Nato leaders don't know what to do about Mr Putin and the civil war in Ukraine, and have been misreading this crisis since it began

It is always revealing when politicians tell us that something is "unacceptable". What they mean is that, although people might expect them to do something about it, they haven't got a clue what it is they can do. That was why, as the Western leaders gathered for that Nato summit in Wales, several, including David Cameron, told us that President Putin's intervention in Ukraine was "unacceptable".

The real problem here is not just that our leaders don't know what they can do about Mr Putin and that horrible civil war in Ukraine, which has already killed nearly 3,000 people and which the Russians seem to be winning hands down. It is that they and many others in the West have been misreading this crisis ever since it began at the start of the year.

It cannot be said often enough that what triggered the crisis was not Mr Putin's desire to restore the boundaries of the Soviet Union, but the ludicrously misguided ambition of the West to see Ukraine absorbed into the EU and Nato. There was never any way that either Mr Putin or all those Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and Crimea were going to take kindly to seeing the country which was the cradle of Russian identity become part of a Western power bloc. Russia would be even less happy to see the only warm-water ports for its navy taken over by a military alliance that had been set up to counter Russia in the first place.

When 96 per cent of Crimeans democratically voted in March to join Russia, this was not, as Western politicians now tell us, because Mr Putin wanted to "annexe" their country. It was because the 82 per cent of them who speak Russian as their main language wanted to rejoin a country Crimea had been part of for two centuries.

A 2009 intelligence document provided to journalists by former government contractor Edward Snowden suggests the United States weighed someday conducting espionage to prevent losing its economic prowess to other countries.

The document, published first by The Intercept on Friday this week, outlines tactics the American intelligence community may implement in the future in the event of certain scenarios, including one in which "the United States' technological and innovative edge slips" in the year 2025.

In the event that the US may lose that advantage, the Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review's final report reads in part, then "a multi-pronged, systematic effort to gather open source and proprietary information through overt means, clandestine penetration (through physical and cyber means) and counterintelligence" could be undertaken by American agencies.

The document, classified as "secret" and supplied along with a trove of other files provided by Snowden,"is a fascinating window into the mindset of America's spies as they identify future threats to the US and lay out the actions the US intelligence community should take in response," wrote Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept editor who wrote about the 32-page report this week.

Indeed, David Shredd, then the deputy director of national intelligence, opens the report by describing it as the results of a 10-month study conducted among experts from agencies, academia, think tanks and industry tasked with assessing the implications of the year 2025 for the American intelligence community, or IC.

"If one does not consider the long-range future, one will never cease to be surprised," Shredd wrote."QICR 2009 developed alternative future scenarios based on Global Trends 2025 to explore concepts and capabilities the IC may need to fulfill critical missions in support of US national security."

Many Westerners have a negative view of Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, because of the unjust portrayal he receives in the Western media. If one were to believe everything they saw in the American media, they would probably think Putin to be a ruthless dictator who was anointed by birth rather than a politician born into a working class family with approval ratings higher than all of his Western counterparts.

Under Putin's eight-year reign the Russian economy grew every single year, with an overall GDP increase of more than 70%. During the same period, investments rose 125%, industry grew by 76%, and poverty decreased 50%. The average monthly salaries in Russia increased from $80 to $640, and the middle class grew from 8 million people to 55 million.

Analysts have credited these impressive economic achievements to strong macro-management, capital inflows, fiscal policy reform, and rising energy prices (Russia is a large exporter of oil and gas). Putin wisely reintroduced nuclear power and positioned Russia as an energy super power that Europe has come to rely on. He also invested heavily in Russian infrastructure, including pipelines. Among Putin's accomplishments was the introduction of a 13% flat tax and the reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 24%. As a result, Putin has maintained extraordinarily high approval ratings from the Russian people, winning his second Presidency with 71% of the vote.

Putin's accomplishments are even more impressive when one realizes that he has had to deal with one of the fiercest mafias in the world. The Russian mafia led by notorious billionaire gangsters, who use dual citizenships in non-extradition countries such as Israel to thwart justice, are responsible for sex slavery, weapons trafficking, drug running, and the rampant corruption that has plagued Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin has consistently risked his life to challenge these gangsters and eventually saw charges brought against many of the criminal oligarchs. Regardless of these challenges, Putin's administration has consistently maintained a lower incarceration rate than the United States.

The only way to expose lies is within context; so, this will be somewhat lengthy:

The Times editorial opens with a falsehood:

"There is no longer any doubt: Russian troops are in Ukraine, not as volunteers, as the rebel commander in Donetsk would have the world believe, but in units equipped with mobile artillery and heavy military equipment."

Their only cited source for that statement is "a senior NATO officer." But should anyone take as a source, on that type of matter, either an anonymous U.S.-NATO official, or an anonymous Russian official? That's hardly an unprejudiced "source," in either case - and it's their only source on this.

The context here has to be understood: During the run-up to our 19 March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Times was similarly taking, as sources, anonymous U.S. officials, who lied about the evidence, saying that aluminum tubes were definitely being used for making weapons of mass destruction, when they weren't at all, and that "uranium from Niger" was being snuck into Iraq for nuclear bombs that were also a fabrication - outright forged 'evidence,' selectively accepted, while the Times selectively rejected, and avoided even to mention, far more-solid evidence to the exact contrary. They wanted us to invade, and we did. The Times apologized for their "errors" years later, after the damage had already been done - damage (many thousands of corpses, and several trillions of dollars in costs) that the Times greatly assisted George W. Bush to produce, by helping to sell the country on doing it.

The Times is today trying to repeat their catastrophic success, in Ukraine and elsewhere, simply because their readership continue to subscribe, notwithstanding the paper's proven abysmal journalistic quality - which wins top awards, even after having been demonstrated by that catastrophic experience to be actually dismally, even catastrophically, poor.

The Times has not improved since then. There has been no accountability for those thousands of corpses, and trillions of dollars, wasted in Iraq. Readers still buy the paper. And, so, this type of 'journalism' (actually mere stenography to the existing U.S. regime - Bush then, Obama now) (transparently just that, and nothing more), continues on, uninterrupted.

Anyway, the Times allegation here is certainly false. There is plenty of doubt, though the Times says, "There is no longer any doubt." Their citing only one - an entirely untrustworthy - source for their allegation is like calling their readers fools to their very faces, but their readers buy it: they still buy the paper, as if it were reliable; and so they are what the Times management think they are, and the Times merely takes advantage of that, and of them, history-be-damned.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is ready to cooperate with Moscow on the delivery of the second humanitarian aid convoy to eastern Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told RIA Novosti in an interview.

"We have already contacted the leaders of the International Committee of the Red Cross who were in general positive regarding our efforts and expressed readiness to cooperate on the delivery of humanitarian aid. We are now discussing the practical details of this operation and expect it to be accomplished," Gatilov said.

The diplomat added that this time, humanitarian aid will be delivered by railroad.

This documentary, released in 2006, shows how the oligarchs rose to power in the post-Soviet era, buying up huge sections of newly privatized industries before moving on to the markets of propaganda (television) and politics. But their downfall was just as swift as their rise, thanks to the principled and effective leadership of Vladimir Putin. Watching this documentary will give a big clue as to why Putin is so demonized today by the West. The oligarchs, after all, are an exemplar of what the West calls 'democracy', but which is in reality heartless oligarchy: 'free' elections created and stage-managed by rich donors and PR companies, usually with foreign investment courtesy of NGOs whose goals are antithetical to the nations in which they operate; the 'freedom' of the '1%' who make more money than they truly need, serving their own selfish interests rather than the public good. It's no wonder that corrupt individuals like Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, and Gusinsky are portrayed as the good guys in Western media. Khodorkovsky was even named person of the year in 2003 by Expert.

Pay attention to the candid remarks made by the oligarchs themselves. For example, this is what Berezovsky had to say about his role in Yeltsin's successful 1996 election: "It's said that the media acted on orders. To these accusations all I can say is, yes, it's true. Directives were given, news coverage wasn't objective, but it's all part of a democratic process." To which the leaders in the West can only agree. This is what Putin is up against.

NATO warlords concluded two days of meetings and related activities. Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said a Readiness Action Plan was agreed on.

It'll "strength (the alliance's) defense," he said. It can be deployed on very short notice. It includes "several thousand land troops."

It complement's NATO's (multinational) Response Force. It includes land, air, sea and special force elements.

It's a stand-alone force available for rapid deployment. It maintains up to 25,000 troops. NATO's mission is offense, not defense.

Its readiness tells "any potential aggressor: should you even think of attacking one (member), you will be facing the whole alliance."

Rasmussen announced plans to launch a Defense Capacity Building Initiative. It "reinforce(s) (NATO's) commitment to partner nations.

It includes cooperation with Georgia, Moldova an Jordan. It provides "security capacity support" for Libya. It's ready to assist Iraq on "request."

The alliance's US-led Open Door policy aims for establishing a global police force. To include as many nations as possible.

When the banksters who run America set their sights on the newest designated enemy of democracy, without fail the assault is preceded by information operations to convince a clueless public of the target state's burning hatred for "freedom." Momentarily torn away from corporate entertainment spectacle, enlightened citizen-consumers will be fed phony news stories of atrocities,green-screened crisis coverage set to dramatic music, and helpful cues to identify heroes, victims and villains in the unfolding morality play. Washington is said to be Hollywood for ugly people, and the ugly people have proven remarkably adept at statecraft as stagecraft, selling their brand of international banditry as feel-good humanitarian uplift for decades now.

But just as Hollywood has lurched into creative senility, so too is the template for overseas intervention fraying as US global dominance enters its terminal phase. No longer yielding to "leadership" from the wolves of Wall Street, independent powers have begun to challenge the foundations of the Washington consensus. At the forefront of this movement has been a revived Russia, which in the face of NATO encirclement and with survival on the line, has shown itself willing and able to confront the Pax Americana. But the show must go on; as the United States positions forces ever closer toward Moscow's frontiers, with furrowed brows and feigned concern, the talking heads on our telescreens mechanically inform us of Russian aggression. It's springtime again for Russophobia in the West.

With its roots in the Great Game of espionage and intrigue between Victorian subalterns and the Tsar's Cossacks in Central Asia, a systemic antipathy to Russia as such only took root in America from the time it assumed Britain's imperial mantle at the dawn of the Cold War. The hostility, of course, has been mutual, and Russians have not forgotten how their land suffered through the "peace dividend" of US unipolarity in the 1990s. Promised that the North Atlantic alliance would never contemplate expanding eastward, Mikhail Gorbachev starred in pizza commercials and Boris Yeltsin headlined summits with his trademark vodka-soaked buffoonery. It was then that a weakened, bankrupt Russia could be looted by multinationals, its people impoverished and demoralized, and the state further subverted by forces from "civil society" NGOs to cutthroat jihadist mercenaries waging holy war in the North Caucasus.

How many times have we seen this before?

The President of the United States is on TV telling us horror stories. Some innocent people in some corner of the world are being crushed, he tells us. They face some monstrously evil oppressor, he says. While the United States doesn't like war, what choice is there? Sacrifices must be made, cruise missiles must be unleashed, to protect the poor and innocent. The world is the set of an action movie, and the US is the tragic hero, forced to rescue the innocent.

This is the script we heard in former Yugoslavia. Bill Clinton claimed to be stoping "mass rapes" and "concentration camps." After the smoke had cleared, and thousands had been killed, the truth came out. The United Nations admitted that no "genocide" had taken place. The talk of mass rapes and concentration camps had been hype.


While the alleged crimes used to justify destroying Serbia had been exaggerated, the crimes of the US funded Kosovo Liberation Army were very real. The balkans have never recovered from the bombing and destruction and the funding of ethnic hate groups. The "rescue mission" resulted in deeper misery than ever before.

The OSCE has revealed the 12-point roadmap behind the September 5 truce signed in Minsk. It says that Ukraine must adopt a new law, allowing for a special status for Lugansk and Donetsk regions, and hold early elections there.

The document, titled 'Protocol on the results of consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group' and signed in Minsk on September 5, outlines what needs to be done for the ceasefire to stay in place.

"To decentralize power, including through the adoption by Ukraine of law 'on provisional procedure for local government in parts of Donetsk and Lugansk regions (law on special status),'" states one of the provisions in the document.

Another point emphasizes that "early local elections" are to be held in light of the special status of both regions. The early elections must be held in accordance with the same proposed law, it says.