As Crimea prepares to vote on Saturday March 16th in a crucial referendum on its future, the rhetoric coming from the West and its propaganda machine has hit a new and ridiculous low. Not only has US President Barack Obama and his administration done everything to undermine democracy in Ukraine, they have now resorted to the most naked forms of hypocrisy in an attempt to delegitimize the democratic process.

On Thursday March 6th President Obama spoke at the White House on the referendum and the issue of Crimea. In his prepared remarks, Obama stated categorically that the United States would not recognize the results of the Crimean referendum. He argued that the it would violate both the "Ukrainian Constitution and international law." Obama kept the comedy coming when he noted that, "In 2014 we are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders." As with all statements made by the US government, and the President specifically, this must be contextualized and deconstructed in order to be effectively critiqued.

First and foremost is the question of democracy and, more specifically, how exactly Washington is choosing to define this gravely abused word. In referring to the so-called "interim government" in Kiev, headed by Yatsenyuk and his associates, as "democratic leaders", Obama demonstrates either a complete lack of understanding of the word democracy, or as I think is more likely, an utter contempt for democratic principles. By referring to an unelected entity that has seized political power in Kiev by force, and through collaboration with Nazi elements, as "democratic leaders," Obama exposes himself and his administration to be cynical opportunists whose interests rest not in democracy but in a geopolitical agenda guided solely by strategic interests.

Appointment of super wealthy to positions of political power upsets protesters who hoped for new era

After losing control of Crimea, the embattled new Ukrainian government in Kiev has turned to the nation's oligarchs in a bid to calm secessionist sentiment in the pro-Russian east. But the appointment of oligarchs to positions of political power has not been welcomed in all quarters, and certainly not by the protesters who hoped last month's ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych heralded a new era.

Following days of unrest, including pro-Russia rallies and the storming of the parliament building in Donetsk by Moscow's supporters, the region now seems to be slowly calming down. Pro-Russia squatters have now been removed from the administration building, and on the orders of the newly appointed regional governor and Ukraine's 16th-richest man, Serhiy Taruta, the pro-Kremlin activists' leader, Pavel Gubarev, has been arrested.

In a further sign that the environment in the east is stabilising, boxing heavyweight turned politician Vitali Klitschko has a visit to Donetsk scheduled for Sunday. "People here respect power, the oligarchs are wealthy, well known and well respected. They are seen as guarantors of stability," says local journalist Denis Tkachenko.

But for those active in Kiev's Euromaidan, or Independence Square, protests, putting businessmen into positions of power may not have been what they dreamed of. "This is the most controversial step of the new government - it is a risky gamble," says Serhiy Leshchenko, deputy chief editor of Ukrainian newspaper Pravda, and an investigative journalist who has spent decades analysing Ukraine's business and political elite.

The spy agency is not above infecting networks with malware by posing as the social-media site, according to newly released Snowden files.

This just in from the Edward Snowden vault of government secrets: The National Security Agency is breaking into "potentially millions of computers worldwide" and infecting them with malware "implants" as part of an effort that is increasingly relying on automated systems and not human oversight, according to a by First Look Media report published Wednesday.

And the NSA is pretending to be Facebook to get the job done.

"In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social-media site as a launching pad to infect a target's computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive," First Look reported on Glenn Greenwald's Intercept channel, citing a classified slide presentation from 2009. "In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer's microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites."

As part of the "industrial-scale exploitation," the agency is leveraging Facebook's global appeal to trick targets into logging in to a doppelganger version of the site, a technique dubbed "Quantumhand."

In Ukraine, the West supported an unconstitutional putsch against an elected government perpetrated, among others, by fascist/neo-nazi storm troopers (Svoboda, Right Sector) instrumentalized by US intelligence. After a Russian counterpunch, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that any referendum in Crimea would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and violate international law."

This is just the latest instance in the serial rape of "international law". The rap sheet is humongous, including; NATO bombing Serbia for 78 days in 1999 to allow Kosovo to secede; the 2003 US invasion and subsequent trillion-dollar occupation and civil war creation in Iraq; NATO/AFRICOM bombing Libya in 2011 invoking R2P ("responsibility to protect") as a cover to provoking regime change; US investment in the secession of oil-wealthy South Sudan, so China has to deal with an extra geopolitical headache; and US investment in perennial civil war in Syria.

Yet Moscow still (foolishly?) believes international law should be respected - presenting to the UN Security Council classified information on all Western intel/psy-ops moves leading to the coup in Kiev, including "training" provided by Poland and Lithuania, not to mention Turkish intelligence involvement in setting up a second coup in Crimea. Russian diplomats called for an unbiased international investigation. That will never happen; Washington's narrative would be completely debunked. Thus a US veto at the UN.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also called for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to objectively investigate those snipers shooting everyone on sight in Kiev, as revealed by Estonia's foreign minister to EU foreign policy supremo Catherine "I love Yats" Ashton. According to Russia's ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, "a completely different picture would be drawn compared to what is being depicted by American media and, unfortunately, by some American and European politicians." Needless to say, there will be no investigation.

The Russian-language and pro-Russian Internet news organization, Iskra ("Spark") News in Zaporozhye, eastern Ukraine, which perhaps has taken its name from the early socialist newspaper founded by Lenin -- reported Friday that Ukraine's gold reserves had been hasily airlifted to the United States from Borispol Airport just east of Kiev.

A Google-assisted translation is appended.

GATA tonight asked the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. State Department to disclose whether the United States has taken custody of Ukraine's gold reserves. A publicist for the New York Fed immediately acknowledged the inquiry and said he would look into the issue right away. We'll keep you posted.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

From Iskra News
Zaporozhye, Ukraine
Friday, March 7, 2014

http://iskra-news.info/news/segodnja_nochju_iz_borispolja_v_ssha_strarto...

At 2 a.m. this morning an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borispol Airport. According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing.

Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks, and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. They loaded the plane with more than 40 heavy boxes.

After that a mysterious men arrived and entered the plane.

All loading was done in a hurry.

The plane took off on an emergency basis.

Those who saw this mysterious special operation immediately notified the airport officials, who told the callers not to meddle in other people's affairs.

Later a returned call from a senior official of the former Ministry of Income and Fees reported that tonight, on the orders of one of the new leaders of Ukraine, the United States had taken custody of all the gold reserves in Ukraine.

"We are witnessing a huge geopolitical game in which the aim is the destruction of Russia as a geopolitical opponent of the US or of the global financial oligarchy.....The realization of this project is in line with the concept of global domination that is being carried out by the US."

- Vladimir Yakunin, former Russian senior diplomat

"History shows that wherever the U.S. meddles; chaos and misery are soon to follow."

- Kalithea, comments line, Moon of Alabama

Following a 13 year rampage that has reduced large swathes of Central Asia and the Middle East to anarchy and ruin, the US military juggernaut has finally met its match on a small peninsula in southeastern Ukraine that serves as the primary operating base for Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Crimea is the door through which Washington must pass if it intends to extend its forward-operating bases throughout Eurasia, seize control of vital pipeline corridors and resources, and establish itself as the dominant military/economic power-player in the new century. Unfortunately, for Washington, Moscow has no intention of withdrawing from the Crimea or relinquishing control of its critical military outpost in Sevastopol. That means that the Crimea - which has been invaded by the Cimmerians, Bulgars, Greeks, Scythians, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Ottomans, Turks, Mongols, and Germans - could see another conflagration in the months ahead, perhaps, triggering a Third World War, the collapse of the existing global security structure, and a new world order, albeit quite different from the one imagined by the fantasists at the Council on Foreign Relations and the other far-right think tanks that guide US foreign policy and who are responsible for the present crisis.

How Washington conducts itself in this new conflict will tell us whether the authors of the War on Terror - that public relations hoax that concealed the goals of eviscerated civil liberties and one world government - were really serious about actualizing their NWO vision or if it was merely the collective pipedream of corporate CEOs and bored bankers with too much time on their hands. In the Crimea, the empire faces a real adversary, not a disparate group of Kalashinov-waving jihadis in flip-flops. This is the Russian Army; they know how to defend themselves and they are prepared to do so. That puts the ball in Obama's court. It's up to him and his crackpot "Grand Chessboard" advisors to decide how far they want to push this. Do they want to intensify the rhetoric and ratchet up the sanctions until blows are exchanged, or pick up their chips and walk away before things get out of hand? Do they want to risk it all on one daredevil roll of the dice or move on to Plan B? That's the question. Whatever US policymakers decide, one thing is certain, Moscow is not going to budge. Their back is already against the wall. Besides, they know that a lunatic with a knife is on the loose, and they're ready to do whatever is required to protect their people. If Washington decides to cross that line and provoke a fight, then there's going to trouble. It's as simple as that.

Rarely before has the German media been brought so much into line. Two weeks after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was chased out of office by armed gangs of fascists, the television hosts and newspapers are virtually unanimous in support for the confrontational course adopted by Berlin and Washington towards Russia.

Hardly any critical voices can be heard. On the contrary, the newspapers seek to outdo each other in fomenting the conflict and demanding that the government take a tougher stance against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Süddeutsche Zeitung demands "threats and punishments" instead of "talks" while the Frankfurter Allgemeine calls on the "free world" to deploy the "means of deterrence."

The media are availing themselves of distortions and lies that are reminiscent of Goebbels' propaganda techniques.

They downplay or conceal the role of militant fascists during the putsch in Kiev, as well as the presence of three fascist ministers in the new government supported by the European Union. The three are members of Svoboda, which has close ties to Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), Hungary's Jobbik, the French National Front and other neo-fascist parties in Europe.

Explosive new evidence linking the two darkest chapters in Scotland Yard's modern history can be revealed today by The Independent on Sunday, heaping fresh pressure on the position of the current Met Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.

Leaked documents reveal a police officer accused of corruption in the Stephen Lawrence case has also been closely linked to one of the prime suspects in the unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator found with an axe embedded in his skull in 1987.

Use of covert police listening devices suggests that a suspect in Morgan's murder knew John Davidson, a detective sergeant who is alleged to have confessed to a corrupt relationship with the father of David Norris, one of the racist gang who stabbed Lawrence to death in 1993.

Under Sir Bernard's leadership, the Metropolitan Police appears to be playing down links between the Morgan case and the murder of the aspiring black architect in 1993 - a position that has been called into question by both the Home Secretary, Theresa May, and Mark Ellison QC, who published a withering review of the Lawrence police investigation last week.

Only last month, Scotland Yard insisted to Mr Ellison's team that the then DS Davidson did not work on the original investigation into the murder of Morgan, who was killed in a south London car park 27 years ago amid claims he was about to blow the whistle on police corruption.

A Ukrainian reporter has died of a gunshot wound after masked men attacked him on the way home in central Kiev. His colleagues suspect the attack was not accidental.

The journalist, Vyacheslav Veremyi, of the local "Vremya" ("Time") pro-government newspaper died early on Wednesday morning of a gunshot to the chest while doctors were trying to save him.

"Early this morning, Kiev correspondent, Vyacheslav Veremyi, died in hospital," said Vesti, a Russian-language daily, in the statement. "Vyacheslav received a bullet wound to the chest. He succumbed to his injuries due to blood loss."

The reporter and his colleague, IT specialist Aleksey Lymarenko were in a taxi on their way home. As the taxi driver stopped at traffic lights, a group of "unknown men with bats and weapons, in hard hats, camouflage and black masks" ambushed the car.

They pulled the reporter, his colleague and the driver from the car and beat them up, the paper said. The latter two sustained severe injuries, with Aleksey Lymarenko's face being seriously maimed.

Ukraine's security service has announced it is launching a counter-terror operation. Radicals have seized over 1,500 firing arms and 100,000 bullets in the last 24 hours, the service said.

The recent events in Ukraine have shown "the escalation of violence and a massive use of firearms by the extremist groups. In many parts of the country, public authorities, military installations and depots with munitions are being seized. Court buildings are burning, the vandals are destroying private property and killing peaceful civilians," the Ukrainian Security Service head, Aleksandr Yakimenko, said in a statement.

According to Yakimenko, "over the last day more than 1,500 firearms and 100,000 rounds of ammunition have come into the hands of criminals."

Reacting to the "conscious, purposeful use of force by means of arson, killings, kidnapping and terrorizing people," which Yakimenko treats as "terrorist acts," the Security Service and Anti-terrorist center of Ukraine have decided to launch a counter-terrorist operation.

The Security Service head then urged all Ukrainians to stay calm and maintain peace and order. Special measures to reinforce public security and border security are being taken.