Between The Lines - Eric Draitser: U.S. News Media's Coverage of Ukraine Crisis Paints False Simplistic Picture of Good vs. Evil (Week Ending March 7, 2014)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

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Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

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Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

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Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

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SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

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SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
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SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

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SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

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Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

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2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

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U.S. News Media's Coverage of Ukraine Crisis Paints False Picture of Good vs. Evil

Posted Feb. 26, 2014

Interview with Eric Draitser, independent geo-political analyst and founder of the StopImperialism.org, conducted by Scott Harris

Following a three month occupation of Independence Square in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, escalating street battles between protesters and police resulted in more than 85 deaths. The violence and loss of life, which grew out of opposition to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's abandonment of a proposed trade deal with the European Union, brought down the government and sent the deposed president, who now faces charges of mass murder, into hiding.

Ukraine, now close to bankruptcy and with nearly $73 billion in debt, is a divided nation with half the population in the western region identifying with Europe, while Ukrainians in the east and south have closer cultural and linguistic ties to Russia. After President Yanukovych secured a $15 billion bailout deal with Moscow in December, protests escalated. Now with Russian aid suspended, and opposition parties trying to form a new government before elections in May, Ukraine’s new leaders are seeking $35 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund, the EU and U.S., but that funding, if provided, will come with unpopular strings attached in the form of harsh austerity measures.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Eric Draitser, an independent geopolitical analyst and founder of the website StopImperialism.com, who assesses the political upheaval in Ukraine and the growing influence some extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi groups now have as part of the opposition coalition, as the nation confronts a deep economic crisis.

ERIC DRAITSER: The reductionistic view that the U.S. corporate media takes is one that is not simply because they do not understand it, it’s because they’re pushing a particular narrative, and the narrative has a geopolitical dimension at the broadest level, the narrative is an anti-Russian one, that is to say, the Yanukovich government representing some sort of a surrogate for Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, therefore everything that the democratically-elected, albeit corrupt, government of Ukraine did, under President Yanukovich, was bad, was the representation of evil, and anyone in opposition to them is good, is a democracy, is an activist or something like this, but of course the truth is far from that. In fact the opposition is made up of a number of different elements, some of them what I would call more liberally-minded, Western-inclined elements, typified by a few of the opposition leaders — in particular, the well-known celebrity Vitali Klitschko, the former champion boxer, but also some other pretty well-known individuals like the man named Arseny Yatstenyuk who is noted in the Victoria Nuland’s recorded, call it leaked, conversation that she had, in which he was supposed to be the hand-picked successor to lead the Ukrainian government. So, there’s a number of individuals who represent the so-called liberal wing of the opposition.

And these were the ones who were being put forward by the U.S. media in the narrative that they were putting together. However, there is another very insidious element that I would argue is actually in the driver’s seat of the opposition. And these would be the fascist and neo-Nazi elements who have a tremendous amount of sway on the ground — a number of different organizations, some of them organized political parties, others organized street mobs, and various others somewhere in between. And they are the ones you actually see if you look at the footage, coming out of the Maidan Square in Kiev; they’re the ones who have engaged in the violent struggle against the police and so forth, and some groups that listeners need to be aware of — the Right Sector, which is a broad neo-Nazi organization — they were some of the most prevalent in engaging in the violence. The Svoboda or Freedom Party is a neo-Nazi political party that has deep ties to the historic Ukrainian so-called nationalism, going back to their collaboration with the Nazis in World War II. These elements, whether they’re a minority, or a majority, they’re the ones who are really driving events on the ground.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Eric, one of the major issues that brought on this crisis in the Ukraine was the decision the Ukrainian government had to make about whether to move toward Russia or the European Union to bail itself out of this horrendous debt. It’s got $73 billion debt, it’s estimated, and Russia offered $15 billion. The European Union offered substantially less — and a prescription of International Monetary Fund austerity policies, like we’ve seen unfold in places like Greece and Italy and Spain. The Ukraine is a divided nation culturally, and by language and familial ties. The eastern and southern part of the country closely linked with Russia, and the west and Kiev linked more closely to Europe. Why is it not possible that, instead of having an up or down choice, between Europe or Russia, there couldn’t have been some accommodation made, so that Ukraine could have association with both Europe and Russia?

ERIC DRAITSER: Well, that’s precisely what should have happened, but again, your analysis presumes that Europe was looking for some kind of a rational agreement, which they were not. They were essentially creating a blackmail scenario where they were forcing Ukraine to choose one side or the other, knowing that it would put the Ukrainian government in a very untenable position. Now what could have happened would have been sort of a tri-partite agreement, for instance like what Canada has — where Canada participates in NATO, but Canada also has agreements with Europe, and with other parties outside of the NAFTA agreement. You could have had something very similar to that in Ukraine, where Ukraine had a partnership agreement with Europe, but also with the Customs Union of Russia and of the former Soviet republic. And you could have had some kind of accommodation, but of course that wouldn’t have served the geopolitical strategy of the United States and their European allies, because by making Ukraine choose, they forced the government to side with Russia, thereby inciting the destabilization campaign that they were looking for.

Ukraine did not have the choice to go with both sides; they were forced to choose, and in my judgment, the United States and the European Union knew full well that Yanukovich would side with Russia.

For more information, visit StopImperialism.org.