Having
backed a right-wing coup in the Ukraine and right-wing terror groups
disguised as “moderate rebels” in Syria, U.S. leaders now
confront rising right-wing terror at home. They duly condemn it, but
seem blind both to their own hypocrisy and to the domestic
reverberations of their cynical foreign policies.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
2 - The U.S.-backed fascist-nationalist takeover of Ukraine
Nowhere in
recent years has U.S. political support for right-wing fascists, and
even neo-Nazis, been more florid than in Ukraine. In 2014, after the
successful ouster of the country’s democratically-elected president
in what leaked phone calls later confirmed was a U.S.-backed coup,
Ukraine came under the rule of a new administration led by
billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko. Despite the U.S.’ assertion
that the change in Ukraine’s government in 2014 was not a coup,
Poroshenko himself has labeled it as such.
Poroshenko’s
administration contained several high-level officials with direct
links to neo-fascist groups. As FAIR reported in 2014:
The new
deputy prime minister, Oleksandr Sych, is from Svoboda; National
Security Secretary Andriy Parubiy is a co-founder of the neo-Nazi
Social-National Party, Svoboda’s earlier incarnation; the deputy
secretary for National Security is Dmytro Yarosh, the head of Right
Sector. Chief prosecutor Oleh Makhnitsky is another Svoboda member,
as are the ministers for Agriculture and Ecology.
Svoboda,
in particular, is undeniably fascist. Their leaders consistently make
anti-semitic and racist statements and they have called for those
opposing their brand of ultra-nationalism, whom they derogatorily
label “Ukrainophobes,” to be criminally prosecuted. Ukraine’s
Right Sector, which also boasts high-ranking officials in the
Kiev-based government, is an openly neo-Nazi militia known for their
skinhead style of dress and glorification of street violence.
Although
the coup gave unprecedented power to Svoboda and its ilk, U.S.
politicians – instead of condemning the fascist nationalists that
had taken over Ukraine – openly supported them. They exhibited no
qualms about putting them into power despite that fact that the
far-right is a tiny fraction of the Ukrainian electorate.
Indeed,
Sen. John McCain, who was quick to condemn such groups in
Charlottesville, shared a stage, in the early days of the coup, with
Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, who once called for the
liberation of Ukraine from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.”
McCain’s
appearance was followed by a more discreet visit made by
then-director of the CIA John Brennan to Kiev. In addition, the
leaked recording of a phone call made at the time between Victoria
Nuland, then-assistant Secretary of State, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the
U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, revealed that the U.S. effectively
selected who would replace Ukraine’s deposed president Viktor
Yanukovych.
In
addition, every Senator named above, along with the Obama
administration, pushed to fund the new, openly fascist regime, to the
tune of $1.3 billion in 2014 alone. Even as evidence has emerged that
the Ukrainian government has been actively targeting ethnic
minorities, the U.S. political establishment – now with Donald
Trump at the helm – continues to openly support the fascist
government in Kiev.
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