Stephen Lendman is a writer and broadcaster on The Progressive Radio Network. His work is exceedingly widely distributed online, with his articles carried on numerous listservs and websites such as Information Clearing House, Countercurrents, Rense,AltNews, Uruknet, Global Research, Counterpunch, and more. Lendman was awarded the Mexican Press Club's International Investigatory Journalism Award in 2011. Chinese editions of his two books, How Wall Street Fleeces America and Banker Occupation have now been released.

The Washington-sponsored coup in Kiev is a reckless act. Such irresponsibility on the part of the US government should alarm the entire world.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US government has been raising the strategic threat that Washington poses to Russia. The US government violated its agreement not to take NATO into Eastern Europe. The US government withdrew from the ABM treaty.

The US government arranged with Poland to place US anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia's border. The US changed its war doctrine to permit pre-emptive nuclear attack. The US government financed "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine, former constituent parts of both Russia and the Soviet Union.

The US government ignored Russia and attacked and dismembered Serbia. The US government trained and equipped the Georgian military and encouraged Georgia to attack the Russian peacekeeping force in South Ossetia. And now Washington has overthrown the democratically elected government of Ukraine and installed a puppet government.

Washington's Kiev coup is a direct strategic threat to Russia. Ukraine was long part of Russia and the Soviet Union. Indeed, southern and eastern parts of Ukraine are former territories of Russia that Soviet governments added to Ukraine for various reasons.

Crimea, overwhelmingly Russian, was stuck into Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev. Khrushchev did not include Sevastopol, the site of Russia's Black Sea fleet, when he transferred Crimea to Ukraine. Sevastopol was transferred to Ukraine by US pressure when the Soviet Union broke apart and Ukraine emerged as an independent country.

In exchange, Russia was given a lease on the naval base until 2042. The lease permits 25,000 troops and specified numbers of military aircraft, tanks, and artillery in Crimea. The 16,000 Russian troops that the White House and presstitute media intentionally misreported as an invasion force were already present in Crimea under terms of the lease agreement.

Washington either overlooked or worked with the Russophobic ultra-nationalist groups in western Ukraine who sport Nazi emblems and speak of killing Russians and Jews.

Washington used its funded NGOs ($5 billion according to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at the National Press Club in December 2013) to begin street protests when the elected Ukrainian government turned down the offer to join the European Union.

Excerpt from Paul Craig Roberts contribution