Posts
John
Kerry and the "last resort" rule as a cause for optimism
25
April, 2014
Listening
to Kerry today I went through a series of rather contradictory
emotions. First, I felt disgusted, then my disgust turned to
anger, then to outright amazement and, by the end, I actually felt
rather happy. Let me explain why.
First, of course, my stomach turns every time I hear this prototypical representative of the 1%er plutocracy speaking to the world as if he was some kind of Emperor-schoolteacher scolding a class of rather dumb and unruly kids for their bad behavior and promising them a spanking. We all know that folks like Obama or Baby Bush are just puppets, a mostly empty shell shown to the zombified public as "The President and Commander in Chief" while in reality these guys are basically spokesmen. Not so Kerry. He is in the Dick Cheney or James Baker class, not quite at the top of the power pyramid, but much higher up. These are the folks who step in when the mindless puppet makes a mess and some brains are needed on the frontlines. I find these people profoundly repulsive (though I could not help admiring James Baker's fantastic diplomatic skills).
My initial disgust turned into rage when I heard Kerry speak such lies that out to make even a politician feel ashamed of himself. Most of what Kerry said could quite literally be turned around by 180 degrees and become true. Even though I am now 50 years old and I have seen all sorts of lies, deceptions, betrayals and falsehoods over the years, I still have a naive voice in me screaming "how can he say that?", "does he not feel horribly ashamed?", "how can he live with himself?". I know. I am naive and idealistic. I just cannot get used to it. Even after 50 years.
Eventually, my rage turned into outright amazement. At this point, I was beyond good and evil, I was marveling at the nerve it takes to go on world-wide TV and basically state that he earth is not round, but triangular, that 2+2=317 and that black is pink with green dots. He even added that it was impossible to turn black into grey, that black was just that, black. At this point I was awed.
And then, suddenly, it hit me. Kerry and the interests he represents are really terrified and frustrated. His statement is a desperate attempt to do what the lawyers call the "last resort rule". It goes like this: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. Kerry was hammering the table really very, very strongly and that, I realized, was an implicit admission that neither the (international) law nor the facts were on his side. Had the facts or the law been on his side, there would have been no need for table hammering, of course.
His panic and frustration also showed in his rather clumsy attack on the Russia Today TV channel. Here is what he said:
First, of course, my stomach turns every time I hear this prototypical representative of the 1%er plutocracy speaking to the world as if he was some kind of Emperor-schoolteacher scolding a class of rather dumb and unruly kids for their bad behavior and promising them a spanking. We all know that folks like Obama or Baby Bush are just puppets, a mostly empty shell shown to the zombified public as "The President and Commander in Chief" while in reality these guys are basically spokesmen. Not so Kerry. He is in the Dick Cheney or James Baker class, not quite at the top of the power pyramid, but much higher up. These are the folks who step in when the mindless puppet makes a mess and some brains are needed on the frontlines. I find these people profoundly repulsive (though I could not help admiring James Baker's fantastic diplomatic skills).
My initial disgust turned into rage when I heard Kerry speak such lies that out to make even a politician feel ashamed of himself. Most of what Kerry said could quite literally be turned around by 180 degrees and become true. Even though I am now 50 years old and I have seen all sorts of lies, deceptions, betrayals and falsehoods over the years, I still have a naive voice in me screaming "how can he say that?", "does he not feel horribly ashamed?", "how can he live with himself?". I know. I am naive and idealistic. I just cannot get used to it. Even after 50 years.
Eventually, my rage turned into outright amazement. At this point, I was beyond good and evil, I was marveling at the nerve it takes to go on world-wide TV and basically state that he earth is not round, but triangular, that 2+2=317 and that black is pink with green dots. He even added that it was impossible to turn black into grey, that black was just that, black. At this point I was awed.
And then, suddenly, it hit me. Kerry and the interests he represents are really terrified and frustrated. His statement is a desperate attempt to do what the lawyers call the "last resort rule". It goes like this: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. Kerry was hammering the table really very, very strongly and that, I realized, was an implicit admission that neither the (international) law nor the facts were on his side. Had the facts or the law been on his side, there would have been no need for table hammering, of course.
His panic and frustration also showed in his rather clumsy attack on the Russia Today TV channel. Here is what he said:
In fact, the propaganda bullhorn that is the state-sponsored Russia Today program, has been deployed to promote – actually, Russia Today network – has deployed to promote President Putin’s fantasy about what is playing out on the ground. They almost spend full time devoted to this effort to propagandize and to distort what is happening or not happening in Ukraine. Instead, in plain sight, Russia continues to fund, coordinate, and fuel a heavily armed separatist movement in Donetsk.
But
think about it: Russia Today does not broadcast in Ukrainian
or Russian. It broadcasts in English, Spanish and Arabic.
The only thing RT does broadcast in Russian are its documentaries on
its dedicated website: http://doc.rt.com/on-air/.
This is a tiny fraction of what the channel really does and its
audience in Russia or the Ukraine is minute compared to the one of
the big Russian TV channels. So why did Kerry single our
Russia Today? The answer is obvious, of course, it is because
Russia Today is a very popular TV channel outside Russia
or the Ukraine. According
to Wikipedia,
The network's signal is carried by 22 satellites and over 230 operators, which allows some 644 million people to watch the channel in more than 100 countries. RT America is available to 85 million people in the United States. In 2011 it was the second most-watched foreign news channel in the U.S. after BBC World News, and the number one foreign station in five major U.S. urban areas in 2012. It is also very popular among younger American people, U.S. college students, and in U.S. inner city neighborhoods. In 2013 RT has become the first TV news channel in history to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. According to the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board between 2.2–2.3 million Britons tuned their televisions to RT during the second half of 2012, making it the fourth-most watched rolling news channel in Britain, behind BBC News, Sky News and Al Jazeera English.
Remember the
candid admission of Walter Isaacson,
chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, who openly declared
that,
“We can't allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies, you've got Russia Today, Iran's Press TV, Venezuela's TeleSUR, and of course, China is launching an international broadcasting 24-hour news channel with correspondents around the world [and has] reportedly set aside $6 -10 billion dollars – we have to go to Capitol Hill with that number – to expand their overseas media operations.”
So
there you have it. The
problem is not that Russia Today is stirring up the people of
eastern Ukraine, the problem is that thanks to Russia Today the
peoplein
the West are
beginning to see through the official propaganda!
That is the real reason for Kerry frustrated outburst.
So, to sum things up:
1) The law is not on Kerry's side.
2) The facts are not on Kerry's side.
3) The people in the West are beginning to see through the lies of the propaganda machine.
4) There is nothing the Empire can do about any of that.
If any confirmation of that was needed, it came today with the amazing performance of Mark Levine on today's CrossTalk show. It's not on YouTube yet, but you can watch it here: http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/154788-ukraine-info-war-russia/. Levine turned CrossTalk into CrossShout, another clear case of "table hammering". Why - for the same reasons as Kerry. Nothing else works for him anymore.
Ever since Putin came back to power, Russia is not playing by the same set of rules as the ones drafted by the Empire. Both in Syria and the Ukraine, Russia has been very carefully but steadily pushing back the international AngloZionist plutocracy and loosening its grip on the planet and this is directly reflected in the impotent rage of Kerry and his fellow 1%ers.
This, I think, is very good news indeed.
Cheers,
The Saker
So, to sum things up:
1) The law is not on Kerry's side.
2) The facts are not on Kerry's side.
3) The people in the West are beginning to see through the lies of the propaganda machine.
4) There is nothing the Empire can do about any of that.
If any confirmation of that was needed, it came today with the amazing performance of Mark Levine on today's CrossTalk show. It's not on YouTube yet, but you can watch it here: http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/154788-ukraine-info-war-russia/. Levine turned CrossTalk into CrossShout, another clear case of "table hammering". Why - for the same reasons as Kerry. Nothing else works for him anymore.
Ever since Putin came back to power, Russia is not playing by the same set of rules as the ones drafted by the Empire. Both in Syria and the Ukraine, Russia has been very carefully but steadily pushing back the international AngloZionist plutocracy and loosening its grip on the planet and this is directly reflected in the impotent rage of Kerry and his fellow 1%ers.
This, I think, is very good news indeed.
Cheers,
The Saker
Self-defense
forces detain intl military observers in eastern Ukraine
Anti-government
activists in Slavyansk have detained military observers who had been
traveling with the OSCE mission. The OSCE dismissed the claim of the
Ukrainian Interior Ministry that its mission has been detained in
Slavyansk.
RT,
25
April, 2014
The
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on Friday
said that an international military mission has been detained in
eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region but the group is not connected to
the OSCE observers.
The
detained team is "not OSCE monitors" but was sent by OSCE
member states in accordance with the 2011 Vienna Document on military
transparency, the organization explained on Twitter.
The
“people’s mayor” of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said that
a vehicle containing the international inspectors has been stopped
because it contained officers of the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed
Forces, military-looking men and munitions.
“It
is true that we have detained the bus, as there we immediately found
forbidden bullet shells and other munitions. We are currently sorting
out who are these people driving inside it,” Ponomaryov told
Interfax by telephone.
Ponomaryov
later told RIA Novosti that the situation with the detained group
will be resolved “by morning.”
“It
is the line-up of the delegation that has raised our suspicion. I had
met with the representatives of the OSCE before, we had normal
businesslike talks. But back then the line-up was totally different.
Now there were some military, more like some special-service agents,”
Ponomaryov said.
“You
have to understand that it is wartime here. We had to detain and
check them,” he added.
Earlier
Friday, Kiev authorities claimed that an OSCE mission working in
eastern Ukraine has been detained by a group of “terrorists.”
“On
April 25, 2014, unidentified men stopped a bus with 13 passengers
entering Slavyansk from the direction of Kramatorsk. Among them were
seven representatives of the OSCE, five representatives of the Armed
Forces of Ukraine and a driver of the vehicle,” the Ukrainian
Interior Ministry said in a statement.
According
to the ministry, the bus has been driven to the occupied Security
Service building in Slavyansk and the passengers are currently being
held there.
The
German Foreign Ministry earlier said it had lost contact with the
German-led group of military observers dispatched to eastern Ukraine
on April 21. According to the ministry, the group is comprised of
three German soldiers, a German translator and military observers
from the Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden and Denmark.
The
group had been traveling with the OSCE mission to Ukraine, AP
reported.
The
Ukrainian Interior Ministry says talks are ongoing with the
anti-government activists on the release of the group.
On
Friday, Kiev authorities launched the “second stage” of the
so-called “anti-terrorist operation” in the city of Slavyansk,
which has been one of the strongholds of anti-government activists in
the Donetsk region. In the previous stage of the operation Thursday,
five activists were reported killed in checkpoints raids, including a
22-year-old man. Slavyansk activists claim the victims were unarmed
and stood guard at the checkpoints only to check the IDs of the
drivers and to prevent the troops and Right Sector radicals from
covertly entering the city.
Inside
Slavyansk, stopping vehicles and checking of IDs by armed
self-defense activists has recently become frequent amid a tense
atmosphere and reports of forces loyal to Kiev infiltrating the
defiant city. Protest leader Ponomaryov on Friday claimed that groups
of Right Sector members armed with sniper rifles and night vision
equipment have been trying to get into Slavyansk under the guise of
the city’s blockade by the Ukrainian troops.
Ukraine:
pro-Russian separatists hold European military observers captive
Monitors
held in Slavyansk by Vyacheslav Ponomarev's militants, who captured
Vice journalist Simon Ostrovsky
25
April, 2014
Pro-Moscow
separatists in eastern Ukraine were holding a group of European
military observers in the city of Slavyansk on Friday night, claiming
they had been travelling with a spy for the Kiev government.
The
group was operating under the mandate of the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and comprised four
Germans, a Pole, a Dane, a Swede and a Czech officer. According to
the Ukrainian interior ministry, they were being escorted by five
members of the Ukrainian armed forces when their bus was seized by
separatists.
The
ministry said it believed they were being held in the state security
service (SBU) building in Slavyansk, which is being occupied by
separatists led by a militant leader, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, who has
declared himself the city's mayor.
Ponomarev
told journalists: "It was reported to me that among them was an
employee of the Kiev secret military staff … People who come here
as observers for the European community bringing with them a real spy
– that is inappropriate."
The
detention came as the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy threatened
Russia with new sanctions, accusing Moscow of stoking tensions in
eastern Ukraine with bellicose rhetoric and military manoeuvres on
the border.
The
new sanctions would take the form of an expansion in the list of
prominent Russian individuals and companies accused of direct
involvement in Moscow's intervention in Ukraine and subject to visa
bans and asset freezes. The EU list has been provisionally enlarged
from 33 names to about 50, but it will only take effect once it has
been approved by all member states. A foreign ministers' meeting is
expected next week to debate the Ukraine crisis and make a final
decision on the list.
It
was not clear on Friday night when new US sanctions would be
implemented. The White House said further steps would be taken in
consultation with G7 and EU leaders. It was also not immediately
clear whether the two G7 leaders not involved in the call, Canada's
Stephen Harper and Japan's Shinzo Abe, had already been consulted
separately.
The
sanctions threat came after a conference call between Barack Obama –
during a visit to Seoul – David Cameron, François Hollande, Angela
Merkel and Matteo Renzi.
"The
leaders also agreed that Russia had not reciprocated – including by
not publicly supporting the Geneva accord, nor calling on armed
militant groups to lay down their arms and leave the government
buildings they've occupied – and had in fact continued to escalate
the situation through its increasingly concerning rhetoric and
threatening military exercises on Ukraine's border," a White
House statement said.
"The
president noted that the United States is prepared to impose targeted
sanctions to respond to Russia's latest actions."
Downing
Street said the leaders had condemned "the absence of any
efforts on the part of Russia to support the implementation of the
Geneva agreement, and the further efforts to destabilise Ukraine".
The
detained European observers were working for a small German-led
military monitoring mission invited into the country by the Kiev
government under an OSCE mandate. They report back directly to their
national capitals, rather than to OSCE headquarters in Vienna.
Simon
Ostrovsky, an American journalist from Vice News who was detained for
four days in the same building as the monitors, gave a grim account
of conditions. "On Monday night I was pulled out of a car at a
checkpoint, then blindfolded, beaten, and tied up with tape. After
spending hours alone on the floor of a damp cell with my hands tied
behind my back and a hat pulled over my eyes, I was led into a room
where I was accused of working for the CIA, FBI and Right Sector, the
Ukrainian ultranationalist group," he wrote. "When I
refused to give the password to my laptop, I was smacked in the arm
with a truncheon. When I was asleep on the floor, masked men came to
wake me up and tell me how no one would miss me if I died, and then
kicked me in the ribs as they left."
He
said he saw a dozen other detainees in the cellar, including Artyom
Deyneha, a local computer programmer, Serhiy Lefter, a freelance
journalist and Vadim Sukhonos, a deputy in the city council.
Ukraine
announced it was launching the second phase of its "anti-terrorist
operation" in the east of the country, designed to squeeze out
separatist rebels from Slavyansk. The interior minister, Arsen
Avakov, denied claims he had suspended the operation on Thursday
because of the growing threat of Russian invasion.
A
column of Ukrainian armoured vehicles flattened several checkpoints
on the outskirts of the town, only to retreat. Avakov said on
Facebook his troops had shown restraint in order to minimise risks to
the "peaceful population".
Ukrainian
officials said the latest operation was designed to encircle
Slavyansk, the de facto rebel capital, controlled by heavily-armed
pro-Russian gunmen. They said the "terrorists" inside the
town – with a population of 120,000 – had hidden themselves in
kindergartens and hospitals. Ukrainian forces would not try to weed
them out because of the obvious risk of civilian casualties, they
said.
There
were few signs, however, that this blockade was real. Ukrainian
forces maintained a checkpoint, set up on Thursday, some six miles
east of the town, along a forest road. Several buses carrying troops
arrived to the north. But there was no Ukrainian army presence on the
main route between Donetsk, the regional capital, and Slavyansk. The
separatists remained dug in at a key southern entrance over a bridge,
as well as other entry points.
The
body of a second person found tortured near Slavyansk was identified
on Friday as Yuriy Popravko, a 19-year-old Kiev student and Maidan
activist. He was found dumped next to Vladimir Rybak, a city
councillor from the town of Horlivka, and a prominent opponent of
separatism. Rybak was abducted shortly after trying to push his way
into Horlivka city hall and remove the "Donetsk People's
Republic" flag. Kiev says it has intercepts showing that
Slavyansk's self-appointed mayor Vyacheslav Ponomarev was involved in
Rybak's murder.
Popravko
disappeared on 16 April, after apparently travelling to Kharkiv in
the east of Ukraine to see his girlfriend. According to Vesti
newspaper, his relatives are trying to retrieve his body from
Slavyansk's pro-Russian militia, so far without success. Gruesome
photos circulating on the internet show that Rybak and Popravko were
tortured then drowned.
On
Friday, meanwhile, at an airfield in Kramatorsk, 9 miles away, a
Ukrainian military helicopter caught fire. Pro-Russian militants
issued a statement saying they had shot it. Black and grey smoke
billowed above the base, recaptured by Ukrainian forces last week.
Defence officials in Kiev confirmed that a sniper had hit the
fuel-tank, causing the Mi-8 helicopter to explode. The pilot managed
to escape, they said.
From
the US propaganda service, CNN
Ukraine
foreign minister speaks to CNN Cnn News Latest
Ukraine
airport blast: Moment of massive explosion caught on tape in
Kramatorsk
Kramatorsk
airfield in eastern Ukraine is covered with smoke spreading over the
area according to numerous videos emerging online. Explosions are
heard in near the site.
READ
MORE: http://on.rt.com/2rvngt
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