NED: Nice name; malevolent organization

Secretary of State John Kerry may claim Uncle Sam is not behind the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine,  but NED sure is. NED stands for National Endowment for Democracy, a mis-named group if their ever was on. Launched in 1983 by Reagan administration hardliners like CIA Director William Casey,  NED was designed to be a form of shadow CIA to funnel money to foreign political movements taking US positions against the Soviet Union. Casey, we now know from declassified Reagan era documents, also designed NED to fund think tanks and opinion leaders to influence hard line foreign policies; something the CIA was forbidden to do by its Charter. Here we are 31 years later and even though the Soviet Union disbanded and the Cold War essentially ended, NED is still around working to subvert former Soviet controlled nations like Ukraine into abandoning Russia to tilt westward, ensuring US hegemony in the region. And let democracy be damned in the process.

How so? NED used NGO's, non-governmental organizations, to funnel millions to Ukraine in economic projects that essentially helped fuel the rebellion against duly elected president Viktor Yanukovych. While NED was not pleased that neo-Nazis and virulently national anti Semitic thugs help the protests succeed in Yanukovych's ouster, it did nothing to stop them.  NED and their neocon supporters also got the mainstream media to conveniently erase both NED's machinations and the neo-Nazi involvement from the spontaneous democratic narrative foisted on a gullible and clueless American citizenry.

Turn on the news and all you hear is endless demonization of Russian president Vladimir Putin, including how he may have lost touch with reality and gone mad. You won't hear one word about how Putin saved Uncle Sam's bacon by brokering a resolution to the Syrian crisis just as the US was about to unleash a senseless and murderous bombing campaign. Nor will the nightly news utter a peep about how Putin helped defuse the fake Iran nuclear crisis preventing the neocons from getting their next shooting war. 

The real war Americans should worry about is not the one that may break out in Ukraine. Its the one that's already broken out between the wise and cautious Obama administration seeking sensible solutions to critical trouble spots, and the bloodthirsty neocon led NED which seeks more wars both hot (Iran, Syria) and cold (Russia).