A collection of snippets and links I've accumulated which provide a framework for my understanding of what the war in Ukraine is really about, particularly the role of the US beginning with the 2014 Maidan coup and the ideologies driving the conflict from the Ukrainian/NATO side.

NATO and global Western leadership

Lord Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General.famously said that NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” And in fact, a number of the political analysts I've been reading and listening to have observed that the sanctions imposed on Russia were also aimed at destroying the highly industrialized German economy to weaken Germany. German industry leaders have repeatedly warned that complying with the sanctions would collapse the economy, which depends on the cheap oil and gas it buys from Russia. There is no other source or combination of sources that can fulfill Germany's domestic and production needs.

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The question that has plagued many of us is why would Western leaders be so determined on actions that will negatively impact their own economies and subject their populations to supply shortages, inflationary prices, etc.? I think Robert Barnes has it right. In a discussion with Alex Christoforu and Alexander Mercouris of the Duran starting at about 45:15, Barnes mentions two books that are now on my must-read list: Managerial Class on Trial by Richard McConkey (2021); and The Revolt of the Elites and The Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch (1996).

To paraphrase Barnes:

People ask why is this gap between the political class and the populations of all these countries. Lasch in the 1990s said it's because the new elites are not loyal to country, they're loyal to a globalist superstructure. These people see nations as a tool, not a people or society to protect or an economy to develop but rather as a means to institute a globalist project that's not rooted in nationhood or national identity or national loyalty.

You can see the unity in the neocons of the 80s (who started in the 60s) with the neoliberals who rose up in the 90s, they came up under the same globalist umbrella, personified by two people - Victoria Nuland and Hillary Clinton. So how does Obama put Dick Cheney's staffer (Nuland) in charge of Ukrainian policy that got us here? The bridge is Hillary. She united the neocon and neoliberal wings that mostly care about a globallist superstructure; you see it reflected most in economic policy, both support NAFTA and China joining the WTO, things they knew would devastate the American manufacturing base.

Read their twitter threads, these people are in a bubble. The political class is completely removed and it creates dangerous problems. It's like the political class of the WWI empires that all collapsed after WWI. The Hapsburgs had ruled for something like 600 years; the Russian empire, several centuries; the Ottoman Empire, six centuries; they all collapsed. And if you go back and read what they were writing at the time, none of them saw it coming. It's the same thing now with the political classes.

The increasingly pervasive influence of disturbing ideologies - Straussians, Neocons and Ukraine's Nazi problem

Russia declares war on the Straussians: This piece by French journalist/political consultant Thierry Meyssan is a must-read for understanding the full political and historical context of the war in Ukraine and some key players. Below are some excerpts but the article goes into much more detail.

At dawn on February 24, Russian forces entered Ukraine en masse. According to President Vladimir Putin, speaking on television at the time, this special operation was the beginning of his country’s response to “those who aspire to world domination” and who are advancing Nato’s infrastructure to his country’s doorstep. During this long speech, he summarized how NATO destroyed Yugoslavia without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council, even bombing Belgrade in 1999. Then he perused the destruction of the United States in the Middle East, in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Only after this lengthy presentation did he announce that he had sent his troops to Ukraine with the dual mission of destroying the Nato-linked armed forces and ending the Nato armed neo-Nazi groups.

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President Putin’s speech was not directed against Ukraine, or even against the United States, but explicitly against “those who aspire to world domination”, i.e. against the “Straussians” in the US power structure. It was a real declaration of war against them.

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Let us stop for a moment to consider this group, the Straussians, about whom Westerners know little. They are individuals, all Jewish, but by no means representative of either American Jews or of Jewish communities worldwide. They were formed by the German philosopher Leo Strauss, who took refuge in the United States during the rise of Nazism and became a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago...He explained to them that the only way for the Jews not to fall victim to a new genocide was to form their own dictatorship. He called them Hoplites (the soldiers of Sparta) and sent them to disrupt the courts of his rivals. Finally, he taught them discretion and praised the “noble lie”. Although he died in 1973, his student fraternity continued.

The Straussians began forming a political group half a century ago, in 1972. They were all members of Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s staff, including Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. They worked closely with a group of Trotskyite journalists, also Jewish, who had met at the City College of New York and edited the magazine Commentary. Both groups were closely linked to the CIA, but also, thanks to Perle’s father-in-law Albert Wohlstetter (the US military strategist), to the Rand Corporation (the think tank of the military-industrial complex). Many of these young people intermarried until they formed a compact group of about 100 people.

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It is important to understand that these groups are neither truly left nor right wing. Some members have switched five times from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party and back again. What is important to them is to infiltrate power, whatever the ideology.

The Straussians were removed from power during Bill Clinton’s term. They then entered the Washington think tanks. In 1992, William Kristol and Robert Kagan (the husband of Victoria Nuland, widely quoted in the previous articles) published an article in Foreign Affairs deploring President Clinton’s timid foreign policy and calling for a renewal of “benevolent global hegemony” [5]. The following year they founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) at the American Enterprise Institute. [More on the PNAC below]

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In the Obama administration, the Straussians found their way into Vice President Joe Biden’s cabinet. His National Security Advisor, Jacob Sullivan, played a central role in organizing the operations against Libya, Syria and Myanmar, while another of his advisors, Antony Blinken, focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

Regime change in Kiev in 2014 was organized by the Straussians. Vice President Biden is firmly committed to it. Victoria Nuland came to support the neo-Nazi elements of the Right Sector and to supervise the Israeli “Delta” commando [11] in Maidan Square. A telephone intercept reveals her wish to “fuck the European Union” (sic) in the tradition of the 1992 Wolfowitz report. But the leaders of the European Union do not understand and protest only weakly [12].

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Sullivan and Blinken relied on mafia godfather Ihor Kolomoysky, the country’s third largest fortune. Although he is Jewish, he financed the heavyweights of the Right Sector, a neo-Nazi organization that works for NATO and fought in Maidan Square during the “regime change”.

Since Joe Biden returned to the White House, this time as President of the United States, the Straussians have been running the show. “Jake” Sullivan is National Security Advisor, while Antony Blinken is Secretary of State with Victoria Nuland at his side. As I have reported in previous articles, she went to Moscow in October 2021 and threatens (sic) to crush Russia’s economy if it ded (sic) not comply. This was the beginning of the current crisis.

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... Nuland resurrected Dmitro Yarosh and imposed him on President Zelinsky, a television actor protected by Ihor Kolomoysky. On November 2, 2021, he appointed him special advisor to the head of the army, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The latter, a true democrat, rebelled at first and finally accepted. When questioned by the press about this astonishing duo, he refused to answer and mentioned a question of national security. Yarosh gave his full support to the “white führer”, Colonel Andrey Biletsky, and his Azov Battalion. This copy of the SS Das Reich division has been staffed since the summer of 2021 by American mercenaries formerly from Blackwater [13].

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...if the responsibility for the current events lies with the Straussians, all those who let them act without flinching also have a responsibility. Starting with Germany and France, who signed the Minsk Agreements seven years ago and did nothing to ensure that they were implemented, and then with the fifty or so states that signed the OSCE declarations prohibiting the extension of Nato east of the Oder-Neisse line and did nothing. Only Israel, which has just got rid of the revisionist Zionists, has expressed a nuanced position on these events.

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Ultra-nationalist Ukrainian battalion gears up for more fighting - 2015

The Azov battalion originated from Biletsky’s paramilitary national socialist group called “Patriot of Ukraine”, which propagated slogans of white supremacy, racial purity, the need for authoritarian power and a centralized national economy.

But, since Azov was enrolled as a regiment of Ukraine’s National Guard in September and started receiving increased supplies of heavy arms, Biletsky has toned down his rhetoric.

Most of “Patriot of Ukraine” websites are now down or under restricted access. He denied Azov’s symbol was a reference to Nazism, saying it was rather a Ukrainian nationalist symbol.

He [Biletsky] has since been elected to the Ukrainian parliament, riding a wave of an increased nationalist sentiment in Ukraine triggered by the war.

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Profile: Ukraine's ultra-nationalist Right Sector - Apr 2014

Dmytro Yarosh calls himself a follower of Stepan Bandera, a nationalist leader who fought Polish and Soviet rule in the 1930s and 1940s but is seen in Russia and eastern Ukraine as a Nazi collaborator.

The nationalist Svoboda party - also a significant player in the Maidan protests - now has three powerful posts in the interim government: acting chief prosecutor, deputy prime minister and chairman of the National Security Council.

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Dmytro Yarosh:

On November 2, 2021, Yarosh said on social media he had been appointed Adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi.[37] In response to a (December 2021) request by Ukrayinska Pravda the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine refused to disclose details of its alleged cooperation with Yarosh citing the confidentiality of the information requested.[38] Prior to this request the (army) post of public advisers had been dissolved and Yarosh had thus been dismissed from his post.[38].

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Project for the New American Century

According to Source Watch:

PNAC's policy document, "Rebuilding America's Defences," openly advocated for total global military domination. Many PNAC members held highest-level positions in the George W. Bush administration. The Project was an initiative of the New Citizenship Project (501c3).

Note: the linked document is no longer available but there are no doubt copies floating around out there as many people downloaded it in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Unsurprisingly, signatories of this policy read like a Who's Who of the neocon club, including a number of people who served in Bush 2's administration - Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfield, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton - or otherwise have unsavory foreign policy reputations, like the repulsive Elliott Abrams. Bush 2 was not a signatory but his brother Jeb was.

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From ABC News, 2006: Were 1998 Memos a Blueprint for War?:

The group, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.

In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year, the group called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" and a shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam.

And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

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Hundreds in Ukraine attend marches celebrating Nazi SS soldiers - May 2021

Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Ukrainian Jews, who according to a 2020 demographic study number about 47,000, have protested the veneration of the 1st Galician and other collaborators. But the collaborators’ popularity has soared following the 2014 war with Russia.

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Ukrainian Official Changes Tune on 'Unacceptable' March Honoring SS Unit - May 2021

The Kyiv march was an import from the western city of Lviv, which for several years has hosted such events. It was held just under four months after an annual parade celebrating the 112th birthday of OUN leader Stepan Bandera. According to historians, Bandera’s followers engaged in a wide-ranging campaign of ethnic cleansing against Jews and Poles during the World War II.

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Overextending and Unbalancing Russia - 2019:

This brief summarizes a report that comprehensively examines nonviolent, cost-imposing options that the United States and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress—overextend and unbalance—Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime's political standing at home and abroad.

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Fact Checking the Fact Checkers: Why Does Ukraine Seem to Have So Many Nazis Nowadays? - Mar 2022

In one breath we hear the counter, how can there be Nazis in Ukraine when there is a Jewish President calling the shots? In another breath we hear Facebook is now allowing users to praise the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion while they are fighting Russians. In yet another breath we hear, well its complicated, Ukrainian Nationalism should be considered at the forefront of any debate, even if it overlaps with Nazi ideology.

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On Feb. 27, 2022, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland held a scarf bearing the slogan “Slava Ukraini,” meaning “Glory to Ukraine,” with the “Blood and Soil” colors of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) (who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and massacred thousands of Jews and Poles). [More information and photo here].

Not irrelevant in all of this is the fact that Freeland’s grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper during WWII in Galacia and that she is indeed aware of this and apparently unapologetic. Whenever she is questioned about this, she does not deny anything, but simply blames such a focus of inquiry on Russian disinformation with the intent to “destabilize Western democracies”.

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Interestingly, it was the Canadian newspaper “The Globe and Mail” who reported this story, titled “Freeland knew her grandfather was editor of Nazi newspaper,” thus, not a Russian publication last time I checked. And upon whom did they base such information? None other than Freeland’s own uncle, John-Paul Himka, who is now professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.

Then there is the strange case of NATO tweeting in celebration of international women’s day, this past March 8, a picture of a female Ukrainian soldier wearing the Black Sun symbol which is tied to Nazi occultism, and Satanism. NATO wrote in their post “All women and girls must live free and equal,” sending a very mixed message. NATO also ended up taking down their picture of the Black Sun symbol.

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On Feb. 7, 2014, a leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland (then Assistant Secretary of State) and Geoffrey Pyatt (then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine) spread like wildfire. It was exposed that after Yanukovych was ousted from government, it was the government of the United States that was caught selecting the membership of what would form the new government of Ukraine, as if they were building their own sport’s team.

Nuland, not one to shy away from unflattering spotlight, has again made headlines...On March 7, Nuland testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where she did not deny that Ukraine possesses “chemical or biological weapons” and acknowledged on public record that “uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities.”

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What did not make the headlines with equal vigour is what Nuland did after her failed diplomatic visit to Russia this past October, which was according to French journalist Thierry Meyssan, to “impose” Yarosh onto President Zelensky. On Nov. 2, 2021, President Zelensky appointed Dmytro Yarosh (leader of the Right Sector 2013-2015) as Adviser to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Nuland is of Ukrainian Jewish descent, thus her ongoing support for neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian government and military since 2014 is disturbing on multiple levels.

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Right Sector has close connections with Trident (Tryzub)) and Patriot of Ukraine. All three groups are right-wing nationalist, neo-Nazi, paramilitary movements as well as political parties. Look it up for yourself, not even Wikipedia is denying this. Yarosh was the leader of Tryzub starting in 2005. Tryzub led to the formation of the Right Sector, to which Yarosh was also leader of between 2013-2015 and continues to have a great deal of influence on all these groupings.

(Doing some minor edits as I find typos)