Washington's harebrained gambit was doomed from the get go. Who made the decision to topple Yanuchovych, install a US-puppet in Kiev, fill-out the security services with neo Nazis, and wage a bloody ethnic cleansing purge on the Russian-speaking people in the east? Who was it? Isn't there any accountability among the Obama team or is it all a matter of "failing upwards" like the Bush crowd? Here's Putin again:
"Our western partners created the 'Kosovo precedent' with their own hands. In a situation absolutely the same as the one in Crimea they recognized Kosovo's secession from Serbia legitimate while arguing that no permission from a country's central authority for a unilateral declaration of independence is necessary...And the UN International Court of Justice agreed with those arguments. That's what they said; that's what they trumpeted all over the world and coerced everyone to accept -- and now they are complaining about Crimea. Why is that?"
Doesn't Putin have a point? Isn't this what we've seen over and over again, that there's one standard for the US and another for everyone else?
Of course it is. But Putin's not going to stand for it. In fact, just this week, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expanded on Putin's comments in an interview that never appeared in the western media. Here's what he said:
"The current stage of international relations is marked by a transition to a fundamentally new world order -- a polycentric model based on due regard for the appearance of new economic and financial centres. And political weight comes with economic and financial influence. Transition to a polycentric world order reflects an objective trend according to which the world order should be based on the world's cultural and civilisational diversity. This is objective reality, which no one can deny....
"After a long period of dominance in global economy and politics, these countries are trying to keep their positions by artificial means. They know that their economic positions are not as strong as they were after WWII, when America accounted for over half of global GDP, but they are trying to use all available military and political instruments, social media, regime-change technology and other instruments to keep back the objective process of the development of a democratic world order based on the equality of all sides.
"Not everyone has realized yet that it is impossible to move contrary to an objective historical process. We strongly hope that this will happen, because otherwise more illegal unilateral sanctions will be approved against Russia, to which we will respond accordingly, as we have already tried to do. But this, I repeat, is not our choice; we don't want confrontation." (Press Conference: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov)
"A new world order based on a polycentric model"? What a great idea. You mean, a world in which other sovereign nations get a say-so in the way the world is run? You mean, a world in which the economic, political, and military decision-making does not emerge from one center of power that is dominated by privately-owned banks, transnational corporations and voracious western elites? You mean, a world in which international law can be applied evenly so that one country cannot unilaterally create off-shore gulags, or incite color-coded revolutions, or carry out extra-legal abductions and killings, or order drone attacks on wedding parties or conduct any of the other heinous violations of human rights which imperial Washington engages in without batting an eye?
The NAF's victory in east Ukraine brings us all one step closer to actualizing the multi-polar world of which Lavrov and Putin speak so glowingly. In fact, just hours ago Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko capitulated and signed a ceasefire agreement with the leaders of the anti-fascist militia, Igor Plotnitsky and Aleksandr Zakharchenko. (Remember: "We never negotiate with terrorists"?) Ukraine's National Security Council (SNBO) has reported that its troops have halted all military actions. The government's public statement reads as follows:
"According to the decision of the President of Ukraine and the order of the chief of the General staff of the military units of Ukraine, troops in the area of anti-terrorist operations ceased fire at 15.00 GMT."
Peace at last?
It sure looks like it.
So while Obama is busy trying to ramp up the violence by rallying NATO to expand the wars around the world, international peacekeepers will begin the thorny task of implementing a seven-point peace plan put forward by none-other-than Vladimir Putin.
The difference between the peacemakers and the warmongers has rarely been as stark as it is today.
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