The official White Hous e line about the protests, as presented by spokesman Jay Carney, is that "There's strong evidence that some pro-Russian protesters who have taken over government buildings in eastern Ukraine were paid, and not local residents."
State Department spokesperson Jane Psaki freely admits, however, that all the information the U.S. government has about the situation is coming directly from the Kiev government that is starting to crack down on the region.
What Is the U.S. Government Hearing from Kiev?According to the Kiev Post, Pro-Russian separatists, allegedly acting in concert with the Kremlin, seized government buildings and called for referendums on joining the Russian Federation in a matter of weeks.
Acting President and Verkhovna Rada chairman Oleksandr Turchynov has said that "anti-terrorist measures will be taken against separatists who seized administrative buildings in Luhansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions using arms."
This sounds like a plausible narrative, until you take note of the fact that in Kharkov government forces retook the buildings on April 8th without weapons, because the people were unarmed. The police in all regions are not resisting.
Protests against Maidan, and then against the junta, have been going on here for months, with sporadic takeovers of government buildings without weapons. And the laws that were passed during Maidan forbidding armed assault on citizen protesters still apply.
Nevertheless, Pravy Sector announced a full mobilization in the region on April 7th, calling for new volunteers, saying there would be plenty of work, and declaring war. The volunteers came with automatics and grenade launchers. In Nikolaev, they have so far shot 20 people. In Lugansk, they have attacked the local people with automatic weapons.
In addition, the Alfa special force unit that stood down during the coup has been mobilized to fight the unarmed protesters, and a fully-armed tactical Berkut unit from western Ukraine has been mobilized. And, as if this weren't enough, Kiev also announced the mobilization of Blackstone mercenaries to destroy the opposition in the region. The order proceeds from the very same people that made illegal the Berkut police force charged with protecting government structures in Kiev!
Ultimately, what is happening is all about forced Ukrainization. Understand it in American terms:
What would have been your reaction if, after Sept. 11, people had come up to you and told you that the men who had destroyed the Trade Center were heroes? That Mohammed Atta was a hero for democracy. What would you have said to them if your family had been trapped in the Twin Towers?
For most people, the conversation would have ended there--except, perhaps, for a few choice words about the monstrosity of even breathing something like that. I didn't know anybody that died in 9/11. Yet, on that day, for all the world, all Americans became our people, our family, our friends. That's the way the conversation would have ended for me.
If you say Mohammed Atta is a hero, you are in effect saying that the victims are the criminals. The Maidan protests have led to this very conclusion. Less than 1% of a country's population has taken over the country and now wants to put up statues to its own Atta-like heroes.
In real terms, 9/11 was a relatively small event. Only three-thousand people died; that's all. And, with that statement, I've probably just made your blood boil! How can I say "only"? Sitting here reading what I just typed makes my blood boil, too.
Yet, this is what the Bandera junta in Kiev is doing to the entire population of Ukraine. Disagree, and you are a terrorist. Imagine that your kids have come home from school saying they want to be like bin Laden or Mohammed Atta, and you'll understand the reaction to the Nazi ally and sympathizer Bandera. He didn't kill 3,000 people you didn't know. He killed over 500,000 people that the people here did know.
For people in Ukraine and Russia to say Bandera is a hero is to say that their relatives who were tortured and killed by Bandera were the criminals--that those who fought the Banderas were the criminals. Would you need any money to motivate you to fight against such people?
Since that day, September 11, 2001, America has been at war. Remember George Bush's "You're either with us or against us!"
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