May 4, 2014
Bruce Gagnon
Baiting the Russian Bear
I am as distressed as I’ve ever been having watched a 24-minute video yesterday from Odessa, Ukraine as fascist Right Sector thugs set fire to a union hall where unarmed anti-Kiev protesters had taken refuge.
You can see the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVXm9nnY-AQ
You have to be patient watching the video because it is obvious that a lot of the time the photographer was trying to be discreet as he filmed the pro-western nationalists attacking the people inside the union hall. At one point the photographer runs around to the backside of the building and films police authorities standing around talking but taking no action to stop the carnage that killed more than 40 people.
What struck me the most was that during the entire 24 minutes of watching this video I never heard or saw any signs of fire trucks. Odessa is a big city and surely must have fire departments. Only near the end of the video did we finally see some police begin to move in but by then the fire was well under way and people were leaping out of windows. Who had the power to stop fire trucks from responding?
What we know is that Right Section fascist thugs were bused in from around Kiev and they marched through the streets of Odessa. There was a protest camp set up outside of the union hall where anti-Kiev protests were happening. As the fascists descended on the union hall many of the anti-Kiev protesters ran inside the building for safety. The pro-Kiev nationalists, supported by the US-EU, then began throwing Molotov cocktails into the building.
Never during the 24-minute video did I see any of the nationalists outside the union hall taking cover. Clearly they were not being shot at. But you do see at least one man on the ground firing his gun at those inside the building.
The news media in the US have responded by saying it is “unclear” who caused the fire. You can see a short video about media whitewashing this story at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1tykLCTVlw
I read one testimony this morning from someone who tried to help rescue those burned inside the building. He wrote:
Hello, my name is Igor R., I am 39, I live in town of Odessa. During 15 years I work as a doctor on the ambulance.
Yesterday, as you know, a frightful tragedy happened in our cities, one people put to death other. Put to death cruelly – burned living. Not because they were drunk, not for the inheritance of grandmother, but because they do not divide the political looks of nationalists. First they were beating people unmercifully, cruelly, and burned them alive after.
As a doctor I rushed to give help to the one who could be rescued, but I was stopped by pro Ukrainian Nazi radicals, who did not let me walk up to the injured. One of them pushed away me rudely, promising, that soon me and other Jews of Odessa are going to meet the same fate.
I saw a fellow which could be rescued, if I was able to take him away to the hospital, but all persuasions ended with me getting hit in the face so hard that I lost my glasses.
For 15 years I saw a great deal very much, but yesterday I wanted to cry, not from pain not from humiliation, but from a weakness. What occurred yesterday didn’t even have place during fascist occupation in my town in WWII. I wonder, why the whole world is keeping silent?
The US-backed ‘government’ in Kiev largely came to power because the Right Sector fascists used these same violent tactics in the coup d’état a couple of months ago. The now famous “Fuck the EU” quote from US State Department operative Victoria Nuland (wife of Bush-Cheney era neocon Robert Kagan) was direct evidence of the deep involvement and interference of the US in Ukraine. This whole story just reeks of hypocrisy and arrogance on the part of the US.
Victoria Nuland was also caught last December saying “we’ve invested $5 billion” in the Ukraine project…that part picks up at the 7:25 mark in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y0y-JUsPTU
Note the ExxonMobil and Chevron logos on the stage next to Nuland … and remember that the oil-i-garchy wants Russian natural gas and oil supplies. Add it up, mix in the usual modus operandi, stir and what you get is chaos, instability and regime change.
What is Russia to do? Roll over and watch themselves get more NATO ‘missile defense’ bases on their borders and fascists appointed to the ‘new government’ cabinet in Ukraine? More than 27 million people were killed during Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union during WW II. The Russians are hyper-sensitive to fascists coming to power on their immediate borders – especially when the US-NATO are calling the shots.
In recent days there have been reports from eastern Ukraine that not only Right Sector fascists have been attacking unarmed protesters but also that black-clad mercenaries (Blackwater?) have been filmed chasing down the anti-fascist protesters.
The US knew that Russia would have to react, that is why we’ve witnessed massive corporate media demonization of Putin during the past year or so. It helps make it easier for the American people to swallow another one of our interventions.
This intervention though could lead to nuclear war.
The time is long past for peace activists to speak out opposing the Obama administration and NATO baiting the Russian bear.
Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/(blog)
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