Category: Aggregated

The German Ambassador to Washington, Peter Wittig, told Associated Press on March 9th that Obama had promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a February meeting at the White House, that he would give the Minsk ceasefire she negotiated time to take hold, rather than destroying it immediately by sending “lethal weapons” to the fascists in Kiev.

But at the same time Obama was pledging his word to Merkel, he was preparing to break it by ordering brain-dead Senators to denounce his own agreement and call for immediate arms shipments, as well as much harsher sanctions, as they did today at a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, prepared for their hearing yesterday, with a March 9 letter to Obama, which demanded that he immediately provide a report to Congress on why he has failed to provide lethal weapons. The duo wrote that that report was due by Feb. 15 under their “Ukraine Freedom Support Act,” which they say was passed unanimously by both houses and signed into law by Obama on Dec. 18.

Yesterday’s hearing was titled “U.S. Policy in Ukraine: Countering Russia and Driving Reform.” The first panel comprised administration witnesses representing State (Victoria Nuland), Treasury, Defense, and the military. All that happened there, was that each and every Senator who spoke from either party, simply badgered all the witnesses by chanting, as it were in unison, “I support lethal arms and harsher sanctions; why haven’t you done it yet?”

The witnesses were all noncommittal: it’s under discussion.

Among the notable moments were those provided by a drunken-sounding and -looking Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who had been enlightened at a hearing he held last week for two anti-Putin mental cases: NATO pawn Garry Kasparov and fugitive ex-Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili,— whose name Johnson could not pronounce at all recognizably. Johnson was clearly nearly hopeless about the fate of Russia after the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, but could not pronounce his name recognizably either; you had to infer who it was he was bewailing. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) was similarly close to tears with anxiety about various places he could never locate on a map, and people he clearly knew nothing about.

Among the senators who were just bright enough to know that they were playing “living theater,” was Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia, who said he supported increased sanctions, and then asked what will happen if they only make Putin more “aggressive.”

Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut’s question was:

Clearly, Murphy understands on some level that he and the rest are only playing a charade. But what is his guarantee that he, personally, will survive its results? 

On the day before the opening of the 10th session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization national coordinators in Khanty-Mansiisk in Siberia, the SCO secretary General for 2015, Dmitry Mezentsev, announced that “A 10-year strategy has been drafted by the Russian side. It is expected to be adopted during the SCO Summit in Ufa (in July)… The strategy will be the SCO’s proclamation for deeper and wider participation in global affairs,” he said, which will combine the national economic strategies of SCO members with the Silk Road Economic Belt project.

This will come as a great disappointment for those in the west who hope to foster tension and conflict between Russia and China in Central Asia, trying to stir up Russian anger over Chinese development projects in the former Soviet states.

Mezentsev also said that the issue of expanding the organization will be discussed, and that there are no legal hurdles to overcome for expansion.

At this time, the SCO members are the original six — Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan — with Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as observers, and Belarus, Turkey, and Sri Lanka as dialogue partners.