He's Known All Along

Some play poker and football, some play chess. Guess who wins.

Get It Try It

He knew all along but said nothing, did nothing. He waited.

Selfish egocentric boys and girls have a propensity for forgetting that others can be watching them - they're so wrapped up in themselves. The KGB may be defunct, but a new TLA's replaced it: the FSB. And the prospect that Vladimir Putin not be aware of the NED peppering NGOs throughout Ukraine, or the spy games of ambassador Pyatt, or the girl scout charity work of Victoria Nuland - it'd be downright stupid. Or selfish and egocentric.

Vladimir Putin's known all along.

Vladimir Putin's watched the frat boys of the US aggrandise over the years. He knows as well of the promises given his country at the end of the Cold War - in a word: that the frat boys would start to behave.

This wasn't a new predicament to say the least. The formation of NATO itself in 1949, as a means to defend against a Soviet attack, was perhaps the biggest joke of them all. Defend against what exactly? Russia lost 30,000,000 people in the second world war. Read that again. 30,000,000. Thirty million. The US knew, knew as well that the Soviet threat was a bluff. But the prospect of making billions on 'toys for boys' was just too strong. Wizened old gits from the armed services were lured over to weapons manufacturers, and they in turn used their contacts in Washington to secure lucrative contracts. All that was needed was to keep that 'red scare' going strong.

[John le Carré covers this eloquently in his book The Russia House, later turned into a feature film with Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider, James Fox, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen, and Martin Clunes; and shot on location in Russia, the US, and Portugal. Try it - it's удобно. Ed.]

Of course Eisenhower warned of all this in his famous farewell speech. But who listened?



And now the Cold War was finally at an end. Maggie told Ronnie about Gorby, and Ronnie and Gorby began to talk. Of course Gorby was too trusting: he didn't know Ronnie had a secret agenda to disintegrate the Soviet Union behind Gorby's back; he didn't know of the likes of Victoria Nuland.

For the ten year period 1991-2001, after Ronnie and Gorby had done their thing, Russia was so devastated that some writers describe what happened as genocide. Ten million people more or less disappeared. This was the era of Boris Yeltsin and the Friedman economists from Sweden who tried to fix the country by ruining it. And it was Vladimir Putin who came to power and put a stop to it.

Vladimir Putin has often been very popular with his people, but never as popular as after Crimea joined the federation. The joy and satisfaction on people's faces has been undeniable. Celebrations throughout the federation, throughout Crimea, because democracy was made to work, because Crimea escaped by the skin of her teeth from an oppressive fascist putsch government installed in Kiev by the US. The people were happy.

And the pundits in the US media can't understand a thing. Nor can most of the pundits in the EU. Especially in Sweden where the word of Carl Bildt reigns supreme.

Bildt's of course the one who mourned the death of Nelson Mandela after devoting his life to trying to destroy him. He's the one who's proclaimed a personal war on social democracy and justice, the one with shady ties to genocidal regimes in Africa, the one with the big holdings in Russian energy companies, the one with lifelong ties to Karl Rove and the CIA, the one who worked with the CIA to undermine the government of Olof Palme, the one who overtly propagated for the US invasion of Iraq, the one brought in by the US to contain the disaster that was Yugoslavia after NATO were through terror-bombing the people. He's formally declared persona non grata as a result.

And the Swedish media, long under the sway of their political overlords, stick to their assigned agenda, just as they've done all along in the case of Assange in Sweden, by meticulously ignoring what they're told to ignore.

The National Endowment for Democracy. USAID. Said of them: they do today what the CIA used to have to do covertly yesterday. Only now they do it openly. (The CIA moved on to assassinations.) Neocon Victoria Nuland (wife of PNAC cofounder Robert Kagan) said they'd dumped 5 billion into the Ukraine. Five billion. Why? They got results.

The weird thing about Nuland and PNAC (today renamed FPI, just as Blackwater had to be renamed) is that they don't shy away from world conflicts. Insiders in Washington believe the real agenda of Nuland and Kristol and Kagan is to provoke Obama to get tougher on Putin. But Putin keeps a low profile. So that's hard. And what if Putin finally loses his ish over Obama? Not likely, but what if? Or the other way around? Nuland, Kristol, and Kagan don't care: they really believe their glorious country can survive a nuclear holocaust and come out the winners. Read that again. Yes those three and many more like them are really itching for an all-out nuclear war. You were planning on going to the Hamptons this summer? Perhaps plan again. The PNAC people have plans of their own.



And yes, this means strictly speaking that Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan and William Kristol are all bat shit insane, but did you really think otherwise? In that rarified air at 'State' in Washington, what do you think prevails? Prior to 2012 they had only a 'moderate' hawk at the chief's desk (Hillary) but now they've got one of the worst neocons ever: John Kerry, former head of a committee of super hawks. Kerry, in case anyone missed it, is actually a Kohn and not a Kerry. For there's an ugly rumour around the DC area that you have to be Jewish or something to be a real neocon like Kagan and Kristol and their spouses. Who knows? Definitions are hazy at best. But should some pundit declare it necessary, Kohn Kerry fits the bill.

And wasn't Kerry some kind of liberal once upon a time? Wasn't he the one who ushered in the political career of Barack Obama by arranging to have him give a keynote at the Democrat convention? Wasn't he some sort of anti-war dude? Think again. John Kerry is so bat shit insane that he's got the Pentagon brass against him. He was pissing all over himself to bomb Syria, and the generals had to explain to him that you can't just invade a country and start bombing people because you're bored.

But Kerry is also interesting because he's got a bad propensity for ruining the best laid plans of his associates. The US were finally ready to go into Syria - they want to control the port Russia leased from the Syrian government - and had gone so far (and it holds to this day) that they are supporting, financing Al Qaeda there. The same Al Qaeda who remain their #1 enemy everywhere else.

And now they had the 'lie' in place - Assad had ordered the gassing of innocents. Of course it was the Al Qaeda forces directed by the US who did it, but Washington was screaming loud back then. And there he was, John Kerry, he was going to lament that he and his country had to take to war and destruction and killing again. Boo-hoo...

And then a reporter asked Kerry if the invasion was truly inevitable.

[This is where Kerry never shines, never will shine. Give him a teleprompter like Obama and he'll be mostly OK. But ask him to think on his own and he's going to be a disaster. Count on it. Ed.]

So what does Kerry say? Get ready. He says in so many words:

'Yes it's inevitable - unless something unforeseen happens!'

The followup from the reporter:

'And what kind of thing would that be?'

[Bad mistake. You're asking Kerry to think again.]

Kerry replies:

'Well, for example, if Syria were to agree to turn over all her chemical weapons...'

And like a caped crusader braking down from a flight at the speed of light, Vladimir Putin arrives on the scene WHOOSH! to say 'I can arrange that!'

It's no wonder Putin's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times over this year. Or perhaps you still think Henry Kissinger's more worthy? Shudder.

So a war was averted. Putin stopped that war. By sheer shrewdness and by playing the game far more intelligently than Washington will ever be able to play, Putin stopped the US invasion of Syria. And Kerry and the neocons were pissed.

Consolation prize? The Ukraine.

[Don't kid yourself: the US have a stack of future 'projects' - countries to demolish - all ready and waiting. Solving the current Ukraine crisis won't be the end to the melodrama and worldwide unease. That won't end until the US hawks are pushed back to their own shores once and for all. Ed.]

A Brief History

This is what's happened in a nutshell in the Ukraine. Executive summary.

√ The country is destitute and needs money bad. The president starts looking for people willing to lend him some cash. Putin's willing and so are the EU. The Ukraine needs about 15 billion to start with. They can get that from Putin, but the citizenry in the west would rather flirt with the EU. So the president asks the EU.

√ This is a tougher bargain. Putin wasn't asking for much in return, more than repayment sooner or later. But things aren't that easy with the EU. Putin didn't have a hidden agenda. The EU - with the US breathing down their necks - always have an agenda.

√ First step is to introduce the IMF. The IMF are needed to introduce 'austerity measures'. What are those? Look at Spain and Greece today. Or large swaths of Africa. Those are 'austerity measures'.

√ Basically the IMF will come in and 'restructure' (ruin) your economy for all time. The goal is to let the multinationals in the EU and the US come in mostly unrestricted and plunder you. If you used to be self-sufficient in some areas, forget it: the IMF will demand you import from their friends instead.

√ What's the ultimate goal? Not in your interests, that's for sure. The ultimate goal is to keep you permanently in poverty, permanently a third world country.

[This is hard to grasp, but it gets easier when you realise you've never really thought about it before. For there are no naturally poor third world countries. Those countries were all fine until the intruders arrived. Ed.]

√ But for them, the ultimate goal is more and more riches. Think Allen Dulles. United Fruit. Plunder the wealth of a country. Let the invaders come in and operate unfettered. This is why the US will always prefer to operate with dictatorships: they don't want any bullshit. They protect the dictator, and the dictator protects their interests. Piece of cake.

√ Capitalism has to keep expanding to maintain the status quo. Like an escalator. You can't stand still. Study a bit of microeconomic theory. Or macroeconomic theory. You can't stand still. You have to keep on, keep expanding. Like that poor pasta eater in The Meaning of Life. Keep expanding. The bubbles always burst.

√ No, this can't possibly hold in the long run, but yes, it will hold a bit longer if you have new economies (new nations) you can exploit. ITT in Chile. Dulles in Cuba. Chase in the Ukraine. What are those 65 NGOs doing in the Ukraine?

√ Look what the US tried to do in their own backyard: they tried to shaft the Americas with the IMF. Except it didn't work. Cristina Kirchner refused to open the door to the IMF, paid off her country's debt by flying to the US and issuing a cheque for €12 billion, then walked out and into a law office down the street and filed a lawsuit against the bastards, based on documents made available by WikiLeaks.

√ Look at Correa in Ecuador. The oil companies have ravaged his country and he's still trying to get billions from them in damages. He hasn't given up. Look at the way they all defied the US over Snowden.

And so forth. But why the Ukraine? Back to the Ukraine again. Why the Ukraine?

Check that map again. The Ukraine is the solar plexus of Russia. [Has Putin been 'expanding' since 2001? You'll get one guess. Make it good.] The Ukraine, thanks to Nikita Krushchev, himself a Ukrainian, has a special status since 1954. Otherwise the Crimea's been a part of Russia since Catherine the Great in the 1700s. [This isn't about power - this is about the way people develop, both linguistically and culturally. As anyone who speaks more than one language knows - the majority of people in the world but unfortunately not the US - language and culture are inexorably intertwined.]



The Crimea is the home to Russia's only southern naval fleet. They're sort of landlocked in that regard, the Russians. The US and NATO rule over the Med. Take a rowboat out into the Med and scoop your hand in the blue water and you're bound to grab onto a periscope. The US have a monster naval base on Crete (Souda Bay) where Wolfowitz used to stop over when commuting to Baghdad and back again. Grunts come in all the time (and are hated by the local populace). They fill the hotels, looking totally lost, while their sergeants play cool with wraparound shades. The sooner they're gone, the better.

Anyway: the Med belongs to the US and NATO. Except for that irritating repair dock Russia leased from Syria, and except for the ability to send ships through the Bosporus from the Crimea.

The US - Kerry, Nuland, the Kagans, Kristol - would love to stop that. And if the confrontations they provoke result in all-out nuclear war, so what? They believe they're going to win. They believe it.

So box your girl scout cookies and book your flight. Bring along John 'Bomb Iran' McCain. He's always good for support. Let him speak to the crowds in Kiev. Let the major fascist leaders take the stage with him. He doesn't care. None of them do. And get Carl Bildt to sign on whilst you're at it - he's Swedish.

Svoboda and Right Sector are two of the scariest fascist organisations in the world. Today they have five cabinet posts in the putsch government installed by the US. Five.

Svoboda and Right Sector don't get that much of the popular vote in the Ukraine. Which makes one wonder why they get into the cabinet like that. Try to remember: Adolf never had a majority in an election either - he weaseled his way into a cabinet, saw there was a parliamentary fire, and manoeuvred his way into 'dictator' for life. He didn't have much of a popular vote either. How many people died in that war again?

If history teaches us one thing - and it better - it's that the wayward paths that lead to war must be avoided at any cost, and the paths that lead to fascism must be avoided with the same vigilance.

You'd think the 'freedom fighters' of Washington DC would know this, remember this. But think again: how many fascist dictatorships have they protected over the years? Want to borrow a pocket calculator?

And far away, somewhere in the Kremlin or perhaps at his summer dacha, Vladimir Putin is watching. He sees all this shit going down. He's a lot smarter than them, so he knows full well what they're up to. But he has to wait. And wait. And wait. And demonstrate consummate patience.

Putin didn't invade the Crimea. He already had 16,000 troops there and was entitled to have 25,000 if he wanted, and he paid dearly for that privilege. Troops in Sevastopol, the naval base area (and a gorgeous city by all accounts - it should become quite the tourist attraction if things turn out right). Close by to Sochi - remember Sochi? You forgot the winter Olympics already? They went off almost without a hitch, and Vladimir was there too. And yet only a few hundred miles away...

He bided his time. Showed consummate patience. And he only moved when he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was time to move.

The Crimeans hate Nazis and fascists of any colour. They lost 800,000 lives during the second world war to the Nazis. They don't easily forget. They too waited - as John 'Swift Boat' Kerry waxed bellicose again after his setback over Syria, as Victoria Nuland and her husband and brother-in-law and sister-in-law and Pyatt and JOHN MCCAIN started playing war games again in their backyard...

They ran the elected president out of town, out of the country. They installed a putsch government precisely along the lines Nuland laid out for Pyatt. And that government included five fascists. That was more than the Crimeans could take.

So they set up a national referendum. Over 80% voter turnout. Over 96% wanted to get the F away from Nuland ASAP. They get a new time zone, they get a wage and benefits hike, their pensions double, and they get the protection of Vladimir Putin against the fascists supported by the US.

That's three times in a single year that the reticent Putin's outwitted Washington. Syria, Snowden, Crimea. Three times. In one year. No nation ever wore so much egg on face, especially not over such a short time.

Guess if Kerry's pissed.

Russia is now recognised as the centre of the global 'mutiny' against global dictatorship of the US and EU. Its generally peaceful approach is in direct contrast to brutal and destabilising methods used by the US and EU. The world is waking up to reality that there actually is, suddenly, some strong and determined resistance to western imperialism. After decades of darkness, hope is emerging.
 - Andre Vltchek

This is going to be a tremendous mess. The west used all fascist and ultra-nationalist forces to destroy the legitimate government of Ukraine, but paradoxically, these ultra right-wingers are essentially against both NATO and all those agreements with the European Union.
 - Andre Vltchek

They see what has recently happened in Kiev as an unceremonious coup, orchestrated and supported by the west.
 - Andre Vltchek

The US and the West were planning this, preparing this, for months, perhaps years! Now people in Ukraine are so scared, most of them are only whispering. They are petrified.
 - Andre Vltchek

In Odessa, Russian-speaking people get arrested, and they are taken all the way to Kiev. The same is happening in Kharkov, in Donetsk, and elsewhere. They call it freedom of speech! All Russian television channels are banned. What you see here is broadcasted from across the border. They treat people like cattle.
 - Evgenia Chernova

During the Soviet Union everything was better, much better! We all had jobs and there were decent salaries, pensions. We had all that we needed.
 - Lyubov Mikhailovna

In Crimea, people voted, overwhelmingly, to return to Russia. But the west calls it unconstitutional and undemocratic. In Ukraine itself, the democratically elected government has been overthrown and policies that nobody really wants are being pushed down our throats. And this is called democracy!
 - Ukrainian student

The essence of what is now happening is based on the doctrine of the United States, which has one major goal: to wipe out from the globe, first the Soviet Union, and then Russia, regardless of its form; whether socialist or capitalist. As is well known, these goals were already defined in the early 1980s by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his report to the US Department of State, Game Plan: A Geostrategic Framework for the Conduct of the US-Soviet Contest.
 - Alexandr Oleinik

After destroying the USSR, the US is, until now, making enormous effort, in accordance with the Brzezinski Doctrine, to drag Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet countries into exhausting regional conflicts, in order to root out from the consciousness of the people of these nations all thoughts about reunification (be it a customs union, common economic sphere, etc). Series of 'colour revolutions' from so-called US doctrine of 'advancement of democracies' became a clear proof of the essence of the geopolitical interests of the US. Libya, Tunis, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yugoslavia - all this is from the same shelf.
 - Alexandr Oleinik

Russia gained greatly, especially in the non-western world. It opened one more front of resistance, and it stands alongside countries of Latin America. Now thousands of disgruntled 'revolutionaries' feel frustrated. Instead of saving the country, they sold all ideals, and betrayed their own people. And their own lives went from bad to worse.
 - Andre Vltchek

See Also
In Your Pocket: Sevastopol
Rixstep: Memo to the People of the US
Rixstep: Assange and the Attack on the Republic of Ecuador