Gray Lady's Ukraine Reporting Anchored By Junta Leader's Facebook Page

If you are a subscriber to the New York Times, and you have been following its reporting of the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine, you know that each day you can read what junta interior minister Arsen Avakov has written on his Facebook page. This is how the "newspaper of record" anchors its journalism, uncritically quoting a putsch leader's Facebook page. Today two of the Gray Lady's stories feature Avakov's Goebbelsian musings. First, from C.J. Chivers and Noah Sneider, "Deadly Clashes Erupt in Ukraine as Troops Push Toward a Rebel-Held City":

With the three-day period of mourning declared by the city ending Tuesday, Mr. Avakov, the interior minister, said he had sent a newly formed police unit called Kiev-1 from the capital to Odessa, in case fighting erupts again. 

In a Facebook post, Mr. Avakov held police officials in Odessa responsible for failing to prevent a pro-Russian mob from attacking a pro-Ukrainian rally, a confrontation that touched off the violence on Friday. 

The new police unit was drawn from the street activists who helped topple Ukraine’s government in February after months of demonstrations on a central plaza in Kiev in favor of closer economic ties with Europe and against corruption. 

Mr. Avakov said he had fired the entire leadership of the Odessa police. 

Tensions remained high in Odessa, with the sense that the street fighting of last week was not so much over as in abeyance.

With a little unbiased reporting, Chivers and Sneider could have noted that the "pro-Ukrainian rally" that the "pro-Russian mob" allegedly attacked was actually much larger -- numbering in the thousands compared to hundreds for the federalists -- and composed of soccer hooligans, and that it was the "Occupy"-like encampment of the federalist protesters that was attacked and set ablaze by the Ukrainian nationalist hooligans, prefiguring the blazing massacre at the trade union building. But Chivers and Sneider are not interested in unbiased reporting; Chivers and Sneider are interested in elevating a fascist-led junta in violently suppressing a popular uprising. This is what the Gray Lady stands for in Ukraine.

The next story that spotlights Arsen Avakov's Facebook page is this morning's "Authorities Block Flights Into Eastern Ukraine" by David Herszenhorn:

In a posting on Facebook, the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, accused the pro-Russian separatists of using civilians as human shields. “The Ukrainian military can’t fire on civilians,” Mr. Avakov said. “That is how they are restricted. And this restriction is used by our enemies. The enemy hides behind people and fires from there.”

Have you picked up the pattern here? When the Gray Lady needs to bend reality, say by blaming the victims of the Odessa massacre for their own deaths, or, in the case above, blaming the courageous federalists in Slovyansk for civilian deaths caused by the military junta using armor against its own population, it turns to putsch interior minister Avakov's Facebook page. It repeats without balance or questioning the lies it finds there and publishes them for millions around the globe to read. It is stupendously cynical, crass and pathetic that these are the depths the "newspaper of record" has to burrow to maintain its Americentrism.

Speaking of Americentrism, check out Peter Baker's "Obama Aides Tell Executives to Skip Forum":

The White House said American government officials will not attend the St. Petersburg forum this year. “Obviously, companies will have to make their own decisions, but we believe that the most senior business executives traveling to Russia to make high-profile appearances with Russian government officials at events such as this would send an inappropriate message,” said Laura Lucas Magnuson, a White House spokeswoman. 

The situation has left many corporate executives anxious. At a closed meeting in Moscow of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia last week, representatives of United States firms expressed aggravation at being penalized either way. “The understanding is that those that choose to go will be on the Obama administration’s dog list,” concluded a participant’s summary of the session. “One U.S. executive at today’s meeting warned that Putin/Kremlin will closely watch which U.S. C.E.O.’s cancel and their Russia business will be impacted.” 

The situation reflects a turnaround from a year ago, when the Obama administration encouraged participation to strengthen trade ties. The chief executives of General Electric, Deere & Company, Citigroup, MetLife, Alcoa, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Visa, Chevron, Hill & Knowlton Strategies and Cisco Systems attended last year. 

Few, if any, of them will be there this month. Ryan Lance, chief executive of ConocoPhillips, has decided to skip the event, according to the company. Klaus Kleinfeld, chief executive of Alcoa and chairman of the United States-Russia Business Council, canceled plans to attend on Friday, citing “the U.S. government’s requirements.” 

Boeing, which depends on Russia for much of its titanium, has registered Dennis A. Muilenburg, the chief operating officer, but a spokesman, John Dern, said, “We are certainly watching developments day by day.” ExxonMobil and Chevron would not say Monday whether their chief executives plan to return this year.

Either Obama believes that somehow Russia can be brought to heel with these types of cosmetic sleights and made to accept an illegal, neo-Nazi state on its border, or Obama is seriously trying to reconstruct the bipolar global order of the Cold War. The problem with the former is that it is obvious that Russia will not accept the permanence of putschists in power next door, and the issue with the latter is that international communism no longer exists. It is all capitalism now, baby. And capitalism -- how could we ever forget? -- is based on competition. Those business opportunities passed up by Boeing and ConocoPhillips will be grabbed by Airbus and Total. The only way to prevent this from happening is total war. Which at this point is all that the United States seems to be offering the world.