{"id":112893,"date":"2014-04-15T17:16:22","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T17:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=112893"},"modified":"2014-04-15T17:16:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T17:16:22","slug":"cia-director-ukraine-washington-steps-threats-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/cia-director-ukraine-washington-steps-threats-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA director in Ukraine as Washington steps up threats against Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Head\u00a0<\/strong>
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Seizing upon spreading protests and building occupations in eastern Ukraine in response to February\u2019s Western-backed putsch in Kiev, the Obama administration is escalating its accusations, threats and provocations against Russia.<\/p>\n

In the clearest sign of intensifying US involvement in the Ukraine crisis, the White House admitted\u2013after vehement denials\u2013that CIA Director John Brennan flew into Kiev over the weekend. Brennan arrived, under a false name, for discussions on how to further exploit the crisis that the US and its allies deliberately triggered by orchestrating the February coup.<\/p>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov demanded an explanation about the nature of the undercover visit, and deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych accused Brennan of ordering a crackdown on protests in the east of the country.<\/p>\n

The CIA initially ridiculed these accusations as \u201ccompletely false.\u201d Yesterday, however, White House spokesman Jay Carney declared: \u201cWe don\u2019t normally comment on the CIA director\u2019s travel, but given the extraordinary circumstances in this case and the false claims being leveled by the Russians at the CIA, we can confirm that the director was in Kiev as part of a trip to Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ludicrously, Carney told reporters that \u201csenior level visits of intelligence officials are a standard means of fostering mutually beneficial security cooperation, including US-Russian intelligence collaboration.\u201d He added that \u201cto imply that US officials meeting with their counterparts is anything other than in the same spirit is absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

To claim that Brennan\u2019s surreptitious presence in Ukraine was innocent and intended to foster security cooperation with Russia is obviously fatuous. The CIA has a documented record of orchestrating coups, plots and assassinations around the world, including in Indonesia in 1965\u201466 and Chile in 1973.<\/p>\n

Brennan, nominated by Obama to take over as CIA chief after Obama\u2019s 2012 re-election, is known for his close involvement in the US occupation of Iraq, the CIA\u2019s use of torture against detainees, and US drone assassinations, including of American citizens. He is currently embroiled in a scandal over CIA spying on staff members of a US Senate committee reviewing the agency\u2019s program of detention and \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d under President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

Following Brennan\u2019s discussions in Kiev, interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov declared that the country was now \u201cat war\u201d with Russia. The head of Ukraine\u2019s state security service (SBU), Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, ratcheted up the warnings of violence against the demonstrators now occupying official buildings in at least ten eastern Ukrainian cities\u2013threatening to \u201cannihilate them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another US provocation, the Pentagon accused an unarmed Russian military fighter of repeatedly buzzing a US navy destroyer in the Black Sea. The Pentagon conceded that the USS Donald Cook \u201cwas never under threat\u201d from the Su-24 aircraft, which never came closer than a kilometre from the vessel.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the incident was beaten up into allegations of Russian aggression, highlighting the danger that a single miscalculated incident could spark a catastrophic war. The double standards involved are staggering. Imagine the outcry if Russia sent a warship to the Gulf of Mexico and accused the US of a provocation when a US jet conducted reconnaissance flights over the vessel!<\/p>\n

Without offering any evidence, Washington is stepping up its allegations that President Vladimir Putin\u2019s government is invading Ukraine by supposedly orchestrating the widespread popular resistance to the far-right regime installed in Kiev.<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama yesterday rebuffed a phone call from Putin, initiated by the Russian president, in which Putin appealed to Obama to prevail upon the unelected Kiev regime to drop its plans to launch a bloody crackdown on the protests.<\/p>\n

According to the White House account of the phone conversation, Obama issued a series of demands to Putin, including that all \u201cirregular forces in the country need to lay down their arms\u201d and that Putin \u201cuse his influence with these armed, pro-Russian groups to convince them to depart the buildings they have seized.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are demands that the US government knows Putin cannot meet. While Moscow has responded to the Ukraine coup by whipping up Russian nationalism, including in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, it is far from exercising control over the building occupations that have erupted.<\/p>\n

The protests are driven by deep-seated hostility to the fascistic character of the Kiev regime\u2013recalling bitter memories of the reign of terror carried out by Nazi collaborators in Ukraine during World War II. The opposition has been further stoked by the regime\u2019s proclaimed abolition of Russian as an official language, the brutal austerity measures it is imposing to qualify for an International Monetary Fund bailout package, and its pact with the European Union, which will inevitably mean the closure of factories and mines throughout eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Although the Kiev regime, which relies heavily on fascist Right Sector forces, did not attempt to enforce its Monday 9 a.m. local time deadline for occupiers to leave government buildings\u2013its second such postponement in three days\u2013it continued its declarations of intent to carry out a full-scale \u201canti-terrorist operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defying this ultimatum, occupations of administrative and police headquarters, and in some cases wider areas of towns, spread on Monday. Horlivka, with a population of about 300,000, became the latest city where activists have taken over key buildings, demanding autonomy from the Kiev regime.<\/p>\n

Having fomented a right-wing coup in Kiev, spearheaded by fascist militias, the US, Germany and their allies are now utilising the predictable response of people throughout Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine to accuse Russia of intervening in a similar manner.<\/p>\n

US Vice President Joe Biden is being sent to Kiev next week to underscore Washington\u2019s backing for the Kiev regime, amid indications of preparations for more open military intervention.<\/p>\n