Russia's Actions In Ukraine Conflict An 'Invasion', Says US Official (Nuland)

[Purveyor]

Source: Guardian UK

Alan Yuhas in Washington
Wednesday 4 March 2015 16.12 EST



Assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland has admitted the US considers Russia’s actions in Ukraine “an invasion”, in what may be the first time a senior American official has used the term to describe a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people.

Speaking before the House committee on foreign affairs, Nuland was asked by representative Brian Higgins about Russia’s support of rebels in eastern Ukraine, through weapons, heavy armor, money and soldiers: “In practical terms does that constitute an invasion?”

Nuland at first replied that “we have made clear that Russia is responsible for fielding this war,” until pressed by Higgins to answer “yes or no” whether it constitutes an invasion.

“We have used that word in the past, yes,” Nuland said, apparently marking the first time a senior official has allowed the term in reference to Russia’s interference in eastern Ukraine, and not simply its continued occupation of the Crimean peninsula.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/04/victoria-nuland-russia-actions-ukraine-invasion

[uhnope]

1. not exactly a stretch. Russian soldiers, arms and equipment have all been involved in the invasion

Not sure why "Nuland" was added to the headline. A dog whistle to the Ukraine Nuland Cookies conspiracy theorists?

[Scootaloo]

2. Maybe because it's her name?

Keep checking for reds under your bed though.

[uhnope]

3. um, it's from the TOS

Use the published title of the story as the title of the discussion thread.

Editorial additions are not the norm.

G.A.L.

[newthinking]

35. LOLOLOL. YOU saying that. You alter entire stories, not just titles

Me thinks thou does protest too much. Especially given your track record.

[uhnope]

40. blow your stack much?

following around my posts, posting nonsense.

I know these are hard days for admirers of Putin, but stay calm & don't worry. The outlook is very good for fascism in Russia.

[newthinking]

41. Naw

Just could not pass up on the irony of what you said...

[LanternWaste]

52. Mirrors often illustrate an even more accurate irony.

Mirrors often illustrate an even more accurate irony. Though I imagine a distinction without a difference will be quickly rationalized...

[uhnope]

58. here's some info to avoid that stupid mistake again

at least in this particular way. Here's the TOS for LBN: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=about&forum=1014

It's only in LBN that there is this rule for titles & headlines. In all other forums, posters can make any title they want.

I know this might be confusing for a defender of Putin, given the destruction of the free press and the encouragement of Tea-Party-like thinking in the populace there, but DU has a rule for news forum that it doesn't have for other forums.

[Bosonic]

4. The LBN rules are you have to reproduce the title verbatim

I suppose it could have changed since it was posted (that has happened to me)

Also his/her link is broken,

it should be http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/04/victoria-nuland-russia-actions-ukraine-invasion

[JonLP24]

6. You're allowed to add (--)

That have been part of the LBN rules ever since I started posting in this forum.

[Purveyor]

7. When it helps define the headline, you are correct.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. But obviously you did post it as a dogwhistle, since it was unnecessary

You didn't bother specifying which lab was involved here, for instance: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141029443

'Defining' the headline is normally only done when it's ambiguous without it - when it's not clear which country is being talked about, and it's from a foreign source, for instance.

To the normal public, the interest in this story is that a US official has used the term 'invasion'. To the Nuland-obsessed band on DU, anything mentioning her is a Big Revelation of Nefarious Goings-On. But I'm sure they'll appreciate the heads-up.

[LanternWaste]

53. How precisely, does the addition help better "define" an already accurate headline?

How precisely, does the addition help better "define" an already accurate headline?

[Bosonic]

8. Please indicate where that is in the rules, I can't seem to find it.

[JonLP24]

9. I posted articles in this very forum recently with a (---)

DU2 forum rules regarding LBN indicated that was OK and it seems to have rollover because everytime I've done that it wasn't locked. Alert on the OP, if it is locked then you're right.

[Bosonic]

10. I'm not bothered, merely interested...

[forest444]

16. Bingo. This is the same woman caught boasting about spending $5 bn to install these neo-Nazis.

"We (by which she meant the the U.S. taxpayer) have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals." She went to explain how "our man Yatz" (right-wing economist Arseny Yatsenyuk) should be used as a figurehead to help disguise the extremist nature of the new Ukrainian government.

Straight from the horse's mouth:

She's a smart woman, and I know she didn't seriously think Putin would just sit by and let her install a Svoboda (Nazi) regime next door to Russia.

[Scootaloo]

17. You know Svoboda's not in charge of Ukraine, right?

[forest444]

20. Yes and no.

They spearheaded the unrest that led to regime change last year and were in fact part of the Rada Coalition in the early months of the Poroshenko tenure. The Nuland recording and her subsequent Senate testimony, moreover, revealed that she knew how influential (Svoboda leader) Oleg Tyahnbok was (particularly among the Ukrainian armed forces) and that concealing this would be key to the naming of any Yatsenyuk cabinet.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

30. You called it a "Svoboda regime" when you knew it wasn't. nt

[forest444]

31. Hold on. Svoboda may have moved to the back seat,

but they're still manning the wheel. They spearheaded regime change (courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer) and were the keystone in the ruling Rada coalition during its early months. Svoboda itself left the Rada coalition in July on paper; but Svoboda leaders like its cofounder Andriy Parubiy, the similarly Nazi Patriots of Ukraine, and the even more extreme Pravy Sektor still very much hold the balance of power in Kiev. Parubiy in fact became the strongman in the right-wing People's Front, whose titular head is none other than the Prime Minister ("Yats&quot . This is all the more so because they also retain control of the Ukrainian armed forces - which given the state of siege currently prevailing in Ukraine, effectively gives them the last word in Ukrainian governance.

So the next time a State Department official - and a Bush holdover at that - presumes to blow $5 billion in taxpayer funds with zero oversight, it might behoove us as informed voters to at least ask whether or not we're creating a monster.

Next door to Russia, no less.

[newthinking]

39. Yep, and they are still prominant, but camoflauged. The current government was a minority and

could never keep power without joining with them.

I think that is also why they have seemed conflicted about granting the east federalization. That would provide the east safety from the heavy hand of an extreme government while allowing them back in to vote. The regime needs to continually disenfranchise much of the country to stay in power.

[snooper2]

54. you guys really don't know what you are talking about

[newthinking]

64. Yah right

If you want to claim better knowledge then you will have to have lived in the region. I have relatives there and took a sabbatical and lived in Ukraine. I know that the narrative is full of bullshit. I was familiar with the parties there and politics before most here even could find Ukraine on the map. The FACT is the parties in power were minorities and and even the more "moderate" faction was as nasty as the tea party Republicans. They **had** to take power by force, they could not risk waiting for an election because they knew they could never win.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

46. Right Sector received 0.7% in the presidential election and 1.8% in the parliamentary election.

And you are trying to tell me that they along with with Svoboda (1.2% presidential /4.7% parliamentary) "hold the balance of power" in Ukraine? As well as the "Nazi Patriots of Ukraine" who I see no evidence whatsoever of participating in elections?

You're grasping for straws here, as evidenced by your attempt to frame Yatsenyuk as some sort of fascist right-winger, as well as you continuing to repeat the $5 billion lie even after you've been called out on it.

[forest444]

61. That's ok. While you're playing checkers, they're playing chess.

Svoboda doesn't just wave Nazi flags and sing Stepan Bandera's praises in the Rada; the pretend to "leave" the coalition and then put their co-founders and other leaders in key posts within (Prime Minister) Yats' "moderately" right-wing People's Front. They, the 'Patriots of Ukraine', and other overt Nazis like the Pravy Sektor also control the military, which of course gives them the run of the country in times like these. You'd have to grasp at straws to not see that they very much hold the reins in Ukraine.

As for the $5 billion, well, Vicky Nuland's voice (Mrs. Robert Kagan, of Iraq War fame) speaks eloquently enough for itself.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

65. Do you have any names?

An honest question there.

Parubiy doesn't count, since he left Svoboda eleven years ago and hasn't been back since.

A good read on the far right's political decline in Ukraine:

http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.com/2014/10/ukraines-parliamentary-elections-and.html

Where did Svoboda's former electorate go? I presume that more moderate voters went back to the national-democratic forces, such as the People’s Front or Samopomich. Part of Svoboda's former electorate apparently went to the Right Sector and Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party. The inclusion of these two parties into the far right category is tentative. As a political party, the Right Sector is ideologically quite different from the movement under the same name that was formed during the 2014 revolution; the party is less radical than the movement, so I suggest the term "national conservative" as a more relevant one. Lyashko's Radical Party is dangerously populist and a typical anti-establishment force. However, both the Right Sector and Lyashko's Radical Party have extreme right members, but they are a minority. In contrast to Lyashko's Radical Party, the Right Sector will not be able to enter the parliament, but its leader Dmytro Yarosh will most likely be elected in one of the single-member districts.

As for the $5 billion argument that you have made, do you have any evidence that $5 billion was appropriated by the US government in late 2013/early 2014 for the express purpose of overthrowing the Ukrainian government, or would you agree that figure refers to a two-decade plus period of NGO investment in Ukraine?

[LanternWaste]

55. That's a very creative and imaginative allegation.

"Svoboda may have moved to the back seat, but they're still manning the wheel."

That's a very creative and imaginative allegation.

[forest444]

57. And, unfortunately, true.

They control both the military (which, in a wartime state of siege such as the one Ukraine is in, effectively gives them the run of the country), and the "moderate" right-wing People's Front (that would be Yats' party) to which many migrated to camouflage themselves.

[newthinking]

36. It's worse than that. Many leaders folded into the "People's front"

Last edited Thu Mar 5, 2015, 04:13 AM - Edit history (2)

And many were voted in their respective districts.

I have posted about this before. The MSM refuses to post what is really going on in Ukraine. Instead they post what this guy says:

This is who our press gets their information from: Yuri Michalchyshyn, a Svoboda leader (Neo-Nazi group)

You just can't make this stuff up. Simply amazing that we print what his organization claims.

This is the head of propaganda and analysis of the Ukraine Security Service. And people believe and propagate what they claim?

(Also, the new head of Kiev Police is Vadim Troyan, who was deputy commander of the neo-nazi Azov Regiment and active member of the neo-nazi paramilitary organization Patriot of Ukraine.)


From a the Guardian UK paper in 2012:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/02/euro-2012-antisemitic-football

Svoboda's leaders admire proto-Nazis such as Ernst Jünger, and are "understanding" of Goebbels. They speak of "purity of blood" and Ukraine as "one race, one nation, one fatherland".

"We are against diversity," says Yuri Michalchyshyn, the party's media-savvy young propagandist. "Ukraine is for Ukrainians." But the truth is Ukraine as a pure-blooded nation-state is more an idea than a historical fact.



pic of the head of propaganda and analysis of the Ukraine Security Service


No Kidding! This march was organized by Michalchyshyn

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/120329/ukraine-svoboda-nationalist-party-nazi-echoes-hitler-pt-2?page=full

What the hell are people doing supporting and using reporting that comes from these guys?????


Amazing things are happening in Ukraine but instead of reporting the truth our media just parrots the propaganda line coming out of the country.

[newthinking]

37. oops accidently added the same info twice

Last edited Thu Mar 5, 2015, 12:00 AM - Edit history (2)

[newthinking]

38. Right Sector did not win 5% (Many moved to other parties),but the leaders won in districts instead

Last edited Thu Mar 5, 2015, 12:06 AM - Edit history (1)

The leaders (commanders) of Right Sector won in their districts (whole districts support neo nazis?)

Where is our Tabloid media? This is an incredible interest story???

Here is one of them in their own "promotional video" (seriously, they think this makes them look good)

[Tommy_Carcetti]

28. Yeah, about that.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/

Misinformation is misinformationy.

[forest444]

33. Yeah, I'll say its misinformationy.

It can make otherwise intelligent people believe that something that came from the horse's mouth, in a lengthy, high-level conversation about and only about regime change, wasn't referring to regime change. Right.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

45. Did you actually read the contents in the link?

Because if you did, you would clearly see the proper context of the $5 billion quote.

The way you folks want us to see it, sometime in late 2013 or early 2014, President Obama funneled in $5 billion for some secret plan to overthrow the Ukrainian government.

In fact, the $5 billion figure refers to over 20 years of investment by NGOs in Ukraine since its independence, a time period spanning four US presidents and five Ukrainian presidents.

I'm not a big fan of Nuland, but the way you guys talk about her, you think she'd be able to move oceans with the simple bite of a cookie.

[Pooka Fey]

47. "Fuck the E.U." says Victoria Nuland.

"Midwife this thing" was another juicy quote. Wow. Thank goodness for whistle blowers.

[JonLP24]

5. She has 0% credibility on this issue

[Bugenhagen]

43. I can't believe she still has that job

Not only is she amazingly prone to gaffes, she's as ignorant as a brick.

I also find it funny that the article title sounds like she made some strong declaration, but the quote was actually pretty weak. I think a defense lawyer could get it struck for leading the witness.

[Nye Bevan]

11. Yeah, when one country sends its army into another country, uninvited,

that's usually what it's called.

[Scootaloo]

18. Really, I thought it was called "liberation"

I've even been told it's called "self-determination"

I guess it depends on who's getting invaded and who's doing hte invading.

[Octafish]

23. Operation Enduring Franchise

[Fred Sanders]

13. Leaving incompetent Nuland in place to guide Kiev to it's current disaster was a stroke of genius.

[Blue_Tires]

14. About time someone started calling it for what it is...

[Demeter]

15. Why hasn't this woman been fired yet?

[Comrade Grumpy]

19. We liberate, they invade. n/t

[geek tragedy]

21. Did anyone at this website refer to the 2003 Iraq war as "liberating" Iraq? nt

[elias49]

24. Did anyone refer to 2015 Ukraine/Russia as an invasion?

Oh yeah. Victoria Nuland.

[geek tragedy]

25. Lots of people in unofficial positions have referred to it as an invasion.

The reason people in official positions have not referred to it that way is that if you call something an invasion, that typically means something needs to be done about it.

And our government would prefer to do as little as possible about an erratic nuclear power invading its neighbors.

[elias49]

26. But now that an assistant sec of state HAS called it an invasion...?

and she is an 'official', are we compelled to do something?
Or should she go away?
One or the other. It sucks all around.

[geek tragedy]

27. She needs to work on her deflecting skills nt

[Octafish]

22. Wolfowitz's PNAC Chums are busy at work in Ukraine.

Wars for Wall Street and Big Oil are so Buy Partisan.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

29. I believe her name is actually Virginia Nuland.

Somebody better tell The Guardian.

[Purveyor]

32. Uh nope. It is Victoria.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

44. Are you sure? I'm pretty certain it's Virginia Nuland.

That's what someone on DU told me, and I'll trust her any day over anyone from Corporate McMedia.

[magical thyme]

50. you're joking, right?

Victoria Jane Nuland (born 1961) is the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State.

Whoa...just noticed this:
Nuland’s husband is the Robert Kagan, an American historian and foreign-policy commentator at the Brookings Institution. Kagan founded the Neo-Con 'Project for the New American Century' think tank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland

the neocons didn't return. they never effing left.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

51. Sure, if you consider that a reputable source.

Myself? I get my news exclusively from replies to longwinded posts by Octafish.

[DonCoquixote]

34. I am no fan of Putin

But it the long, long list of people that needed to get thrown out of the Obama Adminsitation, this one is high on the list.

[bemildred]

42. Ah, the Cookie Monster comes out to speak to us, to tell us what to think. nt

[Annoying_Ashley]

48. We invaded Iraq and many other countries nt

[magical thyme]

49. Whereas the US invasion is only just beginning.

[NuclearDem]

56. Yes, because responding to a country's wishes for assistance

is the same thing as occupying and annexing parts of the same country much against that government's will.

You nailed it.

[magical thyme]

60. because responding to a puppet-government's request for assistance

is the same as assisting the people that live there, who voted 90% to rejoin their former country after their elected government was overthrown in an American cookie-backed coup.

[NuclearDem]

62. I can't tell if you're actually being serious or not.

That post was so full of ridiculous Kremlin talking points I can't tell if you're actually arguing those points or just taking the piss out of them.

[uhnope]

59. lol what else does Putin want us to think?

[yurbud]

63. can we have an actual opposition foreign policy instead of two versions of the same one?