Maidan snipers: Ukraine’s Gulf of Tonkin?

The crisis in Ukraine was set off on Feb. 20 by snipers killing peaceful anti-government demonstrators in Kiev’s Maidan Square on Feb. 20.   Angry mobs surrounded the Ukrainian Parliament and forced President Yanukovych to flee the country, and he was replaced by an unelected provisional government.

Now an investigation by a German TV station, ARM Monitor, which was broadcast last week, indicates the sniper was working for the extreme Ukrainian nationalist Svoboda Party, which was part of the opposition and is now part of the new government.   Police as well as protestors were killed, and the bullets came from the same guns.   The snipers were operating from the roof of the Hotel Ukrayina, which was the headquarters of the protestors.

Now a member of the Svoboda Party is in charge of the investigation.   Families of dead protestors are unable to get autopsy reporters or other vital information.

Michael Hudson, a distinguished professor of research economics at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, was interviewed about this on the relatively obscure Real News Network  (which is listed on my Resources page).   The ARM Monitor investigation is headline news in Germany and (naturally) in Russia, he noted; why is it ignored in the United States?

Ukraine: Is Obama Channeling Cheney?

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11730

I’m not saying that President Yanukovych or President Vladimir Putin necessarily have good intentions, or that the Russian secret services are not capable of false flag operations of their own, or that Russian-speaking Ukrainians necessarily want to be part of Russia.   I recognize that there are armed minorities in both east and west Ukraine who don’t necessarily speak for the people they claim to represent.   I do not claim to understand the intricacies of Ukrainian politics.

All I’m saying is that the Ukrainian people, and the American people, are being pushed toward war over something that didn’t happen the way we were told it did.

The Ukraine crisis: Links & comments 3/30/14

Crimean Tatar women protest breakup of Ukraine

Elections are scheduled in Ukraine for May 25.   I don’t know how free and fair the elections will be or whether Ukrainians will have meaningful choices.  But it matters little, because the present unelected government of Ukraine has committed the nation to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that no elected government would ever agree to.  It is an example of Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine” in action.

Ukraine’s Unelected Government Imposes IMF Austerity

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10728149/Windfall-for-hedge-funds-and-Russian-banks-as-IMF-rescues-Ukraine.html

https://philebersole.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-shock-doctrine-in-ukraine/

The Ukraine government will sell off national assets at bargain prices, raise gas prices and cut public services as a condition for its loans to foreign banks to be paid off.  Yet I don’t read anything meaningful about this aspect in the national press.  Here are summaries of what is going on in Ukraine that are better than anything Americans are likely to read in their local newspapers or see on their local TV news programs.

The Danger of False Narrative

http://pando.com/2014/03/17/the-war-nerd-everything-you-know-about-crimea-is-wrong-er/

Another important aspect of the situation is the desire of certain neo-conservatives in the U.S. government to draw Ukraine into an anti-Russian alliance.   Vladimir Putin could not more tolerate the possibility of nuclear-armed American warships docking in Crimea than John F. Kennedy could tolerate Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-coup-in-crimea-or-in-russia/

http://nationalinterest.org/print/commentary/the-democratic-values-stake-ukraine-10069

Economic sanctions against Russia have a price that some countries – for example, Germany – may not be willing to pay..

http://www.dw.de/germanys-russian-energy-dilemma/a-17529685

That doesn’t mean that Ukrainians, including Russian speakers and ethnic Russians, necessarily want to be “rescued” by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117122/donetsk-letter-ukrainian-russians-dont-all-want-putin-protection

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n06/james-meek/putins-counter-revolution

http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/ukraine_famine.htm

Dmitry Orlov gives a Russian perspective on his ClubOrlov blog.

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-madness-of-president-putin.html

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/03/reichstag-fire-in-kiev.html

Pepe Escobar of Asia Times has sharp commentary on the geopolitical implications of the Ukraine crisis.   Read his articles to get an idea of how U.S. policy seems to the outside world.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-270314.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-250314.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-200314.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-170314.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-120314.html

There are links to the latest from Ian Welsh, Pepe Escobar and Dmitry Orlov on my Blogs I Like page.

The elusive facts about the Ukraine conflict

I have been trying for a couple of weeks to educate myself about the political conflict in Ukraine, and I am not sure even of basic facts.

Consider these two articles, each of which I would believe contained the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, if I hadn’t read the other.

A Petition by Scholars: Don’t Brand Kiev Maidan Protestors as Extremists.

The Crimean “Crisis” and Western Bias by Outlook Zen.  Hat tip to ClubOrlov.

About the only thing I feel sure of is that the Russian Federation, United States and other governments are trying to turn the Ukrainian political factions into their proxies in their global competition for geopolitical and economic power.