Sara Flounders / Workers.org & Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research & The Jewish News Agency & Stephen Lendman / Global Research – 2014-03-06 00:58:55
Why Are Nazi and Confederate Flags on Display in Kiev?
Sara Flounders / Workers.org & Global Research
(March 5, 2014) — When Kiev’s City Hall was seized with guns and Molotov cocktails, one of the first acts of the Euromaidan street fighters was to unfurl a number of flags and insignia. Prominent among the flags were swastikas, Iron Crosses, Nazi SS lightning bolts, the Celtic cross used by the Ku Klux Klan, and the Confederate “stars and bars” flag of slaveholders in the United States. (http://tinyurl.com/ltfu4vq)
This is no accident. The flag of the US Southern slaveholders and the Klan cross are symbols understood around the world. They stand for racism, reaction, lynchings and mass terror, for keeping oppressive institutions intact and for beating down people of color and all those who struggle for a better world.
Racists from across Europe have traveled to Kiev. Wearing these symbols on their helmets and jackets, these thugs roamed Kiev and defaced the homes of Jews. They destroyed memorials to those who fought the Nazi invasion and occupation of the Ukraine in World War II. Offices of the Communist Party of the Ukraine were ransacked and destroyed, revolutionary books publicly burned in bonfires. Twenty-five statues of Lenin have been destroyed, requiring heavy equipment. (tinyurl.com/lfs734u) Amidst this offense of fascist vandalism, progressive people have mobilized to protect progressive centers, monuments and government buildings.
Symbols send a message. They are shorthand to millions of people for the aspirations and goals of social and political movements.
Naming a street, boulevard, school or holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks is recognition of the historic Civil Rights movement and Black liberation movement in the US It resonates with all who stand against racism and oppression.
Certain symbols of revolution, resistance and liberation, such as the red flag, the red and black flag, the red star and the rainbow flag, are recognized around the world. The struggle to remove racist names of sports teams is well understood, as is the struggle to remove memorials to racists, slave owners and Confederates throughout the US South.
Victoria Nuland, the US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, publicly bragged that Washington has committed more than $5 billion to these “democratic forces” in the Ukraine. (tinyurl.com/q577smd)
Nuland, Sen. John McCain and other US and German politicians have publicly embraced known fascist thugs. Open US support for the Ukrainian Fatherland Party, the Svoboda party and Right Sector is hardly a mistake. It is sign of how the US and European Union plan to impose austerity, cutbacks and rule by Western banks.
The display of hated racist and fascist symbols should serve as a dire warning of what is at stake in the Ukraine today for all progressive people fighting for change, liberation and human solidarity. All capitalism can offer in its state of decay is more poverty, repression, fascism and war
Ukraine: Israeli Special Forces Unit under Neo-Nazi Command Involved in Maidan Riots
Prof Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research
(March 3, 2014) — Under the title “In Kiev, an Israeli army vet led a street-fighting unit”, the Jewish News Agency JTA confirms that soldiers from the IDF were involved in the EuroMaidan protest movement under the direct command of the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party. The Svoboda Party follows in the footsteps of World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
The leader of the “Blue Helmets of Maidan” is Delta, “the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution”. Delta is a Veteran of the notorious Givati infantry brigade, which was involved in numerous operations directed against Gaza including Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009.
The Givati brigade was responsible for the massacres in the Tel el-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza. Delta, the leader of the EuroMaidan IDF unit acknowledges that he acquired his urban combat skills in the Shu’alei Shimshon reconnaissance battalion of the Givati brigade.
According to the JTA report, Delta was in command of a force of 40 men and women including several former IDF veterans. In the EuroMaidan, Delta was routinely applying his skills of urban warfare, which he had used against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Maidan “Street fighting unit” under Delta’s command was involved in confronting government forces. It is unclear from the reports whether the EuroMaidan combat unit was in liaison with IDF command headquarters in Israel:
The Blue Helmets comprise 35 men and women who are not Jewish, and who are led by five ex-IDF soldiers, says Delta, an Orthodox Jew in his late 30s
Delta, who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s, moved back to Ukraine several years ago . . . He says he joined the protest movement as a volunteer on Nov. 30, after witnessing violence by government forces against student protesters.
“I saw unarmed civilians with no military background being ground by a well-oiled military machine, and it made my blood boil,” Delta told JTA in Hebrew laced with military jargon. “I joined them then and there, and I started fighting back the way I learned how, through urban warfare maneuvers. People followed, and I found myself heading a platoon of young men. Kids, really.”
The other ex-IDF infantrymen joined the Blue Helmets later after hearing it was led by a fellow vet, Delta said.
In a bitter irony, Delta, the commander of the IDF militia unit was taking his orders directly from the Neo-Nazi Party Svoboda:
As platoon leader, Delta says he takes orders from activists connected to Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist [Neo-Nazi] party that has been frequently accused of anti-Semitism and whose members have been said to have had key positions in organizing the opposition protests.
“I don’t belong [to Svoboda], but I take orders from their team. They know I’m Israeli, Jewish and an ex-IDF soldier. They call me ‘brother,'” he said. “What they’re saying about Svoboda is exaggerated, I know this for a fact. I don’t like them because they’re inconsistent, not because of [any] anti-Semitism issue.”
Neither the Tel Aviv government nor the Israeli media have expressed concern regarding the fact that the EuroMaidan protests were led by Neo-Nazis.
With the formation of a new government composed of NeoNazis, the Jewish community in Kiev is threatened. This community is described as “one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the world, with dozens of active Jewish organizations and institutions”. A significant part of this community is made up of family members of holocaust survivors. “Three million Ukrainians were murdered by the Nazis during their occupation of Ukraine, including 900,000 Jews.” (indybay.org, January 29, 2014).
“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests”
In a bitter twist, the Blue Helmet IDF unit in the EuroMaidan has been the object of praise by the Israeli media. According to Ariel Cohen of the Washington based Heritage Foundation: “The commanding position of Svoboda in the revolution is no secret”. The participation of Israeli soldiers under Neo-Nazi Svoboda command does not seem to be an object of concern:
On Wednesday, Russian State Duma Chairman Sergey Naryshkin said Moscow was concerned about anti-Semitic declarations by radical groups in Ukraine.But Delta says the Kremlin is using the anti-Semitism card falsely to delegitimize the Ukrainian revolution, which is distancing Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence.
“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests, and the claims to the contrary were part of the reason I joined the movement. We’re trying to show that Jews care,” he said.
Bandera was a Nazi collaborator involved in the Third Reich’s Einsatzgruppen (Task Groups or Deployment Groups) . These “task forces” were paramilitary death squads deployed throughout the Ukraine.
In Kiev, an Israeli Army Vet Led a Street-fighting Unit
Cnaan Liphshiz / JTA: The Global Jewish News Source
(February 28, 2014) — He calls his troops “the Blue Helmets of Maidan,” but brown is the color of the headgear worn by Delta — the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution.
Under his helmet, he also wears a kippah.
Delta, a Ukraine-born former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, spoke to JTA Thursday on condition of anonymity. He explained how he came to use combat skills he acquired in the Shu’alei Shimshon reconnaissance battalion of the Givati infantry brigade to rise through the ranks of Kiev’s street fighters.
He has headed a force of 40 men and women — including several fellow IDF veterans — in violent clashes with government forces. Several Ukrainian Jews, including Rabbi Moshe Azman, one of the country’s claimants to the title of chief rabbi, confirmed Delta’s identity and role in the still-unfinished revolution.
The “Blue Helmets” nickname, a reference to the UN peacekeeping force, stuck after Delta’s unit last month prevented a mob from torching a building occupied by Ukrainian police, he said. “There were dozens of officers inside, surrounded by 1,200 demonstrators who wanted to burn them alive,” he recalled. “We intervened and negotiated their safe passage.”
The problem, he said, was that the officers would not leave without their guns, citing orders. Delta told JTA his unit reasoned with the mob to allow the officers to leave with their guns. “It would have been a massacre, and that was not an option,” he said.
The Blue Helmets comprise 35 men and women who are not Jewish, and who are led by five ex-IDF soldiers, says Delta, an Orthodox Jew in his late 30s who regularly prays at Azman’s Brodsky Synagogue. He declined to speak about his private life.
Delta, who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s, moved back to Ukraine several years ago and has worked as a businessman. He says he joined the protest movement as a volunteer on Nov. 30, after witnessing violence by government forces against student protesters.
“I saw unarmed civilians with no military background being ground by a well-oiled military machine, and it made my blood boil,” Delta told JTA in Hebrew laced with military jargon. “I joined them then and there, and I started fighting back the way I learned how, through urban warfare maneuvers. People followed, and I found myself heading a platoon of young men. Kids, really.”
The other ex-IDF infantrymen joined the Blue Helmets later after hearing it was led by a fellow vet, Delta said.
As platoon leader, Delta says he takes orders from activists connected to Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist party that has been frequently accused of anti-Semitism and whose members have been said to have had key positions in organizing the opposition protests.
“I don’t belong [to Svoboda], but I take orders from their team. They know I’m Israeli, Jewish and an ex-IDF soldier. They call me ‘brother,'” he said. “What they’re saying about Svoboda is exaggerated, I know this for a fact. I don’t like them because they’re inconsistent, not because of [any] anti-Semitism issue.”
The commanding position of Svoboda in the revolution is no secret, according to Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation think tank. “The driving force among the so-called white sector in the Maidan are the nationalists, who went against the SWAT teams and snipers who were shooting at them,” Cohen told JTA. Still, many Jews supported the revolution and actively participated in it.
Earlier this week, an interim government was announced ahead of election scheduled for May, including ministers from several minority groups. Volodymyr Groysman, a former mayor of the city of Vinnytsia and the newly appointed deputy prime minister for regional policy, is a Jew, Rabbi Azman said.
“There are no signs for concern yet,” said Cohen, “but the West needs to make it clear to Ukraine that how it is seen depends on how minorities are treated.”
On Wednesday, Russian State Duma Chairman Sergey Naryshkin said Moscow was concerned about anti-Semitic declarations by radical groups in Ukraine. But Delta says the Kremlin is using the anti-Semitism card falsely to delegitimize the Ukrainian revolution, which is distancing Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence.
“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests, and the claims to the contrary were part of the reason I joined the movement. We’re trying to show that Jews care,” he said.
Still, Delta’s reasons for not revealing his name betray his sense of feeling like an outsider. “If I were Ukrainian, I would have been a hero. But for me it’s better to not reveal my name if I want to keep living here in peace and quiet,” he said. Fellow Jews have criticized him for working with Svoboda.
“Some asked me if instead of ‘Shalom’ they should now greet me with a ‘Sieg heil.’ I simply find it laughable,” he said. But he does have frustrations related to being an outsider: “Sometimes I tell myself, ‘What are you doing? This is not your army. This isn’t even your country.'”
He recalls feeling this way during one of the fiercest battles he experienced, which took place last week at Institutskaya Street and left 12 protesters dead.
“The snipers began firing rubber bullets at us. I fired back from my rubber-bullet rifle,” Delta said. “Then they opened live rounds, and my friend caught a bullet in his leg. They shot at us like at a firing range. I wasn’t ready for a last stand. I carried my friend and ordered my troops to fall back. They’re scared kids. I gave them some cash for phone calls and told them to take off their uniform and run away until further instructions. I didn’t want to see anyone else die that day.”
Currently, the Blue Helmets are carrying out police work that includes patrols and preventing looting and vandalism in a city of 3 million struggling to climb out of the chaos that engulfed it for the past three months. But Delta has another, more ambitious, project: He and Azman are organizing the airborne evacuation of seriously wounded protesters — none of them Jewish — for critical operations in Israel. Azman says he hopes the plane of 17 patients will take off next week, with funding from private donors and with help from Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel.
One of the patients, a 19-year-old woman, was wounded at Institutskaya by a bullet that penetrated her eye and is lodged inside her brain, according to Delta. “The doctor told me that another millimeter to either direction and she would be dead,” Delta said. “And I told him it was the work of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.”
Cnaan Liphshiz is JTA’s news and features correspondent in Europe. Based in the Netherlands, he covers the mosaic of cultures, languages and traditions that is European Jewry. Born in Israel, he used to work as foreign news editor for Ma’ariv and as a reporter for Haaretz.
Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Mobilize for War
Stephen Lendman / Global Research
(March 3, 2014) — When inmates run the asylum, anything is possible. Chaos is likely.
Obama’s Ukrainian allies include a rogue’s gallery of societal misfits. They’re militant fascists. They’re thugs. They’re criminals. They’re illegitimate putschists. They’re hate-mongering anti-Semites. Combined they represent mob rule. They make mafia bosses look saintly by comparison. They threaten world peace. They vowed to fight.
Illegitimate prime minister/Washington favorite Arseny Yatseniuk said “(m)ilitary intervention would be the beginning of war and the end of any relations between Ukraine and Russia.”
Illegitimate president Olexander Turchynov ordered Ukrainian military forces mobilized. Reserve forces were activated. Full combat alert was ordered. Yatseniuk said: “This is not a threat. This is actually the declaration of war to my country.”
“If President Putin wants to be the president who started the war between two neighboring and friendly countries, between Ukraine and Russia . . . ,he has reached this target within a few inches. We are on the brink of disaster.”
Ukraine putschists want NATO intervention. Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s rap sheet includes numerous high crimes. He disgracefully accused Russia of threatening European peace and security.
Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski nonsensically said his country “could feel threatened by a potential Russian military intervention.” Canada’s right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper recalled his ambassador to Russia.
“We call on President Putin to immediately withdraw his forces to their bases and refrain from further provocative and dangerous actions,” he said. He warned about “negative” Canadian/Russian relations.
On March 1, Canadian cabinet ministers discussed ongoing Ukrainian events. They issued a statement, saying:
“We join our allies in condemning in the strongest terms President Putin’s military intervention in Ukraine.
“These actions are a clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They are also in violation of Russia’s obligations under international law.”
On Saturday, Obama and Harper spoke by phone. They agreed to “coordinate closely.”
On June 4 and 5, plans call for holding the 40th G-8 summit in Sochi, Russia. Whether it’s held remains in doubt. Canada pulled out. So did Britain and France. On Sunday, UK Foreign Minister William Hague issued a statement, saying:
“The UK will join other G8 countries this week in suspending our cooperation under the G8, which Russia chairs this year, including meetings this week for the preparation of the G8 summit.”
US news media said Obama’s preparing to cancel his participation. Washington already suspended involvement in preparatory meetings.
John Kerry is an unindicted war criminal. He said Russia risks losing its G-8 status if its Crimean policy remains unchanged. He threatened measures to isolate Moscow.
Russia’s lower house Duma Committee for International Affairs head, Alexei Pushkov, said Western attempts to do so won’t work. It’s “impossible,” he stressed. Attempted isolation is a “doomed” strategy, he said.
On Sunday, AP reported “(h)undreds of armed men in trucks and armored vehicles surround(ing) a Ukrainian military base in Crimea. . .”
Soldiers inside are prevented from leaving. Many Ukraine Crimean-based forces shifted sides. They reject Kiev putschists.
On Sunday, Russia’s media reported rallies supporting Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. Demonstrators carried Russian flags. They chanted “Russia and Ukraine are brothers forever” and “Crimea, Russia is with you.”
Rally organizers expressed concern for their Ukrainian compatriots. “We don’t abandon our people,” they said. They endorsed sending Russian military forces to protect them.
On March 2, RT.com said “Ukrainian radical activists are conducting organized searches of residences of former government officials . . . .”
They’re handing over so-called documents found to America’s military. A Russian citizen identified only as Vladislav said he spent three days with neo-Nazi Right Sector extremists. He took part in raids. “They load buses with the self-defense troops and go to MPs’ dachas in the suburbs, to their apartments, and break down their doors,” he said. “They take (so-called) documents and hand them over to special people who check them.”
He saw men he called American military. They were in uniform. Germans were involved. They took what was found.
Right Sector radicals stole valuables. They were “handed over to intendants [sic] to be sold.” Money raised would be used to buy weapons, he said. He mentioned “foreign mercenaries” involved in earlier Kiev violence.
On March 2, RT.com headlined “Ukraine nationalist leader calls on ‘most wanted’ terrorist Umarov ‘to act against Russia.'” Caucasus Emirate group head Doku Umarov is Russia’s most wanted criminal. He’s charged with murder, kidnappings and treason. He’s a Chechen Salafist. He’s linked to Al Qaeda. He’s called Russia’s bin Laden. He threatened terrorist attacks during Sochi’s Winter Olympics.
He claimed responsibility for attacking Domodedovo airport in 2011 as well as Moscow’s 2010 metro bomb incident. He supports efforts to topple Syria’s Assad. He self-appointed himself Russian North Caucasus emir. He was involved against Russia in both Chechen wars.
It’s unclear if he’s still alive. In mid-January, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Russian forces killed him. Whether true or false isn’t known. At the time, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said:
“I think that until proof of death is presented for certain terrorists, the special services must list them as alive. When such proof is presented, (their names will) be taken off the list of the living.”
Umarov last appeared alive in a summer 2013 video. He hasn’t appeared in others since then.
Neo-Nazi Right Sector leader Dmytry Yarosh wants Umarov’s help against Russia. He posted his message on the Right Sector’s VKontakte social network page. He said “many Ukrainians with arms in their hands” supported Chechens against Russia. It’s “time to support Ukraine now.”
He called on Umarov “to activate his fight. . .” He wants him to “take a unique chance to win” against Russia. He’s openly fascist. “I’ll be fighting Jews and Russians till I die,” he said earlier. He calls Russia Ukraine’s “eternal foe.” He said war between both countries is inevitable. He openly supports Chechen militants. He backed Georgia’s 2008 aggression against South Ossetia.
Aliy Totorkulov chairs the Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus. He calls Yarosh wanting Umarov’s help the “guts of the so-called new Ukrainian authorities.”
“Extremists, nationalists of all stripes, flooded the peaceful republic threatening it with chaos and violence,” he added. Yarosh’s “hands are stained with blood.” Radicalized “Maidan sponsors” and forces supporting Caucasus instability reflect “single-center” extremism. “We strongly support the deployment of Russian troops to resolve the situation in Crimea as well as provide assistance to other Ukrainian regions, where the population rejects nationalism and asks (Moscow) for help and protection,” he stressed.
Right Sector officials are the worst of a bad lot of rogue elements running things in Ukraine. They’re gun-toting, radicalized terrorists. Imagine them and likeminded extremists in charge of Ukraine’s government.
Imagine the damn fool in the White House embracing them. Next thing you know he’ll be calling them freedom fighters. They’re cold-blooded killers. State terrorism reflects neo-Nazi Ukrainian governance. Democracy is verboten. Fascist criminals run things. They belong in prison. They’re valued US allies. Obama bears full responsibility for elevating them to power. Perhaps we’ll all end up paying for his lawlessness.
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