Monday, March 30, 2015

467 Stratfor boss Georg Friedman spills the beans

Stratfor advises countries and Big Corp. about a very important question: "What will happen in the future? "

George Friedman started Stratfor in 1996. 
Now they have 4000 clients. 
Mr. Friedmans view on 'reality' must have relevance. 

Weather he spills the beans or wants us to believe his spin, its up to you to decide !

Here is the whole 13 min video written out in black, except for 2,5 minutes which I summarized: 



NOTE: The whole speech was 72 minutes.  You find it here. 


Friedman: No place is really pacific for very long.I mean .. neither the US .. we have constant wars. Europe will - I suspect- not return to the 31 years ( from 1914 to 1945 in which 100 million people died)  but it will return to humanity. They will have their  wars, their peqace, they will live their lives.
It will not be 100 million deaths. But the idea of European Exceptionalism is the one which will suffer the first death.. ( ??)   There will be conflict. There was conflict in Yugoslavia. And there is certainly conflict now in Ukraïne. As to the relationship to the US: we don't longer have a relationship with Europe. We have a relationship with Romania, we have a relationship with France, there is no Europe to have a relationship with.

Question: Is islamic extremism really the major threat to the United States, and will it die on its own or will it keep growing?

Friedman: It is a problem to the United States. It is not anexistential threat.  International terrorism is important, but not the biggest threat. It has to be dealt with. But ithas to be dealt with proportionally.
We have other Foreign Policy interests. So...
 The primordial interest of the USA, over which for centuries we fought wars ( WW1 and WW2), is the relationship between Germany and Russia,  because united they are the only force that could threaten us. We have to make sure that that does not happen.

( below in italics: summary.  from 1.30 min to 4.0 min) 
 General Hodges pinned medals on Ukraïnian fighters, which foreigners normally don't do. To show this was  His then announced that  the US will bring in armour, artillery and other military equipment in the Baltics, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria,which is a very interesting point. Also it was announced that the US will be sending weapons to the Ukraïne (which was of course denied, but it will happen) 
( 3 min.) In all of this the US has acted outside the context of Nato, as in Nato any country could veto this.  The point is that the USA is prepared to create a 'cordon sanitaire' around Russia. Russia knows it. Russia believes that the USA is intending to break the Russian Federation. But I think it is more to hold the Russians back, not to break them. We are back at the old game ( a new cold war). The people in the Eastern countries live in a totally different universe from the Germans, and for the Germans life looks very different than for Spanish people.  So there is no communality in Europe. If I were a Ukraïnian I would do exactly what they do: try to draw the Americans in. 
( 4 min)

Friedman: The US has a fundamental interest. It controlls all the oceans and space of the world. No power has ever done that. Because ot that we get to invade people and they don't get to invade us.  It is a very nice thing. Maintaining the controle of the seas and of the air is the foundation of our power.
The best way to defeat an enemy fleet is to not let it be built. The way the Brittish managed to make certain that no European Power could build a fleet is to make sure that they (Englands ennemies) were at each others throats. The policy that I would recomment is the one that Ronald Reagan adopted toward Iran and Iraq. He funded both sides so they would fight each other and not fight us. This is cynical. It was certainly not moral , it worked.. and... This is the point:
(5 min.) The US cannot occupy Eurasia. The moment first boots are on the ground .. the demographic differential is: We are totally outnumbered. We can defeat an army. We cannot occupy Iraq.  The idea that 130.000 men would occupy a country of 25 million ...The ratio in New York of cops to citizens was greater than we had enmployed in Irak, so we don't have the ability to go across,  But we do have the ability to support various contending powers, so they concentrate on themselves .. political support, some economic support,  military support, advisors , and in extremis do what we did in Vietnam, in Iraq and in Afghanistan: (have) spoiling attacks (*) .   The spoiling attack is not intended to defeat the enemy, it is inteded to throw them off balance.
What we did in each of these wars, in Afghanistan for example is.. we threw Al Qaida off balance. The problem we have since we are young and stupid is that when we have thrown them off balance is that...instead of saying: OK, job well done, lets go home... we say: That was easy. Why don't we build a democracy here ? "..  this is the moment that dementia came in !
The answer therefore is  the US cannot constantly be intervening throughout  Eurasia.
It must be selectively intervening and very rarely. That is the extreme moment.
We cannot as the first step send in American troops.
And when we send American troops we have to totally understand that initiatives are limited to that and not start all kind of fantasies ... so..   Hopefully we will learn that this time. It takes a while for kids to learn lessons. But I think you are absolutely right: we cannot as an empire do that.
Brittain did not occupy India. It took various Indian states and turned them against each other. And provided some Brittisch officers for an Indian army. The Romans did not send vast armies out there.
It placed kings like ... eh .. various kings under the emperor and those Kings were responsable for maintaining the peace. Pontius Pilatus was one example.  So empires that are directly governed by the Empire, like the Nazi Empire, fail. No one has that much power. You have to have a love of cleverness.
However our problem is not yet that. It is actually admitting that we have an empire.  So we haven't even got to that point where we don't think we can kinda go home and it will be over and done..
So we are not even ready yet for Chapter 3 of the book.
( 8.10 min)

Question: I infer from your comments that the Euro will not survive....

Friedman: "The question on the table for the Russians is : Will they retain a bufferzone that  is  at least neutral, or will the West poenetrate so far in the Ukraine that they are 70 miles away from Stalingrad and 300 miles away from Moscow. For the Russia the status of the Ukraine is an existential threat. And the Russians cannot let go. For the United States, in the event that Russia holds on to the Ukraïne: where will it stop ? ( Does he mean: where will Russia stop? Or does he mean: where will the USA stop ? I think Friedman does not make a choice: both countries could refuse to blink. JV) Therefore its not an accident ( < difficult to understand)   that general Hodges who has been appointed to be blamed for all of this,  is talking about prepositioning troops in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and the Baltics.  This is the intermarium ( the land between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea) that thew Polish leader Pilsudski dreamt of (**). This is the solution for the United States.

The issue, to which we don't have the answer is: What will Germany do ?
So, the real 'wild card' in Europe is that -- as the United States builds its 'Cordon Sanitaire, not in Ukraïne but to the West, and the Russians try to figure out how to 'leverage the Ukraïnians out'
We don't know the German position. Germany is in a very peculiar position. Its former president Gerhard Schröder is on the board of Gazprom, eh, they have a very complex relationship to the Russians. The Germans themselves don't know what to do. They must export.. the Russians can't take up the export ( JV: does he mean because of sanctions?) On the other hand if they loose the free trade zone they need to build something different. (JV: What Free trade zone will be lost? )
For the United States the primordial fear is German Capital, German Technology , Russian natural resources and Russian manpower as the only combination that has for centuries scared the hell out of the United States!  ( This is exactly what William Engdahl writes in 'A Century of War' ; WW1 was started by the English/Americans to prevent Russia and Middle East oil coming to Germany and giving them a decisive power.)
So how does this play out?
Well, the US has already put its cards on the table.
It is the line from the Baltics tothe Black Sea.
Note: we see (at 11 min.)  a line of countries that comprise from north to south: Poland, Checho-Slovakia, Hungary,  Romania, Bulgaria.
The German video has written on the map:  "The USA build a ring of anti-Russian countries between Germany and Russia to split them from each other, to make them weaker.
For the Russians their cards have always been on the table: they must have at least a neutral Ukraïne. Not a pro-western Ukraïne. Belarus is another question.
Now, who ever can tell me what the Germans are going to do, is going to tell me aboput the next 20 years of history. But unfortunately the Germans haven't made up their mind.
And this is the problem of Gemany, always.. Enormously economically very powerfull. Geopolitically very fragile,  and never knowing how to reconcile the two. Ever since 1871 this has been the German Question. The question of Europe.
Think about the German Question. Because now it is coming up again.  That is the next question we have to address. And we don't how to adress it.(< Difficult to understand) We don't know what they're gonna do.

              --------------------------- End at 12.52 min -------------------------------


(*) A Spoiling attack: Headquarters, Dept. of the Army, 5-166: Spoiling Attack, Army Field Manual FM 3-90 (Tactics) (July 2001), pp. 5-39, 5-40: 
A spoiling attack is a defensive attack, undertaken to preempt or seriously impair an enemy assault by attacking the enemy while the latter is in the process of assembly or preparation for offensive operations.

(**)
( Note from JV: The intermarium of Pilsudski was larger. It included Belarus and Ukraïne 
 and Yugoslavia !  The countries that Friedman calls 'the solution' are now already part of Nato
Most of them entered Nato in 2004!)      
-----
Note: There is a document which describes how the USA will wage war. In short: 
The document states that the United States, for the foreseeable future, would primarily be engaged in unconventional warfare. The document contains a structured approach to the subversion of targeted nation States, beginning with an assessment of a feasible and cooperative opposition, the creation of events to polarize society, the establishment of armed groups and their development into a fighting force that is capable of fighting a civil war or unconventional war under U.S. supervision to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals.
[...] a de-facto blueprint for the United States’ and NATO’s involvement in Libya and Syria [....] and also represents a precise blueprint of the ongoing war in Iraq and the “crisis” in Ukraine. 
( This is a summary from here

-------

Note: The german translation on the video is sometimes wrong.


Hacker Jeremy Hammond  found out that Stratfor is acting as a kinbd of private CIA, with no controle from the government, of course.  Hammond was jailed for 1o years for discovering this illegal activity: 

Jeremy Hammond (born January 8, 1985) is a political activist and computer hacker fromChicago. He was convicted and sentenced[1] in November 2013 to 10 years in US Federal Prison for hacking the private intelligence firm Stratfor and releasing the leaks through the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.[2][3][4] He founded the computer security training websiteHackThisSite[5] in 2003.[6]





 door 
Nieuws - De Amerikaanse hacktivist Jeremy Hammond is veroordeeld tot 10 jaar cel voor het hacken van inlichtingenbedrijf Stratfor. Hij speelde miljoenen e-mails van het bedrijf door aan Wikileaks.
Hammond schikte vrijdag in New York met justitie en gaat 10 jaar lang de cel in. De hacktivist stelt dat hij ermee misstanden wilde aankaarten. In februari 2012 publiceerde Wikileaks de miljoenen gestolen e-mails van Stratfor. Uit de correspondentie werd volgens de klokkenluidersite duidelijk dat het bedrijf zich gedroeg als een soort inlichtingendienst met weinig toezicht van de overheid.


Sunday, March 29, 2015

466 De Saker interviewt Paul Craig Roberts. Nederlandse vertaling

Dit fascinerende interview van de Saker heb ik vorige week op Zaplog geplaatst.
Daar vindt U ook een korte inleiding van mijzelf.  
Nu is het in het Nederlands vertaald.

Hieronder vindt U het hele artikel: 



Top-analisten over Leiderschap VS en mogelijke Kernaanval op Rusland I


Onderstaand interview is een weergave van twee Amerikaanse top-analisten Paul Craig Roberts en De Saker, over het werkelijk leiderschap van de Verenigde Staten en de gespannen huidige situatie tussen Rusland en de VS, die zou kunnen leiden tot een kernoorlog.

De Saker: Het is voor veel mensen duidelijk geworden dat de VS geen democratie is en geen republiek, maar eerder een plutocratie gerund door een kleine elite die sommigen de 1% noemen. Anderen spreken van de Diepe Staat of Onzichtbare Staat. Dus mijn eerste vraag aan u is kunt u de invloed en macht van elk van de volgende entiteiten één voor één beoordelen. Of meer precies, kunt u van elke entiteit zeggen of die een toppositie heeft (beleidsbepalend) óf dat de entiteit meer een middenpositie bekleedt (uitvoerend).

In willekeurige volgorde:

• De Federal Reserve Bank (FED), de Amerikaanse Centrale Bank.
• De 100 Grote Banken,
• Bilderberg
• Council on Foreign Relations
• Skull & Bones
• CIA
• Goldman Sachs en top banken
• "Top 100 gezinnen" (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Nederlandse en Britse Koningshuis, enz.)
• Israël Lobby
• Vrijmetselaars en hun loges
• Big Business: Big Oil, Militair/Security Complex, etc.
• Andere mensen of organisaties die hierboven niet zijn vermeld?

Wie, welke groep, welke entiteit beschouwt u als de werkelijke top van de macht in het huidige Amerikaanse staatsbestel?

Paul Craig Roberts: De VS wordt geregeerd door particuliere belangenorganisaties en door de Neoconservatieve Ideologie. Die ideologie beweert dat De Geschiedenis het land Amerika heeft uitverkoren als het "uitzonderlijke en onmisbare" land. Daaraan ontleent Amerika het recht en de verantwoordelijkheid om zijn wil aan de wereld op te leggen.

Naar mijn mening zijn de machtigste private belangenorganisaties:
Het Militair/Security Complex (voorheen MIC)
De 4 of 5 mega-grote en “too big to fail banken” en Wall Street.
De Israël Lobby
Agribusiness
De grondstof-industrieën (olie, mijnbouw, hout).

De belangen van bovengenoemde organisaties vallen samen met die van de Neoconservatieven. De Neoconservatieve ideologie ondersteunt het Amerikaanse financiële imperialisme en het militair-politieke imperialisme. Kortweg: de alleenheerschappij van de VS.
Er zijn geen onafhankelijke Amerikaanse media. In de laatste jaren van het Clinton-regime , werd 90% van de gedrukte en TV media geconcentreerd in 6 mega-bedrijven. Tijdens het Bush-regime verloor de Amerikaanse Publieke Radio Omroep zijn onafhankelijkheid. Dus de media functioneert als een ministerie van Propaganda.

Beide politieke partijen, de Republikeinen en de Democraten, zijn afhankelijk van dezelfde private belangenorganisaties voor de campagnegelden, dus beide partijen dansen naar de pijpen van dezelfde meesters. Het verplaatsen van banen naar de lage-lonen landen vernietigde niet alleen de maak-industrie maar ook de vakbonden en beroofde de Democraten van de steun van de Vakbonden. Vroeger vertegenwoordigden de Democraten de werkende mensen en de Republikeinen het bedrijfsleven.

De Federal Reserve (FED) is er voor de banken, vooral voor de grote banken. De FED werd opgericht als nood-bank, om te zorgen dat banken niet failliet gingen bij een bank-run, als mensen allemaal tegelijk hun geld opnemen. De vestiging van de FED in New York, die de financiële interventies uitvoert, heeft een bestuur dat bestaat uit de directeuren van de grote banken. De laatste drie Federal Reserve voorzitters, Greenspan, Bernanke en Yellen zijn allen joods, en de huidige vice-voorzitter is het voormalige hoofd van de Israëlische Centrale Bank. Joden zijn prominent aanwezig in de financiële sector, bijvoorbeeld Goldman Sachs is een joodse bank. In de afgelopen jaren waren het de Ministers van Financiën, -die kort daarvoor als leidinggevenden bij banken direct verantwoordelijk waren voor de fraude en buitensporige schuldenexplosie- die de financiële crisis van 2008 hebben veroorzaakt. Datzelfde geldt voor de mensen die nu de leiding hebben over de “Toezicht en Regulering” van de banken.

Na het jaar 2000 hebben de FED en het Ministerie van Financiën alleen de belangen van de grote banken gediend. Dit ging ten koste van de economie en van het volk. Zo hebben gepensioneerden al 8 jaar geen rente-inkomsten gehad,opdat de financiële instellingen vrijwel gratis geld kunnen lenen en zo meer geld verdienen.

Ongeacht de rijkdom van sommige families kunnen zij niet concurreren met machtige belangengroepen zoals de industrieën die leven van wapenproductie (Militair/Security Complex) of Wall Street en de banken.
“Oud Geld” kan wel haar belangen behartigen. En sommige, zoals de Rockefellers, hebben stichtingen in het leven geroepen die vermoedelijk hand in hand gaan met de National Endowment for Democracy (NED). De NED financiert en steunt verschillende pro-Amerikaanse non-gouvernementele organisaties (NGO's) in landen waar de VS meer invloed wil verwerven, of waar ze de regering omver wil werpen zoals in de Oekraïne is gebeurd. Deze NGO's zijn in wezen de Amerikaanse Vijfde Colonne en opereren onder namen die zeggen dat ze ijveren voor “mensenrechten”, “democratie” etc.

Een Chinese professor vertelde me dat de Rockefeller Foundation een Amerikaanse universiteit in China had gesticht die wordt gebruikt voor het organiseren van Chinezen die tegen de regering zijn. Op een gegeven moment waren er honderden Amerikaanse en Duits- gefinancierde NGO's in Rusland.

Ik weet niet of de Bilderbergers hetzelfde doen. Mogelijk zijn dat gewoon heel rijke mensen en hebben ze hun beschermelingen in regeringen die proberen om hun belangen te beschermen. Ik heb nog nooit enig signaal opgevangen van invloed op besluiten van het Congres of ministeries door Bilderbergers of Vrijmetselaars of de Rothchild familie.

Aan de andere kant, de Raad voor Buitenlandse Betrekkingen (De Council on Foreign Relations, kortweg CFR) is wel invloedrijk. De CFR bestaat uit voormalige hoge ambtenaren en academici die betrokken zijn bij het buitenlands beleid en de internationale betrekkingen. Het blad Foreign Affairs wordt door de CFR uitgegeven en is het meest belangrijke discussie-forum over de buitenlandse politiek. Sommige journalisten zijn er ook lid van. Toen ik werd voorgedragen voor het lidmaatschap in de jaren 1980, werd ik door de ballotage afgewezen.

Skull & Bones is een geheime broederschap van Yale studenten. Een aantal universiteiten heeft zulke geheime broederschappen. Bijvoorbeeld, de Universiteit van Virginia heeft er een en de Universiteit van Georgia. Deze broederschappen heb geen geheime plannen voor de regering en ook geen regerings-invloed. Hun invloed is normaal gesproken beperkt tot de persoonlijke invloed van de leden die meestal uit de elite families komen. Naar mijn mening dienen deze broederschappen er alleen voor om elitestatus aan de leden te geven. Ze hebben geen operationele functies.

De Saker: Hoe zit het met individuen? Wie zijn volgens u de machtigste mensen in de Verenigde Staten vandaag de dag? Wie neemt uiteindelijk de beslissing?

Paul Craig Roberts: Er zijn niet echt mensen met zoveel persoonlijke macht. Machtige mensen zijn degenen die machtige belangengroepen achter zich hebben. Sinds minister van Defensie William Perry grote delen van het leger heeft geprivatiseerd in 1991, was het Militair/Security Complex (MIC) zeer machtig en hun macht wordt verder versterkt door haar vermogen om politieke campagnes te financieren en door het feit dat zij een bron van werkgelegenheid is in veel staten. In werkelijkheid worden de uitgaven van Het Pentagon gecontroleerd door de bedrijven die deel uitmaken van het MSC.
De Saker: Ik heb altijd geloofd dat organisaties zoals de NAVO, de EU en alle andere slechts schijnbare machten zijn en dat de echte alliantie die de planeet bestuurt de Echelon landen zijn: de VS, het Verenigd Koninkrijk, Canada, Australië en Nieuw-Zeeland, soms gebruikt men de term "AUSCANNZUKUS". Ze worden ook wel aangeduid als de "Anglosphere" of de "Five Eyes". De VS en het Verenigd Koninkrijk zijn dan de senior partners, terwijl Canada, Australië en Nieuw-Zeeland zijn de junior partners zijn. Is dit model juist? 

Paul Craig Roberts: De NAVO was een Amerikaanse creatie met als officiële genoemde functie om Europa te beschermen tegen een Sovjet-invasie. Die functie werd in 1991 overbodig. Vandaag de dag functioneert de NAVO als een dekmantel voor Amerikaanse agressie en voorziet ze Het Amerikaanse Rijk van huurlingen. Groot-Brittannië, Canada en Australië zijn gewoon Amerikaanse vazalstaten net als Duitsland, Frankrijk, Italië, Japan en de rest. Er zijn geen partners; alleen vazallen. Het is het Rijk van Washington en van niemand anders.
Amerika doet liever zaken met de EU dan met afzonderlijke landen omdat de EU gemakkelijker te controleren is dan de afzonderlijke landen.

De Saker: Er wordt vaak gezegd dat Israël de USA controleert. Chomsky en anderen zeggen dat de VS nu juist Israël controleert. Hoe zou u de relatie tussen Israël en de Verenigde Staten karakteriseren – Kwispelt de hond( VS) met de staart, of kwispelt de staart (Israel) met de hond? Zou u zeggen dat de Israël Lobby Amerika volledig onder controle heeft of zijn er nog andere krachten in staat om "nee" tegen de Israël Lobby te zeggen en hun eigen agenda tot uitvoer te brengen?

Paul Craig Roberts: Ik heb nog nooit enig bewijs gezien dat de VS Israël zou controleren. Alle bewijs zegt dat Israël nu juist de VS controleert, maar alleen voor wat betreft het beleid in het Midden Oosten. In de afgelopen jaren was Israël of de Israël Lobby in staat om academische benoemingen in de VS te controleren. En ze kon benoemingen van professoren die kritisch over Israël zijn geweest verhinderen.

Israël heeft er zowel op Katholieke als Openbare universiteiten voor gezorgd dat bepaalde benoemingen niet door gingen. Israël kan ook sommige presidentiële benoemingen blokkeren en heeft een enorme invloed op de schrijvende pers en de televisie. De Israël Lobby geeft ook veel geld aan verkiezingscampagnes en zal nooit nalaten om Amerikaanse volksvertegenwoordigers en senatoren van hun zetel te stoten als zij kritiek hebben op Israël. 
De Israël Lobby was zelfs in staat om in het district van zwarte kiezers de herverkiezing te verhinderen van Cynthia McKinney, een negroïde vrouw.
Zoals Admiraal Tom Moorer, Hoofd Marine Operaties en voorzitter van de Joint Chiefs of Staff, zei: "Geen enkele Amerikaanse president kan iets voor elkaar krijgen als Israël dat niet wil." Moorer kon niet eens een officieel onderzoek laten uitvoeren op de dodelijke aanval van Israël op de USS Liberty in 1967.
Iedereen die kritiek heeft op het Israëlische beleid, zelfs goed bedoelende kritiek, krijgt het stempel “anti-semiet”.
In de Amerikaanse politiek, in de media en op universiteiten is dit is een karaktermoord, het einde van de carrière. 

De Saker: Welke van de 12 entiteiten van de hier bovengenoemde machten hebben naar uw mening, een belangrijke rol gespeeld bij de planning en uitvoering van de 9/11 "false flag" operatie? Het is immers moeilijk voor te stellen dat dit gepland en voorbereid was tussen de inauguratie van GW Bush en 11 september. Het moet zijn opgesteld in de jaren van de regering Clinton. Is het niet waar dat de bomaanslag in Oklahoma City een repetitie was voor 9/11? 

Paul Craig Roberts: Naar mijn mening was 9/11 het product van de neo-conservatieven, van wie velen joods zijn en banden hebben met Israël. Het doel was om "de nieuwe Pearl Harbor” te creëren die de neo-conservatieven zeiden nodig te hebben om hun oorlogen in het Midden-Oosten te beginnen. Ik weet niet hoe ver van te voren dit was gepland, maar Silverstein behoorde zeker tot de medeplichtigen. Hij verdiende $500 miljoen aan verzekeringsgeld door het instorten van de gebouwen.

Over de bomaanslag op het Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City verscheen een onderzoeksrapport waaruit zonder enige twijfel blijkt dat het gebouw van binnen naar buiten werd opgeblazen en dat de vrachtwagenbom een dekmantel was. Het Congres en de media negeerden zijn verslag. McVeigh werd aangewezen als de zondebok voor het officiële verhaal dat naar buiten werd gebracht.

De Saker: Denkt u dat de mensen die op dit moment de leiders van de VS zijn zich realiseren dat ze op een ramkoers met Rusland liggen wat kan leiden tot een kernoorlog ? Zo ja, waarom zouden ze zo'n risico nemen? Geloven ze werkelijk dat Rusland op het laatste moment zal terugdeinzen of geloven ze nu echt dat ze een kernoorlog kunnen winnen? Zijn ze niet bang dat ze alles wat ze hebben in een nucleaire vuurzee met Rusland zullen verliezen, niet allen hun macht maar zelfs hun leven?

Paul Craig Roberts: Dat is voor mij een net zo’n raadsel als voor u. Ik denk dat Washington overmoedig en arrogant is en min of meer krankzinnig. Ook gelooft men dat de VS een kernoorlog met Rusland kan winnen. Er stond een artikel in Foreign Affairs rond 2005 of 2006 waarin deze conclusie werd getrokken. Het geloof in het kunnen winnen van een kernoorlog is gestimuleerd door het geloof in ABM verdedigingen. Het argument is dat de VS Rusland zo hard met een preventieve eerste klap kan raken, dat Rusland geen wraak zou durven nemen uit angst voor een tweede klap.

De Saker: Hoe schat u de huidige gezondheid van het Rijk in? Al vele jaren hebben we duidelijke tekenen van verval gezien, maar er is nog geen zichtbare ineenstorting. Bent u van mening dat een dergelijke ineenstorting onvermijdelijk is en zo niet, hoe kan dat worden voorkomen? Zullen we meemaken dat de Amerikaanse dollar ineens waardeloos wordt of zal een ander mechanisme de ineenstorting van dit Rijk bespoedigen?

Paul Craig Roberts: De Amerikaanse economie is uitgehold. Sinds tijden is er geen groei geweest van het modale inkomen. Voorzitter van de FED Alan Greenspan compenseerde de gedaalde inkomensgroei door verhoging van het consumentenkrediet, maar dat kan nu niet meer want de bevolking heeft al een te hoge schuldenlast. Dus er is niets meer dat de economie draaiende houdt.
Zoveel banen in productie en zoveel in de professionele dienstverlening, zoals software engineering, zijn naar het buitenland verplaatst waardoor de middenklasse is gekrompen. Universitair afgestudeerden kunnen geen banen vinden die een zelfstandig bestaan mogelijk maken. Hierdoor kunnen ze geen huishoudens vormen, huizen kopen, apparaten aanschaffen en hun woningen inrichten. 

De overheid komt met lage inflatie maatregelen door het niet meten van inflatie en lage werkloosheidscijfers door het niet meten van werkloosheid. De financiële markten zijn gemanipuleerd, en de goudprijs blijft laag ondanks toenemende vraag. (doordat men op de beurs, op papier, goud verkoopt dat later zal worden geleverd, terwijl men dat goud nu niet in bezit heeft) 
Het is een kaartenhuis dat langer overeind blijft dan ik ooit voor mogelijk hield. Blijkbaar kan het kaartenhuis blijven staan totdat de rest van de wereld ophoudt met de US dollar als reserve-munt te gebruiken. (als harde waarde, zoals vroeger goud werd gebruikt) 

Mogelijk heeft het Rijk teveel druk uitgeoefend op Europa door haar te betrekken in een conflict met Rusland. Als Duitsland zich bijvoorbeeld zou terugtrekken uit de NAVO zou het Rijk instorten of als Rusland Griekenland, Italië en Spanje weet te financieren in ruil voor het verlaten van de Euro en de EU, zou het Rijk een fatale klap te krijgen .
Als alternatief zou Rusland tegen Europa kunnen zeggen, nu jullie samenwerken met de VS laten jullie ons geen andere keus en richten wij onze kernwapens op jullie hoofdsteden.
De Saker: Rusland en China hebben een uniek verbond gesloten dat de traditionele modellen uit de geschiedenis overstijgt; zij zijn overeengekomen om onderling afhankelijk van elkaar te worden, je zou kunnen zeggen dat ze overeenkwamen om een symbiotische relatie aan te gaan. Denkt u dat de leiders van het Rijk de essentie van deze tektonische verandering die zojuist heeft plaatsgevonden, hebben begrepen of gaan ze in de absolute ontkenning omdat de realiteit te beangstigend is? 

Paul Craig Roberts: Stephen Cohen zegt dat er gewoon geen discussie is over buitenlands beleid. Er is geen debat. Ik denk dat het Rijk denkt dat ze Rusland en China kan destabiliseren en dat is een van de redenen waarom Washington gekleurde revoluties heeft opgezet in Armenië, Kirgizië en Oezbekistan. Washington is vastbesloten de opkomst van andere mogendheden te verhinderen, maar is veel te overmoedig en arrogant. Washington is waarschijnlijk van mening dat zij zal slagen. Immers, De Geschiedenis heeft Washington als winnaar uitverkoren. (The Indispensable Country) 

De Saker: Wat denkt u, zijn presidentsverkiezingen nog van belang en zo ja, wat is uw grootste hoop voor 2016? Persoonlijk ben ik erg bang voor Hillary Clinton, haar zie ik als een buitengewoon gevaarlijk en ronduit slecht persoon, maar kunnen we, met de huidige enorme Neoconservatieve invloed binnen de Republikeinen, nog wel echt hopen op een niet-Neocon kandidaat om de Republikeinse nominatie te winnen?

Paul Craig Roberts: De enige manier waarom een presidentsverkiezing nog zinvol zou zijn, is als de gekozen president een sterke beweging achter zich zou hebben. Zonder deze beweging, heeft de president geen zelfstandige macht en niemand om zijn bevelen uit te voeren. Presidenten zijn gevangenen. Reagan had iets van een beweging achter zich staan, net genoeg om stagflatie te genezen -ondanks het verzet van Wall Street- en net genoeg om de koude oorlog te beëindigen, ondanks het verzet van de CIA en het Militair/ Security Complex. Plus Reagan was erg oud en kwam uit een andere tijd. Hij veronderstelde dat hij als president machtig was en daar handelde hij naar. 

De Saker: Hoe zit het met de krijgsmacht? Kunt u zich voorstellen dat een voorzitter van de JCS zegt: "Nee mijnheer de voorzitter, dat is krankzinnig, dat doen we niet", of verwacht u dat generaals aan elke willekeurige opdracht gehoorzamen, zoals een kernoorlog tegen Rusland? Heeft u nog hoop dat het Amerikaanse leger zou ingrijpen om de "gekken" tegen te houden die momenteel aan de macht zijn in het Witte Huis en het Congres?

Paul Craig Roberts: Het Amerikaanse leger is een creatuur van de wapenindustrie. De hele opzet om generaal te worden is dat je dan in aanmerking komt voor een functie als adviseur in de “defensie”-industrie of als een bestuurslid van een “defensie”-bedrijf. Het leger dient als bron voor pensioen-carrières van generaals met dikke salarissen. Het Amerikaanse leger is totaal corrupt. Lees Andrew Cockburn’s boek “Kill Chain”.

De Saker: Als de VS echt bewust de weg naar oorlog met Rusland op gaat, wat moet Rusland dan doen? Moet Rusland zich koest houden en aanvaarden dat zij zich onderwerpt als voorkeursoptie, of moet Rusland weerstand bieden en daarbij de mogelijkheid aanvaarden van een kernoorlog? Bent u van mening dat een weloverwogen sterke machtsvertoning van de Russen een Amerikaanse aanval zou kunnen afschrikken?

Paul Craig Roberts: Ik heb me dit vaak afgevraagd. Ik kan niet zeggen dat ik het weet. Ik denk dat Poetin humaan genoeg is om zich over te geven in plaats van onderdeel te zijn van de vernietiging van de wereld, maar Poetin heeft verantwoording af te leggen naar anderen binnen Rusland en ik betwijfel of de nationalisten voor overgave zouden kiezen.

Naar mijn mening zou Poetin zich moeten richten op Europa. En Europa ervan bewust maken dat Rusland een Amerikaanse aanval verwacht en als antwoord hierop geen andere keus zal hebben dan Europa weg te vagen . Poetin moet Europa aanmoedigen zich af te scheiden van de NAVO om WW3 te voorkomen.

Poetin moet ook ervoor zorgen dat China begrijpt, dat China net als Rusland, dezelfde gevoelsmatige bedreiging vormt voor de VS en dat de twee landen een front moeten vormen. Misschien als Rusland en China hun legers paraat houden voor een nucleair alert (status van paraatheid), niet het hoogste, maar een verhoogde alert, één die de Amerikaanse dreiging duidelijk maakt aan de rest van de wereld, dan zou de VS kunnen worden geïsoleerd.

Misschien als de Indiase pers, de Japanse, de Franse en de Duitse pers, de Britse pers, de Chinese en Russische pers zouden beginnen te melden dat Rusland en China zich afvragen of er een preventieve nucleaire aanval wordt voorbereid door Washington, dan zou dit kunnen helpen om de aanval te voorkomen.

Voor zover ik kan beoordelen door mijn vele interviews met de Russische media, is er geen Russisch besef van de Wolfowitz Doctrine. Russen denken dat er een soort van misverstand is over de Russische bedoelingen. De Russische media begrijpt niet dat Rusland onaanvaardbaar is voor de VS, omdat Rusland geen Amerikaanse vazal is. Russen geloven alle westerse bullshit over "vrijheid en democratie" en geloven dat ze in beide tekort schieten, maar wel vooruitgang boeken. Met andere woorden, de Russen hebben geen idee dat er dreiging is dat ze worden vernietigd.

De Saker: Waarom denkt u dat de meeste Amerikaanse elites zo’n diepe haat voor Rusland voelen? Is dat slechts een overblijfsel uit de Koude Oorlog of is er een andere reden voor de bijna universele Russofobie onder Amerikaanse elites? Zelfs tijdens de Koude Oorlog was het onduidelijk of de VS anti-communistisch of anti-Russisch was. Is er iets in de Russische cultuur, natie of beschaving die deze vijandigheid oproept en zo ja, wat is dat?

Paul Craig Roberts: De vijandigheid tegenover Rusland gaat terug tot de Wolfowitz Doctrine:

"Ons eerste doel is om het opnieuw ontstaan van een nieuwe rivaal te voorkomen, hetzij op het grondgebied van de voormalige Sovjet-Unie of elders, die een bedreiging vormt voor de huidige wereldorde. (zoals de USSR vroeger een bedreiging was) Dit is een hoofduitgangspunt dat ten grondslag ligt aan de nieuwe Regionale Verdedigingsstrategie. Het maakt het noodzakelijk dat we ons inspannen om te voorkomen dat er -voor ons vijandige- regionale grootmachten ontstaan die niet alleen een regio kunnen domineren, maar ook nog voldoende middelen hebben om, na verloop van tijd, een globale grootmacht te worden.” 
De Wolfowitz Doctrine kort samengevat: Amerika moet Alleenheerser blijven in de wereld. Concurrentie moet in de kiem worden gesmoord (Noot van de Vertaler) 

Terwijl de VS druk was met oorlogvoeren in het Midden-Oosten heeft Poetin Rusland weer sterk gemaakt. Toen blokkeerde hij Washington’s geplande invasie van Syrië en het bombarderen van Iran. De primaire doelstelling van de Wolfowuitz-doctrine of ook wel de neo-conservatieve doctrine werd geschonden. Rusland moest terug op zijn plaats gezet worden. Dat is de oorsprong van de aanval van Washington op Rusland. De afhankelijke en ingekapselde Amerikaanse en Europese media herhalen keer op keer het verhaal over “De Russische bedreiging” voor een publiek dat ondeskundig is en bovendien slecht geïnformeerd.

De Christelijke Russische cultuur streeft waarden na zoals respect voor de wet en de mensheid, diplomatie in plaats van dwang, traditionele sociale mores, dat is mogelijk een doorn in het oog van Amerika, maar dit speelt dan op de achtergrond. Rusland wordt gehaat omdat Rusland (en China) Washington’s alleen-heerschappij in de weg staat. Deze controle (zoals Rusland m.b.t. Syrië toonde) zal leiden tot oorlog.

Als de Russen en Chinezen geen rekening houden met een preventieve nucleaire aanval van Washington, zullen ze worden vernietigd.

465 Prof. Paul Robinson: Russia was not the agressor in Donbass.

(Hier is een samenvatting in het nederlands)

Russia, Kiev, Separatists, the West :

                   Who has done what and why?

Here is the full text in english of prof. Robinson's speech on what happened in Donbass after april 2014.

About prof Robinson:
I am a professor at the University of Ottawa. I write about Russian and Soviet history, military history, and military ethics."

 Prof. Robinson has investigated very carefully and honestly what has happened in the last 12 months and he gave a 27 minute speech at the "Ukraine Russia Peace Conference", 

University of Toronto, 22 February 2015.

Below you find the complete speech of prof. Robinson, written out:

Below that you find the same text, but I (J.Verheul) marked some text. 





Who has done what and why?

Good afternoon. What I shall do in the next 20 minutes is look at each of the main actors involved in this tragedy – the Russian state, the Ukrainian government, the rebels, and the Western powers – and examine what they have done, and why. My focus will be on the war in Donbass rather than Crimea. First, though, I would like to issue a caveat, which is that many facts are disputed or even unknown. There will be cases where I can do is make an informed guess. But as far as possible when I am speculating, I will try to make it clear that I am speculating. In this matter, I think it is best to be very wary of anybody claiming to have certain knowledge.

Russia

So, let us start with Russia.
            If we go back to April of last year, we find very little, if any, evidence of direct Russian involvement in the start of the uprising in Donbass. At that point, protestors seized government buildings and weapons. Yet although many commentators described this as a repeat of what had happened in Crimea, it wasn’t. The seizure of Crimea was orderly and peaceful. The protests in Donbass weren’t. They resembled mob rule more than anything else. Nor were there any so-called ‘little green men’. No plausible evidence has been produced to indicate that members of the Russian Army were involved. That is not to say that there were no Russian citizens. There were – the most important being 52 men led by Igor Strelkov – who arrived in Slavyansk from Crimea in mid-April. This led to speculation that Strelkov was an agent of the Russian secret service, the FSB, and that the entire uprising was being orchestrated by it. However, the more one studies Strelkov the less plausible this scenario seems, and the more one realizes that he was a loose cannon, almost certainly acting on his own. He himself claims that the initiative for his actions came not from Moscow but from Donbass protestors who visited him in Crimea. The Russian secret services may have known what he was planning, he has said, but they weren’t involved. That seems to fit the facts as I understand them. At this point in time, Russia was largely standing on the sidelines.
            This remained the case until July. As the rebels built an army in May and June, they supplied themselves almost entirely with weapons seized from the Ukrainian Army and security services. Huge quantities of Ukrainian equipment fell into rebel hands, but there was very little direct Russian support. Strelkov who by May was fighting a full-scale war in Slavyansk issued regular communiques complaining that Russia had abandoned him.
            What we did see in these days was the arrival of large numbers of Russian volunteers who joined the rebel ranks. However, these have always been a small minority of the rebel force. The vast majority of the rebels, probably about 90% of them, are Ukrainian citizens. This isn’t a war in which Ukrainians are primarily fighting Russians, but a war in which Ukrainians are fighting Ukrainians.
            The Russian volunteers were in any case individuals, rather than units of the Russian Army. I have found no credible evidence of the Russian Army being directly involved in combat in Ukraine until mid-July of last year, at which point it seems likely that Russian artillery fired across the border at Ukrainian units who were surrounded south of Lugansk. This, though, was still cross-border activity, and didn’t involve Russian troops actually fighting on Ukrainian soil. That changed in mid-August. Around that time, Russian supplies of weapons and ammunition, which had previously been quite small, seem to have increased substantially, and then we have some fairly convincing evidence that units of the Russian Army entered Ukraine in mid-August and helped to inflict a major defeat on the Ukrainian Army at the town of Ilovaisk before returning to Russia. How many troops were involved and how long they stayed in Ukraine, I cannot say, but I think that they weren’t there for long.
            Since September, Russian supplies to the rebels have continued. The most important, as far as I can tell, is artillery ammunition. The rebels have been using far more of this than they could possibly have captured from Ukraine, so this must have come from Russia. It would also appear that some Russian soldiers are in Donbass as military advisors to the rebel armies and helping to train the rebel armies. There are also suggestions that the Russians are providing the rebels with intelligence and assisting them with electronic warfare. However, even the Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff, General Muzhenko, admits that the Ukrainians are not fighting units of the Russian Army. The frontline troops of the rebel armies - the infantry, the guys manning the tanks and cannons and so on - are not Russian, but local rebel militia, consisting, as I said, overwhelming of Ukrainian citizens.
            If I can summarize all that, what it amounts to is that Russian military aid to the rebellion was initially very small, but grew over time. The more resources that Ukraine puts into the war, the more Moscow puts in in response. In that respect, Russia to a large degree has been reacting to events rather than leading them.
That covers Russian military assistance to the rebellion. I will add a few words about Russia’s political relationship with the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. This is shrouded in a lot of mystery. At first, there wasn’t much of a political leadership, just a few self-appointed guys sitting in some buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk who actually had no control over almost anything. Any connection they had with Moscow was very tenuous. In mid-August, though, there was a significant change in leadership. Out went the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Borodai and Bolotov, and out also went Igor Strelkov, who by then was commander of the Donetsk army. Now we don’t know for sure what went on, but it seems certain that they were pushed out by Moscow. Here we are definitely in the realm of speculation, but I have been told by some Russian sources that this is most likely true, and it seems as though Moscow gave the rebel leaders an ultimatum – if you don’t leave, your rebellion won’t get any support, but if you do, it will. So they quit. And in their place came the guys who now lead the rebellion – Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky.
That brings us onto the why. Why engineer these changes in leadership? The answer, I believe, and here again I am speculating, is that Moscow wasn’t in control of events and wanted leaders who were more amenable. In particular, the previous people in charge, particularly Strelkov, were pursuing an agenda entirely contrary to that of the Russian government. Russia has made it clear from the start that it is not interested in annexing Donbass. And it doesn’t want a frozen conflict with rump little statelets in Donetsk and Lugansk which would not be economically viable. Its preference has always been for Donbass to remain within Ukraine. At the same time, it recognizes that it cannot persuade the people of Donbass to accept this unless there are significant political changes in Ukraine, above all the granting of some sort of autonomy to Donbass. So Russia’s policy, I believe, has been to try to put just enough pressure on the government in Kiev to make it negotiate. That means supporting the rebels enough so they don’t lose, but not so much that they win. That explains why Putin was willing to sign up to the Minsk agreement in September and again in February. It also explains why Moscow changed the rebel leaders – Strelkov and those around him weren’t interested in striking a deal with Kiev. Given a chance they would have preferred to march on Kiev. That’s why they had to go, and more moderate people had to be brought in. Strange as it seems, Russia’s role has thus been somewhat of a moderating one.

Ukraine

So what about the Ukrainian side?
            At an early stage of the Maidan protests, it would appear that the then opposition in Ukraine decided that its objective was not to reverse President Yanukovich’s decision not to sign an agreement with the European Union but to overthrow him. On several occasions, they were offered compromises which would have put them in charge of the government but left Yanukovich in place, but these were rejected. In 2004, during the Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko had rejected overthrowing the government by force as he understood that this could lead to civil war. On Maidan, however, this caution was thrown to the wind. There was an interesting article in Friday’s Globe and Mail by Mark Mackinnon in which he describes a conversation he had with a Maidan activist. He asked her what was different this time from 2004. She replied  ‘This time, we don`t care if Donbass and Crimea are with us.’
            It`s worth repeating that as it sums up so much of what went wrong: ‘This time, we don’t care if Donbass and Crimea are with us.’ The Maidan protests constituted a successful effort to seize power by unconstitutional means by one part of the population without concern for the other part’s sentiments. On coming to power, the new government then put the same attitude into practice, making it clear that it didn’t care what Donbass or Crimea thought about its policies. The new government contained nobody who could possibly claim to represent those parts of the country. Nobody from the government visited Donbass to speak to people there. The government made it clear that it planned to introduce changes it knew were unpopular there. As one of its first steps, the parliament repealed the law giving the Russian language some regional official status. The Acting President refused to approve this act, but the damage was done.
            The manner in which the new government came to power created a crisis of legitimacy. People in the East didn’t particularly like Yanukovich, but they had voted for him in elections internationally considered free and fair. They considered his overthrow illegal, and the new government illegitimate. To keep the country together, that government needed to do something to reassure the population that they had a place in the new order. It did the opposite.
            Instead of recognizing that it had a legitimacy problem, it chose to respond to the protests against it with force. On 9 May, Ukrainian troops entered Mariupol to retake a police station which had been occupied by anti-government forces. On their way back out of town, the Ukrainian soldiers opened fire on civilian protestors killing at least nine, and wounding around 50. Two days later, in Krasnoarmeisk pro-government militiamen seized a polling station being used in the Donetsk referendum. When locals turned up to protest, the militiamen opened fire, killing two. Almost from the start of its rule, therefore, the Ukrainian government was using lethal force against its own citizens.
            As time went on, the amount of force being used escalated. By mid-May, the Ukrainian Army was shelling Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. Before long, it was shelling Donetsk and Lugansk. In the past year, the Ukrainian Army has fired thousands of shells into Ukrainian cities. Most of them appear to have landed nowhere near identifiable military targets.         I have no evidence that the Ukrainians have deliberately targeted civilians. The problem seems to be more one of inaccuracy and possibly recklessness. The army has fired hundreds of rockets from Grad and Uragan rocket launchers into built-up areas. These are so-called ‘area weapons’, designed to destroy everything in a wide area, rather than to hit a precise target. They are, therefore, inherently indiscriminate, and their use in cities is arguably contrary to the laws of war.
            The Ukrainian Army`s actions have caused billions of dollars of damage. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Army has killed thousands of Ukrainian citizens. The death of 100 people in Kiev is often cited as proof that Yanukovich had lost the right to govern Ukraine. The new government has killed vastly more people.
            Its response to this has been simply to deny it. The government denied that its troops killed anybody in Mariupol. When one of its airplanes killed eight people in Lugansk in June, it made an absurd claim that the deaths were due to a rebel anti-aircraft missile being distracted by an air conditioning unit, despite video recordings of multiple shells hitting the ground from the air. Ukrainian Army spokesmen have continually denied that their troops shell residential areas. All such shelling, they say, is done by the rebels in order to discredit the Ukrainian Army. This is simply untrue. The Ukrainian authorities, unfortunately, are in a state of total denial about the effects of their actions.
            They are also in denial about the influence of the far right. I do not for one moment agree with the label given to the government as a ‘fascist junta’. Poroshenko, Yatseniuk, and so on, are not fascists. But to come to power, they formed an alliance with far right groups, who provided the muscle which enable them to overthrow Yanukovich. Then, finding that they did not have a reliable army, they acquiesced in the formation of volunteer battalions, and sent them to the front to do their fighting. In the process, they thoroughly tainted their own cause. They seem to have no understanding that images of Stepan Bandera, the Nazi symbols of the Azov Regiment, and so on, are not inventions of Russian propaganda, and have had an enormous impact on how the people of Donbass view the new order. The government has never once issued any statement disassociating itself from such symbols. It is as if it has a completely tin ear, and a complete unconcern about how it looks to others.
            Why, then, has the government acted in this way? Part of the problem, I think, lies in that quote about not caring about Donbass. I have observed quite a high level of contempt towards Donbass, which is viewed as a backward, working class, gangster-ridden enclave stuck in a Soviet mindset. The pro-Western elites have their own idea of what Ukraine needs, and see no reason to be held back by this reactionary zone. From the start they have been determined to press ahead regardless of what people think. This has been a major cause of the current disastrous situation in Ukraine.
            Second, the new government seems to really believe its own propaganda that Maidan represented a popular uprising, the settled will of the people of Ukraine. It has never understood its unpopularity in Donbass. Instead, it has chosen to believe that everything is the fault of the Russians.
            The annexation of Crimea played a major role in this, I believe. It created what I would call a victim mentality in Kiev. From that moment on, those in power in Ukraine saw themselves as the victims of Russian aggression, and all their problems as arising from that. This meant that they didn`t have to think about whether they had done anything wrong themselves. Instead of reconsidering the path down which they were leading their country, they ploughed on regardless, blindly unaware of their own faults.

The Rebels

So what about the rebels?
            The most important thing that they have done is rebel. Initially, this took the form of seizing a handful of government buildings along with some weapons. When the government sent in the army to restore order, they resisted by force and gradually built up a substantial army.
            Over time they have also created the outlines of states. At first, rebel areas were lawless. There were multiple cases of looting, kidnapping, and even murder. There is now less of this, as the authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk have begun to centralize authority and exert some sort of control over society. This has been a slow process, however. The initial uprising was not centrally controlled, but rather the product of local initiatives which led to the creation of multiple militias, each under their own local warlord. It has taken a great deal of time to meld them all together, and this process is still continuing.
            I believe that the rebels were responsible for shooting down Malaysian flight MH-17, possibly using an air defence system captured from the Ukrainian Army. For most of the war, though, the rebels were on the defensive and were less well armed than the Ukrainian Army. As a result, they have done much less damage, and killed far fewer civilians than has the Ukrainian Army, although in recent weeks that has been somewhat reversed.
            Why have they rebelled? Simply put, they regarded the overthrow of Yanukovich as illegitimate. This led to protests by the more radical elements of the Donbass population. At first, these did not have mass support, but events such as the killing of 40 people in Odessa on 2 May, and the shootings in Mariupol on 9 May, accentuated the dislike of the new authorities, and encouraged more and more people to join the rebel cause.
            The new Ukrainian government’s alliance with the far right was also an important factor. Memories of the Great Patriotic War are very strong in Donbass. Symbols which may have an innocent meaning in Western Ukraine are toxic in the East. Fascist symbols are especially toxic. The fact that the new Ukrainian government wasn’t actually fascist, but had merely allied itself with some far right elements and turned a blind eye to them, is a subtle distinction which people with that particular historical memory are not going to see. They simply saw symbols which they associated with Nazism and reacted in a visceral manner.
            Their cause, though, is largely reactive. It has no ideological unity. The only thing which unites the rebels is that they hate the government in Kiev. When you see rebels being interviewed, and they are asked why they took up arms, the answer is nearly always the same: ‘This is my land. I live here. I never asked these people to come here. I am defending my home.’  That is how they see it – they are defending their homes. It is really that simple.
The rebel army was perhaps 2,000 strong in May last year, 5,000 strong in June, 10,000 in July, 20,000 in August, and maybe 30,000 now. The more violence the Kiev government has used against the rebellion, the more people have flocked to join it. It is important, therefore, to understand the extent to which the rebellion is a reaction against what that government has done. It is common to blame the war in Ukraine on Russian propaganda, which has allegedly brainwashed the people of Donbass. But they haven`t needed Russian propaganda to see their cities being shelled and the morgues overflowing. Propaganda only works if it falls on fertile soil, and the reason the soil in Donbass has been so fertile is that the authorities in Kiev have done a really good job in spreading manure.

The West

I will finish off with a few words about the role played by Western states in this drama.
            That role has not been a positive one. Even before Maidan, levels of anti-Russian rhetoric in the Western press had reached quite incredible proportions, as we saw in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics, for instance. For several years, Western states have failed to recognize that the Russia of the 2010s is not the Russia of the 1990s, that is stronger, and that its interests thus have to be taken more into account in international relations. In the case of Ukraine, it would appear that Western leaders simply failed to consider how important Russians considered the matter to be. One or two Western academics did warn that if the Maidan protests succeeded they would lead to war. Western leaders, however, just brushed this concern aside. That was a major mistake.
            I don’t believe that Maidan was a Western-orchestrated coup, led by American puppet masters. On the whole, I think it best to view the war in Ukraine not as a struggle between Russia and the West, but primarily as a civil war, whose roots are mainly local, but in which foreign powers have meddled, making things worse. So, the West didn`t arrange the overthrow of Yanukovich. It did, however, support it. Western politicians, such as our own John Baird, turned up on Maidan and lent open support to the protests, in effect putting the weight of their countries behind an attempt to topple a democratically elected president. If you will permit me to be judgemental for once, this was, I believe, extremely irresponsible behaviour.
            Unfortunately, the West`s behaviour following the overthrow of Yanukovich has not been much better. By focusing all our attention on the alleged malevolence of Russia, we have allowed ourselves to turn a blind eye to the many failings of the government in Kiev. As a result we have sought to solve the problems in Ukraine solely by means of applying pressure on Russia, in the hope of changing Russian behaviour. But Ukrainian behaviour needs changing too. Yet we have never sought to apply any pressure on Kiev. After Maidan, we should have been telling the new authorities that they had a legitimacy problem, and that they needed to do something about it, to bring the people of Donbass into the fold. We should have told them not to send the army into Donbass. We didn’t. Instead, we pretty much encouraged the government in all its mistakes. As a result, the West must share some of the blame for what has happened.

We have very little influence over Russia. By contrast, we do have some influence over Ukraine, which needs our money, if nothing else. We should start using that influence. On that point, I conclude.    

                                      --------------------------------------

Below you find the same text, but I (Jan Verheul) marked some text, and made  summaries which are marked blue.


Who has done what and why?

Good afternoon. What I shall do in the next 20 minutes is look at each of the main actors involved in this tragedy – the Russian state, the Ukrainian government, the rebels, and the Western powers – and examine what they have done, and why. My focus will be on the war in Donbass rather than Crimea. 

First, though, I would like to issue a caveat, which is that many facts are disputed or even unknown. There will be cases where I can do is make an informed guess. But as far as possible when I am speculating, I will try to make it clear that I am speculating. In this matter, I think it is best to be very wary of anybody claiming to have certain knowledge.

Russia's military assistance.
The first rebels acted on their own, and were not sent by Russia.
From august on Russia has taken more responsability and influence.  
Russia tried to stop the war, and keep Ukraine together.
So, let us start with Russia.
            If we go back to April of last year, we find very little, if any, evidence of direct Russian involvement in the start of the uprising in Donbass. At that point, protestors seized government buildings and weapons. Yet although many commentators described this as a repeat of what had happened in Crimea, it wasn’t. The seizure of Crimea was orderly and peaceful. The protests in Donbass weren’t. They resembled mob rule more than anything else. Nor were there any so-called ‘little green men’. No plausible evidence has been produced to indicate that members of the Russian Army were involved. That is not to say that there were no Russian citizens. There were – the most important being 52 men led by Igor Strelkov – who arrived in Slavyansk from Crimea in mid-April. This led to speculation that Strelkov was an agent of the Russian secret service, the FSB, and that the entire uprising was being orchestrated by it. However, the more one studies Strelkov the less plausible this scenario seems, and the more one realizes that he was a loose cannon, almost certainly acting on his own. He himself claims that the initiative for his actions came not from Moscow but from Donbass protestors who visited him in Crimea. The Russian secret services may have known what he was planning, he has said, but they weren’t involved. That seems to fit the facts as I understand them. At this point in time, Russia was largely standing on the sidelines.
            This remained the case until July. As the rebels built an army in May and June, they supplied themselves almost entirely with weapons seized from the Ukrainian Army and security services. Huge quantities of Ukrainian equipment fell into rebel hands, but there was very little direct Russian support. Strelkov who by May was fighting a full-scale war in Slavyansk issued regular communiques complaining that Russia had abandoned him.
            What we did see in these days was the arrival of large numbers of Russian volunteers who joined the rebel ranks. However, these have always been a small minority of the rebel force. The vast majority of the rebels, probably about 90% of them, are Ukrainian citizens. This isn’t a war in which Ukrainians are primarily fighting Russians, but a war in which Ukrainians are fighting Ukrainians.
            The Russian volunteers were in any case individuals, rather than units of the Russian Army. 
I have found no credible evidence of the Russian Army being directly involved in combat in Ukraine until mid-July of last year, at which point it seems likely that Russian artillery fired across the border at Ukrainian units who were surrounded south of Lugansk. This, though, was still cross-border activity, and didn’t involve Russian troops actually fighting on Ukrainian soil. That changed in mid-August. Around that time, Russian supplies of weapons and ammunition, which had previously been quite small, seem to have increased substantially, and then we have some fairly convincing evidence that units of the Russian Army entered Ukraine in mid-August and helped to inflict a major defeat on the Ukrainian Army at the town of Ilovaisk before returning to Russia. How many troops were involved and how long they stayed in Ukraine, I cannot say, but I think that they weren’t there for long.
            Since September, Russian supplies to the rebels have continued. The most important, as far as I can tell, is artillery ammunition. The rebels have been using far more of this than they could possibly have captured from Ukraine, so this must have come from Russia. It would also appear that some Russian soldiers are in Donbass as military advisors to the rebel armies and helping to train the rebel armies. There are also suggestions that the Russians are providing the rebels with intelligence and assisting them with electronic warfare. However, even the Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff, General Muzhenko, admits that the Ukrainians are not fighting units of the Russian Army. The frontline troops of the rebel armies - the infantry, the guys manning the tanks and cannons and so on - are not Russian, but local rebel militia, consisting, as I said, overwhelming of Ukrainian citizens.
          
  If I can summarize all that, what it amounts to is that Russian military aid to the rebellion was initially very small, but grew over time. The 
more resources that Ukraine puts into the war, the more Moscow puts in in response. In that respect, Russia to a large degree has been reacting to events rather than leading them.
That covers Russian military assistance to the rebellion. 

Russia's political assistence.
I will add a few words about Russia’s political relationship with the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. This is shrouded in a lot of mystery. At first, there wasn’t much of a political leadership, just a few self-appointed guys sitting in some buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk who actually had no control over almost anything. Any connection they had with Moscow was very tenuous. In mid-August, though, there was a significant change in leadership. Out went the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Borodai and Bolotov, and out also went Igor Strelkov, who by then was commander of the Donetsk army. Now we don’t know for sure what went on, but it seems certain that they were pushed out by Moscow. Here we are definitely in the realm of speculation, but I have been told by some Russian sources that this is most likely true, and it seems as though Moscow gave the rebel leaders an ultimatum – if you don’t leave, your rebellion won’t get any support, but if you do, it will. So they quit. And in their place came the guys who now lead the rebellion – Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky.
That brings us onto the why. Why engineer these changes in leadership? The answer, I believe, and here again I am speculating, is that Moscow wasn’t in control of events and wanted leaders who were more amenable. In particular, the previous people in charge, particularly Strelkov, were pursuing an agenda entirely contrary to that of the Russian government. Russia has made it clear from the start that it is not interested in annexing Donbass. And it doesn’t want a frozen conflict with rump little statelets in Donetsk and Lugansk which would not be economically viable. Its preference has always been for Donbass to remain within Ukraine. At the same time, it recognizes that it cannot persuade the people of Donbass to accept this unless there are significant political changes in Ukraine, above all the granting of some sort of autonomy to Donbass. So Russia’s policy, I believe, has been to try to put just enough pressure on the government in Kiev to make it negotiate. That means supporting the rebels enough so they don’t lose, but not so much that they win. That explains why Putin was willing to sign up to the Minsk agreement in September and again in February. It also explains why Moscow changed the rebel leaders – Strelkov and those around him weren’t interested in striking a deal with Kiev. Given a chance they would have preferred to march on Kiev. That’s why they had to go, and more moderate people had to be brought in.
Strange as it seems, Russia’s role has thus been somewhat of a moderating one.

Ukraine
Kiev did not try to live in peace with Donbas. 
Kiev has caused many civil casualties, but does not want to see that. 
Kiev is working closely with nazi's, as they need their brutal power.

So what about the Ukrainian side?
            At an early stage of the Maidan protests, it would appear that the then opposition in Ukraine decided that its objective was not to reverse President Yanukovich’s decision not to sign an agreement with the European Union but to overthrow him. On several occasions, they were offered compromises which would have put them in charge of the government but left Yanukovich in place, but these were rejected. In 2004, during the Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko had rejected overthrowing the government by force as he understood that this could lead to civil war. On Maidan, however, this caution was thrown to the wind. There was an interesting article in Friday’s Globe and Mail by Mark Mackinnon in which he describes a conversation he had with a Maidan activist. He asked her what was different this time from 2004. She replied  ‘This time, we don`t care if Donbass and Crimea are with us.’
            It`s worth repeating that as it sums up so much of what went wrong: ‘This time, we don’t care if Donbass and Crimea are with us.’ The Maidan protests constituted a successful effort to seize power by unconstitutional means by one part of the population without concern for the other part’s sentiments. On coming to power, the new government then put the same attitude into practice, making it clear that it didn’t care what Donbass or Crimea thought about its policies. The new government contained nobody who could possibly claim to represent those parts of the country. Nobody from the government visited Donbass to speak to people there. The government made it clear that it planned to introduce changes it knew were unpopular there. As one of its first steps, the parliament repealed the law giving the Russian language some regional official status. The Acting President refused to approve this act, but the damage was done.
            The manner in which the new government came to power created a crisis of legitimacy. People in the East didn’t particularly like Yanukovich, but they had voted for him in elections internationally considered free and fair. They considered his overthrow illegal, and the new government illegitimate. To keep the country together, that government needed to do something to reassure the population that they had a place in the new order. It did the opposite.
            Instead of recognizing that it had a legitimacy problem, it chose to respond to the protests against it with force. On 9 May, Ukrainian troops entered Mariupol to retake a police station which had been occupied by anti-government forces. On their way back out of town, the Ukrainian soldiers opened fire on civilian protestors killing at least nine, and wounding around 50. Two days later, in Krasnoarmeisk pro-government militiamen seized a polling station being used in the Donetsk referendum. When locals turned up to protest, the militiamen opened fire, killing two. Almost from the start of its rule, therefore, the Ukrainian government was using lethal force against its own citizens.
            As time went on, the amount of force being used escalated. By mid-May, the Ukrainian Army was shelling Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. Before long, it was shelling Donetsk and Lugansk. In the past year, the Ukrainian Army has fired thousands of shells into Ukrainian cities
Most of them appear to have landed nowhere near identifiable military targets.         
I have no evidence that the Ukrainians have deliberately targeted civilians. The problem seems to be more one of inaccuracy and possibly recklessness. The army has fired hundreds of rockets from Grad and Uragan rocket launchers into built-up areas. These are so-called ‘area weapons’, designed to destroy everything in a wide area, rather than to hit a precise target. They are, therefore, inherently indiscriminate, and their use in cities is arguably contrary to the laws of war.
            The Ukrainian Army`s actions have caused billions of dollars of damage. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Army has killed thousands of Ukrainian citizens.
The death of 100 people in Kiev is often cited as proof that Yanukovich had lost the right to govern Ukraine. 
The new government has killed vastly more people.
            Its response to this has been simply to deny it. The government denied that its troops killed anybody in Mariupol. When one of its airplanes killed eight people in Lugansk in June, it made an absurd claim that the deaths were due to a rebel anti-aircraft missile being distracted by an air conditioning unit, despite video recordings of multiple shells hitting the ground from the air. Ukrainian Army spokesmen have continually denied that their troops shell residential areas. All such shelling, they say, is done by the rebels in order to discredit the Ukrainian Army. 
This is simply untrue.  The 
Ukrainian authorities, unfortunately, are in a state of total denial about the effects of their actions.
  
          They are also in denial about the influence of the far right. I do not for one moment agree with the label given to the government as a ‘fascist junta’. Poroshenko, Yatseniuk, and so on, are not fascists. But to come to power, they formed an alliance with far right groups, who provided the muscle which enable them to overthrow Yanukovich. Then, finding that they did not have a reliable army, they acquiesced in the formation of volunteer battalions, and sent them to the front to do their fighting. In the process, they thoroughly tainted their own cause. They seem to have no understanding that images of Stepan Bandera, the Nazi symbols of the Azov Regiment, and so on, are not inventions of Russian propaganda, and have had an enormous impact on how the people of Donbass view the new order. The government has never once issued any statement disassociating itself from such symbols. It is as if it has a completely tin ear, and a complete unconcern about how it looks to others.
            Why, then, has the government acted in this way? Part of the problem, I think, lies in that quote about not caring about Donbass. I have observed quite a high level of contempt towards Donbass, which is viewed as a backward, working class, gangster-ridden enclave stuck in a Soviet mindset. The pro-Western elites have their own idea of what Ukraine needs, and see no reason to be held back by this reactionary zone. From the start they have been determined to press ahead regardless of what people think. This has been a major cause of the current disastrous situation in Ukraine.
            Second, the new government seems to really believe its own propaganda that Maidan represented a popular uprising, the settled will of the people of Ukraine. It has never understood its unpopularity in Donbass. Instead, it has chosen to believe that everything is the fault of the Russians.
            The annexation of Crimea played a major role in this, I believe. 
It created what I would call a victim mentality in Kiev. From that moment on, those in power in Ukraine saw themselves as the victims of Russian aggression, and all their problems as arising from that. This meant that they didn`t have to think about whether they had done anything wrong themselves. Instead of reconsidering the path down which they were leading their country, they ploughed on regardless, blindly unaware of their own faults.

The Rebels
The rebels are genuine, and they are caused mainly by Kiev's brutality. 

So what about the rebels?
            The most important thing that they have done is rebel. Initially, this took the form of seizing a handful of government buildings along with some weapons. When the government sent in the army to restore order, they resisted by force and gradually built up a substantial army.
            Over time they have also created the outlines of states. At first, rebel areas were lawless. There were multiple cases of looting, kidnapping, and even murder. There is now less of this, as the authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk have begun to centralize authority and exert some sort of control over society. This has been a slow process, however. The initial uprising was not centrally controlled, but rather the product of local initiatives which led to the creation of multiple militias, each under their own local warlord. It has taken a great deal of time to meld them all together, and this process is still continuing.
            I believe that the rebels were responsible for shooting down Malaysian flight MH-17, possibly using an air defence system captured from the Ukrainian Army. For most of the war, though, the rebels were on the defensive and were less well armed than the Ukrainian Army. As a result, they have done much less damage, and killed far fewer civilians than has the Ukrainian Army, although in recent weeks that has been somewhat reversed.
            Why have they rebelled? Simply put, they regarded the overthrow of Yanukovich as illegitimate. This led to protests by the more radical elements of the Donbass population. At first, these did not have mass support, but events such as the killing of 40 people in Odessa on 2 May, and the shootings in Mariupol on 9 May, accentuated the dislike of the new authorities, and encouraged more and more people to join the rebel cause.
            The new Ukrainian government’s alliance with the far right was also an important factor. Memories of the Great Patriotic War are very strong in Donbass. Symbols which may have an innocent meaning in Western Ukraine are toxic in the East. Fascist symbols are especially toxic. The fact that the new Ukrainian government wasn’t actually fascist, but had merely allied itself with some far right elements and turned a blind eye to them, is a subtle distinction which people with that particular historical memory are not going to see. They simply saw symbols which they associated with Nazism and reacted in a visceral manner.
            Their cause, though, is largely reactive. It has no ideological unity. The only thing which unites the rebels is that they hate the government in Kiev. When you see rebels being interviewed, and they are asked why they took up arms, the answer is nearly always the same: ‘This is my land. I live here. I never asked these people to come here. I am defending my home.’  That is how they see it – they are defending their homes. It is really that simple.
The rebel army was perhaps 2,000 strong in May last year, 5,000 strong in June, 10,000 in July, 20,000 in August, and maybe 30,000 now. The more violence the Kiev government has used against the rebellion, the more people have flocked to join it. It is important, therefore, to understand the extent to which the rebellion is a reaction against what that government has done. It is common to blame the war in Ukraine on Russian propaganda, which has allegedly brainwashed the people of Donbass. But they haven`t needed Russian propaganda to see their cities being shelled and the morgues overflowing. Propaganda only works if it falls on fertile soil, and the reason the soil in Donbass has been so fertile is that the authorities in Kiev have done a really good job in spreading manure.

The West
The west uses the war to make Russia look guilty. 
But we should have put pressure on Kiev, not on Russia.
We are also responsable for the human suffering. 
I will finish off with a few words about the role played by Western states in this drama.
            That role has not been a positive one. Even before Maidan, levels of anti-Russian rhetoric in the Western press had reached quite incredible proportions, as we saw in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics, for instance. For several years, Western states have failed to recognize that the Russia of the 2010s is not the Russia of the 1990s, that is stronger, and that its interests thus have to be taken more into account in international relations. In the case of Ukraine, it would appear that Western leaders simply failed to consider how important Russians considered the matter to be. One or two Western academics did warn that if the Maidan protests succeeded they would lead to war. Western leaders, however, just brushed this concern aside. That was a major mistake.
            I don’t believe that Maidan was a Western-orchestrated coup, led by American puppet masters. On the whole, I think it best to view the war in Ukraine not as a struggle between Russia and the West, but primarily as a civil war, whose roots are mainly local, but in which foreign powers have meddled, making things worse. So, the West didn`t arrange the overthrow of Yanukovich. It did, however, support it. Western politicians, such as our own John Baird, turned up on Maidan and lent open support to the protests, in effect putting the weight of their countries behind an attempt to topple a democratically elected president. If you will permit me to be judgemental for once, this was, I believe, extremely irresponsible behaviour.
            Unfortunately, the West`s behaviour following the overthrow of Yanukovich has not been much better. By focusing all our attention on the alleged malevolence of Russia, we have allowed ourselves to turn a blind eye to the many failings of the government in Kiev. As a result we have sought to solve the problems in Ukraine solely by means of applying pressure on Russia, in the hope of changing Russian behaviour. But Ukrainian behaviour needs changing too. Yet we have never sought to apply any pressure on Kiev. After Maidan, we should have been telling the new authorities that they had a legitimacy problem, and that they needed to do something about it, to bring the people of Donbass into the fold. We should have told them not to send the army into Donbass. We didn’t. Instead, we pretty much encouraged the government in all its mistakes. As a result, the West must share some of the blame for what has happened.

We have very little influence over Russia. By contrast, we do have some influence over Ukraine, which needs our money, if nothing else. We should start using that influence. On that point, I conclude.    

Personal comment of Jan Verheul: 
I am happy with mr Robinsons findings, because one thing is clear from what he says: Russia was not creating civil war in Ukraïne.  It were the Kiev protesters, the support given to them by some western 'supporters' ( Baird, Nuland, Belgian ex prime minister Verhofstadt etc), and their indifference to Donbass sensitivities.  Russia merely reacted to that. Russia does not want secession of Donbass. 

Of course there is a lot which mr Robinson -- to my dismay--  does not consider, like Nulands 5 billion $ support,  and his statement about MH17.  But the main thing is this:  The USA is doing everything to start a war against Russia.  Why?  Becauase Putin wants to recreate the huge Russian Empire, and he started with war in Georgia and now Ukraïne. 
Well, Robinson makes it very clear: that is a big lie.

It is remarkable that mr Robinson seems to never have heard about the Wolfowitz Doctrine or the PNAC report. 
He leaves the USA completely out of the picture, it seems. 
That may be genuine, or it may be a matter of self-preservation. 
Many people prefer to tell half the truth and keep their job and career, instead of telling the whole trtuh. 



An english prof. Richard Sakwa just published a book called: Frontline Ukraïne: Crisis in the Borderlands. 
He has the same conclusion as mr Robinson: Russia is nog agressive, it just wants to stop agression. 
Her is a review by Chris Nineham.  Here is an artcicle in The Guardian: Here