The 4 year-old 'Houthi' revolution in Yemen didn't get a color name because it wasn't backed by Western powers. In fact, it's not called a revolution at all by Western governments or press, it's called an "insurgency", just like Iraq. And we all know that those fighting against the US military in Iraq were terrorists, right?

For those who aren't up to date on the dominant lexicon: a popular rebellion by local people against a US-imposed ruler (like in Yemen) is called an 'insurgency' or 'militant group', run by 'terrorists'. On the other hand, a limited rebellion that is provoked and stage-managed by US forces against a ruler the US wants to remove (like in Ukraine), is called a 'revolution' run by 'freedom-loving people'.

This is Andrey Kondrashov's documentary on the return of Crimea to Russia, aired in Russia on March 15, and now available with English subtitles. It has been a year since Crimeans took to the polls to vote for returning to their Motherland and leaving wretched Ukraine behind. The Western powers - led, as ever, by the US and UK - are determined to portray this momentous historic event as an imperial land-grab by Russia, and that it caused the subsequent civil war between Kiev and the breakaway provinces in the country's East.

However, as this excellent documentary shows, the Russian government could see that the violent manner in which the elected Ukrainian leader Yanukovich had been ousted from power - with American fingerprints all over it - meant chaos would soon spread throughout Ukraine, and that the majority ethnic Russian population in Crimea would be among the worst hit by neo-Nazi militias terrorizing anyone whom they considered 'insufficiently loyal' to the US-selected regime. When President Yanukovich fled the capital on February 22nd 2014, President Putin set in motion a series of responses that would present the first real (and successful) challenge to American imperial hegemony.


A Rossiya One production, EN subtitles by Vox Populi Evo (VPE). Uploaded to LiveLeak by VPE, in 14 parts, on 22 March 2015

The Health and Wellness show on the SOTT Radio Network covers topics of health, diet, science, homeopathy, wellness culture, and more. Tune in weekly!

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Welcome to the radio network of SOTT.net, your media source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events. The Behind the Headlines talkshow takes place each Sunday on the SOTT Radio Network. Analyzing global impact events that shape our world and future, and connecting the dots to reveal the bigger picture obscured by mainstream programming, Behind the Headlines is current affairs for people who think.

From the crisis in Ukraine to the ISIS in Iraq, from increasingly extreme weather to surviving in a world ruled by psychopaths, your hosts, their colleagues (and occasional guests) explore the deeper truths driving world events by exposing the manipulations behind what passes for 'news'.

Behind the Headlines airs live this Sunday, 22 March 2015, from 3-4:30pm EST / 12-1.30pm PST / 7-8.30pm UTC / 8-9.30pm CET.

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Broadcasting from deep in the heart of the American Empire, join your hosts Harrison Koehli and Elan Martin, and fellow Sott.net editors, as they discuss everything from current events and the latest machinations and manipulations of the global elite to history, science, and religion, and how it all fits together.

This week, IMEMC's Alexandra Halaby is back to update us on the latest news from Israel and Palestine, including the recent Israeli elections. After that, we will be discussing current events, the background to the Syrian crisis, and more.

The Truth Perspective is brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT.net, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events.

Live every Saturday from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 7-9pm CET.

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Here's the transcript of the show:

"What the darkness cannot possess, it seeks to destroy"
You've probably read all sorts of theories that seek to explain the causes of the 'new cold war' in which we find ourselves. From the embarrassingly simplistic "Putin's a Hitler" offered by the Western press to the more nuanced idea of an 'energy war' between US-Europe-Russia. The truth about why we are where we are right now, as a species, however, is actually fairly simple. But to understand it you'll have to ditch the idea of a 'new cold war' and replace it with 'the 120-year-old war that never ended'.

If you like your history condensed and relevant to current events, then read on.

Over 100 years ago, in 1904, one of the founding fathers of both geopolitics and geostrategy, Oxford University graduate and co-founder of the London School of Economics, Sir Halford Mackinder, proposed a theory that expanded geopolitical analysis from the local or regional level to a global level. Geopolitics is the study (by people in positions of power) of the effects of geography (human and physical) on international politics and international relations. In layman's terms, this means the study of how best to control as much of the world - its resources, human and natural - as possible. When you or I think about the world, we think of a big, complicated place with billions of people. When the 'elite' think of the world, they think of a globe, or a map, with nation states on it that can, and should, according to them, be shaped and changed en masse.

Mackinder separated the world into just a few regions.

• The 'world Island', an area roughly comprising the interlinked continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
• The offshore islands, including the British Isles and the islands of Japan.
• The outlying islands, including the continents of North America, South America, and Australia.

The most important of these, by far, was the 'world island' and in particular what he called the 'heartland', which basically means Russia. Mackinder said that whoever controls the 'heartland' (Russia) controls the 'world island' (Eurasia and Africa), and whoever controls that, controls the world. It's a fairly self-evident analysis of the situation because the great majority of the world's population and resources are on the Eurasian continent, and holding a vast northern position on that landmass - with your rearguard protected by an impassable frozen ocean - gives you the prime vantage point, or 'higher ground' if you will.

Remind me again, what is US policy in the Middle East Southwest Asia?

Confused by the US' contradictory 'handling' of Iran? The Obama administration appears to be courting Iran, while the Republican and AIPAC-dominated Congress is pushing for war. The struggle lies in the efforts of the US government to keep Iran 'on side' lest it be lost to Eurasian integration. They think they have 'a good read' on Iran and that they can entice it by resolving the contrived 'nuclear issue' while whispering sweet nothings in Iran's ear about ousting Russia as a major supplier of Europe's energy needs. Their difficulty lies in dealing with the fundamentalists in their midst who are constitutionally incapable of grokking realpolitik. That's why Bibi was right to be paranoid about 'foreign powers' interfering in the Israeli elections. More 'level heads' among the Washington elite wanted to see the back of him, thus improving their chances of 'managing' the center of the world and maintaining their dominance of the region. The Obama administration is now putting out feelers about passing a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements and ditching its long-standing policy of vetoing every single UN resolution critical of Israel. But don't get your hopes up about a substantive US-Israel rift: nearing the end of his last term, Dubya did the same thing.

It's a similar story of instigating then 'managing' conflict with respect to Syria. From being absolutely determined to see the back of Assad, John Kerry is now prepared to negotiate a settlement with him, or so he says. Elements of the US media are haranguing Kerry for his 'peacenik' proposals. I would again caution against seeing this 'flip-flopping' as a sign of US government incompetence or weakness. Ultimately, performing a balancing act of advances and retreats, hardline statements and conciliatory tones, is what the strategists speaking through mouthpieces like Kerry do in order to reach their goal, which is, of course, total hegemonic world domination. Basically, you can't trust a word they say.

Two days ago, on March 16th, a Ukrainian tank ran over a mother and her two children as they stood on a sidewalk in the Donetsk town of Konstantinovka, 55 km from Donetsk city. The girl, Polina, was killed instantly. The woman apparently died later in hospital. The Ukie soldiers driving the tank were apparently drunk. The girl's death prompted riots in the town - the first big revolt behind Kiev's front line since the Odessa massacre. Right Sektor thugs have been sent in to 'restore order'.

The rioters demanded the soldiers be brought to justice. That's unlikely. Justice is a foreign concept to the Ukrainian regime. Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashenko responded by announcing that soldiers will 'shoot to kill':

If someone in Kostantinovka with arms in their hands will protest against the laws of the Ukrainian authorities, using this accident to instigate mass clashes, then first one warning shot will be made, and then they will shoot to kill. If there is no time to give a warning, they will be shooting to kill immediately. Nobody is allowed to undermine the Ukrainian government with arms on the territory of Ukraine.

Kiev forbade protests, but around 100 people gathered at the site of Polina's death with toys and flowers. Kiev called them "associates of the terrorists".

In The Secret History of the World, my Irish ancestors, the Celts, are described as:

...proud, imaginative, artistic, lovers of freedom and adventure, eloquence, poetry and the arts... and were VERY suspicious of any kind of centralized 'authority'.

Most knowledgeable among them were the Druids, who placed great value in living harmoniously with nature, in developing memory-based records, and who adhered to the principles of the 'Third Force' - simply put, there is good, bad and the specific situation that determines which is which'.

When I was younger I never really saw the relevance of history. It had no meaning in my life - no place in my 'history'. It was interesting to some extent, but I failed to appreciate its importance. What does the oft-quoted saying, 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it', actually mean? If we reflect on our own personal histories, we see that we learn our most important life lessons from making mistakes that invariably produce suffering, for ourselves and others. Yet how many times do we, or did we, keep making the same mistakes?

Sometimes we suppress painful episodes, but they can 'come back to haunt us' and negatively affect our present health. Gabor Mate explores this mind-body connection in When the Body Says No, which provides transformative insights into how disease can be the body′s way of saying 'No!' to what the conscious mind cannot or will not acknowledge. Regardless of what country we hail from, access to our true national history may enable us to learn, and therefore heal, collective wounds on this larger scale.

Historical Revisionism

In a wider context, knowledge of our national, planetary and perhaps even cosmic history is important for us to gain understanding of "ourselves and our wider environment," as Lobaczewski put it. I recently listened to this SOTT Radio show: 'Behind the headlines: Historical Revisionism in the 20th and 21st centuries', which reminded me of an episode of modern Irish history that I was never taught when attending school in Ireland, namely the 1845-1850 Irish Holocaust, or the 'Great Famine' (Irish potato famine), as it is still euphemistically termed.

The Health and Wellness show on the SOTT Radio Network covers topics of health, diet, science, homeopathy, wellness culture, and more. Tune in weekly!

Running Time: 01:45:00

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