News   /   Viewpoints

It is time to sanction the sanctioners

Burned out cars are seen on a street in Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine, January 25, 2015. (© AFP)

“Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.” -Josey Wales

The US, NATO and the EU put on their latest make believe hand-wringing demonstration over the “deteriorating situation” in South East Ukraine. How can they lie to us? Let me count the ways.

None of them were too concerned about their “deteriorating” the Ukraine situation when the US was putting $5 billion of US taxpayer money into overthrowing a democratically elected government. It certainly was not a perfect one, as none are, including the West. Ukraine was not a state sponsor of terrorism and several members of the UN Security Council debating the situation are.

And when the former president, Viktor Yanukovych, surprised the Western gangsters by agreeing to almost all of the opposition’s demands, they decided that the time was ripe for getting them all, by bringing in specially trained assassination squads to stage the Maidan massacre. And yes, you NeoCon elements in Poland, we know about your hosting and staging the killers, with US help of course, even with the usual third parties in between.

We can go back ever further to the first big lie, when the EU charged Russia with interfering with bringing Ukraine into the EU, charging that Yanukovych was a Putin puppet who was defaulting on agreements that had not even been signed. What happened, in fact, was he wanted more time to negotiate the details to open the doors wider to the West without losing all of his financial subsidies from Russia.

This included a very large debt structure from the Russians, who had been bailing out Ukraine’s basket case economy for many years, to the tune of about $100 billion total. Then there were the gas subsidies and new loans which Ukraine desperately needed, and the EU was not offering a dollar in cash… but the proverbial down the road, someday carrot.

And last, there was the huge issue of Ukraine losing its duty-free access to Russian markets, which were a critical segment of Ukraine’s exports. Russian banks were on the hook, and still are, to about $25 billion in commercial loans, mostly to the industrial concerns in East Ukraine, who then sell their products to Russia.

Not even the legislators in the Western Parliaments had a clear handle on understanding this very complicated situation, the equivalent of walking through a financial minefield. And neither did they seem to care. Western media seemed to be doing their thinking for them, at someone’s bidding, that elite financial gangster crowd that always seems to make tons of money out of disasters.

All we got from the Murdoch mavens was “West good, Russia bad”… “Russia must be punished.” This simpleton approach shined the spotlight on some serious deficiencies in the Western educational system.

If those going along for the ride were not just your usual greedy politicians looking for some spoils of war... then they were the kind who felt that… sanctioning Russia would help the EU economy. We have now seen what an irresponsible prediction that was.

This denial disease has been carried right through to today. We are grateful for General Honore’s most memorable line during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, “We can’t stay stuck on stupid!” And when you mix that with pathological lying you have a deadly concoction, which is what we have with this Ukraine regime change fiasco.

The UN Security Council had its Sunday night emergency session on Ukraine… Mariupol specifically. I expected a draft resolution which would hang this shelling attack on Russian-supported militia aggression, and both the UN and Murdock media were quick to oblige. Britain added the poison pill line that all knew would force Russia to veto the resolution. The British Independent’s headline was “Russia blocks UN Security Council statement condemning shelling of Ukrainian city that killed 30.”

Merkel’s comments are past being a bore. Today she driveled out her version of “hang it on the Russians.” She urged Moscow to pressure defense militias in the Republics to stop fighting Kiev’s troops. But this is not a two-way street. If there is a case of a Western leader lambasting Kiev for its continued military offense on the Republics, I have missed it.

The recent destruction of the armored brigade attack on the Donetsk airport is now the poster child of Western duplicity in Ukraine. The Donetsk militias collected 597 bodies that they could find, with over 1,500 wounded being taken to field hospitals, and 150 captured, including the brigade commander.

Their equipment was virtually all destroyed, 49 tanks and 65 armored personnel carriers. Not a peep was heard in the West about restraining Kiev’s aggression. All we heard was about the 100,000 new Kiev troops who were going to be recruited, including women, and men up to age 50.

‘Who benefits’ from Mariupol attacks?

The recent shelling of Mariupol reeks of a false flag attack. Kiev had to divert attention away from its airport attack disaster, which was a huge defensive victory for the Republic militias.  Someone dreamed up this Mariupol attack as a big press magnet that could put the DNR back on the defensive.

I have not seen any analysis in the mass media regarding what could possibly be the benefit of the DNR randomly shelling Mariupol? It would have been the stupidest thing they could do, and stupid they are not. The first thing a rookie Intel analyst is trained to ask himself is “who benefits.” And of course the answer here is Kiev and the West, whose regime change experiment in Ukraine is turning into a growing disaster on multiple fronts.

The biggest new lie put out in Western media is that the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) was going to attack Mariupol. The troops and equipment to even think about doing that would have stripped all the other defense perimeters to the extent that Kiev could pick any attack route it wanted to drive right through the Republics.

It did not take an espionage operation to find out what Donetsk’s plans were, because they announced their counter offensive to flank and surround the Kiev formations that had been attacking them to eliminate that threat. As for Mariupol, the map shows that movement going west of the city, not into it.

As Ukraine disintegrates, the West and their lackeys in Kiev will manufacture any disaster they can to blame their own failure on Moscow. The economy is on life support. Everyone is stealing anything they can that can be sold for funds to get out of town when the end comes.

The country is rife with news of plots to take Poroshenko out, which might include killing him, and serve as a convenient dead scapegoat for the military disaster. Igor Kolomoyskyi has been building a large private army in Central Ukraine with lots of foreign mercenaries. The whole area is under martial law, and the smell of warlordism is in the air.

Junk-status debt

Oleg Tsarev, Chairman of Novorossiya Parliament has done a wonderful job laying bare Kiev’s financial house of cards. The gold reserves were first to leave the country. The currency has crashed, something never mentioned in Western media, which stays riveted only on the ruble’s decline. Property seizures are commonplace now with Kiev insiders, including a recent oil refinery. And let us not forget stealing 5 billion cubic feet of gas so far this winter.

Ukraine’s debt is already at junk status. Another $25 to $30 billion is needed soon, on top of the IMF’s current load of $37 billion. The grain reserves have been sold off for cash. The Republics had been collecting and sending their pension levies to Kiev throughout the war, and now Kiev has decided to steal that, also, having ended all social payments to the DNR.

Printing money will be the only short-term fix, and the next IMF tranche is an Alice in Wonderland dream. Ukraine is being stripped bare. Refusing to buy coal from the Republics will take more of the economy down, and the change from Russian to the Western non-compatible fuel rods is a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.

When it does, no one in the West will accept a sliver of responsibility. Not one of the talking dummies will even have the courtesy of jumping off a building or high bridge in repentance.

The ripple effect will be felt in the EU banking system and the US, too. Half of $17.5 billion of Ukrainian Eurobonds are owned by the US-based Templeton Fund.

When Russia completes the gas turn off for non-payment, the Ukie gas transit infrastructure will be worth scrap steel, and those transit fees will be gone forever. Russia will get hurt, too, as Ukraine’s national debt and the $25 billion commercial loans owed to Russian banks will be a big hit for them.

What we are watching here folks is not a game of financial Russian roulette, but the Western version, where all six cylinders are loaded. If you have any Ukraine debt exposure, unload it now for whatever you can get as it only have one direction it can go.

And I hope those in the West who are being lined up to take their next big hit by the kleptocracy will remember, while they are sitting among the ruins and the ashes, to not let all those empty lamp posts go to waste if there is any rope to be had. Your last act should be to make those pay who really should.

JD/HSN


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Press TV News Roku