Kermit Heartsong - Ukraine - ZBIG's Grand Chess Board & How The West Was Checkmated

Ms. Amanpour, completely bereft of evidence and facts, lectured and berated Professor Cohen with regard to what was transpiring in the Ukraine. She then went on to predict the intentions of the newly coup-installed, unelected government in Kiev regarding Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and what she believed the intentions of Putin — whom she openly called a thug — to be. Ms. Amanpour blamed Russia for “trumping up” Crimea’s referendum to join Russia, as they were not (yet) being attacked by Kiev. She further berated the entirety of the Russian media claiming that they were the party responsible for the hate speech, nationalistic rhetoric, and incitement to war.

In the 50 seconds Professor Cohen was given to put his point forward, he spoke clearly to the facts on the ground by stating:

The extremism didn’t come from Russia. It was coming from Western Ukraine. There’s a small but resolute and determined right-wing nationalist movement in Ukraine. It’s quasi-fascist, and it is dictating terms to the parliament in Kiev which is not legitimate in law, international or constitutional. This parliament which is a rump parliament, because they banned the two majority parties that represented the East and have been passing anti-Russian legislation. They banned the use of Russian as an official language. It isn’t Russia that’s been spewing this ideological destabilizing message. It’s been coming from the West. And here the worst part is that has been — that hatred has been supported by Washington and Brussels in embracing this west Ukrainian movement. That will — that must stop. (CNN 2014)

Given less than a minute to respond to Ms. Amanpour’s prolonged attack, Mr. Blitzer interrupts Professor Cohen, to inform him and Ms. Amanpour that the time is up. However, for the remaining portion of the show, almost double the time awarded to Professor Cohen, Mr. Blitzer and Ms. Amanpour continue their attack on Professor Cohen’s position, claiming that Nazis and Anti-Semites are not an integral part of the new Kiev government. Ms. Amanpour qualifies the presence of Nazis in Kiev’s government as “the Russian position,” despite clear and extensively corroborated evidence from multiple sources— Telelgraph (UK), NBC, The Guardian (UK), Huffington Post, BBC, MSNBC — to the contrary.

Perhaps if Ms. Amanpour were to actually report on the happenings in Donetsk, Lugansk, and other areas in the east of Ukraine, emotions and gut-feelings would be underpinned by something more closely resembling the truth. Her reporting might even speak to the fact that the Svoboda Party and the Right Sector are, indeed, fascist organizations. Further, investigative reporting would uncover the fact that these parties have intimidated, threatened, beat up, tortured, and murdered various members of the state parliament, and may well be responsible for the deaths of 40 Ukrainians in Odessa alone. Perhaps Ms. Amanpour would also discover, with a bit of diligent research (an internet search), that former Ukrainian Presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko had professed in a leaked conversation, “It’s about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn Russians together with their leader” and that “they [the Russians] must be killed with nuclear weapons.” Perhaps these were pieces of news that escaped the self-acclaimed investigative reporting skills of Ms. Amanpour.

Of course, whether Ms. Amanpour knew it or not, her talking points were the exact same talking points that had been consistently broadcast by White House and State Department officials regarding the Ukraine.

A short time later, Professor Cohen appeared with John Mearshiemer on an April 28, 2014 episode of CrossTalk, a current affairs program on Russia Today (RT), a state-sponsored Russian television channel. The program featured intelligent discussion, historical perspective, insight, real politick, a complete lack of ad hominem attacks (no “thugs” here), and irrational grandstanding. It appears that American intellectuals from Professor Cohen and Mearchiemer to Noam Chomsky and other noted scholars, exiled from mainstream western media, have found an alternative and ostensibly more free press, of all places, on Russian TV.

In a case that can best be described as classic psychological projection, Secretary of State John Kerry called RT “a state-sponsored propaganda bullhorn.” Of course, the lockstep narrative of the American mainstream media, which continually echoes the talking points of Secretary Kerry, his State Department minions, and the White House, must represent to Secretary Kerry the “free press.” Needless to say, mainstream media is doing its best to accept without question or actual reporting the narrative fed to them by “official government sources.”

Propaganda IN UKRAINE

In Washington DC, one feels the rarefied air of a Himalayan peak. Seen from the grandiose palaces of the administration, where the fate of the world is decided, foreign people look small, primitive and largely irrelevant. Here and there some real experts are tucked away, but nobody really consults them.

— Uri Avnery

Imagine, if you will, the president of the United States addressing US citizens and conveying horror stories of some distant, terrifying threat, anathema to freedom, democracy, and the American way. Ostensibly, the innocent God-fearing subjects of this land are being chemically gassed (often made available from the West), bombed, and massacred and are under the foot of some maniacal madmen who is up for the year’s Hitler Award.

The president then further laments that “we (the US) are a peace-loving nation and while we abhor violence — order and democracy must be (violently) implemented/restored and the innocent rescued (killed, uncounted, and forced to emigrate).”

In quick order the war machine is geared up, the coalition of the willing (bought, bribed, coerced, threatened) is assembled, and the bombs and missiles — cruise, smart, bunker-buster, DU, cluster, phosphorous, neutron — are unleashed. Unfortunately, of course, the bombs are unable to discern the innocent, poor, terrorized masses from the maniacal madmen, and tens to hundreds of thousands to millions of those we intended to free are, indeed, liberated from their mortal coils. In fact, the US tends to be much more efficient at this than the long line of maniacal madmen yearly auditioning for the year’s Hitler Award.

In the former Yugoslavia, the script we were treated to, as described by Caleb Maupin (2014), was the following:

Bill Clinton claimed to be stopping “mass rapes” and “concentration camps.” After the smoke had cleared, and thousands had been killed, the truth came out. The United Nations admitted that no “genocide” had taken place. The talk of mass rapes and concentration camps had been hype. (Maupin 2014)

There is, however, an interesting irony that is seemingly ever-present in “so-called” endeavors launched by the US. Again, as stated by Maupin (2014):

While the alleged crimes used to justify destroying Serbia had been exaggerated, the crimes of the US-funded Kosovo Liberation Army were very real. The Balkans have never recovered from the bombing and destruction and the funding of ethnic hate groups. The “rescue mission” resulted in deeper misery than ever before.

The script for Libya was, of course, the same — planned chaos, with a few names substituted here and there:

Obama told horror stories about Gaddafi. As US-backed insurgents were defeated on the battlefield, the US and NATO unleashed a horrific bombing campaign. Now Libya, once the wealthiest country on the African continent, is in ruin. The country has been destroyed, and rival factions battle for power surrounded by poverty. (Maupin 2014)