The leak of a pirated U.S. diplomatic phone call involving plots to install new leaders in the Ukraine created an extraordinary embarrassment for the United States and illustrated the dangers of pervasive surveillance.
The call involved U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Victoria Nuland, left, one of the country's most prominent diplomats for years. She is connected to the bipartisan neo-con / neo-liberal movement that her Kagan family helps lead along with such powerful media conduits as the Washington Post.
Nuland can be heard saying "F__ the E.U." on the call to U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, right, as they ponder moves to pressure the Ukraine's pro-Russia government and the European Union in hopes of new, Western-aligned leadership for the Ukraine.
Nuland and Pyatt dismissed the prospects for dissident leader Vitali Klitschko, a former world champion heavyweight boxer, to assume a top post in the government.
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Nuland said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Pyatt agreed.
Also, they briefly mention United Nations Secretary-Generation Ban Ki-moon, with the seeming implication he is a willing ally if not functionary in their plans to reorient the Ukraine's leadership.
"State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki acknowledged that the recording was authentic and said Nuland had apologized to E.U. officials. But U.S. officials were also quick to point the finger at Russia, which has bristled at U.S. involvement in Ukraine," the Washington Post reported. "The recording surfaced on YouTube on Thursday, just as Nuland arrived in Ukraine for talks. It was also widely viewed on a Russian-language Web site, where it appeared online along with a photo montage of Nuland,
Pyatt, and opposition figures. The Russian caption reads, 'Puppets of the Maidan,' the colloquial name for Kiev’s Independence Square."
My new book
Presidential Puppetry: Obama Romney and Their Masters devotes significant attention to the bipartisan role of the Nuland and the Kagan family in diplomatic affairs, especially in fostering wars and anti-Russian efforts in the Mideast and the former Soviet republics.
Nuland's husband is Robert Kagan, a think tank scholar, Washington Post columnist and one of the most prominent early advocates (beginning in the mid-1990s) of a United States war against Iraq. The Bush administration launched that war in 2003.
Nuland served during that Bush administration at the State Department. After President Obama's election she continued as the main spokeswoman for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
This week's controversy in the Ukraine arose after President
Viktor Yanukovych last fall left a trade partnership with the European Union.
He said the country would join a Russian economic alliance instead. "That offer came with a $15 billion loan that U.S. and European officials came close to calling a bribe," the Post has reported.
Nuland, in the phone call, offers to arrange for Vice President Biden, right, to pressure Yanukovych to compromises.
The vice president would give an “attaboy,” Nuland said. Beltway insiders, if no one else, would note how confident Nuland was in predicting if not planning the actions of Biden, ostensibly her superior. The Drudge Report, by coincidence, circulated Feb. 7 a story that Biden was inclined to run for the presidency in 2016 because he could not foresee a reason to rule it out.
Surveillance Age Diplomacy
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the United States is not trying to influence the political outcome.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise," Psaki said, "that at any point there have been discussions about recent events and offers and what is happening on the ground.”
Publicly, the United States insists that the Ukraine public should decide its internal affairs. However, Nuland made a show of handing out donuts to anti-government demonstrators in December. More important, Nuland's remarks released Feb. 6 conveyed -- as only a tape recording can do -- a tone of arrogance and other authority as a decision-maker.
