Lately, Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, is best known, or, rather, notorious, for her role in objecting to the initial set of the Benghazi attack talking points when she reportedly asked that references to al Qaeda and previous CIA warnings about threats posed to U.S. diplomats in Libya be scrubbed from the document. I.e., she is said to have demanded that (accurate) assessments of terrorist involvement be scrubbed, along with references to (accurate) intelligence warnings about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi leading up to the 9/11/2012 attack on US diplomatic compound in which four Americans were murdered. Nuland’s role provided the closest thing to smoking-gun evidence of a cover up.
Then I assume all of us remember when in January/February of this year on YouTube, there was uploaded an audio recording of a confidential telephone conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine – Jeffrey Payette. Offended by the indecision of European Union leaders in the fight against Moscow’s “evil intentions” in Ukraine, the cheeky high-ranking American did not hesitate to use dirty words towards the European Union (“Fuck the EU”).
Episodes like these draw attention to the type of people who are deciding the destinies of the world – trying to teach others.
Victoria Nuland,
AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski
And on Friday 11 July 2014 Nuland attended in Dubrovnik the 9th “Croatia Forum” held around issues of EU enlargement into the Western Balkans region. She called for struggle against corruption and for democratic recourse to preserve the values of transatlantic community. She sent a serious message to the corrupt Balkan politicians that the United States know for their corrupt practices and their undemocratic rule.
“Europe can’t be whole when kleptocrats treat states as a bonanza of spoils for themselves and their cronies. And it can’t be free when elections are rigged, independent media is silenced and minorities are vilified. And it can’t be at peace when corrupt officials use political, economic and judicial intimidation to stifle opposition and rip off their own citizens,” Nuland said to the participants of the forum and continued:
“Corruption also threatens national sovereignty because every dirty politician in our midst, every dirty non-transparent contract that we allow, creates another wormhole of vulnerability and an opportunity for mischief by outside forces. From the Balkans to the Baltic to the Black Sea, we must understand, as those on the Maidan did, that corruption is not just a democracy killer, it’s another grey tool in the arsenal of autocrats and kleptocrats who seek to extend their influence, weaken our democracies and enrich themselves at the expense of our citizens”.
Nuland said the gas price dispute, Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and fighting in eastern Ukraine underlined the energy security threat facing Europe. Europe’s energy security needs much work and “building up diverse flow capabilities and capacities and building up deeper networks throughout the continent,” was what was needed. “Croatia has an essential role to play, as an energy security hub for the 21st century… You (Croatia) have spectacular assets to do that so long you as you make smart choices as you are going forward,” Nuland said.
Nuland did not spell out what choices she considers “smart” but given that Croatia is already an EU member perhaps she was using the Croatian platform to address the non-EU members at the forum such as Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania… Perhaps it her address was not about energy security but about gaining anti-Russia support and in doing so all sorts of compromises, scrubbing of war crimes etc., could emerge to fast-track some of these countries into EU membership as a matter of harnessing might for the looming cold war against Russia.
According to Croatian news agency HINA, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexey Meshkov said in Dubrovnik on Saturday 12 July that the European Union should not use Western Balkan countries’ desire of joining the bloc to force them to choose between Europe and Russia.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said for Croatian Radio that Jean-Claude Juncker’s (European Commission President-designate) statement, that there will be no new EU members in next five years, may be true but sends a wrong message because without enlargement, there will be no security and thus the credibility of the EU is at risk, while Serbia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said that every EU member state should undergo an assessment every ten years and that he is certain that many would not pass on the criteria test that Serbia is now expected to pass.
Carl Bildt, who was one of the architects of the abysmally failed Dayton agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina, should truly stay out of this exercise of contemplating EU extension into Western Balkans. He has nothing to offer for any real peaceful solution.
The likelihood that Croatia’s leaders will swallow head-and-shoulders Nuland’s glowing compliments to Croatia as a country that “could become a regional energy hub” is very, very high. The carrot is likely to become even more attractive now that Germany’s Angela Merkel said 15 July in Dubrovnik at a meeting of eight Western Balkans heads of state that her country would support the “region’s” future in the EU.
Croatian current leadership of communist extraction will do everything and anything to intercept and set back any processes dealing with post WWII communist crimes and there are two such cases in German courts at this very moment. One wonders whether justice in these will be compromised for a goal of uniting Western Balkans against Russia. Perhaps Nuland’s “smart choices” include a scenario where Croatia should stop pursuing justice for its own victims of communist crimes and of 1990’s war crimes.
While I completely agree with Nuland on the points of corruption and kleptocrats I find it extremely unsettling that it was she who points to the wrongs of it. If I consider the definition of corruption as a moral impurity or deviation from the ideal then her Benghazy scrub would certainly brush at least some corruption against her character. One wonders how much scrubbing of corrupt individuals’ tracks may occur in the process of making Croatia the energy hub of Europe. One wonders what the price the people will pay if their leaders take up the “offer” to lead the way in that region in a cold war against Russia. The huge numbers of unemployed, hungry and poor are not interested in any cold or hot war; their prime concern is how to bring food to the family table.
Certainly, it would be welcome if Croatia picked up on investments necessary to make it that hub, but I fear the biggest beneficiaries of such an exercise will not the Croatian people or workers. I gladly wait to be proven wrong on this. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)
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Ina, do we know for certain the Victoria Nuland is even clear on the concept that Dubrovnik might be in eastern Europe somewhere?
I think, David, she might be aware but her political agenda makes it handy to place Dubrovnik where it’s not.
Great – Bildt did such a great job last time, let’s give him another go – ! “Our” Foreign Affairs minister already has her nose up his rear that her nose is showing on his belly button. Elections couldn’t come soon enough it seems.
Yep, Brankec on all points.
…there was an old saying in the old Yugoslavia….
…when you have 3 Slovenians, you have a singing choir!
…when you have 3 Serbians, you have an army!
….when you have 3 Croatians, you have three political parties!
…..but at least the serbs kill their traitors!
I don’t think the attack on Nuland helps bolster your argument that the politicking behind who joins the EU and whether the struggle for hegemony between Russia and the West is a cause for alarm in your efforts to bring Communist war criminals to justice is advanced by the attack upon Nuland.
In my opinion, it’s irrelevant for these reasons. The conversation was a private one and not intended for public consumption. Also think her actions regarding the Benghazi report is irrelevant because it was done as part of a nasty political campaign. (One that is ongoing and has been since the Black guy won his first term as POUS. The Right in the US is undergoing a very welcome — at least by me — stage of self-destruction. The ugliest mindsets in the US have reared their vicious and ugly heads, revealing them for the people that they are, people willing to commit treason due to hatred of non-Whites.)
It is within that ongoing environment that the president and his staff (although they pretend that isn’t why) “scrubbed” the Benghazi report. This had everything to do with an election and little to do with Nulands character.
Agree with you on Nuland’s comments about corruption, and so forth. Now if only the US government that she works for could do a bit of that. Someone — I forget who off the top of my head — said, “There are two things someone should never watch being made: laws and sausages.”
As we are seeing, wars and politics are nasty affairs, and never quite so much as they are right now — with so many lives at stake, as well as the quality of those lives.
Whether or not people need to look forward and forget the past in order to better the lives of the next generation is a question facing various groups all over the world. A tinderbox with many matches at the ready.
To you Donald, an “attack” of Nuland in this may be irrelevant to some but to people whose lives her and others’ politics actually affect it matters much. The point about these politics affecting possibly process against communist crimes is very real when one considers what local deals have and can be made for a “higher” cause, which in this case is muster sup[port against Russia by seemingly easing the way to EU. But we will wait and see. If someone scrubs the truth from an important document or communication and if that truth was crucial or would have had a part in saving human lives were it visible and not scrubbed then as far as I and I believe many, many Americans are concerned such a person’s moral fibre is not what one would place trust into.
Well, you’re the professor, and I’m not. So, I suppose I’m getting at best a “D” for my post.
But I thought I made, or at least I tried to make a fairly well reasoned account of how I think US politics played into Nuland’s actions. I’d have to write a full article to explain why I think the rightwing agenda in the US, as expressed by the Mitch McConnell, Senate majority Leader, is on record stating that he and his cohorts would do everything within their power to prevent Obama from accomplishing anything during his time in office.
They have in fact done that. In my personal opinion their treasonous actions have lead to disastrous consequences not only in the US but in US but all across the globe. Obama and the Democrats could completely surrender to these autocrats, but that’s all they could do, for they have shown that they will, and I can’t even say “compromise” because they have no agenda, other than derailing anything the Democrats wish to accomplish.
McConnell and his bunch are a party morally and intellectually bankrupt of any ideas. And, in my opinion, that is why they have talked incessantly about what may or may not have happened in Benghazi, while completely ignoring the very well documented lies — some of which were obtained under torture — that lead to the worst foreign policy decision in the nation’s history.
It’s all chronicled and I am documenting it on my own site. But within the US people are well aware of the hubris that caused the destabilization and the ascent of Iran by the neocon forces within the US government and media.
If not for their actions, there would be no ISIS, nor would Iran have become a world-player of great significance.
They have completely ignored the deaths of over 4,500 US service person’s lives, over a hundred thousand Iraqi lives, and the trillions of dollars spent on foreign incursions — all in favor of an incident in Libya that resulted in four dead Americans.
There was no such outcry by any side after Reagan’s disastrous decision to place Marines in Lebanon as sitting ducks — which resulted in 350 of them being killed in a single attack.
That’s how much US politics have deteriorated, and that is why there isn’t much moral fibre found within the US political system, save for a very few.
I’m quite the professor when it comes to Croatian people and politics they don’t need, yes, Donald. Other matters re US taken well
I know that you mentioned writing an important paper on Noam Chomsky w.r.t. linguistics. That’s what I meant– that even if you don’t agree with what I write, you’d know if I didn’t do a very good job of presenting my ideas.
Well, we’re both people who have strong points of view. (Maybe that’s why we’re friends. And remains so, I hope).
🙂
Come by my site whenever you can find the time. I’m sure I can use all the advice I get. I don’t have a degree in anything so I’m just sort of winging along the best I can.
Great stuff, Donald, both ways 😀
😀
😀 😀 😀
Donald is talking out of his arse, like all progressives do. Obama being half black is just way to shut down any legit criticism of his actions and words. The conservative Christians in America are not imploding, they are being targeted by the nefarious powers in DC. The IRS is a prime example. Every IRS thug involved in the targeting of supposed conservative groups has had their hard drives scrubbed, and emails flushed.
You didn’t mention anything specific in my comments that I can respond to. It’s all just generalities. I can give you specifics on any of the assertions I’ve made, if you want any.
With out the white vote, Obama does not win the election. The vast majority of folks like me who have issues with the pres and his team, don’t give a rip about the color of his skin. I don’t even take issue with non whites voting for Obama because he is not white, that is their right. So when white progressives wrongly claim that all, or a majority of conservative groups and individuals dislike Obama due to him being black is ignorant at best. Imagine if the IRS targeted minority groups?
I agree, John, although I do not live in the US I have lots of friends and family who do and follow matters especially around elections – the sense I got from the “voter corpus” is that ethnicity or colour of a candidate did not matter, what matters id what a candidate promises to bring to “the table” for all American people if elected.
Thank you my friend for these words. Both political parties are to blame. Corruption is a worldwide problem. 🙂
Indeed it is, John, however in some cases the whole countries rather than the individual perpetrator get labelled as corrupt and that is not acceptable
Great point!
🙂
V.Nuland why doesn’t talk about her corruption for insulting the EU,? Regards.
Probably because new US presidential elections are due relatively “soon” and she has a whole machinery of scrubbers and ironers in the political camp she comes from, Jalal
“the political camp she comes from”?
Do you mean to say you favor the right-wing in the US? Because it seems to me that their only discernable policy is war without end in the Middle East. The republican president, General Eisenhower, in his farewell address as Commander and Chief warned the citizens of the US about the growing threat of the military industrial complex, a threat that is only getting wealthier and more powerful.
No favourite camps when it comes to US politics, Donald, both capable of similar albeit at times different “tricks”
I wish I could agree with you on that. Oh, how the times have changed. 🙁
Mr. Obama is what passes for a “liberal” these days. Twenty years ago he would have been considered a moderate conservative. I’m disappointed in him, but it’s hard to know what he might have accomplished given the chance, which he wasn’t.
🙂
American FP is a self-destructive joke.
I support the Ukrainians, but realistically, starting WWIII for territories that Russians are an absolute majority in (thanks to the Holohomdor and Communist regime colonizing of Russians there) is not sensible, especially with the military stretched so thin, and NATO about as reliable as a drunken cabbie in Thailand.
Nuland & Co. are light NeoCONs, but overall not very different from the Vietnam draft dodging chickenhawk psychopaths that authored the Project for a New (anti) American Century, which outlined global military intervention (as opposed to sound America first policy, trade and investment) and the destruction of seven countries who, if left alone, would be no real threat at any point. That criminally insane document outlined the perpetual post 9/11 global war that itself creates terrorists.
The Republican-Democrat, Conservative vs. Liberal paradigm is a false mass media construct that has been destroying the U.S. since the end of the Cold War from within. The Cold War ended and they created new boogymen to keep the MIC alive.
AQ was the new boogyman in Afghanistan and Iraq – the latter even when there was no AQ in Iraq because Saddam would see that their deaths took weeks, if not months – and then aided them in Libya and is aiding them in Syria where they do not hide their agenda of exterminating all Christians, Alawites, Druze and Shia.
In terms of US policy towards Croatia: considering that US NGOs and NGO fronts engage in active strategic propaganda against Croatia’s and B&H Croats strategic interests (RFERL, SETimes, Balkan Insight in particular), it is safe to say that the carrot (US) and stick (UK) team is satisfied with the status quo: a neoyugoslav sock puppet regime, high unemployment, internal political divisions, lack of media freedom, subservient government, and machinated scandals by the unfree and untransparent media at the expense of the general population.
The US Embassy was rather quiet – deafeningly silent – in regards to the Perkovic debacle, and has never publicly or as far as any Croatian politician or journalist has ever disclosed, privately pushed for lustration – which, along with the Markic referendum on the election law, is one of the two only things that can get Croatia functioning normally like its fellow EU states.
The US backed the Komsicizacija of the Federation, and for years ignored the trampling of Croatians’ rights in B&H, or just praised it as “reform.”
Croatia’s core interest is to realign with Central Europe and develop its ports and heavy rail infrastructure, and lower the tax rate overall, but especially for manufacturing investments, to bring in FDI.
Waiting for US goodwill, especially when US policy on the Continent is married with the UK’s own self-destructive, hypocritical double-speak policies, is pointless after 21 years of independence considering that it has gotten Croatia nothing concrete in return – except the loss and criminalization of Hercegbosna.
BTW Benghazi was the hub for arms shipments from AQ and affiliates in Libya to AQ and affiliates in Syria.
All subsidized by John and Susie Q. Taxpayer back in the US.
Who trained ISIL/ISIS you may ask? A certain three letter US agency, in Jordan, in 2012.
If the 50bn aid package passes, who will get the Syria aid? “Moderate” Islamist jihadis (no contradiction in terms there).
For a clear, concise and rational deconstruction of the US’s suicidal post-9/11 policies, I direct readers to http://www.non-intervention.com.
Spot on!
Reblogged this on idealisticrebel.
In the context of your analyses of “state of play” Americans can do lots of persuasion and devious things if you don’t go along what they ask from you. Read about American man who doesn’t have many nice things to say about American administration
Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, is best known, or, rather, notorious, for her role in objecting to the initial set of the Benghazi attack talking points when she reportedly asked that references to al Qaeda and previous CIA warnings about threats posed to U.S. diplomats in Libya be scrubbed from the document. I.e., she is said to have demanded that (accurate) assessments of terrorist involvement be scrubbed, along with references to (accurate) intelligence warnings about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi leading up to the 9/11/2012 attack on US diplomatic compound in which four Americans were murdered. Nuland’s role provided the closest thing to smoking-gun evidence of a cover up.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/17/sanctions-airliners-paul-l craig-roberts/
Thank you, rb – very interesting link
While I can agree with your criticism of Nuland’s grievances against corruption, however, I have a different take considering that Ms. Nuland’s concerns were that the attacks would become a political football of sorts in its ugly aftermath. Indeed it has, where members of the press have been dubbing it an exclusively “Fox News Story”, and even some Democratic politicians have alluded to Benghazi as a strictly Republican contrived issue that has been kept alive for years after the fact. So, I can see what Ms. Nuland’s initial concerns were, yet I don’t believe the initial blame, or even a majority of the blame, should be placed on her where there are bigger players to consider.
Besides, I’m not sure she, nor anyone else for that matter, could pass up on a trip to divno Dubrovnik.
True Racunovodstvo, however playing an active role in a “dishonest” move makes one guilty nevertheless, I think
Benghazi was the shipping point for arms for Jihadi insurgents in Syria. That is the reason of the coverup – to “protect” the sheeple from the fact that while fighting the 1980’s US intel community creation known as Al Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan, the government helped it and its sympathizers take over Libya and create an Islamist state there, and using the new Islamist regime and US intel assets to ship arms to the anti-Assad jihadis in Syria.
All part of sowing chaos and instability across the middle east for the benefit of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and of course the big oil lobby who gets to spike their prices.
Jihadi insurgents who, by the way, are very vocal in their goal of exterminating all Alawites, Christians, Druze and other non-Sunni minorities.
Reblogged this on theconservativehillbilly and commented:
This never made the US news!
Thank you for the reblog, The Conservative Hill Billy
You are welcome my friend.
John
Reblogged this on Dead Citizen's Rights Society.
In her speech to the forum she described the very things that the U.S. has been experiencing for quite some time now. Hence, she knows of what she speaks. It is no wonder at all, that we have lost the respect and credibility of our enemies and allies alike.
One does need to practice what one preaches, otherwise credibility does experience a battering sooner or later, that’s for sure