Mercs in Ukraine?

Sure. Why not?

There have been reports of merc sightings in the shadows of the upheavals in Ukraine from the beginning, and almost certain descriptions of the snipers in Kiev as mercenaries hired by Svoboda and the Right Sektor. Many observers have claimed they've been hearing unaccented English spoken among some of these shadowy forces, just before some Antimaidan dissenter is shot or otherwise incapacitated, and it is reported that the FBI and CIA -- among other US agencies -- are coordinating the crackdown on dissent and separatism in the East and throughout the country.

Given what has been noted so far in the efforts of the Kiev coup-regime to hold onto the East (Donbass) in spite of the people's defiance and refusal, there are no doubt death squads on the pattern of so many we've seen in the past) operating throughout Ukraine. They may be concentrated for now in the Donbass, but there's no reason to think their assignments and territory won't be expanded as resistance to the Kiev coup-regime's program of suffering and exploitation -- under the direction of the IMF, EU, USA, and NATO --  increases.

Mercs are an essential part of the program, especially when -- as in the case of Ukraine -- poorly paid and trained native "troops" refuse to fight their brothers and sisters.

Of course, media announcements of "The 400" or however many Academi (or are they Blackwater?) mercs there are in Ukraine look to be quite obvious propaganda to inspire terror among the refusniks and rebels. It's obvious they have no fear of the so-called "army" forces arrayed against them, as so many of the videos uploaded from the region testify. Perhaps they will fear the mercenaries, then, eh? The ones who have no qualms about liquidating the untermenschen wherever they encounter them. 

If Ukraine isn't already swarming with international mercs -- they don't have to be Americans, do they, hmm? -- ready to shed plenty of native blood for the cause of the bankers and exploiters and financiers and oppressor-class, it soon will be, no?

Monstrous.

Ukrainian Lurch Into Madness Continues

Hello Soldier!

Furthermore, what fresh hell is this?

Given my druthers of course, the Ukrainian People would come out on top of the portentous events building on the Russian border, but the likelihood of its happening is about as strong as it was in Libya or Egypt or Syria or... well, you get the picture.

The People are not operating these events, and they have very little chance of taking charge as bit by bit, Ukraine is spiraled into madness to become yet another trophy on the neo-con/neo-lib Wall of Despair.

It's relentless and inevitable. Just as it was for the target regimes during the Bushevik reign of terror and despair. There is no escape. No succor. No relief from the ongoing tragedies.

Reports out of the various eastern sector locations where the Kiev coup-regime leaders have placed their troops to conduct an "anti-terrorist campaign" (save me), have varied from lethal clashes to outright humiliation by peaceful rebel/resistance activists. There have been sporadic reports of defection by Ukrainian troops to the cause of the resistance, but there is no way to tell, through the competing barrages of propaganda what is true and what is merely fluff.

The CIA's Brennan was in Kiev recently and apparently advised the rather bumbling coup-regime to step up its game, make a stand of some sort, force the issue if you will, against the pro-Russian resistance, but do it in a "measured" way.  "The covert war has begun..." Oh? Really? Begun? It's been going on for years.

I expect the death squads to be working overtime soon. There have been reports out of Russia that an American mercenary outfit called Greystone (an offshoot of the illustrious Blackwater mercs) has been deployed in the Eastern Sektor and has been doing some wetwork, but who knows. The denials are to be expected in any case. We are so used to this. We are so cynical.

And the People of Ukraine continue to suffer because they matter not at all, they are not even props any more. They are at best in the way. And observers worry that Putin-the-Great, as he might be styling himself, is being lured into a trap -- the upshot being the dismantlement of what's left of Russia. Could be.

I was going to write about David Graeber's take on why "austerity" -- which has arrived in Ukraine with a vengeance -- is so "accepted" by the massed rather than being resisted fiercely. But Ukraine has turned into something of a type-model for what he's pointing to. The People care "too much" for one another, whereas their governments and leaderships and the global master-classes care nothing for the People, not even to acknowledge them in most cases.

Ukraine is only one of many boiling pots of neo-con/neo-liberal bullshit on the globe today, but it may be the one that proves the case once and for all that the People play no role in the course of events.

The Contractor Connection

Discussion of the rampant domestic spying going on in the United States (which all the officials like to claim isn't "REALLY" spying, rightsurewhatevah) now and then turns to the private sector operatives (like Young Snowden, who has apparently defected, who knows where -- disappeared from his Hong Kong luxury digs at any rate) who actually do the grunt work to collect and analyze the overabundance of data that pours into the system by the hour.

Ah yes The Contractors. On one of the Sunday Shows, an R congressman was quoted as saying that this sort of thing should all be done by the private sector ("as it used to be") and I thought WTF? The private sector basically runs this system as it is, along with a great deal else of ostensibly government responsibility, and he wants to turn it all over to the private sector? Great. What a maroon.

After this settled in for a while, I came to realize this is essentially the position of most Libertarians (and their small "l" variants as well). Most of them don't have a problem with universal surveillance -- as long as it is not being done by the government. In fact, they seem to be quite in favor of private sector spying on individuals, no matter how intrusive, especially if it is done for marketing purposes. The claim is that the private sector is benign because it doesn't have the power or authority to arrest, incarcerate, compel, and execute. I've even heard supposed liberals in congress express this view.

This position strikes me as either hopelessly naive or so deepy deceptive and cynical it reeks.

These days, elements of the private sector very much do have the "powers and authorities" once thought to be reserved to governments, powers and authorities which they cheerfully and fully exercise at will. One of Young Snowden's points was that he, as a lowly (private sector) analyst, had the power and authority to "wiretap" anyone at any time, and that the upshot of this power and authority is that the life of anyone who a (private sector) analyst took an interest in could be destroyed with no recourse whatever for the victim.

We may think of the Imperial Heyday of Great Britain as another example of private sector powers and authorities. Until the Sepoy Mutiny in India, for example, British rule of the subcontinent was exercised through a private corporation, the East India Company, that had even more extensive powers and authorities than the Crown itself.

The notion that there is something benign about private sector/corporate rule as opposed to government rule is absurd and disingenuous, ahistorical, and very, very wrong.

But it is routinely parroted in defense of the constant private sector spying on individuals with almost no recognition that nearly all the work of the NSA among the other (government) domestic spying agencies is being done by private sector contractors. More and more government functions are being turned over to the private sector every day, at home and abroad, and it doesn't appear on its face to have made ordinary lives any better, nor had it enhanced accountability or ended corruption in any perceptible way.

In fact, it could be -- and should be -- argued that a big part of the problem we face as peoples of the United States and the World is directly due to the passion for privatization that has afflicted governments far and wide. By turning over so much of the responsibility of government and governing to unelected and unaccountable institutions, executives and boards, and by placing so much power and authority over the lives of most of us into the hands of these people and institutions, government itself has become the handmaiden to them.

Universal surveillance of the population is necessary to protect and defend the government and its (private sector) sponsors -- which, BTW, include the very corporate spy agencies that are doing most of the domestic surveillance being railed about these days.

In all the passionate OUTRAGE!!!! ® over the domestic spying revelations currently featured in the media, that simple fact is often neglected -- or outright denied.