ANDREW KREIG : U.S. Hawks Beat War Drums Over Ukraine; Where Is The Free Press?

"Mainstream media" corporate frauds and hacks continue to studiously ignore the fact that the Obama/CIA engineered and financed coup in Kiev was mounted in order to "punish" Putin for granting asylum to Ed Snowden  

JUSTICE INTEGRITY PROJECT
By Andrew Kreig
02/11/2015

President Obama held an outwardly inconclusive bilateral strategy meeting this month at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that masked a deep struggle between war hawks in the United States and European allies. 

Merkel with Obama: Charm offensive back on

So far, the president and several of his advisors have resisted intense, bipartisan pressures from Congress, Wall Street and the establishment media to escalate U.S. arms support for the faltering Ukrainian government.

Such shipments would almost inevitably mean more U.S. training and other escalation. Although Russia has incurred serious hardship from sanctions and oil drop prices as widely reported there are countervailing developments little noted that help sustain its position and hurt Europe and the United States. 

Russia has been taking long-term measures, for example, to win such allies as the other BRICS nations (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) in trade agreements that reduce the impact of sanctions and dollar-based trading.

Update: Defenders of the Donbass region under attack by NATO-backed Ukrainian forces reported on Feb. 17 a major victory underway in Debaltsevo, where Donbass separatists claimed to have surrounded between 5,000 and 8,000 Ukrainian troops before last week's ceasefire.

The Saker, the pen named for a widely read pro-separatist blogger based in the United States, wrote that field reports indicate that "All this is truly catastrophic news for the junta in Kiev" because their troops' capture or killing would represent a serious blow to the U.S.-backed government. 

That government has long denied that its troops were have been surrounded or seriously endangered in the "cauldron," which is a railroad junction between two rebellious regions with large Russian-ethnic populations. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said U.S. interests are not served by a "proxy war" with Russia.

We have followed this debate closely for more than a year since taped conversations revealed the United States had orchestrated the coup in February 2014 that changed the country’s government and installed the current leaders.

Our research spans a full range of commentators. This editor attended, for example, the announcement at the Atlantic Council Feb. 2 of its major position paper seeking escalation and participated in a conference call the next day with the Ukraine’s new finance minister, U.S. native and former State Department employee Natalie Jaresko. She has lived in the Ukraine the past two decades and become a player with the help of $122 million in U.S. Agency for International Development funding. She answered questions from prominent news organizations. Our research includes also alternative commentators from the United States and Europe, including from the rebellious and largely Russian-speaking sectors of Eastern Ukraine known as the Donbass. Its residents are key players yet receive little coverage.

Update: A Feb. cease fire broker last week appeared to be holding except around the railroad hub of Debaltsevo, where some 5,000 to 8,000 Ukrainian troops were reputedly surrounded by rebel as of Feb. 17. The Kiev-based NATO-backed new government has been encountering recruiting difficulties also, as indicated by this video clip on YouTube headlined, "Ukraine woman from Zaporozhia region brilliantly takes down the war and the draft."

Regarding the dangerous situation, Reuters reported over the weekend, Merkel defends Ukraine arms stance in face of U.S. criticism. 

Her concerns were pooh-poohed by those making the case for U.S. escalation at an important forum hosted in Washington, DC by the Atlantic Council Feb. 2, "The Ukraine Crisis: Withstand and Deter Russian Aggression."

The New York Times broke the story U.S. Takes New Look at Arming Ukraine Forces, Officials Say of the new pressure by the neo-conservative and neo-liberal opinion leaders to double-down the United States investment in the Ukraine in the face of military, diplomatic and financial reverses for the West there during recent weeks following the overthrow of Ukraine's government a year ago.

Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott helped lead the way last week in a joint report by him and seven other prominent centrist former diplomats and military leaders in urging a $3 billion "non-lethal defensive" arms and training rescue package for the Kiev-based Ukrainian government to begin as soon as possible and extend over the next three years. Talbott said Russia has committed "act of war" in the Ukraine.

Russia denies sending organized troops, only permitting volunteers. Virtually no debate has occurred in Western media regarding amounts of Western military and intelligence help so far for the Kiev government backed by the West. At the Atlantic Council forum, however, speakers estimated 150 to 200 Russian military personnel in the Ukrainian and an unspecified number of U.S. personnel.

Strangeglovian NATO General Breedlove

NATO's top commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove has said weapons and equipment and other equipment are an option. As a sign of the pressures for escalation, his statement was unusual but little noted as such. The United States tradition has been for the military to defer to civilian leadership on policy.

Commentator Robert Parry, who broke the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s as an Associated Press and Newsweek reporter, wrote this week in Wretched US Journalism on Ukraine that he has never witnessed the media march so much in lock-step to the leaks and pronouncements of the U.S. Department of State and other Western authorities. 

This includes, he wrote, the media’s parroting of the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” canard enabling the Iraq war in 2003.

Parry's warning is apt and worrisome, especially given the seldom reported historical background, recent events, and imminent decision-making.

CNN war monger Amanpour screeches for WWIII

with Russia

The relentless pro-escalation, pro-Kiev, anti-Dombass slant in the Western media is not just within the United States. 

It is especially prevalent in the United Kingdom and its major news organizations, such as the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). 

Two of its major recent stories were headlined: Ukraine conflict: Obama warns Putin ahead of peace talks on Feb. 11 and Ukraine crisis: UK 'cannot allow armed forces to collapse.'

Regarding historical background, no analysis of the situation can be meaningful without at least occasional reference to the $5 billion the United States has spent to destabilize the previous Ukrainian government and the coup last February that changed leadership.

This was disclosed publicly and privately by the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Victoria Nuland, whose phone call to U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was intercepted a year ago and widely reported, as in U.S. diplomat apologizes for profane remarks on E.U. in leaked phone call.

Nuland, wife of longtime author and interventionist Robert Kagan, an early advocate during the 1990s of a new U.S. war against Iraq, sneered at what she regarded as slow-moving European efforts to take action against the government of the Ukraine before the coup in late February 2014. Nuland and Pyatt are shown above in a photo greeting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko last year with Secretary of State John Kerry in the background.

Relevant also, albeit not necessary for constant repetition, is the history of the Ukraine.

More important, are the current concerns of ethnic Russian residents of Eastern Ukraine who are typically treated as non-players in the political and military events occurring around them except as victims of violence from unspecified sources.

Glossed over in Western accounts is that much of the East did not participate in Poroshenko's election and instead chose different leaders during their succession.

Additionally, the civil war has almost entirely been waged within the East by troops predominately from elsewhere. For example, Poroshenko halted a 10-day ceasefire in the country’s east last July 1 and ordered the Ukrainian National Guard to resume fighting rebels.

The above photo is from the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, which reported that Ukraine's central government attacked on July 2 civilians in the village of Luganskaya and nearby.

Such images should be part of Western news accounts even if debate can occur, as often in a war zone, regarding the specific circumstances.

The Russian news agency asserted that the damage came from Kiev-backed artillery shelling of civilian targets. But the agency also quoted Kiev authorities as denying they caused the damage. Kiev officials attributed the horrors to self-inflicted harm by rebels, an assertion disputed by some of the civilians interviewed in the bombing zone.

Most United States mainstream media have ignored the photos, attributed to RIA. 

Suppression helps keep news coverage focused on story lines advocated by the State Department, CIA and White House and those of like-minded news managers in other nations.

More generally, Western coverage seldom provides up-to-date maps and similar reporting on conditions in the Donbass, especially on any developments favorable to the rebel side. 

For nearly a week, most Western media have ignored in their maps and reporting evidence that rebels have surrounded an estimated 8,000 Kiev forces in what could be a major turning point in the battle, particularly given the Kiev government's recruiting and financial crises.

Comments and videos by leaders, soldiers and civilians from the east are available, as indicated below. News managers clearly deem it not newsworthy or reliable. But regarding reliability, there seems to be scant appreciation that in a deadly civil war propaganda comes from all sides.i

This raises a larger point that goes far beyond the Ukrainian situation:

Is the purpose of the U.S. and other Western media —including BBC, Reuters and other European media that have taken extremely pro-government stances in their news reports — primarily to amplify and otherwise repackage government messages? Or is the purpose to provide readers, viewers and voters a meaningful balance of perspectives from all relevant quarters to enable informed citizen decision-making? 

In that sense, NBC's Brian Williams suspension is part of this also. He has won many awards from his peers and yet has functioned more as a well paid actor portraying a reporter than a truth-seeker. It finally caught up with him, as blogger Bob Somerby, quoted below, has been writing for years. The Williams career is typical of many top-end anchors and other commentators whose slant is hard to detect and question in their most formal reports but becomes crystal clear in their books, high-paid lectures and other career-building appearances like those now hurting Williams.

Further, no one should doubt that those like Talbott and his peers are genuine experts. Talbott when he was Bill Clinton's roommate at Oxford, translated Nikita Khrushchev's historic, blockbuster memoirs -- illustrating how long he hasersed himself in these topics at a high level.

Yet our system is not supposed to be a few experts making war and peace decisions. That is why the president, the only one with a national constituency, is commander in chief.

There are, of course, other considerations, including news organization finances and political sensitivities. These make the Ukrainian situation all the more interesting. Few such case studies have the potential for war, disruption of both Russian and U.S. economies, and erosion of the United States relations with certain European nations. Significant elements of German and French leadership are opposed to the U.S. pressures to bulk up the Kiev government with arms. Yet congressional leaders from both major parties are pushing Obama to ramp up support.

Looming in the background are significant plans that Western defense contractors, energy companies and banking institutions have made for opportunities in the Ukraine, as well as a still-fervent anti-Russia segment of the American public. 

The mainstream media are increasingly part of that system, not a watchdog or educational services, as I've argued in my books and at this site.

Similar questions arise in many other foreign relations and domestic politics situations.

Prosecutors, for example, enjoy massive advantagesj in public relations battles against criminal defendants, for example, especially since financially strapped media have withdrawn routine coverage of the justice system except for pack journalism on high-profile cases.

These situations are too complex to resolve here. This is a start in raising the question, much like our recent column this month urging a fight against propaganda from the left, right and center.

In that spirit and in advance of important developments expected soon, we provide a sample of recent commentary on the Ukraine, including alternative views seldom reported in the West along with mainstream reports.

Andrew Kreig is Justice Integrity Project Executive Director and co-founder with over two decades experience as an attorney and non-profit executive in Washington, DC.

Andrew Kreig, Esq.

An author and longtime investigative reporter, his primary focus since 2008 has been exploring allegations of official corruption and other misconduct in federal agencies. He has been a consultant and volunteer leader in advising several non-profit groups fostering cutting-edge applications within the communications industries.

  

As president and CEO of the Wireless Communications Association International (WCAI) from 1996 until 2008, Kreig led its worldwide advocacy that helped create the broadband wireless industry. Previously, he was WCAI vice president and general counsel, an associate at Latham & Watkins, law clerk to a federal judge, author of the book Spiked about the newspaper business and a longtime reporter for the Hartford Courant.

Listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World from the mid-1990s and currently, he holds law degrees from the University of Chicago School of Law and from Yale Law School. Reared in New York City, his undergraduate degree in history is from Cornell University, where he was a student newspaper editor, rowing team member, and Golden Gloves boxer. 

Contact the author Andrew Kreig

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American Ambassadors : Old Dogs And Old Tricks

The U.S. Ambassador to Jakarta will soon be addressing the maltreatment of U.S. expatriates in his embassy by staffers who forget that they are the employees of Americans abroad and are there to serve instead of insult and abuse them    

NEW EASTERN OUTLOOK
By Vladimir Odintsov
02/16/2015

In recent years te US prestige around the world has been deteriorating rapidly due to the unpopular, outright failed policies, which is forcing the White House to go back to an old and dusty book of tricks that had previously been used by to create an image of prosperity and happiness. In actuality, a number of states around the world paid a bitter price in an attempt to recreate this image, which led to a wave of “color revolutions” in pursuit of “American-style democracy”, due in part to the actions of Victoria Nuland, John McCain and the likes of them. It’s no wonder then that there’s nobody left in line for some more US-style democracy.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Jakarta Ralph Boyce

found out the hard way what it meant to obstruct

the investigation of an American journalist

The stagnant US political machine is extremely reluctant to change its ways, therefore it is repeating the scenarios that have already been tested, regardless of the fact how poorly they fared previously.

It’s useful to recall the theatrical show featuring evidence of “Saddam Hussein’s WMDs” that were displayed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council to justify American military aggression against Iraq. The White House couldn’t have cared less about the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq so long as the trick worked, and now it seems that the sitting Secretary of State – John Kerry apparently has some hope that pulling a similar trick once again will allow him to obtain the international support needed to unleash new aggression, this time against Syria.

Drooling doofus, irrelevant idiot John Kerry

This habit of using old tricks has already become a tradition in the White House, therefore the United States started using old ambassadors that have proved their “efficiency” in the creation of unrest, social conflicts and consequent “color revolutions”. Some of them were summoned back from retirement, even despite their age. To create “pre-revolutionary conditions” and draw from the personal experience of unleashing “color revolutions” the White House has sent John F. Tefft, an ambassador to Moscow back in 2014, even despite the fact that he is far from being “sympathetic” with Russian. 

This diplomat was behind revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, where he had previously worked.

Another example of Washington’s dubious practices can be traced in Kyrgyzstan, where the former Ambassador Pamela Spratlen who had failed in creating “revolutionary preconditions for regime change” was “temporarily” replaced by a 78-year-old diplomat Richard Monroe Miles. The specified appointment looks alarming since the now retired Miles is widely known as “the architect and ideologist of the Georgian revolution”, that has made a number of states since suffer severe political crises.

According to his official biography, Richard Monroe served in the Marine Corps from 1954 to 1957 which may be the reason for his devotion to the armed regime changes he’s been behind. After obtaining his university degrees, he entered the U.S. Army’s Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where Western special services had been preparing “anti-Soviet specialists”. Miles began his diplomatic career back in 1967, after working in the US diplomatic missions in Oslo, Moscow, Belgrade, Berlin, and then curiously appointed Consul General in Leningrad.

For the first time Miles served as ambassador to Azerbaijan in 1992, where he “witnessed” the transition of power from the nationalist government of Abulfaz Elchibey to Heydar Aliyev.

Then, from 1996-1999, when Slobodan Milosevic was still in power, Richard Monroe Miles was appointed ambassador to Yugoslavia, where he oversaw the Kosovo War and the slaughter of Kosovo Albanians. He left the country as NATO forces started bombing it to the ground. The sad course of events in this country is now well known: Milosevic declared himself the winner of the presidential election, however, since the opposition led by Vojislav Kostunica refused to recognize the results, Milosevic was forced to resign. Later on, due to the orders of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, Milosevic was forced to undergo a hearing in the Hague Tribunal.

In 1999-2000, when Miles headed the US Embassy in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Prime Minister Ivan Kostov lost parliamentary elections to a pro-American candidate Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha- the heir to the Bulgarian throne.

Between April 2002 and August 2005 Miles led the US Embassy in Georgia, then retired, but in November 2008 he was invited to work in the State Department and as Chargé d’Affaires of the US, when he was sent to Turkmenistan “for setting the story straight the American way.”

In 2004 Miles became the recipient of the State Department’s Robert C. Frasure Award for “peaceful conflict resolution”, which is curious since that very year saw the blossoming of “Georgian democracy” under Mikhail Saakashvili. This was the result of the “Rose Revolution”, which was directed by Richard Monroe Miles himself. He is also credited with preparations for the “soft assault” scenario of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. According to publications of Georgian and American journals at the time, Miles received 1.2 billion dollars to change the Georgia government on the back of his personal assurances that he’d be able to do so.

And now this famous author of “color revolutions” is sent to head the US diplomatic mission in Kyrgyzstan on the eve of the fifth anniversary of April’s events and the upcoming parliamentary elections. Furthermore, this May will see the final stage of Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the Customs Union (hated by the White House!) and, as a consequence, the accession to the Eurasian Economic Community, which cast a painful blow against US geopolitical interests and ambitions in Central Asia. Given the fragile inter-ethnic harmony in the south of the country, and the looming presence of Wahhabi elements in this very region ( that emerged there due to the ongoing meddling of Washington and Saudi Arabia), along with challenges the national economy faces and the ongoing rivalry between its political elites, the White House has already planned to create “revolutionary preconditions” that are to be created by Miles himself.

It is noteworthy that Miles will have the status of “temporary Ambassador”, hence according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, he will need no Congressional approval. And so it is easy to guess that Washington wants to use this technicality to send such a controversial figure to Kyrgyzstan along with the insidious intentions he surely has in mind.

Under these conditions, Washington would never refuse to pursue new “color revolutions” in Russia and along its borders to put an end to the Eurasian integration processes. And it is quite possible that the White House will not only be using its ambassadors to do so, but may have tried to put other old tricks to “good use”.

Vladimir Odintsov, political commentator, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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U.S. Sisters Caught With Their Pants Down At Cambodia Sacred Angkor

Disgusting, mindless American sluts should have been horsewhipped and banned from Cambodia indefinitely; this is one of the reasons U.S. expatriates are now being treated as white trash in ASEAN countries  

INQUISITR
02/17/2015

Everyone takes photos when visiting iconic sites while on vacation, but usually people are a little more discreet, unlike these two U.S. sisters who were literally caught with their pants down, mooning while taking a photo.

U.S. filth washed up in Cambodia: Lindsey and

Leslie Adams

According to the Apsara Authority, they will now be increasing their security measures and printing more warnings against desecrating the Angkor Archaeological Park in Cambodia. For the second time in less than two weeks, authorities have found it necessary to deport tourist groups and this time it is the two sisters, caught taking partially nude photos at one of the sites.

After being caught Friday taking a photo with their pants down at the remote Preah Khan temple, Lindsey Kate Adams, 22 and Leslie Jan Adams, 20 have been charged in the Siem Reap Court on trafficking pornography and exposing sexual body parts. 

Apparently photos taken of the incident are currently doing the rounds on the social media.

It could have been worse, however. Both sisters received six-month suspended prison sentences, so they luckily won’t be doing any time for being caught with their pants down. However, on top of this they were fined 1 million riel ($250) and have been banned from entering Cambodia for four years.

After the Siem Reap provincial judge Kuy Soa handed down the verdict Saturday, both sisters were immediately deported and sent by bus to Bangkok.

Unfortunately this is not the first incident of this nature to happen at the UNESCO World Heritage Site. There have been two other scandalous photo incidents and in both cases, there were prompt and swift reactions by authorities.

Preah Khan

Yahoo News reports one of these incidents involved a group of French tourists who were caught with their pants down taking nude photographs at one of the historic sites on February 1. The other, which happened on January 24, involved some photos taken of a topless traditional dancer, posing on the Angkorian ruins. In the latter case, details are still being investigated but regrettably the photos did do the rounds on the social media.

According to Kerya Chau Sun, a spokeswoman for the Apsara Authority, this type of incident is rare, and they are surprised there have been so many situations of this nature in such a short time.

“Incidents like this have happened before but we stopped it in time and it’s very rare.”

“This is the first time we’ve had to deal with several situations like this in such a short time. I don’t understand what would drive people to do this.”

Chau Sun reaffirmed that flyers and signs warning tourists against acts of this nature are currently being created, saying that originally they were only planning to print a few warnings. However, she said due to the magnitude of the situation they now have to place more flyers around the archaeological park.

The Phnom Phen Post said the Angkor temple complex is well known as being the world’s largest religious monument and the organization was originally worried that all the flyers would “destroy the beauty of the site” but now it seems it is necessary to plaster the warnings everywhere.

Apsara will also be adding more security, especially in the secluded zones such as the one visited by the two sisters. Chau Sun said at present they employ 1,000 guards to patrol the 40,000 hectare site but will be adding more.

“We have already increased security but it looks like we need to amplify it more when it seems that some people don’t care about how they offend Cambodian culture.”

A cultural specialist with UNESCO, Philippe Delanghe told the media that the U.S. sisters’ actions were “appalling.”

“Angkor is still very much a sacred site and people go there to pray every day and this is something that should never occur.”

“I think for the future Apsara and the government will consider different and more severe measures like maybe increasing sentences.”

Delanghe did think it was strange that there is such an upsurge in naked photo shoots at the site, however, but that security seemed to be working well.

“It is indeed very strange but we definitely don’t think it has anything to do with security because the fact that these girls were caught immediately is a sign that Apsara is doing its job.”

“Frankly, we don’t understand why they’re doing this, maybe the girls copied the others, but whatever it is, it’s disrespectful.”

The Angkor Complex remains a popular tourist site, which apparently brought in around $59.3 million in revenue last year, with more than 2 million foreigners visiting the site. However one of the Siem Reap tour guides, Khieu Thy, explained that taking a photo is hurtful to the Khmer culture and sets a bad example. Tourists must now realize it is best not to get caught with their pants down at historic sites such as Angkor.

In other news about U.S. tourists, one young man got into trouble on a trip to Spain. The Inquisitr reported recently on the story of Benjamin Miller, 20, from Georgia who was badly gored by a bull in a Spanish bull festival.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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