It is is easy to get discouraged nowadays. Global order, what of it that there was, is coming undone. Regardless of who is to blame for blasting Malaysia Airlines MH17 out of the air -- and I am not convinced that Russia's guilt is a foregone conclusion, which is the position espoused in the main American news organs as they parrot the Obama administration -- it seems to me unbalanced, dangerously divisive, and potentially catastrophic to pin the whole thing on Moscow as part of a strategy to commit Europe to tougher sanctions.
The hope that more and greater sanctions will somehow lead to the Kiev junta's victory seems to me an illusion. If anything, generalized sanctions could have the opposite effect -- committing the Kremlin to go all in and wipe out the fascists once and for all. And there is much to the idea that planners in Washington see this as the ultimate jackpot: dividing Europe from Russia, keeping the military North Atlantic alliance firmly in control.
I think Germany is mindful of this, as is France. Trade with Russia and China represents the future. The United States is the past. That is why it is a safe prediction that no new sanctions will be immediately levied at the outcome of the meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels today. There will be a reprise of last month's performance where tough new sanctions will be threatened in order to appease the U.S. warpig but nothing will actually be done.
In the meantime, the U.S. will have to cast about for new targets of its over-the-top invective. The black box is in possession of Malaysia. The bodies are in transit, allowing for another ghoulish lede in the Gray Lady. But already the story of junta military excess in Donetsk is surfacing. The headlines obscure the real import of the reports, which is that the junta is indiscriminately slaughtering its own civilians.
There is a price to pay for such atrocities. Novorossiya is being born out of all that innocent blood. It is hard to see how Donetsk and Luhansk can ever be reintegrated into the Ukraine other than as a territory subjected to open-ended occupation like Palestine.
It appears that Israel is looking at another failed operation. Each day that passes -- particularly now that Hamas has taken an Israeli soldier prisoner -- Israel's invasion of Gaza is looking more like its botched war with Hezbollah in 2006.
Netanyahu has overreached. How will he get out of the box he has created? The Israelis talk of a deal the likes of which Assad signed in giving up Syria's chemical weapons. They want international inspectors to search out and confiscate Hamas' rockets and close down the tunnels. This is not going to happen. Hamas fighters are proving more worthy adversaries than the IDF anticipated. Western governments are broadcasting their duplicity, constantly hectoring China and Russia and other official enemies about human rights while they defend Israel's slaughter of innocent women and children. Now Kerry, a clown out of Hogarth print, is in Cairo trying to get the Egyptians to craft a ceasefire. But the Sisi dictatorship is a sworn enemy of Hamas. Why would Hamas trust anything that Sisi comes up with? No, Netanyahu is in trouble. His only way out is to yield ground; something he better do quickly because the earth is shifting under his feet. It might be another tunnel.
"It is hard to see how Donetsk and Luhansk can ever be reintegrated into the Ukraine other than as a territory subjected to open-ended occupation like Palestine." Truer than you know, but for reasons you might not suspect.
ReplyDeleteBehind the scenes, Ukraine is a seething potboiler of oligarchic turf wars (for example, oligarchs had just about decided how to divide up proto-Novorussia with the Kiev junta, when Strelkov decided he didn't want to become a martyr in Slavyansk, and broke out/headed to Donetsk to destroy all of their plans.)
From this excellent article: http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/07/14/ukraine-turf-wars-kolomoisky-vs-poroshenko.html - comes this rather alarming bit of information:
" Actually Kolomoisky does not care much about Ukraine, but he does really care about his Jewish compatriots living in Israel. Ukrainian national news - UNN information agency published the revelations of the well-known expert, the veteran of Israeli Shin Bet ("Shabak"), the organization responsible for internal security, Alex Groissman who believes that the recent events in the Middle East make more Israelis consider the possibility of moving to Ukraine. They pin their hopes on Kolomoisky to save them from Islamic militants. They believe their job is done; they pushed the Soviet Union and then China from the Middle East and controlled the restive Arab neighbors. Now as Washington uses the controlled chaos to clean the way for the emergence of new quasi-states under its control capturing new oil and gas deposits on the way, Israel with its special vision of the Middle East becomes expendable there.
Alex Groissman believes that Ukraine is a historic land of many Israelis and could become another Promised Land where Jews could rely on the support of local diasporas, first of all in the Dnepropetrovsk region. Igor Kolomoisky is the governor and the head of the European Council of Jewish Communities. With him heading the local power structures the Jews would feel safe and well-protected from the attacks of nationalist-minded Ukrainians. "
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So, in other words, becoming pretty much a parallel for the Israel/Gaza situation of today. Pretty horrifying stuff.
Thanks for the comment. I read the other day on The Saker a post by Colonel Cassad where he outlines the importance of Strelkov's breakout from Slovyansk vis-a-vis the oligarchs plot to buy off the leadership of the DPR and LPR:
ReplyDelete"In the night of July 4th-5th, the Militia effected a successful breakout, sustaining only minimal casualties. In doing this, Strelkov thwarted the secret negotiations being conducted between Surkov’s people and the people of Akhmetov and Kolomoiskiy (through Kurginyan’s people). The gist of these negotiations was an attempt by near-Kremlin circles to coordinate with the Ukrainian oligarchs the question of a “large Transnistria,” to be fashioned out of the Lugansk and the Donetsk Republics, at the head of which would have been Oleg Tsaryov, with a part of the financing flows feeding the South-East being locked on him.
"In these contacts were implicated the mayor of Donetsk, Lukjanchenko (who has since fled to Kiev), the speaker of the Novorossiya Parliament, Pushilin (since dismissed from his position of his own volition), DPR minister of State Security, Khodakovskiy (since dismissed from his position as a minister, with Batallion Vostok having been transformed into a brigade and operationally subordinated to Strelkov’s staff), and police general Pozhidayev (the local command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was purged almost immediately after the arrival of Strelkov’s brigade in Donetsk). All these people were, in one way or another, connected to Akhmetov. Antjufeev was sent to cleanse the upper echelons of DPR, following which a series of dismissals took place.
The Secret Collusion is Thwarted and the Hostilities Explode
"As soon as Strelkov’s retreat from Slavyansk scuttled the secret negotiations, hostilities across the entire front sharply activated – Ukrainian oligarchs, who were contact with Moscow, immediately became the targets of a mass media campaign. Following contacts between Kolomoiskiy’s deputy, Korban, and a person from Kurginyan’s circles, the campaign against Kolomoiskiy in the Ukrainian mass media took on wide-scale proportions, including even traditional SBU [Ukrainian Security Service] leaks, such as the discussion about the preparation of a harassment campaign against Lyashko, the goal of which was to turn the Nazi radicals against one of their sponsors.
"At the same time, open declarations by Kolomoiskiy, Filatov and Korban that time had come to confiscate Akhmetov’s property were no longer finding support in the mass media. The Junta mass media en masse defended Akhmetov, who had already given up Mariupol to the Junta and was preparing the groundwork for Donetsk to be surrendered. After the negotiations were thwarted, the Junta completely ceased to have any scruples about destroying cities and the infrastructure (there was no longer any chance that they could be obtained without battle through a collusion with the curators of Kurginyan and co.), as control over Donbass could only be established in a military manner."