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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 10/9/14

Biden Speech Loaded w. Lies About Ukraine: the Ukrainian Portion of V.P. Biden's Harvard Kennedy-School Address, Oct. 3r

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The Ukrainian Portion of V.P. Biden's Harvard Kennedy-School Address, Oct. 3rd

Eric Zuesse

[INTRODUCTORY NOTE: Almost everything that our Vice President said about Ukraine and Russia, in this speech he delivered at Harvard on October 3rd, is a lie or else out-of-context misrepresentation, as the links here-provided are intended to make clear. Each linked-to source will document the reality that contradicts V.P. Joe Biden's assertion that's being linked there. To see so many lies strung together in just this part of his speech, stuns. My added comments, providing key context that Biden's speech avoided mentioning, are placed into brackets below, as is this Introduction. Altogether, what you will see here is a U.S. Vice President who is willing to string lie upon lie, while bragging (elsewhere in this speech) about American "democracy," though democracy becomes impossible when such high public officials as he is, so routinely lie, and are not being held to account for their lying (as you will see that Biden was not). Thus, aptly, the Obama Administration has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that there must be no legal restraints limiting political lying. This is supposed to be 'democracy'? It actually mocks the very term. Without truth being absolutely required of politicians, the only determinants of whom our rulers will be, will be how much money is backing each contender, and how skillful each one is at deceiving voters via those contending political war-chests. This makes authentic democracy impossible, and oligarchy (rule by the richest) inevitable -- it produces rule by deceit. Biden here exemplifies that, as you will now see documented, if you will click on the links here.]

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BIDEN'S COMMENTS ABOUT UKRAINE, AT HARVARD:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/10/03/remarks-vice-president-john-f-kennedy-forum

(32:40 on the VIDEO of the speech) Putin -- [Russia's] President Putin -- was determined to deny Ukraine and the Ukrainian people the power to make their choices about the future -- whether to look east or west or both. Under the pretext of protecting Russian-speaking populations, he not only encouraged and supported separatists in Ukraine, but he armed them. He sent in Russian personnel out of uniform to take on the Ukrainian military, those little, green men. [As that last link makes clear, there is no reliable evidence that, prior to August, there were any Russian conscript, or non-volunteer, fighters participating in the Ukrainian conflict; but there were volunteers from a number of countries, including not just Russia but Spain, Sweden, and others, fighting on both sides. In addition, there were at least 400 U.S. mercenaries hired by the Ukrainian Government. By the end of June, it was already becoming clear that Ukraine's troops were losing, the rebels were winning; and Russian conscripts didn't come into Ukraine until late August, well after the rebel fighters were slaughtering Ukraine's conscripts and mercenaries. Perhaps Putin wanted the rebels to win faster, so that Russia would be able to get some of the million Ukrainian refugees, who had escaped into Russia, returned back to Ukraine before winter. But, by the time when Russian conscripts were being introduced, in August, Kiev had already lost their war, but they had basically surrendered even by July 1st.]

And when that wasn't enough, he had the audacity to send Russian troops and tanks and sophisticated, air-defense systems across the border. [This claim, repeatedly made by the U.S. regime, was never supported by any reliable evidence.]

But we rallied the world to check his ambitions and defend Ukrainian sovereignty. We didn't put boots on the ground.

Putin sought to prevent a free and open election. We rallied the world to help Ukraine hold quite possibly the freest election in its history. Putin sought to destabilize Ukraine's economy. We provided a billion dollars directly from the United States and worked with the IMF on a $27 billion international rescue package to keep them from going under. [That 'rescue package' was a loan, with onerous conditions, including the requirement that Ukraine must quickly kill and/or drive out the residents in Ukraine's southeast, who were refusing to accept this coup-imposed Government. As the IMF's Christine Lagarde warned the coup-Government on May 1st (right before the massacre in Odessa that began the ethnic cleansing that was required in order to eliminate the undesired voters from Ukraine's southeast), a "loss of economic control over the east [i.e., loss of that region's gas-fracking income] that reduces [Ukrainian] budget revenue would require a significant recalibration of the [loan] program; and [end] additional financing, including from Ukraine's bilateral partners," the U.S. and EU. So, by May 1st at the latest, the coup-Government were, essentially, ordered to exterminate quickly the residents in Ukraine's southeast. And they tried their best to do that. And Joe Biden's son could have become a billionaire if they had succeeded.]

(33:40) Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption. [Though no evidence exists supporting that claim, the U.S. coup in February installed as Ukraine's new leaders oligarchs who had long records of corruption. President Obama's favored person to win Ukraine's Presidency, Yulia Timoshenko, lost the May 25th election, though that vote was held only in Ukraine's northwest, where her support had traditionally been strongest, not at all in the southeast, where the man whom Obama overthrew had won almost all of his votes, and where Timoshenko's support was virtually non-existent; but, even the anti-Russian Guardian newspaper had previously reported her corruptness. She was no less corrupt than Yanukovych. And, talk about corruption, the oligarch who hired Joe Biden's son, Timoshenko's friend Ihor Kolomoyskyi, was widely regarded as the most corrupt of them all.]

We're helping those leaders fight back corruption, which by the way is an issue that demands our leadership around the world, by helping them write new laws, set up a new judiciary and much more. Putin sought to hollow out Ukraine's military the last 10 years, and he was very successful. But we rallied NATO and NATO countries to begin to build that military capability back up. Putin sought to keep secret Russian support for separatists who shot down a civilian airliner. We exposed it to the world, and in turn rallied the world. And remember this all began because Putin sought to block Ukraine's accession agreement with the European Union. [Similarly, Obama sought to end Ukraine's existing trade-agreement with the Russia-dominated Eurasian Economic Commission. Both sides, the U.S. and Russia, were competing for Ukraine to join -- or, in Russia's case, to remain with -- them. The way aljazeera phrased this on 29 November 2013 was that Ukraine's President, the man whom Obama overthrew, Viktor "Yanukovych believes he can continue to strike a balance between Russia and the rest of Europe, even though both are demanding that he commit to one side." The difference was that Russia perpetrated no Ukrainian coup, but the U.S. did.]

Well, guess what: That agreement was signed and ratified several weeks ago [yes it was -- but directly as a result of Obama's February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing Yanukovych].

Throughout we've given Putin a simple choice: Respect Ukraine's sovereignty [though the phone-transcript here proves that EU ministers themselves knew that Obama had raped Ukraine's sovereignty] or face increasing consequences. That has allowed us to rally the world's major developed countries to impose real cost on Russia.

(35:24) It is true they did not want to do that. But again, it was America's leadership and the President of the United States insisting, oft times almost having to embarrass Europe to stand up and take economic hits to impose costs. [But, since EU leaders knew that Obama had raped Ukraine, why did they even go along with Obama at all, on this?]

And the results have been massive capital flight from Russia, a virtual freeze on foreign direct investment, a ruble at an all-time low against the dollar, and the Russian economy teetering on the brink of recession [whereas the U.S. economic 'recovery' from the global 'recession' has been far worse than Russia's under Putin has been].

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,  and of  CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that (more...)
 
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