Ray McGovern Interviewed by Regis Tremblay (05/16-17/2016)

Supplemental document for: "Theory that Roger Stone's go-between for Wikileaks was Randy Credico", link: https://wakelet.com/wake/2d352ae9-febe-44a1-a7bb-51674a2e4bf5

Ray McGovern interviewed by Regis Tremblay, conducted May 16-17 2016. Unless indicated, all text is spoken by McGovern.

File link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSfvA4cCtg

As I was saying, the expression you hear these days is "the revolution will not be televised." Well, that might be so, there's one coup that was youtube-ised, and that's the coup in Kiev. On the 22nd of February, 2014. The Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland, a protege of Hillary Clinton, had bragged in late 2013, that five billion, b as in boy, five billion dollars had been invested in "Ukrainians' aspirations to join the West." [this is an obvious and outright lie, which was spread on Facebook and other social media, and is discussed and discounted here: "The United States spent $5 billion on Ukraine anti-government riots" by Katie Sanders; the crux of the refutation was that this funding did not go towards funding any Ukrainian independence movement, but to a variety of programs, including agriculture, economic assistance, and humanitarian assistance, and the funding included all monies since 1991, the year of Ukrainian independence; link: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/] Oooh, that's interesting. We know about the National Endowment for Democracy, really that's kindof heir to what we used to call the covert action staff, at the CIA, they fund all kinds of color revolution type things. K? And we know about sixty five projects that the National Endowment for Democracy had going in the Ukraine.

So, after Putin bailed Obama out at the end of 2013, the plans went forward at a hastened tempo, to do a coup in Kiev. There had been kindof an arrangement, where the president of Ukraine, thought maybe he would do an economic agreement with NATO, or with the EU, but found out what it would cost to Ukraine, and decided, no, he would stay in the orbit of Russia; and so, a coup was- There was all kind of demonstrations on Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State, was giving out chocolate chip cookies, to get the energy level up, under Maidan, the big square. So, on the fourth of February, there's put up on youtube, a conversation between Victoria Nuland, and Geoffrey Pyatt, our U.S. ambassador [to Ukraine] in Kiev, Ukraine. And Victoria Nuland says, "We've got it glued now, looks good, Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk] is the guy, he knows about Central Bank, he knows of the need for austerity, have Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko] and others wait in the wings. They're gonna be useful, but Yats is the guy." And then she says, "We've got plans for the U.N. to come in," and Pyatt says, "You know, European Union..." She says, "Fuck the EU...we've got the UN now..." and it's going to be fine.

Fragment from the call between Nuland and Pyatt in this video:

NULAND
So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it-

PYATT
I think we've got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude, that the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it.

NULAND
Fuck the EU.

This appears to be an edited version of the actual call, taken from the transcript, with notes, that appears here - "Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call" with notes by Jonathan Marcus, link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

NULAND
OK... one more wrinkle for you Geoff. [A click can be heard] I can't remember if I told you this, or if I only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman [United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs] this morning, he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry did I write you that this morning?

PYATT
Yeah I saw that.

NULAND
OK. He's now gotten both Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, fuck the EU.

PYATT
No, exactly. And I think we've got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude, that the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it. And again the fact that this is out there right now, I'm still trying to figure out in my mind why Yanukovych (garbled) that. In the meantime there's a Party of Regions faction meeting going on right now and I'm sure there's a lively argument going on in that group at this point. But anyway we could land jelly side up on this one if we move fast.

[return to MCGOVERN]

Now...was that an authentic conversation? Well, Victoria Nuland did apologize for using curse words with respect to the EU. She did acknowledge it, in other words, as being authentic. This is the fourth of February. Now: when I learned of that, I said, well: it looks like the coup is coming, but at least, at least "Yats", the fellow's name is Yatseniuk, at least he's out of the running now, I mean, a decent respect for the opinions of [chuckles, inaudible], you gotta say, well, if you're intercepted in a conversation, being the budding prime minister of a country that's about to get an overthrown government, then, in my day, we don't say overthrow a government anymore, we say, regime change...so, if there's going to be regime change, well, it's a little bit too embarrassing to have the new, presumptive prime minister mentioned two weeks before, so...so, if there's a coup, well, I wake up on the twenty third, of February, 2014, and I turn the radio on, and there's been a coup in Kiev, day before, the twenty second. And there's a new prime minister, and he's already been recognized by the United States government, what's his name? Yats! [laughs] Yats! Yatseniuk. K? So...I said, this is incredible. Double checked it, then I wrote an article that said, "Yikes! It's Yats!" ["Ukraine: One ‘Regime Change’ Too Many?" link: https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/01/ukraine-one-regime-change-too-many/] I mean, what could be more transparent, right? Now, what'd he do? First thing he does, I think it might be a good idea to join NATO, and I think we oughta ban Russian, as an official language.

So, there were a lot of people who didn't like this coup. And now they're called [gives these words a faux sinister edge] pro-Russian separatists. Or, all they really are, anti-coup nationalists. Okay? Anti-coup, people who want a degree of autonomy, in the eastern part of Ukraine. Now, how did the U.S. media play this? [laughs] Well, you know...the whole thing was...Russia's reacting to this in a very bad way, Putin bad, Putin very bad, Putin ride horse, sometime have no shirt on, sometime have no shirt on while riding horse, Putin bad, okay? Now, what does Putin do? Well...if you were Putin, what would you do? Here you are, Ukraine, it's really where the common Slavic civilization began. Ukraine, always part of Russia, or the Soviet Union, before Khrushchev, for political reasons, in...'53, right after he took over from Stalin, had decided, well, you know, let's take the Crimea, and give it to Ukraine, I mean, I get some political points that way, and no plebiscite, no nothing, you know. So, that was a decree, and it's an accident of history, 1953, 1954, where Crimea was joined with Ukraine...now what's Crimea? Crimea, uh, hosts the only ice free, the only all weather, all year naval port, for the Russian fleet. Big deal. You know, it was Catherine the Great, at the end of the 18th century, same time that we were having our revolution, brought her reign down to, and including Crimea, and started the Black Sea fleet there. Not only that, but although U.S. ships and other ships are able to go through the Bosphorous, and visit in the Black Sea...it's a major naval port there. Their entry into the Mediterranean, and everything else.

So, Obama, we learned later, convened his national security folks on the 23rd, of February 2014, and said, "What are we going to do about this?" Can you envisage Crimea as part of NATO? No way. If they didn't realize we needed to react to this, they don't know anything about our strategic interests. So, what are we going to do? What they arranged was a plebiscite. Now they knew, hands down, that most of the Crimeans would vote to re-join Russia, but they went through the motions at least, and indeed, ninety six percent of the vote said yeah, we want to re-join Russia. So they did, about a month later. Now, how did the U.S. press play this? Well, there was an article in the Washington Post, and it said, headline: "Putin Admits He Had Planned Well In Advance To Seize Crimea" [sic] [there is no Washington Post story that has anything like this headline, and I have no idea what this is in reference to; most popular Crimea story at the Washington Post is "Kremlin says Crimea is now officially part of Russia after treaty signing, Putin speech" by Will Englund, link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russias-putin-prepares-to-annex-crimea/2014/03/18/933183b2-654e-45ce-920e-4d18c0ffec73_story.html ]. Wow. First sentence: "In a video, released by Russian television, Putin shows that he convened his national security advisors, and they planned for the seizure of Crimea..." blahblahblahblahblah "...on the 23rd of February..." So, well before they seize Crimea, the 23rd of February... Never mentioned in this article, is what happened on the 22nd of February. Like, you know, there was a coup. On the 22nd of February. And if Putin had not convened his national security advisors on the 23rd, he would be extremely derelict in his duty.

They're not about to let Crimea go to NATO. Now, he said so. He said two things, that are really important. One was, in a sortof a jocular way, he said, "You know...NATO sailors, I'm sure, are terrific guys. And I don't mind them visiting Crimea, Sevastopol, where we have our naval base, but I really much prefer it to be like it is now, where they can visit our naval base, in Sevastopol, instead of having our guys, who are also wonderful guys, visit a NATO base. In Sevastopol. Thank you very much." [laughs] Now, the more important thing is, that in an interview about this time, Putin also said, "Look...one of the main reasons, just as important, if not more important, preventing Ukraine from getting into NATO, was our fear, of the anti-ballistic missile system, that the U.S. and NATO wants to set up around our periphery...we didn't want Crimea to be a site, a part of that anti-ballistic missile system, which we believe is not defensive in nature. But actually preparatory to a possible first strike, to prevent our retaliatory capabilities."

So, this is big stuff. It was very big stuff. And my point here is, that people who read the Washington Post, out of the blue, know...what do they know? They know that Putin got his security advisors on the 23rd of February and they don't know what happened the day before. Like, the most...well, what George Friedman of Stratfor has called "the most blatant coup in human history." [This is a quote entirely torn from context, one more example of McGovern's blatant dishonesty. From "The Top Five Events in 2014" by George Friedman: "The Russians think of this as an event triggered by the United States. In the newspaper Kommersant, I was quoted as saying that the American coup in Ukraine was the most blatant in history. What I actually said was that if this was a coup, it was the most blatant in history, since the United States openly supported the demonstrators and provided aid for the various groups, and it was quite open in supporting a change in government. The fact that what I said was carefully edited is of no importance, as I am not important in this equation." link: https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/top-five-events-2014 ] Why? Because that conversation between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt was intercepted, probably by the Russian service, and put up on youtube.

What really matters here is what Americans know about all this. And they know next to nothing. They think...well, they've been told how many times? Putin very bad, Putin invade Ukraine. How do we know that? Well, the head of NATO said that. Was he telling the truth? No, he was lying. He didn't invade Ukraine. At most, they sent some soldiers in to help the people of east Ukraine defend themselves, against an onslaught from the government. Kiev, okay?

So, here's an example: I'm at a kindof a seminar with some very progressive Americans. Well educated, very progressive. And a professor from one of the universities in Washington gets up, and she's talking about foreign policy and she says, "Now, I want to tell you, I'm very proud of my son. He's only ten years old. And he came back from sunday school, last sunday, and he'd made a poster. And it said, 'Mister Putin: don't you know thou shalt not kill?'" And everybody kinda...like progressive friends, yeah...So, [raises hand] skunk in the picnic. I raise my hand. "Now, what's your allusion?" "Ukraine, of course, Ukraine. The seizure of Crimea!" So I said, "Well, how many people got killed?" He says, "Hundreds, probably thousands." I said, "Well, would you believe...zero?" "Nah nah nah nah!" "Nobody got killed?" "Nah nah nah nah!" I said, "Well, everybody's entitled to an opinion, but to their own facts. Zero people got killed by the 'seizure' of Crimea." "Well, I don't think-" You know, it was very disconcerting because those are the facts, but all these Americans including progressive Americans couldn't believe it. [laughs] Why? Because it wasn't in the New York Times, because it isn't anything they hear on the boob tube, in the afternoon and evening. K? So, here's an example of how the _Russian invasion_ of Ukraine...and the Russian offensive against Crimea...you know, Americans have a totally different opinion, from what, in reality, happened. Now, did the Russians orchestrate a very clever seizure of Crimea? [laughs] Yeah, they did. Did they invade? No, they didn't. Why? They were entitled to have twenty five thousand troops in Crimea, under a bilateral accord with Ukraine. They were already there. What did they do? They took off their insignia, and they, what they call these "green clad troops", they went to the various ministries in Crimea, and said, "Sorry, but we're taking over now, there's been a coup in Kiev, we don't agree with it, and so, would you please just realize..." Now, there was very little resistance to that, there was some resistance, but no shots fired, okay? So, that's how it happened, okay? And then, when the plebiscite was held, the referendum...and Crimea said, we want to re-join Russia, well, that was the natural outcome of that.

Now, do I look upon all that as a favorable thing? Noooooo, I don't. I mean, you don't change borders lightly. But think about what would have happened. If Russia, or China, mounted a coup in Mexico City, or in Ottawa. Okay? And, right on our doorstep, decided to, to infringe on our sovereignty, in that kind of way, what would our reaction have been? So: this just my way of saying, that if people didn't realize, how...strongly, any Russia, Soviet Union, Russia, would react to the prospect of losing their only warm water naval port, naval base, in Crimea, plus lots of airbases and stuff there, their dominance of the Black Sea...if anyone thought that Putin or anybody else would have simply said, "Oh, okay, you wanna join NATO? Well, that makes it difficult for us...but okaaaaay." They're crazy. They don't know anything about Russian history. So, was it a deliberate provocation? Of course it was. Who was behind it? Victoria Nuland and all the others...who were really, really angry at the Russians for bailing...for helping Obama avoid war in Syria. [McGovern has alleged that the 2013 sarin gas attacks in Syria were a false flag, designed to draw the U.S. into a war there: https://pastebin.com/w9D06awD ] Now, Israel plays into this, doesn't it? Because that war in Syria, was mostly for Israel's interests, not for our own. Nuland is an arch-neocon, just like Lieberman, just like Wolfowitz, just like the people I mentioned before...and that was part of it, to get back at Putin, put him in his place, we can do regime change in Moscow as well. And you have the head of the National Endowment for Democracy, you know, which, as I mentioned before, had sixty five "projects", sprinkled around the Ukraine...before the coup...the head of that, Gershstein [sic] is his name [his name is Carl Gershman], he bragged about, "Look, you know, Ukraine is good. But Putin might have to reckon with the same kind of Maidan uprising, demonstrations, right on Red Square. And there might be a color revolution in Moscow..." And that's their eventual aim, ironically, what they've done is make Putin much stronger...he's got unparalleled, unprecedented support among the Russian people, for his foreign policy, domestic policy, something different, but he's never enjoyed such high approval ratings...

It has become the policy of the American media, to demonize Putin. To make him the devil incarnate. It's almost as though...if Putin were to be observed by Western journalists, walking on top of the Moscow river, to his office in the Kremlin, the headline the next day would be, "Russian President Clearly Doesn't Know How To Swim". It's that bad. One of the reasons Obama and Putin have been able to get along, despite some of their advisors...is that Putin helped Obama a great deal, get out of that fix that he got himself into over Syria. You recall that Obama was on the verge of pressing the button for war, against Syria, an overt war, not a covert war. And Putin decided that he would persuade Bashar Asssad, the president of Syria, to relinquish his chemical weapons and give them over to the United States to be destroyed on a U.S. ship. That happened. After that happened, that all happened at the beginning of September, 2013...on the 11th of September, 2013, Putin wrote an op-ed, that appeared in the New York Times ["A Plea For Caution From Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria" link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html ]...and this was the flourishing of a relationship that he had proved, could be very useful to the United States. And so he waxed eloquent about the ability of the United States and Russia to work together to prevent a war in the Middle East, because that's what happened. [laughs] That's exactly what happened. And it was a very interesting op-ed.

And...far more interesting than the body of the op-ed was the last paragraph, and it said: "You know, the only thing that we basically disagree on...is the United States claim to be the sole indispensable country in the world. The idea that the United States is exceptional. I, Vladimir Putin, don't believe that there's any reason to say one country is more exceptional than any other, I think we're all the same under God's purview. And some are more advanced democratically than others, but that in God's eyes, we're all equal." [laughs] Period. I mean, virtual quote, I don't have it exactly. Now, I learned subsequently, he wrote that himself. I mean, he added that. Like, you know, he had speechwriters do the other stuff. Now, what does that mean? It goes to the very core of things here. What makes the United States exceptional? Why does the president always finish his speeches by saying "...and god bless America"? There's something profoundly wrong from a theological perspective on that. Number one, there's nothing in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures, that encourages us or allows us, to use the imperative mood with god. You know? I mean, you can figure it out. You don't tell god what to do. You don't say, "God bless America," the other people, okay, fine, "Hey God, bless America because we're exceptional," because we're the city on the hill, because we're the sole remaining superpower in the world. That ain't theologically sound, and, you know, what I'd love to see, is, I daresay, Vladimir Putin would like to see, is a president of the United States say, "God bless everybody," and then if he wants to say, "especially America," that's okay...but God bless everyone. [laughing] Now, here's Putin, arch-communist, uh, originally, ruling Russia now, he's actually an Orthodox Christian, and he's saying, look, Mr. Obama, I agree, we can co-operate, look what we just did in averting war against Syria. Let's co-operate here, but let's not...well, let's recognize that you can't really co-operate if one side considers indispensable, and considers everyone else...well, [laughs] I talk [at] a lot of colleges, right? And, some of these kids don't have the grammar training that I have. And so I say, "Anybody know what a synonym is?" And they say, oh yeah, that's a word's like... "How about antonyms?" Usually one kid will..."That's the opposite." Yeah, right, good. So: what's the antonym for indispensable? And they go...dispensable? I say, "Yeah, right." So, when we say the United States is the sole, indispensable country in the world...what do we say about the other countries? That they're dispensable? Yeah, that's right. That they're dispensable. [laughs] HELLO?!? Now, that's the attitude. And that's the attitude that people like Putin observe...and have to take into account, _when they're looking after their own national interests_. So. Mr. Putin has shown himself, in my view, as a very restrained, a very restrained statesman, with _sang froid_, that won't quit. I've seen him under severe provocation, i.e. mounting a coup on his doorstep. Now, people say, "Well, Ukraine, Kiev, that's Russia's backyard." Well, it ain't Russia's backyard, it's the front yard, folks. That's where everyone from Napoleon, Hitler, and before them, the Swedes and the Lithuanians  and the Poles, it's where they all came in through there. So, Ukraine is not just another country. It's the soft underbelly of Russia. And if U.S. policymakers were surprised, that Putin reacted, by making sure Crimea was not forfeited to NATO, well, that just shows that they're _adolescent_, in understanding Russian national interests, and Russia's determination to protect its national interests.