Even if the leaked plan of ‘handling’ Ukrainian crisis was not produced by the RAND corporation, events on the ground very much resemble the shocking points of the memo and the “guidelines for genocide” exported by the US, Don Debar from CPR News told RT.
A memorandum, recently leaked to online media, suggested surrounding eastern Ukrainian cities and placing citizens in internment camps. The document bears a logo of RAND corporation think-tank, but the company denies producing such a report.
While the authenticity of the document could not be independently verified, anti-war activist and journalist Don Debar told RT the guidelines amount to “serial war crimes” some of which are already happening on the ground.
RT:What do you make of this leak? How realistic does it sound?
Don Debar: Well actually knowing something about RAND Corporation, that is where reports credit the memo, it rings very true. RAND Corporation in the 1950s, for example, was contracted to take a look at the emerging political power of minorities in the cities. People were learning, as they got concentrated at the ghettos, people actually learned that they could accumulate political power, elect people to Congress, and state legislators and things. And this became a problem for the status quo.
So RAND basically advised them to destroy neighborhoods, scatter the populations to the four corners of the region and thereby decimate political power. And urban renewal accomplished that. As far as its coming from RAND it is quite credible to me, it is the kind of work that they engage in.
RT: What do we know about RAND Corporation, how influential is it? Does it still have the ear of the US government?
DD: Yes, my understanding is that they advise the Pentagon to this day, yes.
RT:Do you think that this kind of advice could be taken seriously by Kiev?
DD: First of all what is going on on the ground does resemble the memo very much. It talks about in the bullet points, that first they should, you know one of the benefits of the military operation against the people in the east, would be that it would decimate political leadership and it would scatter political constituency, disorganize it, so there would be no opposition political force. So that is the first thing.
The second step, the second benefit it claims, is the destruction of the coal mining industry there, which would eliminate “subsidies” in other word the need to pay the workers and the pensions for the people from the coal mines.
The third thing is that the destruction of the industry that would result in the east would mean that there would be less demand for Russian energy. And these are the kinds of things that they say are benefits. And they say forth that they can blame all of this on the intransigents of the east Ukrainian activists.
So this is what my country exports. There was a time in history when the US exported cars, food, and all kinds of manufactured goods, and what they called the good old American know-how. And now what they export are basically guidelines for genocide.
RT:Should this plan of action be verified, how significant would this become?
DD: Well, it looks to me like a war-crime, or perhaps serial war crimes. What is being advocated are war crimes. You are talking about genocide, the enforced removal of the population, directly caused by, with an intent, by the military operation. And then some kind of group accountability for those that remained, being assumed to be the enemy, terrorists and such. It is criminal on so many levels.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.