Ukraine – Westbound and Down . . . .
31 Wednesday May 2017
Category Archives: 21st Century Feudal
Ukraine – The American March, Washington, D.C., May 20, 2017
22 Monday May 2017
Saturday, May 20, 2017
Over there?
BackChannels readers have enjoyed a glimpse of the relationship between Moscow and terrorism.
The same have witnessed the destruction of Syria by Bashar al-Assad as flanked by Vladimir Putin and Ali Khamenei and how the casualty, IDP, and refugee figures have mounted on the chaos and mass destruction of warfare overseen by Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran.
The ambitious in research have figured out that the three dictatorships would rather fight the west than “The Terrorists” and then use the terrorists — al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others — in their own interest in sustaining feudalism far into the 21st Century. They should also know of the former Iraqi Baathist officers, those who once served Saddam Hussein, and their role in the creation and “handling” of ISIS.
If you think Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a separate issue . . . think again.
The organizer of the march for Ukraine in Washington, D.C., Ed Skibicki reports that the Ukrainian-language version of the march has pulled more than 120,000 views.
In BackChannels’ opinion, these videos and related material should be pulling hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide as Ukraine serves — and as it has many times in history and too much in modern or “post-medieval” history — as a front line state standing against the barbarism, iron rule, greed, malign narcissism, and ruthlessness put on full display in Syria and Crimea by the once “Red-Green” phantoms of the Cold War.
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Moscow’s Crimean Military and Nuclear Shell Game
21 Sunday May 2017
Tags
brief web pared listing, Crimea, Moscow, nuclear blackmail, nuclear threat, Russia, Scandinavian defense, Ukraine
Today:
http://uaposition.com/latest-news/russia-deploys-nuclear-warheads-crimea/ – 5/21/2017
Note and update 5/22/2017: BackChannels has trusted UA Position but hasn’t seen second source corroboration on the Crimea story. Source seems to be Crimean Tatar via
http://news.liga.net/news/politics/14754659-dzhemilev_rossiya_razmestila_v_krymu_shest_yadernykh_boegolovok.htm – 5/20/2017.
Related by Euromaidan Press and published in April 2017:
An alarmist announcement in one publication associated with the justifiable want of sympathy in the maw of an invading force encourages doubt; however, as noted immediately below and in patched-in sections, open source headlines and reports suggest Russia has been revitalizing once abandoned Cold War Era assets in Crimea.
Within the past year:
June 2016: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russia-threatens-deploy-nuclear-weapons-crimea-13013
June 2016: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-europe-shield-idUSKCN0Z90WT
November 2016: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/727788/Russia-Vladimir-Putin-Crimea-missile-bunkers-Soviet-Cold-War-global-attack-Nato-Ukraine – “Putin renovates Cold War Missile Bunkers in Crimea as Russia prepares for global assault.”
April 29, 2017: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/russia-weighs-heavily-in-americas-nuclear-plans/article/2621340
May 1, 2017: http://www.newsweek.com/stephen-blank-europeans-should-wake-russia-war-them-590408
May 5, 2017: http://www.newsweek.com/why-russia-nuclear-capable-bombers-flight-near-alaska-595256
Again: has Moscow really planted nuclear missiles in Crimea?
This note comes from the Federation of American Scientists and comments on similar web claims dating back to 2014:
The news media and private web sites are full of rumors that Russia has deployed nuclear weapons to Crimea after it invaded the region earlier this year. Many of these rumors are dubious and overly alarmist and ignore that a nuclear-capable weapon is not the same as a nuclear warhead.
Several U.S. lawmakers who oppose nuclear arms control use the Crimean deployment to argue against further reductions of nuclear weapons. NATO’s top commander, U.S. General Philip Breedlove, has confirmed that Russian forces “capable of being nuclear” are being moved to the Crimean Peninsula, but also acknowledged that NATO doesn’t know if nuclear warheads are actually in place.
Kristensen, Hans M. “Rumors About Nuclear Weapons in Crimea.” FAS, December 18, 2014.
Nuclear arms agreements may have comfort the public of an earlier day, but ambiguity would seem to bedevil the field.
From BackChannels’ open source perspective, there are no authoritative or official sources or statements. What appears in the chronologically ordered headlines, however, suggests a course in the redevelopment of Cold War Era military facilities.
Additional reference:
A few twists and turns further and the driver pulled over to the side of the road. He was saying something about a monastery, and pointing to a series of blue roofs that rose up above the trees ahead of us. Presumably, it was the only viable tourist destination that he could think of in this vicinity. He seemed friendly enough, so I risked blowing our cover – leaning forward to say, “Objekt Dva-Dva-Adin.”
Our driver laughed, repeated the name of the colossal ruin, once a well kept military secret, and turned the car around.
The Bohemian Blog. “Inside Objekt 221: An Abandoned Soviet Stronghold in the Crimea.” June 4, 2015.
It is a functioning military base with an anti-ship missile system,” the villager told a Reuters reporter who visited the area in July.
The bunkers are just one small part of a new Russian programme to militarise the Crimean peninsula. Based on recent site observations by Reuters, accounts from locals, media reports and official Russian data, Moscow has reanimated multiple Soviet-built facilities in the region, built new bases and stationed soldiers there
Reuters. “In Crimea, Russia signals military resolve with new and revamped bases.” November 1, 2016.
Related: Scandinavian Defense
I had started this separate post last night, but as things may move fast in Crimea and Syria — readers may wish also to take a look at Russia’s cash position as regards funding its aggression and barbarism against the autonomous, democratic, or western-leaning states of its surrounding world — this brief referencing may as well ride along on the same because, essentially, the material is about the same thing: Moscow’s brandishing its biggest gun, i.e., the threat of nuclear exchange and all that may follow it.
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/10/washington-quietly-reinforcing-europes-northern-flank/132656/ – 10/26/2016
https://www.newsbytesapp.com/timeline/World/6909/41038/russia-threat-us-plans-additional-deployments-in-baltic – 5/12/2017.
http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-norway-sweden-b-52-air-force-russia-ace-17-2017-5 – 5/19/2017.
Related: Libya: Moscow Naval Launch Exercises
https://www.middleeastobserver.org/2017/05/18/what-is-russia-planning-to-do-off-libyas-eastern-coast-next-week/ – 5/18/2017.
https://www.rbth.com/defence/2017/05/19/russia-set-to-test-its-cruise-missiles-near-libyas-coasts_765511 – 5/19/2017.
Chess pieces, demonstrations, exercises, sales, and threats — there’s a mix of prudence and evil that seeps down into the economies of all Big Defense Production states, but Moscow has placed itself in the desperate position of wanting to produce a primary defense industry even while Russians suffer from the funds siphoned away for its foreign ambitions and apparently natural kleptocratic tendencies.
Related: General Russian Defense Industry
Putin is allocating unprecedented amounts of secret funds to accelerate Russia’s largest military buildup since the Cold War, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The part of the federal budget that is so-called black — authorized but not itemized — has doubled since 2010 to 21 percent and now totals 3.2 trillion rubles ($60 billion), the Gaidar Institute, an independent think tank in Moscow, estimates.
Stung by sanctions over Ukraine and oil’s plunge, Putin is turning to defense spending to revive a shrinking economy. The outlays on new tanks, missiles and uniforms highlight the growing militarization that is swelling the deficit and crowding out services such as health care. Thousands of army conscripts will be moved into commercial enterprises for the first time to aid in the rearmament effort.
http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/03/assessing-russia-s-reorganized-and-rearmed-military-pub-69853 – 5/3/2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Russia
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Erdogan’s Security Assaults American Protesters and Involves Local and Federal Officers
18 Thursday May 2017
Posted in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs
Tags
anti-Erdogan, D.C., freedom of speech, melee, pro-democracy, protesters, Turkish Embassy, Washington
VOA – 5/17/2017
VOA – 5/17/2017
Turkish President Erdogan lies to his loyal subjects in Turkey — why should his subalterns not do the same here?
CNN’s coverage of Tuesday’s melee notes Turkish embassy claims that groups affiliated with the PKK, a once militant organization much changed from its Soviet communist aligned heyday in the late 1970s, provoked Turkish Americans eager to greet President Erdogan, but then it goes on to state, ” . . . that account differs greatly from the sequence of events described by protesters and video captured by the Voice of America Turkish service . . . .”
Among those assaulted were two American Secret Service agents and a Washington, D.C. Metropolitan police officers, who was injured.
From Mother Jones‘s coverage:
As the violence broke out, videos from the confrontation quickly emerged on social media appearing to show Erdogan’s security detail using force on protesters, even kicking multiple people in the face, while DC police officials attempted to intervene. NBC confirmed on Wednesday that Erdogan’s bodyguards were the ones beating protesters.
The Turkish embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
The thugs in suits retreated to Turkish Embassy grounds, which by convention and law is treated as sovereign and therefore safe from invasive pursuit.
A State Department official said the Turkish security that was involved appears to be a mix of Embassy and President Erdogan’s security.
vvvvhttp://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/turkey-erdogan-incident/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/bodyguards-turkish-president-violently-clash-protesters-dc – 5/17/2017
Casting aside his predecessor’s concerns about human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech in another nation, Donald Trump lavished praise on another autocratic foreign leader on Tuesday, calling it “a great honor to welcome the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to the White House.”
Just hours after Trump focused his remarks on “the exemplary valor of the Turkish soldier,” however, Erdogan’s presidential bodyguards were caught on video punching and kicking protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/17/trump-praises-erdogan-whose-bodyguards-assault-protesters-washington/ – 5/17/2017.
The footage shows local police shoving not only demonstrators but several men in suits. One of the men in suits can be seen kicking a woman who had already been knocked to the ground. Witnesses reportedly said that the protesters were demanding that a pro-Kurdish lawmaker, Selahattin Demirtas, be released from prison in Turkey.
http://www.snopes.com/2017/05/17/protesters-attacked-erdogan/ – 5/17/2017. Link added by BackChannels.
Posted to YouTube 5/16/2017
U.S. officials strongly criticized the Turkish government Wednesday as video appeared to show its president’s security forces pushing past police and violently breaking up a protest outside their diplomatic residence in Washington.
Attacking the small group of protesters with their fists and feet, men in dark suits and others were recorded repeatedly kicking one woman as she lay curled on a sidewalk. Another wrenches a woman’s neck and throws her to the ground. A man with a bullhorn is repeatedly kicked in the face. In all, nine people were hurt.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hurt-arrested-altercation-turkish-embassy-dc-47460260 – 5/17/2017.
The jihadist dictator Erdoğan is bent on expanding his powers both inside and outside Turkey. Erdoğan’s temper recently flared against Europe when several European governments refused “to allow his ministers to rally Turkish expatriates.” He also declared that “Europe is collapsing…Europe will pay for what they have done in humiliating and oppressing Turks”; and in response to a European headscarf ban in the workplace, he accused Europe of starting “a clash between the cross and the crescent.”
Now he is so bold as to allow his thugs to behave violently on American soil.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/05/nine-injured-as-erdogans-bodyguards-violently-attack-kurdish-protesters-in-dc – 5/18/2017.
Updates: Related Links
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/20170803/calling-erdogan-to-account – 8/3/2017
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/14/breaking-us-marshals-arrest-two-in-turkish-embassy-brawl/ – 6/14/2017.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-39979879/erdogan-watches-as-turkish-security-guards-attack-protesters – 5/19/2017.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/on-air/Protester-Says-Turkish-President_s-Bodyguard-Choked-Her_Washington-DC-423266384.html – 5/19-20/2017.
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Ukraine – War Every Day
17 Wednesday May 2017
The above were posted today, May 17, 2017, on YouTube. The “feed” from Ukraine’s war with Russia is continuous, but all seems to quiet at the desktop as the drama becomes familiar and outside anger dissipates into other breaking news.
https://www.unian.info/war/1926419-ato-hq-russian-proxies-attack-ukraine-43-times-in-last-day.html – 5/17/2017
http://uaposition.com/latest-news/500-homes-avdiyivka-damaged-militants-years-start/ – 5/17/2017
http://uaposition.com/latest-news/ukraine-adds-more-russian-crimean-transport-enterprises-sanction-list/ – 5/17/2017
Every hour, all 24, every day, the global public may not see the “blast and battle” taking place in Crimea, but what is happening appears in the government’s response to exigencies as well as reports from the front lines.
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/15/ukraine-conflict-resources-short-list/
BackChannels hopes it will “scrape” less and interview now and then as the post-Cold War conflicts move through time and, God willing, resolve against the feudal past and for the more favorable modern democratic future with the strength to support rule of law in service to liberal ideals.
For this post, the blog may only encourage looking at the struggle of a state leaning westward and putting distance between itself and a demonstratively barbaric, corrupt, criminal, cruel, disingenuous, and kleptocratic feudal society that adorns itself on the spoils of malign narcissistic thieving under the guise of “protection”.
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Ukraine – A Litmus on the Further Ejection of Medieval Practices
17 Wednesday May 2017
Posted in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Anti-Semitism, Ukraine
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BackChannels snipped the contact data and boilerplate from the press release. The original may be found here: http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=8776547&ct=14995945¬oc=1
On the same topic, there’s an ages old Russian story:
Scaptegoating and targeting Jews, among others, seems ever more a part of feudal control and not the modern world.
To his credit, Putin maintains a stance best described as anti- anti-Semitism. However, the same would seem belied by Moscow’s continuing relationships with Tehran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and PFLP.
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Spy Games – “Ask Permission”
17 Wednesday May 2017
Posted in 21st Century Feudal, Political Spychology
Update – May 17, 2017 / 1605 EST
U.S. President Donald Trump’s alleged intelligence disclosure to Russia has endangered the life of a spy who was placed inside ISIS by Israel, current and former US officials are reported to have affirmed on Wednesday . . . .
When pressed by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, McMaster would not say if Trump disclosed classified information. Trump said in a pair of tweets Tuesday he had the “absolute right” to share “facts” with the Russians.
But many in the counter-terrorism community say what the President did was a mistake.
“Russia is not part of the ISIS coalition,” Olsen said. “They are not our partner.”
The “Olsen” mentioned in the ABC piece was Matt Olsen, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
The press on this story has come to mention the possibility of compromising a spy, i.e., a source of information inside ISIS.
Related audio podcast: http://www.bicom.org.uk/podcast/michael-herzog-bbc-world-service-newshour/
What follows are BackChannels earlier remarks, and in light of the seriousness of these allegations, the shrug in the first sentence may have been premature although the democratic and western bonds between Israel and the United States would indeed seem unshakable provided the United States hews to its Constitution, its heritage, its hard won ideals, principles, and values.
This blog contains the essential oaths taken by America’s military and security officers and officials throughout the body of the government. Readers may appreciate visiting those sworn statements:
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/
If the American-Israeli intelligence relationship survived Pollard, it will survive this latest faux pas produced by President Trump’s uninhibited tongue. However, noted in the Reuters article cited below, the additional criticism adds to a parade of such small scandals.
Truth to tell, and at least in the past, Russia (cooperative Chechnya) has embedded spies in the ISIS ranks — and some have been caught and dispatched by ISIS.
Also, while Saddam’s former Baath officers and the ISIS ranks are real enemies for Assad, his allies, and the west, they have also been invited by their enemies to produce themselves — they are the enemy Assad really wanted (click on that last link) — and BackChannels believes that’s no secret.
Brigadier General Amnon Sofrin, a retired senior official in Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, said such agreements are subject to “unwritten rules” observed for decades.
“They say that you [the US] cannot make any use of sensitive information without any coordination or without asking my [Israel’s] permission,” he told journalists in a call organised by The Israel Project, a pro-Israel advocacy group.
While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the U.S. officials said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKCN18B2MX – 5/16/2017.
“I spoke to him (Lavrov) today,” a smiling Putin told a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“I’ll be forced to issue him (Lavrov) with a reprimand because he did not share these secrets with us. Not with me, nor with representatives of Russia’s intelligence services. It was very bad of him.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-putin-idUSKCN18D1EA
In the same Reuters’ piece: “”It’s hard to imagine what else these people who generate such nonsense and rubbish can dream up next,” said Putin, referring to unnamed U.S. politicians” — so says the world emperor when it comes to KGB everything but especially “active measures” and disinformation.
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Also in Media: “Live from the Bully Pulpit: The Abuse of Obligatory Presidential Broadcasts in Latin America” | By Andrés CañizálezCenter for International Media Assistance | May 15, 2017
17 Wednesday May 2017
Posted in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Journalism
Tags
freedom of speech, information warfare, Latin America, media, political interference in speech, press freedom, South America, state-controlled media
After only a few minutes at the podium, however, the transmission of his speech was interrupted without warning.1 President Maduro had ordered a blanket broadcast across all radio and television stations–what is known in Spanish as a cadena nacional. These presidential broadcasts resemble a US Oval Office address in style, but in Venezuela the law obliges both state‑owned and private media to carry the transmissions, which have lasted as long as eight hours. When Maduro invoked this law to interrupt Torrealba’s speech, Venezuelans had no choice but to listen to Maduro or simply switch off their TVs and radios.
Source: Center for International Media Assistance – 5/15/2017
BackChannels 