Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
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Introduction: The ongoing, Orwellian coverage of the civil war resulting from the OUN/B‑derived coup in Ukraine is analyzed in terms of the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk, a book we feel is far more than just a novel. In that book the SS go underground (true), build up their economic muscle (true) and buy into the “opinion-forming media” (true.) Following a series of terrorist attacks on the U.S. involving WMD’s, martial law is decalred and the Underground Reich, which has infiltrated the military, takes over the United States.
In this program we note that OUN/B elements are at the forefront in the representation of events in Ukraine to the general public, thereby manipulating puplic opinin in the very manner that Serpent’s Walk details.
(We have covered the ascension of the OUN/B heirs in the Ukraine in a number of programs: FTR #‘s 777, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784, 794, 800.)
Almost obscured is the fact that a Pravy Sektor banner was flown from the Interior Ministry building in Slovyansk after its capture by pro-government forces. A tweet from a BBC journalist discloses that information.
Exemplary of the manipulation of public opinion is the uncritical coverage of Swoboda member Andriy Parubiy, the highest ranking defense official in Ukraine. He is quoted at length, in an authoritative context on the conflict, with no comment on the fact that he is a Nazi.
We should not be surprised that the Pravy Sektor banner should fly over the Interior Ministry building in Slovyansk after its capture by pro-government forces. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry mustered the Azov Battalion, which, despite the Ministry’s denials, is obviously Nazi in character.
Before visiting the subject of the downed Malaysian Airlines plane, we recap some of the historical elements of the evolution and ascension of the OUN/B successor government in Ukraine.
The downing of the Malaysian airliner takes place against the background of unrestrained, all-out warfare by the Ukrainian government against the civilian population of Eastern Ukraine.
Although are media are uncritically accepting the Ukrainian government’s assertion that separatists (with Russian backing) brought down the plane, the courageous Robert Parry is reporting that U.S. reconnaissance satellites may well have recorded Ukrainian government forces firing the fatal missile.
The “Go-To-Guy” for much of world political and journalistic opinion in the downing of the Malaysian airliner is Michael [“Mykhailo”] Bociurkiw, head of the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
Bociurkiw is a former assistant editor for the Ukrainian Weekly, which manifests a definite pro-OUN/B, anti-OSI stance.
Bociurkiw also networks with a Malaysian Muslim Brotherhood nexus with evidentiary tributaries running in the direction of the political milieu underlying the “disappearance” of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. That same network also overlaps the Al-Taqwa milieu implicated in the jihadist activity in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus, as well as the Boston Marathon bombing.
Program Highlights Include: The fact that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s flight flew through roughly the same airspace as MH 17, roughly a half-hour earlier; the fact that the SA-11 “BUK” missile system requires a seperate radar tracking vehicle to operate properly–there is no indication that the seperatists have such a vehicle; review of John Loftus’ work heading the OSI (routinely disparaged in the Ukrainian Weekly); review of Anwar Ibrahim’s links to both the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Zaharie Shah, the pilot of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370; the presence of a large contingent of AIDS researchers on MH 17; links between Michael Bociurkiw’s Malaysian Muslim Brotherhood networkers and the Nation of Islam; the unlikely coincidence of Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jong, who was booked to fly on both Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and MH 17.
1a. Serpent’s Walk summarizes its thesis on the back cover:
. . . . It assumes that Hitler’s warrior elite — the SS — didn’t give up their struggle for a White world when they lost the Second World War. Instead their survivors went underground and adopted some of their tactics of their enemies: they began building their economic muscle and buying into the opinion-forming media. A century after the war they are ready to challenge the democrats and Jews for the hearts and minds of White Americans, who have begun to have their fill of government-enforced multi-culturalism and ‘equality.’
1b. The broadcast addresses the shaping of public opinion in such a way as to sway the public to a fascist/Nazi viewpoint.
. . . . Hell, if you can con granny into buying Sugar Turds instead of Bran Farts, then why can’t you swing public opinion over to a cause as vital and important as ours?’ . . . In any case, we’re slowly replacing those negative images with others: the ‘Good Bad Guy’ routine’ . . . ‘What do you think of Jesse James? John Dillinger? Julius Caesar? Genghis Khan?’ . . . The reality may have been rough, but there’s a sort of glitter about most of those dudes: mean honchos but respectable. It’s all how you package it. Opinion is a godamned commodity!’ . . . It works with anybody . . . Give it time. Aside from the media, we’ve been buying up private schools . . . and helping some public ones through philanthropic foundations . . . and working on the churches and the Born Agains. . . .
2. Highlighting an important fact, deliberately omitted by our media, a BBC journalist noted a Pravy Sektor flag flying over Slovyansk, shortly after the city was “liberated” by Ukrainian pro-government forces.
“Pravyi Sektor/Ukrainian Insurgent Army (red & black) flag was flying from Interior Min. building in #Slovyansk today. Dangerous & worrying— Will Vernon (@BBCWillVernon) July 7, 2014
3.The Ukrainian defense establishment is still headed by Andriy Parubiy of Swoboda. Our media quote him in a lengthy, authoritative way, with no comment whatsoever on the nature of his Nazi affiliation.
. . . . “I am convinced that there are many other countries which are not ready — properly speaking, their armed forces are not ready, are unprepared, for this type of war,” Mr. Parubiy said in an interview last week. “We, of course, studied the experience of both Croatia and Israel, but here a lot of new features are added. And, if Russia sees that this experience is successful, this experience can very easily be used in any Baltic countries, and even in Belarus and Kazakhstan.”
Mr. Parubiy invoked Igor Girkin, a Russian military intelligence officer who has been a commander of the insurrection in eastern Ukraine, under the name of Igor Strelkov. “If we do not stop Putin here,” Mr. Parubiy said, “nobody knows where his Girkins will appear next.”
In the interview, Mr. Parubiy laid his hands on a table and, exhaling in disgust, described the paralysis of the initial response to the insurgency.
“The key tactic of Russian saboteurs is: Capture a building, station an armed garrison there and have a picket around, mostly Communists, who would provide a human shield,” he said, offering an example he witnessed. “They had it this way in Luhansk. There is a five-story building where each window is a firing spot and, right next to the building, are 500 people — a picket.
“When we tell Alpha, a special unit of the S.B.U., whose purpose is to fight terrorists, to enter the building and conduct the operation, they tell us, ‘Take away the people because the operation can only be conducted when we are able to enter without a scuffle with civilians,’ ” he said. “When we tell the interior troops to make a corridor and drag away civilians, they say, ‘How can we do that when terrorists in windows point guns at us? We’re not able to fulfill this task.’ ”
The military was so underfinanced that the government issued a plea for donations from citizens. Some of the country’s richest businessmen used their personal fortunes to create militias that are now effectively part of a new national guard.
“As one colleague from the United States said, we have to repair a plane during flight,” Mr. Parubiy said. . . . .
4. Next, we present an article about a trend that may well intensify the fighting: foreign neo-Nazis continue to swell the ranks of the Ukrainian military formations. The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was formed and armed by the interior ministry, and the battalion leader is also the leader of the “Social National Assembly.” We are informed by the interior ministry, is NOT a neo-Nazi group, even though it proclaims that it’s fight to “liberate the White Race” and wants to severely punish interracial contacts. The ministry assured us that there are no foreign fighters nor any neo-Nazis anywhere to be seen.
“Ukraine Conflict: ‘White power’ Warrior from Sweden” by Dina Newman; BBC News; 7/16/2014.
The appearance of far-right activists, both foreign and home-grown, among the Ukrainian volunteers fighting in east Ukraine is causing unease.
Mikael Skillt is a Swedish sniper, with seven years’ experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard. He is currently fighting with the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian volunteer armed group in eastern Ukraine. He is known to be dangerous to the rebels: reportedly there is a bounty of nearly $7,000 (£4,090; 5,150 euros) on his head.
In a telephone conversation from an undisclosed location, Mr Skillt told me more about his duties: “I have at least three purposes in the Azov Battalion: I am a commander of a small reconnaissance unit, I am also a sniper, and sometimes I work as a special coordinator for clearing houses and going into civilian areas.”
As to his political views, Mr Skillt prefers to call himself a nationalist, but in fact his views are typical of a neo-Nazi.
“It’s all about how you see it,” he says. “I would be an idiot if I said I did not want to see survival of white people. After World War Two, the victors wrote their history. They decided that it’s always a bad thing to say I am white and I am proud.” [Compare this with the notes on the back cover of Serpent’s Walk covered in item #1, as well as the excerpt in item #2–D.E.]
‘One stray liberal’
Mr Skillt believes races should not mix. He says the Jews are not white and should not mix with white people. His next project is to go fight for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because he believes Mr Assad is standing up to “international Zionism”.
Not all of Mr Skillt’s views are widely shared in the Azov Battalion, which is about 300-strong in total.
He says his comrades do not discuss politics much, though some of them may be “national socialists” and may wear swastikas. On the other hand, “there is even one liberal, though I don’t know how he got there”, he adds, with a smile in his voice.
Mr Skillt says there is only a handful of foreign fighters in the Azov Battalion and they do not get paid. “They see it as a good thing, to come and fight,” he explains. However, Mr Skillt is expecting more foreigners to join soon: he says there is now a recruiter who is looking for “serious fighters” from outside Ukraine.
The key figures in the Azov Battalion are its commander, Andriy Biletsky, and his deputy, Ihor Mosiychuk.
Andriy Biletsky is also the leader of a Ukrainian organisation called the Social National Assembly. Its aims are stated in one of their online publications:
* “to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital”
* “to punish severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man”
This, according to experts, is a typical neo-Nazi narrative.
‘Foreign journalists’
The Azov Battalion was formed and armed by Ukraine’s interior ministry. A ministerial adviser, Anton Gerashchenko, got angry when I asked him if the battalion had any neo-Nazi links through the Social National Assembly.
“The Social National Assembly is not a neo-Nazi organisation,” he said.
“It is a party of Ukrainian patriots who are giving their lives while the rich Europeans are only talking about supporting Ukraine. When, may I ask, will English people come here and help us fight terrorists sent by Russia’s President [Vladimir] Putin, instead of lecturing us on our moral values or people’s political affiliations?”
Mr Gerashchenko was adamant, however, that there were no foreign citizens fighting in the Azov Battalion.
“There are foreign journalists, from Sweden, Spain and Italy, who have come to report on the heroic achievements of the fighters in their struggle against terrorism,” he said.
He insisted he had never heard of Mikael Skillt, the Swedish sniper. . . .
...
5. A Pando Daily story notes the extent of the carnage in the Ukrainian civil war, as well as the omission by our news media of key details.
Just in case you missed it, there’s a real fucking civil war raging in Eastern Ukraine. On July 2, a day after newly elected billionaire President Petro Poroshenko called off a ceasefire, residential areas in several towns and villages in the Lugansk and Donestk regions came under intense shelling and air bombardment.
The town of Slavyansk, which has seen a lot of fighting, was shelled. The Ukrainian Air Force bombed the village of Stanytsia Luhanska. The attack obliterated an entire residential area, shredding houses, people and pets, and littering the area with pieces of intestines, toes and cats — yes, dead kitties. There are several very graphic videos of the aftermath — faces of death delivered to YouTube for global viewing within a few dozen minutes of it happening.
Here’s one of the less graphic videos from strike on Stanytsia Luhanska, where at least 10 people were killed and many more injured. . . .
. . . . But you wouldn’t know any of this from the U.S. news media, which has been soft-censoring and whitewashing anything that could show the Ukrainian government in a bad light from the very beginning of the conflict. The New York Times alluded to yesterday’s”ground assaults and air bombardments” and mumbled something about “civilian casualties” — but made it unclear who was doing the shooting or the dying. Other newspapers are equally mum on Ukraine’s attack on Ukrainian civilians. Meanwhile, US cable network news pretends none of this even exists.
For its part, the U.S. State Department praised Ukraine’s “restraint” and accused Russia of exaggerating — if not being behind — the attacks on civilians. . . . .
6. A Nation article further develops the silence surrounding what is taking place in Ukraine.
“The Silence of American Hawks About Kiev’s Atrocities” by Stephen F. Cohen; The Nation; 6/30/2014.
The regime has repeatedly carried out artillery and air attacks on city centers, creating a humanitarian catastrophe—which is all but ignored by the US political-media establishment.
For weeks, the US-backed regime in Kiev has been committing atrocities against its own citizens in southeastern Ukraine, regions heavily populated by Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. While victimizing a growing number of innocent people, including children, and degrading America’s reputation, these military assaults on cities, captured on video, are generating pressure in Russia on President Vladimir Putin to “save our compatriots.”
The reaction of the Obama administration—as well as the new cold-war hawks in Congress and in the establishment media—has been twofold: silence interrupted only by occasional statements excusing and thus encouraging more atrocities by Kiev. Very few Americans (notably, the independent scholar Gordon Hahn) have protested this shameful complicity. We may honorably disagree about the causes and resolution of the Ukrainian crisis, the worst US-Russian confrontation in decades, but not about deeds that are rising to the level of war crimes, if they have not already done so.
* * *
In mid-April, the new Kiev government, predominantly western Ukrainian in composition and outlook, declared an “anti-terrorist operation” against a growing political rebellion in the Southeast. At that time, the rebels were mostly mimicking the initial Maidan protests in Kiev in 2013—demonstrating, issuing defiant proclamations, occupying public buildings and erecting defensive barricades—before Maidan turned ragingly violent and, in February, overthrew Ukraine’s corrupt but legitimately elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. (The entire Maidan episode, it will be recalled, had Washington’s enthusiastic political, and perhaps more tangible, support.) Indeed, the precedent for seizing official buildings and demanding the allegiance of local authorities had been set even earlier, in January, in western Ukraine—by pro-Maidan, anti-Yanukovych protesters, some declaring “independence” from his government.
Considering those preceding events, but above all the country’s profound historical divisions, particularly between its western and eastern regions—ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural, economic and political—the rebellion in the southeast, centered in the industrial Donbass, was not surprising. Nor were its protests against the unconstitutional way (in effect, a coup) the new government had come to power, the southeast’s sudden loss of effective political representation in the capital and the real prospect of official discrimination. But by declaring an “anti-terrorist operation” against the new protesters, Kiev signaled its intention to “destroy” them, not negotiate with them.
On May 2, in this incendiary atmosphere, a horrific event occurred in the southern city of Odessa, awakening memories of Nazi German extermination squads in Ukraine and other Soviet republics during World War II. An organized pro-Kiev mob chased protesters into a building, set it on fire and tried to block the exits. Some forty people, perhaps many more, perished in the flames or were murdered as they fled the inferno. A still unknown number of other victims were seriously injured.
Members of the infamous Right Sector, a far-right paramilitary organization ideologically aligned with the ultranationalist Svoboda party, itself a constituent part of Kiev’s coalition government, led the mob. Both are frequently characterized by knowledgeable observers as “neo-fascist” movements. (Hateful ethnic chants by the mob were audible, and swastika-like symbols were found on the scorched building.) Kiev alleged that the victims had themselves accidentally started the fire, but eyewitnesses, television footage and social media videos told the true story, as they have about subsequent atrocities.
Instead of interpreting the Odessa massacre as an imperative for restraint, Kiev intensified its “anti-terrorist operation.” Since May, the regime has sent a growing number of armored personnel carriers, tanks, artillery, helicopter gunships and warplanes to southeastern cities, among them, Slovyansk (Slavyansk in Russian), Mariupol, Krasnoarmeisk, Kramatorsk, Donetsk and Luhansk (Lugansk in Russian). When its regular military units and local police forces turned out to be less than effective, willing or loyal, Kiev hastily mobilized Right Sector and other radical nationalist militias responsible for much of the violence at Maidan into a National Guard to accompany regular detachments—partly to reinforce them, partly, it seems, to enforce Kiev’s commands. Zealous, barely trained and drawn mostly from central and western regions, Kiev’s new recruits have reportedly escalated the ethnic warfare and killing of innocent civilians. (Episodes described as “massacres” soon also occurred in Mariupol and Kramatorsk.)
Initially, the “anti-terrorist” campaign was limited primarily, though not only, to rebel checkpoints on the outskirts of cities. Since May, however, Kiev has repeatedly carried out artillery and air attacks on city centers that have struck residential buildings, shopping malls, parks, schools, kindergartens and hospitals, particularly in Slovyansk and Luhansk. More and more urban areas, neighboring towns and even villages now look and sound like war zones, with telltale rubble, destroyed and pockmarked buildings, mangled vehicles, the dead and wounded in streets, wailing mourners and crying children. Conflicting information from Kiev, local resistance leaders and Moscow make it impossible to estimate the number of dead and wounded noncombatants—certainly hundreds. The number continues to grow due also to Kiev’s blockade of cities where essential medicines, food, water, fuel and electricity are scarce, and where wages and pensions are often no longer being paid. The result is an emerging humanitarian catastrophe.
Another effect is clear. Kiev’s “anti-terrorist” tactics have created a reign of terror in the targeted cities. Panicked by shells and mortars exploding on the ground, menacing helicopters and planes flying above and fear of what may come next, families are seeking sanctuary in basements and other darkened shelters. Even The New York Times, which like the mainstream American media generally has deleted the atrocities from its coverage, described survivors in Slovyansk “as if living in the Middle Ages.” Meanwhile, an ever-growing number of refugees, disproportionately women and traumatized children, have been fleeing across the border into Russia. In late June, the UN estimated that as many as 110,000 Ukrainians had already fled to Russia and about half that many to other Ukrainian sanctuaries.
It is true, of course, that anti-Kiev rebels in these regions are increasingly well-armed (though lacking the government’s arsenal of heavy and airborne weapons), organized and aggressive, no doubt with some Russian assistance, whether officially sanctioned or not. But calling themselves “self-defense” fighters is not wrong. They did not begin the combat; their land is being invaded and assaulted by a government whose political legitimacy is arguably no greater than their own, two of their large regions having voted overwhelmingly for autonomy referenda; and, unlike actual terrorists, they have not committed acts of war outside their own communities. The French adage suggested by an American observer seems applicable: “This animal is very dangerous. If attacked, it defends itself.”
* * *
Among the crucial questions rarely discussed in the US political-media establishment: What is the role of the “neo-fascist” factor in Kiev’s “anti-terrorist” ideology and military operations? Putin’s position, at least until recently—that the entire Ukrainian government is a “neo-fascist junta”—is incorrect. Many members of the ruling coalition and its parliamentary majority are aspiring European-style democrats or moderate nationalists. This may also be true of Ukraine’s newly elected president, the oligarch Petro Poroshenko. Equally untrue, however, are claims by Kiev’s American apologists, including even some academics and liberal intellectuals, that Ukraine’s neo-fascists—or perhaps quasi-fascists—are merely agitated nationalists, “garden-variety Euro-populists,” a “distraction” or lack enough popular support to be significant.
Independent Western scholars have documented the fascist origins, contemporary ideology and declarative symbols of Svoboda and its fellow-traveling Right Sector. Both movements glorify Ukraine’s murderous Nazi collaborators in World War II as inspirational ancestors. Both, to quote Svoboda’s leader Oleh Tyahnybok, call for an ethnically pure nation purged of the “Moscow-Jewish mafia” and “other scum,” including homosexuals, feminists and political leftists. And both hailed the Odessa massacre. According to the website of Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh, it was “another bright day in our national history.” A Svoboda parliamentary deputy added, “Bravo, Odessa…. Let the Devils burn in hell.” If more evidence is needed, in December 2012, the European Parliament decried Svoboda’s “racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views [that] go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles.” In 2013, the World Jewish Congress denounced Svoboda as “neo-Nazi.” Still worse, observers agree that Right Sector is even more extremist.
Nor do electoral results tell the story. Tyahnybok and Yarosh together received less than 2 percent of the June presidential vote, but historians know that in traumatic times, when, to recall Yeats, “the center cannot hold,” small, determined movements can seize the moment, as did Lenin’s Bolsheviks and Hitler’s Nazis. Indeed, Svoboda and Right Sector already command power and influence far exceeding their popular vote. “Moderates” in the US-backed Kiev government, obliged to both movements for their violence-driven ascent to power, and perhaps for their personal safety, rewarded Svoboda and Right Sector with some five to eight (depending on shifting affiliations) top ministry positions, including ones overseeing national security, military, prosecutorial and educational affairs. Still more, according to the research of Pietro Shakarian, a remarkable young graduate student at the University of Michigan, Svoboda was given five governorships, covering about 20 percent of the country. And this does not take into account the role of Right Sector in the “anti-terrorist operation.”
Nor does it consider the political mainstreaming of fascism’s dehumanizing ethos. In December 2012, a Svoboda parliamentary leader anathematized the Ukrainian-born American actress Mila Kunis as “a dirty kike.” Since 2013, pro-Kiev mobs and militias have routinely denigrated ethnic Russians as insects (“Colorado beetles,” whose colors resemble a sacred Russia ornament). More recently, the US-picked prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, referred to resisters in the Southeast as “subhumans.” His defense minister proposed putting them in “filtration camps,” pending deportation, and raising fears of ethnic cleansing. Yulia Tymoshenko—a former prime minister, titular head of Yatsenyuk’s party and runner-up in the May presidential election—was overheard wishing she could “exterminate them all [Ukrainian Russians] with atomic weapons.” “Sterilization” is among the less apocalyptic official musings on the pursuit of a purified Ukraine.
Confronted with such facts, Kiev’s American apologists have conjured up another rationalization. Any neo-fascists in Ukraine, they assure us, are far less dangerous than Putinism’s “clear aspects of fascism.” The allegation is unworthy of serious analysis: however authoritarian Putin may be, there is nothing authentically fascist in his rulership, policies, state ideology or personal conduct.
Indeed, equating Putin with Hitler, as eminent Americans from Hillary Clinton and Zbigniew Brzezinski to George Will have done, is another example of how our new cold warriors are recklessly damaging US national security in vital areas where Putin’s cooperation is essential. Looking ahead, would-be presidents who make such remarks can hardly expect to be greeted by an open-minded Putin, whose brother died and father was wounded in the Soviet-Nazi war. Moreover, tens of millions of today’s Russians whose family members were killed by actual fascists in that war will regard this defamation of their popular president as sacrilege, as they do the atrocities committed by Kiev.
...
7. In stories on successive days, Robert Parry has noted that a reliable intelligence informant maintains that U.S. surveillance satellite photos appear to show the missile being fired by a “Buk” missile battery being operated by [possibly drunk] Ukrainian military personnel.
“Airline Horrors Spur New Rush to Judgement” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 7/19/2014.
. . . . Regarding the shoot-down of the Malaysian jetliner on Thursday, I’m told that some CIA analysts cite U.S. satellite reconnaissance photos suggesting that the anti-aircraft missile that brought down Flight 17 was fired by Ukrainian troops from a government battery, not by ethnic Russian rebels who have been resisting the regime in Kiev since elected President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown on Feb. 22.
According to a source briefed on the tentative findings, the soldiers manning the battery appeared to be wearing Ukrainian uniforms and may have been drinking, since what looked like beer bottles were scattered around the site. But the source added that the information was still incomplete and the analysts did not rule out the possibility of rebel responsibility. . . .
8a. Parry is also among the few to note the Swoboda affiliation of Andriy Parubiy, in charge of defense matters for Ukraine. U.S. policy is beholden unto an Underground Reich milieu centered on the heirs to the OUN/B.
“What Did U.S. Spy Satellites See in Ukraine?” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 7/20/2019.
. . . . The dog-not-barking question on the catastrophe over Ukraine is: what did the U.S. surveillance satellite imagery show? It’s hard to believe that – with the attention that U.S. intelligence has concentrated on eastern Ukraine for the past half year that the alleged trucking of several large Buk anti-aircraft missile systems from Russia to Ukraine and then back to Russia didn’t show up somewhere.
Yes, there are limitations to what U.S. spy satellites can see. But the Buk missiles are about 16 feet long and they are usually mounted on trucks or tanks. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 also went down during the afternoon, not at night, meaning the missile battery was not concealed by darkness.. . .
. . . . What I’ve been told by one source, who has provided accurate information on similar matters in the past, is that U.S. intelligence agencies do have detailed satellite images of the likely missile battery that launched the fateful missile, but the battery appears to have been under the control of Ukrainian government troops dressed in what look like Ukrainian uniforms.
The source said CIA analysts were still not ruling out the possibility that the troops were actually eastern Ukrainian rebels in similar uniforms but the initial assessment was that the troops were Ukrainian soldiers. There also was the suggestion that the soldiers involved were undisciplined and possibly drunk, since the imagery showed what looked like beer bottles scattered around the site, the source said.
Instead of pressing for these kinds of details, the U.S. mainstream press has simply passed on the propaganda coming from the Ukrainian government and the U.S. State Department, including hyping the fact that the Buk system is “Russian-made,” a rather meaningless fact that gets endlessly repeated.
However, to use the “Russian-made” point to suggest that the Russians must have been involved in the shoot-down is misleading at best and clearly designed to influence ill-informed Americans. As the Post and other news outlets surely know, the Ukrainian military also operates Russian-made military systems, including Buk anti-aircraft batteries, so the manufacturing origin has no probative value here.
. . . . In recognition of the key role played by the neo-Nazis, who are ideological descendants of Ukrainian militias that collaborated with the Nazi SS in World War II, the new regime gave these far-right nationalists control of several ministries, including the office of national security which is under the command of longtime neo-Nazi activist Andriy Parubiy.[See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine, Through the US Looking Glass.”]
It was this same Parubiy whom the Post writers turned to seeking more information condemning the eastern Ukrainian rebels and the Russians regarding the Malaysia Airlines catastrophe. Parubiy accused the rebels in the vicinity of the crash site of destroying evidence and conducting a cover-up, another theme that resonated through the MSM.
Without bothering to inform readers of Parubiy’s unsavory neo-Nazi background, the Post quoted him as a reliable witness declaring: “It will be hard to conduct a full investigation with some of the objects being taken away, but we will do our best.” . . .
8b. Robert Parry also contributes an article noting possible “spin” on the story–that a Ukrainian army “defector” may have fired the missile.
“The Mystery of a Ukrainian Army ‘Defector’ ” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 7/22/2014.
As the U.S. government seeks to build its case blaming eastern Ukrainian rebels and Russia for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the evidence seems to be getting twisted to fit the preordained conclusion, including a curious explanation for why the troops suspected of firing the fateful missile may have been wearing Ukrainian army uniforms.
On Tuesday, mainstream journalists, including for the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, were given a briefing about the U.S. intelligence information that supposedly points the finger of blame at the rebels and Russia. While much of this circumstantial case was derived from postings on “social media,” the briefings also addressed the key issue of who fired the Buk anti-aircraft missile that is believed to have downed the airliner killing all 298 people onboard.
After last Thursday’s shoot-down, I was told that U.S. intelligence analysts were examining satellite imagery that showed the crew manning the suspected missile battery wearing what looked like Ukrainian army uniforms, but my source said the analysts were still struggling with whether that essentially destroyed the U.S. government’s case blaming the rebels.
The Los Angeles Times article on Tuesday’s briefing seemed to address the same information this way: “U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 [anti-aircraft missile] was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.”
That statement about a possible “defector” might explain why some analysts thought they saw soldiers in Ukrainian army uniforms tending to the missile battery in eastern Ukraine. But there is another obvious explanation that the U.S. intelligence community seems unwilling to accept: that the missile may have been launched by someone working for the Ukrainian military.
In other words, we may be seeing another case of the U.S. government “fixing the intelligence” around a desired policy outcome, as occurred in the run-up to war with Iraq. . . .
9. President Putin’s plane flew through roughly the same area less than an hour before. American mainstream media have been contemptuous of Russian media speculation that the missile may have been intended for President Putin’s plane. In light of the statements of lethal intent against Putin by the OUN/B heirs now governing Ukraine, such a possibility is not to be taken so lightly, in our opinion.
“With Jet Strike, War in Ukraine is Felt Globally” by Peter Baker; The New York Times; 7/19/2014.
. . . . Mr. Putin was also in the air above Eastern Europe that afternoon, as he was returning from a six-day tour of Latin America aboard his presidential Airbus, referred to as Aircraft No. 1 by the media. The Russian jet apparently passed near the doomed Malaysian plane, both flying in roughly the same airspace over Warsaw at 33,000 feet some 37 minutes apart, according to an Interfax report. He got on the telephone with Mr. Obama shortly after landing. . . .
. . . . The coincidental proximity of Mr. Putin’s plane even led to conspiracy theories that whoever destroyed the Malaysia jet was actually trying to target the Russian president. Rossiya 24, the state-run cable network, played past clips of Ukrainian public figures saying they wished Mr. Putin dead and then interviewed supposed experts about how the two planes might have been confused.
Mr. Putin released a statement 40 minutes after midnight, blaming Ukraine. “Certainly,” he said, “the government over whose territory it occurred is responsible for this terrible tragedy.” . . . .
10. Accusations against the rebels center on the assertion that they had the Russian-made “Buk” SA-11 missile system. That system’s ability to effectively distinguish between a military and a civilian aircraft is dependent on an independent, mobile tracked vehicle with the radar and electronics necessary to make such a distinction. There is no indication that the rebels have such a vehicle.
If Ukrainian rebels shot down the Malaysian jetliner, killing 298 people, it may have been because they didn’t have the right systems in place to distinguish between military and civilian aircraft, experts said Saturday.
American officials said Friday that they believe the Boeing 777 was brought down by an SA-11 missile fired from an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists. U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power said the Russians might have provided technical help to the rebels to operate the systems.
But to function correctly, an SA-11 launcher, also known as a Buk, is supposed to be connected to a central radar command — as opposed to acting alone — to be certain of exactly what kind of aircraft it is shooting at.
From the information that has come to light so far, the rebels don’t appear to have such systems, said Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected defense columnist for Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based newspaper known for its critical coverage of Russian affairs.
“They could easily make a tragic mistake and shoot down a passenger plane when indeed they wanted to shoot down a Ukrainian transport plane,” he said.
On Friday, Russia’s state-owned RIA Novosti news agency also quoted Konstantin Sivkov, director of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, as saying Buk missiles “should be provided with external systems of target identification, that is, radio-location systems. It’s an entire system. And the insurgents certainly don’t have radio-location.”
Without a backup, a missile can be fired by operators who are not totally sure of what they are aiming at.
“Just seeing a blip on a radar screen was in no away sufficient to make a targeting decision,” said Keir Giles, associate fellow for international security and Russia and Eurasia programs at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. “You need an additional radar system to which these weapons systems can be connected for additional information.” . . . .
. . . . A NATO military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements, said a Buk launcher, which is a self-propelled tracked vehicle resembling a tank, is ordinarily under the orders of a separate command post vehicle.
“In a totally textbook way of setting up, the command post vehicle assigns targets and designates the firing units — launcher 1 or launcher 2,” the NATO officer said. . . . .
11. In the wake of the rhetorical/political firestorm over the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, we note that the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) is front and center in the “investigation” into the event.
The OSCE has told AM it has finally obtained better access on the ground near the site where MH17 was shot down in eastern Ukraine. The spokesman for the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Michael Bociurkiw, says they have seen some remains and bodies stored in refrigerated rail wagons in the town of Tores. He says after the earlier chaos, there’s now greater co-operation but there are still plenty of concerns about getting access for crash investigators and of securing the perimeter of the area 24 hours a day.
12a. We put the quotation marks around “investigation” because the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission is headed by one Michael [“Mykhailo”] Bociurkiw. A Canadian citizen of Ukrainian extraction, he was an assistant editor for the Ukrainian Weekly.
Issues of the periodical available online point to a “pro-OUN/B” bias.
PDF copies of issues are available at their website. This issue appears fairly representative, and manifests a definite anti-OSI, pro Republican Heritage Groups Council bias. (The RHGC is the Nazi/ABN wing of the GOP, discussed at length in FTR #465, among other programs. It heavily overlaps the OUN/B.
A 1987 letter from the World Jewish Congress’ general counsel notes an apparent anti-OSI bias on the part of articles written by Bociurkiw. Note that the Office of Special Investigations was the Justice Department unit charged with investigating Nazi war criminals living the U.S.
The unit was formerly headed by John Loftus, who resigned his position as head of OSI as the Reagan administration was taking office because many of the people he was investiagating held staff positions with Reagan.
Bociurkiw’s position with the OSCE apparently places yet another OUN/B advocate in the mix, charged with “investigating” actions taken by a government inextricably linked with OUN/B heirs such as Swoboda, Pravy Sektor and the Ukrainian National Congress.
February 2, 1987 VIA AIR CANADA FOR DELIVERY 2/3/87
Ms. Janet Bendon
Director of Communications
Canadian Jewish Congress
1590 Avenue Docteur Penfield
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1C5
CANADA
Re: Michael Bociurkiw Dear Janet:
Enclosed, in accordance with your request of this date, is a nearly complete run of The Ukrainian Weekly (Jersey City, N.J.) from Vol. LIII, No. 40 (October 6, 1985) through Vol. LV, No. 4 (January 25, 1987). These 61 issues come from my personal library, and I appreciate your assurance that they will be returned to me by courier at your earliest opportunity.
As I indicated on the phone, Michael Bociurkiw is a frequent contributor to the newspaper. Indeed, one of his articles appears on the front page of the oldest of the enclosed issues (October 6, 1985), under the byline “Mykhailo” Bociurkiw. Vol. LIII, issue no. 50 (December 15, 1985) reports that he has been named Assistant Editor of the newspaper. As you can see, I have made a practice of noting on the front page of each issue those pages which contain articles of interest (which, of course, would include all articles, editorials, opinion pieces, advertisements, etc. regarding Nazi crimes and their perpetrators). Where more than one article of interest appears on a particular page, I generally have noted this fact through the use of parentheticals. I am convinced, by the way, that many of the unbylined “Nazi stories” were penned by Mr. Bociurkiw. In any event, the anti-OSI, anti-Nazi prosecution bias in Bociurkiw’s written output and in the newspaper generally will be readily apparent as you read through the enclosed issues. . . .
Sincerely yours,
Eli M. Rosenbaum
General Counsel
12b. Representative of The Ukrainian Weekly’s pro-OUN/B coverage is this obituary of OUN/B leader Jaroslav Stetsko (also “Stetzko”). Note that the OUN/B is also known as the OUN’s “revolutionary faction.”
Nowhere in this story do you see anything about OUN/B’s murderous collaboration with the Nazis, nor the fascist nature and Third Reich origin of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.
Yaroslav Stetzko, head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (revolutionary faction) and prime minister of Ukraine during World War II, died Saturday at the age of 74 after a prolonged illness. He is survived by his wife Slava, head of the ABN Correspondence. . . .
. . . In February, 1940, following the split in the OUN, Mssrs. Bandera and Stetzko assumed the leadership of the OUN’s revolutionary leadership.
Plans were immediately set in motion to proclaim the establishment of Ukraine’s independence. This was further expanded with other political parties through Mr. Stetzko’s role in the Ukrainian National Committee.
Independence was proclaimed on June 30, 1941, less than two weeks after Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Russian occupied territories. Mssrs. Bandera and Stetzko, the revolutionary leadership and other nationalistic figures were imprisoned in concentration camps by the Nazis. Mr. Stetzko’ s work on behalf of the Ukrainian nation and its independence continued after the war.
In 1947 he was elected chairman of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, which had its roots in the clandestine Conference of Captive Nations convened by General Taras Chuprynka in 1943. Mr. Stetzko served as its only chairman.
In 1968, Mr. Stetzko was elected head of the OUN® central leadership.
Mr. Stetzko’s anti-Communist activity extended beyond Ukrainian affairs. As chairman of the European Freedom Council and a member of the presidium of the World Anti-Communist League. Mr. Stetsko met with international leaders and various statesmen impressing on them the need to wage a freedom campaign on behalf of captive nations.
Among the Western leaders he met were President Ronald Reagan and Vice-President George Bush.
The funeral liturgy was to be offered on Saturday, July 12, at the Ukrainian catholic cathedral in Munich. Burial was to follow at the Walfriedhoff Cemetery.
13. Bociurkiw has networked with a Malaysian Muslim Brotherhood-connected milieu that overlaps the International Institute of Islamic Thought and–by extension–that of the pilot of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
Interestingly and, perhaps significantly, Bociurkiw edited a puff-piece book about Dr. Mahathir Mohammed, a hardline fundamentalist Muslim and–like prominent Malaysian Muslim Brother Anwar Ibrahim–a former Malaysian Prime Minister. Mahathir Mohammed is a raving anti-Semite, as are the OUN/B knock-off groups like Swoboda and Pravy Sektor.
The book is titled: Mahathir: 22Years, 22Voices.
In addition to an introduction written by Michael Bociurkiw, another was written by Abdullah Badawi. Both Mahathir Mohammed and Abdullah Badawi were proteges of Muhammad M. Abdul Rauf, a Malaysian Muslim Brother and a personal student of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan El-Banna.
In turn, Abdul Rauf was very close to the IIIT, one of the organizations raided in the Operation Green Quest Raids of 3/20/2002. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was piloted by Zaharie Shah, a devotee of Anwar Ibrahim, another former Malaysian Prime Minister and prominent Malaysian Muslim Brother. Ibrahim was also a co-founder of the IIIT and a lobbying client of Grover Norquist. Recall that the flight computer on 370 appears to have been re-programmed in the cockpit.
For more about Shah, Ibrahim and the downing of Flight 370, see FTR #790.
Also worth noting is the fact that Rauf has networked with the milieu of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam!
As strange as it might appear to be at first, a jihadist/Nazi link vis a vis Russia is not strange at all. Russia appears to be undergoing a pincers movement, with Western intelligence-connected fascist elements driving East through Ukraine and Western intel-backed jihadists coming from the south.
It should be remembered that there is evidence that Western intelligence elements appear to support jihadists in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus. The IIIT and the El Haramain charity discussed in FTR #381 are linked to Al-Taqwa. The Operation Green Quest raids–with the IIIT at the epicenter of the SAAR network raided in that operation, is inextricably linked to Al-Taqwa and Third Reich intelligence agent Youssef Nada. Al-Taqwa, in turn, dovetails with the Underground Reich in a number of ways.
“Name: Muhammad M. Abdul Rauf”; Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood in America.
SUSPICIOUS AND/OR HOSTILE ACTIVITIES:
- Strongly advocated establishment of sharia law in America
- Established Islamic “trust” controlling land and management of New York Islamic Cultural Center, which employed at least two Egyptian MB imams, that, after 9/11 blamed the atrocities on Israel. One said American would “exterminate” the Jewish people like Hitler if they knew.
- Co-authored book and regularly collaborated with hard line MB leader Ismaʾil R. Al-Faruqi, a mid 1980s co-founder of the Herndon, Va.-based IIIT, long suspected of broadly funding terror.
- Regularly collaborated with IIIT and Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), both among the 29 “friends” listed in the 1991 Mohammed Akram internal MB memorandum outlining secret plans to replace U.S. Constitutional democracy with sharia law.
- Instructed hard-line Islamic leader Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who served as Malaysian prime minister from 2003 to 2009.
- Close associate and friend of former Malaysian prime minister and active anti-Semite Mahathir Mohamad, who in 2002, incited global anti-West financial war as a “jihad worth fighting for.” . . . .
- Rauf also greatly admired the “accomplishments” of American Muslim Society (AMS) founder W. D. Mohammed (Oct. 30, 1933–Sept. 9, 2008), the former Nation of Islam leader who regularly met Muslim Brotherhood leaders, attended their meetings and accepted gifts from their chief donors. In July 1997, Mohammed attended the 22nd annual Islamic Circle of North America convention in Pittsburgh. In 2000 Mohammed joined Muslim Brother and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) general secretary Sayyid Sayeed in welcoming Louis Farrakahn into the “mainstream” of American Sunni Islam.
14. We also note in passing that MH 17 went down with an important group of AIDS researchers on board, viewed by some observers as greatly setting back international AIDS research. Neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor the OUN/B milieu are sympathetic to gays. (The EuroMaidan demonstrations featured the beating of a number of gays, although it received little publicity.)
It is also worth noting in passing that there is disturbing evidence that AIDS was deliberately created. IF any of the now-deceased researchers was aware of, and/or investigating this, that would have provided motive for the Underground Reich elements that appear to have created the disease to dispose of them.
More than 100 AIDS activists, researchers and health workers bound for a major conference in Melbourne were on the Malaysia Airlines flight downed in the Ukraine.
It is believed that delegates to the 20th International AIDS Conference, due to begin on Sunday, will be informed today that 108 of their colleagues and family members died on MH17.
Stunned researchers, activists and development workers arriving at Melbourne Airport paid tribute to AIDS researcher Joep Lange and the other attendees believed killed aboard MH17. . . .
15. Possibly apocryphal under the circumstances, we note the unlikely coincidence of a Dutch cyclist who was booked to fly on both Malaysia Air Flight 370 and MH17. While possible, it is unlikely from an actuarial standpoint. Might there be more to Mr. De Jong than meets the eye? (De Jong, by the way, is one of the most common of Dutch surnames, not unlike “Smith” in English. This would be useful IF he were an operative of some kind.
A Dutch cyclist has revealed how he twice cheated death after changing his plans to fly on both the Malaysia Airlines passenger jets involved in international aviation disasters over the past four months.
Maarten de Jonge, 29, has to travel around the world to compete for Malaysia’s Terengganu cycling team – and in doing so has now had two extraordinary near misses. . . . .
. . . . The cyclist said that he only decided to swap flights at the last minute, after discovering that travelling via Frankfurt today would prove cheaper.Tweeting a link on Thursday to a Dutch article about the MH17 disaster, De Jonge said: “Had I departed today, then…”
During his interview with the local broadcaster, the cyclist revealed something even more remarkable – that he had also been planning to travel on flight MH370, the Malaysia jet which vanished on 8 March and which remains missing somewhere in the Indian Ocean. . . .
It sounds like Australia’s plan to send in armed police the MH17 crash site has been rejected for being too risky. That’s probably for the best given the intense battles being waged near the crash site:
You have to wonder what international police force that hasn’t been able to reach the crash site for days due to heavy fighting think about comments like:
bon appetit
http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140731/NEWS08/307310070/German-officer-serve-U-S-Army-Europe-s-chief-staff
German officer to serve as U.S. Army Europe’s chief of staff
Jul. 31, 2014 — 02:38PM |
67 Comments
Gen. Markus Laubenthal is the first German officer to be assigned to U.S. Army Europe. He is the command’s new chief of staff.
Gen. Markus Laubenthal is the first German officer to be assigned to U.S. Army Europe. He is the command’s new chief of staff. (U.S. Army Europe)
By Jim Tice
Staff report
FILED UNDER
News
World News
A German Army brigadier general who recently served with NATO forces in Afghanistan is assuming duties as the chief of staff of U. S. Army Europe, the first time a non-American officer has held that position.
Brig. Gen. Markus Laubenthal, most recently the commander of Germany’s 12th Panzer Brigade in Amberg, and chief of staff of Regional Command North, International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan, will be stationed at USAREUR headquarters, Wiesbaden, Germany. He could report to duty as early as Monday.
Laubenthal also has served as military assistant to the deputy commander of operations and assistant chief of staff of operations for NATO forces in Kosovo.
As the major staff assistant to USAREUR commander Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell, Laubenthal will synchronize the command’s staff activities much as American predecessors have in the past.
“This is a bold and major step forward in USAREUR’s commitment to operating in a multinational environment with our German allies,” said Campbell.
“U. S. and German senior military leaders have been serving together in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan for years. Sustaining the shared capability from this experience will benefit both the U. S. and German armies,” said Campbell who has headed the Army’s largest and oldest overseas command since 2012.
Will a secret “land for gas” deal between Merkel and Putin end the conflict in Ukraine? We’ll see:
Since the first critical part of the plan requires Russia end all financial and military support for the rebels in exchange for greater federalism and more powers for the east, but there’s no apparent provision for an end the Kiev government to end its attempts to militarily defeat the rebels, it seems like the key factor in this whole plan is going be the rebels. If they accept that deal and a peace treaty is agreed upon, well, that could be the path forward. But if the rebels don’t accept the plan and the bloody urban war continues or escalates or turns into a massacre, it’s kind of hard to imagine the Russian’s populace standing by given the enormous domestic support given to Putin’s policies towards Ukraine so far. But at least it’s something other than the current madness so hopefully something useful can emerge from these dealings.
Also, it should be interesting to see what kind of deal Dmity Firtash works out in the gas-sharing negotiations and the Ukrainian public’s response. Really really really interesting.
This is disturbing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9SOVarOFJk
FWIW, Berlin is officially rejecting the reports of the secret ‘land for gas’ deal that was secretly getting negotiated between Merkel and Putin:
In other news, the Ukrainian parliament rejected Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s recent resignation, so it sounds like he’s going to be staying on, but the collapse of the governing coalition is still in effect which will allow for the call of snap elections if a new coalition can’t be formed by August 24th. So Yatsenyuk is probably staying, but it remains to be seen if a big shake up in the Kiev parliament is still on the agenda:
The de-Nazification of the public images of Ukraine’s volunteer battalion just got an interesting boost from Newsweek. There’s a new interview of the Swedish neo-Nazi who joined the Azov Battalion last year, Mikael Skillt. It’s a long article with a great deal of detail about Skillt’s experiences on the battlfield. And the take away message of it all? War made Skillt a better person after serving with jews and arabs and blacks, and he’s totally not a neo-Nazi at all:
Meet the new and improved Mikael Skillt! He’s so new and improved and might run for parliament!
Huh, so 17 months of death and conflict allegedly knocked the Nazism out of the guy. Well, it’s possible. Stranger things have happened. But, of course, it’s also quite possible that this is all public relations BS as a result of the US government singling out Azov as a neo-Nazi-infested unit that can’t receive US support.
Either way, it’s too bad that the Skillt’s alleged war-induced ideological mellowing hasn’t happened more often throughout history. Especially around 70 years ago. That would have been really nice.
Igor Mosiychuk, the neo-Nazi and former Azov battalion second in command who was elected to parliament last year, probably isn’t going to be in parliament much longer:
Robert Parry has a new piece on the recent Dutch report on the MH17 shootdown. It turns out the “Dutch-led investigation was perhaps compromised by a central role given to the Ukrainian government which apparently had the power to veto what was included in the report.” And as Parry point out, it also turns out critical US intelligence that could purportedly pinpoint the site of the missile launch didn’t make it into the report:
“As for the missile’s firing location, the Dutch report said the launch spot could have been anywhere within a 320-square-kilometer area in eastern Ukraine, making it hard to determine whether the firing location was controlled by the rebels or government forces. Given the fluidity of the frontlines in July 2014 – and the fact that heavy fighting was occurring to the north – it might even have been possible for a mobile missile launcher to slip from one side to the other along the southern front.”
Here’s something to keep in mind as the conflict in Ukraine continues to simmer: Until there’s a meaningful peaceful resolution that actually results in the kind of situation where the conflict isn’t just deescalated but finally demilitarized too, we aren’t just going to hear a lot more stories about neo-Nazis and other foreign fighters flowing into Ukraine. We’re also going to hear about those same kinds of groups taking weapons and explosives out of Ukraine:
“M6’s sources said he admitted planning attacks on French territory.”
Keep in mind that, with France gripped with fear over Islamist terror attacks and Marine Le Pen the likeliest beneficiary in the 2017’s elections, if there is another attack, there’s no reason to assume the French far-right group wouldn’t have to actual claimed responsibility for whatever this guy was planning. They could just bomb something and everyone would assume it’s ISIS or al Qaeda, who would probably claim credit anyway. Or maybe they were planning on selling the weapons to local jihadists. Who knows. But with 2017 primed to big a historic political year for France’s far-right due in large part to public fears of Islamist terror attacks and identity politics fueled by a flood of Muslim refugees, this report is a big reminder that 2017 a number of groups are going to ensure that 2017 is an extra crazy year for France.
Also recall that the foreign extremists operating in Ukraine who might be on the lookout for large amounts of TNT for sale aren’t limited to neo-Nazis.
Here’s some more on the French neo-Nazi’s arms procurement activities in Ukraine: Ukraine’s SBU states that capture man claims he was planning to attack the Euro 2016 games, mosques and synagogues to protest France’s immigration policies and globalization. The SBU also state he admitted to planning on carrying out as many as 15 attacks before and during the Euro 2016 games which start on June 10th and run through July 10th. The SBU claims he purchased the weapons from Ukraine’s Eastern separatists. And while it’s possible that he really was planning a large number of attacks that would be attributed to the French far-right’s grievances, he was obviously making these purchases on behalf of a large number of neo-Nazis if that’s the case when you consider that 20 balaclavas were included in his purchase in addition to the large numbers of weapons and explosives.
But as the article below also notes, it sounds like the French authorities aren’t fully sold on the theories the SBU is putting forward and are still considering the possibility that he was simply planning on selling the weapons on the black market. And that’s probably a possibility that really can’t be ruled out since selling those weapons to, say, French jihadis and letting the jihadis carrying out attacks instead of the neo-Nazis would accomplish essentially the same neo-Nazi goal of provoking sectarian conflicts.
At the same time, if this individual really was planning on selling the weapons and explosives on the black market and came up with terror plans as a cover story, whoever he was planning on selling those weapons to must have been some pretty awful individuals for the “I’m planning 15 terror attacks” story to be worth peddling as a cover story. Assuming the story is real.
So, as is often the case with these kinds of investigations, there’s more questions than answers, although we can be pretty sure that whatever the answer are they’re profoundly unpleasant answers:
“French terror expert Jean-Charles Brisard told The Local on Monday that the details of the plot were worrying but said the French counter terrorist authorities will not underestimate the terror threat from the extreme right.”
Yeah, considering that would be a completely insane for French counter terror authorities to underestimate the national security threat posed by the extreme right in a country where the extreme right is so popular it’s poised to win the French presidency next year, we can probably be pretty confident that French counter terror authorities will not underestimate the terror threat from the extreme right. At least for another year.