This week near Dover, Delaware, US, a viral video appears to show another instance of black-on-white violence among high school students.
[Editor’s Note: YouTube has deleted the video originally embedded in this article. Should users navigate to the video’s URL, a message states: “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy prohibiting content designed to harass, bully or threaten.”]
The shaky cell phone video shows a group of black teenage boys punching, knocking down, and kicking a white teenage boy, leaving him dazed and confused on the school bus floor.
The victim of the attack had been riding home from Parkway Academy School near Dover when the assault reportedly began. The video shows him sitting alone, facing front, when the attack begins from the rear – and continues from the side and the front of the school bus. “I didn’t do nothing,” he protests.
The student’s uncle found out about the incident and spread the word on Facebook.
“This is a video of my nephew Alec being beaten by a group of teens on his bus ride home from school yesterday,” wrote Jonathan Guessford. “He was able to get off the bus at the next stop, 14 miles from his home. He went to the Magnolia Fire Hall and called the police.
“The bus driver failed to intervene AT ALL,” Guessford continued. “She didn’t stop the bus while the beating occurred. She didn’t call the police and file a report. She didn’t inform the administration that the beating occurred. Apparently, the bus driver called the school and stated that Alec left the bus early for no reason, according to the administrator that called my brother yesterday.”
The attack is part of a pattern of racial violence I have documented in White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It.
The West and the United States provoked the Ukrainian crisis, former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus said in an interview to Czech television (CT24).
“I think that not Russia is to blame for the outbreak in Kiev on the Maidan (Independence Square). Western Europe and the United States aggravated the situation,” he said.
“I had told them from the very beginning not to exert pressure on Ukraine, as it will only destroy and disintegrate it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened,” Klaus said.
At present, in his view, the country is undergoing a difficult satge, and it is hard to “clearly say whether it wants to rely on the West or on Russia.” However, Ukraine should independently decide its own future.
“Let them determine their future for themselves – without any interference from outside,” the former Czech president said.
The head of Europe’s biggest newspaper publisher by circulation has accused Google of seeking to establish a digital “superstate” free from the constraints of antitrust regulators and privacy concerns.
Google controls so much data, becoming the global equivalent of what Deutsche Post once was to mail or Deutsche Telekom to making phone calls in Germany, which is why it is so important for the American giant to be transparent and fair,
In a provocative open letter to Google chief Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Axel Springer, says: “We are afraid of Google. I have to say so clearly and honestly because hardly any of my colleagues dares to do so publicly.”
Mathias Döpfner’s assault on Google begins on familiar terrain by lamenting the US tech company’s dominance of the search engine market, but shifts into broader anxiety about the extent of Google’s ambitions, including its development of driverless cars and purchase of dronemaker, Titan Aerospace.
He writes: “Google not only knows where we’re going in our cars but also what we do while we’re driving. Forget Big Brother – Google is better!”
The letter is published in Wednesday’s edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, an upmarket conservative daily which is not part of the Springer stable, and responds to a guest column in the same newspaper by Mr Schmidt.
In his column, Google’s executive chairman welcomed an advertising partnership between the US company and Springer, which appeared to mark the end of a long confrontation between the two.
Springer is among the publishers that lobbied for ancillary copyright legislation that would give publishers the right to license their web content for use by others.
The changes to copyright law were passed by Germany’s parliament last year but watered down to enable news aggregators to continue to publish newspaper excerpts free of charge.
Mr Döpfner criticised the EU’s recent settlement with Google, which permitted the internet group to continue publishing paid-for links at the top of its pages ahead of algorithmically chosen results.
Google agreed with Brussels to allow rival search engines a showing alongside its own results, a concession Mr Döpfner described as “protection money”.
“As the saying goes: ‘if you don’t want us to kill you, you’ll have to pay,’” the Springer chief executive wrote.
The combative letter describes the US company as “Goliath” to Springer’s “David”.
In a passage speculating that Google may be planning to build offshore working environments to escape democratic accountability, Mr Döpfner writes: “Is Google planning to operate in a legal vacuum without the hassle of anti-trust regulators and data protection… does Google plan in all seriousness a digital superstate in which its citizens will naturally only do good and “won’t be evil”.”
Springer, publisher of the tabloid Bild, has long been reviled by German leftwingers for its ultraconservative views and political influence.
Mr Döpfner has reoriented the business away from print, selling regional newspapers including the Hamburger Abendblatt, the first daily newspaper created by company founder Axel Springer, and acquiring a 24 hour news channel that will be used to supply video for its digital platforms.
A Google spokesman declined to comment, but referred to Mr Schmidt’s column last week, in which he called for co-operation with publishers and warned against “heavy-handed regulation” such as copyright charges.
Mr Schmidt wrote that such regulation risked creating an “innovation desert” in Europe. “Some companies will leave and, worse still, others will never get off the ground – blocked by rules designed to protect incumbents.”
I’m confused. A few weeks ago we were told in the West that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine was a very good thing. These people, we were told by our political leaders and elite media commentators, were ‘pro-democracy protestors’.
The US government warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these ’pro-democracy protestors’ even if, according to the pictures we saw, some of them were neo-Nazis who were throwing Molotov cocktails and other things at the police and smashing up statues and setting fire to buildings.
Now, just a few weeks later, we’re told that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine are not ‘pro-democracy protestors’ but ’terrorists’ or ’militants’.
Why was the occupation of government buildings in Ukraine a very good thing in January, but it is a very bad thing in April? Why was the use of force by the authorities against protestors completely unacceptable in January, but acceptable now? I repeat: I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
The anti-government protestors in Ukraine during the winter received visits from several prominent Western politicians, including US Senator John McCain, and Victoria Nuland, from the US State Department, who handed out cookies. But there have been very large anti-government protests in many Western European countries in recent weeks, which have received no such support, either from such figures or from elite Western media commentators. Nor have protestors received free cookies from officials at the US State Department.
Surely if they were so keen on anti-government street protests in Europe, and regarded them as the truest form of ’democracy’, McCain and Nuland would also be showing solidarity with street protestors in Madrid, Rome, Athens and Paris? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
A few weeks ago I saw an interview with the US Secretary of State John Kerry who said, “You just don’t invade another country on phony pretexts in order to assert your interests.” But I seem to recall the US doing just that on more than one occasion in the past 20 years or so.
Have I misremembered the ’Iraq has WMDs claim’? Was I dreaming back in 2002 and early 2003 when politicians and neocon pundits came on TV every day to tell us plebs that we had to go to war with Iraq because of the threat posed by Saddam’s deadly arsenal? Why is having a democratic vote in Crimea on whether to rejoin Russia deemed worse than the brutal, murderous invasion of Iraq – an invasion which has led to the deaths of up to 1 million people? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
We were also told by very serious-looking Western politicians and media ’experts’ that the Crimea referendum wasn’t valid because it was held under “military occupation.” But I’ve just been watching coverage of elections in Afghanistan, held under military occupation, which have been hailed by leading western figures, such as NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen as a “historic moment for Afghanistan”and a great success for “democracy.” Why is the Crimean vote dismissed, but the Afghanistan vote celebrated? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
Syria too is rather baffling. We were and are told that radical Islamic terror groups pose the greatest threat to our peace, security and our ’way of life’ in the West. That Al-Qaeda and other such groups need to be destroyed: that we needed to have a relentless ’War on Terror’ against them. Yet in Syria, our leaders have been siding with such radical groups in their war against a secular government which respects the rights of religious minorities, including Christians.
When the bombs of Al-Qaeda or their affiliates go off in Syria and innocent people are killed there is no condemnation from our leaders: their only condemnation has been of the secular Syrian government which is fighting radical Islamists and which our leaders and elite media commentators are desperate to have toppled. I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
Then there’s gay rights. We are told that Russia is a very bad and backward country because it has passed a law against promoting homosexuality to minors. Yet our leaders who boycotted the Winter Olympics in Sochi because of this law visit Gulf states where homosexuals can be imprisoned or even executed, and warmly embrace the rulers there, making no mention of the issue of gay rights.
Surely the imprisonment or execution of gay people is far worse than a law which forbids promotion of homosexuality to minors? Why, if they are genuinely concerned about gay rights, do our leaders attack Russia and not countries that imprison or execute gay people? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
We are told in lots of newspaper articles that the Hungarian ultra-nationalist party Jobbik is very bad and that its rise is a cause of great concern, even though it is not even in the government, or likely to be. But neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists do hold positions in the new government of Ukraine, which our leaders in the West enthusiastically support and neo-Nazis and the far-right played a key role in the overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected government in February, a ‘revolution’ cheered on by the West. Why are ultra-nationalists and far-right groups unacceptable in Hungary but very acceptable in Ukraine? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
We are told that Russia is an aggressive, imperialist power and that NATO’s concerns are about opposing the Russian ‘threat’. But I looked at the map the other day and while I could see lots of countries close to (and bordering) Russia that were members of NATO, the US-led military alliance whose members have bombed and attacked many countries in the last 15 years, I could not see any countries close to America that were part of a Russian-military alliance, or any Russian military bases or missiles situated in foreign countries bordering or close to the US. Yet Russia, we are told, is the ‘aggressive one’. I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
The discovery of large hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic has sparked international competition over resources in frozen waters. Regional powers are quickly filing claims for the sea shelf, with Russia preparing to bring in the biggest bid to the UN.
Ahead of Moscow preparing to file a 1.2 million square kilometer Arctic waters bid to the UN later this year, President Vladimir Putin commissioned Russian ministries to get ready to take the new territories in the Sea of Okhotsk under full control and protection.
The Russian president ordered maintenance of border patrols of the extended sea shelf be in place by July 1, 2014.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has been instructed to ensure maritime authorities extend the Russian shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk beyond the generally recognized 200 nautical miles zone by December 1, 2015.
The Foreign Ministry is obliged to bring all the necessary documents, including new maps of the Sea of Okhotsk and scientific data serving as proof of Russia’s bid, to the UN by March 1, 2015.
Experts say the future of the world economy, to some extent, is dependent on the Arctic.
Last year, Russian energy giants, Gazprom and Rosneft, were granted rights to develop large hydrocarbon deposits recently discovered in the Pechora and Kara seas. The find could be a pot of gold for Russia’s gas industry.
The melting Arctic ice cap has made way for shipping routes and the exploration of resources at the bottom of the world’s smallest ocean. The North Pole icecap has decreased by 40 percent since 1979, opening up two shipping routes, the North Sea route and the Northwest Passage, with extremely high economic potential.
Approximately 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15 percent of its oil lie in the Arctic. But the majority, 84 percent, of the estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and 47.3 trillion cubic meters of gas remain off shore.
According to the UN’s sea convention, any country has sovereign rights to resources within 200 nautical miles of its territorial waterways. There are five countries with territories in the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US.
As the icecaps are melting, a military race is also building up in the region.
The US Navy recently debuted a revised roadmap focused on expanding America’s muscle in the world’s coldest ocean over the next decade, increasing the number of personnel trained in Arctic operations, advancing technical equipment and surveillance needs.
The ultimate goal appears to be establishing international order under US leadership.
Earlier this year, NATO countries participated in a Norwegian-led Cold Response exercise in the Arctic, rehearsing high intensity operations with 16,000 troops deployed in extreme conditions. Non-NATO participants, Sweden and Switzerland, also took part.
“The United States is anxious to militarize the Arctic Ocean. It has to do it via its relations with Canada and it is also seeking to do it via NATO, through the participation of Norway and Denmark in NATO. And now it is calling upon Sweden and Finland to essentially join NATO with a view to establishing a NATO agenda in the Arctic,” Michel Chossudovsky, from the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal, revealed.
Meanwhile, Canada has been staging its own independent drills with hundreds of soldiers participating in cold-weather winter warfare exercises.
Not to be left out, last year Russia announced the resumption of a constant armed presence in the Arctic, which was abandoned by the military after the fall of the USSR.
Back in 2012, Russia’s former envoy to NATO and current Vice Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, said that by the middle of the 21st century the fight for resources between various states will become “uncivilized.”
In about 40 years, Russia may lose its sovereignty if it fails to clearly set out its national interests in the Arctic, Rogozin said.
“It’s crucially important for us to set goals for our national interests in this region. If we don’t do that, we will lose the battle for resources which means we’ll also lose in a big battle for the right to have sovereignty and independence,” Rogozin stated at a Marine Board meeting in Moscow.
American senator, Republican John McCain, who is currently on a visit to Estonia, has urged to “provide weapons to Ukraine” speaking at a live show of one of the local TV channels.
“We should provide weapons to Ukraine so that it could defend itself,” the 77-year-old senator from Arizona said.
John McCain, the ex-presidential candidate from the Republicans on 2008 elections, believes that Russia threatens its neighbor. “Russia is provoking the West by staging actions in Ukraine’s East. Maybe, it wants to increase its influence on the South as well,” the senator suggested.
An advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the United States may decide to send arms to eastern Ukraine as tensions continue to worsen there between pro-Russian protesters and supporters of the country’s interim government.
Reuters reported on Monday that US State Department Counselor Thomas Shannon — a senior diplomat and member of Sec. Kerry’s inner circle — said the possibility of providing arms to Ukrainian forces is indeed currently on the table.
Oleksandr Turchynov, the acting president of Ukraine, has since asked for the UN to conduct a joint “anti-terrorist operation” in that region as activity intensifies.
Seven weeks after the right-wing coup in Ukraine, evidence is mounting that the Western-backed opposition at the time was responsible for the lethal shootings in Independence Square on February 20. This was suggested by a report on the German public television programme “Monitor” last Thursday evening, and which is available online in German.
“According to research it appears unlikely that the shots on demonstrators came exclusively from the side of the old regime,” stated a press release made available prior to the program. In its report, “Monitor” raised the question, “Did radical oppositionists end up shooting in order to produce chaos and place the blame on Yanukovitch?” The presented videos, interviews and sound recordings suggest precisely this!
“Monitor” presented an extract of radio traffic from alleged sharp-shooters of the Yanukovitch regime, who were positioned on various rooftops in the centre of Kiev on February 20. The discussion was picked up by a Ukrainian radio amateur. One of the snipers can be heard asking his colleagues, “Hey guys, they are over there, on the right of the hotel Ukrayina. Who is shooting? Our people don’t shoot at unarmed civilians.” Then he calls, “Guys, there is a sniper who is aiming at me. Who is he aiming at from the corner? Look out.” A short time later someone else says, “Someone shot him. But not us. Are there more snipers over there? And who are they?”
On other videos, activists who marched along Institutska Street on February 20, can be seen being shot not only from the front, that is, from the direction of government buildings, but also from behind. Nikola, an eyewitness who is visible on several videos, confirmed, “Yes, on the 20th [February] we were shot from behind, from the Hotel Ukrayina, from the eighth or ninth floor. People were standing up there and shooting at us and we were also shot from the other direction.”
Responding to the question as to who had shot them from the Hotel Ukrayina, he answered, “I don’t know. They were soldiers, certainly professionals.”
On the day of the shootings, the Hotel Ukrayina was firmly under the control of the opposition and was heavily guarded. Numerous witnesses, journalists and oppositionists confirmed this to “Monitor”. On the morning of February 20, the opposition even introduced entry controls. Only those with a room key or identification were allowed into the hotel. The “Monitor” reporters come to the conclusion, “Therefore it would have been very difficult for a sniper to sneak in.”
In addition, the reporters reviewed pictures from Russian television, which allegedly show armed oppositionists firing at demonstrators. “Precisely who is shooting at whom is not possible to confirm,” However, it was determined that “the recording was definitely made in the Hotel Ukrayina.” It was also confirmed that “not only oppositionists, but also the government militias were shot at. And perhaps this was also by the same people.”
A doctor, who treated victims on both sides, confirmed this in an interview. “The injured who we treated had the same type of bullet wounds. I’m speaking about the type of bullets we took out of the bodies in operations. They were identical. I can’t say any more”, he stated.
The explosive report concurs with the intercepted telephone call between Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet and the foreign policy head of the EU, Catherine Ashton, at the beginning of March. Paet also based himself on information from doctors and stated that “the same snipers shot people on both sides.” He warned that “the conclusion that not Yanukovitch, but members of the new coalition were behind the shootings is increasingly reinforced.”
Since then, the transitional government in Kiev and its Western allies have desperately sought to cover up the true course of events. Only last week, Ukrainian general state prosecutor Oleg Machnizki of the fascist Svoboda, arrested 12 members of the now dissolved special Berkut unit and presented them as the main suspects in the shootings.
“Monitor” cites a high-ranking member of the investigative committee, who calls the version of events from the state prosecutor into doubt. “My investigation results do not agree with those presented by the state prosecutor at the press conference,” said the investigator, who wished to remain anonymous, in an interview.
A lawyer for the victims suggested that the entire investigation was a deliberate ploy by the transitional government to bury their own crimes. “None of us are getting any information on the investigation”, he complained. “And if you ask me, there is one simple reason for this: it is not being investigated properly. As a lawyer of the victims I am saying to you that the state prosecutor is not investigating properly. They are covering for their own people. They are as partisan as before.”
NATO is creating a naval battle group outside Russian borders, a Russian military source told Interfax news agency.
On April, 3, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused NATO of violating the Montreux Convention, which regulates the number ships that can enter the Black Sea, saying that “US warships have extended their deployment beyond the set terms a couple of times lately.”
According to the treaty, warships from non-Black Sea states can only stay in the basin for up to 21 days consecutively. USS Taylor spent 11 more than that in the region in February and March.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry expressed “bemusement” over the move.
“Turkey [which administers the treaty] did not inform us about the overstay. We have expressed our concern to the Turkish and US side in a verbal note,” said a statement on the ministry website.
A Russian fighter jet made multiple, close-range passes near an American warship in the Black Sea for more than 90 minutes Saturday.
Officials said the Russian Fencer made 12 passes, and flew within 1,000 yards of the USS Donald Cook, a Navy destroyer, at about 500 feet above sea level.
The U.S. warship, equipped with the powerful Aegis missile defense system and carrying helicopters, issued several radio queries using international emergency circuits. A Russian Navy ship, a frigate, has been shadowing the U.S. warship, remaining within visual distance.
U.S. military officials have said the deployment is part of an effort to “reassure” allies and partners in the region. A second U.S. Navy warship – a frigate from the Navy’s Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea – is also heading to the Black Sea.
It appears however that no official communication or protests by the U.S. to the Russians about incident have been made. It is also not clear how an American military build-up in the region could be reassuring, as it increases the likelyhood of conflict.
Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote that democracy and freedom require an independent and aggressive media, an independent and aggressive judiciary, and an independent and aggressive Congress. He said the US had none of the above.
The US media consistently lies for the government. Reuters continues to report, falsely, that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. The Washington Post ran an obviously false story planted on the paper by the Obama regime that the massive protests in former Russian territories of Ukraine are “rent-a-mobs” instigated by the Russian government.
The CIA director has been sent to Kiev to launch a military suppression of the Russian separatists in the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine.
Washington’s plan to grab Ukraine overlooked that the Russian and Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine were not likely to go along with their insertion into the EU and NATO while submitting to the persecution of Russian speaking peoples, Roberts said.
Self-determination will not be recognized by the UN as the UN is essentially a Washington-financed organization, and will follow Washington’s orders. Roberts warned that money is more important to European politicians than humanity’s survival, and Washington pays them well.
Much like the US Supreme Court, upon which Germany’s highest court was partially modeled after World War II, the German Federal Constitutional Court is the final interpreter of constitutional law. Accordingly, it has the last word on the legality of any treaties, agreements or actions undertaken by Germany at the European level.
The court already has challenged German involvement in some of the more creative legal acrobatics undertaken by the European Union. These include the establishment of the EU emergency bond-buying plan known as the Outright Monetary Transactions program. In that case, the German Federal Constitutional Court proceeded with caution and referred the case to the European Court of Justice. But there are strong indications that it could be more aggressive in future cases. A rejection of government moves in a landmark case, such as one involving potential German participation in a strengthened quantitative easing program, could derail the American project for Europe.
Economic policy is not the only issue on which the court has proven to be a thorn in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s side. German electoral law currently requires a party to win a minimum of 5 percent of the national vote to enter the national parliament, a measure designed to keep small radical parties out of an already relatively fragmented parliament. Berlin used to apply a similar threshold to German parties seeking access to the European Parliament. The German constitutional court recently struck down this requirement, and some politicians fear it could soon do the same for German federal elections. The current surge in popularity of nationalist parties heretofore excluded from the legislature may jeopardize the existence of a pro-American government in Berlin, the only real decision-making body to take NATO forward.
The court’s current course of action poses an existential threat to Merkel’s political career and to Germany’s political affiliation. Should the court so rule, Germany could rapidly lose its place as the Continent’s strongman, being condemned instead to internal paralysis as it watches Europe slowly turn east.
As with most of the really important developments in Europe, the battle between the court and the German government will be drawn out and will remain out of the public eye for now. Still, the very existence of open discussions about reducing the power of one of the most trusted and impartial institutions in Germany testifies to how seriously the chancellor’s office takes the danger of the fallout from the court’s potential ruling.
The European Parliament approved Tuesday the last elements of a new regulatory system meant to prevent failing banks from ever again driving EU member states into bankruptcy.
With banking union draft passed by a very large majority, “we now have in place a true European system to supervise the eurozone banks and deal with any future failures,” EU Financial Markets Commissioner Michel Barnier said.
A resident of Donetsk has posted a photo of soldiers on a social networking service site. The soldiers, outside a local military enlistment office, were armed with sub-machineguns and light-weight machineguns and spoke English. They wore the uniform that was obviously not Ukrainian.
The coordinator of the Self-Defence of Donbass united organization of the activists of Donetsk told reporters earlier that a plane with 200 foreign mercenaries had landed at Donetsk airport. According to him, the legionnaires speak neither Russian, nor Ukrainian.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on April 7th that Kiev is amassing Interior Ministry troops and Ukraine’s National Guards, as well as fighters of the ‘Right Sector’ illegal armed group, in the southeast of Ukraine, including in Donetsk. The Russian Foreign Ministry points out that it is especially concerned over the fact that taking part in the forthcoming operation are some 150 US experts from the Greystone private military organization, dressed in the uniform of the Sokol (Falcon) police task force.
The White House has refuted the report, insisting in its Tuesday’s statement with reference to a Greystone official that US mercenaries are not involved in suppressing unrest in the south-east of Ukraine, Interfax reports.
The Foreign Ministers of Russia, Ukraine, the US and the EU are due to meet for talks on Ukraine next week, according to the press service of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton.
Peace initiatives do in no way prevent the US from beefing up its military presence off Ukraine’s coast. Another US naval ship, USS Donald Cook, has entered the Black Sea, according to Rossiya-24 TV channel.
According to The Daily Telegraph British newspaper, the objective of the ship, armed with an air defence system and Tomahawk cruise missiles is to show support for Kiev. Another US naval ship has been in the area since March this year.
Russia is not conducting any unusual or unplanned military activities on its territory in the area of the Ukrainian border, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“The US and Ukraine have no reasons for concerns. Russia has said many times that it is not conducting any unusual or unplanned activities significant in terms of military issues on its territory in the area of the Ukrainian border,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary posted on its website.
“The daily activities by the Russian troops on its national territory do not threaten the security of the US and other OSCE countries. The attempts to accuse Russia of beefing up its armed forces are groundless,” the ministry said.
Washington employs thousands private military contractors (PMCs). They’re mercenaries. They’re hired guns.
Peter Dale Scott once said they’re “authorized to commit violence in the the name of their employers.” They’re “predatory bandits.”
They operate extrajudicially. They’re unrestricted by US, international, or local governments’ laws. They’re free from civil or criminal accountability.
Under Article 47 of the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions:
“A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities:
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of the Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.”
Washington substitutes them for Pentagon forces however. At multiples more in cost. Using them gives US authorities cover for whatever crimes they commit. Doing so avoids accountability.
They’re an integral part of America’s imperial agenda. Apparently they’re operating in Ukraine. Perhaps hundreds will increase to thousands.
Maybe in other Ukrainian cities. Maybe covertly in Crimea. If not now, maybe later. Expect East/West tensions to escalate. Expect the risk for open conflict to increase.
Like government leaders everywhere, Russia’s Vladimir Putin often lies. But when he tells an uncomfortable truth, few people in the US or Europe bother to listen. Take what he said about Ukraine back in 2007, when Time magazine interviewed him as their “Person of the Year.”
The Russians subsidize Ukraine, Putin explained. They sell it natural gas and other energy resources at $3 billion to $5 billion a year below international market prices. At the same time, the US “somehow decided that part of the political elite in Ukraine is pro-American and part is pro-Russian, and they decided to support the ones they consider pro-American, the so-called orange coalition.”
Why, Putin asked, should Russia continue to subsidize Ukraine? “If you want to support someone, you pay for it. Nobody wants to pay.”
Putin had it right. In their proposed economic agreement with Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, the Europeans offered very little money. In their negotiations with him during the Euromaidan protests, they and their allies in Washington continued to offer far less than the estimated $20 billion to $35 billion that the country needed.
In February, about a week before Yanukovych ran away, the Christian Science Monitor summed up the situation. Ukraine’s international currency reserves were falling at a vertiginous rate. The national currency, the hryvnia, had lost value, and the international credit rating agency Fitch had downgraded the country’s sovereign debt. How would Ukraine pay what it owed – primarily to Western banks and Russia’s Gasprom? How would it pay salaries, pensions, and social benefits?
The EU agreement looked to a major infusion of capital from the International Monetary Fund. But that would come only after the Ukrainians agreed to what IMF managing director Christiane Lagarde later called a “profound transformation,” especially of its fiscal policy, monetary policy, and policies on energy.
“Nobody is willing to give economic support, from the United States or from the IMF or from Europe, to an unreformed Ukraine,” US State Department’s Victoria Nuland said in Kiev on February 7.
The Westerners had good reason for being tight-fisted. They knew that the incredibly corrupt Yanukovych and the Ukrainian oligarchs would take the money and stay put. That is how the country’s oligarchic system works, with or without Yanukovych. Most of the new billionaires – including the leading candidate to become the new president, Petro Poroshenko – made their first big money by “privatizing” formerly state-owned enterprises.
“Ukraine’s oligarchs got rich during the privatization sales of former Soviet-owned industries and factories shortly after independence in 1991,” explained the Monitor. “The country’s main industries of mining, metals, chemical production, and energy distribution were snatched up by individuals, who then reaped millions in profits.”
The Monitor did not mention one significant fact. Privatization only came about the way it did with what one academic study called “the support and cajoling of Western donors.” Will foreign meddlers never learn?
Nor did the Western-backed rip-off stop with the original sin. Several analysts tell the same story, none more succinctly than the Monitor. “Many of the oligarchs’ businesses – particularly in the mining, heavy industry, and energy distribution industries – operate in dilapidated, Soviet-era facilities that are extremely energy-inefficient, and heavily dependent on government subsidies.”
In other words, when would-be reformers talk about Ukraine’s corruption, they mean the oligarchic system. Not necessarily personal corruption, but a pervasive systemic corruption.
“Corruption and politics have always had a close relationship in Ukraine,” explains the Monitor. “The oligarchs have benefitted for two decades from close relations with government officials, who have at times turned a blind eye to the activities in exchange for support. At other times, politicians have enabled their oligarch supporters to get richer through key government appointments and a lack of transparency in government contracts.”
Systemic corruption also gobbled up foreign assistance. Ukraine has gotten far more aid than any county in the former Soviet Union, energy specialist Emily Holland told Bloomberg Businessweek. And where has it gone? “Into the pockets of an incredibly corrupt political elite and oligarchs.”
The Russians, with their own oligarchic system, continued to subsidize Ukraine’s energy imports. They also agreed in December to buy $15 billion in Ukrainian Eurobonds, and actually laid out the first $3 billion.
“The economy of Ukraine was going into the wall and was heading for disaster,” the IMF’s Lagarde told PBS Newshour. “Without the support that they were getting from this lifeline that Russian had extended a few months ago, Ukraine was heading nowhere.”
Mounting violence from the protesters, continuing refusal of Brussels and Washington to come up with serious money, and increasing loss of support from the oligarchs convinced Yanukovych to jump ship. Putin responded by stopping the subsidies, which meant raising the price Ukraine had to pay for its energy imports.
Brussels and Washington were left holding the bag, as Putin had suggested they should. So, at warp speed, the IMF and Ukraine’s Western-backed interim government came to terms. The Ukrainians would agree to “profound transformation.” The IMF would give them something between $14 billion and $18 billion over time.
Having worked as a private banker, central banker, and Minister of Economy, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk knew from the start what lay ahead. “To be in this government is to commit political suicide,” he predicted even before the Russians moved into Crimea.
The biggest challenge, he told an investor’s conference in Kiev last week, will be to sell Ukrainians on the need for “painful economic reforms.” Unpegging the hryvnia from the dollar will likely cause a 3% drop in GDP, he explained. Cutting the public sector by 10% will put a lot of people out of work. Losing the Russian subsidy on energy and simultaneously cutting domestic fuel subsidies will greatly increase the cost of living, though the government would provide “some sort of subsidy” to the poorest five to eight million households.
Yats understood how this would breed discontent, especially in the east and south, where people lean more toward Russia. He knew Moscow was telling them that they would enjoy higher living standards in Russia, with higher wages and better pensions and without the austerity that the Kiev government was now offering. “They’re saying: if you go to Russia, you’ll be happy, smiling, and not living in a Western hell.”
That is Russian propaganda, no doubt. But the message rings true, doesn’t it?
Yats has a much bigger problem. He and his Western-backed interim government have gone to great lengths to give the oligarchs even greater power – far more than to the Svoboda Party or followers of Stepan Bandera in Yatsenyuk’s Fatherland Party. In one of their first acts in office, they appointed oligarchs like Ihor Kolomoisky and Serhiy Taruta as governors in Eastern Ukraine, and are already working closely with the country’s likely new president, Petro Poroshenko.
Many in the West welcome “the Chocolate King’s” presence, especially since he was the highest-profile oligarch to support the Euromaidan protest. Western “deciders” have looked kindly on him for years, as journalist Andriy Skumin wrote in March 2012, just after Yanukovych appointed Poroshenko Minister of Trade and Economic Development.
“European circles, blindly searching for any adequate Western-thinking individuals within Ukraine’s establishment, have a favorable opinion of Poroshenko as a person who is reliable, can be charged with introducing changes in Ukraine and ending the deadlock in EU–Ukraine relations” Skumin wrote. But “the preservation of the monopolistic oligarchy will not allow for any European integration or even domestic transformations using European patterns. The only thing that could be done is perhaps only an outward European appearance.”
“Profound transformation” requires killing the oligarchic system, which no one in the game – least of all Poroshenko – has come close to suggesting. This is the IMF’s big lie. Lagarde talks of changing Ukraine, but the people she has entrusted to make those changes are the precisely the ones whose power the country most needs to curtail.
To crib from Vladimir Putin, Poroshenko and his fellow oligarchs are neither pro-American, pro-European, nor pro-Russian. They are not even necessarily pro-Ukrainian, though a bit of patriotic fervor may help them shove austerity down the throats of their underlings. Ukrainian oligarchs, like American plutocrats, are simply pro-themselves.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, “Big Money and the Corporate State: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently Break Their Hold.”
10. He strengthened international friendship and cooperation between patriots who cling to their guns, religion and integrity.
9. The increased international awareness of government spying results from violation of human rights and privacy laws committed by the Obama administration.
8. By constantly insulting our values and stealing our liberties he made us realise how much we care for our faith and tradition. The threats to our lifestyle are forcing us to become more determined and forceful.
7. He helped humanity become aware of devaluation of Nobel Peace Prize.
6. Thanks to the overdose of gay propaganda he established a solid base on which to build gay bashing.
Side effect 1: Gushing over the openly gay couples, yet refusing comments on his own ambiguous past associations he facilitated the spread of rumours about his own sexuality.
Side effect 2: He makes Vladimir Putin look even more macho.
5. His perpetual boasting and phantasms of omnipotence shifted into a very efficient public awareness campaign against malignant narcissism. Obama helped to persuade not only mental health professionals but ordinary citizens that Narcissistic Personality Disorder should not disappear from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
4. Bowing to foreign leaders, making confusing and exceedingly arrogant statements he managed to convince millions of people around the world that we need to put the genie back into the bottle. Obama caused that entire nations have a more suspicious and hostile attitude to Islam and we will think twice before electing officials who act like servants of a foreign supremacy.
3. He proved that wussy bureaucrats make bad military leaders and are harmful to our security interests. The Commander in Chief should both earn and deserve this honourable title. By neglecting veterans and persecuting soldiers he made us aware how much we respect them and how much we owe them.
2. He excavated dangerous ideologies; reminding us they proved harmful to humanity and made us want to eradicate them. He brought to light the grotesque features of political correctness and we are less likely to fall into the trap of laxity and permissiveness.
1. As a result of his disastrous leadership we came to the realisation that an incompetent and socially irresponsible president should be dismissed like any bad manager. He reminded us that we have the right to demand accountability from our leaders, and an obligation to limit their power if the prime duty to serve and protect turns into a licence to harm.
Side effect 1: Association with Obama brought his European allies record unpopularity and riots.
Side effect 2: We love Donald Trump’s: “You are fired!”
For the first time in American history, non-whites will make up half or more of the next generation, likely pushing Washington toward a bigger government — and the GOP better tone down their anti-government rhetoric if they want to win them, according to a top polling outfit.
At a briefing for congressional aides hosted by the moderate Republican Ripon Society, Pew Research Vice President Michael Dimock said that the trend among younger Americans is support for government programs and acceptance of Democratic Party policies.
“Their tendency is more liberal, their tendency is bigger government,” he said of so-called “millennials” born between 1979 and 1995. They will likely set the trend for the still-unnamed next generation.
“This is a generation that is 41 percent non-white; the generation behind it is likely to be close to 50 if not more than 50 percent non-white, and the anti-government kind of tone is one that really doesn’t resonate with that non-white sector in particular,” said Dimock at the Ripon retreat.
His advice to the GOP: “Try to take as much of the anti-government rhetoric out.”
Ripon provided Secrets with a video of his recent presentation. In it, he said that younger voters are both pro-government and pro-business, split over gun control, back abortion and believe welfare does more good than harm. What’s more, they are not angry voters and are still politically diverse.
“I think he confirmed what a lot of Republicans already know, that the party has a lot of work to do with younger Americans, who view the GOP as politically rigid and ideologically out of step. If there’s a bright spot, it’s that millennials are increasingly untethered to either party, which means there’s a chance for Republicans to win them back,” said Ripon’s Lou Zickar.
Pollster John Zogby, who has dubbed millennials First Globals in his new book, said those born after 1979 already number 75 million and will grow to become bigger than the 78-million strong Baby Boom generation, and that should be good for Democrats.
We asked him about Dimock’s prediction and characterization of the current and coming generation.
Said Zogby, who does our weekly report card on President Obama: “The 41 percent non-white figure is right on the money and so is the projection. There is a strong libertarian streak, but they largely do not hate government if it can prove to be a problem-solver. They have no patience for loud debates and for bureaucratic entropy, favoring quick and streamlined forms of problem-solving and decision-making — just as they have learned in video games. There is also an upside to their all having received a trophy: They are great believers and practitioners in teamwork. This is potentially great news for Democrats and liberals (34 percent call themselves such), but mainly it is worse news for the GOP, who have no meaningful outreach or connectivity with them.”
Ryan Shapiro reveals he is suing the NSA, FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency in an attempt to force them to open their records on one of the country’s greatest secrets: how the U.S. helped apartheid South Africa capture Nelson Mandela in 1962, leading to his 27 years in prison.
The U.S. has never confirmed its involvement, but details have leaked out over the years. Shapiro already has a pending suit against the CIA over its role in Mandela’s capture and to find out why it took until 2008 for the former South African president to be removed from the US terrorist watch list.
The NSA has already rejected one of Shapiro’s requests for its information on Mandela, citing “national defense.”
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama has reminded the Chinese on her visit there that Americans were racist back then when Mandela was imprisoned: “Many decades ago, there were actually laws in America that allowed discrimination against black people like me, who are a minority in the United States. But over time, ordinary citizens decided that those laws were unfair. They called on government officials to change those laws, and they voted to elect new officials who shared their views,” she said.
“And slowly but surely, America changed. We got rid of those unjust laws. And today, just 50 years later, my husband and I are President and First Lady of the United States. And that is really the story of America –- how over the course of our short history, through so many trials and struggles, we have become more equal, more inclusive, and more free.”
Crime and rape in South Africa soared after Mandela was released, a white genocide was set in motion, the US declared the “War on Terror” and launched the invasions of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, making the world a much less safer place.
Yet another Cold War will not come about and Western sanctions are not dreadful to Russia, Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament, points out in an article published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Wednesday.
The article, which deals with Russia’s stance in the light of the situation in Ukraine and threats of sanctions from the West, has been published under the headline “A Brief Telegram: Don’t Overstrain Yourself”.
“Yet another Cold War will not happen, the times have changed. The West is not a zone of economic growth any longer. It is, rather, a zone of stagnation,” Nikonov writes in reply to the article of Michael McFaul, US former Ambassador to Moscow, published in The New York Times on Monday.
Nikonov writes that only some 30 years ago the West accounted for 80% of global GDP, whereas now they account perceptibly for less than a half. “The European Union (EU) is yet to grow for another decade to reach out again to the indicators of 2007. In a couple of years, China will become a major economy in the world, getting ahead of the United States,” the MP points out.
Touching upon possible sanctions against Russia, he maintains that in present-day conditions efforts to isolate Russia would fail. “Its isolation does not work at all, even within its closest circle G7 where far from all share the radicalism of (Barack) Obama and of his chief expert on Russia (Michael) McFaul. Exclusion of Russia from G8 only deprives the Group of the leftovers of its significance,” Nikonov is convinced.
He recalls that the EU is one-third dependent on Russia-supplied energy, whereas Russia consumes one-third of European imports. “Are the Western constituents prepared to find themselves in another deep crisis due to the expression of the will of people in Crimea? Obviously not,” Nikonov writes.
Meanwhile, in his view, efforts to turn Ukraine into a showcase of prosperity and democracy will fail.
“The EU is not in a position to help even its own members Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc. Will it be able to help Ukraine, too? No way! An Association Agreement will signify not only a loss of (Ukraine’s) ‘nezalezhnost’ (independence) but an economic collapse as well,” the MP believes.
He points out that Russia, by bringing Crimea back, “has overcome the paralysis of will, and political apathy”.
Nikonov believes that Russia will not allow drawing itself into confrontation, “which the US ex-Ambassador calls for”.
It can best be described as killing your friends once they become a burden.
An effort is underway to clean up the image of the junta now in control of Ukraine. Although Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) played an instrumental role in the coup, its radical nationalism continues to be an embarrassment for the new regime put in place by the IMF, the EU and the United States.
“Night of the Long Knives” refers to a series of political murders conducted by Hitler and the Nazis after they assumed power. In addition to opponents of the regime, the Nazis assassinated a number of paramilitary brownshirts who earlier specialized in fighting against paramilitary units of political parties opposed to the Nazis and intimidating Slavic and Romani citizens, union members and Jews.
It is also a popular theme in South Africa, where state security agents regularly bait conservative whites to “rise up” against black crime and the ongoing genocide against white farmers, hoping to draw renewed international sympathy for “mistreated and oppressed blacks”.
However, the South African government did deploy thousands of troops inside the country and added tons of fluoride to the water supply before they finally announced the death of Nelson Mandela last year, fearing indeed that blacks would go on an open killing spree against all whites, not only white farmers.
That would obviously not have supported the narrative that Anglo-Americans have fabricated about South Africa: where kindly, forgiving blacks are oppressed by cruel, destructive whites.
Similary, the Western narrative about “freeing Ukraine” was beginning to suffer from a stark reality infusion.
The corporate media has tried to underplay the violent character of the Ukranian organization, but Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, made this virtually impossible when he allegedly made an appeal to Chechen terrorist leader Doku Umarov to assist the ultra-nationalist group in its crusade against Russia. In addition to courting al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists, Right Sector is rabidly pro-American.
Numerous incidents of violence and intimidation by Right Sector have gone unreported in the West. “In the days since the US-backed coup, according to citizens in Ukraine I am in contact with, after the new regime dissolved the National Police, members of the Right Sector took over police functions in Kiev. Groups of young men, mainly members of Right Sector, have been patrolling the streets armed with baseball bats and weapons,” writes F. William Engdahl. “In some documented instances according to these reports from ordinary Ukrainians, they come in groups to homes of people identified as ‘pro-Russian’ and force them out of their homes or take their possessions, as they term it ‘privatization’ actions. The population lives in a state of terror they liken to the Stalin-era terror.”
It appears an effort to “clean up” its image and make it more palatable to the oligrachs moving in on Ukraine is now underway. On Tuesday it was reported that Oleksandr Muzychko, aka Sashko Biliy, Right Sector’s second in command, was shot dead in a cafe in Rivne in western Ukraine.
According to the BBC, Ukraine’s Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Yevdokimov said Muzychko was shot dead after opening fire on police and Sokol special forces during a raid at the cafe. They planned to arrest him and other ultra-nationalists for criminal activity. Ukrainian authorities described Muzychko as a gang leader.
Ukrainian MP Oles Doniy, however, provided a different account. He said Muzychko was abducted while traveling in western Ukraine and executed. His body was later found with hands bound and a fatal bullet wound to the heart. A photo posted on Twitter seems to confirm this second account.
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This week near Dover, Delaware, US, a viral video appears to show another instance of black-on-white violence among high school students.
