Return of the Evil Empire

[Octafish]

(With apologies to Bill Withers) We all need to loathe somebody.



The U.S. Owns the Narrative on Ukraine

Return of the Evil Empire

by JASON HIRTHLER
CounterPunch, Sept. 1, 2014

EXCERPT...

In 2014 the U.S. has succeeded in demonizing Vladimir Putin and Russia, precipitating a New Cold War that may yet become a hot one. The evil empire is back. The White House has made proficient use of mass media propaganda to get the job done. First, they’ve controlled the narrative. This is critical for two reasons: one, because it permits the White House to sweep the February coup in Kiev into the dustbin of American memory, never to be seen again. Second, it has allowed it to swiftly assert its claim that Russia is a dangerously expansionist power on the edges of a serene and peace-loving Europe. In other words, the omission of one fact and commission of another.

On the former front, by the State Department’s own concession, it spent some $5 billion in Ukraine, fomenting dissent under the standard guise of democracy promotion. The myriad NGOs beneath the nefarious cloud of the National Endowment for Democracy are little more than Trojan horses through which the State Department can launch subversive activities on foreign turf. We don’t know all the surely insidious details of the putsch, but there are suggestions that the violence was staged by and on behalf of the groups that now sit in power, including bickering neofascists that were foolishly handed the nation’s security portfolio.begging slogans3

On the latter end, a frightful portrait of a revanchist Russia will be presented for public consumption. But consider the context before you consign Putin to the sordid annals of imperial tyrants. A belligerent superpower arrives on your doorstep by fostering a violent coup in a neighboring nation with the obvious intent of ensuring Kiev accepts an IMF deal rather than a better Russian one, and further that Ukraine become the newest and perhaps decisive outpost of NATO. Had you been in his shoes, would you have permitted an illegitimate, Western-infiltrated government to challenge the integrity of your Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol? Doubtful.

SNIP...

This is no surprise. A sophisticated doctrinal system adept at manufacturing consent will succeed less by what it asserts than by what it leaves out. The facts omitted are always inconvenient ones. Among other missing pieces of the story currently being peddled by the MSM, is the issue of NATO’s raison d’être, which vanished with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the USSR. No matter, it has swiftly refashioned its mandate into a rapid-reaction force ready to descend on flashpoints around the globe, like Serbia and Libya and Afghanistan. Despite promises to the contrary, it has essentially worked to bring all the former Warsaw Pact countries into its U.S.-dominated embrace. The goal is self-evident: put missiles on Russia’s doorstep, the better to alienate Moscow from Berlin and ensure that Washington isn’t left out in the cold by its rivals.

SNIP...

Little if any coverage is given to another critical piece of real story, namely the obvious economic rivalry underlying the conflict. Ukraine is a major chip in the tussle for access to Black Sea resources, and for primacy in the provision of those resources to European homes. Likewise, the importance of channeling that access and supply through IMF-engineered loans, naturally denominated in dollars and central to the dollar’s now-threatened role as the world’s reserve currency.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/01/return-of-the-evil-empire/

I'm all for war when the nation's security is at stake. When war is to make the world safe for Goldman Sachs, no.

[L0oniX]

1. Making it safe for the WTO too.

[Octafish]

3. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz agrees with you 100-percent, L0oniX!

Larry Summers: Goldman Sacked

Monday, September 16, 2013
By Greg Palast for Reader Supported News

Joseph Stiglitz couldn't believe his ears. Here they were in the White House, with President Bill Clinton asking the chiefs of the US Treasury for guidance on the life and death of America's economy, when the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers turns to his boss, Secretary Robert Rubin, and says, "What would Goldman think of that?"

Huh?

Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again: What would Goldman think?

A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on "what Goldman thought." As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in Cabinet meetings on The West Wing.

Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/

"Money trumps peace." -- George Walker Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

[PADemD]

23. I wonder if Hillary will be advised by Larry Summers.

[L0oniX]

25. Well since she does speaking engagements for Goldman Sachs...

I think she has plenty of plantation owning advisers.

[sabrina 1]

31. We HAVE learned some things over the past few years that once were extremely puzzling

to those of us who were, like Stiglitz, so very naive. We know now without a shadow of a doubt, why the Big Banks were never prosecuted for their crimes. THEY are the rulers and it appears, our politicians are expected to do their bidding. See what happens to anyone who refuses, Kucinich eg.

Knowledge is power though, and now that the people are learning how our system REALLY works, perhaps, over time, the people can end their reign of greed.

[dvduval]

20. Free Elections!!!

Let's not under emphasize how Putin has made it impossible to hold free elections. Let the people decide who they want to lead them, and if the people make a mistake, let them choose again! Democracy is never perfect but it is one of the best ways we know.

There were no free elections in Crimea, Luhansk or Donestk. Putin sent in Russian forces to all these regions and he himself changed the Russian constitution when entered a third term.

[sabrina 1]

32. The people DID decide in those regions, the coup govt in Kiev launched a military assault on them

in order to force them into the slavery of the IMF, killing their own people to do the bidding of the Western powers. No wonder soldiers are deserting and mothers are demanding an end to the attacks on their fellow citizens, demanding that their sons and other loved ones, be returned and not sacrificed for the wealthy.

It may be that this time the 'Shock Doctrine' crowd, so successful all over the world in destroying sovereign nations, may have finally reached a point of no return.

This is an excellent summary of the FACTS in Ukraine.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. This a must read.

All of the machinations of the Monied Class are in play here. Same game plan was in play in the early 1900's. You would think that the decedent's of that time period would grasp a clue. Obviously,greed is the coin of the new elite class,same shit,just a new day. Still all about the Oil and rare earth metals. This shit is getting really old. How many more of our kids have to die for these so called elitists?

[Octafish]

6. Integrity: since money was invented, a concept alien to the capitalist.

Here's one friend of Wall Street and Old Money, Grandpa Prescott, and his take on Iraq from 1959...



Check out what U.S. Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush, wrote back in 1959,
cheerleading for Boeing, General Electric, Westinghouse, Remington (Ye Olde Family Firme),
Chevron and the rest of the war profiteers hogging at the trough of the U.S. Treasury:

To Preserve Peace Let’s Show Russians How Strong We Are

By Prescott Bush
U.S. Senator from Connecticut;
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee
The Reader’s Digest July 1959

MAN’S GREATEST danger, it is said, is ignorance. In a very real sense, the Soviet Union’s ignorance of our military strength may be the source of her gravest peril—and ours. Kaiser Wilhelm started World War I because he miscalculated Allied power. Hitler, mistakenly thinking he could blitz the world, launched World War II. Kruschev today lacks firsthand knowledge of our country; he may be given what others think he would like to hear—rather than an objective report on our actual military strength. Although it seems impossible that any sane person could start a war, we would be wise to take no chances.

Why not invite the Soviet high command to the United States for a conducted tour of our military might? We are bringing Russians to see our farms and factories, our scientific laboratories and research centers; we exchange dancers and musicians. Why not have their military leaders over for the most beneficial look of all? Our expressed policy, the aim and purpose of our entire defense system, is to deter the Kremlin from starting a war. What better way to deter than to show?

What we could show is nothing more nor less than the greatest military might ever assembled in the history of the world. If the Soviet high command could see what we have, they should be of our mind—that for them to start war today would be an act of insanity.

We could start in a Pentagon briefing room. There, with maps, globes, films and sound-projection equipment to help illustrate our points, we could give them a good hard look at the distribution of American power. Then we could fly the group to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Montana, where bombers of the Strategic Air Command are on 24-hour alert, many ready to take off within 15 minutes. We could see an awe-inspiring line of B-47’s, any one of which can, in a single mission, deliver explosive power equivalent to that of all the bombs dropped by all sides in World War II. We could invite the commander of the Soviet air force to ride in one of these planes, and see it refueled in the air, thus quietly demonstrating that, while most Soviet bombers would have to fly one-way missions, ours can strike any target in the world and return nonstop.

SNIP...

The demonstration at SAC should effectively dismiss from Soviet minds any speculation about the possibility of their gaining an advantage from all-out war any time soon. But we must face the fact that in a few years the Russians may be able to zero in our SAC bases with ballistic missiles. To drive this temptation out of their minds, we could show them other deterrents.

CONTINUES…

The Reader’s Digest
July 1959 pp. 25-30

Prescott Bush detailed how Kruschev and the head of the Soviet armed forces be our guest on nuclear submarines, demonstrations of sea- and land-launched ICBMs, operations from aircraft carriers and a cruise aboard the inter-continental strategic bomber, the B-52.

The guy was on to something. You know how much they get for a B-2 these days? Two billion? Each?



Almost forgot. Prescott also discussed the strategic importance of Iraq –
the very same right next door to Iran, the very place the CIA and MI6 had, five years earlier,
replaced a democratically elected government with a despot, the Shah. For the oil, I’d wager.

It’s fortunate for them that we want only peace with justice. Our entire record attests to that. We have no history of aggression, profess no desire for world domination, as do the Communists. Only by their continued menace have we been forced to take these measures for defense.

I ASK, “Why don’t we show the Russians many of these defense measures?” What I would not show them is any self-satisfaction on our part about the future, any slowing-up of plans to produce the new weapons which must inevitably take the place of the old ones. I believe we are in a continuing struggle to keep on top in this business of declaring war. I think that the Russians are never to be underrated. [font color="red"]I also believe that the Communists are master bluffers that they seek to put us off by arrogant threats to Berlin and to the peace of the far Pacific, and, while our people are preoccupied with these threats, they may try to take over Iraq as the Chinese Reds have conquered Tibet.
[/font color]

So. At least three generations of the Bush Family Evil Empire have had their eyes on Iraq’s oil. Interesting how Prescott mentioned Tibet's destruction by China. How was he to know his namesake would one day become head of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce? The article also shows how Prescott boosted the Cold War, way back in ’59. It’s not so odd to think that three generations of crazy petrodollar-loving warmongers would rise to the top echelons of American leadership.



The inheritors of Ike's “Military-Industrial Complex" think they're American royalty. All they really are is a multi-generational gang of traitors and war criminals. For those paying attention, like one-time DUer Jim DiEugenio, since Nov. 22, 1963.

[PeoViejo]

17. It's in the Genes

Just as much as a Cat knows to meow, Bush Gang has been raping the Planet since the 19th Century.

[sabrina 1]

34. That is one dangerous threat to this country, the Bush family. And to other countries as we

have seen over the past decade or so.

Royalty, well for anyone who knows anything about actual royalty, as the FFs did, that just might be true and that alone, makes them unfit to be in any positions of power in this country. Unless of course, we have given up on the idea of democracy.

I am seeing more and more criticisms right here on DU, eg, of the US Constitution and its authors. Used to see that only on the right, during the Bush years. And as you probably recall, Bush the Lesser was pretty honest about HIS feelings about the US Constitution and how much more he would like it if we were a dictatorship, with him as the dictator. I think he got his wish to a great extent. Who else could commit such crimes against humanity and get away with it?

[Benton D Struckcheon]

4. Just about all of that is wrong,

but the last bit, about driving a wedge between Berlin and Moscow, is ridiculous. Mostly, Putin alternately annoys and amuses. He's not major, and he certainly doesn't rise to the level that anyone would even bother to think about driving a wedge between Berlin and Moscow, at least not before this mess.
One more time: no one was worrying about Russia. The US did minimal trade with Russia prior to this, and will do even less now. China was what was on Obama's mind. The Pivot to Asia. All this did was derail that. There was zero interest in the US in Russia or what it was doing, other than with the tussle we had last year re the Syria chemical weapons. Asia was and still is what worries the US, because China is the real rising power. Russia is just a stupid nuisance.
It's now a nuisance that has to be dealt with, so yeah, they'll put a new base, or two or three, east of where the ones that exist now are. The idea will be to put Russia in a box where it can't bother anyone, so they can go back to dealing with where the US's long term interests lie.
Putin was probably upset he was being treated as the insignificant factor he is. As far as the US is concerned, he can go back to getting custom made suits with five buttons on the sleeve (totally bizarre ostentation) and bothering Belarus and Kazakhstan over their noises about becoming more independent of Moscow. Ukraine will be settled somehow. China will treat Russia as a minor junior partner, useful for rattling the West from time to time. Crimea will rot, bereft of tourists except for the Russian ones whose holidays will be subsidized so as to cover up Moscow's embarrassment at the otherwise empty beaches. Europe will go back to a more or less normal relationship with them, but the level of investment will drop to minimal, since no businessman in his right mind wants to deal with the risk Russia now presents. Doubtless that will be spun as some sort of horrible Western conspiracy against the long-suffering Putin. The US will forget it exists, except when it decides to try to make itself more important than it is, but that will be less annoying over time as the world gets rid of its dependence on fossil fuels and Russia goes from being obsolete to being completely and utterly irrelevant.

[truedelphi]

7. Sorry, but your sorry little post needs an education.

Our top officials are relying on taking the Ukraine's resources, so to dismiss both Russia and the Ukraine (Crimea) is rather silly.

Do you not remember the angst shared by both BarackObama and Hillary Clinton when oil tycoon Khodorkovsky had some 20 billions of dollars of oil that he had seized away from the people of Russia, and that oil was returned to the Russian govenment?


Apparently Obama and Hillary Clinton had already promised that stolen oil to some group of their friends, as they expressed much outrage over this.

The Ukraine holds an abundance of riches. I guess you really believe we created a coup back in February just out of the goodness of our hearts and minds, as after all, The USA is, we all know, all about democracy: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=212425

But maybe our governing officials also want some of the resources. From the nternet's Encylcopeida Britanica, here is the skinny on the Ukraine's resources:

Ukraine has extremely rich and complementary mineral resources in high concentrations and close proximity to each other. Rich iron ore reserves located in the vicinity of Kryvyy Rih, Kremenchuk, Bilozerka, Mariupol, and Kerch form the basis of Ukraine’s large iron-and-steel industry. One of the richest areas of manganese-bearing ores in the world is located near Nikopol. Bituminous and anthracite coal used for coke are mined in the Donets Basin. Energy for thermal power stations is obtained using the large reserves of brown coal found in the Dnieper River basin (north of Kryvyy Rih) and the bituminous coal deposits of the Lviv-Volyn basin. The coal mines of Ukraine are among the deepest in Europe. Many of them are considered dangerous because their depth contributes to increased levels of methane; methane-related explosions have killed numerous Ukrainian miners.

Ukraine also has important deposits of titanium ore, bauxite, nepheline (a source of soda), alunite (a source of potash), and mercury (cinnabar, or mercuric sulfide) ores. A large deposit of ozokerite (a natural paraffin wax) occurs near the city of Boryslav. Subcarpathia possesses potassium salt deposits, and both Subcarpathia and the Donets Basin have large deposits of rock salt. Some phosphorites as well as natural sulfur are found in Ukraine.

The three major areas producing natural gas and petroleum in Ukraine are the Transcarpathian region, exploited since the late 19th–early 20th centuries, and the Dnieper-Donets and Crimean regions, both developed since World War II. Following World War II, the extraction of natural gas in Ukraine soared until it accounted for one-third of the Soviet Union’s total output in the early 1960s. Natural gas production declined after 1975, however, and a similar pattern of growth and exhaustion occurred with Ukraine’s petroleum, ultimately making the republic a net importer of these fuels.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

12. There's a lot of hypotheticals re Ukraine's resources,

but as of now where they really rank is as a producer of food. Besides oil, you can actually watch the price of agricultural commodities go up and down as this conflict heats up or cools off. The flag represents wheat under a blue sky. (http://www.mapsofworld.com/flags/ukraine-flag.html)
It would have been a minor coup for someone to snag Ukraine I suppose, but really, I don't see any incentive for anyone to spend a lot of either time or money on it. The 5 bil figure that keeps getting tossed around doesn't even rate as a footnote in the US budget, even assuming all of it was spent in one year. (I'm also assuming it's true. Haven't bothered to check as I think it's completely unimportant.)
There's also the inconvenience factor: I recall reading that Exxon and I think Shell had something going re exploring the Black Sea in waters that were supposed to belong to Ukraine. Since the Crimea affair, it's unclear who it belongs to now, which certainly doesn't do either of those companies any good. Business wants stability, not war. That's what a lot of the commentary on the left misses. No one puts their money into a place where there's a conflict going on, for the simple reason that they don't like seeing their assets go up in smoke, any more than you'd want to see your house on fire.
Which is why Russia will lose a ton of investment over time from this: no one will want the risk, for good reason, now that they know Putin is going to go off and march his army every time he has a temper tantrum. Lots of contracts have already been canceled or put on hold as a result of this.
Ukraine won't see any new investment of any real consequence until this gets settled for the exact same reason.
Lots of money is being lost because of this. No one's making anything, not even our arms makers: Ukraine doesn't use our stuff, and it would take too long to train them on our stuff to fight Russia in this conflict. In the future, sure, but no one was making any decisions based on Ukraine's defense budget, such as it was.

[truedelphi]

19. Could you possibly take the time on Tuesday to call up the Goldman Sachs

crowd and let them know they shouldn't be bothering withthe Ukraine, as based on your analysis, there is nothing all that vaulable there.

(For more informtion about what I am mentioning, visit Octafish's reply on this topic, number 10.)

Who knows, with your brilliance, you might be offered a job there!

[Benton D Struckcheon]

21. Goldman will do anything for money.

And they are capable of cualquier barbaridad. And? If you can't make a retort, don't. You're only embarrassing yourself.

[truedelphi]

27. i love you too Babe

Did you used to use the name "Duderstadt" here?

[Benton D Struckcheon]

29. No.

The name you see there is the name I've used since I've been here. I've rarely had a post hidden, pay to be here, and generally don't cause much trouble.
Just for you, this:

The situation in Eastern Ukraine is a good example. In the days and weeks after Russian strongman Vladimir Putin seized Crimea, foreign-policy pundits and the President's political opponents practically fell over themselves in loudly warning of a new Cold War and demanding a forceful American response.

Yet there was virtually no direct step that the U.S. could take to reverse Russia's actions. America wasn't about to get in a shooting war with a nuclear-armed power, especially over a country that is of little strategic importance to the United States.

Instead, the President's response, in coordination with occasionally reluctant allies, has been to slowly ratchet up pressure on Russia via multilateral and bilateral sanctions, condemn Moscow diplomatically and suspend their participation in forums like the G-20.

There are not momentous moves, but the global condemnation of Russia had a cascading effect, turning a once promising economic market into a virtual pariah state. More than $75 billion in capital has been taken out of the country; international investment has dried up; the international community - even some of Russia's close neighbors - have abandoned Moscow.
Of course, even though Russia is being punished, Putin continues to escalate the situation in Eastern Ukraine. As Obama noted on Thursday, "Russian decision-making is isolating Russia… they're doing this to themselves"

It's a reminder of Putin's strategic failures but also the limitations of U.S. coercion.

Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/punditry-presidency-article-1.1921882?cid=bitly

This was directed at his critics on the right, but it applies with equal force to his breathless leftist critics, who seem to think the foreign policy apparatus has been desperately looking to expand NATO and deal with Russia as if it were an enemy all through the years Obama's been in office.
The ambassador to Russia, Michael Mcfaul, berated eastern European members of NATO as Russophobes back in 2009. This is from a letter recently written to Obama from the Czech defense minister, referencing a previous letter from 2009:

In Washington, I had a chance to meet Michael McFaul, adviser to President Obama and a principal architect of the reset policy. He went ballistic in his White House office, accusing us of “Russophobia.” Generally speaking, our arguments did not find fertile grounds. In September 2009, President Obama called Warsaw and Prague and informed their leaders about a change in the U.S. missile defense plans. The Czechs had totally lost their place in the system, while the Poles were left with no assurance on financing the new one. The policy of reset and a general belief in soft power approach prevailed.

Russia was not anyone's idea of an enemy of any sort, and a lot of effort was put into mending relations with them. McFaul is now having to admit he was wrong in 2009. So regardless of what you may think, just about everything in that article was provably wrong.

[truedelphi]

50. When the world's most powerful imperial nation masterminds a coup,

Last edited Tue Sep 2, 2014, 03:46 PM - Edit history (1)

Why would there need to be a shooting war?



On edit: Citation
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/03/21/ukraine-coup-lawful-crimea-referendum-unlawful

[Benton D Struckcheon]

60. I don't believe we masterminded a coup.

This robs the Ukrainian people of their agency, as the guy I quote below says. Not everything that happens around the world happens because of the US. That's an extraordinarily US-centric view of the world.
This guy says it better, although he's a lot more merciless towards you guys than I am:

The recent revelations about Qaddafi's funding of Sarkozy's presidential campaign in France shows how widespread foreign attempts to affect various countries' internal politics are, but nobody claimed the French government was a Qaddafi puppet regime. There probably isn't a country on the globe that the US doesn't attempt to exercise it's influence on, but that doesn't put them in the driver's seat as these western chauvinists would have you believe.

Then they repeat Putin's justification for the invasion:

To protect its military base there and to protect the people in the Eastern and Southern parts of the country, where the coup is not supported, Russia has moved some troops to the Ukrainian border and into the Crimean peninsula.

Nevermind how easily these words could be adapted to justify the initially peaceful landing of US Marines in Vietnam to protect Da Nang Air Force Base, do they mean to imply that what they are calling a 'coup' 'led by violent fascist forces and local billionaires' was supported in the rest of the country? And BTW "into the Crimean peninsula" is already past "the Ukrainian border" unless you have already "gifted" Crimea to Russia.

You can describe a murder without ever calling it murder. You can describe a rape without ever naming it. This how a "peace" group describes the military invasion of a sovereign state without calling it an act of war. The only aggression they see is US aggression:

As long as the United States is committed to aggression, the whole world is endangered, just as Ukraine and Venezuela are. Libya fell, Syria is under attack, there is a "pivot to Asia", and Africom controls the military in almost every African nation.

Africom doesn't control the military in Libya, as UNAC predicted it would at the beginning of their revolution, which raises the question of exactly who Libya "fell" to. The answer is that it was lost by the Russian-backed Qaddafi dictatorship and it fell to the Libyan people, the people who made the revolution. It certainly didn't fall to the US; there can be no doubt about that after the Benghazi attack. Libya may be a mess now, but it is their mess. And who is Syria, by which UNAC means, the Assad regime, under attack by? It is being sustained big time by Russia and Iran, but those attacking it are overwhelmingly Syrian even if they are invisible to UNAC.

link: http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/03/i-apologize-as-ukraine-takes-left-over.html

[Tommy_Carcetti]

64. What coup? nt

[truedelphi]

67. Since you couldn't be bothered to read the material I cited, here it is in a nutshell:

Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, told IPS, “I don’t know what the U.N. secretary-general did while that coup was planned and carried out, but his actions certainly come too late now."

It would be interesting if he stated the coup in Ukraine was just that, and condemned the West for its interference, he added.

“For U.S. officials and press to claim somehow that the coup which occurred in Ukraine, engineered by the West, complied with law, while the referendum in Crimea did not, is utter hypocrisy,” said Ratner, president of the Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights.

“But the facts are hard to find in the mainstream media,” he added.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

68. Yanukovych left under his own willpower voluntarily.

He took three days to casually pack up literally truckloads of his most valuable possessions and flew off in his own private fleet of helicopters.

That's not a coup.

[Octafish]

8. Oh so many loved Putin when Russia was the G-8.

Here's what I mean:

UN abandons hunger reduction target

By Barry Mason
wsws.org, 18 November 2009

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations abandoned its hunger reduction targets in advance of the World Food Summit on Food Security that opened in Rome on November 16. Instead, it has substituted a vague phrase. From now on, it will aim “to take action towards sustainably eradicating hunger at the earliest possible date.”

“The idea of setting a timetable for the eradication of hunger was presented by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation and supported by Latin American, Middle Eastern and African nations. It was strongly rejected by the US, the European Union, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, said diplomats,” according to the Financial Times.

SNIP...

The figure promised is less than the $3.2 billion announced in profits by Goldman Sachs just prior to this year’s World Food Day. Figures produced by the UN itself estimate a commitment of $25 billion to $40 billion a year by the G8 countries is necessary to achieve the millennium goals. But no representative of the G8 leading industrialized countries attended the summit, with the exception of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who took advantage of the opportunity to miss the first day of his trial on corruption and tax fraud charges in Milan. Ironically, he was elected to preside as chairman over the event.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/11/hung-n18.html

While I don't like Putin's policies, per se; I don't like my government answering to Goldman Sachs, especially in matters of war and peace.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

9. None of that has anything to do with Russia,

other than that they were part of the G-8 when that story took place. Not sure of your point? I mean, we know the gov't is bought and paid for. Not arguing with you about that certainly.

[sabrina 1]

35. And you could not be more wrong sadly. Just about everything in the OP is absolutely correct.

What is different this time, unlike 2003 eg, the people are no longer as easily fooled. It is getting harder and harder for the war mongering criminals to pull the wool over the eyes of the people. THAT may be what stops them in the end.

They were behind the coup in Kiev which every sentient observer of events knows. No point in even trying to deny it, we have them on tape and in photos which they were foolish enough to pose for during their period of agitation last winter.

[truedelphi]

5. Five billion US dollars spent in the Ukraine could be as much as

Twenty Billion dollars for them, in relatvie terms of what that currency would buy.

(Or even a hundred billion.)

I remember how Iraqi's "Anne Frank" Riverbend ws explaining the US and how much money "our people" would spent at some dinner meeting. They would spend $ 400 per person at some conference center, and Riverbend would be saying, "My word! Four hundred bucks would feed a family of four for six weeks!"

[Octafish]

10. From 2011: Goldman Sachs Is So Desperate To Get Into Ukraine It's Advising The Government For FREE

by Katya Wachtel,
Business Insider, June 25, 2011

Goldman Sachs has agreed to advise the Ukraine government for free, according to Bloomberg.
The bank, "which hasn’t arranged a debt or equity sale in Ukraine since at least 1999... will advise the administration of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on managing its investments, state debt and 'other issues of financial-policy implementation.'"

"The selection follows Goldman’s third attempt in 17 years to crack " the former Soviet Republic.

Meanwhile other American banks including JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley have work on various bond sales in Ukraine.

SOURCE:

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-is-so-desperate-to-get-into-ukraine-its-advising-the-government-for-free-2011-6

Read more:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-24/goldman-sachs-agrees-to-advise-ukraine-for-free-government-says.html


I've been to parts of the world where people must make do with a small fraction of what people here in the USA enjoy. These gangsters who run Wall Street on the Potomac keep people impoverished, just so they can have more. Michael Parenti -- wish I knew about him when I was a young student -- expresses that characteristic in historic terms.

PS: Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough replies, truedelphi. Your kind words, too, I very much appreciate.

[truedelphi]

74. Michael Parenti is totally amazing.

And I just came across this article, which perhaps you have not yet seen?

http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/

[pampango]

30. The $5.1 billion was given TO the Ukrainian government over the course of 22 years (1991 on).

It sometimes seems that some people think that sum was just given to opposition groups over the past year or two.

[CJCRANE]

11. I wonder how this is all going to play out...

The aftermath of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya was bad enough.

But if we dislodge Assad and pressurize Putin...I don't know what Pandora's Box we'll open this time.

And what's worse is that there is no democratic input on all this, we are just along for the ride.

I hope common sense prevails at the UN and the world pulls together for peace.

[Octafish]

18. Money trumps peace crowd figures they'll survive.

The 99-percent, not so much.



The superrich have a plan. And we who aren't in the Carlyle Group aren't part of it:

The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles

By Mark Ames, AlterNet
Posted on June 2, 2010, Printed on June 2, 2010

What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?

SNIP...

The floating castle is a longtime dream of libertarian oligarchs -- a place where they can live their lives in peace free from the teeming masses of starving losers and indebted parasites and their tax demands. Since they’ve grown so rich off of America, they have enough spare change to fund projects like the Seasteading Institute, run by Milton Friedman's grandson, Patri Friedman, and financed by the bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel. It couldn't have come a moment sooner for Milton Friedman's grandson, who was best known until recently for running a grotesque advice blog for married swingers, PUA4LTR (Pick Up Advice For Long-Term Relationships). Actually, Patri Friedman ran that pick-up advice blog with his wife--the two of them are apparent big-time cyber-swingers, apparently--posting blog entries saying things like "Why Should Husbands Become PUAs? Because otherwise, your wife will talk like those wives on the blog My Husband Is Annoying."

Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.

While Thiel and Friedman are busy cooking up their libertarian dystopia, the Frontier Group investment firm -- an offshoot of the Carlyle Group -- has already entered the realization phase with the Utopia floating castle. Frontier Group, was founded by some of the same big names from the notorious Carlyle Group--the private equity firm that brought together right-wing oligarchs like George H. W. Bush and other top American officials with their billionaire pals in Saudi Arabia like the Bin Laden family, who together raked in enormous profits thanks to the War on Terror that their kids Dubya and Osama launched.

While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci's past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it's his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter's number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed "Creepy Carlucci" and "Spooky Frank&quot is the founding director of a firm that's building floating castles, it's a bad sign for those of us left behind.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/147058 /

It seems Goldman Sachs has had its greedy little eyes set on Putin's loot, but has been stymied.

The selection follows Goldman’s third attempt in 17 years to crack the neighboring Russian market where it has been ramping up presence and wooing the Kremlin for roles in asset sales. The bank, once the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, wasn’t involved in a single deal since 1999 as the Ukrainian government and companies raised $41.4 billion in stock and debt sales during the period, Bloomberg data show.

SOURCE: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-24/goldman-sachs-agrees-to-advise-ukraine-for-free-government-says.html

The so-and-sos with power and wealth aren't doing peace any favors. All we got to stop them is the Truth and the People. Wherever it comes to be, rather stand there with you, CJCRANE, and all people of peace.

[Laelth]

13. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Octafish]

22. It's like the 'Team B' concept never leaves Wall Street on the Potomac.

Remembering Team B

By Tom Barry
Right Web - Institute for Policy Studies | February 12, 2004

The most notorious attempt by militarists and right-wing ideologues to challenge the CIA was the Team B affair in the mid-1970s. The 1975-76 “Team B” operation was a classic case of threat escalation by hawks determined to increase military budgets and step up the U.S. offensive in the cold war. Concocted by right-wing ideologues and militarists, Team B aimed to bury the politics of détente and the SALT arms negotiations, which were supported by the leadership of both political parties. 1

The historical record shows that the call for an independent assessment of the CIA's conclusions came from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB--pronounced piffy-ab ). But the fear-mongering and challenges to the CIA's threat assessments--known as National Intelligence Estimates--actually started with nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, who laid down the gauntlet in a 1974 Foreign Policy article entitled “Is There a Strategic Arms Race?” 2 Wohlstetter answered his rhetorical question negatively, concluding that the United States was allowing the Soviet Union to achieve military superiority by not closing the “missile gap.” Having inspired the Gaither Commission in 1957 to raise the missile gap alarm, Wohlstetter applied the same threat assessment methodology to energize hawks, cold warriors, and right-wing anticommunists in the mid-1970s to kill the politics of détente and increase budget allocations for the Pentagon. Following his Foreign Policy essay, Wohlstetter, who had left his full-time position at RAND to become a professor at the University of Chicago, organized an informal study group that included younger neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz and longtime hawks like Paul Nitze.

PFIAB, which was dominated by right-wingers and hawks, followed Wohlstetter's lead and joined the threat assessment battle by calling in 1975 for an independent committee to evaluate the CIA's intelligence estimates. Testimony by PFIAB President Leo Cherne to the House Intelligence Committee in December 1975 alerted committee members to the need for better intelligence about the Soviet Union. “Intelligence cannot help a nation find its soul,” said Cherne. “It is indispensable, however, to help preserve the nation's safety, while it continues its search,” he added. George Bush Sr., who was about to leave his ambassadorship in China to become director of intelligence at the CIA, congratulated Cherne on his testimony, indicating that he would not oppose an independent evaluation of CIA intelligence estimates.

Joining in the chorus of praise, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Bechtel's president George Shultz also congratulated Cherne, implicitly adding their backing for an independent threat assessment committee. 3 Led by several of the board's more hawkish members--including John Foster, Edward Teller, William Casey, Seymour Weiss, W. Glenn Campbell, and Clare Booth Luce--PFIAB had earlier in 1975 called for an independent evaluation of the CIA's national intelligence estimates. Feeling that the country's nuclear weapons industry and capacity was threatened, PFIAB was aiming to derail the arms control treaties then under negotiation.

CONTINUED...

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/Remembering_Team_B

[daleanime]

14. K&R....

[Octafish]

24. An Original Narrative

The Man Who Sold the War

Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war

JAMES BAMFORD
Rolling Stone, Nov 17, 2005 4:25 PM

The road to war in Iraq led through many unlikely places. One of them was a chic hotel nestled among the strip bars and brothels that cater to foreigners in the town of Pattaya, on the Gulf of Thailand.

On December 17th, 2001, in a small room within the sound of the crashing tide, a CIA officer attached metal electrodes to the ring and index fingers of a man sitting pensively in a padded chair. The officer then stretched a black rubber tube, pleated like an accordion, around the man's chest and another across his abdomen. Finally, he slipped a thick cuff over the man's brachial artery, on the inside of his upper arm.

Strapped to the polygraph machine was Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a forty-three-year-old Iraqi who had fled his homeland in Kurdistan and was now determined to bring down Saddam Hussein. For hours, as thin mechanical styluses traced black lines on rolling graph paper, al-Haideri laid out an explosive tale. Answering yes and no to a series of questions, he insisted repeatedly that he was a civil engineer who had helped Saddam's men to secretly bury tons of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. The illegal arms, according to al-Haideri, were buried in subterranean wells, hidden in private villas, even stashed beneath the Saddam Hussein Hospital, the largest medical facility in Baghdad.

It was damning stuff -- just the kind of evidence the Bush administration was looking for. If the charges were true, they would offer the White House a compelling reason to invade Iraq and depose Saddam. That's why the Pentagon had flown a CIA polygraph expert to Pattaya: to question al-Haideri and confirm, once and for all, that Saddam was secretly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

There was only one problem: It was all a lie. After a review of the sharp peaks and deep valleys on the polygraph chart, the intelligence officer concluded that al-Haideri had made up the entire story, apparently in the hopes of securing a visa.

The fabrication might have ended there, the tale of another political refugee trying to scheme his way to a better life. But just because the story wasn't true didn't mean it couldn't be put to good use. Al-Haideri, in fact, was the product of a clandestine operation -- part espionage, part PR campaign -- that had been set up and funded by the CIA and the Pentagon for the express purpose of selling the world a war. And the man who had long been in charge of the marketing was a secretive and mysterious creature of the Washington establishment named John Rendon.

Rendon is a man who fills a need that few people even know exists. Two months before al-Haideri took the lie-detector test, the Pentagon had secretly awarded him a $16 million contract to target Iraq and other adversaries with propaganda. One of the most powerful people in Washington, Rendon is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management," manipulating information -- and, by extension, the news media -- to achieve the desired result. His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power." Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam. It was as if President John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson.

CONTINUED...

http://crashrecovery.org/rendon/1.html

[bobthedrummer]

49. The Rendon Group staged the 2004 Democratic National Convention when then Sen. Obama

had a keynote address. Staged is the operative word with the "free world" inheritors of Joseph Goebbels lifetime achievements-like The Rendon Group imho.

Rendon Group Wins Hearts and Minds in Business, Politics and War (by Pratap Chatterjee 8-4-04 CorpWatch)
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11486

The Rendon Group (SourceWatch page)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rendon_Group

Perception management doesn't work too well in the post-WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden etc. "free world". But it did much to help set the stage for WWIII.

[Octafish]

65. I either forgot that or never knew it. Thank you, bobthedrummer!

A friend of mine's brother -- an Army physician -- died in Iraq, murdered by one of his comrades in arms.

Army Maj. Matthew P. Houseal

While I didn't know Maj. Houseal, I went to high school with one of his younger siblings.

Understanding the extent the nation gets manipulated by the mass media is an important first step in restoring Justice. Public awareness of how Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all their enablers and supporters should be in prison, too. They lied America into an illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous war.

My friend's family will never be the same -- nor will those who know them. And our world also will be the poorer for Bush Jr.'s war. Thank you for fighting for Truth, Sir.

[bobthedrummer]

71. I know all too well how many are affected by events that are covered up to fit in the lie machines

regardless of where they originate.

Here's a blast from the past for everyone that is still awake, like you, my friend!

The Greatest Soviet Propaganda Posters Ever (io9.com)
http://io9.com/the-most-sensational-and-lurid-soviet-propaganda-poster-1464264698

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Resurrecting the old pissing contest. K&R

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Gandhi

[Octafish]

39. Profound thought, that. Thank you, Tierra y Libertad! This august group agrees with you...

Warning Merkel on Russian ‘Invasion’ Intel

Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Official Washington – and the specter of a new Cold War – U.S. intelligence veterans took the unusual step of sending this Aug. 30 memo to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian “invasion.”

September 1, 2014

MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO

We the undersigned are long-time veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on Sept. 4-5.

You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian “invasion” of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the “intelligence” seems to be of the same dubious, politically “fixed” kind used 12 years ago to “justify” the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.

We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. Twelve years ago, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq. In our view, you should be appropriately suspicious of charges made by the U.S. State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

President Barack Obama tried on Aug. 29 to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as “a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now … it’s not really a shift.”

Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy. One year ago, hawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on “intelligence” that was dubious, at best.

Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days. More important, we believe that this likelihood can be avoided, depending on the degree of judicious skepticism you and other European leaders bring to the NATO summit next week.

Experience With Untruth

Hopefully, your advisers have reminded you of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s checkered record for credibility. It appears to us that Rasmussen’s speeches continue to be drafted by Washington. This was abundantly clear on the day before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when, as Danish Prime Minister, he told his Parliament: “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know.”

Photos can be worth a thousand words; they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence. Suffice it to say that the images released by NATO on Aug. 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by Colin Powell at the UN on Feb. 5, 2003, that, likewise, proved nothing.

That same day, we warned President Bush that our former colleague analysts were “increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence” and told him flatly, “Powell’s presentation does not come close” to justifying war. We urged Mr. Bush to “widen the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

Consider Iraq today. Worse than catastrophic.

Although President Vladimir Putin has until now showed considerable reserve on the conflict in the Ukraine, it behooves us to remember that Russia, too, can “shock and awe.” In our view, if there is the slightest chance of that kind of thing eventually happening to Europe because of Ukraine, sober-minded leaders need to think this through very carefully.

If the photos that NATO and the U.S. have released represent the best available “proof” of an invasion from Russia, our suspicions increase that a major effort is under way to fortify arguments for the NATO summit to approve actions that Russia is sure to regard as provocative. Caveat emptor is an expression with which you are no doubt familiar. Suffice it to add that one should be very cautious regarding what Mr. Rasmussen, or even Secretary of State John Kerry, are peddling.

We trust that your advisers have kept you informed regarding the crisis in Ukraine from the beginning of 2014, and how the possibility that Ukraine would become a member of NATO is anathema to the Kremlin. According to a Feb. 1, 2008 cable (published by WikiLeaks) from the U.S. embassy in Moscow to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Ambassador William Burns was called in by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who explained Russia’s strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine.

Lavrov warned pointedly of “fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.” Burns gave his cable the unusual title, “NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES,” and sent it off to Washington with IMMEDIATE precedence. Two months later, at their summit in Bucharest NATO leaders issued a formal declaration that “Georgia and Ukraine will be in NATO.”

On Aug. 29, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk used his Facebook page to claim that, with the approval of Parliament that he has requested, the path to NATO membership is open. Yatsenyuk, of course, was Washington’s favorite pick to become prime minister after the Feb. 22 coup d’etat in Kiev.

“Yats is the guy,” said Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland a few weeks before the coup, in an intercepted telephone conversation with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. You may recall that this is the same conversation in which Nuland said, “Fuck the EU.”

Timing of the Russian “Invasion”

The conventional wisdom promoted by Kiev just a few weeks ago was that Ukrainian forces had the upper hand in fighting the anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine, in what was largely portrayed as a mop-up operation. But that picture of the offensive originated almost solely from official government sources in Kiev. There were very few reports coming from the ground in southeastern Ukraine. There was one, however, quoting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, that raised doubt about the reliability of the government’s portrayal.

According to the “press service of the President of Ukraine” on Aug. 18, Poroshenko called for a “regrouping of Ukrainian military units involved in the operation of power in the East of the country. … Today we need to do the rearrangement of forces that will defend our territory and continued army offensives,” said Poroshenko, adding, “we need to consider a new military operation in the new circumstances.”

If the “new circumstances” meant successful advances by Ukrainian government forces, why would it be necessary to “regroup,” to “rearrange” the forces? At about this time, sources on the ground began to report a string of successful attacks by the anti-coup federalists against government forces. According to these sources, it was the government army that was starting to take heavy casualties and lose ground, largely because of ineptitude and poor leadership.

Ten days later, as they became encircled and/or retreated, a ready-made excuse for this was to be found in the “Russian invasion.” That is precisely when the fuzzy photos were released by NATO and reporters like the New York Times’ Michael Gordon were set loose to spread the word that “the Russians are coming.” (Michael Gordon was one of the most egregious propagandists promoting the war on Iraq.)

No Invasion – But Plenty Other Russian Support

The anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine enjoy considerable local support, partly as a result of government artillery strikes on major population centers. And we believe that Russian support probably has been pouring across the border and includes, significantly, excellent battlefield intelligence. But it is far from clear that this support includes tanks and artillery at this point – mostly because the federalists have been better led and surprisingly successful in pinning down government forces.

At the same time, we have little doubt that, if and when the federalists need them, the Russian tanks will come.

This is precisely why the situation demands a concerted effort for a ceasefire, which you know Kiev has so far been delaying. What is to be done at this point? In our view, Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk need to be told flat-out that membership in NATO is not in the cards – and that NATO has no intention of waging a proxy war with Russia – and especially not in support of the rag-tag army of Ukraine. Other members of NATO need to be told the same thing.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)

Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)

Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned)

SOURCE: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/01/warning-merkel-on-russian-invasion-intel/

[LongTomH]

16. K&R

Thanks for the analysis and the resources!

[Octafish]

44. You are most welcome, LongTomH. War means Money!

just to gauge DUers' feelings on all this: Are you tired of war being the go-to setting?

IMF says Ukraine could need billions in additional aid if fighting persists

By JUERGEN BAETZ, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — While Ukraine's leaders are trying to win the war against Russian-backed separatists in the east, they appear to be losing the battle to resurrect the country's battered economy.

Ukraine might need billions in additional support if the fighting between the military and the separatists in the country's east persists through next year, the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday. Only covering the shortfall in the central bank's reserves would require an additional $19 billion by the end of 2015, the fund said.

SNIP...

"Risks loom large" because of the fighting and the unresolved dispute with Russia over prices on gas imports and arrears, the IMF acknowledged in its first in-depth assessment since granting the country a $17 billion bailout program in March.

SNIP...

The current bailout program already faces a financing shortfall of $3.5 billion through 2015 even under the current — rather optimistic — outlook, the IMF said. More money will also be needed to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and houses in the east once fighting stops.

SNIP...

In addition to the IMF bailout, the 28-nation European Union has pledged a support package of loans and grants worth $15 billion. The EU is mediating in Ukraine's gas dispute with Russia and has signaled it is ready to grant further aid if needed. The United States has lent Ukraine $1 billion.

CONTINUED...

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/09/02/imf-ukraine-may-need-another-bailout-due-to-war

As you, I'm sickened by how "Money trumps peace" has become the accepted and normal group think.

[LongTomH]

51. And those IMF loans will need to be paid back at usurious rates requiring austerity to.......

......be imposed on citizens of the Ukraine!

Bloody hell!!!!! There are times when I'd like to believe in a Hell for such people!!!!

[Octafish]

52. Well, Hell I believe would be very Buy-Partisan.

Take Larry Summers, please.

Larry Summers
and the Secret "End-Game" Memo

By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine
Thursday, August 22, 2013

EXCERPT...

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

The memo is authentic.

To get that confirmation, I would have to fly to Geneva and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy. I did. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalization, told me,

"The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people…. We don't have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating."

Then I showed him the memo.

It begins with Summers’ flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the then most powerful CEOs on the planet and get them to order their lobbyist armies to march:

"As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs…."

To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed their private lines. And here they are:

Goldman Sachs: John Corzine (212)XXXXXXX
Merrill Lynch: David Kamanski (212)XXXXXXX
Bank of America, David Coulter (415)XXXXXXX
Citibank: John Reed (212)XXXXXXX
Chase Manhattan: Walter Shipley (212)XXXXXXX

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/

What would Goldman Sachs think about Ukraine? LOLOL until WWIII goes End Game the Mother of all End Games.

[Quantess]

26. Counterpunch is one of my favorite websies

Definitely better quality articles than alternet.

[Octafish]

48. Mine, too. Very little censorship, apart from the assassination of JFK...

...one of a few topics that the late, great Alexander Cockburn considered out of the realm of his possibility. Other than that, I think the world of CounterPunch. And I will always thank Mr. Cockburn for his work advancing awareness of many important subjects, from old Cadillacs to modern democracy. It's just that there's a hole in his -- and Chomsky's -- public comments about Dallas I have to stand up and beat the devil.

[Cleita]

28. This needs a kick.

[malaise]

33. Precisely

Rec

[Tommy_Carcetti]

36. What a steaming load of bullshit. Pushes a false narrative while accusing others of doing so.

So poor Vlad V.'s nothing more than a poor, misunderstood soul and the whole thing is really nothing more than a NATO/IMF/US State Department power grab?

Bull to the shit.

You have a guy who once proclaimed Ukraine doesn't even exist as a country, who tried to strong arm Ukraine into cutting ties with the EU, who when Ukraine was at its most vulnerable state sent in his military to annex a portion of the country, who fuels a proxy war fought by thuggish separatists who are so reckless in their fighting they shoot down a civilian airliner, and now appears to be sending in more of his military to try and seize more of the country....and he's not the bad guy in all of this?

Meanwhile this piece repeats discredited point after discredited point, from the $5 billion argument to the claim that there was a "coup" in Ukraine to actually attempting to justify the seizure of Crimea in violation of recognized treaties.

Unbelievable.

[Octafish]

37. When's the administration going to release its evidence for all that? It's been two months.

Obama Should Release Ukraine Evidence

With the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine turning a local civil war into a U.S. confrontation with Russia, U.S. intelligence veterans urge President Obama to release what evidence he has about the tragedy and silence the hyperbole.

Ray McGovern
ConsortiumNews, July 29, 2014

EXCERPT...

If You’ve Got the Goods…

If the U.S. has more convincing evidence than what has so far been adduced concerning responsibility for shooting down Flight 17, we believe it would be best to find a way to make that intelligence public – even at the risk of compromising “sources and methods.” Moreover, we suggest you instruct your subordinates not to cheapen U.S. credibility by releasing key information via social media like Twitter and Facebook.

The reputation of the messenger for credibility is also key in this area of “public diplomacy.” As is by now clear to you, in our view Secretary Kerry is more liability than asset in this regard. Similarly, with regard to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, his March 12, 2013 Congressional testimony under oath to what he later admitted were “clearly erroneous” things regarding NSA collection should disqualify him. Clapper should be kept at far remove from the Flight 17 affair.

What is needed, if you’ve got the goods, is an Interagency Intelligence Assessment – the genre used in the past to lay out the intelligence. We are hearing indirectly from some of our former colleagues that what Secretary Kerry is peddling does not square with the real intelligence. Such was the case late last August, when Kerry created a unique vehicle he called a “Government (not Intelligence) Assessment” blaming, with no verifiable evidence, Bashar al-Assad for the chemical attacks near Damascus, as honest intelligence analysts refused to go along and, instead, held their noses.

We believe you need to seek out honest intelligence analysts now and hear them out. Then, you may be persuaded to take steps to curb the risk that relations with Russia might escalate from “Cold War II” into an armed confrontation. In all candor, we see little reason to believe that Secretary Kerry and your other advisers appreciate the enormity of that danger.

In our most recent (May 4) memorandum to you, Mr. President, we cautioned that if the U.S. wished “to stop a bloody civil war between east and west Ukraine and avert Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine, you may be able to do so before the violence hurtles completely out of control.” On July 18, you joined the top leaders of Germany, France, and Russia in calling for an immediate ceasefire. Most informed observers believe you have it in your power to get Ukrainian leaders to agree. The longer Kiev continues its offensive against separatists in eastern Ukraine, the more such U.S. statements appear hypocritical.

We reiterate our recommendations of May 4, that you remove the seeds of this confrontation by publicly disavowing any wish to incorporate Ukraine into NATO and that you make it clear that you are prepared to meet personally with Russian President Putin without delay to discuss ways to defuse the crisis and recognize the legitimate interests of the various parties. The suggestion of an early summit got extraordinary resonance in controlled and independent Russian media. Not so in “mainstream” media in the U.S. Nor did we hear back from you.

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/29/obama-should-release-ukraine-evidence/

PS: Thanks for reminding me. Without evidence, I'm inclined to keep an open mind on matters of war and peace. I still remember when the United States government was telling me that Iraq was loaded with WMDs that were an immediate threat to the United States itself. As the same government had also reported Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11, I didn't really believe them at the time.

PPS: Are you willing to volunteer for Ukraine, Tommy_Carcetti? You know, go and fight?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

38. You'd think a former spook like McGovern would know that the investigation is in Dutch hands...

...and not the US. But when one has a base to preach to (like the good folks at "Consortium News&quot , facts often go out the window.

What does me going to fight for Ukraine have to do with anything?

[Octafish]

40. No. He's referring to evidence the President alluded to...

...but has not mentioned since in public.

I ask you because you seem very gung-ho for Ukraine.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

41. So you're saying that if I believe Ukraine is unjustly under attack from Russia....

....and that I see through conspiracy theory minded individuals' distortion of the facts, that I'm some sort of hypocrite if I don't personally sign up to fight for the Ukrainian military?

[Octafish]

42. No. That's what you said.

I think if anyone feels so strongly about NATO sticking up for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, he or she should volunteer for the front lines. If that includes you, great.

ETA: he or she, rather than "you."

[Tommy_Carcetti]

43. Funny thing, I didn't even mention NATO in the equation.

You drew that inference.

[Octafish]

45. So what? I think peace is better than war.

Thanks to the "new" government in Ukraine, the country's poised to be a money pit for Goldman Sachs and the rest of the money trumps peace crowd.

You didn't say that, either.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

46. The vast majority of us here, myself included, heartily agree with your general premise.

However, in the body of your post you suppose facts that go far beyond that initial assertion.

Maidan happened, Yanukovych left the country, and that is that. Had Putin never interfered in Crimea approximately a week later, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Unfortunately, Putin did interfere and here we are.

I'm not being a warmonger by simply pointing out the culpable party here.

[Octafish]

47. Got it. Thanks. From your post I thought you were denigrating me as a 'Conspiracy Theorist.'

Not that there's anything wrong with being a conspiracy theorist. It beats believing the crapola spewed out of Corporate McPravda. It doesn't matter if it's happenstance, coincidence or enemy action, the fact is the government of the United States has lied to get popular support for illegal, unnecessary, immoral and disastrous wars for profit over the past 50 years.

As for the original Conspiracy Theory: President John F. Kennedy would never have fallen for phony intelligence. And he did oppose war in Vietnam, formally ordering all US troops out by the end of 1964.

ETA: ADDED NSAM 263 link.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

54. Always be wary of affirming the consequent.

It is true that in the past, the US has at times involved itself in regime changes in various foreign countries (e.g. Iran, Chile). And it is true that in February 2014, Ukraine underwent a regime change. But just because Ukraine underwent a regime change does not automatically make it the U.S.'s handiwork. And one should refrain from making such a conclusive jump absent substantial evidence.

[Octafish]

57. Right you are. You don't think the US was behind the 2013 coup in Ukraine?

It certainly served US interests. For instance, Vice President Joe Biden promoted fracking for Ukraine, as one of the interesting ways the US "would help Ukraine" after the coup.

Vice President Joe Biden Promotes U.S. as Fracking Missionary Force On Ukraine Trip

Then, Vice President Biden's son's company just got a huge new contract doing fracking.

Company In Which Joe Biden's Son Is Director Prepares To Drill Shale Gas In East Ukraine

Small world! Can you believe it?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

58. No, even if only by the fact that there was no "coup".

So the US couldn't have been involved in something that never happened.

[Octafish]

62. The Media Ignores the CIA in Ukraine

Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain

by Bill Blunden
CounterPunch, July 30 2014

A few days back The Economist published an essay which dismissed the idea of fascists in Kiev as an illusory product of Russian propaganda {1}. This is a narrative which the editors at the The Economist have put forth on a number of occasions {2}. Of course they’re not alone. A less flagrant article published by the New York Times editorial board used a weird double negative to assert that “Russian leaders prefer not to accept that the CIA did not engineer the preference of many Ukrainians for what they see in the West {3}”.

All the world’s a stage wrote Shakespeare. Are readers supposed to categorically assume that US intelligence has played absolutely no role in the coup d’etat? So far the bulk of the American media’s coverage of the Ukraine deftly sidesteps the CIA’s role.

SNIP...

To understand the forces at work, consider a passage from Chapter 7 (page 324) of Tragedy and Hope (1966), an unusual book written by Georgetown professor named Carroll Quigley:

The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, western elites largely did away with a countervailing ideological alternative and were one step closer to realizing their goal of corporate state capture. The pieces on Brzezinski’s grand chessboard were rearranged. The interests behind the imperial brain trust, the team that conducted the CFR’s War and Peace Studies, saw their opening. Karl Rove aptly crystallized the prevailing mindset {15}:

We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do”

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/30/the-media-ignores-the-cia-in-ukraine/

So, there's that.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

63. It's actually very simple to get to the bottom of the "coup" issue.

If you read Webster's definition of "Coup d'état", it clearly reads:

: a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics; especially : the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coup%20d'%C3%A9tat

First of all, no one can claim the Maidan protests were "a small group".



There were hundreds of thousands of them on the square. So whatever motivation those protests may have given Yanukovych to say, "Screw you guys, I'm going home," right then and there the definition of "coup" is inapplicable.

Secondly, one has to consider violence in the change of power. So was Yanukovych kidnapped, thrown in a sack, and taken away that night? Did someone stick a gun to his head and pull him away? The fact of the matter is, video from the Yanukovych residence doesn't seem to support that. In it, you can see members of Yanukovych's entourage casually packing up his valuable possessions and two helicopters flying away without any sort of opposition or sense of immediate urgency.

(The first video is rather long, but Yanukovych himself is seen at 13:45 in the video)

This all happened over the course of roughly three days, February 19th until early morning February 22nd.

So if a characteristic of "coup" is that they are typically characterized by force, then no, again the situation does not fall into the proper usage of that word.

You don't have to talk about what the CIA may or may not have done. There simply was no "coup" of which to speak.

[davidpdx]

75. I notice that neither of the responses to your post bothered to try to refute your point about

the coup not happening. They spew and foam at the mouth about it 24/7, but can't prove it.

It's all one big NATO/IMF conspiracy.

Just like the NATO basis in South Korea.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

76. I don't think there's any evidence to refute it.

Unless there was someone with a gun to Yanukovych's head making him pack up his entire collection of antiques and oil paintings?

[sabrina 1]

53. Do you support the actions of the current Kiev government, which appears to be falling apart, again

btw, the all out slaughter they are perpetrating on their own people, for what? To 'force' them to accept enslavement to the IMF/World Bank? Well, let me go back. How do you feel about the IMF/World Bank's actions towards nations, Argentina, Greece, now sadly, many other First World countries? Do you support them and if so why?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

55. You're assuming that the reason the Ukrainians are fighting is to protect the IMF?

And not to preserve their own country? Honestly?

Some of the claims of indiscriminate shelling by the Ukrainian military towards civilian areas are disturbing, if indeed true. However, the greater effort to fend off extremely well-armed separatists--and apparently now the regular Russian army--in order to preserve their country, I have no problem with whatsoever.

[EX500rider]

56. You do know membership in the IMF is voluntary right?

The IMF is a organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world. The organization's objectives are stated in the Articles of Agreement and can be summarised as: to promote international economic co-operation, international trade, employment, and exchange-rate stability, including by making financial resources available to member countries to meet balance of payments needs.

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


Oh, the HORROR!!

[Octafish]

59. You do know Ukraine already owes IMF $17 Billion?

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2014/new043014a.htm

And if you take IMF money you gotta go by the IMF contract terms.

IMF's four steps to damnation

How crises, failures, and suffering finally drove a Presidential adviser to the wrong side of the barricades

Gregory Palast
The Observer, Saturday 28 April 2001

It was like a scene out of Le Carré: the brilliant agent comes in from the cold and, in hours of debriefing, empties his memory of horrors committed in the name of an ideology gone rotten.

But this was a far bigger catch than some used-up Cold War spy. The former apparatchik was Joseph Stiglitz, ex-chief economist of the World Bank. The new world economic order was his theory come to life.

He was in Washington for the big confab of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. But instead of chairing meetings of ministers and central bankers, he was outside the police cordons. The World Bank fired Stiglitz two years ago. He was not allowed a quiet retirement: he was excommunicated purely for expressing mild dissent from globalisation World Bank-style.

Here in Washington we conducted exclusive interviews with Stiglitz, for The Observer and Newsnight, about the inside workings of the IMF, the World Bank, and the bank's 51% owner, the US Treasury.

And here, from sources unnamable (not Stiglitz), we obtained a cache of documents marked, 'confidential' and 'restricted'.

Stiglitz helped translate one, a 'country assistance strategy'. There's an assistance strategy for every poorer nation, designed, says the World Bank, after careful in-country investigation.

But according to insider Stiglitz, the Bank's 'investigation' involves little more than close inspection of five-star hotels. It concludes with a meeting with a begging finance minister, who is handed a 'restructuring agreement' pre-drafted for 'voluntary' signature.

Each nation's economy is analysed, says Stiglitz, then the Bank hands every minister the same four-step programme.

CONTINUED...

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/apr/29/business.mbas

Which is good for IMF -- and Goldman Sachs, coincidentally -- but not good for the 99 percent of people in Ukraine.

[EX500rider]

61. Yes most loans have terms it seems and the requirement to be paid back.

[sabrina 1]

66. Apparently it isn't otherwise, Boroshenko, the Chocolate King, (dear alerters, he is known as

the Chocolate King, a multi billionaire due to his Chocolate Business) wouldn't have to send the military in to FORCE the people to accept HIS decision, he is a Wall St guy, loves Goldman eg, would he?

They don't want to be enslaved by the IMF. Wolfowitz, remember him, was head of the World Bank, a reward for lying us into war.

But that wasn't my question. Do YOU support the enslavement of sovereign nations to the IMF draconian practices of taking a country that is in shock, economically, (see Diary of an Economic Hitman and Shock Doctrine to learn how it all works) or otherwise traumatized, 'lend' them money which never actually covers the problems, at a huge rate of interest, which they can never pay back, then extract payment, see Greece and Argentina eg, by forcing the sale of their natural assets, at bargain basement prices, naturally those in the know get first dibs, Greek Islands, Nationally run Energy Cos etc.

Force 'austerity', which translated means lower wages, higher taxes, cut all Social Programs, again see first, Third World nations then Second, Argentina among others, and now they've moved to first World, or formerly First World nations, see Ireland, Spain et al and keep the people DOWN.

Show me a success story related to the IMF.

[EX500rider]

73. "Show me a success story related to the IMF"

Ok:
Jordan had been impacted by its wars with Israel, civil war and a major economic recession. In 1989 the country had a 30-35% unemployment rate and was struggling with its inability to pay its loans. The country agreed to a series of five-year reforms that began with the IMF. The Gulf war and the return of 230,000 Jordanians because of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait put strain on the government, as unemployment continued to increase. In the period from 1993 to 1999, the IMF extended to Jordan three extended fund facility loans. As a result the government undertook massive reforms of privatization, taxes, foreign investment and easier trade policies. By 2000 the country was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and one year later signed a free trade accord with the United States. Jordan was also able to bring down its overall debt payment and restructure it at a manageable level. Jordan is an example of how the IMF can foster strong, stable economies that are productive members of the global economy

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/international-monetary-fund-imf.asp

As for "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" don't see how doom fiction is a help to an argument.

Columnist Sebastian Mallaby reacted sharply to Perkins' book: "This man is a frothing conspiracy theorist, a vainglorious peddler of nonsense, and yet his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is a runaway bestseller." Mallaby, who spent 13 years writing for the London Economist and wrote a critically well-received biography of World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, holds that Perkins' conception of international finance is "largely a dream" and that his "basic contentions are flat wrong". For instance he points out that Indonesia reduced its infant mortality and illiteracy rates by two-thirds after economists persuaded its leaders to borrow money in 1970. He also disputes Perkins' claim that 51 of the top 100 world economies belong to companies. A value-added comparison done by the UN, he says, shows the number to be 29.
Other sources, including articles in The New York Times and Boston Magazine as well as a press release issued by the United States Department of State, have referred to a lack of documentary or testimonial evidence to corroborate the claim that the NSA was involved in his hiring to Chas T. Main.
In addition, the author of the State Department release states that the NSA "is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization" and that its missions do not involve "anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries". Economic historian Niall Ferguson writes in his book The Ascent of Money that Perkins's contention that the leaders of Ecuador (President Jaime Roldós Aguilera) and Panama (General Omar Torrijos) were assassinated by US agents for opposing the interests of the owners of their countries' foreign debt "seems a little odd" in light of the fact that in the 1970s the amount of money that the US had lent to Ecuador and Panama accounted for less than 0.4% of the total US grants and loans, while in 1990 the exports from the US to those countries accounted for approximately 0.4% of the total US exports (approximately $8 billion). According to Ferguson, those "do not seem like figures worth killing for"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man#Response

[Octafish]

77. I'll go with Joseph Stiglitz over Sebastian Mallaby.

Larry Summers: Goldman Sacked

By Greg Palast
Reader Supported News, September 16, 2013

Joseph Stiglitz couldn't believe his ears. Here they were in the White House, with President Bill Clinton asking the chiefs of the US Treasury for guidance on the life and death of America's economy, when the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers turns to his boss, Secretary Robert Rubin, and says, "What would Goldman think of that?"

Huh?

Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again: What would Goldman think?

A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on "what Goldman thought." As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in Cabinet meetings on The West Wing.

Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/

[truedelphi]

78. Octafish, the Stiglitz post is one juicy post!

Almost as dicey as when Geithner went around to various conferences and committee meetings in 2010, and told European economic officals that "Obama works for me."

And did the WH ever comment on that? Of course, they did not.

[Octafish]

79. Wow! Explains why Geithner sacrificed homeowners to ''Foam the Runway'' for the Banks.

&t=0

Neil Barofsky: 'Geithner Admitted To Us Privately That Obama's Housing Policy Was DESIGNED To Sacrifice Homeowners In Order To "FOAM THE RUNWAY" For The Banks'

SOURCE: http://dailybail.com/home/barofsky-geithner-admitted-to-us-privately-that-obamas-housi.html

10 Million Americans lost their homes.

http://www.alternet.org/investigations/10-million-americans-foreclosed-neighborhoods-devastated

[TBF]

69. Nailed it -

"there will be austerity and you will obey our authority"

No love for Putin from this corner - I put him in the same category (fascist thug) as Netanyahu. But it's pretty obvious what is going on in Ukraine. It has long had desirable resources for capitalists to fight over and despite the supreme knowledge of red-baiters on DU Putin is hardly a socialist.

[hifiguy]

70. Big KICK

and rec!

[JEB]

72. K&R

More good info here on this topic than ever crosses the TV screen.

[Blue_Tires]

80. Today's "Putin is blameless and this is all Washington's fault!!" piece...

Thanks for this...My day doesn't officially start until I see these pieces posted...