by Stephen Lendman

There’s nothing redeeming about a demagogic billionaire con man, self-styled celebrity, ideologically over-the-top like all other Republican and Democrat presidential aspirants - other than his in-your-face bravado shaking up an otherwise dull race for the White House.

No matter who wins in November 2016, business as usual will again triumph. Candidates differ in style alone. On all issues mattering most, they in lockstep - cardboard cutouts of each other.

So why did Trump make Kiev’s enemies list? More on this below. The regime is run by a US-installed gang of criminal misfits - guilty of virtually every crime imaginable, including major civil and human rights abuses, grand theft, bankrupting Ukraine’s economy, and waging war on its own people.

Regime authorities created a list of state enemies. Included are a French and US actor, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, former French presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Valery Giscard d’Estaing, France’s Marine Le Pen, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Czech President Milos Zeman, and Donald Trump among others.

They’re called threats to Ukraine’s national security. Based on a so-called 10-point “threat level,” they’re categorized either as “Enemies,” “Traitors,” Separatists,” or “Agents of the Kremlin Worldwide.”

Anyone of note supporting or sympathetic to Russia for any reason is automatically included in the latter category.

Numerous Russian notables were named - including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, and Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill.

He was accused of “working to split Ukrainian society through manipulations based on the religious feelings of the Orthodox believers in Ukraine” - as well as using church resources to “assist terrorists in Donbass.”

Notably Vladimir Putin wasn’t named. Why wasn’t explained.

International news agency Rossiya Segodnya head Dmitry Kiselyov was listed - called a “militant propagandist…provocateur (and) key actor in the information war against Ukraine.”

So was the news agency’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan. Crimean Prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya was included for “conniv(ing) in the annexation of Crimea (and being) one of the first (Crimeans) to swear allegiance to the Kremlin.”

Various Donbass political and military officials were listed. They’re already labeled “terrorists” - for rejecting fascist rule, demanding democratic rights everyone deserves, verboten in Ukraine.

Trump made the list for “believing that as US president, he would become friends with Vladimir Putin, for sympathizing with him” - as well as “criticizing US policy (on) Ukraine.”

Named enemies “await a tribunal.” It’s hard believing even a regime as outlandish as Kiev’s would resort to a ludicrous stunt like this. At the same time, named “enemies” can’t ignore their designation.

Independent journalists, activists a former MP, and regime opponents included in an “enemies of the state” database were murdered in Ukraine. At least one current MP/interior ministry advisor, Anton Gerashchenko, urges readers of his Facebook posts to provide names of state enemies not yet listed - citing Article 17 of Ukraine’s constitution, stating in his words and interpretation:

“The defense of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, ensuring its economic and information security is one of the external functions of the state, and is the business of all the people of Ukraine…Everyone who reports a name to the website, or another (resource) is doing the right thing.”

Since lawlessly installed by Washington in February 2014, the regime is responsible for numerous murders of opposition figures, many others disappeared or imprisoned. Fascist police states operate this way.

-###-

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs