On Friday, The New York Times continued its long, predictable tradition of backing U.S. coups in Latin America by publishing an editorial praising Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. This will be the 10th such coup the paper has backed since the creation of the CIA over 70 years ago.
A survey of The New York Times archives shows the Times editorial board has supported 10 out of 12 American-backed coups in Latin America, with two editorials—those involving the 1983 Grenada invasion and the 2009 Honduras coup—ranging from ambiguous to reluctant opposition. The survey can be viewed here.
Covert involvement of the United States, by the CIA or other intelligence services, isn’t mentioned in any of the Times’ editorials on any of the coups. Absent an open, undeniable U.S. military invasion (as in the Dominican Republic, Panama and Grenada), things seem to happen in Latin American countries entirely on their own, with outside forces rarely, if ever, mentioned in the Times. Obviously, there are limits to what is “provable” in the immediate aftermath of such events (covert intervention is, by definition, covert), but the idea that the U.S. or other imperial actors could have stirred the pot, funded a junta or run weapons in any of the conflicts under the table is never entertained.
More often than not, what one is left with, reading Times editorials on these coups, are racist, paternalistic “cycle of violence” cliches. Sigh, it’s just the way of things Over There. When reading these quotes, keep in mind the CIA supplied and funded the groups that ultimately killed these leaders:
Brazil 1964: “They have, throughout their history, suffered from a lack of first class rulers.”
Chile 1973: “No Chilean party or faction can escape some responsibility for the disaster, but a heavy share must be assigned to the unfortunate Dr. Allende himself.”
Argentina 1976: “It was typical of the cynicism with which many Argentines view their country’s politics that most people in Buenos Aires seemed more interested in a soccer telecast Tuesday night than in the ouster of President Isabel Martinez de Perlin by the armed forces. The script was familiar for this long‐anticipated coup.”
See, it didn’t matter! It’s worth pointing out the military junta put in power by the CIA-contrived coup killed 10,000 to 30,000 Argentines from 1976 to 1983.
There’s a familiar script: The CIA and its U.S. corporate partners come in, wage economic warfare, fund and arm the opposition, then the target of this operation is blamed. This, of course, isn’t to say there isn’t merit to some of the objections being raised by The New York Times—whether it be Chile in 1973 or Venezuela in 2019. But that’s not really the point. The reason the CIA and U.S. military and its corporate partisans historically target governments in Latin America is because those governments are hostile to U.S. capital and strategic interests, not because they are undemocratic. So while the points the Times makes about illiberalism may sometimes be true, they’re mostly a non sequitur when analyzing the reality of what’s unfolding.
Did Allende, as the Times alleged in 1973 when backing his violent overthrow, “persist in pushing a program of pervasive socialism” without a “popular mandate”? Did, as the Times alleged, Allende “pursue this goal by dubious means, including attempts to bypass both Congress and the courts”?
But Allende’s supposed authoritarianism isn’t why the CIA sought his ouster. It wasn’t his means of pursuing redistributive policies that offended the CIA and U.S. corporate partners; it was the redistributive policies themselves.
Hand-wringing over the anti-democratic nature of how Allende carried out his agenda without noting that it was the agenda itself—not the means by which it was carried out—that animated his opponents is butting into a conversation no one in power is really having. Why, historically, has The New York Times taken for granted the liberal pretexts for U.S. involvement, rather than analyzing whether there were possibly other, more cynical forces at work?
The answer is that rank ideology is baked into the premise. The idea that the U.S. is motivated by human rights and democracy is taken for granted by The New York Times editorial board and has been since its inception. This does all the heavy lifting without most people—even liberals vaguely skeptical of American motives in Latin America—noticing that a sleight of hand has taken place. “In recent decades,” a 2017 Times editorial scolding Russia asserted, “American presidents who took military action have been driven by the desire to promote freedom and democracy, sometimes with extraordinary results.” Oh, well, good then.
What should be a conversation about American military and its covert apparatus unduly meddling in other countries quickly becomes a referendum on the moral properties of those countries. Theoretically a good conversation to have (and one certainly ongoing among people and institutions in these countries), but absent a discussion of the merits of the initial axiom—that U.S. talking heads and the Washington national security apparatus have a birthright to determine which regimes are good and bad—it serves little practical purpose stateside beyond posturing. And often, as a practical matter, it works to cement the broader narrative justifying the meddling itself.
Do the U.S. and its allies have a moral or ethical right to determine the political future of Venezuela? This question is breezed past, and we move on to the question of how this self-evident authority is best exercised. This is the scope of debate in The New York Times—and among virtually all U.S. media outlets. To ante up in the poker game of Serious People Discussing Foreign Policy Seriously, one is obligated to register an Official Condemnation of the Official Bad Regime. This is so everyone knows you accept the core premises of U.S. regime change but oppose it on pragmatic or legalistic grounds. It’s a tedious, extortive exercise designed to shift the conversation away from the United States’ history of arbitrary and violent overthrows and into an exchange about how best to oppose the Official Bad Regime in question. U.S. liberals are to keep a real-time report card on these Official Bad Regimes, and if these regimes—due to an ill-defined rubric of un-democraticness and human rights—fall below a score of say, “60,” they become illegitimate and unworthy of defense as such.
While obviously not in Latin America, it’s also worth noting that the Times cheerled the CIA-sponsored coup against Iran’s President, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953. Its editorial, written two days after his ouster, engaged in the Times’ patented combination of victim-blaming and “oh dear” bloviating:
“The now-deposed Premier Mossadegh was flirting with Russia. He had won his phony plebiscite to dissolve the Majlis, or lower House of Parliament, with the aid of the Tudeh Communists.”
“Mossadegh is out, a prisoner awaiting trial. It is a credit to the Shah, to whom he was so disloyal, and to Premier Zahedi, that this rabid, self-seeking nationalist would have been protected at a time when his life would not have been worth the wager of a plugged nickel.”
“The Shah … deserves praise in this crisis. … He was always true to the parliamentary institutions of his country, he was a moderating influence in the wild fanaticism exhibited by the nationalists under Mossadegh, and he was socially progressive.”
Again, no mention of CIA involvement (which the agency now openly acknowledges), which the Times wouldn’t necessarily have had any way of knowing at the time. (This is part of the point of covert operations.) Mossadegh is summarily demonized, and it’s not until decades later the public learns of the extent of U.S. involvement. The Times even gets in an orientalist description of Iranians, implying why a strong Shah is necessary:
[The average Iranian] has nothing to lose. He is a man of infinite patience, of great charm and gentleness, but he is also—as we have been seeing—a volatile character, highly emotional, and violent when sufficiently aroused.
Needless to say, there are major difference between these cases: Mossadegh, Allende, Chavez and Maduro all lived in radically different times and championed different policies, with varying degrees of liberalism and corruption. But the one thing they all had in common is that the U.S. government, and a compliant U.S. media, decided they “needed to go” and did everything to achieve this end. The fundamental arrogance of this assumption, one would think, is what ought to be discussed in the U.S. media—as typified by the Times’ editorial board—but time and again, this assumption is either taken for granted or hand-waved away, and we all move on to how and when we can best overthrow the Bad Regime.
For those earnestly concerned about Maduro’s efforts to undermine the democratic institutions of Venezuela (he’s been accused of jailing opponents, stacking the courts and holding Potemkin elections), it’s worth pointing out that even when the liberal democratic properties of Venezuela were at their height in 2002 (they were internationally sanctioned and overseen by the Carter Center for years, and no serious observer considers Hugo Chavez’s rule illegitimate), the CIA still greenlit a military coup against Chavez, and the New York Times still profusely praised the act. As it wrote at the time:
With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.
Chavez would soon be restored to power after millions took to the streets to protest his removal from office, but the question remains: If The New York Times was willing to ignore the undisputed will of the Venezuelan people in 2002, what makes anyone think the newspaper is earnestly concerned about it in 2019? Again, the thing that’s being objected to by the White House, the State Department and their U.S. imperial apparatchiks is the redistributive policies and opposition to the United States’ will, not the means by which they do so. Perhaps the Times and other U.S. media—living in the heart of, and presumably having influence over, this empire—could try centering this reality rather than, for the millionth time, adjudicating the moral properties of the countries subject to its violent, illegitimate whims.
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Adam H. Johnson is a media analyst for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and is co-host of the Citations Needed podcast.
U.S. intelligence officials confirmed to the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Tuesday, that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 2015 nuclear agreement, and furthermore had no strategic plans to do so.
This report from the US intelligence community indicate that Israel’s Netanyahu and his American cohort, Donald Trump, have deliberately misinformed the world regarding Iranian nuclear capability. The state of Israel, which is estimated to have in excess of more than 400 undeclared nuclear warheads must be compared to Iran which is not a nuclear weapon state. Who, therefore, is the threat to world peace?
Under the influence of the Israeli Prime Minister and ignoring the emphatic advice from the UN Security Council and the European Union, US President Trump last year pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran, put in place under his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama. Trump then re-imposed sanctions on Tehran causing massive economic and political destabilisation throughout the Middle East in addition to dismay from the European and other signatories to the nuclear deal.
It is crystal clear where the truth lies, and it is certainly not in Tel Aviv nor in the Trump White House. Now is surely the time for Europe to strengthen cooperation with the geographically important state of Iran, both economically and politically, whilst cutting ties and trade with Israel. It is vital that the West recognises who are its future friends and strategic partners.
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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
A senior judge at the United Nations’ International Court in The Hague has resigned in protest of “shocking” interference from the Trump administration into a preliminary war-crimes investigation into U.S. troops.
The judge, Christoph Flügge, who hails from Germany, slammed National Security Advisor John Bolton over his response last year to a preliminary investigation into American soldiers accused of torturing people in Afghanistan. That investigation ultimately found “a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” were committed by U.S. forces, MintPress News reported.
“The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,” Bolton said in September.
He also called for sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) and warned the body against pursuing any investigations into “Israel or other U.S. allies.”
Bolton even cited a Palestinian-led effort to bring Israel to the ICC over its human-rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank as a reason for closing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington.
He went on to promise to ban ICC “judges and prosecutors from entering the United States,” adding:
We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”
“John Bolton, the national security adviser to the U.S. president, held a speech last September in which he wished death on the International Criminal Court,” Flügge said after leaving his post.
Flugge continued on Bolton’s declaration:
If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted.”
The American security adviser held his speech at a time when The Hague was planning preliminary investigations into American soldiers who had been accused of torturing people in Afghanistan. The American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat.
It is consistent with the new American line: ‘We are No 1 and we stand above the law.’”
A supine UN, a dreadful precedent
The attacks from the White House were one of two reasons for Flügge’s resignation, as the judge was left aghast by the UN’s deferential response to Turkey after Turkey arrested Aydın Sefa Akay, another UN judge, over alleged links to Fethullah Gülen, a cleric living in exile in the U.S. whom Turkish President Recep Erdoğan claims is the mastermind behind the 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey.
Akay was at the end of his tenure when the charge was leveled by Turkey.
“We, the other judges, immediately protested. But his tenure was nevertheless not extended by the UN secretary general. And with that, he’s gone,” Flügge said.
The assaults by Turkey and the U.S. were both undertaken in the summertime. Afterwards, Flügge said he realized that the “diplomatic world” did not value the independent judiciary that was the ICC. The lack of a response by the UN to Turkey for its meddling in ICC matters set a dangerous precedent, according to the judge.
“Every incident in which judicial independence is breached is one too many,” Flügge said. “Now there is this case, and everyone can invoke it in the future. Everyone can say: ‘But you let Turkey get its way.’ This is an original sin. It can’t be fixed.”
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Alexander Rubinstein is a staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He reports on police, prisons and protests in the United States and the United States’ policing of the world. He previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.
Featured image: International Criminal Court, The Hague | OSeveno
On January 24, 2019, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has stated:
“Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention. These major threats—nuclear weapons and climate change—were exacerbated this past year (2018) by the increased use of information warfare to undermine democracy around the world, amplifying risk from these and other threats and putting the future of civilization in extraordinary danger.”
History is replete with instances where an “end” has been falsely predicted. Where do present climate science-based projections and the probabilities of nuclear war lie?
Clouded with a veneer of untruths propagated by mercenary pseudo-ideological forces, the brutal fact is that, to date, the emission of more than 600 billion tons of greenhouse gases, raising atmospheric CO2 concentration by more than 40 percent, has shifted the state of the terrestrial atmosphere to that of the Miocene 16 million years ago, at a rate faster than any recorded since 55 million years ago. Whereas species can adapt to gradual changes runaway global warming within less than a century is triggering a mass extinction. As stated by David Attenborough “The garden of Eden is no more” (See this).
Reinforcing the existential risk of climate disruption is the probability of a nuclear exchange, with a nuclear arsenal of 14,575 missiles and bombs (see this), with time the probability of a deliberate of accidental nuclear war becomes a probability and, with time, a certainty. Lateral and vertical nuclear proliferation is only growing. Sydney Drell, a physicist and nuclear weapons expert, commented on the proximity of a nuclear exchange in the following terms: “Given all the close calls and mistakes in the 71 years since then (Hiroshima), he considered it a miracle that no other cities have been destroyed by a nuclear weapon—“it is so far beyond my normal optimism” (See this)
What are the origins of the imminent demise of much of nature, likely including a large part of the human race? Where does responsibility lie? Is it the unrelenting conflict between life-giving and life-destroying forces in nature, the megalomaniac nature of leaders, infinite greed, messianic zeal, murderous atrocities of colosseum games, obscene film and TV shows that create model mirrors in the mind of growing generations?
At the roots of human pre-history are the tribe and the tribal leader, typically the stronger and brave hunger and warrior, capable of providing the tribe with food and protect it from enemies. The leader, however, may not be the wise and is prone to dragging the tribe to disaster, as have kings and emperors through the ages. Leaders, however, do not arise in a void but within circumstances which enhance their rise to power.
Translated to modern societies, it is often the more ruthless, canning and corrupt types who get to the top, but then, once the species has mastered the technologies of combustion, manipulation of the electromagnetic spectrum, splitting of the atom and production of a variety of poisons, the species needs to be absolutely wise and in control if it is to avoid self-destruction by its own inventions.
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Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate science, Australia National University (ANU) School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Planetary Science Institute, ANU Climate Change Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
To clarify the importance of the January 23rd coup attempt in Venezuela we remember that ever since WWII the customary motivation for violations of the Convention on Genocide has been to gain a region’s natural resources. For example Iraq, Libya, Syria, Haiti, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Guatemala, and others.
The people of resource-rich areas are forced into flight, exile, refuge elsewhere, or are attacked by disease, or starvation, or directly murdered by military programs, or divided internally into civil wars assuring the death of multitudes.
Damages are inter-generational with the effects of depleted uranium weaponry or mining waste; the survivors of one generation lose their children in the next. The effect of destroying a habitat is the destruction of a people with legal historical claim to the land and its natural resources.
If these people are eradicated, resource development proceeds without impediment or any benefit or payment to the rightful owners. Night’s Lantern places an implicit warning for peoples inhabiting or able to make legal claim to resource-rich territory. Venezuela possesses about a quarter of the earth’s oil resources. The corporate battle for profits is understood to be criminal. The U.S. has made a point of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court and attempting to destroy international law. Since there is strong evidence that Venezuela is threatened with a takeover by corporate interests, represented by U.S. policy, the people of Venezuela are now under a genocide warning.
A summary of the current coup attempt: on January 23rd, Juan Guaidó, leader of the right wing National Assembly declared himself the President of Venezuela. During the presidency of Hugo Chavez, and despite the failure of the first U.S. attempted coup against him, and then after the curious death of Chavez, and after the presidency was assumed by Chavez’s and the people’s chosen successor, Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. has continually and heavily funded the country’s political opposition. Guaidó’s counter-democratic declaration was endorsed immediately by Brazil, the U.S. and Canada in an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government. Juan Guaidó’s platform if allowed to rule, would include returning nationalized companies to their previous owners.
The U.S. Vice president’s call-out to the Venezuelan people to rise up and embrace Guaidó as their President, failed. Of the Americas, governments installed by the U.S. have supported the U.S. position. Countries of the Americas controlled by right wing middle classes at the service of corporate policies and wealth, also support the U.S. position.
Western media explain ‘a need for change’ rising from the country’s ‘humanitarian crisis,’ which on examination is an economic crisis rising from very low prices of oil – and then the debilitating U.S.-initiated sanctions to sideline Venezuela’s attempts at economic recovery. As the largest holder of oil resources in the world Venezuela’s political and economic difficulties are consistently traced to foreign corporate interests.
The European Union has demanded new elections in an attempt to discredit President Maduro’s victory at the polls last May and his re-installation as President on January 10th. Cuba has shifted 2500 of its health providers from its mission to the poor in what has become fascist Brazil, to Venezuela. Venezuela’s alliances with Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Mexico, among others, remain. Within Venezuela, the government and its supporters including all branches of the military have remained loyal to the country’s Constitution and Nicolás Maduro as the elected President. The U.S.-Brazil-Canada axis attempt to effect its choice of rulers for another country has risked tripping these as aggressors and Venezuela, into war. As noted at the mourning for Hugo Chavez whose illness many believe was the result of an assassination, “Chávez vive, la lucha sigue!”.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Night’s Lantern.
A former United Nations rapporteur has criticised the US for engaging in “economic warfare” against Venezuela which he claimed was the real reason for the economic and humanitarian crisis facing the country.
Alfred de Zayas, who last year became the first UN rapporteur to visit Venezuela for 21 years, also suggested in his recently published UN report, that US sanctions on the country are illegal and could amount to “crimes against humanity” under international law.
Mr De Zayas, an American lawyer, writer, historian and former secretary of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), presented his Venezuela report to the HRC in September.
In the report, which can be read in full here, Mr De Zayas recommended, among other actions, that the International Criminal Court investigate economic sanctions against Venezuela as possible crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.
In the report conclusions Mr De Zayas, who is an expert in the fields of human rights and international law, went on to say the solution to the Venezuelan crisis lay “in good faith negotiations between the Government and the opposition, an end to the economic war, and the lifting of sanctions.”
The US imposed sanctions against Venezuela began in 2015 under President Barack Obama and have intensified under Donald Trump.
US sanctions against Venezuela prohibit dealing in currencies and stop US-based companies or people from buying and selling new debt issued by the state-run oil body, PDVSA or the government.
The US Department of State’s sanctions and justifications can be read here
In his report Mr De Zayas said modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns.
“Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees.”
Since 2015 around 1.9m people have fled the country and inflation has reached 60,324%.
Speaking to The Independent yesterday Mr de Zayas also suggested his research into the causes of the country’s economic crisis has so far largely been ignored.
“When I come and I say the emigration is partly attributable to the economic war waged against Venezuela and is partly attributable to the sanctions, people don’t like to hear that. They just want the simple narrative that socialism failed and it failed the Venezuelan people,” Mr de Zayas told The Independent.
Mr de Zayas went on to suggest that sanctions are part of a US effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government and instal a friendlier regime.
“I’ve seen that happen in the Human Rights Council, how the United States twists arms and convinces countries to vote the way they want them to vote, or there will be economic consequences, and these things are not reflected in the press,” he told The Independent.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and other abundant natural resources including gold, bauxite and coltan.
“If you crush this government and you bring in a neoliberal government that is going to privatise everything and is going to sell out, a lot of transitional corporations stand to gain enormous profits and the United States is driven by the transnational corporations,” the former UN special rapporteur told The Independent.
“The business of the United States is business. And that’s what the United States is interested in. And they can’t [currently] do business with Venezuela.”
In his report, Mr de Zayas expressed concern that those calling the situation a “humanitarian crisis” are being “weaponised” to discredit the government and make violent overthrow more “palatable”.
Amnesty, for example, have said the Maduro government is responsible for “the worst human rights crisis in the country’s history,”
“There is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d’état and nothing more corrosive to the rule of law and to international stability when foreign governments meddle in the internal affairs of other states,” he told The Independent.
“Only the Venezuelans have a right to decide, not the United States, not the United Kingdom … What is urgent is to help the Venezuelan people through international solidarity – genuine humanitarian aid and a lifting of the financial blockade so that Venezuela can buy and sell like any other country in the world – the problems can be solved with good faith and common sense.”
Mr De Zayas is one of 70 signatories of an open letter, along with with Noam Chomsky and over 70 other academics and experts, who have condemned what they described as a US-backed coup attempt against the Venezuelan government.
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Smashing the claims of “protecting democracy” in Venezuela, the United States National Security Advisor John Bolton said in an interview that they are backing the illegal coup in the South American country because of oil.
“It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela,” Bolton told Fox News in an interview this week.
Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza wrote on Twitter,
“Confession … @ AmbJohnBolton confirms that the COUP is about OIL.”
Confesión de parte: @AmbJohnBolton confirma que el GOLPE es PETROLERO. Desde el segundo 48: "HARÁ UNA GRAN DIFERENCIA PARA LOS EEUU ECONÓMICAMENTE si podemos tener empresas petroleras estadounidenses invirtiendo de verdad y produciendo las capacidades petroleras en Venezuela" https://t.co/fXnLBT1PWL
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in an interview Wednesday that the U.S. just wants to seize Venezuela’s oil and mineral resources and that is the reason behind backing the coup and intervention in the Latin American country.
“The reason is seizing the oil of Venezuela, because we have the largest oil reserves, we confirm that we have the largest reserves of gold in the world, we have the world’s fourth-largest gas (reserves), have large reserves of coltan, diamonds, aluminum, iron, we have drinking water reserves throughout the national territory, we have energy and natural resources,” said the Venezuelan president.
The U.S. has backed the coup by Juan Guaido, who on Jan. 23 illegally declared himself the “interim president” of Venezuela.
U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the self-proclaimed president. The same was done by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who has instigated attacks against Maduro and his government.
Maduro and the Venezuelan people are resisting this coup attempt by the interventionist North American country.
The new U.S. measures against Venezuela include the freezing of some US$7 billion in assets of the Venezuelan state oil company (PDVSA), in addition to an estimated loss of US$11 billion of exports over the next few years.
The sanctions are applied to the Venezuelan government; to any political organizations; state agencies, including the Bank of Venezuela and PDVSA; as well as to any person acting in the interest of the “government of Nicolas Maduro.”
Denouncing the U.S. interventionism, Maduro said that Venezuela is a sovereign country and not part of a U.S. backyard.
“They (the United States) consider us their backyard. And we say that we are not anyone’s backyard, we are an independent republic,” Maduro asserted.
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The situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone is slowly escalating with an increased number of artillery duels and clashes between pro-government fighters and militants taking place there on a daily basis.
On January 29, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) and Jaysh al-Izza reportedly attacked positions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in the villages of Maan and Atshan in northern Hama. The SAA responded by shelling the areas of Tamanah, Tal Teri, Tal Suayk, Suayk, Morek and Tal Huwayr. Early on January 30, artillery strikes were also reported near the militant-held villages of al-Tah and al-Lataminah. Both sides are accused of using heavy artillery and grad rockets, openly showing that the de-militarization zone agreed by Turkey and Russia has not in fact been established in the area.
The situation is also tense in northern Lattakia and western Aleppo, but the daily intensity of strikes there is lower.
Recently, a new group of SAA troops arrived in the area of Abu al-Duhur Airport. According to the Russian military, on January 22, up to 200 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham members attacked SAA positions in the area, but this advance was repelled.
The political leadership of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and thus the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continued their PR efforts to rescue themselves from the political and security dead end, in which they appeared to fiind themselves after the US announcement of troops withdrawal.
So far, YPG, SDF representatives have already claimed that:
They invite Damascus to their areas;
They do not invite Damascus to enter Manbij;
They are negotiating with Damascus;
They are not negotiating with Damascus;
They are ready to find “an understanding” with Turkey;
They’ve provided Russia and Damascus with a list of demands for negotiations;
On January 29, Ilham Ahmed, the co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, a formal political body of the SDF, claimed that there are no signs of the US troops withdrawal from Syria saying that the situation is “just like before” Trump’s announcement.
On January 28, Syria and Iran signed 11 deals and memoranda of understanding covering fields including the economy, culture, education, infrastructure, investment and housing. They were signed during a visit to Damascus by Iran’s First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri. The gorwing Syrian-Iranian cooperation shows that the US-Israeli bloc key goal – to push Iran out of Syria – is something unlikely even theoretically.
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Russia just dropped a huge hint suggesting that it might be trying to assemble an Astana-like conference for resolving the Venezuelan Crisis in the same spirit as what it’s been trying to do with Syria over the past two years, which could present the most peaceful solution available even if this initiative ultimately results in “painful compromises” by the government if it succeeds.
Another Astana?
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed earlier today that his country is in talks with other states and international organizations over the role that every concerned party could play in “mediating” the Venezuelan Crisis. He said that
“There is the EU’s initiative to set up a contact group. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has also put forward some initiatives, there is also some ideas that Uruguay and Mexico have come up with…We truly wish to help create conditions for dialogue between the government and the opposition. We are discussing it with our Venezuelan partners, China, Latin American and European countries. We are also ready to participate in international efforts on platforms that would be acceptable for the Venezuelan parties.”
Although it can’t be known for certain at this point, all indications suggest that Russia might be ready to “pull a Syria” by assembling an Astana-like conference for resolving the Venezuelan Crisis.
Follow The Money
Russia is a firm proponent of international law and adamantly opposed to the US’ regime change plots anywhere across the world, but it has more than just altruistic motives of principle for wanting to ensure that the Venezuelan Crisis is peacefully resolved as soon as possible. The country invested $11 billion in the Bolivarian Republic over the years through various loans and energy, mineral, military, and infrastructure deals and just recently agreed to commit another $6 billion in early December. The very real prospect of potentially losing some or all of these assets following the possible seizure of power by US-backed Color Revolution forces in Venezuela terrifies Russia because it would result in a hefty financial hit its interests, though China would be even more adversely affected because of the whopping $50 billion that it loaned Caracas up until this point. Accordingly, it makes sense for both Eurasian Great Powers to pool their resources in trying to de-escalate this crisis as soon as possible.
Self-declared wannabe “president” Juan Guaido understands the impressive leverage that his US-backed Color Revolution forces have over those two countries after hinting that Maduro isn’t “protecting their investments” from what can only be interpreted as the veiled threat that this Hybrid Warriors pose to their physical assets. Catching the drift, Russia and China might be compelled to “convince” Maduro to “compromise” with the “opposition” out of fear that their investments might be targeted by Guaido’s supporters during any forthcoming escalation of unrest in the country, with the Western Mainstream Media gleefully waiting to “report” that “the people are also rebelling against the regime’s backers” as they blow up pipelines, demolish mines, and attack the other property of those countries’ companies. Under this very realistic scenario, Russia and China would be powerless to protect their assets, and their on-the-ground partners in the Venezuelan Armed Forces charged with ensuring their security might have their hands full responding to more pressing regime change threats.
On The Road To “Compromises”
Faced with the horrifying prospect of losing so many billions of dollars, Russia and China are incentivized to help Maduro and Guaido reach a “compromise solution” to the crisis, something that Moscow implied is its intention after Lavrov said after his above-cited comments in the same statement that “We are confident that creating conditions for the Venezuelan parties to make an agreement is the only possible goal.” This powerfully lends a degree of “legitimacy” to Guaido by implicitly recognizing the need for him and the authorities (“the Venezuelan parties”) to “make an agreement”, the outcome of which shouldn’t be “predetermined” in advance according to Lavrov in a subsequent remark but which could be predicted by context to refer to either a power-sharing arrangement or early elections despite Maduro ruling out the latter. Either way, it looks like the only option for Russia and China to avoid any harm to their assets in Venezuela is to get Maduro to “compromise” in one way or another and as soon as possible.
Arguments For And Against America’s Support For Another Astana
This urgent motivation is probably what’s behind Russia’s efforts to streamline an Astana-like conference on Venezuela, though this peacemaking initiative could fall flat if neither the “opposition” nor its foreign backers agree to it. The US controls the so-called “Lima Group” and is ultimately the final decision maker on whether Russia’s effort will have a chance at succeeding or not. On the one hand, it might remain opposed to this because it either intends to throw Venezuela into civil war and/or wants to seize its rivals’ assets once its proxies come to power or have them destroy Russian and Chinese properly during the chaos. On the other hand, however, the US might be willing to “give peace a chance” if it thinks that it can use the “goodwill” that it might engender from both of its Eurasian Great Power rivals to get them to geopolitically and/or economically “compromise” on something else, as well as if it fears that oil prices might surge for a while to Moscow’s benefit.
At the end of the day, it’s “more convenient” for the US’ proxies to “legitimately” take power in a “peaceful” way (even if it takes time through a Russian-brokered “phased leadership transition”) than in a controversial one such as a coup or after a prolonged civil war because it’ll allow American companies to most immediately profit from their government’s foreign policy “success” in its “backyard”. If Venezuela becomes the “next Syria”, it’ll take a lot of time and investment before the US “reaps the rewards”, which is why it might be willing to “allow” Russia and China to save some (but likely not all) of their investments on the condition that they “convince” Maduro to begin the process of transferring power to Guaido under whatever pretext they can come up with so that “everyone looks like they won” (ex: “this was the only way to keep the peace and prevent another Syrian scenario”).
“Sell-Out” Or Strategic?
While some might frame the possibly forthcoming move to organize an Astana-like conference on Venezuela as a “sell-out”, it’s actually the only realistic and pragmatic option available to Russia under these very difficult circumstances. Moscow can’t stage a Syrian-like military intervention to support Caracas like it did Damascus 3,5 years ago even though it could commence a “humanitarian intervention” by dispatching food and other much-needed supplies to the country out of “Christian solidarity” (which might win it some points with regional right-wing forces). Just like Russia realized that the “success” of “Israel’s” “Yinon Plan” in Syria is “inevitable” to a certain degree and is therefore trying to “responsibly guide” this process as much as possible in the direction of its national interests, so too is it contemplating doing the same in the Balkans as well, so applying this approach to Venezuela would actually be following its latest trend instead of bucking it.
It should always be remembered that Russia has no ideological solidarity with Venezuela’s socialist experiment like the USSR might have had if it still existed but is partnered with the South American state out of purely pragmatic reasons having to do with helping the Bolivarian Republic diversify its erstwhile strategic dependence on the US per former President Chavez’s multipolar vision.
No one should be under any illusions of imagining that this is being done pro bono like the USSR would have done, since all of Russia’s investments (and especially loans) in the country are firstly made with financial motives in mind and only afterwards take on possible geostrategic dimensions. The same logic holds for China as well, which isn’t a criticism of either but just a reflection of objective fact. Therefore, both Eurasian Great Powers have more than enough reasons to do whatever needs to diplomatically be done to safeguard their tens of billions of dollars’ worth of investments.
Concluding Thoughts
Russia’s 21st-century grand strategic vision of becoming the supreme “balancing” force in Afro-Eurasia can realistically be replicated in Latin America if it succeeds in bringing together a diverse set of countries to facilitate a “political solution” to the Venezuelan Crisis, one which would secure (at least some of) it and its Chinese partner’s enormous investments in the Bolivarian Republic while simultaneously raising its regional prestige. Such an Astana-like conference could symbolically be held in the Bolivian capital of La Paz (which means “the peace”) or in one of the small Caribbean island nations allied with Caracas through its Petrocaribe oil subsidization program, and could be complemented by a Russian-led “humanitarian intervention” that delivers much-needed food and supplies to Venezuela’s destitute population. If another Astana does indeed take place and results in Maduro “compromising”, then it wouldn’t be a “sell-out” but a strategic defense of Russian state interests that made the best out of a bad situation and prevented the Syrian scenario from repeating itself in South America.
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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years – but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil centre stage as the cause of all the commotion.
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The emerging narrative that Russia is planning to “annex” Belarus is nothing more than an external infowar attack on their recently troubled partnership that seeks to accelerate the pace of Minsk’s pro-Western pivot by falsely fearmongering about Moscow’s geopolitical intentions.
Applebaum Rings The “Annexation” Alarm
Even the most casual “Russia watcher” has probably come across the narrative over the past few months that Russia is planning to “annex” Belarus under the aegis of the 1999 Union State agreement between both neighboring countries, with this speculative theory being pushed most prominently by Anne Applebaum, a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and the neoconservative wife of former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. For as much as many in the West might want to believe that President Putin is secretly plotting to exploit the integrational progress that was made in recent months between his country and Belarus in order to “cling to power” after the end of his fourth term in 2024, the reality is that such a scenario is extremely far-fetched, not least because of Belarus’ unwillingness to go along with it to that extent. Truth be told, state-to-state relations between these two fraternal countries are tenser than they’ve ever been before in spite of both sides’ official reassurances to the contrary.
Westward Ho!
The author has been following this trend for some time and most recently published a piece on it back in November about how “Belarus Just Threw Russia Under The Bus”, which was accompanied by a Facebook thread documenting the relevant developments that have occurred in their relationship since then. To concisely summarize, Belarus is basically blackmailing Russia for billions of dollars’ worth of energy and other subsidies otherwise it’ll accelerate its pro-Western pivot. Skeptics commonly remark that these two states often quarrel with one another over this issue, but this time their dispute is qualitatively different after Minsk hosted experts from the neoconservative Jamestown Foundation last November that also included former Commander of the US Army in EuropeBen Hodges. In addition, President Lukashenko has since talked extensively about how much he wants to preserve his country’s “sovereignty” and “genuine independence” in what was obviously a riposte to the rumors that the Union State might lead to Belarus’ actual Crimean-like incorporation into Russia.
Not only that, but Lukashenko actually directly confronted such a scenario head-on by denying that anything of that nature was on the agenda of his country’s bilateral relations with Russia, curiously quipping that “If there is no equitable basis, then there is no union” in what can be interpreted as a jab against what he’s framing as his partner’s alleged desire to ‘dominate’ its much smaller neighbor. In other words, while Belarus’ merger with Russia is off the table no matter what Western neoconservatives and some overly-zealous Russian-friendly media commentators might say for their own reasons, that doesn’t mean that Minsk is ruling out further integration with Moscow on other levels. To the contrary, Belarus is eager to continue along the Union State trajectory, though only if relations between the two can be “rebalanced” on a more “equal” basis. Put another way, Lukashenko won’t “betray” Putin if the latter “compromises” on certain financial, economic, and other issues, though it’s not assured that the Russian leader will do so.
“Balancing” Or “Blackmailing”?
Being a comparatively small country in an ultra-geostrategic position, Belarus is well aware of its importance to both Russia and the West, and it now seems willing to instrumentalize that in pursuit of what it believes to be its best interests. Its leadership has signaled that its “balancing act” will now become more robust as it actively seeks to court its Western neighbors and their American patron, thereby putting pressure on Russia to act fast or “lose out”. Russia recognizes the game that’s being played but is reluctant continuing caving into Belarus’ demands, worrying that it’ll embolden its “partner” even more and will indefinitely perpetuate its ever-increasingly high-stakes “blackmail”. At the same time, however, the argument can be made that Belarus’ geopolitical “loyalty” (however unreliable it may be nowadays) is “priceless” and that Moscow must do whatever it can to prevent Minsk from moving westward in a manner that could one day endanger the Eurasian Great Power’s security.
After having explained these geostrategic sensitivities, it’s now easier to understand how the Western Mainstream Media’s fake news fearmongering about Russia’s alleged intentions to “annex” Belarus through the Union State structure figure into the larger paradigm. Although Russian-Belarusian relations are undergoing unprecedented strain at the moment, these two countries are still closely connected to one another through various systems of complex interdependency (economic, family, religious, historic, military, etc.) that make it all but impossible for Belarus to pull off a “clean pivot” if it’s leadership ever decided to do that. It’s true that Belarus is gradually moving westward under the pretext of “diversifying” ties with the EU and its American patron, but the progressive pace has yet to destabilize Russia’s interests and is still technically “manageable”, especially if Moscow cuts a deal with Minsk.
Infowar Intentions
That said, the introduction of the devious infowar narrative about a possibly impending Russian “annexation” of Belarus is designed to sow the seeds of distrust between these two partners by playing to demagogic fantasies on each side, both of hardcore Russian “nationalists” who would actually want to see this scenario implemented into practice and their Belarusian counterparts who will do anything within their power to prevent it from happening. The external generation of this highly emotive scenario is intended to “naturally” provoke very heated (and as the West hopes, public) discussion about this, thereby facilitating this storyline’s “organic growth” from the “grassroots” all the way up to the parliamentary and even head of state level, the latter of which was recently breached by the Belarusian leader after he felt compelled to openly deny that any such plan was in the cards.
The ideal scenario for the West is that a prominent social figure, politician, or head of state says something very provocative about the infowar narrative (such as preemptively condemning the other side in very strong language) so as to trigger a self-sustaining cycle of further distrust between Belarus and Russia that could be exploited to accelerate the former’s westward pivot at the latter’s expense. This cunning plan could actually work because it takes advantage of their unprecedented preexisting disagreements with one another, having been prepared far in advance after infowar experts predicted that another round of “blackmail” was due around this time of the year. That explains why this weaponized narrative was unleashed at exactly this time and in as coordinated and “sophisticated” of a fashion because it’s meant to be a crucial component of the West’s non-kinetic Hybrid War against Russia.
Concluding Thoughts
There’s no credible truth to the reports that Russia is getting ready to “annex” Belarus – whether peacefully through the Union State or forcefully via an invasion – but this narrative is alluring to some forces in each of those two countries and the West, albeit for completely different reasons. Some Russian ultra-nationalists dream of “restoring the Soviet Union” through such a scheme, while their Belarusian counterparts fret this ever happening. Suffice to say, the West would prefer to stand on the sidelines and watch both sides bicker over this non-existent plot that it strategically introduced into their relations for devious reasons. The whole point in hyping up this speculative scenario is to further aggravate the already unprecedentedly tense ties between both countries, though it seems for now at least (key qualifier) that cooler heads are prevailing on both sides and that neither the Russians nor the Belarusians will bite such obvious infowar bait.
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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
I remember when a suspect was regarded as innocent until proven guilty in a fair trial. Today prosecutors convict their victims in the media in order to make an unbiased jury impossible and thereby coerce a plea bargain that saves the prosecutor from having to prove his case. In the United States law is no longer a shield of the people. Law is a weapon in the hands of prosecutors. (See Roberts & Stratton, The Tyranny of Good Intentions.)
Formerly, if a prosecutor staged an arrest for publicity purposes, as Mueller did by placing a CNN presstitute on the scene and sending a couple of dozen heavily armed men in a pre-dawn raid to arrest a well known political consultant for allegedly “lying to Congress” when the appropriate procedure is for Mueller to inform Stone’s lawyer to present his client for indictment, the judge would throw out the case on the grounds that the prosecutor’s unethical action had biased the juror pool and made a fair trial impossible. The judge might also have thrown out the case on the grounds of selective prosecution. James Clapper while serving as Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress under oath and suffered no consequences, and Hillary Clinton has clearly broken the law and lied about it.
Today judges permit unethical behavior by prosecutors that deprives defendants of a fair trial, because judges don’t want the bother of trials any more than prosecutors do. Consequently, according to official statistics 97% of federal criminal cases are settled by a defendent pleaing guilty to a charge negotiated by his attorney and a prosecutor. As the charge is a negotiated or made-up one, most people in prison are there for confessing to crimes that never occurred.
Prosecutors, now that they are no longer bound by constraints of legal integrity, often fabricate a case against a person in order to force the person to give false testimony against the prosecutor’s real target. This is what Mueller’s cases against Cohen, Manafort, and Roger Stone are. Trump is the target, not Cohen, Manafort, and Stone. In addition, prosecutors string out the investigation so long that they force the target to use up his net worth fighting off an indictment. Then when the indictment arrives, there is no money left for lawyers, which adds to the pressure to “cooperate.” If Trump were a fighting man, he would pardon Cohen, Manafort, and Stone, reimburse them out of the Justice (sic) Department’s budget for their legal expenses, and have Mueller arrested for sedition and plotting to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. This would be hypocritical as Trump himself is plotting to overthrow the duly elected president of Venezuela.
Mueller is not an agent of law. He is the agent of the military/security complex (and factions within Democratic Party) who intend to do away with Trump, because Trump positioned himself between them and their agendas.
The preposterous charge against Trump is that he, in league with Russian President Vladimir Putin somehow through computer hacking and backdoor deals stole the presidential election from Hillary Clinton. This is the fabrication known as “Russiagate.” The creation of this fabrication involves far more crimes than those of which Trump, Cohen, Manafort, and Stone are accused. “Russiagate” rests on a fake “dossier” paid for by the Democrats and perhaps the FBI that was used to mislead the FISA court in order to obtain permission to spy on the Trump team. This is a felony for which the officials responsible are not being charged. The spying failed to turn up any real evidence, and neither has Muller’s “investigation.” The charges against Cohen, Manafort, and Stone are unrelated to the election and are likely false and used as threats for the purpose of eliciting false testimony against Trump in exchange for dropping the charges.
Mueller’s tactics in his effort to frame the President of the United States are more despicable than the tactics to which the Gestapo stooped. Even worse, they are the tactics commonly in use today by US attorneys, and this evil has spread into state and local prosecutions. That prosecutors routinely behave in a way that once would have caused them to be dismissed from office shows the collapse of law and prosecutorial integrity in the United States.
The American and British media are as accommodating in the frameups as the German media was with the Nazi government. The Guardian, once an honest voice for the British working class, is now a propaganda sheet for British intelligence just as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR are for the CIA and FBI. The US media has never been very good, but until the Clinton regime during which 90 percent of the media was concentrated in six corporate hands, there was more than one explanation.
Since Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, the media has been allied with the military/security complex and the Democratic Party in an effort to deep-six Trump. As I expected would be the case, Trump had no idea how to staff a government that would have supported him against the Establishment. He has been blocked on every front from normalizing relations with Russia to establishing control over US borders to withdrawal from Syria. The latest line from the military/security complex and the presstitutes is that the US cannot withdraw its troops illegally occupying a rump section of Syria, because ISIS is resurgent in Syria and Iraq and will renew the war if US troops are withdrawn.
This is nonsense. As General Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said on television, it was a willful decision of the Obama regime to send ISIS to overthrow Assad once Russia and the UK Parliament blocked a US invasion. It is Russia and Syria who fought and defeated Washington’s proxy army known as ISIS. Washington is blocking Trump’s order to withdraw US troops, because Israel wants the US to renew the attack on Syria and to carry it into Iran. Israel and its American vassals must think that Russia is going to stand down and permit the destabilization of the Islamic world to proceed into the Russian Federation.
Once upon a time the media and the foreign policy community would have publicly examined these issues. Now the media reads out the script handed to them.
As for Roger Stone, the media’s instructions are to convict Stone in the public’s mind as a facilitator of the Trump/Putin theft of the US presidential election. The actual facts do not matter, and the facts will never emerge from the media or from Mueller’s “investigation.”
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Die Ankündigung von Präsident Trump, in der er Juan Guaidó als „legitimen Präsidenten“ Venezuelas anerkennt, wurde in einem unterirdischen Kontrollraum innerhalb des Kongresses und des Weißen Hauses vorbereitet.
Dies wurde von der New York Times[1] ausführlich beschrieben. Der Hauptakteur, der republikanische Senator für Florida Marco Rubio,“gewissermaßen Außenminister für Lateinamerika, wird die Strategie der Regierung in der Region leiten und artikulieren“, in Verbindung mit Vizepräsident Mike Pence und National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Am 22. Januar präsentierten die drei Männer im Weißen Haus ihren Plan dem Präsidenten, der ihn billigte. Unmittelbar danach – so berichtet die New York Times – „rief Herr Pence Herrn Guaidó an und sagte ihm, dass die Vereinigten Staaten ihn unterstützen würden, wenn er die Präsidentschaft übernehmen würde „.
Vizepräsident Pence übertrug dann eine Videobotschaft nach Venezuela, in der er die Demonstranten aufforderte, „Ihre Stimmen morgen hören zu lassen“ und zu versicherte „ im Namen von Präsident Trump und dem amerikanischen Volk – estamos con ustedes (wir sind bei euch), solange die Demokratie nicht wiederhergestellt ist“, und Maduro als „Diktator, der die Präsidentschaft bei freien Wahlen nie gewonnen hat“ bezeichnete.
Am nächsten Tag krönte Trump Guaidó offiziell zum „Präsidenten Venezuelas“, obwohl er nicht an den Präsidentschaftswahlen im Mai 2018 teilgenommen hatte. Die Wahlen wurden von der Opposition boykottiert, die wusste, dass sie verlieren würde, und überreichte Maduro den Sieg unter der Aufsicht zahlreicher internationaler Beobachter.
Dieses hintergründige Gemunkel zeigt, dass politische Entscheidungen in den USA vor allem vom “Tiefen Staat” getroffen werden, dem unterirdischen Zentrum der realen Macht, das im Besitz der Wirtschafts-, Finanz- und Militäroligarchen ist. Das sind die Menschen, die beschlossen haben, den venezolanischen Staat zu stürzen. Abgesehen von seinen riesigen Vorräten an wertvollen Mineralien besitzt Venezuela die größten Ölreserven der Welt, die auf mehr als 300 Milliarden Barrel geschätzt werden, sechsmal mehr als die Vereinigten Staaten.
Um sich von der Zwangsjacke der Sanktionen zu befreien, die Venezuela daran hindern, die Dollars zu erhalten, die sie durch den Verkauf von Benzin an die USA verdient haben, hat Caracas beschlossen, den Verkaufspreis von Benzin nicht mehr in US-Dollar, sondern in chinesischen Yuan anzugeben. Dies ist ein Manöver, das die exorbitante Macht der Petrodollars bedroht, und aus diesem Grund haben die US-Oligarchien beschlossen, den Sturz des venezolanischen Staates zu beschleunigen und seinen Ölreichtum in die Hände zu bekommen. Sie brauchen diesen sofort, nicht als Energiequelle für die USA, sondern als strategisches Instrument zur Kontrolle des Weltenergiemarktes, vor allem gegen Russland und China.
Zu diesem Zweck wurden Sanktionen und Sabotage eingesetzt, um die Knappheit an Gütern des täglichen Bedarfs in Venezuela künstlich zu verschlimmern und damit die Unzufriedenheit der Bevölkerung zu schüren. Gleichzeitig wurde die Durchdringung von US-amerikanischen „Nichtregierungsorganisationen“ intensiviert – so hat beispielsweise die National Endowment for Democracy innerhalb eines Jahres mehr als 40 Projekte in Venezuela zur „Verteidigung der Menschenrechte und der Demokratie“ finanziert, die jeweils zehn- oder hunderttausende von Dollar kosteten.
Da die Regierung weiterhin die Unterstützung der Mehrheit genießt, ist mit ziemlicher Sicherheit eine groß angelegte Provokation in Vorbereitung, die einen Bürgerkrieg im Inneren auslösen und den Weg für Interventionen von außen ebnen soll. Unter der Mittäterschaft der Europäischen Union, die Caracas nach der Blockade venezolanischer öffentlicher Gelder in Belgien – ein Wert von 1,2 Milliarden Dollar – ein Ultimatum (mit Zustimmung der italienischen Regierung) für Neuwahlen stellte. Sie würden unter der Kontrolle von Federica Mogherini stehen, der gleichen Person, die Maduros Einladung, nach Venezuela zu gehen und die Präsidentschaftswahlen zu überwachen, im vergangenen Jahr abgelehnt hat.
Why is Canada violating the UN Charter and leading the way for regime change in Venezuela? Paul Jay and Yves Engler join Sharmini Peries.
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SHARMINI PERIES:It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.
The Lima group will meet in Canada on February 4 to address the Venezuela crisis. For those of you who doesn’t even know who the Lima Group is, don’t worry; neither did we, many of us who are in the business of following this stuff. It is a multilateral body formed by Canada of Latin American countries that includes Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Guyana, and St. Lucia. The last two countries just joined.
The group was established in August of 2017 as an opposition to the OAS because they couldn’t get the decisions that they wanted to get out of the Organization of American States. So they formed a organization to address the Venezuela crisis. And in its mandate it states that it is established to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Venezuela crisis.
Joining me now to discuss Canada’s role in the Venezuela crisis today is Yves Engler and Paul Jay. Yves is a Canadian commentator and author of several books, and the most recent one is Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada. And Paul Jay is the Senior Editor-In-Chief here at The Real News Network. And he was also the former executive producer of Counterspin, a current affairs debate show that took place in Canada on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for nearly ten years. Thanks for joining us, Paul.
PAUL JAY:Thank you.
SHARMINI PERIES:So, Yves, let me go to you first. First of all, tell us about who or what this Lima Group is, why it was formed. And then, of course, why is Canada leading the charge here, along with the United States, in the Venezuela crisis?
YVES ENGLER:Yes. The Lima Group was formed because the governments that were critical of the Maduro government in Venezuela, because they couldn’t get resolutions through the Organization of American States. They didn’t have the majority of votes to pass resolutions at the OAS. So they basically set up another forum to bring together governments, mostly right-wing governments, in Latin America that were critical of the Maduro government. And Canada has played–was right there at the founding. Canada hosted the third meeting of the Lima Group, and now is hosting a second meeting; I think the first country to host two different meetings of the Lima Group. And this is just part, one part, of a multifaceted Canadian campaign to undermine the Maduro government in Venezuela.
That campaign includes all kinds of critical comments against the Venezuelan government; includes back in September bringing the Venezuelan government–first time ever that a member state has brought another member state to the International Criminal Court. Canada and a couple of other governments brought Venezuela to the International Criminal Court. Canada has brought in three rounds of sanctions against Venezuela. Canada has been funding opposition groups in Venezuela. Canada has been pressuring Caribbean countries to join the Lima Group, to join the critical statements of the Maduro government. And so–and then in recent–last few weeks, last couple of months, Canada has been right at the forefront in this campaign to recognize the head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the interim president, as the president of Venezuela, and completely reject the legitimacy of the Maduro government.
So the Liberal government in Canada is viewed by many as a sort of a progressive government. But the Trudeau government in Canada has been right at the forefront of this campaign to try to undermine the Maduro government. And you know, this is certainly what they’re looking for. My estimation is their preference would be a military coup. But there is some indication that Canada even would be fine with a foreign invasion. In fact, when the head of the Organization of American States a few months ago sort of mused about a possible foreign invasion, the Lima Group, or 11 of the 14 members of the Lima group, criticized the head of the Organization of American States for talking about a foreign invasion. Canada, Colombia, and Guyana were the three countries that refused to to condemn any talk of a foreign invasion. So possibly even Canada is prepared to accept some form of military type intervention as part of this effort to get rid of the Maduro government.
SHARMINI PERIES:All right. Paul, for many of us who feel warm and cozy about Canada being a peace loving nation that goes around the world with peacekeeping forces and not military forces–of course, that is a mythology. Give us a sense of the history of Canada’s role in these kinds of situations.
PAUL JAY:Well, let me talk specifically about Venezuela. Just a little note, first of all. Mexico was part of the Lima Group, but now with the new leadership, with AMLO now taking office in Mexico, Mexico is not going along with this plan to recognize Juan Guaido. Guaido or Guido? I keep mixing it up.
SHARMINI PERIES:Guaido.
PAUL JAY:Guaido. Thank you. Is not going along with this, and has called for–that it is a domestic affair, and that there should be negotiations. And Mexico is not the only country of the region. Many, many countries of CARICOM have come forward and have said they do not support this plan. So the corporate media is trying to make this sound like the whole region’s on board with this scheme.
Canada’s argument here, and it came out in the Canadian press recently, that the formation of the Lima group in 2017–and for months Canada has been playing a leading role in preparing for, according to the Canadian newspapers, for exactly what happened, the recognition of Juan Guaido. I keep screwing up his name, I’m sorry. Guaido? Am I saying it right? Juan Guaido. And that this has been a scheme for months. And Canada has been into this scheme for months. And the rationale is supposedly that the election of 2017 was not a legitimate election because there was the, people were supposedly kept out. The press is not telling people that there was a big boycott from the opposition that didn’t want to run. But because of–there are supposed to have been various infractions in the 2017 elections that reelected Maduro. This is the rationale for why Canada gets so involved.
Well, it’s a total crock. And the reason it’s a crock is I know from personal experience that Canada has been trying to destabilize and nurture and promote the opposition in Venezuela at least from 2004. When Chavez was still in power, Chavez had been elected over and over again with internationally observed elections. Everyone said the elections were clean during the Chavez period. Many people that tried to throw the elections into disrepute were invalidated. The Carter Center legitimatized them. I actually personally was on an election observer mission to go to polling stations in 2004, 2005, one of the elections leading up to the referendum on Chavez’s presidency. And I went to 40 polling stations, and I interviewed opposition people in all 40 polling stations in Caracas. And I asked, have you seen any infractions? And if there were any infractions were they dealt with properly. And I took video, and I recorded it all, and there wasn’t a single complaint from an opposition observer that there had been anything done incorrectly with those elections. And in fact, this vote was called the report. So it’s a complicated thing, but it led to a referendum on Chavez’s presidency. And in fact, the opposition won that vote.
Now, right around that time, when they were clean elections, and Chavez was getting elected over and over again, my first trip to Venezuela in 2004, I was producing the big debate show on Canadian TV called Counterspin on CBC Newsworld. I was a well-known documentary filmmaker. I had founded the Big Hot Docs! Documentary Film Festival. So I was a known quantity in Canada. And so when I was in Venezuela I said for the heck of it I’ll go say hello to the Canadian Embassy, and take their temperature. And you know, I was trying to figure out what was going on in Venezuela. And so I went, I went to the embassy. I made an appointment and I went to go see–I figured I’d see some counselor of some kind who would, you know, pat me on the head and say welcome to Venezuela. No, I get, like, the number two charge d’affaires greets me and brings me into a meeting room with seven members of the opposition who then for–it must have been two hours–beat me over the head with how corrupt the regime was, how awful it was, and so on.
I’m not going to comment on what was right or wrong with what the opposition people said. I have perhaps that sort of experience. I don’t know. What I do know is what business does the Canadian Embassy have bring in a Canadian journalist into a room with opposition people, doing–essentially trying to involve me in a conspiracy against the Venezuelan government.
So this Canadian role in Venezuela, it’s been going on for a long time, and been very, very active in trying to destabilize the situation, promote and nurture the opposition. And clearly for two reasons. Number one, Canada is one of the biggest mining nations in the world, and Venezuela has tremendous untapped natural resources, particularly gold. And Canada has a very strong gold mining sector. And the gold was not–Canada wasn’t, Canadian companies weren’t easily getting at that gold. There was one company called Crystallex that actually had a concession and then lost it. So the ability to nurture an opposition and get an in with an opposition that might come to power, and then favour Canadian mining companies, I think that’s one motivation.
And another motivation, I think, has to do with Canada’s role historically; how it plays with the United States and helps the U.S. and its foreign policy. And I once interviewed a Canadian general in 2004, Lewis MacKenzie. And I asked him, why is Canada so into this Afghan war? You know, this Afghan, post-9/11. It could have been dealt with as a police-type operation, in terms of going after al Qaeda. But a full-fledged invasion, full-fledged regime change. Why is Canada in this, and in it for the long haul? Because it’s 2004, after the invasion of Iraq. And his answer was, I think, very instructive. He said, well, we didn’t go to Iraq. So to keep our ability to selling goods into the United States, we needed to pay with some blood. We needed to send troops to Afghanistan and have some Canadian soldiers killed to show we’re willing to share the burden. He didn’t use the word empire, but that’s essentially what he was saying.
So the role of Canada assisting in very nefarious American policy, and giving it this Canadian, oh, we’re for the UN, we’re humanitarians, giving it that veneer, it’s an important role that Canada plays. But it’s, I think, now the recognition of Guaido so exposes Canada because it’s such a clear violation of the UN Charter of non-interference in internal affairs.
SHARMINI PERIES:All right. Now, the Canadian media wasn’t really covering this issue very much till recently. And I saw Thomas Walkom in the Toronto Star do a very good article that reinforces what Paul just said about Canada’s role, and the interest of trade, and of course the interests of Canadian corporations getting played out through its foreign policy. And then there was a blast of news in the Globe and Mail today about the Lima Group, and so forth. Tell us how the Canadian media is covering this issue, and are they seeing through the farce here about keeping peace in Venezuela?
YVES ENGLER:No. I mean, the Canadian media is sort of on two hands. On one hand they are just following the sort of Washington-Ottawa propaganda about how, you know, Maduro’s a total dictator that needs to be overthrown. On one hand they’re doing that, and that’s the sort of bulk of the discussion. But simultaneously they have, as Paul pointed out, the Globe and Mail and the Canadian press both run incredibly–what should be viewed as incredibly damning stories about Canada’s role in building opposition support for Guaido. They talk about how Canada’s facilitating meetings within Venezuela, facilitating meetings internationally to try to solidify support for this recognition of the head of the National Assembly.
But the thrust of the stories are that, you know, to just present this as a positive affair that Canada is pursuing, to the point where a few of the NDP, the social democratic party, MPs, or people in that party, a couple of them have expressed criticism of Canada’s policy on Twitter, and the media has sort of pushed back against the NDP’s, in my opinion, quite mild criticism of Canadian policy.
But I do want to echo, for sure, what Paul is saying. There’s a quote in terms of Canada’s role historically in terms of serving empire, and the fact that sometimes it’s better to have a sort of Canadian face on an intervention than a more sort of, more easily demonized U.S. face. In his biography, Jacques Chretien, a former prime minister, says quite explicitly that he told Bill Clinton that if we just go along with you in everything, we’re just going to be perceived as a 51st state. But if we, if it looks like we have a little bit of independence, we can do more for you than the CIA can do. And it was almost like–that’s a paraphrase, almost word for word. So there’s just this historic kind of putting a bit of a Canada, a positive Canada cover on policies that the U.S. is pursuing around the world.
And there’s a long history of that in the hemisphere beyond the example that Paul gave with regards to Afghanistan. In Haiti in 2004 Canada played a very important role in the overthrow of the elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide. And again, there was Bill Graham, the former defense minister, said in a book about about the war in Afghanistan, he said that because Canada officially joined the coalition of the willing that invaded Iraq in 2003, they felt like they needed to not only go heavily into Afghanistan, but also participate significantly in the coup in Haiti.
So part of this Canadian policy in Venezuela today is about Canada’s close ties to the U.S. empire. And Canada, in my opinion, has been quite a beneficiary. The Canadian corporate class have been very much beneficiaries of U.S. empire for half a century. And the mining sector in Latin America is a big force, banking sector is a big force that partly explains Canadian policy there today.
SHARMINI PERIES:All right. Paul, do you have anything more to add before we sign off here?
PAUL JAY:Well, just a, just a quick note that Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, it was his father that played exactly this role in Vietnam. There was something called the International Control Commission, the ICC, that was, I believe, under the auspices of the UN, supposed to monitor treaties and such and during the Vietnam War. And they would go to Hanoi and interview people in the North, and they would observe, and then they would come back. And it turned out that the Canadian delegation, completely contrary to international law and the norms of such a commission, was going back and reporting to the CIA on what was going on in North Vietnam, and straightforwardly spying. So it seems to be a family business in the Trudeau family to play this kind of a role.
SHARMINI PERIES:And yet at the same time Pierre Trudeau established a different kind of approach when there was sanctions and the blockade against Cuba, where it was beneficial for Canada to have direct relations different from that of the U.S. in Cuba, where the Canadian companies actually benefited from that, as well.
PAUL JAY:Well, it’s true. But let’s add to that it was Diefenbaker, the conservative, that established that policy, and refused to join the embargo and sanctions that the Americans tried to get Diefenbaker to impose on Cuba. So while it’s true Pierre Trudeau did that, he was carrying on the policy of Diefenbaker.
SHARMINI PERIES:And then subsequent governments actually upheld those, you know, open trade relations and bypassed American blockades against Cuba. So there is precedent set that Canada could follow.
So, stay tuned. These conversations will continue here The Real News Network. Thanks for joining us, Yves Engler, in Toronto, yes?
YVES ENGLER:Montreal.
SHARMINI PERIES:In Montreal. Yves Engler in Montreal, and Paul Jay right here at The Real News Studio. Thanks for joining us.
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More than eight out of ten Venezuelans oppose international intervention, both military and non-military, in their country, as well as the crippling sanctions imposed by the United States to force leftist President Nicolás Maduro out of power.
The news of drawdown of American forces is expected after the next round of peace talks is held in late February in the capital of Qatar, Doha, in which Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a close aide to the Taliban’s deceased leader Mullah Omar, will lead the Taliban delegation.
Riotous protesters briefly stormed the Cameroonian Embassies in Paris and Berlin over the weekend in an attempt to raise global awareness about the rolling regime change campaign back in their homeland following the reelection of President Biya to his seventh consecutive term in office late last year, possibly forcing France to choose sides in decisively throwing its weight behind either its decades-long proxy or his anti-government opponents.
The British political establishment is experiencing an unprecedented crisis over the issue of exiting the European Union. The Conservative government staggers from crisis to crisis over its Brexit deal while politicians off all colours bicker and argue as the UK lurches towards a potentially devastating No Deal scenario.
A large number of prisoners, all of them senior members of Daesh (also ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group, broke out of a Taliban prison in northwest Afghanistan after US troops helped them escape through a covert operation.
The United States and its allies have done both extensively – from exploiting the flow of refugees fleeing US-led wars in Libya and Syria – to the cynical exploitation of high-profile cases like Rahaf al-Qunun of Saudi Arabia and Hakeem al-Araibi of Bahrain – both of whom are fleeing autocratic regimes armed and propped up exclusively by the West.
Socialism isn’t the problem. The problem in Venezuela is the cancer of Western-supported deep state agencies that are subverting its political economy for the perceived benefit of a tiny transnational oligarch class.
Prominent billionaire George Soros has launched an attack on China’s President Xi Jinping in his annual speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He warned that artificial intelligence and machine learning presented ‘unprecedented danger’ and ‘a mortal threat to open societies’ if used by authoritarian regimes.
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The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-run oil company and moved to block any U.S. revenues from going to Venezuela’s government. Like the administration’s Iran sanctions, this will do immediate and significant harm to the civilian population:
Such a blow to the government’s revenue stream could deteriorate an already dramatic scarcity of food and medicines. Crippling hyperinflation has broken the socialist nation, fueling widespread hunger, spreading disease and prompting a historic wave of Venezuelan migrants. In Venezuela, the government is responsible for a large portion of imports, meaning shortages of food and medicine could deepen as the government loses access to cash from oil sales to the United States [bold mine-DL].
“There’s no way the population won’t be affected in the short term,” said Luis Vicente Leon, head of Datanalisis, a Caracas-based polling and political analysis firm. “If this strategy isn’t successful quickly, the effect on the people will be devastating. “ [bold mine-DL]
Most of the hardship that Venezuelans have endured for the past several years has been caused by the failures and mismanagement of their own government, but this move by the U.S. to strangle the Venezuelan government and the economy will inflict punishment on the entire population and exacerbate the already severe humanitarian crisis in the country. If Maduro has brought the people of Venezuela to the edge of a precipice, the Trump administration’s sanctions will push them over the edge. There is no justification for punishing the civilian population for the wrongdoing of their leaders, especially when the administration’s official line is that they are supposedly trying to help the people. Much like the administration’s empty rhetoric of support for the Iranian people, their professions of concern for the people of Venezuela appear to be similarly vacuous.
Sanctions are a blunt and frequently indiscriminate weapon that the U.S. uses with little thought for the effect that they have on the people in the targeted country. Until now, the administration had refrained from imposing sweeping sanctions on Venezuela that would repeat their mistake in Iran, but their eagerness to force regime change has led them to resort to the same cruel collective punishment. The administration wants to starve Maduro of revenue, but as a result of that they are going to be starving innocent Venezuelan civilians of basic necessities. U.S. policy towards Venezuela amounts to unwarranted, destructive economic warfare against the entire country in a bid to topple the current leadership. This policy is every bit as indefensible as the economic war that the Saudi coalition is still waging against Yemen, and Americans need to stand up and reject a policy that will lead to loss of life from preventable causes. Instead of helping the people cope with the terrible humanitarian conditions, our government is stepping on their heads as they drown.
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Featured image is from Reynaldo Riobueno/Shutterstock
In a victory for advocates of precaution, an Italian court has ordered the government to launch a campaign to advise the public of the health risks from mobile and cordless phones.
The information campaign must begin by July 16.
The court in Rome reached its decision last November, but the announcement was only made yesterday. The decision is here.
Today, the government announced that it would not appeal the ruling, Stefano Bertone told Microwave News. Bertone is with the law firm of Ambrosio and Commodo in Turin, and is helping represent a citizens group called APPLE, which sued to force the government to act. APPLE is an acronym for the Association for the Prevention of and Fight Against Electrosmog.
In a joint press release, three different ministries —of Health, of Environment and of Education and Research— acknowledge that there is a need to raise public awareness on how to use mobile phones safely.
“This case has important implications not only in Italy, but worldwide,” Bertone said. “At the moment, health and safety information is contained —or, I should say, buried— in cell phone manuals. This is not good enough. If it was, the court would have agreed with the government that sufficient information is already available.”
In October 2012, the Italian Supreme Court affirmed a ruling granting a claim for workers compensation filed by a businessman who claimed that his use of a cell phone for 12 years had caused a tumor to develop on one of his cranial nerves (the trigeminal nerve). Gino Angelo Levis, a founder of APPLE, was an expert witness for the plaintiff.
Today’s local coverage from La Repubblica is here, and from Corriere della Serahere.
A fake-news story about large-scale clashes between pro-Russian and pro-Iranian factions in Syria is making jitters in English- and Russian-language mainstream media outlets. According to these reports citing anonymous sources and each other, “the pro-Russian Tiger Forces and 5th Assault Corps” clashed with “the pro-Iranian 4th Division” near the villages of “Shahta, Bredidg, Innab and Haydariye” in northern Hama.
Most of the reports claimed that there were casualties among the sides providing “precise” numbers varying from a dozen to 200 fighters from the both sides. No source was able to provide details into how clashes had started but the versions are varying from “some differences” to “a campaign to limit Iranian influence”.
Most of the media outlets presented these reports as some kind of breaking news. However, in fact, this is a week-old story. First such reports appeared in several pro-militant social media accounts and a local media outlet, al Modon Online. Later this rumor was reposted by anti-Assad, anti-Iranian and anti-Russian bloggers also citing anonymous sources to show the story look more reliable. By January 29, this rumor has reached large mainstream media outlets, but no evidence has appeared to confirm this kind of developments. However, the lack of factual data was ignored because this story is contributing to the US-Israeli-backed media efforts designed to undermine cooperation between Iran and Russia or at least to show that there are significant tensions between the sides.
The similar situation was observed in 2018 when various mainstream media outlets and even top US leadership like President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo were claiming that “hundreds” of “Russian fighters” were killed by the US-led coalition in the province of Deir Ezzor. Both of these stories demonstrate how media forgery could reach the wide international audience and start being repeated as facts despite zero evidence supporting them.
On January 27, Russian forces launched at least three surface-to-air missiles at unidentified aerial objects near the Hmeimim airbase. According to local sources, at least 3 UAVs apparently launched from the Idlib de-escalation zone were intercepted.
The Syrian Arab Army deployed reinforcements at frontlines near the Idlib de-escalation zone and carried out a series of artillery strikes on militant positions in northwestern Hama and southern Idlib on January 28 and 29.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces continue to claim dozens of casualties among ISIS members in the Euphrates Valley. However, a few remaining ISIS positions remaining there are still not captured.
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When Trump announced his support for the unfolding coup in Venezuela, Bernie Sanders remained silent for 24 hours. This matters because coups are made or broken in the first moments or hours; a day during a coup can feel like a month or more.
With each hour Bernie’s silence roared louder. So much was hanging in the balance with Trump at home and abroad, to the point where a finger could tip the scales— yet Bernie refused to lift his.
Among the many Democratic Party candidates running for President, only Tulsi Gabbard (image on the right) made an unequivocal statement condemning the coup, while leftist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez limited her criticism to a retweet.
While U.S. politics grappled furiously over the government shutdown, Trump’s coup gifted the Democrats a dagger and an exposed flank, yet they refused to strike, returning the weapon so that it could be used against the democratically-elected government of Venezuela.
Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats went further and cheerleaded their Commander and Chief by using their platform to attack President Maduro. Trump’s position was consequently strengthened. Instead of being condemned for breaking international law he was made to look like a responsible statesman, leading a “coalition” of countries facing off against an ‘authoritarian dictator’. The virulently anti-Trump section of the U.S. media closed ranks in his favor— since it was difficult to find a dissenting opinion.
In this context Trump was put into an excellent position to win the war over the government shutdown, that is until the bold actions of airport workers swiftly ended the drama. But Trump certainly learned a valuable lesson: the Democratic Party “resistance” crumbles in critical moments when a foreign conflict erupts, which helps promote more such moments in the future.
Bernie Finally Tweets!
After an excruciating day of silence Bernie finally found his voice— by sending three tweets. But the content was revealing, reinforcing the weakness that kept him silent during the first critical day.
Tweet #1 was essentially a point-by-point plagiarism of Trump’s lies used to justify the coup. Bernie Tweeted:
“The Maduro government has waged a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election many observers said was fraudulent. The economy is a disaster and millions are migrating.”
Instead of targeting Trump’s coup actions Bernie targets the victim. Bernie’s allegation of a fraudulent election is simply slander, since Venezuela’s elections are widely regarded as among the best in the world.
Every time the opposition in Venezuela believes they’ll lose an election they “boycott” it, though the opposition was fractured during the last election, to the point where some boycotted while others supported two separate anti-Maduro candidates. Thus, every semi-objective observer knew Maduro would easily and fairly cruise to victory. For Bernie to give Trump this ammo— the key rationale being used to justify the coup— simply makes the Senator an accomplice in a crime.
Furthermore, Bernie claiming that Maduro “dissolved the National Assembly” is also untrue. Although what happened is complicated, the Venezuelan Supreme Court (not Maduro) dissolved the National Assembly in 2017, in reaction to flagrant violations of law that made the pro-opposition Assembly a non-functioning institution that only passed laws which unconstitutionally attacked Maduro’s government.
Venezuela has been functioning in a state of dual power since 2017, when a unitary government was torn into two by the pressures of the class struggle and the non-stop shenanigans of a U.S. supported opposition hellbent on overthrowing the government.
Regarding Bernie’s mention of the economy being “a disaster”, he surely knows that U.S. economic sanctions, pro-opposition immigration policies and political threats have much to do with the situation, choosing to ignore these critical factors because doing so bolsters anti-Maduro sentiment.
Bernie’s 2nd Tweet was a reinforcement of the first, further buttressing Trump’s actions:
“The United States should support the rule of law, fair elections and self-determination for the Venezuelan people. We must condemn the use of violence against unarmed protesters and the suppression of dissent.”
The “unarmed protestors” that Bernie is referring to here are the shock troops of the wealthy opposition trying to overthrow the government, who in 2017 lead deadly, violent protests that resulted in over a 100 dead, which included the opposition burning alive at least four pro-Maduro supporters. Bernie certainly knows that the opposition in Venezuela is neither peaceful nor democratic.
The 3rd and final tweet is where Bernie finally expresses his half-hearted “opposition” to Trump’s coup:
“But we must learn the lessons of the past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coups—as we have in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil & the DR. The US has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American nations; we must not go down that road again.”
Bernie says “we must not go down that road again”, while failing to condemn the fact that Trump is a 1,000 miles down the coup road already. Much planning and organization has gone into the coup, to the point where every pro-U.S. country in South America and key European allies have agreed to recognize a new President, Juan Guaido, who has zero actual legitimacy.
Also, critically, in his Tweets Bernie puts no demands on Trump, offering no solutions to the mushrooming crisis— he doesn’t insist that Trump withdraw his recognition of the coup leader as President, nor does he suggest any specific actions that would act to reverse the current course, allowing it to continue unbothered.
Such a passive position— that buttresses many of the key lies that Trump used to make his case— amounts to, at best, a neutral position, and as Desmond Tutu said “neutrality aids the oppressor”. In reality Bernie’s position is a signal to Trump that no organized opposition to the coup will occur, while Democrats will limit their reaction to the ensuing bloodshed by criticizing Maduro.
Why Imperialism Matters
The question of imperialism isn’t abstract, affecting only people in under-developed, ‘exotic’ countries like Venezuela. In reality U.S. foreign intervention government directly impacts U.S. residents every day, ruining their living standards while ensuring that their children have an even less opportune future.
Money spent abroad— and the politics it creates— always affects what’s possible domestically, since tax dollars that go to destroy other governments cannot be used for the kind of proposals that Bernie makes, such as Medicare For All, free college education, a Green New Deal, etc. A key reason that Western European countries have amazing social programs is the small size of their armies.
War spending acts as an endless, guaranteed veto to social programs that people in the U.S. desperately want but are always denied— a true example of how oppression abroad limits your freedoms at home.
“Imperialism is a bogeyman that haunts social progress, re-appearing in countless forms to keep resources flowing endlessly into wars abroad that stunt domestic spending and distract from working class demands. A new military “crisis” will always strive to take priority over domestic considerations.”
Will the Coup Fail?
Some analysts have already dismissed Trump’s coup as a failure, since the Venezuelan military appears unified in their support for Maduro. But the coup machinery is marching forward. U.S. allies in Europe (France, Germany, and Spain) have given Maduro 8 days to hold new elections, or they will recognize Juan Guaido as President. Of course elections cannot be held in 8 days in any country; the demand simply acts as a pretense to give the coup momentum.
For European powers to follow Trump into the abyss over Venezuela means that Trump has spent much political capital cajoling them into action. This coup is a serious investment that will demand returns. The nations following Trump don’t typically break with international norms so spectacularly, since doing so is risky; thus the Europeans must be convinced that the U.S. will actually complete the coup, ensuring that Maduro falls, otherwise Germany will be recognizing as President a man ingloriously hiding underground to avoid arrest like a common criminal.
If Trump fails to complete the coup the U.S. loses vital credibility, and next time finding allies on such adventures will be harder. If the U.S. recognizes a President that never becomes President there are political-economic consequences. For example the U.S. cannot afford to look weak internationally while it’s actively threatening China and Russia and still involved in the multi-nation Syrian War. The major powers are furiously competing for allies and a failed coup makes one less competitive.
A country that uses its military as its main political lever cannot afford a sickly image, which is a key reason why so many establishment figures were furious at Trump for not “finishing the job” in Syria, leaving Assad in power (Trump has since hesitated on his decision).
Trump is thus committed to this new undertaking, which will deepen in the coming days and weeks. Many are expecting that Trump will use the ‘Syrian option’ — formerly referred to as the ‘Salvador option’ — which begins with the arming and training of anti-Maduro militias, and ends with attacks on the government and/or pro-Maduro forces that create the “need” for U.S. intervention to impose “law and order”. The rehearsal for this strategy already occured in 2017, when the above-mentioned violent protests occurred but didn’t quite provoke a large enough crisis to justify U.S. military intervention.
Such conspiracy theories were immediately given credence when Trump announced, mid-coup, that he had a new ‘Special Envoy’ to Venezuela, thenotorious Elliot Abrams, made famous for his role in the Iran-Contra affair, where he was in the inner circle breaking laws while publicly advocating for the death squads (or “Contras”) that terrorized Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador, which is where the term “Salvador Option” was birthed. Abrams was convicted for his role in Iran-Contra but predictably pardoned by George H.W. Bush (who used his office as VP to Reagan to promote Iran-Contra).
In his new position Abrams will focus on accelerating and finalizing the coup by holding talks with Venezuelan military and opposition figures, cobbling together groups willing to take the coup to the next level, and no doubt conspiring with hostile neighbors Columbia and Brazil, who can easily be lured in to the conflict with the smallest of concessions (Columbia has been involved for a number of years). Promises will be made to Venezuelan military figures who, after defecting, will have their profiles raised as the new leaders of the newly-created Venezuelan military.
If Maduro Falls
Abrams approach will quickly lead Venezuela into an especially bloody civil war, since much of the military came into maturity under Chavez, the majority of which still retain a strong devotion to the revolution and its principles.
Chavismo is further buttressed by the still-expanding National Bolivian Militia, where hundreds of thousands of working-class people received military training that focused, in part, to prepare the country for exactly the kind of coup being unleashed today. The Venezuelan working class will not quietly accept a right-wing dictatorship, and they have the means and organization to resist and win.
But if Maduro’s government falls the far-right opposition will seek to bulldoze the progress made under the Chavez-Maduro governments: a mass privatization frenzy will ensue while the currency crisis will be resolved over the backs of the working class.
The size of the political and economic “correction” will require enormous amounts of blood be spilled, as the organizations of the working class resist the attacks on their living standards, democracy, and dignity. The would-be President Juan Guaido has already discussed plans to ramp up the privatization of Venezuela’s oil, as well as going to the austiery-hungry IMF, who will demand nothing less than their typical “restructuring” economic packages that target the social programs created by Chavez-Maduro. Ironically, it was IMF austerity that sparked the Venezuelan revolution nearly 30 years ago with the Caracazo Uprising.
When democracy is easily trashed abroad it empowers anti-democratic forces at home. As the U.S. military-industrial complex is emboldened, so too are the far-right political actors in the U.S. that are the most hardened supporters of militarism and ‘Trumpism’. As coups give birth to fascist-minded governments abroad, new allies for Trumpism are created from what could have been allies for the left. These are the hidden yet real consequences of Bernie’s inaction, which serves to minimize the importance of imperialism at a historic moment for the western hemisphere.
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Venezuela has the dubious fortune of being located on the continent of South America, which the United States has treated under the so-called “Monroe Doctrine” as its exclusive zone of political, economic, and military influence. In practical terms it meant that whenever a Latin American government pursued a policy at odds with Washington’s preferences, it would be subjected to measures ranging from economic sanctions to outright military invasion.
Latin America became one of the many battlefields of the Cold War when several countries sought to leave the US shadow and align themselves with USSR. The US retaliation was harsh, and included the support for the brutal military coup in Chile, training of “death squads” in Honduras and El Salvador, support for the so-called Contras in Nicaragua, not to mention the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Once the Cold War was over, however, a relative peace settled over the region, with Cuba remaining the only hold-out against US power. Even the coming to power of soft Marxist “pink wave” governments in Venezuela and Bolivia did not seem to overly ruffle Washington’s feathers. But the current escalation of the US campaign against Venezuela suggests a revival of US activism in the region.
“Energy Dominance”
One might as well cut to the chase and state the obvious: Venezuela is not only a member of OPEC, it is also a country with the world’s largest known oil reserves dwarfing those even of Saudi Arabia. It is no coincidence that pretty much every country that has been on the US “hit list” in the last decade or so—Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Venezuela—is a major producer of hydrocarbons. Given that the global economy is utterly dependent on steady provision of hydrocarbons, US political control over these countries means a stranglehold over major industrial competitors to the United States, namely the EU and China. It also creates US jobs, once US oil companies establish control over the country’s oil fields. At the very least, should the effort to place the country under indirect US control fail, plunging it into chaos removes a competitor to struggling domestic US oil producers.
Monroe Doctrine Returns
The timing of the US escalation closely follows the visit by Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers to Venezuela during which the possibility of creating a Russian military base in the country was discussed by some media outlets. Given that Russia has by now established through the Syrian example that once Russian troops arrive in a country they are unlikely to leave no matter how great the US pressure, Washington may have decided to step up the pressure in the hopes of not only Russia but it’s other major competitor, China, from establishing themselves more firmly in the country. Russia’s Rosneft already has considerable presence in the Venezuela, assisting it with the development of its oil potential, and China has also made a number of investments in the country, though its economic footprint remains modest. Moreover, the US aggression against Venezuela sends a signal to the nearby Nicaragua, also a country facing increasing US political pressure, against pursuing a project of building a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with China’s support.
Thus far US actions consisted of economic sanctions and apparent coordination of coup attempts to be carried out by elements within Venezuela’s military and security forces. It is still difficult to make out what the Trump Administration’s recognition of Juan Guaido, the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela, as the country’s “interim president” was supposed to represent. Even by the standards of Trump’s current foreign policy team of Pompeo and Bolton, “recognition” of a claimant to supreme executive office who does not actually occupy said office is unprecedented. Not even in the case of Syria, where the US has been far more directly involved in attempting to overthrown its legitimate government, was any opposition leader “recognized” as the official representative of the country itself. Therefore one may conclude Guaido’s “recognition” was supposed to follow the military coup which Guaido probably promised and Washington clearly expected. It is also difficult to say whether Guaido overestimated the degree of his support within the military or outright lied to his American sponsors. Either way, the US intelligence community has once again failed at providing an accurate assessment of the situation within a country, as Venezuela’s military rallied around President Maduro.
Bay of Pigs 2
United States has thus painted itself into a corner. Guaido’s recognition, which was moreover coordinated with the bulk of Latin America’s countries and with the European Union (which likewise points to a wider though failed conspiracy to overthrow Venezuela’s government) cannot very well be walked back. Maduro’s continued presidency has now become a challenge to US power at least as great as Assad’s. One can therefore expect stepped up US efforts to overthrow Venezuela’s government, though it remains to be seen how far the US is willing to go. An outright US military invasion appears unlikely at the moment. The most recent such effort has been in Panama during the George H.W. Bush administration, a far smaller and easier to control country. There is no evidence of US intelligence services training Venezuelan expats in the manner of the “Bay of Pigs” invasion force or the Nicaraguan contras. However, Venezuela is bordered by two countries ruled by far-right politicians closely allied to the United States, Brazil and Colombia. In the wake of the failed US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and with the US military retooling itself for great power confrontations, the US modus operandi in the past several years has been to use proxy armies. These may take the form of non-state actors funded and armed by US intelligence agencies or of friendly states, as in the case of Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen. One could readily imagine the Yemen model used against Venezuela, but this time with a “Brazil-led” coalition doing Washington’s dirty work.
Bargaining Chip?
Last but not least, one must consider the possibility of Venezuela being treated as a bargaining chip in some sort of negotiation with Russia and/or China in the delineation of the great powers’ spheres of influence. This would mark a de-facto return to the policy of compensations wherein the balance of power is preserved by major powers ceding parts of their empires to others in exchange for gains elsewhere. Thus, for example, Washington could approach Moscow and offer a “Venezuela for Syria” or even “Venezuela for Ukraine” bargain. While not out of the realm of possibility, it remains a difficult course of action to imagine for two reasons. The first is that there is little awareness of the limits of US power in Washington itself. The expectation is still of powering through any opposition. The second is that even if the offer were made, it would probably not be accepted in Moscow. Apart from the cost to Russia’s international image, the US at this point has very low credibility and trustworthiness.
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It is all a rather sorry tale. Molly Russell, another teenager gorged on social media content, sharing and darkly revelling, took her own life in 2017 supposedly after viewing what the BBC described as “disturbing content about suicide on social media.” Causation is presumed, and the platform hosting the content is saddled with blame.
Molly’s father was not so much seeking answers as attributing culpability. Instagram, claimed Ian Russell, “helped kill my daughter”. He was also spoiling to challenge other platforms: “Pinterest has a huge amount to answer for.” These platforms do, but not in quite the same way suggested by the aggrieved father.
The political classes were also quick to jump the gun. Here was a chance to score a few moral points as a distraction from the messiness of Brexit negotiations. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock was in combative mood on the Andrew Marr show: “If we think they need to do things they are refusing to do, then we can and we must legislate.” Material dealing with self-harm and suicide would have to be purged. As has become popular in this instance, the purging element would have to come from technology platforms themselves, helped along by the kindly legislators.
Any time the censor steps in as defender of morality, safety and whatever tawdry assertions of social control, citizens should be alarmed. Such attitudes are precisely the sorts of things that empty libraries and lead to the burning of books, even if they host the nasty and the unfortunate. Content deemed undesirable must be removed; offensive content must be expunged to make us safe. The alarming thing there here is that compelling the tech behemoths to undertake such a task has the effect of granting them even more powers of social control than before. Don’t they exert enough control as it is?
While social media giants can be accused, on a certain level, of faux humanitarianism and their own variant of sublimated sociopathic control (surveillance capitalism is alive and well), they are merely being hectored for the logical consequence of sharing information and content. This is set to become more concentrated, with Facebook, as Zak Doffmanwrites, planning to integrate Instagram and WhatsApp further to enable users “across all three platforms to share messages and information more easily”. Given Facebook’s insatiable quest for advertising revenue, Instagram is being tasked with being the dominant force behind it.
The onus on production and exchange is on customers: the customers supply the material, and spectacle. They are the users and the exploited. This, in turn, enables the social media tech groups to monetise data, trading it, exploiting it and tanking privacy measures in the process. The social media junkie is a modern, unreflective drone.
In doing so, an illusion of independent thinking is created, where debates can supposedly be had, and ideas formed. The grand peripatetic walk can be pursued. Often, the opposite takes place: groups assemble along lines of similar thought; material of like vein is bounced around under the impression it advances discussion when it merely provides filling for a cork-lined room or chamber of near-identical thinking. All of this is assisted by the algorithmic functions performed by the social media entities, all in the name of making the “experience” you have a richer one. Far be it in their interest to make sure you juggle two contradictory ideas at the same time.
Instagram’s own “Community Guidelines” have the aim of fostering and protecting “this amazing community” of users. It suggests that photos and videos that are shared should only be done by those with a right to. Featured photos and videos should be directed towards “a diverse audience”. A reminder that the tech giant is already keen on promoting a degree of control is evident in restrictions on nudity – a point that landed the platform in some hot water last year. “This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks.” That’s many an art period banished from viewing and discussion.
The suicide fraternity is evidently wide enough to garner interest, even if the cult of self-harm takes much ethical punishment from the safety lobby. Material is still shared. Self-harm advisories are distributed through the appropriate channels.
Instagram’s response to this is to try to nudge such individuals towards content and groups that might just as equally sport reassuring materials to discourage suicide and self-harm. Facebook, through its recently appointed Vice-President of Global Affairs, Sir Nick Clegg, was even happy to point out that the company had prevented suicides:
“Over the last year, 3,500 people who were displaying behaviour liable to lead to the taking of their own lives on Facebook were saved by early responders being pointed to those and people and intervening at the right time.”
This is all to the good, but such views fail in not understanding that social media is not used or engaged in to change ideas so much as create communities who only worship a select few. The tyranny of the algorithm is a hard one to dislodge.
In engaging such content, we are dealing with narcotised dragoons of users, the unquestioning creating content for the unchallenged. That might prove to be the greatest social crime of all, the paradox of nipping curiosity rather than nurturing it, but instead of dealing with the complexities of information from this perspective, governments are going to make technology companies the chief censors. It might well be argued that enough of that is already taking place as it is, this being the age of deplatforming. Whether it be a government or a social media giant, the same shoddy principle is the same: others know better than you do, and you should be protected from yourself.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Featured image is from Russell family/Leigh Day Law vis FarmWeek
Understanding imperialism as a general phenomenon loses sight of its modus operandi in any specific and meaningful context. While the exercise of imperialist power is a common strategy, its motives, instruments, objectives and engagement vary, depending on the nature of the imperial ruler and targeted country.
Venezuela, the current target of US, President Donald Trump, is a case illustrating the ‘peculiarities’ of imperialist politics. We will proceed to outline the background, techniques and impact of the imperial power grab.
Historical Background
The US has a long history of intervention in Venezuela primarily to gain control of its oil wealth. During the 1950’s Washington backed a military dictatorship –led by Perez Jimenez— until it was overthrown by mass alliance of revolutionary socialist, nationalist and Social Democratic parties. Washington could not and did not intervene; instead it sided with the center-left Democratic Action (AD) and center-right COPEI parties which proceeded to declare war against the radical left. Over time US regained hegemony until the economy went into crises in the 1990’s leading to popular uprisings and state massacres.
The US did not intervene initially as it felt that it could co-opt Hugo Chavez because he was unaffiliated with the left. Moreover, the US was militarily committed to the Balkans (Yugoslavia) and the Middle East and preparing for wars against Iraq and other nationalist countries which opposed Israel and supported Palestine.
Using the pretext of a global terrorist threat Washington demanded subordination to its declaration of a world-wide ‘war against terrorism’.
President Chavez did not submit. He declared that ‘you do not fight terrorism with terrorism”. The US decided that Chavez’s declaration of independence was a threatto US hegemony in Latin America and beyond. Washington decided to overthrow elected President Chavez, even before he nationalized the US owned petroleum industry.
In April 2002, the US organized a military-business coup, which was defeated within forty-eight hours by a popular uprising backed by sectors of the military. A second attempt to overthrow President Chavez was set in motion by oil executives via a petroleum lock-out. It was defeated by oil workers and overseas petrol exporters. Chavez national-populist revolution proceeded to nationalize oil corporations who supported the ‘lock-out’.
The failed coups led Washington to temporarily adopt an electoral strategy heavily financed via Washington controlled foundations and NGO. Repeated electoral defeats led Washington to shift to electoral boycotts and propaganda campaigns designed to illegitimatize the electoral success of President Chavez.
Washington’s failed efforts to restore imperialist power, boomeranged. Chavez increased his electoral support, expanded state control over oil and other resources and radicalized his popular base. Moreover, Chavez increasingly secured backing for his anti-imperialist policies among government and movements throughout Latin America and increased his influence and ties throughout the Caribbean by providing subsidized oil.
While commentators attributed President Chavez mass support and influence to his charisma, objective circumstances peculiar to Latin America were decisive. President Chavez’s defeat of imperialist intervention can be attributed to five objectives and conditions.
The deep involvement of the US in multiple prolonged wars at the same time – including in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa distracted Washington. Moreover, US military commitments to Israel undermined US efforts to refocus on Venezuela.
US sanctions policy took place during the commodity boom between 2003 – 2011 – which provided Venezuela with the economic resources to finance domestic social programs and neutralize local boycotts by elite allies of the US.
Venezuela benefited by the neo-liberal crises of the 1990’s-2001 which led to the rise of center-left national popular governments throughout the region. This was especially the case for Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Honduras. Moreover, ‘centrist’ regimes in Peru and Chile remained neutral. Furthermore Venezuela and its allies ensured that the US did not control regional organization.
President Chavez as a former military officer secured the loyalty of the military, undercutting US plots to organize coups.
The world financial crises of 2008-2009 forced the US to spend several trillion dollars in bailing out the banks. The economic crises and partial recovery strengthened the hand of Treasury and weakened the relative influence of the Pentagon.
In other words, while imperial policies and strategic goals remained, the capacityof the US to pursue conquests was limited by objective conditions.
Circumstances Favoring Imperial Interventions
The reverse circumstances favoring imperialism can be seen in more recent times. These include four conditions:
The end of the commodity boom weakened the economies of Venezuela’s center-left allies and led to the rise of far-right US directed client regimes as well as heightening the coup activities of US backed opponents of newly elected President Maduro.
The failure to diversify exports, markets, financial and distributive systems during the expansive period led to a decline in consumption and production and allowed imperialism to attract voters, especially from middle and lower- middle class consumers, employees, shop keepers, professionals and business people.
The Pentagon transferred its military focus from the Middle East to Latin America, identifying military and political clients among key regimes – namely Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru and Chile.
Washington’s political intervention in Latin American electoral processes opened the door to economic exploitation of resources and the recruitment of military allies to isolate and encircle nationalist, populist Venezuela.
Objective external conditions favored Washington’s imperial quest for domination. Domestic oligarchic power configurations reinforced the dynamic for imperial intervention, political domination and control over the oil industry.
Venezuela’s decline of oil revenue, the elite mobilization of its electoral base and its systematic sabotage of production and distribution had a multiplier effect. The mass media and the self-proclaimed electoral-right embraced the US led far-right coup which manipulated democratic and humanitarian rhetoric.
Washington heightened economic sanctions to starve the low income Chavista supporters, and mobilized its European and Latin American clients to demand Venezuela’s surrender while planning a bloody military coup.
The final stage of the US-planned-and-organized military coup required three conditions:
A division in the military to provides the Pentagon and coup planners a ‘beachhead’ and a pretext for a US ‘humanitarian ‘invasion
A ‘compromising’ political leadership which pursues political dialogues with adversaries preparing for war.
The freezing of all overseas accounts and closing of all loans and markets which Venezuela continues to depend upon.
Conclusion
Imperialism is a central aspect of US global capitalism. But it cannot accomplish its goals and means whenever and how it wishes. Global and regime shifts in the correlation of forces can thwart and delay imperial success.
Coups can be defeated and converted into radical reforms. Imperialist ambitions can be countered by successful economic policies and strategic alliance.
Latin America has been prone to imperial coups and military interventions. But it is also capable of building regional, class and international alliances.
Unlike other regions and imperial targets, Latin America is terrain for class and anti-imperialist struggles. Economic cycles accompany the rise and fall of classes and as a consequence imperial power advances and retreats.
The US intervention in Venezuela is the longest war of our century– (eighteen years) – exceeding the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. The conflict also illustrates how the US relies on regional clients and overseas allies to provide cover for imperial power grabs.
While coups are frequent, their consequences are unstable – clients are weak and the regimes are subject to popular uprising.
US coups against popular regimes lead to bloody massacres which fail to secure long-term large-scale consolidation.
These are the ‘peculiarities’ of Latin America coups.
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Award winning author Prof. James Petras is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
American economic sanctions have been the worst crime against humanity since World War Two. America’s economic sanctions have killed more innocent people than all of the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons ever used in the history of mankind.
The fact that for America the issue in Venezuela is oil, not democracy, will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves on the planet.
America seeks control of Venezuela because it sits atop the strategic intersection of the Caribbean, South and Central American worlds. Control of the nation, has always been a remarkably effective way to project power into these three regions and beyond.
From the first moment Hugo Chavez took office, the United States has been trying to overthrow Venezuela’s socialist movement by using sanctions, coup attempts, and funding the opposition parties. After all, there is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d’état.
United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas, recommended, just a few days ago, that the International Criminal Court investigate economic sanctions against Venezuela as a possible crime against humanity perpetrated by America.
Over the past five years, American sanctions have cut Venezuela off from most financial markets, which have caused local oil production to plummet. Consequently, Venezuela has experienced the largest decline in living standards of any country in recorded Latin American history.
Prior to American sanctions, socialism in Venezuela had reduced inequality and poverty whilst pensions expanded. During the same time period in America, it has been the absolute reverse. President Chavez funnelled Venezuela’s oil revenues into social spending such as free+6 healthcare, education, subsidized food networks, and housing construction.
In order to fully understand why America is waging economic war on the people of Venezuela one must analyse the historical relationship between the petrodollar system and Sanctions of Mass Destruction: Prior to the 20th century, the value of money was tied to gold. When banks lent money they were constrained by the size of their gold reserves. But in 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon took the country off the gold standard. Nixon and Saudi Arabia came to an Oil For Dollars agreement that would change the course of history and become the root cause of countless wars for oil. Under this petrodollar agreement the only currency that Saudi Arabia could sell its oil in was the US dollar. The Saudi Kingdom would in turn ensure that its oil profits flow back into U.S. government treasuries and American banks.
In exchange, America pledged to provide the Saudi Royal family’s regime with military protection and military hardware.
It was the start of something truly great for America. Access to oil defined 20th-century empires and the petrodollar agreement was the key to the ascendancy of the United States as the world’s sole superpower. America’s war machine runs on, is funded by, and exists in protection of oil.
Threats by any nation to undermine the petrodollar system are viewed by Washington as tantamount to a declaration of war against the United States of America.
Within the last two decades Iraq, Iran, Libya and Venezuela have all threatened to sell their oil in other currencies. Consequently, they have all been subject to crippling U.S. sanctions.
Over time the petrodollar system spread beyond oil and the U.S. dollar slowly but surely became the reserve currency for global trades in most commodities and goods. This system allows America to maintain its position of dominance as the world’s only superpower, despite being a staggering $23 trillion in debt.
With billions of dollars worth of minerals in the ground and with the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela should not only be wealthy, but her people the envy of the developing world. But the nation is essentially broke because American sanctions have cut them off from the international financial system and cost the economy $6 billion over the last five years. Without sanctions, Venezuela could recover easily by collateralizing some of its abundant resources or its $8 billion of gold reserves, in order to get the loans necessary to kick-start their economy.
In order to fully understand the insidious nature of the Venezuelan crisis, it is necessary to understand the genesis of economic sanctions. At the height of World War Two, President Truman issued an order for American bombers to drop “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 140,000 people instantly. The gruesome images that emerged from the rubble were broadcast through television sets across the world and caused unprecedented outrage. The political backlash forced U.S. policy makers to devise a more subtle weapon of mass destruction: economic sanctions.
The term “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) was first defined by the United Nations in 1948 as
“atomic explosive weapons, radioactive material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above”.
Sanctions are clearly the 21st century’s deadliest weapon of mass destruction.
In 2001, the U.S. administration told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; Iraq was a terrorist state; Iraq was tied to Al Qaeda. It all amounted to nothing. In fact, America already knew that the only weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had were not nuclear in nature, but rather chemical and biological. The only reason they knew this in advance was because America sold the weapons to Saddam to use on Iran in 1991.
What the U.S. administration did not tell us was that Saddam Hussein used to be a strong ally of the United States. The main reason for toppling Saddam and putting sanctions on the people of Iraq was the fact that Iraq had ditched the Dollar-for-Oil sales.
The United Nations estimates that 1.7 million Iraqis died due to Bill Clinton’s sanctions; 500,000 of whom were children. In 1996, a journalist asked former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, about these UN reports, specifically about the children. America’s top foreign policy official, Albright, replied:
“I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”
Clearly, U.S. sanctions policies are nothing short of state-sanctioned genocide.
Over the last five years, sanctions have caused Venezuelan per capita incomes to drop by 40 percent, which is a decline similar to that of war torn Iraq and Syria at the height of their armed conflicts. Millions of Venezuelans have had to flee the country. If America is so concerned about refugees, Trump should stop furthering disastrous foreign policies that actually create them. Under Chavez, Venezuela had a policy of welcoming refugees. President Chavez turned Venezuela into the wealthiest society in Latin America with the best income equality.
Another much vilified leader who used oil wealth to enrich his people, only to be put under severe sanctions, is Muammar Gaddafi. In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafi had turned Libya into Africa’s wealthiest nation. Perhaps, Gaddafi’s greatest crime, in the eyes of NATO, was his quest to quit selling Libyan oil in U.S. Dollars and denominate crude sales in a new gold backed common African currency. In fact, in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank, which Gaddafi had earmarked for the establishment of an African Central Bank and the African gold-backed Dinar currency.
Africa has the fastest growing oil industry in the world and oil sales in a common African currency would have been especially devastating for the American dollar, the U.S. economy, and particularly the elite in charge of the petrodollar system.
It is for this reason that President Clinton signed the now infamous Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which the United Nations Children’s Fund said caused widespread suffering among civilians by “severely limiting supplies of fuel, access to cash, and the means of replenishing stocks of food and essential medications.” Clearly, U.S. sanctions are weapons of mass destruction.
Not so long ago, Iraq and Libya were the two most modern and secular states in the Middle East and North Africa, with the highest regional standards of living. Nowadays, U.S. Military intervention and economic sanctions have turned Libya and Iraq into two of the world’s most failed nations.
“They want to seize Libya’s oil and they care nothing about the lives of the Libyan people,” remarked Chavez during the Western intervention in Libya in 2011.
In September 2017, President Maduro made good on Chavez’s promise to list oil sales in Yuan rather than the US dollar. Weeks later Trump signed a round of crippling sanctions on the people of Venezuela.
On Monday, U.S. National Security adviser John Bolton announced new sanctions that essentially steal $7 billion from Venezuela’s state owned oil company. At that press conference Bolton brazenly flashed a note pad that ominously said “5,000 troops to Colombia”. When confronted about it by the media, Bolton simply said,
“President Trump stated that all options are on the table”.
America’s media is unquestionably the most corrupt institution in America. The nation’s media may quibble about Trump’s domestic policies but when it comes to starting wars for oil abroad they sing in remarkable unison. Fox News, CNN and the New York Times all cheered the nation into war in Iraq over fictitious weapons of mass destruction, whilst America was actually using sanctions of mass destruction on the Iraqi people. They did it in Libya and now they are doing it again in Venezuela. Democracy and freedom have always been the smoke screen in front of capitalist expansion for oil, and the Western Media owns the smoke machine. Economic warfare has long since been under way against Venezuela but military warfare is now imminent.
Trump just hired Elliot Abrams as U.S. Special Envoy for Venezuela, who has a long and torrid history in Latin America. Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Iran Contra affair, which involved America funding deadly communist rebels, and was the worst scandal in the Reagan Era. Abrams was later pardoned by George Bush Senior. America’s new point man on Venezuela also lied about the largest mass killing in recent Latin American history by U.S. trained forces in El Salvador.
There is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d’état. A UN Human Rights Council Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas, pointed out that America’s aim in Venezuela is to “crush this government and bring in a neoliberal government that is going to privatise everything and is going to sell out, a lot of transitional corporations stand to gain enormous profits and the United States is driven by the transnational corporations.”
Ever since 1980, the United States has steadily devolved from the status of the world’s top creditor country to the world’s most indebted country. But thanks to the petrodollar system’s huge global artificial demand for U.S. dollars, America can continue exponential military expansion, record breaking deficits and unrestrained spending.
America’s largest export used to be manufactured goods made proudly in America. Today, America’s largest export is the U.S. dollar. Any nation like Venezuela that threatens that export is met with America’s second largest export: weapons, chief amongst which are sanctions of mass destruction.
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Garikai Chengu is an Ancient African historian. He has been a scholar at Harvard, Stanford and Columbia University. Contact him on [email protected]
Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.
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Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.
But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom-dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.
Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.
“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told The Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”
Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet Misión Verdad, agreed:
“Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”
While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.
“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” wroteLuis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to León, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”
But this is precisely why he Guaidó was selected by Washington: He is not expected to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.
Targeting the “troika of tyranny”
Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, the United States has fought to restore control over Venezuela and is vast oil reserves. Chávez’s socialist programs may have redistributed the country’s wealth and helped lift millions out of poverty, but they also earned him a target on his back.
In 2002, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition briefly ousted Chávez with US support and recognition, before the military restored his presidency following a mass popular mobilization. Throughout the administrations of US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Chávez survived numerous assassination plots, before succumbing to cancer in 2013. His successor, Nicolas Maduro, has survivedthree attempts on his life.
The Trump administration immediately elevated Venezuela to the top of Washington’s regime change target list, branding it the leader of a “troika of tyranny.” Last year, Trump’s national security team attempted to recruit members of the military brass to mount a military junta, but that effort failed.
According to the Venezuelan government, the US was also involved in a plot, codenamed Operation Constitution, to capture Maduro at the Miraflores presidential palace; and another, called Operation Armageddon, to assassinate him at a military parade in July 2017. Just over a year later, exiled opposition leaders tried and failed to kill Maduro with drone bombs during a military parade in Caracas.
More than a decade before these intrigues, a group of right-wing opposition students were hand-selected and groomed by an elite US-funded regime change training academy to topple Venezuela’s government and restore the neoliberal order.
Training from the “‘export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions”
On October 5, 2005, with Chávez’s popularity at its peak and his government planning sweeping socialist programs, five Venezuelan “student leaders” arrived in Belgrade, Serbia to begin training for an insurrection.
The students had arrived from Venezuela courtesy of the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS. This group is funded largely through the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cut-out that functions as the US government’s main arm of promoting regime change; and offshoots like the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. According to leaked internal emails from Stratfor, an intelligence firm known as the “shadow CIA,” CANVAS “may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle.”
CANVAS is a spinoff of Otpor, a Serbian protest group founded by Srdja Popovic in 1998 at the University of Belgrade. Otpor, which means “resistance” in Serbian, was the student group that gained international fame — and Hollywood-level promotion — by mobilizing the protests that eventually toppled Slobodan Milosevic.
This small cell of regime change specialists was operating according to the theories of the late Gene Sharp, the so-called “Clausewitz of non-violent struggle.” Sharp had worked with a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, Col. Robert Helvey, to conceive a strategic blueprint that weaponized protest as a form of hybrid warfare, aiming it at states that resisted Washington’s unipolar domination.
Otpor at the 1998 MTV Europe Music Awards
Otpor was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, and Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institute. Sinisa Sikman, one of Otpor’s main trainers, once said the group even received direct CIA funding.
According to a leaked email from a Stratfor staffer, after running Milosevic out of power,
“the kids who ran OTPOR grew up, got suits and designed CANVAS… or in other words a ‘export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions. They are still hooked into U.S. funding and basically go around the world trying to topple dictators and autocratic governments (ones that U.S. does not like ;).”
Stratfor revealed that CANVAS “turned its attention to Venezuela” in 2005, after training opposition movements that led pro-NATO regime change operations across Eastern Europe.
While monitoring the CANVAS training program, Stratfor outlined its insurrectionist agenda in strikingly blunt language:
“Success is by no means guaranteed, and student movements are only at the beginning of what could be a years-long effort to trigger a revolution in Venezuela, but the trainers themselves are the people who cut their teeth on the ‘Butcher of the Balkans.’ They’ve got mad skills. When you see students at five Venezuelan universities hold simultaneous demonstrations, you will know that the training is over and the real work has begun.”
Birthing the “Generation 2007” regime change cadre
The “real work” began two years later, in 2007, when Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to Washington, DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington University, under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who spent more than a decade working in the Venezuelan energy sector, under the old oligarchic regime that was ousted by Chávez.
That year, Guaidó helped lead anti-government rallies after the Venezuelan government declined to to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). This privately owned station played a leading role in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chávez. RCTV helped mobilize anti-government demonstrators, falsified information blaming government supporters for acts of violence carried out by opposition members, and banned pro-government reporting amid the coup. The role of RCTV and other oligarch-owned stations in driving the failed coup attempt was chronicled in the acclaimed documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
That same year, the students claimed credit for stymying Chavez’s constitutional referendum for a “21st century socialism” that promised “to set the legal framework for the political and social reorganization of the country, giving direct power to organized communities as a prerequisite for the development of a new economic system.”
From the protests around RCTV and the referendum, a specialized cadre of US-backed class of regime change activists was born. They called themselves “Generation 2007.”
The Stratfor and CANVAS trainers of this cell identified Guaidó’s ally – a street organizer named Yon Goicoechea – as a “key factor” in defeating the constitutional referendum. The following year, Goicochea was rewarded for his efforts with the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with a $500,000 prize, which he promptly invested into building his own Liberty First (Primero Justicia) political network.
Friedman, of course, was the godfather of the notorious neoliberal Chicago Boys who were imported into Chile by dictatorial junta leader Augusto Pinochet to implement policies of radical “shock doctrine”-style fiscal austerity. And the Cato Institute is the libertarian Washington DC-based think tank founded by the Koch Brothers, two top Republican Party donors who have become aggressive supporters of the right-wing across Latin America.
Wikileaks published a 2007 email from American ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield sent to the State Department, National Security Council and Department of Defense Southern Command praising “Generation of ’07” for having “forced the Venezuelan president, accustomed to setting the political agenda, to (over)react.” Among the “emerging leaders” Brownfield identified were Freddy Guevara and Yon Goicoechea. He applauded the latter figure as “one of the students’ most articulate defenders of civil liberties.”
Flush with cash from libertarian oligarchs and US government soft power outfits, the radical Venezuelan cadre took their Otpor tactics to the streets, along with a version of the group’s logo, as seen below:
“Galvanizing public unrest…to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez”
In 2009, the Generation 2007 youth activists staged their most provocative demonstration yet, dropping their pants on public roads and aping the outrageous guerrilla theater tactics outlined by Gene Sharp in his regime change manuals. The protesters had mobilized against the arrest of an ally from another newfangled youth group called JAVU. This far-right group “gathered funds from a variety of US government sources, which allowed it to gain notoriety quickly as the hardline wing of opposition street movements,” according to academic George Ciccariello-Maher’s book, “Building the Commune.”
While video of the protest is not available, many Venezuelans have identified Guaidó as one of its key participants. While the allegation is unconfirmed, it is certainly plausible; the bare-buttocks protesters were members of the Generation 2007 inner core that Guaidó belonged to, and were clad in their trademark Resistencia! Venezuela t-shirts, as seen below:
Is this the ass that Trump wants to install in Venezuela’s seat of power?
That year, Guaidó exposed himself to the public in another way, founding a political party to capture the anti-Chavez energy his Generation 2007 had cultivated. Called Popular Will, it was led by Leopoldo López, a Princeton-educated right-wing firebrand heavily involved in National Endowment for Democracy programs and elected as the mayor of a district in Caracas that was one of the wealthiest in the country. Lopez was a portrait of Venezuelan aristocracy, directly descended from his country’s first president. He was also the first cousin of Thor Halvorssen, founder of the US-based Human Rights Foundation that functions as a de facto publicity shop for US-backed anti-government activists in countries targeted by Washington for regime change.
Though Lopez’s interests aligned neatly with Washington’s, US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks highlighted the fanatical tendencies that would ultimately lead to Popular Will’s marginalization. One cable identified Lopez as “a divisive figure within the opposition… often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry.” Others highlighted his obsession with street confrontations and his “uncompromising approach” as a source of tension with other opposition leaders who prioritized unity and participation in the country’s democratic institutions.
Popular Will founder Leopoldo Lopez cruising with his wife, Lilian Tintori
By 2010, Popular Will and its foreign backers moved to exploit the worst drought to hit Venezuela in decades. Massive electricity shortages had struck the country due the dearth of water, which was needed to power hydroelectric plants. A global economic recession and declining oil prices compounded the crisis, driving public discontentment.
Stratfor and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country’s electrical system by as early as April 2010.
“This could be the watershed event, as there is little that Chavez can do to protect the poor from the failure of that system,” the Stratfor internal memo declared. “This would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate. At that point in time, an opposition group would be best served to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez and towards their needs.”
By this point, the Venezuelan opposition was receiving a staggering $40-50 million a year from US government organizations like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, according to a report by the Spanish think tank, the FRIDE Institute. It also had massive wealth to draw on from its own accounts, which were mostly outside the country.
While the scenario envisioned by Statfor did not come to fruition, the Popular Will party activists and their allies cast aside any pretense of non-violence and joined a radical plan to destabilize the country.
Towards violent destabilization
In November, 2010, according to emails obtained by Venezuelan security services and presented by former Justice Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres, Guaidó, Goicoechea, and several other student activists attended a secret five-day training at the Fiesta Mexicana hotel in Mexico City. The sessions were run by Otpor, the Belgrade-based regime change trainers backed by the US government. The meeting had reportedly received the blessing of Otto Reich, a fanatically anti-Castro Cuban exile working in George W. Bush’s Department of State, and the right-wing former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
At the Fiesta Mexicana hotel, the emails stated, Guaidó and his fellow activists hatched a plan to overthrow President Hugo Chavez by generating chaos through protracted spasms of street violence.
Three petroleum industry figureheads – Gustavo Torrar, Eligio Cedeño and Pedro Burelli – allegedly covered the $52,000 tab to hold the meeting. Torrar is a self-described “human rights activist” and “intellectual” whose younger brother Reynaldo Tovar Arroyo is the representative in Venezuela of the private Mexican oil and gas company Petroquimica del Golfo, which holds a contract with the Venezuelan state.
Cedeño, for his part, is a fugitive Venezuelan businessman who claimed asylum in the United States, and Pedro Burelli a former JP Morgan executive and the former director of Venezuela’s national oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA). He left PDVSA in 1998 as Hugo Chavez took power and is on the advisory committee of Georgetown University’s Latin America Leadership Program.
Burelli insisted that the emails detailing his participation had been fabricated and even hired a private investigator to prove it. The investigator declared that Google’s records showed the emails alleged to be his were never transmitted.
Yet today Burelli makes no secret of his desire to see Venezuela’s current president, Nicolás Maduro, deposed – and even dragged through the streets and sodomized with a bayonet, as Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was by NATO-backed militiamen.
.@NicolasMaduro, jamas me has hecho caso. Me has fustigado/perseguido como @chavezcandanga jamás osó. Óyeme, tienes sólo dos opciones en las próximas 24 horas:
1. Como Noriega: pagar pena por narcotráfico y luego a @IntlCrimCourt La Haya por DDHH.
The alleged Fiesta Mexicana plot flowed into another destabilization plan revealed in a series of documents produced by the Venezuelan government. In May 2014, Caracas released documents detailing an assassination plot against President Nicolás Maduro. The leaks identified the Miami-based Maria Corina Machado as a leader of the scheme. A hardliner with a penchant for extreme rhetoric, Machado has functioned as an international liaison for the opposition, visiting President George W. Bush in 2005.
Machado and George W. Bush, 2005
“I think it is time to gather efforts; make the necessary calls, and obtain financing to annihilate Maduro and the rest will fall apart,” Machado wrote in an email to former Venezuelan diplomat Diego Arria in 2014.
In another email, Machado claimed that the violent plot had the blessing of US Ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker. “I have already made up my mind and this fight will continue until this regime is overthrown and we deliver to our friends in the world. If I went to San Cristobal and exposed myself before the OAS, I fear nothing. Kevin Whitaker has already reconfirmed his support and he pointed out the new steps. We have a checkbook stronger than the regime’s to break the international security ring.”
Guaidó heads to the barricades
That February, student demonstrators acting as shock troops for the exiled oligarchy erected violent barricades across the country, turning opposition-controlled quarters into violent fortresses known as guarimbas. While international media portrayed the upheaval as a spontaneous protest against Maduro’s iron-fisted rule, there was ample evidence that Popular Will was orchestrating the show.
“None of the protesters at the universities wore their university t-shirts, they all wore Popular Will or Justice First t-shirts,” a guarimba participant said at the time. “They might have been student groups, but the student councils are affiliated to the political opposition parties and they are accountable to them.”
Asked who the ringleaders were, the guarimba participant said, “Well if I am totally honest, those guys are legislators now.”
Around 43 were killed during the 2014 guarimbas. Three years later, they erupted again, causing mass destruction of public infrastructure, the murder of government supporters, and the deaths of 126 people, many of whom were Chavistas. In several cases, supporters of the government were burned alive by armed gangs.
Guaidó was directly involved in the 2014 guarimbas. In fact, he tweeted video showing himself clad in a helmet and gas mask, surrounded by masked and armed elements that had shut down a highway that were engaging in a violent clash with the police. Alluding to his participation in Generation 2007, he proclaimed, “I remember in 2007, we proclaimed, ‘Students!’ Now, we shout, ‘Resistance! Resistance!’”
Guaidó has deleted the tweet, demonstrating apparent concern for his image as a champion of democracy.
On February 12, 2014, during the height of that year’s guarimbas, Guaidó joined Lopez on stage at a rally of Popular Will and Justice First. During a lengthy diatribe against the government, Lopez urged the crowd to march to the office of Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz. Soon after, Diaz’s office came under attack by armed gangs who attempted to burn it to the ground. She denounced what she called “planned and premeditated violence.”
Guaido alongside Lopez at the fateful February 12, 2014 rally
In an televised appearance in 2016, Guaidó dismissed deaths resulting from guayas – a guarimba tactic involving stretching steel wire across a roadway in order to injure or kill motorcyclists – as a “myth.” His comments whitewashed a deadly tactic that had killed unarmed civilians like Santiago Pedroza and decapitated a man named Elvis Durán, among many others.
This callous disregard for human life would define his Popular Will party in the eyes of much of the public, including many opponents of Maduro.
Cracking down on Popular Will
As violence and political polarization escalated across the country, the government began to act against the Popular Will leaders who helped stoke it.
Freddy Guevara, the National Assembly Vice-President and second in command of Popular Will, was a principal leader in the 2017 street riots. Facing a trial for his role in the violence, Guevara took shelter in the Chilean embassy, where he remains.
Lester Toledo, a Popular Will legislator from the state of Zulia, was wanted by Venezuelan government in September 2016 on charges of financing terrorism and plotting assassinations. The plans were said to be made with former Colombian President Álavaro Uribe. Toledo escaped Venezuela and went on several speaking tours with Human Rights Watch, the US government-backed Freedom House, the Spanish Congress and European Parliament.
Carlos Graffe, another Otpor-trained Generation 2007 member who led Popular Will, was arrested in July 2017. According to police, he was in possession of a bag filled with nails, C4 explosives and a detonator. He was released on December 27, 2017.
Leopoldo Lopez, the longtime Popular Will leader, is today under house arrest, accused of a key role in deaths of 13 people during the guarimbas in 2014. Amnesty International lauded Lopez as a “prisoner of conscience” and slammed his transfer from prison to house as “not good enough.” Meanwhile, family members of guarimba victims introduced a petition for more charges against Lopez.
Yon Goicoechea, the Koch Brothers posterboy and US-backed founder of Justice First, was arrested in 2016 by security forces who claimed they found a kilo of explosives in his vehicle. In a New York Times op-ed, Goicoechea protested the charges as “trumped-up” and claimed he had been imprisoned simply for his “dream of a democratic society, free of Communism.” He was freed in November 2017.
Hoy, en Caricuao. Llevo 15 años trabajando con @jguaido. Confío en él. Conozco la constancia y la inteligencia con la que se ha construido a sí mismo. Está haciendo las cosas con bondad, pero sin ingenuidad. Hay una posibilidad abierta hacia la libertad. pic.twitter.com/Lidm8y5RTX
David Smolansky, also a member of the original Otpor-trained Generation 2007, became Venezuela’s youngest-ever mayor when he was elected in 2013 in the affluent suburb of El Hatillo. But he was stripped of his position and sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Supreme Court after it found him culpable of stirring the violent guarimbas.
Facing arrest, Smolansky shaved his beard, donned sunglasses and slipped into Brazil disguised as a priest with a bible in hand and rosary around his neck. He now lives in Washington, DC, where he was hand picked by Secretary of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro to lead the working group on the Venezuelan migrant and refugee crisis.
This July 26, Smolansky held what he called a “cordial reunion” with Elliot Abrams, the convicted Iran-Contra felon installed by Trump as special US envoy to Venezuela. Abrams is notorious for overseeing the US covert policy of arming right-wing death squads during the 1980’s in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. His lead role in the Venezuelan coup has stoked fears that another blood-drenched proxy war might be on the way.
Cordial reunión en la ONU con Elliott Abrams, enviado especial del gobierno de EEUU para Venezuela. Reiteramos que la prioridad para el gobierno interino que preside @jguaido es la asistencia humanitaria para millones de venezolanos que sufren de la falta de comida y medicinas. pic.twitter.com/vHfktVKgV4
Four days earlier, Machado rumbled another violent threat against Maduro, declaring that if he “wants to save his life, he should understand that his time is up.”
A pawn in their game
The collapse of Popular Will under the weight of the violent campaign of destabilization it ran alienated large sectors of the public and wound much of its leadership up in exile or in custody. Guaidó had remained a relatively minor figure, having spent most of his nine-year career in the National Assembly as an alternate deputy. Hailing from one of Venezuela’s least populous states, Guaidó came in second place during the 2015 parliamentary elections, winning just 26% of votes cast in order to secure his place in the National Assembly. Indeed, his bottom may have been better known than his face.
Guaidó is known as the president of the opposition-dominated National Assembly, but he was never elected to the position. The four opposition parties that comprised the Assembly’s Democratic Unity Table had decided to establish a rotating presidency. Popular Will’s turn was on the way, but its founder, Lopez, was under house arrest. Meanwhile, his second-in-charge, Guevara, had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy. A figure named Juan Andrés Mejía would have been next in line but reasons that are only now clear, Juan Guaido was selected.
“There is a class reasoning that explains Guaidó’s rise,” Sequera, the Venezuelan analyst, observed.
“Mejía is high class, studied at one of the most expensive private universities in Venezuela, and could not be easily marketed to the public the way Guaidó could. For one, Guaidó has common mestizo features like most Venezuelans do, and seems like more like a man of the people. Also, he had not been overexposed in the media, so he could be built up into pretty much anything.”
In December 2018, Guaidó sneaked across the border and junketed to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to coordinate the plan to hold mass demonstrations during the inauguration of President Maduro. The night before Maduro’s swearing-in ceremony, both Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called Guaidó to affirm their support.
A week later, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart – all lawmakers from the Florida base of the right-wing Cuban exile lobby – joined President Trump and Vice President Pence at the White House. At their request, Trump agreed that if Guaidó declared himself president, he would back him.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met personally with Guaidó on January 10, according to the Wall Street Journal. However, Pompeo could not pronounce Guaidó’s name when he mentioned him in a press briefing on January 25, referring to him as “Juan Guido.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just called the figure Washington is attempting to install as Venezuelan President "Juan *Guido*" – as in the racist term for Italians. America's top diplomat didn't even bother to learn how to pronounce his puppet's name. pic.twitter.com/HsanZXuSPR
By January 11, Guaidó’s Wikipedia page had been edited 37 times, highlighting the struggle to shape the image of a previously anonymous figure who was now a tableau for Washington’s regime change ambitions. In the end, editorial oversight of his page was handed over to Wikipedia’s elite council of “librarians,” who pronounced him the “contested” president of Venezuela.
Guaidó might have been an obscure figure, but his combination of radicalism and opportunism satisfied Washington’s needs. “That internal piece was missing,” a Trump administration said of Guaidó. “He was the piece we needed for our strategy to be coherent and complete.”
“For the first time,” Brownfield, the former American ambassador to Venezuela, gushed to the New York Times, “you have an opposition leader who is clearly signaling to the armed forces and to law enforcement that he wants to keep them on the side of the angels and with the good guys.”
But Guaidó’s Popular Will party formed the shock troops of the guarimbas that caused the deaths of police officers and common citizens alike. He had even boasted of his own participation in street riots. And now, to win the hearts and minds of the military and police, Guaido had to erase this blood-soaked history.
On January 21, a day before the coup began in earnest, Guaidó’s wife delivered a video address calling on the military to rise up against Maduro. Her performance was wooden and uninspiring, underscoring the her husband’s limited political prospects.
At a press conference before supporters four days later, Guaidó announced his solution to the crisis: “Authorize a humanitarian intervention!”
While he waits on direct assistance, Guaidó remains what he has always been – a pet project of cynical outside forces. “It doesn’t matter if he crashes and burns after all these misadventures,” Sequera said of the coup figurehead. “To the Americans, he is expendable.”
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Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.
Dan Cohen is a journalist and filmmaker. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. Dan is a correspondent at RT America and tweets at @DanCohen3000.
All images in this article are from Grayzone Project unless otherwise stated
Would anybody reading this article want to appoint him/herself as prime minister of Canada in front of a friendly crowd? All you need to say is that you don’t recognize the elected prime minister as legitimate.
I asked that question to a crowd at a rally organized to affirm the sovereignty of Venezuela a few days ago in Vancouver. No one came forward. Instead, people laughed, and for a good reason. The notion of such an occurrence is ridiculous. But think again. It just happened in Caracas, Venezuela last January 23 with the assent of the government of Canada.
An unknown Juan Guaidó of the Venezuelan opposition party Voluntad Popular appointed himself interim president of Venezuela in front of a multitude without fulfilling a single requirement of the democratic process. Process that may involve registered political parties and a political campaign; and it should definitely have a free and secret ballot with all constitutional guarantees approved by a duly established national electoral institution, leading to an election and the public inauguration of the winning candidate.
“The position of speaker of the National Assembly held by Juan Guaidó (from a constitutional standpoint) is in some regards comparable to that of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and the leader of the majority party which is currently held by Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi is second in line to the US presidential line of succession, after Vice President Mike Pence. (25th Amendment of Constitution and 3 USC 19, a section of the U.S. Code, established as part of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947).”
Then Chossudovsky concludes,
“Trump’s endorsement of Venezuela’s speaker of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó is tantamount to stating that Nancy Pelosi could legitimately from one day to the next replace Trump as interim president of the US. A pretty grim prospect for the Donald.”
Even Canadian MPs couldn’t avoid making a reference to the absurdity of the Venezuelan situation. Erin Weir, Independent MP, addressed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland – a staunch supporter of Juan Guaidó – by facetiously saying,
“I am going to resist the temptation to declare myself Prime Minister of Canada.”
But what happened in Venezuela on January 23 is very serious and we must recognize two things that would convince us to end all interference in the affairs of Venezuela.
First, appointing oneself president or prime minister of a country is unconstitutional. Juan Guaidó has broken the foundation of a constitutional democracy: to be voted by the majority of the population in democratic elections.
In his pretense of following the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999, Guaidó called on Article 233 to appoint himself. That article determines the circumstances that would allow the appointment of a president when the elected one cannot be present for the inauguration.
None of the assumptions to establish the absolute absence of the president has been met: neither death, nor resignation, nor dismissal by the Supreme Court, nor physical or mental incapacity, nor abandonment of office nor recall by the people.
Nicolas Maduro is alive, in power and is the legitimate democratically elected president of Venezuela according to the Venezuelan constitution. He does not need the acclamation of foreign governments.
Speaking of foreign governments, the second thing we must recognize that happened on January 23 in Venezuela is that this was done with the full and overt interference from foreign countries. And this breaks all sorts of international laws. Principally, it goes against the UN Charter and the OAS 1948 Charter. However, foreign intervention in Venezuela is nothing new. The US has tried to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution since the failed attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002.
Fast-forward to 2014 and to this day; Venezuela is confronting severe sanctions from the US, Canada, EU and some Latin American countries. Sanctions are crippling the Venezuelan economy and affecting the population. The new US sanctions of this week further prevent the repatriation of revenues for Venezuelan oil exports to the US.
We must emphasize that sanctions can only be enforced by resolution of the UN Security Council. Any other sanction unilaterally imposed is illegal in the eyes of the community of nations according to the UN Charter. Incidentally, the UNSC has not resolved to recognize the self-proclaimed president.
In the same way that Guaidó appoints himself as the illegal president in Venezuela, the likes of Trump and Trudeau in our continent appoint themselves as judges in the internal affairs of Venezuela that only pertain to the people of Venezuela.
This is reckless.
This tragic farce has been staged under the pretext that the elections of May 20, 2018 won by Nicolas Maduro are not recognized by the US and Canada.
Facts:
Sixteen political parties participated in the elections last year. Three parties decided not to participate (under US pressure), but that does not make the electoral process illegitimate.
Maduro won with a wide margin, obtained 6,248,864 votes, 67.84%; Henri Falcón followed with 1.927.958, 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82% and Reinaldo Quijada who obtained 36,246 votes, 0.39% of the total. The difference between Maduro and the second contender was 46.91%.
Close to 200 international observers were present during the elections. The UN refused to send an observer.
But there is also a personal angle to this story.
I was forbidden by the Canadian government to vote at the Venezuelan consulate together with all Venezuelans across Canada. That was my right as a Venezuelan, and it was taken away. The Canadian government deemed the elections “fraudulent” even before they took place!
And here is where the US and Canadian governments fall into ridicule in this whole tragedy: Of the 25 elections at different levels that have taken place in Venezuela over the last 20 years, the only one that they would recognize as legitimate is the election of the National Assembly of 2015 where the opposition won a majority that was immediately recognized by the Venezuelan electoral authorities. All 25 elections were held with exactly the same electoral standard.
However, three candidates committed fraud and another election in the respective districts had to be called again. The National Assembly refused and persisted in swearing in the three members. Consequently, the Supreme Court declared it in contempt in 2016 and remains so to this date.
Interestingly, the National Assembly’s only declared item on their agenda was to topple Nicolas Maduro “within 6 months”. No relevant legislation was ever proposed and discussed. The aim was an all familiar “parliamentary coup” as others occurred in other Latin American countries.
Let me emphasize what I consider the most blatant example of intervention.
Article 19, Chapter IV of the Charter states:
“No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, and for whatever reason, in the internal or external affairs of any other. The previous principle excludes not only armed force, but also any other form of interference or tendency to threaten the personality of the State, the political, economic and cultural elements that constitute it. “
Canada is a member of the OAS and as such it is called to abide by the OAS Charter of 1948. But, does it? Not in the least.
Repeatedly, the OAS, with arm-twisting by Luis Almagro, the Secretary General, has tried to condemn Venezuela last year but it never reached the sufficient number of votes. And by the way, this week the OAS failed to recognize Guaidó as proposed by Argentina and endorsed by the US.
So while the majority of OAS member countries abide by the Charter, Chrystia Freeland breaks off creating a fictitious splinter group, the “Lima Group”, with no international authority except to force regime change in Venezuela. She has just called for a meeting of the group in Ottawa on February 4th. Agenda topic: Venezuela.
The only conclusion we can draw from this scenario is that the Canadian government is complicit in a US sponsored coup attempt in Venezuela.
It’s committing a reckless action and is not speaking for all Canadians. Many Canadians and organizations have endorsed the legitimacy of the Maduro presidency, and have protested in rallies across the country speaking up against the Canadian government’s dangerous, illegal, interventionist, colonial and imperial attack on Venezuela.
The future of a Latin America country – that attempts to break away from foreign domination following the example of Cuba 60 years ago – is uncertain under real threats of a military invasion. Venezuelans have hard choices to make and they should be left alone to make them as a sovereign nation. As many all over the world are repeating to their governments: Hands off Venezuela!
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Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The vast majority of Venezuelans oppose military intervention and US sanctions to try to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power, according to polling by the local firm Hinterlaces.
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More than eight out of ten Venezuelans oppose international intervention, both military and non-military, in their country, as well as the crippling sanctions imposed by the United States to force leftist President Nicolás Maduro out of power.
According to a study conducted in early January 2019 by the local polling firm Hinterlaces, 86 percent of Venezuelans would disagree with international military intervention. And 81 percent oppose the US sanctions that have gravely hurt the South American nation’s economy.
This poll was conducted before the Donald Trump administration launched a political coup in Venezuela on January 23, attempting to replace its government with a right-wing opposition that has made it clear that it seeks to impose neoliberal capitalist economic policies.
Hinterlaces is led by the independent pollster Oscar Schemel, who has experience studying numerous elections in Venezuela and has a pro-business perspective. Most polling firms in the country, such as the competitor Datanálisis, tend to be pro-opposition. Hinterlaces is more neutral, and often leans toward the government, although Schemel has criticized some of Maduro’s economic policies.
English-language media outlets frequently ignore local polls done inside Venezuela, and if they do report on them, they tend to publish the results of polling firms run by pro-opposition figures.
The Grayzone has translated the findings of a Hinterlaces study conducted between January 7 and 20. The following data is based on direct interviews with 1,580 Venezuelans from all across the country, and was reported on the program José Vicente HOY on January 27.
Do you agree or disagree with the US economic and financial sanctions that are currently applied against Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power?
81% disagree
17% agree
2% not sure
Would you agree or disagree if there were international intervention in Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power?
78% disagree
20% agree
2% not sure
Would you agree or disagree if there were international military intervention in Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power?
86% disagree
12% agree
2% not sure
In general do you agree or disagree with a dialogue being held between the national government and the opposition to resolve the current economic problems in the country?
84% agree
15% disagree
1% not sure
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Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
On Saturday, January 26, Reuters reported [1] that Taliban officials said the US negotiators agreed on a draft peace pact setting out the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan within 18 months, potentially ending the United States longest war.
Confirming the news, New York Times reported [2] on Monday, January 28, that the US chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad stated the American and Taliban officials had agreed in principle to the framework of a peace deal in which the insurgents guaranteed to prevent Afghan territory from being used by terrorists, and that could lead to a full pullout of American troops in return for a ceasefire and Taliban talks with the Afghan government.
Moreover, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted on Saturday:
“The US is serious about pursuing peace, preventing Afghanistan from continuing to be a space for international terrorism and bringing forces home,” though he declined to provide a timeframe for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.
The news of drawdown of American forces is expected after the next round of peace talks is held in late February in the capital of Qatar, Doha, in which Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a close aide to the Taliban’s deceased leader Mullah Omar, will lead the Taliban delegation.
Baradar was released from captivity [3] in October by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and was allowed to join his family in Afghanistan. He was captured in a joint US-Pakistan intelligence operation in the southern port city of Karachi in 2010. His release was a longstanding demand of the Afghan government because he is regarded as a comparatively moderate Taliban leader who could play a positive role in the peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
Alongside the issues of Taliban providing guarantees it would not allow Afghan soil to be used by transnational terrorists, al-Qaeda and Islamic State Khorasan, the Taliban holding direct negotiations with the US-backed Afghan government – which the Taliban regards as an American stooge and hence refuse to recognize – a permanent ceasefire and the formation of a mutually acceptable interim government, a few other minor issues, such as the exchange and release of prisoners, removing travel restrictions on the Taliban leadership and unfreezing its bank accounts are also on the agenda of the peace talks.
Although both Reuters and New York Times reports hailed the news of the pullout of American forces from Afghanistan a diplomatic victory for Washington since the Taliban had agreed to a ceasefire and holding talks with the US-backed government of Afghanistan, in fact the withdrawal of foreign troops from the Afghan soil would be a stellar victory for the Taliban and one of the most humiliating defeats for Washington since the Fall of Saigon in 1975, because besides destroying a country of thirty-million people, Washington has failed to achieve any of its objective, including the much-touted imperialist project of “nation-building,” during its seventeen years of occupation of Afghanistan.
Regarding the presence of transnational terrorist networks on the Afghan soil, the al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has already been killed [allegedly] in a May 2011 raid of the US Navy Seals in the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan and its second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri is on the run. Besides, the number of al-Qaeda’s Arab militants in the Af-Pak region does not exceed more than a few hundred and are hence inconsequential.
As far as Islamic State Khorasan is concerned, a number of Islamic State affiliates have recently sprung up all over the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia regions that have no organizational and operational association, whatsoever, with the Islamic State proper in Syria and Iraq, such as the Islamic State-affiliates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and even Boko Haram in Nigeria now falls under the rubric of the Islamic State.
It is understandable for laymen to conflate such local militant outfits for the Islamic State proper in Iraq and Syria, but how come the policy analysts of think tanks and the corporate media’s terrorism experts, who are fully aware of this not-so-subtle distinction, have fallen for such a ruse?
Can we classify any ragtag militant outfit as the Islamic State merely on the basis of ideological affinity and “a letter of accreditation” from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi without the Islamic State’s Baathist command structure and superior weaponry that has been bankrolled by the Gulf’s petro-dollars?
The Western political establishments and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media, deliberately and knowingly fall for such stratagems because it serves the scaremongering agenda of vested interests. Before acknowledging the Islamic State’s affiliates in the region, the Western mainstream media also similarly and “naively” acknowledged al-Qaeda’s affiliates in the region, too, merely on the basis of ideological affinity without any organizational and operational association with al-Qaeda Central, such as al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb.
Regarding the creation and composition of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, apart from training and arms which were provided to Syrian militants in the training camps located in the Turkish and Jordanian border regions adjacent to Syria by the CIA in collaboration with Turkish, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence agencies, another factor that contributed to the stellar success of the Islamic State in early 2014 when it overran Raqqa in Syria and Mosul and Anbar in Iraq was that its top cadres were comprised of former Baathist military and intelligence officers from the Saddam era.
Reportedly, hundreds of ex-Baathists constituted the top and mid-tier command structure of the Islamic State who planned all the operations and directed its military strategy. The only feature that differentiated the Islamic State from all other insurgent groups was its command structure which was comprised of professional ex-Baathists and its state-of-the-art weaponry that was provided to all militant outfits fighting in Syria by the intelligence agencies of the Western powers, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf states.
Recently, the Islamic State’s purported “terror franchises” in Afghanistan and Pakistan have claimed a spate of bombings against the Shi’a and Barelvi Muslims who are regarded as heretics by Takfiris. But to contend that the Islamic State is responsible for suicide blasts in Pakistan and Afghanistan is to declare that the Taliban are responsible for the sectarian war in Syria and Iraq.
Both are localized militant outfits and the Islamic State without its Baathist command structure and superior weaponry is just another ragtag, regional militant outfit. The distinction between the Taliban and the Islamic State lies in the fact that the Taliban follow Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam which is a sect native to South Asia and the jihadists of the Islamic State mostly belong to Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi denomination.
Secondly, and more importantly, the insurgency in Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan is a Pashtun uprising which is an ethnic group native to Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, while the bulk of the Islamic State’s jihadists is comprised of Arab militants of Syria and Iraq.
The so-called “Khorasan Province” of the Islamic State in the Af-Pak region is nothing more than a coalition of several breakaway factions of the Taliban and a few other inconsequential local militant outfits that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in order to enhance their prestige and draw funds and followers, but which don’t have any organizational and operational association, whatsoever, with the Islamic State proper in Syria and Iraq.
Conflating the Islamic State either with al-Qaeda, the Taliban or with myriads of ragtag, local militant groups is a deliberate deception intended to mislead public opinion in order to exaggerate the threat posed by the Islamic State which serves the scaremongering agenda of Western and regional security establishments.
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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Notes
[1] Foreign troops to quit Afghanistan in 18 months:
Riotous protesters briefly stormed the Cameroonian Embassies in Paris and Berlin over the weekend in an attempt to raise global awareness about the rolling regime change campaign back in their homeland following the reelection of President Biya to his seventh consecutive term in office late last year, possibly forcing France to choose sides in decisively throwing its weight behind either its decades-long proxy or his anti-government opponents.
The “Perfect Storm”
Most of the global media didn’t pay much attention to it but anti-government protesters briefly stormed the Cameroonian Embassies in Paris and Berlin over the weekend in an attempt to raise awareness about the rolling regime change campaign against their country’s long-serving president, who was just re-elected to his seventh consecutive term in office late last year. The West-Central African country is currently experiencing a pronounced bout of Hybrid War unrest whereby it’s suffering asymmetrical onslaughts from Anglophone separatists and Boko Haram Islamists while simultaneously having to fend off a simmering Color Revolution movement. The so-called “perfect storm” is brewing, but it hasn’t yet attracted the serious focus of any Great Power mostly because President Biya remains immensely loyal to his French patrons in spite of his Silk Road partnership with China, though the latest attention-grabbing tactic is trying to change all of that.
Hybrid War Origins
While the case can be made that the Hybrid War on Cameroon is designed to achieve the dual objectives of disrupting China’s future transcontinental Silk Road in the region (Sudan-Chad-Cameroon) and creating the conditions where the rising African Great Power of neighboring Nigeria can be more easily controlled, no Great Power has yet to throw its full weight (even just diplomatically) behind this destabilization campaign. This suggests that it might either be a “work in progress”, a “probe” intended to gauge the resiliency of regional security structures, or a short-term pressure tactic that aims to coerce certain political concessions out of Yaoundé. There’s also the chance that a large degree of these Hybrid War processes are “naturally occurring” outcomes of the ultra-diverse country’s identity fault lines finally colliding with one another. Whatever the case may be, some members of the diaspora are clearly eager to shape the situation to their favor.
Double Standards
The coordinated storming of two of a nation’s embassies over the weekend would ordinarily be a global media event but wasn’t in the case of Cameroon because the country is a medium-sized African state whose diplomats aren’t afforded much respect in the West. Had this happened to a Great Power such as France, however, the reaction would be altogether different, though the “silver lining” in this instance is that this attention-grabbing provocation has yet to get any of the Great Powers to publicly throw their weight behind the rolling regime change operation that the protesters are in support of. That might soon change, however, if the ongoing destabilization of the nation’s largest port of Douala interferes with Chad and the Central African Republic’s imports from there, possibly impeding them and therefore raising the cost everything else in those countries as a precursor to a socio-economic crisis in each landlocked state.
Rival Rumblings In Central Africa
The Central African Republic (CAR) has recently come under heavy Russian influence after Moscow received UNSC approval in late-2017 to dispatch “mercenaries” there as part of a train-and-assist program for buffeting the anti-militant capabilities of the country’s fledgling military as the central state seeks to restore its sovereignty over the rest of its mineral-rich territory. As for Chad, it periodically slips into civil war and sometimes has to fend off foreign-based militants from Sudan and Libya, but it’s nevertheless still a regional military power with impressive reach that extends as far westward as Mali. Of interest, N’Djamena recently restored relations with Tel Aviv following Netanyahu’s visit there last week, which contributed to the interesting state of regional affairs where one Central African state (Chad) is under “Israeli” influence, another (CAR) recently came under Russian influence, and the third (Cameroon) is under Chinese influence despite all three informally being part of Paris’ neocolonial Françafrique.
Time To Choose
Although France still controls each of their currencies and almost a dozen other African countries’ through the CFA franc, it’s slowly but surely losing geopolitical influence in its former colonial domain. Fretful that it won’t be able to regain its formerly strategic position in the CAR after Russia moved in there to help stabilize the situation, and possibly even Gabon as well following the US’ dispatch of troops there earlier this month before the country’s failed coup attempt, France might feel compelled for now to cling to its partner in Cameroon despite the growing “grassroots” pressure for it to betray him. That said, if the situation appears to be moving in the direction where a regime change seems “inevitable”, then Paris could be expected to turn on its proxy in a last-ditch attempt to save its influence there instead of having the country fall under American or British influence if France hasn’t prepared a replacement for him.
Is It Now Or Never For Françafrique?
Just like the Ottoman Empire was regarded as the “sick man of Europe” for some time prior to its collapse, so too might France come to be seen as the “sick man of Africa” if its Françafrique holdings continue to fall under the sway of other powers. The CFA franc might not go anywhere soon, but France’s geopolitical dominance over this transregional space might slip away if the country can’t regain control over its proxies after Russia’s recent advances in the CAR, Chad’s outreach to “Israel”, and Gabon’s surprise hosting of US troops.
China’s influence is also looming large all throughout Françafrique and Paris might soon feel pressured make a stand in Central Africa by either decisively supporting or opposing the Cameroonian President depending on which way it feels that the “wind is blowing”. Be that as it may, last weekend’s Cameroonian embassy stormings might force France to finally make a choice one way or the other.
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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The British political establishment is experiencing an unprecedented crisis over the issue of exiting the European Union. The Conservative government staggers from crisis to crisis over its Brexit deal while politicians off all colours bicker and argue as the UK lurches towards a potentially devastating No Deal scenario. This had lead to a huge distrust in the political class amongst the long suffering public.
As the clock ticks down towards the 29 March exit date it is worth while recalling how this crisis came about in the first place. Regardless of which Brexit option the UK takes over the next period it will not detract from the fact that there is a huge chasm between large sections of a bitterly discontented population and the political establishment that does not bode well for the future stability of a key American ally.
A recent poll of 33,000 people revealed that an overwhelming majority felt that whatever Brexit option is adopted it will not address the rampant inequalities, political alienation and disenchantment that lay behind the vote to leave the EU in 2016.
In June 2016 the UK vote to exit the EU shocked the financial and political elites and led to turmoil on global stock markets. The corporate media was full of shocked pundits lamenting the democratic decision of British people for Brexit. Brexit voters were being blamed for everything from the rise in racism against immigrant families to the increased dangers of terrorist attacks.
The corporate media both in Britain and internationally was and still are furious with the British electorate for voting for Brexit. They never saw it coming and still don’t fully understand why ordinary people voted for Brexit. More than this, they still don’t understand how the Brexit vote reveals how completely out of touch the corporate media and the political/financial elites are with the millions of working class people who voted for Brexit.
Let’s be very clear about this: the vote for Brexit was a working class rebellion against the financial and political elites of Britain who have presided over a massive redistribution of wealth in favour of the super rich leaving a fifth of the population in poverty. Analysis of the referendum vote shows how the poorer an area was the higher the vote was for Brexit.
The working class stood up to massive pressure from the Bremain camp that included: all of the mainstream political parties, the Bank of England, CBI, IMF, ECB, Obama, the World Bank and the trade union bureaucrats.
The vote for Brexit revealed how out of touch the establishment advocates of the EU are with working class people. Millions of people are struggling to get by with low wages, incessant benefit cuts, zero hour contracts, food banks and poor housing that are putting their families and communities under intense strain. On top of this, working class people suffer the most from the cuts to the welfare state and the incessant cuts to local council services.
Working class people are not stupid they can how the EU is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation that is completely unaccountable to them. The secret negotiations that took place between the EU and the Obama administration over TTIP, which members of the European Parliament had no say over, proved conclusively how this is an organisation run for the benefit of the too big to fail banks and the multi-national corporations.
They can see how the undemocratic EU has bludgeoned the people of Greece into living in permanent austerity and mass poverty despite a referendum last year that decisively rejected austerity measures. Obama’s favourite economist Paul Krugman called the EU’s intervention into Greece in 2015 a ‘coup d’etat’.
The advocates of Bremain in 2016 such as Mark Carney (ex-Goldman Sachs), then Prime Minister Cameron (from a tax avoiding banker family) then Chancellor George Osborne (son of a Baronet) warned working class people that Brexit would lower their living standards more than any other group in UK society.
However, millions of people were not taken in by the crocodile tears coming from those responsible for creating a massively unequal society. Quantitative easing and ZIRP have made the super rich fabulously richer as they have benefited from the massive bubbles on the stock market and in property. The top 10% of society own 45% of all wealth totalling over £5 trillion while the bottom 50% of society own a pathetic 9% of the wealth.
Prime Minister Cameron’s government presided over a savage attack upon welfare benefits which have led to one and half million benefit sanctions leaving people totally destitute and leading to hundreds of people committing suicide. The attack on welfare benefits for disabled people have been so severe it prompted the UN to launch an investigation into the human rights violations of disabled people. In 2018 the UN accused the UK government of ‘’systematic violations’’ of disabled people’s rights..
The political and financial elites who advocated that Britain should stay in the EU were puzzled as to why so many working class people stubbornly supported Brexit in 2016. They were and still are incapable of comprehending the anger, pain and suffering of millions of working class people who feel increasing contempt towards a political and financial elite that has no understanding of their daily lives. Over 13 million live in poverty (1 in 5 of the population) while 15 million live in inadequate housing conditions.
This inchoate anger at the daily reality that confronts them has few outlets in life. The EU referendum provided working class people with a means of sticking two fingers up at the political and financial establishment which now presides over a very divided country along lines of class and geography. This sense of alienation and disenchantment with the political establishment has only increased in the two and half years since the Brexit referendum.
The Brexit vote has led to unprecedented turmoil in both of the main political parties in Britain, particularly the Conservative Party.
The financial and political elites suffered a major defeat in 2016 Brexit vote. The Conservative Party is one of the oldest and most successful political parties in history and has served the British ruling class well for over two hundred years. Now it faces an unprecedented crisis and is unable to effectively govern.
Regardless of which Brexit option the Conservative government takes over the next period the UK will face huge challenges as the world economy continues to slow down and heads towards another devastating recession.
Most Canadians think of their country as a force for good in the world, but recent efforts by Justin Trudeau’s government to overthrow Venezuela’s elected government have once again revealed the ugly truth about the Great White North. We are an important partner in imperialism, willing to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, up to and including the use of military force, to benefit the perceived self-interest of our elites.
Over the past two years Canadian officials have campaigned aggressively against President Nicolás Maduro. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has repeatedly criticized Caracas’ democratic legitimacy and human rights record. Recently she said, “the Maduro regime is now fully entrenched as a dictatorship” while in September Ottawa asked (with five South American nations) the International Criminal Court to investigate the Venezuelan government, which is the first time a government has been formally brought before the tribunal by another member.
In recent weeks Canadian diplomats have played an important role in uniting large swaths of the Venezuelan opposition behind a US-backed plan to ratchet up tensions by proclaiming the new head of the opposition-dominated National Assembly, Juan Guaido, president. The Canadian Press quoted a Canadian diplomat saying they helped Guaido “facilitate conversations with people that were out of the country and inside the country” while the Globe and Mail reported that
“Freeland spoke with Juan Guaido to congratulate him on unifying opposition forces in Venezuela, two weeks before he declared himself interim president.”
Alongside Washington and a number of right-leaning Latin American governments, Ottawa immediately recognized Guaido after he proclaimed himself president on Wednesday. Canadian officials are lobbying European leaders to recognize Guaido as president as well.
Ottawa has long provided various other forms of direct support to an often-violent opposition. In recent years Canada channelled millions of dollars to opposition groups in Venezuela and 18 months ago outgoing Canadian ambassador, Ben Rowswell, told the Ottawa Citizen that
“we became one of the most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out.”
Alongside its support for the opposition, Ottawa expelled Venezuela’s top diplomat in 2017 and has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Venezuelan officials. In March the United Nations Human Rights Council condemned the economic sanctions the US, Canada and EU have adopted against Venezuela while Caracas called Canada’s move a “blatant violation of the most fundamental rules of International Law.”
Since its August 2017 founding Canada has been one of the most active members of the “Lima Group” of governments opposed to Venezuela’s elected government. Canada is hosting the next meeting of the “Lima Group”. Freeland has repeatedly prodded Caribbean and Central American countries to join the Lima Group’s anti-Maduro efforts.
In September, 11 of the 14 member states of the “Lima Group” backed a statement distancing the anti-Venezuelan alliance from “any type of action or declaration that implies military intervention” after Organization of American States chief Luis Almagro stated:
“As for military intervention to overthrow the Nicolas Maduro regime, I think we should not rule out any option … diplomacy remains the first option but we can’t exclude any action.”
Canada, Guyana and Colombia refused to criticize the head of the OAS’ musings about an invasion of Venezuela.
Alongside the head of the OAS, US president Donald Trump has publically discussed invading Venezuela. To the best of my knowledge Ottawa has stayed mum on Trump’s threats, which violate international law.
Why? Why is Canada so eager to overthrow an elected government? Recent headlines in the Globe and Mail (“Venezuelan crisis buoys prospects for Canadian heavy crude oil producers”) and Wall Street Journal (“Bond Prices in Venezuela Jump on Prospect of Regime Change”) suggest some short term reasons. But looking at the situation from a historical perspective confirms Noam Chomsky’s claim that international affairs is run like the Mafia. The godfather cannot accept disobedience.
Thus, while the scope of the Trudeau government’s current campaign against Venezuela is noteworthy, it’s not the first time Ottawa has supported the overthrow of an elected, left leaning, government in the hemisphere. Canada passively supported military coups against Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenzin 1954 and Brazilian President João Goulart in 1964 as well as ‘parliamentary coups’ against Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo in 2012 and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. Ottawa played a slightly more active role in the removal of Dominican Republic presidentJuan Bosch in 1965 and Chilean presidentSalvador Allende in 1973. In a more substantial contribution to undermining electoral democracy, Ottawa backed the Honduran military’s removal of Manuel Zelaya in 2009.
Canada played its most forceful role in the removal of a progressive, elected, president in the hemisphere’s most impoverished nation. Thirteen months before Jean-Bertrand Aristide was, in his words, “kidnapped” by US Marines on February 29, 2004, Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government organized an international gathering to discuss overthrowing the Haitian president. JTF2 special forces secured the Port-au-Prince airport the night Aristide was ousted and 500 Canadian troops were part of the US-led invasion to consolidate the coup.
With regards to Venezuela it’s unclear just how far Ottawais prepared to go in its bid to oust Maduro. But, it is hard to imagine that the path Canada and the US have chosen can succeed without Venezuela being plunged into significant violence.
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A large number of prisoners, all of them senior members of Daesh (also ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group, broke out of a Taliban prison in northwest Afghanistan after US troops helped them escape through a covert operation.
According to Tasnim dispatches, American forces operating in Afghanistan carried out a secret military operation in the northwestern province of Badghis two weeks ago and helped the Daesh inmates escape the prison.
The report added that 40 Daesh ringleaders, all of them foreigners, were transferred by helicopters after American troops raided the prison and killed all its security guards.
Abdullah Afzali, deputy head of Badghis provincial council, confirmed the news.
Informed sources have given a detailed account of the US operation to rescue the Daesh forces and the developments that helped Americans pinpoint the location of the prison in the mountainous areas.
Aminullah, a man from Uzbekistan, was one of the Daesh commanders held captive in the Taliban prison. His success to escape from the prison led to the dismissal of the Taliban prison guard and his punishment.
Aminullah was one of the prominent Daesh leaders in northern parts of Afghanistan.
Informed sources suggest that the Uzbekistani national had established close contact with the American military forces since the early days of moving to Afghanistan.
Americans used to employ Aminullah as an undercover among the Taliban to acquire information for carrying out operations against the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.
That is while, before Aminullah’s escape from the Taliban prison, the American forces had launched an extensive intelligence operation using drones to locate the Taliban prison in which the Daesh forces were being held, but their failure to get any useful information had created a sense of humiliation among Americans.
The informed sources say Aminullah made contact with Americans immediately after escaping from the prison, let them know about the exact location of the jail, and helped them plan a rescue operation.
Thereafter, the US forces analyzed the geographical position of the ‘Panjboz’ village and the Taliban prison and decided to carry out an aerial and heliborne operation to release the Daesh inmates, considering the number of the Taliban fighters and that the region was inaccessible by road.
Finally, the US launched an attack on January 13 by bombing the areas around the prison and killing a number of the Taliban forces. Afterwards, the American helicopters were dispatched to the operation zone and disembarked troops who killed the prison guards, released the Daesh forces and took them away on board the choppers.
Taliban forces had earlier captured the Daesh forces in Panjboz village after heavy clashes with Daesh terrorists.
The videos here show how the Taliban fighters freed the village from Daesh and imprisoned the terrorists in one of the houses of the village.
In one of the videos received by Tasnim, one of top Taliban commanders introduces a number of Daesh’s foreign memebers and their nationality.
It was not the first time that American forces helped the Daesh forces. During the armed clashes between the Taliban and the Daesh terrorists in western Afghanistan, the US forces repeatedly bombed the Taliban positions and transferred prominent Daesh figures, including local leader Mullah Nangiyali, with copters to the military bases.
This video shows the transfer of top Daesh figures and their families by Afghan forces.
The only thing more sinister than intentionally creating refugees, is weaponizing them as leverage to further coerce nations and advance hegemonic ambitions.
The United States and its allies have done both extensively – from exploiting the flow of refugees fleeing US-led wars in Libya and Syria – to the cynical exploitation of high-profile cases like Rahaf al-Qunun of Saudi Arabia and Hakeem al-Araibi of Bahrain – both of whom are fleeing autocratic regimes armed and propped up exclusively by the West.
In addition to creating the conditions ensuring a steady stream of refugees – the West has assembled an army of faux-rights advocates – most notably Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International to shift blame from those responsible for the creation of refugees to those saddled with growing numbers of people seeking refuge within their borders.
Weaponizing Refugees in Libya and Syria
After the US-led NATO destruction of Libya, a predictable tidal wave of refugees flooded out of North Africa into Europe. At the same time, the US-led proxy war in Syria was ramping up likewise causing a steady stream of refugees fleeing the conflict.
As refugees began arriving in Europe – the result of US wars eagerly aided and abetted by many of Europe’s NATO members as well as Canada and Australia – the socioeconomic pressure they created – real or imagined – was immediately leveraged to call for bolder and more direct military intervention against Syria by the West.
Articles like a 2016 Guardian piece titled, “Refugees are becoming Russia’s weapon of choice in Syria,” would even attempt to claim Russia’s air campaign against Western-sponsored terrorists in Syria was aimed at intentionally creating a flow of refugees into Turkey and Europe to “divide the transatlantic alliance and undermine the European project.”
The article would admit that this flow of refugees served as a pretext for a proposed “no-fly zone” in northern Syria – a stated goal of US policymakers since as early as 2012 published in a Brookings Institution memo titled, “Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change” (PDF) which called for:
…the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power.3 This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.
It is clear now – as the Syrian government regains control of the nation’s territory and refugees begin returning home almost exclusively to territory controlled by Damascus – just how cynical the West’s refugee pretext actually was.
Propping Up Dictatorships, Leveraging Their Victims
In early January, 18 year old Saudi national Rahaf al-Qunun was detained at Bangkok’s international airport. She had claimed she was fleeing Saudi Arabia to escape both her abusive family and a despotic government.
Faux-rights groups including HRW and Amnesty International immediately seized upon the opportunity to accuse the Thai government of wrongfully detaining Qunun and preparing to send her back to Saudi Arabia.
The West’s human rights racket has systematically targeted the current Thai government in an attempt to undermine it ahead of elections the US hopes returns their favored proxies to power.
In reality, it became clear that Qunun was travelling on an Australian visa which was revoked mid-flight – stranding her in Bangkok, the Guardian would eventually admit.
Thai officials worked the entire day to ascertain the details of her case and find a favorable outcome for the stranded teen. Despite having the opportunity to place her on an early morning flight to Kuwait where she’d then be sent back to Saudi Arabia – Thai officials instead continued working on her case long before Western interests began exploiting the incident.
And despite Bangkok arranging a meeting between Qunun and representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) by evening, the Western media, several Western embassies, faux rights groups – particularly HRW – and local fronts posing as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the West – had already spent the entire day smearing the Thai government.
At one point, Canadian ambassador to Thailand, Donica Pottie, attempted to post a “Save Rahaf” hashtag on social media. When it was pointed out that Canada sells billions of dollars in arms to the very Saudi regime Rahaf al-Qunun was fleeing from – she promptly deleted the post.
Canada would move to offer Qunun asylum – posing as the ultimate hero of the incident. Qunun herself would indeed thank Canada – but also the Thai government – smeared by the West including Canada – for Thailand’s role in helping her after being stranded by Australia’s visa cancellation.
Creating the Monster Rahaf al-Qunun Was Fleeing
The autocratic regime ruling Saudi Arabia receives weapons, political support, and military protection from not only Canada, but also the US. Germany, France, and the United Kingdom also help arm the regime in Riyadh.
In a Senate estimates hearing last week, the Department of Defence admitted it had made 14 approvals of military gear and services to Saudi Arabia in the past two years. On the same day, defence minister Marise Payne would not rule out an export ban, saying “all options are on the table”.
Rahaf al-Qunun had her future jeopardized by a coalition of Western nations who are responsible for propping up the very regime she was fleeing from.
At a time when these same Western nations seek to place additional sanctions on Russia and Iran for baseless accusations over various alleged misdeeds – they openly embrace Saudi Arabia as it uses its Western-made weapons to brutalize its own population – as reported by Canada’s Globe and Mail, and wage relentless war upon neighboring Yemen.
But because the West also has invested heavily in organizations posing as human rights advocates – regardless of the truth behind their central role in creating autocracies and enabling their abuses – the finger can be pointed anywhere, anytime when politically convenient – in this case, the current government of Thailand responsible for ousting a US client regime in 2014.
Rahaf al-Qunun is not Alone
Thailand has also been recently blamed for detaining Hakeem al-Araibi of Bahrain who has – since 2017 – been living in Australia. It was Australia who played a central role in issuing an Interpol Red Notice that forced Thailand to initially detain him.
A parliamentary inquiry should examine the actions of the Australian federal police which led to the arrest of Hakeem al-Araibi in Thailand, Australia’s peak union body and the Greens have said.
Al-Araibi, a 25-year-old Bahraini refugee who has permanent residency in Australia, was arrested on arrival in Bangkok for a holiday, on the basis of an Interpol red notice, which was later lifted.
The article also noted:
The red notice was erroneously issued by Interpol against its own protocols which ban the granting of red notices for refugees on behalf of the country from which the individual fled.
“It’s deeply disturbing that our own authorities would help a country to extradite an Australian resident when they are accused of torturing that person,” said the ACTU president, Michele O’Neil.
Once again, while such facts are eventually mentioned by the Western media, the vast majority of coverage – including accusations made by faux-rights organizations like HRW and Amnesty – have focused entirely on targeting Thailand.
While the Western media insists Thailand will inevitably send Hakeem al-Araibi back to Bahrain – the same was said in regards to Rahaf al-Qunun – the latter being revealed as a categorical lie.
Western embassies, their partners in the media, and faux-rights groups funded by Western governments again seek to pose as the impetus forcing Bangkok to make the “right” decision, and send Hakeem al-Araibi back to Australia – despite his dire circumstances being entirely of their own collective doing in the first place.
Bahrain – like Saudi Arabia – is a autocratic regime eagerly propped up by Western nations – armed with Western weaponry and even hosting the US 5th fleet headquarters. And like Saudi Arabia – despite being repeat human rights violators – Bahrain faces no sanctions or even condemnation from the Western governments propping up the regime.
Like in Rahaf al-Qunun’s case – Australia again played a central role in Hakeem al-Araibi’s initial arrest, before posing as a “hero” rescuing him from the “Thais.”
Fighting Back
For Thailand – its greatest weakness is a lack of an English-language news service serving the nation’s best interests.
English language newspapers like Bangkok Post and The Nation are merely echo chambers of Western propaganda. Even government-funded Thai PBS is lined with Western-trained “journalists” who prefer repeating Western narratives than any sort of independent coverage. Those few who dare step out of line find themselves with the entirety of the West’s Thailand-based correspondents and Western-funded NGOs lobbying against them.
An RT-style international news platform, truly representing Thai interests and telling Thailand’s side of any given story would have greatly benefited the nation during the Rahaf al-Qunun case – allowing the government to immediately and unambiguously state why she was being detained, what the government was attempting to accomplish, the meeting it was arranging between her and the UNHCR, and why it was impossible to “immediately” release her.
But because Thailand does not have such a media platform – professional propagandists at the BBC, Reuters, AP, AFP, and others were able to fill in the missing blanks themselves depicting Thailand in the worst possible light – with now verified lies.
At one point, Jonathan Head of the BBC claimed to have personally seen Rahaf al-Qunun’s Australian visa and “confirmed” it was still valid.
Likewise, lacking such a media platform allows the Western media and other opportunists to assign motives and predicted outcomes regarding Hakeem al-Araibi’s case – once again undermining the Thai government’s credibility even if it plans on making the right decision.
Lacking such a media platform does not entirely prevent the Thai government from coming out on top.
A single, concise, and very public statement regarding Hakeem al-Araibi’s case – and all future cases like his – including assurances that he will not be sent back to Bahrain if injustice and mistreatment are expected and that his detainment is merely administrative – would shutdown speculation as well as opportunities to attack Thailand. If Hakeem al-Araibi is wanted on solid grounds for crimes he committed in Bahrain – he allegedly vandalized a police station – Thailand could present this information – virtually omitted from all other news stories regarding his case.
For faux-rights groups like HRW and Amnesty – the fact that they have repeatedly failed to point out the central role the West – their sponsors – has played in creating the very wars and despots these refugees are fleeing from implicates and exposes them, voiding their credibility.
Only through the repeated exposure of their abuse of human rights advocacy they couch their political agendas behind, can the effectiveness of disinformation and smear campaigns like those surrounding Rahaf al-Qunun and Hakeem al-Araibi’s cases be finally put to an end.
A single refugee case – given the current influence of the West’s human rights racket – can be used to strain relations between two states, undermine the credibility of a targeted nation, or entirely undermine the sovereignty of a nation and its ability to control who can and cannot cross its borders.
By exposing and crippling the West’s human rights racket, room can be made for genuine rights advocates who seek to constructively work with governments to expose the true root of refugee crises and improve conditions and outcomes for the refugees themselves.
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Tony Cartalucci is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
O anúncio do Presidente Trump, que reconhece Juan Guaidó “presidente legítimo” da Venezuela, foi preparado numa cabine de direcção subterrânea, no interior do Congresso e da Casa Branca. Descreve detalhadamente o ‘New York Times’ (26 de Janeiro). O operador principal é o Senador republicano, Marco Rubio, da Flórida, “Secretário Virtual de Estado para a América Latina, que orienta e articula a estratégia da Administração na região”, ligado ao Vice Presidente, Mike Pence, e ao Conselheiro da Segurança Nacional, John Bolton. No dia 22 de Janeiro, na Casa Branca, os três apresentaram o seu plano ao Presidente, que o aceitou.
Logo a seguir – relata o ‘New York Times’ – «O Snr. Pence ligou para Guaidó e disse-lhe que os Estados Unidos o teriam apoiado se ele tivesse reclamado a presidência”. A seguir, o Vice Presidente Pence, transmitiu para a Venezuela uma mensagem de vídeo em que aliciava os manifestantes a “fazer com que a vossa voz seja ouvida amanhã” e assegurava “em nome do Presidente Trump e do povo americano: Estamos com ustedes, estamos convosco até que seja restaurada a democracia”, definindo Maduro como “um ditador que jamais conseguiu a presidência em eleições livre”.
No dia seguinte, o indomesticado Trump proclamou oficialmente Guaidó, “Presidente da Venezuela”, apesar do mesmo não ter participado nas eleições presidenciais de Maio 2018 as quais, boicotadas pela oposição que sabia que iria perdê-las, decretaram a vitória de Maduro, com a supervisão de muitos observadores internacionais. Esses bastidores revelam que as decisões políticas são tomadas nos EUA, principalmente, pelo “Estado Profundo”, centro subterrâneo do poder real mantido pelas oligarquias económicas, financeiras e militares. São estes que decidiram convulsionar o Estado venezuelano, que possui, além de grandes reservas de minerais preciosos, as maiores reservas de petróleo do mundo, estimadas em mais de 300 biliões de barris, seis vezes superiores às dos Estados Unidos.
Para evitar o endurecimento das sanções, que impedem a Venezuela de arrecadar os dólares da venda de petróleo aos Estados Unidos, Caracas decidiu cotar o preço das vendas de petróleo não em dólares, mas em yuan chineses. Um movimento que põe em perigo o poder excessivo dos petrodólares. Daí a decisão das oligarquias norte-americanas de acelerar o calendário para sublevar o Estado venezuelano e aproveitar a sua riqueza petrolífera, não imediatamente necessária aos EUA como fonte energética, mas como instrumento estratégico de controlo do mercado mundial de energia em função anti-Rússia e anti-China.
Para este fim, através de sanções e de sabotagem, foi agravada, na Venezuela, a escassez de bens de primeira necessidade para alimentar o descontentamento popular. Ao mesmo tempo, foi intensificada a penetração de “organizações não governamentais USA: por exemplo, o ‘National Endowment for Democracy’ que financiou, durante um ano na Venezuela, mais de 40 projectos sobre a “defesa dos direitos humanos e da democracia”, cada um com dezenas ou centenas de milhares de dólares.
Visto que o governo continua a deter o apoio da maioria, está certamente em preparação, uma grande provocação para desencadear no interior do país uma guerra civil e abrir caminho para a intervenção externa. Cumplice, a União Europeia, que após ter bloqueado na Bélgica, 1.2 biliões de dóleres de fundos estatais venezuelanos, lança um ultimato em Caracas (com o acordo do governo italiano) para novas eleições. Iria supervisioná-las, a própria Federica Mogherini que, no ano passado, recusou o convite de Maduro para fiscalizar as eleições presidenciais.
L‘annuncio del presidente Trump, che riconosce Juan Guaidò «legittimo presidente» del Venezuela è stato preparato in una cabina di regia sotterranea all’interno del Congresso e della Casa Bianca. La descrive dettagliatamente il New York Times (26 gennaio). Principale operatore è il senatore repubblicano della Florida Marco Rubio, «virtuale segretario di stato per l’America Latina, che guida e articola la strategia dell’Amministrazione nella regione», collegato al vicepresidente Mike Pence e al consigliere per la sicurezza nazionale John Bolton. Il 22 gennaio, alla Casa Bianca, i tre hanno presentato il loro piano al presidente, che l’ha accettato.
Subito dopo – riporta il New York Times – «Mr. Pence ha chiamato Mr. Guaidò e gli ha detto che gli Stati uniti lo avrebbero appoggiato se avesse reclamato la presidenza». Il vicepresidente Pence ha poi diffuso in Venezuela un video messaggio in cui chiamava i dimostranti a «far sentire la vostra voce domani» e assicurava «a nome del presidente Trump e del popolo americano: estamos con ustedes, siamo con voi finché non sarà restaurata la democrazia», definendo Maduro «un dittatore che mai ha ottenuto la presidenza in libere elezioni».
L’indomani Trump ha ufficialmente incoronato Guaidò «presidente del Venezuela», pur non avendo questi partecipato alle elezioni presidenziali del maggio 2018 le quali, boicottate dall’opposizione che sapeva di perderle, hanno decretato la vittoria di Maduro, con il monitoraggio di molti osservatori internazionali. Tale retroscena rivela che le decisioni politiche vengono prese negi Usa anzitutto nello «Stato profondo», centro sotterraneo del potere reale detenuto dalle oligarchie economiche, finanziarie e militari. Sono queste che hanno deciso di sovvertire lo Stato venezuelano. Esso possiede, oltre a grandi riserve di preziosi minerali, le maggiori riserve petrolifere del mondo, stimate in oltre 300 miliardi di barili, sei volte superiori a quelle statunitensi.
Per sottrarsi alla stretta delle sanzioni, che impediscono al Venezuela perfino di incassare i dollari ricavati dalla vendita di petrolio agli Stati uniti, Caracas ha deciso di quotare il prezzo di vendita del petrolio non più in dollari Usa ma in yuan cinesi. Mossa che mette in pericolo lo strapotere dei petrodollari. Da qui la decisione delle oligarchie statunitensi di accelerare i tempi per sovvertire lo Stato venezuelano e impadronirsi della sua ricchezza petrolifera, necessaria immediatamente non quale fonte emergetica per gli Usa, ma quale strumento strategico di controllo del mercato energetico mondiale in funzione anti-Russia e anti-Cina.
A tal fine, attraverso sanzioni e sabotaggi, è stata aggravata in Venezuela la penuria di beni di prima necessità per alimentare il malcontento popolare. È stata intensificata allo stesso tempo la penetrazione di «organizzazioni non-governative» Usa: ad esempio, la National Endowment for Democracy ha finanziato in un anno in Venezuela oltre 40 progetti sulla «difesa dei diritti umani e della democrazia», ciascuno con decine o centinaia di migliaia di dollari.
Poiché il governo continua ad avere l‘appoggio della maggioranza, è certamente in preparazione qualche grossa provocazione per scatenare all’interno la guerra civile e aprire la strada a un intervento dall’esterno. Complice l’Unione europea che, dopo aver bloccato in Belgio fondi statali venezuelani per 1,2 miliardi di dollari, lancia a Caracas l’ultimatum (concordato col governo italiano) per nuove elezioni. Le andrebbe a monitorare Federica Mogherini, la stessa che l’anno scorso ha rifiutato l’invito di Maduro di andare a monitorare le elezioni presidenziali.
Ein Insaniah Center for Rights and Development in Sanaa on Wednesday released the latest statistics that included the number of civilian casualties during the 1400 days of the Saudi-led coalition war on Yemen, as well as the loss of infrastructure and basic services during the same period.
According to statistics, the number of civilian casualties has reached 40,546 killed and wounded since the start of the coalition war on Yemen.
The statistics indicated that 3,495 children were killed and other 3,497 wounded in 1,400 days of aggression.
During the same period, 2,250 women killed, and 2,524 other women were injured.
The number of men who were killed during 1,400 of the aggression amounted to 10,113, and 18,712 men were injured during the same period, according to the Statistics.
With regard to the loss of and violations of service facilities in the areas of health and education, the center reported that there were 365 hospitals and health services that were totally or partially destroyed by the coalition bombing in various parts of Yemen, during the 1400 days of the Allied Coalition attack.
While 984 schools and educational centers were completely or partially destroyed during the same period, while the alliance destroyed 1,159 mosques, in addition to the destruction of 1,552 sources and water installations, 236 archaeological sites, adding 437,167 houses during 1,400 of the coalition countries War on Yemen.
Yemen has been suffering from a Saudi-led military campaign since 2015, which has caused the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, in addition of pushing the impoverished state to the brink of famine, according to a previous statement by the United Nations.
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Just hours after The Bank of England refused to hand over $1.2 billion of Venezuela’s gold from its custody vaults (stored there after the completion of a gold-swap transcation with Deutsche Bank) to President Maduro (after heavy lobbying from US officials), The Guardian reports that a UK foreign office minister is now urging the same Bank of England to transfer the bullion to the self-proclaimed interim leader Juan Guaidó.
In a statement to British MPs, Sir Alan Duncan said the decision was a matter for the Bank and its governor, Mark Carney, and not the government. But he added:
“It is they who have to make a decision on this, but no doubt when they do so they will take into account there are now a large number of countries across the world questioning the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro and recognising that of Juan Guaidó.”
Guaidó has already written to Theresa May asking for the funds to be sent to him.
The former chair of the foreign affairs select committee Crispin Blunt said the current Venezuelan central bank president was not legitimate, since he had not been appointed by the country’s national assembly.
Blunt has sent letters to the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, urging a decision.
Notably, the reason the BoE initially gave for its initial refusal to release was due to its insistence that standard measures to prevent money-laundering be taken – “including clarification of the Venezuelan government’s intentions for the gold.”
“There are concerns that Mr. Maduro may seize the gold, which is owned by the state, and sell it for personal gain,” the newspaper said.
Separately, as we reported previously an official told Reuters that the repatriation plan has been held up for nearly two months due to difficulty in obtaining insurance for the shipment, needed to move a large gold cargo:
“They are still trying to find insurance coverage, because the costs are high,” an official told Reuters.
All of which appears to have suddenly been swept under the carpet now Guaidó has been installed.
Duncan said Hunt would be discussing the next steps in the European Union’s efforts to support Guaidó in Bucharest on Thursday.
However, it’s not a done deal yet as shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, cautioned against a rush to oust Maduro:
“Judging by its record in recent years, the Maduro government fits none of those descriptions, but I would also believe that it is a mistake in situations like this simply to think that changing the leader will automatically solve every problem, let alone the kind of US-led intervention being threatened by Donald Trump and [the US national security adviser] John Bolton.”
Nevertheless, with much of the Western world now backing Guaidó in his coup, it seems the gold bullion will be winging its way to The Assembly’s coffers very soon.
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Afshin Rattansi speaks to Eva Golinger about the US’ ongoing attempts at regime change in Venezuela to replace President Nicolas Maduro with Juan Guaido.
She discusses the history of US regime change in Veneuela and Latin America, the Maduro premiership and attitudes in Venezuela.
The first Senate bill of 2019 would finalize a $38 billion aid package to Israel, combat BDS, and rebut Trump’s attempt to withdraw troops from Syria….
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According to Marco Rubio, the first bill the 2019 U.S. Senate will take up is one that is focused on Israel. His twitter announcement shows a number of people suggesting that he should instead focus on getting the U.S. government running.
The four-part bill, designated S.1, is composed of measures on behalf of Israel that Congress tried and failed to pass in 2018. Some were pioneered by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The first component is the “Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2019” – the 2018 text can be seen here. This would give Israel $33 billion over the next ten years in addition to the $5.5 billion enacted in last year’s defense spending bill. This is reportedly the largest military aid package in U.S. history. The bill was held up by Senator Rand Paul, who threatened a filibuster against it. Most Americans feel the U.S. already gives Israel too much money.
Unlike the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the Obama administration negotiated with Israel in 2016, this would make the $38 billion a floor rather than a ceiling and cements it into law (an MOU is non-binding). It also provides Israel additional perks, including calling for NASA to work with Israel’s space agency, despite Israel’s alleged acquisition of classified U.S. research.
Another component of the bill is the “Combatting BDS Act of 2019” (the text of the previous version is here). This allows state and local governments to prohibit contracting with any entity that participates in BDS, the boycott of Israel over Israel’s violations of human rights and international law. Many groups and individuals oppose the bill on the ground that it violates freedom of speech. AIPAC is a strong supporter of such legislation.
A third component is “The United States-Jordan Defense Cooperation Extension Act,” which would provide money to Jordan. Israel has long used U.S. aid packages to Mideast governments to enable Israel’s regional divide-and-conquer strategies.
Similarly, the fourth component is the “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019” (2018 version here), which imposes sanctions on Syria. Roll Call reports that the bill “could serve as a rebuttal” to President Trump’s recent announcement that he was going to withdraw troops from Syria.
NBC reports: “They can’t make Trump keep troops in Syria. They’ve asked for increased sanctions on Syria instead.”
Israel and its American partisans are strongly opposed to the withdrawal.
Bill being fast-tracked
[UPDATE: The bill is scheduled to be discussed on Tues, Jan 8, at 3 pm EST.]
According to Roll Call, the composite bill, entitled “Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019,” is being “expedited through a Senate procedure that allows for bypassing the committee process, and the new chairman of the committee of jurisdiction for most of the bills is on board with the approach.”
The chairman is Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho. According to Open Secrets, one of Risch’s main sources of campaign donations is the pro-Israel lobby.
Image from video of Risch’s speech at AIPAC convention; view it here.
It appears that none of the U.S. news reports on the legislation inform voters how much U.S. tax money the bill will give to Israel; many reports don’t even mention that aspect of the bill. This continues the media omission on this subject.
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A study by a Toronto-based consulting and research company has revealed that over the past fifty years mainstream reporting about Israel has been distorted to portray the Jewish state in positive terms while ignoring the plight of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. The media study, based on a computer analysis of 50 years of data, found that major U.S. newspapers have provided consistently skewed, pro-Israel reporting on Israel-Palestine. The slanting in news coverage included subtle manipulations like using word associations favorable to Israel and derogatory to Palestinians as well as persistent publication of stories praising Israel while also avoiding reporting anything supportive of the dispossessed Arab point of view.
The researchers from 416Labs were able to evaluate headlines and articles derived from five major U.S. newspapers: the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal during the time period 1967 to 2017. June 1967 was selected as the starting point to include coverage of the Six Day War and its aftermath, when Israel attacked Jordan, Egypt and Syria to begin its military occupation of Palestinian territory on the West Bank and Gaza.
No one should be surprised by media bias in favor of Israel given the dominance of Jewish owners and editors in the major media, but the study just might have gone one step farther and noted, as did Congressman Paul Findley in his book They Dare to Speak Out back in 1985, that much of the bias stems from the overseas correspondents covering the Middle East for the U.S. and European media also being overwhelmingly Jewish. And a review of the Israel-philia might have gone back even further in time to the foundation of the state in 1948 to find similar favorable coverage.
Shaping the favorable perception of Israel has also involved the efforts of Zionist-dominated Hollywood movies and television to portray Jewish heroism while also at the same time ignoring the Zionist terrorism directed against both the indigenous Palestinian population and the British Mandate authorities prior to Israel’s statehood. The movie Exodus shaped many Americans’ perceptions of what had occurred in the Middle East, while the steady stream of films related to the so-called holocaust, which ignore the many problems with that standard narrative, perpetuate Jewish suffering and victimhood.
In truth, no one should believe any country’s creation narrative, which, since the time of Virgil’s Aeneid, has been intended to present an idealized portrait that is largely fact-free. Nationalists will inevitably distort the tale to reflect their own vision of what their homeland represents and how it came to be, but Israel’s story is unusual in that it is packed with lies from start to finish. Even before the creation of a Jewish state, Zionists encouraged Jewish emigration from Europe to the then Turkish-controlled Palestine. They coined the expression “a land without people for people without a land,” a flat out lie as Palestine was fully inhabited by Muslim and Christian Palestinian Arabs plus a small Jewish minority. This expression has been more recently replaced with another one, i.e. how Israel “made the desert bloom,” as if the land were not being cultivated before large numbers of Jews arrived, making it another lie. And it is, by the way, an expression favored by Zionist presidential aspirant Kamala Harris, a prime example of “progressive except for Israel.”
Israel was founded as a product of terrorism, some would say the “first modern” style terrorism, to include bombings of non-military targets and random massacres of civilians. In a notorious attack on the village of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, more than two hundred Palestinians may have been slaughtered by Jewish terrorists affiliated with the Irgun and Lehi groups. The exact count of the victims is unknown because a subsequent Zionist clean-up team systematically destroyed many of the bodies.
Given the turmoil in Palestine and the agitation by British Jews, the U.K. was eager to cut its losses, and Harry Truman, a U.S. president who benefited from Jewish financial and political support in his reelection bid, was equally willing to support the creation of a Jewish state as a quid pro quo. Even though Jews were a distinct minority in the new Israel-Palestine, they obtained nearly half of the land in spite of the United Nations mandate that the rights of the indigenous population should not be compromised by the new arrivals.
But the new arrivals from Europe and America disagreed with that even-handed approach. They assassinated the U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, who had himself saved many Jews in Nazi occupied Europe, and started to attack their Arab neighbors, intentionally driving 700,000 from their homes and killing many in the process. By that act of terror and a subsequent war fought against its neighbors, Israel obtained more land before the green line was eventually established as part of a 1949 Armistice Agreement managed by the U.N. to divide Israel from the West Bank and Gaza, which were under the jurisdiction of Jordan and Egypt respectively.
And then there came the miraculous Six Day War of June 1967, regarding which glowing media accounts described how Israel was attacked by Jordan, Syria and Egypt simultaneously but fought back hard and won a decisive victory, occupying in the process the parts of Jerusalem it did not already control as well as the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza. The only problem with that story is that Israel started the war, attacking and destroying the Arab air forces without a declaration of war while their planes were on the ground. Denied air cover, the Arab ground forces could not win.
Israel also included in its Six Day War triumph the attempted sinking of the American intelligence gathering ship the U.S.S. Liberty, which was in international waters when it was attacked on June 8th. Thirty-four crewmen were killed and 171 wounded in the only attack on a U.S. Naval vessel in peace time that was never fully investigated by the Pentagon due to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s unwillingness to offend American Jews. The Israelis and their apologists have claimed the attack was a case of either “fog of war” or “a mistake,” both of which were completely self-serving lies exposed by compelling National Security Agency collected evidence that has surfaced recently. And, by the way, the Israelis continue to receive military assistance from Washington in spite of the killing of American servicemembers, $3.8 billion per annum guaranteed for the next ten years plus special appropriations as needed.
Even when the Israelis are clearly telling lies, much of the media and chattering class has been willing to forgive them their trespasses no matter what they do or say. The whopper level lies about Israel are that it is a democracy and America’s best friend and ally. It is neither. It has more than 50 laws that discriminate against Arabs, is now self-defined as a “Jewish state,” and it has recently legalized banning non-Jews from residential areas and towns. It also occupies Palestinian territories where the original inhabitants have no rights but martial law. And the Jewish state has never been an American ally in practical terms as it is under no obligation to support Washington under any circumstances even though a U.S. Air Force general has declared that his troops are prepared to die for Israel.
Some other recent lies include the propagation of a narrative that the Palestinians do not exist as a people, that Palestine has never been a country and therefore should never become one, and that there is no peace in the Middle East because the Arabs have never accepted the generous offers made by the Israelis to settle problems with the Palestinians, who are, by the way, solely responsible for their unfortunate situation since the expanding Israeli settlements on their land are no obstacle to peace. All lies.
And another big lie concerns how Israel spies on the United States. Israel is the number one “friendly” country when it comes to stealing American secrets, both commercial and military. When Jonathan Pollard stole more U.S. classified information than any spy in history, Israel’s friends rushed to explain that it was all a mistake, that Pollard was just a one-off oddball. And the Israel government agreed to return what he had stolen but did not do so and instead used it to barter with America’s then enemy the Soviet Union in a deal to permit Jews to emigrate.
Another espionage related development which produced a whole battery of Israeli lies and evasions relates to 9/11, where Mossad almost certainly had at a minimum inside knowledge regarding what was about to occur through their illegal massive spying program inside the United States. Remember the cheering Israeli movers in New Jersey as the twin towers went down? Or the hundreds of “art students” selling their work all across the U.S., which was both a scam and part of an espionage network?
More recent lies include repeated assertions that the Iranians have a secret nuclear program, which will produce a bomb in “six months,” something Benjamin Netanyahuhas been promising since 1993. And those wily Persians are also developing ballistic missiles that can be used to attack Europe and America, a particularly dangerous lie as it has been picked up and repeated ad nauseam by the buffoonish triumvirate in Washington consisting of Bolton, Pompeo and Pence, which passes for the deep thinking in U.S. foreign policy these days. That allegation could easily lead to United States involvement in a war fought for Israel that it might reasonably avoid as it is not threatened by Iran and has no vital interests supportive of going to war against it.
But the greatest lie of all is the current claim that anti-Semitism is surging all around the world, requiring still more protection of and deference to diaspora Jews as well as to the state of Israel. It is based on a fundamental lie, that criticism of Israel is ipso facto anti-Semitic and ignores the fact that the pushback is based overwhelmingly on how Israel and Netanyahu behave. Israel, whatever its pretensions, is a country and Judaism is a religion. It is in fact particularly dangerous, and damaging to the religion, to combine the two deliberately as is being done by Netanyahu and the many American Jews who are serial apologists for Israel.
Indeed, Israel and its partisans are now using lies to change the way the public views the issue of anti-Semitism and are willing to do so by legislating to enforce how people think, to include the use of legal sanctions consisting of fines and imprisonment to silence critics. If legislation currently in congress is ever implemented fully, it will be the death of freedom of speech in the U.S. That such nonsense has gained currency at all is due to the Israeli corruption of both America’s government and its news media, which is not a lie, but the absolute truth that you won’t find discussed anywhere in your newspaper or on television reporting.
This trend to criminalize criticism of Israel has led Jewish groups and some governments to work together to promulgate “hate crime” statutes and other legal barriers to protect the Israeli wrongdoing. But Israel is not and should not be protected against criticism. It is a country that behaves very badly, and, one might add, dangerously, not only to its neighbors but also to the world as it has the potential in its hands to escalate its involvement in Syria to initiate a nuclear conflagration between the U.S. and Russia. Israel’s lies should be recognized for what they are and it should be boycotted and sanctioned until it comes to its senses or, if it does not, it should be completely shunned.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
There isn’t a nation in the Western Hemisphere that hasn’t at one time or another found itself caught in the far-reaching tentacles of US imperialism. Venezuela is certainly no exception. Washington has been meddling in its internal affairs since the 19th century and it continues to do so to this very day, when the specter of yet another US-backed coup, or even a direct American military intervention, looms larger by the day.
A Long History of Meddling
During most of the 20th century, US interference in Venezuela was mostly about oil, but that wasn’t always the case in earlier times. Washington’s involvement in the 1895 boundary dispute between Venezuela and Britain was a key event in the emergence of the United States as a world power as the Grover Cleveland administration, invoking the Monroe Doctrine prohibition against European colonization of the Americas, successfully sided with Venezuela. The Cleveland administration, which noted that “today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent,” issued thinly veiled threats of war against Britain, which eventually acquiesced to US demands.
Later, during the Dutch-Venezuelan crisis of 1908, the US Navy helped Venezuelan Vice President Juan Vicente Gómez seize power in a coup. Gómez, known as “The Catfish,” would rule the country either directly or through puppet presidents, until his death in 1935. His regime was one of inconceivably medieval brutality. His enforcers were fond of shackling political prisoners in grillos, leg irons that rendered many victims permanently disabled — and those were the “lucky” ones. The unlucky ones were hanged to death by meathooks through their throats or testicles.
Gómez was fantastically corrupt. He was believed to be worth a staggering $200 million, or more than $3.6 billion today, at the time of his death. However, he endeared himself to Washington and Wall Street by granting highly lucrative concessions to foreign oil companies including Standard Oil (ExxonMobil today) and Royal Dutch Shell. Rómulo Betancourt, who served two presidential terms in the mid-20th century and is considered the founding father of modern democratic Venezuela, wrote that Gómez “was the instrument of foreign control of the Venezuelan economy, the ally and servant of powerful outside interests.”
The exploitation of Venezuela’s tremendous petroleum resources has been the constant objective of US policy and action toward the South American state for over a century. This meant backing the viciously repressive dictatorMarcos Pérez Jiménez (1948-1958), whose regime forces subjected political prisoners to tortures every bit as horrific as those committed during the Gómez era. Jiménez was as generous to transnational corporations as he was cruel to his own people. The United States, which cared about the former far more than the latter, counted the despot as a close ally, even awarding him the military Legion of Merit “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements” and providing his dreaded Directorate of National Security (DSN) with invaluable assistance as it imprisoned, tortured and murdered thousands of innocent Venezuelans.
A few years after Venezuela shifted to democracy in 1958, most other South American nations began falling under the iron-fisted rule of US-backed military dictatorships. The military and security forces of these repressive coup regimes were often trained by the United States, at the US Army School of the Americas and elsewhere, in kidnapping, torture, assassination and democracy suppression. As US-backed death squads trained from US-authored torture manuals murdered, tortured and terrorized innocent men, women and children from Central America to Argentina, Venezuelans enjoyed decades of peace and prosperity. However, the US never stopped meddling in Venezuela’s affairs, and after the free and fair election of Hugo Chávez in 1998 and the subsequent launch of the Bolivarian Revolution, US meddling would reach levels that would shock the conscience of the world.
Bolivarian Backlash
The Bolivarian Revolution, a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy while greatly improving health and other living conditions for millions of Venezuelans, drew worldwide acclaim. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation’s economy as part of an agenda of socialist uplift, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela’s oligarchs. The exportation of the Bolivarian Revolution, which included forging stronger, more peaceful inter-American relations and even the provision of free home heating oil for hundreds of thousands of needy people in the United States, made Chávez a marked man in Washington.
The administration of George W. Bush — whom Chávez infamously called “the devil” in a speech before the United Nations — backed a failed military coup against Chávez in 2002. The attempted coup was closely linked to prominent neoconservatives including Elliott Abrams, the disgraced Iran-Contra criminal who played a key role in covering up massacres committed by US-backed death squads in Central America and Otto Reich, a staunch supporter of Cuban exile terrorists who have killed at least hundreds of innocent men, women and children throughout the Americas. Two key coup plotters, Army commander Efraín Vasquez and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were trained at the US Army School of the Americas. The coup briefly ousted Chávez but loyalist forces and popular support restored his rule 47 hours later.
Barack Obama continued Bush’s policy of demonizing Chávez, whose government he called “authoritarian.” This, despite the fact that former president Jimmy Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the election-monitoring Carter Center, called Venezuela’s election process “the best in the world.” In 2015, Obama declared Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to national security,” a bewildering assertion considering the country has never started a war in its history. The United States, on the other hand, has intervened in, attacked, invaded or occupied Latin American and Caribbean nations more than 50 times and, as Obama spoke, the US military was busy bombing seven countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. For decades, successive US administrations have also lavished Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia — which has been condemned for its government and paramilitary death squad massacres and deadly corporate-backed crackdowns on indigenous peoples and workers — with billions upon billions of dollars in military and economic aid.
With Friends Like These…
In an act of breathtaking yet typical US hypocrisy, President Donald Trump in July 2017 announced economic sanctions against Nicolás Maduro, who was elected president following the death of Chávez in 2013. While Maduro vowed to continue the Bolivarian Revolution, the Trump administration threatened to attack Venezuela, citing the “suffering” of its people. Meanwhile, Trump continued previous administrations’ support for some of the world’s worst human rights violators, including the Islamic fundamentalist monarchy of Saudi Arabia — which is waging a war of aggression and starvation in Yemen that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, while severely repressing its own subjects at home — as well as brutal dictators in Bahrain, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, South Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere. While bashing Maduro, Trump has heaped praise upon North Korean dictatorKim Jong-un, leader of the world’s most murderous regime, Philippines’ “death squad mayor”-turned president Rodrigo Duterte, China’s “president for life” Xi Jinping, Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,Vladimir Putin and other unsavories.
Trump’s latest moves, recognizing Venezuela’s illegitimate would-be presidential usurper Juan Guaidó and appointing the neoconservative regime change hawk Elliott Abrams as special envoy, seems designed to sow seeds of subversion and revolt within the country’s government and military. This follows National Security Adviser John Bolton — a key neocon architect and cheerleader for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and who has also advocated regime change in Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere — calling Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua a “troika of tyranny,” a hypocritical characterization reminiscent of Bush’s “axis of evil,” and one that utterly ignores the far worse, but far more subservient, regimes backed by the Trump administration.
The United States has almost always opposed — whether by slaughter, spies or sanctions — any government or movement that seeks to freely choose its own political and economic path if it diverges from the corporate capitalist order backed by Washington and Wall Street. It has long sought to crush the boldly defiant Bolivarian Revolution, just as it has crushed countless popular revolutions and movements before. The Maduro regime is far from perfect. But to call Maduro a dictator and to advocate regime change in Caracas while supporting far worse tyrants around the world just because they’re US-friendly is an exercise in the blatant, bloody hypocrisy for which the United States has long been infamous around the planet, especially among its poorer parts and peoples.
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Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights, is archived at www.brettwilkins.com
Featured image: Venezuelan dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez receiving the “Legion of Merit” from ambassador Fletcher Warren in 1954 (Wikimedia Commons)
Last week President Trump announced that the United States would no longer recognize Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela and would recognize the head of its national assembly, Juan Guaido, as president instead. US thus openly backs regime change. But what has long been a dream of the neocons may well turn out to be a nightmare for President Trump.
Why did Trump declare that the Venezuelan president was no longer the president? According to the State Department, the Administration was acting to help enforce the Venezuelan constitution. If only they were so eager to enforce our own Constitution!
It’s ironic that a president who has spent the first two years in office fighting charges that a foreign country meddled in the US elections would turn around and not only meddle in foreign elections but actually demand the right to name a foreign country’s president! How would we react if the Chinese and Russians decided that President Trump was not upholding the US Constitution and recognized Speaker Nancy Pelosi as US president instead?
Even those who would like to see a change of government in Venezuela should reject any notion that the change must be “helped” by the United States. According to press reports, Vice President Mike Pence was so involved in internal Venezuelan affairs that he actually urged Guaido to name himself president and promised US support. This is not only foolish, it is very dangerous. A Venezuelan civil war would result in mass death and even more economic misery!
Regime change has long been US policy for Venezuela. The US has been conducting economic warfare practically since Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, was first elected in 1998. The goal of US sanctions and other economic measures against Venezuela (and other countries in Washington’s crosshairs) is to make life so miserable for average citizens that they rise up and overthrow their leaders. But of course once they do so they must replace those leaders with someone approved by Washington. Remember after the “Arab Spring” in Egypt when the people did rise up and overthrow their leader, but they then elected the “wrong” candidate. The army moved in and deposed the elected president and replaced him with a Washington-approved politician. Then-Secretary of State John Kerry called it “restoring democracy.”
It is tragically comical that President Trump has named convicted criminal Elliot Abrams as his point person to “restore democracy” in Venezuela. Abrams played a key role in the Iran-Contra affair and went on to be one of the chief architects of the disastrous US invasion of Iraq in 2003. His role in helping promote the horrible violence in Latin America in the 1980s should disqualify him from ever holding public office again.
Instead of this ham-fisted coup d’etat, a better policy for Venezuela these past 20 years would have been engagement and trade. If we truly believe in the superiority of a free market system we must also believe that we can only lead by example, not by forcing our system on others.
Just four months ago President Trump said at the UN:
“I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.”
Sadly it seems that these were merely empty words. We know from Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. that this will not end well for President Trump. Or for the United States. We must leave Venezuela alone!
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The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated… obstacles and adversity fuel our potential. Here’s my first audio podcast… 2 hours to get things started, so much vital info to share while on the trail of our missing trillions…
Last time people heard from me, I was reporting on trillions of dollars in unaccounted for tax money. That is trillions, with a “t,” trillions of unaccounted for tax dollars. Trillions in unaccounted for “military” spending, so-called “military” spending.
Trillions unaccounted for… no matter how many times I say that, it just always sounds so absurd to say that, “Trillions of unaccounted for tax dollars.” How can that possibly be, right?
It’s surreal corruption. $1 trillion is $1000 billion.
To accurately report on government corruption, to accurately report on systemic corruption, to report on the corruption of our tax system, not just wasted, stolen and unaccounted for tax dollars when it comes to so-called “military” spending, it’s across our entire tax system, as I will cover in detail, most every government agency is now completely overrun with corruption, and the corruption has gotten so bad, if you accurately report on it, you are going to sound like a crazy person.
It’s surreal corruption.
However corrupt you think the government is, when you really dig into it, it’s much worse than you can imagine. New shocking details come to light all the time. The unthinkable has become normalized. I have hundreds of detailed examples, literally, hundreds of examples of shocking, mind-blowing corruption.
I’m going to get into deep detail on all of this. There are definite trends, reoccurring themes, and fundamental dynamics involved. I will break it all down and lay it out for you.
We’ve gathered so much evidence. It is hard to know where to begin with all of this. Billions lost here, billions lost there. It all adds up quickly. It’s real hard to know where to begin. We should probably start with a basic example.
Here’s the latest example that I was just reading, I was just reading a new Inspector General report from the Social Security Administration. The Social Security Administration Inspector General, the SSA IG, the Social Security Administration Inspector General just revealed that billions of dollars, that is billions, with a “b” now, billions of tax dollars have been lost to Social Security fraud over the past year, and this is nothing new. Billions of tax dollars are lost to fraud within Social Security every year now.
Now, this is just one example of many, just the latest example. So, in this most recent Inspector General report it says “at least”, “at least $10 billion” was lost to fraud last year. That’s “at least $10 billion” lost to fraud in just the past year, in one agency, and it happens every year, in many agencies, it happens across our entire tax system, across the board, and “at least $10 billion” in one agency, in one year, is just a drop in the bucket compared to what is going on in so-called “military” spending. It’s surreal corruption. It’s mind melting…
I mean, the $20+ trillion in unaccounted for military spending, so-called “military” spending, that information comes directly from the Department of Defense’s own Inspector General reports. There was one example, one annual report, in one annual Department of Defense Inspector General report there was $6.5 trillion, with a “t,” $6.5 trillion in unaccounted for military spending. $6.5 trillion in unaccounted for military spending in one year.
Do you see what I mean by surreal corruption? It’s beyond imagination. How can that be possible, right?
So one of the challenges that we keep running into: to accurately report now on systemic government corruption, if you accurately report on it, you are going to sound like a crazy person. You can read quotes verbatim from government Inspector Generals and people will think you are crazy. They won’t take you seriously, that’s how surreal the corruption has become.
This is a significant part of what I’ve been doing. I read government Inspector General reports and then I investigate and research what they are reporting on. I flesh out the context behind Inspector General’s publicly available report summaries. You know, what actual journalists would do, if there were any real investigative journalists left in this country.
Excuse me, I’m shaking things up over here. I’m drinking a protein shake. I’m going to need some energy here. We are going for a deep dive here.
So when it comes to the trillions in unaccounted for military spending, it’s not like these are just accounting errors, there are many corresponding instances of outrageous fraud and corruption all over the place that corroborate and substantiate them. We have hundreds of examples that we will go through. It’s hard to know where to begin.
We already have people who worked in the Pentagon, who worked at the Department of Defense Finance and Accounting Service who say the books are cooked as standard operating procedure. People who spent their careers working at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service say there are “plugs,” thousands of plugs, thousands of transactions, per month, with no supporting documentation. Thousands of transactions per month with no supporting documentation.
People who spent their careers working at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service said money is spent all the time without Congressional appropriations, money that Congress has not allocated. I mean, we have direct violations of the U.S. Constitution, colossal, blatant violations of the Constitution here. What more needs to be said to get some serious accountability, some serious investigations going here, some legit accountability?
It’s surreal corruption. The more you look into military spending, the crazier it gets.
We’ve even had Defense Secretaries, Defense Secretaries are in charge of military spending, we have had multiple Defense Secretaries publicly admit that they have no idea what is happening with military spending; that there are hundreds of financing operations throughout the Pentagon that lack oversight. They don’t even know how many financing operations there are. Did you get that?
There are hundreds of financing operations throughout the Pentagon that lack oversight. Robert Gates, when he was Defense Secretary, Gates said that there were unaccountable Fiefdoms operating throughout the Pentagon. Unaccountable Fiefdoms, those are Gates’ words, he said that publicly, at the American Enterprise Institute, but the mainstream media and both political parties just ignored him.
It’s all so absurd. Gates said he couldn’t even get answers to how much money was being spent; let alone what it was being spent on. Do you understand the absurdity of that? The Defense Secretary can’t get answers on how much money is even being spent in the first place.
Looks like there is a back door into the U.S. Treasury here, a wide-open back door into the U.S. Treasury, don’t you think? Do you think?
Please, think… think it through… please think it through.
And then, of course, we had Donald Rumsfeld, when he was Defense Secretary, he said in a speech at the Pentagon, he called the Pentagon a black hole where U.S. tax dollars disappear by the trillions. Did you hear that? A Defense Secretary called the Pentagon a black hole where U.S. tax dollars disappear by the trillions.
These are Defense Secretaries and Department of Defense Inspector Generals reporting this. And still, there are no serious investigations into what has been happening to trillions in taxpayer wealth. Year after year trillions of dollars are disappearing, and it just keeps getting worse. Department of Defense Inspector Generals have reported over $20 trillion is unaccounted for now, and they are ignored. It’s surreal corruption.
People don’t understand the impact that this has on their lives, will have on their lives, the inevitable consequences of all this. It’s horrifying. Our future has been set on fire. Our near-future.
The scale of the corruption is too large for the average person to comprehend.
I have so much to say about all this, but the point we want to make now, the point we want to make up front, from the beginning, one of the challenges that we keep running into: to accurately report on systemic corruption now, if you accurately report on it, you are going to sound like a crazy person. People don’t take you seriously.
To accurately report on corruption now, you will sound like an Onion article. It’s surreal corruption. Truth is much stranger than fiction these days. Right? Reality is much stranger than fiction. Real news is much stranger than fake news. Real news is much more surreal than fake news. It’s no wonder that people are confused, and don’t know what to believe anymore. We are confronted by surreal corruption.
And, again, to be clear, it is not just in military spending. It’s happening throughout the entire tax system now. The cancer of corruption is now malignant and it’s spreading rapidly.
So, anyhow, I read these Inspector General reports, whether it is from the Department of Defense Inspector General or the Intelligence Community Inspector General or the Social Security Administration Inspector General or the Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General, every single government agency has their own Inspector General whose job it is to detect and investigate corruption. So they produce report after report of mind-blowing corruption, and no one really pays attention to them. The mainstream media ignores them, most politicians completely ignore them as well. This is where you can clearly see how real journalism is absolutely dead in this country, and how utterly corrupt both political parties are.
Government Inspector Generals reveal trillions of dollars worth of shocking fraud and mind-boggling waste, and the mainstream media and both political parties just ignore them. It’s so absurd.
These are government Inspector Generals. Inspector Generals are an absolutely vital accountability mechanism built into the core functioning of our government, and they are being ignored.
Our government is fundamentally systemically corrupted. The chain of accountability is no longer functioning. It’s an all-out smash and grab imperial heist, a global imperial heist. The American people are defenseless.
We will go into deep detail on all of this, the evidence is there, if you have the patience and attention span to go through it. We have done our homework. There is no defending what is going on. They can’t defend it, that’s why they stay silent and try to cover-up and classify everything, and that’s why they do what they can to silence people who talk about it, and to suppress and censor people, and to hack people.
They can’t defend it, that’s why we are supersaturated in divide and conquer propaganda. That’s why the mainstream media is now a divide and conquer distraction machine spewing divisive rhetoric 24/7. The mainstream media is now a divide and conquer distraction machine. We’ll prove this as well, we understand the fundamental dynamics of the mainstream propaganda system very well here. Bottom line, it is imperial divide and conquer 101. Unleash divide and conquer PSYOPS, make the local population fight amongst themselves while you rob everyone blind and bury the nation in debt. Divide and conquer imperialism 101.
Ah, I don’t want to get too deep too fast. We need to be disciplined in our approach. We’ve done our homework. We need to be as disciplined as possible. I can’t get all worked up and move to fast. We need to be as methodical as possible, so we can effectively overcome divide and conquer propaganda to unite and defend the American people against predatory global imperial interests who are looting this country and setting our future on fire.
Ah… let me chill and refocus for a minute here… I’m moving too fast… One step at a time. People need context and detail first. We need to lay a solid foundation first, flesh it out, make the case clearly, in a way where the average person will understand it, in a way where the average person can relate to it. That’s the mission here. Got to be strategic. One step at a time. Layer by layer.
So… just for a vibe check, for a general overview, this is the general reoccurring theme; this is the general feeling you get over and over when you start digging into surreal systemic corruption… You see corruption in a particular government agency, and you think, “Oh my God, this is incredible corruption,” then you think, “Wait, c’mon, this couldn’t possibly be right, right?” So you start digging into it and it just keeps getting worse. You just keep peeling back layer after layer after layer of unfolding corruption, exponential corruption. It just keeps getting worse.
You fall down the rabbit hole of surreal corruption, and you go through the looking glass, and the looking glass turns into this kaleidoscopic funhouse mirror, it’s a clown mirror of corruption, surreal corruption blurs out, spirals out, expanding as it unfolds around you, in surreal Fibonacci spiraling oscillations.
I mean, look, I don’t want to sound all silly here. I don’t mean to make light of it. This no joke folks, no joke at all, but this is what we’re up against here… surreal corruption.
Now let me be more precise, let me focus in more now, let me be more technical in my reference here. This is what I mean by surreal corruption. Before diving deep, before diving too deep into the deep waters of military spending, before diving into the abyss, let’s just take this latest example that I started with, the $10 Billion that disappeared from Social Security this year. It’s not the best example, but it will make the general point. Let’s at least start with that basic example before we get into the more egregious, shockingly unbelievable examples, keep it basic.
The Social Security issue will give you a general overview, a basic idea, you can begin to see some common themes that keep reoccurring and get a lay of the land here, a lay of the surreal landscape that is spiraling, unfolding around us…
So, $10 billion lost to fraud in Social Security in just one year, right? Now, you think to yourself, “Oh, c’mon that can’t be, $10 billion lost to fraud, in one year. How can that be possible?” Right? So then, you look into it and you find out, “Oh, this is actually at least $10 billion,” as it turns out the $10 billion is not even a complete view into the overall fraud, in just Social Security, in just one year. So it’s actually more than $10 billion. “Well, wow… How much more?” Well, to be honest with you, no one is sure exactly how much more. “What? Whoa.”
Then, you find out that this happens every year, “Wait! What? c‘mon, we’re losing billions to Social Security fraud every single year, year after year? That’s unbelievable!” Right?
But wait, it gets even worse, it’s like a bad infomercial, right, “But wait, there is even more.” So you then see that this problem has been known about for years, and even worse, then you find out that solutions to the problem have been known for years as well, but they’ve never been implemented. Solutions are known, but they don’t get implemented. “Whaaaat?” This is a common reoccurring theme. Solutions are known, but they don’t get implemented.
Then you think, “C’mon, that can’t be right, right? I mean, c’mon, they’ve had a solution to the problem, but the solution was never implemented, and now they just keep losing ‘at least $10 billion tax dollars a year to fraud,’ and their not fixing it, you’ve gotta to be kidding me. C’mon, that can’t be real. That can’t be happening. Am I getting punked here? Is there a hidden camera somewhere?”
Then, as you’re digging even deeper into it, peeling back the layers, looking further into that particular instance of corruption, at that particular situation, as you’re beginning to fall down the rabbit hole of surreal corruption, peeling back the layers, it just keeps getting worse. Then you find out, that not only are we losing billions to Social Security fraud every year, and not only do we have solutions to the problem that aren’t being implemented, then you find out, in addition to all of that, “Oh, wait a second, oh no.” It turns out that $3 Trillion, there it is again, trillions, with a “t” now, $3 Trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund, $3 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund that we now need to pay retiring Baby Boomers back, yeah, well, as it turns out that money has already been spent elsewhere. “What the? WTF?”
Now, try to keep context here, $1 trillion is $1000 billion, so $3 trillion is $3000 billion…
So $3 trillion that people, $3000 billion that workers paid into the Social Security Trust Fund, that we now need to pay back to retiring Baby Boomers now, $3 trillion that we now need is gone. “Whaaaaat? How can that be?”
Then, as everything around you begins to blur out into a surreal landscape, then you say, “But, but, wait, wait… where did that $3 trillion go?” Then this white bunny in a top hat, hops up to you, comes bouncing up to you and says, “He, he, he.. we don’t know where that $3 trillion went. He, he, he…”
I mean, this is reality now. I mean, the bunny in the top hat was a silly joke, but the rest of it is legit. 100% legit. Somehow… sadly… as hard as it is to believe, as hard as it is to believe… to accurately report on systemic corruption now, if you accurately report on it, you are going to sound like a crazy person.
So, to sum up this one of many examples that we’ll be exploring, to sum up this one of many government agencies that corruption has run amok upon, to sum up a reoccurring theme, to sum up the new normal: we are losing “at least $10 billion a year to Social Security fraud, year after year, and people have known how to solve the problem, but the solutions don’t get implemented, and on top of that, politicians have already taken $3 Trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund, that we now need, and spent it elsewhere, on God knows what. Who knows? Whoops. Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Shh.. Politicians have already taken $3000 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund, that we now need to pay people back with, now that Baby Boomers are retiring en masse, now that Baby Boomers are retiring by the millions.
“Ut oh, we have to pay people back now? But we already spent their money, ut oh.” Shh… “Where did it all go?” Shh… I don’t know. “Who knows?”
And we’re losing an additional $10 billion per year to fraud. So you see, as it turns out, that $10 billion is just the icing on the surreally corrupt cake.
Is your mind melting yet?
This is only one small piece to the surreally corrupt puzzle.
And, oh by the way, overall, when it comes to our national debt, we have already have spent more than $21 Trillion over budget. Ah, we are already $21 Trillion in debt, and that’s not even accounting for an additional, what, what is it? Another $21 trillion or so in so-called “military” spending that is unaccounted for. So you can see, in the grand scheme, what’s another $3 Trillion to throw into the surreal fire. Ah, it’s all good. No worries.
So, you see, in this context, in this overall situation, after all, at least $10 billion lost to fraud in one year, in one agency, ho hum. We’re dealing with tens of trillions now, so $10 billion, please, we can’t be bothered fixing that. That’s just another drop in the bucket. That’s just a minor rounding error in the surreally cooked books. It’s just another day in the surreally corrupt land of the free, just yet another mind blowing Inspector General report, what else is new?
There are so many examples, it gets worse than this, much worse. We are just easing in here. There is so much more to cover. The Social Security Inspector General report is just the latest example that I just read, just yet another Inspector General report to throw into the surreal fire.
The whole thing is beyond imagination. It’s surreal corruption. That’s the only way I can honestly, accurately articulate it: surreal corruption.
Our tax dollars have been disappearing by the Trillions, with a “t,” disappearing by the trillions through mind blowing fraud and mind-boggling waste. It is happening in many agencies, there are examples that are much more egregious than “at least $10 billion” tax dollars disappearing this year from just Social Security. At least $10 billion in Social Security fraud this year, that is just the tiny tip of the iceberg compared to what is going on in… lets say, so-called “military” spending.
Our tax dollars have been disappearing by the Trillions, with a “t.” I mean, again, 1$ Trillion is $1000 billion, right, do you get that? Can you comprehend that?
It is difficult to seriously wrap your mind around numbers this big. $1 Trillion is $1000 billion.
We need to let that simmer and sink in for a while. This is context that we really need to get in our mind from the beginning here. Please think it through for a while… $1 Trillion is $1000 billion.
Write that down, print it out… hang it up on the wall. Say it 5 times before you go to bed, and 5 times when you get up in the morning. $1 Trillion is $1000 billion.
Seriously, please, let that simmer for a while… put it in your mental crock-pot. Let that slow cook for a while. Think it over, every time you drive over potholes that are too expensive to fix. $1 Trillion is $1000 billion.
People can’t comprehend corruption on this scale; that’s the problem, that’s what we’re up against here. There is no frame of reference that the average person can relate to when you deal with this much money. People don’t understand the impact, the huge impact, that this will have on our future, on our lives, on our daily existence, the huge impact on our overall quality of life.
People don’t get it. We are talking tens of trillions of dollars here people. $1 Trillion is $1000 billion.
Our future has been looted. Our future has been set on fire. Rome is in flames, it’s been torched, looted, plundered, raped and pillaged. Rome is in ruins.
It’s like mafia accountants and corrupt economists got together and got all jacked up on coke and steroids and concocted some wickedly evil mad scientist science experiment, some surreal mathematical extraction formula, some quantitative voodoo derivative of some sort that sent our tax dollars through the chopshop. Our tax dollars sliced and diced times E = MC2 off into the infinite surreally corrupt future.
I mean, ah… it is hard to put all this surreal corruption into a frame of reference that people can grasp. It is hard to do it without sounding like a crazy person. Right? I know, I sound crazy now, again, I know. It’s not easy to maintain sanity in this kind of surreal landscape. It melts your mind. We’re melting minds already, and we’re just getting warmed up, literally, this is just a warm up recording. Truth is so much stranger than fiction. Real news is much more surreal than fake news.
It’s all so absurd. It’s a Banana Republic on steroids. It’s straight up Global Imperial plunder. The U.S. treasury is being looted in unprecedented fashion. It is Global Imperial plunder that is beyond imagination.
We have details, so many details, so many examples, there is so much evidence. It is happening in broad daylight. It is hidden in plain sight. Or more accurately, it is hidden in surreal sight.
It’s surreal corruption. Salvador Dali could not capture the corruption that is unfolding right now. It is happening across our entire tax system, across most every agency of our government.
I’ve been doing the best I can not to get overwhelmed by it, to be as disciplined as possible, to be as methodical as possible, so I can accurately articulate it as concisely as possible, in a way that a large number of people can understand it. To accurately articulate it as concisely as possible, in a way that a large number of people can understand it, that’s what needs to be done, that’s where the action is at. To accurately articulate it as concisely as possible, so a large number of people can understand it.
I mean, if the government is rigged, if the legal system is rigged, I think it’s time we just take all this evidence all the way to the court of public opinion. By any communication means necessary. By any communication medium possible. What do you think? What do you say?
Say something people. Speak up, the hour is late for optimistic outcomes.
You know, this is what I now realize, this is why I’m making these recordings now, once people can understand the fundamental dynamics of systemic corruption, once a critical mass knows where to focus their attention, focus their efforts, we can fix this. The hour is late, no doubt, but once people can understand the fundamental dynamics of it, we can create the change that we need.
We can absolutely fix it! We now understand the fundamental dynamics of it in such detail. We know what’s happening. We know how it is happening. This is what I’m going to lay out in this series.
I have been investigating, researching, analyzing and reporting on systemic corruption for over 20 years now. I’m getting old. For over 20 years now, I have watched closely as corruption incrementally increases year-over-year, election cycle over election cycle, presidential administration after presidential administration, corruption just keeps trending upward, tick, tick, tick, up it goes, consistently, incrementally, tick, tick, tick, and now we have hit that exponential curve, we have technically entered Peak Corruption.
I’ll flesh out what I mean by Peak Corruption throughout this new series. Yes, have I mentioned that, this new series, which we are doing right here, right now. We’re just getting warmed up, right here, right now.
Welcome aboard the Magical Mystery Tour, on the trail of our missing trillions, much, much more to come. You can consider this episode 1, much, much more to come… providing that I can actually get this vital information out. Providing that I can actually get this vital info out.
As many of you know, last you heard from me, while I was reporting on our missing trillions, my website kept getting hacked. Last you heard from me, ha, it’s been months since you last heard from me. I’ve been M.I.A. for a while, forced into exile, yet again. I’ve been M.I.A. for months now… well, I’m happy to report that the rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated… perhaps. I even believed those rumors for a while. Well, the jury is still out on those rumors actually, we’re deliberating here… demise or rise, what shall it be? We shall soon see… ha, ha…
Anyhow, last you heard from me, while I was reporting on our missing trillions, as many of you know, my website kept getting hacked. I couldn’t keep it online. I was being censored and suppressed. The whole thing turned into a very costly, time consuming, energy sucking, outrageously stressful situation, to say the least. It turned into an absolute life-consuming nightmare. My entire life got turned upside down for a while, to be bluntly honest with you. I nearly lost everything, literally.
I’ve fought some serious battles in the past. When you spend your life investigating systemic corruption, you come up against some really powerful interests, but this time I had to fight as hard as I’ve ever fought, harder than I ever thought I could possibly fight, just to get back here, to this point, with you, right here, right now, with you.
Be Here Now. Be Here Now.
I’m a little battle weary, battle-tested though. I’ve had to take on a Stoic approach, an Amor Fati mindset that says, obstacles and adversity… fuel your potential. That’s become a mantra of sorts for me, that’s the mindset we need here… obstacles and adversity fuel your potential.
So, to make long story short, I don’t want to bore you with my personal drama here. Perhaps it will be a boring documentary someday, when I’m not here anymore, that no one watches. No, no… I ain’t goin out like that, ain’t going out like that.
Anyhow, as it turns out, obstacles and adversity do indeed fuel your potential. I now have people helping me to fend off hackers and censorship. I am very grateful for them… very grateful!
There are still some good people in our government, believe it or not, people who truly care about the overall wellbeing of the American people. They are definitely a shrinking demographic within our government. I am very grateful for them though, very grateful for people that I would call, in general, Constitutional Patriots, that’s what I would call them, in general. Constitutional Patriots are definitely a shrinking demographic within our government. I’ll go into further detail on what exactly I mean by that as well throughout this series.
For right now, I’ll just say this, this is the biggest, most pivotal divide across our government right now; on one hand, there is a shrinking demographic of people who truly care about the overall wellbeing of the American people, and on the other hand, there is a growing demographic, a large number of people who are in our government, who are there just so they can cash-out to the Global Power Elite, to the Global Imperial Elite.
There are a large number of people in our government who are there just so they can enrich themselves. People who are in our government just so they can cash-out to the Global Power Elite, to enrich themselves at the expense of the American People, to enrich themselves at the expense of the American taxpayer.
However, and I want to be clear about this, there are people who still truly put the overall wellbeing of the American people before cashing-out to Global Interests. And those people, who put the interests of Americans first and foremost, those good people, at least the diverse cross-section of those people that I’ve had interaction with, those people much more often than not, they consistently bring up the Constitution. I find that, people who care about the greater good, those people consistently bring up the Constitution. And I’ve come to think of them, to see them as Constitutional Patriots, and some of them openly consider themselves to be that.
Overall though, many of them, to a person, they consistently, in their own way, they bring up the need to enforce the Constitution, and when you look at the most harmful overall corruption that is occurring, enforcing the Constitution is a vital piece to solving it.
So that’s the big, pivotal divide in our government right now, and it has nothing to do with Republicans vs Democrats. At this point in the process, when the government is fundamentally, systemically corrupted, the Republican vs Democrat dynamic is secondary, a distant second, at this point. I will explain what I mean by that in detail, I don’t want to trigger anyone here. I know how heated the partisanship is these days. We are all saturated in divisive rhetoric these days. We are supersaturated in divide and conquer propaganda.
As I briefly mentioned before, divide and conquer propaganda is something that I will be focusing on. A main theme throughout this series, a main theme here will be overcoming divide and conquer propaganda to unite the American People.
My ability to overcome divide and conquer propaganda to unite the American People, my ability to do that is the biggest reason why I’ve had success, and it is also a major reason why I’ve been continually hacked and suppressed as well.
By focusing on systemic corruption, because corruption has become so bad, by focusing on systemic corruption I have supporters with opinions across the entire political spectrum. I have just as many conservative supporters as I have liberal supporters. I have just as many libertarian supporters as progressive supporters. I have supporters who are lifelong Military and Intelligence Community Officers and I have supporters who are Peace Activists. I have supporters who are Grandparents and Great Grandparents, and I have supporters who are in high school and college. I have supporters who are religious, faith-based and spiritual, and I have supporters who are atheists. I have supporters with opinions across the political spectrum, across every demographic, from all walks of life. Corruption has become so bad, every demographic is now impacted by it.
At this point, and here’s a main point, at this point, the most pivotal dividing line is between those who are in on the corruption, and those who are not… and 99.99% of the population is not in on the corruption. This is what I’ll be proving to you, demonstrating for you.
When the government is overrun in corruption, everyone feels taken advantage of, to varying degrees, and rightfully so. There is a plenty of well-justified angst to go around. No one wants to have their tax dollars stolen or wasted. No one. No one wants to have their water supply contaminated. No one wants to breathe toxic air. No one wants to have a toxic food supply that makes us bloated and sick. No one wants to pay twice as much for healthcare than any other country pays. No one wants a rigged government.
Most people don’t want a rigged economy and a rigged stock market. Most people want a fair playing field. One set of rules for everyone, right? That is a bedrock American principal. One set of rules for everyone, right? Can we agree on that?
That’s our common ground here people, and it’s exactly what we need right now. One set of rules for everyone. Accountability. That is a bedrock American principal: accountability. The checks and balances built into the Constitution. One set of rules for everyone.
Let me say this again, because it’s a point that I will emphatically prove to you throughout this series: at this point, the most pivotal dividing line right now is between those who are in on the corruption and those who are not… and 99.99% of the population is not in on the corruption. This is something that I will lay out for you in deep detail.
We need to overcome all this divide and conquer madness.
Here’s where we are coming from. Here’s the baseline, common ground we are all coming from and aiming toward: we all want to live in a safe community, in a healthy environment that gives our families the opportunity to fulfill our potential, whatever it may be. That is the baseline, the common ground we all have here. We all want a safe, healthy community that gives our families the ability to live peaceful and healthy lives.
That’s the perspective that I’m coming from here. I am not an ideologue. I am not partisan in any way. My track record backs that up. If you aren’t familiar with my work through the years, as you will see and hear throughout this series, the proof is in the pudding.
I work hard to avoid groupthink and confirmation bias, which is not an easy thing to do, at all. It takes eternal vigilance. Confirmation bias and groupthink are always a lurking threat. It takes serious psychological bandwidth to defend against, to disciple yourself against confirmation bias and groupthink. Any serious independent, critical thinking individual knows that. The second you get a little lazy in your thinking, confirmation bias and groupthink will kick in and take over.
I think groupthink is the last refuge of the beaten mind. Groupthink and partisanship are two sides of the same coin. Groupthink and partisanship are the left and right hemispheres of the same beaten mind. And I’ve always appreciated the wisdom from the American Transcendentalists, from people like Thoreau and Emerson, wisdom that says, ‘A political party is designed to save people from the vexation of thought.’ Ain’t that the truth.
You don’t want to outsource your thoughts to either one of these political parties. That’s for damn sure. It’s not your GrandDaddy’s Republicans and it’s not your Mommy’s Democrats. That’s for sure. These political parties have been co-opted and bought out by Global Imperial Forces, straight up, no joke. The second you outsource your thoughts to partisanship or groupthink, it is all a downward spiral from there.
You need to be an eternally vigilant truth warrior to battle against groupthink. Get a little lazy in your thinking, if you don’t do your homework, if you don’t stay sharp, you will quickly devolve into a groupthinking robot, into a divide and conquer bot. You’ll turn into an unwitting groupthinking Imperial Storm Trooper, a useful idiot hell-bent on your own demise.
One thing that I’ve realized, beyond a shadow of doubt, when it comes to systemic corruption, both political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats are up to their eyes in systemic corruption, as I will point out throughout this series. When it comes to systemic corruption, it is a bi-partisan affair.
Once you understand the fundamental dynamics of systemic corruption, you’ll see how the narrow range of debate between Republican talking points and Democratic talking points is juvenile. It’s absurd. It’s amateur hour, at best. TV and radio “news” have become cartoonish. It’s Romper Room propaganda. It’s a national embarrassment, as are both political parties.
The primary problem is that the mainstream media is a divide and conquer distraction machine. Everyone is all caught up in mainstream divide and conquer narratives. Lost out to sea, in dicey divisive waters. People are saturated in Republican vs Democratic talking points. It’s all a distraction.
There is shallow, divisive rhetoric being spewed all over the place, left and right. It’s got everyone all hyped up, everyone is all worked up, fired up, pissed off, emotionally-driven divisive rhetoric is short-circuiting the neo-cortex. It’s the relentless over-stimulation of the reptilian brain complex, short-circuiting critical thought, atrophy of the critical faculties. The amputation of critical thinking skills via relentless repetitive divisive rhetoric.
The narrow limited spectrum of thinkable thought that is Republican Vs Democratic talking points has contracted everyone’s awareness. They have contracted consciousness into consciousness concentration camps, groupthinking nonsense narratives.
Everyone is all caught up in divide and conquer narratives. That’s what we need to get past, urgently. All this divide and conquer nonsense is destroying us. We are super-saturated in shallow, divisive rhetoric. We need to get passed all this divide and conquer propaganda.
When your country is under attack, when your country is being systematically, systemically destroyed, fighting amongst each other is not the way to go people. When your country is being systematically, systemically destroyed, fighting amongst each other is not the way to go.
It is imperial divide and conquer plunder. Imperial divide and conquer 101 people. Check yourself. Check for yourself.
That’s the thing about truth, the more you look into it, the brighter it gets. You just have to point people in the general direction of truth, just point to the general vicinity, and then aware people will take it from there. Once deeper truth is accurately articulated, nature will take its course. Truth resonates, naturally. Don’t underestimate the power of truth. The light of truth, truth shines brighter the more you look into it.
Discovering it first though, digging deep below all the bullshit and uncovering the truth is the hardest part, but once you uncover the truth, the Holy Grail, if it is seriously the truth, you just have to speak the truth, and if it is the real deal, it will grow louder and louder.
Truth stands hand in hand all over the world, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round. Truth resonates. Truth naturally resonates. The truth can handle the pressure. It can handle scrutiny. As a wise person once said, “The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
Now, of course, you have to uncover it first though. You have to dig deep to dig it up, lots of heavy lifting, for sure. But once you can accurately articulate the truth, one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round. Truth resonates. Truth naturally resonates.
So, that being said, a main theme here is overcoming divide and conquer propaganda to unite and defend the American People against predatory Global Interests, Global Imperial Interests, that’s where the real action is at.
Overcoming divide and conquer propaganda to unite and defend the American People against predatory Global Interests. Overcoming divide and conquer propaganda to unite and defend the American People against predatory Global Imperial Interests, that’s where the real action is at.
The old global imperial centralizing force that is consolidating power, wealth and resources into fewer and fewer hands, which makes the masses dependent upon this large corrupted centralized system for the basic necessities of life, for ever-increasing debt.
Here’s some basic imperial mathematics for you: 2 + 2 = ever-increasing debt. Debt is the imperial global centralizing system’s key weapon. Debt is the sword, and divide and conquer propaganda is the shield. Imperialism 101: Make the local population fight amongst themselves while you rob the nation blind and bury everyone in debt… ever-increasing debt.
It is an age-old oppressive tactic. It is an age-old tale to tell. Come gather around people, from whenever you roam, and admit that the debt around you has grown. You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.
All right… we’re getting carried away, let’s not get lost out to sea.
Where were we? Oh yes, debt. An age-old tale to tell. An age-old oppressive tactic.
Do you recall the biblical wisdom, in the Book of Proverbs, that says, “the borrower is slave to the lender.” That age-old imperial strategy: make the local population fight amongst themselves while you rob the nation blind and bury everyone in debt.
And, oh, what’s that we see, a deep direct correlation to present reality… we presently have all-time record-breaking national debt, and all-time record-breaking state debt, and all-time record-breaking household debt, and all-time record-breaking personal debt.
All-time record-breaking debt across the board. What do you know? Go figure.
Welcome to the Imperial Debt Death Spiral. History repeats itself, coiling off into the future…
That’s the thing about age-old wisdom. That’s the thing about the truth. Don’t underestimate the power of the truth. Truth resonates, once spoken, once accurately articulated, Logos. Speaking truth to power, or more precisely, speaking truth is power. Boom… Truth Bomb.
“Allegiance to the truth, that is the guidepost, that is the way through.”
These are divisive dicey debt-filled waters, but “the fundamental rule when operating in chaos is to tell the truth.” Truth is your guidepost. Truth is your sword and shield. Speak the Truth. Accurately articulate what is presently unfolding as concisely as possible. Truth stands hand in hand all over the world, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round. Truth resonates. Truth naturally resonates.
Don’t underestimate the power of the truth, people. As Thomas Jefferson once advised, “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
Once a critical mass understands how power operates, on a global scale, once a critical mass understands the fundamental dynamics of the power that surrounds us, in its latest guise, in its latest disguise, once a critical mass can see through its mask, the global imperial centralizing jig is up.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy Dominance Hierarchy is a skin that we will shed. The metamorphosis is already underway. Calling all imaginal cells… Who hears me?
On the precipice of the abyss, an evolutionary leap is required. Let’s positive feedback loop our way into the new paradigm.
Ha, all right, I’m having a little fun with this now. We’re getting all sorts of carried away. We don’t want to get too carried away too quickly here. I was getting caught up in everything. We need to lay a solid foundation first. Discipline David, discipline. We need to be methodical here, as methodical as possible. We need to do the deep digging and heavy lifting to set up a solid foundation of understanding, a well of wisdom that we can dip into.
We will spend significant time exposing and dissecting divide and conquer narratives that are repetitiously forced down our throats. Divide and conquer narratives that are repetitiously forced upon our consciousness.
It’s repetition that influences most. It’s what Madison Ave marketers, advertisers, PR experts, it’s what propagandists have known all along: if you just keep up the exposure rate, people will be influenced. Repetition, it’s all about repetition, subconscious programming, repetition, it’s all about repetition, propaganda 101.
Throughout this series, we are going to be able to see through divide and conquer narratives with ease. We are going to be able to see through them in vivid detail. We will dismantle the illusion pixel by pixel. The disintegration of the illusion. The illusion will disintegrate before our eyes. The degradation of the illusion. We are going to pixelate the illusion. We will break it down in vivid detail, bit by bit, piece by piece, brick by brick, pixel by pixel.
It’s time for some higher resolution reality, higher definition. We will render a higher resolution navigation system. That’s what we need, a high resolution GPS that can help us navigate the power dynamics that surround us.
Ultimately, what we’re doing here… I want to provide you with a clear map of the power dynamics at play, the power dynamics surrounding us, a vivid map of the overall terrain. We’ll survey the battlefield, we’ll survey the scene, we’ll survey the playing field.
I want to provide you with a navigation system, a detailed, high resolution navigation system of the fundamental power dynamics that surround us. A navigation system, a map of how power operates around us, so you can find your own way through it. So you can find your own way out, your own way to freedom, your own way to health, success and abundance.
This is where the political becomes personal. You can consider this a survival guide, a field manual to the power dynamics surrounding us, so you can survive, self-actualize and thrive.
Ultimately, this is about empowering you toward self-actualization. This is about empowering mass transformation via self-actualization. Empowering mass transformation via self-actualization. Self-actualization, that’s the way out, that’s the way to freedom.
Once we can get an in-depth understanding of the fundamental power dynamics at play, we can then develop, hone and apply our own unique skills, in our own chosen way, to overcome and transcend the present crisis.
At this stage of evolution, at this phase in the process, there is now an ecosystem of transformation that anyone can tap into and flow with it. There is now an ecosystem of transformation, an ecosystem of self-actualization that we can come into alignment and synergy with, which I will be fleshing out for you throughout this series.
For all the major problems we are confronted by, for all the unprecedented crises we are facing, there are viable solutions. This is the main point: for all the major problems we face, there are viable solutions, multiple solutions, at this point, for every major problem.
The blessing in disguise right now: corruption has gotten so bad, the challenges we face, governmental and economic challenges, environmental and health challenges, societal and cultural challenges, at this point, the challenges we face are so apparent and so blatant that we now have an in-depth understanding of them. That’s the blessing in disguise.
We now have a deep understanding of the fundamental core dynamics that are driving the major problems that we are confronted by. We have a deep understanding of the underlying root causes and there are now viable solutions. That’s what I’m going to be laying out in detail here with you.
And to be clear, this isn’t about telling people that there is only one particular way to live, or saying that these are the list of the exact things that you have to do. This isn’t about that. This is a chose your own adventure. This is a chose your own solution adventure.
How about that? This is a chose your own solution adventure.
We are going to do a lot of shadow work here. By shadow work I mean diving deep into systemic corruption and societal problems. We are going to go deep into our collective shadow. Now, keep in mind, as a very wise person once said, “It is always darkest just before the dawn.”
We are going to do a lot of shadow work here, but the motivation and reason why I’m doing this is because I am optimistic about the future. I want to make that clear up front.
We are going to make the darkness conscious so we can effectively transcend it. “The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome.” Right? We need to make the darkness conscious. We need to illuminate the obstacles, illuminate the shadows. We need to illuminate The Shadows That Be to effectively transcend them.
Despite all the corruption and the serious problems we face, despite all the battles I’ve been fighting, I wouldn’t be doing this right now if I didn’t think that there was light at the end of the tunnel. There is much to be positive about. There is a bright future to look forward to and much to be grateful for.
I want to make this clear from the beginning right now. Despite all the challenges and obstacles that I had to battle through, and will continue to battle through, I consider myself to be a hardcore optimist who sees many fixable problems.
Once a critical mass knows where to focus their attention, they will be naturally inspired to focus their efforts, and we’ll change the game. We can fix it. We can create the change we need. That is what I truly believe. That is why I’m doing this recording right now, with you.
I’m considering this podcast as a basic introduction, an intro episode. I’m going to pre-record the first few episodes before anything is posted online. They’ll be long-form, long-format episodes like this one, and then moving forward on a consistent basis I will do shorter more time sensitive, news-based episodes, more topic, issue-specific episodes on what is presently unfolding, on the latest developments.
For now though, I want to lay the groundwork and cover the vital fundamentals first, step by step, pixel by pixel. I’m pre-recording these first few hours, so I can make sure to lay the foundation that needs to be set. We need to do the heavy lifting to set up a solid foundation of understanding, to put the conceptual framework in place. And from this base, we can then effectively confront challenges and obstacles as they unfold around us.
Having a microphone in my face and being on camera is definitely outside of my comfort zone. I’m used to working behind the scenes, investigating, researching, analyzing and writing reports on systemic corruption and how power operates. I always avoided interviews as much as possible, and now I got all this going on. When your life gets turned upside down, staying in your comfort zone isn’t exactly an option now, is it?
Yeah… that’s the thing… look, I am a little gun-shy right now, after everything I’ve been through. I’m battle weary. Every time I begin to put out information I end up getting hacked, my life gets turned upside down, and I get all sorts of censorship and suppression online. My ability to make a living doing investigative journalism becomes real difficult, real fast, to say the least.
That’s why I’m pre-recording these first few hours before anything gets posted. Even with the help that I have now, which I am very grateful for, even with the help that I have now, I just don’t know how long this going to last, to be honest with you. This is an ever-evolving battle, no doubt.
So I have to do everything I can to put out vital information, by any communication means necessary. I’m decentralizing myself now, as much as possible, across many sites, servers, platforms and networks. I’m going to be kicking out vital info by every communication medium possible… audio, video, images, text, podcasts, as best as I can.
I am grateful for the help that I now have, and I’m grateful for any help that I can get. If you are one of the people who are tapped in enough to be listening to this right now, support of any kind is greatly appreciated. Whatever you feel inspired to do is much appreciated because, look, the Iron Curtain is coming down online now.
The Algorithmic Curtain is descending over the Internet now. The Artificial Intelligence, the AI algorithmic bots are no joke. They are editing reality in real-time. The AI Algo Bots are Thought Police on steroids. This is beyond Orwellian now, seriously. The Algorithmic Curtain is descending upon our news feeds as we speak. They are editing reality in real-time. The Algorithmic Curtain is descending upon our conscious awareness as we speak.
AI Algo Bots are jamming our frequency. No joke. Do you see, ha, do you see what I mean? When you accurately articulate what is presently unfolding, you will sound like a crazy person. The AI Algo Bots, c’mon now, these are seriously surreal times.
Can you hear Paul Revere’s horse galloping? Did you get Paul Revere’s notification? Ding, ding… The AI Algo Bots are coming… Ding, ding… The AI Algo Bots are coming… ha, oh man, surreal times people, surreal times.
The globally corrupt imperial elite are in control of your social media feeds and Google search results. AI Algo Bots and PSYOPS have infiltrated the entire Internet. Technically, it’s called Full Spectrum Dominance. That’s a real thing, an actual military strategy. Full Spectrum Dominance is no joke at all.
AI Algo Bots have infiltrated your mind. Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean that you’re crazy. No joke. They harvest your personal information, your personal data, your online thought-prints. They harvest every move you make with shocking precision and effectiveness. They can do it to entire populations now.
With Big Data Analytics, AI algorithms and machine learning there are many companies who have very advanced and detailed data points, in-depth personality profiles on everyone, on everything you do. It’s called Psycho-Metrics, for real, Psycho-Metrics, that’s what they call it. In-depth personality profiles, so they know exactly how to manipulate you. I know it sounds crazy, because it is crazy.
The more you look into military spending the crazier it gets. Big Data companies, global intelligence agencies and private military contractors have thousands of data points on every American, literally, highly in-depth personality profiles with thousands of data points on every American, on everyone. I’ll cover this topic in detail throughout this series as well.
It’s shocking, it’s horrifying, the 4th Amendment has been shredded. The 4th Amendment has been rendered null and void. Modern surveillance tech has obliterated antiquated privacy laws. It’s horrifying. Especially, especially if you are someone that the Global Power Elite think can affect their power.
If you’re an investigative journalist who focuses on systemic corruption in a way that can unite the American people, if you can do that, you are targeted for all sorts of hacking, and with modern surveillance technology it is too easy for powerful people to shut people up, shut people down, to turn people’s lives upside down, it’s far too easy these days.
The power of surveillance technology is vastly underestimated when it comes to how real power operates today, I’ll tell you that.
The use of surveillance technology as a tool of control is commonplace now. Politicians all over the world, politicians all throughout the United States in particular, they’re on lockdown now. The use of surveillance technology to manipulate, undermine and control people is much more widespread now and much more commonplace now than people realize.
Whether you are a politician, even a law enforcement investigator, an Inspector General, a whistleblower, an activist or a journalist, if you can truly affect the power of the Global Power Elite, you are targeted and very effectively and efficiently undermined and neutralized.
If you are an investigative journalist who can focus on systemic corruption in a way that can pierce through the divide and conquer propaganda, if you can focus on systemic corruption in a way that can overcome divide and conquer partisanship and unite people across the political spectrum, the Global Power Elite will target you and turn your life upside down pretty easily, and the ultimate goal is to limit your ability to make a living at doing that investigative journalism.
This is what I’ve learned the hard way. You can consider this the AI Algo Bot Blues. Ha… I mean, I’m trying to make light of a dark difficult situation here people.
If you can do real legit journalism, in a way that informs people on the fundamentals of systemic corruption, informs people in a way that unites them instead of dividing them, if you can do that, the Global Imperial Elite will target you and turn your life upside down, and the ultimate goal is to limit your ability to make a living at doing that journalism. That’s the key objective. Make it impossible for anyone to do real full-time investigative journalism on systemic corruption. The ultimate goal is to limit your ability to make a living at doing serious investigative journalism.
That’s what happens, so that’s what we’re up against here. This is why journalism is dead throughout the United States. And, in the grand scheme of things, I’m just a little gnat. I’m a little gnat… a gadfly, at best, ha ha… a gadfly in the old Socratic sense I suppose.
So, I’m pre-recording this series to make sure that I can say vital things that need to be said… as the AI Algo Bots are closing in. I’m running for the fences… I’m running for the fences here people.
There is just a ton of vital information that we have to share. And to be clear, all this vital information is publicly available information. This is really important for me to make this distinction and point this out up front. I do not in anyway deal with classified information.
I have no desire to even see classified information. I avoid it like the plague. You know, basically, classified information is entrapment at this point.
I mean, the classification of information is a major issue. The classification of information has become a pivotal weak spot for the American People. The Constitution torching ability to wave the wand of National Security to cover up corruption, that is devastating to the American People right now. As we know from people like the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley has said, and Senator Wyden on the Senate Intelligence Committee, you know people who have an understanding of the information that gets classified, they have consistently said that info is classified to cover up corruption. That’s basically what it is all about, at this point, that’s a major, huge issue. And I’ll be covering this issue, in detail, with publicly available info. We don’t need any classified info to report on it in an effective way.
Between FOIA, the Freedom Of Information Act, which just keeps getting weaker, by the way, but between FOIA, and Senators getting info declassified, and all the publicly available government reports, Inspector General Reports, Government Accountability Office reports, and then connecting dots from news reports, we have all the proof that we need to prove that the U.S. Constitution is being violated, often.
The U.S. Constitution is being destroyed, it’s being torched, the checks and balances, the accountability mechanisms, the chain of accountability has been completely dismantled. And we know exactly how it is being done. We know the weak points. We know the loopholes well. We can describe the process in detail so people can understand it, and at this point, we don’t need any classified info to do it.
So, my main point right now, bottom line, I don’t deal in any kind of classified information. It’s just too dangerous to begin with and at this point it is unnecessary. It’s an entrapment play. At this point in the game, there is more than enough publicly available information to understand the real score.
There is more than enough publicly available information to flesh out the inner workings of the global power dynamics that are at play around us right now. There is more than enough publicly available information to lay out how trillions of tax dollars have gone unaccounted for. There is more than enough publicly available information to demonstrate outrageous abuses of power.
At this point in the game, at this point in the process, we just need people to understand the publicly available info first and foremost. Once they understand the publicly available info, the rest will take care of itself. We have more than enough evidence.
So, I want to make that 100% clear, up front: all publicly available information here.
If you know how to connect the dots, you can flesh out the whole Global Imperial power structure, and how it operates, you can flesh it out efficiently and effectively, and you could be the judge of how well I’m going to do that, because with these recordings I’ve done, I lay it all out, as concisely as I can, so people can understand the underlying systemic corruption in a way that will unite people.
Again, at this point, the most pivotal dividing line is between those who are in on the corruption, and those who are not… and 99.99% of the population is not in on the corruption.
My hope is that I can do this in a way where a large enough number people can vividly understand it, so we can effectively unite and create the change that we need. If we can accurately articulate it, in a way that a large number of people can understand, we can create the change that we need.
Look, I’m running for the fences here. We’ve got to reach that critical mass tipping point. We need to drop a Truth Bomb into the heart of the Death Star. We need to drop a Truth Bomb onto the shadow of the Global Imperial Centralizing dark side. We need to confront our collective shadow. We need to make the darkness conscious, illuminate the dark places. So we can transcend the shadow, so we can shed this skin.
I do have some reservations about proceeding with all this. You really are a gnat compared to the powerful forces operating around us, operating around the world. At this point, I’ve traveled too far down the road to turn back now. I’ve passed the point of no return long ago. The boats have been burnt long ago, and I’m at this point now, even if I wanted to walk away my conscience won’t let me, really, to be honest with you. Every time I try to retreat, every time I get hacked, every time my life gets turned upside down, when it becomes too difficult to make a living doing journalism, every time that happens, I have to retreat, I must retreat at those points, when it’s really bad.
So I retreat, and when I do, no matter what, somehow, someway, I still end up spending all my time investigating and researching systemic corruption and how power operates. Even when I’m not publishing online, even when I can’t publish online, I retreat into and refocus on more investigation and research. I just always keep sharpening the sword. This centripetal force has a life of its own now, it has a momentum beyond me.
I’m at a point now, where I can’t sleep at night. When you have so much vital information and you don’t proactively, consistently share it, it weighs on your conscience, it tears you apart. I get a divided soul. It weighs on your conscious heavily. You can’t live with a divided soul.
It’s that old Albert Einstein quote that haunts me. Einstein said, “Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.” That old Einstein haunts me. His words echo throughout my mind, “Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.” If you have vital info that you know can help people, you got to share it, you got to release it. Just let it go and fearlessly flow…
We are confronted by unprecedented crises now, across the board, crisis after crisis, they just keep getting worse. Meanwhile, there are viable solutions. We have the solutions. We can fix things. We can significantly improve everyone’s quality of life. It is time for innovations, existing innovations, which are being stifled, it is time for these innovations to be unleashed so they can reach a critical mass tipping point as efficiently as possible.
We have a global centralizing system that is enforcing scarcity in areas where there no longer needs to be scarcity. We have a global centralizing system that is systematically, systemically burying everyone in debt. A global centralizing system that is consolidating wealth and resources to make the masses dependent on it for ever-increasing debt.
How many people have to be unnecessarily exploited and unnecessarily impoverished? How many people have to live lives of exploitation and spend their lives toiling in debt slavery before the existing innovations and viable solutions to our major problems can reach a critical mass tipping point?
How many people have to die unnecessarily before known innovations can reach a critical mass?
That’s the question, that’s the challenge, that is the task upon us here. And when you understand the fundamental dynamics in such detail, you have to share that info, you got to just share that wisdom, even if you know it is going to be a difficult and an incredibly challenging road.
“Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.” I feel a profound sense of responsibility. I really do.
It is very hard for people to acknowledge and comprehend the level of corruption and collapse that is closing in on us, let alone to inspire people to effectively confront it. There is so much corruption and shortsighted suicidal greed, it’s overwhelming. It’s hard to focus on one thing.
To even acknowledge it, to truly acknowledge it causes you to question your reality in a deeply disturbing way, in a way that most people can’t handle or tolerate. To truly acknowledge it causes you to deeply question your reality in a deeply disturbing way.
The more traumatizing wider reality becomes, the more people indulge in their denial. People prefer comforting lies to disturbing truths. People prefer convenient, comforting lies to difficult, challenging truths.
This is how “good” people end up on the wrong side of history. Never underestimate people’s ability to block out the evil that is growing around us.
“Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.”
Ultimately, at the end of the day, it is our responsibility to solve these problems. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It is our responsibility to solve these problems. Like it or not. There is no avoiding the consequences, the frontlines are everywhere.
To not take bold action now is a grotesque abdication of responsibility, responsibility to our nation, responsibility to our families, responsibility to our own future, and quite frankly, our responsibility to the future of life on this planet.
“Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.”
It is all the unnecessary suffering; that’s what tears you apart. There is so much unnecessary suffering throughout the world. There is so much unnecessary exploitation, unnecessary death, unnecessary debt, unnecessary stress and anxiety. You know, people live under constant stress and anxiety these days, unnecessary stress and anxiety. It is such a waste of human potential. No wonder suicide rates and depression rates have skyrocketed, as well as addiction, prescription medication rates, it all correlates to all-time record-breaking debt.
There is so much unnecessary suffering throughout the world. With modern technology, with modern wealth, with present overall wealth and current technology, we can dramatically improve everyone’s quality of life.
There are three things that people vastly underestimate… once you get a deep understanding of these three things, it’s a game-changer, it’s a consciousness-expanding paradigm shift.
Here are three things that people vastly underestimate…
1) How much wealth there presently is; which we’ll be getting deep into, all three of these things that people vastly underestimate will be major areas of focus throughout this series.
1) How much wealth there presently is;
2) What is possible with modern technology;
3) How psychologically conditioned we are.
This is going to sound extreme: people vastly underestimate how psychologically conditioned, how mentally enslaved, how propagandized we all are. People vastly underestimate how psychologically manipulated we all are.
Most people can’t even imagine other ways of living. Most people can’t even imagine what is presently possible.
I’ll be going real deep into psychological conditioning. People vastly underestimate how psychologically conditioned we all are, from the cradle to the grave, Skinner Box bred in a token economy. I’ll be going real deep into all this.
“To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill.” Sun Tzu said that in The Art of War.
Propaganda and psychological operations. Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.
We are going to construct a Psychological Underground Railroad. That’s what we are going to do. It’s a revolution of consciousness. It’s an evolution of consciousness, that’s what it is. An evolution of consciousness, that’s what’s happening.
The enlightened individual is the path to freedom. The enlightened individual is the path to unity… as the paradoxical nature of it all reveals itself. An evolution of consciousness, that’s what’s happening.
At the end of the day, we are all entangled particles living in mutualistic symbiosis. We are entangled particles living in mutualistic symbiosis. Therefore, the more you empower others, the more empowered you become. What you do to the web of life, you do to yourself. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Positive feedback loops.
This where science, religion and philosophies that have lasted through the ages all coalesce and converge into alignment: we are entangled particles living in mutualistic symbiosis. Therefore, the more you empower others, the more empowered you become. Positive feedback loops. What you do to the web of life, you do to yourself. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.
The enlightened individual is the path to unity. Time for an evolution of consciousness. Mass transformation via self-actualization. Emancipate yourself. Time for a Do It Yourself, a D.I.Y. decentralized uprising. None but ourselves. That’s all we need. None but ourselves.
I’m getting a little worked up again. It’s true though. I’ll lay it all out for your skeptical mind. Much more to be said, of course. We’ll be diving deeply into all three of these topics throughout this series, all significant areas that are vastly underestimated…
1) How much wealth there is;
2) What is possible with modern technology; (It is easier to fish than it’s ever been. I think one of the distinguishing characteristics, a distinction between the old paradigm and the new paradigm: the old paradigm wants you to become dependent on centralized systems, they want to give you fish; the new paradigm empowers you to be self-sufficient when it comes to the basic necessities of life. The new paradigm gives you the tools to fish. It makes you independent of the old paradigm. So that old wisdom about teaching people to fish instead of giving them fish, that’s perfect for the distinction between the old paradigm and the new paradigm. And what is possible with modern technology now, it makes fishing easier than ever, and teaching people to fish is easier than ever. Because of modern technology it is easier than ever to teach people to fish and to give them the tools so they can effectively fish. So the 2nd underestimated thing is what is possible with modern technology. It’s all about empowering self-actualization, self-determination, self-reliance, self-sufficiency. We don’t need that old corrupted centralizing system anymore. We can become self-sufficient for the basic necessities of life at a very micro-community level. I’m going to go deep into detail on all that.)
3) How psychologically conditioned we are.
Once you understand any of those three topics, it is a consciousness-expanding paradigm shift.
Having such a deep understanding of this, having such a deep understanding of how this is all playing out, it weighs on my conscious, heavily. It seriously does, it weighs on my conscious big time. It drives everything I do.
“Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.”
At this point, if I’m not doing everything I can to get vital info out, I can’t sleep at night, can’t live with myself if I’m not sharing all this info, my conscious won’t let me do anything else right now.
You know… I do have hesitations though, some fear. I’m battle weary. Look, I am battle weary, that is for sure, but it’s like, you have to speak up, at this point, you have to act, you have to do what you can do. It’s like… you know that wisdom from the Gospel of Thomas, that wise quote that says:
“If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
That’s so true. As above, so below, and the flip side of that wise quote is:
“If you bring forth what is within you,
what you bring forth will save you.”
There is some hardcore optimism for you. “Don’t die with your music still inside you.”
So, yeah, I do have hesitations though, admittedly, there is some fear lurking in the shadows, The Shadows That Be. I’m battle weary, but battle-tested too, full of hard-fought battle-tested wisdom. I’ve been deep into the cave that most fear to enter. I’ve taken a long walk through the valley of the shadow of death. They say to “fear no evil,” ha, yeah, easier said than done, watch out for PTSD, right, that’s for sure… “As Above, So Below,” you know?
They say to “fear no evil,” ha, yeah. It’s like a wise warrior once said, “Everyone’s got a plan, until they get punched in the face.”
“It’s not how hard you can hit, it’s how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.” Right? A little Rocky wisdom hits hard. “Life will beat you to your knees if you let.” That’s the truth of it. “It’s how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.” We need to keep moving forward.
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” MLK sad that. We need to keep moving forward. That’s the essence of life. Obstacles and adversity fuel our potential.
“Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.”
I do feel an intense sense of obligation and duty to do this. I seriously do. My whole life has led to this, one way or the other. “Don’t die with your music still inside you.”
Life is a brief burst of infinite possibility. We are all stars in the cosmic movie. Choose your role wisely. It’s a Hero’s Journey. Time to slay the dragon. Be aware… “As Above, So Below.”
I am a hardcore optimist who sees many fixable problems. I do believe that there is a bright future to build toward, but, alas, the hour is late for optimistic outcomes.
The inevitable confrontation with the collective Shadow is upon us. The inevitable confrontation with our collective unconscious. The Shadow beckons. The cave we fear to enter holds the elixir that we seek. The archetypes are all there, made manifest. The archetypes are in alignment. The archetypal resonance is profound.
In Carl Jung’s work — I’ve learned to love Carl Jung, I’ll reference him often — I have found that his work correlates very well with how power operates, globally. Profound examples of “As Above, So Below” insights, spine-tingling examples, hair-raising. So Jung says that you cannot evolve in a holistically healthy and sustainable way “until the shadow is adequately confronted.”
At this stage of evolution, at this phase of existence, we are now in a Jungian confrontation with our collective shadow. In many ways, it is a confrontation with our collective unconscious.
The old pre-existing Dominance Hierarchy, what I call the Oligarchy Dominance Hierarchy, is an old, outdated paradigm, an old paradigm that has now outlived its usefulness. It is now a shadow that needs to be adequately confronted. It is a skin that must be shed, in an evolutionary sense. I’ll describe all this much further throughout this series.
As Jung said, to become enlightened, to holistically evolve, we need to make “the darkness conscious.” We need to “illuminate the shadow.” We need to “adequately confront the shadow.” Unfortunately, based on what I’ve been able to decipher, it appears Jung was right, “As Above, So Below.”
It is a Carl Jung-esque night sea journey. It’s the maelstrom. On the precipice of the abyss, an evolutionary leap is required. Fear not though, fear not: “The Abyss appears dangerous only to those afraid to test their inner depths.” The abyss is only the end for those who are frightened to reach down into their inner depths and give their best.
Doing the best you can in challenging times is the ultimate evolutionary life force. Do the best you can do. Persevere in service to the greater good. If you have an unbreakable faith, you will eventually experience a breakthrough. An unbreakable faith will lead to a breakthrough.
This is where that Amor Fati mindset comes in. Where those insightful Stoic philosophies emerge as actionable wisdom. Obstacles and adversity fuel our potential. The battle against an obstacle propels us to a new level of functioning. The extent of the battle determines the extent of the growth. We must learn to see the obstacle as a tool propelling growth. The obstacle is a catalyst. The obstacle is an evolutionary catalyst.
The obstacle is a prerequisite to our evolution. The obstacle is an evolutionary catalyst. That’s the attitude to take, that’s hardcore optimism right there: the obstacle is an evolutionary catalyst. That’s the attitude that we need to transcend this crisis.
These Stoic philosophies tie into Carl Jung’s confrontation with the shadow as well. We can’t be holistically healthy, in a sustainable way, until the shadow is adequately confronted. We can’t just ignore our collective shadow, as we have been doing. It needs to be acknowledged, it needs to be exposed to the light and adequately dealt with.
Here is another “As Above, So Below” insight from Jung, “Only when we realize that part of ourselves which we have not hitherto seen or preferred not to see can we proceed to question and find the sources from which it feeds and the basis on which it rests.” That timely, deep wisdom, derived from the depths of depth psychology was also discovered by another prominent psychologist Ronald Laing. Laing sums up this point, and our present overall crisis in the brilliant and aptly titled book, “The Politics of Experience,” I love that title, “The Politics of Experience” indeed. In “The Politics of Experience” Laing says:
“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”
Indeed, ‘The cave we fear to enter holds the treasure we seek,’ as Joseph Campbell summed up the myths of the ages and the Hero’s Journey. “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” “As Above, So Below.” It’s always in that shadow, that thing that you fear the most, that thing that you would prefer to ignore, that blind spot that holds us back. We must illuminate the shadows, expose them to light, and once adequately confronted, we can then transcend them and evolve into a bright future of unprecedented abundance.
As Carl Jung put it, “The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal.”
Right, the obstacle propels us to new levels of functioning. The obstacle, the shadow once realized, it becomes an evolutionary catalyst. “The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal.” That was Carl Jung’s deep insight, from the depths of depth psychology. From the depths of the deep unconscious, from Jung’s exploration into the deep collective unconscious, he returned with this wisdom, “The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal.”
The archetypes are all there, made manifest. They are in alignment. The archetypal resonance is profound. It’s a Hero’s Journey. It’s time to slay the dragon. The cave we fear to enter holds the elixir that we seek.
Obstacles and adversity fuel our potential. That’s the mindset we need. That’s the mindset we need as we begin to embark on our Hero’s Journey deep into The Shadows That Be.
So much vital info, a wealth of wisdom to share… It’s time to slay the dragon. Piece by piece, bit by bit, brick by brick, pixel by pixel. Dismantling of the illusion, shedding a skin, shifting a paradigm… “just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending it turned into a butterfly.”
Obstacles and adversity fuel our potential. That’s the mindset we need.
I need to get into a flow… so much vital info, a wealth of wisdom to share… just it let go and flow… just let go and fearlessly flow… so much vital info, a wealth of wisdom to share… don’t overthink it… don’t overthink it, just let go and fearlessly flow… speak the truth. Transparently flow, genuinely flow, with sincerity… authentically… just be yourself… so much vital info, a wealth of wisdom to share… battle-tested wisdom… just speak the truth, just let go and fearlessly flow…
It’s a Hero’s Journey. Time to slay the dragon.
My mission is to accurately articulate what is presently unfolding… as concisely as possible… so a large number of people can understand it…
My mission, as a journalist, and as a person trying to understand the world around us, my mission as a person trying to successfully navigate the world around us, to navigate the power dynamics that swirl around us, my mission is to accurately articulate what is presently unfolding… as concisely as possible… so we can understand it, so we can then take that info and apply it to our own life and get tangible results, positive, empowering, life-enhancing results, that’s where the action is at, where the magic is at.
Chaos Magick… to dive deeply into the swirling chaos that surrounds us and to extract deeper meaning out of it. To accurately articulate what is presently unfolding… it takes eternal vigilance to get up on that wave, to ride the ever-evolving cutting-edge of viable truth in search of useful, actionable wisdom, that’s where the action is at, where the magic is at.
To dive deeply into the ever-evolving swirling chaos that surrounds us and extract useful, actionable wisdom out of it, to translate deeper truth back to you, so you can then apply it to your own life, so it can give you a better understanding of your own situation, so you can more effectively deal with your own issues, so it can empower you and help you to navigate the power dynamics that swirl around us. So we can positively affect them to get life-enhancing results, so we can live meaningful and fulfilling lives, that’s where the action is at.
That old wisdom from Thomas Jefferson, which propelled me down this path to the present moment, to what we’re doing here, right now: “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
Right, that’s Carl Jung too, “expose the shadow to light.” Right? Perhaps, if we can accurately articulate the collective shadow as concisely as possible, in a way that a large number of people can understand it. Perhaps then, we can make tyranny and oppressions vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
We can make tyranny and oppressions vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of a new paradigm. Perhaps then, we can transcend this crisis non-violently without societal upheaval and without violent conflicts, without mass casualties. Perhaps then, we can transcend it and evolve into a new paradigm.
That’s it, yes, let’ do this… an evolution in consciousness. Yes, let’ do this… a paradigm shifting expansion of consciousness.
Let’s dive deeply into the swirling chaos that sounds us… “The fundamental rule when operating in chaos is to tell the ‘truth.; Allegiance to the ‘truth,’ that is the guidepost, that is the way through… ‘Truth’ is our sword & shield.” Let’s slay the dragon. It’s a Hero’s Journey.
Just transparently flow, so much vital info, a wealth of wisdom to share, serious hard-fought battle-tested wisdom, just let it go and fearlessly flow… just let it go and flow…
Be Here Now… where the magic is at… be present… be in the moment… be present… where the magic is at… Be Here Now… got to seize the moment… Be Here Now… got to seize the moment…
Carpe diem. Carpe diem.
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This article was originally published on Degraw.media.
The Trump regime launched an old-fashioned coup d’etat attempt to gain another imperial trophy – what it’s done scores of times before since the 19th century.
Key for the US is controlling what it’s coveted since Hugo Chavez’s election 20 years ago – control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the world’s largest.
They represent what the State Department said about Saudi oil in the 1940s, calling its reserves a “stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”
The Trump regime wants Venezuelan reserves controlled by Big Oil, likely willing to do whatever it takes to achieve its aim, military intervention an option if other tactics in play fail.
New millennium resource wars are raging in the Middle East, as well as other oil and other commodity-rich parts of the world – a modern-day super-high stakes great game.
Henry Kissinger once said that
“control(ing) oil (is how to) control nations.”
He also said
“(o)il is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs.”
The same goes for Venezuela and other oil-rich states, mainly Russia, a nation of vast hydrocarbon and other highly valued resources, including timber, iron ore, copper, diamonds, lead, zinc, bauxite, nickel, tin, mercury, gold, silver, manganese, chromium, platinum, titanium, tungsten, and phosphates – a strategic prize the US covets.
Its strategy for unchallenged global dominance involves controlling energy resources, other high-value commodities, food to control people, and money to control everything – controlling the world depends on it.
The Trump regime called a Security Council session on Venezuela, strong-arming enough SC members to agree on holding it – including Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Kuwait, Peru and Poland.
Against the session were China, Russia, South Africa, and Equatorial Guinea. Indonesia and Ivory Coast abstained. Operating as an imperial tool, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres failed to condemn the US coup attempt in Venezuela.
So did a UN press statement, citing a political crisis, the country “buckling under severe shortages” – saying nothing about US responsibility for what’s going on, waging political, economic, financial, and sanctions war on the country, flagrantly breaching the UN Charter and other international law, what the world body is supposed to speak out against.
The two-day session ending Saturday had nothing to do with gaining UNSC support for regime change in Venezuela, Sino/Russian veto power able to block the attempt.
The session was all about Trump regime grandstanding on the world stage, pretending its coup attempt is the right thing to do – ignoring international and US constitutional law, along with sovereign Venezuelan rights.
Pompeo represented imperial America at the session, his remarks hostile to the rights and welfare of the Venezuelan people he and other Trump regime hardliners pretend to support – faking it.
Russia envoy Vassily Nebenzia represented right over wrong. He denounced the SC meeting as a further attempt to destabilize Venezuela, part of the “US regime change strategy in” the country, adding:
“The United States is trying to initiate a coup d’etat in Venezuela” – a flagrant breach of international law and the country’s sovereignty.
The Trump regime “is painting a confrontation between (Maduro) and people of Venezuela. This picture is far from reality. In spite of everything, the leader of Venezuela obviously has broad support among people.”
“National Assembly leader (Juan Guaido), who is currently positioned by Washington as almost a president is not supported by almost 70 percent of the people of Venezuela.”
They stand with Maduro and Bolivarian social democracy against Washington’s regime change agenda.
“The cynical, overt interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state continues. It is necessary to put an end to this,” Nebenzia stressed.
US “interference into the internal affairs of other states is nothing new…treat(ing) Latin America (and everywhere else worldwide) as its backyard with no regard to the interests of people living there” – believing it’s the “warden of the Western hemisphere” and planet earth.
Brussels, including key EU states Britain, France, and Germany, demand Caracas erase last May’s democratic election results, an open, free, and fair process won by Maduro with a two-thirds majority – hailing his triumph at the time as a victory over “imperialism.”
US vassal states in Europe now demand if he doesn’t agree to a snap election rerun in eight days, they’ll recognize Guido as an interim president, an illegitimate one – backing the attempted coup over fundamental international law.
A Final Comment
Defending his nation’s sovereignty at the SC session, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Alberto Arreaza denounced the Trump regime’s attempt to abolish democratic rule in the country, saying:
“The United States is not behind the coup d’etat. It is in advance. It’s in the vanguard of the coup d’etat. It is dictating orders, not only to the Venezuelan opposition but also to the satellite governments in the region and, it seems, in Europe and the other parts of the world.”
Calling European countries “lackeys” of the US, he denounced their ultimatum. “Europe is giving us eight days?Where do you get that you have the power to establish a deadline or an ultimatum to a sovereign people? Where do you get this? It’s almost child-like.”
He took dead aim at Guaido’s illegitimacy, telling SC member states
“I challenge you to find a legal basis for the self-proclamation of an individual who wasn’t elected by anyone as president.”
It’s an embarrassment to be an American, a gangster state run by its criminal class, at war on humanity at home and abroad, its agenda threatening everyone everywhere.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Socialism isn’t the problem. The problem in Venezuela is the cancer of Western-supported deep state agencies that are subverting its political economy for the perceived benefit of a tiny transnational oligarch class.
The same agencies which helped to renovate the post 9/11 Canadian government, by ushering in the Harper Regime[1]— arguably a soft coup – and the on-going coup beneath the progressive veneer of the Trudeau regime, are hard at work in Venezuela.[2]
The Canadian government’s support for Juan Guaido in the name of democracy and freedom is beyond absurd because he has almost no support in Venezuela, and he was not elected to lead the country.
#Maduro got a higher competitive vote and a greater proportion of all possible votes than any of his key detractors: #Trump#Macri#Santos or #Piñera . The plain truth about #Venezuela– Prof. Tim Anderson
The Canadian government’s actions demonstrate clearly that it denies and negates democracy and freedom as policy. Nation-state sovereignty, ideological pluralism, and international law are all proven enemies to the Canadian government. This is amply demonstrated, not only in its support for the imperial puppet opposition in Venezuela, but also in the Canadian government’s support for ISIS, al Qaeda and assorted terrorists in Syria[3], as well as the government’s support for a neo-Nazi infested coup government[4] in Kiev.
Nation-state self-determination, ideological pluralism, democracy, and the rule of international law should be values that Western countries support rather than destroy.
Venezuela and its allies are fighting for us all when they oppose the deep state anti-democratic cancer of lawless imperialism.
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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
Around 66 million years ago a city-sized asteroid crashed into south-eastern Mexico, finally leaving behind it a crater almost 100 miles in diameter. The asteroid collided with a force of about one billion atomic bombs, such as the one dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II. Any living thing present within the locality was incinerated in a fraction of a second.
The impact unleashed a megatsunami, with waves over 300 feet high, that reached hundreds of miles away to what is now Texas and Florida in the United States. Furthermore, tremors following the asteroid’s contact resulted in worldwide earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, causing indescribable chaos and instability.
On that day the asteroid’s appearance signalled the end for our globe’s dinosaurs, including apex predators like Tyrannosaurus rex – which roamed in areas like Wyoming and Montana, approximately 3,000 miles north of the asteroid collision zone.
The T-rex itself may have been one of the last dinosaurs to die out, because of its broad diet and scavenging lifestyle, while it could run at speeds of up to 45 mph allowing it to catch any weakened prey. However, within a few short years, as global temperatures plummeted while food sources dwindled and disappeared, so too would the iconic carnivores. Their unavoidable decline and extinction was a fate that befell all land animals heavier than 25 kilogrammes (55 pounds).
The asteroid’s arrival entailed a rapid loss of 75% of all life on earth, known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. For up to a decade following the asteroid strike, sunlight was unable to reach earth’s surface due to dust particles in the stratosphere, cutting off the lifeblood of plants and affecting vast sections of the food chain.
Yet what is remarkable is that anything should have survived, let alone a quarter of what was living before. The asteroid’s explosive force was equivalent to millions of the most powerful nuclear bombs humankind has created. Certain species that survived this period exist even today like the goblin shark, frilled shark, crocodile, jelly fish and leatherback sea turtle.
If our globe could absorb such an assault and rebound to once more host great varieties of life, it can surely do so again in the scenario of nuclear war – whose chances have increased with the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight, although its hand did not advance this January as expected.
Humans themselves have displayed an undying fascination with dinosaurs, perhaps when viewing the gigantic reptiles they behold creatures that once ruled the planet as we do now. Humans have highlighted the lack of intelligence of dinosaurs, as a means of pointing to our own “superiority” and grandeur. However, dinosaurs dominated the globe for 175 million years, and would have continued to roam but for a certain intervention from above.
The first human ancestors arrived up to seven million years ago, while modern humans have been in existence for about 200,000 years. Today, one can say with confidence that Homo sapiens will not be commanding the world for anything like a similar time to the dinosaurs.
Continued survival of humans is, as documented, in growing jeopardy due to their leaders’ refusal in dismantling what can literally destroy the species: nuclear weapons. High intelligence, which is unique to humanity, comes at a considerable cost. The atomic bomb could not have been produced except by beings that possessed formidable brains; in this case a group of scientists working around the clock with Allied government backing, apparently immune to the consequences of their actions.
These policies are a testament to how dangerous humans can be. When one looks at the example of nuclear weapons, the reputation of Tyrannosaurus rex is practically benign by comparison. Dinosaurs, no matter how large, were not a threat to life on earth and fitted into the food chain then in place. What’s more, dinosaurs were not harming the ecosystems around them, as humans currently are leading to the planet’s sixth mass extinction.
Over the past 70 years, there has been a chilling record with weapons of mass destruction, as last minute intervention was required more than once to avert nuclear catastrophe. At other times, sheer luck played out in the face of blundering and recklessness.
In spite of everything, modernization of nuclear arsenals is continuing, led recently by the Obama administration; this overhaul is now firmly pursued by president Donald Trump at a $1.2 trillion cost “over the next 30 years”, sparking an inevitable arms race.
Come the event of nuclear war, those humans who could possibly overcome an unfolding nuclear winter, are tiny numbers like the Waorani people of remote Amazonian Ecuador. Tribal communities such as the Waorani are remarkably adept at surviving in difficult terrain over generations, and have an old saying that: “The rivers and trees are our life”. For the so-called civilized populations of the first world, increasingly detached from nature and crowded into cities, similar viewpoints have become alien and forgotten.
Other ancient societies present in the Amazon and separate rainforests, along with hardy souls like the Sami people scattered around the Arctic Circle, may also have a chance of pulling through the nuclear winter phenomenon.
Meanwhile, nuclear weapons’ ongoing existence is presented to the public as a means of safeguarding “national security”. In reality the opposite is true. The greatest threat to America’s safety, the leading military power, is that of nuclear weapons. Should America initiate a first strike nuclear attack against Russia or China, without retaliation from either, it would still destroy the western superpower because of nuclear winter.
Climate change is another cataclysmic issue, but compared to nuclear war, a warming world is not likely to pose as immediate a threat to entire humankind. Nations like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others – stiflingly hot already – will quite probably become uninhabitable for people in the decades ahead. Yet there are other states that still enjoy moderate, comfortable climates such as Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, which can surely support human life for the foreseeable future. As too might extensive sections of the US, Canada and elsewhere.
While the existing global warming period, which dates to the mid-19th century, is indeed very serious and should not be underestimated, there have been many aeons of climatic alteration over the planet’s 4.5 billion year lifespan. Some of these climate ages were far harsher by comparison to what our earth is presently enduring. The globe has always survived and recovered, though innumerable species were wiped out.
More than 55 million years ago, with the dinosaurs mere bone and ash, the earth was up to eight Celsius (46 Fahrenheit) warmer than current temperatures. The planet resisted this scalding heat and life again flourished, taking about 200,000 years for something like normality to return.
Three million years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch, the world was on average two to three Celsius warmer than today, with sea levels a staggering 25 metres higher. At this stage, our early human predecessors existed and somehow came through. About 125,000 years ago the planet was slightly warmer than now, with sea levels six to nine metres above present heights, but modern humans overcame these challenges.
In more familiar times, during the age of ancient Rome, there was a “Roman Warm Period” in which the legions may have been able to grow grapes in northern England. The mild climate persisted for around 650 years (250 BC–400 AD), peaking in the first century AD, while affecting broad regions of Europe and the North Atlantic.
It was during this era of warming the Carthaginian commander Hannibal, born in 247 BC, crossed the Alps in a legendary military excursion against Rome with almost 50,000 men and 38 elephants.
Overall, the Roman Warm Period was not as severe or universal as the conditions we are now experiencing. Roughly a millenia later, another unusual occurrence of climatic variation was witnessed by modern humans during the “Medieval Warm Period”, stretching from about 950 AD to the mid-13th century. This span of heating mostly affected the Northern Hemisphere too, and as with the Roman Warm Period, it was not a uniformly global event – nor was it as dramatic as today’s temperature increases driven by massive industrialized activity. Possible causes of the Medieval Warm Period include rises in solar activity, along with a change in ocean current circulation.
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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The favourable exchange rate between the US dollar and the highly inflated Venezuelan bolívar is a key element in respect of understanding why Washington has decided to behave so brazenly in instigating a ‘Twitter Coup‘ against Caracas. While the United States Federal Reserve has no qualms about printing money in order to readily monetise its own debt and otherwise help feed a ballooning federal government and associated military-industrial complex, when it comes to objectively defined hyperinflation, Venezuela’s is the worst in the world.
At the end of 2018, Venezuela’s inflation rate was 1,698,488%, making it the worst in the world by an exponential factor. By contrast, the country with the second highest inflation rate in the world, South Sudan stood at 117%. This means that in dollar-for-dollar terms, it is theoretically easier to “buy off” a Venezuelan official than any other in the world, because just about any easily convertible currency or asset in the world will go a long way in inflation rife Venezuela. Of course in reality, it appears that the vast majority of Venezuelan officials are loyal to their constitution and their constitutional defined elected President Nicolas Maduro. That being said, one does have to allow for human weakness when analysing such a situation and at the end of the day, shouting “solidarity” is free, but the temptation of a proverbial fist full of dollars (or frankly any other currency) is clearly a seductive prospect for anyone in Venezuela.
Against this background, it appears that the first Venezuelan domino to fall has been an erstwhile little known military attache at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington called Colonel Jose Luis Silva (image on the right). Silva has reportedly defected from President Maduro’s government and has joined the United States in recognising self-appointed “President” Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s head of sate. Whilst there is not yet any evidence that any money or assets exchanged hands between US officials and Colonel Silva, it would not take one with a wild imagination to picture such a thing taking place, not least since Silva was already working in Washington D.C.
The legitimate Venezuelan government did not waste time in condemning Silva. According to the Defence Ministry in Caracas:
“To surrender to international interests is an act of treason and cowardice towards the homeland inherited from our liberator Simon Bolivar, so we reject the statements of Col. Jose Luis Silva, who had served as military attache to the United States”.
While this is clearly a robust statement, the fact remains that the current political crisis is not going to make Venezuela’s inflation woes any better and thus, the prospect of other top Venezuelan officials defecting to the pro-US self-proclaimed leader is not a conspiracy theory, but a very likely possibility over the course of the coming days and week.
In this respect, it must be said that the problems facing Venezuela make a strong argument for sound money. In fact, Venezuela’s President himself has realised the importance of sound money and looked to create a new crypto-currency known as El Petro. Launched last year, El Petro is pegged to the value of Venezuela’s chief asset, oil. Beyond this, Venezuela’s natural gold resources also meant that Venezuela could have and perhaps should have gone on to a gold standard. Sadly though for President Maduro, foreign powers have conspired to make Venezuela’s history of unsound monetary policy even worse.
First of all, the US government banned its citizens from purchasing El Petro and threatened sanctions upon non-US entities and civilians who traded in the digital but nevertheless sound currency. Secondly, as over $1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold is in the Bank of England, the gold has effectively been stolen from Caracas as the authorities in the The City of London have refused to allow Venezuela to withdraw its own gold from its own deposit at the UK’s central bank.
Thus, while Venezuelan leaders can and should be blamed for allowing hyperinflation to spiral out of control during years of low global oil prices, when at last Caracas realised that gold and an oil based currency are the best means of trying to get out of the crises, Venezuela should have been applauded rather than punished for making a decision to at least try and pivot towards a sound monetary foundation.
Yet instead of allowing markets rather than geopolitical mercantilism to determine policy, the US has predictably moved to strangle Venezuelan attempts to free up its own assets in order to develop something like a duel track currency model where the existing de-facto worthless bolívar might co-exist next to El Petro as well as some sort of gold backed currency.
This is of course not the first time that monetary policy among resource rich nations has led to the US taking action to undermine a UN recognised legitimate government. Prior to the 2003 war on Iraq, President Saddam Hussein dumped the petro-dollar and began trading Iraq’s oil in the then new Euro currency. Likewise, prior to the 2011 NATO invasion of Libya, the country’s revolutionary leader Muammar Gaddafi sought to put all of Africa on a gold standard as he prepared to finalise plans for a gold backed African dinar.
It should therefore not be a surprise that months after the launch of El Petro and weeks after Venezuela sought to withdraw some of its gold from the Bank of England – Washington pounced. The fact of the matter is that foreign competitors remaining dollar poor is a crucial foreign policy goal for a superpower whose own currency remains a global reserve currency, in spite of being backed by nothing by the international belief that the US will eventually pay back its trillions worth of debt. In this sense, because the Federal Reserve is the king of ‘voodoo monetary policy’, the US is best placed to insure its own wealth by punishing foreign nations that might otherwise develop a more sound monetary policy than that of a United States whose own currency has continually lost value since departing from the gold standard.
By contrast, if nations like Libya or Venezuela successfully adopted sound money principles, sanctions would be far less easy to enforce, whilst the domestic economies in question could thrive in a relatively inflation free environment and one in which interest rates could remain low without feeding inflation.
In this sense, while inflation had long been a problem for individual Venezuelans, now the problem is being exacerbated by the temptation that many officials will clearly have to defect to a self-proclaimed leader that is backed by the US government – which means he is also backed by a US dollar that remains stronger than Venezuela’s national currency.
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“ALL tailings ‘ponds’ are a problem. If they don’t breach and spill massive amounts of toxic sludge into the environment like at Mount Polley, they leach that contamination slowly, poisoning the waters and lands (and aquifers) around them for centuries.” – (Council of Canadians)
The two most recent Brazilian open-pit mine “accidents” that will be discussed in this extended-length Duty to Warn column, will probably require close to a trillion dollar death and disability benefits for just the following two categories:
1) the hundreds of dead and wounded miners (and their grieving families); and
2) the massive amounts of property damaged that was owned by the thousands of government and private owners whose roads, bridges, homes, land, lives and health that were destroyed or damaged after the deluge – all the way to the coast. Carefully study the photos below and visualize the St Louis River.
These realities invite the following questions for families of miners and property-owners downstream from the proposed PolyMet copper/nickel mine tailings lagoon that is supposed to be built at the headwaters of the St Louis River in northern Minnesota:
Question # 1: Did the two Brazilian mining companies Samarco and Vale and the multinational mining corporation BHP Billiton plc have sufficiently large escrow accounts to cover the compensation costs that will be owed to the 200 – 300 families whose head-of-household miners drowned in agony on January 25, 2019?
Question # 2: Is the MN DNR, the MN PCA, the MN Chambers of Commerce and the MN State Government requiring the foreign mining companies PolyMet, Glencore and Antofagasta to put aside sufficient escrow money to cover the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be required to pay for all the costs of similar mining disasters in Minnesota that could very easily
A) pollute and make inhabitable the entire St. Louis River estuary along with its fish, wildlife and wild rice;
B) destroy and make inhabitable the dozen or so northern Minnesota river towns that are located downstream from the seriously toxic PolyMet tailings lagoon (with its 250 foot high earthen dam walls (holding back billions of gallons of eternally toxic sludge) that are hoped (finger’s crossed) to not liquify, dissolve, overtop and/or burst over the next 500 years!); and, what might be the worst of all,
C) pollute the drinkable, fishable and swimmable waters of Lake Superior so that our progeny will not understand what the great lake once meant to the Northland’s ecosystem?
Question # 3: Would a trillion-dollar escrow account even be enough to cover the potential damages from a serious PolyMet dam failure that reaches Lake Superior?
Question # 4: Should Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario have a say in what happens to Lake Superior because of the short-sighted plans of Minnesota’s lawmakers and bureaucrats?
Following are some historical and current event’s lessons for starry-eyed Minnesota politicians, bureaucrats, investors and wannabe copper miners who have been expertly bamboozled by PolyMet and assorted other foreign non-ferrous mining corporations to ignore the huge risks involved in inviting a foreign, penny stock mining corporation to dig an experimental mine in our pristine wilderness for the sake of a few hundred temporary mining jobs.
Read on to better understand the well-concealed risks and recall that corporations only have a fiduciary duty to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. They only consider the long-term environmental damage that they will leave behind if and when there is a significant possibility of serious legal ramifications.
Residents of the dozen or so river towns that are located on or near the banks of northern Minnesota’s reasonably healthy St Louis River need to be aware of the solemn warnings in this column. Those river towns include, in descending order from north to south: Hoyt Lakes, Aurora, Meadowlands, Floodwood, Brookston, Cloquet, Scanlon, Carlton, Thomson, Wrenshall, Duluth and Superior (WI).
(To better understand the geography of the St Louis River estuary, click this.)
I think most residents of and visitors to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario understand the importance of leaving behind to the next generation a healthy, drinkable, fishable and swimmable Lake Superior. Hopefully readers will pay attention to the information presented here, and then do what they can to oppose the dangerous PolyMet project.
Even state-of-the-art mine tailings ponds that use earthen dams like the one proposed for PolyMet’s mine waste lagoon, are subject to liquification, overtopping, rain deluges, earthquakes and therefore sudden dam wall breaches that can destroy for a generation or more every living thing – including fish – in the watershed downstream.
Even tributaries can be both polluted in the sudden sludge surge that can temporarily reverse the flow of a creek or river. If the toxic sludge enters a lake, the bottom will become permanently too toxic for spawning or bottom feeding, and future thermocline changes can renew the poisoning of the lake over and over again.
Multinational mining corporations have poisoned environments – sometimes gradually, sometimes catastrophically – wherever on the planet they have extracted minerals or petroleum– NO EXCEPTIONS. And the worst examples of pollution have happened in water-rich environments like Minnesota.
Giant multinational mining corporations like Vale, BHP Billiton plc and Samarco (each of which have extensive mining operations in Brazil) have again demonstrated to the world that they can’t be trusted; for on January 25, 2019, these conscienceless corporations have perpetrated another environmental catastrophe on Brazil.
This time the company’s miners and mine workers were the ones that suffered the most. Looking at the photos below will make it clear why this one was far more lethal than the Samarco disaster in 2015 that was called the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of Brazil.
Read on and come to the realization that similar disasters could easily happen to whomever and whatever happens to be downstream from the proposed PolyMet/NorthMet/Glencore sulfuric acid-producing copper/nickel mine whose earthen tailings pond is scheduled to rise to an eventually unstable height of 250 feet!!
Important parts of northern Minnesota could easily be poisoned irreparably, despite what the starry-eyed, bamboozled and/or possibly paid off politicians who haven’t thought through all of the long-term consequences of their votes and law-making efforts.
Mining-related industries spend lavish amounts of advertising money for propaganda purposes. PolyMet has also spent a lot of money on advertising in local and regional media outlets, thus creating loyal mouthpieces of those that accept that money. One example is the fact that PolyMet was a major sponsor of the Minnesota state hockey tournament for the last couple of years. A PolyMet employee once held an important position in the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.
Even admired, well-meaning Minnesota legislators like Klobuchar, Smith, Stauber, Nolan and many others, whether GOP or DFL, has experienced some level of corporate influence – including campaign “contributions” from the paymasters of the mining industry.
The high potential for sudden environmental catastrophes similar to Mount Polley (British Columbia 2014), Brazil’s Samarco mine (Brazil 2015), and now the Brumadinho mine (Brazil 2019)) – plus a hundred others since major multinational mining corporations began their global mineral extractions on a mass scale a century ago.
There have been at least four disastrous tailings lagoon failures just in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil over the past 20 years. There are over 750 tailings dams in that province alone, and 40 of them are considered to be at high risk of liquifying and rupturing. Even the so-called “state-of-the-art” mining corporations like Vale and BHP Billiton plc have no reliable method of preventing aging or otherwise endangered earthen dam walls from failing their purpose in holding back toxic liquid mine waste for an eternity.
The photo below is the mouth of the Rio Doce River (as it enters the Atlantic Ocean), photographed a few days after the dam breach killed every fish in the river. The fish died of both asphyxiation and poisoning because of the massive and sudden toxicity of the toxic mine waste from 300 miles upstream on that fateful day on November 5, 2015. The poisoned water rapidly flowed into the ocean and the previously lucrative fishing industry was destroyed. Commercial fishing in the vicinity of the Rio Doce is still forbidden by governmental decree three years later partly because the flesh of the surviving, sickened fish is still poisonous.
It shouldn’t be necessary to point out to intelligent politicians, voters, fishermen and visitors that appreciate a clean St Louis River that something very similar could easily happen to Lake Superior.
Every sovereign state (Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan), every sovereign indigenous nation and every sovereign Canadian province that regards Lake Superior as either sacred or simply a valuable resource needs to demand that Minnesota’s Governor Walz, Wisconsin’s Governor Emmers, the elected representatives in both political parties in both states and particularly the non-elected bureaucrats in the DNR, the PCA, the US Forest Service, the IRRRB and the Chambers of Commerce put an emergency hold on all the permits that have previously granted permission for PolyMet and Glencore to proceed with their dangerous plans.
The mine waste-contaminated mouth of Brazil’s Rio Doce, once a healthy fishery, as it enters the Atlantic Ocean (which remains contaminated after 3 years). (This is what could happen to Lake Superior if the earthen wall of PolyMet’s tailings lagoon suddenly liquifies, over-tops and collapses)
The remainder of the column summarizes early news item from around the world (except in northern Minnesota) reporting on what happened in Brazil’s mine country a few days ago. Some of the reports have helpfully made the connections to the earlier, equally catastrophic – but far less lethal – tailings lagoon collapse three years ago. The Brazilian mining company Vale was the part owner of both mines.
A demolished home lies in ruins after a dam collapsed near Brumadinho, Brazil the day after the dam failure
Officials say some 200 people are missing near the southeast Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte after a tailings dam owned by a mining company (Vale) collapsed Friday, unleashing a torrent of muddy waste and debris.
The mayor of Brumadinho, where the dam is located, said seven bodies had already been recovered and that he expects the death toll to rise.
The dam is owned by the mining giant Vale, which also operates a nearby iron ore mine.
Vale’s CEO, Fábio Schvartsman, said roughly 300 workers were on site at the time of the rupture and that at least two-thirds of them are unaccounted for.
Video footage from the site showed a helicopter rescue crew hovering over a wide field of reddish-brown mud, struggling to pull victims free.
The river of sludge forced the evacuation of some residents. This local TV footage shows a rescue mission.
In a statement, Vale confirmed the dam breach at the Feijão Mine in Minas Gerais state. It’s not clear why the dam ruptured.
“The first information indicates that the tailings had reached the companies administrative area and part of the Vila Ferteco community,” it said.
Schvartsman has apologized for the disaster, calling it “unacceptable,” according to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. He saidthat the dam was stable but in the process of being decommissioned. The company says it has initiated its “emergency plan for dams.”
Before and after photos of the area show a wide expanse of trees, fields, roads and buildings leveled by the river of sludge.
By Agence France-Presse – Manila Bulletin – January 26, 2019, 5:12 PM
Rescuers worked overnight into Saturday searching for around 300 people missing after a dam collapse at a mine in southeast Brazil killed at least nine, but the local governor said “odds are minimal” that the missing 300 would be found alive.
What’s left of the Vale mining company’s administrative buildings, a processing plant and assorted missing company buildings, including the company cafeteria and the barracks where hundreds of miners had been housed
The tailings dam, owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale, broke apart “very violently, very suddenly,” sending a massive torrent of mud over the complex where 300 mine employees were working.
Seven bodies were recovered Friday hours after the disaster, which saw a torrent of mud break through the disused dam at the iron-ore mine close to the city of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerias, around 1:00 pm. (The tailings lagoon had apparently been decommissioned in 2014.)
By early Saturday the official death toll had risen to nine, with “nearly 300 people missing,” the local firefighters said, doubling the number of people presumed missing from the previous toll.
Up to 150 of those missing worked in the company’s administrative offices which were closest to the dam break, the firefighters said.
The mine is owned by Vale, a Brazilian mining giant that was involved in a previous 2015 mine collapse in the same state that claimed 19 lives and is regarded as the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster.
Vale shares plummeted on the new accident, losing eight percent in New York trading.
Romeu Zema, the governor of Minas Gerais, told reporters that, while all was being done to find survivors, “from now, the odds are minimal and it is most likely we will recover only bodies.”
His regional administration said 427 people had been working at the Vale mine at the time of the dam collapse, and 279 were recovered alive. The others were listed as missing.
Newly Elected, Right-wing Brazilian President Bolsonaro to Visit the Mine Site
The massive, muddy flow from the collapse barreled towards the nearby town of Brumadinho, population 39,000, but did not hit it directly.
Instead, it carved its way across roads, vegetation and farmland, taking down a bridge, and damaging or destroying homes.
Emptied-out tailings lagoon (upper left), a still-intact, water/sludge-filled tailings lagoon (lower left) – and the downstream destruction represented in the entire upper half of the photo
Television images showed people being pulled out of waist-high mud into rescue helicopters, dozens of which were in use by late Friday because of the cut-off land access.
Brazil’s new government, led by President Jair Bolsonaro, reacted to its first big emergency since taking office early this month by launching disaster coordination between the defense, mining and environment ministries and authorities in the affected state of Minas Gerais.
Bolsonaro and his defense minister were scheduled to fly over the zone on Saturday. His environment minister raced to the area late Friday.
“Where are our relatives?” wailed Raquel Cristina, one of several people demanding information about their missing kin in the mud-hit area.
“My five-year-old nephew is asking me if his dad died. What do I tell him?” asked another, Olivia Rios.
Officials said they were working through the night, conscious of the precious hours ticking away.
Around 100 fire fighters were deployed, some using earth-moving machinery to dig down to engulfed dwellings.
Would-be rescue volunteers were warned away because of the slippery, perilous piles of mud. Media were urged not to use drones to avoid collisions with the helicopters.
‘Human tragedy’
Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman called the incident a “human tragedy” and was resigned to more deaths being confirmed at his company’s mine.
“We’re talking about probably a large number of victims — we don’t know how many, but we know it will be a high number,” he told a media conference in Rio de Janeiro.
Schvartsman, who had his two-year term renewed last month by Vale’s board of directors, said it was an “inactive dam” (that was in the process of being decommissioned) that burst apart “very violently, very suddenly.”
Its contents — tailings, or mining byproducts mixed with water — cascaded into another dam, which also overflowed, he said.
The disaster recalled the 2015 dam break near Mariana, in Minas Gerais. That accident released millions of tons of toxic iron mining waste along hundreds of kilometers. Vale was joint operator of that dam, along with the Anglo-Australian group BHP Billiton.
The Brazil office of Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, said Friday’s dam break was “a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies.”
It said the incidents “are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated,punished and repaired.”
View of toxic sludge in a large river – showing a tributary to the right where the sludge presumably moved upstream momentarily against the flow (note the fresh blue water – right upper corner of photo)
An aerial view shows a destroyed bridge after a dam collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil
No signs of any of the remains of this dam, signifying the power of the deluge
Rescue workers vainly searching for bodies
Totally washed-out highway that may have once crossed a small river
Sludge has obliterated a highway – and much more
Searching for bodies downstream from the mine tailings pond breach
Satellite image from 12 November 2015, one week after the Samarco mine disaster
Part of a destroyed village that was downstream from Brazil’s Samarco Mine in 2015
Samarco delegates signed the agreement in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
The owners and operators of an iron ore mine where a burst dam flattened a village, killed 19 people and caused “the biggest environmental disaster in the history of Brazil,” settled with the government Wednesday for US$6.2 billion a year after the disaster.
The company is co-owned by Brazil’s Vale iron ore giant and the foreign-owned Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company.
President Dilma Rousseff said the settlement would help heal “a tragedy without precedent.” The funds, which will go toward social and environmental damages, will be paid out over 15 years.
The Nov. 5 accident near Mariana in Minas Gerais state began when a tailings dam at Samarco’s mine failed, unleashing a flood of polluted water and mud into the River Doce, one of the most important rivers in Brazil.
A village was destroyed, drinking water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people were interrupted and damage extended to the mouth of the river on the Atlantic coast, with wildlife, tourism businesses and fishing communities all suffering. Seven people have been accused of murder over the catastrophe.
Contaminated river in Brazil, 2015 (presumably the Rio Doce) – note the large number of floating uprooted logs from the upstream tailings dam breach
A massive ravine where a small stream once flowed
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said last November that the mud spill released from a dam collapse at an iron ore mine in Brazil earlier this month is in fact toxic, debunking claims by the mine’s operator that the mud was “chemically stable.”
Before and after satellite photos of the Atlantic Ocean showing toxic sludge from the Samarco dam collapse near the port of Regência – DigitalGlobe/Google
Citing “new evidence,” the U.N. human rights agency said in a statement the residue “contained high levels of toxic heavy metals and other toxic chemicals.”
“The scale of the environmental damage is the equivalent of 20,000 Olympic swimming pools of toxic mud waste contaminating the soil, rivers and water system of an area covering over 850 kilometers,” the U.N. agency’s special rapporteur John Knox said in the statement.
Brazil’s Globo TV reported that a previously unpublished document revealed that Samarco management had known that there were safety risks at the mine since 2013, including knowledge of the danger that the dam could burst.
The Samarco mine environmental disaster is being called the worst in Brazil’s history.
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Since his retirement from his holistic mental health practice, Dr Kohls has been writing the weekly Duty to Warn column for the Duluth Reader, Minnesota’s premier alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns, which have been re-published all around the world for the last decade, deal with a variety of justice issues, including the dangers of copper/nickel sulfide mining in water-rich northeast Minnesota, Many of his columns have been archived at a number of websites, including the following four:
Comments Off on The Experimental PolyMet Copper Sulfide Mine in Minnesota, the St Louis River, Lake Superior, and the Recent Brazilian Environmental Catastrophes
Prominent billionaire George Soros has launched an attack on China’s President Xi Jinping in his annual speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He warned that artificial intelligence and machine learning presented ‘unprecedented danger’ and ‘a mortal threat to open societies’ if used by authoritarian regimes. Soros has urged Washington to crack down on Chinese technology companies and said that President Xi’s Belt and Road investment plan was designed to promote only the interests of China.
Soros has also warned that the US and China are locked in a cold war that could soon turn into a hot one. The billionaire said that President Trump’s decision to call China a ‘strategic’ competitor was ‘too simplistic’. He said President Trump was making concessions to China while renewing his attacks on allies, which is liable to undermine the US policy objective of curbing China’s abuses and excesses.
Soros said – quote – an effective policy towards China can’t be reduced to a slogan, adding that it needs to be far more sophisticated, detailed and practical; and it must include an American economic response to the Belt and Road Initiative.
Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a trade dispute over import tariffs for months. The next round of negotiations is expected to take place at the end of January when Chinese Vice Premier Liu He meets with US officials in Washington.
Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Friday that Soros’ recent remark suggesting that Chinese President Xi Jinping is one of the strongest opponents of the concept of open societies does not even deserve to be refuted.
Radio Sputnik discussed the speech by George Soros at the World Economic Forum with Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, the Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
The US and the EU have extremely fragile economies to the extent that they depend on “Made in China” commodities.
Listen to the interview below.
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There’s a new thought policeman in town. He calls himself NewsGuard and he promises to restore “Trust and Accountability” to what one reads online. His website elaborates that “NewsGuard uses journalism to fight false news, misinformation, and disinformation. Our trained analysts, who are experienced journalists, research online news brands to help readers and viewers know which ones are trying to do legitimate journalism—and which are not…Our Green-Red ratings signal if a website is trying to get it right or instead has a hidden agenda or knowingly publishes falsehoods or propaganda.”
One might well stop reading immediately after running into “our trained analysts” with all that implies, but that would deny the greater pleasure derived from considering news-sites that have “…a hidden agenda or knowingly [publish] falsehoods or propaganda.” Excuse me, but hidden agendas, lies and propaganda are what the mainstream media is all about, note particularly the recent feeding frenzy over the Covington school incident at the Lincoln Memorial. Catholic racist white boys vs. elderly Native American war hero was how the story was framed all over the mainstream media before it became clear that the entire chosen narrative was upside down. Only a couple of news outlets bothered to apologize when the truth became known.
NewsGuard claims to have a staff of 50 that evaluates 2,000 websites in something like real time. How exactly it does that is not clear, but The New York Times repeats company claims that “the sites it rates account for 96% of online news and information engagement in the U.S.” NewsGuard also told The Times that it intends to quadruple its vetting of sites and seeks to make its coverage “ubiquitous.”
Make no mistake, NewsGuard is a neoconservative contrivance which promotes an establishment view of what is true and what is false. Its co-founder Gordon Crovitz (image on the right) is an ex-editor of The Wall Street Journal, who has enthused over the project, saying that it is “a milestone in the fight to bring consumers the information they need to counter false information, misinformation and disinformation online.” Crovitz has also been associated with the leading neocon foundation The American Enterprise Institute while the NewsGuard advisory board includes Tom Ridge, who was head of the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, and Michael Hayden, who directed both the CIA and NSA. It is as government-establishment in orientation as it is possible to be.
In a sense seeking to establish “accuracy” in news reporting is nothing new as the social media, to include Facebook and Twitter, have had that objective for some time, but NewsGuard defines itself as having as its target the screening of the entire media in a politically impartial fashion, as “an information resource.” And the real danger is that it will soon be appearing on your computer or phone whether you want it there or not. It is already installed on local library computers in Hawaii and Ohio and is working with university and even high school libraries to include its software on all public computers. Worse still, NewsGuard is in partnership with Microsoft as part of the latter’s Defending Democracy Program. Microsoft currently has NewsGuard on its Edge browser and it intends to install the tool on its Microsoft 10 operating system as a built-in feature. Microsoft 10 is the standard operating system on nearly all computers sold in the United States.
When you go to a news site NewsGuard has a little shield that pops up in the corner of your screen that will tell you whether that site is a reliable source or not. A green tag displays for approved and red for not compliant. Similarly, if you do a search the responses that come up will feature a green or red shield as part of the results. The site for NBC news shows green, approved, with the heading “this website generally maintains basic standards of accuracy and accountability.” It then uses what it calls a “nutrition label” to break down the nine specific areas that were assessed, each of which also receives and individual green check for NBC. Under “Credibility” appears “Does not repeatedly publish false content; Gathers and presents information responsibly; Regularly corrects or clarifies errors; Handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly; and Avoids deceptive headlines.” Under “Accountability” appears “Website discloses ownership and financing; Clearly labels advertising; Reveals who’s in charge including any possible conflict of interest; and The site provides names of any content creators along with either contact or biographical information.”
The first thing one might observe about the system is that it is designed to favor large, well-funded establishment news sources that are staffed to go through the motions of fact checks and corrections. All of the major news networks are approved, including Fox, MSNBC and CNN, all of which editorialize heavily, almost constantly, in their news coverage. Voice of America, which is a U.S. government propaganda instrument by design, also is approved. NewsGuard also has approved all major newspapers to include The New York Times, which frequently gets the story wrong, and The Washington Post, where news stories are nearly indistinguishable from editorials through the use of evocative headlines and slanted narrative. All the U.S. media currently leadoff, for example, with stories about Russia that include the assertion that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election, a claim that has yet to be confirmed through actual evidence.
Russian media operating in the U.S. including RT America and Sputnik get red ratings with a warning “Proceed with caution: this website fails to basic standards of accuracy and accountability.” RT is apparently guilty of “repeatedly publishing false content,” “not gather[ing] and publish[ing] information responsibly,” “not handl[ing] the difference between news and opinion responsibly” and “not provid[ing] the names of creators.” Al-Jazeera, another news service that often criticizes the United States and its governmental policies also is rated red, suggesting that the true criterion for rejection by NewsGuard is one’s relationship to the official establishment and globalist/interventionist line being promoted by the United States.
A glaring example of NewsGuard’s political bias relates to BuzzFeed, which is an approved site. The Washington Postreported recently how a BuzzFeed story about Michael Cohen and President Trump claimed that the president had directed his lawyer to lie to Congress regarding a proposed office tower project in Moscow, which would have been both a crime and impeachable. A day later Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office intervened and described the story as untrue. The New York Times ran the first story on page one but the retraction that followed appeared on page 11.
And it was not the first major bit of fake news for BuzzFeed. The same two journalists had previously reported that Russia had financed the 2016 election.
CNN, another NewsGuard green authority, inevitably bemoaned possible consequences arising from the Cohen-Trump story by complaining that it would be used to justify “bad stereotypes about the news media,” had its own Russiagate misstep when it falsely claimed that Donald Trump Jr had had access to WikiLeaks’ DNC emails before their 2016 publication.
The BBC, yet another reliable source approved by NewsGuard, reported back in September that the U.S. government had evidence that the Syrian “regime” was continuing to develop chemical weapons. It added an assessment from the completely befuddled U.S. envoy for Syria James Jeffrey that “President Assad had ‘no future as a ruler’ in Syria…Right now [the Syrian government] is a cadaver sitting in rubble with just half the territory of Syria under regime control on a good day.”
The fact is that Jeffrey was completely wrong about developments in Syria, where the government had been extremely successful in re-asserting control over nearly all of the country, while the claims of chemical weapons use have been rebutted many times, including by actual witnesses and journalists on the ground during the alleged attack at Douma in April.
Reuters news agency, yet another NewsGuard green light, is also into the game. In November 2013 it published an article, part of a series, entitled “Khamenei controls massive financial empire based on property seizures,” which claimed that an Iranian government charitable foundation called Setad (also known as EIKO) actually exists to take control of property for the use of the government’s religious leadership.
A subsequent news report that appeared in January in the alternative media revealed that the investigative journalists who wrote the story did so from Dubai, London and New York and never visited the properties they identified, in most cases completely misrepresenting what could be seen on the ground.
Robert Fontina of Counterpunch has also rejected the depiction of Setad as anything but a charitable foundation. The truth is that Setad engages in major social projects, including rural poverty alleviation, empowering women, home and school building, and provision of healthcare. Fontina observes that American sanctions against it and similar entities hit ordinary Iranians’ lives by producing food insecurity while also restricting the supplies of needed medications. Ahmad Noroozi of the Barakat Foundation claims that numerous Iranians have already been affected by U.S.-initiated sanctions directed against his country, restricting access to cancer treatments and other pharmaceuticals.
So who gets the endorsement from NewsGuard? Those who toe the line on U.S. policy and the establishment globalist/interventionist agenda. It would be interesting to know what NewsGuard’s staff of analysts is really looking for when it researches a site or media outlet. As the examples cited above demonstrate, NewsGuard has nothing to do with taking pains to report the news accurately, nor is there any evidence of real accountability. It is all about who pays the bills and who is in charge. They give the orders and one either falls in line or goes out the door. That is the reality of today’s mainstream media.
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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
France has once again been the scene of the “gilet jaunes” (yellow vests) demonstrations against the worsening social conditions of workers under the neo-liberal policies of La Republique en Marche government of President Emmanuel Macron.
Protests on January 26 attracted tens of thousands continuing the 11 weeks of disturbances where many have been injured, hundreds arrested and several people have lost their lives.
On January 26 there was another social variant to these developments where an alternative group calling themselves the “foulards rouges” (red scarves) said they would go into the streets the following day to oppose the level of violence which has been a hallmark of the French manifestations. The Macron administration in the early weeks of the unrest withdrew the price hike for fuel which served as a spark for the spontaneous uprising.
The situation in France is indicative of broader crises in the political systems in the leading capitalist nations, namely England and the United States. In Britain, a June 2016 referendum mandating the country’s exiting of the European Union (EU) immediately brought about the resignation of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron leading to the ascendancy of his successor Theresa May, who has been proved incapable of winning support within the parliament for a planned departure from the continental body. May has faced two votes of no-confidence, the most recent by a razor thin margin, while the Conservative leader remains almost powerless as it relates to providing direction in such a profound political quagmire.
France yellow vest demonstrations continue for 11th week on Jan. 26, 2019
In the U.S, a 35-day partial closing of the government impacting at least 800,000 federal workers along with tens of millions of others depending upon public services was a clear reflection of the intractable dispute between the two leading capitalist parties. The Democrats and Republicans are both imperialist in their orientation although having different demographic constituencies, they therefore cannot agree on issues such as healthcare, immigration and border security.
French Discontent and the Problems of Neo-Liberalism
For the 11thstraight week the yellow vest protests continued in various French cities. On January 26 media estimates suggested that some 70,000 people took to the streets demanding a shift in the economic policies of Macron apart from his resignation.
Since November 17, two thousand people have been injured in the demonstrations where participants have blocked streets and roads along with damaging toll machines on the highways in order to emphasize the rise in fuel prices. Areas lived in and frequented by the more affluent have been trashed by elements within the yellow vest movement.
Ten people have been reported killed in direct connection with the unrest. Although the numbers of those coming into the streets have declined in recent weeks, with some four thousand marching in Paris on January 26, the demonstrators remain a significant force in disrupting normal operations in France.
Macron has responded to the more than two months of marches and rebellions, by abandoning some of the “reforms” which ignited anger among working and middle class people. In addition, the president has called for a “debate” on the issues which have generated so much controversy. Nonetheless, Macron has refused to step down from office.
The alternative intervention which occurred on Sunday January 27 when several thousand people marched against what they described as the violent character of the yellow vest protests will require a further assessment of its significance and viability. The ‘foulards rouges’ (red scarves) demonstration was carried out in defense of the Fifth French Republic saying that the participants agreed with some aspects of the demands of the ‘gilet juanes’ related to the rising cost of living. Nonetheless, they categorically rejected the violence which has occurred since mid-November saying it threatens the very character of what they perceive as the positive aspects of French society.
Interestingly enough, there were African immigrants placed in the frontlines of the red scarves protest in Paris with some quoted as saying by moving to France they were seeking to escape the instability within their countries. Although this lack of stability and sustainable development is the result of the legacy of colonialism which France and other European states have played such an integral part. Some of the yellow vest supporters are dismissing the red scarves as pawns of the Macron ruling party.
An article published by Al Jazeera raised the question as to why there are so few Africans and people from the Middle East joining the yellow vest demonstrations. The movement has been described as one representing people from the marginalized semi-rural areas of France which like the suburban districts where immigrants from oppressed communities live, are being victimized by the neo-liberal program of Macron and previous governments from both the socialist and conservative parties. (See this)
One possible explanation for the paucity of people of color in the leadership of the yellow vest protests is the general character of the French legal system which has been accused of persecuting Africans and Middle Easterners. The Adama Committee, which rose up surrounding the death in detention of 24-year-old Malian immigrant Adama Traore, say that they joined the recent demonstrations despite the failure to place racism at the center of the demands.
A leader of the Adama Committee, Youcef Brakni, was quoted in Al Jazeera saying:
“Minorities face tougher sentences, with immigrants comprising 30 percent of France’s prison population despite accounting for less than six percent of the overall population, according to a 2015 study. Brakni decided to join the movement to use the momentum of the yellow vests to shed light on his organization’s specific concerns.”
Adama Committee in France joins the Yellow Vest Movement
Britain Fails to Agree on Exit from European Union
There appears to be no end in sight to the political turmoil in Britain since June 2016 when the majority of the electorate voted to leave the EU (Brexit). The then Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron immediately resigned paving the way for Theresa May to work out a program for leaving the continental body that would not cause further economic damage to London.
However, repeated attempts to pass exit legislation in parliament have failed miserably. May has remained in office despite widespread displeasure with her leadership. After surviving two no-confidence votes in recent weeks, the British government faces the possibility of a “no deal exit” where the terms for their departure will largely depend on the decisions of the European parliament.
Meanwhile the declining standards of living in Britain has prompted an anti-austerity movement which is mobilizing tens of thousands of people demanding the resignation of the Conservative government and the implementation of social programs to benefit the workers and poor. Uncertainty surrounding the lack of an exit strategy will inevitably worsens conditions of the majority of the people inside the country. (See this)
The Labor Party alternative headed now by Jeremy Corbyn has drawn the support of some elements among the Marxist left. Nevertheless, how far will a Corbyn government, if elected, be willing to go in regard to instituting a socialist-oriented economic program for Britain?
Leading left organizations along with the some right-wing parties supported the exit from the EU in 2016. In recent months there has been a demand for a “revote” on Brexit with the idea that the majority may have shifted towards remaining in the imperialist construct. Yet there is no identifiable popular opposition that can point to a revolutionary way forward for the working class and oppressed in Britain.
Implications for Recent Developments in the United States
There has been much propaganda from the Trump administration about the purported “booming, full-employment economy.” The official jobless rate is 3.9 percent, rising two-tenths of percentage points from 3.7 earlier in 2018. Capitalist media outlets play down this rise in the unemployment rate by saying that more people are unsuccessfully looking for jobs due to positive economic data over the last two years.
Despite the 3.9 percent unemployment figure, the Labor Force Participation Rate remains at a crisis level of 62.7 percent. Consequently, many people are still discouraged with the character of the labor market going into 2019.
With the 35-day partial government shutdown consumer and worker confidence is bound to suffer a serious decline. Even though more jobs have been created over the last few years, the gap between rich and poor is continuing to rise to alarming levels. (See this)
Plant closings announced by General Motors in November 2018 in both the U.S. and Canada, portends much for the auto industry in the current period. The tax dollars of working people bailed out the car industry simultaneously with the banks and insurance companies after 2008. Therefore the ruling class interests benefitted from government intervention while working people, African Americans, Latinx and others slipped further into economic decline.
Both Democrats and Republicans represent the ruling class in the U.S. and internationally notwithstanding the existence of divergent constituencies at their base. Although there was a shift within the House of Representatives after the November midterm elections towards more women and people of color, the commanding heights of power within Congress remains under the control of the conservative and centrist forces within the Democratic Party. The putative “left” of the party is by no means socialist in any genuine sense particularly as it relates to international questions. The Democratic Party is still pro-imperialist as indicated by continued support for the State of Israel, the hostility towards Syria, Iran and Russia and the failure to oppose the Trump administration’s attempted coup against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
In order to reverse the contemporary crises there must be a new political alliance centered among the proletariat and the oppressed where the rights of the majority are held as paramount. Consequently the Pentagon war budget should be eliminated and the abolition of racism, national oppression, gender discrimination and xenophobia would have to be the cornerstone of creating a free and just society.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
All images in this article are from the author
Featured image: France red scarves demonstration on Jan. 26, 2019
Two things stand out about the US coup in Venezuela. First, it is unusually open. Typically, the US tries to hide its coups. Second, the coup is built on a series of obvious falsehoods, yet the bi-partisans in Washington, with a few exceptions, keep repeating them.
First, we will correct the falsehoods so readers are all working from the same facts. Second, we will describe how this coup is being defeated. It will be another major embarrassment for the Trump administration and US foreign policy.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and the second largest gold reserves, as well as diamonds and other minerals such as coltan (needed for electronic devices). And, Venezuela is taking over as president of OPEC and will be in a position to push for oil payments in non-dollar currencies or in cryptocurrencies, a major threat to the US dollar.
A protest outside the United States Consulate in Sydney on January 23 to demand no US intervention in Venezuela. Photo: Peter Boyle
Correcting the Record
There are a series of false statements repeated by DC officials and corporate media to justify the coup that are so obvious, it is hard to believe they are not intentional. In his two-paragraph comment on the coup, even Senator Bernie Sanders repeated them.
1. Truth: President Nicolás Maduro is the legitimate president.
President Maduro was re-elected on May 20, 2018, in response to the opposition demanding an early election. The legitimacy of the election of Maduro is so evident that it must be assumed those who say he is illegitimate are either intentionally false or ignorant. The election was scheduled consistent with the Venezuelan Constitution and in consultation with opposition parties. When it became evident that the opposition could not win the election, they decided, under pressure from the United States, to boycott the election in order to undermine its legitimacy. The facts are 9,389,056 people voted, 46% of eligible voters. Sixteen parties participated in the election with six candidates competing for the presidency.
The electoral process was observed by more than 150 election observers. This included 14 electoral commissions from eight countries among them the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America; two technical electoral missions; and 18 journalists from different parts of the world, among others. According to the international observers, “the elections were very transparent and complied with international parameters and national legislation.”
Venezuela has one of the best electoral systems in the world. Voter fraud is not possible as identification and fingerprints are required for each voter. Voting machines are audited before and immediately after the election. Venezuela does something no other country in the world does — a public, citizen’s audit of a random sample of 53% of voting machines that is televised. All 18 parties signed the audits.
Maduro won by a wide margin, obtaining 6,248,864 votes, 67.84%; followed by Henri Falcón with 1,927,958, 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82%; and Reinaldo Quijada, who obtained 36,246 votes, 0.39% of the total.
This same voting system has been used in elections that Maduro’s party has lost in governor’s and legislative elections. Venezuela is a real democracy with transparent elections. The United States could learn a good deal about real democracy from Venezuela.
2. Truth: The economic crisis is caused by outside intervention, internal sabotage and the decline in oil prices.
There is no doubt the economic situation in Venezuela is dire. The cause is the economic war conducted by the United States, the major decline in oil prices and economic sabotage by the opposition. In essence, the United States and opposition created problems in the Venezuelan economy and now say Maduro must be replaced because of problems they created.
Oil was discovered in Venezuela in the early part of the 20th Century and has dominated the economy since then. The Dutch Disease, the negative impact of an economy based on one natural resource, causes a sharp inflow of foreign currency, which raises the value of the country’s currency, making the country’s other products less price competitive. It is cheaper to import products rather than create them. This makes it more difficult for segments of the economy like agriculture and manufacturing to develop.
Chavez/Maduro sought to diversify the economy. They put in place thousands of communes and hundreds of thousands of people working in cooperatives to build agriculture and manufacturing. When the global price of oil was cut by more than half, it collapsed Venezuela’s public finances undermining these efforts. The economic war by the US made it difficult for Venezuela to borrow and trade with some countries.
Economic sanctions against Venezuela began under President Obama, and the Trump administration escalated them with financial sanctions. United States sanctions cost Venezuela some $6 billion since August, according to an October analysis. Measures against the nation’s oil industry have prohibited the Venezuelan majority-owned company, CITGO, from sending profits back to Venezuela, a $1 billion loss to the government yearly. Now, the Bank of England is refusing to return $1.2 billion in gold reserves after US officials, including Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, lobbied them to cut Venezuela off from its overseas assets.
The US economic war and sabotage of the economy by business interests has been exposed as part of the effort to remove Maduro by creating social unrest and lack of confidence in the government. This has included hoarding of goods, storing essentials in warehouses and selling Venezuelan goods in Colombia.
In September 2018, Venezuela pointed to a false media campaign exaggerating migration from Venezuela. They highlighted statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to affirm that Venezuela has the fewest volunteer migrants in the continent. They pointed out 5.6 million Colombians have fled violence in their country and live in Venezuela. Venezuela has programs that have helped thousands of Venezuelans return home.
Socialism strengthens economies, as demonstrated in Portugal. Indeed, one criticism of Venezuela is that the Bolivarian Process is moving too slowly to put in place a socialist economy. There is a need for more sectors to be nationalized and put under democratic control of the people.
3. Truth: The opposition is violent, not the Maduro government.
Opposition protesters have been extremely violent. One tactic of the opposition was to be violent and then film the government’s response to make the government look violent. When Abby Martin was confronted by opposition protesters, they told her, “Do not film anything that we do. Just film what the government does to us.” She reported on the violence saying, “the vast majority has been caused by either indirect or direct violence by the opposition.”
Martin reports the opposition attacked hospitals, burned down the Housing Ministry, assassinated Chavistas and attacked citizen communes such as an art commune that gave free dance and music lessons to local children. Afro-Venezuelans were burned alive. Protesters pulled drivers out of buses and torched the buses. When photos and videos of opposition violence were put on social media, Martin and her colleague, Mike Prysner, became the target of a false media campaign on social media. The opposition did all they could to prevent them from reporting the truth using hundreds of death threats and threats they would be lynched.
In 2017, Venezuela Analysis reported that violent opposition protests included an attack on a maternity hospital endangering the lives of more than 50 newborn babies. Another report described the opposition using snipers to shoot government officials and civilians. Opposition newspapers urged that blunt objects be used to “neutralize” pro-government protesters, resulting in serious injuries and death.
Steve Ellner also reported that violence was coming from the opposition. He pointed to attacks at grocery stores, banks, buses, and government buildings. Other commentators described specific incidents of violence by the opposition including killing people. Maduro ordered the arrest of a retired general who tweeted how to use wire to decapitate people on motorcycles, which happened, and how to attack armored vehicles with Molotov cocktails.
Documents show that violence was the opposition’s strategy. They sought to “Create situations of crisis in the streets that will facilitate US intervention, as well as NATO forces, with the support of the Colombian government. Whenever possible, the violence should result in deaths or injuries.”
The tales of government violence are rooted in lies. The government’s response was Maduro calling for a peace conference describing it as “a national peace conference with all the country’s political sectors … so we Venezuelans can try to neutralize violent groups.”
4. Truth: The National Assembly acted in violation of the law and is in contempt of court.
The National Assembly is not the only democratic body in Venezuela. Indeed, its actions since the opposition won a majority have violated the law and protected the violence of the opposition with an embarrassing amnesty bill.
On December 6, 2015, the opposition won a parliamentary majority in the Assembly. There were allegations of vote buying in Amazonas state that were investigated by the National Electoral Council, another branch of the government. The Supreme Court barred four legislators from Amazonas taking office, two from the opposition, one allied with the opposition and one from the ruling party. The National Assembly allowed three candidates to take office. The Assembly has been held in contempt of court since July 2016 and their decisions were nullified.
Before the court ruling, the Assembly passed an amazing amnesty law, which granted amnesty for crimes the opposition has committed since 1999 (Chavez’ election). The law is an admission of guilt and provides a well-organized catalog of crimes including felonies, crimes committed at public rallies, terrorist acts involving explosives and firearms and undermining the economy. They essentially admitted exactly what Chavez/Maduro have claimed — crimes to overthrow the government for 17 years. Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled the amnesty law was unconstitutional. Inaccurately, the Trump administration calls the Assembly Venezuela’s only remaining democratic institution.
This January, a subsidiary of the state oil company asked the Assembly to intervene claiming the president cannot make reforms to mixed public-private oil businesses without the prior approval of the National Assembly. On January 16, the court ruled that the Assembly was still in contempt of court and could not act. This is also when the Assembly elected Juan Guaidó as their president, who would later appoint himself President of Venezuela, as part of the US-led coup. Guaidó’s election to head the legislature was illegal and nullified by the court.
The Assembly still exists but remains in a state of contempt of the judiciary. It can rectify the situation by removing the lawmakers accused of electoral fraud. The Assembly refuses to do so because their goal is to remove Maduro from office and they need a super-majority to do so.
Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK disrupts Mike Pence at the OAS. Press TV.
A Timeline of the US Coup in Venezuela
In “Anti-Maduro Coalition Grew from Secret Talks,” the Associated Press explains the coup was “only possible because of strong support from the Trump administration, which led a chorus of mostly conservative Latin American governments that immediately recognized Guaidó.”
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump has long viewed Venezuela as one of his top-three foreign policy priorities, with Iran and North Korea. Trump requested a briefing on Venezuela on his second day in office, talking of the immense potential of Venezuela to become a rich nation through its oil reserves. AP reports that Trump “personally sparked” this as he brought up regime change in Venezuela in every meeting with Latin American leaders.
After Maduro was re-elected, administration plans began taking shape, driven in part by key members in the National Security Council and anti-Maduro advocates in Congress like extreme interventionist Senator Marco Rubio.
On November 1, John Bolton zeroed in on Latin America, calling Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela a “troika of tyranny.” On January 2, Bolton met with his Brazilian and Colombian counterparts to collaborate to “return Venezuela to its democratic heritage.”
On January 10, Maduro was sworn in for his second term, Pompeo spoke with opposition leader Guaidó, pledging support. Canada also played a key role, AP reports that Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaidó the night before Maduro’s inauguration offering Canada’s support. This was 13 days before Guaidó announced he was president of Venezuela.
On January 12, the State Department backed Guaidó’s move to invoke his authority as president of the assembly, saying, “It is time to begin the orderly transition to a new government.” On January 15, the National Assembly declared Maduro as illegitimate. The Trump administration worked to get allies lined up to support Guaidó’. By January 18, the Venezuela Foreign Minister was describing a US coup in progress.
The night before Guaidó’s announcement on January 23, Vice President Mike Pence put out a video message encouraging Venezuelans to overthrow their government, saying, “We are with you. We stand with you, and we will stay with you.” Guaidó also received a phone call from Pence the night before he appointed himself president where he pledged that the U.S. would back Guaidó.
Guaidó declared that Maduro’s government was illegitimate and he was assuming the presidency. In a well-coordinated charade, almost instantly, Trump recognized Guaidó as the country’s rightful leader. To further demonstrate the preconceived, tightly coordinated and efficiently carried out the coup, US allies, among them Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Peru, quickly recognized the coup president.
The Trump administration is claiming Guaidó represents the lawful government and is entitled to all Venezuelan revenues. The State Department notified the Federal Reserve that Guaidó is the agent for access to Venezuelan assets in US banks.
Nearly as quickly, Maduro drew statements of support from Russia, China, Turkey, Mexico, Cuba, Bolivia, and others. The Venezuelan Supreme Court called for an investigation into the National Assembly and Guaidó, regarding the illegal usurpation of Executive power. The Venezuelan military announced it supported Maduro and Russia warned the US not to intervene militarily.
“With her protest, she revealed the macabre coup plan against Venezuela, we will always prevail, thank you!”
Eighteen countries defeated the proposal.
At the UN Security Council meeting on January 26, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the United States of attempting “to engineer a coup d’etat.” He demanded to know whether the Trump administration “is ready to use military force” against Venezuela. European countries gave Venezuela eight days to hold an election, a suggestion Venezuela rejected. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Venezuela an “illegitimate mafia state.” He accused Russia and China of trying “to prop up Maduro.”
Both China and Russia have told the US not to intervene in Venezuela’s internal affairs. In December, Russia sent two nuclear-capable strategic Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela along with an An-124 heavy military transport plane and an II-62 long-haul plane. As of December, Russia has one brigade in Venezuela and was discussing sending a second military brigade to Venezuela even before the coup due to the continued threat of intervention from the United States.
China has lent over $50 billion to Venezuela through oil-for-loan agreements over the past decade and has become a partner in the Venezuelan oil industry. In December, seven months since signing a financial business venture with China, Venezuela’s oil production has doubled to 130,000 barrels per day. The take-over of Venezuela’s oil would also be an attack on China. China and Venezuela signed 28 bilateral strategic cooperation agreements on September 14 in the areas of oil, mining, security, technology, finance, and health.
Demonstrating the nature of the coup president, the first acts that Guaidó took were to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which would put Venezuela in debt to western bankers and under their control, and to privatize the Venezuelan oil industry, which would rob Venezuela of the funds being used to lift up the poor and working class.
Analyst Vijay Prashad writes the coup violated the charters of the United Nations and of the Organisation of American States and describes efforts to call on the military to rise up against the government have failed. The Trump administration is now threatening a total oil embargo on Venezuela and is leaving the “military option” open.
The concerted campaign by the US and Canada to install Juan Guaidó as the new ‘self-declared’ interim President of Venezuela has been met with initial failure. Unfortunately, the illegal and undemocratic attempts to destabilize the country and overthrow the democratically-elected President will continue with harmful consequences. The people of Venezuela are rising once again to defend their country against hostile foreign intervention. It is essential that we support them in this fight. Many groups are holding solidarity rallies and issuing statements of support. Find rallies and protests here and here.
While Sanders got all the facts wrong about Venezuela, he did reach the right conclusion:
“The United States has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American countries. We must not go down that road again.”
People in the United States have an important role to play in supporting Venezuela and defeating the coup.
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Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance where this article was originally published. They are frequent contributors to Global Research.
Featured image is from John Zangas, DC Media Group
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869: 150 years ago this year.
There will be many tributes to Gandhi published in 2019 so I would like to add one of my own.
This reflects not just my belief that he gave the world inspiration, ideas and powerful strategies for tackling violence in a wide range of contexts but because my own experience in applying his ideas has proven their worth. This included his awareness that led him to declare that ‘If we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to the inheritance left by our ancestors.’ and his encouragement to reflect deeply and listen to one’s ‘inner voice’: ‘you should follow your inner voice whatever the consequences’ and ‘even at the risk of being misunderstood’.
In essence, we can productively learn from history but we can build on it too. And, vitally, this includes dealing more effectively with violence.
So how did Gandhi influence me?
Shortly after midnight on 1 July 1942, my Uncle Bob was killed when the USS Sturgeon, a U.S. submarine, fired torpedoes into the Japanese prisoner of war (POW) ship Montevideo Maru. The ship sank immediately and, along with 1,052 other POWs, Bob was killed.
Apart from his older brother, my father’s twin brother was also killed in World War II. In Tom’s case, he was shot down over Rabaul on his first (and final) mission. He was a wireless air gunner on a Beaufort Bomber. See ‘The Last Coastwatcher: My Brothers’.
My childhood is dotted with memories of Bob and Tom. The occasional remembrance service, war medals and the rare story shared by my father.
In 1966, the year I turned 14, I decided to devote my life to finding out why human beings kill each other and to work out how such killing could be ended. The good news about this ‘decision’ is that, at 14, it all felt manageable! But I wasn’t much older before my preliminary investigations proved that even understanding why humans are violent was going to be a profound challenge. And I intuitively understood that I needed this understanding if any strategy to end violence was to be effective.
In any case, as one might expect, my research into violence and strategies for addressing it led me to nonviolence. I came across virtually nothing about nonviolence during my own studies at school and university but was regularly presented with news reports of people participating in activities – such as demonstrations and strikes – that I later learned to label ‘nonviolent action’.
In 1981 I decided to seek out materials on nonviolence and nonviolent action so that I could learn more about it. I had not been reading for long when the routine reference to Mohandas K. (or Mahatma) Gandhi, about whom I had heard a little and knew of his role in leading the Indian independence struggle, forced me to pay more attention to his life and work. So I sought out his writing and started to read some of his published work. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truthwas an obvious and early book but there were many others besides. I also read many books about Gandhi, to get a clearer sense of his life as a whole, as reported by his coworkers and contemporaries, as well as documented by scholars since his death. And I spent a great many hours in a library basement poring over The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.
The thing that struck me immediately about Gandhi was that his own interest in tackling violence had a comprehensive ‘feel’ about it. That is, he was not just interested in the violence that occurs when nations fight wars or one person kills or injures another. He was interested in addressing the violence that occurs when individuals and nations exploit other individuals/nations (such as when British imperialism exploited India and Indians) and the violence that occurs when a structure (such as capitalism or socialism) exploits the individuals within it. In his words: ‘exploitation is the essence of violence’. He was interested in the violence that occurs when members of one social group (say, Hindus) ‘hate’ the members of another social group (such as Muslims). He was interested in the violence that occurs when men oppress women or caste Hindus oppress ‘untouchables’. He was interested in the violence that occurs when humans destroy the environment. And he was interested in the violence that one inflicts on oneself.
This comprehensive interest resonated deeply with me because, apart from war, my own childhood and adolescence had revealed many manifestations of violence ranging from the starvation of people in developing countries to the racism in the United States (highlighted by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s) to the destruction of the environment, each of which had gradually but deeply embedded itself in my consciousness. Tackling violence was a far bigger task than the large one I had originally imagined. Violence is everywhere. Most importantly, it seemed to me, there was enormous violence directed against children in the family home but little was spoken or written about this.
So how did Gandhi explain violence and what was his strategy for addressing it?
Gandhi on Conflict and Violence
For Gandhi, conflict was a perennial condition. He also viewed it positively and considered it desirable. For him, it is an important means to greater human unity precisely because their shared conflict could remind antagonists of the deeper, perhaps transcendental, unity of life, which is far more profound than the bond of their social relationship.
He viewed violence differently, however. And, as might be gleaned from the many configurations of violence that concerned him, as noted above, he considered that violence was built into social structures and not into people.
Fundamentally, as Leroy Pelton characterized it, Gandhi understood that the truth cannot be achieved through violence (‘which violates human needs and destroys life’), because violence itself is a form of injustice. In any case, violence cannot resolveconflict because it does not address the issues at stake.
To reiterate then, for Gandhi there was nothing undesirable about conflict. However, Gandhi’s preoccupation was working out how to manage conflict without violence and how to create new social arrangements free of structural violence.The essence, then, of Gandhi’s approach was to identify approaches to conflict that preserved the people while systematically demolishing the evil structure. Nevertheless, he firmly believed that structural purification alone is not enough; self-purification is also essential.
In other words, in Gandhi’s view, resolving the conflict (without violence) is only one aspect of the desired outcome. For Gandhi, success also implies the creation of a superior social structure, higher degrees of fearlessness and self-reliance on the part of both satyagrahis (nonviolent activists) and their opponents, and a greater degree of human unity at the level of social relationships.
Two Key Questions
Despite the enormous influence that Gandhi had in shaping my own conception of conflict and the precise conception of nonviolence that should be used in dealing with it, I nevertheless remained convinced that two questions remained unanswered: What is the psychological origin of the violent behavior of the individual who perpetrates it? And what theory or framework should guide the application of nonviolent action so that campaigns of all kinds are strategically effective?
The first question is important because even if someone is trapped within a social structure (such as the class system) that is violent, the individual must still choose, consciously or unconsciously, to participate (as perpetrator, collaborator or victim) in the violence perpetrated by that structure or one must choose, consciously, to resist it. Why do so many individuals perform one of the first three roles and so few, like Gandhi himself, choose the role of resister?
The second question is important because while Gandhi himself was an astonishingly intuitive strategic thinker (whose 30-year nonviolent strategy liberated India from British occupation), no one before him or since his death has demonstrated anything remotely resembling his capacity in this regard.
Hence, while nonviolence, which is inherently powerful, has chalked up some remarkable successes, vital struggles for peace (and to end war); to halt assaults on Earth’s biosphere; to secure social justice for oppressed and exploited populations; to liberate national groups from dictatorship, occupation or genocidal assault; and struggles in relation to many other just causes limp along devoid of strategy (or use one that is ill-conceived). So badly are we failing, in fact, that humans now teeter on the brink of precipitating our own extinction. See ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’.
Anyway, having studied Gandhi extensively and learned from his strategic approach to nonviolence (elements of which I was progressively including in nonviolent campaigns in which I was involved myself), I resumed my original research to understand the fundamental origin of human violence and also decided to develop a strategic theory and framework for addressing violence in the campaign context so that Gandhi’s strategic thinking could be readily copied by other nonviolent activists.
Despite my preliminary efforts in the 1990s to encourage fellow activists to use this framework, it soon became clear that only the rarest of activists has the capacity to think strategically about an issue, even when presented with a framework for doing so.
The Origin of Human Violence
Consequently, the vital importance of understanding the origin of human violence was starkly demonstrated to me yet again because I knew it would answer key supplementary questions such as these: Why to do so many people live in denial/delusion utterly incapable of perceiving structural violence or grappling powerfully with (military, social, political, economic and ecological) violence? Why is it that so many people, even activists, are powerless to think strategically? How can activists even believe that success can be achieved, particularly on the major issues of our time (such as the threats of nuclear war, ecological devastation and climate cataclysm), without a focused and comprehensive strategy, particularly given elite resistance to such campaigns? See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.
Hence, in an attempt to answer questions such as these, Anita McKone and I went into seclusion in an endeavor to understand how our own minds functioned so that we might better understand the minds of others. I hoped it would take a few months. It took 14 years.
So what is the cause of violence in all contexts and which, depending on its precise configuration in each case, creates perpetrators of violence, people who collaborate with perpetrators of violence, people who are passive victims of violence, people who live in denial/delusion, people who are sexist or racist, and activists who cannot think strategically (among many other adverse outcomes)?
Each of these manifestations of human behaviour is an outcome of the adult war on children. That is, adult violence against children is the fundamental cause of all other violence.
How does this happen? It happens because each child, from birth, is socialized – more accurately, terrorized – so that they fit into their society. That is, each child is subjected to an unrelenting regime of ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence until they offer the obedience that every adult – parent, teacher, religious figure… – demands.
So what constitutes ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence?
‘Visible’ violence includes hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing a child which, sadly enough, is very common.
But the largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. For a full explanation, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.
‘Invisible’ violence is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).
When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.
The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers, religious figures and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.
For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (for instance, by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (for example, by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.
However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for the biosphere because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth.
So what do we do?
Well, if you want to make an enormous contribution to our effort to end violence, you can make the commitment outlined in ‘My Promise to Children’. If you need to do some healing of your own to be able to nurture children in this way, then consider the information provided in the article ‘Putting Feelings First’.
If you want to systematically tackle violence against the biosphere, consider (accelerated) participation in the fifteen-year strategy, inspired by Gandhi, outlined in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. This project outlines a simple plan for people to systematically reduce their consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind – water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic – while dramatically expanding their individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental concerns are effectively addressed. As Gandhi observed 100 years ago: ‘Earth provides enough for every person’s need but not for every person’s greed.’
But, critically important though he believed personal action to be, Gandhi was also an extraordinary political strategist and he knew that we needed to do more than transform our own personal lives. We need to provide opportunities that compel others to consider doing the same.
So if your passion is campaigning for change, consider doing it strategically, as Gandhi did. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.
Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948. But his legacy lives on. You can learn from it too, if you wish.
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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
On January 25, hundreds of Kurdish protesters stormed a Turkish military base near the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk in response to Turkish airstrikes that killed two Kurdish civilians on January 23. According to the pro-Kurdish NRT TV, Turkish soldiers opened fire at the protestors killing at least one and injuring many others. Despite resistance, protesters managed to breach the base and set it on fire. Protestors captured most of the Turkish soldiers who were inside the base and several units of military equipment. Two agents of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization, known as MIT, were injured. Later, the captured Turks were reportedly handed over to Peshmerga, a force of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Over the past year, the Turkish Air Force has carried out multiple airstrikes on positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). These strikes are a part of the campaign to undermine the group’s capabilities and to prevent further PKK attacks on Turkish territory. Despite this, the Kurdish group keeps a large presence in northern Iraq having multiple bases in this area.
Ankara pursues similar goals in northern Syria claiming that the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), are just a local offshoot of the PKK.
On January 26th, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that a Turkish military operation in northeastern Syria would allow millions of refugees to return to the country. The Turkish President went on to claim that the Turkish invasion in northwestern Syria has allowed 300,000 Syrians to return to their homeland. He also said that the Adana agreement justified an attack on northeastern Syria.
In response, the Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Turkey of violating the agreement since 2011 by supporting terrorism and directly occupying parts of the country.
In the Turkish-occupied areas, the YPG-linked Afrin Liberation Forces (ALF) continued attacks on Turkey-led forces. On January 25, a Turkish-backed militant was killed in Azaz. On January 22, Kurdish rebels killed three more Turkish-backed militants in Azaz with an ATGM. On January 20, 3 Turkish-backed militants were killed in an ATGM strike in Abla and another one died from sniper fire in Sherawa.
Ilham Ahmed, a co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) told Bloomberg that Kurdish forces are negotiating with the Damascus government in order to protect northeastern Syria from any attack that Turkey may launch after the nearing withdrawal of U.S. forces.
“If we were cornered into choosing between a Turkish militia attacking our areas,” and reaching an accord with President Bashar al-Assad, she said in an interview in Washington, “we would go with the regime,” she claimed.
The official confirmed that the SDC has provided President Bashar al-Assad and Russia with an 11-point road map reintegrating the region under the Damascus government. According to her, Syria should be “decentralized” but united.
150 ISIS fighters surrendered themselves to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during the clashes in the middle Euphrates Valley, pro-Kurdish media outlets reported on January 25. On January 25, the SDF press center claimed that more than 82 terrorists were killed in clashes and US-led coalition airstrikes.
On January 24th, the Syrian Army and the Russian Military Police for the first time deployed in the area north of the SDF-held town of Manbij. This development could be seen as an indication of some progress in talks between the SDC/SDF and Damascus.
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Two years after President Donald Trump signed an executive order severely restricting travel from several Muslim-majority countries, the effects of the executive order that came to be known as the Muslim ban, are still happening.
In reality, millions of Venezuelans have seen their living conditions vastly improved through the Bolivarian process. The problems plaguing the Venezuelan economy are not due to some inherent fault in socialism, but to artificially low oil prices and sabotage by forces hostile to the revolution.
With April’s elections looming, Benjamin Netanyahu has good reason to fear Benny Gantz, his former army chief. Gantz has launched a new party, named Israeli Resilience, just as the net of corruption indictments is closing around the prime minister.
Anti-government protests in Venezuela that seek regime change have been led by several individuals and organizations with close ties to the US government. Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado– two of the public leaders behind the violent protests that started in February – have long histories as collaborators, grantees and agents of Washington.
Nobody questions the “right” of Israel to attack a sovereign state in order to impose the government it ought to have, after eight years during which the USA, NATO and the Gulf monarchies tried to demolish it with Israël, as they did in 2011 with the State of Libya.
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For weeks of front-end news, a China-Canada rift has gripped Canada. The story-line is endlessly repeated and runs like this: “Experts from both sides of the border agree that imprisonment of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is strictly abiding by the rule of law, and China cannot or does not want to understand how the rule of law works”.
The unifying plot is that Canada must continue to hold the CFO of China’s world-leading telecommunications giant in detention on behalf of a US extradition warrant to uphold the rule of law as sacred.
That it is an extra-territorial demand for no offense committed under Canada or international law is not reported. That the offense alleged is against a unilateral US embargo of Iran by its export controls to which Canada is not a party is deleted across the media and all official statements. Anyone who does not join into this ruling story or connects the covered-up facts of its story-line is drowned out and removed from the public eye, including Canada’s own senior statesman and well-liked ambassador to China.
In general, any revealing questions are silenced. All the legal parameters of the case dissolve instead into the empty slogan ‘rule of law’. Background editors of what can be spoken on the public stage ensure at every level that no diversion is allowed.
The Designated Enemy as Syntax of the US-Canada News Cycle
I had no sooner written the above paragraphs when Canada’s Foreign Affairs was also joining the US in endorsing an ongoing coup d’etat in Venezuela to overthrow its elected socialist presidency to install, in newspeak phrase, “the only legitimate government” in its place, the leader of the opposition party.
Rule of law in each reversed as ‘the rule of law’. Venezuela is yet another variation on the story line we have seen play out since 1973 in Chile. The designated socialist enemy is destabilized by financial, market, civil and street-violence means, and reverse-blamed for the orchestrated chaos used to overthrow it. Or the designated enemy is simply a rival power, and a crisis is constructed to destabilize its relations with other nations to gain leverage in undermining it capacity to compete – as with China at same time as the Venezuela coup. Or the long-designated enemy is set up for total financial, market, diplomatic and military isolation and ruin as with Libya, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia in the past, and Iran today, whose internationally lawless US embargo is behind the US-Canada imprisonment of the CFO of China’s rising global telecommunication giant, Huawei.
In short, global domination by the Enemy syntax of the news rules by double-think slogans without factual referents, piling one on top of another in perpetual mutations allowing any claim or action at all as ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘the rule of law’, including imprisonment of the China trade competitor with the US disobeying its unilateral export embargoes.
True to Form: Canada’s Foreign Minister Serving US-led China and Venezuela Attacks
Canada’s Foreign Christina aka ‘Chrystia’ Freeland – a near slogan itself – Christian Free Land – is the speaker of the doublethink endorsement of the attempted Venezuela coup d’etat today by its opposition leader. Minister Freeland is used to legitimating coup d’etats as legitimate, even when they are by mass-murderous means led by avowed Nazis, as in she has done in Ukraine since before its violent coup in 2014. ‘Stopping Putin and Russia’ is her justification, as always the official Enemy since armed Russia resistance against NATO expansion over its traditional borders through Ukraine.
Freeland also knows how to deny hard facts and get away with it – as she has done on in lies and cover-up of her grandfather being the chief newspaper propagandist for the Nazis occupying Ukraine and Poland in the 1939-45 World War. Again the Enemy Russia is the moral baseline of thought that transforms all false news and attacks on it as freedom. .
Minister Freeland also leads the forcible arrest and detention of China’s leading global Telecomunications CFO on behalf of the US prior to her legitimizing the opposition coup of the elected President of Venezuela.
Nonetheless Canada’s senior statesman and Ambassador to China, John McCallum, has bravely cited the justiciable facts of this case. He has observed in diplomatic third-person language that Meng Wanzou the person is able to defend her case of US-led arrest in Canada as extra-territorial, arguably politically motivated, and under no Canadian law. But his observation to a small group of Chinese Canadians on January 23 was instantly denounced as ‘inconceivable’, an ‘outrage’, and ‘dangerous’ by all the media of record, and the official Conservative opposition successfully demanded he be fired immediately with – as always – no fact McCallum reports either denied or allowed into the pervasive denunciations.
Minister Freeland herself demands his firing behind the scenes, and today afterwards publicly chides his “unfortunate incident” as undercutting her “valuable work” in “uniting Canada’s allies” against China’s alleged retaliatory arrests of two non-governmental Canadian agents in China.
Canada’s Foreign Minster paradigmatically expresses the ruling syntax of the Enemy cornerstone of official culture in Canada as well as the US. It is the ‘rule of law’, even with no sovereign law supporting it. Abuse is poured on anyone reporting the facts – including on the NDP leader who has ‘written his political obituary’ for worrying that the US may be leading another coup d’etat in Latin America.
No illegal or criminal act of any kind is alleged under Canada law. Internationally lawless US trade-and-diplomatic war tactics are unspeakable even as they are undeniable facts. Beneath notice, every claim of ‘the rule of law’ refers, in fact, to another attack on a US-designated Enemy that violates international law at every turn.
In the case of the China CFO arrest, it is backed by illegal embargo against Iran that no other country including Canada has agreed to (except Israel), and is in effect an extra-territorial kidnapping of a VPI foreign subject by US warrant executed in Canada by US demand in political misuse of an extradition treaty intended for criminal offenses.
Most specifically, it is an extension of US embargo of Iran in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 passed unanimously by the Security Council including the US in 2016 (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action lifting sanction on Iran). In this way, a foreign national economic leader of China out-competing the US in the world market of telecommunications – the long-time signature technology of US global hegemony – is imprisoned even as the US and China negotiate a US-initiated trade war.
The Orwellian Master Pattern From China to Venezuela to Iran and Russia
While this politically motivated US extradition is invoked as ‘the rule of law’ above politics, Canada’s Foreign Affairs then jumps on board the latest US coup d’etat of an elected government in Latin America. In fact nowhere mentioned in ‘the free press’, this latest coup d’etat campaign seeks to overthrow an instituted electoral process of presidential election of which US President Jimmy Carter has publicly reported:
“Venezuela has probably the most excellent voting system I have ever known”.
This fact too is now erased from discussion, and reversed in claim. In matters of ‘the rule of law’ and ‘legitimate elections’, stern repetition of false slogans prevail on every public front, but no fake news is even imagined in official culture. Where a US-designated enemy is involved, all parties are entitled to say whatever they want the opposite of fact and law or not. Almost the whole of the country’s corporate media and journalists can be counted on to join in indignant anathema and cries for blood. It is a permanent festival of hate license as freedom.
The US-Enemy grammar of illusion is at the same time predictable in its collective public operation. Communist China is the Enemy. Socialist Venezuela is the Enemy. Islamic Iran is the Enemy. All the while, Russia is the Enemy of all enemies being daily warred upon as NATO armies, transnational Big Oil and company march East. Everything connects, but the dots are not joined
So deep is the Enemy cornerstone of US ideology and politics that even the greatest leader ever in massive de-taxation and de-regulation of the corporate rich, President Trump, is hated most deeply by establishment powers because he does not make war on Russia.
Blaming the Victimin Moral Reversal
Oil-rich but impoverished Venezuela has been the Enemy since Hugo Chavez became president in 1999 to lead a ‘21st century socialism’ based on the country’s oil riches formerly in control of US Big Oil and its local oligarchy – the standard arrangement. .
Post-1999 Venezuela is thus targeted as an Enemy of the Free World. Yet having failed in destabilization and coup attempts in Venezuela over the 20 years since – all supported by the US and its branchplant class in Canada – a long process of financial strangling led by Wall Street behind the scenes has cumulatively succeeded in bleeding Venezuela dry.
While none of this makes its way into ‘the news’, Venezuela has been financially embargoed from all international loans on which almost all governments depend. Its medical and other life-and-death supplies have been cut off from purchase and importation. Its tar-sands oil that grounds it export economy has been systematically shorted in world markets. Its publicly subsidized foods have been stolen and sold in Columbia for huge profits. Its former US-puppet oil-oligarchy and collaborators have been on-and-off raising US-supported havoc in the streets since the last violent armed coup failed against popular uprising.
All the effects up to near starvation of food and medicine imports by suspension of normal credit and other embargoes have been blamed on the evil leadership against US Big Oil and Wall Street control of the nation. The failed strategy of armed overthrow has moved to Orange-style revolution of well-fed mobs in the street to finish the job on the completely destabilized Venezuela economy. US ‘military option’ is increasingly threatened from the top.
As always in these cases of imperial international aggression, a moral reason in which decent people believe is proclaimed with deep gravity and rectitude as the justification for what is forbidden to name – an all-fronts attack for lawless advantage and exploitation by superior power. The ‘rule of law’ is here the pretext for caving in as well as justifying the aggression. One way or the other, the Enemy designation makes all contradictions off-limits to discuss.
Spectacles of Power and Submission as Distractions from the Ruin of the Earth
Superbowl playoffs, Russiagate, China Intertel, Iran Bomb, Venezuela dictator, immigrants storming the gates – – What unites all the war games is distraction from the truly fatal threat of the cumulative pollution and despoliation of the natural and social life support systems of the world by the ruling disorder.
Sudden death sports, trade-wars, coups d’etat, big-news arrests, and so on become an endless spectacle news cycle. Pretentious diversions, whopping falsehoods, and bizarre extremes entertain screen-addicted populations as the world’s common life-ground collapses. Nothing is connected to anything else as life-and-death turning points become who can win next in the frenzy of derailment of the terrestrial life support systems of all.
This is ‘the Free World’. Yet ‘full spectrum dominance’ is the bipartisan US objective no-one calls into question. Reverse-blaming others is the method of attack. “Freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘rule of law’ are the idealized justifications. Trump’s new Space Force for “space as a war-fighting domain” expands the reverse projections into US –led military pollution and control of the earth’s skies.
Who can be opposed to more security for America against the terrorism of its enemies? Adoption of the US-Enemy framework of meaning reverses all reality and facts into their opposite with no end until the dots are publicly connected.
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John McMurtry is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph and elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His work has been translated from Latin America through Europe to Japan, and he is the author/editor of UNESCO’s three-volume Philosophy and World Problems, as well as more recently, The Cancer Stage of Capitalism; From Crisis to Cure. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Come to Southeast Asia.Hang around this part of the world in whichever way you like; wearing flip-flops, shorts and t-shirts. You were told that ‘everything is easy here, that things are cheap and people are friendly and happy’. Do what you want, as almost everything is allowed, especially if you are from the West, and have plenty of cash and some credit cards in your pockets.
That’s what your simplified perception of Southeast Asia is supposed to be. This stereotype has been created, refined and fine-tuned, then finally hammered into the subconscious of the people in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. It has been done consistently, for many years and decades, until these lies, repeated a thousand times, have replaced reality.
As a result, tens of millions of holiday-makers, sexual tourists, adventurers and single men on power trips, descend on Southeast Asia, annually. Most of them do not see anything, and they do not hear. Most of them leave for home after getting suntanned, a bit fatter, and much more confident. They come with clearly formed ideas, and they leave without learning much.
Most of the ‘visitors’ do not want to be disturbed by reality, because the reality could be extremely unsavory, even horrifying.
The ‘hidden’ and extremely uncomfortable truth is: most of Southeast Asia is actually absolutely unfit for tourism. It is deeply, and terribly injured, even, a broken part of the world which has never been allowed to leave its brutal, feudal system behind.
Its people are barely surviving in the straightjacket of extreme capitalism. All sorts of imported rubbish, from brainless pop music to the lowest grade of Hollywood films, junk food, mass media and ‘fashion’ as well as ‘me-me-me habits’ have been put to work in order to irreversibly ruin their traditional cultures. Generally, people here are unhappy; often thoroughly confused. Societies from Thailand to Indonesia and the Philippines are becoming increasingly violent. At the same time, the politically ‘pacified’ population does not rebel against the rulers in the West or its own servile elites: right-wing political and religious extremism are often the only ‘answers’ to popular outrage.
The land of Southeast Asia is devastated, as it is nowhere else on our planet; in fact, it has been totally plundered by unbridled mining, logging, palm oil and rubber plantations. The extraction of natural resources is done in a monstrous fashion; often by poisoning rivers with mercury, by cutting most of the primary forests down or by flattening entire mountains. From an airplane, places like the island of Borneo or Peninsular Malaysia appear as nothing less than hell on earth.
This vast part of the world with a total population of around 650 million, does not count on any renowned thinkers or scientists, and with the exception of Vietnam (which is Communist and therefore to a greater degree different) on even one single globally renowned writer or a film director.
All this is not supposed to be discussed ‘like this’; in this fashion. Writers and filmmakers, local and foreign both, are discouraged from describing and documenting what is right in front of their own eyes.
But why? How come that Southeast Asia has managed to escape almost entirely all the scrutiny by the Western mainstream media?
It is because what I have just described above is nothing else other than a result of the monstrous mass murder, plunder and destruction, which has been perpetrated by the West.
It has been happening all over here; in all corners of Southeast Asia. The destruction has been so appalling and frightening, that almost no liberals in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Canberra or Washington are willing to acknowledge it, instead sticking to bizarre clichés and glorification of the state to which the victims have been reduced to; in which they are forced to live.
Entire teams of academics, notably those at the Australian National University (ANU), but also at several other institutions, continuously repeat the official Western dogma, which describes Indonesia as ‘a normal country’.
But isn’t this what the so-called Western ‘political correctness’ is all about? Doesn’t it work like this: “A country is attacked, left-wing government gets overthrown, corrupt leaders put on thrones; then natural resources get plundered, and extreme right-wing ‘elites’ fully subservient to the West quickly steal everything from their country and people, while dutifully sharing the booty with Western corporations. The population gets indoctrinated, totally brainwashed and the opposition either murdered or scared into submission. And then, and then, the West ‘shows great respect’ for that local ‘culture’ and for ‘local people’. Read: respect for its own Frankenstein; for its own creations.
It goes without saying that this gangrenous monster which the West first created and then ordered everyone to ‘respect’, has nothing to do with the culture and ‘the people’.
In the end, the victims themselves, get methodically conditioned with tools such as mass media, ‘education’, and continuous propaganda dispensed by the political regime. They stop being aware of their own conditions. They become resigned.They become religious, submissive. They blame and fight each other, but never the true oppressors; never the regime.
The victims often feel they are not well, but they have no idea, why?
*
For centuries, Southeast Asia suffered terribly at the hands of the French, Dutch, US and British colonizers. For instance, at the beginning of the 20th Century, the US forces brutally massacred around 1 million Filipinos, in their Asian colony.
Official independence from European and North American colonial masters did not stop the suffering of the people.
After WWII, no other part of the world endured more Western massacres and terror than Southeast Asia. Not even Africa, the Middle East or Latin America. The numbers are truly striking.
The West’s lovely ‘holiday destinations’ inhabited by ‘friendly locals’, were carpet-bombed, and poisoned by chemical weapons. Millions of people were slaughtered; by injected military regimes, by monarchs, by elites and military juntas. Not unlike in Latin America, but with numbers astronomically higher, because the West never considered Asian people to be equal human beings (For instance: around 2 million Indonesians were slaughtered during the 1965 military coup of General Suharto. The coup perpetrated by General Pinochet in Chile, in 1973, took lives of 2-3 thousand people. Adjusted to the numbers of people living in both countries, Indonesia still lost approximately ten times more people than Chile).
Everyone knows about the suffering of Vietnam, under French brutal colonial rule, and then, during the terrorist war unleashed against the country by the US and its allies. But no one really knows, precisely, how many Vietnamese people died. The number of victims goes in to millions. At least 4 million Vietnamese citizens vanished.
Laos and the so-called ‘side-kick’ or ‘Secret War’ was even worse, on a per capita basis. Hundreds of thousands vanished in this sparsely populated country, which is inhabited by humble and gentle people. Strategic B-52s bombers were deployed against farmers and their water buffalos, using evil cluster bombs that are, to this day, killing thousands, all over the Laotian countryside. There was no reason for this brutal, monstrous genocide, except some abstract ‘concern’ in Washington that this poor nation could follow Vietnam’s example and ‘go Communist’ (it did, after it tasted true Western ‘democracy’, literally on its skin).
Cambodia – a country where the West nurtured corrupt and brutal elites in Phnom Penh, and then began the same monstrous carpet-bombing campaign as in Laos, against unarmed, desperately poor peasants, using B-52s, killing hundreds of thousands, and displacing millions. People lost their minds from the horrors of the bombing. They were also driven from their land, and began dying from famine. Dismal situation opened doors to Khmer Rouge, which the US decisively supported (on the battlefield and at the UN), even after this deranged murderous group got defeated by heroic Communist forces of Vietnam.
Thailand – country which has been choked by car industry and monstrous form of extreme capitalism, while upholding its backward feudal system. Thailand with countless military coups designed to sustain pro-Western monarchy. Thailand which accepted on its turf part of defeated Chinese anti-Communist army, and ‘put it to work ‘almost immediately’, allowing it to massacre substantial part of its own left-wing movements. Thai state that massacred and raped its own students, and butchering thousands of Cambodian refugees. Thailand that technically attacked both Vietnam and Laos, by flying Air America missions against those countries, opening its airports to the West, while selling its own women in countless brothels in Pattaya and elsewhere, to the Western pilots and ground staff.
Indonesia, where the 1965 US and UK -sponsored military coup against left-wing President Sukarno and (then) the third largest Communist Party in the world (PKI), took the lives of between 1 and 3 million people, installing perhaps the most grotesque fascist extreme-capitalist regime on earth. Indonesia, where all the great artists and thinkers were killed, or imprisoned in the Buru concentration camp, and, where the West helped to install a totally brainless system de-intellectualizing the nation and forcing it back to the Middle Ages. Indonesia, where secularism is now collapsing, and where, during the upcoming April 2019 elections, voters will decide between an inept and weak pro-capitalist leader, and a truly fascist military mass murderer.
East Timor (Timor Leste) – a tiny country which was overrun by Indonesia in 1975, shortly after it gained independence from Portugal, under the leadership of the left-wing FRETILIN movement. The right-wing dictator of Indonesia – Suharto – declared that he was ‘not going to tolerate a second Cuba near its shores’, and got a big pat on his back, as well as full support from the US, UK and Australia. The result: around 30% of the entire population of East Timor vanished during the occupation. Countless Indonesian leaders, including the former President ‘SBY’, served there. If Indonesia was a ‘normal country’, these individuals would now be facing long jail sentences for genocide, or in some cases, a firing squad.
In West Papua – hundreds of thousands of people have already died, also under the Indonesian genocidal occupation, which is fully supported by the West, because Papua, like Borneo (which is known in Indonesia as Kalimantan) is getting thoroughly plundered by multi-national companies, of course under the careful supervision of Indonesian military forces. Horrors like the state-sponsored ‘trans-migration’ policy, designed to make people of Papua a minority on their own island, are ongoing and relentless. The people, who have lost everything under the occupation, are forced to convert to Islam, and they are also forced to abandon their way of life and their land. What Indonesia does in West Papua is nothing less than genocide. It is not only the killing and rape, of which its military could be accused of. The plunder of Papuan resources is as deadly for many other reasons, it is like if the force would be used to ‘open up’ vast parts of the Amazonia or Orinoco basins in South America – areas inhabited by indigenous tribes that have never come in contact with the outside world. Even the most insane right-wing presidents of Brazil or Venezuela (of the past), would never dream about such brutal genocidal undertakings (although this may change under the fascist presidency of Bolsonaro in Brazil). In West Papua, dozens of fragile cultures are disappearing. People who have never come into contact with the ‘outside world’ are being forced out of their rainforest, as trees are cut down and mining companies, backed by the Indonesian armed forces, ransack the land. Defenseless tribal people are dying from diseases and hunger, at the same time as corrupt Indonesian officials and businessmen are burning money in Jakarta’s overprized malls, as well as in Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong. And now, thousands of Western tourists fly into West Papua, to Raja Ampat, which is becoming an ‘in place’ for diving!
Malaysia had its own share of inter-religious conflicts, although never at the level of neighboring Indonesia. Nature in Malaysia, almost like in Indonesia, is totally devastated, due to massive palm oil plantations and mining.
The Philippines lived through horrific decades of US neo-colonialism, experiencing the similar extreme capitalism that has been imposed on Indonesia. Only in the recent years, sound social policies have been introduced, and a moratorium on mining, at least in some parts of the Mindanao Island, has been enforced.
Brunei, one of the richest exporters of oil on earth, is now governed by Sharia Law, which, at least in theory, allows amputations, flogging, stoning and other religious practices. Another place where such regressive brutality is officially allowed is in an autonomous province of Indonesia – Aceh.
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I worked in this part of the world for decades. I covered countless horrors and conflicts in Indonesia. I used to live in Hanoi, and I covered in-depth the situation in Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Papua. I covered East Timor, during the occupation, and was tortured there by Indonesian forces. It happened after I exposed mass rape in Ermera town.
In Hanoi – monument to Western atrocities
Right now, I am working on a detailed and shocking documentary film about the total environmental destruction of Borneo.
As a local (I actually feel like a ‘local’ in all parts of the world), I often look at the Western travelers visiting this part of the world, and I am wondering, sincerely: are they really so ignorant about the past and the present of Southeast Asia? Or perhaps, are they making sure not to know?
Are they ‘enjoying themselves’, surrounded by devastated nature, privatized and ruined beaches, and a deranged culture? Do they feel powerful, unique, superior, because their countries managed to destroy the entire Southeast Asia, bringing it into shameful submission? Is it, at least partially, why they are here?
Don’t they see? The Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok have become thoroughly grotesque: everything has been stolen along the coasts, people forced out of their dwellings, and the culture has been fully ruined. Bali suffers from traffic jams and pollution, from over-population, poverty and filth. There is hardly anything pristine there, now. ‘Culture’ is only for sale!
The coastline of Thailand is totally finished. The once pristine islands are now dotted with mass-produced, low quality market towns, with makeshift bungalows and ugly concrete structures. There are standardized, repetitive ‘offerings’, most of them of extremely low-quality. There are Thai and Western ‘beach food’, bad old (Western) pop music, countless massage parlors and ersatz bars. There is almost nothing truly Thai left on the Thai coastline. Thai women, the poorest of the poor, many from the north of the country, walk in flip-flops and tasteless T-shirts hand in hand with Western grandfathers, some of them in their 80’s. What a sight!
Artwork at BACC, before Thai elections
Everything feels ‘forced’, unnatural, and in terrible taste: in Indonesian ‘resorts’, on the Thai coast, and in the bars of the Philippines, as well as in Cambodia.
In and around Phnom Penh, ‘genocide tourism’ has reached its peak. It is fueled and sponsored by countless Western NGO’s, which are literally pimping the terrible Cambodian past as ‘proof’ that ‘Communism is evil’. Not a word about the fact that most of people who died here, were actually victims of the Western carpet-bombings and consequent famines, and that the Khmer Rougewas in reality a US-sponsored band of freaks, who knew very little about Communist ideology (I spent substantial time talking to them, deep in jungle, and most of them admitted that they had no clue about Marxism or Communism, when they were in power). But to the Westerners, genocide tourism is something thrilling, it represents ‘something new’; ‘something they did not experienced before’. It is good for selfies and for colorful pub stories back at home. And Cambodia is now making huge money out of all this, willing to twist its own horrid past, just to gain some cash. Go to the villages and talk to people: they know the truth. But almost nobody goes. Not even the Western media.
The West has totally stolen historic narrative, all over Southeast Asia. Academia in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand is deeply influenced, and manipulated from abroad. ‘Soft power’ is being used; scholarships, funding and invitations to the ‘academic exchanges’.
Both the academic narrative and the mass media in Southeast Asia, are now much more “Westernized” than in the West itself.
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Clichés about this part of the world are mostly incorrect, in fact, surreal.
Despite the fact that it is suffering from the horrid religious intolerance, racism and perpetual conflicts and tensions, Indonesia is portrayed in the West as ‘tolerant’. Not having one single political party that would represent the majority (which is poor), it is branded as ‘democratic’. A place where a Chinese, black, white or Papuan person can hardly make few steps without being insulted on the street, or being mocked for his or her appearance, Indonesia is described by the Western mass media as ‘friendly’.
Thailand is the same. A staunch ally of the West during so-called Vietnam War, and ‘fight against Communism’, the Kingdom is portrayed as ‘Land of Smiles’. In fact, it has higher homicide rate per capita than the United States, and more female tourist are raped here, annually, than in South Africa. Smiles are reserved only for those who are ready to pay any price, without demanding much in return. Any confrontation here can easily deteriorate to violence. The West hardly ever criticizes outrageous capitalist models of Thailand or Indonesia, as well as collapsed infrastructure and inhuman city planning that is prioritizing motor vehicles and ruthless real estate developers over people. Bangkok and Jakarta are much more polluted than the Chinese cities, and Thai and Indonesian governments do almost nothing to change the situation. But, cliché says that it is dangerous to go to Beijing due to the air quality, while Bangkok or Jakarta are hardly ever mentioned.
In Bangkok, depiction of modern Thai reality
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In Southeast Asia, deafening noise is often administered, in order to silence fear. Thinking is discouraged. It is considered impolite to discuss, to face terrible past and the present. Brainless banging into the phones is recommended. Social media is used here much more than anywhere in the world. While some countries like Indonesia have the lowest readership of books on earth, per capita.
Southeast Asia had been living through genocides, coups, and total submission to the Western masters and to savage capitalism. It has been robbed of its nature, and of natural resources. Its population has been ‘pacified’, forced into obedience and submission. Extreme religious concepts have been injected and upheld from abroad. Only in the Philippines, is the situation now gradually changing. In Vietnam, the state is still strongly resisting subversion from the West, although the country had also been damaged to a great degree, by Western NGOs and social media. Elsewhere, it is getting much worse.
Laos is now moving closer to China, which is literally pulling this beautiful and sparsely populated nation out of slumber, building a high speed rail system, infrastructure, factories, dams, schools and hospitals. But the more China does for Laos, the more it is demonized by the West, by its press, academia and the NGOs. It is now one big battle, over Laos. However, it is clear that the Laotian people are benefiting greatly from their proximity to China, after being literally ruined by French colonialism and the Western “Secret Wars”.
In Laos – US bombs ‘with love’
On purpose, here, I don’t mention Burma, as there, the situation is extremely complex, and ‘specific’. But later this year, I expect to publish a detailed report on the topic.
*
Southeast Asia is clearly a victim. It is also an ‘untold story’. Deep, dark story.
With the exception of Singapore and to some extent Malaysia, it is a devastated, an impoverished victim. It is also a ‘time bomb’. People here are discontent, often desperate. Often, they do not know why. Unlike in Latin America and Africa, where the political awareness of the victims is extremely high; here the victims often believe that they are treated justly and that ‘this is the only way how the society can be arranged and governed’.
If someone travels here, searching for ‘culture’ and ‘new ways to understand life’, they should think twice. In most of Southeast Asian countries, the local culture was thoroughly uprooted. What they will see are some folk shows for foreigners, hardly ever attended by locals. Most of the native music venues, as well as theatrical and other art forms, have been replaced by the most vulgar Western entertainment, by video games and naturally, by social media.
Western men often feel good here. It is because in Southeast Asia, ‘they have won’. They are often ‘respected’ here, just for being both men, and white. They are respected, the same way as the French, Dutch and British colonialists used to be respected here, a century ago. Not loved, not admired, but esteemed for belonging to the race and culture that managed to conquer, destroy and then to give orders.
In fact, for those who want to relive those days of imperialist ‘grandeur’, this is the perfect place to visit.
Naturally, Southeast Asia is glorified by the West, with the exception of the Philippines, Vietnam and Laos (and Burma, for different reasons) – countries that are trying to get away from Western dictates.
It is because this part of the world is ‘perfect’ in the eyes of rulers of the Empire. Here, human lives are freely sacrificed for the profits of corporations, both Western and local, like when a pedestrian here has to wait until the cars pass by; entire villages have to give way to the mining venues and to palm oil plantations. Social services for the citizens are not something secondary, but tertiary, almost irrelevant. Profit is all that matters. The well-being of the citizens is hardly considered.
The West is almost never criticized here. Like in any ‘good’ feudal society, the West is seen as a ‘daddy’. It is severe, but always right. It beats its ‘children’, but gives directions. Religions help to reinforce this sort of obedience, which in many other parts of the world would be synonymous with the Middle Ages.
The local ‘elites’, in the meantime, are ‘having a ball’. They govern unopposed. They are only accountable to the much bigger, mostly Western, power. They can do anything they want with their subjects. They drive their super expensive sedans and SUVs, purchased with funds stolen from the poor, and the poor bow, and bend, prostrating themselves in great respect, fear, servility and admiration.
And they do the same in front of the West.
In brief: perfect societies, observed from New York, Canberra, London or Paris.
And in Bali or Phuket, women dressed in traditional clothes dance in 5-star hotels, roll their big eyes, and twist their slender arms. In order for the foreign visitors to say: “What a great culture!” While, of course, the true great culture was killed by the military pro-Western regimes; choked and murdered in the concentration camps and inside the army barracks.
The only victims of this ‘perfect’ state of things, are the poor; in fact, the great majority in Southeast Asia (no matter what the official statistics say). But who really cares about them?
*
Did most of the Southeast Asian countries really gain their independence, some decades ago? Were the famous merdeka shouts just a big farce? Is it true that Thailand was ‘never colonized’? Is this entire huge region still a de factocolony? And if it is, can the situation change?
These are not just rhetorical questions; they are real. And the answers to them are never simple.
The People of Southeast Asia were violated, robbed and then encircled by pseudo-reality; by lies about their past and present. They were told that they are well, happy, and that what they are experiencing is progress, freedom and democracy. They were also ordered to believe that what their usurper, the West, represents, is synonymous with ‘good governance’ and honesty. Many of them have never encountered any alternative views.
After burying tens of millions of corpses, and after having their rainforests, rivers and mountains thoroughly ruined, most of the Southeast Asians are still convinced that their tormentors are fully qualified to control the world.
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Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilizationwith John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The three constitutional articles invoked by Juan Guaido to legitimise his presidency are: 233, 333, and 350. The latter two are broad affirmations of democracy and constitutionality, silent on Presidential lines of succession. Guaido’s claim rests entirely on 233; presented here in full:
The President of the Republic shall become permanently unavailable to serve by reason of any of the following events: death; resignation; removal from office by decision of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice; permanent physical or mental disability certified by a medical board designated by Supreme Tribunal of Justice with the approval of the National Assembly; abandonment of his position, duly declared by the National Assembly; and recall by popular vote.
When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
When the President of the Republic becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the first four years of this constitutional term of office, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the Executive Vice-President shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
In the cases describes above, the new President shall complete the constitutional term of office.
If the President becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the last two years of his constitutional term of office, the Executive Vice-President shall over the Presidency of the Republic until such term is completed.
The opening paragraph envisions six scenarios whereby a President might no longer serve. The next paragraph sets out protocols to be followed should a President-elect become unavailable to serve pre-inauguration. The third paragraph contemplates presidential vacancies during the first four years of office. The last paragraph deals with presidential vacancies in the final two years of office.
Of the six scenarios envisioned (death, resignation etc.) Guaido relies on “abandonment of his position.” This clearly never happened. Maduro isn’t gone. He’s still there. “Abandonment” conjures images of a President fleeing on a plane freighted with bullion. Maduro, however, currently occupies presidential offices and residences. There has been no abandonment.
“Abandonment” is spun to mean “usurpation.” When did this occur? Are they suggesting that at no time since April 19, 2013 has Maduro ever been President? If Maduro was President, then he must have farcically usurped himself. “Usurp” typically means take power away from someone. There has been no usurpation.
If a President becomes unavailable to serve in the first four years of his term, then the Vice-President takes over and calls an election. If the calamity occurs in the last two years of the presidential term then the VP serves out the fallen President’s term.
Guaido, as head of the National Assembly, only becomes involved when the vacancy occurs in the twilight zone between election and inauguration. This definitely did not happen here. Moreover, by citing Article 233 Guaido implies there was a recent (lawful) election. Finally, Guaido’s January 23 self-anointment occurred 13 days after Maduro’s January 10 inauguration. He missed the boat.
Pursuant to 233, if the head of the National Assembly becomes Acting President he must immediately call an election; and serve only until the winner of that election is inaugurated. The Western media (and Wiki) butcher 233’s second paragraph, leaving only opening and closing clauses; discarding any mention of “election.” Guaido should have, at the moment of self-anointment, announced an election for February 22. For the head of the National Assembly to assume Presidential powers, and then fail to call an election so as to keep those powers, would be flagrantly unconstitutional.
This thread becomes rejoicefully rich considering the EU’s position. They are demanding Maduro call an election; …or else they will recognise Guaido. Can Maduro call an election if he is not President? By demanding Maduro hold an election they are recognising Maduro as President. If Maduro is President he has no obligation to call snap elections to satisfy foreign governments. Alternatively, if Guaido became President he would have an explicit, unavoidable constitutional obligation to call an immediate election.
Guaido is the figure-head of a coup attempt orchestrated by foreign powers without a constitutional leg to stand on.
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As the Earth continues to heat, paleoclimate evidence suggests transient reversals will result in accentuating the temperature polarities, leading to increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. Pleistocene paleoclimate records indicate interglacial temperature peaks have been are consistently succeeded by transient stadial freeze events, such as the Younger Dryas and the 8.5 kyr-old Laurentide ice melt, attributed to cold ice melt water flow from the polar ice sheets into the North Atlantic Ocean. The paleoclimate evidence raises questions regarding the mostly linear to curved future climate model trajectories proposed for the 21st century and beyond, not marked by tipping points. However, early stages of a stadial event are manifest by a weakening of the North Atlantic overturning circulation and the build-up of a large pool of cold water south and east of Greenland and along the fringes of Western Antarctica. Comparisons with climates of the early Holocene Warm Period and the Eemian interglacial when global temperatures were about +1oC higher than late Holocene levels. The probability of a future stadial event bears major implications for modern and future climate change trends, including transient cooling of continental regions fringing the Atlantic Ocean, an increase in temperature polarities between polar and tropical zones across the globe, and thereby an increase in storminess, which need to be taken into account in planning global warming adaptation efforts.
Introduction
Reports of the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC[1]), based on thousands of peer reviewed science papers and reports, offer a confident documentation of past and present processes in the atmosphere[2], including future model projections (Figure 1). When it comes to estimates of future ice melt and sea level change rates, however, these models contain a number of significant departures from observations based on the paleoclimate evidence, from current observations and from likely future projections. This includes departures in terms of climate change feedbacks from land and water, ice melt rates, temperature trajectories, sea level rise rates, methane release rates, the role of fires, and observed onset of transient stadial (freeze) events[3]. Early stages of stadial event/s are manifest by the build-up of a large pool of cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and along the fringes of the Antarctic continent (Figure 2).
Figure 1.Time series of global annual mean surface air temperature anomalies relative to 1986–2005 from CMIP5 (Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project) concentration-driven experiments. Projections are shown for each RCP for the multi model mean (solid lines) and the 5–95% range (±1.64 standard deviation) across the distribution of individual models (shading).[4]
Hansen et al. (2016) (Figure 2) used paleoclimate data and modern observations to estimate the effects of ice melt water from Greenland and Antarctica, showing cold low-density meltwater tend to cap increasingly warm subsurface ocean water, affecting an increase ice shelf melting, accelerating ice sheet mass loss (Figure 3) and slowing of deep water formation (Figure 4). Ice mass loss would raise sea level by several meters in an exponential rather than linear response, with doubling time of ice loss of 10, 20 or 40 years yielding multi-meter sea level rise in about 50, 100 or 200 years.
Linear to curved temperature trends portrayed by the IPCC to the year 2300 (Figure 1) are rare in the Pleistocene paleo-climate record, which abrupt include warming and cooling variations during both glacial (Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles; Ganopolski and Rahmstorf 2001[5]; Camille and Born, 2019[6]) and interglacial (Cortese et al. 2007[7]) periods. Hansen et al.’s (2016) model includes sharp drops in temperature, reflecting stadial freezing events in the Atlantic Ocean and the sub-Antarctic Ocean and their surrounds, reaching -2oC over several decades (Figure 5).
Figure 2. 2055-2100 surface-air temperature to +1.19oC above 1880-1920 (AIB model modified forcing, ice melt to 1 meter) (Hansen et al. 2016)[8]
Figure 3.Greenland and Antarctic ice mass change. GRACE data are extension of Velicogna et al. (2014)[9]gravity data. MBM (mass budget method) data are from Rignot et al. (2011)[10].Red curves are gravity data for Greenland and Antarctica only; small Arctic ice caps and ice shelf melt add to freshwater input.[11]
Figure 4. AMOC (Sverdrup[12]) at 28◦ N in simulations (i.e., including freshwater injection of 720 Gt year−1 in 2011 around Antarctica, increasing with a 10-year doubling time, and half that amount around Greenland). (b) SST (◦C) in the North Atlantic region (44–60◦ N, 10–50◦ W).
Temperature and sea level rise relations during the Eemian interglacial[13]about 115-130 kyr ago, when temperatures were about +1oC or higher than during the late stage of the Holocene, and sea levels were +6 to +9 m higher than at present, offer an analogy for present developments. During the Eemian overall cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean and parts of the West Antarctic fringe ocean due to ice melt led to increased temperature polarities and to storminess[14], underpinning the danger of global temperature rise to +1.5oC. Accelerating ice melt and nonlinear sea level rise would reach several meters over a timescale of 50–150 years (Hansen et al. 2016)
Figure 5.Global surface-air temperature to the year 2300 in the North Atlantic and Southern Oceans, including stadial freeze events as a function of Greenland and Antarctic ice melt doubling time
Portents of collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation (AMOC)
The development of large cold water pools south and east of Greenland (Rahmstorf et al. 2015[15]) and at the fringe of West Antarctica (Figures 1 and 5) signify early stages in the development of a stadial, consistent with the decline in the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation (AMOC) (Figure 4). These projections differ markedly from linear model trends (Figure 1). IPCC models mainly assume long term ice melt[16], stating “For the 21st century, we expect that surface mass balance changes will dominate the volume response of both ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica). A key question is whether ice-dynamical mechanisms could operate which would enhance ice discharge sufficiently to have an appreciable additional effect on sea level rise”[17]The IPCC conclusion is difficult to reconcile with studies by Rignot et al. (2011) reporting that in 2006 the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets experienced a combined mass loss of 475 ± 158 Gt/yr, equivalent to 1.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr sea level rise.”[18]. For the Antarctic ice sheet the IEMB team (2017) states the sheet lost 2,720 ± 1,390 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017, which corresponds to an increase in mean sea level of 7.6 ± 3.9 millimeter[19]
A non-linear climate warming trend, including stadial freeze events, bears significant implications for planning future adaptation efforts, including preparations for transient deep freeze events in parts of Western Europe and eastern North America, for periods lasting several decades (Figure 5) and coastal defenses against enhanced storminess arising from increased temperature contrasts between the cooled regions and warm tropical latitudes.
Imminent climate risks
Climate model projections for the 21stto 23rdcenturies need to take paleoclimate evidence more fully into account, including the transient stadial effects of ice melt water flow into the oceans and amplifying feedbacks of global warming from land and oceans. Radiative forcing[20], increasing with concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases and rising by about 0.04 Watt/m2/year over the last 50 years[21], totaled by more than 2 Watt/m2, equivalent to ~3.0°C (~1.5°C per W/m2)[22]. The rise of mean global temperatures to date by 0.9°C since 1880[23]therefore represents lag effect, pointing to potential temperature rise by approximately two degrees Celsius. A further rise in global temperatures would be enhanced by amplifying feedbacks from land and oceans, including exposure of water surfaces following sea ice melting, reduction of CO2concentration in water, release of methane and fires. Climate change trajectories would be highly irregular as a result of stadial events affected by flow of ice melt water into the oceans. Whereas similar temperature fluctuations and stadial events occurred during past interglacial periods (Cortese et al. 2007[24]; Figure 6), when temperature fluctuations were close to ~1oC, further rises in temperature in future would enhance the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, entering uncharted territory unlike any recorded during the Pleistocene, rendering large parts of the continents uninhabitable.
Figure 6. A. Evolution of sea surface temperatures in 5 glacial-interglacial transitions recorded in ODP 1089 at the sub-Antarctic Atlantic Ocean. Lower grey lines – δ18O measured on Cibicidoides plankton; Black lines – sea surface temperature. Marine isotope stage numbers are indicated on top of diagrams. Note the stadial temperature drop events following interglacial peak temperatures, analogous to the Younger Dryas preceding the onset of the Holocene (Cortese et al. 2007[25]).B. Mean temperatures for the late Pleistocene and early Holocene.
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Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate science, Australia National University (ANU) School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Planetary Science Institute, ANU Climate Change Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
On Saturday 26 January 2019, Emmanuel Macron, Pedro Sánchez, and Angela Merkel, followed by Theresa May, gave the government of Venezuela eight days within which to call elections. If the government of Venezuela does not comply with this order by then, Macron, Sánchez, Merkel and May have announced that they will recognize Juan Guaidó, who declared himself president of Venezuela on 23 January 2019.
The day following this ultimatum, French President Macron began a three-day official visit to Egypt in order to reaffirm his support for Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is at the head of a dictatorial regime similar to, if not worse than, the Hosni Mubarak regime, which was overthrown by Egypt’s people in February 2011. Marshal el-Sisi, a favoured client of the French President, took power in 2013 in a coup, hijacking and strangling the hopes of the people who had risen up en masse to overthrow Mohamed Morsi.
Sisi is responsible for a massive and brutal repression. Tens of thousands of political prisoners languish in Egypt’s prisons; hundreds of members of the opposition have been sentenced to the death penalty by military courts; human-rights defence organisations denounce the massive persecution and the hundreds of extrajudicial executions of labour-union militants and other activists, as well as of journalists independent of the regime. The Sisi regime is literally conducting a reign of terror in Egypt and Macron visits him, supports him and sells him weapons. The British, Spanish and German governments also sell weapons to Sisi and support him.
As for the Spanish regime, remember that José María Aznar, head of Spain’s government from 1996 to 2004, supported the coup against Hugo Chávez in April 2002. Pedro Sánchez is humiliating the Spanish people by following Aznar’s example in threatening the elected president, Nicolás Maduro, and recognising the self-styled “president” Guaidó, who is directly supported by Washington and the most reactionary governments in Latin American.
None of these four European governments are denouncing the systematic murder of social leaders and violations of the peace agreement in Colombia.
The Left has many reasons to express very strong criticisms of the government of Nicolás Maduro. Among the criticisms that need to be expressed are his continuing to repay external debt instead of declaring a moratorium and using the financial resources that would thus be freed up to do more to relieve the humanitarian crisis the Venezuelan people are now suffering. In 2016 the CADTM had called on the Venezuelan government to conduct an audit of the debt with citizen participation. Other critiques of the Maduro government’s policies coming from the Left are also justified: its failure to combat the capital flight organised with the complicity of the highest authorities of the administration and the government; the continuance of the extractivist exportation model, encouraging exhaustion of the country’s natural resources; the repression against trade unionists and other activists; the development of policies of clientelism and a Constituent Assembly whose actual operation does not live up to the hopes its election had raised.
But as militants of the Left who uphold the right of peoples to self-determination, under no circumstances can we accept an ultimatum of the kind issued by Macron, Sánchez, Merkel and May, and we call on everyone to oppose the policy of Washington and the Lima Group which it controls with all possible vehemence. The coup attempt by the “self-styled president” Guaidó must be denounced.
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This article was originally published on CADTM. Translated by Snake Arbusto.
Eric Toussaintis a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
Sábado, 26/Janeiro/2019, Emmanuel Macron, Pedro Sánchez, Angela Merkel, seguidos de There-sa May, deram 8 dias ao Governo da Venezuela para convocar eleições. No fim deste prazo, se o Governo venezuelano não ceder a esta intimação, Macron, Sanchez, Merkel e May anunciaram que reconhecerão Juan Guaidó, que se autoproclamou presidente da Venezuela a 23 de Janeiro de 2019.
