As the gravest refugee crisis since WWII continues unabated, everyday new reports give us privileged enough not to be personally effected mere glimpses at the outright horror that is being visited upon our brothers and sisters across the world on a daily basis.
A horror that has sparked the public to advocate
that “no person is illegal” in response to their governments shameful positions
which seek to keep refugees out at all costs while avoiding the main root
causes of the problem and their own complicity.(1)
Reading the Western media heavy emphasis is put
upon the criminal enterprises that are boating these refugees across the seas,
editorializing the situation to justify a heavy-handed response in order to ‘prosecute
the criminals.’ However, despite the
moral bankruptcy of seeking to profit from such a crisis, these enterprises
would have no demand had not so much death and destruction been inflicted upon
refugee homelands. Moreover one could
glean that refugees are less upset over the fees of those providing them an
opportunity to escape than they are with Western governments who refuse them,
and whom also foment instability in their countries.
Western leaders and media pundits alike are
straining to blame the crisis on official enemies and Western inaction. David Cameron blames
Assad in Syria along with “the butchers of ISIS and the criminal gangs that are
running this terrible trade in people,” yet, as Daniel McAdams points out, “proponents of the four-year US
policy of Syria destabilization and regime change are lining up to make their
case that the current refugee crisis… is one hundred percent the fault of both
Syrian president Assad and western non-interventionists who objected to plans
in 2013 for the US and UK to begin bombing Syria.”
Other Western publications do in fact have the
gall to actually criticize their own leaders’ guilt in the matter. The reasons?
The West has failed because it has simply not done enough, sat lazily on
the sidelines, and thus further intervention is needed.
Once again the only criticisms allowed in the
‘liberal’ western press are ones which presuppose benevolent intentions.
The sad truth however is that the alarming refugee
situation was a predictable outcome of the Wests’ crazed militant adventurism,
and the calls for the West to ‘do more’ are in actuality calls to exacerbate
the crisis by increasing that which caused it, thinly veiling themselves as dissident
criticisms.
The UNHCR calculates that some 366,402 Europe-bound
refugees have reached Europe by sea this year alone, the majority of which (51%)
are Syrians, while the next largest portions are from Afghanistan (14%),
Eritrea (8%), Nigeria (4%), and Iraq (3%).(2)
A total of 12 million Syrians have been displaced,
7.6 internally and 4 million abroad. In
Iraq more than 3 million have been displaced since December 2013. Poverty and destruction in Libya have also
caused hundreds of thousands to flee from Africa. 137,000 refugees migrated
this year while 1,800 never completed the journey and died at sea. 1.3 million are displaced inside Ukraine,
nearly all of them from the southeastern regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and
Kharkiv. 867,000 have left the country,
most going to Russia.(3)
Almost invariably, the major regions afflicted by
this crisis are also areas of either direct or indirect US military aggression
and intervention.
The invasion of Afghanistan was initially
justified through the declared motive of compelling the Taliban to hand over
people the US accused of having been involved in the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban agreed, requesting that first evidence
be provided. The Bush administration
refused to provide any. The reason? They didn’t have any.
The FBI and Justice Department have never formally
charged bin Laden with involvement in 9/11.
Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI, said that the
reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama’s Most Wanted page and why the DoJ never
formally indicted and charged him for the offense is because “the FBI has no
hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”(4)
The Taliban eventually agreed to hand over bin
Laden for trail in a country other than the US without asking for evidence in
return for a halt in the US bombing. The
White House refused this offer as well, and 3 weeks into the war announced that
the bombing would continue until the people of Afghanistan overthrew the
Taliban, a textbook example of international terrorism according to the US’ own
definition, and this would later became the official justification for the war.
The head of the FBI, after the most intense
international investigation in history, told the press that the FBI believed
that the plot might have been hatched in Afghanistan, but was most likely
implemented and carried out in the UAE and Germany.(5)
The Afghan invasion thus had nothing to do with
finding and bringing the criminals to justice, which could have been
accomplished through careful investigative and police work, but instead, as was
eventually admitted officially, was about regime change and thus control over
Afghanistan, wrecking the country through war and destruction while sending
countless fleeing for their lives.
As well, if the US’ declared ‘mission’ of going
after any state that harbored terrorists were actually implemented, it follows
that both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan would have been invaded as well.
According to an extensive investigation by
Britain’s leading international security scholar Nafeez Ahmed, in which
declassified documents, official government reports, and intelligence
official’s testimony are cited, specific intelligence was available to the US
that bin Laden was living in Pakistan under the protection of US allies for years
before the alleged 2011 assassination raid.
The US was stymied from acting due to its longstanding relations with
Saudi and Pakistani intelligence.(6)
Instead the response to 9/11 did not target these
2 US allies without whom the plot never could have succeeded, but instead was
aimed at countries the US sought to colonize, Iraq having no ties whatsoever to
al-Qaeda and being one of the main state-deterrents to jihadi radicalism.(7)
The true intentions behind the Iraq invasion, as
all official pretexts collapse instantly upon examination, were evidenced in a
“Declaration of Principles” document signed by Bush and then Prime Minister
Maliki in 2007. The agreement allowed
for a long-term US military presence in the country, if the enormous Green Zone
“embassy” wasn’t enough of an indication for the permanence of the US presence,
while as well explicitly stating that Iraq’s economy (meaning its oil
resources) would be open to the preferential access of US capital. A more blatant pronouncement of economic
imperialism one would be hard-pressed to find.
These reasons were further underscored a year
later when President Bush issued a signing statement declaring that any
congressional legislation which barred military spending from being used to
establish permanent US military installations in Iraq or from allowing the US
to exercise control over its oil resources would be rejected.(8)
The jihadism now plaguing Iraq was a direct result
of this decision to use the military to hit the country with a sledgehammer.
Former CIA officer Graham Fuller explains that
although the US did not plan the formation of ISIS, it was the destructive US
interventions in the Middle East and the war in Iraq which were the basic
causes of its creation.(9)
Tactics used by the occupiers exacerbated the violence
and sectarianism, pitting peaceful resistance movements in violent conflict
with radical jihadists, fostering intra-insurgent violence despite civilians
being caught within the crossfire, and supporting both Sunni, al-Qaeda linked
factions as well as government-run “Salvadorian option” Shia death-squads, all
part of a ‘divide and rule’ strategy that harkens back to the more brutal age
of ancient empires. All of this
transformed a society in which Shia and Sunni coexisted much like Protestant
and Catholics do in the West into a raging sectarian bloodbath, now one of the
most dangerous places in the world to live, forcing countless people to flee
their homes.(10)
After Iraq came Libya.
Before 2011 Libya was a main transport hub for the
Trans-Saharan migration routes that extended into southern Europe. According to 2006 estimates, between 65,000
and 120,000 entered the Maghreb region yearly, of which 70 to 80% are believed
to migrate through Libya. As well, Libya
was a final destination for many and housed those which failed to reach Europe,
taking in around 1 to 1.5 million while helping to mitigate European
immigration concerns. Going one step
further, Gaddafi also made deals with European states to forcibly shut down the
Libyan coast in exchange for large sums of money, dropping illegal immigration through
Libya down by 75% in 2009.(11)
All of this changed in 2011.
Gaddafi expressed willingness to abdicate shortly
after the beginning of the 2011 revolt, but the US ignored his calls for a
truce and continued with their regime-change policy, according to an extensive
study compiled by the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, a self-selected group of
former top level military officers, CIA officers, and academic think-tankers.
The report details how this policy included the
arming of terrorists to overthrow the Libyan state, “the U.S. was fully aware
of and facilitating the delivery of weapons to the al-Qa’eda dominated rebel
militias throughout the 2011 rebellion. The jihadist agenda of AQIM, the Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), and other Islamic terror groups represented among
the rebel forces was well known to U.S. officials responsible for Libya policy.
The rebels made no secret of their al-Qa’eda affiliation, openly flying and
speaking in front of the black flag of Islamic jihad, according to author John
Rosenthal and multiple media reports.
And yet, the White House and senior Congressional members deliberately and
knowingly pursued a policy that provided material support to terrorist
organizations in order to topple a ruler who had been working closely with the
West actively to suppress al-Qa’eda.”(12)
According
to a 2007 report by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, the city of
Benghazi was one of al-Qaeda’s main headquarters. Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi
in 2011 under the pretext that it was an al-Qaeda hotbed, however NATO
warplanes prevented him from doing so, protecting the city and the al-Qaeda
factions stationed there that the US had allied with. Afterwards, the black flag of al-Qaeda was
hoisted off government buildings in Benghazi.(13)
Following
Gaddafi’s fall Libya transcended into what Senator Rand Paul calls “a
jihadist wonderland.” The Obama
administration also then, with the support of British intelligence and in
collusion with allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, created a ‘rat line’ into
Syria.
Authorized in 2012, it was used to funnel weapons
and ammunition from Libya through southern Turkey and across the Syrian border
to the opposition. Pulitzer Prize
winning journalist Seymour Hersh notes that “Many of those in Syria who
ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with
al-Qaida.”(14)
Obama then continued along the Libyan model by
once again supporting al-Qaeda, this time to overthrow the Syrian president.
At least as far back as 2005 the US has been
financing and training anti-government opposition groups in Syria with a view
toward regime-change.(15)
Come 2011 United States Air Force (USAF) officers
at the Lieutenant Colonel level would confirm in leaked WikiLeaks email
exchanges that US Special Operations Forces were “already on the ground” in
Syria prior to December of that year, whose mission it was to “commit guerrilla
attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces”
and “elicit collapse from within.”(16)
A secret US-NATO base was established in Turkey in
order to organize and expand the dissident base in the country, smuggle in
weapons, conduct psychological operations and information warfare, and to
funnel intelligence and military operators across the border.(17)
US-led
operation rooms were set up in Turkey and Qatar where the CIA and MI6, along
with Jordanian, Saudi, Turkish, and Qatari intelligence commanded and
coordinated support to the rebel opposition to the tune of 1 billion dollars
per year from the CIA alone. The US
oversaw the operation, providing intelligence and deciding on which rebels
would receive the weapons shipments, which were mainly supplied by Saudi Arabia
and Qatar. According to classified
assessments from US intelligence, most of these shipments were going to
“hard-line Islamists.”(18)
Training camps were also set up in Qatar and
Jordan.
According to high-level Jordanian officials, rebels
trained at the base in Jordan would later go on to join ISIS.(19) Despite this, the training continued.
At the base in Qatar, rebel commanders describe
how they were trained specifically to break the Geneva Conventions and “finish
off” wounded and surrendered soldiers after an ambush.(20)
Former CIA officer Phil Giraldi would note that “CIA
analysts are skeptical regarding the march to war. The frequently cited United
Nations report that more than 3,500 civilians have been killed by Assad’s
soldiers is based largely on rebel sources and is uncorroborated. The [Central
Intelligence] Agency has refused to sign off on the claims. Likewise, accounts
of mass defections from the Syrian Army and pitched battles between deserters
and loyal soldiers appear to be a fabrication, with few defections being
confirmed independently. Syrian government claims that it is being assaulted by
rebels who are armed, trained, and financed by foreign governments are more
true than false.”(21)
And while US allies openly supported al-Qaeda and
ISIS under US supervision, the US armed supposedly “moderate” factions who were
working alongside the terrorists, committing the same kinds of atrocities while
funneling US-supplied weapons to them.(22)
US intelligence as well foresaw the rise of an
“Islamic State” given all of this support for an extremist dominated
opposition, yet saw the development as strategically beneficial and therefore
increased its level of assistant in the following years.(23)
All of this culminating in a sectarian opposition
dominated by al-Qaeda and ISIS.(24)
Currently Turkey and Saudi Arabia are openly
supporting al-Qaeda and various other jihadi entities, while Qatar maintains
good relations with al-Nusra and Turkey as well supports the Islamic
State. Saudi Arabia too shows no
convincing evidence that it has stopped supporting ISIS, while the CIA still
supports up to 10,000 rebels under a program which has mainly gone to aid
“hard-line Islamists.” In addition, the
US has been instrumental in facilitating Pentagon-supported rebels to fight
alongside jihadi extremists.(25)
The anti-ISIS coalition, made up of the main
states which were instrumental in supporting ISIS’ rise, has predictably been a
complete failure. Turkey, although
officially taking part in the coalition, continues to support ISIS, while the
jihadi group has only increased in strength as a result of the illegal US
bombings which have massacred hundreds of civilians.(26)
Like Libya, where US intervention created chaos
and proliferated extremism, Syria is now a magnet for aspiring terrorists, a
land overrun by violent extremists and foreign-manufactured war and therefore
contributes the most significant number of refugees out of any country to a
global displacement crisis the likes of which has never been seen since the
Second World War.
Yet it doesn’t end with Syria. As NATO and its ally’s attack the Syrian
state by proxy, Russia has drawn a red-line and bolstered its Middle Eastern
ally, effectively preventing a repeat of what occurred in Libya.
Given this, another front was opened up by the US
against Russia in Ukraine, in what Stratfor chief George Friedman calls “the most blatant coup in
history.”
Partly the culmination of inertia from decades of
regime-change efforts and EU/NATO expansion, and partly utilized as a way to
punish Russia for defying the US policy in Syria, the violent seizure of power
in Ukraine was the result of an externalization by foreign powers of internal
Ukrainian political divisions.
Ukraine is divided between east and west by two
contrasting visions of Ukrainian statehood.
The western regions predominantly adhere to what Professor Richard Sakwa
titles a “monist nationalist” vision, a form of nationalism which prioritizes
the need to create an officially monolingual, unitary, and culturally specific “Ukrainian”
state distinct from its neighbors, mainly Russia. This model seeks to restore an idealized
vision of statehood, not to reflect the existing, pluralistic realities of the
current Ukrainian society, and seeks greater relations with the EU and the West. At the extreme ends of this model are the militant
ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi groups. The
contrasting vision of statehood predominantly held by those in the south and
east is that pluralism, which appeals to the principle of national inclusivity
for all of the country’s disparate peoples, while still upholding a shared
Ukrainian identity. This model thus
opposes the nationalizing strain of the monists and favors strong and
cooperative relations with Russia.(27)
The West’s decision to use the EU Association Agreement
as a means to leverage Ukraine out of Russia’s and into its own orbit of
influence, giving Yanukovych an ultimatum while ruling out calls by him and
Russia for a negotiated settlement(28), saw the West ally itself with one half
of the country against the other along a zero-sum, us-or-them mentality,
exacerbating the internal tensions and eventually culminating in a violent seizure
of power.
The US and EU provided financial, material, and
political support to the opposition, whose militancy, propagandistically
protected and enabled by the US, was led by far-right ultranationalist
extremist the EU itself had denounced just years prior.(29)
The violent takeover of the state was endorsed by
the US, although it was unconstitutional, broke an EU-brokered settlement
agreed upon the day before, and saw unpopular ultra-nationalist leaders gain
influential posts within the new government.(30)
A client administration was installed which
immediately set out to silence any opposition to its rule. Given that the parties and politicians most
supported in the east were driven out and purged as a result of the coup, the
US-supported Kiev regime represented only the western regions and sought to
instill its rule over a counter-coup revolt in the east that was rising up
against it.(31)
Despite mirroring the exact same tactics used by
the Maidan months before, Kiev and the West rejected the legitimacy of the eastern
uprising and blamed it all solely on Russia, completely voiding out the
humanity and legitimate grievances of the eastern Ukrainians, reducing them to
nothing more than ‘terrorists’ and ‘Russian agents’ despite their shared desire
for a unified Ukraine, albeit a differently envisioned unified Ukraine.(32)
Given a choice of negotiating with the differing
views of the east or forcibly consolidating its rule by violently suppressing
the dissent, Kiev launched a military campaign against its own citizens and
their Russian backers at the behest of the United States.(33)
On its first launch, Kiev’s military was met by
unarmed Ukrainian citizens. Mothers,
grandmothers, and local inhabitants halted the tanks and soldiers, asking who
they had come to fight, their own families and citizens?(34)
The convoy was forced to retreat, yet days after
at again the behest of the US, the war machine was once again launched(35),
this time succeeding in devastating and massacring the civilian populations in
the east.
As the conflict has raged on, the unspoken of fact
is that the Ukrainian military is targeting residential towns, villages, and
buildings, causing countless civilian deaths while decimating the local
infrastructure.(36)
It was because of this fateful decision of
choosing to externalize all the blame on Russia for Ukraine’s internal
political divisions while also launching a military operation to suppress the
dissent against Kiev’s own violent seizure of power that so many families are
being forced to flee from their homes.
Under the backdrop of Kiev shelling its own
citizen population in the east was the Ukrainian addition to the refugee crisis
born...
Much more can be said about all of this, and about
many more interventions the US has embarked upon, yet the incontrovertible
takeaway is the massive humanitarian toll and suffering that has been the
result of all of this adventurism.
Many though are lining up to blame the West’s
enemies for the humanitarian scourge of displacement that is occurring, however
the common denominator in all these areas are not the presence of US enemies
but of US aggression and meddling.
The same leaders and supporters of Western
aggression who are attempting to use this crisis as a means to further their
ignorant and militant narratives are most to blame for creating it with their prior
displays of imperial aggression along the same narratives.
Any who profess concern over this inhumanity
without calling for an end to the destructive interventions which are its
causes are therefore only adding to the horrors they claim to seek to stop.
The imperial, exceptionalist mindset of the West which
claims ownership for itself over the entirety of the world no matter how much
death and destruction it causes is the true humanitarian catastrophe we now
face in our times, of which this refugee crisis is unfortunately just one, inevitable
symptom.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For another perspective, Afraa Dagher, an
architect and political activist living in Syria, lends an insightful look at
this crisis from the eyes of someone living in the country most affected by it:
“Hundreds of thousands of refugees are continuing to flee from countries of conflict, in the Middle East and Africa.The sad point is that many of those refugees are Syrians. Syria, the country which used to welcome refugees from the war zone countries, such as Palestine, Armenia, Somalia, Iraq and Libya. Syria, the country which was one of the safer countries in the world just years ago before this global plot and global proxy war on Syria.Syrians cross in illegal ways from Syria to Turkey, then to Greece, Macedonia and Europe.
Most of them drown in the sea because of no safer automotive is affordable to transfer them, though they pay huge amounts of money to warmonger merchants who manage to provide the transfer facilities to them.
Those merchants most of them based in Turkey, also most of those refugees are fleeing from their camps in Turkey to Europe, the question is why do they leave Turkey now?On the other side the west handles this crisis in a bad way, forces on the border, more borders controlled, more fences. So there is no real solution, the west is really far from a solution.
At the same time the west blames Syria all the time for Palestinian refugees, accuses Syria of besiege them, which is not true at all, Palestinians in Syria have same Syrians rights, however they are also under terrorists attack as well as Syrians.While Germany eases the rules of migration for those refugees and welcomes migrants, sets up camps, and calls for a conference to find a solution to deal better with those refugees.
Camps like these in Turkey and Jordan are not a solution, maybe Saudi and Qatar the two countries who funded the war against Syrians will send money to Europe as a help for those refugees expenses!, however these Arab gulfs countries didn't welcome them, and didn't help them in Jordan camps.
Did Mrs. Merkel think of lifting sanctions on Syrian people, or to stop supporting the so-called moderate rebels?
Or the west see it is better to use this crisis against the Syrians' homeland, to help Syrians to live in peace, as they used to do before the west intervention in Syria, is a better solution if the west was really interested in helping them. Destroying Syrians' homeland and giving them the name: refugee, is another catastrophe for Arabs, it is enough to have one catastrophe, the Palestinian one.Actually the reason behind this crisis which is considered the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two, is the western policy towards the Middle East, the interventions in these countries, bombing countries like Libya by NATO, nurturing the radical terrorist opposition organizations like in Syria under the name of freedom seekers, creating the chaos as in Iraq.Also destroying the economy in these countries as in Syria, when Europe and USA imposed sanction on Syrians, which increased the poverty, simultaneously when bombing the infrastructures of Syria by the so-called moderate rebels, who are backed by the west.Some wrote the refugee crisis is promoted by civil war! while it is promoted by the west's intervention in these countries, it is a global crisis and a global responsibility.There is some agenda of evacuating the original people of countries like Syria, by committed massacres against them by the terrorist organizations, and to escalate the war in their countries, so they leave their countries which turned into war zone countries, and they seek human asylum.And it will not be weird if the west used this card against our governments, to bomb Syria is a dream of some west leaders, they always want to do it under any pretext, regardless if many refugees are from Africa and countries like Libya, regardless of the Palestinian refugees since 1948, regardless of what is going on now against Yemeni people.”
For more
from Afraa, follow her @syrianasoldier on Twitter, “Afraa Dagher” on Facebook,
and her blog at https://syrianaafrona.wordpress.com/.
Notes:
1.)
Rick Lyman, “Treatment of Migrants Evokes
Memories of Europe’s Darkest Hour.” The
New York Times, 4 September 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/world/treatment-of-migrants-evokes-memories-of-europes-darkest-hour.html?partner=rss&emc=rss;
Only 0.25 million of Syria’s total 20 million refugees (less than 2% of the
total) have made it to Europe. Syrian refugees are not allowed to apply for
asylum in embassies of EU countries in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan where they
mostly are accumulated, so they must travel illegally to EU countries in order
to exercise their right of applying for asylum. The discussed EU quota plan to
allow application before entering the EU only includes 20,000, or 0.2% of the
Syrian refugees. So the EU essentially does everything it can to stop more than
99% of the Syrian refugees from applying for the asylum they are legally
entitled to. “Where Are the Syrian Refugees?” Gapminder Foundation, 9 June 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_QrIapiNOw;
However, Germany’s “open door” policy is helping as 8,000 refugees recently
entered the country. Yet still, in 2014 only around 45% of asylum applications
made to European governments were accepted, at least half were turned away. Katrin
Bennhold, et al., “Germans Welcome Migrants After Long Journey Through Hungary
and Austria.” The New York Times, 5
September 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/world/europe/migrant-crisis-austria-hungary-germany.html?partner=rss&emc=rss.
2.)
“Refugees/Migrants Emergency Response –
Mediterranean.” United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) The UN Refugee Agency. http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.html.
Accessed on 9/5/15.
3.)
Patrick Boehler & Sergio Peçanha, “The
Global Refugee Crisis, Region by Region.” The
New York Times, 26 August 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/09/world/migrants-global-refugee-crisis-mediterranean-ukraine-syria-rohingya-malaysia-iraq.html.
4.)
Ed Haas, “FBI says, ‘No hard evidence connecting
Bin Laden to 9/11.’” Muckraker Report,
6 June 2006. https://web.archive.org/web/20070507051205/http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html.
5.)
Rory McCarthy, “New offer on Bin Laden.” The Guardian, 17 October 2001. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/17/afghanistan.terrorism11;
“Noam Chomsky: US-led Afghan War, Criminal.” Press TV, 3 November 2010. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26756.htm.
6.)
Nafeez Ahmed, “The bin Laden death mythology.” Medium, 3 July 2015. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-bin-laden-death-mythology-9a3776a6e3c3.
7.)
“The first moves from Washington made it clear
that the anti-terror war would be waged without any confrontation with Saudi
Arabia or Pakistan, two close US allies, despite the fact that without the
involvement of these two countries 9/11 was unlikely to have happened.” “The ‘war on terror’ has failed because it
did not target the jihadi movement as a whole and, above all, was not aimed at
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two countries that fostered jihadism as a creed
and a movement.” Patrick Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New
Sunni Revolution (New York and London: Verso, 2015), pp. 4, 58.
8.)
The ‘Declaration of Principles’ document
stipulated extensive US military influence (i.e. control) over Iraq’s security
policy, never mentioning a US military withdrawal. In terms of the ‘economic sphere’ the two
parties agreed upon the principle of “Facilitating and encouraging the flow of
foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments…” Text of the "Declaration of
Principles" between Iraq and the United States, issued by the White House
on Nov. 26, 2007. http://www.dickatlee.com/etwf/bush_maliki.html;
Bill Van Auken, “Bush rejects congressional ban on permanent bases in Iraq.” World Socialist Web Site, 1 February
2008. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/02/iraq-f01.html;
Noam Chomsky, “It’s the Oil, Stupid!” Chomsky.info,
23 May 2015. http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080708.htm.
9.)
Ezgi Basaran, “Former CIA officer says US
policies helped create IS.” Al-Monitor,
2 September 2014. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2014/09/turkey-usa-iraq-syria-isis-fuller.html#.
10.)
A 2008 US Army-commissioned RAND report outlines
a ‘Divide and Rule’ strategy for US engagement in the region, noting that the
strategy “focuses on exploiting fault lines between various SJ (Salafi-jihadi)
groups to turn them against each other…” The report calls for the US to “capitalize
on the Shia-Sunni conflict by taking the side of the conservative Sunni
regimes… and working with them against all Shiite empowerment movements in the
Muslim world” while as well maintaining “a strong strategic relationship with
the Iraqi Shiite government.” The report confirms that the ‘Divide and Rule’
strategy was already being deployed in Iraq “to create divisions in the jihadist
camp. Today in Iraq such a strategy is being used at the tactical level,” by
forming “temporary alliances” with al-Qaeda affiliated “nationalist insurgent
groups.” Although they have directly fought against the US for four years and
“cooperated with al-Qaeda against US forces,” these groups are now being
supported to exploit “the common threat that al-Qaeda now poses to both
parties.” Christopher G. Pernin et al., “Unfolding the Future of the Long War.”
RAND Corporation, 2008. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG738.pdf;
Nafeez Ahmed, “Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels
would create ISIS.” Insurge Intelligence,
22 May 2015. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092;
Early on during the invasion the US covertly supplied arms to al-Qaeda
affiliated insurgents while propping up a Shia-dominated government. Pakistani
defense sources confirmed to Asia Times that ‘former Ba’ath party’ loyalists
were being supplied Pakistani-manufactured weapons by the US. These ‘former Ba’ath party’ loyalists were
being recruited and trained by al-Qaeda in Iraq under the leadership of Abu
Musab Zarqawi. The arms “could not be destined for the Iraqi security forces
because US arms would be given to them”, a source told Asia Times’ Pakistan
bureau chief Syed Saleem Shahzad, who was “known for his exposes of the
Pakistani military” according to the New Yorker, and was murdered in 2011. Syed
Saleem Shahzad, “US fights back against ‘rule by clerics.’” Asia Times, 15 February, 2005. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GB15Ak02.html;
Nafeez Ahmed, “Caught red-handed.” The
Raw Story, 23 September, 2005. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/CAUGHT_RED__0923.html;
Nafeez Ahmed, “How the west created the Islamic State.” Insurge Intelligence, 11 September 2014. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-west-created-the-islamic-state-dbfa6f83bc1f;
According to a report for the US Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) and
Strategic Studies Department titled “Dividing Our Enemies”, post-invasion Iraq
strategy relied upon pursuing public legitimacy through social welfare programs
while simultaneously delegitimizing local enemies by escalating intra-insurgent
violence, even though this would harm civilians. The report notes that Iraq post-invasion was
“an interesting case study of fanning discontent among enemies, leading to
‘red-against-red’ [enemy-against-enemy] firefights,” this strategy however “involves
no effort to win over those caught in the crossfire of insurgent and
counterinsurgent warfare, whether by bullet or broadcast. On the contrary, this
underside of the counterinsurgency coin is calculated to exploit or create
divisions among adversaries for the purpose of fomenting enemy-on-enemy deadly
encounters.” The ‘enemies’ included jihadis, Ba’athists, as well as peaceful
Sufis. “Evidence of factional fighting between the residents came to light with
nightly gun battles not involving coalition forces. These firefights between
insurgent factions represented the impact of U.S. psychological operations (PSYOP),
which took advantage of and deepened the intra-insurgent forces. The PSYOP
contingent cleverly crafted programs to exploit Zarqawi’s murderous activities
and to broadcast them countrywide, thereby diminishing his folk-hero image
among Iraqis. Although the jihadis and Baathists shared hostility to the U.S.
military forces surrounding Fallujah, their mutual antipathy to each other
presented an opportunity to turn them against each other.” Thomas H. Henriksen,
“Dividing Our Enemies.” Joint Special
Operations University (JSOU), November 2005. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2005/0511_jsou-report-05-5.pdf;
Nafeez Ahmed, “How the west created the Islamic State.” Insurge Intelligence, 11 September 2014. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-west-created-the-islamic-state-dbfa6f83bc1f;
US employs the “Salvadorian Option” for Iraq utilizing Shi’ite paramilitaries
to lethally quell Sunni uprisings. Michael Hirsh and John Barry, “The Salvador
Option.” Newsweek, 9 January 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20050110030928/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/;
Mona Mahmood et al., “Revealed: Pentagon's link to Iraqi torture centres.” The Guardian, 6 March 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link;
Mona Mahmood, et al., “From El Salvador to Iraq: Washington’s man behind brutal
police squads.” The Guardian, 6 March
2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/06/el-salvador-iraq-police-squads-washington;
According to the UK based monitoring group Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) Iraq
topped the worlds ‘most dangerous’ places list in June of 2015. “Iraq tops
‘most dangerous’ place in world list.” RT,
22 June 2015. http://www.rt.com/uk/268810-top-ten-dangerous-countries/.
11.) Hein
de Haas, “Trans-Saharan Migration to North Africa and the EU: Historical Roots
and Current Trends.” Migration Policy
Institute, 1 November 2006. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/trans-saharan-migration-north-africa-and-eu-historical-roots-and-current-trends;
Dan Murphy, “How the fall of Qaddafi gave rise to Europe’s migrant crisis.” Christian Science Monitor, 21 April
2015. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2015/0421/How-the-fall-of-Qaddafi-gave-rise-to-Europe-s-migrant-crisis-video.
12.)“How America Switched Sides
in the War on Terror: An Interim Report by the Citizens’ Commission on
Benghazi.” Citizens’ Commission on
Benghazi, 22 April 2014. http://www.aim.org/benghazi/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CCB-Interim-Report-4-22-2014.pdf;
“Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought
against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against
Muammar Gaddafi's regime.” Praveen Swami, et al., “Libyan rebel commander
admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links.” The
Telegraph, 25 March 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html.
13.)“Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign
Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records.” Combating Terrorism center at West Point, 2007. http://www.scribd.com/doc/111001074/West-Point-CTC-s-Al-Qa-ida-s-Foreign-Fighters-in-Iraq;
Rob Crilly, “Libya: Benghazi about to fall… then came the planes.” The Telegraph, 20 March 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8393843/Libya-Benghazi-about-to-fall...-then-came-the-planes.html;
Sam Greenhill, “Flying proudly over the birthplace of Libya’s revolution, the
flag of Al Qaeda.” The Daily Mail, 2
November 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055630/Flying-proudly-birthplace-Libyas-revolution-flag-Al-Qaeda.html.
14.)
Seymour
Hersh, “The Red Line and the Rat Line.” London
Review of Books, 17 April 2014. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line;
A declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document dated October of 2012
confirms the existence, as well as the Obama administration awareness of, the
‘rat line,’ “Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped
from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj
Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles,
RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.
During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused
by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September
of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi,
Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and
the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small
amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport
the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers
of cargo.” Judicial Watch, 18 May
2015. https://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/pgs-1-3-2-3-from-jw-v-dod-and-state-14-812/.
15.)Craig Whitlock, “U.S.
secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show.” Washington Post, 17 April 2011. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html;
“US trains activists to evade security forces.” AFP, 8 April 2011. http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/us-trains-activists-to-evade-security.html;
Ron Nixon, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings.” The New York Times, 14 April 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1.
16.)
The Global Intelligence Files, “INSIGHT –
military intervention in Syria, post withdrawal status of forces.” WikiLeaks, 6 March 2012. https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/16/1671459_insight-military-intervention-in-syria-post-withdrawal.html.
17.)Sibel Edmonds breaks the
story on the existence of a secret US-NATO base in Turkey, and further explains
its operations to organize and expand the dissident base, smuggle in weapons, conduct
psychological operations and information warfare, and to funnel intelligence
and military operators across the border. Sibel Edmonds, “BFP Exclusive:
Syria- Secret US-NATO Training & Support Camp to Oust Current Syrian
President.” BoilingFrogsPost, 21 November 2011. http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/11/21/bfp-exclusive-syria-secret-us-nato-training-support-camp-to-oust-current-syrian-president/;
James Corbett interviews former Syrian journalist Nizar Nayouf, previously
imprisoned for 10 years for speaking out against the Syrian government, who
accounts how hundreds of foreign soldiers were seen moving back and forth near
the Jordanian-Syrian border. James Corbett, “BREAKING: US Troops Deploying on
Jordan-Syria Border.” CorbettReport, 11 December 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v1h1bUfCVc.
18.)
Greg Miller et al., “Secret CIA effort in Syria
faces large funding cut.” Washington Post,
12 June 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html;
David E. Sanger, “Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria.” The New York Times, 14 October 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/middleeast/jihadists-receiving-most-arms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&.
19.)
Aaron Klein, “Blowback! U.S. Trained Islamists
Who Joined ISIS.” WND, 17 August 2014.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/officials-u-s-trained-isis-at-secret-base-in-jordan/.
20.)
“They trained us to ambush regime or enemy
vehicles and cut off the road. They also
trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons
and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”
“Syria: Arming the Rebels.” Frontline,
27 May 2014. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-arming-the-rebels/;
The Conventions offer protections to wounded combatants, and prisoners of war
must be humanely treated at all times. “Reference Guide to the Geneva Conventions.”
Society of Professional Journalists. http://www.spj.org/gc-index.asp#woundedcombatants.
21.)Philip Giraldi, “NATO vs.
Syria.” The American Conservative, 19
December 2011. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/nato-vs-syria/.
22.)
Josh Rogin, “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS.”
The Daily Beast, 14 June 2014. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html;
“Biden: Turks, Saudis, UAE funded and armed Al Nusra and Al Qaeda.” Mideast Shuffle, 4 October 2014. http://mideastshuffle.com/2014/10/04/biden-turks-saudis-uae-funded-and-armed-al-nusra-and-al-qaeda/;
“General Dempsey acknowledges U.S. Arab allies funding ISIS.” C-SPAN, 20 September 2014. http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4509231/general-dempsey-acknowledges-us-arab-allies-funding-isis;
All of this was coordinated out of US-led operation rooms in Turkey and Jordan,
Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition.” The New York Times, 21 June 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?_r=0;
Mark Hosenball, “Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret U.S. support for Syrian
rebels.” Reuters, 1 August 2012. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/01/us-usa-syria-obama-order-idUSBRE8701OK20120801;
Adam Entous, et al., “A Veteran Saudi Power Player Works To Build Support to
Topple Assad.” The Wall Street Journal,
25 August 2013. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323423804579024452583045962;
FSA commander: “We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front”,
Elise Knutsen, “Frustration drives Arsal’s FSA into ISIS ranks.” The Daily
Star, September 8, 2014. http://cached.newslookup.com/cached.php?ref_id=394&siteid=2319&id=8144452&t=1410149280;
US-backed SRF commander: “If the people who support us tell us to send weapons
to another group, we send them. They [Jabhat al-Nusra] asked us a month ago to
send weapons to Yabroud so we sent a lot of weapons there. When they asked us
to do this, we do it.” Isabel Hunter, “'I am not fighting against al-Qa’ida…
it’s not our problem', says West’s last hope in Syria.” The Independent,
April 2nd, 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/i-am-not-fighting-againstalqaida-itsnot-our-problem-says-wests-last-hope-in-syria-9233424.html;
US-backed commander Okaidi: “My relationship with the brothers in ISIL is good…
I communicate almost daily with brothers in ISIL… the relationship is good,
even brotherly… They [al-Nusra] did not exhibit any abnormal behavior, which is
different from that of the FSA.” Joshua Landis, “US Key Man in Syria Worked
Closely with ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra.” https://twitter.com/joshua_landis/status/504610185952784384;
Then US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford admits US-backed rebels collaborated
with ISIS and al-Qaeda, Brad Hoff. Levant Report, May 25th,
2015. http://levantreport.com/tag/robert-ford/.
23.)
Nafeez Ahmed, “Pentagon report predicted West’s
support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS: Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly
sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion.’” Insurge Intelligence, 22 May 2015. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092;
Nafeez Ahmed, “Ex-intel officials: Pentagon report proves US complicity in
ISIS.” Insurge Intelligence, 2 June
2015. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/ex-intel-officials-pentagon-report-proves-us-complicity-in-isis-fabef96e20da.
24.)
“…the Syrian military opposition is dominated by
ISIS and by Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al-Qaeda representative, in addition
to other extreme jihadi groups. In
reality, there is no dividing wall between them and America’s supposedly
moderate opposition allies.” Patrick Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution (New
York and London: Verso, 2015), pp. 3.
25.)
Desmond Butler, “Turkey Officials Confirm Pact
With Saudi Arabia to Help Rebels Fighting Syria’s Assad.” Huffington Post,
7 May 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/turkey-saudi-arabia-syria-rebels-pact_n_7232750.html;
Kim Sengupta, “Turkey and Saudi Arabia alarm the West by backing Islamist
extremists the Americans had bombed in Syria.” The Independent, 12 May 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-turkey-and-saudi-arabia-shock-western-countries-by-supporting-antiassad-jihadists-10242747.html;
“Sources within and close to Nusra said that Qatar, which enjoys good relations
with the group…” Mariam Karouny, “Syria’s Nusra Front may leave Qaeda to form
new entity.” Reuters, 4 March 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/04/us-mideast-crisis-nusra-insight-idUSKBN0M00GE20150304;
Former Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) officer blows the whistle on MIT
organizing and coordinating “all incursions of jihadi murderers from Turkey to
Syrian territory.” Heba, “Part 2: Stunning revelations from former Turkish
Intelligence Agency officer.” The Arab
Source, 1 March 2015. http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/part-2-stunning-revelations-former-turkish-intelligence-agency-officer/;
Humeyra Pamuk et al., “Exclusive - Turkish intelligence helped ship arms to
Syrian Islamist rebel areas.” Reuters,
21 May 2015. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/21/uk-mideast-crisis-turkey-arms-exclusive-idUKKBN0O61L020150521;
Despite some signs of retrenchment in their ISIS-supporting policy, like
crackdowns on Saudi fighters heading for Syria and the removal of Prince Bandar
bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia shows no convincing evidence apart from verbal denials
that it isn’t continuing to facilitate ISIS funding. The official narrative is
that it is private Saudi donors that fund ISIS while the state is unable to
stop them. This strains belief as the state is ruled by an iron fist. If any
change has occurred it is likely to be that the Saudi state has taken steps to
distance its involvement while it continues to use wealthy donors, who
presumably provided the funds that were then transferred by the state all
along, as its proxies; The CIA rebel train-and-equip program, separate from the
Pentagons program, has aupported “nearly 10,000 fighters” over the past several
years, Greg Miller et al., “Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut.”
Washington Post, 12 June 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html;
According to US intelligence, this CIA program has from the beginning largely
gone to aid “hard-line Islamists”, David E. Sanger, “Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to
Benefit Jihadists in Syria.” The New York
Times, 14 October 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/middleeast/jihadists-receiving-most-arms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&;
Rebel commanders confirm that US-led operation rooms “specifically encouraged a
closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.” The US-led
operations rooms were “instrumental in facilitating their [Islamists]
involvement in the [Idlib] operation from early April onwards.” Charles Lister,
“Why Assad Is Losing.” 5 May 2015. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/05/why-assad-is-losing-syria-islamists-saudi/.
26.)
Nafeez Ahmed, “Why the war on ISIS will fail.” Middle East Eye, 16 December 2014. http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-war-isis-will-fail-1513487412;
Kadri Gursel, “Turkish daily exposes transfer of weapons to IS.” Al-Monitor, 1 September 2015. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/09/turkey-syria-daily-exposes-transfer-weapons-supplies-to-isis.html#;
Jim Michaels, “Islamic State recruiting offsets 15,000 killed by airstrikes in
past year.” USA Today, 29 July 2015. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/29/air-campaign-kills-15000-isis-militants-pentagon-iraq-syria/30750327/;
“The ‘Islamic State’ is stronger than it was when it was first proclaimed on 29
June last year…” Patrick Cockburn, “Isis, a year of the caliphate: Have US
tactics only helped to make Islamists more powerful?” The Independent, 26 June 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-a-year-of-the-caliphate-have-us-tactics-played-into-islamist-hands-10345905.html;
Alice Ross, “Hundreds of civilians killed in US-led air strikes on Isis targets
– report.” The Guardian, 3 August
2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/03/us-led-air-strikes-on-isis-targets-killed-more-than-450-civilians-report.
27.)
“Thus the monist model is one of integrated
nationalism, in which the state is a nationalising one, drawing on the
tradition of Ukrainism to fill the existing borders with a content sharply
distinguished from Russia. It would be
officially monolingual, unitary and culturally specific.” “The core of the
problem is an ideological one. At the heart of the monist model… the aim is not
to reflect existing realities, above all the different histories of the
territories making up contemporary Ukraine, but to restore some idealised
vision of that statehood.” “This brings us to the second paradigm of Ukrainian
state development, which I call the pluralist
to denote its appeal to broad principles of national inclusiveness. At
root, this model proposes that the post-Communist Ukrainian state is home to
many disparate peoples, reflecting its long history of fragmented statehood and
the way that its contemporary borders include territories with very different
histories, but that they all share an orientation to a civic Ukrainian
identity.” “The pluralist model argues that all the peoples making up
contemporary Ukraine have an equal stake in the development of the country, and
thus opposes the nationalising strain...” “The monist view is obviously
stronger in the western part of the country, while the pluralist approach is stronger
in the east and the south.” Richard Sakwa, Frontline
Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), pp. 15, 21,
23, 24.
28.)
The EU gives Yanukovych an ultimatum to either sign
with them or sign with Russia, but rejects a joint deal amidst calls from
Yanukovych and Russia for tripartite discussions to resolve the differences. “Ukraine
'still wants to sign EU deal.'” Al
Jazeera, 29 November 2013. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/11/ukraine-still-wants-sign-eu-deal-20131129111345619208.html;
“The idea that Russia opposed Ukraine’s association with the EU needs to be
modified by an understanding that the struggle prior to the planned signing of
the Association Agreement sought to align Ukraine with the EEU [the Russian-led
Eurasian Economic Union], but not necessarily to force Ukraine to join it. In
part, the campaign was an attempt to get the EU to engage in a genuine dialogue
about the conditions on which Ukraine would sign up to association with the EU,
including security issues. This campaign was conducted in a typically
heavy-handed and alienating manner, with bans, boycotts and the like
accompanied by some ferocious rhetoric from Sergei Glazyev and others, but some
genuine issues were raised. Above all, Russia repeatedly warned that it would
take measures to stop poor-quality Ukrainian and relabeled EU goods flooding
into the Russian market once better-quality EU goods had free access to
Ukraine. The compatibility of two free-trade areas is a matter that should, and
could, have been sorted out calmly by technocrats on both sides but instead
became politicized.” Richard Sakwa, Frontline
Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), pp. 206; For
more on this, see my “The Mistaken Analysis on Ukraine.” Reports from Underground, 6 September 2014. http://undergroundreports.blogspot.fr/2014/09/follies-of-western-hubris-mistaken.html.
29.)
Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and
Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland confirms that the US has invested $5 billion
in Ukraine since 1991 to “support the Ukrainians.” “Regime Change in Kiev.” Information Clearing House, 9 February
2014. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm;
However, in terms of these ‘democracy promotion’ programs, International
Relations scholar John J. Mearsheimer notes that “and when you talk about
promoting democracy, what you’re really talking about is putting in power
leaders who are pro-Western and anti-Russian… promoting democracy, which was
all about putting in power pro-Western leaders.” Mearsheimer quoted in Labor
Beat YouTube recording, 26 January 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhILmIvBe6o&feature=youtu.be;
“it is clear that Washington backed the coup. Nuland and Republican Senator
John McCain participated in antigovernment demonstrations, and Geoffrey Pyatt,
the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, proclaimed after Yanukovych’s toppling that it
was “a day for the history books.” As a leaked telephone recording revealed,
Nuland had advocated regime change and wanted the Ukrainian politician Arseniy
Yatsenyuk to become prime minister in the new government, which he did.” John
J. Mearsheimer, “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault.” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2014.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-18/why-ukraine-crisis-west-s-fault;
The militancy of the EuroMaidan was led by ultranationalist groups Svoboda and
Right Sector. The violence was protected by Obama in his repeated public
references to the protests as being wholly “nonviolent”, giving them the green
light to continue the violence without fears of reprisals from the West; In
2012 the EU condemned the Svoboda party, whose members gained top ministerial
positions and seats on the parliament following the February coup. “European
Parliament resolution of 13 December 2012 on the situation in Ukraine,” Section
8. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2012-0507+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN.
30.)
Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris,
2015), pp. 93, 94, 95.
31.) Richard Sakwa, Chapter 6
“When History Comes Calling”, “Purging the State”, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris,
2015), pp. 135-140; “Only two ministers from the entire south and east,
covering half the country, joined the 21-person cabinet [of the government
following the February coup]… No posts were given to PoR [Party of Regions, the
party the south and east most predominantly supported]…” Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), pp. 95; “…but in fact the objective has been to
put down and humiliate Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population. The radical
nationalists of western Ukraine, for whom the rejection of Russia and its
culture is an article of faith, intend to force the rest of the country to fit
their narrow vision.” Vladimir Golstein, “Why everything you’ve read about
Ukraine is wrong.” Forbes, 19 May
2014. http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/05/19/why-everything-youve-read-about-ukraine-is-wrong/.
32.)
“The storming of government offices in the west
of the country in the final months of Yanukovych’s rule was considered
something entirely different – part of the revolutionary surge in support of
monist nationalism - whereas now the ‘anti-Maidan’ insurgency using the same
tactics in support of pluralism was called a terrorist movement.” “The fundamental
inability of Kiev and its Western allies to understand that this was not simply
an ‘invasion’ but a genuine revolt against a particular type of statehood that
had long been unpopular in the south-east, and that the Ukrainian revolution only
intensified, meant that they could not recognize the political subjectivity of
the rebellion as a force with which there should be dialogue. Instead,
labelling the insurgents ‘terrorists’ meant not only that their political identity
was negated but also that their very humanity was dismissed, allowing untold
cruelties to be inflicted upon the region.” Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris,
2015), pp. 151, 181.
33.)
Just hours after CIA Director John Brennan
‘secretly’ travelled to Ukraine and held consultation with the new Kiev
authorities, Kiev announced the first launch of its military crackdown of the
protests in the east. Daria Chernyshova, RIA
Novosti, 18 April 2014. http://www.globalresearch.ca/hidden-agenda-of-cia-director-brennans-trip-to-kiev-initiate-the-use-of-force-in-eastern-ukraine/5378263.
34.)
“Dozens of Ukrainian troops surrender APCs in
Slavyansk, refuse to ‘shoot at own people.’” RT, 16 April 2014. http://www.rt.com/news/ukraine-troops-withdraw-slavyansk-940/.
35.)
Again only hours after a high-level US official
travels to consult with the Kiev authorities, this time by Vice President Joe
Biden, Kiev re-launches its ‘Anti-Terror Operation’ against rebels in the east.
“Ukraine relaunches anti-rebel operation after Biden departure.” Agence France-Presse, 23 April 2014. http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1494970/ukraine-relaunches-anti-rebel-operation-after-biden-departure.
36.)
Vladimir Ruban, retired Colonel-General of the
officer corps of Ukraine, admits in an interview on Hromadske TV that the
Ukrainian military has been shelling civilians: “I want to offer the Ukrainian
artillerists medals, to those who shell the city [Donetsk], the houses and the
civilian population… For they have deserved it. Both because of the accuracy
and inaccuracy… The shelling there is done as intimidation. It has a different
purpose: not just object destruction, but intimidation. The civilian population
is intimidated by a chaotic bombardment of different objects. There are many
shells that plug directly into the streets or vegetable gardens.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l17KfjtaqpA;
Also, journalists from the Russian RenTV news agency have allegedly recovered documents
left after battle by Ukrainian soldiers which show residential areas and
civilian buildings being specifically targeted. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=MCcl60gND7g#t=25;
“Ukrainian soldiers confess to murder of mother and daughter: prosecutor.” Reuters, 17 June 2015. https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-soldiers-confess-murder-mother-daughter-prosecutor-152927752.html;
“Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians.” Human Rights Watch, 24 July 2014. https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/24/ukraine-unguided-rockets-killing-civilians.
