Russia

15 Years of Putin rule in one infograph. 25 June 2014. (See enlarged version inside.)

"No wonder so many governments around the world are jealous of what he's accomplished - taking a failing Russia from Communism to a successful country - while these same envious European and American leaders put their own countries further into debt, by following the failed Socialist policies Russia learned from.

While Obama is wrapped up with the influx of illegals into America, a tanking economy, scandal after scandal, sticking his nose into Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, Putin scores another historic victory: Austria Signs South Stream Pipeline Deal In Defiance Of Europe.

Is it any wonder the Russian people give him an approval rating of 80%?"

Source: http://ozziesaffa.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/15-years-of-putin-rule-in-one-infograph.html

Candobetter.net Editor comment: This article does not take into account oil and gas reserves and the ability to realise them, nor does it analyse the dirigist quality of Russian government. It claims that the US and non-Russian Europe are failing because of socialist policies, but others would say they are failing because of the right-wing economic rationalism and disaster economics. Overall, however, it is obvious that Putin is a success who deserves world admiration but who is, instead, the object of NATO jealousy, covetousness and spite.

by Dmitri Orlov. Previously published by Paul Craig Roberts, Information Clearing House, DarkPolitricks and Conspiracy Analyst on 1 Sep 2014. Also by Dmitri Orlov: Orlov on the Ukraine (29/8/14), Saving Face (29/7/14), Collapse and Systemic Failure at All Levels Coming to U.S. (19/3/14), Collapse and Systemic Failure at All Levels Coming to U.S. (19/3/14), Ukraine-Crimea Update and U.S. on Suicide Watch (19/3/14), Dmitri Orlov highlights the Crimean "crisis" and the Western bias (12/3/14), On western engineered fascist coup d'etat in Ukraine: "U.S. citizens are being systematically conditioned to hate Vladimir Putin" (2/3/14) This article includes embedded Youtube video of the Donetsk Republic Council of Ministers, which is also included in the article The Donetsk National Republic states the facts about its conflict with the Kiev regime (31/8/14) on candobetter.

"If you think that Russia is sending its regular units here, then let me tell you something. If Russia was sending its regular troops, we wouldn't be talking about the battle of Elenovka here. We'd be talking about a battle of Kiev or a possible capture of Lvov."

Alexander V. Zakharchenko, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Donetsk National Republic
addresses press conference, answers questions

Lvov is in western Ukraine near the border with Poland. In other words, if Russia invades Ukraine, the fighting will move from the east side to the west side of the country.

As I observed in a recent column, the fantasy spread by Western governments and their media whores that 1,000 Russian troops have invaded Ukraine is the height of absurdity. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/08/28/washington-piles-lie-upon-lie-paul-craig-roberts/

Despite the absurdity of the claim, some of the Western tabloids, which is what all Western newspapers now are, have declared these 1,000 troops to be a "full-scale invasion." All of this nonsense is a buildup to the upcoming NATO conference in Wales. Disinformation is being used to create hysteria and justification for a NATO military buildup on Russia's borders that could easily result in the final war. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39543.htm

Ask yourselves this question: Is the entirely of the Western media so ignorant and incompetent not to realize that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would not consist of 1,000 troops (the evidence of which no one can find), or is the entirety of the Western media simply willingly serving as a propaganda ministry for Washington's warmongers, as the Western media did for George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq based on fabricated evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. There are only two conclusions that can be reached about the Western media: Either it is completely stupid or completely corrupt.

Dmitry Orlov tells you what a Russian invasion of Ukraine would look like:

How Can You Tell Whether Russia Has Invaded Ukraine?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39547.htm

Footnote[s]

_{#fnPetition1" id="txtPetition1">1}

A report by the Sydney Morning Herald titled, "Julie Bishop says 'petulant' Russian sanctions reflect its lack of acceptance for role in MH17 disaster," claims that Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Russia's "petulant" trade sanctions on Australian food imports is yet another example of Moscow trying to evade responsibility for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. No evidence for Bishop's position is provided. (See also: Malaysian Mainstream Media: MH17 was downed by a Military Aircraft, "Cannon Fire from Fighter Jet". Article by Tony Cartalucci, previously published 8/8/14 on the Land Destroyer Report and Global Research.)

Bishop fails to indicate why Russia should or would accept responsibility for downing an aircraft when no evidence whatsoever even suggests such culpability. Canberra, Washington, London, and Brussels are citing dubious YouTube videos, Facebook, and other forms of "social media," while Russia has provided radar and satellite pictures and has repeatedly called for and supported a proper, independent, impartial investigation into the incident.

Since no such investigation has been concluded, Julie Bishop is not citing the conclusions of such a process, but merely repeating baseless accusations. These are the same variety of baseless, tenuous lies the West used to sell interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria that have devastated entire regions of the planet and left well over a million innocent human beings dead.

This latest from Canberra is the continued leveraging and exploitation of human tragedy to advance a political agenda, not ascertain the truth or seek true justice. Australia's latest comments represent the greater truth behind the West's international agenda – that it is global anarchy dressed up as global order – the rule of the jungle sporting the fig leaf of "rule of law."

Julie Bishop demands Russia take "responsibility," but will she take responsibility for leveling baseless accusations against an entire nation? Defamatory accusations would be grounds for resignation – at least in an administration guided by justice and truth. Each day now that Bishop retains her post is an indictment against the government of Australia's utter lack of both.

In a political situation that could just end up as World War Three, Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott has been barging about like a frightening drunk with his atrociously prejudiced and premature statements assuming Vladimir Putin and Russia’s guilt in the MH17 airline tragedy. Even more alarming that his pathetic bids to make world stage on the matter have been reported with such hokum gravitas by the Australian mass media.

Appendix video: MH17 Crash: Ukrainian media stories about looting of toy and wedding ring proven FAKE!

The Australian mass media have jumped on the anti-Putin bandwagon like dogs attacking a [politically] chained bear on command, after showing almost no interest in the Odessa Massacre and other world-class atrocities carried out by the Ukraine regime they all back. Added to this, Bill Shorten’s remarks about uninviting Putin make him seem like some shadowy ape jealously mimicking Abbott’s hysterical antics on the world Punch and Judy stage. The remarks of the British Prime Minister have been similarly ill-judged and Hilary Strangelove-Clinton’s were sinister. “To put Putin on notice that he has gone too far and we are not going to stand idly by.” (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/mh17-hillary-clinton-says-russian-backed-rebels-likely-shot-down-plane) In fact, the anti-Russian side has still not produced evidence that Russia has been supplying any help to the separatists in Eastern Ukraine over the past few months and it has not produced evidence that Russia or the East Ukrainian rebels had anything to do with the shooting down of MH17.

We have been collecting a few headlines over the past few days and shaking our heads with dismay at the hopeless obedience to their masters and the political ignorance of Australian journalists. We wonder, are they all just syndicated real-estate ad writers in their day jobs?

Here are some examples of apparently uninformed and prejudicial reporting:

Australian Financial Review, 20-22 July 2014 (Weekend edition): Jamie Walker, “Furious Abbott demands Putin account for ‘unspeakable crime’.

So, no need for an investigation, apparently?

Weekend Australian, July 20-22, 2014. “A crime against humanity”. In this article, the author proceeds as if they have hard evidence against Russia, whereas there was none: ”The nation has been plunged into mourning over the deaths of 28 Australians in a missile attack by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine on a packed Malaysia Airlines flight, an attack that Tony Abbott condemned as a crime against Australia and the world.” Well, it was a crime against Australia and the World but we still don’t know who did it or why, although early evidence points more at the Kiev regime.

ABC, 22/7/2014: “Obama increases pressure on Putin to influence rebels at MH17 site,” www.abc.net.au/news/world.

What would Obama have the rebels and Putin do that they are not already doing, other than surrender the evidence to the Ukrainian government so that it can hide it?

“Stay away Mr Putin”, Sunday Mail, July 20, 2014 by Jason Tin, Stephen Drill and Samantha Maiden. It continues, “Australia doesn’t want Russian President Vladimir Putin in Brisbane for November’s G20 summit, unless he co-operates fully with the manhunt for the terrorists who blew MH17 out of the sky.”

We might just as well call for the United States and Australia to cooperate and yield to the international investigators the evidence they have that proves their allegations against Russia and Putin or stay away from the jolly G20.

The Australian, 21 July 2014, front page:”Irate West demands Putin’s help”, by Brendan Nicholson and Stefanie Balogh. […]The international community is outraged over Mr Putin’s denial of any Russian involvement and his refusal to support an investigation or to exert influence over pro-Russian militia controlling the crash site.”

In fact, the pro-Russian militia is fully cooperating and there is no reported obstruction by these anti-Kiev Eastern Ukrainians (pro-Russian is a bit of a misnomer), however there is evidence that Kiev has prevented an international team from joining international observers in East Ukraine, where they are awaited.

The Australian, 21 July 2014,page 4, “Sad truth is the ability to pressure Moscow is limited.” Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor, Washington: “The growing worldwide condemnation of Vladimir Putin over Russia’s involvement in the downing of MH17 has been effectively led by Tony Abbott, but may yet yield little in concrete results.”

Sheridan shamelessly flatters Australian PM Abbott for his reprehensible behaviour, predictably jumping on the anti-Russian bandwagon.

The Australian, 22 July 2014, front page: “Putin backs recovery of bodies,” by Jamie Walker and Brendan Nicholson. This is another ‘when did Putin stop beating his wife’ kind of article. It begins by pretending that Putin was recalcitrant about cooperating with an international investigation into the MH17 tragedy, implying that he is now responding to pressure: “Vadimir Putin has bowed to international pressure and pledged Russian support to recover bodies and key evidence…” […]

The article goes on to imply, without any evidence at all, that Russia is obviously responsible for the downed airliner, but not admitting to it: “Despite fresh buck-passing over who was responsible for shooting down the Malaysia Airlines plane[…], the Russian President promised ‘full co-operation’ to end an impasse with Russian-backed rebels and enable the dead and the crucial black box recorders to be handed over.”

All through these disinformative articles the idea has been promoted that East Ukrainian separatists who do not approve of the US-backed oligarchy in Kiev are in favour of becoming Russian and are supported and backed by the Russian Government. In fact, they are primarily seeking independence from the Kiev regime, which would like Russia to close its border against hundreds of thousands of women and children refugees who are fleeing it. Those remaining have been fighting with few weapons against heavy aerial bombardment from the Kiev-regime military and para-military who have committed many atrocities which have not been reported by the media and which do not seem to bother Mr Abbott or Mr Shorten or the various ‘journalists’ employed to pen propaganda in the Australian mainstream press.

#MH17video" id="MH17video">Appendix video: MH17 Crash: Ukrainian media stories about looting of toy and wedding ring proven FAKE!

See also: Who shot down the Malaysian jet over Ukraine? on VoltaireNet, Sanctions and Airliners by Paul Craig Roberts, Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane crash in Ukraine LIVE UPDATES on RT.
Appendix: links to mainstream media disinformation about Flight MH17.

July 18, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - With Kiev's forces being encircled and decimated in eastern Ukraine, western Ukrainians in Kiev protesting the war, and US sanctions receiving global ridicule as feckless - the downing of a Malaysian Boeing 777 airliner with over 280 on board in eastern Ukraine - allegedly shot down over a conflict zone - will undoubtedly be exploited by NATO to vilify Kiev's opponents, particularly fighters in the east and Russia who NATO accuses of "destabilizing eastern Ukraine."

Originally published at Landdestroyer.blogspot.com by Tony Cartalucci: Kiev Losing, Sanctions Flopped, Airliner Down, War Back On?

Preceding the downing of Malaysian flight MH17, just hours beforehand, Ukraine claimed Russia had shot down one of its SU-25 ground attack aircraft. The BBC's article, "Ukraine conflict: Russia accused of shooting down jet," stated that:

A Ukrainian security spokesman has accused Russia's air force of shooting down one of its jets while it was on a mission over Ukrainian territory. 

Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council, said an Su-25 ground attack plane was downed on Wednesday evening. 

Russia's defence ministry called the accusation "absurd", Russian state media reported. 

Rebels in eastern Ukraine say they shot down two Su-25 jets on Wednesday. 

Ukraine also alleges rockets were fired at its forces from Russian territory.

While the weapon systems used to down the Ukrainian SU-25's were not mentioned, previous aircraft lost to separatists in eastern Ukraine were most likely hit by Igla man-portable anti-air systems. The downed 777 was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet - unreachable by the Igla system. To down it would require a sophisticated weapon system most likely inaccessible to eastern Ukrainian fighters. This was confirmed by the regime in Kiev itself. New York Daily News reported in an article titled, "Malaysia Airlines plane feared shot down in Ukraine near Russian border," that:

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister, said on Facebook that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, reported Interfax, a Ukranian news agency.

The Buk system is maintained by both Russia and Ukraine. Russia would most likely not supply the sophisticated weapon system to fighters in Ukraine even if it were backing them militarily, because it would be nearly impossible to prevent its use or abuse from being traced directly back to Moscow. Ukrainian Buk systems, had the regime in Kiev lost control of one or more, should have been reported missing and international precautions taken to divert vulnerable aircraft around the conflict zone.
Western Reaction

US Senator John McCain, who had been standing in Kiev on stage with Neo-Nazis of the Svoboda Party shortly before they overthrew the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych, stated in an NBC interview:

"To leap to conclusions could be very embarrassing and really inappropriate until we have more information," he told NBC's Andrea Mitchell. "But there have been, as you mentioned, previous incidents of shot down of Ukrainian aircraft. This was an airliner headed towards Russian air space. And it has the earmarks, and I'm not concluding, but it has the earmarks of a mistaken identification of an aircraft that they may have believed was Ukrainian. 

"If that's true, this is a horrible tragedy event which was certainly unanticipated by anybody, no matter who they are," he said. "And there will be incredible repercussions if this is the case. Exactly what those will be will have to be determined by how we find out who was responsible."

McCain added, "If it is a result of either separatists or Russian actions mistakingly believing that this was a Ukrainian warplane, I think there's going to be hell to pay and there should be."

McCain never mentioned what should or could happen if it was the regime he helped put into power that was responsible for downing the airliner.

With the most likely weapon system responsible being the Buk launcher, and the regime in Kiev ascertaining so quickly how the plane was downed and who was responsible, it is now up to Kiev to explain how a Buk system ended up in the hands of separatists and why they would have fired at a plane flying at 33,000 feet heading toward the Russian border at speeds consistent with an airliner.

Cui Bono?


The remote possibility that separatists obtained a sophisticated Buk anti-air missile system, was able to maintain and operate it, failed to identify the Malaysian 777, and exercised the poor judgement to fire on it - would make the tragedy a catastrophic case of mistaken identify - for the separatists have no conceivable reason to fire on a Malaysian passenger liner - and absolutely nothing to gain by doing so.

However, for the regime in Kiev facing decimated and unraveling military forces in the east, growing dissent in the west, and Western sponsors who are unable to materialize any form of meaningful aid militarily, economically, or politically - shooting down a civilian airliner and blaming it on the separatists could unite public opinion and the leadership of European nations behind NATO and the US for a more direct intervention on behalf of Kiev and change the tide of what is now a battle they will otherwise inevitably lose.

The West is already working hard to set the stage for such a scenario. The BBC in an article titled, "Malaysia airliner crashes in east Ukraine conflict zone," stated that:

Sir Tony Brenton, a former UK ambassador to Russia, told BBC News it would not be a huge surprise if suspicion initially fell on the rebels. 

"That would be very damaging both for them and for their Russian supporters," he said.

"The Russians have undoubtedly been supplying them with weapons, almost certainly with anti-aircraft weapons, so Russia would very likely be implicated and that would raise the volume of international criticism of Russia."

Only the West and their proxies in Kiev would stand to benefit from this - and commentators like Tony Brenton and the BBC intentionally prey on the ignorance of their audience in hopes that they don't know the difference between the Igla systems separatists most likely have, and the Buk system they most likely don't have or are unable to operate.

This is the second Malaysian 777 to be lost under extraordinary circumstances this year. Malaysian flight MH370 disappeared in March, 2014, and has yet to be found despite unprecedented international search efforts.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

#disinfo" id="disinfo">Appendix: Links to Disinformationabout about Flight MH17

Malaysian airlines flight MH17: Tony Abbott says 'Russian-backed rebels' likely to blame on 'grim day' for Australia (ABC), Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: 'Terrible tragedy', Tony Abbott offers condolences to families for what would be 'unspeakable crime' (smh), Tony Abbott criticises Russia's response to MH17 tragedy as 'deeply unsatisfactory', Tony Abbott says Moscow must not protect Russian-backed rebels accused of downing MH17 (The Australian).

Flying over warzone Ukraine, the probable & convenient happens. July 18, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - At no juncture during the Ukrainian crisis could the downing of Malaysian Boeing 777 flight MH17 have been more convenient for NATO and its proxy regime in Kiev. Kiev's forces were being picked apart in eastern Ukraine with several units encircled and destroyed. In the west of the country, dissent was growing by Ukrainians unwilling to march off to fight in the east. NATO's attempts to bait Russia into moving into Ukrainian territory and shift global opinion against Moscow had repeatedly failed.

Originally published here:Flight MH17 Down Over Ukraine

Yet another Malaysia Boeing 777 is lost under extraordinary circumstances this year.

The final card to be played by the US was another round of sanctions that almost immediately was ridiculed as ineffective and impotent. Even US corporate-financier interests condemned the latest round of sanctions claiming they were "unilateral" in nature and thus limited US enterprise from interacting with Russia while leaving European competitors free to move into the void.  An effective US policy of confronting, containing, and undermining Russia would require multilateral sanctions with almost universal support - but the impetus for such sweeping sanctions did not exist - until now.

The US FAA Declared Ukrainian Airspace Off-Limits 3 Months Ago 

Indeed, the stars have aligned for NATO. While the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared Ukrainian airspace off limits to all aircraft under its jurisdiction, it appears other airlines continued flying over what has been a warzone for months. The Atlantic in a report titled, "The FAA's Notice Prohibiting Airline Flights Over Ukraine," stated clearly that:

Did aviation authorities know that this was a dangerous area? 

Yes, they most certainly did. Nearly three months ago, on the "Special Rules" section of its site, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration put out an order prohibiting American pilots, airlines, charter carriers, and everyone else over whom the FAA has direct jurisdiction, from flying over parts of Ukraine.

Fighters Use Man-Portable Air Defense Systems That Can't Reach 33,000 Feet

Image: Igla man-portable air defense missiles.

For months fighters in eastern Ukraine have been downing Ukrainian military helicopters, warplanes, and even a military transport aircraft - all using various forms of man-portable anti-air missiles - all of which are incapable of downing the Malaysian 777 which was flying at approximately 33,000 feet - well above the effective range of man-portable air defense systems.

The system cited as responsible for the downing of flight MH17, was the sophisticated Buk radar guided, tracked-vehicle mounted, anti-aircraft missile system. The New York Daily News reported in an article titled, "Malaysia Airlines plane feared shot down in Ukraine near Russian border," that:

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister, said on Facebook that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, reported Interfax, a Ukranian news agency.

Candobetter.net recently received a review copy of Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices, Simon & Schuster, 2014. Curious, I opened it at the chapter on “Syria: A wicked problem.” It was interesting to have a document from the horse’s mouth, or the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Her style as a US Secretary of State dealing with foreign affairs reminded me of an old-fashioned psychiatrist’s unimaginative confirmation of problems in any patient they are sent, where, even if the patient is quite sane, she’s going to find them insane. Note: Some clarificatory changes have been made to text since yesterday's first publication.

Clinton on Syria

Dismayingly, but not unexpectedly, in her writing, Clinton shows little knowledge, interest in, or respect for Syria. In summary, she tries to justify the anti-Assad US position with the alleged brutality of Assad based on two mantras:

1. Bashar Al-Assad’s father’s massacre in Hama in 1982. (No context supplied).
2. Saudi Prince Saud’s [1] opinion that Bashar was being led by his mother to follow his father’s brutal example in Hama (repeated twice in this chapter).

The only other rationale she provides in this chapter dedicated to Syria is shockingly unsustainable and unsustained, that:

”Most predominantly Sunni Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states, backed the rebels and wanted Assad gone.” (p. 450)

Frenemies [2] of the United States

She does not explain here why these states desire this end nor why their desires mean so much to the United States. That is not saying a lot. The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular have no moral credibility as political states at all. Saudi Arabia particularly, has been continuously documented for institutionalised murder, cruelty, injustice, slavery and abuse of women. It is a huge and rigid monarchy, utterly repressive, of women, prisoners and religious differences and presiding over slavery and abject poverty, despite the multi-nodal royal family’s extraordinary oil-wealth. Regarding Qatar, although women can now vote there, they are segregated from most public activity and wear hijabs and similar clothing. It is known as a ‘slave state’ for the way it treats the massive immigrant population who outnumber its own citizens, and is currently the target of a coordinated protest at the treatment of imported workers on the next World Cup.

As well as failing to justify the US alliance with these gulf states, Clinton admits that she knew that those Gulf state NATO allies were channelling arms into the extremist ‘rebels’:

”It wasn’t a secret that various Arab states and individuals were sending arms into Syria.” (p.461)

These war-mongering countries are members of the Arab League. Clinton writes as though she used the Arab League as her negotiating point of departure. The Arab League has very little credibility. It is infamous for its Western stooges. It contains a London-based representative of the so-called Free Syrian Army, but no representative of the Syrian Government.

So it’s no surprise when Clinton says that, “[…] in October 2011, the Arab League demanded a cease-fire in Syria and called on the Assad regime to pull its troops back from the major cities, release political prisoners, protect access for journalists and humanitarian workers, and begin a dialogue with the protestors. “ […] ”Assad nominally agreed to the Arab League plan, but then almost immediately disregarded it.” In December, they ”tried again.”

This time they sent Arab monitors to war-torn Syrian cities. Not surprising either that this did not go down well; it inflamed the situation.

”In late January 2012, the Arab League pulled the observers out in frustration and asked the UN Security Council to back its call for a political transition in Syria that would require Assad to hand over power to a Vice President and establish a government of national unity.” (p. 450.

This bizarre proposal came from Syria’s traditional enemies, backed by the United States which had no business in the area at all! Of course the Syrian government did not comply.

The only sense I can see in such a doomed demand is that it might be massaged by a complicit or ignorant mass media into an excuse to step up international hostilities against Syria. That is in fact what seems to have transpired, with the White House promoting the script.

Ignoring the secular nature of Syrian civil society and government, Clinton uses the sectarian argument familiar to us with the US invasion of Iraq, which was also secular, that the Assad ruling clique is composed of Alawites over a Sunni majority. Although, in passing, she notes that the French engineered this after World War II, but does not say why the US should try to reverse this now and does not say how Syria managed for so long before colonisation and before the United States ever existed. She does not acknowledge the sophisticated tribal nature of Syrian society and, with her very narrow socio-economic philosophical base, would be most unlikely to recognise the value of this. [3] She evidently subscribes to the myth that anything at all is justified in her goal of transforming all polities into capitalist free markets, which the US/NATO call ‘democracies’ – erroneously, in my opinion. [4]

Clinton, Russia and Syria

After reading Clinton’s chapter on Syria, I switched back to an earlier chapter on “Russia: Reset and regression,” seeking a heads up re her view of Russia and found it in this infantilising statement:

“To manage our relationship with the Russians, we should work with them on specific issues when possible, and rally other nations to work with us to prevent or limit their negative behaviour.” (p.228)

Throughout the Syria chapter Clinton describes Russia’s attitude, mostly quoting the Russian foreign minister, Lavrov. Although one senses that Clinton is trying to make herself look good, for me, she only succeeds in making herself look ridiculous, with Lavrov coming off looking like a genius talking to a moron. Look at the following quote, direct from Clinton’s pages:

”The Russians were implacably opposed to anything that might constitute pressure on Assad. The year before, they had abstained in the vote to authorize a no-fly zone over Libya and to take ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians and then chafed as the NATO-led mission to protect civilians accelerated the fall of Qadafi. Now, with Syria in chaos, they were determined to prevent another Western intervention.”

She writes,

”Assad’s regime was too strategically important to them.”

Like, it wasn’t important for the United States too?

And,

"Libya was ‘a false analogy’, I argued in New York. The resolution did not impose sanctions or support the use of military force, focusing instead on the need for a peaceful political transition. Still the Russians weren’t having any of it.”

“I spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov […] I told him we needed a unified message from the international community. Moscow wanted the resolution to be tougher on the rebels than on the regime. Lavrov pressed me on what would happen when Assad refused to comply. Would the next step be a Libya-style intervention?

No, I responded. The plan was to use this resolution to pressure Assad to negotiate. ‘He’ll only get the message when the Security Council speaks with one voice. We have gone very far in clarifying this isn’t a Libya scenario. There is not any kind of authorization for force or intervention or military action.’

[…] ‘But what is the endgame?’ Lavrov asked.”

Clinton’s dialogue with Lavrov and with the reader reminds me of the dialogue of an addict who swears that this time, when they pick up the drug, it will be different. They say, “Why can’t you trust me? The other times were an unfortunate mistake, but this time I’m not drinking to get drunk or shooting up to get stoned, I’m just doing it for medicinal reasons. Why can’t you understand? Why are you so mean and unreasonable, you bastard!” Clinton sounds immature (co-dependent in psych-speak), arguing on behalf of the Gulf Arabs, manipulated by the people who want to get rid of Assad.

Sovereignty

She reveals that Russia argued to uphold Syria’s sovereignty. That sounds laudable to me after watching Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq implode. Russia’s support of Syrian sovereignty appeals to me especially in the light of activists’ ongoing fight for citizens’ rights to effective self-government in my own country, Australia. Hillary seems oblivious to this human right to self-government. Her counter to Russia’s raising the most important question of Syria’s sovereignty was not to tell the reader her answer to that burning question, but to make an ad hominem attack on Russia, implying that Russia was insincere.

Her first reason was that Russia had sent troops to Georgia. There were good strategic reasons for this, in my opinion. See ”What's in it for Russia? Georgia, Ossetia, & Caspian oil and gas?”. Her second claim, that Russia had ‘sent troops into the Ukraine’ is untrue. They were already there by agreement, in the same way that the US has bases all over the world. There had long been a Russian military base in Crimea. Crimea also had a separate administration from Ukraine. On this matter, Putin has said,

” in my conversations with my foreign colleagues I did not hide the fact that our goal was to ensure proper conditions for the people of Crimea to be able to freely express their will. And so we had to take the necessary measures in order to prevent the situation in Crimea unfolding the way it is now unfolding in southeastern Ukraine. We didn’t want any tanks, any nationalist combat units or people with extreme views armed with automatic weapons. Of course, the Russian servicemen did back the Crimean self-defence forces. They acted in a civil but a decisive and professional manner, as I’ve already said."

Putin continues:

"It was impossible to hold an open, honest, and dignified referendum and help people express their opinion in any other way. Still, bear in mind that there were more than 20,000 well-armed soldiers stationed in Crimea.
In addition, there were 38 S-300 missile launchers, weapons depots and rounds of ammunition. It was imperative to prevent even the possibility of someone using these weapons against civilians. [I.e. there was a safety issue.](Source: http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/7034)

Clinton had been beating the war drum on Syria for much of her appointment, but had to step down in early 2013, “with the plan to arm the rebels dead in the water […],” she writes, in a gruesome Freudian slip.

Then, in December 2013, there were claims that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons on its citizens. In fact this has never been proven. Russia described the story as a false-flag attack and it is undeniable that the Western media and NATO messages have been suspiciously lax in admitting their failure to effectively document blame. It all sounds like a tragic beat-up similar to the alleged Iraq weapons of mass destruction and the 1990 hoax about Kuwait babies in the incubators which was part of a campaign to launch the Gulf War.

“In June 2013, in a low-key statement, the White House confirmed that it finally felt confident that chemical weapons had indeed been used on a small scale on multiple occasions, killing up to 150 people. The President decided to increase aid to the Free Syrian Army. […]administration officials told the press that they would begin supplying arms and ammunition for the first time, reversing the President’s decision [of] the previous summer.” (p. 465)

So Clinton reveals here that the US began officially supplying weapons against the Syrian government, making war.

Reports of a much bigger chemical weapons event followed in August 2013. Indignant war-making rhetoric increased, despite the ongoing difficulty of proof in assigning guilt. The British parliament failed to give Prime Minister David Cameron permission to use force on Syria. [I.e. invade.] Obama then decided to ask permission of Congress before making any war decisions.

Clinton describes experiencing consternation at these ‘delays’, worrying about US prestige and credibility if they did not go to war, whereas I would have worried about these things if they did go to war on such flimsy pretexts. One senses Hillary, like some circus performer banned from the tent, desperately seeking a way back in to the White House in order to push her views. Finally, she thinks she has found one:

“During this time, I spoke with Secretary Kerry and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about ways to strengthen the President’s hand abroad, especially in advance of this trip later that week to the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, where he’d see Vladimir Putin. Not wanting Putin to be able to hold the contentious Congressional debate over the President, I suggested to Denis that the White House find some way to show bipartisan support ahead of the vote. Knowing that Senator Bob Corker, the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was no fan of Putin’s, my advice to Denis was that he be enlisted to help send a message. The idea was to use a routine committee hearing that week to hold a vote on the authorization to use military force that the President would win. Denis, always open to ideas and very familiar with the ways of Congress from his time serving on Capitol Hill, agreed. Working with Corker, the White House got the vote. While not the world’s most significant statement, it was enough to telegraph to Putin that we were not as divided as he hoped. ”

Clinton seems here to see Putin as the real opposition and Syria as an abject pawn in prestige politics, without even a reference to geopolitics or humanitarian pretexts.

She relates that, on September 9, 2013 the new State Secretary, John Kerry, was asked at a London press conference ‘if there was anything Assad could do to prevent military action’.

”’Sure’, Kerry replied, ‘he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week – turn it over, all of it without delay and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done.’”

Clinton goes on to comment:

”Although Kerry’s answer may have reflected conversations he was having with allies and the Russians, it sounded to the world like an offhand remark. A State Department spokesperson downplayed it as ‘a rhetorical argument’. The Russians, however, seized on Kerry’s comment and embraced it as a serious diplomatic offer.”

She gives no credit to Lavrov’s brilliant strategy to rid Syria of chemical weapons. She is clearly disappointed at its other effect which was to remove the excuse that the United States was in danger of using to openly enter war against Syria.

Lemonade out of lemons (!) What an analogy for calling off a war!

Whilst attending another event at the White House that day, she was invited to a briefing in the Oval office:

”I told the President that if the votes for action against Syria were not winnable in Congress, he should make lemonade out of lemons and welcome the unexpected overture from Moscow.” [Another Freudian slip about her bizarre lust for war.]

She concludes:

” Just a month later, the UN agency charged with implementing the deal, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was quite a vote of confidence. Remarkably, as of this writing, the agreement has held, and the UN is making slow but steady progress dismantling Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal, despite extraordinarily difficult circumstances. There have been delays, but more than 90 percent of Syria’s chemical weapons had been removed by late April 2014.”

Again, no acknowledgement of Lavrov’s contribution to peace.

Towards the end of the chapter she notes that in January 2014,

“For the first time, representatives of the Assad regime [in fact it was a legitimate government; ‘regime’ is a propaganda word] sat down face-to-face with members of the opposition. But talks failed to produce any progress. The regime refused to engage seriously on the question of a transitional governing body, as mandated by the original agreement, and their Russian allies stood faithfully behind them. Meanwhile the fighting on the ground continued unabated.”

To me this insistence on the idea that a legitimate government will step down and allow foreign powers to replace it with a synthetic government of their choice is simply incorrigible on the part of Hillary Clinton and those who think like her. It is this lack of respect for sovereignty and self-government and the willingness to engage in international shoot-outs in a high-handed approach to the rest of the world that makes the United States a terrorist in its own right and Bashar al-Assad a hero for standing up to them.

This view of Assad as a hero is greatly supported by the extraordinary fervour and happy enthusiasm with which over 73% of Syrians[5] went to vote in the scheduled Syrian elections in May 2014, voting Bashar in by 88.7%. These elections were scheduled within the constitution and it would have been highly problematic if they had not gone ahead, but the government received no recognition for this from the US/NATO and aligned press. This was the first election where there was actually a choice of candidates, which was another part of the Assad Government’s undertaking to the people. Although some rebel-held regions were not able to vote because the anti-government forces prevented them from participating, the turn-out was still remarkable. [Contrast with the 42% turn-out in Libya which has been reduced to a ghastly shambles by US/NATO.][5] Shamefully, expatriates were also prevented from voting in several NATO countries, including the United Arab Emirates, France, and countries where Syrian embassies and consulates had been closed down, such as Turkey, Australia and the United States. But SBS Australia reports that “Ninety-five per cent of Syrians living overseas have voted in the presidential election at 43 embassies worldwide.” Where expatriates could vote, they voted in legion, carrying flags and posters indicating their support for Assad. Many of them filmed and photographed the event to show the world how they felt. Scenes of expatriates voting in Lebanon show them thronging the streets. Apparently Lebanese authorities had greatly underestimated the turnout and ran out of printed ballots. Foreign observers of the election reported this as their impression on the ground, in an hour-long testimony and report at a UN news-conference. The possibility of individuals voting more than once was also discussed and shown to be unlikely. Other forms of fraud were reckoned no more than in most elections and insignificant within the massive return for Bashar. Unfortunately this UN report received almost no coverage because Michele DuBach, Acting Deputy Director-News & Media Operations, cut off the webcast after 5 minutes. You can see it here.

Such problems with coverage of a world event with implications for many lives show what Syria is up against in terms of the NATO propaganda machine. The fact that there has been almost no positive reporting of these remarkable elections from the NATO machine and the Western Press shows how hollow their support really is for self-government and self-determination. In fact, political self-determination is antithetical to the free market.

Finally I am left wondering whether Hillary Clinton really does not understand the energy resources at stake in the Caspian and Middle Eastern region, which are the principal attraction for the US and NATO. And, with regard to the ‘democracy’ and ‘development’ issues her side claims to promote, can she actually be ignorant of the historical role of the West in colonising this region and of the subsequent fight for independence by the countries which the US-NATO forces have been ripping apart? Can she really not understand that Russia and the former Soviet Union countries all have a role to play in the region and hold different but entirely valid values and institutions from those of the West? I could not perceive in her chapter on Syria awareness or sympathy or human awe at the ancientness of Syria, nor any appreciation its continued unity and function in the face of NATO-backed jihad monsters, a testimony to the strength of its tribal basis and secular overlay. Although she admits at the beginning of her chapter that the Syrian government had substantial national support, she subsequently fails to inform readers of the fact that the Assad Government has succeeded in protecting the majority of its population. Nor does it tell us that the Syrian population had successfully coped for decades with huge numbers of refugees from the surrounding regions, as a result of US/NATO ‘interventions’. This includes 1.3 million refuges from Iraq. Why would so many refugees remain in Syria and marry citizens if it were such a terrible place? Bashar al Assad is not his father, and, anyway, there was a history to his father’s iron will that should be told. As for the streams of refugees leaving the country, did it not occur to Mrs Clinton that many of those people would have been refugees once safely harboured in Syria? Nor does she tell her readers about the free education and hospital systems and the national banking system. The United States’ open-market agenda disapproves of this kind of political institution and when it talks of bringing democracy to Syria, we must understand that it means to break down those institutions, just as it did to similar ones in Iraq and Libya.

I hastened to finish this article today, 27 June 2014, after hearing that "President Obama is seeking approval from Congress to approve $500m to train and equip what he described as "moderate" Syrian opposition forces. The funds would help Syrians defend against forces aligned with President Bashar al-Assad, the White House said."[6]

I can only think with despair at the betrayal by the United States of all those Syrians who ran, walked and drove with such enthusiasm and dedication to their democratic cause and to stop the war and who asked to be left to solve their problems alone. America has become a parody of all it claims to represent and would chase its own shadow to hell, mistaking it for some foreign enemy.

NOTES

[1] “Frenemies” is a term used by Max Keiser in the Keiser Report where he referred to the situation in the Middle East where NATO and its allies were aligned through the sense that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, although few of them really respect each other. They are ‘frenemies’. Unfortunately I cannot seem to locate the correct episode for this quote. However, the argument is clear.

[2] Prince Saud has been the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia since 1975.

[3] Europe is also a tribal society, also targeted for disorganisation by US/NATO via the market system, like Syria, like Australia.

[4] Sometimes I find that people assume, from such statements, that I am actually ignorant of the institutionalised cruelty I have described already in this article that flourishes in a number of Muslim states. So it seems necessary to explain here that (a) Syria is a secular state containing a number of religious groups, not just Muslim, and Sharia Law is largely subsumed to French style law, although it is preserved for certain religious minorities as customary law. “The judicial system of Syria remained a synthesis of Ottoman, French, and Islamic laws up until the 1980s. The civil, commercial and criminal codes were primarily based on the French legal practices. Promulgated in 1949, those laws had special provisions sanctioned to limit application of customary law among beduin and religious minorities. The Islamic religious courts continued to function in some parts of the country, but their jurisdiction was limited to issues of personal status, such as marriage, divorce, paternity, custody of children, and inheritance. Nonetheless, in 1955 a personal code pertaining to many aspects of personal status was developed. This law modified and modernized sharia by improving the status of women and clarifying the laws of inheritance.” Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Syria#cite_note-Lib-1 (citing a 1987 Library of Congress article, which seems to be the most up-to-date info on the net at the moment.) (b) There are anthropological reasons for the evolution of gender differences in human societies that have a lot to do with land-tenure and inheritance, which have extreme and inappropriate outcomes in some Middle Eastern tribal societies that have become urbanised. This is very little analysed, unfortunately. (c) I do not condone the abuse of human rights in such societies but I do not think that bombing them or enlisting them to terrorise each other so that some western countries can get unilateral access to their oil reserves is a way of changing this. In fact, reducing such countries to rubble and disorder tends to make this situation worse. (d) I acknowledge that colonialism, old and new in these areas makes them enemies of the West, but I frankly think that the real enemy is free market-law, which will ultimately designate almost everyone who claims civil rights to be a terrorist.

[5] Compare with the turn-out in Ukraine, which for Eastern Ukraine’s (Donesk and Luhansk) was less than 10 percent, and where in most of the other regions, it did not exceed 45 percent of registered voters, with only one oblast in Western Ukraine in excess of 45%. Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-presidential-elections-low-turn-out-poroshenko-declares-victory/5383777

Compare with the turn-out in Libya on 25 June where just 42% of the 1.5mn registered voters turned out, according to the commission’s preliminary estimates. Source : http://www.gulf-times.com/region/216/details/398036/count-under-way-in-libya-vote-clouded-by-deadly-attacks.

Compare with the turn out in the United States: “Voter turnout dipped from 62.3 percent of eligible citizens voting in 2008 to an estimated 57.5 in 2012. That figure was also below the 60.4 level of the 2004 election but higher than the 54.2 percent turnout in the 2000 election.” Source: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/news/press-releases/2012/11/2012-election-turnout-dips-below-2008-and-2004-levels-number-eligible.

[6] http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2014/06/27/obama-seeks-500m-for-syria-rebels

Russia's President Vladimir Putin is trying to save the world from war. We should all help him. Today Putin's presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov reported that President Putin has asked the Russian legislature to repeal the authorization to use force that was granted in order to protect residents of former Russian territories that are currently part of Ukraine from the rabid Russophobic violence that characterizes Washington's stooge government in Kiev.

Washington's neoconservatives are jubilant. They regard Putin's diplomacy as a sign of weakness and fear, and urge stronger steps that will force Russia to give back Crimea and the Black Sea naval base.

Inside Russia, Washington is encouraging its NGO fifth columns to undercut Putin's support with propaganda that Putin is afraid to stand up for Russians and has sold out Ukraine's Russian population. If this propaganda gains traction, Putin will be distracted by street protests. The appearance of Putin's domestic weakness would embolden Washington. Many members of Russia's young professional class are swayed by Washington's propaganda. Essentially, these Russians, brainwashed by US propaganda, are aligned with Washington, not with the Kremlin.

Putin has placed his future and that of his country on a bet that Russian diplomacy can prevail over Washington's bribes, threats, blackmail, and coercion. Putin is appealing to Western Europeans. Putin is saying, "I am not the problem. Russia is not the problem. We are reasonable. We are ignoring Washington's provocations. We want to work things out and to find a peaceful solution."

Washington is saying: "Russia is a threat. Putin is the new Hitler. Russia is the enemy. NATO and the US must begin a military buildup against the Russian Threat, rush troops and jet fighters to Eastern European NATO bases on Russia's frontier. G-8 meetings must be held without Russia. Economic sanctions must be put on Russia regardless of the damage the sanctions do to Europe." And so forth.

Putin says: "I'm here for you. Let's work this out."

Washington says: "Russia is the enemy."

Putin knows that the UK is a complete vassal puppet state, that Cameron is just as bought-and-paid-for as Blair before him. Putin's hope for diplomacy over force rests on Germany and France. Both countries face Europe's budget and employment woes, and both countries have significant economic relations with Russia. German business interests are a counterweight to the weak Merkel government's subservience to Washington. Washington has stupidly angered the French by trying to steal $10 billion from France's largest bank. This theft, if successful, will destroy France's largest bank and deliver France to Wall Street.

If desire for national sovereignty still exists in the German or French governments, one or both could give the middle finger to Washington and publicly declare that they are unwilling for their country to be drawn into conflict with Russia for the sake of Washington's Empire and the financial hegemony of American banks.

Putin is betting on this outcome. If his bet is a bad one and Europe fails not only Russia but itself and the rest of the world by accommodating Washington's drive for world hegemony, Russia and China will have to submit to Washington's hegemony or be prepared for war.

As neither side can afford to lose the war, the war would be nuclear. As scientists have made clear, life on earth would cease, regardless of whether Washington's ABM shield works.

This is why I oppose Washington's policies and speak out against the arrogance and hubris that define Washington today. The most likely outcome of Washington's pursuit of world hegemony is the extinction of life on earth.

Intel is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Because of suspicions that Intel chips facilitate US spy-ware, like many other countries, Russia is seeking a way around this.

22 June, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Russia's ITAR-TASS News Agency reported in an article titled, "Russia wants to replace US computer chips with local processors" that: Russia's Industry and Trade Ministry plans to replace US microchips Intel and AMD, used in government's computers, with domestically-produced micro processor Baikal in a project worth dozens of millions of dollars, business daily Kommersant reported Thursday.

Breaking the back of multinational monopolies is a matter of national security. 

Image: The NSA is not an indep­endent agency nor does it merely answer to those in Wash­ington. It is a manifest­ation of an over­reaching corporat­ocracy that will stop at nothing to expand its various monopolies. The key to defeating the NSA is not attacking it directly but by under­mining and replacing the corporate interests that created it and direct it in the first place.

It also stated:

The Baikal chips will be installed on computers of government bodies and in state-run firms, which purchase some 700,000 personal computers annually worth $500 million and 300,000 servers worth $800 million. The total volume of the market amounts to about 5 million devices worth $3.5 billion.

In addition to the obvious financial benefits for Russia of locally manufacturing processors, there are several other dimensions within which the move will be beneficial, including in terms of national security.

Long has it been reported that US-manufactured processors may have vulnerabilities engineered into them, at the request of US intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency (NSA). Australia's Financial Review revealed in 2013 in an article titled, "Intel chips could let US spies inside: expert, that:

One of Silicon Valley's most respected technology experts, Steve Blank, says he would be "surprised" if the US National Security Agency was not embedding "back doors" inside chips produced by Intel and AMD, two of the world's largest semiconductor firms, giving them the possibility to access and control machines.

The claims come after The Australian Financial Review revealed that computers made by Chinese firm Lenovo are banned from the "secret" and "top secret" networks of the intelligence and defence services of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand because of concerns they are vulnerable to being hacked.

Internationally renowned security research engineer Jonathan Brossard, who unveiled what Forbes described as an "undetectable and incurable" permanent back door at last year's prestigious Black Hat conference, told the Financial Review that he had independently concluded that CPU back doors are "attractive attack vectors".

If correct, the allegations would raise the stakes in a growing cyber cold war, and fuel claims that US snooping leaves the Chinese in the shade.

The move by Russia would help protect government assets from foreign spying and cyber attacks enabled by the potential vulnerabilities described in the Financial Review. And because of the large scale of production that will be needed to supply the Russian government's annual demand, the possibility of Russian-made processors being used outside of state agencies and firms could help secure Russia's wider national IT infrastructure as well.

Dependence on foreign technology has created a potential threat to Russia's IT infrastructure. Technological self-sufficiency, then, can clearly be seen as a priority for national security. Developing independent technology requires an emphasis on education, research, and development, but the price of neglecting these areas renders a nation at the mercy of those that haven't.

Image: Just as manu­facturing your own processors affords you added security for IT infra­structure, locally produced, organic agri­culture affords you food security.

The West's geopolitical primacy has been enabled by the various corporate-financier monopolies that exist upon Wall Street and in the City of London. Breaking the back of these monopolies requires nations to develop alternatives that undermine and ultimately displace these monopolies from within their borders. Russia's decision to produce processors domestically is one example of this. Nation's focusing on domestic food security by encouraging local, organic farming undermines and displaces the West's big-agri monopolies and in particular their attempts to monopolize the very code of life itself through the proliferation of patented GMOs.

And while governments should be focused on national-level solutions to undermine and displace foreign monopolies threatening national security, on the local level there are steps regular people can take to protect their communities and themselves - including boycotting and replacing Fortune 500 monopolies with local solutions, and the creation of local institutions and organizations that are composed and serve the interests of the people that created them.

Follow us on Twitter via @Landdestroyer and @LocalOrgInfo or on Facebook.

What else you can do

• Link to this article or earlier publications of this article from your Twitter page, Facebook or your own blog.
• Discuss and link to this article this article on forum discussions.

• Link to this or the original pages in forum discussions. An example of HTML to link back to this page is:

  <a href=/"http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3893">Russia to Swap Intel-AMD Processors For Local Technology</a>

  An example of HTML to link to the page on the Land Destroyer Report is :

  <a href=/"http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/russia-to-swap-intel-amd-processors-for.html/">Russia to Swap Intel-AMD Processors For Local Technology</a>

• Republish this article on your web site. The html code source code for this article is attached as a file, which you can download. It is suitable for web-sites built with free open-source content-management software such as Drupal.

Valery Bolotov, Lugansk self-defence forces' commander, rejecting Kiev junta's ultimatum

Pro-Moscow forces have rejected a 'truce' plan proposed by Western puppet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as the war against eastern parts of Ukraine by Nazis and their mercenary and NATO allies continues. The leader of the self-declared Lugansk People's Republic, Valery Bolotov, said on Friday that pro-Russia forces will not lay down their arms until a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the area.

On Friday, Poroshenko announced a one-week cease-fire plan aimed at curbing the militancy in the restive east. The plan reportedly includes an amnesty for anti-government protesters who lay down arms, and tighter controls over Ukraine's border with Russia. Poroshenko also urged that pro-Russians should use the opportunity to disarm and leave the Ukrainian territory.

On the same day, the Kremlin issued a statement, saying the move was "not an invitation to peace and negotiations but an ultimatum".

Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking parts in the east have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in the southeastern regions in mid-April in a bid to root out the demonstrations there.

The government in Kiev says it is targeting armed protesters, but reports say many civilians have been caught in the shelling. According to the United Nations, at least 356 people, including 257 civilians, have been killed in the clashes since May 7.

HRM/MHB/MAM

Snapshots of the PressTV Broadcast

I was not able to embed the short PressTV broadcast, so, instead, I have included snapshots of the Broadcast, below. If you wish to view the 40 second broadcast, please visit the PressTV page. - Ed

PressTV presenter

Valery Bolotov rejects ultimatum from Kiev Junta

Western puppet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko

The Kiev Junta

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov

#PressTVComment" id="PressTVComment">Editorial comment

Whilst this report is helpful, informative, and an indispensible alternative to the lying mainstream presstitute media, I find the presenter's style in describing the fight for survival by East Ukrainians against the Kiev Nazis and their mercenary allies to be unnecessarily restrained. - Ed

Transcript from http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/165688-media-propaganda-john-pilger/

The Ukraine government has stepped up its assault in the eastern part of the country. Tensions are running high between the NATO bloc and Russia, as both sides carry out military exercises. Journalists are being arrested and deported from the battlefields in Ukraine. The media war goes full speed. What will the conflict bring in the future? Will the civil war in Ukraine spill over the borders? Today we ask these questions to a veteran journalist and war correspondent. John Pilger is on Sophie&Co.

Follow @SophieCo_RT

Sophie Shevardnadze:John Pilger, veteran journalist, war correspondent, author, director – welcome, its really great to have you on our show today. Now, we’re just going to go ahead and start with Ukraine. Not a week goes by without journalists detained and assaulted in Ukraine – so why aren’t we hearing any condemnation of these incidents from the West?

John Pilger: I think in your part of the world you must be used to a pretty one-sided view coming from here. Over here in the West we don’t believe we’re biased at all – in fact, we believe we’re the essence of objectivity and impartiality, but of course when it comes to great power politics, that simply is not true. Ukraine has been presented here generally as an act of Russian manipulation and aggression. There has been some better reporting than that, but that generally is the view.

{Vladimir Putin] has claimed U.S. "mercenaries" were operating alongside Ukrainian forces, while infiltrating Russian special forces to seize Crimea and organize violence in Ukraine's east.

comment: Again, no citation is given. After neo-Nazis and their extreme right-wing neo-liberal allies seized power in a CIA-orchestrated putsch in Kiev, Crimeans, not wishing to live under the rule of the new Ukrainian Reich, organised to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia to which Crimea legally belonged until 1956. In 1956 it was given to Ukraine by Nikita Khruschev, the then leader of the Soviet Union. For more information, read: Latest Report: Crimea Referendum: 95 percent Vote for Union with Russia (16 March 2014), Crimea Rejects the US-NATO Sponsored Neoliberal Neo-Nazi Ukrainian Regime (16 March), Ukraine and Crimea, An Illegal Putsch and a Democratic Referendum. (5 April).

Later on Tom Malinovsksy concedes that the new Ukrainian neo-Nazi "authorities aren't perfect.". The full text of Tom Malinowski's article is reproduced further below.

Behind Putin's Cynicism and Hypocrisy

The Kremlin's ruler wants to extend to neighboring countries the tyranny he imposes on his own people.

You can usually figure what Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing and why by noting the actions and values he falsely projects onto others.

Over the past several weeks, for example, he has accused the Ukrainian government of stripping autonomy from Ukraine's eastern regions, while moving to end local elections in Russia.

He has claimed U.S. "mercenaries" were operating alongside Ukrainian forces, while infiltrating Russian special forces to seize Crimea and organize violence in Ukraine's east.

He has called the Internet a CIA creation, while trying to bring Russian social media under the control of a secret police-dominated state.

So when Mr. Putin justified intervention in Ukraine by accusing its government of human rights abuses, it was a bad sign for the Ukrainians who would soon be subject to his rule.

The new authorities in Kiev aren't perfect. But international organizations have found no evidence that they are or were suppressing the rights of the ethnic-Russian minority in Crimea or Ukraine's east. Pro-Kremlin separatists, on the other hand, have been attacking their unarmed opponents with growing abandon. Every offense Russia falsely attributed to Ukraine's Maidan is in fact being committed by its own forces and proxies.

The pattern began in Crimea. Shortly after Russia's intervention, local authorities announced that ethnic Tatars &emdash; who had returned over the years to Crimea after their mass deportation by Joseph Stalin &emdash; would have to vacate their land. Before the deportation's 70th anniversary this week, police conducted mass searches of Tatar homes.

On over a dozen occasions in the days that followed, armed men attacked or detained local and international journalists. Pro-Russian forces kidnapped and tortured Ukrainian civic activists. At least two were killed in detention, their bodies dumped in forests; more are still missing. International organizations report that around 5,000 people &emdash; including minority Christians, Jews and at least 3,000 Tatars &emdash; have fled Crimea and sought refuge elsewhere in Ukraine.

In Ukraine's east, polls show that the great majority of people &emdash; whether they supported the Maidan revolution or not &emdash; don't want to join Russia. But when the citizens of Donetsk, Slovyansk and Kharkiv have come out to oppose Moscow's intervention, pro-Russian militias have repeatedly assaulted them; more than 100 peaceful demonstrators in the east have been hospitalized after such attacks.

Abductions, torture and killings have also intensified in the east. Three bodies of supporters of the Kiev government recently washed up on a riverbank in Slovyansk, bearing signs of torture. Acting on orders from the self-appointed "mayor" of Slovyansk, pro-Russian militias have begun to drive local Roma families from their homes.

In these and other ways, Mr. Putin is extending into eastern Ukraine the repression he has imposed inside Russia in recent years, in direct opposition to what eastern Ukrainians would enjoy as part of a united Ukraine: local autonomy, freedom of expression and internationally monitored free and fair elections. This isn't just the effect of Mr. Putin's intervention; it is arguably the intent. The example of Ukraine's Maidan &emdash; of ordinary people overthrowing a corrupt, authoritarian ruler so that they could draw closer to European democracies &emdash; was a threat to the ruler of the Kremlin. For this, in Mr. Putin's mind, Ukraine had to be punished and humiliated, if not carved into pieces.

Russia's actions are a threat to a postwar international order designed to banish the old pattern of large powers swallowing small ones. But the crisis in Ukraine is also a contest of values. This isn't a contest between the West and Russia, but between people everywhere &emdash; including in Moscow &emdash; who believe that states exist to serve their citizens, and regimes that think it should be the other way around.

The sanctions that Washington and Brussels have imposed to stop Russian aggression have costs. All sanctions do, and because the potential costs are higher for Europe, paying this price isn't a mere gesture. But it is striking that in Europe, those most vulnerable to Russia's countermeasures &emdash; from Estonia to Poland to the Czech Republic &emdash; have nonetheless been among the most vocal in pressing us to act.

The effect is even more pronounced among Russian dissidents I have recently met &emdash; men and women who are labeled "traitors," "foreign agents" and "extremists" for questioning the Kremlin, but who still urge us to resist what their government is doing. The closer one is to the heart of the problem, the more one sees what's at stake.

Those of us who live further away should see things as clearly. We were right to seek practical cooperation with Russia and to encourage its integration as a respected power into global institutions. I hope that the time will come when this is possible again. But in the current crisis, we are right not to make the mistake of projecting our hopes onto the ruler of Russia in the way he projects his cynicism onto us.

Vladimir Putin did nothing wrong by reuniting Crimea with Russia, said Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a European Parliament MP and leader of the Polish political party called the Congress of the New Right. During a panel discussion on local TV he asked others not to talk ill of Putin because "he did nothing to deserve such treatment." "If, for example, 95 percent of Lvov's citizens were Poles who voted on a referendum to join Poland, no Polish leader would’ve been able to refuse them," he pointed out.

Meanwhile, referring to the tragic events which took place in February at the Independence square in Kiev, he said that "the terrorists who killed 20 police officers and 60 protesters were trained in Poland."

Late May the Eurosceptic Korwin-Mikke's political party achieved success for the first time in its history by clearing the 5 percent voting threshold during the Euro parliament elections. The New Right representatives received support of 7,15 percent of Polish voters. Mr. Korwin-Mikke declared that his main goal is to destroy the European institutions from within.

© Photo: RIA Novosti/Alexander Maksimenko

Speaking about the Russian-Ukrainian relations regarding the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Mr. Korwin-Mikke said that Petr Poroshenko should begin negotiating with Russia. After the inauguration on June 7 Poroshenko should draw a border – whether it will encompass Donetsk or not is irrelevant as long as it is a clearly defined border – and say: "This is my country!" And afterwards he should join Moscow at the bargaining table, Mr. Korwin-Mikke said.

Appendix 1: Msm reporting about Crimea

Don't Forget Crimea (NYT, 8/6/2014 - behind paywall), Crimea is ours for ever, says Ukraine’s new president (The Times, 8/6/2014), Ukraine president vows not to give up Crimea (Guardian, 7/6/2014), Ukraine's New President Pledges to Retake Crimea (Vice News, 8/6/2014), The Invasion of Crimea Is Hurting Russia's Other Exclave (Forbes, 6/6/2014)

Ukraine President Poroshenko’s Inauguration Speech: No Compromise with Donesk and Lugansk (Global Research, 8/6/2014)

Appendix 2: Some non-msm reporting about Crimea

Crimea rules out rejoining Ukraine's territory, Crimea Leaders Rule Out Ever Rejoining Ukraine (FarsNews, 8/6/2014)

Vitaly Churkin

Unlike the case with President Barack Obama and his paid liars including State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki (embedded press conference also included), Russia's political leaders, including President Vladimir Putin and Vitaly I. Churkin, the English-speaking Russian diplomat, who is, for the month of June 2014, serving as President of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, have no difficulty answering critical questions even from hostile journalists. Vladimir Putin easily handled such questions in his media conference of 4 March and in the embedded video, Russian diplomat Vitaly Churkin, similarly dealt with questions about Ukraine.

SNOWDEN Vs GOVT: State Department's Jen Psaki Left Speechless When Grilled

"What's needed is a kind of "pit bull terrier" state, which would be prepared to start at least a local conflict, to show the weakened Russia how events could develop." (Andrei Fursov, speaking of Ukraine's purpose for the US.) The following article is a very readable lecture transcript by Andrei Fursov (Director of Russian Studies, Moscow University. Member of the International Academy of Sciences) dated 2014/04/14. Transcribed from the spoken Russian and compiled from translated English dubbed text. All headings added by Wikispooks to aid with readability and citation.

"What's needed is a kind of "pit bull terrier" state, which would be prepared to start at least a local conflict, to show the weakened Russia how events could develop." (Andrei Fursov, speaking of Ukraine's purpose for the US.)

All-in-all a must-read for westerners needing to understand what is really happening in both the Ukraine and the wider Anglo-US-NATO globalisation drive which it brings into sharp focus.

Original source of document is https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Battleground_Ukraine

Oligarchical topography of Ukraine
A lecture by Andrei Fursov with translated English text

Contents

1. #intro">Introduction
2. #NationalTraitors">National traitors
3. #UkrOligarchs">The Ukrainian oligarchs
4. #RockefellersEtc">Rockefellers, Rothschilds and Intelligence agencies
5. #IsraeliInterests">Israeli interests in Ukraine
6. #GlobalContext">The wider global context
7. #yellowstone">The "Yellowstone Threat"
8. #OriginOf">The origin of the current situation
9. #GoalsME">The goals of the interested parties in the Middle East
10. #FourthReichIntel">The intelligence service of the Fourth Reich at work
11. #WhyNow">Why did this happen now?
12. #WhatWestWanted">What the West wanted
13. #MuzychkosDeath">The death of Oleksandr Muzychko
14. #Kasparov">The infantile Garry Kasparov
15. #GoodbyeAmerica">Goodbye, America!
16. #ChangeRussia">The required Russian domestic changes

#intro" id="intro">Introduction

Firstly, let me say that sometimes it's pleasant to be wrong. Well, I got it wrong. At the beginning of February my colleague, Elena Ponomarëva, and I discussed the question, could we take Crimea? I was a pessimist and said, 10% chance that we'll take Crimea. We won't get it because the West will react aggressively, and our authorities lack the courage. She said, on the contrary 90% chance that we take Crimea, and 10% chance that it doesn't happen. She was right. I was wrong.

Without doubt, the re-unification with Crimea is a very important landmark. In a recent TV interview I said that this is genuinely the end of the disgraceful era which began in Malta on the 2-3rd Dec 1989, when Gorbachev surrendered absolutely everything to Bush, even what wasn't asked for.

After that everything possible was given up. Rays of hope began to appear later, during the Putin administration. There was the war of 08.08.08. But later we failed to support Libya. Although we did put the foot down at Syria. But this is all far away from Russian lands. But Ukraine and Crimea - this is a completely new situation. We started to re-take our territory, little by little. Started doing as the Muscovite princes did in the 14th, 15th century, what the first Romanovs did, and the Stalin system in the 1930s, all of which was: leaving the historical zone of defeat.

But leaving the historical zone of defeat means not only external matters, we are now tearing up the global status quo, which took shape in 1991-94. Meaning: disintegration of the Soviet Union, the uranium deal, the shooting at the Moscow White House, the Budapest Memorandum.

#NationalTraitors" id="NationalTraitors">National traitors

But overcoming defeat has not only an external aspect but also a domestic aspect. Yeltsinism gave raise to a whole stratum of people, whom our president called national-traitors. That is, the fifth column - in the authorities, in business and in the media. In particular, they revealed themselves during the events in Crimea. That was a real moment of truth, moment of choice. People's true colors became apparent, in various spheres. And it was an very import experience for this reason: One could clearly observe the application of double-standards.

What do we mean by double-standards? For example: There was a time when the Brits annexed the Falkland Islands. They said: "Well, why not. There was a referendum in the Falkland Islands and the residents came out in favor of joining up with Britain, and that's sufficient."

"Crimea is a different matter altogether ..." -- although the situation is analogous.

Today we're talking about the Ukraine situation from a number of angles. It's a multi-faceted situation, like all big situations. Many different aspects have led to what happened. Concerning not only the clash between Russia and the West. There's a lot else going on too.

Firstly, it all began with a conflict within the Ukrainian oligarchic class. A great analyst is Vladimir Matveev. I very much recommend you look him up. A number of his analyses are out on the net. Moreover you don't need to be erudite to read his books. Anyone with higher education can read them. He's been very active on the subject of Mossad in Ukraine. He gets continuously threatened. Now he needs to get out of Ukraine and is having problems with that.

We are talking about the oligarchs.

Later we'll talk about the interests of the West - The Europeans and the Americans have different interests.

Next, the interests of Israel.

Then we'll run through the key events originating from the Banderite-American coup in Kiev, which continue to unfold.

#UkrOligarchs" id="UkrOligarchs">The Ukrainian oligarchs

Firstly - the Ukrainian business clans.

Ihor Kolomoisky's Privat

The next corporate group is Privat. This is the most interesting one. It's the group of Ihor Kolomoisky. Kolomoisky's worth is 3 billion dollars. His partner is Gennady Bogolubov. Kolomoisky is a very interesting figure. Not only because he called our president a schizophrenic. 'He is the engine behind what is currently happening in Ukraine.

In 2012 analysts such as Matveev warned that there would be a very brutal conflict in 2013 between the business clans, between the oligarchs. And that's what happened.

What do we mean by clans in Ukraine? First we need to understand the division of power at the end of 2013. There are four basic clans.

Firstly the Donetsk clan - Rinat Akhmetov, whose fortune is estimated at $16 billion. His main interests are mining and steel production. This clan includes Boris Kolesnikov, the Kluevs, Yury Ivanyuschenko.

The second clan is the Yanukovych family. They control principally the customs officials, farming and infrastructure. By comparison this clan is a bit poorer, but they have held very powerful administrative positions. Yanukovych's "achievement" is that during his presidency the welfare state of Ukraine was finished off. Or rather, what was left of it. Destruction of the welfare state began during the time of Kuchma. Yuschenko and Tymoshenko significantly reduced the welfare state. And Yanukovych finished it off.

It's very interesting to examine the growth of the billionaire class. In 2010 the number of billionaires in Ukraine was 8. By only 2011 there were 21.

The Yanukovych regime greatly favored the growth of the billionaire class. Yanukovych's main sponsors were Rinat Akhmetov and Dmitry Firtash. The division of labor was: Ahkmetov controlled the government and Firtash the presidential administration.

The next massive bloc is Firtash, which is RosUkrEnergo, energy production and chemicals. They are the main partner of Rothschild in Ukraine. One of Firtash's main advisers is Robert Shetler-Jones. I'll talk about him later. An entrepreneur from the Rothschild group. Moreover, he's from MI6.

By the way, in all British corporations, in order to occupy a senior position, it is mandatory to be vetted by MI6. Otherwise you don't get it.

The next corporate group is Privat. This is the most interesting one. It's the group of Ihor Kolomoisky. Kolomoisky's worth is 3 billion dollars. His partner is Gennady Bogolubov. Kolomoisky is a very interesting figure. Not only because he called our president a schizophrenic. He is the engine behind what is currently happening in Ukraine.

Born in 1963. Jewish. He very actively supports the Hasidic group Chabad, which is not a sect, it's a movement. He's the main sponsor of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community. An old friend of Berezovsky. He owns about 200 companies, controls 40% of Ukrnafta, the media. A big fan of soccer. He owns: FC Dnipro, of Dnepropetrovsk, Arsenal Kyiv, and Hapoel of Tel-Aviv. He's the vice president of the Football Federation of Ukraine. Its president, Surkis, is a millionaire too, albeit not as big as Kolomoisky. He owns Dynamo Kyiv. Information frequently appears in the media about Kolomoisky's connections with international organized crime. He really wanted to buy up the assets of Sevastopol. Indeed he was on the verge of buying. He is the sponsor of Yuschenko, Tymoshenko and Klitschko, and of, paradoxical though it is, the ultra-nationalist Tyaghnibok.

It might seem strange that Kolomoisky the Jew would support Tyaghnibok the ultra-nationalist. But the main goal of Tyaghnibok is to get Ukrainians and Russians fighting each other. His ultra-nationalism is not anti-semitic.

Then there's another group in Ukraine, which no-one wants to talk about. Victor Pinchuk's group. He's the son-in-law of Kuchma. Pinchuk's people are Tigipko and Yatsenuk. According to experts such as Matveev, whom I mentioned and strongly recommend you look up, because of his enormous expertise, Pinchuk is very closely linked with the United States and with British intelligence, MI6.

Finally, one more part of the Ukrainian economy, which experts prefer not to write about. Arms trade, military technology and narcotics. Experts name dozens of names here. The main ones are: Vadim Rabinovitch, citizen of Israel, Ukraine and Hungary, Sergei Maximov and the Derkatch family. The elder Derkatch is Leonid Derkatch. He was the head of the Ukrainian security service, SBU. Now he holds all the cards, as he's dealing in weapons. Rabinovitch is a very interesting figure. He supports the gay-lesbian party Raduga and the Kiev feminist group Femen. Often quarrels with other Jewish oligarchs.

In general what characterizes the situation in Ukraine is that there isn't a single political center, This propagates into Ukraine's Jewish community too. They don't have a unified center either. There are constant squabbles, to impose their point of view. There are angry clashes between the secular part and those who support the Hasids and Chabadists. For example, there was a very angry conflict over the construction of the memorial at Babi Yar. Kolomoisky insisted there be a synagogue and an iconic building. Vitaly Nakhmanovitch said no, the place should be absolutely secular. There are very severe clashes.

For example, In 2011 Kolomoisky established the European Jewish Parliament, which sits in the European Parliament. It has a leaning toward Hadism and Chabad. The secular group is, for example, Vyacheslav Kantor. They haven't accepted all of this. There is an on-going angry clash. There are humorous situations. For example, Kolomoisky supports Chabad. Chabad supported Yanukovych during the election. Kolomoisky has openly come out against Yanukovych. This whole tangle of clashes has flared up. In 2013 it got very nasty. Moreover, the greed and stupidity of Yanukovych's mafioso clan revealed itself when they imposed their fees not only on the medium-sized businesses, they even went into the small businesses. Basically, they had to pay 60% to this family.

So you can understand those who went to the Maidan. They had had enough of that clan.

A different matter is who exploited the situation. Marx and Engels wrote in 1848 about revolutions: We now know what role stupidity plays in revolutions, and how scumbags will exploit it. So that was the Ukrainian oligarchs.

#RockefellersEtc" id="RockefellersEtc">Rockefellers, Rothschilds and Intelligence agencies

The next players on the Ukrainian field are: the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. The Rothschilds entered Ukraine immediately after Ukraine became free from the Soviet Union. The Rothschild group entered in 1991-95. Likewise MI6 entered with a free hand.

Basically all western intelligence agencies had a free hand in Ukraine. That's why some experts call Ukraine the sandpit of the intelligence agencies. The CIA has a whole floor dedicated to Ukraine. We got this information now. But those who worked under cover in Ukraine in the late '90s were already reporting that SBU is a subsidiary of the FBI and the CIA, who were actively working there. Likewise the BND (German intelligence) were very actively working with their Banderite underground. And MI6 was working more unnoticed.

I'm not even going to mention the Israeli agents. I'll come to that later. Basically they all had a completely free hand. Firtash soon became the main partner of the Rothschilds. His partner from the Rothschilds was Robert Shetler-Jones. He is considered by experts to be the instigator of the gas wars between Ukraine and Russia. He was the one getting Ukraine and Russia to fight over gas. Notice the Rothschild group is at work in the East of Ukraine. That's the area they want to get their hands on, in particular the Dnepropetrovsk region, where the bank "Rothschild Europe" and their "Royal Dutch Shell" are operating.

The interests of the Rothschilds strongly clash with the interests of Russia. Remember that when we talk about the interests of the USA and of Britain, there are different interest groups in these countries. Not for nothing the great French geopolitical analyst Alexandre Del Valle talks about not the foreign policy of the US, but the foreign politicians of the US. There are different clans. The clans behind Obama want one thing, and the clans behind the neo-cons want something completely different. So they really have different foreign policies. The Rothschilds busily exploit crises and chaos which can be manipulated by the world players in order to buy up assets in Ukraine, likewise in Central Asia, and where possible in Russia. It's about gaining control of resource economies. That's a very important aspect.

The Rockefellers have more modest interests. For example, Chevron Corporation, which is in the Rockefeller empire. The Ivano-Frankivsk region was basically handed to them by Yanukovych. It's hard to even say whether Ivano-Frankivsk belongs to Ukraine or belongs to Chevron Corporation. The Rockefellers are more interested in Western Ukraine than Eastern.

#IsraeliInterests" id="IsraeliInterests">Israeli interests in Ukraine

The next player in Ukraine is Israel, which is represented in Ukraine by Mossad and practically all of the Israeli intelligence services. Including the Komemiyut management, that's an administration within Mossad, whose business is the physical removal of Mossad's opponents. Komemiyut is Hebrew for "sovereignty". This Komemiyut administration, for example, they were the ones who killed the Iranian nuclear scientists. They are very effective, like Mossad generally. Aman is military intelligence service of the Prime Minister. Shabak is the internal security service. Shin Bet, Nativ - they are all present in Ukraine. Israel's current ambassador in Ukraine is Reuven Din El - formerly a Mossad resident in the CIS countries, he was thrown out of Moscow, and then received in Ukraine as ambassador.

Vlad Lerner of Nativ is the First Secretary of the Israeli embassy. In this respect you have to give them their dues, the Israeli intelligence services, for how they work in Ukraine. Also important to be clearly aware of - Mossad operates in close contact with CIA and MI6. It's a unified snake of intelligence agencies, which gets the job done.

All of the western intelligence agencies, including Israel's, are very active in the higher education establishments in Ukraine. This year I gave a lecture at the Seliger youth forum. Guys from Kiev told me that in almost all large institutes of higher education in Ukraine, especially in Kiev, there is a NATO room, a NATO department. If you want to make a career, you have to attend several of their programs. That's what's going on. The Anglo-american intelligence services are not falling behind Mossad.

What is Israeli intelligence doing? Under the guise of looking for students who are Jewish or have Jewish roots, they try to pick out all the talented students with good prospects, and send them to study in the West. Of all the universities in the West, where I have taught, Columbia, Yale, New York, the most powerful where I taught, was the Central European University of Soros, where only Jews are educated, moreover very well-prepared and carefully selected ones. On the course I lectured on there were three guys from Russia. Not from Moscow, but from Arkhangelsk, Ivanovo and Petersburg. These guys were really chosen ones, genuinely powerful. Central European University is the only university where I gave lectures. I was dealing with junior colleagues more than with students. The standard pace of study at the Central European University is 400 pages per day, as it was with comrade Stalin. Many can't endure it.

I know a student who came from the Russian State University for the Humanities, for example, who studied for a month, and said that she physically can't continue, and she went home. And of course the tuition is conducted in English, although they welcome people with more languages.

#GlobalContext" id="GlobalContext">The wider global context

Let's look at the situation in and around Ukraine in a wider, global context, considering the role which the West collectively, by their various games, has assigned to Ukraine.

Firstly - the battle against Russia.

secondly - the clash with China, and

thirdly - concerning the unleashing of war in the Middle East.

Let me repeat, By no means is it all groups in the West, who want to unleash war in the Middle East. But quite a few of them are interested in it. Likewise Saudi Arabia and Israel are interested, for a whole series of reasons. And these three vectors converge in Ukraine - all three plans unite into one.

That is, the global geo-economic and geo-political re-distribution of assets in the course of the global economic crisis.

#yellowstone" id="yellowstone">The "Yellowstone Threat"

Of course, there is this Yellowstone threat - I mean the super-volcano. That could completely change the rules of play at any time. The super-volcano could solve for the Western elite the very problems which they've been trying to solve for the last 50-60 years and have been unable to. An eruption of the volcano could solve those problems. But that's another subject.

Wikispooks note: On its face this seems a bizarre diversion from the subject in hand - suggestions on Fursov's reasons for the diversion welcome on the discussion page.

#OriginOf" id="OriginOf">The origin of the current situation

Let's look at how the situation came about that preceded the current situation, namely: It's 1991. The USSR has collapsed. After 10 years of robbery the Americans are wondering "should we go for more?" Evidently they decided not to, as it would have fallen to the Chinese. Besides, Yeltsin's team seemed to be running the country into the ground. Then suddenly in 2001 came the attacks in New York. The Americans' political vector shifted to the Middle East. They became occupied with the Middle East. i.e. they got distracted from the goals.

Then we had Iraq, Afghanistan. During this time the Russian Federation got room to breathe, rise onto its feet again. Then there was the war of 08.08.08, which showed the West they had somewhat let go of Russia.

After that the Medvedev episode, when we didn't react on Libya. Evidently, 08.08.08, Putin's coming to power, and our position on Syria, in spite of the West's pressure, changed the approach toward Russia of those who brought Obama to power.

Two points to note:

1. Obama established his military doctrine during his address to the Australian parliament on 17 Nov 2011, and
2. A new military doctrine of the US, established by Obama on 05 Jan 2012.

In the new doctrine of 05 Jan 2012 is established that the US can wage one war and some other indirect actions in other parts of the world. Previously it said two wars - meaning they're not up to that any more. More interesting statements made by Obama in the Australian parliament 17 Nov 2011: This was said in Obama's vague style. But if we call a spade a spade, it means:

Firstly: in this doctrine: political-economic encirclement of China. Control over the flow of energy into China. That's why we have seen their naval power being moved to the straits between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. This is why land-based energy supply routes are so important for China. Sea-based supply routes can be easily interrupted by the Americans.

Secondly: applying pressure on the Russian Federation, as a partner of China, and as a country beginning to rise up.

Really, Obama didn't say anything new here.

There's an organization Stratfor -(Strategic Forecasting Inc), a kind of private CIA. Their founder and chairman, George Friedman, said openly that the primary task of the United States is the destabilization of Eurasia, in order that there could never be a state or group of states able to challenge the US.

The key region for dealing with the problem of China and Russia is the Middle East, which is also important in and of itself: Oil, Iran, the Caspian, Azerbaijan in particular. Pay attention to Azerbaijan. Have no illusions. This is a faithful partner of Israel and the US. This country pumps oil to Israel and Ukraine, receives arms from USA, Ukraine and Israel, and has Israeli advisers busy working with its army. In the event of a conflict with the Armenians, who are good warriors, I don't think that the Azeribaijani Army would perform any better than they have up to now, but it's a fact that today they are more capable and better trained.

#GoalsME" id="GoalsME">The goals of the interested parties in the Middle East

The Americans need controlled chaos and civil war in Ukraine.

The Europeans need Ukraine whole - a market where they can dump all kinds of junk. A market for cheap labor, on top of everything else. It is truly an unexploited consumer market to be opened up with 44 million people, now minus Crimea.

Obama. That is, the clans behind Obama ( By the way, my views about Obama haven't changed. General Ovchinsky and I wrote an article, when Obama had just become president, entitled "The Cardboard Box President". We haven't changed our view since then.) When I say "Obama", I mean the clan behind him. From the very beginning these clans wanted to improve relations with Iran to the detriment of relations with Israel, obviously. How is Iran useful for the United States? Imagine Iran as a partner of the US. Firstly, it's a much bigger country than Israel. It occupies a magnificent geopolitical position. Has magnificent resources. If Iran is a partner of the US, then you have an Iran-India axis against China, against Russia, while maintaining the tension. Israel has the tension of being a Jewish state with Arabs, while Iran is Shi-ite. The tension is primarily with the Sunni monarchs, with Saudi Arabia. Thus the tension will remain.

Obama has taken a whole series of steps intended to improve relations with Iran. A whole wave of publications appeared, claiming that the US was going to abandon Israel. But Obama found himself under the powerful influence of a variety of groups, including the pro-Israel lobby. Improvement of relations with Iran isn't happening so far. What's interesting is that whether relations with Iran improve or deteriorate, it forces the Americans to solve two problems.

One is to eliminate the regime of Assad. And with that eliminate the "fabulous" organization Hezbollah. We don't regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It's a Lebanese Shi'ite organization, which is truly global. For example: one of the key centers of the Hezbollah is the region of Iguazu Falls. Anyone know where Iguazu Falls is? In South America. It's the border area of Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. There is a huge number of tourists there. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas have made themselves a little nest there. But the main thing is that the Lebanese diaspora is there. When we hear "diaspora" we think of the Jewish diaspora, the Armenian diaspora. But the Lebanese diaspora is no less sizable, it's just quieter. They don't make a lot of noise. 100 years ago the Lebanese began to establish themselves in Africa, South America. They moved into the part of Africa where diamonds are mined: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and a few in Angola. In this border area, where the Lebanese diaspora is, along with Hezbollah and other organizations, they buy cocaine and transfer it on submarines to Western Africa. Previously they used submarines sold by Ukrainians. Now those submarines are out of commission and others are used. The cocaine is transferred to Sierra Leone, where it is exchanged for diamonds. With the diamonds they purchase arms. This triangle - Hezbollah, Syria, Iran - gets in the way of the Americans. They take the view, correctly, that eliminating Syria as an Arab partner of Iran, whether relations with Iran are good or bad, Iran will be weaker, and it will be easier to get an agreement with them. The removal of the Assad regime therefore became objective No.1 for the Americans. Likewise for Saudi Arabia and Israel.

But it turned out that the template for the Arab Spring didn't work in Syria, so they had to intervene militarily. But the intervention was foiled, thanks to the position of Russia and China. The West's aggression against Syria was the first really serious military phase toward re-drawing the geopolitical map of the Middle East. Let me stress: the first serious military phase. Libya doesn't count here. That had to do with the fact that Libyan oil was very important for the Americans. The production cost of Libyan oil is $1. So that was very important. But Libya and Syria are different countries with different potential. In Syria it didn't work out for them, I repeat, primarily because of the position of Russia and China. The American offensive against the Russian Federation and China in the Syrian theater failed. That plus the presidency of Putin forced the Western elite to look for other maneuvers.

They started looking for where to attack - and Ukraine came up. Because in Ukraine an explosive situation had developed on all levels: amongst the oligarchs themselves, between the oligarchs and the population. It would have been a shame for the Americans and Europeans not to exploit that. Although, the Americans and Europeans do have completely different objectives in Ukraine.

The Americans need controlled chaos and civil war. The Europeans need Ukraine whole - a market where they can dump all kinds of junk. A market for cheap labor, on top of everything else. It is truly an unexploited consumer market to be opened up with 44 million people, now minus Crimea.

In principle, Ukraine is not currently a member of NATO. But that didn't stop Ukraine participating in all four of NATO´s military campaigns. Thus Veronika Krasheninnikova was right, when she said on TV that for us the current issue with Ukraine is where the NATO boundary will be located. Doesn't matter if Ukraine joins NATO de-jure or not. It's clear that it will become a NATO country.

Moreover, it is absolutely clear that this country is intended to be absolutely anti-Russian, nationalist, Banderite and neo-Nazi. So the dual goal of establishing this anti-Russian state is to apply pressure on the Russian Federation - constantly. The long term goal is to pull Russia into the Western camp and start a fight: We put pressure on Russia. Then Russia, in order to reach agreement with the West, to solve this problem of constant provocations, turns toward the West. Next, Russia becomes a tool for the West to pressurize China. If possible, even get China and Russia fighting with each other - that would be the ideal scenario for the West.

Like they perpetually have Russia fighting with Germany and France. It's the same pattern again and again. The current situation in Ukraine, which began in late 2013, has served this purpose. Hegel talked about "the insidiousness of history". Those 30 days, 15 Feb to 17 Mar, broke everything. And changed the world.

The era which began in the period 1989-94 in our eyes is coming to an end, or has ended. We often quote Brzezinski's words: "Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire." But that's not true. Russia can be a great power even without Ukraine. A different matter is that it will be more difficult and will take longer.

And what is Ukraine? The Eastern part of Ukraine was never part of Ukraine. The Bolsheviks did that. They needed to increase the proletariat ratio in Ukraine. That was the only reason why they moved those regions into Ukraine. But never mind that. The main thing is that Brzezinski's words are not original. He is repeating the words of the German general Paul Rohrbach, who at the beginning of the 20th century foretold:

"To eliminate the danger that Europe, and above all Germany, faces from Russia, it is necessary to completely separate Ukrainian Russia from Muscovite Russia".

Notice that for the German general - Ukraine and Muscovy are both Russia. He is talking about the need to bring about an internal Russian split. That wasn't original from Rohrbach either. He is developing the idea of the German politicians from the end of the 19th century, including Bismarck, who proposed specific means to solve this problem. In particular he emphasized the need to pit Ukraine against Russia, to get their peoples fighting. But why? As he wrote:

,p>"We must cultivate among the Ukrainians a people whose consciousness is altered to such an extent, that they begin to hate everything Russian".

Thus we are talking about a historical psy-op, an information-psychological sabotage, whose purpose is to establish russophobic Slavs - Orcs at the service of the western Saruman. They are the means to separate Ukraine from Russia and to oppose Russia as a kind of anti-Russian 'Rus', as a free, democratic Ukraine of the totalitarian empire. This was all devised under the Galician Project, on which the intelligence services of Austro-Germany and Kaiser German worked, followed by the intelligence service of the Third Reich, later - CIA and BND.

#FourthReichIntel" id="FourthReichIntel">The intelligence service of the Fourth Reich at work

Although I don't have direct proof, there is no doubt that the intelligence service of the Fourth Reich has been at work here, the "Fourth International", known as "Daisy". When D-day and H-hour came, the Galician project and the Banderite underground got the starting gun - figuratively and literally.

Fast forward to the Orange Revolution of 2004, which differs from the current situation. The Orange Revolution of 2004 was organized by neo-liberals. Those behind it in Ukraine and the West thought that this would be sufficient to create the anti-Russian Ukraine. But it wasn't. So during the current events a different approach was rolled out: an alliance of neo-liberals and ultra-nationalists, in effect neo-Nazis. The neo-liberals are the face of the West. And the neo-Nazi militants and storm-troopers were the ones to break the power of Yanukovych, and terrify Eastern Ukraine. Wise people did warn Yanukovych that he shouldn't play with fire with Tyaghnibok and allow him to develop his movement. Yanukovych's plan, as experts have shown, was: We'll pump up Tyaghnibok. Then, at election time, the East, terrified by Tyaghnibok, will vote for Yanukovych. He was playing a kind of chess game. But the West wasn't playing chess at all. They knocked over the pieces and used the chess board for a completely different game.

#WhyNow" id="WhyNow">Why did this happen now?

Firstly - Ukraine is an absolutely non-viable, artificial construction, which could only function normally within the framework of the Soviet Union. Despite being the only post-soviet state, apart from Russia and Belarus, which could have stood on its own feet, it didn't. The Ukrainian SSR was in ways very important in the Soviet Union. Who remembers where Ukraine was placed at the National Exhibition of Economic Achievements (????)? Right in the center! Now it has fallen into neglect, but they are at the center of that Exhibition. The importance of Ukraine was emphasized in every way. And Ukraine could only exist within the framework of the USSR. Outside the USSR Ukraine is not capable of developing. What has kept it afloat? The Soviet heritage, which they have been eating their way through for twenty years. One can marvel again at what a heritage it was, when the Ukrainian oligarchs have been stupidly eating through it more stupidly than the Russian oligarchs, and it lasted twenty years. But, as they said in ancient Rome, "Nihil dat fortuna mancipio" ("Fortune gives nothing forever.") and in 2013 that heritage was finally eaten up. Moreover, Yanukovych was very busy eating it up. Ukraine stood over the precipice. Russia could have saved them. But that was categorically undesirable for the US. That was the first part.

Secondly. After the 2004 Maidan, as I said, the Western puppet-master presumed that it was sorted: people like Yuschenko and Tymoshenko could solve all the problems. But it turned out they couldn't. Yanukovych came to power. He played almost all the same games. Played very inconsistently. Played with the Americans, with Russia. In the end he overplayed his hand.?

The scorecard from these twenty years is positive for the West. They have been very busy in Ukraine: with the help of various non-commercial, non-governmental organizations, they have done a quite fantastic job. Dozens of non-commercial Western organizations have been at work. As for us... do we have any non-governmental organizations busy at work in the sphere of foreign policy? "Russkiy Mir". When did they appear? Not long ago. Their effectiveness... Any other organizations? There is "Rossotrudnichestvo", who have little money. "Institute of CIS Countries" - that's an institution. "Gorchakov Fund" exists too. But all of this is recent initiatives and these organizations don't have the funds.

The Americans have been pumping massive amounts of money into the place. Besides, all these years there has been a Banderite underground operating in Ukraine, in cooperation with the American and West-German intelligence agencies. Moreover, geographically Ukraine is not a Baltic state. Incidentally, who knows when the last "Forest Brother" was killed in the Baltic states? 1960? - 1974. But, you know, there's nowhere to hide really in the Baltic states, but in Ukraine there is. And the Banderite underground has always been there. Of course, the West has always been working with them.

Obviously there were serious domestic reasons for the events of December, January, February (2014). Impoverishment of the population. Dissatisfaction with this miser-oligarch regime of Yanukovych. Now what do we see? The family of Yanukovych is gone. In their place has come the family of Tymoshenko. One family of oligarchs has been replaced by another. They've been putting oligarchs in charge of the cities of the East. Not by chance I quoted the words of Marx and Engels regarding the European revolution of 1848. "We now know what role stupidity plays in revolutions, and how scumbags will exploit it." Indeed, exploit they did.

As far as we can tell from the unfolding events, the greed of the ruling clan was exploited in general and in specific ways from the eventful situation. "D"-day and "H"-hour came on 21 Feb.

Since I am in science and not intelligence, my information is only indirect, but it is confirmed by another analysis too. Towards 18:00 on 21 Feb half of the Maidan was cleared. And it could have ended at that. But you know, between 18:00 and 20:00 ... There were about 15,000 Maidan protesters. There were being shifted by a group of about 3,000 some of whom gave me this information. Walking behind them was Berkut. They reported that all of a sudden Berkut stopped. "We were proceeding, but Berkut stopped." They had been given the order to stop. What happened between 18:00 and 20:00 ? Let us re-create the events. This is my version. I'm not forcing it upon anyone, by any means.

At that point Yanukovych decided that he had won and could start negotiations. Moreover, the Americans had told him they knew where his billion was stashed. Here Yanukovych decided to play a stupid country-boy trick. He decided to trick the Americans, not realizing that they would trick him, by not respecting the agreement. Any they wouldn't exactly forget his betrayal anyway. At this point, when the opportunity to clear out Maidan was lost, events turned in a different direction. I was saying on the 21st, 22nd, that this is a situational loss for Russia, because if the only pro-Russian force we could set up in 20 years was the one fronted by Yanukovych, then that is a poor performance by us.

What was Chernomyrdin up to? He was singing songs and playing the accordion with the Ukrainian oligarchs. Evidently that was his destiny - it turned out nicely for him. What Zubarov was doing we have no idea. But clearly he was making some nice gas deals, hanging out with the oligarchs. The western intelligence, and the non-governmental organizations, they worked with the oligarchs, the intelligentsia and the masses. And look at the result: although Kiev is not a Galician city, 90% of the Kiev intelligentsia are supporters of the Galician Project. That means the Western intelligence did a good job. Indeed, that was their job.

A different matter is that we didn't work like that. We were chatting with oligarchs instead of getting on with other things. Again, if our only pro-Russian force at a high political level was this person called Yanukovych, then that's our failure. Of course, losing one round doesn't mean you lost the match. Indeed, the actions of the Russian authorities in Crimea showed that having lost a round, you can still win the match. The match of the 17th-18th was won. But that match was only over Crimea. There is still Eastern, South-Eastern Ukraine.

#WhatWestWanted" id="WhatWestWanted">What the West wanted

Now let's look at what the West wanted, what their plan was. What did the West need out of this situation? Let's think like the Westerners. That is, those who planned this. This is really the right approach.

In the summer when I was in London, I read the English papers. There was a marvelous editorial in the Financial Times. This editorial was basically slamming tutors of economics at English universities. They were saying that if you want to train an economist, don't hammer into their heads what is written by economists. Teach them to think like economists. Incidentally, likewise we need to teach people to think the way the politicians do. Our political science is reduced to a model where people only know the theories of political science. But the theories of political science are very far from reality. Indeed, they exist to hide the thinking of politicians. It's a misdirection.

Plan "Minimum": the West establishes a Slavic, neo-Nazi, Banderite Reich. Constant pressure on Russia, provocations by various means. If Russia reacts - tell everyone that "the huge totalitarian Russia is harassing the free Ukraine" The same template was used on Yugoslavia: "Those poor Albanians - victims of the evil Serbs."

Plan "Maximum": same as when the German Nazi Reich was established in the 1930s. Set up the forces, which, if necessary for the West, will take on the decisive part of the war against Russia. Some will say: "What a nightmare! How are you supposed to go to war against Russia?" There are different situations. Who in Europe could wage war against Russia? Romanians, you think, could conduct a war? Poles - not themselves. What's needed is a kind of "pit bull terrier" state, which would be prepared to start at least a local conflict, to show the weakened Russia how events could develop.

If you think that's laying it on thick, refer to the history of relations between the West and Russia. Every aggression which Russia has endured in the last 200-300 years always came from the West. There was no aggression by Russia in the West. Only two points: the liberation campaign against Napoleon, which, by the way, as Kutuzov said, should have been ended in 1813. without going beyond our own borders. "Leave France and England there to love each other perversely and engage with each other". That was one campaign. The second was in 1849, Nikolai I. In my view this was a mistake, although he was a great Czar. It was assistance to suppress the Hungarian uprising in Austro-Hungary. That was unnecessary. Let the Hungarians beat up the Austrians. Let them have their own little theater of chaos in Central Europe. It will be easier for us. Apart from those, Russia never took any action in the West. That was the 19th century.

As for sending forces into Czechoslovakia, that was done in accordance with the rules, written in the Warsaw Pact. NATO has the same rules. In the statutes of NATO, in black and white, is stated:

"If any NATO state is in danger due to internal or external changes, forces are to be deployed immediately"

Yet when we sent in forces they called it the "Brezhnev Doctrine" ... It's just that our propagandists are poor. We should have explained that it was done as prescribed in the Warsaw Convention and the NATO statutes, as in all such organizations. But I was talking about the 19th century.

As for the 20th century, the Soviet leadership missed a unique opportunity in 1968. They were slow, only reacting to events. During the May unrest in Paris 1968, the Soviet leadership, by utilizing the French Communist Party, could well have gotten NATO forces to enter Paris in response to demonstrations by the communists and the unions. If NATO forces had entered Paris, we could have been shouting for 30 years about how NATO crushed the French students. Then they wouldn't be talking about any "Prague Spring". But the Soviet leader was only reacting to events. Because they were a reactive government. As Arnold Toynbee noted: "The West's policy toward Russia is one of aggression." By the way, Toynbee wasn't a russophile. "The Russian expansion is of a defensive nature", wrote Arnold Toynbee. The end goal of the North-Atlantic elite has always been the elimination of Russia. In this respect Leonid Shebarshin, one of the most visible leaders of Soviet intelligence, was of course right, when he wrote: "What the West needs from Russia is that it not exist." That was strategic.

Tactically... In 1991 the West could have begun the dismemberment of Russia. But with China already rising, it didn't seem like a good idea. Besides, they decided to harass Russia over the course of, say, 20 years. During which time Russia managed to get on its feet again. Banderastan, if that's what Ukraine is fated to become, as designed by the puppet-masters across the ocean, is to be an oligarchic, terroristic, russophobic state. Russophobic - it's clear why. Quasi-state - because even post-Soviet Ukraine was not a fully independent state.

We are already seeing external administration of the country. Kiselëv was absolutely right, when he mentioned yesterday: "The visit of the CIA director to Kiev, plus the directive of the IMF to fire 12,000 workers in the social sector." They are making brutal cuts. IMF money always comes with requirements to cut social programs. Which in turn provokes unrest among the population. The government then has to take further action and you're into a vicious cycle. This is very well described in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins. He explains it all very well.

An oligarchic Banderite Ukraine is unavoidable for this simple reason: Because of their corruption, inability and unwillingness, oligarchy is the ideal vehicle for external control. Clearly, this will suit both the oligarchs and the West.

Finally: if the marionette junta in Kiev can hold out, then by logic they will conduct a policy of terror against the East and South-East. A different matter is that they don't appear to have the power to do that. They are always talking about "deadlines". But they can't do anything, because they don't have real power. Besides, it's clear that the "Right Sector" is a serious threat to the Ukrainian leadership.

What else will the banderization of Ukraine mean, if it comes to pass? Well, the East and South-East are industrially developed regions. These areas are modernized. The West is agricultural. It's clear, the EU doesn't need Ukraine's modern industries like Yuzhmash and Motor-Sich: They are competitors and they have to go. They don't need Ukraine's atomic energy either. What they need is a place to store atomic waste.

#MuzychkosDeath" id="MuzychkosDeath">The death of Oleksandr Muzychko

One theory about why Oleksandr Muzychko was eliminated, and I'm very convinced by it, you can read it on the Internet, was that Tymoshenko, in need of money, made a deal with the Europeans, that Ukraine would immediately begin disposing of nuclear waste. The thing is that Ukraine doesn't have facilities for that. Which means they are just going to bury it. They intend to bury it in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. "It's already polluted. We'll bury and hide it all there". If a person is decisive... Well, Yatsenuk and Turnychov wouldn't touch that. Tymoshenko agreed with Yarosh, and Yarosh instructed Muzychko. But Musychko, although he looks brutal, he wasn't a fool. He understood that whoever was organizing this was going to eliminate him. That's why he started acting differently than Tymoshenko expected. So there was no other way out than to eliminate him.

As far as I know, the train with nuclear waste is currently waiting at the Polish-Ukrainian border, not going anywhere. It's completely obvious - Europe needs Ukraine as a dumping ground. What surprises me about the Ukrainian leadership is this: Those who will die or become sterilized by radiation, it's not only the commoners. It will affect the elite's children too. That surprises me. Why on earth is she turning the country into a dump, a source of radio-activity, if she lives there herself? You're planning to become the president, no? You're going to live there for 4-5 years? 4-5 years is plenty then. The banderization of Ukraine will mean its de-modernization, its futurist-archaization. If this junta is completely victorious in Ukraine, which I have a lot of doubts about, then Ukraine will collapse into this futurist-archaistic zone, more extreme than that depicted in the fantasy battle novels by Alexei Kolentev.

An important lesson from the whole Ukraine crisis, which for me is a positive, concerns the Russian media. For the first time they weren't the losers in a conflict. During the 08.08.08 war quite a few of them adopt anti-Russian positions. This time only certain completely frenzied structures took an anti-Russian position, the likes of "Echo Moskvy", and even at that not everyone there. On the one hand they have hysterical menopausal women. Their boss adopted a more restrained position. A significant group was called "national-traitors" by the president, for coming out in opposition. Nevertheless, our media didn't lose the infowar over Ukraine, and acted very correctly. In Crimea everything was organized very correctly. From the point of view of international law, any attempts to discredit it simply don't have a leg to stand on. Everything was done correctly.?

Still, this crisis has highlighted a whole series of double standards. I looked through the press at the time and will highlight a few points for you.

In an editorial of the New Statesman it is claimed that "Putin violated Ukraine's sovereignty." Violated - how so? "by sending troops into Crimea". That didn't happen. Then what should we call the actions of American diplomats who organized the overthrow of the legitimate president? It is a direct lie.

Then let's take the respectable "Economist" of 8 Mar. They made the accusation that Putin "has become more autocratic". No arguments given. Unwillingness to join in the games thrust upon people by the West is interpreted as autocraticness. By the same logic 'democracy' means licking the boots of NATO.

The same deceitful pathos that we saw over Qaddafi is repeated toward Putin in the rhetoric of articles in March about the situation in Russia. such as in Time magazine of 17 Mar. Likewise in the Spectator of 8 Mar. A certain O'Sullivan writes: "Putin has broken the consensus which arose after the end of the Cold War". As if Putin considers that this particular consensus should even have existed.

This is the impudence and impunity of NATO, who bombed Yugoslavia, which, as if that wasn't enough, they covered the whole of Yugoslavia with bombs. You probably saw the films. I learned about it from Serbs long ago. Moreover, when they bombed the Serbian areas, they peppered the place with uranium. Now in Serbia there is so much cancer. The population is just dying. Additionally, they dropped spermicides everywhere, which is causing male infertility, so that the Serbs, being a pro-Russian force in Europe, will be eliminated.

Later in the same edition of "The Spectator" they reported a statement by Obama that "Russia is on the wrong side of history". Obama's logic means that the right side of history is those who nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, attacked Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, killed hundreds of thousands of people - that's the right side of history.

#Kasparov" id="Kasparov">The infantile Garry Kasparov

But what made the biggest impression on me was an article by our own Garry Kasparov. In two respects:

'Firstly, how this guy (whom the West did accept) is presented, and his representation of history. Secondly, what he is offering to the West. The article is entitled "Cut off the oligarchs, they will bring down Putin". It was published in the very serious "Wall Street Journal", 10 Mar 2014. We can judge the author's intellect by the next statement. Kasparov writes: "For the second time in six years Putin ordered his troops to cross an internationally recognized border, and occupy foreign territory." The first time, he presumably means, was 08.08.08, and the second time - Crimea. When did Putin order the troops to enter Crimea? Where was there such a decision? We didn't send our troops into Crimea. Putin belongs to an exclusive club - along with Miloševi?, Saddam Hussein, - leaders who "invaded neighboring countries." Miloševi? didn't invade anywhere. Miloševi? was dealing with Kosovo, which was part of Yugoslavia. Saddam Hussein did invade Kuwait - that was a trap. And that wasn't at all the reason why they overthrew him. It wasn't in 1990-91 that they overthrew him.

Next, Kasparov writes: "In Yalta Stalin forced the weak Roosevelt and the powerless Churchill to accept his position on Poland, while Putin's policy on Crimea is the same as Hitler's annexation of Austria and Sudetenland". If a student were to write that in an exam, I would immediately give them a "two" and send them to re-sit. The point is not even that neither Churchill nor Roosevelt was weak. Churchill and Stalin, although this sounds cynical, they swapped Poland and Greece. They agreed that the USSR would get 90% domination in Poland and 10% in Greece, and Britain vice-versa: 90% in Greece, 10% in Poland. So the Soviet Union stopped actively supporting the Greek communists. And they got crushed by the English. On the other hand, we solved our Poland problem. For us Poland was more important than Greece. Evidently, Kasparov wasn't told about that. Kasparov continues: (Why I'm talking about Kasparov, who is very active in our opposition, is to demonstrate the intellectual level of these people.) "If Putin wins", writes Kasparov, "then the world which came out of 1945 will disintegrate". Kasparov from the mid-80s is like the hero of the American short story "Rip van Winkle", who fell asleep and later woke up to find that America is no longer part of the British empire but a free country. "Rip Van Winkle" means anyone who woke up to find themself in a different world. The thing is that the world order from 1945 collapsed in 1989 in Malta, when Gorbachev gave everything away. Journalists coined the term, although it didn't stick: the "Maltese System", to replace the Yalta system. So it makes no sense any more to talk about breaking the world order from Yalta.

Here's one thing that really deserves attention: What does Kasparov recommend the West do? He says they need to "put pressure on the oligarchs", not on Putin, but on the oligarchs. If pressure is put on them, then they will carry out a coup and overthrow Putin. This is a Russian citizen telling the US State dept what they need to do to effect regime change in Russia. Imagine if this were a US citizen sitting in Russia, for example, or, who knows, in China, talking about how to overthrow Obama, I think that person would have serious problems - very serious. Yet Kasparov is free to come and go in Russia as he pleases, and no-one is revoking is citizenship.

#GoodbyeAmerica" id="GoodbyeAmerica">Goodbye, America!

No more the kind of relations that existed under the Russian authorities of the 1990s, or even during Putin's first term, or the Medvedev period, those days are gone. Because: The West won't forgive what this leadership does. And this leadership, considering the behavior of the West... Well, if they were in any doubt before: "Look, we're not Miloševi?, we're not Saddam Hussein, or Qaddafi, they wouldn't do that to us".

Well, now there can be no doubt. The West has no brakes. In trying to solve their own problems, they'll keep going until they hit the wall.

What's the importance of these February-March events? Let's get to the heart of the matter. For the first time since 1991 the West, the United States of America, they set up, albeit covertly, an aggression against the Russian world. Because Ukraine is in the territory of the Russian world. They organized an aggression far away from their own shores. Ukraine cannot possibly be in the United States' zone of interest. Mexico perhaps, maybe even Cuba. They could declare Cuba to be in their zone of interest,

But Ukraine is very far away, like Iraq is. This was an aggression for the first time since 1991. They decided that they could do this. For the first time since 1991, we gave the aggressor a pasting - big time. Despite all the shouting and bawling in the West, we didn't give up, we re-united with Crimea, and, as the president said in Red Square: "Crimea has returned to its native harbor". In spite of all the shouting and everything else. With that, the song by the group "Nautilus Pompilius" - "Goodbye, America!" - takes on a certain symbolic meaning. Indeed: "Goodbye, America!" No more the kind of relations that existed under the Russian authorities of the 1990s, or even during Putin's first term, or the Medvedev period, those days are gone. Because: The West won't forgive what this leadership does. And this leadership, considering the behavior of the West... Well, if they were in any doubt before: "Look, we're not Miloševi?, we're not Saddam Hussein, or Qaddafi, they wouldn't do that to us".

Well, now there can be no doubt. The West has no brakes. In trying to solve their own problems, they'll keep going until they hit the wall. With this marvelous re-unification with Crimea, this whole Crimean Victory, which really puts an end to a distinct era, a few problems still remain. The first problem is the incompatibility between the direction of our foreign policy toward restoring our status as a great nation and the neo-liberal economic course of the government, nominally Medvedev's. Confrontation against the West is unsustainable on a foundation of neo-liberal economics. Enduring it is only possible on the basis of a mobilization economy. At the same time, a mobilization economy is only possible within a mobilized social system. In other words, the relations with the West which are now taking shape for the period ahead require very serious domestic changes.

#ChangeRussia" id="ChangeRussia">The required Russian domestic changes

The Russian 5th Column

Those, whom Putin called the national-traitors. Quantitatively, it's a smallish group, but it includes representatives of the authorities, business, media, intelligentsia, education. You just need to look for who was shouting the loudest that the re-unification with Crimea is the same as what Hitler did with Austria.

The first change is cosmetic: A policy of lawful suppression of the fifth column. That's the very first step which has to be taken. Next we need to strengthen a number of matters relating to economics and social structure. Because in half a year, the euphoria over the re-unification with Crimea will have passed, and in the Fall our economic problems will re-surface. Our most optimistic assessments of economic growth are 1%. As a minimum we need 5-6% Of course, the population's dissatisfaction with the economic situation will be exploited by those who organized the Bolotnaya mass protest. They will take advantage of people's dissatisfaction. Of course, there will arise an alliance of neo-liberals and ultra-nationalists. It will quickly become, "the oligarchs", and "the battle against corruption", and so on. Then, if they are successful, the next group of oligarchs will come along, who will... Revolution is something which changes the socio-economic structure. Not one of these "color revolutions" brought about any change in the socio-economic structure. The regimes were replaced with pro-Western ones. Nothing more. That needs to be well understood.

If Russia switches to a system of mobilization, the North-Atlantic elite, and their network of agents in the Russian Federation, will attempt to bring down the existing regime, and, I repeat, that will be done under the banner of "fighting corruption" and so on. This is why we need to pay attention to the February Maidan in Kiev and the heroes it revealed. Look. Tymoshenko went on the stage at the Maidan and said that the events in Kiev are a model for the peoples of all post-Soviet republics in their battle against dictators. The son of the war criminal Shukhevych, Yury Shukhevych, who served a prison sentence here, declared:

"The February Maidan is the continuation of the events of 1991, the beginning of the second anti-Soviet revolution, the first being 1991-1993, which should finally destroy the dream of resurrecting the Soviet Union".

For them, clearly, the Maidan was indeed a continuation of 1991-93. Russia's tough reaction to the Maidan - protecting Crimea - they didn't expect that.

The second problem is closely connected to the first and arises from it. The fifth column. Those, whom Putin called the national-traitors. Quantitatively, it's a smallish group, but it includes representatives of the authorities, business, media, intelligentsia, education. You just need to look for who was shouting the loudest that the re-unification with Crimea is the same as what Hitler did with Austria. Moreover, these people managed to avoid the issue that Austria was given to Hitler by Britain and France: without their approval he could never have annexed Austria. The reason they let Hitler annex Austria: Hitler didn't have currency reserves, Austria did. By giving him Austria, they gave him the currency reserves needed to re-arm. Next they let him have Czechoslovakia, because he needed their military-industrial potential, which the Reich didn't have. He needed to get across the border into the Soviet Union.

The Ukraine crisis has demonstrated the unity of the people and authorities of Russia when it comes to such an important issue as bringing together the Russian world. But this crisis makes it necessary and urgent to resolve a number of issues in this country. In my view, the following issues.

Firstly. Suppression of the fifth column by political-legal measures, cut them off from the media and sources of finance, principally from the West.

Secondly. Switch over to a mobilization economy, and switch to a mobilized social system, an element of which will be the mobilization economy.

Thirdly. Re-format the legal sphere. Eliminate the precedence of international law over national law.

Incidentally, they don't have such precedence in the UK or US. That's something they've successfully foisted upon others. Terminate participation in openly anti-Russian structures, and, moreover, financing them.

Fourthly. Strengthen the military alliance with Belarus, notwithstanding the objective and subjective complications of the process. Far from everything said by Lukashenko about the situation in Crimea impressed me. But he did say one very important thing. Belarus will never do anything detrimental to Russia. That's good. In my view he should have said more.

Fifthly. Counteract the opponent, the aggressor, not only around our own borders, but in any part of the world where we have the possibility: establish their degree of vulnerability. We need to conduct ourselves toward the West exactly as they have conducted themselves toward Russia since it came into existence in 1991.

Recently the film-maker Karen Shakhnazarov said something very true when he appeared on TV: The West never ended the Cold War against Russia. The Soviet Union disintegrated, everything continued. Brzezinski spoke very honestly in one of his interviews, this was after the Cold War had already ended. He said: "Don't fool yourself. We are not at war with communism, but with Russia, whatever it may be called." If he´d said war against "the Russian spirit", then he would have been practically repeating the words of Churchill, who said in 1940:

"We are not at war with Hitler, or even the National-Socialism. We are at war with the German spirit, the spirit of Schiler, so that it may never be revived."

The kind of spiritual castration that was imposed upon the Germans after 1945, that's what they wanted to do to Russia after 1991.

In one of his interviews Alexander Rahr, he's a kind of German fringe politician, said that many Western politicians and journalist are surprised as to why Russia doesn't repent. Meaning: Russia lost the Cold War, so they must repent. One more thing he said, for which he was criticized in the West: "For the West the victory over the Soviet Union was no less important, and possibly more important, that the victory over Hitler." Because Hitler belonged to them. Russia never did. This is why we have to counteract the opponent not only on our borders and not when he invades us. We need to make problems for the opponent wherever he is vulnerable.

Sixthly. We must roll out a powerful, massive, informational counter-attack against the North-Atlantic elite. Particularly aggressive wherever they have problems. Specifically, in the Muslim and Spanish-speaking worlds.

I am working closely with the Spanish- and Arabic-language services of Russia Today. They're doing a great job. What is meant by the Spanish-speaking audience? It's not only Latin-America and Spain. There is a huge Spanish-speaking audience in the United States itself. That has to be exploited.

Seventh and last. Re-configure the public awareness for defense. It doesn't mean protecting ourselves. Defense means understanding that we are living in war-time. Train the population, especially the younger generation, to be ready to repulse any aggression: military, informational, cultural, civilizational.

I am very pleased to see the resurrection of the military-patriotic education and the concept of "Ready for Labor and Defense" (???). I remember as a school pupil taking the junior, then senior, exams of "Ready for Labor and Defense" It involved running, which we liked, throwing grenades. It's a robust approach. The reason we won the war was we had the "Societies of Assistance to Defense and Aviation-Chemical Construction" (??????????), we had sports organizations in the 1930s. We were really getting prepared. You want peace - be prepared for war.

We are peaceful people, but our armored train is ready in the sidings. So the changes which happened in February-March was the end of the era of defeats. Leaving the era of defeats is necessary not only on the external front, but also domestically. There are still plenty of odious characters around from the time of Yeltsin. Some have gone to Ukraine. There's a journalist Kiselëv - Evgeny Kiselëv, who shares a surname with Dmitry Kiselëv. He's been in Ukraine since many years ago. He's a Berezovsky-Gussinsky person. Has been broadcasting in Ukraine for many years. Now he says he´s ashamed to be Russian. "Ashamed", for God's sake ...

Well, we shouldn't be ashamed to learn from the West how to operate in the informational domain. Their policies are of an offensive nature. If you are reacting, then you're one step behind and you're going to lose. In the Crimean Victory we won because our leadership, above all the president, he was always a step ahead of the opponent. He took a step. They reacted. He set the agenda.

Julietto Kieza

Kieza told Ruptly that he maintains that the "so-called revolution in Euromaidan has been paid straightly by the United States" and that for the first time since World War II, "Nazism reappears in the center of Europe with the aid of the United States."

Demonstrators came out to express a similar view. Protesters held up signs depicting Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as Hitler, and telling NATO to "go away."

One of the banners said: "No to the Nazi coup d'etat in Ukraine" in Italian.

Jan Pseki

Jen Psaki, U.S. State department spokespeson, dismissed the high vote in Eastern Ukraine for autonomy from the neo-nazi Kiev junta. She labeled the voting 'carousrel voting'. When asked by a journalist to explain what exactly the term 'carousel voting' meant, Jen Pseki replied, "Ah, you know, the truth is that I was reading that term. I'm not familiar with that term, either. It may be that people weren't checking in. I'll check and see what, what RT meant to say by that term ... "

Marina Portnaya

Marina Portnaya reported that when Jen Psaki also accused Russia of using energy as a bargaining chip with Ukraine, the journalist asked Ms Paski how she expects for that debt to actualy be paid. Jen Pseki replied:

"We don't think energy should be used — access to energy be used as a tool, a threatening tool ... "

He responded:

"They would say that they just want to be paid for products delivered."

She responded:

"I think the back context of the situation on the ground means that this is not just business as usual, obviously."

He responded:

"Broadly speaking, you do think the Russians have a right to demand to be paid for a product they are selling?"

She responded:

"Again, man, I'm happy to pull this up when I get back to my desk, but there's a range of details involved in their agreements in the past and they've made threats about them before."

Author's comment: In the comment above, Jan Psaki appears to be making the preposterous claim that the term "carousel voting", just used for the first time ever by herself, was invented by Russia Today (RT).

#LatelineLies">Similar lies reported by ABC's Lateline

Lies, similarly covering up the support by the United States for neo-nazis in Ukraine, are being broadcast in Australia, including ABC's Lateline of 12 May 2014, as shown in excerpts from the transcript below:

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Foreign ministers from the European Union have dismissed independence referendums in Eastern Ukraine as a sham, saying they're illegal and have no credibility. The pro-separatist organisers of the polls say 89 per cent of voters in Donetsk and 96 per cent of voters in Luhansk cast ballots to break away from Ukraine. Europe correspondent Philip Williams reports from Donetsk.

PHILIP WILLIAMS, REPORTER: The result was never in question. As votes were counted, officials said those in favour of independence clearly won the day in a highly-flawed election that no-one in the West is going to recognise.

As with the claims by Jen Psaki shown above, no evidence to support the claims of electoral fraud, made directly by Phillip Williams or indirectly by Emma Albirici, are given. The program continues, giving a platform to another supporter of the Ukrainian neo-nazis, UK Foreign Secretary Wiliam Hague :

WILLIAM HAGUE, UK FOREIGN SECRETARY: These votes, these attempts at referendums have zero credibility in the eyes of the world. They are illegal by anybody's standards. They don't meet any standard, not a single standard of objectivity, transparency, fairness or being properly conducted as a public referendum or election and indeed the people organising them didn't really even pretend to meet any of those standards.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: William Hague warned the EU and US were ready to implement new sanctions against Russia, the so-called third tier. That threat didn't appear to have much effect in Moscow, where the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov welcomed the result of the poll.

A few words are given to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov near the end of the report, but none which directly addressed the lies which preceded.

Published 18 March 2014, this serious documentary details US support for the neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, ultra-nationalist movement in Ukraine. The video examines the ongoing US support of these groups, including the Svoboda party and Right Sector and ultimately how the US and NATO have backed these groups all the way into government. It also shows how the Western newsmedia have cooperated or orchestrated the obfuscation of what is really happening.

Polish media outlet Nie has published a bombshell account about direct Polish involvement in Ukraine's destabilization. Its source alleges that the Polish Foreign Ministry had invited Ukrainian militants into the country and trained them outside of Warsaw in September 2013.

Considering the destructive actions and fatalities they would later be responsible for during the EuroMaidan riots, such a connection would directly link Warsaw to the pandemonium. It would also implicate Poland in being the "Slavic Turkey" of NATO in Eastern Europe. The impact of Nie's reporting can also affect domestic Polish politics, as it would prove that the political elite misled members of Parliament, which could later have direct political repercussions for Tusk's "Civil Platform". This scandal serves to highlight that Poland is starting to emulate the methods of its invited neo-colonial headmaster, the US, thereby deepening the puppet-master relationship between Warsaw and Washington.

According to the report, 86 Euromaidan militants, some of whom appeared to be over 40 years old, came to Poland under the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The pretext for plausible deniability was that they were in the country to promote cooperation between the Warsaw University of Technology and the National Technical University in Kiev. In reality, however, these individuals were whisked away to Legionowo, a town on the outskirts of Warsaw. There, at the police training center, they spent four weeks engaged in a regiment of destabilization training.

Polish police academy "students" beating Berkut officer on Euromaidan in Kiev, January 2014.

The source goes on to state that pictures of the participants show them clothed in Nazi regalia and tattoos, with their Polish military instructors lacking any outward identification as such. At the facility, militants learned the following techniques: crowd management; target identification; tactics; leadership; behavioural management under stressful conditions; protection against police gasses; building barricades; and importantly, they engaged in shooting classes, which incidentally included sniper rifles. Quite clearly, the "students" who came to Warsaw were there for war, not academic work, and their training there resulted in the christening of Bandera's spiritual descendants.

These revelations underline how the EuroMaidan militants had prior Western-backed training, and that Poland was chosen as the location for their instruction. Through its direct involvement and support in training the radicals, Poland is quickly living up to its reputation as NATO's most important frontline state. When the Polish Sejm voted in early December, 2013 to show its "full solidarity with the citizens of Ukraine, who with great determination show the world their desire to ensure their country's full membership in the EU", little did they know that the violent vanguard which had just days before thrown Molotov cocktails and attacked police officers likely acquired their tactics less than an hour's drive from where they casted their vote. Most members of parliament likely did not have a clue that their government was training those violent elements and would be shocked to know that this was the case.

The ultimate irony is that Poland is training fighters who honor a man that glorified in ethnically cleansing Poles from Ukraine in the most horrendous ways imaginable during World War II. For all of its blaring patriotism and nationalist sentiment, the Polish government is actually working against its long-term interests by backing such radical anti-Polish elements right next door.

This "Bandera Brinksmanship" reminds one of the US' foreign policy mentality of allying with and building dangerous radical forces that may later come back to harm them (i.e. Al Qaeda in the Soviet's Afghan conflict and the Libyan and Syrian-based international jihadis of today). Through its greedy and nationalistically minded cooperation with the US in seeking to de-facto resurrect the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland has abandoned its European principles and blindly set itself on becoming America's bulldog in Eastern Europe.

Andrew Korybko is the American Master's Degree student at the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO).

Malcom Fraser was Minister of the Army from 1966 until 1971 as Australia was participating in the war against Vietnam.

He became Prime Minister of Australia as a result of the CIA's coup against the Whitlam Labor Government in 1975 as described in Chapter 40 of The CIA – a forgotten history_{#fnFraser1" id="txtFraser1">1} (1986) by William Blum. Christopher Boyce about which the movie The Falcon and the Snowman_{#fnFraser3" id="txtFraser3">3} (1985) was made, observed CIA interference in Australian politics at the same time.

As Prime Minister of Australia from 1975 until 1983 Malcolm Fraser acted as would be expected of a leader who had thus risen to power: He supported corporate interests and enacted anti-union legislation, including the infamous Sections 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices Act_{#fnFraser2" id="txtFraser2">2}. On the international front he continued to support the United States and its allies in wars against popular revolutions.

However, in more recent years, Malcolm Fraser, in contrast to his record as Prime Minister, has spoken out in support of forces resisting imperialist aggression. In September 2013, contrary to what was being said by the mainstream newsmedia, the Government and the 'Labor' Opposition,_{#fnFraser5" id="txtFraser5">5} he publicly opposed the proxy war by the United States and its allies against the people of Syria.

On 20 March Malcolm Fraser spoke, in a 29 minute interview with Russia Today journalist Oksana Boyko in support of Russia and against the illegitimate extreme right-wing government of Ukraine._{#fnFraser4" id="txtFraser4">4} The interview is embedded below.

Footnote[s]

Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Lendman: Obama and Kerry Declare that Amerika Stands for War and is Proud of It

This article was first published on paulcraigroberts.org and on Information Clearing House 8 Sep 2013. See also: A brief for animals of 5 June 2013, Nature's Capital Is The Limiting Resource of 24 Jan 2013

Guest column by the distinguished commentator and radio host Stephen Lendman:

Syria has agreed to the Russian proposal to give up its chemical weapons, but the war criminal and totally isolated obama regime, the scum of the earth, says it will attack Syria regardless.

How will the world respond to the Amerikan Third Reich, the worst threat to truth, justice, peace, and humanity that the world has ever experienced? Will the world submit to rule by an outlaw state whose corrupt government represents no one but the Israel Lobby?

Editorial Comment: This article is, in many ways, contrary to the views of YouTube broadcaster, the Syrian Girl. In her broadcast If Syria disarms chemical weapons we lose the war, she argues that the agreement is a betrayal of Syria by President al-Assad, Vladimir Putin and the Iranian Government.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36179.htm

Lavrov Calls Kerry's Bluff

By Stephen Lendman

September 09, 2013 "Information Clearing House - Russian Foreign Sergei Lavrov wants peace. He's going all out against war on Syria. He's doing it responsibly.

Important world leaders back him. So does overwhelming global anti-war sentiment.

On Monday, Lavrov met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. He did so in Moscow.

"We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storages under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," he said.

"We have passed our offer to Muallem and hope to receive a fast and positive answer."

Al-Moallem pledged "full cooperation with Russia to remove any pretext for aggression." Lavrov promised Moscow's support.

He's trying to broker a diplomatic solution. In return, he wants Obama to cancel attack plans.

He cited John Kerry saying Assad "could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week."

"Turn it over, all of it without delay and allow (a) full and total accounting, but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."

Doing it would avoid military intervention, Kerry said. Damage control followed his statement. State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki reinterpreted his comments.

He "was making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility and unlikelihood of Assad turning over chemical weapons," she said.

"His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That's why the world faces this moment."

Reinterpreting Kerry's statement shows Obama's true intention. Falsely blaming Assad for using chemical weapons is cover for long planned regime change.

War is Obama's option of choice. Lavrov's best efforts may fall short. He forthrightly pursued them throughout months of conflict. He's not about to stop now.

He faces long odds. Obama didn't wage war on Syria to quit. He won't do so no matter what Lavrov, Moallem, Assad or other Syrian officials pledge. Rogues states operate that way. America's by far the worst.

Moallem's doing his best anyway. So is Lavrov. From Moscow, he said:

"We have agreed on practical steps to be taken bilaterally and in cooperation with other states for giving the political settlement a chance."

"No matter how serious the current situation may be, our Syrian partners and we are confident that possibilities remain for a political settlement."

"Russia has been staying in touch with all (Syrian) opposition groups without an exception in the recent years and we will carry on our efforts to try to convince them that there is no alternative to an international conference."

"If our contacts express that this (conference) may help, then we do not rule out the possibility of an invitation to Moscow of all who are interested in peace and a political settlement in Syria and reject the military scenario."

"What are the real interests of the US behind launching this aggression," he asked?

"Obama is not listening to Americans, Europeans, and UK Parliament. We thank American people for standing against striking Syria."

"We admire the American people who voice their protest against military intervention," added Muallem.

"What are the real interests of the United States behind launching this aggression? Why does US want to help those who are behind 9/11?

Washington "will be wrong to destroy (Syria's) army and help Al Qaeda. We're confident Russian efforts on peace talks will stop strikes."

Lavrov replied, saying:

"UN inspectors should return to Syria to investigate alleged use of chemical weapons."

"The alleged chemical attack on August 21 was orchestrated." Anti-Assad elements bear full responsibility.

"We must consolidate government and rebels to evict terrorists. We are taking active moves to prevent devastating strike. Every report on chemical arms use must be closely studied."

"Syria is open to Geneva-2 peace talks with no pre-conditions. We call on US colleagues to focus on talks, not on strikes."

"Syria strike will only enable terrorism. Russia believes no group should monopolize peace talks."

"Dialogue is necessary among all Syrians. It's the only solution. UN inspectors must go back to Syria, but some powers are obstructing."

He left no doubt which ones he means. They're headquartered in Washington. Obama's a warmaker. He deplores peace. He's going all out to prevent it. He plans war to do so.

"Russia is well-supported in the view that military action in Syria will provoke rampant terrorism," said Lavrov.

Moallem said his government is ready for Geneva II with no preconditions. "We are still ready to do that. But I do not know what may happen after an act of aggression by the United States. Probably a missile will fly over and thwart this.

America sides with terrorists, he added. It plans to be Al Qaeda's air force.

"But if such aggression against Syria aims, as we suspect, to considerably weaken the military potential of the Syrian army in the interest of al-Qaeda and various affiliated groups, then we will raise our objections," he stressed.

"Then we have the right to ask a question about the genuine interests of the United States that wishes to unleash an attack on the behalf of Jabhat al-Nusra and similar groups."

"We've come here just as the US is sounding war drums. Our feeling is that Russia plays an important role of staving off aggression."

"That is where Russia's moral ground lies, since a peacekeeper is always stronger than a warmonger."

"Mr. Assad has sent his regards and said he was grateful to Mr. Putin for his stand on Syria both before and after the G20 summit."

"Russia plays an important role in preventing aggression."

Lavrov added that Russia's "stand on Syria is unwavering and does not permit a military solution of the Syrian conflict, especially foreign intervention."

"The position of Russia is well-known. It is immune to change and varying circumstances."

"This position says there is no alternative to peaceful, diplomatic settlement of the Syrian conflict, especially not a military solution employing foreign intervention."

"On the background of the unfolding campaign calling to use force against Damascus, Russia is taking steps to prevent a pernicious situation in the Middle East."

"There cannot be any deals behind backs of the Syrian people from the Russian side in what refers to the policies Russia is following."

He added that force against Syria would cause a wave of regional terrorism. Perhaps that's precisely what Obama intends.

He needs pretexts to intervene. Peace and stability defeat his agenda. It requires violence and destabilization. He plans lots more ahead.

He faces stiff world opposition. On September 9, Reuters headlined "Analysis: Obama growing isolated on Syria as support wanes".

"White House efforts to convince the US Congress to back military action against Syria are not only failing, they seem to be stiffening the opposition."

He's making more enemies than friends. He's doing so at home and abroad. Skeptics way outnumber supporters.

Hindsight may show he shot himself in the foot. Peace activists hope so. He'll give it another go Tuesday night. He'll try enlisting support for what most people reject.

They're tired of being lied to. They want peace, stability, and jobs. They want America's resources directed toward creating them.

They want leadership representing everyone equitably. Obama's polar opposite. He supports wealth, power and privilege alone. He spurns popular interests.

He chooses war over peace. He's less able to sell what most people reject. Odds favor he'll attack Syria anyway.

Pretexts are easy to fabricate. They're longstanding US policy. Expect another major one if Ghouta's Big Lie falls flat. It's likely planned ready to be implemented if needed.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html - Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

Update, 8 Sep 2013 : Stories which reveal complicity of former 'Labor' Foreign Minister Bob Carr in U.S. plans to start war against Syria: Interview of January 2013 with Bob Carr on Australia Network, Australia right to back Syria strike: Carr, Australian spies confirmed chemical use on civilians by Syrian regime (which confirms the complicity of Australia's 'intelligence' agencies), US and allies further isolated on Syria after French President Francois Hollande waits on UN report.

This article was originally published on www.paulcraigroberts.org on 5 September 2013 as The US Government Stands Revealed to the World as a Collection of War Criminals and Liars. See also: Paul Craig Roberts: U.S. war criminals (and their Australian accomplices) totally discredited of 2 Sep 2013.

Paul Craig Roberts explains that the serial liars U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are finally being held to account by world public opinion for the death and destruction they have inflicted upon Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. However, unless they are tried for their crimes at the International Criminal Court at the Hague, there can be no enduring peace.

Editorial comment

Unlike what occurred on past occasions when the U.S. Government launched wars against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, much of world public opinion, including majorities within the U.S. and within many countries, whose governments are allied to the U.S., are opposed to its planned war against Syria and have organised effectively to prevent it _{#fnSubj3" id="txtSubj3">3}

Also, there are a number of honest and principled world leaders, who have substantial resources and who are willing to use those resources to stand up to the world's bullies. One is Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, who has been supplying Syria with many of the armaments necessary to defend itself against the West's proxy terrorists and threatened invasion by Western Nations.

Others include the leaders of Iran and the BRICS nations including many governments of Latin America.

That Putin was able to expose U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry before the world for the liar that he is _{#fnSubj5" id="txtSubj5">5} was because of his profile and that the Russian and other Governments have set up media outlets which are able to tell the truth to a large proportion of the world's population who would otherwise have their views largely moulded by presstitute media.

The Australian government has acted barely less shamefully

Much of what Paul Craig Roberts has written of Barack Obama and John Kerry is also true of Australian 'Labor' Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and Senator Bob Carr, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs. Australia's role in inflicting harm on the peoples the world in recent years has been largely overlooked. As an example, nowhere in former U.S. Congresswomen Cynthia McKinney's book about Libya_{#fnSubj4" id="txtSubj4">4}, is Kevin Rudd's shameful role in starting the NATO invasion of Libya in 2011. _{#fnSubj6" id="txtSubj6">6} As 'roving' Australian Foreign Minister in the Middles East in March 2011, Kevin Rudd called for the establishment of the "no-fly" zone, because it was deceitfully reported the Libyan Air Force was indiscriminately bombing civilians.

Since then Kevin Rudd and Bob Carr have done much to help start a new war against Syria They have also spread lies similar to those told by Kerry and they have taken diplomatic initiatives to help start the war. Fortunately for Syria and the world, their hard efforts appear to have come unstuck thanks to the weight of world public opinion in support of Syria.

The US Government Stands Revealed to the World as a Collection of War Criminals and Liars

Paul Craig Roberts, 5 September, 2013

Does the American public have the strength of character to face the fact that the US government stands before the entire world revealed as a collection of war criminals who lie every time that they open their mouth? Will Congress and the American public buy the White House lie that they must support war criminals and liars or "America will lose face"?

The obama regime's lies are so transparent and blatant that the cautious, diplomatic President Putin of Russia lost his patience and stated the fact that we all already know: John Kerry is a liar. Putin said: "This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them [the Americans], and we assume they are decent people, but he [Kerry] is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad._{#fnSubj1" id="txtSubj1">1}"

When Secretary of State Colin Powell was sent by the criminal bush regime to lie to the UN, Powell and his chief of staff claim that Powell did not know he was lying. It did not occur to the Secretary of State that the White House would send him to the UN to start a war that killed, maimed, and dispossessed millions of Iraqis on the basis of total lies.

The despicable John Kerry knows that he is lying. Here is the American Secretary of State, and obama, the puppet president, knowingly lying to the world. There is not a shred of integrity in the US government. No respect for truth, justice, morality or human life. Here are two people so evil that they want to repeat in Syria what the bush war criminals did in Iraq.

How can the American people and their representatives in Congress tolerate these extraordinary criminals? Why are not obama and John Kerry impeached? The obama regime has every quality of Nazi Germany and Stasi Communist Germany, only that the obama regime is worse. The obama regime spies on the entire world and lies about it. The obama regime is fully engaged in killing people in seven countries, a murderous rampage that not even Hitler attempted.

Whether the criminal obama regime can purchase the collaboration of Congress and the European puppet states in a transparent war crime will soon be decided. The decision will determine the fate of the world.

As for facts, the report released to the UN by the Russian government concludes that the weapons used in chemical attacks in Syria are similar to the weapons in the hands of al-Nusra and are different from the weapons known to be possessed by Syria. _{#fnSubj2" id="txtSubj2">2}

The obama regime has released no evidence to the UN. This is because the criminal regime has no evidence, only made up fairy tales.

If the obama regime had any evidence, the evidence would have been released to British Prime Minister david cameron to enable him to carry the vote of Parliament. In the absence of evidence, cameron had to admit to Parliament that he had no evidence, only a belief that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons. Parliament told Washington's puppet that the British people were not going to war on the basis of the Prime Minister's unsubstantiated belief.

Are the American people and the rest of the world just going to stand there, sucking their thumbs, while a new Nazi State rises in Washington?

Congress must vote down the war and make it clear to obama that if he defies the constitutional power of Congress he will be impeached.

If the US Congress is too corrupt or incompetent to do its duty, the rest of the world must join the UN General Secretary and the President of Russia and declare that unilateral military aggression by the US government is a war crime, and that the war criminal US government will be isolated in the international community. Any of its members caught traveling abroad will be arrested and turned over to the Hague for trial.

Footnotes

#fnSubj1" id="fnSubj1">1#txtSubj1">↑. Putin Calls Kerry a Liar on Syria of 5 Sep 2103 by David Jackson on Information Clearing House

#fnSubj2" id="fnSubj2">2.#txtSubj2">↑ Russia Releases Key Findings on Chemical Attack Near Aleppo Indicating Similarity With Rebel-made Weapons
of 5 Sep 2103 from Russia Today on Information Clearing House

#fnSubj3" id="fnSubj3">3. #txtSubj3">↑ Many, who are opposed to war, nevertheless still accept many of the lies fed to them by the presstitute media. To the extent that they do, their opposition to the war can only be muted. As one example, many accept the unsubstantiated view atrocities are being committed by both sides of the conflict. Others choose to promote the view that President Bashar al-Assad is corrupt, but invariably fail to provide evidence when challenged. In time, more and more people will come to understand that these views are wrong.

#fnSubj4" id="fnSubj4">4. #txtSubj4">↑ The Illegal War on Libya (Clarity Press, 2012) by Cynthia McKinney.

#fnSubj5" id="fnSubj5">5. #txtSubj5">↑ See US lied about absence of Al Qaeda in Syria - President Putin in the Voice of Russia of 5 September 2013.

#fnSubj6" id="fnSubj6">6. #txtSubj6">↑ See Rudd, PM Split On Libya No-Fly Zone in the Melbourne Age of 5 March 2011.

A new film, "Compliance," examines "the human desire to follow and obey authority."

Propaganda is important in the inculcation of trust in authority.The Pussy Riot case shows the power of Washington's propaganda even inside Russia itself and reveals that Washington's propaganda has suborned important human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Chatham House, and Amnesty International.

Pussy Riot is described in the western media as a punk rock group, but seems in fact to be a group known as Voina (War) that performs lewd or scandalous unannounced public performances such as the one in the Russian cathedral, a sexual orgy in a museum, and events such as these. (see also http://plucer.livejournal.com/265584.html).

Three of the cathedral performers were apprehended, indicted, tried, convicted of breaking a statutory law, and given two-year prison sentences. The Voice of Russia recently broadcast a discussion of the case from its London studio. Representatives from Human Rights Watch and Chatham House argued that the case was really a free speech case and that the women were political prisoners for criticizing Russian President Putin.

This claim was disingenuous. In the blasphemous performance in the Russian cathedral, Putin was not mentioned. The references to Putin were added to the video posted on the Internet after the event in order to turn a crime into a political protest.

The human rights representatives also argued that the women's conviction could only happen in Putin's Russia. However, the program host pointed out that in fact most European countries have similar laws as Russia's and that a number of European offenders have been arrested and punished even more severely.  Indeed, I recently read a news report from Germany that a copycat group of women had staged a similar protest in support of Pussy Riot and had been arrested. An analysis of these issues is available here: http://mercouris.wordpress.com .

The human rights representatives seemed to believe that Putin had failed the democratic test by failing to stop the prosecution. But a country either has the rule of law or doesn't have the rule of law. If Putin overrides the law, it means Putin is the law.

Whether Washington had a hand in the Pussy Riot event via the Russian protest groups it funds, Hitlery Clinton was quick to make propaganda.  Free expression was threatened in Russia, she said.

Washington used the Pussy Riot case to pay Putin back for opposing Washington's destruction of Syria.  The overlooked legal issue is Washington's interference in internal Russian affairs. The close alignment of human rights organizations with Washington's propaganda hurts the credibility of human rights advocacy.  If human rights groups are seen as auxiliaries of Washington's propaganda, their moral authority evaporates.

The prevalence of the English language, due to the British domination of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries and American domination in the 20th and first decade of the 21st century, makes it easy for Washington to control the explanations. Other languages simply do not have the reach to compete.

Washington also has the advantage of having worn the White Hat in the Cold War. The peoples who were constituent parts of the Soviet empire and even many Russians themselves still see Washington as the wearer of the White Hat. Washington has used this advantage to finance "color revolutions" that have moved countries from the Russian sphere of influence into Washington's sphere of influence.

Tony Cartalucci concludes that "Amnesty International is US State Department Propaganda."  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32257.htm

Cartalucci notes that  Amnesty's executive director is former State Department official Suzanne Nossel, who conflates "human rights advocacy" with US global hegemony.

Amnesty does seem like an amplifier for Washington's propaganda. Amnesty's latest email to members (August 27) is: "As if the recent trial and sentencing of three members of Pussy Riot wasn't shameful enough, now Russian police are hunting down others in the band. Make no mistake about it: Russian authorities are relentless. Just how far are the Russian authorities willing to go to silence voices of dissent? Tell the Russian government to stop hunting Pussy Riot!"

Amnesty International's August 23 email to its members, "Wake Up World," is completely one-sided and puts all blame for violence on the Syrian government, not on al Qaeda and other outside groups that Washington has armed and unleashed on the Syrian people. Amnesty is only concerned with getting visual images damning to the Syrian government before the public: "We are working to get this damning footage into the hands of journalists around the world. Support our work and help ensure that our first-hand video is seen by influential members of the media."

At least Pussy Riot got a trial. That's more than US Marine, Brandon Raub, a veteran of two tours of combat duty, got. Raub posted on Facebook his opinion that he had been misused by Washington in behalf of an illegal agenda. Local police, FBI, and Secret Service descended upon his home, dragged him out, and on the authority of a social worker, committed him to a mental hospital for observation. http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/citizen-warrior/2012/aug/23/judge-orders-brandon-raub-released-hospital/.

I did not see any protests from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, or Chatham House.  Instead, a Virginia circuit court judge, W. Allan Sharrett, demanded Raub's immediate release, stating that there was no reason to detain and commit Raub except to punish him for exercising his free speech right.

Americans are increasingly punished for exercising free speech rights.  A number of videos of police violence against the occupy movement are available on youtube. They show the goon thug gestapo cops beating women, pepper spraying protestors sitting with their heads bowed, truncheons flashing as American heads are broken and protestors beat senseless are dragged off in handcuffs for peacefully exercising a constitutionally protected right.

There has been more protest over Pussy Riot than over the illegal detention and torture of Bradley Manning or the UK government's threat to invade the Embassy of Ecuador and to drag out WikiLeaks' Julian Assange.

When a Chinese dissident sought asylum in the US embassy in China, the Chinese government bowed to international law and permitted the dissident's safe passage to the US. But "freedom and democracy" Great Britain refuses free passage to Assange who has been granted asylum, and there is no protest from Clinton at the State Department.

In "China's Rise, America's Fall," Ron Unz makes a compelling argument that the Chinese government is more respectful of the rule of law and more responsive to the people it governs than is Washington. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/chinas-rise-americas-fall/.

Today it is Russia and China, not the UK and Europe, that challenge Washington's claim that the US government is above international law and has the right to overthrow governments of which it disapproves.

The lawlessness that now characterizes the US and UK governments is a large threat to humanity's finest achievement--the rule of law--for which the British fought from the time of Alfred the Great in the ninth century to the Glorious Revolution of the 17th century.

Where are the protests over the Anglo-American destruction of the rule of law?

Why Aren't Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Chatham House on the case?

Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Paul Craig Roberts Subscribe to the Global Research E-Newsletter

Please support Global Research
Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.

Your endorsement is greatly appreciated

This has been adapted from an e-mail from asumofus.org. Original story here.
See also: Russian law requires registration of "NGO carrying out functions as a foreign agent" of 13 July 2012

The roar of a chainsaw shatters the peaceful calm of the Karelia forest in Northwestern Russia. A logger carves into an exquisite giant -- a 600-year-old tree -- with expert precision. Within minutes, he has masterfully sliced through tree rings, added the felled tree to a growing pile, and moved on to the next.

These trees -- part of Russia's last remaining old-growth forests -- will be chopped up to make cutting boards, wooden spoons and other items for IKEA. IKEA has built a reputation around sustainability and tells its customers, literally, "We Love Wood", and that the furniture they buy will not contain wood from old-growth forests. But a new report shows that IKEA is clear-cutting Russia's remaining ancient forests and destroying hundreds of thousands of unique animal species for profit. If it doesn't stop now, there may be no trees left.

Send a message to IKEA CEO Mikael Ohlsson telling IKEA to stop clear-cutting Russia's ancient old-growth forests.

IKEA is the third-largest purchaser of wood in the world, behind Home Depot and Lowe's, and roughly 60 percent of the products stocked in IKEA's 300 department stores across the globe contain wood of some form. IKEA already decimates 1,400 acres of forest a year -- that's why it purchased this enormous swath of over 740,000 acres of Russia's Karelia lush boreal forests -- for expansion.

IKEA is trying to convince customers that it adheres to the strictest environmental standards, and only uses wood sourced in economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable ways. But a Swedish conservation group discovered that IKEA's wholly-owned subsidiary, Swedwood, is clear-cutting the last of Karelia's old-growth forests from areas of high conservation and devastating invaluable forest ecosystems in the process. This directly violates the minimum requirements IKEA has set for its timber.

IKEA truly cares about its sustainable image and internationally-known brand and is especially vulnerable to public pressure from SumOfUs.org members. That's why it is important we send a strong message now.

As a world leader in the furniture industry and one of the world's largest companies, with over $30 billion in profits between 2000 and 2008, IKEA has the means to make its forestry practices more ecologically friendly and needs to stop misleading its customers.

Tell IKEA's CEO to prove he really loves wood and to stop clear-cutting Russia's remaining ancient forests. Send a message now.

Thanks for loving trees,

Emma, Taren, Kaytee and the rest of us

Why are old-growth forests so important?

Russia's lush, old-growth forests perform vital functions for life on Earth. They help to stabilize the climate by locking carbon in the soil -- which helps safeguard our climate. In addition, old-growth forests have much greater biodiversity than managed plantations, and are home to literally hundreds of thousands of unique animal and plant species, like rare species of lichens, mosses and other plants and animals. These species cannot survive in secondary forests.

But because of logging, only 10% of Russia's old-growth forests remain.

NGOs claim that IKEA, through Swedwood, is helping to destroy ecosystems that are home to endangered species by clear-cutting already depleted old-growth forests. In Karelia, only isolated tracts and pockets of old-growth forests remain.

In Russia, Swedwood Karelia LLC owns a logging concession of over 740,000 acres. And with Russian markets increasingly opening to the global market, and World Trade Organization (WTO) membership likely, environmentalists fear the worst damage to Russia's forests is yet to come.

Further Reading:

IKEA under fire for ancient tree logging, The Guardian. May 29, 2012. (Editorial comment: Although the Guardian has, to its credit, taken a principled stance on this issue, it has been publishing lies about the conflict in Syria. These lies could well make it possible for the US, it's NATO allies, Israel and the Arab dictatorships to carry out their plans to launch a war against Syria and Iran. The ecological cost, not to mention the human cost, of such a war could hardly be less terrible than IKEA's destruction of Russian rainforests

Last year Russia banned the import of kangaroo meat because of health concerns. The European Union President is also advocating a ban on kangaroo meat, but for wildlife preservation and cruelty reasons. Australian AgForce and the Australia-Russia Business Council have got together with the Queensland government to try to reverse this situation and they have been strongly courting the Russian meat trade again. In early June the Russian Trade Minister Yuri Aleshin was toured around Western Queensland with this trade in mind. Ironically he was recorded on an ABC radio broadcast posing the question regarding the kangaroos..."but where are they?" Obviously he had not seen the 'hordes' that are so often said to exist.

Last year I visited a kangaroo rehabilitation center in Queensland where orphans are raised by the remarkable Anne Maree Dineen. I was struck by how small the kangaroos there were compared to those I see on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. Anne-Maree told me that the average life-span of a kangaroo in Queensland is about 2 years, since so many are shot. The big ones are shot first, then the trade goes after the little ones. Their normal life-expectancy can be 20 years plus under other conditions. I also noticed the extreme nervousness and vigilance of these small kangaroos there, which was also in contrast to those in relatively safe conditions in Victoria - albeit the Victorian ones are being starved out by development, harassed by farmers and killed on roads there, as safe havens go under tarmac.

UPDATE! Since November the 13th Valentin Danilov is a free human being. Now he's at home in Krasnojarsk.
Nearly 900 signatures have been collected from scientists in Russia on behalf of colleagues falsely imprisoned because of association with foreigners. They ask for your support for their campaign to free their fellows. "...Russian Federation (RF) officials have repeatedly appealed to scientists who left Russia for the West in the 1990s, to come back and work for the good of Russian science and the modernization of the country. ... But the authorities have “forgotten” those Russian scientists who were condemned for “state treason”, for “the disclosure of state secrets” or for “exporting technologies of dual military and ordinary applications”, who were imprisoned for lengthy periods under charges faked by the Federal Safety Service (FSS). "

Scientists… they’re just an easy target

UPDATE! Since November the 13th Valentin Danilov is a free human being. Now he's at home in Krasnojarsk. Article re petition translated by Boris Osadin and Edited by Sheila Newman from the original at Novaya gazeta, No. 44 (1602) 26.04.2010, p.13

UPDATE: Today candobetter.net received a happy notification from Boris Osadin that Valentin Danilov has been freed.

"Dear Sheila,
it's a pleasure for me to tell you that since November the 13-th Valentin Danilov is a free human being. Now he's at home in Krasnojarsk.
Thank you for your anxiety and help.
Sinserely yours
Boris Osadin."

The article below (initially published 2010-05-07 18:19:04 +1000) gives the history of this scientist's political imprisonment in Russia.

Address to: The President of the Russian Federation (RF), The Russian Federation Federal Meeting, the Government of the Russian Federation, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, and the Office of the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation.

Over recent months Russian Federation (RF) officials have made repeated appeals to scientists who left Russia for the West in the 1990s, to come back and work for the good of Russian science and the modernization of the country. Very good conditions and big salaries have been promised to those who return.

But the authorities have “forgotten” those Russian scientists who were condemned for “state treason”, for “the disclosure of state secrets” or for “exporting technologies of dual military and ordinary applications”, who were imprisoned for lengthy periods under charges faked by the Federal Safety Service (FSS).

Investigators, prosecutors and judges sent to prison for many years Igor Sutyagin, Valentin Danilov, Igor Reshetin, Ivan Petkov, Sergey Vizir, Michael Ivanov, and Alexander Rojkin. Why? Just because of contacts with foreigners. Meanwhile, to this day, no-one has repudiated Putin’s public statement about criminal responsibility for contacts with foreigners.

Thanks to public support some scientists managed to avoid imprisonment by getting conditional terms instead or even succeeded in getting their investigations closed. The threat of prosecution of scientists in Russia hasn’t disappeared, however. It hangs over those who work on scientific problems which bureaucrats cannot understand.

FSS doesn’t leave condemned scientists alone even in prison. For example Igor Sutyagin served 10 years out of 15 in jail and earned the right to an early parole, but the men of the FSS deprived him of that right.

The Russian Public Committee for Protection of Scientists supposes that the main task of today’s Russian FSS is to fabricate an illusion that anti-Russian forces with supporters lurk within our borders, and Russian scientists have been selected as the easiest people to target with this invented conspiracy.

Over the past 10 years more than 20 scientists have been prosecuted in Russia by the FSS under far-fetched pretexts. And the authorities refuse to discuss this disgraceful situation. Meanwhile intellectual activity in the country, where special services have got unlimited power and where corruption exceeds all limits, is also diminished by growing corporatisation.

It seems very strange to invite foreign scientists into the country to reinvigorate science here, yet to overlook the plight of those Russian scientists already here, innocent, yet languishing in prison.

President Medvedev has not fulfilled our hopes for objectivity and humanity.

Repeated appeals to the new president by famous Russian scientists and public figures, asking him to reconsider cases, for amnesty or, finally, just to show mercy to convicted scientists have been fallen on deaf ears.

Because of this situation we are making another attempt to draw the attention of society and the scientific community this problem of reprisals against men of science, which is due to mercenary interests of FSS men who receive rewards and promotions for fabricating criminal cases. Every year the FSS publishes a report about the hundreds of “spies” it has caught. The situation has obviously overwhelmed justice, logic or truth.

We call for a transparent and public review process to investigate for cases where criminal guilt was manufactured, the freeing of innocent scientists from their wrongful imprisonment and for the punishment of those found guilty of fabricating evidence and of bringing this false evidence against these scientists.

Amnesty cannot substitute for justice. The granting of amnesty or clemency would be acceptable only as a preliminary event.

Until there is a public freeing of the innocent and falsely imprisoned Russian scientists the modern Russian authority has no moral right to call for the return of Russian scientists currently living abroad. Moreover, it has no right to play with the futures of foreign scientists either.

We hereby call upon Russian and men and women of science from other nations, public figures of all nations and ordinary citizens to sign this address.

Ludmila Alekseeva – Moscow Helsinki Group,
Yury Ryjov – Academician (RAS);
Aleksey Simonov – Glasnost Protection Fund;
Sergey Kovalev – A.D. Sakharov’s Heritage
Commission;
Ernst Cherny -- Public Committee
for Protection of Scientists;
Svetlana Gannushkina – “Assistance of Citizens”;
Boris Pustynszev – “Control of Citizens”;
Boris Osadin – professor;
Yury Vdovin -- “Control of Citizens”;
Leo Ponomarev – “For human rights”;
Eugeny Ikhlov – journalist;
Irina Osipova – “Memorial”;
Aleksander Altunian – scientist;
Aleksey Yablokov – Member-correspondent of RAS;
Gleb Yakunin – priest
Sheila Newman – Environmental Sociologist & Writer

www.novayagazeta.ru

Novaya gazeta has begun to gather signatures
for the liberation of Russian scientists

To sign if you don't read Russian therefore cannot access the above newspaper site:

If you don't read Russian, but want to sign - send your name to
ErnstChern[AT]yandex.ru
or

with a subject heading of "Russian Scientists".

Notes

Illustrations adapted from @0114926386.1272890392@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccfadekfkfmemdcefecekjdffidfkh.0">audio-book of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, a classic novel of Soviet imprisonment and the Signet edition.

Article by Boris A. Osadin
Moscow State Institute
for Radio-engineering, Electronics and Automatics
(Technical University)

Moscow plasma physicist, Boris A. Osadin comes in from the cold winter with a fascinating account of the political history of trends in plasma physics theory, experiment and finance in Russia during the Cold War and today. This is an account of exotic Soviet scientific personalities and rival theoretical schools, as well as the broader associated military and international politics and the tolls on science of an 'atomic Gulag'. It is also a tale of how the financing of the ITER project today may be an outcome of the ways in which US, European and Soviet scientists exploited the crazy Cold War politics to the benefit of their research preferences and to survive.

Historic Conflict

In Physical kinetics and the drama of human destiny, Alekseev writes of a history of conflict between professor A.A. Vlasov, the creator of kinetic theory of plasma as a special substance, and a group of theorists headed by Academician* L.D. Landau, who considered plasma as just ionized gas. [1] This conflict started after the Second World War and continued during the Cold War, which influenced its outcome. Long-lasting consequences of Landau’s [official] “victory” over Vlasov in the scientific debate are considered below.

Three reviews

The victory was in dispute right from the start. Soviet physicists not aligned with the USSR Academy of Sciences (AS), did not recognize it. After Landau’s death (1968) the Physics faculty of Moscow State University (MSU) nominated professor Vlasov to the Lenin Prize. The Lenin Prize and State Premium Committee sought peer reviews by Academicians Sagdeev and Zavoisky and member-correspondent Kadomszev. The texts of all three reviews can be found in Russian archives, and nowadays present great interest. They are of interest because they demonstrate, not only the contemporary political interest in this specific field of physics, but also the level of understanding of Vlasov’s main idea, which consisted in recognizing the ability of plasma to organize itself. [26]

Sagdeev’s review was negative. He wrote that Vlasov “had overlooked the phenomenon of Landau’s extinguishing” (also called “Landau damping”) of longitudinal plasma waves. Sagdeev described the frequent mention of Vlasov’s name in physics literature as “of more significance than his input into science.” Kadomszev’s conclusion was kinder. Pointing to the mathematical error, which already had been noted by Landau, he wrote: “In my opinion A.A. Vlasov is worthy of Lenin’s prize but not for “the series of publications on plasma theory”, notably “the kinetic equation with self-organised [self-coordinated] field”. Only Zavoisky’s conclusion was completely positive: “Vlasov’s works should rank internationally with key scientific research and are worthy of Lenin’s prize, without doubt.” Because of that review, Vlasov won the prize in 1970.

Was he satisfied?

When one of his former post-graduates called him to congratulate him for his success, he exclaimed “Too late!” and ended the phone conversation.

In the early 1960’s as a graduate from the Physics faculty of MSU, under the guidance of Academician A.G. Iosifian in the Istra branch of the All-Union Institute for Electro-mechanics (near Moscow), I began experimental studies in impulse plasma accelerators. I quickly became uneasy about a number of observations. Looking for help on theory I connected with Dr. Sagdeev. The talk took place at Sagdeev’s apartment in the kitchen and was positive for both of us, but very soon I was persuaded that Sagdeev’s theoretical physics were a long way off testing. That’s why later I didn’t seek him out at meetings. As for Sagdeev, he very soon found himself in Novosibirsk, where he became a member of the USSR AS Space Exploration. Again in Moscow, he became director of the USSR AS Space Exploration Institute. After that he married the grand daughter of the former USA president Eisenhower and left the USSR for the USA.

The last time I saw Academician Kadomszev was 1997 at a sitting of the Scientific-Technical Council of the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy, which was devoted to ITER (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). Kadomszev was the main speaker there. After his report he was asked for his opinion on the accuracy of the ITER Project calculations. Kadomszev estimated this accuracy as plus-or-minus 30%: if plus, everything will be OK. If minus, nothing will be. Soon after that sitting Kadomszev died.

I never met Academician Zavoisky and never followed his publications very closely. It seemed to me that Zavoisky’s plasma and my plasma were two very different plasmas. Only after Zavoisky’s death did I realize my mistake.

A letter to Stalin and other plasma physics

In 2009 physicists could say that 80 years had gone by since the term “plasma” first made its appearance, with its introduction into physics by the Americans Langmuir and Tonks, and that 60 years had passed since the young Soviet Sergeant Lavrentiev had sent his letter to Generalissimo Stalin.

The letter was devoted to the possibility of creating a man-made Sun on the Earth in the form of the controlled thermonuclear reactor. This idea had occurred to the sergeant’s mind after testing the first atomic bomb in the USSR, at the peak of the Soviet atomic project’s development. For the same reason Beria, the administrator of this project, sent the sergeant’s letter to theoretical physicist Sakharov. Thus the theory of magnetic thermonuclear reactor by I.E. Tamm and A.D. Sakharov [2] appeared. This theory was based on the hypothetical possibility of a man-made plasma torus, hanging in magnetic field that had no contact with the vacuum chamber walls. Some years later this supposition was transformed into the “tokamak” [reactor].

In the beginning of 1951, under Kurchatov’s guidance, a series of seminars on plasma physics and the controlled thermonuclear reactor idea took place. A number of famous Soviet physicists, including Landau, Tamm and Sakharov, participated in these seminars, but Vlasov did not. The most active participant was Arszimovich, who was not then an academician. He offered, not only to heat, but also to hold plasma by a strong electric current. (That is he proposed to use Joule’s Heat for plasma heating and Ampere’s Force for plasma holding.) Very soon he had demonstrated his idea by means of so called z-pinches. In these he discovered neutrons, testifying to nuclear fusion reactions, and won the Lenin Prize (together with co-workers). He then headed the plasma department of the Institute for Atomic Energy (IAE), teaching students that plasma may be controlled by Ampere’s force (known since 1820 and working in all electric machines) and thus transforming himself in the USSR into the absolute plasma physics leader.

Everything seemed OK in 1951. But in 1961, when Arszimovich tried to summarize experimental results [3], he was disappointed.

About tokamaks, for example, he wrote the following:

“The bright transverse flashes, following one after another, occupied the entire volume of the vacuum chamber…There is no skin-effect… The gas pressure in plasma is very small, and its meaning is insignificant…The kinetic energies of ions are far greater than the average energy of electrons… The distribution function doesn’t correspond to the idea of Maxwellian distribution of velocities… The density distribution through the cross-section of plasma torus isn’t clear. Its change in time isn’t clear either… Over 90% of energy inputs to plasma go to compensate for the huge energy losses of plasma. There is no convincing explanation for these losses… Magnetic thermo-isolation in the system under consideration is practically absent… There is relatively large number of ions with energies from 1keV up to tens of kilo-electron-volt, that testify to the strong deviation of energy distribution from Maxwellian one. Fast ions obtain their energy in accelerating processes… The plasma is found in condition of continuous macroscopic but extremely chaotic motion… In inertia processes ions are accelerated by electric fields, which bind them to electrons. However almost nothing has been achieved to understand these processes… If we consider the experimental results from the point of view of their capacity to offer solutions to the controlled thermonuclear fusion problem, then the outlook is pessimistic…All oscillogrammes of the current derivative show highly intensive oscillations, the chaotic character of which clearly indicates the development of some non-stable plasma processes. The intensity of oscillations very strongly changes during every discharge impulse… The high amplitude of high-frequency oscillations indicates that even a very strong outer magnetic field isn’t the ideal method for guaranteeing the whole stability of the plasma torus… The maximum plasma density is many times less than the value that is required, if all the particles initially in the vacuum chamber are to become plasma… To understand the nature of plasma phenomena, at least qualitatively, requires very intensive flow of new and reliable experimental information… Whether we will achieve what we set out to do remains the open question.”

This merciless self-criticism is to be found in Arszimovich’s Controlled thermonuclear reactions [3].

However a decade ago ([4] 1950) Vlasov had warned that plasma isn’t gas or metal but “an absolutely original substance binding long-distance forces”. What about remembering Vlasov’s work and restarting the development of the kinetic theory of plasma together with appropriate experiments? Instead of this, Arszimovich began a war against another famous physicist, who worked at the same IAE and in the same scientific field but disagreed with Arszimovich’s plasma-dynamic beliefs. The other physicist was Academician Zavoisky.

Let’s note here, that the atomic science race between USA and Russia meant that the scientists were literally forced to work at a "GULAG"** pace which made many of them psychologically ill.

Zavoisky’s fate was determined by the discovery of EPR (electronic paramagnetic resonance), which happened in 1944 at Kazan University. This University is one of the oldest in Russia and connected with the name of a famous mathematician, Lobachevsky. During the Second World War Kazan became the shelter for Soviet science. Evacuees from the Leningrad Institute for Technical Physics and the Moscow Physics Institute (both belonged to the USSR AS) were working there, including Academician Kurchatov and other well-known Soviet scientists. These circumstances meant that Zavoisky would receive special attention.

There are books available about Zavoisky prior to his work with plasma [5], [6]. Zavoisky began working on plasma physics when he was over fifty and already a highly experienced scientist, as his plasma publications attest. [7]

Landau’s extinguishing

Sagdeev wrote that Vlasov had overlooked “Landau’s extinguishing”. But what is Landau’s extinguishing? It came to light in 1946 through Vlasov’s kinetic equation for electron component of infinite plasma with homogenous ion density and the Maxwellian distribution function of electrons, which started out by deviating slightly from equilibrium [8]. This task was formulated by Vlasov in 1938 as a specific example to demonstrate his approach to plasma, and, at the time, he believed it was conclusive. However his conclusion was not entirely correct from a mathematical point of view. Academician Landau corrected Vlasov’s conclusion - (Thanks Landau!) – and proved that a small deviation is extinguished with time.

But why would anyone be surprised by this?

It’s clear to everybody that man-made (laboratory) plasma cannot be infinite, and therefore that limited plasma cannot be Maxwellian. So Landau’s extinguishing is just the “on-paper effect”. And Zavoisky could not help but understand it. He also realized that Landau was not working in plasma physics before and after his conflict with Vlasov, despite the fact that Landau was an extremely gifted and adaptable physicist. Furthermore Zavoisky realized that Tamm and Sakharov had not studied high temperature plasma either before or after working on the magnetic thermonuclear reactor theory under Beria’s direction, following on from Lavrentiev’s letter to Stalin (see above).

This was why the only person that Zavoisky could consult with on theory was Vlasov.

Working with real plasma

But what was the main question for those experimenting with real plasma?

From the time of Langmuir and Tonks, scientists working with real plasma had been trying to understand the transformation of energy obtained by plasma in the outer electric field. Of course, at the end all energy radiates or transmits to the vacuum chamber walls. But what are the steps of its in-plasma dissipation? The scientists were not interested in the extinguishing or non- extinguishing of small deviations from thermodynamic equilibrium, but in the self-organised electron distribution function and determined by it the inner electric field, and also in the pattern of oscillations, which absorbed the energy input to the plasma. Vlasov’s kinetics came out of the investigation of this question. [9] And one of the most interesting applied questions of plasma kinetics is a question concerning the ability of plasma to heat itself up to high temperatures by oscillations of different kinds (by turbulence). For many years, Zavoisky and his co-workers concentrated most of their experimental research on turbulent heating.

Already the first tests, made on special equipment, (1962) showed, that:

“Where there is high enough tension in an alternative electromagnetic field anomalous energy absorption occurs at a speed greater than the speed of dissipation from collisions.”

Using equipment built in 1965, with oscillating power up to 1 Gigawatt (GW), the experimenters were able to transfer about 30 per cent of that power to the plasma. Simultaneously it was found that the newly discovered effect did not actually depend on the value of the magnetic field. In addition, via what is called Shtark’s widening of hydrogen spectral lines, strong inner-plasma electric fields (about 27 kilovolts per centimeter) were recorded.

In a report prepared for an international conference (1971), Zavoisky and his co-workers had the courage to state, that:

“The specific resistance of plasma is determined by small-scale turbulence”.

They also expressed confidence in:

“the possibility of heating plasma up to temperatures of 1-10 keV by means of instabilities of Debuy’s Dimension and in less time than one Kulon’s collision”.

[“Debuy’s Dimension” is the distance separating positive and negative particles in plasma. “Kulon’s collision” is incorrectly used here in plasma physics, because it is derived from gaseous kinetics – B.O.]

Academician Arszimovich understood that another kind of plasma physics was unfolding before his eyes and that it would not be easy for him to find a place in this new physics. At first Zavoisky was harassed by abusive comments at physics seminars and conferences, then by commissions checking-up on his experimental results. Subsequently he was pushed aside from continuing his experiments and lost his co-workers. When Zavoisky – a Member of the USSR AS, a Lenin prize-winner, and a Socialist Workers Hero, was finally deprived of the right to take part in international science forums, he left the IAE – in an act that was exceptional in the history of Soviet science, only comparable with Academician Sakharov’s action.

Zavoisky died in 1976 and his funeral service took place not at the IAE, which was named after I.V. Kurchatov, but at the Lebedev’s Physics Institute, where many years ago he had brilliantly defended his doctoral work before the Science Council with the President of USSR AS, Academician Vavilov as the chairman.

Incompatible with the Law of Impulse Conservation

If a mobile metallic sample is placed between parallel conductors (rails) and the rails are connected with an electric current source (for example a charged capacity), the sample (crosspiece) will be accelerating along the rails under the influence of Ampere’s force. Any school student with an interest in physics can calculate the motion of such an accelerator (a linear electric motor). The school student could also explain that the reaction causing the crosspiece to accelerate via a magnetic field comes to the conductors with electric current (the rails). So, if plasma was just a light (gaseous) metal-like conductor, as Arszimovich supposed, why not accelerate a plasma sample (crosspiece) in the same manner?

Nothing showed the inadequacy of Arszimovich and his co-workers’ plasma-dynamics beliefs so graphically as the “Impulse Plasma Accelerators” (IPA). Since the first of Arszimovich’s IPA-devoted publications appeared in the same year that the USSR launched the first Earth-orbiting sputnik, his mistake has a multiplying effect. At the end of the 1950s a number of Soviet research institutes and universities began to study IPA, which they believed showed promise as electro-reactive engines for future space vehicles.

In 1961 a colleague, Tainov, and I collected an IPA, calculated according to Arszimovich et al’s Electro-dynamic acceleration of plasma samples [10]. The rails faced 50 cm long coaxial electrodes. Our plasma had been produced by evaporation of the isolator dividing electrodes. To measure the plasma impulse a ball-pendulum was used. Of course the parameters of the pendulum were calculated to meet the impulse of the value corresponding to Arszimovich et al’s article. After the first discharge of current from the appropriate capacity battery, however, the pendulum failed to move. We began to shorten the rails. Step by step we got to zero. Our IPA did not need any rails! We obtained maximum impulse in their absence. The plasma was accelerating all by itself, without any help from the rails or from Ampere’s force. This is why Academician Iosifian made us take out a patent for our plasma gun [11]. After acquiring SPR (super-speedy photo-registrar with space permission 0.1 mm and time permission 10 ns) we forgot about electro-dynamic acceleration of plasma.

Nowadays it’s possible to state that Spontaneous Generation of High-velocity Plasma Samples (SGHPS) was the most notable discovery in plasma physics of the second half of last century. The first striped SPR-pictures, testifying to the interrupting generation of plasma layers with a frequency of 1-4 MHz and with ion energies up to 1-3 keV, were published by Sukhumi physicists [12]. Nonetheless, working with gaseous filling of the vacuum chamber and not doing special spectral studies, when they published their article, they had not identified the ion components of their plasma and believed it to be of gaseous origin. Publications [13], [14], [15], [16] proved the erosion origination of plasma samples (layers). They were forming out of the thin vaporous layer near the surfaces of electrodes or the isolator dividing them. Plasma ions were getting their energies inside a thin region (layer) next to the vaporous layer and having a thickness of not more than 0.1 mm. We should also note here the discovery of a powerful braking radiation in the accelerating layer [17], testifying to collective electron oscillations, or, according to Vlasov, vibrations, or, according to Zavoisky, instabilities of Debuy’s dimension.

Let’s look at the fine picture below.

A typical SPR-picture (rotating mirror picture) of SGHPS, SPR slot was oriented normally to a plasma-producing surface [15]

The plasma-producing surface (ordinary glass) is on the left. The plasma layers (ions of silicon and oxygen) are moving (between the rails) to the right. The time axis is directed downwards. The noted scales are equal to 1 cm and 1 microsecond accordingly. A stripe inclination to the time axis (dx/dt) characterizes a momentary velocity of a plasma sample (layer). We can’t see in the picture the region of plasma acceleration (because of Debuy’s dimension’s about one thousandth of millimeter). Everything looks as if plasma is flowing out from the plasma producing surface with its maximum velocity, and is further moving by inertia or even with slight deceleration. At the power supply of 10 MW or more all parameters of SGHPS [the frequency of samples generation (about 3 MHz), their non-homogeneous density, the velocity and energy of the directional motion of ions (about 60 km/s and 0.5 keV), the plasma temperature in moving system of coordinates (about 3 eV at the distances of 1 cm or more from the plasma producing surface) and so on] are settled spontaneously, that is by plasma itself. The fact is striking!

As a result of these experimental observations two questions had arisen, which were completely unresolvable using the framework of magnetic hydro-dynamics (Azszimovich’s beliefs). These were:

1) What is the nature of a strong electric field in the accelerating layer?

2) In what way does the energy, necessary for acceleration of ions, enter this layer?

Both questions lead to Vlasov’s kinetics.

Plasma is a many-faceted substance and not all kinetic effects are easy to interpret. But if we are to form conclusions from the simplest of Vlasov’s tasks, we get the following.

It is better to forget about Maxwellian electron and ion distribution and about plasma temperature as it is usually understood. Such a distribution is incompatible with the electric neutrality of a plasma sample as a whole. Bounded plasma presents itself as a hump of electric potential for ions and a potential pit for oscillating electrons. As for distribution function for electrons, it’s close to Dirak’s function with total electron energy as the argument. The total energies of electrons enclosed in the pit (kinetic plus potential) are equal or less than zero. And if electrons with positive energies (such as electrons called “transitory”) find themselves in the pit, over the period of a single transition through the pit (that is equal to the interval of the plasma oscillations) they lost most of their energy. This energy goes into the swinging of the collective electron oscillations in the pit and in the increasing of the self-organised electric field. That’s why the turbulent plasma has very high electrical resistance. The energy of the inner electric field is spent on the two-sided acceleration of the ions. As a result of it, the initial motionless plasma sample (layer) transforms into two high velocity samples, flying in opposite directions. In such a way the transformation of energy, to the plasma from the outer electric field, finishes - so as after a pause start a new cycle of transformation. It’s very significant, that at such process of energy transformation, a plasma as a whole doesn’t get any impulse.

In the case of relatively homogeneous ion density (in the volume of plasma), the plasma (micro) explosions lead to turbulent heating of the plasma, studied by Zavoisky. When a gradient of ion density is strong enough (near the evaporating wall) SGHPS phenomenon takes place. Both effects are exceptionally important for the real plasma. The turbulent (non-Maxwellian) heating increases a flow of particles (and accordingly flows of mass, impulse and energy) to a vacuum chamber wall. On the contrary SGHPS, though not without energy losses, throws back these flows from the wall. The plasma-wall touch is inevitable. Bu it is not so simple, as it had been imagined by pioneers of controlled fusion. First of all the contact of a hot plasma with a cold material (solid) wall realizes through a thin but dense vapor (or gaseous) layer. Secondly it can’t be stationary, only interrupting (see picture above). Thirdly and mainly: since 1950s till nowadays it remains terra incognita of plasma physics.

Reaction of plasma during SGHPS is not observed via the contour with the electric current, but via the surface directly producing plasma. This may well sum up the misunderstanding of Arszimovich and his advocates. It also means that plasma isn’t continuous but a self-dividing substance. Electro-technical and magneto-hydro-dynamic terms can’t be applied to it.

The physical interpretation of SGHPS, based on Vlasov’s kinetics, was first discussed in 1977 [18]. At that time Vlasov and Zavoisky in the USSR were almost forgotten, while the primitive Arszimovich’s beliefs had become official dogma, which was included in the educational text-books and Encyclopedic Editions. That is why the “experiment for Arszimovich’s supporters” was absolutely necessary. Its idea was extremely simple. While Ampere’s force, like any other vector, has predetermined direction, the kinetic plasma explosion creates equal impulse flows in both the direction of Ampere’s force and the opposite direction. Magnetic field is certainly present in such processes, but, at the level of magnitude of Debuy’s dimension, it doesn’t influence plasma acceleration.

Such an effect had been demonstrated by means of special equipment (with two ball-pendulums) assembled towards the end of the 1970s in the Istra branch of the All-Union Institute for Electro-mechanics [19]. The beliefs of Academician Arszimovich and his advocates in electro-dynamic acceleration of high-current plasma turned to be incompatible with one of fundamental physical laws – the law of impulse conservation.

At the Second International Symposium on Solar Space Satellites, in Paris, I spoke about plasma acceleration by means of a self-organised (Vlasov’s) electric field in 1991 [20]. By chance my talk was in an auditorium named after Ampere. If this great physicist had been working not with metallic conductors, but with the high-current plasma samples he would not have discovered the force which now carries his name. Instead he might have discovered, firstly, turbulent electric fields stronger than Ampere’s force and, secondly, instabilities with dimensions characteristic of Debuy’s, or much stronger fields of electric layers, periodically arising and disappearing near a plasma producing wall and throwing plasma from the wall (see the picture above).

Plasma physics as a victim of the Cold War or A torus with a hundred holes

Now many people think that Soviet science exploded at the same time as the 4th block of the Chernobyl atomic plant. But there are more reasons to say it ended quietly in the middle of 1970s.

In 1975 M.V. Keldysh left the position of president of USSR AS. He was the last of “Three Great Ks” (Kurchatov, Korolev, Keldysh), that personified the historical phenomenon called “Soviet science”. Vlasov died in the same year, Arszimovich two years earlier, Zavoisky a year later. Keldysh was replaced by the 72 years old Academician and IEA director, A.P. Aleksandrov, a very experienced organizer but indifferent of basic science. Immediately his co-workers, Academicians E.P. Velikhov and B.B. Kadomszev , published in Pravda the article [21], in which you may read these words:

“Tokamak-10” – the last step to testing the reactor... Controlled thermonuclear fusion research is entering a new phase… we can solve this problem within the next five or six years… At the end of this century it will be possible to plan the beginning of thermonuclear power engineering, to determine its place and role in the energy balance of the USSR. On the threshold of XXV Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, scientists from the I.V. Kurchatov Institute will work with great creative enthusiasm…”

In the same year (1975) at the Poly-technical museum in Moscow, the painted plaster cast of “Tokamak-10” was exhibited as Communist Party’s program (nowadays on exhibition). Kinetic plasma physics which had been began by Vlasov and continued by Zavoisky had been cast out. A lot of experienced plasma physicists were forced to leave plasma physics. The fundamental plasma experiments were replaced by the total tokamak-building. Independent and different Soviet plasma scientists were overcome by the pseudo-scientific bureaucratic monster.

These events may be considered to mark a critical point, after which empty promises became routine in Soviet science, and led to the Chernobyl disaster and other unpleasant things. The historical roots of this point, however, must be sought in the Cold War.

During that war, if the Americans made the neutron bomb, the Soviets (Russians) had to make one too. If the Russians built a new tokamak, the Americans had to build a bigger one of their own. It was inappropriate to ask the question “what for?” during the Cold War. And it’s important to note that some Russian and some American (Western) scientists liked this practice very much. Already in Khruschev’s time the rivalry between Soviet and American scientists was more like secret cooperation. Later on the cooperation became almost open. Frightening the governments of their countries with imaginary scientific and technical achievements by their imaginary enemies guaranteed those scientists privileged financing of their studies and projects. Collapse of the Soviet Union threatened to put an end to such practices. Former “enemies” then became allies through international projects and international organizations were created to realize projects.

Nowadays the so-called International Thermonuclear Community (ITC), the global plasma monopolist, is promising mankind thermonuclear paradise after 2030. So the 5-6 years timeline for Academicians Velikhov and Kadomszev’s promise given in 1975, has been drawn out for over half a century. Recently Academician E.P. Krugliakov, not without pride, wrote to me that during the last decades in different countries of the world about 100 tokamaks have been built. Refuting Krugliakov, site www.iter.org named more than 200 tokamaks. But whether the real number is 100 or 200, mankind has got nothing from any of these tokamaks.

How come torus-holes can be sold to mankind for so long and so successfully?

They can be sold because of pseudo-scientific mythology.

Myth No.1: The quick exhaustion of hydrocarbons, after which mankind will experience energy collapse. Such a prediction was made many years ago, but oil-pipe lines and gas-pipe lines continue to be built. Nevertheless some day won’t hydrocarbons exhausted? Yes, of course. But that doesn’t mean that we need to build tokamaks. There are other sources of energy on Earth, of which the foremost is the Sun, a natural thermonuclear reactor, of incomparable bounty.

Myth No.2:

While malicious people were memorializing Vlasov, Landau, Arszimovich, Zavoisky and the IPA experiments, we tokamak-builders, had progressed from 10 to the minus 11-th up to 16 MW of thermonuclear neutrons, and now:

“There are no scientific problems here – only engineering ones.” (Academician Velikhov).

Psychologically this myth is exactly calculated to produce an impression on the “man in the street”. But let’s look at the specifics.

It is not always so easy to separate scientific problems from engineering ones. It is quite clear, however, that before speaking about resolving or not resolving problems, you need, at the minimum, to name them. Maybe the ITC members have resolved the General Vlasov’s task (three kinetic equations plus Maxwell’s equations)? Maybe they really know the distribution functions of electrons and ions in the tokamak plasma? Or the self-organised electric field in it? Maybe they have studied instabilities with dimensions characteristic of Debuy’s, or the turbulent heating of plasma, or the kinetics of boundary layers and the real plasma holding mechanism? (See the picture above). As for neutrons: are they really thermonuclear or a result of accelerating processes in plasma? Taking into account the doubts of a “confused Arszimovich” (see above), a great number of such questions could be asked. But the ITC doesn’t know the answer to any of them. And the best demonstration of its lack of knowledge is “about 100” or “over 200” tokamaks. Why not over a thousand?

But maybe tokamak-builders have known how to transform thermonuclear neutrons in useful energy and have calculated the coefficient of efficiency for future thermonuclear electric power-plant? Or have proved its commercial viability? All the answers are negative.

As for the16 MW of thermonuclear neutrons, although this was demonstrated during one or two seconds by the European tokamak JET in 1999 (on the threshold of the next Millennium instead of the next Congress of CPSU), they didn’t resolve any problems – neither scientific nor engineering. Neutrons had demonstrated already by Arszimovich, and by Zavoisky too. But JET gave them a lot more? There was a lot more plasma volume, and the money spent building JET was a lot more too. More money means more neutrons. That’s all.

Myth No.3: ITC is supported by the World Community.

It’s indeed impossible to imagine ITER without support from the former presidents of USSR, USA and France (Gorbachev, Reagan and Chirac). Hundreds of physicists and engineers of different nationalities could hardly have found their jobs and salaries without this support. (And, by the way, it is this support that makes these physicists and engineers keep a vow of silence about the real significance of their work). But the leaders of the countries participating in ITER (even in addition to some physicists and engineers) are not the whole World Community.

The first famous scientist, who called for reexamination of plasma-dynamic beliefs, was the Nobel prize-winner, the Swedish physicist Alfven. In the beginning of 1970’s he called his own plasma-dynamic paradigm, which he had worked out in the middle of the 1940s and which was later assimilated by Arszimovich and many others, “a theory of pseudo-plasma”; that is a theory of a substance which doesn’t exist in Nature [22]. But tokamak-builders had ignored Alfven’s call for the theory to be reexamined.

After the disappearance of the USSR some former employees of the IAE (Kurchatov’s Institute) began to speak up. One of them, Dr S.I. Yakovlenko, in preprint [23] has written:

“Be forewarned of harsh criticism and different accusations from the people in favour of endlessly looking for a black cat in a dark room without switching on the light… What is the basis of the opinion that no obstacles exist to technical success? A mistake in the absence of any moral justification, caused scientists to be divided into “clean” and “not clean” according to their attitude to the tokamak idea. In particular the mistake gave rise to a phenomenon which came to be known in science- folklore by the name of “tokamafia”. This term refers to quite a large number of scientists at different levels, united by their intention to advance tokamaks by any price, but firstly by suppressing other directions in plasma research.”

Such words in 1990’s Russia were perceived by many former Soviet physicists as revolutionary. Simultaneously, however, they provoked the Russian and International tokamafias into global cooperation. And against the wishes of a majority of scientists this cooperation became a reality.

In 2006, answering a question about the prospects for controlled thermonuclear fusion, Academician Yu. A. Trutnev said:

“I’m not working in this field and don’t believe in it. I consider that scientists have carried out all this work in order to satisfy their own curiosity using State money. Researches in the field of thermonuclear fusion nowadays continue, but I don’t believe that such a fusion will become the real source of energy even in the distant future.” [24]

So “malicious persons” now exist even at Russian Academy of Sciences.

European scientists also express anxiety. For example, now on the site of http://candobetter.org it’s possible to read an article of CERN researcher, M. Dittmar, “Fusion illusions – project ITER and tritium supply”. It seems very important that Dr Dittmar showed that no materials or structures exist which would be able to work under real conditions of deuterium and tritium fusion, while self-supporting tritium breeding, which is absolutely necessary for the function of commercial thermonuclear reactors, is impossible in tokamaks. Dittmar’s main conclusion is quite persuasive: taxpayers, politicians and the mass media have to understand that commercial energy production will never be feasible through controlled nuclear fusion, realizing through tokamaks.

Meanwhile the deuterium-tritium fusion reactor as ITER and representing number 101-t or 201-t tokamak, is still being built in France. What might mankind anticipate from the building?

Ten billion Euro will simply evaporate

ITER organization has no reason to like the Internet, but is forced to use it. When this organization was fighting for finance, the www.iter.org site posted materials aimed at demonstrating the super-competence of tokamak-builders in the field of plasma physics. But thanks to letters from “malicious people” this material disappeared.

Nowadays this site advertises itself as an object of future-tourism under the name “ITER-tokamak”. The whole mass is equal to 23 000 tons (three Eifel towers). The entire length of wire for superconducting coils is equal to 150 000 kilometers (more than three circles round the Earth). The volume of vacuum chamber is equal to 1400 cubic meters; the volume of helium cryostat is 8500 cubic meters; the preliminary cost of the project is 10 billion Euros. On the subject of the plasma (which doesn’t currently exist) it is written, that the volume will be equal to 850 cubic meters and the temperature will be 150 million degrees (about 15 keV or ten times more than the temperature in the center of the Sun.) Five years ago on the same site for the same ITER it said 100 million degrees. But in advertising it doesn’t matter. The cherished purpose of the project is to put in plasma 50 MW and take out 500 MW (Q = 10). ITC propagandists have diligently explained to ordinary people that this will be real – that is useful – power.

Most site-visitors, punch-drunk with the information enumerated above, hurriedly close the site and prepare to travel to France to see the world new miracle in person. But in the minds of more suspicious people a question surfaces: “How many megawatts will this super-tokamak require to power itself?” On the page “Power Supply” these same suspicious people find the figure they are interested in, equal to between 110 MW and 620 MW. The second power will be consumed during the 30 seconds, when the plasma is burning and the fusion energy is produced. Here suspicious people begin to see the light, which is, that ITER has promised Q = 10, but in reality Q

“Let’s drop this Q. Instead of it we can have three Eifel’s towers and more than three circumferences of the Earth!”

But why does www.iter.org say nothing of the 500 MW of thermonuclear fusion power? Who will be their first consumer?

The suspicious people begin to run and jump through the site searching for the name of this happy consumer and continue until they open the page “Cooling water”, where they read:

“ITER will be equipped with a cooling water system to manage the heat generated during the operation of the tokamak… As ITER is a research facility and not a power plant, most of the cooling water will simply evaporate in the cooling towers.”

We can expect nothing from ITER. It’s just the next tokamak, with an energy coefficient equal to zero.

“The science, that would been created in applied purposes exclusively, is impossible. The scientific beliefs are fruitful only in that case when there is an inner connection between them. If to search only those truths, which promise immediate results, the connecting links slip off and the chain comes apart.”

This natural idea belongs to great French scientist, A. Poincare, and was formulated long before the Second World War followed by the Cold War [25]. But during the Cold War in everything concerning science the World became unnatural.

Five years ago my public lectures at Poly-technical museum had the title:

“ITER: Future power-engineering or globalization of misunderstanding?”

In those lectures I had proposed to separate (by a special experiment) for tokamak plasma the holding effect of magnetic field from the holding effect of a vacuum chamber wall. But my person and already long ago is “not clean” for tokamak-builders.

Now I call for international discussion under the title:

“ITER and Anti-ITER: pro and contra.”

It seems to me, that only in this way can world science overturn the heritage of the Cold War and open the way for free development of research, which hold future, although not immediate promise to become very useful for the World Community.

List of literature

1. Alekseev B.V., "Physical kinetics and drama of human destiny", History of science and technology, No. 9, 2008. P. 2-9.
2. Tamm I.E., Sakharov A.D., "The magnetic thermonuclear reactor theory", in Plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear reactions, v. 1. USSR AS, 1958. P. 3-41.
3. Arszimovich L.A., Controlled thermonuclear reactions, Moscow,1961.
4. Vlasov A.A., The theory of many particles, Moscow,1950.
5. Silkin I.I., Eugeny Constantinovich Zavoisky, Documentary chronicle of scientific and educational activity in Kazan University, KSU, 2007.
6. Zavoiskaya N.E., The history of one discovery, Moscow, 2007.
7. Zavoisky E.C., Selected works, EPR and plasma physics, Moscow, 1990.
8. Landau L.D., "About oscillations of electronic plasma", in Collection of works, v. 2. M.,1969. P. 7-25.
9. Vlasov A.A., "The theory of vibration properties of electronic gas and its applications", MSU Scientific notes, Moscow, Issue 75, v.2, 1945.
10. Arszimovich L.A., Lukianov S.Yu., Podgorny I.M., Chuvatin S.A., "Electro-dynamic acceleration of plasma samples", JETPh, 33, 1957, p.3.
11. Osadin B.A., Tainov Yu.F., "Author’s certificate No.25155 with priority from the 3rd of May, 1962", Registered in the State register of the USSR, November the 23rd., 1962.
12. Kvarzhava I.F., Meladze P.D., Suladze K.V., "Tests on electro-dynamic plasma acceleration", , JTPh, 30, 1960, p. 289.
13. Gurov S.V., Jafarov T.A., Malinin A.A., Osadin B.A., Tainov Yu. F., "Processes on electrodes in high-current vacuum discharges", JTPh, 34, 1964, p. 867.
14. Osadin B.A., "About energy distribution in high-current vacuum discharge", JTPh, 35, 1965, p. 1230.
15. Osadin B.A., "To the question of sample production in impulse plasma accelerators", JTPh, 35, 1965, p.1327.
16. Grigoriev V.N., "Candidate dissertation", VEI, Moscow, 1967.
17. Derevschikov V.A., "Spectrums of plasma at different distances from plasma-producing surfaces", JTPh, 40, 1970, p.1564.
18. Osadin B.A., "To the erosion plasma accelerating mechanism", High temperatures thermo-physics, v. 15, No.5, 1977. (Annotations of articles, deposited with VINITI.)
19. Osadin B.A., Avatinian G.A., Ivanov G.V., Stechkin V.I., "Experimental evidence of non-electro-dynamic character of erosion plasma acceleration in impulse plasma accelerators", High temperatures thermo-physics, v. 18, 1980, p.1106.
20. Osadin B.A., "Plasma launchers for SPS", Second International Symposium, SPS 91, Power from space, Paris/Gif-sur-Yevette, 27 to 30 August 1991, p.492.
21. Velikhov E.P., Kadomszev B.B., "A task for the century: Starting the world’s largest experimental installation “Tokamak-10”", Pravda Newspaper, 4 July, 1975.
22. Alfven H., Cosmic and laboratory plasma physics, K. Schindler, Ed. Plenum Publishing Corporation, New York, 1972, p. 1-14.
23. Yakovlenko S.I., "A thermonuclear electric power-plant and questions of energy quality", preprint, Lebedev’s Physical Institute, 1992.
24. Trutnev Yu.A., "Only real cause educates people", MSIREA(TU), Hydrogen education, No. 3, 2006. P.16.
25. A. Poincare, "About Science", Science, Moscow, 1990, p.364.

NOTES from the Editor of Candobetter

*Academician - "Academician" may also be a functional title and denote a full member of the National Academy of Sciences in those countries where the academy has a strong influence on national scientific life, particularly countries that were part of, or influenced by, the Soviet Union. In such countries, "Academician" is used as an honorific title (like "Doctor", "Professor", etc.) when addressing or speaking about someone. Countries where the term Academician is used in this way include China, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine." (From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academician)

**GULAG - the author originally wrote of an 'atomic GULAG'. A Gulag or GULAG was a government agency that administered one of several Soviet penal labor camp systems and so this is a term to describe break-back conditions imposed on scientists at the time in order to try to win the atom-bomb race and other technological challenges.

I have added this basic information to the article here as a footnote: 26. “In physics and chemistry, plasma is a gas, in which a certain proportion of the particles are ionized. The presence of a non-negligible number of charge carriers makes the plasma electrically conductive so that it responds strongly to electromagnetic fields. Plasma therefore state of matter.” Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29

“A new computer simulation shows that dust immersed in ionized gas can organize itself into DNA-like double helixes. These dust structures can behave in many respects like living organisms.

The dust helixes can store information: the scaffolding of their “bodies” can have two stable states – with different size diameters. That way, a spiral can contain sets of wide and narrow sections.

It appears that the specific order of these sections can be copied from one dust spiral to another, like a genetic code. The researchers aren’t sure how it happens, but they think each narrow section of spiral creates a permanent vortex of moving dust outside it. So if another spiral drifts alongside it, that vortex pinches the same length into its narrow state.

Scientists probably wouldn’t classify it as “living” – hurricanes are similarly self-organizing systems, but you wouldn’t call them “alive”.

A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, are now looking for these structures in nature. One possible place to look is in the rings of Saturn; the dust particles would be fine ice grains and the plasma supplied by the solar wind.” Source: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1157

"Meeting a friend out walking one morning." Photo by Wildlife Carer, Anne-Marie.

"Russia has just announced a ban on all kangaroo products from the 1st August, citing consistent contamination. For those that are unaware, the kangaroo meat exported to Russia is manufacturing meat. This is forequarter bones with meat attached, offal, trimmings and bruising, all put through a grinder and turned into slush, then boxed, snap frozen and exported. The Russians use it for salami and sausage mostly. They add chopped root vegetables and fat, fill the slush into sausage casings, and smoke them. Its then hung for some weeks until cured, then eaten. This is what our politicians have been doing in China lately, trying to convince the Chinese to buy the rejected Russian export kangaroo slush." Pat O'Brien

Perhaps our politicians think that, because China already has world attention due to contaminates in material used for baby formula and pet food, where babies died and pets died, that it won't matter if we push contaminated roo meat on them. Let us hope that is not the case.

Film and Interviews

For more from Pat O'Brien, President of Wildlife Protection Association of Australia, on the problems attached to preparing and exporting kangaroo meat, see these films:
"Meatworks", at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY1UD7GpYsw
"Lay Reports on Kangaroo Numbers"

See also, "Urgent Need for Wildlife Corridors in Australia" from the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

Petition against kangaroo shoots and other resources

A petition is also available, calling for a moratorium on commercial and non-commercial kangaroo killing.

For an extraordinary series of photographs documenting the behaviour and interaction of wildlife with each other and carers click here

Kangaroos are being killed in areas where they are quasi extinct. Learn more at http://www.stopkangarookilling.org

Picture of protected young orphans by Wildlife Carer, Anne-Marie.

Russia blames food safety for Australian kangaroo meat ban

Thursday, 09/07/2009

On the ABC it was reported that Russia has banned all kangaroo meat from being imported to the country.
It has been claimed that the news "is a massive blow to the Australian kangaroo harvesting industry as Russia takes up to 70 per cent of supply and that the industry contributes up to $270 million to the Australian economy per year and employs over 4000 people." LiveExportShame queries these figures.

Peas are 'harvested'; Kangaroos are 'slaughtered'

People who disapprove of the way that Kangaroos are hunted or that they are hunted at all query the sanitising terminology of 'harvesting'. This comment appeared at LiveExportShame: "The kangaroos are SLAUGHTERED not 'harvested'. Thats what is done with peas."

Project officer with the Queensland Macropod and Wild Game Harvesters Association, Tom Garrett, said that "They're saying that there's a systemic problem with the import of Kangaroo meat into Russia and their quoting E-coli in one shipment so I believe it's a little bit to do with politics as well," he says. Mr Garrett says the ban come in on the 1st of August this year and it will see the price of kangaroo meat become worthless.ABC original source

Peter Garret and Law (EPBC) Policy & the System

Pat O'Brien was very disappointed with Mr Garrett's failure to carry through with pre-election committments to reform the EPBC Act. See "Law (EPBC), Policy & the System" interview here about those promises and contrast with Garrett and his government's conduct towards our wildlife. This film also gives a very commonsense appraisal of the ideal of maintaining kangaroos in the wild by making them our national dish when we have 21.6 million people here and growing rapidly, and looks at the history of 'wild life for food scams'.