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[Update] Marcy Wheeler at her best, her response to Mark Ames:
Of Neo-Fascists and Smiley-Face Neoliberals
I will make a follow-up shortly. Bear with me …
Unwittingly, the saga of the faked black-ops sniper video published by RFERL on 20 February 2014, is connected with the publication by Mark Ames and response of Marcy Wheeler to the NGOs and media outlets under responsiblility of billionaire Omidyar.
My reply in a new diary – Confirmed: Omidyar’s NGOs Clearly Partner in Regime Change
h/t somebody @MoA. In article below, Russia expert Mark Ames makes an astonishing revelation which must be an embarrassment to Glenn Greenwald and Marcy Wheeler under Pierre Omidyar at The Intercept. I quoted Mark Ames on the Ukraine in another recent article – From The eXile – Misinformation Proxy War Ukraine.
Pierre Omidyar Co-funded Ukraine Revolution Groups With US Government, Documents Show
(Pando Daily) – Just hours after last weekend’s ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyar’s newest hires at national security blog “The Intercept,” was already digging for the truth.
Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site’s “senior policy analyst,” speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a “coup” engineered by “deep forces” on behalf of “Pax Americana“:
“There’s quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is.”
These are serious claims. So serious that I decided to investigate them. And what I found was shocking.
Continued below the fold …
Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed “coup,” but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.
But that’s not the shocking part.
What’s shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the “dark force” acting on behalf of “Pax Americana”).
Step out of the shadows…. Wheeler’s boss, Pierre Omidyar.
Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwald’s government-bashing blog,”The Intercept,” co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine.
* * * *
When the revolution came to Ukraine, neo-fascists played a front-center role in overthrowing the country’s president. But the real political power rests with Ukraine’s pro-western neoliberals. Political figures like Oleh Rybachuk, long a favorite of the State Department, DC neocons, EU, and NATO–and the right-hand man to Orange Revolution leader Viktor Yushchenko.
Last December, the Financial Times wrote that Rybachuk’s “New Citizen” NGO campaign “played a big role in getting the protest up and running.”
New Citizen;, along with the rest of Rybachuk’s interlocking network of western-backed NGOs and campaigns– “Center UA” (also spelled “Centre UA”), “Chesno,” and “Stop Censorship” to name a few — grew their power by targeting pro-Yanukovych politicians with a well-coordinated anti-corruption campaign that built its strength in Ukraine’s regions, before massing in Kiev last autumn.
…
According to the Kyiv Post, Pierrie Omidyar’s Omidyar Network (part of the Omidyar Group which owns First Look Media and the Intercept) provided 36% of “Center UA”‘s $500,000 budget in 2012– nearly $200,000. USAID provided 54% of “Center UA”‘s budget for 2012. Other funders included the US government-backed National Endowment for Democracy.Read full article here …