Congressional Foreign Policy Resolutions a Hint of Things to Come – Wayne Madsen

TND Guest Contributor:  Wayne Madsen |

In passing the so-called “Ukraine Freedom Support Act”, the U.S. Congress has provided a hint of the foreign policy micro-managing in store for the Obama administration in its remaining two years in office. The Congress utilized every neo-conservative talking point and policy plank to include in the bill designed to punish Russia for the aftermath of the neocon-contrived fascist coup d’état in Kiev. With the Republicans about ready to take control of the Senate, key committee chairmanships will go to some of the most interventionist neocon Republicans in the Senate.

The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee will be chaired by right-wing uber-interventionist Bob Corker of Tennessee and the Senate Armed Services Committee’s gavel will be taken by Arizona’s maniacal senior senator, John McCain. Corker’s co-sponsor was outgoing committee chairman, New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, a veteran of sponsoring similar punishing legislation aimed at Cuba, Iran, and Syria. The same neocon alliance of members of Congress that is owned and operated by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Jewish lobbying organization, has ensured unanimous votes for anti-Russia legislation.

The congressional act is binding and unless it is vetoed by President Barack Obama, the act will impose targeted sanctions on such Russian firms as the Rosoboronexport and other defense companies. In addition, sanctions will extend to multinational energy companies involved in Russian deep sea drilling operations around the world. President Obama is also authorized to impose future economic sanctions against the Russian firm Gazprom if it decides to curtail natural gas shipments to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, or NATO members. The latter measure flies in the face of World Trade Organization and other multinational efforts to curtail artificial trade barriers.

Perhaps more ominously, the congressional act authorized the transfer of $350 million in lethal U.S. military assistance for Ukraine’s armed forces. However, since Ukraine’s military is largely dependent on internal and external mercenaries, including avowed neo-Nazis, the probability that U.S. weapons will end up in the hands of Ukrainian and other European Nazi “skin heads” is real. Because Ukraine’s military is supplemented by mercenaries in the service of such oligarchs as Ihor Kolomoisky, the Kiev regime ordered the call up of 40,000 conscripts to military duty.

Congressional lawmakers dropped a provision in the anti-Russia bill that would have granted non-NATO ally status to Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. However, even without such a “poison pill” that could have seen U.S. troops fighting against the Russian-speaking militaries of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics, the arrival of U.S. lethal military equipment and military trainers in Ukraine may, in fact, result in combat deaths for U.S. troops in eastern Ukraine.

The Obama administration said that without corresponding sanctions from European Union nations, the congressional measure was meaningless. A number of European countries are not only hostile to current economic sanctions against Russia but also oppose any increase in such punitive measures. Some nations, most notably Hungary, Italy, and Cyprus, are opposed to renewing sanctions imposed by the EU against deposed Ukrainian officials, including President Viktor Yanukovych, and officials of the autonomous Republic of Crimea. Greece, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic are also known to be against renewing current sanctions or adopting new ones.

The congressional act also contains the same elements of “regime change” utilized in similar legislation directed against Iran, Syria, Libya, and Venezuela. The legislation also expands “broadcasting programs to ‘counter Russian propaganda’ in countries of the former Soviet Union.’” This measure will provide more millions to the George Soros-influenced propaganda networks financed and manned by such CIA constructs as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, and Radio Free Europe/Liberty.

U.S. propaganda efforts will not only be directed against the former Soviet Union but also NATO allies like Germany, where the anti-Russia sanctions Left Party scored the first ever post-unification victory for the former East German Communist Party. Anti-Russia sanctions parties are also gaining steam in the United Kingdom, France, and Spain.

Congressional action against Russia came at the same time the House and Senate passed a bill to punish current and former Venezuelan officials by denying Venezuelans visas and freezing their U.S. assets if they are deemed by Washington of carrying out “significant acts of violence or serious human rights abuses against persons associated with the anti-government protests.” No mention is made of Venezuelans now living in the United States who helped carry out acts of violence in repeated coup attempts against Venezuela’s elected government, most notably in 2002. Just as some European nations have condemned attempts by Washington to increase sanctions against Russia, Latin American and Caribbean nations have condemned the congressional action against Venezuela. Nicaragua responded to Congress’s actions by imposing a travel ban on arch-neocons, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Cuban-American advocates for a return to proto-fascist rule in Latin America, including Cuba.

The same neocon influences responsible for anti-Russia and anti-Venezuela sanctions have also targeted Hungarian officials with a U.S. visa ban. The Hungarian government of Viktor Orban has been targeted by U.S. interventionists because of Budapest’s support for Russia. Imposing U.S. visa bans on the government of a NATO ally is virtually unprecedented in the history of the military pact.

The series of U.S. sanctions legislation against Russia and Venezuela are carbon copies of similar congressional-enabled punitive actions directed over the past few decades against Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Libya. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 remains as a stark example of how a move by Congress was later used to justify a brutal U.S.-led military attack on Iraq and that country’s subsequent occupation by marauding U.S. and allied forces. That was followed by a series of Syria Accountability and Liberation Acts that resulted in CIA and other U.S. support for radical Islamist takfiri and Salafist guerrillas fighting against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Various Iran and Libya Sanctions Acts, initiated in 1996 with the support of AIPAC and its minions, were used as a basis to involve the United States in the bloody rebellion against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Punishing sanctions against Iran have adversely affected the ability of that nation to secure medical supplies to help patients fight cancer. Congressional support for intervention in Iran has also ensured CIA support for terrorist acts in Iran carried out by fanatical and cultish Mohajedin-e-Khalq (MEK) guerrillas.

With the arrival of yet additional “Tea Party” Republicans in Congress, it is beyond time for adult supervision to be exercised over U.S. affairs of state by the few statesmen remaining inside the American capital. Diplomacy and matters of state are too important to be left to the devices of madmen like Alberta-born Canadian-Cuban national Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who has desires to be unconstitutionally elected as the next president of the United States. There is a saying in Washington that every U.S. senator and two-thirds of House members look into the mirror every morning and see the next president of the United States. However, just because they fantasize that they are president does not mean that they are president. Foreign policy is the domain of the president, and Mr. Obama should start leading rather than following every scheme devised by the Congress.

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About Wayne Madsen:

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. Has some twenty years experience in security issues. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. He has been invited to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club. Lives in Washington, D.C.

This article was first published at the  Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal www.strategic-culture.org and is reprinted with permission.