"What's Happening in Ukraine? - Questions For Corbett" - The Corbett Report -- ...well worth watching....

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

Today on Questions For Corbett, Thomas writes in to ask James about the unfolding events in Ukraine. James gives his answer as things stood at 10 AM JST on February 23, 2022.  SHOW NOTES AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/qfc084-ukraine/

One of several VIDEO LINKS...  https://odysee.com/@corbettreport:0/qfc084-ukraine:c

What's Happening in Ukraine? - Questions For Corbett #084

Watch on Archive / BitChute / Minds.com / Odysee or Download the mp4

SHOW NOTES:

Examples of James discussing Putin and Russia's role in the NWO NEW WORLD ORDER:

#1 - Interview 1430 – New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato

#2 - Interview 1614 - New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato

#3 - Episode 290 - The Enemy of My Enemy

#4 - Episode 369 - Globalization is Dead. Long Live the New World Order!

#5 - Interview 1694 - Declare Your Independence from Mass Formation Psychosis

What I Learned From the "PropOrNot" Propaganda List

PropOrNot unmasked in 2018

InterepreterMag was a media partner of The Atlantic Council in 2017

Putin Signs Decree Recognizing Donbas Republics

Russia Can Build Military Bases in Donbas Under New Treaty

Putin Deploys Troops to Donbas Republics as Peacekeepers

Zelensky says no war (but if war, then martial law)

Biden Announces Sanctions on Russian Banks, Debt, ‘Elites’

The Steep Cost of Sanctions for Europe and Russia

Germany Suspends Nord Stream 2 Pipeline After Putin Orders Troops to Donbas

Medvedev: ‘The EU Will Soon Pay Double for Gas’

President Biden Orders More US Troops to the Baltics

Ukraine/DPR+LPR: Death of the Minsk Agreements and the Onset of Many a Speech

Koch and Soros Team Up For World Peace! WTF?

Interview 1519 - Daniel McAdams on the Koch-Soros Quincy Institute Interventionists)

Putin’s move on Donetsk, Lugansk is illegal but falls short of new ‘invasion’

Documents Reveal US Gov’t Spent $22M Promoting Anti-Russia Narrative in Ukraine and Abroad

Foreign Intervention and the Ukraine Crisis

How Many Neo-Nazis Is the U.S. Backing in Ukraine?

Azov batallion propaganda broadcast by NBC News

Ukrainian Lobbyists Flood US Think Tanks

Der Spiegel story about NATO's broken promise to Russia

National Security Archives had the storyfour years ago

Interview 1701 - Resistance and the Future on Revelations Radio News

 

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Edited February 24, 2022 by Tom Nolan

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

I just want to make sure that people know that Neo Nazi's are a major contigent in Ukraine...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-many-neo-nazis-is-the-us-backing-in-ukraine

How Many Neo-Nazis Is the U.S. Backing in Ukraine?

— Neo NAZIS in the News and on Facebook —

Praise Of Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Battalion Given Green Light By Facebook: Intercept
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/praise-ukrainian-neo-nazi-battalion-given-green-light-facebook-intercept

EXCERPT
Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle:
Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich;
its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements;
and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”
With Russian forces reportedly moving rapidly against targets throughout Ukraine, Facebook’s blunt, list-based approach to moderation puts the company in a bind: What happens when a group you’ve deemed too dangerous to freely discuss is defending its country against a full-scale assault? –The Intercept

According to Facebook’s new internal policy reviewed by The Intercept, the company will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.”

Examples of allowed speech include: “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard,” and “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours,” and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”

That said, the group still can’t use Facebook for recruiting purposes or publishing its own statements. The regiment’s uniforms and banners will continue to be banned as hate symbol imagery.

Examples of speech regarding the group that’s not allowed, includes things like: “Goebbels, the Fuhrer and Azov, all are great models for national sacrifices and heroism,” and “Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and it’s white nationalist heritage.”

Facebook confirmed the decision, but refused to elaborate….

 

[notsonice + 1,255]

4 hours ago, Tom Nolan said:

I just want to make sure that people know that Neo Nazi's are a major contigent in Ukraine...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-many-neo-nazis-is-the-us-backing-in-ukraine

How Many Neo-Nazis Is the U.S. Backing in Ukraine?

— Neo NAZIS in the News and on Facebook —

Praise Of Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Battalion Given Green Light By Facebook: Intercept
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/praise-ukrainian-neo-nazi-battalion-given-green-light-facebook-intercept

EXCERPT
Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle:
Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich;
its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements;
and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”
With Russian forces reportedly moving rapidly against targets throughout Ukraine, Facebook’s blunt, list-based approach to moderation puts the company in a bind: What happens when a group you’ve deemed too dangerous to freely discuss is defending its country against a full-scale assault? –The Intercept

According to Facebook’s new internal policy reviewed by The Intercept, the company will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.”

Examples of allowed speech include: “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard,” and “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours,” and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”

That said, the group still can’t use Facebook for recruiting purposes or publishing its own statements. The regiment’s uniforms and banners will continue to be banned as hate symbol imagery.

Examples of speech regarding the group that’s not allowed, includes things like: “Goebbels, the Fuhrer and Azov, all are great models for national sacrifices and heroism,” and “Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and it’s white nationalist heritage.”

Facebook confirmed the decision, but refused to elaborate….

 

I just want you to know that America will stand strong with all Ukrainians fighting Putin. We will supply them as  needed to help them defend and wipe out the Russian invaders until the Russians leave are or are all buried 6 feet under.

 

PS Not sure why you keep posting garbage. You seem to enjoy to post BS.

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

The following film correlates very well with the information that James Corbett documents with references. Some excellent footage by Oliver Stone which makes the information easier to digest.

Ukraine on Fire: The Real Story
Full Documentary by Oliver Stone (Original English version)
(93 minutes)
https://vimeo.com/252426896

…The Maidan Massacre in early 2014 triggered a bloody uprising that ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, spurred Crimeans to secede and join Russia, and sparked a civil war in Eastern Ukraine.

Russia was portrayed by Western media as the perpetrator, and has been sanctioned and widely condemned as such. But was Russia responsible for what happened?

Ukraine on Fire provides a historical perspective for the deep divisions in the region which led to the 2004 Orange Revolution, the 2014 uprisings, and the violent overthrow of democratically-elected Yanukovych.

Covered by Western media as a ‘popular revolution’, it was in fact a coup d’état scripted and staged by ultra-nationalist groups and the US State Department.

Investigative journalist Robert Parry reveals how US-funded political NGOs and media companies have emerged since the 1980s, replacing the CIA in promoting America’s geopolitical agenda abroad.

Executive producer Oliver Stone gained unprecedented access to the inside story through his on-camera interviews with former President Viktor Yanukovych and Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakharchenko, who explain how the US Ambassador and factions in Washington actively plotted for regime change.

And, in his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Stone solicits Putin’s take on the significance of Crimea, NATO and the US’s history of interference in elections and regime change in the region.

 [***NOTE: Around Feb 23rd and 24th, 2022 is when we saw Russia enter Ukraine.
In the film, the dates of February 23rd and 24th, 2014 come up.
Coincidence?]

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

EXCERPT - 2004...the US had already pumped $5 billion into the funding of the Ukrainian opposition.

https://www.corbettreport.com/foreign-intervention-and-the-ukraine-crisis/

Foreign Intervention and the Ukraine Crisis

by James Corbett
GRTV.ca
March 5, 2014

[CLICK HERE to watch this video on GRTV's YouTube channel or HERE to watch on Odysee]

In late 2004, protests erupted after Viktor Yanukovych won the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential election, with protestors claiming that the vote had been rigged. The protests forced a revote, in which Yanukovych’s rival, Viktor Yuschenko, was elected president. This movement, dubbed the Orange Revolution for the orange ribbons and clothing sported by its members, was one of a series of so-called colour revolutions which swept the former Soviet Republics in the last decade.

The two events are not unrelated. As The Guardian noted at the time of the protests:

“[...]the campaign [Orange Revolution] is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.[...]The Democratic parrty’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns.”

So it is not without reason that seasoned political observers looked for outside connections to the recent protests in Ukraine that has, in an almost exact repeat of the 2004 protests, sought to overthrow the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych in order to install Viktor Yuschenko’s political allies. Those connections have not been difficult to find.

Audio of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland apparently dictating who the US wanted “in” and “out” of the supposedly grassroots-supported interim government only came as a surprise to those who did not believe Washington or its allies in the Washington Consensus were actively involved with the ongoing protests in the country. As did the revelation of her admission last December that the US had already pumped $5 billion into the funding of the Ukrainian opposition.

As did the appearance of confirmed terrorist supporter John McCain at a rally with the leader of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Svoboda party leader. As did the appointment of a central banker as the interim Prime Minister and his immediate announcement that the country was in talks with the US, EU, and IMF for emergency loans. As did the appearance of a slick new viral propaganda video in English promoting the supposedly grassroots uprising which was immediately exposed as finding its “inspiration” in Council on Foreign Relations member Larry Diamond, who has worked closely with the same N.E.D. and USAid that were linked to the 2004 Orange Revolution.

In the latest startling revelation, Pando.com has published documents implicating the Omidyar Network in the funding of the current Ukrainian protest movement. The Omidyar Network is the NGO of billionaire Ebay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, who recently set up “First Look” as an outlet for (among others) Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to selectively publish some of the Snowden document archive, 99% of which continues to be withheld from the public.

As geopolitical analysts from across the board explain, the Ukrainian coup has been deliberately provoked by outside agents to promote a combination of US, EU, NATO and IMF interests.

Perhaps more worrying than the interference itself are its potential implications. As Russia’s every move is now being scrutinized for a possible military response to the ongoing crisis, the specter of a larger military operation now hangs over Eastern Europe. Part of the decade-long encirclement of Russia by NATO and deliberate provocations on Russia’s doorstep, this process of brinksmanship now threatens to plunge the region into a war the consequences of which cannot be foreseen, let alone contained.

As supposedly “progressive” outlets once again scramble to throw their support behind the billionaire oligarchs and NGOs that have helped to destabilize the country, and as neocons unite with neoliberals in their agenda to carve up Ukraine for western interests, it remains to be seen what genuine alternative outlets will stand up against this blatant interference and stand up for the principle that it is up to the Ukrainian people, and no one else, to decide what happens in their country.

https://community.oilprice.com/topic/25822-backstory-the-covert-us-and-foreign-intervention-with-the-ukraine-crisis-corbettreportcom/

 

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

Pierre Omidyar Co-funded Ukraine Revolution Groups With US Government, Documents Show

By Mark Ames

February 28, 2014 "Pando" -

http://web.archive.org/web/20190228052058im_/http://pandodaily.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/centeruatop.png?w=1290&h=221
Just hours after last weekend’s ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyar’s newest hires at national security blog “The Intercept,” was already digging for the truth.

Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site’s “senior policy analyst,” speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a “coup” engineered by “deep forces” on behalf of “Pax Americana”:

“There’s quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is.”

These are serious claims. So serious that I decided to investigate them. And what I found was shocking.

Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed “coup,” but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.

But that’s not the shocking part.

What’s shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the “dark force” acting on behalf of “Pax Americana”).

Step out of the shadows…. Wheeler’s boss, Pierre Omidyar.

Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwald’s government-bashing blog,“The Intercept,” co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine.

[Update: Wheeler has responded on Twitter to say that her Tweets were taken out of context, but would not give specifics. Adam Colligan, with whom Wheeler was debating, commented on Pando that "while Wheeler did raise the issue of external interference in relation to a discussion about a coup, it was not really at all in the manner that you have portrayed." Further "[Pax Americana] appeared after the conversation had shifted from the idea of whether a coup had been staged by the Ukrainian Parliament to a question about the larger powers’ willingness to weaken underlying economic conditions in a state.” Neither Wheeler or Colligan has commented on the main subject of the story: Pierre Omidyar’s co-investment in Ukrainian opposition groups with the US government.]

* * * *

When the revolution came to Ukraine, neo-fascists played a front-center role in overthrowing the country’s president. But the real political power rests with Ukraine’s pro-western neoliberals. Political figures like Oleh Rybachuk, long a favorite of the State Department, DC neocons, EU, and NATO—and the right-hand man to Orange Revolution leader Viktor Yushchenko.

Last December, the Financial Times wrote that Rybachuk’s “New Citizen” NGO campaign “played a big role in getting the protest up and running.”

New Citizen, along with the rest of Rybachuk’s interlocking network of western-backed NGOs and campaigns— “Center UA” (also spelled “Centre UA”), “Chesno,” and “Stop Censorship” to name a few — grew their power by targeting pro-Yanukovych politicians with a well-coordinated anti-corruption campaign that built its strength in Ukraine’s regions, before massing in Kiev last autumn.

The efforts of the NGOs were so successful that the Ukraine government was accused of employing dirty tricks to shut them down. In early February, the groups were the subject of a massive money laundering investigation by the economics division of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry in what many denounced as a politically motivated move.

Fortunately the groups had the strength – which is to say, money – to survive those attacks and continue pushing for regime change in Ukraine. The source of that money?

According to the Kyiv Post, Pierrie Omidyar’s Omidyar Network (part of the Omidyar Group which owns First Look Media and the Intercept) provided 36% of “Center UA”’s $500,000 budget in 2012— nearly $200,000. USAID provided 54% of “Center UA”’s budget for 2012. Other funders included the US government-backed National Endowment for Democracy.

In 2011, Omidyar Network gave $335,000 to “New Citizen,” one of the anti-Yanukovych “projects” managed through the Rybachuk-chaired NGO “Center UA.” At the time, Omidyar Network boasted that its investment in “New Citizen” would help “shape public policy” in Ukraine:

“Using technology and media, New Citizen coordinates the efforts of concerned members of society, reinforcing their ability to shape public policy.

“… With support from Omidyar Network, New Citizen will strengthen its advocacy efforts in order to drive greater transparency and engage citizens on issues of importance to them.”

In March 2012, Rybachuk — the operator behind the 2004 Orange Revolution scenes, the Anatoly Chubais of Ukraine — boasted that he was preparing a new Orange Revolution:

“People are not afraid. We now have 150 NGOs in all the major cities in our ‘clean up Parliament campaign’ to elect and find better parliamentarians….The Orange Revolution was a miracle, a massive peaceful protest that worked. We want to do that again and we think we will.”

Detailed financial records reviewed by Pando (and embedded below) also show Omidyar Network covered costs for the expansion of Rybachuk’s anti-Yanukovych campaign, “Chesno” (“Honestly”), into regional cities including Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Sumy, and elsewhere, mostly in the Ukrainian-speaking west and center.

* * * *

To understand what it means for Omidyar to fund Oleh Rybachuk, some brief history is necessary. Rybachuk’s background follows a familiar pattern in post-Soviet opportunism: From well-connected KGB intelligence ties, to post-Soviet neoliberal networker.

In the Soviet era, Rybachuk studied in a military languages program half of whose graduates went on to work for the KGB. Rybachuk’s murky overseas posting in India in the late Soviet era further strengthens many suspicions about his Soviet intelligence ties; whatever the case, by Rybachuk’s own account, his close ties to top intelligence figures in the Ukrainian SBU served him well during the Orange Revolution of 2004, when the SBU passed along secret information about vote fraud and assassination plots.

In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Rybachuk moved to the newly-formed Ukraine Central Bank, heading the foreign relations department under Central Bank chief and future Orange Revolution leader Viktor Yushchenko. In his central bank post, Rybachuk established close friendly ties with western government and financial aid institutions, as well as proto-Omidyar figures like George Soros, who funded many of the NGOs involved in “color revolutions” including small donations to the same Ukraine NGOs that Omidyar backed. (Like Omidyar Network does today, Soros’ charity arms—Open Society and Renaissance Foundation—publicly preached transparency and good government in places like Russia during the Yeltsin years, while Soros’ financial arm speculated on Russian debt and participated in scandal-plagued auctions of state assets.)

In early 2005, Orange Revolution leader Yushchenko became Ukraine’s president, and he appointed Rybachuk deputy prime minister in charge of integrating Ukraine into the EU, NATO, and other western institutions. Rybachuk also pushed for the mass-privatization of Ukraine’s remaining state holdings.

Over the next several years, Rybachuk was shifted around President Yushchenko’s embattled administration, torn by internal divisions. In 2010, Yushchenko lost the presidency to recently-overthrown Viktor Yanukovych, and a year later, Rybachuk was on Omidyar’s and USAID’s payroll, preparing for the next Orange Revolution. As Rybachuk told the Financial Times two years ago:

“We want to do [the Orange Revolution] again and we think we will.”

Some of Omidyar’s funds were specifically earmarked for covering the costs of setting up Rybachuk’s “clean up parliament” NGOs in Ukraine’s regional centers. Shortly after the Euromaidan demonstrations erupted last November, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry opened up a money laundering investigation into Rybachuk’s NGOs, dragging Omidyar’s name into the high-stakes political struggle.

According to a Kyiv Post article on February 10 titled, “Rybachuk: Democracy-promoting nongovernmental organization faces ‘ridiculous’ investigation”:

“Police are investigating Center UA, a public-sector watchdog funded by Western donors, on suspicion of money laundering, the group said. The group’s leader, Oleh Rybachuk, said it appears that authorities, with the probe, are trying to warn other nongovernmental organizations that seek to promote democracy, transparency, free speech and human rights in Ukraine.

“According to Center UA, the Kyiv economic crimes unit of the Interior Ministry started the investigation on Dec. 11. Recently, however, investigators stepped up their efforts, questioning some 200 witnesses.

“… Center UA received more than $500,000 in 2012, according to its annual report for that year, 54 percent of which came from Pact Inc., a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Nearly 36 percent came from Omidyar Network, a foundation established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife. Other donors include the International Renaissance Foundation, whose key funder is billionaire George Soros, and National Endowment for Democracy, funded largely by the U.S. Congress.”

* * * *

What all this adds up to is a journalistic conflict-of-interest of the worst kind: Omidyar working hand-in-glove with US foreign policy agencies to interfere in foreign governments, co-financing regime change with well-known arms of the American empire — while at the same time hiring a growing team of soi-disant ”independent journalists” which vows to investigate the behavior of the US government at home and overseas, and boasts of its uniquely “adversarial” relationship towards these  government institutions.

As First Look staffer Jeremy Scahill told the Daily Beast…

We had a long discussion about this internally; about what our position would be if the White House asked us to not publish something…. With us, because we want to be adversarial, they won’t know what bat phone to call. They know who to call at The Times, they know who to call at The Post. With us, who are they going to call? Pierre? Glenn?

Of the many problems that poses, none is more serious than the fact that Omidyar now has the only two people with exclusive access to the complete Snowden NSA cache, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Somehow, the same billionaire who co-financed the “coup” in Ukraine with USAID, also has exclusive access to the NSA secrets—and very few in the independent media dare voice a skeptical word about it.

In the larger sense, this is a problem of 21st century American inequality, of life in a billionaire-dominated era. It is a problem we all have to contend with—PandoDaily’s 18-plus investors include a gaggle of Silicon Valley billionaires like Marc Andreessen (who serves on the board of eBay, chaired by Pierre Omidyar) and Peter Thiel (whose politics I’ve investigated, and described as repugnant.)

But what is more immediately alarming is what makes Omidyar different. Unlike other billionaires, Omidyar has garnered nothing but uncritical, fawning press coverage, particularly from those he has hired. By acquiring a “dream team” of what remains of independent media — Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Wheeler, my former partner Matt Taibbi — not to mention press “critics” like Jay Rosen — he buys both silence and fawning press.

Both are incredibly useful: Silence, an absence of journalistic curiosity about Omidyar’s activities overseas and at home, has been purchased for the price of whatever his current all-star indie cast currently costs him. As an added bonus, that same investment buys silence from exponentially larger numbers of desperately underpaid independent journalists hoping to someday be on his payroll, and the underfunded media watchdogs that survive on Omidyar Network grants.

And it also buys laughable fluff from the likes of Scahill who also boasted to the Daily Beast of his boss’ close involvement in the day to day running of First Look.

“[Omidyar] strikes me as always sort of political, but I think that the NSA story and the expanding wars put politics for him into a much more prominent place in his existence. This is not a side project that he is doing. Pierre writes more on our internal messaging than anyone else. And he is not micromanaging. This guy has a vision. And his vision is to confront what he sees as an assault on the privacy of Americans.”

Now Wheeler has her answer — that, yes, the revolutionary groups were part-funded by Uncle Sam, but also by her boss — one assumes awkward follow up questions will be asked on that First Look internal messaging system.

Whether Wheeler, Scahill and their colleagues go on to share their concerns publicly will speak volumes about First Look’s much-trumpeted independence, both from Omidyar’s other business interests and from Omidyar’s co-investors in Ukraine: the US government.

Editor’s note: Pando contacted Omidyar Networks for comment prior to publication but had not received a response by press time. We will update this post if they do respond.

* * * *

Chesno document showing total funding from USAID and Omidyar Network to “Centre UA”:

https://community.oilprice.com/topic/25723-pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/

 

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

EXCERPTS

...When CIA realized how useful could the Albert Einstein Institution be, it brought Colonel Robert Helvey into play. An expert in clandestine actions and former dean of the Embassies’s Military Attachés Training School, "Bob" took Gene Sharp to Burma to educate the opposition on the non violent strategy for criticizing the cruelest military junta of the world without questioning the system. By doing this, Helvey could identify the "good" and the "bad" opponents in a critical moment for Washington: the true opposition, led by Mrs. Suu Kyi, was labeled as a threat to the pro-American regimen....

...Gene Sharp failed in Belarus and Zimbabwe for he could not recruit and train in the proper time the necessary amount of demonstrators. During the orange «revolution» in November 2004, [10] we met again with Colonel Robert Helvey in Kiev....

https://www.voltairenet.org/article30032.html

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/30/why-russia-shut-down-ned-fronts/

NED = NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY

There are the so-called "colour revolutions," for instance; synthetic protest movements that are fostered, supported or created out of whole cloth by groups like the National Endowment for Democracy

Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts

July 30, 2015

 

Exclusive: The neocon-flagship Washington Post fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, but left out key facts like NED’s U.S. government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.”

If you read the Post’s editorial on Wednesday and a companion op-ed by National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, you would have been led to believe that Putin is delusional, paranoid and “power mad” in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations represents a threat to Russian sovereignty.

Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany.

The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians have enacted laws requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as “foreign agents” and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman’s NED.

The Post’s editors wrote that Putin’s “latest move, announced Tuesday, is to declare the NED an ‘undesirable’ organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’

“The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts.

“The new law on ‘undesirables’ comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations ‘foreign agents’ if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage.”

But there are several salient facts that the Post’s editors surely know but don’t want you to know. The first is that NED is a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1983 to do what the Central Intelligence Agency previously had done in financing organizations inside target countries to advance U.S. policy interests and, if needed, help in “regime change.”

The secret hand behind NED’s creation was CIA Director William J. Casey who worked with senior CIA covert operation specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to establish NED in 1983. Casey from the CIA and Raymond from his assignment inside President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council focused on creating a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. To partially replace that CIA role, the idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.

But Casey recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey said in one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III as Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment.”

NED Is Born

The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money, within NED, for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured. But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation.

This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA’s congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill. The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented, not fully recognizing the significance of the demand.

The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration’s choice of Carl Gershman to head the National Endowment for Democracy, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy. Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED’s first (and, to this day, only) president.

Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC. For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that “Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl.”

Currently, Gershman’s NED dispenses more than $100 million a year in U.S. government funds to various NGOs, media outlets and activists around the world. The NED also has found itself in the middle of political destabilization campaigns against governments that have gotten on the wrong side of U.S. foreign policy. For instance, prior to the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing an anti-Russian regime in Kiev, NED was funding scores of projects.

A second point left out of the Post’s editorial was the fact that Gershman took a personal hand in the Ukraine crisis and recognized it as an interim step toward regime change in Moscow. On Sept. 26, 2013, Gershman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and explained how pulling it into the Western camp could contribute to the ultimate defeat of Russian President Putin.

“Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” In other words, NED is a U.S. government-financed entity that has set its sights on ousting Russia’s current government.

A third point that the Post ignored is that the Russian law requiring outside-funded political organizations to register as “foreign agents” was modeled on a U.S. law, the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In other words, the U.S. government also requires individuals and entities working for foreign interests and seeking to influence U.S. policies to disclose those relationships with the U.S. Justice Department or face prison.

If the Post’s editors had included any or all of these three relevant factors, you would have come away with a more balanced understanding of why Russia is acting as it is. You might still object but at least you would be aware of the full story. By concealing all three points, the Post’s editors were tricking you and other readers into accepting a propagandistic viewpoint that the Russian actions were crazy and that Putin was, according to the Post’s headline, “power mad.”

Gershman’s Op-Ed

But you might think that Gershman would at least acknowledge some of these points in his Post op-ed, surely admitting that NED is financed by the U.S. government. But Gershman didn’t. He simply portrayed Russia’s actions as despicable and desperate.

“Russia’s newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy on Tuesday was declared an “undesirable organization” prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy,” Gershman wrote, adding:

“This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the ‘foreign agents’ law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia.”

The reference to how a “foreign agents” registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn’t good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the op-ed.

So would an acknowledgement of where NED’s money comes from. How many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power?

Not surprisingly, Gershman couldn’t find the space to include any balance in his op-ed and the Post’s editors didn’t insist on any.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

 

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Then there are the engineered crises where, for example, snipers are sent into otherwise peaceful protests to shoot at both sides, creating chaos and undermining the ruling government's legitimacy in the court of public opinion (as happened in both Ukraine and Syria).

https://www.corbettreport.com/crisis/

For an example, we need look no further than the Euromaidan protest in Ukraine in 2014. The Maidan protests, too, involved a mass uprising against a government targeted by the Western powers, and they turned deadly when snipers began firing into the crowds, killing both police and civilians. That both sides were targeted in the shootings makes no sense from a strategic perspective, unless the purpose of the shooting was actually to escalate the violence and drive the protests to their eventual conclusion: the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovich. Nevertheless, mainstream media in the west immediately blamed the sniper fire on the Ukrainian police.

But from the beginning, the evidence contradicted this account. Shortly after the deadly sniper incident, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet discussed his own findings on the attack with an audibly shocked Catherine Ashton, foreign affairs chief of the European Union.

Urmas Paet: All the evidence shows that the people were killed by snipers from both sides - among policemen and people from the streets - that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides.

Catherine Ashton: Oh that's...yeah.

Paet: And then she also showed me some photos. She said that [she's a] medical doctor, she can, you know, say that it is the same same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it's really disturbing that now the new coalition that don't want to investigate what exactly happened. So there is now a stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovich, but it was somebody from the new coalition.

Ashton: I think we do want to investigate. I didn't pick that up. Interesting. Gosh.

SOURCE: Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Catherine Ashton discuss Ukraine over the phone  

An extensive study of eyewitness reports, ballistic trajectories, radio intercepts, photos and videos of the attacks by Ivan Katchanovski of the University of Ottawa concluded that the sniper fire was in fact conducted by elements linked to the opposition.

But late last year, a Ukrainian courtroom became the stage for the most startling confirmation of this version of events.

News anchor: Three years ago, mercenary snipers from Georgia fired on protesters on Maidan Square. Today, their guilt has been proven in court in Kiev. The attorney of ex-president Yanukovych revealed the story of the people who got paid for mass murder. There is footage of the massacre among the evidence. The mercenaries even agreed to testify in court.

[...]

Alexander Goroshinsky: Their goal was to instigate a conflict between the protesters and law enforcement using firearms. Witness Koba Negadze was at the Ukrayina Hotel and saw snipers firing at both protesters as well as law enforcement officers.

SOURCE: Court in Kiev. Georgian Mercenary Snipers Skype In Shocking Testimony

The plan is as devilish as it is simple. Use indiscriminate murder and violence as a way to escalate a conflict and drive an agenda. In this case, the atrocity on the Maidan Square made negotiations between the protesters and the Yanukovych government impossible.

But Maidan Square was by no means the first time that this strategy had been employed to generate such a crisis. The Syrian government, like the government of President Yanukovych in Ukraine, found itself in the crosshairs of the Pentagon. In a program reminiscent of Operation Ajax, the Bush administration began funneling millions of dollars to opposition groups in Syria in 2006, and, just like in Iran in 1953, these funds eventually paid off in the form of a "spontaneous" protest movement in the city of Daraa in March 2011....

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EXCERPT

...And the US government knew it, charges Stiglitz, at least in the case of the biggest ‘briberization' of all, the 1995 Russian sell-off. "The US Treasury view was this was great as we wanted Yeltsin re-elected. We don't care if it's a corrupt election. We want the money to go to Yeltzin" via kick-backs for his campaign.

Stiglitz is no conspiracy nutter ranting about Black Helicopters. The man was inside the game, a member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as Chairman of the President's council of economic advisors.

Most ill-making for Stiglitz is that the US-backed oligarchs stripped Russia's industrial assets, with the effect that the corruption scheme cut national output nearly in half causing depression and starvation...

https://archive.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/critics/2001/1011stiglitz.htm

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There's the "IMF riot," of course; a four-step plan to economically cripple a country so that the IMF and/or World Bank can swoop in and "save" it (for the benefit of foreign investors).

And don't forget the debt trap diplomacy described by John Perkins, where corrupt dictators are bribed into selling off their nation's resources and infrastructure to foreign investors and plunging their country into debt, thus giving the Western financial interests political leverage over future governments.

 

 

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Ukraine claims 800 Russian casualties, 1 surrendered Russian platoon, in Day 1 of invasion

PETER WEBER

FEBRUARY 25, 2022

Ukraine's Defense Ministry said early Friday that since Russian invaded the country Thursday morning, Ukrainian forces have inflicted about 800 casualties on Russian forces (perhaps including wounded soldiers), destroyed more than 30 Russian tanks, seven Russian aircraft, and six helicopters, CNN reports, noting that it is "not able to independently verify Ukraine's figures." 

The ministry claimed later Friday morning that Ukrainian air defenses had stopped "two deadly presents from our 'brothers'" from hitting Kyiv, and said Ukrainian forces had destroyed a bridge over the Teteriv river to keep approaching Russian armored units from reaching the embattled capital. Ukraine's Ukrayinska Pravda newspaper confirmed the bridge's destruction.

On Thursday, Ukraine's top army commander and ambassador to the U.S. both said a Russian platoon from the 74th Motorized Brigade surrendered to Ukrainian forces, saying they never believed they would be asked to kill Ukrainians. 

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by notsonice

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https://www.globalresearch.ca/justin-trudeaus-swastikas-democracy-with-neo-nazi-characteristics/5770970

Both Prime Minister Trudeau together with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland (as part of Canada’s foreign policy) have “unofficially” supported Neo-Nazi politics in Ukraine.

Is the Trudeau Government supplying weapons and training to the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion?

Neo-Nazi politics in Ukraine is not a “Fringe Movement”, it is embedded in the military and national security apparatus, supported by the US and Canada.

According to the Ottawa Citizen (November 9, 2021)

 

“Canadian officials who met with members of a Ukrainian battalion linked to neo-Nazis didn’t denounce the unit, but were instead concerned the media would expose details of the get-together, according to newly released documents.

The Canadians met with and were briefed by leaders from the Azov Battalion in June 2018. The officers and diplomats did not object to the meeting and instead allowed themselves to be photographed with battalion officials despite previous warnings that the unit saw itself as pro-Nazi. The Azov Battalion then used those photos for its online propaganda, pointing out the Canadian delegation expressed “hopes for further fruitful co-operation.”

The Azov battalion which is part of Ukraine’s National Guard under the helm of the Ministry of the Interior is supported by Canadian tax payers.

Canada’s military training cooperation agreement with Ukraine has raised the concern of the Jewish Community. The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC)  “has called for an investigation by Canada’s Department of National Defence:

“We urge the Department of National Defence to immediately launch an investigation into the evidence that has been revealed by the George Washington University study and to develop new policies and procedures to ensure that all foreign trainees receive some type of background check to eliminate the possibility of neo-Nazi or other extremist affiliation before receiving training from Canadian forces.” (quoted in the Jerusalem Post, emphasis added)

 

See the NATO Flag (left), The Azov Battalion Nazi Insigna and the Swastika

http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/march_111015_2-2.jpg

Ukraine Neo-Nazi Militia

Who is Waving Swastikas?

Trudeau Accuses the Conservative Party of  Supporting “People who Wave Swastikas.” 

Does that not Describe Trudeau’s Relationship with Svoboda Neo-Nazi Party Leader Andrey Korubiy?

The leader of the Neo-Nazi party Svoboda Andrey Korubiy is a “political buddy” of our prime minister.

Andriy Parubiy co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) was invited by Trudeau to Ottawa in 2016.

Andriy Parubiy believes that it was necessary “to introduce direct democracy to Ukraine, with Hitler as its torchbearer.”

Justin Trudeau invites Andriy Parubiy to Ottawa

Deputy Chairman of Ukraine’s Parliament, Andriy Parubiy, visited Ottawa in February 2016, meeting with the prime minister. At that meeting (from left) are Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada Andriy Shevchenko, Verkhovna Rada Deputy Chairman Andriy Parubiy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Member of Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj.

Andriy Parubiy  is a supporter of World War II Nazi leader Stepan Bandera.

http://rt.com/files/opinionpost/21/e8/80/00/2.jpg

Anti-Semitism

While Trudeau accuses the Freedom Convoy of  anti-semitism (without a shred of evidence), he is supportive of the Ukraine’s National Guard which is integrated by Neo-Nazi elements.

Meanwhile (February 13),  Trudeau confirmed that Canada will be “sending $7.8 million worth of lethal equipment and ammunition to Ukraine”.

Andrey Parubiy’s Neo-Nazi party Svoboda is leading the campaign against Kiev’s Jewish community. Juden Raus!  (Jews Out!) is their motto.

The Jewish Community in Ukraine

Oleksandr Feldman president of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, accused   the Svoboda party in “engaging in anti-Semitic hate speech”.  According to the Times of Israel: (January 2017 report)

Ukrainian nationalists [Parubiy’s followers] in Kiev chanted “Jews out” in German at a New Year’s Day march celebrating the birthday of a Nazi collaborator whose troops killed thousands of Jews.

Thousands attended the event in the center of the Ukrainian capital celebrating Stepan Bandera, a leader of Ukraine’s nationalist movement in the 1930s and ’40s. They held up his portrait while an unidentified person shouted the anti-Semitic slogan on a loudspeaker, prompting many participants to repeat it, a video published by the Federal News Agency showed.

Bandera’s movement included an insurgent army which fought alongside Nazi soldiers during part of World War II. Supporters of Bandera claim they sided with the Nazis against the Soviet army, believing that Adolf Hitler would grant Ukraine independence.

In 2018, Parubiy was accused by the British media for praising Adolph Hitler

 

Andrey Parubiy was also received by the US Congress

Is it a matter of concern that Canadian forces dispatched by our government are training Nazi paramilitary forces in Ukraine?

There is ample evidence of Canadian and US support to Neo-Nazis in Ukraine going back to the 2014 Euromaidan,