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[Nov 1, 2014] Who needs Neo-colonial Governments' Oxen? by H. L. D. Mahindapala

Nov 1, 2014 | Daily News Online Sri Lanka's National News

In a recent debate reported in The Journal of Democracy Francis Fukuyama:I think we pay too much attention to civil society, and not enough to political parties or to helping democratic groups come up with programmatic ways of governing. ……… To this day, I don't think anyone has come up with an alternative to the political party as a means of electoral mobilization. That is why political parties exist. Civil society cannot substitute for them in taking on that function."

With this succinct summation Fukuyama has hit the nail on the head. His judgment is most relevant to the "civil society" in Sri Lanka which refers, in a very narrow sense, to the foreign-funded NGOs serving a Western agenda. He was focusing on the unrepresentative character of NGOs and their inability to be a dynamic force for change in the democratic process. Fukuyama cannot be faulted because the NGO activists of the anti-national "civil society" – so vastly different from the Hegelian-Marxian concept of civil society – are strutting the political stage, both nationally and internationally, as if they are the makers and breakers of nations who represent the legitimate will of the people. They mistake their role of being the hired agents of their paymasters in the West to be that of the representatives of the people of Sri Lanka. Unlike the political parties that interact directly with the people because politicians are dependent on the people and derive their power from the people, the NGO agents in Sri Lanka are totally alienated from the people and derive their power from foreign funds and links to Western diplomatic missions. They have no credible or viable base rooted in the people.

Western political culture

They do not have any power to impact decisively or effectively in electoral politics. In fact, their names are unknown to the electorate. They are elitist groupies who circulate essentially in the rarefied diplomatic cocktail circuit, or in their own incestuous circle scratching each other's back when they are not fighting each other for the dwindling dollar in the donors' market. As stated by Fukuyama they are totally incapable of "electoral mobilization" and, therefore, they cannot be a substitute for the elected representatives of the people. In contemporary times, they are the successors to the Christian missionaries who came to civilize the natives. The Christian missionaries were carriers of the colonial flags. And the NGOs are carriers of the neo-colonial flags. Serving their Western masters, using their ideologies and terminology, has been their primary objective.

Their ultimate aim is to impose the Western political culture as the superior force to dominate post-colonial nations. Taming the natives with the Western culture is a key means of converting the indigenous people into mindless, slavish Occidentalists. At the zenith of imperialist power, brain-washing the indigenous people in colonized countries was the first step in consolidating their grip on power. They were aided and abetted by the Christian missionaries who brought the Bible to glorify the thunder of the colonial masters' guns. The converted Brown Sahibs, also known as "Coconuts", accepted the legitimacy of the white masters without questioning. They constituted the willing congregation that was created to sing "Alleluia" to the Empire.

In the main. the primary function of NGOs has been to challenge, criticize and undermine the developments of ex-colonies to impress their Western donors that they are the guardians of morality, legality and politics of the day. In their submissions to rake in more funding from the Western paymasters they justify applications for increased funding by citing their subversive activities to deracinate and de-nationalize nation-states which do not conform to the agenda of the Western paymasters. For instance, in making submissions for funding they would cite the articles and interviews published in the local media as proof of the success of "soft power" pursued by the West. Freedom and liberty are catch-cries raised by the NGO mudalalis to liberalize the economies for Western neo-colonialists to get untrammeled access to exploit the local resources and markets.

Getting the dirty work done through NGOs (example: getting the anti-national Western agenda publicized in the local media) eases the tasks of the diplomatic missions located abroad. To the West it is cheaper to get the Ph Ds in local NGOs to do the "research" work than to pay entire families of Western diplomats posted to monitor and report from Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh etc. And the anti-national reporting of the NGOs – the "soft power" – is used to undermine the sovereignty and the national interests of states battling terrorists, foreign interventionists, and Western plunderers of local resources.

In the NGO industry Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu who heads the Centre for Policy Alternative (CPA) and Jehan Perera who heads the National Peace Council are the two leading experts in raking in millions from Western donors. Their business is to raise mega millions and they have succeeded in becoming multi-millionaires overnight. Their cries for human rights, justice and equality are in reality calculated business ploys to keep the money rolling in. There is no money in presenting positive reports of the achievements of the people or the governments of Sri Lanka. There is money only in promoting the Western agendas and values, preferably by demonizing Sri Lanka.

NGO mudalalis have enriched themselves by marketing the misery, suffering and the agony of the people trapped in wars, poverty, social injustice, etc. In the case of Sri Lanka Saravanamuttu and Jehan Perera, like any other common-or-garden politico, are full of hot air without having contributed to solve any of the critical issues facing Sri Lanka in any substantial way. Their main role, played in the name of human rights, has been to prepare the ground work to help Western diplomats struggling to write reports to their supervisors in Washington, London or Berlin.

Post-independent era

These two politicos measure their success by the extent to which they have demonized Sri Lanka abroad. Their ambition is to be the darlings of West and not problem-solvers of the nation. The most pathetic sign of their failure is confirmed in the fact that they have neither won a mass following by winning the hearts and minds of the people nor have they contributed substantially to solve the critical issues of the nation. So what is their worth to the nation? Their interventions have invariably worsened the situation because they adhered to their dogma of keeping the fascist regime in the north intact as a means of arriving at peace when all the evidence was against this fictitious fancy. It was not myopia that made them defend Prabhakaran's regime even when he was going down in Nandikadal. It was their need to keep the war going which was like the beggar's wound to them. Greater the bleeding greater the income! So on what moral or political basis can these multi-million dollar lackeys of the neo-colonial West justify the existence of NGOs as necessary institutions for the progress of the nation?

The problems of Sri Lanka were solved by the creative genius of the people of Sri Lanka, as they have done throughout their history. For instance, in the post-independent era, Sri Lanka went through agonizing traumas of two uprisings in the South led by the lumpen Marxists in the JVP, a Right-wing coup organized by the Westernized elite, and, worst of all, a deadly 33-year-old terrorist war led by mono-ethnic extremists of the Tamil North and emerged victorious as a viable democracy. What part did the NGOs play in these victories? Zilch. Zero. Nothing. On the contrary, they actually played an undermining role obstructing the path to a final resolution of any one of the crises.

The usual mantra of NGOs was to demonize the state and hold it responsible for the violence ignoring the fact that there were opportunities to resolve differences non-violently within the democratic main stream, however tardy it may have been. The failure of the southern and northern violence prove that there is no alternative to non-violent processes within the constitutional framework. But, on the grounds of addressing the underlying causes, NGOs went all out to appease the southern and northern terrorists and justify their self-destructive violence. Theoretically, it is possible to justify the argument that if you give in to their demands that violence would end. But in reality this punditry has only worsened the situation. Their theories of appeasing Prabhakaran did not work even when maximum concessions were made by Chandrika Bandaranaike in P-TOMS and Ranil Wickremesinghe in the international agreement brokered by Norway.

On balance, it is clear that if the NGOs had to make a moral stand their choice should have been to defend the democratic south, with all its infirmities, and condemn unreservedly the fascist north for the evils that shocked the world. Saravanamuttu told Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in his recent interview, that "one must take a stand in the face of injustices". So where was he when the Tamils were facing the worst injustices under the regime of Prabhakaran? Did he go round the world condemning Prabhakaran, demanding global action for regime change in the north? Or did he go round the world seeking help to save him and keep him alive to perpetuate the one-man regime?

Political landscape

Saravanamuttu's counterpart in the multi-million dollar NGO industry, Jehan Perera, went to the extreme of hero-worshipping Anton Balasingham, the leading ideologue of the fascist regime, by conferring on him a post-graduate doctorate which he never had. So how credible are the NGOs when they claim that they stand for democracy, liberty, basic individual rights when they were openly serving as willing partners in perpetuating and bolstering the fascist regime of the north? Their policy has been, as seen in the available records, to condemn the south for not living up to their political standards. But they were quite happy to go along merrily with the one-man regime that had suppressed all democratic norms and imposed his fascist terror in the north. NGO theories promoted Prabhakaran as a part of the solution when he was the intransigent problem that stood in the way of peace.

History has proved that Nandikadal was the only path to peace. It is absolutely clear that peace dawned at the end of 33 years because all the theories, lectures and formulas of Saravanamuttu and Jehan Perera have been laid to rest at the bottom of Nandikadal – the ultimate graveyard of Tamil fascism. Besides, the failed politics of the NGOs confirm that the path to progress can be made to run smoothly if they are removed from the political landscape. Their meddling in the past has taken the nation nowhere. The future has better prospects if they are thrown into the dustbin and the lid is closed as tightly as possible.

Now that the nation is settling down to a post-conflict era serious attention should be paid to the anti-national, anti-peace, anti-reconciliation role of the politicized NGOs. At the time they were needed most they were sleeping with the enemy of peace. Their bogus theories boosted the morale and legitimized the violence of the enemies of peace and hardly ever the nation. Both in times of war and peace they have been going along directly or tangentially with either the anti-peace Tamil fascists, or with the anti-national West. So when we have Jehan Pereras and Saravanamuttus do we need Prabhakarans? What has been their contribution to this nation to regain peace or reconciliation? Does this nation need these failed Neo-colonial Governments' Oxen?

[Oct 18, 2014] The Tragedy of Modern Democracy by John Chuckman

October 13, 2014 | dissidentvoice.org
I read and heard about Hong Kong's students putting themselves at risk demonstrating for democracy, and my first instinct was sympathy, sympathy for their passionate idealism, but sympathy in another sense too, for their sad illusions. I ask myself, and it is not a trivial question, what is it exactly that they believe they fight for? Democracy has become such a totemic word, we all are trained to revere it, unquestioningly, almost the way 16th century people were expected to behave in the presence of the Host during Communion. But just where in the West do we see countries who call themselves democracies behaving in democratic ways, indeed where do we see genuine democracies? And if it is such an important concept, why should that be?

In Canada, to start where I live, we have a serious democratic deficit. A Conservative government today, elected to a parliamentary "majority" with about 39% of the national vote, behaves for all the world as an authoritarian government in many things at home and abroad. It turned its back completely on Canada's historic support of green initiatives, embarrassing our people in international forums with blunderingly incompetent ministers of the environment. It has built a large new batch of prisons, completely against the general public's sympathies and in contradiction to historically low and falling crime rates. It echoes the sentiments from Washington on almost anything you care to name and does so completely against Canada's modern history and prevailing public opinion. It has lost the respect Canada once commanded in the United Nations. It has dropped Canada's tradition of fairness in the Middle East, blindly supporting Israel's periodic slaughters, ignoring the horrifying situation of the Palestinians. Only now the government decided to send fighter jets to support the American anti-ISIS farce, an act completely out of step with Canada's long-term policy of using force only where there is a United Nations' mandate.

But Canada still has a way to go to match the appalling modern record of Great Britain. Its recent prime ministers include Tony Blair and David Cameron – men, supposedly from separate parties, who both cringingly assent to America's every wink or nod suggesting some policy, ever ready to throw armies, planes, money, and propaganda at questionable enterprises their people neither understand nor would be likely to support if they did. Promoting the mass deaths of innocents and the support of lies and great injustice are now fixtures in the mother of all parliaments. And, with all the scandals around Rupert Murdoch's news empire, we got a breathtaking glimpse of how shabbily public policy is formulated behind the scenes, of how smarmy politicians like Blair and Cameron cater to unethical individuals of great wealth and influence.

Israel's endless patter of propaganda always includes the refrain, "the Middle East's only democracy." The press does not think to ask how you can have a democracy with only one kind of person wanted as a voter and with only one kind of citizen enjoying full rights. Nor do they inquire about the millions who live under systematic oppression enforced by that "democracy." Effectively, Israel rules millions of people who have no rights and no ability to change their status through any form of citizenship, not even the ability to keep their family home if Israel suddenly wants to take it. We have seen "democracies" like that before, as, for example, in South Africa or in the Confederate States of America, both places where people voted but only a specified portion of the people, millions of others being consigned to a netherworld existence maintained with a carefully designed structure of fraudulent legality. Ironically, viewed from the Middle East's perspective, it is undoubtedly a good thing there are not more such democracies as Israel.

And the students should perhaps keep in mind the tragic example of Egypt. It too had huge demonstrations with thrilling moments like a dictator of thirty years fleeing and the nation assembling its first free election. But a brief spring garden of elected government was bulldozed after the government:d did things its small neighbor, Israel, did not like. There were more huge demonstrations and thousands of deaths and illegal arrests and the return to military dictatorship in a threadbare disguise of elected government. Eighty million people must now continue life under repressive government because seven million people with extraordinary influence in Washington can't tolerate democracy next door.

As far as what Colin Powell once called, in a tit-for-tat with a French Foreign Minister, "the world's oldest democracy," well, he was just as inaccurate in that assertion as he was about hidden weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. America's own founding documents do not proclaim a democracy but rather that most fuzzily-defined of all forms of government, a republic. It was a republic in which the President was not elected by the general population, where the Senate was appointed, where the Supreme Court had no authority to enforce the high-sounding phrases of the Bill of Rights, and where as little as one-percent of the population could even vote – it was, in sum, an aristocracy of wealthy and influential citizens dressed up in high-sounding phrases. The American Revolution was aptly summed up by a writer as "a homegrown aristocracy replacing one from abroad."

And since America's founding, while the voting franchise gradually has been extended to become nearly universal (prisoners and ex-convicts still often cannot vote in a nation with the world's highest incarceration rate), equally gradual changes in the structure of America's institutions pretty much keep that original form of government intact. At every level, barriers erected by the two ruling parties make it nearly impossible to establish an effective alternative party. Even getting listed on all the ballots was an immense task for a billionaire – Ross Perot – who, in fact, represented no substantive alternative by any measure. The two parties' privileged position also is protected by the need for immense amounts of campaign funds, America's regular election costs being in the billions, the Supreme Court having declared money as "free speech." You do not get that kind of money from ordinary citizens, and you necessarily owe those who do supply it, and you simply cannot compete in American politics without it.

For major offices, the vetting of politicians is now so long and demanding that no candidate can possibly run who isn't completely acceptable to the establishment. The campaign money simply will not appear otherwise. Such quiet political controls are now backed up by a gigantic military-intelligence establishment with such authorities and resources that it much resembles a government within the government. For example, with the NSA spying on every form of communication by every person around the clock, information about politicians is close to perfect. No undesirables can slip through and no undesirable policy can be enacted given the ability to threaten or blackmail every politician over his or her monitored personal and financial affairs. Nobody in his right mind calls that democracy.

The truth is that despite a long history of struggle, revolutions, and movements of various descriptions characterizing the West's modern era, those with great wealth and influence still rule as effectively as they did centuries ago. Their rule is not as apparent and open to scrutiny as it once was, and there are many mechanisms in place to give the appearance of democracy, at least for those who do not examine closely. Modern elections require money and lots of it. Voters' choices are limited as surely as they are in many authoritarian states. The ability of any elected officials to act in the public interest is curtailed by a powerful establishment and a number of special interests.

Once in power, modern democratic governments behave little differently than many authoritarian states do. Wars are started without consent and for purposes not in the public interest. Secret services carry out acts government would be ashamed to be seen openly doing. Armies for needless wars are conscripted or bribed into existence. Rights people regarded as basic may be suspended at any time. Injustices abound. Many "democratic" states practice illegal arrest, torture, assassination, and, above all, secrecy. Secrecy is so much a part of things today that when citizens do vote, they haven't the least idea what they are voting for. Public education is generally poor, especially with regard to the real workings of government and the encouragement of critical thinking. The press has become nothing more than an informal extension of government, a volunteer cheering section, in many important matters. Voters go to the polls hardly understanding what is happening in the world.

So I praise the idealism and bravery of the Chinese students, but I know democracy everywhere remains only a small, hopeful glimmer in the eyes of people.

[Sep 02, 2014] The End of Democracy as we Knew it by Bernd Hamm

Quote: "In strange uniformity the Western mainstream media have adopted an interpretation of events which ignores Western provocative actions as well as selfish interests of the West, and demonize President Putin and Russia (Smith, P. 2014). Interestingly enough, this goes to a large extent against public opinion as revealed in opinion polls. It is mostly the Western media which foment Cold War sentiments and thus play into the hands of neocon politicians. Most presumably the shooting down of Malaysian flight MH17 and the almost total secrecy in which the US intelligence and the expert investigations are veiled must be seen in this context."
Sep 02, 2014 | Information Clearing House - ICH

3.2 Ukraine – Regime Change

For years, the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine was of minor importance. Many European politicians, first of all the German Chancellor, showed provocative disinterest in Ukraine. When, in November 2013, Russia asked for access to the negotiation table, it was rebuffed by the EU.

While Brussels was playing for time, the US was preparing the overthrow of the government. Since the end of the Cold War the United States has been surrounding Russia, building one military base after another, ceaselessly looking for new ones, including in Ukraine. The US deployment of new weapon systems in Eastern Europe is consistent with a plan for antagonizing Moscow that was proposed in the Washington Post by the Obama administration's ideological godfather, Zbigniew Brzezinski, immediately after a group of self-proclaimed Maidan leaders chased away the elected government. It betrays all those who suspect that he might have changed his position in his recent publications: "The West should promptly recognize the current government of Ukraine as legitimate. Uncertainty regarding its legal status could tempt Putin to repeat his Crimean charade. … Meanwhile, NATO forces, consistent with the organization's contingency planning, should be put on alert. High readiness for some immediate airlift to Europe of U.S. airborne units would be politically and militarily meaningful. If the West wants to avoid a conflict, there should be no ambiguity in the Kremlin as to what might be precipitated by further adventurist use of force in the middle of Europe" (Brzezinski, Z. 2014).

The US had tried, but failed, to take Ukraine in 2004 with the Washington-financed "Orange Revolution." According to Assistant Secretary of State (and wife to PNAC godfather Robert Kagan) Victoria Nuland, since this failure Washington has invested $5 billion in Ukraine in order to foment agitation for EU membership for Ukraine [30]. EU membership would open Ukraine to looting by Western bankers and corporations, but Washington's main goal is to establish US missile bases on Russia's border with Ukraine and to deprive Russia of its Black Sea naval base and military industries in eastern Ukraine. EU membership for Ukraine means NATO membership (Roberts, P.C. 2014b).

When President Yanukovich declared on 21 November he would not sign the EU association agreement, clashes erupted in the streets of Kiev. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets and to Maidan Square on December weekends. This was the critical stage of a campaign fueled by the three opposition parties „Fatherland" (Yuljia Tymochenko, Arsenji Yatsenyuk), „Bang" (German Konrad Adenauer Foundation funded box champion Vitali Klitschko) and „Freedom" (Svoboda leader and closely tied in the network of European fascist parties, Oleh Tjahnybok). Their common goal was to oust President Viktor Yanukovych whose Party of the Regions had succeeded in the 2012 elections. Kiev's membership in the EU would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neo-conservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family. Crimea's deputy prime minister, Olga Kovitidi, described as predatory the terms of an agreement Kiev is ready to accept from the International Monetary Fund (Voice of Russia, 2014).

Since the 2004 revolt, fascist militias had been built up and paid for who would now ignite the actual uprisings and prevent compromise (Svoboda, Right Sector). They call for violence, and occupy provincial governments in the mostly agricultural and right-wing West of the country. In the Western regions of Lwow, Ternopol, Rovno, Luzk and Iwano-Frankowsk and others, they stormed office buildings and pressed governors to sign their resignations. While thousands of people took part in anti-government protests in Kiev, a small group of radical fighters were at the core of the violent clashes. Judging by their looks and actions, they are armed, trained and prepared for war. Apart from individual gear, the rioters know urban guerrilla tactics. The protesters were also well-prepared for offensive. They had a wide assortment of melee weapons.

The National Endowment for Democracy website [31] lists 65 projects that it has supported financially in recent years in Ukraine. Their programs impart the basic philosophy that people are best served under a system of free enterprise, minimal government intervention in the economy, and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market economy is equated with democracy, reform, and growth; and the merits of foreign investment in their economy are emphasized. The NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. NED receives virtually all its financing from the US government. Why were Washington officials grooming a replacement for President Yanukovych, legally and democratically elected in 2010 who, in the face of protests, moved elections up so he could have been voted out of office – not thrown out by a mob? Yanukovych made repeated important concessions, including amnesty for those arrested and offering, on January 25, to make two of his adversaries prime minister and deputy prime minister; all to no avail. Key elements of the protestors, and those behind them, wanted their putsch. Ukraine's junta prime minister announced March 7 that he has invited the NATO Council to hold a meeting in Kiev over the recent developments in the country. "I invited the North Atlantic Council to visit Kiev and hold a meeting there," Arseny Yatsenyuk:ring a visit to Brussels, where he met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and EU officials. "We believe that it will strengthen our cooperation" (Blum, W. 2014a).

In addition to NED, the foreign donors included the U.S. State Department and USAID along with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the NGO Freedom House and George Soros's Open Society Institute (Ames, M. 2014). They all have supported non-governmental democracy-building efforts in Eastern Europe since 1988. Each of these social movements included extensive work by student activists. The most famous of these was Otpor, the youth movement that helped bring in Vojislav Koštunica. In Georgia the movement was called Kmara. In Ukraine the movement has worked under the succinct slogan "Pora" ("It's Time"). Pora was built up in Ukraine in 2004 in order to assist in regime change. "We trained them in how to set up an organization, how to open a local chapter, how to develop a brand with logo, symbols, and key messages",: Otpor activist in the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. "We trained them in how to detect societies' weaknesses and what the most burning problems of the population are." Srdja Popovic, Otpor's founder and director, was found to have close working relationships with US intelligence firm Stratfor. He boasted to be a revolutionary for hire (Gibson, C., Horn, S. 2013; Traynor, I. 2004). Many of the protest actions including criminal offenses against security personnel and the takeover of government buildings, accompanied by assassinations and acts of violence against many had been supported, organized and planned in cooperation with the US embassy and representatives and politicians of the EU who not only meddled into the inner affairs of Ukraine but also by the fascist guerrillas they raised up and made them commit acts of aggression against the country, among them the sniper killings of February 20 and the Odessa massacre of May 2, 2014 [32].

Already in 1992-95, the IMF imposed structural adjustment program had reduced Ukraine's GDP by sixty per cent. Now, conditions for new credits include doubling gas prizes, increase fees for public services, cut social services and funds for education, limit wages and pensions, lay-offs in the public sector, investment guarantees for foreign private corporations, and devalue the currency, thus raising the prices of imports which include Russian gas, and open Ukrainian assets to takeover by Western corporations (Burke, M. 2014). Ukraine's agriculture lands will pass into the hands of American agribusiness. "For Ukraine, the association agreement with the EU means to transfer to Brussels all sovereign tasks for the regulation of commerce and external relations, technical standards, veterinary, hygiene and disease inspections and to open its market to European goods. The agreement contains some thousand pages of EU directives to be followed by Ukraine. Every chapter demands that Ukraine's legal system must be brought to correspond to the European system. Moreover, Ukraine not only accepts the obligation to follow EU's present directives but also future ones without being eligible to contribute to their wording" (Glazyev, S. no date). It was all too clear for President Yanukovych and his partisans that the elections of 2015 could not be won on this basis. Permission to set up a missile shield, also included in the IMF package, was a pure provocation to Russia. Also, the 11 billion euros that the EU is offering Kiev is not aid, it is a loan. It comes with many strings, including Kiev's acceptance of the IMF austerity plan.

The Obama administration's rationale for supporting the fascist-led coup in Ukraine collapsed on March 7 when a hacked phone call between EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet revealed that the snipers who fired on protestors in Maidan Square in Kiev on February 20, 2014, were not aligned with President Yanukovych, but with the protest leaders themselves. Estonian foreign ministry has confirmed the recording of his conversation with EU foreign policy chief is authentic. Urmas Paet:at snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were hired by Maidan leaders.

With pro-Russian candidates off the ballot, Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok is a dominant political power in Ukraine. He certainly is a bigger votegetter than Yatsenyuk, whose main responsibility is to negotiate with the West over financial aid and the EU package, and Vitali Klitschko who announced he will be running for mayor of Kiev. In recognition of Tyahnbyok's clout, Svoboda members got the posts of Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Ecology, and acting prosecutor general. A founder of the Social Nationalist party was made secretary of the Ukraine National Security and Defense Council. Several hundred members and supporters of the militant nationalist Right Sector swarmed Ukraine's parliament building for the second day in a row on March 28 to demand the resignation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and an investigation into the suspicious death earlier in the week of one of its leaders [33]. This new though illegal government composed according to US wishes and flattered by Western heads of state, has announced to sign the EU association agreement successively. It has asked the US for far-reaching military assistance. And it has brought the country's gold reserves into US custody (Chossudovsky, M. 2014).

They did not wait until a legitimate government were elected on May 25 but were eager to create faits accomplis.

Not only had the members of the "government" been handpicked by the US State Department, but also President Poroshenko, oligarch and close State Depatment affiliate (Collins, M. 2014). The National Guard mostly recruited from Svoboda and the fascist Right Sector, is commanded by the Ministry of Domestic Affairs, and equivalent to the US Department of Homeland Security, and openly displays a symbolic swastika as their emblem, and so does the Azov Battallion. "The American public does not know that their government continues to support neo-nazi groupings with money, arms and training. Nobody in the US knows this because the words neo-nazi, or fascist, in connection with the Ukraine are taboo (Chossudovsky, M. 2014b). Claims have often been made that mercenaries of the firm formerly known as Blackwater operate in the city of Donetsk. Numerous FBI and CIA agents assist the putsch government to combat "criminal elements" in the Eastern parts of the country. The alleged peace plan submitted by Poroshenko was intentionally unacceptable by the pro-Russian side because it demanded their disarmament but not disarmament of the government forces.

„The conflicts in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Syria have one thing in common: In all three cases there are leading groups steering the "opposition" that want absolutely nothing to do with democracy - these groups are as far-right as politics gets: European-style fascism in Ukraine, Islamic extremism in Syria, and in Venezuela the elite-favored tradition of military dictatorships. But there has been a virtual U.S. media blackout as to the leadership of the movements in Ukraine, Syria, and Venezuela, and for good reason; if these groups come to power, the country will be far worse off than it is now. The American public would give zero support to these groups if they knew the truth, which is why the level of U.S. media misinformation about these groups is as Orwellian as the workings of Obama's NSA. (Cooke, S. 2014). A State Department official was quoted saying that the US would "affirm our support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both countries and for all post-Soviet states" (Brunnstorm, D. 2014).

What is this all about? What interests does the US government have in Ukraine? In a process of steady hegemonic decline, the US has deliberately provoked the Ukraine conflict in order to prevent the deeper cooperation between Europe and Russia. Should it succeed it might even open doors to export American fracking gas to Europe. Ukraine could even invent arguments to encourage a direct NATO-Russian confrontation. "As with the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine could then develop into a theme park for the CIA – personally directed by CIA director John Brennan from Kiev, with dozens of special forces of FBI and CIA to build a "security structure" to prosecute all those not in agreement with the February coup" (Pilger, J. 2014). Above all, the sanctions and pinprick policy against Russia is of little cost for the US as it has close to no commercial exchange with Russia – quite contrary to the EU. Their economic decline in consequence of the sanctions is most welcome as it preserves the US hegemonic role for the time being.

In strange uniformity the Western mainstream media have adopted an interpretation of events which ignores Western provocative actions as well as selfish interests of the West, and demonize President Putin and Russia (Smith, P. 2014). Interestingly enough, this goes to a large extent against public opinion as revealed in opinion polls. It is mostly the Western media which foment Cold War sentiments and thus play into the hands of neocon politicians. Most presumably the shooting down of Malaysian flight MH17 and the almost total secrecy in which the US intelligence and the expert investigations are veiled must be seen in this context.

This paper was written for a special edition of FORESIGHT on Who Rules the World? edited by Dennis Morgan, to be published this fall by Emerald

Bernd Hamm is professor emeritus of sociology, University of Trier, now living in Berlin, Germany. His recent publications include Devastating Society – The Neo-conservative Assault on Democracy and Justice (London 2005), Cultural Imperialism – Essays on the Political Economy of Cultural Domination (ed. together with Russell Smandych, Ann Arbor 2005) and Umweltkatastrophen (Environmental Catastrophies, Marburg 2011). He can be reached under [email protected]

[Aug 01, 2014] John Brennan Faces Calls to Resign After CIA Admits to Spying on Senate Torture Probe

Notable quotes:
"... The White House is standing by Brennan, citing President Obama's "great confidence" in his leadership. But at least two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrats Mark Udall of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, are calling for his resignation. ..."
Aug 01, 2014 | Democracy Now!

The White House is standing by Brennan, citing President Obama's "great confidence" in his leadership. But at least two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrats Mark Udall of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, are calling for his resignation.

[May 13, 2014] Michael Wolff Files for Divorce Without Telling His Wife by J.K. Trotter

Notable quotes:
"... Financial Times ..."
Jan 11, 2018 | gawker.com

...media critic and Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff is legally married to Cold Spring lawyer Alison Anthoine, from whom he famously separated in 2009 to pursue a then-28-year-old Vanity Fair intern named Victoria Floethe (pictured above with Wolff).

While it's not clear what happened with Wolff and Floethe -- the pair were photographed at a Financial Times party in 2012 -- the former's marriage remained intact, at least by the courts.

No more.

Tom Scocca · 10/21/13 11:47AM New York policy expert Michael Wolff believes you can take the subway " from Red Hook to Wall Street ." (Also: the Guardian believes "sleaze balls" should be two words.)

[Apr 15, 2014] America's Coup Machine Destroying Democracy Since 1953 by Nicolas J. S. Davies

April 8, 2014 | Alternet

Soon after the 2004 U.S. coup to depose President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, I heard Aristide's lawyer Ira Kurzban speaking in Miami. He began his talk with a riddle: "Why has there never been a coup in Washington D.C.?" The answer: "Because there is no U.S. Embassy in Washington D.C." This introduction was greeted with wild applause by a mostly Haitian-American audience who understood it only too well.

Ukraine's former security chief, Aleksandr Yakimenko, has reported that the coup-plotters who overthrew the elected government in Ukraine, "basically lived in the (U.S.) Embassy. They were there every day." We also know from a leaked Russian intercept that they were in close contact with Ambassador Pyatt and the senior U.S. official in charge of the coup, former Dick Cheney aide Victoria Nuland, officially the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. And we can assume that many of their days in the Embassy were spent in strategy and training sessions with their individual CIA case officers.

To place the coup in Ukraine in historical context, this is at least the 80th time the United States has organized a coup or a failed coup in a foreign country since 1953. That was when President Eisenhower discovered in Iran that the CIA could overthrow elected governments who refused to sacrifice the future of their people to Western commercial and geopolitical interests. Most U.S. coups have led to severe repression, disappearances, extrajudicial executions, torture, corruption, extreme poverty and inequality, and prolonged setbacks for the democratic aspirations of people in the countries affected. The plutocratic and ultra-conservative nature of the forces the U.S. has brought to power in Ukraine make it unlikely to be an exception.

Noam Chomsky calls William Blum's classic, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, "Far and away the best book on the topic." If you're looking for historical context for what you are reading or watching on TV about the coup in Ukraine, Killing Hope will provide it. The title has never been more apt as we watch the hopes of people from all regions of Ukraine being sacrificed on the same altar as those of people in Iran (1953); Guatemala(1954); Thailand (1957); Laos (1958-60); the Congo (1960); Turkey (1960, 1971 & 1980); Ecuador (1961 & 1963); South Vietnam (1963); Brazil (1964); the Dominican Republic (1963); Argentina (1963); Honduras (1963 & 2009); Iraq (1963 & 2003); Bolivia (1964, 1971 & 1980); Indonesia (1965); Ghana (1966); Greece (1967); Panama (1968 & 1989); Cambodia (1970); Chile (1973); Bangladesh (1975); Pakistan (1977); Grenada (1983); Mauritania (1984); Guinea (1984); Burkina Faso (1987); Paraguay (1989); Haiti (1991 & 2004); Russia (1993); Uganda (1996);and Libya (2011). This list does not include a roughly equal number of failed coups, nor coups in Africa and elsewhere in which a U.S. role is suspected but unproven.

The disquieting reality of the world we live in is that American efforts to destroy democracy, even as it pretends to champion it, have left the world less peaceful, less just and less hopeful. When Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, at the height of the genocidal American war on Iraq, he devoted much of his acceptance speech to an analysis of this dichotomy. He: the U.S., "It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis… Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be, but it is also very clever."

The basic framework of U.S. coups has hardly evolved since 1953. The main variables between coups in different places and times have been the scale and openness of the U.S. role and the level of violence used. There is a strong correlation between the extent of U.S. involvement and the level of violence. At one extreme, the U.S. war on Iraq was a form of regime change that involved hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and killed hundreds of thousands of people. On the other hand, the U.S. role in General Suharto's coup in Indonesia in 1965 remained covert even as he killed almost as many people. Only long after the fact didU.S. officials take credit for their role in Suharto's campaign of mass murder, and it will be some time before they brag publicly about their roles in Ukraine.

But as Harold Pinter explained, the U.S. has always preferred "low-intensity conflict" to full-scale invasions and occupations. The CIA and U.S. special forces use proxies and covert operations to overthrow governments and suppress movements that challenge America's insatiable quest for global power. A coup is the climax of such operations, and it is usually only when these "low-intensity" methods fail that a country becomes a target for direct U.S. military aggression. Iraq only became a target for U.S. invasion and occupation after a failed CIA coup in June 1996. The U.S. attacked Panama in 1989 only after five CIA coup attempts failed to remove General Noriega from power. After long careers as CIA agents, both Hussein and Noriega had exceptional knowledge of U.S. operations and methods that enabled them to resist regime change by anything less than overwhelming U.S. military force.

But most U.S. coups follow a model that has hardly changed between 1953 and the latest coup in Ukraine in 2014. This model has three stages:

1) Creating and strengthening opposition forces

In the early stages of a U.S. plan for regime change, there is little difference between the methods used to achieve it at the ballot box or by an anti-constitutional coup. Many of these tools and methods were developed to install right-wing governments in occupied countries in Europe and Asia after World War II. They include forming and funding conservative political parties, student groups, trade unions and media outlets, and running well-oiled propaganda campaigns both in the country being targeted and in regional, international and U.S. media.

Post-WWII Italy is a case in point. At the end of the war, the U.S. used the American Federation of Labor's agents in France and Italy to funnel money through non-communist trade unions to conservative candidates and political parties. But socialists and communists won a plurality of votes in the 1946 election in Italy, and then joined forces to form the Popular Democratic Front for the next election in 1948. The U.S. worked with the Catholic Church, conducted a massive propaganda campaign using Italian-American celebrities like Frank Sinatra, and printed 10 million letters for Italian-Americans to mail to their relatives in Italy. The U.S. threatened a total cut-off of aid to the war-ravaged country, where allied bombing had killed 50,000 civilians and left much of the country in ruins.

The FDP was reduced from a combined 40% of the votes in 1946 to 31% in 1948, leaving Italy in the hands of increasingly corrupt U.S.-backed coalitions led by the Christian Democrats for the next 46 years. Italy was saved from an imaginary communist dictatorship, but more importantly from an independent democratic socialist program committed to workers' rights and to protecting small and medium-sized Italian businesses against competition from U.S. multinationals.

The U.S. employed similar tactics in Chile in the 1960s to prevent the election of Salvador Allende. He came within 3% of winning the presidency in 1958, so the Kennedy administration sent a team of 100 State Department and CIA officers to Chile in what one of them later called a "blatant and almost obscene" effort to subvert the next election in 1964. The CIA provided more than half the Christian Democrats' campaign funds and launched a multimedia propaganda campaign on film, TV, radio, newspapers, posters and flyers. This classic "red scare" campaign, dominated by images of firing squads and Soviet tanks, was designed mainly to terrify women. The CIA produced 20 radio spots per day that were broadcast on at least 45 stations, as well as dozens of fabricated daily "news" broadcasts. Thousands of posters depicted children with hammers and sickles stamped on their foreheads. The Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei defeated Allende by 17%, with a huge majority among women.

But despite the U.S. propaganda campaign, Allende was finally elected in 1970. When he consolidated his position in Congressional elections in 1973 despite a virtual U.S. economic embargo and an ever-escalating destabilization campaign, his fate was sealed, at the hands of the CIA and the U.S.-backed military, led by General Pinochet.

In Ukraine, the U.S. has worked since independence in 1991 to promote pro-Western parties and candidates, climaxing in the "Orange Revolution" in 2004. But the Western-backed governments of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko became just as corrupt and unpopular as previous ones, and former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich was elected President in 2010.

The U.S. employed all its traditional tactics leading up to the coup in 2014. The U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has partially taken over the CIA's role in grooming opposition candidates, parties and political movements, with an annual budget of $100 million to spend in countries around the world. The NED made no secret of targeting Ukraine as a top priority, funding 65 projects there, more than in any other country. The NED's neoconservative president, Carl Gershman, called Ukraine "the biggest prize" in a Washington Post op-ed in September 2013, as the U.S. operation there prepared to move into its next phase.

2) Violent street demonstrations

In November 2013, the European Union presented President Yanukovich with a 1,500 page "free trade agreement," similar to NAFTA or the TPP, but which withheld actual EU membership from Ukraine. The agreement would have opened Ukraine's borders to Western exports and investment without a reciprocal opening of the EU's borders. Ukraine, a major producer of cheese and poultry, would have been allowed to export only 5% of its cheese and 1% of its poultry to the EU. Meanwhile Western firms could have used Ukraine as a gateway to flood Russia with cheap products from Asia. This would have forced Russia to close its borders to Ukraine, shattering the industrial economy of Eastern Ukraine.

Understandably, and for perfectly sound reasons as a Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich rejected the EU agreement. This was the signal for pro-Western and right-wing groups in Kiev to take to the street. In the West, we tend to interpret street demonstrations as representing surges of populism and democracy. But we should distinguish left-wing demonstrations against right-wing governments from the kind of violent right-wing demonstrations that have always been part of U.S. regime change strategy.

In Tehran in 1953, the CIA spent a million dollars to hire gangsters and "extremely competent professional organizers", as the CIA's Kermit Roosevelt called them, to stage increasingly violent demonstrations, until loyal and rebel army units were fighting in the streets of Tehran and at least 300 people were killed. The CIA spent millions more to bribe members of parliament and other influential Iranians. Mossadegh was forced to resign, and the Shah restored Western ownership of the oil industry. BP divided the spoils with American firms, until the Shah was overthrown 26 years later by the Iranian Revolution and the oil industry was re-nationalized. This pattern of short-term success followed by eventual independence from U.S. interests is a common result of CIA coups, most notably in Latin America, where they have led many of our closest neighbors to become increasingly committed to political and economic independence from the United States.

In Haiti in 2004, 200 U.S. special forces trained 600 FRAPH militiamen and other anti-Lavalas forces at a training camp across the border in the Dominican Republic. These forces then invaded northern Haiti and gradually spread violence and chaos across the country to set the stage for the overthrow of President Aristide.

In Ukraine, street protests turned violent in January 2014 as the neo-NaziSvoboda Party and the Right Sector militia took charge of the crowds in the streets. The Right Sector militia only appeared in Ukraine in the past 6 months, although it incorporated existing extreme-right groups and gangs. It is partly funded by Ukrainian exiles in the U.S. and Europe, and may be a creation of the CIA. After Right Sector seized government buildings, parliament outlawed the protests and the police reoccupied part of Independence Square, killing two protesters.

On February 7th, the Russians published an intercepted phone call betweenAssistant Secretary of State Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. The intercept revealed that U.S. officials were preparing to seize the moment for a coup in Ukraine. The transcript reads like a page from a John Le Carre novel: "I think we're in play… we could land jelly-side up on this one if we move fast." Their main concern was to marginalize heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who had become the popular face of the "revolution" and was favored by the European Union, and to ensure that U.S. favorite Arseniy Yatsenyuk ended up in the Prime Minister's office.

On the night of February 17th, Right Sector announced a march from Independence Square to the parliament building on the 18th. This ignited several days of escalating violence in which the death toll rose to 110 people killed, including protesters, government supporters and 16 police officers. More than a thousand people were wounded. Vyacheslav Veremyi, a well-known reporter for a pro-government newspaper, was dragged out of a taxi near Independence Square and shot to death in front of a crowd of onlookers. Right Sector broke into an armory near Lviv and seized military weapons, and there is evidence of both sides using snipers to fire from buildings in Kiev at protesters and police in the streets and the square below. Former security chief Yakimenko believes that snipers firing from the Philharmonic building were U.S.-paid foreign mercenaries, like the snipers from the former Yugoslavia who earn up to $2,000 per day shooting soldiers in Syria.

As violence raged in the streets, the government and opposition parties held emergency meetings and reached two truce agreements, one on the night of February 19th and another on the 21st, brokered by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland. But Right Sector rejected both truces and called for the "people's revolution" to continue until Yanukovich resigned and the government was completely removed from power.

3) The coup d'etat.

The creation and grooming of opposition forces and the spread of violence in the streets are deliberate strategies to create a state of emergency as a pretext for removing an elected or constitutional government and seizing power. Once the coup leaders have been trained and prepared by their CIA case officers, U.S. officials have laid their plans and street violence has broken down law and order and the functioning of state institutions, all that remains is to strike decisively at the right moment to remove the government and install the coup leaders in its place. In Iran, faced with hundreds of people being killed in the streets, Mohammad Mosaddegh resigned to end the bloodshed. In Chile, General Pinochet launched air strikes on the presidential palace. In Haiti in 2004, U.S. forces landed to remove President Aristide and occupy the country.

In Ukraine, Vitaly Klitschko announced that parliament would open impeachment proceedings against Yanukovich, but, later that day, lacking the 338 votes required for impeachment, a smaller number of members simply approved a declaration that Yanukovich "withdrew from his duties in an unconstitutional manner," and appointed Oleksandr Turchynov of the opposition Fatherland Party as Acting President. Right Sector seized control of government buildings and patrolled the streets. Yanukovich refused to resign, calling this an illegal coup d'etat. The coup leaders vowed to prosecute him for the deaths of protesters, but he escaped to Russia. Arseniy Yatsenyuk was appointed Prime Minister on February 27th, exactly as Nuland and Pyatt had planned.

The main thing that distinguishes the U.S. coup in Ukraine from the majority of previous U.S. coups was the minimal role played by the Ukrainian military. Since 1953, most U.S. coups have involved using local senior military officers to deliver the final blow to remove the elected or ruling leader. The officers have then been rewarded with presidencies, dictatorships or other senior positions in new U.S.-backed regimes. The U.S. military cultivates military-to-military relationships to identify and groom future coup leaders, and President Obama's expansion of U.S. special forces operations to 134 countries around the world suggests that this process is ongoing and expanding, not contracting.

But the neutral or pro-Russian position of the Ukrainian military since it was separated from the Soviet Red Army in 1991 made it an impractical tool for an anti-Russian coup. So Nuland and Pyatt's signal innovation in Ukraine was to use the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and Right Sector as a strike force to unleash escalating violence and seize power. This also required managing Svoboda and Right Sector's uneasy alliance with Fatherland and UDAR, the two pro-Western opposition parties who won 40% between them in the 2012 parliamentary election.

Historically, about half of all U.S. coups have failed, and success is never guaranteed. But few Americans have ended up dead or destitute in the wake of a failed coup. It is always the people of the target country who pay the price in violence, chaos, poverty and instability, while U.S. coup leaders like Nuland and Pyatt often get a second - or 3rd or 4th or 5th - bite at the apple, and will keep rising through the ranks of the State Department and the CIA. Direct U.S. military intervention in Ukraine was not an option before the coup, but now the coup itself may destabilize the country and plunge it into economic collapse, regional disintegration or conflict with Russia, creating new and unpredictable conditions in which NATO intervention could become feasible.

Russia has proposed a reasonable solution to the crisis. To resolve the tensions between Eastern and Western Ukraine over their respective political and economic links with Russia and the West, the Russians have proposed a federal system in which both Eastern and Western Ukraine would have much greater autonomy. This would be more stable that the present system in which each tries to dominate the other with the support of their external allies, turning Ukraine and all its people into pawns of Western-NATO expansion and Russia's efforts to limit it. The Russian proposal includes a binding commitment that Ukraine would remain neutral and not join NATO. A few weeks ago, Obama and Kerry seemed to be ready to take this off-ramp from the crisis. The delay in agreeing to Russia's seemingly reasonable proposal may be only an effort to save face, or it may mean that theneocons who engineered the coupare still dictating policy in Washington and that Obama and Kerry may be ready to risk a further escalation of the crisis.

The U.S. coup machine has also been at work in Venezuela, where it already failed once in 2002. Raul Capote, a former Cuban double agent who worked with the CIA in Cuba and Venezuela, recently described its long-term project to build right-wing opposition movements among upper- and middle-class students in Venezuelan universities, which are now bearing fruit in increasingly violent street protests and vISISantism. Thirty-six people have been killed, including six police officers and at least 5 opposition protesters. The protests began exactly a month after municipal elections in December, in which the government won the popular vote by almost 10%, far more than the 1.5% margin in the presidential election last April. As in Chile in 1973, electoral success by an elected government is often the cue for the CIA to step up its efforts, moving beyond propaganda and right-wing politics to violence in the streets, and the popularity of the Venezuelan government seems to have provoked precisely that reaction.

Another feature of U.S. coups is the role of the Western media in publicizing official cover stories and suppressing factual journalism. This role has also been consistent since 1953, but it has evolved as corporate media have consolidated their monopoly power. By their very nature, coups are secret operations and U.S. media are prohibited from revealing "national security" secrets about them, such as the names of CIA officers involved. By only reporting official cover stories, they become unwitting co conspirators in the critical propaganda component of these operations. But the U.S. corporate media have turned vice into virtue, relishing their role in the demonization of America's chosen enemies and cheerleading U.S. efforts to do them in. They brush U.S. responsibility for violence and chaos under the carpet, and sympathetically present U.S. policy as a well-meaning effort to respond to the irrational and dangerous behavior of others.

This is far more than is required by strict observance of secrecy laws, and it reveals a great deal about the nature of the media environment we live in. The Western media as it exists today under near-monopoly corporate ownership is a more sophisticated and total propaganda system than early 20th century propagandists ever dreamed of. As media corporations profit from Western geopolitical and commercial expansion, the propaganda function that supports that expansion is an integrated part of their business model, not something exceptional they do under duress from the state. But to expect factual journalism about U.S. coups from such firms is to misunderstand who and what they are.

Recent studies have found that people gain a better grasp of current affairs from John Stewart's Daily Show on Comedy Central than from watching "news" networks. People who watch no "news" at all have more knowledge of international affairs than people who watch MSNBC or Fox News. A previous survey conducted 3 months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq found that 52% of Americans believed that U.S. forces in Iraq had found clear evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Among Republicans who:ey were following "news on Iraq very closely", the figure was 78%, compared with only 68% among Republicans at large.

If the role of the corporate media was to provide factual journalism, these studies would be a terrible indictment of their performance. But once we acknowledge their actual role as the propaganda arm of an expansionist political and economic system, then we can understand that promoting the myths and misinformation that sustain it are a central part of what they do. In that light, they are doing a brilliant job on Ukraine as they did on Iraq, suppressing any mention of the U.S. role in the coup and pivoting swiftly away from the unfolding crisis in post-coup Ukraine to focus entirely on attacking President Putin for reclaiming Crimea. On the other hand, if you're looking for factual journalism about the U.S. coup machine, you should probably turn off your TV and keep reading reliable sources like Consortium News and Venezuela Analysis.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He wrote the chapter on "Obama At War" for the book, Grading the 44th President: A Report Card on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader.

[Apr 02, 2014] Coup in Western Ukraine the Arab Spring unleashed in Europe by Andrew Korybko

January 27, 2014 | Oriental Review

Ukraine's "peaceful pro-European" protesters leave a burnt land behind. Photo of a burnt police bus taken by S.Morgunov at the Euromaidan in Kyiv on January 20, 2014

Rioters have seized the administration building in Lvov and forced the governor to resign. It is not known who is currently in power in this region, but a puppet government formed by 'opposition forces' may soon be set up. Demands for 'autonomy', or quite possibly, explicit separatist flirtations, may give Klitschko and his thugs added bargaining power to use against the democratically elected government during 'negotiations'. It is likely that even more extremist activity will occur, led by Klischko, as he proclaimed on 22 January that, "If I have to go (on to the streets) under bullets, I shall go there under bullets." Batkivshchyna Party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk seconded this provocative threat to delve Ukraine into de-facto civil warfare, as he similarly stated on 22 January that "Tomorrow [23 January] we will go forward together. And if it's a bullet in the forehead, then it's a bullet in the forehead, but in an honest, fair and brave way."

It is evident now that both men kept their threats in encouraging their respective militias to unleash carnage within the country. As with the Arab Spring events, these provocateurs are fiending for 'some of their own' to be killed by government forces seeking to re-establish control over anarchic areas. A full-fledged military or Berkut response by Yanukovich is exactly what Klitschko and Yatsenyuk want. For them, the more dead 'protesters', the better. It should be kept in mind that 1980s Poland was placed under martial law for much less violent disturbances than what we are witnessing in Ukraine at the moment.

The authorities now have to make a tough decision over whether to try to restore order to the restive region or to attempt to regain control over the capital. The situation is extremely grave, and it is now obvious that this hybrid Color Revolution/Arab Spring frankenstein is schizophrenically taking on more characteristics of the latter (not that any is good, for that matter). The Libyan method has apparently been 'perfected' to the point where outside actors feel comfortable deploying this Pandora's Box inside of Europe itself.

It is clear that ever since the 'Bulldozer Revolution' in Serbia over a decade ago, the Color Revolution template has evolved into the Arab Spring, and now the two have morphed into EuroMaidan, a new type of warfare for our century. Because of the ease of NGO infiltration of targeted nations in today's globalized world, as well as the synchronized terrorist and weapons-trafficking rings under the strong influence of various intelligence organizations, the threat of this 'social' weapon/virus being deployed in more and more countries has never been higher. It should be seen as no coincidence that 3,000 Middle Eastern terrorists were planned to be relocated to Romania, possibly for use in militantly training certain elements of the Ukrainian 'opposition'. This demonstrates that the outside powers are intent on digging in for the long-run and unleashing as much destabilization as possible. Ukraine's "peaceful pro-European" protesters leave a burnt land behind. Photo of a burnt police bus taken by S.Morgunov at the Euromaidan on January 20, 2014

Gene Sharp is the mastermind of the seemingly innocuous strategies that serve as a prelude and 'dog whistle' to this viral outbreak, and George Soros is the financier. Nations need to work together to repel this leprosy and protect themselves, their citizens, and global stability. The movement of Arab Spring-like warfare to Europe shows the confidence that the coordinators have in using this weapon anywhere they please. Today, Ukraine - Tomorrow, any other subjectively defined 'non-Western non-Liberal-Democratic' state.

Ukraine has long been the focus of Western meddling as part of a larger geostrategic game aimed at countering Russia. Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in 1994 that "it cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire." A little over a year ago, the US implis economic integrationist efforts. After describing Russia's Eurasian Union plans as "a move to re-Sovietize the region", she proceeded to threaten that "we know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it."

Undoubtedly, the world is now witnessing what the US had in mind when it threatened to "slow down" and "prevent" economic cooperation between Ukraine and Russia. With Ukrainian stability cracking under the pressure of continued chaos and the economy on the brink of near-total collapse, the lie of EuroMaidan's 'pro-EU integrationist' goals have been revealed. Either the EU will in no way accept a future failed-state Ukraine, licking its wounds from prolonged civil strife, to enter into the organization, or it, in coordination with its NATO overseers, had it planned all along to collapse the country and profitably rebuild it under the aegis of the West. Either way, the fabled 'path to Europe' has been exposed as the sham that it is, and absolutely nothing of positive value can come to the average citizen from what the militant participants have done to their country in the name of 'Euro-integration'.

The much-publicized talks of a 'ceasefire' are nothing more than an attempt for the saboteurs to buy time and continue overthrowing as many regional governments (in Western Ukraine) as possible. They are unfortunately as much of a sham as the Geneva II talks, as both 'opposition' groups want nothing more than regime change, and will stop at nothing to achieve this. Every action, every word, is no more than a deception to trick, disarm, and pacify any resistance to them so that they can inch ever more closely towards their directed-from-abroad nationwide coups.

[Apr 02, 2014] Poland as the 'Slavic Turkey' of NATO Destabilization by Andrew Korybko

Oriental Review

Poland, the eager American servant that it has been, has now officially taken on the role of the 'Slavic Turkey' in relation to Ukraine. Just as Turkey has been a geopolitically convenient conduit for arms, personnel, and material support for the Syrian terrorists, so too has Poland begun to officially fulfill this role for their Ukrainian counterparts.

Prime Minister Tusk stated on 20 February, 2014 that Poland is already treating the injured insurgents from Kiev, and has actually ordered the military and interior ministry to provide hospitals to help even more [1]. The deputy health minister has confirmed that Warsaw is in contact with the rebels in Kiev "in making plans to take in Ukrainian wounded". This means that Poland has formally extended its covert and diplomatic reach nearly 300 miles into the interior of Ukraine, and that its intelligence services are obviously doing more in Ukraine than just 'helping the wounded' (terrorists). It is even more likely that Polish influence is even stronger in Lviv and Volyn Oblasts, the regions bordering Poland, and coincidentally or not, Lviv has already attempted to declare independence. The same can be: Turkish influence deep into Syria at the height of the crisis in that country, and one must be reminded of the fact that Turkey also helped the wounded fighters in that country recover on its territory.

The structural similarities between Poland and Turkey in relation to Ukraine and Syria need to be examined in order to more clearly understand how the 'Lead from Behind' template has been applied to both case studies.

First of all, the 'Lead from Behind' strategy has been defined as "discreet U.S. military assistance with [others] doing the trumpeting". It is the new strategy of warfare for theaters where the US, for whatever reasons, is reluctant to directly militarily engage itself. It relies on using regional allies/'leaders' as proxies to further US geostrategic and geopolitical goals via asymmetrical measures while Washington pivots to Asia, where it aims to present a conventional deterrent to China. Both Poland and Turkey are the US' puppets of choice in their respective theaters against their neighboring targeted states (Ukraine and Syria). At the least, the US provides intelligence support and the training of 'opposition' units, while Poland and Turkey pull the weight in directly assisting those members during their deployments in the victimized nations. In the case of Ukraine, the US utilized NGOs to infiltrate the country over a more than 10-year period and also allocated $5 billion to "help Ukraine achieve [the development of democratic institutions]". The National Endowment for Democracy has also been pivotal in peddling the 'Kony 2012 of Ukraine' in order to advance their psy-op campaign against Kiev, just as 'Syrian Danny' was the version deployed against Damascus.

But the similarities do not end there.

Both Poland and Turkey are frontier NATO states, with Poland being described as "the largest and most important NATO frontline state in terms of military, political and economic power." These two geostrategic states also have an overwhelming population when compared to their neighbors, as well as national inferiority complexes stemming from their lost imperial legacies (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire). They share a significant land border with the states targeted for a 'democratic transition', as well as important cultural and political connections with those societies (as a result of the aforementioned imperial legacies) prior to the unleashing of the respective crises. This gives them significant intangible benefits over the future battlefield, both in state, non-state, and informational activities.

Poland and Turkey also host important American military installations. Turkey houses the US Air Force at Incirlik and an anti-missile defense radar in the east, while Poland provides the US with the Lask Air Force Base and an anti-missile defense outpost in the northeast near Kaliningrad. In regards to the development of the insurgents' mission, the Ukrainian Fascists are taking on disturbingly similar characteristics to the Jihadists in Syria. In 2011, random sniper fire (attributed to the 'rebels') was targeting civilians in Damascus, just as the same has begun to occur in Kiev, even targeting a reporter from RT. The Lviv request for independence can be seen as following the declaration of autonomy of Syria's Kurds, as both areas abut the border of the proxy state interfering in the affairs of its neighbor. In a similar fashion, both insurgent groups have taken over border control posts connected to their patron state, and this move obviously increases the ease with which Ankara and Warsaw can funnel arms, personnel, and materials to their subversive spawn. When the borders cannot be held by the insurgents, they resort to ransacking government depots and stealing arms from captured government forces and occupied buildings [2]. The Syrian fighters have a history of hostage taking and brutal executions, and their Ukrainian comrades have followed their lead by capturing over 60 police officers in Kiev.

It has thus clearly been demonstratively shown via the aforementioned examples that the destabilizations of both Ukraine and Syria are modelled off of a patterned approach. The US utilizes proxy states with injured imperial legacies in order to advance its 'Lead from Behind' strategy, targeting pivotal geostrategic areas where the US prefers to maintain a plausible deniability over its role and is reluctant to get too directly involved. One can also discern a larger trend developing – the use of extreme macro-regional ideological movements to support long-term destabilization. In the Middle East, extreme Islam is the method of choice for application and export, whereas in Ukraine, it is increasingly appearing as though extreme far-right (in some applications, even Neo-Nazi) group fit the 'Wahhabi role' for Europe. Ukraine could quite possibly become a training ground for other European far-right militants, or the ones currently in Ukraine can go on to teach the 'tools of their trade' to the highest bidder in other European states. Just as Turkey is supporting the extreme Islamists in Syria via its support for the fighters there, Poland can be: be flirting with extreme far-right nationalists in Ukraine through its statements of support for the violent opposition and its recent decision to evacuate and help the wounded insurgents (not even counting the unreported level of covert involvement already ongoing). And just as the extreme Islamists got out of the control of their handlers and now endanger the entire Middle East, the risk remains that the extreme far-right nationalists may become uncontrollable in Ukraine as well and come to endanger the entire EU. When comparing Poland to Turkey and Ukraine to Syria, it is proven that the Arab Spring has come to Europe in more ways than meet the eye.

[Mar 08, 2014] Regime Change Blueprint The NED At Work

Mar 6, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a Washington D.C-based quasi-governmental organization funded by the U.S. which boasts that it is "supporting freedom around the world."[1]

Alan Weinstein, one of the founders of the NED, explained in 1991:

A lot of what we [NED] do was done 25 years ago covertly by the CIA [2]

Most of the NED, and its affiliated organizations, deals with influencing political processes abroad. The means employed range from influencing civil society, media, fostering business groups, lending support to preferred politicians/political parties, election monitoring, and fostering human rights groups.

It's right there in the organizations own statements:

The National Endowment for Democracy was set up by President Ronald Regan in the 1980s, and it employed an assortment of organizations across the political spectrum including the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to help funnel US tax dollars to overseas groups working to develop democracy in their respective countries. In the 1980s, especially in Poland, the NED had proved an effective tool in loosening and weakening Soviet power by supporting Polish dissidents.

The NED was the chief pillar of a plan by then President Clinton to get rid of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. The plan, developed by the CIA, was intricate and comprehensive. Basically, it was to work through the NED's two subordinate wings, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) as well as the Center for International Private Enterprise, an offshoot of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The IRI would focus on dissident students while the NDI would work closely with different opposition parties. The State department and the U.S. Agency for International Development would play the leading role in channeling funds through commercial contracts and nonprofit groups. Under the authority AID, other money would be funneled to opposition groups and the mayor of opposition cities.

Because of their freedom of travel and their ability to move in closed off areas, the CIA recruited the staff of the NGOs, mainly relief agencies and human rights groups, which produced a great deal of useful intelligence. According to one former CIA official, such recruitment was done very selectively. "We didn't want the organization discredited or people killed nor could they be seen as foreign vassals,":former official of the agency's Directorate of Operations. Another agency official:There was a lot of reluctance in this area."

The proposed coup against Milosevic had to be "very tightly controlled from the beginning, middle and end. You had to support one group against another group; you helped people who were going to help you," one said.

So the Clinton plan was to use covert/overt, insider/outsider elements simultaneously, which meant employing NGOs in coordination with sophisticated espionage.:e former senior agency official, who was closely involved, "We planned to do to Milosevic what he'd done to us. We went in to create trouble spots, support dissidents, circulate subversive literature, beam in anti-Milosevic broadcasts, and neutralize his army and security forces. Solidarity was the model."

The agency plan had several general goals; first the program should be a region-wide effort, making use of a Central European network of banks, corporations, political, and social organizations to fund coup assets plus use the intelligence services of Austria, Germany, Albania, Italy, and even Greece, for recruitment and penetration. All of these nations had their own excellent collection networks inside Serbia. The plan was also to develop useful and valuable sources inside Milosevic's circle.

A big part of the Clinton plan was to have the president appeal directly to Serbia's people. Clinton saw them as an irreplaceable ally. He wanted to forge a direct bond with them by speaking past the Milosevic government. U.S. support could not win them their freedom; that was their task, and backing Slobodan was not in their best interest. This took place before huge public demonstrations. Since Milosevic controlled the media, the U.S. would counter with radio and TV broadcasts whose theme would be Slobodan's decay. The broadcasts would also contain phrase of code to agents on the ground, much like the French resistance in WWII. The NGO's would smuggle in tons of printed materials and organize "a get out the vote" campaign.

"You had to be very careful; you had to look at every facet, every aspect,":US intelligence officer who was involved.

Such operations in the Balkan were usually run out of the CIA's European Division in Frankfurt, Germany, but this time it would the CIA's Central Eurasian Division at Langley who would look to it. Key support points would be U.S. Embassies in Austria, Hungary, Kosovo, Croatia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania. Support would also come from the major German political parties, all of which had "action arms" that would contribute resources. Vienna would be the major focus of intelligence collection efforts. In Vienna, intelligence poured in like "water through an open sluice," a former participant:ustrian military intelligence had given America details of Milosevic's "Operation Horseshoe," a major Serb military plan, which would force 800,000 Kosovars into rootless exile. Austria and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe entirely wired. "Vienna's information was amazing, and so was Germany's,":participant in the operation.

Another resource was the 30,000-40,000 Serbs living in Austria. Serbia had established the military draft, and the CIA had many walk-in Serbs who gave it detailed assessments of troops, list of security and police officials and other valuable information. Other Serb deserters went by ratlines to Germany where they were debriefed at Westport, a former US military base turned intelligence center. Many Serbs returned to Belgrade to continue to report.

Milosevic was constantly passing draconian new laws to root out dissidents and make war on his own students, and the CIA, having learned from the attempts by the Soviets who tried to decapitate Polish union, Solidarity, using mass arrests, the Serbian rebel students, whose outfit was called Otpor, set up a brilliant horizontal structure exactly the opposite of Milosevic's central structure. Otpor was made up of small cells, and to escape capture, its members constantly shifted to a complicated network of safe houses. Operations were launched from these. A safe house used signals such as a raised blind or a closed window or a raised flag on a mailbox to indicate that all was well.

In addition, the CIA, through NGO's, supplied the rebel Serbian students with thousands of cell phones, radio transmitters, and fax machines. Calls and e-mails went out through servers outside Serbia to escape Belgrade's magpie scrutiny. Otpor was also supplied with printing equipment and supplies, and the publications and leaflets began to have an impact.

But the most urgent priority had been to establish a money conduit to fund Otpor and other Serbian defectors in place. Much of the money was cash gathered in Hungary and smuggled in suitcases over the border into Serbia., preferably U.S. dollars or German deutsche marks that were widely used in Serbia and had a higher value than the worthless Serb dinar. To avoid detection, the money trail moved constantly. Very early Otpor received money to a tune of $3 million from NED. The money was transferred to accounts outside of Serbia, mainly in Hungary and Austria. Since Milosevic had nationalized the Serb banks, a lot more money came over the Serb border in suitcases from Hungary. The NED would not know where the money was going, and would receive a receipt signed by a dissident as to how the funds were used. For example, money going to underground publications would be acknowledged by a secret code on one of the pages.

Using its covert monies, the students began to buy t-shirts, stickers, leaflets that bore its emblem of a clenched fist. Soon the clenched fist of Otpor appeared on walls, postal boxes, cars, the sides of trucks and statues. The students painted red footsteps on the ground to symbolize Milosevic's bloody exit from parliament and passersby found thrust into their hands cardboard telescopes that described a falling star called "Slobotea." They also used public relations techniques including polling leafleting and paid advertising. As days went on recruitment was expanded and new assets acquired and in cities like Banja Luka in northern Bosnia in Pristina in Kosovo, and in the provincial cities of Serbia, activity was mounting to a climax All the beatings of crowds, the disbanding of political parties, the fixing of the 1997 elections, the dismissal of honest Serb officials, the snubbing, the humiliating defeats, the arrogant indifference of Milosevic had been piling up, generating a pent-up violence that was going to be discharged in one shattering explosion of revolt.

The money trail expanded. Regarding the funding of certain persons or groups, the agency took pains to use false flag recruitments – acting through intermediaries to get new agents while the CIA pretended that its own agents came from other countries. Clinton did not want the opposition derided as U.S. lackeys. A participant: me, "I don't think a lot of our assets had a sense of working for the U.S. government. It's a grey area letting them know where their monies are coming from." In the end, they got over $70 million.

Communications gear came next. The dissidents had to be supplied advanced CIA equipment such as Inmarsat scrambler phones to organize a command, control and intelligence, (C3I) network so they could remain underground and stay a step ahead of capture. Training for specific opposition leaders and key individuals was given U.S. assets within Serbia whose purpose was to serve as the eyes and ears for key dissident as well as to provide funds and security.

By now Otpor had developed a crisis committee to coordinate resistance that enabled networks from different regions to keep in close touch. All branches of U.S. intelligence were going to provide an early warning system for the students. The NSA and the CIA Special Collections Elements in neighboring countries had hacked into Slobodan's key security bureaucracies and were reading Ministry of Internal Affairs' orders for police raids against the demonstrators. This intelligence was passed to the dissidents who gave advance alerts to Otpor cells which allowed them to disperse and avoid arrest. By now the student group even had a committee to deal with administrative tasks such as lining up new safe houses, cars, fake IDs. As the campaign to dethrone Milosevic went on, the money and activities grew more and more quickly with more than $30 million from the U.S. alone.

There were now seventy thousand Otpor students in 130 groups with twelve regional offices, and the Otpor leaders had been schooled in non-violent techniques designed to undermine dictatorial authority. They were using a handbook, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation," written by Gene Sharp. Chapters were copied and handed from cell to cell throughout the country. He: an interview that his non-violent method "is not ethical. It is not pacifism. It is based on an analysis of power in dictatorship and how to break it by withdrawing the obedience of its citizens and the key institutions of society."

In the meantime, the United States and Britain and others were seeing to it that Serbia felt more and more encircled. Covert operations continued and gained momentum as meetings were held in Szeged in Hungary, in Croatia, in Ulm, Germany, and in Montenegro. In addition to Hungary, the U.S Embassies in Bulgaria and Romania were involved as well. The Clinton presidency was now involved in establishing a new, anti-Milosevic elite in Serbia.

In the end, of course, Milosevic fell from power in 2000. In Clinton's view, the huge debts of blood Milosevic had run up during his campaigns of aggressive war, massacre, rape and plunder had to be paid in full. Milosevic had already been indicted as a war criminal before the Dayton talks, and after he returned to his fortified house in 2001, the new President George W. Bush carried out the Clinton plan to carry out a plan established by the CIA, the U.S. Army and U.S. Special Forces. In the end, Bush sent in SEAL Team Six, acting on a plan set up in the headquarters of EuroCom, the U.S. Army in Stuttgart, to capture Slobodan and send him to The Hague. That story should be told, but not here.

Milosevic was a truly evil, heartless, merciless man. His greed for power was unbounded and his reign was one of predatory massacres, institutional corruption, abuse, exploitation.

By the time of the Dayton talks, after nearly four years, there were 250,000 killed, two million refugees, and there had been atrocities that had appalled the word. In interview a UN woman who was the first US official to get new of the Srebrenica massacre when a man with a bullet graze, appeared to tell her his story, resulting in an urgent telegram to the State Department.

But talking recently to former CIA and other intelligence officials, they see nothing in the Ukraine that provides any reasonable pretext to whip up ignorant mobs there who talk democracy but who behave like thugs. A former deputy chief of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, once a backer of NED, now sees it with distrust, its ambitions "too imperial," manifesting the U.S. obsession with meddling with other countries internal affairs. Remember what Sharp: his program, ""is not ethical. It is not pacifism. It is based on an analysis of power in dictatorship and how to break it by withdrawing the obedience of its citizens and the key institutions of society."

Were such methods required in the case of the Ukraine? You tell me.

Reprinted with permission from Sic Semper Tyrannis.

[Feb 08, 2014] Propaganda action plan in support of military forces (D-day until the fall of the Castro regime)

gwu.edu

Declassified Mar 22, 2000

The objectives of the propaganda action phase will be to assist military and political action developments; such as,

Strategically:

Tactically

[Feb 08, 2014] The ULTRASENSITIVE Bay of Pigs

Looks like methods of Jene Sharp are derivatives of methods long known and used by CIA.
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2000 – Shortly after the CIA's botched paramilitary invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, President John F. Kennedy established a commission to investigate the failure and to consider whether the United States should conduct similar covert operations in the future. The commission -- chaired by General Maxwell Taylor, but also including the president's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Admiral Arleigh Burke and DCI Allen Dulles -- produced a highly critical series of narratives and memoranda, concluding, in part, that "the impossibility of running Zapata as a covert operation under CIA should have been recognized" as early as November 1960, five months before the invasion.

Long the focus of declassification efforts, highly excised portions of the Taylor Commission's report were first released in 1977 and again in 1986, while the original remained tucked away in the coffers of the JFK Presidential Library. In 1996, the document was again up for review, this time in response to a request from the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, but declassification required the concurrence of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council, the State Department and the National Security Agency, each of which was to review the document for sensitivity. More than three years passed. It was not until December 1999 that the National Security Archive learned the reason for the hold-up: The Pentagon had simply lost the report. The Archive immediately requested the document under Mandatory Declassification Review, and the multi-agency declassification process, normally subject to a long, grinding backlog, began anew.

This time, thanks to the expeditious efforts of officials at the National Archives and Records Administration, the report was declassified in less than four months, an astonishing achievement for a process that under normal circumstances requires years of patience. The National Security Archive can remember no other case where the concurrence of multiple agencies -- illustrated by the dates of the "Declass" stamps adorning the cover pages of each document -- was gathered so quickly.

The release of the Taylor Report follows the long-awaited declassification of the CIA's own scathing evaluation of the invasion, a report prepared in October 1961 by Lyman Kirkpatrick, the CIA's Inspector General, and called by Newsweek reporter Evan Thomas, "The most brutally frank and honest government document ever written." Kirkpatrick's report was released to the National Security Archive in February 1998. Appended to the IG Report is a point-by-point rebuttal from Richard Bissell, the operation's chief architect. These and other associated documents, including interviews with key CIA managers of the Bay of Pigs operation, have been published in Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba, now available from The New Press.

While the full report of the Taylor Commission is too long to reproduce here, this Electronic Briefing Book provides excerpted passages from eight key documents, substantial portions of which were previously unavailable in the censored versions of the report released in 1977 and 1986. The appended graphic, compiled by Catherine Nielsen, summarizes the two major previous releases of the Taylor Report, published in Operation Zapata (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981) and in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume X, Cuba, 1961-1962 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1997), and compares their content with the newly declassified version. Other releases of parts of these materials have occurred elsewhere. Researchers are encouraged to refer to these sources for the rest of the report, which is also available at the National Archives and Records Administration facility in College Park, Maryland. We owe special thanks to the staff of the JFK Library for assisting researchers in identifying key passages that were previously classified.


THE DOCUMENTS

Document 1: Propaganda Action Plan in Support of Military Forces, Undated

Document 2: Chart of Command Organization for Operations

Document 3: Memorandum for Record, Paramilitary Study Group Meeting at the Pentagon, Ninth Meeting, 3 May 1961 [Excerpt]

Document 4: After Action Report on OPERATION PLUTO, 4 May 1961 [Excerpt]

Document 5: Memorandum for Record, Paramilitary Study Group Meeting at the Pentagon, Twelfth Meeting, 8 May 1961 [Excerpt]

Document 6: Memorandum for Record, Paramilitary Study Group Meeting at the Pentagon, Fourteenth Meeting, 11 May 1961 [Excerpt]

Document 7: Memorandum for Record, Paramilitary Study Group Meeting at the Pentagon, Nineteenth Meeting, 22 May 1961 [Excerpt]

Document 8: Mr. Phillips [Interview of David Atlee Phillips] [Excerpt], Undated

[Jan 29, 2014] The entire fight is one for legitimacy...

The Kremlin Stooge

teo:

I have been reading your posts with great interest for some time. Very interesting analysis and a great reading. Now I think I have something to add.

I do not believe that Yanukovich is either weak or stupid.

The entire fight is one for legitimacy. Opposition and their Western backer intended /intend to paint him as a murderous dictator killing his own people. It is a well tested approach, media knows the story by hard having told and retold it countless times.

What the government had to do was just give them enough rope so that they could hang themselves.

This means in practice:

1. Be as peaceful as possible. Neo nazi interpret this as weakness. They smell blood.

2. Try to harm them as little as possible. Police will be hurt inevitably. Some of them might be burned alive – didn't happen until now.

3. Seeing that they can burn and crack heads with impunity, the shock troops of the revolution ( can insert NATO ) get very bold and empowered. Large wave of violence is predictable.

4. President continues to beg for peace and restoration of public order. He is refused and attacks continue. It might seem that the brave extremist's commandoes are taking over the country.

5. But…. the power structures are intact. Repression forces are itching for a fight. They have been burned and beaten for some time now. Hospitals are full of their comrades. And majority of the people gets sick of seeing the punks playing civil war on their streets.

6. What follows next is easy to predict.

What I wrote above happened in almost the same form in 1941 in Romania. Extreme right party tried to take over the country by the same means as we see today..

Their main opponent , general Antonescu let them take over government buildings, newspapers etc , cried for a peaceful solution. He even called them my children, pls pls do not be violent. :):) Brave neo nazis sensed blood. So they burned and killed.

Even managed to burn some soldiers alive.

But their behavior only scared people and made the repression forces – army in that case – hate them like poison. They got crushed in a few hours when Antonescu felt the right moment.

They went so far that Hitler himself approved their destruction.

The Ukrainian case is not so extreme. Level of violence is significantly lower for now. US has not approved the repression of their local stooges.

So a moderate level of repression is to be expected. Of course from Yanukovich's point of view there is no hurry. The longer it drags the more embolden the shock troops from the streets will feel. The more empowered. So they might try to punish their enemies. Might even succeed in burning alive some Berkut operator.

Government is in no danger. The chances that the police officers might side with the goons trying to burn them alive is exactly zero. And cleaning the streets would be a very easy operation taking only a few hours.

So there is no hurry to chase the far right rebels from the streets. The entire fight is one of perceptions. Branding yourselves as mindless thugs hell bent on destruction and oblivious to the voice of reason does not help ones cause. Why would an enemy stop you prematurely when you do such a good job scaring people and delegitimizing yourself?

His only logical line of action is to help you. Prevent police from intervening. Cry and beg for peace and a stop to violence in order to embolden the aggressors. And so on and on….until moment when even such a kind and peaceful man is forced to take actions.

I do not know how strong are Yanukovich's nerves. This is a unique opportunity. The best idea for him would be to let the neo nazi bring the country to the brink of collapse and civil war.

Better that everyone sees them for real before they take the levers of power.

I do not know if his nerves will hold but from what we have seen until now it seems he can do it.

[Jan 27, 2014] David Kramer, the President of Freedom House: for Yanukovych's is high time to make the right decition and resign

The key strategist and financier of a new color revolution in Ukraine view on events... Slightly edited Google translation.
Jan 27, 2014 | Ukrainian Pravda

David Kremer was in the past Undersecretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Human Rights, he also worked in State Department in Europe and Eurasia. As a member of the Bush team, his views are more radical than in the current US administration. But his proposals sooner or later finds their way into steps of the current US administration. Kramer was the first to call for sanctions on December 3, the last year - and approximatly a month later, US administration announced the first restrictions for Ukrainian officials.

In addition to thse activities, the organization led by Kremer prepares an annual report on freedom around the world, to which the U.S. authorities refer in public justification of policy steps toward the "problem" countries.

In an interview with "Ukrainian Pravda" David Kramer predicts that further steps will be taken by the U.S. authorities against Yanukovych - and gives advice on whom Washington ahouls concentrate its pressure as soon as possible.\

Q: Mr. Kramer, how President Yanukovychas is now perceived in Washington ?

A: Yanukovych looks very bad due to latest events. He looked bad when he decided to stop the process of the EU integration, he looked bad when it was first used force on November 30, and then on December 9. He looked bad throughout all past months.

Now it starts to look like a leader, who will do everything to stay in power. The use of force against protesters is unacceptable. And when the West is saying that something is unacceptable, that we do not accept it, we have to do something about it.

I think that Yanukovych lost the confidence of the West, and any possibility of signing the association agreement with the European Union lost. Now the question is whether Yanukovych is able to conduct a dialogue for the peaceful resolution of the conflict - or pressure should be applied to those around him to try to remove him from power.

To remove peacefully, without coup detat. I tend to think that the attempts to negotiate the settlement will not work, no matter how much I want them to happen. I think that too much blood has been spilled, too much violence occurred. So the question on the agenda is how to put pressure on its close cicle.

Q: Not to him personally ?

A: To him as well. But I would start with the people around him and who are very close to him: his family. And then just increase the pressure from that point.

Q: Did he reached the point of no return ?

A: I think so.

Q: What does this mean?

A: In 2010, Yanukovych won legitimately, in election which were considered by most observers, including me, democratic. I was there during the two rounds of elections. But to win a legitimate election - it does not guarantee legitimacy fo the rest of the life! I would say that today Yanukovych lost legitimacy due to his behavior.

From the early event in Ukraine my organization was for his resignation and early presidential elections, but not for his overthrow and not for forceful removal of him from power by protesters or by military or anyone else.

For him it's time to draw the correct conclusions: admit that he ruined his own legitimacy and now is the time to resign. He created this reality by himselve, not that somebody else created it for him.

The West should apply pressure on him - and those around him - so that it became clear to him and his close cicle that human rights violations, violence against protestors entail consequences. If we do not do that - the situation will only became worse.

Q: What is the future for Yanukovych?

A: I still think the best option for him is to resign, allowing to run for another term in the new elections if he wants to. Let the voters to decide whether they want him back in office. But we can not pretend that nothing happened. We can not wait until next March for new presidential elections.

Q: Should the opposition give him some guarantees?

A: This probably will be not a popular idea among opposition supporters to do so. But I would be inclined to say that they have to provide them.

Q: What are the guarantees?

A: For example, that before the new presidential elections there will be no investigation of Yanukovich actions. And only after elections independent investigators should determine whether there are grounds for such an investigation or not. The key now is to stop the violence. And if that condition is achieved, there should be such guarantees, if Yanukovych agreed to resign.

Q: Party of the Regions reply to all the statements of Western leaders that in Europe and America to the police would act similarly in the case of such disturbances.

A: You can not compare democracy in the United States and Ukraine . Our democracy is built over time, we have an independent judiciary , we have separation of powers, we have a system of checks and balances , we have a strong civil society, a strong media. Ukraine has only some of this.

I think that civil society manifested itself impressively in the last few years. Journalists like you and others behaved remarkably well despite the existence of a real threat. But Parliament is not a truly independent, judicial system is abused by the government. As long as there is no real separation of powers in Ukraine, and the courts did not become independent, our countries can not be compared.

Q: Also, the Ukrainian government:at in America there is the same legislation that passed the Party of Regions. For example, criminal liability for defamation.

A: First, in the USA slander is not a criminal offense. This is a civil issue , which is decided by the court, and a person may be awarded damages. Second, approval of legislation on Jan. 16 was totally undemocratic, untransparent, just by vote. This was really stupid.

Why Yanukovych went for it ? I think they would use the law to begin the attack on protesters. Although it would be far better to leave them alone. After all demonstrations lose momentum if they do not face countermeasures. However, this legislation added fuel to the fire.

Of course, there should be no violence by the protesters, but they also has the right for defence in case the fire at them. We should not equate the violence of a small minority of protesters to the level of violence committed by the authorities entrusted with a great responsibility.

Q: What will be the next step towards Ukraine USA ?

A: The U.S. announced the first round of visa sanctions, we do not know against whom specifically. Not even the number of persons named in this list. I hope that the U.S. will announce another round of visa sanctions, but more importantly - the freezing of assets, the introduction of financial sanctions. I know there are ​​steps in this direction, some work on it. I hope they will be announced soon, although in my view they should already be annonced. I have worked in government for eight years and I know that those things take longer than some people would like.

Q: During your work in the Bush administration do you have any experience of implementing sanctions ?

A: Yes, with respect to Belarus. Ukraine is not Belarus , but unfortunately , getting closer and closer to it. Yanukovych is behaving more and more like Lukashenko. But Lukashenko, if you remember, was hit by visa sanctions and asset freeze not only the U.S. but also from the European Union.

Q: How would you start this policy of sanctions ?

A: Ideally, the U.S. and the EU should work together. America must take the lead because the EU comprises 28 governments. And to reach agreement in a team is difficult, while the U.S. has only one government and the agreement is much easier to find . After the U.S. does, the EU would be easier to follow it .

Q: How long does it takes for sanctions to be in full force?

A: In Belarus, it began after the presidential elections in March 2006, and the financial and visa sanctions take effect in June. That is, it takes a few months. But it should not take so long in the case of Ukraine, at least I hope so.

Q: Do you think that Yanukovych is afraid of sanctions ?

A: I do not know whether Yanukovych fear of sanctions. But I think people around him do have the fear of sanctions.

Q: Whom do you mean ?

A: I mean some of the oligarchs. Such as Akhmetov, Firtash, Kolomoysky sons of Yanukovych, and we can continue this list up to Yanukovich personally. So we have to build up pressure , affecting the way those people think.

Q: An the goal should be a revolt of oligarchs against the President ?

A: I think I should try to push those people out of the circle of Yanukovych, to make them understand that it's time to make the most important decision in their life: on which side they want to be ? And we can help them make that decision, hinting that there inevitably will be consequences for the events which are now happening in Ukraine.

Q: How would you rate the work of opposition in the current situation ?

A: They are in a difficult position. The question is to what extent they control the protesters. I think some of them behaved courageously - remember how Klitschko put himself between protesters and police. The key is to unite the opposition - they must show that there is an alternative to Yanukovych, who has already communicated that he is determined to stay in power at any cost . I hope he will understand what is on the wrong track.

[Jan 26, 2014] Journalists became unhuman scum (fortunatly not all of them)

Slightly edited Google translation...

A feeling that they are watching bugs or spiders. Well, what a normal person , seeing as ten bulls with sticks beat one victim will not try to climb between them and just take pictured who they kill the victim ? So maybe he is an accomplice not a jurnalist. Or watch quietly as the white bear dies from hunger while shooting a fim about him ? It's was too cruel. And well- trained voice behind the footage: Journalist ethics does not allow to interfere -- Fucking hell . Watching us like bugs -- And who in this case they actually are and what they are doing here ?

Modern media have placed themselves outside the law. They are everywhere , as if above the events. Peope are stabbed, blown up, but they just take footage in order to show to the public all the details of the committed crimes. And they never just do not interfere , but not even express condemnation, or give legal assessment what they see , not to mention how to write a statement as a witness . They are demanding immunity !

And these people feel entitled to teach people! They think they are the fourth branch of government . How come? Only because they monopolize and distort the flow of information ?. But if they were only recording , as they are trying to reassure us(and then distorting them), they in effect are always participants, and not the last in importance. No events in the world can now happen without the "right" media coverage.

In essence the media have become a illegal combatants, the essential part of a military strategy, the part of a criminal strategy. They are now themselves helping to spread evil, anti-human ideas.

The world needs an alternative.That will not become complicit in atrocities. Problem worth thinking about .

[Jan 21, 2014] CIS-CSTO will fight Western 'color revolutions'

Edited Google translation from VZ...
December 19, 2013 | StratRisks
The Secretariat of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) held a "round table" on "Interaction between the authorities and society in order to counter external intervention and the" color revolutions. " Document, which contained recommendations that should help to prevent conditions favorable for the organization of "color revolutions" on the territory of the CSTO member states was adopted at the end of the meeting.
Tone of the discussion asked CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha . " Striking machiavellism of organizers and conductors of the revolutionary changes that have completly selfish goals and do not stop at using any means to achieve them, including those clearly beyond the legal and moral norms," "Kommersant daily reported.

After that Bordyuzha brought a fresh example : " The case of outright cynicism when a senior official of one of the respected countries, which supposly promotes democratic values ​is, publicly flirting with a radical nationalist and anti-Semite. It looks like Bordyuzha meant here the meeting of Foreign Minister of Lithuania Linas Antanas Linkevičius with one of the organizers of the Ukrainian Maidan , leader of "Svoboda" Party Oleg Tyagnybok.

Ukraine was mentioned more then one time at the conference. According to participants , the events on Independence became the latest evidence that the "danger of color revolutions comes to the top in the list of challenges, threats and risks to members of the CSTO Collective Security". In this case , the term "color revolutions" in the CSTO understand " special model of the coup using political, information, communication , moral and psychological methods of influence ," and his ultimate goal - " the complete disintegration of the state, the change of legitimate goverment and the establishment of foreign control over the country".

Panelists agreed that Russia is losing the information war to the West, which " unscrupluly use the methods developed NATO in 1970-ies agains the USSR". Today, in their opinion, these actions are handled by experts if cybersecurity centers of NATO, one of which operates in Estonia .

In the list of the "agents of influence " of the West CSTO experts included NGOs, the media, the international organizations monitoring the elections (PACE and OSCE were mentioned), as well as sociological companies conducting exit polls . "Election commission announces the election results, but the people believe more to exit polls . Who conduct ​​them? Our enemies , "- noted Assistant Deputy Defense Minister of Russian Federation Alexander Konuzin. He however , noted that he acts on the forum as a private individual.

Several quite radical proposals were made at the conference. Among them the measure proposed by Dmitry Rjurikov (RISI) "to think how to influence on our partners." "After all, our partners are moving to actions that become really dangerous ," - he believes.

Following the discussion, the organizers of the roundtable will prepare a list of proposals to counter forign intervention into internal affares of mamer states and the "color revolutions ". They will be circulated among the leadership of the countries - members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization . In particular, the CSTO might offer " blocking negative information which contributes to the escalation of tension in the country - a potential victim of the revolution " and " counter-propaganda tools ."

Bordyuzha seems has no doubt that goverment of the member states will listen to warning of the experts

Organization of the Collective Security Treaty - a military-political union created several States of Eurasia ( at different times united organization of six to nine states) on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty , signed on 15 May 1992. Currently CSTO includes Armenia, Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan, Russia , Tajikistan and Belarus .

Among proposed measures:

  1. To develop international legal mechanisms for the protection of information space of the CSTO and advanced system of countering the spread of ideology and external interference in the form of "color revolutions", by filling an ideological vacuum and an emphasis on the positive experience of joint activity and the historical past.
  2. Creation of the interstate databases with the counter information and descibing psychological pressure against the government and the population of the CSTO countries and counting them based on the spiritual and moral values.
  3. Coordination of social, cultural and other humanitarian resources of CSTO member states in combating the ideology of external interference and "color revolutions" to ensure that the population of the CSTO accurate and objective, without misrepresentation of information.
  4. Diagnosis and detection activities of media and agents that process ideology of external interference and "color revolutions" in the information space of the CSTO, blocking the spread in the information space CSTO of negative information which contributes to the escalation of tension in the country – a potential victim " color revolution. "
  5. Creation of special mechanisms of interaction media CSTO member states with state authorities in crisis situations conducive to the manifestation of ethics and civic responsibility of journalists in covering events outside interference and "color revolutions."
  6. Development of common approaches (concept base) to implement the policy in the sphere of interstate interaction between the government and civil society institutions.
  7. Implementation intrastate and interstate activities aimed at involving NGOs to address strategically important state issues: political stability, national security, harmonization of interethnic relations, maintaining sovereignty.
  8. Formation of public (trustees) councils at all levels of government, especially in law enforcement and security.
  9. Conduct a series of training activities in which models include consideration of responses to external interference with the direct participation of representatives of civil society institutions. Establish cooperation with network-profit organizations, which include more than 30 non-profit organizations. Ensure transparent financing mechanisms NGOs clearly identifying appropriate targets.

At COP "The interaction of government and society in order to counter external intervention and the" color revolutions "was attended by heads of information and analytical structures – Analytical Association members and representatives of CSTO Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian FSB, the SVR, the CIS Antiterrorism Center. His report was presented by the CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha.

Participants in the event have come to believe that the West has adopted a new propaganda techniques in the arsenal of NATO 1970s. During the "round table" noted that "nest of propaganda" today based in cybersecurity alliance centers, one of which is located in Estonia.

[Jan 20, 2014] The Ukranian MP Tsarev: They want to use Maidan as blind cattle for achieving their goals

That's wrong. Maidan represents significant and well-organized politically regions -- Galicia and Volhynia Which to a certain extent is a cradle of Ukrainian nationalism.

People's Deputy from the Party of Regions Oleg Tsarev believes that certain forces want to use people on Maidan "blindly" for the destruction of the state. He wrote about this possibility in his Facebook.

"Weapons and principles of warfare are changing with time. Cutting weapons were displaced by firearms, then atomic weapons was created. And now a new era of information warfare for world domination is coming. Wars are becoming more cynical and unprincipled. NGOs, unfortunately, are tools of such wars .

The Machiavellism of information wars is that very many sincere and honest people I have met often on the Maidan are protesting against the problems and shortcomings that exist in today's Ukraine, including in government. I, as a deputy, also want to fight against corruption and abuse of power. And I do it all the time - that fact can confirm my constituents .

But the trouble is that the energy of the protesters on Independence is used to destroy the state . It is well known that no [color] revolution has moved the state forward, [color] revolution always is a destructive process . In all countries where "color revolutions" have won, they have not improved the situation, and most importantly - living standards of the people.

If revolutionary scenario which is actively promoted by Western political technologists and some leaders of the opposition materialize, we would have gone through a large blood. And Ukraine as a unified state would cease to exist. People in the country now feel the aggression, a threat that comes from the Maidan. That is why Maidan support falls, "- he wrote.

[Jan 20, 2014] Writing down the moves of the Maidan chess party...

Slightly edited Google translation... Some interesting observations but all-in-all too simplistic. While it might be that Yanukovich disregard toward Maidan was not accidental, it goes without saying that Yanukovich government promoted Svoboda Party of radical Ukrainian nationalists.
Jan 20, 2014 | doppel_herz

With great interest I watch the opposition Russian bloggers who post pictures from Maidan. If you believe them, just an hours are left for the corrupt regime of criminal Yanukovich. Equally interesting to see how their opponents groan - statists who in best Akhedzhakova style are calling Yanukovich to crush with tanks Wanton Galician cattle. Out of disgust do not read comments of "ukro-bloggers" as sane people are rarity in this cycle and are am not interested in the art created by insane people that much. And what can they, except exported from abroad banalities about the European choice and anti-people regime ?

Meanwhile, the protest which began to mold , for a new life. I even used to think that Ukrainians are got their share of troubles already. But no now the second part surreal ballet started. And it was more fun to watch then the first. I can not judge whether Yanukovich is a political genius, capable of multi-move ahead chess combinations, or interesting solutions were suggested by invited spin doctors, but to me the situation looks as following:

I was always skeptical about "the role of the masses in history", assuming that they are pawns, which players move around the chessboard to solve their own problems. To stimulate the crowds to action they use a variety of sticks and carrots . Recently carrots became completely virtual in the form of promises of bright Euro future. Great savings on carrots. But to imagine that thos newly minted Bolsheviks are able to topple the "evil empire" without the support of some "Foreign army headquarters" is a great stretch. So for me the events in Kiev is an interesting chess party of foreign players. Who will win, will put the pawns in the box.. The future will tell who will be this foreign player.

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