Nothing wrong with recycling the same old lies!
Sanctions have been the most visible sign of U.S. anger at Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region in southern Ukraine last month, reflecting the deepest plunge in U.S.-Russian relations since the Cold War.
Obama spoke to French President Francois Hollande about the crisis on Monday and praised Ukraine’s government for showing “great restraint” and working to unify the country, the White House said.
Spokesman Jay Carney confirmed that the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, had been in Kiev over the weekend and decried what he called “false claims” leveled at the CIA by Russian authorities.
“Senior level visits of intelligence officials are a standard means of fostering mutually beneficial security cooperation including U.S.-Russian intelligence collaboration going back to the beginnings of the post-Cold War era,” Carney said.
“U.S. and Russian intelligence officials have met over the years. To imply that U.S. officials meeting with their counterparts (in Kiev) is anything other than in the same spirit is absurd,” he said.
According to media reports, Russia has urged Washington to explain what Brennan was doing in Ukraine.
Bobblehead politicians nod in agreement and sagely quote the nearest brass hat, “Peace is our profession”.
Eideard 
I need a new pair of rubber boots. So do the editors at Reuters who keep releasing crap like this.
Footnote to history: In August 1968, 200,000 troops entered Czechoslovakia after pro-Soviet politicians submitted a letter to the Soviet press stating that “right-wing” media were “fomenting a wave of nationalism and chauvinism, and are provoking an anti-communist and anti-Soviet psychosis.”
It formally asked the Soviets to “lend support and assistance with all means at your disposal” to save the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic “from the imminent danger of counterrevolution.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Siwiec
Golly gee, only 4 years after the NSA and LBJ protected our nation from attacks by Vietnamese torpedo boats by expanding the War in VietNam…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
…also 84 years after France invaded Vietnam and made it a colony and 49 years after Ho Chi Minh (as Nguyễn Ái Quốc) wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing petitioning the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks for a recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina (http://research.archives.gov/description/5049414).
Which is part of why the press of the time called Ho Chi Minh the George Washington of VietNam. Another portion being the legacy of his leadership in fighting Japanese imperial invaders unlike many of his peers in other Asian colonies.
The underlying point to my comment – as history judges – is big powers pushing around little nations tell the same lies, use the same excuses about protecting their own people. The question going back to the days of Caeser has always been “who has their troops stationed in foreign lands all around their empire and beyond?”
Last time I looked, the Gulf of Tonkin wasn’t part of Long Island Sound. The French finally got smart enough to walk away from empire. As did the Brits, the Belgians, the Germans and Portuguese. Sure, they keep as much of the extra profitmaking machinery as possible; but, there’s generally only one nation at a time trying to maintain something as greedy and hypocritical as a global empire.
An argument in favor of imperialism: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/in-defense-of-empire/358645/
Sophistry at its best.
…certainly for people who have been or are in the process of being colonized.
Hard to accept anyone between the Danube and Russia as colonized. In fact, I might move the western border of that topic all the way to Hadrian’s Wall. It’s like Christians in Mississippi whining about being oppressed.
Cripes, everyone in the Balkans picks a different century to justify stealing the next door neighbor’s orchard. I know it ain’t the best love-thy-neighbor politics; but, sometimes I think they just all deserve each other.
OT; but, we’re getting an MLS team in Atlanta. Woo hoo!
In a solemn press conference in Donetsk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, leader of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine, abandoned all political pleasantries.
“Dear friends, acquaintances, assholes, bastards — you should be very afraid,” he warned as he announced the death of his “friend,” Russian commander Arsen Pavlov — known by the nom de guerre “Motorola.” The 33-year-old commander of the Russian-funded – even though Moscow denies it – Sparta Battalion, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb near the elevator of his apartment on Oct. 16, 2016. For many in Donbass, the blast is sure to have a dangerous ripple effect. Separatist fighters vowed to retaliate. Zakharchenko warned that his soldiers will “show no mercy.” https://warisboring.com/dear-friends-acquaintances-assholes-bastards-you-should-be-very-afraid-b8c1f234d209#.ml0jjxl2w
“Ukrainians shocked as politicians declare vast wealth” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-corruption-idUSKBN12V1EN “The latest revelations will likely add to public dissatisfaction with the current leadership’s progress on reforms. A September poll showed that only 12.6 percent would now vote for Poroshenko’s faction, down from 21.8 in the last election. Meanwhile support for populist and opposition parties has risen.”