What I mean is not only to create the appearance that the two main Usaian parties are at loggerheads, but also that Usaia and Russia are at loggerheads. It’s a puppet show because Putin has made it absolutely clear that he has no intention of confronting the western-backed junta in the Donbas. Nor of course will he ‘return’ the Crimea, so they are preparing a pointless and time-wasting court case against Russia, as if international relations could ever be regulated by an abstract universalist scheme of law, administered by Usaian ‘international lawyers’. Whatever the exact procedure, its conclusions will be ignored by everyone anyway. And as we know, Usaian sanctions on Russian trade will just force the development of a separate Eurasian economy, which in turn will hasten the collapse of Usaia. So all this is in the script. The appearance of conflict, as I keep saying, is a mirage to keep the rubes hoping for a change that will never come. Note at the end of this, the emphasis on fracking, which I said earlier will be the pretext for making east Ukraine permanently uninhabitable, this being the zionazi morons’ easiest mode of warfare – RB
The «Corker» in Usaian-Russian relations
Wayne Madsen, Strategic Culture, May 26 2014
Merriam Webster’s English dictionary defines a «corker» as an «amusing person». When it comes to drafting legislation to «punish» Russia with sanctions over the situation in Ukraine, Tennessee’s Republican Senator and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Corker certainly lives up to his name. Corker and fellow Republican Party senators have shepherded to full Usaian Senate passage the «Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014». The law, if enacted, would subject Russia to the same level of draconian sanctions currently employed by Usaia against Iran, Syria, and Sudan. There is no doubt that such sanctions have one intention: Usian-style violent regime change as previously directed against Libya and Iraq. Corker’s Senate co-sponsors include the typical neocon riff-raff associated with other Cold War-era foreign adventures of Usaia. Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, the Cuban-Usaian Republican wunderkind who is a right-wing favorite for the presidency in 2016 (nonsense, they will nominate Jeb Bush, or if they are clever, Rand Paul, but either way, Hillary will win – RB), weighed in with his support for Corker’s bill. Rubio, as a rightist Cuban gusano (Spanish word for worm used to describe right-wing exiles in Florida), is pushing for similar sanctions against Venezuela and Nicaragua. Also supporting the Corker bill is Corker’s Republican colleague from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander. The chief supporter of the sanctions bill is Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, a longtime Russophobe who has never passed up a chance to confront Russia militarily, whether it be in Syria, Afghanistan, or Ukraine.
The Corker bill would impose travel bans and asset freezes on Russian government and Russian corporation officials. Targets include Pres Putin, PM Medvedev, and deputy prime ministers and government ministers. Several Russian firms are targeted in the legislation, including Sberbank, VTB Bank, Vnesheconombank, Gazprombank, Gazprom, Novatek, Rosneft, and Rosoboronexport. Corporate targets include «senior executives» of institutions, defined by the law as «a member of the board, chief executive officer, chief operating officer, chief financial officer, secretary, treasurer, general counsel, or chief information officer, or the functional equivalent thereof, of an entity.» The Republicans seem intent on punishing former officials of its NATO allies, including Germany and the Netherlands. For example, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder would be subject to a travel ban and asset freeze by Usaia because of his chairmanship of the board of Nordstream, which is 51% owned by Gazprom. Other Germans who face asset freezes and travel bans include Nordstream board members Eggert Voscherau, the deputy board chairman of BASF, Reiner Zwitserloot, chairman of the board of the German gas company Wintershall, Burckhard Bergmann, chairman of the board of E ON, and Hans-Peter Floren, chairman of the board of E ON Ruhrgas. Dutch chairman of the board of Gasunie of the Netherlands, a member of Gazprom’s Nordstream board and chairman of its Southstream board would also be slapped with Usaian sanctions. Southstream corporate officials who would also be subject to travel bans and asset freezes include corporate officials of Italy, France, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Greece, Germany, Bulgaria, and Hungary, all NATO members, as well as Austria, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
But there may be more than «drugstore cowboy» politics involved with the Republican sanctions bill. Corker, a former mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee, is known to have engaged in a number of illicit real estate and other financial schemes while serving as mayor. Tennessee political sources report that businessmen associated with Ukrainian steel and pipeline billionaire oligarch Victor Pinchuk had business dealings in the Tennessee city while Corker served as mayor. Pinchuk, the son-in-law of former Ukrainian Pres Kuchma, is also closely linked to neocon Usaian politicians, including McCain, former Bush 43 political adviser Karl Rove and Rick Davis, McCain’s presidential campaign manager in 2000 and 2008. Pinchuk is also the only Ukrainian member of the powerful New York CFR. Pinchuk’s annual Yalta European Strategy conference, held in the czarist-era Livadia Palace on the Black Sea, draws various Western politicians, many with political and financial interests in Ukraine. Past attendees have included Rove, Soros, McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, and such corporatist politicians as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Jackass Kerry’s 2004 campaign manager Bob Shrum, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Viktor Yushchenko, Mikheil Saakashvili, Newt Gingrich, CFR President Richard Haass, Shimon Peres, and Ukraine’s «acting» Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The involvement of Corker, McCain, and other Republican Party functionaries with one of Ukraine’s chief oligarchs who supported the Euro-Maidan coup in Kiev goes a long way in explaining why Corker, McCain, Alexander, and other neocon GOP senators lined up to support the bill to punish Russian government and business.
However, it’s not just sanctions that are part of the Republican «aggression prevention» bill. The act would authorize Obama to provide $100m in military equipment, including lethal equipment, to Ukraine, including anti-tank weapons and ammunition; anti-aircraft weapons and ammunition; small arms and ammunition, including pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, grenade launchers, machine guns, and sniper rifles; mine resistant ambush protected vehicles; High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (Humvees); inflatable boats; body armor; fire control, range finder, optical and guidance and control equipment; and other equipment deemed appropriate. The Senate Republicans, who have drifted further and further to the extreme right over the past decade, have no problem in providing such lethal aid to a country that now recruits members of neo-Nazi paramilitary units into the Ukrainian National Guard and armed forces. The Senate bill would also authorize the transfer of Usaian intelligence to Ukraine, specifically intelligence «on the location, strength, and capabilities of the military and intelligence forces of the Russian Federation located on the eastern border of Ukraine and within the territorial borders of Ukraine, including Crimea». Usaia would also be authorized to step up its propaganda war against Russia by authorizing the Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Director of VoA to increase and maintain through fiscal year 2017 «Usaia-funded Russian-language broadcasting into countries of the former Soviet Union,» including Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Russia itself.
Alarmingly, the bill also calls for the halt in further nuclear arms reductions under the 2010 New START treaty, returning the world to Cold War nuclear politics. Under the proposed legislation, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, and «other countries» would see substantial increases in Usaian military assistance. Also, significantly, the bill would elevate Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia to the status of «major non-NATO allies» of tUsaia, a status enjoyed by only 15 nations, including some of Usaia’s closest allies that are not members of NATO. These non-NATO allies presently include Israel, Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand, Jordan, and Bahrain. All these countries host Usaian military personnel and bases and they receive large amounts of military supplies from Usaia. The act also authorizes Usaian military to increase the current tempo of exercises and military-to-military exchanges in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, bringing these nations closer to the NATO military and political infrastructure. And in deference to Soros’s massive and global influence-peddling operations, the Senate bill calls for the strengthening of «democratic institutions and political and civil society organizations in countries of the former Soviet Union». The language is Soros-speak for creating «fifth columns» in Russia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics to carry out the political agendas of NATO, the neo-cons, and global banking institutions. Also included in the bill is a gift to Usaia’s natural gas «fracking» industry. The bill would provide «direct assistance» to Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia to «exploit existing natural gas reserves» in their countries. During Biden’s trip to Ukraine he promised the country help to conduct natural gas fracking to assist Ukraine in avoiding dependence on Russian natural gas supplies. After Biden’s visit, his son Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, Ukraine largest natural gas producer. Corker’s bill, avidly supported by McCain and other neocons, appears to be as much a Corker-McCain «personal enrichment law» as it is a «Russian aggression prevention act».
Niqnaq 