Obama Wraps War Mongering in Phony Gay Rights Crusade

The American war machine is constantly working to sell perpetual war based on such false pretenses as making the world safe for democracy, killing those who hate us for our freedoms, stopping the global communist menace, the war on terror, preemptively taking out the latest “new Hitler” and now making the planet safe for gay rights. This is a masterpiece of bullshit from the Obama regime and it will play very well with the ongoing cynical manipulation of gay voters as the 2016 election campaign begins. Liberals who have learned to love the wars that they at one time wanted George W. Bush's head on a pike for now that the White House is occupied by a Democrat will no doubt be thrilled to line up and salute that rainbow pride flag that the imperialist Obama and soon Queen Hillary will be flying as they continue their crusade for global US hegemony or making the planet safe for McDonalds at the point of a gun.

This is raw political cynicism at its worst and every bit the equal of the Republicans firing up the Jesus juicing mouth breathers of their party base for years over the ridiculous culture wars and the drive to overturn Roe v. Wade which despite many years of iron-fisted GOP control over all three branches of the government still stands so potent it is as a political mobilizer. Under Obama the drive to make gay marriage the law of the land - and it should be the right of any individual to marry whoever the hell they damned well please - is the precursor to the branding of the USA! USA! USA! as the top global cop when it comes to protecting gay rights. Never mind the sheer hypocrisy that not only do many US states are overtly hostile to gay rights (primarily behind the cornbread curtain in Dixie) but our "ally" Saudi Arabia is one of the most oppressive countries towards homosexuality on God's green Earth.

The new strategy for selling violent corporate imperialism to the butterflies, moonbeams and zebras crowd that are the holier than thou liberals is explained in The Guardian in an article entitled  "Obama uses embassies to push for LGBT rights abroad" from which I excerpt:

President Barack Obama's administration has taken the US gay rights revolution global, using American embassies across the world as outposts in a struggle that still hasn't been won at home.

Sometimes US advice and encouragement is condemned as unacceptable meddling. And sometimes it can seem to backfire, increasing the pressure on those it is meant to help.

With gay pride parades taking place in many cities across the world this weekend, the US role will be more visible than ever. Diplomats will take part in parades and some embassies will fly the rainbow flag along with the Stars and Stripes.

AND

While some gay rights activists say support from the US and other western countries adds moral legitimacy to their cause, it can also cause a backlash.

Rauda Morcos, a prominent Palestinian lesbian activist, said local communities, particularly in the Middle East, have to find their own ways of asserting themselves. She criticized the US and western efforts in general to help gay communities elsewhere as patronizing.

"It is a colonial approach," she said. "In cases where it was tried, it didn't help local communities and maybe made things even worse."

An extreme case has been Uganda, which in February passed a law making gay sex punishable by a life sentence. In enacting the bill, President Yoweri Museveni said he wanted to deter the West from "promoting" gay rights in Africa, a continent where homosexuals face severe discrimination and even attacks. In response, the US imposed sanctions and Secretary of State John Kerry compared the policies to the anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany and apartheid in South Africa.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has waged an assault on what he considers the encroachment of decadent western values, and the government last year banned "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors", making it a crime to hold gay rights rallies or to openly discuss homosexuality in content accessible to children. Afraid for their security, some Russian gay advocates try to keep their contacts with western officials quiet.

A couple of things really stand out in the excerpted pieces, first is the invoking of The Holocaust and Hitler's vile war against Europe's Jews in that: "Secretary of State John Kerry compared the policies to the anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany". This shtick is as abominable as it is predictable - there is nothing more repulsive than when political figures invoke the millions of dead Jews as justification for even more violence that will inevitably result in piles of corpses and atrocities but hey, it sells well to deep-pocketed liberal Jewish donors. It will only be a matter of time until Kerry and his ilk play the Holocaust card against Putin which brings me to a second excerpted bit of the story in that "In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has waged an assault on what he considers the encroachment of decadent western values". I suspect that a good part of the Obama administration global crusade for gay rights is more of the same sleazy anti-Putin propaganda that we have been beaten over the head with to justify the US backed coup d'etat in Kiev and the neo-Nazis that were installed along with the puppet regime. I ran across a brilliant essay on the big lies of the media (in this case the BBC) by Vera Graziadei, a British Ukrainian Russian actress and writer  entitled “The Cunning Demons of Russian Propaganda, or what the BBC forgot to warn us about” that is a must read when it comes to a blistering critique of the incessant anti-Russian propaganda and the US-EU-NATO Axis of Aggression crap that is peddled about what is really going on in Ukraine.

The Putin gay persecution narrative was a critical component of the gold medal winning Obama administration smear campaign undertaken by the US state-corporate media in the run up to the Sochi Winter Olympics and Obama milked it for all that it was worth by naming lesbian former tennis star Billie Jean King to his Olympic delegates. It was identity group based politics at its worst, particularly when considering how long that Obama shit on gays after he had their votes secured in 2008. The cruise missile liberals are going to love the new global crusade for gay rights even if they are too willfully blind to see that they are once again being played for chumps by a criminal Democratic party that is equally corrupt as the Republicans albeit not as overtly fascist. 

The Undeclared War on Muslims is Big Business in America

New York Times Whores Out to Anti-Muslim Fanatics

There has long been a concerted effort to demonize Muslims in the American Homeland as a part of the never-ending big money maker that is the phony war on terror. Big media of course plays a critical role in the dark propaganda campaigns that ensure that millions of Americans will continue to see the menace of al Qaeda and worse lurking in the darkest corner of their closets and under their beds. The connection is never made that the military and security industrial complex need the ongoing Muslim bogeyman to keep those god blessed dollars rolling in and to keep the war machine running on high. The business of America anymore - particularly since September 11, 2001 - is death, as in selling arms, financing repression and peddling surveillance technology against dissidents to friendly tyrants. The wars that drive what is left of the economy must go on as they always will in our own version of Oceania.

There are now ongoing military operations throughout the Middle East and in Africa, the latter is getting much attention in that the storyline is justperfect for the American low-information types and their knee jerk response to all things Muslim in that the radical group Boko Haram that kidnapped over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls represents another opportunity to unleash Team America World Police to delight those who watch far too much television and still buy into the lies of state. Secretary of Skull and Bones John Kerry - after thankfully disappearing for about a week or so after being a subject of much mockery due to his ongoing foreign policy foibles - reemerged at a State Department dinner to tout the latest fleecing of the taxpayer in a US involvement in Nigeria. Kerry oozed sanctimony as he delivered the lines that "Boko Haram, Nigeria, only the United States is there offering the assistance to help find those young women", and "Other countries, not only aren't they invited, but they did not even offer". There is a reason for this - it is a Nigerian problem and should be dealt with by Nigerians but in Murka it serves the purpose of perpetuating the big lie of the devilish Muslim fiend.

Years ago I came across an extremely interesting little book called "American Terminator: Myths, Movies and Global Power" which in a series of essays examines the role of movies in shaping and reinforcing the basis for a mythical American exceptionalism and Empire. The following passage is from that book which I recommend to anybody with an interest in just how popular culture serves as a delivery device that is integral in the American indoctrination process. I excerpt the following:

Fear is essential: 'Be afraid, be very afraid' is the American condition. To live in America is to be beset by fear, anxiety and insecurity, to be surrounded by potential harm, enemies and evil intent. And the wolf is always at the door. A nation of optimists is the more usual self-representation of America. Repetitively, Hollywood films conclude with a resolution, a rescue, and the winners ride off into the sunset or snuggle into a warm embrace that reassures us they will live happily ever after. The formulaic ending, however, is necessary because the plot, the narrative, is founded on and propelled by fear and anxiety, the dark essential underpinning of the American condition. For America fear is an original, natural condition, the inescapable birth rite (and birth right), the inherited condition of a fragile existence that must constantly be defended. Without fear there is no America; constant recourse to fear is the motivating force that determines its actions and reactions.

The fear needs to be of a foreign nature to effectively get the public on board with the murderous wars of aggression and the cool, detached drone strikes that are being carried out in the name of Americans, killing innocent Muslim women and children and turning their surviving loved ones against good old Uncle Scam, therefore providing the justifying factor for even more money stolen from essential social services etc to fund the killing machine. It is a damned good con that the establishment has going and without the assistance of a neocon infested media is one that will go on for the foreseeable future. Jack Bauer, American's favorite Nazi may have cut his television teeth on torturing and killing Muslims in the now updated for the times "24", Showtime's "Homeland"took it to another level with sleeper agents and Iranian terror on US shores and the box office hit "Zero Dark Thirty" further promoted torture but the real damage is done by what far too many still see as honest mainstream media and institutions such as the New York Times.

The Times is the same newspaper that just has come under fire for the sleazy hit piece disguised as a book review of Glenn Greenwald's "No Place to Hide" by notorious presstitute Michael Kinsley (Greenwald's response is here) as well as the retracted Michael Gordon story prominently featured as a basis to blame the hated Vladimir Putin for meddling in East Ukraine. The New York Times is again catching well deserved hell, this time for an insidious full page add that invokes 9/11 in calling for the persecution of Muslims. The ad, sponsored by yet another of those ubiquitous neocon think tanks, this one called "The Investigative Project on Terrorism" has a picture of the twin towers of the original World Trade Center with the menacing verbiage "Stop the Islamist Groups from Undermining America's security, liberty and free speech" with the IPT website address featured as a source for more information.

There hasn't been much outrage in the US state-corporate media as of yet this morning, they are too busy flogging to death the daily government talking points along with Donald Sterling and Miley Cyrus updates but The Guardian is once again on the ball. In a piece entitled "Why would the New York Times stoop to running an Islamophobe's ad?" subtitled"The newspaper delivers an air of legitimacy, even when those words are paid for by xenophobes to spread alarmist messages"by Raya Jalabi I excerpt the following:

By its own admission, the New York Times does not accept advertisements that are "gratuitously offensive on racial, religious or ethnic grounds or that are considered to be in poor taste." So it's difficult to comprehend how a full-screen online ad by a right-wing group warning readers about the"Islamist groups" out to undermine America's security, liberty and free speech passed those allegedly rigorous standards,

But, according to the Times's interpretation, the Investigative Project on Terrorism's plea for readers to "learn more" about the unnamed terror groups wreaking havoc on these United States was nothing more than a sober and warranted distress signal.

"STILL HERE. STILL FREE. BUT FOR HOW LONG?", the all-caps ad read, the words neatly positioned against the haunting backdrop of the smoking twin towers.

Readers who clicked on the ad were taken to a website for the IPT, the group who paid for the prominent space. A non-profit group, it claims to be "recognized as the world's most comprehensive data center on radical Islamic terrorist groups" -- though the metrics by which it measures itself are as-yet unclear. Clicking through its vast troves of "terror data" and "reports", readers could stumble on the Call To Action by the American People, an "educational" pamphlet that urges citizens to fight back against the "campaign of censorship" that the supposedly "main radical Islamic groups" have been waging against the most sacred freedom: free speech.

It is the typical fear porn that is pimped by secretive groups like The Clarion Fund that was behind the 2008 distribution of millions of those nasty little "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West"DVDs in the nation's newspapers in the run up to the presidential election in order to capitalize on the bund rallies being conducted by Sarah Palin that elicited cries of "kill him"against then candidate Obama. The target audience for the coming wave of anti-Muslim slime that will be churned out in this mid-term election year is the same as it ever was and bottom feeding hatemongers such as Pamela Geller, David Horowitz, Robert Spencerand their ilk will be instrumental in fomenting the fear and loathing as November draws closer. It is imperative that the support for the undeclared US war on Muslims continue so that the elected officials most receptive to big military and other special interest cash not be displaced by more rational representation.

Most disturbing though, and I go back to the cultural aspects is the media role in promulgating the anti-Muslim hate that exists today in this country. Fiendish advertisements funded by nefarious front groups in the nation's "paper of record" aside the problem is deeper than that. Take for instance HBO's comic Bill Maher whose popular show gives him a legitimate forum from which to demonize Muslims. Maher, an avowed atheist to his credit delivers deserved pillories to Christianity (at least in the southern-fried US incarnation that has excommunicated Jesus) but when speaking of Islam the millionaire joker takes the sort of edge more in line with the more vitriolic and hateful types who are legion in the extreme right that he hypocritically condemns. Libertarian magazine Reason has published an insightful article entitled "Bill Maher's Un-Cool Muslim Bashing"on their website from which I excerpt:

Maher is an arch atheist who regards all religions as awful. However, he thinks that Islam's inherently violent nature makes it particularly so. And he agrees with American Enterprise Institute's Aayan Hirsi Ali that liberals ought to stop pretending that a moderate form of Islam is even possible right now.

Maher's bold generalization might sound hip and cool--but it is actually false and dangerous (and I say this as an atheist born in the Hindu faith that has historically been at loggerheads with Islam.)

For starters, it ignores the 300 million Muslims--the size of America's population--in the world who are Sufis, a mystical form of Islam that is essentially pacifist and believes that the path to God is through music and dance.

Worse, Maher doesn't understand one can't characterize a whole faith as extremist without also legitimizing the idea that extreme measures are necessary to control it.

That's something even the un-cool George Bush instinctively understood. That's why he took pains to stress that America's beef wasn't with Islam--only the extremists perverting their faith. The upshot was that even though the attack killed 3,000 Americans, America avoided a backlash against Muslims. To be sure, a handful of innocent Asians, some of who weren't even Muslims, suffered random attacks, but there would have been far more bloodshed if Bush had followed Maher-style Muslim bashing.

Contrast this with India, my native country, where Maher-style denunciations of Muslims are part and parcel of the political culture. Barely six months after 9/11, about 2,000 Muslims were butchered in a pogrom in the state of Gujarat. (The governor on whose watch this happened just became the prime minister of India this week.)

India's majority Hindu population has historically had tense relations with the country's Muslim minority so anti-Muslim violence is nothing new. And in this case, the proximate cause of the massacre was retribution for some 50 Hindu pilgrims who died in a train fire that Muslims were rumored to have caused.

But the larger cause was that post-9/11, Maher-type talk of rising Islamofascism raised anti-Muslim sentiment in the country to a fevered pitch. It legitimized the ongoing demonization of India's Muslims, leaving the country with few inner resources to contain the violence against them.

The new leader of India, Narendra Modi who is referenced by the writer, Shikha Dalmia was the overwhelming choice of big business interests and rode into power on a wave of nationalism bears the stain of the 2002 pogrom unleashed on Muslims at Gujarat. Not that I give the Bush administration much credit for anything and they do have a huge share of culpability of exploiting anti-Muslim animosity for political points but they did deny Modi a visa in 2005. In a telling sign of the times the triumphant strongman of India has been invited to visit with President Barack Obama at the White House. The unifying factor of anti-Muslim fanaticism washes away many a sin, especially when there is a boatload of money riding on providing the military hardware, surveillance power and ideological clout of the bought and paid for media that promotes it.

Shame on the New York Times, Shame on them All!

Kerry’s Heroes: The Looming Massacre in Ukraine

The latest US-EU-NATO Axis of Aggression trick in Ukraine is the western puppet of the coup regime, Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk temporarily quelling the violence to conduct talks on what are being described as Moscow backed peace proposals as have been arranged by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This is however just another sham in that the results of Sunday's referendum conducted Sunday in the eastern region by anti-fascist, anti-austerity freedom fighters to establish the Donetsk People's Republic apart from the Kiev junta will not be invited to the talks. This appears for all intents and purposes to be just a brief retrenchment by the US installed occupying regime that displaced elected president Viktor Yanukovych to buy time until the May 25th elections that will exclude those whom neocon Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland denounces as "terrorists".

The level of investment by corrupt western interests, specifically American corporate interests in Ukraine has been out in the open although not in the US state-corporate media which is just an outlet for the lies of neoconservatives and their allies in the Obama administration. The announcement that Vice President Joe Biden's son R.Hunter Biden was just hired by Burisma Holdings, Ukraine's largest gas company makes it evident that the resources of the people who are the latest target of the Empire have already been sold off to the highest bidder. Having failed to this point to bait the reviled Russian leader Vladimir Putin into actually invading East Ukraine - after the failure to halt the loss of Crimea and the Russian naval base at the Black Sea port of Savastopol - and having likely suffered some degree of embarrassment in Europe over the vicious neo-Nazi pogrom in Odessa the interim "Yats" regime is just buying time and allowing things to slightly cool down. That however is not going to last and the carnage is soon to come.

The US Empire will not be denied in Ukraine and after the sham election on May 25th - which will exclude those in the east that have risen up against western backed fascism the dogs will be loosed again and will include corporate mercenaries among the neo-Nazi militias and military forces of the then 'elected' government in Kiev. The US plan doesn't change very much at least in the original concept of ethnic cleansing, murder and ostracism that was long ago perfected with Manifest Destiny leading to the routing of the indigenous occupants of America and John Wayne has been kicking ass and taking names ever since. The anti-fascists in east Ukraine are the new Indians and the meme in the run-up to May 25th seems to be using the propaganda machine to brand them as "those who use violence" which will justify the coming bloodletting when the next US-EU-NATO puppet is ensconced in the Kiev presidential palace. The new government will not be legitimate either in that the will of millions will be ignored which inevitably is leading to a civil war of the type that already has the blood barters salivating over profiteering from an increase in arms sales, Lockheed is one of them.

Once the time comes for the use of violence against dissidents the use of mercenaries will be integral, here had been early reports although unsubstantiated that the soldiers of fortune had already been operating in the area along with Pravy Sektor thugs given the aura of legitimacy of being deputized as national guardsmen. Last week the reportage of Der Spiegel broke the news that there were indeed approximately 400 such mercs already in country, allegedly from the U.S. firm Academi (formerly Blackwater) which is an indication of the escalation that is to come. The problem with the neoconservative plot in Ukraine has been that while the US so-called mainstream media continues to disseminate official lies the alternative media has been on the case in getting the truth out, often through writing about accounts provided from those on the ground. An interesting take on the mercenaries and the recklessness of the Nuland led operation is that the revelation that corporate mercenaries were killing civilians would blow the credibility of the US straight to hell - not that any is left.

I excerpt the following from the official propaganda organ Stars and Stripes story entitled "Rumors of American mercenaries in Ukraine spread to Germany":

 In eastern Ukraine, among pro-Russian separatists, the notion that elite American fighters are prowling the backroads and slag heaps of their region is oft-repeated. After first surfacing in March, the rumors sounded like the sort of paranoid fantasies created in a war zone where anti-Americanism is rampant.

But now the rumors are being repeated in Germany’s capital — and resonating. That alone may count as a victory for Russian propagandists, even if there are no American mercenaries. The White House says there are not.

Bild am Sonntag, a tabloidlike newspaper that occasionally breaks major stories on the German government, is reporting that German intelligence has told Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office that it had unconfirmed reports that 400 Americans appear to be aiding the interim Ukrainian government in its fight against pro-Russian separatists. According to Bild, the German intelligence agency cited U.S. intelligence officials as its source.

The report, which appeared Sunday, has since been repeated by many German news outlets. The allegation that the information was presented to the chancellor’s office in a weekly briefing in April lends it gravitas. That such reports in Bild on more than one occasion have proved true enhances its credibility. The chancellor’s office and the German intelligence service have declined to either confirm or deny, a development that leaves an atmosphere of doubt in a country where tensions are rife about just how angry Germany should be at Russia’s actions in Ukraine — fueled in no small part by German reliance on Russian natural gas and oil and the extensive business ties between the two nations.

“We’ve told Bild and other outlets that these stories are nonsense,” Caitlin Hayden, the national security spokeswoman for the White House, said Wednesday. “The company in question has been on record denying it for almost two months.” [Who in the hell would believe the White House a collection of war criminals and pathological liars if there ever were one]

AND 

Suddeutsche Zeitung columnist Hubert Wetzel on Wednesday described the rumors as potentially devastating for the Western cause in Ukraine. His column made a point of noting that even the report of the report to the chancellor’s office was still a rumor. But he noted that if confirmed, it would damage the Western claim to the moral high ground in this conflict. [What moral high ground?]

 “Nothing would rock the credibility of Europeans and Americans more than a confirmation of the news that American mercenaries are working for the Ukrainian government. For Moscow, this would be a priceless propaganda victory where the West would appear morally naked. As naked as Moscow is now.”

Morally naked is a great bumper sticker term indeed as the Emperor has had no clothes for a damned long time now and this escapade of regime change in Ukraine is just a bridge too far.

Making Ukraine Safe for Corporate Vultures

Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland Promises Ukraine Loot to Corporate Vultures

The corrupt US state-corporate media has been making hay out of the ongoing vilification of Russian president Vladimir Putin, particularly to firmly affix the devil horns to his head in presenting a false narrative on events in Ukraine. While there is no reference or actual history of events presented to offer perspective the selling of the looming Russian invasion as well as Putin’s restoration of the old Soviet Empire is as much a con job as that restoration of the Islamic Caliphate in pushing the phony war on terror. Not only is the fact that the problems in Ukraine were started by a US backed putsch of the sitting democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych in which the assistance of some of the most vile elements of European fascists and neo-Nazis was critical but that the entire hostile takeover of the “Yats” austerity government has ample US corporate backing and billions of dollars in plunder in play.

The narrative continued on the Sunday morning masturbatory festival of the so-called ‘news’ shows that are in reality establishment forums where lickspittles playing journalists participate in the launching of the weekly talking points.  Appearing on ABC’s This Week, the network that incredibly retained the services of the Joseph Goebbels of the neocon global domination cult William Kristol was UN Ambassador and arch warmonger Samantha Power. Power should be more appropriately known as Mrs. Cass Sunstein, the authoritarian Obama intimate whose animosity towards free speech and association knows no bounds. Sunstein is the co-author of the position paper “Conspiracy Theories” in which he called for operatives of the US government to “cognitively infiltrate” so-called “anti-government” groups which as we have seen in the post September 11, 2001, post democracy country known as The Homeland pretty much is a blanket definition to encompass any and all who oppose the corrupt state, both the Deep State elements as well as the visible exo-skeleton that is the political realm. Not that it is anything original, COINTELPRO already did it as did such inspirations for neocon ideology as Stalin and Hitler. The larger point is that Samantha Power and Cass Sunstein are yet another example of the incestuous intermarrying of the establishment political class. Other examples would be NBC’s prominent ‘news’ correspondent Andrea Mitchell and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland and Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neocon Project For the New American Century (PNAC). There is neither sufficient time nor space to provide a more detailed accounting of such relationships.

But I digress.

Power delivered the goods to a national television audience as would be expected in continuing to push the official bullshit narrative of Ukraine. Specifically that Putin is behind the growing anti-austerity protests in the eastern portion of the country, historically pro-Russian which serves the talking points to perfection in painting the resistance as “pro-Russian” separatists. What is always omitted though, and it was again during the Sunday morning bloviation circuit is any discussion or mention that any dissent that exists against the illegally installed puppet government of the interim  Prime Minister Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk is really that which is being waged against an unelected government that was put into place through western chicanery and subterfuge and what may or not be a false flag sniper attack. The sniper incident served as the catalyst for the violent uprising in the streets of Kiev among snowflakes and flames that the US propaganda machine ensured would be transmitted for maximum effect – who it was that actually murdered those people, protesters and police alike is a mystery that seems to exist in order to remain unsolved – just like the Ghouta gassings that were used to push a war on Syria late last summer.

The following is excerpted from the transcript:

Let's bring in the UN ambassador Samantha Power. Thank you for joining us this morning.

You know, we heard Secretary Kerry say that there will be consequences if the Russians don't stand down.

Also, our GMA anchor Bianna Golodryga just spoke with Ukrainian foreign minister saying there is no question that Russian agents are behind this. That's what the U.S. believes.

SAMANTHA POWER, US AMBASSADOR TO THE UN: Well, it has all the tell-tale signs of what we saw in Crimea. It's professional, it's coordinated. There's nothing grass roots seeming about it. That forces are doing in each of the six or seven cities that they've been active in exactly the same thing, so certainly it bears the tell-tale signs of Moscow's involvement.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Martha also talked about the possibility of raising sanctions. But can the United States actually do anything that would really stop Russia at this point?

POWER: Well, George, already the sanctions that we put in place have brought the ruble to an all-time low in terms of its value. The Russian stock market has depreciated by 20 percent. Investors are fleeing. And that's just on the basis of the sanctions that we put in place up to this point.

The President has made clear that depending on Russian behavior, sectoral sanctions against energy, banking, mining could be on the table. And there's a lot in between.

So, I think we've seen that the sanctions can bite. And if actions like the kind that we've seen over the last few days continue, you're going to see a ramping up of those sanctions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Those threats -- or initial sanctions have not stopped Russia from going in to Crimea. Do we believe that Vladimir Putin wants the eastern Ukraine?

POWER: I think the actions that he is undertaking certainly give credence to that idea. But I will say in the conversations that we have, of course, they keep insisting, no, that's not what we want, that's not what we want. But everything they're doing suggests the opposite.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And will they have control over the eastern Ukraine no matter what?

POWER: I think there are elections coming up. The leadership in Ukraine have made very clear that they're prepared to have a conversation about autonomy and decentralization. And that's what makes, again, this action so outrageous and so ironic, because just at the very time the prime minister was going to the regions to talk about how the legitimate interests of Russian speakers could be tended to, this kind of action takes place. And it makes you think that they -- that a military solution is what...

STEPHANOPOULOS: If they continue, will the peace talks still go forward?

POWER: Unclear. Again, we're going to see how events transpire today and in the next few days.

Powers’ statement on the anti-austerity protests in East Ukraine that “It’s professional, it’s co-ordinated, there is nothing grass-roots-seeming about it” which belongs in the pantheon of mockery of US foreign policy statements right next to Skull and Bones alumni John Kerry’s asinine enduring classic statement that: "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text". The reference to “coordination” rather than anything orchestrated by Russia and Putin could easily be globe-trotting corporate mercenaries who are already obviously involved in the US backed “destabilization” campaign that rather than being “grass roots” was the culmination of billions of dollars spent to foment rebellion by US taxpayers through the front group The National Endowment for Democracy which took over many of the functions previously undertaken by the CIA during the Reagan administratin. Who are you going to believe? A government whose political class and bureaucrats no longer bother with any pretense of telling the truth? In a classic example of how the propaganda apparatus in The Homeland operates there is a puff piece at ESPN.COM extolling the virtues of Power and infamous war criminal Henry Kissinger discussing baseball, this will be followed by Sports Illustrated’s role in the national celebration of the undeclared state of martial law declared last April in Boston when paramilitary police conducted warrantless house to house searches ostensibly to capture Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev but in all likelihood provided an excuse for a live martial law drill in a major US city. So it continues to go on and on, the lies and propaganda never stop as the dismantling of the country and outside of our blissfully cocooned lemming colony the rest of the planet continue with abandon.

The dirty little secret of the entire Ukraine debacle is that prior to the orchestrated putsch that installed the austerity puppet government the country had already been sliced, diced and carved into bite sized pieces to be fed to the rapacious, insatiable corporate vultures that comprise the real power behind the throne. Less known than Victoria Nuland’s intercepted phone call where she and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt discussed their intent to circumvent the EU to install former central banker “Yats” is an appearance that she made at the National Press Club in Washington to advise the circling corporate vultures that the US “We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals ” – this is taxpayer money that sure could be used right here at home given the dismal job market and gutting of essential and social service programs to finance the warfare state and the expansion of the corporate empire. Behind Nuland on the dais was a prominently featured logo for oil giant Chevron, which has a $10 billion shale oil deal with Ukraine on the line, it is interesting in that the $10 billion is exactly the same figure that the occupying puppet government was bemoaning as being lost by the Russian annexation of Crimea - after that referendum that won't be recognized by the hypocritical US-EU-NATO schemers. The violence is coming, anyone with a working knowledge of US history can see that and soon the jackals, mercs, neo-Nazis and the military will soon be fully engaging in "anti-terrorist" operations. But you won’t hear about any of this on ABC’s This Week or any of those other beltway circle jerks advertised as news shows every Sunday morning. 

For the corporate dismantling of Ukraine there are a few excellent pieces of reading that come with my highest recommendation which are fine the work of JP Sottile aka The News Vandal.  The following excerpt comes from his piece “The Corporate-Foreign Policy ‘Deep State’ at Work in Ukraine” which links to his pieces at Consortium News and Buzzflash as well as provides links to all sources:

 The visible maneuvering over Crimea and the Cold War nostalgia expressed by belligerent U.S. politicians doesn’t quite match the corporate takeover we saw in Iraq. Rather, it feels more like Guatemala & the United Fruit Co. in 1953, or Iran & the CIA in 1953.

The moves are happening on two fronts: energy and agribusiness.

To read my story on Condi Rice and Chevron’s new 50-year lease to develop shale gas in Ukraine go to BuzzFlash: The Business of America Is Giving Countries Like Ukraine the Business

Excerpt: Like most American Exceptionalists, Condi Rice’s bluster and posturing can be reverse-engineered to find the banal truth about U.S. foreign policy. For example, her steadfast belief that Ukraine “should not be a pawn in a great-power conflict but rather an independent nation” might have something to do with Chevron’s 50-year lease to develop Ukraine’s shale gas reserves.

When that lease was signed on November 5, 2013, it stoked Russian fears about losing its influence on, and a major gas market in, a former satellite. It also came on the eve of the much-disputed trade deal with the European Union that, once abandoned due to Russian pressure, led to the toppling of Ukraine’s government. Reuters characterized Ukraine’s “$10 billion shale gas production-sharing agreement with U.S. Chevron” as “another step in a drive for more energy independence from Russia.”

To read my story on growing investments by Cargill, Monsanto and Big Ag in the Soviet Union’s former breadbasket go to Consortiumnews:  Corporate Interests Behind Ukraine Putsch

Excerpt: Despite the turmoil within Ukrainian politics after Yanukovych rejected a major trade deal with the European Union just seven weeks earlier, Cargill was confident enough about the future to fork over $200 million to buy a stake in Ukraine’s UkrLandFarming. According to Financial Times, UkrLandFarming is the world’s eighth-largest land cultivator and second biggest egg producer. And those aren’t the only eggs in Cargill’s increasingly-ample basket.

On Dec. 13, Cargill announced the purchase of a stake in a Black Sea port. Cargill’s port at Novorossiysk — to the east of Russia’s strategically significant and historically important Crimean naval base — gives them a major entry-point to Russian markets and adds them to the list of Big Ag companies investing in ports around the Black Sea, both in Russia and Ukraine.

Both stories touch on the “Deep State” of interlocking interests, political fixers and policymakers steering U.S. policy into a long-desired collision with Russia. Ultimately, it’s about opening the door to Ukraine’s resources for well-connected corporations.

Mr. Sotille also is interviewed here on the libertarian Scott Horton Show. Also The News Vandal looks like a good place to visit for information on commentary on a wide range of topics, check it out. 

It is disaster capitalism write large, Naomi Kline wrote about this in her book “The Shock Doctrine” and has a new piece out at the Guardian entitled "Why US fracking companies are licking their lips over Ukraine" describing how the wave of “fracking” is about to reach a crescendo with the patriotic rallying cry of defeating Putin as the bogus corporate mantra. The monied special interests are swarming all over every aspect of the Ukraine situation looking to cash in, Bloomberg.com’s recent article “Ukranian Crisis Not Wasted by Washington Lobbyists” is also a must read.

In the now fully weaponized version of looter capitalism that is as American as apple pie it is all about the spreading of "democracy" at the point of a gun and where such things as fair trade have been dispatched for lying, cheating, using the NSA for industrial espionage to gain competitive advantage and at a darker level, murder, rape, torture, resource theft and general avarice. This is epitomized by the just announced visit of Vice President Joe Biden to Ukraine in May after the wet work has been done - God forbid that the Democratic party sees all of those big agribusiness dollars sitting on the sidelines or redirected to the other criminal political syndicate the Republican party come the November elections.