doing something.

Libyans and Egyptians and Syrians objecting to dictatorships? Must be the result of white men in the USA plotting.

Venezuelans protesting under conditions of inflation, extraorinarily high crime, and chronic shortages of basic necessities? Must be the result of white men in the USA plotting.

Ukrainians protesting against a thoroughly corrupt piece of shit gangster sponsored by the regional bully? Must be the result of white men in the USA plotting.

Nowhere do the propagators of this nonsense give even an ounce of consideration to the idea that maybe there are people in the developing world who have agency of their own. Unless, of course, they protest agains the USA and its allies, in which case it's people power obviously.

Neo-cons do have an unsavory influence in the world's politics and events.

But not everything that happens in the world is the result of neo-con machination.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

disagree with me"

Same folks that think everyone who disagrees with them at DU is Neocon plant in many cases

As that Obama is striking again! Will he never stop his imperialism?

a rational observation, and especially Disclaimer Number Three….

in a couple of cases is still used 60 years later to argue that the US is behind every uprising in the news. It's borderline hilarious. It must be the CIA! Of course it is.

Just not the 10s.

We undoubtedly provided support to various groups involved in the uprising in Kiev. Nobody is seriously disputing that, except dishonestly here in the op.

that's different from the claim the CIA is causing the whole thing.

That claim is a massive stinking turd of bullshit, in my opinion. More to the point, when exactly did we stop? Which decade was that? It certainly wasn't the 00s, the 90s, the 80s, the 70s, the 60s, or the 50s.

I've heard accounts of protesters being paid off. Are you on board with that theory?

Please, elaborate.

She's currently the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and specifically mentioned $5 billion in support to Ukraine.

Skip to the 7:30 mark if you don't want to watch the whole thing. (Sponsored by Chevron)

It's a strange statement, but it's a huge logical jump to conclude protesters are being paid off, as opposed to, say, traditional foreign aid.

I posted a video. I made no claim about what it was used for. But there are people who do know and I ain't one of them.

Time will tell.

That's more than I can say for some.

poor people, victims of Reagan's secret wars and support for their brutal dictators. And you skipped the whole Neocon wet dream in Iraq which was, when?

And you missed this GUY:



U.S. Senator John McCain, center, speaks as Democratic senator from the state of Connecticut, Chris Murphy, second left, and Opposition leader Oleh Tyahnybok, right, stand around him during a Pro-European Union rally in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahnybok-in-ukraine-2013-12#ixzz2v29Qv39w

back in December posing with the neo nazi guys in Kiev. Maybe he didn't know who they were? Any port in a storm kind of thing. And the phone calls that exposed OUR choice of leader for Ukraine, who believe it or not, miraculously IS the leader there now. You probably missed all the neocons on the media, in the print press and even overseas, expressing their opposition to Obama's policies of diplomacy etc.

Oh well, back to the future, or the fifties if you slept through all those other decades I suppose.

I don't see how McCain--1 out of 100 US senators--standing on the stage with a leader of a minority political party in Ukraine is proof positive of a CIA and/or Neo Con coup plot in Ukraine.

McCain might have had in Kiev in December of last year? And do you believe his 'maverick' label? Do you think he just woke up one morning and said 'Hey, I'm going to Kiev today'? Anyone of our intrepid journalists ask him what prompted him to go there and pose with a Right Wing Neo Nazi 'protestoer'? Of course not, and who paid for his trip? Do we know?

Do you think he supports Obama's more cautious approach towards all these conflicts? I can answer that for you if you like.

How about the WSJ, or the BBC providing a platform for these 'non existent, powerless neocons' whenever there is a protest in some strategically important country to their 'interests'? Why didn't McCain travel all the way to the CAR conflict? Know anything about that? Or to Uzbekstan to protest the Dictator there who committed GENOCIDE against his own people?? Why you ask? Because it is our policy to support THAT dictator, remember Rummy going there to deliver cash to Karamov?

Keep on dreaming that we defeated them when we threw their party out.

I never trust poisonous snakes, always keep on an eye on them.

Feel free to believe that they just went away! That is how they like it.

One of 535 we have in this country on the federal level.

And while there is some foreign policy authority in Congress, the large bulk of it remains in the executive branch. And it strains credibility to claim that one single legislator could be out there fomenting thousands of foreigners to rise up and act in a manner that he so desires for whatever interests he has at heart.

Clearly, the man wishes he were President. But that being said, I really don't think the man has the authority or the power that you want to bestow on him.

I'm sure he can well afford to go to Ukraine if he wants.

No, my point was the CIA did do some government overthrow in the 50s. But now those like you hang onto that to make us wrong in every instance since then, even if we had nothing to do with it.

embarrassment in 2002.

And the Haitian coup of their democratically elected president, not once, but TWICE, first under Bush 1 then under Bush 2. Remember when Dems in Congress were OUTRAGED, but later silenced apparently, that we had backed and supported that coup of Aristedes.

It's hard to keep up with all the coups we have backed throughout the decades AFTER the fifties.

And then there was the Honduran Coup.

Our history for decades is replete with coup d'etats. Did you forget the '70s also in Latin America? Another infamous coup of a democratically elected president.

Move over to the ME and the coup in Iraq when we installed SADDAM HUSSEIN, and in Iran, when we installed the Shah. See the consequences of those Coups, up to today.

Too bad history is not taught in our schools and colleges, or that we don't have an educational media that actually provides the real history of our foreign policies.

And the sad thing is we ALWAYS seem to support Right Wing Dictators, never democratically elected leaders.

I guess this underscores the reason why people cheer ignorantly for every new coup and/or invasion, they just don't know the history of their own country.

But WHEN they learn it, most decent people are often shocked. It's hard when you've been taught that YOU are the 'good guys' only to find out that you supported the Bad Guys, and still do.

How do you feel about our support for Uganda, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the dictatorship of Bahrain, and so many other Dictatorships right now?

We NEVER do a 'complete takeover'. We install puppets, like Saddam and the Shah and Noriega and Pinochet et al.

I'm having difficulty understanding how you missed all this history frankly. Where were you when African American Dems were outraged over the Aristedes Coup in Haity in the early 2000s? I will never forget that. Or the Venezuelan Coup backed by Bush around the same time? The Left was up in arms at the time, and rightly so.

Why does the US never support Democratic Governments? Why are we more comfortable with Dictators as allies?

You are absolutely correct about the composition of the (massive) crowds that participated in the protests, from what I've read from the most knowledgeable sources. And you can include gay groups among those, who apparently did a lot of the telephone coordinating.

This was not the assassination of Allende in 1973, and it wasn't the toppling of the statue of Saddam in 2003, either.

And I concur with all your disclaimers as well. It irks me to no end that any attempts to provide facts about the Ukrainian uprising, or to make a comment disapproving of the swift Russian intervention in threads that spread the conspiracy theories or repeat the Russian media propaganda are met by two simultaneous retorts: (a) that you are calling the people Putin Lovers and, at the same time (b) that you yourself are advocating for US military intervention.

This has gone beyond nuts.

EXCEPT when he's staging coups and overthrowing governments around the world. These are the two main arguments about America's role in the Ukraine crisis. My head hurts.

And he's an out of control dictatorial dictator here at home.

1. As I said when it started, there were a LOT of different groups involved (far left, far right and everyone in-between) and even though they were united in opposition, they had different motivations for doing so, different visions on what the 'new' Ukraine would look like, and different ideas on their future direction...

2. (Disclaimer: I am not saying this is what really happened)...CIA overthrows don't always need huge organizing and popular mobilizing efforts, especially in nations where the leader is already VERY unpopular...Sometimes all the CIA needs to do in some situations is to have a few well-placed people "grease the skids" to get a tiny bit of momentum going, and events naturally start to pick up speed...

....it denies plausibility that people in Ukraine wouldn't have been on the streets absent some sort of underhanded CIA or shadowy foreign interest group involvement. Let's not forget this wasn't the first time thousands took to the street against Yanukovych. Surely you can't forget the 2004-05 Orange Revolution.

and I'm not saying the CIA were or weren't involved...Just bringing up those two points...

poor...they are actually losing population because of the conditions in so many areas...what you're seeing is genuine frustration with a government they feel is corrupt and not representing them.

Tences.om Clancy novel with no end or a 007 movie on a loop. Some times lots of people make collectively bad choices with unintended consequences.

the fact you immediately dismiss it as "insulting and ludicrous," makes you sound naive.

I don't exactly know what forces are/were at play in the Ukraine, but I know my history and it is rife with covert destabilizations of weakened, resource-rich nations. Your obvious emotional attachment to the country only serves to further suggest a biased perspective.

People who live in a country where the politicians are increasingly corrupt and who are subjected to overbearing patriarchy from its much larger neighbor are going to eventually reach a tipping point.

It makes indubitably more sense than theories about protesters being paid off or shady CIA covert ops.

Ukraine was ripe for the taking. It's being taken ...

You can't just throw out scandalous allegations and then claim, well, gee, we don't really know what is going on.

I do, however, believe it wise to entertain all possibilities.

Sure, I guess those are possibilities to be entertained as well.

Have a nice day.

....and then refuse to provide any type of evidence to support it?

As a close study of all the examples you mentioned demonstrates. It is a question of degrees rather than a black/white issue.

The opposition was funded from Germany (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung) and the US (National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI)). There are also other players.

This is true for almost every revolution that I am aware of. Again, it is a question of degrees.

ONLY red blooded Americans can actually, on their own volition, rise up against an opressor

see US Ambassador distributing sandwiches. Hell, I will even go so far as CIA analysts and even perhaps a tad of ahem, encouragement. But to say that all this was a well planned CIA operation... I won't go THAT FAR. A lot of it was internal, like most of it.

But we have people here swearing up and down that this is the CIA and/or the neo-cons artwork, with ultra-nationalist neo-nazis somehow worked into the equation.

this is not Chile, nor is it Livingsbraun. Though there are parallels to that latter one and the Summer of 1914.

We also have people screaming that we should be sending a couple carrier groups to the black sea. now talk about CROWDED waterways...

Putin though is starting to worry me as in not fully in contact with reality, and I hope he becomes rational soon.

People who do so are simply applying a preconceived view to the events.

"They believed nothing they could not prove, and could prove everything they believed."

Basically it is used whenever someone who doesn't like how world events are transpiring, they will evoke the CIA or US meddling. It's classic deflection and dehumanization for the actors in those events.

It's also the most vacant and pointless talking point to ever exist as it can only be seen by rational observers as a sort of ghost Emmanuel Goldstein. Those who use it as the talking point without providing evidence are clearly duped authoritarians.

....but given some of the other threads currently on the first page of GD, it deserves a bump.

it needs it. If I make an OP.. it's because I want people to see it.

Did I do that?