Ukraine: Founding false narrative + media distortion => World War III

[Ghost Dog]

... To believe that Putin was indeed the mastermind of the crisis, you would have to think that he somehow arranged to have the EU offer the association agreement last year, then got the International Monetary Fund to attach such draconian “reforms” that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych backed away from the deal.

Then, Putin had to organize mass demonstrations at Kiev’s Maidan square against Yanukovych while readying neo-Nazi militias to act as the muscle to finally overthrow the elected president and replace him with a regime dominated by far-right Ukrainian nationalists and U.S.-favored technocrats. Next, Putin had to get the new government to take provocative actions against ethnic Russians in the east, including threatening to outlaw Russian as an official language.

And throw into this storyline that Putin – all the while – was acting like he was trying to help Yanukovych defuse the crisis and even acquiesced to Yanukovych agreeing on Feb. 21 to accept an agreement brokered by three European countries calling for early Ukrainian elections that could vote him out of office. Instead, Putin was supposedly ordering neo-Nazi militias to oust Yanukovych in a Feb. 22 putsch, all the better to create the current crisis...

... This founding false narrative was then embroidered by a consistent pattern of distorted U.S. reporting as the crisis unfolded. Indeed, for the past eight months, we have seen arguably the most one-sided coverage of a major international crisis in memory, although there were other crazed MSM stampedes, such as Iraq’s non-existent WMD in 2002-03, Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb project for most of the past decade, Libya’s “humanitarian crisis” of 2011, and Syria’s sarin gas attack in 2013. But the hysteria over Ukraine – with U.S. officials and editorialists now trying to rally a NATO military response to Russia’s alleged “invasion” of Ukraine – raises the prospect of a nuclear confrontation that could end all life on the planet...

... U.S. mainstream news media’s distortion of the Ukraine crisis is something that a real totalitarian could only dream about. Virtually absent from major U.S. news outlets – across the political spectrum – has been any significant effort to tell the other side of the story or to point out the many times when the West’s “fair and factual version of events” has been false or deceptive, starting with the issue of who started this crisis...

/... http://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/02/whos-telling-the-big-lie-on-ukraine/

[nationalize the fed]

1. k/r Watch Consortium news as it goes under the bus

you might find this interesting

[Ghost Dog]

2. Yes. "Imagine a system where the enemy is truth."

[geek tragedy]

6. Only bigots and fascists value what a white supremacist

piece of human filth like Paul Craig Roberts has to say. As a far rightwing racist, of course he prefers Putin's Russia to Obama's America.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Was Consortium News ever even over the bus?

It's a pretty small two-bit news operation. I never even heard of it before the Ukrainian crisis, and what I've seen since hasn't been very impressive. Mostly Robert Parry's own musings, which are far from objective analysis to say the least.

LOL Paul Craig Roberts.

[freshwest]

12. Paul Craig Roberts: Father of Reaganomics and has long been an idol for Infowars fans.

I was going to post the links to many of the great RW places where he's revered, but will go with his latest. Be scared, very scared:

Don’t expect to live much longer

By Paul Craig Roberts on August 14, 2014



Perhaps the Russian government thought that only Iraq, Libya, Syria, China, and Edward Snowden would be subjected to Washington’s lies and demonization.

It was obvious enough that Russia would be next.

It is hardly surprising that Washington now targets Russia...

Even the president of China comes to Washington to receive acceptance by the Evil Empire...

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=102423

http://www.darkmoon.me/2014/dont-expect-to-live-much-longer/

Evil Empire? His boss Reagan called the USSR that. Is Obama still a godless Muslim Kenyan?

Roberts forgot who he worked for. Iran Contra ring a bell? And he still supports Reagonomics!

[freshwest]

13. Self-delete, DU posted it twice.

[NuclearDem]

11. Oh dear, PCR.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110717154542/http://www.vdare.com/roberts/west_future.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20070208212620/http://www.vdare.com/appeals/072506_pcr.htm

[DetlefK]

3. Who claimed that Putin organized the Maidan demonstrations???

An old man once came to my parent's house, he was just taking a walk and they knew him via some far-flung connection to their old town. My father had a short chat with him.

Here's what my father told me afterwards: That old man blamed WWII on the Jews. WWII would never have happened if the Jews hadn't brought Hitler to power!

[Nye Bevan]

4. Is it also the West's fault that Putin annexed Crimea? (nt)

[geek tragedy]

5. Parry is resorting to attacking arguments no one

is making.

Such is life as a de facto employee of Russian state media.

[JamesStrait]

7. WWIII?

WWIII?

I've already written the book.

http://www.amazon.com/World-War-III-Not-Imagined-ebook/dp/B00K14WUK8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1399685078

[pampango]

8. Who ever accused Putin of orchestrating all of that? (Apologies to John McCain who probably did.)

My guess is that he was quite happy to have Yanukovich as president of Ukraine. Yanukovich was as pro-Russia as he was going to get in a country where ethnic Russians were 17% of the population.

Yanukovich ran for president on a pro-European integration platform and won. When he reversed himself in 2013 and signed a trade deal with Russia instead, people were upset - as often happens when politicians reverse their campaign promises. Most folks would be surprised if Putin did not have something to do with that Yanukovich reversal. That was a big foreign policy issue for Russia and Putin is the president of Russia and not really known as a hands-off kind of leader.

Why would "Putin ... organize mass demonstrations at Kiev’s Maidan square against Yanukovych" when the latter had just signed the trade deal that Russia wanted? (Perhaps I should be asking McCain this question.) Is Putin a 10-dimensional chess player, too?

Once things got to the point of the negotiations between Yanukovich and the demonstrators leading up to the signing of the Feb. 21 agreement, it would be interesting to know how the conversations between Putin and Yanukovich went.

Was it: 1. Don't sign anything! You still control the army, Berkut and security forces. The protesters control one square in a large city. Few have weapons and those that do only have old rifles. Only a wimp would cave in that situation. Be tough! Hang in there! You can survive this. Russia needs you.

Tens of thousands protested my election in 2012 in the streets of Moscow. I am still here. Where are they? And how peaceful are the streets of Moscow now?

2. Alright. Thanks for trying to hold on but this just is not working out. Go ahead and sign the agreement with the protesters. Use your security forces to protect yourself and the government as outlined. You will probably lose the December election but those things happen. We can live with that.

3. Well Viktor, you have blown this whole thing. On to Plan B. Sign the agreement. No matter what it says, order your security forces not protect government buildings and personnel. And get ready to leave. If we are lucky, the undefended buildings will be taken over by unruly mobs, looting and burning.

This will be a "right wing coup". Let's make it look like one. Konstantinov in Crimea has already announced that, if there is a change in power in Kiev, Crimea will separate from Ukraine. I would rather still have you running the Ukrainian government but it looks like we'll have to settle for adding Crimea to Russia and maybe stirring up trouble in the east against the "right wing coup" in Kiev.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

10. Parry's strawmanning it pretty hard here.

Essentially, he's saying for Putin to be to blame, he has to be the one who organized the events on Maidan. Which no one is saying. Putin himself was a secondary character throughout Maidan. According to Parry, absent that preposterous situation, Putin's blameless and "the West" is to blame.

The question about the integrity of Ukraine's borders began when Putin invaded Crimea. Period. That's when this current crisis began. Had Putin never invaded Crimea, Ukraine would simply not be in this situation.

Pretty blatant Putin apology on behalf of Robert Parry here.