http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/14/putin-did-it-conspiracy-theory
[links in on-line article]
Published on Saturday, February 14, 2015
by Consortium News
The Putin-Did-It Conspiracy Theory
A new truce agreement in Ukraine rekindles hope that the bloodshed can
be reduced if not stopped, but Official Washington’s gross
misunderstanding of the crisis, blaming everything on Russia’s President
Putin, raises doubts and portends a potentially grave catastrophe
by Robert Parry
The original falsehood behind the Iraq War was that Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction and intended to use them against America
either directly or by giving them to al-Qaeda. The opening lie about the
Ukraine crisis was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the
conflict as part of some Hitlerian plan to conquer much of Europe.
Yet, while the Hussein-WMD claim was hard for the common citizen to
assess because it was supposedly supported by U.S. intelligence
information that was kept secret, the Putin-Ukraine lie collapses under
the most cursory examination based simply of what’s publicly known and
what makes sense.
Nevertheless, the New York Times – much as it did when it was falsely
reporting breathlessly about “aluminum tubes” for Iraq’s non-existent
nuclear weapons program – continues to promote U.S. government
propaganda about Ukraine as fact and dismisses any rational assessment
of the situation as crazy.
On Friday, the Times concluded its lead editorial with the assertion
that: “What remains incontrovertible is that Ukraine is Mr. Putin’s
war.” But the point is anything but “incontrovertible.” Indeed, the
crisis was most certainly not instigated by Putin.
The actually “incontrovertible” facts about the Ukraine crisis are
these: The destabilization of President Viktor Yanukovych’s elected
government began in November 2013 when Yanukovych balked at a proposed
association agreement promoted by the European Union. He sought more
time after the sticker shock of learning from Kiev economic experts that
the deal would cost Ukraine $160 billion in lost revenue by cutting
trade with Russia.
It was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not Vladimir Putin, who pushed
the EU agreement and miscalculated the consequences, as the German
newsmagazine Der Spiegel has reported. Putin’s only role in that time
frame was to offer a more generous $15 billion aid package to Ukraine,
not exactly a war-like act.
Yanukovych’s decision to postpone action on the EU association prompted
angry demonstrations in Kiev’s Maidan square, largely from western
Ukrainians who were hoping for visa-free travel to the EU and other
benefits from closer ties. Putin had no role in those protests – and
it’s insane to think that he did.
In February 2014, the protests grew more and more violent as neo-Nazi
and other militias organized in the western city of Lviv and these
100-man units known as “sotins” were dispatched daily to provide the
muscle for the anti-Yanukovych uprising that was taking shape. It is
frankly nutty to suggest that Putin was organizing these militias. [See
Consortiumnews.com’s “When Is a Putsch a Putsch.”]
Evidence of Coup Plotting
By contrast, there is substantial evidence that senior U.S. officials
were pushing for a “regime change” in Kiev, including an intercepted
phone call and various public statements.
In December 2013, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a neocon
holdover, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had
invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.” In early February,
she discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who the new leaders of
Ukraine should be. “Yats is the guy,” she declared, referring to Arseniy
Yatsenyuk. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Who’s Telling the Big Lie on
Ukraine?”]
The Maidan uprising gained momentum on Feb. 20, 2014, when snipers
around the square opened fire on police and protesters touching off a
violent clash that left scores of people dead, both police and
protesters. After the sniper fire and a police retreat — carrying their
wounded — the demonstrators surged forward and some police apparently
reacted with return fire of their own.
But the growing evidence indicates that the initial sniper fire
originated from locations controlled by the Right Sektor, extremists
associated with the Maidan’s neo-Nazi “self-defense” commandant Andriy
Parubiy. Though the current Ukrainian government has dragged its feet on
an investigation, independent field reports, including a new one from
BBC, indicate that the snipers were associated with the protesters, not
the Yanukovych government as was widely reported in the U.S. media a
year ago.
The worsening violence led Yanukovych to agree on Feb. 21 to a deal
guaranteed by three European countries. He accepted reduced powers and
agreed to early elections so he could be voted out of office. Yet,
rather than permit that political settlement to go forward, neo-Nazis
and other Maidan forces overran government buildings on Feb. 22, forcing
Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives.
The U.S. State Department quickly deemed this coup regime “legitimate”
and Nuland’s choice, Yatsenyuk, emerged as Prime Minister, with Parubiy
put in charge of national security.
In other words, there is plenty of evidence that the Ukraine crisis was
started by the EU through its mishandling of the association agreement,
then was heated up by the U.S. government through the work of Nuland,
Pyatt and other officials, and then was brought to a boil by neo-Nazis
and other extremists who executed the coup.
A Nutty Conspiracy Theory
But there is zero evidence that Putin engineered these events. There is
no evidence that he got Merkel and the EU to overplay their hand; no
evidence that he organized the neo-Nazi militias in Lviv; no evidence
that he manipulated U.S. officials to manipulate the “regime change”
behind the scenes; no evidence that he ordered the Maidan militants to
attack.
Is the New York Times really suggesting that Putin pulled the strings on
the likes of Merkel and Nuland, secretly organized neo-Nazi brigades,
and ruthlessly deployed these thugs to Kiev to provoke violence and
overthrow Yanukovych, all while pretending to try to save Yanukovych’s
government – all so Putin could advance some dastardly plot to conquer
Europe?
The Times often makes fun of “conspiracy theorists,” but the Times’
narrative is something that would make even the most dedicated
“conspiracy theorist” blush. Yet, the Times not only asserts this crazy
conspiracy theory but calls it “incontrovertible.”
Beyond the lack of evidence to support this conspiracy theory, there is
no rational motive for Putin to have done what the Times claims that he did.
In the actual chronology of event, Putin was preoccupied with the Winter
Olympics in Sochi when the Ukraine crisis took its turn for the worst a
year ago. He was fearful that the Olympics would be marred by Chechen or
other terrorism and thus was personally overseeing security.
Putin had spent some $40 billion on making the Olympics a glamorous show
to introduce the new Russia to the world as a country ready to join the
West. I’m told that he was very proud of Russia’s position in the G-8
and felt he had built a constructive relationship with President Barack
Obama by helping him resolve crises in Syria and Iran in 2013.
The last thing Putin wanted to do was provoke a crisis in Ukraine. Nor
is there any intelligence that he had designs on the Baltic States, as
the conspiracy theory contends.
However, when a right-wing regime seized power in a violent coup in
Ukraine on Russia’s border and then took provocative actions against
Ukraine’s ethnic Russians, Putin responded to calls from Crimea – both
from its parliament and a referendum – to take the peninsula back into
Russia.
Putin also feared that the new powers in Kiev might give the historic
Russian naval base at Sevastopol to NATO with its nuclear-armed
submarines. In other words, as much as the New York Times has bandied
about claims of a Russian “invasion” of Crimea, the Crimeans requested
Russia’s intervention and up to 25,000 Russian troops were already there
in the agreement with Ukraine over the naval base.
Reactor, Not Instigator
But the key point is that Putin was reacting to the Ukraine crisis, not
instigating it. As even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
explained to Der Spiegel, “The annexation of Crimea was not a move
toward global conquest. It was not Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia.”
Kissinger added, “Putin spent tens of billions of dollars on the Winter
Olympics in Sochi. The theme of the Olympics was that Russia is a
progressive state tied to the West through its culture and, therefore,
it presumably wants to be part of it. So it doesn’t make any sense that
a week after the close of the Olympics, Putin would take Crimea and
start a war over Ukraine.”
In this case, Kissinger is clearly right. It never made any sense for
Putin to provoke the Ukraine crisis. Yet, that became the lie upon which
the United States has built its increasingly aggressive policies over
the past year, with politicians of all stripes now shouting that America
must stand up to the madman Putin and “Russian aggression.”
This is a dangerous “group think” for a number of reasons, not the least
the disturbing fact that both the United States and Russia have lots of
nuclear weapons. On a less existential level, the “Putin-is-Hitler”
analogy has prompted a major miscalculation on the right approach for
the Obama administration to take vis a vis Putin.
As Harvard Professor Stephen M. Walt has noted, the most effective
response to a crisis is different if a foreign leader is an aggressor on
the march or if the leader feels cornered. The former calls for a
“deterrence model,” i.e., a tough reaction. But a tough response in the
latter case will only make the beleaguered leader more belligerent like
a cornered animal, thus spinning the crisis into more dangerous
territory under what’s known as the “spiral model.”
“When insecurity is the taproot of a state’s revisionist actions, making
threats just makes the situation worse,” Walt wrote. “When the ‘spiral
model’ applies, the proper response is a diplomatic process of
accommodation and appeasement (yes, appeasement) to allay the insecure
state’s concerns.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “‘Realists’ Warn Against
Ukraine Escalation.”]
Perhaps the new ceasefire agreement in Minsk – spearheaded by German
Chancellor Merkel – will finally help defuse the crisis, with the
legitimate concerns of the various sides being taken into account
rationally rather than letting the past year’s hysteria continue to
control events.
But the Times’ editorial doesn’t give much reason for hope that
America’s upside-down “group think” has righted itself in any meaningful
way. In the mainstream media’s latest repeat of the Iraq-WMD fiasco, the
Times and virtually every other major news outlet remain committed to a
dangerous misreading of the facts about Ukraine.
And anyone who dares point out the real history of the crisis is
immediately shouted down with the anti-intellectual riposte: “Putin
apologist!” — just as in 2002-2003, when anyone who doubted the
certainty about Iraq’s WMD was a “Saddam apologist.”
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