Done Deal For Independent East Ukraine

By: Andrew_McKillop

Novorossiya Starts in Crimea
In interview with CBS, May 11, former US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates firstly said that Russia's annexation of Crimea was “a done deal” and that “there’s nothing we can do to change the situation.”  He openly questioned what the real motives of Vladimir Putin in eastern Ukraine may be. Gates said: “I’m not sure he knows at this point, other than to....protecting the Russians and making sure the Ukraine ultimately leans back toward Russia”. For Gates the done deal in Crimea can easily morph into eastern Ukraine becoming a Russian satrape. He said. “I don’t think he’ll rest until there’s a pro-Russian government in Kiev or a federated Ukraine where the eastern part of the country, for all practical purposes, looks to Russia.”

Gates is a rare denizen of Washington's upper reaches who feels able, or even obliged to tell the truth. He said in his CBS 'Face the Nation' interview that the US and Obama are in a very tough spot  because “We really have very few tactical options. There is no real military option. And in the short term, there’s not a lot we can do.”

Being one rare Washingtonian who faces the truth as well as the nation, Gates made an urgent plea for Washington to act on the USA's domestic problems – not those of a ruined country 10 000 miles away. He laid the blame squarely where it belongs, saying that the greatest security threat was not Russia. “I think the greatest national security threat to this country at this point is the two square miles that encompasses the Capitol building and the White House”. “If America can’t get some of our problems solved here at home; if we can’t get our finances in a more ordered fashion, if we can’t begin to tackle some of the internal issues that we have,” then “those foreign threats recede significantly.”

Very shocking! Being a former Secretary of Defense, Gates knows all about nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

'Wall Street Journal' editorial writers, and similar glove puppet go-to-war gurglers ignore the simple, basic fact that Russia can't be beaten – militarily. It may be nice to imagine a Libyan-style Nato operation against Russia followed by its collapse and a “really neat” mob assassination of Putin, but that is strictly for 'WSJ' editorials and the other comic books. Not for sane adults.

The European Sanctions Charade
In typical European disarray, double dealing and intrigue – to force the hand of other “European allies and brothers” into losing juicy markets in Russia paid with shiny petrodollars – the EU quickly responded to the referendum votes in eastern Ukraine. They are illegal, immoral and will make Ukraine thin, in fact wafer thin when it comes to IMF bailouts. Kiev may now lose the rest of the agreed IMF $17 billion loan after receiving its first $3.2 billion installment - $2.7 billion of which has to go to Gazprom for gas payment arrears according to the IMF. The IMF also says Kiev owes it $5 billion on previous loans in the Yevtushenko and Tymoshenko era – despite the IMF de factor recognizing the Kiev Flash Mob which used street violence to chase out the country's previous elected governments.

The Kiev Flash Mob can therefore repudiate the previous governments – but not their debt!

Defending the country – or several countries – by sanctions against Russia has an unappetizing feel and look of lost bizniss to come, for the Europeans. The tirades from Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, Sunday 10 May, following the referendum votes in eastern Ukraine were typical European feint and subterfuge.

Their joint statements, and their several statements “agreeing to support tougher sanctions”, and their “calls” for Putin himself to organize “elections across the whole of Ukraine” are as two-faced and absurd as France continuing to build two Mistral-class “invasion platform” fighting ships for Russia, and continuing to train 400 Russian sailors to use the ships, in France. The German corporate and industrial elite has already screamed loud that it wants all sanctions to be dropped, and all talk of war with Putin to disappear. Bizniss is bizniss.

In interview with Germany's 'Bild' newspaper, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski claimed: "I don't have much understanding for the way that some Europeans are viewing Russia. It's better to put out the fire now than to wait for a larger fire to spread to other nations. We can't just stand by and watch when a nation is being blackmailed with brutality and military power right in front of our front door." He meant Poland's front door but conveniently forgot that the European trick is to always dump the dirt in front of somebody else's front door.

To be sure there is an inevitably unavowed, never-admitted reason for this deceit, stretching way beyond simple greed for Putin's petro-euros and gas-dollars. Unless the promised May 25 “whole country” elections in Ukraine for a new president are held, Kiev remains an unelected Flash Mob government. It is not democratically elected. Leaders like Obama, Merkel, Hollande and Cameron will have to explain why they support an unelected government that grabbed power by street violence.

If they can't do that, they should resign themselves.

Democracy and Referendums
The shaky European political elites hate the word “referendum” because it means democracy is at work and afoot. Unless the expected result is exactly that – expected – they fear referenda.

The Scottish referendum on full independence from England is a classic example. The Madrid government's refusal to allow the Catalonian government to hold a referendum on independence for Catalonia is another. A Europe-wide or US-wide referendum on crony banks and their bailouts from crony government would also be “unthinkable” for the incumbent, that is squatting elites.

An urgently needed banking referendum would have the simple Yes/No question: “Should banks be allowed to tax savings accounts?”. Yes or No.

The habit (in fact constitutionally guaranteed right) of calling referenda in some small democratic countries like Switzerland, and the sharp criticism of this by glove puppet media in the “mature democracies” is another proof that the elites fear democracy. The howls of ritual indignation following the eastern Ukraine referenda were therefore totally predictable.

What we can hope is that popular demand for referenda on major issues becomes the new Flash Mob call – inside our “mature democracies”. Instead of burning car tires (polluting the atmosphere and preventing the tires from being recycled) the Flash Mobs can get even more street-credible and hit the elites where it really hurts.

Do you want to be governed by crony politicians? Yes or No.

By Andrew McKillop

Contact: xtran9@gmail.com

Former chief policy analyst, Division A Policy, DG XVII Energy, European Commission. Andrew McKillop Biographic Highlights

Co-author 'The Doomsday Machine', Palgrave Macmillan USA, 2012

Andrew McKillop has more than 30 years experience in the energy, economic and finance domains. Trained at London UK’s University College, he has had specially long experience of energy policy, project administration and the development and financing of alternate energy. This included his role of in-house Expert on Policy and Programming at the DG XVII-Energy of the European Commission, Director of Information of the OAPEC technology transfer subsidiary, AREC and researcher for UN agencies including the ILO.

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