Kiev allows torture and runs secret jails, says UN.

Greg Krasovsky: Torturing terror suspects and political opponents of your regime? Secret detention facilities - black sites? 

Sound vaguely familiar? 

I wonder where the current Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) could have learned all this? The Nazi Gestapo? The Soviet KGB? 

How about the modern CIA and its allies? 

Yes, the same CIA that's currently deeply embedded into the SBU and is actively helping it to fight pro-Russian federalists (separatists) and alleged Kremlin's agents (i.e. this who actively oppose the pro-U.S. Poroshenko regime)?
   
Is this the freedom, independence and constitutional democracy that Ukrainians deserved and expected from U.S. political, economic, military and intelligence support?
  
Where's the massive press coverage from Western mainstream establishment media? 

What? You didn't know that Western mainstream media tends to cover human rights abuses in countries whose governments are in opposition to the US/EU/NATO establishment? 

That's right folks, the best "get out of jail cards" for kidnappings, unlawful detentions, police brutality, torture and extra-judicial killings are doled out by the U.S. State Department, The Pentagon, and the U.S. Intelligence Community (CIA first and foremost) to virtually ALL U.S. allies and agents who are fighting America's traditional enemies (communists & etc.) and current opponents, such as these in the Middle East

- Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and his allies,
- Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Ba'ath party supporters, anti-American Sunni Muslims and Pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim groups, 
- Syria's Bashar al-Assad and his supporters,
- Iran's government and Shia religious leadership (ayatollahs),
- Bahrain's opposition to the pro-Saudi Arabian Sunni government
- Yemen's opposition to the the pro-Saudi Arabian Sunni government
- Afghanistan's opposition to  
- Pakistan's opposition 

Why? Because although you may be a bad guy, human rights abuser/violator, torturer, rapist, kidnapper, murderer or even a war criminal, you're the means that are justified by a noble end - spreading U.S. government influence and control. Sorry, I meant freedom, democracy, the free market and globalization.
  
So getting back to European Ukraine (the geographic center of the European continent is in Ukraine!), should we be surprised if the United States and its allies allowed the same type of political repressions against anti-U.S/EU/NATO groups as in Saudi Arabia, America's staunchest ally in the Arabian Peninsula with all ensuing consequences?

Should we be scared if the United States recommends and implements in Ukraine the same type of counter-insurgency and anti-communist/socialist measures as in Latin America from the 1960s to the 1990s, like in
  
- El Salvador
- Nicaragua
- Peru
- Colombia
- Argentina and
- Chile

or the counter-insurgency tactics elsewhere around the world like in 

- post-Hussein Iraq, 
- post-Taliban Afghanistan or 
- the Philippines (against communist groups and Moro Muslim Rebel groups).
  
Should we be surprised if the US/EU/NATO turn a blind eye against ethnic, linguistic, religious and political persecution of ethnic Russians, Russian-speakers, Russian Eastern Orthodox and Pro-Russian cultural & political movements, the same way that human rights abuses have been tolerated against America's perceived opponents in the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)?

If you're a staunch Ukrainian Nationalist who holds Ukrainian WWII Nazi collaborators as heroes and their anti-Soviet/Polish/Jewish tactics (i.e. war crimes and crimes against humanity) as justified, then you'll approve of ALL measures necessary to eradicate the Russian menace which you believe has ruined Ukraine for hundreds of years.

But if you're a moderate Ukrainian-Russian-American like me who wants to see a tolerant, independent, democratic and corruption-free Ukraine, then you'll be scared for the sake of all normal and peace-loving Ukrainians of the above scenarios.

Why be saddened and scared? Because I don't want Ukraine to go through what former Yugoslavia has experienced less than 30 years ago - a civil war where neighbors started to beat, torture, rape & kill neighbors just because they were of a different ethnicity. 
  
I don't want Ukraine to look like Iraq where neighbors killed neighbors because they were Sunni and not Shia (and vice-versa).
  
I don't want Ukraine to go through Argentina's Dirty War or the persecutions of Franko's Spain where political opponents are tortured and killed in secret prisons and their children stolen to be raised by their parents' henchmen. 

But all of the above crimes have already started to happen in Ukraine since the Euro-Maidan protests in February of 2014. For better or for worse, the majority of the human rights abuses, war crimes and crimes committed against humanity have been perpetrated by the US/EU/NATO supported Yatsenyuk/Poroshenko regime.

But the Western Political establishment, mass media and even human rights groups mostly have turned a blind eye on these crimes and abuses. Why? 
  
Is it because people believe that it's justified or even necessary to fight Russia's evil with evil?

If you believe that the persecution of legitimate & peaceful political opposition in the Soviet Union was wrong and evil, then why would you tolerate or even participate in the same type of evil in today's Ukraine, even if  it is directed (for now) just at the alleged agents and sympathizers of Russia and Stalin's supposed heir in the Kremlin? 
  
BTW, let's look at modern Russia's geopolitical forays since its founding in 1991 and look at the alleged "evil" it has caused by:

A. Former Soviet Union
- defending Abhazian autonomy in Georgia in 1992-1993 with peace-keeping troops,
- defending Ossetian autonomy in Georgia in 2008 with peace-keeping troops,
- defending Armenian autonomy in Nagorny Karabakh,  
- defending pro-Russian autonomy in Trans-Dniester region of Moldova with peace-keeping troops,
- providing military & political assistance to contain radical Islam and drug trafficking in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. 
- providing political, economic and military assistance to Pro-Russian eastern Ukrainian federalists ("separatists") in Donetsk and Lugansk.

B. Europe
- providing economic, political and military assistance to Serbia 
- providing political assistance to Greece
  
C. Middle East
- providing military support to Syria's legitimate government,
- selling arms and building a nuclear power plant in Iran

D. Latin America
- selling arms to and engaging in trade with Venezuela 
- providing military, political and economic assistance to Cuba 
   
Now let's compare this to the millions of deaths and billions (if not trillions by now) of US dollars in destroyed civilian infrastructure caused by US/NATO led or supported interventions since 1991 in
  
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Libya
- Syria
- Yemen

Now did "evil" Putin's Russia or the former Soviet Union cause the above conflicts and demand US/NATO foreign interventions that have created failed states? No!
    
So how can we justify, tolerate, ignore and/or go unpunished  human rights abuses, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the current Ukrainian government under the flag of fighting Russian aggression and Kremlin's agents of influence?  
  
Please remember that ANY selective tolerance of evil, tyranny and despotism by a society or its government, regardless of whether it is 

- happening domestically or abroad,
- being done or tolerated initially in a limited way on a temporary basis,
- being used to fight a "greater" evil,

will sooner or later desensitize and corrupt the tolerant observer, facilitator or accomplice and lead to a potentially lethal spread of evil like a cancer with unavoidable pain, suffering and even death to follow.  

Do we want that sort of blow-back? I hope not!
  
****

Selected excerpt:

"Ukraine’s spy agency, the SBU, is systematically rounding up and torturing suspected rebel sympathisers, the United Nations has told The Times.

Ivan Simonovic, UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, said that in some areas Kiev’s “disregard for human rights” had become entrenched and systemic and needed to be urgently addressed.

The UN report documents hundreds of cases of illegal detention, torture and ill-treatment of detainees — both by pro-Russian armed groups and by government agencies.

It draws attention to prisoner abuse and murders by pro-Russian rebel groups, but also exposes the scale and brutality of Ukraine’s government-backed torture programme..."

Please read the rest of the article at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/kiev-allows-torture-and-runs-secret-jails-says-un-vwlcrpsjn
  
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