Ukraine: the newest American state?

Eat your heart out Canada!

Here is an article from Ctrana. media which is sanctioned by both the Russians AND the Ukrainians! So, bears reading.

The US is trying to do a deal with Ukraine taking advantage of their current plight. It is, as usual, all about money but the Ukrainians woul be wise to look at history. They might think Russia is their enemy but the US is not their friend.

The Ukrainian government is trying to maintain an optimistic tone and says that the agreement will help attract investment to Ukraine. It will also make the United States interested in preventing new attacks on Ukraine that could jeopardize the development of deposits.

However, historical examples do not confirm this optimism.

One can recall the story of the so-called Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), created by the Americans and the interim Iraqi administration immediately after the end of the 2003 war in Iraq.

The concept of the fund looked very similar to what is now being offered to Ukraine: various funds at the disposal of the new Iraqi authorities (primarily revenues from oil sales, as well as funds of the Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein personally arrested abroad) were transferred to the fund, and from there they were to be distributed to contractors implementing various infrastructure projects for the post-war reconstruction of the country.

The fund's activities continued from 2003 to 2010, after which the Americans transferred control over it to the Iraqi government, which successfully liquidated the organization.

According to UN estimates, during this time, about 150 billion dollars were transferred to the fund’s disposal – a very impressive sum for a country whose annual GDP in those years was about 50 billion dollars

But in practice, everything turned out to be far from rosy: many projects were never completed or were completed with delays and in limited volumes. For example, it was not possible to complete the power plant in Mosul (it was later completed by the Iraqi government at its own expense), the water treatment plant in Sab Al-Bur remained unfinished, the hospital building in Er-Rutba and the oil refinery in Beiji remained unfinished.

A subsequent audit revealed a host of violations committed by the fund's management, especially the so-called Coalition Provisional Authority led by American Paul Bremer.

Thus, the audits conducted by the IMF and UN representatives established that almost all contracts were concluded without a tender, that is, the contracts were issued, in essence, manually. There were often cases of significant price gouging: for example, the above-mentioned Kellogg Brown & Root purchased fuel in Kuwait for $1.18 per gallon, and sold it to the Provisional Administration for $2.64. Auditors from Ernst & Young discovered dozens of ghost projects (mostly schools), which were built only on paper, although funds for their construction from the fund were regularly allocated. And the US Government Accountability Office found out that about $18 billion from the fund simply disappeared into thin air.

It is noteworthy that no one was held accountable for violations or even obvious theft of the fund's funds: American courts refused to investigate these cases, since DFI funds are not American government money, and their handling cannot be investigated and judged under American laws.

And the head of the interim administration, Scott Brennet, was eventually awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "particularly meritorious contributions to the security and national interests of the United States."

In a separate article , we analyzed how a similar reconstruction fund worked in American-occupied Iraq. In short, American companies received huge orders that were financed by sales of Iraqi oil. However, many of these projects were not completed, and multi-billion dollar payments flowed without a trace to the United States.

Ctrana is correct, I think. If the deal goes through, the US will strip Ukraine not only of resources but financial assets and autonomy. Ukraine would become a US dependency.

From, my point of view, that is an argument for Russian occupation of Ukraine as a whole, following unconditional surrender and then Russian referenda to find out what the Ukrainians want - first purging nazis and fascist and holding war crimes trials, of course.

Ukraine joining NATO was a red line. Ukraine as a quasi-US colony would be more redder than red.

So the Russians have to take over Ukraine — not only for their security but for the Ukrainians themselves. What is left of “Ukraine” would be a new country with a new constitution and all previous agreements - and debts— would be wiped clean.

Special Article 3

The article is finished and I am currently checking and finalizing the mailing list and creating EPUB, MOBI and HTML files. I have also set up new cloud storage on MEGA which is more multi-platform friendly than GOOGLE, so I will send TWO download links, one for GOOGLE drive and one for MEGA.

This article ended up just over 11,000 words — almost three times as long as the usual “special article”. It less an essay and more of a book. My coffeebuyer been patient and helpful. You deserve something extract

Of course, it has lots of pictures, and is written in chunks so as to be easy to read.

But please read carefully and think.

It had to be long because it contradicts what most people – including myself – have been taught about Russian history, particularly Stalin, the USSR, the “Holodomor”, the “Terror”, and the Gulags and so on.

It also contradicts what a lot of people are led to believe about Putin.

It also attempts to explain WHY people believe these things, which are either completely false or exaggerated, distortions of history and fact.

Bad things happened of course.

But without a balanced historical perspective—the kind you will NOT get in a college history course — , there can be no rational discussion.

What you think is an historical record is nothing of the kind – it is a story.

Please support me and Chappy and Ichi buying coffee and getting on the list. Article 4 of this series follows this one!