Sundry - Shutdown, Ukraine, Omidyar And Syria

moon of   alabama

As I am currently somewhat handicapped in writing a consistent piece (possible reasons: the flu, writers block or temporary burnout) I'll restrict this to some short thoughts on recent issues.

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The so called government shutdown in the U.S. is no shutdown. It is political theater that pretends a political divide between the two parties that simply is not there. All the bad stuff - the military operations, the spying on you and me, and of course the payments to Congress and the White House are designated as "essential" and will continue. Only the nicer stuff, services for the common people, will be restricted. Adam H. Johnson wrote about this split the last time a "government shutdown" happened: It’s Not a Government Shutdown. It’s a Right-Wing Coup.

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The Ukrainian Parliament has practically declared the Minsk agreements null and void and decided to militarily "liberate" Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea from the will of the people living there. Just in time the neo-nazi fanatics of the Azov Battalion received a U.S. military delegation and U.S. arms.

The 2015 Minsk II agreement (full text) demanded that the Ukraine creates a new law for the administration of these regions:

Without delays, but no later than 30 days from the date of signing of this document, a resolution has to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, indicating the territory which falls under the special regime in accordance with the law “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts,” based in the line set up by the Minsk Memorandum as of Sept. 19, 2014.

Russia is not a party of the agreement. But when the resolution by the Ukrainian parliament was not forthcoming western propaganda falsely blamed Russia for "not fulfilling the Minsk agreement" and the west has since bound the sanctions on Russia to this fake conclusion.

The National Bank of Ukraine announced that an independent accountant found that PrivatBank, then owned by the coup financier and billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskiy, was plundered of $5.5 billion shortly before it went bankrupt and nationalized by the coup government. In connection with that an IMF loan of $1.8 billion to the Ukraine allegedly went directly into Kolomoyskiy's pockets. How much of this stolen money was paid to U.S. politicians?

While the anti-Trump politicians and media still fret about "Russian influence" on U.S. social media everyone seems to have forgotten that in early 2016 the Ukraine set up a massive troll farm and a Ministry of Truth. Back then even the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine disliked that. If every troll tweeting in Russian or with Cyrillic letters in its name is under the direct command of Vladimir Putin where then are those Ukrainians trolls?

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Back in December I described how the Silicon Valley billionaires Bezos and Omidyar helped the Obama administration to privatize and hide the NSA papers leaked by Edward Snowden. Mintpress now took a deeper look into Omidyar's service to the deep state and his active suppression of financial resources for WikiLeaks.

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The Turkish military has started to bomb the Afrin (Efrin) canton in north-west Syria. "Free Syrian Army" fighters under Ottoman/Turkish flags stand ready to invade it. The canton is held and administrated by YPK/PKK Kurds. Neither I nor Elijah Magnier nor Joshua Landis had expected that Erdogan would really do this. One wonders what deals have been made with Russia and Syria to allow for this invasion.

There was a plausible rumor yesterday that Syria had offered to send its security forces to protect the Afrin area but that the Kurds rejected that. Now Russia and Syria think that the best way to prevent the announced U.S. protectorate of Kurdish held territory in the north-east is to prove to the Kurds that the U.S. is unwilling to protect them and their brethren in Efrin from Turkish attacks. The Kurds had quite good relations with the Russians and to some extend also with the Syrian government. They then changed sides to get U.S. protection with the intent of splitting up Syria and anbing a big chunk for themselves. "Well, here is your payback. Now you will see what your new "allies" are willing to do for you."

I now expect a rather short fight, minor losses of territory to Erdogan's goons and a lot of bloody noses.

Posted by b on January 20, 2018 at 10:50 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/01/sundry-shotdown-ukraine-omidyar-and-syria.html