The best thing for Ukraine is to force NATO, the US, and regional players out of the country, former US congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul said. Without foreign meddling in the civil war, Kiev will focus on the nation's economic collapse.

"Get the foreigners out of there [Ukraine], get the Europeans out, the US out, get NATO out, and get the Russians out," Paul said at the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington on Friday. "There will be less of a civil war going on there because they will have to worry about their debt. This is an economic matter too. You have to realize that the country is totally bankrupt."


"I'm not pro-Putin, I'm not pro-Russia, but I'm pro-facts," Paul stressed when defending his stance. "Crimea is not exactly a foreign country, according to the Russians. But I'm neutral on that," the former presidential candidate stated.

Paul - a 79-year-old retired doctor who spent nearly three decades in the US Congress representing the state of Texas - reiterated his previous statements, noting that what happened in Ukraine last year was a "coup" that was planned by "NATO, EU" and western Ukrainians. "One thing for sure that we do know, is we [US] had the conversations between our State Department and our ambassador before the coup - who will we put in place. And they planned part of the coup."

Yonatan Shapira was born on an Israeli military base the year before his father flew fighter jets in the October War of 1973. Thirty years later, twelve of them spent as an air force pilot himself, Shapira rejected the military. In 2003, he wrote a letter, pledging not to fly over the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Shapira is among the few Israelis to have declared support for the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. He has also been attacked by the Israeli military for attempting to sail towards and break the siege of Gaza.

He recently spoke to The Electronic Intifada contributor Ryan Rodrick Beiler.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler: What was it like growing up in a military family?

Yonatan Shapira: The education I got was very much about peace, equality, freedom and a lot of socialist values — caring about the other, caring about the poor — but at the same time with a big wall of negligence of Palestine. The same time I was in class learning these beautiful values, the Israeli army was engaged in occupation, land grabs, settlements, massacres, deportation of Palestinian activists.

But I didn't know these things. I truly believed that I should defend my country. I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to be a pilot in the air force and it was my dream come true when I was accepted. I became a helicopter pilot and flew rescue missions and commando transport.

RRB: When did you begin to question the military's actions?

YS: I realized something was rotten when the Israeli government started what was called the "assassination policy" in 2001-2003. Palestinian resistance failed to bring liberation and more extreme attitudes took place, such as suicide bombings and other [forms of] armed struggle. The government thought to assassinate everyone that has to do with armed resistance.

Washington created something called NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 to weld Western Europe firmly to the future foreign policies of Washington, however destructive that might prove to the genuine interests of Germany, France, Italy and the other nations of Europe. In 1986 the twelve nations of the then-European Economic Community modified the 1957 Treaty of Rome and signed the Single European Act. That mandated the creation of a single EEC market by end of 1992, and set forth rules for European Political Cooperation, the forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Then on November 9, 1989, an event of historic dimension intervened to disrupt the EEC strategy for a single market. Gorbachev's USSR surrendered the German Democratic Republic to the West. The Cold War was de facto over. Germany would be reunited. The West had apparently won. Most Europeans were jubilant. Many believed the decades of living on the brink of possible nuclear war were over. The emerging Europe seemed proud, confident of the future. NATO was an entity created by Washington, in the words of its first General Secretary, Lord Ismay, to "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."

European Defense Pillar or US NATO?

The Maastricht Treaty, a document with fatal flaws, was introduced at a meeting of the EEC in December 1991. A shocked Helmut Kohl was told by France's Mitterrand and Britain's Margaret Thatcher that Germany must agree to creation of a single currency to control the Bundesbank. That became today's Euro and an independent supranational European Central Bank. It was blackmail as precondition for their accepting German unification. The Germans swallowed hard and signed.

What was little discussed at the time was that the Maastricht Treaty also included a section mandating establishment for the first time of a Common Foreign and Security Policy. The twelve nations signed the treaty and intense discussions were underway of establishing a European defense pillar independent of NATO. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the raison d'être for NATO was gone. The Warsaw Pact had dissolved. Washington had assured Gorbachev that NATO would never extend to the east.

Dear Fellow Muslim-Americans,

I know many of you are afraid.

I am, too. It's hard not to be, when it could've been us.

This letter is a token of faith to all of you - if you have been discriminated against for your beliefs before or after Feb. 10, and if you have been, or are, scared to leave your home today.

This is for anyone who feels like they've been bullied into silence.

I'm sure you're probably asking yourselves: do your lives hold any value? Are we worth any headlines?

They do, and we are.

Our leaders are eager to escalate a conflict that could very easily spiral out of control. So why not embrace the inevitable?

A hundred years ago, the world "sleepwalked" into the First World War, the war that wiped out an entire generation of Europeans. Aren't we repeating the same sleepwalking march again, this time with even deadlier consequences? The recent baiting and bullying of Russia and the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine; the proposals in Congress to supply lethal military aid to Ukraine coupled with the Defense Secretary nominee's enthusiasm for such help, all indicate a major dysfunction of rationality.

Russia has been sending signals that it is not backing off from this conflict, that the situation in Ukraine is too important to its national security. Recent signals of Russia's resolve include its reformulation of its military doctrine that views NATO expansion into Russia's neighborhood as the major threat; and the view of US policy in Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia.

While some scholars and journalists point to the possibility, if not inevitability, of the all out war, major news outlets prefer to underreport the depth of the conflict, treating it as something farcical rather than tragic. Maybe the press and politicians have the point? After all, how can a possible war with a nuclear-armed rival be serious? So let's learn from our political leaders and stop worrying. We might as well die laughing:

10. In regular wars, common people die in the trenches while those who send them there spend their time giving speeches at luncheons and making TV appearances. By contrast, a nuclear war will put everyone in the same boat. We, the people, should all rejoice in the fact that we'll finally witness the examples of personal courage and leadership provided by our brave politicians. To see a politician putting his money where his mouth is, is one of the greatest joys of citizenry. For many true patriots, it is a joy worth dying for.

9. A nuclear war will provide great satisfaction for messianic nations that take offense at America's self-proclaimed status of "exceptional" and "indispensable." The US's status as the only nation that had used nuclear bombs against civilians will no longer be exceptional.

A glimpse of hope has appeared for peace in Ukraine after a 13-point memorandum was signed Thursday in Minsk.

The deal was brokered by the leaders of France, Germany and Russia, who joined their Ukrainian counterpart on Wednesday for marathon overnight negotiations.

The deal was signed by the so-called "contact group," which includes the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, a representative of the OSCE, Ukraine's former President Viktor Kuchma and the Russian ambassador to Ukraine.

Here is a breakdown of the deal:

1. A comprehensive ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. Comes into force at 00.00 (Kiev time) on February 15.
2. A pullout of heavy weapons. The parties agreed to a compromise disengagement line. Kiev is to pull artillery and other hardware from the current frontline while the rebels would do it from the frontline as it was in September, before they gained ground in a January counter-offensive. The OSCE-monitored safety zone would be 50 km to 150 km wide for weapons, depending on their range. The pullout is to be completed by March 1.

I'm 80 years old. I was never scared throughout the Cold War years. I'm very scared now." That is what Stephen Lendman, a Research Associate for the Centre for Research on Globalization told Sputnik in an exclusive interview regarding recent developments related to the military conflict in Ukraine.

As the Normandy Four are set to meet in Minsk on Wednesday to discuss possible ways out of the deteriorating military conflict in eastern Ukraine, Stephen Lendman forecasts that the US won't drop its idea of waging a full-size war in the region.

Washington under the Democrats or Republicans wants war, not peace, he said. "In the post-9/11 era alone, not a single day of peace has followed. Multiple US direct and proxy wars rage. US Special Forces (trained killers) operate covertly and overtly in over 130 countries disruptively."

'Ignore What Germany and France Say Publicly; Follow What They Do'

He says that "Merkel and Hollande (Germany and France) are bedrock US-dominated NATO members." "Ignore what they say publicly; follow what they do," he advised. "Throughout the Ukrainian crisis, they haven't gone their own way against Washington...nor has Britain's David Cameron."

"I'm sure Merkel and Hollande tried to get Putin to largely bend to Washington's will; in other words, [they] do nothing to stop its chokehold on Ukraine, including NATO forces encroaching on Russia's borders."

America maintains an empire of bases in over 150 countries, he added, noting that Russia and China are increasingly surrounded by US bases, which he called "so-called defensive missiles for an offense target: their heartlands."

Washington wants all sovereign independent governments eliminated, Lendman stated. "Replaced by pro-Western stooge ones. America's ultimate aim is unchallenged global dominance; it's willing to wage wars to achieve its objectives."

On Sunday, international news outlets the Guardian and Le Monde, working with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), published articles based on their analysis of leaked files showing that the Swiss private banking arm of HSBC, Europe's largest bank, functioned for years as a tax evasion and money laundering firm.

The company ran a branch that gave out "bricks" of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in foreign denominations and provided its wealthy clientele with advice on how to commit tax fraud, according to the reports.

These facts have for years been been in the possession of international financial regulators and governments throughout the world—including those of Britain, France and the United States—which systematically covered them up. Neither the bank, nor its executives, nor any of the clients that utilized its tax dodging services have been criminally prosecuted.

President Barack Obama has said the reality of "American leadership" at times entails "twisting the arms" of states which "don't do what we need them to do," and that the US relied on its military strength and other leverage to achieve its goals.

In a broad-ranging interview with Vox, which Obama himself described as a venue "for the brainiac-nerd types," the US president both denied the efficacy of a purely "realist" foreign policy but also arguing that at times the US, which has a defense budget that exceeds the next 10 countries combined, needed to rely on its military muscle and other levers of power.

Lauding the rule-based system to emerge in the post-World War II era, Obama admitted it wasn't perfect, but argued "the UN, the IMF, and a whole host of treaties and rules and norms that were established really helped to stabilize the world in ways that it wouldn't otherwise be."

NBC-TV's star news-anchor Brian Williams got caught repeatedly lying and fabricating his fake-'courageous' personal involvement in news stories that he had 'reported.' At LinkedIn, Rob Wyse headlined recently, "Brian Williams Essentially Lied on His Resume, Or Exaggerated The Truth," and he noted there:

Whether you call it a lie, or an exaggeration - it is a breach of trust. And that is what is looming over Brian Williams. A breach of his public trust. He is a trusted figure in our society. Perhaps the position of news anchor does not hold the same vaulted [he meant vaunted] esteem and prestige as in the days of Edward R. Murrow, or Walter Cronkite - but nonetheless, Williams is in a position of responsibility and trust. And when trust is broken, you almost never gain it back.

Most of the (thus far) 507 reader comments to that post are negative toward the post. A typical one was: "Rather silly article...he has a resume that needs no padding. So therefore this posting shows very clearly the completely misguiding value system the 'press' and the writer of this post has. Don't be the problem."

Another: "To paraphrase Tom Brady, nobody had died over this."

Another: "Big Deal, everyone pads their Resume."