PAY ATTENTION!
Here we have two pieces by the renowned insider Paul Craig Roberts. We use the “Insider” term with respect and admiration rather than with the old Bircher defamation of those who plot against and help destroy America.
This “insider” is definitely from a former era (Reagan) and one who (unlike Cheney & Rumsfeld, et. al) has not only recognized the constant lies from Washington but has no fear to report them.
Paul Craig Roberts is our 21st Century Thomas Paine.
The Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun
By Paul Craig Roberts
March 07, 2014 “Information Clearing House – According to a report in Kommersant-Ukraine, the finance ministry of Washington’s stooges in Kiev who are pretending to be a government has prepared an economic austerity plan that will cut Ukrainian pensions from $160 to $80 so that Western bankers who lent money to Ukraine can be repaid at the expense of Ukraine’s poor. http://www.kommersant.ua/doc/2424454 It is Greece all over again.
Before anything approaching stability and legitimacy has been obtained for the puppet government put in power by the Washington orchestrated coup against the legitimate, elected Ukraine government, the Western looters are already at work. Naive protesters who believed the propaganda that EU membership offered a better life are due to lose half of their pension by April. But this is only the beginning.
The corrupt Western media describes loans as “aid.” However, the 11 billion euros that the EU is offering Kiev is not aid. It is a loan. Moreover, it comes with many strings, including Kiev’s acceptance of an IMF austerity plan.
Remember now, gullible Ukrainians participated in the protests that were used to overthrow their elected government, because they believed the lies told to them by Washington-financed NGOs that once they joined the EU they would have streets paved with gold. Instead they are getting cuts in their pensions and an IMF austerity plan.
The austerity plan will cut social services, funds for education, layoff government workers, devalue the currency, thus raising the prices of imports which include Russian gas, thus electricity, and open Ukrainian assets to takeover by Western corporations.
Ukraine’s agriculture lands will pass into the hands of American agribusiness.
One part of the Washington/EU plan for Ukraine, or that part of Ukraine that doesn’t defect to Russia, has succeeded. What remains of the country will be thoroughly looted by the West.
The other part hasn’t worked as well. Washington’s Ukrainian stooges lost control of the protests to organized and armed ultra-nationalists. These groups, whose roots go back to those who fought for Hitler during World War 2, engaged in words and deeds that sent southern and eastern Ukraine clamoring to be returned to Russia where they resided prior to the 1950s when the Soviet communist party stuck them into Ukraine.
At this time of writing it looks like Crimea has seceded from Ukraine. Washington and its NATO puppets can do nothing but bluster and threaten sanctions. The White House Fool has demonstrated the impotence of the “US sole superpower” by issuing sanctions against unknown persons, whoever they are, responsible for returning Crimea to Russia, where it existed for about 200 years before, according to Solzhenitsyn, a drunk Khrushchev of Ukrainian ethnicity moved southern and eastern Russian provinces into Ukraine. Having observed the events in western Ukraine, those Russian provinces want to go back home where they belong, just as South Ossetia wanted nothing to do with Georgia.
Washington’s stooges in Kiev can do nothing about Crimea except bluster. Under the Russian-Ukraine agreement, Russia is permitted 25,000 troops in Crimea. The US/EU media’s deploring of a “Russian invasion of 16,000 troops” is either total ignorance or complicity in Washington’s lies. Obviously, the US/EU media is corrupt. Only a fool would rely on their reports. Any media that would believe anything Washington says after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN to peddle the regime’s lies about “Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,” which the weapons inspectors had told the White House did not exist, is clearly a collection of bought-and-paid for whores.
In the former Russian provinces of eastern Ukraine, Putin’s low-key approach to the strategic threat that Washington has brought to Russia has given Washington a chance to hold on to a major industrial complex that serves the Russian economy and military. The people themselves in eastern Ukraine are in the streets demanding separation from the unelected government that Washington’s coup has imposed in Kiev. Washington, realizing that its incompetence has lost Crimea, had its Kiev stooges appoint Ukrainian oligarchs, against whom the Maiden protests were partly directed, to governing positions in eastern Ukraine cities. These oligarchs have their own private militias in addition to the police and any Ukrainian military units that are still functioning. The leaders of the protesting Russians are being arrested and disappeared. Washington and its EU puppets, who proclaim their support for self-determination, are only for self-determination when it can be orchestrated in their favor. Therefore, Washington is busy at work suppressing self-determination in eastern Ukraine.
This is a dilemma for Putin. His low-key approach has allowed Washington to seize the initiative in eastern Ukraine. The oligarchs Taruta and Kolomoyskiy have been put in power in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, and are carrying out arrests of Russians and committing unspeakable crimes, but you will never hear of it from the US presstitutes. Washington’s strategy is to arrest and deep-six the leaders of the secessionists so that there no authorities to request Putin’s intervention.
If Putin has drones, he has the option of taking out Taruta and Kolomoyskiy. If Putin lets Washington retain the Russian provinces of eastern Ukraine, he will have demonstrated a weakness that Washington will exploit. Washington will exploit the weakness to the point that Washington forces Putin to war.
The war will be nuclear.
Paul Craig Roberts #2:
Greatest Threat The World Has Ever Known
Dr. Roberts: “The Parliament in Crimea has voted to secede from Ukraine and return to Russia. The Crimean population is Russian and they don’t want anything to do with the American-orchestrated coup in western Ukraine. In 9 days there will be a referendum to see whether a majority of the people agree with this, and of course they will.
Now, there’s been no Russian invasion. That’s a lie coming directly out of Victoria Nuland’s State Department and it has spread all over the world….
“According to the Russian/Ukrainian Agreement, Russia is permitted 25,000 troops in Crimea. So the notion that 16,000 Russians, who have been there since the 1990s, recently invaded is a lie. It’s just another one of Washington’s lies like Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ or Iranian nukes.
What’s so puzzling is that anyone ever believes Washington because it never tells the truth about anything. It always lies. I can’t think of a single statement that has come out of Washington in the 21st century that wasn’t a lie. They lied about Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Georgia, and now they are lying about the Ukraine. That’s all they do — they lie.
So why anyone would believe anything Washington or its EU puppets say is beyond me. Europe is nothing but a puppet component of the American empire. There are no independent governments in Europe. But what you will see in 9 days, unless the American fools do something stupid and cause a war, is Crimea will simply secede.
Now, the same thing is occurring in the streets in eastern Ukraine because those are Russians too. This is also the source of the Russian industrial and military complex. So we have the Russians in the streets protesting against the government in Ukraine.
What has happened is Washington has seen that its incompetence has lost the Crimea. So Washington has now put these oligarch billionaires, who have their own private militias, in charge of the governments of the cities in eastern Ukraine. This has been confirmed to me directly from Russia by several independent sources. There is no doubt this is what has taken place.
These oligarchs are now arresting all of the Russian people who were leading the protests. Meaning, they are taking the head off the protests. This means there won’t be any sort of authority to appeal to Putin for help.
Now we have the head of the government in Kiev, who is Jewish, and he is allied with the neo-Nazi elements who hate Jews. And the original protesters rose up against the billionaire oligarchs, but now it’s these oligarchs who have been put in charge of the eastern Ukraine to suppress the protests by the Russian who want to go back to Russia. That’s what is actually going on. So I think that Putin, by being so low key, may lose the eastern Ukraine unless it comes to a war.
The problem is that there are elements in Washington who are still angry at Ronald Reagan for not getting into a war with Russia, and for ending the Cold War peacefully rather than nuking Russia, which is what these crazy individuals wanted Reagan to do. However, they are still in control in Washington. Wherever you look, these people are in charge.
So these people are controlling the agenda in Washington and U.S. policy around the world, and we could very easily end up in a war. Of course that kind of war could very easily go nuclear. What people need to understand is that right now the very existence of the human race is on the line because of the total insanity in Washington.
This is a very dangerous situation and it will only get worse. I don’t know what Putin will do when he realizes that trying to be reasonable has resulted in the Russian elements in eastern Ukraine being suppressed. He may decide he’s not going to put up with that because he promised these people protection, and he may invade Ukraine.
If he decides to invade, that’s the end of Ukraine. They have no capability to deal with the Russian Army. Then, what would the Americans do? They would have to save face. They would have to stop threatening sanctions and actually do something. So this is probably the greatest threat the world has ever known.
All of this was brought on by these extreme elements that run Washington, who want to exercise hegemony over the entire world — over Russia, China, Iran, etc.. They engineered this coup, lost control, and have now placed these billionaire oligarchs in control of eastern Ukraine.
If that situation gets ugly, Putin will probably have to do something. Of course oligarchs with their militias are no match for the Russian Army. This would mean yet another defeat for Washington. How many defeats can they take before they pull the trigger? So the greatest threat to life on Earth is the insane government in Washington.”
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest books are, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America Was Lost. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/