The situation in Ukraine goes from bad to worse with increasing numbers of deaths, with the latest consisting of the authorities in Kiev killing pro-Russian separatists. Today comes reports that there have been dozens of further deaths in addition to the dozens killed over the weekend, though the details are still sketchy.
As Justin Raimondo observed yesterday even before the latest deaths, the way the US government and western media treat the deaths of protestors at the hands of governments the US supports and the way it does when the government is an official US enemy is like night and day.
The murder of at least 38 people in the city of Odessa in the midst of Kiev’s “anti-terrorist” offensive last Friday revealed the true face of the fascist regime that has seized power in Kiev – and the Western media is doing everything it can to cover up the truth.
…The USA Today headline read: “Fire Kills 31 in Odessa.” But did the fire kill them – or was it the people who set the fire? And let’s go back to Howard Amos’ tweets to find out exactly who is fighting on the front lines on the pro-Kiev side: why it’s Right Sector! They’re leading the crowd, just as they did on Friday.
Right Sector is the violent neo-Nazi group that served as the Kiev coup leaders’ shock troops as they took over Ukraine’s capital city and drove Yanukovich and his supporters out. Their Fuehrer, Dymtro Yorash, is a fascist ideologue who recently announced he was moving the group’s headquarters to east Ukraine – the scene of recent fighting between pro-coup and pro-Russian factions.
By all accounts, the local police – under Kiev’s command – did nothing as the pro-Kiev crowd danced in the streets while the building burned. It took the fire department an hour to get to the scene.
Imagine if the roles had been reversed, with the pro-Russians outside the building and the pro-Kiev “activists” inside. John Kerry would be apoplectic with rage, threatening Russia with military force. Nicholas Kristof would be demanding the bombing of Moscow, and the neocons would be comparing it to China’s Tiananmen Square massacre.
Instead, what we hear from these folks is … nothing. Silence. Evasion. Ambiguity. Anything but the truth.
This is Kiev’s Waco – and a perfect analogy it is, indeed. Here we have a group of people – pro-Russian Ukrainians – who have been so demonized in the Western media that this mass murder is being framed as if the victims deserved it.
Ukraine seems to be falling apart.
Well, they’re killing the pro-russian separatists for occupying buildings, just like they did before they were the government.
Hypocrisy is the main product of government, when it’s not producing wholesale carnage.
Compared to the Russian atrocities in Chechnya and their aggression in Georgia, this is pretty small beer.
It’s not just the US, it’s western media in general. It makes me suspect that there is some sort of racism of Russians going on.
2# great i guess it’s fine to burn people alive then. American aggression in Vietnam makes bombing London ok too? Since Russian speakers in the Ukraine can be burned because of Russian hostilities elsewhere i guess English speakers in the UK can pay for the deaths from some other conflicts involving English speakers? You Fail in both logic and humanity.
Ukraine seems to be
fallinggetting torn apart.ftfy
Dammit, when the US has a surplus of hypocrisy we have to ship it out somewhere!
the authorities in Kiev killing pro-Russian separatists
Those “separatists” kidnap and torture people, use women as human shields, persecute gypsies and shoot down helicopters with anti-tank missiles. I think they deserve to be called what they are: terrorists.
By the way, be very careful with your news sources. There is no free press in Russia anymore; Putin has a full-scale propaganda machine instead. Recently he awarded three hundred journalists with medals for “objective coverage of Crimea” (HUH?)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/05/vladimir-putin-pro-kremlin-journalists-medals-objective-crimea
@2colnago80
So how big does the body count have to be before it gets condemned.Going by your previous comments regarding Israeli aggression the Palestinian body count has to be 6 million before that happens.Whats the number here? And does the Type of death get taken into account? Eg does being shot trump being burned alive.
As usual, the vile colnago80@2 justifies an atrocity by comparing it with a larger atrocity.
Those guys of Right Sector aren’t really nice, but the other side doesn’t deserve our support either:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpDw3NdVlYg
Google Irma Krat and Axel Schneider OSCE.
But yeah, I would appreciate it if the USA stayed out of the conflict. The irritating habit of reducing and simplifying every single conflict to a white hat good guy vs. black hat bad guy western starring John Wayne, something which both MS and Justin Raymondo at one hand and the American government are guilty of, is not likely to help.
@ Mano Singham : What do you think the USA or wider West should actually do here though?
@7. tiko : “.. Israeli aggression ..”
Would that Israeli “aggression” be when they responded to Hamas firing rockets indiscriminately into their cities or are you going further back to all those wars the Arab side started when they decided just after the Shoah -- and constantly since -- that they were going to exterminate a tiny Jewish state in what has always been Jewish Land including land the Jewish people paid a high price in money,sweat and lives for?
Or do you mean the “aggression” Israel showed by withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria (sometimes incorrectly called the West Bank) on a number of occasions and withdrawing after signing a peace treaty with Sadat -- just before his murder by Islamic extremists -- from the Sinai peninsula?
Or the “aggression” shown by Israel in offering the Palestinians and Syrians and other Arabs numerous staggeringly generous peace treaties time after time and following endless wars and intifadas and homicide-suicide bomber and Quassam rocket terrorist campaigns all of which the Arabs started each time with Israel’s genocide intended and openly crowed about in bloodthirsty anticipation on the Arab side?
Or maybe, just maybe, in light of historical reality vs Israel bashing rhetoric we should conclude that you -- like almost all of Israel’s critics -- don’t actually know what the word “aggression “means?
Hint :It isn’t defending yourself or others from being attacked. It isn’t taking out terrorist leaders whilst trying to minimise collateral damage and it isn’t building a security fence to again, protect your innocent civilians from being blown up on their buses or marketplaces or restaurants.
Fact -- Israel are not the aggressors here. They’re the defenders. Israel are the good guys not the bad and anyone with an actual understanding of their history and the facts knows it.
@ ^ See also and feel free to respond tiko &y’all here :
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2014/05/07/is-israel-more-like-apartheid-south-africa-or-colonial-algeria/#comment-2033793
on a more relevant on-topic thread.
“what has always been Jewish Land ”
oh StevoR, I don’t think the Cannaanites, Edomites, Moabites, etc would agree with that.
@11StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!
I was responding to colnago80 usual rhetoric that every conflict is black and white,that there is a good side and a bad side and nothing else and once the the right side has been picked anything they do is excusable, no matter how inhumane.
tiko @#14,
Your comment applies equally to StevoR since like colnago80 he too has advocated the use of nuclear and conventional weapons on entire populations, as long as the government of Israel views them as enemies.
It is an utterly horrific sentiment.
Thanks for the link Mano. Maybe I’ve read StevesR’s comments before and due to the similarities in opinion not taken much notice of the name. Assuming incorrectly that there couldn’t be two war happy commenter’s on the same blog.