Janine Jackson interviewed Bryce Greene about Ukraine for the February 18, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: Many Americans are confused or just unknowledgeable about Ukraine. They couldn’t find it on a map. A 2014 Washington Post story noted that the less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want the US to intervene.
Well, into that void have rushed corporate news media, telling us for weeks now that there is a threat—presumably to us—over there, and we need to get ready for war. The ease with which media step into saber-rattling mode, the confidence as they soberly suggest people other than themselves might need to be sent off to a violent death in service of something they can only describe with vague platitudes, should be disturbing. US officials accusing journalists who ask basic evidentiary questions of consorting with the enemy—should be disturbing.
The very fact that news media have a framework in which there are enemies whose actions don’t merit thoughtful consideration, and a US “us” whose actions are always good, all of this should disturb you—not just about foreign policy, but about the power of news media to amp people up to accept horrific, avoidable actions.
The current crisis with the US and Russia about Ukraine is a test of many things, not least news media’s ability and willingness to disengage themselves from these frozen narratives, from uncritical parroting of official sources, and from the devastating idea that diplomacy is weakness, and massive violence, or threats of massive violence, are the best way to address conflict.
Bryce Greene’s piece, “What You Should Really Know About Ukraine,” appeared recently on FAIR.org. He joins us now by phone from Indianapolis. Welcome to CounterSpin, Bryce Greene.
Bryce Greene: Thanks for having me on. I’m happy to be here.
JJ: Your straightforward piece, an explainer about explainers, got more than 3,000 shares on FAIR.org. People needed it. And I’m just going to ask you to talk us through the official line on Ukraine, and the questions that we should have about it. Because all of the elements—Russians as cartoons; the US, as ever, engaged in democracy promotion; oh, are there material interests there? How dare you suggest!— It’s all so dusty, this playbook, you know?
And part of what feels so dated about it is that it’s about NATO. I know for a fact that listeners under, like, heck, 40 years old are like, well, I’ve heard the word NATO, but whaat? You know, why? Isn’t the Cold War over? And yet NATO, and what it represents in 2022, are at the core here. So just start us off wherever you would like to, in terms of helping people understand what’s actually going on right now.
BG: Right, so most media outlets try to put the current escalation in context. And when they do, they usually start at one event, the 2014 annexation of Crimea. And they use this to demonstrate how Russia has imperial ambitions to reconquer the old Soviet territories and reestablish the old Soviet Union.
But for that to have any real credibility, you need to ignore what happened right before 2014, what happened right before the Donbas uprising, what happened before Russia began backing the separatist rebels.
And that takes you back to early 2014, when the US government helped violently oust the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in what was called the Maidan Coup. After he fled the country, the new government immediately established closer ties to Europe and the US, and turned away from Putin’s Russia.
Now, understanding why and how we did that is key to understanding Putin’s actions today. Like, if the United States had a neighbor who recently had a government change, instigated in part by Russia, and then that country tried to join a hostile military alliance, I think the US would be rightly concerned. They’d lose their minds. But you don’t really see that same concern extended to what’s going on over there in Ukraine.
So this whole story of NATO expansion and economic expansion, it begins right after the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The US and Russia made a deal that NATO, the Cold War alliance, would not expand east past a reunified Germany. No reason to escalate tensions unnecessarily.
But unfortunately, Washington decided to expand anyway. And, you know, they were the only superpower left, there was no one to challenge them, so they decided they could do it. They ignored Russian objections and continued to enlarge the military alliance one country at a time.
And even at the time, Cold Warriors like the famed diplomat George Kennan warned that this was a recipe for disaster. It would make Russia feel trapped and surrounded, and when major nuclear powers feel trapped and surrounded, it doesn’t really make for a peaceful world.
But as we all know, Washington isn’t in the interest of peace, and they did it anyway. In 2004, the US poured millions of dollars into the anti-Russian opposition in Ukraine. They funded media and NGOs supporting opposition candidates. And they did this using organizations like the NED, the National Endowment for Democracy, and USAID. These organizations are broadly understood to serve regime change interests in the name of “democracy.”
Now, in 2004, it didn’t work exactly, but Ukraine began to start making closer ties to the EU and US. And that process continued up to 2014.
Shortly before the overthrow, the Ukrainian government was negotiating closer integration into the EU, and closer integration with the Western economic bloc. And they were being offered loans by the International Monetary Fund, the major world lending agency that represents private interests around the Western world. So to get those loans, they had to do all sorts of things to their economy, commonly known as “structural adjustment.” This included cutting public sector wages, shrinking the health and education sectors, privatizing the economy and cutting gas subsidies for the people.
And at the time, Russia was offering a plan for economic integration to Ukraine that didn’t contain any of these strings. So when President Viktor Yanukovych chose Russia, well, that set off a wave of protests that were supported and partially funded by the United States. In fact, John McCain and Obama administration officials even flew to the Maidan Square to help support the protesters who wanted to oust the president and change the government.
So at this point, I want listeners to ask themselves, what if Russia were sending high-level government officials to anti-government protests in Canada or Mexico? What if one of Putin’s advisors right now went to go encourage the trucker protests in Canada, and said that they should get rid of their kind of government? We’d lose our minds. And rightfully so. That’s just ridiculous. And what’s worse is that right after the protests started, there was a leaked phone call between Victoria Nuland, one of Obama’s State Department advisors—
JJ: Right.
BG: —and the US ambassador to Ukraine, in which they were describing how they wanted to set up a new government. They were picking and choosing who would be in the government, who would be out.
Well, a few weeks after that, the Ukrainian government was overthrown. And the guy who they designated as our guy, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, became the prime minister.
So clearly, clearly, there’s a lot of US involvement in how the Ukrainian government has shifted over the last decade. After 2014, the Ukrainians opted to accept the IMF loans, they opted to further integrate with the EU economically. And Russia is watching all of this happen. And so immediately after the overthrow, the eastern regions in Ukraine, who were ethnically closer to Russians, and they speak Russian and they favor closer ties to Russia—
JJ: Right.
BG: They revolted. They started an uprising to gain more autonomy, and possibly to separate from the Ukraine entirely. The Ukrainian government cracked down hard. And that only fueled the rebellion, and so Russian sent in volunteers and soldiers to help back these rebels. Now, of course, Russia denies it, but we all know they are.
And so since 2014, that sort of civil war has been at a stalemate, and every so often there would be a military exercise on the border by one side or another. But really nothing much has changed. And so this current escalation started because of the US involvement in the Ukrainian government’s politics.
JJ: Right.
BG: And when Russia started building up troops on the border, the United States started saying, hey, they’re about to attack. Of course, they didn’t have any evidence for that. The Russians had built up troops on the border in similar numbers in the past without a similar panic.
JJ: Right.
BG: But this time there was a lot of panic. So at this point the US media starts saying that, yes, this is Russia; they’re building up to invade Ukraine. They’re similar to Hitler or some other dictator that’s violating national sovereignty. And so now you have the US sending millions and millions and millions of dollars in weapons. They’re claiming that an invasion is imminent. There was this strange thing from the State Department about the Russians planning a false flag attack to justify an invasion. Of course, the State Department didn’t provide any evidence of that.
JJ: And in fact, a reporter, Matt Lee of AP, pushed back on that, famously.
BG: Yeah. Like a normal person should. Then Ned Price, the State Department spokesperson, accused him of being pro-Russia, or consorting with the enemy. It was really ridiculous.
But those are the roots of this entire escalation, this situation, these heightened tensions. And all of that is completely omitted from the Western media. How can you talk about the current situation without talking about the past? How can you understand Russia’s actions without understanding how the United States might have provoked them? And yet you have pundits all over the place asking, what does Putin want? Who knows if Putin’s going to invade? Or on another end is, like, Putin won’t stop with Ukraine. He’ll keep going. His goal is to reestablish the Soviet Union, or the Russian empire. And this is all ridiculous.
From the start, Putin has been clear that he does not want NATO to expand, that he does not want missiles stationed just across his border. He doesn’t want troops there. He doesn’t want those problems on his border. But that doesn’t seem to be something that the United States media can understand. In fact, when Putin sent a proposal to Biden, talking about NATO, talking about the weapons, talking about the missiles, the media described these as non-starters.
JJ: Mmhm.
BG: As if asking for missiles not to be pointed at you at, point blank range, is out of the question to ask. Putin should accept that there will be a bunch of missiles, there will be a bunch of soldiers and military bases, all pointed at him. And that doesn’t square. Imagine, again, if the US were being asked to tolerate missiles pointed at us in Mexico or Canada. Again, we would go crazy.
JJ: Well, US exceptionalism is part of the price of admission to serious news media conversation. You’re supposed to accept that the US has the right to intervene anywhere, anytime. If we’re going to talk about who owes who what, or the US, James Baker, made a commitment about NATO and its reach, and somehow that’s also off the page.
BG: It’s sometimes discussed in media. Like, there was a Washington Post article, and they interviewed Mary Sarotte. And she wrote one of the major books talking about this promise not to expand to the east, and she said, straight up, Washington got greedy, and that destabilized the region. That was just one interview in a sea of the official line, in a sea of opinions and articles talking about how Vladimir Putin wants to expand the Soviet empire. Just having one article in the midst of all the noise, it doesn’t really do much to cut through.
So it is admitted by the media, but it isn’t really addressed. They don’t take it into account when they do their analyses. And that reflects a major American exceptionalist bias.
JJ: Let me just say, polls, despite the media onslaught, despite corporate media slipping so easily into saber-rattling mode—it’s just so unsettling to see the ease with which news media go back into yeah, them, they’re horrible. Yes, us, we’re great, and surely killing is the answer. Despite all of that, and despite disinformation, polls are still showing that people in the US don’t want a war with Russia. Apparently Russian polls show that Russian people don’t want a war. People understand the harms of these things that pundits are blithely tossing about.
BG: Mmhm.
JJ: And so I just want to ask you, there are other voices. There are other ideas about how to go forward. Can you just talk about other avenues, what diplomacy might look like, what media that take diplomacy seriously might look like, or might include or exclude?
BG: Part of the stalemate between the eastern Donbas rebels and the Ukrainian government, part of that was started because they agreed to a ceasefire in something called the Minsk II agreement.
JJ: Right.
BG: The Minsk agreements were an arrangement where the Ukraine would provide a degree of autonomy to the Donbas region, and Russia would withdraw all of its volunteers and troops. The area would be sort of demilitarized, and then there would be elections in that region and some sort of special status for that region afterwards.
Well, Ukraine has refused to implement it, and Washington and the rest of the European Union, they don’t really push Ukraine on this. There are a lot of reasons for that; mainly one of them is because they don’t think that they would be able to join NATO if they had a region of their country that isn’t fully controlled by the country. And so there’s been sort of a stagnation there.
But there’s been a lot of people, analysts, who are talking about restarting these Minsk II agreements, talking about how can we get to a point where we’re talking about it again, and implementing it and maybe reimagining it for a more recent time, a more modern time? But those voices are very rarely included in the mainstream media. People talk about negotiations, and then they talk about all the “non-starters” that Putin’s offering, but they don’t talk about the framework for diplomacy that already exists.
One of the best commentators is Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He writes very clearly. He had a very good article in The Nation about the Minsk II agreements. And there are some in the media who do take his voice and amplify it. He was on Mehdi Hasan’s show on MSNBC, one of the only decent people on MSNBC.
JJ: Right.
BG: And then I think he was interviewed once on NPR. But beyond that, no one hears about that. No one hears that there is a diplomatic solution that can apply to the situation. And so the result is that people are scared that, OK, there’s going to be a war. And the only off-ramp seems to be non-starters.
JJ: And it’s disheartening, in the sense that people who, I’m talking about US citizens, they really don’t have a beef with Ukraine. They don’t know what’s going on in Ukraine. They are only looking at news media for their cues —
BG: Mmhm.
JJ: —of what to understand and how to feel. And we didn’t even get started on if you learn more about Ukrainian movements and what they’re about, would those be the team that you would back, you know?
BG: Right, right.
JJ: That’s a whole other story, yeah?
BG: Yeah. So part of the opposition that helped topple the government in 2014 were made up of the far right. And I know we in America throw around the term “Nazi.” Sometimes it applies, sometimes it doesn’t.
JJ: Mmhm.
BG: Here, in this case, it absolutely applies. These are open Nazis flying Nazi symbols, Nazi flags, doing Nazi salutes, and they have an ethnic purity idea about why they’re opposed to Russia.
And so the United States utilized these people to help overthrow the government. There was a lot of violence around the time of the overthrow. Some of these Nazis, they actually gathered a bunch of protestors in a building, locked the doors, and set the building on fire, killing dozens. But none of this is talked about when we talk about the current situation.
And part of those far-right groups, part of those far-right militias, they were integrated into the Ukrainian military, the Ukrainian National Guard. And this is the same national guard that the US has given about $2.5 billion. And we don’t talk about it.
Congress did have a provision that restricted aid to this specific sector of the Ukrainian military. But there was a report from, I think, the Daily Beast that said that there really is no mechanism for enforcing that. Like, it’s on paper, but it’s not in practice. And so the United States is actively funding Nazi militias. That’s just a fact.
And, in fact, recently there was a picture of an old woman holding an AK-47 in a training session. And it was used in Western media to show that the Ukrainian people are ready to defend their homeland. Well, people did some digging on the ground, and it turns out that this was a public relations event staged by these Nazis, by the Azov Battalion. But no one reported that in Western media. In fact, I think it was Richard Engel of NBC, I believe, who tweeted a picture of it. People called him out, they said, hey, these are Nazi people. There was actually a Nazi patch visible in the footage that was used on TV. No accountability.
JJ: No.
BG: No accountability, no one is forced to say, oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to spread Nazi propaganda to Western audiences.
JJ: Right.
BG: No one is saying that. But that’s US media for you. You see it in Czech press, in Irish press, and all over the world. They’re like, yeah, these were straight-up Nazis, this was a Nazi event. And the US media can’t seem to grasp this.
JJ: I’ll just finish up where we started, because I know that listeners are uninformed, and almost ashamed of being uninformed, about what’s going on, as is often the case in foreign policy. And then they’re relying on US media to tell them which side they’re on, and to explain the interest. And just in a final minute or so, somebody’s picking up a paper, looking at Ukraine. What are some questions that you would just say, keep this in your mind as you read this coverage? ‘Cause it’s not done. It’s not done, you know; it’s going forward.
BG: Mmhm.
JJ: What should we keep in mind as we look at media coverage, going forward from today?
BG: One of the biggest questions that I ask myself whenever I’m reading a piece like this, aside from taking history into account, which is important, but you should also ask yourself, who are the sources being utilized in this story? Very often you’ll see a story that says “according to US intelligence” or “according to this State Department official” or “according to someone in the government.” Like, official sources. Well, if you look at the history of US media and US government public relations, there’s a well-documented and very extensive history of the government lying to the public. The classic example, WMD.
JJ: Yeah.
BG: WMD, for many people, destroyed the credibility of the media, because they credibly took government statements at face value. They didn’t question them. They didn’t seek out alternative explanations. They didn’t challenge the government when they said what they said. And so that’s sort of what they’re doing here. Repeatedly, you’re seeing stories about intelligence officials who say that an invasion is imminent without providing any evidence.
And so you have to take intelligence and official government sources with a grain of salt. When an intelligence agency says that Russia is going to invade, well, the only information you have is that an intelligence agency wants you to believe that Russians are going to invade, regardless of whether or not they are going to. And so that’s one filter that might help cut through the noise when reading the media.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Bryce Greene. Bryce Greene’s piece, “What You Should Really Know About Ukraine,” appeared recently on FAIR.org. Bryce Greene, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
BG: I’m very happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Jim Naureckas
Bryce Greene later commented on his overly skeptical reaction to predictions that Russia would invade Ukraine:
https://twitter.com/TheGreeneBJ/status/1496865077303164934
Tim R
Yea, he is so fixated on western misbehavior that there was zero possibility to take any other scenario seriously. Worse than just a misjudgment; more like a horse with blinders, Obviously, Putin’s invasion will have horrific consequences for years to come.
Kateryna
What, was Bryce surprised that Putin invaded the Ukraine? After laying the pseudo-intellectual groundwork to justify militarism, did he not even believe his own bullshit? It’s okay he’ll be back justifying occupation tomorrow. Can’t keep a good putinbot down!
Tony B
Well said and hilarious — I also explained how he gets the 2014 coup wrong. Like many on here I’m a left leaning person critical of aggressive foreign policy, but he ignores all the horrendous interventionism from Russia.
It’s almost like it’s possible to be critical of more than one thing at once!
Comment_Bot
You guys are i-diots. Al Jazeera conducted a poll of Ukrainians and only 20% believed there was an invasion imminent. This wasn’t some fringe position; it’s likely that Zelensky’s refusal to engage in diplomacy was one part, but that the other was his comments in the days before that Ukraine would be seeking nukes (and NATO membership). Regardless, Greene wasn’t alone in predicting/hoping there was no imminent invasion as the position was held by 80% of Ukrainians.
Tony B
That’s not the only critique — see my posts on how many historical things he gets wrong not to mention his disparaging smugness for someone who isn’t even aware of the last 20 years of Ukraine’s history — he’s not a journalist nor is he a capable commentator.
José Díaz Balart
Diplomatic solutions – Ha, Ha Comrades; this interview is so funny as Russia yells ‘Bombs Away’. Humm so geopolitics is scary again and cherry picking your facts, as the author did here, to tell your preferred narrative is standard operating procedure today. After all the left and right MSM does it every day and night. Hence, putting aside all the noise, let’s remember that Ukraine gave up all it’s Soviet-era nuclear missiles in return for a promise from Russia, the UK and the US “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”. If they hadn’t promised that, I wonder if the mentally unstable, bully Putin would have chosen invaded a nuclear armed Ukraine. Next in line is Taiwan folks. Brush up on your Mandarin Fair.org
Matt
So it’s all the West’s fault and Russia isn’t to blame? So When Crimea’s parliament was captured by an ‘armed’ group, their representatives who voted for independence have reported that some weren’t there but had votes cast and some were threatened to vote for independence. And that the leader that was chosen had only achieved 4% of the vote in the last election. There is also no mention of how the 1st Minsk accords were broken (you know by Russian-supported troops).
You also talk about Neo Nazis, but I don’t hear anything about Task Force Rusich that Russia supports and sent to the region (and heading back). Nor the other groups like the Russian Orhtodox Army, Varyag Ballalion, and others.
Comment_Bot
Why does seeing the truth about the West’s actions laid out in print offend you so much? Did Greene say this was “all the West’s fault” or is that you projecting?
We all know that he is 100% correct in stating that the US would never tolerate similar meddling (that’s been happening forever, ex: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/01/08/cia-undermining-and-nazifying-ukraine-since-1953/) in the regions of Canada or Mexico that border the US or frankly within the entirety of the Western hemisphere. So why should Russia?
People like you want to drag us all down into the weeds and ignore the big picture. While Russia’s military incursions into Ukraine are obviously not good at all, the West and Kyiv have known forever that this could be solved diplomatically by simply (re) promising to stop NATO expansion eastward, stop the color revolutions/coups on RF’s periphery and stop sabre rattling in general w/r/t Ukraine . Do you think LNR and DNR would ever have tried to break away if not for the US-led coup in 2014? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
Tony B
There was no US lead coup you are literally spreading disinformation. Anyone who says Viktor was freely elected is spouting a big lie comparable to that of trump.
To see how Russia actually interferes in Ukraines elections see the 2004 election poisoning below — I think his face says it all…
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2008/07/16/poisoning_extradition_refused_ukraine.html
john
In Ukraine, ‘No One Hears That There Is a Diplomatic Solution’
— Particularly Putin. He sure as Hell ain’t hearing anything short of toppling Ukraine’s government and installing someone who’ll kiss his ass. The idea that yinz guys are defending Russia’s actions and deflecting blame is sickening!
Jason
Hot off twitter …. Putin the thug is now threatening Finland, a longstanding neutral country.
MFA Russia
@mfa_russiaRussia government organization
☝️Finland’s accession to @NATO would have serious military and political repercussions.
Imagine your next door neighbor gets invaded by a nuclear armed bully. If you lived in that same neighborhood would you approach NATO or bear embrace Russia’s Putin ?? Such is the deflection and ‘oh never mind’ behind the curtain talk that this author goes to great length expand on. Odd, strange and I for one would like to better understand fair.org core funding.
TonyB
Well said. I looked into their funding it seems it’s mostly from regular people, but I don’t know how they define the non-corporate and non-governmental groups that are about 30% of funds.
In either case, this site is a place where people go to be contrarians for the sake of contrarianism regardless of funding. It’s like a teenager who says “I don’t listen to mainstream music because I’m too cool” … except here it’s apologizing for fascist dictatorships. Great Job FAIR media…
Martyn G
Ooft, this did not age well.
Comment_Bot
This interview was conducted AFTER the Russian Federation’s military incursions into Ukraine. How exactly did it not age well?
Eddie S
Oh, intelligent reply… YOU’RE a real credible commentor. Go have another beer and you’ll REALLY be able to wax eloquent…
TonyB
His point is that the interview didn’t age poorly because it was conducted after the invasion. That makes this far worse…
People who still cherry pick facts to make this something about the US and not Putin while Ukrainian citizens are being killed is simply grotesque — far more than an F word.
See my points below about the several omissions the author makes of historical relevance while also citing numerous false claims.
Bradley Grower
Could you please restrain yourself from using expletives?
Martyn G
Erm, no, it wasn’t.
Yevgenia Vinokurov
This was an interview for the Feb 18th issues. Well before the start of the invasion.
Jim
Its time for the ‘Comment_Bot’ to stop misinforming, deflecting, trolling and to go back to Russia. Love the ‘military incursions’ line. He/she/them can’t even call it what it is – an invasion.
Tony B
The author should make an attempt to actually accurately report on things — I’m sure he’s against “Teh Big Media” because it’s not his decentralized doge coin substack reading universe where people can use 11 syllable words they don’t understand.
Viktor Y. was not freely elected, it was substantiated by numerous outlets and people with actual journalistic backgrounds not to mention most European nations. The maidan rebellion was a left wing coup of a corrupt man who lived in a palace and killed protesters.
Please don’t take my word for it just read any credible source — this author is deeply misinformed and more accurate readings of history can be found from numerous academics such as Mark Galeotti or even leftist YouTube commentary if you want a progressive take with Adam Something.
I know CNN and other large media organizations are often criticized but they have real reporters who speak foreign languages out there risking their lives in Ukraine and elsewhere to cover real stories while the bombing and shelling of cities is ongoing. This 11th grade essay from a smug clueless individual is not journalism.
Bradley Grower
This is an interview transcript, not an “11th grade essay.” Did you even read it?
Tony B
The first part and his comments literally read like an essay and it’s an extension of his previous piece which was written literally like an essay.
Also brilliant counter argument — it’s a transcript therefore it’s more credible. Many of his claims are RT disinformation or exaggerated — the “Mainstream Media” isn’t a monolith either. There’s real reporters and commentators out there.
My heart goes out to Ukraine for fighting off tyranny.
Bradley Grower
The “first part” was an introduction by Janine Jackson, NOT Bryce Greene.
Your ludicrous opinion of this interview transcript is hilariously transparent.
My heart goes out to those who might be swayed by such exaggerations.
TonyB
I’m aware… Your literally not responding to my point about this interview being an elaboration of his piece “What you really need to know about Ukraine.” This is the successor to that.
I also laid out several things wrong with his piece and references here none of which you have responded to if you have an actual argument you should use it.
I explained here and elsewhere on FAIR — the Russian backed politicians in Ukraine, Russias poisoning of politicians in 2004, the killing of protesters Viktor Yanukovych, embezzling of funds north of $70B etc. BG description of the 2014 Coup tries to characterize it as something akin to “regime change” while disregarding all of the above. There’s literally a museum of corruption in Ukraine based on what I’m describing and again he gets many specific facts wrong.
If you respond to my comments again — you should address the substantive points.
Robert_Livingston
@Bradley Grower
The points about the coup in 2014 being grassroots for the most part are correct you literally got owed and have nothing to say other then defend a dictator killing people, nice job man!
Bradley Grower
@Robert_Livingston,
Could you please provide a quotation attributable to me, which in any way expresses support for either Russia or Ukraine? I’ll wait…
Also, perhaps you could explain the leaked audio of U.S. State Department employee Victoria Nuland, in which she is recorded stating the U.S. spent $5 billion to promote the most recent color revolution (Maidan) in Ukraine. Sounds a lot like Astroturfing to me.
Robert_Livingston
@Bradley Grower
I have a comment I can quote with you supporting Russia, the literal response to me! Great job supporting state sponsored conspiracy theories made by Russia Today!
Maybe you’ll get a spot on Alex Jones next…
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/
Bradley Grower
@Robert_Livingston,
Thank you for proving the definition of “quotation” lies well beyond your stunted lexicon. No doubt, there are also many other complex concepts that escape your limited cognitive abilities.
Regarding the U.S. spending $5 billion on Ukraine:
“That money has been spent on supporting the aspirations of the Ukrainian people to have a strong, democratic government that represents their interests.”
-Victoria Nuland (on CNN April of 2014)
Victoria Nuland: US has invested $5 billion in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPVs5VuI8XI
The Maidan Revolution was the second color revolution in less than a decade in Ukraine.
The video clearly demonstrates that Chevron and other industrial interests, were key to creating the political will necessary for the overt support of violent coup backed by Neo-Nazis. Nuland actually praises the Maidan insurrection in her very first minute at the microphone.
As always, multi-national corporations promote the projection of U.S. power abroad, through use of covert operations aimed to destabilize foreign governments that resistant their attempts at exploitation.
The U.S. does not sacrifice American lives and tax dollars to protect “democracy.” Those resources are reserved for investment in strategic geopolitical invasions, occupations, and regime change operations on behalf of the wealthy and their corporate interests.
This is about economic self-interest… not conspiracy theory.
Robert_Livingston
@Bradley Grower
There’s nothing complicated about your argument it’s just not relevant. If you read the piece I sent, it explains why the idea that Obama spending $5B on supporting riots in Ukraine to harm the gov is a conspiracy theory.
That money was spaced out over 30 years not just 2014 and much of it went to schools, infrastructure, army etc. Of course the US has its own interests, but those very interests can also be aligned with other people. If two countries trade its mutually beneficial in most cases.
But even if we assume they aren’t, the idea that Chevron is more important politically in Ukraine then Viktor Yankuvitch stealing billions from tax payers to fund his palace while ordering protestors executed just doesn’t make sense. Why look for some esoteric explanation for why people are fed up with their government when there’s one in plain site.
Bradley Grower
Robert_Livingston,
Sure, I’ll wait while you continue to parrot the talking points of USAID and all of the other U.S. Government interventionist organizations who funded the color revolutions in Ukraine, and the 1953 overthrow of a democratically-elected, constitutional government in Iran.
Resorting to Occam’s Razor is always extremely convenient, when the U.S. Government is covertly dismantling constitutional democracies around the world… in service to multi-national corporate interests.
Perhaps you should stick to other forums, where the level of institutional knowledge is so subpar, that fallacious arguments like yours might actually be assumed to be somehow worthy of merit.
Any person capable of research, would recognize who is the larger criminal: Chevron received a $1.9 BILLION FEDERAL TAX REFUND from in the U.S Government in 2020!
No “conspiracy theories” from this source… just cold hard facts.
Some Guy
Putin’s invasion is an unforgivable atrocity, but the hyper-nationalism in these comments is truly astonishing. Literally for decades, left activists and intellectuals like Noam Chomsky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ni3j1mhU5M) and others have warned that continually expanding NATO to the east will back Russia into a corner where escalatory military responses are predictable. That doesn’t *justify* them, but given the nature of how powerful states function, it is absolutely *predictable*, and morally speaking, acting in such a way as to increase the likelihood of something predictable imparts some of the responsibility of that action to you. So if I provoke a dangerous person with a gun, and then they fire at me and innocent people get caught in the crossfire and die, I’m not completely innocent by virtue of not being the direct agent of my actions. True, the majority of the blame lies with the unhinged gunman, but since it is quite plausible the gunman would not have opened fire without provocation, and that it is perfectly predictable that a dangerous person with a gun *might* open fire and hurt innocent people as a result, the provocateur is hardly entirely without blame, considering that the innocent people may not have died without the provocation and that any reasonable person would think that the provocation invites danger. What I’m trying to demonstrate with this example is that even if the US really did live up to its rhetoric of being a champion of peace and democracy, to the extent that they pursued a foreign policy that would predictably lead to military escalations by others that could be avoided (in fact, *easily* avoided) with a *different* foreign policy would still be a monstrously immoral thing to do. You can easily imagine why by imagining what the victims, many still potential rather than actual for now, would want. At the moment, the actualized victims are the Ukrainian people, many dead and many more becoming refugees. In the future, the victims may well include virtually every living thing on the planet, as the disastrous effects of a nuclear war and the subsequent nuclear winter come into effect. I want to emphasize, again, that both the current tragedy and future or potential tragedies all fall under what is *predictably more likely* as a result of relentless NATO expansion, with little benefit to anyone except those that want to push a US-led order on the rest of the world, like if we want to practically destroy a country for a terrorist attack they had nothing to with, make alliances with ruthless warlords in that country, engage in moral posturing about how we’re helping the people there, leave the millions of people who are at risk of starvation largely as a result of our incursions to die, and then steal $7 billion and allocate $3.5 billion to the victims of the families of the aforementioned terrorist attack they had nothing to do with. So that’s something a more moral country does I guess, since it’s so obvious to everyone that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, doubtless criminal, unjustifiable and leading to unspeakable horrors, is so much worse than our “more permissible” crimes. I see this kind of bias basically across the entire political spectrum save for a few commentators: people who are victims of US crimes are effectively “less human” in their minds than people who are victims of the crimes of an official enemy of the US, even when taking into account that the latter crime is something we’ve been predictably making more likely for no good reason, and then have the truly barbaric and monstrous audacity to show righteous anger about how *someone else’s* are the worst thing since WWII, while casually shrugging off or expressing relative indifference to our own crimes (“yeah it’s really fucked up that we did/do that… wanna grab a pizza?”), which even include conscientiously taking actions to move us towards the destruction of all human societies. Only about the worst thing you can imagine, no big deal. It is really difficult to imagine how awful an atrocity the US would have to commit for even other leftists to properly contextualize, appreciate, and condemn them with the same rabid ferocity that allows them to do so for the crimes of state enemies. I am convinced no such crimes exist, and that western society in general is ideologically dominated by people who do not rise to the moral level of people in Germany who were acquiescent to the Nazis, because even Nazis never intended to destroy the possibility for organized human life.
Eddie S
Exactly right ‘SG’. As Greene correctly noted, the MSM — along with the ‘intelligence agencies’ — here in the US lost virtually any credibility (at least with anyone with some healthy skepticism) in 2003 when they uncritically parroted all the Bush admin propaganda, leading to the US invasion of Iraq which resulted in at least 100,000 Iraqis dead (with some estimates as high as 1 million, though the ‘fog of war’ & the MIC obscured any accurate accounting), 4000+ US dead, and no…repeat NO WMDs found, which had been the supposed reason we went to the other side of the world and orchestrated a war of choice against a sovereign nation that wasn’t threatening us, costing so many lives and so much destruction.
And this was only the most obvious, indisputable failure of the US MSM to provide an accurate accounting of complex international situations and provide appropriate context— exceptional only in that some of the MSM outlets half-heartedly admitted to their errors and made empty promises to improve. The less blatant instances of their failings are rarely acknowledged (Chomsky & Herman’s classic ‘Manufacturing Consent’ enumerated several instances).
So, unfortunately (given the amount of money spent and the negative effects of insufficient and/or corrupt information), the default, initial reaction to claims by our leaders and the lap-dog press regarding international affairs needs to be one of healthy skepticism, not blind obedience. We need to perceive them much-like many aware Soviet citizens did with Tass or Pravda, as virtual mouthpieces for the ruling MIC, and NOT independent, hard-nosed, ‘go-where-the-facts-take-us’ sources of information. Sure, sometimes like a good con-man they’ll tell the a partial truth, but effectively it’s only to set you up for the scam…
ken
I’m looking for the document that agrees not to expand NATO: RE: “The US and Russia made a deal that NATO,” I’ve looked at Helsinki Agreement and NATO-Russia clause in the NATO founding document. Could you cite your source there. thanks.
Some Guy
This claim comes from a verbal agreement wherein US Secretary of State James Baker promised Gorbachev that if a reunified Germany joined NATO, NATO would not move “one inch to the east.” Here the record of the conversation: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
Here is an excerpt of a summary of that document from the same website:
…Turning to German unification, Baker assures Gorbachev that “neither the president nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understand the importance for the USSR and Europe of guarantees that “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” Baker argues in favor of the Two-Plus-Four talks using the same assurance: “We believe that consultations and discussions within the framework of the ‘two+four’ mechanism should guarantee that Germany’s unification will not lead to NATO’s military organization spreading to the east.” Gorbachev responds by quoting Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski: “that the presence of American and Soviet troops in Europe is an element of stability.”
The key exchange takes place when Baker asks whether Gorbachev would prefer “a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary.” Thus, in this conversation, the U.S. secretary of state three times offers assurances that if Germany were allowed to unify in NATO, preserving the U.S. presence in Europe, then NATO would not expand to the east.”
Bradley Grower
So we’re talking about an unverified verbal contract? DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD!
TonyB
This is something that literally doesn’t exist. It was discussed but then agreed by western nations that they will not be moving forward with this. It’s a false claim made by many.
You can see while discussed here that Russian leaders never signed anything joint with NATO but it’s part of the referenced convo.
https://www.rbth.com/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbachev_i_am_against_all_walls_40673.html
Hank
He said it on opposite day. The sun was in his eyes. A loud train was going past. He was talking in his sleep. Therefore it never happened.
Yes we have an excuse for everything.
TonyB
Wow amazing intellect on you.
I literally provided a transcript to make it transparent… my main point is there was no formal arrangement. If I’m selling my house and a buyer is interested and then backs out after rethinking it and no contract has been signed — you can’t say any formal arrangement was made.
Even that analogy is weak given how little is specially “promised” here.
It’s hardly relevant either way. We discuss this things
as tho Ukraines opinions are irrelevant. I think Ukrainians should be allowed to do what ever they— as a people — democratically vote to do.