Hawkish Hillary speech to American Legion on August 31 gives hypocrisy a bad name. The following day Ray dissects Hillary’s philippic with Brian Becker of Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear.

http://sputniknews.com/us/20160903/1044917369/clinton-hawkish-speech-hypocrisy.html

(17 minutes)

Sputnik’s short write-up is good. It does not include, though, an aside by Ray to show the depth of the neocons’ hatred for Julian Assange and his infuriating, magician-like wizardry in continuing to expose neocon antics via WikiLeaks – still orchestrating it all from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, right under the noses of the satraps of Washington’s favorite vassal state!

The subject is UKRAINE. Perhaps it is worth a more detailed refresher.

Ray refers to the WikiLeaks release (hat-tip to Chelsea Manning) of a cable from Embassy Moscow (08MOSCOW265), in which the Russians gave U.S. Ambassador William Burns a VERY LOUD NYET to any thought of Ukraine joining NATO. On February 1, 2008, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, explained to Burns precisely what the U.S. should expect from Russia were NATO to move to incorporate Ukraine. (To his credit, Burns played it straight, titling his cable “NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES,” and sent it to Secretary Condoleezza Rice at the State Department with IMMEDIATE precedence. Here is Burns’s introductory summary of his discussion with Lavrov:

“Summary. Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO membership action plan at the [upcoming] Bucharest summit, Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains ‘an emotional and neuralgic’ issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.

“In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.” (emphasis added).

Ambassador Burns continued: “Russia has made it clear that it would have to ‘seriously review’ its entire relationship with Ukraine and Georgia in the event of NATO inviting them to join. This could include major impacts on energy, economic, and political-military engagement, with possible repercussions throughout the region and into Central and Western Europe.”

Burns closed with this comment: “Russia’s opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia’s interest in the region. … While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990s was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests.”

Being Exceptional, Though …

But, alas, “indispensably exceptional” countries – and exceptionally tough guys – and tough women – like today’s Hillary Clinton and Dick-Cheney-protégé Victoria Nuland – need pay no heed to such warnings. And so, a NATO summit in Bucharest two months later declared (on April 3, 2008) that Ukraine (and Georgia) “will become members of NATO.” We are now living “the rest of the story.”

On January 23, 2008 – a week before Foreign Minister Lavrov read the riot act to Ambassador Burns in Moscow – former Sen. Bill Bradley voiced a truly sad cri de coeur regarding NATO expansion. Bradley, George Kennan (and virtually everyone else who knew anything about Russia) were voicing strong opposition, but the hacks brought in by Bush and Cheney, convinced of U.S. exceptionalism, knew better. They decided to follow not only the advice of neocon hacks, but also the example set by President Bill Clinton in “damning the torpedoes” and moving NATO east.

The thought was that it could be a cakewalk to get Ukraine into NATO; the West just had to get rid of the elected government by mounting a Putsch, which of course it did on February 22, 2014. Here’s Bradley speaking on the “blunder” of NATO expansion (the clip is well worth six and a half minutes).

 

No need to fudge how this all went down. Nuland discussed the planned coup, including the main players “approved” for the new government, with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt on an open telephone line just three weeks before the coup, and the U.S. extended formal recognition in what seemed to be record time. The remarkable Nuland-Pyatt telephone conversation was posted on YouTube on February 4, 2014. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSxaa-67yGM

Sorry About Using the “F-Word”

Acknowledging the authenticity of the intercepted conversation, Nuland apologized quickly for her dismissive comment, “F— the EU,” but (surprise, surprise) not for orchestrating the Putsch. STRATFOR’s President George Friedman described it as “the most blatant coup in history.” But why did Nuland and her neocon friends see it as necessary? Because the duly elected Ukrainian government had turned down a U.S./EU-promoted austerity-laden deal that would have made the Ukraine an economic basket case – like Greece. The Russians had prevailed with Kiev by offering much more attractive terms.

Coups need to be well financed, of course. Nuland has bragged openly that this one, in effect, cost $5 billion. Here’s what she told the “U.S.-Ukraine Foundation Conference” at the State Department on December 13, 2012:

Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We’ve invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.

http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2013/dec/218804.htm

Better late than never, Jesuit-run Georgetown University’s President John DiGioia has acknowledged that the school has “been able to hide from the truth” that it was built, literally, on the institution of slavery.

Georgetown University Plans Steps to Atone for Slave Past

(from the New York Times today, Friday, Sept. 2, 2016)

Decades ago, when a small group of us asked the Maryland Jesuits to confess openly those crimes of their predecessors; we were rebuffed (apparently out of financial liability concerns). We saw it as a moral issue, and saw scandal in the Jesuits’ refusal to show moral leadership before they were finally forced to. Jesuit alumnus Ray McGovern wrote about the backstory when the news first broke last spring: See:

The Shame of the Jesuits

Ray discusses former CIA deputy director Michael Morrell’s repeated suggestion, on the Charlie Rose show last month, that the US military should join with the U.S. intelligence-supported “moderate opposition” in Syria in state-sponsored terrorism … and also that scaring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would be a piece of cake, since the U.S. Air Force could strike “in the middle of the night. Right.” (Morell)

http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2016/08/24/82416-ray-mcgovern/

(minute 1:00 to 28:00)

“In the middle of the night, right.” And this fellow Morell was acting CIA director? Twice?   Quick! Someone tell him to re-read the children’s book, “Things That Go Bump in the Night” and make sure he knows that such “things” are likely to include Russian air defense missiles in Syria – yes, even in the middle of the night.

But these would be teensy weensy strikes, says Morell, seemingly modeled after those blitz panty-raids at the University of Akron, back in the day. Morell is talking about:

“… very, very, very limited U.S. airstrikes against those assets that are extremely important to Assad personally. So, in the middle of the night you destroy one of his offices; … You take out his presidential aircraft, his presidential helicopters, in the middle of the night, right.”

All of this, as Charlie Rose looks on in rapt attention before Morell – one of his favorite interviewees. (It’s not clear how many get do-overs.) It was Morell’s August 5 NY Times op-ed bearing the title “I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton” that caught Charlie’s eye. He gave Morell an hour on August 8 – and then a do-over hour on August 17. The “middle-of-the-night” stratagem was highlighted both times. (Hopefully, neither the Syrians nor the Russians were watching.)

Scott Horton and Ray were probably a bit too jocular – given the seriousness of the subject and the risks involved in such harebrained schemes. Ray tried not to think of how Syrian and Russian defense officials might already be laying plans against the day that Morell succeeds in his transparent audition to join a very-tough-guy-very-tough-gal Hillary Clinton team next year.

The Real News Network interviews Ray on Syria, bomb-them-in-the-middle-of-the-night-very-tough-guy Michael Morell (a terrorist by definition), and one big widely ignored fly in the ointment on Syria – i. e., the preferred policy of Israel and Obama’s neocon advisers for “no outcome” in Syria.  

As one former senior Israeli put it, “As long as Sunni and Shia are killing each other off – not only in Syria, but in the region as a whole – Israel has nothing to fear from Syria.”

The New York Times piece referenced is “Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria,” by Jodi Rudoren, September 6, 2013.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=17111

(13 minutes)

Anyone see anything out of the ordinary with Turkey, a NATO ally, invading another country (Syria)?  What obligations do Turkey’s allies incur if/when Syria aircraft fly off with Russian support from Russian constructed Syrian in-country airfields to attack Turkey?  Will Turkey try to activate Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, obligating Turkey’s allies to come to its aid?

 Not a word of any of this in the – alas, typical – New York Times editorial today (August 26, 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/opinion/a-complicated-alliance-with-turkey.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20160826&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=1&nlid=69540701&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0

 

To refresh memories:

NATO Treaty: Article 5

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Maybe it’s a good thing, after all, that Establishment lawyers in Washington subscribe to the Addington/Gonzales dictum that the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution, and international treaties themselves, have become “quaint” or “obsolete.”  O Tempora, O Mores!

Former NSA Technical Director and VIPS member, Bill Binney explains to RT why he believes some of the recent “hacking” disclosures more likely stem from a NSA insider, NOT Russia.  NSA is able to trace intrusions by hackers, and it is virtually impossible for them to be successful.

 

So if “unnamed official sources” want to accuse Russia, NSA ought to be asked to prove it.  Bill notes that the new Cold Warriors, specifically the military-industrial-intelligence-complex, have ample incentive to blame Russia for all manner of things.  And the Hillary-friendly media fell right in line, in a transparent attempt to divert attention from the fact that the emails leaked to WikiLeaks show that she stole the nomination from Sanders.  As for what American citizens can do, Bill’s solution is simple.  Vote the bums out and elect people with a decent respect for the Constitution of the United States.

 

August 23, 2016 (six minutes)

9/11 & American Empire – Intellectuals Speak Out (Sept. 2006)

 

Ray just received an email from Veterans For Peace colleague Phil Restino, a leader of VFP’s Central Florida Chapter, reminding him of how a distinguished panel of courageous investigators was looking at the 9/11 attacks five years later.  Here’s what Phil wrote:

 

“The following presentation from September 24, 2006 in Berkeley, CA was hosted KPFA Radio and introduced by Bonnie Faulkner of KPFA’s Guns and Butter radio program. Ray McGovern led off and then moderated a discussion featuring David Ray Griffin, Pete Dale Scott, Kevin Ryan and Peter Phillips. It was broadcast multiple times on C–SPAN.  Here we are 10 years after that discussion and 15 years after the fact, with millions more killed and maimed in the 9/11 Wars …”

 

(Ray’s introductory remarks come between minutes 5 and 15.}