In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia

originally posted by: MrSpad
So the US who has said over and over it would not go to war for Ukraine has secrely created this entire scenerio to go to war with Russia? Is this the same US who so far has launched some minor santions and suggested talking the issue out? And I guess we have to assume that the US made Russia take Crimea, threaten Moldova and fly bombers at the UK, Sweden, US etc. This very well could be one of the dumbest theories ever put forth on ATS.

Your views are fairly balanced.........However...........this can prove to be one of the smartest theories.

US goes to war with Russia. It turns into a mighty global economic catastrophe. In return, the USD loses 80% of its value. In other words, $16T deficit reduces to less than $4T............in just one swipe.

Some pain and plunder on the middle and poor class, but being US no one will starve or die on the streets. Rest will be the 'greatest debt swindle in the history of man'.

a reply to: rigel4

Good on you to investigate and reevaluate.

originally posted by: rigel4
Propaganda in Germany has been pure cold war, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning its readers of Russia's "undeclared war". For the Germans, it is a poignant irony that Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.

True, many of our MSM are just repeating the US's version of the truth, but there are exceptions, and more and more people realise the propaganda.
The majority of our parliamentary opposition, aswell as many representatives of industry and commerce, and even parts of our military top brass disagree with our current western policies regarding Ukraine.
All is not lost in Germany.


You aked what the point of aggravating Russia is... I think this video is a good compilation:

originally posted by: MrSpad
So the US who has said over and over it would not go to war for Ukraine has secrely created this entire scenerio to go to war with Russia? Is this the same US who so far has launched some minor santions and suggested talking the issue out? And I guess we have to assume that the US made Russia take Crimea, threaten Moldova and fly bombers at the UK, Sweden, US etc. This very well could be one of the dumbest theories ever put forth on ATS.

Not to mention that the Writer of the article in the Guardian (a seriously left-leaning paper at the best of times) has made a career out of being "anti-war" and especially "anti-US/UK" who he views as "imperialist" - totally ignoring Putins stated aims of restoring Russia to it's previous position of strength:

Analysis of Putins inauguration speech in 1999 - very much laying the framework in which he would operate over the next decade and a half. The warning signs were always there.

Anti war a bad thing? You make it sound that way

So many people are anti USA and UK because these two countries are warmongers

I used to vote conservative,I'm down South but now after the BS in Syria I won't vote ever again for them
same with liberals they sounded like hawks and labour-they hate the English and allowed Afganistan and Iraq to be invaded.Next election will be 1st time I have no one to vote,that's a shame

Back to topic now

Irish reporter from Belfast paper said NATO troops already in the east of Ukraine wearing Ukraine uniforms-the two countries seen where British and Italians -NATO shell casing and the meals as mentioned

Russians have to have a few troops in there as well undercover,if these undercover soldiers meet will be trouble

S&F

a reply to: stumason

Well done!
Shoot the messenger, resort to NLP-labeling ("anti-anti-anti") discredit and outright ignore the argument, deflect any criticism by pointing to the outside-enemy.

With all those labels I wonder - do you consider yourself as "pro-PNAC" or "pro-neocon"? I'm asking because many on the right have correctly identified those as the true "anti-US/UK/whathaveyou" by now.

And since when is being "anti-war" a bad thing? Most veterans are "anti-war"... guess why.
I take it you're "pro-war" then?

a reply to: ColCurious

Not shooting the messenger at all - however, there is a propensity around here to dismiss one source because it doesn't jive with your personal beliefs yet wholeheartedly believe another because it does, without considering the motivations behind said source.

Like I said, the Guardian is very left field anyway, so will bleat and whine about pretty much everything and the writer has a track record for this type of opinion - and that what this article is, an opinion piece.

I was pointing out, that for all the bluster and "western imperialist" nonsense in the article, the writer conveniently ignores Putins stated position that he is on record as saying. If anyone in the West had paid any attention to his speech in 1999 when he became PM for the first time, nothing that has happened since would be a surprise.

Instead, the writer is placing the blame firmly at the feet of the West and letting Russia off the hook with barely a whimper. I don't deny that Western powers had a hand in the toppling of the previous President, but at the same time it cannot be argued that he was a corrupt and incompetent leader who had earned him the ire of a great many of the Ukrainian people.

Also, people seem to forget that Ukrainians tried to get the Russian yoke off their back in 2004, but by 2008 they had firmly been ground down, with many of the 2004 revolution leaders in jail on jumped up charges, or worse. One of the suffered from a horrible poisoning attack that left him scarred. Remember that? Probably not - I have barely seen any mention of the Orange Revolution in any of these Ukraine threads - most seem to think it started last November.

As for labels, I don't subscribe to any particular ideology - such a thing is stupid. The writer describes as "anti-war", have a go at him not me.

I have no idea why you'd think I was anything PNAC, or anything Neocon, as such ludicrous political labelling means nothing here in the UK where our system is far more plural and not so black and white as the Americans idiotic two-party system. Nice try, no cigar.

I am neither pro nor anti war. If War is necessary, go for it, but pursue other avenues first. I also work with many ex-military types and my entire family is former military and not one of them thinks standing up to Russia is a bad thing. That's probably the difference between the UK and the US - we can think in more than simple two-sided concepts.

Now, back in your box.

a reply to: rigel4

ATS i have read the entire article and even though I have shouted
down the other side.. This article is making me take a rethink of the entire Ukraine question. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

How does the pro-Russia propaganda in this article differ from all the other pro-Russia propaganda?

originally posted by: Whereismypassword
Anti war a bad thing? You make it sound that way

War has it's uses - being anti something just for the sake of it is just bloody stupid.

originally posted by: Whereismypassword
So many people are anti USA and UK because these two countries are warmongers

Hardly - how is the UK a warmonger nation? Aside from Iraq every other conflict we've got involved in for decades has been either to protect people from genocide, ethnic cleansing or has been defensive in nature. And apart from Iraq, every other conflict aside from the Falklands had the approval of the UNSC.

originally posted by: Whereismypassword
I used to vote conservative,I'm down South but now after the BS in Syria I won't vote ever again for them
same with liberals they sounded like hawks and labour-they hate the English and allowed Afganistan and Iraq to be invaded.Next election will be 1st time I have no one to vote,that's a shame

30 Cons went against the motion, far more than the Liberals and it was entirely hypocritical of Labour to vote against it as they took us into Iraq. That said, I have no issue with the Afghan War.

a reply to: stumason

First off, I'm not American either, and I don't consider myself as left-wing.
Just saying.
Also, of course this is an opinion piece - its in the comment section.

However, neither the Guardian being left-leaning, nor Putin's agenda (be it Russia's recent actions in Ukraine, or in Georgia for example) change the fact that US foreign policy, at least since the Wolfowitz-Doctrine, is clearly imperialistic.
This is no secret, nor a conspiracy theory, nor a exclusively leftist opinion.
It is openly known since it was leaked to the public in 1992. Read up on it and tell me that it isn't imperialistic.

originally posted by: stumason
As for labels, I don't subscribe to any particular ideology - such a thing is stupid.

Good on you. I absolutely agree.

*ETA:
I almost forgot:

originally posted by: stumason
If War is necessary, go for it, but pursue other avenues first. I also work with many ex-military types and my entire family is former military and not one of them thinks standing up to Russia is a bad thing.

Exactly the same here.
It's just the "necessity"-part I'm not so sure about anymore, with all those blurred lines and all the propaganda flying around.

originally posted by: MrSpad
So the US who has said over and over it would not go to war for Ukraine has secrely created this entire scenerio to go to war with Russia? Is this the same US who so far has launched some minor santions and suggested talking the issue out? And I guess we have to assume that the US made Russia take Crimea, threaten Moldova and fly bombers at the UK, Sweden, US etc. This very well could be one of the dumbest theories ever put forth on ATS.

It's the same US who regularly says one thing but means another. The same US who seems to be involved in everybody's business and causes conflict everywhere it turns.

Do you really just think the government will just say they want a war with Russia? They have to convince everyone they tried to avoid it. While provoking other nations and instigating violence behind the scenes and getting others to start the war for them. Or better yet get the people to WANT a war.

Your constant pro government splurge is sickening

You have no issues with the afghan war then?

You know the mastermind the Americans have who had his face washed with water a few times on a board with material over him told them Bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11

The Afghanistan war could have been prevented if the Americans had proof that Bin Laden was involved

The then government agreed they would hand him over to the Americans but they needed to see proof,very understanding

They never saw proof all they saw was bombs and we the once great nation helped

I'm all for a war if it's needed Stu,like your good self my grandparents and great grand parents fought in both world wars

But war on lies to make rich men richer is a step too far

That's why when the conservatives did there best to get NATO planes flying over Syria destroying the governments army like NATO did in Libya,I could no longer vote for them

From Afghanistan upwards my governments have tarnished what was GREAT Britain

originally posted by: rigel4
ATS i have read the entire article and even though I have shouted
down the other side.. This article is making me take a rethink of the entire Ukraine question.

What is the point of aggravating Russia to this extent (if true).


Guardian



Why do we tolerate the threat of another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a "brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis", as if the truth "never happened even while it was happening".

Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his "updated summary of the record of US foreign policy" which shows that, since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.

In many cases Britain has been a collaborator. The degree of human suffering, let alone criminality, is little acknowledged in the west, despite the presence of the world's most advanced communications and nominally most free journalism. That the most numerous victims of terrorism – "our" terrorism – are Muslims, is unsayable. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of Anglo-American policy (Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan) is suppressed. In April the US state department noted that, following Nato's campaign in 2011, "Libya has become a terrorist safe haven".

The name of "our" enemy has changed over the years, from communism to Islamism, but generally it is any society independent of western power and occupying strategically useful or resource-rich territory, or merely offering an alternative to US domination. The leaders of these obstructive nations are usually violently shoved aside, such as the democrats Muhammad Mossedeq in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile, or they are murdered like Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. All are subjected to a western media campaign of vilification – think Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, now Vladimir Putin.

Washington's role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us. For the first time since the Reagan years, the US is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last "buffer state" bordering Russia – Ukraine – is being torn apart by fascist forces unleashed by the US and the EU. We in the west are now backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler.

Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington's planned seizure of Russia's historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century.

But Nato's military encirclement has accelerated, along with US-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained "pariah" role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.

Instead, Putin has confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU, by withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon the weekend's provocative referendum. These Russian-speaking and bilingual people – a third of Ukraine's population – have long sought a democratic federation that reflects the country's ethnic diversity and is both autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow. Most are neither "separatists" nor "rebels", as the western media calls them, but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland.

Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine has been turned into a CIA theme park – run personally by CIA director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of "special units" from the CIA and FBI setting up a "security structure" that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup. Watch the videos, read the eye-witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month. Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters, killing 41 people trapped inside. Watch the police standing by.

A doctor described trying to rescue people, "but I was stopped by pro-Ukrainian Nazi radicals. One of them pushed me away rudely, promising that soon me and other Jews of Odessa are going to meet the same fate. What occurred yesterday didn't even take place during the fascist occupation in my town in world war two. I wonder, why the whole world is keeping silent."

Russian-speaking Ukrainians are fighting for survival. When Putin announced the withdrawal of Russian troops from the border, the Kiev junta's defence secretary, Andriy Parubiy – a founding member of the fascist Svoboda party – boasted that attacks on "insurgents" would continue. In Orwellian style, propaganda in the west has inverted this to Moscow "trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation", according to William Hague. His cynicism is matched by Obama's grotesque congratulations to the coup junta on its "remarkable restraint" after the Odessa massacre. The junta, says Obama, is "duly elected". As Henry Kissinger once said: "It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true."

In the US media the Odessa atrocity has been played down as "murky" and a "tragedy" in which "nationalists" (neo-Nazis) attacked "separatists" (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal damned the victims – "Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says". Propaganda in Germany has been pure cold war, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning its readers of Russia's "undeclared war". For the Germans, it is a poignant irony that Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.

A popular truism is that "the world changed" following 9/11. But what has changed? According to the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a silent coup has taken place in Washington and rampant militarism now rules. The Pentagon currently runs "special operations" – secret wars – in 124 countries. At home, rising poverty and a loss of liberty are the historic corollary of a perpetual war state. Add the risk of nuclear war, and the question is: why do we tolerate this?

Good post, it kinda threw me a small bit as you were so die hard against Russia not too long ago but it shows that doing your own research leads to the truth

As for the article the numbers speak for themselves 50 governments over thrown, 30 interfered with and 30 countries bombed to #.

But America is the good guys the real enemy is bin Laden, wait no Saddam, wait no gaddafi, wait no Assad, wait no Putin, yeah Putin, that's the flavour of the month

I just can't wait for the day when America's world tour of hypocrisy ends.

originally posted by: DJW001
How does the pro-Russia propaganda in this article differ from all the other pro-Russia propaganda?

Still resorting to labeling...

For once, please define "pro-russian" and why exactly you think this piece is "pro-russian", when its mostly about a group of people in the US (and the EU) and their morally questionable agenda.

Is all criticism towards our systems in the west "pro-russian" now?
I'd like to know what you would consider as "pro-western" or "anti-russian".
Blind loyalty and obedience?

a reply to: ColCurious

For once, please define "pro-russian" and why exactly you think this piece is "pro-russian", when its mostly about a group of people in the US (and the EU) and their morally questionable agenda.

Anyone who ignores Russia's aggression in Ukraine and attempts to justify it by blaming the US, EU or any other entity than Russia is a Russian apologist and, hence, pro-Russian.

Is all criticism towards our systems in the west "pro-russian" now?

No, only criticism intended to justify Russian misbehavior.

I'd like to know what you would consider as "pro-western" or "anti-russian".

Any criticism that is attacks Russia without justification is anti-Russian.

Blind loyalty and obedience?

Is what Putin's Russia United demands.

DJW so anyone who ignores Russian aggression (btw what aggression?) in Ukraine is pro Russian


You are a pathological liar,the west has been caught out with the leaked phone calls showing America wanted people who they could deal with in power and a father land party member was caught with a silenced sniper rifle in the back of his car with a few heavies as well

But no,ignore all that and LIE that Russia invaded Crimea

Seriously they must put something in the water these days if people roll over and become so passive as to believe all the tripe the MSM throws at us each day

The current Ukraine government can goose step about in thigh high level leather boots stringing up Russians and Jews but would be Russians fault for being there

originally posted by: DJW001
Anyone who ignores Russia's aggression in Ukraine and attempts to justify it by blaming the US, EU or any other entity than Russia is a Russian apologist and, hence, pro-Russian.

Thats what I thought.
Don't you realize what this kind of reasoning makes YOU, when turned around?
Wouldn't you feel offended if you were called "pro-BIS", "pro-IMF", "pro-trilateral commission", "pro-FED", pro-western-imperialism", "pro-€Z-centralism, "pro-globalist"?
I hope you would, because those are the masters behind the agenda criticised in the article.

originally posted by: DJW001
No, only criticism intended to justify Russian misbehavior.

Good. I take it you consider most of the criticism valid then, except for the context Russia/Ukraine.
Don't you realize what the abbreviated comment "pro-russian" of yours does to that criticism?
I don't want to lecture you, but I seriously ask you to reconsider using such rhetoric.

If you disagree with the content, don't be lazy - debate it!

a reply to: rigel4

You have my deepest respect for making a thread and showing doubt. You have been actively posting in the Ukraine thread sorta as a "pro west regime" person.

This shows you are willing to admit your mistakes. Only a fool sticks to one opinion.

a reply to: Wookiep
You to friend!

Stars and flags to both of you.

We might actually start seeing the bigger picture here.

a reply to: rigel4

Good article for sure. Theres a lot of truth in what John Pilger wrote.



To the OP, it would have been nice if you had put the article in quotes. I originally thought these were your words.

Especially liked the following:

...since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.

The name of "our" enemy has changed over the years, from communism to Islamism, but generally it is any society independent of western power and occupying strategically useful or resource-rich territory,

In many cases Britain has been a collaborator. The degree of human suffering, let alone criminality, is little acknowledged in the west, despite the presence of the world's most advanced communications and nominally most free journalism.

The Pentagon currently runs "special operations" – secret wars – in 124 countries. At home, rising poverty and a loss of liberty are the historic corollary of a perpetual war state.

The article is by John Pilger and he is a legend of our times.

I thought they had managed silenced him years ago but I see he stilll fights on.

Well if Mr Putin is not working a scam with the USA to push up oil prices then it is about time Putin marched his men in to protect the people in the east Ukraine from the nazi thugs and then let the USA finanace the rest of the Ukraine because we have too many basket cases in the EU as it is.