Posted on 05/19/2014 10:49:48 AM PDT by No One Special
I conducted three interviews in recent days about the struggle for freedom in Ukraine, Venezuela and Romania. From writer and political analyst Sammy Eppel, I learned how the Communists are coping with powerful opposition forces in Venezuela. I also spoke, once again, with Ukrainian activist Boris Chykulay who updated me on events in Ukraine and offered his analysis; and I interviewed Anca-Marie Cernea, who was kind enough to explain the Ukraine crisis as seen from Romania – a country which struggles, even now, to break its old Communist shackles.
But first, before offering choice bits from these interviews, I would like to touch upon the anti-Ukrainian and anti-American propaganda put out by the Russian media. The lies which flood the Russian air waves are beyond anything we have seen in recent years. Russian television viewers are exposed to a mind-bending barrage of distortions which are effectively preparing the country for war. As a recent article on the Economist.com has pointed out, “Russians have been subjected to an intense, aggressive and blunt disinformation campaign in which they were bombarded by images of violence, chaos and fascism in Ukraine, sinister plotting by the West and evidence of Russia’s strength and nobility in response.” Since these words were written Russian broadcasts have grown even coarser and more routine. It is worth remembering, as well, how Kremlin media czar Dmitry Kiselyov, on Russian TV Channel 1, spoke of why Obama’s hair might turn gray after phoning President Putin. “Russia is the only country in the world that really can turn the USA into radioactive ash,” said Kiselyov. Such braggadocio coupled with sly allusions to Obama’s weakness, does indeed suggest that Russia’s intention is to invade Eastern Ukraine. Why else would such nonsense appear on Russian TV? The need for public support in any aggressive military confrontation is well understood in the Kremlin, and fully appreciated by the Russian generals.
As Soviet strategic literature has always taught, the most important pre-war preparation is the psychological preparation of the populace. In Chapter 7 of Marshal V.D. Sokolovskii’s classic text, Soviet Military Strategy, we read that “victory in war is quite unthinkable without thorough and timely preparation of the country and armed forces.” Sokolovskii’s text further states, “The political preparation of the morale of the people is of decisive importance … since the use of weapons of mass destruction in a war imposes exceptionally high and unprecedented demands on the political morale of the population.” It therefore goes without saying that the population must be taught “love of the motherland.” At the same time, the United States must be blamed for plotting Russia’s destruction. As the text of Soviet Military Strategy explains, “Hatred of the enemy should arouse the desire to destroy the armed forces and military-industrial potential of the aggressor and achieve complete victory in a just war.”
Given increasing tensions in Eastern Europe, I asked Romanian writer and analyst Anca-Maria Cernea to comment on Russia’s strategic jockeying along the Ukraine-Romania border region. I further asked if Romanians are afraid of Russia. In response, she described the Russian position in Transnistria, which “is mostly inhabited by ethnic Russians, and extremely militarized.” In addition, noted Cernea, “The 14th Russian Army is stationed there, although over the last two decades the Russian government repeatedly promised to withdraw it. Transnistria is a kind of Russian-controlled enclave, a para-state, obviously following the same scenario as Abkhazia [in relation to Georgia], South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh.” Cernea underscored the fact that “these mechanisms were already working long before Putin came to power in Russia. Furthermore, provocations in Transnistria claimed hundreds of lives in the 1990s.”
The fact that Transnistria was historically Ukrainian territory has not caused the slightest embarrassment for Moscow; neither has NATO demanded an explanation for Russia’s continued military presence there. In fact, the Russian invasion of Crimea was not the first instance of Moscow taking a chunk out of Ukraine. And for those who think Russian rule isn’t such a bad thing, we should consider the plight of ethnic Romanians living in Transnistria, described by Cernea as follows: “their existence is an uninterrupted sequence of terror and humiliation….”
As Cernea points out, it is in Romania’s interest, as it must be in the world’s interest, “that Russia does not manage to rebuild the Soviet Empire and its sphere of influence. Russia without Ukraine cannot be an empire. It is in Romania’s vital interest that our neighbors manage to repel the Russian invasion. [Also], Romania needs Ukraine in the EU … not in the Eurasian Union or whatever name they choose for the new Russian empire.”
“Recently,” she continued, “in the Russian Duma, Vladimir Zhirinovsky addressed a proposal to Poland, Hungary and Romania to take back parts of Ukraine that had historically belonged to our countries. In spite of the fact that all of these three countries are now governed by politicians connected with Moscow in different ways, their official response was negative. They all affirmed they supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
Offers to divvy up Ukrainian territory do not stop there. Russian commandos, united with local criminal gangs, have stirred up separatists in Eastern Ukraine. There has been killing, and there is more to come. On Sunday I spoke with Researcher and lustration advocate Boris Chykulay, who explained the mentality of Russia’s leaders in the following way: “These guys in the Russian government don’t think about the future. They were poor boys once, and they know what poverty is. So they are ready to fight against the whole world and do not think about consequences. The sanctions for them are nothing. They are playing a game, and sanctions are something they accept. To save private property, or some tradition, normal people will shrink from war. But these people in Russia don’t even care if Moscow is reduced to the size of a village by sanctions. They live as if they’re in a dramatic film, as if on a drug. This is the way it was under the Soviet Union, and it’s still like that.”
About the Russian media blitz, Chykulay said, “I don’t have a television because I hate Russian TV, and I have seen some short clips on the Internet, and I have relatives who watch Russian television. When I visit them I watch a bit, and see this propaganda. They are trying to make people into zombies with messages that begin early in the morning and continue until late at night. It is very hard to discuss these issues with those who watch and accept Russian television. I have a friend who is a film director who lived in Prague when I did, and in 2004 he went to Moscow where he was invited to produce a TV series. He did a number of series that were popular. He said that all scripts must go through the FSB/KGB. They will put notes on pages of the script, asking, “Where is the portrait of Putin? Where is the Russian flag? Where is the old war veteran?” They wanted naïve scripts, into which they could insert propaganda. They started doing this from early 2000. It’s a huge investment. It is more money than Google and Facebook put together. So you ask if they are afraid of sanctions. No, they have something bad in mind.”
Something bad is always on their mind, and Ukraine is not their only victim. During my Thursday interview with Venezuelan journalist and political analyst Sammy Eppel I caught a glimpse of America’s future – in the collapse of Venezuela at the hands of the Communists. Venezuela is being systematically destroyed, right here in the Western Hemisphere – under the very nose of the United States. “For Russia Venezuela is a big client for armaments,” said Eppel. “China has sent some weaponry, for example, trainer jets and pilots. For this the Chinese get oil in exchange. Right now Venezuela has agreed for the next ten years to give nearly half of its export production – one million barrels of oil a day – to China for which China has already paid. And that’s where the problem comes in. China got a fixed price, and a very good price, around half the going rate.”
After describing the process whereby the Communist’s stole elections in Venezuela using electronic voting machines, Eppel said, “I’m going to tell you how they will do it in this country [i.e., America]. The moment Chavez realized that electronic voting was the wave of the future, he established a company here in the United States. It is called Smartmatic, and it has 20 percent of the voting machines in this country under their control. This is a Venezuelan government company. That sort of thing should be prohibited. But they say, ‘No, this is just free enterprise.’ This is the company that has been running all the Venezuelan elections for the last 15 years, and they are going to be winning elections here, where elections are won or lost by 2 percent of the vote. So, mathematically you don’t have to manipulate very much.”
Across the board, wherever you look, the Empire of Lies is advancing. With military enclaves in places like Transnistria and colonies like Venezuela, and front companies like Smartmatic, one cannot help thinking that we are losing at a dangerous game because we haven’t yet admitted that the game is real. Well, it is real and we'd better wake up before it's too late.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Electronic voting machines virutally guarentees that USA vote is tranformed into whatever the programs true owners want it be.
Yup. I’m convinced that voting is a waste of effort. The solution to our problems will not be found in the ballot box.
I remember a show on the SciFi channel called “Eureka”. A town filled with egg heads. They were holding an election for mayor, and the sheriff responsible for overseeing the voting, was astounded to learn that they used paper ballots. The reply was that around there, too many people were able to hack the machines.
I vote, but we need _major_ changes to get rid of what I strongly believe is _massive_ voter fraud.
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