You Will Anyway: American Mercenaries in the Ukraine?

Thursday, May 15, 2014

American Mercenaries in the Ukraine?

Perish the thought. American mercenaries don't even exist.

In eastern Ukraine, among pro-Russian separatists, the notion that elite American fighters are prowling the backroads and slag heaps of their region is oft repeated. After first surfacing in March, the rumors sounded like the sort of paranoid fantasies created in a war zone where anti-Americanism is rampant. But now the rumors are being repeated in Germany’s capital _ and resonating. That alone may count as a victory for Russian propagandists, even if there are no American mercenaries. The White House says there are not.

McClatchy

And, as we know, the White House NEVER lies.

According to Bild, the German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, said the mercenaries were hired from Academi, an international security firm that rose from the scandal-ridden ashes of Blackwater, the now defunct company that made headlines worldwide for its allegedly wild ways in Iraq, where its contractors were accused, among other things, of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting spree in Baghdad’s Nisouri Square.

Academi published a statement of denial on its website, even denying any relationship to Blackwater.

“Some irresponsible bloggers and an online reporter have recently posted rumors that ACADEMI employees (operating under the name of Blackwater) are present in Ukraine,” the statement said. “They are not and ACADEMI has no relationship with any entity named Blackwater or with the former owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince.

[...]

[Bild] has told Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office that it had unconfirmed reports that 400 Americans appear to be aiding the interim Ukrainian government in its fight against pro-Russian separatists.

[...]

The allegation that the information was presented to the chancellor’s office in a weekly briefing in April lends it gravitas. That such reports in Bild on more than one occasion have proved true enhances its credibility.

[...]

According to Bild, the German intelligence agency cited U.S. intelligence officials as its source.

And US intelligence services NEVER lie. Wait. What?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

"It takes only a bit of knowledge of history to realize how dangerous it is to think that the people who run the country know what they are doing." -- Howard Zinn

"It’s not about not having something to hide; it’s about having something to lose. What we lose when we’re under observation is our humanity...Rights are inherent to our nature, they’re not granted by governments, they’re guaranteed by governments. They’re protected by governments." -- Edward Snowden

"Terrorism is the willingness to kill large numbers of people for some presumably good cause.” -- Howard Zinn

"What we have is a foreign policy which is essentially a marketing strategy for selling weapons." -- Jill Stein

"We should always remember that the danger to societies from security services is not that they will spontaneously decide to embrace [Stasi style] mustache twirling and jackboots to bear us bodily into dark places, but that the slowly shifting foundation of policy will make it such that mustaches and jackboots are discovered to prove an operational advantage toward a necessary purpose.” ~ Edward Snowden

"America: just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." ~ Mayer Rothschild

"News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising." ~ LACUNA

"What matters in journalism isn't politics, which are as universal and inescapable as breathing. What matters -- along with a fundamentally adversarial attitude toward government, without which "journalism" is simply public relations -- is integrity, transparency, evidence, coherence, and principle. These are the principles on which we should evaluate the quality of journalism, and their absence is why some journalists are so desperate to get you to focus on something else." ~ Barry Eisler

"There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack." ~ Molly Ivins

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us." ~ James Thurber

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plane....When you hold up your arm and swear to uphold the Constitution, you don’t say, 'Except in wartime.'" -- George McGovern

"I’ll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one." ~ Bill Moyers

"When did hope become a political dynamic? Hope is right below wishful thinking and right above performing a rain dance on the scale of activity." ~ Rich Hall

Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

------
ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

------
GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

------
GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

------
PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.