Eric Zuesse

The New York Times publishes many wildly false articles, and this will expose only one of them, as an example:

According to Christia Freeland, writing there, on September 5th, the conflict in which the Ukrainian Government has since May 9th been bombing the residents in southeastern Ukraine -- which is the area that had declared its independence from Ukraine -- this "is not a civil war." Those residents had declared their independence; the Government then bombed them for months; but that's "not a civil war."

Freeland wrote, "This is not a civil war, nor is it [referring now to the violent February overthrow of the Ukrainian President, who had been overwhelmingly elected in 2010 by the votes from the residents of this region that’s now being bombed] a fascistcoup. EasternUkrainians are not rising up against an oppressiveregime inKiev [despite that Government's having condemned the people in the southeast and then bombed them incessantly]. ...What makes the Ukrainian conflictconsequential isthat it is not a civil war. It is an annexation ofterritory,the invasion of one European country [Ukraine] byanother [Russia]."

Are those statements of fact, or of mere opinion -- which a reader can disagree with while not necessarily calling them "false"? Other than the clause "What makes the Ukrainian conflict consequential," these allegations (i.e, that it "is not a civil war," and that it is "the invasion of one European country by another," and that the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych was not "a fascist coup," and that “eastern Ukrainians are not rising up against an oppressive regime in Kiev”) are all allegations of fact, but they are all false allegations, false 'facts'; they are actually blatant falsehoods; and here is how and why it’s clear that is the case:

Chronologically, the first of those allegations is that the February 22nd overthrow of Yanukovych "was not a fascist coup." However, as this proves, it was precisely that. And as the transcript of the phone conversation between two EU officials shown here documents, they recognized on February 25th that it had been precisely that. Furthermore, President Obama's agent, Victoria Nuland, on February 4th, had already selected Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom she affectionately referred to there as "Yats," to run the country. And her U.S.-engineered coup in Ukraine didn't occur until February 22nd, and it installed “Yats” to run the country. And, if the coup shown there isn't a "fascist coup," then what coup ever has been, and how could Freeland distinguish this one from that one? She ignores such questions, and leaves only a phrase "fascist coup" that's thus devoid of any and all real-world reference.

What, then, about Freeland's characterizing the cause of this conflict as having been "an annexation ofterritory,the invasion of one European country byanother." She is referring there to the March 16th, 2014, referendum of the voters in Crimea to secede from Ukraine. However, Gallup polled 500 Crimeans during May 16-30 in 2013, and found that only 15% considered themselves "Ukrainian." 24% considered themselves "Crimean." But 40% considered themselves "Russian." The people there overwhelmingly wanted to secede from Ukraine – and, especially now, right after the President whom they had overwhelmingly voted for, Viktor Yanukovych, had been overthrown in an extremely bloody coup. But this article, which the editors of The New York Times saw fit to publish as part of "All the News That's Fit to Print," says "this summer, after the destruction ofMalaysia AirlinesFlight 17, Russia had already invaded and annexedpart ofUkraine — Crimea." However, that too is wildly false, because Russia instead took back this land which had been Russian land throughout the period 1783-1954, when the Soviet Union in 1954 transferred it to Ukraine to please the people in Kiev. The results of the 16 March 2014 referendum were clear for rejoining Russia (which they hade never voluntarily left, in the first place). And, in the 2013 Gallup poll of Crimea, only 17% wanted to be part of the European Union. Furthermore, 68% of Crimeans were favorable to Russia, but only 6% were favorable to the U.S. Then, in April 2014, Gallup again polled Crimea, and, as I reported on July 2nd: “An April poll of Ukrainians, published in June by Gallup's Broadcasting Board of Governors, found two shockingly opposite countries: one, in the northwest, where the view of the U.S. is favorable among more than 50% of the population; and the other, in the southeast, where the view of the U.S. is unfavorable among more than 70% of the population. Additionally, in the Crimean region -- Ukraine's farthest southeast area, which our President, Barack Obama, says that Russia forcibly seized when the people there voted overwhelmingly on 16 March 2014 to become part of Russia again (as they had been until 1954) -- only 2.8% of the public there view the U.S. favorably; more than 97% of Crimeans do not.” So, during the intervening year, favorability toward America had plunged down to 2.8%, from its year-earlier 6%. Clearly, what Obama had done in Ukraine had antagonized the Crimeans. And, as if that weren’t enough, the 2014 poll provided yet more evidence: "The 500 people that were sampled in Crimea were asked ‘Please tell me if you agree or disagree: The results of the referendum on Crimea's status [whether to rejoin Russia] reflect the views of most people here.’ 82.8% said ‘Agree.’ 6.7% said ‘Disagree.’"

In the hearts of the local residents, Crimea was still Russian territory, after an involuntary hiatus of 60 years; and so the Russian Government accepted them back again, into Russia -- not “invaded and annexed part of Ukraine.”

Moreover, Freeland’s passing mention there of “the destruction of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17” fails to mention that Obama definitely caused that airliner to be downed; and, furthermore,that this civilian plane was intentionally shot down by a Ukrainian Government fighter jet ;and that, moreover, the Ukrainian Government has veto-power over the release of the black-box investigation. Therefore, continued insinuations that Russia shot this plane down, or that the people who are defending their families in Southeastern Ukraine, against Ukrainian Government bombers, had shot that airliner down, can only be considered to be either lies or else flagrantly propagandistic fake 'journalism,' and no newspaper that publishes an article like that, can reasonably be trusted by readers, especially if that newspaper declines to publish articles that report truthfully on those matters, because the Times does receive plenty of such truthful submissions (such as of some of the articles that have been linked to here) and rejects them all.Falsehoods like this are thus not “errors”; they are instead policy.

The reader here is cordially invited to click onto the link here for any allegation whose veracity appears dubious, especially because so many outrageously false articles have, indeed, been published about these matters (just as The New York Times and many other ‘news’ media did during the lead-up to our 2003 invasion of Iraq), and because the only way for any reader to be able to evaluate the evidence intelligently is to examine it for himself and always to click onto the link for any allegation that is at all dubious, and to check out how reliable is the evidence upon which that allegation is based. While the Times article provided no links to evidence for any of its allegations, it quoted as a source the opinions of Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, such as, “'The principle of respecting existing borders waslaid down as one of the key foundations of peace inour Europe,' Mr. Bildt said. ‘And it has beenadhered to up until March of this year.'” That article by Freeland failed to note, however, Bildt’s being also a secret U.S. Government agent. By contrast, the evidence that is linked to in my article here has been checked out by me to be far less prejudiced, far more reliable, than government agents, secret or not; and I have done my best to enable readers to verify this article by their merely clicking onto the link wherever an allegation seems to be at all questionable. That is the only way to assist readers to overcome the pervasive government and press propaganda; and, so, that is my standard practice.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of Christ's Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity .