Is Russia about to invade Ukraine? (1 Viewer)

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    superchuck500

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    Russia continues to mass assets within range of Ukraine - though the official explanations are that they are for various exercises. United States intelligence has noted that Russian operatives in Ukraine could launch 'false flag' operations as a predicate to invasion. The West has pressed for negotiations and on Friday in Geneva, the US Sec. State Blinken will meet with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.

    Certainly the Russian movements evidence some plan - but what is it? Some analysts believe that Putin's grand scheme involves securing Western commitments that NATO would never expand beyond its current composition. Whether that means action in Ukraine or merely the movement of pieces on the chess board remains to be seen.


    VIENNA — No one expected much progress from this past week’s diplomatic marathon to defuse the security crisis Russia has ignited in Eastern Europe by surrounding Ukraine on three sides with 100,000 troops and then, by the White House’s accounting, sending in saboteurs to create a pretext for invasion.

    But as the Biden administration and NATO conduct tabletop simulations about how the next few months could unfold, they are increasingly wary of another set of options for President Vladimir V. Putin, steps that are more far-reaching than simply rolling his troops and armor over Ukraine’s border.

    Mr. Putin wants to extend Russia’s sphere of influence to Eastern Europe and secure written commitments that NATO will never again enlarge. If he is frustrated in reaching that goal, some of his aides suggested on the sidelines of the negotiations last week, then he would pursue Russia’s security interests with results that would be felt acutely in Europe and the United States.

    There were hints, never quite spelled out, that nuclear weapons could be shifted to places — perhaps not far from the United States coastline — that would reduce warning times after a launch to as little as five minutes, potentially igniting a confrontation with echoes of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.






     


    That's conspiracy theory. I suggest you watch the documentary movie Maidan. Below I've posted the trailer.

    Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens protested until Victor Yanukovych quit and fled to Russia. Ukrainians took their country back from the Russian puppet with their bare hands while facing bullets to do so.

     
    Gish gallop using tweets. Yeah...no. And context matters. Little in those tweets mean much in today's context. efil4 is correct, there's absolutely no there here.
    Gish Gallop? Using the Senator's own words? Why don't you provide the context then that would contradict what the new & inexperienced US Senator accidentally admitted on CSPAN?

    Here's some more context, but beware. If anyone supports the US forever wars movement, you won't like what's said and pointed out.
     
    Gish Gallop? Using the Senator's own words? Why don't you provide the context then that would contradict what the new & inexperienced US Senator accidentally admitted on CSPAN?

    Here's some more context, but beware. If anyone supports the US forever wars movement, you won't like what's said and pointed out.



    ok im now fully convinced you are a russian troll.


    I stopped after 30 seconds- First off Yanukovich was NOT lawfully elected. Secondly, he terms it an "uproar- groups funded by US....organized and demanded the ouster ( of Yanukovich ) ...LIBS did it with Trump"

    Dude is an idiot. Wasting 19 min of my time listening to someone tell me the opposite of what transpired, and trying to blame the US for the current state of affairs is unbelievable to me and folks like you lap this @#$# up like mayo off a knife.

    For context, do you even know WHY the March at Maidan took place? Any clue?
     
    Gish Gallop? Using the Senator's own words? Why don't you provide the context then that would contradict what the new & inexperienced US Senator accidentally admitted on CSPAN?

    Here's some more context, but beware. If anyone supports the US forever wars movement, you won't like what's said and pointed out.

    I don't like or support Glenn Greenwald videos.
     
    You didn't watch a single video.
    3mfa5s.jpg
     
    Gish Gallop? Using the Senator's own words? Why don't you provide the context then that would contradict what the new & inexperienced US Senator accidentally admitted on CSPAN?

    Here's some more context, but beware. If anyone supports the US forever wars movement, you won't like what's said and pointed out.


    One of my biggest soapboxes is that. People like you , and Glenn are the true believers in American exceptionalism.

    Our intelligence network is so vast, and powerful. We can cause uprising in European countries leaving not a single fingerprint of our involvement.

    Unlike the Russians with their crude assassination attempts. We use manipulation, and influence to accomplish our primary task of making the Ukraine population pro-EU.

    We then used that same manipulation, and influence to beguile the Russians into attacking Ukraine. All, so we give vast sums of money to Ukraine to continue to fuel the MIC.

    COME ON
     

    I swear this is some Hollywood plot. A couple in Ukraine in their haste to evacuate took the wrong turn and straight to the Russian line. Their car was then shot by Russians with one uninjured and tending to another. Ukrainian troops observed this from the start, sent a drone to this woman with a note, "follow me". She followed it and it saved her life. Miraculously, her husband, who was thrown into a ditch by the Russians, is still alive but in critical condition.

    Here is the documentary that I assume the Ukrainians made. A little [edit: meant to say overly ]dramatic, I'll say but interesting none the less.



    Here’s the cnn video report:



    Starts at about the 1min ,ark.
     
    Last edited:

    I swear this is some Hollywood plot. A couple in Ukraine in their haste to evacuate took the wrong turn and straight to the Russian line. Their car was then shot by Russians with one uninjured and tending to another. Ukrainian troops observed this from the start, sent a drone to this woman with a note, "follow me". She followed it and it saved her life. Miraculously, her husband, who was thrown into a ditch by the Russians, is still alive but in critical condition.

    Here is the documentary that I assume the Ukrainians made. A little dramatic, I'll say but interesting none the less.




    effn amazing story.

    Thank you for that video.
     
    Last edited:

    I swear this is some Hollywood plot. A couple in Ukraine in their haste to evacuate took the wrong turn and straight to the Russian line. Their car was then shot by Russians with one uninjured and tending to another. Ukrainian troops observed this from the start, sent a drone to this woman with a note, "follow me". She followed it and it saved her life. Miraculously, her husband, who was thrown into a ditch by the Russians, is still alive but in critical condition.

    Here is the documentary that I assume the Ukrainians made. A little [edit: meant to say overly ]dramatic, I'll say but interesting none the less.



    Here’s the cnn video report:



    Starts at about the 1min ,ark.

    Not Critical of your post, but the entire invasion of Ukraine should be viewed as a warcrime, the death and destruction just because Putin wants his precious, the restsblishment of the USSR.


    Cha Cha Changes, Russia under it’s current leadership is the international Evil Empire…Seperate from this article, there maybe an internal reorganization on the horizon, but I’m not really sure what that would actually mean.
     
    One of my biggest soapboxes is that. People like you , and Glenn are the true believers in American exceptionalism.

    Our intelligence network is so vast, and powerful. We can cause uprising in European countries leaving not a single fingerprint of our involvement.

    Unlike the Russians with their crude assassination attempts. We use manipulation, and influence to accomplish our primary task of making the Ukraine population pro-EU.

    We then used that same manipulation, and influence to beguile the Russians into attacking Ukraine. All, so we give vast sums of money to Ukraine to continue to fuel the MIC.

    COME ON
    We don't leave any fingerprints if you get all your news from the corporate media. Here is a detailed article from the distinguished journalist Robert Parry. He was known for his role in covering the Iran–Contra affair for the Associated Press and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare and the CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking in the U.S. scandal in 1985.

    The National Endowment for Democracy, a central part of Ronald Reagan’s propaganda war against the Soviet Union three decades ago, has evolved into a $100 million U.S. government-financed slush fund that generally supports a neocon agenda often at cross-purposes with the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

    NED is one reason why there is so much confusion about the administration’s policies toward attempted ousters of democratically elected leaders in Ukraine and Venezuela. Some of the non-government organizations (or NGOs) supporting these rebellions trace back to NED and its U.S. government money, even as Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials insist the U.S. is not behind these insurrections.

    So, while President Barack Obama has sought to nurture a constructive relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin especially in hotspots like Iran and Syria, NED has invested in projects in Russia’s close neighbor, Ukraine, that fueled violent protests ousting President Viktor Yanukovych, who won election in 2010 in balloting that was viewed by international observers as fair and reflecting the choice of most Ukrainian citizens.

    Thus, a U.S.-sponsored organization that claims to promote “democracy” has sided with forces that violently overthrew a democratically elected leader rather than wait for the next scheduled election in 2015 to vote him out of office.

    For NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic “reforms” required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for “regime change.”

    Last September, NED’s longtime president, Carl Gershman, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to urge the U.S. government to push European “free trade” agreements on Ukraine and other former Soviet states and thus counter Moscow’s efforts to maintain close relations with those countries. The ultimate goal, according to Gershman, was isolating and possibly toppling Putin in Russia with Ukraine the key piece on this global chessboard.

    “Ukraine is the biggest prize,” Gershman wrote. “The opportunities are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help. The United States needs to engage with the governments and with civil society in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to ensure that the reform process underway not only promotes greater trade and development but also produces governments that are less corrupt and more accountable to their societies. An association agreement with the European Union should be seen not as an end in itself but as a starting point that makes possible deeper reforms and more genuine democracy.

    “Russian democracy also can benefit from this process. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

    Shadow Structure

    In furtherance of these goals, NED funded a staggering 65 projects in Ukraine, according to its latest report. The funding for these NGOs range from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars and created for NED what amounted to a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.

    This NED shadow structure, when working in concert with domestic opposition forces, had the capability to challenge the decisions of Yanukovych’s elected government, including the recent coup spearheaded by violent neo-Nazis that overthrew him. Presumably, NED wanted the “regime change” without the neo-Nazi element. But that armed force was necessary for the coup to oust Yanukovych and open the path for those IMF-demanded economic “reforms.”

    Beyond the scores of direct NED projects in Ukraine, other major NED recipients, such as Freedom House, have thrown their own considerable weight behind the Ukraine rebellion. A recent Freedom House fundraising appeal read: “More support, including yours, is urgently needed to ensure that Ukrainian citizens struggling for their freedom are protected and supported.” Freedom House meant the “citizens struggling” against their elected government.

    So, over this past week, a policy dispute about whether Ukraine should accept the European Union’s trade demands or go with a more generous $15 billion loan from Moscow escalated into violent street clashes and finally a putsch spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who took control of government buildings in Kiev.

    With Yanukovych and his top aides forced to flee for their lives, the opposition-controlled parliament then passed a series of draconian laws often unanimously, while U.S. neocons cheered and virtually no one in the U.S. press corps noted the undemocratic nature of what had just happened. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine.”]

    An Incipient Civil War

    On Wednesday, Yanukovych insisted that he was still the rightful president and his supporters seized government buildings in the eastern, ethnically Russian part of the country, setting the stage for what has the look of an incipient civil war.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. government appears nearly as divided as the Ukrainian people. While neocon holdovers in the State Department, particularly Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, helped instigate the crisis, President Obama has seen his collaboration with Putin to tamp down crises in Syria and Iran put at risk. That cooperation was already under attack from influential neocons at the Washington Post and other media outlets.

    Then, last December, Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” meaning out of the Russian orbit and into a Western one.

    On Jan. 28, Nuland spoke by phone to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt about how to manipulate Ukraine’s tensions and who to elevate into the country’s leadership. According to the conversation, which was intercepted and made public, Nuland ruled out one opposition figure, Vitali Klitschko, a popular former boxer, because he lacked experience.

    Nuland also favored the UN as mediator instead of the European Union, at which point in the conversation she exclaimed, “fork the E.U.” to which Pyatt responded, “Oh, exactly ” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons and the Ukraine Coup.”]

    Yet, the larger question for Americans may be whether NED and its slush fund have helped create not only shadow political structures in countries around the world but whether one now exists in the United States. Though NED has always justified its budget by focusing on what it will do in other countries, it spends much of its money in Washington D.C., funding NGOs that pay salaries of political operatives who, in turn, write American op-eds often from a neocon, interventionist perspective.

    Indeed, it would be hard to comprehend why the American neocon power structure didn’t capsize after the disastrous Iraq War without factoring in the financial ballast provided by NED and other neocon funding sources. That steady flow of NED funding, topping $100 million, gave the neocon movement the staying power that other foreign policy viewpoints lacked.


    Here is PBS talking about NED:
     
    We don't leave any fingerprints if you get all your news from the corporate media. Here is a detailed article from the distinguished journalist Robert Parry. He was known for his role in covering the Iran–Contra affair for the Associated Press and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare and the CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking in the U.S. scandal in 1985.

    The National Endowment for Democracy, a central part of Ronald Reagan’s propaganda war against the Soviet Union three decades ago, has evolved into a $100 million U.S. government-financed slush fund that generally supports a neocon agenda often at cross-purposes with the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

    NED is one reason why there is so much confusion about the administration’s policies toward attempted ousters of democratically elected leaders in Ukraine and Venezuela. Some of the non-government organizations (or NGOs) supporting these rebellions trace back to NED and its U.S. government money, even as Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials insist the U.S. is not behind these insurrections.

    So, while President Barack Obama has sought to nurture a constructive relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin especially in hotspots like Iran and Syria, NED has invested in projects in Russia’s close neighbor, Ukraine, that fueled violent protests ousting President Viktor Yanukovych, who won election in 2010 in balloting that was viewed by international observers as fair and reflecting the choice of most Ukrainian citizens.

    Thus, a U.S.-sponsored organization that claims to promote “democracy” has sided with forces that violently overthrew a democratically elected leader rather than wait for the next scheduled election in 2015 to vote him out of office.

    For NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic “reforms” required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for “regime change.”

    Last September, NED’s longtime president, Carl Gershman, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to urge the U.S. government to push European “free trade” agreements on Ukraine and other former Soviet states and thus counter Moscow’s efforts to maintain close relations with those countries. The ultimate goal, according to Gershman, was isolating and possibly toppling Putin in Russia with Ukraine the key piece on this global chessboard.

    “Ukraine is the biggest prize,” Gershman wrote. “The opportunities are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help. The United States needs to engage with the governments and with civil society in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to ensure that the reform process underway not only promotes greater trade and development but also produces governments that are less corrupt and more accountable to their societies. An association agreement with the European Union should be seen not as an end in itself but as a starting point that makes possible deeper reforms and more genuine democracy.

    “Russian democracy also can benefit from this process. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

    Shadow Structure

    In furtherance of these goals, NED funded a staggering 65 projects in Ukraine, according to its latest report. The funding for these NGOs range from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars and created for NED what amounted to a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.

    This NED shadow structure, when working in concert with domestic opposition forces, had the capability to challenge the decisions of Yanukovych’s elected government, including the recent coup spearheaded by violent neo-Nazis that overthrew him. Presumably, NED wanted the “regime change” without the neo-Nazi element. But that armed force was necessary for the coup to oust Yanukovych and open the path for those IMF-demanded economic “reforms.”

    Beyond the scores of direct NED projects in Ukraine, other major NED recipients, such as Freedom House, have thrown their own considerable weight behind the Ukraine rebellion. A recent Freedom House fundraising appeal read: “More support, including yours, is urgently needed to ensure that Ukrainian citizens struggling for their freedom are protected and supported.” Freedom House meant the “citizens struggling” against their elected government.

    So, over this past week, a policy dispute about whether Ukraine should accept the European Union’s trade demands or go with a more generous $15 billion loan from Moscow escalated into violent street clashes and finally a putsch spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who took control of government buildings in Kiev.

    With Yanukovych and his top aides forced to flee for their lives, the opposition-controlled parliament then passed a series of draconian laws often unanimously, while U.S. neocons cheered and virtually no one in the U.S. press corps noted the undemocratic nature of what had just happened. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine.”]

    An Incipient Civil War

    On Wednesday, Yanukovych insisted that he was still the rightful president and his supporters seized government buildings in the eastern, ethnically Russian part of the country, setting the stage for what has the look of an incipient civil war.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. government appears nearly as divided as the Ukrainian people. While neocon holdovers in the State Department, particularly Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, helped instigate the crisis, President Obama has seen his collaboration with Putin to tamp down crises in Syria and Iran put at risk. That cooperation was already under attack from influential neocons at the Washington Post and other media outlets.

    Then, last December, Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” meaning out of the Russian orbit and into a Western one.

    On Jan. 28, Nuland spoke by phone to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt about how to manipulate Ukraine’s tensions and who to elevate into the country’s leadership. According to the conversation, which was intercepted and made public, Nuland ruled out one opposition figure, Vitali Klitschko, a popular former boxer, because he lacked experience.

    Nuland also favored the UN as mediator instead of the European Union, at which point in the conversation she exclaimed, “fork the E.U.” to which Pyatt responded, “Oh, exactly ” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons and the Ukraine Coup.”]

    Yet, the larger question for Americans may be whether NED and its slush fund have helped create not only shadow political structures in countries around the world but whether one now exists in the United States. Though NED has always justified its budget by focusing on what it will do in other countries, it spends much of its money in Washington D.C., funding NGOs that pay salaries of political operatives who, in turn, write American op-eds often from a neocon, interventionist perspective.

    Indeed, it would be hard to comprehend why the American neocon power structure didn’t capsize after the disastrous Iraq War without factoring in the financial ballast provided by NED and other neocon funding sources. That steady flow of NED funding, topping $100 million, gave the neocon movement the staying power that other foreign policy viewpoints lacked.


    Here is PBS talking about NED:
    Bullschlitz.
     
    We don't leave any fingerprints if you get all your news from the corporate media. Here is a detailed article from the distinguished journalist Robert Parry. He was known for his role in covering the Iran–Contra affair for the Associated Press and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare and the CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking in the U.S. scandal in 1985.

    The National Endowment for Democracy, a central part of Ronald Reagan’s propaganda war against the Soviet Union three decades ago, has evolved into a $100 million U.S. government-financed slush fund that generally supports a neocon agenda often at cross-purposes with the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

    NED is one reason why there is so much confusion about the administration’s policies toward attempted ousters of democratically elected leaders in Ukraine and Venezuela. Some of the non-government organizations (or NGOs) supporting these rebellions trace back to NED and its U.S. government money, even as Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials insist the U.S. is not behind these insurrections.

    So, while President Barack Obama has sought to nurture a constructive relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin especially in hotspots like Iran and Syria, NED has invested in projects in Russia’s close neighbor, Ukraine, that fueled violent protests ousting President Viktor Yanukovych, who won election in 2010 in balloting that was viewed by international observers as fair and reflecting the choice of most Ukrainian citizens.

    Thus, a U.S.-sponsored organization that claims to promote “democracy” has sided with forces that violently overthrew a democratically elected leader rather than wait for the next scheduled election in 2015 to vote him out of office.

    For NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic “reforms” required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for “regime change.”

    Last September, NED’s longtime president, Carl Gershman, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to urge the U.S. government to push European “free trade” agreements on Ukraine and other former Soviet states and thus counter Moscow’s efforts to maintain close relations with those countries. The ultimate goal, according to Gershman, was isolating and possibly toppling Putin in Russia with Ukraine the key piece on this global chessboard.

    “Ukraine is the biggest prize,” Gershman wrote. “The opportunities are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help. The United States needs to engage with the governments and with civil society in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to ensure that the reform process underway not only promotes greater trade and development but also produces governments that are less corrupt and more accountable to their societies. An association agreement with the European Union should be seen not as an end in itself but as a starting point that makes possible deeper reforms and more genuine democracy.

    “Russian democracy also can benefit from this process. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

    Shadow Structure

    In furtherance of these goals, NED funded a staggering 65 projects in Ukraine, according to its latest report. The funding for these NGOs range from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars and created for NED what amounted to a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.

    This NED shadow structure, when working in concert with domestic opposition forces, had the capability to challenge the decisions of Yanukovych’s elected government, including the recent coup spearheaded by violent neo-Nazis that overthrew him. Presumably, NED wanted the “regime change” without the neo-Nazi element. But that armed force was necessary for the coup to oust Yanukovych and open the path for those IMF-demanded economic “reforms.”

    Beyond the scores of direct NED projects in Ukraine, other major NED recipients, such as Freedom House, have thrown their own considerable weight behind the Ukraine rebellion. A recent Freedom House fundraising appeal read: “More support, including yours, is urgently needed to ensure that Ukrainian citizens struggling for their freedom are protected and supported.” Freedom House meant the “citizens struggling” against their elected government.

    So, over this past week, a policy dispute about whether Ukraine should accept the European Union’s trade demands or go with a more generous $15 billion loan from Moscow escalated into violent street clashes and finally a putsch spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who took control of government buildings in Kiev.

    With Yanukovych and his top aides forced to flee for their lives, the opposition-controlled parliament then passed a series of draconian laws often unanimously, while U.S. neocons cheered and virtually no one in the U.S. press corps noted the undemocratic nature of what had just happened. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine.”]

    An Incipient Civil War

    On Wednesday, Yanukovych insisted that he was still the rightful president and his supporters seized government buildings in the eastern, ethnically Russian part of the country, setting the stage for what has the look of an incipient civil war.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. government appears nearly as divided as the Ukrainian people. While neocon holdovers in the State Department, particularly Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, helped instigate the crisis, President Obama has seen his collaboration with Putin to tamp down crises in Syria and Iran put at risk. That cooperation was already under attack from influential neocons at the Washington Post and other media outlets.

    Then, last December, Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” meaning out of the Russian orbit and into a Western one.

    On Jan. 28, Nuland spoke by phone to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt about how to manipulate Ukraine’s tensions and who to elevate into the country’s leadership. According to the conversation, which was intercepted and made public, Nuland ruled out one opposition figure, Vitali Klitschko, a popular former boxer, because he lacked experience.

    Nuland also favored the UN as mediator instead of the European Union, at which point in the conversation she exclaimed, “fork the E.U.” to which Pyatt responded, “Oh, exactly ” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons and the Ukraine Coup.”]

    Yet, the larger question for Americans may be whether NED and its slush fund have helped create not only shadow political structures in countries around the world but whether one now exists in the United States. Though NED has always justified its budget by focusing on what it will do in other countries, it spends much of its money in Washington D.C., funding NGOs that pay salaries of political operatives who, in turn, write American op-eds often from a neocon, interventionist perspective.

    Indeed, it would be hard to comprehend why the American neocon power structure didn’t capsize after the disastrous Iraq War without factoring in the financial ballast provided by NED and other neocon funding sources. That steady flow of NED funding, topping $100 million, gave the neocon movement the staying power that other foreign policy viewpoints lacked.


    Here is PBS talking about NED:

    How does this guy explain Yushchenko? The pro-EU president that the Russians tried to assassinate. If it was undue American influence why was that man ever elected?
    You realize by posting something like this you are simply reinforcing my opinion?

    Does the Ukrainian citizen have any free will? Can they not simply be pro-EU because of their troubled history with Russia? Or that joining the EU would lead to greater quality of life for them, and their children? Why does their need to be some American plot in this?

    Was it actually America who worked to destabilize Ukraine? Was it America that had a vast spy network, and worked to corrupt politicians? Was it America that invaded the second their puppet got ousted?

    It's hilarious to look at everything Russia has done in that country and say "It's American's fault. America bad."

    You have lost the plot.
     

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