Peter Hitchens / The Daily Mail & AntiWar.com & Guy Taylor / The Washington Times – 2014-05-03 00:49:56
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2608679/PETER-HITCHENS-Who-using-spies-lies-grab-power-Kiev-We-are.html
Who Is Using Spies and Lies
To Grab Power in Kiev? We Are
Peter Hitchens / The Daily Mail
LONDON (April 19, 2014) — What would you think if Russia’s spy chief had been discovered last week, roaming round Ukraine?
The British media would have been raging and howling about sinister Kremlin meddling.
Well, as far as I know, no such visit took place. But something just as astonishing did happen. John Brennan, Director of the CIA, was, in fact, in Kiev last week, and I do not think he was there for the nightlife.
It is, by any measure, a hugely interesting fact that such a person, who seldom ventures out at all, was in Ukraine at a moment of great tension. Yet the information was buried by British news media.
Last week, I asked several colleagues whom I know to be assiduous newspaper readers, interested in the world, savvy and alert, if they knew Mr. Brennan had been in Kiev. Not one of them did.
Well, what else don’t we know? Here’s a hint. About three- quarters of what Russia is now doing in Ukraine is a bitter joke at the expense of the ‘West’. What we attack them for doing is what we have also done, in Yugoslavia and Ukraine.
We snatched Kosovo from Serbia. They have snatched Crimea from Ukraine. We like referendums which confirm what we wanted to do all along. So do they. So far, even they haven’t had the nerve to copy the EU habit of rerunning any votes that give the wrong result.
We unleashed armed mobs in Kiev, to overthrow the lawful authority. They have done the same in Donetsk.
Just as I have no doubt that Russian secret services and front organisations have helped, encouraged and equipped the crowds in Donetsk, I have no doubt that the ‘Maidan’ protests in Kiev had what I shall politely call help from outside.
I write as a former Marxist revolutionary who has organized demonstrations and knows how hard it is to mobilise and sustain them.
I think both sides have also shut down broadcasts they do not like.
The simple conclusion we might draw from this, this Eastertide, is that it would be wise to stop being so lofty about what the Russians are doing, and pretending that our side are the nice, law-abiding freedom-lovers.
We should ask instead what this conflict is really about. I will tell you. It is an old-style territorial clash over a very valuable piece of territory, in which the EU, as Germany used to do, seeks to expand its power and influence into areas long dominated by Moscow. This can only be resolved through compromise. Yet, on the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War that almost ended civilisation, I am amazed by the partisan enthusiasm for conflict and confrontation that has infected so many politicians and journalists.
Why wait for future historians to tell you that you were rushed into a stupid, ruinous war by crude, one-sided propaganda?
Tell these people now that you want no such thing.
Squawking Hypocrites Who Ignore Reality
I am puzzled by the fuss over Muslim activists taking over schools. You might as well deal with a burst pipe by changing into dry socks and shoes, and walking straight back into the water.
Muslims, many of them very serious and devout, now live in this country in large numbers. They do so because our elite for years pursued a liberal policy of wide-open borders.
Among those who support this policy are the very same neo-conservative types (also keen warmongers, seldom happier than when Western bombs are falling on Muslim cities) who now shout and squawk about Islamists taking over schools.
They are having it both ways. If we hadn’t wanted Islam to flourish in this country, we shouldn’t have encouraged Muslims to live here. Now we have done so, we are just going to have to get used to it.
How Pollyanna Turned into
An Evil, Deceitful Little Monster
Meet Pollyanna Creep. She sounds awful, doesn’t she? The name calls up a picture of a gap-toothed, lisping little girl in a frilly dress who is never ever bad.
Some of you will recall (as I can) Hayley Mills’s portrayal of the original Pollyanna, that dangerously optimistic heroine, in 1960. The character seemed to have been made entirely out of artificial sweeteners. But Pollyanna Creep is far, far worse. She was invented by an American economist, John Williams, to describe the US government’s habit of…, er, modifying its figures to give a good impression to voters.
Now she’s moved across the Atlantic, and is very busy in the Treasury (where she has successfully concealed the fact that the Government’s debt is actually still rising). And do you know anyone who seriously believes the Government’s inflation measure, the CPI, another part of Pollyanna Creep’s duties?
Two groups of people know for certain that it’s a lie — young couples trying to find somewhere to live; and savers, who are being legally burgled by the banks, with their joke interest rates.
Of course Miss Creep is working hard in the Ministry of Injustice too.
I still actually meet people, seemingly in possession of all their wits, who rather sweetly believe official crime figures.
They should listen to Judge Richard Bray, who said on his retirement last week: ‘The figures have been massaged. Robbery is now classified as theft from a person. Burglary is downgraded to criminal damage. Cautions and reprimands are used to save police time. But you ask the people who walk about the towns and cities at night if crime has gone down.’
Have we yet even begun to realise what a huge change may overtake us in September if Scotland votes for independence and Britain ceases to exist?
Silly threats about the pound, the economy and defence simply don’t work. I hope they wouldn’t work on us either. They actually increase the pro-independence vote. So why do we keep making them?
I for one am sure that the High Command of the Tory Party actively wants Scotland to leave. It is the only way the Conservatives, who like office above all things, will ever get a majority at Westminster again. You don’t think they are that cynical? Why ever not?
How odd, when BBC Radio 4’s Today programme discussed the introduction of horse racing on Good Friday, that it was all about time off for jockeys, and money. Nobody mentioned the fact that it is the most solemn day in the Christian calendar. Once nobody knows, nobody cares. In the same way, people will one day forget that such a country as Britain ever existed. It’s the speed of it that amazes me.
USAID Announces New Subsidies for Ukraine Media
Jason Ditz / Anti-War.com
(May 2, 2014) — The US Agency for International Development (USAID), most recently in the headlines for its covert creation of “Cuban Twitter,” a social media enterprise aimed at regime change, is set to throw more money at sympathetic media in the Ukraine.
Already on the hook for millions of dollars at this point, USAID announced another $1.25 million for promoting “universal values” in the Ukraine, much of it related to the upcoming elections.
In addition to direct support for media, the USAID money is also aiming to organize “town hall events” in Ukraine focusing on the importances of “Ukrainian unity and the implications of EU integration.”
The program was initially unveiled during the Yanukovych government, and at the time focused on “independent media.” Now, USAID openly declares its supports for the interim Ukrainian government, and is focused instead on pushing to establish the legitimacy of that new ruling faction.
USAID Beefs Support for Ukrainian Media
Amid Fresh Military Clashes in the East
Guy Taylor / The Washington Times
(May 2, 2014) — The US Agency for International Development announced Friday that it will beef up its spending in Ukraine to help the nation’s independent media outlets prepare for covering the May 25 Ukrainian presidential election.
USAID officials said they will add $1.25 million specifically for media support onto the more than $10 million US government agencies already committed to help bring about a transparent election in Ukraine, where a pro-Western interim government has been in place since the nation’s Russia-backed president resigned amid massive protests in February.
The agency said in a statement Friday that Ukraine’s media has “faced serious challenges and dangers” amidst tensions in the nation over the past several months,” with more than 500 journalists “harassed, beaten, abducted and one journalist killed.”
“USAID supports a strong and independent media in Ukraine,” said Paige Alexander, assistant administrator for USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. “This additional funding will help to protect vulnerable journalists while also advancing press freedoms and democratic governance in Ukraine.”
The additional $1.25 million will be channeled into the agency’s “U-MEDIA” program in Ukraine, a project of Internews, a nonprofit international media support organization based in California and Washington, D.C.
Friday’s announcement came amidst escalating tension between Russia and the interim government in Ukraine’s capital city of Kiev over the growing presence of Moscow-backed militants in Eastern Ukraine.
The past 24 hours have seen fresh clashes between those militants and Ukrainian military forces beholden to Kiev. The Associated Press reported that two Ukrainian helicopters were shot down Friday as Ukrainian military launched its first major offensive against the pro-Russia militants that have seized government buildings in the nation’s East.
News organizations also reported that officials in Moscow had said Kiev’s move against the militants had “destroyed” hopes for peace in Ukraine’s east.
The AP reported that fighting broke out around dawn near Slovyansk, a city roughly 100 miles from the Russian border that has become the focus of the armed insurgency against Ukraine’s interim government. Two helicopter crew were killed in the crashes, both sides said, and a pro-Russia militiaman was reported killed.
The Ukrainian Security Service said one of the helicopters had been hit by a surface-to-air missile and that the use of such a sophisticated weapon undercut Russian government claims that Slovyansk was simply under the control of armed locals. The Ukrainian Security Service added that its forces were fighting “highly skilled foreign military men” in the city.
Separately, the AP reported that journalists from CBS News, Buzzfeed and Sky News who were covering the unrest in eastern Ukraine had been freed after being detained by the pro-Russia insurgents for several hours Friday.
CBS correspondent Clarissa Ward and her crew, and Buzzfeed Mideast correspondent Mike Giglio, were taken into custody Friday near Slovyansk. Mrs. Ward said she and her crew were bound with tape and transported to another location, and one of her male colleagues was beaten while being held captive.
Copyright 2014 The Washington Times, LLC.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
