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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnd the plot thickens. Who's behind regime change in Ukraine.
Just hours after last weekends ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyars newest hires at national security blog The Intercept, was already digging for the truth.
Marcy Wheeler, who is the new sites senior policy analyst, speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a coup engineered by deep forces on behalf of Pax Americana:
<snip>
Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed coup, but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.
But thats not the shocking part.
Whats shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the dark deep force acting on behalf of Pax Americana).
Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwalds government-bashing blog,The Intercept, co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine.
Step out of the shadows
. Wheelers boss, Pierre Omidyar.
http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/
Berlum
(7,044 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Last edited Mon Mar 3, 2014, 10:20 AM - Edit history (1)
MattSh
(3,714 posts)Not particularly competent, but democratically elected.
Do progressives do that nowadays?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)If there's money to be made at the expense of others, leave it to the wealthy to find a way.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)The leader of UNA-UNSO, Andriy Shkil, ten years ago became an adviser to Julia Tymoshenko. UNA-UNSO, during the US-instigated 2003-2004 Orange Revolution, backed pro-NATO candidate Viktor Yushchenko against his pro-Russian opponent, Yanukovich. UNA-UNSO members provided security for the supporters of Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko on Independence Square in Kiev in 2003-4.[4]
UNA-UNSO is also reported to have close ties to the German National Democratic Party (NDP). [5]
Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the crack-para-military UNA-UNSO members have been behind every revolt against Russian influence. The one connecting thread in their violent campaigns is always anti-Russia. The organization, according to veteran US intelligence sources, is part of a secret NATO GLADIO organization, and not a Ukraine nationalist group as portrayed in western media. [6]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37803.htm#
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Link to it found at the end of the OP's Pando article, marked "Update".
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/01/journalistic-independence/
I read both articles but still don't have any conclusions to draw from them, as I don't know enough about this Ukranian/Russian cast of characters yet. But GG's points ring true to me as far as they go.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)Ordinary, run of the mill Ukrainians who were sick of corruption and meddling by its larger neighbor.
This was not a military coup. This was a street level revolution. And covertly facilitating a street level revolution involving thousands upon thousands of protesters is essentially an impossible task. So cut the conspiracy crap.
And frankly, if some force in the US wanted to enact regime change in Ukraine, knowing the response from Russia that everyone knew was coming, why would they have waited until after the Sochi games had begun? There would have been nothing more embarrassing to Russia than another major boycott of its Olympic games.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)On the morning of 8 August, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was in Beijing attending the 2008 Summer Olympics, condemned the Georgian government for aggression and breaking the Olympic truce, and that Russia would be compelled to retaliate.[91] By 09:30, President Medvedev convened an emergency session of government officials to consider Russias options regarding the conflict.[92]
...
After the opening ceremonies in Beijing for the Olympics, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said to U.S. President George W. Bush that a real war had begun in Ossetia, to which Bush replied that no one wanted war, and Putin added that it is difficult to maintain peace in the Caucasus.[115]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_war
MattSh
(3,714 posts)A military coup generally requires that the military be used.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)It's a lot easier to buy off member's of a country's military than an entire populist opposition movement. Which makes your claim that western forces were at work buying off protesters extremely dubious.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)a.k.a. the usual neocon suspects -- and not, it appears, the Obama administration.
p.s.thanks for posting this MattSh
yurbud
(39,405 posts)Remember the revolution we had over NAFTA? The burning buildings, the barricades, the blood in the streets?
Or the near apocalyptic violence shaking our society over the TPP?
Obama does seem to have strong ties to some of these tech billionaires - but I don't see what he gets out of it. Possibly owns stock in certain oil companies? (Ukraine has reserves) That's all I can come up with.