back to around 1823. The Vatican and the Rothschild's have been interlocked ever since. The Rothschild's are the bankers for the Vatican. The Vatican is the headquarters of the old Holy Roman Empire. The sitting pope is the 'Pontifex Maximus', the office of the last Caesar of the old Roman Empire."

AND THIS ...

"The Bank of England and Vatican split the take 40/60; 40% to the Bank of England and 60% to the Vatican."

source - http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/sep2014/pastorbob913-10.htm

Google search 'Vatican 60% City of London 40%

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Vatican+60%25+City+of+London+40%25

Ulster | Mar 1, 2015 7:13:29 PM | 58

I can imagine "b" writing about the death of Trotsky in 1940. It would go something like this:

So someone killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico. Whodunnit?

Trotsky was a marginal politician. No one would vote for him in the USSR. It would be ridiculous to call him "opposition". He posed no threat to Stalin.

Also, Stalin would not gain anything from it. The public image of USSR would only suffer from this provocation.

(Oh, I know Trotsky received numerous death threats from Kremlin, but it's irrelevant here, they were just talking)

Also, if NKVD wanted to kill Trotsky, can you imagine them using an... ice axe? Why would the most sophisticated secret service in the world use an ice axe?

And can you imagine a person called Ramon Mercader to be a Soviet agent? Did you notice that his name is an anagram to Acme Armor Nerd?

Mexico is far from the USSR. And USA is close to Mexico.

So, whodunnit? Your guess is as good as mine.

Lone Wolf | Mar 1, 2015 8:41:32 PM | 62

@Ulster@58

I can imagine "b" writing about the death of Trotsky in 1940. It would go something like this:

I am flabbergasted at your utter lack of historical perspective. How can you compare a larger-than-life historical figure such as Trotsky, to this Russian neo-liberal loser whose greatest achievement in life was to be deputy minister to a depraved drunk, appointed to manage the massive theft of Russia's energy sector? Boris Nemtsov compared to Lev Davidovich Trotsky, leader of the 1905/1917 revolutions, commander of the glorious Red Army, who defeated the US/Eurostan-supported White Armies and secured the existence of Russia, surrounded as it was on all sides by the same old same old bastards who are going at it again. Whatever opinion anyone has of Trotsky, his contribution to the survival of Russia is undeniable, and comparing him to a political whore is not only blatantly disgraceful, it is the ultimate show of historical ignorance.

Demian | Mar 1, 2015 9:09:51 PM | 63

@Lone Wolf #62:

Lev Davidovich Trotsky, leader of the 1905/1917 revolutions, commander of the glorious Red Army, who defeated the US/Eurostan-supported White Armies

A year ago, I probably would have been upset by that. But not anymore. We are all reconciled now.

@ALL:

I'm back to my original view that this was a US false flag. As Tony Carlucci points out, the timing was suspicious: a color revolution style protest was planned for today. The reason the hit was not professionally done is that the US is now so out of its depth in Russia that it can't even find a decent hit man.

Speaking of hit men, this is what the real ones are like. This is one of my favorite trailers. (I usually avoid trailers altogether.)

Get Carter music trailer

And lest anyone has forgotten, The Human League in their epochal Dare did a cover of this.

Demian | Mar 1, 2015 10:18:57 PM | 68

@jfl #67:

Are 80% of the Russian people still behind their government?

I can't remember where I read this, I believe it was an opinion piece in a British newspaper, but most Russians now believe that the US has declared war against Russia. Under such circumstances, the "liberal opposition" has no chances. I am not even bothering to read about this demonstration, to find out how many people showed up.

If the hit on Nemtsov really was ordered by the CIA, that indicates that the US foreign policy elite has no understanding of Russia. The State Department has this model of color revolutions. Since they have worked in Arab countries and in ex-Soviet ones, the State Department figures that they can work in Russia, too. So it keeps on trying. It just can't let go, like a nasty dog that has bitten your leg. But Russia is not like those countries. Russians have a memory of the USSR being a superpower and a rival of the US. Thus, this idea of coming to the "American side" simply is no longer appealing to Russians (with the exception of a small corrupt or brainwashed "liberal" minority), as it still is to Poles and Ukrainians, for example. China is like Russia in this respect, so it's not as if Russia is special.

The Western press says that Victoria Nuland is fluent in Russian. I somehow doubt that. She shows no understanding of the country, which I think a person would have just by virtue of knowing the language.

Vintage Red | Mar 1, 2015 11:50:39 PM | 72

jfl asked @ 65/67:

"Will there be anti-anti-government follow-up, of any size? ... Better, I should say a pro-government follow-up?"

Even better--from Fort Russ:

The "Russian Maidan" turns into a "Rally of the Patriots"

Lone Wolf | Mar 2, 2015 12:37:06 AM | 73

Fort Russ question from Vintage Red link (thanks for the breaking news!): Was Nemtsov's murder fruitless?

Not at all, not at all. Ukinazis will now begin to understand they are Russia's enemy, and that's no joke for anybody.

Odessa Massacre organizer comes to Moscow to "pay his respects" to Nemtsov, gets arrested

Demian | Mar 2, 2015 1:01:48 AM | 75

A Russian blogger writes that the hit is part of the US project to remove Putin from power. Destabilizing Russia by means of the Ukraine has not worked.

Google translation

Thirdeye | Mar 2, 2015 2:55:24 AM | 80

I'm guessing associates of Nemtsov who felt they had been wronged, taking advantage of the timing to make the hit look like a political hit. A vigilante hit from the Duginite nationalist fringe isn't out of the question either. IMO the hit was carried out in a manner too unprofessional and risky to be the work of true cloak-and-dagger professionals. It wasn't too long ago that oligarchs used Mafiya goons to do their dirty work, and the Nemtsov hit seems to fall within that M.O. Nowadays, that sort of thing is one of the side jobs of the volunteer battalions in Ukraine.

Nemtsov was a hustler and a swindler who probably made a list of enemies as long as your arm. His association with the opposition reeked of opportunism - a gambit to revive a fading political career. He acccepted grants for "opposition research" then treated himself to lavish, whoremongering vacations in Dubai. His funders, including Kiev, had nothing to show for their largesse. And we haven't even considered the possible enemies gained in shady business "deals."

Young Anna may just be a very lucky innocent bystander, or she may have been part of the setup. She seems to be having memory problems. Her lawyer from Kiev seems nervous.

[Mar 01, 2015] The second level, more expensive, starts at $1500 for an evening -- or how Nemtsov rolled

Neoliberal playboy with criminal connections who controlled some part of the flow of money to the opposition.
Jan 25, 2012 | Fort Russ

Nemtsov took a vacation with a new escort-virgin, and was photographed by unknown operators in all the private places. Apparently the travel company which he used sold him out.

Nemtsov did not part with the 25-year-old woman even for a minute. The hot sand of the Persian Gulf only warmed up his sexual activism. Political activism did not grow cold, either.

Nemtsov had time to count his supporters' donations. Hundreds of Russian citizens voluntarily transferred money to his electronic account over a period of two months, to help the fighter for justice publish his oppositionist research.

Nemtsov collected 320 thousand rubles, just enough for a week in a chic room for two in the Zabele Saray hotel.

"It is a new, luxurious VIP hotel, built on a palm island," according to a tourist agency employee. "There is everything necessary for a good rest at Zabele Saray! The room resembles sultan's apartments, only the freshest cuisine: there are 16 restaurants for even the most demanding of tastes. The hotel was built specially for the elite, the top floor hosts families of the sheikhs themselves. Only the best, believe me."

The 52-year-old leader of the PARNAS took with him for a serious spin on the UAE beaches the faithful companion of his recent adventures, Anastasiya Ognyeva. Hotel staff whispered: "He is an important politician from the '90s", but neither the staff nor the long-time guests saw any extraordinary behavior.

The pair practically never left their heavenly nest, having grown weary of hanging out with Russian tourists-that's the electorate, after all. They ordered meals to their room: the most sophisticated Japanese dishes and the local seafood. They had breakfast around dinnertime, and they observed the sunset from the balcony.

A night in the royal de-luxe apartments of the hotel located on the Jumeira Palm island with a view on the ocean costs over 50 thousand dollars. Even though half a million is small change for Nemtsov, he and his red-headed companion nevertheless received a discount for their romantic journey.

Of course his last official wife was not invited along, but was instead left in frozen Moscow. Nemtsov also did not have the blessing from the parents of his lover Anastasiya Ognyeva.

"What gave you the idea that my daughter is hanging out with Nemtsov?!" Nastya's mom was surprised. "We know nothing about her life, she does not live with us."

Nevertheless, Nemtsov already boasted to his numerous past wives about his w young girl.

"I am very happy for him, he looks happy next to her," told Life News one of Nemtsov's wives, Ekaterina Odintsova. "He showed me her photos, she's good-looking. He told me something about her, but we have many other topics to discuss."

Of course they have other topics: Nemtsov and the journalist Odintsova had two children together.

Life News learned where lovebirds like Nemtsov obtain their madams.

The Russian democracy promoter's muse first made herself known through the Escortmodeli agency, when Nemtsov was looking for a VIP-girl to accompany him to Israel. It seems that fortune, in the person of a wealthy revolutionary, smiled on Nastya: she has grandparents in Israel. In other words, one can find a companion with the preferred nationality, visa, and level of education.

"The well developed talents of our VIP-girls can ensure not only relaxation," promises the web site, where the Redhead was on the honor roll prior to her acquaintance with the politician.

One can even find a companion at the escort service with a beauty title, provided you have money.

"Prices depend on the girl's level, starting price is a $1000," explains the agency's manager Aleksandra. "The second level, more expensive, starts at $1500 for an evening."

It's clear that the provincial girl conquered not only Moscow, but also the heart of a Muscovite political leader.

After his vacation with a lover on the Persian Gulf coast, Nemtsov returned to work-his battle for justice, since everyone knows that his electorate cannot avail itself of such a vacation.

J.Hawk's Comment:

I mean, Russian "opposition" certainly has it tough these days. When will the persecution stop? The poor guy could afford only one week in Dubai...

On a more serious note, these "escort services" are pretty much part of the shadow economy since prostitution is illegal in Russia. However, if you have dealings with such agencies, you are also dealing, however indirectly, with organized crime. Assuming that Anna "actress-model" Duritskaya belonged to the same category of companion (which appears rather likely--Nemtsov seems to have had a thing for 20-somethings...), it's not implausible that somebody took offense to Nemtsov "spoiling the goods", so to speak, because how much money will a pregnant "escort" fetch? It's also yet to be explained who paid for Duritskaya's Switzerland abortion.

[Mar 01, 2015] Russia's opposition: who is left to take on Vladimir Putin? by Shaun Walker

The Guardian rather weirdly lists Igor Strelkov as one of the 'opposition figureheads'. As one commneter noted: " But it's hardly a serious survey or analysis. It's just a tossed-off random list, comprising nationalists, celebrity game players and wealthy robber barons, none of whom seem to have any real support in Russia. It's no more a parade of the brave, decent and worth saluting - as if it's any business of Brits or Americans anyway - or relevant than a list comprising Nick Griffin, Russell Brand, Nigel Farage, Noel Edmonds and Bez would be in respect of this country."
Mar 01, 2015 | The Guardian

Pavel Prokofiev -> AlexSurname 1 Mar 2015 20:50

This is only partially correct. Mr Nemtsov was and to some extent remained part of the systemic opposition. Yesterday there were several demonstrations in Moscow, including communist's demonstration demanding resignation of the goverment (7 thousand participants). There were more than 50 thousand participants in the Nemtsov mourning march.

Generally, Russians are shocked that it is possible to scream on the streets of Ukraine "Heil Ukrain! etc", that it is possible to bomb Lugansk and Donetsk and Western press and politicians are supporting this! Real shock.

It is also correct to say that Russian state and official press are presenting opposition and supporters of Maidan, which after use of "Heil Ukrain!" will never be accepted in Russia and after Odessa and bombings of peaceful cities will be rather hated.

chemicalscum -> R. Ben Madison 1 Mar 2015 20:04

Novorossiya = Sudetenland.

The analogy holds insomuch that the German Nazis invaded the Sudetenland. While the Kiev Nazi government invaded the South East of the Ukraine after the people had risen up against the US backed and organized coup government that had violently overthrown the legally elected president and the government of the country.

If you don't believe that the Ukraine is now under a Nazi dictatorship look for example at the "Volunteer" Azov brigade with all its Nazi symbols and remember the Odessa massacre. Look at the current suppression of free speech in the Junta controlled areas.

Towards the de-Nazification of the the Ukraine. There are Novorossiyan news videos on youtube that start showing a militia tank with "To Lvov" on its side. They are fighting again the battles of seventy years ago again.

They have dug trenches where there grandfathers did and buried their dead in the tombs of Saur Mogila under the shattered remains of the Soviet war memorial. The sooner the tanks reach Lvov the better. The sooner we will nip in the bud the US sponsored re-introduction of Nazism into Europe the better.

dumbwit 1 Mar 2015 20:21

The more relevant question would be, what happens to Russia post Putin ? He is untouchable at the moment and has no real opposition.

As if a billionaire living in exile is someone the people will respond to. Navalny is acceptable to Putin because he is not a threat. They lock him up now and then and play games with him but it changes nothing. The only popular, charismatic leader with resources in Russia is Putin.

The only hope for real change is after Putin and that could be interesting times for Russia but also could be a long wait. Russians also seem to prefer the devil they know.

AlexSurname 1 Mar 2015 19:20

Russian "non systemic" opposition got greatly radicalized over years of failures to get political power. They have no hope to win popular support, their support base only diminishes year after year. They used to manage 100k rallies 3 years ago, which is absolute top they can ever hope. Yesterday they only managed 25k.

Years of frustration made them hateful to their own country and people. Which is not helping with getting popular support at all. This vicious circle of hate, frustration and failure is the best picture of this "opposition".

chemicalscum Socraticus 1 Mar 2015 19:20

Sergei Udaltsov: Only 23% know who he is and of those <1% trust him, while 8% don't.

Why no mention of either Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Gennady Zyuganov

Udaltsov acted as Zhuganov's campaign manager at the last presidential election. After the election rumour had it that he was not prepared to stand again for president and was planning to put the Communist Party of the Russian Federation support behind Udalsov at the next presidential election. The combination of a young charismatic leader attracting youth with the solid voting numbers of elderly CP-RF supporters would put him in with a winning chance.

This was why Putin had him framed. The liberal Atlanticist 5th column is hopefully doomed to failure. If Putin sells out Novorossiya he is toast. There are a lot of armed detachments of Left Communists, National Bolsheviks and pan-Slavic Nationalists in the liberated areas of the Ukraine who would be gunning for him.

Boris Kagarlitsky puts Putin's position as being similar to Tsar Nicolas in 1915, we wait for 2017. Personally I think that if that if he breaks with neo-liberalism and adopts the economic Eurasian policies of his advisor Sergei Glazyev with capital controls he stands a chance of survival providing, he can keep the oligarchs under control and is able to maintain social programs. The future isn't written.

Joseph Rozen 1 Mar 2015 19:04

Russia's opposition: who is left to take on Vladimir Putin?

Are we to understand that the ex-Yeltsin neo-liberal, who played a major role in the systematic corporate asset-strip of the Russian economy, its infrastructure and manufacturing base, and who was scoring 1% in recent opinion polls was position to take on Putin and the current leadership.

I suspect that Guardian's talking heads and narrative makers will find the vast majority of Russians a tad too savvy to fall for the Yeltsin's nightmarish shock therapy, plunder and mass pauperisation....

Smileyosborne12 -> domeus 1 Mar 2015 18:46

domeus,you appear to have been absent from the earth on some other planet during the whole of the 1990s when Boris Yeltsin in his usual drunken haze brought a once strong, secure Russia to its knees! Are you trying your damnedest to rewrite history?

Another point. You are extremely presumptuous to believe that every poster on here is part of your "We" as liberals. In Russia as well as the UK there are some very serious doubts in many quarters as to the sense and safety of being "liberal", it is mostly used by those who have a worrisome hidden agenda. It certainly hasn't worked in Russia even under Gorbachev and wont work in the future.

Colin Robinson -> Hektor Uranga 1 Mar 2015 18:25

You seem to think the Russian government is guilty not only of suppressing political opposition, but also of allowing the wrong sort of opposition to emerge...

I doubt that any political platform would be illegal in the US itself, where the First Amendment operates... On the other hand, US has often worked in other countries to ban platforms it didn't like, e.g. the communist and socialist parties in Chile...

I'm aware that open use of Nazi symbols in banned in Germany. This hasn't stopped the German government from backing the Banderist régime in Ukraine, which today has armed men with SS insignia patrolling Mariupol.

Socraticus 1 Mar 2015 18:06

It's rather curious to see that of the 5 individuals cited, 2 of them aren't even officially recognized as opposition leaders (Khodorkovsky and Strelkov), while the remaining 3 are conveniently pro-western in their politics, as too was Boris Nemtsov (as well as Khodorkovsky).

As can be seen by a poll taken in January last year, none of them hold any major influence in Russian politics (though all, with the exception of Strelkov, want to overthrow Putin)...

Why no mention of either Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Gennady Zyuganov who are both well known with stats of 68% (with a trust factor of 12% vs 19%) and 62% (with a trust factor of 17% vs 11% respectively)? Is it perhaps because they are not pro-western in their politics and therefore disinclined to become puppets to the U.S.?

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/BV.aspx?ref=IE8Activity&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.levada.ru%2F07-02-2014%2Fuznavaemost-oppozitsionnykh-politikov

AlexSurname -> R. Ben Madison 1 Mar 2015 19:08

"Jew question" in Russia is way overblown by western propaganda and is not really a part of political agenda of even most radical nationalists.

Putin is praised not for standing against something, but for standing for the Russian interests.

MACLANE 1 Mar 2015 17:44

Whoever wants to take on Putin, must know better, how to undo Yeltsin's oligarch-creations, of which Nemtsov, inspired by Thatcher, was participant and complicit. As long as there remain a majority of Russians to be lifted out of poverty, with traditional believes even, neocon-inspired well to do bourgeois liberals with LGBT exuberance must wait; first things first. We must place enlightened humanism before bourgeois cultural arrogance.

AlfredHerring

Thanks for the survey Guardian. It seems there are some very brave and good people in Russia. Let's hope they keep breathing and walking free.

NedHH AlfredHerring

But it's hardly a serious survey or analysis. It's just a tossed-off random list, comprising nationalists, celebrity game players and wealthy robber barons, none of whom seem to have any real support in Russia.

It's no more a parade of the brave, decent and worth saluting - as if it's any business of Brits or Americans anyway - or relevant than a list comprising Nick Griffin, Russell Brand, Nigel Farage, Noel Edmonds and Bez would be in respect of this country.

Ilja NB

**Mikhail Khodorkovsky**

The guardian just hit beyond rockbottom for even naming this criminal.

JohnNewcomb

Interesting perspective from Nikolay Petrov and Michael McFaul about Russia's "managed democracy":
Managed democracy controls society while providing the appearance of democracy. Its main characteristics are as follows:
1. A strong presidency and weak institutions
2. State control of the media
3. Control over elections allows elites to legitimize their decisions
4. Visible short-term effectiveness and long-term inefficiency
The result is an "unstable stability" based on the president's personality. He is actually a hostage of the system.
The Essence of Putin's Managed Democracy

Canigou -> JohnNewcomb

This sounds uncomfortably close to a description of U.S. politics.

Canigou

This article bemoans the lack of electable leaders among the "beleaguered liberal opposition" in Russia.

Americans should be able to relate to that. The possible liberal candidates for President are Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (who says she won't run) and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (a socialist who is too old and not well known, and has no chance whatever).

That leaves U.S. voters with a choice between Hillary Clinton------ a faux-liberal friend of Wall Street, big corporations, oil companies, defense contractors, and a jingoistic foreign policy to support the American empire-----and a group of neocon radical Republican warmongers committed to dismantling the remnants of the modern welfare state.

The left-wing opposition is more than beleaguered, it is screwed, I'd say more so in the U.S. than in Russia.

yanburgh -> Canigou

At least in the US nowadays you don't get shot if you're a critic of the current regime.

Bosula -> yanburgh

It is just that the rest of the US is armed and shooting at each other. More homocides and gun related deaths that any other country. Somethings not right there.

GriseldaLamington -> yanburgh

Unless you're Malcolm X, or MLK, or any number of members of the BPP. Actually, the USA has developed a new technique of killing people who might be critics of the regime by incinerating them (and anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity) by remote control.

CefimarPark

Presumably only the suicidal or terminally ill who have little to lose.
Perhaps it may begin to dawn on people who could not understand the lack of active resistance against Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Gadafi or indeed any other despot, just how simple it can be to stifle opposition once you have absolute power. A few strategic, high profile hits are usually quite effective.

PlatonKuzin -> CefimarPark

Once, I said to my US opponent: "Saddam Hussein, a bloody dictator killed (presumably) about 40,000 people within 30 years of his dictatorship. You, Americans, for the sake of your domocracy and the rule of law, have killed in Iraq about 500,000 people within 10 years only. And a human life, as known, is the highest value on this earth. So, maybe it is much much better for Iraq to have Saddam rather than your bloody democracy in power? This way, much more people will stay alive in Iraq." My American opponent stood fully silent, not knowing what to answer.

[Feb 28, 2015] How western media form narrative

Warren, February 28, 2015 at 1:09 pm

The new propaganda line from the Western MSM is that Putin is obviously culpable for Nemtsov's murder, because Nemtsov is always under the surveillance of the Russian services services. Therefore Nemtsov's murder was either directly organised or permitted to occur by the Russian security services.

Boris Nemtsov murder: Putin now governs mostly through terror and propaganda

Any plot against Boris Nemtsov would have been known by the Kremlin. Putin either killed him or tolerated his death

By Ben Judah

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/11441799/Boris-Nemtsov-murder-Putin-now-governs-mostly-through-terror-and-propaganda.html

marknesop, February 28, 2015 at 4:25 pm

I'm beginning to think Ben Judah might be *cough* misinformed. Oh, never mind, I can't do it. Ben Judah is an idiot. That's right, I said it.

What would the Russian people, who already have little love for their police forces, especially the traffic police, say about the expense and time dedicated to putting an aging skirt-chasing roué like Boris Nemtsov under 24-hour surveillance? Just fuck off, Judah, and when you get there, fuck off from there as well. Try not to be more of a fool than nature intended. I have early dibs on what looks like the most hamfisted, ridiculous, embarrassing joke of a regime-change effort ever, and because I am first I am calling it the Jerk Revolution. Want to see the campaign poster? Here it is.

When is journalism going to start holding Idi Amin-Sarah Palin love children spazwads like Ben Judah accountable for being the polar opposite of right? Christ!! It's like taking advice from somebody who tells you you're not fat when you know you are.

james, February 28, 2015 at 4:38 pm

lol.. nice writing mark! there is a reason these guys get press.. if peter could graduate from dispatching sporadic tweets from twitter, he might qualify!

[Feb 28, 2015] This has all the hallmarks of an incipient foreign-orchestrated color revolution.

Feb 28, 2015 | facebook.com/tolyanchik

Anatoly Karlin

This has all the hallmarks of an incipient foreign-orchestrated color revolution. Whether it's Khodorkovsky, the SBU, or some Western intelligence service behind this - that's the order of likelihood I would estimate - one can't help but admire the organizer for a wetjob well done.

In life, Nemtsov was a half-forgotten political mediocrity; in death, he has become a martyr for the liberal/Maidanite wing. The opposition is already saying it will carry out an unsanctioned march in the city center. Odds are good that in the coming days, the usual playbook of protest encampments, provocations to incite violent police reactions, and covert Western pressure on oligarchic and political factions to defect will come into play.

Putin must not waver, and crush any such stunts immediately. The potential consequences of inaction and appeasement are too grim to even contemplate.

[Feb 28, 2015] Breaking news FALSE FLAG IN MOSCOW!

Feb 28, 2015 | The Vineyard of the Saker
Daniel Rich February 28, 2015
@ Kat Kan,

Don't forget that those who think of Mr. Putin as a true statesman have become part of a 'cult' according to 'those in the know'…

Also, how to stop a killer, when no crime has been committed yet? Russia; damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Personally, I would have sit back and watch the unfolding of this misadventure [the same way it's happening]. Much of the western world is waking up and slowly begins to realize to what warmongering tune they're actually marching. The internet and fast social networking prevents a lot of BS from maturing.

Unfortunately, not everyone is tuned in to the other side of la-la-land's MSM stations.

Patrick Walker February 28, 2015

About social media being somehow able to curtail false information is rather startling.

Seems to me social media is the festering cesspool lies and disinformation actually start from.

karlof1 February 27, 2015
He was walking with a Ukrainian woman according to RT's report. Given the gravity of Roberts's two Moscow presentations, something had to happen. Plus, the primary propaganda line was unraveling, so something had to rekindle it. RT's report's comments are flooded with Putin-bashers.

Sawsee February 27, 2015

This reminds me of Litvinenko, another naive idiot who thought he was running to refuge when, in fact, he was running right into the arms of his murderer (berezovsky, in my opinion). When are these useful idiots going to understand that in the eyes of an intelligence agency, if you're willing to betray your country then, in the eyes foreign intelligence, you're expendable human waste...

Jag Pop February 27, 2015

Copy-cat murder.

In Argentina the prosecutor Nisman was murdered. He was a pusher of empty charges and (Google: Wikileaks cables Nisman) was controlled by a foreign power via the US Embassy. His murder elevated him and his charges.

Now something very similar has happened in Russia.

Lysander February 27, 2015

Alas this will work exactly as the Empire needs it to: it will make it very difficult for Merkel, Holande or any other Euro clown to deal with Putin and will weaken opposition to arming the Ukies. Most of the west will believe it and it does not matter if the rest of the world does not. The US has to keep Europe under its control at any and all costs.

Anyway, it seems agents of the west are very disposable. Poroshenko take note.

Balance Swing February 28, 2015

Lysander,

I don't think this will have any impact on continental European politicians, as for the Brit establishment, they don't count for anything anymore: they're treated with disdain and irrelevance on both sides of the Atlantic (there's only so much butt-licking a poodle can do before even the most beastial of master's gets bored and bemused).

With respect to the MSM trying to create a mountain out of a molehill, they won't get any traction either: the audience in the Anglosaxon world has been too dumbed down and apathetic for this kind of thing to matter (too bad for the imbecile social engineers here who dialed up the stupidity level a little too high).

I think one should also not underestimate the stupidity of the Ukrainian Junta mafia, this is the kind of inept cluster-f*ck of desperation that they specialize in when they don't get what they want. I'm going to be mildly amused at just how small the crowds will be on March 1st.

Alexandre February 28, 2015

I agree. How to deal with this 'assassin' now??? Really two birds with a stone.

Red Ryder February 28, 2015

White House demands a thorough investigation!

Why not? It was one of their agents shot by two of their gunmen. They have a stake in the crime.

Anonymous February 28, 2015
Dear The Saker,

Sputnik's version of events he had just done a radio show about the March:

http://sputniknews.com/russia/20150228/1018865497.html

@Tamonten – you may have a point…….

Rgds,

Veritas

вот так February 28, 2015

What worries me most is that the Russian security services did not see this one coming and let it happen. This is a major failure for the FSB which will now have a lot at stake to find out who did it.

In my opinion, they probably didn't see it coming because it was a Jewish mafia/Mossad hit. It is much more difficult to follow all the Jewish mafia shenanigans than it is western intelligence ops. The Jewish mafia are still the most ubiquitous operators in Russia and far more integrated in the Russian "system", despite efforts to root the scum out since Putin's people replaced the Israeli-American Yeltsin quislings. Given the extent of zionist penetration into Russia during Yeltsin times, they are still the main conduit for western fascist ops in Russia, and will be, unless the Russians do a major purge.

I expect them to find a fall-guy, a patsy, who will have no provable contacts with any western services and who, ideally, might even have some contacts with the Russian services (like Andrei Lugovoi).

I don't.

There are folks in Langley tonight who got a promotion.

Tel Aviv.

dissy February 28, 2015

Nemtsov was walking with a female acquaintance, a Ukrainian citizen, when a vehicle drove up and unidentified assailants shot him dead. The woman wasn't hurt.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_RUSSIA_OPPOSITION_LEADER_KILLED?SECTION=HOME&SITE=AP&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

I guess a whore from Kiev (24)he is 55.

She probably sent a text msg to these guys, to give them the 'green light' to come and shoot. This 'lady' is alive, very strange no?

I also believe that the other one Navalny was more prudent, and did everything not to be present on their March/rally.Very clever…

It may also be a clear message to all fith column agents, stay away from US provocations backed otherwise…

I saw that Putin announced a 10 pct decrease in salary for his staff this friday the timing is a bit stupid, could have wait till next week. (nothing to do with the false flag just to notice)

It could also be a CIA/MOSSAD/MI6 one of the three of two of them, to have a casus belli and hope that Putin will react as a crazy by for example, invading Ukraine or whatever stupidity.

It is too 'big' to be true as we say in french. I'm not even sure that people in the West will buy it, nobody knows this politician, and nobody cares about RF opposition being liberal or not.

Only the usual suspects(Kerry,Oblabla,Mc Cain Nuland and co will react in their usual way).

But the FSB should better be prepared for Sunday for ANY possible real false flag…

Or maybe the West wants that Putin cancels the rally just to say after, Putin is a dictator etc ..

I don't know.

Not surprised as it was 'too calm" to be true lately. Porochoco and the US clique needs to re start the war at any price.

YATS says today that the war will last for three years. How does he know?

Taffycat February 28, 2015

Well, well, Wikepedia has been adjusted accordingly,

"This page was last modified on 28 February 2015, at 00:13.

" to read …"Close to midnight on 27 February 2015 in Moscow, Nemtsov was shot four times in the back as he was walking near the Kremlin with a female companion. He was crossing the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge when "several people" got out of a white car and shot him in the back, according to the Russian media.[3][31] The BBC reported: "In his last tweet, Mr Nemtsov sent out an appeal for Russia's divided opposition to unite at an anti-war march he was planning for Sunday" quoting him as saying "If you support stopping Russia's war with Ukraine, if you support stopping Putin's aggression, come to the Spring March in Maryino on 1 March".[32] On 10 February he had told Russia's Sobesednik news website: "I'm afraid Putin will kill me"; news agencies reported a Kremlin spokesman saying that the killing had been condemned by Mr Putin.[32]

The dupes are right on this, over to you Vlad.

Peter February 28, 2015

> It will be exactly the same as for MH-17: Putin the Murderer!!!

Over 600 Putin dunit posts in the Guardian in the first hour. Comments rubbishing the mindless mob are getting blocked.
MSM has their script and their orders on this one.
The path to war?

Medievil February 28, 2015

The Beautiful Truth about Minsk II & The Debaltsevo Debacle

By: Joaquin Flores

http://syncreticstudies.com/2015/02/19/the-beautiful-truth-about-minsk-ii-the-debaltsevo-debacle/#more-1727

dissy February 28, 2015

At least, if still necessary porko knows how it will end up for him, the day he will not be needed anymore by the US, same for Yats and all the clique.

the Pug February 28, 2015

Prominent Twitter tweeter BradCabana, who is a retired Canadian officer, refutes Stratfor's predictions of Russis'a imminent downfall: Brief, and worth reading.
http://rocksolidpolitics.blogspot.ca/2015/02/why-stratfor-is-wrong-on-uss-future.html?spref=tw

Eva martincek February 28, 2015

argentina's Kirschner dealing with the same shit…..it is such an obvious provocation that I am sick and tired of being the sic and tired……

ENOUGH of the terror caused by all tactics from fucking land of free…..neocons

Wait a minute! February 28, 2015

Speaking of traitors that have outlived their usefulness to the Kiev Junta and to the psychopaths in the Dept of State.

If I were Sakashvili, I'd be real worried right now! That drugged out idiot is hanging out with the Ukrainian mafia right now and is being plied with local whores and surplus smack from the Kolonmoisky crowd. He reminds me of a lamb being fattened up for market. If the tie chewing lunatic has any sense of self preservation he'd get out town as soon as possible.

NZ Watcher February 28, 2015

Yes – I think you are exactly right
His ego is bigger enough for him to be led all the way to the slaughter chamber !!

Joy February 28, 2015

"Porochoco and the US clique needs to re start the war at any price. YATS says today that the war will last for three years. How does he know?"

Basically, the (world) war MUST continue until one of the two possible outcomes. Either the AZs eliminate all rivals or the USD dies as a reserve currency. Note that the AZs do not even need to win. Losing the war works just as well as an excuse for the inevitable collapse. I am sure the AZ puppet masters have plenty of hard assets to ensure they will continue to be players in whatever system follows the dollar collapse.

zoks February 28, 2015

Check this out, Wiki page is already updated, blaming on Putin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov

CanSpeccy February 28, 2015

… an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He was murdered less than 200 metres from the Moscow Kremlin walls and Red Square

Wow. Putin must have seen Nemtsov walking by and got so mad at the sight that he nipped out of the Kremlin clutching his trusty KGB revolver and shot him in person.

Red Ryder February 28, 2015

Saker,

You always think the FSB should know and prevent everything. No agency can do that.

They cannot operate like Felix Derzinski or Marcus Wolf.

And those guys couldn't control everything.

The US + Britain + Israel is a huge enemy.

Russia, the Putin Russia, is really only a few years old. We can't expect perfection.

They would be a bit more effective if he was totally ruthless. He's not and they are not either.

This might have come down in the last 12 hours before the hit. How would they have prevented it?

When the blood dries, what has been lost?

They threw shit. Ultimately, it shows how hopeless their project is.

вот так February 28, 2015

False flags are not only useful for promoting policy, they can draw attention away from it, as well. This weekend will be an ideal time to step up other zionazi aggressions besides that against Russia. Such as a provocation by the nazis in the Ukraine against Novorossia or Transneistria. An Israeli or American attack on Syria/Lebanon. Moves against Venezuela, Iran, Thailand or any of the other countries Israel-America want to recolonize.

metamars February 28, 2015

Possible false flag rationale:

West plans big hit on Russian economy (such as banning Russian from SWIFT), and wants to psychologically freeze Russian leadership from giving a rational response.

The Western baddies may want Russia to preferably under-respond, though they may settle for an over-response (especially nutty McCain/Nuland types).

The above, I should emphasize, is speculation….

Also, let's not forget that Putin's obsession with Sochi security (thanks for nothing, Bandar Bush) may have distracted him from intervening in Ukraine in a way that would have preserved Yanukovych. (I read or heard something to this effect, very recently. Maybe here: http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2015/02/17/21715-christian-stork/ ; I don't really remember where.)

The Western baddies maybe hoping for a repeat of this particular error on the part of Putin.

If so, Putin obsessing over the investigation would be exactly the wrong move.

Blue February 28, 2015

Maybe not a false flag originally, although it will be exploited as such, since he most likely had any number of enemies who could have done it. But false flag is a good bet.

As for Putin being behind it, he was no real threat, and this would be a way too stupid to counter a threat even if he was one - certainly nothing Putin would do. Further, if he had done it there would likely already be a patsy set up to take the blame and cover tracks, as the US always does.

Honk February 28, 2015

D'accord.

Maybe it's even a mix: A jealous rival or ex-lover received a bunch of dollars (certainly not hryvnias) and a gun, and perhaps a hint that "tonight he'll be in that part of Moscow".

No matter the actual crime, it's obvious how it'll get exploited by the West. The timing though is just too perfect. A martyr is just what the doctor orders in cases where rallies don't promise huge participation.

T1 February 28, 2015

Reminds me of the Paul Tatum murder in '96. I was a few meters away from him in the Kiev Metro station when he was gunned down. The wiki details are wrong, I tried to make corrections but that was a waste of effort. I don't know why wiki insists that he was wearing a bullitproof vest when I know that he wasn't. I considered doing cpr on him but one could tell the he was blead out a few minutes after being shot numerous times in the back by .22 rounds. I shoud have kept some of the stray rounds that were sprayed off the walls of the station but I dutifully turned them over to the cops (who could not have cared less.)

Anonymous February 28, 2015

and anti-russian racist orgy is in full force in the guardian…

вот так February 28, 2015

The Guardian is a zionist Jewish exclusive club, of course there will an anti-Russian hate orgy there, it's "homebase" for a substantial portion of the worldwide web sayanim network Israel operates.

The fast response of Israel's web sayanim network confirms Israeli involvement in the murder. In fact, it confirms the Israelis planned it and carried it out.

Kat Kan February 28, 2015

Bok Tak look down a bit, Larchmonter has a long post which lists everyone visibly involved. Tel Aviv is not there. I don't see them either. The simplicity and directness of this is not beyond the capacity even of Kiev. … who have offered to send saboteurs into Russia. And they have EUSA advisers.

Anonymous February 28, 2015

This is amazing. Picture perfect spot to suggest martyrdom at the hands of Power. On the foreground the bodybag, and then Saint Basil's cathedral / Red Square shining right behind, calling all the attention to itself. This WAS planned, the spot was chosen for this precise effect.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-5A9ecXEAAoEC6.png

Katherine February 28, 2015

Thanks for the photo. It is like a movie set. Cannot be an accident that he was guided to or somehow just happened to stumble onto this stageset with the dramatic stagey backdrop that of all structures in Russia or Moscow, every idiot immediately recognizes. That's why this spot was chosen. Sure suggests that it was "staged" for a cinematic or good photo op effect . And if this is the locale for the march, then we can probably expect a big kitschy "photo-op" heap of flowers and dolls a la Princess Diana (nothing against Princess Di, but her death did sort of start a fad for this kind of maudlin memorializing).

Katherine

seemorerocks February 28, 2015

Comments from Dmitry Babich on RT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4g-qAE9fuo

Anonymous February 28, 2015

IMO the more false flags like this one or the murder of the Argentine judge will serve as a wake up call for those collaborators. They should ask themselves when they will be the target. Their lives are of no value of their "boss".

Kat Kan February 28, 2015

Now THIS is weird.

"Co-chair of the RPR-PARNAS party Mikhail Kasyanov announced early Saturday that the march was cancelled because of Nemtsov's death.

http://sputniknews.com/russia/20150228/1018865497.html#ixzz3T01GeEiY
"
So they're not making a Je Suis thing of it. But cancelling the march.

Isn't killing someone a drastic way to over up you were not going to have anyone turn up anyway? or do they hope for bigger turnout at a memorial type of march?

Mike February 28, 2015

They felt that initial plans and visuals for the march were too joyful under circumstances; it was cancelled as a spontaneous emotional reaction. They were about to go to central Moscow close to the murder scene, on individual basis, in commemoration, but eventually agreed with the city authorities that a march through central Moscow will take place. So there is a march on 1 March still, but now with a memorial agenda and a central Moscow location. All that is largely spontaneous and emotional.

Gareth February 28, 2015

Nemtsov has been messing around in Ukraine dating back to the Orange Revolution. Who knows what type of gangsters he was involved with. In forming an alliance with the Russian ultra-right, he added an additional group of volatile and dangerous characters into the mix. The fact that Nemtsov was shot practically in front of the Kremlin is an obvious message, showing the lengths to which opponents of Russia are willing to go to destabilize the country. The killing was carried out in such a way as to provide the maximum embarrassment to Putin, while generating the most propaganda value. The killing would have been contracted through a cutout or a double-cutout, so the only question is who the patsy will be.

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