Payback for being on the Wrong Side of the Coup in Ukraine

I've read all the NYT coverage of the ongoing Manafort trial. It's easier to get a sense of the government's case against Manafort from reading this mornings NPR story "4 Insights As Manafort Trial Enters Week 2" than anything published so far by "the newspaper of record."

Basically Manafort is being prosecuted for disclosure violations. He didn't disclose overseas bank accounts that he used to pay for his luxury items, and he cooked his books to both lower his income (to pay less tax) and raise his income (to qualify for bank loans).

The heart of the prosecution's case is about Ukraine. Manafort made millions working for Viktor Yanukovych, and those millions dried up following the coup in February 2014 that sent Yanukovych scurrying out of Kiev.

The whole thing seems like payback for being on the wrong side of the coup; that, and working for Trump. As one NYT story concludes:

Mr. Manafort’s lawyers say he almost certainly would not have faced charges if not for his brief, unpaid stint with the Trump campaign.

Remember, Democrat Lobbyists Worked for Manafort and Yanukovych

Look past the latest front-page Facebook Russiagate bombshell ("Facebook Identifies an Active Political Influence Campaign Using Fake Accounts"), the import of which, incidentally, is based on an enormous suspension of disbelief that "eight Facebook pages, 17 Facebook profiles and seven Instagram accounts" created in the last year or so could have any measurable impact on the U.S. body politic, and focus instead on "Mueller Passes 3 Cases Focused on Illicit Foreign Lobbying to Prosecutors in New York," by Matthew Rosenberg, Kenneth P. Vogel and Katie Benner.

As Jeffrey St. Clair commented some months ago when the Manafort indictment was announced, if the laws on foreign lobbying were truly enforced the D.C. gravy train would come to a halt. Now Mueller has referred cases involving three big names --Tony Podesta, Vin Weber and Greg Craig (two of whom are prominent Democrat lobbyists) -- to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan:

Under American law, anyone who lobbies or conducts public relations on behalf of a foreign interest in the United States must register with the Justice Department. The law carries stiff penalties, including up to five years in prison. But it had rarely been enforced, and thus widely ignored, until recently.

Now, it appears to have become a weapon for prosecutors. Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, was facing possible charges of violating the law over his secret work for the Turkey during the campaign before he agreed to cooperate with Mr. Mueller last year.

The three cases referred to prosecutors in New York appear to be another sign that the Justice Department intends to more strenuously enforce the law.

Yet, as the cases show, such investigations often confront prosecutors with interlaced financial arrangements that can prove difficult to untangle.

The Podesta Group, Mr. Podesta’s firm; Mercury Public Affairs, where Mr. Weber worked; and Skadden, where Mr. Craig practiced, were all recruited by Mr. Manafort to assist with his work in Ukraine on behalf of that country’s president at the time, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was considered a Kremlin ally.

But two of the firms — the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs — were retained through a nonprofit group in Brussels, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine. The nonprofit was directed by Mr. Manafort, and the firms lobbied in Washington on behalf of the nonprofit for what Mr. Manafort billed as Mr. Yanukovych’s efforts to move Ukraine into the West.

The firms were paid more than $1.1 million each for the work. But they did not initially register to lobby with the Justice Department as foreign agents. Doing so would have required them to make detailed disclosures of the lobbying activity they had performed.

They instead had filed less detailed lobbying reports with Congress, based at least partly on misleading characterizations that Mr. Manafort’s deputy later admitted to providing. The firms retroactively registered to lobby for foreigners with the Justice Department in 2017. The Podesta Group collapsed in part because of the scrutiny from the case.

Skadden was hired directly by Mr. Yanukovych’s government to analyze the prosecution of one of Mr. Yanukovych’s leading political rivals, former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko. Led by Mr. Craig, the firm published a report in 2012 that was used — mostly without success — to try to allay concerns about Mr. Yanukovych’s leadership in Washington.

Skadden also did not register its activity under lobbying rules, despite Mr. Craig himself being involved in promoting the report to journalists and members of Congress — activity that experts said should have prompted registration requirements.

Mr. Craig left Skadden in April as investigators made inquiries about his work with Mr. Manafort. While the departure was presented as voluntary, a lawyer familiar with the situation said that Mr. Craig was forced out.

Mr. Mueller’s team repeatedly referenced the work of the firms in his filings in Mr. Manafort’s case, including accusing Mr. Manafort and his longtime deputy of using an offshore account to “funnel $4 million to pay for the report” from Skadden.

Mr. Mueller’s team also indicted a Skadden lawyer who worked with Mr. Manafort on the report. The lawyer pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his communications with a former Trump campaign aide, and has already completed a jail sentence.

Russophobia Part of Hillary's Strategy to Secure the White House

Autumn is little more than a month away, and so far it has been a bizarre summer. The national conventions of the duopoly proved to be non-events. If not for WikiLeaks' release of DNC emails, the only news would have been Bernie's abject surrender to the forces against which he had led his electoral revolt. (Jeffrey St. Clair had a hilarious piece over the weekend, "Roaming Charges: the Return of Assassination Politics," about Sanders purchasing a new waterfront house in Vermont.)

Since the close of the Democratic convention, each day Trump has been relentlessly attacked on the frontpage of The New York Times. This morning it is a story about how Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort received over $12 million from ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions. This seems more like the junta in Kiev doing a solid for the U.S. permanent government that approved the 2014 coup, a permanent government that is all in for Hillary, than anything particularly illuminating about Manafort. U.S. politicos, both Democratic and Republican, sell their services abroad for top dollar. There was even a Hollywood movie starring Sandra Bullock, Our Brand is Crisis (2015), about it.

Bob Miller was good enough to provide some links in his comments yesterday: a terrific interview with author Russ Bellant, "Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret," that appeared in The Nation shortly after the coup in Kiev, and a PDF of an old issue of Covert Action Information Bulletin, "Friendly Enemies: The CIA in Eastern Europe."

It is a sordid story, but a vital one to understand. After World War Two -- Mae Brussell says negotiations were underway before Germany's surrender -- the U.S. recruited Nazi spymaster Reinhard Gehlen to run its anti-Soviet operation in Eastern Europe. Bellant says that Nixon after his election as president actually brought the old Gehlen organization out of the shadows and into the sunshine of Republican National Committee. There were no frontpagers about that, were there?

In an environment where the duopoly is splintering, a great deal of energy is being expended to reanimate old shibboleths, chief among them is Russophobia. It seems wasteful and pitiful to me, and time will tell if it actually works. One thing seems certain. Hillary appears to be home free. A foolproof rule of thumb is that the candidate who leads two weeks following the last national party convention always wins. Unless we want to argue that 2016 is a black swan, Trump loses.

Anything more of substance about Clinton Foundation influence peddling at Hillary's State Department will be drowned out by the rising Russophobia noise blared by the deep state.

With All the Talk of "Putin's Aggression," Why No Mention of King Salman's Aggression?

Sometimes the lie is so big it is best to remain silent. This is the case of late with reporting in the West about the breakaway Donbass region in Ukraine, an area that has been in revolt since the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev sent Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich fleeing to Russia.

The last non-Reuters story filed in the "newspaper of record" that mentioned the rebel People's Republic of Donetsk was last Friday's report by Moscow-based Russophobe Neil MacFarquhar, "Russia and Greece Flaunt Solidarity at Business Forum, but Deals Are Scarce"; in it MacFarquhar notes the disappearance of Ukrainian civil war coverage as well:

“There was an obsession about Ukraine, headlines all the time — Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,” said Charles Robertson, managing director and global chief economist at Renaissance Capital. 

“Now, how many people died in the Donetsk region yesterday? How much shelling was there? Does anyone know?” he asked. “Greece has become the European story, rather than Ukraine and Russia.”

While it is true that interminable Greek debt negotiations are finally coming to a head, with a sudden show of alarm that Merkel might not make any concessions that would prevent a default by Greece and the possible tumultuous Gexident, I think what is going on here is less a crowding out of Ukrainian news and more a premeditated taciturnity. The marauders in Kiev are violating Minsk 2.0, paving the way for a broad resumption of fighting, and there is no way to obscure this other than by spiking coverage.

Whenever NATO starts keening about Russia positioning troops on Ukraine's border, as AP is reporting this morning, that is a strong tell that the Kiev junta is about to strike at DPR/LPR. As Reuters reported yesterday, "Russian Former Leader of Ukraine Rebels Warns of 'Big War' ":

MOSCOW — A ceasefire is likely to collapse in east Ukraine and Russia could be drawn into a "big war" to cleanse the "sore on its borders", the former leader of the region's pro-Russian separatists said. 

Violence has eased but not halted in east Ukraine under what are known as the Minsk 2 agreements, reached in the Belarussian capital on Feb. 12 after an earlier ceasefire collapsed. 

Alexander Borodai, a Russian citizen and former journalist for nationalist newspapers who emerged last year as prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), said he expects the Ukrainian army to launch a new offensive. 

"To be honest, I expect that the Minsk 2 agreements will not be observed, in the same manner as the Minsk 1 agreements were not," Borodai said in an interview this week in a Moscow restaurant surrounded by former rebel commanders. 

"And at the end of the day the Ukrainian army will launch an offensive. This is a very probable development ... I am not sure that it will end without a big war, as Russia cannot tolerate this sore on its borders forever."

There has also been a great deal of silence about the Saudi terror bombing and naval blockade of Yemen, which began in March. But that changed this morning when no less than three substantive stories appeared in today's Gray Lady. In one, the UN mediator assigned to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, reported to the Security Council yesterday morning that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding (Somini Sengupta, "U.N.’s Yemen Mediator Depicts Grim Scene of Deprivation"):

Painting a dire picture to world powers on Wednesday about life in Yemen, a United Nations envoy warned that polio could soon make a comeback and that a dengue outbreak had struck an estimated 3,000 people. 

Clean drinking water is out of reach for 20 million — most of Yemen’s population — and a large portion of country is, in the words of the envoy, “one step away from famine.” 

The envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the special mediator for resolving the Yemen conflict, spoke to Security Council diplomats in a closed meeting on Wednesday morning. Later in an interview, Mr. Ould Cheikh Ahmed said he was continuing to push for a humanitarian truce during the holy month of Ramadan between the Saudi-led coalition carrying out airstrikes and the Houthi rebels who have ousted the Saudi-backed government.

I assume the sporadic coverage up until now of the Saudi terror campaign directed against Yemen has something to do with the fact that the United States is administering the air war and supporting the naval blockade. What makes this cognitively so difficult to swallow is that it is an almost perfect inversion of the situation in Ukraine. There the U.S. backed Ukrainian fascists and neo-Nazi shock troops, Right Sector, based in the country's west sent the president fleeing for his life to adjoining Russia. In Yemen, the Houthis, based in the country's north, sent president Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi fleeing from the capital Sana to the port city of Aden before absconding by boat to Saudi Arabia. Salman of Saudi Arabia has been bombing and blockading his neighbor ever since.

Imagine if Putin had done the same thing to Ukraine, reducing to rubble the Maidan as Saudi bombs have leveled a UNESCO world heritage site in Sana's Old City. The Western press has adopted a shorthand for the Ukrainian civil war, calling it "Putin's aggression," absent any acknowledgement of the interests or aspirations of Russian-speaking citizens of the Ukraine. Yet there is no equivalent label for what is happening in Yemen. There is no discussion of "Salman's aggression."

It must be kept firmly in mind that not only is this aggression by Saudi Arabia clearly illegal under international law, it is now on the verge of becoming genocidal with widespread famine a likely outcome -- and it is all being facilitated by the United States.

Yes, the mind reels. Goebbels would beam with pride.

But today's frontpage story by Shuaib Almosawa and Ben Hubbard, "Saudi Bombing Only Fans Yemen’s Flames," with an adjoining sidebar by Hanna Ingber, "The Many Miseries of Yemeni Families," is proof that there is at least some sense within the corridors of Great Satan's beltway that the situation in Yemen is spiraling out of control, that the U.S. is complicit in genocide and soon it will not be able to control the narrative of the big lie.

Almosawa and Hubbard don't pull any punches, other than omitting the centrality of the U.S. to the Saudi/GCC military campaign:

SANA, Yemen — For nearly three months, Saudi Arabia, along with its allies, has been bombing Yemen, its southern neighbor, hoping to force the retreat of Shiite rebels who have seized major cities and to return the country’s president from the Saudi guest mansion where he lives to the presidential palace. 

So far, it has not worked. The rebels, known as the Houthis, have gained ground, more than 2,600 people have been killed, and aid groups have blamed the Saudi-led bombing and limits on maritime traffic for exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country. 

With the failure of talks last week in Geneva to establish even a short-term cease-fire, it increasingly appears that Saudi Arabia lacks a realistic strategy to end the war, according to analysts and Yemenis interviewed in different parts of the country. In fact, many of them said Saudi intervention had made matters worse, expanding the violence while making resolution even harder to achieve.

“It is very clear that the Saudis did not do their homework before they went into Yemen,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a Yemeni visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon. “They thought it would be really easy, but it has not turned out that way.”

Instead, Saudi Arabia and the coalition it is leading have added an international dimension to what analysts said had essentially been a domestic conflict, while also prompting frequent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s southern border and creating space for extremists to expand.

There is much riding on the outcome for the United States, which has provided the Saudis with advice on targets and has watched with dismay as the number of civilian casualties has risen. Yemen is home to the branch of Al Qaeda long considered the most dangerous to the West, and the jihadists of the Islamic State, new to the country, claimed a number of deadly attacks last week in Sana, the capital. 

But the stakes are higher for Saudi Arabia, which must defend a long and rugged border with Yemen and could find itself embroiled in a protracted, costly war at a time when falling oil prices have strained the country’s finances.

The New York Times does not stake out a bold position on foreign affairs that is at odds with the USG. So I would imagine this has been vetted ahead of time. While the nations of Europe essentially have no sovereignty when it comes to dealing with the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have shown a greater degree of independence and autonomy. Hence, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's ability to include an Al Qaeda bigwig, ‘Abd al Wahhab al Humayqani, in the Yemeni-government-in-exile delegation sent to the failed Geneva peace talks.

Putin Demolishes "Russian Aggression" Meme Being Spread by West

The G7 summit that kicks off today in Germany is being billed as a united "stand against Russian aggression." Any story about Russia recently in the Western press has referred to "Russian aggression" or the "Russian invasion." The first is meant to explain the popular uprising in the Donets Basin that split the country last year following the U.S.-backed coup of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych; the latter, the popular vote last spring in the Crimea to break away from the Kiev junta and join the Russian Federation. The Western press, despite never having formulated compelling narratives regarding "Russian aggression" and "Russian invasion," now merely assumes its readers accept the lies.

The reason we're being tattooed with references to "Russian aggression," and possibly why a flare up in fighting occurred late last week in Maryinka, a town outside of Donetsk, calling into question the already questionable integrity of Minsk II, is that European Union sanctions on Russia sunset at the end of the month. So Obama is in the land of "Edelweiss" to jawbone the big dogs -- Germany, France, Britain and Italy -- into shepherding the rest of the EU flock into another go-round of anti-Russian sanctions.

The problem for the United States -- and the United States has a lot of problems managing its global imperium right now -- is that the sanctions are not working. Even if one accepts the distorted Russophobia in the Western press of an empire-hungry Putin bent on subjugating simple, honest people yearning to be free, there is no evidence that the cocktail of trade and financial restrictions adopted last year would, if reauthorized, do a single thing to deliver Crimea to the Kiev junta or implement Minsk II.

Minsk II was a Russian-German initiative that the U.S. never supported because it basically guarantees the autonomy of Donetsk and Luhansk. So Poroshenko dug in his heels and refused to implement basic parts of the agreement like the payment of pensions to citizens living in the rebel LPR/DPR.

Kerry attempted to deal directly with Putin when the two met in Sochi in May. This meeting has been the topic of much speculation. I think it is pretty safe to say that Kerry was looking for some grand bargain or working understanding covering several fronts -- Syria, Iran, Ukraine. But the Sochi meeting highlighted once again Europe's status as subjects who are expected to do what they are told by their American lord. Obama will have to pretty that up today in Bavaria.

Given the EU's vassalage to the U.S., I think the safe bet is that the sanctions will be renewed. The "Russian aggression" meme provides the rationale for an indefensible policy. If Syriza is truly a different type of political formation from the neoliberal "radical center" that dominates the West, Greece will not support a sanctions renewal. The move this past Friday to delay an IMF repayment, bundling it together with others to be paid by the end of the month, gives Tsipras leverage in the high-stakes debt negotiations. Unless Tsipras gets a decent deal, Greece can and should block the sanctions.

Getting out front of the G7 Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with journalists from the Italian daily Corriere della Serra. Below is the interview, which can be found in its entirety on the President of Russia web site, with reporters Paolo Valentino and Luciano Fontana. I pick it up after the opening, which dealt with Italian-Russian relations. It's worth reading to remind oneself how much stronger a version of the truth Russia's interpretation of events is to the U.S.-manufactured lies meant to cloak its insatiable lust for unipolar hegemony.


Paolo Valentino: Thank you, Mr Putin.

When we were talking about the shadow cast on our relations, you said that it was not your choice, and there is an opinion that Russia feels betrayed, abandoned by Europe, like a lover abandoned by his mistress. What are the problems in our relations today? Do you think that Europe has been too dependent on the United States in the Ukrainian crisis? What do you expect from Europe in relation to the sanctions? I may have asked too many questions at once.

Vladimir Putin: You have certainly asked a lot of questions, with an Italian flair. (Laughs)

First, about the mistress. In this kind of a relationship with a woman, that is, if you assume no obligations, you have no right to claim any obligations from your partner.

We have never viewed Europe as a mistress. I am quite serious now. We have always proposed a serious relationship. But now I have the impression that Europe has actually been trying to establish material‑based relations with us, and solely for its own gain. There is the notorious Third Energy Package and the denial of access for our nuclear energy products to the European market despite all the existing agreements. There is reluctance to acknowledge the legitimacy of our actions and reluctance to cooperate with integration associations in the territory of the former Soviet Union. I am referring to the Customs Union, which we created and which has now grown into the Eurasian Economic Union.

Because it is all right when integration takes place in Europe, but if we do the same in the territory of the former Soviet Union, they try to explain it by Russia's desire to restore an empire. I don’t understand the reasons for such an approach.

You see, all of us, including me, have been talking for a long time about the need to establish a common economic space stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok. In fact, French President Charles de Gaulle said something similar a lot earlier than me. Today nobody objects to it, everybody says: yes, we should aspire to this.

But what is happening in practice? For example, the Baltic States have joined the European Union. Good, no problem. But today we are being told that these countries, which are part of the energy system of the former Soviet Union and Russia, they must join the European Union’s energy system. We ask: Are there any problems with energy supply or with something else? Why is it necessary? – No, there are no problems, but we have decided that it will be better this way.

What does this mean for us in practical terms? It means that we will be forced to build additional generating capacities in some western regions in Russia. Since electricity transmission lines went through the Baltic States to some Russian regions and vice versa, all of them will now be switched over to Europe, and we will have to build new transmission lines in our country to ensure electricity supply. This will cost us about 2‑2.5 billion euro.

Now let’s look at the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. It does not require that Ukraine becomes part of the European energy system, but it is considered possible. If this happens, we will have to spend not 2‑2.5 billion but, probably, about 8‑10 billion euro for the same purpose. The question is: why is this necessary if we believe in building a common economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok? What is the objective of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership? Is it to integrate the whole former Soviet Union into a single space with Europe, I repeat for the third time, from Lisbon to Vladivostok, or to cut something off and establish a new border between modern Russia and the western territories including, say, Ukraine and Moldova?

Let me tell you something else now, and you can decide for yourselves what to publish and what to leave out.

What are the roots of the Ukrainian crisis? Its cause seems to be completely disproportionate to what has become an utter tragedy today claiming many lives in southeast Ukraine. What sparked the crisis? Former President Viktor Yanukovych said that he needed to think about signing Ukraine’s Association Agreement with the EU, possibly make some changes and hold consultations with Russia, its major trade and economic partner. In this connection or under this pretext riots broke out in Kiev. They were actively supported both by our European and American partners. Then a coup d'état followed – a totally anti-constitutional act. The new authorities announced that they were going to sign the Association Agreement but would delay its implementation until January 1, 2016. The question is: what was the coup d'état for? Why did they need to escalate the situation to a civil war? The result is exactly the same.

What is more, at the end of 2013 we were ready to give Ukraine $15 billion as a state loan supported by a further $5 billion via commercial banks; plus we already gave it $3 billion during the year and promised to cut gas prices by half if they paid regularly. We were not at all against Ukraine signing an Association Agreement with the European Union. But, of course, we wanted to participate in the final decisions, meaning that Ukraine was then and is still now, today, a member of the CIS free trade area, and we have mutual obligations as its members.

How is it possible to completely ignore this, to treat it with utter disrespect? I simply cannot understand that. The result that we have – a coup d'état, a civil war, hundreds of lives lost, devastated economy and social sphere, a four-year $17.5 billion loan promised to Ukraine by the IMF and complete disintegration of economic ties with Russia. But Russian and Ukrainian economies are very deeply interconnected.

The European Union unilaterally removed its customs duties for Ukraine. However, the volume of Ukraine’s sales to the European market did not grow. Why not? Because there is nothing to sell. There is no demand in the European market for Ukrainian products, either in terms of quality or price, in addition to the products that were already sold before.

We have a market for Ukraine, but many ties have been severed unilaterally by the Ukrainian side. For example, all engines for our combat helicopters came from Ukraine. Now deliveries have stopped. We have already built one plant in St Petersburg and another plant will be completed this year, but the production of these engines in Ukraine will be shut down because Italy, France or Germany don’t need and will never need such engines. It is impossible for Ukraine to divert its production in any way; it will need billions in investment to do this.

I don’t understand why this was done. I have asked many of my colleagues, including in Europe and America, about it.

Paolo Valentino: And what do they answer?

Vladimir Putin: The situation got out of control.

You know, I would like to tell you and your readers one thing. Last year, on February 21, President Yanukovych and the Ukrainian opposition signed an agreement on how to proceed, how to organise political life in the country, and on the need to hold early elections. They should have worked to implement this agreement, especially since three European foreign ministers signed this agreement as guarantors of its implementation.

If those colleagues were used for the sake of appearances and they were not in control of the situation on the ground, which was in fact in the hands of the US ambassador or a CIA resident, they should have said: “You know, we did not agree to a coups d'etat, so we will not support you; you should go and hold elections instead.”

The same could be said about our American partners. Let’s assume that they also lost control of the situation. But if America and Europe had said to those who had taken these unconstitutional actions: ”If you come to power in such a way, we will not support you under any circumstances; you must hold elections and win them” – (by the way, they had a 100‑percent chance of a victory, everybody knows that), the situation would have developed in a completely different way.

So, I believe that this crisis was created deliberately and it is the result of our partner’s unprofessional actions. And the coverage of this process has been absolutely unacceptable. I would like to emphasise once more: this was not our choice, we did not seek it, we are simply forced to respond to what is happening.

In conclusion – forgive me for this protracted monologue – I would like to say that it is not that we feel deceived or treated unfairly. This is not the point. The point is that relationships should be built on a long‑term basis not in the atmosphere of confrontation, but in the spirit of cooperation.

Paolo Valentino: You say the situation got out of control. But is it not the right moment for Russia to seize the initiative, to find a way to engage its American and European partners in the search of solution to the situation, to show that it is ready to address this problem?

Vladimir Putin: That is exactly what we are doing. I think that today the document we agreed upon in Minsk, called Minsk‑II, is the best agreement and perhaps the only unequivocal solution to this problem. We would never have agreed upon it if we had not considered it to be right, just and feasible.

On our part, we take every effort, and will continue to do so, in order to influence the authorities of the unrecognised self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics. But not everything depends on us. Our European and US partners should exert influence on the current Kiev administration. We do not have the power, as Europe and the United States do, to convince Kiev to carry out everything that was agreed on in Minsk.

I can tell you what needs to be done; maybe I will anticipate your next question. The key aspect of the political settlement was to create conditions for this joint work, but it was essential to stop the hostilities, to pull back heavy weaponry. On the whole, this has been done. Unfortunately, there is still shooting occasionally and there are casualties, but there are no large‑scale hostilities, the sides have been separated. It is time to begin implementing the Minsk Agreements.

Specifically, there needs to be a constitutional reform to ensure the autonomous rights of the unrecognised republics. The Kiev authorities do not want to call it autonomy, they prefer different terms, such as decentralisation. Our European partners, those very partners who wrote the corresponding clause in the Minsk Agreements, explained what should be understood as decentralisation. It gives them the right to speak their language, to have their own cultural identity and engage in cross‑border trade – nothing special, nothing beyond the civilised understanding of ethnic minorities’ rights in any European country.

A law should be adopted on municipal elections in these territories and a law on amnesty. All this should be done, as the Minsk Agreements read, in coordination with Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic, with these territories.

The problem is that the current Kiev authorities don’t even want to sit down to talks with them. And there is nothing we can do about it. Only our European and American partners can influence this situation. There is no need to threaten us with sanctions. We have nothing to do with this, this is not our position. We seek to ensure the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

It is essential to launch economic and social rehabilitation of these territories. What has happened there, exactly? The current Kiev authorities have simply cut them off from the rest of the country. They discontinued all social payments – pensions, benefits; they cut off the banking system, made regular energy supply impossible, and so on. So you see, there is a humanitarian disaster in those regions. And everybody is pretending that nothing is wrong.

Our European colleagues have taken on certain obligations, in particular they promised to help restore the banking system in these territories. Finally, since we are talking about what can or must be done, and by whom, I believe that the European Union could surely provide greater financial assistance to Ukraine. These are the main points.

I would like to stress that Russia is interested in and will strive to ensure the full and unconditional implementation of the Minsk Agreements, and I don’t believe there is any other way to settle this conflict today.

Incidentally, the leaders of the self-proclaimed republics have publicly stated that under certain conditions – meaning the implementation of the Minsk Agreements – they are ready to consider themselves part of the Ukrainian state. This is a fundamental issue. I think this position should be viewed as a sound precondition for the start of substantial negotiations.

Paolo Valentino: So you are saying that it is out of the question for the Crimean scenario to be repeated in eastern Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin: You know, the Crimean scenario does not reflect Russia’s position; it reflects the position of the people who live in Crimea.

All our actions, including those with the use of force, were aimed not at tearing away this territory from Ukraine but at giving the people living there an opportunity to express their opinion on how they want to live their lives.

I would like to stress this once again, as I have said many times before: if Kosovo Albanians were allowed this, why is it prohibited to Russians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars living in Crimea? And by the way, the decision on Kosovo’s independence was made exclusively by the Kosovo Parliament, whereas Crimea held a region-wide referendum. I think that a conscientious observer could not but see that people voted almost unanimously for reunification with Russia.

I would like to ask those who do not want to recognise it: if our opponents call themselves democrats, I would like to ask what exactly democracy means. As far as I know, democracy is the rule of the people, or the rule based on the will of the people. So, the solution of the Crimean issue is based on the will of the people of the Crimea.

In Donetsk and Lugansk people voted for independence, and the situation there is different. But the main thing, something we must always bear in mind, is that we should always respect the feelings and the choice of the people. And if somebody wants these territories to remain part of Ukraine, they should prove to those people that their lives would be better, more comfortable and safer within a unified state; that they would be able to provide for themselves and ensure their children’s future within this state. But it is impossible to convince these people by means of weapons. These issues, issues of this kind can only be resolved by peaceful means.

Paolo Valentino: Speaking of peace, the countries that used to be parties to the Warsaw Treaty and today are NATO countries, such as the Baltic states and Poland, feel threatened by Russia. NATO has decided to create special forces to address these concerns. My question is whether the West is right in its determination to restrain “the Russian bear”, and why does Russia continue to speak in such a contentious tone?

Vladimir Putin: Russia does not speak with anyone in a contentious tone, and in such matters, to quote a political figure from the past, Otto von Bismarck, it is not discussions but the potential that counts.

What does the actual potential show? US military spending is higher than that of all countries in the world taken together. The aggregate military spending of NATO countries is 10 times, note – 10 times higher than that of the Russian Federation. Russia has virtually no bases abroad. We have the remnants of our armed forces (since Soviet times) in Tajikistan, on the border with Afghanistan, which is an area where the terrorist threat is particularly high. The same role is played by our airbase in Kyrgyzstan; it is also aimed at addressing the terrorist threat and was set up at the request of the Kyrgyz authorities after a terrorist attack perpetrated by terrorists from Afghanistan on Kyrgyzstan.

We have kept since Soviet times a military unit at a base in Armenia. It plays a certain stabilising role in the region, but it is not targeted against anyone. We have dismantled our bases in various regions of the world, including Cuba, Vietnam, and so on. This means that our policy in this respect is not global, offensive or aggressive.

I invite you to publish the world map in your newspaper and to mark all the US military bases on it. You will see the difference.

Sometimes I am asked about our airplanes flying somewhere far, over the Atlantic Ocean. Patrolling by strategic airplanes in remote regions was carried out only by the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. In the early 1990s, we, the new, modern Russia, stopped these flights, but our American friends continued to fly along our borders. Why? Some years ago, we resumed these flights. And you want to say that we have been aggressive?

American submarines are on permanent alert off the Norwegian coast; they are equipped with missiles that can reach Moscow in 17 minutes. But we dismantled all of our bases in Cuba a long time ago, even the non-strategic ones. And you would call us aggressive?

You yourself have mentioned NATO’s expansion to the east. As for us, we are not expanding anywhere; it is NATO infrastructure, including military infrastructure, that is moving towards our borders. Is this a manifestation of our aggression?

Finally, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which was to a large extent the cornerstone of the entire international security system. Anti-missile systems, bases and radars are located in the European territory or in the sea, e.g. in the Mediterranean Sea, and in Alaska. We have said many times that this undermines international security. Do you think this is a display of our aggression as well?

Everything we do is just a response to the threats emerging against us. Besides, what we do is limited in scope and scale, which are, however, sufficient to ensure Russia's security. Or did someone expect Russia to disarm unilaterally?

I have proposed to our American partners not to withdraw from the treaty unilaterally, but to create an ABM system together, the three of us: Russia, the United States and Europe. But this proposal was declined. We said at the time: ”Well, this is an expensive system, its efficiency is not proven, but to ensure the strategic balance we will develop our strategic offensive potential, we will develop systems of overpowering anti-ballistic defence. And I have to say that we have made significant strides in this area.

As for some countries’ concerns about Russia's possible aggressive actions, I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia. They just want to play the role of front-line countries that should receive some supplementary military, economic, financial or some other aid. Therefore, it is pointless to support this idea; it is absolutely groundless. But some may be interested in fostering such fears. I can only make a conjecture.

For example, the Americans do not want Russia's rapprochement with Europe. I am not asserting this, it is just a hypothesis. Let’s suppose that the United States would like to maintain its leadership in the Atlantic community. It needs an external threat, an external enemy to ensure this leadership. Iran is clearly not enough – this threat is not very scary or big enough. Who can be frightening? And then suddenly this crisis unfolds in Ukraine. Russia is forced to respond. Perhaps, it was engineered on purpose, I don’t know. But it was not our doing.

Let me tell you something – there is no need to fear Russia. The world has changed so drastically that people with some common sense cannot even imagine such a large-scale military conflict today. We have other things to think about, I assure you.

Paolo Valentino: But you cooperate with the United States on Iran, and John Kerry's visit sent yet another message in this regard. Or am I wrong?

Vladimir Putin: You are right – it did. We are cooperating not only on the Iranian nuclear programme, but on other serious issues as well. Despite America's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, our arms control dialogue continues.

We are not just partners; I would say we are allies in addressing the issues related to non‑proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We are undoubtedly allies in the fight against terrorism. There are some other areas of collaboration as well. The central theme of Expo Milano, which you mentioned earlier, is yet another example of our joint work. Indeed, there are plenty of issues that we continue to tackle jointly.

Paolo Valentino: Mr Putin, on May 9, Russia marked the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, which liberated both your country and the entire Europe from Nazism. No other country paid as bloody a price for this victory as Russia. However, there were no Western leaders standing next to you on Red Square. Il Corriere della Sera published Silvio Berlusconi's letter criticising those leaders for their absence. I have two related questions.

Do you think that by their absence they showed disrespect for the Russian people? What does the memory of the Great Patriotic War mean to the Russian identity today?

Vladimir Putin: It is not a matter of identity. Identity is built on culture, language and history. This war is a tragic page in our history. When we mark such days, festive but also sad given the number of lives lost in that war, we think about the generation that made our freedom and independence possible, about those who triumphed over Nazism. We also think about the fact that no one has the right to forget this tragedy, first of all, because we must think about how to avoid the repetition of anything like that in the future. These are not just words; it is not an unfounded fear.

Today, we hear some people say that there was no such thing as the holocaust, for instance. We are witnessing attempts to glorify the Nazis and their collaborators. This is part of our life today. Today's terrorism in all its various manifestations is very much like Nazism; in fact, there is hardly any difference between the two.

As for the colleagues you have mentioned, it is their personal choice, of course, whether to come to Moscow to join in the celebrations or not. I think that they failed to see past the current complexity in international relations to something far more important that is linked not only to the past, but also to the need to fight for our common future.

They made their choice, but this day is, first and foremost, our holiday. You see, there were veterans from quite a number of countries in Moscow: from the United States, Great Britain, Poland and other European countries. In fact, it is these people who are the true heroes of this day, and this was very important to us. During those celebrations, we did not honour only those who fought Nazism in the Soviet Union; we also remembered the Resistance fighters in Germany itself, in France and in Italy. We remember all of them and pay tribute to all the people who did not spare themselves in the fight against Nazism.

Certainly, we understand only too well that it was the Soviet Union that made the decisive contribution into the Victory and suffered the most severe losses in the fight against Nazism. It is more than just a military victory to us, it is a moral victory. You see, virtually every family lost someone in the war. How can we forget this? It is impossible.

Paolo Valentino: There are a few more quick questions left.

Vladimir Putin: I hope they are quick indeed.

Luciano Fontana: You are a very popular leader in Russia, but in other countries and even in your own country you are often called authoritarian. Why is it so difficult to be part of the opposition in Russia?

Vladimir Putin: What is so difficult about it? If the opposition proves that it can tackle the challenges faced by a district, a region or the whole country, then, I think, people will always notice it.

The number of parties in our country has multiplied, in recent years we liberalised the process of establishing a political party and taking it to a regional and national level. It is all about their competence and ability to work with the electorate, to work with people.

Paolo Valentino: Then why are members of the opposition so rarely interviewed by the main Russian TV channels?

Vladimir Putin: I think if they have something interesting to say, they will be interviewed more often.

As for political competition, we know that various means are used against political rivals. Just take a look at the most recent history of Italy.

Paolo Valentino: Mr President, Greece is facing huge difficulties in its relations with Europe. If Greece leaves the eurozone, will Russia be ready to offer it political and economical assistance?

Vladimir Putin: We are building our relations with Greece irrespective of whether it is an EU, eurozone or NATO member. We have very close historical and good partnership relations with Greece, which is why it is up to the Greek people to make a sovereign decision as to which union and zone to be part of. But we don’t know what will happen in the future, so it would be wrong or even harmful for both Greek and European economies if we, as the saying goes, try to read the tea leaves.

For an economy like Greece there are certain difficulties brought about by the common European rules. They cannot devalue the drachma because they don't have it, they are strictly pegged to the euro currency. Their boundaries are fully open for European goods, which gives a distinct advantage to the export-oriented economies. Common decisions are made concerning such sectors as agriculture and fishery, where Greece could have certain competitive advantages but there are limits as well.

Another sector where it has an advantage is tourism, of course, but it applies to the Schengen area and there are also some limits. We have a visa-free arrangement with Turkey and 5 million Russian tourists visited this country last year, while less than one million tourists visited Greece, around 300,000, as far as I know. However, Greece receives concessional loans, financial support from the European treasury, and it has access to the European labour market. There are also other benefits of being part of the European family.

It is not up to us here in Russia to decide what is more beneficial and preferable for Greece. Once again, it is up to the Greek people to make a sovereign decision in dialogue with their main European partners.

Paolo Valentino: I would like to ask the last two small questions.

Vladimir Putin: Are we going to stay here until morning?

Paolo Valentino: We can see four Russian emperors here, in this room. Which historical figure inspires you the most?

Vladimir Putin: You know, people ask me this question a lot. I prefer to dodge it since the answer can give rise to various interpretations. (Laughs)

So I will put it like this: I try not to idolise anybody. I try, or rather, I am guided by the interests of the Russian people in my work, taking into account everything that has been previously accumulated and the conditions we are living in today, and I try to get a glimpse of the way we should build our life, economy and policy – first and foremost, our domestic policy – as well as our foreign policy in the medium and long-term strategic perspective.

There are many good examples in both Russian and European history, as well as in world history. But all those people lived and worked in certain conditions. The most important thing is to be honest with yourself and with the people who have entrusted you with this work.

Luciano Fontana: One last question. What is your biggest regret in life? What do you consider a mistake that you would never want to make again?

Vladimir Putin: I will be quite frank with you. I cannot recollect anything of the kind. By the grace of God, I have nothing to regret in my life.

Question: You are a happy person.

Vladimir Putin: I am, thank God.

Baltimore's Freddie Gray Riots: U.S. Thuggishness Comes Home to Roost

There is something that seems not quite right in the explanation of why Baltimore police mustered in force the day of Freddie Gray's funeral. In her front-page story, "Baltimore Enlists National Guard and a Curfew to Fight Riots and Looting," Sheryl Gay Stolberg says the decision was based on rumor and a flyer posted on social media:

The police said early in the day that they had received a “credible threat” that members of various gangs, including the Black Guerrilla Family, Bloods and Crips, had “entered into a partnership to ‘take out’ law enforcement officers.” But officers kept a low profile in the neighborhood during Mr. Gray’s funeral. The police also said that a flier circulated on social media called for a period of violence on Monday afternoon to begin at the Mondawmin Mall and move toward City Hall downtown.

Warned by the police of possible violence, the University of Maryland campus in downtown Baltimore closed early, as did the Mondawmin Mall. The Orioles postponed their home game against the Chicago White Sox. The Baltimore police vowed the authorities would take “appropriate measures” to keep officers and the neighborhood safe. 

“You’re going to see tear gas. You’re going to see pepper balls. We’re going to use appropriate methods to make sure we can preserve the safety of that community,” a spokesman, Capt. J. Eric Kowalczyk, said at a news conference. Fifteen police officers were injured, some with broken bones, and one was unresponsive, according to the department.

Well, the "appropriate methods" -- tear gas, pepper balls -- didn't keep the community safe. Parts of Baltimore burned last night, despite a curfew being declared by the mayor. The National Guard, called out by Maryland's governor, now patrols the streets with rifles drawn (Richard Oppel and Stephen Babcok, "Morning Brings Wail of Fire Engines in Wake of Baltimore Riots").

A display of force in a community by ninja-clad, armor-wearing police firing off tear gas and pepper spray never works to keep the peace. It didn't work in Hong Kong to tamp down the pro-Democracy protests, nor in Kiev on the Maidan. People in charge know it doesn't work to keep the peace. What they know is that it sends a message, and that message is that I am stronger than you are. I am the biggest thug on the block.

Keep that in mind when you hear "thug" thrown around in the wake of the Freddie Gray Baltimore riots. Freddie Gray was murdered in police custody; his neck was broken and his larynx crushed. Yet it is people like Freddie Gray, young men living in the Gilmor Homes of Baltimore, who are labeled "thugs" by the mayor of Baltimore and the governor of Maryland.

As Sheryl Gay Stolberg notes,

Also among the mourners [at the Gray funeral service] were Kweisi Mfume, a former congressman and chief of the N.A.A.C.P.; three aides to President Obama; and several family members of others killed by the police in various parts of the country, including Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, a man who died after a police officer put him in a chokehold last year on Staten Island. She said she had come “to stand with the family of Freddie Gray. It’s unfortunate, but I feel we have a connection.” In his eulogy, Mr. Bryant [Pastor Jamal Bryant of the Empowerment Temple] spoke of the plight of poor, young black men like Mr. Gray, living “confined to a box” made up of poor education, lack of job opportunities and racial stereotypes — “the box of thinking all black men are thugs and athletes and rappers.”

Sure enough, at the beginning of Stolberg's article, you have the white Republican governor of Maryland and the black mayor of Baltimore both invoking the talisman-like term "thug" to dismiss the riots yesterday:

In Washington, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, on her first day on the job, briefed President Obama, who in turn called Governor Hogan. Mr. Hogan said the president urged him to have law enforcement officers exercise restraint, and he assured the president they would. “But,” the governor added, “I assured him we weren’t going to stand by and allow our city of Baltimore to be taken over by thugs.”

City officials said schools would be closed on Tuesday for the safety of children. At City Hall, Ms. Rawlings-Blake, sounding exhausted and exasperated after days of appealing for calm, announced that a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would be imposed for a week beginning on Tuesday. The city already has a curfew for juveniles under age 17.

“Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs,” she said. “I’m at a loss for words. It is idiotic to think that by destroying your city that you’re going to make life better for anybody.” The police said that at least 27 people had been arrested.

But the important takeaway from Stolberg's piece is this: the #Black Lives Matter uprising will not die down anytime soon.

It was the second time in six months that a state called out the National Guard to enforce order in a city shaken by violence after a black man died in an encounter with police. Missouri deployed the guard in Ferguson in August after a white police officer killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, and then again in November when violence greeted the news that a grand jury had not indicted the officer who shot Mr. Brown.

At a late night news conference, the Baltimore police commissioner, Anthony W. Batts, noted that Ferguson is a much smaller city than Baltimore, which covers 80 square miles. “We were pulled so thin,” he said, adding, “We had opposite ends of the city pulling us at the same time.”

Policing is a bigoted and thuggish profession with an institutional memory that knows nothing but racism and violence.

And that is the United States in a nutshell. From the genocide of the American Indians and the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade to the crimes against humanity in Yemen and the re-militarization of Japan, the United States raison d'etre is first and last to be the biggest thug on the block.

Ukraine's Economic Predicament

As the Minsk 2.0 ceasefire dies aborning because Poroshenko refused to admit that 8,000 troops of the Ukrainian Army were surrounded in Debaltseve, Michael Hudson has a tremendous article, "Ukraine Denouement – The Russian Loan and the IMF’s One-Two Punch," that reminds us that at the root of the civil war is a U.S.-backed neoliberal orthodoxy. It is always a fruitful exercise to remind oneself that the Maidan sprang to life when Yanukovych balked at signing an association agreement with Europe because, after crunching the numbers, it was apparent to him that the cost was not sustainable politically.

So Yanukovych took the Russian lifeline instead, and not too long thereafter the Ukrainian president was fleeing for his life.

Hudson begins his piece by outlining Ukraine's current dire economic straits:

The fate of Ukraine is now shifting from the military battlefield back to the arena that counts most: that of international finance. Kiev is broke, having depleted its foreign reserves on waging war that has destroyed its industrial export and coal mining capacity in the Donbass (especially vis-à-vis Russia, which normally has bought 38 percent of Ukraine’s exports). Deeply in debt (with €3 billion falling due on December 20 to Russia), Ukraine faces insolvency if the IMF and Europe do not release new loans next month to pay for new imports as well as Russian and foreign bondholders.

Finance Minister Natalia Yaresko announced on Friday that she hopes to see the money begin to flow in by early March. But Ukraine must meet conditions that seem almost impossible: It must implement an honest budget and start reforming its corrupt oligarchs (who dominate in the Rada and control the bureaucracy), implement more austerity, abolish its environmental protection, and make its industry “attractive” to foreign investors to buy Ukraine’s land, natural resources, monopolies and other assets, presumably at distress prices in view of the country’s recent devastation.

Looming over the IMF loan is the military situation. On January 28, Christine Lagarde said that the IMF would not release more money as long as Ukraine remains at war. Cessation of fighting was to begin Sunday morning. But Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh announced that his private army and that of the Azov Battalion will ignore the Minsk agreement and fight against Russian-speakers. He remains a major force within the Rada.

Poroshenko is on record -- not that this means anything for a junta predicated on one fiction peddled after the next -- saying that he will declare martial law if the situation in the Debaltseve is not resolved to Kiev's satisfaction. Given that the junta needs the IMF funds to remain afloat, this provides a powerful incentive for the Novorossiyan Armed Forces (NAF) to keep the 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers bottled up in the Debaltseve cauldron.

Hudson's piece does a good job explaining how the IMF might give short shrift to the €3 billion loan Russia extended to Ukraine:

The IMF has been drawn into U.S. confrontation with Russia in its role as coordinating Kiev foreign debt refinancing. It has stated that private-sector creditors must take a haircut, given that Kiev can’t pay the money its oligarchs have either stolen or spent on war. But what of the €3 billion that Russia’s sovereign wealth fund loaned Ukraine, under London rules that prevent such haircuts? Russia has complained that Ukraine’s budget makes no provision for payment. Will the IMF accept this budget as qualifying for a bailout, treating Russia as an odious creditor? If so, what kind of legal precedent would this set for sovereign debt negotiations in years to come?

International debt settlement rules were thrown into a turmoil last year when U.S. Judge Griesa gave a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of the pari passu clause with regard to Argentina’s sovereign debts. The clause states that all creditors must be treated equally. According to Griesa (uniquely), this means that if any creditor or vulture fund refuses to participate in a debt writedown, no such agreement can be reached and the sovereign government cannot pay any bondholders anywhere in the world, regardless of what foreign jurisdiction the bonds were issued under.

This bizarre interpretation of the “equal treatment” principle has never been strictly applied. Inter-governmental debts owed to the IMF, ECB and other international agencies have not been written down in keeping with private-sector debts. Russia’s loan was carefully framed in keeping with London rules. But U.S. diplomats have been openly – indeed, noisily and publicly – discussing how to “stiff” Russia. They even have thought about claiming that Russia’s Ukraine loans (to help it pay for gas to operate its factories and heat its homes) are an odious debt, or a form of foreign aid, or subject to anti-Russian sanctions. The aim is to make Russia “less equal,” transforming the concept of pari passu as it applies to sovereign debt.

Further, Hudson limns the rent-seeking logic that -- from Ireland and Greece to Ukraine -- lies behind the IMF's austerity diktats:

IMF loans are made mainly to enable governments to pay foreign bondholders and bankers, not spend on social programs or domestic economic recovery. Sovereign debtors must agree to IMF “conditionalities” in order to get enough credit to enable bondholders to take their money and run, avoiding haircuts and leaving “taxpayers” to bear the cost of capital flight and corruption.

The first conditionality is the guiding principle of neoliberal economics: that foreign debts can be paid by squeezing out a domestic budget surplus. The myth is that austerity programs and cuts in public spending will enable governments to pay foreign-currency debts – as if there is no “transfer problem.” 

The reality is that austerity causes deeper economic shrinkage and widens the budget deficit. And no matter how much domestic revenue the government squeezes out of the economy, it can pay foreign debts only in two ways: by exporting more, or by selling its public domain to foreign investors. The latter option leads to privatizing public infrastructure, replacing subsidized basic services with rent-extraction and future capital flight. So the IMF’s “solution” to the deb problem has the effect of making it worse – requiring yet further privatization sell-offs.

This is why the IMF has been wrong in its economic forecasts for Ukraine year after year, just as its prescriptions have devastated Ireland and Greece, and Third World economies from the 1970s onward. Its destructive financial policy must be seen as deliberate, not an innocent forecasting error. But the penalty for following this junk economics must be paid by the indebted victim.

In the wake of austerity, the IMF throws its Number Two punch. The debtor economy must pay by selling off whatever assets the government can find that foreign investors want. For Ukraine, investors want its rich farmland. Monsanto has been leasing its land and would like to buy. But Ukraine has a law against alienating its farmland and agricultural land to foreigners. The IMF no doubt will insist on repeal of this law, along with Ukraine’s dismantling of public regulations against foreign investment.

This is what Greece is fighting to free herself of. Since it is the very logic of Western capitalist hegemony, Yanis Varoufakis has repeatedly arrived at impasse with his interlocutors in Brussels. All he is asking for is a bridge loan of six months to discuss the technicalities of the troika's bailout. Not allowed.

And this is why war must continue in Ukraine. The IMF prescriptions Kiev must implement can only be carried out if the public is distracted by war. But herein lies the rub. The IMF cannot loan to a nation at war. Finally then after a year it seems that the Kiev junta has arrived at a day of reckoning.

Hudson holds out the possibility that Europe will come to its senses suddenly and break with the United States and align with Russia:

We can now see why the EU/IMF austerity plan that Yanukovich rejected made it clear why the United States sponsored last February’s coup in Kiev. The austerity that was called for, the removal of consumer subsidies and dismantling of public services would have led to an anti-West reaction turning Ukraine strongly back toward Russia. The Maidan coup sought to prevent this by making a war scar separating Western Ukraine from the East, leaving the country seemingly no choice but to turn West and lose its infrastructure to the privatizers and neo-rentiers. 

But the U.S. plan may lead Europe to seek an economic bridge to Russia and the BRICS, away from the U.S. orbit. That is the diplomatic risk when a great power forces other nations to choose one side or the other.

Sadly, I don't see this happening. The hive mind in Brussels, Berlin and other European capitals is still too melded with Washington D.C. If the junta can't get money from the IMF because Poroshenko has declared martial law, Kiev will widen the war and likely receive billions in direct military aid from the West. The war will go on until Kiev collapses.

The U.S. "Double Game" Formula for Never-Ending Terror: Allied with Wahhabism to Fight Wahhabism

One of the most trenchant, articulate and regular critics of the prestige press (e.g. The New York Times, The Washington Post) is Robert Parry. He runs Consortiumnews.com. He features other writers, but his posts are the best.

Yesterday I got around to reading Parry's "NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine" from last week, which comments on the same Andrew Higgins and Andrew Kramer story ("Ukraine Leader Was Defeated Even Before He Was Ousted") that I wrote about last Monday. I was struck by the intense cognitive dissonance the editors of the mainstream news organs create in their audience. Contradictions abound and must be swallowed daily. As Parry explains in terms of the Ukraine:

Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted protesters versus a black-hatted president [Yanukovych]. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who fired on unarmed supporters of “democracy.” The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American people heard from the major media.

The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: “More than 80 protesters were shot to death by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February.”

The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and peaceful Maidan protests.

Any reference to a “coup” was dismissed as “Russian propaganda.” There was a parallel determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians simply became “Russian aggression.”

This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II – reached absurd levels as the New York Times and the Washington Post buried references to the neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.

The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by quoting one militia commander as calling them “romantic” gestures by impressionable young men. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s ‘Romantic’ Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]

Yet, despite the best efforts of the Times, the Post and other mainstream outlets to conceal this ugly reality from the American people, alternative news sources – presenting a more realistic account of what was happening in Ukraine – began to chip away at the preferred narrative.

Instead of buying the big media’s storyline, many Americans were coming to realize that the reality was much more complicated and that they were again being sold a bill of propaganda goods.

The glaring contradictions the Gray Lady expects her readers to cognitively digest were on full display this past Saturday. The paper was dominated by the terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, and its aftermath, by the Kouachi brothers, Cherif and Said, who apparently received training from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. But that is not where I want to start. I want to start where I ended on Saturday, by reading the unsigned editorial on U.S. aid to Pakistan, "Is Pakistan Worth America’s Investment?"

It doesn’t take much to stir controversy over America’s relationship with Pakistan. The latest dust-up involves $532 million in economic assistance that the United States expects to provide later this year. Last week, Pakistani officials jumped the gun by suggesting the money is closer to being disbursed than it is; the news annoyed India, which doesn’t think the aid is merited.

That is a familiar complaint. Since 9/11, the United States has provided Pakistan with billions of dollars, mostly in military aid, to help fight extremists. There are many reasons to have doubts about the investment. Still, it is in America’s interest to maintain assistance — at a declining level — at least for the time being. But much depends on what the money will be used for. One condition for new aid should be that Pakistan do more for itself — by cutting back on spending for nuclear weapons and requiring its elites to pay taxes.

Doubts about the aid center on Pakistan’s army, which has long played a double game, accepting America’s money while enabling some militant groups, including members of the Afghan Taliban who have been battling American and Afghan troops in Afghanistan. The relationship hit bottom in 2011 when Osama bin Laden was found hiding in Pakistan and was killed by a Navy SEAL team. But it has since improved. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to visit Islamabad soon.

After militants massacred 148 students and teachers at an army-run school in Peshawar last month, Pakistan’s government promised that it would no longer distinguish between “bad” militant groups, which are seeking to bring down the Pakistani state, and “good” militant groups that have been supported and exploited by the army to attack India and wield influence in Afghanistan. But there is little evidence that the army has gone after the “good” groups in a serious way.

This double game is a big reason that the administration has been unable to fulfill Congress’s mandate to certify that Pakistan has met certain requirements, including preventing its territory from being used for terror attacks, as a condition of assistance. Instead, officials have had to rely on a national security waiver to keep aid flowing.

Pakistan's "double game" is merely a smaller copy of the U.S. global "double game." To wit, jump from the editorial page to the middle of the paper where Ben Hubbard's "Saudis Begin Public Caning to Punish a Blogger":

The authorities in Saudi Arabia on Friday began the public flogging of a blogger who was sentenced to 1,000 blows, 10 years in prison and a large fine for starting a website that featured content critical of the country’s religious establishment, the rights group Amnesty International reported.

The floggings are to be administered with a cane over a period of months.

The blogger, Raif Badawi, was arrested after starting a website called “Free Saudi Liberals,” and he was later convicted of charges that included cybercrime and parental disobedience.

The case has drawn attention to the strict limits on freedom of expression inSaudi Arabia, a close Arab ally of the United States, and prompted unusually direct criticism from the American government.

Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters on Thursday that the United States was concerned that Mr. Badawi would face “the inhumane punishment of a thousand lashes in addition to serving a 10-year sentence in prison for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and religion.”

The United States government called on Saudi Arabia to cancel the flogging and “review Badawi’s case and sentence,” Ms. Psaki said.

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, has used its courts in the past to punish dissidents or those who question the country’s strict interpretation of Islam. Often, these actions face no public rebuke from the United States, which considers Saudi Arabia an important ally in the fight against terrorism and other areas.

Besides being the world’s largest oil exporter, the kingdom is one of five Arab countries that have joined an American-led air campaign against the jihadists of the Islamic State.

Mr. Badawi was arrested in 2012 and prosecuted in a criminal court for offenses that included cybercrime and disobeying his father, who has denounced his son in the news media.

Prosecutors tried and failed to charge him with apostasy and then pressed for a resentencing because they considered his first sentence of seven years in prison and 600 blows too lenient.

Last year, Mr. Badawi received his final sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of more than a quarter-million dollars and 1,000 blows with the cane.

An unidentified witness cited by Amnesty said that Mr. Badawi was taken from a bus and flogged 50 times in a public square outside of a mosque in the port city of Jidda after Friday Prayer. About 15 minutes later, he was put back on the bus and taken away. Amnesty said it would not identify the witness because of security concerns.

Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Badawi was clearly being punished for starting a liberal website and insulting the religious authorities. He said that floggers in Saudi Arabia are supposed to distribute the blows from the top of the back to the back of the legs without breaking the skin. It is not a bloody affair, but it is public and painful.

Imagine if we caned bloggers in the United States for disobeying one's father or starting a website. Every public square in every major city would be filled to overflowing. Better yet, we would have to go Pinochet "dirty wars" style and use our lavishly tax-payer subsidized sports stadiums to facilitate the floggings.

Rather than more pro forma mendacious meek mewling from The Stepford Wives-like Jen Psaki why not economic sanctions from the ballyhooed Treasury Department official, David S. Cohen, who was just promoted to the number two slot at the CIA? That story -- "Reaching Outside C.I.A., Obama Picks Treasury Official to Become Agency’s No. 2" by Mark Mazzetti -- which appeared a few pages after the "Saudis Cane Blogger" article illuminates the nature of the U.S. "double game":

WASHINGTON — President Obama has chosen the Treasury Department official who has directed the effort to cut off funding of the Islamic State and impose economic sanctions on Syria, Russia and Iran to become the C.I.A.’s deputy director, the agency announced on Friday. 

The official, David S. Cohen, who as under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence has spent more than three years in charge of the Obama administration’s attempts to punish foreign governments and cripple terrorist groups, will help lead an agency that remains at the center of armed drone campaigns and covert efforts to arm and train Syrian rebels. 

John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, said in a statement that Mr. Cohen brings a “wealth of experience on many of the issues that we focus on as an agency” — such as money laundering, financial support for terrorism and narcotics trafficking. 

In the past, the C.I.A.’s No. 2 job, which does not require Senate confirmation, has often been filled by agency veterans or senior military officers. Mr. Cohen, a lawyer who has no previous C.I.A. experience, will replace Avril D. Haines, who left the C.I.A. to become Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser. 

The selection could be an indication that the White House is wary of elevating a C.I.A. insider who might have played a role in the detention and interrogation program that used torture on Qaeda detainees in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 

Over the past year, Mr. Cohen has been consumed with trying to cut off the spigot of money flowing into the Islamic State’s coffers — primarily from black-market oil sales. The militant group controls oil-rich territory in Iraq and Syria, and has been able to use smuggling routes to sell oil in Turkey. This month, the group announced that it would have a 2015 budget of more than $2 billion that it would use to pay its fighters and govern the territory it has taken. 

American officials believe that figure wildly overstates the Islamic State’s resources, but they concede that drying up the group’s finances will take time. 

“This is not going to be a case of, we flip a light switch and all of a sudden all of their financial resources have disappeared,” Mr. Cohen said in an interview last year.

Economic sanctions on Russia and Iran are trumpeted by the Obama administration as being enormously effective, but somehow when it comes to Islamic State, not so much. Why the disconnect?

Note that three out of the four key targets of Cohen's efforts -- Russia, Iran and Syria (one could also add Hezbollah) -- are official enemies of the United States and its monarchical allies in the Gulf; the fourth, Islamic State, we are told not to expect much. The reason, as briefly reported last August in the mainstream press when people were asking how Islamic State got so big and powerful so quickly, is that funding for Islamic State tracks back to the U.S.-allied monarchies in the Gulf.

And just as flogging bloggers receives only a canned criticism from a State Department spokeswoman, the effect of economic sanctions on Islamic State is downplayed because the U.S. will never officially go after the corrupt absolutist monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council. This is the U.S. "double game," identical to the one that the Gray Lady criticizes Pakistan for in her unsigned editorial: taking money to fight jihadis at the same time funding and working with jihadis.

Our allies in the fight against Islamic fundamentalism should be Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (see Anne Barnard's "Extremists Harming Islam, Leader of Hezbollah Says" for Hassan Nasrallah's cogent reaction to the Paris attacks and her snarky "Hezbollah is the enemy" reply) rather than the very nations that are exporting the extreme militant version of Islam, Wahhabism, that leads to jihad. As Andre Vltchek wrote this weekend in "Who Should be Blamed for Muslim Terrorism? The West is Manufacturing Muslim Monsters":

Almost all radical movements in today’s Islam, anywhere in the world, are tied to Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative, reactionary sect of Islam, which is in control of the political life of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other staunch allies of the West in the Gulf.

To quote Dr. Abdullah Mohammad Sindi:

“It is very clear from the historical record that without British help neither Wahhabism nor the House of Saud would be in existence today. Wahhabism is a British-inspired fundamentalist movement in Islam. Through its defense of the House of Saud, the US also supports Wahhabism directly and indirectly regardless of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Wahhabism is violent, right wing, ultra-conservative, rigid, extremist, reactionary, sexist, and intolerant…”

The West gave full support to the Wahhabis in the 1980s. They were employed, financed and armed, after the Soviet Union was dragged into Afghanistan and into a bitter war that lasted from 1979 to 1989. As a result of this war, the Soviet Union collapsed, exhausted both economically and psychologically.

The Mujahedeen, who were fighting the Soviets as well as the left-leaning government in Kabul, were encouraged and financed by the West and its allies. They came from all corners of the Muslim world, to fight a ‘Holy War’ against Communist infidels.

According to the US Department of State archives:

“Contingents of so-called Afghan Arabs and foreign fighters who wished to wage jihad against the atheist communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whose Arab group eventually evolved into al-Qaeda.”

Muslim radical groups created and injected into various Muslim countries by the West included al-Qaeda, but also, more recently, ISIS (also known as ISIL). ISIS is an extremist army that was born in the ‘refugee camps’ on the Syrian/Turkish and Syrian/Jordanian borders, and which was financed by NATO and the West to fight the Syrian (secular) government of Bashar al-Assad.

Such radical implants have been serving several purposes. The West uses them as proxies in the wars it is fighting against its enemies – the countries that are still standing in the way to the Empire’s complete domination of the world. Then, somewhere down the road, after these extremist armies ‘get totally out of control’ (and they always will), they could serve as scarecrows and as justification for the ‘The War On Terror’, or, like after ISIS took Mosul, as an excuse for the re-engagement of Western troops in Iraq.

Stories about the radical Muslim groups have constantly been paraded on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, or shown on television monitors, reminding readers ‘how dangerous the world really is’, ‘how important Western engagement in it is’, and consequently, how important surveillance is, how indispensable security measures are, as well as tremendous ‘defense’ budgets and wars against countless rogue states.

The Kouachi brothers had a connection to Yemen and the Qaeda branch there, AQAP. Read Kareem Fahim's latest from Yemen, "Violence Grows in Yemen as Al Qaeda Tries to Fight Its Way Back," to get caught up on the U.S. "double game" there. The U.S. faced with the rise of the pro-Iranian Shiite Houthi movement, which is consolidating power in Sana, is working with its Gulf allies and their AQAP proxies to claw back territory from the Houthis.

This is what the U.S. "double game" does; it foments instability, terror and war. And more is on the way because there is no indication that the people at the top see any reason to change.