US/NATO/EU and the desperate subversion of Ukraine

[Steven Gaal]

THE NETWORK

Alfred Mendez <alfred.mendes@virgin.net>-

See also Alfred Mendez' article AN UNCOMMON VIEW OF THE BIRTH OF AN UNCOMMON MARKET on my Bilderberg History page

http://www.spectrezine.org

The wealth of the country flees the land
Like cottonseed on a wind
Blown by the fetid breath
Of money-pimps in Bedlam
Pursuing the creed of masters
Who worship a market freed
Of all restraints on greed -
While politicians posture
And feed on delusions of power

The above graph [couldn't reproduce it here, see below ed.] was created in order to bestow meaning in simplistic, delineated form to such terms as 'free market', 'new world order' and 'globalisation' - terms that have dominated political/economic terminology over the past two decades-or-so, and the fact that it focusses on banks and bankers (a profession endowed with the aura of authority in the eyes of the public) is quite simply because, without money, those terms are meaningless. Indeed, the title itself emphasises the role of money: After all, what is a banker if he's not a trader in money? Similarly, 'globalisation' would be equally meaningless if such politically omnipotent groups as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission were not taken into account when assessing it's (globalisation's) significance. Moreover, how is it possible to disassociate banker from politician from businessman when, at times, one individual is all three - and, in any case, they are constituent parts of a single entity: the corporate establishment? Hence the inclusion of these two groups withinthe graph.

The Bilderberg (or BB from now on) was formed in 1954 out of the need of corporate America to ensure cohesion of purpose on the part of its European partners in the recently formed North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) - the twin aim being to facilitate the flow of American capital into the region, and to bring Germany into the Alliance (against, it should be noted, the wishes of many of its partners). That it is a group endowed with enormous political clout can be attested to by: (1) examination of the lists of committee members and conference attendees over the years - together with the gravity and importance of the subjects discussed at these conferences (NATO, understandably, being repeatedly a key subject); and (2) these conferences take place under very strict security cover supplied by the respective host countries - even though implicit within the structure of this cabal is its unaccountable, secretive nature.

The Trilateral Commission (or TRI from now on) was formed in 1973, its agenda determined by the corporate-funded Brookings Institute and the Kettering Foundation - with not-a-little-help from David Rockefeller of the Chase/Manhattan Bank. That its projected formation should have been so enthusiastically acclaimed by the BB Conference in Knokke (Belgium) in 1972 should cause no surprise. Both corporate-controlled organisations, with linked membership, they shared the same aim: increasing globalisation of their wealth and power. Certainly, the BB with its total lack of any 'democratic accountability', must be in agreement with the TRI's declaration (published in their "The crisis of Democracy") that what the West needs most "is a greater degree of moderation in democracy". Though, on second thoughts, the former probably thinks the 'the degree of moderation' somewht understated!

A further examination of both graph and list of bankers' names reveals that, of the banking organisations, the Banks for International Settlements (or BIS from now on) is self-evidently of prime importance on the international scene - not only because of its prestigious membership (embracing as it does the head bankers of the leading industrial nations) - but also because of the significance of its links with other groups. This article will focus on it, at the expense of the other better-known banking institutions, for two reasons: (1) its prime ranking in the international hierarchy; and (2) so little knowledge of it is in the public domain.

The BIS is the world's oldest international financial institution, having been set up in 1930 with the twin aim of (1) coping with reparations/loans from/to a very unstable post-World War one Germany; and (2) more importantly, to act as a forum for central bankers in the future. As such, it was the epitome of supranationality - able to circumvent all those orthodox ideals that had, over the years, become synonymous with the concept of the 'nation state' - such as 'love of country', 'patriotism' etc., - the danger, of course, being that, in certain circumstances (such as a state of war), such circumvention of patriotism by any of its board members could lead to them being accused of treasonable offences.

In order to appreciate what followed, it is essential to offer a brief resumé of the political/economic situation at the turn of the century: the Industrial Revolution, having fostered the rapid growth of a capitalist economy, inevitably gave birth to an ideal/dogma exposing the socio-political discord inherent within that same system which was based on the concept of one comparatively small group of people garnering profit from the wealth created by the labor of a much larger group. Thus was Marxism born - leading to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.The USSR, now perceived by the industrial nations as representing the very antithesis of capitalism, was henceforth 'the enemy'. The 'cold war' had begun, and its most blatant expression was the birth of fascism in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution - a birth both induced and nurtured by corporations such as I.G.Farben, SKF, Ford, ITT and Du Pont - corporation which were fast becoming multi-national in nature..Enter BIS. Set up in 1930 (see above),it consisted, initially, of a group of 6 central banks and a 'financial institution of the USA'. Granted a constitution charter by Switzerland, it was henceforth based in that country. That America was by then a financial force to be reckoned with on the international scene is borne out by the fact that the first President appointed to the BIS was Gates W. McGarrah (ex-Chase National Bank & Federal Reserve Bank).

By the late 1930's the BIS had assumed an openly pro-Nazi bias - much of it disclosed by Charles Higham in his book "Trading With the Enemy", and years later corroborated by a BBC Timewatch film "Banking With Hitler" (broadcast in late '98). Two examples of such bias (there were many more) were: (1) The BIS had arranged transfers into the account of the German's Reichbank of $378 million of what was, in effect, gold looted from the coffers of the invaded countries of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Holland and Belgium; and (2) in the summer of 1942, plans for the projected American invasion of Algeria were leaked to the governor of the French National Bank, who immediately contacted his German colleague in the BIS, SS Gruppenfuehrer Baron Kurt von Schroder (of the Stein Bank of Cologne), and by transferring 9 billion gold francs to Algiers - via the BIS - the Germans and their French subsidiaries made a killing of some $175 million in this dollar-exchange scam. Given the membership of the BIS at that time, this was hardly surprising. On the board were the following high-profile representatives of the Axis powers (there were 4 others): Walther Funk (Pres. of the Reichbank); Kurt von Schroder (above); Dr. Hermann Schmitz (Jt.Chm. of I.G.Farben); Emil Puhl (V/Pres. of the Reichbank); Yoneji Yamamoto; and Dr. V. Azzolini (Gov. Bank of Italy). It should be added that, of the non-Axis members on the board, many - such as Montagu Norman (Gov. of the Bank of England) were Nazi sympathisers, and that the President of the BIS from 1939 to 1946 was Thomas McKittrick, an American corporate lawyer who had been both Director of Lee, Higginson & Co. (a company which had made substantial loans to the Third Reich) and Chairman of the British-American Chamber of Commerce in London. His continued presidency of the BIS after America's entry into the war in December1941 was approved by Germany and Italy with this significant addendum to their note of authorisation: "McKittrick's opinions are safely known to us".

With the above noted disclosures in mind, the policy of appeasement pursued by Britain and France towards Germany in the pre-war period can now be more readily understood. By concluding a pact with Hitler, Britain and France - in effect - gave him the green light to advance eastwards (ref. "Mein Kampf"). Furthermore, the fact that they shared his endemic anti-communism blinded them to the risk that they were running by negotiating from a position of comparative military weakness - of which Hitler was perfectly aware - and for which they paid a heavy price. It should also be added that the architect of this act of appeasement, Prime Minister Chamberlain, was a shareholder in ICI, which had ties with I.G.Farben.

In the late '30's, and more particularly during World War 2, given America's great wealth - as opposed to Europe's straitened circumstances - it was inevitable that the trade between the two would be of a one-way nature, from the former to the latter. And not surprisingly, in view of the close relationship between American and German corporations (as noted above), a substantial portion of supplies went to Germany - often via fascist Spain - by ship and tanker under flags of neutrality. Many of the financial arrangements covering such trade were handled by BIS in neutral Basle. As an example of how substantial this trade was: in mid-'44 Am,erica was supplying Germany with 48 thousand tons of oil, and 11 hundred tons of much-needed wolfram (tungsten) per month! The fact that this trade was illegal in the USA for much of this period - and particularly after America's entry into the war in December '41 - did little to stop such trade. The large corporations, such as Standard Oil and ITT, saw to that. After all, then - as now - the US Administration was effectively under corporate control (as it has been since 1933, during FDR's term of office). Even the Secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, and his Assistant, Harry Dexter White, aware as they well were of the part played by BIS in this, could do little about it. In July '44, 730 delegates from 44 countries met at Bretton Woods to plan a framework for post-war international trade, payments and investments - a conference which subsequently resulted in the setting up in'47 of both the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD, or World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The apparent inviolability of the BIS referred to above was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Resolution 5, calling for the dissolution of BIS, was subsequently ignored and proven ineffective. The corporate establishment had seen to that - as indeed, it had seen to all such previous attempts.

With war's end now calling for a clearing of conscience, BIS's method of achieving this was by stressing its somewhat euphemistic neutrality, while playing down its less palatable, but quintessential supranationality. Their annual report of 1946 - as quoted in the Times - stated: "It is noted that the Bank has continued to supply the principles of strict neutrality, but that circumstances have caused a further decline in the volume of its business". Further: "Wars are the worst cause of monetary convulsions, and the first condition for enjoying the benefits of an ordinary monetary system is to establish and maintain a reign of peace". In view of their recent previous history, the term 'irony' hardly does justice to the above statements!. This report was, incidentally, the last to be signed by its President, Thomas McKittrick: in June 1946 he was appointedVice/Chairman of the Chase National Bank by its owners, the Rockefellers - presumably as a mark of gratitude for the assistance rendered to them by the BIS during his presidency.

In view of the somewhat puzzling fact that this now meant that there were in this post-war period three international financial/banking institutions - all with the self-evidently similar aim of resolving the world's serious economic problems - a brief, close look is called for in order to clarify the situation. The first (and intriguing) fact to be noted here is that, whereas the IMF and The World Bank have been frequently and conspicuously in the public eye from birth, the BIS has adopted a low profile and remained uncommunicative. This was an expedient tactic for the latter to adopt - for two reasons: (1) it thus eluded any investigation into its previous financial dealings with the Third Reich; and (2) more importantly, by so diassociating itself from the IMF and World Bank, the latter would henceforth be widely (though erroneously) regarded as the sole guardians of the worldwide economy, thus allowing the BIS more latitude to follow the agenda set by the corporate establishment - to whom, it must be recalled, they owed their survival.

This ambivalent relationship between the IMF/World Bank vis-a-vis the BIS/commercial banks in the 70's is epitomised by Anthony Sampson in his book "The Money Lenders": "The commercial banks in the meantime had created a very different perspective, for the IMF now controlled much less of the world's money. In 1966, the quotas which made up its capital amounted to 10% of the total world imports; but by '76 they made up only 4%"..."by '76 world annual deficits had reached $75 billion : of this, 7% financed by the IMF; 18% by other official international bodies (governments and World Bank) - remaining three-quarters financed by banks (commercial)". (Today, some two-and-a-half decades later, the board members of BIS, between them, control 95% of the money in circulation). The reason for this apparent taking over of such responsibility by the BIS from the IMF/World Bank is twofold: (1) the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of exchange convertibility in the early seventies exposed the irrelevance of the latter as agents for European reconstruction; and (2) the latter being statutorily-appointed agents of the UN, were therefore - ostensibly - accountable to a much wider constituency than the BIS, and therefore politically less manageable by the corporate establishment, whose primary aim in the aftermath of World War 2 was to ensure the unrestricted flow of American capital into Europe. A flow considerably eased by subsequent European integration, in which both NATO and the Bilderberg played a crucial role. This aim was furthered by means of the US Congressionally-authorised European Cooperation Act (ECA) of 1948, and implemented by its subsidiary, the European Payments Union (EPU) of 1950 - both under the aegis of the Marshall Plan of 1947. Predictably, the BIS was the institution chosen by the EPU to oversee this movement of capital (a point worthy of note here is that the head of the EPU at that time was one Richard Bissell, an economist who, years later, was to be the CIA Deputy Director of Planning overseeing the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April '61!).The BIS was now firmly ensconced in the heart of European integration, and was subsequently to play a critical role in the events leading to its (Europe's) eventual evolvement into the European Union, a bureaucratic politico-economic body occupying a position of crucial importance within the wider global hierarchy envisaged by the corporate establishment.

The significance of the American's key central role in this sequence of events is underscored by the fact that, in the aftermath of World War 2, they (the Americans) set up the Bundesbank in Frankfurt (in their zone of control), ensuring that the bank would be independent of government and follow a strict monetary policy - in effect, another Federal Reserve System. In 1948 they replaced the existing Reichmarks with approximately 11 billion Deutschmarks, and Germany's subsequent conduct vis-a-vis European integration must be viewed with this in mind. In any case, the fact remains that Germany's subsequent frequent delaying tactics enabled the dollar to consolidate its dominance.

In their published précis entitled "Profile of an International Organisation", the BIS states that its "predominant tasks are summed up most succintly in part of Article 3 of its original Statutes. They are 'to promote the co-operation of central banks and to provide additional facilities for international financial operations'". To achieve this aim it has 3 administrative bodies: (1) a Board of Directors, comprising the Governors of the central banks of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA, each of whom appoints another member of the same nationality - plus the central bank Governors of Canada, Japan,Holland, Sweden and Switzerland: a total of 17. (2) A Management Board; and (3) An annual General Meeting in June of each year.

That this is an organisation carrying enormous clout is readily confirmed by a closer look at said synopsis, pertinent quotes from which follow (italics are BIS's):

(A) "Since September 1994, the eleven countries from which the members of the Bank's Board of Directors are drawn have been identical with the countries which comprise the Group of Ten (G-10), with which the BIS has had a long and close association".

( "As well as making resources available to the IMF under the GAB (General Arrangements to Borrow) the G-10 has, since 1963, been a principal forum for discussion of international monetary questions. From the outset, the BIS has been a participant in G-10 Meetings, above all because the Governors of the G-10 central banks meet regularly on the occasion of the Basle monthly meetings. The G-10 meetings have, over time, become the pivotal forum in which much wider activities have been set in motion by the G-10 central banks in the pursuit of financial stability". (Meetings, it should be noted, hosted by the BIS in their high-rise office block in Basle).

© "As early as 1971 concern among central banks about the evolution of the Eurocurrency markets led to the establishment of a Standing Committee of the Group of Ten central banks which has met periodically in Basle ever since"

(D) In December 1994 the G-10 Governors set up "The Basle Committee on Banking Supervision, the secretariat for which is provided by the BIS".

(E) "The BIS hosts meeting of, and provides the secretariat for, the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and its various working parties".

(F) "..the BIS in a joint initiative with the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision is establishing an Institute for Financial Stability ahich is expected to commence its activities sometime in the second half of this year" (1998).

(G) " From 1964 until the end of 1993 the BIS hosted the Secretariat of the Committee of Governors of the Central Banks of the Member States of the European Economic Community (theCommittee of Governors). From 1st of June 1973 until the end of 1993 the Secretariat of the Committee of Governors also served the Board of Governors of the European Monetary Co-operation Fund (EMCF) and the Bank (BIS) acted as EMCF agent. Until they were replaced by the European Monetary Institute on 1st January 1994, the Committee of Governors and the EMCF were the Community bodies which provided the institutional framework for monetary co-operation in the European Community".

(It should be added that the above quotes are by no means a comprehensive listing in the synopsis of the BIS's activities on the global scene).

Three news items concerning the role played by the BIS are worthy of note:

(1) In 1994 the Belgian banker, Baron Alexandre Lamfalussy resigned from his post as General Manager of the BIS in order to become Head of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) - forerunner of the European Central Bank (ECB). As reported in the Times of 10/11/'93: Andrew Crockett (Executive Director of the Bank of England), who was replacing Lamfalussy as General Manager of the BIS,.."said he did not foresee the ENI..impinging on the work of the Basle-based BIS which is widely regarded as the central banker's central bank"..and adding that.."The EMI would enable the BIS to re-focus on global issues, and develop its role as a forum for collaboration between central banks in the monetary and regulatory fields".

(2) C.Fred Bergsten, Head of the Institute for International Economics, told the Washington Post on the 3rd of January '99 "The adoption of a common currency is by far the boldest chapter of European integration. Money traditionally has been an integral element of national sovereignty"..and the decision by Germany and France to give up their mark and franc "..represents the most dramatic voluntary surrender of sovereignty in recorded history. The European Central Bank that will manage the euro is a truly supranational institution".

(3) In the Independent On Sunday of the 21st February '99 it was reported that Andrew Crockett (see above) has been appointed Chairman of a newly-established 'Stability Forum' (see quote 'F' above), whose aim is to monitor global markets (this was the idea of Hans Tietmeyer, President of the Bundesbank).

Certain conclusions can be drawn from a recapitulation of the facts noted above:

(1) The BIS occupies a central role within the global/European financial scene - to the extent that such institutions as the G-10 and ECB (among others) play a surrogate role.

(2) The goal of the corporations is precisely the same today as it was at the end of the Great War. This is inevitable, inasmuch as inherent within the capitalist system is its obligation to the aggrandisement of profit.

(3) As a consequence, sovereignty - in the sense of a country's or organisation's political independence - can be ignored and overridden. This is happening today. The signs are there for all to see: Is America really in the Gulf Region for the benefit of its inhabitants ('ragheads' in American parlance)? Ask any oilman.

Are the two terms 'NATO' and the "International Community' really synonymous? Ask any country not in the Alliance.

Is the 'Cold War' really dead? Ask NATO why it is still in existence.

Is it not clear that NATO's primary role in Europe is to act as corporate America's anti-Marxist enforcer (even though the Marxism in question may be of a purely nominal nature)? Ask the head formulator of NATO, George Kennan (he may be dead, but his disclosure of the real reason for NATO's birth is on record in the BBC's Lord Reith Lecture of 1957).

Has not the UN's sovereignty been by-passed time-and-time again over the years? Ask its main debtor - America.

And finally, why is so little of the BIS in the public domain? Ask the owners/controllers of the means of communication - the media.

Alfred Mendez' Bankers' Network chart proved impossible to transfer to a web page so it is available here as a Microsoft Word 6 file - a Rich Text file - and an Adobe Acrobat file - so you can print it out. BIBLIOGRAPHY

DAVIES, Glyn "A History of Money" (University of Wales '94)

DEDMAN, Martin "The Origins & Development of the European Union - '45 to '95 (Routledge '96)

HIGHAM, Charles "Trading With The Enemy" (Robert Hale '83)

MARSHALL, Matt "The Bank" (Random House '99)

SAMPSON, Anthony "The Money Lenders" (Hodder & Stoughton '81)

BIS Précis '98

INTERNET (Membership lists, etc.)

Alfred Mendez <alfred.mendes@virgin.net> http://www.spectrezine.org

Edited May 9, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[John Dolva]

17:10 GMT:

The people’s militia has seized a health resort building in the Budenovsky district of the city of Donetsk, which was housing 120 Ukrainian soldiers, local media reported. After several minutes of fighting the soldiers surrendered their weapons and left on buses. Earlier a co-chairman of the Donetsk People’s Republic government Miroslav Rudenko said the soldiers clashed with the people’s militia and several people were injured.

14:48 GMT:

Mood now tense in #Slavyansk with talk spreading of possible Ukraine army action here, earlier was celebratory - https://t.co/w4If4HUJ0q

— GrahamWPhillips (@GrahamWP_UK) May 9, 2014

14:07 GMT:

An unidentified person has shot and wounded a 12-year-old boy “who was wearing St. George’s ribbon” in the center of the town of Slavyansk, the local self-defense HQ told Interfax. The source said that the bullet entered the boy’s chest “in the heart area” and his condition is currently unknown.

The St. George’s emblem, originally a Tsarist-era Russian military award, was adopted as a symbol of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII.

RIA Novosti, citing the child’s relative, reported that the boy “was simply walking” when he was wounded in the chest and shoulder. He was taken to the hospital and is undergoing surgery, the source said.

13:21 GMT:

#Lenin square #Donetsk pic.twitter.com/YPaDL6LcYg

— PaulaSlier_RT (@PaulaSlier_RT) May 9, 2014

13:21 GMT:

Victory Day celebrations were held in the anti-government stronghold in eastern Ukraine, the city of Slavyansk. Several thousand people gathered for a demo in the city’s central square. A “parade” of military equipment was held as two captured APCs with self-defense forces on them drove through the streets.

Crowds chant 'Slava Donbass', pose for photos, as 3 pro-Donetsk APCs enter city earlier to mark Victory Day - https://t.co/p8qJ2CvpKa

— GrahamWPhillips (@GrahamWP_UK) May 9, 2014

13:17 GMT:

About 1,500 protesters took to the streets of the eastern city of Kharkov for an anti-government rally on Victory Day. The demonstrators criticized the policy of the coup-appointed Kiev authorities, calling them a “junta” and “US protégés” and slammed the punitive military operation in eastern Ukraine, saying that the regime was waging “war against its own people.” Local police cordoned the demonstrators off from those attending the Victory Day concert for war veterans.

Харьков. pic.twitter.com/fiLg9qh0Tn

— Антимайдан (@myrevolutionrus) May 9, 2014

[John Dolva]

Citizens block APCs shooting their way through Mariupol (VIDEOS)

1,418 days in hell: Soviet Union's Great Patriotic War in pictures ​US blames Russia as Kiev unleashes armored vehicles against civilians

Real people behind WWII victory: RT staff share personal images and stories

[John Dolva]

OSCE condemns deadly violence in eastern Ukraine’s Mariupol

Data on the number of victims in Mariupol’s violence on Friday varies

[John Dolva]

18:19 World

Red banner of victory in World War II hoisted over Odessa Trade Union House

http://videocdn.itar-tass.com/width/744_b12f2926/tass/m2/en/uploads/i/20140509/1039511.jpg

[John Dolva]

Saturday, May 10

06:54 GMT:

Red Cross staff who had been detained by self-defence forces in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine have been released, Itar-Tass reports, citing David Pierre Marquet, Red Cross’s press officer for Europe and Central Asia.

Marquet denied earlier reports that the staff had been taken hostage.

“They were detained for an ID check in Donetsk, and were quite soon released,” he said. “That had nothing to do with taking anybody hostage.”

00:13 GMT:

The Ukrainian city of Kharkov will not hold a self-determination referendum, initially scheduled to take place Sunday simultaneously with Lugansk and Donetsk regions.

“We are not prepared to hold a referendum on May 11. We have not agreed on the questions that will be common for Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk,” a member of the coordinating council of the ‘South- East’ movement Yuri Apukhtin told Interfax. “Therefore we decided not to hold a May 11 referendum.”

[John Dolva]

Interfax reports, citing a statement by the press service of the city administration.

“Because of the tragic events on May 9, 2014, which resulted in casualties, May 10 is declared a day of mourning in the city of Mariupol,”

[John Dolva]

National Guard units withdraw from Mariupol, Ukraine claims

World

May 10, 12:18 UTC+4

KIEV, May 10, /ITAR-TASS/.

Ukraine's National Guard said it has withdrawn its units from the nidus of tension in Mariupol.

"As of 08:00, local time /09:00, Moscow time/, May 10, the situation in the city of Mariupol has remained stably tense. National Guard units have been pulled out from the epicentre of the events," National Guard's press service said in an official statement on its website.

On May 9, reports said Ukrainian law-enforcement personnel had opened fire from armoured vehicles at participants in a Victory Day rally who had gathered near the building of the local police department and tried to prevent its storm.

According to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, at least ten people were killed in the shooting. Television ran footage showing law-enforcers using armoured vehicles to crash unarmed people.

[John Dolva]

09:35 GMT:

Meanwhile, in #Slavyansk people are preparing for the referendum. The city's mayor said that #Slavyansk is ready.

— PaulaSlier_RT (@PaulaSlier_RT) May 10, 2014

09:10 GMT:

RT's stringer in Mariupol, who was shot in the stomach Friday, was operated on and is in stable condition.

“Our wounded stringer has just spoken to his wife and even smiled,” RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan posted on Twitter.

08:55 GMT:

Ukrainian interim president Aleksandr Turchinov says Kiev is ready for talks with the country’s regions, Donbass in particular, according to Interfax.

“We hear Donbass and are now ready to get to the negotiating table, ... We invite all but the terrorists who have the task of destroying the country, which they received from their bosses,” he said. “We are ready to sit down and talk, no matter what happens and what slogans are declared.”

[John Dolva]

Gunshots and blasts have been heard in the center of Mariupol, according to local media. Witnesses say that an APC has been set on fire and smoke has been billowing above the city administration building, which was burning on Friday.

News of the resumed shooting first appeared on social media, according to Mariupol’s local news website 0629.

One of Ruptly (RT video agency) producers says gunshots can be heard near a hospital when a wounded RT stringer is being treated.

[John Dolva]

Saturday, May 10

10:42 GMT:

Twenty people have been killed and about 30 wounded since the start of armed hostilities in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk, “people’s mayor” Vyacheslav Ponomaryov told a press conference. Twelve of those killed and 24 of the wounded were unarmed civilians, he added.

Self-defense forces have captured a few dozen adversaries, including soldiers as well as “enemies disguised as journalists” and covert operatives with explosives and other weapons, Ponomaryov said.

Meanwhile, the withdrawal of pro-Kiev forces and prisoner exchanges are the main preconditions for the start of a peaceful dialogue between the opposing sides, he told journalists in Slavyansk.

09:35 GMT:

Meanwhile, in #Slavyansk people are preparing for the referendum. The city's mayor said that #Slavyansk is ready.

— PaulaSlier_RT (@PaulaSlier_RT) May 10, 2014

[Steven Gaal]

“The Russians are coming … again … and they’re still ten feet tall!”

+++++++++++

By Willima Blum, The Anti-Empire Report #128

williamblum.org

Saturday, May 10, 2014

==================

So, what do we have here? In Libya, in Syria, and elsewhere the United States has been on the same side as the al-Qaeda types. But not in Ukraine. That’s the good news. The bad news is that in Ukraine the United States is on the same side as the neo-Nazi types, who – taking time off from parading around with their swastika-like symbols and calling for the death of Jews, Russians and Communists – on May 2 burned down a trade-union building in Odessa, killing scores of people and sending hundreds to hospital; many of the victims were beaten or shot when they tried to flee the flames and smoke; ambulances were blocked from reaching the wounded. Try and find an American mainstream media entity that has made a serious attempt to capture the horror. [1]

Soon thereafter, NATO began to surround Russia with military bases, missile sites, and NATO members, while yearning for perhaps the most important part needed to complete the circle – Ukraine. And how did this latest example of American foreign-policy exceptionalism come to be? One starting point that can be considered is what former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Robert Gates says in his recently published memoir: “When the Soviet Union was collapsing in late 1991, [Defense Secretary Dick Cheney] wanted to see the dismemberment not only of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire but of Russia itself, so it could never again be a threat to the rest of the world.”[2] That can serve as an early marker for the new cold war while the corpse of the old one was still warm. Soon thereafter, NATO began to surround Russia with military bases, missile sites, and NATO members, while yearning for perhaps the most important part needed to complete the circle – Ukraine.

In February of this year, US State Department officials, undiplomatically, joined anti-government protesters in the capital city of Kiev, handing out encouragement and food, from which emanated the infamous leaked audio tape between the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and the State Department’s Victoria Nuland, former US ambassador to NATO and former State Department spokesperson for Hillary Clinton. Their conversation dealt with who should be running the new Ukraine government after the government of Viktor Yanukovich was overthrown; their most favored for this position being one Arseniy Yatsenuk.

He (Yatsenuk) could very soon be found in private meetings and public press conferences with the president of the United States and the Secretary-General of NATO, as well as meeting with the soon-to-be new owners of Ukraine, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, preparing to impose their standard financial shock therapy. The current protestors in Ukraine ... know about the impoverishment of Greece, Spain, et al. They also despise the new regime for its overthrow of their democratically-elected government, whatever its shortcomings. My dear, and recently departed, Washington friend, John Judge, liked to say that if you want to call him a “conspiracy theorist” you have to call others “coincidence theorists”. Thus it was by the most remarkable of coincidences that Arseniy Yatsenuk did indeed become the new prime minister. He could very soon be found in private meetings and public press conferences with the president of the United States and the Secretary-General of NATO, as well as meeting with the soon-to-be new owners of Ukraine, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, preparing to impose their standard financial shock therapy. The current protestors in Ukraine don’t need PHDs in economics to know what this portends. They know about the impoverishment of Greece, Spain, et al. They also despise the new regime for its overthrow of their democratically-elected government, whatever its shortcomings. But the American media obscures these motivations by almost always referring to them simply as “pro-Russian”.

An exception, albeit rather unemphasized, was the April 17 Washington Post which reported from Donetsk that many of the eastern Ukrainians whom the author interviewed said the unrest in their region was driven by fear of “economic hardship” and the IMF austerity plan that will make their lives even harder: “At a most dangerous and delicate time, just as it battles Moscow for hearts and minds across the east, the pro-Western government is set to initiate a shock therapy of economic measures to meet the demands of an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund.”

Arseniy Yatsenuk, it should be noted, has something called the Arseniy Yatsenuk Foundation. If you go to the foundation’s website you will see the logos of the foundation’s “partners” [3]. Among these partners we find NATO, the National Endowment for Democracy, the US State Department, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs in the UK), the German Marshall Fund (a think tank founded by the German government in honor of the US Marshall Plan), as well as a couple of international banks. Is any comment needed?

Getting away with supporting al-Qaeda and Nazi types may be giving US officials the idea that they can say or do anything they want in their foreign policy. ...
Did the president forget that Ukraine is not (yet) a member of NATO? And in the same press conference, the president referred to the “duly elected government in Kyiv (Kiev)”, when in fact it had come to power via a coup. Getting away with supporting al-Qaeda and Nazi types may be giving US officials the idea that they can say or do anything they want in their foreign policy. In a May 2 press conference, President Obama, referring to Ukraine and the NATO Treaty, said: “We’re united in our unwavering Article 5 commitment to the security of our NATO allies”. (Article 5 states: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them … shall be considered an attack against them all.”) Did the president forget that Ukraine is not (yet) a member of NATO? And in the same press conference, the president referred to the “duly elected government in Kyiv (Kiev)”, when in fact it had come to power via a coup and then proceeded to establish a new regime in which the vice-premier, minister of defense, minister of agriculture, and minister of environment, all belonged to far-right neo-Nazi parties.[4]

The pure awfulness of the Ukrainian right-wingers can scarcely be exaggerated. In early March, the leader of Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) called upon his comrades, the infamous Chechnyan terrorists, to carry out further terrorist actions in Russia. [5]

There may be one important difference between the old Cold War and the new one. The American people, as well as the world, can not be as easily brainwashed as they were during the earlier period.

Over the course of a decade, in doing the research for my first books and articles on US foreign policy, one of the oddities to me of the Cold War was how often the Soviet Union seemed to know what the United States was really up to, even if the American people didn’t. Every once in a while in the 1950s to 70s a careful reader would notice a two- or three-inch story in the New York Times on the bottom of some distant inside page, reporting that Pravda or Izvestia had claimed that a recent coup or political assassination in Africa or Asia or Latin America had been the work of the CIA; the Times might add that a US State Department official had labeled the story as “absurd”. And that was that; no further details were provided; and none were needed, for how many American readers gave it a second thought? It was just more commie propaganda. Who did they think they were fooling? This ignorance/complicity on the part of the mainstream media allowed the United States to get away with all manner of international crimes and mischief.

It was only in the 1980s when I began to do the serious research that resulted in my first book, which later became Killing Hope, that I was able to fill in the details and realize that the United States had indeed masterminded that particular coup or assassination, and many other coups and assassinations, not to mention countless bombings, chemical and biological warfare, perversion of elections, drug dealings, kidnapings, and much more that had not appeared in the American mainstream media or schoolbooks. (And a significant portion of which was apparently unknown to the Soviets as well.)

But there have been countless revelations about US crimes in the past two decades. Many Americans and much of the rest of the planet have become educated. They’re much more skeptical of American proclamations and the fawning media. But there have been countless revelations about US crimes in the past two decades. Many Americans and much of the rest of the planet have become educated. They’re much more skeptical of American proclamations and the fawning media.

President Obama recently declared: “The strong condemnation that it’s received from around the world indicates the degree to which Russia is on the wrong side of history on this.”[6] Marvelous … coming from the man who partners with jihadists and Nazis and has waged war against seven nations. In the past half century is there any country whose foreign policy has received more bitter condemnation than the United States? If the United States is not on the wrong side of history, it may be only in the history books published by the United States.

Barack Obama, like virtually all Americans, likely believes that the Soviet Union, with perhaps the sole exception of the Second World War, was consistently on the wrong side of history in its foreign policy as well as at home. Yet, in a survey conducted by an independent Russian polling center this past January, and reported in the Washington Post in April, 86 percent of respondents older than 55 expressed regret for the Soviet Union’s collapse; 37 percent of those aged 25 to 39 did so.[7] (Similar poll results have been reported regularly since the demise of the Soviet Union. This is from USA Today in 1999: “When the Berlin Wall crumbled, East Germans imagined a life of freedom where consumer goods were abundant and hardships would fade. Ten years later, a remarkable 51% say they were happier with communism.”) [8]

Or as the new Russian proverb put it: “Everything the Communists said about Communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be the truth.”

A week before the above Post report in April the newspaper printed an article about happiness around the world, which contains the following charming lines: “Worldwide polls show that life seems better to older people – except in Russia.” … “Essentially, life under President Vladimir Putin is one continuous downward spiral into despair.” … “What’s going on in Russia is deep unhappiness.” … “In Russia, the only thing to look forward to is death’s sweet embrace.” [9]

No, I don’t think it was meant to be any kind of satire. It appears to be a scientific study, complete with graphs, but it reads like something straight out of the 1950s.

The views Americans hold of themselves and other societies are not necessarily more distorted than the views found amongst people elsewhere in the world, but the Americans’ distortion can lead to much more harm. Most Americans and members of Congress have convinced themselves that the US/NATO encirclement of Russia is benign – we are, after all, the Good Guys – and they don’t understand why Russia can’t see this.

The first Cold War, from Washington’s point of view, was often designated as one of “containment”, referring to the US policy of preventing the spread of communism around the world, trying to block the very idea of communism or socialism. There’s still some leftover from that – see Venezuela and Cuba, for example – but the new Cold War can be seen more in terms of a military strategy. Washington thinks in terms of who could pose a barrier to the ever-expanding empire adding to its bases and other military necessities.

Whatever the rationale, it’s imperative that the United States suppress any lingering desire to bring Ukraine (and Georgia) into the NATO alliance. Nothing is more likely to bring large numbers of Russian boots onto the Ukrainian ground than the idea that Washington wants to have NATO troops right on the Russian border and in spitting distance of the country’s historic Black Sea naval base in Crimea.


Notes

1. See RT.com (formerly Russia Today) for many stories, images and videos
2. Robert Gates, Duty (2014), p.97
3. If this site has gone missing again, a saved version can be found here.
4. Voice of Russia radio station, Moscow, April 18, 2014; also see Answer Coalition, “Who’s who in Ukraine’s new [semi-fascist] government”, March 11, 2014
5. RT.com, news report March 5, 2014
6. CBS News, March 3, 2014
7. Washington Post, April 11, 2014
8. USA Today (Virginia), Oct. 11, 1999, page 1
9. Washington Post print edition, April 2, 2014; online here

Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to this website are given.

Continued in The Anti-Empire Report #128: The Myth of Soviet Expansionism

Source: williamblum.org

Edited May 10, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[John Dolva]

[summary saturday]

[John Dolva]

Mariupol being shelled

[Steven Gaal]

Mariupol being shelled

crystal ball crystal ball crystal ball

How evil is our system.......why a city can be picked out which is not in total submission !!

=======

http://thefallujahproject.org/home/

========================

justice for Mariupol .....crystal ball crystal ball crystal ball

punishment punishment punishment

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BLUM (above post # 282)

My dear, and recently departed, Washington friend, John Judge, liked to say that if you want to call him a “conspiracy theorist” you have to call others “coincidence theorists”. Thus it was by the most remarkable of coincidences that Arseniy Yatsenuk did indeed become the new prime minister. He could very soon be found in private meetings and public press conferences with the president of the United States and the Secretary-General of NATO, as well as meeting with the soon-to-be new owners of Ukraine, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, preparing to impose their standard financial shock therapy. The current protestors in Ukraine don’t need PHDs in economics to know what this portends. They know about the impoverishment of Greece, Spain, et al. They also despise the new regime for its overthrow of their democratically-elected government, whatever its shortcomings. But the American media obscures these motivations by almost always referring to them simply as “pro-Russian”.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alfred Mendez (above post # 271)

(1) The BIS occupies a central role within the global/European financial scene - to the extent that such institutions as the G-10 and ECB (among others) play a surrogate role.

(2) The goal of the corporations is precisely the same today as it was at the end of the Great War. This is inevitable, inasmuch as inherent within the capitalist system is its obligation to the aggrandisement of profit.

(3) As a consequence, sovereignty - in the sense of a country's or organisation's political independence - can be ignored and overridden. This is happening today. The signs are there for all to see: Is America really in the Gulf Region for the benefit of its inhabitants ('ragheads' in American parlance)? Ask any oilman.

Are the two terms 'NATO' and the "International Community' really synonymous? Ask any country not in the Alliance.

Is the 'Cold War' really dead? Ask NATO why it is still in existence. ??????????????????

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(from link at above post # 271)

Carrol Quigley - the bankers' plan

Carrol Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 1966 - [bill Clinton's mentor and Georgetown University professor] "The Power of financial capitalism had [a] far reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.

This system was to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.

The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks, which were themselves private corporations.

Each central bank sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence co-operative politicians by subsequent rewards in the business world."

#############################

SEE POST # 271 above

punishment punishment punishment

How evil is our system....... ????? Answer Mariupol & Fallujah, just see whats there......you dont need a crystal ball to know which way the winds blow.......

Edited May 11, 2014 by Steven Gaal