HARPER'S: How $1.8 bil in aid to Ukraine was funneled to the outposts of the int'l finance galaxy

[leveymg]

http://harpers.org/blog/2015/08/undelivered-goods/

Heart of Empire — August 13, 2015, 11:32 am
Undelivered Goods

How $1.8 billion in aid to Ukraine was funneled to the outposts of the international finance galaxy

By Andrew Cockburn


Arriving home from a recent trip to Ukraine, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle reported his joy at witnessing “the Ukrainian people . . . coming together to rebuild their country from scratch.” Ukrainians had, he wrote, moved him with their dreams of joining the European Union, fighting corruption, and rebuilding their shattered economy, inspiring Daschle, now a highly paid lobbyist, to endorse the ominously strengthening Washington consensus on escalating the fighting with “$3 billion in lethal and nonlethal military assistance.”

Daschle’s trip was sponsored by the National Democratic Institute, an affiliate of the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy, headed by ur-neoconservative Carl Gershman, who some time ago identified Ukraine as “the biggest prize” for Russia and deployed considerable amounts of the taxpayer dollars at his disposal to securing it for the West. However, it has been Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland who has played the most active role in pursuit of the prize. Therefore, her interventions in Ukrainian politics and the realities of politics and business in that country deserve closer attention than they have so far received.

“Toria” Nuland, as I reported in the January 2015 issue of Harper’s Magazine, has enjoyed a remarkable career, occupying a succession of powerful positions through changing administrations, despite her close neocon associations over the years both marital—her husband being leading neocon ideologue Robert Kagan—and political, notably as a national-security adviser to former vice president Dick Cheney. In the buildup to the 2008 Russo-Georgia war, for example, Nuland, at the time ambassador to NATO, urged George Bush to accept both Georgia and Ukraine as NATO members. Since Georgia’s then president and neocon favorite, Mikheil Saakashvili, had high hopes of drawing the United States in on his side in the coming conflict, this was a dangerous initiative. Fortunately, Bush, by that time leery of neocon advice, stood firm against her pleas.

Despite her ongoing proximity to power, Nuland attracted little public attention until the leak of an intercepted phone call gave the rest of us a taste of how she operates. Incautiously chatting on her cell on January 28, 2014, with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, as the Kiev street protests against elected Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovych gathered momentum, Nuland and the diplomat mulled over who should now rule the country. Their candidate was “Yats,” the opposition politician Aseniy Yatsenyuk, as opposed to another opposition candidate, former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, favored by various European powers. Nuland was determined to keep Klitschko out and, as she infamously remarked on that call, “fuck the E.U.”

. . . MORE . . .

Posted in the interests of hearing another view of our role in the quiet war on Russia's southwestern border.

[Wilms]

1. ^

[Octafish]

2. Victoria Nuland is channeling Cheney.

She married PNAC Money.



Our woman in Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, is married to PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan's brother is Frederick Kagan

Frederick Kagan's spouse is Kimberly Kagan

Brilliant people, big ideas, etc. The thing is, that's a lot of PNAC. And the PNAC approach to international relations means more wars without end for profits without cease, among other things detrimental to democracy, peace and justice.

Thank you for the heads-up on the latest, leveymg. Reading Daschle makes me believe he saw the light, especially after being "left behind on 9-11."

[leveymg]

3. Here's how I learned about this article:

A low-post Member was tombstoned for running the same article. I think he exceeded the paragraph limit, so they KOed him. Seems a bit harsh for a technical violation. Anyway, that's DU these days. . .

[Octafish]

4. I guess I'm getting old, as I thought learning new stuff was part of the DU experience.

If I knew I had to salute somebody's boots, I wouldn't have been trying so hard to put the fascists out of office all these years.

From Harper's:

The scheme, as revealed in a series of court judgments of the Economic Court of the Dnipropetrovsk region monitored and reported by Nashi Groshi, worked like this: Forty-two Ukrainian firms owned by fifty-four offshore entities registered in Caribbean, American, and Cypriot jurisdictions and linked to or affiliated with the Privat group of companies, took out loans from PrivatBank in Ukraine to the value of $1.8 billion. The firms then ordered goods from six foreign “supplier” companies, three of which were incorporated in the United Kingdom, two in the British Virgin Islands, one in the Caribbean statelet of St. Kitts & Nevis. Payment for the orders—$1.8 billion—was shortly afterwards prepaid into the vendors’ accounts, which were, coincidentally, in the Cyprus branch of PrivatBank. Once the money was sent, the Ukrainian importing companies arranged with PrivatBank Ukraine that their loans be guaranteed by the goods on order.

The "money trumps peace" crowd is predictable, if not creative.

It's no wonder many old time DUers are no longer interested in posting on posts when the revelations of Mr. Snowden are taken into account cough privatized NSA spying.

[leveymg]

5. Not creative? Fraud and embezzlement associated with black ops are always entertainingly creative.

I could live to 100 and read twice as many pages a day, and never cease to be amazed and a bit amused by this subject. It's the armchair operator in me, I guess. A guilty pleasure - kinda like some people devour detective novels or Harlequin love stories.

[Octafish]

6. Pete Brewton: The Mafia, CIA & George Bush

Pete Brewton's book, “The Mafia, CIA & George Bush,” is a must-own for those interested in the workings of the Bush Organized Crime Family. Written by a former Houston Post reporter, the book documents, literally, the way the Mafia, the CIA and those connected and related to George Poppy Bush -- and to the late Lloyd Bentsen -- looted more than 1,000 of the nation’s Savings and Loans institutions — and pretty much got away with it, scot-free.

It makes me sad to write Corporate Owned News have ignored the investigative reporter-attorney-professor's work.