Via: http://rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-us-kiev-usaid-380/

By Robert Bridges

Robert Bridge has worked as a journalist in Russia since 1998. Formerly the editor-in-chief of The Moscow News, Bridge is the author of the book, “Midnight in the American Empire.”

Published time: April 14, 2014 14:24

To the casual consumer of McMedia happy meals, the Ukrainian crisis is a consequence of Russia’s yearning for empire lost, a Nazi-style Anschluss that began with Crimea and will end, judging by the big-font hysteria, somewhere near Alaska.

For the more sober-minded observer, however, whose worldview has not been vandalized by misguided Russophobic inclinations, the reality of the situation is a bit more complicated.

In December 2013, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich made a decision that seems radical only because we have been trained to believe that national indebtedness to foreign institutions is the natural order of things: After telling EU’s officials that he intended to sign the European association agreement, Yanukovich sent shock waves across the Western world when he suddenly reversed his decision (Until now, only Iceland has had the courage to say ‘no’ to western liberal reformers and their massive cash injections since the bottom fell out of the global economy in 2008).

Why the change of heart? Because the now-deposed Ukrainian leader had no desire to sell his proud nation down the river. Yanukovich understood that the harsh austerity measures demanded by the EU-IMF-NATO triumvirate would have served as a final death blow to the Ukrainian people, already suffering from many years of high unemployment and a withering economy.

Yanukovich decided instead to accept a no-strings-attached loan of $15 billion from neighboring Russia – interest-free! Considering the ongoing meltdown of EU member states, most notably in Greece, which continues to stagnate despite a massive $145 billion injection in 2010, Kiev’s volte-face toward Russia was not without merit.

However, that is not the way the Masters of the Western Universe, who wish to control the debt of nations, saw the situation.

No sooner had Yanukovich adjusted his reading glasses to read the fine-print conditions on the EU-IMF agreement, US Senator John McCain was in central Kiev, agitating the local populace with boilerplate promises of a debt-free future while shaking hands and kissing so many babies you’d think he was running for the Ukrainian presidency.

“Ukraine will make Europe better, and Europe will make Ukraine better,” McCain told a confused crowd in Kiev. “We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe.”

Later, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was in Kiev, just as anti-government protests had reached fevered pitch, handing out pastries to Ukraine’s protesters and riot police. While there was no word on the expiration date of the bakery goods, the idea of the American superpower acting self-righteous and charitable in the middle of a foreign nation’s internal crisis – triggered in no small part by Washington’s own manipulations – was unappetizing to say the least.

So how does one explain Washington’s extreme diplomatic overtures in Kiev? Is it simply a case that the United States, as the self-designated champion of human rights and cake distribution, is merely acting as an impartial advocate on behalf of an internal political struggle (with emphasis on the word ‘internal’)? History would suggest otherwise.

It is no secret that the United States has been angling for a strategic advantage in Eastern Europe since the end of World War II, with special attention focused on strategically important Ukraine, which could serve as a future bridgehead into Central Asia and beyond. In an interview with Kiev’s Weekly Digest (May, 2004) Zbigniew Brzezinski, Washington’s premier adviser on geopolitical strategy, emphasized the importance of Russia’s neighbor.

Ukraine “is certainly not a pawn; it may not be a queen, but it certainly is an important element on the chessboard – one of the most important.”

We could probably agree that one does not normally allude to the ultimate game of strategy when discussing democracy and people power. Clearly, Brzezinski and his worn-out chess board was making an unmistakable reference to Ukraine’s military importance to the United States. It was not, of course, a call for humanitarian action.

So what conclusion should Russian strategists draw from such analysis, especially as NATO continues its mechanized march toward Russia’s border, and despite pledges made to Moscow following the collapse of the Soviet Union that the military bloc would not “move an inch” beyond Germany?

Washington’s disingenuous approach to the so-called “reset,” an Obama-conceived initiative used to camouflage America’s militaristic designs in the region, was finally revealed by NATO’s blunt refusal to permit Russia’s participation in the US missile defense shield project in Eastern Europe – a stone’s throw from the Russian border.

Moscow warned if NATO failed to agree on some sort of mutual agreement with Russia over the ambitious project, which has all the potential to destroy the fragile strategic balance in the region, another arms race could occur on the continent. Yet as incredible as it may seem, NATO seems willing to alienate Russia over an unproven system allegedly designed to neutralize an unproven enemy (Iran) while risking an all-out nuclear-tipped arms race.

Judging by the relative insanity of NATO’s decision, which ignores the necessity of bilateral cooperation in the war on terror, to which Russia is certainly no stranger, the only thing the “reset” achieved was to sow dissent and disagreement between the former Cold War foes. The Ukrainian crisis was merely the final straw on the back of an overloaded camel.

However, one nation’s crisis is another corporation’s windfall. Indeed, developments in Ukraine certainly spell big bucks for America’s bloated defense industry, which has used the Ukraine crisis in general, and the Crimean “annexation” in particular, to warn Capitol Hill of Russia’s “return to imperialism.” Never mind that Russia has not violated the territorial integrity of a single foreign country – without being attacked first, as was the case with Georgia – since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“Everybody in the Pentagon and in the defense industry is using the Ukraine crisis as a warning for why the department needs to spend more on military technology,” Loren Thompson, chief operating officer for the Lexington Institute, told AP.

Military advantage, however, is not the only reason for Washington imposing itself on Kiev. To understand the full picture, it is only necessary to consider the corporate circus that US Congress has become, in which the “people’s representatives” now take their marching orders from boardrooms across corporate America.

Consider, for example, efforts by the American Petroleum Institute to take advantage of Kiev’s chaos.

“We’ve just had a consistent drumbeat going since the beginning of last year,” Erik Milito, API’s director of industry operations, told Bloomberg. “We just kept doing it, and this became a more heightened debate during the whole Ukraine situation.”

Milito said the message from API, whose members include the likes of Chevron and Exxon Mobil, was not lost upon Democrat and Republican members of Congress.

“It’s a common thing when there’s a crisis for companies to see opportunity, and they will use advocacy to pursue their interests,” said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington.

This begs the obvious question: Is the United States purposefully provoking crises, like the one presently ripping Ukraine apart by the seams, in order to advance itself not only militarily in the region (after all, EU membership de facto implies NATO membership as well), but to quell the inordinate appetite of American corporations?

Judging by recent revelations on the part of Russia regarding the work of NGOs and particular government agencies, that is a very strong likelihood.

In September 2012, Russia’s Foreign Ministry informed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that, after operating on the territory of Russia for 20 years, it would no longer be welcome.

According to the Foreign Ministry, USAID was attempting to manipulate the election processes in the country.

“The character of the agency’s work … did not always comply with the declared aims of cooperation in bilateral humanitarian cooperation,” the Foreign Ministry said on its website. “We are talking about issuing grants in an attempt to affect the course of the political processes in the country, including elections at different levels and institutions in civil society.”

Russian civil society has become fully mature, the Foreign Ministry said, and did not need any “external direction.”

Over the last 20 years, USAID has pumped $1.8 billion into various Ukrainian projects, which its website says help “Ukrainians experience increased political freedoms, stronger transparency guarantees, and more economic and social opportunities.”

How much that massive investment of US taxpayer dollars was used – knowingly or otherwise – to spread the seed of dissent revolution in Ukraine is anybody’s guess. But one thing is certain: the crisis in Ukraine has proven that the American empire is a borderless, virtual construct, which needn’t physically dominate a territory to possess it.

Like a fly-by-night vampire, the EU-IMF-NATO troika only requires an invitation to enter and operate inside of a country before the bloodletting, bank loans and corporate takeovers can begin. Eventually, the debtor country is stuffed into an ill-fitting NATO uniform and becomes a mere shadow of its former self.

Like so many international “patients” that came and went before, Ukraine will never be the same again.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HCP.

Via: http://rt.com/news/nato-satellite-images-drills-712/

Published time: April 10, 2014 20:36

The satellite images released by NATO that allegedly show a current build-up of Russian troops near Ukrainian border were taken in August 2013 amid military drills, a source in the General Staff of the Russian Army has said.

NATO’s top military commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, on Wednesday claimed that there is evidence of what he says are 40,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, tweeting a link to satellite images.

The images, some of them colored and some black and white, appear to show multiple Russian tanks, helicopters, fighter jets and a “special forces brigade” with locations and dates added to them. The dates marked range from March 22 to March 27, 2014. Another image not available on the original webpage but used by some Western media has “April 2, 2014” stamped on it.

Upon looking at the photos, a senior official at the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has confirmed to RIA Novosti the troops shown are indeed Russian ones and that they were photographed in the south of Russia.

There is one problem, though: the images were taken some eight months before the stated date, the source said.

“These shots, which were distributed by NATO, show Russian Armed Forces units of the Southern Military District, which in the summer of last year were taking part in various drills, including near the Ukrainian border,” the General Staff official told RIA Novosti.

Large military drills held in the south of Russia last year included Combat Commonwealth 2013 – a joint air defense exercise of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Back then, Ukrainian troops participated in the international drills.

NATO on Thursday continued ramping up allegations of possible “Russian invasion” into Ukraine, with NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen claiming that 40,000 Russian troops are still amassed on the Ukrainian border “not training but ready for combat.”

Rasmussen’s “message to Russia” was then “to stop blaming others for your own actions, to stop massing your troops, to stop escalating this crisis and start engaging in a genuine dialogue.”

Meanwhile, General Breedlove on Wednesday said that US troops may soon be deployed to Europe to “reassure” the NATO allies – a notion, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called a flagrant breach of the bloc’s international obligations.

The Ukrainian coup-imposed government has also stepped up its rhetoric on Russia’s military presence, even claiming there is “military activity on behalf of the Russian Federation… on the territory of Ukraine” in an invitation to the Netherlands via OSCE network.

Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich on Thursday responded to the allegations by stressing that “on the territory of Ukraine, there is no military activity conducted by Russia.”

“This has been confirmed by the group of inspectors from Denmark, Germany, Poland, Austria and Sweden, who were in Ukraine from March 20 to April 2 and visited Kharkov, Donetsk, Mariupol, Nikolaev and Odessa regions,” Lukashevich stated.

Suggesting the territory mentioned in the diplomatic note might have been that of the Crimean Republic, the spokesman said the related activity there has to do with transferring of the ships and military hardware to Ukraine, as well as with the “inventorying of the military installations.” As soon as this process is finished, the international inspectors are welcome to the territory of the peninsula – provided they send a request to Moscow, not to Kiev, he stressed.

Via: http://rt.com/news/ukraine-donetsk-kharkov-nikolaev-161/  (There is an excellent video attached to the story)

Published time: April 08, 2014 14:50
Edited time: April 08, 2014 18:25

Dozens have been arrested as Kiev authorities launched a crackdown on anti-Maidan activists in cities of eastern Ukraine that attempted to declare their independence.

At least 70 activists have been arrested after a so-called “anti-terrorist operation” launched by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry in the eastern city of Kharkov.
According to the country’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, “the building of the regional state administration is totally free of the separatists who seized it earlier.”

Hundreds of protesters rallied in Svoboda Square near Kharkov’s regional council building, demanding the release of 70 pro-Russian activists later on Tuesday. The building was surrounded by police.

On Monday, Kharkov protesters erected barricades around administrative buildings and the regional headquarters of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). The demonstrators soon took control of the building.

This was followed by clashes with police who reportedly unleashed fire-hoses, stun grenades and tear gas to push the crowd back from the building. In response, protesters threw several Molotov cocktails at the building and set a pile of tires on fire. The blaze soon spread to the first floor of the building.
Eventually, a group of local police outside the administration building moved in to push protesters back, allowing fire crews to extinguish the blaze. The building was slightly damaged by the blaze and several windows were broken in the scuffles.

Activists at the scene said the law enforcement officers who used force against protesters had been deployed from western Ukraine. According to some witnesses, the violence was initially triggered by a group of provocateurs.

Despite the crackdown, a group of at least 150 people gathered in front of Kharkov’s administration building Tuesday to protest against the new authorities in Kiev.

Donetsk

Ukraine’s southeast has been seeing weekly anti-Maidan demonstrations.

In Donetsk, activists proclaimed the creation of a People’s Republic of Donetsk after seizing the local administration building.

This action on Monday was also followed by a special operation. Police took weapons seized by the protesters in the SBU’s regional headquarters, Donetsk Mayor Aleksandr Lukyanchenko said.

Ukrainian media however report that the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk has ceased to exist.

“The Committee on Patriotic forces of Donbass has been receiving numerous calls from the public voicing their disagreement with the proclamation of the republic and its joining the neighboring state as well as conducting a referendum – all those without a legal base in place,” Ukrainskaya Pravda daily cited the committee said as saying.

The proclamation and referendum plans were thus annulled till the legal base is created, the committee said. The group’s original posting on Facebook has become unavailable.

Lugansk, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk

On Tuesday, protesters gathered in Lugansk – also outside the regional department of the SBU. Interfax-Ukraine reported that the protesters were setting up barricades and pouring flammable mixtures on them.

The speakers at the demonstration called for the creation of a parliament of the Lugansk republic, choosing new MPs and establishing a new government. Calls for an independence referendum were also heard.

On Monday, clashes erupted in the southern Ukrainian city of Nikolaev after at least 300 activists attempted to storm the city administration building. The protesters were also trying to remove the Ukrainian flag from the administration building. Police reportedly used rubber bullets to force the crowd back from the building.

At least 15 people have been injured, with 11 of them were admitted to hospital, and more than 20 arrested, the city’s Health Department reported. derly woman looks at the Russian flag set up by pro-Russian activists at a barricade blocking access to the Ukrainian Security After pro-Russian demonstrators expressed their discontent with Kiev authorities in the city of Dnepropetrovsk, the city authorities moved to negotiate with the anti-government activists.

According to the region’s deputy governor, Boris Filatov, both the “left-wing” and the pro-Russian protesters agreed to refrain from “calls for separatist actions.” In return, the authorities said they will let the activists use some offices in the administrative buildings for their “meetings and work,” as well as provide them with “free access” to local printed media.

Meanwhile, Russia has called on Kiev and Washington not to ignore the interests of all of Ukraine’s regions, including those in southeastern Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry voiced concerns over the build-up of Ukrainian forces and US mercenaries in southeastern parts of the country, calling on Kiev to immediately cease military preparations which could lead to a civil war.

According to Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, the coup-appointed government in Ukraine has not made any positive steps towards these regions and the people there “fear that their interests are being ignored by Kiev.”

Via: http://mltoday.com/what-really-happened-in-ukraine?utm

By Jack A. Smith

“The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then.

— Henry Kissinger, Washington Post, March 6, 2014

“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard (1998)

Russia has taught the United States a stern and embarrassing lesson in Ukraine as a riposte to Washington-backed regime change in Kiev, the capital. “So far,” Moscow in effect warned a thoroughly shocked Washington, “but no further.” President Vladimir Putin then annexed Crimea.

Nothing quite like this this move on the geopolitical chessboard has happened since the U.S. became the world’s single superpower over two decades ago.

The objective of the Obama Administration’s support for a coup to remove an essentially neutral Ukrainian government (though neighborly toward Russia) was to install a regime leaning toward — and economically dependent upon — the United States and the European Union. The purpose is to compromise Russia’s revival as a regional power critical of U.S. policies.

The neutrality of the Kiev government, if not close ties, is exceptionally important to Moscow for its own long-term regional goals, and it will work toward repairing relations in time. Considerable support for Russia remains in the country.

Washington was obviously disoriented by Russia’s unexpected move in Ukraine, and perhaps even more so when Putin shrugged off President Obama’s subsequent threats. But for all the anti-Russia rhetoric, sanctions and other punishments emanating from the U.S. and EU, the danger of an armed clash or greatly heightened East-West tensions is relatively remote at the moment, but if the confrontations continue there may be more serious problems ahead.

On March 21, Putin said “he wanted to halt the cycle of tit-for-tat retribution between Moscow and Washington,” according to the New York Times. But it is too early for the self-righteous Obama Administration and Congress to simmer down. Russia in effect challenged the global superpower — an act of supreme lèse-majesté — and this requires considerable posturing, tough rhetoric and a dose of pain from an offended Washington.

From Moscow’s point of view, however, the U.S. and UE made a deep penetration into Russia’s long recognized sphere of influence and Putin had to respond with some degree of equivalence. He easily found it in Crimea.

The U.S. and EU so far have imposed relatively mild sanctions on Russia though warning they would be significantly intensified should Moscow engage in other military moves in Ukraine, which President Putin earlier ruled out. On March 24, the Group of 8 wealthy countries announced it would not invite Russia to future meetings, as least temporarily, and also decided not to attend the scheduled upcoming G8 meeting in the Olympic city of Sochi but will gather at the “G7” in Brussels next June. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia wasn’t disturbed by the development.

Incongruously, the act that provoked the Crimean referendum — the U.S.-backed right wing coup against the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich — received far less attention from the American media and hardly any outrage from Washington and most European capitals, even over the fact that organized fascist elements joined the protests leading to the so-called “revolution.”

Washington intrigued to bring about a coup against as punishment for his recent decision to rely on Russian aid and not that offered by the European Union (which was backed by the U.S.) to help bail Ukraine out of a severe economic crisis.

The Ukraine government had been in discussions with the EU to produce a tentative proposal last year. It was short of the country’s needs but better than nothing, even though it also demanded economic, social and infrastructural “reforms” to get the funding. Last fall, Moscow then offered Ukraine an exceptionally generous aid package — a better deal for the government and the working class than the pending proposition from the austerity-minded EU and the conservative International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The entire situation could possibly have been avoided. According to journalist, author and Russia expert Stephen Cohen, interviewed on Democracy Now Jan. 30: “The European Union in November told the government of Ukraine, ‘If you want to sign an economic relationship with us, you cannot sign one with Russia.’ Why not? Putin has said, ‘Why don’t the three of us have an arrangement? We’ll help Ukraine. The West will help Ukraine.’”

The EU and U.S. refused. Our guess is that they wanted to control Ukraine for themselves, not least because it was the most important Soviet republic after Russia itself— a blow to Moscow — as well as a military threat.

Why a coup over this? The White House has long sought to separate Kiev from Moscow since the implosion of the Soviet Union in order to eventually move American power and NATO bases directly up to Ukraine’s Russian border. Washington has been engaged for about two decades in seeking to transform Ukraine into a pro-Western state situated within Washington’s sphere of influence and leadership.

The U.S. thought it achieved its objective when it helped engineer Ukraine’s so-called “Orange Revolution” in 2004, but this victory was short-lived — the victim of infighting and treachery in a basically oligarch-controlled democratic political system that of course still exists. Yanucovich’s election in 2010 was a major turning of the page, and now seems to be turning back.

One proof of Washington’s role in regime change materialized when a secretly taped telephone conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and Geoffrey Platt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, appeared on YouTube Feb. 6. The call was made weeks earlier. They were so sure of a coup several weeks ahead that they discussing who would be the U.S. candidate to replace Yanukovich when the day came. There were three possible “moderate Democratic” pro-U.S. choices..

Nuland pushed for Arseniy Yatseniuk, leader of the rightwing opposition Fatherland party, and Platt agreed. Yatseniuk, a 39-year-old banker, lawyer and politician, was named Prime Minister Feb. 27, five days after Yanukovich was ejected. Nuland’s by now infamous “Fuck the E.U.” comment on the tape reflected Washington’s displeasure that the European Union was not moving fast enough to take full advantage of the crisis.

Neoconservative Nuland is evidently managing the current aspect of the State Department’s Ukraine project. In a mid-December speech to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, a group dedicated to promoting U.S.-European political and business values in the old homeland — i.e., it’s anti-Russian — Nuland revealed that the American government spent at least $5 billion over the years to turn Ukraine toward Washington. Dozens of U.S.-affiliated NGO’s and government agencies have been engaged in “democracy building” projects in Ukraine over the years, including the United States Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, International Republican Institute, the Open Society Foundations, Freedom House, and The National Democratic Institute.

The Obama Administration clearly knew of the important contribution toward regime change made by fascist and neo-Nazi forces involved in the three months of demonstrations against the government following Russia’s aid offer. Nuland and her entourage even attended a mass demonstration, giving out pastries and urging people to keep up the good work. Several top American politicians also dropped by to show support and to appear important. Some — such as Sen. John McCain — allowed themselves to be photographed with fascist leaders.

Secretary of State John Kerry was a frequent visitor to Kiev during the months of anti-government protests, dashing here and there and making pompous pronouncements on behalf of President Obama. Vice President Joe Biden also showed up, no doubt thinking about how the trip will improve his hopeless chances to become the next Democratic presidential nominee. The Nuland tape has her telling Platt she was sending Biden to Kiev to say “ata-boy” to America’s candidate in the Ukraine election.

The White House was mum about the role of the extreme right wing in the protests since it served U.S. interests. The Oval Office also didn’t say a peep about the provisional government’s decision — for the first time in Europe since the Nazi era — to name several fascist leaders to high level positions. It will be of intense interest if these same ultra right groups are again elevated to significant office in the permanent government to be elected May 25.

The fascist groups, mainly Svoboda and the Right Sector, have grown very fast in the last several years. Svoboda won only a couple of seats in the 2006 parliamentary elections, but in 2012 it obtained 37 seats out of 450.

President Obama and leaders of the European Union were blindsided by the Crimea affair. They refuse to accept the astonishingly popular vote, alleging the secession was illegal and that the vote was meaningless because the rest of the country must also vote in such a situation. Considerable hypocrisy pervades the current U.S./EU hand-wringing about territorial integrity, given their own recent conduct, such as:

The province of Kosovo broke away from the Serbian component of Yugoslavia in 1999 with help from a devastating three-month U.S.-NATO bombing campaign that caused heavy damage and many lives in Belgrade, the capital. There was no vote at all for secession by the residents of Kosovo province or throughout Serbia. Washington and the UN then recognized Kosovo’s separation and helped support the territory until it became an independent state. EU entities encouraged and backed this move as they did earlier “assisted” secessions from socialist Yugoslavia. Kosovo now houses Camp Bondsteel, a large U.S./NATO base. In recent years the U.S. has supported the separation of South Sudan from Sudan, Eritrea from Ethiopia, and East Timor from Indonesia.

Regarding the need for an entire country to vote, Canada’s separatist Parti Québécois has participated in different (failed) legal referenda on national sovereignty for the province of Quebec without the rest of the country voting. There are other examples, of course.

The struggle that took place in Ukraine from November until now is extremely complex and in this article we shall look back in history— back to the origins and travail of Crimea, back to Washington’s expensive two-decade effort to lure Ukraine into America’s sphere of influence and to bring it into NATO as well.

First, a word about Ukraine: It is the largest country situated entirely in Europe. If it were a U.S. state it would be third in size at 233,032 sq. mi. The population was 44.3 million, until the 2.2 million people of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation. (This includes Sevastopol city, within Crimea but under the jurisdiction of the national capital Kiev, not Crimea’s capital of Simferopol.) Residents of Crimea who wish to retain their Ukrainian citizenship were given 30 days to make their application. Ukraine is an urban, industrialized country that excels in agriculture and is a major exporter of grain and corn. U.S. business interests, primarily Big Agriculture, are deeply invested in the country.

Moscow is far weaker than the U.S but holds some powerful pieces in this geopolitical chess match:

• Russian public opinion strongly supports President Putin and his handling of the Ukraine crisis. Putin’s popularity is usually about 60% but it has jumped to 75.7%, since Jan.1, the highest in five years, according to the VCIOM All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center. RT reports a second poll March 14-15 that showed 91.4% of Russian citizens approve of Crimea becoming a part of the Russian Federation. Only 5% said they were opposed.

In the U.S., CBS reported March 25 that a new poll found “61% of Americans do not think the U.S. has a responsibility to do something about the situation between Russia and Ukraine, nearly twice as many as the 32% who think it does…and specifically 65% do not think the U.S. should provide military aid and equipment to Ukraine in response to Russia’s actions, while only 26% think the U.S. should.” A few days earlier, a Pew Research poll shows that 56% of Americans oppose becoming “too involved in the Ukraine situation.” Those favoring “a firm stand against Russian actions” amounted to 29%. The “don‘t knows” were 15%. Only 8% of the people thought the U.S. should “consider military options.”

What is remarkable here is that most Americans get their information about international affairs from a mass media and government that is one-sided and often deceptive — and still they strongly opposed going to war against Syria a few months ago and now want to keep out of Ukraine. This is quite a change from the public support for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, subversion and near war against Iran, and potential wars or regime-change in Venezuela, Bolivia and North Korea. The people are weary of war.

• Sanctions aren’t a big worry for Moscow at this point. Russia supplies 30% of the EU’s essential natural gas supply and much oil as well. Russia’s energy sector produces over half of government revenues — and for the next several years at least Europe is in no position to allow sanctions to disrupt this centerpiece of Russia’s economy. Obama is a master at applying sanctions — a virtual qualification for the presidency — but they will cause nothing like the pain being applied to Iran.

In this connection it must be noted that Russia is cooperating with U.S. sanctions against Iran but if Washington and the EU were to significantly increase sanctions or demands on Russia, Moscow could retaliate, in the words of the New York Times March 22, by reviving “plans for a barter deal with the Iranians that would enable them to sell more oil, undercutting the pressure exerted on Iran by Western sanctions.” The Financial Times reported March 25 that in addition Russia could decide to sell Iran the long-range S-300 air defense missile system analysts say “can be a game changer because it would reduce Israel’s ability to attack Iran.”

On March 20 Standard & Poor downgraded Russia’s credit rating from stable to negative, a move that may have been more political than financial. Europe is obviously reluctant to impose strong sanctions and Obama is restrained by objections from U.S. finance and corporate interests that profit from doing business with Russia. So far a number of ranking Russians are being inconvenienced by individual sanctions, travel bans and asset freezes, and Visa/MasterCard owners are out of luck — but the economy, which wasn’t in such good shape to begin with, seems to be remaining stable.

A March 21 report in Politico by Oliver Bullough suggests U.S. sanctions may actually be helping Putin’s several-year campaign to pressure Russian capitalists to deposit their money in Russian, not foreign, banks, where they often hide their assets to cheat tax collection at home. The Russian leader hopes that sanctions and the threat of having their assets frozen will bring more money back to Moscow. Putin has greatly weakened the power of the oligarchs since taking office. Having more of their money in Russian banks empowers state control.

•As a member of the UN Security Council Moscow has an important say (and a veto) in global matters, including those pertaining to Syria, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela — all countries the U.S. seeks to punish or overthrow.

• Russia has many nuclear weapons and adequate delivery systems. After falling apart during the 1990s following the implosion of the USSR, Russia’s armed forces and weapons are now considered sufficient for most challenges. Given this and the Crimean episode, it is now quite doubtful a sober White House will order NATO bases built in Ukraine in the foreseeable future. Halting NATO’s continual advance toward Russia is an existential matter for Moscow. Interim Prime Minister Yatseniuk sought to assure Russia by stating, “association with NATO is not on the agenda.” But Moscow wasn’t born yesterday, and knows today’s agenda could change tomorrow.

As the Soviet Union was beginning to come apart in 1990, Washington promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev — in return for the reunification of Germany — that it would not seek to recruit NATO membership from the impending dissolution of the Warsaw Pact or from the various ex-republics. The U.S. broke that promise right after the USSR imploded 23 years ago.

Years later Gorbachev declared: “They probably rubbed their hands rejoicing at having played a trick on the Russians,” adding this probably is a factor behind Russia’s distrust today.

The anti-Soviet NATO military pact never disbanded and now functions as Washington’s Foreign Legion, fattened by the acquisition of nearly all the former East European members of the Warsaw Pact and three former Soviet republics — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In 2008, the Bush Administration announced that Ukraine and Georgia were becoming members of NATO. Moscow announced it would not tolerate any such maneuver, and briefly invaded Georgia on the side of separatist South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Washington’s support and intimate involvement in the undemocratic ouster of Yanukovich renewed Moscow’s deep concern about the expansion of NATO to Ukraine, which they would never tolerate any more than the U.S. would Russian troops at the Mexican border.

• Moscow has friends. The 120 member nations of the Non-Aligned Movement have no beef with the Russian Federation. It would hardly be surprising if many of them quietly admired Russia’s chutzpah for standing up to the imperial superpower. A number of other countries are close to Moscow, such as those in Commonwealth of Independent States, Collective Security Treaty Organization or Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The BRICS group of rising economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — is not about to chasten a fellow member of a club that prefers a multilateral world leadership in place of the existing unilateral hegemon. (Incidentally, Harvard history Professor Niall Ferguson wrote this month that the first four BRICS countries will come close within five years to overtaking the four established economic giants: The U.S., UK, Germany and Japan.) China is keeping silent about Ukraine because of its non-interference policy, and it is unenthusiastic about successions, being jittery about Tibet, but if the conflict sharply intensifies Beijing will work to ease tensions, probably siding with Russia in extremis.

Putin’s facilitation of Crimea’s desire for independence from Ukraine was not simply Moscow getting back at Washington for the overthrow of Yanukovich or the desire to protect Russian speakers from the fascist elements, although they were factors. It is also a genuine belief held by most Russians that it is time to bring the Crimean people back home. Further, and this cannot be underestimated, it secured Russia’s prized Navy base.

Without firing a shot, Moscow’s response to regime change was so adept it could have been choreographed by the Bolshoi. On March 11, the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea adopted a declaration of independence from Ukraine. Five days later a peaceful democratic and honest referendum was conducted in the region and 96.77% voted to return to Russia (see election sidebar). The next day President Vladimir Putin, with overwhelming backing from the Russian people and parliament, annexed the territory.

Only one-third of the Ukrainian soldiers and their families stationed in Crimea are heeding Kiev’s call to return to Ukraine. The remaining two-thirds have opted to stay in Russian Crimea. We don’t know the reasons.

Crimea had been part of Russia since the late 1700s. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to neighboring Ukraine in 1954, supposedly to facilitate construction of a huge hydro-electrical project that would supply power to Ukraine and Crimea.

Another motive was noted by former Bush Administration UN Ambassador John Bolton in speaking to a student conference Washington, D.C., Feb. 16. He said Khrushchev “gave the eastern portion and the Crimea to the Ukraine, hoping to water down the still latent Nazism that survived World War II in western Ukraine.” There had been a substantial pro-Nazi movement in the country during the war, part of which fought alongside the Germans and/or against the Russians. Many of Ukraine’s younger fascists today look up to those earlier fighters as heroes.

The people of Crimea, virtually all Russians at the time, were not consulted about the shift and most resented Khrushchev’s decision, though they at least remained in the same Soviet Union, as close to each other as New York to New Jersey. Many longed for Crimea to return to Russia, especially after the union fell apart in 1991.

In 1994 the people of Crimea held their first referendum on separation from Ukraine, and 80% voted for independence but nothing came of it. Twenty years passed before the second referendum, and Crimea returned to Russia.

When Ukraine absorbed Crimea, Russia retained leased rights to the huge strategically important northern Black Sea Fleet base in Crimea, which it has occupied for 221 years. The facility is a geopolitical treasure because it is Russia’s only significant warm water port. Obviously, Moscow was worried that a U.S.-installed regime in Kiev might refuse to renew Russia’s lease. Now this important military facility is safely in Russian hands. (As an aside, Russia’s main warm water port outside its own territory is in the Mediterranean Sea at Tartus in Syria. From the Russian point of view, both strategic bases have been endangered by U.S. imperialism — one by regime change in Ukraine, one by supporting regime change in Syria.)

Serious opposition was aroused in November when Yanukovich rejected the EU-U.S. bailout measure in favor of the Russian aid package. The trouble was mainly in western Ukraine where many citizens identify with Europe, and less so in east and south Ukraine where there is a large population of ethnic Russians, especially in Crimea.

The demonstrations were not so much arguments about the merits of the offer from the European Union, U.S. and International Monetary Fund versus that from Moscow but whether to move toward Europe or Russia. Moscow offered the near-bankrupt Ukrainian government a huge package of aid, including an offer to buy $15 billion of the country’s bonds and reduce the price of Russian gas imports by a third.

President Obama offered a $1 billion loan guarantee, but it is not clear what is coming from the EU and IMF because the situation is changing. Previous offers were considerably lower than Russia’s, and strings were attached.

Within a week 100,000 protesters converged in Maidan Square in a largely peaceful demonstration. There were clashes with police outside the square when breakaway groups smashed their way into Kiev’s city hall, while others tried to crash through police lines to get to the presidential office, resulting in 35 arrests. Hundreds of thousands participated in a protest on Dec. 8.

By now it was becoming evident that the conservative forces in opposition to Yanukovich were losing control of the demonstrations as extreme right wing organizations began setting up a battlefield in the Maidan. By mid-January Kiev appeared under siege and anti-government demonstrators expanded their protests to several cities in western Ukraine, storming and occupying government offices. Parliament then passed anti-protest laws, but they were ineffective. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resigned near the end January. Parliament rescinded the new laws and passed legislation dropping all charges against arrested protesters if they leave government buildings. In mid-February all 234 arrested demonstrators were released and the office occupations ended.

The real trouble began a couple of days later. Some 25,000 people were in the square when gunfire broke out, killing 11demonstrators and seven police. Hundreds were wounded. It has not been established how it began. Feb. 20 was the worst day of violence when 88 people were killed. The police were largely blamed although there were reports that provocateurs fired at both sides to create even stronger opposition to the government. The next day Yanukovich signed a substantial power sharing deal with opposition leaders, but protests, led by the extreme right, continued and government offices were again occupied. On Feb. 22, as protests continued, Yanukovich “fled for his life,” ending up in Russia.

The coup was completed Feb. 23 when Parliament, including Yanucovich’s Party of the Regions, quickly capitulated to reality and oligarch instructions and voted 328-0 to impeach the president. They then elected Obama’s choice, Yatseniuk, interim Prime Minister.

According to Richard Becker’s article “Who’s Who In Ukraine’s New [Semi-Fascist] Government?” in Liberation newspaper March 6: “The new, self-appointed government in Kiev is a coalition between right-wing and outright fascist forces, and the line between the two is often difficult to discern. Moreover, it is the fascist forces, particularly the Svoboda party and the Right Sector, who are in the ascendancy, as evidenced by the fact that they have been given key government positions in charge of the military and other core elements of the state apparatus.” Here is a list of five fascists in the new government and their positions:

1. Dmytro Yarosh, Right Sector neo-Nazi commander who said “our revival begins with our Maidan,” is now second-in-command of the National Defense and Security Council (covering the military, police, courts and intelligence apparatus).

2. Andriy Parubiy, co-founder of the fascist Social National Party, which later changed its name to Svoboda, is the new top commander of the National Defense and Security Council.

3. Ihor Tenyukh, member of neo-Nazi Svoboda party, was named Minister of Defense, but resigned March 24 over accusations he mishandled the troop withdrawal from Crimea, a charge he denied.

4. Oleksandr Sych, member of neo-Nazi Svoboda, is one of three Vice Prime Ministers.

5. Oleg Makhnitsky, member of neo-Nazi Svoboda, is now Prosecutor-General (Attorney General), and has immediately set out to indict the leaders of Crimea who do not want to live under the new order in Kiev.

Yatseniuk was summoned to Washington and to receive his official elevation from the leader of the free world on March 12. Sitting in the Oval Office chatting with President Obama, he promised he would “never surrender” to Russia. He then paraphrased a famous quote from former President Reagan: “Mr. Putin, tear down this wall, the wall of war, intimidation and military aggression.” Obama and Nuland certainly picked the right man for the job.

Virtually the entire U.S. mass media did not question or critically examine the implications of the White House honoring an unelected prime minister who just replaced a democratically elected prime minister who was overthrown by mass demonstrations that included fascists, some of whom are ending up in the new government. This is an interesting commentary on the condition of American democracy. Ah, the corporate media will reply, “but he was subsequently impeached,” and this makes it all peachy.

The U.S. government dislikes President Putin, especially after Moscow provided the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden sanctuary in Russia. The antipathy goes back for over a decade. The New York Times published a front page article Feb. 24 headlined “3 Presidents And A Riddle Named Putin.” Former presidents and other leading officials are quoted over the years as characterizing him as cold, or autocratic, or uninformed, or a stone killer, or KGB, or a dictator. Hillary Clinton compared President Putin to Hitler last week, a title Washington usually reserves for political leaders it is about to bomb, though this time it probably was just HRC revving up for 2016.

In reality there are three real reasons for America’s antipathy:

• Russia was a traumatized basket case for a decade after socialism was replaced by robber baron capitalism and forced into an undignified subservience to Washington. Putin took power in 2000 after the abrupt resignation of the by then exceptionally unpopular Boris Yeltsin, who had dissolved the Soviet Union against public opinion. Over the last 14 years as president, premier and president again, Putin’s policies have pulled Russia out of Uncle Sam’s pocket and helped bring the country back to life. James Petras, in a March 11 article, described it this way: “With the advent of President Vladimir Putin and the reconstitution of the Russian state and economy, the U.S. lost a vassal client and source of plundered wealth.”

• He openly criticizes America’s unjust wars and its attempt to dominate the rest of the world.

• He had the effrontery to declare in a 2005 State of the Nation speech to the Russian people: “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century…. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.”

Putin was being honest. The Russian people certainly understood what he meant — even those who opposed communism. But the neoconservatives who dominated George W. Bush Administration and those of lesser number in the Obama Administration (who happened to be quite active in the Ukraine regime-change operation) remain unforgiving and do their best to demonize the actions and intentions of Russia and its president.

Putin has shortcomings and has made mistakes, of course. He is fairly conservative in general but most pronouncedly in certain social matters that probably coincide with the thinking of a majority of the Russian people. His government’s antagonism toward the LGBT community is about where the U.S. was 30 or 40 years ago and where many Americans still are today. (How many months ago was it when the White House first okayed same sex marriage?) He is also too much a one-man show with an ego as large as Russia.

But the principal aspect of his governance is that he is reviving an independent Russia as a regional power, after a number of post-Soviet years in the doghouse, and that’s what mainly irks Washington.

The New York Times March 25, noting that the Russian president has been complaining for years “about the West moving unilaterally to reorder the Continental balance of power… [Interpreted U.S.-UE] courting of Ukraine… as a step too far, prompting Mr. Putin to risk sanctions and the worst conflict since the Cold War to make clear that Washington and its friends do not call all of the shots anymore.”

It seems impossible for the White House to see the world the way Putin sees it — through Russian eyes that cannot forget the relatively recent past and are wide open to the geopolitical realities taking place today. The Russian president also might think that Washington’s support for Ukraine regime change was an appalling and mocking “thank you” for recently (1) saving Obama’s face by providing him with an exit from an unpopular decision to bomb Syria, and (2) for Russia’s influence on Iran’s leadership that played some role in the recent rapprochement between Tehran and Washington.

The U.S. news media have been asking what nefarious deed to expect next from Russia, and whether Putin plans to grab more territory. It is risky making predictions but this writer’s view the Russian government is going to watch and wait, with no dramatic actions in the immediate future. Russia will try hard to win friends, especially with former republics, to bolster its position against further infringements from Washington. Putin has domestic and other matters on his agenda, including a Eurasian Economic Union. He is flying high after Crimea, Sochi Olympics/Paralympics, super high approval ratings and he’d rather not climb down for a while.

The real question is what the U.S. will do next about Russia and about a very troubled Ukraine, given all the other crises on the crowded agenda of American empire. Obama or his successor will eventually try in one way or another to pay Russia back for Crimea, a deed no self-respecting superpower can simply shrug off. Moscow will be prepared.

The problem for Washington may be its latest geopolitical acquisition. The new Ukrainian government to be elected in May will be utterly dependent on the U.S., its principal enabler and protector, lesser so the EU and the IMF. The economy is in a serious crisis. The IMF austerity program could cause great hardship for working people. The oligarchs will remain oligarchs, richer now because of the business and security the U.S. brings with it.

The country is split into antagonistic factions. Potential trouble can be expected between Ukrainian and Russian speakers. Hot heads will want to retaliate for the loss of Crimea. The fascists have come out boldly and assumed considerable responsibility in overthrowing Yanukovich. They expect a big payoff.

Despite all this, the accomplishment-starved Obama Administration evidently thinks the entire adventure is a big success in that it has just pocketed Ukraine and found an issue with which to throttle Russia for years to come. However, this well may end up far more of a headache than Washington ever imagined. Obama and the Europeans would have been much smarter to accept Russia’s offer of three equal parties sharing the cost of bailing out the Ukraine, and left well enough alone.

Via: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Hands-off-the-communists-of-Ukraine/

The KKE and KNE on 7th of March 2014 carried out a mass demonstration with placards outside the Ukrainian embassy in Athens, against the plans to ban the CP and the communist ideology in Ukraine.

A delegation of the KKE headed by Kostas Papadakis, member of the Secretariat and International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE, and Giorgos Toussas, member of the CC and MEP of the KKE, presented the following protest statement of the KKE to the representatives of the embassy:
“To the embassy of Ukraine in Athens

We follow with great indignation the developments that are taking place in Ukraine, where we see reactionary political forces, ideological descendants of Nazi, emerging to the political “surface” and ascending to the government with the assistance of the EU and the USA.

These forces have already proceeded to:
– Destroy and vandalize the monuments of Lenin and other soviet and antifascist monuments;
– Destroy the offices of the Communist Party of Ukraine in various regions of the country;
– To publicly attack communists;
– To adopt laws that are aimed against the Russian-speaking population and other minorities in the Ukraine;
– To abolish the law that prohibits fascist propaganda;
– To engineer the banning of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the communist ideology in the Ukraine tabling respective draft laws in parliament;

The Communist Party of Greece condemns the above-mentioned actions that are aimed against the political democratic rights and demands the immediate cessation of any attempt to ban the Communist Party and the communist ideology in Ukraine.

Hands off the communists of Ukraine!

Anticommunism will not succeed!”

How Florida Reactionaries Undermine Venezuelan Democracy

by W.T. WHITNEY

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/12/how-florida-reactionaries-undermine-venezuelan-democracy/

Remember the Tonkin Gulf Resolution? In 1964 that joint congressional resolution propelled the United States into war lasting nine years. Resolution 488, passed by House of Representatives by a 393 – 1 vote on March 4, is a moral and practical equivalent. Its title was “Supporting the people of Venezuela as they protest peacefully for democracy, a reduction in violent crime and calling for an end to recent violence.”

The vote took place under a provision known as “suspension of the rules” which Congress uses for “legislation of non-controversial bills.” The sole dissenter was a Kentucky Republican. Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced R 488. In Florida she represents the 27th congressional district, part of Miami-Dade County. All but unanimous backing for the resolution is reprehensible – for three reasons.

One, the resolution did not tell the truth. It speaks of Venezuelans “protesting peacefully.” Actually as of March 7 protesters had shot five people dead. Three were soldiers. Six deaths are attributed to opposition roadblocks, 30 more because roadblocks prevented access to emergency services. Soldiers had killed three people, one a government supporter. When protests started in Táchira, Mérida, and Caracas in early February, police did not intervene until government offices and police cars were being attacked and burned and until food and medical supply trucks were blocked. The government arrested officers who violated orders to to act with restraint.

The resolution suggests Venezuela is undemocratic. Over 15 years, however, governments there have won 17 out of 18 national elections. They are elections that for fairness and efficiency are “the best in the world,” according to the Carter Center in Georgia. Press freedom abounds: Venezuela’ predominately privately-owned newspapers and television outlets disseminate opposition viewpoints. Their television broadcasts reach 90 percent of viewers nationally.

Real democracy means uplift for everybody. In Venezuela poverty dropped from 50 percent in 1998 to 32 percent in 2011. Social spending increased from 11 percent of the GDP to 24 percent. Pensioners rose from 500,000 to 2.5 million; people finishing college, from 600,000 to 2.3 million. High school enrollment increased 42 percent. Children malnutrition and infants deaths have fallen dramatically. Every year the minimum wage has increased 10 – 20 percent.

Media misrepresentation contributed to the resolution’s passage. Protesters, for example, hardly represent Venezuela’s majority population. Disturbances have taken place in only 18 of 335 municipalities, places where the middle and upper classes live and where right-wing politicians are in charge. Most students in the streets attend private schools. National polling shows that 85 percent of respondents oppose “protests continuing throughout the country.”

Secondly, passage of Ros-Lehtinen’s resolution is a new chapter in the process of U.S. preparations for undermining Venezuela’s elected government. Money tells some of that story. Analyst Mark Weisbrot reports, “[O]ne can find about $90 million in U.S. funding to Venezuela since 2000 “just looking through U.S. government documents available on the web, including $5 million in the current federal budget.” According to Venezuelanalysis.com: “Over one third of US funding, nearly $15 million annually by 2007, was directed towards youth and student groups, including training in the use of social networks to mobilize political activism.” And, “Embassy cables also reveal US government funding of opposition parties.” Discussing his leadership of the National Endowment for Democracy, a prime source of U.S. funding, Allen Weinstein told the Washington Post in 1991 that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

Preparations are evident too from a report produced by Venezuelan – U.S. lawyer Eva Golinger. She alludes to a meeting on June 13, 2013, location unspecified, attended by representatives Colombia’s “Center for Thought Foundation and the Democratic Internationalism Foundation. The two groups have links with ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, right wing protagonist of destabilization in Venezuela. Mark Feierstein, regional head of the US Agency for International Development, attended the meeting.

It generated a document entitled “Venezuelan Strategic Plan,” which detailed 15 “action points.” They included destruction of facilities, “massive mobilizations,” food shortages, and “insurrection inside the army.” The document mentions “crisis in the streets that facilitate the intervention of North America and the forces of NATO, with support of the government of Colombia.” “Violence [causing} deaths and injuries” is anticipated.

The third objection to Ros-Lehtinen’s resolution, and especially to congressional consensus, relates to her associations. She is famous for projecting Cuban-American determination to undo the Cuban Revolution onto the national stage. She thereby bears major responsibility for continuing a national policy of economic blockade of that island. Nor has she challenged her neighbors’ toleration of, even direct participation in, anti-Cuban terrorist attacks. It’s clear now that her neighbors have extended terror attacks to Venezuela, presumably as their contribution to U.S. plans to overthrow Venezuela’s government.

Surely it’s reasonable to expect that U.S. congresspersons, as part of their job description, might ask questions.

They could have inquired about Raul Diaz Peña, who in 2010 showed up in Ros-Lehtinen’s Miami office after having just arrived in the United States. Weeks earlier he had escaped from prison in Venezuela where he was serving time for having bombed embassies in Caracas in 2003. He told reporters on hand that costs for his escape and U.S. entry amounted to $100,000. The congresswoman indicated she “had been lobbying the US government”on his behalf .

On February 23, two days before Ros-Lehtinen introduced her resolution, Robert Alonzo held a “patriotic lunch” for friends at his farm outside Miami. He told them he wanted “help and solidarity of unyielding Cuban – exile combatants in their campaign to step up resistance to [President] Maduro’s misrule.”

Present were Reinol Rodríguez, head of the paramilitary group Alpha 66; José Dionisio Suárez, admitted murderer of ex-Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier in Washington; and Armando Valladares, formerly imprisoned in Cuba for bombings and more recently implicated in a plot to kill Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Born in Cuba, Alonso was living in Venezuela until authorities there discovered 153 Colombian paramilitaries lodged at his farm near Caracas. Their plan was to kill then President Hugo Chavez. Alonso helped out with the coup attempt against Chavez in 2002 by leading an assault on the Cuban Embassy.

Another meeting to plan the ouster of President Chavez took place in Miami in 2009. On hand were Jose Antonio Colina Pulido, on the lam after the embassy bombings in 2003; Joaquim Chaffardet, intelligence chief in Venezuela linked to the bombing of a fully loaded Cuban Airliner in 1976, along with Miamian Luis Posada; and Johan Peña, self-exiled after participating in the 2004 murder of Venezuelan prosecutor Danilo Anderson.

Other notable neighbors include: Patricia Poleo, who plotted against Danilo Anderson; military officer Gustavo Diaz, who helped propel the anti-Chavez coup attempt in 2002; and Angel De Fana who tried to kill Fidel Castro in 1997. Former Miami-area FBI head Héctor Pesquera attended a meeting in Panama where final arrangements were made to kill Danilo Anderson.

Finally, R-488 is emblematic of a serious problem relating to the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, specifically privatization. The U.S. government has long farmed out decision-making on and implementation of policies toward Cuba to agents, really proxies, belonging to the Cuban-American émigré community. The same tendency now crops up in regard to Venezuela.

It’s apparent that privateers involved with Cuban affairs, epitomized by Representative Ros-Lehtinen, are promoting a U.S. campaign to undermine Venezuela’s government. Joining this essentially autonomous force are self-exiled, often terrorist-inclined, migrants from other Latin American countries, notably Venezuela. The evidence shows that the milieu where Resolution 488 was spawned nurtures this class of dark characters. That the resolution gained quick, basically unquestioning approval – after all, it was deemed “non-controversial” – is bad news for the future of democracy in both Venezuela and the United States.

March 25, 2014

When Slave-Owners, Tied to a Globalized Economy, Turned to Empire

by W.T. WHITNEY, Jr. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/25/slavery-cotton-and-imperialism/

“Cuba is already ours. I feel it in my finger’s ends.”

– James Buchanan, 1849

Historian Walter Johnson’s highly recommended book, “River of Dark Dreams,” centers on cotton production and slave ownership in the Mississippi River Valley prior to the U.S. Civil War. Planters, it seems, believed their fate was linked to imperatives imposed through an internationalized system of sales, manufacture, and re-supply. Johnson’s spirited, enthralling narrative casts slave ownership and cotton growing as precarious undertakings. Planters on the edge of disaster strategized and improvised in order to retain both land and slaves.

Their intransigence vis-à-vis northern compatriots derived, Johnson suggests, from immersion in a labyrinth-like alternative universe that set conditions for their economic survival. Planters were alienated enough from pretensions of their own government to seek deliverance through privatized military interventions in countries seen as hospitable to plantations and slavery.

Johnson focuses on actualities and people’s lives rather than on well-trodden slavery-era themes like abolitionism, or northern industrialization, or states rights . Social and economic history in his hands tells of ledger books; cotton “pickability;” slaves starving, stolen, rebelling, and running away; search dogs; slave babies dying, slave prices, soil fertility, droughts, sandbars, and Haiti. Steamboats feature prominently, along with their explosions, gamblers, races, high-pressure engines, and dining room etiquette. They were technological marvels of their era and absolutely crucial for marketing cotton,

During the period under study, Valley cotton production increased fortyfold, the slave population, 17 times. “The greatest economic boom in the history of the United States” was in progress. Cotton was “the largest single sector of the global economy.” Planters were part of “a network of material connections that stretched from Mississippi and Louisiana to Manhattan and Lowell to Manchester and Liverpool.” Indeed, the “rate of exploitation of slaves in a field in Mississippi … was keyed to the exchange in Liverpool (port of entry for 85 percent of U.S. planters’ cotton) and the labor of mill hands in Manchester.”

In New York southern cotton was re-sold, re-graded, and re-loaded onto other ships for the Atlantic crossing. That city consumed 40 percent of all income generated through cotton sales. Cotton made up two thirds of all U.S. exports. Yet only 10 percent of U.S. imports ended up in cotton-producing states. Southern manufacturers lacked essential equipment manufactured abroad. Cotton producers endured shortages of imported plantations supplies.

Johnson characterizes “the conceptual reach of the global economy in the first half of the nineteenth century” as “lashes into labor into bales into dollars into pounds sterling.” Cotton moved from plantations, to factors in New Orleans, to bankers and shippers in New York, to bankers, buyers, and manufacturers in England, all on a flood of promissory notes, loans, credit, and deductions.

Planters’ wealth took the form of slaves and land. Although land served as collateral for loans, “without slaves, land itself was worthless.” In effect, planters “buy Negroes to plant cotton and raise cotton to buy Negroes.” Facing hard times, slaveholders as a class could not simply transfer their investment from one form of capital to another… Their capital would not simply rust or lie fallow. It would starve. It would steal. It would revolt.”

Influential trade representatives and publicists determined upon a “spatial fix.” They envisioned the Mississippi River as conduit to southern venues favorable to cotton production and other investment possibilities. “In order to survive, slaveholders had to expand,” the author points out: “Proslavery globalism increasingly took the form of imperialist military action.”

“[F]or many in the Mississippi Valley … the most important issue in the early 1850s was Cuba.” Pursing annexation, former Spanish soldier Narciso López in 1851 invaded the island with troops drawn from “the margins of the cotton economy.” Slaveholders had donated supplies. The expedition failed, and López’ execution in Havana attracted 20,000 spectators. Former Mississippi governor and co-conspirator John Quitman raised 1000 men in 1855 for another invasion, which never materialized.

Johnson reviews the career also of slaveholder proxy William Walker whose small army in 1855 subdued Nicaraguan defenders and set him up as the country’s president. Mississippi Valley supporters provided supplies, arms, troops, and ample publicity.

Were slave-owners capitalist? Johnson rejects the notion of slavery as an “archaic” pre-capitalist mode of exploitation. He settles on “a materialist and historical analysis [that] begins from the premise that there was no nineteenth century capitalism without slavery.”

The author relies upon historical materialism, brain child of Karl Marx, as a social investigatory tool. Marx stipulated in his “German Ideology” that, “The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature… This conception of history … has not, like the idealistic view of history, in every period to look for a category, but remains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not explain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material practice.”

Explaining his own methodological approach, Johnson echoes Marx: History is often “approached through durable abstractions: ‘the master-slave relationship,’ ‘white supremacy,’ ‘resistance,’ ‘agency.’ [Yet] these categories have become unmoored from the historical experience they were intended to represent.” Moreover, terms like “agency” and “power” are “thick with the material givenness of a moment in time.” The story of the hybrid cotton strain “Petit Gulf” shows “that beneath the abstractions lies a history of bare-life processes and material exchanges so basic they have escaped the attention of countless historians of slavery.”

For the author, “The Cotton Kingdom was built out of sun, water, and soil; animal energy, human labor, and mother wit; grain, flesh, and cotton; pain hunger, and fatigue; blood, milk, semen, and shit.”

Johnson documents early stirrings of U.S. imperialism. The take among many leftists is that capitalism by its very nature entails recurring crises in accumulation. They assume too that for solutions capitalists look to overseas extension of their operations, even to war making. Thus slave owner longings for exploitative possibilities in the Caribbean and in Central America fueled military adventurism. “River of Dark Dreams” serves in this regard to have documented the beginnings of a U.S. turn toward a global fix for close-to-home economic incongruities.