Fall of Slavyansk, End of Iraq ?

      The Fall of Slavyansk, Balkanization in Iraq


   The Ukrainian Civil war entered a new phase with the withdrawal of forces from Salvyansk. The Self Defense Forces were forced to abandon the Heroic city whose example in resisting the coup regime helped inspire the birth of Novorossiya, It was a massive Symbolic defeat despite representing a tactical victory as Colonel Strelkov managed to break out of encirclement and escape with his men. Unfortunately it also means that the brave citizens of Slavyansk now live under fascist occupation and the murder of known sympathizers has already begun. In fact the true horror of the kiev regime was recently revealed in a series of hacked face book messages showing That the regime have taken the idea of profiting from war to gruesome new levels. If genuine the Facebook messages show Failed Presidential candidate Yulia "Nuke Em" Timoshenko's lawyer Segey Vlasenko acting as a middleman between German Surgeon Olga Wieber and Ukrainian military who agreed (for a cut) to harvest and sell the organs of their fallen troops to Germany. There rich germans were willing to pay black market prices for black-market organs. Meanwhile in Iraq the attempt at balkanization became all too apparent as America offered no real assistance while calling for Maliki to step down as if he was the new Assad.
    Slavyansk: now is the time to record the story of the brave resistance of what is known as the Heroic city. Arriving with only 20 light armed men Colonel Strelkov managed to wage an effective guerrilla campaign for months which saw his forces grow through volunteers who armed themselves through a series of battlefield victories. Thus they were able to hold this small town of 25,000 people with a few hundred volunteers agains a 15,000 strong Ukrainian army and the fascist national guard.  Unfortunately the Ukrainian army was able to seize a nearby mountain position from which they could bombard the region targeting mainly the civilian population hoping to turn them against the Self defense forces. They waged a long campaign of destruction continuing to bombard the city despite a supposed cease Fire. The internet was awash in the images of carnage houses destroyed and a steady stream of dead men, women and children victims of Ukraine's supposed democratic regime. But what the west condemns in Syria it simply ignores in Ukraine even though it's on it's own doorstep. Syria is fighting for it's life against brutal western backed terrorists who hold the population hostage. Ukraine on the other hand is fighting a war against people whose only crime is not wishing to be second class citizens in a neo-liberal fascist laboratory of the future. The Self Defense forces are trying to protect not terrorize the populace. In Ukraine the government is out to terrorize it's own populace. Yet the west condemns the regime battling terrorists and applauds the terrorist regime  in Kiev. The self defense forces managed to carry out a number of successful attacks eliminating fascist death squads and Capturing and killing hundreds of Ukrainian army troops. However the town was slowly encircled and the bombardment of civilians continually escalated. Colonel Strelkov decided to make a surprise withdrawal. An armored group gave their lives distracting the Ukrainian army while the towns defenders escaped with their families and many of their supporters. Unfortunately the town a symbol of freedom around the world has now fallen under occupation. The regime tried to stage a transparent propaganda stunt by bribing townspeople to pose with with the same troops that had been indiscriminately firing at them with Artillery, aircraft, and rocket trucks only the day before. Embarrassingly they were photographed handing out the cash and the images somehow made it out despite the communications blackout. More accurate are the reports of townspeople greeting their occupiers with shouts of "Fascists." Already there are reports of summary executions executions of people who aided the self defense forces. We can only hope that the city of Slavyansk does not go from being a symbol of resistance to the site of yet another fascist war crime like Odessa. The world is watching and waiting to see what will happen. Donetsk has become the new center of resistance and the resistance are bracing for yet another siege. The hope is that with the aid of the experienced veterans of the siege of Slavyansk they will be able to mount a more effective defense of Donetsk. Their only hope is to delay the fascists long enough for the regime to either collapse or be forced into a genuine negotiation. I should mention that hilariously CNN reported that Slavyansk was in Crimea and that the reconquest of Crimea had begun.  Incompetence or transparent propaganda? At this point it seems that an attack on Crimea would be the only thing capable of bringing the Russians into this war. After all they've even turned a blind eye to Ukraine shelling of Russian boarder Station. But of course they unlike the geographers at CNN (who have made a string of strange mistakes like this) know that Slavyansk is not in Crimea.
    Alternative media site Slavyangard run by Gleb Bazov known to Vineyard of the Saker readers like myself for his beautiful translations has broken two shocking stories recently. A hacked series of Facebook messages revealing that the oligarchs are profiting from the war by selling harvested organs on the black market. You'd think after all the embarrassing leaks earlier in the year they would learn to be careful what they said on the phone or in emails. After all Yulia Tymoshenko herself already was revealed to the world as a genocidal madwoman when her phone calls were hacked and released to the public. She was caught threatening to nuke ethnic Ukraine and Russia itself boasting she would use her international connections to start world war 3. Then she loudly wished she had a machine gun so she could assassinate Vladimir Putin. Despite that fact her lawyer decided to carry out Black Market Organ selling over FaceBook of all things. Ah the arrogance of sheer impunity since their imperial patrons in the US and the EU have clearly given them the green light to do whatever is necessary to crush all resistance and the Media have taken their cue and decided to pretend the whole thing isn't happening the Kiev regime have decided to use their impunity to make some bloodstained dollars. Sergey Vlasenko Yulia Tymoshenko's lawyer used his connections to find commanders willing to harvest the organs of the troops they lost in battle they may also have been harvesting organs of civilians or pows. After all the lawyer was under constant pressure to find the freshest possible organs and was constantly pressuring commandeers like Semyon Semenchencko who lead a fascist national guard force notorious for war crimes. At the very least they cynically profited from the often disastrous campaign. It's symptomatic of our whole sick world blood flows but so does the cash. I'm reminded of notorious Nicaraguan Dictator Somoza who for years made a fortune literally selling the blood of his people to America. Vampire capitalism at it's finest. For the Kiev regime every fallen soldier is a potential source of profit. Perhaps they were inspired by fellow NATO freedom fighters the KLA in Kosovo who also engaged in Black Market Organ selling as well as selling captured women into prostitution and dominating the flow of Heroin into Europe and the US. So long as a group serves western interest it can do whatever it wants on the side to make a buck which explains the long association of the CIA with the international drug trade. One day the CIA will change it's motto to "why choose the lesser evil." Their current one is absolutely hilarious "the truth will set you free."
    While the Oligarchs are making money from the bodies of their fallen troops Kiev continues under the reign of fascists bands. Just as the west has granted the Kiev regime impunity the kiev regime has granted the fascists impunity. The result has been a long series of violent attacks on their critics, ethnic Russians, historical sites, Synagogues etc. Kiev is beginning  to resemble the dystopian future of the clockwork orange where gangs of fascist youth go out looking for a bit of the old ultra-violence.  In Their latest escapade caught on security cam they swarm an LGBT club perform a few random acts of violence after forcing their way in and then flee it all takes less then a minute. More terrifying still is the account of some refugees from kiev who have recently arrived in Moscow and claim

  A: Kiev has become a scary place to live in, Sasha. For half a year now, people have been divided into two classes: those in masks are permitted to do anything they want, and, for that reason, they think themselves entitled to dictate their demands to everyone else. Moreover, they do not care who is in front of them; they dictate even to the elected president how and what to do.

These are youths, with sticks and guns, who are very well informed and they can find anything they want about their victim: where he lives, where he works, who his wife is, which kindergarten his kids attend. Since February, thousands of people have disappeared in our city. And everyone keeps silent about it; they are all intimidated and afraid. At any time, bandits in masks can show up at your door, and there is no control over them, not by police, not by the leadership of the city or the country. If you are in a mask – you are Über-Ukrainian; if you are without one – you are second class, regardless of whether you are Ukrainian or Russian.

     A terrifying description of life under fascism. I can't help but think of the iconic image floating around twitter fascists wearing deaths heads masks and SS T-shirts. And since I'm cutting and Pasting read this heartbreaking account from the same article the words of an orphan of Slavyansk. Again credit goes to Slavyangard for this information (see sources below)

This message was sent by a girl from Slavyansk to a LifeNews journalist, Ermina Kotandzhyan (@JustErmina). They became acquainted in Slavyansk.

Hello, how are you? That’s it Ermina, you won’t believe, but we have surrendered Slavyansk, we no longer have this city, and we are now in Donetsk … This is hot it is, many of guys died, and there were many wounded. My area, where I lived, was almost completely destroyed, together with my parents. So now I am homeless. I am an orphan with my sister; I managed to get her out – she is 9 years old. I don’t even know what to tell the child, that she now has no father, no mother, no grandma, no uncle … It’s only me left …

     Clearly the people of Ukraine are caught between two terrible fates. If they do not resist they will be terrorized by fascist mobs and if they do resist they will be terrorized by the army and fascist national guard units. Only time will tell whether the occupation of the city of Slavyansk  will prove even worse then the brutal siege. There is no telling how long this war may last.

    The Geopolitics of Iraq became even clearer as the US called for Maliki to step down. They showed their hand clearly since if they had any genuine concern over ISIL aka ISIS aka IS they would not be worried about Maliki's petty sins but would be demanding he centralize power and restore order. Here Ukraine provides the perfect contrast the west certainly isn't asking Poroshenko to step down or to negotiate. Instead it has demanded that he crack down even making the IMF loans contingent on his maintaining Ukraine's territorial integrity. In Iraq on the other hand the US is already playing out their regime change handbook demanding Maliki step down. The Central government must either choose a more suitably pliable ruler or say good bye to it's territorial integrity. The likely candidates show that the US has learned nothing. The names floating around even include the infamous conman Achmed Chalabi I call him that not because of his role in selling the idea that Iraqis would greet their invasion and occupation with shouts of joy, or that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, after all he was just repeating the neo-con talking points. Instead I refer to the little mentioned fact that he was wanted for fraud. They've also tried to reinstall old favorite Iyad Allawi who Iraqis call Sadham Without the mustache throughout the war the US hoped to install him as a new dictator but he was always too unpopular. Other names for possible replacements include Abdel Abdul Mahdi famous for his efforts to sell off the nations oil on favorable terms to the west and Bayan Jaber former head of the Badr brigade death squads. Maliki however has refused to resign since whatever his failings he did get the most votes.
   Meanwhile the mainstream press is entirely too gleeful Time magazine ran the Cover the end of Iraq? Wishful thinking, I'm sure they wish they could wipe the whole troublesome country off the map and out of the history books. But despite Thirty years of western scheming despite 3 wars and a  genocidal sanctions program Iraq survives. While the US only pretended to offer help Russia and Iran both offered real support. Calls from powerful clerics like the reclusive Ayatollah Sistani and the fiery Moqtada Al Sadr have caused a rush of volunteers who have stabilized the situation and the government has slowly gone on the offensive. In time they may be able to reconquer the ISIL held territories especially as the local population is bound to increasingly turn against ISIL. They are already carrying out their trade mark war crimes attacking Shia and Sunni Holy sites and massacring civilians. They are also already battling some of their supposed allies.  Meanwhile the government is already bombing the terrorists with Iranian supplied jets. Kurdistan is taking full advantage of the situation seizing the long coveted Kirkuk. Still the American's have supposedly told them that the time for independence has not yet come. If the Iraqi government succeeds in recapturing the ISIL territories or even before they finish we could see a war between the central government and the already practically defacto autonomous Kurdistan. Tensions have simmered for years between the two sides as the Kurds have attempted to grant oil concessions without the permission of the central government. The situation could further explode but for the moment Maliki still has a good chance of keeping Iraq's territorial integrity intact. Certainly he is fully aware of the treachery of the US and their longstanding plans adopted under Israeli influence to split Iraq into three separate parts. After all  vice president Biden himself announced such a plan in 2008. Iranian president Rouhani decided not to play along with the American fiction that ISIL is acting independently pointing out that it was long supported in Syria by the US and it's NATO GCC, and Israeli allies. After all Iran was the original target of the redirection the year was 2006 and just as today the US blames Russia for destabilizing Ukraine rather then their color revolution installing Oligarchs and Fascist's who openly called for genocide against the Russian speaking minority. It was the same way Back in 2006 the US blamed the chaos in Iraq not on it's invasion occupation and covert dirty war aimed at starting a civil war. Instead they blamed the Iranians even going to the absurd length of blaming them for being behind the Sunni resistance in the Anbar province and even Al Qaeda itself. That was when the US began it's campaign to bribe the Sunni resistance and began to direct it towards destabilizing Lebanon and later Syria. These are the origins of ISIL. Of course being neighbors of Afghanistan and possessing a good intelligence service Iran has doubtless followed closely every step of the creation and evolution of so called al Qaeda from the start. Thus disgusted by this attempt to Balkanize Iraq and remove the democratically elected Maliki from power, Iran openly accused the US of being behind the whole thing and refused to go along with the polite fiction that the US is the enemy not the ally of groups like ISIL. Putin has also thrown his support behind Maliki and if he holds onto power Iraq could become even more a part of the Arc of resistance and may become a future ally of Russia China and Iran. How ironic it would be if this attempt to balkanize Iraq instead ended with Iraq and Iran more securely allied to Russia and China. This is what comes of having foreign policy directed by neo-cons whose specialty is creating mythology not doing analysis how wonderful it would be to see the realists howls of rage on the day Iraq and Iran join the CSTO or the SCO. These are the Collective Security treaty organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization respectively the first is a Russia security alliance the other a Chinese economic alliance. Thus this latest pivot in US foreign policy could be disastrous in terms of the Great game in the long term. Just as the Ukraine crisis only further cemented ties between Russia and China another of Zbigniew Brzezinki's nightmares along with Iran pushed permanently into an alliance with Russia. No wonder his book strategic vision is full of warnings about Neo-Conservative meddling in US Foreign policy. If Maliki manages to survive and win the civil war the attempt to balkanize Iraq could backfire, just like the failed color revolution in then ally Uzbekistan pushed them back into the arms of Russia.
   While Slavyansk has fallen Donetsk has become the seat for the decisive phase of the Ukrainian civil war. Unfortunately they face overwhelming odds. Their only real hope is for the people of western Ukraine to rebel against this bloody and senseless war and the brutal Austerity measures that are about to go into effect. Russia seems determined not to intervene. Meanwhile Baghdad of course did not fall as even certain areas of the city could single handedly have wiped out ISIL had they been foolish enough to venture into say Sadr City. Maliki's Iraq may be able to survive intact. The US may end up pushing Iraq into the arms of Russia and China.

Sources
Slavyangard is a great site definitely recommended for those following the Ukraine crisis it's here

 http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com

The black market organ sale story is here

http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/hacked-facebook-correspondence-indicates-a-burgeoning-trade-in-organs-of-ukrainian-soldiers/

The qoutes were from this great article three stories from the front


http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/three-stories-from-the-front-july-5-6-2014/

And on the fall of Slavyansk there is this

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/polkovnik-colonel-strelkov.html

And this instant classic from the resistance

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/forgive-us-for-not-dying-in-slavyansk.html

Eric Draitser did a great article on why the west doesn't like Maliki who is often presented superficially as an american puppet rather then someone trying to balance the interests of the US Iran and Iraq.

 http://journal-neo.org/2014/07/03/the-strange-case-of-nouri-al-maliki/

He also made a great appearance on one of my favorite podcasts Bulletpoints

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/occupydclive/2014/07/03/bulletpoints-wnavid-nasr-7-2-14

And here is a great recent interview with Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya on the situation in Iraq

http://syria360.wordpress.com/2014/07/01/mahdi-darius-nazemroaya-deconstructs-us-false-picture-of-the-middle-east/

And the wit and wisdom of Pepe Escobar on Iraq

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-03-020714.html

Check MindFriedo's updates regularly for the daily news from Iraq they appear on Vineyard of the Saker which also provides great info on Ukraine.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk