Saturday, October 21, 2017

Robert Bridge - Why Vladimir Putin Deserves a Nobel Peace Prize (Seriously)

For many years, and despite all evidence to the contrary, the Western media has forwarded the inane idea that Vladimir Putin ranks in the same club with some of history's most loathsome creatures, up to and including Hitler.

The reality is that the Russian leader has done more to promote the cause of global peace and security than any other Western leader in recent times. That explains why he is the object of such intense scorn

Does Putin deserve a Nobel Peace Prize just because it was the West, and not Russia, to blame for the Ukrainian crisis? No, but the story does not end there. Although Western media continue to regurgitate the delusional psycho-babble of a 'Russian invasion' of Ukrainian territory, such wild conspiracy theories have never been documented by a single legitimate photograph or satellite image. Or are we now expected to believe Russia owns invisible tanks and artillery, too? The reality is not so complicated: it was the Americans who launched their own Ukraine invasion in the early stages of the protests that only served to fan the flames of discontent. And yes, there is proof.

Victoria Nuland, for example, was photographed on the streets of Kiev, happily handing out cookies to anti-government participants, some of them outright fascists who eventually went on to fill top positions in the new government.

As Mearsheimer argued: "The new government in Kiev was pro-Western and anti-Russian to the core, and it contained four high-ranking members who could legitimately be labeled neo-fascists."

And the political intrigue went far beyond stale pastries. In a leaked phone call with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Nuland mentioned Arseniy Yatsenyuk as a candidate to lead the Ukrainian government. Was anybody surprised when Yatsenyuk became prime minister on February 27? In the course of that famous phone call, Nuland also expressed some incredibly candid sentiments toward America's foremost ally when she remarked, “F*ck the EU”. 

Meanwhile, US Senator John McCain, Washington's preeminent hawk, also crashed the party in Kiev at the height of tension, agitating the anti-government protesters in Independence Square by telling them "the destiny you seek lies in Europe.”

It should be remembered that no Russian politician had the sheer audacity to show up anywhere in Ukraine to tell the people where their destiny was to be found.

As the Western media continued to spin the mythical yarn of a "Russian invasion", the Kremlin was working assiduously to clean up the mess in Ukraine caused by many decades of behind-the-scenes horseplay, much of it seeded by foreign-backed NGOs and assorted think tanks. Putin played a significant role in mediating and bringing together the leaders of Ukraine, Germany, and France to ratify the Minsk Agreements (Feb. 11, 2015) designed to end the violence in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Despite international recognition of the demands set down by Minsk (which include the "immediate and full ceasefire in particular districts of Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts of Ukraine and... Pullout of all heavy weapons by both sides to equal distance with the aim of the creation of a security zone on minimum 50 kilometers (31 miles)..."), there have been numerous reports of gross violations.

Last month, Putin called for a UN peacekeeping mission to be sent to the war-torn eastern regions of Ukraine. The peacekeepers would be deployed on the demarcation line to protect the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] mission, which monitors the ceasefire between the government forces and rebels.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel embraced the idea, urging member states to “openly discuss with the Russian Federation the conditions of a UN mission.” Washington and Kiev, however, flat out rejected the proposal.

No comments: