Ukraine May 4–7, 2014

James Petras: The Kiev Putsch: Rebel Workers Take Power in the East

The US-EU encirclement of Russia is designed to end Russian access to the North Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. By encircling and confining Russia to an isolated landmass without ‘outlets to the sea’, US-EU empire builders seek to limit Russia’s role as a rival power center and possible counter-weight to its imperial ambitions in the Middle East, North Africa, Southwest Asia and the North Atlantic.

...Washington’s strategic objective is to isolate Russia from without, undermine its military capability and erode its economy, in order to strengthen NATO’s political and economic collaborators inside Russia – leading to its further fragmentation and return to the semi-vassal status.

The imperial strategic goal is to place neo-liberal political proxies in power in Moscow, just like the ones who oversaw the pillage and destruction of Russia during the infamous Yeltsin decade...

VOR: Putin rubbishes Western propaganda

"As soon as our colleagues in Europe or the US drive one situation or another into a blind alley, they always say that now the key to resolving the problem lies in the hands of Moscow and it bears the entire responsibility."

"As regards what will suit Russia and what won't suit Russia. We are not a party of this conflict. The parties are inside Ukraine."

"I understand people in southeastern Ukraine who wonder why people in Kiev were allowed to do what they did - to stage a coup, to arm themselves and to seize administrative bodies, the police and military units - why [Kiev] was permitted to do anything while they were still unable to guarantee their interests and lawful rights."

Hey, bud, "lawful rights," "the rule of law," keep yer hands off: they're our shield from moral criticism, even when we are funding the Nazi party.

Moon of Alabama: Putin Offers A Truce

NYT: Putin calls for talks between E and W Ukraine

This dialogue could give people from southeast Ukraine the chance to see that their lawful rights in Ukraine really will be guaranteed...

That stinker Putin always talking about rights, and freedoms and democracy. That's our BS, an' nobody else got no right to use it.

Zero Hedge: East Ukraine May Be Officially Indepedent In Seven Days

NEO: Odessa: A Model of Warfare “On the Cheap”

Foreign Policy: How Putin is reinventing warfare

Paul Craig Roberts: Gangster State America

VOR: Kiev sends Nazi units to stop the Nazi violence in Odessa

VOS: A simple question: What will happen if Russia does, or does not, intervene in Ukraine?

Comments worth reading.

VOS: The Role of the Junta in the Odessa Massacre

Tony Cartalucci: Spinning the Odessa Massacre

Robert Parry: Ukraine’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Reality

Jay's Analysis: The IMF Plan to Loot Ukraine

Global Research: Is US-NATO Applying the “Syria Model” in Ukraine?

Al Jaz: The view from Moscow: What's the US endgame in Ukraine? 

the US needs a vast market for its goods and services and the EU is currently the biggest one of them all. So the US endgame, as Moscow sees it, is to run Europe while freezing out Russia. And the response that Moscow sees to that? Do what the Yanks are doing: Drive Europe and the US apart.

Zero Hedge: Mapping 360 Years Of A Divided Ukraine

Image Source: Ukraine an artifact.

Xinhua: German FM proposes second Geneva meeting to settle Ukraine crisis

Rinf: Media on Ukraine: What Happened to Journalism?

Nothing's happened to journalism. It's just the same reliable plutocrat-owned, user-pay lie machine it always was.

Investment Watch: Your either with us, or you're a US-hating, Commie bastard Putin lover

Washingtons Blog: New York Times Admits that Russia Is NOT Sending Pro-Russian Fighters Into Ukraine

Admitting the error now merely preserves the NY Times's credibility with its gullible readership so they can pass a new lie next week. In the meantime, for everyone who's read the retraction, dozens will have heard the allegation. So the propaganda objective is achieved. Large numbers of more or less ignorant people will believe that Russian troops have invaded Ukraine and are responsible for the US-instigated civil war.

Well done, New York Times (Carlos Slim, Prop.)

RINF: War Propaganda: Another New York Times ‘Sort of’ Retraction on Ukraine

VOS: SITREP - May 5th, 17:37 UTC/Zulu: this time the junta means business

VOR: Russia finding alternatives to Ukraine as source of defense industry equipment

Global News: Canada needs pipelines to profit from Ukraine crisis: energy experts

That, in ten years, the construction of not a single major pipeline has been authorized in Canada to transport tar-sands oil East, West or South is perhaps the single most astonishing failures of the Harper government.

CBC: Fighting in Slovyansk kills 4 troops, wounds 30

RU-Facts.com: S & P predicts Ukraine default if Eastern Ukraine achieves autonomy

Itar-Tass: Ukrainian military helicopter shot down while patrolling over Sloviansk

Vinyard of Saker: On how wars begin

RT: West doing to Ukraine as it did to Yugoslavia in 1990s

John Helmer: THE OSCE SPECIAL MONITORS IN EASTERN UKRAINE AREN’T NATO SPIES — BUT HOW NEUTRAL ARE THE OSCE EXPERTS ON OCCUPIED TERRITORY (NORTHERN CYPRUS, AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, HEBRON, KOSOVO)?

JePo: Odessa Jewish community mulls emergency evacuation

Scott Taylor: Canada's bellicose bluster on Ukraine Signifying Practically Nothing

So to back up all of Harper and Baird’s bellicose blustering, let’s recap our military escalation: six fighter jets to train Romanians, one aging frigate and an ancient helicopter to waters well distant from the crisis area, 20 paper-shufflers to help draft plans in Belgium and three unarmed individuals to act as hostage bait in Ukraine.

USAToday: Crowd storms jail, frees separatists in Ukraine

There is no evidence that the people storming the jail were separatists. Recent opinion surveys in Ukraine indicate that a substantial majority in South and Eastern Ukraine are federalists, seeking autonomy from the Russophobic junta in Kyiv, but do not seek union with Russia.

Itar-Tass: US Ambassador to Ukraine: there is no evidence of Russia's involvement in Odessa massacre

Mike Whitney: Obama’s New Ukraine — A Russophobic, Failed State Ruled by Fascists

On Thursday, it looked like violence might be avoided when coup-President Oleksandr Turchynov said that he had lost control of the situation. In an exasperated message to the media, Turchynov said, “It is hard to accept but it’s the truth, but the majority of law enforcers in the east are incapable of performing their duties.”

Turchynov was referring to the fact that Ukrainian troops have refused to attack their own countrymen. The mutiny has reportedly spread from elite airborne units to local police who sympathize with the protestors. The only group that’s willing to carry out Washington’s proxy war is the Right Sector neo-Nazis who helped topple the Yanukovych government. Just last week, members of this openly fascist party, commemorated “the perpetrators of the massacre of Yanova Dolina,” where “600 Poles were murdered by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in what is now Bazaltovoye. The massacre marked the beginning of ethnic cleansing in what is now western Ukraine, where tens of thousands of Poles were killed within a few months.”

These are Obama’s new allies in America’s war against Russia. ...

Mike Shedlock: Misrepresenting the Libertarian Position on Putin

Mike Shedlock: Civil War in Ukraine (But Please Don't Call it That!)

A civil war is underway in Ukraine. Curiously, no one has labeled it as such ...

Actually we did label it as such the other day ...

And just to be clear: it's a civil war instigated by the United States of Aggression in league with Nazi collaborators in Kyiv — people who trace their political philosophy back to those who collaborated in the mass murder of Jews during WWII, and further back still, to the incitement of Ukrainian nationalism by the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm II, which aimed at weakening the Russian Empire, and before that, of Otto Von Bismarck.

SCF: Kiev Murders Civilians with Orwellian Western Collusion

SCF: Khatyn Massacre Repeated in Odessa

Under US Direction — see next item

Zero Hedge: Dozens Of CIA, FBI Agents "Advising Ukraine Government", German Press Reports

NEO: Russia’s “Miracle” in Crimea

VOR: America's Kyiv Friends Killing Their Own People in Burning Building

RT: Odessa police release 67 anti-govt activists after crowd surrounds police HQ

Global Research: Troops on the Ground: U.S. and NATO Plan PSYOPS Teams in Ukraine

Global Research: The Day U.S.-Supported Fascists began Murdering Civilians A Day that will Live in Infamy

Global Research: Obama Backs Bloody Neo-Nazi Crackdown on Federalist Protesters

Moon of Alabama: Ukraine: U.S. Campaign Stuck Without Russian Intervention And German Support

Two days ago a mob, supported by the fascists Right Sektor, killed over 30 federalist Ukrainians in Odessa by pushing them from their camp into a building and then setting fire to it. Those who escaped the massacre, not the perpetrators, were rounded up by police. Today pro-federalism people besieged the police headquarter in Odessa until the police released those it had earlier arrested.

The U.S. plan for Ukraine seems to be to bait Russia into an occupation. This would destroy EU-Russia relations, embolden NATO and help the U.S. to keep the EU as a secondary partner under its control. There would be lots of economic upsides for the U.S. in such a situation. Selling more arms and increasing energy market shares are only the starters...

Fix News: Yatsenyuk Blames Russia for Police and Security Service killings in Odessa

It's tough keeping the Western boobocracy onside when your running a Nazi regime and killing your own people, but blaming the Russians is worth a try.

Independent: Ukraine crisis: 'This is not some kind of a short-lived uprising. It is a war'

Kiev's, American-financed, mainstream-media-promoted, Obama's "duly elected," violence-installed, Nazi-backed junta, apparently want war. They are working to incite Russian intervention by murdering Russian-speaking Ukrainians. The implication is that the US State Department/NATO/Chatham House Project for a New American Century (owners of the puppet, Arse Yatsenyuk), aka US global empire, have decided to take Russia out and they need a pretext.

Vinyard of Saker: Odessa: Nazi thugs murder demonstrators seeking to escape violence

John Helmer: GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY, ROUND-2 — USS DONALD COOK GIVES ODESSA A MISS, SAILS SOUTHEAST

Linguistic Determinism: Penetrating the fog of war

Corbett Report: Ukraine interview

Reuters: Ukraine crisis showcases Russian military revamp

Paul Craig Roberts: US Seeks Russia's Destruction

The Wolfowitz doctrine is the basis of US policy toward Russia (and China). The doctrine regards any power sufficiently strong to remain independent of Washington’s influence to be “hostile.” The doctrine states:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

The Wolfowitz doctrine justifies Washington’s dominance of all regions. It is consistent with the neoconservative ideology of the US as the “indispensable” and “exceptional” country entitled to world hegemony.

Russia and China are in the way of US world hegemony. Unless the Wolfowitz doctrine is abandoned, nuclear war is the likely outcome

Live Leak: Italian mercenary in Ukraine

Euracists: Mutiny of the Lab Rats

By, Don Quijones
 
Raging Bull-Shit, May 1, 2014: If recent polls are anything to go by, the people of Europe are finally pushing back against the European Super State. Having grown weary of being treated as lab rats in a doomed — or at least increasingly dysfunctional — economic and political experiment, a large minority of Europeans seem intent on voting for euro-sceptic parties in the upcoming European elections.

Image source: A modern Tower of Babel

The prospect is causing jitters not only among the big wigs in Brussels but also among many of Europe’s mainstream political parties, whose oligopoly on political power faces a serious threat for the first time in decades. Calculations by the Open Europe think tank suggest that hard-line sceptics could take as many as 218 of the 751 seats available in the European Parliament.

In the UK, poll research shows that the most pro-European Westminster grouping – the Liberal Democrats – is about to have its European Parliamentary representation completely decimated. Indeed, so threatened do the three establishment parties in the UK feel by Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party (UKip) that they hit back this week with a cross-party campaign to condemn it as “Euracist”, an ingenious combination of the two words “Europe” and “Racist”.

Ukraine Civil War May 2—3, 2014

Vinyard of Saker: Odessa: Nazi thugs murder demonstrators seeking to escape violence
John Helmer: GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY, ROUND-2 — USS DONALD COOK GIVES ODESSA A MISS, SAILS SOUTHEAST
Linguistic Determinism: Penetrating the fog of war
Corbett Report: Ukraine interview
Reuters: Ukraine crisis showcases Russian military revamp
Paul Craig Roberts: US Seeks Russia's Destruction

The Wolfowitz doctrine is the basis of US policy toward Russia (and China). The doctrine regards any power sufficiently strong to remain independent of Washington’s influence to be “hostile.” The doctrine states:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

The Wolfowitz doctrine justifies Washington’s dominance of all regions. It is consistent with the neoconservative ideology of the US as the “indispensable” and “exceptional” country entitled to world hegemony.

Russia and China are in the way of US world hegemony. Unless the Wolfowitz doctrine is abandoned, nuclear war is the likely outcome

Live Leak: Italian merc. in Ukraine
RT: Human chains of E. Ukrainian residents block Kiev troops, APCs near Slavyansk (VIDEO)

Obama selling the lie: Kyiv junta is "a duly elected government":

Time now for an American coup.
RT: US, EU’s support of Kiev’s tactics blocks peaceful resolution of Ukraine crisis – Russia

The West has cut all paths to a peaceful solution of the Ukrainian crisis by supporting the Kiev authorities and their violent crackdown on protests in the eastern part of the country, Russia’s envoy Vitaly Churkin told the UN Security Council.

... “Particular concern is raised by data that, during the punitive operation of the Ukrainian military and illegal ultra-nationalist groups, English speech was heard on air, and among the assailants on Slavyansk, English speaking foreigners were seen,” the Russian UN envoy said.

RT: 31 die in Odessa after neoNazis set Trade Unions House on fire
The Nation: Obama's new Cold War on Russia a Grave Failure of Representative Democracy
It's not a failure of representative democracy, it's a demonstration of the fact that America is not a democracy at all, as anyone with half a brain knows. The US is a pseudodemocracy in which the media and state educational system ensure that at least half of the population believe and vote for, whatever the elite want them to believe and vote for. It's rule of the stupids in the interests of the corrupt.

VOR: Lavrov: Kerry Irresponsible
Tony Cartalucci: Ukraine Crisis: The Battle for Slavyansk
Zero Hedge: On The Edge Of War: The Latest Russian And Ukraine Troop Movements
CTV: Ukraine's Turkeynov: 'Many' insurgents killed in Slovyansk offensive
Zero Hedge: EU Commissioner: "Any 'Sensible' Person Should Oppose Further Russia Sanctions"
VOR: Ukraine's Slavyansk holds the line against Kiev's Right Sector fighters and foreign contractors

snipers were shooting at the militiamen. According to unverified information, Baltic languages were heard there, supposedly, women were speaking. Probably, there were women-snipers from Baltic countries there.

Pepe Escobar: NATO's soft war on Russia
BBC 'Many dead' in Ukraine offensive in Sloviansk - Turkeynov
Voltairenet.org: Ukraine Crisis Accelerating the Restructuring of the World
Itar-Tass: Ukraine helicopters strike on massive gatherings of Sloviansk civilians
RT: At least two Ukrainian army helicopters shot down over Slavyansk (VIDEO)
RT: Ukrainian troops begin special operation in Slavyansk
RT: Kiev’s ‘punitive op’ in E. Ukraine irreparably severs Geneva accord – Kremlin
Zero Hedge: Rockets for the Pentagon excluded from sanctions on Russia
Zero Hedge: Roof Snipers Appear In Odessa
Zero Hedge: "Anti-Terrorist" Operation Turns Deadly In Odessa - Live Feed
Zero Hedge: Why Europe Is Scared Of Sanctions Against Russia
BBC: Sloviansk rebels down army helicopters
Tony Cartalucci: NATO's meddling in Ukraine an act of war against Russia
BBC: Ukraine reinstates conscription as crisis deepens
The regular army won't kill those pesky Russian bastards in Eastern Ukraine, so we'll conscript some dumb kids, hold a machine gun at their backs and tell them to start shooting the people down, or else.

The Imploding American Empire

What we stated as an obvious fact three years ago, that America's economy has been eclipsed by China's, is now official. And even without adjustment for the purchasing power of the domestic currency, the US was surpassed in economic output by the European Union in 2012.

So now the US actually ranks, not first, but No. 3 in the world by economic output measured by GDP. If one were to strip out the more or less worthless components of US GDP plus those components that are detrimental to human welfare, insane over-investment in healthcare, for example, or multi-trillion-dollar wars, the estimated value of America's output of useful goods and services would obviously fall sharply.

Still, as American politicians like to remind the World, America is the exceptional nation, the nation born to rule the world, so if you get in America's way you'll be bombed, drone-killed, sanctioned to economic death or subjected to a campaign of relentless character assassination.

Consistent with that World view, America's grand master of the geostrategic chess board, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US national security adviser and mind behind the Obama/Kerry mask, has set forth the road to American global hegemony:

... it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.

And that strategy is?

... how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.

Well, no prob. then: just go in and take control of Eurasia. 

Except that when economic power No. 3 barges into Eurasia it finds itself in conflict with economic powers No. 1 and 2, not to mention economic power No. 4, India, or the only power on earth that is realistically capable of turning the United States to radioactive ash; namely, Russia.

But O'Barmy the Piss-Prize winner is going for it any how. He's poked Russia in the eye by having Fuck-the-EU Nuland instigate a Nazi-backed Russophobic coup in Ukraine, on Russia's doorstep, while gratuitously threatening China, with brilliant results, obviously:

• Russia's taken back their ancient naval base at Sevastapol plus the whole of Crimea;

• The Russian-speaking people of South-Eastern Ukraine are showing a spirited preference for independence over subordination to US-installed Nazis in Kyiv;

• The subjects nations of American empire in Western Europe, in particular Germany, but also Britain and France, are showing a distinct lack of enthusiasm for a new war with Russia, they chief energy supplier and third-largest single-country export market, merely to preserve the American empire;

• China has responded to America's "Pivot to Asia," i.e., military encirclement, by upping its military budget. 

Meantime, Western Europe is in revolt against the US-dictated policy of mass migration aimed at the destruction of the ethnic identity of the European nations, with Britain's anti-mass immigration, anti-EU party set to win a landslide in the upcoming EU Parliamentary elections, despite a campaign of hate from the mainstream media and political parties.

All empires seek to destroy the ethnic, cultural and religions identities of the nations they rule. In the Soviet Union, Stalin attempted to do so by a combination of mass murder and forced mass migration. The US Empire has sought the same end by imposing a neoLiberal economic agenda that has forced the nations of Europe to open their doors to virtually unlimited cross-border migration both within the EU and from the Third World.

But when, by 1991, the Soviet Communist economic model had proved a disastrous failure, ethno-nationalism blew the Soviet empire apart. Now that the US neoLiberal economic model has proved a disastrous failure, ethno-nationalism will likely blow the US empire apart. That is much to be hoped for, since world war appears to be the alternative.

Ukraine Update April 30–May 1, 2014

VOR: Kiev destabilizes Donetsk to impose state of emergency - activist
FixNews: NATO official says Russia now an adversary
RiaNovosti: Russia Starts Combat Helicopter Training Flights on Baltic Border
Guardian: Putin calls for Ukrainian troops to withdraw from south-east
Zero Hedge: IMF Warns Ukraine: Fight For The East Or No Money
Zero Hedge: Meanwhile In Donetsk, "It's Getting Ugly Here" - Live Feed
Zero Hedge: "People's Republic Of Donetsk" Unveils Independence Referendum Set For May 11th

Source: The Internet Post

VOR: Elite German special forces unit ready to storm Slavyansk to release OSCE observers
Which strongly suggests that the people the Western media have been calling "observers" were indeed spies, who must be retrieved before they can be put on trial during which they are likely to make a full confession.

Seumus Milne: It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war

... After Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, the bulk of the western media abandoned any hint of even-handed coverage. So Putin is now routinely compared to Hitler, while the role of the fascistic right on the streets and in the new Ukrainian regime has been airbrushed out of most reporting as Putinist propaganda.

So you don't hear much about the Ukrainian government's veneration of wartime Nazi collaborators and pogromists, or the arson attacks on the homes and offices of elected communist leaders, or the integration of the extreme Right Sector into the national guard, while the anti-semitism and white supremacism of the government's ultra-nationalists is assiduously played down, and false identifications of Russian special forces are relayed as fact.

The reality is that, after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west's attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure, via an explicitly anti-Moscow EU association agreement. ...

VOR: Kiev forces plan to storm federalist buildings in Southeastern Ukraine on May 2
Russia's Foreign Ministry warns that Kiev regime's assault operation involving right sector in southeastern Ukraine may lead to disastrous consequences.

RT: Pro-autonomy activists seize prosecutor's office in Donetsk
SCF: On the Contradictions between Washington and Berlin on Ukraine
Canoe.ca: Canada leading risky military observer mission in Ukraine

...the crew of frigate HMCS Regina will drop its anti-piracy mission in the Arabian Sea to bolster NATO's military build-up in response to Russian actions in Ukraine.

What they gonna do? Bombard the Russian naval base at Sevastapol, or what? Sounds right out of the land of the loonie, the Pipsqueak Power of the North, with fewer soldiers than Toronto has police officers..

 The Star: Canadian observers in Ukraine accuse Ottawa of breaking promise

... the advance team went public with a story of broken promises, accusing bureaucrats of tearing up their financial agreement after the fact and imposing a frugal new compensation package that some say will leave them subsidizing the mission out of their own pockets.

Zero Hedge: IMF Approves Loan (To Pay Ukraine's Gazprom Bill): Putin 1 - 0 IMF

Zero Hedge: Battleground Ukraine: A Comprehensive Summary (From A Russian Perspective)

Brzezinski ... 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 Schiller, 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.

Office of the Prime Minister: Stephen Harper, Mighty Mouse of the North, commits Navy for, um, war? with Russia

Harper is actually committing the navy in a bid to convince Canadians, when it comes time for them to vote in next year's Federal election, what a cool tough guy he is. The downside to this is that some may conclude that he is stark staring bonkers.

SCF: White House Advisors on Russia: Who Are These People?
Global Research: Explaining Ukraine. History, Nationhood and the New World Order
Global Research: Kerry, Obama, Putin: The Fool, the Demagogue, and the Former KGB Colonel
Global Research: Are Western Policies Evil or Desperate?
NEO: Crimean Referendum: One Law for All, Only if the West Says So!
NEO: The Obama “Un-Presidency”
Orrazz: Russian Deputy Prime Minister: "After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline"
RT: Violence in Kyiv: Ukraine NATO-backed Nazi's turn on Yatsenyuk government
RT: Putin: Washington behind Ukraine events all along, though flying low
Itar-Tass: Donetsk Republic can defend its sovereignity — protesters' leader
Itar-Tass: Kiev regime is pushing Ukraine to catastrophe — Russia's ambassador to UN
VOR: Yatsenyuk could be controlled by CIA through Scientology

Why attempt to control Yatsenyuk via Scientology when, by his own admission, he's a NATO/US State Department/Chatham House puppet.

VOR: US runs processes in Ukraine since very start - President Putin
Press TV: Tarpley Points Out Fake-OSCE Observers Are Actually NATO Military Officers
Guardian: Ukraine's government has lost control of east, says acting president

Related: Ukraine Update April 26–29, 2014

The American Economy: Stagnation and Eclipse

The Financial Times has shocked many readers with a report that China is now poised to overtake America as the World's largest economy.

The figures, compiled by the International Comparison Program hosted by the World Bank ...[indicate that] China is likely to overtake the US this year.

Many commenting on the FT story are bitter — mostly blaming Obama and the democrats for America's eclipse. Truly, though, the blame lies mainly with the Chinese. They've vastly outnumbered and outproduced the Americans.

As we explained three years ago:

The Shanghai Tower (Source)

With five times as many people, China must produce five times as much food as the United States.

China's crude steel production accounts for 46% of the World's total, and almost seven times America's.

China's cement consumption accounts for about half the World's total.

And China leads the World in the emission of Carbon Dioxide with 22.3% of the World's total in 2007, a number that must have been far surpassed by now.

China is now the World's Number 1 producer of automobiles, and the World's largest exporter.

In the next five years China with invest US$1.5 trillion to construct 30,000 km of high speed rail, during which time America will stick with its 225 miles between Washington and New York (with a planned extension to Boston), with trains running at peak speeds of 150 miles per hour, although average speeds are much lower due to the poor track which was not designed for high speed rail.

So in terms of gross material and energy use, China is already way ahead of the US.

That, of course, is not the whole of the story. As we added:

... amount of stuff is not what economists measure when calculating GDP, they look at the monetary value of output. There the US is way ahead of China in many areas. In legal services, for example, Americans are so much better off than the Chinese.

Then there's healthcare. Americans don't live any longer than most other people, but they spend a heck of lot trying to -- about $2 trillion a year.

And they excel at spending on education, entertainment and advertising, with, surely, beneficial results.

But where American wealth is most evident is in the realm of organized violence. Who else could afford everlasting multi-trillion dollar wars?

So maybe the Chinese have more stuff. But when it comes to the things that really matter, America still leads the World.

But for those who regret the passing of American economic supremacy, what could American have done, or could do still, to end the grinding economic stagnation of the Bush/Obama years?

to answer that, one must first understand the cause, which we have already explained in: It's the Off-shoring, Stupid!

Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2012: Thirty-five big U.S.-based multinational companies added jobs much faster than other U.S. employers in the past two years, but nearly three-fourths of those jobs were overseas*, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Those companies, which include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., International Paper Co., Honeywell International Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc., boosted their employment at home by 3.1%, or 113,000 jobs, between 2009 and 2011, the same rate of increase as the nation’s other employers. But they also added more than 333,000 jobs in their far-flung—and faster-growing— foreign operations.

Wage convergence between the West and the rest still has a way to go.

Meantime:

One in two new US graduates jobless or underemployed

Spanish unemployment hits a new high of 24.5%.

The US Economy slows

Falling US home prices drag new buyers under water

Eurozone Retail Sales Plunge

Canadian employment withers

and …

But it would be as tedious as it would be easy to go on, and on, and on.

So there are only two ways to end the stagnation now. They are:

1. An across-the-board import tax on everything, as is permitted under WTO rules (if one cares about the WTO, which personally, I don't).The magnitude of the tariff to be adjusted as required to drive up the cost of imports to the point that increase domestic demand soaks up all labor at a living wage. Or,

2. Abolition of the minimum wage and introduction of a negative income tax regime that insures that anyone doing a full-time job earns a living wage.

Either way, those who are thriving under the present system of globalized free trade will pay a price: either higher taxes (on imported goods) and higher prices for home manufactured goods, or higher income taxes to cover the cost of the income supplement to those otherwise unable to earn a living wage.

Either way, idiot libertarians will tell you that what you propose, wether taxes tarrifs, is theft. But that's alright. It's better to be a thief than a cold-blooded killer ready to let babies starve

* Emphasis added.

 Related: India now world's 3rd largest economy, behind just US, China

Ukraine Update April 26–29, 2014

RT: Moscow will not bargain with Kiev over Crimea's water supply
RT: Putin: Washington behind Ukraine events all along, though flying low
VOR: Kiev should refrain from military action against protesters in E. Ukraine – US ambassador
VOR: Under the guise of sanctions US trying to push Russia out of the space launch market
Mike Shedlock: Why not include the Ukrainian Federalists in talks on a solution to the Ukrainian crisis?

Sheesh, let's not get into talking with those pesky Russian-speaking folks in Eastern Ukraine or soon we'll be talking democracy and more referendums, and we all know where that will lead.

Zero Hedge: China Slams US Over Russian Sanctions
Zero Hedge: Pro-Russian Forces Storm Luhansk Police Buildings — Putschist Pres. Turkeynov accuses local police of "criminal treachery"
SCF: Russia won't repeat 'Crimea scenario' in southeastern Ukraine - Deputy FM
SCF: What makes Odessa rise in protest?
SCF: Kerry’s statement on Ukraine: A lying brief for war
Stratarisks: US Sanctions Prevent Launch of American Satellites
Daily Beast: Kerry: U.S. Taped Moscow’s Calls to Its Ukraine Spies
BBC: Pro-Russia activists seize Luhansk HQ
BBC: Russia condemns US 'Iron Curtain' sanctions
Forbes Mag: On All Of The Important Questions Ukraine Is Still Extremely Divided
Global Research: Hillary Clinton: Make the Russian People Pay for Resistance to Ukraine Junta
Marchenko Romanovich Ukrainian National Resistance Movement against the Neo-Nazi Government
Robert Parry: Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia
Press TV: US troops land in Estonia for war games on Russia’s doorstep
Alex Lantier: The Ukraine Crisis and the Political Lies of the Media
Mike Whitney: Why is Putin in Washington’s Crosshairs?
VOR: US leaders, citizens detached from reality, living 'behind CNN curtain'
RT: End of defense imports to Russia would be catastrophe for Ukraine – Putin
RT: Neo-Nazis march in Lvov 'in honor' of Ukrainian Waffen SS division (PHOTOS)
RT: Blasts, fierce fighting in Donetsk between pro- and anti-Kiev demos (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
Zero Hedge: Donetsk Riots Break Out In "Scenes Of Absolute Brutality"
Itar-Tass: In Lugansk, federalization supporters proclaim creation of a "people's republic"
VOR: Georgian nationalists to join crackdown on federalization protests in eastern Ukraine
MI5: Russian intelligence analysts wanted
RT: Anti-govt protesters seize TV station in eastern Ukraine, call for own channel
RT: Ukrainian special forces team caught near Donetsk
Oriental Review: Poland Trained Ukraine's EuroMaidan Thugs
BBC: Ukraine Monitors "We are guests of the Mayor (of Slaviansk)"

Telegraph: US financial showdown with Russia is more dangerous than it looks, for both sides

The United States has constructed a financial neutron bomb. For the past 12 years an elite cell at the US Treasury has been sharpening the tools of economic warfare, designing ways to bring almost any country to its knees without firing a shot. ...

Alexander Salitsky: The End of Globalization and the Economy of Russia's Conservative Project
MSN News: Pope promises to help Ukraine
How many divisions does the Pope have — er, none, but promises prayer. Might do better, though, to offer Putin sainthood if he'll just agree to talk with Kerry again.
Global News: Russia’s Lavrov accuses West of plotting to seize Ukraine
CBC: Ukraine crisis: Separatists offer observers in prisoner exchange
WaPo: As Russian forces escalate, Ukraine's influence waning
NPR: What Russia Might Gain From A Decentralized Ukraine
Christoff Lehmann: NATO’s Unconventional War Against Russia

It is this fourth-generation warfare that is being waged against Russia. It is a warfare that is as relentless as rust. It never sleeps.

It will be wide awake and eye its next objectives when the time has come that NATO finds it more useful to let the dust of Ukraine and Crimea settle and to offer Russia to become a “partner for peace” – again.

Martin Armstrong: War and Debt: Is war Putin's only option?
Global Research; New York Times Attempts to Whitewash its Role in Publishing Faked Ukraine Photos

Surely everyone knows by now that whatever relationship there is between the truth and what the NY Times, or WaPo reports is purely coincidental. What matters is the value of the story to to interests of the very rich people, like Carlos Slim or Jeff Bezos who own the paper. As someone said, anyone rich enough to own a newspaper is not fit to own one.

Paul Craig Roberts: Moving Closer To War

The crisis in Ukraine originated with Washington’s overthrow of the elected democratic government and its replacement with Washington’s hand-chosen stooges. The stooges proceeded to act in word and deed against the populations in the former Russian territories that Soviet Communist Party leaders had attached to Ukraine. The consequence of this foolish policy is agitation on the part of the Russian speaking populations to return to Russia. Crimea has already rejoined Russia, and eastern Ukraine and other parts of southern Ukraine are likely to follow.

Instead of realizing its mistake...

Why assume it's a mistake. Looks more like a bunch of war criminals launching a war, while preparing to blame the victims.

Zero Hedge: Satellite Images Reveal 15,000 Ukraine Troops, Hundreds Of Tanks Around Slavyansk
RT: Unknown gunmen land from helicopter, attack checkpoint in Donetsk region
Rick Rozoff: NATO’s Incremental But Inexorable Absorption of Ukraine
Zero Hedge: Tit For Tat: Ukraine Blocks Crimea Water Supply With Russia Set To Halt Ukraine Gas
VOR: Crimean authorities say they have fallback water supply plan, not dependent on Kiev
Itar-Tass: Ukraine halts canal water supply to Crimea
RT: Ukraine Facts Manufactured in the US of Artifactuality
LOL. This may be Russian propaganda, but its slick, its funny and its facts seem to be real facts unlike those of John Kerry and the State Department's apparently always irritable red-headed spokeswoman.
Prof. John McMurtrie: “Global Society Destruction” and The Ukraine Crisis

The “Ukraine crisis” repeats a script as old as the Cold War. The narrative features rising attacks by corporate states and media on the traditional whipping boy of Russia. As usual, “escalating the crisis” is US-led. As usual, alarm about “increasing lawless aggression” is projection of US policy itself. In fact, one more US-directed violent overthrow of an elected government has carved off the biggest country of Europe from next-door Russia.

Former US Asst. Secretary of State, Christopher Hill: Russia's Annexation of Crimea and the End of the New World Order
The usual New World Order bollocks: death to the democratic, sovereign nation state, especially Russia, and long-live the plutocratic global empire. Still its good to see the globalists facing the possibility of defeat. It may make them more hesitant about pursuing their program of universal genocide.

ABC News: Ukraine crisis: Negotiators try to secure release of detained observers, US warns of new sanctions

The separatist, self-declared mayor of Slaviansk said the observers were believed to have a spy amongst them from the pro-Western government in Kiev.

The Daily Beast: Putin Halts All Talks With White House

Itar-Tass: Kiev afraid Ukraine’s center and west may arise along with southeast — presidential nominee, Oleg Tsarov

To deescalate the conflict, in his words, the government should sit down at a roundtable and take a decision on amnesty and troops pullout. After that, it must adopt a roadmap on amendments to be made to the constitution. “We have out edition of the constitution and we are ready to present it to the government,” Tsariov said.

“It is much easier to try to reach an agreement than to kill own citizens,” he stressed.

Earlier on Friday, Tsariov said that the Kiev authorities were subordinate to the US administration. “When in a span of two weeks the CIA director, the US vice president and the head of the US Senate armed service committee pay visits to Kiev, one has an impression that Ukraine is subordinate to the American administration,” he said.

Bloombergs: Putin Warns of Consequences as Ukraine Steps Up Offensive
Washington Beacon: Pentagon: Russian Spy Ship, Tug Operating Near U.S.

It's what's known as tit-for-tat. The US puts missiles and spy planes on Russia's borders, Russia puts spy ships, missile carriers and perhaps nuclear armed subs on America's borders.

Tony Cartalucci: Unelected Regime Begins Killing Spree in Eastern Ukraine
Kyiv Post: In Eastern Ukraine "counter-terrorism" forces treated like the occupying force that they are

Zero Hedge: Ukraine Warns Putin "We Will Eliminate Invaders" After Pro-Russian Forces Down Ukraine Chopper
Ottawa Citizen: Russian sanctions have killed Canadian military satellite launch
But despite Harper's vigorous anti-Russian rhetoric, Obama continues shafting him on the Keystone XL Pipeline
Zero Hedge: Furious Russia, Downgraded To Just Above Junk By S&P, Proposes "Scorched Earth" Retaliation Against NATO Countries
WRH: Kerry draws red line on Ukraine, says ‘world’ will make Russia pay for transgressions
Zero Hedge: Spot The Two Ukraine Army Snipers

More Ukraine Posts by CanSpeccy

Aerial Discharge of Uranium and Plutonium at Fukushima: No Need for Panic

Today, Global Research has a story with the arresting title:

Fukushima Didn’t Just Suffer Three Meltdowns … The Nuclear Core Has Finally Been Found … Scattered All Over Japan.

If the headline were correct, one would have to say goodbye to Japan as a place for human habitation — for all time.

However, if you go to the source for the headlined claim, which is the American Chemical Society's journal: Environmental Science and Technology you find a very different story.

First, the report states:

Black-colored road dusts were collected in high-radiation areas in Fukushima Prefecture.

So first note that the dust examined was not "scattered all over Japan," but was from "high-radiation areas in Fukushima Prefecture," which is to say those areas from which people have already been removed.

Second, the report states:

The concentrations of ^134,137Cs in all samples were exceptionally high, ranging from 0.43 to 17.7 MBq/kg, respectively.

Yes, 17.7 MBq/kg, or 17.7 thousand particle emissions per second per kilogram, is high compared with natural radiation from soils or water, but to keep things in perspective, it is less than the radiation emitted by ten millionths of a gram of radium. Moreover, Cs 134 decays by 50% within just over two years and Cs 137 decay by 50% in just over 30 years, so the contamination will decline significantly in a time considerably less than eternity.

 Third, the report states:

^239+240Pu was detected at low levels, ranging from 0.15 to 1.14 Bq/kg [and] ²³⁶U was successfully determined in the range of (0.28 to 6.74) × 10^–4 Bq/kg.

Which means if you eat a kilogram of this gunk you'd receive an internal dose of radiation from plutonium and uranium of probably less than one count per second, which is below the activity of most drinking water or healthy organic lettuce. It is also less than the radiation from Uranium in some popular mineral waters, e.g., San Pellegrino.

So yes, the radiation contamination around Fukushima is disastrous, but it is not the end either of the world or of Japan.

Altogether, the report states:

The quantities of U and ^239+240Pu emitted to the atmosphere were estimated as 3.9 × 10⁶ Bq (150 g) and 2.3 × 10⁹ Bq (580 mg), respectively.

For perspective, a liter of San Pellegrino water contains 6 micrograms of Uranium, so the 580 mg of Uranium estimated to have been spewed at Fukushima is equivalent to that contained in about 16,000 liters, or less than a truck-load, of a popular and harmless brand of mineral water. Over the area of a country the size of Japan, that is an absolutely insignificant amount.

Ukraine Update April 22–24, 2014

MCS: US war plan for Europe and Russia

A close relationship between Moscow and Europe would remove the rationale for America’s military role in NATO and thereby its political influence in Europe.

The US is prepared to plunge Europe into a war with Russia in order for Washington to preserve its hegemony over the transatlantic axis.

The key issues are the prevention of Russia and Europe developing closer trade and political ties – stemming primarily from a vast trade in energy fuels; and, secondly, the survival of the American dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

So vital are these issues for continued American hegemony that Washington is prepared to sacrifice millions of lives in a war between Russia and its so-called transatlantic European “ally”.

...The reality is that Washington has done everything to escalate this conflict, in particular between Russia and Europe, for its own selfish strategic interests. That includes, if deemed necessary by the pyromaniacs in Washington, the ignition of all-out war in Europe.

MCS: Doomed US targets China, Russia

Robert Parry: Prepping for a Ukrainian Massacre

Global Research: Does Washington want War with Russia?

In the last 48 hours, the Pentagon has announced the deployment of US paratrooper units to Poland and the three former Baltic republics of the Soviet Union—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—bringing US troops to Russia’s very border. Another American warship has been dispatched to the Black Sea and more US forces are slated to deploy to Ukraine itself this summer under an exercise known as Operation Rapid Trident.

In a series of wars with Third-World nations deploying primitive weapons, the United States has come off as an incompetent military power able to win, if at all, only by means of a long drawn out campaign of human and physical destruction achieved by the application of massive, more or less aimless, violence.

A war with Russia offers an opportunity to change that perception. Russia has an advanced military industrial complex that is intended to match that of the United States. Against Russia, the US would thus confront forces that its own military understands well and has been specifically designed to combat.

If America's ten-fold superiority in military spending gives it any kind of an edge over the Russians, a war with Russia could, therefore, be over in days or weeks, restoring to America the credibility as an imperial power that it presently so lacks.

Sky News: Gazprom Turns Up Heat On Kiev With $11bn Bill

Zero Hedge: Putin Says "Use Of Force In Ukraine Will Have Consequences" As Column Of Military Vehicles Seen Heading Toward Border

Zero Hedge: Desperate Ukraine Pleads: "Red Line Has Already Been Crossed"

Zero Hedge: Russia "Forced" To Launch Drill On Ukraine Border In Response To "NATO Build Up", Will Involve Fighter Jets

RINF: The US Plan for the Ukraine – a hypothesis

... Bottom line – the freaks in power in Kiev and the USA *know* that the eastern Ukraine is lost for them, and the purpose of the imminent attack is not to “win” against the Russian-speaking rebels or, even less so, to “win” against the Russian military, it is to trigger enough violence to force Russia to intervene. In other words, since the East is lost anyways, it is much better to lose it to the “invading Russian hordes” than to lose it to the local civilian population.

So the purpose of the next attack will not be to win, but to lose. That the Ukrainian military can still do. ...

AntiWar.com: US Promises Support for Ukraine Junta's Asssault on East Ukraine

RT: Ukraine coal miners on strike, refuse to pay Kiev coup damages bill

ABCNews: Amid Russia Warning, Ukraine Is in a Security Bind

Daily Mail: Ukraine Special forces shoot dead five pro-Moscow militants

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2611946/Obama-issues-stark-warning-Russia-new-economic-sanctions-teed-unrest-continues-grow-Ukraine.html#ixzz2zondluPT Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook Global Research: Shale Gas Fracking and America’s Proxy War against Russia: Joe Biden Promotes Fracking On Ukraine Trip

Justin Raimondo: Why we needed regime change in Kyiv

RT: Putin advocates single cultural space within Russian borders

This is why Russia must be smashed. We cannot have a global empire if every country strives to maintain its ethnic and cultural distinctness. Ethnic and cultural unity underlie the power of the nation state and its resistance to an international plutocracy that seeks to impose a global governance via unelected institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, Nato, the EU, the World Trade Organization, all of which are susceptible to influence by the money power.

Zero Hedge: Russia May Halt Oil Supplies On Ukraine Theft

Zero Hedge: Putin Gets Paid? IMF Agrees $17bn Loan To Ukraine

Washington's Blog: The REAL Reasons We’re Drifting Towards World War III

WUFYS: Welcome to Nulandistan

RT: Kiev must immediately deescalate east Ukraine crisis, call back troops - Moscow

The Daily Beast: Germany Helped Prep Russia for War, U.S. Sources Say

Europe acquiesced in occupation by the US after WWII out of fear of invasion and occupation by the Soviet Union. Today, Europe does not fear post-Communist Russia. In fact many Europeans respect Russia's determination to survive as a nation state by reversing a population implosion while preventing mass immigration from the Third World.

The United States occupation of Europe can only be maintained by creating a new division between East and West. Germany, apparently, is not on board. Neither, as the up-coming European elections will prove, are huge numbers of other Europeans who want governments committed to national survival not the New-Wold-Order-mandated self-genocide through the promotion of non-reproductive sex, mass immigration and multiculturalism.

Moreover, Russia is the EU's third largest single-nation trade partner and there is scope for massive expansion in that partnership. Given the choice, Europe will opt for more trade not more war. But first they have to get the deadly dangerous US Empire off their backs. To that end, German collaboration with Russia in the mutual enhancement of military capability makes good sense.

Bloomberg: Tightwad USA: Ukraine’s Unpaid Russian Gas Bills Dwarf U.S. Aid Offer

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told Ukrainian leaders this week that the U.S. would provide help so that “Russia can no longer use energy as a weapon.” Biden announced $50 million in aid, an unspecified part of which would go to develop the country’s gas reserves, explore alternative energy and improve efficiency.

LOL. At $220 million, even Canada gave Ukraine more than four times as much as the tightwad USA — and that was only a gimmick to buy the Ukrainian-Canadian vote in next year's Federal election. Still, if it comes to killing Russians, the United States of Aggression will no doubt be much, much more generous.

Zero Hedge: Russia Warns West "Remove Forces"; Begins Military Exercise On Ukraine Border

ITAR TASS: Washington uses Ukraine as pawn in its big geopolitical game

UTube: US State Department Proof of Russian Involvement in East Ukraine Protest Movement

NEO: Does the CIA plan a Syrian style terror war in Ukraine?

... The mutinies among the security forces in the East must have rattled Kiev, even though they should have expected it. After all, it is a majority-Russian region. We next heard Right Sector’s Dimitry Yarosh is calling up his “army” to get ready to purify the East. Then President Turchinov strangely claimed he is deploying a reservist regiment of 350 to begin operations. Where, I ask, are the regular army units? Interim Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, has announced the creation of special Interior ministry units based on “civilian components” all across Ukraine, in order to tackle separatist moods. On his Facebook page Avakov says Kiev is ready “to attract” 12,000 into the new force that will be given arms, equipment and supervision, and he further claims that East Ukraine will get the first taste of this unit. Does that sound like he is deploying Army units to you? Are these 12,000 Yarosh’s Right Sector thugs, or another group in addition to them? Did Brennan promise to fly in some of the CIA terror proxies they have stashed all over, like the Chechens who would be close by, and a sure bet for baiting the Russians? ...

Andrew Gavin Marshall: The West Marches East, Part 1: The U.S.-NATO Strategy to Isolate Russia

RT: Lavrov: Kiev issued 'criminal order' allowing use of weapons against civilians

Patrick Buchanan: Nationalism Not NATO Brought Down The Soviet Empire: Let The People Resolve The Ukrainian Borders, Too

While Putin may want the Russians of Ukraine and Belarus back inside a Greater Russia, does anyone think he wants Rumanians, Bulgarians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs or Slovaks back under Moscow’s rule?

Putin knows that his own popularity, near 80 percent, is due directly to his being seen as a nationalist willing to stand up to the Americans and their claim to be sole architects of the New World Order.

...If we can view with diffidence the drive by Scotland to secede from England, Catalonia to secede from Spain, Venice to secede from Italy, and Flanders to secede from Belgium, why would the secession of the Donbass from Ukraine be a problem for us, if done democratically?

News 1130: Canadian diplomat expelled from Russia as Tension Rises Over Ukraine

So far, all comments on this story are critical of the Harper regime's crass Russophobia.

Robert Parry: The lies of the warmongering New York Times

Kevin MacDonald: Breaking up Ukraine along ethnic lines

...Ukraine had a reasonably functioning multiethnic state until the American attempts to destabilize it by supporting one side against the other. A multiethnic state could work especially, as in this case, when the peoples are closely related and the ethnic fault lines are deemphasized .... But the recent overthrow of the government by the non-Russian population makes the ethnic fault lines clear and also conflicts with the legitimate interests of Russia in territory that has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great...

Jason Ditz: Russia FM: Ukraine Crudely Violating Geneva Deal

Ron Maxwell: Not a Munich Moment

Reuters: Ukraine peace deal falters as rebels show no sign of surrender

John Helmer: Putin warns of US navy threat

Eric Margolis: AMATEUR HOUR IN UKRAINE

Ukraine April 18–21, 2014

RT: Stalin victims incl Crimean Tatars rehabilitated by Putin decree

David Stockman: Good Job, “Yats”: Why The Neocons Subverted The Ukraine

... besides baiting Obama over his tempered words about the crisis, the [Washington] Post (Jeff Bezos, Prop.) declared that “Mr. Obama and European leaders must act quickly to prevent Ukraine’s dismemberment. Missing from the president’s statement was a necessary first step: a demand that all Russian forces – regular and irregular – be withdrawn … and that Moscow recognize the authority of the new Kiev government. … If Mr. Putin does not comply, Western leaders should make clear that Russia will pay a heavy price.”

The Post editors are fond of calling for ultimatums against various countries, especially Syria and Iran, with the implication that if they don’t comply with some U.S. demand that harsh actions, including military reprisals, will follow.

But now the neocons, in their single-minded pursuit of endless “regime change” in countries that get in their way, have taken their ambitions to a dangerous new level, confronting nuclear-armed Russia with ultimatums.

Americans and others who disagree with WaPo might consider an ultimatum to Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com and owner of the the Post. End the warmongering or face a boycott of Amazon.com by those opposed to the NeoCon clique intent on using America as a sledgehammer to establish a plutocratic global empire.

The American Interest: Ukraine’s Debt And Putin’s Upper Hand

The American Interest: The Putin Doctrine: Myth, Provocation, Blackmail, or the Real Deal?

Washington Times: Tactical advantage: Russian military shows off impressive new gear

VOR: Biden confirms US backing for Neo-Nazis in Kyiv

RT: Lavrov: US should face responsibility for powers it installed in Kiev

Zero Hedge: Provocation in Eastern Ukraine

Zero Hedge: Have No Fear, Joe Biden Is Here (Or Rather, In Kiev)

Zero Hedge: John Kerry Admits Geneva "Deal" Worthless

Haaretz: Russian activists staged shooting, Ukrainian forces say

Hey, we're the people who do the false flags, not you pro-Russian, terrorists.

Rabble.ca: Harper on Russia: America's useful idiot?

China Topix: China Prepares Massive Investments in Crimea

...in a direct snub of the Americans, China will abandon a planned $5 billion solar power plant in Nevada and invest the money in Crimea, instead.

Haaretz: Ukraine synagogue reportedly firebombed

Robert Parry: Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Imperative

Alexander Orlov: US is losing its positions in the Middle East due to the Ukrainian Crisis

Poop Murdoch's London Timesey: US ready to target Russian president’s hidden $40bn stash

Not a scrap of evidence offered by The Times for its claim that Putin has a private stash of $40 billion, which seems extravagant even for a "New Hitler" (Hitlery Clinton, Registered Insult). Amazing, though, to read such driveling propaganda in what proclaims itself to be: "the UK's most read quality daily newspaper for business people". Are Britain's business people all dunderheaded fools or what?

Such references to "Putin's stash" are as ridiculous as the story about the $50 billion-dollar Sochi Olympics, peddled ad nauseam by the MSM without the slightest attempt at justification. See: Who’s Lying About the Cost of the Sochi Winter Olympics?.

Anyone interested in actual evidence of Putin's wealth might start with Wikipedia's Putin entry which is somewhat informative and apparently written by someone who is not dealing strictly in lies.

Putin evidently lives very well at state expense, but the only established evidence to support the contention that he has a stash of illegally accumulated wealth is his unconcealed possession of many expensive wrist watches. But heads of state receive many gifts, including wrist watches. For example, as Denis Healey recorded, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson appropriated a chunky gold Rolex watch that had been a gift to Denis Healey of a Pakistani chieftain, titled the Akond of Swat (Page 8, Paragraph 2).

RT: Pentagon mulls deployment as Poland asks for 10,000 troops

Ten thousand US troops woudl be just enough to start a war, far too few to win it. Russia, having 22 million males fit for military service.

Mirror: Military intervention in Ukraine risks spiralling into 'all-out war' with Russia

The Brits have an intelligence bureaucracy to tell them that?

VoltaireNet: Ukraine: Poland trained putchists two months in advance

ITAR_TASS: Provocation in Slavyansk proves Kiev’s not willing to disarm extremists - Russia’s FM

VOR: Slavyansk mayor asks Russia to send peacekeepers in wake of deadly night attack

Zero Hedge: Donetsk "Letter To Jews": An Obvious Forgery Except to John Kerry

BBC: Ukraine Nationalists Blamed for Killing at Road Check Point in Sloviansk

Tony Cartalucci: NATO's Pet Nazis Savage Ukrainian Presidential Candidate

Global Research: The Ukraine Imbroglio and the Decline of the American Empire

Yahoo: Russia Reinforces Troops on Ukraine Border

A Kremlin Spokesman said: (Ukraine) is a country where there has just been a military coup, so naturally any country is going to take particular precautionary measures in terms of ensuring its security."

He said as a sovereign state, Russia was free to deploy troops anywhere on its territory without restrictions. He denied allegations that the Russian military was interfering in events inside Ukraine territory. Those assertion were, said Peskov "completely wrong."

NY Times: U.S. Plans Military Drills in Eastern Europe

The land-force exercises the Obama administration is planning are extremely modest.
The exercise in Poland, which is expected to be announced next week, would involve a United States Army company and would last about two weeks, officials said. A company consists of about 150 soldiers.

Plus 20 Canadians. Don't forget them. LOL

NY Times: Twin Shocks Shake Foundation of German Power

NY Times: In Cold War Echo, Obama Strategy Writes Off Putin

But the rise of China and other Third-World nations ready to trade with Russia and engage in re-working the global monetary order and security system has made both Obama and the "indispensable nation" increasingly dispensable to Putin if need be.

And in Germany, it must be increasingly clear that the US of A may be more dispensable than Russia.

PBS: Obama – Our forces superior to Russia's

William Lind: An Officer Corps That Can’t Score

...our officers live in a bubble. Even junior officers inhabit a world where they hear only endless, hyperbolic praise of “the world’s greatest military ever.” They feed this swill to each other and expect it from everyone else. If they don’t get it, they become angry. Senior officers’ bubbles, created by vast, sycophantic staffs, rival Xerxes’s court. Woe betide the ignorant courtier who tells the god-king something he doesn’t want to hear. (I know—I’ve done it, often.)

AmConMag: In Ukraine, Not All Uprisings Are Equal

VOR: Whatever US may do, Putin has already won - Fox News analyst

WaPo: U.S. ground troops going to Poland, defense minister says

Reuters: Russia criticizes Washington's assessment of accord on Ukraine

RT: Putin Speaks —"Against whom are you going to use the artillery and aircraft?"

Jim Dean: East Ukraine Babushkas Beat Back Kiev Coup

Source

Robert Parry: Ukraine and The Dangerous Neocon-R2P Alliance

Mike Shedlock: "Insatiable" Idiocy from the Economist on What to Do About Russia; Warmongers Can't Think

The whole point of the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, The WST, the National Putz, you name it, is to prevent you from thinking by filling your mind with an enless stream of lying garbage. And the marvelous thing about the newspaper and magazine business is that people not only pay to have their immortal soul filled with trash, but actually feel intellectually and morally superior to anyone whose mind has not been so polluted.

Mike Shedlock: On the asininity of a peace accord made without consultation with one side to the dispute

Mike Shedlock: Ukraine Accord: Key Uninvited Group to Peacy Party Doesn't Like the Deal

RT: ‘Letter to Jews’, which Kerry cited, appears to be fake

RT: Kiev halts military op. in East Ukraine, promises Russian language status choice

Guardian: Pro-Russian separatists defiant as Ukraine peace moves flounder

New York Times: Ukraine Push Against Rebels Grinds to Halt

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — A military operation that the Ukrainian government said would confront pro-Russian militants in the east of the country unraveled in disarray on Wednesday with the entire contingent of 21 armored vehicles that had separated into two columns surrendering or pulling back before nightfall. It was a glaring humiliation for the new government in Kiev.

Carry the Flag: East Ukraine Jew Registration Tale Reeks of CIA Psyop

Itar-Tass: Europe understands there is no backtracking on Crimea — Russian EU ambassador

No, Russia must retreat and accept public humiliation for recovering its Black Sea naval base from the US-backed Neo-Nazis in Kyiv, otherwise the US of Arrogance would be humiliated, which can never be.

Source

RINF: NATO Lies About US/German Pledge Not to Move Nato Forces Eastward

Zero Hedge: Russia Confirms Troop Build-Up Near Ukraine; Warns West, More Sanctions "Absolutely Unacceptable"

BBC: Eastern Ukraine militants snub Geneva deal on crisis

John Pilger: Nato's action plan in Ukraine is right out of Dr Strangelove

Zero Hedge: Ukraine Tanks Stopped By Unarmed Woman

Zero Hedge: Ukraine "De-escalation" Voided As Pro-Russia Militia Refuse To Vacate Occupied Buildings

... the Ukraine "separatist" milita... has announced that they will only leave the occupied east Ukraine buildings if the interim government in Kiev resigns.

... in an amusing twist, the militia has flipped the Geneva agreement on its head, alleging that if they are to abide by a signed document, so should the "illegitimate" government, which as a reminder took power following a US-assisted coup, even though an explicit agreement was signed on February 21 between Ukraine and western powers previously retaining Yanukovich as president of the country, and ushering in presidential elections later in 2014.

Zero Hedge: Putin's Top 10 Q&A Quotes: "The US Will Cut Off Their Nose To Spite Their Face"

Global Research: $30 Billion Oil Pipeline to Be Built from Russia to India through Northwest China

RT: Kiev: Military operation in Ukraine southeast to go on despite Geneva agreement

RT: Obarmy — Screw the Geneva Agreement, We're Imposing More Sanctions on Russia