Are US Economic Sanctions Against Russia Based on an Obama Lie?
SUMMARY
If
the March 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia was based upon the
overwhelming desire by Crimeans that Crimea become again a part
of Russia such as Crimea had been until 1954, instead of upon Russia’s
‘conquest’ of Crimea such as Obama has charged, then the economic
sanctions that Obama placed against Russia on the basis of that
annexation is on false ground, and has no authentic justification in law
or in fact. Also, in that case, NATO's subsequent military
buildup against Russia, purportedly to protect NATO against ‘another
such conquest by Russia’, would be based upon this same lie:
the lie that Crimea’s becoming again a part of Russia was something
other than a legitimate carrying-out of any people’s sovereign right, of
self-determination of peoples — a right that the West recognizes for
Catalonians in Spain, and for Scotch in UK, but not for Crimeans in
Ukraine. Consequently, essential to addressing this crucial matter is
forthrightly to address misrepresentations that are commonly asserted
regarding it, and also to address in a credible way what the motivations
might be for any such commonly asserted misrepresentations of this
historically crucial matter. In other words, an unusually frank
discussion is necessary here, which does not mince words where outright
lies have been stated and become widespread in the West, and which
instead presents the facts that stand forth the most clearly upon the
basis of the evidence that is of the very highest reliability and
credibility concerning each respective point in question in the matter.
The most reliable evidence is presented here, and is consistently in
favor of the Russian position, and against The West's (the U.S. and its
allies) position, on this crucial, even mega-historical, issue.
INTRODUCTION
This
question’s importance derives from its concerning the validity, or not,
of the rationale for the economic sanctionsagainst Russia, and of the
NATO military buildup against Russia on Russia’s borders (which latter
buildup now threatens World War III). Nothing is more important than this.
On the American/NATO side of this dispute, both the sanctions and the military buildup against Russia have been alleged to be justified
responses to Russia’s ‘conquest’ of Crimea, from Ukraine.
However, Russia contends that there was no such ‘conquest’ of Crimea,
and that Crimeans’ separation from Ukraine and joining Russia was
instead an entirely voluntary act by Crimeans — a fulfillment by
Crimeans of their fundamental right of self-determination of peoples —
and that it was precipitated by what Russia alleges to have been a
«coup» in Ukraine that overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian
President for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted, and so created a suddenly
intensified desire of Crimeans to break away from Ukraine, and to rejoin
with Russia, of which Crimea had been a part until Crimea was
involuntarily transferred from Russia to Ukraine by the Soviet dictator
Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. The Russian government claims that Russia has
protected the right of Crimeans to make this crucial choice, and
that Russia enabled Crimeans voluntarily to rejoin Russia, after
Crimeans had been forced to become part of Ukraine in 1954 — and, now,
after the «coup» in Kiev, Crimeans intensely wanted to
rejoin Russia. Russia contends that The West, not Russia, has been, and
is, insisting upon dictatorship regarding the Crimean people, by The
West’s refusal to respect the right of self-determination of peoples, to
the Crimean population, whom Russia has protected and enabled in March
2014 peacefully to exercise that inalienable right, which any people
possess the peaceful right to do.
No one can deny that the overthrow of Victor Yanukovych — the democratically elected President of Ukraine, who had won 75% of the votes of the people of Crimea —
led directly to the movement of the Crimean people to separate
themselves from being ruled by the newly installed, post-overthrow,
Ukrainian government. Without the violent overthrowof Yanukovych, there would have been no reason for Crimeans to have been in fear, as they overwhelmingly were.
But the question remains of whether the separation of Crimea from
Ukraine was a legitimate act of self-determination of peoples, by the
Crimeans, in response to a coup (such as Russia contends to have been
the case), or was it instead a ‘seizure’ of Crimea by Russia — a
seizure against which The West legitimately retaliated
by economic sanctions, and now by sending arms (including nuclear
weapons) and troops to Russia’s very borders?
So,
this question of whether or not the overthrow of Yanukovych was a
«coup» — an illegitimate takeover of the Ukrainian government — is absolutely central to world history, at the present stage.
If it was a coup, then all of The West’s sanctions and
arms-buildups against Russia are on fraudulent ground and thus entirely
illegitimate; but if it was not a «coup», then at least an argument can
be made by The West, that The West’s response to Russia’s subsequent
actions (especially The West’s response to Russia’s accepting the
broadly expressed will of the Crimean public to quit Ukraine and
rejoin Russia) isn’t disproportionate to Russia’s actions — (even if
Russia did what The West alleges, such as ‘seizing’ Crimea — if it can
legitimately be called that).
What can it mean for Russia to be said to have «seized» Crimea?
No one questions that the overwhelming majority of Crimeans wanted to
quit Ukraine and join Russia after Yanukovych was overthrown — one
Western poll of Crimeans after Crimea had separated from Ukraine and
joined Russia showed that 82.8% of Crimeans said «Agree», and only 6.7% (less than a tenth as many) said «Disagree», to
the statement «The results of the referendum on Crimea’s status likely
reflect the views of most people here», and another Western poll after
Crimeans had done it, confirmed that over 90% of Crimeans supported the change.
Did they not have the right of self-determination of peoples, which
even The West recognizes in The West, such as for Catalonians in Spain,
for Scotts in UK, and for Quebecois in Canada? (Though
Western-controlled bodies such as the OSCE in post-coup Crimea,
announced that condition #5 for automatic recognition, which is «their parent state shall flagrantly violate their human rights»,
had not been met, overwhelming evidence existed to the contrary and was
blatantly ignored, even while the OSCE’s investigator acknowledged
that «There is a real risk of bloodshed», and much bloodshed had already occurred but
was simply being ignored by her. So, the official statements on this
matter were based upon who held real power, not on application of
authentically neutral and ethically founded principles, and thus granted
the post-overthrow, now Western-backed, Ukrainian government everything
they wanted. ‘The international community’ failed the people of Crimea
and made a farce out of ‘international law’ in this case — especially if
the overthrow of Yanukovych was a coup.)
The
West and its international organs are enforcing the Soviet dictator
Nikita Khrushchev’s arbitrary 1954 transfer of Crimea to Ukraine, and
are utterly denying the residents of Crimea their sovereign right of
self-determination, even denying their right to reverse that dictator’s
arbitrary action, which was taken 60 years prior to Crimea’s 2014
Russian-reunification referendum. The West has now taken on the
dictatorial role (denying Crimeans the right of self-determination),
which The West had claimed to have opposed in principle during the Cold
War.
As Himanil Raina said in
regard to the authority of the post-overthrow Ukrainian government, in
the case of Crimea: «A greater problem however relates to the legitimacy
of the Ukrainian government itself given the Russian position that the
government came to power by means of a coup d’état», and, «Ultimately,
regardless of the West’s assertions on any other point, the fact is that
Yanukovych was elected to power via elections declared fair by Western
monitors themselves. As Kym Bergman has commented, baying mobs no
matter what their size present no justification to remove a
constitutionally elected President from power». Raina wasn’t alleging
that the overthrow of Yanukovych necessarily was a «coup», but instead
that even if it was a democratic revolution, the government it
produced was illegitimate and thus possessed no authentic status of
national government under the Ukrainian Constitution, for it to cite
that Constitution against Crimeans’ intrinsic right of
self-determination.
Only
fools don’t care about getting to the truth here, because the truth
here answers the question of whether the violator of international law
in our time, and the source of the present buildup toward World War III,
is Russia, by accepting the overwhelming desire of the Crimean people
to separate from Ukraine and to rejoin with Russia, or whether the
violator is instead The West, by the West’s now sanctioning Russia and
militarily threatening to invade Russia on account of Russia’s having
accepted the will of the Crimean people to rejoin with Russia.
This question of whether the separation of Crimea from Ukraine was in response to a coup in Ukraine, is thus the central question in our era of history: the
question of whether the source of blame for bringing the world to its
current brink of nuclear war is partly Russia’s and is partly The West’s
(for The West’s overreacting to Russia’s illegitimate seizure of
Crimea); or whether it’s instead entirely The West’s fault (for The
West’s having, to begin with, illegitimately seized Ukraine by a U.S. coup, and then fraudulently charged and sanctioned and threatened Russia as having ‘seized’ Crimea).
STRATFOR’S POSITION ON THIS
On 20 December 2014,
I reported that in a Russian business publication published in the
Russian language the day before, the head of the «private CIA» firm
Stratfor, George Friedman, was quoted as telling that publication in an
interview, that the overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych
in February of that year had been «the most blatant coup in history».
Subsequently (on 17 January 2015), that complete interview was translated into English, where the entire context of his statement on this important matter can be seen and evaluated.
Perhaps
because Mr. Friedman’s firm relies heavily upon, and cooperates with,
the U.S. CIA, he publicly renounced the publication of his statement on
this matter, when he headlined on 21 April 2016 at the website of the
convicted Wall Street fraudster Henry Blodget, Business Insider, «George Friedman: Russia is winning the internet»,
and Friedman portrayed «the Russians» there as master deceivers, and
mentioned in this regard, as if it were being said only in passing:
I
was a minor player in one such event last year. On a visit to Russia, I
told the business journal Kommersant that if the US were behind a coup
in Kiev, it would have been the most blatant coup in history, as
the US government openly supported the uprising and had provided some
funding for the demonstrating groups.
In
other words, it was no coup. The Russian news service Sputnik published
what I said, cutting out a few odds and ends, and quoted me as saying
that Ukraine «was the most blatant coup in history». The neat part is
that they didn’t make it up. I did say it. They just left out the words
before and after the statement. Since I was of no importance in the
United States, they had to promote me as someone significant, which on
the whole was nice of them.
(If
you have absolutely nothing to do someday, check the internet
and Twitter, and you will find me saying the United States staged the
most blatant coup in history.)
Most
Russians and most Americans didn’t notice this turn of events. But in a
systematic campaign to saturate the internet, the Russians fed
the quote back into some major Russian print publications, then back
onto the internet, until it resonated and fed back on itself.
Multiply
this twisting of my statement several thousand times with the abuse of
statements or near statements from other people, and the echo effect can
reach a saturation point where the Russian narrative on what happened
in Kiev becomes widely accepted.
* * *
So: who is falsifying here? Is it «the Russians»? Or is it George Friedman (now saying «it was no coup»)?
Let’s
go back to the entire passage in which he had said that the overthrow
of Yanukovych was «the most blatant coup in history», as it had been translated on 17 January 2015 (so that we can see the complete context there):
At
the beginning of this year there existed in Ukraine a slightly
pro-Russian though very shaky government. That situation was fine for
Moscow: after all, Russia did not want to completely control Ukraine or
occupy it; it was enough that Ukraine not join NATO and the EU.
Russian authorities cannot tolerate a situation in which western armed
forces are located a hundred or so kilometers from Kursk or Voronezh.
The
United States, for its part, were interested in forming a pro-Western
government in Ukraine. They saw that Russia is on the rise, and
were eager not to let it consolidate its position in the post-Soviet
space. The success of the pro-Western forces in Ukraine would allow the
U.S. to contain Russia.
Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d'etat organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history.
KOMMERSANT: You mean the termination of the agreement of February 21, or the entire Maidan?
GEORGE
FRIEDMAN: The whole thing. After all, the United States openly
supported human rights groups in Ukraine, including
financially. Meanwhile, Russia's special services completely missed
these trends. They didn't understand what was taking place, but when
they did realize what was going on they were unable to take action to
stabilize the situation, and then they misjudged the mood in East
Ukraine.
KOMMERSANT: In other words, the Ukrainian crisis is the result of the confrontation between Russia and the United States?
GEORGE
FRIEDMAN: Here you have two countries: one wants a Ukraine that is
neutral. The other wants Ukraine to form part of a line
of containment against Russian expansion. One cannot say that one party
is mistaken: both are acting based on their national interests. It's
just that these interests don't jive.
* * *
The
article by Friedman denying that he had actually meant that the
overthrow of Yanukovych was «the most blatant coup in history», and that
really «it was no coup», was subsequently cited by readers at reddit,
in order to (so they thought) ‘disconfirm’ a news report that I had just
published on 7 June 2016, which was headlined «Germany Preparing For War Against Russia». That article was criticized at reddit for two reasons. One was that the website which had published it, rinf.com, is little-known and is therefore «an 'alternative news' source. it might be an alternative to reality». In
other words: it was criticized because the website that published it
wasn’t part of the newsmedia that are big enough so that the people who
control the U.S. newsmedia buy it out or else put it out of existence
altogether. But, in any case, the attack was ad-hominem, and therefore
irrelevant.
Then appeared there the second reason, in this response at reddit:
[–] rikudemyx
It's not true.
First
off, notice that the article calls the Ukrainian Revolution a coup.
More several times, the article delves into a full digression that just
repeats it.
Second, the author has written several absurd articles, I suggest you look him up.
Third,
the website itself. It declares itself as an "alternative" news
source. Never a good sign. Further, they have written articles about
9/11 being an inside job, and Sandy Hook being a false flag. That's
never a good sign.
Fourth, let's take a look at their source, shall we. Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (AWikipedia#DeutscheWirtschafts_Nachrichten) about them shows that it is considered to be a conspiracy website.
All in all, no, it's not trustworthy.
* * *
The
assumption there that I agree with everything at that site, or even
that all of the articles and authors there are relevant to the article
of mine that was posted there, was obviously false.
I tracked the sources cited against Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, in that Wikipedia article (which
was the only source cited by the commenter, and which source was indeed
a prominent one in my article that this person was attacking), and
found no indication that anything against DWN was noted there beyond the
ordinary types of post-publication editorial corrections which are made
by all serious newsmedia, including by extremely famous ones.
Consequently, the reader-comments at reddit were disbelieving on false
grounds, and were believing on false grounds. The readers were evidently
so determined to rationalize their existing beliefs, as to be
critical against whatever disconfirms them, and to accept, on shoddy (if
any) grounds, whatever they can find that they think somehow discredits
the allegations that are contrary to their existing beliefs (basically
rationalizing, on an ad-hominem level, against an ad-rem argument, which they find personally unpalatable to believe).
Any
reader of the present article can make up his or her own mind on the
matter at hand, simply by clicking onto the links that are being here
provided.
Before
proceeding directly onto the broader issue of the evidence that the
overthrow of Yanukovych was a coup (which central issue any reader here
is now invited to skip directly down to, if so choosing), it might be
worth pointing out in the present context, that the readership at
reddit tends to be rabidly predisposed to detest Russia. Here is just
one other contemporaneous example of that evidence of the success of
this heavy indoctrination by the American ‘news’ media displayed
at reddit, so as to make clear the widespread prejudice (perhaps due to
Western ‘news’ reporting) that exists on this serious matter:
* * *
On 20 May 2016, a «u/Met5anvartija» posted at reddit.com a Reuters headline «Russia proposes joint airstrikes on Syria rebels with U.S.-led coalition» (with no functioning link to the Reuters news report, which is at many sites, such as here),
and many readers at reddit (there were 90 comments posted there as of
the present writing) insisted that Russia supports (Al Qaeda in Syria)
Al Nusra, and that (quoting here «inevitablelizard»), «America does not
actively or deliberately send supplies to jihadist groups like Nusra».
The gist of the comments was that the U.S. is anti-jihadist and that
therefore the Russian proposal «Will
never work. The ‘rebels' Russia wants to bombs aren't the same 'rebels'
America wants to bomb»; to which another commenter replied, «Depends.
America gladly bombs Al-Nasura [sic], an Al-Queda affiliated group».
Basically, the attitude of the majority was that Russia’s government
isn’t fighting against »Al-Nusara», but America’s government is. The
facts are exactly contrary to that assumption. Earlier similar examples
of reader-comments at reddit were posted responding to an article «Americans Accept Saudi Royals as Friends of America»,
which had indicated that both the Sauds and the U.S. have been backing
Al Nusra and other jihadist groups in Syria. So, both ‘friends’ and
‘foes’ of America are being identified by the American public on the
basis of what the owners of the media present to Americans as
constituting such. Americans evidently trust ‘their’ media (even if
they overwhelmingly say they don’t).
This trust is displayed at reddit, and this unfortunate reality
explains the criticism that reddit’s readers commonly
direct against articles which violate the basic assumptions of America’s
newsmedia.
THE BROADER ISSUE
Beyond
that narrow issue of what Mr. Friedman (a widely respected expert) had
to say on this subject, of whether or not it was a «coup», the evidence
is overwhelming, and is as conclusive as any can be in important
historical questions such as this (important especially because its
outcome might become a nuclear World War III), that the overthrow of
Yanukovych was, indeed, a «coup», and that the breakaway of Crimea from
Ukraine was a direct consequence of the coup.
Extensive video documentation exists demonstrating that it was a coup, and even demonstrating that the ObamaAdministration had selected Ukraine’s post-coup leader 22 days prior to his being formally appointed by the Ukrainian parliament. Furthermore, the only detailed scholarly study of the evidence that has been performed came
to the same conclusion — that it was a coup no ‘revolution’. The last
month before the coup, was incredibly violent, with Obama’s hired
fascists attacking the government’s securitly forces brutally: Here in
videos taken of the events is some of the bloodshed from the prior
month, on January 21st, then January 22nd, then January 25th. Those
are well-trained thugs terrifying the police — which is exactly the
opposite of the way those events were described by U.S. officials and
their press. Moreover, immediately after the overthrow, when the EU sent
its own investigator into Kiev to report back on how the overthrow had
taken place, he too reported that it had been a coup. Subsequently revealed was that the ObamaAdministration had started preparing the coup inside the U.S. Embassy in Kiev by no later than 1 March 2013 — almost a year prior to the coup.
Also,
the even earlier preparation for the coup, extending through decades,
on the part of CIA-affiliated ‘nonprofit’ or NGO organizations (funded
by Western aristocrats and their corporations), laying the groundwork
for this coup, has been brilliantly documented at some online sites. And the Obama Administration’s careful planning of the coup existed even as early as 2011.
None of this information has been widely published — it’s virtually not
at all published in The West. Though the potential audience for it
might be vast (especially since Western publics pay much of the tab for
this operation and yet receive none of the benefits from the resultant
looting of Ukraine, which goes all to aristocrats in the U.S. and allied
aristocracies), the market in The West for reporting it, is virtually
nil, because the market is The West’s news media, and they’ve all
(except for a few small ones like this) been taken over by the
aristocracy, and serve the aristocracy — not the public (their
audiences, whom they’re in business to deceive in the ways that the
aristocracy wants). The aristocracy’s companies advertise in, and
thereby fund, most of those ‘news’ media, and the aristocracy’s
governments («oligarchies»)
fund the rest — and the public pays for that, too, not just by being
manipulated to vote for the aristocracy’s (or ‘oligarchy’s’)
politicians, but by being taxed to pay what the NGOs and their
aristocrats don’t (so that the public are buying the weapons etc.). It’s
a vast money-funnel, from the many, to the few, with the ‘news’ media
being an essential art of it.
Though the transfer of Crimea from Ukraine to Russia is treated by Western ‘news’ media as having been a ‘conquest’ by Russia, and as being Russia’s ‘seizure’ of Crimea, and Russia’s ‘stealing’ Crimea, nothing of the sort is true (and Crimeans had good reason to be terrified of the Obama-coup regime that had just been installed, from which Russiasaved Crimeans), but the lie needs to be promulgated in the West,
in order for the aristocracy’s invasion of Russia to be able to be
organized and carried out (if they’ll go all the way in this).
In
addition, there was also the far eastern, Donbass, region of Ukraine,
which also refused to accept the coup that overthrew Yanukovych, and
which likewise separated itself from Ukraine after the coup. Donbass had voted 90 % for Yanukovych —
even higher than did Crimea. Barack Obama and his followers
blamed Russia for supposedly trying to ‘seize’ Donbass too. However, on 17 September 2014,
a leader of Donbass announced «We will build our own country» because
Putin had made clear to Donbass’s leaders that he wasn’t going to allow
Donbass to become a part of Russiaas he had done in the case of Crimea.
Then, on Monday 6 April 2015, the Moscow Times bannered «Putin Refused Poroshenko’s Offer to ‘Take Donbass’ — Forbes»,
and reported that «President Vladimir Putin in February turned down an
offer from his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to ‘take the
Donbass’ — the area in the country's east that is currently partly
controlled by pro-Russian insurgents — and asked Poroshenko whether he
was ‘out of his mind,’ Forbes magazine reported Monday»
That day, Forbes had headlined (with perhaps intentional obscurantism so as not to attract attention to, or make waves about, this matter), «Donbass Russia: Putin talked about the unexpected assertion by Poroshenko», and reported that «at a closed meeting with the Board» of a Russian business association, «one
of the participants at the meeting, who requested confidentiality,
confirmed to Forbes, that Putin had told the businessmen of an
unexpected proposal from Poroshenko to take Donbass and his refusal to
do that. ‘Poroshenko offered Russia to take the Donbass and provide its
financial support’ [said the source].» The confusingly written news
story provided half-baked explanations as to why Putin said no, and then
concluded by quoting one ‘expert’ who said that, «The offer from
Poroshenko that Russia ’take Donbass' does not look believable — perhaps
the phrase was uttered as a joke.» That was no ‘expert’: he evidently
didn’t even know about Putin’s having earlier told Donbass leaders
that Russia wasn’t going to accept Donbass into Russia. So: the Western
accusations that Russia wants to ‘grab’ Donbass are also lies (Putin
wants to help the residents there as much as possible short of adopting
the burden of restoring that region, which Obama’s people — his
Ukrainian forces — have bombed and destroyed to hell).
Finally,
in regards to the legitimacy-or-not of the overthrow of Yanukovych, all
of the arguments that have been put forth by the Obama Administration
and its Ukrainian regime (and the rest of The West), arguing that the
overthrow of Yanukovych was legitimate, were decisively disproven by an
extraordinarily honest and thorough — and starkly clear — anonymous
web-posting, «Yanukovych’s Removal Was Unconstitutional»,
wherein the Ukrainian Constitution’s provisions for the «ways in which a
president can be removed from power» were contrasted with the steps
that actually were taken by Ukraine’s parliament in order to remove
Yanukovych, and it showed that, definitely and incontestably, Yanukovych
was not Constitutionally removed from power. The successor government —
including all its actions and assertions that were made against both
Crimea and Donbass — were illegal, even under Ukrainian law. The West
hasn’t got a legal leg to stand on in this entire matter, but has
instead trumped that by its sheer and raw coercive power, in a global
world order that is thereby exposed as being lawless in the most
profound sense: truly a law-of-the-jungle world-order.
In
any case, The West is continuing to accuse Russia of attempting to
‘seize’ Donbass, after Russia had allegedly ‘seized’ Crimea — and a global nuclear war could ultimately result from these Western lies. But the master-lie is The West’s Big Lie, that the overthrow of Yanukovych «was no coup».
The aggressor is clearly The West, not Russia. And that is where the danger comes from. And, on a deep level, despite The West’s propaganda, this fact is even widely recognized around the world even before Obama’s outright coup in Ukraine.
If
there were any international justice, the economic sanctions would
be against the U.S. and its vassal-aristocracies such as the EU,
and Russia would be prosecuting those aristocrats in the International
Court of Justice, and suing the governments that they control.
The
biggest challenge for incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be
whether he will carry on this putrid international policy of its
founder, his 1990 predecessor, President George Herbert Walker Bush, and
all of Bush’s successors up till the present, or else, finally, end the
Cold War on the Western side, just as it was ended on the Eastern side
in 1991 by the dissolution of the East’s military alliance the Warsaw
Pact: by ending NATO. He would have available to assist him in that
heroic action only the warning by an even earlier U.S. President, Dwight
Eisenhower, who fatally warned on 17 January 1960:
In
the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
We
must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
After
24 February 1990, all U.S. Presidents since have flouted that warning
and done exactly 100% the opposite: the will of America’s aristocrats,
not really of any democracy at all. And Obama’s coup in Ukraine in
February 2014 and subsequent abuse of not only Ukrainians but also of
Russians (not to say more), is an even more dangerous culmination of
that flouting, than was George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. No penalty is
too high for such persistent utter betrayal and lying.
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