USAID: ‘In desperate need of adult supervision’
21st Century Wire [Sept 5, 2014]
SPECIAL REPORT
We’ve been tracking the dirty work of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for several decades now — a Federal government agency that claims its main charge to be administering U.S. foreign assistance around the world:
“USAID is the lead U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential.” (via usaid.gov)
The reality of USAID is something very different. USAID is also a traditional CIA front organization, allowing the agency access to an array of places and things around the globe.
On August 11th of this year, 21WIRE’s report on USAID’s secret operation against Cuba detailed how the agency “established a fake HIV prevention workshop in Cuba where their young recruits worked to turn young people against the Castro regime.”
The author of the report, Stuart J. Hooper, expands:
“After undertaking a few short seminars, these young people were expected to do the work of a seasoned CIA officer, which is something that could have easily gotten their vastly inexperienced and unprepared selves into severe trouble with Cuban authorities.”
Not exactly the hallmark of a humanitarian agency promising to end global poverty.
IMAGE: CANVAS trained and managed Egyptian protestors as early as 2009 in preparation for the fabled ‘Arab Spring’ in 2010-2011. These professional agitators-for-hire globe-trot, and openly promote their CFR-sponsored agenda.
Back on November 24th, 2011, Patrick Henningsen’s report “A US-Backed Military Junta in Egypt Was Always The Plan” confirmed:
“We know that it was not Egyptian and Tunisian students working in a political vacuum, but the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), a professional consultancy, who took students from the Middle East and trained them overseas as early back as 2009.”
Within the vast entanglement of government and non-government (NGO) subcontractor culture, you’ll not be surprised to know CANVAS is part-funded and supported by globalist foundations like George Soros’s Freedom House and Open Society Institute, as well as CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy and, of course, the full frontal USAID.
IMAGE: Globalist foundations promoting democracy and freedom have been active in fomenting uprisings all over the planet, including the ‘Occupy’ movements. Their creative consultants are well-versed in NLP tactics for the crowd.
Now, we have the matter of the apparent brutal beheadings of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
According to a recent article in the The Weekly Standard, in 2009, just three years before his capture in Syria, Foley worked for USAID-funded development projects in Baghdad. And then in 2011, he “moved to Libya” briefly where he was eventually kidnapped and held for over a month. Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg writes:
“This guy has a resume that reads more like a James Bond film script than that of a journalist with a teaching background. He works for USAID in 2009 in Iraq, then he finds himself kidnapped in Libya two years later by Gaddafi forces. Then, after all of this, he finds himself captured in Syria, only to be beheaded two years later by ISIS (the terror organization funded by our ally Saudi Arabia).”
What else was James Foley doing for USAID?
IMAGE: While the masses train their eyes on the sickest of social media, set pieces continue to be placed under their noses.
21WIRE’s Andrew McKillop writes in a recent article titled “ISIS dot com: Social Media Barons Are Pushing the New Barbarity”:
“Whether or not the Foley video was staged to solicit a certain public reaction to it, for example – launching US air strikes in Syria, it’s obvious that there is some dark arts in action in the way Western media are touting these videos in public. They are actively aiding and abetting the most hideous forms of exhibitionism – for example the decapitation of James Foley, called “execution” and not what it really was in terms of a billion dollar US media marketing campaign – an open air murder by a psychopath and war criminal. In the end, their is zero moral value in re-disseminating this kind of pornography through the multi-billion broadcast media complex, yet they are doing more and more push-marketing of this material each year.”
USAID and others like it clearly operate in these hot zones very much in plain sight. Yet our eyes and our media simply don’t want to look away from the news feed — and that’s what keeps them in their trade.
We led this report with USAID’s secret operation against Cuba, and this is where we will close it.
The Associated Press investigation that blew the cover off the “fake HIV prevention workshop” also discovered that USAID and its contractor (yes, yet another layer), Creative Associates International, continued the program despite U.S. officials issuing warnings to government contractors:
“U.S. officials privately told their government contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba after the arrest of contractor Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after smuggling in sensitive technology. A lawyer for Gross said Monday that his client cannot take life in prison much longer and has said his goodbyes to his wife and a daughter.”
How reckless can a Federal agency and its contractors be? Answer: Creative Associates cited the workshop as a “success story.”
“The group’s final report said the workshop would be used as a blueprint across the island.”
“But Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona and longtime critic of USAID’s Cuba projects, said, “These programs are in desperate need of adult supervision. If you are using an AIDS workshop as a front for something else, that’s … I don’t know what to say … it’s just wrong.”
There’s plenty more to say – and it starts with you.
READ MORE USAID NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire USAID Files
READ MORE ISIS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire ISIS Files
Soros, OSI, USaid, and Ukrainian Neo-Nazi groups, Compared To Tides Role in Canada
Dissembling
Mar 12, 2014
For those who have been paying attention to the situation in Ukraine, many people have noticed that there has been an escalation between US foreign interests and Russian interests, specifically in Crimea. Soros’ OSI groups and their network of NGO’s (which is a mirror of how things are done here in Canada/USA with Soros’ Tides Foundation) have affiliated themselves with neo-nazi groups. Sometimes you may see Tides connected affiliates whine about nazi groups and racists but it would seem their benevolent angel donor (or master) doesn’t care about racism so long as it is a useful tool for the advancement of geopolitical agenda.
In the Ukraine OSI has been reported as having paid protestors a whole of $20 american to risk their lives and participate as fodder in a pre-meditated coup d’etat of their ELECTED leader. In Canada, they cost a little more than that and need more training to get worked up to violence. Sun News conducted a poll of the blatant activity the fake paid protestors are up to and most people disapprove of it:
The situation in Ukraine is quite the foreshadowing of things to come in Canada, so long as politicians openly endorse the conduct of these people and do not speak up about what is visibly a form of open recruiting and training of subjects to engage in eco-terrorism. If anything the authorities (if they were not compromised) would have shown up and arrested the lot of them for conspiracy and high treason.
A recent article by Greg Renouf demonstrates the usual political faces who have been backing the Soros’ backed faketivist (fake paid activist) activities in Canada, also back the faketivist activities in the Ukraine. Even to the extent of allowing a group to fundraise for bullet proof vests (which are illegal here in Canada without a permit), and send them to the Ukraine to aid in the coup d’etat.
I believe the same thing is being set up for Canada as has been setup for the Ukraine. My opinion is that it doesn’t matter which side wins, the Ukrainian people lose. Foreign interests from one side (USA) or the other (Russia) have come into the Ukraine to battle it out as to which power block the Ukraine will be sacrificed to. Either way the Ukrainian people are facing a lose/lose situation.
The uprising in Ukraine didn’t happen overnight. Funds needed to be moved, people needed to be armed, and protected with bullet proof vests, and trained; this is how uprisings start and, the warning signs are all out in the open right here in Canada.
Coup in Ukraine Illustrates US Addiction To Meddling and Regime Change
by Amir Alwani
PotentNews.com
Mar 4, 2014
The past few months the people of Ukraine, one of the largest countries/farms in Europe, began protesting. The protesters largely bickering about whether or not to join the European Union, a corrupt entity created by an even more corrupt entity known as the Bilderberg Group, were eventually shown to have largely felt the sting of think tanks and questionable organizations like CANVAS, “USAID, NED, Freedom House, George Soros’ Open Society Institute and a host of public-private NGOs”. There also turned out to be neo-nazi elements involved in the “uprising”.
The destabilization basically turned Ukraine into a war-zone and this reached a crescendo about a week ago and more-so the past couple days as the Ukrainian president was ousted prior to his fleeing to Russia. Since the new gang took power they’ve threatened to aquire nukes within 6 months. Events have been rapidly unfolding with changes made to the “official language” of Crimea, defections (1, 2, 3) of key Ukrainian military staff, the prompt rise of local independent militias (1, 2), US suspension of future trade/economic talks with Russia and suspension of joint military engagements these two superpowers previously shared. Gas prices are also soaring as one might expect and there are rallies in support of Ukraine which are reportedly being held in many Russian cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Heated words have also been exchanged as the US media has thrown a hissy fit over minor Russian moves to secure a Russian military base in Crimea. The Ukranian Junta consequently appealed to NATO to rescue it, the US threatened sanctions against Russia and there were even reports that Russia’s minor moves also resulted in Polish tanks feeling the need to amass along the Ukrainian border. Chris Carrington has pointed out the warning shots that pro-Russian troops fired just hours ago as the troops attempted to prevent 300 Ukrainian soldiers from approaching Crimea’s Belbek air base in Sevastopol. He also mentioned, “Moscow has said it may be forced to drop the dollar and has threatened not to repay bank loans to the US if economic sanctions are imposed.”
Coincidentally, this is all happening as we slowly enter a new phase of global economic decline and as the Israel-US-NATO-GCC backed terrorists in Syria have generally lost morale and are being quite successfully driven out of Syria.
Strange neo-nazis aside, for outside observers who aren’t aware of the true purpose of the think tanks and the dirty work these “altruistic” NGOs are doing, they are left to simply get all riled up over yet another seemingly organic revolution happening somewhere in the world while enjoying the excitement of learning an exotic name of a far off land that they never cared about before and probably don’t even really care about now. They are also meant to just sit, obediently ignoring the five billion dollars the US State Department has stolen via “taxes” from the US population to hammer down regime change in yet another country. Naked imperialism thinly veiled with hollow words and largely funded by ignorant tax payers is an ugly sight. It was horrible enough to watch in Libya, Syria, and Mali, but now it’s just getting embarrassing. Many of these Ukrainian protestors were paid at least $25 a day for protesting, as Webster Tarpley has noted. What a show!
As Joaquin Flores has pointed out, the neo-nazi element of the Right Sector is analogous to the religious extremists Syria has been fighting off for the past 3 years. The shortsightedness of these foolish terrorists is easy to spot a mile away and so these useful idiots are taken advantage of from the get-go.
I’m not the kind of guy that says “you should have waited till an election” and I want to make that clear because I hear a lot of the observers say stuff like that, but I have to admit that only the most air-headed can ignore the brash ways with which these Ukrainian extremists took power. I’m not saying there isn’t a time for applying force when necessary but if you’re going to do that you better make sure that your movement isn’t corrupted and full of people who take dirty-money. If the revolution is synthetic it doesn’t work. If it’s organic it tends to work slightly better.
What we’re seeing in Ukraine is nothing but international organizations aligned with globalist corporations executing their agenda to ensure their bottom line by using a mob to overthrow a country almost overnight, although dark occult forces are surely also at play behind the scenes ensuring that people are obedient enough to swallow the justifications to oblivion and beyond because the ultimate agenda is not just to do with maintaining access to pipelines and resources.
This bloodthirsty entanglement serves the interests of international bankers in more ways than one. Indeed, as Mahdi Nazemroaya has pointed out, a map used by the NATO Defense College and the Pentagon National War Academy as far back as 2006 was called the “The New Middle-East” and it featured not only Syria split up but even Turkey (a member of NATO) had actually also been divided on this map. That is very telling. Nazemroaya mentioned that this map was the brainchild of Lieutenant colonel Ralph Peters, that the name of the article which accompanied this map was “Blood Borders – How A Better Middle-East Would Look” and he also mentioned it was actually in the official US armed forces journal.
Granted, this may reflect the pursuit of the “heartland” which is discussed in this video and which Russia largely seems to currently possess. While this may be true, as I’ve cautioned before, it’s important to remember that there is no reason for these escapades to be incompatible with the globalist agenda of getting everyone to be the same and equally enslaved/destroyed. Part of that agenda, is to inflict damage such that the “collateral damage” is maximized and the amount of refugees getting shoved out hence also gets maximized… so that these refugees can then intermix with the rest of the global population and be homogenized as much as possible. This isn’t a happy accident and Morris is unfortunately one of the only people mentioning this angle. As Sheik Imran Hosein has pointed out, this is indeed one of the main functions of these wars of aggression – the Zionists and their allies are seeking to replicate their way of life all over the globe “at the cost of indigenous ways of life”. That they foment and use the ignorance/greed of others in their quest to do that is no surprise. That’s always the case with these types of things. “Freeway” Ricky Ross, for example, the man who was largely responsible for getting crack popular in the US thought he was doing a good thing at the time when he was bringing the “finer things in life” to the oppressed black community he found himself in and a part of. Hindsight is always 20/20, and that will probably/hopefully be the case with those who foment “revolutions” just to get a piece of a pipeline. Granted, launching an actual war isn’t the same as selling people crack, but you get the idea. Sometimes subjectivity gets the best of us and we are able to be used as “useful idiots”.
There is simultaneously the obvious attempt to instill the concept of the “global citizen” and to have “the greater good” be pursued to a completely irrational and counter-productive degree. This is aligned with destroying individuality. While many of us are concerned about the welfare of those in Ukraine, the western media is involved in gross exaggerations of Russian intention with respect to Ukraine because, after all, we are now in a new Cold War and whenever the western powers can in any way make the Russians look bad they take that opportunity. In reality, as Alexander Mercouris has pointed out, the only reason we are still even talking about “a Ukraine” at the moment is because of Russia’s recognition of Ukraine’s right to exist. Many observers have pointed out the hypocrisy that the US stinks of when the US diplomats say almost anything about this ongoing synthetic revolution which they themselves are fomenting. Just yesterday, the US showed absolutely no concern for the grievances that students in Washington DC felt were necessary to voice. As usual, protests were squashed. Regardless of if we agree with these protestors or if we think they are hacking at branches and not getting to root causes of problems, they still have a right to voice their grievances. Tying yourself to the fence that surrounds a building that is supposed to represent you should not warrant you being arrested and risking having your good name be stained with a criminal record. The punishment does not fit the crime and there really isn’t a crime there. Now if the protestors were being paid $25 dollars a day by some foreign entity that didn’t give a crap about them and given instructions on how to make special Molotov cocktails that leave a persistent fire as they rampaged through the cities taking over key infrastructure and government buildings, perhaps that would be a different story and would be closer to a valid reason for arrest. That sounds more like what the extremists in Ukraine did, only the flames of violence were fomented by the west… so what right does the west have waving the finger? Zero right.
Anyone with a memory would have been able to predict the US regime’s move against those students. The US is the bully of the world and, in tandem with Israel and much of Europe, has continued to cause so much untold destruction and suffering over the past many decades that only the most deluded and smart-phone-addicted peasant would believe anything they say. This is one giant machine driven by fear and deception. As F. William Engdall notes, “On January 11, [2013] after more than a year of behind-the-scenes pressure on the neighboring Algeria to get them entangled in an invasion of its neighbor Mali, Hollande decided to make a direct French military intervention with US backing.” The US is now meddling in Venezuela as well as helping France with their dirty work and violations of sovereignty in the Central African Republic and Africa in general. Why does AFRICOM even exist? Has anybody thought about that and what the name actually entails? How much more naked can this domination get? Thailand’s people are rising up and even their police and protestors have recently been killed by government thugs during protests but since the US loves Thaksin there’s no finger-waving there. We can plainly see that US representatives don’t give two flying ducks about the plight of the people of Thailand. Nor do the US representatives care about Bahrainians, for that matter. The people of Bahrain have been protesting a lot the past 3 years but you don’t see any Nuland cookies handed out there.
The icing on the World War 3 cake is that the internet is now flooded with people acknowledging the absurdity of John Kerry’s latest blather, “you just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests”. This entire thing is a joke. I’ve been searching for a good film recently but I think my search is over. This drama is more entertaining than any Hollywood film… until it spreads to home or until we remember that an entire country just got turned upside down.
How much longer can we sit idly by and watch country after country get destroyed? Sure, the entire world isn’t our responsibility but is it not clear what the underlying confusion is which leads to the conditions whereby people give up their rights and love their slavery? Will the globalists get their “global citizen”? Do they already have that? Is that one reason these unjust acts of war and destabilization keep being overlooked and why the whitewash works so effectively time after time? When these acts are finally seen for what they are, what is the proper punishment for such ruthless behavior? Is this international conflict between the major powers merely theater as one might think when viewing the world after reading the novel 1984 or is it more real than that? In that novel there are only 3 countries and only some land gets taken over at a time but each party has an interest in eternal conflict as a means of distracting the sheep. That said, this doesn’t seem to be theater for the murdered Gaddafi or the hung Hussein, since they were killed, although some say it wasn’t Gaddafi in that video… Regardless, these are all questions we need to keep our minds as we move through what is starting to look like a new phase in the economic decline of the world. War has often been a great distraction from all sorts of horrible things. War itself is one of the most horrible things that exists. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the global economy is going to get better anytime soon. It is one giant bubble being held up by fake notes which are about to be seen for how worthless they actually are. This is all happening as the people who comprise/influence the “elite” driving this agenda ensure we are corrupted enough to celebrate yet a new world bloodbath like good little slaves. One thing is for sure, true change always comes from within. If the egg is broken from within, you get life. If the egg is broken from outside you get death. Ukraine is very near dead right now and the same fate is staring every other human-farm on this globe until we embrace this hollow notion of a “global citizen” for what it is, a shallow excuse to overlook the evil we’re swimming in and are largely consenting to with our ignorance and cowardice while we give men with bombs and planes the green light to continue the global onslaught.
If the Syrians were that convinced that their priorities were simply getting rid of Assad, they would have been able to oust him much more efficiently. Now what has happened? I hate Bashar just as much as Bashar’s next victim but there would have been a higher chance of him leaving if the Syrian people were left alone and not infected with outside “help” and a drastically overarching media campaign of deception waged by the western powers. Just take a step back, for a moment, and look at how much more Iraqis were dependent on Saddam between the two Gulf Wars. The US bombed Iraqis and suddenly then the dictator they lived under, Saddam, who never hurt them nearly as badly doesn’t look so bad anymore because he’s handing out rations to the destitute and even further impoverished Iraqi civilians. He’s still a ruthless tyrant like the authors of the US’s National Defense Authorization Act of 2012… but now he’s seen as the savior. The same dynamic is repeating itself in Syria. I’m not happy when I see Bashar’s face on the flags of those celebrating the “liberation” of Syria, but I know that it is just one indication of the genuine progress that has happened in Syria as those brave people have recently endured the grave terrorist acts that were waged by thousands of militants from “over 70 countries”. It is now that much harder to see Assad’s evil for what it is, simply because now the majority of Syria sees him as the only force that stood between them and their deaths at the hands of bloodthirsty foreign savages.
Hopefully as more people see statism for what it is they can then align with truth and Natural Law (1, 2) so that we can steer clear of divide and conquer tactics while averting the incessant mass of evil that constantly emanates from the fallacious ideologies of those in power. It is true that the truth about events and people is attacked and undermined from all sides but the reality is worse – the very concept of truth and objectivity is currently under attack. The new-age movement/religion, as Mark Passio points out, is one method used to attack the mind. This religion is quite good at de-emphasizing knowledge. However, in reality we indeed have an obligation to be able to compute information efficiently and to not be lazy/imbalanced. Knowledge is key and 2+2 does not equal 5. “Easy” solutions are what got us in this global mess in the first place. There’s nothing easy about speaking the truth when most people around you have their heads in the sand. We got to this disgusting situation by ignoring the truth, not by embracing it. We only think it’s easier to be worshiping this imaginary line which we think represents our comfort-zone. Actually facing reality, rising up and as Mark Passio specifically mentions, “aligning our thoughts with our feelings and our actions“ in order to properly function and more readily rid the world of wrong-doing, deception, and slavery honestly seems like an “easier” and more productive option in the long-run. Solving our dilemma is a lot more simple than it appears.
[UPDATE 14/11/2015: It is becoming apparent that Mark Passio’s version of Natural Law is not consistent. Among other things, he promotes veganism. This deprives the human body of nutrients, namely fat. The brain largely consists of fat and cholesterol.]
Amir Alwani is a musician and the founding editor of PotentNews.com. Feel free to donate dollars or bitcoins to support his work.
IMF Sponsored “Democracy” in The Ukraine
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Jan 31, 2014
There is an ongoing and deliberate attempt by foreign powers to spearhead the destabilization of Ukraine including its state structure.
There is a long history of colored revolutions in Ukraine going back to the 1990s.
The protest movement in Kiev bears a marked resemblance to the “Orange Revolution” of 2004 which was supported covertly by Washington. The 2004 “Orange Revolution” led to the ousting of the pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, spearheading into power the Western proxy government of President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko.
Once more Viktor Yanukovitch is the target of a carefully staged “pro-EU protest movement”. The latter was launched following president Yanukovitch’s decision to cancel the “association agreement” with the EU.
The mechanisms of interference are in some regards different to those of 2004. The protests are supported directly by Brussels and Berlin (with EU officials actively involved) rather than by Washington:
“The right-wing parties leading the protests in coordination with EU officials and politicians had called for a “million man march.” Ultimately, some 250,000 to 300,000 people gathered on Maïdan (Independence) Square. It was the largest protest in Kiev since the 2004 “color revolution” organized by US and European imperialism—the so-called Orange Revolution that ousted the pro-Russian Yanukovich and brought the pro-Western tandem of President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko to power.
Evgenia Tymoshenko, the daughter of former prime minister and billionaire natural gas magnate Julia Tymoshenko, whom Yanukovich has jailed, read a message from her mother calling for Yanukovich’s “immediate” ouster. (See Alex Lantier, December 8, 2013)
The following article first published in November 2004, focuses on the October-November 2004 “Orange Revolution” directed against then prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, while also providing details on the insidious role of the IMF and the World Bank in imposing the neoliberal economic policy agenda on behalf of the “Washington Consensus”.
Michel Chossudovsky, December 2013
IMF Sponsored “Democracy” in The Ukraine
by
Michel Chossudovsky
November 2004
Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko in the Ukrainian presidential elections is firmly backed by the Washington Consensus.
He is not only supported by the IMF and the international financial community, he also has the endorsement of The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) , Freedom House and the Open Society Institute , which played a behind the scenes role last year in helping “topple Georgia’s president Eduard Shevardnadze by putting financial muscle and organizational metal behind his opponents.” (New Statesman, 29 November 2004).
The NED has four affiliate institutes: The International Republican Institute (IRI) , the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) , and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). These organizations are said to be “uniquely qualified to provide technical assistance to aspiring democrats worldwide.” See IRI, http://www.iri.org/history.asp )
In the Ukraine, the NED and its constituent organizations fund Yushchenko’s party Nasha Ukraina (Our Ukraine), it also finances the Kiev Press Club. In turn, Freedom House, together with The Independent Republican Institute (IRI) are involved in assessing the “fairness of elections and their results”. IRI has staff present in “poll watching” in 9 oblasts (districts), and local staff in all 25 oblasts:
“There are professional outside election monitors from bodies such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but the Ukrainian poll, like its predecessors, also featured thousands of local election monitors trained and paid by western groups. … They also organised exit polls. On Sunday night those polls gave Mr Yushchenko an 11-point lead and set the agenda for much of what has followed.” (Ian Traynor 26 November 2004, the Guardian, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/TRA411A.html )
Needless to say these various foundations are committed to “Freedom of the Press”. Their activities consist not only in organizing exit polls and feeding disinformation into the Western news chain, they are also involved in the creation and funding of “pro-Western”, “pro-reform” student groups, capable of organizing mass displays of civil disobedience. (For details, see Traynor, op cit) In the Ukraine, the Pora Youth movement (“Its Time”) funded by the Soros Open Society Institute is part of that process with more than 10,000 activists. Supported by the Freedom of Choice Coalition of Ukrainian NGOs , Pora is modeled on Serbia’s Otpor and Georgia’s Kmara.
Media Disinformation: What’s Really Going On in Ukraine?
by Andy Dilks
Global Research
Jan 27, 2014
You’d be forgiven for knowing very little about the unrest in Ukraine – the violence, the rioting on the streets, the armed protesters storming government buildings amidst plumes of thick black smoke rising from makeshift barricades. Most of the public have once again been Beibered by the mainstream media – the arrest of this precocious, spoilt physical embodiment of crass corporate culture proving newsworthy enough for an MSNBC host to interrupt an interview with a member of Congress discussing the true scale of NSA spying.
In this climate of superficial distractions and media inanity, you’d be equally forgiven for not really knowing why there is political unrest in Ukraine. Most of the explanations for the violence offered by the mainstream media present the information in simplistic soundbytes – talking points without the relevant wider political and historical context which renders current events coherent.
The following article from The Independent provides us with a brief overview of the media’s presentation of recent events in Ukraine:
In November President Viktor Yanukovych decided to pull out of a treaty with EU, an agreement many felt would have paved the way for the Ukraine to join the union. It looked like he was going to sign the agreement before performing a U-turn, which has made Ukrainian disappointment all the sharper. However the government would rather stay friendly with Putin in return for favourable treatment. The protesters think it would benefit ordinary people far more to be aligned with the EU and consider Yanukovych a man who only represents the interests of the richest.
The article goes on to define the demonstrations as “more than a pro-EU movement”, one which represents popular resentment towards perceived government corruption and violent repression towards peaceful activists.
President Viktor Yanukovych’s government forces are certainly guilty of using excessive force against the rioters, and accusations of torture appear to be well-founded and should not be excused. But condemnation is certainly clouded when you consider the level of violence from the rioters. By the same token, when mobile phone users near the scene of the riots received text messages from the state reading, “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass riot” it brought to home just how omnipresent – and ominous – surveillance technology in the 21st century has become.
The problem with the “popular protests against the government and for integration into the EU” narrative is that it omits crucial information regarding the role of the West is fomenting and orchestrating demonstrations such as these; a role which illuminates broader geopolitical objectives in the region and the extent to which intelligence agencies and their offshoot organizations meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations. Understanding the nature of soft power – the use of coercion and bribery – and the subversion and infiltration of grassroots political movements by NGOs and other organizations backed either directly or indirectly by the US government, helps us to more broadly understand why the unrest in Ukraine is reaching such a fever pitch.
The seemingly spontaneous 2004 Ukrainian “Orange Revolution”, sparked by alleged electoral fraud and allegations of voter intimidation, was led largely by a number of grassroots movements tied to political activists and student groups. Many of the groups involved, however, were funded and trained by organizations intimately linked to the US government. The foreign donors of these groups included the US State Department, USAID, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Open Society Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy.
The candidate who emerged victorious in the wake of these widespread orchestrated protests, Viktor Yushchenko, was not only endorsed by the same institutions which wielded their influence over the protest movements themselves, he was also supported by the International Monetary Fund. A central banker by profession, Yushchenko was a firm advocate of implementing IMF monetary reforms and, equally crucially, an advocate of NATO membership. Before entering into Ukrainian politics he had worked at the US State Department,the Reagan White House, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. In short, it’s safe to say that he was a product of Washington, an image only exacerbated by his hostility towards Russia.
It is tempting to automatically assume that the same process is taking place in Ukraine at the moment. Certainly, intelligence agencies have historical form when it comes to covert operations and the manipulation of activists via social media – similar US-backed “Colour Revolutions” have taken place in Georgia, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. The widespread political support for the protesters in Ukraine and the lack of condemnation for their use of violence would certainly add to the view that these protests are at least tacitly backed by the West, if not outright orchestrated. While none of this constitutes “proof” of outside interference, at the very least it is enough to raise suspicions. On the other hand, without firm evidence it is perhaps equally plausible that the support for the protesters is simply a case of making political capital out of the situation, stoking the flames of an already lit fire.
As the violence on the streets of Kiev continues, already spreading away from the capital, the Russian State Duma recently passed a resolution slamming foreign politicians and other players for interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs in an attempt to escalate the conflict. It’s a marked contrast to the rhetoric emerging from Washington and the EU, both of whom have expressed the possibility of intervening, with the US adopting a stance which hints at another planned “regime change” on Russia’s doorstep.
Perhaps the most damning indictment of the West’s stance over Ukraine and their support for what they refer to as a “pro-democracy protest movement” is the profoundly anti-democratic leanings of the violent protestors at the vanguard of the assault on the Ukrainian authorities. Anyone familiar with the crisis in Syria and the attempts to topple President Assad will be all too familiar with the US’s willingness to get into bed with extremists of the worst possible nature in order to achieve their objectives.
In Ukraine today it appears that very little has changed. Just as the Western-backed Syrian rebels with intimate ties to al-Qaeda were presented in our media as “pro-democracy” organizations, so too are many of those protesting in Ukraine drawn from far-right and fascistic groups such as the opposition Svoboda party, whom John McCain was more than happy to appear on stage with in December 2013 and offer his – and by extension America’s – support.
Yet it would also be wrong-headed to characterize the protests in Ukraine as being led by far-right extremists – many protesters are taking to the streets through genuine and legitimate grievances with the current government. The danger lies in these moderate protesters allying themselves with those on the far-right – combined with tacit support from the US for the likes of the Svoboda party, it could be a concoction which would set the stage for a dictatorship far more corrupt and repressive than those currently clinging onto power.
With the geopolitical stakes as high as they are, not least with the potential for a broader NATO influence in the region, it would be wise to view the situation in Ukraine through the wider prism of the global balance of power and all that this entails. Equally, we should be wary of simplistic media narratives which seek to paint any conflict in black and white/good vs. evil terms, particularly when the “good guys” are being backed by the US government and her allies. All too often this amounts to little more than propaganda designed to rouse support for opposition movements favourable to “regime change”, and by now it should be very clear how little this has to do with vague, idealistic notions of “democracy”, and how much it has to do with regional – and ultimately global – hegemony.
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Kofi Annan: International Community Has Failed Syria
Globalization exposed as self-serving, driven by elitist special interests.
by Tony Cartalucci
July 8, 2012 – Whatever role the UN’s Kofi Annan was playing, it appears that at least his latest statements have in fact been neutral, with the Western media taking it upon itself to then twist his comments out of context by constructing a fictitious narrative of mind-bending proportions. The London Guardian, in true propagandist form stated in an article titled, “Kofi Annan attacks Russia and west’s ‘destructive competition’ over Syria,” that “Kofi Annan has issued a blunt warning that Syria will face a spreading civil war and risk a spillover of the conflict unless Russia, the west and Arab states end their “destructive competition” to force a ceasefire and launch a political process that the opposition insists must see President Bashar al-Assad step down.”
By mentioning Russia first and by presenting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s resignation as the only viable option to end the violence, the Guardian attempts to spin Annan’s comments as an attack on solely the Syrian government and its international supporters, which include Russia, China, and a large bloc of South American nations, collectively representing over a billion people.
Image: Coincidence? As US State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton was attending a “Friends of Syria” conference in Paris to map out the next leg of violent Western-backed subversion against Damascus, US State Department-led Amnesty International staged a “march” in the streets of Paris featuring protesters carrying the old French colonial flag of Syria in support of NATO’s militant proxies. Manufacturing public consensus where none exists is a specialty of modern Western imperialism. (Photo: AFP)
Only toward the end of the Guardian’s article does it report the rest of Annan’s comments, which state, “they [the west] accuse the Russians of arming the [Syrian] government. The Russians accuse them of arming the opposition and flooding the place with weapons. This is instead of coming together to see what can be done.” The Guardian then admits that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are financing and arming NATO’s proxies, the so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) while the US is coordinating with them and supplying them with “communications equipment.”
The Guardian then makes the case that Annan’s even scant neutrality equates to endorsing genocide. While it may be interpreted as an attack on Annan – it should be remembered that Annan himself is a member of the elitist establishment driving Syria’s destabilization, and that his “peace plan” was never intended to be implemented, but only stall for time to increase covert military support for terrorist proxies where overt NATO intervention could not be achieved through the UN Security Council. The West’s goal is to “bleed” Syria to death.
The Guardian of course is not alone. This narrative is directed by the US State Department and the British Foreign Office and echoed throughout the Western corporate-media. The Washington Post likewise skewed reality and placed words into the mouth of Annan declaring that efforts for finding a peaceful political solution in Syria “have failed.” The Washington Post contradicts its own reportage, now claiming that “no countries are known” to be arming the FSA, when its own article, “Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination,” clearly stated otherwise, clearly implicating both the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as the United States itself. It is left to readers to determine whether the Washington Post is suffering from incompetent editors or is engaged in a campaign of fraudulent dissembling and war propaganda.
The Washington Post then disingenuously cites the so-called “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,” referring to it as an “organization” when in reality it is a single man, Rami Abdelrahman, living in England, who had left Syria 10 years ago and openly admits he seeks the downfall of Syrian President Assad. Abdelranhman is known to be directly coordinating his propaganda campaign with the British Foreign Office and has been photographed by Reuters skulking in and out of Foreign Secretary William Hague’s office.
Photo: From Reuters: “Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after meeting Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in central London November 21, 2011. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor”
Finally, the Washington Post cited a farcical “march” in Paris that coincided with the “Friends of Syria” conference – a neo-imperial conglomeration of Western nations and their Gulf State proxies leading efforts to destabilize Syria through violent subversion. The Washington Post fails to mention that the march was in fact organized by Amnesty International, led by the US State Department’s own Suzanne Nossel, and the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). FIDH is also funded by convicted criminal and Wall Street speculator George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
What the Washington Post actually reported on was a staged march organized by members of the “Friends of Syria” conference itself to construct fictitious public consensus for the group and its taking a harder, more interventionist line against Syria. It may also serve as an attempt to further undermine the UN process that has effectively allowed Russia and China to block Western hegemonic ambitions verses Syria.
Image: A visual representation of the National Endowment for Democracy’s corporate-financier ties found across their Board of Directors. Far from “human rights advocates,” they are instead simply leveraging such issues to disguise what is in reality corporate-financier hegemonic expansion.
NED and Open Society’s role in supporting expanded intervention by the West to achieve its long sought after regime change indicates that it is not in fact any sort of “international community” that has engineered and supported the West’s agenda in Syria, but the special interests represented by NED and Open Society – namely the corporate-financier interests of the Fortune 500. This same gambit has been used to one degree or another around the globe in an attempt to harness the perceived legitimacy of NGOs, the extensive propaganda network the Western press maintains, and the concepts of “human rights,” “democracy,” and “freedom” to couch ambitions of neo-imperial global hegemony.
Since it is these special interests that masquerade as the “international community,” then indeed the “international community” has failed Syria – since from the beginning it had every intention to mire Syria in sectarian violence, political destabilization, economic ruination, and eventual social and political collapse. Since 2007, this so-called “international community” has been conspiring against world peace, as duly noted in Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article, “The Redirection (2007).” In it, it was clearly stated that the United States, Israel, and their Gulf State proxies, particularly Saudi Arabia, were already building an armed secular extremist front with which to wage violent subversion upon Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
From the US-engineered “Arab Spring” to the extremist violence that has ravaged Libya and now Syria, the West is executing a coordinated, premeditated military and political campaign to conquer by proxy a vast swath of territory extending from North Africa, through the Middle East, and into Central Asia. It is a geopolitical campaign that directly targets all sovereign nation states, and in particular Russia and China in what is only the latest in a long struggle throughout human history by megalomaniacs to establish uncontested global hegemony. As the ploys are overused, their effectiveness has begun to falter and the legitimacy of the West’s actions and “role” is now failing. What we are left with is an overt campaign of military aggression, in direct violation of world peace and any norm of international law, real or contrived.
Globalization on all fronts has been exposed as a method for achieving the goals and aspirations not of humanity, but of a handful of elitist special interests at the expense of the vast majority. Identifying and exposing these interests is key, as is the establishment of genuine grassroots institutions and paradigms of and by the people to replace the faltering and self-serving institutions of globalization.
PN 