CRISIS IN UKRAINE:
Is Merkel Risking World War III?
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Dec. 6—It is hardly surprising that people in Germany are confused about what is happening in Ukraine. The way the mainstream media present it, is that the Ukrainian population longs for European values, but has been sold out by a corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych, who is under the heel of a Russia ruled by a dictator. World champion boxer (and Ukrainian opposition figure) Vitali Klitschko called for sympathy with the poor demonstrators: "Security forces smashed the tents, dispersed demonstrators with clubs, and destroyed our peaceful protests." So it's clear who is right, and who is wrong—right?
The reality, however, is that the longstanding efforts of the U.S. and EU to integrate Ukraine as quickly as possible into the EU and NATO, really aim at advancing the containment of Russia to such a point that it becomes practically indefensible. The intelligence think tank Stratfor (Dec. 10) mused that "Ukraine is territory that is deep within the Russian core and losing Ukraine from its orbit leaves Russia indefensible."
For that same reason, Russian military spokemen have repeatedly insisted that the installation of the U.S. anti-missile defense system in Eastern Europe is unacceptable, since it would neutralize the second-strike capacity that Russia needs to respond to a nuclear first strike from the U.S. or NATO. Moreover, it should be clear to anyone who has looked at a map, that such systems were not intended to be set up in Poland and the Czech Republic in order to hit missiles coming from Iran, as claimed, because were that the case, the U.S. would have accepted the Russian offer to set up a joint missile defense system in Southern Russia and Azerbaijan. Therefore, when the P5+1 negotiations in Geneva led to a potential agreement with Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the U.S./NATO bluff, arguing that the anti-missile system in Eastern Europe was no longer necessary.
What we are dealing with here is pure geopolitics. The aim of tearing Ukraine away from Russia, knowing how interdependent their economies are, is to prevent an economic recovery in Russia. Ukraine, which has considerable industrial and agricultural capacities, will be subject to the same free-trade methods that are intended under the planned TAFTA (Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Area), all to the benefit of the multinationals. That means preventing the State from playing a role in defense of the general welfare, to ensure maximum profit for the main players in the casino economy.
The economic relations between Ukraine and the EU up to now have made this clear: Ukraine is not welcomed as an equal partner in the EU, but rather as a supplier of raw materials, and as a new playground for the financial locusts.
This experience must have influenced Ukraine's decision not to enter into the Association Agreement with the EU; another factor was undoubtedly the sorry sight of the victims of the EU's policies in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, where the policy of the Troika has dramatically reduced life expectancy. Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, found the right words to describe this policy: This is an economy that kills.
Should the Ukrainian government, under massive pressure from the EU and the U.S. and the threat of sanctions, give in and sign the Association Agreement with the EU, that would mean the threat of a new Greece on the Russian border, and of being plunged into an internal war—not into a civil war, but irregular warfare scenarios.
Foreign Manipulation
So who are these pro-Europe forces in Ukraine? For over a decade now, various neo-con circles in Great Britain, the U.S., and the EU have invested hundreds of millions of dollars, true to the techniques of Gene Sharp,[1] to consolidate the staff and logistical infrastructure that led to the 2004 "Orange Revolution." George Soros's Open Society Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Carnegie Endowment, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the IRI, as well as Oxford and Cambridge universities and various think tanks have for years funded 2,200 (!) NGOs in Ukraine, whose task is to bring about "regime change," just as they have done towards any other legitimately elected government that is not willing to bow down to the global casino empire.
The key agencies for this policy are the Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR); the National Endowment for Democracy, whose deputy chair Nadia Diuk is now in Kiev, coordinating the opposition's activities; the American Foreign Policy Council, whose board includes such neo-cons as Newt Gingrich, Robert McFarlane, James Woolsey, and Robert Joseph. These circles are gunning to break up the territorial integrity of Russia and China, and Ukraine's integration into NATO or balkanization is only one step to that end.
But this time, the financiers are not as squeamish in choosing their protégées as they were for the Orange Revolution: This time, they are counting on the right-wing spectrum of organizations, ranging from the Svoboda group, with its fascist background and a swastika-like logo, to former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland electoral alliance and Klitschko's Udar ("Punch") party.
The EU is pursuing its own geopolitical strategy, in a division of labor. According to Der Spiegel, Chancellor Merkel wants to pump up Klitschko as head of the opposition, through joint appearances and invitations to the heads of state and government meetings of the conservative European People's Party (EPP), and a personal meeting with Merkel. While this was originally designed to prepare Klitschko's candidacy for President in 2015, it escalated after Yanukovych's possibly temporary decision not to sign the Association Agreement.
According to these accounts, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the EPP are providing training for Udar parliamentarians and staff, and Merkel's foreign policy advisor, Christoph Heusgen, and Chancellery Minister Ronald Pofalla met Klitschko and promised him their support. Pofalla will be remembered for his remarks to [Christian Democratic Party leader in the Bundestag] Wolfgang Bosbach, when the latter reminded him of parliamentarians' freedom of choice, as guaranteed in the German Constitution. Pofalla retorted: "I can't stand to see your stupid face any more. I can't hear such crap anymore." Whoever is so dismissive of the Constitution is of course also oblivious to the UN Charter, which guarantees non-interference into the internal affairs of a sovereign state.
To take a championship boxer, of all people, who has said nothing of substance, just PR slogans such as that all Ukrainians have the right to freedom and to a better life, and to groom him as a Presidential candidate, indicates the true intention of these circles: geopolitical domination. The Ukrainian population would do well to find out before it's too late what such a "better life" looks like in Greece or Spain, since those countries have come under the whip of the Troika. And to associate with an EU which has just adopted the bail-in directive, borders on calculated hara-kiri. Ukrainians would do better to send their savings to the Moon before they fall prey to the "Cyprus-Detroit model."
What Germany Really Needs
For Germany, and for the other European nations, maintaining good relations with Russia is of existential importance. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was not only right in his negative judgment of the EU institutions and the current political leadership of Europe, which he expressed during his "farewell visit" to Putin in Moscow on Dec. 11, but also in his reference to the fact that, after the tragedies of the 20th Century, Germany and Russia remain neighbors that are linked by a common destiny.
If Germany is to survive as an industrial nation—a status which is jeopardized by its complete phase-out of nuclear energy and the effects of that on energy prices, and by the consequences of the casino economy on the real economy—then a sovereign Germany will have to accept an alliance for true economic cooperation with other sovereign republics. Germany's economic cooperation with Russia, China, India, Japan, and South Korea, just to name the most important countries, will help decide whether the world will come out of the current crisis and concretize a fundamental shift in the economic order, away from the casino economy and toward reconstruction of the real economy. To do so, Germany has capacities, such as machine-building and small and medium-sized enterprises that are needed and valued throughout the world.
It is high time to draw the appropriate conclusions from the failed and dangerous euro and EU experiments, to gain sovereignty over our economic and monetary policy, and to build up the economies of a Eurasian continent of the Fatherlands [sovereign nations], from the Atlantic to the China Sea. The policy for a New Silk Road which Chinese President Xi Jinping has put on the agenda must become the basis of true cooperation and friendship of all the nations involved.
Translated from German by Christine Schier
[1] See Rachel Douglas, "Destabilizing Russia: The Democracy Agenda of McFaul & His Oxford Masters," EIR, Feb. 3, 2012.
